Cassandra sat reading at a table in the armory. Well, that was not true. Yes, she had a book open before her. But she did not read it. Instead, she stared through the page, thinking of the horrors of the last few weeks. Leading up to this moment, she had been through the siege of Adamant Fortress, she had walked physically through the Fade, and she had faced down a horrid monster that filled her with her greatest fear.
Failure. The Nightmare had looked like failure. She saw the Divine, dead upon the ground. She saw her fellow Seekers' heads on pikes. She saw her mentor, Byron, dead at her feet, her swords covered in his blood. At one point, the spectre of Galyan threw himself at her, impaling itself on her sword.
Cassandra barely made it out of the Fade with her sanity intact.
She could not stop picturing those faces. She could not stop thinking of all that could go wrong. It felt as though her control was slipping, inch by agonizing inch, and it terrified her. Because when she lost control of a situation… it failed, and everything fell apart.
This was what life had taught Cassandra Pentaghast, and she believed it with all her heart.
But the fact remained that, while Hawke had sacrificed herself to destroy it, Cassandra and her companions - the Inquisitor, Sera, Vivienne, and The Iron Bull - had survived Nightmare and made it back out of the Fade. They had even won. The victory at Adamant was glorious, and the Inquisition's might had increased tenfold.
It was a lesson. Sometimes, even when it looked as though all hope was lost, one could still pull through and the venture prove successful.
Cassandra had a difficult time shedding this particular fear, however. And she was not the only soul to struggle with her fears.
"Cass!" The Iron Bull's voice rang out from below.
Snapping from her reverie, Cassandra looked up, though of course could not see him, as he was below her, in the main room of the armory. "Yes?" she called back.
He appeared on the stairs moments later, walking up to the second floor. "I need your help with something."
She raised a brow. "You? Are asking me for help?"
"Ha ha." Bull's tone was flat, and his eye held a stormy look that Cassandra could not place.
"Very well," she said with a nod, getting to her feet. "What can I do for you, Bull?"
"It's an old qunari training exercise." He held out a staff, used to learn fighting with a non-lethal weapon. With the right strength and placement, it could of course still kill, but it took a great degree of skill with the weapon to learn that.
Cassandra took the staff, brows furrowing in confusion. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"I want you to come out into the yard and hit me as hard as you can with that stick," he said, doing an about-face and heading down the stairs.
"But why in the Maker's name do you want me to do that?!" Cassandra was incredulous. He wanted her to hit him? She knew it wouldn't damage him, but who wanted to be hit? On purpose?
His voice drifted in through the open door of the smithy. "Because I do. Just hit me, all right?"
She found him outside, standing braced for her assault. Clearly he wasn't even planning to try to block her. She stared him down, dubious. "You are sure?"
His one eye fixed her with a sardonic look, so she shrugged, took a firmer grip of the staff, reared back, and let loose. The end of the staff landed square in his gut. Unlike a grown human man, Bull merely tensed and let out a soft "oof" before knitting his brows and demanding, "Again."
So Cassandra hit him again. And again. After the fourth time, she paused, narrowing her eyes at him. "Just what is the purpose of this?"
"It's to master your fear," he said, bracing himself once more.
So she hit him.
"I don't have a lot of fears."
Hit.
"But demons…"
Hit.
"They crawl under my skin and visit my fucking dreams."
Cassandra hit him once more, pausing to speak as he shook his head. "I suppose I can see that. But hitting you…"
"Again!"
She hit him.
He made a frustrated noise. "Come on! This is why the Qun doesn't like women fighting! I should have asked Cullen."
Cassandra frowned, narrowing her eyes shrewdly. Squaring her shoulders, she extended the staff all the way and poured all of her considerable power into the blow. She felt her muscles bunch as, at the last moment, she angled upward and clocked him under his chin. He fell. Hard.
"Good one…" Bull groaned from the ground.
"I am capable of more."
Before he could answer, she demonstrated her strength once more by bringing the staff down on Bull's waiting gut. A truly satisfying sound escaped him as his lungs voided of air. He didn't seem to appreciate being hit while he was down, however. His arm whipped out, snagging Cassandra's ankle and yanking hard.
The Seeker yelped, eyes large as her arms flailed, trying and failing to find purchase. She hit the ground and immediately found a great weight atop her, her wrists pinned to the ground above her head. Struggling only made the grip tighten.
"Unhand me!" she shouted, not yet recognizing the flutter in her gut. She thought it fear, and that disgusted her.
Bull, keeping her down by straddling her hips and pinning her wrists to the ground with his mighty hands, moved his face in very close. "Don't get cocky, Cass. I'll have to show you who's boss."
This is not fear, Cassandra realized with stark clarity. This is arousal. The flutter in her gut had her center almost instantly awash in her fluids. She struggled again. His grip tightened, and he bore down on her even more. Perhaps she was mistaken, but she thought she could feel a bulge between his legs. The tight grip made her gasp, and his one eye betrayed the wicked thought in his mind.
But he did not act on it. Instead he released her. In moments he was on his feet and walking away, leaving Cassandra rubbing at her wrists, panting with desire as she watched his large, powerful form disappear into the night.
A/N: This scene was one of my favorites in the entire game. Bull really does know how to manipulate you into doing what he needs. Nothing else would've made Cassandra hit him to the ground like that.
And it was too perfect not to use for this.