Everything seemed so golden now, so much lighter than it usually was. Skyhold was not at all a place that projected such an image, with its cold gray stones and harsh, sharp edges that rose bluntly from the craggy mountains with all the subtlety of a brick, but Cassandra was not bothered by the appearance at all. Most days she liked it, in fact, liked its boldness, so the change she saw now was stunning in its audacity. She found herself craning her head around as she walked, taking in the fortress in its new light with all of her attention, drinking in the sight like she had when she very first laid eyes on it.

What had changed? There were days when the sun shone more yellow and less gray, but never like this before. The shafts of light that peeked over the roofs threw golden beams into the courtyard below, so hazy as if she was walking through a dream, making every leaf and stone softer, almost less real. Cassandra felt much the same, warm and soft, like some part of her that she had been holding tense inside of her had finally relaxed, and Skyhold had changed with it. Maybe it had always looked this way and she had just never noticed it before because she saw it through a different set of eyes that did not see and appreciate the softness of the world?

She heard a chuckle behind her and her head snapped around, not recognizing the voice. But she recognized the woman's face: the mage Empress Celene sent to help them against Corypheus. The apostate, a witch originating from the swamps of southern Ferelden where barbarians like the Chasind lived. Although according to Leliana this wild woman was Morrigan, one of the companions who travelled with her when they were helping the Hero of Ferelden during the Blight...and apparently his lover, too. Also gossip from Leliana.

"He is that good, isn't he?" Morrigan said casually, leaning her back against the edge of the parapet, apparently unmindful of the cold.

Cassandra raised an eyebrow at her, already hating that smug, knowing look on her face. Who was she to make such assumptions about her? "What are you talking about?" she asked, keeping her voice polite.

"Please, Seeker, I am no fool. I see it clearly in your face." Morrigan crossed her arms, her expression unchanged. "All day you spent glaring at everyone and being generally angry at everything, then you vanish for a while with the Inquisitor and when you return you look..." she gestured at Cassandra with a slow wave of her hand. "Like this. Like he handed you the moon."

She felt her cheeks burning and clamped down her jaw in defence, her brows furrowing at the witch. "That is none of your business," she said coldly, turning away to look back over Skyhold. Even despite Morrigan's words the golden haze still remained, not even she in all of her nosiness could drive that away. Maybe it wasn't Cassandra, then, maybe the world itself had changed.

"Oh?" The curl in Morrigan's voice was sharp and yanked Cassandra's attention like a hook. It was full of offense but also with that distinct tone of someone who was offended and trying very hard to sound like they weren't. "I would say otherwise, considering you have devoted yourself to prying out every secret between myself and the Warden. I thought it only a fair trade."

Oh Maker how many people did Leliana tell? Cassandra had to force herself not to rub her face in response, even though her cheeks were still very annoyingly warm against the cold air. "I was merely trying to find out where he was," she said, not facing Morrigan as she spoke. "I did not wish to pry into your personal life."

"You could have simply asked me," Morrigan replied promptly. "I just wanted to see the Inquisitor and his lady who find themselves so important as to invade the privacy of myself and my Warden and look at what I find here! It seems we are not so different, you and I. At least in matters like this."

"What do you want, mage?" Cassandra snapped, the word slipping out of her automatically and she nearly flinched in response. She squashed her natural embarrassment down and kept her stony expression, as if "mage" was something she said every day.

"I am getting it right now, no need to worry," Morrigan said in that utterly infuriating smug voice of hers. She came closer, turning and placing her elbows on the parapet, mirroring Cassandra's posture. "I used to be like you, you know."

"I very much doubt that," was out of Cassandra's mouth before she could stop herself. No, she would not play these games with her, this was no Orlesian court.

"But 'tis true," Morrigan went on, unperturbed. "I used to be cold like that, harsh."

"When did you ever stop?" Cassandra interrupted, smirking a little to herself at Morrigan's scowl.

"Never," the witch said, sounding all too proud of herself at the fact. "But after being with him I would...change. Darrian would never stop commenting on it." Her eyes flitted to Cassandra, that unsettling shade of gold and green that spoke far too much of magic for Cassandra's taste. "And you have it, too, far worse if I am any judge. He is a qunari after all, so I suppose-"

That was enough. "I am not going to stand around and listen to this," she announced, turning and taking a few long, striding steps.

"My man is far better, though."

"He is not!" The words burst forth from Cassandra's mouth, righteous anger and offense the driving force behind her as she whirled around, ready to defend Kaaras's honor against anyone who would dare speak ill of him. A moment too late she realized what she had said and she could feel her face growing hot, so incredibly hot that the sun blazing down on her in the dunes of the Western Approach would have felt like a fresh spring day in comparison.

Morrigan sidled closer, her movements reflecting all of the deliberate grace and predatory swagger of a hunting cat. "Touchy, aren't we?" she said, savoring the words on her lips. "Perhaps your eagerness to defend him speaks of some insecurity that you have. Maybe he isn't as good as you think. I bet there have been times when you weren't as pleased as-"

Her sword was out of its sheath before Morrigan could even start on her next word, the tip hovering just above her collarbone. "Don't you dare," Cassandra growled, her hand tight on the hilt, anger pumping hot in her veins.

"Tch," Morrigan replied, placing two fingers on the side of the blade and moving it aside, as if brushing a cobweb from her. "Calm yourself. All of your posturing does nothing but make my argument the stronger one." But then a smile curled across her face. "I can tell you a few things, actually."

What she wanted to tell was blatantly obvious. "I do not need anything from you," Cassandra said, still holding her sword out but not returning it to Morrigan's neck.

"It seems you do, if such audacious displays are your first reaction when you hear something you dislike." Morrigan tossed her head a little, flipping that fringe of hair out of her eyes, and gazed at Cassandra out of the corner of her eyes. "Besides, wouldn't you like to know how to truly please a man? I have had the Hero of Ferelden bend to my skill, and I have felt the full strength of his passion. Perhaps you and your Inquisitor have felt the same, but how can you truly know unless you listen to me?"

Cassandra faltered, her anger stuttering on the sincerity of Morrigan's tone. At least, what sounded like sincerity. She still did not truly trust the witch, no matter the sweet words she spun from the air; if anything that made her more dangerous. "Why do you wish to, so badly?" Cassandra asked.

"Tis not important," Morrigan replied. "If I wished to know about your liaisons then I could simply do it without going to you." Her eyes flicked up. "Besides, you wish to know things about him? Fine. I can tell you things." She started drawing little patterns on the stone with her fingertips, leaving trails of frost in her wake. "Things that no one else could possibly know about Darrian. Things that he and I shared. Then we shall see who is better. "

Cassandra snorted a little. "Kaaras is better, there is no question about it."

"Did Kaaras slay an archdemon?"

"That," Cassandra said, bristling. "Is not the point. Nor does it have anything to do with-"

"So he is the better man, then, and therefore the greater lover."

"If you think some archaic-"

"I made him scream, did you?" Morrigan pushed ahead, ignoring the interruption. She grinned at Cassandra's expression. "Aahhh, that got your attention I see. It goes like this-"

For once in the night, the sky was cloudy and not a trace of starlight pierced the heavens to light the camp below. Which was not truly a problem except for them because it was much harder to find their way around the area without any light. They had let their fire die down so none of the others could see them, which meant they had to nearly stumble their way around her tent.

"This is so unfair," Darrian said, his voice filled with laughter. "You're used to this you sneaky witch, you ran around the Wilds at night all the time. I've been inside Denerim most of my life."

Morrigan chuckled softly, her steps sure and even despite the near total darkness. Indeed she was used to moving around wooded areas in night time, it was as if her body knew instinctively where to place her feet so she would nor stumble or fall. "And I could not move about a city as skilfully as I could the wilderness," she replied. "We all have our weaknesses and strengths."

"So you admit you have a weakness, then," Darrian replied smugly, how a cat might sound before he pounced.

She bristled at his words. "I never-" she started to say but was cut off by his weight suddenly crashing into her and lifting her off her feet. Only her long years of living in the harsh Chasind lands stopped her from screaming, her first instinct, and when she was slung over Darrian's shoulder her voice burst out into laughter instead.

"Caught you," Darrian said, the smirk in his voice obvious. She felt a light slap on her hip and jerked, hearing his responding chuckle as she tried to wiggle out of his grip.

There was a swish of fabric as he ducked into the tent, plunging them into a true, deeper blackness that not even the coals from their fire could penetrate. The lack of sight made her heart pound, her ears tingle as all of her other senses seemed to come alive to make up for it. Darrian stopped and then heaved, slinging her off his shoulder and catching her, then setting her down gently. "Oh don't spare me a moment of having to walk on my own," Morrigan scoffed, trying her best not to giggle and sound truly offended.

"Be quiet," Darrian ordered and kissed her, just like that. She loved that, his fire and how harsh he could be in bed. His hands were on her, pinning her down with his weight and devouring her mouth with his, all energy and darkness around them like the taint in his burning blood. How could she have ever thought that laying with a Grey Warden would not be worth it? She should have never let her impressions of Alistair sour the whole order for her.

She brought her hands up to run them along his sides, letting tiny fragments of electricity dance between her fingertips as she did. Darrian jerked, groaning under her touch and shuddering all over his body. She teased his shirt, peeling it off of his body and tossing it aside. His skin was exposed to her now and she relished in roaming her hands over him, having to find her way across all of the familiar planes through touch alone. Her clothes were not nearly so covering, though, and Darrian only had to run his hand down her chest and then slide it under the purple folds of her vestments and he could cup her breast just like that.

Morrigan gasped and clenched her hands, digging her nails into him, feeling the wiry sinews of his muscles under her touch. Her back arched a little, into him, while her panting breaths pushed her into his grip more and more, in peaks and valleys. Then she felt him bend down and he pushed her clothes away entirely, leaving her only in her leather undergarments which could be pulled away with a simple tug and then his mouth was on her breasts. Morrigan cried out, her nails clawing down Darrian's back because there was no other way she could tell him how much she loved his burning hot, wet mouth on her nipples, sucking and swirling his tongue around them. It made every single nerve in her body come alive, so sensitive to every tiny movement from him-

"Is it really necessary to go into such detail?" Cassandra asked, pointedly looking somewhere else.

"Mm, shy aren't we, Lady Seeker? Do not look so affronted, I can see your face. Do not worry, it very much is."

She writhed under his touch, panting and groaning softly and tangling her hands in Darrian's hair to push him into her, to make him go harder, more intense. Pain shot through her chest and down her spine as she felt Darrian's teeth bite down on her, but it was the most delicious type of pain that went right between her legs and coiled into a tight knot there, making her ache so deep inside she wanted to scream from it.

"Darrian," she growled, even while her voice was shuddering as much as her body. She hated that, but he loved it so she didn't mind near as much as she would have.

"Yes~?" he murmured, his voice nearly singing as he curled around the words. That smug, sneaky little- "Something you wanted to say, Morrigan?"

"Oh don't you get such a high and mighty tone with me, yo-aah!" She squeaked as he bit her again, her hips instinctively jerking into him. She dragged her hands down his back, vengeance on her mind as she started to slip her hands into his pants. He all but sprang free when she gave him even the smallest bit of space and she wrapped her hand around his length, starting off on hard strokes immediately. They both liked it hard, liked being forceful with each other, just as much where they were full of days of being slow and sweet with each other.

Darrian moaned lowly, his voice rumbling next to her ear as he rolled his hips into her touch. "Wild witch," he whispered into her ear, his hand on her hip and hooking under the edge of her skirts. He pulled, hard, and half of it slipped off of her.

She loved that, lifting her hips to help him. "Do not tear my clothes in your passion, my wild man," she purred, using one of her hands to push down the other half of her skirts and then kicking them off when they were low enough.

"You can wear those tears as a badge of honor," Darrian said, his tone only half of a joke. "How many other women have had a man who desired them so much that their clothes became torn in their passion?" His free hand reached down to cup her heat, listening to how her breath hitched at the touch.

She jerked down his pants, finally freeing him. "None," she growled, gripping him tightly in her hand, possessively. Magic swirled along her hand, the red of fire yet not even a breath of flame was present. The heat still was, though, and she could hear Darrian groaning as the heat swathed him while she stroked, moving fast and hard and-

"And just how is this supposed to help me if I cannot do magic?" Cassandra asked dryly, arching an eyebrow at Morrigan.

"You can still try such things even when you are not a mage," Morrigan replied, a hint defensively.

"But what makes them special is that you are a mage using your magic whenever you do such things," Cassandra said. Her lips started to curl in a small, sly smile. "Besides, you are but a mage, easily replaceable if one wants to find such things. But I am a Seeker. My powers are truly unique. And I also have a mage on top of it."

"I believe the common wisdom says that it does not matter what skills and traits you possess, but how you employ them."

Cassandra smirked, rolling her shoulders. "Bitterness suits you, I see. Now, let me tell you something I once did."

They fell back onto the bed, Kaaras's chuckle deep in her ear as she settled herself on him, her nails digging into his huge shoulders and pressing her breasts into him while she wiggled her hips, teasing the head of his length with her wet folds without letting him inside of her just yet. She grinned watching the tiny snarl flickering across his face, his frustration at being teased rising in him without quite breaking through just yet. Cassandra always loved doing this, loved testing how far she could drag Kaaras along until he lost his mind and then took her right then and there.

"Cass," he growled, his fingers gripping her hips so hard she was sure they would bruise later. She would wear the marks with pride, run her own fingers over them whenever she would stare at herself in the mirror.

She bent down to run her tongue slowly up his collar, following the crest of the bone she could feel under his skin. "Kaaras," she whispered against him, listening to his low groan.

Cold started to bite her skin, frost covering his fingers and turning her red as a result of it. She flinched a little, then reached into that well of power she held inside of herself, remembered her meditations, and let it loose. Immediately the magic was cut off, not slammed shut like a Templar's abilities, but strangled in her grip, held within her hands. Cassandra could feel the lyrium in his blood burning across her nerves, her lips parting in ecstasy at the sensation that made her feel as if the sun was inside of her veins.

Kaaras on the other hand groaned, a sound that was all but echoing off the walls with how it ripped out of his throat. "Cassandra!" he yelled, grabbing her hips and sinking her down on him.

Cassandra screamed in joy, the feeling bringing her higher and higher to that perfect peak that only physical pleasure and emotion could create. "Kaaras!" she shouted back, lifting her hips and helping him with her, riding him out on every movement he forced her to have. It was incredible, the cycle of being filled over and over and her nerves being stretched to their fullest again and again.

Under her, Kaaras jerked his hips, those muscled hips so perfect, as if they were made for this. Cassandra clawed at his skin, crying out and gasping, hardly able to breathe because of all the pleasure filling her body. The qunari kept up with her, even driving her faster than she was able to keep up, turning into that passionate, incredibly driven man that she had come to know and love more deeply than anything she had ever known. It was all she could do to simply hold on, to try and keep up with him and yet hold onto that magic and lyrium that made her blood burn and her heart sing.

It was so much-

"Well, you don't need to hear the rest," Cassandra coughed, as if she suddenly realized how far she was going. Her face was red, but that seemed to be a fact she had come to accept, even if she ignored it.

"Interesting," Morrigan said, examining her nails with forced disinterest."But I will say that none of that compares to say, blood magic."

Cassandra whipped her head around, eyes flashing. "You have practiced the forbidden arts?" she hissed.

"Not in the way you understand," Morrigan replied calmly, her frown mirroring the Seeker's. "Your Chantry calls all that it does not understand 'blood magic.' I know very ancient magics, magic of nature and deep, primal things. It can involve blood but it is not summoning demons or controlling minds."

The words were terrifying in their implications. Cassandra had no idea how to counter such things and not even what type of magic it was."Blood magic is more than summoning demons," she said, her tone falling flat to even her own ears.

"It saved Darrian's life," Morrigan replied, her words filled with conviction that Cassandra knew she couldn't shake. "And twas far better than anything your Seeker powers could draw out."

He was so thick inside of her, thick and hot in a way that she had never felt before. Morrigan drew her hands down Darrian's chest, tracing patterns and sigils in his skin that only she understood. Some in elven, some that she had made up herself, all of it weaving her spell around the both of them, binding her and the Grey Warden together. She needed his taint and his seed and needed it to work just so, she needed to conceive a child.

Her blood dripped down her fingertips. She wanted to wipe it away, for it tickled her skin, but she ignored it.

"What do these mean?" Darrian whispered, reaching his hand up to touch one of the sigils she had drawn.

She slapped his hand away. "Do not touch." Her blood was needed just as much as his, for she was just as much as part of the ritual as he was. Then she reached into the both of them with her magic, drawing upon her blood and feeling for his own, and forced it to rise.

Immediately she came, screaming as light exploded behind her eyes, her waters gushing over Darrian even as she could feel him filling her inside. Gods she knew that would happen but she had no idea how intense it would be, stretching on and on like it would last for eternity, each second of pleasure blazing across her bones. She didn't want it to end, wanted to exist only in this moment forever and ever-

"When was this?" Cassandra asked.

"Before we marched to Denerim to confront the archdemon."

Cassandra raised her eyebrows. "You planned to conceive your child then? Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. I have done better with no practice of blood magic."

"I have yet to see it," Morrigan said with a smirk. "My lover stopped a Blight and saved all of Thedas. Yours?"

"Is dealing with a creature who wants to be a god. He is stopping just as much of a threat, and he is better in bed."

"Now now ladies, no need to fight over me!"

Cassandra's breath stopped. No, Maker please no. But she knew that voice, she was not so silly to think she had imagined it. She turned around slowly, her gaze falling upon Kaaras who was leaning against the wall with all the carelessness int he world. "How long have you been there?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Oh, long enough. I was going to say something but you were both talking about so many interesting things that I didn't want to interrupt. You're both great storytellers you know."

Cassandra felt her face going white. He-he heard?!

Morrigan's outburst of laughter made her jump and she whirled around to glare at the witch. Her golden eyes were alight with amusement, a victorious smirk dancing across her features, as if she had been waiting for this to happen for a long time.

Maker she hated her.