"Good day to you, ambassador."

Josephine hesitated and then returned the sentiment with a bob of her head. "Herald."

With that, she stepped out, walking swiftly from the war room and back to her office. Kaitrith frowned as the rest of the advisors followed Josephine out, leaving her alone beside the war table.

It was working.

Sort of.

Her plan to be more responsible, be something that wouldn't cause Josephine constant grief. She'd managed to recruit allies—not always the ones that Commander Rutherford wanted, but to be quite frank she didn't really give a damn what he wanted—and even when she wanted to toss nobles through some of the lovely stained glass windows in the chantry, she didn't. She watched the way Josephine handled them and referred back to how her keeper had kept the peace in her clan.

Normally, she'd been one of the offending parties, but she figured that just gave her more insight into the sorts of problems that could go on.

She participated in training with the soldiers regularly, when she was in Haven. Soon, she'd be going with the templar army to close the Breach—Commander Rutherford still wouldn't shut up about how Kaitrith had disbanded the Order and made them join as a branch within the Inquisition. They clearly hadn't been able to handle power, which was why they needed to be leashed in.

Those in power rarely handled it well. Especially humans, at least in Kaitrith's experience. The mages had elves among them, so surely they'd be able to see reason after the Breach was dealt with. They would see that their templar oppressors had been declawed, and peace could be achieved.

Things were coming together.

Indeed, Kaitrith was developing into somewhat of a symbol of hope or whatever hallashit it was they were calling her these days. A respectable Herald.

And yet…

Josephine didn't talk to her the way she'd used to, when Kaitrith had first come to Haven. There seemed to be a reservation there, as though there was something the ambassador wished to say, but wouldn't.

It was annoying, and it nagged at her. What was she doing wrong? She'd toned down her aggressions, focusing them more on the target dummies—they did go through quite a few of them, thanks to her. Was that the problem? Was her venting causing the problems with the budget?

She hadn't considered that before.

Surely training dummies didn't cost that much, though.

No, whatever it might be that had gone awry, it wasn't the dummies.

Kaitrith leaned back against the war table, glaring toward the half open door. Leliana had left it for her, likely expecting Kaitrith to be on her heels as they left. However, Josephine's goodbye had given her pause.

It had definitely been withdrawn.

What was she doing wrong?

Maybe…maybe it wasn't her. After all, Kaitrith was doing everything right. She was being the Herald they wanted. Josephine's job was taxing on its own, and Kaitrith had merely wanted to make sure that she didn't add to that.

And she'd accomplished that.

So… why did it feel like she was the reason Josephine had seemed more and more distant lately?

It must have been some noble prat, sending scathing letters or even here in Haven, who was bothering Josephine. Perhaps if Kaitrith offered to listen to her woes…

Even as she moved away from the war table, she felt something snag on part of her gauntlet. As she turned back, the entire map jerked, all of the markers across it wobbling and tipping over.

Kaitrith stared at the map, eyes wide, mouth agape.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

This couldn't…

She jerked her gloves off before hastily moving around the table to move the map back into place. That only sent markers rolling across the table, some falling onto the floor and making soft clinking noises as they hit the stones that made Kaitrith's long ears twitch.

She hurried over to where they'd fallen and scooped them up.

Banging her head as she shot back to her feet, she cursed when it sent another two markers sliding to the ground.

BY the Dread fucking Wolf!

Things were supposed to be going well.

Even as she looked at the map, trying to remember what went where—shit, there were even tear marks in the map from where a dagger had dragged through part of it.

Kaitrith strangled a scream in her throat, only to freeze as she heard a soft, all too familiar voice.

"Herald? Is everything…?"

As she whirled to face Josephine, clutching the place markers to her chest, eyes wide, mouth a thin line, Josephine stared back at her, perfect lips parted in shock.

"I can fix it."

Josephine's clipboard thudded to the floor as she put her hands up to cover her mouth, her papers sliding across the floor and just adding to the damnable mess. Josephine's shoulders shook a little.

Kaitrith felt like there were stones materializing in her stomach and sinking down, one after another. "I can…"

Abruptly, Josephine shook her head and then stepped over the papers as though they weren't there, reaching out carefully to take Kaitrith's hands, clasping them gently. "Herald..." Her lips quivered, eyes twinkled. "You do not need to look like you just damned all of Thedas."

"You…" Kaitrith's throat was surprisingly dry and she had to clear it before she could talk again, "You—and Leliana—put a lot of time into your research."

"Cullen, too."

Kaitrith merely grunted an acknowledgement to Josephine's addition. "I didn't mean to make your life harder…"

"Accidents happen, Herald," Josephine said, finally allowing those beautiful stars in her eyes to tug up the corners of her lips. "You needn't apologize. Come I will help you put things back."

Despite feeling quite the fool, Kaitrith couldn't help but perk up as Josephine moved toward the war table, gaze cast down as she inspected the damage. Kaitrith wanted to reach out and hold her hand again, but instead managed to just step up beside her, watching rather helplessly as Josephine's fingers lightly propped up and scooted over a place marker. Some of her hair had come loose from behind her ear and tickled her cheek as she worked, diligent and oblivious to how her Herald watched her with a quiet awe.

Finally getting ahold of herself, Kaitrith forced herself to take her eyes off Josephine, and looked back at the map, doing her best to remember where some of the markers had been and assisting with the effort. Of course most of the ones she could remember were Josephine's.

As she debated just standing the rest at random places and seeing if anyone even actually noticed—they would—Josephine let out a soft hum and then asked, "So aside from rearranging our war plans, how has your day been?" When Kaitrith blinked, Josephine gave her a simple smile. "We have not had the time to talk lately, have we?"

Kaitrith smiled a little awkwardly back and shrugged, as though it hadn't been something that had been driving her crazy the last few days. "It's been…going."

And with that, she launched into a story about how Varric and Cassandra had gotten into another fight over some trivial, ridiculous comment, enjoying the way Josephine's laughter met her tale and forgetting, for at least a little while, her worries.