A/N: This chapter is a bit of a filler, so consider yourself warned in advance. Starting in the next chapter, the main setting will finally be Skyhold, and the story should be able to more easily pick up from there. I just needed something to separate the last chapter from the move to Skyhold.

CHAPTER THREE

The Templar thought of her as a disappointment.

It was easy to see, the way he now immediately looked away whenever she was present, undoubtedly still paying attention to her as he did any mage, but now unwilling to look at her as he did. That little fact hurt worse than any of his little blows to her ego ever had.

"Commander I-" she had tried to get out, wanting nothing more than to apologize the moment she had awaken from her blissfully dreamless slumber.

But he'd lifted his hand, quieting her before she'd even started. "I'm afraid I have no time to chat, Herald. There is much to do," he'd told her, moving from the post he'd been observing from, as if he actually did have something to attend to. "Should you have need of anything, I am sure one of my men can satisfy your curiosity."

She'd never flinched more at a dismissal.

He'd brushed her off similarly each subsequent time she'd attempted to speak with him, but the one time she'd attempted to speak with Lieutenant Davis - to repeat a message from Cassandra, not to ask him for a training session - that was the time that the Commander actually stayed put. And that was what told her he hadn't filled his men in on what had happened.

Of course, that didn't mean that their good old Spymaster didn't find out.

"What were you thinking?" the Orlesian had asked when she'd cornered Evelyn in one of the Chantry's empty rooms. "How could you?"

"I was thinking that my apprentice had just died," had been her weak answer. "I wasn't thinking."

For a second, there had been a softness in the woman's expression as she let out a quiet sigh. "I know, and I am so sorry to hear that," she'd said, sounding completely sincere as she spoke. "But to attack our Commander like that..."

"I didn't even realize I was doing it, Leliana. It wasn't a dangerous spell, but I completely understand why he is furious. I shouldn't have disrespected him."

"No, you don't understand, Evelyn," the bard had corrected, the usual lilt of her accent currently absent. "Cullen, he... he has been through a lot."

"He was at the center of it all in Kirkwall, I know."

"No," Leliana had repeated, "you don't. You know he was stationed at Kinloch Hold during the Blight? I was with the Hero of Fereldan when she sought the aid of the Circle Tower. What we saw... I cannot repeat. Blood magic, abominations... it was terrible." A moment's pause, and she'd given her head a small shake. "Cullen was there, Evelyn. He was there, in the middle of it all. He was the only one who did not break."

Her mind had reeled, her brow furrowing as she had leaned closer to the other woman, a look of horror in her expression. "Are you saying...?"

"I am."

And suddenly, Evelyn realized that the rock bottom she'd thought she'd already hit? It wasn't really the bottom after all. First, she'd failed to save her apprentice. Then, she'd used magic on a man who had been tortured with it. Oh, she was on a roll.

She'd gone to Therinfal Redoubt a few days later, bringing Cassandra, Warden Blackwall, and Vivienne with her. Things hadn't gone as planned, and filling her advisors in upon returning to Haven ended up being an adventure in of itself.

"The Lord Seeker asked you to raise these flags before meeting with him? What was his purpose? Did he say anything about your choices?" Leliana interrupted the Herald's recounting, her brows slightly furrowed as she appeared to think the entire situation through.

"I'm not sure," the mage answered with a shake of her head. "He made no obvious comments."

"Though," Cassandra interjected, looking up from the War Table as if the markers had been a portal into her own memories, "there was something about him being upset by your showing up with purpose. The Knight-Captain claimed that you ruined the Lord Seeker's plan by arriving with purpose, by sowing dissent. At the time, I assumed he meant our goal of sealing the Breach, but perhaps the your choices with the banners factored in."

"If I might ask..." The former Templar looked curious but tentative as he asked the question, his gaze resting solely the Herald as he spoke, "in what order did you complete the ritual?"

"Chantry, Templars, People," she recited with ease, needing no time to recall her decisions.

"Ah, diplomatic but not flattering," Josephine observed with a decided nod and a wide smile. "Very well played, Herald."

The praise was a surprise, but Evelyn wasn't sure whether or not it was a welcome one. Attention shifting to the ambassador, she gave a subtle shake of her head. "I answered honestly," she explained, "though perhaps I shouldn't have, considering I was being watched by an envy demon."

She could still feel their Commander's gaze on her, and she had no doubt that he was analyzing her choices, likely in the same way that the Templars themselves had. The whole thing probably had more significance to him than the others because of his background, but now was not the time to dwell on the most insignificant of the trip's events.

She moved on to the point when she met the Lord Seeker.

"Allow me a moment to clarify," her military advisor interrupted at one point, his arms crossing over his chest as he looked down at her. "In this... vision you were having, you saw a demon slitting my throat?"

"I saw a demon pretending to be Leliana, slitting the throat of a manifestation of that same demon... that happened to look like you," was the immediate correction that fell from her lips. "As a mage, I immediately knew the situation was not as it seemed," she explained, "I recognized the manifestations as such."

Of course, that hadn't stopped her from making a noise of surprise when that blade had been pressed to Not-Cullen's throat, but that wasn't a detail she was going to share. She'd already stolen the man's horse and used her magic against him; she'd wished the demon that had been invading her mind had chosen someone else to kill in her mind. Still, she'd gotten ahold of herself by the time the blade had cut across his throat, her own expression bored and neutral as the fake body had slid to the ground. The glint in the demon's eye, however, told her that she hadn't been quite quick enough.

"Of course," the Commander allowed. "But it was only my throat? What could the demon have hoped to gain from that?"

"It wanted me to watch," Evelyn answered. "It wanted to know how I would react to situations, because it wanted to become me. So I gave it nothing; I refused to react." She'd keep the original gasp to herself; they didn't need to know about that small error. "I imagine Josephine would have been next, had I given the demon what it wanted."

Eyes flickering over the Commander's still posture, she wondered absently if he thought a part of her had wanted him dead. But no, he surely knew better than that...

"If it makes you feel better," she offered anyways, "the demon took your shape a moment later, so the manifestation of you was no longer dead. And then it - as you - stabbed a manifestation of me in the back. So, I think we're even."

"Pardon?" It was Josephine's reaction, her brow creased in obvious confusion as she clearly struggled to follow the confusion that had been Evelyn's mind.

The Commander gave a quick, soft chuckle, though whether it was at the ambassador's confusion or at her own comment, Evelyn couldn't be sure. "What happened next, Herald?"

She continued her tale, going through the events as logically as possible, despite the fact that everything that had happened had been completely illogical.

"You did nothing? You didn't defend yourself against the accusations?" At the revelation, the Seeker looked somewhat surprised, her eyes narrowed just a bit as she turned to the Herald.

"It wanted a reaction from her," the former Templar answered before Evelyn could say anything in her own defense. "When a demon is tormenting you, you do not give it what it wants."

He spoke from experience. She could hear it in the finality of his words; it was something she would have picked up on even if the Orlesian bard hadn't informed her of his past. As it was, his statement only reminded her of how absolutely stupid she had been to cast a spell at him, how cruel it was for her to have done so. She blinked her eyes closed, blowing out a breath.

"You could have lied to it, faked a different response. You could have figured out what its plan was."

"You're right," the Herald admitted, opening her eyes and meeting the Seeker's gaze. "I could have. Unfortunately, I do not have any patience for demons, or for their games. So I walked through every scene it gave me, ignored everything around me, and just tried to find a way out. That is the protocol we train our apprentices to follow, Seeker."

"I apologize; I do not mean to sound as if I disapprove," she replied, accent heavy in her words. "I just wish we knew more about this... thing. And this Elder One it spoke of."

"I understand. Envy is a rare demon," Evelyn attempted to explain, "but is not unknown. As enchanters, we are all required to study envy demons before we can take apprentices. This is the first I have ever encountered, but I knew what it was. There was nothing more I could have learned of it through playing its game."

"But the Templars did not even know-"

"Ser Barris made it clear that it was only the less experienced who did not know enough about Envy. I am under the impression that veterans were and are prepared to handle such rare demons."

"It is a hard demon to train against, because we see them so rarely," the former Knight-Captain elaborated. "I have seen only one in my career, and heard of only two others, so it does not surprise me to hear Ser Barris and the others were unprepared. I will consult with him on the matter at a later date, and we will develop a better method of preparing the Templars and our own soldiers for rare demons."

A quiet scoff from the corner of the table indicated the Spymaster's continued disapproval. "I still think it would be for the best for us to disband the Order, to bring them under our banner instead. Then our Commander could better-"

"Absolutely not!" the man immediately objected, turning sharply to fully face the bard. "The Templars are needed; they do not deserve-"

"They do not deserve the trust that the Herald afforded them, Commander," the Seeker interrupted. "You were not there; you did not see what they had done, the crimes they had committed. They-"

"Not this again!" Evelyn interjected, trying to end the argument before it truly began again. When she had first arrived, it had taken long enough to settle the War Council's disagreements; she did not look forward to trying to smooth things over again. "I afforded the Templars a chance to rebuild, rather than punishing them for their superiors' crimes. The last I checked, we did not fault a man for doing what he honestly believed to be the right thing. Who was it that hired that Quartermaster of ours? Did she not follow the the man who betrayed Ferelden's king?" At the way the Seeker's head ducked down, the Herald took a breath, calming herself as well. "Besides, I was under the impression that the Inquisition was founded only to seal the Breach and bring Most Holy's murderer to justice. I wasn't aware we intended to forcibly conscript soldiers and then leave the world with no one to guard against magic in the future."

It was silent for a moment, before the ambassador cleared her throat, jotting something down on that board she always carried. "Besides," Josephine declared, "it is in the past. It would not look good upon us to rescind the offer of an alliance now, not after it has already been extended and accepted. Let us move on, yes?"

She could have kissed Josephine.

As it was, she just nodded her thanks, and the meeting moved on from there, quickly covering the brief consultation with Ser Barris, and the fighting leading up to the battle with the envy demon.

"These... what did you call them? ...Red Templars? You fought them?" The Commander's gaze shifted between the Seeker and the Herald.

"We weren't given a choice," Evelyn had responded, only to have her words followed by a loud Orlesian scoff.

"She means, we had no choice after she - ridiculously - attempted to talk to the crazed men who were attacking us."

"Cassandra!" the mage had hissed in objection. "I shouted one warning, offering them a chance to put down their weapons. I-"

"The leaders of the Templars, the ones who you acknowledge were responsible for the corruption within the Order... you offered them the same ridiculous freedoms you granted the rest of the Order? Are you mad?"

Oh, the Spymaster was still pissed about the whole of the situation, that much was clear to Evelyn, even as she took a deep breath and tried her best not to rise to the bait. "No, My Lady," she contradicted slowly, carefully. "I offered them a chance to stop needless bloodshed, nothing more. They would have been held responsible for their crimes."

"If I might redirect," the Commander interrupted, his hand cutting through the air before tapping down on the table in order to call attention back to him. "I would be interested to know how the battle itself went."

"The Herald fought well," the Seeker responded, while the Spymaster and the Herald remained in a locked gaze. "It seems you were the better choice to control her training."

"The battle went well, then?"

Evelyn's gaze finally broke away from the other redhead's, flickering up to meet the contemplative one of the Inquisition's military advisor. "We have Ser Barris and the others of the Order to thank for that, Commander. They kept themselves in front of Vivienne and I, blocking us from the Red Templars. Some of them suffered injuries, but neither of us were even dealt a scratch." Pointedly, her focus shifted back to the Spymaster. "They will be a welcome ally to the Inquisition, My Lady. They will serve, even though they were not forcibly conscripted."

The topic quickly shifted back to the envy demon itself - a topic which, luckily, was far less controversial. That did not make it any less annoyingly tedious, however.

By the time the debriefing was finally over and all questions had been satisfactorily answered, Evelyn wanted nothing more than to immediately fall into her bed and sleep for the next week. A guantletted hand caught her as she tried to realize that dream, however, forcing her to pause in her path out of the room, an eyebrow pointedly raised in the Commander's direction. She was too tired to beg forgiveness this time.

"Herald," he started, voice low. "Thank you, for..."

She thought she understood. "Of course."

He released her almost immediately, straightening and stepping out of the way to allow her to pass. Of course, when she started to, he interrupted her departure for the second time. "Oh, and Herald? I imagine Lieutenant Davis would be happy to take a break from reorganizing and preparing for our new Templar allies... should you wish to give him a reason."

She could've sworn she saw the faintest of smiles as he strode past her.