The pink and gold shades of dawn filtered into Rylen's room sooner than he would have liked. It reached through his northeastern facing window like an unwanted guest, probing at his eyelids uncomfortably and illuminating a bedchamber that may have been like the others in Griffon's Wing save a few things.

It was larger, clearly a commanding officer's quarters. Statues of proud griffons with carven feather wingtips stretching to the ceiling stood on either side of the fireplace, marking the room as an ancient Warden-Commander's. The first thing it's new occupant, Rylen, had done was bring a personal desk in. Though remarkable Orlesian craftsmanship once, it now overflowed with a mess of burnt down candles, wax and papers of every kind. Thick parchments, half written letters, half read reports, and maps stacked atop it in disarray, sometimes spilling to the floor and left there until Rylen inevitably tore the place apart looking for it. A comparatively simple table stood in the middle of the room, upon which were the remnants of a shared but forgotten meal. A leg was snagged on the sandy rug from where it had been hastily dragged about; kept against the wall when he needed space, in front of the fireplace when he was social enough to entertain company. Yet the room's most defining feature, the one that made it truly different, was the Qunari snoring gently beside Rylen on the bed, nose nuzzled into his neck, arm flung across his chest, leg hooking over his hip.

But, Maker, she was bloody heavy.

Rylen cracked his eyes open and scowled at the sun before his realized he was being crushed. But one sidelong look at Keram's sleeping face and the discomfort all but fled him. She was a peaceful giantess in her sleep, each warm breath against his skin more of a comfort than an annoyance. He had the chance to admire her, her freckles, her scars, the tiny crease that appeared between her eyes while she dreamed. The sight almost made waking up in the morning less awful.

Rylen steeled himself from a half-formed thought about how easy waking next to her could be to do every day.

How in the world had he bloody come to this? All at once Rylen's thoughts raced over the past few weeks and tried to make sense of it. So much happened so quickly, and he hated to know of that ending that was drawing near. But nearer it came with each new day. And, with each new day, that longing ache became a little harder to ignore.

It had been a half-hope, both a fear and a wish, that abstaining would scare the giantess away. Keram Adaar was a woman who knew what she wanted, that much he had realized many times over. She wanted a plaything (or so he had assumed) and if Rylen took that away then maybe—maybe—she would leave him be and it would all be over. Quickly, with Rylen walking away feeding himself the same lie he always had; by bitterly telling himself that was the way it was supposed to bloody be in the first place.

The truth was far worse for him.

Inquisitor Keram Adaar became a fucking person when they weren't having sex. Inquisitor Keram Adaar brought him whiskey and told entertaining stories about being a mercenary as they drank together. Inquisitor Keram Adaar laughed at his dry wit and she kissed him on the head whenever she left the Keep. Inquisitor Keram Adaar made sure to see him every day no matter how busy she was and was sure to ask him questions about himself. And more than that, Inquisitor Keram Adaar listened intently to each story he had to share.

But then Inquisitor Keram Adaar held him close the night she chose to stay with him when they'd both drank a shot too many. Inquisitor Keram Adaar had wrapped her body around his in the way no one ever had, giggling and mumbling sleepy nothings as they simply fell asleep together.

Keram was the first woman Rylen woke up beside in no hurry at all to get up and get on with his day.

Maker's fucking hairy ass balls!

The sudden tightness in his chest must have been the weight of her arm as it finally caught up with him. The sudden urge to move must have been his muscles needing to stretch. The ache in his heart…well…he didn't have a good excuse for that one just yet.

Yeah, Rylen, that's bloody it. Run again, Rylen thought resentfully as he shifted his weight on the bed and tried to roll out from beneath the Qunari without disturbing her much.

The Inquisitor sighed and adjusted, and Rylen figured he got off scott free until he heard her deep, sleep-rough voice behind him.

"Rylen?" He paused for just a moment in pulling on his breeches and pushed his nagging feeling of panic down before he glanced at her.

"I had a…meeting with Chevin this morning," he told her gruffly as he reached for his shirt where it lay abandoned on the floor. Last night Keram had wanted to run her fingers over his chest. She had traced the contours of his muscles and asked about his countless scars and it all felt so damn pleasant, who was he to stop her? Another bad decision to heap on top of his others. "I forgot about it until now." Rylen pulled his boots on before grabbing the scattered pieces of his uniform and heaping them into his breastplate. "Sorry, lass," he added too belated to sound honest. He cursed himself silently.

"Will you still join me later?"

Stopping in the doorway, Rylen chewed on his lip as he deliberated. He shouldn't. Not anymore. He bloody couldn't if he knew what was good for him. He was already in far deeper than he should have been. Once again, he'd let it go too fucking far. Once again, he knew he was headed for certain ruin. Say 'no' you codger. 'Perhaps not this time.' 'I am too busy running this fucking place to get caught up in your mess!'

"Aye," he said over his shoulder. "At the gates in an hour?"

"I'll be there."

Maker, he could have tossed himself into the Abyssal Rift about now.

Rylen scurried towards the Chevalier's quarters, warring between thinking too hard and not at all. His thoughts were a sudden whirlwind in his head and his chest tightened with each aggravated step. How was it that he both knew what to do and had no idea what happened next? How was it that in a matter of a few months his life had turned itself completely on its head? Kirkwall, Cullen, the Inquisition, Haven, Corypheus, Skyhold, the Western Approach. When he peeled his life apart in acute detail, it felt as if each miniscule event had led him straight here. Was it much of a stretch to believe it had led him to her? It unnerved him to think about. His every step, his every decision, was for what? To ultimately shake his faith, to upend everything he knew and leave him grasping at broken lines of the Chant searching for answers. Answers that no one fucking had. Some part of him wished for an end. Pain was simple, it was easy to understand. But it was too much to believe for a bloody moment that things could be simple. His life had never fucking had that luxury. Never.

Joining the Templars wasn't simple. Watching his elder brother leave to never return wasn't simple. Serving his Order by honoring his vows wasn't simple. Fixing Kirkwall wasn't simple. The Conclave wasn't simple. Forming the Inquisition wasn't simple. Doing nothing else but finding bodily relief in a beautiful woman wasn't fucking simple.

Everything had to be complicated. He made everything so bloody complicated. Try as he might to shut himself down or block out the worst pieces of his personality, he still managed to destroy the things he was given. The markings on his face would forever be a testament to that, to his asinine ability to make the largest mess he possibly could at any given moment.

A fuckup, a deserter, and a moron to boot.

The supposed Knight-Captain Rylen summed up in one fucking sentence.

Rylen banged hard on the wooden door of Chevin's quarters. The sound echoed off the walls of the corridor, loud and obnoxious in the stifling quiet of the morning. Maybe he'd wake all the lieutenants up. Maybe he wanted everyone to be as miserable as he was.

He didn't wait for a response from the other side. Rylen shouldered the door open and didn't feel remotely sorry when he found Chevin half-naked under twisted sheets, groaning loudly and rubbing his eyes.

"I need to speak with you."

"Of course you do."

"About Ke—the Inquisitor."

"Who else?" Chevin yawned.

"Look, I don't need you being smug with me or giving me any shit I just—" Rylen dumped his uniform unceremoniously to the floor and he kicked the door closed. He paced the room. He didn't know bloody where to even begin. He took a slow shaky breath and ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. "I just need your fucking help."

"All right, all right, my friend." Chevin eased himself out of bed, still sluggish enough that Rylen's foot began tapping on the stone floor. But Chevin ignored his fidgeting as he ran through a series of minute stretches with careful precision. "Remind me never to ask you for a wakeup call in the future. You are too brusque for my tastes."

"It's all spiraling out of my control, Michal." Rylen didn't have the patience for pleasantries. Already his hands shook as he tried to grasp for control of his panic. "We had a good thing and I don't bloody know what happened!"

"I do," Chevin muttered, but Rylen ignored him.

"I can't do it any longer. I just can't. You've got to take her away, Michal! You got her out here, you can take her back. She needs to go back to Skyhold. She can't be here anymore! I can't…have her here…"

Chevin looked up at Rylen in disbelief. Even though his blue eyes were bleary with sleep, Rylen could see it clearly. He wondered if he looked like quite the sorry sight. Wide eyed? Rattled? Chest heaving and wild with some feeling he hadn't put his finger on? Maker take his sorry soul to His side…

The other man finally sighed. "It is too early for this, Rylen… I cannot take the Inquisitor 'back,' and I would not even if I could—"

"But—"

"Don't interrupt me! You dragged me out of bed and woke me from a fantastic dream and—damnit, Rylen—you are going to listen to reason this instant!"

Rylen's mouth snapped shut and he nodded. He could do that. He could listen. It gave him something else to focus on, something else to do besides dread his later appointment with the Inquisitor or wonder how badly he was going to hurt when she ultimately left.

Nodding with approval, Chevin said much more calmly, "Good. Now, you will calmly explain to me just why it is you have decided you are no longer happy with your arrangement with the Inquisitor."

"I thought you said you knew?" Rylen muttered.

"I do, but I want to hear you say it."

Rylen shook his head at his friend but he knew it was useless. He could dance around the topic all he wanted. He could pretend it was something else without actually believing the truth, he could run from it all he wanted, but he could never escape it. This was what he'd come to Chevin for, after all… "I've done all this before, Michal, and I remember exactly what happened. A man goes to the same woman over and over again and soon he starts hoping and then he's left in the dirt. That's what fucking happens every Maker-damned—"

"Calm," Chevin reminded him gently. He gestured towards his chest and made a show of taking a deep breath through his nose.

Rylen brushed his irritation aside and complied. "Point is: I can already see it coming. I don't want to be cast aside again. I don't think I can take it. But I do know that I am too bloody weak to take care of it proper."

"What do you want, Rylen?" Chevin interjected suddenly. Rylen heard the exasperation in his voice but he couldn't for the life of him understand where it bloody came from.

"What do you mean? I want her gone."

"No, no. What do you want? Are you the love-struck man from the Herald's Rest or are you this frightened child? What do you want? Which are you?"

"I'm the friend asking for your help," Rylen growled.

"No! Wrong. I cannot help you if I do not know which you are! Which are you, Rylen?"

The two men stared at each other for long moments, their determined glowers never straying. Rylen couldn't say if he was trying to bully his way out of the question nor could he articulate why not answering mattered so bloody much to him. What he wanted from Chevin was assurance. He sought meaningless words and a promise to fix it. What he was getting was a fucking soul search.

Rylen averted his eyes and studied the patterns of the wood in Chevin's bed. When he spoke, it was only a whisper. Any more and he might have cracked. "What do you want from me, Michal? I just want to live my sorry life in peace." The corners of his eyes burned but he ground his teeth to keep his composure. The last thing he wanted was to show just how jilted he still was.

Chevin heaved a huge sigh and pushed himself from the bed. Rylen's words hung in the air as the chevalier rummaged in his knapsack for a fresh shirt and wandered to the mirror hung in the corner.

"What're you—?"

"I need to think."

The other man stared at his reflection intently and ran his fingers through his sleep-mussed blonde hair several times until it found its usual unkempt, windswept appearance. Chevin leaned so close to the mirror he nearly touched it with his nose as he moved individual strands around to his liking; a meticulous arrangement to appear coincidental. Rylen almost laughed at his vain friend. Watching the routine grounded him somewhat, almost made him calm again. At least his biggest problem wasn't how his bloody hair looked. At least he didn't waste time with that foolishness.

At least he knew what was truly important. His brows knit as he wondered what that important thing actually was…

When Chevin turned back to him, he was every bit the flawless pretty boy Rylen had come to expect. He was Orlesian, he was romantic and, Maker, at least his fucking hair was in perfect place. Rylen started to smile, to say something snide to Chevin when the Chevalier gripped both his arms tightly and bored into his face with a shockingly steely gaze.

"I am sorry you were hurt once, Rylen. I am sorry you are afraid now. I wished to look after you and I wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing and maybe you are right, things got far out of hand. I tried to encourage a spark in someone that I thought wanted love—"

"Love? No, that's not—"

"Shut up! I am sorry, too, that I so grossly miscalculated. I cannot and will not send the Inquisitor away, and neither can you. But take heart, my friend, for soon…she will have to leave of her own accord. More regions require her attention than just the Western Approach. Maker, other countries require her! On top of that, the ball at Halamshiral is fast upon us. The Inquisitor cannot stay.

"If you are truly having second thoughts, if you truly no longer wish to pursue her further, take comfort in those facts. Once she leaves, she is gone. Your…problems, this whatever this may be, will peter out and go away just as you wish."

Chevin's words sunk into Rylen's brain slowly. He struggled to understand each as though his head was foggy with magic. It was impossible, really, anything more between the Inquisitor and himself. It was arrogant of him to think that a relationship could go in in a world like this. The Inquisitor had better things to do and he was only one person in an entire world that needed her. Whatever this may be will peter out and go away just as you wish… Yet the real question was: was that what he wanted? Now that Chevin had said it out loud, the reassurance grated against his skin. Now that it was voiced, it seemed real. And now that it was real, Rylen didn't know the damn answer.

The Chevalier's hands slid from Rylen's arms and he patted him consolingly on the shoulder, giving him a wry smile. "You do not have much longer to wait. Just however long it takes to kill a dragon—"

Rylen's eyes widened as reality snapped back into place in sharp relief. His breath stuck in his throat as he gasped, "A dragon?"

"That is what I heard. That researcher wants to—"

Andraste's tits! Rylen about faced and raced from the room so fast he barely heard Chevin's shout after him.

"Wait! Rylen! Your armor!"

He skidded to a halt and very nearly fell backwards. He forgot—his fucking armor—fuck! Was this the big secret of what Keram was doing tomorrow? Why hadn't she fucking told him? Was that what she was preparing for today?

Rylen rounded the corner back into Chevin's room and hastily pulled on pieces, haphazardly yanking on buckles and tying knots. He hardly noticed what he was doing, hoping instinct did the job good enough.

"RYLEN!"

He looked up suddenly, a snarl on his lips when he saw Chevin pointing behind him. Rylen whirled and found the messenger boy in the doorway. His eyes flitted between them uncertainly and he clutched a sealed scroll tightly in his hands.

"What?"

"Erm, the Inquisitor said you would be here—"

"Spit it out, boy!" Rylen had a woman to dissuade from fighting a fucking dragon. He didn't have time to be stalled.

To the boy's credit, he didn't even flinch at Rylen's tone. "It's a letter to you, Ser. Direct from Ambassador Montilyet."