It is her accursed bad luck that she is passing through the Great Hall on her way to speak to Leliana when she overhears what she wishes immediately she had not. An unfortunate trick of the stone, a small lull in the conversations that swirl in this place constantly like leaves. She walks into it as she might an unseen spiderweb. It's just as heartstopping.
Bianca Davri introduces herself.
She would not be human if she didn't look. The Inquisitor and Varric stand at the larger of the fireplaces, obviously in quiet conversation with a hooded figure who is certainly dwarven by stature alone. If not for that one overheard name, she would have thought nothing of it. There are many people that come and go through Skyhold and it is not as if she makes a point of knowing who they all are. She is, after all, the Right Hand, not the Left.
Her long stride hitches but none of them look at her, none of them seem to be aware of anything except whatever they are talking about. In the instant before she can tear her eyes away, it brands itself on her mind. How closely Varric stands. That his face, always alive, is near expressionless. His arms cross and then uncross as if unsure of themselves.
And that while the Inquisitor is the one talking, the figure… no, Bianca turns only to Varric.
Cassandra keeps walking even as unexpectedly sharp claws dig themselves into her chest. She does not hurry; she greets Solas as they pass, she checks in with Helisma on the second floor. She confers with Leliana quietly in the rookery and at the end of it, a pair of crows are dispatched, one to Lothering and the other to Redcliffe. She can do no more at the moment.
When she returns through the Hall with measured, ringing stride, the fireplace is abandoned.
All afternoon and into the evening, it plagues her. She cannot seem to stop herself no matter how she tries, even as she speaks to herself sternly, again and again. It is truly none of her business. Varric has many friends, many of them might be named Bianca.
She hates it when she lies to herself, particularly when she is so bad at it.
She tries reading in her room and it is a laughable failure. Her weapons are fine and while she takes the time to arrange them all precisely, including the dagger she uses to slice open letter seals, it is not a lengthy chore. Should any correspondence arrive however, she is well prepared. She straightens everything restlessly; her armor is in good repair, she has no pressing matters of any sort to attend to and she cannot think of any that she could manufacture that would be even thinly plausible. She makes tea to give her hands something else to do.
She tells herself over and over again that she cannot go out to the training yard to work off this agitation. It would too obvious that she is agitated and she is tired of being that transparent. Someone would, no doubt, pry. She would yell because she is unsettled, she knows she is unsettled and then what would happen? Everyone would then be aware that Cassandra is upset within the candlemark because Skyhold runs on orders, ale and the everpresent gossip. She will then need to spend the next three days stonewalling questions about it.
She even considers going to the tavern, if only that there will be noise and distraction even if she is not sure that she cares for either at the moment. She could visit Josephine or Cullen but then she thinks on what small talk she could possibly make and the words dry up in her throat.
The mug that she cups in her hands is long cold. She continues to spin the rough pottery in her hands, her fingertips tracing the familiar bumps and divots as if she can read the secret writing.
Cassandra stares helplessly at Varric's face. Had he been surprised? Had he expected her? Invited her perhaps? His face had been as closed as she'd ever seen, Varric who talked constantly with words and hands and body. What did that mean? Everything? Nothing?
She puts the tea down carefully before she throws it. She tells herself that she had only a glimpse, that she is inferring too much into it. He had been calm, as had the Inquisitor. She really cannot say more than that.
Cassandra crosses her arms and scowls at the oblivious wall of her quarters. Truly, why does she care? Certainly curiosity is to be expected, this mysterious Bianca not made of wood and gears. Not the weapon at all but the woman who built it, the promise he'd mentioned once and never again. Of course anyone would be intrigued. It is after all the one story that Varric doesn't tell, the one that is becoming painfully obvious that she had not actually believed was real. Is that why she cannot stop worrying at it?
Her wall declines to answer.
It pains her somewhere to know now, without doubt, that Bianca is perfectly sized to Varric. Shorter. Slimmer. No doubt beautiful by dwarven standards although that is complete conjecture. All she had seen was the back of a hood and expressive hands moving.
Hands that could easily loop around Varric's neck without strain. A face he would not have to stand on a footstool to reach.
And that is too much for Cassandra. She stands, snapping her body to its full height. She reaches for her gloves, starts to pull them on with short, sharp jerks as she strides for the door. She does not in the least want to be thinking about this, nor is she interested as to why her mind will not let it go. She has wasted nearly this entire day fretting on a question she cannot even frame, let alone answer. If Bianca Davri's visit is Inquisition business, she will hear about it soon enough. If it is Varric's business alone, well then it is his and most certainly and absolutely not hers.
She will go ask Master Dennett for the loan of one of the more spirited mounts and ride outside the walls for awhile. She hates horses and they hate her but it will give her something to focus on, something to control. There is enough light still to work off the edge of this... this whatever it is.
It helps. Dung monsters with hooves and tails and the one she had been given had proven true to the breed. A most tiring ride on both sides and the horse had been just as pleased to be rid of her as she of it. But it had taken all of her concentration and she had thought of little else for the last few hours.
She is grateful for that, and grateful also that Skyhold is large enough now that when she rides up through the stableyard, a young elvhen hand meets her and silently leads her mount away. No doubt to console it with bran and mash and a rub down and likely whispered words about being a good girl for coming back with her rider.
The image in her head makes her smile and her step lightens a little. Cassandra takes off her gloves to tuck them into her belt, flexing her creaky fingers. It is getting late but a bath might be achievable still. She slides through one of the lesser used side doors, thinking to wind her way through the side passages that will lead by connecting cross paths to the rotunda and thence the Great Hall and further yet, the kitchens. A little food to take with her is certainly in order.
She hears the voices before she truly registers them but it is only when she identifies Varric that she stops, for no reason that she can justify afterwards. Her head turns as she hesitates. She is near the library, it seems, the conversation muffled so that she has to strain to make out the odd word as it filters down a small stairway.
Without thinking of it, she turns quietly to ascend. The stone steps are worn in the center from long centuries of use; they must lead to one of the far corners of the next floor. The voices clarify suddenly and she freezes, one foot upon the next step. She must be standing just below them. The conversation rolls over the half wall above her head and the words spill down.
"I know I'm not exactly the one that should be dispensing this kind of wisdom since I so seldom take it, but drinking isn't going to help. Go to bed, Varric. " Dorian's voice holds no disapproval, his Tevinter accent soft.
"I can't. It still smells like her."
"Oh, my friend."
She hears the sound of glass on wood. A chair creaks.
"Yeah."
It's rare for Dorian to hesitate but the silence drags on too long.
"Look, I don't tell this story for a reason, Sparkler, and I'm not about to do it now. But between you, me and this fine sipping whatever the hell this is, love breaks way more than it fixes."
"Do you really believe that?"
Varric snorts. "You telling me you don't?"
She should leave. She should turn around and leave before she overhears any more things that will haunt her for no good reason. But she doesn't; can't, really, even with guilty breath caught in her throat. The chance to hear Varric talk freely? And of love? Cassandra presses her back to the dusty wall and tilts her head against it.
There is a creak of leather and a shuffle of something silk. "My experiences with love have been, shall we say, from a distance. A blessedly far distance, I might add. The few I suspected of it kept it very much to themselves. A real emotion of actual depth towards another person not involving attempted poisonings and slanderous rumor? How gauche." She can almost picture Dorian's hand waving in the air, a casual dismissal. "But my dear dwarf, that is me, not you. You write romance novels! Surely you believe in the fairest of virtues."
"One romance novel and everybody holds it over my head for some reason. And it didn't sell." She cannot tell if he is amused or annoyed. "I'm much better at tragedies. Lots of experience with those."
"One, then." Dorian's voice turns sly. "With, I understand, another chapter for our ever so stoic Seeker?"
"The Inquisitor talked me into that one." The worst of it is that she cannot tell anything from his voice, flat and uninterested. "And come on, I couldn't resist. The Seeker? Reading my trashy fiction? Couldn't let that go by, I'd never have forgiven myself."
She would give anything to be able to see his face. Is that truly how he feels? Uninspired and… and put upon? Her hand clenches, flexing against her stomach.
"I decline to believe you, Varric. But be that as it may, we both know that Cassandra would welcome another and whatever fictions you two tell to each other, I suppose it's none of my business." The drawling emphasis is unmistakeable but Cassandra is not sure what to make of it. She licks her lips, brows drawing together. "But I do suggest that if you're entertaining one unsuitable woman in your quarters, you air it out before entertaining the next."
Varric growls, that is the only way to put it. The rumbling sound shivers in the air. "Now you're being an asshole, Dorian."
"Of course. Along with everything else I'm good at, I have an excellent one of those to match. Really, it's a point of pride. I'll have you know that in some circles, the poetry abounds about its excellence. So round. So firm. So fully... packed."
The dwarfs snorts. "That's the worst joke ever."
"Made you smile though, didn't it?"
A chair creaks again. The longer she stands here, the worse she feels for listening in to what is obviously an intensely private conversation. Cassandra straightens, thinking to retreat, take the longer way around or even just to return louder so they will hear her and she can pretend she heard nothing of this.
"I believe in love," Varric says abruptly. "I hate it, I don't want it, I want absolutely nothing to do with it but yeah, I believe in it."
Cassandra stills, her body half turned to leave. Varric's voice had been low but raw. It nails her back in place somehow, a complicit shadow.
"There you go. That hardly hurt at all, did it?"
"Yeah. Nothing a few potions can't cure." She hears him pick up the bottle again and she imagines that he probably waves it to make his point. "I'm still right though. Love breaks things, Sparkler. You don't see it coming, hits you in your blind spot. Best part? You don't even care. The Maker Himself couldn't get you to care. And there you are, fifteen shitty years later, dead center of the wreckage and wondering what the hell you ever did to deserve being cursed with it."
The room is quiet for a long moment. Cassandra puts a hand to her breastbone and kneads with the palm of her hand to relieve the hurt that's lodged there. "She must be remarkable." Dorian voice is quiet enough to be sympathetic.
"Yeah, she is. You have no idea how brilliant she is." Varric laughs, a short, sharp sound. "In every single way. You know, I've got a standing contract with some people that nobody decent should even know how to reach that when I go to the Maker's side, they come find my crossbow? Because she made it. Because I can't risk it falling into anybody's hands, even a friend's. It needs to be destroyed if I can't do it myself. You don't want to know what else she's come up with. I don't even want to know what she could come up with."
"Surely you exaggerate."
"Wish I was, Sparkler. She'd be Paragon a dozen times over if Orzammar could get its collective snobby head out of its parochial ass. Statues of honor and crap."
"So. She's the Maker's gift to dwarven kind, you love her, she loves you, you take her to bed and voila, wine and roses for everyone. Except that doesn't look much like wine and I don't think roses are going to go with your complexion in the morning."
"It wasn't my idea. That's the other best thing about her. It's never my idea or on my schedule or any other damn thing. She shows up out of nowhere, drops a problem in my lap, I start looking over my shoulder for the assassins she could care less about because she's not the one that has to dodge 'em and I fix things like I always do. As a reward she turns up in my rooms afterwards. I hate that she picks locks better than I can."
"Assassins? That's kinky, Varric, even as foreplay."
"Yeah, well. Her family doesn't like me much."
"How very civilized, and us in the middle of backwater Ferelden. See, that's how you're supposed to deal with things. At a nice safe distance, preferably with the blade untraceably wielded by somebody hired through at least three intermediaries."
"That how you deal with things, O Great And Mighty Not Exactly A Magister. I prefer my answer to this problem, which is a little more sharp and immediate. I've had a drink with a couple, sent 'em back home to return the money with apologies. Others, well." She can almost picture the shrug. "I'm still here and have no intention of that changing anytime soon."
"And your Bianca does… what about this?"
"Fuck you, Dorian, not my Bianca." The air sizzles from the fire behind the words. "Fuck this whole conversation while I'm at it. She can't do anything without admitting what she can't admit. Not that I'd ever ask her to."
"Seems a little one sided."
"You only just figuring that out?"
"Now, now. Just making conversation."
"No, you're not. I'm not. I'm drinking and talking because a woman I have wanted all my life turns up in my bed thinking she doesn't need an invitation, because she doesn't. And she's there before I've fixed anything which worries the fuck out of me because that's not how this goes, that's not how this goes at all. But I'm too Maker blasted... fuck, I don't know. Weak. Stupid. Desperate, take your pick. Every time I get some piece of my life together, she shows up to blow it apart. Every. Single. Time."
"Well, far be it from me to state the obvious. Again. Since you're not listening. Are you listening, Varric?"
"Best part? Absolutely the best part of this is that I can't let go, I know I can't let go and while that makes me an ass, it's nothing new. But I opened my door and there was a woman in my bed and for a second, Sparkler? For a heartbeat it was someone else. Doesn't that just take the cake? I've loved Bianca all my life it seems like and she's not the one I was hoping to see."
"And now my whole damn room smells like sex and her perfume and I can't stand it." She hears the bottle hit the table again and something scrapes along the floor. "I hate you, I hate me and I'm going for a walk. See if I can't trip off a battlement by mistake. Tonight could not get any worse."
She has no time to move. She barely has time to take a single, startled breath before Varric appears at the top of the stairs.
He stares down even as she looks up. She has no idea what's on her face but his whirls through a hundred emotions. Horror, hurt, fury. It settles on pain. Varric barks out a short, strangled laugh.
"I take it back, Sparkler," he calls over his shoulder. "The Maker is definitely fucking with me in particular. Hello, Seeker. Shouldn't you be in your little Seeker bed, dreaming little Seeker dreams?"
"Cassandra?" Dorian's voice is astonished, pitching upwards. She can hear the mage scrambling out of his chair.
"Varric, I…"
The dwarf holds up his hand, already continuing down the stairs. "Save it, Seeker. Just.. save it. When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it, remember?" He brushes past where she's pressed herself against the wall. The curling fingers of a strong spirit reach out to caress her face and then he's gone. She takes a deep, unsteady breath.
Dorian's face appears over the half wall above and Cassandra stares up miserably. She has transgressed. She has transgressed badly and she knows it. She should not have stayed past the first moment she recognized his voice, not once she'd realized what they were talking about. The mortification feels like it stains her very bones.
"My dear Seeker. You have the most remarkable timing."
She shoves herself off the wall. She'd braced herself but against what, she's not sure. Varric had not offered violence. Past the first moment, he hadn't even looked at her.
"And how is that, Dorian?" she asks flatly.
"You just missed Varric. How you two manage to never connect with each other fuels an entire betting pool, you know. Do come up and tell me your secret."
She laughs because she can do nothing else.