AN: Have a shorty.

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There was nothing of interest when they got back on the road to Haven. Unless you counted that Tavaiya met Sera and Vivienne at the same time allowing no one to actually make sense of the mess as the two had yet to actually cease sniping at each other long enough to even look over..and it ended with the rogue giving Tam a flat unamused look. "They are bickering."

"Uh, they do that?" Tam offered weakly. He could see the flash of irritation to his favorite rogue but she did not leave, or threaten to come back after a while. Instead she took a deep breath, and her hands were on his shoulders.

"You need them? Alive I mean." The drawling out of alive was such a clear joke that it showed him no matter what, personal annoyances aside, she'd still follow him.

Tam grinned at Tavaiya, his body relaxing. "Yes. Sera knows 'people and things' in her own words and to be honest she's like a cruder more loud version of you so I can have you off to handle things when you get light sickness..and the way she flusters everyone makes me laugh. I need laughter..and Vivienne is powerful. You aren't a mage I know, but it just coils around her like serpents and I think I could learn a lot from her. She has experience with the circles and they have actual structured teaching instead of Solas's instinctive feel the Fade stuff.." He realized they hadn't had a while to really sneak off and talk in too long and Tam decided he needed to start making the group get together more often. Maybe Varric could start a weekly or twice a week Wicked Grace and Storytelling thing? He needed a way to spend time with his team, outside of travel and battle.

"Okay." And as before, Tavaiya just gave in.

Tam smiled and thought it would be so easy to fall in love with someone like her, but he knew it was not where his interest was. If anything, being the herald meant he now had freedom to not simply need to look at what was appropriate as a Dalish to continue the line, and his eyes were on Varric's chest hair even more than Vivienne's bare legs.

But someone like Tavaiya, who supported him and rolled her eyes at the stupidity? Where loyalty and humor trailed after her so heavily some times Tam felt like he could actually sense her? Tam thought he'd like that.

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Tavaiya's senses blurred as she stepped away from the humming of Tam's magic. She was slower, her hands shook ever so minutely and she recognized the signs right away. She could not take anymore of the suppressant.

It had wretched timing.

For whilst perhaps Tam called Vivienne's power coiled serpents he was not wrong. It was cold unyielding metal that made up the touch and taste of her power, and despite all of her entirely frightening powers it still was but a fragment of what she sensed from Solas. Solas's echoed, as if distant from him but still there and yet it would be nigh a month before she would be safe to take more of her concoction. Any sooner and she risked backlash that would make her more sensitive. She'd done that once. Adjusting back from that had been almost a year and she did not dare. So, breathing through the bind of Vivienne's power..more akin to the springs of a tightly laced corset which made ever so much sense when you thought of how Madame de Fer believed in control and with Vivienne's own fashion blatantly declaring it even as it distracted with patterns and styles it was exacting to the last stitch, Tavaiya walked over.

Someone, likely Varric, had managed to separate the two new ones and Tavaiya wasted no time in making her move. Best the mage first, rogues could be won over with much more ease at a later date. And though it was old she had history with Vivienne. The moment Vivienne's dark gaze was upon her, close, but not close enough they could clasp hands, Tavaiya shifted into not an Orleisan curtsy or bow but an Antivan one. Her rogue's attire would have stilted and stolen the elegance from the other forms and Fereldan was not formal enough. But Nobles of Antiva would clad the women in tights and pants just as often as the males and so there was an elegant twirl of her wrists -a look no weapons up my sleeves!- before one went behind her and the other in front, a tilt of her head that let her eyes stay riveted. Her chest lowered with her hips into a sort of half dip and her rear leg swept out behind her. Balance. She'd had Damian and his second when Marguerite was around instead of off in Tevinter show her that this bow could be used as a very effective way to attack and dodge. She had a permanent scar on her rib cage as proof of that. Rubbed with dye when healing so it would always remain. Crow's and their affections..

Vivienne's lips curved into something entirely sinful. This was a woman who knew power, knew the love of a great man and had never let that she was his mistress be used as anything other than a tool. She had taken weakness and turned it to strength. She had known Elan, teased the boy who had yet to venture into Orlais over his simpleton's ways when on a tour of Lord Seuine's holdings with Bastien, but then in her jibes directed him to better allies. Tavaiya had sewn or served in the great room as Vivenne took tea with her 'master' and a teen Elan. Tavaiya had held the hems of her attire as another slave had fitted her with them, because in such a household having the ears meant you were capable even if you belonged to another. It had been years since they had really seen each other and not just side stepped each other in the circles of Orlais, but Vivienne's mind was her greatest power and she watched those ebony orbs gleam as the pieces fit together.

"Madame." Oh she hadn't realized Vivienne was the Madame de Fer, or even the same Vivienne she knew because the dark beauty when on holiday with Bastien was a different creature, and that was the one she had met. Her own feelings of foolishness because, of course. She felt she should have known no matter how common Vivienne was as a name. Not even a rogue could know everything. Two dangerous women meeting and realizing they had let a piece of their great puzzle slip, assessing as they determined how to move on from here.

The Jackal bowed its forelegs, but the hind were crouched to spring and clasp jaws around a throat if there was a misstep.

The iron serpent reared up but her cobra's hood stayed down, not that she needed it when she could fling venom from a distance.

Adrenaline sang in two sets of veins, danger, danger.

"Ah, the elusive maiden who pulled aside the bastard son and proceeded to kiss him so thoroughly, only to dash away as he wore a mask that had caused her to think he was another. It's rumored he spent much of the evening seeking the coy fox filigree..yes, several bards thought to write terrible poems about it.." The mage coo'd and Vivienne held out her hand, fingers relaxed, wrist ever so delicately held. It was facing upwards, not down. Not offering for a courtly kiss but to draw the elf closer, as if they were currently surrounded by minstrels and frippery instead of horses and dirt. Tavaiya had to admire her for being able to do so.

"Jackal, not a fox, Madame. Properly registered and owned as such." Tavaiya took her hand, stepping into Vivienne's range and tucking the dark fingers against the black of her garbed elbow. And because she simply could "The orange varnish is splendid. It would look garish upon me..but striking."

Vivienne's laughter rang out in carefully controlled bell tones but Tavaiya could feel the tremors into the woman's powers that said it was at least.

A decision to work together then, and one perfectly sculpted brow raised on Vivienne's face as she matched Tavaiya's gaze. "I heard of young Lord Seuin's falling."

To show grief would be a forfeit in Vivienne's beloved Game but Tavaiya played along her own rules just as much as not. She smiled fondly and then dropped her voice, private for just them. "Death takes all of us in time, but many nights were spent fondly remembering Lord Bastien and his beloved lady, the one who made Elan actually start to think of dressing in something besides colors that blinded his own dogs."

Vivienne's hand spasmed warningly along her elbow before she sighed. The power coils shifted and now it felt almost supportive. "Beloved lady?"

"To us, there was never any doubt." Truth laced her tone for one needed only to watch the lord and his mistress to know that there was a love that if not kept so quiet would have made Cassandra's whole world. They had been some of the few to know the truth, two eager eyed teens forced to play host to an older man and his mistress.

"...thank you for keeping quiet."

"One does not show the most prized manuscript to the light, darling." Tavaiya drawled in perfect mimicry of Vivienne's statement years ago.

Another bell like laugh, she helped the woman upon her steed and sought out her own. Oh, handling the woman would be dangerous but they were going about this with an even understanding of what was and would not be spoken of.

"So what's this about poems from your kissing?" Varric asked in amusement as he rode over to her. She snickered. "No seriously, Secrets, it's all over the underbelly and taverns this morning when I went for a bit of the 'hair o the nug'. Though I'd describe you a lot less as 'gilded temptress and curves spilling out'..."

"They're painting me as a human?" Tavaiya asked curiously and he shrugged, grinning.

"And that's the part you look at. Yes, no one believes you were an elf but you did have your ears hidden under all those curls you pinned up. You'd think they'd know to look for the shoes.."

"I had a message to retrieve. I got it, and a bit too much time with the messenger."

"That bad?"

Tavaiya made a face. "I'd have thought he was Ferelden."

The reference was not lost on Varric as it was a line from his own stories about how Ferelden women and men most likely kissed like their dogs, all teeth, tongues, and drool. He roared in laughter. Curious glances went their way but Varric and Tavaiya were riding point, and easily avoided them.

"You often pass messages like that? If so maybe I should see about writing a few secrets down.."

"Rarely. Though being close makes it easy. A sleight of hand and there's paper in the bands, a belt, pocket..the gloves sometimes. Just handing it over is something they look for but few are such voyeurs to watch the rest."

Tavaiya had no idea she had been spied on the night before, if so she may have been laughing because never did Damian tell her things outwardly. He liked little ciphers and codes slipped against her skin to decipher and burn later. There was a point to being so handsy with each other. And so the apostate had no idea that the ones he had watched had passed on courses of action and things to mention should she find any of the crow's contacts. Now memorized and the ashes long gone with the morning's fire to heat the room.

"So, Vivienne is who you go for Secrets?"

"I figured another rogue would be more forgiving, and she's the sort of uppity mage who takes everything as a personal slight."

Varric's snort agreed with her. "Just a warning, Sera is all sorts of not right in the head. From some Red Jenny group and the fact she doesn't acknowledge that it should be plural and Red Jennies just riles me up."

Tavaiya blinked several times. "Oh. They're rather infamous especially in the alienage. Mix of all races that do lots of work for very weird pay off..but still they'll do things that the chevaliers and sort ignore setting to rights."

"You never met her?"

"No. Thank you for your vote of confidence Varric but I'm not everywhere that's what contacts are for."

"Ha! I could drink to that."

"You can drink to everything."

"Got your flask?"

Tavaiya handed it over.