I forget where I was going with any of this ever.

CH 12: In which Cassandra is spoken to, Bull can't technically wink, and nightmares are discussed

I awoke, as usual, when the sunshine's slow creep along my face finally made it to my eyes. I started with an audible snork and cringed as my retinas were greeted by the burning orb's blinding rays. Sometimes I was lucky enough to have shifted to a position with my face buried in my blankets or pillow, but today was definitely not one of those days.

Resigned to my state of wakefulness, I sat up and forced myself out of bed. The sounds of people yelling and swords clanging brought a lovely scowl to my face. The Inquisitor had decided that the bailey was to be used as a secondary training area, much to Cullen's and Cassandra's delight, and my consternation. I was pretty sure she did it under Solas' advisement. Solassssssss!

I took a moment so shake my fist in his general direction before making myself presentable. It was pretty easy, since there was no fancy hair or makeup products for me to have fun with. Hair goes up in the only elastic I had with me, face cream goes on, put on adult pants and shirt, enter the world to seek out coffee like a templar after maleficarum. The dirty 'c'. Morning juice.

I was pretty sure I was the only one who called coffee by those names. In fact, I only ever called it morning juice. I had no idea where 'the dirty 'c'' had come from...I banished it from my mind. It was no longer welcome in my brain space.

Cabot and I exchanged our morning grunts of acknowledgement as I took my beverage to my usual spot and planted my ass. I enjoyed a moment of silence as I stared at nothing in particular. It was nice to not have anything to do for the day. Lavellan hadn't done any huge feat of heroism as of late, so paperwork had become more scarce and easily taken care of by its recipients. That meant less (read: nothing) for me to do.

After the lion chess piece stunt, Cullen had brought me a creepy children's doll made of straw with burlap clothes and beedy black eyes that caught the light with a malicious glint. I was pretty sure it was actually a voodoo doll, but the hair colour was wrong so at least it wasn't supposed to have been me. He had meant it as a joke. Ha ha, how about you play with dolls instead of chess pieces, you weirdo. I used the doll to knock over all the chess pieces while bellowing 'HULK ANGRY HULK SMASH.' I then asked him if he could bring kittens next time.

He informed me that he would not bring kittens. Not ever. He also made me reset the chess board.

I kept the doll on my dresser, but made it face the wall. I couldn't fall asleep under the glinting stare of Satan's coal black eyes. I said none of this to anyone. My suffering was endured silently.

I was snapped back to attention when Cassandra entered the tavern. She looked quite flustered as she grabbed a drink from the bar. I caught here attention and waved her over. She seemed uncertain, but sat down opposite me.

"I meant to talk to you about something earlier, but forgot because forgetting is a talent of mine." She eyed me curiously while taking a drink. "Cullen mentioned to me a few days ago that you were acting a bit strange. That wouldn't happen to be related at all to a book that may or may have been co-authored by a particular dwarf and mage, would it?"

It took a mighty effort on her part to not spit take her beverage all over the table. "You know about that?" Her eyes darted about the room furtively as she leaned in closer. "Does he know about it?"

"Yes, and not a clue." I sighed. Still waiting for that to bite me in the ass somehow.

"It's even worse than Swords & Shields!" Cassandra's eyes were wide and bright with...excitement? Disgust? A combination of both? It was hard to tell. "And so much more graphic! That must have been the Tevinter's influence. I can't imagine Varric putting in that much effort explaining a-"

"Shoosh. I don't want to hear it." I rubbed my face and huffed. "I haven't read it. I will never read it. I simply know of it. And that's ALL I want to know." I could feel a blush rising in my cheeks. Ugh... "Look. If you keep acting weird around him, he's going to ask why. And then what, Cassandra?"

She chewed her lip anxiously.

"Yeah. You're not a good liar, especially not on the spot. The alternative, however, is to tell him why you're acting weird. I honestly have no idea how he'd react to 'oh, I just read a smut story with a character based off of you' as a response, but I guess you could find out if you want to." I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms nonchalantly.

"Noooooo..." Cassandra hissed quietly through her teeth. "That dwarf...this is his fault. If he hadn't brought that book to me..."

"Don't worry." I patted her hand gently as a gesture of support. "We'll get through this together. I suggest that you somehow seemingly link your behaviour to that other series you read. Tell him that you've found yourself lost in thought over the latest chapter of a book series you've been reading, and it's a bit embarrassing to be caught off guard like that." I smiled triumphantly. "Just a little lying by omission. He doesn't have to know that the latest chapter you got from Varric wasn't for Swords & Shields."

She pursed her lips in thought, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose that would work. Better than the alternative, at least. Although..." She narrowed her eyes slightly. "I have to wonder why it was so easy for you to come up with that."

I shrugged. "A lifelong hobby of mine has been contingency planning. Something happens, and my mind immediately comes up with as many plans of possible action as is plausible. As I said, Cullen mentioned this to me a few days ago, and I had assumed that the reason we just discussed was most likely the cause for your strange behaviour, so I took the time to come up with a few possible plans of action. The one we just agreed upon happens to be the easiest to implement."

She frowned slightly. "That doesn't sound like much of a hobby."

"Oh, and reading smut is?" I raised my eyebrows haughtily, but couldn't repress a grin as a blush rose to her cheeks.

"We're done here." She grabbed her drink and stood to leave.

"Have a wonderful day, Cassandra!" I called after her, a shit-eating grin plastered on my face.

Not a bad start to the day. One problem potentially fixed. Still hadn't figured out a way to get out of going to the Winter Palace, though. The smile slid off my face at the thought. The date was looming ever closer. It was like watching the blackened edge of a storm inch closer and closer, and you could do nothing but wait for it to hit and hope you made it through.

"You look pretty glum, Princess." Bull took up Cassandra's now vacated seat across from me. My nostrils flared in anger as he propped his feet up on the table. I covered the opening of my cup and watched small clumps of dirt fall to the table top.

"Is that my official Inquisition nickname, now?" I lamented.

"Aw, come on! It's not that bad. It's meant affectionately!" He smiled at me for a beat. "Mostly. HAH! Besides, I know plenty of girls who love to be called Princess, and treated like one. If you know what I mean." He grinned and blinked.

"Wait...was that a wink? I can't tell, because...you know. One eye." I shut one eye and pointed to the other, just to make sure he knew what I was talking about.

He rolled his eye and sighed heavily. "Yes, it was a wink."

"Maybe you should say so when you do it. Like, ha ha sex, wink wink. So people don't have to wonder if it was a wink or a particularly strong blink."

He rubbed his face with his hand and let out an exasperated groan as he lowered his feet to the floor. "I'd rather just leave it up to people to figure it out. I mean, there is a difference between winking and blinking."

"Well, yeah. You wink one eye, while you blink both. But you only have one eye. It complicates things."

"No, it doesn't. It's all about intention."

"I could get Dagna to make a googly eye and glue it on there. But then you'd always be winking. Hm..." I tapped my chin as I pondered his dilemma.

"This isn't a dilemma." He ground out angrily. "I have never had a problem with this before."

"Just because you haven't doesn't mean that somebody else hasn't." I retorted, not quite finished with bothering him yet. "Do you even care about how others feel? Or are you content to just winkyblink your way through everything, leaving swathes of confused but shy individuals in your wake, wondering if that was a blink or a wink? You're just a saucy flirt!"

He let out a bark of a laugh. "You had me going there."

"I still want to glue a googly eye to your eye patch. Just for shits and giggles."

"No."

I let out an over-exaggerated sigh. "Fine, fine. Have it your saucy, saucy way."

"See? That's why a few people like you!" He clapped me on the shoulder. It hurt. It was like getting slapped with a giant, damp, lukewarm slice of bologne. I must have had a pained expression on my face. "Oh, sorry." He gave me a much more gentle pat on the shoulder and smiled apologetically.

"I'll forgive you if you stop winking at me."

"And that's why some people don't like you."

I shrugged my shoulders apathetically. "That sounds like their problem, not mine."

"Ugh..." He got to his feet and dusted off the table. "I'll talk to you later."

"Whatever whatevs." I went back to drinking my coffee. Finally.

After I had finished, I grabbed myself some snacks and sequestered myself in Dorian's usual spot in the library. I had wheedled Lavellan into taking them into the field after I found out that she was going back to the swamp of the undead. They would be super miserable there, and it entertained me so. I curled up in the plush chair and slogged through a rather ponderous tome concerning Ferelden culture, as suggested by Leliana. She had told me that I would fit in quite well in Ferelden once I learned a few of their cultural quirks, and then she had winked at me. I knew she had winked, because one eye closed while the other stayed open. Unless she blinked her eyes independently of one another, like some sort of lizard or amphibian...I shook that thought out of my head. No. Too weird.

Soon enough it was time for my daily chess match with Cullen. I made my way down to the garden and waited patiently for him to show up. I wasn't waiting long. I had the board set up and ready to go. He looked at me, and eyebrow cocked. "No antics today?"

I shrugged. "The creepy doll's in my quarters. Where did you get that, anyway?"

"I think Blackwall makes them out of scraps he finds."

"We need to make that stop. That is a thing of nightmares."

He chuckled somewhat darkly. "Nightmares. Right."

"Don't really have nightmares." We had been moving pieces. I was already losing. Nobody was surprised. "I mean, I guess I have dreams that some people would consider nightmares, but I don't. They lack that oppressive feeling of fear that characterizes them. They are horrible dreams, though."

"Oh?" I had no idea why he seemed so interested in my fucked up dreams.

"Yeah. Like...this one time, I had a dream that I was storing a dead, skinned body in the basement of my parents' house. It was just lying there, on the concrete floor, in an open body bag. All dead and skinless. My dad yelled at me to get it out of the house. I complained, because it was light outside and people would see me moving this body. He didn't care and told me to get it out anyway, so I did. I only got it halfway down the driveway before I half-ass threw i under a tree and went back inside. The next day the body had been moved, and someone had left notes in all the trees saying 'I know what you did', like it was a secret. It was weird."

The disturbed look on his face told me that he had stopped listening after 'dead skinned body.' I probably shouldn't have told him the whole dream. Well, hopefully it made him feel a bit better about whatever he happened to dream about. Probably templar stuff. Or reading reports. Or calibrating trebuchets.

"I would like to point out that most of my dreams are of the normal and mundane variety." I quickly added as a disclaimer. "It's just the really weird ones that get stuck in your head, you know?"

"Yeah..." He stared at the chessboard intensely for a long moment. "How do you deal with them?"

I pursed my lips in thought and gathered my words, gently shepherding them into a coherent response. "When I was young, I had a recurring nightmare about being murdered at a summer camp. That dream haunted me every night for weeks. Then, one night, I realized in my dream that I was dreaming, and I created and exit for myself. I succeeded in escaping. I never had that dream again." I paused. "I'm not entirely sure if that resolution was due to a brief moment of lucidity during the nightmare, or the resolution of a problem I had in my waking life, or a combination of both. But I can say that I have, on a few occasions, been able to influence my own dreams by realizing that it was a dream and changing certain elements. For example, I had a dream where I was being chased by a monster. I realized that I was dreaming, and actually changed the entire setting of my dream to something far more pleasant. I've only done that once, though. It's called lucid dreaming."

"Lucid dreaming." He echoed quietly, still deep in his own thoughts.

"Yes. I've heard that practice makes it easier. There's lots of techniques out there that are supposed to make it easier, but they're...involved. I had mild success after telling myself as I was laying down to sleep that I was going to dream soon, and that I am in control of my dreams. It wasn't completely lucid dreaming, but I did have very brief moments of lucidity on occasion. If I had kept practicing that every night, I would probably have been much better at it by now." I gazed at Cullen questioningly. His brows were furrowed, and he was still staring at the chessboard with unseeing eyes. "Are you ok?"

The phrase seemed to have snapped him back to reality. He shook his head slightly and looked at me, his expression somewhat pained. "Yes! I...no." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck ruefully. "Would you care to walk with me?"

"Uh, sure."

We walked together up to the battlements in silence, the death glare of thinking planted firmly on his face. People gave up a wide berth. We stopped in the quiet corner by the stables, and he stared out at the mountains for a long moment.

"I haven't slept well for years." He started. "Ever since Kinloch Hold...those memories have haunted me, every time I close my eyes."

That explained his almost terrifying work ethic, at least.

"Nightmares." I breathed quietly. "I understand. I read a bit about the fifth blight. The stories were vague, of course, but had enough details for me to be thankful for that fact." I chewed my bottom lip nervously. "Solas doesn't like me."

Cullen blinked at me, obviously confused.

"It's related! He doesn't like me because I don't have the same connection to the Fade as most of you do. It's there, so I'm not quite like the dwarves, but it's inaccessible to him, and that upsets him. So I dream differently. There's no demons to prey on my past, only my own asshole subconscious. So it's different. But Solas...he's a dream walker. That's his shit. He might be able to help."

Cullen pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Whoah, ok. I'm not saying you have to ask him to help." I held up my hands in conciliation at his angry, piercing glare. "I'm just saying it's a possibility. You could also try lucid dreaming. Not sure how being all up in the Fade would affect that, but it's worth a try." I put my hand on his shoulder and smiled. "And if you ever want someone to talk to, I'm always here. My ears work WAY better than my words do. Listening is my natural state. I'm going to shut up now."

He put his hand over mine and managed a soft smile. "Thank you."

We stood there for a moment, just smiling at each other like a couple of knobs. "So, does that mean I won at chess today?"

He laughed heartily at that. "I was going to checkmate you in three moves."

"Shit."

That was a thing! A thing that happened! That was a thing that haaaaappened!

Yeuch...I keep writing sappy poop. But I'm Canadian, so at least the sap can be maple syrup. Amirite?

Feel free to leave a review! I'd love to hear from all you wonderful people!

Please.

(I'm so alone ha ha ha haaaaaa)