She made her way quickly up the stairs and through the main hall to take refuge in her own quarters. The architects just recently finished with it and all it contained was a bed (the frame was from Fereldan but the sheets and mattress were a gift from her aunt and uncle in Orlais), a desk and chair, and a stand with a wash basin on it in the back closet. She loved it, how it was so high up and close to the sky. She could open the doors to the balcony and just let the wind in, it was heaven.
But now she didn't want them open. She locked them shut in a hurry along with the door to her room, and threw herself in the back closet wantonly stripping off her sweaty clothing and dumping the cool water in the wash basin left over from this morning over her head. The water crashed against her burning skin and she shivered, trying to bring her mind fully down from the clouds.
When that didn't work, she abandoned the closet in favor of the bed; collapsing half on it and reaching down to start touching herself.
Frisky today, are we?
Dazai chuckled in her mind.
"Shut up," She growled, grabbing a fistful of sheets
You know I could help you with that…
Dazai offered, and the feeling of hands caressing her body underneath her skin began, it felt like the skittering of spider's legs across a stone floor... creeping and scuttling and scattering and…! The sensation tugged her violently out of her fiery haze and she immediately built up walls mentally around Dazai and his wandering hands.
When he did that, it reminded her exactly how close she was to becoming an abomination. All of her skin bursting to reveal a repulsive demonic larva that would no doubt turn on her friends instantly.
She sat up on the sheets and allowed her body to cool down, removing her hand from where it itched to continue its work.
A knock sounded from the door and Adalyn quickly drew the covers around herself.
"Come in!" She called.
She usually didn't mind being seen naked, but this was something different.
The guard came up the stairs quickly, gave a bow.
"I am sorry to wake you from your rest, Inquisitor." She said, eying Adalyn's slightly damp and very tousled hair.
"It's fine. Report?" Adalyn asked, clearing her throat and adjusting how the blankets covered her.
"Right, Cassandra looks like she might do Varric in, Your Worship." The guard said.
Adalyn sighed tiredly; she knew it would come to this sooner of later after Hawke's arrival at Skyhold.
"I will be right down to resolve the matter. And where, exactly, is Cassandra trying to do Varric in?"
"The forge, Your Worship."
"Thanks," Adalyn said tiredly, and the guard took her queue to leave.
Once the door had closed, Adalyn quickly stood and went to the trunk at the base of her bed and pulled out another change of clothes. She tugged them on as she jogged down the stairs and to the main hall.
Once she arrived at the forge she could hear the fighting. Cassandra and Varric were chasing each other around the table like in a game of cat and mouse. By the time Adalyn made it to the top of the stairs, Cassandra had pinned Varric to the table's edge.
"You knew where Hawke was all along!" Cassandra shouted,
Varric shoved her off and glared in retaliation, "You're damned right I did!"
Cassandra pulled her lips back in a snarl, "You conniving little shit!" She swung a sloppy hook punch from the right that Varric easily ducked under and retreated to the other side of the table to put something in between the two of them.
"You kidnapped me! You interrogated me! What did you expect?" Varric said, just about as angry as Adalyn had ever seen him.
This was not going down well without her intervention.
"Hey! Enough!" She raised her voice and stepped in between the two of them.
Cassandra looked betrayed for a moment, "You're taking his side?" She asked indignantly.
"I said enough!" Adalyn restated.
They're acting like children! I swear, if this Inquisition were a ship, so help me Maker, I would….
"We needed someone to lead this Inquisition. First, Liliana for the Hero of Fereldan, but she had vanished." Cassandra no longer shouted, she just seethed, pacing and glaring daggers at Varric.
"Then, we looked for Hawke," Cassandra continued, "But he was gone too. We thought it all connected, but no. It was just you. You kept him from us."
"The Inquisition has a leader," Varric pointed out, gesturing to Adalyn.
So this isn't about bringing an apostate mage in for punishment. Cassandra wanted the Champion of Kirkwall to lead the Inquisition?
Adalyn thought back to the first time she met Hawke up on the battlements. He had looked… tired. Like he had seen too much and done too much, and everything that he might have done cause him some form of regret. Hawke had made her feel very small, like a child playing pretend, waving her hand at the sky and pretending to lead, pretending to have the answers and the confidence.
"Must be nice to be young," Hawke had said, "When you're young you don't notice how pressure and expectations creep up on you until it's too late and you have no energy to fight off your demons."
Adalyn knew that she had seen and done terrible things, she knew she wasn't naive, that she wasn't a child, but talking to the older mage… She now knew that even if Varric had known that Cassandra wanted Hawke to lead the Inquisition, that the Dwarf would still have kept Hawke's location a secret.
Hawke was a man tired of running, tired of leading, tired of life itself it seemed.
Adalyn hoped she would not end up the same way.
"Hawke would have been at the Conclave," Cassandra argued, drawing Adalyn back to the present, "If anyone could have saved Most Holy…"
"No matter how much you want the past to change, Cassandra, it won't. You can only forgive and move on or waste your life dwelling on it." Adalyn said determinedly,
I know one or two things about holding grudges.
"Varric is a liar, Inquisitor. A snake." Cassandra spat. "Even after the Conclave, when we needed Hawke most, Varric kept him secret."
"He's with us now! We're on the same side!" Varric submitted in a final attempt at appeasing the warrior's wrath.
"We all know whose side you're on Varric. And it will never be the Inquisition's."
Alright! That's it!
"Instigating this fight won't help the Inquisition Cassandra." Adalyn turned on her, crossing her arms.
"Ha! Exactly!" Varric jabbed triumphantly,
"Oh, don't think you are out of trouble yet, Varric. In the future, you had best not keep anything else from us." Adalyn sent a pointed look at the Dwarf.
Varric let out a frustrated sound and sighed, "I understand."
Cassandra walked over to the table and stared down into the forge fires contemplatively,
"I must not think of what could have been. We have so much at stake." She said with the fire in her voice gone. "Go, Varric. Just… go."
Varric and Adalyn shared a look and he turned to leave, about to descend the wooden stairs and then he stopped and looked at Cassandra,
"You know what I think?" He said, "If Hawke had been at the Temple, he'd be dead, too."
Adalyn knew that what Varric said was true; Hawke might have died with the rest of them.
Varric turned away and began his decent, "You people have done enough to him."
He disappeared and Cassandra sat heavily down in a chair next to the table.
"I… believed him." She said quietly,
Adalyn went over, pulled up the other wooden chair across from hers and sat down.
"He spun his story for me, and I swallowed it. If I just explained what was at stake… if I just made him understand. But I didn't, did I? I didn't explain why we needed Hawke." Cassandra exhaled heavily and hunched forward in her chair, "I am such a fool."
Adalyn's lips twitched up in a smile, "We're all fools here, Cassandra. The Inquisition looks kind of like a walking Circus." She cupped her hands around her mouth and imitated a crier, "Step right up and see Warden Blackwall! He can consume vast quantities of food and empty a fully-stocked larder in a week! No one like him!"
She saw Cassandra crack a small smile and continued,
"Next up, we have the Tower of Mayhem! Duo: Sera and The Iron Bull. Watch in amazement as Bull tosses Sera from his horns over the line of battle as she shoots three exploding arrows into the enemies' assholes!"
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Cassandra said through choked laughter.
"More at home, maybe." Adalyn said with a shrug.
Cassandra seemed to relax, "I want you to know, I have no regrets." She said.
"If we had found Hawke or the Hero of Fereldan, the Maker might not have needed to send you. But he did."
Adalyn stood up and made way for Cassandra to stand up as well.
"You are not what I pictured. But if I have learned anything, it is that I know next to nothing." Cassandra admitted, standing and walking with Adalyn to the stairs.
"What did you picture me as? Taller? More handsome? Without blood magic? I don't think I could pull off being a blonde if that's what you pictured."
Cassandra laughed, shaking her head fondly, "No, you are fine as you are."
…
"You are most definitely not 'fine', my dear." Vivienne's heels clicked on the stone floor of the room they were practicing dancing in.
It was barely a few days since Varric and Cassandra had their fight. They were both working it out in their own ways but had yet to apologize to each other. Adalyn was working on getting them to make amends, but she couldn't do it so easily with the ball looming around the corner.
Vivienne tapped a finger to Adalyn's back and she straightened her posture.
The beautiful and accomplished mage had taken Adalyn under her wing, which meant tutelage on every noble house of Orlais, table manners, small talk, how to walk, and how to dance, which is what they were doing now.
Or attempting, anyhow.
Adalyn's hand switched back to hold Vivienne's from below involuntarily, causing the mage to sigh and step back, snapping her arms into a cross fold.
"I don't understand how you do not understand. You cannot lead a dance, my dear. If a man asks you to dance you simply must let him lead at all costs! It's social expectation."
Adalyn staggered back on her heeled shoes with a grumble, "So what if I lead? I can do it better than any man."
Vivienne cocked a perfect eyebrow, "I can't hear you if you mumble, no mumbling."
"I wasn't…" Adalyn's retort was cut short by the appearance of Josephine, Vivienne's assistant for Adalyn's instruction.
The Ambassador carried herself gracefully all the way to Adalyn (making her feel even more like a drunken ass in the heels she wore) and stopped to pose carefully with her quill at the ready.
"Inquisitor, I must know who you will have to escort you to the Winter Palace. I can arrange for only a limited amount of invitations, the limit is four, not including myself or the other Advisors, who are all going."
Adalyn gave it a second of thought and listed, "Vivienne, Cole, The Iron Bull, and Cassandra. What do you think?"
Josephine cringed slightly, "Cole… is a peculiar young man, and perhaps it would be best to keep him away from the nobility."
Adalyn nodded, "Well, I wasn't going to bring Sera."
"No," Josephine agreed, "That would be a disaster. Although," She said, posing to write down something on her board. "The Iron Bull?"
Vivienne scoffed and moved to the plush chair she had the servants bring down and sat down and leaned casually on the armrest, her body stretching languidly yet dangerously poised like one of those large black cats Adalyn had once seen in an island jungle.
"It is true that bringing him would insure that we have an intimidating presence at the least, but it would also degrade our social image. It is Orlais we are talking about here, Inquisitor." Vivienne commented, inspecting her perfectly manicured nails.
"True, but we must also keep in mind that a Qunari Ben-Hassrath may be able to gather information at the Orlisian court better than most, his abilities could be useful." Liliana said as she strode into the room holding a sealed envelope.
"Here are the official invitations, Josie." She said, handing over the envelope to the Ambassador.
Josephine smiled and turned to Adalyn, "Let us know your final answer as soon as you can, Inquisitor. I must send all the proper titles to the court so that we may be put on the announcer's list."
"Thank you, Josephine." Adalyn then turned to Vivienne with a delicate sweep of a bow, "May I be excused for the day, Madame De Fer?" She asked in her politest voice.
Vivienne gave her an once-over and a flick of the wrist, "That will be enough for today, my dear. You may be dismissed."
Adalyn grinned and shucked off the mandatory heels and headed out of the room for the Tavern.
She bounded through the door happily barefoot and whizzed past several people attempting to talk to her before catching sight of someone who she momentarily forgot frequents the tavern.
Krem.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit!
She dodged at the last moment to the left and in the direction of the bar instead.
He makes my knees weak, my head stupid, and my heart hurt… Why does this keep happening to me?
She whined internally, heading for the back of the Tavern to Bull's chair.
"Hey, Boss! How you doin'?" He called when he saw her approach, he set down his tankard; no doubt a cool drink to stave off the heat of training. Adalyn could smell the sweat on him from where she was.
She smiled in greeting and pulled up a stool from the corner so that she could sit across from him, plus her feet were starting to ache from the heels.
"I'm good, Bull. I was just wondering, we have to go to the Winter Palace sooner or later to prevent the assassination of the Empress, and I was thinking on bringing you as back up for muscle and spying. It's kind of your domain, right?"
Bull seemed thoughtful, "Orlisians, huh? Ugly bunch. I've been to a few of the really fancy parties before. Usually in a harness and leash, but-"
"WHOA WHOA BACK IT UP!" Adalyn held up a hand to stop his words in their tracks. "Did you just say 'usually in a harness and leash'?"
"Yeah," Bull said in an offhand sort of way that made Adalyn almost burst with infuriation.
"Under what circumstances?" She snapped, barely able to settle her temper.
"It's not worth getting mad about, Boss. I was just there to gather information, and I had the role of entertainment as my cover." Bull said coolly.
Adalyn stood, "You're not going." She said pointedly. "The Inquisition will not degrade any of their members to that level, nor will we condone it. I don't want people there to look at you and say terrible things, even if you don't mind it, it still hurts me!"
Adalyn remembered some of the looks Lockflint got for being Tal-Vashoth and the murmurs of 'Oxman' behind his back; it had sickened and outraged her. The Captain had to pick her up by the scuff of her neck and carry her kicking back to the ship to keep her from mugging the rude individuals.
And the collar and harness… reminded her too much of what she had been through.
She calmed down a little after some heavy breaths and said,
"I'm sorry, Bull, I'll find someone else."
Let the ominous music begin!
I'm officially changing the rating of this story from T to M due to smutty mischief later on in the plot.
Also please let me know if I do something you do or don't like, I really need third opinions and criticism and praise (I am a human being, too! A.k.a: pay attention to me!)
Thank you , thank you, for reading today's chapter.
S.T.