Lady Josephine Montilyet, scion of her family house, former bard of the Mirrored Court and serving ambassador to the Inquisition, had a vast wealth of diplomatic experience to draw upon; and a grasp of etiquette second to none. During her tenure with the Inquisition, she had handled the petty demands of insecure nobles, whilst also expertly handling the public stream of invective from the Chantry, as well as managing the day-to-day issues that arose when several rival factions resided under one roof. Each of these demands she had juggled skilfully and simultaneously; her smooth and tawny Antivan forehead un-creased and a polite smile never far from her lips. Often, she could be glimpsed navigating the warren-like corridors of Skyhold, scribing a letter to an Orlesian chevalier, dictating contrasting correspondence to an attendant scribe, whilst also placating the whines of an unhappy noble. Josie – as she was known to her closest friends – was a calm and unruffled presence in the centre of Skyhold's constant whirlpool of activity.

Thus, it came as a surprise to Beatrix Trevelyan - the figurehead and fulcrum of the current iteration of the Inquisition - to discover her friend in a state of considerable panic one frostbitten Kingsway morning. The Inquisitor had roused herself at the usual time, bathed in poorly-heated water, dressed in her customary simple leathers and set out from her upper chamber to attend the customary morning briefing.

Beatrix, the daughter of a Marcher lord who had found herself leader of the Inquisition through more chance and happenstance than intent, had accepted the task of closing the Breach with reluctance. When the task was further complicated by the arrival of the twisted magister Corypheus, the Inquisitor lamented her misfortune – she was desperate to cross the Waking Sea and return home – but grimly accepted this additional responsibility.

The lady Trevelyan did not have much patience for the hundreds of refugees flooding into Skyhold's crumbling embrace. Beatrix had never liked socialising, and found the constant stares and whispered observations from the huddled masses tiring. She wore a glove to disguise the lurid green mark that seethed on her palm, ducked conversations and kept to back corridors as much as possible. At first Beatrix had not understood why Warden Blackwell had shunned a chamber within the main keep, choosing instead a draughty loft above a rear stable – now, after months of residing in the public eye, she understood well enough.

The air on the battlements tasted sharp and cold. A glacial wind from the peaks of the nearby Frostbacks gleefully explored Skyhold's crumbling towers and bastions. The Inquisitor pulled up the collar of her functional leather jerkin against the autumnal bite, and headed inside the main keep; angling herself like a blade towards the briefing room. She passed several of her companions as she headed through the derelict halls – the Orlesian mage Vivienne raised an elegant hand from an armchair beside the fire, perched on an upper balcony, the dwarf Varric called out a jovial greeting - but Beatrix did not stop.

The sooner I arrive, the Inquisitor thought to herself. The sooner it'll be over with.

Josie knows how I am; she'll keep business short and to the point.

Then the commander and I…. he can brief me on how the new recruits are coming along.

The Marcher lord's daughter allowed a small smile to play about her lips; hoping that her cheeks were not also betraying her excitement at seeing Cullen Rutherford once more. The Inquisitor and her commander had circled one another tentatively over the past few months, making the most hesitant of approaches. The previous night, he had confessed that he had been thinking about her; stumbling slightly over his words.

The curved corners of Beatrix' mouth contorted into a grimace as she came to a halt within Skyhold's war room. Dappled, jewel-toned light fell across the vast slab of oak that dominated the chamber; surrounded by attendant chairs in mismatched wood.

Only of these chairs was currently occupied. It supported the drooping figure of a woman whom Beatrix was more accustomed to seeing constantly on the move; whirling through Skyhold in a cloud of appeasing, charming, persuading and dictating. At this current moment, Josephine Montilyet was leaning back in the chair in the classical posture of a damsel in distress, fanning herself with trembling fingers and attempting to draw air into her lungs. The Inquisition's spymaster, known to most as Sister Nightingale and to her companions as Leliana, was leaning over her with rare amusement writ across her face.

"Breathe, Josie," she was murmuring, in a kinder voice than she was wont to use. "Breathe. The end times are not upon us, no matter what you might think."

Several yards away stood the commander of the Inquisition forces, looking distinctly uncomfortable. His face bore a redness that could not be entirely attributed to the fur draped around his shoulder, and he shifted from foot to foot in a perpetual nervous rhythm.

"Has the Breach opened up again?" asked Beatrix Trevelyan, only half-joking. "Is Corypheus at our front door?"

"I would almost rather that he were," replied the ambassador in her rich, delicately accented tones; a distinct tremor running through her words. "At least then I would not be responsible for preparations."

The mistress of spies tutted, disapproval writ across her hard-lined, yet still lovely face.

"Come on, mon ami. You ought not compare my old companions to our current worst enemy. Besides, did you not predict that this might happen?"

"Don't soften the strike," chided the Antivan, casting a reproachful look towards her friend. "They are not merely 'your old companions'. They are the King and Queen of Ferelden. And one of them is the Warden who ended the Fifth Blight."

She fanned herself ineffectually with slender, be-ringed fingers. Beatrix, still oblivious as to the cause of her ambassador's concern, found herself growing a little irritated. Cullen had not even acknowledged her entry; he was still gaping into thin air, eyebrows lodged within his curly hairline.

"What's going on?" she repeated, a fraction more sharply. "What's that about the Fereldan king?"

"He's coming here," the lady Montilyet responded faintly, gesturing towards a crumpled sliver of parchment discarded on the map table. "King Alistair. He wants to inspect the Breach for himself, and to meet with the leader of the mages."

Beatrix thought on this for a moment, a small crease forming on the bridge of her nose. The dappled light cast across the map table strengthened as the sun rose higher beyond the leaded glass.

"You're good at your job, Josie," she said eventually, still somewhat nonplussed at the former bard's loss of composure. "Surely the king is just another noble to handle? You must be an expert at that by now."

"Not just the king," the ambassador said, a trifle dazed. "The queen too. And their children."

"How many children?"

"Eight."

"Eight?!"

Beatrix mouthed her shock across the room. Cullen had still not caught her eye, he was now grimacing – unseeing – at a mouldered painting of a Mabari that hung on the far wall. Josephine gave a forlorn nod, turning her dark, soulful eyes towards them.

"Eight children," repeated the Inquisitor, faintly. "She's barely my age. They must divide their time evenly between the Landsmeet and the bedroom."

"I have no chambers suitable for a king and queen, let alone a little retinue of princes and princesses," the ambassador bemoaned as though she had not heard a word, rising to her slippered feet and ticking off each of her woes on her fingers. "The roof weeps like an abandoned suitor. Will they expect banquets? We only just have enough to feed ourselves and those whom we shelter. There are holes in the walls!"

The lady Montilyet clasped her cheeks in horror, envisioning some tiny blond prince tumbling from Skyhold's crumbling foundations. At this, the spymistress herself decided to intervene; clearing her throat with her usual Orlesian inflection.

"Enough of this caterwauling," Leliana interjected briskly, though there was a soft tug at the corner of her mouth that Beatrix could not remember seeing before. "I once knew Alistair and Florence well. They won't care for draughty chambers or leaking roofs, as long as there's a place to build up a fire. No banquets will be necessary. And the children can share a room."

The Inquisitor darted a curious glance at her spymaster from the corner of her eye. It was well-known that Sister Nightingale had once travelled with the Hero of Ferelden as part of her retinue, but that had been a decade ago. By her own choice, Leliana now chose to keep much of her past sealed tighter than an Antivan lockbox.

"Eight children," spoke up Cullen in a tone of disbelief – the first time he had uttered anything since Beatrix had entered the war room. "I knew of the Twins, of course-"

"Everyone's heard of the Twins," interrupted Beatrix, vaguely annoyed that he had barely spared a glance in her direction since she had entered the room. "She was ripe with them on her wedding day."

The wedding of King Alistair to the lady Cousland had been the one and only time that Beatrix Trevelyan had set eyes on Ferelden's royal couple. It had taken place a decade prior, only six weeks after the ending of the Fifth Blight. All of Thedas' leading families had been invited, and – despite Ferelden's reputation as a backwater nation two Ages behind its neighbours – most had accepted, curious to see the bastard king and his bride. Beatrix could remember little from the occasion itself, but the lady Cousland's face had stuck in her memory like a burr on a woollen cloak.

Josephine turned startled eyes on the Inquisitor, one artfully plucked brow rising to her hairline.

"I didn't realise that you had actually met them," she said, reproach at Beatrix' failure to mention such a momentous fact mingled with a faint tinge of jealousy. "What were they like?"

Beatrix thought for a long moment, aware of the heat of Cullen's amber-tinged gaze.

"I only met them for a brief moment," she replied at last, recalling the heat and noise of the great hall within Denerim Castle; the barking of dogs mingling with the laughter of men and the pouring of ale. "He… he had the look of their old king- "

"Cailan?"

"More so the one who expelled the Orlesians. Madoc?"

"Maric," corrected Cullen, and was quickly shushed by the ambassador.

"Ssht! Continue!"

"And I remember thinking that I'd never seen a man more delighted to find himself entangled in the bonds of marriage," Beatrix continued slowly, the bright blaze of happiness on King Alistair's face breaking the surface of her memory.

"And she? The Hero of Ferelden?"

Beatrix snorted, remembering the impudent question that her own younger self had thrown at the newlywed queen; who was sitting at Alistair's side so close that she might as well have been perched on his lap.

I asked her why she had taken her unborn child to war, the Inquisitor thought to herself. And she replied that the child was strong, like it's father.

Her voice startled me: it was gentle, and hoarse, and shaped by the common cadence of a peasant.

"She was smaller than I'd expected. And I remember thinking that she seemed much too pretty for war, like… like a little doll."

The spymistress, who had relocated herself to the great glass window to gaze out at the sweeping alpine majesty of the Frostbacks, barely disguised her snort. Beatrix ignored Leliana, angling her words towards the ambassador.

"Anyway, do we really have to host them here now, Josie? We've the Orlesian question to deal with, the situation further west – this is hardly the time for a diplomatic visit."

"And we can hardly say no to the King of Ferelden," replied the lady Montilyet, the earlier panic having dissolved like an early morning mist. Already the machinations of the ambassador's quick mind were working like a Val Royeaux timepiece, calculating the best course of action. "He and his family will be arriving in two weeks. With your approval, Inquisitor, I'll have the east tower cleared out and prepared for them and their retinue."

"And any vast holes in the masonry boarded up," reminded Beatrix, enjoying the ensuing twitch of indignation on her ambassador's face.

"Naturalmente!"

There followed silence for a few drawn out moments; elongated like a dressmaker's silken thread. Beatrix stole a glance at her commander, subtle and pointed. He returned her silent query with a brief nod, still mired in his own thoughts.

Vaguely annoyed, but for no clear reason that she could name, the Inquisitor wandered across to one of the great leaded windows. Putting her face close to the glass so that her view was not segmented into diamonds, she gazed down at Skyhold's courtyard. Scant vegetation clung to the mouldering ruins, but the foliage that had managed to find a foothold in the alpine conditions was beginning to curl and fade. Autumn was fast approaching, although the fortress was located high enough in the Frostbacks that seasonal changes were less apparent. In the cobbled square below, she could see a motley collection of the Inquisition's current guests. Two priestesses, no longer welcome by the Chantry but reluctant to abandon the traditional garb, sat conversing on a bench. The sisters cast occasional dark looks towards a nearby soldier, who was assailing a training dummy as though it were Corypheus himself. On closer inspection, Beatrix realised that it was no ordinary soldier, but one of the mercenaries belonging to the Iron Bull. The vast Qunari was leaning against a nearby pillar, the column barely seeming sufficient to support his weight. He was also earning his fair share of disapproving glances from the former Chantry sisters. As if alerted by a flickering of the Qun, the leader of the Chargers turned to glance up at the war room windows, high overhead, his thoughtful gaze narrowed against the autumnal sun. Suddenly irritated with Cullen for his studied aloofness, Beatrix raised a hand of greeting.

Before she could see his response, the stillness of the war room was broken by the entrance of an apologetic steward.

"A message for the lady Montilyet," he murmured, inclining his head demurely.

The Inquisitor's eyes narrowed as she tracked the progress of the folded parchment, from the steward's leather glove to the elegant olive-hued fingers of her ambassador.

"This had better not be any more royals coming to stay," she offered, returning to drum her fingers irritably against the slab of carven oak. "Don't tell me, the Empress of Orlais is at the front door."

Josephine let out a delicate snort, shaking her head.

"The keeper of the jail is asking when – respectfully – the prisoner Gregory Dedrick will be placed on trial. Apparently, the cells are full!"

"Then build a bigger dungeon," retorted Beatrix, impatient for the briefing to be over. "Who in the fel is Gregory Dedrick again?

"The mayor of Crestwood," replied Leliana quietly, from where she had settled herself in an armchair. As usual, the spymistress seemed to be privy to every piece of correspondence within Skyhold, regardless how minor. "The one responsible for sacrificing his townspeople during the Fifth Blight."

The ambassador, maintaining her façade of careful neutrality, turned questioning eyes on the Inquisitor.

"When ought I schedule his trial, lady Trevelyan? It can be at your convenience."

Beatrix let out an impatient hmph under her breath. Out of all the duties and obligations required from her as reluctant leader of the Inquisition, sitting in judgement pleased her the least. She had spent a lifetime being judged by her Chantry-fearing family, and now felt exceptionally unqualified to pass judgement on anyone else.

"This afternoon," she said at last, reasoning that there was no point in delaying it any further. "Perhaps when the king arrives, he'd be happy to oversee these trials in my place. I'm tired of them."

"Then the jail would stay overfull," replied Josephine, wryly. "His wife has a reputation for mercy, does she not? And she is his closest counsel."

"Not always," murmured Leliana from the corner, the faintest hint of a smile in her words. "I once saw her plant a hook into a man's privy parts and then pull until all came tumbling out."

The commander and the steward winced in unison as the Inquisitor visibly brightened.

"Now that would be a way to liven up court proceedings!"

OOC Author Note: OK so this is how I envision this working- alternating one chapter from Beatrix' perspective to cover the main events of Inquisition (since this is her story!) and then the next chapter from Flo's perspective. Then we can keep moving the plot forward, while also having Flo, Alistair and their family interacting with everything. Obviously there's going to be some canon fuckery going on, since that's my thing :D :D The main canon thing I've altered so far is not having King Alistair rock up at Redcliffe Castle in the aftermath of the mage recruitment quest – reason being, he doesn't travel without his family and the Hinterlands were still a war zone at that point. So I'll make it Eamon who showed up there instead. So Alistair hasn't met Fiona yet!

We actually met Beatrix briefly in the Bloom After The Blight – she was a guest at the royal wedding! She's the classic girl brought up in a religious family who turned rebellious as an adult, and who is very unhappy at the responsibilities now thrust upon her :P I wanted an Inquisitor who was a lot sassier/feistier than my poor, gormless Flo, hahaha. I also wanted to create someone who wouldn't just stoically shoulder the burden, like Flo did. Someone a bit more rebellious!

Speaking of Flo, she and Alistair have been pretty busy in the past ten years. EIGHT CHILDREN! Well, Alistair wasn't joking when he said he wanted a Mabari-style litter of kids, lol. To be fair, they had three at the end of TBATB – the twins, and the Chasind orphan they adopted – and then they've had five more over the past nine years XD

Next chapter – we reunite with 30 year old Flo, and 31 year old Alistair! :D

Replying to reviews in the reviews, thank you so much! And thank you for being patient with the slower pace of updates, I'm still waiting on the burst of energy that I was PROMISED in the second trimester, ahahaha. Now I'm pregnant, I can't believe all the shit I put Flo through when she was up the duff, lol. Sorry babe!