10. From anonymous, 178 words. Trevelyan, Cole.
—
A shadow falls across the path as she steps out into the courtyard.
—
She's tired enough that she can't quite place it at first, the enormous blobby thing atop it skewing her perception; then she realizes it's Cole, and Cole's hat, and she looks up in time to see him hop off the low ledge that runs along the gardens. "Cole?"
"Something happened," he says, blinking rapidly. "In my mind. I saw things that weren't true, that didn't make any sense."
Oh, no. The last thing she needs is a—well, whatever Cole is now—on the verge of hallucinations on top of everything else. "What did you see?"
"Memories. Not anyone else's, but mine. Evangeline, lively, living, letting me go, letting me grow. Burning, brilliant bone: a dragon, but not. I was naked," he adds at the end, and Trevelyan pauses.
"Cole," she says very slowly, because if she's wrong… "were you…asleep?"
"Like falling in battle," he says, and cocks his head. "Only nobody hit me this time."
"Okay." Trevelyan looks up, repressing her smile, and down again. "Okay. Come with me, Cole, and let me tell you about dreams."
—
.
11. From sparklemagpie, 106 words, and incidentally, the only one I managed to keep to five actual sentences. Trevelyan, Inquisition spoilers.
—
"No no. Wait. Give it a minute. I want to see what she does..."
—
"She's the one person entirely indispensable in this entire war, and you want to see what she does?"
Josephine laughs, leaning out the window, and Cullen shakes his head as he watches over her shoulder. Below in the courtyard, Trevelyan has propped her fists on her hips, obviously perplexed by the creature before her; Cassandra stands at her side, just as obviously annoyed. She says something that makes Trevelyan shrug, then throws up her hands.
"I will admit that it's one of the most unlikely things I've ever seen," Josephine says at last, and below them the enormous, improbable war nug snuffles blithely through the grass.
—
.
12. From sekritjay, 262 words. Trevelyan, Dorian, Sera, Bull.
—
Considering the gravity of the situation, it was surprising to all that the loudest and most histrionic of their party could only respond with a curt "Oh, fuck."
—
"What," said Trevelyan, very carefully and very precisely, "am I supposed to do now?"
They all considered. Halamshiral had stood upon the precipice of disaster from the start, every Orlesian dandy present slavering to see the Inquisition attempt to negotiate the dance of the Great Game with feet more suited to stomping through Dalish plains than fitting into jeweled slippers. Weeks of meetings with Josephine and Leliana, of practicing the newest dances and the oldest ones, the sheer indignity of being fit with the garish scarlet suit–
And now this: the Herald of Andraste, leader of the iconoclastic Inquisition, the first mortal to walk in the Fade in a thousand years–strung upside down on a trellis in the middle of the Empress's garden by the seat of her pants.
"Fuck," Sera offered a second time, and Dorian stifled a cough that sounded remarkably like laughter.
Trevelyan closed her eyes. "If you do not get me down immediately, Pavus, I will let Sera do that thing she's been wanting to do since she met you."
Sera gasped, sharp and high and delighted; Dorian choked. But Bull came to her rescue in the end, one enormous hand giving her just the push she needed to twist herself against the trellis and find her own purchase between the (thankfully) thornless roses. Trevelyan dropped the last few feet to the earth, smoothed her jacket, and drew in a long, slow, steadying breath.
"Tell me," she said at last, "that my trousers are not torn."
There was a long pause.
"Fuck," Sera said, and Trevelyan sighed.