Thank you all for reading! Special thanks to suilven for her excellent betaing.
Cullen rearranged the chess pieces in the garden, setting up a familiar problem from his childhood. He couldn't help but smile, thinking of Mia and how very much she had hated losing to him. That one match had set up quite a rivalry between them … until he had chosen to join the Templars, at least. He didn't think Mia had ever truly forgiven him for removing himself from the other side of the chessboard.
Just as he moved the first piece, a shadow fell across the board, and he looked up in surprise to see Morrigan standing there, watching him, her arms folded.
"I—" It was awkward when she did not speak. "Would you like to play?"
"Thank you." She took the seat across from him, and Cullen tried to pretend he didn't see her loose top swing away from her breasts as she leaned forward to make her move. Interestingly, she seemed either unaware of or uninterested in what was revealed beneath her clothes, her eyes on the board. He was used to women who tried to get his attention, and used to women who weren't interested in his attention, but completely unused to a woman such as this, who put herself on display with such utter indifference to the reactions of those around her. He supposed it was admirable? Except that it was hard to imagine Morrigan doing anything truly admirable.
"Are you going to sit there lost in thought, Commander, or are you going to take my pawn?" she asked coolly.
He had been about to take her pawn, but thought better of it now, if she was expecting it. Surveying the board, he forecast probable moves and counters, and decided to take the pawn anyway. It seemed the best choice.
Morrigan smiled at the move, her own following swiftly. Not a woman who wanted to spend a lot of time considering, then. Cullen's own style was unsurprisingly more deliberate, and she would simply have to wait for him.
"Do you intend to be with us in Skyhold for long?" he asked her, hoping her response would fill the time while he considered.
"Until Corypheus is defeated." Her tone indicated he was a fool to have thought anything otherwise.
"Of course." Blast it, couldn't she have had more to say? Looking up, he could see she was amused by his irritation, and he deliberately calmed himself.
"It is the one admirable trait in you Templars, your attempt at control over your emotions. Of course, that control breaks rather quickly under the correct … provocation."
Cullen looked up, alarmed. Was she referencing the Tower? He didn't want to think about the Tower.
"I apologize, Commander," she said, with every appearance of sincerity. "I did not mean to bring up bad memories. I meant quite another type of provocation altogether."
He nodded, accepting the apology, certain that she wasn't trying to provoke him in the way she mentioned, either, and made his next move.
Morrigan countered almost immediately, her eyes on him rather than on the board. "The pieces move thus across your War Table, do they not, Commander? And no doubt in your orderly mind, as well, each change in troop position forecast as far ahead as you can plan."
"Yes." Little point in denying it; he was proud of his careful and deliberate use of his army. Men would die under his command—they had a right to know he had taken every consideration possible for their safety.
"What is your plan for the Arbor Wilds? Are we to attack Corypheus there?"
Cullen removed his hand from the board entirely, sitting back. "I prefer not to discuss such things outside the War Room."
"As does the Inquisitor. He seems remarkably difficult to pin down even in the War Room."
"Part of his charm."
"So I am told. Corypheus will not wait forever, Commander."
"We cannot attack someone we cannot find. Perhaps you should bring your inquiries to Leliana."
Morrigan snorted. "As though Leliana would tell me the color of the grass."
That being true, Cullen could only shrug, indicating there was nothing further he could do. "You seem very anxious about it."
"Corypheus threatens us all, does he not?" But there was more to it than that. Cullen had been lied to by a great many mages in his career—this woman, for all her power and aloofness, was really no different. There was something in the Wilds she wanted very badly.
He made a note to mention it to Leliana and the Inquisitor, and made a final move on the board. "Check-mate, I'm afraid."
"So it is." But she didn't look at the board, and she seemed very amused, leading Cullen to wonder as he left the little pavilion exactly how many of his own upcoming moves she had forecast.
"You know this is a foolish thing to do," Nathaniel pointed out in a very soft voice.
Leliana waved at him impatiently. "Just keep an eye out." She was going through papers in the desk of Lady Vivienne, and finding nothing of any particular use to her.
"If she has magical wards, she'll know you were in here."
"If you keep talking, the entire keep will know I am in here."
He grinned and shut up, letting her finish her task. Frowning, she studied a page of alchemical notes on … restoring lost youth? Typical Vivienne, vain as they came, she thought.
"Nothing?" Nathaniel asked.
"Nothing."
"Then let's go."
They left Madame de Fer's room, heading down the hallway together. At a sudden noise around the corner, Nathaniel pushed Leliana back against the wall and kissed her, covering her body with his.
After the initial surprise, Leliana couldn't help noticing how warm he was, how wiry and strong his body was, how practiced his kisses. He was teasing at her lips with his, the very tip of his tongue tracing a path across her lower lip until she opened her mouth to him, sighing at the contact of their tongues. It was interesting, this duel, as he retreated and then parried her tongue and advanced again. For a moment she had the upper hand, then he did, and she found she didn't entirely mind.
At last he pulled away, grinning at her. "I think they're gone."
"Who?" she asked, feeling dazed. Too dazed, really—the Spymaster of the Inquisition couldn't afford to be so affected by a simple kiss.
"Whoever was coming."
"We weren't doing anything," she snapped, her anger rising. "How dare you compromise my reputation that way?"
He chuckled. "You broke into the private quarters of one of the Inquisitor's companions out of some paranoid certainty that she's trying to place herself on the Sunburst Throne—as if a mage has a chance in the Void, even now—and I'm the one compromising your reputation? Maybe you should think about that … Nightingale."
His thumb rubbed softly over her lip, his smile for once reaching all the way to his eyes, and then, before she could think better of the sensations that filled her again at his touch and bite the offending thumb, he was gone, whistling as he walked away. Whistling.
What an infuriating man.
Varric frowned at the page in front of him. How long did it take a Qunari body to bleed out? Donnen Brennokovic needed to know … and Varric Tethras didn't. He sighed in frustration—just when he was on a roll, the words flowing, he came to this question. And he couldn't go on without having it answered.
He hauled himself out of the chair, arranging his papers carefully so no one could peek. Most people accepted him as a fixture in the main hall and the denizens of Skyhold made certain no one pried into his papers, but occasionally he saw someone go by craning their neck to look at what might be on the top page, and he liked to take temptation out of their way.
It should have been a quick trip up to the library and back, but as he opened the door he heard a familiar giggle, light and frothy and free, and he smiled. It was nice to hear Daisy laugh like that. Then he frowned, realizing that if he could hear her from here, the only person she could be laughing with was Chuckles, and Varric didn't trust the elf enough to be comfortable with Daisy's increasing affection for him.
He deliberately made his walk heavier so they would hear him coming, and came into Solas's atrium to see them sitting together on the sofa. Merrill had her feet curled up under her, tucked back into the corner, and Chuckles seemed more relaxed than Varric had ever seen him, leaning against the back of the sofa with his arm stretched out on top of it. It wasn't a lover-like pose, but something about Chuckles' affect struck Varric as … masculine, which wasn't a word he generally associated with the elf.
Daisy looked up at him, her green eyes shining. "Varric, you have to come hear this story. Solas was telling me about a village he dreamed in where—"
Chuckles sat forward. "I am certain Varric has better things to do with his time than listen to my stories."
"I love a good story," Varric said. "I thought all of yours were serious, though."
"Occasionally I have found humor in my travels. It is all too rare."
"There's the Chuckles we all know and love. No doom and gloom today?"
The elf shrugged. "Corypheus remains a threat. The Inquisitor has taken from him his demon army and with it his dreams of conquering Orlais, which eliminates both military and political means to rebuild Tevinter as he wishes to do. The Elder One will need to demonstrate that no one in this world can stand against his magic. He will not be subtle."
"He never has been," Varric agreed.
"Is the Inquisitor ready?" Daisy asked. The light had gone from her green eyes, and now there was a softness, a worry, that Varric remembered from Kirkwall days. He felt like a heel intruding on a moment that had driven her cares away … but he didn't trust Chuckles, not with a heart as delicate and fragile and sweet as Daisy's.
Chuckles shrugged. "The Inquisitor is a remarkable man, but even he will have difficulty standing against an ancient magister and prevailing."
"He's done it before," Varric reminded him.
"Yes." A frown crossed the elf's face, some inscrutable concern that he didn't pass on. "I cling to that hope."
There was a silence, none of them certain what to say. Varric saw Daisy's hand reach out, hovering above Chuckles' shoulder, and then she drew it back, looking troubled. Perversely, that made him feel better. If Daisy felt something off about her fellow elf, perhaps she was in less danger from him than Varric imagined.
"I'll … I've got to go look something up," he said, making his way on through the atrium, leaving them behind. But he couldn't leave the disquiet behind, or the sense that there was more to Solas than he let on.