"So, what then? Because I fight, you see me as a man?"

"Depends on if you're wearing the armor."

I wonder, vaguely, as we climb the last half-dozen feet of sharpened desert rock to our destination, if I should intervene. It's always difficult to tell if Cassandra is genuinely uncomfortable or just settling into her usual level of disdain, especially if the travel and the fighting has been particularly soul-sucking that day. Which it has. Although a dragon fight has left Bull in high spirits, the rest of us drudge back to the camp above the abyss with our feet half in the sand, Frederic's papers folder neatly in my front pocket.

"Are we back to this again?" Cassandra huffs. This causes a lock of her partially singed hair to fall in her face. "I have told you, it is not going to happen."

"Didn't mean to cause offense, Seeker-"

"We're back," I inform them both curtly. "Everyone, rest up. We've had a long day, so drink what you can and be ready to move tomorrow."

Cassandra looks ready to argue, but after a moment does as instructed, and heads to the scout's small fire pit. Bull only shrugs, nonplused.

When I'm sure bickering is firmly dispersed, the party each ambling in their own separate directions, I am free to go visit the horses. Doms wickers when she sees me, and I greet her with a rub behind the ears. The Keep can't come soon enough, not the least because I can start slipping her small apples from the supplies crates.

Blackwall's Anderfel Courser likewise greets him, snuffling into his neck until he laughs.

"I always hate leaving them behind," I admit to him. "Every time I come back, I think she secretly hates me."

"Better to end hating you than as dragon food," he notes sagely.

"That is true." Doms noses my hands until I open both palms and show I have nothing for her. "We did well enough without. Though Cassandra hardly seems in the celebrating mood."

"Hm," Blackwall notes. "I can guess why." When it's obvious I don't know what he's talking about, he says, "she'd rather I not be here. But she's determined not to speak to me, so she's taking it out on Bull."

"That makes sense, I suppose." After a minute of picking drybrush thicket out of horse-coat, I say, "she'll understand, in time."

"I don't think so, my Lord. Some wounds never heal, and I don't think this insult will be forgiven."

He sounds so despondent that I turn to him and look him directly in the eye as I say, "I am glad you're here, Blackwall."

He smiles softly, the chosen title a strange sort of comfort for us both. Maybe some day he'll be Rainier again, but for what I tell him is truth, and I'm happy to have the role he has chose at my side.

"Come," I say. "I think Bull's found something for the fire. We deserve a minute to sit."

"I'll be with you in a moment." He pats Geoffroy on his patchwork side. "Like you said, I want to take a minute to make sure he doesn't secretly hate me."

I nod and take my leave, suppressing a rather unprofessional smile as I join Bull at the fire.

It's not clear where Cassandra's gone, but Scout Maeda has obviously got her traps working in the end since there's a few fat hares waiting for us on a rock. On closer inspection, they're not so much fat as massive, lean and muscled from the wasteland. Oh well. It'll be better than another day of dried jerky, which is the only sort of ration that keeps in this heat.

I sit down on a flat rock and begin the delicate processes of skinning my dinner.

"Too bad you can't eat dragon," Bull muses, turning his own on a stick. "Feels like a waste when all we grabbed is some scales and a bit of bone."

"Don't you drink dragon blood on a regular basis?" I ask.

"That's a one time thing," he says. "And it was enough to remind me not to try digesting the stuff."

I shake my head, never sure how he manages that brand of crazy. A banner of personal pride is one thing, but Reaver rituals are on an entirely different. Usually, I try to keep out of Bull's strange customs, whether personal or Qunari, but something has been itching at the back of my mind. "Bull, about what you and Cassandra were discussing earlier…"

"What can I say? Dragon fight really gets the blood pumping."

"No!" I gag a little, due in part to the smell of raw meat. "Not that. I mean about the um…dudes your fighting companies acquire."

"We're priesthood technically, but yeah?"

It's my duty to keep the peace between members of the Inquisition, and I've found the best way to do that is to keep my opinions to myself, but… "I just don't quite get it. If your women are too good at fighting, they are simply women no longer?"

"Aqun-Athlok, not women," he says. "It's not like the tamassrans are doing any re-educating or anything. Anyone who joins is just one of the boys."

Like whenever we discuss the Qun, I find myself becoming irrationally annoyed. "Well, what if your tamassrans decide a man isn't an adept warrior? Do you take him from the battlefield and send him to go bake bread?"

"If that's how she best serves the Qun." He's getting annoyed with me too, though he's far too good of a spy to let it show. "Listen, you're thinking of this like it's some massive life change. The tamassrans figure these sorts of things out pretty early, they know who's going to excel where."

"I think Cassandra excels," I say. "Take her for example-"

"She was the original example." He twirls his spit.

My teeth grind, but I take care not to glare, instead tucking a lock of hair behind my horn. "Cassandra is a noble woman, and she fights well and dangerously. Today she landed the killing blow on a dragon that the rest of us did not dare, and she did so with her head held high afterwards. There is nothing masculine in the way she fights. She is beautiful, feminine, and still a force to reckon with."

He draws the crisp meat off the fire, juices dripping down into pit with a hiss. "I'm starting to think this is less about you being a cranky Vashoth, and more about you having the hots for the Seeker."

"I-" I feel I should flush at that. It hasn't been something that has ever crossed my mind before, but as he says it, it does seem like a fitting accusation. "I certainly find her…admirable. But doesn't everyone?"

"Maybe." He peels off a leg. "But most people don't get angry about how good-looking she is that they have to rant to their friends about it."

He has me there. I quietly skewer my own rabbit, and place it over the flames, meditating on the words that had slipped out my mouth a moment ago. Certainly I respect Cassandra, but I have also been thinking of her often, asking her to come with on nearly every excursion since the Winter Palace. She isn't like Shokrakar: blood on her teeth and her blade being her preferred state of being. Instead, she is honorable, commanding, honing her skills as a form of craftsmanship rather than pleasure, and I can't deny it inspires a certain sort of jealousy.

"Hey," Bull says when I begin my own meal and the others still haven't joined us. "Maybe talk to her tomorrow."

I wipe my chin with the back of my hand. "You think so?"

"Yeah. We've still got a long way to the Keep."