A/N: If anyone has the overheard dialogue in the Great Hall between the two Orlesian nobles as the romance plot progresses, I'd greatly appreciate it - it's three sets of exchanges (I think), the first one after you first kiss about 'a classical alliance of noble names'; the second one after the sex scene ('We reach a climax' 'And not just us') and the third a bit later when they're discussing what they'll wear to the wedding.
"When I grow up," Fel announced, "I'm going to marry Ser Bear."
"Well," Killeen said, studying the racks of barrels. Five, six, seven …"He might be married to someone else by then."
"Then I'll be his mistress!" Fel said.
Killeen paused, turned. "Who's been telling you about mistresses?"
"Madame De Fire," Fel said.
"Madame de Fer," Killeen corrected. "It means Iron Lady. She talked to you about mistresses?"
"Not on purpose." Fel paused. "If she's the Iron Lady, what sort of Lady are you?"
"No sort. What do you mean, not on purpose?"
"Well," said Fel. "I was sort of looking around and I heard Madame de Fire - de Fer - and the Inquisitor talking and I was waiting for them to leave so I could go. And I couldn't help hearing."
"You shouldn't eavesdrop," Killeen said.
"I didn't mean to," Fel said. "But Madame de Fer said she was this man's mistress and his wife's friend. So, when you marry Ser Bear, I can be his mistress and we'll all be friends!"
"I …" Killeen paused, tried to work out where to start. "I won't be marrying Ser Bear."
Fel frowned. "Why not? He's your very bestest friend."
"Well, there's more to marriage than being friends." Killeen concentrated on the barrels. Four, five, six.
"Is there?" Fel asked with lively interest. "Pa tells Ma all the time that she's his best friend in all the world."
"You shouldn't tell me what you Ma and Pa say to each other," Killeen said forbiddingly.
Fel screwed up her face in a frown. "Why not? It isn't secret. They knew I was there."
"Just 'cos something isn't secret, doesn't mean it isn't private," Killeen said. "Fel, if I have seven rows of barrels each three high, how many barrels do I have?"
"Twenty and one," Fel said promptly. "How do you know something's private?"
"You don't always," Killeen said absently, marking the number on her board with her private symbol for 'suspected pilferage'. After a moment's thought, she added a tiny pair of horns to the symbol. It might be unfair, but missing ale made her immediately think of the Chargers. "So it's best not to talk about what you see and hear about other people too much."
"So I shouldn't tell you that I saw Ser Dorian sleeping on the walkway outside his room?"
Killeen paused. "Well, maybe you should tell me that. When?"
"Like, after breakfast. When I was finding you. Why is he sleeping outside?"
"I don't know," Killeen said, although she had a fair idea. "Let's go find out."
She tucked her board in her belt as Fel skipped off, leading the way.
Dorian was, indeed, sleeping on the walkway outside his room. More precisely, Killeen thought, he's passed out on the walkway outside his room.
She stooped and shook his shoulder, but the mage just mumbled something on a gust of sour ale, and turned his face away.
"Is he sick?" Fel asked.
"Sort of," Killeen said carefully.
"Should I get a healer?"
"No," Killeen said. "It's not a sort of sick he needs a healer for." She rolled Dorian over and searched his pockets, finding his key.
The mage opened his eyes as she was taking it from his breeches pocket. "Y're ver' pretty," he said, "but no' m' type, 'm afraid."
"You're not mine, either," Killeen said, holding out the key to Fel. "Run along and unlock the door, Fel. You know which one?"
The girl nodded and raced off.
"Why no'?" Dorian asked, pouting.
"I prefer my men upright," Killeen said. She pulled one of Dorian's arms over her shoulder, bent and heaved and got him in the rescuer's grip used to carry wounded from the field of battle.
"Picky, picky," Dorian slurred, and was sick down her back.
She carried him along the walkway to his room, where Fel stood holding the door open, and dumped him on his bed.
"I'm sorry you're sick, Ser Dorian," Fel said sympathetically.
Dorian opened one eye and peered at her, and then closed it and covered his face with his hand. "Andraste's secret girdle, is there a child in my room?"
"This is Fel," Killeen said, and with a meaningful look, "who is just leaving."
"But —" Fel started.
"Leaving," Killeen said again firmly, and Fel sighed and went. Killeen sat down at the foot of the bed and began to pull off Dorian's boots. "I thought you'd learned your lesson about trying to go drink for drink with the chargers."
Dorian gave a whimper of laughter that was almost a sob. "Maker, yes. No, I was —"
"Hurting, loving, angry," Cole said from the top of the dresser, and both Killeen and Dorian started, the mage with an undignified aaugh! "Mixed together, boiling until —"
"Cole," Killeen said as Dorian covered his face with his hands.
"I'm trying to help," the pale boy said.
Killeen sighed. "Your kind of help isn't what he needs right now."
"No," Cole said, face very serious. "What he needs right now is a bucket."
He vanished. Dorian lowered his hands, swallowed convulsively, and said in a choked voice, "I'm afraid he might be right."
Killeen saw the sweat spring out on his face. She grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up to lean over the edge of the bed and suddenly Cole was back, slipping an empty pail into place just in time as the mage retched.
Stomach empty, Dorian slumped back. "I never thought I'd say this," he murmured, "but thank you, Cole."
Killeen touched the boy's shoulder. "You helped," she said. "And you could help more by —"
"Yes," Cole said, looking into the pail with interest. "He should drink water. Varric always drinks a lot of water."
Then boy and pail were gone.
"Well, if this telepathy act ever gets old for him," Dorian said with an attempt at his usual lightness, "the lad has a bright future as a butler."
"Are you all right?" Killeen asked carefully.
"Oh, tip top," Dorian said. He struggled up on one elbow and began laboriously to shrug out of his leathers. "Just a little family matter. Felt the need to drown my sorrows but the bloody things seem to have learned to swim."
Killeen helped him. "Your family in Tevinter?"
"My family in Redcliffe, as it turns out." He got his shoulder free and tossed his gear to the floor. "Don't know what might have happened if the Inquisitor hadn't been there. Drawn staffs at twenty paces, probably. But she …" He sighed, and slumped back. "Seems to see the best in everyone, even my father. Which makes it hard to see entirely the worst in them oneself, you know?"
Killeen made a noncommittal noise, picked up his gear and shook it out.
"All this running around saving the world from ancient evil and she still finds time for family counselling," Dorian said. "If Varric wrote something like that, his editors would reject it as unrealistic, but she's real. All that kindness is real."
Well, of course it is, Killeen thought. Cullen wouldn't love her if she wasn't kind, as well as brave and beautiful. Silently, she poured a goblet of water from the pitcher on the wash-stand and handed it to him.
"Thank you." Dorian drained it. "Of course, letting a man be sick on you is also very charitable, lovely Lady Lieutenant."
"Hardly charitable," Killeen said dryly. "I have every intent of taking it out in trade."
Dorian laughed. "Promises, promises," he said. "Get your glorious Commander to take it out in trade, even better."
"I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree there," Killeen said.
"Oh, I know," Dorian said. "A man can dream, though, can't he? That hair! Those lips! After two or three hours solid scrubbing in a bathhouse, he'd be quite presentable."
Killeen resolutely did not think about Cullen in a bathhouse. "Do we really all smell so bad to you?"
"The whole country smells like wet dog," Dorian said. "It's hard to tell which bit of the miasma is the people. But yes, where I come from people bathe twice a day. All over, with soap." He raised an eyebrow. "Surely you've heard of it? Slippery stuff, makes bubbles, removes dirt?"
"Of course I've heard of —" Killeen stopped, gave him a level look. "You shouldn't tease a woman who knows just how hungover you'll be tomorrow."
"Oh, very true," Dorian said. His eyes closed, opened again. "Especially not one as ruthless as you."
"Get some sleep," Killeen suggested.
The mage was already snoring as she slipped out the door.
"Why do people drink so much if it makes them sick?" Cole asked from directly behind her.
Killeen carefully took her hand from her sword and turned, waiting for her pulse to tick down to something approaching normal. "Cole," she said calmly, "what did Varric tell you about doing that?"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I was being loud."
"Your loud and other people's loud is … never mind. What did you do with the bucket?"
"I put it back where I got it," Cole said.
"And where was that?" Killeen asked with a certain trepidation.
"The gardener's shed."
As if on cue, a cry of "Oh, for the love of —" came from below them.
Killeen sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers, and resolutely did not think any thoughts that might frighten or alarm the strange, pale boy beside her. "Next time," she said, "it would be better to clean it."
"I'll remember. Why do they, though?" he persisted, and then: "As bad as Fel how?"
Killeen started back toward the Great Hall. "With the questions. And the answer is, lots of reasons. Sometimes because they're happy. Sometimes because they're sad."
Cole drifted along beside her. "That doesn't make sense."
"People don't, often," Killeen said. "Surely you've realised that by now."
"Yes. Watching the way the muscles of his back move beneath the skin, a scar high on the left shoulder-blade, I remember when he got that —"
Killeen spun, face flaming. "No. Cole, no. Stay out of my head."
"But —"
"No. And don't you dare tell anyone, ever, what you just said." She groped for the right words to explain, settled for: "It would hurt me. Very much."
"I don't want to hurt you," Cole said.
"I'm glad. So you won't tell anyone, ever."
"All right," Cole said quietly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt."
"I know." Killeen made herself smile. "I know you didn't. Some things are very private, that's all. How people feel about other people, especially … especially those sort of feelings, is one of them."
"Is that why you don't tell him?" Cole asked.
Killeen closed her eyes. "Really don't want to talk about it," she said as mildly as she could.
"I don't understand people," Cole said sadly. "I don't always say things right, but I try."
Killeen counted slowly to three.
When she opened her eyes, Cole was gone.