A few hours later, Fae shivered as she used a damp washcloth to bathe herself. The fireplace had gone cold an hour or two prior, and Fae's breeches clung damply to her legs as she wrestled them back on under her shift. Holding her court slippers in one hand and her room key in the other, she padded down the hallway barefoot as quietly as possible. She found her room, and inserted her key in the keyhole. It wouldn't budge. She tried wriggling the key, removing it and trying again, but no luck. She took a surviving hairpin from her head and tried to use it like a lockpick like Varric had showed her, but it was a fiddly task and her hands were being irritatingly clumsy right at this moment, still cold-numbed from the washcloth.

The sun was still an hour or two away from rising when Leliana woke, feeling as if she'd only just closed her eyes a second ago. She heard the telltale clinking and scraping of a lock being picked. The bard rolled over, eyes still closed, innocuously taking hold of the daggers under her pillow in her 'sleep.' The lock clicked, and Leliana slowed her breathing. The door swung open without a sound, but then there was a heavy thud on the carpet, and a whispered "Ow!" followed by an irritated whimper.

Leliana opened her eyes. "Fae?"

Fae sat up, rubbing her knee which had taken the brunt of her fall. "Leliana?" She whispered blearily. "What are you doing in my room?"

"This is my room."

"…Oh. That explains why my key wasn't working." Fae got back on her feet and yawned behind her hand, padding over to the bed. She drew back the covers and flopped down unceremoniously beside Leliana, burying herself under a pillow. "G'night."

"The Iron Bull… really?"

"Shuddup, Leliana," came the muffled groan. "Lemme sleep."

"Why didn't you sleep there?"

Fae's head partly re-emerged from the pillow. "…I tried," she said quietly. "It was—he, was, wonderful. He is, I mean, really, um…"

"Wonderful."

"Yes. And then he fell asleep, and I tried, too. But, I couldn't. I wanted to. But I couldn't. So I came back to my room. Well, your room. Sorry." Fae's head disappeared back under the pillow again.

Leliana frowned. "Then go back to your own room."

The pillow didn't do much to muffle Fae's consequent grumbling. "You're so mean, when did you become so mean?"

Leliana closed her eyes to calm her temper before she said something that would prove Fae's point. When she opened them, Fae was already asleep, the pillow rising and falling steadily.

The spymaster huffed, turning over and taking the blankets with her.

The next time Leliana woke, it was to sunlight streaming through the gaps between the heavy curtains, still drawn over the windows. She heard a quiet clinking noise behind her. A weapon. Her hands found the hilts of her daggers as soon as the thought occurred, and she flipped over, ready to fight. Then she saw the true source of the sound.

Fae was lying on her back, apparently still asleep, mumbling and twitching. A thin layer of ice had taken over the bedsheet below her prone form, and though her eyes remained closed, her face was streaked with tears. One fell from her face and froze on its descent, clinking lightly as it landed on the frosted sheet below.

"Fae," Leliana whispered, shaking her shoulder gently.

Fae's arm suddenly shot out, flailing desperately. "N…not…" Her eyes opened, squinting, and her breathing became rapid, each breath visible in the cold surrounding her.

Leliana ducked the arm and caught the other as it swung towards her. "It's just a bad dream, it's ok," she soothed. A distressed mage meant unpredictable magic. A sleeping distressed mage with unpredictable magic was worse. Neria's nightmares of the Archdemon Urthemiel came to mind. Where Alistair would wake sweating and panting from his nightmares, Neria's hair would ripple with static lightning. Her fingertips would singe her bedroll and making the loose dirt beneath thrum with the same energy.

"No, no," Fae's eyes finally focused on Leliana, and her face crumpled. "You don't understand, they're already here—They—they took me, they were going to—the brand-" she choked out. "You can't let them, Leliana, I'm not ready, please—"

"It was just a bad dream," Leliana repeated again. "It's not real, we're in the Winter Palace, remember? You were asleep, it's alright." Fae took a few gasping breaths, looking around the room.

"A dream?" she asked hesitantly.

"That's right."

"It's cold." Fae looked down, and saw the ice beneath already beginning to melt. "Oh, Maker, I'm sorry, that's not—that doesn't usually happen—"

Leliana moved over to make room for Fae to shift away from the ice.

"It's alright," Leliana reassured her. "You had a nightmare. Here, lie down." Fae lay back down reluctantly, drawing the sheets all the way up past her nose. "I'm sorry for waking you up," she said glumly through the fabric, staring at the ceiling.

"You didn't. I was already awake."

Fae didn't say anything, so Leliana filled the silence. "You've had nightmares like that before."

The elf nodded. "Not for a long time, but yeah. Not like this, though. The magic isn't usually real." One hand peeked out from the blanket and waved around in the air for a few moments. "This is… also weird."

"What is?"

"The ambient magic, just hovering around like that. Usually, when you conjure something real, you gather the, uh, energy, around you, just long enough to push the force back out as a spell. It's fine, now, though. I dispelled it."

"I see. Do you want to talk about it?"

"About ambient magic?"

"The nightmares."

"Oh. Not really." Fae's breath shuddered as she exhaled.

They lapsed into silence again. Fae eventually stole a glance at Leliana. To her surprise, the bard was smiling to herself.

"What?"

Leliana shook her head slightly. "It's nothing. It's just that this reminds me of our time together during the Blight. You'd come into my tent sulking whenever Neria and Zevran wanted their alone time, with your bedroll and your muddy boots. They were so tiny," she mused. "You were tiny. So small, and so angry."

"Well, yeah, that hasn't changed so much," Fae conceded drolly.

Leliana chuckled quietly. "Neria was like that too. I remember this one time, when we were in Denerim- it had been a rough day. I'd finally confronted Marjolaine, and Alistair had met that awful sister of his, so Zevran told us he knew a place that would cheer us up. When Neria realised that we were in a brothel, with a child among us, I thought she was going to reduce Zevran to ashes right then and there," she chuckled. "And then you went and said something like 'I'm grown up enough to know what a brothel is, Zevran told me!' I can't remember what you thought it was, but luckily for Zevran it was innocent enough to convince Neria not to kill him."

Fae grinned despite herself. "I kind of remember the brothel- that's where we met Isabela, isn't it? I don't remember that conversation, though. I remember how you were, too. I thought you were Andraste Herself, come back to save us from ourselves." Her smile faltered. "I shouldn't have said what I did, before. You're not mean, and I did sort of just barge into your room. That wasn't fair."

Leliana shrugged. "No, it was. People call me much worse than just mean, now, and it is true. I was trying so hard to be like her, back then. Like someone the Maker Himself wanted. It was a lie."

Fae shook her head at the ceiling. "No, it wasn't."

"It was."

"You weren't pretending to be kind to me. I was scared and you were kind. Don't let Andraste or the Maker take the credit. They didn't braid my hair."

"And then I used the love I gained from you with my kindness, by bringing you here to use as a political tool," Leliana said flatly. "That is who I am, that is who I always was. I grew up and stopped pretending."

"And I let you bring me here," Fae sat up, scowling. "I grew up and stopped pretending too. You were the Right Hand of the Divine, her spymaster, you think I followed you here because I still thought you were the nicest shem I'd ever met, with no agenda at all? I followed you here because you're family to me and I wanted to help you, that's who I am. Besides, what would you have done if I'd refused to join the Inquisition?"

Leliana sat up as well. "Eventually we would have found you, and I would have asked you again with a dagger at your throat."

Fae shrugged. "Maybe, but not because you wanted to. Because you would have forced yourself to. You are ruthless as Morrigan, don't get me wrong, but like her you've always had a heart anyway. Even if you've convinced yourself you don't want it. You have a heart just like your Andraste."

Leliana scoffed, nodding to the painted ceiling above them, where a golden urn swirled with tiny dotted yellow flames. "And look where it got her."

"I mean, as long as you don't plan on marching on the Imperium, you should be fine," Fae grimaced. "And, for the record, I also know what a brothel is, now."

Leliana gasped in pretend shock. "How did you find out?"

"Oh, you know," Fae sighed, still staring up at the ceiling. "I was raised by Isabela."

Leliana giggled, and Fae grinned again at the thoroughly un-mystical sound.

"Who'd have thought finding that would eventually lead us to this?" Fae nodded to the urn painting above, her smile fading.

"Nobody ever said the Maker does not have a sense of humour."

"A fucked-up sense of humour."

"Mm."

"Leli?"

"Mm?"

"Did you ever go back to the Denerim Alienage? In your work as the Left Hand?"

"No, I didn't. Why, are you concerned for—?" Fae shook her head quickly, and Leliana let the question drop.

"If there was something to know, my birds would have told me," Leliana reassured her. "I have eyes and ears everywhere, you know that."

"I want to send them what I can, at least," Fae whispered back. "If I can. Do you think we could do that? Safely, I mean."

Leliana nodded, sitting up to stretch. "Of course. Now, breakfast."

A/N: One more short chapter ^-^ Before I flee back into the night again, I did want to mention a couple of things too-

With the story so far, I have stayed fairly close to canon compliance- I love the canon world of Thedas overall, and this project is at least in part because of how much I love it. But! I'm not necessarily married to the canon, and I have tweaked things here and there but there's a good chance of this story becoming less in line with the official canon as we go, without giving too much of my current scheming away :)

Having said that, I feel like it's a good time to gently mention again that this is very much still a work in progress, so I personally consider everything a first draft- this is something I do for trying things out at my own speed, but also because it's fun and I like it :) And it absolutely makes my whole day to see other people liking it too, it's so exciting and encouraging beyond words 3 Ok that's everything see you later bye 3