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Two knocks sounded against the banister, followed by a level voice, “Inquisitor, ma’am, there’s a man here to see you.”
A short elf, hair cropped harsh at the chin, stood at the very top of her stairs. Elayna did not have to look up from her desk to know it was Nell, her ever faithful, self-appointed squire. No one else in the Inquisition dared to open her door without knocking first, but Nell, raised alongside her in Clan Lavellan, cared little for human etiquette, and even less for standing at the bottom of the stairs. So they always came up and knocked on the banister, once, twice. A third time would be knocking for the dead. Nell’s knuckles thumped against the banister.
“A man?” Elayna put down her report and filed it neatly away into the pile for Josephine. A trading dispute, or something, that required the official signature of the Inquisitor. Perhaps because the Inquisitor was power or perhaps because Josephine was tired of signing on her behalf. Either way, she sighed and flicked a glance up at Nell who stood in some semblance of attention. Odd.
“Yes, ma’am, a man,” Nell repeated, their mouth turning downwards at the corners.
“Do we know this man?”
“Well, ma’am, he claims to be your husband,” Nell said. The word claims slipped across their tongue like a curse.
“My husband?” That manipulative piece of shit. Her fingers itched to snatch up the small decanter on her desk and down the whole damned thing, perhaps it would sand off the edges of the migraine that was starting to spike. There was only one man stupid enough to call himself her husband. She should have told Leliana about him. “I’ve no husband.”
“It’s what he claims.” Nell knows, Nell has always known. “Shall I send him away?”
Elayna paused and watched the clouds outside of her door for a moment. With a sigh she said, “No… no… I will see him in the courtyard.” Another pause, her mind sliding against a revulsion that threatened to drown her, “Nell…”
“Ma’am?”
“Please tell the Commander that my husband is here.”
“Ma’am.”
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He was smelling a flower when she finally made her way to the courtyard, his nose pressed to the petals and eyes half-lidded. Height was offset by broad shoulders and narrow waist. A warrior’s build. If only it contained a warrior’s heart. Elayna cleared her throat as she stepped in amongst the flowers and took up a seat at the low garden table. Someone had cleared it of its perpetual chess board. A shame for her hands could have used the distraction.
At her summons, the man turned to her and smiled, lopsided, head titled like a mabari, “A private audience with the Inquisitor!” He sounded genuinely pleased to see her, but the edges of his mouth tightened as a large shadow passed behind her shoulder. “A semi-private audience with the Inquisitor.”
“This is bold, even for you,” she could hear the flatness of her own voice. The way her mind and body disconnected. From her fishbowl vantage point, she surveyed the scene. There she was, tailored top and pants, bronze buttons catching in the midday light. Her hair, tamed back into its braid, resting on her shoulder. Her back was straight, her poise perfect, her mouth turned down in a haughty pout. Every bit the Inquisitor that Leliana and Josephine shaped her to be. There was power in disinterest. There was sword and shield in a carefully selected ensemble. Dorian would be proud. Sparking brass flashed from the other side of the courtyard as another shadow took up residence around her. In its wake a smaller shadow, equally adorned with brass.
“Bold has always been my forte, Little Mouse.” And she was fifteen again. Just like that. In a grass sea, out of sight of her Aravel.
“Why are you here, Henri?” Her fingers bit into the rusting edge of the garden table, paint flaking off where her nails scratched the surface. Two could play a game of names and he had always detested when she forwent her own nickname for him. The pup was in the lion’s den and she was little mouse no more.
“What no pleasantries?” Henri sniffed and dropped his flower, grounding it under his boot heel as he came to sit across from her at the table. His legs stretched out before him and he rested his hands behind his head. He looked at through his lashes, “No ‘how have you been?’ No ‘what’s life been like since I left you cold and alone?’ No sympathy for the things you couldn’t kill but left to die all the same?”
“You got better. Evidently.” Who was he to speak of death? What right did he have to come here? What right did he have to dredge up two decade old memories? Who was he to- the rustling of silk and creaking of leather drew her focus away from the delicate curve of his lashes against his cheeks. Two sets of footsteps, although from the shadows she saw three.
“I did. Though not without my share of scars.” He rolled his neck, burn marks traced up his neck and to the underside of his jaw. Ugly, raised things that did little to diminish the cut of his jaw or the ice in his eyes.
“Why are you here, Henri?”
“To lend the great Inquisition my sword and my prowess.” He smiled again and the world brightened, he threw out his hands and gestured to the walls around them. With a laugh, he continued, “I hear there is to be a fight, a glorious bloody thing. And I hear you are in need of protection, Little Mouse.”
“What use does the Inquisition have for a washed up Templar?” Grass sea. Wine. Laughter. Fire.
“Word on the mill is you’ve a great use, and want, for a washed up Templar,” Henri’s gaze locked to her left, “Although it appears you’ve a taste for the Fereldan variety. If the mill is to be trusted, that is.” There was a pause as he stared. “How is the Inquisition treating you, Knight-Commander?”
“You will not speak to him,” Elayna straightened but fought the urge to turn and look at the man who was at her back. He was one step shy of striking distance, a step she knew he could take with lightning speed if need be. There was a dying seed of hope that bloodshed could be avoided.
“I’m merely having a chat, one washed up Templar to another,” he laughed, the lopsided smile back, “You always were a sucker for a chantry boy, Little Mouse.”
“It is Inquisitor to you.” Desire. Hope. Want. Fire.
“You loved it, once, upon a time. The name.” To mistake his tone for want would be her undoing and yet the edges of it held a longing she could not deny. His next words were whispered, his eyes cast down to her hands, to the anchor, “You loved me once upon a time, too”
"The version of me that loved you is dead.” Screams. Smoke. Fire. Fire. Fire.
“But you admit then, that you once loved me.” Wine. A kiss. Need. Need. Need.
“I watched her die.” -screams- “It was slow and it was ugly” -fire- “and she deserved better.” Need. Want. Desire. Uncertainty. Familiarity. A boy. A girl. A grass ocean. Out of sight of the Aravel. Out of sight of the tower. Fire.
“I am here to help you, Inquisitor. We need not be enemies.” Panting. Tearing. Screaming. Fire.
“I would feel safer in the woods with little but a sharpened stick.” Need. Want. Desire. Uncertainty. Fire. There was a roaring in her ears. Was it from her own mouth?
“Does he know? Does he know about us? That I laid claim to you. That you are mine?” The words needled under her skin, tore back her fingernails, and burned. The glamour flickered. Scars traced her hands, burning up and up along the column of her throat, stopping just below the edge of her lip.
“I am no one’s,” Conviction was hard to come by as her throat closed up.
“Does he know? Chantry boy, do you know? Do you know about the fire?” His hand closed over her own that still scrambled at the table top. But his eyes, wide and wild in their excitement, were trained on Cullen, “Do you know about the children?”
“It is time for you to go,” the voice sounds like hers but could not be hers. For hers was somewhere in the sunlit rolling hills of Oralais, drowning and choking on blood.
Her gaze locked onto her shoes, utilitarian boots, shined bright by nimble hands. So much metal and waste in this gilded cage. There was the start of a line and the crunching of gravel. And then feet moving fast around her. Her shoes were remarkably well maintained despite the many miles they had seen.
The courtyard was quiet for some time. Not even the whispered warbling of a midday lark. Even the wind practiced penitence. Gravel crunched again behind her. A hand rested heavy on her shoulder, leather creased and discolored by the grip of a sword. He smelled like ink and sunlight. Her voice, now hers once more, came far too loud to her ears, “Thank you.”
There was a hesitation, as though his next words held in them a meaning he could not bear to part with, “I am yours.”
“What did you do with him?”
The hand on her shoulder squeezed once, twice, and then patted her back, gently.