Making Friends
You refuse to spend the night in the healing tent. There are too many people around, and too many of them think that you fucked yourself into serious injury. This is a rumor that actually needs to be counteracted, but it’s the sort of thing that picks up steam the more you deny it. A spicier rumor to distract would work, but you’re not sure what you can come up with that’s spicier than “that oxman, I hear he plowed that knife-eared linguist into the healer’s tent!”
The healers advise you to stay off your leg, but you limp stubbornly across the courtyard, towards your room. According to the healer, you hadn’t torn any muscles, just wrenched your stupid hip right out of its socket. In other words, you’re fine, at least by your standards. Life would continue as normal, with another irritating rumor floating around Skyhold about you and your perceived sex life.
“Can’t even so much as talk to a man without them pairing us,” you mutter sullenly to yourself as you stumble into your room. “Who’s next? Dorian?” You scoff and fall onto your bed. “Perhaps he, Bull and I will become involved in a ménage a trois? Ugh.”
Your hip aches in the cold, and your scratchy blanket offers little comfort through the night. You find yourself thinking longingly of Solas’ soft, giant couch, seemingly designed to be slept upon. And that soft, brown blanket, and the inviting scent that still lingered on it…
Stop.
You really need to end this childishness. These pathetic crushes will be the death of you… They’ve gotten you into trouble before. Remember Aimée. Remember how that ended, you think furiously to yourself.
Solas is no Aimée, your mind whispers back, traitorous as ever. You angrily roll over as if you can give your own thoughts the silent treatment. It’s a long, miserable, uncomfortable night. You doubt you sleep even a single wink.
You rise long before dawn, finally unwilling to spend even another minute tossing and turning in bed. You dress, sullen and stiff, before wandering out into the courtyard. Your hip is more unwieldy than painful now, and you make a beeline towards the training yards. You really need to hit something, after the evening and night you had. Your hip can take another one for the team.
You’re relieved to see Iron Bull in your regular training circle. Alone, no prying eyes to spread creatively altered tales of what the two of you got up to in the wee hours of the morning. The ache in your chest only intensifies when you see him, however. You almost immediately throw yourself into beginning to stretch, but it seems Iron Bull isn’t going to let you stretch in contented silence.
“I hear you damn near broke your hip yesterday. Is your hair faded because you’re going grey?” Iron Bull quips at you.
“Don’t make me punch you before I’ve stretched,” you say with a grunt. “I fell down the goddamn stairs, if you must know.”
“That’s not the version I heard.”
“Oh, no…”
“I heard you and some Qunari were fooling around, and—“
You let out a long, loud, frustrated groan. “How popular is the story?”
“The whole tavern heard it. There was cheering.”
Your groan turns into a bit of a whimper. “Oh, Maker. How long before it goes away?”
“I give it a couple weeks, as long as you don’t do anything else hilarious,” says Iron Bull with a shrug. “Don’t worry too much; I’ve been involved in colorful rumors before.”
You glare up at him. “Rumors like this can have bad side effects for elves, especially elven women.” You sigh, then begin stretching again. “I’d best learn how to punch better, then.”
Your finish your stretches in peace, and then the sparring begins. When did it become sparring? Once, this had just been you striking at a dummy, or at Iron Bull. Now he blocks, and intermittently he’ll try and place you in a hold. What was once simple training is now a dance of striking and dodging, trying to land a hit and avoid being grabbed. If you stop to think about it, you might freeze at the thought of fighting a Qunari, but in the moment, it feels joyous, especially when you manage to twist around and land a strike on Iron Bull’s unguarded stomach.
It’s not all easy, however. Soon, Iron Bull’s blocks turn into block-and-shoves, and you wind up with your ass in the dirt more than once. By the end of it, you’re dirty and exhausted, although you’ve no hope of catching some sleep.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be about me beating you up?” you pant, leaning on a fence post. “I feel like we’ve lost sight of that.”
“We can still do that whenever you want,” he says with a grin. “You know I won’t deny you a chance to turn some of that inner rage into outer rage.”
“Fine, then. Let the Chargers know and find us a reasonably private place this afternoon,” you say with a smirk. “Maybe I can put these rumors to rest if I knock you down enough.”
He snorts. “Little thing like you? You won’t even be able to knock me over once.”
“Oh? You didn’t seem that tall when I broke your nose.”
The two of you continue to banter at each other as you walk to the mess, get your meals, and sit down next to Thea. Her eyes dart between the two of you.
“I just worry about you losing face in front of your men, Bull,” you’re saying when you catch a glimpse of the look on her face. “…What?”
“Well, you know, Emma, I’ve known you long enough to think twice when I hear a weird rumor…” Thea says, haltingly. “But…”
You place your head in your hands and lean against the table. Not this again.
“’S just… Hard to tell, with you two!” she protests. “I mean, the way you’re goin’ on right now…”
“Fighting, Thea,” you say through gritted teeth. “We’re talking about fighting.”
“We’re talking about a lot of things,” interjects Iron Bull with a smirk.
“You shut up,” you hiss. You turn to Thea, trying to remain even-voiced. “Whatever you heard, Thea, is obviously not true.”
“Well, you are walkin’ pretty good for someone with a messed up hip,” she muses.
“I did injure myself yesterday, but it was from falling down the stairs,” you say tensely.
“What, really?” she asks, looking concerned. “Are you alright?”
“I am. The rumors hurt worse than the injury, honestly,” you say with a sigh. “I suspect they’ll last longer, as well.”
She gives you a comforting pat on the arm. “Don’t worry too much about it, love. I suspect the worst you’ll get are snickers. It’ll pass.”
In truth, you don’t notice even that as you make your way up the stairs and through the Great Hall. You’re still as invisible as always. Whatever rumors may be floating around Skyhold, they’re still not enough to make you recognizable. You’ve often thanked the Maker for the pointed ears that make you beneath notice, and you find yourself doing so once again. Being an elf can be a curse, but you’ve long since found that it can be a blessing, as well, if one knows how to use it.
You never make it to the rotunda, however. Your pointed ears cause you delay once more, as none other than Madame de Fer snaps her fingers as you pass her.
“You… elf.”
Your blood freezes in your veins as you halt, and it feels like it takes you an eternity to turn on your heels to face her, the blank expression of servant on your face. “Yes, my lady?” you ask with a submissive bow of the head.
“I require assistance with my wardrobe. You don’t look busy. Come with me.” Her imperious tone is one you’re used to hearing, and you curtsy in deference and follow her brisk pace up the far stairs, avoiding the rotunda.
Her room is near Solas’s, you note with some amusement. That must positively steam her, though in truth her quarters are much grander than his, if only due to her effort in decorating them. You wonder if she, too, has one of the enchanted baths. There is a human woman waiting for her, Orlesian by her accent. As bundles of fabric are shoved into your arms, it becomes apparent that she is a seamstress.
You have never once in your life been to a seamstress, as customer or helper, but you don’t find the role difficult to grasp. You’re more or less a prop, holding things that need to be held and following orders to grasp this or buckle that. All the while, Enchanter Vivienne yammers on about this function and that Marquis. You keep your pointed ears perked to every word as you help the seamstress with measurements, every inch of you hanging with royal sea silk and fustian velvet.
At the very least, this puts to rest your fears that Madame de Fer might recognize you. If she has not by now, she’s not going to. You utter only “yes, serah” and “at once, my lady” as you focus both on completing tasks competently enough to remain nearly unnoticed, and on hunting through Vivienne’s words for something of use.
You learn little that you didn’t already know. Dear old Duke Bastien is ill, an honest shame. Grand Duke Gaspard is still up to his tomfoolery… You bear no love for that man, or his foolish war. You’re not as stupid as your city-dwelling brethren—you know things had been improving for elves in Orlais, in small steps, before Gaspard decided to make elves the center point of his idiotic, ill-conceived dance for power. Empress Celene had, in fact, been oh-so-slightly soft on the elves—and you suspect you know why. Not that she could be forgiven for using elves as a political pawn any more than Gaspard. If the both of them died tomorrow, your only grievance would be that it would send Orlais into chaos at the worst possible time.
After the first few hours, your hip begins to ache fiercely… too long on your legs after an admittedly severe injury, though you would never confess that aloud. The burning ache reminds you of your first year in Orlais, however, and combined with the barked orders from the seamstress and cold arrogance from Madame de Fer, you find yourself feeling nostalgic. Vivienne is tight-lipped in comparison to many of the nobles of Orlais—an elf was furniture, and no one cared what the hat rack overheard. You still have enough dirt on Comtesse d’Argent to ruin her life if it ever strikes your fancy. To do that, and with so many elven boys! At once! Sympathetic to the plight of the elves, indeed. She made the Empress’s questionable trysts look chaste in comparison.
It’s around lunch when you’re sent out to fetch something, but you get no further than the hall outside the door. Dorian is there, looking around with the air of a man hunting for something. His eyes latch onto you.
“There you are, Emma!” he exclaims. “What on earth are you doing here? I’ve been looking ev…” He pauses. “Is that sea silk?”
“You’re not paid to chat, rabbit!” comes the seamstress’ voice out of the door, and Dorian puts two and two together. He all but shoves you aside to stride into the room.
“Vivienne!” he snaps. “Did you honestly just grab the first elf you saw, and assume she was a servant?”
Ah, Maker’s balls. You come in after him. “Dorian, it’s fine, I-“
“It’s not fine!” Dorian says with a scowl, crossing his arms. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“If you could explain yourself, Dorian, I’d be ever so grateful,” Vivienne interjects, glancing between the two of you. “Is this elf yours?”
“She’s not mine! She’s a linguist for the Inquisition! She’s not a handmaid!” Dorian exclaims, throwing his hands up in frustration. “You, of all people, should know better than to make assumptions based on appearance!”
“My dear!” Vivienne says, with all the unconvincing horror of any Orlesian noble having been called out on a purposeful slight. Perhaps she had recognized you after all. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“You seemed to need assistance, my lady,” you say with a curtsy. “And it was an educational way to spend my morning.”
Dorian looks between the two of you, eyes narrowing. “Is this some sort of Orlesian nonsense?”
“Only in the sense that I was, once, a handmaiden, Dorian, and I know when a lady is in need of assistance,” you say politely. “Good help is so hard to find, is it not, Madame de Fer?”
“Indeed, my dear!” the older woman says with a smile. “Let me know if you ever tire of… linguistics, was it?”
You respond with a full bow, and then make your exit with Dorian, who looks bewildered. “What did I just witness?” he demands.
“Orlesian nonsense, Dorian,” you say, a faint smile ghosting across your lips. “It can be found across Thedas.”
As it turns out, Dorian had been looking for you because he’d fetched lunch again. By some miracle, neither Iron Bull nor Sera shows up, so the Tevinter has you more or less to himself. You pretend not to notice when he clumsily tries to be sly about inquiring after the nature of the relationship between you and Iron Bull. It’s hard to believe how different Tevinter nobles are from Orlesian nobles. The arrogance is there, and the taste for needlessly expensive things that all nobles across Thedas share… But you suppose Tevinter politics are more brute force and blood magic rather than clever political machinations. Bruchus had certainly not been particularly clever, and he was a damned Magister. Danarius, as well, sounded like a fucking fool from what little you knew of him.
Perhaps you and Fenris could compare notes…
You brush the idle thought out of your mind and focus on what Dorian is saying. Waxing poetic about Minrathous. You suspect you remember it rather differently than he does. You would go to visit if it weren’t the damn stupidest thing you could possibly do.
“Orlesian sweets really don’t compare,” he’s saying, picking at a pastry with exaggerated sadness.
“If you’re so nostalgic, you should arrange a visit,” you say dryly, idly chewing on a piece of hard crust. “I’m sure they’d be overjoyed to see you.”
Dorian snorts. “Nearly as pleased as they would be to see you, I expect. Perhaps we should visit together.”
The thought makes you snort. What a pair the two of you would make—some exiled noble and an escaped, knife-eared slave. In truth, he would be an excellent cover if you ever did need to return to Tevinter for whatever Maker-forsaken reason. An elf alone is an oddity. An elf accompanying a Tevinter countryman is invisible. You file that thought away; it might be useful later.
After lunch, you finally make your way down to the rotunda. Your hip is one giant ache, and you suspect even Solas’s healing could do little for it. Your spar with Iron Bull will be interesting, both because of your hip, and because everyone there will have heard about your hip. Iron Bull will be expecting you to favor it. But not favoring could result in another injury, and you’re not sure getting a sucker punch in on him would be worth it. You’ll have to see how it goes.
In truth, you get little accomplished before it’s time to head out to the training yards. You’re too busy thinking over every little detail of your encounter with Vivienne. Does she remember you as Alix Gagnon? And how much does she know about dear old Alix, exactly? Amusingly, the first person she might go to with such information, Leliana, already knows. She likely doesn’t have as much over you as she thinks she does.
You set your quill down with a sigh. Time to amuse yourself and a gaggle of mercenaries by going toe-to-toe with a Qunari. Fortunately, you trust Iron Bull, at least with this, or your paranoia that he would strike you back would prevent you from ever getting in the ring. You enjoy your morning sessions with him, but all they really do is reinforce just how much stronger he is than you. In a fair fight, you would be unconscious in less than a minute.
You try to psych yourself up a little bit as you head towards the training yard, but it isn’t until you see Iron Bull’s horns sticking out the top of a crowd of the Chargers that you start feeling a little burst of adrenaline. Krem grins when he spots you and waves you over. True to his word, Iron Bull has found a fairly isolated training yard and cleared even the surrounding area. The group is just the Chargers.
“Emma! I thought you might chicken out!” Iron Bull says with a grin.
“Chicken out?” you snort. “Of me beating you back into the healer’s tent? Or did you forget your broken nose that quickly?”
A cheerful round of “oooos” rise from the assembled Chargers, more to humor you than anything else, you’re sure. It’s bravado, on your part, since your nerves are starting to play up. As much as you like the idea of taking out your frustrations on a Qunari, Iron Bull looks a little too into this, and the nagging fear that he might just lay you out on the grass returns to nag at the back of your mind.
“Alright, boys!” Iron Bull calls out, and his booming voice actually makes you jump a little. You had thought he’d raised his voice to you in the past. You were wrong. “Here’s the rules! Our little elf lady here is going to try to lay me out! I can dodge and block, but I can’t hit back, or this would be a pretty short fight, right?”
There’s a chorus of chuckles from the group. You cross your arms, but say nothing. He’s right, and your pride isn’t so great that you’d take a punch from a Qunari to preserve it.
“Can she even throw a punch, boss?” Krem calls out, despite the fact that you know he knows damn well that you can… possibly to egg you on, or just to keep things rolling.
“Well, you’re about to find out, aren’t you?” you interject loudly, although your voice simply doesn’t have the same ability to carry as Iron Bull’s, or even Krem’s. You make something of a show of stretching, flowing easily into some of the exercises you’ve been doing before morning practice with Bull. The crowd seems to like the confidence, if only due to the humor of that kind of arrogance coming from a knife-eared librarian.
Krem counts the two of you off, and you launch towards Bull, catching him off guard immediately by spinning into a kick instead of starting with your fists. He grunts in surprise, barely catching your shin before it collides with his side. He grabs it and holds tight, a grin forming on his face, but this isn’t the first time someone’s grabbed at you. You let the momentum from the first kick carry you into a second one, lifting your weight onto the grappled leg. It would never work if he weren’t so strong, and you weren’t so light, but you’ve been fighting larger men your entire life. The second kick is higher as you twist around, aimed just under his left horn, but your sore hip carries less momentum. He doesn’t drop you so much as he throws you forward, away from him, and you hit the dirt palms-first with a grunt before hopping back up and turning to face him again.
The crowd is whistling and whooping, but they fade into the background as you and Iron Bull take sights of each other again. He looks a little surprised, but also excited, and you’re not sure you like what you see. Perhaps some women relish it when a man looks at them with hunger, but you’ve never enjoyed it, yourself. You tell yourself that mercenaries—that Qunari—just enjoy fights, and pray that’s all it is as you fling yourself into a simple punch routine that Bull himself “taught” you. There’s no way he’ll fail to block them, but you’re just stalling. After a few blocked strikes, you aim high again, but Bull jerks his head back out of the way. Looks like you won’t be bloodying his nose the same way twice. You ignore shouts of advice from the Chargers (although “kick him in the balls!” tempts you, admittedly) and push closer towards Bull, using the knowledge he isn’t allowed to just knee you in the stomach to press for space. When he steps backwards, you sweep your leg in an attempt to trip him. In reality, however, what you wind up doing is kicking him painfully in the back of the calf, catching that stupid leg brace of his.
“Ow, fuck!” you exclaim, detangling your leg.
“That might have worked on someone a hundred pounds lighter, kid,” Bull says with a laugh, and you scowl. He’s right… You’re normally pretty good at knocking people over, but Bull just has too much weight. No wonder he specified that your goal was to knock him down… It would be incredibly difficult to do without seriously injuring him.
Well, that was his goal for you. Your goal didn’t necessarily have to be the same. You just want to hurt him a little, work out some frustrations, and enjoy the sensation of beating up a Qunari. You let yourself think back to the Qunari in Seheron, and all the things you’d do to them if you got the chance now. Payback for every dead slave, every night spent in shaking terror. Revenge for every elf, dead-eyed with qamek, laboring in their fields. The thought sends you into a powerful left hook that nails Iron Bull right in the gut. You hope it hurts him as much as it jars your arm.
You let yourself speed up as the “fight” continues, although you never move as fast as you can. Some things are just beyond believable for a scrappy little elf. You want to make a spectacle, but not too much of a spectacle. You stick to tricks taught to you by Bull or Krem, throwing in a few things you can blame on Sera when you want to catch the Qunari off guard. You are favoring your hip, however. You can tell, and so can Iron Bull. If you can just force it into action… You swing into another spinning kick with your right leg, this one aimed high. Unfortunately, Bull sees this one coming and raises his arm, only to snap it down, pinning your shin.
With a grunt, you wrench your leg, but he’s got it good, trapped between his arm and his side, locked in his armpit. You spin yourself up again, as you had at the beginning of the fight, but instead of kicking at his head, you wrap your leg around his neck, squeezing only tight enough to grip, rather than tight enough to choke him out. It’s an uncomfortable position, your knee locked around the back of his neck, and your hip screams, but he releases your leg to grab at you. The second he does, you pull yourself upwards (by his neck, poor bastard) and grab onto his horns, using them to pull yourself up. He grabs you by the other ankle, but by then you’ve got your arms wrapped around his horns. When he yanks on you, he’s jerking his own head and neck.
“Ow! Fuck, you’re like a rabid squirrel!” he swears as you twist yourself around, using his horns like the giant handlebars they are. You always keep at least one arm or leg wrapped around a horn as you spin out of the way of his half-blind grab attempts.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to hit me?” you point out with a grin.
“I thought you were supposed to try and knock me down,” he counters. There’s a lull in the fight, which leaves you with your knees locked on either side of his head, a horn in the crook of each knee.
“Hey elf!” a voice shouts from the crowd. “You’re pretty good at bull riding! Ever been to Antiva?”
You can’t help but laugh, throwing your head back. In a certain city an Antiva, they ride wild, horned bulls that you suspect are the inspiration for Iron Bull’s name. “Parlo Antivan! Io giro il toro!”
The uproar that causes effectively ends the fight, with some of the Chargers doubling over in laughter. You suppose the two of you must make quite a sight, with your legs locked on either side of his head. Quite the view from up here, though. So this is what it’s like to be tall. Deciding to push your luck, you unlock your knees, supporting yourself on Bull’s horns as you shift downwards to sit on his shoulders.
“Maker, why did I never think to do this before?” you marvel. “I think I can see my house in Orlais from here!”
“Har, har,” Iron Bull grumbles. “Get down from there, or I’ll really take you for a ride.”
“What if I want to move in? The air is so fresh and clear up here!”
“Off.”
Fortunately, Krem comes to help you get down. Your legs are shakier than you care to admit after all of the shit you just pulled to put on a good show. You really don’t recommend clinging to a flailing man’s head using nothing but a recently-dislocated hip, horns or no horns. Krem supports you as you lean against him, however, effectively hiding your poor, trembling limbs.
“Thanks,” you mutter to him under your breath.
“No problem. The boys’ll be talking about this one for years.”
You’ve no chance to recover or calm down from the spar; you’re immediately swept off to the mess by the Chargers. You find yourself eating with the lot of them at a single, long table. You’re frequently smacked cheerfully on the back, to the point where you suspect you’ll have a bruise. But the sheer sense of glee and camaraderie has you smiling nonetheless… or maybe that’s the endorphins. Either way, you don’t even argue when the party moves from the mess into the tavern, drinking and cheering with the rest of them (although significantly less than the others).
“Right in the back of the head! And then… and then… She sat on his lap!” Dalish is animatedly telling the story of the first time you got pants-pissingly drunk in Skyhold. Krem has the dignity to look embarrassed, at least, since his lap was your second victim, right after the back of Belinda’s head fell prey to your mug.
“I thought he was a chair,” you say with a smirk, downing the last of your drink. You’ve avoided getting too sloshed this time… you hope. “S’not my fault if he’s so… brown and wooden lookin’.”
“Wooden?” Krem says, sounding slightly injured.
“Brutal, Da’nan!” says Dalish with a grin. “Can’t you tell when a man has a crush?”
“Dalish!” Krem protests. “I do n… Shut it!”
“What’s that you keep callin’ her?” interjects another Charger… Stitches, you think his name was. Maybe.
“Da’nan,” Dalish answers. “Little vengeance! Think it suits her, don’t you?”
“An elven nickname,” you say with a snort. “I’ll never hear the end of it from Sera.”
“With ears like that, you’re the elfiest elf I’ve ever seen,” comments Stitches. “You should join the Chargers, I bet those things could pick up enemy movements from leagues away!”
“I would make a very poor mercenary,” you laugh. “First combat and I’d be hiding behind Bull, crying, mark my words.”
“You’re not a bad fighter though,” Dalish interjects. “Where’d you learn to spin around like that?”
“In truth,” you say with a sheepish grin. “Both Iron Bull and Sera have been teaching me.”
“Boss! So that’s where you’ve been getting off to in the mornings!” says Dalish, grinning wickedly.
“We all thought you were having a torrid affair!” adds Krem with a cheeky smile.
“Maybe by my definition,” Iron Bull grins. “But not by hers.”
You don’t flush easily, but you decide to bury your face in your drink momentarily just in case, as the Chargers hoot and holler. The rumors will be put to rest with them, at least. They’ll understand how a mentor/student relationship could be misinterpreted. As for the rest of Skyhold… Well, baby steps.
Around the time the Chargers are getting belligerently drunk, you stealthily make your exit. You’re certain Iron Bull sees you go, but he doesn’t stop you. You stumble across the Courtyard, the cold August chill not enough to sober you, and make your way to the side entrance of Solas’s rotunda. You stagger through the door and collapse on the couch, yanking the soft, woolen blanket over your chilled body. It smells of Solas, reminds you of the warm tingle of his magic.
You hate yourself. You hate yourself for coming here, you hate yourself for being unable to leave. Most of all, you hate yourself for curling up on Solas’s couch, hate yourself for burying your nose in a blanket that smells of him. When you drift off into rare, blissful sleep, you do so with utter self-loathing. You know where this leads. You just can’t convince yourself to care.