Wet Dreams
You shouldn’t have been able to sleep. You shouldn’t have been able to dream. Perhaps that’s what makes it so real when you awaken to find yourself still drenched, sticky, wet. Blood still clinging to every inch of your skin. Perhaps that’s why it takes you so long to understand what’s happening.
It’s dark. You flail for your bed stand, desperate to light a candle, but you’re not on your bed. Where are you? Fuck, where are you, what’s happening? Why are you wet? Confusion gives way as you see covered flames in the distance and realize where you are… Skyhold. You’re in Skyhold. You recognize the walls. Where in Skyhold? You’re… you’re on the roof of the tavern. A brief check reveals that all of your limbs are intact. Your aura is clenched down inside of you in a tight little ball, compressed as if you’d been pressing it inwards forcefully in your sleep. Likely you had. And you are wet because it’s raining. Not blood. Just water.
You take a deep, soggy breath.
You fell asleep on the roof. It began to rain. The sensation of being wet, being rained on, perhaps even being mildly drowned, influenced your nightmares.
That’s all.
It was a nightmare.
Of course, that doesn’t answer the question of how you were able to dream in the first place. It’s not impossible for you in this state, just difficult. And the dreams you do have in this state are never so coherent. You suspect Cole has something to do with it. But you can ask him later. Right now, you’re sitting on the roof of the tavern in a thunderstorm.
You slide down off the roof, hanging from bricks and window sills until your feet thud against the ground with effortless grace. It’s so easy when no one is watching you. If only things could always be that way.
Despite your realization that there is no blood, just water, your mind is still a spinning, chaotic mess. If you were on your own, you’d punch a tree until you felt better. The side of your house in Orlais had a dent because of your tried and true “punch the feelings away” technique. But this isn’t Orlais, and you don’t have a wall. But dawn is coming, and you have the next best thing.
The Iron Bull doesn’t comment on the wretched state you’re in when you climb into the practice ring. Wearing your work clothes, hair a drenched, tangled mess… You must be quite the sight. He’s already stretching when you arrive, and you join in wordlessly. You push yourself further into the stretches than you normally do, chasing after that painful burn to remind you that you exist. It’s the same theory as punching trees, really. Violence gives you adrenaline, helps you wake up. Pain brings you back into the present, gives you something to focus on.
Your long sleeved tunic wasn’t meant for this kind of thing. With the addition of a few gallons of water, it clings to your skin, pinching and making it hard to move. You can barely stretch in it, let alone actually spar. Plus, you don’t want to ruin any more of your clothing, especially not the ones you use for work. With a frustrated snort, you stop stretching and just peel the damned thing off of you. This leaves you just in your breastband and admittedly underwhelming undershirt. It’s one of the few things you had on you when you left home, and it has seen better days. It was sleeveless to begin with, and over the years the sleeve holes wore out until they basically left half of your side revealed. But it means you’re not training in nothing but your breastband, and without your tunic, you can actually move.
Your apparel would probably have poor Krem bursting at the seams, but the Iron Bull is a bit more… well, professional really isn’t the word. Restrained, maybe. You hang your tunic on the fence. You can’t keep it from being soaked, but you can at least keep it out of the mud. You turn back to Iron Bull, who’s stopped stretching as well. The two of you still haven’t said anything… Perhaps he can tell your mood simply from your tense body language. He is Ben-Hassrath, after all.
It’s been a week since that bothered you, but the reminder shoots a flair of hot, indignant fury through you. You don’t have a Templar to beat; you never will. But a Ben-Hassrath makes a very, very good substitute.
You hurl yourself at him without warning, but he is, of course, prepared. He blocks your strikes as if this were mere training… and maybe it is. It might as well be; he refrains from striking back. He lets you burn yourself out on him, and you have to admit, it’s much, much more satisfying than punching a tree ever had been. After you’ve managed to land one or two decent blows, he begins fighting back, moving to trip and grapple as you’ve become accustomed to. It doesn’t bother you. Perhaps it should, given the state you’re in, but if anything, it makes you enjoy yourself even more.
As you jump over a swept leg, he simply shoves you in midair, a hand pushing against your chest to send you hurtling backwards. You hit the mud with a satisfying thud. The pain that shoots through you reminds you of where you are. It proves your existence. In dreams, hurt doesn’t feel like it does when you’re awake. Your body will never ache like this in the Fade.
The bulk of Iron Bull looms over you as you gasp for breathe in the mud. “How you feeling?” he rumbles, the first words spoken by either of you.
You stare up at him. “Like climbing back onto those ridiculous horns,” you say after a moment’s pause.
He grins and offers you a hand, which you use to help you stand. It’s raining hard enough that the mud immediately begins rinsing off of you. “I’d like to see you try.”
You spend the rest of the morning alternating between trying to land a punch and trying to grapple Bull well enough to scramble back up onto his shoulders. You get as far as a hand on one of his horns, but trying to grapple him from the front was a bad idea. He grabs you around the waist with both hands, and you’re quite alarmed to find that his hands can go all the way around your waist. His grip is tight enough that it hurts, although in your bruised-up state, that might not be saying much. He doesn’t even have to yank or twist or whatever he’d been planning; in your alarm you immediately release his horn. Even more alarmingly, he doesn’t drop you as the entirety of your weight drops into his hands. He holds you like you weigh little more than a feather, then sets you down onto your feet delicately.
“Merde!” you swear out loud, clutching the front of your shirt as if you could grasp your own pounding heart. “I know I’m not that large, but seriously, Bull!”
“Pfff, little thing like you? I could lift you with one hand, easy,” he says with a snort.
“Don’t try,” you say, cautioning. “I finally calmed down.”
“What was eating you, anyway?” Bull asks. “Haven’t seen you looking that bad in a while.”
“Bad dreams,” is all you have to say on the matter. You tilt your head to look upwards, and the force of the rain immediately pushes your hair back out of your face. “Maker, it’s really coming down. Do you mind if we go ahead and call it a morning? I’d like to get some breakfast before I drown, and I have to clean up and change before I start working.”
Bull has no objections, so the two of you head off together towards the mess. You almost forget your tunic entirely; fortunately, you see Bull grab it off of the fence. He can drop it off to be cleaned as easily as you can, honestly. You have no intention of putting it back on for breakfast, even if you are closer to “indecent” than you’d like to be. No one but servants will be in the mess this early, anyway. At this point, the rumors about you won’t be severely worsened by a single meal in a skimpy shirt.
Unfortunately, you get no further than sitting down with your meals before a woman—clearly a maid—bursts into the mess, glances around, and then immediately makes a beeline for you. Oh, Maker, what now? She had better not be one of Leliana’s messengers. You and that damned spymaster are going to need to have words at this rate. She is, as it turns out, a messenger… but not one of Leliana’s.
“Miss Emma? Are you Miss Emma?” the woman says anxiously, wringing her hands together.
“I am, yes. Can I help you?” you say cautiously.
“I almost didn’t recognize you, miss! I’ve got a message, from Celia. From the kitchens? She’s taken ill; she can’t leave bed.” Now that alarms you. Was it illness you had noticed yesterday? Or was something more sinister happening? Why would she call for you? “She said you’d want to know.” Your mind flashes to a dozen different reasons before settling on the obvious. “She paid me a whole ten bits to tell y-”
You stand bolt upright, color draining from your cheeks. Solas’s breakfast. What time is it now? Still early enough to get to the kitchens and have a meal prepared, surely. If you hurry. Without thinking, you reach into your pocket and pull out a few coppers for the woman. You press them into her hand absent-mindedly.
“Bull, I have to go,” you say quickly. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
You quickly dart back out into the rain and towards the kitchens. You shake off as best you can by the outer door to the kitchen before going in. Once inside, you stand as close to the ovens as possible to dry off while calling for Solas’s meal to be prepared. You let the kitchen workers prepare it for you rather than take the time to do it yourself. You’re in a rush, and you need to dry at least a bit before charging up to Solas’s room. You wring out your clothing and focus on drying your pants as much as possible. If you drip water through the Great Hall, you will hear about it from someone.
You manage to beg a less-drenched hair band off one of the kitchen workers and pull your hair back as best you can. This is what you get for thinking you can ignore presentability for even a minute. If you showed up wet to deliver food to an Orlesian, any Orlesian, you probably would have been strung up. You grab the tray of food as soon as it’s finished being prepared, pray that you’re dry enough, and then dart out to begin the climb up to Solas’s room.
You get quite a few stares as you walk quickly through the servant’s quarters, the Great Hall, and up the stairs to Solas’s room. Fortunately, the little outdoors walkway to his room is covered, so you run no risk of being drenched again. You take a deep breath in front of his room before giving the polite, short rap on the door reserved for any sort of servant. Then you simply open the door and step in.
The Maker has blessed you, because Solas is just now getting out of bed. He’ll have a hot breakfast, and you’ll keep some respect. You can check on Celia later, to make sure she’s fine. For now, you’ve averted your first small crisis of the day.
From the look on Solas’s face, however, he was very much not expecting you. His eyes widen as he takes the sight of you in, his jaw even slacks slightly. You must have caught him off guard. He’s wearing naught but trousers, and that’s the most genuine look of shock you’ve ever seen on his face.
“Emma?” he even sounds shocked, although regardless of tone, your name formed by his lips send a slight chill through you.
“Yes, ser… Sorry, the other girl got sick unexpectedly. But I have your breakfast.”
“Um… yes.” You swear you’ve never seen him so off-guard, not even the first time you walked in on him with his breakfast. You shakes his head, as if to clear it. “Thank you. However, wouldn’t the kitchens simply send one of their own workers?”
You freeze next to his desk, hand on one of his plates. How to explain that little detail? Your eyes slide to his desk, and you decide to take the third option: ignore the question entirely. “Ah! You’ve been reading The Botanical Compendium!” you say cheerfully. You smile down at the page. “Arbor blessing. Notoriously difficult to cultivate. Do you know, I’d finally gotten some to grow on the side of my house when red Templars decided the whole place would look better on fire.”
“…Yes,” Solas says, standing and approaching the desk. Would it kill the man to put a shirt on?! The sight Celia must receive every day… Either you should be paying her more, or she should be paying you. You can’t quite decide. “I’m impressed with the tome’s thoroughness.”
“Arancia doesn’t fuck around,” you say with a chuckle. Solas moves the book to the side so that you have a place to set his food, so you begin unloading your tray. “I’m glad she has your approval, however. I was afraid all of my botanical knowledge would prove to be inaccurate.”
“What need did you have of arbor blessing?” Solas asks as he sits down to start his meal.
“Oh, it was mostly a point of pride… To prove I could make it grow,” you admit. “I’m not exactly an alchemist, although admittedly, I did dabble. The villagers didn’t mind a rabbit on the edge of town nearly so much once it turned out I could give them a little something to help their aching back or urge the cow to provide milk.”
“What other sorts of things did you grow?”
Solas just so happen to stumble upon one topic you’re more than happy to talk about. It should come as no surprise; your first debate had been about elfroot, of all things. Before you know it, you’re leaning up against his wall, nibbling a biscuit while the two of you go back and forth on the uses of crystal grace.
“I swear to the very Maker,” you say with a chuckle. “I saw her lob one! It smashed open and it made the stickiest mess you’ve ever seen. Then she started putting blood lotus into them. Ugh, the smell! It was almost caustic, and the effect it had on metal… It never would wash out of clothes, either. They made us stop when the clothing we burned started producing this awful, thick smoke. I still think we were on to something. Could load it into… I dunno, catapults or something.”
Solas doesn’t seem as uncomfortable as he had been when you first entered, and admittedly, you’re less uncomfortable than you could be, given that he’s not wearing a shirt. You just spend a lot of time looking at the wall. In all honestly, you almost forget about it… Until he stands up, that is. When you’re at face level with his bare chest, it’s much harder to ignore his nudity. It isn’t until he stands that you even realize that he’s done eating. You flush slightly.
“Ah… I’ve overstayed my welcome. Let me at least get those plates out of your way…” You say it like an apology.
“When has overstaying your welcome ever deterred you?” Solas says with a chuckle. “Regardless, you have not. I enjoyed our conversation.” His eyes slide over you and you see a twinge of something on his face, almost like he’s wincing. Perhaps you’re muddy… You haven’t had much of a chance to look yourself over, honestly. You gather up his dishes quickly.
“You’re too kind,” you say with a quick smile. “I’ll see you in the rotunda. I should… wash up, first.” You remember not to bow as you leave, although you get part-way into one before stopping and just sort of awkwardly straightening yourself. You’re relieved to shut the door behind you, and carry the dishes back down to the kitchen. Perhaps now you can get a bath and actually…
Oh.
Oh, Maker.
Suddenly the awkward stares and shock on Solas’s face makes a bit more sense.
You never put your tunic back on. You’re just wearing this stupid, ratty undershirt. You nearly drop the dishes when you realize, but you manage to get them near a sink before shock overtakes you. You’d just stood in Solas’s bedroom, arrogant as you please, and damn near half-naked yourself! You run a hand over your face. You need to get a bath and a chance of clothes. Now.
You’ve never been so relieved to be clothed in your life. Well, that’s probably not entirely true, but you’re certainly overjoyed when you pull fresh clothes over your newly cleaned body. In the process of bathing, you discovered another thing that may have alarmed some of the people who saw you… You’re still rather bruised up. You don’t think they could see your sides or back well enough, but your arms still have splotches of dull browns and yellows from being grappled and yanked around. Fortunately, your arms don’t look as bad as they had the day before. You don’t look too terribly beaten, although if your back’s tenderness is any indication, your entire backside is probably a red and purple mess. Too many falls, and your hard mattress isn’t doing you any favors. You’re the kind of person who can wake up with a bruise from sleeping on a rock wrong, honestly.
You’re hesitant to meet with Solas again… should you apologize for your attire? Explain, perhaps? You decide to only do so if he brings it up. After all, you weren’t very professional looking, yes, but you aren’t actually a maid. It’s not your job to look good. You take a few deep breaths before pushing open the door to the rotunda.
Solas glances up at you as you enter, and you half-expect some sort of quip about it being nice to see you clothed—although you could say the same right back to him, considering he doesn’t seem to believe in wearing shirts between midnight and a several hours past dawn. He says nothing, however, simply goes back to reading. You head for your desk and try to get straight to work. You decide against asking Solas for a wrist enchantment, out of sheer embarrassment. Your wrist can take one for the team today.
You hope those stupid requisitions go through. You’re used to being able to simply walk or ride into town to pick up supplies you need. But if your trip here was any representation, there are no cities reasonably close that you can go to. Relying on Leliana or this shaky requisition system to get what you need displeases you quite a bit. You’re running low on some of your colored inks, you still need that magnifying stand, and what kind of Inquisition doesn’t have any tomes on dragons, anyway? It’s only a matter of time before someone starts asking the Inquisitor to kill a dragon. You read Tale of the Champion. Dragon-slaying seems inevitable.
Despite your frustration about the lack of convenience, you do manage to get a good bit of work done. Even without Solas’s wrist enchantment. Maker, for a world where you could just do that yourself without immediately signing your own death warrant. Not for the first time and doubtlessly not for the last, you’re bitterly jealous of Solas and his superior situation. How the fuck had he managed it? You would, quite literally, kill to know how he’d pranced through life without so much as a single incident with Templars. It’s possible he’s just lying, but the fact of the matter is, he’s here, openly practicing magic and even somewhat respected—feared, at the very least—by the people around him. Meanwhile, you spend your days in exhaustion from the effort to keep yourself concealed, and your nights in terror from the fear of failing. It’s extremely clear who has the superior position.
You try not to be too bitter. It won’t do you any good to envy the success of other mages. Of course, swing too far in the other direction, and suddenly you’re Anders. “For one of us to be free, we must all be free.” That stupid manifesto. Who writes manifestos?
For all your enjoyment of Tales of the Champion, for all your hero worship, the fact of the matter is that damn near all of Varric’s friends would have freaking hated you.
You sulk your way through the morning, lettering aggressively, if such a thing is even possible. You flip-flop between hating other mages for being better off than you and hating yourself for being better off than other mages. You pout your way through four pages before you feel that irritating twinge at your shoulder. Someone is watching you work. You take a deep breath before looking up, knowing that you can’t risk snapping at Solas.
“Your dedication to your work is admirable, Emma, but some of us like to eat,” Solas comments when you look up at him. You glance at the candle on the desk guiltily. You really miss your water clock. Or even working in a room with windows. Not that windows would help today; you can still hear the storm raging outside.
“Ir abelas,” you say with a sigh. “I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll get it right away.”
“You could always allow the kitchen workers to bring them,” Solas points out.
“Of course not. I’ve spoiled them now. Do you know how hard it was to even find someone to bring you breakfast?” you say with a strained laugh. “I’ll do better in the future.”
You quickly cap your ink and stand. A light meal for you today… You want to eat quickly and get back to work. You successfully worked out your stress on your friend/portable wall, but after exerting yourself so much so early, you’re left feeling a little drained. You suspect that you have a limited amount of time to work before exhaustion sets in.
While you’re in the kitchen putting together your meals, you poke around for a bit of gossip about Celia. Is she seeing anyone? Has anyone been giving her a hard time? It seems, however, that Celia is, by and large, a person who keeps her head down. The kind of person you had tried and utterly failed to be. She speaks rarely, and even then only to the other elves. You can appreciate that, but if she’s been having any difficulties, no one in the kitchen knows about them. You can’t help smiling to yourself a bit as you work. Shy, a bit isolated, easily overlooked. She’s exactly the kind of person you would have pounced on in Orlais. It seems your senses haven’t failed you entirely.
You bring the food back up to the rotunda. If Solas notices that your meal consists only of a bowl of stew and small loaf of bread, he doesn’t comment. You had planned on eating at your own desk, but you can’t resist the sight of that little stool, sitting so innocently by his desk. No matter how tired you get, the knowledge that he bothers to pull up a stool so you can eat with him will always thrill you. Instead, you bring the page you were working on over to his desk and continue lettering while you eat and talk. Slow going is better than no going at all.
You contort yourself carefully to avoid spilling on the page. It’s almost second nature to you. Scribes have to eat, but nothing’s saying they have to stop working in order to do so. This sort of thing is how you got a reputation for being one of the fastest, after all.
“Your ink pot is getting quite low,” Solas comments and you let out a soft grunt of frustration.
“I know,” you say around the piece of bread half-hanging from your mouth, squinting to at your translation as you write. “I’m going to wind up robbing someone, at this rate. I put in requisitions like everyone told me, but I have no idea how long it will take to get anything.”
“It depends on what you have requested,” Solas informs you. “There are tomes I requested months ago that they’ve yet to obtain.”
You let your head fall back and groan upwards towards the uncaring sky. “Maker. If there weren’t a war on, I’d grab a mule and ride to the nearest city myself.”
“If it’s something like ink, you should receive it relatively quickly,” Solas says, possibly attempting to comfort or placate you.
“Ink, yes… Also a magnifying stand, tomes so that I can double-check my work, new quills, and, if they want to spoil me, clothing that isn’t designed to fit a human man,” you say with a sigh. “All of which I’d be willing to buy out of my salary, if I only had a place to spend it.” You think of the growing purse of coins hidden in your room with some sourness. Between your largely-than-expected pay and a few nights of Wicked Grace, you’re starting to accumulate enough coin for your own private shopping spree. What you wouldn’t do for an Orlesian bookstore! Or hell, even Ferelden. You’ll take used books that smell of dogs. You’ll take anything.
“Are you used to having these sorts of things provided?” Solas asks curiously.
“Maker, no,” you say with a sigh. “But I’m used to being in a location in which such things are easy to obtain myself. I’ve never worked for an army before. And the last time I worked in a fortress was… Well, it was a very long time ago.” You glare down at your work. “Damned Templars, getting themselves… all… red…” you grumble under your breath.
Solas lets you grumble and work, the two of you talking only intermittently. It isn’t until you’ve finished your own slow work on your stew that you realize his own plate is lying empty. You finish the word you were working on with a soft sigh, then stand to take the dishes back to the kitchen. Your overworked arms don’t particularly want to lift the heavy tray again, but you make them. It’s your own fault for overdoing it during morning practice.
By the time you get back to Solas’s rotunda from the kitchen, your arms have a slight but pronounced tremble to them. It’s not enough to keep you from writing entirely, but you’ll have to go very slowly. When you return to the rotunda, you notice that the stool has been placed back by the wall, and your documents moved back to your desk. Rather nice of him, honestly. You enjoy your little mealtime conversations with Solas, but working on a tiny corner of his desk is a bit difficult. You run a hand over the corner of your desk as you sit down, remembering the flood of emotions you experienced when you first saw it. Three weeks ago, if someone had told you Solas would give you a desk in his workroom, you would have laughed them out of Skyhold.
Perhaps it’s because you just ate, perhaps it’s because of your overexertion in the rain, but for whatever reason, in the hour following lunch, you begin to sag more and more. Your whole body feels heavy, keeping your eyes open and focused on your papers is a struggle. You have to write more and more slowly to ensure you don’t make any mistakes. About the third time your tired limbs cause you to nearly tip over your ink pot, it apparently becomes too much for even Solas to overlook.
“Are you alright, Emma?”
He sounds genuinely concerned. It feels like a jolt of electricity directly to your chest.
“I’m… fine,” you lie. “I may have overdone it a little in practice this morning, that’s all.”
“Practice… this morning? With the Iron Bull?” Solas sounds surprised. “It was pouring rain when I awoke.”
“It was pouring rain when I did, too,” you say grumpily. “Bull’s yet to take that as a good excuse to cancel, however. It hardly matters… as hard as it was raining, I was going to be drenched just walking to the mess.”
Solas is silent, and you don’t want to see his expression. You continue to slowly agonize over each letter of your work. The going is slow that you might as well not be working at all.
“Perhaps you should rest?” Solas suggests after being quiet for some time.
“It occurred to me,” you admit. “But I’d rather not walk back across the courtyard in this rain. It would take me an hour just to get dry again.”
“Feel free to use the couch,” Solas offers, and you go rigid. He knows that you slept on it at least once. Is he mocking you? You glance over your shoulder towards him, but he’s not looking at you. It’s hard to tell his expression from here. “That is, after all, what’s it for… More or less,” he continues.
“It is?” you ask, a bit confused. You had thought the couch was ridiculously comfortable. Maker, if you find out he put some kind of freaking sleeping enchantment on it, you’re going to-
“When I need to enter the Fade for short periods of time and don’t wish to leave the room, I use the couch,” he informs you.
“There’s not magic on it, is there?” you ask warily.
“No. It is simply comfortable.”
You eye the couch. There’s no risk of you actually falling asleep, you don’t think. And you’ve slept around mages before, in any case. They never noticed anything odd. The idea of resting on that gloriously soft couch again is almost too much to resist. In fact, it is too much to resist.
“Well,” you murmur, to yourself as much as to Solas. “I suppose a short rest can’t hurt.” You kick off your boots before plopping down onto the couch. As tired as you are, it feels like you’re sitting on a freaking cloud. With a soft groan, you lay down and stretch out across it. Maker. You’d missed this.
You don’t sleep. You just lay down and rest your eyes, but in any case, it feels fantastic. You find yourself sorely missing Solas’s blanket, for its warmth and softness more than for its magical sleeping properties.
In any case, you do feel better when you sit up, maybe about an hour later or so. The sound of rain still pounds outside… You really hope it lets up before nightfall. Although a mad dash through the rain certainly ensures no one will bother you in the courtyard.
“Feeling better?” Solas asks as you rub the exhaustion from your eyes.
“Yes, much. Thank you,” you say, and it’s only a slight exaggeration. You do feel better, but you still feel like you could stand to hibernate for about three months. You don’t really feel like jumping straight back to work… you feel like you might be at risk for dozing off at your desk. “I’m going to just… walk around for a bit,” you say, stretching luxuriously. Aaah, your back feels great after just laying on that couch for an hour. Solas should rent that thing out.
You’re not lying, not really. You are walking around. You’re just walking directly to the servant’s quarters to hunt down Celia. Hopefully she really is just ill… You’re not in much of a position to help her here, not yet. You don’t have enough favors or enough pull, since you only decided to start making an effort here like… a week and a half ago. But she’s yours, so you’ll have to do something.
You manage to track her down, although it takes a bit of doing. She really doesn’t socialize with the humans much at all–it took you finding another elf to figure out which room was hers. You knock, but there’s no response. You open the door cautiously. The room is dark, and, you note, nowhere near as nice as yours. Your room is essentially a closet someone put a bed in, but it’s yours. It looks like Celia shares this room with three other people, judging by the number of beds.
You hear a cough come from a lump on one of them. She must really be sick, then…
“Celia?” you ask out loud. “Do I have the right room?” The lump flails a bit.
“Emma? Is that you?” a hoarse voice asks. You see Celia’s hand fumble for the candle on her nightstand.
“Yes, I wanted to—”
“I’m so sorry! I tried really hard not to get sick but I—” A painful sounding, wracking cough rips through her, cutting her off. “If you want your money b—” Another long series of coughs.
“Maker, stop trying to talk!” you exclaim, walking closer so that you can help her shaking hands light the candle. “I don’t want my money back. I just came to check on you. Thanks for sending the message, by the way… I got Solas his breakfast without any incident.” Well, without much incident, anyway. “Have you been to a healer?”
“I’ll be fine,” she rasps, reminding you very much of yourself. Well, she knows her own limits better than you. “Just need a day or so to sweat it out… Oh! You shouldn’t be here. You might get sick!”
“I’ll be fine,” you echo with a quiet chuckle at your own humor. No one else is going to laugh—you might as well.
“Are you sure you don’t want the mo—” Again she’s cut off by a painful sounding cough. You wince.
“No, no. It’s not like the Inquisition stops paying you when you get sick. Surely I can afford the same luxuries. I’m just as glad you weren’t coughing on Solas’s food. Rest. I won’t die from bringing him breakfast for a few days.” Although, you add to yourself, I’ll be clothed next time.
“Ugh, you’re so nice,” Celia says with a pronounced wheeze.
“Don’t say it like I just admitted to eating babies,” you laugh. “It’s not like anyone else in Skyhold would take the offer, anyway.”
“Why do you want your mornings free so badly? I mean, I know you said not to ask, but…”
You sigh. “It’s… complicated. Just focus on getting better, okay?”
“Alright. …Thanks for coming to see me, Emma,” she says. You just smile in response.
“Get some rest. Just let me know when you’re feeling better.”
You hear her blow out the candle as you leave. You can’t help but be a little relieved. She is just sick. You don’t have to call in any favors or… threaten to shank someone, or something like that. The money really isn’t an issue… you’d rather have her paid, happy, and silent. You’re not particularly looking forward to missing your breakfasts in the mess, though.
Maybe it’s all in your head, but you do feel a bit better, after having rested on Solas’s couch for a bit. You’re still exhausted, mind, and after an hour of writing, the shake in your arms comes back. You don’t want to admit it to Solas long enough to get that spell of his… He’s glancing over at you enough as it is. You spoil yourself a little by playing with the idea that he’s concerned about you, but in all reality, he’s probably more concerned that you’re going to spill ink and wreck the desk or your work. Not to mention that concern, while nice, gets you into a lot of trouble.
You spend the afternoon hunched over your desk, left hand steadying your right as you eek out one letter at a time. Tomorrow will be better. You won’t have any nightmares tonight because you won’t have any sleep. One hour of laying down had you feeling better for two, so six hours of laying down will have you feeling better for twelve. Simple math.
You can get through this. You’ve gotten through a hell of a lot worse.
It’s thanks to your struggling that you’re perfectly on time with Solas’s dinner. You were practically jumping at the chance to get up and do something else for a little. You grab another light meal for yourself… your stomach still feels queasy: the nausea of the sleep-deprived. In the tower, it had gotten to the point where all you could stomach was bread or crackers and juice. But you’d gotten that done, hadn’t you? And a copy of that delightful little tome had made it back to your private collection, at that. Perseverance always has its rewards.
You don’t even try to work on your tome over dinner; you just sit down on the stool Solas always seems to provide by his desk. He engages you in light conversation about Arancia and her Botanical Compendium. You’re more than happy to answer questions about someone else’s life for once. However, your “he only cares if I spill the ink” theory takes a hit when you see Solas watching the way you pick at your food. You force down every drop of soup and even manage to eat half a fruit tart before your stomach cramps painfully. Well, you’ve proved your point. If Solas is concerned about your well-being, for whatever reason, hopefully you can assuage his fears by doing better tomorrow.
After returning the dishes to the kitchen, you take a trip up to the library. You see Helisma working diligently at her desk. She doesn’t look up. You don’t draw attention to yourself. Instead, you glance around the rest of the library. Dorian is nowhere to be seen, but you’re on the hunt for someone else entirely. You see her and then make a beeline straight for Thea. She looks mildly unimpressed to see you.
“Skipping meals again?” she asks sourly. “I see you rarely enough as it is.”
“Well, you know how it is with the boss back in town,” you say cheekily. “But that means my benefits are back.” You hold out one of the fruit tarts. “Unless you like my company at breakfast more than my treats.”
“I do,” she says as she snatches the tart from your hand. “But that don’t mean I’m turnin’ down the benefits, neither.”
“I love a woman who’s easy to bribe,” you say with a grin. You hold your hands up when she glares. “I mean, a woman who has a relaxed and forgiving nature, of course!”
She snorts. “You can turn a phrase, I’ll give ya that. Turn that charm on one of the boys in your life, eh? I’m thinkin’ about gettin’ a bettin’ racket goin’.”
“Oh, please,” you say with a snort. “There’s nothing to bet on.”
“The Void there isn’t! I’m losin’ track. ‘Course, smart money’s on Bull, but long odds for the big money is on his little friend.”
“Pretty sure Bull and his ‘little friend’ would be the same bet,” you say, rolling your eyes towards the heavens. The stupidity you have to put up with…
“Nah, that second in command of his. Short one! No one thinks he has a chance, wot with Bull bein’ all… Bull. Course, I won’t darken yer ears with wot some of the more creative types are sayin’…”
You flush, part embarrassment, part indignation. “Leave Krem out of those stupid rumors!” you hiss, and Thea looks a little taken aback. “I get it, rumor has me pegged as the newest entertainment in Skyhold. I can shoulder that. But Krem deserves better than hearsay saying he’s some sort of… consolation prize! He’s a nice guy!”
“Oh? Maybe his odds aren’t so long after all…” Thea says. Her tone is teasing, but you feel like smacking the sly grin off of her face.
“Oh shut up, Thea,” you snap, far too loudly. This is a library. You run a hand through the hair that’s fallen loose from your bun.
“I was jus’ jokin’…” Thea says, looking a little abashed. “You norm’ly jus’ fluster a bit, then we have a laugh. No one’s really bettin’, I promise.”
“I know, Thea. I know. I’m just…” You let out a long sigh. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Sorry.”
“S’fine. But… What’s this with Bull’s second, now?”
“He’s a friend. A really good one. And he strikes me as the kind of person who would actually be hurt by the kind of rumors that might be circulating around me right now.” You rub a head against your burning forehead. You’re developing a headache. “Just… enjoy the fruit tart, Thea. I’ve got… I need to get back to work.”
You head quickly towards the stairs, shouldering past Dorian—who’s just come up the stairs—before he can stop you for another exhausting chat.
Bull has already shown his willingness to shrug off rumor. Solas is too disconnected from the rest of Skyhold to even know if rumors are circulating about him. And besides, next to the whispers of blood magic, a rumor that he’s banging the help is almost a positive. But Krem? You like Krem. Even though he’s a Vint, he’s a good guy. And unless your ability to read people has left you completely, he’s not only got a crush on you, but he might be a virgin, to boot. Just the kind of young man who deserves better than to get involved with you.
You storm back down to the rotunda, throw yourself into your chair, and furiously begin working on your tome again. Friends. People whose well-being you care about beyond what they can do for you. That’s what got you into trouble in Orlais.
No, Aimée is what got you into trouble in Orlais.
Same fucking thing.
First Solas is Aimée, now Krem? You’re jumping at shadows. Why not the Iron Bull, too?
Bull is different.
Why? No feelings for an oxman? Not like he’s had your back since you got here. Oh, but you can’t have someone who actually treats you well, can you?
You bang your hand down on the desk. Ink pots clatter, the sound echoes up through the tower.
“Emma?” Solas sounds shocked.
“Sorry. I… slipped. I think I’m falling asleep at my desk,” you lie. You don’t even care if it’s a good lie.
“Pardon my saying, but you look terrible,” he says bluntly.
You laugh, but it sounds like you’re in pain. “Yeah. I probably do.” Your eyes slide over the couch. Maybe after he leaves. “Life goes on, though. I think I can get a few more pages out of tonight, yet.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to rest?”
When Bull is prodding at you too much, it’s okay to punch him. You wouldn’t mind being able to do that with Solas. You sigh. “No. I’d prefer to keep working.”
Blissfully, Solas has nothing more to say on the matter. You shove the nagging little doubts to the back of your mind and pour your concentration on the work at hand. You can apologize to Thea later. There’s nothing immediate you can do about the rumors, and there’s no reason to believe they’d do any damage to your connections with the Chargers. Fretting over it won’t do you any good. You soothe yourself as your write. This is nothing you can’t handle. This has just been a shitty day all around. But there’s always tomorrow. You’ll do better tomorrow.