Calligraphy

It's after midnight, and Skyhold is as quiet as it ever gets, which is not all that quiet. Varric's room is solid enough to keep out most of the noise, far enough away from the kitchens and the stables and the tavern and whatever Dagna is getting up to in the undercroft, which may or may not explode. They're here in his room, as they always are when they're at Skyhold now, because the workers in the armoury where she used to sleep “start their clanging at some Maker-forsaken hour when decent folk are in bed,” according to him.

Cassandra stirs as the light flickers, the last drops of wax pooling in the lip of the candlestick and the last twist of wick sputtering with flame. She ought to have gone to sleep hours ago, but....

Just one more page. But the candle fails at last, expiring in the softest wisp of smoke, and the room falls into darkness. The fate of the Knight-Captain must remain undiscovered until tomorrow.

She checks a sigh as she drops the book onto the bedside table. A wry smile crosses her lips as she wonders to herself how she came to be here. All those years sneaking furtive glances at serials with graceful, windswept ladies on the cover; all those stolen moments with a racing heart and eyes alight with dreams as the pages fall through her hands. And here she is, lying next to one of their creators, as unlikely a source for romance – real or fictional – as she could have envisioned.

She angles to her side, watching him as he slumbers. His broad shoulders are bare below the coverlet; he gets so warm while he sleeps, sprawled on his stomach and oblivious to the world. She still remembers, dimly, what it was to sleep without dreaming during the Vigil, but she finds it hard to imagine now. She can just make out the outline of his crooked nose and rugged chin facing her. A swath of red-gold hair, unbound, falls over his forehead.

Still watching, her right hand stretches out to him. His breath is slow and even, his back rises and falls in a steady rhythm as her fingertips dance along his shoulder-blades, sketching idle arabesques on his skin. She is suddenly pensive, suddenly so aware in this moment of her own feelings. Her hand stops, then begins again, deliberately this time. She traces lines there at the back of his neck, willing the letters into an invisible existence.

I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U. She has not spoken the words aloud yet, not to him and not to herself. But the night is a shield that allows vulnerability, and the darkness exposes as much as it conceals. She permits herself this truth, a truth naked but unafraid. I love you, she writes again. I love you. The thought is clear and bright and loud and certain, resounding in the shadowy stillness. Her heart and fingers are fearless even if her voice is not. It hardly matters, her mind admonishes. He will not know, he will not remember in the morning.

A yawn overcomes her, and she slides down her pillow to rest at last. She tucks her arms beneath the blankets and rolls to her back. Just as sleep begins to claim her, she feels a warm hand glide across her waist. On the edge of hearing comes a whisper: “I love you, too.” It is not a story, not a dream; not this time. There is no further sound, but her cheeks burn with silent joy. Her brow meets his in mute acknowledgement, his lips curve into a tender smile, and they return to rest in the arms of sleep, and each other.