Chapter Text
Cassandra sat upright and got out of bed. Well, she tried to. The actual event that occurred was less sitting up and more moaning and retching. Leliana was past chastising the Seeker for getting up and simply handed over a bucket.
“Perhaps you should rest a while longer,” she said, her face utterly bland. Cassandra hated her sometimes. “I have things I must do today, but I have asked someone else to attend to you while you rest.”
Cassandra heard the dwarf’s cheerful whistling before he opened her door. “Leliana, must you really--” The left hand smirked at her and was gone. In all their years serving the Divine, Cassandra still had yet to figure out how she did that.
The Seeker glanced around, quickly moving her battered copy of Swords and Shields from her nightstand to underneath her pillow. The motion made her nauseous again, but it was worth it if Varric never found out she read the stupid serial. It was bad enough that she couldn’t hide the information from Leliana.
Varric opened the door. He had left the stupid crossbow in his quarters today, at least. “Hello, Seeker,” he said. “I heard you could use some cheering up.” He was carrying something in his arms, a bundle of pages as of yet unbound into a book.
“What is that you’re carrying?” Cassandra silently cursed herself. She was not interested in what the dwarf was carrying, she just wanted Varric to leave her alone and allow her to sleep off this horrible illness.
Varric grinned at her. “It’s not finished yet, but it’s going to be a wedding present.”
“For Cullen and Cadash?” Cassandra had clearly spoken too much and was punished with a violent fit of coughing.
“Mmhm.” Varric handed her a handkerchief, brown eyes oddly gentle before he began puttering around with a teapot. Cassandra would have laughed to see him so domestic had it not felt like a rage demon had taken up residence in the back of her throat. He poured her tea and added honey from the pot in her windowsill-- courtesy of Sera, oddly enough. Of late, the elf seemed to have actually started to respect her. She wondered if the elf was maturing or if she herself had simply started going soft.
Varric said nothing more, settling into the armchair Leliana had vacated by the head of the bed. Cassandra sighed and settled into the pillows with her tea, relieved at the dwarf’s uncharacteristic silence.
Varric pulled out a pen and ink pot, balancing the bottle on the arm of the chair. More silence, broken only by soft scratches of quill to parchment. Cassandra resettled herself on the bed.
The silence stretched on.
“Well?” Cassandra snapped.
Varric looked up from his work, his face arranged into a perfect semblance of surprise. “Yes?”
“You’re a storyteller. Read it to me.”
Varric chuckled. “Are you sure, Seeker? It’s pretty fanciful. Thought you might not like stories like that after what happened with the champion.”
“Only because I have nothing better to do while confined to my bed.” She most certainly did not think about the romance serial hidden under her pillow. The one she would not be rereading were she left to her own devices. “...And as long as it is not a romance,” she added hastily.
“A romance? or a Romance? Because the genres are two very different--”
“You know,” Cassandra cut him off with a disgusted noise in her throat. “A kissing book.”
Varric grinned. “How about I skip the kissing parts? Stick to the action and adventure.”
“Do what you must.” Cassandra settled herself with a huff and gestured for Varric to begin.