"No," Lana shook her head as she accepted the drink. She knew what Leliana was driving at, and had to stop it now, "No, that is...inadvisable." She sipped the drink and discovered it was that piss posing as mead Varric mentioned earlier. The cloying sweetness of mead was replaced by an acid ravaging down her throat. She blinked a few tears back from the fumes and then took another sip.
"Now I have to know what it is," Dorian sat up, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"It was rather simple," Leliana continued despite Lana's insistence. "Everyone says something they've never done and anyone who has must take a drink."
"You mean 'I will never?' We have that in tevinter, but it's a teensy touch more complicated."
"And involves a shit ton more blood magic, right Sparkles?"
Dorian sighed and threw his head back in feigned outrage, but when he glanced back those bittersweet eyes landed upon the Inquisitor for a beat. Lana almost scooted away to avoid the heat before he smiled and turned to the dwarf, "Everything in tevinter involves blood magic. Why you can't greet someone for morning salutations without slitting a wrist or two."
"So..." Josephine spoke up, still giggling from her wine.
"No, I do not intend to strip naked and sacrifice you all. Not while the night is young at least," Dorian rolled his eyes.
"Not that," Josephine said. "This game, I think we should play it." Lana dropped her head to the table more than aware of how this damn idea turned out before during the blight. Throw in Dorian, Hawke, and Varric and no one was going to be able to look each other in the eye until next harvestmere. Josephine glanced at her, but plowed ahead, "How does it start?"
"I'll begin it," Lana said, her words muffled by the wood. She sat up and massaged her forehead. What to say? Ah! Smiling slyly at Leliana, she said, "I have never nailed someone's knickers to a chantry board."
The spymaster smiled and drank her own grog with a flourish. After placing it down, she explained, "Now everyone who's ever done that takes a drink."
"Oh, of course, so simple." Josephine sipped her wine and, as a bit of a surprise, so did Dorian.
After finishing, he shrugged, "What? We were all young once. Youngish. Does it count as young if it was two years ago?"
"May it be my turn?" Josephine interrupted. No one was about to argue, so she screwed up her face struggling for one. Snapping her fingers, she said, "I have never...no, oh, um...I have never killed a demon."
"By all the..." Dorian grumbled downing another as did everyone else at the table save the grinning ambassador.
"I'm quite enjoying this game," Josephine said while twirling her glass in her fingers.
Leliana patted her friend on the shoulder then took up the next round, "I have never kissed royalty."
Lana shot a look at her, but her friend wore an inscrutable yet innocuous look as if she didn't intend to attack her specifically. Glaring into the table, Lana took a drink a bit longer than normal to try and blot out the reason she was doing it.
Hawke scratched the back of her head and asked, "Does it count if they kissed you?"
"When did that happen?" Varric asked.
"You remember, we were in Nevarra and that King of fancy pants whatever he was came up to me and..."
"Hawke, that wasn't actual royalty. He was in a play."
Shrugging, Hawke tipped back her glass and all but licked it clean. "Still counts. It's a king, just one without a country." She filled her glass, then glanced around the table, "Coming up with stuff I've never done? This'll take awhile. Um...who's going next?"
"I will," the soft Inquisitor spoke up, straightening his shoulders, "I have never killed a high dragon."
Lana turned to him, "Truly? Give it time." She shared a look with Leliana as they both drank. Hawke was now tipping back her glass underhanded either out of boredom or she was already at stage one drunk and rounding to the next level.
"Oh wait," Hawke slammed her mug down on the table and grinned, "I just thought of one!"
"That's great Hawke, now you say what it is," Varric prompted.
"I have never ever killed an archdemon!"
Every eye swiveled to the only warden in the room. She tipped her head, her tongue hunting across her teeth to buy time before she poured the last of whatever this was down her throat. It stopped biting through her gullet a question back and was now sloshing around in her stomach. This was not a good sign.
"Varric? You got one?"
"Sure, I've never fought in the blight," he shrugged then reached forward to bang his glass into Lana's.
"For all the...is the game actually called get the warden drunk?" she complained even while fulfilling her duty. "I'm the injured one here."
"So was I in our last skirmish, but you don't hear me complaining," Dorian sniffed.
"You mean the splinter from lifting a piece of firewood? And you didn't shut up about it for three days," Varric snorted at him.
"It was very deep," he whined, batting his eyelashes in mock pain. "Ah, it seems everyone has taken their turn but me. Hm, oh, I know. I have never snogged anyone at Skyhold." Then, against the rules, Dorian took a deep draught from his glass and smacked his lips. Beside her, Lana watched the Inquisitor quietly smile and take a bare sip.
"That's not how it works, Dorian," Josephine insisted as she climbed across the table to prod her finger into him.
"I was thirsty, and thought it ample opportunity to brag," he smiled at Josephine. Chuckling broke out from the mage's insouciance. The table fell silent as they all turned to Lana finishing off her pint. It wasn't until she placed the mug back on the table she realized what she'd done.
"Lanny?" Leliana was the first to question her.
"Sorry," Lana blushed and a stammer flew from her lips as her inebriated brain searched for a lie, "forgot what the question was. It was about killing darkspawn, or golems, or any of the other thousands of things I've fought, right?"
Dorian chuckled, "I do believe our Diamondback ringer is fully snickered. Let's play some cards!"
Despite playing the professional charmer, Dorian was total shit at games of chance. He kept fluting at the most inopportune time which kicked him from the game before the second round. Yet losing all his buttons did nothing to dampen him, he grinned through every hand without him like he was the biggest winner among them. Josephine was vicious in the way only an antivan could be, her strikes surgical and quick, but Lana knew how to beat them. Zevran had done much the same and was just as easily distracted with flattery, though Josie bounced back from it faster. After watching her pile of buttons fade to only a single one, Josephine sat out and sipped the last of her bottle of wine while standing over Leliana's shoulder.
Before too long, the spymaster herself was out. She acted the part of failing to watch the flow of the game, but Lana knew Leliana excused herself. Occasionally, the spymaster's eyes would wander over her friend, but she seemed to be paying just as much attention to the others. Did they know Leliana was playing them while they played?
"Nope, I'm quitting before I lose my shirt," Varric said tossing his cards into the growing pile of buttons.
"Or worse," Hawke snorted, "your chest hair." Once again, that Hawke luck radiated through. Despite the game of chance knocking out an antivan, a tevinter who probably grew up in gambling houses, a spymaster, and the man who introduced Diamondback to Kirkwall, it was Hawke who was still in the game.
Varric leaned back in his chair to let that mythical chest hair breathe. He'd switched to a bottled ale and kept taking slow swigs from it. Lana thought she recognized the label as one of Isabela's stock with a few anatomical pictures drawn upon the purveyor's forehead. "You're about to learn why you never play games against Hawke, Inquisitor."
"Does she cheat?" his eyes broke from his cards to draw across the dwarf. It came as no surprise how conservatively the elf played, each careful challenge met by an even greater defense. His only downfall seemed to be the mage sitting across from him that was now swirling his fingers through
a puddle of spilled beer to draw glyphs upon the table. Every once in awhile Dorian would look up, impishly smile, and the Inquisitor would float a valuable face card.
"Who? Me?" Hawke squeaked, now on her fifth pint. Maybe sixth. Lana gave up after two, the medicine in her system wishing nothing to do with alcohol. "I am a law abiding Kirkwall of citizen Champion!"
"A law abiding citizen who aided the mage rebellion," Leliana said turning to her.
Hawke blinked slowly then pushed two cards to the Inquisitor for an exchange, "I didn't say whose laws, now did I? Besides it all worked out in the end. Your big sword here saved the day." Dorian snorted from the unintentional euphemism and the Inquisitor shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "Didn't ya? What am I missing now? It's not funny to not tell me things!" Hawke stampeded over the awkward but adorable blushing filling the room.
Varric patted her on the arm and sighed, "I'll tell you when you're sober."
"Good luck with that," Hawke snorted while adding more fuel to the fire. After wiping the beer from her lips, she shook her head, "What was I saying? Oh right, Inquisitor here stopped the mage rebellion. Brought it all to a halt. Good on him and everything."
"Yes, hear, hear," Dorian called raising his empty glass, "good on him."
The tevinter mage cut off from the destruction across southern thedas was the only one in a celebratory mood. Lana's eyes darted to Leliana and they shared a look. Things were not settled, anyone with half a brain knew that after Corypheus was dealt with the same problems would yet remain, the anger double in its viciousness. Even Varric remained quiet, his eyes boring into the ceiling above them.
"Dorian, that's..." the Inquisitor tried to cut him off before the man began literally singing his praises.
Behind them the door swung open, a mountain wind trying to scatter the loot piled up on the table. Lana reached out to save it along with the Inquisitor. Meanwhile, Hawke cheered the buttons on to freedom. Varric's head swung down and a smile widened upon his face, "Curly! You've come to join us?"
Then Lana heard Cullen's tell tale sigh, "I was merely passing through when I saw the light under the crack..." She turned around in her chair and smiled lightly at him. His eyes landed upon her and his scar lifted before he shook himself and nodded at the others in the room, "Inquisitor, and ambassador, spymaster..."
"We're gonna be here all night if he keeps naming everyone," Dorian quipped.
Cullen growled, "Pavus."
Dorian nudged Varric in the gut, "I'm coming around to your theory. It would explain the eternal crankiness."
"What would?" Cullen interrupted, his eyes boring into the nonchalant mage.
Lana jumped to his rescue by sliding another card forward to exchange with the pile, "Shouldn't we be finishing this game?" She felt Cullen approach from behind her, the commander interested in the shenanigans of the rest of the leaders in Skyhold.
"I see you're playing cards," he continued. Only the barest wisp of pain threaded through his words, so narrow you'd have to know him to hear it. Lana winced from it while staring at her new card, but she didn't know how to respond without showing her whole hand.
Thankfully, Varric came to the rescue, "Shit, Curly. We figured you were still busy with that...what were you doing out there in the rain?"
"Drills, and that was hours ago."
"Is that what you call it when you make your men march around shirtless?" Dorian interrupted, "In which case you need to drill much more often." The Inquisitor sighed softly under the guise of picking two more cards, but Lana knew that feeling. Someone I care for just made an ass out of himself. Do I help or let him keep digging? She often made the choice of passing him a shovel. The Inquisitor was far kinder.
"We need our standing army to be fresh," the Inquisitor said, his eyes peeking over the tops of his cards at the tevinter mage.
"They look plenty fresh to me," Dorian whistled.
Varric leaned forward, "Our Hero, Champion, and Herald are in some final death match here, but we can deal you in next hand, Curly."
Cullen leaned back on his heels behind Lana. It would be perfectly natural for him to grab onto the back of her chair for balance but he steadied himself upon the sword instead. "That's all right, perhaps some other time."
"I'll hold you to that," Varric tipped back on his chair and slipped a boot upon the table.
"I am curious to see how this hand plays out though," the commander said while slipping nearer to Lana. She squared her shoulders and sat a bit higher as the scent of his body washed over her. Dorian wasn't kidding, he'd been out in the yard exercising the same as the other soldiers. Maker, how she wanted to leap on top of him, pry off every inch of armor and answer Dorian's question in the flesh. Instead, Lana dropped another two buttons onto the pile and turned to Hawke.
"Your draw," she said.
Her cousin scratched her head, glanced at her cards, knocked her fingers against the table, then blinked, "Shit, right! I had a point."
"That would be a first," Dorian sniped back, which earned him a cautious look from the Inquisitor.
Nothing stung Hawke as she continued, "Us, the three of us, together here. It's funny because we were all in the running to be the head of this little Inquisition. Right?"
A few heads swiveled from Hawke back to the Inquisitor and the Hero before landing upon Leliana. "That is true."
"So, let's make this game interesting. Winner gets control of the Inquisition!" Hawke spread her hands wide, almost throwing her cards through the air.
"That's not..."
"I don't think we should..."
"It's inadvisable to..."
All three advisers spoke at once in an attempt to tamper down the Champion's wager. "Ah come on," Hawke chided, "What's the worse that could happen? Sky's ripped open and a talking ancient magister darkspawn's getting ideas of god hood. Hard to beat that. You feel any blights coming on?" She turned to Lana and raised her tankard in question.
Lana shook her head, not at the blight question, but the idiocy of placing an entire army's leadership upon a game of cards. It'd probably happened before in the history the thedas, complete fools were often made kings after all, but precedent didn't make the idea anymore ludicrous. "I'm uncertain if..."
"I'm game," the Inquisitor interrupted her. He twisted his chin lower to cast a scrutinizing look upon Lana. She grumbled into her hands and pulled her cards closer to her chest. There was no way out of it without looking a coward or... She feared the or more.
"Very well," Lana sighed, "I am in as well. Shall we call it?"
"Oo! Me first," Hawke picked up her cards, unearthed one that slipped under her mug, and chucked them into the middle of the table. Her suits and numbers ranged all across the board, not a single one matching.
Varric scooted the cards around to face him and clucked his tongue, "That is the absolute worst hand you can possible get in this game. I'm damn impressed actually. Is that a coaster?" He thumbed an extra piece of paper that slipped into the game.
Hawke threw her arms behind her head and tipped the chair into the wall. "Guess I don't have to be in charge. Such a shame. Heart's broken, and so on and so forth. Okay, now you two go."
The Inquisitor's narrow eyes slipped to Lana and then he laid down his hand. "I believe you call this a Full Keep," he didn't smile but his eyes gleamed from the strength of his hand, each face card grinning for him.
Lana glanced down at her cards, then plastered on the biggest loser smile she could manage, "I am afraid I have nothing to beat that. Congratulations on maintaining your, how did you put it Hawke? Big sword."
"Best kind to have!" Hawke called unaware of the precarious position Lana just lied her way out of. The rest of the table released a breath as the tension faded away leaving only the smokey bonhomie in its wake. The Inquisitor scooped the buttons up to his side of the table while Dorian smoldered at him.Big sword indeed, Lana chuckled to herself. She carefully folded her cards back into the pile obscuring the fact she had the enti
re royal house of one suit.
Varric picked up the deck and gave the cards a flick, "That's enough Diamondback. How about we try my preferred poison and switch to Wicked Grace?"
"I'm afraid that's enough excitement for me," Lana said scooting back her chair, "healing and all." She rose to her weary feet and willed her muscles to skirt around the table.
"Too bad, the runner up's leaving us," Varric sighed, then pointed at Cullen. "You wanna take her seat?"
The commander slipped back to the door and picked up Lana's staff. He handed it to her without a second thought, then glanced at the dwarf. "Ah, no. Drilling can take a lot out of a man."
Dorian snorted in the middle of a drink spraying cheap mead all over the Inquisitor's gain. His puppy eyes danced up at Cullen who was scowling, then back to the Inquisitor who was scowling for a different reason. But none of it slowed him down. "Oh Maker," he sighed, shaking his head. "What? Did that bypass over everyone's heads?"
Lana reached the door, her fingers upon the handle when Hawke called out, "You need me to help you back?"
"No, I..." she paused and did her best to not glance at the man finding his own convenient excuse to get out of there, "I believe I can handle it on my own."
"Got it!" Hawke clapped her hands, then slammed both on the table, "All right, let's do this. What else we got to raise the stakes? How about we put Skyhold on the line?"
Josephine sighed, "You cannot bet a place you do not own."
"Good night everyone," Lana called pausing for the chorus of responses before she slipped into the night.
Chapter Seven
A Walk
It took a few minutes for Cullen to catch up to her, not that she was limping quickly across the battlements. He coughed to get her attention, as if she couldn't hear him clanging away behind her.
"I thought you might like a bit of assistance back to your room."
Lana smiled and twisted around to face him. The moonlight lit upon his pale face turning him almost white. Those golden eyes gleamed as Cullen tried to blot away a hunger smoldering in them. "No," she said. His sure smile faltered before she continued, "I was hoping to enjoy the evening with a walk around Skyhold instead of returning straight to my room. I would love some company though." She reached out and slipped her arm under his. A goofy grin stretched his cheeks as he rose back to sure footing with her clinging to him for balance. Lana slid closer and put more of her weight upon him than she had her cousin, not that Hawke couldn't have lifted her up on her shoulders. Cullen patted her hand upon his, the soft leather caressing her naked fingers. Rather than remove it, he kept his fingers pinned in place upon hers.
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