Work Text:
The Orlesian violinist was terrible. His instrument was out of tune, his clumsy fingers seemed incapable of pressing the strings down well enough to prevent that ghastly buzzing sound, and he gripped his bow the way a Fereldan farmhand would grip a saw. Josephine didn’t regret sending him away in the least, not even after she paid him double to convince him to leave without a fuss.
If anything, she regretted hiring him in the first place. What had she been thinking when she allowed the Comtesse d’Arnee to convince her that some cousin-of-a-cousin’s-son was a true musical prodigy slated to become a member of the orchestra at the Grande Royeaux Theatre? She’d spoken to the Comtesse many times before; she should have known it was nothing but exaggeration and gloating.
None of this was going according to plan.
Josephine paced up and down the floor of her office with quick, short steps. Her hands were idle but stiff with agitation for having so much to fix and no time to even begin. The tablecloth was stained, the food had been brought up too early and was getting cold quickly, the wine wasn’t the fine Tevinter red she had requested but rather a less refined vintage from the Free Marches, the small dining table she’d had brought in wobbled as if it had been salvaged from the most collapsed room in Skyhold, one of the candles was sputtering little puffs of smoke every now and then, and the delicate arrangement of white roses and crystal grace in the middle of the table was beginning to wilt.
Her mind raced so fast she couldn’t even keep up. Her hands were absently adjusting her skirts, adjusting the tablecloth, adjusting her skirts again, smoothing her hair and inadvertently pulling a few strands loose from the elaborate style she’d spent hours perfecting. It was all wrong. Cassandra Pentaghast was a lover of romance, a woman who both wanted and deserved to be courted, not only properly, but also perfectly. None of this was good enough. Josephine had planned for weeks, and none of it was good enough.
A knock echoed from the door. Josephine was silent for an impossibly long moment, long enough that she swore she saw the flowers wilt a little more right before her eyes, struggling with the impulse to tell Cassandra to go away.
“Come in,” she called at last.
The door swung open slowly. Cassandra hesitated in the doorway at the sight before her, mouth falling open and eyes brimming with nothing short of awe when her gaze came to rest upon Josephine. Every drop of blood in Josephine’s body rushed to her face.
Cassandra came back to reality with a surge of embarrassment, stepping suddenly inside and spinning around to pretend that shutting the door required a great deal of concentration. When she finally turned back again, she looked shyer than Josephine could have ever imagined.
“Josephine…” Cassandra said, before closing her mouth, speechless.
Josephine’s eyes darted to the floor. “There was supposed to be a violinist –” she began, but faltered, feeling foolish.
“No,” Cassandra breathed, “It’s perfect just the way it is.”