Archive of Our Own ^beta

Harding returns to Haven to find it buried under a hundred yards of snow. By the time she and her scouts track down Skyhold, all she wants to do is make her report and then pass out for a day and a half, something the Herald (Inquisitor, it's Inquisitor now, don't screw this up, Harding) generously allows her to do.

When she wakes up, there's a basket of flowers on the end of her bed.

It's night—by the height and phase of the moon, she's slept for precisely as long as she wanted to—so Harding can't quite make out details of the bouquet. She thrashes her way free of her blankets, narrowly avoids falling flat on her face climbing out of a bed that's much too high for her, and fumbles around until she finds some candles and a flint, hidden away in a set of drawers as tall as she is. Skyhold being a largely unfinished affair, Harding can't quite blame anyone for failing to find dwarf-appropriate furniture, but she will be having certain words with certain requisition officers if this isn't fixed before the tavern is.

Armed with a lit candle, Harding marches over to her bed and hauls herself back up, cursing quietly as wax spills onto her hand. She tugs the basket towards her and a note comes fluttering free. When she picks it up, for a moment she can't believe it's really paper; it's smoother than any letter she's ever handled, and edged with a thin line of gold leaf. It's folded and sealed with wax, also gold, with an ornate M stamped into it. Harding settles herself tailor-style and tucks the candle between her legs. The wax lifts away from the paper easy enough, revealing a short missive in an elegant hand.

Serrah Harding,

I was sorry to have missed your return. We are all grateful that your skill, and that of your company, saw you safely to Skyhold.

Please accept these flowers as a token of our gratitude for your exemplary service.

Yours in gratitude,
Lady Josephine Cherette Montilyet

Harding carefully folds the letter and sets it aside. She raises the candle to examine the flowers.

Most of the basket is taken up with massive roses in full bloom, not quite a rich enough colour to be red—more of a dark pink. Scattered among them are the purple and white blossoms of sea lavender, and the whole basket is ringed by dozens of strands of bright yellow sticklewort. Harding selects one rose and carefully draws it out; needlessly careful, as it turns out, because while the rose has half a dozen healthy green leaves sprouting from its stem, the thorns have all been removed.

Harding carefully sets the basket on the ground and nudges it under her bed so she can't trample it next time she gets up. She blows out her candle and crawls back under the covers, taking her single rose and her letter with her.

The next day, when the Inquisitor asks how Skyhold is treating her, Harding can't help the smile on her face when she says, "Ambassador Montilyet sent me a basket of flowers."

It seems only appropriate to return the sentiment, but Harding isn't even sure how Josephine found all those flowers in the first place—none of them are really in season, and they wouldn't tolerate Skyhold’s frost long enough to grow, though Harding suspects she has the chilly air to thank for keeping her bouquet presentable. She's pressed half a dozen of the best flowers between books as keepsakes and left the rest on her windowsill, occasionally plucking one out to wear in her hair or through a buttonhole. She has to assume Josephine has access to a greenhouse or something, and that it's out of Harding's reach for now.

The Inquisitor sends her to scout the Western Approach, and on the way back, Harding finds her answer. They're riding up a shady green hill on the long trek back to Skyhold—her scouts on noble Ferelden steeds, Harding on a scrappy yellow pony that's handled every type of terrain they've encountered better than the coursers have—and Harding spies a carpet of white between some of the denser trees, where light and shade fall across in stripes. She calls for a rest break, leaves her scouts to their morning snack, and scrambles over to inspect her find.

Where the sunlight falls, white daisies turn their yellow hearts towards it; where there is shade, pink and white baby's breath sprouts in great gouts like seafoam. Further back, Harding finds tiny blue periwinkles—not native to this region, but a common enough garden plant that it could easily have gotten loose. She gathers fistfuls of each of them, carefully tucking them into her pack between the elfroot and the spindleweed.

They aren't far from Skyhold, but the ride seems agonisingly long, and Harding is all too aware of how each shift of her hips could crush the flowers. When they arrive she's off like a shot, back to her quarters before she's even considered her report, pulling the flowers out and laying them almost reverentially on her bed.

She takes the last of the flowers out of the basket Josephine sent her and arranges her own bouquet in it. Compared to the vibrant colours of Josephine's gift, hers seems pallid and drab, but the white highlights the pink and blue and taken from a distance it almost looks like fine china. Harding hunts up a length of blue ribbon her mother had given her for her hair and uses it to tie a bow around the basket. She has a scrap of old parchment. It’s not nearly as fine as the paper Josephine had sent, worn thin and ragged after being scraped clean of old missives half a dozen times, but it will serve. She has the thick brown ink they mostly use for drawing rough maps or coded symbols, and a pen that is actually a stout pine twig with a nib carved out of the end, not quite flexible enough for proper calligraphy. She puts it to paper regardless.

Ambassador Montilyet,

Thank you for the lovely gift. I was delighted to receive it. I hope you will find the same enjoyment in these flowers that I found in yours you’res yours.

Please forgive the roughness of my reply.

Yours faithfully,
Lace Harding

She doesn’t have a seal of her own, so she just folds it up, drips some candle wax on it, and presses her thumb into it. The resulting seal isn’t even close to the elegance of Josephine’s. Harding would be embarrassed, but Josephine surely knows Harding’s circumstances can’t even come close to her own.

“Oi, Chief!” One of her elvhen scouts, Tinker, leans throw the window to wave at her. “Her Worship wants you for the briefing.”

Harding swears vigorously and stuffs the letter into a particularly profuse cluster of baby’s breath. “Right. Take this up to the Ambassador, would you?”

“Flowers, huh?” Tinker accepts the basket when Harding thrusts it at her and sniffs. “Nice. You sweet on her or something?”

“No,” Harding says, hearing the lie in her own voice even as she speaks. She turns it into sarcasm. “I send flowers to all my superiors. Hey, do you think Sister Nightingale prefers roses or lilies?”

Tinker snickers. “Funeral lilies, maybe. Get to the Great Hall. I’ll take care of this.”

Harding does a last minute check of herself—hair still bound up, no obvious stains on her uniform, shoes more or less tied—and takes off for the Great Hall.

When they get back from scouting the Hissing Wastes, Harding is badly sunburnt. The Inquisitor politely offers her a poultice of elfroot and aloe and doesn’t laugh at her misery, which is more than Harding can say for half her scouting company.

On the bright side, when Harding returns to her quarters, the overlarge furniture has been replaced with appropriately dwarf-sized trappings. The banner of Redcliffe hangs on the wall behind her bed, and the colours—white and earthy red—are reflected in the linens on her bed and the trim on the furnishings.

There’s also a new basket of flowers on her bedside table.

Harding bounds over and scoops the flowers into her arms, inhaling deeply. The bulk of it are pale pink camellias, threaded through with with white lily of the valley. They’re hemmed in by a wide circle of yellow flowers, bright tickseed studded among deep golden Par Vollen lilies. The colours don’t quite go together, but the combined perfume is gorgeous.

There’s another letter, on the same fine paper with the same golden seal, tied to one of the camellias with the blue ribbon Harding had sent with her basket. Harding pulls it free with fingers that only tremble very slightly and opens it.

Messere Harding,

There is nothing to forgive; your reply was perfectly charming.

I know you are occupied with your duties, but if you have the time, I would welcome your presence. I can be found in the offices by the Great Hall most days.

I hope to enjoy the pleasure of your company soon.

With warm regards,
Josephine

Harding swallows.

Someone—probably the Inquisitor, but maybe Leliana—has invested in the garden. Skyhold has greenhouses now, already blooming with flowers Harding doesn’t even know the names of, and vast sprawling gardens that are intended for meditation and reflection. Harding is mostly just thieving from them.

She finds three perfect irises in the greenhouse, vivid purple with yellow hearts the same colour as the tickseed, and adds bunches of spurge laurel in the same violet tone. As she carries her basket through the gardens towards the Great Hall, she comes across half a dozen golden jonquils by the path, and adds a few of those as well.

Varric sees her and whistles suggestively as she passes. Harding makes a very rude gesture and continues on with her head held high.

Josephine is issuing orders in a rapid stream of Antivan to a handful of attendants. When Harding comes in, Josephine catches her eye and winks without breaking stream. After a moment, the ambassador claps her hands once and the attendants disperse in a graceful whirl of silks. It’s all accomplished so abruptly that Harding stands there blinking for a solid ten seconds or so, before blushing and hurrying forward.

“No letter this time, Ambassador.” Harding offers up the basket.

Josephine takes the basket in both hands—long and elegant, as smooth and soft as the rest of her skin except for the calluses from the quill on the two first fingers of her right hand, entirely unlike Harding’s own—and breathes in the scent, smiling wide. “Jonquil?”

“And iris and spurge laurel,” Harding says. She feels herself flush as soon as the words are out of her mouth. Way to state the obvious, Harding.

Josephine, bless her, just nods seriously. “Of course. They are an important part of the display, after all.” She selects one of the irises and slides it behind her ear. The petals are bright against her dark skin and hair, and the yellow heart matches the silk of her gown. “I adore them. Thank you, Lace.”

Harding smiles. “I’m glad you like them. I wasn’t sure what Antivan taste ran towards.”

“The language of flowers is fortunately universal across most of Thedas.” Josephine smiles back, blindingly lovely. “I cannot speak for Qunari customs, of course, but aside from hemlock or belladonna, I imagine any choice you make will be quite safe.”

“Nothing poisonous. Noted.” Harding glanced at her feet, laced her fingers behind her back, and straightened up with her most formal face and crispest accent. “My lady, would you perhaps be interested in a turn about the fortifications?”

Josephine laughs. “Of course, my lady.”

Harding grins big enough to split her face in half and offers her elbow. Josephine, smiling just as wide, accepts it.

Harding makes time to see Josephine every day, sometimes to talk, sometimes to walk along the battlements or in the gardens, sometimes simply to sit in companionable silence while they do their paperwork. Josephine, in turn, appears in brief moments through the day; she delivers allegedly surplus wine to the scout barracks, comes by to collect reports and stays to gossip, or brings the requisition officers or horse master over to see the scouts and takes Harding aside until they're done.

It’s only five days of this before Harding is sent out to scout Emerald Graves, and when she comes back—slightly bruised from an encounter with a giant, but otherwise no worse for wear—the basket is on her bed, holding a bottle of wine cradled in white heather, and her room is strung with other flowers. It takes her a while to find them all. There are calla lilies in a vase on her bedside table, little bouquets of blue and white violets tied with gold ribbon on her chest of drawers, and the rafters are strung with hundreds of jasmine blossoms, filling the air with their delicate honey scent. Harding sits down on her bed, overwhelmed.

“Harding, are you—oh my.”

Harding glances up sharply. Dorian is in her doorway, staring at the flowers.

“You’re a very lucky woman, Harding.” He gestures at the flowers. “Calla lilies, violets, white heather… I imagine you’ll be paying your paramour a visit this evening.”

Harding blinks at him. “What.”

“The language of the flowers, Harding.” Dorian pointed at the basket. “White heather; your wishes will come true.” He turned to the vase, then the dresser. “Calla lilies for beauty. White violets mean you want to take a chance, and blue violets mean you’ll always be true.”

Harding pointed at the jasmine. “What about that one?”

Dorian glanced up. “Jasmine… sensuality and elegance, if I’m remembering right, with undertones of fond attachment.”

“Right.” Harding pulls the basket towards her. There’s a letter with the Montilyet seal, same as the others. She opens it, careful not to let Dorian get a good look at the seal.

My dear Lace,

I pray this will not seem too forward. Your absence has been agony for me.

I would be honoured and grateful if you would join me in my quarters this evening. If I have misread you, I offer my deepest apologies.

Yours,
Josephine

Harding swallowed hard and glanced up at Dorian. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”

“Dorian,” Harding said slowly, “could you do me a favour?”

Dorian smirked. “It would be my pleasure.”

“So I think we might have had some minor miscommunication,” Harding says.

Josephine spins so fast her hair comes loose from it’s knot. “I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry!” Harding hurries forward, setting her basket of flowers on one of Josephine’s tiny ornamental tables. “It’s fine! I didn’t understand at first, but Dorian explained some things to me—”

“Oh, Maker.” Josephine presses her hand against her forehead. “What exactly did he explain?”

“A couple of things, actually, some of which I can never unhear, but mostly it was the flowers.” Harding glances away and rubs the back of her neck. “When you mentioned the language of flowers being universal, I didn’t realise you meant a literal language.”

Josephine blinked. “But the flowers you sent me—I thought—”

“Yeah, Dorian mentioned that too. I can see how that might have been… misleading.” Harding grins up at Josephine. “As it turns out, though, it was more or less the message I wanted to send anyway.”

Josephine’s face slowly relaxes. She takes her hand away from her forehead. “I… I’m glad to hear it.”

“In fact,” Harding says, reckless and almost giddy, “I brought another message as well.” She picks up the basket and offers it up. Josephine takes it.

The centrepiece of the basket is a trio of delicate white orchids nestled among red tulips. It’s surrounded by snapdragons in red, white, and purple, studded with sprigs of lavender. Josephine’s eyes widen slightly, and a blush darkens her cheeks.

“I had hoped,” Josephine says, “but this is more than I ever dared to dream. You flatter me.”

“Is it technically flattery if it’s true?” Harding steps forward, slowly, so Josephine can step back if she likes, and sets her hands over Josephine’s where they still grip the basket. “I’m not used to this kind of attention. I’m probably going to get a lot of things wrong.”

Josephine pulls back, and Harding’s stomach falls for a moment, but Josephine is only setting the basket aside; she returns and takes Harding’s hands in her own. “I only rarely dare to be so bold, Lace. The world is a dangerous place, now more than ever, and I could not stomach the idea of… of never having said anything, should something happen.”

Lace stares at their joined hands, acutely aware of the roughness of her palms and fingers from years of woodcraft and archery, her scarred knuckles, her freckles, how poorly she compared to Josephine’s poise and grace. “Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who didn’t dare to dream.”

Josephine laughs and tugs on Lane’s left hand, raises it to her mouth and presses a kiss to the knuckles. “I’m sure we can fumble through.”

Harding takes her hand back so she can rest it on Josephine’s waist and stretches up on her toes. Josephine bends down and threads her fingers into Harding’s hair as their lips meet.

Dorian joins Varric in whistling the next time Harding comes through the Great Hall with her flowers. Vivienne stops her long enough to examine her face and declare her to be of good breeding, the Iron Bull offers a surprisingly sincere congratulations, and Sera makes a vulgar gesture with two fingers and her tongue that leaves Cullen blushing and Leliana giggling. Harding ignores them all, marching into Josephine’s office to present her with an armful of red and white chrysanthemums in exchange for a kiss.