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Most of the elves Bull met were Tevinter slaves or folks from alienages. Slaves usually converted and there were more than a few alienage burnouts who looked for a better life under the Qun. Dalish was the first proper Dalish elf he’d ever met, but Bull had always gotten the impression that she didn’t really buy into much of the “elfy stuff” as Sera might say. She had the face tattoo or whatever it was but only ever talked about it as a coming of age thing.
Boss was the first Dalish elf Bull had met that liked being Dalish. Not that Bull had known that when they first met.
At first, he was just some kid. He was a bean pole, tall for an elf and stick thin, but had a good head on his shoulders. He could crack wise with the best of them too even if he was a bit wet around the ears. He followed Varric like a pup on their first few trips out from Haven, it was pretty funny and sort of cute. They’d be traipsing through the Hinterlands and Varric would be spinning his tales or griping about the great outdoors and Boss would be trailing behind, nearly bent in half leaning in and hanging on every word. Cassandra told Bull later that spying at the Conclave had been the first time the kid had been sent away from his clan. It was pretty clear to Bull that Boss was looking for someone to look up to, for guidance and some comfort probably, but Varric didn’t seem to mind being cast in a father role in the slightest. It gave him an excuse to look out for the kid.
But he came into own pretty quickly, especially after being made Inquisitor. Bull could see it in the way he held himself at the war table, the way he talked to Josie and the rest; he was their equal. At Haven, the kid wandered around the camp looking a little awestruck, hid in his room or loitered near the stables, brushing harts or mucking stalls. But when they moved to Skyhold, it wasn’t long before he was chatting up the noble crowds and striding around issuing orders left and right with Josie in toe, scribbling down every word on her little clipboard.
When they went out to the Emerald Graves for the first time, that’s when Bull caught his first glimpse of who Boss really was -- not some pipsqueak with the world’s worst luck and a built in nightlight in his palm, not the Inquisitor that stopped at nothing to beat back Corypheus at every opportunity or charmed the nobles into signing over all their support plus their kitchen sink, not even his kadan (at least not yet). He was Aytaç of the Dalish, born to know every inch of the forest, every sparkling stone in the streams his treasure and every foothold in a cliff face part of his staircase. Cassandra nearly broke her arm trying to chase the kid up a tree taller than any tower at Skyhold and Sera nearly pissed herself laughing when he showed her a cluster of little mushrooms distinctly shaped like little blue cocks (“Lil blue shit dicks, yea? Get it, eh? ‘Shrooms eat shit!”).
Every time Bull turned around the kid was climbing up something or digging through a bush to pull out some herb. He could have sworn he saw him whispering to nugs or some shit but he shoo’d them all off before Bull could get a proper listen. The kid didn’t actually talk much that whole time they were in the forest, even when he pulled members of their troop to the side to show them some natural wonder or another -- he’d just touch their elbow or shoulder and point.
On the ride home Varric had to hook the kid’s hart’s reigns on to his saddle to keep the beast from wandering astray while the kid nodded off. Even the mighty Inquisitor could get exhausted chasing jays through the treetops and climbing waterfalls to find ancient elven rune paintings, it seemed.
When they got home, Bull asked Dalish if she ever got like that -- all quiet and communing with nature and she laughed.
“Do you think if I was the First, I’d have been sent to ‘see the world’ with me ‘bow’?” She said, and Bull was taken aback.
“the First?”
“You know, the would-be-Keeper? They’re always some flower child who can sing the prettiest bird song, grow the mossiest moss, that sort of thing.”
Bull asked Josie and she told him that Boss had given up his role as First in his clan to stay with the Inquisition.
“It was not a decision he made lightly,” She said, not looking up from the reports she was filing, “He had been preparing his entire life to be the clan’s next Keeper. I understand that sending word to his current Keeper, Keeper Istimaethoriel, was very trying for him. She was very upset, but gave her blessing.”
Bull started to see Aytaç in a new light after that. It was about then that he started to notice the long lonely looks out the window in the library, watching birds nest among the branches, and the extra allowances made for caring for the stables and quality of seed fed to Leliana’s crows. Bull found him one afternoon while he was patrolling the walls, sitting on the ledge and staring out at the snowy mountains around Skyhold. His eyes were searching the skyline, looking beyond it, towards something Bull couldn’t see.
“You miss it,” Bull said to him once, leaning against the stone archway entrance of the garden, watching him gently tend to the potted herbs he kept there.
Aytaç laughed, not looking up at the Bull, “Miss what?” His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows and he wasn’t wearing gloves as he handled the dirt.
“The wilderness. Your clan. Don’t lie.”
He laughed again but then he was quiet for a long time. Bull thought maybe he’d pushed too far when the kid finally spoke up.
“So what if I do. It’s not like I can go back there.” Bull looked down but he couldn’t see Aytaç’s face. Kid was hiding it behind a slightly wilted pot of elfroot.
“Can’t be the First, or whatever, again, now that you’re Inquisitor. But there’s no reason not to visit...” Bull knew it wasn’t enough though, wouldn’t be the same, and his comment hung sourly between them.
Aytaç stood and turned, smiling with that lopsided mouth and looking a bit apologetic. “Don’t fret about it. The Maker put me on this path,” He looked down at the mark on his palm, caked in dirt “Or whatever it is they say.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t miss your own path, the one you carved out yourself.” The kid looked up again and this time gave Bull a real smile, something soft that went up to his eyes. The look was so intimate that Bull had to look away, couldn’t look directly at it just in case it blinded his one good eye.
Bull thought he got it, got Boss, at least a bit, after that. And a bit more once they started spending time together in a more intimate way. It was hard not to think you knew someone once you'd had them roped down on your bed working them open with a couple of thick, greased fingers for an hour or two until they begged for more or sweet release, sobbing quietly into their own fancy embroidered Orlesian satin sheets. But the trip out to the Exhaled Plains added whole new dimension to the stick of an elf jumping bean that Bull found himself so fond of.
The silent commune with nature that Aytaç had slipped into in the Graves wasn’t present in the Plains -- quite the opposite really. They came across a herd of grazing halla near a low flowing stream and when the rest of the party stopped for fear of spooking them, Aytaç moved forward. In the low calm, voice, not unlike the voice he had when he whispered in Bull’s ear, he spoke to them in Elvin. For the first time Bull wished they’d brought the egghead along so he could maybe translate. The halla watched Aytaç with dark eyes, apparently rapt by his voice (Bull felt akin to them if so) or the words he said. After a moment, several does came towards him to smell his clothes and accept his gentle hand rubbing between their curled horns. A kid rubbed itself eagerly against his leg, seeking attention and Aytaç bent down to pick it up. The party, Bull included, watched with slack jaws as the kid nuzzled Aytaç’s face and licked his forehead.
By the time they reached the Dalish encampment further along the stream, several members of the herd were following them. The kid (which Bull had started to mentally refer to as Nub for the little bumps of horn starting to peek through on the top of it’s head) trotted along side Aytaç without faltering.
In the camp, Aytaç spoke to the Keeper and both bowed deeply to one another and the Keeper called Aytaç “da’len” which was one of the few Elven words Bull knew. He would have thought being called ‘little’ would be insulting but afterward Aytaç couldn’t keep from smiling.
The others took the opportunity to sit and rest as Aytaç made his way through the camp, sitting by the stream and setting down their bags. Several of the wild halla that had followed them into the camp joined Dorian and Cassandra and drank from the stream. Bull thought to make a crack about how they had earned new recruits for the Inquisition but Boss was working his way through the camp, chatting with other elves and pursuing craftsmanship and wares some elves were willing to part with and Bull felt like he’d be missing out if he didn’t follow.
Aytaç laughed with his elven kin, speaking to them in their shared tongue and making jokes about life with the shemlen from what little Bull could parse. He gestured several times at the Bull while saying “ma vhenan” and the elves looked at Bull with raised eyebrows as they regarded him.
After they left the camp, travelling north-east, Aytaç’s mood dropped significantly. The kid Nub stood atop a boulder near the Dalish camp as the party moved on, bleating sadly but refusing to follow them.
Bull knew Aytaç to be a pretty sympathetic person, kind even to traitors and deserters. But walking through still-burning remains of Orlesian houses, his pretty face was screwed up in a scowl and under his breath he whispered “fenedhis” and “shemlin vhen'alas na’din” with hot anger in his throat.
Vivienne commented sadly on how beautiful this land used to be, teary eyed and standing in an overgrown plaza when Aytaç snapped at her:
“It’s still beautiful!” with anger sparking in his eyes.
He’d never turned that tone on any of his Inner Circle, not even Sera or Solas, and Vivienne was taken aback.
“Of... of course, darling...” She said, soft and apologetic but Aytaç still stalked off to carve some sparkling ore off a nearby cluster of rocks. Vivienne looked at Bull and Bull raised his shoulders, just as surprised as she was. After thirty minutes, he didn’t come back and Varric went after him muttering something about elves with springs for legs and daunting heights not made for dwarf livelihood.
Back at Skyhold, Bull’s Kadan pushed his head against Bull’s tattooed and scarred shoulder to hide his face as he bounced in Bull’s lap. Bull held on to his hips and let the kid work out his anger on the length of his dick. With sweat dripping down his face and teeth gritted, the kid cried out but not from pleasure and collapsed against Bull’s chest, holding in frustrated sobs. Bull felt his heart tremble and he held him, hushed him as he beat against Bull’s chest with a weak fist and cried for all that he knew too little of to mourn.
Afterward, when Aytaç had worked out what he could and they’d curled around one another in his bed to doze lightly, Bull traced the curves of the tattoo on his forehead.
“Ghilan'nain” Aytaç said softly and Bull’s eyes dropped from the white shapes to his half lidded eyes.
“What’s that?” Bull’s hand drifted downward to trace the matching curves just below Aytaç’s lips.
“Mother of the halla... it’s what my vallaslin represents.”
Bull hummed understanding “That why they follow you around like you’re ass is made of elfroot?”
That earned him a soft laugh and Bull found the smile was contagious.
“My Keeper chose it, because I’d always had a way with the halla,” Aytaç’s hand cupped around Bull’s, guiding them to cradle his face “And because Ghilan'nain had been mortal once, chosen for apotheosis...” He laughed again at Bull’s questioning face and explained “She was deemed worthy of godhood. Because of her devotion to the goddess Anduril and her love for animals.”
“Is that what your keeper hoped you’d be? A ‘chosen one’?” Bull searched bright green eyes that looked away from him, that didn’t see anything in the room with them. Aytaç came back to him with a sadder smile and whispered:
“I don’t know...”
Bull watched his face, trailed a finger along scar that cut through his dark brow. Aytaç had been chosen for a great many things it seemed, more than Bull had initially perceived. No wonder the kid was so afraid of failure, cracked wise to make light of the pressure that was slowly squeezing the life out of him: he’d already had to abandon one cause, seemed to think he’d failed one world already.
Bull closed his eyes and knocked their foreheads together, startling Aytaç out of his melancholy daze. Maybe the world was falling apart around them, maybe the Inquisition had cut Aytaç’s fate short and put him on a new wayward path. But Bull knew come hell or highwater he wasn’t going to leave this elf’s side.
Aytaç reached up and playfully yanked on one of Bull’s horns.
“What does ‘ma vhenan’ mean?” Bull butchered the pronunciation, judging from the laugh in Aytaç’s eyes but not badly enough that he didn’t know what Bull meant.
“Kadan,” He said, dropping his hand to Bull’s chest “My heart.”
Bull smiled, a swell of fondness rising in his chest that he tried to contain. He pushed on Aytaç’s shoulder and rolled them so he could cover his kadan with his body and press rough-dry kisses along his forehead and temple. Aytaç laughed, held tight to Bull’s body and let himself be kissed.
“Ma vhenan, ma sa'lath,” he said as Bull’s mouth found the pointed shape of his broad ears and nibbled, “ma'arlath...”
Bull looked at him, one eye searching the soft expression on Aytaç’s face.
“Ma emma lath, ma vhenan'ara...” Aytaç’s haft rough hand touched Bull’s face, fingers follow the scar that came out from under his eyepatch “ma'arlath.”
“You gonna tell me what all that was?” Bull asked, when the translation wasn’t forthcoming, and Aytaç laughed.
“Maybe one day.” He said, eyes dropping to Bull’s chest but his vision moving beyond that to some future Bull tried not to think about for fear of what it might do to his judgement, his commitment, his heart.
Bull knocked their foreheads together again, harder than he had previously and Aytaç flinched, swatting at Bull’s shoulder. They wrestled, half playfully until Bull pinned Aytaç’s thigh down and open and his kadan moaned.
The next morning, as Bull got dressed and Aytaç snoozed face down in a small drool spot, Bull knew what he had said. Hadn’t known the words maybe, but had know the tone and the soft eyes. It was akin to the way Aytaç had looked at the halla by the stream, the way he’d smiled eyes closed as the kid Nub licked the pale blood writing etched in his forehead. Bull sat on the bed, mattress dipping under him and Aytaç’s smaller form leaning with the weight.
“... you too,” Bull said, whispered as he smoothed a hand down Aytaç’s bare back. He couldn’t say the word, not yet, couldn’t convince himself that the feeling had a name just yet. But he felt something that could be near named love.