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Bull's room is not quite empty when he retires there for the night. A single lamp is lit, illuminating Katrina, who's fussing with something on the overturned barrel beside his bed.
“Hey, boss,” he says, shutting the door behind him.
She startles, scooping up whatever she'd been fiddling with. When she turns to face him, it's with her hands behind her back.
“Hi.” Her lips curve into a sheepish smile. “Didn't think you'd be going to bed quite yet.”
That sounds promising. It's been a week full of big table meetings for her, and she's barely had the time to pass through the tavern to say hello. He can see the evidence of it in the way she's holding herself, like the small of her back's aching from bending over missives and maps all day.
“You got some time?” he asks, bending to unbuckle his brace and pull off his boots. “You look like you need a break.”
“Believe me, I wish I did.” She does, too; she's a terrible liar, her emotions always visible on her face. She casts a longing look at the bed. “But we only broke for supper, I'm afraid. I...I only came to give you this.”
She takes her hands from behind her back. There's a large glass jar held carefully in her fingers; she steps closer, holding it out to him. A length of twine forms a neat bow around the stout neck of the jar, holding a folded piece of paper in place.
She's nervous: can't quite meet his eye, though she does try, gaze flicking to his face and away, skin a little pink around the collar of her coat.
“What is it?” He takes the jar from her hands. As soon as they're free, she rubs the back of her neck.
“It's, ah...it's horn balm.”
He holds the jar up to eye level, examining it a little more closely. Yeah, that sure looks like horn balm—maybe a little different than the stuff back home, but there's variations.
“I know they itch,” she continues, glancing up at his horns. “I hope it helps.” Outside, the bell tolls the eighth hour. She swears. “I'm going to be late. See you tomorrow?”
Just like that, she's gone, out the door that leads to the battlements; he hears her break into a jog before she hits the stairs.
Because he's not sure what else to do—and he's somehow missed his chance to thank her—he opens the note tucked into the twine. She'd clearly planned to leave it while he was out, and he'd caught her in the act.
Bull—
It's not poison.
Katrina
He snorts and unscrews the lid. It hardly smells at all—just a little mint, which is a serious step up from the last batch he managed to get his hands on in Orlais. He dips a finger in and slathers the stuff over the base of one horn, and the low-level itch that's been plaguing him for weeks eases away.
There's no mark on the jar—not a hint of a merchant's seal. Where'd she even find it?
The next day, he decides to ask her—and thank her, while he's at it, because it's easily the most effective horn balm he's used since leaving Par Vollen—but that proves to be easier said than done.
“I'm afraid she's mediating a dispute in the war room,” Josephine tells him. Their ambassador is looking worse for the wear, too; that isn't all kohl under her eyes. Adamant is behind them, but the Inquisition's work seems to have doubled in the aftermath.
“Maybe you can help me, then.” He puts the jar down on her desk. “Where did she find this stuff?”
“She didn't find it.” Josephine sounds a little affronted. “She made it.”
He thinks back over the past month. She's seemed a little preoccupied, more withdrawn than usual, but Adamant was hard on her; he'd assumed she was taking time to process, not taking on a secret project in her spare time.
Josephine frowns at his silence. “Didn't she tell you?” she asks.
“Not a word. Dropped it off and ran like her ass was on fire.”
Josephine chuckles. “Come to think of it, that does sound like her.”
“How did she know what plants to use?” Now that his curiosity's piqued, he has to know, and there’s no telling when Katrina’s going to be done with her meetings.
“Ask Varric,” Josephine replies, making shooing motions with her hands. “I've letters to write.”
“Yeah, I put her in touch with a merchant in Kirkwall who'd seen loads of the stuff,” Varric tells him. “Turns out the antaam was making their own horn balm while they were stuck there—made up a new formula with the plants in the area. The merchant didn’t remember the recipe exactly, so she had to tinker for a while.”
That explained her unusually frequent detours to harvest plants over the past few weeks. He'd asked her, jokingly, what she'd needed so much damn elfroot for, and she'd muttered something about improving the formula of their healing potions.
Either she's getting better at lying, or he's getting rusty. He hadn't questioned her motivations at all.
“Nice of her, huh,” Varric comments—sly as ever. “Madame de Fer helped with the formula, if you're curious.”
Bull checks his boots for an excess of dirt before making the climb to Vivienne. If he wants answers without a lecture, it's better to look presentable.
“What can I do for you, my dear?” she asks. She doesn't get up from the chaise, but looks up at him expectantly, book closed in her lap.
“Varric tells me you helped with this.” He holds up the jar.
“Oh, of course I helped. We did a little research—took some time, but Katrina was determined.”
And that explained the new piles of books on her desk every time he'd gotten her to himself for an evening. She’d been going through them more quickly than usual.
“Did it turn out?” Vivienne prompts.
“Yeah, it works fine.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “She does dote on you, darling. I hope you're good to her.”
Fleetingly, he imagines being frozen into a block of ice and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. “Yes, ma'am,” he agrees.
“Good.” She opens her book. “Off you go, then.”
Katrina's still locked in the war room come supper, so—after the weirdest day he's had since being dumped into the Fade—he returns to the Herald's Rest.
“Something wrong, Chief?” Krem asks.
Bull puts the jar on the table.
“Finally found some, did you?” Krem rolls his eyes. “Now you can stop complaining every hour of the damn day.”
“I didn't find it.” He sits. “The Inquisitor made it.”
Krem whistles and pours him a mug. “Someone's got it bad.”
“Nah.” He frowns at the jar. “She's just thoughtful.”
Krem raises his eyebrows. “That what your super spy senses tell you?”
His super spy senses definitely aren't telling him that. Katrina does do nice things for her friends: kills a Venatori here or there, tracks down rogue mages, goes digging for old books. But those all serve some greater purpose—the world's better for fewer Venatori and blood mages and more books, but this does nothing but tend to his comfort. And she went pretty far out of her way to do it, too, putting in time and energy when she's precariously low on both.
That's...huh.
Krem's still watching him. “She's not the only one who's got it bad,” he observes. “Well, good for you two. She's a sweetheart.”
Before Bull can think up a good response to that, Scout Harding appears at Krem's elbow. She looks particularly dusty, but cheerful as ever.
“Who's a sweetheart?” she asks.
“Pull up a chair and I'll tell you,” Krem says, shooting a smirk at Bull.
“No need. Take mine, Harding.” Bull gets to his feet; he hasn't even touched his drink. “I've got somewhere to be.”
He thinks he'll wait for her in her quarters—wouldn't be the first time—but when he eases the door open, there's a sniff from upstairs. She's finally done with mediating, then, and he takes the first few steps before he hears the next sound: a shuddering breath, a choked sob.
He stops dead. Maybe he ought to leave, but he can't turn around and walk out without at least checking on her. The idea of leaving her alone when she's in pain is unacceptable.
He climbs the rest of the stairs. She hasn't looked up, and probably didn't hear him enter; she's on the couch before the fire, legs tucked beneath her, crying quietly into a handkerchief. He's never once seen her break down like this, and he wonders—with a flash of irritation at himself—what else he's been missing, if she's been suffering and he hasn't noticed.
“Boss,” he says.
She doesn't jump, but she does look up. Her eyes are red. “Oh.” Her voice wavers. “Bull. Sorry, I didn't hear you come in.”
For a moment, he makes himself stand still and observe: the unusually formal dress, the carefully styled hair, the ink stains on her fingers. She twists the handkerchief in her lap.
“Let me guess,” he says at last. “The dispute you were mediating was between Orlesians.”
She lets out a wobbly laugh. “Yes. Nobles. And they couldn't get through the fucking day without making passive aggressive comments about my clothes and my shoes and my hair and my being a mage.”
At this, her face crumples again, and she disappears behind the handkerchief. He wonders if these nobles are still in Skyhold; he thinks he'd like to present them to her—tied up and gagged, preferably—so that she can drop lightning on their heads.
Since that would probably ruin whatever alliance she suffered all day to achieve, he crosses to the couch instead and scoops her up in his arms. She squeaks, stiffening up, but when he settles back on the couch, she relaxes, arms looping up around his neck, face pressed to his shoulder.
“Please tell me the horn balm works,” she mumbles, her voice full of misery. “I think I've failed enough for one day.”
“Of course it works. Smells nice, too. Not like that crap I had made last year. Made me sneeze.”
She manages a watery chuckle. “You're not just saying that?”
“Nope.”
She peeks up at him. He takes the handkerchief from her and dabs gently beneath her eyes.
“Sorry,” she sighs. “It's just been a long week, and this was more than I could take, I guess. After all that time Josephine spent on my hair—and Vivienne sent away to Val Royeaux for this dress! And they still didn't like me. But they wouldn't let me send for Josephine, oh, no. They wanted me all to themselves.” She shakes her head. “I'll never understand nobles. And I might have been one.”
He smoothes the dress over her legs. “What did they say about it?”
“About what?”
“The dress.”
“Oh.” She snorts, a little of her humor regained. “Something about it being so charmingly common. Can you believe it? It's the finest dress I've owned in my life, and they found it common.”
He touches her cheek, tips her chin up until she meets his eye. “You are anything but common.”
She blinks; her mouth pops just slightly open. Her breath hitches, like he's surprised her. Before she can wave the compliment off, he dips his head to kiss her, hand falling to her calf to slowly inch the dress up her legs. She squirms, a soft noise of pleasure in her throat.
Something has changed. Until he works out what that means, he can at least make himself useful.