Chapter Text
“What about that one?” Josephine asked, pointing to the cloud over their heads.
“Lake Calenhad,” Trevelyan decided.
“Which, as Cullen and Leliana said, looks like a bunny,” Josephine acquiesced with a sigh. Trevelyan smiled.
“I knew you’d come around.”
They’d taken a picnic, wandering half a mile down the mountain from Skyhold. So rarely they were able to get away for a few hours, out of the clutches of pages and minor emergencies, and the day was clear and bright. Josephine led the way, cheeks flushed, her rich purple cloak pulled up over her shoulders so that it wouldn’t snag on the cliffside. They could have taken a horse, but Josephine had insisted on walking.
“I spend so much time sitting, thinking, appearing polite,” she had complained. Watching her now--climbing over rocks, grinning, puffs of breath visible in the chilly mountain air--Trevelyan was glad. Josephine could move kingdoms with her words, and apparently, mountains under her feet.
“Here, my lady,” Josephine had told her when she came to an eventual stop, smiling and slightly out of breath. Josephine offered a hand to help her down the final incline and she took it gladly. They’d come to a flat patch of scrub overlooking the valley. They were miles above the treeline, but the moss was dotted with tiny white flowers.
“No matter how inhospitable, nature, beauty find a way,” Josephine had said as they settled down. Trevelyan plucked a flower and tucked it into Josephine’s hair. Josephine laughed, but when Trevelyan leaned back her cheeks were flushed.
“Just like you,” Trevelyan said, just to see the blush spread. “Beautiful, and always finding a way.”
“I do wish we had time together like this more often,” Josephine sighed now. Her hand rested in Trevelyan’s as they looked up at the clouds. “Or that I could accompany you on more of your missions. I don’t know that I could bear to see you in danger, but at least I would be there to protect you.”
Trevelyan squeezed her hand. I don’t know how ‘Niceness before knives’ would work on varghests, she almost teased. But Josephine sounded almost sad. Trevelyan stroked her palm with her thumb.
“Someday,” Trevelyan promised. “Someday there won’t be danger, and I can take you to the Emerald Graves. Or we can get on a ship and find places neither of us have seen.”
Josephine sighed.
“That does sound nice. If impossible.”
“We’ll figure it out. With our talents combined, nothing’s impossible.” Her tone was teasing, but Trevelyan realized that she truly believed it.
They lapsed back to comfortable silence. Josephine watched the clouds, but Trevelyan’s eyes drifted to her. She was smiling softly again, eyes searching the sky. How was she so lucky, that Josephine in all her joy and kindness and cleverness and ferocity loved her?
The wind picked up and Josephine pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and snuggled closer. She pressed a kiss to Josephine’s hair.
“That one looks like a crown,” Josephine said. Trevelyan stopped looking for shapes in Josephine’s freckles and looked back to the sky. She pointed east to a jagged cloud.
“It does.”
The mountain peak and the walls of Skyhold blocked the sky to the south. No tendrils of sickly green reached their view. Trevelyan wanted to lie to herself and say that she could forget about the Breach and the world and the war, here, holding Josephine’s hand.
“Did you enjoy watching the clouds as a child?” Josephine asked. Trevelyan swallowed.
“I did,” she said. When she was young she had watched the clouds and the stars through the window of her Circle bunk room, dreaming of something that was never meant to be. “I like it better with you,” she decided.
“I do too,” Josephine said, voice light. But she squeezed Trevelyan’s hand. She never missed a thing.
“That one looks like a phoenix,” Trevelyan said, pointing west.
“I’ve never seen one up close,” Josephine admitted.
“You don’t want to,” Trevelyan laughed. “They’re not very nice, and they spit fire.”
“Perhaps through binoculars then.”
And somehow the world did slip away as they cuddled closer and spotted dragons and feathers and temples in the clouds. Love and Josephine’s laugh and the mountain air blew all else aside.
“That one looks like a heart,” she said. Josephine smiled and kissed her.