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Alistair had been warned of his unexpected visitor well in advance of arriving at the makeshift quarters the Inquisition had granted him. A young elven boy, no more than fourteen, had scurried up to him in a panic. "She's bloody angry," the boy had told him. He meant Cassandra, of course.
The templars told tales of the Seekers often, mostly to the new recruits in an effort to scare them senseless during their first weeks in the order. The Seekers were monsters, or so the eldest of the templar youth would have them believe. Alistair had certainly been with the order long enough to hear a decent collection of horrendous stories of Seeker cruelty. But he was no fool. Stories were often just that.
And then he saw her, and immediately reconsidered every reasonable thought he'd ever had about any Seeker in all of Thedas. His head was peeked around the corner, watching as Cassandra tore through his quarters as if it was an enemy camp ripe for the plunder. Alistair wasn't about to interrupt her and risk becoming a victim of her righteous fury. Had he not know better, he'd start to believe there were actually fumes pouring from her ears.
The mistake he made was a novice one. As he in leaned closer for a better view, Alistair's hand brushed against a loose piece of stone in the crumbling wall that hid from view. The piece broke free and clattered the ground. He almost had time to realize his error. Almost.
"Uh, hi," he managed to utter after a painstaking moment of silence as she glared at him. "I'm Alistair The-"
"I know who you are," Cassandra barked. "Where is it?"
The question caught him off guard. "Where is... what, exactly?"
"My book," the Seeker replied, drawing out the words to make her annoyance plain. "I do not have time for games. Return it. Immediately."
"You read?" Alistair asked, a bit of coyness seeping into his voice. "I couldn't possibly have anything you would want to read."
A loud sigh escaped the Seeker's mouth. She rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms. "Swords and Shields."
Alistair snorted in amusement despite his best efforts to contain himself. "Pardon?" He was sure he'd heard her wrong. Alistair had gotten his own copy of Swords and Shields from Hawke the last time he'd met with her. A gift, she told him. He'd laughed at her as he thumbed through the first few pages. Written by a friend, she had told him. It wasn't bad, though he had certainly read better.
Apparently his eyes had given him away, ever so briefly dipping toward his own copy. Naturally, living up to the Seeker legends, Cassandra had noticed. "I knew it!" she barked, grabbing the book from the pile of soiled laundry littered in the corner.
"That's- I mean, well... you mean you actually read that stuff?" he finally managed to spit out. Swords and Shields wasn't exactly high class reading material.
"You've read it already?" Cassandra sputtered in return, her cheeks seeming to blush ever so slightly.
She appeared to be under the impression he had stolen the book, and judging from her surprise, fairly recently. "No, of course not," Alistair replied a bit too quickly, hoping his ears hadn't flushed crimson with the lie. "It's Varric's... right? He, er, told me about it. A bit. Not much." Smooth, Alistair. "I'm sure it's lovely." If he had been flexible enough to kick himself in the head, he might have considered it.
Cassandra stared at him a moment, then looked back down at the book. "I expected better from a Warden," she finally said, her expression even. Alistair couldn't help but smile.
"I expected more seriousness from a Seeker," he returned with a grin. Cassandra seemed unamused. "I mean, I wouldn't think you'd have time to read..." he looked down at the book. "...that. What with all the Inquisitiony things you have to do..."
"Inquisitiony things?" Cassandra repeated. Alistair honestly couldn't tell if she was amused or thought him to be the most dim-witted inarticulate man she'd ever met in her life. He assumed the expression would be similar in either case.
Alistair laughed lightly. "Well, I suppose you've caught me red handed," he confessed with a grin that was ever so slightly askew.
"Stay out of my things, Alistair," Cassandra warned, quickly tucking the book away in her satchel.
"Warden's honor," he promised, putting a hand on his chest as she stormed out. He stood there a moment, staring into the air, before turning around. "Come out."
"You knew I was here?" a voice asked from the rafters. Alistair crossed his arms as the lithe figure dropped down to the stony floor below. "Guess not all the stories were made up, eh?"
"Only the really good ones," Alistair replied with a smirk. "Give it here, Sera."
"I can't believe you actually let her take yours," the elf snorted, handing over the book. It was nearly identical, save for a few dog-eared pages littered throughout the volume. Alistair could feel his ears flush again. Cassandra would be back when she realized it wasn't actually her copy she'd taken.
"As much fun as being glared at by a Seeker is, I'd rather not have a repeat of this incident," Alistair told her flatly.
"That's not what your face said earlier," Sera returned, her tone suggestive. "Or the rest of you, for that matter."
"Oh yes, ha ha, make fun of the bastard prince," Alistair complained with a roll of his eyes. "Feels just like home again."
"Some of those pages she marked are mighty interesting, by the by," Sera told him with a wink before slipping out of the room. Alistair looked back down at the book. Surely it couldn't hurt to just take a quick peek...