Work Text:
Sarif Cadash had never been bothered by her height; in fact, it’s helped more than once. She’s successfully snuck under the noses of many a guard and often can dodge under a greatsword simply by ducking her head under the arcing blade. Her taller friends had to somersault halfway across the battlefield in order not to suddenly meet their Maker. No, Sarif had never worried about her height.
That is, until she met Blackwall.
She knew she liked him from the minute her group found him training farm boys to fight. Any other man would have simply driven off the bandits themselves without thinking of the future consequences of leaving the poor boys defenseless. That kind of thinking needed to be close by her side. Compassion and loyalty; those were two words she immediately thought of when she heard him speak. Qualities that were needed in her then small circle of companions. Her friends either had one or the other, never both. But he embodied those words and she sincerely liked that about him.
Bit by bit, he began to win her over even further. Whether or not he was being intentional about it was another story, but he was doing it nonetheless. His soft way of speaking, the way he seemed to roll a thought around on his tongue before saying anything…and oh, the way he would blush! Whenever he said anything remotely flirtatious he would immediately turn a light shade of pink, prompting a girlish giggle from Sarif. Blackwall was so gentlemanly when he was around her though; he needn’t have worried about being untoward (not that she would have minded).
When he tried to push her away, warning her that he wasn’t right for her, she only grew more determined. She was the damn Inquisitor and she would never lose a battle! The dwarf began to unabashedly tease and flirt with him, even going so far as to goose the taller man. One night, she had even gotten so drunk in a game with Sera that she went to his quarters and propositioned him.
Of course, he refused on the grounds of her being hammered. What a gentleman.
Sarif thought that maybe if she kissed him, he would finally say yes and be with her and only her. This is when she started to curse her Stone-given height. It was impossible to simply walk up to him and peck him on the lips; she only reached to about his stomach and he wasn’t even one of the taller humans. Instead, the dwarf would have to devise a plan to somehow plant a surprise kiss on the man’s lips, without making a fool of herself. Much easier said than done.
First, she tried just standing on his worktable in Skyhold. Unfortunately, it was one of those rare days that he never even came to the barn and she ended up missing several appointments and earning more than her fair share of stares due to her extreme patience while waiting.
Next, she decided to try stealing a kiss on horseback while they were out doing some heroic deed or another. At least during that time, she thought, they were more or less equal in height. As they were riding through the Dales, she convinced Blackwall to ride at the back of their group with her. Sarif began nudging her stallion towards his and, grinning ear to ear, leaned out to give him a simple peck on the cheek. She almost fell of her horse, however, when Blackwall suddenly surged forward as he spotted a giant heading straight for them. She still thinks that damn horse sniggered at her.
At the point, she wondered if there wasn’t some kind of ‘destiny’ thing the religious zealots kept spouting off about involved in her mission. She was thoroughly put out at this point with her lack of success. However, Cadash decided to give it one more go.
She chose a day to put her plan into action and asked Josephine to clear everything off her schedule. No missions, no meetings, and definitely no nobles. As soon as her faithful diplomat assured Sarif of her free time, she bounced out to the barn that Blackwall chose to be his workshop.
He was there, working on some kind of rocking horse with a beak. As she approached, the man stood back from his work to survey his progress, stroking his beard in thought. Butterflies began fluttering in the pit of the Inquisitor’s stomach, threatening to break her nerve. She admonished herself for acting like a lovesick teenager and forced her feet to keep stepping towards the object of her affections. When she was but a few feet away, she once again cursed her height; he was so much taller than she and that alone almost cowed her.
“My lady?” Blackwall asked, obviously confused to see her there. She was a very busy woman and had no time to be visiting him, the least of her cohorts, right? “Is everything all right?”
Sarif shook herself out of her worry and craned her head up to look at him. “Blackwall, could you do me a favor? It’s nothing…tall.”
“Tall, my lady?” he said, the confusion growing on his face, before realizing that a request had been made of him, “Of course. Anything for you.”
“Then I want you to kiss me. Right here. On my lips.” She kept babbling, a slave to her anxiety and hope. Sarif watched as his expression grew incredulous and her heart began to break. His eyebrows drew together and he closed his eyes, thinking. She swallowed hard, finding it hard to get past that growing lump in her throat. Squeezing her glistening eyes shut, she began to turn about on her heel, cursing herself for thinking this would work. But as she turned, something strong gripped her wrist, stopping her in place.
“I’m sorry, okay?” she said, louder than she meant to, “I just really like you, and I’ve been trying to show you for weeks now and things just keep coming up! You must think me a fool…”
“Not a fool,” he murmured, in that special way she liked—no, loved so much. “If anything, I am the fool for making such a woman so unhappy.”
She looked back at him, a tear falling down her cheek as she did so. His grip loosened and fell down to her hand, where he tentatively laced his fingers with hers. The dwarf blinked, mouth slightly ajar, as he bent down to her level and kissed her gently on the mouth.
His beard felt exactly as she thought it would; slightly prickly but mostly a smooth, silky feel on her cheeks and chin. Her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into him, light-headed with pleasure. Cadash took her hand from his to wrap them around his muscled neck to bring him closer to her. She felt his arms snake around her back and, suddenly, she was off the ground, but she was enveloped in such a haze that she hardly registered it. A few seconds later and she was sitting on his table, straddling his waist in an effort to be close to him.
Slowly, he pulled away and she found herself starving for those few centimeters that separated them. His cheeks were flushed, but his face showed concern, fear, and sadness.
“I have nothing to offer you. No gold, no glory, nothing,” Blackwall said, eyes downcast, “This shouldn’t happen. But I need you to end this, because I can’t…”
Finding her diminutive hands, she placed them on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. After a few moments of simply staring into his dark eyes, she had only one word to say.
“No.”