Chapter Text
Her soulmate's signature blooms across her ribcage. Cassandra's always had to twist a bit uncomfortably to read it. Whoever it is, they write a fair hand; the letters unhesitatingly sprawl across her skin. It is a bold signature, Cassandra thinks.
The name itself adds to the romance of it all. Cassandra tries to look up surnames in her uncle's library, but he is more concerned with the dead than the living. All she knows for sure is that her soulmate is not Nevarran. Anthony teases her about it. Calls her his little bird, ready to fly far away.
Anthony dies. Is murdered. Cassandra wants no part of love, particularly not one preordained. The Seekers accept her petition to join them, even though she is too old. Cassandra throws herself into her work. The name emblazoned on her skin means nothing to her, stays hidden beneath her breast band. She does not speak of it, and will not look for him.
Years pass, and Cassandra doesn't forget the name. She learns to think around it. So it is that when she first picks up the battered copy of Hard in Hightown, she doesn't really mark the author.
She nearly drops it, when she realizes.
Varric Tethras.
He is an author, her soulmate.
With trembling fingers, she turns the book over, hardly willing to look down and see if there's a portrait.
Steeling her nerves, Cassandra looks down.
Her heart sinks.
The man whose sardonic eyes peer out from the painting is indeed handsome. But what causes Cassandra's heart to twist are the bevy of soft and buxom women who surround him.
Like the author, they are all Dwarves.
The Maker has a fine sense of humour, Cassandra thinks. She is among the tallest in her Order, and she is neither buxom nor soft. Her body is hard and muscled. She is forever towering over others.
She studies the portrait, pretending to read the little summary of the book.
It is embarrassing, how relieved she is that she finds Varric attractive.
Browsing the bookstore's stacks turns up only one other book. A romance. The cover shows a woman in full plate armour, staring outwards with bold, challenging eyes.
Cassandra buys both books and hides them in her saddlebags. By the time she returns to Justinia's side, both bear the marks of careful repair.
Leliana leaves The Tale of the Champion on Cassandra's desk.
She can't possibly know, Cassandra is sure of it. Leliana knows many things but surely not this.
The Tale of the Champion would be her favourite book, were the position not already filled by Swords and Shields. It has everything. True love, adventure, heroes triumphing over adversity, a woman who builds a family and holds on to it with both fists. Marian Hawke is a lucky woman. Cassandra hopes to meet her.
Justinia and Leliana have long wondered whether it would be wise to bring back the Inquisition. Whether it would quench or fan the flames that threaten to consume Thedas. When they come to her, Cassandra turns them down. She is not a leader, not the one the Inquisition would need to bring peace. Instead, she suggests Marian Hawke.
Leliana dispatches her spies.
The Chantry in Kirkwall explodes. Justinia sends Cassandra to investigate, and find the truth behind the rumours.
Fire rages across Thedas, and Cassandra fears what she might find in Kirkwall.
When the guards shove a sturdy Dwarf into the chamber Cassandra commandeered for her investigation, she cannot look at him. He is not the first she's interviewed, and many of them had a great deal to say about Varric Tethras. Not all of it was flattering.
Cassandra wonders if perhaps he is not her Varric.
She turns to meet his eyes, and the knowledge hits her in the gut.
He is hers.
****
Varric is used to not getting what he wants. Cassandra is the most recent in a long line of soured hopes.
The name coils along Varric's shoulder blade. He can never quite see it clearly- when it first appeared, he had Bartrand read it for him.
Cassandra Pentaghast.
He'd thought Bartrand made it up at first. Trust his brother to only tell the truth when it would do the most damage.
Varric knows the Pentaghasts are royalty from Nevarra. They slay dragons and rule over a city of corpses. They are definitely not Dwarves. That seals his fate as an outsider. All the surfacers know House Tethras' newest shame- a son whose soulmate is human.
It doesn't matter in the long run. If the Guild coerces a girl into marrying him, they certainly won't give a damn about soulmates. But his soulmate being human lowers Varric's marital value, Bartrand informs him sourly, and this House Tethras' value is lowered.
That's probably the only upside.
Varric has nothing against human women. They're really the same as Dwarven women, he's found. Just taller and prone to dreaming. That's what keeps him from dalliances with the taller, fairer sex. Despite what he tells Hawke. There's something unsettling about sleeping next to someone while their mind wanders the Fade.
Damn creepy shit.
Varric writes. Creates worlds where the good guys get the shit kicked out of them, where the heroes lose as much as they win. That gets to be depressing, and he writes a romance instead. Because sometimes things need to go right. Aveline goes puce when she sees the cover, and Varric didn't even know a non Qunari could go that colour.
He ignores the name on his shoulder. Merrill calls it spiky, when she's patching him up one day.
Not exactly a winning description, Varric thinks. His soulmate is probably some dour, corpse worshipping dragon fanatic who sleeps in plate armour.
The odds of his meeting Nevarran royalty in Kirkwall are blessedly slim. Varric becomes overly attached to the city's walls- going beyond them smacks of adventuring. If there's anything likely to bring his termagant of a soulmate crashing into his life, it's adventuring.
The Chantry explodes. Varric's little family scatters. He stays behind to muddy their tracks.
Divine Justinia sends her Right Hand, a woman Varric has only heard of in whispers. Right Hand of the Divine, Hero of Orlais, Cassandra Pentaghast.
Realization hits Varric like a bucket of cold water.
It can't be her, he reasons. If there isn't a horde of Cassandra Pentaghasts stomping around Thedas, he'll... He'll grow a beard.
The Templars come to get him, ugly smiles on their faces. Varric knows the type. The ones who throw their weight around in little ways, never doing quite enough to raise the suspicion of their superiors.
When they arrive at their destination, Varric's a little worse for wear. He's never fallen down so many stairs in his life. Terribly clumsy of him. The Templars shove him onto a chair, and leave at a look from the looming shape which resolves into a woman.
She stands just out of the light. At first all Varric can tell is that she's tall, even for a human, and that her spiky dark hair looks soft.
Still, he thinks. It can't possibly be her.
The Seeker turns to look at him, a sneer marring her aristocratic features, and Varric knows.
She's his.