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“Good night, ma vhenan,” Solas said as the Inquisitor retired to her tent for the night. Bull looked up from where he was kneeling by the fire.
“What did you call her?”
“Ma vhenan. My heart,” Solas replied. “It is a term of endearment among elves. I don’t suppose one would be familiar with the concept under the Qun.”
Bull frowned. The elf wasn’t wrong. Qunari didn’t have pet names. Not the kind he heard bas calling each other in the south. Cute animals and food and other sappy shit. But Solas had called the Inquisitor his heart. Qunari called someone kadan out of respect, not love. Though, to be fair, respect was the closest most Qunari ever came to love. Kadan was your leader, the beating center that kept you alive, kept you fighting.
He looked to where Dorian was sitting by the fire, grumpy from spending the day roaming the Storm Coast and wringing out his socks.
“Fasta vass. A thousand years studying magic. You’d think somewhere along the line we’d have found a spell to properly dry clothes without lighting them on fire. Amatus, be a dear. Let me hang my socks on your horns to dry.”
The beating center that keeps him alive, keeps him fighting.
“What? What are you staring at?”
“Nothing, kadan. Don't worry about it.”