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The Iron Bull finds himself suddenly frozen in place. It is not ice, or magic holding him there, but something like… fear? No, that’s not it. He isn’t afraid. He’s felt fear, and this isn’t it.
This is dread. Expectation for an almost certainly impending calamity. How did he get himself into this?
Ahead of him, Dorian suppresses a laugh as he notices his companion’s hesitation. “Ah, yes. Well, I should have realised…”
Bull is uncomfortably hunched. His head is ducked and horns tilted to clear the low frame of the shop’s door. He had only gotten one foot in the door before he had realised his mistake and how he could not afford to move a single muscle. His eye darts around the storefront, assessing his options. It is ringed with shelf after shelf, every surface absolutely covered in gleaming, shiny, expensive looking and most certainly very fragile trinkets. Cut crystal, delicate glass, fine ceramics and porcelain everywhere. To his right, in danger of being disturbed by one of his horns should he correct the tilt of his head, is an elaborate crystal chandelier casting rainbows and reflections about the room; to his left, ready to be knocked crashing down should he straighten his posture, are several shelves holding spheres of glass containing landscapes and figures; snow globes, he realises.
They had planned this excursion little less than a week ago, and so far they’d had no success in their quest. And now this.
This is the last time he is ever going shopping with Dorian.
He supposes that really, this is all Vivienne’s fault. It was her meddling that even put the thought in his head. She had noted, and rightly so, that it was coming on a year that he and the Inquisitor had been together.
“What are you going to get her, I wonder,” she had mused, eyes twinkling at him over a goblet of some fancy wine from her private stores. His confusion at the statement must have shown through, as her expression took on an aspect of knowing amusement.
“Get her? What would I need to get her?” he asked, hand subconsciously going to touch his half of a dragon’s tooth, the other half hanging around her neck, tying them together even as they were apart. What else needed to be said when he already had this?
“Why, my dear, an anniversary gift of course! You can’t honestly expect to let it pass unremarked!”
It wasn’t that Bull was unaware of other cultures’ romantic practices. He had been required to use that knowledge on occasion in service of the Qun. But the Inquisitor wasn’t a job. Not anymore. He hadn’t considered that she would have those kinds of expectations. The thought he may have overlooked something that could be important to her worried him.
The idea nagged at him for weeks. Normally, he’d test the waters, probe a little to see if there was any expectation there, get some confirmation. But the Inquisitor had gone on an expedition to the Hissing Wastes with Cassandra, Sera, and Solas. It was only meant to be a quick excursion, but they’d already sent word back a few times, prolonging the expedition, as they had found some perplexing puzzles to investigate. In the absence of any certainty, he was succumbing to doubt.
As her best friend, he had hoped Dorian might provide some insight into whether her expectations were as formal as Vivienne seemed to believe, or if they were, as he suspected, more laid back. His Kadan loathed formality and pretence; she’s Dalish after all. And yet… Doubt. Dorian was not as helpful as Bull had hoped he might be. At least, not in the way he had hoped. Dorian was immediately taken with the idea of finding the perfect romantic gift for the Inquisitor, sweeping Bull up along with him in a shopping trip to Val Royeaux.
They had already visited a fancy bowyer, a shop where a man was asking some exorbitant sum for a simple box, a textile boutique, and a parfumerie, and all Bull had come away with was a tickle in his nose and a growing headache.
A headache that was now worsening significantly with his current predicament. The shop had looked unremarkable from the outside, no different from any of the others they had gone into without incident. He should have known better.
And yet… his eye came to rest on a delicate statuette, swirling up taller than the surrounding items. Rather than risk adjusting his posture to raise his head, he brought his body down into a crouch, plucking the statuette carefully from its place amidst the shimmering crystals and baubles.
It was a single, perfectly elegant halla made of spun glass. Spiralling horns gracefully winding together, the whole piece capturing and casting the light so that it nearly glowed as though lit from within.
Cradling it in his hands, he looked up at Dorian from his low perch, eye crinkling at the corners as he beamed up at him. “This. This is it.”
“I couldn’t have chosen better myself,” Dorian smiled back at him, “She’ll love it.”
And he was right. Whether she was expecting a gift or not, she would cherish this one.