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His first impression on the beach had been of a sullen, suspicious Vashoth, like so many others he’d seen. She was pretty, sure - she could have been a Tamassran in Par Vollen, were it not for the scars on her face and the staff on her back. She seemed reasonable and level-headed, if blunt and detached, but what he thought of her didn’t matter in the long run. His assignment was to get close to the Inquisition. It wasn’t necessary that he liked the Herald, and for a long while he didn’t.
Besides an occasional flash of anger, she didn't show any feelings she may have felt. When she did speak it was curt and to the point, and she sequestered herself in her small cabin whenever she wasn’t needed. It was easy to assume that Adaar was unfeeling, unkind and angry, that she was bound to the Inquisition only by obligation and the threat to her life if she was to leave.
Though she seemed to have some dislike of most people, in particular other mages, the Herald didn’t seem to have any particular distaste for Bull, or his Ben-Hassrath connections. It wasn’t what he’d come to expect from Vashoth, but then again, nothing about this fucked-up sky shit was normal. After the Chargers were properly hired, she began to ask him along on missions more and more often. Bull went - it was in the contract. Away from Haven, she was no more of a conversationalist than usual. Thankfully, there were always a few others in the party with them which made her stony silence tolerable.
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She was impassive and exacting, but as he spent more time in her company he started to reconsider his opinion of the cold-eyed Vashoth on the beach.
Whenever Inquisition business took them to the Hinterlands, Adaar left her tent late at night. He sat awake once to see where she went and watched as she slung a bow and quiver over her shoulder, walking off into the darkness. She returned with two dead rams hung over her shoulders, and she dropped them to the ground before saddling her horse and slinging them across its back. She changed the bow for her staff and mounted the horse, taking off in the direction Bull knew to lead to the Crossroads. The rams were gone when she came back, and she silently unsaddled and retied the horse, stashed her weapons, and went to her tent. She said nothing of it in the morning, apparently unaware that she’d been watched.
Another day, she dragged them through the woods past bears and bandits and stray Mabari without any apparent reason. On the odd, meandering path they took she stopped at a shrine, cleaned it, and set down flowers, lingering for a moment before continuing on without a word of explanation to a frustrated crew.
He hadn’t noticed when she spoke to the old elf in Redlcliffe the first time, but he caught her words when she spoke to him again.
“I cleaned Senna’s shrine and placed the flowers.” As he listened, he heard a touch of softness in her murmur that had never been there before. “May her ashes be gathered by Falon'Din and carried safely.”
As she turned away from the man, the knot in her jaw had returned, but as she caught his eye her gaze was softened.
He saw the way her hands trembled when one of their party was knocked unconscious after a battle, even as her face showed no feeling. A healer tending to a badly wounded soldier once asked if Adaar was the kind of mage who could heal, desperation in his voice. Bull heard the distant pain and guilt in Adaar's voice as she answered ‘no.’
From the corner of his eye he saw how she lingered, just for a moment, at the door of the tavern, how she clutched her habitual bottle of spirits tighter as her eyes flickered towards the full tables before she walked alone out into the night.
After what happened at Therinfal Redoubt, Bull found Adaar in the cold, empty tavern in the middle of the night and sat across from her as her resolve shattered. For a night she was broken, drunk enough that she might not remember the glimpse of weakness she’d given him.
There were other small things, barely noticeable to an untrained eye, that began to reshape his opinion of Adaar. Bull saw more of the Herald than most of the Inquisition, and because of his training, he saw more deeply than even those few. He saw a person terrified of the consequences of her failure, a person riddled with old guilt; he saw a person who cared so deeply that she had to block everything out to keep from being crushed under the weight of it all.
She smiled when the Breach was finally closed - actually smiled - and it made something warm in his chest, to see her that way.
Of course, it couldn't last.
They stood helpless in Haven’s chantry, that creature screeching above them. Even as hopelessness hung heavy around them, Adaar kept her chin high, but her hands trembled, and there was a quiet fear behind her eyes.
“If it will save these people, he can have me.”
What she said didn't surprise him, but what did was the sudden, gut-wrenching dread he felt at the thought that he might never see her again.