Horsemaster
Dennet, with the deliberate gait of an older man who feels his age in
his knees, especially on spring days when the weather shifts as
easily as a windblown leaf, walked beside the Inquisitor, Raven
Finhariel, and spoke in the tones of a particular type of candor bred
from years of dealing with Fereldan nobility on behalf of his horses.
“Master
Tethras refuses any mount that I find for him, Inquisitor. I thought
he might shoot me with that crossbow of his when I suggested a
nuggalope.” Dennet’s weathered voice dropped into a
growl of obdurate reflection, “He is a dwarf for Maker’s
sake.”
Raven,
who tried to stifle a laugh by stopping to study her boots for a
moment but finally surrendered to the impulse, said, “He was
born on the surface, Dennet. Varric just needs a mount that suits
his stature.”
Pausing
beside her, Dennet rubbed his knuckles over the white bristles on his
face, considering, and said, “I know of a breeder with a very
nice herd of hill ponies. Hardy, intelligent creatures.”
Raven
continued walking toward Skyhold’s stable. Despite the chill
breeze, the smell of sun warmed earth rose into the air. She said,
“Can you find one around thirteen hands high?”
“Short
enough to mount easily,” said the Horsemaster with a smile.
“And
tall enough to avoid offending any sensibilities Varric might have,”
finished Raven.
“I’ll
send a man today,” Dennet said, then paused before continuing,
“You’re more knowledgeable about horses than I would
expect, pardon my saying, for someone who came from the kitchens of a
chantry.”
“My
father was a stable hand and horse trainer for an Amaranthine noble,”
said Raven in an equitable voice. “He often brought me with
him to help train the ponies meant for the noble children.”
“You
took the spills for the lordlings, then?”
“You
could say that, yes, but the ponies rarely threw me out of pure
meanness. Usually it was just pony tricks that caught me by
surprise,” admitted Raven. “I’ve been swept out of
the saddle by a low hanging tree branch at the behest of a willful
pony more than once.”
Dennet
laughed. “You and my daughter should trade stories.”
“I’d
like that,” Raven said with a smile. She noticed the older
man’s expression of anticipation and peered at the empty stable
yard, then gave a quizzical look to the Horsemaster, “Was there
something else, Master Dennet?”
The
older man grinned, his teeth flashing bright in the midst his dark
skin, and said in carrying voice, “You can bring him out now,
lad.”
To
Raven’s surprise, the “lad” turned out to be
Commander Cullen, the former Templar Knight Captain and current
leader of the Inquisition’s soldiers, leading a gelding with
her own saddle upon its back. The gelding was a beautiful dark
dapple grey, nearly silver across his hips and withers, with black
tipped ears that curved as delicately as the lip of a sea shell. His
mane and tail, also black, were like breakers falling against a
nighttime shore, flowing gently as the mountain’s breath
stirred them.
Two
days earlier Cullen had noticed her casting longing looks in the
direction of the well turned out Orlesian knights and their equally
well turned out horses, when Varric approached and said with a
sidelong casualness that almost masked his amusement, but not
entirely, “The horses, Curly. She’s staring at the
horses.”
Cullen
took a breath, as if to begin a denial, then smiled ruefully and
said, “I had hoped I wasn’t that obvious.”
“You
have a particular crease between your eyebrows that only appears when
the Inquisitor smiles in the direction of Orlesian men.” As he
said this, Varric drew a small imaginary line between his own brows
with a broad, blunt fingertip.
Cullen
leaned against the battlement, “I suspected as much.”
“You
want her to stop staring at Orlesians and their horses,” Varric
glanced down at the stable yard through a crenel then gave the
battlement that the young Commander leaned against a light slap, as
if for friendly emphasis, before saying over his shoulder as he
walked away, “Get the Inquisitor her own fancy Orlesian horse.”
Raven
squealed. Actually squealed. Dennet, though the old horsemaster
himself had never squealed in his life, had witnessed his own
daughter exhibit the same behavior at the sight of a new and
exemplary piece of horseflesh and knew that this response meant that
the Commander’s endeavor was a success. When the normally
reserved Inquisitor turned to him with wide golden green eyes and
asked, “Is he mine?”, Dennet, also experienced with the
poleaxing effect love can have on a man and recognizing it in the
former templar, said with a smile, “Aye, if you want him, he’s
yours, Inquisitor.”
Raven,
her hair as dark as the mane and tail of her new mount, ran across
the stable yard to Cullen, a flush of happiness visible beneath the
freckles that decorated her cheekbones. To Cullen’s surprise,
she did not slow down, but ended her run with a leaping hug that gave
him a brief wash of the scent of autumn flowers and spice as her hair
bannered around the two of them for a moment before it fell to lay
against her back. He found that his free arm had, in a reflex born
of years of dealing with younger sisters who blithely counted on
their older brother to catch them when they leapt at him like
mountain goats, gone around the Inquisitor’s slim waist in a
firm hold that kept her on her toes and pressed against him.
“Master
Dennet said this was your idea,” she smiled up at him. “Thank
you.”
Then
she planted a quick kiss on his stubbled cheek, wriggled from his
grasp, and took the reins from his motionless hand. As Cullen
watched, she slung one arm around the gelding’s withers, the
other under his neck to embrace the horse in great hug, then put her
nose to the gelding’s neck, where it met the dappled shoulder,
her ribcage expanding as she took in the warm scent of horse. Then
she stepped back, murmuring to the gelding while she scratched behind
his seashell ear before drawing the reins over his head and vaulting
herself onto the saddle. As she settled her stirrups and reins, she
turned back to Cullen, looking like an elven goddess of horses as the
mountain winds wound their fingers through the dark swathes of her
hair and the gelding’s mane, and asked “What’s his
name?”
“Maker,”
Cullen exhaled.
“What?”
Cullen
cleared his throat, “I mean, well, it’s Orlesian.”
Dennet,
who had joined them, said, “The commander means that it’s
long enough to hang from the battlements, and you can’t say it
without twisting your tongue and forcing half of the sounds out of
your nose.”
Raven
laughed, “I’ll have to give him a name I can say, then.”
Then
she kneed the gelding away from the men, leaning into the animal’s
rolling canter as she took him in a wide circle around the stable
yard before turning his head toward the gate, calling for the men at
arms to open it up amidst the squawks of a few startled castle
pedestrians who didn’t see the dark grey bearing their
inquisitor until it flew past them.
Dennet
patted Cullen’s shoulder then walked to the stable.
When
she returned to Skyhold, Raven stabled her new gelding herself,
taking off his saddle and bridle and brushing him with a curry comb
in hard tight circles that made the horse lean into her with ecstasy
when she reached especially itchy spots. Riding him had been
wonderful. He was as fleet as a hart and as brave as a mabari, doing
anything she asked of him without hesitation, his ears flicking back
to listen to her as she encouraged him.
“My
heart,” she said to him, once again inhaling the scent of him
as she spoke into his smooth warm neck, “My great silver heart.
I love you.”
“Are
you smelling that horse?” Dorian gazed into the stall over the
half door with a look of slightly aghast bemusement.
Raven
straightened and shooed the Tevinter mage away from the stall door so
she could step out and then latch it. “Yes. Horses smell
wonderful. They smell like summer.”
“Hmm,
yes, Ferelden summers probably do smell like sweat and animal hair.”
Grinning,
Raven clapped two grooming brushes together upwind from the elegant
mage, releasing a cloud of dust and horsehair, causing Dorian to
dance away while flapping his arms in front of himself.
“Fereldens,”
he said under his breath, brushing ineffectually at the horsehair now
clinging to his clothing. “If it’s not dogs, it’s
horses.”
Raven
gave the mage a curious look, “You never come to the stables,
Dorian. Is there some catastrophe I should know about?”
Dorian
raised a brow at her, “The catastrophe is that you are covered
in horsehair, with dirt under your nails, when you should be
wondering why
the commander of the Inquisition took time to find you your ‘great
silver heart’.”
“I
just thought—oh,” she stared at Dorian as a tenuous
thread of wonder tripped up her words.
Dorian
canted his head at her then motioned for her to hurry up to Cullen’s
tower, “I’d tell you to try the brush the hair off your
clothes before you go see him, but he’s as Ferelden as you.”
Raven
knocked on Cullen’s door, pushing it open when he called out,
with a tinge of an absent-minded vagueness in his tone, “Yes,
come in.”
“I
think I’ve decided on a name for him,” she tumbled into
the conversation without a greeting, a blush rising on her face
nearly as quickly as Cullen rose from behind his desk when he saw her
in his doorway.
Cullen
smiled, came around his desk, “What did you choose?”
“I
love him,” she said, her words galloping away from her, “He’s
wonderful. He’s fearless and steady, and, I don’t know
many elven words, but I do know the word for love. Lath. So that’s
what I’m going to call him. Lath. Because I love him.”
She
ran her tongue across her lips and pressed her lips together, then
looked down, because Cullen was coming closer to her with that half
smile that gave the scar on his lip in a rogueish lift. When she
told herself to stop acting like a goose and met his gaze again, he
said, “I’m glad that you love him.”
She
felt a fountain of babble pushing itself out of her, again, “Dorian
seemed to think—“
Now
Cullen looked confused, “Dorian?”
Silencing
herself with a decisive breath, she stepped close to Cullen, ran her
fingers along his jaw, enjoying the sensation of the not-yet-shaven
roughness, and said quietly, “Thank you for Lath,” before
leaving him standing alone, where, unknown to Raven, the commander
went to sit behind his desk again and stare at his work. It took him
a while to accomplish anything, though, because he would gaze at the
door with his smile tilting his lips.
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