Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition
Rating: G
Characters/relationships: Sera and Josephine, Sera/Kinara Trevelyan mentioned
Warnings: None
Summary:
Josephine reluctantly asks Sera for help with a matter concerning the Inquisitor, and gets exactly what she needed, even though she didn't know she needed it.
"Whatcha doing, Josie?"
Josephine looks up from her desk to see a familiar disheveled head in the doorway. To her own annoyance, she's immediately filled with mild uncontrollable dread at the sight, because having Sera in the great hall (much less in close proximity to her office and the war table) has ended up in headache more often than it hasn't. On the other hand, and that's the annoyance part, as an ambassador Josephine really had got to get used to having Sera in the main building this often faster; what with Inquisitor's very open and loud proclamations of feelings and a 'deal with it' attitude about them.
That all being said, Josephine cannot hold back a wary:
"Sera. What are you up to now?"
Sera wrinkles her nose.
"Do I have to be Up To Something", she makes a quoting motion with her fingers, "to stop by and say hello?"
"Given our history, I think you'll forgive me for being cautious", Josephine says curtly.
Sera hangs to the side in thought, holding herself from falling with a hand on the door frame.
"What, the bucket? Haven't we both said sorry for that already? Or is it about the thing with that Lord Whatshisface the other week, 'cause that was kinda--"
"Everything, Sera. It's about everything."
Josephine really isn't going to recite all her grievances to the girl. Not in the mood, doesn't have the time, doesn't see a point and doesn't want to risk getting Inquisitor all sour when she's already only half-tolerating the formalities that get forced onto her head. Out of pure diplomatic necessity and she knows it, but still.
Sera blows an annoyed raspberry and yanks herself back in an upright position.
"Fine, be that way."
And with a shrug, she disappears farther down the corridor back to the hall.
Josephine finds herself feeling...guilty? Chastising herself, maybe? Surely if she can gracefully hold back a bunch of miffed nobility out for blood then she can handle a person out of the Inquisitor's personal circle? Not to mention her lov--
She looks down at the task that's been consuming the last half an hour of her life and it suddenly hits her.
"Sera, wait!"
There's silence. Then a few slow steps backwards — she's literally walking back first, go figure — and Sera leans back into the doorway, eyes wide and alert as if she just heard a ghost speak.
"What."
Josephine signs, finding herself in an unpleasant position of asking for favors while being perfectly aware of her previous, well, rudeness. A spot she rarely found herself in — both because she is a good ambassador, actually, and because it's usually hard to get under her skin in the first place.
"I...could actually use your help."
Now Sera definitely looks like a second breach just opened in the sky.
"You? My help? What are you on about?" A light of understanding sparks in her eyes and immediately results in a mischievous smirk: "Ooooh, finally decided to teach one of your rich tits a lesson? Whatcha thinking, bees, greased floors? Arson?" She giggles: "Ha, arson for an arse, right."
"No!" Josephine finds herself equally appalled at the suggestion and weirdly touched at the fact that Sera considered helping so quickly and easily despite having just been met with considerable hostility. Josephine is way too used to writing formal apologies and sending fruit baskets for every misinterpreted word, so this is...a change of pace. Which ironically kind of makes her want to make a fruit basket genuinely.
"No? What is it, then?" Sera looks confused again, but enters the room and walks to her desk.
Josephine slumps — as much as you can call this graceful recline a slump — against the back of her chair.
"You see, we've been discussing this idea that Inquisitor really needs an official portrait done of her. It would earn us additional respect in the eyes of our visitors, would make her image carry a little bit more of a weight for those who didn't happen to witness her in action personally. I had a good artist from Val Royeaux do a few test sketches to figure out the composition first, because Her Worship hardly has time to pose that much, but now it apparently falls to me to choose the final version and...I'm at a bit of a loss. I thought that, given the...nature of your relationship with Inquisitor, you could maybe provide your opinion...?" She tiredly gestures at the sketchy drawings spewed across the desk in front of her.
Sera looks at her blankly.
"Just ask her which one she likes best?"
Josephine huffs.
"She made sure to let me know that she frankly does not care for the process much."
"Aaah," Sera nods, sarcastically, "so she doesn't wanna do this, but you're doing it anyway."
"It's to strengthen our influence--", Josephine splutters, feeling caught uncomfortably red-handed — Inquisitor said it's FINE, mind you! — but Sera waves her excuses off and leans over the desk, looking at the drawings.
There's a variety of takes on Inquisitor's image present. A Chantry crown on her head here, bloody daggers there, ceremonial sword raised high into the skies on one sketch and a royal pose on a throne on another. A pensive scene at the war room, leaning over the map of Thedas, making hard decisions. Ballroom at Halamshiral, Inquisitor barefaced with an Orlesian mask sternly grasped in her hand. Of course an epic moment of closing a rift, hand raised, the Anchor sparkling, travel coat beating in the wind behind her back. There are many others and all of them are good, which precisely makes the choice so difficult. Not that Josephine expected anything less after commissioning the best painter Orlais had to offer...
"Well, these all suck", announces Sera finally.
Huh?
"Excuse me?" Josephine asks, indignant and very quickly regretting asking someone like Sera for advice on art. Sera scoffs.
"Don't you see it? None of these are her!"
"I, for one, think that the resemblance is--"
"Resemblance", Sera interrupts, putting a strong, almost poisonous emphasis on the word, "is not what you need here, is it? Do you want someone who 'resembles' or do you want her?"
Josephine is decidedly lost. She's sure it's showing on her face, too, because after staring at her for a few seconds Sera throws her hands up in defeat. Then puts them on her hips and bites her lip, suddenly looking very conflicted about something, tapping her index finger on the fabric.
After politely waiting for a solid minute, Josephine opens her mouth to carefully dismiss the elf, but then Sera suddenly and abruptly, as if afraid to lose her nerve, blurts out:
"Argh, fine, give me a sec".
And storms towards the door.
Josephine, recovering from almost biting her tongue off, calls after her:
"Sera, what--"
Sera stops at the doorway, whips around and pokes an accusatory finger in her direction:
"You asked for help. If I don't help, you'll do it anyway but it will be wrong. So I'll help. Just...uh, don't go anywhere!"
And then she's gone.
Josephine slowly blinks. Mentally comments on the unlikelihood of her going anywhere from behind this desk any time soon with all the work that needs to be done. And very reluctantly switches to doing something else while waiting for the...help promised.
To be honest, she's hardly expecting Sera to return. There's always a chance she'll suddenly decide that this is stupid or just get accidentally distracted.
However, as Josephine makes her way through an infuriating report from the Chargers' last mission for the Inquisition, she hears unmistakable stomping footsteps approaching her door.
For an elf, even a considerably tall one, Sera sure can add weight to her step when she's agitated.
Josephine watches as she comes into the room, hardly looking where she's going and kicking the door fully open with her foot without much ceremony, all focused on a leather journal and a bunch of papers in her hands. Papers she's aggressively shuffling through.
"What are you doing?" Josephine asks, growing tired of the charade.
"Making sure I took out the ones you don't need to see", Sera grumbles, not adding much more clarity to the situation.
Josephine is diligently fighting down another bout of frustration climbing up her chest when Sera finally gets satisfied with whatever it is that she's doing and stops near her desk, clutching all the paper she brought with white-knuckled fingers.
"You're not allowed to laugh, criti-que or be any kind of an arse about this, got it?" She warns with a weird, strained voice. Josephine cautiously nods, however clueless.
"Uh, alright?"
Sera eyes her with great suspicion for a couple more seconds and then slams the papers on the desk, covering the sketches with them.
Josephine looks at them in confusion for half a second before realizing:
They are drawings.
Surely done much less professionally than the ones Josephine had just agonized over, a lot of them simplified, hastily sketched or obviously done on the road and then stuffed in a travel bag or a pocket, but they're drawings.
And all of them, unmistakably, of the Inquisitor.
A whole bunch of them, the more detailed ones, are clearly done in person, almost art studies. On them, Kinara is leaning over books, working on alchemical elixirs, smiling, laughing, sometimes smoking, on a couple of them she's very clearly sleeping or just waking up. There's one where's she's working among other builders on Skyhold's walls, sleeves of her shirt rolled up to her shoulders (there's a VERY detailed shading on her arms on that one, and a lot of little arrows pointing at them). The sketchier on-the-road ones show, for one, a very disgruntled Trevelyan with her arms crossed and a bandaged leg up on a tree stump, supposedly at camp, with a very exasperated 'Idiot sprained her ankle AGAIN' scrawled above. A few quick sketches of her on a horse, with the artist being clearly annoyed at not being able to draw a horse correctly ('stupid horses, hard to draw'). Something that looks like Kinara helping a hunter to skin a dead ram ('ew.') — perhaps at the Crossroads with the refugees. There are a few drawings of the marked hand, but instead of some majestic gift it's pictured more like a concerning wound ('hope it doesn't hurt her to close all those rifty things. can't shoot them'). On all of the drawings, detailed or not, Kinara is quite realistically messy, all disobedient curls and dark circles under her eyes and open smiles.
Josephine looks at them quietly for quite some time, until Sera starts uncomfortably shifting besides her. She thinks about their talks at the balcony, with Kinara letting her vent about the job and listening attentively to everything, never once zoning out or showing a sign of boredom, smiling widely when Josephine feels a little lighter at the end. She thinks about playing Wicked Grace with everyone and Kinara unashamedly, proudly telling everyone of the morbid embarrassment she put her aunt through at an opera as a teenager and sending everyone laughing their heads off. She thinks about Leliana behaving more like her old self again because Kinara got through to her like a friend, hardly like a boss.
She carefully takes one of the more detailed drawings where Kinara is laughing, hair all messed up by the wind and eyes wrinkling by the edges, and puts it besides one of the artist's sketches of the Inquisitor with sharp eyes and rough angles.
"See now?" Sera asks, and suddenly Josephine has to admit that the girl talked much more sense than she gave her credit for.
"I do", she earnestly agrees, "and I think you gave me a good idea. Thank you".
---
"I have to admit, I don't hate it. Although I fully expected to", Kinara says to no one in particular, looking up at the painting proudly presented on the wall.
The framing is still far too golden for her taste, but the picture itself is surprisingly non-offending. She actually looks like a person in it, standing somewhere in what looks like the Hinterlands, her coat dusty with travel, taken off and thrown over her shoulder. Out of all the symbols of her status they could've chosen, there's a rook sitting on her bent arm. The only telling sign is the intricate seal and a posh type of paper of the message tied to its foot; otherwise, she might as well be a scout out in the wilderness, receiving orders. Her hand is bandaged up, as she usually has it in between Anchor usage, and only slight green glow from under the wraps betrays the mark's presence. She's also smiling at the viewer, if a bit tiredly. A grounded, benevolent type of a leader. Not the worst kind to be, if she had to be one at all.
“Knew you'd like it more", Sera says, coming up from behind and resting her chin on Kinara's shoulder. "Actually looks like you, yeah?"
"Wait, you helped with this?" Kinara throws her a surprised look and chuckles, receiving a smug hum in return. She looks at the painting again, at her own face she dreaded seeing adorned with some soulless relic of power she never wanted to do anything with, and instead sees someone she actually doesn't mind being that much. Someone human and loved, perhaps.
"Then it doesn't surprise me at all."