#bickering constantly but maker forbid someone tries to mess with one of them in front of the other

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you for the tags @pinayelf @inquisimer and @greypetrel! Most of what I'm working on is secret for the moment, but I have been playing with this little piece c: Tagging back @ndostairlyrium @daggerbean @vakarians-babe @ruthvelyan @dungeons-and-dragon-age @idolsgf @nightwardenminthara @bitchesofostwick @zenstrike @star--nymph and @transprincecaspian, no pressure!

From a piece about Adhlea (Cullen and Emma's daughter) and Leander (Fenris and Maria's eldest):

Adhlea was almost certain she was being punished for something. 

She wasn’t sure what—she’d been very good ever since she’d finally gotten a little sister—but these stiff clothes and pinchy shoes could only mean she was being punished. It really didn’t make any sense at all. She’d told her mamae as much before they’d left the house and her mother had laughed. 

“It is a tradition, ma vherain. This is important to your Papa, so you must do your very best to sit still and pay attention. Here—if you have any questions, you may write them down in this little notebook and save them for later. I think it is rude to talk during services. Ah—here is your papa now. ” 

Well, Adhlea could feel the notebook knock against her leg while she kicked her heels in the foyer of the lady Hawke’s manor now, but she had no interest at all in writing anything down. 

“But why will we have to be sitting for the whole time?” she asked, peering up at her Papa. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, eyes tilted up at the corners, and opened his mouth to answer. 

“Because the Mother gets to be taller than everyone else,” a small voice piped from the doorway, and Adhlea grimaced.

“Ta said so,” Leander went on, sauntering into the room with his nose in the air. “He said it’s a sign of respect. And respect means we got to sit down.” 

“Hello, Leander,” Adhlea said begrudgingly, summoning something like a smile. She was trying. Hard. She was.

“Also,” Leander went on grandly, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “there is going to be smoke. On purpose.”

“I know that,” Adhlea said, the smile crawling away from her face. She couldn’t help it; her mamae and papa wanted the two of them to be friends so badly that they didn’t seem to notice how hard Leander always worked to irritate her. 

“Well then, where does it come from?” he asked, his eyebrows squinching up in that way she hated. Always asking her questions he knew she didn’t have the answers for—always! 

“It is time to go,” the boy’s father said, appearing in the doorway with little warning. Adhlea took a step back, feeling the warmth of her father’s hand at her shoulder. 

“Messere Hawke,” Papa said, squeezing her slightly before bowing. “Where is the Ch–ah—is your wife not planning on joining us?”

“Hawke needs to rest,” the shorter man said gravely.

While his attention was focused on her father, Adhlea took the opportunity to peer up and up at him. Leander’s father was brown like her mamae and marked all over like her mamae, but Adhlea had been expressly forbidden to ask about the blue lines the way she asked about her mamae's vallaslin. It is private, her mamae had said, and Adhlea knew what private meant, she did, only they were very interesting lines and once she swore she had seen them light up and she really did want to know what they were and—

“Young Lavellan,” the man said gravely. Adhlea ducked her head at once, squirming in her shoes. Her papa nudged her gently and she remembered herself. 

Manners, he had told her often, always matter. 

“Good morning, Messere,” she said, executing a neat bow of her own. “Thank you for coming with us to the Chantry.”

Silence. 

Leander scuffed his bare foot on the tile floor and Adhlea grimaced again. It was unfair that he never had to wear shoes and she did—yet another thing Leander could hold over her head. Ugh. And now she would probably have to sit with him for the whole service. Who knew how long that could be? Years, probably, and her stomach was already gurgling. She should have tried to eat more of her breakfast, but it had seemed too hard. 

“Yes,” the man said at last, “of course. Well?” 

“Let’s go!” Leander said, and barreled past her for the door. 

Adhlea realized with no small amount of satisfaction that he had to stand on his toes to reach the handle properly. She was taller than him, at least; she would have to make certain he knew it as soon as possible.