A cold inquisitor

A little cruel, a lot of love.

It was all she had been thinking about. That little bitch, and that lying little shit.  

How many secrets was he hiding under his belt? Did he intend to apologize and perhaps even come clean? Would he lie to her face and pretend like everything was as it should have been?  

Or would he plaster on his signature shit eating grin and play dumb?  

There was only one way to find out, and it wasn't moping around in her room feeling pathedic and sorry for herself. It had been a day or two, managing to keep people out by convincing a concerned Josephine into thinking she was sick and would be perfectly fine. Of course the lovely advisor was concerned, ' Probably more concerned about you than Varric has been.' That inner voice piqued when she thought about it. A few healing potions and other herbs to soothe, and she had been peacefully left to 'rest' by herself. She cleaned herself up, dressed to look like the proper, important figure that she was. Not so much as a hair was left out of place, and she made sure to carry herself firm and tall when the people saw her for the first time in days. 

The day started off with judgement, condemning a mage to have his magic taken, putting a goat throwing lunatic in a gibbet for a few hours, sending a warden who begged to be made as an example for her heinous acts to death, just to send them away to die deep in the woods. " This isn't an example, merely a means to an end!" She cried as she was escorted away.  Small, trivial to start with, and the crowd was there to see it, including the entire inner circle. She could tell Varric was there, somewhere in the back watching with attentive eyes to her decisions, whether or not he approved of them. She intentionally made sure to avoid looking at that area, paying more mind and attention to Cassandra when she came up after to speak with her. She knew what she was doing, she knew he would likely be waiting patiently for her to come crawling over to him. ' Does he really think I'll come crawling hands and knees, tail in between my legs like a bitch simps to its owner? Let him wait, cut his patience thin.'  

She did this intentionally all day. She went to her advisors after Cassandra, then Cole, The Iron Bull, everyone, but him. The entire time, there was a voice in the back of her head, getting louder and louder as the day went on. Before it was spurned by her, and now it was welcomed, goading her on. ' He's likely wriggle in impatience, do you think he's practically got a vein throbbing in his neck by now? Does he hate, you think, when you act like he's not even there, you know what you're doing is wrong, but that is what makes it fair. ' 

That was the thing, the louder the encouragement became, the coaxing, it made her petty and rather nasty choice of action seem all the more justified to her. At least she'd managed not to throw his beloved cross bow into the fire place last night. Far as she was concerned, she was being kinder than he deserved. It was late noon, on the brink of night when she decided she made the dwarf wait for long enough. She dusted off her uniform, wiping off imaginary dust from the expensive fabric, combed her hair back and quietly stepped back inside. The place was a little more settled, people having sat down to eat their dinners or left to the bar for the night. 

Course, as expected, Varric was there. And alone. She was too pleased in the others absence that she hardly noticed how tightly he had his arms folded over his barrel chest, or the way his foot tapped almost angrily on the stone flooring. He had a scowl threatening to form on his face. She was almost giddy as he finally noticed she had the time to finally come to him. But not so easily, she merely walked past him, and a cold side eye was enough to make him walk with her. ' Too easy.'  

" Alright, that's it, I'v had enough of you pretending you don't see me!" He was angry, and the way he reacted felt like watching a piranha leap to snatch the bit of meat hanging in the air. It was what she wanted. She merely shrugged her shoulders, acting coy.