Everything in the world was too small, but the chairs were definitely the worst.

When you were seven and a half feet tall—not including the horns—human chairs were ridiculously undersized. You were always sitting too low on the ground, legs bent double and banging into the table. If there wasn't a table, you were frequently forced to view the world from between your own kneecaps.

They were trying very hard to accommodate their new Inquisitor, but the human world was built for human scale, so doorways were always too low and chairs were always too small.

The less said about outhouses, the better.

The Qunari Inquisitor Adaar sighed and tried to find a position at the table that did not make her back feel like it was breaking in two.

Her life would undoubtedly have been easier if she were a human. Her life would undoubtedly have been…different…if she were an elf or a dwarf. But here she was and anyway, she was probably alive only because Qunari were born hard and got harder with age.

Except, apparently, in the matter of chairs.

I'll make everyone sit on the ground. I'll order a thousand beanbags. Oh Maker, my back.

She did none of these things, because she was the Inquisitor. Inquisitors did not whine. You did not inspire the troops by whining.

Would it be abusing my power to claim that Andraste spoke to me and said that low chairs are anathema?

Josephine was explaining something…something about nobles. Adaar tried to pay attention, but it was hard. The intricacies of the Game could not compete with her lower back.

"So then if we are seen purchasing fabrics here, it will indicate our support for the trade delegation from Antiva…"

Adaar would have liked very much to stand up, but that meant that she was looming over the table. At best it was intimidating, and at worst all the humans got cricks in their necks looking up at her.

Josephine finished her argument and leaned back, folding her hands. It had been clear, concise, easily understood even by a Qunari mercenary. That this particular Qunari had understood none of it was not Josephine's fault.

"Okay," said Adaar.

"So?" said Josephine.

"Soo…?"

"Do we purchase them?"

"Spend the money," said Adaar automatically. (What was them? Was it going to be alive? Was it nugs? Please let it not be nugs.) "Whatever you need. I trust your judgment."

Josephine smiled down at her paperwork. Adaar wondered if it was obvious that she had long since ceased to follow the conversation.

"If there's nothing more for tonight," she said, "I need to stretch my legs a bit."

"That is all that I have," said Josephine, tapping her papers in to a precise pile. Cullen and Cassandra nodded. Adaar bowed to them all and fled from the room, nearly banging her horns against the doorframe.

There was one person in all of Skyhold who was larger than she was. Adaar wished that she could seek him out.

It was not that she had anything much to say to the Iron Bull, she simply wanted to talk to someone who was tall enough that she did not constantly look down to meet their eyes. Someone who was built to the correct scale.

Someone who reminded her of home.

Therein lay the problem.

Iron Bull was pure Qunari. Ben-Hassrath, no less. And while he had never made any bones about being a spy—had admitted it within five minutes of meeting, in fact—he followed the Qun. He believed, as an article of faith, that Tal-Vashoth were murderous thugs. And that included her, and her parents, and her people.

It was maddening, because she suspected that, absent that small detail, she would have liked him very much indeed.

"That is badass," he'd said, watching a giant and a dragon tear into each other on the Storm Coast, which was pretty much word-for-word what Adaar was thinking. It had been a giant! And a dragon! You didn't see things like that every day!

And at the siege of Haven, Iron Bull went after the enemy with both hands, teeth, and occasionally toenails, all of which Adaar understood very well, because if you did not throw everything that you had into slaughtering your foe, why even bother? It was insulting to the enemy. If they were doing you the courtesy of trying to kill you, you could at least acknowledge the effort.

Maybe he could have gotten past the Tal-Vashoth thing. Maybe she could have gotten past the Qun thing. He seemed willing to meet her halfway.

But half of the nobles in Orlais already thought that a Qunari Inquistor meant that she was a pawn of Par Vollen, and if she was seen spending too much time with the only other Qunari in Skyhold…well, Maker only knew what they would think.

So they were polite and they were respectful and she consulted him before she sent the Chargers into danger, and he sent reports back to the Ben-Hassrath that presumably said "Everything's fine, don't invade yet."

And they did not have the kind of relationship where she could seek him out and say "Talk to me, so that the world feels normal for a little while."

Does anybody ever have that kind of relationship? Really?

Solas would have said something that made her feel less normal. Cole would have said something that made her feel like normal was a thin skin over an endless abyss.

The only other person around that seemed to understand the problem of scale was Varric. Granted, he came at it from the other direction, but still.

Of course, talking to him meant that she got a crick in her neck, shoulders, lower back, and if he was sitting down, her hips as well.

It's much worse for dwarves. I shouldn't complain. Oh, hey, look where I am…

Adaar paced a great deal when she was thinking, and her feet, independent of her thoughts, had led her down to the practice ring. It was late and the last few soldiers were cleaning up.

They saluted, but did not seem inclined to talk to her. That suited her well enough. She wanted to hack apart dummies, not troops. In her current mood, she'd come in with an overhand too hard and crack somebody's collarbone.

Her usual sparring partner was Blackwall. He was about a head too short, but he beat himself up so thoroughly that anything she could do seemed mild by comparison. Self-loathing was something of a hobby among Grey Wardens.

Far be it from me to interfere, if it makes them happy…

She changed into padded practice armor and picked up a two-handed sledge. Left…and right...swing…reverse…

The practice dummy rocked as she cracked the maul into it. Her nerves settled, even if her muscles did not.

Right…back…pommel strike…

It had been easier in the Free Marches. Everything had been easier in the Free Marches. Life had been hard, certainly, but there were Qunari restaurants and Qunari rooms in inns, with—Maker be praised—Qunari beds.

They were trying very hard with the beds in Skyhold. They really were. If she curled up on her side and pulled up her knees, her horns didn't hit the headboard and her feet hardly hung over the bottom at all.

Anyway, there were bricks literally falling out of the castle walls-getting custom-made beds wasn't a high priority for anybody.

Right…left…reverse…

Her back twinged. She let the maul head drop and rubbed at the offending muscle.

"You're pulling the hits too much, boss," rumbled a voice in the back of the practice salle. "It's no wonder you're feeling it. You've got no follow-through."

Adaar turned.

A very large horned shadow detached itself from the darkness and Iron Bull strolled into the practice ring.

The outline of horns against the wall was so familiar that Adaar felt a pang of homesickness. She smiled at her own foolishness, and Bull smiled back.

If he wasn't Ben-Hassrath—if my company hadn't been Tal-Vashoth—we would have all gotten along famously. I know we would have.

He looked as if it were perfectly normal to be practicing alone at midnight. Perhaps it was normal for Qunari warriors, or perhaps Inquisitors were expected to be strange.

"I have to pull it," said Adaar simply. "Otherwise I break the dummies."

Bull's teeth flashed briefly. "Anybody else, I'd think you were blowing smoke. You, though…Show me."

Mercenary captains did not give orders to the people they served under, but Adaar understood perfectly well why he asked. It was the sort of boast that she would have scoffed at, too.

She smiled faintly, hefted the maul, and took a couple of practice swings. Iron Bull watched, impassive.

Then she uncoiled, swung the maul two-handed, and struck the dummy squarely.

The stitches held. The pole did not. It snapped in the center and the dummy sagged forward as if it were bowing.

"Nice," said Bull.

Adaar rested the haft on her shoulder and shrugged. The praise warmed her more than she liked to admit. Everybody expected her to close rifts these days, which was nothing she could take any credit for.

Hitting things, though…she'd worked to get good at that.

"I'll have to apologize to the weapons master," she said.

"Dock my pay," said Iron Bull. "I made you do it. Have you always been able to do that?"

"Only since I drank the dragon's blood," she admitted. "It…changed things."

"Not just the smell, then," said Bull.

I feel like chaos, barely leashed, and if I slip up for a moment, I'm afraid I'll start taking out walls. I want to fight more than I want to eat. At night I dream of flying. If I say that out loud, I'll sound like a melodramatic lunatic, and we've all got enough to worry about already.

"Not just the smell, no."

He walked around her, his one eye narrowed. Adaar's lips twitched.

Give him credit, though…that is a purely professional look. Normally he looks like he'd jump the bones of anything that walked upright. This is like a horse buyer wondering if the nag will fall apart before it gets out of the stable.

She didn't know if she should be flattered or offended.

"Do you want to check my teeth, too?" she asked, when he finished the circuit and looked ready to start on another one.

Bull grinned. "Sorry, boss. We haven't been out fighting together too often, and when we are, I'm pretty busy, too."

"It's not lack of confidence in you," she said hurriedly. "Truly. I just…ah…"

She glanced around the salle. No one was there to overhear. "The only two Qunari...it looks…well…"

"Like collusion," said Iron Bull. "Understandable, though I think you're more worried about it than anyone else is."

He reached out and tapped her flank, just under the shoulder. "You took a hit there, didn't you?"

"About three years ago," she said, wondering if he could somehow see through the quilting to the scar underneath. "Spear thrust. Got the head wedged up under the shoulder blade. They got it out, but it aches like the devil when it's cold."

"When you pull the hits like that, I can see the shoulder drop. Only on that side."

"It's my lower back that's aching."

He shrugged. "Muscles are weird. I'd guess your back is taking up the slack that your shoulder can't, and that's why it's bothering you. You're trying to pull the hit with your wrists and your shoulders."

Talking about it was making Adaar more aware of it than normal. She rubbed the knot of scar tissue and felt, sure enough, another twinge farther down. "You could be right. Not much that a healer can do about it now, though—it's all set in deep."

"I know how that goes," he said. "I've got a couple…"

"You've got more than a couple."

He laughed. "Fair! But so do you, boss."

"True enough."

"I like a woman who looks like she's lived."

Adaar gazed briefly up toward the ceiling. "Uh-huh."

Bull pulled a shield down from the wall and strode to the center of the ring. Adaar raised her eyebrows.

"Are we fighting?" she asked mildly.

"You are," he said. He stepped in close, and it occurred to Adar that for the first time in a very long time, she had to look up to meet someone's eyes.

"Am I supposed to hit you, then?"

"Like you mean it, boss." He lifted the shield.

"You sure about that?" she asked, pulling the maul off her shoulder.

He looked down at her over the rim of the shield.

"I don't break," said Iron Bull, and smiled.