Head Over Feet

It's the Small Things

HEAD OVER FEET

It's the Small Things

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"Bother and damnation," Poppy mumbled to herself as she ran quickly walked away from the Commander of the Inquisition's forces, Cullen.

Poppy might have been born into nobility and been given an above average education due her status in the Ostwick's Circle of Magi, but nothing and no one had spoken to her or prepared her on affairs of the heart. They might have met on the battlefield of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, but that didn't stop Poppy from acting all awkward in his presence once they were introduced. She had stammered out a reply at Cassandra's prompt, and was unsurprised when she saw that she hadn't made much of a first impression on the handsome Commander of the Inquisition's forces.

Ever since then she had taken to actively avoiding the man.

Poppy knew that it wasn't very polite from her to keep avoiding him. She was aware the he kept giving her looks in the War Room where they kept council. However, no matter how much she tried to gather her courage to approach him, start talking to him, or even just greeting him in the corridors when their paths crossed, she would chicken out.

She could hear people sniggering and snickering as she ran quickly walked away all around her. Bother and damnation if she didn't feel her face become red as a radish. Everyone knew of her avoidance of the Commander. There were rumours floating around that she was afraid of him because he was a Templar, that she hated him because of it and couldn't stand the sight of him, and several others. However none of them had guessed right so far. Well, perhaps Varric did but he never said, merely gave her a look that did not make her feel better.

It also didn't help that whenever she had caught Cullen's eyes they were full of confusion and pain which made her feel like a heel every time she saw it. She knew that it wasn't good for the Inquisition morale that the Commander and the Inquisitor didn't get along. It didn't help matters that she had chosen the Mages over the Templars, it merely stoked fire to the rumours.

To make herself feel better about it she had started to leave small gifts in the Commander's office (when he was absent of course) whenever she had returned from a mission. She and her companions had gotten so used to picking everything they had come across, be it a metal, herb, necklace, junk, or crafting materials, that no one suspected her when she picked up something that had caught her eye. They were small things that made her think of him. Flowers that she picked just before they returned to Skyhold so that they would still be fresh when she left them on his desk, pretty stones and shells that she saw on the coast, a paperweight after she heard him comment about being afraid that his papers would scatter because of the drafts in Skyhold, and various other bricks and bracks she found in her travels.

She had been so focused on sneaking around his office and trying not to be seen by others, that it took her until after she and Hawke had ended up in the Fade to notice that instead of throwing the flowers away, Cullen had them pressed; that instead of throwing the rocks and shells away, Cullen had put them in Serault glass bowls and put the bowls on display on his bookshelves; that instead of throwing away the paperweight, Cullen used it to make sure the papers didn't scatter due to the drafts. She also saw the other bricks and bracks proudly shown on his bookshelves.

All those little things made Poppy's heart almost burst out of her chest. She wasn't ashamed to admit that her eyes didn't remain dry after that realization.

Even more, she was ashamed of her ongoing avoidance of the man.

It took her until she went to the Chantry to pray for her success in the Winter Palace to speak to him.