One thing she's come to love about Skyhold are its nights. Even the rare cloud cover they get this high in the Frostbacks is nothing to the dark of the Planasene's heart. Stars had been a treat you would climb the trees to see, something you see when the hunt ranges far from camp. Nothing like the brilliant velvet dark of the mountain sky, pinpoints of light blazing out, the moon rivaling the torches below.

But there was little of the moon tonight, and the Zevran shaped darkness cut from the starcloth reminded her of the forest.

She'd seen him before, sitting there. Not every night, but some. He would perch with a solemn almost-longing, like he was paying court to the empty air.

Nahariel had been torn between respecting the invisible tides that pushed out from him and saying something. She'd let it be the first, because she hadn't anything to say. Not until she'd remembered a song, whistling mindlessly over tea that morning. She whistled it now, a Dalish melody, haunting and clear as so many of them were. Her footfalls were heavy and even on the stone so he could tell her speed, the song in her mouth to give her position away in the low-light. She'd even taken a farther set of stairs to be sure she'd come from the side he could see. Every trick she knew of stealth or silence reversed. He'd know.

And he'd know far enough in advance that if he didn't want her company, he could be gone before she even laid eyes on him.