“You sure you’ll be alright?” Those were Cullen’s parting words as he turned at the doorway. Isolde smiled, nodded - she had this… or, well, she thought she did…

It turned out that caring for a three year old was a lot harder than Isolde had first thought. Little Bran Junior was somehow here, there, and everywhere all at once. Isolde soon regretted her decision to volunteer to babysit. She had offered to do so with only the best of intentions, hoping to prove herself a useful part of Cullen’s family. She had instead proved little, other than her inability to keep up with a toddler.

“Get back here, you little monster!” she exclaimed, and she was not exaggerating. Bran was all blonde curls and dimples, but with his father and aunts out at the market with his Uncle Cullen, he was proving to be a nuisance to this newcomer.

She cornered him just about, clambering up the bookcase in the living room, knocking books down as he did so. Isolde caught him easily around the middle, but not before the little brat knocked her on the head with a particularly thick book. One of Varric’s, presumably.

“I told you to get back here!” Isolde grunted, holding the struggling boy against herself. “You’d have hurt yourself.”

“I want Dada!” Bran screamed and wailed. “I want Uncle Cullen! I don’t want you!”

“I don’t want you too!” Isolde snapped - and she instantly regretted it. If he was going to parrot anything she said, it would be that. Plonking the toddler down onto a nearby chair, she took a deep breath and crouched to his level.

“I’m sorry,” she said, slowly. “Would you like a story?”

Bran folded his arms and pulled a face.

“I don’t want a story!” he snapped.

“A cake?”

“No cake!”

“A game?”

That caught Bran’s fleeting attention span. The little boy paused and thought on it.

“Yes, Auntie Izzy,” he said, all blonde curls, big eyes, and dimples again, “but not chess.” He pulled a face again. Isolde smiled at that; she too would happily miss yet another game of chess.

“What game should we play?” Isolde struggled to think of any. She tried to remember the games she played with her siblings before she was sent to the Circle, but she could only remember that one time Fee won hide-and-seek by hitching a ride out of Ostwick and disappearing for days. Hide-and-seek was off the menu then.

“Templars!” Bran exclaimed excitedly. He jumped up off of the chair. “Where’s my sword?”

Isolde struggled to hide her distaste at that: “Let’s play something else…”

Bran curled his lip, but Isolde was adamant. She held his glare easily; it was the toddler who broke first.

“Fine!” he said, eventually. “Let’s play…” But before he could come up with a suggestion, Isolde’s hand began to flare up.

Throughout her long vacation at Cullen’s family home in the Southreach, the Anchor had not bothered her once. Yet the moment she was left alone with a small child, the damned thing woke up again, sending out flares of green light and causing her to have an awful cramp in her wrist.

“Blasted thing!” she snapped, struggling to close her fingers over it. Months had passed since she had defeated Corypheus, yet she was not truly free of his actions. She looked up to find Bran watching her, his mouth agape.

“No, no, no…” she went to say, doing her best to hide her glowing hand behind her back. “That’s nothing! Don’t you worry about it…” But Bran was not worried. He was anything but.

“You can do magic?” he whispered, eyes wide, amazed. “Are you a witch?”

“No! I mean, yes. I mean I’m not a witch... I’m a mage, but that… that’s something else. Did you say you wanted cake before? I swear your aunt Rosalie had some fruitcake leftover…”

“Fruitcake’s gross.” Isolde could not fault his judgement there. “Let me see.”

Isolde kept her hand behind her back, feeling the energy pulsate beneath her clenched fist. All she had wanted to do was make a good impression on Cullen’s family, joining them in the run-up to Funalis. It was not as if things had got off to a good start.

Cullen’s family were polite and kind - but Isolde still felt left out. She wondered at first if it was down to her being the Inquisitor - running an international organisation and defeating Corypheus was a big deal - but, as time went on, she realised it was more down to her being a Marcher than anything. Cullen’s family were Ferelden to the core and there was only as much Mabari hair that Isolde could take.

Matters could not be helped if Bran started spouting out about Isolde practicing magic. Isolde being a mage had not raised any comment among Cullen’s relatives, at least in her earshot, but, from what Cullen had told her, the family had long ties with the Templar Order. She knew Cullen would understand, him having been with her throughout her journey first as Herald then the Inquisitor, but she could not trust his family to be so understanding.

“Bran,” Isolde said, before pausing. She did not have much experience with children - scratch that, she had no experience with children. She had no idea how to explain any of this to a small child, but, looking into Bran’s frank gaze, she realised that there was no way she could talk down to him.

So she sat down onto the chair and pulled him onto her lap. Her hand had stopped making a scene of itself and rested, quietly, by her side.

She explained to him first how she met his uncle, downplaying parts of the story where she thought necessary. How his uncle had helped her fight her way to the temple ruins to fight the Pride demon there and close the rift above it. She explained to him that her hand behaved like that when a rift was close… Bran’s eyes certainly widened at that! But she hastily explained that it also went off for other reasons. Reasons she was not so sure of herself.

She explained to him her time at Haven and then facing Corypheus and his dragon at Haven that wretched night. Bran listened attentively, his little nails digging into her arm, as she told him of her escape through the tunnels beneath the town and how his uncle had found her lost out in the snow.

Next, she told him about Skyhold, having to pause to answer Bran’s sudden pleas to visit. Of course he was welcome to come and stay, so long as his father had no problem with it… Isolde could only hope Branson was better than her at saying ‘no’ to a three year old. She may have had little experience beforehand in child-minding, but she had the sense to know that some stories of desk adventures were not suitable for little ears.

By the time she got to the part where she faced Corypheus in the final battle, Bran could not keep his eyes open, no matter how much he tried to. His eyelids drooped, his mouth opened into a yawn, and, before she knew it, he was fast asleep, his little head resting on her chest.

It was like that Cullen and his siblings found them, Bran still asleep on her lap. Branson thanked her profusely as he lifted his young son from her, while Cullen gave Isolde a hand back up to her feet.

“He wasn’t too much trouble then?” Cullen said, with a sly grin. He had been the one who had tried the hardest to talk her out of volunteering.

“Piece of cake,” Isolde retorted, folding her arms. “Didn’t think that I could do it?”

“I knew you could do it,” Cullen retorted, and he pulled her close to him. It was one of the rare alone moments that they could find in this crowded house of Rutherfords. “The toddler-whisperer,” he teased in a low voice, his breath tickling her lips as he leaned in to...

They were interrupted then by a Branson, arms folded, followed by a red-faced, tear-streaked young Bran.

“I had a nightmare,” he wailed, dragging his blanket behind him. “Cor- Cor-fee-us was coming with his dragon to eat me!”