He’d trained with Kveta, Andraste was sure of it. He had that look about him, the one that said he’d been assigned the duty of getting Kveta out of her armor as soon as she entered the tower and, having failed that first crucial step, was not going to be enforcing any rules at all. This made it her job to strip Kveta down so the poor man could go about his day.

“Come on,” Andraste coaxed, peeling one hand from her shoulder and beginning on the gauntlet buckles. “Armor first, catching up after. I’ll put away your things.”

“Don’t bother.” Kveta waved her other hand dismissively. “They are all filthy. Instead of washing, I may burn them.”

“Please don’t-“ the Templar tried.

“In the grand fireplace, of course.” Kveta slapped her gauntlets down into his waiting hand, then knelt down to begin removing her boots. “I burn only wood in my room.”

And unwanted gifts, Andraste thought. Incriminating items, various herbs, a truly wasteful volume of paper... It would not surprise her in the least if Kveta rendered their room uninhabitable by throwing her muddy underthings into the fire, as if handing them off to the Tranquil to be cleaned wasn't just as easy - easier, even!

The Templar looked a little lost. “That’s not-“

“Better?” Kveta grinned, her bright mane falling free from her helmet, which she tossed into the Templar's arms as well. “I promise you I will throw in some incense so the smell puts no one off their dinner.”

He groaned. “Kveta…”

“Andraste, come and help me with these buckles. I cannot wait to breathe without a ton of metal weighing me down.”

“You slept in your armor as well?” Andraste asked wryly, grabbing Kveta by the waist and turning her until the leather straps that held her armor in place were more easily accessible. “Your commitment to your training shames me.”

“When was I meant to sleep?” Kveta laughed. “Maleficar are worse in the dark.”

Lifting the chest plate over her friend’s head, Andraste turned to the Templar and found his arms full already. “Will you be able to carry all this, ser knight?”

“Yes, my lady.” He rearranged his bundle, tying together the inner lacings of the boots so they could be slung over his shoulder, gauntlets tucked inside and helm beneath his arm, the other extended to take the chest piece from Andraste.

Skeptical, she handed it over. The Templar already wore full plate, which could only add to the difficulty of managing a full second set of armor.

“There.” Kveta dumped the last of her armor unceremoniously atop the pile in the Templars arms, then immediately set about stripping off the next layers of her clothing. Her quilted shirt was thrown across the back of a chair, leaving her in only her thin sleeves, graying with dirt and sweat. The front lacing dangled free, exposing a dangerous crevasse of colorless skin down her front. “I have returned my armor, unless you need to pat me down to be sure.”

For the first time, he cracked a hint of a smile. “I trust you.”

“Excellent!” Kveta had already begun to close the door, herding him out ahead of her. “Now, as I have not seen Andraste for a month, and I have seen you all month…”

He shook his head indulgently. “I’ll see you at dinner, Kveta. My lady.”

Kveta snapped the heavy wooden door shut, and Andraste rounded on her instantly.

“Tell me you didn't let him get over you.”

“Of course I did! The Marches are not so interesting that I didn’t need to make my own entertainment.” Two layers of leggings followed Kveta's outer shirt onto the chair, revealing pale, freckled legs banded with muscle. Her socks, no longer supported, slouched down towards her ankles.

“The Anderfels are a wasteland!”

“Where do you think I learned to entertain myself?” Kveta thumped down on top of her bed, arms and legs spread indulgently off the edges. Andraste winced on behalf of her bedding. “Maker, I missed sleeping indoors. And eliminating! I will be so grateful to shit without fear of bears.”

Andraste bent to rescue her book from the floor, marking her page with a pressed flower and returning it to her nightstand before settling atop her own bedding. “That’s what you missed?"

Kveta propped herself up on an elbow, expression emphatic. "Have you ever been caught by a bear with your trousers down? Skirts up," she corrected herself immediately, "it is all the same to a bear."

Andraste grimaced. "I'm choosing to believe this is a joke at my expense, and I will not be asking anyone about bears at dinner."

"As is your right." Kveta nodded firmly. "The bears will not stop being real because you do not believe."

With a fatalistic feeling, Andraste opened her mouth to clarify: "I believe in bears. I do not believe they are much seen along the Waking Sea."

"No," Kveta agreed. "Though sea lions are much like bears. As we were hunting in the mountains this month past, the bears found us easily."

"The Vimmarks?" Adraste was taken aback. "But it's Wintermarch."

"Yes?"

"There's snow."

Even the tower got a light dusting of it in the weeks of transition from Haring to Wintermarch, bursts of frost etching themselves onto the window glass, hidden by thick tapestry hangings that kept out the cold. Further inland, without the protection of the sea, it piled up in suffocating drifts that Andraste tried not to remember - a carriage ride, an early storm, wheels resistant behind exhausted horses, the heat of close-packed bodies leached slowly away, the sudden darkness and the indeterminate stretch of road without sign of human habitation. The surge of heat and light which came only when all the rest had gone, when she could not sit still for shivering even in her thickest traveling cloak, unable to feel any residual warmth from the press of her brother's thigh against her own. The realization that it came from her.

She had spent one night in that featureless whiteness, sheltered in a carriage with her family all sleepless and unspeaking: wishing for the magic to leave and terrified that it would go. She could not imagine anyone's spending a month out in the mountains in the snow without so much as the flimsiest walls for protection, and the effort made her stomach clench.

Kveta laughed. "Maleficar are very inconsiderate about the weather."

"You might as well just let them freeze out there."

Kveta's expression turned serious. "Look at me. I am not frozen. If we wait until the thaw, a maleficar is already in Starkhaven."

Andraste pursed her lips. "And so you spend a month hunting in the snow."

"It is not so bad." Kveta shrugged, tilting her head to let her tangled curls spill across her shoulder. "No baths, lest the water freeze against your skin. Bears. Poor game. But the danger warms the blood."

"No baths?" Andraste wrinkled her nose in horror. "You let one of your squad on top of you and you haven't bathed in a month?"

"'One'... more..." Kveta wobbled a hand in the air ambivalently. "Now you see why I wished to burn my underthings."

"You'll have to burn your bed now! I can't believe you're touching it. I can't believe you touched me."

"I missed you." Kveta rolled over to pillow her head on her hand, looking at Andraste with a clear and direct gaze. "And it has been so long since I was clean, what difference does an hour or so make?"

"It makes a difference to me! I have to live with you!" Andraste rose, brushing off the skirts of her robes as if to clear away imaginary dirt from Kveta's proximity. "Get dressed. We are ordering water and you are taking a bath immediately."

Kveta groaned. "I do not want to be dressed anymore! My clothing is stiff and it stinks."

Andraste crossed her arms. "You cannot walk through the tower naked." Before Kveta's open mouth could turn into a protest, she cut her off, pointing at her bare legs. "That is naked. I won't wash your hair if you're going to be difficult about it."

Kveta brightened. "You will wash my hair? You should have said so sooner." She hopped off the bed and began to re-dress, grimacing as she pulled on the masculine layers she had so recently discarded. Normally, Andraste would encourage her to wear her robes, but in this case she had rather Kveta not touch anything unnecessarily.

"Normally one only has to bribe children."

Unrepentant, Kveta grinned. "I have had a long month. Maybe I am a little childish today."

"Maybe is putting it generously." Andraste held the door open, a draft from the hall rushing past her and into the room. "If you don't hurry, your men will use up all the water and you will have to melt ice for your bath."

Ignoring the wide berth Andraste had purposefully afforded her, Kveta passed close enough that they nearly touched. "But you will help me, won't you?"

Andraste shook her head. "I've said I'll wash your hair. There's no need to push it."