Some say she lives in a tavern.

No saying about it. She does and she doesn’t give a tinker’s cuss who knows. It’s hers. A treasure chest. A place for shiny things and her Shiny.

An empty bottle. Dorian whined when Ellana cut the seal with a small knife, spat the cork into the sand. Sera giggled. Cassandra sighed. Chasind Sack Mead. Dorian with some shite about despair and bitterness. Sera remembers apples. Ellana’s hands getting handsy . Sera getting handsy right back. Sera can close her eyes, trace the carvings in the bottle, remember tracing other things under a sky that still goes on forever.

A handkerchief. Andraste knows how or why Ellana even had one, but she gave it to her after the bandits that disappeared in a wanky smokescreen flash and then they were too close. Nasty gash on her arm. Wrapped up tight. Ellana’s hands on hers. Deep green eyes of concern. Sera was careful. Washed and folded it and put it right there, never returned. Not yet. Sera will, she thinks, but needs the right smell first. Something to remind her of trees.

The first arrow she ever fletched herself. Never fired, never blunted and carried everywhere. Maybe this is where it stays.

Books. She’s read ‘em all. Some she snuck out of the library here. Some she pilfered from some rich tit or another’s mansion. They never read them. Spines unbroken. Pages too clean. Sera eats books. Sometimes when Ell is sleeping, she’ll curl up next to her and read until the fire dies. She doodles on them. Dorian will spit fire when he sees them. It helps though. Let’s her take it all in like a sponge. But no-one ever asks her, and so she never tells.

Knitting needles, wool, smaller needles for silk, half a bolt of it, beads, scissors. Never for hair. ‘Cept that one time. Sera likes using her hands, for all sorts of things, running them over, through, Ellana is her favourite. Making her purr. But she never could sit still. One of the Jennies put some knitting kneedles in her hands once just to shut her up. Never expected Sera to take to it. So few people expect Sera to take to anything. Fuck them. Not that what she made ever looked like much, but she grins whenever Ellana wears the scarf she made her.

A wooden Halla. Sera can’t explain that one. Won’t. No-one’s asked. Ellana eyed it curiously, but swallowed her question. Maybe, one day, if she asks, Sera will tell. Maybe the words will spill out of her, untangle on her tongue. Make sense. One day. She traces Ellana’s valleslin when she sleeps. Sometimes. Wonders.