golden lion

               the snow crunching beneath their boots keeps her grounded in the moment, the sound familiar in the same way a dream about a distant memory might be.  she remembers walking the grounds in the winter after he’d arrived, barefoot in the snow, the frozen air biting her already rosy cheeks.  a moment of freedom.  a moment beneath the sky.  one of her last happy memories before the reality of being a caged bird sank in. 

              it reminds her of a second, more tangible memory as well.  something closer.  something happier.  morrigan and alistair bickering.  wynne’s constant mothering.  leliana sings as they travel and her hound bounds through the snow howling along.  the waterfall is just as beautiful as she remembers it being, but there’s something melancholy about it too.  because her friends aren’t there, or because cullen is? 

              she’d missed him.  is she allowed to admit that?  is it okay to have missed anything from kinloch?  it was her home for over twelve years and so much of it had been destroyed before she’d had a chance to react or say goodbye.  and he’s not the only part of it that’s left, but part of her thinks he’s the only part that matters.  she’d witnessed his pain first hand.  witnessed what her inaction had done to him.  

              if she’d just been better-

              once again his voice catches her by surprise.  her gaze rips away from the crystalline beauty before them, breath wrenched from her lungs as she looks at him - actually looks at him - eyes dragging over his features.  the lines in his face, the pink in his ears.  ❝ you’re wearing your hair differently. ❞  the bridge of her nose turns an almost violent red the second the words leave her lips. as if she’s one to talk - hair sheered away the second she left the circle in some grand, symbolic act only to have grown well past where she’d kept it in kinloch in the years since. 

              ❝ if you believe i think poorly of you- well, i guess it’s natural given the way we parted, but i’m afraid you’re quite mistaken.  in truth, i… ❞ she ought to turn away, to preserve some sense of distance between the two of them, especially considering the way his eyes pull away from her, but instead elisabeth stares up at him as brazenly as she used to.  ❝ i think you’re very brave, cullen. ❞

He-

He supposes he does. She last saw him ten years ago. In those days, he shimmered, his hair wound in tight, tight curls. One of the templars had teased him about it once, bumping his shoulder as the rest stabbed warily at their overcooked pork hocks and mystery vegetable of the day. There goes Knight-Templar Sweet Rolls, she’d called him. On account of the, you know- Then she’d make a swirling motion with her finger, cheek bumped with her tongue pressed in it. The rest cackled.

He was happier in those, days, too. He smiled more. So did his eyes. He was fresh-faced, a still-new and minted templar with an innocence in his voice, happy to share space with his brothers and the mages. Her.

Now? Cullen is older. The lines on his face are deeper. He grumbles more, incurably so, and Harding mutters under her breath about him. Commander Uptight, they grouse. Commander Needs-to-Be-in-Control. Headaches tag along the way a child tugs at your sleeve, and he’s dogged by nightmares, the lack of it sometimes on his face. Regret follows him, merciless. Like post-drunk clarity. 

Her nose burns red, cherry bright.

Cullen's face turns fond. "And yours... Right?" he murmurs, wistful. "...Longer?"

He already knew. She'd chopped it off before. Now it's like it was in Ferelden’s Circle just like her easy teasing, the way she'd turned on her heels, and the I don't think poorly of you. You're brave.

His eyes gloss over.

“You would say that.” The way he sounded, like the last of a candle, there then gone; like it was no surprise at all. He pulls away. "I never wanted…”

The way she stares up at him; it’s too clear and honest, as though nothing has changed. Only it has. Using my shame against me, the words echo, skipping quick in his head. You must kill everyone... Mages cannot be treated as people. Cullen paces towards the edge of the water, frozen, now, and bitter cold. He found he could not look into her eyes too long. “I have always thought of you, and what I said that night… What I’ve done -- in Ferelden. In Kirkwall -- I don't see why you-” His face shifts. “Why don't you-?”

Hate him? Feel angry? Disappointed?

    “i–,” she stops, waiting for him to finish. listening. she raises her mug once more to sip the beverage only, once again, to be met with the bitter taste that causes her face to collapse in of itself. “sorry. milk–milk is better for me.” she isn’t ashamed to say this, or preferring the sweet wines of orlais, and pushes her mug aside giving a visceral shiver. “i don’t–it’s not good. for me.” the wine or the company, no one knows, but she refuses to say either way. maybe she will come back to it if only not to hurt the establishment’s feelings, but she needs a reprieve. perhaps she needs one from him, too. crossing her arms on the wooden table sophie does her best to meet him in the eye. he hurt her. she was a little girl; insecure and too shy, who was besotted by anyone who was kind to her. it was innocent. cullen merely reminded her that not all templars were monsters and that some, like him, were kind and a sort of prince charmings. and then, much like many things did during the blight, she remembers the cutting and ugly words that resulted in a alistair’s brotherly arms holding her after the fact as a stark realization that childhood fantasies are not adulthood realities. 

it was a harsh lesson, but most are. she knows that now.  if kirkwall, whitespire, and ostwick have any say in the matter–well. it reinforces her to look in his eyes a bit bolder, older, and doesn’t slouch but sits up straight. she’s made of steel now. she ought to act like it. “i’ve faired better than thousands of my kind,” she agrees and allows him to make of it what he will. “i used to pray for you, when i still prayed.”  not for his health, but his heart. for it to be kind once again. she only hopes her prayers were answered on that front.

“Enchanters, the time has come to be alive...”

The song drips slower, now; slowly. He crosses his arms, unaware of it. “To come as far as you --- I doubt anyone would.”

She never used to do that before. Look him in the eye. In the late hour of the night, Cullen finds himself staring --- he doesn’t know what to say. But in the back of his swimming mind, a day and a half behind sleep, he knows this: There is no more Sophie. Not anymore. There is only the stranger sitting in front of him, her eyes unbatting, and a doubt that comes only from staring too long into the past.

I used to pray for you, she'd said. Cullen listens to a crackling fire and barroom conversations.

You can fit a decade in the silence between them. 

“We never spoke of that night…” he rumbles. “I didn’t think you'd want to.” 

It came quiet. Like a secret just for her. Cullen dips his chin, but does not see the floor. "The things I said --- I would not say them now… Had I not endured- Had I not been made to-” He makes a sound, low and airy. He looks tired, or maybe more so. “I lost something of myself that night… I regret how we’d ended.”

Like spitting on a young girl’s heart. Sophie, just 16, rosy-cheeked and crying at everything, came back home that night, but not at all. He must have been the only living person she saw. He was the only one left. And what did he do. Tell her didn’t and could never feel the same. It’s a sin to love a mage, warped and wicked and Maker forgive anyone who would. Then he told her to kill all the mages in the Tower; everyone she grew up with.

He might have seen her heart break if he’d cared enough. 

Words he regrets. Lots of things he regrets. 

“Enchanter, come to me… Enchanter, come to me...”

     sophie has thought about what she would tell ser cullen, provided their paths would cross, for nearly a decade. she isn’t that shy circle mage of yesteryear who was too afraid to even speak to him, much less look him in the eye, but she isn’t as brave as she liked to believe herself to be. she always thought she would be cordial. then whitespire happened, kirkwall happened, and she would be stone because how dare he. there were times in between when she would act like he meant nothing to her, completely ignore him, because she totally didn’t cry over what he told her in that tower for weeks. he didn’t unknowingly broke a sixteen year old’s heart. that’s silly. and now he’s there. in the herald’s rest, and she’s there too, and her eyes meet his and suddenly she isn’t a grown woman but that silly little girl who thought, just because he had a kind smile and he was handsome like a prince out of a fairytale, he was nice. kind. a gentlemen. she wonders if his armor is uncomfortable to sit in like her greywarden armor is, but is too afraid to sound silly, or inappropriate, so she does the next best thing after he speaks.

“your lions helm is frightening,” she blurts out. it’s true. she doesn’t like it. just like she doesn’t like the ale she holds in a cool mug--thank you magic--but sips it anyway. apparently, because she’s twenty-seven now, she’s required to drink something stronger than milk, even if she still likes milk. every sip she takes results in a displeased countenance but--well. he said he wanted to stay, so she thinks he’ll deal with her faces while there.

“Oh.” It was soft, like being caught off-guard. He didn’t blink. “I- ...I see.”

An awkward silence lays down between them. By the fireplace, Halewell sings quietly, a goodnight lullaby, and there are few patrons here, their warbles crawling deep through the tavern and seeping down into the thin, winding cracks of the floorboards. She brings her cup to her mouth and twists her face like she'd stepped in something wet or smelled something rotten. Maybe saw a ghost from the past.

She isn’t how he remembers. Her cheeks aren’t red and her eyes don’t have that drooping, after-cry puff. She doesn’t look like the little girl whose heart he’d ripped out and spit on. Her armor shines, Grey Warden blues. When they met again in Skyhold, their eyes catching, she had turned her head and pretended he wasn’t there. Today, she could have clicked her mug down, scraped the legs of her rickety chair against the floor, and walked away right then and there, the line irrevocably drawn, and Cullen Rutherford would not have blamed her.

She didn’t, but there’s time. The night’s still young.

“I'd wondered when I might see you --- If ever,” he begins, breaking the silence at last. He doesn’t sound like before; not the shining, young templar, and not the angry, broken one, either, ten years back. Cullen stands planted by her table. He looks out of place, almost, like he’s deciding if he belongs.

”Perhaps it isn't right of me to say --- but I'm relieved. Should that mean anything,” he continues. His voice and steady gaze have years behind them, then, slowly, he looks away. "I never knew what I would say...”

It coats the back of his throat, a copper tang, something thick and filmy --- the smell of blood and post-nasal congestion. What day is it? He hears someone screaming, only it could just be the echoing remnants of people screaming, or maybe it’s him screaming because there’s no one left and, Maker watch over him. Cullen’s entire insides pulse, an avalanche, and he keels, eyes shut, because if he doesn’t squeeze them tight enough, they’ll leak out sloppy hot and he’s seeing stars.

There’s a body here. There’s bodies everywhere, though, painting the walls and packed in corners. He remembers the name of the templar dead behind him. But what if he doesn’t? Maybe he doesn’t remember anything and they’re all someone else’s memories, and he can’t. Cullen can’t break, not now, but his body is trembling, shaking, and he’s terrified, so inconsolably-- 

“...for there is no darkness nor death, either, in the Maker's Light, and nothing” ---mouth cotton dry, the chant scrapes raw against his throat--- “nothing He has wrought shall be lost. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Fade, for there is no darkness nor death, either, in the Maker’s Light, and nothing-”

There was an armchair in Cullen’s office that had become one of Ellana’s favourite spots to retreat to. Whilst she still preferred the forest floor and just being generally at one with nature, the comfort of a well-stuffed armchair was one of the few human delights that she had come to appreciate. It was red and plush and miles too big for her - especially considering it had been chosen for the Commander himself - but she still found herself sitting in it whenever the opportunity arose. 

One such occasion had her waiting for Cullen’s return from a briefing with his men, her legs tucked up underneath herself and a book open and draped over one of her arms whilst she waited. It was not quite sundown, though she knew by the birdsongs in the trees that nightfall approached.  She looked up when she heard the hinges of the door creak, a little smile tugging at the corner of her lips and her response being to automatically fold the piece of ribbon she was using to keep her place in the book into position. ❝ Do you have some time to spare? ❞ He had quickly become a confidante for the Dalish elf. He had rejected his prior title to join the Inquisition and had stood up against the Templars when they had waged war upon the mages. 

Whilst she and the soldier didn’t always see exactly eye-to-eye, they tended to agree on the core values of rights and that meant more to her than whether or not he believed that mages should be able to walk totally free. She had struggled for a few nights with terrors, waking her from her sleep to things she had never been frightened of prior. So she came to him, hoping he might offer some form of answer to her confusion and fears. ❝ Unless you have some private visitor coming to join you that I might be interrupting? ❞ It wouldn’t be Ellana if she didn’t offer him at least the slightest tease.

for @commendured

Cullen was a man of order. He needed to know everything: what has happened, what is happening, what will. By instinct, he narrowed an eye at all things out of place and would lay wide awake in the dead, lightless hours of the night, self-imposed, if so much as a single speck of dust crept onto his floorboards without prior written consent. So when he pushed open his door to his office, the hinges whining, and was hit face-first with the sight of Ellana draped over his chair, it was unexpected.

A glint of mischief went off in her purple eyes. She smiled.

"I-- No," Cullen breathed, just barely. “I haven’t. Or- I wouldn’t-" The words all tangled and rolled out lamely, limp-splat against the floor. They withered. "Maker's breath,” he cursed to himself. “...You enjoy this."

It wasn’t a surprise. Between Leliana, Josephine, and Ellana, he was a candle burning down at both ends, whatever shred of dignity he had left mercilessly melted down until all that remained was a sadly charred wick. He made it too easy, she’d said --- Leliana. Or was it Josephine. The inquisitor? Cullen hadn’t noticed he was rubbing the back of his neck, but he was lucky. It was dark enough in here that she might not see the look on his face.

Even he could hope. 

He makes a good case for the Templars, settles her in a way she hadn’t expected. Astoria crosses her arms over her chest, a barrier against the cold rather than against him, and offers him a pleasant smile to counteract the gesture. She thinks that even if Cassandra had not recommended him so strongly, she would have wanted him here: this is not the Cullen Rutherford she knew in the earliest days in Kirkwall. ( Then again, she is hardly the same, herself. Perhaps that’s simply how it works: the world turns, and everyone changes with it, and who you were can truly be buried. )

     Astoria takes a seat across from him, presses her fingers to her lips in thought. “Fair points,” she concedes, and she leans forward suddenly, eyes fixed on his, hands clasped in front of her. ( What a relief, to speak to someone as an equal — if Cullen thinks she is Andraste’s chosen, he doesn’t let it show, not when he has something worth saying. She’d never imagined it would be such a blessing, to have the perception of her ignored. ) “Some I would challenge, but — fair, overall. You should know that you and I are largely in agreement,” she adds, and she raises an eyebrow. “The existing structure of the Order will serve us well. I had hoped to ally with the mages, but I cannot, in good conscience —

     “Here is my concern: we are meant to help. Above all else, that is what we are. Our military might is limited; our political power, more so. The Chantry will crush us, if we cannot stand against it. What we have is the support of the people, and even that is limited. We win them over by standing for them.

     “Which means that we can and must protect the vulnerable. The goodwill of the people is all that stands between us and destruction. An alliance with the mages means an alliance with Tevinter, and at that point we may as well spit on every elf who comes to us for protection, placing them alongside the magisters who would enslave them if given half a chance. So, if it comes to the elves or the mages, I choose the elves: mages can coexist with Templars, under appropriate leadership. Slavers can never be trusted.

     “But that raises the question of leadership. Cassandra, I trust. You, I trust. If we were to ally with the Templars… can Lucius be trusted? Can the structure of the Order be adjusted to our advantage?” She straightens in her seat again and sighs, fingers returning to her lips as she considers. 

     “And there is the question of lyrium,” she says quietly, quietly enough that he could ignore it if he wished. “Forgive me, my friend, but — I saw only a fraction of what lyrium could do to a Templar in Kirkwall. If we wish to use Templar abilities, we must ask them to continue taking lyrium, and we do not have a steady supply. Sudden withdrawal could be deadly.”

The chair hardly sounds when she sits.

She's filling into it, really. The careful patience. The title. When they met again under the green glow of the Breach, eye to eye, he thought she would see something wrong and gnarled in him; a templar, eyes stained and vacant, standing over the empty bodies of mages, a knight-commander lit red and frothing by his side.

But she didn’t. Hasn't. Astoria, the Herald of Andraste. 

She presses her finger to her lips, thinking. It fits her.

"Templars follow orders --- not unlike soldiers. Most learn to do so before little else," he imparts, remembering the boys, some of them hardly four feet off the ground and doing as they’re told without question. Like him. "The Order will suit us just fine. Perhaps under new leadership. As for other matters…"

The candles ease softly, flickering warm, and his face glows in it angry yellow. His mouth twists. “I say be done with him.

“Lucius would deny them their purpose; what it means to be a templar --- He's doing so now," the commander tosses, and if she can hear the judgement in his voice, so be it. Lucius would deny them. Not the Inquisition. They will serve on that reason alone. “With the templars forfeit, let him do as he likes," Cullen dismisses. "He's good for precious little."

What are the Seekers to them? What have the Seekers been to them? An invisible outsider; men and women who kept an eye on them from dark, tucked-away corners, unseen and unheard, as they gave their lives against demons and maleficarum. He wasn’t loyal to them ten years ago. He didn’t take his vows and raise his sword for the Seekers, but for what he believed in: the cause. The people. Just like the templars there, in Therinfal Redoubt, now.  

For a moment, slow but sudden, something in him shifts. Silent and unreachable. 

Cullen looks down to his reports, but his eyes see none of them. “It hasn’t escaped my notice…” he starts.

The room was heavier.

“We’ve a reliable source --- It will do for now. Josephine will see it remains that way,” he continues, planting his hands back down to his desk, willing his eyes on her. “Leliana has offered less... conventional methods, should they be required. I’m afraid anything more, you must bring to them." 

hc: cassandra and the advisors. Ultimately, I believe the Inquisition is more than Cullen’s road to redemption and peace of mind. It’s become, in many ways, a family of sorts... especially his fellow advisors.

When in Haven, he reveals that he had too few friends in Kirkwall, and that’s understandable --- the scars of Kinloch were still there, if not outright still-fresh wounds, and he’d changed, becoming more dour, agitated, and bitter. While before he was “eager to uphold the tenets of his new post” and “more inclined to converse with the mages than other templars,” he was now the exact opposite. He hated them. He was not there to make friends by any means, but to execute his duty, no more and no less. 

Something churns in his skull like curdled milk. It’s a headache. "I might have known," he grouses to himself.

He can't say he didn't expect it. 

The mage fumes, plodding heavy-footed out the office. What had she come in about? A fight between one of hers and one of his. This is not a Circle, commander, as much as you might wish it. Your templars cannot run around as if it were. Then she’d smacked the floor with the tail-end of her staff and, wild-eyed, mouth twisted, she’d ripped her feet off from the floorboards. Doesn’t she think he knows that? Don’t they think he’s aware?  

As much as you might wish it. Cullen folds his arms over his chest, noticing Rinalla slipping in. They don’t know the half of it.

"Things are as you might expect,” he reports at last, his voice falling to professionalism. Might as well. “---Though infighting has lessened in recent days."

And if she heard that mage’s snipe, would she believe it? Maybe not. Cullen keeps the edge out of his tone and he expects, somehow, that her knowing, blue eyes would read into him. “We will have the men in order, Inquisitor.”

               the last time she’d been in haven was nearly ten years ago and it had been cold then, too.  a frigid chill that bit through metal and leather and furs.  elisabeth remembers shivering in the snow, slender fingers clutching her halberd as she stared breathlessly up at the ancient temple built right into the side of the mountain.  andraste’s final resting place - the kind of thing she’d always dreamed of discovering, the kind of adventure she’d always talked about having. 

              it’s funny how time changes things. 

              it’s all gone now.  the temple, the cultists, and the wide-eyed girl.  in their places stand a green-lit ruin, a revived inquisition, and an exhausted warden-commander with a whispered melody ringing in her ears.  the cold is the only thing that remains, biting through her armor and into her skin.  the cold always remains, even when everything else is gone.  the cold and- 

              her heart jumps into her throat, not a reaction to the sound of her name but the voice that’s called it.  exactly as it had been ten years ago.  the way her hands fold behind her back as she turns to face him is the same, too.  as is the easy smile upon her lips and the gentle way she laughs when he’s stopped in front of her.  a near replica of the way she would greet him in the circle.  but they aren’t in the circle anymore.  

              ❝ ser rutherford, ❞  commander, now.  and no longer a templar.  but she’s still a mage.  does he still hate her?  if he does, that’s one more thing they have in common.  ❝ i was actually thinking about taking a walk.  i don’t do particularly well in crowded places, but there’s a frozen waterfall nearby that catches the light at sunset and glimmers like a thousand sapphires and i wouldn’t mind some company. ❞ 

              she pauses a moment, turning in the direction she means to walk and taking a not so subtle step backwards so that she’s standing beside him,  ❝ especially if that company is you. ❞

"--Me?" It left him low. A moment crawls by. An eternity. "Do you... I mean-- Of course.”

What she did… He should have known.

She would turn like she used to. Smiling... the wink of rebellion in her wide, hazel eyes as though it hasn’t been ten years... as though Kinloch never happened. Maybe, perhaps, when she heard his voice and turned, when she saw his face again for the first time since that night, she should have walked, cold and far away, because he wasn’t prepared for this --- the in-betweens and the what nows; the do you remember mes? 

Because he isn’t so sure anymore.

But Elisabeth? It must be running through her head. A tower full of blood. Using my shame against me. A mage of all things. Then, after that, nothing: just ghosts of the people they used to be left in the growing, infinite years between them. And now, this. Snow crunches under his boots, hard and frozen, and he’s only maybe realized that they’ve made it to the waterfall, because they’re alone, now, the words still plodding in his head, half-formed and half-rehearsed-

"I thought I might never have this chance..." he wonders to himself, quiet and suddenly. “Let alone come this far.” 

A cold wind blows. It nips at his cheeks and nose, his ears now pinkish-red. When he looks at her, he doesn’t see anger or bitter indifference, and his chest does something. Eases, he thinks. Or not at all. “When I heard you’d arrived, I knew,” he continues. “The things I have wanted to say...”

      sahar rose early every morning and made tea.  the templars  ー  her jailors,  as they were  ー  had long since tried to stop her,  as there was no sane argument against boiling water above an open flame and preparing herself something better than the swill that they called coffee here.  

in the six months since sahar had come here,  she had put forth little effort into blending in.  she did not attend chantry services  ;  she had her own faith,  as she reminded the templars weekly.  these men called themselves her protectors,  and yet they seemed more interested in protecting the system that benefitted themselves.  the magic they taught here was diluted,  and she found that few of her fellow mages had been taught to do so much as scramble eggs or cook meat to the right temperature.  fewer even could sew or manage anything on their own that lead to any sort of independent lifestyle.  back home,  the government would have intervened if a school had been so useless in preparing its students for life.  but the circle seemed to encouraged that dependence.  sahar found it repulsive. 

she had,  despite herself,  took pity on and befriended the one boy,  jowan.  he seemed an especially desperate sort,  despite having a few years on her.  sahar saw it more as a failure of his educators,  but where he would have received extra tutors in ha’zefigar,  she doubted they would so much as offer him soup here at the tower,  if they were not forced to allow him life.  for now,  at least. 

her dark eyes flickered up only briefly and she remained silent as cullen stumbled awkwardly about a sentence,  offering nothing and taking her time in sipping at her tea.  mint,  her favorite.  but it lacked the right taste here.  she found no joy in the circle’s meager offerings.

❛ you ask if i am content to be imprisoned in a foreign country, ❜  sahar said flatly,  after a long silence.  ❛ ask yourself if you would be. ❜

An arrow struck him, knocked the air right out. "Oh. That isn’t-"  

Most of the dining hall is empty. Several are still here, breaking apart biscuits between their fingers and saying something hopelessly too far away, stirring their tea. Their eyes never meet the templars'. Steam billows from her cup. Something beating in a deep crevice of his chest plops hard into his stomach, sloppy heavy, like spilled stew, then sinks. 

Of course. She's not from here. He heard it in her voice from the start. Beit Nefesh. Now she's here, in Ferelden, where she hates it, and-

Cullen brushes his face. His insides flounder. "I would never- um. That was… silly... of me." It came out broken up and slower. Deflated, even. “I, um... wouldn’t. Actually.”

-and of course she does. She can never leave and her home is there, a world away, where people like her can roam free, see their families, share meals with them with pounds of spices and hot, brewed teas, the sun, forever warm, leaking through a window. Now what she has is snow she can’t touch. Days old bread. People who hate her on sight. Cullen finds her eyes and the dead, frigid silence between them, and isn’t sure if he wants the floor to swallow him up or to dissolve into the air.

The templars protect not just the people, but them. Mages, too.

She doesn’t think that, does she? She’s imprisoned, she’d said. Their prisoner-

“I don’t hate you. I mean, none of us ‘hate’ you.” And- That wasn’t his point. It wasn’t hers, either. Cullen drops his hand and, at last, his face, regretful-nervous, finally comes through. “I know it isn’t home, but... you aren’t alone. You know?”

The men are about. There is Cassandra, impossibly frustrated, hacking away at a dummy. Varric, perched by a campfire he’s never once seen go out. Iron Bull is pommeling, Krem, falling, and far in the distance like a moon, bright and overseeing, the Herald stands untouchable by the Chantry.

There is Elisabeth, too. But this is not the Circle. 

There is no Greagoir and no Irving. No more late-night studies or dining hall rumors. She is not in her robes, but in armor, and he is no longer hopeful or shining. No longer a templar. 

“Warden Amell.”

A crow caws. Cullen is not sure how long he’s stood here, but suddenly he’s not, and his voice has already reached the empty space beside her.

She is cold. In truth, she’s been cold since arriving to Haven — Ferelden is dearly beloved, but she is acclimated to Antivan warmth and sunlight, and now she can barely stand to be in the Chantry without a cloak for more than five minutes. It’s a silly complaint, she knows, especially considering everything that’s happened, but she thinks the apocalypse could have chosen a more temperate climate than Haven’s snow and storms. 

     But even the cold hardly touches her now, consumed as she is by her thoughts. Leliana and Josephine have long since retired, leaving her in relative peace; Solas and Cassandra don’t know her well enough to interrupt her when she’s like this, palms pressed to the wood and eyes unfocused as she thinks; Varric has never much believed in directing his protagonists one way or another. ( She has a sneaking suspicion there’ll be a new book when this is done. She’s already nervous about it. )

     It’s the unbearable silence that sends her looking for Cullen, and she is far more grateful than she cares to confess to be admitted into the space he’s carved out for himself. ( She misses Kirkwall. What a terrifying world to live in, if Kirkwall was less exhausting. )

     “Make your case, then. Please.” She had hoped to ally with Fiona and the mages — not that she’s particularly fond of the idea of mages without Templars nearby, but she knows magic when she sees it, and the gaping wound in the sky is certainly magic — but an alliance with Tevinter makes this impossible. “Perhaps I can be convinced.”

Another swollen roll of thunder. The commander pulls himself away from his desk, more intense, somehow, with the coming of the storm. Or maybe just heavier.

"The mages are without order. Redcliffe proves as much," he begins, resting a hand atop his pommel. His shadow bends against a wall. “The templars are misled --- we can agree on that much --- but there are those who will follow us. The templars here are proof of that... If we can convince them, cut the head of the snake, as it were, we could have their support.”

Head off the snake. Lord Lucius. If she could placate him, persuade him... To have a military order at their command... Cullen is starting to smell the burnt-out end of a dying candle, the one he’d set ages ago in the dusty corner of his room, and tastes it, now, like soot in the back of his throat. 

The fires make her eyes burn gold. 

Is she thinking of Kirkwall?

“The mages are not without strength --- I would not say otherwise. But we cannot guarantee freedom from abominations,” he continues, levelly, and for a moment, something flashes in his head: a clear memory then a dull throb. It hardly shows on his face. “Were some to turn, perhaps infiltrated by Alexius’ men, we may not have the templars to contain it.”

And? If they could? A shadow crawls, slow, into the pits of his eyes.

“Even if we were, we must consider what that will do to our men,” he says. “We will not recover.”

The templars they have here, those who left the Order, himself included --- how will they stand against a wide-scale outbreak? Blood mages, infiltrators, daggers to the throat and the ground soppy, tacky red; if something were to occur, even small and even if contained--

The men cannot fight with the mages if they cannot trust them.

They would have lost the war before it ever really started.

poetry sentence starters (accepting)

“I may have wondered that myself,” he ponders, matter of fact. “It’s an attractive thought.”

Forgetting the pain and the weight... But then the memory always comes back: templars he used to know, some of them holed up in dank, stale corners of an underpass forty pounds lighter and unrecognizable. They’d beg for lyrium, just one last sugar dusting. Lick the spoon. They never remembered anything else. It was just lyrium. Just thoughts of the powder.  

They were someone else, irreversibly. Undoubtedly. 

Cullen holds his hands together, feeling only the leather and trapped heat. The sun sets, red. It is dull against her hair. “Remembering changes -- As well as forgetting... We cannot decide who we are in the latter,” he says. “I’d prefer they remain. "

Even if the memories haunt, hound, and force him awake, wide-eyed, in the dead of night. The commander folds his arms across his chest and gives nothing of himself away. Or so he believes. “You are your memories --- for better or for worse. Though I do not regret it... I don’t think anyone would have come as far as you.” Cullen eases, firm. “I’m glad for it.”

She is who she is because of them, isn’t she? Her experiences? Her memories?