#cullavellan

He looked between her, Ash, and the overhang. "There's not room for three people. I'll be alright."

"That's stupid," Ash said at the same time Cordelia dragged Cullen underneath.

"We can squeeze," she said, suddenly a bit breathless with his body pressed against hers.

Cullen huffed, then shook his head, flinging water from his curls off onto them. Cordelia giggled and swayed a little. Ash fisted a hand in the back of Cordelia's blouse to steady her. Her lips brushed Cordelia's ear, eliciting a shiver.

"If you're not careful, your nipples are going to harden from the cold, and I'm just not certain I'll be able to resist."

"Ash!" Cordelia hissed, even as her cheeks flushed and heat pooled in her belly. If Cullen weren't here, she would've let Ash do as she wished. But Cullen was here, and his discomfort was obvious in the way he stiffened beside her. Cordelia crossed her arms over her breasts in an effort to obscure the aforementioned nipples. Ash laughed again and settled her hand on Cordelia's hip.

"Hopefully it'll break soon," Cullen said. He didn't speak near her ear, but he was still standing close enough that she could feel his warm breath ruffling her hair.

"I wish I'd learned that spell to repel rain," Cordelia mumbled. She toyed with her magic as she might a ball of yarn waiting to be knit.

"Hmm, that would be useful right now," Ash said, her weary head coming to rest on Cordelia's shoulder. Despite this being her usual schedule, Ash tended to get tired as soon as she stopped moving. Typically, that meant she didn't get sleepy until after they finished being intimate. Cordelia couldn't fault her for being lulled by the atmosphere. She herself found it difficult to resist the call of Cullen's obvious strength and radiating warmth. Her wits had not abandoned her, however, and she was able to refrain from fully leaning into him. For now.

With only the splashing of raindrops filling the silence, Cordelia's mind wandered. It wandered to being squished between Cullen and Ash in… other… situations. She made a small sound and shifted on her feet before she could stop herself. Both of her friends turned to look at her.

"I don't like wearing wet clothes," Cordelia blurted as a haphazard explanation. Her nipples were, in fact, hardening, and the image of Cullen cupping her breasts from behind while Ash mouthed over her nipples while they stood here just out of the pouring rain flashed in her mind. Ash huffed a laugh and smoothed her free hand over Cordelia's belly. Before she could say anything suggestive, Cordelia added, "Maybe I should try that spell."

"Please, don't. Magic and alcohol don't mix," Cullen said, squeezing her shoulder. She hadn't had that much to drink, but he was probably right.

"I'm impatient." She leaned into his hand and watched the furrow between his brows deepen.

"The thunder is getting farther away by the second, listen." He tapped her ear and she shuddered, her toes curling in her lightweight shoes. She shut her eyes tight and did as he bid her. The thunder did sound farther away. "And the rain is slowing."

Cordelia didn't move, nor did she open her eyes. She rarely had both of them so close to her at the same time and—

"He's right, Cor." Ash rubbed the fabric of Cordelia's blouse between her fingers. "We should go before it picks back up again."

find the gift here:

And the collection there:

Cordelia crosses her arms as she studies the drawing Solas presents of his lyrium dagger. It means nothing to her. She doesn't recognise it in the slightest. Neither do her companions as they cycle through the war room to take a look. She wanted to consult them first before expanding their queries to a wider audience, given that it isn't exactly common knowledge, what they're getting up to or who Solas is. Nothing has come of their observations yet, and the only one who hasn't come by is Cassandra. Charter lounges in one of the chairs, and Josephine is working on more important things at the other end of the table, while Cullen considers the latest troop movements. Cordelia has taken to walking circles around the war table: her most common method of releasing built-up energy.

She's already asked Solas several questions—about where he last had the dagger (here in the Frostbacks), what memories he might have seen in the Fade that included its use (the dwarves had procured the dagger and his staff shortly after the ritual), if Felassan had access to it at some point (not that he's aware of). None of it was particularly useful in finding the relic now. It could take years to find this blade, if they ever do.

Cassandra arrives with sweat on her brow and flushed cheeks from training in the yard. "What is it I'm supposed to look at?" Solas pushes the parchment towards the edge of the table as she approaches. She braces her hands on the wood and stares down at the drawing. After a moment, her face pinches in thought, eyes squinting like she's trying to picture it in her memories.

Cordelia shifts on her feet and taps her fingers against her arm. If Cassandra has nothing, then they have nothing, and they can't—they can't have nothing.

"So…?" Cordelia says.

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@tired-truffle

Then, out of the quilt of silence that had fallen, comes her voice.

“Could you do it, if it were me?” She doesn't whisper the question, though something about it still seems spectral. “If I were an abomination.”

“Please don’t ask me that,” he begs her wearily.

And it takes him a moment still, to shoulder the weight of that question. One he’d never even considered, and one he did not want to. It may have been an easy answer, once. Perhaps it should be still, he wasn't sure.

“I think I know the answer,” she said quietly.

And it is the surety in her voice that says she has no idea.

Some part of him resents it, that after all this time, she could think he’d find it an easy choice. That perhaps, somehow he wouldn’t flinch at it. He’d seen the horrific things demons could do, he knew better than most. But the thought of losing her seemed worse, somehow.

“It’s not that simple and I…”

He's stricken by the injustice of it. That she should ask him this and presume his answer. That he should find himself so bereft of response. Cullen presses his body around hers like he could erase himself into her.

She is so precious to him. Her sparkling eyes, her intuition, her kindness, her laugh. He could no longer imagine a world without the musical sound of that laugh.

And despite it all, everything he’d seen, everything he knew, if it were to happen, he didn’t know if he could—no. He would not even consider this.

“I don’t want to think about that," he tells her.

Silence falls almost as thick as the darkness.

“I would want you to."

The words are so quiet he could have pretended not to hear, but perhaps they both know he never could. He closes his eyes, fingers twisting into the front of her shirt. Breathing normally becomes impossible as his throat closes with imagined grief.

“I won’t be made tranquil.”

There's a tremor in the words he doesn't want to hear.

"Lyria—"

“I wouldn’t be me anymore, and I—” she sucks in a breath, and Cullen isn’t sure he's breathing at all as he waits for the end of that sentence. “I would rather be dead.”

Anguish twists more jaggedly than any knife as he pleads, “Do not ask this of me.”

There is a slight pause as fingers curl round his forearm like vines of poison.

"Who else should I ask?" The whisper crunches like leaves underfoot.

No one, he wants to tell her. Anyone.

Instead, he drops a kiss to that space between her neck and her shoulder, vowing to himself that if the moment ever came, he’d fall on his own sword rather than use it on her.

"Hello. I was just—ah…" He rubs the back of his neck in a gesture that's grown familiar to her in the short couple of months since the Divine's Conclave. It makes her smile widen.

"Nothing I've cut has grown back yet, with the snow and all, so I had to come farther out," she explains, taking pity on him.

"I—needed to clear my head," Cullen says.

"By marking the perimeter." He looks somewhat sheepish at this. "My clan's Second used to do the same, usually on the first night we set up camp somewhere. Or when she was angry with me or our Keeper." That, or she'd find a clearing and unleash lightning on everything within a small radius around her, but he doesn't need to know about that.

Some of the tension in his shoulders releases. "What's her name?"

"Her—Kiara," she says. "Her name is Kiara. And she has dark, dark hair like a raven, and violet eyes, and detailed branches of vallaslin, mainly on her forehead."

"She's a mage as well?"

"That's right. We have… different strengths." She tells herself it isn't important, and that the former templar cares not for the preferences and intrinsic inclinations of mages. Yet… she doesn't think she's imagining the light of interest in his pretty eyes. Should she keep talking? Or should she allow him the chance to ask a follow-up question, just in case?

"As do we all," he says, not a question, but not oppressive silence either. Then again, nothing about Cullen has ever felt oppressive.

Taking a chance, she rises to her full height, which is still more than a head shorter than him. "Would you mind if I walk with you for a bit? I need to stretch my legs." Her legs are fine, she wasn't crouched very long, but he doesn't need to know that either.

He shakes his head, eyes widening a little. "I don't mind." She smiles again and starts down the unmarked path, noting how he adjusts his stride to keep pace with her shorter steps when he follows her.

Cordelia hums as they come to a tree that's clearly been marked by a deer, both by its antlers and a tuft of fur caught in the bark. Halla behaviour isn't quite the same as deer, but it's similar enough to recognise. Especially considering…

"Before my… former lover and I were together, I offered to help her search for this halla that had gone missing." The light brown fur comes away from the bark and she rubs it between her fingers. "She was the apprentice to the halla'amelan, you see, and she didn't want him finding out she lost one of the halla. And I—we'd known each other our whole lives, of course. She's a year or so younger than me, but anyway, I was already rather interested in her by then, so I offered to help." She scrunches her nose. "I said that already. Sorry."

"I'm still listening."

"Right. We went out into the woods. She's no hunter, but it's her responsibility to know the behaviours and signs of halla, how to track them down. Sometimes they get spooked by bad weather or…" she gestures vaguely, and swears she sees him almost smile.

"I understand. My family are sheep farmers." Something else is left unsaid in the silence after, perhaps something to do with how he left home at thirteen, seeking a different life than that of a sheep farmer. Who all had he left behind? He's mentioned parents, but does he have siblings? Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents? A whole clan's worth of people to miss him? She wants to ask, but the likelihood of him speaking about something so personal seems low.

Instead, she smiles and says, "Oh! So you get it." He nods. "The point of this story is that we found a tuft of white fur just like this one, caught in some bark. From there, the trail was easy enough to follow. She taught me a lot about the halla when we were together." Cullen looks down at the snow, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword. "More than my other past lover did about hunting, that's for certain. Though I suppose it wasn't his fault I couldn't aim an arrow properly."

Cullen gives her a strange look, half-puzzled, half-curious, half-… wait, no… "You aim perfectly fine with your staff," he says.

"That's different," she says with a lighthearted shake of her head. "Me and my magic are—" she laces her fingers together and holds them up to show him— "interwoven. My connection to the Beyond is like an extension of myself. Therefore channeling magic through my staff—"

"Is like reaching out part of yourself. We're taught to treat our blades the same."

"Ah, but a blade is not a bow."

The corners of his mouth twitch up. "I suppose not. And how are you with a blade?

She brandishes her knife, which isn't meant for combat, but is certainly sharp nevertheless. "Why don't we find out?" It's a joke, and she hopes he takes it as such because it would be embarrassing if he thought she genuinely meant to meet his sword with a single, short knife meant for cutting plants and rope.

He chuckles. Victory. He looks so much brighter when he laughs. Like the shadows beneath his eyes aren't permanent, like the pallor she sometimes sees in his cheeks is just a trick of the light.

"You know, someone could teach you to wield a dagger in combat. In emergencies, if your staff gets taken or your mana is running low… it could save your life."

She tilts her head to the side. "Are you offering to be that someone?"

"I, ah…" He averts his gaze, hand shifting on his sword's pommel.

"You have so many other responsibilities, I don't mean to—"

"No."

She straightens and fights the urge to pull her cloak tighter around her. She isn't cold, but that firm no, on the other hand…

"I mean, no, that's not—forgive me, I'd be happy to teach you. I'm only unsure if it should be—there are better people who could teach you dagger play."

"Oh." Well, that sounds pathetically disappointed. She tucks her knife back into its sheath, sporting an embarrassing blush on her cheeks. "That's alright. I was—I was mostly joking." A lie. She hoped she could use this as an excuse to spend more time with him, but… "I've taken up enough of your time already. I'll just…" She takes a couple of slow steps backwards and catches sight of a bright stalk of embrium poking out of the snow, which she gestures to.

"Right, yes, I didn't mean to pull you away."

"I didn't mind the interruption," she says earnestly.

"Thank you for the story," he says, a pensive look overtaking his face.