#cullyria

Cullen undoubtedly trusts Leliana to keep an eye on things, and Lyria’s credence is more than worth it’s weight in gold—all the same Cullen could never quite forget that Bull was a spy. It isn't distrust, not exactly. More like a constant awareness that Bull’s loyalties lay elsewhere. Cullen considered often that his wariness might was unfounded. All things considered, there were worse things than sending the Inquisitor away with a qunari guard at her back. But even so, he's unused to the games the Inquisition is expected to play. The rules of these political games are ever-changing, and he can rarely keep up. In the beginning, he'd hoped that would change. His optimism has since dwindled to a passive confidence that Josephine and Leliana are more than capable of juggling the cloak and dagger without his help. In fact, he suspected they rather preferred his abstention from such matters.

“You’re more suspicious than Red,” The Iron Bull laughs good-naturedly, and then he hefts his axe, readying to go again. “Can’t say I’m surprised."

Cullen had been surprised when Bull had joined him so early this morning. Gray light still colors the dust at their feet, sun not yet risen over the walls of the Keep. He'd long since returned to running morning drills on his own. Part of him liked things better that way. It was easier to clear his head when he was alone, rehearsing movements his body still remembers so well he doesn't have to think much about them.

But when Bull had offered to spar, there hadn't exactly been an offer to refuse. Cullen much suspected that loophole was purposefully knotted. He just hadn't yet discovered why. The harder he searched for, thje more elusive Bull's true purpose seemed to be. Still, as Cullen twirls the hilt of his blade in his right hand, he can't help thinking that it feels good to have an opponent of equal skill. Which, were he honest, was a compliment that held himself in higher esteem than he probably deserved.

And as Bull lunges for him yet again, the commander’s shield blocking the blow easily, Cullen is acutely aware of Bull’s true purpose. He feels himself being lured by the comment, and the slight lift of the qunari’s mouth says it’s exactly what he intended.

All the same, when Cullen finally manages to disarm Bull, and they’re both catching their breath—well, Cullen more than the Iron Bull—he huffs through overdrawn lungs, “What do you mean?”

“You. The Inquisitor." Bill shrugs his broad, bare shoulders. "You’ve grown close.” He retrieves his axe, settles into a relaxed version of his stance. “Don’t mean to assume, but the Inquisitor is—well," There’s something salacious in the smile that curves his mouth, I wouldn’t mind taking her to bed.”

Cullen has only a moment to process this. But it's a moment in which he can feel his spine stiffen and his brow furrow. And before he can fully recover his wits enough to spout the seething retort forming in the back of his throat, Bull lunges.

It takes Cullen a moment to catch up, managing to throw his shield up in just enough time. But Bull has thrown his full weight into the blow, and Cullen has to put all his strength into fending the other man off. He has to cede a step to regain control. The axe comes down again, but Cullen is ready for it, and catches the blow on his blade. He slides his sword from underneath, and the Bull goes stumbling forward as Cullen cedes another step.

But he's already searching for it when the next blow comes—the opening he knows Bull will give. He has to endure a few more blows, let the other man grow confident.

Finally, Bull lunges with what might have been a killing blow under normal circumstances. But Cullen is ready. He catches the blow on his shield and sidesteps, thwacking the side of his blade against Bull’s ribs and sending his heel into the back of his knee for good measure. The Iron Bull goes sprawling into the dirt.

Left arm still aching with the force of Bull’s last attempt, sweat sliding over his temples and blood thrumming from the crudeness of his words, Cullen turns to seeth in the direction of his ire.

Bull rolls over in the dirt, and comes up laughing.

“Cassandra really did know what she was doing when she recruited you.” He chuckles as he climbs slowly to his feet. Now returned to his usual height, he gives Cullen a slightly appraising sweep. “I’ve gotta say, I expected worse.”

For all his chatter, the words that just fell from his mouth feel the most genuine. At first, Cullen feels almost insulted—then, remembering that qunari are trained from the moment they can hold a weapon, decides to take the compliment.

“So what about you?” Iron Bull asks as he bends to retrieve his weapon from the dirt.

Cullen takes a moment to consider, wariness growing by the moment.

“I’ve fought qunari before. You’re tough.” Cullen shrugs, and for only a moment considers not telling him. “But you leave your left flank open the moment you get too confident. Your size and strength are impressive, but against a skilled combatant, you should be more careful.”

Iron Bull gapes, and Cullen considers he might have well and truly caught him by surprise.

After a moment, Bull gives a small shake of his head. “I’ll keep that in mind, Commander.” The roll of his shoulders is undoubtedly performative. Bull has barely even begun to sweat, and still he drags a hand across his forehead. “So that’s a no on you and the Inquisitor?”

Cullen attempts to keep his expression neutral, though he's not sure he succeeds.

"She’s the Inquisitor.” He says, as if that answers the question.

As an evasion tactic, he doesn't expect it'll be especially effective. Though to be quite fair, the line of questioning is astonishingly unexpected.

Still, Bull sketches a disbelieving eyebrow, “You’ve never even thought about it? I mean she is quite—"

Cullen lunges.

The sharp rap of knuckles on the door is still rattling through Cullen's aching skull when the door opens. He sighs, though at this point wouldn't consider himself unused to interruptions.

"Where is the Inquisitor?" Cassandra demands as she marches through the door. It thuds closed behind her, his refrain from flinching at the sound is due only to a great deal of proficiency in the matter.

Still, he pinches at the front of his brow for several moments, alleviating the pain only briefly before he looks up. "What?"

Cassandra glares at him, arms crossed over the all-seeing eye on her chest plate. "The Inquisitor. I know she is here."

"I…" Cullen begins, and then, finding himself unable to decipher her meaning, shakes his head as though it could shake the clouds. "Was unaware she had returned from the Wastes." Though as he squints at Cassandra, he's relatively sure that she, too had been away until…well he's not certain.

"We returned late early this morning. I received notice that Nevarran Nobles," she sneers the words with an almost shocking display of disgust. "have seen fit to grace us with their presence. Lyria swore to me that she would be there to greet them."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Cullen notes the use of the Inquisitor's given name. He'd long been aware of the fact that Lyria considered the two of them friends, though Cassandra was often inscrutable enough that he'd never been sure how reciprocal the assumption had been. Arguably, the forefront of his mind is more occupied with the accusation in the glare Cassandra levels at him.

"Where is she?"

Cullen lets out a laugh of pure exhaustion, "Cassandra, I swear to you I do not know."

When she doesn't move, eyes still narrowed on him with undeserved suspicion, Cullen throws up his hands. "Do you think I've got her hidden beneath my desk?" he demands.

Given the color that seeps from her face and the look of pure horror that flashes across it, it's the wrong thing to say. Cullen realizes his mistake moments later, the color which drained form her face now floods his. He quickly gets to his feet, knocking his chair and hammering his knee into the edge in his haste.

"I didn't—I mean, we haven't—I would never—" He offers Cassandra a placating hand as he sputters over a thousand different denials before he finally settles for saying: "She is not here."

The curl of Cassandra's lip says she doesn't quite believe him, and the way her eyes flick down says he isn't freed from suspicion, despite his attempt to earn exoneration.

"If you see her," she says through a pinched expression. "Tell her that I am looking for her."

As she slips out of the door, Cullen sinks back into his seat like a reprimanded toddler. His hands rise to scrub over his face as he makes several attempts to remind himself he hadn't actually done anything wrong. Most days he's sure he manages to maintain the level of professionalism he's always aspired to. Other times he's sure that Lyria has unraveled him completely.

It was odd—not that they'd returned early, but that he shouldn't have heard about it. They'd returned early this morning, though not so early that Lyria or Cassandra had come to the War Room. Cullen had done inspections immediately following, and hadn't heard a whisper of their return. Of course, he'd retreated to his office when the ache had spread from his neck up into his head, and hadn't left since the pain had started seeping into the space behind his eyes. Still, he feels sure Lyria would have come to see him, especially if they've been back at Skyhold long enough that the Seeker had lost track of her.

He blows a long breath from his nose as he studies the graying wooden planks overhead—and then frowns. Perhaps he hadn't been entirely honest with Cassandra.

His joints groan even louder than the wooden rungs underfoot as Cullen hauls himself into his bedroom loft. Sunlight pours in through the break in the roof, muted from the cloud cover. Still, it washes his bed in a soft golden light, highlighting the bronze and gold and burnt umber splayed over his pillow. He creeps closer, mindful of the many rickety floorboards underfoot.

One of her hands is pressed to her face, the other fisted in the corner of her pillow. Her mouth hangs slightly open, eyelashes casting long shadows over her nose. Asleep, despite the daylight spilling over her.

She looks peaceful. And in this light he's reminded how much younger she is than the rest of them. Maybe five years wouldn't seem so much a difference, in other circumstances. As it was, she often seemed older—certainly wiser and more level headed—than most of them. Too young to bear the weight of all Thedas on her narrow shoulders.

A rare spear of rebellion rips through him.

Nevarran nobles or no, she should be allowed to rest. They depend on her for too much already, and as time goes on, the demand for her attention only increases. She'd increasingly exhausted upon her returns to Skyhold. It hadn't escaped his notice, though it was difficult to encourage her to rest when that so often led to a gentle reprimand of his own hypocrisy.

Until one of them had learned to rest, he suppose they would remain at an impasse. Still, he considers the merits of keeping this secret. He turns to go with such decisiveness that he forgets his earlier caution. The dilapidated wood complains loudly as he makes his escape, better reason for repairs than any he'd previously considered.

Cullen grimaces as a sharp metallic scent momentarily fills the air, raising the fine hair at the back of his neck. He turns to find Lyria up on elbow and squinting in his direction.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he admits, already retracing his steps.

Lyria sinks back onto the pillow with a little grumble that sounds a little like an apology. Cullen perches himself on the edge of the bed, reaching over to brush a few stray coppery strands from her face.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," she tells him. He refrains from any arguments which involve the presence of her boots by the foot of the bed, or the way her staff had been carefully set against the wall. Her lips split into a wide yawn which she doesn't finish before attempting to form the words: "So tired."

Her eyes are already drifting closed, so Cullen doesn't try to hide the smile creeping in at the corners of his mouth. "You wouldn't rather sleep in your own quarters?"

One of her eyes cracks open, and if he didn't know her so well, he might have thought she was pouting. "They know to look for me there."

His knuckles graze the slight flush over her cheekbone, passing over the trio of freckles by her eye.

He has a moment to decide, because it's clear by the twitch of her nose and her curling fingers that sleep is already tempting her once again. Cassandra is sure to castigate him if she discovers his treachery—and he expects Lyria will hardly be pleased. His eyebrows pull together as he attempts to tuck hair behind her ear, mindful of the way it so often tangles in the gold rings and chains which decorate them.

Cullen says her name once, too softly to be considered a true attempt. She lets out a grunt that says she registers the sound, but her eyes don't open. As his thumb swipes again over her cheek, he allows himself a moment to revel just a bit in the fact that she’d wanted somewhere safe to go, and she’d come here. A decision made perhaps more in desperation than conscious thought, but all the same, he doesn't plan to spoil it.

Hmmm i think this is tough because i don’t know that THEY think they compromised. Cyri thinks Davrin compromised by moving to Minrathous for her, and then later, maybe he thinks she compromises by moving away. And then some part Cyri thinks Davrin compromises by not having kids.

23. What is a hobby/habit that one of them is into but the other can't get behind, and vice versa?

So in my mind, after veilguard everyone tries sitcom style to teach Cyri their various hobbies so she has something to do with her new amount of spare time. She hates all of them, including carving. She does not have the patience for it. She cuts her finger and she’s really mad about it and throws her shitty wooden figure into the fire. For Davrin i think Cyri’s habit that he just sort of puts up with is her knife juggling. Like on the one hand, yeah sure babe that’s so cool. On the other hand, all of the fruit in the bowl had been speared and Assan is way too interested in the knives when they’re in the air. He’s gritting his teeth through it every time.

31. What's their cursed couple Halloween costume?

I did already answer HERE though the short recap is ragebait (: i really like to imagine that after all that, she’s like “(: but i have tentacles” and then Davrin just explodes.

Cullyria:

4. What acts do the couple do for the other that they absolutely adore? (ex: A knows B hates peeling oranges so A does it)

Okay so i said recently that in a modern au scenario, Lyria drives when there’s traffic because Cullen gets really huffy and road-rage-y during traffic if he’s driving. And i think there’s a lot of stuff like that where she’ll notice something is causing him stress and she’ll step in without really acknowledging why. Like, occasionally going over supply manifests or whatever reports make him grumble the most. She’s kind of the queen of anticipating needs. I think in response, Cullen just waits on her hand and foot when given the opportunity. He’s learning specifically how she takes her tea so he can bring it to her at all hours. He’s rubbing her feet, he’s drawing her baths. And then they’re both really good at getting the other one to rest, which is something they’re individually pretty bad at, lol. They’re both a little hypocritical on that front, but that’s kind of why it works when the other one is like “okay that’s enough for you.”

7. How did they act with one another during the crushing stage?

Okay so this is pretty similar to 8, so with the context that they were both strongly in denial and trying to be normal: they were both incredibly awkward around each other. Like, in an effort to remain professional they were definitely speaking to each other in a way that made literally everybody around be like “??? wth is happening, why are you guys being so weird??” But i also think there’s a general consensus that “they’ll figure it out.”

11. What do you love about them?

So so much!! I think all my ships center around the idea of being seen, and like, wordless understanding?

Davrilla: This is actually tough because i think there are a lot of things Cyri confides in Davrin that i wouldn't actually call secret? But throughout vg, she does start sort of expressing her frustrations to him and letting him see (at least a little) that she doesn't have it all together. Aside from that, what comes immediately to my head is that Davrin knows about her time in the Legion and how she lost her entire squad to the Antaam, and she knows that he was sent to Eldrin as sort of a last resort for being to reckless with hunting when he was younger. Oh he also knows about her fear of fish! that's an important one.

Cullyria: Hmm, I think the obvious is that Lyria is one of the only people who knows about the Lyrium thing as well as eventually, what happened at Kinloch hold etc. And then I think Cullen is the only one that she tells about what she sees when they get pulled into the fade at Adamant.

31. What's their cursed couple Halloween costume?

Davrilla: There was some post that went around about this where I essentially said Cyri would use this opportunity to rage bait Davrin. and @sugar-peanut-cat made some art about it which still makes me laugh. So that's my answer and i stand by it.

Cullyria: I don't know why but my immediate answer to this was that they'd go as each other. I mean the real answer is that Cullen dresses up literally in any way she tells him to. I think modern au (because trying to come up with something in-canon is breaking my brain) they'd be like a disney princess couple. Probably Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. Something super classic. And potentially annoying.

40. What symbols do you associate with your OTP and why?

Davrilla: they are a banked flame(: which is actually a comparison someone made when reading some of my writing once (, though it is kind of an abridged version. But ever since then I think about Cyri a lot as a wildfire, and it makes sense to me that Davrin helps tame that a little without putting it out.