#shakes writes

At his silence she sat by his side on the edge of the bed. Even as flushed and embarrassed as he was, he was a vision, with mussed hair and swollen lips from their previous kissing, and lightly stained with her red lipstick. Certainly, the two of them were making up for lost time.

She would have waited as long as he needed, but it was only a moment after she partook in her own version of the female gaze when he admitted he had one crush in his entire life, at the Circle before he came to Kirkwall, but he didn’t elaborate and she sensed he didn’t want anymore of that discussion in their bedroom on their first night of matrimony. Out of respect, she didn’t pry.

“But that was nothing, compared to this,” he admitted. “This is…you’re…” His eyes fixated on her lips, and she knew to him, she was extraordinary.

She would have wanted him even if it wasn’t new. She would have wanted him no matter what. Kicking off her shoes, she rose from the bed, standing in front of him. She took his hands in hers, and he too rose to his full height. This was one of her visions and fevered imaginings before he ever asked her to marry him, she remembered with the tiniest of smirks. The two of them, standing in front of a bed, their eyes dancing across each other’s bodies in a prelude dance before a dance of another sort began. But before, she could never have imagined the full richness of his amber eyes that were wide with desire, or the way he bit his lip to quell his want. She could never have imagined how warm his hands would be, or that she would take a Cullen with a scar across his lips, rough under her tongue, received after he defended her. Nor could she ever imagine that he would want her to make the rules.

Oh yes. He waited for her, ardently so, to move to kiss him, move to undress either herself or himself. She could be theatrical, grand and too much, so she threw her arms around him and lightly caressed his cheek with the back of her fingers. If he wore a tie she would have grabbed it, but instead she undid more buttons on his shirt as well as the suspenders he wore to their wedding, and skimmed the tip of her finger down as she went, the golden hair their tickling. He smirked, and she heard him inwardly call her a minx, a wildcat, his.

“How do you want it?” she asked, her voice like sugar.

“Anyway,” he said without hesitation.

She didn’t expect that. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

“Are you patronizing me?”

He spoke with laughter in his voice, and she returned it with the most daring thing she had done yet snake her hand down below his waistline, though she was tentative at first, light. When he responded with pulling himself closer, feeling his want against her belly, she squeezed his arse. He burst into a fit of giggles, burying his head in the crook of her neck.

“I wouldn’t dare,” she replied. “Just want to make you happy.”

“I am. Are you happy?”

“Happier if you kiss me.”

He obliged, capturing her lips, letting them fall to the bed, even though he was very vocal about wanting their clothes off, tugging at the satin straps of her gown. Asking her to hold on, he unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, dexterously throwing it to the ground in only a brief moment that broke the flow of kisses and caresses. Back on top of her, her eager hands glided across his bare shoulders and back, and he pressed deep kisses to every part of her face, every part of skin that her dress didn’t cover. He would have been content to kiss her all night she thought, as kissing was so new to them, and yes, it would have been enough for her.

But Maker. She ached, she longed.

And the night was only just beginning.

“Cullen,” she whispered in his ear. “Lay down.”

“Hmm?”

She repeated, “lay down.”

“Why?”

She laughed—a stubborn one he was, kissing her neck, but she was just as stubborn. “Because,” she said, “you should feel good.”

“I do feel good.”

“Cullen, let me take care of you. Take care of me all you want later, but now…let me. Please.”

He answered her by doing what she wanted, laying down, propping his head on a pillow. He was half undressed, while she was still in her white gown, though he had done a decent job of pulling down the straps. She left them there, as a treat.

“Lydia…”

“Shhh,” she bade, stroking his forearms, his abdomen, the line of his trousers, his clothed cock. He shivered, but still she asked if it was alright. Biting his lip, he nodded. When he was at last bare after pulling off his trousers, laying on the bed, and she was bedside him, letting the silk dance of her dress dance across his skin, she hovered on top of him, sinking down on his cock, regretting she didn’t get a better look beforehand. He gasped at the feel of only this, partially because even though he wasn’t inside yet she was still encasing him, partially because he was surprised that she wasn’t wearing any undergarments. Of the last point, he admitted it with a chuckle.

“I took them off when we came in,” she offered as a secret. “They were uncomfortable.” She let him in on another secret. “I’m also not wearing a bra.”

“Shame, I don’t get to see.”

He was already gripping her hips, moving along with her gentle movements. This was a first for her, she had never sat on a man’s thighs before with the intention to ride, and it took more thigh strength than she realized. But with each movement, there was a sweet ache, and the image of him. He threw his head against the pillows, and she quivered, her wetness bleeding onto him. Flushed, amber eyes peaking up at her, he nodded.

“Lydia,” he begged.

She took his tip, and then all of him at once. She cried out—for her it had been a long time and he was deep and fully encased. He asked if she was alright, said he didn’t mean to hurt her.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she promised. “It’s just…”

“Am I big?”

He had a smile of masculine pride. “Perhaps,” she offered, before telling him the truth, “yes.”

“Do you need to get off, or…?”

“No. I want to see you.”

It took a few moments of sweet torture, Cullen gripping her hips before Lydia took Cullen’s hand, kissing his palm. Maker she loved his hands—strong as they were and rough but not unpleasant. They were lived hands. Hers.

One more kiss to the palm, and then she moved.

He wasn’t a quiet lover. He didn’t even attempt to quiet his moans as she sank on top again and again. It inspired her to cry out, even as she craved more and began to touch herself. He became mesmerized by her own fingers, eyes trailed were she gathered up her skirts, and she hadn’t touched herself in so long that she had herself coming within near moments. And then Cullen came too, moments after her climax faded and he rose to kiss her. He came with their arms wrapped around one another, their lips barely touching. He was still so flushed, eyes sheepish even.

“I shouldn’t have."

“It’s alright,” she promised. “We talked about it earlier, remember? I’m on the pill.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, but he did tug at her hair, study her lips and eyes with intensity. And Maker he was still inside.

“Thank you,” he muttered sweetly.  

Their foreheads touching as they floated along, she kissed his damp temple. Angling herself off, mourning the loss that was at first too much, the two of them positioned themselves on the bed, Cullen wrapping an arm around her as she curled to his side. As she wondered if she should take off her dress, she peeked at him. He was still smiling, and would stay smiling until he fell asleep.

But before he did, she asked him about something he muttered earlier, when they first entered their bedroom in matrimonial bliss. She was standing by the window, looking at the lake outside. He chuckled at first, before explaining that he muttered “Cliodna,” to himself.

“What’s that?” she wondered, and he explained Cliodna was a character from old Ferelden legends, an Avvar priestess who roamed the world, searching for her lover. When he was little, his mother used to read him the story.

“You looked like her then,” he said, before amending it to “you look like her,” and she beamed with a strange pride. She reminded him of a childhood hero, a figure of his dreams. It was something she never thought she would want a lover to think, but everything she ever dreamed.

She put her hand against his beating heart, kissing him lightly. She could get used to those kisses. But he muttered something that surprised her, “I should have made you feel good too. And oh, her dear Cullen, the man she chose to marry, the man she wanted to marry.

“You did,” she promised. “You do.”

And, she thought before she drifted to sleep, there would be plenty of time for him to do all the other things he wanted.

She’s made it this far, so she decides that a delicate finger to trace his cheek won’t do any harm. He doesn’t stir. She grows bolder, traces his lips. Last night, they were reverent against her fevered body, even as she was the one that directed their furtive scene. Her personal style is to be in control, and in his mad desire to please, in his mad want of her, he didn’t try to push her down on the bed when her thighs were on both sides of him and take control, like perhaps another man would. Instead he succumbed to her, and watched with reverence as she moved above. When he did rise, it was only to wrap his arms around her and hold her. Then began the rain of kisses, everywhere he could touch. She even let him kiss the corner of her mouth, as if they were lovers forever and not at this one moment, not enemies on opposite sides who had burned for each other for years and were just now letting themselves blow off some steam. Fucking was so much like fighting. There was sweat, passion, no sense of beginning or end. Just the now. She revealed in the urgent now last night.

Then he kissed her on the mouth, and she could have cried. For a few moments, when his lips grazed her cupid’s bow and tongue gently sought entrance inside, there was no question they were making love, and not extending their outside-of-the-bedroom and outside-the-moment line between antagonism and allies. For those moments there was no more blurred lines. They were only lovers.

As he  sleeps, she allows herself to indulge in that tenderness that was only brief during their night together. She reminds herself she intended to leave before he wakes, but she’s caught between sensibilities and wanting to partake in her personal version of the female gaze. It reminds her when they first met, and he took that bullet for her after only knowing her for a few hours. After patching him up, she wasted precious moments looking at him. Even then she knew him to be about a couple of years younger than she was, and so much more idealistic. Even that’s not changed now, even after everything, even after all he’s seen. She doesn’t know if she should pity him or wish she could take some of that idealism for herself. She only knows she’s always been compelled to draw out the moment, where he’s asleep and she’s awake, and he’s her own Adonis.

When Adonis stirs, she draws her hand away. He stretches and she prepares herself for the inevitable: I should go, this should never have happened in the first place. Yet when she closes her eyes, as if that’ll prepare her for the hurt that she shouldn’t be bothered by anyway, she feels only the warmth of his hand, cupping her cheek.

 “I know you’re awake,” he mutters.

She opens her eyes, stirring with want. Naked underneath the bed sheets, the slight sun that pours through the small crack between the curtains outlines his form, the strength of his arms and broad shoulders, and brings out the golden tinges in his hair that rests somewhere between brown and blonde. She chuckles to herself, ruffling the already mussed hair. She’s never met a man so attached to one haircut.

He asks how long she’s been awake and she answers truthfully: about ten minutes.

 “You didn’t leave.”

 “I thought about it,” she admits

 “What made you stay?”

She grips the hand that still cups her cheek. Her answer is true, the truest thing she’s ever said.

“You.”

She doesn’t protest when he breaks the distance between them. He’s needy in his kisses and she hungrily gives back, chastising herself for thinking that the brief kisses she allowed last night were enough. They didn’t even kiss before they tore their clothes off each other. It was all business, all until they were on top of each other on the mattress, their neutral ground, and bare for the first time in all senses of the word. It was madness, it was bliss to make their own rules. It became instinct to accept his kiss when his arms wrapped around her, instinct to kiss him when his fingers against her clit brought her over the edge. The third was also instinct. It was after he came, spilling on his taut stomach. She couldn’t deny him a kiss then, not when he muttered I love you.

It was just instinct, she told herself. They were making love, it was natural to say. So she kissed him back, neither a denial or I love you too, but an affirmative of some sorts that she’s still not sure was a good idea. Though, the whole thing wasn’t a good idea. They ran anyway, straight to their hotel room, straight to their bad idea. It was the best bad idea she ever had, only beat by her second, to stay with him the morning.

In the morning light, she kisses him back and lets him blanket his body over hers. It’s foreign for her to have the strength of a man against her body, but it’s only a small surprise it’s Leon. From the moment they met, and her thoughts turned salacious, he struck her as a man who’d let himself surrender. She knew the type: someone always in control, someone who cherished the few moments of surrender where he could just be wanted and needed. Last night, he gladly followed her lead and her wants.

Yet more surprising than his taking initiative now is her own surrender. She not only lets him sink and meld onto her body, but she encourages—with one hand gripping his back, and he other fisting into his hair. She moans when his arousal brushes against her thighs.

“Come on,” she goads as he gently kisses both her shoulders and collar, and the space between her breasts.  “Leon…”

His head dips down low, sinks between her thighs. It astounds her that he can push aside his own want to do this—something she’s never asked for or thought about really—but she’s quick to silence herself when his lips brush against her inner thighs. Don’t tease, she wants to order, just touch me, taste me, but she steals a glance. His blue eyes peek at her, and words aren’t needed any longer. Just him, and whatever he wants to do, whatever he wants.

He wants to make her feel good. A gentle finger circles around her clit and she throws her head against the pillow. Thighs twist around him, as if to lock him there, fingers knot the bed sheets and knot his tangled hair as his tongue laps around her clit. She needs more pressure, more of him, and he answers that silent plea. He slides a finger in, out, in, out, almost as good as cock. Her orgasm is sudden and all-consuming, and as he sighs against her skin, she thinks as though his name escaping from her lips is all he needs to sustain himself. A pilgrim for so long, he finally found his place of worship.

Her arms beckon him. They kiss wildly, madly, deeply. They entangle limbs, exchange sighs, share the same strangled breath as he slides inside her. It’s not just the feel of him that wraps her in ecstasy, but the warmth of him everywhere, and each new kiss that makes up for the too few last night. This is how it’s supposed to be, the two of them, bereft of the confines of their duties…Leon and Ada, and the two of them, finding a moment of still in the madness, to look into each other’s eyes, her hands cupping his stubbled cheeks, thumbs tracing the prominent cheekbones.

He says it again, I love you. She can’t deny now it wasn’t instinct, driven by the nature of their act. It was his instinct to declare what had become intrinsic to his being. Unintentionally when they first met, she caught him, and she hadn’t let go. He’s loyal to her, and she had been quietly loyal to him. Waiting for a moment like last night.

She really is so cruel.

Last night she had been possessed. They had been possessed. It explained his I love you and her kiss after. This though, this I love you is no phantom declaration in the night. It’s realer in the morning. Nights are for secrets. Morning is where they must come to face what they’ve done. This has been their morning, not running and hiding, but falling into each other’s arms as Ada and Leon. They are what they are in the dim light that spills from the curtains, and they make their own calls and a new set of rules that are neither secretive nor hidden.

He just wants her to say it back. I love you.

Her response isn’t the words, but a kiss she hopes conveys not I love you too, but how much of a figurehead he’s been in her life, how much she’s truly thought about him over the years. He shudders. He’s close. She keeps him against her body, digs her nails into his back before he can pull away, mumbles against fevered kisses she wants all of him, everything he has.  

He gives. She shudders as he comes, and instead of being wracked with guilt or shame, she implores her body to sink into his, implores the world to blur until only their room—their bed, until they’re only lovers. He can’t hear her thoughts—she’s about to tell him to stay as he is, but he rises, sits at the edge of the bed, his back toward her. She still sees stars and yet he’s not there with her. She’s left behind.

She turns toward him. Her nails left small red marks on his skin. She rises, kisses where she pressed too hard.

His sudden indifference takes her aback. It stings. It’s her own act she’s done many a time, she shouldn’t feel as she does when he takes part in her game, but he acts as though they only fucked and not made love.

“I should go,” he mutters, piercing the arrow deeper. It’s infuriating.

He stands, and it strikes her to say that he has no problem offering a show as he looks for his clothes. Naked, the sunlight contouring the defined strength of his arms, he has a certain sense of ease that he wouldn’t have had things went as they agreed, and they were just a side distraction, a rendezvous meant to blow off whatever it was that they had been carrying for years. He would have been nervous, quick. He’s anything but.

She rids herself of the sheets to rise. She grabs his hand before he can pick up his discarded shirt. “Don’t leave like this,” she orders.

He rises to his full height. “I didn’t expect…I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”

But he doesn’t look into her eyes. She suspects he’s not entirely sorry.

She challenges. Her hand slides against his abdomen, his slim hip, pressing their bodies closer. “Why?” she asks. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Are her words the spell that possesses him again? Or is it her? It doesn’t matter. Once again, they’re kissing like made, grasping flesh, falling onto the bed. If it’s a spell she’s enchanted herself as well as he. Naked, sprawled against the sheets, in love with his want for her, she’s aware that when the trance breaks, she’s going to have to tell him it’s not Ada he loves, but this version of Ada that’s been living in a famine without him, pining for him, needing him, that she does untoward things like stay when she should have left. All for his arms, for his kiss. For her arms to hold him. She makes the rules, that they’re only lovers. They act like lovers do.

An eternity and a moment later, he lays with his head on her lap, her fingers idly twisting the ringlets. He says something about a shower, and she thinks when he finally does rise, she’ll join him—scrub his back for him and have the favor returned. And then, after…

They’ll find each other again. They always do. They’ll be enemies, surely, but not when they take their quarrels back to the bedroom. Then, like now, they’ll find that gap of time to be only lovers.

She laughs to herself. One moment, they told each other last night. And this is it. They were fools. They’re still fools. Happy, sated, blissful fools. And lovers.

And yet, it’d be cruel not to tell him, to let him live in an illusion.

“You don’t love me,” she whispers. “you love the me you think about when you’re lonely.”

“Not lonely now.”

He glances at her with a mischievous, knowing look. “Neither am I,” she tells him, and she even plays the part, tells him she loves him too. They’re only lovers now, after all.

“You didn’t have to say that,” he says. “I know what’s true.”

“Then what’s true?”

He rises, faces her. He cups her cheek, caresses her face. He follows with a gentle kiss.  

“Now,” he whispers. “Us.”

Meredith had called him into her office that morning once he was up and about. Nothing unusual. After numerous reports and sightings, we have confirmed the location of the hiding apostate, she informed him. If they resist, kill them. If not, bring them back. Take Samson with you.

They always resist, Samson said before they departed, though Cullen knew it was what Samson always told Meredith.

They arrived at the Coast to cave where the apostates were supposedly hiding. Bloody caves here all look the same, Samson complained as he went one way, and Cullen the other. It wasn’t wise to split up but Samson had insisted. There was only one, he said. One would be easy enough and we’ve certainly taken enough lyrium to dispel all their magic. So Cullen traversed through the darkness, sword and shield in hand. Someone was there, that was abundantly clear. The torches lit the way, and the farther he traversed, the light of a fire became more visible. It seemed whoever this apostate was, they wanted to be found.

He heard voices, whispers, but he caught a few words. Templar, may find us. Need to check. It was coming from a voice distinctly feminine. So there was more than one, he realized, quickly wishing Samson didn’t insist on splitting up as he did. At the very least Cullen caught the irony of the moment. These mages certainly didn’t realize how right they were.

When he heard the light footsteps he made the plan. He would dispel the area and tell them to surrender. He would bind their hands and then take them back. He wasn’t sure what Meredith would decree when they took them back. Tranquility, perhaps if they had escaped from another Circle. Perhaps it was better than death. Surely if Samson had found them he would kill them, and perhaps it was better that Cullen had arrived first. Surely living, even if that life was only a shell and hollow, was better than being cut down here and now…

Later, bitterly he would laugh as he remembered the time before. He would laugh because he woke up that morning and he knew his duty and what that insignia he wore meant. That was before he saw...

But was it?

Dumbstruck he stared. It couldn’t…it couldn’t really be…

The woman appeared before him. Fire pooling in her palm. Circle robe. Same dumbstruck expression that he wore. This woman couldn’t really be…

 Cliodna?

It was impossible. The woman from the book of stories his mother used to put him to bed with couldn’t really come to life from the page, and be this woman no less. Not her, not this mage… 

But Maker’s breath she was looking at him with all the same determination as Cliodna, the woman who had searched the lowlands, looking for her lover. Everything stilled and he suddenly wasn’t a templar any longer, just a boy on his mother’s lap, begging for the story of Cliodna again. He thought that story book and Cliodna long gone, just a figment of his past. Never would he ever expect waking up and beholding this fragment of his past come to life from the page. 

Cliodna searched for her lover after he had gone missing in the lowalnds. This woman must have searched for something as well. She wouldn’t have stared at him with such conviction otherwise. What did this woman search for? Freedom perhaps, it was what all apostates wanted, and exactly what they couldn’t have.

If she wasn’t a mage, if he wasn’t a templar, if he didn’t have his duty…

Why wasn’t he dispelling the area?

They stared, neither one so much as breathing in this space that they created, the space where the apostate and templar lay in wait, something more than distrust and blind hatred tangible in the air. Perhaps, he thought, it was fascination, or at least a mutual unwillingness to strike. However, just as Cullen kept his sword drawn and shield ready, the fire kept pulling in her hands, though the glow was growing dimmer and dimmer.

The fire may have dimmed in her palm, but her eyes, blue as the deepest sea, grew brighter. Such a contradiction that shouldn’t even have been possible: fire in the sea of blue. Yet there it was, and exactly like Cliodna. She had every idiosyncrasy.  

Cullen couldn’t help but further assess the woman’s appearance. Her hair was a dark brown, long and to her back, loose and unruly. Once again, just like Cliodna. She wore the standard circle robe, blue and unshapely as it was, though upon further inspection Cullen could see she filled out the robe rather well. She was rather tall, and her hips were well defined, as was her…

You are...what are you...?

The base and low thoughts ceased. What was he doing? Maker what was he doing? He should have dispelled her, and the others that were laying in wait. Perhaps they were waiting to ambush him. If Samson had found her first he would have killed her for daring to draw fire upon him. Yet Cullen was struck with something. The first was rather obvious. If this was an ambush something would have surely happened by now. The second however, was something that made his heart pound a million beats.

He woke up that morning, and he what he should have done. He knew that if a mage ever dared to reign fire upon him, even so much as have it in their palms, ready to attack, he would have to slay them. Of course, that was before he knew what fate would bring along his path. When Cullen woke up that morning, he would have never known he would see this woman, mage, being that so perfectly emulated Cliodna, and allow his sacred duty to fall to the wayside, crumpling to the ground.

Maker’s breath, he did not want to strike her.

It isn’t about wanting to or not, he reminded himself. This is what you chose! This is your duty.

Did she have some sort of power over him that made him not strike? They are insidious, Meredith often said. 

But Cullen felt nothing in the air. No magic or none of the tell tale signs of lyrium tingling in his veins. The only power she held over him was what lay ingrained in her eyes.

And he would not strike her.

Hands trembling, he sheathed his sword. Slowly in turn, the fire in the woman’s hand dimmed until it was gone. The torch nearby illuminated her face however, the curve of her jawline, the upward flex of her right eyebrow, and the quizzical expression.

“Who are you?” she breathed, her voice a deep contralto.

“Cullen,” he said, surprising himself. “I’m…I’m a templar.”

A look crossed her face, one that distinctly read as, Really stupid? At the very least she gave him the curtesy not to say anything. Instead she crossed her arms, and offered him her name.

Her name was Lydia.

“Lydia,” he repeated, the name sounding strange on his tongue. “It…you should…”

Dammit, what was he doing? What was he…?

“Are you going to take me to the Circle? To Meredith?”

“I…I don’t know,” he croaked.

“Take me, fine,” she insisted suddenly. “Take me now and I surrender.”

“Wasn’t there others with you?”

“Don’t take them. Take only me and I’ll accept whatever punishment, but do not take them.”

What was he doing? Maker…what? He couldn’t stand here and bargain with her! “I can’t—”

“Please,” Lydia interrupted. “Please let them go.  My friend is pregnant and, if you send her to the Circle she’ll be killed, or made tranquil, and…that can’t happen. Want to send me back, kill me or make me tranquil, fine. But please…if you don’t I’ll—”

Fire erupted in her palm, burning brightly. There it was. His reason to strike. He had to do it. Here and now. Here and—

But he could see it in her eyes. She did not want to do what she had threatened.

Fine then, he thought, and the two continued to share the same space, neither one willing to make the first move. Perhaps this wasn’t a cause to strike. He could carry her back to Kirkwall and back to the Circle. They all could see that the Circle wasn’t so cruel after all. Let it be known that templars showed mercy to those who were willing to surrender. But he couldn’t let the others go if he took her back to the Circle. It was ridiculous, preposterous. Either he killed her, took the others back, or they all died. Or she went to the Circle in chains.

“I…”

“Please,” Lydia said, once more. “I…I know you have to be one of the good ones. You didn’t kill me when you had the chance, and Maker…I don’t want to kill you.”

“I know,” he admitted.

“Then let me—”

“Just go.”

The words hung in the air. Did he say them? Did he really just…

He said it and did not take it back. But onto the Maker and the holy Andraste, he would swear that night. He did not want to take it back.

“Go,” he orders, edge creeping into his words. “Leave this place.”

“But—”

“Take your friends and go.”

She stared, mouth agape. “Go,” he commanded once again. “Go before my companion arrives. If you flee now he won’t find you and you’ll live.”

 She blinked, unbelieving. “I don’t—why are you sparing me?”

 “Go!”

He made a fist so hard his knuckles must have turned white underneath his steel gauntlets. Moments ticked by that felt like hours before she disappeared and emerged from the back of the cave again with the two others. A man, and an the elven woman, heavy with child. She had been telling the truth.

“Leave the Coast,” Cullen said. “My companion will want to search. You mustn’t linger. Go now.”

The elf and the man didn’t need to be told twice, but Lydia remained for a moment. He wanted to scream at her not to linger anymore. Samson would arrive and…

Samson would arrive and know what he had done. 

“Go now!” Cullen ordered. “Maker’s breath go before I change my mind!”

The elf was tugging at Lydia’s robe. One last look into his eyes.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

And then as quickly as his eyes met the sea blue of hers, she was gone.

Meredith told him not to fail again when they returned, and when she left him, Cullen laughed bitterly.

He never would have suspected, when he woke up that morning, how that woman, Lydia, the woman who reminded him of Cliodna would…

 No, he didn’t actually think that…

Mages cannot be treated like people. Hawke would often berate him with, repeating the words he had told her the first day they met. But Lydia wasn’t a mage. She was, but she wasn’t just a mage. She was Cliodna. She was determined, and she was the first person who looked at him in a thousand years, and saw someone other than the templar.

It wasn’t Lydia, that made everything change. He understood that later. Yet it was his first moment with her that he realized that everything had already changed longed ago. 

If he would not stop it, then who would?

He was at Haven when he saw her again.

He was scanning the requisition requests when Cliodna caught his eyes, but when he took a second look, he realized it wasn’t Cliodna at all. Rather instead, it was Lydia.

She was working with Sabine and the other healers, and he wondered how long it would take her to recognize him. Maybe it was ridiculous of him, self-centered even to think she would recognize him.

She came to him, soon after though. She was the one sent to deliver a few elfroot potions to his tent.

She stared wide eyed. “You’re…you’re…”

“You remember,” he observed, realizing that she did, indeed, know who he was.

“Cullen,” she began. “Why did you save us? I read Tale of the Champion. I know what you said. Why did you think we could be saved?”

He sighed. He wasn’t going to deny he didn’t say those things, but when he thought of admitting why he saved her…

In truth he didn’t know all the answers. He thought there were a thousand reasons, and perhaps a thousand more he didn’t dare to admit even to himself. She made him remember, that was the most prominent. For once, he looked at someone and didn’t remember the melancholy laden in f his past. Only the good. Cliodna, his mother telling him the story. Home. He knew she was a mage when he met her, and yet even if it was for one moment, it didn’t matter.

But it was longer than a moment, and when the moment didn’t pass, he knew he wanted to let her go. So for the first time in ages, he did what he wanted, and not what was bound by his duty. He did it, even if it meant he would burn because of it. All because she made it possible for him to remember that which he thought was lost. Her, Lydia, this woman, radiant, and almost like the sun.

She was like the sun, standing there in his tent. An interesting beauty, someone artists would no doubt chose as their model for illustrations of ethereal maidens, much like Cliodna.

He looked at her then, and wondered.

Did he save her that day, because he found her beautiful?

Skin kissed by the sun. Luxuriant dark hair. Eyes the deepest blue. Earnest and real. Perhaps the realest thing he had ever seen.

The morning he woke up, the morning he met her, he didn’t know she would never leave his thoughts.

He knew the answer to his question.

“I…I don’t know,” he said instead, breaking the silence. “I just thought…”

She put her hands on her hips. “Did you think I was pretty?”

“I…no,” he stammered quickly, feeling caught. “I mean…Oh maker, it’s not that you aren’t, but—”

She laughed, and the sound was so foreign, and so surprising in regards to everything that had happened at the conclave and Haven, that it became a melody Cullen wasn’t sure he would hear again. “I’m only teasing,” she said, when her laughter quelled, and he was struck by how much he wanted to hear her laugher again.

“Why didn’t you want to attack me?” he asked in turn. “You had a ball of fire ready.”

“You looked…you looked sad that day,” she replied. I don’t know. you didn’t even look like you wanted to attack.” 

Maker’s breath, was she going to see right through him? “I was sad,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “And…misguided. I treated mages with distrust, sometimes without cause. I will…try not to do so here.”

“It seems you’ve stepped in the right direction that day.”

“Did you three, make it out alright?” Cullen found himself asking. “The child?”

“Alive and well.

“That is…good to hear.”

Blue eyes like the sea peered at him. “I thank you, you know. I want you to know that.”

She truly was earnest. He didn’t think “you’re welcome” was appropriate for all the wrong he did in his past, and what could never be absolved. He only nodded.

The silence that came between them next was comfortable, as the two shared the same space. Not as a mage and templar, but as a man and a woman.

“I’m not a templar anymore,” he said, mirroring the trite, obvious remark he made those years ago. “And…you’re here in the Inquisition to help,” he said. “We are…grateful for your assistance.”

“No, you’re not a templar anymore,” she repeated. “Even though I’m still a mage. But here at least, in the Inquisition, I can help. That’s all that matters now. Not our pasts. And I promise I won’t tease you anymore. I mean, only if you want it, and…Oh Maker…” she blushed an angry red, and he was struck by how sweet the pop of pink looked on her cheeks. “I should go now anyway,” she garbled. “Sabine needs help. I’ll see you soon Commander Cullen.”

She left after that, leaving the smell of jasmine in his tent. Strange, to smell jasmine, but not entirely unwelcome.

Lydia, Cullen thought. Mage, Cliodna, and the sun. The woman that made him realize that everything had changed.