Sensing an opening, Jowan smiled, "Checking out the men. Plenty of those came too. She kept going on about some Bann with red hair. Name started with a T, I forget what it was. Margie seemed really excited about him. You might like him too, you know. Handsome, she said."
Jealousy reared inside Cullen's gut, the snake wanting to bite off both Jowan's head as well as this supposed Bann. Who was handsome, who could romance anyone as easily as Frederick did. That was how it worked, after all.
The girl shook her head, then glanced up at the ceiling, "I rather doubt it. I have work to do, real studying that doesn't involve...certain unnamed bits. It'll take all my concentration if I'm going to perfect that entropic curse."
"No one in our year's ever gotten it to work right," Jowan sighed.
"Well, I intend to try," she countered him with a smile. Cullen felt his heart stop, unable to keep going in the face of that perfect smile.
"You're the worst, you know that," Jowan huffed. Stomping around in a circle, he headed towards the upper staircase.
The girl shook her head again, then waved at him, "Then why do you suffer me?" In the process of waving at him, she bounced her hand against the stack of books sending a scroll rolling off the floor and bounding right towards Cullen. He dropped down to scoop it up while she chased after it, her hand extended off the massive wobbling stack in her hands. She could barely dip down to reach it before Cullen caught it himself and began to roll the errant scroll up.
"Uh, um," he jabbered around anything to say to her. The sudden activity caused a flush to rise against her cheeks and he felt an urge to place the back of his hand against them to feel the warmth, the softness of her skin, the curve of her smile. "Here," he ended with, dropping the scroll on top of her pile. Terrified his own heart might combust if he stared too long at her face, his eyes drifted down. Like most of the apprentices, she wore a high neckline on her robe, but the hint of a rosy birthmark prodded above it. Cullen's long dormant imagination reared up to try and determine how deep it ran down her silky skin.
"Oh no," she snatched up the scroll he handed her and slotted the nondescript roll of vellum below another that looked the same, "it goes here, for...um, reasons. Thank you."
"You're welcome," his brain automatically threw out, rescuing him. If he'd left his tongue in charge it'd have come out as "You're beautiful!"
She dipped her knees to glance down at the staircase where a few of the guests moved into the antechamber, their voices rising to them. "I don't blame you for avoiding the nobles," she smiled, a gentle laugh punctuating her sentence, and then she moved away from him, lost to the labyrinthian library. Cullen stood frozen in place for nearly a half hour, a dumb grin stretching his cheeks, and a tin band pressed against his palm.
In his move to Kirkwall, he managed to misplace the ring - whether a true accident or his own disjointed mind rescuing him he couldn't say. When he first found it, people chided him for a few weeks then promptly forgot as some other crisis arose in the tower. Cullen was happy to let it die, but secretly, so deep inside his heart he dare never speak it, he hoped that maybe there was something to the old superstitions after all.
Then she left, became a grey warden because of that mage, because Jowan tricked her into his own web as he always did. When news of her loss reached him Cullen tried to accept he'd never see her again, but a selfish dream percolated inside. On occasion wardens came to the tower. That older one had just been there to recruit her, perhaps she'd find a reason, or miss something in her old home. Hope knotted in his heart at the foolish thought, until Uldred. Every filthy finger prodding into him, pulling loose his deepest fears, greatest sorrows and hates, all to push him to madness. He watched helpless as his friends were carted off one by one to feed the demons or entertain them with their deaths. Frederick went quick, his still handsome face ringed in shock as they impaled it on a stake. In the midst of that chaos, Cullen accepted he wouldn't survive. Clinging desperate to any prayer he knew and trying to cleanse his soul for the Maker or Andraste, he prepared himself for the end, when she returned.
No matter how deep he buried her, the blood mages found his secret shame and dangled it in front of his face before finishing him off. He was certain of it, the truth was impossible. Lana back in his life having fought through every manner of demon up numerous levels to cleanse the tower? Even with all her skill as an apprentice it seemed beyond dreams, beyond his foolish hope. She didn't deserve what he said, the way he...made her uncomfortable. All she wished to do was help, but in his state any hand came with a dagger inside.
"I'm sorry, Lana," he whispered to her not-ashes. "I'm sorry I wasn't, couldn't be right for you. Couldn't be enough for you."
A knock broke against his door. Cullen shoved the bottle safely back in its drawer. Out of habit, he wiped the back of his hand against dry eyes. "Yes?" he shouted, his voice steady. A year of burying his grief trained him well in how to recover quickly.
He'd expected one of his aides or a soldier, but the ambassador slid through the door. The candle's flame on her board dipped dangerously close to the edge from the winds whipping around the battlements. Josephine cupped her hand around it to will the flame back in place, then smoothed down her golden attire. "Commander, I came to apologize for the ring incident."
Shaking his head, Cullen rose, "It is no mind."
"If you had not wished to be involved I could have instructed the chefs to skip your plate. I, forgive me for failing to take your guarded privacy into account."
By some quirk of the Maker, he managed to feel even worse for how he acted. It wasn't as if Josephine knew, no one did aside from Leliana -- who was off being Divine, and Hawke -- who was somewhere in the west. He suspected the Inquisitor grew wise, but other than an occasional knowing glance the man never said a word, for which Cullen was grateful. No one remaining in Skyhold had any reason to think their reclusive commander ever dared to share his heart with anyone, much less the woman who sacrificed herself to save the grey wardens. The ambassador was trying to spice up the doldrum life on the mountain, be lighthearted and fun. Whimsical. And he stomped all over it, as everyone claimed he was wont to do.
"It's not your fault, Josephine. I, I forgot the day myself and if I'd realized it I would have warned you. Or asked to be left out..." Or remained in his room alone while the rest of the happy lovers frolicked around together.
"Commander," Josephine inched closer to him with such certainty in her eyes, Cullen instinctively knotted his knees together. "If you do not mind, there have been a number of requests for your attentions."
"Ah," he threw his head back, scrubbing his cheeks with his fingers as if the answer to his problems resided inside his scruff. "When will the Orlesians find a new toy?"
"They are not all remnants from Halamshiral," she said. "I dare say you might even find a few suitable. Soldiers in their own right, some have great notoriety on the national level for their combat skills as well as leadership, loyalty, and sewing ability."
"Sewing?"
"Orlesians consider a well rounded soldier to be the peak of perfection. If that is not to your pleasing, some other women with more intellectual pursuits have also shown an interest."
Cullen dropped both of his hands and glared out through the open door, "Josephine, it's not..."
"Perhaps if I knew what you find intriguing. A man of your standing must have certain preferences in his, um, companion," she picked up her quill and waited patiently for his answer.
Beguiling, compassionate eyes that when faced with a conundrum would shroud in an impenetrable enigma. Hair wilder than his that looked at home reaching beyond her shoulders or knotted back into braids. Lips that easily slipped into a smile which could brighten the deeproads themselves. Shoulders scarred from trying to carry the weight of the world for too long. Fingers as quick to catch a falling baby bird as slice apart a murderer's throat. And a mind dripping with a thousand thoughts, so far ahead of everyone she'd have to pause to let him catch up.
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He could spend all day listing every trait, quirk, and inch of Lana he yearned for: the stout turn to her short thighs, freckles darting across the sides of her breasts, and the birthmark blooming upon her enticing collar. But what he wished for, ached in his soul to have return, was to hear her voice speak to him one more time. To have her sweet alto roll her Free Marcher r's as she quickly whipped through a dozen magical theories he'd never understand.
"Commander?" Josephine spoke, startling him from his gaze into the past. Shaking his head, Cullen reached up to rub his exhausted eyes and found tears streaking across his fingertips. "Is there someone else?" she placed her quill down, her eyes hunting over him. A year he'd kept it quiet, kept anyone else from learning the truth of it for fear of how it would reflect upon him, upon Lana even more. The templar and mage - they'd never broken any rules but people would talk, assume that they'd been more when it wasn't right.
Swallowing, Cullen shut his eyes tight. "There was," he answered for Josephine.
"Was?"
"She, she is gone. I'd prefer to not go into it," he opened his eyes against the burn of a hundred tears struggling to be released.
Josephine gulped against the heartbreaking display, "Naturally, I should not have... I am sorry."
"So am I."
"Forgive me for implying with..." the ambassador scratched off whatever list she'd already begun for his perfect mate, a flush rising off her cheeks. "I am sorry," she added again as if that would somehow fix everything. Her eyes darted towards the ground in embarrassment, exactly the kind Cullen hoped to avoid, as she inched towards the door. Suddenly, she paused and extended her hand, "Here."
He cupped his hand under hers and accepted the gold ring weighing heavily in his palm.
Josephine paused in the doorway and quickly exclaimed, "You should have this, still. You did find it." She escaped away before blushing herself to death.
Glittering by the lamplight, Cullen stared at the ring - the one that mocked him again for thinking he could have happiness, have the life so many others achieved as if breathing. He could sell it, certainly it was worth a pretty sovereign, the madam ambassador would never skimp on such a feast. Put the money back into the Inquisition or perhaps towards the small templar funds springing up around thedas. Cullen folded his fingers up around the ring and, gently, he dropped it back into his pocket.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tunnels
9:44 Anderfels
At least the qunari didn't stab them in the back right away. Cullen felt her ice blue eyes drifting over him and then back across the king while those two squabbled over the nitty gritty of their arrangement.
"So, you're not under the Qun?" Alistair jabbed at the woman towering above him, his head craned back. The man had a blush rising up the back of his neck brighter than the fading sunburn. Cullen had a good idea he knew why judging by the noticeable lack of clothing on this tal-vashoth scholar. She kept her shoulders back and her chest shoved out as if at constant attention. Good for one's posture, less so for the king's attempt at staring up into her eyes.
"I am not. I left many years ago for personal reasons," Aqun said. She bore a staff across her back, not of the mage variety. This was thinner with a spear tip on the end for reaching long distances to impale someone's chest. Cullen could already picture it embedding between one of their ribs.
"It's just, most of the not-qunari qunari I meet tend to be more..." Alistair waved his hand around.
"Mercenaries?"
"Stab people in the gut because someone told them to," he answered with and Cullen groaned. He didn't trust this Aqun but the king didn't need to wave his bare ass around and dare her to spear it. Maker, don't give him that idea. Cullen's hand drifted down to try and scratch Honor's head, but he felt a tuft of hair rising up. A line running her entire back rose, her ears pinned back as she didn't growl but beamed a tight focus on the qunari.
"Many who abandon the Qun never leave it," Aqun said. "I have watched my fellows fall to the vices of the south led by any and all who would guide them with a foolish hand, unable to find balance. It is sad."
"Right, very sad," Alistair continued to blather, "just one tiny question I'm wondering. If you're not under the Qun, and not here at the whim of some noble's coin to give a free knife massage to his enemies, who do you work for?"
Aqun paused for the king to catch up, and her taut lips twisted in a smile, "A perceptive question. I am in fact here on leave of the grey wardens." That caught Cullen's attention, and he whipped a question back at maybe not the only warden there - but Alistair shook his head no. Either sensing the argument between them, or anticipating it, Aqun continued, "The wardens often employ those beyond their ranks to assist in delicate matters."
"Delicate matters like letting some outsider break into their secret ancient fortress and ferret out all their secrets? Those same wardens just love sharing information with anyone who wanders by and asks. Or..." Alistair stumbled, "or so I've heard."
"Have you now?" Aqun's icy eyes lingered over him. "The wardens are not as tight eyed as you've been led to believe."
"Tight eyed?" Alistair puzzled through her mixed up idiom, then shook his head, "I suppose it is possible for the wardens to look into a merce- not-mercenary, not-qunari to finish a few tasks for them. Maybe-ish." The king turned his head fully around at Cullen and shrugged, unable to verify the woman's story. Not that it much mattered, if the ben-hassrath needed her background to check out they'd move mountains for it to happen.
"How did you know one of us is a templar?" Cullen spoke up, his voice flat from lack of use. The trip back towards the fortress felt five times as long as the one into town, his feet dragging in the grass.
Aqun turned from her pace ahead of them both and placed a hand upon her hip. "Simple, your gait."
"My gait?" Cullen asked, his feet pausing.
"Templars move with a soft shuffle upon the balls of your feet for fear that a mage could plant ice under you at any moment. It is rather easy to spot when one knows what to look for."
"I don't..." Cullen began when he glanced down at his boots, the ones where the soles always wore out first at the ball instead of the heel. "That was how you- You had not heard of us before?"
"Should I?" Aqun asked, tilting her head in surprise.
"No, nope, just two ordinary guys and a dog willing to team up with a random armed qunari woman to break into a warden fortress. Nothing strange about that at all," Alistair muttered, dragging out the awkwardness among them. Whatever she truly was she had to know something -- whether it was of their full plans or only a hazarded guess -- Cullen would bet his breeches that Aqun knew who the king of Ferelden was, perhaps recognized him as well. Which gave her leverage against them both while she was little more than a puff of smoke on the wind to them.
Cullen's gait slowed as he glowered towards the sun preparing to dip down under the horizon. Soon they'd be walking in the dark to this imaginary entrance courtesy of a potential foe while expecting a knife in the back. It was idiotic beyond measure. There had to be another way, a chance to... His fingers dipped into his pocket to brush against the phylactery. Lana, I...
"What is it?" Alistair whispered near him, closer than Cullen felt comfortable. He tried to rear back but the king's eyes darted to the qunari marching further towards the north. "Is it...dark again?"
"No, no, I can feel its life, except..." He gripped his fingers around the glass, thumb circling around to protect it, while Cullen tried to drain every secret and vision into him. "It's fading. I, I can't explain it, but the pull isn't as strong as it was and we're closer than ever."
A moan rattled in Alistair's throat and he rocked back and forth on his heels. Facing the north and the speck of a fortress on the horizon, he said, "Hang on, Lanny. Just a little more and we'll get there."
What if they didn't? What if she slipped through his fingers before they made it back? Before they could climb their way through this supposed secret entrance? What
if the qunari turned on them both before they even found her? Cullen folded his hands together, one wrapped tight around the other as if to comfort it, and he pressed both against his forehead. We could fail you, Lana. So close, so damn close, and all gone in a heartbeat.
"Uh, look, I..." Alistair spoke up, his hands jangling in his own bottomless pockets, "I know carrying that thing isn't easy, at all. If it's not happy memories, it's the pit of despair when it switches from on to off. Either way, it's the opposite of fun, so..." He unearthed his hand and extended it towards Cullen.
A piece of paper sat inside of the king's palm, but it wasn't until Cullen picked it up to hold closer that realization struck him. Drawn across a tan linen in shadings of intricate ink lines was Lana. She was reclining across a divan, one hand brushing across her forehead while the other steadied her staff beside her. The sash on her robes was unknotted and even the two bottom buttons on her inside vest undone. She needed the freed space to curl her legs up under her in comfort. Beside her sat a cup of tea, filled to the brim, and he'd bet anything ice cold when the portrait was first created.
"After Denerim, they thought there should be an official portrait of the Hero to, I don't know, rub in Orlais' face or something. Everyone wanted a chance to paint her, so they brought in a dozen artists with plans to pick the best. I..." Alistair paused and smiled at a memory, "Lanny was not happy to keep standing still for hours, to put it mildly. Almost all of the final paintings were a fancied version of her stabbing a sword, a spear, or her own hand into the archdemon. They barely even looked like her, you know. They kept drawing her hair straight for some stupid reason. All were wrong except for that one. An old woman spotted Lanny when she was taking a break - her code for hiding in the library - and sat down alone beside her to draw this."
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