My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  She reached over to grab both of his hands inside her own. They should have been cold, still as the grave, but her warmth overtook his own crying out to comfort him. "Cullen, oh, sweetheart! Here..." placing one of his hands against her cheek, she leaned into it like a pillow, "feel me. I'm here. I'm real. It was a dream, one of the bad ones."

  "You died in the fade," he shook his head, clinging to the razor wire of truth running through his mind. He hated how it sliced him apart, but he knew if he let go he'd be lost forever, "stayed behind so the others could..."

  "We all escaped, at Adamant, yes? You remember, tell me you remember." Tears brimmed in Lana's eyes and she cupped his cheek, pulling his forehead to hers. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there to stop them in time."

  "Stop what?" he blinked, struggling to keep a hold of the conversation.

  She closed her eyes tight and whispered, "The blood mages, the wardens who..." Tipping her head back, Lana tried to catch a few of the tears before they fell down her cheeks. Instinctively, Cullen ran the back of his hand against them, each drop wetting his skin the way any real tear would. "They cornered you, delved into your mind and-and convinced you I'd died. But I didn't, I'm here. You remember, right? How we stormed through the Arbor Wilds together? How we waited with bated breath to hear if the Inquisitor defeated Corypheus?"

  "Yes, that-that happened," he flexed his fingers and felt his tenuous grip slipping. It was possible. What if the malifecarum had crawled inside of his mind, stripped away his one happiness to torture him? And she, she didn't stay behind, didn't sacrifice herself for Hawke or anyone else. She was here, with him, had been the entire time. It made sense.

  Swallowing down two years of grief, a smile broke across his lips, lifting his heart with it. Grabbing onto her cheek, Cullen pulled the woman he loved beyond reason to his lips for the impossible kiss. She tasted exactly how he remembered, her pillowy lips brushing open as he danced his tongue with hers. It was Lana, body and soul. How could he forget?

  She broke the kiss, but not before pecking him on the end of the nose, and smiled, "I take it you're feeling better."

  "Lana, I..." a panic struck him, and Cullen sat up higher in his chair. "Where's Honor?"

  "Where she always is, fast asleep at the foot of your desk," she chuckled waving towards the rug. He rose to his feet to peer over his desk to find the mabari's hind legs twitching in a dream, her tail thumping madly against the floor. Whatever dream it was, it was a good one.

  Running a hand through his hair, Cullen tried to will down the erratic beat in his heart. Honor was right where she should be. He was right where he belonged, and Lana... Maker's breath, Lana was here, with him. Breaking from the sight of his sleeping dog, Cullen wrapped both hands around her waist cinched up in the exact same corset she used to wear in the tower. Her hair blossomed off her head, longer than he'd seen in years and softer as well. She even had the time to put a dash of rouge across her cheeks and kohl upon her eyelids. It was Lana at rest, free, as free as he was. Neither of them with an order to obey, vows to honor. They could be together, fully and whole.

  Sliding her across the desk, Cullen pulled Lana tight to him. She giggled at first, then wrapped her own arms around his back as she placed her head against his armored chest. "Lana, I-I was so scared I lost you. I thought, I felt as if-as if someone stole the only hope in my life and replaced it with darkness. Unending, unyielding, insurmountable darkness." Brushing his palms across her cheeks, he pushed back her errant hair and sighed, "I love you."

  Cullen moved to kiss her, fully give in to her forever, when she whispered, "I love you too." He froze a breath away from her lips. Pain throbbed up his jaw, his teeth clenched tight.

  Wrong. It was wrong.

  Lana rotated uncomfortably on her hips, "What is it?"

  He released his hold on her, his hands slipping back to the frozen air as they thudded alone against his desk. "You never said it," he whispered into the air.

  "Never said what?" she laughed, trying to pick his arm up and put it around her. Cullen slid away from her grasp. He didn't yank his arms in rage, only wafted from her like a ghost ship cresting through the foggy waves. Without lifting his broken head, he turned to face the bookshelf and saw it, the blue bottle holding her ashes. Not her ashes, but the ashes pretending to be hers, because this wasn't Lana.

  "Cullen," Not-Lana said, concern rising in her voice, "What did I never say? Talk to me, please."

  Running a finger across the glass bottle, a warmth hissed against his thumb as if the pyre was just burned. The happiness in his heart drifted away like the ashes he dumped into the wind. Screwing his eyes up tight, his head flopped forward, and he sighed, "'I love you.' Lana, you never said that because you couldn't. You didn't love me, and there wasn't time for you to, before you..." Cullen turned to find her eyes wide, her hand pressed to her mouth, "You died, Lana. You went into the fade and you never came out. It's why I'm here. Out there. Fighting to find you, to try and save you. This isn't real."

  "Cullen, please," she hopped off the desk, and tried to grab his hands again, "please, this isn't a good sign. I know, I know memories can be scary, especially the wrong ones, but you need help. I can help you."

  "No," he couldn't stop himself from touching her cheek. The pleading was genuine, her eyes brimming in tears, her bottom lip wobbling. That was the Lana he knew, the one that hated seeing him in pain, who wanted to rescue him from every hurt outside and in. But it wasn't her. Tears slopped from his eyes, fat ones streaking down his cheeks as he struggled through two years of grief washing across him in one go. "You can't help me Lana, because I have to help you first."

  Pulling his hand away from her soft skin, Cullen turned away and dropped to the floor. He nudged Honor in the head and called to her, "Girl, come on. Wake up, we need to be going." It took a few more tries before her tail stopped thumping in her dream and those sloe black eyes rolled open. She blinked, looking as tattered as he felt, before accepting that her master was here and things would work out. Honor rose to her feet to stand by his side.

  "Cullen!" Lana begged. "Whatever you're going to do, it isn't safe. Not in this condition. You could get hurt out there alone. Please, come back to me. Rest. A good sleep will fix everything."

  He wished he could look back at her, perhaps the last time he'd ever see her face again, but he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough to pull himself away a second time. Stroking Honor's head, Cullen flopped her ears back and forth before he grabbed onto the door's handle. His voice dropped into his chest and he whispered, "I'm sorry," while opening the door and stepping through.

  White light flared up, blinding him again. As the sear faded away, it wasn't Skyhold waiting for him but a grassy meadow. In the distance, rocky hills burst through the ground, the cliffside red as a sunset. Cullen reached down to check on Honor, but his dog seemed to have already adjusted to the change. Turning back around, he spotted the door frame he stepped through free standing. There was no wall it was bolted to, nothing keeping it up. Only meadow shown through both sides, as cheery as a perfect summer day. In the distance, he heard birds chirping as they dove through tall grasses to catch grasshoppers calling for mates. The susurruss winds caressed his cheek, smelling of wood crackling on a fire pit, fresh cut hay drying in the fields, and the late summer flowers blooming in anticipation of the insects. It felt like home.

  Gulping, Cullen checked his sword then a thought crossed his mind. Would his blade even work in the fade or could someone turn it into a noodle with a thought? He never asked what it meant when mages went into the fade. Everyone dreamed, of course, but this felt real, nothing like a dream at all. Cullen gripped tight to his chest as if to stick his churned heart back in place. Too real. Uncertain where to head, he struck out in the direction of the smoke breaking through the bright blue sky. It wasn't until he crossed a hill that Cullen spotted a house. A fence circled it, half torn down, and barely a post matching as if it was ramshackled together from ten other fences.

&n
bsp; "Hey!" a petulant voice cried out from the grasses wafting in the breeze. Cullen spun to the east when a boy rose from the ground appearing as if by magic. His skin was a soft brown, reminiscent of Josephine's shade, with a mound of curly black hair flattened at the top of his head. After playing on the ground, mud speckled his cheeks and a blue and silver tunic two sizes too large for the reedy frame.

  The boy ran close to Cullen and stuck a hand on his hip, "Never seen you before. Are you new?"

  "I..." Cullen's eyes rolled around the area, "I suppose I am. There's some people I'm looking for. A man about my height with blonde hair and a qunari woman."

  Shaking his head, the boy giggled. Cullen would guess his age at seven or eight, adventurous enough to be playing alone but not yet obstinate enough to grow tired of adults. "There's no qunari around here. My dad says they're all in the far north. Oh," he snapped his fingers, "you should meet my dad. I bet he'd know whoever you're looking for."

  As Cullen glanced over the boy, a fear stirred inside of his heart from the familiar features, but he had no other choice. "Yes, that sounds nice."

  "And..." the boy wiped his muddy hands down the front of his tunic and stuck one out, "my name's Duncan."

  "Duncan," he repeated, taking the small hand inside his and shaking it. "I'm Cullen."

  The boy smiled wide, teeth dazzling against his lips, "Cullen? That's a silly name."

  "I, uh..." he was at a loss at how to respond to this imaginary boy denouncing his name. Before he needed to bother, the child spun on his shoes and dashed towards the house. Calling to Honor, Cullen gave chase, his fingers at first holding tight to the hilt of his sword, but as they drew closer he couldn't stop the tempting urge to waft them across the tips of wheat. They shouldn't be this tall in the summer heat, he thought, then shook his head. Nothing here should make sense regardless, that was how the fade worked.

  Climbing down the gully sideways to keep from sliding down it, Cullen turned to find the picturesque farmhouse laid out before him. It wasn't a real one, where shutters draped off the sides because there wasn't time or coin to repair them, or bailing wire knotted up anything drooping or broken. It was the picturesque farm in paintings or storybooks, red as a brick with a charming stoop not crowded in muck boots and tools. Three chickens scratched along a gravel path with a single rain barrel brimming in water. A fence circled the area for seemingly no good reason; other than the chickens, no other livestock wandered around. Even the fence itself felt out of place, gleaming white despite the red dirt wafting on the breeze.

  In the middle of it all was a man swinging an axe back behind his head to split apart an ever increasing pile of firewood. By the afternoon glare, Cullen could only make out the shadow, but he had a sneaking suspicion he knew who it was. The log clattered in half, both ends crumbling to the ground and the man reached over for another.

  "Alistair!" Cullen shouted, his gait slowing until the shadow's glare faded, revealing the man who should be king. He wasn't in his royal armor, nor the pirate garb, or even his traveling splint mail. It was the outfit of every Hinterland man to ever till the earth, the tunic's sleeves rolled past his elbows, breeches patched from old quilting scraps along the knees and calves.

  Alistair wiped off his brow with his naked forearm then dropped the axe against his shoulder. "Hey! Who are...?" His sentence fell away dead as the boy jumped up out of the grass to grab onto Alistair's midsection. Chuckling, the king tossed his axe aside and yanked the boy higher in his arms.

  "Well, what have we here?" Alistair asked, shifting the boy back and forth. "A spy for Orlais, maybe? A fearsome antivan assassin sent to murder me for a famous Countess? Or are you a dangerous bandit coming to take the farm?!"

  The boy giggled with every guess, then sighed, "Da-ad!"

  Cullen's foot missed the ground and he stumbled walking closer to them, nearly falling face down into the gravel splattered with chicken shit. Shifting the boy over to the side, Alistair reached out to try and catch him.

  "Whoa, careful there," the man was nothing but smiles while Cullen steadied himself and tried to not look at the boy. Alistair gripped tight to Cullen's forearm, as if afraid he'd fall again. "Don't think I've seen you around here before. Let me guess," he licked his thumb and drug it across the boy's cheeks, who tried to bat away his father's grooming, "this little demon led you to us. What did I tell you about picking up strays?"

  "To limit it to two a week," Duncan answered.

  "Maker," Alistair cupped his hand over his so-, the boy's mouth. "Don't let your mother hear I said that. Neither of us will be able to sit down for a week."

  Duncan laughed at the empty threat, then he turned to Cullen, "Can we keep that one?"

  "Hm, I don't know. Looks kinda mangy," Alistair snickered, his eyes finally taking in Cullen, when something inside struck a dormant chord. His easy smile wilted and he blinked a few times, as if the memory cried out in the back of his head the same it had to Cullen. You know it's not real, but you don't want to believe it.

  Duncan bounced in his arms, and cried, "Dad!" It was enough to break the worrying truth and Alistair faded back into his happy bliss.

  "You're right, besides, you'll have to meet my wife. She'll kill me if I don't invite you in for dinner. Come on," he jerked his head towards the farmhouse, "it's lamb stew."

  Without waiting for Cullen to say a word, the man and his...the boy walked towards the farmhouse. Dread settled in Cullen's stomach, the almost prophetic kind whispering what he knew in his soul would be waiting inside that home, but he had to see it through. Lead filled his legs, dragging him slower and slower as he marched up the wooden steps not sagging from over a hundred years of use. Alistair pushed on the sapphire blue door, with hinges in silver, and he swung Duncan inside as the boy dangled in his arms.

  "Love," the king shouted through the room, "we're home and brought a guest!"

  Following behind him, Cullen stood rooted in the doorway and stared into the house. Cozy in the way only a young family home could be, toys were scattered in front of a rug beside the hearth -- one of them a stuffed griffin made out of burlap. Herbs hung across the lower beams Alistair ducked under as he plopped his son onto a chair at the crooked table. Another child, smaller than Duncan, sat perched on a stool. Her misshapen shoes banged against it as she put quill to parchment, doodling random ink drawings with such ferocity her tongue stuck out between tiny teeth. Alistair placed a kiss against the top of her head, then he flicked one of her pig tails. Dropping the quill immediately, she spun around and wrapped tiny arms around his neck. A noise that could be mistaken for "daddy" or perhaps "happy" slipped from her.

  "Dad, dad!" Duncan waved his hands around to snag his father's attention. Upon getting it, he grabbed onto a pair of squash left on the table and held them up to his head.

  "Oh no!" Alistair fake cried, his hands splayed out against his cheeks. "This is terrible!"

  "What is?"

  Cullen screwed his eyes up tight at that voice, the one he knew was in here but prayed wasn't. Gulping air through his mouth, his vision darted up to spot her standing behind the half opened door. Everything about her was softer by the cozy candlelight, her cheeks more rounded, her less toned arms wrapped around a pair of fluffed blankets, her hair folded back by a blue ribbon with the ends trailing down her back. It was her without the stress of command, without the years fighting darkspawn and coming out the worst for it. It was a happy, unbroken Lana.

  With eyes only for her, Alistair pointed at Duncan, "A fearsome ogre's come to attack us all."

  "Oh no," Lana fake cried, "we need a mighty grey warden to slay it." Under both of his parent's attention, Duncan gave a weak roar and wiggled his squash horns around. As if he had a sword in his hand, the king pretended to stab at his son who gave a very dramatic performance of dying on the table.

  "I see we have a guest tonight as well," Lana spoke up in the middle of Duncan's ogre death throes. Cullen shied away from her golden eyes smiling upon him. "Not
that someone felt the need to tell me," she turned a soft chastisement on her...the king.

  Alistair reached through the partition partially hiding her, slid a hand over her arm, and placed his lips against her cheek. A small part of Cullen withered from the way she leaned into it. "Forgive me, Love, but your ogre-son found him wandering the fields and thought he could use a well-cooked meal."

  "And here I thought it was your turn to cook."

  "An okay-cooked meal, then," Alistair smiled, his fingers cupping her smiling cheek. Pinching the flesh between his thumb, Cullen willed down the anger trying to rise up inside.

  "He's welcome, naturally. Please, take a seat," she spoke to him and waved at the table, but Cullen stood steadfast in the door. "You don't need to prop up the frame, I'm certain it can stand on its own."

  "I...I," Cullen twisted his head, trying to dislodge the imaginary family projected before him. "Alistair," he spoke to the man, keeping his eyes away from Lana. "This isn't right."

  "I know, you're letting all the flies in. What, were you raised in the kennels?" he smirked.

  "You know this is false. A farm is not your life, you belong on the throne of Ferelden," Cullen said, struggling to jar him out of this illusion.

  But the king had a skull as thick as a qunari's. Alistair laughed and wiped at his nose with his thumb, "Ha, right. Love, could you picture me on the throne? Ferelden would crumble to dust in a week."

  "I imagine king Cailan would be rather put off as well," Lana said.

  "King Cailan, but he's..." Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose doing everything he could to keep focused on the only real thing in the room. "You are king Alistair, married to queen Beatrice in..." Maker's breath, he didn't remember the damn year. It didn't touch him as he was in Kirkwall at the time. "That isn't your wife, these aren't your two children."