"Perhaps we should pause for a moment," Leliana's calculating eyes no doubt noticed Lana's glissando in pitch, "imbibe a few more crackers instead." Leliana waved at a garçon who panicked from her attention and scurried over. He seemed to be the only one at the establishment aware of who lurked below the hood. All the other patrons only cast a curious glance over their attire and lack of masks before turning back to the entertainment.
Lana regretfully slid her glass away before accepting a few crackers and sending them down to check on the rest of her dinner. It'd grown quiet lately in her stomach and she was getting concerned. Leliana had extended the offer to join them to Cullen, but he said that he had much yet to do and thanked her for thinking of him. At first Lana wished he'd come, but after an hour out of the apartments she was grateful for his choice. They both needed space and by the Maker did she miss getting into trouble with her old friend. The kind of trouble her stoic templar would grumble himself to death over.
Bobbing her head, Lana tried to follow the beat, when she spun fully around in her chair and gawped at the singer. While the girl couldn't be more than fifteen at most, her voice was strong and bursting through her chest instead of the nose. It wasn't the power that drew Lana but the words. "Did she just mention Cullen?"
"Ah, yes, there are a few songs in popular rotation about the Inquisition and those who served in it."
"'Stout and bright?'" Lana repeated before giggling, "He must hate that."
Leliana placed her hands over top her own glass and smirked, "I rather doubt that's the song that would bother him." Lana narrowed her eyes but Leliana only delicately tipped her glass into her mouth, her eyes closed as she savored her drink.
"Oh no, you can't release that bronto and not follow up on it. What song?"
"It's," she swirled her glass, "a rather delicate number. Relies upon the minor key, which seems strange for a...I suppose it's not entirely a love song."
"Wait, a love song? About Cullen?" She knew he had more than his fair share of attention at the ball, but to think someone was so smitten she took the time to pen a song... Or he'd broken the heart of an admirer to the point of rending a song free; the question was did that happen with or without his knowledge.
Leliana swallowed another sip and shook her head at the concern clawing up Lana's face. "It's very metaphorical, more than likely he isn't even aware it's about him. I'll send you the lyrics sometime."
Nodding her head, she planned to hold Leliana to that promise. Taking a drink of the mead on offer, then curling her nose as she remembered she hated mead, Lana sighed, "I hated all the songs about me. Okay, not that upbeat one that was all about crossing a bridge for some reason."
"That was a metaphor for death and the blight itself ravaging the world."
"Really?" Lana pinched her forehead in her hands, trying to dig up the lyrics she'd only heard a few times. For some reason bards tended to stop singing about the Hero of Ferelden the moment she stepped into a room. She'd only heard the ones penned about her second hand or from within the Vigil as she skulked around the corner. "But it was all happy and bouncy, with everyone dancing?"
"Joy in the face of disaster, a common theme in folk songs. The bridge was the blight and death waited at the end."
"Ah. I always wondered why I cut the ropes on this mythical bridge. I thought it was a commentary on how much collateral damage I caused."
Leliana snickered so hard at that, a spittle of red wine splattered against the table. After wiping off her mouth she nodded her head, "You were excellent at that, no doubt."
The Blight, her great time to shine and rise to glory, like other heroes out of myths and legends. Lana gazed down at the cane given to her by Leliana who swore it never belonged to any other Divines. She'd never be that person who killed an archdemon ever again. The others would shake their heads at her assessment when walking grew to being too much, but Lana knew in her gut that this was something she wasn't coming back from whole cloth. She wondered when the reality would finally settle in that this was her new lot and what kind of damage it would do. Perhaps she'd luck out and the darkness would pass her by for once. Maker, that'd be nice.
Coughing, Leliana poured another round of '1 part Sherry to 3 parts Merlot and whatever's left of the Gin' into Lana's glass. "Do you remember what we did right after the archdemon fell? You walked off that tower with the sun setting behind you like an angelic aura, the dragon's blood glistening in flaming fire, and everyone broke into applause."
"Right, pause, smile, wave, and then we grabbed the first bottle we could find and scampered off to let Alistair deal with the rest," Lana laughed, trying out the new mix. Her tastebuds curled inward, doing their damnedest to avoid what she washed down them, but her brain could only offer up an 'It's all right.' Yep, way too much drink for the day.
Leliana joined in the remembrance laughter before clinking her glass with Lana's. "Both of us coated in ichor, so exhausted we could barely move and so ecstatic we couldn't sleep."
"Drunk off our asses clinging to the roof of some shop that managed to miss nearly all the attack watching the sun set together." She started out smiling but a frown invaded Lana's memory. It'd seemed a simple victory at the time. They'd won. The monster was destroyed, the world saved. They deserved it. She had no way of knowing the storms lurking on the horizon.
Seeming to share the same thought, Leliana stared into her glass but didn't drink any. Instead, she inched closer, "We spoke of many things that night. Foolish, simple things and others...not as such. Lanny, I asked you something, something I hoped you'd been truthful about, but..."
Sobriety raced through Lana's veins at the look pinching together Leliana's porcelain forehead. She sat up higher, dragging her chair closer to the table and her friend. "I can't, what was it?"
"You were smarting, you wouldn't admit it to anyone in the face of the blight, I know, but I was worried for you," Leliana's pale hand grabbed hers and the answer flooded back to Lana. Cursing under her breath, she turned her head away, unable to look at Leliana. "I asked if you loved Alistair, and you said you didn't. That you were over him."
"Leliana, I'm...I thought I was, convinced myself that I could shut it off as easily as he did," Lana snorted as she realized that in fact she could, which was to say not at all for either of them. "But, you're right, I hadn't moved on past the anger, and the hurt, and, yes, the love for awhile. A few years at least."
"What of Seheron then?"
"I knew it," Lana leaned back, yanking her hand free, "I knew eventually, somehow you'd get around to chastising me for that. Shit, it's probably why the fade didn't kill me. The Maker moved a mountain so Leliana could look me in the eye, shake her head and sigh 'why'd you take up with him again?'"
Leliana thrummed her fingers on the table a few times before glancing up, "Are you finished?"
"No, but you know the rest, so why keep going."
"Lanny, it's a damn good question, one you need to ask yourself given mitigating circumstances..."
"'Mitigating circumstances?' You can say his name. I know it, you know it. Why in the void didn't you call me out on this back at Skyhold?" she asked while folding her arms tight as she felt the wintery air slipping through her alcoholic cocoon.
"Because you were in pain," her stark words struck at Lana, her grumbling hands falling slack. "You found comfort, it was understandable in the trying times, and it could easily be replaced by something else later should the need arise. But now..."
Pain was an understatement. She ran from it across all of thedas, through the deeproads itself and right into Cullen's arms. Never pausing, never grieving for all that she'd lost because she feared she'd never come back from it. But trapped in the fade, with a regret spirit clinging to her like a leech, grieving was all she had. It felt as if for the first year, when she wasn't slaying demons or slaughtering spiders for food, she was crying a million held back tears, the dam finally breaking free.
"Lanny," Leliana pulled her attention fro
m out of her navel, "do you, and please be honest, do you love Alistair? No, don't scoff, don't roll your eyes. You've had to have thought about this."
"Yes, I have thought about it. Weighed it out and...no, I don't, not romantically. I, I'm not certain if I really did when I joined him to find his father. We were lonely, both of us needing something to cling to, someone to make the darkness go away for awhile. He's, he's always been a good friend." Lana paused and snickered at that thought, "A surprisingly good friend and a so wrong lover."
"And when he helped to rescue you from the fade, you felt nothing for him?"
"What?" she scoffed at that, rolling her eyes. "Leliana, give me some credit. I'm not a protagonist in one of those folk songs. It takes a bit more than rousing me from my two year long slumber to weasel back into my heart."
"So, your relationship with Cullen is..."
"I, I love him," Lana winced at the confession. It was the first time she'd told anyone other than him, but Leliana didn't lift her eyebrows in shock, she didn't even pause in reaching for her drink.
At Lana's stare, she did throw out a cursory, "I was aware," before taking a long swig. "In fact, it seemed rather obvious at Skyhold."
"I, but...I only arrived at that conclusion while, a few months ago in the fade after I'd had my brain shredded apart by demons and...you knew? The whole damn time?"
Leliana flinched at her mentioning demons, but she chuckled at Lana now and patted her hand affectionately, "You tend to wear your heart in your face and when someone has it, it's as if the Maker's shone a light just upon you."
"Oh," she had no response to that, but Lana felt an urge to slap a mask over herself to try and hide something so obvious to everyone else but herself.
"What are the Commander's thoughts on Alistair?"
"He'll grumble a lot, maybe snort if he's in a mood, but holds his tongue from any of the good curse words. A 'Maker, I...' or 'That man's a total...' That's about it."
Leliana lifted an eyebrow and shook her head, her hood slipping lower, "I meant about you keeping a friendship with the king."
"What, you think Cullen's the type to go around making demands about who I can and cannot befriend? He hasn't said a word against it. And before you raise your judgmental finger at me, yes, he knows I don't love Alistair and that it's dead, done, never again. We did all travel together for a few weeks which was long, and exhausting."
"Too many men in one place can have that effect," Leliana said, her sage words deserving of another drink.
"I get it, okay. It's all complicated and my history isn't easy on anyone, but Cullen's not anyone. He's..." she folded her hands as if in prayer and pressed them to her lips. He'd hold her all night if she needed it, trek through a storm to get her a single supply she wanted, and looked at her as if he'd never seen another woman before. Blinking from the thought, Lana returned to reality and said instead, "special. He's special."
Leliana lifted her glass in a toast and Lana obliged her. "To thespecial commander," Leliana smirked before taking a long drink.
Lana glared at her, "You're the worst," before she broke into a soft laugh of her own at the sneer that special would have gotten from him.
"So," Leliana picked up the last bottle and dolled it out, "tell me all about your trip with him into the deeproads, and I want details. Exact details."
***
After Leliana suggested they try nailing someone's small clothes to the chantry board, Lana knew it was time to turn in. They'd switched to watered down wine in the interim, while their topics of conversation mercifully broke away from her love life to less interesting subjects such as the current Grand Clerics giving the beloved Divine a headache. Whenever Leliana's eyes glazed over and her impish smile returned, Lana would steer her right back into political matters. It seemed about the only way she could hope to save face and keep her tongue from answering Leliana's far too personal questions.
The Divine helped her friend up the winding stairs that Lana was coming to despise the few times she risked venturing down them. Baring her weight without question, Leliana took most of it while her cane handled the rest. Out of sight of the other patrons and citizens of Val Royeaux, Lana curled magic around her legs to try and strengthen them but in either her inebriated state or the rising exhaustion it barely took. At least the drink wiped some of the pain away.
"Why are there so many blighted stairs in this place?" Lana cursed.
"To be closer to the Maker," Leliana answered with such conviction Lana paused and turned to her.
"You can't be serious."
"Of course not," Leliana laughed. "One Divine needed to prove she was better than a previous, so she'd build a grander floor above the last. Repeat that enough times and it's a wonder the Grand Cathedral doesn't butt up against the edge of the sky." Lana snickered at the simplicity of it. Even when answering a higher calling some matters of human nature never changed. She spotted the door to her apartment up ahead, and began to shift her weight to the cane.
"Your Most Holy!"
Both Leliana and Lana groaned at the toady voice lilting from behind them. Releasing her grip fully on Lana, Leliana turned to face whoever it was while Lana balanced her weight. Over her shoulder she caught sight of a young face buried beneath a chantry hood and she was surprised to find it was male. Leliana seemed neither impressed nor shocked at the turn of events, only folded her arms and waited.
"It is good to see your return after some time away," the man gasped for breath as if he spotted the pair of them from clear across the cathedral and ran the full way up the stairs to catch them. "We were growing concerned that perhaps guards should have been sent..."
"I can handle myself," Leliana interrupted. "This is Val Royeaux not the reckless Kokari wilds." Shaking out her red hair from under the hood, Leliana ran her fingers through it and sighed, "If you will give me a moment I would like to..."
"There is a matter that requires your attention," the man interrupted, then tacked on a, "Your Perfection."
"A matter, at this late hour?" she groaned again, before turning to Lana.
Unable to slide the smile off her face, Lana shrugged, "Sounds as if you best be getting to it."
"What of...?"
"I think I can manage the five feet to my door on my own," Lana leaned her uncooperative body forward and gripped onto her friend's hand, "Thank you for the dinner. It was a good time."
Leliana's smile brightened and she bowed her head slightly, "It was, and I shall be certain to think of a repeat." The Divine turned to her toady to wave him on but not before he shot a judgmental look Lana's way. While Leliana and the underling crossed back down the stairs, confusion wrapped around Lana's brain at the near on glare she received. Why would anyone care if...oh. She snickered behind her hands as she limped towards the door. Jealousy was bound to occur, especially with all the attention the Divine seemed to be heaping upon a no one out of the cold, but, Maker, that was hilarious to consider.
She pushed open the door to find the lights across the foyer dimmed nearly beyond sight. Only a gentle flicker of firelight undulated from the hearth beyond. The rest of the apartment was bathed in a comforting indigo wash. It struck her as unlikely that Cullen would be out; he could while away the early hours of the morning wandering the streets for Honor's sake but she found it hard to believe he'd step foot away from his desk once the sun set. Lana slid into the darkened room softly and spotted Honor asleep on the divan she wasn't supposed to be on. With the natural dog sense to always know when someone moves in a room, her eyes opened and she lifted her head up -- prepared to acquiesce to the rules of the house -- but Lana waved her hand. She didn't have the heart to chase the dog away. Honor's stub rapped against the cushions thrice before her head plummeted down and she fell back to sleep.
If the dog was here, so was Cullen. Perhaps asleep? He'd been rather flustered and irritated during the day as he chased down a few different messengers all baring varying instructions that kept getting mired in burea
ucratic confusion. Sleep would probably do him good.
Lana slid her cloak off her shoulders and draped it upon the breakfast table. She knew there was a hook somewhere, but in the dim light any attempts would wind up with it splayed on the floor and no hope for her to pick it back up. Placing down her cane as softly as she could, she inched towards the bedroom. Her hand spread across the door, and she moved to push it open, when a guttural groan emerged from the back room serving as their standing office. "Cul..." Lana began before falling silent. If it was him, she had nothing to worry. If it wasn't, why give the trespasser ample warning?
Threading apart the veil, Lana wrapped her body in a barrier for protection as she eased down the narrow hall. It'd been too long since she'd cast such a spell, at least outside of her mind's trap inside the fade. The mana hissed from her fumbling attempts and burned across her fingers like acid. She had been casting too much lately, tomorrow would have to be a break from it all. Tonight, well, there may be an intruder to freeze solid.
Lana flattened against the wall when another groan echoed from the small office. Lifting up an ice spell around her fist, she twisted silently into the office and her body froze. Cullen sat in the chair behind the desk, his eyes screwed up tight and those golden curls tossed back, while his hand jerked up and down in his lap. By the barely existent light, Lana couldn't see much of anything, but her imagination raced to fill in the rest -- his strong fingers wrapped around his cock, sliding up and down slowly at first while he moaned from the connate pleasure rippling through him. She wrapped her hand over her mouth to keep from making a sound. One part of her brain screamed at her to get out but the rest was driven by a deadly combination of lust and curiosity. This was a far more enticing scene than she'd have thought imaginable.
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