My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  * * *

  She was all smiles and laughs as they rode through the snowy streets of Val Royeaux clinging to a sled drawn by the Divine's personal hart, but as Lana drew closer to the door a dread settled in her stomach she couldn't shake. Leliana nudged her a few times insisting it would be fine, but the words buzzed like mosquitoes in her ear, the blood pounding through her brain from a panic crawling inside. She hadn't had to worry about people judging her before, people she needed to impress because they might slot into her life.

  Before preparing to return to her work, Leliana extended a hand. Taking it, Lana threw up a forced smile, "Should we kiss goodbye, darling?"

  Leliana chuckled, "It's all right, perhaps better to save it for an audience when the vultures are growing particularly thick."

  Dropping her hand, Lana waved once at the Divine's form retreating back down the stairs. She wrung her fingers over the handle of her cane, trying to draw forth the energy from it to crack open the door and face whatever waited before her. Lifting her head back, she moved to grab onto the handle when the door opened of its own accord and Cullen stood in the way. He blinked for a moment, his frown blossoming into a smile as his eyes darted over her.

  "You're back," he said, before turning around and sighing at Honor, "It's only Lana. Will you cease that whining? She began barking and dancing at some sound, I assume it was you and Leliana walking up the stairs."

  Lana chuckled at the mabari's honed senses. At least they'd have some warning if an angry mob ever tried to storm to their little apartment. Sliding his fingers against her cheek chilled from the winter winds, Cullen cupped both to add his own warmth before guiding himself in for a kiss. The anxiety knotted in her innards flitted away from the press of his lips and Lana returned it happily. She felt serene and at peace, until her eyes darted away from him to find Mia sitting on the divan.

  "How did it go?" Cullen asked, stepping backwards to give Lana room to enter.

  "Oh, about what you'd expect," she tugged at her cloak, unclasping it with one hand, and turning to try and toss it over the hook. "Fairly certain Leliana gave a poor man a heart attack."

  "On purpose or..."

  She smiled at that, "It's hard to say with her."

  "Indeed, and you missed a lot of her turn as a spymaster."

  "You missed her time as the Left Hand. There were more than a few of her letters I had to burn the moment after I read them," Lana reached down to cup her fingers in his hand. Squeezing tight, she drew strength and so much more through him. Maker knew she was going to need it.

  Mia rose off the couch and by the steel in her spine and set to her jaw Lana spotted the family resemblance. Softer in the face than her brother, they both bore the commanding presence that could lead nations if pressed upon. Her hair was brassier than Cullen's and braided into sections twisted around her head. She was a few inches shorter in comparison but stood far higher than Lana. Not that that was difficult to achieve for anyone other than dwarves. She even knew a few elves who stood inches or more above her.

  "Things, uh, started out a bit awkward," Cullen spoke watching the two women slowly approach each other.

  Mia blinked twice and then turned her head, "If you're the Hero of Ferelden..."

  "Oh, not this again," Cullen scoffed. His sister glared at him for interrupting.

  "If you will let me finish," she groaned at him before turning to Lana, "do you remember the time you interceded in the small village of Honnleath?"

  Lana couldn't stop the smile, that memory vibrant, "Of course, when I met Shale."

  "Shale?" Cullen asked.

  "Ah, she was the statue in the square. Turned out to be a golem. Which reminds me, I should try and find her before she does any real harm to an indigenous bird population."

  "It was a she?" Mia asked, her eyes opening wider.

  "That is...a rather long story," Lana danced around it all. First meetings didn't seem the time to go into golems, living paragons trapped in the body of one, broodmothers, and the whole Branka mess. Perhaps over Satinalia dinner instead. "Was that all you wanted to ask me?"

  "No, no, I...when you slaughtered the darkspawn that infested the town and freed the people, my sister - our sister - was one of them."

  "Oh," Lana touched her chest, "I had no idea."

  "Wait, what was Delilah doing in town?" Cullen interrupted.

  Mia rolled her eyes, "She had a deep fascination with the, Maker I can't remember his name, the drippy one whose face looked more like a sick crow's. You know who I mean."

  "No, I have no idea..." Cullen curled up his nose before turning to Lana, "And you rescued them? How had I never heard of this?"

  "Perhaps because you never answer your blighted letters?" Mia interrupted, her arms crossing her chest, "I know I told you about Delilah's ordeal, Maker it was all we heard about for weeks. And then after we learned it wasn't just any warden but the great Hero of Ferelden who saved her it became a damn near constant."

  "You don't need to thank me," Lana intercepted between the sibling argument. "It was a long time ago."

  "Even so, you took the time in the middle of a blight to rescue people you didn't know. Apparently had no reason to know," her shrewd eyes danced over Cullen and Lana wondered just how much of their past the two had talked about while she was out. "Thank you. If Del was here she'd...blather on for twenty minutes and then thank you."

  "I..." she'd had this happen before, people approaching her with arms extended wanting to hug their savior. Sometimes people thanked her for things she didn't even do, other less famous fighters having slaughtered the darkspawn, but trying to correct them only upset people more so she had to stay quiet. Lana felt a blush curling up her neck and she rocked back and forth on her heels, "You're welcome, but I was just doing my job."

  "Aren't we all?" Mia said. "Oh, and one more thing, when you were in Honnleath, did the King of Ferelden come with?"

  "Mia, why are you even...?"

  "Quiet, it's important," she hissed.

  Lana glanced up at the ceiling to think. She remembered Shale rising to life, the demon cat, and...oh yes, Alistair was there. He'd thrown a slightly smaller fit about the golem joining them than he had over Zev. And it wasn't as if Shale ever hit on her...or him. Smiling, Lana bobbed her head, "Yes, he was there."

  "Damn," Mia cursed, snapping Lana's attention to her. In an explanation, Mia turned to her brother, "Delilah's been going on and on about how she saw the King before he ever took the crown, all proud of herself. We thought it was another one of her exaggerations but Maker, we will never hear the end of it now."

  "In your defense, I rather doubt he acted very kingly at the time," Lana said.

  "If ever," Cullen grumbled under his breath. She reached over to hold only his cheek and smooth away the worry lines, when Lana felt the curious prick of his sister's stare. It didn't seem judgmental, only curious, very curious. Lana's fingers plummeted away and remained locked at her side. The most apparently pressing question answered, silence fell into the room, one which none wanted to pierce for fear of what could fall out.

  "Perhaps I should..." Lana began when the apartment door cracked open louder than usual and an almost harried Detan appeared.

  "Commander," she bowed her head and he returned it.

  "Do not tell me more of my family's appeared," he grumbled, crossing his arms.

  "No Ser, but you should come with me. There is a matter that requires your attention now and...I-I," her steel eyes bounced around the room as if hoping someone would offer her salvation. "I don't know what to do about the druffalo!"

  "Druffalo? What in the...?" Cullen's head slopped forward, the exhaustion evident. "Are there not any, no, of course not. What would the chantry know of corralling a druffalo?" He clawed at his head, then risked a glance from the panicked elf to his sister and then Lana. "I fear I should attend to this, but..."

  "Maker's sake, stop making such a blight out of this. Head on down there and do whatever you have to. We
'll be fine," Mia insisted, jabbing out her chin.

  Lana wished she felt the same confidence his sister did, but then she was the one holding all the cards. The best Lana had was a joker and a two of cups. Her eyes darted over to Cullen and he seemed to catch the panic rising in them. Reaching out, his fingers crested around hers and gripped tight. He leaned near her and whispered, "I promise it won't be more than a half hour."

  She wanted to assure him she'd be fine, that it was all for nothing, but fear knotted her tongue. All Lana could do was nod once and try to not bite her lip. Releasing her hand, Cullen dug through his hair once more before trailing after Detan and asking all the questions he could about this rampaging druffalo. As the door closed, Lana tried to not imagine she was just trapped in a room with an ogre who was lofting a boulder to crush her head. The silence tripled in strength, beating its hollow notes against them both as they tried to make occasional eye contact and then glance away.

  Exhaustion from her day rattled up Lana's legs and she realized if she didn't sit soon, someone would have to be picking her up off the floor. "If you don't mind, I need to rest on the sofa," she said while sliding towards it. Honor perked up and leapt out of the way, giving her a clear path to crash onto the cushions. Gliding back with the dog, Mia watched for a moment before placing her backside onto the gilded chair Cullen hauled over their first day in the apartments.

  Lana began to dip into the fade, when her fingers paused. The tendrils of magic shook off her hands as she glanced over at the guest who'd probably never seen much casting in her life. Lana was doing a great job at hiding her true nature.

  Swiping once at her nose, Mia adjusted in her seat, "I suppose I should say something to you." Oh Maker. Lana tried to bury the rise of anxiety burning through her veins. She reached down to blindly pet Honor, getting a handful of slobber for her effort. "I'm sorry, for rushing in here with the accusations I had."

  Wait. What? Lana turned over to Mia to find her eyes cast down as she glared at her hands. "We hadn't heard from him in some time and then out of the blue rumors are flying about the Commander of the Inquisition sequestered away in Val Royeaux with a mystery woman."

  Rumors? Mystery woman? Maker, was this more of Leliana's doing or did Orlais truly have nothing else to speak of?

  "I admit, none of that sounded anything like my brother, and I may have, no, I overreacted. For which I apologize," her eyes darted up to Lana.

  Smiling, Lana bobbed her head, "It's accepted, and I can understand your reaction. Given the limited information, it doesn't seem like something Cullen would do. Much less remaining in Val Royeaux not under duress. Andraste, the complaints from his lips every time he returns from having to walk the market..."

  "I'm surprised he hasn't gotten into a few fist fights along the way," Mia chuckled softly.

  "There's a good possibility he does and will not tell me," Lana said, still upset about how he wouldn't elaborate on his fight with Alistair.

  "That sounds like my brother," Mia massaged her head, digging in furrows across her forehead similar to Cullen's. "I admit, this is all a bit..."

  "Strange?"

  "Surprising. In that my brother is in love, seeming to be madly in love with...well, you. A hero, a grey warden."

  "A mage," Lana sighed, always aware of what people thought of their pairing.

  "That's perhaps the least surprising part of all," Mia said, which caught Lana's attention, but she didn't elaborate. Mia scrunched up her face and shook her head, "In all his letters home from Skyhold he never once mentioned you, even the one after you die- Fell?"

  "Into the fade," she explained, her voice blank.

  "All that time and there was nothing, as if he wasn't in mourning," Mia twisted her head at Cullen's choices, then she paused and guilty eyes darted up to Lana.

  "I...we both decided to keep our relationship under wraps, at least as long as the threat of Corypheus remained. My being who I was, and his being who he is, if people knew they could jump to certain conclusions and then..."

  "They'd think Ferelden or the Wardens were planning on taking over the Inquisition," Mia said.

  "Or the mages, or Amaranthine, or...Maker, I'm too many people," she sighed which earned a quick snort from Mia.

  "You're really her?" Mia glanced up and down Lana, no doubt sizing up the tiny mage tossed back in pain against the couch, "The great stopper of the blight, savior of thedas?"

  Lana bobbed her head, "I'm afraid so. Never what anyone's expecting and there are more than a few Arl's and Bann's that can quote me on that."

  Snickering at that, Mia adjusted herself in the hard chair, then crossed her legs. She wore trousers which made her stand out in the chantry see of robes, thick and padded to deal with the full winter of Ferelden. Somehow the true winds Lana expected, the cold bitter enough to freeze your hair to a brittle breaking point, never touched here. At least not yet. She kept waiting for a real storm to land. Looking at Mia, a curious feeling swarmed through Lana's gut and she started realizing it was homesickness. Not for the tower, or even the Vigil, but Ferelden itself. To be surrounded by barking dogs instead of the lap rats they had here, to smell crisp winds even in the height of summer, and to gaze out at the knotted cliffs and waving grasses. She missed it more than she ever thought possible.

  "Why Cullen?"

  Lana blinked a few times, dragging herself from her flight of fancy. "Beg pardon?"

  "I can get why some of the gigglier specimens in Orlais think chasing down a Ferelden Commander would be fun. No doubt they imagine we're all secret Avar barbarians who'll toss them over their shoulders for conquering on bearskin rugs," Mia rolled her eyes at Orlesian stereotypes which were rather accurate. "But you're a Commander yourself, a...shit, you're an Arlessa, aren't you?" Lana nodded and bit her lip. "You could command the attention of people with real titles, land. Why my brother?"

  Lana turned her frustrated sigh into a forced smile. She was tired of having to explain what seemed obvious to her, but perhaps family needed to know. "I'm technically as much of a no one as Cullen. My family is...there is no title passed down. I'm a mage, nothing to claim. A Warden, much the same. And..." Maker, why was this so hard? She felt she had to chose her words carefully, to prove she wasn't in it for-for what? A shot at infiltrating the Inquisition? At Cullen's power? Bragging rights?

  Dropped her eyes to her lap, Lana watched her fingers thread through each other. With a steady voice, she laid out the truth, the full of it, "I had the worst crush on Cullen when I was an apprentice. Giggled like a braying mule near him, would try and find elaborate ways to talk to him, to, Maker help me, just stand near him. It never went anywhere, not in the tower, not when we were so opposed. I never thought it would go anywhere, then the world upended itself."

  She twisted her hand over the solitary ring upon her middle finger, the band enchanted to increase her magic. In truth, the enchantment ran out ages ago. She wore it now because it was familiar and she liked the blue stones embedded deep within. Lana had a habit of holding onto things she loved beyond reason. "We found each other again, years after the blight, after we'd both changed from the war, from command itself I suppose."

  "At Skyhold?" Mia asked, and Lana looked over at her for a moment.

  "No, it was a few years before that. He was still with the templars and I a warden. I needed him to help with...a warden matter. Cullen didn't need to volunteer but he came, and we, well, reached out to each other. It was foolish, both of us knowing that nothing would ever come of it as we belonged to organizations above and beyond us, but...I don't regret it now and I didn't then."

  "I...see," Mia leaned back, her fingers curled around her chin in contemplation. Whatever she was thinking was beyond Lana, who felt herself clinging by strands to make sense of any of this. What she needed was a book on navigating relationships to guide her, though it was doubtful there'd be a chapter called: So Your Dead Lover Is Back From The Grave And She Was Once Intimate With The King.

  After
a moment, Mia's fingers dropped and she glanced over at her, "I'm afraid that I know little about you, beyond the..."

  "Rumors?" Lana sighed, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the glint of her plant happily consuming the sunbeams through the stained glass heart of Andraste. "I know some of them. There's the one that I'm a blood mage. Not true, for obvious reasons. That I'm the power behind the throne in Ferelden. Also not true, it was bad enough trying to keep an Arling in line."

  "What of the King?"

  Lana's half hearted smile crashed at Mia's innocuous question. She drug her head down and turned to the woman wearing a curious look on her face. Sweet Maker, did Cullen tell her about Alistair? Would he? Lana's brain scrambled to make any sense of the quagmire she walked herself into. "We were together before he took up the crown, but the moment he did it...we stopped being involved." A truth, of sorts. They could save the full of it for breakfast during First Day.

  Mia scooted forward a bit, her face unreadable. Tapping her fingers a few more times against her mouth, she rolled her tongue in her mouth before speaking. "What's he like?"

  "Alistair?" Lana snorted, "Did you ask your brother his opinion?"

  "No," Mia shook her head, "should I?"

  "You won't get much of an answer but it's rather entertaining to watch. Ah, Alistair is light hearted. He's a butterfly wafting over the grass, little touches him, but the things that do send him crashing to the dirt."

  "I hear he's funny," she seemed enthralled with gossiping about royalty.

  "To some people, he is. To others he's as trying as a rash. I am the former, but even to me his jokes could grate from time to time. Sweet, airy, and he cares to a dangerous degree sometimes."

  Mia nodded along with each piece of information as if she was writing it all down for a book. As Lana fell to silence, uncertain what to say next, Mia's eyes darted up. "And what of my brother?"

  "Cullen's the most determined person I've ever met. He makes me feel stronger, safer, more at ease. Each of his rare smiles blossoms inside of my veins, warming me, sometimes for hours after. And Maker, I could watch him move about all day," Lana mused to herself, thinking of the last time she held him in her arms.