My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Shaking his head, Cullen hoisted the tray up higher, "No. I wish there was, but..." He screwed his eyes tight from his tongue taking command. No one else needed to know of her struggles, not now. "Thank you for your help," he said instead.

  "Of course," Detan bowed deep before sliding towards the door and to no doubt run down a dozen messengers.

  Lifting the tray higher than his muscles wanted, Cullen tried to put on a smile but it refused to take, "Lana, are you hungry?" Her head raised up and she glanced once over the options before shrugging. "You need to eat, it's been...a very long day," he groaned. Maker, he wasn't cut out for this. He had a temper, a spiteful one that could rear up at the worst times. There was little tenderness mixed into his blood, not when he sat upon the edge himself. Cullen made for the worst nursemaid imaginable and somehow he was the only hope she had. It seemed a cruel joke.

  After sliding the tray upon the short coffee table beside Lana's chair, Cullen bent his legs and collapsed onto the footstool. He'd meant to hit a chair, but it didn't matter. It got him off his feet. Exhaustion claimed its prize fast, climbing up his limbs that'd been knotted up tight for over six hours now. Unable to lean back while holding her, he had to sit upright for hours to prop Lana up, which chewed through his lower back. When Leliana left to handle something important, Cullen took to racing through the foreign apartments to find anything Lana might need. In his haste, he stumbled across a few of the Divine's secrets hidden inside drawers he never should have opened. It would have scared his cheeks in embarrassment but he was beyond feeling much of anything in his state. Now his body sagged as if he'd climbed through the Arbor Wilds again, drained of everything inside of him.

  How could he be strong enough for her? She faced, Maker, he barely knew what in the fade. His brief moment nearly scooped out his heart from his chest, and she was in there for two years. Alone, abandoned, with only spirits to talk to. Spirits that seemed to torment her the way blood mages plucked him apart. Lana needed someone with an iron arm who could stand for days without tiring, who didn't face exhaustion at the hands of his depleted veins crying out for lyrium. She needed someone...

  A warm hand rolled over his, pulling him out of his maudlin turn. He didn't realize he'd crumpled into his lap until Cullen sat up, blood rushing to his cheeks and brain. Lana didn't look at him, her stricken eyes hovering through the floor, but she gripped tighter, her fingers trying to knot around his as she yearned to anchor to him. Returning it, he gripped tight and then covered her hand with his second one.

  She needed him, and any doubt on his part was foolish.

  Lana's free fingers drifted over the tray. Pulling up a few of the cookies, she passed one to Cullen first. "No, you should..." he began before she nudged it hard enough into his fist to break a small section off. Crumbs littered the ground, drawing Honor's attention from across the room. The dog sat vigil ever since they trekked up to the strange apartment, scared to touch or look at anything. Like she was wiggling below a nest of thorns, Honor crawled upon her belly across the floor and below the footstool's legs. Her muscular front legs snagged upon the tight fit and with a great stretch, she lapped her pink and black tongue out to reach for the scattered crumbs.

  "Silly girl," Lana mumbled. Her voice was hoarse and whisper quiet, but when Cullen snapped his head up at it, there was a hint of a smile upon her face. Maker, it was eight hours of sleep and a four course meal to his soul to see even a moment of levity in Lana.

  Accepting the cookie from her slack fingers, he took a great bite and was surprised to find them rather simple and not too sweet. "These aren't half bad," Cullen said, chewing through his words.

  Lana's wary eyes rolled over to his as she took a bite of the second biscuit. Her teeth bit down slowly, savoring each chew before she swallowed prominently. After a moment she sighed, "I should have known you'd love it, seeing as how you hate all things sweet."

  "Not all things..." he began to defend himself when he watched that half smile flit about her face. She was fighting to find her old self buried under all the pain and self hatred. "You're right, I am stone, hate everything bright and sweet in the world."

  "Really? Everything?"

  "Sunshine makes me rear back and hiss," he said, his tone so certain it lifted the other half of her smile up. "A baby's laugh is like a cat scream in my ears."

  Lana snorted once, her fingers splayed out across her lap. After watching her hands for a time, she asked, "What about glitter?"

  "No one likes glitter," Cullen said, meaning every word.

  "I dunno, Dagna could do some pretty things with it," Lana sighed, her head tipping back and forth.

  "Ah yes, like the time she and Sera managed to fill an entire barrel with the stuff, stick it inside a trebuchet then launch it right into the walls of Skyhold."

  Lana blinked rapidly. For the first time her head lifted and her eyes focused into his. "You're...you're lying?"

  He groaned and threw his head back, "After their glitter bomb nearly shattered a window and splattered pink and purple sparkles across an entire tower, the winds picked it up and blew half back across the courtyard. I was picking it out of my scruff for two weeks."

  She chuckled, the laugh barely audible as she gave it no breath, but it was there. Cullen wanted to reach over, tug her into his arms, and hold her as he described the great glitter attack in fine details. But Lana hung upon such a narrow thread he settled for gripping onto her hand instead. Holding tight, she bounced their joined hands together up and down, watching both their muscles contract and relax.

  "I'm sorry," she began.

  "Lana, you don't have to apologize for the fire."

  "No, not that," her eyes bored into their joined hands. "I mean, I am sorry for it, but... What I said earlier, about you and-and what happened in Kirkwall."

  Cullen sucked in a breath. He'd been doing his best to not think about what her words stirred up in him, how ashamed he felt and regretful, the ghost of repentance haunting his every move. "It was true," he said, accepting that he deserved to be reminded of the pain he caused, perhaps daily. A shame that should never blot away.

  But Lana whipped her head back and forth, "That doesn't matter. I shouldn't have said it, ever. It's..." Her broken brown eyes drifted up to him, "it's not fair for me to throw that around against you, and I, forgive me, please."

  "You were in pain," he said.

  "Still am," she admitted, her free hand cupping her head.

  "Lana, do you...do you still wish to be--"

  "No," she shook her head, "I don't think so. I...it's in there. That...threat? Fact? The mages used to use it sometimes, some enchanters would threaten us with it. 'If you don't learn how to channel your mana they're gonna take a poker to your skull and burn your emotions out of you.' To try and push us to do our homework, or when they were frustrated. Always there, at any time it could fall upon you. I never realized how often I absorbed that until..."

  "You never know how messed up your world is until you meet someone who isn't," Cullen sighed, his thumb and forefinger pinching into his eyes. She tugged on his hand, and he felt her looking a question at him. Pulling his fingers away, Cullen stared at the reflection in the silver tray. The warped metal revealed a man beseeched with wrinkles, frown and scowl lines permeant, and his head pinched inward as if all the horrors inside his brain finally sucked him dry.

  "After Kirkwall...fell, after the chantry fell, I... Some of the other circles sent templars to assist early on. I'd meet with them, not much, there needed to be orders given and someone decided it should be me."

  "I know how that goes," she sighed, her thumb rubbing the back of his hand. Maker, he loved when she did that. It was one of her little gestures that he'd wake aching for after she died almost as much as a kiss or embrace.

  Burying his head lower, Cullen watched the warped and broken man speaking his tale in the reflection, "There wasn't much time for getting to know everyone, but people needed a break between the work and levity was
bound to happen. I was speaking with another Knight-Captain, a good woman from Nevarra. She was always smiling, even after twelve hours of shifting rubble. We got onto the subject of contraband and the strangest things we'd catch mages try to sneak in."

  Cullen shook his head, the scent of charred flesh rising from memory to fill his nostrils. Kirkwall stank of it for weeks after it fell, mages turning their fire on all who got in the way. "She spoke of it all as a laugh. I can't remember what all she mentioned but with each listing of found contraband as if they were little more than a harmless prank I kept thinking, 'We'd have branded someone for that. They'd have been tossed into the hole, never allowed outside.'"

  Hands wrapped around from his side, and he started from his depths to find Lana had slipped out of her chair to hug tight around him. She buried her face into his shirt, her sweet fingers locking him in as he told her the darkest depths of his heart. "The others, the templars loaned to us, they laughed too at the list, added their own and I stood dumbstruck, unable to face up to how far we'd lost our way. How far we...how far I'd fallen." He glanced over at the face in the tray, tears streaming down cheeks and utter heartbreak in the eyes.

  Against all common sense, the mage continued to hug him, the man who'd done countless horrors to her own kind. He could see it all in her, the wear the circle placed upon her mind, what the threat of the rite of tranquility did to her even years away from the circle. And how many mages did he do the same to? How many did he torture without meaning to? "Lana," he moaned, biting down on his lip to try and suck back in the tears. This wasn't supposed to happen, he wasn't meant to break down, not now. She needed him.

  But Lana rose from her knees, her face lifting off of him. Gently, she wiped her thumb across his cheeks and knotted her hands around the back of his neck. Pulling his forehead to hers, she breathed deep and held the breath. He watched her lips softly mime a count of five before she released it. Threading his limp hands around her waist, he began to match her, trying to chase this imaginary calm people talked about by breathing as deep as his lungs allowed. They stayed like that, pressed together at the forehead and filling their bodies with air for what felt like forever.

  "Ah!" Lana cried out suddenly. Cullen's eyes flew open terrified to find her in pain but a laugh broke up her features instead. She shouted again, her hands breaking from his neck to bat at the dog's tongue trying to lick up the crumbs scattered in the folds of the robe. "Honor! Silly puppy..." shaking her head, the laugh faded into tears almost instantly.

  "Will you keep me from hurting other people?" she asked. A deadly seriousness cut through her watering brown eyes.

  "Lana, I..."

  "I know, you love me, you don't think I would ever hurt anyone, but right now I don't need to hear from Cullen. I need the templar. The one I recruited to-to finish the job I couldn't. Because what's inside of me, it...it scares me sometimes and you, you're the only... You have my permission to drain my mana when necessary. To cancel any spells that grow out of hand or...or anything else to stop me."

  She whispered the last part, her eyes trailing down to the rug and he understood what she meant by anything else. "Lana," he swallowed deep, "I can use a mana cleanse against you, I may even be able to restrain you should it be necessary," he gulped that last part, still struggling to come to terms with the idea. "But..." Cullen screwed up his eyes and beat back the eternal torment roiling in his gut to get the last words out, "I can never kill you."

  He hated that he had to say it, that it was ever a possibility, but she had a right to think it, to fear it. What he'd done, could have done to her or any mage... Lana's fingers graced over his chest as she tugged her cheek to him for a hug. "Understood," she said.

  "You, you believe me?" he stuttered in surprise.

  "With my whole heart," she said, placing her cheek above his pounding heart. He couldn't do it, not even if she was possessed. The King wondered often from him, his questions getting nothing more than a glower as answer from Cullen, but he couldn't stop them from floating back to it at night. Every time he asked himself if he could, the answer always came back no. As long as there was even a crumb of hope, he'd cling to it, as he always did.

  "Lana, I'm...what I've done is unforgivable," he gulped, terrified that in his exhausted and raw state he did what he begged the Maker to never have happen and ruined his one chance at happiness.

  She sighed and lifted her head, "Do you find me reprehensible?"

  "No."

  "Even though I nearly burned down the Grand Cathedral, even knowing the terrors lurking inside of me, even if I can't handle my power between the sleeping and waking world as if I'm some child wetting the bed. Knowing all that, can you ever look upon me again?"

  Locking his palms tight against her cheek, he pulled Lana up to face him and lost himself in her endless eyes. "I can never stop looking at you."

  Her lids slipped closed and a whisper of a smile floated upon her lips. "That's how I feel about you."

  "Blessed Andraste," Cullen gasped, clinging to such a simple answer. She looked about to explain, but none was necessary. Instead, he tugged her tight to his chest, his lips peppering the top of her head in kisses. Lana melted into him, her own face brushing against his shirt as she murmured words to try and calm him, soothe him, help them both.

  "I ran into Detan on the stairs and she said she delivered the food tray..." Wrapped up together with Lana on the floor and Cullen squatting on a footstool was the perfect time for Leliana to come traipsing back into the room. She skidded to a halt at the sight of the two of them and blinked a moment. Cullen opened his arms to let Lana slide out, but she clung tighter to him for a beat longer, her cheek brushing against his smoke stained shirt.

  "Seems to be a rather enticing spread," Leliana continued, trying to fight on through the awkwardness. "I hope you found something to eat."

  "I did," Lana said, sliding away from Cullen and turning to her friend, "thank you."

  Leliana started for a moment, her sharp eyes softening to a heartbreaking cry of joy for those few words from Lana. "Did you, uh, find a favorite. I'm partial to the strawberry eclairs myself. You tried one?"

  "Not yet," Lana scrubbed at her eyes with her forearm, "but Cullen liked the butter cookies."

  "Oh...?"

  He shrugged and quaintly said, "I have simple tastes." Something in it was enough to draw a laugh from Lana, her hand flying to her mouth to cover over a chuckle gaining in momentum. Unable to stop himself, Cullen gently ran his fingers through her hair, but he felt a stare from Leliana. When he turned up to it, he read only an eternal gratefulness in her eyes. He lifted his shoulder; he'd had nothing to do with Lana turning a corner. It was all on her.

  "Should we eat or...?" Leliana asked, gesturing to the piles of food that could feed six people.

  "I..." Lana began to stagger to her feet, which Leliana was quick to offer help with, "I think it's time to take that bath and wash the soot off me. And give Cullen a chance to change. Your shirt stinks," she turned back to him in a jesting tone, but he didn't have the strength to banter back. He picked up her dangling hand and lightly pressed a kiss to it. She smiled, her fingers running against his stubble before succumbing to the Divine's pull.

  While Leliana led Lana to the bathroom, Cullen glanced down at the dog under his makeshift chair. "You did good," he whispered to her, his fingers knocking about her ears. This wasn't going to be easy by any measure, and Lana would need more than time to get better, to find her feet, but he had faith in her the same way she had faith in him. Scooting forward, Cullen reached out to snatch up one of the sausages, when a blast of the smoke scent rose off his shirt and he crinkled his nose. She was right, he needed to change too.

  Tugging off his shirt and stuffing the sausage in his mouth, then passing one to Honor, Cullen twisted about looking for a waiting hamper. From the bathroom he heard the sound of water splashing as a body slid into the tub.

  Time, patience, and hope. Maker, please give all of those t
o me in equal measure because she deserves it.

  "Lanny, by the void, what did you put in this robe's pocket? Are these cracker crumbs?"

  A great belly laugh took hold of Cullen and he doubled over, for the first time feeling like they'd survive this.

  Chapter Sixteen

  New Addition

  9:44 Denerim

  Wailing, the kind fabled banshees bleated outside someone's door before the home owner leapt onto the pyre the next morning echoed through every stone in the castle. Roused from his half sleep, Alistair stumbled shirtless down the corridors in pursuit of the noise. He moved to wipe the sand out of his eyes and nearly bashed a sword's hilt into his nose. When did he grab the damn thing? After too many years spent sleeping on the ground waiting for any manner of creepy evil thing to come and cleave his head off, he defaulted to "shit's about to go pear" without thinking.

  An even louder shriek broke the normally quiet castle air. While pursuing it, he'd catch a few harried glances of servants all poking heads into the hall, the bags under their eyes lengthening to match their scowl - until spotting their king hoofing it. Then it was an immediate snap to attention, but he waved each off, mouthing that he was going to get to the bottom of it. Past the coat of arms and the creepy paintings of his ancestors whose eyes rolled whenever he walked near he paused outside the door. Judging by the high range of squeals and shrieks there had to be some horrible murder happening right inside. Steadying himself to his kingliest pose, Alistair threw open the door.

  The servants kept the fire down to almost nothing, only the light of the full moon and a few stars reflected upon a woman bent over the newest piece of furniture in the castle. Curtains wafted in the spring air to frame the cradle while its lone owner took a breath before resuming her blood curdling wail. The wet nurse glanced over at Alistair, turned back to the baby clearly unhappy with her services, then whipped back at him. "Your majesty," growled out of her throat.