"That song you were singing...?"
She flinched for a moment, "Heard that, did you? I'm not much of a singer. I'd never make it far as a bard for various reasons, but it..." Pointing at the blistering hot glassware that she'd magicked, which of course looked the exact same as the cool glassware, Lana explained, "I don't have any timers that are exact enough for the length of time necessary to boil during the final stage. Well, final boiling stage. There's a cool down, ethanol extraction and...never mind. I found that if I sing that song two and a half times it's just the right length for boiling."
Cullen nodded as if that made much sense to him. He could grasp the basic concept of using a song to keep track of the minutes, he'd done the same from time to time as a templar. "I understand, but why that song?"
"Oh..." her embarrassment at getting caught singing flipped around to an ornery grin, "figured it out, I take it. Leliana was so damn certain you had no idea."
"I didn't," he sighed, "not until I heard it from your lips." It hadn't struck him before, the poetry haranguing him for keeping himself aloof from people -- especially people who had a romantic interest in him. But it was different from her, the one who knew better than anyone why he favored solitude, the only one who could break him of it.
Lana tossed a wadded towel upon the table's edge and skirted close to him. Her fingers drifted around his waist, heat trailing the palm that boiled away some aspect of the potion. Cullen was about to comment on that, when she pushed up on her toes and kissed him. The heat from her lips scorched whatever fire erupted off her hands. Off balance, Cullen grabbed onto her cheek, pinning himself in place so he didn't topple over at her hunger. Barely hiding her smile, Lana slipped away from his mouth but not his body.
As her arms wrapped around him, her cheek brushing against his chest, he noticed she was wearing an apron. Not the typical leather one mages wore when doing anything alchemical or for rune crafting. The apron favored by chefs strained at the high point of her breasts, tensed to the point it seemed like a deep breath could rip it. Cullen blinked in surprise to find that idea very enticing. While he cupped the small of her back, he felt the knot of the apron's ribbon tied into a lopsided bow.
"Lana," he asked, "how are you able to scrounge up this much mage equipment? Wait, let me guess, Leliana."
"Not entirely, no..."
He felt her cheek darting up and down against his chest. Cullen tried to pry her away to stare into her eyes. "You are not in contact with the mage college."
"I couldn't find what I needed in Val Royeaux. Which surprised me. I thought it'd be easy but apparently not. Don't make that face, yes, that one, where you hunch your eyebrows together as if someone hung a weight off your forehead. I myself haven't been in contact with anyone at the college."
"What name are you using?" he asked, catching on to her subterfuge. Leliana either knew about it, or would go fully spare when she did. To himself, Cullen decided that the Divine need not know about everything occurring in her Cathedral.
Lana shrugged, "Marguerite. I, I don't think she'd mind."
"Are you, don't you think someone might notice, or wonder?"
"The circle in Ferelden was a mess, with the malifecarum attack and then the blight. Mages scattered to the four winds. It's doubtful there's anyone remaining in the college who'd remember a mage that died fourteen years ago," Lana tried to smile through her response, but he spotted her bottom lip puckering out and her eyes watering.
Wrapping her tight to his chest, he cupped the back of her head and buried his chin in her hair. "I remember her a little," Cullen said.
"I remember her a lot," Lana said. "It was funny, all that time after the blight and I did my damnedest to not think about the tower, about the people who remained behind, or the people who didn't." Her words faded and he felt her crying against him. There were no audible sobs, that wasn't what she did. The most Lana ever loudly cried was with a gasp or two, that was quickly smothered to silence. Gently, Cullen swayed with her in his arms. He felt her grief plucking at his own, trying to drag up all his friends who died in that massacre, but he buried it deep. It wasn't the time.
Lana released a hand around him to pinch at the bridge of her nose and wipe away the tears. Returning to hold him, she sighed, "After the fade, I...I keep thinking about them, about my time with them. Margie, Michael -- that mage she had a terrible crush on, even Jowan. Maker, Jowan drove me mad half the time!" she gasped, a laugh on the end before it faded to a whisper, "But, he was the mage I knew the longest. We, we became friends the first day I entered the tower."
"I knew that if I spotted him, you'd be near," Cullen said, his own vision turning hazy with memories.
"Right," Lana smiled, "so many people assumed because we were opposite genders and friends we simply had to be a couple. It grew rather tiresome to hear the snickers behind covered hands, in particular from templars."
"I...I don't know if it was Jowan they were snickering about regarding you." Cullen couldn't bury the blush creeping up from the depths of his late teenage years. He heard them himself, usually from the likes of handsome people like Frederick who found it hilarious to think someone like Cullen -- devout, duteous, homely -- would fall for one of the prettiest mages in the tower. Sometimes he'd receive suggestions on how to convince the Apprentice Amell to slip into the stacks with him, most of which made certain he kept the templar helm on at all times. It was a wonder his ego didn't fully wither and die before he reached the age of twenty.
Lana's fingers circled around the small of his back, dragging him from his dark thoughts. Blinking away the past, he glanced down at those beguiling eyes that would often trail him in his dreams. He felt the sneer on his lips fade to a grateful smile. Pushing a finger along her forehead, he curled a stray hair back in place. Those luscious lips he'd dreamed of kissing a thousand times before he dared to try lifted up in their own grin.
"I was aware of those rumors as well," she breathed.
"Oh?" he swallowed trying to not feel like a young man who had his crush chase him down and ask why people kept talking about them. It was idiotic, but sometimes the past lingered like floured palm prints.
Lana ran her fingers up his back, her nails scratching a path that ignited him. "I would blush for a good five minutes straight after I heard one. You wouldn't believe the amount of grief Margie gave me for it. She thought I should go for it, but, of course..."
"It wasn't proper," he filled in.
Lana snickered, "And I was scared shitless. Maker, what would I do if you didn't like me? I mean, how awkward would that be?"
"That," Cullen dipped his head until his forehead skimmed across hers. Slipping his eyes closed, he sighed, "that was my fear as well."
Opening his eyes, he stared deep into Lana's golden halos. They sparkled as she lifted her hands up behind his neck. Knotting her fingers through his curls and gently tugging back, she twisted her head to the right. He prepared to kiss her, but she paused. Taking a breath, Lana whispered beside him, "For Margie," before diving in for the kiss. Cullen's hands moved up her back, trying to pin her tighter to him, to support her while Lana performed her innate magic.
As she slipped down, she paused and shifted her shoulders, "Did you...untie my apron?"
"I, uh..." he lifted his hand away to find the apron's string knotted up in his fingers. It came so naturally to him, he didn't realize he was doing it. "I seem to have."
Shaking her head with a laugh, Lana tugged it off over her head and tossed the apron onto her work bench. "You only needed to ask."
"I fear that was more my body working without my mind," he admitted, flinching at the implications. Lana didn't react. She turned towards her little experiment, dipping down to her knees to take in the bottle filling to a quarter with the clear liquid.
"How are you doing today? Is it a Wednesday?" Glancing up at him, she watched his reaction.
"No, I'm doing quite well," Cullen admitted, wanting to feel her in his arms again and hoping that
was enough of an invitation.
But Lana's face fell and she glanced back at the bottle, "Oh."
"What? You hoped I'd be in a bad state?" he shook his head.
"No, no," Lana shot up, then grimaced, "Well, I...that sounded bad, but I meant kind of. Because..." picking up the clear bottle, she held the liquid near Cullen's nose, "I wanted to test what I made."
"On me?"
"On your withdrawal symptoms," she smiled wide, waving the bottle closer. For his part, Cullen picked it up but watched it with a wary eye.
"You created an untested potion to help with lyrium poisoning?" He glanced down at the clear liquid, "Why isn't it red?"
"Health potions are only red because they cut in berries to mask the flavor. In reality, most potions are naturally clear. We color code them so it's easier to pick one out fast in a battle. No messy reading the label to make sure you don't accidentally dose yourself with a poison," she explained in an exasperated voice so quickly it told him she'd mentioned the fact often in her limited alchemical history.
"Where did you even get the idea for this?"
"That was easier than I expected," Lana said, gesturing at the piece of parchment she pinned to the wall. "I, at first, assumed I'd have to be chasing after current alchemical theories that weren't damaged or lost in the rebellion, but it turns out when the templar order was first created the chantry was concerned about lyrium addiction. They wanted to find a way to alleviate symptoms, having lost their better templars to the mental decay, and mages put some of their better minds to it."
"I'd never heard of that," Cullen mused.
"It took some digging on my part, and access to the restricted chantry library," Lana said, her head tipping back and forth. "Surprise, surprise once the chantry learned it could use the addictive nature of the lyrium to control templars they abandoned all research. Add on the mages growing chafed under their being treated as lap dogs and it was no wonder that the research fell into rot and decay. No one's aware of it; I only stumbled across it by accident."
Excited to show off her find, she pointed at a stack of books, "One of the old tomes I found made a vague reference to a lyrium potion. I assumed it was the one we use for drawing energy from the fade, of course, but it made mention of an herb that had no place in a lyrium draught. Those are lyrium and ethanol with a bit of castor oil for viscosity's sake, nothing more."
"Do not tell me, this herb was adder's hiss?" Cullen smirked, his eyes darting up to the plant that was already expanded past its pot and crawling along the ceiling.
Lana opened her mouth wide, then smiled, "Ah, no. That would be very dangerous, especially in such concentrated doses. It was the prophet's laurel, in fact. A rather humorous take, to think one of Andraste's own flowers could help heal a hurt done in Her name. It was easy acquiring some, southern Orlais is flush with it. My greater challenge was in finding the described glassware." She jerked her head at the piles of tubes, some of which he saw now she had to tie and tape in place.
"This is amazing," Cullen blinked.
"I wouldn't go that far. This was the early days, when templars only took lyrium under extreme need. We're talking about walking back from a few minor aches. Anything of significance will require more research, study, retooling of the methods..."
Her words trailed off as she watched him. Cullen ran his fingers across the words nailed to the wall. One half were in an ancient script, barely legible over the years and cramped. The other was all done in Lana's hand, her careful and manicured penmanship flowing around the page as she had yet another thought. The same hand he'd held in the deeproads, at Halamshiral, while storms raged through Skyhold, before Adamant, and as he pulled her out of that grey warden prison. The hand of a mage trying to save a templar.
"Cullen," she whispered, her fingers running up his shoulder.
Startled, he turned back to her. "Lana, I...I have no idea what to say."
"It's all right," she said. "It's the first step of many. An idea. We'll have to test it by and by, have controls and...Maker, I'll need to find access to other templars." Her musings faded as she smiled and shook her head. Cupping the bottle, she pulled it away from his fingers to place it back upon the table.
"Should I not take it?"
"No," Lana ran a finger over the glass before sticking a cork stopper deep into the neck, "no, it's best to save it for a bad turn. I doubt its effects will be noticeable until then. After that, we'll have to see."
"Love," he whispered, his voice caught in his throat. He wanted to tell her he loved her, that she was amazing beyond description and captured his soul all over again, but all of it smashed down into that compact, solitary word. Lana smiled at his fumble and she slipped her hands across his cheeks.
"My honey eyes," she sighed, tugging him down for a kiss. Cullen was happy to oblige, his hands wrapping around the small of her back. This time he focused to make certain he didn't unknot anything he shouldn't. His heart smiled at her tenacity as her tongue danced with his. Lana pushed her breasts tighter into his chest as she moaned in the back of her throat. About to break away for a breath, she paused herself. Gripping onto his biceps, she dug in for a moment before following them down behind her back to try and reach for his hands.
"You got my apron off," Lana said. He missed the smirk from a shallow regret climbing up his stomach, but it vanished at her next words, "What about the rest of it?"
The chill off the stones upon the wall did little to reach through her palms spread across it for support. Lana's body was an inferno bursting alive thanks to the man thrusting deeper inside her. She couldn't see him, but she knew those calluses cupping over and under her breasts as he steadied himself. Smelled that heady scent of his earthy sweat melded into the piquant musk that only sex could conjure. And was biting down a groan deep in her throat from how her entire lower half pulsed with pleasure; his magic and hers working in harmony.
"Dear Maker," Lana gasped, her hands flailing further apart to take the pressure. She sat on that cursed edge, begging for its end now in hopefully a spectacular fashion, but every time she almost reached it, a pain slithered up her legs. Feeling the flinch, Lana tried to shake it off before Cullen noticed, but of course he did.
"Do you need to stop?" he asked, each word broken up by a breath. Flames, his voice -- like wood crackling upon a bonfire -- lost in the depths of passion was almost enough to do her in.
Biting her lip and trying to turn her rising mana dump into healing instead of setting the room on fire, Lana shook her head madly. "Don't you fucking dare," she growled.
His voice breathed into her ear, tickling it awake as the warmth ran straight down through her core. "As you wish," he chuckled. Slowly, those indomitable fingers dropped off her breasts. She gasped at the pull upon them, now free to swing to their hearts content. Cullen gripped onto her hips and taking her weight into his hands, he thrusted far enough in to kick off her chain reaction.
"Maker's sake," Lana cried, her cracked fingernails digging into the mortar of the wall. Tremors pulsed from her vagina down her legs and up through her stomach. It was such a fast switch of pleasure claiming her body she wasn't certain if she was going to pass out or throw up.
Catching on that she came, no doubt from how tight she was constricting around his cock, Cullen growled deep in his throat. Tugging her hips upright, Lana had to adjust her stance to the very edge of the footstool. She felt herself start to wobble, the soles of her feet clinging to the cushions. It was worth it. The widening was enough for him to thrust all of himself inside of her with a veracity she'd thought unthinkable a month ago. His hips smacked into her ass, causing Lana to hang her head down and suck in air through her mouth. Her body was trying to ramp up for another round, but she doubted she'd survive it.
Knocking closer and closer to the wall with each rapid thrust, she prayed she wasn't about to slip and fall or put her head through the stones. Flames, at the level of pleasure rampaging through her body a slight concussion might be worth i
t. She thought he'd pop off fast, but Cullen wanted to go for both distance and speed. Pinching her finger and thumb together, Lana braced herself on the wall with one arm while rolling the vibrating spell against her clit. Or so she planned.
Her own strumming knocked Cullen free. Nails digging into the flesh on her hips, he stuttered something, his thrusting slowing. She could feel him pulsing from orgasm through not only herself but her fingers as well. Her body began to slide back from the abyss, in no mood for round two, when Cullen -- still in throes of his own pleasure -- skimmed his teeth across the skin of her shoulder and bit down.
"Andraste's Ass!" Lana cursed, the pain transforming into instant pleasure which opened up the floodgates anew. Spiraling into the warm abyss, Lana felt her body slump down when a hand clasped against her stomach. Even with his body exhausted beyond reach, Cullen kept her held tight to him. Dipping his hips down, he slid out of her and then wrapped both arms tight to hug her back.
"That..." Lana panted, shaking her head to try and reach the sense part of her brain. At the moment all of it was sparking in abject joy. "I forgot how good that felt."
"'The right side of pain,'" he quoted. His lips brushed against the back of her neck, for once in easy reach without her having to balance on tiptoes.
Chuckling, Lana's voice rasped, "Something like that. Did it..." she tried to glance at him over her shoulder but Cullen was hiding in the middle of her back. "Was it too strange for you?"
"No," hugging tight once more, he released his hold and slid back. Slowly Lana turned on the footstool to face him, while Cullen helped her maintain her balance. "I dare say I even enjoyed it."
"Really?" She was surprised. He'd been skeptical of the idea when she suggested it.
Shrugging, Cullen tried to wipe a hand through his matted curls but the sweat glistening across his body only smooshed them to the other side. "I suspect your reaction had much to do with it." Lana laughed at that, some of her blood finding its way up to rush to her cheeks. "Here," Cullen noticed her standing awkwardly on the footstool, "let me help you down."
My Love Page 123
