My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Sneering, Cassandra waved her own cobbled together bouquet like a mace as if she intended to clobber the groom's sister with it. "Very well, but in exchange I shall not wear that monstrous gathering of fabric you call a dress."

  Mia rounded on her anew, "You speak of tradition but ignore the most important one to keep demons at bay? All parties in the same attire, it's the only proper way to have a wedding."

  "Wait, what?" Lana whipped her head at Cullen who was trying to slide back further from the two women about to come to blows.

  "Andraste preserve me," Cullen moaned. "I hadn't told Mia to do any of that. She took it upon herself to dress the party and I-I maybe found out a few days ago. I only assumed that she was talking about her family not blighted everyone."

  Lana snorted, folding her hands up, "Wait until they find out Leliana already picked it for us." She hadn't expected Cassandra to be chosen, but Leliana had selected both a skirt and trousers as an option. The woman was very flexible and well prepared.

  With neither the flower situation nor the clothing settled, the Seeker and Mia picked up something else to bicker about. Lana wasn't certain exactly what as she'd never heard of it being important. In truth, there was much about the wedding she had to guess along the way. Aside from Alistair's, she'd never really attended one before, not with the fancy clothes in a chantry type. Mages did things differently. Lana turned away from the women to catch Cullen sliding further into the shadows.

  She reached over to pick up his hands, and he paused, but a moan rolled through his throat. "Why must this be so complicated?"

  "Because they're trying to help, to do what's best for us," Lana said as much to convince herself. She was fully on Cullen's side for the moment.

  His narrowed eyes whipped around the barely decorated abbey. Someone began dangling bunting off a few of the banisters, but then it switched midway from a silver and blue motif to the red and yellow banner of Ferelden. Digging his free hand through the back of his hair, Cullen glared up at the darkening sky. "All I want is...is you," he smiled limply at her, his thumb caressing the back of her hand. Scurrying onto her toes, her fingers grazed his scruffy cheek -- despite being ordered to shave it by Mia, he somehow kept forgetting.

  Maker, how many times did she wake from the fade with her heart begging for him, her mind spinning horrors of how she was still trapped so far beyond him? Then his warm arm would wrap around her stomach, smooth down her blanket, and even in the midst of sleep he'd whisper, "I'm still here."

  "I want you too," Lana whispered, her eyes sliding past him out the door where no family waited to embarrass them, no friends to heap onto their troubles, and no ceremonies to plan for. "Come on," she gripped tight to her cane and began to drag Cullen towards freedom.

  "Wh- where are we going? We can't leave everyone."

  "They'll be fine for a little while. Considering the makeup of our friends, I'd be more concerned about anyone who'd choose now to attack the abbey." Cullen kept voicing a few of his dutiful regrets, but he willingly slipped beside her, walking down the crunching dirt-packed road. For a time Lana followed it, until she veered off onto little more than a deer trail, all while Cullen kept a tight hold to her hand. Passing through knots of trees, then overgrown clusters, she shrugged off the familiar rising pain in her weary legs with a single destination in mind.

  "Maker's breath," Lana huffed, complaining to herself, "I used to walk hundreds of miles a week and now I can't even handle a small jaunt out into the forest."

  Cullen paused and draped her arm around his shoulders. "Go ahead and heal yourself. There must be time from whatever you have planned." He didn't balk at the magic always a dip or two away from her fingertips, even grew to expect the veilfire percolating behind doors and the smell of lightning wrapped around her body. After shoring up her legs, Lana barely needed her cane for the last hike up a hill to gaze across the beauty of the hinterlands.

  Bathed in the pale blue light of the night's sky, a serene hush bobbed against swaying trees blanketing the forest below. With a gentle breeze, the treetops swayed as if dancing to a slow waltz. No fires broke below, the area long given to the march of the forest, allowing the fullness of the stars to pocket the sky like sugar dusted across navy velvet. "This is lovely," Cullen breathed, both of them staring out across the scenery, "but I'm not certain why you needed to show it to me now."

  Lana placed her cane against the fallen tree beside her and lit veilfire upon a stump. Grabbing both of his hands, she slipped into those honey eyes. "Forget the infighting, the problems, the everything going wrong - let's do it now. Let's get married here, alone, just the two of us and..." she waved her hand out towards the bounty below - the perfect countryside at peace because of them, "...and the Maker. We don't need anyone else."

  "I, I don't know if that's legally binding," Cullen's eyes darted through the trees for a moment.

  "So? We can do the andrastian one tomorrow, or the next day, or in a week, or a month. Whenever we finally get all that mess right. Cullen, I..." Her chin dropped and she tried to scramble to bite back the tears. This was supposed to be a happy moment, not to have their past crushing against her. "I'm tired of waiting. It's always been our curse."

  His hand cupped her chin and he lifted her face so she found his heartwarming smile. "You're right. You're always right. I wouldn't lose another day without you as my wife."

  Digging her fingers into the back of his hair, Lana pulled him down for a kiss. As he broke away, he whispered, "I thought that part came at the end." She chuckled at that, then kissed him again, never one for following standards. "I'm not certain what we should do, precisely," he said, the worry threading through his words.

  Lana pulled her hands away from him and dug into her pockets to unearth two kerchiefs - one in a crimson and navy, the other a cobalt blue. The first she knotted around Cullen's right wrist, letting the end dangle free. "In the tower, we weren't allowed to - you know," she spoke while managing to knot the cobalt kerchief around her left wrist with her teeth, "but mages found a way to have our own weddings, make our own traditions, I suppose. There weren't any dresses, or flowers, or fancy words to recite before the clerics, so we'd do this."

  "Very well," he sounded skeptical, watching his scarf dangle in the wind, but willing to keep pushing on, "now what?"

  "I take your hands, like this," she pressed her palms against his and knotted their fingers together - hers resting on top. "And, then we promise each other. I suppose it's near on the same as vows. Tell each other what we mean in our hearts."

  A gasp escaped from his lips, "I don't know if I can, um..."

  Lana chuckled as her stoic commander glanced up at the sky and tried to will back a blush. "I'll go first." His eyes beamed such gratitude upon her she had to pinch back the urge to kiss him again. He was right, that part did come at the end.

  "Cullen...our path has not been an easy one. Twisted, pitted, sometimes broken to the point I-I feared we'd never find each other again. And yet," she swallowed a shudder in her voice, "the Maker keeps bringing you back to me." Pausing for a moment, Lana squeezed both of his hands tight. "You've come for me in some of my darkest hours, when-when I thought I was, that we were beyond hope, beyond thinking what we had could ever be more than a first blush. And yet I...I love you. I feared love, ran from it for so long but you, my rock, my secure arm, my sweet honey eyes, you made it easy for me to risk it. To, to love you with everything inside of me. To... "

  Lana bit on her lip as a hundred different words crashed against her brain. She'd practiced this speech, even written it down a few times, but passages kept overlapping with themselves, knotting together in a ball of confusion. "By Andraste's Grace, I know I can live without you, that if it was required of me I would rise each morning and carry on alone, but-but I never want to. I never want to wake without knowing you slept beside me, never want to eat a meal without you sharing it, never want to-to scrub down the stables without you manning the pitchfork." He laughed at her
last one, the pair of them often making a game to see who could finish first while trying to sabotage the other. "We both know how much time we lost, and..." her eyes drifted down along with her voice, "and how little there could be remaining, so to you I give my days, my heart, my hand. Will you be mine?"

  "Yes," he smiled, his eyes watering by the teal veilfire. Tipping down, Cullen kissed her as sweetly as that first time in the deeproads, his lips softer than a whisper against her skin. He broke only a breath from her face and asked, "Was, was that the right response?"

  "Only if you meant it," she smiled at him. Her eyelids fluttered and she felt tears drip down her cheeks, drops overflowing with every joy and pang in her heart.

  "Of course I do, I..." he shuddered, rising back to his full height to stare down at her, "I suppose it's my turn. Lana, I..." More breath blew out of his mouth as if he had to gird himself to leap into a frozen lake. "You know I'm not very good at this. I, I should have, wish I'd--"

  Lana's right hand broke from their shared grip so she could cup his cheek and pull his eyes to hers, "It's only me here, no family, no friends, no chantry. Your words don't need to be perfect, only true. Okay?" He smiled below her hand, his cheek filling her palm.

  "Okay..." Cullen stepped closer to her, his eyes falling closed as he pressed his forehead against hers. Slowly his lungs filled with air, each breath taking its time to return out through his nose. "Lana, you are..." His hand slid away from hers to reach into a pocket. She waited, curious but patient, as he dug out a solitary copper and placed it in her palm before covering it with his own hand. "I've often thought of us as, like this copper, two sides of the same coin. Mage," he tipped his head to her, "and templar, destined to be forever opposed like-like the flip of a coin. But, it's more than that, it's..."

  Pausing again, he slipped his eyes closed to steady himself. "We both gave of ourselves for others, we-" Cullen snorted as he glanced back towards their abbey, "-we still do. For every difference we have, we approach them the same, with a... Lana, I've loved you since I was barely eighteen and barely aware of what love is. I thought, feared that the part of me capable of it withered because of-of Uldred. The way I..." Tears slipped from his closed eyes, fanning off his eyelashes to drip down his cheek. "I feared I'd never see you again, that you'd have no reason to forgive me, to understand, to-to love me. The coin, two sides, you-when you found me in Kirkwall I was closed off, empty inside, unreachable."

  "So was I..." she whispered, biting on her lip to keep her own tears at bay.

  "We needed each other," Cullen continued, "we wanted each other, to-to... I know what it is to lose you, to have you in my arms and feel you slip away. Never, never again." His eyes shot open, determination bobbing below the surface of a sea of tears. "Without you, I'm half a coin. Useless, blank, empty. I-I love you for your sharp mind, your cunning jokes, your breathtaking smile, your open heart, and even your incessant need to forget tea." She laughed openly at that fact. Even the other templars at their refuge began to gather up her orphaned cups.

  "I love you for every bit, every dent, every-" He cupped her chin and his thumb gently caressed her cheek, "every scar. You complete me, my other side. And I, I never want to walk this world without you."

  Maker, she couldn't hold back the happy tears now drenching his thumb. Cullen didn't bother to wipe them off, instead he pulled her close for a kiss - both of their joys and sorrows commingling. As she pulled back and stared up at him expectantly, he coughed, and then glanced around. "I'm, um, I think that's all I have..."

  "You need to ask if I'll be yours," Lana instructed.

  "Oh, right," the blush broke across his cheeks as he glanced up at her from his dropped head, "Lana, will you be mi-?"

  "Maker, yes! A hundred, thousand times, yes!" she cried, throwing a hand around the back of his neck and plunging deep into a kiss. Cullen answered in kind, both of them melding together through lips and a little tongue - it wasn't as if any chantry clerics were watching. Clutched in her hand behind his head was the copper, the one she'd never forget. He slipped his freed hand around her waist, pulling her body tighter. Releasing his kerchiefed hand, Cullen moved to grab the back of her head, but found her own hand dragging with it.

  "By all the," he paused, his eyes darting down to their kerchiefs now joined together by a knot. "How did that happen?"

  "We did it," she smiled, "that's how mages get married. Whispered words of love and tying a knot."

  Smiling wider at the simple answer, he gripped onto her hand bound with his, "Lana Amell, I love you beyond reason."

  "Every day," she cupped her hand against his cheek and inched up on her tiptoes. Barely able to handle the strain from her drained limbs, her body pressed against Cullen. He bore her weight gallantly, as he always had. "Every moment, every breath with you has been..." More than she could have imagined, trying as they struggled to overcome their own fears, delightful as they found a strength beyond themselves in each other. Lana pressed her lips against his, her eyes softly shut, as she whispered against him, "perfect."

  Her husband. Maker, how was that possible? How was any of this possible? Cullen brushed his thumb against her cheek and he beamed that same grateful, bittersweet, hopeful smile she fell head over heels for in the tower. Forgetting their bond, he swept both arms back around her into a hug, but Lana's hand trailed with, her head resting against his chest. The best was yet to come.

  "Hey," Cullen spoke, his hand gesturing out to the stars glittering above the silent valley. "I think that's Fenrir."

  She didn't look, only nuzzled deeper into him and answered, "I think you're right."

  It felt as if only a minute passed after Lana tugged him out to the valley and they-they... Cullen couldn't fight the grin infecting him, his bound hand still clasped inside hers as they returned slowly to their home. Theirs. Wife. His wife. Blessed Andraste, it-it was beyond impossible to ever imagine that She'd grant him such a, such hope. Peace. Serenity.

  A few feet outside of the gates, Lana paused, leaning deeper into her cane. Cullen slowed as well, "In pain?"

  She nodded softly, but smiled through it. "I'll get on by. I've been through w-..." Her doe eyes softened as she wrapped her fingers against his cheek, her thumb carefully knocking up each strand of his scruff. "I have you. I'll get by because of you."

  Turning, he pressed his lips against her caressing palm when an idea struck him. Glancing from the abbey resting a good hundred feet away, back to her, he smiled. "Yes, you do." Cullen dropped down to a knee, his free hand scooping up her legs.

  "What are you doing?" Lana gasped as he pulled her into his arms. She kept a grip upon his bound fingers even as they held up her back.

  "I believe I am carrying you home," Cullen answered as if it wasn't a preposterous idea. He forgot what it felt like to grip onto the strain of her muscles, indulge in the heat from all of her pressed against his chest. It'd been far too long since he'd had a reason.

  Lana giggled, "This is silly. People will see."

  "I don't care," he marched through the gate aware of a few eyes drifting from their duties to watch them both. "I have my wife in my arms. I couldn't be happier."

  She snuggled her beautiful face into the crook of his arm, but he knew the smile burgeoning up her cheek - it meant mischief on her mind, "What if you had your wife under you instead?"

  Cullen didn't falter in his steps, didn't gasp, didn't even blush. He only leaned down to whisper, "Or on top."

  Lana sighed, her wicked brain spilling every position she'd want him in, while Cullen tried to walk stiff legged up the stairs. By a miracle of the Maker, they made it undisturbed to the second level, their room on the last six stairs in the middle of the hall. Not much more to go before he could act out every one of her erotic ideas she whispered in his ear.

  "Commander!" Oh no. Cullen froze at Cassandra's voice cutting through the starry night. "Commander we need to speak about...are you busy?" She finally caught up to them, either just noticing Lana in his
arms or figuring she'd give him the illusion of a choice.

  "Can it wait until tomorrow, Cassandra?" he asked.

  The Seeker's eyes darted back towards her room, and she sneered, "No, it cannot."

  Lana was the one to shrug. "My legs are done for the day. I should head to our room," she answered for him. He didn't really want to let her go, but Cullen helped her to the ground, holding her tight until she nodded her head that she had her weight. She began to walk away, when their knotted kerchiefs tugged, keeping them tethered. "Oh," Lana smiled, "forgot about that." He didn't taste her cast a spell, but the knot fell off instantly, freeing Cullen's hand from hers. It was symbolic, he knew, but he regretted that freedom wishing their bond could have lasted for the whole night.

  "Good evening, Cassandra," Lana said limping towards their room.

  "And to you as well, Lady Am-...Lady," Cassandra bowed, still stiff around the Hero of Ferelden. The Seeker waited until Lana disappeared into their shared room to turn a single raised eyebrow at Cullen. "The binding knot?"

  "It was, uh, some mage thing she wanted to show me," he blushed, reaching back to massage his neck, causing the kerchief to bounce against his skin. It was yet warm from their clasped hands. "You had some dire information you needed from me? Something that couldn't wait?"

  "Yes," Cassandra's smirk of knowing what even he didn't before tonight fell away. All business, she jerked her head towards her room, "There are many problems that must be addressed now before the ceremony. Follow me."

  He made it through five of her complaints, followed by three from Mia, who caught on to what the Seeker was up to, before Cullen shouted for both of them to solve it themselves. "It's just a wedding, we aren't invading Tevinter, for the Maker's sake! Fix it yourselves!" Something in his tone caused both women to sputter in their complaints, sharing a similar glance that they feared the groom was about to go spare on either. Having issued his ultimatum, Cullen stormed up the stairs towards his, their room.