she could stand here caressing his face and whispering sweet compliments and words of praise to him for hours if not for the pain that hangs over their heads like dark grey storm clouds. the memory of kinloch is one best boxed up tightly and stored in the faraway reaches of the mind, buried beneath concerns about corypheus and the inquisition and how to address whatever dignitary was visiting that day. before she had the inquisition she would focus very hard on the distance between them, to the point that it nearly hurt more to do so than to unpack the memories of the incident that had separated them, but that option wasn’t available to her anymore because she had, in her own words, FOUND HIM. there was still distance, here and there, but it no longer came with the fear that she would never see him again.
not in the same way, at least.
❝ there are men who would not even have the courage to attempt what you have. there are men who would scoff at serving beneath a mage and turn their noses up at me. they would scheme behind my back and allow their soldiers to harm the mages i’ve brought into my care. driven by misplaced fear or some other foolish prejudice and too afraid to admit they’re wrong or try to be better. i’ve met these men. i have fought these men. and you are NOTHING like them. ❞ she tells him, leading him backward slowly until she feels his desk behind her. she hefts herself atop it, brow drawing together in concentration until she hears the locks on the doors click shut. a hint of privacy, if only because the conversation they’re about to have demands it. if nor for his reputation, than for her own.
❝ beneath all of it, you ARE still you. not the boy who was twisted and scarred in kinloch, but my cullen. the boy i used to daydream about running away with. the one i told my best friend i’d marry someday. i can prove it, too, watch- ❞ the fingers resting against his cheek wiggle free from his grasp, reaching back to run through his hair. she can’t mask the smile that pulls at her lips as she pulls his curls free. ❝ you still have the same curls. ❞ after, her fingers drift down to trace over his lips, ❝ and the same smile. ❞ she weaves her fingers between his, ❝ you always try to do the right thing and you’re always thinking of how you can help people. and you… you still love me- ❞ she has to stop, like she’s become so overwhelmed she can no longer put her words together.
❝ a green templar with barely a year of experience and a harrowed mage who’d been in the tower for over fifteen years. ❞ she finally continues after a moment to breathe, ❝ regardless of rather or not it was your JOB, i should have put everything on the line to protect you. i had the training- i had the experience. if i had been there, perhaps it wouldn’t haunt us both the way it does. if i had been there instead of cowering in some closet like a child- ❞
Cullen doesn’t actually know how to feel. So many emotions are there, but he can’t focus on one and he feels it all caught in this throat. There is a ringing in his ears that seems to drown out everything she’s saying, but he’s watching her lips, following along. He couldn’t imagine anyone else leading the Inquisition and he’s never seen her as what she calls herself – a mage. In the very beginning, he’d tried to simply separate them by Mages and Templars, because it was easier that way but he couldn’t. “You didn’t see me in Kirkwall. I was horrible…I told – I told Hawke that mages weren’t people and I almost let myself fall into Meredith’s paranoia. I became a man I didn’t like, that I still hate. I had to hide your letters when they did come. I hid them from her because I was afraid that she’d try to find you. I follow you because I trust you because I’ve always trusted you. I know that you’re not capable of evil things, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t almost been one of those men.” He’d walked away from Kirkwall and tried to become someone new, someone he wouldn’t recognize, but no matter how much he changed his hair or clothes, he’d still be that man. He bows his head as he leans into her, against the desk and the noise that comes out of him is strangled.
His eyes meet hers and he draws in a breath, trying to calm himself. Was he still himself? Despite everything, was he still the young man who he’d been when he’d been assigned to Kinloch? The same boy who blushed when he saw her enter the hallway? The same boy who had shared his first real kiss with her in the kitchens after she made him sweets? She was too good for him, he knew it. She was the only person who saw directly through him and that was terrifying in a way. She loved him deeply and he knew it; he’d known it since Kinloch because he’d felt the same way. His lips do pull slightly at the corner, only because it warms him to hear these things, that she still finds him to be the same person she fell in love with, the same person she had wanted to marry one day. Something that could actually happen now that they were both free…he just wanted to be the man she deserved first.
“I do still love you. I will always love you. You’re what keeps me going every single day, despite it all.” He took her hand in his, kissing it softly. “I don’t blame you for hiding. You had every reason to be afraid. It was a slaughter and if you hadn’t…if something would have happened to you, then I’d have spent the rest of my life wishing that Uldred had killed me like the others. I’m glad you weren’t there.” He cupped her cheeks and leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers. “If I had lost you…I don’t want to think about that. I’m still afraid I could lose you, every single time you leave me to go out there.”
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