He’s curled up in a ball of misery in one corner of a glowing blue cage, alone now. How many days has it been since the last of his friends were taken? Two? Five? Ten? He can’t count them anymore.
He’s thirsty. They bring him water, but it’s never enough. And lyrium, he hasn’t had any in–in Maker only knows. The need for the drug has settled into a gut-deep ache, yet another torment to add to the list.
At least the screams have stopped. Maker, he never wants to hear such sounds ever again, so filled with terror and pain. He shivers in his armor, his shaking body sending the heavy plates clanking against each other.
He winces at the sound. They’ll be back soon, and the whispers in his head will start again. Who knows what new torments the demons have in mind for him. His expression tightens, and his mouth flattens into a grim line. By the Maker, whatever they test him with next, he will resist!
“Cullen?”
At the sound of his name, he lifts his head to peer into the inky darkness that surrounds him save for the glowing bars of his prison. He can just make out a form — womanly curves and wild ebony curls tumbling over her back and shoulders.
“S-Solona?”
Dare he hope that she’s come back for him? As she steps forward, the blue light of his cage bathes her with its eerie glow, bringing out the blue and purple highlights in her hair. Maker, she is so beautiful; his longing for her eclipses his fear and pain.
“Yes, Cullen, it’s me.” She walks closer to his cage, and he can see that she’s wearing a robe of diaphanous white fabric that clings to her ample curves. Maker’s breath, he can see the dusky rose of her nipples and the shadow of her dark pubic hair through the flimsy cloth. “I’ve come back, Cullen. For you. I love you.”
His heart beats faster as the words he’s longed to hear for years fall from those plump red lips. He rises to his feet and takes a step closer to the vision standing before him, a tremulous smile on his face. She smiles at him encouragingly. “Come to me, my love,” she says. “Let’s get you out of here, and we can be together — the way you’ve always wanted. Forever.”
“My love,” he croaks.
But as he takes another step closer, a frisson of unease tingles up his spine, and he stops just out of her reach. Something’s not right here. Cullen rubs his face with both hands and shakes his head to clear it of the haze caused by lack of food, water, and lyrium.
“Come to me, my love,” she whispers, glancing around the room. “Come quickly, before they return.”
He watches her with narrowed eyes. There’s a wrongness about this — about her.
When it comes to him, icicles encase his heart: Solona Amell can’t be here now because she is dead, murdered during Uldred’s takeover of the tower days ago He watched the light go out of her violet eyes as she died in his arms.
Grief flares within his chest anew coupled with rage. Rage at himself for failing to protect her as is his duty as a Templar, and rage that this foul creature would take the form of the one he loved above all others. That it would use his everlasting shame against him.
“Get away from me, demon! I will not yield!” he snarls and backs away, his hands fisting at his sides.
“You disappoint me, Templar. This would be so much easier if you’d just submit,” the not-Solona hisses as its form begins to shift into its truthful shape. “I will have you, foolish human!”
Desire cackles at him, slitted eyes glowing as it licks its fangs with its forked tongue. It reaches for him with its horrible clawed hands.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cullen wakes, the scream on his lips barely stifled as he realizes where he is. Not the Fereldan Circle. He’s in Kirkwall, in his bed in the Gallows. Not the Fereldan Circle. He’s safe. He sits up in bed and tries to calm his ragged breathing.
“Maker’s breath!” He runs a hand through his damp hair. He’s soaked with sweat, the bedding beneath him drenched. Again. He thought he’d seen the last of the nightmares — he hadn’t had any in almost a year, but now they’ve returned. Was he never to be free of them?
He gets out of bed and pads naked to his bureau. He bends and yanks open the bottom drawer, digs out a loose pair of pants. There will be no more sleep tonight, regardless of how gritty his eyes feel and how his body aches with exhaustion. He steps into the pants and pulls them up over his slim hips, quickly doing up the laces.
He opens another drawer and takes out a philter of lyrium. He’s been dosing more frequently lately, and he wonders if it may be time to increase his rations. He eyes the vial of blue liquid carefully before palming it and grabbing a towel and his sword. Tossing the towel over his shoulder, he picks up his keys and heads out of his room, determined to make himself sweat a different kind of sweat — the clean sweat of physical exertion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The exercise yard is deserted at this hour, thankfully. Cullen drops his towel and lyrium philter on the stone steps and jogs down to the sandy floor.
In the center of the field, he closes his eyes and grips the handle of his sword with both hands. Raising it high above his head, he brings it down in front of his face. With a whispered prayer, he centers himself and begins his routine.
He moves between stances fluidly, his powerful arms holding his sword steady, the muscles of his shoulders and back standing out in high relief as he works.
He grins as he thinks about how much his recruits detest these exercises. To them, it’s mindless repetition, but to Cullen, it’s always helped him to focus his mind. Even during the black days following his captivity at Kinloch, he’d been able to calm his mind with this routine — at least temporarily.
Cullen whirls and dances across the sandy training yard, gliding into and out of the ancient poses, reveling in the burn of his muscles and the kiss of the night breeze ghosting over his hot skin, cooling the sweat on his body.
His Templar trainers always praised his self-control; his ability to silence the world around him and defer the needs of his body. The Sisters at Greenfell thought that his iron will had been what had probably saved him.
He snorts.
If they could only see him now, still a shaking mess in his bed five years later, holding back his screams like bitter bile. If they only knew that he never feels completely safe; that some days, the crackle of magic from the apprentices practicing their spells makes him want to curl up into a tiny ball in the corner of a dark room and never come out again.
Magic. Mages. His lips curl back in a snarl. He is glad his Knight Commander is as wary of them as he is. Even the most innocent appearing mage can turn into an abomination if you look at him wrong. And blood magic. Maleficarum roam the city, and there is always the threat of blood magic infecting the Circle.
Solona’s eyes, the color of heather, swim before him and he falters, collapsing on his knees, exhausted and breathing hard, sweat rolling off his forehead and dripping into the sand. Solona.
How he had wanted her. Watching her going about her activities, always from a distance, of course, and imagining what it would be like to touch her soft skin, to kiss her lush red lips, to bury himself in her, he had allowed himself to grow soft.
He had thought that perhaps the Chantry, and by extension, the Order, were too strict with the mages. Perhaps they should be allowed more freedoms — to go out into the world, and perhaps even to marry. He scowls and spits. He had entertained his foolish infatuation and look what it had got him?
Solona had died for his weakness, his fellow Templars had died for his weakness, and he had been left behind to face the consequences. He’s sure the Maker spared his life so that he could spend the rest of his life paying for his sins. Why else would he be the only Templar to survive the horrors of those terrible weeks?
He groans as he gets to his feet and stumbles to where he left his towel and lyrium dose. Stooping, he picks up the vial and downs its contents in one swallow.
He sits down on the top step and leans back against one of the pillars that make up the covered portico ringing the yard. He closes his eyes as he feels the lyrium go to work on his nerves. First thing in the morning — in a few hours now, he’ll visit the infirmary and speak with the healer about increasing his lyrium dose. More lyrium would help keep the nightmares away and keep him functioning; keep him able to do his job. It’s all he has left.
Sometimes, when the moon is in the seventh house... and jupiter aligns with mars...
I can actually draw something decent.
I’m almost mad, because it’s almost worst when you can “randomly” draw something pretty decently good and then the rest of the time its just pbbbth crappity crap.
Anyway, this is a WIP only in the fact that I will look at it tomorrow and probably find ten million things wrong with it and never touch it again,
