ballroom dialogue prompts|| no longer accepting the following line
❝ you have shown yourself to be a fine dancer, despite all your protests. ❞
He was glad she had agreed on accompanying him on his journey to Ferelden. He wanted her to see where he came from before his life as a templar, before the storm that had changed his life forever. He had to make peace with his old self and although unwittingly, he didn't want to do it alone. Aurora was like an anchor to reality, a memento of his past but also the proof of the man he was trying to become now. The proof that not everything was lost.
They both took off the shoes, and now they were talking peacefully, feet swinging over the surface of the water.
At some point, the conversation fell on the recent events at Halamshiral. Cullen, of course, expressed his preference for never setting foot in that place again, but with more colourful words.
❝You have shown yourself to be a fine dancer, despite all your protests. ❞ She commented.
"Or more likely, I should be grateful for your poor taste in dance partners," he replied playfully.
"My mother loved dancing," he said after a moment's silence, "There was a fair in Honnleath every summer. People would feast and make music for an entire week. My mother, my siblings and I used to rehearse the dances in the morning and when my father returned from the fields we all went to the square where everyone gathered... I remember father wasn't so keen on dancing but he really couldn't say no to mother..." His hand unwittingly slipped into his pocket, fingers reaching for a familiar, round-shaped token of his youth.
He hadn't given much thought to his parents lately, nor his siblings or anyone he had loved in his past life. After all, the list had thinned. Most of those he had been fond of were gone. He kept toying with the coin in his pocket, faces parading into his mind: the guys from his training, his comrades, Farris...
Suddenly, his mother's smile appeared in the crowd of ghosts. It was like a flame that refuses to be snuffed out. Cullen's fingers stopped playing and curled on the coin, clutching it.
"...It was hard to say no when she smiled..." he went on, his voice barely audible.
He brushed Aurora's hand with his own. His eyes met hers. Cullen turned her palm upwards.
"humour me," he whispered placing delicately the coin into her hand, "I want you to have this. Please."
