Chapter Text
Cullen liked the chantry. Other children complained it was boring or stupid—even Mia whined when Ma wasn’t around to hear—but Cullen didn’t really understand that. The chantry was always warm, always cozy, always lit by candles. It smelled of incense and baking bread and the flowers some of the village girls left at the foot of the statue of Andraste. He liked the statue; Andraste had a nice face and a really big sword—to protect everyone, Ma said. ("To remind us who holds the power,” said his Da. Cullen didn’t understand that, either.)
Best of all, though, was the music. One voice, or five, or fifteen, it didn’t matter. The Chant always delighted him, and there was always singing in the chantry. Always.
The Revered Mother smiled at him, and he didn’t mind if she ruffled his hair even though he hated when Mia did it. The Revered Mother never teased him, and never treated him like a baby. She only said he was a good lad and wasn’t he clever and what a pleasant surprise to see a boy so devoted. Sometimes she slipped him sweets, but that wasn’t why he liked coming.
He never said it out loud, because Mia her friends already teased him enough about everything, and Bran was the baby and did everything Mia said, but accompanying his mother on her visits was his favorite part of the week. Bran didn't like to go and Cullen hated when Ma brought him. It was better when he stayed with Mia, and not just because it always made Mia's face turn sour.
Cullen liked walking beside her, his hand safely tucked in hers. He looked forward to kneeling pressed against her side, closing his eyes, and letting the music wash over him. Peaceful was the word his ma used, when he asked why she liked coming so much. He thought that sounded right. No one yelling or laughing at him. No one sneaking up and pulling his hair or stealing his share of the cookies or calling him names like Cully Crybaby (he only cried that one time because Mia yanked out a whole handful of hair and it really hurt).
Sometimes, though, no matter how much he wanted to stay awake, the warmth and comfort and coziness, the sweet smells and sweeter songs rocked him to sleep like the best lullabye, and he’d wake curled on his side with Ma’s shawl draped over him and his head in her lap. This time when he woke, she was running her fingers through his hair gently, like he did when he was petting their mouser’s new kittens. He thought about closing his eyes again, pretending to sleep, just to enjoy the touch, but then his ma made a strange little sound like a swallowed hiccup and he couldn’t help looking up into her face.
“Mama,” he whispered, even though he hadn’t called her that since he was practically a baby, “why’re you crying?”
The pillow of her lap jumped beneath his head when he spoke. “Oh, Cullen, love. I didn’t hear you wake.”
He scrambled to his feet, his mother’s shawl sliding to the floor, and pressed his small hand against her damp cheek. Her lips smiled, but she still looked so sad, sadder than he’d been when Mia pulled his hair out and made him cry. “Mama,” he repeated. “What’s-a matter?”
“My tender-hearted boy,” she said, leaning forward and lifting him in her arms, cuddling him close. He didn’t squirm away, even though he was too old to be held like a baby. He didn’t know what ‘tender-hearted’ meant, but it didn’t sound like a tease. A tear dropped from her chin to land on the top of his head. “I’ll be well again soon enough. It’s only… it’s only I lost something, and it made me sick.”
“And sad?”
“And sad,” she said. “Sometimes even mamas get sad.”
He looked over his mother’s shoulder at the statue of Andraste. Help my mama, please. I’ll be really good. Andraste looked a bit sad, too, now he thought of it. Maybe her sword was too heavy. Maybe she’d lost something. Maybe she wished more people would talk to her instead of complaining that going to the chantry was boring.
His mother smelled of flowers like the ones heaped around the statue. And chantry incense. They’d been inside a long time. Her lips against his cheek were so, so soft. “Shall we go for a treat, you and I? Perhaps the baker has some shortbread.”
She set him down a moment later, and got to her feet. Before she could bend down for it, he handed her the fallen shawl. “And you can have a honeycake.”
“My favorite.”
“I know,” he said, and immediately reached for her hand instead of waiting for her to take his. For once he didn’t care if anyone saw and teased him. His ma needed his help. “It’ll make you feel better.”
She squeezed his hand. “Already done, my darling. Already done.”
#
In Cullen’s experience, one chantry was much the same as another. Some bigger, some smaller. Some with costly stained-glass windows, while others made do with plain shutters. Wood floors or stone, or even, though he’d never seen it himself, marble. The particulars of the statues changed, or their arrangement did. Sometimes different incense was used, or candles of different shapes and sizes.
The Chant, however, remained the same. He found comfort in that. The current chanter was working through a selection from the Canticle of Transfigurations; he recognized it at once. Apt, perhaps.
Making his way to the front of the chapel, he paused before the lone statue there. No sword for this Andraste; her palms were spread wide and welcoming. Perhaps mages in a Circle saw enough of swords. He was, at that moment, very aware of the weight of his own. For all her gentler demeanor, the tranquility of this Andraste’s expression was as tinged with sadness as that of the warrior Andraste he’d grown up with. Something about the eyes made him think of lost things.
Oh, Maker, hear my cry…
It was no small honor to be assigned to a Circle such as Kinloch Hold so early in a templar’s career, but with that honor came responsibility. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—lose sight of that. Not now, not ever.
“You’re a new one,” said a voice. His hand flexed around the grip of his blade, but he did not embarrass himself by drawing steel. The girl who stood at his side wore apprentice robes, and kept her hands folded in front of her where he could see them. “I’d definitely remember those curls.”
He blinked at her.
When he failed to reply, she continued with an easy sort of amiability, “Usually I’m alone in here. This time of day, anyway. Or evening. Night. I suppose it counts as night.”
He took a step backward, half bowing his head, nearly hamstringing himself against the first pew. “F-forgive me. I did not mean to interrupt your prayers.”
Her laugh reminded him, improbably, of the sweet blossoms the village girls left at Andraste’s feet back in Honnleath. No flowers in this chantry, he noticed. He supposed any plants grown at Kinloch were destined for the higher purpose of potion-making and herbalism, not to be wasted on girlish fancies and presents left to wither at the base of statues. “Maker, so very grave! I daresay I don’t need the whole place to myself. Pull up a pew, Ser—?”
“Ruther—sorry, Cullen. Ser. Ser Cullen.”
“Not sure, then? Seems something you’d have figured out by now.” Her smile drew him in, almost pulling an answering one from him. He was in uniform, though, if not on duty, and she was a mage. And he was, as she’d noted, new. He wasn’t certain the Knight-Commander would approve of smiling at apprentices.
As if sensing this turn of his thoughts, her smile faded and she unfolded her hands, turning them palms-up, echoing the posture of the statue. Hers was apologetic, though, rather than Andraste’s welcoming. Just as genuine. “My turn to ask forgiveness. I shouldn’t tease. It would be disrespectful even if you weren’t wearing that emblem on your chest. Is it that you choose new names when you become a templar?”
“No,” he said. “But we only use the one. Not everyone has a surname, so we use our given names. Here, anyway. In Ferelden.”
“So orderly. They ought to employ something similar for us mages. But no, half the time it’s, ‘Solona, don’t set fire to the curtains’—never intentionally, mind you—and the other half it’s, ‘And just why did you think that was a good idea, Apprentice Amell?’” She shook her head her head, sighing, and her hair, loose around her shoulders, glimmered in the candlelight. “That was a backward way of introducing myself, wasn’t it? Pleased to meet you, Ser Cullen. I’m Apprentice Solona Amell. Not nearly as inept—or as much a troublemaker—as I just made myself sound.”
“I… didn’t think that.”
“Oh, you’re a terrible liar. I like that. Better than the ones who lie through their teeth and make it all sound so plausible.”
He didn’t know what to say to this; she spoke with the bitterness of personal experience. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other earned another sigh from her. “I may not be an inept troublemaker, but my tongue does run off. Best get back to it, if I want absolution by curfew.” Like the statue, her smile didn’t quite steal the old sadness from her eyes, and, before he could think better of it, he wondered what had put it there. Lost things.
With ruthlessness that made his gut twist, he pulled the thought up by the roots and set it aside like it was a weed and he a dedicated gardener. Responsibility. Not friendship. He couldn’t lose sight of it. If he thought too much about sad eyes, he mightn’t be able to strike without hesitation if she—Maker forbid—lost control of her magic. He owed it to her, as well as to those she might unintentionally hurt the way she’d unintentionally set curtains on fire. It was, after all, the templar’s place. To guard. To protect.
Solona—Apprentice Amell ducked her head, and spoke to the floor, a little of that sadness echoing in her tone. “Well. Like I said. Please don’t leave on my account, Ser Cullen. Plenty of room. I won’t bother you again.”
She turned away before he could speak—not that he knew what to say—and returned to her pew, kneeling with the effortless fluidity of the devout. She didn’t look back at him. And even with her open arms, Andraste seemed somehow disapproving. His knees ached to bend.
Moving to the other side of chapel, closer to the door, he knelt and drifted through his own distracted devotions. When he heard Apprentice Amell’s steps a little while later, he lifted his head and said, “Y-you weren’t. Bothering me. So you know.”
“Good,” she declared, with a smile so bright it nearly banished the residual sadness altogether. “Who says the Maker’s not listening?”
Without waiting for an answer—or a reprimand about blasphemy—she tossed him a final wave and departed in a swirl of robes, leaving him to his thoughts, and Andraste’s smile, and the final verse of Transfigurations, clear and pure, fading into silence.