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It felt wrong.
The day had been lovely—after making camp at an outpost and checking in with the agents on duty, Revas and Cullen had spent the entire day together, riding along the countryside as they simply enjoyed the uninterrupted pleasure of each other’s company.
At the end of the day Cullen had brought her to a lake he used to visit as a child; it had been beautiful, with moonlight sparkling on the rolling waters and the sound of crickets making their music in the far-off bushes. The stars had been out—they’d twinkled, like diamonds, and Revas had never felt more at home since leaving her clan behind than at that moment.
She had prodded him playfully then about his unusual willingness to be apart from his work, and he had, true to form, admitted that he’d made contingency plans just in case. She’d laughed, then, and had gently reminded him—“Cullen. You, me, alone, pretty lake?” He’d looked momentarily bemused, but offered a sheepish smile as she took his hand and wove her fingers between his.
He had told her of his last day at home in the village of Honnleath, the day before he departed for his new life as a templar. Prior to that moment, he’d rarely spoken of his childhood; the only previous instance the Revas could remember had been when they’d played chess together for the first time. It was wonderful hearing about his family; like he was letting a little more of her in with every spoken word. Despite the chill of the Ferelden countryside, she had never felt so cozy.
He’d ended up giving her a favor of his: a silver coin, stamped with Andraste’s face, which he’d kept for nearly two decades—a parting wish for good luck from his brother. He’d broken the oaths he’d sworn as a templar to keep it. Revas recalled Solas’ story about the qunari baker who folded sugar into her dough before baking it. “A secret act of rebellion,” he’d said.
Cullen had kissed her then, the two of them surrounded by the sound of water gently lapping at the shore, enveloped in the aroma of pine and cedar and the coolness of the air, reminding her of her beloved forests far to the north. His breath had been warm, and his lips soft against hers as he cradled the back of her head with his hand.
Now they were back at camp, and she was in her tent and he in his, and it was this small fact of hers and his felt that peculiarly, intensely wrong. She lay on her back beneath her blanket, her mane free from its elaborate plait and splayed across her pillow, with her hands folded over her stomach. She was staring up at nothing, and feeling as though the canvas around her might as well have been solid stone for how alone she felt. Was Cullen asleep? Was he staring into the darkness too, feeling suffocated by the same sense of seclusion that was pressing down upon her? Did he ache for her embrace just as much as she ached for his?
Revas sat up, pushing back the locks that had fallen into her face as she had risen. What would the soldiers on duty think, she wondered, if she walked across the camp, clad only in her nightclothes, and disappeared into their commander’s tent? They would gossip like old women for weeks, surely! They probably already nattered ceaselessly about her liaison with Cullen anyway, no doubt. She didn’t believe she was one to hide her feelings for those who were special to her (Creators, she’d kissed him on the battlements for all of Skyhold to see more times than she could count), but this was different—she’d have to look these soldiers in the eye in the morning and know that they knew where she’d been.
Resolve suddenly steeled Revas’ fretting—she was the Inquisitor, by thunder, and she did not want to spend tonight separated from her lover, soldiers’ gossip be damned. She rose, lifting her blanket off the bedroll and draping it around her shoulders, putting on the most dignified face she could manage as she stepped into the common area of the camp.
The two soldiers sitting on the benches by the fire turned at the rustling of her tent flap, and she inclined her head at them in acknowledgement once they caught her gaze. They both jerked back slightly, and Revas knew that they had caught a glimpse of the firelight reflecting, catlike, in her eyes. She could work with that; she kept the notion of the feline firmly in her mind as she walked across the commons, holding her chin high, using every step she took to say without words that she harbored only a supreme indifference for the opinion of her small audience. Why is Cullen’s tent so far away?
Finally she stood before the entrance. She pulled back the flap and stooped slightly as she murmured hopefully, “Cullen, are you awake?”
He was. His hair was completely mussed; he was clad in a cotton shirt with the long sleeves pushed up to the elbows, exposing his gold-dusted forearms. He propped himself up on one elbow, his concerned expression illuminated partially by the firelight slipping in. “Inquis—Revas? Is something wrong?”
“No,” she replied hesitantly. “Well, yes. I mean–can I come in? Please?”
“Of course! I mean—er—of course.”
She stepped in, grateful to escape the feel of the soldiers’ eyes on her back. The inside of his tent was the same size as hers, which left only a little room for her to crouch down by his bedroll. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Cullen, it’s just—I couldn’t—I—” and she let out a sigh of frustration. How was she supposed to explain something like this?
“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?” Cullen asked, the concern clear in his voice.
“Nothing is wrong, yes, as in another hole has not been ripped in the sky and Corypheus is not waiting patiently outside to engage me in a final battle that the bards will sing of for centuries. Nothing like that is wrong, otherwise I think I would not be the one telling you this as I would probably be engaged in said historic battle—” she was babbling. Mythal strike her down, she was babbling like a lovesick fool. “Anyway, nothing like that is, in fact, wrong.”
Cullen reached over and covered her hand with his. “Are you all right, Revas?”
“I—” she struggled to find the words. “It feels—wrong. To be without you. Tonight. When we came her specifically to be together, yet we’re not spending it together. Not all of it, at least.” Her face was blazing. He’d gone still. This was a terrible idea.
“Revas,” he said slowly, as if he were weighing each word carefully in his mind before saying them aloud, “Do you mean that you want to…spend the night…with me?”
The emphasis was unmistakable, and Revas, despite expecting that that was how her admission might be construed, floundered in embarrassment. “No! No. I was not—I didn’t—” and her voice faded into a mortified whisper. “…I do not intend to become intimate tonight.”
Tension visibly left Cullen’s shoulders. “Oh,” was all he said. Whether he was disappointed or relieved was something Revas couldn’t determine.
But before he could say more, she finally found the right words. “I just…I came because—oh, Cullen, I can’t bear to be apart from you tonight!” There. She’d said it, and she meant it. She stared down at his hand over hers, unwilling to look at his face and whatever expression it had taken.
He squeezed her hand. “I must admit, I feel much the same,” he confessed. She looked up at his face—his brows were pulling together, and there was an apologetic smile on his lips, as if he thought he was burdening her with his admission. “Will you stay here, then? With me?” he asked.
“Yes,” Revas breathed. “If you’ll have me.”
“Always,” he said, his voice low.
They spread her blanket over his, and he lifted both of them to allow her to crawl in beside him. It was deliciously warm under the covers, most likely thanks to his body heat, and without thinking she cuddled right up to him. When she froze and murmured a hesitant “um,” he only chuckled, and drew her closer. She lay her head on his chest, and found his heart beating fast in her ear. He was just as nervous as she was.
“Good night, Cullen,” she whispered.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Good night, Revas.”
She wasn’t sure how long they lay there awake together. His body was soft and warm, the rise and fall of his chest lulling her into that delicious space between awake and asleep. He smelled of campfire and leather, and of the sandalwood shaving oil she’d given him as a gift. She reached up to touch his chin—it was smooth. He’d shaved before going to bed.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured. Revas couldn’t help smiling.
“You used the oil I gave you,” she whispered back.
“I did,” he said. “I don’t always. I wanted to save it.”
“I got it from this little shop in Val Royeaux,” she said. “I can get more if you—” A wide yawn interrupted her last word. “—w-w-w-want.”
She felt Cullen’s lips press against her hair again. “We can go there together someday. Go to sleep, my darling.”
Revas nuzzled her cheek into his chest, a pleasant fluttering feeling expanding in her ribs.
As Cullen’s heartbeat slowed and his breathing deepened, Revas was suddenly glad that she had left her tent. She drifted off slowly, languidly, the pleasure of sleep accentuated by the indescribable sensation of falling into it while wrapped in the arms of her lover.
“They haven’t come out yet. You think they—”
“Maker’s breath, not a sound came from the Commander’s tent all night. Stop your gossip-mongering and eat your breakfast, lieutenant.”
Lt. Westley looked back down into his bowl of mash, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from the commander’s tent. He’d been on duty when the inquisitor had stalked all animal-like across the commons, glaring at anyone who looked at her with her alarming glowey eyes. She’d entered Commander Cullen’s tent, and that had been the end of it—no telltale sounds suggesting a scandalous night of torrid passion or anything.
“So…who’s going to go wake them up?” someone asked eventually. There was silence around the campfire. The collective reluctance to suffer the commander’s anger (or worse, the Inquisitor’s) was heavy on everyone’s shoulders. They’d all heard what had happened the last time someone had…“interrupted”…the commander and the inquisitor. Jim still refused to go anywhere near the former if the latter was within a ten-foot radius.
However West stuffed his mouth with the last of his breakfast and tried not to look too eager as he jumped up. “I’ll do it,” he said, effecting an air of bravado. He could feel the eyes of the company follow him as he crossed the area to the tent.
He lost a bit of his nerve a few paces away from it, though—he really, really didn’t want to catch his superiors in their skivvies, no matter how keen he was to satisfy his curiosity. (That’s what he told himself, anyway—it was more like he didn’t want to lose his job, however much it might have been completely worth it.)
“Er…Commander Cullen? I-Inquisitor?” he called out at the entrance. There was no answer.
“Well, go on!” called the same agent who’d gotten after him for gossiping.
“I’m going!” he said. West covered his eyes with one hand and flipped back the tent flap—but there were no indignant cries of outrage, no vindictive fury or wrath from the Maker Himself or anything of the sort.
He felt a presence at his back—the others were crowding him, trying to get a look inside. When he finally peeked through his fingers, he saw—
“Well that’s disappointing,” someone said, and the crowd at West’s back dispersed.
West had to disagree. The inquisitor, small and with her hair spread out all fan-like, was nestled up against the commander’s side, whose arms were wrapped around her middle and whose face was calmer than West had ever seen it.
A smile pulled at the corners of his lips, and instead of doing what he’d come to do, he let the tent flap fall back into place, turning on his heel and leaving the lovers to themselves.