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The Herald has the neat, precise handwriting of a Circle mage. 

Which isn't to say that all Circle mages' writing style was the same: in Kinloch, Amell's penmanship was all tight, rounded letters, while mages in Kirkwall had a spidery scrawl, their ascenders and descenders sharpening to a point before turning back to the center. 

Evelyn Trevelyan has looping, elegant script, like, well, like a noble's, because she is one--or was, anyway--but her script is too regular, too practiced; it's the handwriting of someone with too much time on their hands and the knowledge that they weren't going anywhere. 

Reading her reports gives Cullen a headache, but not because of any illegible words. Rather, because they're too regular, too patiently written, as if she has all the time in the world (she used to, he reminds himself, it isn't her fault she has such neat penmanship, but--) and he has to keep telling himself that he's not in Kirkwall, that he's not reading report after report from the few mages and Tranquil that were left, that he's not trying to pull together a city that was breaking apart at the seams. 

He's with the Inquisition now, and he's not a templar, and Evelyn Trevelyan is--well, she's still a mage, but she's also the Herald and upbraiding her penmanship does not fall under his duties as Commander. 

Not that there's anything to upbraid, really--her penmanship is a scribe's dream, but he wishes it wasn't; it's just another ghost coming back to haunt him.

---

Cullen starts his days early, already up and dressed before the sun peeks over the mountains. 

He steps out into the brisk wind of the Frostbacks and shuts the door behind him, securing it so the wind doesn't blow snow into the hut. He used to have a tent, which was perfectly fine, but after the Conclave, there were people trying to assassinate the Herald while she was unconscious, so Cassandra and Leliana had moved him to the hut next to hers. 

And that was fine too, he supposes, at least until he hears a loud thud from inside the Trevelyan's hut, followed by a muffled, "Maker's balls."

Cullen quickly strides over to her door, panic rising in his throat when he hears a strangled "Fuck!"

He pounds on her door. "Herald, are you all right?" he shouts through the wood. He tries the handle but it's bolted from the other side. 

"Oh for the love of--!" comes the reply. "Go away!"

She's practically screeching, which is not a good way to start anyone’s morning, but he doesn't relent. "Herald, if you're hurt--"

There's a noise that sounds suspiciously like a scream being muffled by a pillow. 

(Panic rising, screaming all around, blood, blood, so many mages with so much blood--)

(No. Calm.)

"Herald," he hisses through his teeth. "Maker's mercy, if you don't open this door--"

"Don't you dare!" comes the reply. 

"What is going on here?" comes a new voice from behind him, Leliana's lilting accent easily giving her away. 

There's a pause on the other side, a moment of silence, and then, timidly, "Leliana?"

"Are you quite alright, Herald?" she asks as she comes to stand beside Cullen. 

Cullen's about to retort that of course she isn't, but to his surprise they hear bolts sliding open before Trevelyan peeks from behind her door. 

"I--" she begins, glances at Cullen, and in a flash pulls Leliana inside and slams the door in his face. There's a moment of terse silence before Leliana laughs, high and tinkling, and her face appears in the doorway, the opening still too narrow for him to see inside. 

"Cullen, be a dear and fetch Josie, would you?"

He frowns. "For Andraste's sake, would you please just tell me what's going on?"

A very vehement "No!" comes from behind Leliana, and the redhead grins at him, amused. 

"Do as I say, Cullen," and then she slams the door in his face, leaving him huffing on the doorstep before he turns and stomps over to the hut that Leliana shares with Josephine and Cassandra. 

Cassandra is still snoring loudly in the corner, buried up to the nose in thick blankets, but Josephine is already up, combing through her long locks. 

"Er, Leliana sent for you," he says as she bustles around the space, getting ready for the day. "She's at the Herald's hut."

They quickly make their way back, and Josephine knocks briskly. "You sent for me, Leliana?"

The door opens, and Leliana is there. "Yes. I need you to--" but Josephine has already seen inside and replies simply, "Ah. Say no more."

She walks away down the path to the apothecary’s, leaving Cullen slightly more panicked and even more confused, but before he can even take a step closer to the door, Leliana's slammed it in his face. Again. 

Well, fine. If those women wanted to keep whatever secret they were playing at, they could very well do so without him. He stalks off to the training yard, intent on spending the rest of the day in relative peace. 

And it is, at least until after lunch, when Trevelyan approaches him while he supervises the sparring recruits, looking paler than usual but otherwise fine. 

"I'm sorry," she says without preamble. "How I behaved this morning was unworthy of me, especially when you were only trying to help."

He nods. He's still a little miffed, but decides to let this one go. 

"I trust you're feeling better?" he asks. She nods, gesturing to the little potion bottle that Josephine must have fetched hanging from her belt. 

"Much."

"Oh. Well, good." He resists the urge to scratch the back of his neck. "Will you tell me what's going on now?" he asks. She smiles slightly, just one corner of her mouth tilting up in amusement. 

"No."

"Oh?"

"It's not any of your concern," she says, still smiling enigmatically. 

"You mean it's none of my business," Cullen answers easily. "Because who wouldn't be concerned when you were screaming like one--"

He cuts himself off, because he's a former templar, and she's a mage, and this is dangerous territory. But Trevelyan isn't stupid, and she squares her shoulders, looks him straight in the eye and says, "Possessed?"

"I wasn't--" he scrambles, but her glare cuts him off, her magic rolling agitatedly off her in palpable waves. He pushes down the urge to strike out with the Cleansing and says, simply, "Sorry."

There's a tense moment where she keeps glaring at him, but finally he feels her magic settle down, and Cullen mentally pats himself in the back because that could have gone so much worse than it had. 

But she isn't leaving yet, merely looks thoughtfully at him before she says, "Moon blood."

"I'm sorry?"

"Moon blood. That's why I was screaming. I get awful cramps."

A pause, and then, "Oh. Oh."

Trevelyan laughs delightedly at his blushing and says, "You're a treasure, Commander," before taking off and leaving him to his growing embarrassment, her laughter carrying across the ring of steel on the training yard.

---

They're glaring at each other across the War Table. 

It tickles a memory in him: all those years of Meredith and Orsino working with their doors never open at the same time, because otherwise they'd just glare and nothing would get done.

And no matter how he wishes this was different, it isn't; she's a mage and he's a templar, and this is what mages and templars do. 

Leliana is already twirling one of her daggers in her hands, ready to sink it into the table, into that little spot below Lake Calenhad neatly labeled Redcliffe. She knows, she knows everything, knows how this is going to end, but Cullen is nothing if not determined, and he's not giving up without a fight.  

He wishes they didn't have to do this. He wishes Trevelyan would see reason. 

Mostly he wishes he didn't feel so betrayed. 

---

Cullen goes looking for her, the night after she returns from Redcliffe. 

She had been conspicuously absent at dinner, and asking around had revealed that nobody had seen her since after the War Council. He searches for her in and around and out of Haven, and he's about to call a search party when he finally spots a figure sitting on the far docks on the other side of the lake. 

She sits with her legs dangling over the edge, staring up at the Breach. He makes his way toward her carefully, not wanting to startle, because if templar training's taught him anything it's that surprising an upset mage is a very bad idea. 

When he's close enough, he notices the knife, and all his templar training flies out the window as his heart leaps into his throat. 

"What are you doing?"

She turns, slowly, as if not wanting to startle him, and reaches out a hand to grasp his and pull him down beside her. He watches her as she says nothing, merely taps the flat of the blade against her unmarked palm. He hears the blood roaring in his ears; his mind screams blood magic but his heart screams you'll hurt yourself and his own worry startles him more than anything.  

Seconds pass without her saying anything, so he says, as lightly as he can, "Tell me what's going on?”

It works, just barely, one corner of her mouth pushed up by memories from happier days. 

"Concerned?" she asks, matching his tone. 

"Who wouldn't be?"

She smiles a little, but it disappears as quickly as it came. 

"You've read the report," she says, not a question. He nods. She sighs, still fiddling with the knife. "It's all true, you know," she says quietly. "But it wasn't, well, it wasn't all."

Tap. Tap. The blade flashes in the green light of the Breach. 

"I saw Leliana, of course. And Cassandra, and Varric," she continues softly. "You know I saw them die." She pauses. "I don't know what happened to Josephine. I hoped she'd gotten away."

He has an idea as to what she's getting at. 

"You were already dead when I got there."

And there it was. 

"Did you--" he begins. "Did you find--"

"A body?"

He nods. 

"No. Thank the Maker. I don't think I could have handled that."

He starts at that, but he composes himself and instead asks, "Then how could you be sure?" In reply she pulls out a scrap of paper from her pocket. 

"Don't tell Dorian," she says. "He might go on and on about time loops and paradoxes but," she pauses to bite her lip as she hands it over. "I couldn't... I couldn't just leave it."

He reads it over quickly. 

All the forces of the Inquisition... marched on Redcliffe castle... thrice...

Thrice. 

"You said," she continues, resuming tapping the knife against her hand, "That Redcliffe was impregnable."

He looks at her, and she looks back, her gaze unwavering. He's worried for one wild moment that she can see into the depths of his soul, and that he is found wanting. 

"Why?" she asks. 

"Why what?" he asks in reply, a little breathless. 

"It was your doing. It couldn't have been anyone else. What I want to know is why."

You're not the only one. 

He puts on his best Commander face and prays that she does not hear the drumbeat of his heart. "We would not have stopped until you were found, Herald."

She looks at him, scrutinizing his features, until finally she says, "I see." She fumbles for something on her other side, and she shows him a little glass phial and a cork stopper. He recognizes the glimmer of a spell on the glass. 

Protection charm, his mind supplies. 

"What are you...?"

She holds out the knife to him with her left hand, her right opened palm-up in front of her. 

"If you please," she says, and it's all so surreal, a mage asking a templar to help her make a phylactery. 

He makes the cut, quick and clean, and he watches her face as he drips her blood into the little glass phial. When it's full he corks it, wipes the blade clean as he feels her pour healing magic into her bleeding hand. 

She reaches out for the phial, her hand bloody but whole, and she pours the spells into it to finish the ritual. When she's finished the phial glows a vivid ruby red in her hands, in contrast to the soft green light of the mark.  

"Here," she says, pressing it into his hands. "So you'll always be able to find me."

"Herald," he says, protesting. 

"Please," she says. "There's no one else I'd trust with it."

"But--"

"Please," she interrupts, her voice breaking, hollowness seeping into her eyes, the same expression she wore when she'd just arrived from Redcliffe flashing across her face. "I don't want to be lost."

He only nods mutely, grasping the precious little phial more tightly in his fingers. 

---

Today is a good day. 

The Breach is closed, and there's food and drink, and although there's too much dancing for Cullen's personal taste he doesn't mind overmuch, because for the first time in months they have a little breathing room. 

There are mages running around Haven, twirling around the dancing bodies, and yes, there are templars standing at the sidelines and they aren't mingling, but at least no one is glaring. 

It's a good day, indeed. 

But then it comes to his attention that one particular mage (two, really, but he's only looking for the one) isn't there, so he sets off to look for her. 

Cullen finds the Herald in front of the Chantry with Dorian, a crowd of children huddled around them as they let loose a shower of little sparkling lights overhead. And the children are laughing, and she's smiling brilliantly, and nothing is blowing up. 

He's spent almost half his life around mages, and more than that believing that they were one step away from becoming monsters, were something to be feared, but he's never thought that magic could be beautiful. 

But then Evelyn turns and sees him, and he wonders what she saw in his face because suddenly she dispels all the little lights and stands sheepishly with her hands behind her back. They children are all looking apprehensively at him, and even Dorian stands tense beside her. 

So Cullen says, "That's quite..." Beautiful, wonderful, amazing, how did you do that? "Something," he finishes lamely. She still looks like she's waiting for a scolding, so he smiles, his face muscles protesting a little at the unfamiliar movement, and hopes it comes out okay. 

It must have, because Evelyn smiles back, tentative. Dorian, on the other hand, is grinning, already herding the children off and sending them running after a bouncing ball of light, before he makes vague, enthusiastic gestures over Evelyn's shoulder. 

Evelyn draws back Cullen's attention by clearing her throat, and she says, "Dance with me? I promise not to set any part of you on fire."

And that's, well--it's a joke in poor taste, really, but Cullen can't help but smile a little anyway. And then he's about to disillusion her from her expectations of templar dancing skills, but just then a servant comes to fetch her for Cassandra, and she's dragged off before he can say a word. 

He stares after her before Dorian comes up to him and says, "Oh well, you can always dance with me, Commander."

"Oh, sod off," he says sulkily. 

Dorian tsk's and says, "Pity. And here I thought you had a thing for mages in general." And then he walks away, leaving Cullen open-mouthed behind him. 

---

Cullen’s feet feel like lead as they trudge through the snow, following Roderick and that strange boy who sends prickles across his skin and makes his fingers twitch for his sword. 

Behind them, Haven burns. 

They pause when they reach the tree line, hastily making a small fire. They don't intend to stay here for long. 

He watches Leliana as she lights up one arrow, her face stony in the flickering light. He touches her arm as she nocks bow to string, and she looks at him questioningly. A moment passes between them, and she understands, and hands him her bow. 

Duty and closure hang heavy and bitter in the air between them. 

Cullen has never been much of an archer, but it was he who had sent her to her death the first time, and it is he who must finish it now. 

The burning arrow flies, flickering against the calm sapphire sky. 

Nothing happens at first, and his heart stutters at the thought that perhaps she might be dead already, but then there is a disturbance on the far mountain, and ice and snow come crashing down. 

When they start walking again, there are no more fires in Haven, and his own heart feels buried under a mountain of ice and snow and cold, numbing hurt. 

---

Grief hangs heavy over the camp like a shroud. Cullen makes his way towards one of the fires after a lengthy and exhausting meeting for patrol assignments. He drops down heavily on the ground, leaning forward as his head drops into his hands. 

Clink. 

He startles, pulling frantically at the thin chain around his neck. Her phylactery emerges from beneath his shirt, and it's like a fist clenches around his heart. The little phial suddenly feels so much like shame. 

He turns away from the suddenly too-bright fire and makes his way towards the edge of camp, hoping that here, at least, he can be alone with his own failure. Grief and anger surge up within him, and he almost throws the little bottle down on the ground before he notices the tiniest flicker of light from within. 

He looks incredulously from the phylactery to the path they came from and back again. Tentatively he takes a step forward, and his heart leaps into his throat as the blood within flares just a little bit brighter.

Distantly he hears Cassandra's boots crunching on the snow behind him, hears her say his name, but he's already running back the way they came, his boots thundering on the ground to the beating of his heart. He hears Cassandra cursing him as she follows, but he ignores her, because she’s out there somewhere, and if he has to run all the way back to Haven then he’ll do so, and gladly. He crests the rise of the path and then--

"There," barely a whisper, more a reassurance to himself that she's--

"There!" Stronger. Triumphant. Joyous. "It's her!"

Behind him Cassandra cries "Thank the Maker!" and every part of him agrees, bursting with praise for the Maker, for Andraste, for the little phylactery, for her own strength and stoutness of heart that has brought her back to them, to the Inquisition, to, to . . .

And then he's kneeling beside her in the snow, and the way she curls pitifully against him makes his heart break and burst at the same time, because she's here, she's alive, and she's--

Cold. 

Something kicks into motion inside him then, and he hoists her up into his arms as she curls her fingers into the fur against his neck. He all but sprints back to camp, Cassandra huffing behind him to keep up. Maker help him, he's sent her to her death twice already, and if there's even the slightest chance to save her, he will drag her back from the brink with his bare hands. 

--- 

"Champion."

Hawke smiles as she practices her staff forms on the battlements. She nods slightly in his direction, still focused on her movements. 

"Knight-Captain."

He crosses his arms and scrunches up his face into a grimace. "I hope there isn't any trouble," he says in his best Disdainful Templar voice. 

"You know who you're talking to, Curly? Hawke is trouble."

They both turn toward Varric as he descends the steps. 

"Really, Varric," Hawke says. "I didn't get into that much trouble."

"No, you didn't," the dwarf replies, which rather surprises Cullen until he continues with, "You made trouble."

"The Qunari weren't my fault!"

"Yeah, except for the part where you helped a Rivaini pirate run off with a priceless relic of their faith?"

"She came back!"

"After which you dueled the Arishok for her honor, because of course you would. Blondie didn't sleep for days making sure you didn't slip into a coma."

Hawke huffs, girlishly irritated. 

"Hawke, I have made a fortune writing down all the shit you've done. Face it; if there was a, shit, I don't know, an old Tevinter God of Trouble or something, it would have your face. The getting-tossed-into-events-beyond-her-control is more of the Inquisitor's thing."

"Huh," Hawke says, pensive. "Hawke, Goddess of Mischief and Patron of Templars' Knickers-Thieves. You think I'll have those nifty little amulet-things with my face on it?"

Something else perks Cullen's interest. 

"Just what sort of trouble does the Inquisitor 'get herself into,' Varric?" he asks the dwarf. 

"You mean, aside from being accused of murdering the Divine and having a Darkspawn Magister sic his pet Archdemon on her? Huh," Varric rubs his smooth chin and says, "Well, there was this one time in the Fallow Mire when she slipped and took a little swim, and no shit, there we were..."

By the end of it, Cullen has resolved to give the Herald--Inquisitor--a very stern talking to on the matter of safety precautions and the uses of belts. His head feels about to burst, and Hawke is not much better, doubled over in laughter.

"Well, damn!" she says between fits of laughter. "That's even better than the time Merrill and I got lost in the Gallows laundry room!"

Wait, 'Patron of Templars' Knickers-Thieves...'?

Cullen turns bright red as he points an accusing finger at the esteemed Champion of Kirkwall. 

"You were the one who stole an entire platoon's worth of smallclothes!"

Hawke's laughter rings like a warning bell across all of Skyhold.

 

---

The scene is familiar enough to be jarring, because he's seen this all of once but somehow it's imprinted on his mind like a brand that still echoes with the memory of the fire that burned it. 

A mage comes traipsing through the great doors of what he calls home, looking determined and resolute, with the Warden Alistair in tow. 

(The one thing I always wanted but could never have.)

Ten years. Maker's mercy, it's been ten years but the day Amell burst in through the door and froze in horror and recognition on the other side of the demon's cage is still fresh in his mind. 

(Ill-advised infatuation.)

But Evelyn does not freeze in horror at the sight of him. Instead she dimples prettily at him as she sweeps past, dragging a bemused, if a little exhausted, Warden up the steps and into the keep. 

(A mage, of all things.)

Hawke gives him a little wave from just behind, and he feels a vague sort of amusement and exasperation at the peculiar habit his past has of simply walking in out of the blue. 

---

"Cullen."

"Alistair."

There's the heavy silence of two strong men sizing each other up, before Alistair grins, sunny, and Cullen can't help but smile in return. 

Alistair holds up his fist, and Cullen does the same: bump, over, under, thumbs, clasp, shake. He can just about--

--remember

And--

A memory: fourteen and fifteen, skulking around the corridors after lights out, pilfered loaves of sweetbread leftover from dinner; I totally beat you at sparring today, and, It was a tie, Alistair.

They talk for a while, leaning on the ramparts. Old days with the chantry sisters, memorizing canticles, do you remember that time when...?

They don't talk about Kinloch, or Amell's conspicuous absence, and both of them are just a little bit grateful, deep down. It's comfortable. 

At least until: "Your Evelyn's rather pretty, isn't she?" with a sly smile to match. Cullen lets his head thump against the stone ledge of the battlements. 

Maker have mercy. 

---

Evelyn takes to the Warden immediately, which shouldn't rankle him but does. 

Cullen tells himself that this is a good thing, because Grey Wardens are supposed to be trustworthy and good allies and he should encourage this, really. 

He tells himself that this has nothing to do with how, twice, more than a decade before, Grey Wardens swept into the tower he called home and on both occasions left with the girl he loved. 

Liked. 

Was merely infatuated with, blight it all. 

It irks him, still, and he tells himself it's because the Inquisitor shouldn't be dallying with charming Wardens when they've a world to save. 

It certainly has nothing to do with the easy way laughter comes to her in Alistair's company, or the way she smiles at him in greeting. 

They're allies, he tells himself firmly. Friends, at most. 

Or...?

He shakes that thought away. 

---

The camaraderie and laughter and ridiculous jokes about cheese were bad enough, but then the Inquisitor and the Warden start sparring. 

Cullen thinks it's ridiculous at first, because she is a mage and she doesn't need to spar, but then it becomes evident that she doesn't intend to spar with magic. 

The Cleansing strikes out, tugging at the edge of his lyrium-deprived senses and drawing his attention to the upper courtyard. It is followed by the familiar feeling of mana being drained, and a faint, feminine cry after that. 

The last one is what makes him burst into a run, leaving the sparring recruits in bewildered curiosity and taking the steps three at a time. 

The Warden and the Inquisitor are in the sparring ring, and his heart leaps into his throat when he sees Evelyn sprawled on the ground and Andraste preserve them all, Alistair is advancing upon her with his sword drawn. 

He doesn't quite believe he still even has to ask, but: "What is going on here?" 

And even more to his disbelief this is answered with, "Commander," from Alistair and a smiling, "Oh, Cullen," from Evelyn, still on her ass and really, is no one else bothered by the armed almost-templar standing with his sword out in front of the (helpless, mana-drained) Inquisitor?

He feels his lyrium-headache intensify and takes a deep breath, willing it to go away. 

Alas...

"What," he tries again, emphasizing each word. "Is going on here?"

Finally, finally, Alistair puts away his sword as Evelyn stands up, brushing dirt off of her leathers. 

"Sparring," she says, brightly, as if she hadn't been on the wrong end of a sword mere moments before. 

"Sparring," he says, flatly, because none of this is making sense and the two of them are crazy, he's sure of it. 

"Yes," she says, apparently oblivious to his mounting tension. "Alistair's teaching me to fight."

Cullen resists the urge to pinch his nose, because she might take it for a sign of weakness, and he's struggling from withdrawal but he's not ready to give up, not yet--

"You know how to fight, Inquisitor," he says in his best stern-unyielding-advisor voice. 

"Fight templars, I mean," and Evelyn has the grace to look a little embarrassed at admitting that to a (former) Templar. It doesn't help in the slightest. 

"You've fought templars before, Inquisitor."

"Yes," she says, her face scrunching up at a memory he can only guess at. "Which is why I decided I need to practice."

"You might've asked," he says. "Our templars-"

"Are busy."

He doesn't yield. 

"If you want to learn how to fight templars then you should've asked proper templars."

"Alistair is a proper templar. Not taking vows doesn't invalidate his training."

He doesn't know why she's being so stubborn about this, or why he is, but it doesn't stop him from being bothered by the realization that he doesn't know when she changed it to Alistair instead of Hawke's friend or Warden. 

"Full templars still fight differently. Their experience--"

"You'll forgive me if I'm reluctant to spar with people predisposed to running mages through first and asking questions later," she interrupts. 

That stings, a bit.

But then she fixes her stare at him, and her look is unforgiving. "And I trust Alistair. He's fought beside mages before, and I doubt he's going to stick his sword into me at the drop of a hat."

But although I trust Alistair bothers him, it's still nowhere near as irksome at the thought of the Warden sticking... things into the Inquisitor at the drop of a hat. 

He shakes that thought away and scrambles for the remaining shreds of his wit and dignity. 

"Not all templars are like that," he says, gruff and a little sheepish underneath it all. Her expression softens at that, and turns a little sad. 

"I know," she says. 

He doesn't know what to say to that, and he has the sinking feeling that the conversation is spiraling out of his control faster than he can even register. 

From the corner of his eye he can see Alistair glancing between him and Evelyn before he says, "Right, just between the three of us, personally I've had my fill of Mage-Templar lovers' spats to last me a lifetime," and Cullen sputters and turns bright red because of course he does. "So I'll leave you both to it then. Inquisitor." He bows, and then turns to Cullen with a smirk. "Ser Cullen."

And then mercifully, he is gone. 

But the Inquisitor is still shuffling on her feet, her fingers clenching and unclenching around her staff. Twice she opens her mouth but no sound comes out, until: "I'll let you get back to work," and then she too is gone, leaving Cullen with his guilt worrying at his insides and the sound of Evelyn's laughter in another man's company rattling around his mind like an uneasy gale. 

---

The memory of their last abortive conversation nags at Cullen's mind, until she seeks him out in his office two weeks later after returning from an excursion into the Storm Coast. 

Her expression reflects the place she's just come from, turbulent and uneasy. 

"Was there trouble?" he asks, and she gives him a look, as if he's a little slow, or touched in the head.

"Yes," she says, not bothering to elaborate.

"I meant," he says, scrambling. "What kind of trouble was there?"

And she gives him a searching look, evaluating, and then says, slowly: "Red Templars."

"Ah."

She shifts uneasily on the other side of his desk. 

"I know you disapprove," she begins, her face twisting into a grimace. "But Alistair is a good fighter, even if he was never a full templar. And a good man," she adds hastily. "And I need to practice, Cullen."

"I know," he cuts in, desperate to mend the rift between them. "And I agree with practicing. But you could ask any of our templars."

"There are few others I can trust to hold a sword to my neck and not kill me." She glances uneasily at him, and he's uncertain what it means, or if he even wants to find out. "Anyway, Alistair's willing enough. And he has all the talents of a templar, which is what matters."

If he's honest with himself Cullen would admit that it's not because the Warden's not a templar that bothers him, but rather because the Warden is Alistair. But today he's decidedly not honest with himself, or with the Inquisitor, so he says, instead: "You could have asked me."

There is a moment of silence before he tastes his foot in his mouth, and Cullen hastens to backtrack as red suffuses both their faces. 

So he says: "I meant--," but at the same time Evelyn manages to blurt out "Lyrium," and Andraste preserve him, just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, she manages to prove him wrong. 

He struggles to maintain his composure. "What about lyrium?" he asks, and she winces in mortification, but barrels on anyway. 

"Alistair's never taken any. Because he never took his vows, right. So he's not..." she trails off, searching for words. 

He swallows back the bile rising in his throat. "Addicted."

Unlike me. 

She winces again, embarrassed and apologetic.  "That's not what I--"

"I know what I am, Inquisitor." His voice sounds far away to him, like he's hearing it through a thick door. 

"You were a templar. I understand why you'd want to leave the Order, but there's no shame in being what you were, Cullen."

"You don't know what I've done."

"You're a good man," she insists. 

"You don't know what I've done."

"Lyrium didn't change who you are inside, Cullen," she says, looking straight at him, and he holds onto her words like a drowning man catching hold of a lifeline, drawing himself into the safety and certainty of her conviction. "You were a templar. A good one. And now you're no longer a templar, but you're still a good man. That you have the strength to fight the need for lyrium is proof of that."

He desperately wants to believe her, believe he's changed, but he doesn't even know where to start. 

She sighs. "I thought about asking you first." Cullen starts at this. "But then you told me about your going off of lyrium, and Cassandra told me that it was so much harder for you than you made it look. I didn't..." She looks away, looking ashamed, and Cullen's heart constricts at the thought that it is his own weakness that drove her to seek help elsewhere. She grimaces, and finishes with, "I didn't want to burden you."

Cullen surprises both of them when he immediately says, "You won't."

And Cullen can't help but stare as the fearsome Inquisitor turns the most fascinating shade of red, before she blurts out: "Spar with me."

"What?"

A pause. Evelyn takes a breath and exhales forcefully. 

"Spar with me," she says again, so incredibly certain that Cullen feels a little bit envious of her conviction. 

But...

"But," he begins, and she cuts off his protests. 

"I trust Alistair," she says. And then, softer: "But I trust you, too."

He looks back at her, her gaze unwavering, and he thinks, oh.

This is a start.

---

Cullen realizes he's in love because of a nightmare, of all things. 

He opens his eyes to the familiar sight of stone walls, blood on the floor (whose, again? He can't quite--) and the purple haze of the demon's cage. 

Ah. 

He waits. He knows what's about to happen. Sure enough--

"Templar."

It's a well-rehearsed script by now. 

"What does your heart desire?"

Demons claws dragging ripples across his mind, his memories. Teasing. 

"Oh, but you have very good taste. She's quite lovely, isn't she?"

Cullen lifts his head, expecting Amell's familiar smile, wicked and demon-twisted. Instead, the face that greets him is so much closer to home these days. 

Evelyn smiles at him from the other side of the demon's cage, and Cullen screams. 

And screams and screams and screams. 

---

He doesn't quite know how to face her the next day, during their mid-morning War Council. He's tired and he's distracted and he's in love--

Oh, Maker. 

They're talking about some issue in the Bannorn, something about nobles that he can't give an arse's damn about, so when Evelyn asks for his input he says something brusque and grumpy. 

To his surprise, she laughs delightedly at his idea, and he finds himself suddenly in charge of delivering a quantity of live nugs to the problem noble's estate in the dead of night, much to his confusion and Josephine's long-suffering sigh. 

But she's smiling at him, and that's the important bit, and later he catches himself humming--humming! Maker, he’s got it bad--as he writes down an order for his soldiers to catch twenty live nugs in the Emerald Graves. 

---

He's kissing her. 

He's kissing her, and she's kissing him back, and, and...

Maker. 

They pull apart, quick breaths filling the space between them, and she smiles and Maker, she's beautiful. 

But then her eyes shift to somewhere behind him, and he turns to see his soldiers patrolling the battlements (just as he'd ordered them to, he thinks, half-approving and half-murderous), pretending that the Inquisitor and the Commander are absolutely not kissing on the battlements. 

And Evelyn is already pulling away, squeezing his arms as she tilts up her head to face him. Her cheeks are still red (from the kiss! His kiss!) and tensed from smiling as she says, "I'll, uh, I'll let you . . . get back to work."

And then she's walking away and then she's gone, but not without one last tantalizing smile as she disappears into the watchtower. 

He thanks the Maker and Andraste both for his soldiers' discipline, as not a one of them comment on the ridiculous grin he wears for the rest of the day. 

---

He shifts and shuffles beneath the ill fit of his jacket, but it is the atmosphere that stifles most of all. 

How can those women stand this sort of thing?

But of course, Josephine and Leliana look like children that got their Wintersend presents early (or, in Leliana's case, like a child that successfully stole another child's present), and Cassandra looks just as murderous as always, sneering Orlesian nobles or no. 

And Evelyn . . . well. 

She looks like she belongs. 

Of course, she's wearing the standard Inquisition attire like the rest of them, but she carries it better than most. Or, well, him, mostly. 

Because Josephine and Leliana would look right at home even if they were wearing flour sacks, and of course Cassandra and Dorian are nobles, and Varric is a deshyr, which is pretty much the same thing, in Cullen's humble (--peasant--, a snider side of his mind supplies) opinion. 

And Evelyn . . . is not a noble, not exactly, because she's a mage and mages can't hold titles, but. 

It only now occurs to Cullen that this was the world she was born into, and this would have (should have) been the world she grew into, if not for magic. 

(And a chantry blowing up, and a war erupting, and falling into the Fade, and a whole host of should-not-have-beens that snatched her from that life.)

(And rather conveniently for him, threw her right into his.)

And it also occurs to him that it isn't Evelyn he's watching, or the Herald, or even the Inquisitor, it's Lady Trevelyan, playing The Game as well as the next sneering Orlesian, and Maker's breath she's caught him staring and she is coming this way. 

"Commander," she says by way of greeting, dimpling at him. He's a little too lost for words so when he says nothing she snatches the drink he hasn't realized he's been holding and brings it to her lips with a mumbled apology about being thirsty. 

And then: "No, don't," because he's just remembered that that particular drink came from one or another of those bimbettes that had been hounding him all night, and he doesn't want any of it near her. 

She raises one brow, the perfect picture of a noble striking the right balance between curiosity and condescending amusement. 

He blushes almost as red as his jacket as he says, "It's, er, I mean--you don't know what's in that, Inquisitor."

Her brow rises higher in time with the upward quirk of her lips. "You think somebody would poison you? Or me? In front of the entire Orlesian court?"

He huffs, indignant. "Underhanded scheming is the national pastime, isn't it?"

She laughs at that, loud and decidedly uncourtly, and he relaxes a little in response. 

"Well, considering it was given to to you, it is entirely likely that something was slipped into it."

"You think someone really slipped poison into my drink?"

She grins wickedly at him. "Not poison, no. A sedative, more like. Knock you out cold and drag you off to some dark corner--" Heat starts to creep up the back of his neck. "Away from the watchful eyes of the Inquisition to have their wicked way with you--"

"Alright, Inquisitor, I get it."

She laughs again, that loud, easy laugh that goes perfectly with Do Templars take vows?

"Don't worry, Cullen. If that happens, we'll launch a rescue mission. Kick down doors all heroic to save your honor--"

He laughs at that, though heat rises up in his cheeks at the same time. From the corner of his eye he sees the pack of nobles who'd been pestering him look sharply in his direction at the sound, but at the moment he doesn't care, utterly relaxed for the first time the whole night. 

"But," he says, lowering his voice conspiratorially, because this topic is secret but he also wants to keep this moment a secret, tucked away like a good luck charm in the shadows of his heart. "What about the assassination plot we came all the way here for?"

She smiles and answers barely above a whisper, but clear enough to send minute shivers of pleasure down his spine. "Well, they're just going to have to put it on hold."

---

She is getting better at fighting without magic. 

They stand in the sparring ring, sizing each other up, he with his blunted practice sword and she with her quarterstaff. She steps forward and he blocks her strike easily, but what he doesn't expect is when she brings the staff around the back of his foot and pulls, catching him off balance. 

He's getting slow, he thinks, because in the next second she's on him, with one end of her quarterstaff on his neck, where her staff’s blade would be. 

"Do you yield?" she asks, and his first wild thought is yes, always, but Alistair's laughter from the sidelines where he'd been 'supervising' brings him out of his reverie. 

"I yield," he says, and if she notices his breathlessness she makes no remark, merely smiles that Maker-blessed smile and pulls him back on his feet. 

---

The night before they lay siege to Adamant, Cullen walks the battlements of Griffon Wing Keep, confirming rotations, checking supplies, making sure everything runs like clockwork. They only have one chance at this; she only has one chance at this, and Maker help him, he'll give an arm and a leg and endure all the lyrium headaches in the world if it'll help even the odds. 

He comes across Alistair leaning on the ramparts, drinking straight out of a bottle. He comes to stand beside the Warden, who holds out the drink. He hesitates, and Alistair needles him, saying, "Few sips can't hurt."

Cullen takes a sip, and immediately after starts coughing as something like magefire crawls down his throat. 

"What," he says, still sputtering, "In the Maker's name is this?"

Alistair laughs, easy, as if they weren't about to assault a legendary fortress tomorrow, as if his comrades, his family, weren't summoning demons as they speak, as if Amell weren't all alone miles and miles away. 

Perhaps that last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but still. 

Alistair takes back the bottle, takes a swig, and coughs a little before answering. 

"Grey Whiskey. Vintage Warden Amell." He smirks.

"Ah," Cullen says. So that's why. 

Alistair laughs quietly to himself, lost to old memories. "Maker, but you wouldn't believe what it was like the first time she got drunk. Leliana's fault, that one, you know. The things she said . . ." he shakes his head and takes another sip before passing it back to Cullen. 

He looks at it, long-suffering, before he drinks and starts sputtering again. 

They drink in silence, mostly. It's only broken once, when Cullen says, "Keep her safe tomorrow," and Alistair answers, simply, "Yes," before they lapse back into silence as they await the coming dawn. 

---

There's a roar and a crack of thunder and the sound of stone crashing against stone. 

As Cullen sprints past the main bailey and up the steps his fingers are already fumbling for the chain around his neck. Despair settles in before he sees the little phial, because there's a collapsed bridge and empty air and the Inquisitor nowhere to be seen. 

Her phylactery sits in his numb fingers, dark and damning. 

The next few hours are a blur, because he doesn't know, he doesn't know--

(She doesn't know--Maker, has he never told her he loves her?)

--what to do, how to survive this, how to make this all end--

His body moves on its own accord, his mind blank because he doesn't know anymore--

The battle in the main hall is fever-pitched; everyone's armor, be they Warden or Inquisition, is all red, save for where it's cast a sickly green by the light of the rift. 

And Cullen is tired; his arms hurt from fighting and his head hurts from thinking and his heart just hurts, from, from--

The rift pulses, and everything in him protests at the prospect of fighting one more wave, one more, always one more--

But no new demons emerge, only Blackwall, Cassandra, and Varric. 

And then Alistair, and Evelyn (Evelyn!) and--

--no one else. 

Evelyn looks like she's about to cry, but she doesn't, merely raises her hand and closes the rift without looking at it. 

People are cheering, talking all at once. Distantly he hears Varric's voice, small and hesitant, Where's Hawke?, but he's too amazed by the little phial in his fingers, glowing like a live ember in the palm of his hand. 

He looks across the battleground, and Evelyn looks so exhausted but it's her, it's her. 

Alistair limps toward him, clutching his side, with Evelyn looking equally exhausted just behind. The Warden squeezes Cullen’s shoulder briefly and says, "One Inquisitor, safe and sound, as requested," and only smiles tiredly before limping away. 

Evelyn gives Cullen a look, questioning, but he merely shakes his head and pulls her close, not caring about anything but the way she melts into his touch and the slow, strong beat of her heart. 

Safe and sound. 

---

Cullen, don't you recognize me?

Once upon a time it was Amell saying those words, the would-have-been sweetness of it stolen away by hours or days or lifetimes of being a demon's plaything. 

Only too well.

But now his lyrium-addled mind takes his already haunted memory and twists it into a nightmare that stabs at the very heart of him. A demon stands on the other side of his cage, wearing the face of Kirkwall's knight-captain. 

Mages cannot be treated like people!

He sees Evelyn, lovely, sweet Evelyn, begging for mercy as she huddles into herself on the bloody floor of the Gallows. The knight-captain (because if he thinks of that monster as himself he's going to lose his mind) grins ferally as he looms over her. 

Then he looks straight at Cullen, still trapped in his cage, helpless and more importantly unable to help Evelyn. 

"Cullen," the demon says. "Don't you recognize me?"

Only too well.

He wakes up with a start. For one frantic moment he's not sure where he is, until he recognizes the walls of his room and the hole in the ceiling with sunlight streaming bright and golden through it. 

A pitiful thing, that he recognizes the places in his nightmares more easily than his own home, but--

But . . .

Evelyn is there, one hand on his bare chest, whispering soothingly. And suddenly all the memories of last night crash down on him: her shy smile, the flicker of candlelight in her eyes, the smell of her hair, the taste of her--

He smiles. 

It is most definitely a good morning.

 

---

The Arbor Wilds are as beautiful as they are deadly. The lush green foliage conceals templars with red lyrium crystals, red lyrium arms, or simply misshapen red lyrium behemoths lumbering through the trees. 

Cullen carves Evelyn a path through his former comrades and tries not to think of himself with red lyrium eyes and arms and the roar of a man lost to a fate worse than death. 

He reaches a lake with more red lyrium horrors, the facade of the temple not much further ahead. Evelyn comes along some time later, Solas and Morrigan at her heels and Bull and Sera only a little further behind. 

He shouts at her to forge on ahead, but stubbornly she takes up position at his back and freezes a templar foot soldier with a snap of her fingers. 

When all the templars are dead, there's a brief pause to breathe, and almost as one they take a step toward each other, tentative smiles on their faces. 

But then something--is that an elf?--charges out of the bushes, and she turns at the sound but Cullen’s sword arm is too numb and he can't raise his weapon fast enough to be any help. 

Not that she needs any help, as he soon finds out. She twists, ducks, brings her staff around to catch the elf behind his foot and pulls, putting him off balance. 

A brief, wild thought: that's my girl! before she runs the elf through with the blade of her staff and then the interlude is gone. 

But there's no more time, and she and her companions turn to run toward the temple doors, with only the briefest brush of her hand on the crook of his elbow as farewell. 

But even in that fleeting touch, the faint thrum of healing magic pulses through him, knitting the fractures in his sword arm. 

He thinks, how did she . . . ? but she's already running and then she is gone. 

---

Just when Cullen thinks he can't take another swing, the roar of a dragon heralds Corypheus' retreat. Slowly, surely, the Red Templars lose the fight, and cries of victory ring across the wilds. 

But Cullen has since learned not to celebrate too soon. 

He turns and runs into the temple, past bodies of Wardens and templars and the strange elves and down a hole, where he follows a trail of even more dead Wardens and templars and elves to an open courtyard. Samson is lying face down beside a shallow stream, slowly coming to. 

Cullen orders him restrained quickly, and is surprised when the former templar offers little resistance. He kneels bound, bent, and broken at Cullen's feet. Cullen presses the tip of his sword to the other man's neck. 

"The Inquisitor?" he asks, and Samson lets out a garbled laugh. 

"Damned if I know," he says, hopelessness clear in his tone. Cullen has little patience for him regardless. 

"You're damned either way. Best make yourself useful and I might consider making this quick." 

"Look here, Commander," he spits out, Cullen's title falling from his mouth like poison. "I know when I've lost. I'll tell you everything, but I can't tell you something I bloody well don't know. Your woman and I fought, she knocked me silly, end of story. She could've ascended to the Maker's side afterwards, for all I knew."

Cullen grimaces but orders his men to take Samson away anyway. He sighs, frustrated, but takes comfort in the gentle glow of Evelyn's phylactery and prays she's alright. 

---

The newly re-opened Breach casts everything a pale, sickly green.

After Josephine, Leliana, and Morrigan have left to make preparations, Cullen crosses to the other side of the war table and takes Evelyn into his arms. Outside, the Breach threatens to swallow the world, but here there is only her and him and time passing much too quickly. 

"I'm coming with you," he says, but she's already shaking her head before he finishes. 

"The people need you here. I need you here," she says, her lips brushing against his. "In Skyhold."

He sighs as he leans his forehead against hers. He cups her face in his hands because she is beloved and precious and she is leaving. 

"Nothing will happen to Skyhold," he tells her. "I promise."

She kisses him briefly and starts to pull away and it's too soon, so he pulls her back to the safety of his arms and embraces her fiercely. 

"Stay safe," he all but growls into her ear, and she laughs and throws her arms around him, a stolen moment of comfort while the world falls to pieces. 

---

Sunlight wakes him up, liquid and golden. 

Only the angle's wrong, and the bed's softer than he's used to, and he's not drenched in the sweat of nightmares, and there's a weight across his middle, warm and welcome. 

He opens his eyes to the sight of Evelyn's tousled hair falling over her bare shoulder, across his chest; her arm around his middle, her breathing even and deep. 

Tentatively, he runs his thumb over the smooth skin of her arm, up and down, up and down. Evelyn sighs happily in her sleep and burrows closer into his warmth, and Cullen's heart breaks and reforms in this moment because this is all so ridiculous but so cherished and new, and everything he's never known he wants. 

He's never dreamed about this, not even in the Tower with Amell and certainly not in Kirkwall, but now, looking down at the mage sleeping in his arms--the arms of a former templar--he almost cries because he was so close to missing out on this happiness, and he will swear to the Maker that he will never want anything more for the rest of his days than to wake up every single morning in this kind of bliss.

It's a new day in a new world, and Cullen is a new man here in this moment, and he's ready to discover all of it with her. 

Evelyn stirs in his arms, languid and lovely, and she tilts her face up to look at him, smiling sleepily.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

He looks at her, desperate to capture this moment, because he’s never been this profoundly happy. “I was just--I mean--you--" He sighs, and holds her a little tighter. “It was so close.”

She smiles, one hand reaching up to cup his face. “Cullen, it’s alright,” she says, soothing. “I’m alright. We’re safe.”

It’s not what he means, but . . .

“Everything could have been so different,” he mumbles, trying to make her understand. She doesn’t, but all the same he’s happy when she presses closer to him and sighs contentedly.

“I love you, Cullen,” she says, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her as close as possible and burying his face in her hair. His breathing has gone ragged and there are tears prickling in his eyes but he doesn’t care, because:

“I’m so glad you’re here.”