Work Text:
She falls back in the grass with a disgruntled noise, looking up to the raven hair Seeker hovering over her. A look of disbelief and impatience is present in Casandra’s eyes, her thin lips taut as she extends a hand to the Herald of Andraste, the newly found Inqusitor.
“You’re not very good at this are you?” Casandra asks, heat rising to Dethra’s face as she grips her mentor’s hand and pulls herself up. Mud and mountain chill already working their number against her training gear: a simple white cotton shirt and a pair of dark slacks.
Picking up her sword again Dethra sighs, forcing herself into an inorganic stance that makes her feel like she’s waddling all while she moves. “I wouldn’t be so bad at this if you didn’t throw me to the ground every time I swing.” She defends as the eyes of soldiers and common folk alike bore into her. Their desperation and hopes weighing down on her back as she raises her dull sword with a tremble she barely notices.
There are so many people depending on her, so many souls in her hands, so many places to go wrong…It is all her.
The sudden force of metal meeting metal startles Dethra from her trance, a ringing in her ears as she stumbles back against the blow and stares in awe. The world around her is muddled, closing in on her as the sword in her hand feels like a weight attached to her wrist. Dethra tries to find her stability, that ability to keep going even after a mountain fell on her and hide her fear even after she came face to face to something from fable.
“Dethra! Pay attention!” Cassandra calls out as metal clashes against metal in an attempt to pull the Inquisitor from her fuzzy awareness. Dethra’s eyes blink, the fuzziness gone as her chest heaves and she throws her sword to the ground like its burned her.
“Dethra?” Cassandra calls in disbelief as the very woman she calls out for backs away slowly. “I’m sorry. I...” Dethra’s voice is distant, her eyes on the ground as warmth floods her eyes and flows down her cheeks like magma. Wiping at her eyes, Dethra remembers where she is; who she is, and without so much a thought Dethra turns on her heel and moves towards the throne room of Skyhold like the very demon she fears is at her heels.
“Inquisitor!” Cassandra calls to deaf ears, heads turning and lips moving in wonderment as Cassandra watches the retreating figure bump shoulders with a confused looking commander. He watches Dethra for a minute, his papers in hand and runners pausing behind as Cullen tries to make sense of the weakness in the Inquisitor’s apology and the water shimmering on her cheeks. After but a moment Cullen’s eyes return forward, a crease in his brow as he finds Cassandra and approaches her.
“Is something the matter with the Inquisitor?” Cullen asks while Cassandra picks the tossed sword from the ground up slowly. “I can’t be sure.” Cassandra sighs, “She was fine when we first started sparring but she just grew disheartened… I wonder if I was too rough.” She mumbles the last bit under her breath, looking to the sword she had just picked up.
Both warriors are silent as they look to the general direction of the throne room, Cullen’s frown melting away as he looked back to his friend and placed a hand over her shoulder. Patting the armor in what he hoped was comforting. “Do not worry, she’ll cool off soon enough.” But the commander’s words did little to comfort Cassandra.
The Inquisitor had locked herself away in her room it seemed. The last sights of her being of her rushing past nobles and Varric alike to get to her room and close it behind her. “Sweets moved in a hurry, didn’t even spare me a wave. Seemed real upset, you do something Curly?” The dwarf complained once Cullen had come over to ask him of the Inquisitor. “Of course not.” Cullen scoffed, a grimace pulling at his lips as he moved away from the dwarf and to the back of the throne room.
Cullen moved through the first door with no hesitance, his steps slowing as he reached the inner door to the main room. His knuckle hovered lightly over the dark wood the door, a nervousness keeping him in place. What exactly was he going to say her once he saw her and she was crying? As history will have it, crying girls, or women in general, have never been a strong suit for Cullen. Yet, even as he contemplated leaving the Inquisitor to her own devices couldn’t bring himself to turn back.
He wanted to make sure she was okay.
Knuckles knocking against the wood, he paused, listening for the gentle permission Cullen to let himself in. However, everything was silent beyond the door. Not even the sound of shuffling picked up by the strained ear of the commander.
“I’m coming in.” Cullen called out to the silence as he opened the unsurprisingly unlocked door. Really, she had to be more careful, less trusting or else someone might just take advantage.
“I didn’t know I was expecting company.” A voice chuckles, the gentle tone causing Cullen’s guard to lower slightly as he scanned the large, though mostly empty room. The afternoon light was spilling through the decorated glass, a chilled wind rustling through the room and disturbing the training clothes Dethra had been wearing earlier and the papers upon her desk. Still, the Inquisitor was nowhere to be seen in her room.
“I didn’t mean to barge, but I was...” Cullen stalled, his eyes wondering so that he could catch a glimpse of the Inquisitor, “wondering if you wanted to talk?”
"There is nothing to talk about.” Dethra responds forcefully as Cullen grimaces, her voice leading him to one of the opened balconies that overlook the courtyard.
When Cullen finally reaches the open doors, he sees her. She’s leaning against the stone railing, her eyes facing the setting sun as the orange light shrouds her is a warmth Cullen finds ethereal.
“Please,” Cullen sighs as he moves himself beside her, elbows rest against the stone as he watches Dethra rub at her eyes. “Talk to me, Inquisitor.” Cullen tries only to hear as Dethra chokes on a sound he knows to be a sob.
“I hate that title.” She mourns, “It’s all that’s I am now. A damned title.”
“Inquist— “
“Please, call me Dethra or Lavellan or Rabbit or Knife Ear! Anything…” her voice chokes, her bottom lip quivering like something from a sappy romance novel made in Orlais. “Anything but Inquisitor.” Dethra tries again, as Cullen is left silent and confused. He can feel his eyebrows pulling together, his hand raising to rub the confusion and tension from the back of his neck.
“I don’t understand.” Cullen tries, trying to will the woman to speak even if she just grew angrier with him. “I guess you wouldn’t.” the elven woman scoffs sadly, her words falling low in her throat as she tries to fight off the onslaught of red colored emotions that grasp her.
"I'm just a woman." She seethes, hands curled into fists against the stones like she wants to hit something or hold something in. Her teeth are gritted closed, eyes open as they look to the world that depends on her, to the men and women below her that look to her like she was anything but "just." She can feel their hopes and fears weighing down on her even from her perch upon the balcony, her eyes rushing with warmth all over again.
“I think you’re more than just a woman…” Cullen speaks cautiously, his hand coming to rest over one of Dethra’s closed fists. He can feel her shake beneath his touch, her breath leaving her as she squeezes her eyes closed in an attempt to block him out or the entire world he didn’t know. “Yes, you may be one person, but you are also the only woman I know that would face an Archdemon and a Chantry legend by their lonesome." Cullen can hear the scoff Dethra produces beside him but he smiles all the same, watching as her eyes open and look to him. Her eyes of hazel warm and blotched red with the tears she had wiped away as she looked to Cullen.
“But you’re not alone.” Cullen adds, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. Her eyes are wide and the warmth she’d been fight behind her eyes rushes forward, Cullen’s words acting as a trigger as the weigh on her back seems to lighten just a bit.
“You have Cassandra and Josephine and Leliana, their always there to offer an alternative and a shoulder.”
“What about you?” Dethra asks, gold clashing with hazel as Cullen looks to her in bewilderment. He stares, lost as he swallows down the lump that forms in his throat. A sudden intensity is in her eyes as they keep eye contact, the life and fire in her eyes making Cullen’s cheek warm and his hand raise to rub the back of his neck. A nervous habit.
“Of course you have me. I made that pretty obvious, didn’t I?” Cullen tries to huff away his confession, eyes glancing to the tiny world below them. “Yes,” Dethra sighs, a gentle though small smile on her lips as she moves closer to Cullen. “I just wanted to hear it out loud.” Cullen meets her eyes, his own smile pulling at his lips as he nods.
“You always have me, Dethra.” and in that moment Cullen sees a woman, but he still doesn't see the "just."