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Halamshiral is as grand as ever, as sleek and oppressive and coldly beautiful as Linnea remembers it. She's a different person to the Linnea that last stood in these halls, and she can't say she entirely cares for all the changes. For one, she's dressed in Trevelyan colours, in fine silks cut in a sufficiently military style that she still matches her advisors despite their differing colour schemes. Not her idea, of course; Josephine has gently urged her to display family alliance during their time at court, in delicate and tactful ways that nonetheless cannot be ignored. It is a good thing, she has assured Linnea, to show interests and allegiances beyond the Inquisition given the present attitudes across Orlais and Ferelden.
She hadn't liked the suggestion any more than she would have three years ago, but the difference is she acted on it. She's not sure what that says about her. That she's less of a headache for an old friend, at least. Josephine looks as comfortable as ever milling gracefully through the crowds, no doubt enjoying the hard-won freedom from having to whisper urgent instructions of stand here and no, to my left, Inquisitor.
She's still issuing such weary requests of Cullen, of course, who is as resolutely unimpressed with the entire ordeal as ever. He gets away with it on account of it being interpreted as a quaint military sort of naivety, as well as his innate ability to look handsomely disgruntled. He'd be horrified to hear that, no doubt, probably imagining himself to look a little more severe.
He hates this. He hates it in ways Linnea can completely understand, and then he hates it in other ways she suspects she never will. She spent the first seven years of her life being paraded in front of nobles enough that it felt familiar to come back to it even after so many years in Circle seclusion. Four years of high society hasn't loosened the tightness in his shoulders a bit, he is clearly as uncomfortable as ever.
Last time, whatever it was between them was too new and delicate for her to feel confident offering much in the way of support, but this time, she feels she is afforded a little presumption.
She reaches her hand out towards his, knuckles brushing, slipping her fingers between his in an inverted clasp. Neither of them are wearing gloves, not for an event with this level of formality despite the Anchor’s current tendency to flare angrily without provocation, so she can feel both the warmth of his hand and the gentle tremor that shivers through it. He's just beginning to grip back when Josephine swats at them with her napkin.
“It's not as if it's a secret,” she says, but lets her fingers fall with a sigh.
“No,” Josephine says, shooting her a look that's half reproachful and half sympathetic, “but even if your relationship was - ah, publicly confirmed, holding hands in a ballroom would still raise some eyebrows.”
Cullen's jaw clenches with annoyance, but Linnea is both fascinated and amused despite herself. “Whatever for?”
“Well, what could your motive possibly be? To flaunt the relationship? To invoke jealousy? It would raise questions about the stability of your partnership if you were so keen to advertise it.”
“That's absurd,” Cullen mutters, and Linnea wants to reach for him, to kiss the furrow between his eyebrows until it can be persuaded to disappear. She doesn't.
“Please say I can at least dance with him,” she says instead, and see the corner of Cullen's mouth twitch for a moment. Success.
“No,” he says firmly.
She grins. “Just one?”
“One dance,” Josephine concedes, “that is appropriate.”
“Wouldn't two be more delightfully scandalous?” She shoots Cullen another toothy grin. “I thought the court loved a little scandal.”
She's joking, really, trying to tease a smile from either of them amidst the tension of the visit and the looming promise of the Exalted Council. Josephine considers it with a serious sigh, however, and Cullen's jaw clenches again. Her two advisors share a brief look that she watches with curiosity, interest piqued, and then Cullen looks away.
“It's not that simple, I'm afraid,” Josie says, and it's in these moments Linnea can almost see the missing space where Leliana would have been, and she can tell that Josephine feels her absence even more keenly. “It must be the right kind of scandal, you see. The Inquisitor and her Commander being rumoured to enjoy each other's company from time to time, that's very romantic. But the Inquisitor and her Commander pursuing something more serious? That could be seen to be compromising the integrity of our operations.”
“But it isn't,” Cullen says, in that way he has where if he says something stubbornly enough it will convince everyone around him of the objective truth of the matter. Sometimes she wishes she had his conviction.
“So that's what the court believes? That we're -“ Linnea suppresses a little laugh. “We're having a series of ill-advised flings?”
“Probably not, but it's what they want to believe, and what they'll be looking for.”
“You've lost me, I'm afraid,” Linnea says at the same time as Cullen mutters something under his breath that she doesn’t catch, but can probably make an educated guess as to its gist.
“It's politically beneficial for the nobility to consider you both essentially unattached,” Josie says, her tone apologetic. “I confess I have not contradicted this.” She gives Linnea a look that's almost mischievous. “If you were to exchange a few longing glances across the room, perhaps -”
Linnea bursts into delighted laughter but Cullen continues to stare straight ahead with furrowed brow and an irritated expression. It's more than annoyance at the oddities of the Orlesian rumour mill, she knows that. Cullen hates nothing more than having his private business made public, except for perhaps not being able to conduct his private business precisely how he wants. The two aren't always compatible. In fact, they rarely are, for people like them.
She almost forgets herself and reaches for him, but instead curbs her laughter and gives him a searching look. He returns it with a small smile and an expression that says very clearly, Let's just get this over with.
“One dance,” she reminds him, soft and teasing and just for his ears, and he chuckles quietly. She takes it as acquiescence. She wouldn’t ask if she knew it would truly add to his discomfort, and she’s shared a dance with him once before in front of all the nobles and dignitaries. Admittedly, it was in Skyhold, on familiar turf and without the Orlesian grandeur to intimidate him, but she thinks he rather liked it with or without the locale. He dances by the book, probably quite literally - his precise and unerringly similar steps speak clearly of time spent memorising the best and most efficient way to get through a song without embarrassing oneself. She’s not exactly a dancer either, but together they made it work. After he’s clearly gone to all that effort for what she can only assume is her benefit - well, it would be a waste.
Linnea smoothes the front of her silk tunic, idly thinking that her family would be proud to see the Inquisitor sporting their colours. Personally, however, every time she looks down she feels another little wave of irritation rush over her. It's not that she's nursing a particular nasty grudge against them, she's past all that now; she just can't for the life of her imagine them as her family. Wearing their colours and celebrating their link feels false and insincere in a way she still struggles to stomach.
Their visits grew increasingly infrequent as she spent longer in the Circle, and until she was lauded as the Herald of Andraste they'd barely spared her a letter for several years. The minute word spread, of course, there were letters arriving from every distant second cousin twice removed that she'd never heard of.
Their first request of their Herald, the living relic they now had a blood claim to, was a lock of her hair. She almost gave them one as well, despite Cullen's flat disbelief, she got as far as cutting it off before she hesitated. Already robbed of destroying her phylactery during the rebellion - the cellar at Ostwick had been smashed enthusiastically before she made it there - she suddenly hadn't been so keen on having another piece of her floating about, not when she'd just reclaimed some kind of freedom. She was done giving pieces of herself to people with power over her. So, she kept it. Josephine crafted several tactful letters and they had another ally and resource despite politely refusing their request. The Trevelyans never asked again.
She ended up giving the lock to Cullen in a clumsy romantic gesture just before facing Corypheus, pressing it into his palm and trying not to cry. She'd mumbled something about Cassandra’s ridiculous romances and how the heroines always did this, but it meant more than that. He understood, she could see it in the sombre lines of his face. He took it from her almost nervously, holding it as gently and carefully as if it really were a glass phial.
So you can find me.
Perhaps they've tired of her now, perhaps without the threat of giant holes in the sky and an ancient Magister on the loose she isn't half so appealing a relative. They wouldn't be the only ones to find her lacking in purpose as the days go on.
But she had promised herself not to think of the Exalted Council, not tonight. Tonight there's a feast in their honour and a dance she intends to lay claim to. Her goal for tonight isn't political gain but to perhaps persuade her partner to enjoy himself, even if it's just for a moment.
-
It's early evening when Cullen finally finishes his meeting with Josephine and Linnea is back from whichever diplomatic high society event is expected of her, so he beats a hasty retreat to her quarters. They've given her and her highest ranking associates an entire wing to themselves, Cullen included, with the Inquisitor occupying the grandest set of rooms. He offered his to Rylen immediately, who is appreciating it a lot more then he would have. If Cullen isn't with the troops in the military style camp just outside the walls, he's in Linnea’s rooms. They're far enough away from prying eyes that the proprietary of it is moot.
Her main room boasts an expansive set of glass panelled doors that swing open to reveal the sort of ornate balcony he's only ever seen in Orlais, with gold flourishes and flowering plants draped artfully over the edge into the walled garden below. It doesn't quite compare to the striking views from Skyhold, in his opinion, but it is its own sort of scenic.
Linnea is leaning against the balcony railing and gazing out over the late summer sunset, turning to smile at him when she notices his arrival. It's a warm, bright smile, but it has an edge of weariness to it. He takes careful note of the way she is flexing her left hand unconsciously, the movements stiff and slow, and it's that hand he takes in his first, feeling the tightness of her palm. No gentle glow can be seen, but as always, there's an odd magical warmth to her skin. He takes a slightly insolent pleasure in kissing her thoroughly in full view of the expansive garden stretching out below them, pressing soft kisses to the corner of her mouth as she finally pulls back. He can feel her smile grow a little less tired and little more carefree beneath his lips.
“I've got something for you,” she says, and taps at a paper box balanced on the balcony. He regards it blankly, so she laughs and adds, “Those awful sugary things you're so fond of.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Awful?”
“Well, only in the quantities you can stomach them.” She flips the paper lid. “Would you like one?”
He could ask her now, he thinks. He could ask her with the warm evening glow on her face, the promise of an uninterrupted evening ahead of them, and when they kiss he would taste the sweetness of the cakes on her lips. It's the sort of moment he's waited for.
He keeps being presented with these moments, straight out of a story or a book or one of the romance plays he passes in the square, as if the entire world is asking of him, Isn't this the time? Isn't this what you've been waiting for?
His answer, he supposes, is a weak not quite yet, but not the kind of ‘not yet’ that Josephine quietly offered him at one of their last meetings back at Skyhold. She had taken him gently by the arm and he had pretended not to understand her.
“What the Council says may change everything,” she said, a note of apology in her voice that she was asking him to adjust his personal life for political purposes. “It might be prudent to wait, though I wish you both all the happiness in the world.”
He doesn't know what gave him away.
And here he is, with another of those moments in front of him and a hundred voices babbling away inside his head. Isn't now the time? Isn't here the place? He could ask her.
But he doesn't. He takes the box of cakes and swallows back the lump in his throat, managing a slightly hoarse: “Thank you.”
Linnea misinterprets his sudden stiffness. “They are the right ones, aren't they? Josie said -”
He shakes his head with a smile. “They're the right ones. Thank you.” And then, lest he make a further fool of himself, he starts to unwrap one from the paper covering with fingers that maybe shake a little. He notices Linnea notice, and then he notices her pretend not to notice.
“Long day?” she asks eventually, which he can at least answer truthfully.
“Very. And yours?”
“Painfully long.” She lets out a long, exasperated sigh, as if to illustrate her point.
“What was it today?”
She looks embarrassed. “A lecture.”
“A lecture?’ Cullen regards her with interest, cake momentarily forgotten.
“Well - yes.” Linnea ducks her head a little and grimaces at the floor. “College of Enchanters, some dreadfully boring thing about the Breach and its effects on how mages visited the Fade in their sleep. It was awful. They should've asked Dorian, I think I talked myself in circles. Still, I'd promised them a favour.” She looks up at him wryly. “I'd hoped they'd want funding. That's easy.”
He's never seen her in a scholarly setting and is oddly fascinated by the concept. His rotation at Kinloch regularly included overseeing lectures, which he'd always enjoyed. It had inspired in him an unshakeable faith in the Circle, listening to the magical theory he half understood spoken in calm, sure voices. He has felt quite certain that such places of learning could inspire only good things, that magic could be contained and used within these walls for the betterment of all Thedas.
Public lectures were banned in the Gallows, even private classes were restricted in size unless it was deemed necessary. He was at least partly to blame for that, and he's not proud to remember it.
“I would have liked to see it,” he says, and Linnea raises her eyebrows in amused surprise.
“Are you sure? It was terribly dry.”
“I'm sure,” he says, and earns a small, though somewhat embarrassed smile.
“Well, Vivienne wants me to give a repeat performance, which is just my luck.” She groans and takes the cake Cullen offers her with a grin. “My terrible delivery and unscholarly methods aside, if I do, I'm as good as endorsing the Circle, aren't I? She's put me in a very awkward position, and she knows it.”
He chuckles. “Can you blame her?”
“Not at all, but it's -” She breaks off in frustration. “I want to do it for friendship’s sake, but politically -” She breaks off again with a tight laugh. “You know, being a public figure gets very tiresome.”
There isn't much he can say to that except move a step closer and press a kiss to her temple. Her time is never quite her own.
“Any marriage proposals?”
He almost drops his cake. “What?”
“From your Orlesian fan club.”
“I do not have -” He sighs at length. “One.”
“Only one? You're slipping, Commander.”
“I hardly think they're serious,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “For a start, it's not as if they approach me directly.”
“That's rather a faux pas in Orlais, isn't it?”
“Is it?” He frowns. It annoys him more than it ought to. It's just, if he's going to do it properly -
“My mother always thought so.” Linnea shrugs. “It would be disrespectful to the Inquisition.”
Cullen shakes his head irritably. “It's not as though they seriously expect me to agree, either way. They can't really be so willing to overlook the fact that I'm neither a noble nor even particularly good at pretending to be one.”
Linnea bites her lip, seemingly trying not to laugh. “I think you're right that they don't expect you to agree, but I think the requests are serious enough.”
“I can hardly see how.”
“That's probably why,” she says, smiling off into the distance, but offers no further explanation. “Just accept it, Cullen.” She flashes him a teasing grin. “You're a catch.”
He snorts. “Really.”
“Really.” Linnea bumps her shoulder against his. “Lucky me.”
He could ask her now. It's another perfect opportunity, the sun creeping over the horizon and the sugar of the icing still sweet on his tongue. She weaves her fingers through his one by one and rests her head against his shoulder.
He could -
He kisses her on the forehead, and together they watch the sun set.
-
Cullen doesn't quite ask her if they can take in a stray mabari in the same breath as he asks her to marry him, but close enough. Neither are quite questions, either; the mabari is a foregone conclusion from the moment he licks Cullen's hand adoringly, and the proposal isn't much of a request either. Marry me, he says simply, as if it's just the way things ought to be.
She’d always thought with a strange kind of clarity and certainty that he would marry her. It was in the way he first told her he loved her, with one hand cradling her face and his eyes soft, and it was in the way he fended off his admirers that first time at the Winter Palace with those odd little words: ‘not yet’, the phrasing piquing her interest. Are you married, Commander? Not yet. But someday, perhaps? With anything else she would have teased him mercilessly, but he said it so simply and with such heartfelt conviction that she left it unspoiled, and pretended she hadn’t heard. She doesn’t know where he developed this want to marry after almost a lifetime of Chantry service and the expectation that it was likely beyond his reach; she certainly hadn’t thought herself capable of it after almost a lifetime of Circle imprisonment.
In the moment, it turns out that she is. It’s just words, words and paper, and she hadn’t thought she’d care except for his sake, but she does.
Words and paper and a lump in her throat.
They spend the afternoon at a formal event organised by Josephine, and like the mabari, their impending marriage has to be left at the door, where it settles down to wait for them to be finished with the courtly facade. Also like the mabari, this is easier said than done. The mabari looks crestfallen to be abandoned so soon after having finally found a new owner, and Linnea might have a slightly firmer grasp on object permanence but she shares his reluctance.
She drifts from conversation to conversation dutifully, always keeping Cullen in the corner of her eye, and probably being a dreadful burden to poor Josie with all the nudges and prompting she needs. For someone who would have professed not to care much at all about marriage mere hours before, she feels a little giddy. They’d said their forevers a long time ago, she’d thought that was all she’d wanted to hear.
Linnea has always been very good at taking the things she isn't allowed and putting them somewhere safe but forgotten in her mind. Freedom, for one, had been carefully tucked away until the Conclave, and it was only after taking it out dubiously and polishing it that she realised she rather liked it. She'd done much the same with romance for a time, before that too was unearthed and eventually cherished.
The cabinet of possibilities that the Circle kept such a tight lock on was opened by the Inquisition, but being the Inquisitor still kept a few things dusty and beyond consideration. Perhaps this had been one. She's never really known a normal life.
“Don't you think, Inquisitor?”
Linnea blinks a few times, catches Josie’s exasperated gaze, and does her level best to pretend she has been listening. “I'd be most interested to hear our ambassador’s thoughts on the matter,” she says, “given she is most experienced in this sort of thing.” Josephine is experienced in most things. It's a safe enough bet.
“You flatter me,” Josie says dryly, her eyes amused. “As it happens, I had in fact been considering this very matter this morning. Perhaps we could meet to discuss this tomorrow, in a more formal setting?” She illustrates her last few words with a delicate little wave of the wine glass in her hand, and all the nobles laugh indulgently.
“Tomorrow? Of course, Ambassador, what time do you propose?”
“Inquisitor?”
Linnea takes a considering sip of her wine. “I can't make tomorrow at all, I'm afraid.” I'm getting married, actually. She’s had just enough wine she almost wants to say it out loud. Stun them all into shocked silence.
“You can't make it?” Josie frowns. “You are engaged all of tomorrow? I don't recall -”
“A last minute engagement with Madame de Fer.” Linnea tries to look as contrite as she can. Vivienne is a safe alibi because she'll see through the ruse immediately when questioned, but improvise graciously rather than give Linnea away. Of course, the price to pay will be a full explanation after the fact, but that's a gamble Linnea is willing to take.
“For the Circle?” Josie sounds justifiably wary, so Linnea is quick to reassure her on that front.
“No.”
“A personal matter, then?” This line of questioning is getting dangerously invasive for public conversation, but Josie seems to forget herself in her suspicion. It’s been a long time since Linnea kept anything secret from her; she is evidently out of practice.
“Academic,” Linnea says, airily waving a hand. “Perhaps the day after?” Josephine smells a rat, so she plasters her best apologetic smile on her face and dips her head slightly. “I’m so sorry, Josie.”
“I'm sure we can make that work,” Josephine says, still clearly dubious but mollified enough to let it slide for now, and the nobles nod their agreement.
She'd been keeping track of Cullen, but as she glances up he's gone from the spot in the corner she'd last seen him. She scans the room carelessly over the top of her wine glass, unable to spot him. She counts the next few minutes with all the patience she can muster, letting the conversation move on as she nods in all the appropriate places. Once attention seems to have been drawn away from her suitably, she looks up once more. Fixing her gaze over the other end of the hall, she lifts her chin and smiles as if she's spotted someone, even going so far as to raise her hand slightly in greeting.
“Please excuse me,” she says, and weaves her way gracefully out into the crowd, not daring to look back at Josephine. The nobles won't notice, they mill into the space she occupied without a second glance, but Josie will. Still. Linnea is off her game and decidedly distracted, and there's a strong possibly she'll do more harm than good if she stays and half listens.
There's also the small matter of her future husband disappearing mysteriously from an event Josephine had marked down in their agenda as ‘non negotiable.’
Future husband. Husband. She mulls that over thoughtfully as she makes her way out the busy hall. It'll take some getting used to, but she thinks she likes it.
Cullen isn't in the garden, but she has a fairly good idea where to find him. If she's right, there's merit in her taking her time in finding him, so she takes the longer route through the arbor, letting her giddiness bubble out of her into the cool night air. Married. It really is a strange thought.
Sure enough, he's in the chapel, in the second from front pew with his head lowered, and she pauses in the doorway to alert him to her presence. The chapel is dark but for two candles by the altar, burned down only by half an inch or so, and newly lit. She thinks she might know what they symbolise.
Linnea’s faith is a rocky sort of thing, always there but always restless. Devotion for the Trevelyans meant being seen to put the Maker first more than it meant actually putting the Maker first, and that never sat particularly well with her. Magic is a gift, the Sisters said, but it never felt like a gift to be locked away, and during prayer she would find herself gazing up sullenly more than anything. Later, she found herself staring down at her glowing hand and still never getting the answers she wanted.
Cullen's faith is so simple in comparison, and in many ways he's had far more reasons than her to lose that. He never asks why me or what purpose does this serve, or any of the insolent questions that pop into her head when she finds herself seeking comfort. If his prayers went unanswered, he wouldn't feel betrayed or any less likely to ask again.
To her surprise, it's one of the things she admires most about him. She never thought she'd find that kind of piety commendable, even enviable.
She treads carefully down the aisle to slide into the pew next to him, and as she looks at him she sees, somehow, the thirteen year old boy the night before he left for training. The eighteen year old initiate the night before he took his vows. Perhaps the thirty year old templar before he left Kirkwall. And now, the Commander of the Inquisition, the night before his wedding. She takes his hand where it lies in his lap with the kind of fondness that catches in her throat.
“No cold feet, I hope.”
He doesn't raise his head but he smiles faintly. “Quite the opposite.”
She laughs quietly. “Mind if I stay?”
“Not at all.” He turns his head slightly to meet her eyes. “If Josephine doesn't object.”
“Oh, I'm sure she does.” She gives his fingers a gentle squeeze. “But I'll take my chances.”
She sits with him in silence as he works through what he has to work through, though her own mind is blissfully blank.
-
Mother Giselle gives them a gift of sugared almonds and dried rose petals, the traditional marital gifts from where she grew up, she explains, meant for luck and happiness. They are to sleep with the almonds under one pillow and the rose petals under the other, eating the nuts in the morning and setting the rose petals free in the breeze.
Linnea wants to scoff at the tradition, he can tell, raising a skeptical eyebrow as he carefully tucks the petals beneath the pillow on her side of the bed. The petals are for luck. The almonds represent one decade of blissful marriage each. Mother Giselle had pressed them into his hand with a smile, answering before he’d had time to wonder aloud why there weren’t more. It doesn’t do to be greedy, she’d said. Humble wishes are the simplest to grant.
“There are seven nuts,” Linnea says, though she’s presumably taking issues with the logistics of the tradition and not the meaning behind it, “and it'll be horribly uncomfortable with those under your pillow.”
He slides an arm around her waist from where he is stood behind her, and kisses her placatingly where her shoulder slopes into her neck. “I’ve slept on worse.”
“I can’t say squashed almonds for breakfast sounds particularly appetising.”
“It’s good luck,” he tells her reproachfully, and she huffs with amusement but slides the pillow back to rest on top of the almonds. “Aren’t there Marcher traditions like this?”
“Oh dear.” She turns in his arms to grin at him. “You can’t be married to a Marcher and make awful sweeping statements like that. We don’t like being lumped together in one undignified melting pot. We’re all Marchers, but we’re all different. Didn’t you learn anything in Kirkwall?”
“Aside from how contrary you can be?” He kisses her to catch the indignant noise she makes through her laughter. “Alright then. Are there any traditions in Ostwick?”
“Well, we have the wedding cup. It’s a clay mug we’re supposed to drink from - mead, generally - taking turns until it’s empty, then we have to smash it. The more pieces, the longer the marriage.” She laughs at Cullen’s alarmed look. “People tend to stamp on it afterwards, just to make sure.”
“That sounds messy.”
“Oh, Ostwick weddings are very messy.” She settles her linked hands in the small of his back and leans against his shoulder. “I was given special dispensation to attend my cousin’s when I was seventeen. I'd never had wine before and I threw up on my brother’s shoes.”
“Ah.”
“I had a marvellous time. The only other things they let me out for were funerals.” She shrugs ruefully. “Any Fereldan traditions I should be aware of, or was that the mabari honour guard?”
Cullen snorts. “I think traditionally I’m supposed to carry you over the threshold.”
“The threshold? Of what?”
“Our home, I believe.”
“And what’s that, Skyhold?” Linnea laughs quietly. “I mean, you’re certainly welcome to pick me up at the main gate when we get back and carry me over -”
“It might raise some eyebrows.”
“Anything a little more subtle?”
Cullen shakes his head with a smile, running his fingers gently through her hair. “My mother made a quilt from the dress she wore. We were all wrapped in it when we were born.” In his memories, it was already worn and frayed, but all the more soft for being so. He remembers tucking it in around a small, pink Rosie bawling her eyes out, while Bran stuck his fingers in his ears. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Mia still has it somewhere.”
Linnea stays quiet, but runs her thumbs along his jaw with a sad smile.
“She’ll be appalled she missed this,” he says eventually, trying for a smile of his own.
“We’ll just have to visit her, then,” Linnea says very softly, and Cullen closes his eyes against the strange, raw feeling that still creeps over him sometimes. He won’t say that he misses them, or that he wishes they were here. It’s no use to say such things.
“She’d like that,” he says instead, and opens his eyes to Linnea smiling brightly at him. He wonders, not for the first time, just quite what he’s done to deserve such a generous serving of happiness.
“We do have this other tradition in Ostwick,” she says, “I don’t know if you do it in Ferelden, but...” She has a mischievous look to her, and he raises an eyebrow.
“Yes?”
“Just a silly little thing, really,” she says, waving a hand, “but you start by taking all your clothes off -”
“Oh?”
She keeps her expression immaculately serious, her tone as reproachful as his had been before. “It’s for luck.”
“Now that you mention it,” Cullen says, “I think we do have that one in Ferelden.”
“I can’t stress it enough, the nudity really is key.”
Cullen chuckles as she weaves her fingers between his, kissing her forehead. It’s not quite the heat he might have expected to find in this kind of moment, but it’s - it’s home. Threshold or not. Secluded room in a little-known inn or not. There’s been nothing particularly traditional about this day, but what it has been is theirs, and nobody else’s.
She walks backwards and pulls him with her, less provocative than just firm and gentle, and that’s what they find in the way their lips touch; something soft and steady as the glowing embers of the fire.
-
They manage six days of marital bliss before they find the dead Qunari is found. Six days not entirely to themselves, granted, but six days of lazy kisses and soft laughter and the scandalous misuse of Orlesian furniture that not even the looming threat of the Council can really put a damper on.
But now, blood stains on expensive marble and on the soles of expensive boots - she’s been here before - and before she knows it she’s taking off her finery and strapping on armour she’d hoped not to use. As she rummages impatiently through the wardrobe Cullen leans against the wall with a frown, the sort she hasn’t seen in a while. They have spent too long feeling too safe and too complacent. When was the last time he saw her off on something as truly unknown, as potentially dangerous, as to set off through an eluvian following nothing more than a trail of qunari blood? It has been some time.
It’s not much of a honeymoon.
But there’s something familiar about it all that is making her foolishly sentimental. Her advisors together again, the trio they were always meant to be, Bull, Dorian and Sera behind her like it hasn’t been two years since they all last stood at her side. There’s even something familiar about the way she leans in to kiss Cullen quickly and sheepishly before they leave, something more achingly familiar in the way he cups her head and wills her to draw it out.
“Yes, yes, there’ll be time for all that later,” Dorian says, because he always did know Cullen best.
It’s not that Cullen doesn’t want her to go or even that he worries unduly, it’s just that five mere days ago he was pressing happy, sleepy kisses on her neck as she let a handful of rose petals free in the breeze. It was for luck. For a few days they’d really started to imagine it might have held. Seven almonds for seven carefree decades, and they hadn’t managed seven days.
They step through the eluvian and Sera lets out a noise of distaste at the same time as Dorian lets out a reverent breath.
“Certainly brings back some memories, doesn't it?” he says, and Linnea closes her eyes with a smile.
Memories like Haven; it had been the four of them then too, hadn't it? Another nasty surprise off the back of a victory, though this one has been two years in the making. She wonders if now, if she told them to run and leave her, if they would, or if years of friendship and relative peace would make them foolish. She wonders if Cullen would agree to their desperate plan of distraction now, if he could still look her in the eyes and give it his blessing, but she thinks she might know the answer to that one.
Memories like tumbling through another eluvian at the Temple of Mythal, falling over each other as they reached their unexpected destination. Sheer giddy relief at feeling her palms hit the stone floor of Skyhold. And then, that tight feeling in her stomach when she saw Cullen's face again, many days later. All the crows had been away or with Leliana, and it was three days before she could send word to her advisors still out there in the field confirming their location and survival. She's never asked what they thought had happened to them. She never asked quite what she saw in his face.
And then, memories like pressing that lock of hair into his hand, because it was the closest thing to a promise she could make him.
“Yes,” she says, opening her eyes. “It does.”
She'll do what she has to. They may have compromised their operation a long time ago, but she'll do what needs to be done.
-
Time when Linnea is absent has never been time without purpose, and this is no different. He's never waited for her in just the same way that she's never rushed to get back to him. That it happens eventually is just something to look forward to. After frequent weeks of separation over the time they've known each other, he is well versed in putting whatever concerns he might have at the back and his mind, and getting to work.
It's not that he wishes he was with her; his place is here just as hers is out there. His strengths don't lie in the small operations she excels at, he is far more useful doing what he does best and preparing and advising her to do what she does best. She is good at it. Better than good. He's seen her first hand and found himself more impressed each time, not only with her but with her companions. She's in impeccable company and is undoubtedly the best person for this particular job, just as he’s the best person to help facilitate her do so.
The problem is as her experience grows so does her value, and as the value of a resource grows so does your reluctance in risking it. As he put it so inelegantly during a game of chess, she is both king and queen. Their best striking force and the one thing they can't afford to lose.
That, and he loves her. He can dance around that all he likes but it pushes itself stubbornly to the forefront of his consciousness no matter the tactical considerations. He loves her. The thought of losing her is - unthinkable. He doesn’t want to put her in undue danger.
But there are a lot of things more important than what he wants, starting with the possibility of a full scale Qunari invasion that he and Josephine are currently grappling with. It's more academic than anything, growing more and more theoretical as each minute passes without Linnea’s return.
Josephine pauses and passes a hand over her face, looking up at Cullen with a shrewd sort of interest that he feels certain is nothing to do with what they’ve been discussing. She is, after all, his friend - however strange that would have seemed to him three years ago. They still have very little in common, but that matters a great deal less than he’d thought.
“I suppose I should offer my congratulations,” she says eventually, with a small smile.
“I, er -”
“You’re quite terrible at lying, Commander, and my sources are remarkably accurate, so I suggest you don’t try to to feign ignorance.” Her smile is stern, but gentle. “I could have thrown you such a wonderful party.”
Cullen winces. “I know.”
“I think I could even have persuaded you to enjoy yourself.”
“Now that, I doubt,” he mutters, and she laughs quietly as she shakes her head. “I - I’m sorry. The timing could have been better.”
“Yes.” She places a hand on his arm. “But I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.”
There’s a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “If you ever find you would like that party -”
Finally, the messenger skids into the room with a breathless, They're back, and Cullen follows close on Josephine’s heels to greet them
Time must have been playing tricks on him, or else he was too engrossed in their discussions to notice its passing, but he takes one look at Linnea and sees the hours he has misplaced in the restrained weariness of her face. Not exhausted; he’s seen her exhausted and even more than that, but there is a tiredness to her eyes that brings him to her side as her husband and not her colleague.
She is brief and concise with her report, Bull chipping in occasionally as Josephine makes notes. It’s Dorian who actually mentions it, airily enough, but he meets Cullen’s eyes with a significant look.
“The Anchor has been behaving rather oddly,” he says, “useful, in part, but most odd.”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems to allow us to hover somewhere between the Fade and the physical world for a time, in a curious sort of limbo.” Dorian casts an intrigued look across at Linnea. “It’s evolving, somehow. It’s proven most beneficial.”
Linnea confirms that with a nod, but says no more. She excuses herself to gather supplies and ready herself for their imminent departure, and Cullen follows. She keeps her fist closed.
Once they’re out of earshot, he catches her by the wrist. “Show me,” he says simply, and she obliges with a grimace, uncurling her fingers slowly and letting him remove her glove. The Anchor glows, brightly and erratically, as if answering some otherworldly summons it cannot quite obey.
“It’s been like that for hours.” She lets him hold her hand, run his fingers over the edges of her palm with consternation. “It’s not unlike how it behaved near the Breach.”
“But there is no Breach.”
“There’s something, anyway. Whatever it is.” She hesitates just long enough for him to catch the look that passes over her face.
“How bad is it?”
She starts to pull her gloves back on with a wince. “It hasn’t hurt this much.”
“Ever?”
“In a long time, at least.”
He takes her hand in both of his and moves to press his forehead against hers. It’s the first time he’s ever heard her sound afraid of the Anchor, though not the first time he has had cause to fear it. It has always been more than they could quite understand. Too valuable not to use, but so much unknown.
It’s been getting worse. He has broached the subject gently a few times, and she has dismissed it out of hand each time. He doesn’t believe she’s lying to herself, she has seemed genuinely unalarmed by the slow changes in the Anchor’s behaviour. So slow, perhaps, that she hasn’t truly noticed. Cullen, however, is very good at tracking this sort of thing. Cataloguing symptoms. Assessing deterioration.
Six months ago, it started to flare more often than he’d previously observed, that strange green light seeping through the gaps in her fingers where they lay half curled on the pillow. Three months after that, she started to half wake in the early hours clutching at her wrist and making soft noises of pain. She doesn’t remember this, but Cullen does. Cullen ran soothing hands down her arms and stroked her hair until she calmed. Not long after that, he noticed her favouring her right hand for simple tasks that would normally have required both. Leaning on one against the balcony in her quarters, her left arm tucked in and slightly across her body in a subconscious gesture of discomfort just slight enough that she can ignore it.
It is getting worse. Whatever is happening now is merely accelerating it. It was easy to chalk the changes down to it being overused and overworked, to think that once no more rifts were still to be found, it would settle down into a quiet equilibrium.
“We need to leave,” she says softly, “time isn’t on our side.”
He brushes a hand across her cheek, letting his fingers weave into her hair. “Nothing is, it seems.”
She almost laughs, he can feels the rush of her amused exhale against his wrist as she leans into it. “Stay alert. We still don’t know what danger Halamshiral is in.”
“Be careful,” he says, two flimsy little words against something far, far bigger. It’s all he has. That, and the coin in her pocket, and the lock of hair in his.
-
It starts with a sharp pain, nothing she can’t handle but it sends her hunched over and gasping reflexively. That worries them but it’s easy enough to brush off with a little grim humour and gritting her teeth against the ache. There has always been an element of pain to it after all, especially when closing rifts, and they’ve seen the way she flexes her wrist and winces for years now.
But there’s no laughing off the way it brings her to her knees with a sharp cry, or the way she remains on the ground even after each particular episode, gasping and weak. For the first time since she can remember, her bravado slips. She lets Bull heave her back up to her feet, and she lets Dorian lead her the few steps to a pile of rubble and sit her down gently.
Bull and Sera make a show of inspecting the nearby ruins as Dorian sits next to her, which she can appreciate a little through the haze of pain. She hunches over her knees and breathes, taking the flask that Dorian offers.
“Describe it to me,” he says gently, without any sort of forcefulness, though it’s clearly not the sort of question she can duck out of. “Is it just your hand?”
Linnea looks at him and can see the worry pooling in his eyes. She hates giving him the answer she suspects he fears. “Not any more.”
“Where to?”
“My elbow, now.” She gestures with her right hand in sweeping motions up the affected arm. “It’s sort of - shooting upwards. I don’t know.” She runs her good hand through her hair and tries for a laugh. “Sometimes I think it’s further, but maybe I’m imagining it.”
“What kind of pain is it?”
“Very sharp. Very sudden, but then it… echoes for a while after. That feels like it’s burning.”
“May I?” Dorian gestures at her hand and she holds it out towards him with a sigh. He turns it over with an expression he probably thinks is terribly neutral. She can see the scholarly interest he's trying to project, which is genuine enough, but she can’t miss his poorly concealed concern. He needn’t bother. She knows what it means.
“The sensation in my arm goes a little bit more every time,” she says quietly, “apart from the pain, that is.”
“Well, an intense sensation can make others seem dull by comparison.”
“Not like that.”
“Hmm?
“Pinch me,” she says, and Dorian looks up at her with a little jolt of surprise. “Really, go on.”
He pinches her just above the wrist, far softer than she has been doing, and then a little harder once he seems to have steeled himself for the revelation it might bring. “Did you feel that?”
“Only just.” Linnea closes her eyes. “Stops at the elbow.”
She hears a rustle as Dorian pushes her sleeve up. “It’s very cold.”
“It’s killing me,” she says, and it sounds like someone else’s voice. So calm and measured and without an ounce of the panic she can feel clawing its way up her throat. This isn’t how she’d imagined dying. Something cold and sharp and merciless crawling up her arm and towards her heart and throat. A sword, maybe, or a lucky arrow. Quick and clean.
“It’s certainly not doing you any good.” Dorian’s hand closes around her wrist in a way that is less academic and more affectionate, though she still can’t bring herself to look at him. “But I’m not quite ready to give up on you yet.”
“I’ll finish this,” she says, keeping her eyes closed and not acknowledging his words. “Whatever happens, I’ll see this through to the end.”
“Stop it,” he says sharply, and she takes another gulp of the water instead of looking at him.
“Please don’t lie to me, Dorian.”
“I never lie to you. It’s far from ideal, and I am concerned at how fast and aggressively it’s progressing, but I don’t see that there’s any call for moody fatalism quite yet.” He grips her shoulder. “I’ve never known you be so dramatic, but I suppose you must have some Tevinter blood in you, after all.”
She smiles weakly at that. “Dorian -”
“No, I won’t hear another word of it,” he says decisively, and sets her hand down in her lap. “We’ve been in far stickier situations than this.”
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
He pretends to misunderstand her question. “What?”
“With the current acceleration of the deterioration, how long do I have?”
Dorian is right. He never lies to her. “Twelve hours, give or take.”
She grimaces and tugs her glove back on. “I thought as much.”
“I’m not giving up yet,” he says again, firmer this time, and she manages a watery smile. But I have, she thinks, and flexes her fingers gingerly. She owes it to Cullen, at least, to try.
She sits up straighter and tries to pull herself back into some semblance of composure. “Would you like to know a secret?”
“You know I hate secrets,” Dorian says, but casts her a curious look. After a few moments, with an exasperated sigh, he says, “Go on.”
“We got married.” She raises her eyebrows and lowers her voice in mock-conspiratorial tones. “Scandal of the season.”
Dorian has only a moment of transparent surprise before his expression is back under control into something more sardonic. “And you didn’t invite me? I’m hurt.”
“Our only guest was a dog.”
“Oh dear, how frightfully Fereldan. You could have used some Tevinter charm, I would have brought some much needed culture to the proceedings.” He smiles. “But congratulation nonetheless, I suppose.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re both far sneakier than I give you credit for, clearly. How long have you been keeping this under wraps?”
“Just a week.”
Dorian’s smile turns a degree more melancholy, which she desperately wishes she hadn’t seen, but his tone stays light. “I shouldn't start calling you Mrs Rutherford, should I?”
“Maker, no. That’s the single most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It is rather,” he says, and a heavy silence falls between them for all their half-hearted teasing. She breathes. The pain fades. It’s only temporary, she knows this. She doesn’t have long, and it might get to be more than she can handle faster than she’d like.
“I am quite fond of him, you know,” she says at length, gripping her staff and testing putting her weight back on her feet. “I’d hate to think of him being alone.”
“No,” Dorian says, quiet and firm. “None of that, either.”
“I’d feel a lot better if you’d just - if I knew that you’d keep an eye on him.” She turns pleading eyes on Dorian, dignity forgotten. “Please.”
His gaze flickers between her face and her erratically crackling palm. He takes a long time to answer. “Of course,” he says eventually, “of course.”
-
His first memory of Linnea isn’t one he visits often. She lay curled on the bed, pale and shivering as the mark crackled to life in her palm, and all he knew about her was that she would likely die before revealing the truth about what happened at the Conclave. Perhaps, he thought, it would be better not to wake into a world where the sky is torn apart and you’re to be held responsible for the death of the Divine. She certainly didn’t look long for this world, and if the would-be assassins had their way, even sooner than that.
Cassandra wanted answers, but Cullen only wanted solutions. The pallid woman muttering feverishly offered neither.
He met her - properly, this time - a few days later, still pale and drawn but very much alive and fighting at Cassandra’s side. She fought well, he remembers, but undisciplined and inclined to lashing out desperately without a care for who got in her line of fire. He felt the heat of her fire that day, across his cheek and his shoulder. We’ve lost a lot of people getting you here, he’d said dispassionately, and Maker, had he really been so cold? The look she’d given him -
- and he can’t live knowing that his last memory of her could be as similar as the first, he can’t bear to think that they’ve come so far and been through everything they’ve done to be back here, right at the beginning, her lips colourless and and her eyes full of pain -
Cullen is used to waiting for her. He’s used to weeks and weeks of silence, he’s used to receiving alarming reports mentioning dragons and bandits and all manners of dangerous things, he’s used to distracting himself and using his time productively, and -
- and the only thing echoing in his head, over and over and over, is the way she looked at him and said, I don’t want to die. He has to put it from his mind -
He spends the first two hours making practical arrangements, contingency plans, desperate attempts at potential damage mitigation. The third and fourth he spends in talks with Josephine, in discussions that delve dangerously close to arguments. The fifth he paces, against his better judgement, until Leliana takes him by the arm. The sixth he tries to eat, but the food tastes foul the moment he puts it to his mouth.
The seventh is more discussion, more planning. They are repeating themselves. He returns to their quarters to splash some water on his face, and leaves abruptly when the sense that she might walk round the corner becomes too painfully strong.
The eight finds him walking briskly about the grounds, Rylen following him and letting him repeat himself without comment or judgement. By the ninth he is back to terse conversations with Josephine, who shoot him looks of concern he neither wants nor needs. He isn’t waiting. He’s doing his job. He isn’t waiting.
By the tenth, he gives up, and sits hunched in a chair with his head in his hands.
-
Linnea barely remembers coming before the Exalted Council. Her last clear memory is Sera bodily hauling her through the eluvian as she screamed, and even then the pain dulls the clarity of this memory considerably. She knows she must have seemed lucid enough that they let her into the chambers at all, but she has vague memories of needing helped into her uniform and Josephine trying to persuade her to rest first. She supposes she must have done a good enough job to satisfy the Council, though evidently worried her friends half to death when she fell to her knees the minute she walked back through the heavy doors. She remembers the jolt of her knees on the marble well enough, the left arm that she no longer had failing to support her as she fell. She must have made quite a scene; was Cullen there, or had she just wished he was? Either way, someone helped her up, and she supposes she blacked out for a time.
After that, she remembers very little. She has a few recollections of waking up in a bed, once surrounded by concerned faces and hushed voices, once with someone dressing her arm and pressing something cool against her forehead, and once by candlelight, footsteps pacing back and forth across the floor. She thinks she might have cried out. Her dreams were shapeless, menacing things, and her arm burned with something that sent her thoughts wild.
When she finally wakes properly, it is with the sense that a good few days have passed. By the looks of him, Cullen has been awake as long as she’s been asleep, slumped in a chair by her beside, the room otherwise deserted. His eyes are unfocused as he looks straight ahead at nothing in particular, looking exhausted and worried, but the minute she stirs his attention snaps straight back to her.
He takes her hand with a smile that doesn’t quite erase the dark circles under his eyes, but goes some way to relieving a little of the exhaustion that had been there just a moment ago.
“Good morning,” he says quietly.
“Good morning,” she says, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper, and then bursts into tears. It’s a restrained sort of bursting; she takes a sharp breath and exhales shakily as hot tears spill down her cheeks.
She isn’t, as a rule, one for crying, but it’s been a strange week. That, and she loves him more than to know what else to do when he’s clearly kept a painful vigil by her bedside for many long hours.
She tries to sit upright only to be shushed gently and pushed back down, his hand still in hers. Her other arm aches, but it’s a dull, throbbing thing with nothing of the sharpness she felt before. She glances down at where it lies on the quilt, and sees Cullen follow her gaze. It is an odd sight, but not entirely unwelcome. She almost wants to laugh at the absurd simplicity of the solution: would Dorian ever have suggested simply removing half her arm? Would it even have worked if they’d done it themselves?
It’s gone. It’s gone.
Cullen wipes the tears from her face while he keeps her hand in a firm grasp, and she manages to laugh a little through the strange rush of melancholy.
“I’m sorry,” she finds herself saying, though she’s not sure quite what for, and he shushes her again. She hears the scrape of the chair legs as he moves closer. “How long was I asleep?”
“A little over two days.” His thumb rubs soothingly lines over the back of her hand. “How are you feeling?”
She hardly knows how to answer that. “Better than I did, I think.” She squeezes his hand a little weakly. “What happened?”
Josephine would try to distract her or give her half answers, but Cullen understands her need to keep up to date, even as five minutes have barely passed since she regained consciousness. He would have cut straight to the chase if it were him in the bed, and the small smile he gives he says that he’s prepared for her question.
“The Council was satisfied enough with the decision, though no doubt there’ll be many talks yet to come with how we redistribute our assets. We’ll stay for another week or so to make any necessary arrangements, and to ensure your full recovery, of course.” He gives her a half smile. “Josephine has been taking point, I’m afraid.”
“Skyhold?”
“We don’t think it’s wise to leave anyone there longer than necessary.”
“I agree.” Linnea frowns. “He knows it too well. And then?”
“And then,” he says slowly, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead, “we’re taking a month off.”
“What?”
“We’ll regroup in good time, but there’s a lot to be done and Josephine insists she will need at least a month to see the transition through. She also insists that you need the rest.” He raises an eyebrow. “As do I, by the way.”
“I suppose it would be quite rude of me to refuse, then,” she says, biting back the protests she wants to make. “I don’t much fancy another month in Halamshiral, though.”
“Me neither,” Cullen says, casting her a look that is almost apprehensive. “I asked Josephine - well, I’ve found an alternative.”
“Oh?”
“There’s somewhere we can stay near South Reach. Somewhere quiet, only an hour or so from my family. We could surprise Mia.” He hesitates. “If you’d like.”
She looks back up at him with wide eyes. “Just us?”
His lopsided smile grows a little wider. “Plus mabari honour guard, of course. This is Ferelden we’re talking about. But otherwise, just us.”
“Just us,” she repeats, and feels her eyes prickling once more. “Oh no, I’m going to cry again.” She tries to laugh but it comes out thin and watery, and Cullen brushes his thumb over her cheek, catching another rebellious tear.
“I didn’t think it was that terrible an idea,” he says gently, and she huffs another would-be laugh.
“It sounds lovely. It sounds more lovely than I’ll know what to do with, actually.” She lets go of his hand to instead frame his face with her fingers. “Just us. Has it ever been just us?”
He places his hand over hers. “I don’t believe it has.”
She lies still for another few moments, breathing in and out and just feeling alive, Cullen warm beneath her fingers. She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Help me up?”
Cullen, again, doesn’t bother protesting as Josephine would, helping her wordlessly to a seated position and then saying nothing as she gingerly swings her legs over the side of the bed, hissing a breath through her teeth.
He helps her wrap a blanket around her shoulders by way of outerwear on top of the cotton shift she is wearing, and she makes her way to the balcony, leaning heavily on the arm he hooks through hers. The gentle breeze on her face makes her want to cry again, but she just takes a deep breath and steadies herself against the stone facade.
Once she gets her balance, she looks Cullen up and down thoroughly under the pretence of looking out over the view. It is an unusual turn of events for her to be the invalid, though she's not sure she makes a much better one than he does. The circles under his eyes worry her; she doesn't like being the one who put them there.
“I've got something for you,” he says eventually, reaching into his pocket. She regards him curiously, struck by how much his gentle hesitancy paints the perfect picture of the way she always thought he'd ask her to marry him. She's glad he found a little certainty. “I - I thought about doing this a long time ago, but I suppose I just wanted to be safe.” He gives her a self deprecating grimace. “But everything will be different now.”
She can't imagine what he has for her, but she nods all the same. “I suppose so.”
He presses something into her palm, something that gives her a moment of confusion before she realises what it is: that lock of hair she'd given him so long ago, tied at each end and wrapped carefully in silk. She looks up at him questioningly.
“You always said you didn't like the idea of pieces of you scattered all over the place,” he says with a wry smile, “and I know you always wanted to destroy your phylactery.”
She holds the lock between her fingers and smiles. “'Just to be safe'? You know, you really are awfully superstitious.”
“I'll never turn my nose up at a little extra luck.” He wraps an arm around her and she feels him kiss her on the top of her head. “But this belongs to you, and I think it's finally time that you decided what happened to it.”
“You don't think you'll still need it?” She nudges him teasingly, but he remains resolutely serious. “Just in case?”
“I don't think this next fight is ours, in truth. Not fully.”
Linnea thinks of the ache in her arm and the friend she called Solas, and it is so very hard to nod quietly, to not protest that it is her fight. But if she really believes that, everything she told the Council is a lie.
She sighs wearily but holds his gaze. It's been a strange week, and she's exhausted and she needs more time to process all the ways in which things have changed. She needs to learn where her place is in all of this, if not Inquisitor. She needs to know when to hold on and when to let go, and she needs to work out which pieces of herself that the world has tried to take are ones she can reclaim. Cullen is offering her a very small step in the right direction, more symbolic than practical, but that's why she gave it to him in the first place.
“It won't be as satisfying as smashing a phial,” she says, but she smiles as he moves to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“I can always get you something to smash later, if it doesn't live up to expectations.”
“Yes, well, you owe me a wedding cup anyway.” She loosens the ties around the lock clumsily with one hand: another thing she'll need to get used to. “I don't think the almonds worked.”
“No?’ he says, softly amused, and kisses her on the temple. Perhaps he's right. They're here, after all. A little worse for wear, but they're here. She’d rolled her eyes as she’d eaten them, but perhaps she oughtn’t have turned her nose up at a little extra luck, either.
“I suppose we’ll find out,” she says, and she is glad that instead of smashing her phylactery in a fit of fear and resentment that she gets this instead, with something hopeful and soft beneath the raw edges.
The breeze picks up as she separates the lock between thumb and forefinger, letting each strand loose with careful deliberation, and they watch them flutter like airborne seeds into the morning haze, the destination as unknown as their own.