"The ghost in the Umbrella stand had long thick hair and wide eyes, she watched me while I pulled my rainboots on" Work Text:
It was with a smile that I bid the Inquisitor, my lover, out of her chambers that morning. We had opted for her quarters last evening as I dashed from a game of wicked grace gone horribly wrong. I was reluctant to see what favors would be asked of me once I attempted to retrieve the pieces of armor, that I had gambled away, back. But it had been worth it, I had made her laugh uncontrollably. Inquisitor Trevelyan, the women of my heart, lady mage whose fired burned as bright as her spirit. Whose smile had me more frazzled than the ends of her short cropped hair after a lightning spell. With eyes bright and cheerful that she had not lost at the Fereldan circle (how she had not lost hers with everything going on was a constant wonder). Whose body.. Where was I going with this? Ah, yes the Inquisitor Trevelyan had a servant girl retrieve clothing from my chambers so that I may wear something in the light of day, despite my unique run of shame the previous evening. It was a good thing we had opted for her chamber last night, for an unusual rainstorm had soaked Skyhold while we slept and a persistent drizzle had continued through the morning and showed no sign of letting up.
She must have gone to speak to Josephine or Leliana I noted as I saw her staff in the corner. A mage's staff. If someone had told me that I would be madly in love and fumbling over words of endearment and awkward dances of embarrassed infatuation with a mage anytime in the last ten years I would have shot them down with careful insults to their sanity. Ten years huh. I paused the buttoning of my cuffs. Ten years since my life had taken a drastic turn. Ten years ago since she had left the tower, only to return and save me from the abomination breakout in said tower. She. Amell.
A female mage, chosen to enter the Grey Wardens after being betrayed by her best friend gone blood mage. That Bastard Jowan. It was awkward at first, Templar and mage. We eventually began an uneasy friendship that soon turned to adolescent flirtations and awkward attempts at a forbidden romance. She had tried to kiss me mere hours before she was whisked away by that Warden Duncan. I had been so nervous that I had fled in embarrassment, a muddle of excuses and hormones. It seemed the right thing to do, at the time considering the situation. But sometimes, I wonder what if? It was something that I wondered when I visited her memorial. She went from my side-stepping crush to dying as the Hero of Ferelden. I was at her burial, dragging myself from my isolation of fear to see her. Still physically healing from the assault on the tower (I am still trying to mentally heal) Her wide eyes, brown and bright, filled with the lust for adventure were now closed and her once short hair, was long and thick, pulled into a neat braid. Perfect and placed as if a sleeping doll rather than a corpse primed for burial.
It took awhile for me to come to terms with the fact that Amell was dead. I told Inquisitor Trevelyan all of this when she asked me about my history with the Warden. I told her of the stone, grey and large they had Amell upon as Alistair, King Alistair spoke over her. It was obvious that they had become steadfast friends over their journey, though I expected they had been something more due to the level of grief in his eyes. The movements of his body, as if he held back at grasping her body to him. A lover's twisted expression of pain and loneliness. The others who chimed in before they wrapped her body in silken cloth and laid her upon the pyre. She had been the first and last women I had loved in a decade. And the only mage whose memory did not fill me with fear and disgust. 'That was until I met you' I had told her. "You are not a replacement' I assured her but in some ways, they were very similar. And I believe that it was because of those similarities that I was able to squash those lingering fear of mages (Which occasionally popped up). 'and stepped forward in pursuit of you'.
I guess I owed Amell for saving me more than once. In my eyes, she is more than the Hero of Ferelden. She is a personal hero. It is my name being called that takes me from my memories. I must have been 'gone' longer than I realized. Moving to the Inquisitor's desk I grabbed the rain boots that were brought up for me. Rain boots. If it wasn't for Leliana I would not have such things. They sit next to an Orlesian umbrella stand and I shove my feet into the shoes with a silent sigh. Movement catches my eye and I look up into what should be in my reflection. The ghost in the umbrella stand had long thick hair and wide eyes, she watched me while I pulled my rain boots on.
"Amell?" And with her smile and my blink, the image was gone. But for a moment, she was there and with a smile, gone. Strange, but not unpleasant. Before things such as the breach in the sky, I would have been skeptical. Now, I questioned supernatural events rarely. And for me, to think Amell was smiling over me was a great feeling.
"Cullen?"
"Coming" I got up and smiled at the Inquisitor who peered up the staircase and I smiled. "I am coming"