Cullen and the Dragon Debacle

"I want you to get this to the Inquisitor straight away," Cullen commanded, holding out a note he'd penned to one of his men. Normally his requests were met with immediate obedience and there had never been any real issue of slacking off or disobedience in the ranks as Cullen commanded complete respect from his charges, yet… for a long moment the woman simply looked at him as though she had something she desperately wanted to say but couldn't force the words out. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well?" Cullen asked again, his tone growing more firm, much to the apparent terror of the soldier he'd thrust the letter at again. Even if he was a good commander, no one wanted to be the one who had to break the news to him, especially with the rumors about the blooming relationship between Cullen and the Inquisitor. This soldier just so happened to have the misfortune of getting caught by Cullen and forced into telling him.

"No one knows where she is," the soldier reported, standing at attention, but preparing herself for the inevitable outburst that was to come. Even Leliana hadn't quite felt up to telling Cullen about this yet, something both her men and Cullen's has definitely taken note of. They didn't intend to conceal it from him, just that it was generally agreed that he shouldn't know until they were certain that something was wrong or there was genuine reason to be concerned. After all, the Inquisitor had the knack for landing herself into significant trouble and miraculously coming out on top anyway. This wouldn't be the first time she'd disappeared only to come back with new allies and wild stories.

"No…." Cullen started, the word weak on his lips in disbelief, but that didn't last long. "What do you mean no one knows where she is?!" Despite telling herself that she wasn't going to show just how nervous she was, the soldier couldn't help but cringe. The idea of telling Cullen that something might have happened to the Inquisitor intimidated her more than even the red templars or the demons.

"It seems she... disappeared two days ago, sir." That was not what Cullen wanted to hear and the poor woman could hear another soldier coming to the door with a missive, but he took just one look at Cullen's face and backed out of the door again with a kind of stealth that Cole would have been proud of. No one wanted to be the bringer of bad or even regular news to the commander when he was in this attitude. The woman wished more than anything that she could have joined him in leaving.

"Disappeared? How could she disappear?" Cullen demanded. "Doesn't Leliana have people watching her?" That fact was something of an open secret in the ranks, but definitely not one that they ever really told the Inquisitor. After all, letting her go on her own without anyone to be able to report her doings would have been foolish for their whole organization, and the Inquisitor had never really been known for being good about reporting her doings on her own.

"They had to fall back, sir." The next words were ones that she wanted to avoid saying above all else, but she could tell that Cullen was ready to demand for more information from her. She wasn't going to get out of this situation without telling him everything that she knew, like it or not. "With the high dragon about, the roads weren't safe. It started a grass fire between the Inquisitor and our men."

"A high d—" Cullen cut himself off with a noise of disbelief, though he wasn't sure why he was surprised. The previous Inquisitor had been a dragon hunter, and this one had a knack for getting herself into all kinds of trouble. Of course it was only a matter of time before she went up against a dragon. His expression was a kaleidoscope of emotions shifting from disbelief to shock, from shock to anger and then back to disbelief. "Please tell me she's not alone." His tone was less sharp now, but he reached up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, clearly not feeling any better about any of this.

"She had a party with her."

"Who." It was much more of a command than a question. The soldier gulped.

"The Qunari, the tevinter magister and the uh… the elf." With each person the soldier identified, there came a very strong sigh from Cullen, definitely seeming to think that each person only made the situation worse, not better.

"Solas?" he asked for clarification, looking down at the soldier who jumped a little before shaking her head.

"N-no, the other one. The one that's always getting chased out of the kitchens." And then came the most dramatic sigh of them all. He barely even took his leave of the poor woman before Cullen found himself stomping out of his office, much to the delight of the soldier who felt almost liberated to be free of that situation. Cullen instead took his fury to Josephine's office, finding Leliana there has he'd expected. The look on his face clearly tipped them off.

"So you've heard," Leliana spoke before Cullen had a chance, somehow only adding to the frustration this situation had left him with.

"Why wasn't I informed?"

"If we'd told you before, would you have gotten any work done?" Leliana didn't even look abashed, rather just raising an eyebrow at him. "It's only been two days. This has happened before and it will happen again. She'll be back before you know it."

But… two days quickly turned into three, then three into four. Though he wanted nothing more than to prove Leliana wrong, Cullen got very little work done in any of those days and by the fifth day it seemed that all of Skyhold was walking on eggshells around him or even running out of sight the moment he walked by. Even Varric—who never knew when enough was enough—and Cassandra—who had no fear—seemed to have gone scarce. The fifth day was, without a doubt, the worst. He'd spent the whole night up making plans to stage a daring rescue—despite not knowing where the Inquisitor was—when, with the first break of day, there came a loud shout from outside his office.

"Open the gate! The Inquisitor has returned!" Looking up from his plans, Cullen's face was once again of disbelief and then he was, with all the grace of a newly born ram, pushing past his desk and out the door, scrambling down to the main gate where he was met with a huge crowd. Pushing to the middle was hard at first, but it didn't take more than a few glares before the soldiers parted for him and Cullen found himself staring at the sight he hadn't expected. Even with the cries that he Inquisitor had returned, a large part of Cullen had expected that he'd find her hurt or even carried in dead. He'd prepared himself for hurt or for grief. He got neither.

Though she was being carried by Iron Bull, that was not due to any injuries that Cullen could see. No, instead it seemed more to do with the large dragon skull she was proudly holding up to the crowd. Finally spotting Cullen, she grinned at him, having Iron Bull set her down and passing the skull off to him. It was just another moment before she was standing before Cullen who was still a little too shocked to have much of a reaction.

"I brought home a souvenir," she declared with a nod and a grin, looking up at him proudly. Cullen still didn't know what to say. "Suppose we could hang it over the throne? We'd probably have to ask Josephine about the decorations, but she did say that the decor was supposed to be welcoming but intimidating. That would probably be a little intimidating." Clearly she was little lost in her own world, nodding her head as she mused that to herself. "I'll go ask her." Clearly about to run off again, Cullen found himself reaching out a hand to stop her.

"Don't you… shouldn't you rest? You've been fighting that thing for six days, surely you need to rest. It could have…." Killed you. It could have killed you. That's where Cullen meant to take that sentence, but the look she was giving him then caused Cullen to trail off.

"Six days," the Inquisitor repeated with a laugh. "Fighting that thing for six days? We defeated it in an hour. We've just been celebrating." That is where Cullen gave up. His body slumped and it became clear that he was the one who needed to rest. He'd barely slept these past few days. For a former templar who lived through a blight and fought in the mage rebellion at Kirkwall as well as now fighting a reanimated Tevinter magister, he really thought he had seen everything. What more could the world possibly have to throw at him? Then, of course, he met and fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world. A woman for whom it seemed nothing was out of reach. A woman that didn't need his protection because she could easily protect herself. Placing a hand to his forehead, Cullen let out a sigh as the Inquisitor continued to look up at him confused.

He'd never been this tired.