Noble Intentions

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How do I get myself into these situations? Cullen thought with an annoyed sigh.

When Cassandra had come to him asking for a favor this was the last thing Cullen thought she was going to ask of him. It wasn't such an unreasonable or outrageous thing, but Cullen didn't know very much about the Herald yet to know how she was going to react to his offer. There was still so much to be done before she left for the Hinterlands to speak with Mother Giselle that they had only spoken to one another in passing or in brief conversations that had been all official business. But even in those short moments, the Herald had always spared him a heartbreaking smile that left Cullen with a tight feeling in his chest and his stomach fluttering uncomfortably.

When Cullen had ventured to ask the Seeker why she didn't simply make the request of the Herald herself, Cassandra had sighed and answered: "She does not trust me. I doubt the Herald would even entertain my presence, let alone speak with me alone. At best she tolerates me and at worst, she acts as if I am not even there." Cullen had noticed the sad tone of Cassandra's voice, as though the Seeker regretted the strained nature of their acquaintance, but he didn't ask why she felt that way. It had not slipped his notice that the Herald seemed hell-bent on avoiding interaction with Cassandra and Leliana as much as humanly possible. He couldn't deny that it confused him. True, The Left and Right Hands of the Divine were hardly the warmest people in Thedas, but Cullen found their company pleasant enough most of the time.

Cullen stopped in front of the small home where the Herald was staying, tapping the toe of his boot unsurely in the dirt as he stared at the wooden door. All of the times they had spoken, other people had always been within earshot and this would be the first time they had ever truly been alone while speaking. The idea of being alone with her made his stomach twist into knots and his neck feel warm because she was arguably one of the most beautiful women he had ever met, and speaking to beautiful women was most decidedly not his strong suit. Give me abominations and blood magic any day, he thought. And he didn't know what to think of her yet, the mage from a noble family that had somehow survived a blast that killed a thousand people. The only thing Cullen knew for certain was that she was not thrilled with the title the people had bestowed on her.

After several moments, Cullen finally lifted his hand, rapping his knuckles against the door. He leaned in waiting to hear her bidding him to enter and when it didn't come, he knocked again, and again there was no beckoning call. With another sigh, Cullen slowly pushed open the door and stepped in, praying that he wasn't walking in on something he shouldn't.

Cullen found her in the midst of meditating, sitting with her legs crossed, levitating above the floor, the glow of the fade around her. If he had still been taking the lyrium Cullen would have known what she was doing, he would have been able to feel the ripples of her magic as it pressed against the Veil. Now that he was this close and in the same room, he could feel it, the light caress of it against his skin and mind. It had been months since Cullen had felt the whispering brush of magic against his senses – he had almost forgotten how it felt.

"Herald?" he called.

She didn't answer, just remained quietly supported by her steady exertion of mana. Cullen was surprised at the strength in her magic: constantly expelling the amount of mana required to keep her body aloft had to be exhausting.

"… Herald?" Cullen said again, hesitantly walking forward and around her. There was sweat beading on her brow and dampening her hairline. How long had she been at this? Once again, the Herald didn't answer and Cullen wondered just how deeply into the fade she was. He knew better than to touch her or shake her, or do anything else that might forcibly tear her from the fade lest she accidentally sunder the already thinned Veil.

Could she not hear him? … Then he remembered: "Will someone explain to me why two dozen bloody people dropped to their knees and hailed me as The Herald of Andraste!?"

Cullen shook his head at the memory of her storming into the Chantry, the look on her face as fierce as a high dragon. At every turn she had insisted that people call her by her name and not a title that she "had no right to bear".

Shaking his head, Cullen tried again. "Lady Trevelyan?"

This time, she smiled, and the glow of the fade around her dissolved as she opened her eyes. "Commander Cullen," she greeted him with a nod. "What can I do for you?"

Lady Trevelyan rose gracefully to her feet, still smiling at him. He could still see the glow of the fade in her eyes and Cullen briefly wondered if what happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes had altered the color of her eyes – blue, cracked with shards of iridescent fade green that resulted in the strange teal color. Cassandra had mentioned that when Trevelyan closed the fade rifts, her eyes seemed to glow just as surely as the mark on her hand.

He watched as she crossed to the water basin and wiped her face with a cloth, pulling her long, loose curls away from her neck and passing the wet cloth along the back of her neck and shoulders. Cullen swallowed uncomfortably as he watched her ministrations, his gaze lingering longer than it probably should have on the graceful line of her neck, where it curved to meet her shoulder and the stretch of creamy white skin she revealed.

When she turned, Cullen immediately dropped his gaze, cursing himself for the heat that she could no doubt see burning his cheeks. "Uh, yes…" he stuttered, his hand coming to rub the back of his neck. "I was… hoping that you would join us in the training yard tomorrow morning."

I was hoping? Cullen thought wretchedly. That's not how this conversation was supposed to start.

"Oh?" she said with a laugh. "Whatever for?"

"Well, as Commander of the Inquisition's forces, it's up to me to see that all of the men and women with us are able to defend themselves. As you'll be facing the most danger, that would include you, Hera… Lady Trevelyan," he informed her.

Her dark eyebrows arched up in what appeared to be amusement. "You think I need to be martially trained?"

"… Cassandra mentioned that while you were on your way to seal the rift at the Temple that you had to fight demons, and that you…" Find a nicer way to say this, please find a nicer way to say this "flailed through the encounters." Cullen groaned internally.

"I flailed?" she echoed, but Cullen couldn't tell if she was actually offended or not. She was silent for a long moment, seeming to appraise him from head to toe and Cullen hated that he suddenly felt the need to fidget under her scrutiny. Finally she answered, "Very well, Commander, I will see you and your men in the morning."

Though there was a smile on her face, there was a hard determination in her voice that made Cullen's throat dry.

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She's not coming. Well done, Cullen.

The men were already a few hours into their paces and Lady Trevelyan had yet to show herself in the training yard. Cullen had thought about waking her himself on his way to the recruit camp, but he hadn't wanted to catch his men off guard when he showed up in the yard with the Herald of Andraste in tow. He could only imagine the frenzy that would have caused considering that most of them had only seen her in passing and from a distance.

He couldn't deny that part of him was disappointed, as this would have been the first stretch of time that Cullen and the Herald spent together uninterrupted. Another part of him thought that it was probably for the best considering that all Cullen ever managed to do was make a fool of himself in front of her. He also doubted that she was going to appreciate being trained by a former Templar considering that she seemed to steer clear of Seeker Pentaghast as well as the other former Templars in Haven.

The reason that Lady Trevelyan seemed to have an aversion to the former Templars was something that Cullen did not want to think about. He didn't know any of the Templars who had been stationed at the Circle in Ostwick so he had no way of knowing if the Templars there abused their power, or perverted their oaths. The idea that maybe Lady Trevelyan's distance from the Templars was because of mistreatment at the Order's hands made Cullen feel like there was a boulder in his stomach.

"Maker's Breath! It's the Herald!" One of the recruits called out and then suddenly the majority of the recruits stopped what they were doing and bowed to her as she approached.

He didn't miss the clenching of her jaw, though she didn't correct the recruit who had called out. While Lady Trevelyan wasn't happy with her new title, she begrudgingly allowed the denizens of Haven to call her such. She seemed to have understood that they saw her as a symbol of hope that they desperately needed, and while she may not have enjoyed it, she did nothing to correct them. To Cullen, that simple fact spoke volumes to her character.

"I wasn't sure you were coming," Cullen told her as she came to a stop. She was dressed in the new armor that Harrit had given to her, her dark hair plaited neatly out of her face.

"To be honest, I wasn't sure I was coming either," she replied. An uneasiness seemed to drape itself around her shoulders as they curved inward. She looked down at her hands and said, "Your recruits would train against a mage?"

"Unfortunately, one way or another they're going to have to learn to fight mages, watching you will help with that. And it comforts them to know that you won't be training with a real staff and hurling lightning at them," he answered, then turned to where he had set the practice staff and handed it to her. "I asked Harrit to make this, it should have the same weight and balance as your basic staff."

Lady Trevelyan took the practice staff from him, balancing in it her hand, feeling the weight of it before turning it over and under her hand. After a moment of testing it and twirling it, she nodded. "It'll serve its purpose."

"Good." Cullen nodded and turned once again, "Recruit Derrick!"

The young man immediately rushed forward and halted before them. "Ser!"

"You will be training with the Herald for the rest of the morning," Cullen informed him.

The young man nodded, his eyes darting to the Herald and Cullen almost laughed out loud when she presented him with that brilliant smile while Derrick flushed three shades of pink. Derrick would be a good measure of Trevelyan's martial skills, if she had any to speak of. He was a moderately skilled shield warrior and former Templar recruit, which meant that he had not yet been given his first philter of lyrium before joining the Inquisition, but knew how to defend himself against a mage.

He thought about telling Trevelyan that Derrick was once a Templar recruit, but immediately thought better of it knowing her aversion to the Templars. Cullen wondered though if she would recognize it in him. She had been around Templars for the majority of her life in the Circle, after all; would she see it in the way he wielded his sword or held his shield, or in the way he moved around her?

"We'll start slow, with blocking. Derrick will move forward to strike and all you need to do is block," Cullen explained.

"Sounds easy enough," Trevelyan said as she widened her stance and lowered her center of gravity while Derrick lifted his shield. "Whenever you're ready, Derrick."

Derrick darted forward and Cullen felt his heart leap into his throat, resisting the urge he felt to call out to her – it was surely too fast for the Herald to block. Cullen was prepared to pick Trevelyan up from the dirt in the next few moments, so the very last thing that he expected was to see Trevelyan move artfully out of the way before she proceeded to perfunctorily disarm and knock Derrick onto his backside in a matter of a few fluid arching movements of her staff.

She stepped up to Derrick, placing the end of her staff to his throat as he panted for breath. "You should know: the end of my staff often has a blade at the end of it, that being the case, I think I have won this round."

Derrick nodded his surrender which made Trevelyan smile as she helped him back up on his feet. Did Cullen truly just witness what he had? A mage besting a warrior in close quarters? It didn't seem possible.

"Again," Cullen demanded.

He heard the Herald snort as she handed Derrick his sword and moved back into her original position. Derrick hefted up his shield and dashed forward again, and this time Cullen watched. Trevelyan skirted his blade along the length of her staff, then spun in to him, cracking her elbow against the side of Derrick's helmet and Cullen felt his own teeth rattle at just the memory of how a blow to the helm felt. Derrick tried to reach around her in front of him, but Trevelyan lifted her staff up and behind her, placing it against the back of Derrick's neck and with a shout, bent forward and threw him over her back where he landed with a thud in the dirt.

"I win again," Trevelyan said, but there was nothing in her voice that led Cullen to believe that she was happy about her victory. She turned to Cullen, her eyes hard and blazing, her expression twisted into something dark. "Satisfied, Commander?"

Without waiting for his response, Lady Trevelyan tossed him the practice staff and began to storm away. But Cullen couldn't let her leave like that, so he threw down the staff and hurried after her. "Wait!" he called, but she just hunched her shoulders and soldiered on. Perhaps she had hoped she could out pace him, but in the matter of another few strides, Cullen had gained on her and pulled her to a halt. "I hadn't meant to offend you. Why didn't you just tell me you could fight?"

The Herald sighed, palming her hand over her face. "You didn't offend me."

"Then why –"

She cut him off with a raised hand and looked around at all the people who were now watching them. "Walk with me?" she asked.

Maker, yes! He thought, but realistically: "I… really shouldn't, there's a lot of work to be done."

She smirked at that, one corner of her mouth curling upward as she sank into a hip and crossed her arms. "Are you telling me that you can't spare five minutes for me, Commander Cullen?"

It was the way she blinked slowly at him that was his undoing and she knew she had won when Cullen saw her draw her bottom lip between her teeth. "Five minutes," he said, trying his best to be stern.

"Yes, Ser!" she replied with a mocking salute.

They turned and walked toward the frozen lake, silence reigning between them. He tried not to notice how closely she was walking beside him, close enough that the back his hand brushed her arm, that he could smell the leather of her armor and the wildflower soap she used. Cullen wondered if he was supposed to start, maybe ask her a question, but just as he took a breath she said, "You're wondering why I 'flailed' on the way to the Temple of Sacred Ashes if indeed I did know how to defend myself."

"That and where you learned," he told her.

"... Do you know what Seeker Pentaghast first said to me in the dungeon?" Trevelyan asked, her voice quiet as she turned to look at him. Cullen shook his head by way of answering, because truly he didn't. The only thing he had known at the time was that the prisoner was conscious and that Leliana and Cassandra were going to question her. "She leaned in close and said tell me why we shouldn't just kill you now. So what do you think was the wisest course of action for me? Reveal that not only could I fight, but that I probably could have escaped at any time once I was out of the dungeon. Or should I have hidden it until it was the most advantageous to me?"

Clever. Cunning. Determined. The kind of mage Cullen had always been warned to watch the closest. But now Cullen understood Lady Trevelyan's aversion to Cassandra a little better than he had yesterday. Within the first minute of meeting her, Cassandra had threatened her life. It didn't matter to Lady Trevelyan now that the Seeker believed she was innocent of causing the explosion at the Conclave, she probably wouldn't trust Cassandra for a long while.

"As for where I learned," she continued, "there was a group of us at Ostwick. When we started to hear the reports coming out of Kirkwall in those last few years before the Chantry explosion, we knew it was only a matter of time before the Circles were going to crumble. It was an entirely at your own risk, after curfew thing. We started teaching ourselves how to fight, to defend ourselves, even how to resist the Templar's smite. I was the best one in the group considering I learned swordplay and had some martial training as a child with my brothers before my magic manifested. Had I not been born with magic it's likely my parents would have given me to the Templar Order… and I probably still would have ended up at the Conclave."

"It seems you were destined to be there," he commented.

She snorted again. "Not likely. I wasn't even supposed to be going. I wasn't even the first, second or third choice as delegate."

"Why's that?"

"I am too… invested in my own self-preservation. Honestly I couldn't have cared less about being a delegate to the Conclave, but the Circle thought that my nobility would be useful," Trevelyan replied, almost bitterly. "One way or another I believed that I was going to be fighting for my life by the end of it, and it seems I was right."

"You think you're… selfish?"

There was no hesitation when she answered, "I am."

"I don't believe that," Cullen insisted. And he didn't. If she was as selfish as she claimed, then she would not have stayed with the Inquisition. She would not have attempted to save The Divine at the Conclave.

"You should," she snapped. "I know myself, Commander. Everyone wants to believe that Andraste saved me in the fade because I rushed into that room to the save Justinia with noble intentions in my heart, but that's just not true."

"Then what is?"

Lady Trevelyan crossed her arms tightly over her chest, looking out over the frozen vista. Cullen eyed her profile wondering just how exactly this beautiful young woman thought so little of herself when the people of Haven had proven they thought the world of her. She went out of her way to assist Harrit, Minaeve, Threnn… he had even seen her stop by the tavern just to see how Flissa was doing. No, Cullen would not for a moment believe that Lady Trevelyan was as self-indulgent as she claimed.

"Then what's true? The truth is I didn't run into that room with noble intentions. Curiosity got the better of me, is what happened. I had to make sure that whatever was happening, that I would be able to save my own hide whether by running, or by alerting the Templars in attendance if some mage was doing something untoward."

She breathed a shuddering breath before she continued. "I'm not the person Haven or even the Inquisition thinks I am. I'm not a hero, or a Herald – I'm just a selfish mage interested in ensuring my own continued existence during a mage rebellion. If Andraste did indeed save me at the Conclave, there were a thousand other people better than I that she could have… should have saved."

Cullen shook his head vehemently, reaching out to lay his hand on her arm. "I still don't believe that. Not about you."

Lady Trevelyan laughed then, but it was a hollow bitter sound that shivered its way through Cullen's bones and settled uncomfortably in his chest. "Just wait, I am sure I'll prove you wrong. Terrible things happen to good people every day, Commander Cullen. Consequently, I am not one of the good people... I am one of the terrible things."

She left then. Left him standing at the edge of the frozen lake, watching as she walked away. He watched as Harrit called out to her and the Herald immediately altered her course to meet him by the smithy. He watched her chat and laugh with the blacksmith and Cullen felt himself smile.

Or perhaps, you're going to prove me right.

I just finished my first playthrough of DA:I (with a Cullen romance of course) and this little scene wouldn't stop playing itself in my head. Trevelyan in this is based on my headcanon Inquisitor.

It's just a one-shot for now, but I had the thought to make a series of shorts for Inqusition. Thoughts?

Review?

-(gxr)-