Comic inspiration: post/115886780880/mmmmwhoops-looks-like-iamupset-and-lil-hawke-are
In this farewell
There's no blood, there's no alibi
'Cause I've drawn regret
From the truth of a thousand lies
So let mercy come and wash away
What I've done... - "What I've Done", Linkin Park
"Does the Commander require anything?"
Without looking up from the missive that he was furiously scrawling, Cullen recognized the flat, almost bored tone of one of the Tranquil. Ever since the Inquisitor took in the rebel mages, it seemed that both mages and their eerie Tranquil counterparts were as thick on Skyhold as fleas on a mabari.
Just the sound of that emotionless monotone was enough to set his teeth on edge in his current state - the lyrium song was particularly bad tonight, a buzzing painful throb in his head that seemed to vibrate up from the roots of his teeth and even his hair. He could imagine how the philter would taste, the draught sliding over his tongue with a numbing chill and down his parched throat like liquid reason, making a mad world whole again.
Thirsty. I'm so thirsty. He laid the pen down and clasped his hands together, rubbing them briskly in a futile attempt to warm them as he looked up at the Tranquil who had disturbed him at his work. When his eyes finally fell on her, his heart froze in his chest.
The girl's hair fell in straight ebony glossy wings to either frame either side of her face. Placid, dazed ice blue eyes regarded him unfeelingly, without blinking. She was as still as stone as she stood before him, as still as a dead heart, and if it wasn't for the steady rise and fall of her chest, Cullen would not know she was alive at all. The scar of a Chantry brand graced the pale, smooth forehead he had sometimes fantasized about brushing hair back from in what felt like another life. She gazed at him as if she could wait standing before his desk until the end of the age, if that was what was required of her.
As if she didn't know him.
"Lady Amell." He didn't know he'd intended to speak until he heard his own harsh whisper.
"That is my name." Solona's response was matter-of-fact.
Cullen stood on legs he wasn't sure would hold him, feeling his hands tremble and not caring. He walked around the desk until he stood before her. There was wet warmth on his cool cheeks, tears coursing down to drip off the edge of his jawline, but he barely felt them as he reached out to put his hands on the former mage's shoulders.
His eyes searched her face with a sick kind of desperation. His question was almost savage. He tilted her head up at him with his hand, fully aware of how it would look if one of his men came through his office door and not giving a damn. "Do you know me?"
She looked up into his face.
"You are Commander Cullen of the Inquisition."
"I'm Cullen. Just Cullen." The hand he had holding her chin slipped to her jaw, gentle now, cupping it like something priceless. "Do you remember me? From Kinloch? I was a boy then, we were both younger then..."
Please... please look at me. See me. Know me.
"I am from Kinloch Hold, Commander." She blinked, a breathing statue. "I do not remember what happened there before I was given the Rite of Tranquility. I am told it was unpleasant."
A memory came to Cullen then, a stolen moment in an alcove where the two of them had hidden for a few hours in a golden afternoon. He remembered the feel of her wild pulse against his lips where he kissed her throat, the sensation of her fingers tightening in his hair as she urged him on with silent encouragement, holding their breath in each other's arms whenever someone passed close, smothering each other's quiet giggles of rebellion.
Not all of it was unpleasant, my lady.
But she did not remember. He could grab her by the same throat he had worshipped as a younger man and strangle her to death, and she would not raise a hand against him. He could force her over his desk and have his way with her and she would not do so much as scream. He could drag her from the office and throw her from the battlements and she would not protest. She was a husk, the walking dead. It would be better if he had put a sword through her heart in her Harrowing. Better at least than this hollow existence.
She did not know him. She would never know anyone again.
He took his hands from her and walked back around to the other side of the desk, dropping down into his chair like a man who has taken a mortal wound and does not realize he is bleeding out yet. He sank his head into his hands.
"Commander?"
"Maker, no." His voice broke in a raw sob. All at once the pain and terror from Kinloch and Kirkwall and Haven came crashing down on him, the grief of those terrible memories in some kind of horrible synchronicity with the lyrium sickness that spiked his blood, mashing memory and dreams and the agony of the present into some nightmarish collage impossible to bear. He tried with vicious, self-loathing discipline to get himself under control and cried all the harder for it, small wounded animal whimpers escaping from his throat as he hid his face against the cold wood of the desk beneath his forehead.
We did this. We caused this. All of it. Her and all the rest. Their blood is on us. It will always be on us.
He felt a warm hand settle between his shoulderblades.
"I apologize if I have upset you, Commander. Do you wish me to leave?"
"...No."
He could not look up at her, could not see the lack of regard she held for him in the eerie ghost of her face.
He didn't look up at her, but almost felt her hesitation in the light weight of her palm against his back. And oh, how he wished he could feel her hands on him with nothing between them but skin and sweat. He felt a remnant of his old desire for her course through him, a brief flash of warmth. It was something they could never have. Not back then, and certainly not now.
Now the Circles were broken, and they would never be whole again.
When he finally got the courage to bring his tearstained face up to search her eyes, as serene as a lake full of the drowned, he was not sure they ever should be.
"You are dismissed, Lady Amell."
She bowed with slow, drugged reverence. "As you wish, Commander." She turned and walked to the threshold of the door. She paused in the doorway without turning back to look at him. "Should you desire our assistance, we serve at your pleasure."
This sent an involuntary shudder through Cullen. He did not reply. After a beat of silence, she slid through the door with a cat's quiet grace and closed it behind her.
As soon as she'd left, he rose from his desk again in a violent convulsion, throwing everything off the desk, scrolled letters and quills and inkpots and assorted sundry. An inkpot exploded with a satisfying explosion of glazed clay against the wall. An agonized roar welled up in his throat and he turned the desk itself over, feeling the dwindling power of the lyrium left in his blood surge through him.
He bowed over it, his hands clasped to the desk's edge as if it was the only thing keeping him earthbound. He barely heard the door open again over the fierce pounding of his own heart in his ears.
"Commander."
He looked up to see Cassandra staring at him, her expression a speculative mask. She closed the door behind her quickly, to make sure that none of the other guards on the ramparts saw him in his weakness. Her eyes tracked across the room, taking in everything. They settled on Cullen's pale, haggard face.
"I believe it is time for you to tell the Inquisitor." She did not make it sound like a suggestion.
"I... yes, I think that is best," Cullen replied softly. "For all of us."
"Good. Are you all right?" Cassandra's voice softened at this last.
"I can endure it."
"Cullen..."
"I can," he repeated, as much for himself as for her. Cullen made himself meet her gaze until he saw the moment where she believed him and dropped her eyes from his.
"As you wish," she said, taking one more dubious glance around the tower before looking into his eyes again. "You will tell me if you cannot."
"I will. Only..."
Cassandra raised an eyebrow at him in a silent question.
He wanted to say, Keep the Tranquil away from me. All of them. But he knew it would only lead to more questions. At best, his men would think their commander had an irrational fear of the Tranquil, or was ashamed of them in some way. At worst, they would suspect him of something terrible.
There would be rumors. In his current state, that was less than he could afford.
"...nothing," he finished. "Nothing, Seeker Pentaghast. Was there something you wished of me?"
Cassandra shook her head. "I was passing by on my way to the main hall and... I heard a sound of distress. Nothing more. I will leave you to your duties, Commander." She went to leave, but could not resist pausing to turn and look at him in the doorway, a worried scowl on her face. But there was compassion in her eyes. Emotions in them.
"You are certain you will be fine?"
"I can't say that for any of us, Cassandra."
"If you need me, Cullen, you know where to find me. Do not hesitate to attend the healers if you need something to help you with the...symptoms. They have things that will soothe your pain and help you sleep. It will get better, I promise you."
And if it doesn't, I'll only lose my mind.
"Yes, of course. Thank you."
She left and he set about putting his office back to rights, straightening his papers and swiping ineffectually at the spilled ink with a rip of cloth meant for polishing swords. He saw his hands quaking and held them out flat before him like a mage setting a ward, willing them to be still. It took an apocalyptic amount of focus, but eventually the violent tremors settled into a barely-detectable shiver. It was good enough.
"I can do this." He made his hands into defiant fists and slammed them on the scarred surface of the desk, bowing his head.
He saw her empty eyes again, lyrium blue or the blue of a careless summer sky, a damning accusation with no voice.
"...I can."