A note on the text:

This is the direct sequel to Inquisition, Indiana, the unbetaed version of which has been posted here in its entirety. The complete, revised version of Inquisition, Indiana is hosted on Archive of Our Own under the same title. If you haven't read that, this won't make much sense.

I am posting the unrevised version of Once More into the Breach here to get feedback on the story until my beta reader can have a proper crack at it, at which point, this too will be posted to Archive of Our Own (there are a few chapters up there already). Again, this is not the finished version of the story; in fact, I'm not even done writing it, but if I don't post it somewhere, there's a good chance I'll never finish it. Talk about a work ethic.

Anyway, I apologize in advance for spelling/grammar/etc errors. I've done my best to look this over but it is the first draft. Thanks in advance for bearing with me!

Here lies the abyss...

He put his hand on her face, worked his fingers into her hair, the rich, dark brown hair that framed her face, and turned to kiss her forehead, her eyebrows, her eyes.

The early morning was quiet. The sun hadn't even begun to rise. There were no dawn songbirds this time of year, wouldn't be until the wet autumn gave way to the harsh winter, gave way to the wild spring.

...the well of all souls…

And despite the quiet, despite the dark, Cullen was awake. Something in his chest had stirred him, some darkness there that he could not explain and could not ease, could not silence. Eleanor lay peacefully beside him, and he wanted to be close to her, wanted to smell the perfume of her skin, wanted to know the softness of her touch. He wanted her to calm him, but she was fast asleep.

He pressed his lips against her temple and gently breathed her name. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn't stir. Whatever dream place she was in, it held her fast. Cullen ran his fingers along her brow, pushed little stray hairs away from her cheeks. And yet the feeling in his heart lingered. Cullen sat up and leaned back against the wooden headboard, adjusting his pillow against his back.

Ferelden was always so quiet.

From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.

In April, they'd come for a brief stay. They'd come for Evelyn. They'd come to tell the Inquisitor - to tell the Inquisition - that they'd rather return to the quiet midwest, to stay in Indiana. They'd come to say that they would handle work on their end, and would do their due diligence, but that after the Blight, after all the fighting, after all the death, they'd like to step away for a little while. To live a quiet life. To hold down the fort in Eleanor's neck of the woods. The rift between Thedas and Earth was still open,

And yet it was autumn, and here they were still. Evelyn had hosted them at Skyhold for months, and Eleanor had become a force unto herself, relating not just the events of the previous year, but also relaying Dorian's speculations of the Rift, the Fade - and Dorian had gone back to Tevinter to do the same. It had been Cullen who the Inquisition had asked to return, but it was Eleanor who was doing all of the heavy lifting. No wonder she was so deeply asleep.

At least, after a while, they had gotten away from Skyhold. Here, in this little lakeside cabin just outside of Redcliff, they were less than a day's journey from the mountains, from the fortress that Cullen had for so long called home. But they were also painfully close to Kinloch Hold, and though the trauma was ten years and a different administration away, the ex-templar still couldn't help but feel a small shiver when he looked out over the water on grey, windy days.

He had told Eleanor everything about what had happened there. She had held him, and apologized, as though she had had anything to do with it.

Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.

A small light crept through the windows now. Small, and lonely, and pale. Sitting up against the headboard, Cullen pressed his eyes closed. He rested a hand heavily on Eleanor's shoulder, needing to feel her breath, needing to feel the warmth that radiated from her skin. He felt her sigh hard, and she rolled over, reaching for him in a half-sleep.

"I'm here," he whispered, not knowing if she could hear or not.

Her sleep still scared him. No, maybe not as much as scared, but it was a strange sensation to be trained as a templar and to sleep next to a mage, knowing that she had a very different connection to that dream world than he ever could, feeling small bursts of magic ripple out of her skin. Without lyrium, he wasn't as attuned to all of the things he might have been before, but he could still feel the power in her blood, on her body, a sharp, skewed, unreal sensation. It was almost an acrid tang, the smell of the air before a storm, but now it was almost - no, not almost, it really was - comforting.

He didn't care if he woke her now, couldn't care, not with the weight in his chest, the weight pressing into his mind that said something was not right, was not right at all. Cullen reached out and pulled her tightly into his arms, pulled her up and against his chest, pressing his lips hard against her hair, the brown of it black in the slowly growing dawn. She grasped for him in a half sleep and her lips formed his name, but her eyes stayed shut a moment longer, even as her cheek pressed hard against his skin, nuzzling gently against the familiar warmth of his form. Eleanor tipped her head up, arms sleepily snaking around his neck, and she let him kiss her, a soft, broken moan resonating in her throat.

For a moment, her head found his shoulder, and she laid there, twisting her fingers in the small curls at the nape of his neck - hair grown too long these past weeks, he thought, though she didn't seem to mind.

Though there hadn't been a smile on her face, there now flashed a frown, deep, sincere, furrows forming on Eleanor's brow, in heavy creases beside her mouth.

"El," he said. It wasn't a question, but it wanted for so many answers.

He thought he saw her lips form, "No."

There was a trembling of her eyelashes.

"Something…" she breathed.

"Hm?" he said, reaching down to smooth her hair.

"It shouldn't be," she answered.

"Shouldn't be what, El?" Her tongue was still heavy with slumber and a part of his brain didn't think he was hearing her right. Another part was afraid that he was.

"It's waking up," she muttered, her hands still grasping, but now for something very different. Her eyes pulled open, the blue-grey like a stormy ocean in the flat light.

"Love," he said, the word meant to be soothing but tinged with fear, the weight in his chest now a pressing, now the peine forte et dure of the mute, "what are… what are you saying?"

Suddenly her eyes darted around the room, and she pushed one hand hard against Cullen's chest, sitting upright hard and fast. She gripped the blankets in her fist, pulled them to her chest, turned until her gaze met Cullen's in the early morning blue.

"We have to go home."

In my arms lies Eternity.