Cullen stares at his table but says firmly, "I almost hurt you when you came to see me the other day. Besides, I can handle this myself." He sounds like he has already made up his mind, but he dares not to look her in the eyes.
"So you wish me to... walk away?" Evelyn's voice trembling.
"It is for the best." Cullen says indifferently, eyes still downcast. He knows he has to stay away from her, but he is not allowed by his own heart. He needs to drive her away.
"The best...", Evelyn can only repeat his words with pale lips. Her heart is voluble, but her throat in vain.
"We should bethink ourselves of our duties." Cullen says officially.
She looks at him, with a heart shivering like a winter's ague. Their eyes finally meet, it is only for a moment before Cullen looks away again, but it is enough for Evelyn to tell his determination. Even she, the inquisitor, finds it is hard to change this obstinate man's mind.
She can feel his pain, the withdrawal of Lyrium is physically suffering enough, and the fear of dereliction of duty is devouring him piece by piece, the duty as the commander, the duty as her beloved.
She will do whatever he shall wish, weal or woe, but never walking away.
However, it seems that she is irrelevant.
Cold, fitful wind is whispering among the Skyhold, louder than she could ever remember. She wishes to elude this distraught silence, but all the words have been futile as the blown forth upon the shore.
She knows he is sheltering her, and she wants to do the same for him.Like a flying moth darts into the fire, she is so lost to every thing but love of him. Their affection has gone public indeed, but love? She wonders if he would go that far. Something is just too premature to be said and may scare him off.
Alas.
"You just need time." she says to Cullen, then turns around and walks out of his office and leaves him no chance to speak. She is never a woman with a restive heart, but she will not concede this time.
But her heart is still stifled.
As a noble lady, Evelyn could always hide her real feelings under a polite smile instinctively, but this time, sullen mist just covers her moist eyes, "Maybe it is for the bleak air." she thinks.
Pride can be derived from the lowliness sometime.
"Forgive me." Cullen says it again, but to himself this time. His eyes landed on the cold hill side and thinks he was fortunate to look away from Evelyn, because he would rather go blind than watching her walks away. But why the fortune can be so heart-wrenching?
The moment he kissed her on the battlement is far more like a dim dream now, the pain inside him begins to overflow, like a unbreakable cage which incarcerates him in the deepest ocean for an eternity.
He has seen others suffering this before, a former Templar he recalled, who used to be an intrepid young warrior, was screaming and crying on the floor, covered by his own tears and vomitus, begging for a swift death. How could he ever let Evelyn see him like that?
And now, to him, the pain becomes more intolerable in each passing moment, he is aching all over, like tens of thousands of bugs biting him from the bone to the flesh. If he will fall to an eternal sleep among his cold ashes, if his love for her will let the grief undo the joys they once had, then he would rather end it now.
He is her most beautiful encounter as she told him when they danced in the moonlight at the Winter Palace, but he dose not want to be her most reluctant to leave, not if it will break her heart.