Here's my Cullen muse, ready to go. I do love Cullen and his character development and I was wondering what a realistic relationship between him and Hawke would look like. It started out as a oneshot series of drabbles, but quickly turned into something a tad bit bigger and so I decided to split in up into short chapters. This is just a prologue of his Dragon Age Origins appearance, which I fit into about 500 words. So, not very detailed, but I want to focus on Hawke anyway.

Also, here's to hoping Cullen is a companion in Dragon Age Inquisitions!

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age. Gosh darn it.

The Beginning

"Maybe it was him that had changed, maybe he couldn't ever be fixed, and maybe what the mages had done to him, what they almost had turned him into, would always be a part of him."

Once upon a time, there was a lady and her knight that lived in a tall tower surrounded by a vast lake…

Cullen always tried to forget about the first time he fell in love.

It was all rainbows and butterflies and dreams of happy endings. He was innocent, so very innocent, and looking to be someone's hero.

She was innocent too, in those days, before she left. He tried not to remember the way she wrinkled her nose when she was thinking or how her dark eyes focused when she was reading or the sound of her laugh as they walked down an empty corridor together. He was a templar and she was a mage, but he was naïve enough to believe that it didn't matter as much as it did. If they were really meant to be in love, then the Maker would guide them to happiness.

After she left, he knew that she would come back. He just knew that she would.

And then he was falling, falling, falling from those clouds up in the sky down to the earth below. Down to hell below, where suffered for all of his innocence and ignorance. He was in hell and she was his devil and they tried to break him with everything they had. They wanted him as a worm, crawling, begging, pleading, if only the madness would he was almost there. He was almost at his breaking point when she did come back, just as he knew that she would.

But he was a mess when she found him and he told her everything in his raving delirium, but it was just too late. He's already broken.

And she was so grown-up and removed and different (Was it her that's different or was it him?) and he didn't want to love her anymore. He wanted to hate her, wanted to make her go away and to forget she ever existed.

He had seen what she was now. What she could be. What she will be. What she had already done to him.

"Cullen, are you alright? It's okay. It's over."

His jaw clenched and he refused to look at her.

Her hand brushed against his jaw, directing his eyes to hers, dark eyes as wide and hopeful as he remembered. Maybe it was him that had changed, maybe he couldn't ever be fixed, and maybe what the mages had done to him, what they almost had turned him into, would always be a part of him. Maybe-

And he recoiled from her touch, knocking her hand away.

His words were like poison, bitter and deadly, and it killed any lingering feelings between them. "Don't touch me, mage."

The corners of her mouth tugged downward and her hand dropped down to her side. And, for a moment, she looked so sad that, as much as he wanted to, he couldn't look away. "I'm sorry, Cullen. I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner. I'm sorry- I'm sorry for everything."

And he found that he still had enough heart left for it to break as she walked away. He couldn't love her again. Not after what happened in this tower. Not after what he saw. What he lived and breathed and sobbed through. She couldn't fix things.

But it's not until he realized that somehow, in some twisted way, he could still find a way to love her that he transferred to Kirkwall.