The Hanged Man is full of people – people, and makeshift cots, and the smell of death and desperation. Cullen has heard there are mages being sheltered here, but from the looks of it, half of Lowtown is taking refuge in the bar. He's not surprised; this part of the city looks worse than after the Qunari invasion. It's been less than a week since the Chantry, since Meredith, and Cullen's been too busy cleaning up the Gallows to worry about the rest of Kirkwall. But looking around now, the city could use someone worrying about it. He just wishes there was someone else around to do the worrying.
He spots a girl at a table in the far corner – she's still wearing her Circle apprentice robes, dirty and torn, and she's leaning in to speak with a dark-haired woman. The woman turns her head enough that he can see her face – and Cullen stops short in the middle of the room. If there was one person he never expected to see again after the battle, it was Bethany Hawke.
The young apprentice flinches when she sees Cullen approach, but Bethany just looks at him steadily. "From what I hear," she says, "the Gallows isn't precisely in any shape to house children right now."
She's not wrong. The apprentice dormitory is ... well, it's perhaps the worst sight Cullen has ever seen as a Templar, and that includes the nightmares visited upon him at Kinloch Hold. While he'd been at Meredith's side, a group of Templars had gone into the Gallows and started the job Meredith assigned them - beginning with the apprentices. Today alone, he carried half a dozen small bodies to the funeral pyre they'd built in the courtyard. With each one, he'd knelt by the fire and asked the Maker – and the children – for forgiveness.
Still, he has a job to do. "We're housing the surviving children in the Templar quarters. My men are sleeping in the courtyard."
Bethany shakes her head. "Not good enough."
He bristles. "And who are you to say so?"
She favors him with a sharp look, and takes the young girl's hand. "Someone who knows what it's like to be scared of Templars."
Cullen hadn't known she was a mage, not until he felt the tingle of healing magic dance across his exposed skin in the midst of battling Meredith. He'd turned to see Bethany, halfway across the courtyard, Warden armor caked in blood, calling the telltale swirl of white magic back into her hand. At the time, she'd just nodded at him before returning to her own fight. Now, though ... he looks at Bethany, dressed in a simple tunic and skirt, glaring at him like he's now the enemy.
He remembers the broken body he last held in his arms – a boy, somewhere around twelve years old, just about the age of the girl sitting and shivering in front of him - and part of him thinks well, maybe I am.
On an impulse, he bends down so that he's eye-level with the girl. "I'm sorry," he says. "We were wrong. I'm trying very hard to make sure things are better now."
The girl doesn't look any less frightened, but when Cullen glances at Bethany, she's giving him a curious look. She squeezes the girl's hand, but after a moment, she inclines her head toward the back of the bar. "We've been collecting mages. Some kids, some injured. Corff and Norah are letting me take over a couple of the back rooms for a while."
"I heard."
"Let me keep them here, at least for a little while." Bethany glances back at the girl. "It's better than blood and dead bodies."
Cullen stands back up. "Why do I expect that most of them will be long gone in a few days, if I leave them here?"
Bethany scowls. "I'm certainly not imprisoning anyone here. But I'm more concerned with making sure everyone is well than with smuggling anyone out of town right now, trust me."
He knows he should protest. The sooner the city is brought back into a routine, the better – which means the mages need to be in a functioning Circle. But, of course, the key word there is 'functioning', and Cullen just doesn't have the heart to drag a terrified little girl back to witness the burning of her friends. So, reluctantly, he nods. "May I see the injured?" he asks.
She hesitates, but eventually Bethany stands up. The girl scurries away, and Bethany brushes dust off her skirt. "Come on," she says. "Try not to frighten anyone, they're all skittish right now."
"Am I really that terrifying?"
Bethany gives him another unreadable look. "You have no idea."
He really doesn't, until a teenage apprentice stands in front of him and asks, in a hushed tone, "Have you come to kill me now?" The boy's shoulders shake, but he stands straight and looks Cullen in the eye. He stops shaking when Cullen answers in the negative. "Thank you, ser," he says, and Cullen tries to ignore the sour twist in his stomach at the obvious gratitude.
He stalks back out into the bar. Bethany follows. "What did you expect?" she asks, her tone surprisingly gentle.
"I'm not going to kill anyone." His voice is rough. He doesn't look at her, not even when she puts a hand on his arm.
"And how are they supposed to know that?" she asks. "They weren't involved, not like we were."
When he finally looks down, Bethany eyes hold an entirely unexpected spark of sympathy. Just for a moment, though, and then she blinks it away. Suddenly, she looks very tired, and turns away. "Good day, Knight Captain."
He watches her walk all the way back into the back rooms before he leaves the bar.
The next day, Cullen comes back without his armor. It just seems like a better idea..
He finds Bethany on the floor next to the bed of an apprentice with an injured leg. "When I was your age," she's saying, "my father taught me to control my fireballs by taking me out into the fields in the middle of winter. He'd throw little pieces of wood all over the snow and make me aim for them - but I had to stand in one spot, couldn't move until there were at least a dozen precise holes in the snow around me. If I managed it, he'd take me into town and let me buy a new book. Of course," she adds, laughing, "we also had to buy things for my siblings, to be fair. So eventually, as I learned more magic, Marian and Carver started bothering me about how well I was doing more than my father did."
Bethany's hair tumbles over her face as she laughs. When she reaches up to push it away, Cullen is struck by her bright eyes, her wide smile, her glow. She is, he thinks, truly one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen. He doesn't quite know why that surprises him. Her sister, after all, was more than attractive herself. But while he'd always related to Marian Hawke as a fellow warrior, Bethany Hawke … well, here, out of armor and off duty, he could admit to the stirrings of a normal man. Silently, of course.
When she looks up and notices Cullen, Bethany's smile fades. Now, he can see the circles underneath her eyes, the lines beginning to form around her eyes - but she's no less beautiful for it. He clears his throat. "I didn't mean to intrude."
"It's okay," she says, unfolding herself and standing up. She looks down at the boy and lays a hand on his head. "You need to rest."
The boy is old enough to have a recognizable awe in his gaze when Bethany smiles at him. Cullen can't blame him.
Bethany escorts Cullen through the back rooms in relative silence. He checks on all the mages, everyone from yesterday still accounted for. When they exit the last room, Bethany looks up at him. She seems to consider for a moment, then abruptly asks, "Are you hungry?"
His stomach answers the question before he does. Bethany chuckles, and he smiles sheepishly. "I haven't actually eaten since breakfast."
"Come on, then." She leads him to the kitchen, where they each spoon a bowl full of stew. They exit to the bar long enough for Corff to hand them mugs of ale; Cullen expects Bethany to take one of the empty tables at the far end of the room, but instead, she leads him into the back once again. Their destination, apparently, is the large suite of rooms at the top of the stairs. "These were Varric's rooms," Bethany says as she sits down at the table. "I'm sharing them with Norah and her sister right now. Their house was burned down in the riots."
The mention of the dwarf gives Cullen an opening he's been looking for. "How are … I mean, is everyone … safe?"
Bethany blinks. "My sister, you mean? And Varric, and the rest?" She shrugs. "I don't know. I know they all got out of town in one piece. Beyond that … only the Maker knows."
There's a part of him that wants to ask after Anders - is the man who caused all this still alive? Cullen spent the day burning the bodies of innocents, yet again; the idea that the man responsible could be out there somewhere getting on with his life makes him angry enough that he has to turn away from Bethany for a moment. He's not blind - he recognizes that the mage was not solely to blame for the extent of the tragedy, that if Meredith hadn't been so altered, so blinded, the situation might never have come to this. He even owns some of the guilt himself; he knows that many of his men and women ran wilder than they should have in recent years, and he bears responsibility for them. But Meredith has paid for her crimes, and he is doing his penance at the Gallows daily. What price has Anders paid? Wherever he is - if he is still alive - Cullen desperately hopes that he suffers.
He clears his throat and looks back at Bethany. "Why do you stay?" he asks. "I didn't think the Wardens got involved in local affairs, not unless the darkspawn are involved."
A light blush stains her cheeks. "I'm … on leave, you might say. I'm not here on Warden business."
"You ran away, you mean."
"I took my leave," she repeats firmly, meeting his gaze. "My sister needed me. And at least with the Wardens, I know that when I return, my punishment won't involve having my mind ripped from me."
An image appears in Cullen's mind, unbidden - for a brief moment, he sees Bethany across from him, forehead branded, her eyes devoid of the spark of anger currently focused on him, or any spark at all. He suppresses a chill and looks away. There's no way to respond, really, not without provoking a fight he doesn't want.
He can't stay away from controversial topics entirely, though. "May I ask," he begins, looking back at her, "I mean, I'm curious, how you … stayed under the radar, before the Wardens."
"How I managed to stand in front of you," she says, her mouth twisting in a smirk, "without having the word 'mage' emblazoned on my chest in glowing letters, you mean?"
"Something to that effect, yes."
"I was taught how to hide practically from birth, long before I ever came into my magic." She digs into her stew, looking at the bowl rather than at him. "My father was an apostate - a runaway from a Circle here in the Free Marches. He managed to stay free for the better part of twenty years, without ever falling victim to a demon or harming anyone." She looks back up, a defiant gleam in her eyes. "I am nothing if not his daughter."
"I imagine you are," Cullen murmurs. After meeting Bethany and Marian - and their mother, briefly, before her untimely death - Cullen imagines the late Serrah Hawke, whoever he was, must have been a force to be reckoned with. He's fairly sure he's glad to never have crossed swords with him, metaphorically or literally.
"I'm just glad," Bethany says, "that I wasn't along when my sister first met you. I suspect helping you fight an abomination might have given me away."
"Possibly. I was more than a little distracted at the time, if I remember correctly."
"Not distracted enough to miss me setting someone on fire, I'd wager." She shrugs. "I refused to go along on any trip that I knew would involve the Gallows or Templars. Until we met the blood mage at the Blooming Rose - she made me so mad that I insisted on going along to the Darktown hole she pointed us to. Which then led to the Gallows and …" Bethany gives him an unreadable look, then closes her eyes and sighs. "Well, to you."
Cullen remembers only a little of that meeting, and even then, mostly he remembers Keran and his sister, and Marian Hawke standing up for the boy. When he says as much to Bethany, she laughs under her breath. "That's my sister. Always the most memorable person in the room. Not," she adds hastily, "that I wanted to be remembered. I really just wanted to get away, to make sure that you never remembered that Marian had a younger sister at all, just in case."
"I remembered you," Cullen says. "I never suspected you were a mage, but I did remember you." Marian Hawke's impossibly pretty, apparently shy younger sister - he caught glimpses of her over the next few months, before the Hawkes left on Bartrand's expedition, but never had the courage to go up and speak to her. What he would have said to her back then, he doesn't know. Something embarrassing, no doubt.
"No," Bethany says softly, "I never thought you suspected. Not after that first meeting." She stands abruptly. "I should check on the kids again. You know the way out."
She's gone before Cullen can protest, ask if he said something wrong or offensive. He puzzles over it all the way back to the Gallows, but for the life of him, he can't come up with anything.
"Knight-Captain! There's some kind of fight that happened down at the Hanged Man. The people are saying a mage was involved." The young Templar who approaches Cullen is out of breath, as if he's run all the way from Lowtown. (For all Cullen knows, he probably has.) "We tried to go check it out, but there are city guards at the door and they won't let us in."
Cullen sighs. "I'll take care of it."
When he reaches the Hanged Man, he's not exactly surprised to see Donnic Hendyr guarding the door. "Let me in, Guardsman," Cullen says quietly. "I've already been dealing with Mistress Bethany, I'm not here to bother anyone." After a moment, Donnic nods and steps aside.
He hears the Guard-Captain's voice as soon as he approaches Bethany's rooms. He stops just outside the door, uncertain whether it's a good idea to interrupt. "- bad enough around here," Aveline is saying. "It's too soon. People are still paranoid about mages on the loose."
"What would you have me do?" Bethany asks. "Leave people to be attacked by bandits the minute they walk out the door? I can't do that."
"Bandits are my responsibility, Bethany. Not yours."
"And where were your guards, Aveline? Not around here today when we needed them, that's for sure."
He hears Aveline sigh. "I don't know," she admits. "I suspect some of the more enterprising criminals around here have figured out my patrol schedule, and where the gaps are in it. Which means I need to switch it up again."
"Well, until you do, I'm going to do what I have to do to keep people safe. I won't just sit here and hide." Bethany pauses. "Not anymore."
"Just be careful, okay? You may be a Warden, but the Templars are understandably jumpy right now. I don't know what they'll do with another mage running free around the city."
Finally, Cullen steps into the doorway. "That's not going to be a problem, Guard-Captain," he says. To Bethany, who is sitting on the edge of a mattress shoved into the far corner, he adds, "But still, she has a point. I heard about your … altercation practically as soon as it ended. You and your charges here might be better off if you lay a little lower."
Bethany's eyes flash when she looks up at him. "Are you threatening to take me in if I don't behave?"
"Contrary to what may be popular belief, I'm a bit smarter than that." He shrugs. "But I admit, my control over my men is a little tenuous. There are Templars remaining who were loyal to Meredith. I've been too busy to root the worst of them out as of yet, and I can't guarantee that they'll follow the spirit of my commands if they're faced with an unfamiliar mage."
Bethany continues to glare at him, and Cullen is struck with the urge to grab her by the shoulders and … well, kiss her, which is an unwanted image that brings a flush to his cheeks. A small noise brings his attention back to Aveline, leaning against the wall across from Bethany. "Interesting," she says, looking from him to Bethany and back again. "I admit, you're the last person I expected to see here, Cullen."
"You and me both," he says, earning a small smile from Aveline.
Finally, Bethany sighs. "Cullen has been …" She pauses. "Kind enough to let me keep his people here for a while."
"Indeed." Aveline nods to him. "It's good to know you intend to run a different ship than your predecessor."
Cullen snorts. "I very much doubt I'm Meredith's official successor. I fully expect to see a caravan from Orlais arrive at any moment, complete with a brand new Grand Cleric and Knight-Commander. Until then, my only goal is to repair as much damage as I can."
Aveline tilts her head at him. "Reparation is a much better platform than most leaders around this city have ever had, at least since I've been here."
"Maybe the Fereldans should have taken over the city a long time ago," Bethany suggests.
Both Aveline and Cullen laugh. "Well," Aveline says, "we could hardly do much worse than the natives, could we?"
"If you'd really like to take the Viscount's seat," Cullen tells her, grinning, "I'm more than happy to back you."
"Oh, Maker forbid. I'd kill everyone in Hightown within the week." Suddenly, Aveline narrows her eyes and looks back at Bethany. "Speaking of Hightown … why, exactly, are you here on Varric's floor?"
"What?"
"You have a whole mansion that's just sitting there, abandoned. Why are you sleeping here?"
Bethany blinks. "Oh. I … hadn't thought of it." She shrugs. "It's not my home, anyway. It never was."
Aveline frowns at her. "Of course it is."
"No, it's not. I never lived there. Besides, I don't even have a key."
"That can be fixed. Why are you arguing with me?"
Bethany shrugs again, folding her arms over her chest. "It's just … not my home. I don't belong there."
"Bethany …"
"Really, Aveline. I'm fine here."
Aveline looks like she wants to keep arguing, but after a moment, she shuts her mouth and nods. "I need to go see about redoing my guard schedule. Send a runner up to the Keep if you need me, okay?"
She nods to Cullen as she leaves the room. When she's gone, he turns to Bethany. "What happened today?"
"Bandits. Leftover Carta thugs, I think, who have started waiting outside the front door to ambush people when the guards aren't around. They tried to get a woman when I was walking outside, and I couldn't just let them go." She looks at the opposite wall, rather than at him. "Some days, I miss the Wardens. At least I can just kill darkspawn without worrying about someone wanting to arrest me."
"Are you going to go back to the Wardens?" he asks, before he can stop himself. He's not quite sure why it matters to him - he only knows that it does, in some strange way that sits at the bottom of his stomach.
"Yes," she says, without hesitation, and Cullen isn't quite sure if that's the answer he wanted to hear or not. "I belong there now, with the Wardens. What else is there? The Circle?" She laughs. It's not a pleasant sound. "No offense, but not a chance."
Cullen grabs a nearby chair, turning it around backwards so he can straddle the seat and lean his arms on the back. "This might be the wrong question," he starts slowly, "but … why? I mean … I'm not going to ask you why you didn't want to be in the Circle under Meredith's rule. That's obvious to me now. Too late," he acknowledges, "but I do know. But … why did you hide from the Circle back in Ferelden? That Circle was a very different place, much more friendly to mages, I think. You're not a blood mage. You seem to use your magic for good. Why were you so afraid of the Circle?"
Now, Bethany looks back at him, disbelief written all over her face. "Are you kidding? Tell me this - you've just described me as a perfectly competent person, someone who knows right from wrong and knows how to use my magic. You tell me, why should I submit myself to lifelong imprisonment? Why should I allow my freedom and rights to be taken away from me, if I'm perfectly capable of controlling myself?"
"Well … the Chantry …"
"That's right." Bethany closes her eyes. When she looks back at Cullen, he feels himself swallow at the hard glint he sees there. "You know," she says, "I was going to turn myself in."
That wasn't what he was expecting. "You … what?"
"Back then. Before the Wardens. I spent months agonizing over it. My family spent years running. We never lived anywhere for very long, afraid that the Templars would figure something out and come for me and my father. It was okay, for the most part, when we were all together, but … here in Kirkwall, just me and Mother and Marian, we had nothing, no money, no way of protecting ourselves. Mother worried herself sick and Marian ran herself ragged trying to earn money so we could have some kind of influence, some kind of shield between me and the Templars. I wondered if it would be better if they didn't have to worry about me anymore. And, really …" She looks down at her lap, clasping her hands behind her neck and sighing. "I wondered if I wouldn't be happier, surrounded by people who were like me. I didn't want to have to hide who I was any more."
"Why didn't you? What happened?"
Bethany looks back up at him. Her smirk holds no hint of humor. "You did."
Cullen blinks. "What?"
"I was honestly on the verge of turning myself in, that day when I first met you at the Gallows, after we rescued Keran. And then you looked at Marian and said that mages couldn't be treated like people. And I couldn't." She shakes her head. "How could I? How could I knowingly give up everything to live in a place where I would be considered somehow less, unworthy of being treated like a person?"
"I don't remember what I said," Cullen says slowly, "but that's not what I meant."
"Isn't it? 'Magic exists to serve man, but never to rule over him,'" she quotes. "Which, as far as I can tell, means the Maker agrees that other men are meant to rule over mages, that none of us are trustworthy enough to take care of ourselves? That is what you do, isn't it? Divine word says that you're better than me, that your opinion and worth is greater than mine."
Tears fill her eyes. Cullen stands up, but she immediately stands and crosses the room, hiding her face from him. Something inside Cullen twists, but it's tempered with a spark of anger. "Have you ever thought about it from the other side?" he asks. "Why would the Maker make some people so powerful that they're able to destroy someone else with a mere thought? Why are we, the normal people, at such a disadvantage?"
"What? A disadvantage? How can you possibly say-"
"A mage just blew up the Chantry and threw the entire city into chaos." He paces to the opposite end of the room. "A group of mages banded together and nearly destroyed the entire Fereldan Circle during the Blight. They unleashed demons and horrors the likes of which I had hoped to never see again - imprisoned -" Cullen cuts himself off, feeling unwanted memories bubble up. For a moment, his chest tightens, and he imagines he can see a shimmer in front of him, a barrier he can't penetrate … "Why does the Maker give some people that much power? It's unfair. So you'll forgive me if I don't see the Chantry as some kind of oppressive force."
"Did I say that?" Bethany counters. "Rules are necessary, control is necessary. Some people just don't have the capacity to know right from wrong. Don't think I don't know that. But what you're saying is that I - that these people who are sitting here, scared and suffering - deserve to be punished for the sins of other people. Just because of who we are." She glares at him. "You yourself just said that you can't - or won't - root out the Templars who would abuse the system because of Meredith's insanity, which means that you don't care about the mages that suffer because of them. Because why not? We're just mages, we deserve to be taken down a few notches, right?"
"For the love of - you're putting words in my mouth." Cullen shakes his head. He can feel something throbbing in his temples. "Of course I care. It's an affront to everything I swore as a Templar to see someone else abusing their role …"
"But yet, it happens every day."
"How would you know? You've never been in a Circle."
"I've known Circle mages. I've even been inside Circles, with the Wardens." She stalks closer to him, points a finger. "And don't tell me I've only known the mages with a grudge. I'm well aware that someone like Anders isn't the best source of information … but he's the product of his experiences. Bad things happened to him in the Circle, that much I know for sure. And my father …" Bethany's voice falters. "He never did tell me why he escaped. I asked, but he always said he'd discuss it when I was a little older. But whatever happened to him, he said he was more willing to risk being killed during escape than endure one more day in that place. My father wasn't a malifecar. He was a man who just wanted a quiet life with a family, who just happened to be cursed with magic. But by your rules - the rules of the Maker - he was just as dangerous as a blood mage, and deserved to be treated as such."
"Even a good man can reach a breaking point."
"That's true of all men - and women. A person with a sword can do nearly as much damage as a mage when put in the wrong situation."
"But they can't call demons. They can't set someone on fire with a thought."
"But some of them can issue a perfectly legal order that ends with dozens of innocent people dead," Bethany says, taking a step closer to him. "And it's totally all right, because it's saving the world from people who might possibly some day, under certain circumstances, deal with demons." She looks away from him. "There at the end, before … everything, I heard the First Enchanter ask why you don't just drown all of us at birth. Part of me wonders, too - why don't you just kill us? Wouldn't that just save the entire world from the taint of magic? If we never existed at all?"
Cullen blinks. "That's unfair."
"Is it? I'm sure there are plenty of your fellow Templars who would be happy to entertain the idea."
"Templars are people, human. Some of us are good - or try, anyway, which is all I can do - and some of us aren't. If you're asking for a perfect society …well, it's not going to happen. I'm just one man, and I've been left with a husk of a Chantry and a Gallows full of blood and bodies, and right now it's all I can do to get through the day."
Bethany tilts her head up, but Cullen continues before she can say anything. "I asked for the Right of Annulment once," he says, before he can stop himself, "in Ferelden, after Uldred's rebellion. I spent three days trapped inside the Tower. They put me in a magical prison, left me to be taunted by the demons they'd summoned. When I was freed … I thought it was better to be safe than sorry, because if even one of those mages survived, one of the people who put me through that got away without justice …" He closes his eyes; he can't see her face, not while he thinks of this, he can't risk having her linked to those memories in any way. "I would have happily seen every mage in that Tower dead on the ground before me. But the Knight-Commander refused, and sent me away." He pauses to catch his breath, swallow the lump that blocks his throat.
"I'm sorry," he hears Bethany whisper. When he opens his eyes, she's turned away from him again, her head bowed. After a long moment, she speaks again. "I've seen what magic can do. I know what people who have magic can be capable of. On a good day, I tell myself that most of them are just messed up because of how we're all treated. I mean, if you kick a dog long enough and hard enough, some of them will get mad and bite back."
Cullen opens his mouth to respond, but Bethany turns around and continues. "But on a bad day … my entire life, I've worried - I've wondered, why would the Maker make me like this? If he hates mages so much, if we're so dangerous to him and everyone he cares about, why does he create us in the first place? Because apparently all he thinks we're worth is a life of imprisonment and servitude, a life where someone else has the power to kill us - or worse, to turn us into a mindless husk of what we used to be - at any time. What's wrong with me, that the Maker thought I deserved to be born like this?"
Cullen scrubs a hand over his eyes. "I've just finished cleaning up the apprentice dorm. We pulled more than twenty bodies from that room alone. Twenty children, who never got the chance to decide what they wanted to do with the power the Maker gave them. And for the record," he says, looking back at Bethany, whose face is flushed and trembling and still beautiful, Maker help him, "I don't think any one of them was less of a person than me, or anyone else. Nor do I think you are."
"I'm sorry," Bethany repeats. Her shoulders slump, and she bites her lip. "This wasn't … it wasn't anything I meant to get into. Not with you. It's just that …" She exhales loudly, looking at a point on the wall beyond Cullen. "What you think of me matters, and I have no idea why."
"What I think of you?" There's too much churning inside of him - too many emotions to really feel in control of himself. At least, that's what he tells himself later. In the moment, he takes three steps forward, until he's close enough to Bethany that her chin tips up so she can look at him. He puts his hands on her shoulders; he can feel the rise and fall of her breath as she obviously struggles to even herself out. When her lips part to say something, he acts entirely on instinct - and kisses her.
Her lips are warm, and she makes a small surprised noise against his mouth. But, instead of pulling away - which, Cullen admits to himself, he fully expects her to do - she simply lays her hands on his chest plate. She doesn't pull him closer, or push him away. She just holds on, and lets out a small sigh when he finally breaks contact. When he opens his eyes again, he sees her lashes flutter, bright amber looking slightly out of focus behind them. "Oh," she says, her voice barely a breath.
For some reason, the small, quiet word brings Cullen's attention back to the room, to the situation - the whole picture, not just the tiny lingering taste of her on his lips. He steps backward quickly enough that she sways from the loss of contact. "I'm sorry," he says.
Bethany stares at him for a long moment, then simply nods. He can't read her expression. Cullen clears his throat. "I should go."
He's halfway back to Hightown before he remembers that he never checked on the mages at the Hanged Man. "To the void with it," he mutters. "They're probably all in better shape than I am right now." A passing woman looks at him sideways when she hears him talking to himself, but he can't bring himself to care.
Cullen avoids the Hanged Man for two days. At the end of the week, however, the dormitories at the Gallows are in good enough shape that he can no longer justify letting mages stay elsewhere. After procrastinating most of the day, he finally squares his shoulders and takes two men to Lowtown with him. "Wait here," he tells them outside of the Hanged Man. They look at him sideways, but neither objects.
He finds Bethany once again sitting with the young injured apprentice, whose wound appears to have healed enough that he's sitting cross-legged on the bed. They both look up at his appearance; the boy looks slightly nervous, while Bethany's face is blank. "May I speak with you?" he asks her. He's relieved when she nods without hesitation and rises from the floor.
In the hallway, Bethany leans against the wall and crosses her arms over her chest. "It's time, isn't it?" she asks, surprising him.
He nods. "We've cleaned the dormitories and individual rooms as much as we can. It's … well, it's livable. It'll take a long time to actually make it comfortable. But they're going to have to move back, before people start to talk."
Bethany nods. Cullen must look surprised, because she shakes her head. "What did you expect? That I'd secret them all out into the night, send them out of Kirkwall on merchant caravans?"
Cullen shrugs. "I've known people who would have. You've known people who would have."
"You have a point." Bethany laughs softly, but then her expression goes serious. Softer than it was before, but still serious. "No, I told you I wouldn't. I know none of these people are prepared for freedom. Whether or not I agree they should have been … sheltered from an early age, the fact remains that they were. Turning them free at this point would do them more harm than good." Her eyes meet Cullen's; they hold a spark that he can't quite read, but makes him swallow and square his shoulders. "I trust you to take care of them," she says quietly.
He hadn't realized how much he needed to hear that until a knot in his chest unties itself. He finds he doesn't trust his voice, not to say anything more than, "Thank you."
Bethany looks at him for a long moment before stepping away. "I'll go tell everyone."
She disappears, and Cullen reenters the young apprentice's room. "It's time to go home," he tells the boy. "Can you walk?"
"Yeah. If you go slow, I can walk." The boy fixes Cullen with a nervous stare. "It's … okay, isn't it, ser? Bethany said you were taking care of all our friends, the ones who didn't make it."
Cullen takes a deep breath before answering. "Yes. I tried to."
"Okay." The boy nods, and looks away for a moment. When he looks back, his jaw is only quivering slightly. "Thanks."
Cullen helps the boy to his feet. When he's standing steadily, the boy looks at the door wistfully. "Why doesn't Bethany come with us?" he asks. "She's a mage, too."
"Because she's a Grey Warden. They have special rules about mages."
"Yeah, I guess." The boy sighs. "I wish she lived there with us."
Cullen chuckles. "Do you want to know a secret?" The boy looks up and nods, eyes wide. "So do I."
He lets the boy grab his arm as they make their way out of the room. In the hall outside, Bethany has gathered the rest of the mages. She looks at Cullen, her eyes thoughtful, but she doesn't say anything to him. Instead, she hugs the woman next to her. "Take care of yourself," she says.
The woman nods. The rest of the mages start to chime in with their thanks to Bethany, all talking over each other. It takes Cullen several minutes to herd them all out into the main room of the tavern; finally, Bethany laughs and shoos the more reluctant ones along. "Go on. You'll all be fine. I promise."
Cullen brings up the rear. When he looks back, Bethany gives him a small smile. He chokes on whatever words he might say - I'm sorry? Thank you? You're beautiful? - and just nods before he follows the mages to the front door.
The note arrives at the Gallows the next day, via a twitchy young messenger who runs the minute Cullen takes the envelope from him. I'd like to talk to you before I go. Will you meet me at my sister's house tonight? It's not signed, but there's no question who it's from. Just as there's no question of his response; he contemplates ignoring the request for half a second, but the thought of never seeing Bethany Hawke again - and once she returns to the Wardens, that's the most likely scenario - makes his stomach twist into a painful knot. So once he's off duty, he changes into civilian clothing and makes his way to Hightown.
The door to the Hawke mansion is unlocked. Cullen has never been inside before, but the main rooms are cozier than he expected - of course, his idea of what a Hightown mansion should look like is colored by the du Launcet place, where he was forced to visit after Emile's ill-advised escape and return to the Circle. He should have expected that Marian Hawke would have kept a far more inviting home than that museum.
He's examining the crest above the fireplace when her voice interrupts his thoughts. "I wasn't sure you'd come."
When he turns, Cullen catches his breath. Bethany is descending the stairs, barefoot and clad in a short house dress bearing the Amell crest, her hair loose around her shoulders. He must be staring, because she stops and looks down at herself. "Sorry," she says, looking back at him and blushing. "I meant to change, but I lost track of time. I was upstairs looking through all the things Marian left behind."
"It's all right." It's more than all right. If he must be left with one memory of Bethany, Cullen wants it to be of her bathed in lamp light, dark hair and pink cheeks and long legs disappearing underneath the skirt into shadowed, feminine curves … and he's staring again. He feels his own cheeks warm. "I'm glad you asked me," he says.
Bethany halts at the bottom of the steps, but she gives him a small smile. "How is …" She pauses, her nose scrunching up as she rolls her eyes at herself for some private reason. "How are things at the Gallows today?" It's obviously not the question she meant to ask, but it's the only one that comes out.
"All right. We're slowly getting back to normal." Or something that resembles normal, anyway, Cullen thinks. There are mages wandering the courtyard and templars gossiping in the barracks. It's not as carefree as Kinloch Hold was, but after Meredith's last few years, it rather feels like everyone in the Gallows is taking a long, deep breath. Even Cullen. "It's getting better," he says aloud.
Bethany nods. She looks away, towards the door that leads into the foyer. "I've been having trouble convincing myself to go back," she says. "Not because I want to go on the run, but because nobody with the Wardens will understand what this is like. What happened here, how it feels. We see a lot of crazy things, but this … this was different." She looks back at him. "It sounds a little silly, but it feels like once I leave here, none of this will have been real. It'll just be another nightmare I have to live with."
Cullen feels a chill. He knows what it's like to live with waking nightmares - and for a brief moment, he can see them reflected in Bethany's eyes. He wonders what kinds of visions plague her; something Warden-related, no doubt. He's on the verge of asking, but the shadows in her eyes stop him. If they had more time, maybe they could share … but they don't. Won't.
He clears his throat and shifts from one foot to the other. "I see you took Aveline's advice."
"What? Oh." Bethany smiles again. "Yeah, I had to leave the Hanged Man after you took the mages away - they were starting to get back to normal again, and I didn't want to be in the way. I would have left town, but … well, like I said, I'm having trouble making myself go." She shrugs. "Aveline gave me the key to this place a couple of days ago. I figured I should … at least see it. See what Marian left behind."
"You should take some things with you."
"I can't. There's not room - I travel too much, and I don't really have any particular place to call home. There's a necklace though, that used to be my mother's …" Bethany sighs. "I won't have any reason to wear it, but it might be nice to have it anyway."
Cullen nods. "There's not much room for the past in our lives, is there?"
She looks at him with an odd glint in her eyes. "No, I guess not. No past, no future … just now. That's what I've learned with the Wardens, anyway." Bethany steps closer to him, close enough that he can almost feel the heat of her body - but maybe that's his imagination, letting his body dictate his thoughts. But then she meets his eyes for a moment, and there's something that looks like an invitation there. He's not inexperienced with women, he knows what want looks like. But then she looks down at the floor. He watches her take a deep breath. "Maker take me," she says softly, a hint of humor coloring her voice. "I've been trying to figure out how to say this for hours, but I haven't thought of anything that doesn't sound like something out of a cheap novel."
His throat goes suddenly dry. "Say what?"
There's a long moment of silence. Bethany is still looking at the floor when she speaks again. "You know, when Mother started petitioning the Viscount to get this house back, I had so many dreams about living here - silly, girlish dreams, about being a lady and going to parties and meeting some handsome man who would fall in love with me and not care about my magic. I knew they were only dreams, even then, because when you have magic all you really get are the dreams. Somewhere deep down, I knew I wasn't ever going to get the happy ending. It was just nice to pretend sometimes." She looks up at him. Her golden eyes glow with something he somehow recognizes. It's regret and acceptance and wisdom, all rolled into something that feels an awful lot like peace, if you don't look too hard beneath the surface. At least, Cullen tries not to, when he feels that warmth in his own chest. Even as he thinks it, Bethany echoes his own thoughts. "I like to think the Maker meant me to do exactly what I'm doing. But that doesn't mean it's easy to accept the things I'll never have."
She pauses, but Cullen waits, holding her gaze. Finally, she places a hand lightly on his chest. He can feel the heat of her touch through his shirt. "I decided," she says, her voice a little more tentative, "when I came here, to this house, that I was going to give myself today to pretend like this is my home. My life. I think I deserve one day to pretend that there's no magic, no darkspawn. Like we didn't just survive something so horrible that not even the Wardens would believe me. Like I don't know that I'll probably never see my sister again." Her voice catches, and her hand starts to slip away from his body. Cullen doesn't think; he simply grabs her hand and holds it close to his chest. Bethany visibly swallows, but gives him a small smile. "Tonight," she says, "I'm just a girl who has no reason to worry about the fact that the man she invited into her house is a Templar. I hope."
Now, he's sure he's not mistaking the light in her eyes. "No," is all he trusts his voice to say.
Her smile widens, but her eyes drop from his. Instead, she looks at their entwined hands. "I heard you the other day, you know," she says. "When you were talking to Michel. And you know what? There's a part of me that wishes I could stay."
Cullen only has a moment to remember that Michel was the injured mage boy at the Hanged Man. Because as soon as the thought enters his brain, Bethany looks back up, leans up on her toes, and kisses him.
There are probably a thousand reasons why he shouldn't do this, the list beginning and ending with her magic. But she's not the only one who finds the idea of pretending to be normal for a night appealing. And, well, as soon as he puts his arms around her and feels her lips part underneath his own, there's really no way he could ever bring himself to stop, even if he wanted to.
He doesn't want to stop.
Their tongues slide together, and Cullen marvels at the way she presses her body even closer against his every time he changes the angle of their mouths. His hands splay across her her back, one hand perilously close to the lush rise of her backside. It would be so simple, he thinks, to slide down just a bit farther, slip underneath the short skirt of her house dress and have his hands full of her, to lift her up so her legs wound around him … but a kiss isn't necessarily an invitation for that. He pulls back reluctantly, staying close enough to rub his nose against Bethany's. Her soft breath fans over his face. "Bethany," he says, his voice rough. "Do you want this?"
"I want you." Her eyes close, and she brushes her lips against the stubble on his cheek. "Maker knows I shouldn't, but I do."
That's all Cullen needs.
It only takes him a moment to do exactly what he'd fantasized about; before she can take her next breath, Bethany is clinging to him, legs wrapped around his waist. She lets out a surprised giggle. "Oh! I didn't … sweet Andraste, you're strong," she says when he starts to carry her towards the stairs. He stops just long enough to press a kiss to the curve of her throat, and to enjoy the shiver that runs through her when his tongue lightly touches her skin. She's not light - she's all soft curves over muscle, both woman and warrior, and her weight strains his arms. Still, the tiny helpless giggles he hears close above his ear stroke his ego enough that it becomes a matter of pride to get her up the stairs and into the bedroom where, thankfully, a large bed dominates the space.
She drops onto the bed with less grace than he'd hoped for, but she's still giggling when she lands, and suddenly she's laying in front of him with her legs spread far enough that all he can think about is running his hands over the pale flesh of her thighs until he reaches the edge of the light-colored smalls he can see peeking out underneath her skirt. She props herself up on her elbows. "It's been a little while for me," she says, biting her lip. "Since I …"
"Had sex?" The blush that stains her cheeks is utterly charming. Cullen laughs and climbs up onto the bed. He rests on his knees between her legs and indulges himself by tracing one fingertip slowly up the inside of her thigh. Her twitch and breathy giggle tells him she's ticklish, so he touches her again teasingly just to hear her laughing gasp.
Bethany's hands move, and he watches as she unties her belt. When she spreads the dress open and sits up to slip it off her shoulders, Cullen lets out a low, involuntary moan. She's wearing nothing but her smalls underneath, leaving her entire torso - including her generous breasts, with nipples already hardening in the open air - gloriously bare. She discards the garment over the side of the bed and looks back at him. Her gaze is direct, but she's biting her lip, and her blush is starting to creep down to her chest. Cullen takes one more look at her (all that flesh, just waiting for him to touch) before reaching over to tug her closer. He lets his hands roam her back while he explores the wet heat of her mouth, pulling her close enough that he can feel her nipples brushing against his shirt.
After a minute, she breaks the kiss with a strangled cry and grabs at the hem of his shirt. "Off," she says, her voice more of a laugh than anything. "I'm too sensitive, I can't …"
Cullen grins and pulls his shirt up over his head. He's rewarded with slender hands splayed across his chest, running slowly through the light layer of hair. He's tempted to accuse her of using magic, but he knows that the electric current he feels pulsing across his skin when she brushes her palms over his nipples is entirely natural. Desire, he thinks, might be a kind of magic on its own, causing sensations and emotions a person might never feel otherwise.
He pushes Bethany back until she's laying down. She reaches up to him, and he allows himself to be pulled down on top of her. He kisses her lightly, but pulls back when she tries to deepen the kiss. She lets out a frustrated whine, which just makes him grin. "Sensitive, you said?" Cullen slides onto his side, leaving one leg draped over hers, and finally indulges himself by sliding a hand up her torso to grasp a generous handful of one of her breasts. When he squeezes lightly, she squirms, her head falling back onto the bed. He kneads the flesh slowly, his hand moving slightly with every squeeze until his thumb and forefinger are circling - but not touching - a pebbled nipple. Bethany moans. She's smiling, but her eyes are closed, which gives Cullen the opportunity to grin and lean over without her seeing.
The high-pitched noise she lets out when he licks her nipple is music to his ears.
Her breasts are, in fact, incredibly sensitive. Cullen takes his time, enjoying the taste of her, the softness of her skin on the undersides of her breasts, the way she arches into his hand when he cups the breast his mouth isn't currently occupied with. Bethany whimpers with every touch, every leisurely swipe of his tongue. He shifts and settles himself on top of her, sliding his arms under her to support his weight - and to bring her breasts up to meet his questing kisses. He trails his mouth to the hollow between her breasts, nips at the soft skin there while she holds his head to her body.
Her hands run over his shoulders, to the back of his neck and into his hair and then back again. "Cullen, please," she murmurs as he fastens his mouth over her and sucks gently. "Please, please, please." Her fingernails dig into his skin when he transfers his attention to the opposite side.
"What do you want?" he asks, pressing tiny kisses to her skin.
Her only vocal answer is a low "Mmmm." Bethany winds one of her legs around his waist and presses up against his body. He can feel the warmth between her legs rub against his torso. Her smalls are damp, and her skin smells of musk and desire. When Cullen lifts his head, her eyes - all glittering gold - are focused on him, her lips slightly parted as she takes a deep breath. When she exhales, she makes a small, needy sound that shoots straight down Cullen's spine. He surges upward and claims her lips again, reveling in the feel of her hot skin pressed against his. She's so much more sensual than he expected her to be; now, in this moment, there's no hesitation in her kiss, nothing shy about the way she reaches down and slides her hands underneath the waistband of his trousers. When her calloused fingers dig into his ass, he feels his cock jump. She wriggles against him. "Off," she demands against his mouth, pushing at his trousers. At this point, he's all too willing to comply.
He has to stand to remove his trousers; Bethany comes up onto her elbows to watch him. As he fumbles with his buttons, he raises an eyebrow at her and looks at her smalls. "You too." She grins and starts to writhe. Cullen forgets what he's doing for a moment while watching the small scrap of fabric move down her legs and drop to the floor.
When he continues to stare - at the damp, dark hair at the juncture of her thighs, and iMaker/i does he want to touch her, feel her on his fingers - she clears her throat and grins. "Well?" She inches farther up the bed until her head is even with the pillow, and lets her legs fall open. Cullen can't get his trousers off fast enough.
He's barely kneeling on the bed again when Bethany sits up and reaches for him. Her long fingers wrap around his cock, and Cullen nearly loses his balance. "Andraste's ass," he hisses as she swipes her thumb across the tip, caressing the overly sensitive skin there. She laughs, low and so very, very female, and presses kisses to his jaw when he collapses over her, pushing her back down onto the bed. He catches himself on his elbows, his weight trapping his cock and her hand between their bodies. When she pulls her hand up and away, Cullen isn't sure what feels better - her hand, or the springy curls that brush teasingly against him when her hand is gone. It would be so easy, he thinks, to shift his hips just a bit, press into her and let himself go. But no. He wants to watch her first.
Cullen rolls onto his side again. Bethany moves to follow, to press herself against him again, but he grabs her hip and pushes her back into the mattress. "Wait," he says, his voice rough.
She settles back, and he lets his hand trail from her hip to her curls, then down until his fingertips meet slick heat. He finds her nub and rubs gently - in response, she makes the most amazing noise, a whine that starts at the back of her throat and hitches each time his fingertip circles back around to what seems to be the most sensitive spot. As he speeds up his rhythm, the whine changes to his name. "Cullen, Cullen, oh Maker, don't stop."
As if he could stop - there wasn't a spirit in all the Fade that could stop him from doing everything in his power to keep her like this, flushed and chanting his name. He presses open-mouthed kisses to her ear, her chin, her neck, keeping his eyes open and focused on her face. When she breaks, it's a quiet thing; her body tenses and her eyes close. "Ohhhhh," she sighs, long and low. It's a blissful, satisfied sound, which fades to a hum as he slows his caress to the barest of movements.
When she opens her eyes again, Bethany smiles at him. "Hi," she murmurs, eyelids heavy.
"Hi yourself." He kisses her lightly. She giggles softly when he rubs his nose against hers. "Maker, you're beautiful," he breathes, unaware he's even speaking aloud until she makes a soft, surprised noise, reaches up and pulls him down for a deeper kiss.
And then she's tugging him back on top of her, and his body rejoices - while part of him could watch her pleasure forever, most of him is painfully desperate to take everything her warm, lush body is promising. She pulls him close, wrapping her legs around his hips until his cock is nestled in heat. They both groan at the sensation. "Please, Cullen," she says, her hands fisting in the blankets below her. "Oh, please."
"Yes," is all he can say, especially when he first slips inside and feels her tighten around him. It almost feels like a prayer. "Oh, yes. Yes."
There are no words after that - just the sound of their bodies sliding together, of the mattress squeaking beneath them, harsh breathing and grunting and, in Bethany's case, a bubbling laugh when Cullen hits just the right spot. He tries to keep that angle, and is rewarded with her fingernails dug into his sides. He's going to have marks, but he doesn't care, especially not when she gasps and comes again. She's still shuddering when he loses control of himself; a couple of erratic thrusts, and he's spilling inside of her. The sound he makes might be her name, but he's too lost to know for sure.
A while later - minutes, hours, it's all the same to him at this point - Cullen finds himself on his back with Bethany half-draped over him, their legs tangled together. Her face is pressed into his neck, while his fingers trace idle patterns over her back. She squirms a bit when he hits a particularly ticklish spot, but otherwise seems content to lay quietly as they both catch their breath. He's surprised, then, when she starts to shake with outright laughter. "What?" he asks.
Bethany lifts her head. Her hair is tangled and falling into her face. Cullen reaches up and pushes a lock out of her eyes while she laughs. "Sorry. It's just … the apostate and the Templar. It sounds like one of those awful serials Varric used to write."
Cullen snorts. "Technically," he reminds her, "you're not an apostate any more."
Her laughter fades, and Cullen realizes it was the wrong thing to say. She lays her head back down on his chest. "I have to go back. To the Wardens," she says softly. "I'm going to leave in the morning."
He tells himself he has no right to feel this weight inside his chest. "Where will you go? I know the Wardens have bases all over."
"Ansburg. I've been based there since I took my Joining. We travel all the time, but Ansburg is the closest thing I have to a home nowadays."
"I've never been there. Is it nice?"
"It's a city. Most aren't that different from each other." Bethany looks back up. She opens her mouth, but hesitates for a moment. Finally, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When her eyes open again, she speaks. "Will you stay with me tonight?"
He doesn't have to think about his answer. "Of course."
The morning will see him back at the Gallows. It might bring a new Knight Commander, new orders from Orlais. He may hear about more missing mages loose in Kirkwall. He might find more dead bodies, or Templars taking liberties their power was never meant to fuel. The Gallows is his, for better or for worse, until someone comes to tell him otherwise. But, even if someone else does take command, the Gallows will always be his, in a very real way. Because no new commander - no one who wasn't here, didn't see that courtyard covered in blood - could ever understand what these last days did to a person.
If he ever tried to tell that mythical new commander that an apostate mage understood better than they did, he'd likely see his career stop in its tracks. So he wouldn't. Because tomorrow, Bethany Hawke would be gone, and someday she might seem like a figment his imagination - an angel created out of stress and nightmares.
Tonight, though, she is warm and solid in his arms, and he can pretend.
When he kisses her again, Cullen silently thanks the Maker for his gifts, however fleeting they might be.