(Setting: Kirkwall, nearly one year after the end of the blight, somewhere between act 1 and 2 of DA2. Lots of Cullen and Ellyn Amell from The Maker's Chosen, but it's been two years and they've grown up a bit out of their idealist attitudes. Sappy/FLUFFY as all hell, possibly A/U, and very much NSFW. You've been warned.
Btw, this is my first attempt at the NSFW-ness. So if you have any suggestions, PM/comment/let me know.
For back story on this particular Cullen, check The Maker's Chosen, chapters 9 & 10.)
He could have been one templar in a thousand, helmed and anonymous as the rest, and she would have pick him out right away and smiled that little smile of hers, with her eyes cast downward demurely and one corner of her mouth curled up. He would turn crimson in his helm, when he was lucky enough to have worn it. That smile was always for him, and him alone. There was a split second before it came upon here face where her lips would slightly part when she met his eyes, a signal he learned from watching her.
Tonight she came down the stairs of Viscount's Dumar's estate on the arm of King Alistair. A moment's indecision, a surprised blink, their eyes met, and she gave him that private smile. She kept her pace steady and her eyes downcast, as befit a lady of her station – a mage, regardless of having the title of the Hero of Ferelden – as she walked, on the arm of the King of Ferelden no less, and presented herself to the Viscount.
It was all Cullen could do to keep his composure. Two years it had been; two years without her constant presence. Two years to replay in his mind the night he allowed her to slip away. He remembered her lips, her scent, the shape of her in his arms. A silent promise asked and kept on his end. The wine in his glass barely rippled, not reflecting the turmoil he felt in his heart.
The new Arlessa of Amaranthine. A mage with a title and the favour of the King himself. There were rumours of her being his mistress, of course. They were certainly civil and not affectionate with one another, though that could all be an act in front of all these nobles. It occurred to Cullen that they had never met this way; she always wore her Circle robes, and he in his templar armour, both stayed true to their roles. Their roles since changed.
She looked stunning tonight in a dark blue velvet gown with soft white satin trim. Her golden hair was done up in an elaborate twist that left her shoulders bare, she held her staff like a walking stick, a reminder of what she was, and the curse she carried. If anyone took offence to her, a mage, none commented on it now. There were whispers, but most were surprised by her grace and youth. They expected a warrior mage from her reputation, not this breathtaking beauty.
A year at court gave her what twelve years in the Circle never could. She walked with a regal demeanour as befit a queen, though queen she never would be. Her position as Arlessa was precarious enough even with the support of the nobles in Amaranthine and their continued reliance on the Wardens for protection.
All evening she mingled, charming everyone she met while her nine templar escorts stood in a loose perimeter around the great hall. Finally, she bowed to the King, excused herself, and they followed her in a column to her rooms. She mouthed the words when she knew – and how she knew he would never know – he was watching. Come see me.
The viscount was hosting King Alistair's retinue for the entire week. Cullen felt a small bit of relief when he found out that they had separate sets of rooms, then cursed his own stupidity. Of course they had separate rooms. The Arlessa and the King could not possibly stay together publicly, even if they were conducting an affair.
He announced himself to the templars. Knight Captain of Kirkwall here to see the Warden Commander of Amaranthine. A title to another title. A diplomatic ploy, and they did not question him.
He was shown into the room to see her nursing the same glass of wine she had been staring at all night without taking a single sip. "Ah, Knight Captain Cullen. We have much to discuss. Ser Martel, Ser Renaud, if you would be so kind?" The two templars that were inside her sitting room were immediately outside, closing the door behind them.
"Warden Commander." He bowed stiffly.
"Cullen," she dropped all pretence and in that one utterance of his name, her courtly manners fell away, and she was again the Ellyn he knew. "Do have a seat. Would you ... care for some wine?" She gestured at a goblet on a side table.
"No, thank you." He sat down, as did she, across from him. There was a slit in her dress that he hadn't noticed before. It was snug around her hips as was the current style, the side split opening to reveal a layer of lace.
Ellyn placed her glass on the table between them. "Good, I don't drink either. I just hold it because it's odd to be the only person in the room not holding a wine glass."
They proceeded with the small talk. She asked about Kirkwall's politics, the Gallows, the Knight Commander who was absent at this party but present in all the nobles' conversations. "And exactly what is the Arlessa of Amaranthine doing in Kirkwall?"
"Me? I'm just a doll, really." She pursed her lips and gave him a little shrug. "I'm a figurehead. Alistair drags me all over Thedas on these meetings and elaborate parties. His 'Hero of Ferelden.'"
He watched her all night, and she was the perfect diplomat. "I can see why. You had the whole room charmed tonight."
"That's what I'm here for. He had tutors come in and gave me lessons on court etiquette so he can show me off at parties." Ellyn sighed. "I can do a lot more good in Amaranthine. We're still rebuilding, and our Seneschal doesn't always make decisions I agree with. I'm afraid of going back to Vigil's keep to find a line of heads on spikes."
Cullen chuckled low in his throat, "well, I know you wouldn't agree with that."
"Life is full of possibilities and I would not deny anyone that. Not even after they tried to kill me." Ellyn laughed at herself a little and looked up to find Cullen staring at her. "What?"
"People would try to kill you? After you led an army for Ferelden and helped killed the Archdemon?" He asked incredulously.
"Heroes are easily forgotten, I'm afraid. It isn't the Hero of Ferelden they want dead, Cullen. It's the Arlessa of Amaranthine. I'm Warden Commander because there were only two Grey Wardens in all of Ferelden, and one of them took the crown. A mage with a title. You know."
He knew. Ellyn was a special case because Grey Wardens were outside the jurisdiction of the Chantry. "You can't mean to say that the Divine sent assassins to hunt you."
"I did not. Ferelden is a theocracy, and all the nobles are Andrastian. Naturally, any good Andrastian would not want a mage as an Arlessa. Hence the multiple attempts on my life." She shook her head sadly. "You stop a civil war and the Blight, save an entire Arling from darkspawn, defend a city when they say I should just burn it down, and then they want you dead. Alistair is planning to petition the First Warden for me to see if they can send me to Ansburg. I've asked once already and they turned me down, possibly because I'm too famous...or too young."
"I've heard rumours that First Enchanter Irving wanted you to succeed him."
"He asked. I said no. I can't live in the Circle anymore. I've had too much freedom." She glanced up at a skylight as though she never saw it before, "besides, you won't be there."
"I could be." The words slipped out before he thought to stop them.
She stared at him with obvious surprise. Not a very good diplomat then. "Cullen. You've changed."
"As have you." Two years ago, they could not have had this conversation. Three years ago, they stuttered at each other like idiots. Now they spoke almost as equals. He laughed inwardly. No, they were not equals. She was the shining hero who defeated the blight. He was just the Knight Captain of templars in Kirkwall.
"I'm still a mage." She offered.
A conversation he had already replayed over and over and wrote a new ending to. "I'm still a templar. Nothing has changed."
"Nothing at all?" Her voice was hopeful, and he did not miss the implication.
He reached across the table and clasped her hands in his, glad of his lack of gauntlets on this occasion. "Nothing at all."
When Cullen planted a kiss on her knuckles, she flinched and pulled her hands away. "I ... I had thought ... Oh, Cullen, I can't hold you to that. It was awfully selfish of me."
Alistair. He heard during their whole conversation though he tried so hard not to notice. She called him Alistair. Not 'His Majesty' or 'the King' but Alistair. "Are you involved with the King?"
"Alistair? No! I mean, yes, but not anymore. Not since the Blight." She shook her head in denial, abashed, obviously unsettled with his tone.
Don't forget me was their silent promise, that night when the Circle laid empty, in her chambers, speaking in low voices even when there was no one left to hear. They gave one another nearly nothing, and promised everything. Ten years, fifty, it did not matter. When he retire to Val Royeaux, he would remember her name, her scent, the colour of her eyes, though he might remember nothing else.
Cullen was no longer the naive boy who stuttered in her presence. He since fought demons, led other templars, trained recruits. He had grown as well as she had, but he never tried to forget her. He dreamt of her.
She, on the other hand, was with Alistair.
He pulled her up in one smooth motion and wrapped her arm around his waist. Dipping his head close to her ear, he whispered, "you asked me not to forget you." He leaned on her just enough so that she needed to hold onto him for balance, then put a hand over her lips before she could protest, "I never asked you to do the same."
"I didn't - " she tried to say, while wrapping her other arm behind his neck to keep herself from falling. Cullen took the opportunity to slip his other arm under her knees and picked her up off the ground. Ellyn gasped in surprise. "I didn't forget - "
"You tried." He allowed her to see his pain, and when her eyes widened at the sight of it, he commanded, "ward the door."
She did so without moving or looking away. Energy coalesced around the outline of her door, and no one could open it unless she willed it so. Cullen was unsure before. He was never certain with this woman, even after her confession, even after that first kiss in the tower, but now he had something - she warded the door.
He convinced himself moments ago that he would have let her go if she only refused. Who was he kidding? If she refused, he would have used the deadbolt. Without breaking eye contact, he carried her towards the only other door in the suite from the sitting room. "It took one kiss for me to remember you forever." His lips grazed hers, just a touch, "No, not even that." A kiss to the temple, "from the very first look I had of you."
The bedroom door was ajar, and he carried her through, laying butterfly kisses on her eyelids, on her nose, on the contours of her face. Gently, he laid her down on the bed, and she seemed surprised to find herself there for his eyes were all she focused on. He took her hand from behind his neck and placed it over his heart. "I am yours," he whispered into her jawline and was pleased to hear a gasp by his ear.
He locked his fingers with hers, one hand on either side, and he looked down at her. "What is my name?"
She blinked rapidly, "Cullen." How he loved the way she said his name, somewhere between a whisper and a sigh.
"What is his name?" He tipped his head in the direction of the great room where the party was still proceeding.
"Al- King Alistair." She paused as this was met with a heated glare of disapproval. "His Majesty."
"Good girl," he leaned down and touched his lips to hers, first with only a light touch then more forcefully, running his tongue along the inside of her lower lip. He only barely kissed her once before and she was indelible then. It was time for her to remember the feel of his lips.
With his mouth he traced a line down her neck, studying her every reaction along the way, pausing at a place where her neck and shoulder met where she near buckled under him. "What is my name?" He mumbled into her neck, and when she answered him he rewarded her with renewed attentions, moving on only when the tension in her hand loosened.
He moved sideways along her collarbone, finding a sensitive spot behind her neck, another on the inside of her elbows; each time coaxing his name out of her in between gasps and moans, breathless. All the time he kept her fingers locked, using her grip as a means to guide him.
Finally, he could keep his hands in hers no longer. Cullen trailed down her arms with the tips of his fingers, and went to work on the laces of her corset. Maker this was more complicated than armour, and when he saw her hand push at his chest and her mouth forming the word 'wait' he stopped her with a kiss, only relenting as the hand on his chest moved to slip behind his neck.
"I've waited five years, Ellyn," he loosened one line that tightened her corset, "five years..." and another, when he saw her hand reached under the side where the hooks were. In three clicks and a pull of one strap, the entire side of her dress fell open. "Oh." He chuckled.
She giggled softly, and put one hand on his cheek, caressing his stubble. "Cullen," she breathed. "I wanted to say, 'wait, I've got it.'" she reached up and pulled a single pin out of her hair to shake out her golden hair and it tumbled out onto her shoulders in a slow dance of waves.
He stared as she shrugged out of the dress entirely, clad now only in her lacy slip of smalls. "Maker preserve me," he mumbled as he took in the sight of her. Circle robes were tight and did not leave much to the imagination, but they covered everything. The dress she was wearing bared her shoulders and arms, though they hid her tight, muscular legs, testament to an entire year of marching to war. The rest of her was soft and rounded on her small frame, and she was every bit more alluring than anything he could have dreamt.
Ellyn tugged at his shirt, gave him that particular smile and he noticed that he was staring. Cullen pulled his tunic and undershirt over his head, puffy sleeves and all, and threw it on the floor on top of the dress.
"This is going to sound really odd, but," he ran his hands down her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, slowing to rest by the hollows just above her pelvic bone, "it feels almost sacrilegious to touch you."
She recalled the vision of Andraste that she conjured up for him, where she impulsively gave her own likeness to the prophet. "Is that going to stop you?" She reached out a hand to rake her nails softly down his chest, his broad, muscular chest that held up templar armour everyday, stopped when her hand reached his navel, and she looked at him suggestively, then slowly licked her lips.
So she wished to drive him mad. He knew it, and intended to return the favour. "No. Not a chance." He pulled the knot out of his breeches and kicked them off, freeing himself. It was getting rather uncomfortable with him straining against the laces.
He kept his focus on her face, read her every movement, fascinated by all the little sounds that she made as he ran his hands over her body, learning her curves, learning her sensitive places. Running a thumb under the soft curve of her breasts drew moans out of her; she giggled when he touched the side of her ribs – ticklish, must remember that; jumped when he traced her pelvic bone with a fingertip. Then he retraced all those places that pleased her with his tongue, feeling the way she writhed under him, murmuring his name.
Cullen followed that line of her pelvis, from the outside in, stopping when he was near her sex, then he moved right onto the other side of her and traced small circles all the way back in again. She grunted her frustration and he smiled into her hip; just a little taste of what he had to endure. He started again, from the other side, and this time when he reached her middle he raked her on the outside of her smalls with his teeth, pulled it off her legs, and followed the inside of one leg all the way back up again.
He slowed down as he near her center and heard her breath catch to spit out his name like a curse, a warning, and he gave in, starting with one slow lap of his tongue that brought her hips off the bed, followed it with another, then another, loving the taste of her, feeling the twitch in her hips as he touched the little nub near the top with the tip of his tongue.
"Cullen ... please ..." she wanted him inside her and he was not about to just obey, not today. He slipped two fingers inside experimentally and slowed his tongue, made a little sign inside of her that beckoned, moved it in and out of her and paused at a spot where she near buckled her hips off the bed.
Right there; he committed all the little things he learned about her to memory. He ran the tips of his fingers in a circle around that little spot inside until she repeated his name like a prayer, and he mirrored the same motion with his tongue. He saw her hands grab the sheets in fistfuls and slowed down, when her hands relaxed, he sped up. Teasing her in a cycle of pleasure and frustration, while she unknowingly gave everything away with her little gestures.
Finally, she pounded the bed with her fists and he knew she was at the very end of her patience, he took her into his mouth, flicked his tongue sideways across her, and she shuddered, arching her hips off the bed. As she began to contract around him, he moaned into her a low hum, felt her control shatter, filling the air around them with healing magic as she screamed his name.
Cullen wondered if he should drain her and decided against it. Ellyn was probably the only mage who would cast rejuvenation spells in an unguarded moment; the warmth was comforting to them both.
In her afterglow he travelled up her body slowly, tenderly laying kisses up the line of her sex to her navel, tracing the shape of her breasts, finally coming to rest in the hollow of her neck. She stretched out her arms to hold him, and he allowed her to rest her head against him in her languor.
"Are you going to tell me that's the first time you've ever done that?" She giggled into his chest, "because I don't believe it for a second."
"I swear on my templar's honour," he laughed at himself, a low chuckle that set her aflutter, "for what that's worth right this minute. I would never lie to you, Ellyn." He took her hand and kissed along her knuckles, gave her a glance that threatened to melt her from the inside out. "I'm just really good at reading ... you."
"A quick study at everything, Knight Captain?" She teased, her voice a little scratchy, running her fingers in his curly red hair, brushed the tips on the edge of his ear. She whispered, "Cullen," she tried to turn to climb on top of him, and he grabbed her by the wrist. His grip was like steel, immovable. She tried to pull herself free. It proved impossible.
"Don't ever call me 'Knight Captain' in bed. I want to hear my name from you." He pushed himself to a sitting position and pulled her to face him, wrapping her legs around his waist. Cullen threw one arm around her and lifted her, all her weight, and he met her eyes to show her how it strained him not at all. He positioned her entrance right over his need. "So, what will it be?"
She eyed him with an expression of awe, which pleased him. "Cullen," she reached out with her hands to clasp him by the shoulders and he lowered her over him, bringing another arm up for more control. A half inch at a time, bending her body a little back, and waited until he saw her gasp and her eyes roll back into her head.
Cullen had wondered what it would be like to be with her this way, often, during the past two years, but nothing prepared him for the act; her head thrown back in abandon, her nude body gliding against him, the inside walls of her contracted around him, gripped him, milked him and it took everything to not explode into her all his pent-up want the moment he was inside of her.
He was almost undone by the sight of her in ecstasy, but he held on to his discipline, the part of him that gave his mind total mastery over his body. He lifted her again, brought her down at the same angle, touching that spot inside that set her afire. All the while he nipped at her breasts, her collarbone, the base of her neck, revelling in her reactions to his touch.
When he was sure her breathing had begun to quicken and her voice turned husky, he rolled forward on top of her to free his hands. With one hand he cradled her, another reached between them, touching the place he learned earlier that pushed her over the edge.
She convulsed around him almost the instant he touched her. She hung on to him desperately, buried her face and her voice into his neck, but he heard her call his name all the same. He followed soon after, brought to the point of no return with the sound of her voice and the spasms she wrapped around him; his thrusts turned irregular as he shuddered against her, time stood still, dragging out his release. For a second he thought he could see stars, each one of them the colour of her eyes, a mind-boggling shade of hazel that was blue and green and gold all at once.
Cullen came to himself finally and saw that this time they were surrounded by the blue glow of the aftereffects of a gravitic ring. He sighed and pulled the magic out of the air, pondered a little on whether she meant to cast spells in bed, their effects too fortuitous to be unintentional.
Facing her, he kissed her eyelashes, her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, and lastly, her lips. He felt a tingle on his tongue and wondered if that was it, the scent of her; she tasted of love, mixed with mint and honey. "Ellyn. Ellyn. Ellyn." He whispered her name in her ear, following each with a kiss, on the edge, on her earlobe, on a ridge. "You are mine."
Ellyn had one arm on his shoulder and another around his waist. When she heard his question – for it sounded so like a question, heartbreaking and wan – she cradled his face in her hands, locked his green eyes with her hazel eyes like stars, and told him. "I am yours." The weight around his heart dropped away and he felt his world complete.
In the night, they woke, and did not know the time, only that it was not yet dawn. He hardened against her and made love to her again, cradled her, slipped his fingers into her mouth to stifle her cries. Afterwards, she traced the defining lines of his muscles with her fingertips in circles, each an I love you unspoken, complementing ones murmured in tandem as her lips brushed against his.
Near dawn, they dressed in silence. He knew full well that who he was meant they would be parted again. She stood and watched as the sun rose over Kirkwall; he wrapped his arms around her, planted kisses on her cheek, tangled her hair with his stubble. "Mm. Good morning."
"Would be a better morning if you didn't have to go," she pouted and batted her eyelashes at him.
Cullen laughed and kissed her mouth gently, "It will be difficult enough to leave this room and explain myself. I didn't think very far ahead."
Ellyn gave him a smug, cheeky smile that was more her brother than her own, "Al-His Majesty has asked my templar guards to leave at eight bells for, ahem, prayer service at the Chantry. As men of the faith, they must attend, and please do leave the mageling in her room so as not to offend the Grand Cleric."
"And why would he do that?" He gave her a questioning look, though the answer was already prodding at his brain.
"Oh, I told him that 'if Cullen comes into my room and he doesn't leave, tell the guards to bugger off at eight bells so he can leave in peace.'" She laughed, a crystalline sound, echo of her innocence. "His Majesty came up with the rest on his own."
Cullen's questioning look became a scandalized one and he laughed, raked his hand through his hair. Well played. "Why, you little minx ... watch your language, young lady!"
"I spent a year working with a drunken dwarf. It kind of stuck." She spread her hands and shrugged. "I also spent it with an Orlesian bard, an Antivan assassin, and Arl Howe's son – who is a very good pickpocket, by the way."
"You." He shook his head, opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and settled with digging his chin into her shoulder in a small tight spot behind her neck that made her jump. He grazed his stubbly cheek against her ear, "remind me to never, ever play cards with you."
"Well, they never taught me how to play cards, so you might get lucky." She turned in his embrace and wrapped his arms around him. "You may want to check your pockets. I learned from the best."
Cullen rubbed the crease in between his brows, reached into the side of his shirt and pulled out a letter with the mark of the Ferelden royal seal. He broke the seal, read it, felt his eyebrows climb up, "he wants me to..."
"Guard the Hero of Ferelden. You don't have to take the job, it's not a royal decree or anything. It's just ... a suggestion." She winked at him. He gaped. "I have nine templar guards, and to tell the truth, they're just for show. If I do turn into an uncontrollable abomination, none of them have a chance. They're really better off staying in Amaranthine since the city is so desperate for help right now. I really only need one templar. One I don't want to kill. If it was just for protection I have my Silver Knights in Vigil's Keep."
"So ... when you called me in here last night -"
"I want to gauge how attached you are to Kirkwall before I make my suggestion. You kind of ... cut me off." Ellyn stuck out her tongue a little, playing the little girl again. "Not that I mind at all, actually."
"What about you and Alistair?" He raised one eyebrow, but she saw that his smile remained. "Was I jealous over nothing?"
"It's not nothing. We parted on good terms. When I gave him his throne, he ended our relationship." Her expression did not change, but he could see some pain there just at the inner corners of her eyes, and he only saw it because he watched her so well. "We consider each other good friends."
Cullen pulled her in close and held her there for a while for the hurt she endured that she did not want to admit, not even to herself. "So, do you want me to be your templar?"
"Cullen. Cullen, Cullen, Cullen," she sang, sweet soft sounds against his shoulder, "only since the day you stepped off Kester's boat. The mageling can't 'want' anything or ask for anything, lest she be denied. The King himself wants you to be my templar. He's not going to force you. It's not a promotion, you'll be on the road all the time, and your main job is really just to stop me from getting myself assassinated."
"Ellyn. I love you." A kiss to her forehead, "I will gladly spend my life protecting you," kisses to her eyelids, "and I still regret not coming with you when you left the Tower after the attack."
"I'm glad you stayed. I led a dangerous existence and I'd rather – oh that was the totally wrong thing to say, wasn't it?" She backtracked when she spied the scowl on his face, "I wish you came with me so I wouldn't ever have had anything to do with His Majesty in the first place. Happy?"
"Very." A kiss to the lips to seal his decision. "We have a couple of hours until eight bells. Any ideas?"
"I do, but His Majesty will make fun of me if I start walking funny," she laughed into his shirt, taking care to brush her lips against his neck when she raised her head. "You're just out for revenge."
Cullen held her chin and brushed his thumb along her lower lip, "I'm still not going to play cards with you."