Dragon Age Inquisition – A Letter to Lost Causes (Cullen, F!Mage Warden)
Rated: E for Everyone!
Soundtrack: Don't have one for this, the idea crawled out on its own...
**AN: Insert standard disclaimer here – I own nada!
My Amell F!Mage has always been the Dragon Age character closest to my heart, so I actually squee'd when my Inquisitor asked Cullen about leaving previous loves behind and he said: "Not in Kirkwall."
Please review!
A Letter to Lost Causes
The letter was tucked in with the rest of his reports, looking as innocent as a sleeping rose.
He managed to ignore it for nearly a week; for once thankful that there was always some disaster or emergency that needed far more urgent attention.
The letter waited patiently.
He hated the sight of it and questioned daily why he hadn't simply burned the wretched thing. It would surfacing now and then as he shoved paperwork across his desk, raking his attention like a thorn.
Coward, it's just a bloody letter not an abomination.
Hopefully…
With the Inquisitor away on a mission and Skyhold in (reasonably) perfect order, Cullen finally ran out of excuses.
The scroll seemed heavy in his hand, thick vellum stained and creased from its journey. He wondered how far it had traveled to get to him.
To now.
Cullen traced his finger over the unique sigil stamped deeply into the chipped grey wax: a griffin and mabari hound holding a mage's staff between them. The flickering torches made the creatures seem like they were alive.
Fighting.
"Josephine told me about the letter," Leliana's voice was soft, apologetic.
Startled, the former Templar grimaced and tossed the scroll aside. He dragged his attention back to the scout report he had been trying to read for hours. "What of it?"
"Did you read it?"
"No."
"No?" The Spymaster stepped away from where she had been leaning against the door frame. "Were you not curious to know what she said?"
The answer was a frustrated sigh.
"And yet you did not open it?"
"Why do you care?"
Her mouth tilted in a teasing smirk. "Because: I am a champion of lost causes and forbidden love."
"Forbidden lo—I don't—!" he sputtered.
"I was there at the Circle Tower, I remember."
Cullen's shoulders sank as the blood drained from his dismayed expression. It was several moments before he trusted himself to speak; his voice sounded hollow: "That was a long time ago."
"Not so long—"
"I am not that man anymore." Cullen shoved himself to his feet, agitation making him unable to sit still.
"None of us are the people we were then. We are older and wiser, yes?"
"Older, but perhaps not wiser, I think. Here we are again at the edge of ruin."
"Yes," Leliana sobered. "But we are not here alone, together we can stand stronger. Will you not give her a chance-"
"Why do you think this means anything at all?" He snatched the scroll up and brandished it like a weapon. "For all we know, it could just be a list of troop movements, dragon sightings—or—or even a requisition for carrots."
"If you believed that, you would have already read it."
Cullen growled, barely resisting the urge to crush the vile letter in his fist. "What would you have me do? Write her back and say I still dream of her?"
"Do you?"
"Of course I do! And of demons with her face!"
The bard winced. "Not a reply I would suggest."
"Besides, the Inquis—"
"-Would understand. The world is ending, yes? We could die tomorrow, it should not be with any regrets."
"Regrets?" the word tasted bitter on his tongue, like burnt lyrium and blackened corpses. He shook his head roughly to clear the memory. "Enough! I don't wish to discuss this further."
"Foolish," Leliana's blue eyes narrowed in the firelight. "You did not see her afterward, after the tower."
"Lel—"
"She mourned. They were her friends, her family. She mourned you."
Cullen stared, his mouth dry and suddenly empty of the protests he had been collecting. Silence seeped in with the shadows, making the room feel darker despite the cheerful blaze of the fire.
"Everyone congratulated her on a job well done, only she looked at it as a failure. She regretted that she could not do more, that she had not been there sooner."Leliana rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "Grey Wardens all get terrible dreams and I never knew what filled hers before the Tower. But after…" The bard's expression looked pained and she turned away so that he would not see it. "She would wake up screaming your name. Every night you died and she wept that she could not save you."
Cullen felt the prickling of guilt push the last of the resentment from his bones. "I didn't know. I…the things I said—yelled at her in those last moments. I was so angry for so long, I even fled to Kirkwall to get away from…anything that reminded me of her."
He looked at the heavy parchment once more; the Hero of Ferelden's seal picked out in golden firelight beside the flowing script of his name.
"What if she…"
Leliana's smile was bittersweet. "If you do not try, then you will never know."
AN: Been a while since I had a DA story!
My very first DA character was a F!Mage so my history with Cullen is longer than some, but I'm really glad that others can now see why I was so crazy for him!