We had been gone from the Circle tower for six days, and still I could not sleep. Images of the twisted bodies of the dead, of the crazed abominations, plagued my mind, and would not abate, even when I opened my eyes. I had passed the first nights sleepless by the fire, taking watch while the others caught up on their much-needed sleep. Now, however, I wished only for the quiet oblivion brought by exhaustion—to exist only in a vacuum of darkness. Worse still, I couldn't stop rehashing every word Cullen had spat at me, his voice overflowing with virulent despair, his eyes full of desperation and hateful fear. A dead weight had settled over my heart, and I suspected that it, as much as the gruesome images of the slaughtered innocents, kept me from rest.
I heard a rustle from my left, and as I turned slightly, I saw Leliana approaching from her tent. She was still fully dressed, and looked as if she hadn't slept at all.
"Can't sleep?" I offered quietly, so as not to disturb the others.
"Not really. But it's not what you think." She paused, then sighed. "To tell the truth, I was wondering if you were alright. You haven't been sleeping since the tower, and you've talked even less, if it's possible." Settling on the ground next to me, though not so close as to be invasive, she cautiously continued. "I was wondering if…you'd like to talk. We haven't known each other long, but I understand that was your home before becoming a Grey Warden. Were I you, I doubt I could…I'd be far worse off."
I sat for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. Leliana had always been kind, if not altogether forthcoming about herself or her past. In all honesty, though, I could understand.
"Leliana it's…that's a wonderful thought but, you don't have to. I know you must be tired and I…won't be very good company." I couldn't look at her while she tossed around my reply in her head, so I settled for staring just above the softly crackling fire.
"Don't be silly, Solona. Like I said, we haven't known each other for long, but I would do far more for someone I consider a friend if I could. You look so…haunted. Please, tell me what's on your mind. Perhaps together we may find the resolution you lack."
It felt like my lungs were going to burst with all the words I wanted to say. Words of gratitude, of shame, threatened to escape, but I swallowed them, and settled only for a curt nod. Now that the offer had been made, I wanted desperately to tell someone, anyone, but I it wouldn't be easy. Lowering myself onto my back, I looked up at the clouded sky. For a long time, I remained silent.
"Do you remember the templar we rescued in the tower? The man imprisoned by Uldred just below the harrowing chamber?" I finally asked. My voice sounded faint, even to my ears, and I suddenly wanted to cry. Leliana's voice came from my immediate left, and I realized she had lowered herself to the ground next to me, and lay on her side facing me.
"You mean the man called Cullen? Of course, how could I forget that poor, tortured man." She tactfully left out Cullen's heated confessions, but still, there was no judgment in her Orlesian lilt.
"Yes. The things he said were true, and…not." It was difficult to word, even after having left the tower for so long. I had grown so accustomed to discretion. "When I was at the tower, before meeting Duncan, I…Cullen and I were…" I couldn't finish. What word would I use? Acquaintances? Friends? Lovers? I knew Leliana, obviously worldly in both understanding and experience, would know my implication. I rolled on my side to see her face, and I could make out her sorrowful expression. She looked at me with both understanding and pity, and somehow that made it hurt all the more. "After everything, I guess it just…it hurt to see him so beat down. The Cullen I knew would never have said those things. He was like an animal, beaten and cornered." My voice cracked, but my words continued to spill. "After everything he endured…what they did to him…"
"Solona, it's okay. You rescued him when he thought all hope was lost. The woman for whom he cared so deeply saved him from a fate worse than death." I appreciated Leliana's words, but it wasn't really the thought of Cullen's fate had we not intervened that troubled me so.
"Leliana, I…I…" and to my shame, a felt a tear hit my cheek. "He would hate me now simply for being what I am. For being a mage. And he has every right to after what those animals did to him." I couldn't keep the hatred from my voice—death was far too good an ending for Uldred and his conspirators. "But still, after everything…I cannot bear the thought of him alive and…thinking ill of me." And that was the truth in the simplest words I could conceive. I would not say that I would willingly become tranquil to regain the one thing magic had taken from me with which I couldn't bear to part.
Leliana, too, remained silent, and I would have thought she was asleep had she not quietly reasserted herself.
"'Ona, how did you two meet?" So shocked was I by her question, that I responded with the exact desired affect—I laughed, a short bark of laughter. But it was genuine. I heard the smile creep into her voice. "You must know now that it is strictly forbidden for a templar and a mage to…fraternize. But surely you couldn't have when you first met! What was it like?" I rolled again to face her, and wiping the tear from my cheek, I couldn't help but smile at her curiosity. I remembered all over again how Leliana had endeared herself to me.
"Oh, come on. Do you really care to know?" The thought of telling her appealed to me—she would be the first.
"Of course! I love stories too much! Perhaps your love story will ensnare the heart of a traveler or two—perhaps I will write your great epic!" I had almost forgotten Leliana's colorful past as a bard.
"At least, then, if it is boring I know you will fill in the gaps with excitement and gut wrenching tragedy." I chuckled softly, "and I think I could live with that."
I rolled again onto my back and inhaled deeply, closing my eyes. I remembered every moment with Cullen like they had happened yesterday. I had spent hours taking each and every one of them out and turning them over until I knew their every contour. I had replayed my memories over and over, like movies in my head. Yet still, sinking again into my memories, the colors and sounds of the tower, of the mages and templars, remained as alive as I had then perceived them. After a few moments' pause, I began my tale.
I first saw Cullen shortly after he had taken up his position at the Circle. I was in the library studying the theory of primal magic with my then friend Jowan, who, at the time, was also another apprentice (though his years at the Circle outnumbered mine). Jowan had given up studying his chosen text for some time and had resorted to tittering incessantly about his secret flame Lily, a girl I believed he had made up just to make the other mage apprentices jealous. He didn't even seem to mind that I wasn't listening.
First Enchanter Irving and Knight Commander Gregoir were leading a new templar through the library on what I assumed was an explanatory tour of the tower. I remember admiring his tall stature, first, for there was little else to see besides his honey colored hair and hulking armor. As he neared, however, I couldn't help but allow my eyes to linger longer than would have been deemed appropriate—he had the most captivating eyes. From afar, they looked like liquid chocolate. Well, I mean, they were striking…and alluring, in the literal sense. His eyes flitted around the towering shelves, and then around the crowd of mages dispersed—some reading, others simply loitering and chatting. Then his eyes came to rest on Jowan, and me. I started when his eyes met mine, and there they lingered for a time—I cannot remember how long. Perhaps it really was only a moment, but it seemed like ages, and I just knew he had caught me staring at him.
When he did eventually turn away as the Knight-Commander and First Enchanter proceeded farther down through the library, all the while commenting on this or that (I was too far away to hear), I felt myself blush. Whoever he was, I knew he must have thought me an idiot for ogling not only a complete stranger, but a templar, as well. Even so, I couldn't resist letting my eyes follow his slowly retreating back. He looked on attentively the Knight-Commander pointed something out beyond my field of vision.
I heard Jowan mumble something else, then quickly snort at something he found amusing. At this I snapped to look at him, probably looking every bit as guilty as I felt.
"What?" I asked, trying to sound as if I was still innocently engaged.
"I never thought I'd see the day Irving's star pupil got a crush on a templar…" he quipped, his voice positively dripping with impish delight. His eyebrows were arched high and he leaned back into his chair, crossing his palms behind his head. It struck me that, for all his schoolgirl tittering and seeming magical ineptness, Jowan was really the only person who could make me feel like an utter tit—and he had just hit home. I felt my blush creep up to my ears, and I quickly glanced down, hoping not only to appear less flustered than I obviously was, but also that my long locks would hide my red face. More to my embarrassment when I realized that I had unconsciously closed my book and pushed it forward on the table.
"I…I was just-" I began. "He's just so tall!" I finished lamely, as if this mystery templar was the tallest man I had ever beheld.
"Right. I guess those sultry eyes and defined cheekbones had nothing to do with your slack jaw…" He continued, flirtatiously rolling the templar's features off his tongue as of they were made of cream. In retrospect, I realize I could have made a thousand witty replies that would have satisfied Jowan—that I was wondering what the First Enchanter was saying, or perhaps that I had no idea Jowan swang that way. I said no such things, however, and only sighed and smiled in defeat. Perhaps that was for the best too, for it was Jowan, in fact, who started it all.
"Okay, but just because I was staring doesn't make it a crush," I logically countered. And that much, at least, was true.
"Fair enough," answered Jowan, "but I swear that's the first time I've ever seen you get all doe-eyed about some guy. But lo!" he fake gasped, "could he be the one?"
"Now that is a ridiculous notion," I responded, my laughter escaping despite my attempts to keep is quelled. I stood and stretched. "Come on, Jowan. I don't know about you, but somehow studying is the last thing on my mind."
"Finally, I thought I was going to have to resort to sighing and shifting in my chair. What say you to a game of humpty dumpty? I've got some new reagents that say you can't be me three out of five." I smiled at started past him.
"You're on."