(Couple of quick story notes: This is set in the same headcanon 'verse as Desire and The Storytellers, as well as Two Weeks. The full text of Two Weeks isn't posted here due to site rules, but can be found at Archive of Our Own by searching for author name Gimmemocha. It's explicit, so if you don't want to read porn, skip it. This story does not depend on that one, though it does refer to events in it a couple of times. This takes place after the events of Inquisition, so there may be spoilers for that as well as the other Dragon Age games. The tl;dr version of my particular canon is this: Neria Surana is the former Circle mage Hero of Ferelden, Alistair died killing the archdemon, and the Inquisitor is a young Evelyn Trevelyan in a relationship with Iron Bull.)
You should leave, her good sense argued.
You'll be seen, it said.
They'll demand answers they don't want.
They'll ask you questions.
They'll ask about him.
Neria closed her eyes and looked away from the sight of revelers as if she could quiet the voice in her head with the gesture. She had come to Skyhold to seek out Varric Tethras, to hear from him the story of Anders' fall. It had given her no peace; he had warned her fairly.
So why didn't she leave?
She opened her eyes again, watched a soldier demonstrate a dance step to a mage. They stumbled around each other, laughing and teasing. A woman fed a bit of food to another woman; the smiles they exchanged foretold a more intimate sharing yet to come. A man, face buried in his hands, accepted comfort from an elf, her hand on his back as she spoke words to him that Neria couldn't hear.
Maybe this was why.
She had spent long years in silence with the Qunari, her body and mind intact only by the grace of Sten's – the Arishok's – strength and prowess. Only after he had taken over as one of the Triumvirate had she been allowed to speak in public, and even then only after the room had been cleared of those deemed susceptible to potential demonic possession.
Or in private, with the Arishok himself.
Until he finally had banished her, made her see that Ferelden was where she had to be. She suspected he did it to keep her safe. Her counsel had helped him win out on the matter of declaring war against Kirkwall after the death there of the previous Arishok, but war seemed inevitable and he hadn't wanted her to feel obligated to fight alongside the Qunari.
Too, there was little chance that she would have been able to use the full strength of her powers in battle, not without a true Arvaarad. The Qunari were willing to accept the Arishok as her keeper in peacetime, when she worked no overt magic, but had they seen what she was truly capable of…
So she had returned to Ferelden, though in steps and stages. That had been the last time she had been among crowds of people, she decided. Tevinter. And from Tevinter to the Dalish, and more years of quiet. From the Dalish to Orzammar, and untold time in the Deep Roads with the newly prestigious Dead Caste.
Only the Breach had drawn her out of the ancient thaigs. The breach, the rifts, and the Inquisition.
So how long, then, she asked herself, had it been since she had been among laughter and celebration? Among unrestrained joy and the safety of sorrow?
But that answer was easy and immediate: Denerim.
She had not celebrated with them.
So, she answered herself, this was why she stayed. To feed a part of her soul she hadn't even known was starving. This was why she sat on a log at the edge of firelight, enduring the cold as the Dalish had taught her, watching people indulge in the joy of simply being alive.
"Maker's breath," someone said. "It is you."
Her heart sank and she readied in her mind a spell of concealment, intending to disappear into nothingness, to return to ice and quiet. She glanced aside to see who had spoken.
It took her a moment to recognize him. His eyes were darker, not in color but in knowledge. His face was scarred, and bare of the moustache and tidy beard he had worn. He seemed larger, somehow, his frame filled out doubtless from the extremities of war instead of simple daily practice. And yet his face was thinner, more defined. Refined, rather, distilled out of the morass of youth into the stone set of full adulthood.
Only the hair was the same. Blond curls close-cropped to keep them relatively tame, little licks and whorls defying the strict discipline of a Templar cut.
"Cullen," she blurted out, startled.
"I thought I had gone mad," he said, taking another step toward her as if he didn't quite trust that she wouldn't vanish. "I've been seeing glimpses…" Then he realized what she wore. "A serving girl? Have you been here this whole time?"
She stood from her perch, uncomfortably aware of the attention they were drawing. People would begin to ask who she was, that the Commander of the armies of the Inquisition was spending so many words on her. "I haven't," she said. "I've only been here a few days—"
"Days? Days, you've been here?"
"Please, Cullen." She looked around and stepped closer to him, lowering her voice. "I meant to be gone by now. I'll go."
"Maker, no!" He took her arm in his hand, as if she meant to run off that very moment. "You're freezing," he said. Without asking, pulled off his open-fronted surcoat, massive fur collar and all, and swung it around her. "Come, let's go inside. I didn't mean that you should leave, quite the opposite. Does Leliana know—"
"No, Cullen. No, she cannot know." Her eyes flicked at the crowd again. Attention, definitely. If speaking with her had attracted some, now that she wore his surcoat the looks were distinctly curious. She sighed. "Very well. Inside, then."
"We'll go to my office," he said, offering his arm.
She pretended she didn't see it, busied herself lifting the furred collar. On her, it was large enough to be a hood, hiding her face in shadows and warmth, and a scent that could only be Cullen's.
After a brief hesitation, he led her to a set of stone stairs and across the wall that separated upper courtyard from lower, to a wooden door in the watchtower on the outer wall. It was surprisingly snug, despite the number of doors that led in and out and the thin, long arrow slits. Perhaps it was the number of candles that burned, or the warmth of the floor seeping through her boots that indicated the presence of a fire in the room below.
Or perhaps it was the heavy fabric, the rich fur, the feeling of being held.
Uncomfortable again, Neria shrugged out of the folds.
"Keep it," he said, reaching out to adjust it around her shoulders again. "Until you warm up."
She looked up at him, caught him staring at her. His fingers remained tangled in the fur of the collar, absently smoothing it down around her slender shoulders.
"I can't believe you're real," he said quietly.
"All too," she said, turning away into the pretense of finding somewhere to sit. She curled into one of the chairs, losing herself in the folds of his surcoat.
After a moment, he sat in the chair opposite her. "Days. You've been here for days."
"You want to know why I didn't announce myself."
"That would be a fair start."
"It… It's the Inquisitor's celebration. I didn't want my appearance to distract."
He smiled, a crooked half-grin that made the scar on his lip curve. "Now that seems an easy answer, for something that's made you so uncomfortable."
Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she returned his smile. "Ever the Templar," she teased, "so observant of mages."
He chuckled and sat back, relaxing into his chair. "Not so observant, if you've been here for days."
"I came to speak with Varric," she said, wriggling her toes in her soft boots as they thawed in the heat.
"Varric? Why with Varric?"
"I chanced to pass through Kirkwall," she said, "and heard stories of a mutual friend."
He cocked his head.
"Anders," she said.
The remnants of his smile died, and his jaw tightened.
"Yes, that's rather the look I got from everyone I asked about him," she said. "Some of them said there was a book, but I didn't want a tale. I wanted the truth."
That restored a measure of his humor, and he bit off a snort of laughter. "So you asked Varric? You've been misled."
"I would have asked the Champion of Kirkwall, but she's proven elusive. Everyone knew where Varric Tethras was."
"What do you know of Anders?"
Her lashes flickered in surprise. "I was his Commander," she said. "I inducted him into the Grey Wardens."
"And do the Wardens make a practice of accepting madmen into their ranks?"
Her silence grew. Something of her growing anger must have echoed in her eyes over the fur collar. He did not look away.
"The Grey Wardens," she enunciated, "accept anyone fit to the task. You are not equipped to understand the exigencies of their lives." But she sighed and dismissed her own anger with a supple gesture of one hand. "No, it is not our practice. Anders was not always mad. He was, once at least, a good person."
"And an abomination."
"No, not always that, either. That happened after he left Amaranthine." She paused and considered. "At least, I think it did."
She brooded over it. When had Justice taken up residence in the spaces in Anders' soul? Justice had still been in Kristoff's form when she had left Amaranthine. Whose idea had it been? Anders, she thought. Consequences had never much concerned him. Though both her own experience at the Circle and Anders' had interested the spirit. Perhaps he had seen an injustice there that begged righting.
"I'm sorry," Cullen said, breaking into her musings. "I… didn't know he was a friend of yours."
She shook her head, recalling herself to the present. "Varric knew," she said. "I assumed you did as well."
"No, that story escaped me somehow." Then he leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. "But where have you been? After you left Amaranthine, no one knew. There were stories, of course."
"Stories you've collected?"
To her secret delight, he colored slightly. "Well. You were one of my charges. I suppose I… had an interest."
"As I recall, you had quite an interest when we were at the Tower together."
He chuckled, low and soft. "And you teased me terribly. It was very cruel of you."
She shrugged, tipping a smile to one side. "There was little enough entertainment for us," she said. "Flirting with a Templar was often the highlight of my day."
"You're changing the subject," he said, changing the subject.
"Yes, of course. Where have I been. Many places."
"With all the people looking for you, no one found even a trace of you."
"Ah. Well. I suspect few of them searched in Seheron."
That surprised him. "The Qunari? A mage?"
"I had a friend there."
"I recall you travelled with one of them."
"Sten," she said. "At least, at the time. He has another name now."
"You can't have been there for, what, nine years? Ten?"
"Ten since the Blight," she said quieter. Ten since the archdemon. Ten since Alistair. She looked away, looked down.
"I'm sorry," he said again, leaning forward to touch her. "I know how unpleasant those memories can be."
"Yes," she said absently, glancing at his hand on her knee. "I'd imagine you have your own nightmares from the Circle."
It was enough, enough to make him draw back. "Yes. They never seem to fade, do they?"
She shook her head.
"Is that why you don't want to see Leliana?" he asked. "Why you didn't tell us you were here?"
"Partly," she said, feeling like a coward, looking over toward the stained glass windows. The dark outside muted their colors, but the leaded Inquisition symbol was stark and plain.
"You would have been welcome," he said, cocking his head slightly, watching her expressions.
"I would have been the Hero of Ferelden, coming to the Inquisition. It can not happen."
"Why not? We've saved the world. I think that merits congratulations from someone who managed the same task not so very long ago."
She stood, shame and anger and hate as sharp as they ever had been. They never seemed to fade. He stood as well, confusion plain on his face, waiting while she mastered her emotions. "I did nothing," she said. "I was simply there when it happened."
"You did not do nothing, Neria."
The sound of her name startled her. The Qunari had referred to her only as Bas Saarebas, save for Sten/Arishok who had always called her Kadan. Among the Tevinter, when they hadn't called her simply 'girl', she had gone by Eleni, a common enough name in the Imperium. The Dalish had called her Asha'abelas. The Dwarves called her Warden, as though she were the only one of her kind.
No one had called her Neria in years.
His hand lifted, then dropped back down. "You brought together every race in Ferelden, forged an army out of enemies. The archdemon—"
She flinched away. "Don't," she said.
Frowning, he reached for her again, took her by her shoulders and turned her toward him. "You saved my life," he said.
Nor did he release her, not when she didn't look up at him. "Your Inquisitor," she said after a moment. "Had she died in this, sealed the breach and destroyed Corypheus but been killed, would you now accept the adulation of those crowds? Would you be content to let them call you hero, knowing they did so only by stepping over her corpse? Would you let her be forgotten so that they could cheer for you?"
"No," he said, his thumbs lightly stroking her arms under his hands. "But that is not how you are seen."
"Alistair slew the archdemon," she said. She struggled against all the other words that filled her throat, swallowed hard to keep them down. "I was simply there at the time."
"And he is honored for it," Cullen said. "But it was not Alistair who crowned a Dwarven king and brought them to the surface to fight. It was not Alistair who persuaded the Dalish to come to human cities to fight. Nor was it Alistair who—" He sighed. "—who rightly saved the mages and turned their magic loose against the darkspawn hordes."
She looked up at him, and whatever he saw in her face made him soften his tone, draw her closer.
"The death of the archdemon was the end of the blight," he said, "but it was not the only act that saved Ferelden. That one moment was the result of everything you had created until then. The people of Ferelden knew it. So while we remember Alistair, we celebrate you."
It was, to Neria, a new idea. Like a flower on a blighted land, it was delicate and fragile, a promise of beauty and renewal. She studied it from a hesitant distance, afraid that too close an inspection would mar it.
"Have you eaten?" he asked her.
She shook her head. Despite all the cooking and feasting, she had only nibbled here and there, and had spent most of her evening closeted with Varric.
"If I leave to bring us food, will you disappear on me?"
That brought out the beginnings of her smile. "I may," she said.
"Then I'm afraid you'll have to tolerate my stomach growling at you."
"Well, I wouldn't want that."
"Promise me," he said. "Promise me you'll stay."
Awkward, feeling as if she had no idea how promises were made or kept anymore, she nodded.
He smiled at her, a smile she had to return. "Good," he said. "Wait here. I'll bring you something. Any requests?"
"Bread," she said.
"Bread?" It made him chuckle anew. "Well, I'll see what I can do."
He left by the same door they had come in, letting in a burst of clear mountain air. She wrapped herself deeper in his coat. Hesitantly, uncertain, she set her nose in the fur and sniffed.
Nice, she decided. He smelled nice.