Votum

Author's note: Hello everyone. I'm a newcomer to the Dragon Age fandom, but I have to say in short - AWESOME series of games. Anyway, that being said, you know a dork like me would want to tackle a fan fiction, and even though I'm new, I'll try my best to keep the canon of the game as canonical as I can!

So, here I am writing a fiction for Dragon Age oh my! This is a fiction centering on Cullen and an Amell character who didn't become a Grey Warden (so much for keeping with a lot of canon right? :D). I was just considering the way things might go in that situation, and decided the ideas I had were good enough to jot down into a fan fiction, and here it is :)! I realize most like to do stories based around Amell's who did actually join the Wardens, but I wanted to go in a slightly "what if" direction for more or less.

That being said, expect a good bit of lemony goodness in this story :D My apologies to those who prefer Cullen/Surana as well, which I find equally appealing (if not even more so), but I decided to go with Amell because of the relation to the Hawke's in Dragon Age 2 and the potential connections I could get out of it in the story.

So without further ado...I hope everyone enjoys :)!

I. Facts and Rumors

Being sent to the Circle Tower had always felt like more of a curse than a blessing. After all, who wanted that? No one volunteered for it. Perhaps some children who had abusive parents would, and thus being sent to such a place had really saved them, but what about those who didn't? The ones who loved their parents and were loved back by them? Those children were taken from them regardless, and unless they were rich or lived close enough, would only hear from them again in letters. Even nobility were restricted, unable to pass their titles on to children who'd been found to possess magical abilities. It just wasn't fair, no matter the points argued in its favor that actually did make sense.

Aislinn Amell had been one of those children. She was an only child torn away from her mother and father during a crucial time honestly enough. Her mother had been ill and it was two months after Aislinn had arrived in the circle that she'd gotten a letter from her father saying that her mother had passed on. Aislinn had been completely heartbroken, both missing her mother terribly and also wishing she could've been there to help her father. Leaving for her Mother's funeral had been arranged, but even then, she was under the supervision of the Templars, and somehow, funeral aside, that left a sour taste in her mouth.

Thankfully, an Uncle was able to let her father move in with him and his family to live until he'd passed away only a few short years later - his death also the result of illness, though Aislinn suspected he had died of a broken heart as well.

Her first few years in the Circle wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for that. She managed to get along well enough with her instructors, as well as her peers, but she carried a bitterness with her for a while that just wouldn't go away, even when she tried to like her surroundings. She couldn't help but see the tower as a fortress meant to cage her from those she loved, and all because she possessed the ability to harness magic. To the present, she still hadn't decided if the Maker had blessed her or if she'd done something hideously bad as a child that he'd cursed her for.

Still, Aislinn didn't let her bitterness cloud her judgement. She wasn't that type of person. Her parents wouldn't have wanted her to be that way, and if she could do anything to honor their memory, the least of all would be to keep her chin up and try to live the best life she could with the lot she'd been given. Maybe somewhere within that lot, she'd find some kind of reward.

Aislinn focused most of her abilities on healing magics, her other abilities put into elemental magic. Her only regret about using healing magic was that she couldn't save her parents with it because they were already gone, but her mother and father were her inspiration for learning it. She felt that, perhaps, if she could become well versed in it, she'd be able to prevent someone else from suffering a premature loss like she had, and that was enough of a goal to keep her going from day to day, all the way to her Harrowing, earning compliments from her instructors and her peers alike in the process. She'd figured out her lot, devoting time to learning offensive magic whenever she could as she knew she would need some way to defend herself if anything bad were to ever happen to her, and she pursued it with as much vigor as she could muster.

After her Harrowing, the test all apprentices in the Circle took in order to become a Mage, things changed drastically. Thankfully this drastic change didn't happen immediately however, or she had no idea where she would have wound up. In any case, all was quiet for a short while until word arrived from Ostagar, and told that the King's Army - and the King himself - had fallen to the Darkspawn, including all of the Grey Wardens there.

She asked about being sent out with the Mages picked to go to battle for the King, feeling that her particular talents would have benefitted the warriors fighting, but sadly, First Enchanter Irving had deemed it too soon after her Harrowing to be sent off, and didn't want to just throw her to the wolves as it were despite her abilities. It came as no surprise that the Knight Commander Greagoir agreed with him completely considering the older Templar's views on sending any Mages to Ostagar to begin with - which was that he wanted to send none, wanted them all under tight lock and key as usual - but that, to Aislinn, was neither here nor there.

So she'd stayed in the Circle Tower and began her duties as a full fledged Mage, and she found that scrutiny from the Templars only seemed to grow somehow for reasons she wasn't exactly sure of. Maybe being a full fledged Mage made her that much more dangerous in their estimate. That, or perhaps it was just the wild rumors that liked to spread through the halls between the Mages like an infection there was no cure for telling of how the Templars were doing this and that which they shouldn't. In essence, it was all scandalous stuff that Aislinn didn't particularly listen to, unless she wanted a little amusement. Besides, Mages were cooped up in a tower all day long, so what better was there to do than talk?

But there was one rumor that had come about which Aislinn wished everyone would let go of, and she'd really only heard about it not too terribly long before her Harrowing had taken place, a rumor that always went exactly the same way for more or less, which was "I heard Cullen's in love with you".

Aislinn was confounded when she'd first heard that. Cullen was a member of the Templar Order, so it didn't shock her that a Mage would make up such a thing about him, but that wasn't the reason for her confusion when she heard it. The reason she felt so confused was because, for some strange reason, it actually made a slight bit of sense. Not love, per say, but perhaps infatuation because that particular Templar had acted a little strange whenever she'd been about. Not outright as she recalled, but sometimes she noticed him fumbling with things whenever she walked past when otherwise he seemed to be a fairly capable individual - he at least didn't seem clumsy anyway.

The rumors had died for a short while but then flared up again after her Harrowing, as Aislinn recalled awakening in the apprentice's quarters to hearing someone saying that the Templar who'd brought her unconscious form in told them that it was the quickest Harrowing he'd ever seen, a line which was soon met with the words, "He would say that about her," proving to her that Cullen had been to one to say the words the first Mage had relayed, and only a part of her wondered how true his statement had been, or if Cullen had been speaking from some kind of bias.

That was when Aislinn first decided to, well, carefully inspect the rumor as it were. After all, her curiosity had been pricked considerably. She wasn't looking for Cullen in specific when she found him, but had already made the mental note to talk to him and just gauge the way he acted around her to see if any of it held merit. It was right after she'd left Irving's office following her Harrowing that she'd come across him walking down the hallway when he spotted her and immediately seemed to go into some kind of awkward mode that she hadn't completely expected.

It was somewhat charmingly amusing to watch him, she realized, as he'd stopped in his walk and said, "Oh," as if she'd been the absolute last thing he'd ever expect to find wandering the halls of the Circle Tower. He followed that with the stuttered out words, "Um..I-ah...I'm glad to see your Harrowing went smoothly."

She made a point of politely greeting him, smiling and really saying nothing more than, "Hello, Cullen."

As the conversation went on, Aislinn thought that perhaps he was simply, well, ashamed of the fact that he'd been the one ordered to kill her had she become an Abomination - one of the duties Templars had in the event a Mage didn't pass his or her Harrowing. He'd said it was nothing personal, but then again, he didn't seem completely apologetic for it either, having mentioned that it was his duty and he would follow it to the letter essentially. From the way he spoke, Aislinn knew he was being honest.

So why would he have been stuttering away unless those rumors about his feelings for her were true?

The conversation ended with Cullen telling her that if she needed to talk, she could talk to him, and Aislinn decided then and there that he was one of the few Templars she actually liked - though she had to admit that she didn't really know any of the others well outside of the Knight Commander. Still, she definitely wasn't so keen on spending much time around him, talking to him. After all, if the Mages were already gossiping about how they'd heard he was in love with her, the last thing she needed to do was incite even more stories by going to him whenever she felt the need to talk like he'd offered.

Though, that line of thinking did make her feel guilty because he'd been kind enough to offer and ignoring it was a bit rude. Who in the world would have ever believed a Mage would feel guilty about anything to do with a Templar?

He didn't seem offended though if she didn't stop to talk whenever they happened to cross paths in the hallways and other areas of the tower, but at the same time, she'd guessed he wouldn't after how nervous he'd seemed around her before. No interaction was probably a relief to him, saying all of the rumors were true anyway. So she just continued on like she normally did and had few thoughts concerning the man, as well as tried to quell any rumors she heard by just waving a dismissive hand and saying something like 'that's just silly'.

Or she tried to anyway. The last thing she needed was to find herself in some conspiracy about enchanting a Templar with Blood Magic into falling in love with her, but the rumors had reached a point that a friend of hers brought a legitimate concern to her attention that she thought might be remedied by using Cullen's rumored admiration for Aislinn. Driana, a Mage that was Aislinn's exact same age, had claimed that there'd been a particular Templar who was harassing her. The concern was definitely real because Driana even pulled Aislinn to the side and into private to discuss it, and she was shaky and close to tears the entire time she spoke, seeming at the end of her rope with what to do.

What Driana was hoping was that maybe Aislinn could mention it to Cullen, who she thought would listen to Aislinn since there were rumors that he was fond of her, instead of simply dismissing her accusations as a vicious story created to make a Templar suffer like most normally would. Driana didn't want to go to the Knight Commander because, as she put it, "Greagoir scares the piss out of me."

Aislinn didn't know too many completely eloquent mages.

This was two weeks after Aislinn's Harrowing that this request was put to her, and she promised Driana that if she could, she would try, but she couldn't be certain what the outcome would be. That seemed to placate Driana for the time being, understanding completely that it wasn't always easy in dealing with the Templars.

One evening, when Aislinn was teaching a few young children some very basic spells in the study assigned as her classroom, word of the defeat at Ostagar having just reached the Circle Tower only a day or two prior to that, more information came that a few mages had survived the battle and were on their way back now, expected to arrive the following week. Aislinn had just dismissed her class from the library when she heard Irving discussing the situation with Greagoir as she headed down the hallway. Apparently both of the older men were worried now more than ever that this Blight wasn't just a rumor, and with the recent defeat at Ostagar, demands on the Tower were going to grow steadily higher.

It had been a stormy day, one that made a person feel completely lethargic inside because of the pattering of rain from the outside and the distant booms of thunder in the sky offering a lulling sense of atmosphere, regardless of the fact that there were marble walls surrounding them on all sides. Aislinn didn't want to hear any of the worrisome talk because of that, so she was glad when the two men turned in another direction instead of going to the Library where she was heading, her book of choice already in hand. The library was the most well lit place to read it, and during this time of day, very few people would be there.

She was a woman of average height, perhaps a slight bit shorter, so in passing a few Templars heading through the doorways and into the library, she didn't pay much mind to the fact that they seemed to tower over her, their eyes casually following behind her through their helmets as she went. She only skirted her way around them without a second thought and then past a shelf of books to an enclave where a table was settled near the far exit. Today, she just couldn't bring herself to do more than settle down and read a book - and maybe take a nap later if she could catch one. Despite the idle notions of activity however, Driana's request was still in her head, worrying her, but Aislinn just felt too lazy on that rainy evening to go looking for Cullen and bother him, especially not after she'd been, well, slightly avoiding him for a while.

But perhaps it was meant to be that she'd gone to the Library just to read however, because as soon as she rounded the corner of the shelf, she saw the very person Driana had asked her to speak to on the other side of the isle, oddly enough thumbing his way through a few books. Aislinn didn't make any double takes at him despite the situation however, and instead, casually took her seat and settled her book down on the top of the table. Once she was settled, she then eyed him quietly in thought.

The Maker seemed to set up some strange things apparently - not that Aislinn was overly religious.

Considering the chances, the sudden thought of so much for reading hit her. She needed to get this over with. She felt terrible for waiting to begin with to address the situation, so she took in a breath and decided to start off by asking the unaware Templar, "Are you looking for something in specific? I might be able to help."

Suddenly, a book that Cullen had just laid a single finger on top of as if he might've been about to pull it from the shelf, went tumbling to the floor as he'd turned when he heard her voice, and as it made a thud on the marble below, he looked down at it quickly in turn with a step back, a good bit startled. Aislinn closed her eyes for a brief moment and bit her lips, trying her best not to laugh or to even smile. If the man wasn't infatuated with her, then he just had absolutely no finesse around the fairer sex whatsoever. Somehow, she found it endearingly cute.

Cullen bent to grab the book he'd knocked off of the shelf, and in reply, he told her unceremoniously, "Oh, no, I-ah...I wasn't looking for anything...in specific."

Aislinn spared him anymore discomfort by overlooking his sudden jumpiness and obvious speech impediments to avoid making the situation worse for him and simply asked, "Just casual browsing for some time off then?"

He hesitated, then nodded at her, "Yes," before turning to put the book back onto the shelf - which he didn't seem to notice was backwards with the spine facing inwards instead of out.

Aislinn began nodding her head at him in understanding, looking at her own book which she'd much rather have been reading just then than using this Templar's rumored infatuation with her to try to get a little help for her friend going. But the ends justified the means if something could be done about the harassment, so she didn't feel completely bad for it. So in continuing with the conversation, Aislinn asked him, "Can I make a suggestion?"

For once, Cullen didn't seem offbeat, replying, "Certainly."

She offered a little smile, saying, "How about The Glass Cup. It's one of the few good stories in the fiction section we have here, well, if you care for fiction. The synopsis is of a simple farmer who finds himself framed for a crime committed on his lands, and," she trailed off in thought, "I'll just say the story takes some interesting twists. You'd have to read it."

He seemed to think about that for a moment, still standing by the shelf like approaching Aislinn might've been the same as inviting a demon to possess him, and he finally said, "The Glass Cup. I'll keep that in mind." Exhaling, and then relaxing - as much as his tense posture would currently allow - he added, "I'm not...really much of one for many fiction stories."

"Why not?"

It wasn't the subject she wanted to discuss, but Aislinn figured that a little starting chatter wouldn't hurt.

"I uh, I don't know, really. Sometimes it just seems too...preposterous...I suppose."

"Well, then you and I differ in that case. I like tall tales, even if they do seem too farfetched to possibly happen. After all, it seems like more often than not," she sighed, "things that you don't think could happen do anyway." She damned herself as soon as the words were out of her mouth because they sounded almost pitiful. Even worse, he seemed to take notice of it.

The only thing she could think was Please don't let him ask if I'm alright just as soon as he asked, "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," she nodded, waving a dismissive hand over the subject. "Just a little weary from the sound of rain outside. It has a way of putting me to sleep."

That made Cullen smile at her. For a brief moment she had the thought that this wouldn't be so hard to bring up if he wasn't so nice to look at - or if he wore a typical helmet which apparently his position allowed him to go without. He wasn't a captain, but he was in the running for it from what she'd heard. Aside from that, she had no idea how Templar ranks worked. Or maybe Cullen was simply off duty. Either way, a helmet might've helped.

Or just made him seem more inapproachable. Yes, sitting through this without one was much better.

"It does me as well," he informed her as she'd been considering his rank and lack of a helmet. "I think it's why everyone has been a little lazy today."

He'd gotten that entire sentence out without stumbling over one single word, and Aislinn smiled over it. Reaching up to rub her eyes, she wondered just where to steer the conversation from here to 'one of my friends is being harassed by one of yours, do you think you could do anything about it?' without it seeming sudden. Fat chance, she considered. Whatever she decided though, she knew she'd have to act fast because Cullen suddenly added the words, "But I should probably let you get back to your reading."

She looked up at him as he was preparing to move along, and then parted her lips to speak, deciding on the choice phrase, "Oh, I...uh...," and realized she'd taken a lesson from him in eloquence. The balance had shifted so that now she was the awkward one apparently, unsure what she needed to say in order to keep him from walking off, and the sudden thought made her snicker out of context. The sound put a look of confusion on the Templar's face, and that only served to make her chuckle even more.

"Did I...miss something?," he asked after a moment of her mirth had passed.

"No," she shook her head, letting an arm settle across the table top before looking up at him with a grin on her face and finally saying rather suddenly, "you know, a lot of Mages don't like you Templars very much."

Aislinn figured that she'd already confused him, so why not go for the gold? - and it definitely worked. If Cullen had looked confused before, he was flabbergasted now for lack of a better word to use. Aislinn shrugged at him in response to the look as if to say 'it's true', and Cullen just stared at her.

After a second, he asked, "I...don't understand, why is that so...funny?"

"It's not," Aislinn replied, letting her smile fade from her face before adding, "it just makes this hard on me. I was laughing at myself honestly because I needed to tell you something, and I wasn't quite sure how to put it. Normally I'm not that uncertain about things. That's what I thought was funny." A slight lie, she thought, but not a huge one.

He took a moment to let that all sink in, and finally replied with a slow, "I see. You needed to talk to me," and a reluctant nod of his head was given. "About...what?"

She suddenly had the mind to say not about us or anything, don't worry when she saw the look on his face which was so unsure, but instead, she simply told him, "Well, it's somewhat important, but...I don't know if here and now is the best place for it. In fact, I don't even know if I should trust you, or trust my instincts to deal with the problem, or if there's even anything there to begin with."

Now it was time to let him take the reigns and see what he might say, as whatever his next action was would help to determine how much she really wanted to discuss this with him after all.

As it turned out, she didn't have to wait long. "If it's like you just described, then it sounds as if...something's...there." He'd commented after a moment of thought, his posture taking on a much more professional manner, as well as his tone of voice. She wasn't completely sure it was the kind of response she wanted to make herself feel better about all of this, but she didn't say anything right away, allowing him to add the words, "It has to do with the Templars?"

She doubted he'd even noticed that he'd finally managed to unhinge himself from the bookshelf where he'd been standing that entire time in order to take a few steps closer to her, and as he did, stopping about three feet from the table where she sat, she gave him a slow and quiet nod of her head.

There was a sudden change to Cullen's countenance that was a bit unexpected to Aislinn, specifically in his eyes, which she couldn't tell the color of in the current lighting and distance from him. It was subtle, and had Aislinn not been looking, she wouldn't have even noticed it, but it was there and even on his voice when he asked her, "Has one of them been harassing you?"

It sounded serious, and Aislinn had to regain her bearings. Quickly, she diffused the assumption by saying, "No, oh no, it's not me."

That seemed to tell him all that he needed to know. Someone she knew was having trouble, and in hearing that it wasn't her, he did seem to relax a bit. "Then someone you know is having trouble?" Aislinn gave him a nod, and he looked down in thought before asking her, "Why haven't they gone to the Knight Commander about this?"

Aislinn let out a soft sigh, hearing some footsteps nearby, where she looked back to see a few Mages stepping into the library, apparently intent on research, when one, a man she knew by the name of Conley, briefly stopped and gave her one of those looks that said scandalously 'uh oh, the Templar and the Mage are getting closer!' before he walked on with his two companions. Damned rumors. Aislinn decided then that this conversation definitely needed to continue elsewhere if it continued at all.

Turning in her seat, she stood up and then stepped to the side to push her chair under the table. Lifting her book, the only thing she replied with were the words, "I asked her that myself. Apparently, the Knight Commander scares her, and she's afraid he won't listen, or chalk it all up to some conspiracy against the Templars. I tried to tell her that he was stern but he was also still a reasonable man, but she couldn't be convinced. I think she's just scared in general."

Following those words, with her book tucked under her arm, Aislinn looked back at the Templar she'd been speaking with and said, "It was a bad idea for me to bring this up to you. I should have simply gone to Ser Greagoir myself to prove her wrong, but I suppose a part of me wanted to respect her wishes, and I'd remembered your offer to talk if I needed to. But I really shouldn't have bothered you with it."

From the expression he was giving her, Aislinn got the feeling that Cullen wanted to try to tell her that he hadn't been bothered, or perhaps he was going to ask her more about the situation, but the look was specific in that he apparently didn't think she needed to just go and leave it at that.

"I...it's...it's not a bother. I could help you...with this."

Aislinn had just turned to go when he'd gotten those words out, and she looked back and offered him a little smile and short nod of her head. "Thank you."

In a moment of intuition, Cullen suggested, "But you don't trust me to do that, do you?"

"It's not that," Aislinn shook her head, then she looked around the room before supplying nonspecifically, "I just don't...like the setting."

Their sudden whereabouts seemed to just then hit him, as if he'd only realized that it wouldn't be easy to hold a private conversation in a library of all places. Aislinn would have asked him directly if he would adjourn to a more private place with her, but there were only two locations she could think of that would suit, one of them and the most logical being her Quarters, and that just seemed far too forward considering the gossiping going on currently. She didn't want to embarrass him anyway. Maker knew that seemed easy enough to do.

The other location was the area where she normally held her class, a Quarter on the third floor, which was a bit of a walk away. Still, it was better than nothing, so she decided in that moment and turned to face him once more, staring off into thought as she spoke, "Come to think of it, considering I have no proof of my friend's accusations, I really would rather leave the Knight Commander out of this instead of just going to him on her behalf. So if you would, meet me in the study where I teach my class in about half an hour or so, and I'll tell you everything she's said. Maybe you know this man better and could confirm how accurate my friend's story sounds."

She'd kept her tone as hushed as possible and looked up at Cullen to see that he'd considered it and nodded in agreement at her. "Very well, that sounds like the most logical course of action to take."

Finally, Aislinn smiled genuinely, a bit surprised at herself but she felt truly relieved. "Thank you, Ser," she addressed him formally, "hopefully there's really nothing to this at all."

Aislinn turned and began to walk on without waiting for some type of response or a "you're welcome" from him. After all, the longer she lingered, the more likely Conley was to talk about just how long she'd stood in the library with Cullen before he noticed her leaving, and that was really the last thing she wanted to happen, both for her sake and for Cullen's. After all, if rumors got around enough, they could cause a serious problem for the both of them.