Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.
1.
They are still cleaning blood off from the cobbled streets of Hightown when the Seekers prepare to leave, a whole army of them, the same way they have arrived: clad in the darkest of clothes and blankest of faces. Kirkwallers – what is left of them anyway – avoid them automatically, not quite aware what is happening, what will happen. It is hard to forget recent happenings, even if summer envelops the city in its hotbright arms.
The tail of the small army is almost out of the great market square when a solitary figures emerges from its mass, and hops off their horse, graceful and quick. Cullen, who is helping with reparations along with some remaining templars closely tagging at his heels, notices this warily. He doesn't stop the task at hand, which is presently to load the cart with salvaged Chantry stuff: a half-singed book here, a chipped Andraste statuette there. An Antivan leather rug. Letters carefully stacked into a smaller cabinet with rattling doors. Alphabetized. Cullen is impressed, which is a sort of miracle nowadays.
At the end of the day, after leaving Darktown, he has to sit down at the dock to collect himself. Because despite sending food and finding shelter, the mass wails and blames and points. He doesn't shake before them, but he bites his tongue until he tastes blood.
He already sent two of such carts in Lowtown and plans to check the deal the templars made with the Blooming Rose and the Hanged Man. Shelter. Food. Order. Desperate times, desperate measures, he thinks, just when the figure who gets off from their horse starts to stride towards them.
The figure is a woman, all sharp edges and a strict expression. Cullen senses the leadership in her movements - no one moves quite as sure, quite as determined.
He is just about to throw Chancellor Uthric's Legendarium onto the cart when the Seeker stops before him. The youngest templar, Thomas, freezes. His mouth hangs open, all comical. Cullen bites his tongue before he can snap at him, and instead, crouches down to collect the loose papers that are falling out from the fractured spine of the codex.
"Knight-Captain Rutherford?" Nevarran accent, hard on the tongue. He looks up. The sun blinds him, catches the Seeker from behind, turning her into a dark silhouette.
Still, he doesn't stop his task. Up and down, left to right. From the ground, to the cart. From the Chantry tables, to the people's belly. Cullen laughs a bitter laugh.
"I am not Knight-Captain anymore" he'd address her properly, but he lacks this particular etiquette too, it seems. He wipes his face with the cleanest patch on his sleeves, careful of the fresh scars. "But I am Cullen Rutherford, yes."
His soldiers - Thomas and Lauranna - share a quick look between them. Their faces are shadowed and battered, their armours with the proper insignia thrown in the cool shade of the debris, discarded. They must be a sorry sight. Still, Cullen has never felt more alive than here, standing in the sun, moving objects with his own two hands. Survival, it seems, has turned boredom into safety.
When he stands up, straight as an arrow, the Seeker steps towards him, stepping onto the half shadows of the great white columns. She has a solemn face, all angles and dark eyes that do not shy from his gaze. An armored and strong and scarred woman, only a few years older than him. Though Cullen does not trust his own age anymore. Sometimes, when the sun sets red behind the Vimmark Mountains, Cullen would think of home, and his heart would feel ancient and lost - as if he dropped it somewhere between Kinloch Hold and Kirkwall. Perhaps it turned to stone, like Meredith, and sunk deep down to the bottom of the Waking Sea. Maybe this is why he favours the docks so much. He adamantly refuses to think of the docks at home, by the lake. His mind revolts at the comparison.
Yet when Cullen looks at the woman and finds her face familiar, it does not hurt like violent sunsets and the deepdark waters. In fact, he trusts her scarred and stony face on sight, like he trusts the loops in Mia's handwriting. Even years later he would not be able to tell exactly why his heart calmed so under her eyes.
"Well, serah" the woman smiles a bit and her scar ripples with it. "There is a ship going to Highever tomorrow morning. Then we'll set for Haven, for the Conclave. Surely, you have heard of it."
"Yes" Cullen says, careful, because the scar on his mouth is still fresh and because he knows an offer when he hears it. "But I don't need to sail across the sea and listen to a council saying that there is a problem. I live it now. And I watched it happen." He motions to the cart, he points at the debris. He thinks of the hundreds of hungry mouths and the hushed wails when he crosses Lowtown. He thinks of Kirkwall, burning and mad and red.
Cullen doesn't add, because it is obvious: I made it happen.
The woman makes a barking sound - it takes a second for Cullen to realize this is her way of laughing.
"You are every bit the man I have heard about" she crosses her arms to hide the white symbol on her breastplate, an eye on bright fire. "We are kindred spirits, Commander. I, myself, also dislike idle talk and favour taking action."
"I am no Commander."
"You could be." the woman retorts, eyes flashing. "You should be. You are born to be in an army. Better still, you are fit to lead, to plan, to command. Unless your idea of saving Thedas is to sort through Chantry Literature."
Her mouth is set in a thin line as she eyes the piles on the cart. Cullen locks his jaw and steels himself.
"That is also a commendable way of ensuring safety. And legacy, for the future."
"Legacy lies in people, not paper." she says. "And safety should be done with them and by them, and again, not through paper. But you know this, do you not, Rutherford?"
She points at her own scar and looks at his. Soldier to soldier.
"Alright, Seeker" he says, holding up his hands. "You have my attention. What is your proposal?"
"The Conclave is but theory. What the Divine truly wants is radical change to the order of things, so Thedas can survive the next age. What we think - what Justinia thinks, is that the Conclave will fail. More dire decisions are needed. For this reason, I have set out to collect a group of remarkable people to serve her and the Maker's will."
It is Cullen's turn to make his distaste visible.
"Am I to serve as a substitute for Hawke?"
"Maker no. The woman is a force of nature, but she has no finesse for battle strategies. And her presence, though sorely needed, is out of question as of the present, unfortunately. She'd have been the symbol for our cause. Alas. But no matter if Hawke returns or not: You are to be the Commander of the Armed Forces."
"If I accept."
"If you would readily accept."
"Hm" he scratches the beginnings of his sandblonde beard and knows he would not know himself now if he would stare at his reflection in the water. "You don't know me. Why the trust?"
The woman seems annoyed.
"Would you require a more elongated verbal foreplay? I am not a patient woman by far."
Cullen laughs, and this time, it is genuine. The woman laughs as well. When they calm, the woman's eyes are solemn again, almost angry. He doesn't know yet, but this is a sign of her passion.
"Listen" she says. "What I am, however, is a Seeker of the Truth. You know what that means, do you know? I know true men when I see them, and you look like one. Trust me. Trust yourself. Come with us, because we need your help."
She is shorter than him by an inch, but in the semi-sunlight and dark armour, she looks like a giant. His heart sinks.
"I cannot go with you tomorrow."
"But you will come." A hopeful lilt. A command.
"But I will join you later. When I have finished the last of my dealings here."
"When you have filled the cart and the list, you mean."
"You got me."
"Well. Commander Rutherford" she says, and gives her hand for a shake. "Welcome aboard the Inquisition. Write to the Haven Chantry once you start your journey there."
Her grip is firm and warm. His is tentative. The whole ordeal is a but seconds.
She lets go, nods to the others and is already on her way back to her horse and to the docks.
Cullen almost crouches back again to read the burnt letters of some other book when he realizes something.
"Wait" his voice is a shout, all echo as it reaches her. She turns around, caught offguard."I didn't catch your name."
"Cassandra" her voice reverberates across the square, even and acute. "My name is Cassandra Penteghast."
She disappears soon.
The fleeting bells from the Keep begin their solitary song.