So, here's another story, I guess. First Cullen/F!mage fic I've done, and my first one that hasn't involved a Cousland. Tell me what you think about it! (This was my own little rendition of how I think my character would have handled seeing Cullen in the state (since she 'can't live without him') he's in when you find him in the tower during Broken Circle.)

(I will be posting a re-edited version later on, because I know I could have put much more detail into this.)

Title: Broken Mage, Broken Circle

Pairing: Cullen/F!Surana

Rating: T

"Desire is the very essence of man."

The corridors were silent, save for the hum of magic and the booming voice of maleficarum above them. The sounds were frightening, though she kept her mask of determination and stern concentration on her face. They'd met the sloth demon responsible for killing Niall, whom sucked them into the Fade to dream of false realities and painted lies, and easily conquered it. They'd regained their sanity, picked up the Litany of Andralla from Niall's body as he advised them to do, and were now heading for the stairs going up to the Harrowing Chambers –

A magical barrier of demonic energy and a light brown head of shiny, oil-slicked curls meet her gaze. Her resolve breaks when she recognizes who's trapped inside.

Her eyes widen. "Cullen!" she shouts immediately, rushing to the magical cage in the corner of the room. Her mask falls on the floor, her 'tough-girl' personality discarded and forgotten. Instead of Riyza the Grey Warden, she was now "Ree", the girl afraid of everything that loved a chantry boy with all her heart. How could she have forgotten him, the man who'd made her life at the circle more joyful than anything else in her world? He was her everything, and now here he was, on the verge of death and insanity.

Wynne's brows furrow. "He's exhausted, and this cage... I've never seen anything like it."

She ignores the old woman's words, her focus on the templar before her. She kneels in front of him, trying to get through the cage by beating on it but only succeeds in bruising and burning her hand. She inhales sharply. She calls to him again. "Maker's breath... Cullen!"

"This trick again?" He lets out a weak snort, raising his face to look at hers. She almost looks at him with shock, but remembers the torments the templar they'd encountered had gone through – what they'd gone through with the Sloth Demon. "I know what you are. It won't work. I will... stay strong..." His eyes were pink with lack of sleep and delirium, dark circles under his eyes. Just seeing this, she wanted to cry, to hold him, to tell him that it was alright, that she'd come to save him, that she wasn't a dream.

"Cullen... Cullen!" She nearly shouted, but remembered to keep her voice fairly down. She knew that they were up in the Chamber, that Uldred was doing wicked things to the magi inside – to Irving and the few First Enchanters left. "Don't you recognize me?" she asks, her sorrow dripping into her words. She falls to the floor already, her knees weak with grief.

He looks at her, his face looking tired. He didn't, at all, look his age anymore, and she knew him to be fairly young. "Only too well," he rasped, seemingly on the verge of breaking. "How far they must have delved into my thoughts..." He glanced at the ground for a moment before looking back up at her. "If there's anything human in you, you'll kill me now! Stop these games!" A pained expression took his features, and she was heartbroken. Oh Maker, what did the demon do to her Cullen?

"Cullen, I-" she whispers, but is interrupted by Alistair.

"He thinks he's still dreaming, Ree. He doesn't think we're really here," he informs her, a frown on his face. She looked back at him, tears in her eyes.

"But..." She looks back to her dear Templar, her childhood friend, her almost-love, her heart's meaning for beating. In a different universe, in a different life, they would have been the perfect match: a sweet, shy girl who, in turn, liked a sweet, shy boy. She'd dreamed of it several times, though she knew it was never to come true. He seemed a dead shell of what he once was, a husk of his gentle yet duty-fulfilling self. "Cullen..." she cried softly, placing her hand on the barrier

"You'll burn yourself tremendously, girl," she heard Wynne scold. Her words fell on deaf ears, her mind blocking out everyone except for her templar.

"Using my shame against me... my ill-advised infatuation with her... a mage, of all things!" Her emotional damn broke, giving way to the tears that flowed freely at this point, running down her cheeks. How could she be so strong, yet so weak at the same time? Alistair's hand found its way to her shoulder, giving her a small amount of comfort. She moved her hand to cover his, glad for his emotional support.

"Stop it, Cullen! You know-"

"Silence!" His hush made her bite her lip, stifling her cries. "I'm not listening to anything you say... now begone!" He blinked, seeing her in front of him, letting his eyes water at the sight of her. "S-still here? But... that always worked before. I close my eyes, but you are still here when I open them." A lost expression took over his face. "Riyza?"

"Cullen," she moaned in heart-felt agony, looking up at his tired, pitiful face. "I'm not a vision, Cullen."

"Riyza..." Tears welled up in his eyes, but they did not stay for long. Rage and self-disgust overtook his features as quickly as the sadness had, however, and she felt herself become afraid of him. "Loving a mage; it was the foolish fancy of a naïve boy." Her breath hitched, her heart breaking. She felt pain for him, wanted to help him, and wanted to get through to him, but knew that he had been tormented with the worst of things. "Why... why are you here?!" he demanded, dangerously squinted eyes scrutinizing her. Did he forget of their love, of his own words to her as he told her of his undying, unrelenting desire for her four years ago? Did he forget her promise, the one she'd made before she left with Duncan to Ostagar to become a Grey Warden?

"T-the tower was my home, Cullen," she muttered, looking down at her knees. She brought her hand to her face, not bothering to give it a disgusted look as she saw charred flesh. She'd only started to feel the pain, only started to realize that she wasn't in a bad dream anymore. Healing magic engulfed her hand as she repaired it with effortless ease. "It's not... not surprising I returned."

"As it was mine... and look what they've done to it! They deserve to die, Uldred most of all!" His eyes burned with rage that she knew was now not directed towards her, but towards all mages. She knew that glare, the one Greagoir sometimes gave her, the one she'd seen on the faces of some of the other templar who were regularly assigned to chasing down apostates. His expression changed once again, this time to extreme grief, tiredness, and mourning. "They caged us like animals, Ree – looked to break us. I... I'm the only one left. They turned some into monsters, and... there was nothing I could do..."

"Cullen-"

"And to think I once thought we were too hard on you," he snarled, anger overcoming him again. She didn't like this Cullen, and she wanted her old one back. Hell, she wanted her old Tower life back, where Cullen would blush when she entered the library or passed by him in the hall, and she would blow him a kiss from time to time, remembering his vows. She missed his soft, honey-hued eyes, and she wanted to desperately to try and go through his cage, to try and be with him and end her heart's agony.

She looked up at him one last time, eyes wide with an unknown emotion. "Cullen, would you kill all mages if it made you find peace? Would you kill me?!" she shrieked, causing all three of her companions to jump in surprise of her uncharacteristic outburst. She only watched his brows furrow in thought, and the sound of Wynne's voice boomed through her head.

"There's little time to chit-chat, no matter how angry or sad you are. We need to get to Irving, and he's most likely in the Harrowing Chamber." She nodded pathetically, looking back up at the man she'd known and loved, and frowned, wiping at her tear-streaked face.

"Y-you're right, Wynne. Cullen," she started as she stood up, "Cullen, we'll..." She bit back tears for a moment. "-we'll handle this. We'll save you." Her eyes were shadowed by her blood-caked hair, her robes drenched similarly. "Rest, please," she urged him desperately, though she knew he wouldn't listen to her until Uldred was gone. She changed her tone of voice, one so cold that she was even afraid of it. "Everyone... let's go." Her demeanor changed almost instantly, her face blank and hollow.

It was the only thing she could do to keep herself from committing suicide, from trying to reach through to Cullen physically through his fire-walled cage, from trying to rid herself of her aching heart. Maker knows that she'd do it if she hadn't had her companions there, who'd hold her back. If Cullen refused to love her as he did and she was not permitted to loving him, she would find some way to do herself in after all of this, after her duties as a Grey Warden were accomplished...

...if only she had something inside of herself left to kill.

"Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead."

For some reason, I'm not liking how I wrote this one, like I should add more.

Read and review? I would like it very much. :D