Sometimes the pain was a dull ache. Oftentimes she mistook it for her hand simply falling asleep, and she would shake it in a vain attempt to make the prickling sensation disappear. When it didn't, she would glance down to see the faintest green glow pulsing out of her palm. It was like a fine mist hovering around her hand. Eventually she began wearing gloves around Skyhold to hide the green halo and prevent the whispers about it behind her back. She knew it did no good; everyone in Skyhold - hell, everyone in Thedas - knew about her hand, about the Mark, and a thin piece of leather blocking their view would never stop the chatter. Still, it made her feel better to pretend like it did, just as it made her feel better to pretend like the sharp tongues wagging as she passed never made her feel self-conscious.
And sometimes the pain was stronger. Sometimes it felt more like a dagger piercing through her wrist, the agony spreading up into her palm until it exploded like tiny bursts in her fingertips. That pain was always accompanied by an almost blinding light emanating from her hand, one that even her thickest gloves could not fully disguise. At first this feeling only happened when they were near a fade rift; Varric loved joking that it was her "Rift Radar" at work again. But as the months wore on the dagger-pain became more frequent, flaring up at the most inopportune moments - the amount of times they had to repair the ceiling in the tavern was embarrassingly staggering - and taking longer and longer to fade away. Mother Giselle gave her elfroot leaves daily to chew on to numb the pain, yet it never helped.
Sometimes it would wake her in the middle of the night, a searing hot pain shooting up and down her arm until she awoke with a gasp, clutching her hand close to her stomach and hissing through gritted teeth until it subsided. It was always too difficult to return to sleep after that, and she would find herself wandering the halls and grounds of Skyhold until either the exhaustion weighed down her eyelids beyond the point of resistance, or until the pale rays of morning sunlight filtered over the horizon. She tried feebly to pass her dark circles off as nothing more than a restless night, though she knew the lie fooled no one. She had been overheard screaming and cursing at her hand from her bedchambers one too many nights.
Sometimes she would stare at her hand when she knew she was alone. She caught herself flexing her fingers when they went numb with the magic and tracing small shapes in the middle of her palm where it was most sensitive, where the Mark was hidden. Before the accident, it was nothing more than muscle and skin, soft to the touch with faint lines creasing it from one side to the other. She would never have thought to pay it much mind to it back then. It was just the palm of her hand, nothing more. But now? Now it was dangerous, destructive. She knew it frightened so many people, scaring them away before they could realize she was more than just a green glow.
Yet there was one person it never frightened, one who never threw a second glance at her hand or wondered behind cautious eyes if it would spontaneously explode. He never flinched when she would put her hand on his shoulder or on the small of his back. He never tugged extra hard on his gloves before handing her something, as if her Mark were infectious. She had experienced all of these reactions from others, but never from him. Never from Cullen.
Cullen would place a comforting hand on her back as she doubled over in pain during meetings over the war table, clenching her fist so tight that her nails dug into her palm, nearly drawing blood as she insisted that no, I'm fine, please continue. She would grip the edge of the war table so hard that her knuckles turned white. Yet despite her repeated insistence that she was okay, Cullen would remain, never so much as shuffling his weight from one foot to the other even when the fire in her fingertips disappeared. She would gasp and stagger backwards as if hit in the chest, Cullen's strong hand the only thing that kept her from falling back onto the stone. The glow would subside with the burning sensation, the humming that flooded her ears long gone and replaced with the quiet stillness while her advisors waited with baited breath for her to speak. Only then - only when she took a deep breath and returned to discussing strategy, as if nothing unusual had just happened - would Cullen drop his hand.
When she bolted upright in bed, tears streaming down her cheeks as the green fire burned in her joints, he would hold her until the burning ceased. And when she was unable to sleep he would always stay up as well, telling her jokes he had learned while in Templar training and stories of his time spent in Kirkwall, absentmindedly stroking her palm with this thumb. It would tickle, sending shivers up her arms, but she welcomed the feeling. It was a quiet assurance that he was not afraid of what her hand was capable of, and so she savored every goosebump as they rose against her skin.
Everyone focused on the magic that burrowed itself in her hand, occasionally exploding even when she never summoned it. They mentally and visually prodded her hand, never once stepping close enough to physically touch it out of fear. She was constantly bombarded with questions over what it felt like to carry such dangerous magic around all the time, how it felt to close a fade rift, if she could change the color of the glow (perhaps her favorite question she had ever received). Everyone only paid attention to the palm of her hand.
But Cullen was only concerned with filling her hand with his own, even without either of them wearing their gloves. And that was the only time her hand never ached, the only time she never felt the lightning shooting through her veins.
She only ever really cared about the palm of her hand was when it was filled with his.