The Perpetual Path

"You did that on purpose!" Alistairs voice is strident and petulant. He brushes the snowflakes out of his hair before he turns to glare at her.

Arin eyes him with only a little bit of apology in her smile. "You know, it occurs to me that someone who has had templar training would know not to stand in front of a mage who is busy casting. I could be wrong but I dont recall the templars at the tower ever getting in the way of a casting mage."

"You are a nasty, mean, evil woman. And you are most definitely not my favoritist mage."

"Oh no. Maker's mercy, I dont - oh I think I may cry," Arin responds, dropping her head into her hands, shoulders quivering. She makes a strangled, inarticulate sound.

"Oh no, no no. Dont cry. I didnt mean it like that," Alistair begs, patting her shoulder awkwardly, eyes full of concern and contrition.

Arin raises her head, her eyes dry, laughing at his look of outrage when he realizes she hasn't been crying at all. And then they are both off into fresh paroxysms of laughter as Wynne shakes her head. "Its like dealing with children," she mutters to no one in particular but the pair are already moving off to the next fight and it occurs to Wynne that they are just releasing tension because there is absolutely nothing funny about the Deep Roads. At all. In fact, it is the end of the world as we know it, they remark, more than once.

Haunting, horrible rhyme of the Deep, Hespiths whispering chant clogs Arins throat with unshed tears and an unreasonable terror. And underneath the chant, reverberating off the walls and into their very bones are the guttural moist grunts and growls of something that is neither human nor darkspawn. Arin pauses, glances at her party to make sure they are ready for...but her mind blanks at what inhuman thing is making those sounds. She inches forward, wanting desperately to retreat. But she is the leader and retreat is not an option. She feels a lurching queasiness as she steps around the taint that is spreading along the walls and floor of the cave like dark tendrils of death.

It takes her precious seconds to find the source once they enter the cavern. Behemoth! Woman? Darkspawn? Grotesque, twisted vile thing. The entire party freezes in horror and it doesnt matter, she thinks, because she is staring into the maw of madness, whatever it is, and it is at once both mesmerizing and terrifying. A tentacle picks her up, squeezing and shaking her and she is screaming incoherently because it is her face she sees now...

Cullen is making his customary sweep of the upper floors before turning in. The Tower is steeped in stillness and shadows. A prickle of disquiet nags at him. Arin had not appeared at dinner and when he asked Irving, in as disinterested a voice as he could muster, Irving only said that she was probably too tired.

Cullen fervently hopes that's all it is. He had caught sight of her in the garden and she had looked up at him with a sad little smile and her greeting had sounded more than tired, she had sounded...broken. Like he had after Uldred's uprising.

She had saved Cullen then, both physically and mentally. She had come to him after the tower was secure and talked to him about his ordeal for hours, even though he knew she had other duties to attend. She had sat beside him on the hard stone floor, her little hand caught in his and let him babble incoherently, offering him encouragement and hope. He wonders, as he looks around the empty halls, who is saving her?

He passes near her door and stops a moment, glancing around to make sure that the watchers are not watching him. He tilts his head, listening to the silence. She is back. He frowns slightly. He had thought never to see her again and there was some part of him that was good with that, even a bit relieved. When she is around it is difficult to think. Or breathe, he adds, but there is a softening in his expression. He hasn't realized until right now just how lonely he is at times. And how much she brightens his surroundings. Not that he can actually act on any of this because he is a templar and she is a mage and that isn't done.

Perpetual sorrow lies down that path. Still, his heart thrums just knowing she is here again, near him.

Eternal, perpetual sorrow, he reminds himself and starts to walk toward his own room.

The scream is so shrill and strident that he jumps and immediately unsheathes his sword, sure that a shade or a demon will come screeching around a corner to torment him again. His palms are sweaty against the hilt of his sword. And his heart plummets to his boots because the undulating screams are coming from her room.

She is sitting up, shaking violently, and her screams seem endless and tortured, her eyes wide and sightless. And he drops his sword and races to her, holds her, rocking her, trying to reach her, knowing somewhere in his chaotic thoughts that he has just thrown away a lifetime of training because what if she is a demon now and his sword is by the door for the Maker's sake!

But she isn't, he can tell that she is in the throes of a nightmare, and the sooner she wakes from it, the less chance of a demon possessing her. He bends and whispers her name over and over, calling to her to come back, to find him in whatever nightmare she is trapped in, rocking her in his arms, amazed at how she fits so well in them.

He thinks he may be having a heart attack because his heart is beating so quickly and erratically and it hurts to see her in such anguish.

And somewhere in the chaos that used to be his well ordered brain, he realizes that every candle in the room is glowing but he doesn't really want to know why or how because that might be the work of demons and his sword is still across the room where he dropped it once upon a time when he was a templar.

She calms under his ministrations, her screams dwindling to small childlike whimpering that he finds somehow even more unnerving. She is shivering and muttering but he can't quite understand what she is saying. He continues to whisper her name and stroke her sweat soaked hair away from her forehead. Her eyes flutter open and widen, nostrils flaring in fear that quickly subsides, replaced by startled recognition. As she calms, Cullen discovers he is calming down as well, chaos receding. He finds it odd that no one has come to investigate the screaming and then remembers that this wing is empty now because there are so few visitors to the Tower since the trouble, and much fewer mages and templars.

Arin blinks, staring into Cullen's eyes, searching for he knows not what. "Arin, do you know where you are?" he asks, pleased with how calm and even his voice is because inside he is running around shrieking like a scared little boy.

"Cullen? What on earth are you doing in the Deep Roads?" she asks, sitting up and pulling away from him slightly. Her cheeks flush. "No, not the Deep Roads," she says with a shaky laugh, confused.

"Uhm...the Tower, Arin. You're home," he reminds her gently and is rewarded with a tremulous smile.

She leans into him for a minute, breathing deeply. Shyly she reaches up and touches his cheek with tentative fingers. His heart starts attacking his armor from the inside trying to pound its way out.

Eternal, perpetual, everlasting sorrow lies down this path and he knows it and he is clumsy in his innocence and his heavy armor, but he drops a light kiss on her forehead and an eyelid and she flows back into the curve of his arms and her lashes flutter down with a contented sigh and she is asleep.

Ever the smooth one, he tells himself wryly and he settles her back onto her pillows and eases himself off the bed but when he bends to snuff out a candle she stirs and in a sleep heavy voice says, "No, please. No darkness."

He is a templar. It is his sworn duty to protect against the demons of the Fade and malificarum and herself. It is his sworn duty to protect mages, whether they like it or not. He pulls up a chair and sits by her bed. He thinks it might actually look more official if he retrieves his sword but he doesn't.

"No darkness, Ari," he replies in a rough voice because he has a wild urge to shuck his armor and climb into bed beside her and just hold her all night.

Eternal, perpetual, everlasting, ceaseless sorrow lies down this path and he knows it but he gets up and closes the door and shoots the bolt and comes back to the bed. Removing his gauntlet, he takes her hand in his and watches her sleep.

Arin wakes sometime later and her head is heavy, her mouth cotton dry. She stares, disoriented, and startles when she sees Cullen, asleep in a chair beside her bed, plate gloves on the floor, one hand on her arm, warm and comforting. She gently disengages her arm and rolls quietly off her bed. She pads silently around the bed and over to him, staring down at him and allowing all her love to shine from her like a beacon, because she knows he cannot see it. She reaches down to touch his face again, feather light with love. He stirs and it is his turn to blink, disoriented. What is she doing here? But it rushes back to him and he pulls her gently onto his lap, staying her hands.

Eternal, perpetual, everlasting, ceaseless, never ending sorrow lies down this path but he finds her mouth with his in a shy, first ever kiss and he thinks that the path may be worth it because she tastes sweet and warm and her hands are cupping his face and Maker's mercy, she feels like salvation to him.

"Tell me," he says quietly, as he holds her.

Ari looks at him, eyes round and green and awash with unshed tears. "You don't really want to know, Cullen." But the truth is she doesn't want to remember and he can see that in the way she flinches away from the memory.

"You need to remember, Ari. As long as you don't, it has power over you. Trust me, I know," he responds and she realizes he probably does at that.

"Oh Cullen, you've been in this tower for so long. How can you understand how ugly the world out there is?" she asks but there is no heat in her voice, only a weary grief. His arms tighten around her.

"Help me to understand then, Arin. Help me to heal you," he implores, holding her closer, breathing her into him.

Her voice is soft as she begins to tell him about the Broodmother. He is appalled as he listens to her and instinctively holds her closer but she doesn't mind the armor biting into her skin because she feels safe here in her room, in his arms. She can feel his hand, tentative and gentle, stroking her hair and she gradually relaxes into him as she tells him about how the darkspawn breed.

But the big secret, the big fear that she may end up like them, she keeps locked up because it is too horrible to contemplate and she is feeling too warm and relaxed in his arms and does not want to spoil it. Hopefully Alistair will honor his promise and she will never have to know the horror of becoming a Broodmother.

"Is that why you sleep with all these candles lit?" he asks finally, as she falls quiet.

"I know, I am such a coward. Really. People call me the Hero of Ferelden but honestly, I am more like the Coward of Ferelden, "she says with a self deprecating laugh.

"Hmm, somehow I thought with all that reading you did here you'd be smarter than that," Cullen says with a huff.

She crinkles her eyes at him in a way that makes his insides feel like jelly. He lowers his head and steals another sweet kiss from her, feeling sixteen and randy and damned. And then his heart speeds up and his blood slows down as her hands twine around his neck like a honeysuckle vine and her mouth is hot and moist and open and he thinks it is possible that he is going to die now, quietly and happily.

She breaks away from him suddenly. "Greagoir will kill you if he finds out you're here," she says, guilt stricken.

"He won't find me here. He isn't even in the Tower right now," Cullen reassures her, but he shifts in his chair and realizes that dawn cannot be far away. And Greagoir's absence will do little to save them. He is, however, reluctant to let her go.

He likes the feel of her in his arms and he wonders what it would have been like to take off his armor and actually feel her hands on his skin. She grazes his cheek lightly with her fingertips, smiling softly. Maker's breath, how can such small little hands provoke such large reactions in him? But she is reaching up with soft lips and dewy eyes and kissing him and he cannot remember what he should be doing, for the life of him, so he gives himself up to the kiss instead.

Eternal, perpetual, everlasting, ceaseless, never ending, incessant sorrow lies down this path and he knows it but he thinks that if she is walking beside him it may just be worth it.