The house was nothing short of pleasant. It wasn't big, but it was airy, and let light in on all sides. It was only one story but after climbing the ladder in Cullen's quarters three times a day for the past month, Eleanor couldn't say she really missed having an upstairs. They had a sitting room, a bedroom, a kitchen with a little place to eat, plenty of places to stash things, and a library, which Cullen immediately saw to filling with the books he had brought. Moreover, it had come full to the brim with soft, velvety furniture, thick carpets, rich wallhangings, and it seemed homey and warm from the moment they stepped inside. Even Swiffer seemed to approve, at first just anxious to get out of the box she'd been crammed in for the past eight hours - "It was bigger than her cat carrier!" Eleanor insisted after the animal swatted at her and leapt away, refusing to be held - but then quickly settling down in an armchair, curling and turning until she flopped over and fell asleep.
Eleanor and Cullen stood together on a patch of earth that could be a yard or a garden, the soil black beneath their feet, and took it in as the sun began to set over Lake Calenhad, the body of water filling the entirety of the scenery behind their little home. Cullen had his arm wrapped around Eleanor's shoulders, and as the sun lowered down behind them, the water of the lake sparkling in their vision, he pulled a cigarette from his lips and said, "Not bad." The breeze picked up and tugged a bit at his dirty t-shirt and he tucked his free hand in his pocket. He was tired and his clothes were a bit mussed from the little unpacking they'd done before they both decided it could wait. Cullen had changed into his Indiana things, as he thought of them, to do all the heavy lifting, but now the breeze off of the lake was a little chilly and he drew Eleanor in closer, tilting his neck to give the crown of her head a kiss.
"Not bad at all," Eleanor agreed, and though there was still a niggling little bit of her that was disappointed that they weren't back on Indiana soil, it was shrinking, it was receding, and when she looked at their little house, their little home, she couldn't even begin to repress her smile.
There came a knock on the door on their third morning in the little house. They had been eating breakfast and Eleanor started to rise, but with a mouthful of eggs, Cullen waved her to sit, and he went to the door, wiping his hands on his jeans before pulling it open.
A messenger stood a few feet back from the threshold, a burgundy hood pulled over her hair, a cloak covering most of her body despite the warmth of the day. She wasn't one that Cullen recognized, and wasn't dressed like someone from the Inquisition, haphazard though their agents might be, and the seal on the envelope that she had in her hand was unfamiliar to him as well. He had no doubt that Leliana or Josephine would be able to authenticate it straight away, but that was not Cullen's area of expertise, nor did he wish it to be. But his already elevated suspicion was only heightened when the woman said, "Message for Eleanor Redgrove."
Cullen put out his hand to accept the missive, but the messenger did not budge.
After a pause, the hooded woman insisted, "I was told only to deliver it to her, sirrah," and she withdrew slightly from Cullen's outstretched hand.
The commander blinked, not retracting his arm, and waited a stunned moment before saying, "She's my wife."
The messenger shook her head as though that were not the answer she were expecting, but clarified regardless, "I'm sorry, sirrah. My orders -"
"Problem?" Eleanor said, walking over from the kitchen.
"Eleanor Redgrove?"
"That's me," she said, shuffling her hair away from her face with the fingers of her left hand. "Help you?"
"Message for you, my lady," the woman said, bowing her head and letting her deep cowl fall a little further over her eyes.
Cautiously, Eleanor reached out and took the envelope, running her thumb over the wax seal, hesitantly saying. "...thanks?"
The woman gave a bow, one hand on her waist, the other on her back, and quickly turned, striding purposefully away. Eleanor and Cullen paused for a minute before looking at each other, both equally confused. Then Eleanor shifted her weight onto one foot, holding the letter in her hand as she popped out the opposite hip and rested her wrist on it, saying, "Your wife, huh? So we're just going around, telling people?" as she closed the door.
Cullen tensed up and though he didn't actually move, his whole demeanor gave the impression that he was shrinking away.
"I - ah - I had thought -"
Eleanor shook her head and closed the space between them, slapping Cullen lightly on the arm with the back of the hand that held the letter. "S'cool. I like the sound of that."
She began to walk back to her breakfast, but Cullen held his place and turned slightly to face her, saying, "You do?"
Swiveling around, she answered, "Yeah. I can live with that." There was a clatter behind her then, and she quickly spun on her heel and shouted, "Damn cat! Those are not for you! Cullen already fed you; get your face out of my toast!" she stormed back into the kitchen, muttering under her breath, "God damn it."
Chuckling low, Cullen decided he could live with it too. The warmth that washed over him cleared his mind completely, until he saw Eleanor shaking a piece of paper at Swiffer as the chastised cat scurried across the floor.
"What does it say?" he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Hm?" Eleanor asked, looking up and regaining her composure. "Well, sirrah," she said, teasing him, "I think it was for my eyes only." She scoffed, "not like I could read it. To be honest, I'm a little scared to open it, but I'm guessing you folks don't have anthrax here."
Cullen slowly shook his head, but muttered, "A poisoned letter?"
"Yeah, like that," she said, looking down at the envelope, running her thumbs along the edges. It was crisp and white. Even the Inquisition didn't use paper this bleached, this fine.
"Who would send something like this?" she asked quietly.
Cullen took his hands out of his jeans and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting one as Eleanor flipped the letter over in her hands. He rubbed his fingers together and then extended his hand to Eleanor, asking wordlessly to see the missive. Eleanor went to his side, bumping her shoulder against his and motioning to swap the letter for the cigarette. He accepted the trade, passing the cigarette to Eleanor and receiving the letter, doing at first the same as she had, turning it over and over. He wished now that he could identify the seal, or indeed anything about the parchment. But aside from that, it was blank. No name, no nothing.
Finally, he asked, "May I?"
For lack of anything else to do, Eleanor breathed out smoke and shrugged. "Not much else we can do."
His lips pressed thin, he nodded slowly and slid his pinky under the wax and, careful not to warp or break the stamp, Cullen held the letter away from himself and popped the seal from the parchment, shaking it open. Only a small square of paper fluttered to the floor. Holding her cigarette between her lips, Eleanor bent down to pick it up, turning it around in her hands until the writing was - she thought - upright as Cullen went to set the envelope down on the kitchen table, making sure to preserve the wax seal. Eleanor squinted, unable to suss out the contents, before saying, "Well, I can tell you it's a short message," and passed it on to Cullen as he returned from the kitchen.
He took it from her, and within moments, the commander's whole demeanor changed. He took a few steps backward until he was no longer in the entryway but in the sitting room and he leaned against the sofa, his eyes scanning the words again and again.
"Oh come on, Cul, it's not that long," Eleanor said, her words sarcastic but her tone uneasy. When he let his hand fall, the paper still between his fingers, he didn't look to Eleanor but out the window, his face stern, more the commander now than Eleanor had seen him since the Blight. His jaw was tight, and the lines around his mouth were deep parentheses. "Cullen," she said, "seriously. Come on," but her words were soft as she padded towards him, her bare feet treading quietly. "What does it say?"
He turned to her now and though his face remained hard, his eyes were soft, almost painfully so. He rubbed his empty hand along his chin, looking down at the floor before meeting her gaze, and when he did, he made a fist, and crushed the paper in his hand as he finally answered her, "It says, 'We have seen you. You have been warned.'"
A/N: Woke up this morning with a lot of new ideas for all the fics I'm working on. Hope to get at least some of them written down today.
Just a reminder that I am updating some things over at AO3 that I'm not updating here (yet) if you want to check out my other current projects (don't feel left out; they aren't getting any new chapters of Once More unto the Breach for, like, months). There's a modern-day retelling of Dragon Age II, specifically, called Dragon Age: AD that I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of writing. It's very pro-mage, and it's dark and irreverent at the same time. So check that out if you wanna.