Warning: Graphic Description of Violence
REMEMBER, I POSTED TWO CHAPTERS. If you haven't seen Soufehla landing on her ass, you skipped a chapter. GO BACK ONE AND READ IT!
In'atorisathe'telahnem (tan) - In Hushed Whispers (3)
He floats.
He floats within himself, listening to the ever constant music of that deep, crimson song. He tries to protect a small part of him, tries to flee deep into his being where he has locked up the very essence of himself. The last line of defense within him against that crimson song. But the song pelts at his conscience, rips away his barriers and delves deep into him, digs its corrupt claws into his heart.
The song has taken away everything. His body is overgrown with red lyrium; his hands no longer have fingers that can grip a sword pommel. Instead, they are jagged crystals of razor sharp lyrium that encases his sickly skin. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, and some days the words are too much for his thickened tongue. Sometimes all he can do is grunt angrily.
He has also given into anger. The deep song that winds around him constantly, the beautiful song that sings to his very core urges him to be angry, to be furious at any and all. He has given in to that blistering rage.
And most of all, he has lost himself. He does not remember much from the time before there was red in his veins. He cannot recall the kind smiles of his family. He has lost the names of his precious few loved ones. He cannot even recall the name of that Mage he was once infatuated with. He only knows that she was Surana, and that she existed.
He only knows she existed because the demons come to torment him as they did so in Kinloch Hold. Because the desire demons never leave him be. But instead of… Surana, it's Lavellan. It's her glistening black hair they wear. It's her blackest eyes with the barest hint of amethyst that look on to him with vilest intent of seduction and corruption. They come and they go, wearing her perfectly smooth and tanned skin.
Sometimes they act as if they're truly Lavellan. They cry and weep for his pain and try to comfort him. Other times they blatantly flaunt her naked flesh at him, stroking her soft curves and leering at his screwed shut eyes.
But he's seen it all before, at the Kinloch Hold with… with that other elf.
He doesn't understand why he remembers Lavellan, whom he had only known for roughly a month. They had barely exchanged more than a few dozen words before she was lost to the world. But it is her he recalls with crystalline clarity while everything else fades away into murky depths of angry haze. It is his memories of her that allows him to endure through this endless nightmare.
The torment is beyond what he's suffered at Ferelden Circle though. He'd endured through the demons and lyrium withdrawals with sheer willpower, unwilling to break under the influence of blood Mages and demons like the stubborn brute he is. But this torture does not compare to Kinloch Hold. The song gnaws away at his mind, takes away his memories, shreds his essence to pieces. They take away himself until nothing but the crimson song and blinding fury remains. More often than not, he is tempted to end it all. To turn his corrupted lyrium claws onto himself, to pass away into oblivion. Anything to escape that relentless song singing in his mind. But her quiet, blazing eyes of violet starry sky stares at him intently from his few remaining memories, and Cullen finds the will to endure for another five minutes or so. And somehow those five minutes have amounted to a year.
Quite often agonized screams ring out all the way to his cell. It's usually the same woman – woman he knows well. Leliana. He hears her pained howls and grits his teeth, his already raging fury flaring up even hotter. But he reigns himself in, keeps himself from launching against the cell bars. He instead sits still and suffers through her torture, waiting. Always waiting. For one chance. For one critical chance to turn his raging wrath upon the enemies, to give them a taste of what's been done to him. He had a mind of a tactician once. He'd protected that small part of him with fervor, allowing the song to take away his sweet memories so that he would recognize a chink in the Elder One's armor when it comes. So that he may deal one last devastating blow against those who'd killed Lavellan and brought the world to its wretched end.
But the demons come as always, and Cullen suffers. He groans and turns his head away from the images the demons conjure up, whispers hoarsely. He's having a good day today – his guttural grunts eventually form a semblance of words.
"Be gone, demons. You will not break me." He croaks. Once, he had the strength to shout out against the demons. Now he whispers those familiar words, the words he'd repeated again and again since the Kinloch Hold.
"I did not break a decade ago in Ferelden Circle. You will not break me now. Kill me and be done with it or leave me be."
One of the demons kneels by his cell bars, grips the iron tightly. Her face – it's aged and dried up horrendously. He's seen ghouls with better color. But there is no mistaking that red hair for anybody else. It's a demon wearing Leliana's skin.
"Cullen," the demon whispers and he shakes his head. "Be gone." He grinds out weakly.
"Cullen, you endured in Ferelden Circle until Hisul'em and I rescued you." The demon-Leliana croaks out, and he hears the thick tears coloring her voice. Is this a high desire demon? There are long forgotten feelings stirring deep within him in response to her voice – feelings that aren't choking rage.
"You did not break in Kinloch Hold. You did not break here. You waited – as you did back then – for me to come by with a Dalish elf in tow. I know you've waited a long time here, but I come now bearing a Dalish elf. We are real, Cullen. As we have told you a decade ago, we are real." This Leliana does not cry, does not weep. But he hears the crushing anguish in this demon's voice – and his frozen heart stutters weakly.
"You come bearing the image of a dead woman, demon. I will not break. I have endured before, I will not fall for your simple tricks." He grunts out, words slurring into an almost incomprehensible garble. But it does not matter. The demons will leave eventually, even if he does not speak the words. They always leave, and they always come back.
"Leliana… he's gone." Her quiet voice rings out, and Cullen groans. Oh, how real her voice sounds. How sweet her voice sounds in this waking nightmare.
"Cullen, we never found her body. Adahlena's body was never recovered. She is here, as am I. We are real."
Lavellan's body. He remembers that. He had always been saddened he'd never seen her again after the angry spat in the war room.
He turns his head around, examines the demons closely. They look different than usual – this Lavellan is not clean. She does not look even remotely sexual. She is dirty, covered in blood, gore, and Maker-knows-what. Her terrified dark eyes hold the numb shock of all the horrors lurking in this world. The demons never depicted her so before.
"Leliana…?" He gutters out, moves to stand weakly. The lyrium crystals on his body groan and creak. "Truly… real?"
The ghoulish Leliana nods, her stormy gray eyes blazing with fury he feels within himself. Perhaps a year ago they would have made a weak attempt at a joke of her being late – or of him being rescued by her and a Dalish elf again – but this isn't a year ago. This is after the Breach in the sky has swallowed the entire world, after the Elder One has triumphed and Maker is gone. There is no room for anything but mindless rage.
"Can you fight, Templar?" Lavellan snaps, takes a step backward as he comes closer. A year ago, he may have smiled. He may have protested the title. But this is now, and there is nothing but the blood-red song.
"I can kill." He laughs, angry and hollow. The small piece of strength locked away inside surges forth to fuel his blistering rage. The chance has come, to get vengeance.
He stays ahead of the rest, pushes forward relentlessly. He turns his endless rage against these Tevinter bastards and demons who have implanted this scorching anger inside him. He kills and kills, snarls and drools as savage wrath encompasses him. He stays ahead of the group, so that if he turns on them in mindless blood lust, they may strike him down easily.
It is a little easier to remember when she speaks. Her quiet voice echoes in the castle halls while she questions Leliana of the world. He does not speak, he does not turn around. He only kills and kills, and prays to the Maker who he knows isn't listening that his mind may not snap and slaughter them all.
She screams in pain as she closes the Rifts one by one. Her scream tears at him, drives him mad. He tries not to skewer her with his lyrium claws. He tries not to embrace her with his lyrium claws.
Dorian and Lavellan shout and demand for an explanation at the sight of sickly green sky pulsing with magic. Cullen kills the demons and tries to remember the people behind him are his comrades.
Dorian and Lavellan loot lifeless bodies for crystals. Cullen slams himself into a wall before he can attack them. The crimson song sings, it floats. But the gentle chimes of bells woven into her hair counters it, pulls him through the thick rotting air of this castle, back to that time a year ago when he knew something beyond red rage. There was a time when crimson song did not sing in his mind.
The door creaks open, and he and Leliana surges through as one. Leliana snaps Felix's neck while he launches himself against the Magister. He would kill him. He would murder him. He would butcher everything.
The demons' claws skid across his lyrium-infused skin. Alexius's magic erupts and somehow there's a magical barrier keeping him safe. He shrieks maniacally, insanely charges the Mage. He howls, grunts, knows nothing beyond the crimson song singing, singing, singing in his mind.
He kills and kills, shreds every living thing that is within his reach. He doesn't remember the time before the red. He knows nothing but the red coursing through his veins. Blood flows freely, a massacre in this empty throne room, the darkest hour crawling, slithering to a stop. Red, so much red, crimson blood, crimson lyrium, demons morph, terror, despair, sloth, rage, all lumping into formless hump and he kills, kills, kills them all. He loses himself in that comforting berserk rage.
Until a pair of terrified black eyes stare up at him.
His lyrium fist smashes into the wall, shatters with ear-splitting ringing right beside her head as it narrowly misses crushing her skull. He howls, feels the toxic wrath roaring inside him, but her terrified eyes and jingling bells pulls at that little piece inside that he's protected for the past year with the image of her locked in his head.
"Templar…" She gasps, looks up at him with those horrified eyes. He sees immense pain and fear swimming in their depths, as if she hadn't skipped the past year while the world went mad.
"Lavellan," he croaks. He is glad this is a good day. He is glad his thickened tongue allows this painful semblance of speech. "Kill me."
Her midnight eyes widen, her bloody torn lips part enough to take in an audible breath. Her gleaming fangs catch his eyes.
"Kill me, please." He begs, he pleads, he cries.
"Why… why would you…" She shakes her head, backs up against the wall behind her.
"I swore!" He roars, lifts his head up to the heavens and screams with all his might. "I have… given you my word! That I will not harm you!" His fist pounds against the cracked stone wall, and it crumbles. "Lavellan… do not, let me… break my word… kill… kill me now. Before, be... before I… harm you."
She gapes at him, and for the first time Cullen doesn't see the blinding rage inside her. For the first time since he's met her a year ago, she is not angry in his presence.
"I've sworn not to harm you, unless you broke your word." She whispers, her fangs receding as she presses them into her bloody lips. "I… I do not… I don't want to. I can't kill you, I can't."
He grunts angrily, prays for the ability to speak normally.
"I release you from your Oath. Kill me, Lavellan. Please." He hisses through his gnashed teeth.
She stares at him, trapped between his heavy armor and the crumbling wall behind her back. Her wide eyes glisten with tears.
"You will die, Templar. Do you not fear death?" She whispers, breathy and strained.
"I died… a long time ago. Only this sick perv… perversion of myself remains here."
"Do you… wish for anything? Before you go?" She asks hesitantly, her voice wavering. He has never heard her so uncertain before.
"No, nothing. Just… just smile with me, Lavellan." He growls.
She stares at him, incredulous. And Cullen shakes his head, knows of the permanent frown etched onto his mouth from the red lyrium.
"I've never seen you smile, Lavellan. I do not… expect to see it now. But once you… return… to your time, smile with me. Not… for me, but with me. One day."
She raises her unMarked hand, trembling uncontrollably. It crackles with electricity, white and violet, sizzles around her slender fingers as she brings it slowly closer to his cheek. Clear drop of tear glides down her bloody cheek.
The crimson song fades away, finally, from his mind. It screeches, pounds against his thoughts but her presence fills his head, tugs gently at long-forgotten time before the red. The anger slightly gives way to wistful memories of his short time spent with her in Haven.
"We… never found out anything about you. Not even your true name." He rasps slowly, repeats the few words that morphs into heavy grunts. Cullen raises his lyrium claw, mirrors her motion. How he wishes he had fingers once more, to stroke her soft hair with. To rub her gentle skin with. But he does not touch her, not with the corrupt lyrium claw.
"You know Adahlena isn't my name?" Her fluttering lashes sparkle like diamonds in the dim light, her dewy tears clinging precariously.
He grunts. Perhaps a year ago it would have been a short bark of amused laugh. But it's an angry grunt now. "I have suspected."
"I see."
He would die now, by her hands. Not by the red coursing through his veins. He has struck a devastating blow against the Elder One, as he'd hoped to. He has helped to get Lavellan here, to get her back to her own time in the past. It is an end for him better than he could ever have hoped for.
"Thank you, Lavellan." He croaks, and she jerks back.
"I have done nothing to earn your gratitude, Templar."
"You… have given me a chance to… die fighting, while protecting what I can. You have given… me a chance to… be myself again before death. You took away the song, the anger. Thank… you, Lavellan."
Her hand inches up to his face, slow and hesitant. She seems almost fearful of her own spell, the crackling magic tingling over his clammy skin as she holds her hand gingerly.
"I swear you will not feel pain, Templar. May your Maker release you from all this mortal suffering." She cries, sincere and true.
He never looks away from her beautiful eyes, and she never breaks the contact.
He dies staring into her kind eyes, and he hears the whispered breath lingering in the air. Her final parting gift for him.
Soufehla. What a beautiful name.
I've read many fanfics where Cullen was present in the dark future. But I don't think I've ever read a fic where it was written from his POV, so I wanted to give it a try. I hope you guys found it as unsettling as I did. I'd love to hear what you guys thought of this particular chapter.