9:44 Skyhold
Mountain air brushed across his cheek and an eye rolled open. Cullen stared through a half empty bottle perched beside his sleepy face to a bookshelf bowing in the middle from a stack he kept meaning to move before it collapsed. No. That isn't right. He snapped up in his chair, the padding worn to fit his backside after two years of service. A line of drool coated missives laid out across his desk, all of them baring the Inquisitor's signature. Skyhold. How was he back in Skyhold?
Pain throbbed at the back of his skull, drumming through the vertebra and across his jaw. It felt as if he smashed the back of his head against the edge of a hewn brick. Gently, he reached back to touch it, causing even more pain to sear behind his eyes. This was a trick, some, some illusion of... Papers were piled along the desk, in the same five stacks he always had. Even the damn mug was the same, with the broken handle he patched up rather than replace. What was going on?
The door in front of him blew open. Used to people coming and going to pass through, Cullen didn't bother to look up until a voice chilled his heart.
"Don't tell me, you fell asleep at your desk again." He whipped his head so fast to follow the voice, pain shrieked up his neck. Lana. She stood there - in his doorway - alive, with an admonishing sigh upon her lips. "You know you have a perfectly good bed up that ladder. And..." she pointed at his hand gripping to the back of his neck, "it won't strain your shoulders." Chuckling, she closed the door and slid over the edge of his desk. Her fingers glanced across his, and they were warm, soft, with the same calluses he remembered. Cullen's hand froze as she gently picked it away and began to massage his neck.
"How...?" Cullen gulped, fighting down an urge to scurry away from her touch. It felt so real, so familiar, but that was impossible. Wasn't it? She shouldn't be here because, because of a reason slipping away from him. "Why are you here?"
Lana paused in digging into his shoulders, her thumb bouncing against his skin as she spoke, "Where else should I be - the mage quarters? That lasted all of two weeks after I officially joined your Inquisition. As I remember, a certain commander convinced me it was best to free up the bed for someone else and that we..." she leaned closer, luscious lips pressing against his earlobe as her hot breath washed over him, "move in together."
He screwed his eyes up tight as every inch of him awoke from an unending torment he'd barely been aware of - his heart freed from its two year coma. It wasn't until she ran her slender fingers across his skin, Cullen realized how his soul desiccated on the vine. How badly he needed to feel her touch, hear her voice, smell her scent to revive him back to life. "Lana..." he groaned her name. "That doesn't sound," thoughts danced across his brain, dark ones screaming that it wasn't right, this wasn't right. But, out of everything in his life, every dark, desolate night and rigorous, exhausting day, she was the only thing that was ever right.
"What is it?" she asked.
"You..." Words wafted through his soul, struggling to be heard. Another throb blared at the back of his head, and Cullen reared in pain. He reached up to pinch his eyes only to find them drenched in tears. "You're dead," it rushed back at him, punching through this dream fog he wished he could envelop himself in.
She reached over to grab both of his hands inside her own. They should have been cold, still as the grave, but her warmth overtook his own crying out to comfort him. "Cullen, oh, sweetheart! Here..." placing one of his hands against her cheek, she leaned into it like a pillow, "feel me. I'm here. I'm real. It was a dream, one of the bad ones."
"You died in the fade," he shook his head, clinging to the razor wire of truth running through his mind. He hated how it sliced him apart, but he knew if he let go he'd be lost forever, "stayed behind so the others could..."
"We all escaped, at Adamant, yes? You remember, tell me you remember." Tears brimmed in Lana's eyes and she cupped his cheek, pulling his forehead to hers. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there to stop them in time."
"Stop what?" he blinked, struggling to keep ahold of the conversation.
She closed her eyes tight and whispered, "The blood mages, the wardens who..." Tipping her head back, Lana tried to catch a few of the tears before they fell down her cheeks. Instinctively, Cullen ran the back of his hand against them, each drop wetting his skin the way any real tear would. "They cornered you, delved into your mind and-and convinced you I'd died. But I didn't, I'm here. You remember, right? How we stormed through the Arbor Wilds together? How we waited with bated breath to hear if the Inquisitor defeated Corypheus?"
"Yes, that-that happened," he flexed his fingers and felt his tenuous grip slipping. It was possible. What if the malifecarum had crawled inside of his mind, stripped away his one happiness to torture him? And she, she didn't stay behind, didn't sacrifice herself for Hawke or anyone else. She was here, with him, had been the entire time. It made sense.
Swallowing down two years of grief, a smile broke across his lips, lifting his heart with it. Grabbing onto her cheek, Cullen pulled the woman he loved beyond reason to his lips for the impossible kiss. She tasted exactly how he remembered, her pillowy lips brushing open as he danced his tongue with hers. It was Lana, body and soul. How could he forget?
She broke the kiss, but not before pecking him on the end of the nose, and smiled, "I take it you're feeling better."
"Lana, I..." a panic struck him, and Cullen sat up higher in his chair. "Where's Honor?"
"Where she always is, fast asleep at the foot of your desk," she chuckled waving towards the rug. He rose to his feet to peer over his desk to find the mabari's hind legs twitching in a dream, her tail thumping madly against the floor. Whatever dream it was, it was a good one.
Running a hand through his hair, Cullen tried to will down the erratic beat in his heart. Honor was right where she should be. He was right where he belonged, and Lana... Maker's breath, Lana was here, with him. Breaking from the sight of his sleeping dog, Cullen wrapped both hands around her waist cinched up in the exact same corset she used to wear in the tower. Her hair blossomed off her head, longer than he'd seen in years and softer as well. She even had the time to put a dash of rouge across her cheeks and kohl upon her eyelids. It was Lana at rest, free, as free as he was. Neither of them with an order to obey, vows to honor. They could be together, fully and whole.
Sliding her across the desk, Cullen pulled Lana tight to him. She giggled at first, then wrapped her own arms around his back as she placed her head against his armored chest. "Lana, I-I was so scared I lost you. I thought, I felt as if-as if someone stole the only hope in my life and replaced it with darkness. Unending, unyielding, insurmountable darkness." Brushing his palms across her cheeks, he pushed back her errant hair and sighed, "I love you."
Cullen moved to kiss her, fully give in to her forever, when she whispered, "I love you too." He froze a breath away from her lips. Pain throbbed up his jaw, his teeth clenched tight. Wrong. It was wrong. Lana rotated uncomfortably on her hips, "What is it?"
He released his hold on her, his hands slipping back to the frozen air as they thudded alone against his desk. "You never said it," he whispered into the air.
"Never said what?" she laughed, trying to pick his arm up and put it around her. Cullen slid away from her grasp. He didn't yank his arms in rage, only wafted from her like a ghost ship cresting through the foggy waves. Without lifting his broken head, he turned to face the bookshelf and saw it, the blue bottle holding her ashes. Not her ashes, but the ashes pretending to be hers, because this wasn't Lana.
"Cullen," Not-Lana said, concern rising in her voice, "What did I never say? Talk to me, please."
Running a finger across the glass bottle, a warmth hissed against his thumb as if the pyre was just burned. The happiness in his heart drifted away like the ashes he dumped into the wind. Screwing his eyes up tight, his head flopped forward, and he sighed, "'I love you.' Lana, you never said that because you couldn't. You didn't love me, and there wasn't time for you to, before you..." Cullen turned to find her eyes wide, her hand pressed to her mouth, "You died, Lana. You went into the fade and you never came out. It's why I'm here. Out there. Fighting to find you, to try and save you. This isn't real."
"Cullen, please," she hopped off the desk, and tried to grab his hands again, "please, this isn't a good sign. I know, I know memories can be scary, especially the wrong ones, but you need help. I can help you."
"No," he couldn't stop himself from touching her cheek. The pleading was genuine, her eyes brimming in tears, her bottom lip wobbling. That was the Lana he knew, the one that hated seeing him in pain, who wanted to rescue him from every hurt outside and in. But it wasn't her. Tears slopped from his eyes, fat ones streaking down his cheeks as he struggled through two years of grief washing across him in one go. "You can't help me Lana, because I have to help you first."
Pulling his hand away from her soft skin, Cullen turned away and dropped to the floor. He nudged Honor in the head and called to her, "Girl, come on. Wake up, we need to be going." It took a few more tries before her tail stopped thumping in her dream and those sloe black eyes rolled open. She blinked, looking as tattered as he felt, before accepting that her master was here and things would work out. Honor rose to her feet to stand by his side.
"Cullen!" Lana begged. "Whatever you're going to do, it isn't safe. Not in this condition. You could get hurt out there alone. Please, come back to me. Rest. A good sleep will fix everything."
He wished he could look back at her, perhaps the last time he'd ever see her face again, but he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough to pull himself away a second time. Stroking Honor's head, Cullen flopped her ears back and forth before he grabbed onto the door's handle. His voice dropped into his chest and he whispered, "I'm sorry," while opening the door and stepping through.
White light flared up, blinding him again. As the sear faded away, it wasn't Skyhold waiting for him but a grassy meadow. In the distance, rocky hills burst through the ground, the cliffside red as a sunset. Cullen reached down to check on Honor, but his dog seemed to have already adjusted to the change. Turning back around, he spotted the doorframe he stepped through free standing. There was no wall it was bolted to, nothing keeping it up. Only meadow shown through both sides, as cheery as a perfect summer day. In the distance, he heard birds chirping as they dove through tall grasses to catch grasshoppers calling for mates. The susurruss winds caressed his cheek, smelling of wood crackling on a fire pit, fresh cut hay drying in the fields, and the late summer flowers blooming in anticipation of the insects. It felt like home.
Gulping, Cullen checked his sword then a thought crossed his mind. Would his blade even work in the fade or could someone turn it into a noodle with a thought? He never asked what it meant when mages went into the fade. Everyone dreamed, of course, but this felt real, nothing like a dream at all. Cullen gripped tight to his chest as if to stick his churned heart back in place. Too real. Uncertain where to head, he struck out in the direction of the smoke breaking through the bright blue sky. It wasn't until he crossed a hill that Cullen spotted a house. A fence circled it, half torn down, and barely a post matching as if it was ramshackled together from ten other fences.
"Hey!" a petulant voice cried out from the grasses wafting in the breeze. Cullen spun to the east when a boy rose from the ground appearing as if by magic. His skin was a soft brown, reminiscent of Josephine's shade, with a mound of curly black hair flattened at the top of his head. After playing on the ground, mud speckled his cheeks and a blue and silver tunic two sizes too large for the reedy frame.
The boy ran close to Cullen and stuck a hand on his hip, "Never seen you before. Are you new?"
"I..." Cullen's eyes rolled around the area, "I suppose I am. There's some people I'm looking for. A man about my height with blonde hair and a qunari woman."
Shaking his head, the boy giggled. Cullen would guess his age at seven or eight, adventurous enough to be playing alone but not yet obstinate enough to grow tired of adults. "There's no qunari around here. My dad says they're all in the far north. Oh," he snapped his fingers, "you should meet my dad. I bet he'd know whoever you're looking for."
As Cullen glanced over the boy, a fear stirred inside of his heart from the familiar features, but he had no other choice. "Yes, that sounds nice."
"And..." the boy wiped his muddy hands down the front of his tunic and stuck one out, "my name's Duncan."
"Duncan," he repeated, taking the small hand inside his and shaking it. "I'm Cullen."
The boy smiled wide, teeth dazzling against his lips, "Cullen? That's a silly name."
"I, uh..." he was at a loss at how to respond to this imaginary boy denouncing his name. Before he needed to bother, the child spun on his shoes and dashed towards the house. Calling to Honor, Cullen gave chase, his fingers at first holding tight to the hilt of his sword, but as they drew closer he couldn't stop the tempting urge to waft them across the tips of wheat. They shouldn't be this tall in the summer heat, he thought, then shook his head. Nothing here should make sense regardless, that was how the fade worked.
Climbing down the gully sideways to keep from sliding down it, Cullen turned to find the picturesque farmhouse laid out before him. It wasn't a real one, where shutters draped off the sides because there wasn't time or coin to repair them, or bailing wire knotted up anything drooping or broken. It was the picturesque farm in paintings or storybooks, red as a brick with a charming stoop not crowded in muck boots and tools. Three chickens scratched along a gravel path with a single rain barrel brimming in water. A fence circled the area for seemingly no good reason; other than the chickens, no other livestock wandered around. Even the fence itself felt out of place, gleaming white despite the red dirt wafting on the breeze.
In the middle of it all was a man swinging an axe back behind his head to split apart an ever increasing pile of firewood. By the afternoon glare, Cullen could only make out the shadow, but he had a sneaking suspicion he knew who it was. The log clattered in half, both ends crumbling to the ground and the man reached over for another.
"Alistair!" Cullen shouted, his gait slowing until the shadow's glare faded, revealing the man who should be king. He wasn't in his royal armor, nor the pirate garb, or even his traveling splint mail. It was the outfit of every Hinterland man to ever till the earth, the tunic's sleeves rolled past his elbows, breeches patched from old quilting scraps along the knees and calves.
Alistair wiped off his brow with his naked forearm then dropped the axe against his shoulder. "Hey! Who are...?" His sentence fell away dead as the boy jumped up out of the grass to grab onto Alistair's midsection. Chuckling, the king tossed his axe aside and yanked the boy higher in his arms.
"Well, what have we here?" Alistair asked, shifting the boy back and forth. "A spy for Orlais, maybe? A fearsome antivan assassin sent to murder me for a famous Countess? Or are you a dangerous bandit coming to take the farm?!"
The boy giggled with every guess, then sighed, "Da-ad!"
Cullen's foot missed the ground and he stumbled walking closer to them, nearly falling face down into the gravel splattered with chicken shit. Shifting the boy over to the side, Alistair reached out to try and catch him.
"Whoa, careful there," the man was nothing but smiles while Cullen steadied himself and tried to not look at the boy. Alistair gripped tight to Cullen's forearm, as if afraid he'd fall again. "Don't think I've seen you around here before. Let me guess," he licked his thumb and drug it across the boy's cheeks, who tried to bat away his father's grooming, "this little demon led you to us. What did I tell you about picking up strays?"
"To limit it to two a week," Duncan answered.
"Maker," Alistair cupped his hand over his so-, the boy's mouth. "Don't let your mother hear I said that. Neither of us will be able to sit down for a week."
Duncan laughed at the empty threat, then he turned to Cullen, "Can we keep that one?"
"Hm, I don't know. Looks kinda mangy," Alistair snickered, his eyes finally taking in Cullen, when something inside struck a dormant chord. His easy smile wilted and he blinked a few times, as if the memory cried out in the back of his head the same it had to Cullen. You know it's not real, but you don't want to believe it.
Duncan bounced in his arms, and cried, "Dad!" It was enough to break the worrying truth and Alistair faded back into his happy bliss.
"You're right, besides, you'll have to meet my wife. She'll kill me if I don't invite you in for dinner. Come on," he jerked his head towards the farmhouse, "it's lamb stew."
Without waiting for Cullen to say a word, the man and his...the boy walked towards the farmhouse. Dread settled in Cullen's stomach, the almost prophetic kind whispering what he knew in his soul would be waiting inside that home, but he had to see it through. Lead filled his legs, dragging him slower and slower as he marched up the wooden steps not sagging from over a hundred years of use. Alistair pushed on the sapphire blue door, with hinges in silver, and he swung Duncan inside as the boy dangled in his arms.
"Love," the king shouted through the room, "we're home and brought a guest!"
Following behind him, Cullen stood rooted in the doorway and stared into the house. Cozy in the way only a young family home could be, toys were scattered in front of a rug beside the hearth - one of them a stuffed griffin made out of burlap. Herbs hung across the lower beams Alistair ducked under as he plopped his son onto a chair at the crooked table. Another child, smaller than Duncan, sat perched on a stool. Her misshapen shoes banged against it as she put quill to parchment, doodling random ink drawings with such ferocity her tongue stuck out between tiny teeth. Alistair placed a kiss against the top of her head, then he flicked one of her pig tails. Dropping the quill immediately, she spun around and wrapped tiny arms around his neck. A noise that could be mistaken for "daddy" or perhaps "happy" slipped from her.
"Dad, dad!" Duncan waved his hands around to snag his father's attention. Upon getting it, he grabbed onto a pair of squash left on the table and held them up to his head.
"Oh no!" Alistair fake cried, his hands splayed out against his cheeks. "This is terrible!"
"What is?"
Cullen screwed his eyes up tight at that voice, the one he knew was in here but prayed wasn't. Gulping air through his mouth, his vision darted up to spot her standing behind the half opened door. Everything about her was softer by the cozy candlelight, her cheeks more rounded, her less toned arms wrapped around a pair of fluffed blankets, her hair folded back by a blue ribbon with the ends trailing down her back. It was her without the stress of command, without the years fighting darkspawn and coming out the worst for it. It was a happy, unbroken Lana.
With eyes only for her, Alistair pointed at Duncan, "A fearsome ogre's come to attack us all."
"Oh no," Lana fake cried, "we need a mighty grey warden to slay it." Under both of his parent's attention, Duncan gave a weak roar and wiggled his squash horns around. As if he had a sword in his hand, the king pretended to stab at his son who gave a very dramatic performance of dying on the table.
"I see we have a guest tonight as well," Lana spoke up in the middle of Duncan's ogre death throes. Cullen shied away from her golden eyes smiling upon him. "Not that someone felt the need to tell me," she turned a soft chastisement on her...the king.
Alistair reached through the partition partially hiding her, slid a hand over her arm, and placed his lips against her cheek. A small part of Cullen withered from the way she leaned into it. "Forgive me, Love, but your ogre-son found him wandering the fields and thought he could use a well-cooked meal."
"And here I thought it was your turn to cook."
"An okay-cooked meal, then," Alistair smiled, his fingers cupping her smiling cheek. Pinching the flesh between his thumb, Cullen willed down the anger trying to rise up inside.
"He's welcome, naturally. Please, take a seat," she spoke to him and waved at the table, but Cullen stood steadfast in the door. "You don't need to prop up the frame, I'm certain it can stand on its own."
"I...I," Cullen twisted his head, trying to dislodge the imaginary family projected before him. "Alistair," he spoke to the man, keeping his eyes away from Lana. "This isn't right."
"I know, you're letting all the flies in. What, were you raised in the kennels?" he smirked.
"You know this is false. A farm is not your life, you belong on the throne of Ferelden," Cullen said, struggling to jar him out of this illusion.
But the king had a skull as thick as a qunari's. Alistair laughed and wiped at his nose with his thumb, "Ha, right. Love, could you picture me on the throne? Ferelden would crumble to dust in a week."
"I imagine king Cailan would be rather put off as well," Lana said.
"King Cailan, but he's..." Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose doing everything he could to keep focused on the only real thing in the room. "You are king Alistair, married to queen Beatrice in..." Maker's breath, he didn't remember the damn year. It didn't touch him as he was in Kirkwall at the time. "That isn't your wife, these aren't your two children."
Alistair blinked a few times, then smiled wider, "Did you hear that Duncan, Duncina? You've got some far better father out there. I bet he gives you biscuits every night and lets you stay up late. Oh, and how could I forget..." He pulled back on the latch for the door below Lana and opened it to reveal her distended belly. Tenderly placing a guarding hand against it, Alistair cooed to her womb, "Number three coming in two months time."
"Three, Alistair," she corrected him while stroking his cheek, "it'll be three months time. You're so bad at counting." Unperturbed by his failed maths, Alistair wrapped Lana in his arms, careful to leave room for her growing belly. A wrathful red haze bundled in the back of Cullen's skull and he turned away, but he couldn't escape the image imprinted on the back of his eyes. Lana, draped in worn grey linen, her body soft and curvy as it filled with new life. Maker, give me strength. I beg it of you. Please.
"How," Cullen gasped, his eyes burrowing into the floorboards. He couldn't look at her, not now, not as his. "How can you have children?"
"When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much..." Alistair began, then he waved his hands around and blushed, "Surely someone mentioned it to you before. There might be a couple pigs out back that could demonstrate it for you."
"You met at the battle of Ostagar, yes?" Cullen continued, needing to pull sense back into this senseless man.
Smiling like an idiot, Alistair draped an arm around the back of his imaginary wife and she placed her head upon his chest. "Yup, king Cailan, the grey wardens, and the armies of Ferelden stopped the blight right then and there. It was so romantic."
"You're terrible," Lana giggled as she dug deeper into him.
Cullen wished he could jam rags in his ears so he wouldn't have to hear her voice whisper those words to Alistair, not while she was... "But, you only met because you're both grey wardens, right?" Cullen continued, not about to abandon him now.
Alistair nodded his head, the goofy smile fading lower, "Yes."
Lifting his head, Cullen stared deep into the king's eyes and said the damning evidence, "Grey wardens cannot have children."
"What's he on about?" Lana asked, but Alistair slid away from her, his skin struggling to escape what his mind finally woke up to tell him wasn't real. "Ali...?" she continued, and he turned towards her.
Picking up both of her hands, he kissed one, then the other, "Let me talk to Cullen, Lanny. We'll get it all figured out. You should get the kids ready for bed."
"It'll be light out for hours," she chided.
"Ready for pre-bed. Won't be more than a minute," he ran his thumb against her cheek then he reached over to Cullen and grabbed onto his arm, dragging him into the room. Despite having sparred before, Cullen was surprised at the strength yanking him further away from the young family. "I don't know what game you're playing at here, templar, but you cannot harm her. Do you hear me? I won't let you do that."
"You're not thinking clearly," Cullen hissed in a whisper. The king backed him against a corner. Out of the side of his eye, Cullen caught the glint of a sword hung on the wall now within easy reaching distance of Alistair. "This isn't real. That isn't Lana. It's the fade."
Alistair sneered, teeth gritted as he glowered at him, "Or, or maybe you're a rogue templar sent to find her, to try and take back a free mage because you and your chantry can't handle the idea of her happy. You will not touch her or the children. I will not allow it!"
"For the Maker's sake, man, you know me. I would never hurt Lana."
He swallowed deeper, something percolating in his brain, but it didn't stick. Alistair jabbed a finger at Cullen, "Before today, we had never even met."
"Then how did you know my name? I never spoke it."
"I...I, um," Alistair's eyes darted back towards his wife who was bent over to whisper to her daughter and son, her hand caressing her belly. "No, there was a, I overheard it from somewhere, or guessed right. That's what it was. Pure luck. I can't..." Tears welled up in his eyes; he didn't bother to try and wipe them away or fight them back in. They rolled in streaks down his cheeks as the king crumpled his forehead into his hand. "No, I can't go back to before, to-to abandon what I wished more than ever. The lie is so much more, than..."
Cullen grabbed onto his forearm, digging his fingers deep to try and draw the man back, "We can still save her, the real Lana. If we get out of here, escape from the fade. She needs us."
He glanced over his shoulder at his Lanny, the imaginary one the fade created, the perfect one to trap him the same as it tried to do to Cullen. "I could stay here, be happy, really happy," Alistair whispered. A frown shifted across his face and he pinched his nose. Blinking back the tears, he wiped his cheeks and plastered on a smile.
"Love," Alistair called, his full attention upon Lanny.
"Look at what your daughter's drawn," she said, holding up a sheet of paper.
Slipping away from Cullen, Alistair picked up the parchment and pretended to love it, "It's a perfect representation of me on a dragon," he mumbled barely looking at the drawing before turning to Lana. "I just remembered I left a few things out in the field. And I should bring them in, in case it rains."
"Oh Ali, do you have to do it now? Dinner's almost ready."
He flinched from the fade pulling against him, the demon doing all it could to keep him trapped. Alistair picked up her hand and smiled, "I won't be more than five minutes at most, I promise. Then, when I come back I'll...read to Duncan and-and braid Duncina's hair." Eyes lingering across both imaginary children, he swooped his arms around Lana's waist and pulled her tight to his body. The pair shared a deep kiss goodbye, one that Cullen shielded his eyes from, before Alistair brushed her cheek one last time. "Be back soon."
Faking the smile, he turned to march towards the doorframe and their escape. Cullen followed in behind, Honor on his trail, when Lana called out in the sweetest voice, "What if I made you walk barefoot across a lake of fire?"
Alistair froze, a shudder knotting up every muscle along his back. His head dropped down against his chest and he breathed in slow, ragged gasps for a moment. Screwing his eyes up tight, the king gripped onto the doorframe. Cullen was afraid he'd need to shove the man through to end this, the king's knuckles white from the strain. Alistair clucked his tongue a few times before he whispered in a brittle voice, "There's nothing you can do in all of thedas or beyond to get me to stop loving you."
Releasing his grip on the frame, Alistair slipped out of the house into the blinding white light of the fade. Blinking from the change, Cullen rubbed his eyes until they came upon creaking wood. Flipping to face each direction all he saw was wood wrapped around wood, beams propping up even more wood, boxes of wood. "I think we're on a ship," he said aloud, the roll of the waves knocking him back and forth on his feet.
Alistair stood in front of him, his fist bunched up tight and shoulders scrunched up. He didn't say anything, didn't turn towards him, only dug his fingers deeper into his palm as if bleeding himself could draw the demon's poison from his heart.
"We should find Aqun," Cullen said, "and then the demon who's trapped us here."
"And kill it," Alistair whispered, his voice throaty and raw, the words clawing out through a rage boiling inside him.
"Yes, kill it," Cullen nodded. "Do you think she'll be on deck or...?"
A singing reverberated through the ship, sweet and airy, almost as light as the solos performed during chantry services in Val Royeaux, but Cullen didn't understand any of the language. He set out to follow the voice, then paused. Honor followed by his side, but the king kept remained frozen in place, his eyes glaring through the distance. Uncertain if he should whistle at the man or try and shove him to start, Cullen reached out to steady himself on his sword, causing the sheathe to knock against a cargo crate. The noise drew Alistair's attention and he whipped his head at him the way a vengeful bird would. Streaks of tears hung down his cheeks, but no new rivers fell as if they'd run dry. A soul crushing anger pulsed in his eyes, threatening any who dared to stand before him. For the first time since setting out, Cullen feared what the man would do to him. He'd stolen Alistair's only chance at happiness.
The king swallowed a few times, and then he dug the back of his hand across his eyes. It wasn't the usual effervescent self, but the anger blotted away from Alistair and with a tight, straining jaw he bobbed his head. Cullen patted him on the shoulder, and nodded. He knew the pain, but if this worked then they'd free themselves of it and find her. It was worth it.
Shoving past crates stacked to the ceiling in the hold, Cullen followed the voice picking through the maze. "Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Qun."
The sweet timbre rattled at the final word, eventually fading to a bitter gasp as the woman dropped her head into her lap. Aqun sat upon a barrel, but she looked different. Ribbons knotted up her horns, beads dangling off the ends and even a few bells. She wasn't dressed in the revealing but also imposing strip armor of the qunari, but wore a simple tan dress with brass buttons running the entire length down the front. It looked like the typical outfit for fieldworkers.
"Aqun?" Cullen whispered.
She tossed her head, almost colliding her horns with the ship. More Qunlat rolled off her tongue, the words staggered in her struggles to breathe, the long vowels hopping back and forth. Even if he could speak the language it was doubtful he'd have understood it through her grief. This was wrong. The demon tried to lull both of them into a false happiness, to keep them wrapped up forever in bliss. Why did it draw pain from the qunari?
Her hauntingly blue eyes rolled over at Cullen, and then to the king hovering behind him. "This is not correct," she said in common, her own jaw gritted tight.
"No, it's not. It's the fade, a demon's trapped us, and we have to break out," Cullen nodded. He was grateful he didn't have to try and convince an angry qunari that she couldn't stay in her perfect happiness, but he was curious why she wasn't fighting him. "How can you tell?"
Aqun shifted back on her barrel to reveal another qunari dressed in the same tan dress curled up on the deck, fast asleep. "Because, she shouldn't be alive." Both men watched the woman, barely even that, slumbering peacefully. Her breath bounced an errant strip of white hair in front of her mouth. Aqun shied away from touching her, keeping her feet and arms locked tight against the barrel, but she couldn't stop watching. Almost as if she wanted to reach over and push the tickling hairs away from the woman's face.
"We should go," Aqun said. "Free ourselves before we lose too much to this demon. It is a demon, yes? You, templar, must feel it."
Cullen nodded, it had to be a demon doing this to them. He could only tear himself away from his false Lana because of the hope that she was yet out there, still needed him to save her, to give them both another chance. What kind of willpower did it take for Aqun to slide away so easily?
Hopping off the barrel, Aqun gestured towards a backdoor into what must have been the qunari kitchen. "We can escape through there. We are whole. It will not stand against us. Please, I need to..." she wrapped both her hands around her horns and twisted her head back and forth to try and ground herself, "Leaving is preferential," she said. Happy to oblige, Cullen pulled open the door and moved to step through when the sleeping woman stirred, a soft cry breaking through her dreams. He froze, prepared to turn back and grab onto Aqun to drag her onward, but she stood straight, her eyes staring through the hull of the ship.
"Panahedan, kadan," Aqun whispered before disappearing through the door. Whistling at Honor to follow, Cullen stepped out of the fade and fell back into the real world.
The first thing to welcome him back was water seeping across his skin, and a pain knotting against his already swollen jaw. He cracked open an eye, then another, to find himself level with the fetid runoff. Struggling to not breathe in the water, Cullen rose up, splashing himself in the process, and grabbed onto his throbbing head. Then he remembered the demon, and he leaped to his feet, his fingers searching for his sword's grip.
"You need not bother, templar," Aqun's voice rang out from inside the room. A single halo of light circled around her while she stood like a holy statue, still as the grave. "Whatever demon was here is gone."
Behind him, Cullen heard Alistair shuffling through the water, his feet dragging as if he'd lost the ability to lift them. "That's not possible, demons do not vanish," Cullen said. Unsheathing his sword, he paced into the room. Five pillars ringed it with green crystals embedded into the top, each in the shape of an eye, but none of them glowed the haunting white light. At least not anymore.
"This one appears to have," Aqun shrugged. "Either we will have to face it again or it has fled into the fade."
He tried to find it, twisting his head back and forth for the tell tale smell of sulfur but nothing like that floated through the room. If anything, it almost smelled of cold tea, roses, and the spray of sea water. "I do not like this," Cullen said, keeping his sword extended.
"No one does," Aqun gestured at the king then turned her back on him. "We continue in this direction," she pointed to the only open portal and began to stomp towards it.
Rolling his eyes at her impatience, Cullen turned to Alistair needing to confer with another templar. Instead of standing near, or happily prodding at the walls, the king stumbled into the room and fell to his knees. Stale water splashed against his clothes, welling up the entire bottom half of his pants, but the man didn't seem to notice.
Alistair's eyes stared through the walls, his lips mouthing something in practice before he finally asked, "Are you going to hit me again?"
"Ah," Cullen stumbled, unprepared for that question. "No," he shook his head, "no, I...no."
"Feels like you should," he whimpered, pressing his palm against the cheek Cullen bruised before. Alistair must have been weighing every poor decision he ever made against that perfect moment the demon dangled before him, questioning what he could have done to make it possible in his life. Cullen assumed it, because he was doing the same.
"I hate the fucking fade," Alistair hissed. "First, it's my sister but not my sister, because she wasn't a colossal... Then, my father who kept me, let me grow up as his. With Lanny there beside me as, I don't know, a princess or someone I could be with. And now?" He gasped, digging his palms into his eyes. "I'd have given anything, bled myself dry to, to make the impossible happen." The king of Ferelden swatted his hand against the water with a flat palm hard enough the slap echoed through the room. Even in the dank pit, Cullen could see red welling up from his assault. Staring at his slapped hand, Alistair paused and a cruel quirk twisted up his lips, "Let me guess, yours was just a really, really good sword. Hard to leave and all but..."
"It was Lana," Cullen interrupted. He hated revealing anything about himself, but in this instance he needed to say the words as if speaking them would also banish the touch of her skin, the taste of her lips, the sound of her voice. Obliterate how the demon's vision plucked into his heart and almost kept him forever. "She tried to convince me that she'd survived Adamant. Any memories I had of the-of her death were a blood mage's doing."
"Maker damned demons," Alistair hissed, "they're too smart."
"A simple vision, I know. Nothing like what you..." shame curled up in his stomach. Somehow, Cullen sat smug in the right, knowing that his love was purer than the king's because he'd never broken her heart, never offered up a promise he couldn't keep, because of the reason of it being him. But he hadn't dreamed up an entire family, a life away from everything she hated, perfection for them both. It was just more of the same but with Lana in it. Did he even deserve her?
"A nursery," Alistair whispered, breaking through Cullen's fog.
"What?"
"The queen needed a nursery for, you know, and she decided that it was time we, time I clear out Lanny's room. I kept one for her in the palace so she wouldn't have to keep dealing with thieves at the inns or drunks trying to challenge the Hero of Ferelden to a duel. I hadn't entered it since she'd...since she died. Wasn't strong enough to-to look upon her few things. Not the - you know - staves, and books, and other weapons of hers, but the important stuff."
Alistair smiled through a wall of tears, and he sat up higher off his knees, "She had this little gear golem that if you turned the crank would lean down, pick up a boulder, then drop it back in place. Loved that thing like crazy, even if it only worked one out of every hundred tries. Lanny'd say 'Just wait, it'll get it this time' and I'd watch her crank it over and over until the broken thing finally went."
Cullen remembered the bear she kept in her room at Skyhold. He'd been curious about it, especially as he'd seen it in various stages of being complete and then back to a million pieces, but never questioned her on it. His mechanical knowledge was apt for weapons of war, not microscopic screws and gears.
"Her phylactery," Alistair continued, and he jabbed a thumb at Cullen's pocket. Obliging, Cullen unearthed the glass bottle that cast a red glow over them, and placed it in the king's hands. The king smiled through his tears and patted it like a dog's head, "It was in her room too. I couldn't bear to look at it, but I couldn't throw it away either. It was hers, it was her. The last bit of her to know when she fell, and..." Alistair turned and stared up at Cullen. On his knees he looked as if he was begging for forgiveness from him, "I only saw that it came to life because the queen told me to throw it away so she could have her nursery. Who knows how long it's been doing this half alive, half dead thing? Maybe it went all alive a year ago, and has been slipping. I don't know, because I was too much of a coward to look, to check, to hope that..."
"It's all right," Cullen whispered.
"No, it isn't," the king whipped his head back in forth in a frothy rage.
"None of us could have expected her to come back."
Alistair snorted, and rolled his eyes, "If it's Lanny, always expect the unexpected. I, of all people, should have learned that."
"You're trying now," Cullen continued attempting to convince himself as much as the king, "we can still save her."
"Yeah, save her," Alistair shuddered and wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand. Using a hand upon Honor to help him up, Alistair rose to his feet. He passed the phylactery back to Cullen and scrubbed his eyes with his fingers. "We save Lana, and then she can yell at me for taking so long."