Sylvanni had found quickly that both she and Cullen enjoyed simple foods, a shared commonality that had originally made her feel comfortable around him. Templars were fed with soldier's rations, cheap food that was easily mass produced for barracks-worth of soldiers. For her own experience, before she'd come to Skyhold, she'd had nearly every meal with her clan. They'd eaten what they hunted in their travels, occasionally gathering grains and herbs to cook things to go with the hunters' catches. They'd carried some grains and nonperishables purchased in cities in their aravels as well, but Dalish fare was never terribly complex.
Thus, Sylvanni had found that the extravagant dishes often prepared by the Inquisition's chefs felt overwhelming. Josephine had specifically recruited a gourmet chef and a squad of sous-chefs from Val Royaux, and for the first few dishes she'd pushed through with a polite smile, though the spices and scents coming from the plates had felt like an assault on the senses. She'd wished to be polite, but hadn't been able to completely hide an amused smile when she'd caught Cullen forcing his way through the fine meals as well.
The chef, to her credit, was a master, and beyond being able to construct elaborate meals, she was also able to adapt to the wishes of those she served. She'd been very attentive, and upon realizing that complexity was overwhelming both the Commander and the Inquisitor, she'd quickly accommodated their preferences, serving preparations much more to their liking.
The chef was also used to Cullen taking dinners away from the main hall, carrying food back to his desk to continue working. Sylvanni usually tried to eat in the main hall with other members of the Inquisition, but tonight, the chef didn't bat an eye at her request for a dinner for two to be carried away. A small smile and nod was the only acknowledgement of what was going on, as she handed the cloth-covered basket off to Sylvanni.
Cullen and Sylvanni found a quiet spot down beneath the main halls of Skyhold, nestled among the innumerable dusty hallways and storage rooms filled with artifacts or other things the Inquisition had nowhere to set about. As Sera was fond of saying, 'stuff needs a place'. There was a small room with a few cushioned benches and a table that they finally settled into, pulling out the warm wrapped bundles.
The contents were expectedly simple: Two small loaves of warm, brown bread with a tiny container of butter. Slices of tender meat, seasoned simply with no broths or sauces to mask the natural flavor. A wedge of creamy white cheese with crouton-like rounds, and finally some kind of sweet sliced fruit for dessert. It was high quality, much better than she would have had on the roads, or Cullen would have had in the barracks, but nothing like the lavish meals Josephine might have requested for them. To many it would have seemed overly plain, but to the two of them, it felt lavish.
As they'd walked, Sylvanni had picked up a bottle of wine from the rack down in the cellars, one of the little collection she'd started as she'd stumbled across various spirits across Thedas. Two small glasses had been tucked into the basket as well, and the two sipped on the well-aged wine in between bites of their meal.
Cullen sat on the bench beside her, both of them angled slightly to face one another, knees touching between them. "How are you feeling?"
She appreciated that that was how he started the conversation, asking about her wellbeing. "I don't know, Cullen." She took a small bite of the fluffy bread, thinking as she chewed. "All of those things I said on the battlements, I meant them, though I shouldn't have lost my temper as I did."
"The things you wished to do to Antoine, you mean?"
She nodded. "Maybe it's wrong to want to make someone else suffer, but I feel it's justified. He deserves anything and everything I can think to do to him. He's a monster, and he should be punished. It isn't just for my clan either, it's also for the elves in Wycome's alienage that he slaughtered. It's for the townspeople he infected with red lyrium. They deserve to have him pay recompense for what he's done. Sometimes I feel my real problem is that there couldn't possibly be any pain terrible enough to match his crimes."
Those crimes had turned out to be more numerous than she had expected. Leliana's agents had produced a report of their interrogation of Antoine. She hadn't thought it possible to be more horrified by what the man had done, but he'd proved her wrong. He had been surprisingly compliant in questioning, it seemed, providing answers with no need for her agents to resort to torture.
The truth of what he'd done seemed almost incomprehensible. Antoine had admitted to being the orchestrator of a plan to harvest the entire human population of the town of Wycome for red lyrium and lay the blame for the tragedy at the feet of the elves. Red lyrium crystals were placed in most of the city's wells, though the Wycome alienage's well was left alone. The city elves' seeming immunity to the outbreak allowed the duke to perpetuate the belief that this was an elven disease, causing a panic in town over the 'Knife-Eared Plague.' Clan Lavellan, camped in a valley near the town, were blamed as the carriers of this epidemic. Clan Lavellan was killed by Antoine's mercenary 'bandits', and the rising panic in the city allowed the Duke to justify the extermination of the alienage as well. With no one left to oppose his plan, the people of Wycome had quickly succumbed to the lyrium's influence.
"He is a monster, and I want to be the one to punish him," she continued, voice turning hard. "I feel I deserve to be the one to make him suffer. Just as he made me suffer, and on behalf of my clan and the suffering he put them through. I want to be the one to give back to him everything he's done. Perhaps that's not something I should want to do, but I do."
Cullen stayed quiet as she talked, just listening. When she finished, he laid a hand on her knee. "Sylvanni, this is why I'm worried. This isn't you. Ever since you've gotten back you haven't been acting like yourself."
He'd said something similar on the battlements and she'd figured out why it bothered her, now. "How can you know?" The words were insistent, but they weren't an accusation, not quite. "How do you know that this isn't the real me? I told you the night before I left that I don't even know who I am anymore. I don't know who I am behind the mask of the Inquisitor, and then something like this happens. I didn't go after Antoine for the Inquisition. I didn't do it because of his connection to Corypheus. I chased him down for me, for my clan, and for what he did to them. It's the first action I take in months that has nothing to do with my role as the Inquisitor. When I finally face down Antoine, this is who I turn out to be! How is that not an indicator of who I really am, Cullen?"
He wrapped an arm around her suddenly, pulling her into an embrace. "You don't have to be this person," he said, voice soft, but insistent in her ear. "If anyone has the ability to choose who they are, it would be you. You talk so often about playing parts, but you have such control over your actions and choices. It is astounding how well you handle yourself, even in situations where it would be understandable to slip up or lose composure. You don't have to be anyone you don't want to be."
"What if I do?" She whispered the words into his shoulder, feeling distant. "What if this is what I want?" She pulled away, something within her saying it was wrong to be held in affection while she talked about these kinds of things. "I said I wanted to be the one to 'hold the knife' but honestly, I want to do more than that. I… I know how to do things. Knives are messy, but magic? Dalish clans are far less restrictive than Circles and I've been trained in spells that I've never found a reason to use. For someone like him, I don't see any reason to hold myself back."
Cullen's hand tightened on her leg, his entire posture going stiff. "You… want to torture him with magic?"
"It'd be the best way," she said. "It's what I'm best at, it would be a technique personal to me. If I am to be the one to do this, then I should do it my way. There's less of a chance I'd mess something up. I would hate to a merciful escape into death before I was done to him. I…"
She trailed off. Something was wrong, she could tell that much. Cullen's breathing had slowed, each motion of his chest deliberate, as though he were trying to force it under extreme control. His grip on her leg was like a vice, but she didn't sense an intention behind his hold. It seemed rather that he'd forgotten he was touching her at all.
She frowned, not understanding the reason behind a reaction of this strength. He'd understood what she'd been talking about before, hadn't he? Surely he wasn't just now figuring out she was considering a truly severe punishment for her clan's murderer. "Cullen, what is it? If you're worried about my methods, it won't be blood magic. I know better than to mess with something dangerous like that. You know that I would never…"
"It isn't just the idea of blood magic," he said, voice hard. "I...You would use your powers to torture Antoine?"
"Do you not think he deserves it?" She gave him a disbelieving look. Yes, he'd been a templar once, but he wasn't anymore. She wondered how he could even imply something like this? "Everyone I knew is dead because of him and I'm not going to let him get away unpunished!" Her vision began to blur and she realized there were angry tears in her eyes. "Everyone. You can't know what that feels like. You still have your family. I have no one now, and he's to blame."
He looked as though he'd been carved from ice. "My family aren't the only people I've cared about in my life. At least you weren't forced to watch them die," he said, haunted. "I can thank the Maker for that much, at least."
That wasn't at all she'd expected him to say. Her frown deepened. "Cullen…?"
He gave her an even look, breathing slowly. "You don't know what really happened at the Lake Calenhad circle, do you?"
She'd thought she had, right up until he'd said that. "It was... attacked during the Blight, wasn't it? You said that Warden-Commander Surana saved you and the mages there from the darkspawn. You were reassigned to Kirkwall after that."
He shook his head, eyes closing slowly. "Not darkspawn. The Circle fell during the Blight, but it was not darkspawn which broke us. If only it had been. No, we were overrun from the inside." His voice grew distant. "A faction of blood mages took control, summoning demons and forcing mages to either join with them or be turned into abominations against their will. They tortured and killed every templar within those walls. They twisted us, playing with our minds like a child plays with toys, reckless and heedless of whether their experiments would break us.
"We were the targets for every shred of resentment they'd ever held for templars or the Circle , and they tried to wring every agony from us to satisfy their need for revenge. When Eliane- When the Warden found me, I was the only one left. Every other templar that Uldred and his followers had captured were dead. The things I said to her then, I wish I could take them back. I thought she was a demon in disguise, a new torturer wearing the face of my friend. I lashed out. I was cruel. A small regret among my many, but there nonetheless."
Sylvanni listened to him speak, his quiet words the only sound between them. In the dark, empty rooms deep below Skyhold, she felt as though she could almost picture the halls of that broken Circle, such as he described. "Cullen, I'm so sorry." The words felt bland in her mouth. Insufficient. "I thought your… history with bad magic came from Kirkwall. I had no idea."
His eyes, still closed, squeezed shut suddenly, and she had the distinct impression that talking about this was causing him pain. She felt powerless, unsure what she should do to help, unsure if there's anything she could do to help.
"It began there in Ferelden, long before Kirkwall, I'm afraid," he said softly.
He opened his eyes finally, meeting her own. She felt as though the insistence behind that look could hold her in place more soundly than chains. It was fear and concern and need, it was demand that she understand what he was saying to her.
"When I finally understood who she was," he said, "I… I asked her to do something horrible. I thank the Maker to this day that she was strong enough to tell me 'no.' I knew that the First Enchanter and many of the other mages that had been dragged into the Harrowing chamber were just as much prisoners as I was, but… I told her to kill them all. I begged her for it. It didn't matter to me that they weren't a part of Uldred's schemes; they had magic, and that was enough. If magic had put me through so much agony, in my mind, all mages deserved to have just as little mercy as those blood mages had shown me.
"In Kirkwall, I only grew worse. I used what had happened in the Ferelden Circle to justify what the Order did. I told myself that we were protecting people, that any leniency towards the mages would only get people hurt, that Meredith knew what she was doing." He looked down, closing his eyes in shame. "A competent Knight-Captain would have stopped her before things had the chance to escalate as far as they did, but… I didn't want to. I hid behind flimsy justifications for the choices we made, but I know that beneath it all, I wanted mages to hurt as I had. We penned mages like animals in cages, and I could have stopped it. I spoke of protecting the people of Kirkwall from magic, but I was blinded by my own hatred, consumed by it."
Sylvanni pulled closer to him, raising a hand to touch his face. She was surprised to find his cheeks were wet, though his voice had sounded steady. His head was bowed, and he wouldn't look at her. The way he looked, sitting beside her here, it harrowed her. Her commander looked utterly defeated, bent and bowed by the weight of his own conscience. She had never seen him like this, not even back at Haven when he had believed they were all going to die. A protective instinct within her said she would do anything to never see him look like this again.
"I am haunted by my memories," Cullen said, and now she could hear the slight tremble in his voice. "But while the memories of what was done to me in Ferelden are horrifying, it is the memories of the things I chose to do in Kirkwall that I fear most of all."
She wrapped herself close to him, wishing there was a spell to make this go away, a barrier she could raise to protect him from those memories, a blade she could conjure to defeat his pain. Unfortunately, she had nothing more than herself, and she felt entirely insufficient. "Cullen, you've changed now, no one could deny that. That's why you left the templars, and now you're winning this fight against lyrium as well. You aren't that person anymore."
He glanced up at her, and his gaze was steadier than she would have expected. "I know that. But I'm worried that's who you might become."
Sylvanni stiffened, drawing back in confusion. "Who I might…. What do you mean?"
"The way you've begun to talk about Antoine and what he did to your clan…" He paused. "It sounds almost familiar."
"You think someone like that deserves mercy?" The accusation came out louder than she'd meant it to.
"No, of course not," he said firmly. "Antoine is unquestionably a monster, and he deserves to face justice for what he's done. I'm simply worried that in your desire to give his crimes to an apt punishment, you may do things you won't be able to take back. I know I did. What Uldred did to me - and what Antoine has done to you - they're unforgivable, but it was my choices and my reactions afterwards, motivated by my misplaced sense of justice or vengeance or whatever it might have been, that I regret most. I wish that I had had someone tell me in Kirkwall that however justified my reactions were, they weren't worth destroying myself over. I'm only just now beginning to get myself back. I don't want to see you lose yourself the same way."
He took her hands in his, and she fell silent. His entreaty, and the earnestness with which he made it, affected her, and finding out the full story of his time before Kirkwall had evoked a sympathetic state of mind. That didn't negate everything she had felt before this, all the things she had wanted, and to be honest, that she still wanted, to do to Antoine. He hadn't silenced the voices that said that Antoine's actions every shred of vicious justice she could inflict upon him.
"What if you're right," he said, after seeing she wasn't ready to respond yet. "What if there is no punishment severe enough to answer what he's done? Would you destroy yourself attempting to find it anyway? I'm not saying that you should forgive him, or even that you shouldn't hate him, but I don't want you to let your decision here define who you are. It isn't worth it to give him that control over you. He isn't worth it."
She let out a long breath, still feeling conflicted, but somehow looser. The twisted knot of her thoughts wasn't untangled yet, but it had started to relax. "What would you have me do, then?" The words were whispered, and strangely, she found herself on the verge of tears as well. She wasn't entirely sure why.
In lieu of an immediate response, he reached forward and pulled her into another hug, stroking her hair as he held her close. "I'm not sure," he finally said. "They were your clan, and this is still your decision. But when you make it, I want you to think of yourself before you think of him. Give him justice, but above that, I want you to be sure you can live with yourself afterward. Don't let his vileness force you into doing something you will regret."
She nodded against his shoulder, and for a long while they simply sat together in that embrace, wine and dinner forgotten. When she finally pulled back, she managed to force a small smile. "Thank you, Cullen. I still need to think about this, but I feel better. You were right, this was something I needed to hear." Remembering what exactly he'd told her made her pause, however. "What about you? Are you alright after telling me all of this?"
The smile that crossed his face seemed far more genuine than the one she'd offered him a moment ago. "I am, but I appreciate your concern." He glanced at the basket, still mostly full of food. "Shall we finish the meal, Inquisitor?"
Hearing the title strengthened her. It was her mask, and the mask was a crutch, but right now it supported her. Yes, she would worry about whether or not she was strong enough to walk without it, but in this moment of vulnerability, she simply appreciated having something to lean against as she found her feet again. For everything else she might be, she was the Inquisitor, and she could draw herself up around that fact.
She nodded, with a smile that was slightly more real this time. "That sounds lovely, Commander."