Interacting with the court of Halamshiral is like gravel against her nerves and she is tempted to banish every mask, every single feather, and sequin to the Fade. But she smiles and dances and kills and soon the subterfuge is over when she sides with Celene. The confirmed Empress insists the entire Inquisition stays for her re-coronation.
Evelyn has finally escaped the festivities, sighing in relief when Cullen falls in step at her side. They had crossed paths to deliver quick slips of information during the mission but they were firmly the Inquisitor and her Commander in those moments and she glances at him now, expecting a missive or report.
"Inquisitor," he says lightly though his posture is tense and his hands flex and release repeatedly at his side. She knows he hates this place and all the frippery that it requires. Evelyn feels suddenly absurd in her Orleasian corset and skirts. She should have never let Vivienne convince her to wear this contraption.
"I have something I would like to speak to you about," he murmurs and the fabric of his coat brushes her shoulder. She glances over again and finds that his gaze is fixed a little lower than expected and it sends her heart thudding.
"Of course, Commander."
With those words, his hand wraps around her arm and he pushes her into the nearest room, pulling the door shut. It is dark except for the low light of a small fire in a hearth, casting shadows that illuminate rows of books and soft leather chairs.
"Cullen, what-" her words die on her lips as he moves with her, his hands ushering her back towards the wall, step matched for step. His mouth is at her neck the moment her back contacts with the bookshelf, and his hand is squeezing at her bodice. She laments she can barely feel his grip through the rigid boning (misses the sharp barely-there pain that would contrast so sweetly to the kisses he is applying to her neck).
This continues for a few glorious seconds before he is dropping to his knees, and Evelyn lets out a shocked half laugh as the Commander lifts the layers of tulle and satin before disappearing under her skirt. The laugh dies as soon as it came when he mouths a kiss over her small clothes, and her hand scrabbles for purchase, knocking over a book that had been left on the shelf's edge. Large hands come up to cup and squeeze her arse while he breathes her in, his fingers hooking over the edge of fabric separating them.
"Tell me if you want me to stop."
He waits a few seconds for any protest before pulling them down and away. As a hand slides down her left leg to lift her knee over his shoulder, Evelyn can't believe he is doing this in an unlocked library of the Winter Palace where they could be discovered at any moment.
And then she feels the soft, warm swipe of his tongue driving any other cares from her mind.
Her head lolls back against the books, inhaling in deeply the smell of parchment and ink that pervades the room. It is wicked and exhilarating and she feels so bloody alive. She trembles at the sensations he is creating, her senses hyperaware. She wishes her skirts weren't in her way and she could run her fingers through the waves of his hair. And Cullen, he is relentless, his hands firmly at her hips to hold her steady while he licks her, and her fingers grip the ledge that rests against her backside. She is imagining what it would be like if he actually ever fucked her when he slides two fingers deep inside her.
And when he spreads them, it is only seconds until she comes with a quiet gasp, her heel digging into the fabric at his back.
Carefully, he lowers her shaking leg back to the ground before extracting himself from her skirts. His hair is mussed and his face flushed with dark and glittering eyes in the low light of the room. Even his previously perfect uniform is rumpled at the shoulder, the ridiculous sash Josie insisted they wear now askew. To Evelyn, he looks- Maker- she doesn't even know but she wants desperately to reciprocate in some way, to make him feel as undone as he looks.
She reaches for him... and he moves away.
There is a beat of silence where her hand remains lifted in the air between them and the joy she felt runs out of her like blood from a cut artery.
"Its because I'm a mage, isn't it?"
Something complicated flickers across his face, (regret? shame? I shouldn't care. Why did I allow myself to care?) but it only frustrates her further.
"Is that all this has been the whole time?" she asks, her voice sounding detached even to her own ears. "Playing circle mage and templar, you get to do what you want but I am not worthy to touch your person?"
His brow furrows and his lips thin, a quiet fury brewing behind his eyes. This is the look, she has learned, that comes right before he snatches a new recruit by the collar for doing something stupid or snarls at a nobleman too lazy to pull their weight.
"That is what you think of me?" he asks.
"You can't stand for me to touch you!" she accuses and he flinches at that. "What other reason is there?"
He shifts, his eyes closing as if pained before he takes a deep breath. "It's... complicated."
When he doesn't elaborate, she has to scoff. Evelyn hates this feeling, the one that tells her to go to him, to say she's sorry, and promise she won't ask again. But her pride is stronger than this weakness for him and she has to get out of this room. She steps to pass him when he reaches out, his hand snatching up her fingers.
The rage she feels is instant, burning incandescently hot, and her magic ripples under her skin, discharging a spark of electricity that is enough to make him drop his hold.
He mutters a curse, shaking out his hand, but Evelyn is out the door and hurrying down the corridor before he can call her back. She lets out a serrated breath to fight against the phantom stone that is pressing against her chest, the weight of it near suffocating.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. You're wasting time and energy on a frivolous thing when there are so many greater worries... foolish, absurd, idiotic. It was nothing. It is nothing. It will be nothing.
Lifting her left hand, she looks at the anchor and for the first time feels a bittersweet comfort in the certainty of her path.
I am the Inquisitor.
She lifts her skirts to hurry up a flight of stairs into the guest wing. Outside Cassandra's room, she takes a moment to school her face into the mask she so frequently wears and knocks.
"Get packing. We're leaving," she announces when the door opens.
"Thank the Maker," sighs the Seeker before she fixes Evelyn with a look. "Where?"
"The Exalted Plains. Celene says there are reports of the undead rising in the wake of the Civil War and she thinks it is related to the rifts."
Cassandra frowns at that but nods, and Evelyn is marching back to her room, already yanking at the laces on the corset of her dress.
She plans to immolate the damn thing at the first opportunity.
Dorian takes a seat next to her at camp, stretching out his legs in the grass and resting his back against their shared tree stump. "I have just received an interesting letter from a mutual friend of ours."
"Oh?"
"Yes. And while I do love hearing from the Commander, I do find it curious he is inquiring about your well being through me, instead of writing you directly. Especially since you surely have reason to regularly correspond with the leader of your Forces."
"I received a report today. He is asking we remain in Orlais as he may have a lead on the Red Templar base. Otherwise, his letters are as they've always been," she replies flatly and nudges a log deeper into the flames with her foot. She is telling the truth. With the exception of an occasional expression of concern (for the Inquisitor, not for Evelyn Trevelyn, of course), the Commander has always presented the image of utmost professionalism.
"Well, mine aren't," he replies dryly before continuing in a softer tone. "Come now, did something happen with you and Cullen?"
"Sometimes I disagree with my advisors and make my own decisions. He is likely annoyed I left without polling the entire war council first," she deflects with a shrug. Dorian just fixes her with an unimpressed look.
"Evelyn, I am friends with you both-"
"Stop it, Dorian," she says, suddenly fierce. "I am not Evelyn Trevelyn. I haven't been that girl in a very a long time and I cannot have the things she might have once had." She stands, mortifying tears springing to her eyes. "I am the Inquisitor, Andraste's chosen, and a mage. You know what's waiting for me. I know what is waiting for me. I should stop pretending anything otherwise."
"Fucking Fereldan Circles," mutters the man as he stands, his hand going to her shoulders. "You are not a thing. You are not a sinister force to be kept under lock and key for the comfort of others. And damn the Circles for treating you that way."
"The Inquisition is just another Circle, Dorian. My mark, just another phylactery. "
The other mage's face softens. "While that may be true, Evelyn, you have to believe there will be an after. You have to believe there is something waiting for you. And in the meantime, you have every right to ask for more from this life beyond duty and service."
Evelyn swipes at her escaped tears and nods before pulling out from underneath his hands. "Thank you, Dorian. I'm going to walk the parameter. I'll be back in time for my watch."
She ignores the frown that mars his face as she bends down to retrieve her staff and disappears into the dark of the Dalish ruins.
In a week, a missive arrives.
Inquisitor:
We tracked Samson's remaining red templars escorting a supply caravan to a hidden location in the wilderness. It could be his headquarters. I've already begun preparing a squadron of soldiers to accompany me to the rendevous in Churneau in two weeks' time.
I will debrief you there with the details in person.
Commander Cullen
She has just dismounted her horse in their camp when a messenger jogs up. "Inquisitor, the Council is waiting. I can take you to them if you are ready."
With a nod, she hands off her reigns, and she and Cassandra follow the soldier. Though she is tired and dirty from miles of road, she's learned it is best to get the difficult or unpleasant things out of the way first, and she suspects this meeting will have plenty of both.
The soldier leads them through a sea of white tents until they arrive at the central-most and pulls back the flap to allow them entry.
"Inquisitor, Seeker," greets Josie with a bow of her head. "I hope your travels find you well."
Leiliana smiles that small, enigmatic smile.
And Cullen, he is staring at the maps before him, his palms flat where he leans over the table. Seeing him again slams into Evelyn like the blow she once took from Hawke's staff and she quickly averts her eyes when he looks up.
"We are well, thank you, Josie," she manages before stepping closer to the maps, "Tell me what we're looking at here."
She recognizes their location in Northern Orlais but the topography and markers are otherwise unfamiliar to her. In her peripheral vision, she sees the Commander take a step to put himself directly opposite her.
"Our patrols spotted the caravan and the scouts tracked it North to the Shrine of Dumat."
His hand slides a marker nearly to the edge of the map. "It's a two day march from here. They'll have the high ground and a fortress so we strike at night and use the cover of darkness to hide our approach. "
Evelyn nods her agreement. Its a solid plan, but there's more the others need to know.
"Varric's source confirms red lyrium is tainted with the blight and it doesn't require ingestion to feel its effects. Cassandra and Varric barely felt anything at all, but Sera, Bull, and Blackwell became sick after a few hours of exposure."
"And you?" asks Cullen. She tries to find any censure in his question but all she hears is softness (for your position, not for you, never for you). She doesn't dare look up and instead directs her next words to Leiliana.
"Solas, Dorian, and I have gotten more resistant to the effects over time but the mages accompanying us should be warned. It's going to be difficult for them. They need to stay far behind the line."
"I brought mostly former Templars and the more seasoned mages and the healers," says Cullen who straightens in her peripheral vision.
"Good. I will leave the specifics of our approach to you, Commander. We should start preparing for departure at first light tomorrow."
She turns and leaves the tent, feeling his eyes boring into her back the entire time.