Cullen and Aerowena – Chapter 6 – The Search
She had little patience for questing after the last years. The Blight had destroyed or changed so much within her, as well as the world - he just wanted peace for the remaining years. She wouldn't grow old as Wynne, but she wouldn't mark her entire life in the Circle - or solely devoted to the Grey Wardens, either. Her life would have some joy, some completion. She refused to kowtow to duty exclusively.
Once, long ago, she had dreamed of freedom from the Circle. A dream she betrayed for a feeling she had no understanding of; love. She would have done anything back then, to gain her freedom. She even would have been part of the terrible things done at the Circle, had she not been recruited by Duncan. Of that she had no doubt. Many of the mages and apprentices had begun the rebellion before she had betrayed Jowan, and she had been part of their whispered plotting. If she had stayed, become the very torturer which caused his insanity, she would have lost Cullen, irreparably. She gave her silent thanks to Duncan that she had a sliver of a chance to get what she had lost.
There wasn't much she could do if he was lost to Lyrium addiction, but if she had to use Andraste's ashes, she'd repair the damage she, and others, had caused.
The ashes…she circled her hand around the vial at her neck. At the time, she had meant to save herself from the taint, but now? She'd done enough to earn her shortened life. With the demon child writhing in Morrigan's belly, she couldn't bring herself to use the ashes. But Cullen…Cullen would be her redemption.
The real question was, however, is Cullen's hatred of mages so intense that he is lost to her forever?
It wasn't difficult to decide where to start looking. Lyrium addiction can only be satisfied in three ways; death, consumption or madness. She'd begin with a very surly little dwarf in Orzammar's dust town who once asked her to deliver his "wares" to addicts on the surface.
No longer filled with casteless, dust town was, instead, filled with just thieves, and those which fed that culture; namely addicts. It stood to reason that she'd find Cullen here or, at the very least, his supplier.
After hours of asking, and more than 500 silver paid, she found her Dwarf quarry. He was quick to deny any illegal sales or supplies. However, a few gold coins garnered her useful information: a list of his dealers above ground. Cullen wasn't anywhere in Orzammar, but she the list was enough of a start.
She spent the night in the palace, at Bhalen's request. She lay in a room with warm sheets and clean water basin wondering if Cullen slept in the cold, in his own filth. Her heart contracted.
The king had his mistress and she had watched them tonight with envy. As she lay there she angrily wiped the tears that spilled down her cheek. She'd saved the world dammit, where was her happy ending? She wasn't going to give in. She couldn't give in, not now.
A deep breath, an admonishment against self-pity, and her body gave in to sleep.
- Weisshaupt Fortress -
The fireplace warmed the room, but she shivered despite it. Servants had drawn the bath, wary of the wards, and the man behind them, at the far side of the chamber. She wanted to offer him a bath, but he had refused to speak or look at her since he was brought here, four days earlier.
Four months after she'd left Orzammar and put a bounty on him, alive, he'd been cast at her feet. She had a chamber of her own at the Weisshaupt headquarters and she'd sealed him behind several wards at the far end of it. He could see her and hear her, but that didn't mattered, as he wasn't speaking to, or looking at, her. He'd neither been interested, nor concerned, in anything she'd had to say, either.
He wasn't suffering in any way that she could see. In fact, he appeared rather healthy, physically. Mentally he was crazy as a Mabari after a darkspawn lunch.
She'd begun weaning him off the Lyrium immediately and then used the remains of Andraste's ashes to cleanse the rest. The effect was devastating. His clarity was almost instantaneous. But the effects only helped with the Lyrium addiction, not the madness that had seeped in from those nights at the tower.
Now he paced back and forth, talking to himself and randomly testing the wards. He had glared at her and called her vile names when he first set eyes on her, and then not a word or look from him since. His eyes were wild, but not with fear, with determination. The worst part was the prison she'd been forced to lock him behind was the exact same he'd suffered at Uldred's hands. The prison from which he watched his friends slaughtered; the same prison where the blood mage kept him and crept into his mind day after day. Only now she was on the other side and she could see he was thrown back to that night.
She shrugged, resigned. It was either this or the fortress prison, where rats and disease ran rampant.
She sat on the floor just opposite him and crossed her legs.
"Cullen" She was stern and remarkably steady when she spoke, "Can you hear and understand me?"
"Begone witch! I withstood you before! You'll have no hold on me! Get out of my head! And there I saw the Black City. " His voice boomed, despite the hard stone walls. "It's towers forever stain'd"
"Cullen" Her voice broke and she tried to steady it. If he felt manipulated by tears, she'd never reach him. When she had herself under control, she tried again. "Cullen, look at me"
He stopped and turned to her. His eyes were ice and then fire. He reeked of hatred and venom. "Whore! Witch! I will not bow to you. You'll not have me! Begone Demon! It's gates forever shut. Heaven has been filled with silence."
His chant became a whisper – a plea. "O Maker, hear my cry:
Guide me through the blackest nights. O Maker, hear my cry:
Guide me through the blackest nights."
Aerowena pressed her hands against her face and rubbed her cheeks with frustration. She had no idea how to get through to him at this point. Tomorrow she would force a confrontation. She placed extra wards on top of those in place so he could no longer hear, or see, her and then she climbed into her bath.
Just as before, she had one more step until she reached a goal, then another step, and another. She was weary of it all. More tears, like Orzammar.
She had fought off defeat then, but tonight she wasn't sure she could. A little self-pity was allowed after one loses everything, right?
She wept in earnest now into her drawn up knees. She wept and howled like she was unable to before the Archdemon's death. She wept for herself and Cullen and Wynn. She wept for Harrowmount, who was a good man, but a poor leader. She wept for a lost little boy and a dead little girl. She wept for beautiful, brave Hespeth betrayed by a greed and power.
She wept for all the terrible things she had done. Her body wracked with grief and pity, but she continued her lament. She wept selfishly and remorselessly, giving into self pity for the first time in her life.
When all the tears were spent and her energy sapped, she climbed into bed and slept.
He meant to kill her. This had been a mistake. She'd taken down the wards and before she could even utter a syllable, he was on her. His hands were around her neck squeezing the life from her. Her magic was useless against him and she couldn't fight him.
Funny, the world goes silent when you're about to die, she mused, as the world began to fade to black.
She clawed at the air and took great hulking breaths as the room came into focus.
"She's alive, thank the Maker"
"Foolish child! He nearly killed you!" She saw Calliana's worried face above her.
"Water", she croaked. She touched her swollen throat and tried to swallow as she sat up. The pain was incredible. It seemed even breathing was going to be difficult for a while. Frantically she looked across the room for Cullen but couldn't see him. "Can't kill him!" She tried to scream it but it came out a hoarse whisper. "Mine!" She began to climb out of bed.
Calliana sighed and pushed her back into bed. "He's not dead. He's in the dungeons below. He should be dead, by all rights!" Her finger pointed at Aerowena's nose and punctuated every word with a poke. "You put yourself at risk."
Calliana hadn't been recruited into the Grey Wardens per se; she'd marched up and demanded to join. She'd been a good friend since, although quite preachy at times. No matter, she'd put up with Leliana's preaching, she could deal with Callie's.
Aerowena nodded because it hurt to talk. She got up to get dressed and caught a disapproving look from Calliana.
"I killed an archdemon two nights after I had fought with Logain," she whispered, "and Maker knows how many Demons in the Alienage. I've been stabbed, slashed, lost a finger, and I could stand here and name what else. No one worried about me then." She huffed. "After all that, I was just pointed to the next thing I had to kill, or find, or fix. A little strangling won't scar at least. You'll not keep me from one man who at least had the decency to stop strangling me before I died." She said it in a teasing voice, but since every word from her mouth was like drinking hot fire, she wasn't sure it came out as a jest. She had no time for worry and doubt; he grew worse every day she let him be. She had to see him, disapproval or no.
"He didn't stop" Calliana spit out the last word "He was stopped. By me! I heard you thrashing about and came in to see him doing a very good job of throttling you within an inch of your life! He damn well would have finished the job too. T'was only the fact that you lived, that I allowed him to do the same. Took me and three others to get him off you and drag him to the dungeon"
"Calliana, you were at the tower, but you have no idea what was done to …"
Calliana put her hand up. "I have every idea, I saw him afterward. I saw what he did to those mages as well. I also saw him talking to himself and acting like a Lyrium addled fool. What I can't understand is why you broke no quarter from yourself, but he can go mad and you forgive it like he gave you the wrong pair of shoes."
Aerowena sighed deeply and looked at Calliana. She understood the worry and concern shaped her friend's comments, but she wasn't sure she could explain without sounding like a ninny.
"Callie, I made hard decisions while on the road. Awful, hard, terrible decisions that no human should have to make. Because there was no time to consider anything! I made deals with demons. I slew man, woman and child alike. At times I made decisions because they were the best, but I also made decisions because they were faster and easier. I made them because the blight had to be stopped above all else. But the Blight is over and it's done shaping my life."
She took a deep breath. She hadn't told anyone, save Wynn, about these choices. And one choice she kept even from her. "Callie, you're a Grey Warden now. The blight, the Grey Warden's, your country, those come first. We cannot choose what is right in the eyes of people; we have to choose what is right for the future. The Templar in you demands justice, so does the mage in me. What I have planned for Cullen gives justice, but more than that, it's the right thing for the Wardens."
"I don't have pity for Cullen. I don't have anger for him either. He broke because he had no choices, Callie. He could have given in, as the other Templars. He could have given control to the demons and mages, but he was stronger than they were. He was a hero." Her eyes pleaded with Calliana for understanding.
"Oh Wena, I'd give you the earth and moon if you just asked. You saved all our lives with your choices. It wasn't a choice I was asking you to make; it was your life I was asking you to be careful with. You're ever the one to be bold and brave, but you've no regard for the consequences your death might bring about."
It was this talk that give Aerowena the idea of how to get through to Cullen.