Chapter Nineteen
She spends a week in her bed. The world passing around her is the only small amount of amusement that she finds between the constant pain that she shifts to avoid and the gradually declining doses of medication that makes her brain work not so well.
The six full mages, all of them, live in this one room now and she's surprised to find that the man behind all of the obnoxious snoring is Van Lowe. She spends hours, awake with her ceaseless moving, testing out her returned abilities by sending small bits of shock over to his bunk across the room to wake him every time another torrent of noise comes out of his mouth. She is coming to grips with the control needed and the templars don't even sense her bending of the Veil for these moments of hilarity.
It is on the seventh day that she tries to walk. There has been no nursemaid to keep her abed other than her own limitations, which she's coming to know so well, so it is without a doubt a poor choice to attempt this feat of strength while the room is empty for late day lessons.
Bare feet swing over the edge of her mattress and she takes a moment to steady her spinning head at the sudden movement. It passes and she breathes deeply. Her hands give her balance as they grasp the bunk above her and she's rising, finally. On shaking legs she is finally vertical. Swaying, a tentative set of toes pushes forward and she feels her weight shift.
It is too much; too much for her tired body and her cry is sharp as she falls to the flagstones beneath her. The ground is no welcoming soft landing and she can hear the crack of her elbow, her hips, and her shoulder as she lands like a sack of potatoes. "Balls!" The curse echoes in the empty room and she props herself up on an aching funny bone. Not so blasted bloody funny at all.
In the hallway, she hears the clank of armor and looks up in time to see a templar baring down on her. Her only thought is to recoil from the shining fiend but she isn't fast enough, not yet, to evade the strong hands that grasp her upper arms and pull her back to her bed.
"What in the blazes do you think you're doing, mage?" The voice is not Cullen's and she isn't sure whether this is the most disappointing thing she's heard all week, or the most relieving. "Are you trying to break some bones to go with that still healing gaping chest wound? You are far too clumsy in this weakened state." This second sentence wakes up something distant in her memory, some moment she's set aside as terrifying because the voice belongs to her least favorite templar. Ser Emic.
Now she truly tries to escape. Her hands are weak but insistent as they push at the chest plate in front of her. "Please, leave me alone. Don't hurt me."
The helm quirks to one side; those hateful eyes of his stare out at her and it makes her shiver. But, the templar takes a step back. And then another. And one more. He is far enough away now that she doesn't feel so frightened when his gauntlets rise. It is her turn to quirk her head as he removes his helm and holds it under one arm.
The face is Ser Emic's. It is the same short hair, peppered with gray. The same nose and chin and mouth that she's spent years memorizing in order to avoid. But the eyes. They are certainly not the same. They do not radiate hatred, only concern. She feels nauseous and confused; this man looks like her 'arch-nemesis' but he clearly isn't. A brother? A twin? Her brain spins with the possibility. "Who are you?"
The man smiles at her and shifts his weight, standing at attention. "Ser Etic, at your service, Enchanter Amell. I've been assigned to watch over you while you heal."
Solona doesn't know what surprises her more, the use of her title or the realization she's got a watch dog now. Neither of these things should surprise her but honestly, she hadn't been an Enchanter for more than a week before she'd been shipped off to Ostagar and Petra declines such titles. The watch dog thing, too, should be unsurprising. Off course someone is always watching her.
The disdain must show clearly in her face because Etic is clearing his throat and smiling, still. "Allow me to clarify." He waits for her slow nod before fetching a chair and pulling it up next to her bed. "After Ser Cullen's outburst it was considered prudent to keep the men who were at the epicenter of the Maleficar outbreak to themselves for a while longer. Knight Commander Greagoir requested more templars be sent, older and more well trained templars, from Chantries in the region." Her own head quirks in question; the non-verbal clue for him to continue draws a smile. "I've spent the last thirty years in Amaranthine. I tired of dirty sailors and was happy when I received the summons."
"But- " She's having hard time voicing all of the many questions she's struck with. One thought is louder than the rest. "Wait- Cullen's outburst?"
Ser Etic nodded sadly. "Yes. It appears the time he spent in his magical cell did more damage than Knight Commander Greagoir had initially thought. Ser Cullen has been confined to a solitary room and is under constant observation."
It is impossible for Solona not to think about the cell she'd been in for the first two years of her life in the Circle. Under Observation. The idea that Cullen is there, in a place like that, and alone makes her want to cry. Ser Etic sees her distress and attempts to console her with a hand on her shoulder. The metal is cold on her skin yet she doesn't jerk away. "Knight Commander Greagoir told me about the two of you."
She flushes red and her eyes flash to his face. "He wanted me to know the full ramifications of Cullen's incarceration under Uldred and the subsequent attack last week." Her gaze flash to her lap where her hands sit folded on her lap. No one was supposed to ever know about her and Cullen and yet here is one more person. First Marian and then Anders and probably the entirety of the circle by now. She sighs. She really never should have come back. "Young men and women can rarely control who they have feelings for, Enchanter Solona. It will get easier, though, once you both grow older. I promise." There's a twinkle of certainty in the older templar's eyes.
She doesn't want anything to get easier, not if it means she stops feeling. Faced with the insurmountable task of Cullen's current mental state she thinks maybe feelings are overrated anyway.
"Did your fall hurt?" She's snapped from her musings by Etic's voice and she catalogues the aches in her body for a moment before shaking her head. "Well then. How about you try once more, this time with a little help?"
She swears he has kindness and compassion in his voice and it's hard for her to equate that sort of care with a templar other than Cullen but she lets him help her off the bed and voices no complaints as his hands at her shoulders keeps her steady and upright.
centeri~!~/i/center
She is set to work not two days after her eventual escape from bed rest. Solona spends long hours in the library; there are more books off the shelves than on and it seems she has the best grasp of where everything belongs. Well, aside from Flora. She finally has a chance to meet the First Enchanter's Apprentice her first day on the job.
He starts out with a bow and then a wave of his hand. Along with these gestures he presents his full name. Florian Phineas Horatio Aldebrant, Esquire. Could she please not call him Flora? He has so many other names to choose from.
Solona is at first wary of his no nonsense attitude but warms quickly to his gruff yet humorous approach to all things language. He is primarily interested in ancient elvhan. When she mentions that she finds the dwarven language and culture fascinating they lose an afternoon comparing their two passions. When it's time for dinner she sits right next to him despite the plaintiff looks that Petra shoots her way from between Talma and Rinnoa. Petra must wait, Solona thinks. She's discussing very interesting things.
Her days go like this:
She wakes before the men are roused, if only to avoid the dirty looks Van Lowe has taken to sending her way. She's bathed and dressed and already neck deep in scrolls by the time she feels the ripple of his energy during morning classes. Etic meets her at the door to the dorms and shadows her through the halls and stairs. He is quiet, for the most part, but is more than willing to answer questions she has.
She meets up with Flora (Finn, he keeps insisting) after Etic brings her something to eat in the morning and the two of them catalogue and arrange.
She breaks for midday meal and spends a long hour eating and socializing with the young ones. Gwenella takes this time to chatter at her in Orlesian and Solona does her best to slowly acclimate the girl to speaking Fereldan. For the first weeks the other kids seemed jealous of the attention Gwenella was being given. There were a few hair pulling incidents an dtear stains on boht her robes and Petra's.
She starts teaching the other kids Orlesian (Greagoir hates it and insists that only Fereldan or Arcanum be spoken in his presence) and soon the entire table is hurling foreign insults. Flora (Finn) teaches a few elven words and suddenly the entire lot of them are singing bawdy songs from the forests while the Templars stare disapprovingly.
Lunch ends with the stiff march of armored feet and the entire magic using community is escorted back to classrooms. The rooms are clean now. Cleanish, at any rate. Solona has her own class where she relearns her fire talents while the young mages watch with wonder. There is a particular hectic instance where she'd attempted an inferno in the courtyard with the kids watching from a window.
Everything had been going well. Better than well. Fantastically and she was reveling in the scorched earth and the heat on her face. All it took was a happy giggle; a Templar hearing the wrong sort of noise. She'd been on her ass and drained of mana before Etic had a chance to say No! Everything is fine here!
She eats dinner alone. In the library. Very close to the quiet corner she'd visited first with Shuul and then with Cullen. And she tries very very hard not to think about either. She has not seen Cullen since he drove his sword through her abdomen and she doesn't think she wants to.
She brushes stray thoughts out of her mind the same way she brushes the dust of the stacks off her shoulders.
She visits Anders. Every night. For the past weeks she brings him food she's nicked from the kitchen and tells him about her day. He smiles and tries to be supportive but she knows he feels empty. Empty like she used to, after Ostagar. Many nights she still wishes she'd run off with him.
These are her days and she loves every single one of them.
Even when a stray Templar finds her alone and tries to teach her a lesson. Even when Etic is too late to save her and she spends a day hiding the bruising her magic can't quite heal. Even when the children show up to her classroom with tears in their eyes from remembered nightmares.
However, when the man who now inhabits Cullen's body appears, finally and after almost two months of her patient waiting, and breaks her heart, she understands the full ramifications of being a templar and being a mage.