A/N: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed — keep 'em coming, please! It's the only payment I get!
Cullen came back from the Chantry with a face so grim and forbidding that even Killeen felt that discretion might be the better part of valour, just this once.
She turned her attention back to the soldiers drilling in front of them. "No, not like that, Farrah! Up and under, look —" She seized the man's arm, guided it through the thrust with herself as the target. "There. Ribcages are more durable than you think."
"Yes, ser," he said, nodding.
Killeen let him go back to practising it. She was glancing around for someone else who needed correction, and Maker knows I won't need to look far with this lot, when Cullen spoke.
Not to her. To all of them.
"Form up, two lines, face to face!"
They scrambled to do as he ordered. Killeen took two long strides to reach Cullen's side. "You're taking this one?"
The look he gave her was as cold as the ice on the lake behind them. "From the looks of them, I'm hardly likely to do any worse."
Usually, Killeen could joke or tease or flat-out bully him out of his darker moods, but she recognised the signs. There was only one way to handle Cullen in this particular variant of foul temper.
"Yes, ser," she said crisply, and jogged to grab her own sword and shield and join the lines.
Even Killeen was panting and blinking sweat out of her eyes by the time Cullen finished putting them through their paces. Some of the newer recruits, without the years of conditioning she had, were retching and coughing, wobbling on their feet. In clipped, precise words, the Commander told him exactly what he thought of them, of their technique, their endurance, their dedication, and their likelihood of doing the Inquisition any good when faced with a real foe.
The words stung, even not directed at her. Maker's balls, man, they're doing their best, and their best isn't all that bad for a bunch of farmers and weavers and Maker-knows what else who haven't had a sword in their hand before this month unless it was a wooden one and they were playing at Grey Wardens with their children! Near her, someone began crying, the soft humiliated snivelling of a man who, if Killeen had any experience to know, would be turning in shield and sword by the end of the day.
And Cullen showed no sign of stopping.
Killeen sighed a little, closed her eyes. I really, really don't want to do this.
I really, really am going to have to.
She opened her eyes, and pitched her voice to reach not just the men and women near her, but Cullen as well. "Looks like someone had a tiff with his lady-love."
Shocked silence, nervous titters, and Cullen's face white with anger, lips tight, eyes blazing. "I beg your pardon, Hanmount?"
"I said, Commander, that just because you can't get your ashes hauled is no reason to take it out on us."
"Step forward!" he snapped.
Killeen did, just slow enough to be slightly insubordinate. "Am I on report?"
"What do you think?"
"I think that being camped in a frozen wasteland a couple of miles from a giant, demon-spewing hole in the sky makes latrine duty seem a bit tame, to be honest, ser." Every one of these poor bastards volunteered to be first in line when all the terrors of the Fade come howling down that hill, Commander, and you by-the-Maker know it.
"Since you're so confident we've done enough practice," Cullen said, "why don't you demonstrate? Guard yourself."
It was barely enough warning to get her shield up, but Killeen had been half-expecting it, knew very well the sight of Cullen Rutherford with a burning need to hit something that would hit back and no target in easy reach. His first blow skidded off her shield and then she was leaping back as the soldiers scattered, getting as much space between them as she could.
They'd sparred before, sparred hard before, and fought side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder in more fights than she could easily count. She knew every move he had, and knew the counter to them.
Of course, she thought, circling to the left, the reverse is also true.
And he had reach and height and weight on her and, on a good day, speed.
Killeen kept her distance, knowing the only hope she had of avoiding a complete drubbing was to not let him close with her where he could use the advantage of his size to hammer her down. If she could keep him moving until he started to tire … but then, he's only been watching us run through our paces for the last hour.
Likely, she'd tire long before he did.
This is going to hurt.
And then he was on her, moving too fast for her to duck away on the slippery, half-frozen mud of the training ground. They traded blows, and Cullen's landed on her shield with a force that sent shock-waves to her shoulder. He wasn't holding back. Can't take too many more of those.
He knew she'd never lock shields with him, not against an opponent bigger and heavier, and so that was exactly what Killeen did, leveraging that half-second of surprise and a moment's decent footing into a thump and heave that got him off her and let her circle away again.
She sucked air, raised her voice. "Who's keeping the book?"
A woman's hesitant voice. "Me, ser."
"What odds on me?"
"Uh …" The woman cleared her throat. "Seven to one. Uh, against. Ser."
"Fuck the lot of you for disloyal bastards," Killeen said. "Two silver on myself."
Cullen came forward again. "Over confidence has always been your problem." As Killeen moved to the right to avoid him he changed direction smoothly without even a flicker in his eyes or a pause in his words to warn her, brought his sword around in a low sweep that would have broken her ankles had it landed.
She jumped over it, unable to leap back without a clear idea of what the surface was like behind her, and Cullen was on her again, one two three hard blows on her shield. She got him in the thigh in exchange, sword clanging off his armour, saw the flinch in his eyes as the force of it drove the cuisse into the flesh beneath, then let her shield drop from an arm gone numb and limp, lunged forward, and head-butted him in the face.
Then they were both on the ground, Cullen's nose streaming blood, Killeen doing her best to keep her weight on his sword arm and Cullen scrabbling for purchase in the snow to heave her off. The slippery conditions were in her favour, now, though, and she wasn't about to let him flip them over. She hammered with her sword hilt at the point of his shoulder where his pauldron met the cuirass, the weak point where the lacing was all that kept the metal plates together, once, twice, felt it give as Cullen buffeted her in the side of her head with his shield, managed one more blow and found herself thrown off him.
Rolled, rolled, came to her feet and spun to face him.
His sword arm was hanging limp and as Killeen watched he threw his own shield aside and switched his sword to his left hand.
Her ears were ringing. His nose was bleeding. They were both down to swords, but although Cullen was almost as good with his off-hand, it was still almost.
They were both cautious now, circling, feinting.
"Odds?" Killeen called.
"Four to one," the bookmaker answered. "Against."
"You're breaking my heart, the lot of you."
Cullen worked his right arm, flexing that hand. He'll have feeling back soon, Killeen thought, knowing from experience just how it felt to take a blow at that point of the shoulder-joint. And then I'm done.
Finish it fast.
Not much chance, but her best.
She went in low, from the right. Swords met, clanged, grated, and they were face to face, her lesser strength pitted against his weaker side.
"So," Killeen said softly, "any idea on how we get out of this?"
An answering spark in his eyes, thank the Maker. Cullen kept his voice low as well. "You always did neglect to plan your withdrawals."
"Funny, I said the same thing in my last letter to Jean."
His lips twitched. "You could slip on the ice."
"You could slip on the ice," Killeen retorted, and let his sword slide off hers, ducking around and behind him.
Cullen spun fast to face her and they closed with each other again. "One of us has to lose."
"And then they all see that one us can lose," Killeen said. She tried for another head-butt but he was wise to it now.
"So?"
"Give me three feet clearance."
She set her feet and heaved, and he gave way, stepping back. Killeen did the same, lowering her sword. "All right, Commander, you win," she said loudly and clearly. "You clearly are getting your ashes hauled." A beat, as his cheeks flamed red. "Otherwise your right arm would be a lot stronger." A single, shocked guffaw from the onlookers. Killeen made a fist, posed like a strongman in a travelling fair. "Like mine, for example."
And then they were all laughing, Cullen included, laughing hard enough to let his sword tip drift to the ground. Killeen held the pose a moment longer, turning on the spot as if to let them all admire the size of her bicep, and then let her arm drop. "All right, you lot, don't think I'll forget how little faith you had in me, clean your gear, get some lunch, back here in forty, that should give you time to work on your own grip if you're so inclined and can find any privacy in this festering hole. Move it."
They scattered. Killeen worked her left shoulder, grimaced, and went to collect her shield.
Cullen collected and racked his own, and then walked away from the training ground to a clear patch of snow. Killeen joined him as he scooped up a handful and pressed it to his face.
"Let me see," she said.
He took his hand away. "Broken?"
"Nah, you're still pretty."
"And you're still insubordinate." He put the snow back to his nose.
"Yeah." She worked her shoulder again. "Sorry about that. It is my job, though, you know."
"To save my soldiers from me?"
To save you from yourself, she thought, but only shrugged, and winced at the pain the movement brought. "Something like that."
"Well," Cullen said, changing the snow for a fresh handful. "Thanks."
"So what happened?" Killeen asked.
He didn't pretend not to know what she meant. "She's gone to Redcliffe Castle. To ask the Magister for the mages."
"It's a trap," Killeen said flatly.
"It is. She knows it is. She's going to spring it."
"You spring traps by standing well back and using a long stick," Killeen said. "Not by sticking your head in them."
"I know."
"And what about the Templars?"
"I know." He sighed. "It's only natural, that she wouldn't trust them, after … everything that's happened. Kirkwall, the abuses there, the Rite of Annulment being used in so many places once the Rebellion started … how can a mage trust a Templar now, after all that?"
Killeen looked up at him, his eyes sad now instead of cold, and brought up the idea of friend, of good friend, like a shield between what she felt and what she was about to say. "She trusts you, Cullen."
"If she did that, she wouldn't have gone to Redcliffe Castle."
"Do you trust me?"
The question startled him. "Of course!"
"And you remember how you said you were leaving Kirkwall and heading off to Haven? And I said it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard and you should on no account consider it for an instant and two days later we were both on that Maker-forsaken boat?"
He grinned. "I remember you hanging over the side and cursing until the sailors blushed."
"And I remember you trying to piss off the bow without checking the direction of the wind, too," Killeen said, "but let's not dwell on details. What I mean is, you trusted me and then went and did the opposite of what I said you should." It hurt, despite the shield, the way the blows he'd rained on her earlier had jarred her whole body, but she said it anyway. "She trusts you. She's just being an idiot. It happens, even to Heralds."
"She'll still be a mage. And I'll still be —"
Another blow, on the same place the others had already bruised. "An ex-Templar."
Cullen let the handful of snow drop. "Still bleeding?"
Killeen studied his face, for longer than she needed to, because here was an excuse to look her fill and Maker knows, I deserve it after what a good bloody friend I'm being. The hint of blond stubble on his cheeks, slightly darker than the gold of his hair; the fine scar that cut up through his beautiful lip; the warm amber of his eyes.
"No," she said at last. "No, you're —" Gorgeous. Glorious. "Fine."
He smiled down at her, and her heart stopped, stammered, started beating again with a painful little limp. "You have a hard head."
I wish I had a hard heart. "And you're a hard-arse. Also, an idiot. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel."
"No." He shook his head and started back toward the tents. "That would be …"
Killeen followed. "If you say inappropriate I will break your nose."
His voice was almost inaudible. "I've got nothing to offer her."
That he could think, that the Herald could have let him think, that he was nothing, was almost more than Killeen could stand. I will kick her pert little Andraste blessed backside from here to Denerim if she doesn't treat him right, and just let her try any of those fancy magic tricks of hers on me.
She caught his arm, forced him to stop and face her. "Cullen. She could be dead tomorrow. You could be dead tomorrow. There's a hole in the sky leading straight to the Fade. The world is, most probably, ending. Do you really think the Herald is going to care whether you're going to inherit some mouldy pile of stone in Armpit, North Crestwood in the future we're probably not going to live long enough to see?"
He sighed. "No. She's not … she's not like that, anyway."
"Then tell her, Cullen. At least hint a little. Pick her some flowers."
His eyes widened. "I can't be seen picking flowers! I'm the Commander of the Inquisition."
Blow upon blow upon bruise over bruise. "Fine. I'll pick the flowers. You'll give them to her. Or —" She let go of his arm, jabbed one finger at his chest. "Or I'll take that cloak while you're sleeping and burn it, don't think I won't."
Cullen laughed. "All right. For the sake of my sartorial dignity, if nothing else."
Killeen started walking toward the tents again, tossing back over her shoulder as he followed: "If you think that monstrosity adds to your dignity, then let me be the first to inform you how mistaken you are."
He caught up with her. "Jealousy does not become you."
And how well I know it. Any reply caught in her throat.
"Kill." Cullen touched her shoulder. "You're a good friend. Better than I deserve."
The shield splintered. The blow went straight to her heart.