Dedicated to hotrod 333 for their patience (it's finally here, hope you enjoy!), and also to Prime24601 and Sakura for their ideas :)
I wanted to put Heaven's Light in with this, but couldn't quite work out to do it. So, here is possibly Disney's all-time best villain song, sung by darling Cullen. 'She', by the way, is a female mage Warden. Whom Cullen fancies. Also, the bits sung by the Chanters are the same lines sung by the priests in the film. I've translated them into English and filled them out a bit so they'll fit.
Warning: slight (and I mean very slight) adult references. Nothing remotely explicit or even that bad, but I thought I'd let you know. After all, it would have been very hard to write this without them.
Hellfire (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) - Cullen
The Chanters were kneeling before the altar, their incense wafting in front of them like a will-o'-the-wisp. Cullen watched them from the chapel doorway, his whole body tensed. He was still reeling from the horrors he had seen. Maybe reeling wasn't the word. You could forget something that made you reel. But this – no. This had invaded and plundered his mind, made so many cuts and wounds in his soul that it was now riddled with scars.
"I confess to our great Maker almighty," the priests chanted. He mimed the words with him, knowing the Chant of Clemency as well as the back of his hands. "To blessed Andraste, ever His bride. To the blessed warriors who fought the darkness. To the holy armies; to all of His saints."
Cullen made his way to the fire across the Chapel. It drew him like a flame, its warmth tender on his chilled gooseflesh, its flames licking at the grate almost subtly. Though it was another imagined warmth that had filled his mind, another illusory touch that had maddened him. Cullen shook his head, violently, as if to rid himself of thoughts of her. "Andraste, Maker's bride," he prayed, quietly. "You know I am a righteous man. Of my virtue I am justly proud," he told the flames, as if saying the words out loud would make them true.
"And to you, Maker," chorused the Chanters behind him.
"Andraste, Maker's bride," he repeated, resting his elbow on the mantle and his face against his hand. "You know I'm so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd." That wasn't gloating, he told himself. It was true. All Templars were purer than the rest. It was part of who they were.
"That I have sinned in your eyes…"
Behind Cullen's closed eyelids, he saw her. Wearing those damned robes which covered everything yet withheld nothing. Her damned eyes, her damned hair, her everything. Her figure, waltzing down the corridors with that blood mage. Her shy smile when he had congratulated her on passing her Harrowing. The smile that she only wore for him.
No. Cullen pressed his palms further in to eyes as if he could push those images from his mind. She was a Grey Warden. And worse. A mage. "Then tell me, Andraste," he begged, desperately, "why I see her dancing there. Why her smouldering eyes still scorch my soul."
That was worse. Now all he could see was the way she had looked at him when he was in his mana-fuelled prison, her face spattered with blood and those eyes filled with pity and anger and horror and, oh Maker, was that remorse – ?
"In my deepest, unclean thoughts," chanted the priests, and the part of Cullen's mind that didn't feel unravelled as a piece of old rope registered the near-foreign concept of irony.
"I feel her," he confessed, opening his eyes, hoping that the images would go away. "I see her! The sun caught in raven hair is blazing in me… out of all control."
"In my words and my deeds…"
They didn't go away. She was in the flames, fiery hair swirling about her, orange-red hands curling toward him, beckoning. "Like fire," breathed Cullen, gazing at the figure, "hellfire! This fire in my skin…" Dear Maker, he hoped this was imagination. Then again, if it wasn't, she'd be gone from his mind. "This burning desire is turning me to sin!"
She was growing. She was no longer restrained to the hearth, but she filled the wall, her flaming arms reaching out around the room. Cullen backed away from the heat she threw out, heat like the surface of the sun, heat that felt as if it would burn him as surely as her gaze.
"It's not my fault!" he cried.
"It is my fault," chanted the priests, still lost in their sermon. But their voices – sweet Andraste, their voices were so loud, so cruel, spitting judgement at him. Cullen wrapped his hands around his head, trying to block them out.
"I'm not to blame!"
"It is my fault."
"It is the mage woman!" he sobbed, the anger he had learned to nurture in his prison flaring in his gut. "The witch who sent this flame!"
"It is my most grievous fault."
"It's not my fault!"
"It is my fault."
"If in His plan, he made the demons so much stronger than a man!" he snarled, remembering the foul visions they had slipped into his mind.
"It is my most grievous fault."
Looking out from his arms, Cullen saw that the room had returned to normal. She was gone from the fire. The fire had gone from the room. The Chanters were speaking in their normal voices – muted, soft. How much of this had been the residue of those waking nightmares?
"Protect me, Andraste!" he pleaded, his rage twisting itself like a hot fist around his heart. "Don't let this siren cast her spell. Don't let her fire sear my flesh and bone!" He knew – he knew – that the moment he returned to the ground level, to Greagoir and his comrades, that he would see her. He doubted whether he would restrain himself if that was the case. Whether he would kiss her or kill her, he didn't know. But he had to know. He had to cleanse himself of this sinful infatuation once and for all. "Destroy the mage woman!" he growled, "and let her taste the fires of hell!" He faltered, his old naivety returning for a glimpse of a second. Then it hardened into cold steel, a newly-forged blade being sunk into iced water. "Or else let her be mine," he growled, "and mine alone!"
As he glowered into the fire, breathing heavily, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Spinning, reaching automatically for his sword, he saw one of the mages who had – supposedly – resisted Uldred's insanity. He was almost cowering before the Templar, a small streak of blood staining the left side of his face scarlet, as if someone had swiped a bloody tongue over the skin –
Cullen narrowed his eyes. This was her fault.
"Ser Cullen," he stammered, and Cullen was vaguely reminded of his own former idiocy. "The Wardens have left."
Cullen's brows knitted together. "What?" he breathed, incredulously.
"No longer in the tower," the young mage quivered. "They've gone. Greagoir told me to tell you…"
"But why?" Cullen asked, half to himself. The mage opened his mouth, but Cullen waved a gauntleted hand before his face before he could speak. "Never mind," he growled. "Get out."
He turned back to the fire as the mage stumbled away, nodding furiously. "I don't need her," he muttered, venomously. "I don't need her, or any of her filthy kind."
In his mind, he saw the blood mages dragging his friends into the room. Odo and Willem hadn't returned. He'd heard their screams. Now he imagined her standing among them, her laugh mutating into a bloodthirsty cackle. His hands shook as he clutched the mantle. "Hellfire!" he spat, his jaw set in hatred. "Dark fire! Now mages, it's your turn." He felt, more than saw, in his mind how his blade would feel sinking through every damned maleficar's flesh. Through hers. "You're building your pyre – submit or you will burn!"
"Maker, please have mercy," chanted the priests, approaching the end of the sermon.
"Maker," breathed Cullen, shaking his head, "have mercy on her."
"Maker, please have mercy."
"Maker, have mercy on me."
"Maker, please have mercy."
Cullen looked up from the fire, turning away and walking purposefully away from the chapel. He felt heavy, as if his soul had been turned to lead by the fire. And the lead was hot as a forge. "But they will submit," he snarled, his voice carrying through the debris cluttered stone corridor. "Or they will burn!"
-0-0-0-0-
Lyrics toward the end changed a bit, seeing as Cullen never went on any bloodthirsty, lust-fuelled rampage trying to find Amell/Surana after the Tower incident. Nope, he just turned into Meredith's lapdog. Nice one, Templar.
Author's Note - By way of writing this, I attempted to use more poetry in this chapter. The original scene is so epic, I thought a simple 'he did this and then he said this' wouldn't quite convey that. Hope it worked!
hotrod333 - glad you enjoyed, I try to keep everything varied :)
Apollo - I was thinking the same song, but I wasn't sure about characters. LOVE IT! :D
Griffindell - Glad you enjoyed! Very fulfilling fiCelt to write, I think :)
Up Next: It suddenly becomes clear that Anders will never be one of Hawke's allies.