28: Heroes (Part IV)
"Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great."
― Roger de Bussy-Rabutin
Cullen slept badly.
He tossed in his bed, awakening with tangled sheets straining against his legs. He kicked at them as he struggled to unwind himself and find a comfortable position. A mild but persistent headache assailed him.
He was long past the days when he would brace himself against the desperation that seized him in the middle of the night, a dark hunger commanding that he go to his desk's drawer and withdraw old lyrium kit in its fine wooden box for examination. The glass vial of lyrium sitting over red velvet had run dry long ago, but in the turmoil of his recovery, he'd fantasize about adding some water to the caked up residue at the bottom and swirl up just enough for use, for a quick hit… He recalled, with a pang of regret, that the last time he'd suffered severe withdrawal symptoms—and it had truly been a bad one: he'd railed at Cassandra furiously to release him from his duty— it had been Evelyn who'd cared for him, without judgment, and saw him through the worst of it to his recovery. Hers was the unwavering hand offering him relief with cool compresses to his sweat drenched forehead; hers were the fingers soothingly running through his hair as he rested his head on her lap, his chin chattering feverishly. In the evenings she would lie next to him, arms clasping him tightly and reassuringly through all the nightmares…
He looked down despondently at the empty side of his rumpled bed, briefly stroking the surface.
In the morning he awoke with a fever, his chest heaving faster than usual, and he decided he wouldn't risk any relapses. He took himself at the crack of dawn to the one person he was certain would decipher what was happening to him.
Adan removed his hand from Cullen's wrist. He settled back on the stool he had placed before the cot in the examining room and appeared to be pondering his next words.
"It's never straight forward, Commander. Each person is different…each body handles the withdrawal differently. It's not an exact science when it comes to recovery. It's not common to see the symptoms of the acute phase return so pronouncedly at this point," he concluded. "But rest assured that it isn't rare or unheard of, either."
Cullen haggardly reached for his cloak.
"Still, this isn't something that should concern you…I wouldn't discount the effects of stress…the strain of your duty on your body. It can exacerbate the usual symptoms. These are all unusual factors affecting your physiology," he explained, rising from the stool and moving towards the makeshift examining room's curtained door. "It's just…the circumstances. Yours are quite extraordinary. If I may say so, I think you are doing remarkably well. You have most definitely weathered the worst of it. These lapses just feel like greater setbacks because they are less frequent," Adan reassured him. "I can prescribe you the usual: elfroot extract—"
"That won't be necessary," Cullen interrupted.
"It may help soothe some of the nighttime symptoms."
"It makes me feel groggy in the morning. I'd rather not," he said.
Adan drew the curtain aside to reveal a partially full waiting room. He observed Ava settle a fresh kettle of water over the fire before looking around for his next patient.
"Specialist Thorne," Ava called out to a burly man sitting in the corner with a pitifully miserable expression while cupping his hand to his swollen cheek. "Master Adan will you see you now." She indicated the curtain held open by him.
Cullen crossed into the waiting room.
"Don't hesitate to return if you change your mind, Commander," he nodded helpfully. "It's a simple enough prescription to fill."
"It's my toof," Specialist Thorne mumbled intrusively, standing between the two men.
"Of course it is! You didn't listen to me last time and now I shall have to extract it!" Adan growled.
"Will it hurt?" Specialist Thorne asked apprehensively.
"Horribly!" he said indignantly.
Cullen's eyebrows went up and he stepped aside, just as Ava dashed over to them.
"Don't you fret, I have something to dull the pain during the procedure," she said kindly to the terrified Thorne. "And here is something to dull your crankiness," she said to Adan pointedly, slipping a warm cup of tea into his hands. Adan found his scowl softening into a grin. "Don't you let him scare you," she continued, giving the poor man's shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "You are in excellent hands," she winked.
She turned back to Cullen as the other two disappeared beyond the curtain. Wiping her hands hastily in a tea towel, she pointed at the entrance, where a huddled form sat, motionless.
"He arrived shortly after you entered the examining room with a message, Commander…but I am afraid he's fallen asleep since…"
Cullen felt a surge of irritation.
"Private Chauncey!" he bellowed.
Chauncey's eyes fluttered open in bewilderment, and he sprang back to his feet, unsteadily. As he swung his arm out to salute his Commander, it swiped cleanly across a stack of tins on the counter beside him. The clatter of the metallic containers crashing to the stone floor resonated loudly in Cullen's head and he winced slightly from the discomfort. Chauncey was, as usual, completely flustered. Ava and he observed as the gangly lad frantically attempted to collect all the fallen containers in one swoop, his rear very prominently bobbing in the air.
"It's all right, Private," Ava told him, "we'll take care of it later."
"What's the message?" Cullen said impatiently.
Chauncey whirled around trying to salute while still holding an armful of tins in his arms. One solitary container fell to the floor.
"Commander!" he cried out, startling the other patients in the waiting area.
Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing it soothingly.
"Urgent message for you," he gulped.
They stood in an awkward, expectant silence.
"Yes?…" Cullen urged him on meaningfully.
Ava stepped away, returning to her patient, a woman with a broken arm.
"Just that, Commander. Urgent message for you. Struthers told me to tell you to return to the armory so he could give you the message."
Cullen suppressed the urge to smirk.
"He said it was from…From somewhere that…Umm…" he paused, scratching his head, forcing himself to remember the instructions he'd been given. "I think…it was somewhere that sounded like…'Breeze?' Or was it 'freeze'?"
"Emprise?" Cullen risked, puzzled.
Chauncey pursed his lips, uncertain.
"You know," he pondered. "It might have been something like… the Wishing Hastes."
"Hissing Wastes," Cullen corrected. The throbbing ache at the back of his head grew more persistent.
"No…no…It wasn't that either…Maybe it was—"
"Let's go, Private!" he cut him off in a booming voice.
Chauncey immediately headed for the door.
Cullen hoped he could get through the day. It wasn't even mid morning yet.
Sweat trickled down his neck into his armor.
He was drenched, exhausted, and restless. He'd worked all afternoon with his soldiers, throwing himself into the sparring drills with abandon, long after official practice had ended. As dusk fell over Skyhold and the last soldiers who'd remained to observe and attempt to best their Commander went off to the barracks, he found himself at that unpleasant time of the day, confronting what would undoubtedly be another long stretch of sleepless night. He lingered fussily over his chores: collecting his equipment, sorting everything back at the armory, the quartermaster stepping carefully around him as he went about the tedious business with a determined focus. If it weren't getting dark soon, he would have gone another round against the poor dummies outside.
The meeting at the War Table that morning had been ridiculous, he thought. Neither Evelyn nor he had addressed any words to one another other than the most basic greetings… and even those had been staid and cool. If he weren't so upset, the whole situation would have been comical. Evelyn had enlisted Josephine as their messenger: she'd been charged to tell him to send the scouts further west. He reciprocated, by asking Josephine to tell Evelyn that it was an ill-advised course of action— at least until they had negotiated the establishment of a camp larger than a simple away camp. Poor Josephine had delivered all their messages for the duration of the meeting, even as they stood a mere few paces apart from each other.
Her greatest diplomatic challenge, he thought with a sour smirk.
He stared at the Main Hall's entrance as he slammed the armory door behind him. Above, the first stars of the evening had begun to glimmer in the rapidly darkening sky.
Evelyn knew all the constellations, he remembered, recalling the evenings they'd stolen away to his bedroom. Before the hole in the roof had been patched, on clear nights he'd dragged the bed beneath it so they could peer up at the sky together. He'd watch her face as she searched her memory for the different patterns, eagerly identifying them for him, her finger pointing up into the heavens, tracing outlines of animals, gods, legends, while her head rested on his shoulder. Once he'd made her laugh hard by pretending he knew them all too, and made foolish things up as he pointed. She'd played right along with him.
"That one there is the "The Commander," she teased.
"Ah! Is he in pursuit of the Mage Maiden?" he grinned.
"I don't know," she'd said.
He'd been looking up, not realizing how long she had been gazing at him. When their eyes finally met, she held his stare meaningfully.
"You don't know? Why, this is a first!" he expressed false surprise.
"When he is out in the night sky, everything pales in comparison," she'd said. "I only see him," she'd told him.
That night she'd confessed how deeply she loved him.
It was as if his heart would burst. An anguish he couldn't put words to weighed on his chest.
"Nice evening isn't it?" a low voice startled him from his stargazing reverie.
Sitting on the low stone wall by the practice ring was Bull. He had something round and reddish orange on his lap and appeared to be whittling at it with his pocket knife. He watched the Qunari carefully peel the skin off what appeared to be fruit in a tidily carved spiral. Bull then pried the fruit's fleshy center apart, splitting it into tidy halves. He offered him one, after tucking a small piece into his mouth.
"Try it. These come from northern Antiva," he explained.
Cullen hesitated, wondering what the cost of such a delicacy would be. He was in no mood to be laughed at, teased, or urged to condemn himself even more than he already had.
"Go ahead!" Bull waved the fruit towards him. "One more day and it'll go bad. The merchant buys these still green." He admired the pulpy segment in his hand. "They ripen during their trip here. By the time they reach us, they only have a day or two—tops."
Cullen finally extended his hand and took the offering, leaning stolidly against the wall. He ventured a bite and a succulent sweetness with a hint of tartness filled his mouth.
It was good, he nodded slowly.
"The ones back home are even sweeter," Bull sighed, glancing down at the fruit. "But this comes pretty damned close!" He gestured to Cullen. "Enjoy."
"Thank you," he finally said.
"So…you and I should talk," he said plainly.
"So you can heap on advice like the others?" Cullen asked suspiciously.
"No!" he interjected. "I merely want to prepare you for the inevitability of being conquered by the Qun and I am hoping the knowledge we have fruit such as this will make the transition more pleasant," he joked.
Cullen glanced at him sideways.
Bull laughed heartily.
"Relax, Cullen! I'm kidding," he said amusedly. "Kind of," he goaded him. "But…where were we?"
"If you are going to tell me to go prostrate myself before Evelyn's feet and beg for forgiveness, you'll be wasting your breath," Cullen interrupted, predicting the course of the conversation.
"Not at all," Bull continued.
Cullen crossed his arms irritatedly.
"Then what do you want to talk about?"
"Mages," he sighed. "Relationships with them can be challenging, don't you think?" He bit into another juicy segment.
"I'll say," Cullen muttered, perching himself beside him.
Chauncey...why do I like that boy wreaking havoc so much? Someone find me some Ben-Hassrath to help me understand...