The road to Olver's Crossing was quiet, a few merchants making their way to the Circle for trade, they nodded acknowledgement at Cullen. Farmers' still tended the fields this far up. The threat of the Blight seemed far away. Children ran up the roads playing games.
Sunny used her sense sparingly, noting Cullen scratching at his arm whenever she did it. She felt no trouble, she wondered how Alistair and Elissa were faring, she felt nothing through the magic that bound her to the King. So they must be safe and working well with the Dalish.
They spoke on and off as they travelled. Stopping now and then to water themselves and the horse, and to eat. The night was drawing in just as they reached the village. The inn had two rooms spare and they took one each, the rooms a few doors down from each other. They ate together and Cullen seemed to want to say something, but he kept shutting his mouth and continued to eat his stew from the innkeep. Sunny pushed the meat chunks around her bowl and hunted out the vegetables.
"Do you have something to say, Cullen?" she looked into her bowl as she spoke, she had been told that she was quite intimidating by Maric when she focused her attention on others.
"I… Yes, did you want to talk about… the route we should take?" Cullen spoke carefully, they had dissolved into an argument the last time. His eyes turned down to her bowl. "Do you not like meat?" at this she picked up a chunk with her thumb and forefinger and popped it in her mouth.
"I do, just not every meal of the day. How you Fereldens do it is beyond me." Cullen chuckled at her statement. "Though you Fereldens are very broad compared to elves." she pointed at his shoulders. "And well built" her hand gripped his bicep softly, teasing the muscle underneath his cotton shirt. His breath caught in his throat. "Must be all the meat you guys eat." she said as she pulled her hand back, unaware of Cullens reaction. "Here," she slid her bowl toward Cullen. "You need this more than I do, keep your strength up, I'll just get my maps." She pushed herself up from the table with both hands groaning as she stretched, Cullens eyes roamed over her. She was still in her armour. She walked across the main room, across to the stairs and back round to her room, it was then as Cullen turned his eyes back to her bowl she had given him, that he realised the other patrons also looked back to their own tables. Not everyone saw elves as equals. Though he had no doubt she could handle herself.
She came back down a few moments later, still in her leather trousers, but in his shirt, it drowned her small figure, she had rolled the sleeves up to halfway up her forearms. Her little roll of maps in their leather wallet in her hand. As she sat back down, she placed her maps on the table in front of her, she noticed he had swapped their bowls leaving some stewed vegetables for her, and a new cup of ale. She pushed the maps toward Cullen as she smiled, picking up his bowl with a small thanks, finishing off the rest as Cullen leafed through the maps.
"These are very detailed. Did you buy these from the same cartographer?" He spoke with awe, the maps had small bodies of water, drinkable and not. Local flora and fauna locations of useful herbs and hunting grounds. Even little symbols for which towns had a healer and blacksmiths. He hadn't noticed she had gotten up to sit beside him on the bench until she spoke.
"I made them." she said with pride.
"They're exquisite. You have travelled a lot?" he said as he passed the maps back over to her.
"Thank you, I have travelled all over with the King, he asked me to make them. Here" she ran her finger along the main road that bordered Highever, "We can take the main road or we can cut through the Bannorn, through Holloway and Falconhurst." Sunny said as she ran her finger across the map. "It will be quicker but won't have as many comfortable places to stop and we don't know how bad the blight has hit it. Or bandits, though we may meet them on the main road too." her lips were pursed in thought, "maybe it would be best to follow the main road after all? I think we could handle a few bandits if necessary right?"
"Yes, I think we may be ok though, we haven't much worth taking." he nodded. Packing up her maps for her back into the leather roll she had and stretched. "I think if we turn in, we can have an early start." he stood and she followed his lead, grabbing the empty bowls and cups, placing them on the counter, thanking the innkeep and dropping some coins on the counter. He walked past his own room's door to hers, and handed her the leather roll. "Goodnight. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight Cullen" Sunny shut the door. She packed her belongings back up before blowing the candle out and settling for bed.
She was woken in the night by Cullen shouting. She immediately sent out a pulse to see if anyone was nearby, she felt Cullen was alone and most signatures weren't moving, which meant they were most likely in bed too. She got up and walked to the door, but she didn't want to overstep, he was too far away for her pulsing to ease his dreams and she couldn't work out why she wanted to help him so much anyway. She let go of the door handle and settled herself in her bed, she could feel Cullen pacing up and down his room when she lulled herself back to sleep.
She woke just before the sun had risen over the horizon, Cullen was still in his room, so she donned her armour and took herself to the small morning market, picking herself up some fruit to have with the bread they would no doubt get for breakfast, picking an extra apple for the horse. Sunny proceeded to walk around the small village just taking in the sights and people getting ready to go about their daily lives, it really seemed as though the Blight hadn't made its way this far yet, she was grateful, this village had a lot of children running around, getting ready to help out on the farms.
By the time she had made her way back to the inn and stable, readying the horse for the next leg of the journey, Cullen had come out to look for her, the bags under his eyes had told her of his night.
"Good morning Cullen, sleep well?" she chirped.
"Y-yes, thank you" but the bags under his eyes told the truth.
"Here" she gently threw the other apple at him with one hand whilst she fed the other to the horse. "Ready to make a start" and she led the horse, Cullen following behind her. They travelled quietly for half a day.
"You seem tired Cullen, why don't you ride for a while?" Sunny put her best flat voice on, keeping her eyes forward.
"I'm fine" he returned her tone.
So they travelled like this for a few days. They only had a day or two of travel left ahead of them. They had camped where they had to and stayed in inns where they could. The charming, stuttering Cullen of the first day of travel was gone and in his place was the Cullen that had met her in Redcliffe, the one that watched her with wariness.
They were travelling to Voleswood, through the wooded area, Sunny was using her sense with increasing frequency, she could tell Cullen was getting more annoyed, but she was also certain that they were now being followed, most likely bandits but being this close to Denerim was not a smart move. She thought that even with King Cailen gone, Queen Anora wouldn't ignore the plight of her people. Especially if Teyrn Loghain had returned to Denerim.
"Must you keep doing that?" Cullen bit out. "It's annoying and you are using it more frequently."
"We are being followed, bandits most likely." Sunny returned his tone and Cullens eyebrows rose in surprise. "Stay with the horse, I will go and deal with them"
"Don't be foolish. Just stay on the road. They may ignore us."
"But they might not ignore others." she stated.
They stopped and stared each other down. Cullen felt that whisper of magic against his skin again, he looked as her eyes flickered to her bow on the horse. Then her hand slowly moved to the sword at her hip. Cullens hand instinctively went for his sword too. He double took the sword on her hip, the blade pronged instead of a flat one. He just seemed to notice that she carried a sword, it wasn't every day that a mage carried a weapon and no staff. He wondered if she was any good with it. If it came to it he would protect her too. Before he could tell her to stay behind him a group of six men came out and surrounded them. Grinning at Sunny.
"Hand over any goods and the pretty little elf." a gruff man spoke.
"We don't have anything worth much on us, we are on our way to Denerim. We have exhausted most of our supplies. And she is not mine to give." Cullen gripped his sword, they had left a lot of distance between them, overconfident bandits picking on refugees. They had become complacent.
"I guess we'll just kill you and check for ourselves then." the man laughed.
Sunny had her blade drawn before Cullen registered the movement and drew his own, his hand encircling her wrist to try and pull her back behind him. To place her between him and the horse, but she rooted her feet, he couldn't move her without considerable force and that may have created an opening for them to attack.
"You're welcome to try." Sunny stepped forward, her hand moving in a come here movement. Cullen could have sworn at her. But as the leader nodded a man from behind Sunny rushed forward. With a ridiculous ease she sidestepped him without even turning to look at him spinning him round with her back pressed to his and tripped him for good measure and the bandit ate dirt.
Cullen was just as surprised as the other bandits with how she moved. As another and another made an attempt on her and she danced out of reach. And tripped them. She hadn't even swung her sword yet. A grin on her face. The bandits decided that to attack all at once was the easiest way to go. They came for both of them and though they had brute strength. They were no match for a templar trained swordsman and an elf that moved as easily as the wind does through the trees.
That was until the bulk of the bandits came through the trees whilst Sunny had one more she was fighting off. They came from Cullens side, eight more charged at them, he faced them down. He thought even he might struggle with eight of them and come out unharmed. Sunny hit the bandit in the face, breaking his nose. And turned her attention to the group running toward cullen. She raised her left hand and called up her magic, the air turning electric. Cullen turned to her at the noise of what sounded like birds chirping. To see Sunny. Her eyes alight with magic and lightning at her fingertips. He thought he had seen this spell before. It shot lightning in a wide cone, but rarely could it be directed to miss friend and hit foe. And he was in her firing line. He saw the bolt come towards him, passing over his shoulder, then the high pitched whistle, so loud his ear was still ringing when the blast of air hit his face from the force of her spell. Before splitting after him and showering the bandits, and bringing them all down. But the young bandit in front of her had regained his footing, hitting her in the stomach with his handaxe.
She stepped back clutching her stomach as Cullen came to his senses, putting the last bandit down before the bandit could take a second swipe at Sunny. Sunny fell backwards to sit down her hand covering the wound on her stomach. Cullen ran to her his hands shaking, the magic she used had shaken him, he thought he was past this feeling, he felt his stomach drop and his fists clenched, his nails biting into his palms as her magic whistled by his ear. He knelt by her side and his hand reached out for her but he couldn't make his hand close that gap, his throat constricting and his mouth dry. He couldn't get the words to leave his mouth.
Sunny called more magic, a soft soothing spell to heal herself, the wound was small, superficial, barely biting through her armour. She looked up at Cullen, his face pale as he looked at her bloodied hand.
"Don't look so stricken Cullen, it's barely a scratch." she pulled the small hole of her armour so he could see the smooth skin underneath. "See?" she took his hand that was still reaching out for her, he seemed to flinch at first, the understanding dawned on her, it was not for her that he worried, but her magic. Though he regained his composure quickly.
"Still, we should make it to the Village quickly so we can check you properly." Cullen spoke as he gripped her hand and the other held her elbow softly, pulling her gently to her feet.
"Yes, of course. Let's check if they have anything useful first though" she said as she dusted herself off. Picking through their pockets and lining them up at the side of the road. A few were just unconscious. But a couple were dead. She left the people alive alone and threw their weapons into the forest. As Cullen worked on calming the horse enough to get it to move on.
She came away with a few trinkets and most of the gold they carried. Jogging after Cullen who had already started moving down the path.