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Blessed are those who stand before
The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter.
Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just.
Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.
In their blood, the Maker"s will is written.
- Canticle of Benedictions 4:10-11
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“In their blood -”
The young templar’s voice wavered. Even when his eyes were forced shut, he could see their bodies; though the last of them had been slain days ago, he could hear what their voices had become.
“
In their blood -”
His prayer shuddered and caught around his tongue, pulling at breath that he no longer had. His friends - Everyone -
He was the last one.
Gauntlets strapped to thinning and hungering hands tightened around the hilt of his sword: if he was all that was left, he must remain defiant; remain devout. He dare not even give his raw skin and straining bones reprieve by removing his armour, though it had been weeks or months since he had been without its weight. It was a symbol of order amongst this unfathomable violence, this senselessness. It was a symbol of the Maker, of swift and righteous justice. He had thought, once, that their emblem was a symbol of mercy. He knew better, now.
Every direction he turned, he could see it, swollen and looming around him at all sides. Broken shapes that used to be men lay in heaps on the floors; stacked like inhuman trophies on pikes, three at a time; hung pierced to the walls. As for him, he had no walls. No stone for privacy, to shelter behind, to be unseen. This maddening, circular cell - wherever he turned, he must see it, and they all could see him.
The irony of his prison was not lost on him, but any charm over its symbolism or wordplay was hard to appreciate when living amongst one’s own soilings and the emptied bottles of the few lyrium potions his captors had mockingly permitted him. They watched and jeered whenever he strained, parched, to find a bottle that still contained a drop; monsters wearing faces he had once trusted. That he had once helped.
Tears appeared suddenly, falling down rough and hollow cheeks, the sound of his sobs pitiful in this towering, abyssal place. Who had he to hide them from? His face was coarse: he had not shaved for weeks. He would not care, would not notice amongst the other, harsher deprivations, except that
she
kept commenting. Complementing, then mocking, then offering relief. He should take his sword and shave clean his face, cut loose his hair, scar deep across his features - anything the demon could flatter, he would ruin.
But he must stay strong. He must -
He could not weaken these walls, for all he’d tried, could not cross them. And yet, the smell of decay found its way through to him unhindered. A fresh belch erupted from a body that finally caved in on itself, the smell so sudden and violent, his empty stomach retched.
“B-Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter -”
His voice tremored in the empty tower. Would it even reach Andraste? Did she not care what had happened here?
A figure moved in the dark. The knight skittered, his legs aching and threatening to buckle as he rose. His sword clattered to the ground - he reached for it, but suddenly, it could not even be found. It was not even here.
Illusions, then
. She was back.
Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt -
He watched her: he should not, but he would meet his enemy in the eye. False elven steps picked a course over and between the fallen, the grace with which she moved as foul to him now as the staff he watched her remove and set aside as she approached. It seemed to vanish. No matter. She was no mage - she was even worse.
He went to run at his prison barrier, to beat at it and cry out, but instead, he staggered backwards and fell. His voice still came to him, but landing in filth, with no sword to grope for, his body curled inwards.
“LEAVE ME! You cannot try this! I know what you are - !”
The darkness of the tower seemed to part for her, a mist dispelled by each step. The closer she came, the wickedness he had seen, the predatory deception…it seemed to shift and fade. There was light.
The elven woman stepped towards his prison, its walls offering her no resistance. They seemed to part for her, allowing her to pass as though through air, and as she came, the light around her followed. This forgotten place, the horrors that surrounded them, all were bathed and seemed muted by her light -
Fresh tears fell. The knight struggled forwards onto his knees, shoulders shaking. It was no demon, this time - it was Andraste. It had to be. He could see her good -
“Cullen…?
“
You came
.” His voice shook, broken, a child to a mother and a man at the end of a tortured life. He spoke between sobs, joy and relief quaking what strength he had left. “You heard me. You came.”
“Of course I came.” The figure spoke gently, crouching before him. Her face was pale, like the white glow that followed her, hair dark and her face kind. The sobs shook through him all the harder at seeing her, his heart understanding a deeper, truer relief that his mind did not.
Inquisitor Lavellan looked over her shoulder and shook her head to the guard, sending them away. They were right to fetch her, but no-one need see this. She turned back to Cullen, her heart breaking for him and shaken by what she was seeing; she had not known it could take him so fully. Yet, she kept the pain from her face, speaking softly. “I’m here, Cullen. You’re safe. You’re in Skyhold, and I’m with you, and you’re safe.”
“Is -” The ex-templar looked puzzled. “Is that my name?”
The Inquisitor smiled, to mask her want to weep, and nodded. “
Yes
,” she answered adoringly. “It is. And it’s a fine name.”
With great care, slow to telegraph it, she raised a hand, extending it out slightly, but cautious. She did not know what he was seeing, or who he was seeing her as.
He did not stop her. The Inquisitor cupped her Commander’s face, thumb brushing over his cheek and the scar that crossed it, and at the contact, the pair’s faces creased and collapsed to tears. In a rush that their hearts knew, even if Cullen’s mind was clouded, they moved towards each other, hands gripping desperately to each other’s sleeves as their foreheads came together.
Cullen’s sobs sounded like the kind that had been buried for years; the cries of a man who had not been saved, and found history finally rewritten. She joined him, emptying the grief she felt every night she lay awake and heard his disturbed sleep, or watched the light leave his eyes for a moment as they talked. The grief pushed itself through them until, like a poison, it was cleansed from the wound, and then, the second wave; laughter finding its way, somehow, through streaming eyes and straining ribs.
“Maker…” Cullen uttered at last, voice low and raw, once their sorrowed joy was as spent as their grief. “I’m a fool…” His hands tightened on her arms. “Stay?” The idea of her leaving, to fetch someone, or to get away from him (Maker only knew what he might have said to her, called her) - the thought was a spike of fear too pure to face.
“All day.” She doubted he would want to spend all day in this stone side-room he’d trapped himself in, but her beloved was ruled by schedules and a fear of wasted time. “All day,” she repeated, gentle but firm, hand leaving his cheek to slide into his hair. The elf re-pressed her forehead to his for emphasis, drawing them together to drive the truth home. “Nothing else has me today.”