Curling a hand behind her head, he cupped the nape of her beautiful neck and began to gently sway. "I'm afraid I have no extensive training to prepare my fingers for much beyond latching onto a sword."
He expected a snort from his accidental innuendo, but Lana lifted her chin so her eyes could find his. "Are you fishing for a compliment because I thought I gave a ringing endorsement last night? I know it isn't everything we've done in the past, but..."
"Lana," he breathed deep, her head rising with his chest bringing her face closer to him, "it's enough for now. And, you're right, it can be fun to keep it simple, take our time and enjoy one another."
"I suppose," her lips turned down and her grip on him slackened without releasing. Cullen curled the back of his fingers down her soft cheek, each of his knuckles following the swoop of her lips as he waited. They were both learning to do that with each other. Taking a deep breath, Lana began, "It's that there are times I want you more than I...more than I've ever wanted anyone before. Then, boom, out of nowhere this debilitating fear rises."
"Is there anything I've done to...?"
"No," she interrupted him, her palms caressing the scruff against his cheeks, "Maker, no, you're wonderful. I can't explain it, I wish I could. I think I'm worried that that if I try my body will fail, I'll twist or break something and then...then it's all ruined. Which is stupid because in the matter of relationships, sex seemed to be the only part I ever got right."
"Lana," he tipped her head up and she gave in to him, "I understand. There was a time when I felt myself unclean for...anything, anyone I suppose. Not that I'm saying you do, nor should you. I only, I mean that...Andraste, I'm making it worse."
Shame and failure in equal measures curled up his stomach, but Lana smiled so sweetly both froze in their tracks before obliterating to dust. Taking his hands, she rose up on her strained toes and whispered, "No, you're making it so much better." With her lips parted, she kissed him sweetly and Cullen returned it with his same inelegant panache. But that seemed to make her love him even more, her tongue gently licking over her pillowy top lip from his unrestrained stubble pricking into it. After a quick smile, she wrapped her arms around his neck and rose up for another one when Detan appeared through the foyer into their sitting room.
"Ah, you are both here," she seemed agitated which threw Cullen off immediately. The elf was unflappable in nearly all matters. What could have gotten to her without a darkspawn attack upon the city?
"What is it?" Cullen asked, aware that his shoulders rose up to attention even with Lana dangling off him. Wrapping his hands around her waist, he tried to take her weight off her abused toes.
"Ser, someone has arrived who claims that she is..." Detan's steel eyes flickered down to her clipboard before darting back up, "she says that she has a relation to you that, um..."
"I'm his blighted sister," a voice cried out from behind the elf. Shoving past Detan with the same force that could get cows in line appeared a blonde woman, exactly 41 years of age, and bearing a near duplicate of his nose.
"Mia?" Cullen shouted, shaking his head to make certain he wasn't imagining this. But she remained, her arms crossed, and a fury radiating off of her that he hadn't seen since he dipped her braid in tree sap.
"Then she is your sister, as so claimed," Detan tried to get back on track.
"Yes, as I damn well told you," Mia, like most of the Rutherford clan, was not easily kowtowed by bureaucrats or titles. Maker only knew how many Grand Clerics and Mothers she thumbed her nose at in pursuit of finding him.
"What?" he struggled down a swallow, then realized he still held Lana pinned in his arms. Releasing her, she sunk to the floor, her own hands falling at her side as she glanced up at him, then back at his sister.
Detan bowed deep, "I shall leave you to get reacquainted then." She scurried out, slamming the apartment door in her wake so they knew she'd left. Maker, they must have been gossiping like mad about this down below. More than likely under the assumption that the woman pretending to be Cullen's sister was some old lover come to erupt fireballs with the new one. From the way Mia was glaring he wasn't certain which scenario was preferable.
Swallowing once, he began again, "What are you...?"
"Doing here?" she interrupted, stomping into the room. Snow scattered in her wake, cresting from the cloak bound tight against her shoulders as well as off the fur lining to her mid-calf boots. "What do you think I'm doing here. First, all we hear is that Orlais and Ferelden are plotting against the Inquisition. Okay, sounds bad but you've been through worst. I'm expecting to get a letter or two from you after the exalted council filling me in on their decision but nothing. Two months go by, then three, four. I finally send one to the Inquisitor himself and get back a very nicely worded 'Piss off' with hints of 'We don't know where he's gone off to either, stop asking.' So at this point, I'm thinking either something terrible's happened to you, or you, in your brilliant mind, have made a horrible decision."
Her burning eyes turned away from her brother to the other woman in the room. With a snort, Mia groaned, "I see now it was the latter."
"Mi," Cullen jabbed a finger at her, "this isn't what you...what even do you think?"
"What do I think?" she scoffed, her arms crossing as she gripped tight to the leather cuffs across her wrists. "It ain't that hard to think here, brother. I admit, I thought you were better than the type to run off with a pretty face but..." Mia gestured at Lana who was trying to cover her flushed face with her hands.
"For the Maker's sake," he growled, stomping over to grab onto her arm, but Mia wasn't one of the soldiers under his command. She yanked her arm out of his grip and then sneered back at him. "Let us discuss this elsewhere," he said, his hands grasping at thin air while he felt Lana melting into an embarrassed pool behind him. He wanted to join her but anger stampeded over it, the level of rage only family could stir.
"Fine," Mia hissed, she glanced once more over at Lana before succumbing to Cullen's shoving her out the door. It wasn't until they got out to the hallway that he realized he had no idea where to stick his sister. Surrounded on all sides by gossiping chantry was not a wise decision to get into a familial shouting match.
"Follow me," he snarled, leading her down the winding staircase, past a retinue of chanters prepared for the changing of the guard, and into a smaller room used for confessions of people with reasons to fear spies. He'd used it on occasion in high security meetings about the Inquisition and when talking about Lana with Leliana so no one else would overhear about the Hero. A few candelabras flickered along the wall, barely casting any light into the looming room. It offered up only a single kneeler for the confessor and a curtain should it be requested. For now it was tugged back, the kneeler slid up - no one intended to use the room.
Still...Cullen locked the door behind them, then turned to fully glower down at his sister. She, of course, returned it back with her special spin on the sneer by wrapping her fingers together and somehow cracking her knuckles by flexing them. Half a life later and the sound still drove into his teeth like a chisel. "Well, you clearly had something you needed to shout at me about," he began.
Mia stuck out her chin, but the knuckle cracking didn't stop, "Do you have any idea how worried we were? All of us waiting to hear about the conclave and then nothing. Nothing! I thought you moved past pulling this vanishing shit."
He sneered at her cursing, but didn't call attention to it, "It was complicated."
"That's what you always say. 'I can't explain because it's complicated.' What? You think all your fancy Inquisition words will fly over my head because I've never curtsied to Empresses and Kings before?"
"Andraste's tears, that's not what I meant at all. Will you stop putting words in my mouth?" he shouted back, beginning to pace back and forth to try and cool the rising temper.
"Branson was about ready to storm Skyhold itself, even called in some of the others in his co-op to assist and what do I find you doing? Not kidnapped in Val
Royeaux, not at the mercy of the Divine who won't let you take a break long enough to send a letter off to his worried family. No, you're wrapped up in the arms of a..."
"Do not finish that thought," Cullen growled, aware of what hearing her classification of Lana would do to his opinion of Mia.
She twisted her head, daring him to finish his unsaid threat, but at least she let it die. Spreading her hands, Mia stepped back from that cliff, when she chuckled, drawing his full attention. "I will give you one thing, I am surprised. She's much older than I'd have expected."
"What? You think I'm the type to run off with some twenty year old girl I'd just met?"
"You're a man, it's not beyond the realm of surprises in thedas," Mia struck back with, cockiness shoring up her words.
Cullen dug his palms into his eyes, trying to scrub them so hard that his sister would vanish. When that didn't work, he dropped them and groaned, "You do not understand."
"Oh here we--"
"And if you will give me a moment," he spoke over top of her complaints, "I will explain." Mia sneered but shut her mouth, which was a small enough miracle. "Yes, you are right, I should have sent a letter. I thought I did, but perhaps in the shuffle it was lost. There are a lot of letters moving in and out and for that I'm sorry. Believe me, I had every intention of keeping you informed."
"When was this letter written?" Mia stepped in, "Was it during your mysterious three month vanishing act where even the Inquisition had no knowledge of your whereabouts?"
Groaning at how quickly she drew across the heart of the matter, Cullen tossed his head back. "No, fine, you win that one. Great for you. I was on a mission, a highly secretive one, all right."
"To do what?"
"I can't tell you," he sighed, which earned him an even worse sneer than the time he accidentally dyed all of her scarves a putrid brown. "There are things in my life that I have to keep secret for other's sakes, all right? I'm not trying to 'pull one over' on you. It is my duty to keep them."
Surprising him, Mia uncrossed her arms and nodded her head, "All right." Before he had time to celebrate this miracle, she continued, "So was that where you found that woman? On your secretive trip you can't tell anyone, even the Inquisitor, about?"
"'The Inquisitor?' Maker, Mia, you did not ask him in person."
"You vanished, what was I supposed to do? Let you stay missing for years again?"
He folded in a bit from her chastisement, aware of the hurt his cutting off communication caused. It was awhile before her letters stopped ending with "And you damn well better answer this one." It was certain she'd be adding that postscript yet again. "Yes, the trip was where I found her. Her name is Lana, by the way."
Mia waved her hand through the air as if it didn't matter. "And let me guess, you're madly in love right, after knowing each other for a month or two," her sneering broke and she whipped her head at him. "Maker's sake, do not tell me you two are already married."
"What? No, I..." He started upon the realization that the idea did enter his mind from time to time.
"Thank Andraste for small favors," Mia sighed as if he just assured her he wasn't dying of the blight.
"Why are you acting this way? I thought..." he tried before she cut him off. There certainly was no doubt she was his sister.
"I'm acting this way because you're behaving like a love addled moron. Yes, I said it, a moron. By the void, what do you know of this girl?"
"She's thirty three, you can call her a woman," Cullen cut in.
"Thirty three...?" Mia mused in surprise before shaking her head, "That's not the point."
"What is your point, because I'm a bit hazy on it right now? Stomping in here and acting as if I've doomed half of Ferelden."
She turned the full force of a forty year old woman who was raising three daughters upon him. Cullen almost expected Mia to cluck her tongue at how he'd disappointed them and then wipe away a smudge on his cheek from her patronizing look. "I get it, okay. You're excited, happy, in the thrush of early love and all that. But...Maker's breath, Cullen, you're not exactly," she waved her hand in a circle trying to drum up the word while he glared at her, "romantic. Don't glower at me, you know it's true. How many girls have you courted in your life?"
That drew a surprised flush to his face. He never mentioned his love life in his letters, for obvious reasons. "I..."
"And then you're suddenly famous across thedas, the man who led the Inquisition's army. There are blighted songs being sung about you, and at least once a month we get a certified letter from some fancy duchess or whatever they have out here asking about your parentage and intentions."
"For the love of...they sent them to you?" he groaned, aware of the ones Josephine used to keep the holy fire of Andraste alive.
Mia nodded and her strict, no nonsense face slipped away to be replaced by one of understanding and compassion. Instinctively, Cullen gritted his teeth. She patted him on the arm, "I understand, you're catching up, having...fun."
"Andraste's tears," he sighed.
"But you need to think clearly, give yourself some time to-to weigh the consequences of your decision before you jump feet first in and find your life ruined."
"Are you bloody finished?" he spat out through clenched teeth, "Because Lana is the last person in all of thedas that will ruin my life. And no, she's not some social climbing leech attempting to use me for her own gains. She's...special, with her own standing."
"Special how?" Mia scrunched up her face, "Like a dignitary? A fancy pants soldier? What, is she some long lost Rivani princess?"
"Her family's Marcher," he sighed, "and no, not a princess, or a duchess, or a countess, or..." Cullen's tongue paused as he realized she may still technically be an arlessa. While that part of her was considered dead, the king did know the truth and wasn't he the one who bestowed noble titles? That was probably something they should figure out.
"Oh, now I get it, she's 'special' in the way that offers no proof beyond what she assures you of while spreading her--"
"Will you stop leaping to assumptions for two blighted minutes?!" he shouted, causing Mia to shrink back. Her eyes darted back and forth through the small room and she kept a grip on her arms, but something in his tone must have finally reached her.
"Very well," she spoke in a cautious voice, "she's special."
Regret at raising his voice dug into his stomach and he glanced down at his hands to find them shaking. Perfect timing for that to act up too. "Please," he gripped his hands together to hide the tremors, "Just, meet with her. Talk to her. You'll see what I mean. Whatever idea you have of her couldn't be further from the truth."
Mia's eyes danced up and down his pleading face. She grabbed onto her waning scarf and wrapped it once back around her neck before nodding, "Fine, but if I suspect anything untoward on her part I will take you home even if I have to drag your ass through the snow to do it."
Biting down a groan at her threat, Cullen gestured out of the room. "This is off to a delightful start already, how much worse could it go?"
When they returned to the apartments, he spotted Lana curled up on the divan with Honor's head in her lap. He stumbled at the picture they made, her hand gently caressing his dog before she'd lift it up to turn a page and Honor would nudge her elbow to resume the pets. "So," Cullen spoke, drawing her attention away from her reading, "this is why Honor's so insistent upon getting on the furniture."
"Ah," Lana blushed, her head dipping down, "I'm afraid I am a pushover when it comes to mabari. Especially ones that do that," she sighed, pointing at Honor who had her biggest, saddest eyes on display. "You're lucky I don't feed her cake all the time too."
"All right," Mia finished shaking off her snowy cloak upon the hook over the door and stomped into the room. He caught Lana's wary gaze at her, her body tightening. "Let us get this over with."
Cullen glared at his sister for already beginning on a sour note, before he gestured over at Lana. "This is my sister, Mia," he said, po
inting at the unimpressed woman.
"So I gathered. The eldest one, yes?" she said, and for a moment Mia's face dropped in surprise enough Cullen almost laughed at her.
"Right, and you are a special woman Cullen found in his travels to somewhere her won't talk about. Lana, I believe was the name given."
Lana's cautious eyes darted over Cullen before she dipped her head down, "I am, and I am guessing you were not told much more."
"On that you're correct, my brother can be tight lipped about anything."
"Ever try to get him to admit if he enjoys anything in Orlais? It's like bathing a cat," Lana smiled at her light jape, but Mia only frowned deeper.
"Look, I get what you want. You'll put on the sweet, charming, innocent act to try and win over the extended family. I don't much care. I'm just here to try and understand your motivation."
"My motivation?" Lana blinked, her eyes darting over to Cullen and then focusing fully on the one leading this circus.
Mia stepped forward, her knuckles cracking at an alarming rate. "Why are you with my brother? What do you intend to get from it?"
"Ah," Lana slid back deeper onto the couch and folded her hands in her lap. He expected her to insist that she was madly in love with him, or that there were no intentions beyond caring for one another. But of course, Lana wasn't an average woman by any means. She read the scene before her as only someone who'd dealt with kings and empresses could, and jumped ahead to the next part. "Cullen," she spoke directly to him, "I think you should tell her the full of it."
"Wha..." he started, "Are you certain? I thought you didn't want anyone to know beyond the few of us."
She closed her eyes and a hint of a smile lifted up her lips. When they opened, it was a calculating glare drifting through her deep browns, one he rarely saw. Watching Lana he began to get a sense for the Arlessa hidden deep inside. "If she is family, then perhaps she should know."
"Know what?" Mia interrupted, "What is going on?"
Cullen sighed, turning to his sister to try and drop the news gently, when Lana rose off the couch. While most times he couldn't take his eyes off her certain movements and dextrous body, this was a whole new woman rising to her feet. She wore a cloak of distinguish he'd never seen upon her, the kind that scattered nobility back to their castles with a wave of her fingers. Placing a hand to her chest, Lana said in an irrefutable voice, "I am the Hero of Ferelden."
My Love Page 104