A blush rose up on Gavin's cheeks and he shook his head, "She says that about all of the children in the family." But it was true. He was the baby out of them all, the youngest, the only child of Cullen, and a Knight who had managed to broker deals that sounded rather impressive when laid out in golden calligraphy.
"Ah, there's one from Aunt Hawke too," Gavin said before Cullen unearthed the damp envelope that smelled of fish and salt. That could only be Kirkwall.
"When shall she be beating down the doors to join us?" Cullen asked, barely bothering to open any of the mail addressed to him.
"Not for awhile. But she sends her condolences."
Cullen blinked at the idea of Hawke using such a word, "Meaning?"
"A lot of crying mixed in with memories of Mom, and you, and you and mom," Gavin wrung his hands together barely able to sit in the chair. He was built tough, so much Amell blood in him it seemed destined to happen, but inside was a soft core that rarely found the shoulder it needed to cry on. It should have been his father there to help him heal, but Cullen...he'd lost these past few months in a fugue state. Speaking to his boy about her, about the empty void left in their souls, caused his tongue to wither in his mouth. Even now all he could do was nod and try to change the subject.
"Hawke will probably bring something ragged and lice infested with her," he tipped his head towards the stacks of old furs and gifts that seemed to follow the Champion of Kirkwall.
"I don't think Uncle Anders has ever been infested with lice," Gavin said, barely able to hide the chuckle.
"You'd be surprised," Cullen admitted. He wasn't certain who would be worse to have to be trapped with -- his sister when she was in her henpecking super-mothering mode, or Anders at any point in time. Perhaps if he turned them both on each other.
He continued to sift through the letters, most notes from people he could barely remember and all with the same messages. "Sorry for your loss." "Sending you prayers and thoughts." "We lit a candle for her every night." None of them knew Lana, they barely knew him. Every prayer and thought felt as useful as a twig to feed a fire.
"I should, uh," Gavin rubbed the back of his neck, drawing Cullen's attention to whatever he was trying to avoid, "tell the palace. The King. I know I'll be returning soon, but after this much time..."
Cullen stared at the papers as he spat out, "He knows. I told him."
"You did?"
"It's," he snickered a moment at the foolish sentiment and sighed, "it's what she would have wanted." His son nodded his head a moment, still clearly in shock that his father could offer up at least that much professionalism to the King. In sifting through the letters, Cullen paused at a seal he recognized but not the address.
"What's this...?" he began, when Gavin grabbed onto it fast and yanked it away.
"Ah ha, sorry," he gasped while stuffing the letter safe under a pile, "that one's, it's for me. Didn't mean to give it to you."
"Oh..." Cullen snickered, bundling up all the letters as he put his hands behind his back in thought. "A letter from the College of Enchanters."
His son's guilty eyes darted up to him before honing back in on the desk.
"Do you two write each other often?"
Gavin winced at the old man catching on to who sent the letter, but answered with a shrug, "When we can. Our lives are very busy and there's been some...uh..."
"Son?"
"She's sent me three letters so far. The last came directly here so I'm guessing her father told her where I was, but I..." Gavin shuddered and buried his face in his hands. "I don't know what to tell her! I can't even think how to write out that Mom..." He was nearly in tears not only from grief but a gripping fear that he'd done something wrong, committed a faux pas in taking too long to write a response.
Or was it deeper than even that?
Cullen took in a long draw of a breath and sized up his son. He wasn't a young boy clinging to his legs wanting to see the 'orsies. Nor was he the gangly youth who'd blush when the wind shifted funny. He'd grown up, far from the both of them, into a man who wore duty on his sleeve. Far too much like his old man than Cullen felt was right.
"Do you and Myra see each other?" he asked.
"No," Gavin knee jerked a response, "I mean, not very often. She comes home for some holidays. And was there for her sister's wedding for a month, but..."
"You wish you could see her more?"
His son pinched into his lips, bending them at the middle into a fold while he struggled to hide away the truth in his heart. "Sometimes, because she's my friend," he spat out fast, clearly worried that Cullen might take some offense.
Stepping closer, Cullen gripped onto his son's shoulder and stared right into his eyes, "But you hope for more?"
There was a momentary nod as if it came from his heart and not his head, before the boy shook it all away. "It's foolish, it...it doesn't matter either way, because... I mean, she has her life up there with the mages and I'm devoted to the Knights. It would never..."
It would never work.
He thought that for a long time. Even as his heart beat a violent flush upon his cheeks whenever he'd steal a glance at that beautiful apprentice. Even as she pulled him into the deep roads, begging for at least a moment of bliss with him. Even when she stood bedraggled in his office in Skyhold, terrified of what came next in a sundered world. He never considered that there was a possibility with her because he was scared.
"Did I ever tell you the moment I knew I wanted to marry your mother?" Cullen asked, throwing Gavin for a loop. He stopped prying at his lips, and stared in confusion.
"N...no, I don't think so. Was it a grand action, where Mom saved your life?"
Cullen sighed, "No. Though she has saved me on numerous occasions. It was in Skyhold, we were uncertain what the future held, but were trying to make something work. I was yet attempting to find penance for my past, and I think she was as well."
He shook his head to try and stay focused while his mind slipped back to those hazy memories. "I was in a meeting in my office. So many years on I can't remember what the problem was, but I had no easy solution. While I was bickering with a few others and their varying thoughts on the matter, your mother was above in my loft silently watching.
"When the others left and I climbed the ladder to her I could see it in her eyes. She had an answer, or an opinion, or had seen something similar before. But she didn't tell me, didn't wave a hand and say 'Here's how to solve it.'
"She massaged my shoulders, the back of my neck, my head, all while talking about nothing important whatsoever. Somehow she knew exactly what I needed when even I was lost."
He could still remember the touch of her fingers plying through his curls, her lips ecstatically pinging ideas off in her lush voice, the scent of her body pressed close to his. It wasn't those memories that stung him, but the fear that one day they'd all fade from his fumbling memory no matter how hard he fought to keep them.
Coughing, Cullen tried to shake away the heavy cloak clinging to his voice. "That was it. That was when I knew I never wanted to be without her. A little moment I doubt she'd even remember, but it clung with me. How she knew me so well, and cared so much. You don't build love on the grand moments, the room filled with flowers, the serenading on a balcony. No relationship could be supported on such a lopsided foundation."
He paused in his thoughts to reach inside his shirt and grip onto her coin. Another foolish little thought; the coin wasn't important to him, but it became the most precious object in the world to her when he gave it to her and whispered the truth in his heart. "It's the little ones. This tiny moment when someone steps into your heart and seems to say 'I'm going to do all I can to protect it.'"
After so much sappiness he expected his son to sigh, but the boy was staring hard at nothing. "Okay, Dad," he nodded, seeming to take the foolish words into consideration.
It seemed so certain, it surprised Cullen, "Have you had...?" he began before turning towards the piles of parchment.
No doubt there were a few in there bearing the name Myra that had yet to be finished.
"I don't know. My life is so complicated and, and I'm not certain if..."
"Gavin," he paused, the fears that eternally sat in his brain rising up to his eyes, "I thought I could make service my life, so did your mother. We nearly lost each other twice over. We did lose a decade because we were so focused on why it wouldn't work."
"Dad?"
"Instead of coming up with all the reasons why it wouldn't, focus on how to make it happen."
Gavin thumbed through the stacks of letters, his lips contemplative while he stared through nothing. No doubt there were good reasons that an attempted relationship between them would fail. Same as the ridiculous idea of a templar daring to let himself fall in love with a mage. Or a king with an elven bodyguard. Sometimes the risk was worth it, even if the leap could still be terrifying.
After a moment, his son snickered to himself. "I thought you didn't care for her."
"What? I think Myra's a fine person. She gets all of her good qualities from her mother, mind," Cullen grumbled, causing his son to laugh and shake his head. The old man's voice softened as he whispered, "And your mom adored her. All she wanted for you was..."
"To be happy," Gavin said, "I know."
Cullen dug into his son's shoulders and said, "To not suffer the same as we did." He finished by hugging his son tight. To think, he'd once been certain he could never love the baby crying in his arms. Now he couldn't imagine a life without him.
"Uh," Gavin swiped a hand over his eyes as Cullen pulled back. "I should get some sleep. You too," he added while turning to his father. "It's a long ride out to Lake Calenhad."
Two months on and they were finally going to lay Lana to rest, to scatter her ashes where she requested. Afterwards, Gavin would be required to return to his duties in Denerim, and Cullen...Cullen would have to pick up the shattered pieces and try to form something of a life out of the remains.
Nodding at the wisdom in Gavin's words, Cullen moved towards the door. He'd see him come morning, and they'd have a long ride towards the old boats. It'd give him a chance to talk with his boy, to try and repair what grief nearly destroyed. But, for now, they both needed rest.
"Sleep well, son."
Gavin turned from his words stretched out on the desk and he smiled a moment, "You too, Dad."
By the time he stumbled into his bedroom, Cullen felt weary beyond his years -- as if someone laid all the rocks at the bottom of the ocean upon his soul. His eyes darted over to the bed, and the emptiness rose from its pit in the middle of his chest. He'd kept thinking about replacing the headboard over the years, his carpentry skills increased dramatically from the first big project. But Lana...
She loved the damn thing, even with the crack, the poor finish, and the edges that didn't line up. Claimed it gave it character. Seemed she had a habit of falling for chipped and broken things most would toss onto the garbage heap.
Striking the flint on a fat candle that was nearing its end, he winced at the burst of light streaking across his eyes. "Maker's breath," Cullen groaned while he tugged out the chair and fell into it. "When did I get so old?"
No voice would answer, certainly not one to insist that he wasn't old but distinguished and that she has a thing for silver foxes with baggy eyes and trembling hands. He knew there wouldn't be one, but he still turned to the urn perched on the side of the desk. This wasn't his space, but hers. Even when Lana had a bad day, a really bad one, she'd still sit here writing her little notes on alchemy, or various magics, letters to her friends, and...sometimes leaving small ones tucked in the pockets of his coats as surprises. He smiled bittersweetly at how she thought nothing of him not finding one of her notes, sometimes for weeks or even months. It'd get found eventually.
This was where he'd been sleeping for two months, when exhaustion would take him. How could he even attempt being in that bed now as bereft of all the warmth and love that once held it as his heart?
"I miss you," Cullen's words stumbled unbidden from his lips, the pain raw as it clawed through the air. "Blessed Maker, there will never be a day when I don't. A moment. A breath. But you know that, don't you? You know how much you meant..."
There were many regrets in his life, enough to no doubt stretch his scroll of damnation long past the Maker's beard, but in all his failings and misdeeds there was one he knew he succeeded on. Lana. She had his heart from the first moment he thought it worth offering, and he never once wavered.
Swiping tears out of his eyes, Cullen caught the flicker of the candle reverberating off the walls of the urn. It was made out of copper. If he'd intended to keep her ashes he'd have made certain to get her a beautiful glass one, cobalt to match her favorite dresses and cloaks. With a stopper the same enchanting brown as her eyes. But she wished to return to the tower.
He wondered why, the tower to him equaled pain and misery, but it was where they met. Where she grew into the amazing woman he'd one day devote his life to. If that was where Lana wanted to rest, then so did he. Whenever that day may come.
Digging a hand into his neck, Cullen rifled through his desk. There was nothing important here, all the vital issues of the abbey passed to his son who managed to be somewhat cordial even in the depths of grief. He pawed at an old stack of books, when one that smelled of the sky, salt from the sea, and desperate hope landed in his hands. Her journal, her old journal that she left to him the first time she...died.
Lana was barely aware he kept it, usually sifting it around from one place to another when she went on a book hunt. But he didn't want to lose those few early moments when everything in life was so uncertain and it seemed about to crumble at any breath. It reminded him how fragile...how little anyone was truly promised in this world.
Tucked into the top was the letter. Her last one to him. She'd written a few in their 30+ year marriage, though rarely as he almost never left her side. Gavin kept trying to ask if Cullen read it, if it gave him some peace. But he couldn't bring himself to crack open the seal, to take that last lingering piece of her left in the world. So he stuck it in the journal and would drop the subject whenever his son asked.
"I'm being a coward, aren't I?" He swallowed the lump in his throat while his fingers tugged the corner of the envelope back and forth. "I should face it, face whatever this is." He knew what he feared, that whatever few words she left him would crack his always teetering psyche in half. This many years on since he turned from the lyrium, but even now the thirst lingered like cheap smoke caught in the drapes.
Turning to the copper urn, he stared deep into the honey eye glaring at him. With toes clenched in his boots, Cullen tugged out the envelope and slit off the seal. It struggled a moment, the wax not wanting to pop off after so many weeks attached. He drew his fingers down the back, imagining hers cupping the parchment as she selected it, put her quill to its surface, and then delicately sealed it all up. For him.
"To Cullen,
Know that in all of this world, from every rock, whispered in every tree, hidden inside every crevice, and woven into every breath there is one absolute: I have, and will always, love you."
A smile burned on his face while the tears fell like a cleansing rain. She need say no more because...because they already did. A thousand whispers, a million laughs, a billion kisses. He had her and she had him, and whatever waited for them when this life ended they'd have each other again. Of that he was certain.
Delicately folding up the letter, Cullen placed it on top of her old journal. He stripped down to little more than trousers to sleep, but left Lana's coin on his neck. The copper, long since polished to a dark ochre, pressed directly over his heart reminding him of the vows they took together in the forest with no one but the Maker watching.
Before he blew out the candle, he pressed a quick kiss to the cool edge of the urn. Sleep in peace, Lana.
For the first time since she fell ill, he stumbled over to their bed. Her side had been cleane
d, pressed and starched, but if he closed his eyes he could feel her in the room. Curled up on her side, her hair always spilling over to his pillow while she once again stole every blanket on the bed.
He'd give anything to have to fight her for them.
Closing his eyes, Cullen lay flush against his pillow, doing his best to not look over at the empty space where his heart should be.
CHAPTER SIX
Eternity
Feet stomped up the stairs, one after the other. Clomp clomp clomp. It was never ending, the beat of shoe striking stone that echoed for an eternity in this narrow staircase. Maker's breath! Cullen paused to grab onto the railing and gaze upward. His work gloves dug into the old wood while he seemed to stare into infinity itself. How long was it going to take to climb this cursed thing?
Going back was impossible. His only hope was to keep moving forward. Sweat rose on his forehead while his back and knees both screamed in agony. They were begging him to stop, to take a rest, but he needed to reach the top.
Beginning again, Cullen managed another dozen steps when he heard a loud clang. Glancing down he was surprised to find instead of his leather work boots armor circled around his shins and calves protecting them from attack. How long had it been since he wore armor? Too many years as it was a struggle to get on and off.
But now, it felt as if it fit like a glove. Warm bear fur snuggled against his cheek, the old surcoat he wore during the Inquisition days draping against his arms as he continued to walk higher.
His steps grew steady, but the climb still seemed insurmountable, as if he had to scale an entire mountain by stair alone. Still, he wasn't turning back. Not now, not ever.
Passing another step, the bear fur swiped away from his cheek. Cullen glanced down to find that the trousers he'd purchased that first day after Cassandra invited him to serve the Inquisition were now a burgundy and gold skirt. Metal encased his hips and chest, his gauntleted fingers scraping down the sword of mercy embossed over his heart.
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