This is my first posting here - so I hope I don't do something wrong. I finished the game for the second time and was completely unwilling to let the story go. It's a romance (female inquisitor / Cullen) but it's also an adventure in which I am going in search of the lore of our mysterious elven antagonist, and exploring the friendships of the Inner Circle. Comments are appreciated!
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Aftermath, Chapter 1 - Beneath the Scars
It was a familiar view - the landscape that managed to dwarf even the massive walls of Skyhold. Savala hadn't realized how late the party had drawn on, until the pools of purple and deepest navy at the base of the mountains began to shift to lavenders and blues. The scar still hung suspended in the sky, and she wondered if it always would. Today, at least, with Corypheus defeated, it was no longer a boiling vortex. It still managed to squeeze her heart, with innumerable feelings, as though the brushed shades of green across the clouds were a portent of some kind.
Hands touched her shoulders, and she leaned tiredly back against his body. Those hands slid down her arms, then snaked around her waist, holding her close. She wished not for the first time that she could feel his warmth against her, rather than the cold steel of his formal commander's attire, but she made due with the heat of his breath against her neck. "I don't know what happens now," he'd said.
"Neither do I," she responded then, an answer delayed by the sky and the mystery it held. He touched his forehead to her cheek, and his lips briefly brushed her neck. He said nothing, only holding her for a long moment, and Savala sensed his silence was unlike hers. Not contemplative, but tense. Or afraid.
"I won't want to let you go," were the words he'd said to her that night in his quarters. This was the day, the time, he'd been talking about. The end. But he had so many more questions than she did, in that regard.
Savala shifted in his embrace, wanting to turn, and a pang flashed through her at how quickly he let her go, as though he'd been expecting her to pull away. She faced him, and he'd backed away a step, the look in his blue eyes raw, haunted by tired circles that likely reflected her own. When was the last time either of them had slept?
She closed the small distance he'd created and took his hands. The leather of the gloves was cold, absorbing the morning chill, and she squeezed them hard as she pulled him back to her. Balancing on the balls of her feet, supported by the solid steel breastplate, she caught his mouth with a kiss. Not a quick brushing of lips, but the kind she sensed he needed; deep and full of her desire for him. His own hands tightened on hers, then twisted free so that he could touch her face. His grip was hard, fingers around the back of her head, and he the kiss he returned was hard. She too, found his face with her hands, wanting to touch some part of him that wasn't the steel commander of the Inquisition's army. Days of stubble along his chin was rough human texture. His hair, usually tamed with care, had succumbed to sweat and his nervous habit of running his hands through it, and was tousled with the soft, natural curls that she only saw when she woke in his bed in the morning.
Savala broke the kiss, only to touch her lips to his chin, then his cheek, and finally his neck, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her. His breath was heavy on her neck, but his whole body was still tense. She wasn't under the illusion it was the tension of passion; they were both too tired. Too taxed to look for that kind of release. She held him for a while, searching for the words that would answer the question she knew he was either too proud or too afraid to ask.
Finally, she spoke her words softly, her lips moving against the skin under his ear. "I don't know what becomes of the Inquisitor in the world that this war has wrought. I do not know if I fade into history, or become its author. I lost the ability to control that woman's future a long time ago. She is a soldier, a figurehead, a puppet ..."
Cullen pulled away from her then, a look of hurt on his face. It was like a knife, and she caught at it before it could sink deeper in misunderstanding.
"I am speaking of the Inquisitor, Cullen. Not Savala Trevelyan."
He frowned, and leaned against the stone frame of the balcony door. "They are not the same person?"
Savala sighed, wondering if perhaps only she thought of herself this way. It was a dichotomy she had begun to assume that all rulers, commanders must adopt: an impartial entity capable of making decisions that would crush the sensitivities of the individual harbored within.
"I don't know," she said. She reached out to him, and traced his cheek with two fingers. "At Adamant, I stood beside a Commander of armies. A man who was more than a man because he had to be. Because people followed him and looked to him for courage, and direction. A man who had no time for anything else, for self sentiment, because lives ... lives he valued as his own ... required it. No leader of men worth the blood spilled at his side would be different."
The skin knit between Cullen's brows, and she saw his jaw tighten. He was remembering Adamant, she knew, and she recognized the pain in his eyes because she saw it in her own every time she looked in a mirror. He said nothing, though.
"A year ago, Cullen, I was a mage in the circle at Ostwick. I studied books and stared at the same walls day after day, serving no purpose but to further the study of knowledge. Since then, I have killed so many, and carry faces and emptied lives in my dreams and in the shadows everywhere I walk. I have carried the weight of the world on my shoulders, and the future of nations..."
He caught her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. "And you've inspired millions. Done all you sought to accomplish, Savala. You..."
A small twitch of her hand left her fingers pressed over his lips to silence him.
"The Inquisitor did that. Not Savala." She stepped closer to him, and slid her fingers very softly through his hair, which caught those strands of copper in the blue-orange dawn. "Tell me, then. Who is the man here with me now? The leader of my armies, or Cullen Rutherford?"
He closed his eyes then, and turned his head ever so slightly into her touch. "All that I am is yours," he said, so softly she almost didn't hear it. Then he opened his eyes and looked directly at her and said, with conviction, "but it is Cullen that stands before you."
Savala smiled then, and turned her face briefly into the sun, welcoming the warmth. "So you understand, then. Our fate ... that of Cullen and Savala ... is not the fate of of the Inquisitor and the Commander. How can either of us be both, and be sane?" She faced him again, and saw something that could be interpreted as hope on his face. And understanding.
"The chance to lay down the role of Inquisitor, and be simply myself, with you..." she said, now leaning her head against his chest. "... that is what has kept my soul intact. It belongs to you. No matter what happens next."
She felt his forehead touch the crown of her own. "You are far better with words than me," he whispered, then his arms closed around her.
"Is that the answer you wanted?" Savala murmured.
"More than anything," he said.
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It was much later, maybe dusk, maybe another dawn, when she finally woke. The curtains were drawn, the heavy wooden doors closed against the spectacular white cascades. She stretched, every nerve ending delighting in the feel of the soft fabric against her skin, the mattress that was so stuffed with down that she almost felt guilty at its decadence. She felt faintly hungry, but it was more of a detached recognition than a need ... she had had no appetite for days. Not since the eve of the battle with Corypheus. The food she'd picked at during Josephine's celebration had been for Josie's sake.
The hearth had gone dark, testament to being long neglected by castle attendants, which was itself unusual. Privacy in Skyhold, even for the Inquisitor, was not heard of. There was warmth though, and close by.
She rolled over and found that source. Cullen lay on his back, covered only to his waist with the thick quilts, leaving the lean muscles of his stomach and chest exposed. One arm was behind his head, his face turned away from her. For months, they'd found a way to spend their nights together whenever they found themselves both in the castle - which wasn't often enough. She did, however, know these moments well enough to know that he was awake. Shifting slightly, she slid her arm across his belly, and settled her head on his chest.
"It seems they've forgotten me already," she quipped. "Destroy an aspiring god and you should be able to light your own fires."
Her suspicions correct, she saw him grin. "Or be commander of the army, and be allowed to post guards at certain doors."
Savala pressed her face against his chest and laughed silently. "I believe that might be an abuse of power."
He rolled over then, and gathered her into him. His eyes glittered with amusement. "Or an act of graciousness. At least someone got the night off. Besides, people will enjoy the rumors. How long have we been in here?"
Savala gave him an expression of mock surprise, gray eyes wide. "And what happened to your desire for private affairs to remain private affairs, Commander?"
"There was a moment, if you recall, of clinging to one another on a ledge after you closed the breach ... in front of several thousand people. I figured it was all out the window after that. Might as well go with it. Especially since the people seemed to thoroughly enjoy the idea."
"Ah. Strategical decision." Savala affected a sage nod.
"Mmmm." He kissed her, very softly biting her bottom lip. "Morale is important."
Savala giggled softly and entangled herself further with him, one leg over his, an arm beneath his head, a hand on the small of his back, slipping down slowly to draw his hips closer to hers. "I can attest to improved morale," she purred.
Cullen's lips found hers again, kissing her deeply, and she suddenly found herself deftly maneuvered beneath him. The weight of him, the mere pressure of every contact point, took her breath away and desire washed through her, replacing all other feeling and thought. One hand slid down her side to her thigh, and he drew it toward his waist. Savala closed her eyes as his lips drifted down to her neck. Her fingers tightened around his shoulders as she awaited that savored ecstasy of their joining.
And then there was a crash at the door that seemed to stop time. They both froze, as though caught at something they shouldn't have been about, and then the sound came again. Loud and repetitive. Someone knocking, and not without urgency.
Cullen growled deeply in his throat, and like a recoiling snake he was gone from the bed, leaving Savala's heart thundering with unspent passion and surprise. She sat up, pulling the blankets to her neck, and watched as Cullen strode with a heavy step across the carpets to the door. Only at the last moment did it register.
“Cullen! Clothes!”
He didn't even pause, and Savala slapped her hand over her face, only just managing to peer over her fingers as Cullen yanked the door open.
“What?!” He snapped, standing in full glory as a soldier gaped first at his naked commander, then past him to the bed. The poor man turned a remarkable array of colors... white, red, and finally green, before he stammered out his purpose. He pointedly addressed the ceiling rather than Cullen, who glowered at him with one hand on the door.
“My lord, I … I told him that you said absolutely no... interruptions.” His eyes strayed for one moment to Savala, who tactfully kept her face covered to hide her own mix of embarrassment and amusement.
Now Cullen let go of the door and straightened, folding his arms. “And what part of that did you not understand?”
“It wasn't me, my lord. He ordered me. To summon Her Worship immediately. He said it wouldn't... wait.”
“Who is he?!”
The soldier shifted, finally looking Cullen in the face, looking mildly confused. “Lord Trevelyan, my lord. He arrived yesterday, to meet with ...”
“Tell him to ...”
Savala interrupted this by holding out a hand and calling Cullen's name. Maker, how long had they slept? “Tell him I will see him momentarily, and thank you.” The poor man bobbed his head and turned on his heel, not even bothering to avail his commander.
Cullen swung the door shut, then turned on her. “Bann Trevelyan? Here?” There was something else in his voice now besides irritability. Wariness, maybe.
“Maker, Cullen. Did you have to scandalize the poor soul? He won't sleep for a week.”
Cullen shrugged as he whisked a thick robe off a chair, something he could have done on the way to the door. He slid into it, and flashed her a smirk. “Too many games of Wicked Grace for modesty, I guess,” he said, but he didn't fool Savala. That entire scene had served, she imagined, exactly the purpose he'd wished it to.
Savala pulled the covers tighter around herself as Cullen settled on the edge of the bed. Elbows resting on his knees, he bowed his head, shoulders now stooped. 'What do you think he wants?”
“He's my father, Cullen. Capitalization, I expect.”
The man she loved looked at her, and there was no mistaking the worry in his eyes. “Is this the part where we find out what it means for you to be Savala Trevelyan?”
Savala sighed, and shifted so that she could lay her head against his shoulder.
“No,” she said. “This is where my father finds out what it means for me to be the Inquisitor.”
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