Chapter Text
It hadn’t taken long to learn Kinloch Hold. In the month since he’d been there, it had been simple enough to remember the order of the rooms along the outer wall of each circular floor, that the enchanters slept upstairs, the apprentices downstairs, the kitchen, the dining hall, the rooftop where the mages would gaze at the stars, and the garden.
As it happened, it was in the garden where he’d first seen her dance.
He didn’t like to announce his presence. The way many of the mages seemed to freeze when they realized a Templar had entered a space they were in, particularly a Templar who wanted to be recognized, made him feel a pang of regret. He knew that many mages didn’t fully accept that the Circles and the Templars who guarded them were as much for their protection as anyone else’s, but he wished it were otherwise. Although there were some Templars who thought the mages needed to know they were being watched to prevent them from straying, it was hard for him to imagine that being ill-at-ease in their own home would inspire much trust or cooperation.
The more senior Templars just said that he’d learn.
Even so, he chose not to be obtrusive. His duty, in his mind, did not require intimidation or intrusion; he was a guardian, a protector.
The garden’s very existence seemed in defiance of the Circle. Its design was architectural; there was a stone path that wound through it like a ribbon adorned with intricately trellised archways covered in blooms, each a gradient of a single color – one that started the deepest red and paled to near-white pink, midnight blue to the palest azure, deepest violet to palest lilac, and so on. There was a “river” of cerulean blossoms that sometimes ran parallel to the path, and at one point, ran across it – a stone bridge allowed “passage” over it. It was the first time he’d seen it in full bloom, and the color of all the flora was like nothing Cullen had ever seen before. Before he could fully process it, though, he heard her.
She wore spring green robes, elegant and he had to assume quite expensive, and the fabric at the hem, knees, and elbows of the garment were smudged with near-black soil. He could see this because she was dancing along the path as she watered plants, her curls falling loose from the braid at her crown that seemed meant to keep them away from her face.
Very faintly, music was wafting over from Wutherford, the village across the narrowest strip of Lake Calenhad from Kinloch Hold, and she was singing along to the melody a bit breathlessly in a language he didn’t recognize. The song was leading her dance as she moved through the garden.
“Oh, you’ve never seen ‘er at it?” Ser Angus Fraser, the veteran knight he was relieving, said, shaking his head. “Aye, she’s an odd duck, that one. Those’re the ones you’ve got to watch.”
“Really?” Cullen said as he watched her twirl on one foot to lean over and water the fiery embrium blossoms.
“Oh, aye. It’s sweet when they’re young, but those are the ones most easily lost in the Fade; no good at resisting temptation, ones like that. An’ always mumblin’ to her knife-ear gods, too. Shame, that.”
Cullen looked at Fraser. “She’s not Andrastean?”
Cadoc snorted. “Hell, when she first got here, little muppet used to go to the chapel and just yell the names of them heathen elf gods. She’s calmed down, but she still talks to ‘em.”
Cullen looked back at her.
“Anyway, ‘bout time I ended this shift and had an ale. ‘ave a good one, Rutherford.”
“You too, Fraser,” he replied, his eyes not leaving Raina Surana as she continued her little watering dance, wondering what pagan gods she was singing to.
--
She was well on her way back to the entrance, swinging her water can, twirling when she suddenly saw him and stopped, eyes wide.
“Oh!” she burst into laughter. “Hello!”
“Good afternoon, Apprentice Surana,” he replied, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. What did he say? How did one interact with a singing, dancing mage in a garden?
They hadn’t covered this in his training.
“It is! Had you seen the garden before?” she asked, pushing a curl away from her face and leaving a smudge of dark earth on her cheek.
“Yes – well, no – that is, not like this,” he replied.
He was stammering. She was beautiful.
She was brushing the dirt from her knees, her hair curtaining her face with wild ringlets.
“It’s… nice.”
She looked up at him, blinking, then laughed.
“Nice? Well, thank you?”
He shook his head.
“Sorry, no – it’s quite nice,” he said, smiling slightly.
She laughed again. “Well, that’s an improvement, I suppose!”
He looked around at the garden, shaking his head.
“Did you do this? Is this magic?”
She shook her head.
“Me? Oh no, this has taken centuries! And this is all natural, so you don’t have to worry,” she said quickly. “Every plant, flower, tree, and fruit that grows here has a specific medicinal or alchemical purpose, so there’s nothing frivolous or silly about it. We use the herbs and roots and stems and vines and leaves all to help people or advance our research, or both!”
“Erm… thank you for the information,” he said.
She laughed again, the fingers of her free hand twisting in the sleeve of her robes. A beat. Then he said, looking it her,
“It’s good to have nice things around,” he said. “You know. To look at. Like gardens.”
Maker’s balls, Rutherford, could you be more stupid?
She looked at him sideways and laughed.
“Well, yes –” she thought about it, and nodded. “It is, though. From the first, we were only to use the garden to serve the needs of the Tower, and so at the very beginning, it was all food and medicine. Enchanter Francisco says that they tried to make it a peaceful, beautiful place from the beginning, but it was in the Blessed or Storm ages that they really started to get creative.”
She looked around at the color, the curving patterns, the design, and smiled. “I think people need color, too, you know?”
She cast her gaze up to the tower, her smile fading. “The world is small here, and there’s so much gray; it’s nice to see lovely things can live and grow here, too.”
She looked back at Cullen, then laughed at herself.
“You think I’m daft, too, I’m sure!”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not at all.”
She paused then, looking at him, and wet her lips, then laughed – it seemed almost like a nervous giggle, but he couldn’t see why she’d be nervous, so he pushed the thought aside.
“Don’t worry, you will,” she said. “I’m going to go inside and clean up, but if you want, I can come back and bore you to tears with more than you ever wanted to know about this garden!”
“Erm… that… all right,” he said lamely. Idiot.
She laughed.
“Sorry, don’t worry, I really should get to studying anyway,” she said quickly, and before he could reply, she bobbed a perfect curtsy, despite her wild hair and dirt-smudged robes.
“Have a good afternoon, Ser Cullen!” she called, already practically skipping down the path back to the tower.
“Good – good day, Apprentice Surana,” he said after her – but she was already gone.
--
It had not been her intention to peek at the Templars training. At him training.
First Enchanter Irving had sent her to the Templar training area to give Knight-Commander Greagoir a message, and she’d had to ask at least three different Templars where he was before she found him.
As it happened, he was conducting a training with the newest initiates, and as it happened, Ser Cullen Rutherford was one of them.
He wasn’t in his armor; they were fighting with fists, like in the alienage or the Denerim market, except much cleaner. And everyone looked fit and well-fed.
Particularly Ser Cullen Rutherford.
He was tall and lithe and not as broad as some of the older knights but the way his shirt clung to him, damp with sweat, showed that he was muscle and strength and she was definitely staring.
“Apprentice Surana,” she heard Knight-Commander Greagoir say impatiently, and she knew from his tone he’d noticed her staring, and now Ser Cullen Rutherford was staring at her, and she could feel the heat in her cheeks as her attention snapped instantly to the Knight-Commander.
“Yes, hello, Knight-Commander Greagoir,” she said with a slight curtsey. She swallowed. She could feel the gazes of all the Templars on her now, but especially Cullen’s.
Flames.
“Well? Did you come here for a reason, Apprentice, or is this just a social call?”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her cheeks were even hotter now.
“No – I mean, yes, I came for a reason,” she said, holding out the parchment from Irving. “The First Enchanter asked me to deliver this to you.”
With a less put-out grumble, he walked over to her.
“Can’t imagine what he wants now,” he muttered. He waved to the trainees as he unrolled the missive. “Dismissed. Go clean up.”
Then, to her, he said: “Wait here. I’ll give him his answer now.”
With that, he left the training room, as had most of the new Templars, except for Ser Cullen Rutherford, who was gathering his things. Included among them, she saw, was a book, and her eyes lit up.
“You read?” she blurted out, then thought her face was surely going to melt from her own idiocy.
“Well – yes?” he said, giving her a curious look. “Templars are provided a proper education in addition to our martial training.”
She laughed, wishing she could douse her cheeks in cold water.
“No – I mean, I know that. I just – I haven’t seen many Templars who carry books around with them.”
“Yes, well – I do enjoy reading. Military history is what is often most useful, but I find I’m interested in history and cultural studies.”
She blinked at him.
“Really?”
Now his cheeks were flushed, and she could not bear how much she loved to see it.
“Does it seem so hard to believe I might have intellectual interests?” he asked, a slight edge to his still-polite voice.
“No, no, no,” she said hurriedly, putting her hands up. “Not at all, it’s just – I haven’t met many humans who are interested in cultures other than their own, and I don’t think any Templars.”
“Well,” he said slowly, a hint of a smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. “I suppose I haven’t either, yet. But we do exist.”
The smile she gave him in return was full and bright and full of enthusiasm.
“I’m quite glad to hear it! I should love to talk to you about either sometime! Or both! I don’t know military history that well, but I’m an avid student of cultural and historical studies!”
He was beginning to really smile now, she was sure of it, but then she heard Greagoir’s voice.
“Apprentice,” he said, and she turned sharply to look at him, and curtseyed simply because of how strict he always sounded. The Knight-Commander walked over to her and handed her the parchment, re-rolled and re-sealed.
“Return this to the First Enchanter at once. Do not dally.”
“Yes, Knight-Commander,” she said, then bobbed another curtsey before she turned around. As she passed him, her back to the Knight-Commander, she gave Cullen a secret grin before she headed back toward the First Enchanter’s office.
That grin stayed with her for the rest of the afternoon.