Chapter Text
It was hardly an hour later when all hell broke loose.
He hadn’t realized how far Meredith had fallen – that she’d spiraled utterly into madness, that she had become far more dangerous a monster than any maleficar could hope to be.
Raina’s words rang loudly, repeatedly, in his head.
“You have no idea how sad it is to see you this way, Cullen. To see how different you’ve become from –”
“From the idiot boy in the tower who fawned over you?” he’d sneered, like a complete arse.
She’d recoiled briefly, almost as though he’d feinted at her, but then recovered to retort:
“From the kind, gentle boy in the tower I fawned over, you bloody git!”
Unpacking it was impossible - at least not while giant statues were coming to life to attack the Champion and whoever else got in the way.
He fought, then – fought as hard and as bloody as he ever had against Meredith and the monsters she’d created. He led the Templars, fought side by side with the Champion and her companions – warriors, rogues, apostates –
And her.
He almost didn’t recognize her at first – her wild curls were bound into a braid that wound about her head, keeping her hair tight to her scalp and difficult to use against her. She also wasn’t wearing her Warden robes – instead she was dressed like a Dalish mage, fur pauldrons, leather cut low, high boots, bare toes.
She looked fierce and wild and like nothing he’d seen, and she was blood-soaked, wounded, gashes on her arms, red blooming from one in her middle, and casting, hands swirling above her head as she gathered a storm to unleash on the beasts before them. Her concentration was absolute, and she was paying no mind to the lyrium statue approaching her from behind, weapon raised.
He impaled it with his own sword, and the scream it released was something he was sure even the Black City couldn’t have produced.
It fought like a darkspawn possessed by a demon, or some other amalgamation of the worst of the world, but he gave no quarter; there was only this now, the fight, the relentless press. He swallowed a lyrium potion and felt the power swell within him; he sensed her, at his flank now, still weaving her spell, swaying; he could feel the energy, the mana, crackling in the air.
The statue came at him just as brutally, just as mercilessly; slashed wildly.
He dodged, leaning backward, and it caught his lip before he shifted his weight into his own swing, his blade slicing down into its shoulder, its other arm arcing toward him just before lightning struck it and five others like it simultaneously, taking down three of them, including the one that had just sliced his face.
He looked immediately toward her; the Hero of Ferelden gave him a wry, weak smile and a half-hearted salute before she collapsed.
There was no thinking as he closed the distance between them, cutting down a burnt, shambling statue, then knelt next to her, slid his arms under her shoulders and knees, then lifted her up to carry her away from the fray.
She was lighter than he remembered; he’d carried her to her room after she’d survived her Harrowing, and he remembered being surprised even then at how little of her there was. But now, after eight years of training and battles and rigor for them both, how could she feel so much more deceptively fragile?
At the edges of the fight, he laid her down as gently as he could on the flagstones in the courtyard and pulled off his gauntlets. Finding her wounds was a challenge at first because every layer of her robes was so soaked in blood, but he shifted the leather, cloth, and fur, working swiftly and silently. His internal panic was belied by the practiced efficiency with which he applied battlefield first aid; the moments it took for her to open her eyes felt like an eternity, but they were few enough indeed.
She blinked a few times, her eyes unfocused for a moment; as she came to awareness and looked at his face, her gaze soft, a smile as sweet and unguarded as if it were ten years ago curved her lips for just a moment before her gaze fell to his mouth. Her expression turned distressed and confused, and before he knew it, slender, nimble fingers were at his lips; it stung, and he did not move.
“Cullen?” she said, her voice groggy. “Your face –” she moved to sit up, and he put his bare hand to her shoulder to prevent her.
“I’m fine,” he told her, and tasted blood. “You fell in battle; give yourself a moment.”
She frowned fiercely at him, blinking, then squinting. Her attempt at batting his hand away was weak; she’d lost a lot of blood.
“Cullen,” she uttered, sounding more peevish than fierce as she batted at his hand again. “I just want to sit up; these stones… are murder on my back.”
He frowned at her but tried to be as gentle as possible as he helped her. She leaned heavily against him, and so he shifted to try to make her more comfortable against his armor.
Of course, she took this opportunity to examine his wound more closely, immediately lifting her fingers to it again and murmuring an incantation before he could protest.
His flesh burned as the spell knit it back together.
“…Sorry,” she said with just a slight slur. “A bit wrecked at the moment… and healing spells… were never my strongest suit… but it should help…”
He scowled at her.
“You should be saving your mana for yourself – you’re still near dead.”
She grinned at him almost drunkenly.
“So I am,” she agreed amiably. “Haven’t got a spare healing potion, have you?”
He huffed in some combination of exasperation and amusement. The battle raged on within earshot, he had to get back to it, he was covered in her blood, and of course, she made jokes.
“I do,” he said, pulling one from his belt.
“You sure?” she said, looking at him suspiciously. “Don’t want … your last one.”
He shook his head as he uncorked it with his teeth.
“Drink it,” he responded brusquely as he put it to her lips. She smiled at him, looking up at him the entire time with those huge, luminous eyes as she drank, the color already returning to her cheeks. It was with much more conviction that she put her fingers to his lips then, turning his face first this way, then that.
“It’ll do until you can get to a proper healer,” she said. “I’d give it another shot, but I ought to save my mana for the demon-possessed statues out there, I suppose.”
She gave him a half-smile as she started to get up; he immediately got to his own feet, helping her up with him. When they were both standing, it was too close, and there was too much else happening, and she touched his face once more.
“Make sure you get it looked at by a proper healer,” she told him with a squint. “Otherwise it’ll scar, and we can’t compromise that pretty face of yours, can we?”
His lips parted and he blinked at her as she quickly straightened her robes, checked her pack, then put her hand on his chest.
“Be well, Cullen,” she said with a half-smile. “And thank you.”
Before he could gather even one syllable, she was sprinting off toward the battlefield, scooping up her fallen staff without missing a beat and diving back into the fray.
He followed, but lost track of her in the chaos; he heard from Aveline the next day that after the battle, she and Carver Hawke had had to depart immediately in order to have any chance of catching up to her command on its way to Weisshaupt.
He did not go to see another healer about his lip.