Chapter Text
Seventy-two.
Seventy-two days listening to the scuttling of rats feet and the soft mourning of neighboring prisoners. My hands behind my head, I lounge on the scratchy burlap sack that is my bed. Legs stretch out beneath me, gray and dark from ash and dirt. I know that beneath the grime is pale skin, the color of the iridescent webbing between a salamanders toes. It isn’t the cold floors that make my stay in the prison unbearable. It isn’t the lack of sunlight or the smell of ammonia that hangs in the air. It is the absolute boredom.
Without fail I have managed to spend each day entertaining myself in the same manner. Sometimes I’ll create stories in my head of how I could escape this place, how I could use the ham hock bone hidden between the bricks of my cell and lodge it in the groundskeeper’s throat. Sometimes I’ll pick at my split ends or scrape at the dirt beneath my nails. Occasionally I’ll do push-ups and planks when the guards aren’t patrolling outside my bars. It has been a highly uneventful stay. Until Cullen Rutherford walks into my cell, escorted by three guards. I rise immediately.
“Cullen.”
The Commander raises his eyes from his shackles to me. “Hawke? What are you doing here? We’ve had people searching for you for months.” A wicked-looking officer steps between us and begins to unlock Cullen’s shackles. He raises his brows at our exchange. Lovers quarrel?
“Ser Rutherford has been sentenced to an indefinite imprisonment for the tampering of official royal documents and the murder of Miss Evelyn Trevelyan. He will remain your cellmate until further judgement has been declared.” My eyes grow wide. My stomach turns. I stare at Cullen accusingly. He stares right back. The sound of shackles hitting the floor fill the silent cell and I am left alone with an accused murderer.
He takes a step toward me. “Oh don’t look at me like that. You know I would never do such a thing.” He hisses.
“She’s dead?” My throat scratches at each syllable from lack of use. I don’t know what to think. The Inquisitor and I aren’t the best of friends but she is a good woman, a strong one. She didn’t ask for the life she received, none of us do… But if she’s dead…
“No! She’s very much alive. However, as much as she is alive she is just as much missing. She disappeared last week – in an attempt to seek out Solas we think.” I watch his neck redden with shame. Well, they couldn’t keep the poor woman locked up in the war room forever.
“Then why are you convicted?” I will a cough back down my windpipe. I can’t remember the last time I voiced so many words at once.
“I was the last one who saw her. She left a note saying she was sorry. Orlesian diplomats came searching for their beloved Inquisitor and believe they are now searching for a body. To them, the dramatic types that they are, they are searching for the body of the distraught secret lover of an elven god.” Cullen shifts on his feet. He runs a hand through his hair, making the gold curls stick up funny and lets out a frustrated sigh. Suddenly, as if just now aware of my presence, he shifts his focus.
Silence fills the room and I can feel his eyes on me, taking in my appearance. I know what he sees. I know my body. My face is all bones, deep eye sockets, and dark circles. My arms are still thick with what is left of my muscle but the bones in my feet jut out as do the dark bruises against my skin. My trousers and tunic suddenly feel rough on my skin. I am not ashamed. This body is my home, it has survived this long. I will not be ashamed. Kirkwall’s Champion can rough it. Doesn’t mean I want to, though.
I narrow my eyes at the commander and turn away from him, unaffected by his judgmental stare.
“They feed us at dusk if they remember.” I sit down on my burlap sack and lean my head against the wall and look toward the ceiling. I can hear Cullen sigh and sit down on the twin sack on the other side of the cell. I take in everything around me. I am suddenly less content with the contents of this cell. I have only had two other cellmates in my time here. One, a young apostate that had tried to escape the circle, the other… Well I had only spent two evenings with him before the guards hit him in the head with a sword pommel and dragged him from his bed. I close my eyes and thumb a copper. Everything around me is abruptly harder to accept: the brick walls, the two metal buckets (one for water, the other a toilet), the bone between the bricks, the stare of a wayward commander.
Without opening my eyes I snap, “You don’t have to stare you know. I’m not going to prod you with a pitchfork in the night.” He doesn’t respond for a moment and then:
“Have you been here the whole time? Three Months?” Ah, so he had noted the time of my absence.
“Go to sleep, Cullen. I’m sure Leliana will have you free from here by the morning.” With that, I lie down on my mattress and closed my eyes.
---
I wake up to screaming. I lift my head to see Cullen at the bars of the cell door, his arms crossed over his chest as he takes in whatever chaos is ensuing down the hall. I join him cautiously. All down the hall prisoners stand at their bars to watch a woman down the hall shriek and kick out at her pursuers. The guards grab at her feet and shoulders, trying to hold her still.
“I didn’t do it, I didn’t take it! I didn’t take it!” She screams. I press my face to the iron bars, trying to see what the guards were searching for in her little cell. Deep within the cell stands another prisoner, a boy with curly black hair and a long scar running the length of his cheek. He watches the event unfold, urine staining the front of his trousers. He whips his head from the woman to the guards, the whites of his eyes visible from my cell. Before long a skinny man with armor that awkwardly hangs off his shoulders emerges from the cell with a black chisel. He hands the chisel to his superior.
“What is this?” The guard sticks the chisel beneath the woman’s throat.
“It wasn’t me. Please, it’s not mine.” She pleads, tears streaking through the dirt on her face. The guard then takes her by the hair and everyone in the hall backs away from the cell bars. We know what happens next. We have all seen what happens when you steal from the mines. The guards are cruel, hungry for violence and entertainment.
I raise my hand instinctively to guide Cullen away from the bars, save him the disgust, but quickly lower my hand when the woman begins to sob. Cullen is a grown man who has seen much. Who am I to save his soul from the terrors this Hell brings? Then I hear the sound of skin splitting on bricks, blood splat-splat-splatting on the floor each time the guard smashes the girl’s head into the wall. I stare at Cullen’s back. After an initial flinch he remains wholly still. I hear the girl’s body slump to the floor and the guards laugh at a joke their captain makes before walking out of the hallway. I know that the females body still lays forgotten in a puddle of blood. They always leave the bodies for a day or two. Cullen turns to me and I won’t let him make me feel ashamed. Ashamed for what, I don’t know. For letting myself stay in this vile place for so long, for standing quietly as young women get their heads bashed in by monsters. I will not be ashamed. I don’t want his approval.
When I look at him I see them. I see Anders and Bethany and Fenris and everyone else he cast out as deplorables. He judged what was my family without remorse. He played a part in tearing me away from Kirkwall only to fight for a cause I didn’t care about, for people that didn’t want my help. Yet I found myself in Skyhold anyway – loose ends and debts to pay. Yeah, that’s why I went to Skyhold.
The next three days pass in a blur. Cullen and I don’t speak. We spend the days ignoring each other. I know he’s waiting for Leliana or Josie or even Cole, but no one comes. When dinner arrives we split the bread and hard cheese and return to our cots to eat, wary of the invisible line that separates us down the middle of the cell. On the fourth day he speaks to me.
“Why are you here?” I stop picking at my nails and look at him. His eyes bore into my face, curious.
“I think the real question is why are you still here? Should not have Cassandra come galloping astride a massive bear to your rescue yet? Where is Bull and his chargers, mugs in hand? Surely you haven’t stayed simply to keep this shapely bottom of mine company?” I peel back my lips to reveal a wicked smile. I don’t mean to be cruel, I really don’t. Cullen just continues to watch me with skeptical eyes.
His judgement cuts into me like a sharp knife, quick and stinging and clean. I try not think about the people I left behind, the ones that either don’t know I’m gone or don’t care – but their faces fill my brain. I think of Anders, as lost as I in this big, big world. I think of Isabela and Varric and Fenris, teasing Sebastian about their pretty bartender as they gossip over a game of Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man. I think of Merrill’s pretty face, blushing over Isabela’s snide comments while Aveline rolls her eyes. My limbs suddenly feel heavier. I glance at Cullen, noting the way his eyes stare at a spot on the floor.
“We never stopped looking for you, Hawke. There’s men out in the plains searching for you as we speak. The Inquisitor wouldn’t let it rest – your disappearance.” Silence stretches between us. I don’t want to hear about the Inquisition and her efforts to collect valuable assets. Cullen waits expectantly.
“Go fuck yourself, Cullen.” How articulate, I think to myself. I return to cleaning my nails, keeping my hands busy to mask the soft trembling.
Another day drags by. And another. I wake to the sound of the cell door creaking open. Before I can even rub the sleep out of my eyes I am being lifted to my feet, as is Cullen.
“Maker, what in hell is –“ the commander begins but the same wicked looking guard captain that smashed that poor woman’s head into the wall cuts him off.
“We require more hands in the mines. Work has gotten slow since the cold has set in – we need fresher fingers, stronger bones. You’ve gotten off easy the past few months anyway, Hawke. You knew your time would come.” Well, the poor bastard isn't wrong. I’d charmed my way out of labor work since my arrival, insisting that my pretty hands would be of little use all mangled and calloused. Granted, my palms bore many scars and were just as rough as the commanders after years of tossing daggers and wrapping pommels. They’re all too afraid to get close enough to check, though.
The guards lead us down the hallway along with handfuls of other prisoners. Archers stand ready at every corner, swords brush my back and sides every so often as the caravan makes its way down the tunnels of the prison. Just as my heartbeat escalates at the thought of seeing sunlight, the guards lead us down a dank tunnel that reeks of mildew. After a half mile of narrow tunnels, we emerge into a giant cavern of raw silverite. The rock lines the dark walls, illuminated only by sporadically placed braziers. My awe lasts until a heavy ax is thrown into my arms by wiry looking woman I haven't seen before. Another prisoner. They – we – must mine in shifts, then. I take the ax, relishing the heavy weight of a weapon in my hand, and proceed to take the place of an old man, driving the pickax into stone.
We continue like this for what must have been seven hours. By the time we are escorted back to our cells, my hands have regained feeling and the blisters on my palm burn and bleed. Cullen’s face indicates that he has fared no better. He stares down at his hands, rolling his fingers. The lines of his palms are black, caked with dust. The dust continues up his forearms, a soft powder atop his skin. His veins still bulge from stress and his neck glistens with sweat making the hair at the nape of his neck curl tighter than normal. He flicks his eyes to mine, meeting my stare. Shit. I hold his stare for a moment, breathing carefully out my nose before turning to the metal pale of water. We both drink deeply from it before using a cloth scrap to clean our wounds as best we can. I look down at my poorly bandaged hand and stifle a laugh.
“Dorian would laugh at our piss poor attempt at mage-less healing methods.” I voice with a smile, thinking of the mage’s judgmental side-eye and cynical attitude.
“But the poor bastard wouldn’t even think to help us unless we boiled our skin and bathed in salts till kingdom come, first.” I laugh at Cullen’s retort, imagining Dorian’s horror if we waltzed into the gates of Skyhold, flies and the reek of sweat announcing our return before anyone even caught sight of us.
“Please, Cullen, he clearly prefers floral oils,” I muse, referring back to a particularly drunken game of Wicked Grace in which Dorian’s face almost caught fire after Iron Bull explained in great detail the difference between citrus oils and floral oils and how the skin reacts as well as – well –
Cullen must be remembering the same thing because he breaks into a throaty chuckle that only I can hear and I can’t help but join him. I have tears in my eyes by the time we both cease our Chantry-boy laughing. I fall asleep easily that night, unaffected by the voice that haunts my dreams.
When I open my eyes to face the day, I am very prepared to tell the day to, “Fuck off, thank you”.
I can feel my muscles tearing from the bone, can feel the torn tissue beneath my skin. I haven't been this sore since my soirée with the Arishok. Lifting myself into a sitting position, I can’t help the groan that escapes me.
“Hawke?” Cullen inquires from across the room. I turn my attention to find him sitting on his cot, picking at a crumbly piece of gray bread. “Here.” Cullen rises from his cot, wincing at the acid in his bones and hands me a plate of bread and dried meat. I take it wordlessly. He watches me as I tear a piece off the stale loaf and chew slowly. Maker, even my jaw feels sore. I can still feel his eyes on me as I finish my measly meal. Is it dinner? I have no concept of time in this cell. No light passes the dense walls, no moon shifts and cycles, allowing me to keep track of time. Andraste’s tits, could he not stare at me like a –
“Kirkwall’s Champion is awful sore after a day of mere mining. Makes me wonder how long you’ve been incarcerated, how long you’ve gone without using your body.”
“We’re not friends, Cullen. I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything.” My voice is low and emotionless. I wish my indifference was a mask. It isn’t.
Cullen just stares at me, unaffected by my sharp retort. He studies me as if the answers to his questions lie beneath my pale freckles. His attention is broken by the sound of feet stomping down the hallway. Guards halt at a number of cell doors to collect miners. We are not exempt.
Our shift stumbles down dank hallways to the vast cavern full of silverite. I pick up a pickax before anyone can shove one in my hands. My biceps burn at the weight, protesting the grueling labor that is to come. I feel Cullen take position next to me. I clench my jaw in frustration at his audacity. So maybe I wasn’t being fair. Maybe I was being cruel and childish. Picture this: The saltiness of the sea blowing through curtains in the morning. The hearty laughter only heard in a tavern. The clinking of mugs as both friendships and bets are made. Kind blood elves. Warm mercenary bands. Witty vints. Clever writers by day and archers by night. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.
---
Two days of mining pass before I see it. I stop mining for almost thirty seconds, staring. I can feel other prisoners begin to shift their feet, murmur to each other, unsettled by my odd behavior. My breath catches in my throat and I place my hand on the shoulder to my right, the shoulder that has grown to be quite familiar despite my best efforts to distance myself from him.
“Cullen.” My voice cracks, my eyes never straying from the vision before me. He straightens his back, looking into the dark of the cave where my focus lay. Eighty-one days since I had seen the sky. And there it was.
Merely two-hundred yards away, the cavern’s gaping mouth reveals a dark sky. What I had once thought were specks of silverite I now understand are distant stars. What I had thought was the heavy smell of conditioner on bowstrings is actually the smell of earth and water. The tail of the moon is barely visible, a thin crescent. A new moon has just passed, explaining my lack of observation the past three days. Everyone else in the mines seems to notice the exit as well, as the cavern becomes quiet. Everyone in the mines stills as if afraid that the sky will disappear at the blink of an eye. Before a word passes Cullen’s lips, guards shout and shove, signaling the end of shift. But I can feel them around me. I can feel the prisoners’ attention on that vast sky just yards away. I can feel the hope and sorrow and fear all clashing wildly together at the thought of a world beyond these brick walls. Before long we are shoved back into our little cells, metal doors clanging behind us.
As soon as the sound of footsteps melt into silence, Cullen turns to me. “I think you inspired a lot of people tonight. Showed them that there’s still a world out there, regardless if you meant to or not.”
I don’t respond for a moment. I consider blowing him off, firing a quick insult to reestablish the rift between us but I don’t see the point in doing so. Our pasts won’t change our current situation.
“I would hope so, many of these people are kind. Many of them haven’t seen the sun in years simply for being who they are. Dalish, apostates, soldiers. They don’t deserve this life.”
“And you do?”
I can’t speak. I can’t move. I just look at him. His brow is furrowed and his eyes search my face for an answer. I don’t know if fate brought this man to my cell, or the old gods, or perhaps a wagon and horse – but here he is by no fault of his own. We are not naïve, nor excused from our actions despite the battles we have faced. I regret that the commander and I are alike in more ways than one. We share burdens I would wish on no one. I feel the words in the back of my throat, hiding beneath my tongue, afraid of the consequences should I voice them. My chest falls and I sigh out of my nose.
We remain silent for the remainder of the night. We wash our clothes and I pretend to direct my eyes to anywhere except for the commanders broad shoulders and strong chest. Cullen pretends to not notice. How chivalrous. After we take turns using the bucket in the corner of the cell, we both settle in for the night. I don’t know what force pulls the words off my tongue but after an hour of lying in silence, I can’t bear it.
“It’s been eighty-one days since I’ve seen the sky. Eighty-one days here, I mean.” My heartbeat accelerates at the sudden discord of my voice. What if he’s already asleep? I must sound like a fool, speaking to the walls, revealing pointless information that he probably doesn’t even care ab –
“We won’t be here much longer, Hawke. They’re looking for us.” Cullen’s sure voice interrupts my unraveling thoughts. I think we both remain awake a time more, though we lay in a comfortable silence, back to back.
When I finally fall asleep, his voice haunts me all night, accusing me of sins that will never be atoned for.