RP: Cullen (cullen_fadewalk)

[evelea_fadewalk]

Evelea had stared at the journal for a long time trying to decide what that meant. Wherever she was comfortable? There wasn't much comforting about this place. Finally she'd written back the garden? because she'd been working there each day and it was as familiar as anywhere else.

She sat cross-legged next to the royal elfroot bed, frowning down at it in forced consternation. Was it real? Real enough to smell when she gently rubbed the pad of her thumb across a leaf, real enough to ease the sting of a scratch she placed there. It's medicinal properties held up. But did it grow? If they harvested part of it would new buds form? How were any of these plants faring without sunlight?

The sound of footsteps, when they finally came, startled her. She had been half-convinced that he wouldn't appear, at least not today. She didn't look up right away, hair in her face and hands clasped in her lap, trying to figure out how to even meet his eyes.

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[cullen_fadewalk]

Maker, this was impossible.

He'd almost talked himself out of coming. He'd almost talked himself out of sending her a message. Truthfully, he'd almost talked himself out of a lot of things--but in the end, he'd forced himself to face this the way he faced everything else.

It was just...

Seeing her kneeling there with her plants, hair drifting into her face, looking small and vulnerable, he couldn't help a strange moment of double vision. Evelea back when she was first the Herald and they would... They were...

They were, whatever they are.

And Evelea with what he now knew to be the Envy demon taken over her life. Cold and cruel and slowly gutting him piece by piece. He tried to close his eyes to that and just see the first, but he couldn't. He couldn't conquer that strange double vision.

"Inquisitor," he said.

[evelea_fadewalk]

The title made her flinch, just a little, Evelea's shoulders twitching downward. She steadied them though, straightened them, and looked up at Cullen.

"That was never my title, Commander. I have no right to it, no want of it." She brushed the dirt off her hands and pushed herself to her feet so she could more easily meet his eyes.

There was nothing easy about meeting his eyes but she did so, lacing her fingers together in front of her. "But of course, you can call me whatever is comfortable for you." She wet her lips, looked down for a moment before asking, "You wanted to talk?"

[cullen_fadewalk]

That was a reminder he needed.

"I thought...we should come to some sort of understanding," Cullen began slowly.

[evelea_fadewalk]

Evelea's huge blue eyes gave her a perfect listening face. To her annoyance occasionally, when she'd been in the Circle and everyone with gossip or a grudge had tried to bend her ear. Usually it only assisted in her efforts to help.

And she wanted to do everything she could to help the man standing in front of her.

She nodded, eyebrows ticking upwards, lips keeping their soft curve that was not quite a smile. "Of course." She waited, the only sign of her worry, her fear that he would... reject or denounce or blame her, no matter how justified that might be... it was all in the white knuckles of her hands.

[cullen_fadewalk]

"I should apologize first," he said. "For my reaction when I first saw you here. For the rough treatment."

It wasn't actually an apology; he wasn't even convinced he really should. But it was a good way to start--a way to help read her reaction.

[evelea_fadewalk]

Her reaction was... surprised to say the list. Evelea blinked up at him, lips parted, and then her eyebrows folded together in tight concern. "No. No, not at all. If anything I should-- Andraste's ass!"

She bit her lip at the profanity, darting an abashed glance up at him before stammering on. "I have no way to even begin to beg for forgiveness from you. I went to Therinfal confident I could reason with the Lord Seeker and was taken by an Envy demon in his form. Everything you pledged yourself to was twisted because I wasn't strong enough to-- I don't even know what happened, how I failed, I wish I could say anything that would make it mean something, but I can't."

She looked down as her voice trailed off, blinking furiously to force the tears back.

[cullen_fadewalk]

"It," Cullen began slowly, "means something that you would apologize for that. I hope it means as much when I saw I am...sorry. Truly sorry. That I could never prove you weren't yourself."

They had tried. They had tried everything they could. At the time, they took their failure to mean she wasn't possessed. In retrospect, it merely proved the demon was far too strong by then to be caught.

"I'm sorry in the end, I believed the demon."

[evelea_fadewalk]

Maker, if she started crying in earnest now she wasn't sure she could stop, and Cullen didn't deserve that. Evelea bit the inside of her lip hard enough to split it, nodding slowly as he spoke. When he fell silent she looked back up at him, eyes red, but no longer threatening to spill over.

"Thank you for trying to fight it, for hoping that it was possession and not that I was just a monster." She looked away from him, back to the elfroot plant she'd been studying. "I feel a bit like a ghost now," she added softly.

[cullen_fadewalk]

"Good," he said--then closed his eyes. "That came out in exactly the wrong way."

It had always been like that with her.

[evelea_fadewalk]

That was... so normal that Evelea let out a tiny... well it was either a laugh or a half-sob or anything in between. A little stifled sound and she pressed her fingers to her lips.

She took a moment while his eyes were closed to study him, his bruises healed, though the shadows and lines and scars remained. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked gently.

[cullen_fadewalk]

"Help me try to be normal," Cullen said. "I would...very much like to try to be normal with you."

It wasn't her fault. He had to keep telling himself that.

[evelea_fadewalk]

Normal with her. Evelea could feel the heat rush into her cheeks. What she would have considered normal a few days ago was gentle flirtations in the vain, vague hope that... well.

"Tea?" she asked suddenly, eyebrows arching hopefully.

[cullen_fadewalk]

"I like tea," Cullen said quickly, because at least they had this to fall back on. "And those biscuits Josephine never let the rest of us have. The ones with the pink frosting."

[evelea_fadewalk]

"Something so Orlesian as rose-scented icing, Commander?" The smile that settled onto her lips was sweet, genuine, gently teasing for a moment before it melted away. She wondered what had happened to Josie, if Cullen had seen her head on a pike, or driven out. She felt another apology rising inside her, but she swallowed it. He wanted normalcy, not reminders of all that. Evelea's second smile was quieter, tinged with sadness, but she tried to keep it steady. "Do you now where she would have hidden them away in Skyhold? We could look?"

It was silly, wasn't it? Talking about going to raid Josephine's sweets with Cullen. But... what else could she offer him? She was an echo of a woman who, for him, was already gone.

[cullen_fadewalk]

He sort-of laughed at that. It was a rough thing, painful-sounding, as if it had gotten trapped in his chest. But still, it was a laugh.

"Orlesians have to be good at something," he said. "And yes, actually, I think I may have a clue. Or at least I know where we could start the hunt."

[evelea_fadewalk]

Oh, void, Evelea did not want to cry at the sound of Cullen laughing. She wouldn't. She had to look down, pretending to dust off her knees and backside again from where she'd been sitting on the ground before smiling up at him. "Well, lead on then. If I try to get anywhere in this place I always wind up in that weird wine cellar in the basement."

[cullen_fadewalk]

"It's easy enough to learn the way of," he said, looking away. It was difficult to look at her for more than a few moments at a time. "Though it seems there will always be secrets waiting to be discovered too." They fell into step, heading out of the garden toward the nearest door.

[evelea_fadewalk]

"If you say so. It seems a little labyrinthine to me."

Evelea kept just off his shoulder, so she could follow him without being at his back, but also staying in the peripheral of his vision so he didn't have to turn his head to see her. It was... well it was the way mages often positioned themselves to follow Templars in the Circle at Ostwick.

"Is it exactly the same here? No chunks of the castle gone missing, or spots you don't recognize showing up?" She looked up at arch above the doorway.

[cullen_fadewalk]

He hadn't felt like a Templar in a long time. It wasn't something he was comfortable reliving, despite what Anders and Neria suggested. "It looks the same so far, down to the hole in my ceiling."

He needed to get that fixed. It was one thing to be able to stare up at the starry night over Skyhold and a very different thing altogether to have the Fade hovering right above his bed.

[evelea_fadewalk]

"Why on earth do you have a hole in your ceiling?" Evelea hurried to catch up, having missed a step when he said that. She even skipped one ahead, turning to walk backwards for a moment so she could watch his face. "Do you want Sera to drop pails full of frogs on you in your sleep?"

[cullen_fadewalk]

"...please don't suggest that where she can hear," he said, voice pained.

[evelea_fadewalk]

Evelea turned back around, a smile hidden by her hair as she ducked her head slightly. "If it helps, I don't think I've seen any frogs here. And I'm certain Sera, the one who's here, doesn't care for my presence at all." Her smile faded and she fell silent again.

[cullen_fadewalk]

"Sera is Sera," he said simply. "She wasn't fond of me either for some time. But that's just because I didn't understand her, at first."

[evelea_fadewalk]

"I know Sera. She kept stealing my left socks in Haven, and tried to write something rude on my forehead in my sleep just before we went to meet the Iron Bull. Which probably would have been fine, actually, now that I think about it." Evelea wrinkled her nose, tone softening. "I... that must all seem like a very long time ago to you."

[cullen_fadewalk]

"Yes," he said simply, shutting down again--closing up.