fadewalk | RP: Cullen (commandercullen)

Isenya stared at the eerie courtyard, trying to understand what was going on exactly.

That place seemed like the Skyhold she’d known, but once she really started looking at it she found several discrepancies; the reformed tower up in the battlements, the sparring ring missing in the courtyard and, of course, the most howling absence of any other living soul. She decided walk through the battlements, see what she could make up of that place, when she tripped in a small journal. Wary of anything inside the Fade, she poked it with the blade of her staff, waiting for something to happen. No magical reaction, no sudden appearance of a demon, no reaction at all. She picked it up, climbing the stairs.

There was a clear, powerful magic in place, a magic apparently stretching and reaching for every single corner of that Skyhold. Her steps and her breathing were mostly the only thing she could hear, aside from the odd, crushing silence, but at least she’d be able to hear anyone approaching from miles away. She was near the end of her round, just above the stables, when she heard something. Eyes darting to the direction where she heard the noise, she felt all the air being expelled from her lungs at once: Commander Cullen.

Maker, the demons have already begun to mess up with my head.

Unfortunately, not the first time such thing happened.
Certainly not the last one, either.

Isenya climbed down the stairs, careful to not be seen, back firmly pressed against the cold stone. Inhaled and expelled the air once, then twice, keeping her mind clear and shielding her heart.

That’s not him. Just a desire demon. That’s not him.

She left her cover, blade pointed at him.
Might get some answers before as well.

“Start talking, demon, and I might give you a merciful death, which is far more than your kin deserves.” her blue eye shone with her magic when she spoke through gritted teeth “What is this place? What is going on?”

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“Hmm… good thing I’m seeing the man you are since the Inquisition, then.” She smiled with simplicity, hands coming to frame his jaw “With the rebellion and the war later, there isn’t a single person involved which hasn’t done or went through something they’re far from being proud of.” her eye dropped from his and she looked away “But what your regrets leads you to is more important than the regret itself, I believe.”

She pressed her hands against his jaw in a reassuring way, lips parting oh so slightly when he breathed her name. Body flush against his armor, she tiptoed and tilted her head a little to her side, moving half-way for a kiss. “…Yes?” she whispered, her breath tickling his lips.

Cullen tilted his head in her grasp, rubbing his cheek against her hand. Her palms were warm on his face, and they sent a shiver of heat right through him. The gentle touching was driving him mad. No one had touched him like this in so long; with Evalina there had been kissing, at last, but nothing so familiar, so unassuming. She reached up to him and he though, briefly, that she would kiss him, but then she was waiting, so close he could feel her breathing, and any resolve Cullen had cracked.

He shuddered and barely managed to choke out, "Maker," before he was dipping down the scant inches between them and capturing her lips with his.

Isenya closed her eye and moved her hands to wrap his neck, slowly savoring the kiss. Her heart was hammering inside her chest and all emotions and feelings for Cullen, put aside for a long time, came back coiling and crashing. For years she tried to be over him, to keep away from her mind someone she thought didn’t cared about her anymore and now… now that she found out he had written her, thought about her and was left as just as heartbroken… Andraste’s mercy.

She still loved him.

He was different and so was she, but the feeling was all the same. His mouth still tasted good and she resisted the urge to bite his lip as she had done many times before, not wanting to rush things. Well… this, of course, provided they went past the kissing and… well, better not rush things.

Cullen swept her hair off her cheek and cradled her face with both hands, his eyes closing as he kissed her. It was strange how easily, how rightly, they came together after all this time, but Cullen couldn't hold onto the strangeness, and the longer they touched the more the voice in the back of his head telling him to stop and think about this faded. He tilted her head back and bent more to her, and when she her lips parted slightly he groaned and ran his tongue along the inside of her upper lip.

Isenya’s body stiffened for a split second when Cullen cupped her cheeks, but his warmth, his smell, how familiar and how right that kiss felt was enough to melt her reasoning once again. Her body arched to meet his and his tongue swept her upper lip and Maker. How long since she felt so warm, so good from just kissing…?

“C-Cullen…wait.”

Somehow, her reasoning managed to take over again, her hands coming to rest softly over his chest. She was recovering her breath, body tensed again. “So much happened all these past years… I-I…” she closed her eye, trying to find the words “We should talk.”

Cullen felt her tense underneath his hands and that, as much as her words, made him draw back reluctantly, but only far enough to drop his forehead against hers.

"Talking. Yes," he agreed, trying to breathe when all he wanted was to kiss her again. He couldn't feel her hands on his breastplate but imagined he could, imagined the warmth of them sinking into his chest. His thumbs brushed along the line of her cheekbone. He tilted his head and then inhaled and opened his eyes and stepped back, hands dropping to her waist. Maker's breath, but she undid him.

But he'd brushed her hair back a moment before and now he froze. "Isenya...your eye."

Her hand was quick to move to cover her right eye, head turning to avoid his surprised gaze. Isenya needed all her willpower to not step away, to not flinch, but that was only one of a long list of things she’d lost during the war and the Conclave; Some of the wounds were still open, still bleeding.

“Y-yes, about this…” she hesitated, a faint sad smile curving her lips “Ironic how difficult is to heal yourself when you need most.” then, a sigh “Kinloch Hold was a beautiful, peaceful circle before Uldred. After the rebellion, everything changed, unfortunately not for the best. Nothing like the Gallows, no, but its fall during the war was far from being graceful.”

Clearly, there was more to the story, but she lacked the right words. So much more she wanted to say and tell, but she feared Cullen would feel responsible it too.

Cullen stared at her in shock, not sure what to say or even what to feel. The war had taken its toll on so many, and while he'd guessed that it meant Isenya was dead, really, on a deeper level, he'd just...left her untouched in his mind, by the fighting or time or even the loss of him. He bore many scars from the recent fighting himself, not just the one on his lip. Not that they were anything close to the loss of any eye...

He caught her wrist, aching that she felt the need to hide from him. "The war has been ugly to all of us," he said, then cringed slightly. "Isenya, I am so sorry."

“Please, you don’t have to.” she slightly turned her head to look at him, fingers running soft and absently over the scarred skin “A fellow mage once told me I should carry my scars with pride since it’s a sign of what I survived. I just… can’t. I don’t feel proud of being here… not after everything.”

Isenya looked away again. “When Master Irving died and the senior mages voted me as new First Enchanter, soon before everything went south I… all I wanted was to keep everyone safe. Now I’m here and they are not. The few who survived are enslaved by the Venatori, controlled and strip from everything they once were, everything they stood for. I failed them.” she chuckled, weakly “Sorry, I’m being too boring and depressing, aren’t I?”

Cullen's brow furrowed as he listened. "You don't need to apologize," he said quietly. "That guilt, for surviving when others did not, for no reason beyond happenstance..." he sighed. "It still plagues me when I think about the rebellion and all those we lost at Kinloch." To say nothing of Kirkwall and how many lives he might have saved had he recognized Meredith's madness sooner.

He tilted his head, pulled her hand away from her face and kissed her palm. "Do you...do you dream about it, still, what happened then?"

Her shoulders eased a little from his touch, the warmth irradiating from him the only thing keeping her steady at the growing pit on her stomach. “Everything happened.” Isenya started, softly “When the College of Magi was dissolved and all meetings were canceled, things got tense in the Tower. Master Irving and Knight-Commander managed to hold things up, but the mages were feeling trapped and the templars wanted to tighten our leashes, afraid of a new rebellion. Well, not without reason.” she paused, swallowing hard “One day, there was a very heated arguing in the commons, can’t even remember why. Templars pushed, mages pushed back and it didn’t take long for things to get ugly. In the middle, we were trying to reason, Irving, me and other senior mages, trying to solve things without violence but you know how those things can be.”

Isenya chuckled, closing her eye and taking a deep breath, the memories she tried to push away slowly taking over her mind. “Master Irving was killed by a young templar, an accident. Everyone was so shocked the fighting stopped and Knight-Commander was able to put everything back in place. Few days after, he asked the senior mages to organize and vote a new First Enchanter and I was elected. Things were bad, though. We wanted a suited punishment for the templar who had killed Irving and when Greagoir failed to provide it, a group of mages decided to take justice in their hands. This unleashed chaos over us all.”

Without noticing, she reached for his hand, holding it to keep her own from trembling. The tips of her fingers were cold as dead itself. “We fought for over a month, holding our position in the higher floors, no contact with the outside world or the rest of the Tower. Rebels killed Greagoir at some point and, without his lead, templars decided to null the Circle. We were all gathered to execution, a lost barricade after another. Some of us were tortured after the Circle’s secrets and information on artifacts.” she shivered, eye wide with fear “We had no option but to join the rebels and fight back. It was a slaughter, on both sides. Many fled.” her shoulders were trembling now and she changed her weight from a leg to another, uneasy, voice cracking “S-sorry… I… I-I can’t.”

Edited Date: 2015-11-28 01:26 am (UTC)