"You do seem the type to find solace in the sea." He said it with a smile on his face, thinking of everything he'd known about her from their time spent together in the Circle, her fondness for healing and the nurturing nature she had toward other mages... the things that had drawn him to her in the first place.
"Politics are everywhere these days... I cannot say I am fond of them myself." Far too much of it with the Inquisition, but it was a game that needed to be played all the same if they wanted any hope in saving the realm. "Though perhaps... things will be a bit easier, now that we are on the same side."
"Do I?" She asked, genuinely curious as to why she might seem the type. She always chalked it up to her fascination with maps and the vastness of the seas around Thedas. She always wanted to see them up close- the lake in which Kinloch Hold stood seemed hardly to suffice for the beauty of the ocean. And she was right.
Lioriley took another sip of her wine, color already painting the tips of her pointed ears and the apples of her cheeks. "I do not mind them, but some places are more... intense, I suppose. Violent, even in their political beliefs and functions." She explained, dark eyes wandering to a nearby wall. "You always were more on the mages side than perhaps was desired by your peers." The words were murmured low. "That is part of why I enjoyed your company so."
Now his own cheeks tinted pink again as he looked away from Lioriley and drank from his own wine glass--even though their color was for different reasons entirely. "You have always been a fascinating woman, much like the ocean." Maybe the wine had loosened his tongue a bit too much. "Pretty on the surface, but also in those boundless depths yet undiscovered."
He coughed a bit. "I have faltered in my... desire to help mages. After what happened I took a path I am not proud of." He probably did not deserve her enjoying his company, with everything he had done since they'd last seen each other.
There was a very undignified squeak from behind her wine glass, another sip taken in an attempt to hide it. A terrible move on her part, given her low alcohol tolerance and the fact that she was already too loose lipped. "Mm. Thank you, that is very sweet of you to say." She finally said, the response feeling mildly inadequate for how much it seemed to fluster her.
She looked back to him, expression shifting into something more sympathetic. "I cannot even imagine how you must have felt." Or what he truly suffered, given the vagueness of what he had shared so far. "But you have a kindness in your heart that most could not claim to possess, Cullen. I saw it then, and I see it now. You allowed me in without hesitation- I like to think that means your desire to help has returned in some capacity."
Cullen watched the crimson liquid in his glass as he swirled it around once, twice. Another drink as he looked back at her. Would he have been so willing to let in any other apostate mage? He'd held his reservations about Dorian and Solas both, but those reservations had since dissipated. "And your desires, Lioriley? What do you wish to happen to the Templars that have subjugated your people?"
The woman had not a single mean bone in her body, and did not expect her to answer in such a way. But... "What do you think should happen with mages after this enemy has been defeated?"
She fell silent. Lioriley was a kind woman, and the lack of a mean bone in her body was painfully accurate. That said - there was a heaviness in her gaze; a shadow of something dark that did not seem to suit her usual cheerful demeanor. "I wish for them to get help." She said. "I know of the lyrium sickness that plagues many, how it twists the mind. So many Templars, I believe, wished to do good and to protect their charges and the common folk in equal measure from the potential dangers of magic. There are some, however... that I am uncertain could be saved. There is a malice in their hearts that cannot be blamed on anything but their own hatred for what they do not understand. Them, I do not know. Imprisonment, at worst." Death, but she would never wish it on anyone.
"The mages should be returned to the circle if they are not already corrupt. Desperation breeds even more desperate people - the circle was good for its intended purpose. But it... both sides are wrong at times, I think. Mages should not be prisoners, but they can be dangerous. Magic is frightening in the wrong hands and a safe place to learn is all that is truly needed."
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, tears stinging her eyes. "All insufficient answers, I fear."
It was a well-thought out answer, and Cullen should have expected no less from such a woman. Yet he found himself wondering what the best answer would be--what answer the Inquisitor would end up making, because certainly they would be the one to make that call. He could only hope their choice was one made with logic rather than in the heat of the moment.
"The Templars, too, need help from the corruption that has befallen many of them." He gripped Lioriley's hand, then looked at her with a soft smile. "Working together with you, this time, instead of watching over you like some caged animal... I think we may be able to do great things, Lioriley."
"They do." She agreed. "There are so many victims, and I wish I could aid them all, if only I knew how." She had started to research, dug and dug and dug for answers for years to solve so many unsolvable problems. Maybe the Inquisition could help — that had been her hope in joining anyway.
She looked down at his hand in her own, fingers curling tight around his, her dark eyes staring absently for a moment as her thumb rolled over his knuckles. "I know that we can."
Then, a long pause. Her voice lowered. "Can I tell you something, Cullen?"
Lioriley was truly no different than the woman he'd known all those years ago: still wanting nothing more than to aid those in need and to find solutions that would see as many people safe as she could. Cullen wished he had her resolve.
He raised a brow at her question, throat closing up a bit as he imagined what she wished to say to him. Perhaps this was where she would tell him that she'd changed her mind and that she did not want to work with him, that their time spent together in the Circle was not something she looked upon fondly the way he had.
She deserved the chance to say it, no matter what it was. "Of course."
Lioriley felt the heat already coloring her cheeks bloom up to the tips of her ears and down her throat, her eyes still focused on their hands for a moment longer.
"There was a time, back in the tower, just before the chaos, where we had spoken. I had invited you to join me in the library and you declined, for what I presume was worry for leaving your station with a mage. And I understood why you had done it, but I had planned to confess something to you that day." And she shouldn't have. And maybe it was better she didn't get the chance... not then, at least. Too dangerous. "I was willing to risk my life for it then."
She took a breath and finally looked up, nervous; fingers shaking in his grasp. "I have loved you for so long, Cullen. Even when I knew it could never happen — when it was wrong given our stations as templar and mage. And I know it has been so long ago now, and I understand if you do not feel the same. But I cannot sit here and lie. I need you to know that I still love you."
That was enough to leave him truly speechless, blinking at her in disbelief. But it was so familiar to all of the nightmares he'd had that a fear gripped his throat and he pulled away from her as he tried to steady his breathing.
How many times had he heard those words from her lips? Or at least--the nightmarish version of her that had haunted him since the day she'd left the tower. Was this simply another nightmare he'd wake up from in a cold sweat? How much of what he remembered in that moment had been real versus a fantasy made up by some creature bent on destroying him from the inside?
"I--"
A breath in. A breath out.
He closed his eyes. Maybe he should have not tried to quit using lyrium, after all.
His hand ripped away from her, her own fingers pawing uselessly at the air before retracting, clutched to her chest just as fear gripped it.
"Cullen?" She asked, worry evident in her voice. She was not sure what she had expected - rejection, maybe. But not this. Not the panic that seemed to grip him, echoing fears she knew nothing of. Maybe she should not have said it at all; kept it buried like she had for years.
His question confused her, until she started to piece things together. Was this real? Did he think this was... a hallucination? A trick?
"Cullen." Softer this time. "I am here, flesh and blood and bone. I promise. I swear to you I am real."
She could promise such, but how was he to trust her--but he could trust her, he knew. But he could not trust the monsters in his head, nor the ones created by the abominations to torture him until the Hero of Ferelden had shown up.
"I... I am sorry, please give me a moment."
Cullen steadied his breathing and took stock of the room around him. He recognized everything and it felt real. Lioriley looked real--still the same, but there were subtle differences that he noted. Differences he had never seen before in his dreams--differences that could have only happened when they spent time apart.
"Lioriley, I am so terribly sorry." His voice was hardly above a whisper. Guilt roiled in his stomach as he continued to take deep breaths. "I... after you left the tower, terrible things happened. Visions involving... you. Us."
Visions that would not have happened, had he not felt the same way about her.
Lioriley was silent, allowing him that moment to compose himself, her eyes widening at the explanation. He had visions of her? Of them. She did not enjoy the implication, considering what she had just admitted to him and how it clearly set him into a panic.
After another moment of consideration, she stood up, rounded the table slowly, and knelt down in front of him, reaching tentatively for his hand again to cradle it between both of her own. Her expression was soft — albeit hazy with tears she refused to let fall — as she gazed up at him.
"Whatever that vision of me did — good, bad, or otherwise — she was not me. And I am sorry you were haunted so due to the selfish actions of desperate people within that tower. But I am real now. I am here and I have no intention to bring you harm." Whether he believed that or not, Lioriley spoke sincerely. "Breathe for me, Cullen. You are safe. If you do not feel as such around me, I understand. I can go."
He watched her move with wide eyes, then gazed down at her. Maker, how was she always so breathtaking? How did every word that passed between her lips leave him hanging, wishing to hear her speak more and more?
"No!" He said that quickly and gripped her hand tightly before his muscles relaxed at the realization of his action. His breaths seemed to slow to a more natural pace, and he gave her an awkward, apologetic grin. "I mean--of course not, Lioriley. I, ah... I cared deeply for you back in the tower as well. It was painful when you left, and moreso with what happened after, but..."
This time he squeezed with a slight flush to his cheeks. "I would try again--without the walls built between us by the roles we'd found ourselves in. I, too, love you still."
It was difficult not to startle when he shouted; when he grabbed her hand so tightly. But she did not pull away, instead squeezing his hand in turn.
Whatever she expected him to say next, somehow that was not it. Her own eyes widened, a blush flaring from her cheeks to the tips of her ears, lips trembling while she struggled for words.
"I-" didn't think it was reciprocated. Feared rejection. Did not know what to do now that it did not come. Tears welled in her eyes and she raised his captured hand up to kiss it gently. "Words cannot convey how happy that makes me, Cullen. And never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it could be true — that we could be something."
It was not something he had dared ever dream for, either--especially not with the nightmares about her that often still plagued his sleeping hours. But with her there in front of him, the feelings felt real and... raw, as they had so long ago. "Nor did I. But I think... If the Inquisitor is truly the Herald of Andraste, I believe Andraste herself must have brought us together. For this chance."
His cheeks burned hot and bright as his stomach churned, nervousness bubbling in his gut as if something was bound to cause everything around them to burn.
Lioriley was not a particularly religious woman, Chantry shoved down her throat or no, but she respected those that were, and the sentiment he offered was a nice one. One she might even be inclined to believe, if only for how sincere he sounded. It made her smile, tears falling down her cheeks despite every effort to contain them.
Mages and templars should not be together. But he was no longer a templar — she no longer his charge. A man and a woman who longed for one another for years, reunited by such low and strange odds. Lioriley stood, pressed a hand to his cheek, and leaned in to kiss him tenderly on the forehead. "I am inclined to believe that, too." She murmured. "Let us finish our meal, hm?"
Cullen could hardly believe that any of this was happening--had she not talked him out of his brief panic, he might have still thought it was a dream about to turn nightmare. His cheeks burned hot when she pressed her lips to his forehead, and he was laughing awkwardly as he turned back to the table. This time he grabbed her hand and took a big swallow of wine.
"I am... beyond words, happy to have you here Lioriley. The Inquisitor could not have found a better helping hand than yours. And of course... selfishly, I hope you wish to stay for quite some time."
Lioriley looked down at their joined hands, her thumb absently rubbing along his knuckles. "I will not leave you again, Cullen." She smiled brightly when she looked back up into his eyes. "The Inquisition needs aid and I am happy to assist. I will remain until and if I am no longer needed — but I will not go without you, and will find a means to remain by your side." Somehow or another.
"Until then, my dear, I think we will work wonders together." She finished her glass. Laughed. "Also, I fear I drank a touch too much in my nervousness."
He noted the tint to her cheeks and the tips of her ears, then tried to recall if the Circle mages had ever been offered alcohol in the tower. If she'd been drunk around him before... he couldn't recall. But that also could have been his own memories disappearing--a time best forgotten.
"I will not leave you, either." Cullen gripped her hand tightly. "Someone needs to watch you when you drink too much--for your own safety, mind. I worry you may expend yourself even more than usual if you are not careful."
She hadn't. Lioriley never drank in the tower and rarely drank after she left. Tiny as she was and with no tolerance to begin with, well, one glass of a fine wine apparently did her in.
She giggled. "Oh, I would not dare do magic while intoxicated." She insisted. "But I am glad you are here. I hope this is not — I am not making a fool of myself."
"Of course you aren't." She was... cute. The way her skin turned darker with the flush of her cheeks, her giggle. "I don't think you could ever do anything foolish. Not in my eyes, at the least."
Maybe it was the wine that he'd drank far more of than her--half the bottle gone, and her having only had one glass for herself--but he squeezed her hand again. "I want you to be able to... let loose around me, like you couldn't before." For her to be free, to express herself however she pleased without worry. As if he wasn't being a hypocrite by asking that of her when he was so full of nerves his stomach churned with each word he spoke.
A sweet sentiment, and one that nearly had her tearing up. Lioriley gripped his hand tight. She never wanted to let go.
"I feel safe with you, Cullen, so I think that should be easy enough to do." She admitted, just a little bashful as she glanced away. "I have a silly request, but there is something I always wanted to do, if you would indulge me." She looked back. "Will you dance with me? I know there is no music here and perhaps I read far too many tales of knights and princesses and fancy gatherings, but..."
Cullen's heart could have burst from his chest when he heard her request, and he was standing and holding a hand out to her before he even realized he was doing it. "My lady, I would be honored to have this dance."
And it was the truth. Even if his cheeks burned as he realized he had no real clue how to dance. But for her, he would try.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-07-01 05:02 pm (UTC)"Politics are everywhere these days... I cannot say I am fond of them myself." Far too much of it with the Inquisition, but it was a game that needed to be played all the same if they wanted any hope in saving the realm. "Though perhaps... things will be a bit easier, now that we are on the same side."
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Date: 2024-07-01 05:10 pm (UTC)Lioriley took another sip of her wine, color already painting the tips of her pointed ears and the apples of her cheeks. "I do not mind them, but some places are more... intense, I suppose. Violent, even in their political beliefs and functions." She explained, dark eyes wandering to a nearby wall. "You always were more on the mages side than perhaps was desired by your peers." The words were murmured low. "That is part of why I enjoyed your company so."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 05:14 pm (UTC)He coughed a bit. "I have faltered in my... desire to help mages. After what happened I took a path I am not proud of." He probably did not deserve her enjoying his company, with everything he had done since they'd last seen each other.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 05:27 pm (UTC)She looked back to him, expression shifting into something more sympathetic. "I cannot even imagine how you must have felt." Or what he truly suffered, given the vagueness of what he had shared so far. "But you have a kindness in your heart that most could not claim to possess, Cullen. I saw it then, and I see it now. You allowed me in without hesitation- I like to think that means your desire to help has returned in some capacity."
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Date: 2024-07-01 05:37 pm (UTC)The woman had not a single mean bone in her body, and did not expect her to answer in such a way. But... "What do you think should happen with mages after this enemy has been defeated?"
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 06:06 pm (UTC)"The mages should be returned to the circle if they are not already corrupt. Desperation breeds even more desperate people - the circle was good for its intended purpose. But it... both sides are wrong at times, I think. Mages should not be prisoners, but they can be dangerous. Magic is frightening in the wrong hands and a safe place to learn is all that is truly needed."
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, tears stinging her eyes. "All insufficient answers, I fear."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-10 05:23 pm (UTC)"The Templars, too, need help from the corruption that has befallen many of them." He gripped Lioriley's hand, then looked at her with a soft smile. "Working together with you, this time, instead of watching over you like some caged animal... I think we may be able to do great things, Lioriley."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-10 05:33 pm (UTC)She looked down at his hand in her own, fingers curling tight around his, her dark eyes staring absently for a moment as her thumb rolled over his knuckles. "I know that we can."
Then, a long pause. Her voice lowered. "Can I tell you something, Cullen?"
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Date: 2024-07-10 05:40 pm (UTC)He raised a brow at her question, throat closing up a bit as he imagined what she wished to say to him. Perhaps this was where she would tell him that she'd changed her mind and that she did not want to work with him, that their time spent together in the Circle was not something she looked upon fondly the way he had.
She deserved the chance to say it, no matter what it was. "Of course."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-10 05:48 pm (UTC)Lioriley felt the heat already coloring her cheeks bloom up to the tips of her ears and down her throat, her eyes still focused on their hands for a moment longer.
"There was a time, back in the tower, just before the chaos, where we had spoken. I had invited you to join me in the library and you declined, for what I presume was worry for leaving your station with a mage. And I understood why you had done it, but I had planned to confess something to you that day." And she shouldn't have. And maybe it was better she didn't get the chance... not then, at least. Too dangerous. "I was willing to risk my life for it then."
She took a breath and finally looked up, nervous; fingers shaking in his grasp. "I have loved you for so long, Cullen. Even when I knew it could never happen — when it was wrong given our stations as templar and mage. And I know it has been so long ago now, and I understand if you do not feel the same. But I cannot sit here and lie. I need you to know that I still love you."
cw panic attack teehee
Date: 2024-07-10 06:00 pm (UTC)How many times had he heard those words from her lips? Or at least--the nightmarish version of her that had haunted him since the day she'd left the tower. Was this simply another nightmare he'd wake up from in a cold sweat? How much of what he remembered in that moment had been real versus a fantasy made up by some creature bent on destroying him from the inside?
"I--"
A breath in. A breath out.
He closed his eyes. Maybe he should have not tried to quit using lyrium, after all.
"Is this real?"
DONT TEEHEE ME
Date: 2024-07-10 06:10 pm (UTC)"Cullen?" She asked, worry evident in her voice. She was not sure what she had expected - rejection, maybe. But not this. Not the panic that seemed to grip him, echoing fears she knew nothing of. Maybe she should not have said it at all; kept it buried like she had for years.
His question confused her, until she started to piece things together. Was this real? Did he think this was... a hallucination? A trick?
"Cullen." Softer this time. "I am here, flesh and blood and bone. I promise. I swear to you I am real."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-12 04:55 am (UTC)"I... I am sorry, please give me a moment."
Cullen steadied his breathing and took stock of the room around him. He recognized everything and it felt real. Lioriley looked real--still the same, but there were subtle differences that he noted. Differences he had never seen before in his dreams--differences that could have only happened when they spent time apart.
"Lioriley, I am so terribly sorry." His voice was hardly above a whisper. Guilt roiled in his stomach as he continued to take deep breaths. "I... after you left the tower, terrible things happened. Visions involving... you. Us."
Visions that would not have happened, had he not felt the same way about her.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-12 01:16 pm (UTC)After another moment of consideration, she stood up, rounded the table slowly, and knelt down in front of him, reaching tentatively for his hand again to cradle it between both of her own. Her expression was soft — albeit hazy with tears she refused to let fall — as she gazed up at him.
"Whatever that vision of me did — good, bad, or otherwise — she was not me. And I am sorry you were haunted so due to the selfish actions of desperate people within that tower. But I am real now. I am here and I have no intention to bring you harm." Whether he believed that or not, Lioriley spoke sincerely. "Breathe for me, Cullen. You are safe. If you do not feel as such around me, I understand. I can go."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-17 04:03 am (UTC)"No!" He said that quickly and gripped her hand tightly before his muscles relaxed at the realization of his action. His breaths seemed to slow to a more natural pace, and he gave her an awkward, apologetic grin. "I mean--of course not, Lioriley. I, ah... I cared deeply for you back in the tower as well. It was painful when you left, and moreso with what happened after, but..."
This time he squeezed with a slight flush to his cheeks. "I would try again--without the walls built between us by the roles we'd found ourselves in. I, too, love you still."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-17 04:32 am (UTC)Whatever she expected him to say next, somehow that was not it. Her own eyes widened, a blush flaring from her cheeks to the tips of her ears, lips trembling while she struggled for words.
"I-" didn't think it was reciprocated. Feared rejection. Did not know what to do now that it did not come. Tears welled in her eyes and she raised his captured hand up to kiss it gently. "Words cannot convey how happy that makes me, Cullen. And never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it could be true — that we could be something."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-20 06:04 am (UTC)His cheeks burned hot and bright as his stomach churned, nervousness bubbling in his gut as if something was bound to cause everything around them to burn.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-21 12:23 am (UTC)Mages and templars should not be together. But he was no longer a templar — she no longer his charge. A man and a woman who longed for one another for years, reunited by such low and strange odds. Lioriley stood, pressed a hand to his cheek, and leaned in to kiss him tenderly on the forehead. "I am inclined to believe that, too." She murmured. "Let us finish our meal, hm?"
no subject
Date: 2024-07-23 03:37 am (UTC)"I am... beyond words, happy to have you here Lioriley. The Inquisitor could not have found a better helping hand than yours. And of course... selfishly, I hope you wish to stay for quite some time."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-23 03:36 pm (UTC)"Until then, my dear, I think we will work wonders together." She finished her glass. Laughed. "Also, I fear I drank a touch too much in my nervousness."
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Date: 2024-07-29 07:07 pm (UTC)"I will not leave you, either." Cullen gripped her hand tightly. "Someone needs to watch you when you drink too much--for your own safety, mind. I worry you may expend yourself even more than usual if you are not careful."
no subject
Date: 2024-08-01 01:58 am (UTC)She giggled. "Oh, I would not dare do magic while intoxicated." She insisted. "But I am glad you are here. I hope this is not — I am not making a fool of myself."
no subject
Date: 2024-08-07 04:02 am (UTC)Maybe it was the wine that he'd drank far more of than her--half the bottle gone, and her having only had one glass for herself--but he squeezed her hand again. "I want you to be able to... let loose around me, like you couldn't before." For her to be free, to express herself however she pleased without worry. As if he wasn't being a hypocrite by asking that of her when he was so full of nerves his stomach churned with each word he spoke.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 03:40 am (UTC)"I feel safe with you, Cullen, so I think that should be easy enough to do." She admitted, just a little bashful as she glanced away. "I have a silly request, but there is something I always wanted to do, if you would indulge me." She looked back. "Will you dance with me? I know there is no music here and perhaps I read far too many tales of knights and princesses and fancy gatherings, but..."
no subject
Date: 2024-08-11 03:12 pm (UTC)And it was the truth. Even if his cheeks burned as he realized he had no real clue how to dance. But for her, he would try.
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