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He could not say how long he spent in the Arbor Wilds. Nor could he say how long he spent away from their forward camp, fighting his way through to the gates of the temple. Days, certainly. At least two. Perhaps three. Bolting down potions, to lessen the effect the red templars had on him and to help him stay awake. The potions didn't provide for witnessing the sight of a few of his ruined brothers and sisters, hearing the sound of more of them hissing his name, before Cullen and his men cut them down.

A few bad gashes, here and there. (More scars for the collection.) His right side feels like one giant bruise. It was not clear why Corypheus quit the field until Leliana's agents made it in, and found Samson, and discovered the empty well. And the shattered eluvian.

Cullen was already swatting away healers -- too many of his soldiers were worse off, and he was beyond not in the mood for magic -- when word came: Charter had concluded that the Inquisitor's party, likely in the company of Morrigan, went through the eluvian. Probably back to Skyhold.

Cullen, in Leliana's company, was examining the remnants of the bodies of the Grey Wardens when confirmation of Charter's theory arrived.

Less than an hour later, bruises and all, Cullen was on a horse headed north to the next available station to swap out his mount and keep riding. Corypheus fled the field; there's no reason he wouldn't go after Skyhold; and even if he didn't Cullen needs to know what happened --

Shadows are long, and the mountains reflecting blue and gold light, when the horn sounds and Cullen rides through the sally port. A stablehand is there, to lead the horse to Master Dennet. He's not sure how his legs are holding him up, but he's not going to stop to find out. The war room, first, and then if the Inquisitor isn't there --

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"Only if you were in a good mood," he says, primly, "and only if it was funny."

He punctuates this with a bite of pie.

"So never, and no chance?"

Alistair raises a finger; opens his mouth.

Closes it.

Opens it again to say, "All right, how about this: I freeze a blanket to the ceiling so it'll fall on Sera's face."

"She'll take vengeance on me instead." As ominously as he can.

"Oh, come on, she'd never suspect you," protests Alistair. "She'd think one of the Chargers did it. Or maybe Cole thought she needed an extra blanket. You? Very low on the list of possible prank-pullers."

Cullen shakes his head. "You underestimate her intelligence. If she were anyone else, her tendency toward mayhem would have been curbed long ago. Especially by Josephine, given her feelings toward the Orlesian nobility."

Beat.

"Which is a considerable point in her favor."

"Whose, Josephine's or Sera's?"

He finishes off the pie and leans back on his hands.

"Sera, of course. Josephine insists Orlesian nobility is worth our time, by which she means my time."

Cullen hasn't forgiven anyone involved in making him go to Halamshiral. And he never will.

Alistair wrinkles his nose. "Isn't that her job? You wouldn't ask her to lead a battlefield charge, why should you have to bother with all that nonsense?"

Cullen, having some sense of self-preservation, is not going to mention the inquiries received by Josephine regarding his marital status and family history.

"Because in addition to the Orlesian army, plenty of those nobles have their own men to spare, if they can be properly convinced they'll be used adequately and fairly. And as you say -- that's my job. Not hers."

"Eugh."

Alistair shakes his head.

Solemn: "You poor bastard. Now I definitely can't throw a half-frozen blanket at your face. You've been through too much."

"And you wonder why I have no sense of humor."

"Yes, yes," he muses, in exaggerated revelatory tones. "It's all beginning to make sense now."

He kneads his right shoulder, absently, trying to work out a few more kinks.

"You know, there's this supply ledger over in the tavern Sera's added a few personal touches to." Alistair's beginning to smile again. "And there's a note near the back that just says, 'I will kick Coryphy-tit in every ball he has.' Can't say I'll argue."

Edited 2016-10-02 17:40 (UTC)

...not this again.

Cullen tucks his hands behind his head, closing his eyes. If Alistair intends to take this to Corypheus personally --

"What, not even a chuckle?" Alistair lifts his eyebrows. "I thought it was funny."

He moves on to kneading the other shoulder.

"But we've established you have no sense of humor, I know."

Oh.

Good.

Cullen cracks open an eye.

"Assuming he still has balls, they might just be red lyrium, in which case kicking them seems counterproductive."

Deadpan.

"You can break red lyrium if you whack it hard enough, can't you?"

He's starting to snicker faintly. (As has been previously established: thirty-one going on eleven.)

"Just tie a giant maul to your boots before you give it a go. Or capture him alive and let everybody have a go. Whoever actually manages to crack them gets cake."

Cullen blinks.

And repeats, slowly:

"'Just tie a giant maul to your boots.'"

Airily: "Look, I just come up with the ideas, it's up to the people in charge to figure out how to implement them."

Physics. Pfft.

"In case you forgot, I'm banned from work," he announces to the ceiling, and turns over on his side with his back to Alistair.

Cheerful, Alistair says, "Aren't you glad you woke me up," and claps a hand on Cullen's shoulder.

A gust of wind buffets some of the snow their way. Alistair suppresses a shiver, watching the snowflakes drift in lazy circles.

"Will you...be all right if I go downstairs to finish those letters? I can stay longer if you'd like," he's quick to add.

"Yes." Quiet. "I might join you, in a little while. If that's all right. To read."

"Of course," he murmurs.

Cullen's shoulder gets a quick squeeze before Alistair swings his legs out of bed. After a bit of rummaging, he locates his boots and heads for the ladder.

Whereupon he pauses to reconsider, returns to the bed, steals a fur, and then climbs down into Cullen's office.

As long as it isn't Cullen's fur, Alistair can take whatever he likes.

He waits until Alistair's off the ladder before he sits up: still stiff, a little achy, Cullen knows he ought to stretch.

He also doesn't want Alistair to hover and fuss.

Ten minutes later, he descends the ladder into the office. Because Cullen is a masochist, his feet are bare. But he tossed down his fur and his book first.

Alistair's got his forehead propped in both hands, staring down at his paper. The falling fur and book offered a brief distraction -- well, let's be honest: a brief check to make sure they weren't something worse -- but he went back to the letters pretty soon after.

He's put names to maybe half of the effects Cullen brought back. Six Wardens in all, out of Maker knows how many. He got three of the letters done last night and can salvage the language he used in the badly-smudged fourth letter, if not the paper itself. So: two and a half to go, or thereabouts.

It should not take this long to write six letters.

Warden Lucas would often carve while things were quiet on patrol. I suspect this was the last thing he worked on. In the absence of knowing what he planned to do with it, I'm sending it along in the hope it may be a comfort.

Andraste watch over you.

No, that sounds terrible. Everything he's written in all the letters sounds awful. Roughly, he drags a hand through his hair, glaring at the text -- and then Alistair signs and scribbles his signature on it anyway, pushing the paper aside.