howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

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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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"Wh -- hey!" Hastily, Alistair finishes filling the kettle and tries to bolt for the door, which turns into a quick twisting maneuver to dodge around a few of the cooks.

"Of course!" he hears someone chirp behind him. "It'll be just a moment -- "

"Did I say anything? No!" It would probably be easier to plead his case if he wasn't still grinning a bit. He seizes a pair of teacups en route. "I did not, Rutherford. I did not say a single word about you or your sausage -- "

That does little except set the maid off again.

"I was being good!" he finishes, only to be brought up short by a cook thrusting a steaming hot bowl of porridge in his face. Alistair looks at the bowl; looks at the door; his shoulders droop. In a mumble, as he accepts the proffered food: "Thank you. Much appreciated."

When Alistair emerges, he'll find Cullen leaning against one of the stone columns in the main cellar, finishing off one of the sausage rolls.

He looks unbearably smug.

"You," says Alistair -- he would point, but his hands are full -- "are the worst. After I got a teacup for you and everything, too."

Sulk.

"Please," Cullen snorts. "You picked those up after I left. You'll have to do better than that."

"I would've done it earlier if I'd remembered!" He scowls. Those rolls smell really, really good, damn it. "And you could've stayed in bed while I fetched breakfast for you. I offered. Just think, you could be in bed right now, warm, comfortable, and moments away from sausage rolls."

Beat.

"...You're going to say 'but I have sausage rolls now,' aren't you."

His Cullen impression is pretty uncanny.

It's improved greatly, it's true!

Cullen waggles a roll back and forth, smirking.

(Why respond when Alistair's done all the work?"

"The. Worst," reiterates Alistair, and walks past Cullen with an audible hmph!

Cullen waits until Alistair's passed -- but just barely.

He puts out a hand to Alistair's shoulder.

The sausage roll is within reach of Alistair's mouth, if he turns his head, since his hands are full.

Alistair pauses. Eyes the roll. Eyes Cullen to see if he's going to yank the roll away.

(It's a shame Peanuts doesn't exist in Thedas, or metaphors about Lucy and a football might be apt here.)

Then, quickly, he chomps on it before Cullen can change his mind.

Cullen laughs, a little. "Am I forgiven?"

(He started out with four rolls, and the kitchen's close by; even if he were actually inclined to be that petty and mean, there's little point.)

"Mmm-hm," says Alistair around the roll, followed by a couple of muffled syllables that might be thank you.

Juggling the kettle and teacups into the crook of his arm, he takes the roll out of his mouth (minus a sizeable bite). Solemnly, once he's swallowed: "On further reflection, I'm changing my assessment of you to 'the best.'"

"So fickle," Cullen says, shaking his head very sadly. "Let's go find some crates to sit on, and see what we can find."

While some of the rooms branching off the cellar have a delineated purpose -- the dusty library, the kitchens, the vault -- most are Skyhold's equivalent of a junk drawer. It isn't hard to find some crates that can be commandeered into makeshift chairs and tables.

One of them is marked with an arrow pointing toward the ground and the upside-down words THIS END UP. Alistair heaps the tea and porridge upon that one. Another had its top pried off long ago; he goes to investigate, rummaging through its contents and pulling them out one at a time.

"If you don't want to sit and eat," Cullen says, positioning himself on top of a barrel, "then I admire your commitment. But I'll also eat both of the remaining rolls when you could have one. Your choice."

Midway through unearthing a cracked vase, Alistair looks up, hopefully.

"You're certain?"

Alistair's still got the porridge, after all, and gross as it may be, he's not going to waste it.

"Of course," Cullen says, mock affronted. "What do you take me for?"

A crooked smile. Light: "Someone who gets on with the cooks much better than I do?"

He sets the vase aside and returns to the makeshift dining table.

"And someone who'll go back and inform them that you're expanding your breakfast preferences beyond porridge if they'd be willing to oblige you."

"Definitely the best."

His smile straightens out; he grabs one of the rolls.

"I'll even refrain from laughing at the innuendo next time."

"You will not," Cullen says. "You're constitutionally incapable."

Immediately, in the exact same tone as before: "I'll even laugh very quietly behind my hand so you can't hear me."

He takes a bite of the roll.

Cullen huffs, sounding exactly like an irritated mabari, and goes to rifle through the crate Alistair abandoned.

"Next time I won't have any mercy."

"No breakfast at all," says Alistair, in exaggerated horror. "No food at all. I'll have to go forage in the woods for my dinner."

"Perhaps you hadn't noticed," Cullen says, digging out a coil of rope from under the cracked vase, "but we live above the tree line. You'll have to travel quite far to get to the woods."

"My point exactly." He gestures to Cullen with the roll. "I'd leave for breakfast and return five days later, covered in mud and scratches, possibly having fallen into a bramble bush somewhere along the line, but by the Maker I will have eaten my breakfast."

Beat.

"Five days ago, so I'll immediately have to turn around and go foraging again."