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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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Alistair's eyebrows lift as he stares, delighted, at the banner.

"And here I thought we'd be lucky to find something that wasn't half-eaten by moths." He sets his tea aside and slips off the crate for a better look. "Perfect. Anything else good in there?"

"Other banners, but since this one's clearly the best -- "

Alistair gets a quick grin.

"Just the rug and the brazier to go."

While it would be poor form to sneak some Orlesian heraldry out of the Inquisitor's stash and use it to, ahem, power any brazier they might find, the thought does cross Alistair's mind. Oh well.

Digging through a few more crates doesn't yield any rugs -- the best Alistair can locate is a blanket so threadbare it's nearly turned to lace -- but when he heaves one of the boxes aside, he stumbles across a tangle of metal that, with some judicious poking, reveals itself to be a brazier. (Look, ten years of walking into leg traps does eventually give you a smidge of common sense there.) "Worth finding a hammer to bang this into shape?" he asks Cullen, holding it up.

It'll probably work fine how it is. Maybe. Hopefully.

Cullen squints at it. "I suppose," he says, doubtfully. "If we can get it upright and stable before we put anything in it that's supposed to be on fire."

Alistair nods. "All right. Hang on to it for now, leave it if we find a better one somewhere."

He tosses it into the pile with the tarp and rope.

Cullen regards the pile. "I suspect this is enough to be going on with for the time being -- unless you plan to carry a rug in addition to all of this?" A quick grin at Alistair. "We can go on another hunt once we've solved the problems of roof and fire."

"While traipsing up Skyhold's thirty thousand stairs loaded down like a pack horse does sound like fun," Alistair says, deadpan, "I'm all right with venturing on a second quest later. After a roof, fire, and finishing breakfast."

If Cullen doesn't eat that last sausage roll in the next five minutes, Alistair's claiming it for the Wardens. Well, a Warden. A sort-of Warden. Half Warden, perhaps.

Whatever.

Alistair's got porridge. His favorite!

"An excellent thought," Cullen says, mild, and takes the last sausage roll. It goes particularly well with tea.

Fire first. Then roof. (Easier to work when warm, and the braziers they can fix in Cullen's office, where there's no flying snow.) Then the banner on the wall. The day's tasks place themselves in logical order, leaving Cullen feeling very, very satisfied.

And hey, if the porridge proves inedible, they can always use it to glue the banner to the wall!

From the way Alistair's scarfing it down, though, that seems an unlikely fate. (The faster you eat it, the less you taste it, after all.) An empty teacup soon joins the empty bowl. The kettle itself gets shuttled over to the pile of accoutrements; it's still half-full, and until they get a fire going in Cullen's room, more warm things would not be remiss.

Hopefully it'll stay warm enough during the trek back to the tower.

On the way, Cullen sticks his nose in another storeroom -- one whose contents he's more familiar with -- and grabs a hammer.

As they enter his office: "Would you care to hit the thing with the blunt object, or shall I do the honors?"

Alistair grins. "If you're offering," he says, and takes the hammer from Cullen.

Juggling everything up the ladder takes a couple of trips -- maybe they really should rig up a pulley as their next project -- but eventually, Alistair's settled on the floor of Cullen's room, both braziers in easy reach. (The working one could use a few good hits once he's done straightening out the bad one.) He drags one of the furs off the bed to make himself even more comfortable, then picks up the hammer and gets to work.

Whack. Whack.

This... was a tactical error. If he makes it through this without a monster headache it'll be a miracle.

Instead he goes about figuring out the best way to secure the tarp to the walls at a beneficial angle -- something that'll direct all the precipitation away from most of the room, but not straight down the wall to his bookshelf.

This results, fairly shortly thereafter, in a lot of awkward perching on debris and unstable stone. Whatever, Alistair isn't looking.

A couple minutes later, when a certain someone glances up from his work:

"Please don't fall and die," says Alistair, absently. He turns the brazier over and gives it another smack with the hammer. "Even a dragon wouldn't distract the Inquisitor from that."

Edited 2016-10-18 21:46 (UTC)

"Depends on which way I fell," Cullen says, and hops down to begin securing the edges of the tarp to the rope. From the edge of the bed: "If I fell straight down, nobody would notice for days. But I should be found within a quarter hour, if it was on the battlements."

Then, more darkly, thinking about guard rotations: "Should."

(They're on a skeleton crew, with most of their forces still in the Wilds.)

"You don't think I'd notice?"

Alistair puts a hand to his chest, his wounded look (mostly) feigned.

"Cullen, have a little more faith than that."

Cullen considers Alistair for a moment.

And then says, solemn:

"Forty percent. Forty percent you'd notice."

Alistair rolls his eyes, huffs, and gives the brazier an especially hard hit.

Clang.

He winces a little, and quickly turns his attention back to the tarp.

(The sooner it's up, the sooner he can take the hammer away from Alistair and throw it over the side of the battlements.)

It's a dumb joke. Cullen's actually making jokes, which is always a good sign in Alistair's estimation. He refuses to get prickly over it, damn it.

It definitely helps that his main task at the moment is hitting things, however.

He pauses after a time to set the brazier upright and give it a nudge. It wobbles, but not badly enough to upend its hypothetical burning fuel. Excellent. One down.

The other one only needs a handful of hits before it looks nearly as good as new.

By which time Cullen has fastened the side of the tarp to be angled higher to both walls, and is tying corner number three into place on an exposed beam.

There's some residual stiffness from his (pointless, useless, unnecessary) ride to Skyhold (while injured). He rolls his shoulders, makes a face, turns his attention to the last corner. Maybe after that, he can call a halt to all tower improvement projects.

(But it's not that the Inquisitor had a point in ordering him to take time off.)

Alistair sets the hammer aside and stretches his left arm across his chest, then his right. That turns into lacing his fingers together and cracking his knuckles; he looks up at Cullen to see how his part of the project's going.

"Need an extra set of hands?"

"No, I've almost got it -- "

He is currently trying to wind the rope through and around a hole created by a cracked stone. The corner of the tarp appears to be beating him about the head.

" -- just need another minute, and then we can stop."

"Uh-huh."

Alistair watches this display for a bit, with growing amusement, before taking pity on Cullen and heaving himself to his feet. "Here."

He catches hold of the corner of the tarp so Cullen can see what he's doing.

"I had it," he grumbles, pulling the rope taut. The corner rises, settles. Cullen ties a quick knot, and peers up: any snowfall, or snowmelt, should run along the outside of the tower, courtesy of the broken corner.

He leans back against (a more solid, less broken) wall, rubbing at his eyes for a moment. "That's done."

He'll miss the view.

"Of course you did," says Alistair in response to the first bit. To his credit, he refrains from patting Cullen soothingly.

Instead, folding his arms, he leans his shoulder against the wall. "And done quite well. I'll have to build all my snowmen outside from now on, especially once we get the braziers lit."