howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

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Cullen is fine in the field. He can set up a tent, build a fire, find water safe to drink, make something edible. But he hasn't traveled enough to get the knack of what's wise to bring.

These days it makes little difference, given his status: he helps to set up camp, but there are runners and adjutants to find and fetch things. And there are few enough of them, this time -- not the massed force of the Inquisition, but a patrol's worth of soldiers and scouts and accompanying support -- that in the evenings, Cullen finds himself... restless.

It's akin to the reason he doesn't frequent the Herald's Rest, but there's no office to hide in, and no paperwork to justify staying in the tent.

At least tomorrow he and Alistair will peel off to where Honnleath used to be, to spend the night and rejoin the rest again late the following day.

(This may also contribute to his fidgeting.)

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"'Orlesians trying to kidnap me' sort of grounds." He grins. "You, dashingly swooping in at the last moment to pull me to safety. Maybe punching the masks right off them in the process."

A beat.

"No, definitely punching the masks right off them."

"I think I'm insulted that you think I'd let it get that far."

He squeezes Alistair.

"That's an offense to my honor, ser."

"Is it? Oh, dear." He's trying not to laugh. "I'm terribly sorry, Commander. I'm sure the instant any Orlesians got within ten feet of me, you'd punch them preemptively."

"That's not it at all." Amused -- and then, a little more sober, more sincere: "You're safe with me. Remember?"

Alistair sobers in kind. He nods, tucking his face against Cullen's neck again.

"I know." Soft.

"They couldn't resist bragging about any such plan, anyhow."

Cullen rubs slow circles on Alistair's back.

"That's the other reason it wouldn't get that far. Entirely too easy to foil."

Alistair snorts out a tiny laugh. "And I'm sure even if they tried to keep it a secret, Leliana would alert us within five minutes of the words 'we kidnap Alistair' leaving their lips."

"And have them drawn and quartered, or blackmailed, or both, before we had a chance to meet about it."

"An important question."

Alistair taps Cullen's chest.

"Does the blackmailing happen before the drawing and quartering, or after?"

"You don't think it might happen during?"

"Seems a bit impractical."

Says the man who just suggested it's possible to blackmail someone after they're drawn and quartered.

"You've got everything rigged up and underway, and midway through you say, 'Oh, in addition to all this, we have salacious information on you and that woman down the street?' Rather anticlimactic."

"...thus proving you haven't been hanging around Leliana very long, and I've been hanging around her too much."

A wry laugh. "I still remember her more as the innocent, if slightly crazy, lay sister than the Inquisition spymaster. We didn't see each other much after the Blight. Bit of an adjustment sometimes."

Cullen huffs a breath, and is silent for a moment. His fingers thread, meditative, through Alistair's hair.

"I don't know what to make of who we were then," quiet, absent, "and who we are now."

A soft, inquisitive noise. "How so?"

He'd look up at Cullen, but that'd involve moving.

Cullen shakes his head a little.

"I don't know," he says again. "Just... thinking about what it means to be unrecognizable to the people who care what happens to you."

"Mm."

Alistair's quiet for a moment, thinking.

"I don't think you're ever truly unrecognizable," he says eventually. "There's always a part of you that's -- you. That core bit that sticks around even when everything else about you changes. And the people who care about you can see it."

"Do you think Leliana would agree with that?"

Cullen doesn't.

"I don't know."

Quiet.

"Lel was a bard before she joined the Chantry. It's a part of her I saw in battle, but...not as often as I see it now. Maybe that's the core of her. I wouldn't have thought it was, but I also didn't know her as anything but a lay sister."

Cullen doesn't respond right away.

(His heart rate picks up, though.)

Even:

"Was I recognizable at Kinloch?"

Alistair draws a careful breath. Everything feels very cold, and very clear, all of a sudden: like the moment's crystallized, suspended. If he says the wrong thing, it'll shatter.

Problem is, he has no idea what the right thing to say would be, either.

The truth, then. It's all he has. (Maker, let it be enough.)

"The parts of you I always recognize," he says, no louder, "are the one that wants to keep people safe, and the one that wants to serve something greater. At Kinloch...we all knew what could happen if a Circle fell and sent abominations out into the world. I recognized you. You thought there was no hope for the people inside, so the best you could do was protect the people outside."

Cullen lets out a very long breath.

His arms tighten around Alistair. He buries his face in Alistair's hair. After a moment, he nods a little.

(If that's always been true -- then maybe -- )

Seems like that was the right thing to say.

Relief washes over Alistair; he runs his hand up and down Cullen's back, slow and gentle, before pressing a small kiss to his shoulder.

He doesn't trust himself to speak quite yet.

Not everything is different. He's not quite unrecognizable. Not everything has to seem like it happened to someone else.

Cullen rests his cheek against Alistair's hair and tries to ignore the lump in his throat.

Even Alistair can recognize when it's time to shut up and give Cullen a moment.

(Besides: if he's said the right thing, better not to say anything else, lest he accidentally ruin it.)

His hand keeps moving in silent comfort.