A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

Promises

17 Bloomingtide, 9:42

Within a few more days, Cullen was up and about again, more or less himself ... or so Antonia had heard. She hadn't seen him, and she wondered if that was on purpose. She hadn't sought him out, either, trying to decide what she would say to him when she did. Much as she wanted to set things right between them, she couldn't forget that icy, distant look in his eyes; she was afraid to see that again. The War Room meetings had been suspended while Cullen recovered. Neither Leliana nor Josephine had suggested resuming them, and Antonia wasn't about to make the suggestion herself, not without knowing where she and Cullen stood.

And then she found herself coming down the back stairs from upper courtyard to lower, the little-used set in the shadow of the main stairs of the keep, and met Cullen coming up them. They both stopped for a moment. Antonia looked at his face for any sign that there might be a softening there, but she saw nothing.

"Good morning, Commander."

"Inquisitor."

"I trust you have recovered from your ... indisposition?"

"I have. Thank you for your concern." His jaw tensed. "I understand that I owe you my gratitude for ... ensuring that the situation did not worsen."

"Oh. No, that was Blackwall. He broke the door down." She gestured to her ribs. "I wouldn't have been able to."

"Are your injuries still troubling you?" He might have been asking about a distant relative.

"Not very much, no. I'm to stay in Skyhold for a few more days before I think about going into the field again, but otherwise I'm ... tolerable."

"That is good news."

If he would only bend, just a little, she could say what she needed to say. But she was terrified to speak to this ... mountain in front of her, afraid that her words would freeze on the rocky slopes. "How is your brother settling in?"

"Very well. Thank you for asking."

She bit her lip, unable to move or speak.

"Will there be anything ... else, Inquisitor?"

Antonia was so caught up in how much she hated that word, "Inquisitor", said in that polite, stiffly formal tone, where once it had been a caress, that she almost missed the softening she had been looking for in the tiny pause, the faint breath before the "else", the very small quiver in his voice that might have been hope.

He moved past her then, when she didn't speak, and she knew if she let him go now it would be a long time before she had the chance again.

"Cullen, wait!"

He stopped, standing still, but he didn't turn to look at her. Which might be better, she thought, trying to get the words out. At least she didn't have to be watching his face for a reaction to every word.

She kept stumbling over her tongue, but at this point, eloquence didn't matter nearly as much as getting through everything she needed to tell him. "I wanted to say ... that I am so sorry for how I acted. Overreacted, really—you were right, what you said, about my being too impetuous, and I should have ... listened, but ... I feel so—so young, so inexperienced, so inadequate to this role. Everyone in Skyhold, practically, is older than I am, and I ... try to do my best but I don't really know what I'm doing, and to have you, of all people, think I'm inadequate ..." Perhaps she imagined it, but there seemed to be the smallest hitch of his shoulders there. Otherwise, he might as well not have been listening at all. "I ... didn't handle it well, which you know, and then ... afterward ... well, I can be stubborn."