Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 52: The Path Ahead

Maeve had been watching them from afar. It sounded odd when put that way. But Cullen and Cassandra look so happy together, as they are. She watches as they sit at a table with Anthony, a chess board between them. Cullen and Cassandra sit on one side and their boy strides the other. He is lost in a look of deep contemplation as he studies the board. He looks like his father as he does this. His hand perches just below his chin, thrumming the lower line of his jaw as he obverses his many choices. His parents watch him but none too closely as Cullen is clearly concerned with his wife's comfort. She shifts in her chair just a little and he leans in closer to her, placing a chaste kiss on the side of her cheekbone, close to her ear. 

Maeve remembers a time when these actions between the two of them would have seemed odd, peculiar. Those times are long gone of course but they are there still. In her mind Cassandra and Cullen will always be something that happened by chance, that they were graced with under odd circumstances. She would not trade them for most anything. She recalls a night that they would have most certainly detested the idea of ever being together.

It was that night that she found them. "There. It's her!" Cullen had called out when she had at last reached the rendezvous after Haven had fallen. It was a sullen, sad, harsh winter night. She recalls being cold. She remembers Cassandra being not far behind Cullen in their rescue of her. "Thank the Maker!" Maeve had heard her say that as she fell to her knees, exhausted utterly by the trek to that camp.  She remembers being hoisted up but not by whom. She remembers being laid to rest and then what seemed like only moments later, "Who put you in charge?!" He had shouted that at Cassandra only moments after Maeve had woken. Their anger that night was understandable. Lives had been lost, homes destroyed, hope all but abandoned. 

Their lashing out at one another  though had been something Maeve had grown used to. Those two butted heads like there was nothing better to do. Their stubbornness got the best of each of them at the best of times. They could not put their differences aside that night. They could not see how to get along amidst the chaos Corypheus had wrought. She thinks now that her first thought was wrong. They might not have detested the idea of their relationship. In fact, it may have been that likeness in their settled and determined ways that drew them to one another. They saw the stubbornness in the other person and it was as if it was a challenge, one they gladly accepted if only to start a fight which they each thought they could win. In the end, she supposes they both did win. Look at them now. 

Cassandra kisses Anthony's head and mumbles something to Cullen about going to lie down. She has back pains and headaches of late, the evidence being bore in her own body. She begins to look more frail by the day. Nonetheless, they all know she is a force to be reckoned with, even in her state. Cullen follows and Anthony yawns, not far behind. Maeve turns her gaze across the room. Solas leans over a table, Julien, Mythalus, Nicolynn, and Claude sit at it with dyed wax utensils in their little hands. They scribble across parchment and laugh and carry on in a playful manner. Maeve just enjoys watching them for but a moment. Mythalus looks up at her from his drawing. His little green eyes glow with a tint of lyrium blue. The after effects of the incident that occurred four months ago. It feels as if it only happened yesterday. He had woken only a month prior but slept for three. In that time Maeve could not feel. She was entirely numb. Now, now it is as if that weight never existed. She smiles at him as he holds up his drawing of two little elves, one bigger than the other, and two taller elves, one with a staff and the other a broad axe. She tilts her head and her grin widens. 

Solas catches their silent interaction and looks over his shoulder at Maeve and back to Mythalus. He gives their son a brush of his dark curly hair and turns around, pushing off from the table. "You could come join us, you know." He tells her as he stands beside her and moves his hand in circles across her back. Maeve smirks up at him. "Why would I do that when the view is so much better from over here?" She teases with that wicked, suggestive tone on her tongue. His lips twitch in the corners, threatening a wry grin. "Why, Maeve, you surprise me. You ought not to make such suggestive comments about being bent over tables in front of the children." He warns with a knowing glower. There is some amount of want in his eyes and Maeve reads it plainly. No, that was wrong. She is not quite reading it as she is feeling it, experiencing it herself. His want is hers, his movement, his desire, is her own. She grins and he leans down very close to her ear. His breath is hot but his words are like fire. "That is, of course, assuming that it is not your goal to have it done to you at this very moment, emma'lath." He poses it as both a threat and a question all at once and she feels her insides move, churning to the beat of his steady heart. 

She smiles wildly, lustfully, up at him and raises her eyebrows. "Don't tempt me, Dread wolf." She purrs in his ear slowly, drawing out every word, every syllable until the sentence is almost excruciating to hear. She stands from her chair and places a long, slow kiss on his warm lips. His tongue pries at her own but she denies him entry and pulls away. Leaving him with little more than a smirk and an uncomfortable disposition. She winks over her shoulder as she sashays from the room, up to their quarters.