Dragon Age One Shots

Brothers, Cullen/Inquisitor

A request I received to write Cullen comforting the Lavellan Inquisitor after her brother is lost.

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Harried aides and whispering soldiers guided Cullen to the solitary shadow standing sentinel through the overgrowth. A rare warm spell tinted the air, sloshing away the snow to reveal green prodding from the muddied grown. Beside the silhouette rumbled a river, her bare feet nearly astride two submerged rocks. Cullen gulped at the sight, his mind conjuring a surge in the water and a tide wiping her off downriver. But rushing to her side and plucking her off would not endear him.

He was beginning to fear nothing would.

"Inquisitor," he voiced with what little command he had left.

The shoulders slumped, her weary head lowering along with the arrow she had nocked. Slowly, she pivoted her chin to glance over at him — revealing in her eyes the depths she was drowning in.

Cullen instinctively took a step closer, which was when Arashalla trembled. He froze in his boots, the stretch almost too wide for comfort. But to see pain shattering her once frozen features knotted his heart to ice. With a gulp, she resumed firing arrows at the tree across the river. There were already five shafts embedded into the bark and she had no recourse for collecting them.

It was doubtful she cared.

"People were..." Cullen tried to plow through the tension, as if his words could suffice. Josephine already tried a platoon's worth and they got nowhere. What hope could he have?

The wind shifted, brushing her long hair back. She never wore it down, at least not that he'd seen. Now it wafted like sheer curtains allowing the mountain breeze passage. In doing so, it revealed her neck. Sinew strained like sailor's rope below her thin skin and a gasp rattled from Cullen's lips.

"Have you eaten?" slipped from him, the worry clear.

Arashalla twisted in place, her eyebrow arcing at the concern. She ordered him to stop misplacing it, for all of them to leave her alone, before grabbing a mount and racing through the mountains. As much as he wished to obey Arashalla's orders, the Inquisitor couldn't be without protection.

Returning to her vigil, she drew the bowstring so tight to her cheek the gaunt flesh bulged. "I can't remember," her dead voice intoned as her fingers released. The arrow stuck deep into the heart of the tree. Cullen turned from its strike to the rising red welt on her cheek. She did not seem to feel it.

"Do you intend to force feed me?" Arashalla spoke, her bow hand fallen even as she reached back for another arrow.

"I'm only..." Cullen began before blowing his cheeks out. Worried. He was worried. They tried to give her space, time. But it didn't seem to be helping. This was...this was not the Inquisitor they needed.

"Here to drag me back." She wouldn't glance back at him even as she spoke. Her usually honeyed voice that flowed like syrup stirred into tea cracked as brittle kindling. Each word struck deeper at his heart.

Arashalla nocked the arrow, her shoulder rolling back as she directed her aim for the tree. "Here to mold me into shape. To fit into the proper form that is needed...that you need...that I..." Her entire form began to pitch forward, her face racing to be punctured by the rocks. Reacting without thought, Cullen ran to her.

He placed his body in the way, arms outstretched as she collapsed against him. Maker take him, but she felt weaker than a baby bird. Arashalla struggled to get her feet under her, to shove away, but she continued to slip against the slime-coated river rocks.

"Why?" she cried, her body abandoning the fight. It flopped into Cullen's arms, and he scrabbled to keep her from slinking into the water and risking a cold.