Dragon Age One Shots

Regency Cullen 24

She is no fool and, sadly, neither is Pavus. Any other smuggler and she could have offered to parlay for the Duke's release, but Dorian has to smell the change in the air and the anger in Cullen's eyes. Waiting for his Grace's blood to cool for a week or two made sense, but should Cullen refuse to bend his ideals...

Gwen shakes off the thought, her back pressing to the rocky decline they've been following. There are obvious sounds of dice being shot across the way and bottles clinking, but hopefully no one rests near the boats. All they need do is sneak down, cut the line, and silently row to sea.

Then what?

Oh, his Lordship would most certainly land on his feet, no doubt the idea of rallying the navy to smoke these smugglers out rising in his mind. Once again she waits upon the precipice not knowing if it is simply easier to jump and end the pain quickly.

"What lies ahead?" he whispers near her ear. They crouch near a tumble of bushes their view obscured.

"Why do you think I'd know that?"

"You're a...were a..." he stammers around how he'll forever see her and Gwen snarls.

"I have never been to this bolthole, but at a guess, if we run quickly we'll find a boat before they even notice we're gone." Gwen flexes her legs in the crouch, prepared to do just that.

She turns her head to spy his Grace trying to peer through the leaves. "What of a weapon? A musket or sword?"

"There isn't time," she shakes her head negative, hoping to keep him on track. They'd be sending someone to check on the prisoners before nightfall. It's now or never. Gwen eases a foot out of the bush, doesn't hear a cry of surprise, and leaps forward. Before abandoning the foliage blind, she grabs Cullen's hand. He falls in behind her, both of them leaping towards the makeshift docks.

They're little more than crates submerged in the water, but they'll do. Gwen eyes up the two rowboats bobbing on the waves, the first their better option. It's to its little hitching post she turns, when Cullen slithers out of her hold and pauses.

"What are you doing?" Gwen spits in a whisper.

"A sword is left lying right there," he points to an old rapier rusting and salt-encrusted upon a table.

"Damnit, there isn't time..." she begins, but the naval man ignores her, his long strides quickly skirting across the docks that anyone from above can see.

Cullen reaches for the hilt, when a man with cock in hand turns from pissing into the ocean. His eyes widen at the prisoners trying to make a daring escape and his hand goes straight for his cutlass.

Damn it!

The Naval Officer responds in kind, Cullen snatching up the rusty sword and catching the swing of the pirate cutlass. Rather on the nose, all things considered. Clanging metal breaks out across the din of drunken ballywho, the Duke taunting the man as he leads him in guarded swordplay. The cutlass is the stronger of the two, able to parry away any attack, leaving them both in a battle that could take minutes.

Minutes they do not have.

Gwen sneers, glancing at the boat she could be untying, when she whips her head up at the freight hanging off of pullies above their heads. Rushing forward as the two men snarl at each other and question their parentage, she loops an end of rope and ties the other to the piled rope of one of the hanging boxes.

Cullen and their smuggler friend dance back and forth, Gwen twirling the rope. She's heard tales of people in the Americas looping ropes over cattle's horns and bringing them to heel. As she grew up trying to catch the hitch at the front of a boat in darkest night, that idea seemed rather easy.