Chapter Text
The dawn rose cold and harsh in Skyhold, as it did most days in the mountains. Nyriel Lavellan was up with the light streaming through the Serault glass, the painted willow trees beaming a greenish-gold light across the bed sheets. She rolled to her other side, relishing in the cool patches of satin before stretching, arching her back the way a cat might as it awakens. In the spot next to her a lump of fabric stirred. She peeked over and smiled at the sight of Cullen's face scrunched up from the morning light. One brown eye opened slowly, before he rolled onto his back to see her clearly.
"Good morning," he mumbled, still only half-awake. His arm shifted out of the covers before wrapping itself around Nyriel's swollen waistline, pulling her towards him. She kissed him lightly on the lips before resting her chin on his chest.
"How did you sleep?" She asked as she did every morning, her frosty-pale eyes large and vibrant, mirroring his stubbled features. Cullen was not one for rising early, in fact it was something that happened very rarely for him after losing the lyrium from his system so many years ago. He sighed.
"The way I expect any man would when they share a bed with you; eventually." Her mind traced back to last night, a haze of heated lips and limbs, and something about leverage? His dopey laughter seemed to confirm her suspicions, and she crawled over him to wipe that smug grin from his face.
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The memories faded out with the sounds of drill march around the courtyard at Skyhold. Nyriel was watching Cullen from the small balcony, his pauldrons sat in pride of place over his shoulders, chasing down supplies for his recruits. She laughed as his manservant hopped up with another report, and he pinched his nose as he was wont to when met with news so early in the day. He looked up to her on the balcony and smiled, and she waved back, taking a hand off her belly. The small bump there pulsed with life, and she rubbed soothingly. It had been three years since Solas had disappeared. So much had happened since Corypheus had fallen, and it had been a long and dangerous road for her. To look at where she was now, she sighed, she could never have imagined.
The first year after Solas had been gone had been devastating for her. She had spiralled into deep depression; no search for Solas could turn up results, and she collapsed inward, more perhaps than anyone expected given the brevity of their relationship. The Inquisition itself was faced with a crisis when Leliana was named Divine and left for Orlais. Only Cullen and Cassandra were left to hold the unit together. For weeks at a time Nyriel would lie alone in her room, barely eating or drinking, and never seeking company. Even Cole had been shut out of her mind, Varric was unable to console the poor lad as he beat his head against the beams of the Herald's Rest. Cullen would come to visit her, even if it were to sit beside her bed for an hour or so every day, but she would never acknowledge his presence. She only remained still, as though sleeping, her arms folded tight against her front.
One night, about six months after Solas' disappearance, Cullen was roused from sleep by screaming. He threw himself up the stairs to her chambers to find the bedsheets soaked in blood. He had thought that was the end of everything then; seeing her tiny, emaciated frame on the bed faced away from him. As he rounded the bed he saw perhaps the only thing worse. In Nyriel's hands lay something small and fleshy, barely recognisable. His time spent working with Chantry nurses as a young man had taught him what a miscarriage looked like. For a moment he stood frozen in time, the sight of the young elf clutching at this failed attempt at a new life, bathed in blood and moonlight was horrifying. He immediately summoned for a hot bath to be made at his chambers. Gently, carefully, he picked up Nyriel's malnourished and quietly weeping form from the bed, which still clutched at the lump of tissue, and outside towards his bedroom.
Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled.
The weeks following that night were too painful for Nyriel to recall even after so long, but Cullen had watched over her every movement. He had made sure she eat at least a bowl of soup a day; he had bathed her - taking care to look away from her nakedness as he did so - and he even shared his bed with her albeit fully clothed. Slowly, gradually, she began to re-emerge from herself. One afternoon on a break from signing requisitions he found her looking at a book. He said nothing, instead he sat beside her to look at her nimble fingers brushing the pages. She leaned into him, her cheek resting in his fur pauldrons, and he thanked the Maker that she couldn't see the blush that crept in from the edges of his face. When one of his men came looking for him later they found him with the Inquisitor asleep in his lap, and he waved them out. He could use an afternoon off anyway.
Another evening he was finishing up at the stables when he heard someone approach behind him. Nyriel was wandering, stroking the horses' noses and muttering to them. She managed a smile in his direction, and Cullen smiled back, turning and almost hitting a pillar as he did so. The laugh that came from her then was music to his ears, like rain hitting the arid desert. She came up to him then, and touched his arm gently, expressing concern, but in truth he could have been on fire and not have cared. He was falling for this woman, and the months of caring for her had given her complete trust in him. He looked away, flushed, and coughed. He was never good at expressing these things. In the evenings they would read together in his chambers, taking turns for every chapter. Her old interests were returning to her, and he spied her one morning on the battlements, playing with a ball of fire in her hands, just passing the flame from one to the other. It had been a long time since she had had the will to use magic. She was rusty, and when she spied him out of the corner of her eye she lost concentration, burning the tip of finger. She looked down at it, a small well of tears forming in her eyes. Cullen rushed to her, taking her hand in his and seeing the soreness. Unexpectedly her silent tears began to turn to sobs, loud wretched wails that wouldn't cease, and she burrowed into his chest as she heaved with the months of grief and sadness that had lain dormant for so long. She cried for Solas, for her lost child, for the pain of just existing , and then for the joy of having found just one emotion, and the man who had given it to her. He put his arms around her, holding her for what felt an eternity, not caring that her overreation had woken many of their companions. In the distance he heard Sera yelling for Elfy to shut up and shag already, and he had to grin at that.