Chapter Text
Varric warns them to keep a low profile, but Amell is reasonably sure that outside her Grey Warden armor, she can pass off as one of the refugee mages in Skyhold. Ten years are enough for people to forget her face, even for Fereldens, and she can’t say that she’s displeased. She rather likes her anonymity. She’s heard her cousin complain about her infamy more than once; it doesn’t help that mercenaries and the random puffed-up noble who spots her in a tavern always end up wanting to defeat Hawke to gain some sort of prestige.
There are people Amell wants to talk to other than the Inquisitor. The Grey Warden the Inquisitor mentioned is of particular interest, especially if he has managed to remain behind when all the other Wardens have all but disappeared. She also needs to speak to Leliana, to press her old friend for more information on what she knows about the disappearance of the Wardens. Varric has also mentioned that Grand Enchanter Fiona was in Skyhold, and Amell wants to speak to her as well, the only person alive who has been freed from the Taint.
Amell passes through one ruined chamber to another, and it’s quiet. Too quiet, and it gives room for the buzzing in her head. The halls finally give way to a rather large hall, and it almost doesn’t register that there is someone else in there, surveying the room’s damage.
“Cullen?” the name slips out before she can stop herself. The buzzing grows louder—remnants of a half-remembered past life (Tower walls, First Enchanter Irving’s proud smile, Jowan spilling blood as he reveals himself to be a blood mage) come rushing back.
He startles at the sound. She supposes that the shock on his face mirrors her own. “Amell?” he says, stepping closer, the cold sunlight glinting off his armor. Armor, she notes, that is devoid of the Templar heraldry, replaced by the Inquisition’s all-seeing eye. He looks like he’s seen the dead come back to life. He has seen it before. And she is dead, in a way. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
Amell wonders if he still sees the demons when he looks at her. “I came with my cousin,” she says, “to investigate the disappearance of the Wardens. You didn’t know?”
He sighs deeply, the impatient sigh of a man who clearly doesn’t like being left out on the loop. “I was aware that Hawke was here, but Varric didn’t mention the Warden-Commander would be coming as well.”
“Officially, I’m not here. Had a letter sent to the Inquisition and everything, explaining my absence. It should arrive in a few weeks,” she explains. She figures there’s no point trying to be secretive when the Inquisitor would be sharing that information soon enough. She doesn’t want him to ask more questions on where she’s been (Everywhere? Nowhere? She’s been running scared for the longest time) so she turns the question to him. “How about you? What are you doing here?”
He gives her that look—a look she knows so well, that tells her that he knows exactly what she’s doing. It’s probably a Templar thing, or all the pranks she’s pulled with Jowan under his watchful eye. He answers her question, anyway. “I’ve been given the role as Commander for the Inquisition’s troops by Seeker Pentaghast after I left the Templar Order. We’ve been trying to gain traction and build a stronger army ever since the explosion at the Conclave.”
She smiles faintly. It must not have been easy, leaving the Templars. But Cullen’s life, as far as she knows, has been a life full of hardship. She can still remember the pride he had as a younger man wearing the armor. That boy is all but gone, however.
She glances away. If she looks too long at him, it rushes back—the Tower, blood dry on the floor, the smell of rot, Cullen on his knees, crying out to the Maker, sunken eyes, asking her to kill mages.
Cullen! Don’t you recognize me?
Only too well.
“Seeker Pentaghast chose well,” she says softly. She wants to stay, linger, ask him questions. But he probably doesn’t want to see her, and this encounter should be uncomfortable enough for him. She clenches her fists. “I should go. It’s—it’s good to see you, Commander Cullen.”
And she means it. She hopes he knows it. She has seen the Red Templars.
There’s a look that flashes across his face, but she can’t quite read it. “It’s good to see you as well, Warden-Commander,” he says quietly.
Amell shakes her head, fights against the buzzing sound that preys on her doubts. She knows better than to think he means it.