Chapter Text
Linette Trevelyan entered the room.
He didn’t even have to turn around to know that it was her. She had a certain aura, a way her energy travelled and touched everyone in the room before you spotted her and always smiling face.
Cullen was becoming an expert on her. Whether or not he wanted to admit it, it had begun in Haven, where doubt and - as much as it pained him now to admit - mistrust had made watching her his duty. Admiration for this ordinary woman with this extraordinary burden had quickly burnt away any misgivings and soon he had found himself wondering about her, her life and thoughts.
Lucky for him, she had been wondering the same thing.
He dismissed his soldier with a slight nod, frowning when it took him a barely audible cough to get his attention. "You're free to go," he said, watching the soldier's face snap from the Inquisitor's to his before saluting and all but sprinting out of there.
"That's new," she said with a small laugh, "usually they don't run for the hills until my hand starts glowing."
Cullen smiled as he turned around, eyes still on the paper. Maker, but it was never ending. "You're the Herald of Andrade. The green recruits are bound to feel a bit more threatened by the legend in the flesh."
She let out a small snort, "that was no green recruit, Cullen. He's been with us almost from the start. I believe you said his name was Isaac?"
Surprised, he paused his reading and said, "I didn't realize you knew their names."
"I do pay some attention when you start mumbling about rosters and shift changes. Even the ones you mutter in your sleep."
That would have normally earned a small laugh from him. He was so engrossed in this latest report from Emprise de Lion - how in the Maker's name did the red templars manage to set such a foothold, so quickly - that he didn't hear her sigh and almost didn't hear the disappointment in her voice when she said, "I can come back later, if this is a bad time."
The pounding headache, the never ending nausea and aching body very nearly had him snapping at her that it was clearly terrible timing. Instead, he set the paper on the desk and looked up to face her. "No, I had been hoping you'd come..."
She wasn't wearing the usual beige suit that she wore around Skyhold. He quickly racked his brain, frowning when he realized it wasn't her regular armour either.
They were mage robes.
He felt his cheeks grow warm, his belly do an odd flip that he was sure had nothing to do with an upset stomach. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but his tongue had grown too big for his mouth.
It was a simple blue robe, that clung to her every curve. The skirt of it was willowy enough that it shifted elegantly as she leaned into her hip. The colour reminded Cullen of the waters of Lake Calenhad during a storm, a deep blue that complemented her olive skin nicely. The plain white bodice belt held up the just as equally plain white suspenders, as well as an apron where she was keeping elfroot and -from the sound of the slight clinking coming from it- some vials in its pockets.
Perhaps the main thing that had drawn his gaze to her midsection was the buckle on the bodice, the symbol of the Inquisition. He wondered if she realized just what an image she made.
“Cullen.”
The exasperation in her voice had his eyes snapping back up to hers. He bowed his head slightly, awed by how very much she looked the Herald of Andraste instead of just Linette. How foolish of him to forget. “I...Sorry. I got distracted.”
Her lips turned downward, annoyance in her eyes. Her hands pulled at her skirts as she said, “it’s too much, isn’t it? I missed my robes so I asked Josephine for new ones. Clearly she took it upon herself to make them as non-magey as possible. Isn’t that silly? Out of all the things to miss from my life at the Circle, it was this.”
“Well, I don’t imagine it was the lurking templars,” he said easily as he leaned back on his desk. Definitely trying to ignore the warmth in his belly now. Not thinking about what was causing it.
This caused her lips to quirk up. “They didn’t lurk that much. Not all templars lurk. I can’t imagine you lurking. Much.”
He skipped over this, most certainly not thinking of a certain mage in the Fereldan tower. A lifetime ago. “So. Mage robes?”
Linette held his gaze for a second too long, and he saw the comprehension in her eyes momentarily. Not now, he wanted to beg. She seemed to understand and a moment too late she said, “I just… I’ve always worn a dress. My whole life. And then I woke up in those awful green pants with its matching jacket. I haven’t been able to shake pants since then.”
“Dresses are rather illogical, aren’t they? For fighting?”
She shrugged her slim shoulders delicately, rolling her eyes, “I guess? I wouldn’t have known, if none of this had never happened.” Her eyes met his, and she smiled warmly, “then again, none of the good stuff that came with it would have ever happened either.”
Cullen smiled, that warmth travelling to his face now. “Were the pants worth it, then?”
“Absolutely,” her voice was laughter and love all in one, “I did meet this one ex-templar. Didn’t lurk. Definitely seemed to like my robes.”
At this, his face flushed hot, “they’re nice!”
Her eyebrows wiggled suggestively, “you know… Varric was telling me he’d lend me a book his friend Isabela loved. Something about a mage and a templar and the temptations that run between them.”
“Please stop,” he groaned, shuddering at the idea of whatever book Isabela could get her hands on, “I can imagine the type of book she would recommend.”
“I could read Varric’s smutty novels. I’m sure that won’t make for awkward conversation at all while on the road.”
He glared. Hard.
Grinning, she crossed the room and tilted her head, “so they’re just nice?”
“They’re lovely,” he whispered as he grabbed her hands and raised them to his lips, his smile meeting his eyes and lighting up his whole face, “just as you are.”
It was, she supposed, the best compliment she could think of.