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Eve woke up slowly cuddled into Cullen and sighed in utter contentment. Corypheus had finally been defeated and the celebration party went till the early hours. Eve took the chance to slip away after being hounded for hours by numerous nobles. She was exhausted and very sore but standing on her balcony just watching the sunrise gave Eve a sense of peace that she hadn’t in a long while. When she felt Cullen’s arms around her, Eve felt complete. She stretched slightly as Cullen tightened his arms round her and slowly opened his eyes. He smiled sleepily. “Good Morning.”
Eve glanced towards her balcony, then back at Cullen with a chuckle. “I think it’s afternoon, what do you suppose our chances of spending the rest of the day here?”
Cullen chuckled as he rolled onto his back pulling Eve with him. “Darling, as much as I would love to stay in bed. I have a mountain of paper work to do.”
Eve grinned. “Are you forgetting who your talking to? I am the Inquisitor and I forbid you to do any work today other than doing anything to please me.”
“You are not abusing your powers? Are you, My Love?”
Eve reached up and gave Cullen a quick kiss and hummed in agreement. “Only for my own personal gain.”
Cullen grabbed hold of Eve’s hands and promptly flipped her on to her back, she gasped in surprise and looked at Cullen with heat in her eyes. He loved the small noises she made. He lowered his head to hers but not low enough that she could easily reach up and kiss him herself. “Hmm, you should get punished for trying to use the Commander of the Inquisition for your own personal gains.”
A loud persistent knocking caught the attention of Eve and Cullen let go of her as she got up from the bed and wrapped a sheet around herself and went to the door. Cullen went to lay back but shot up at the sound of Eve’s shout. “What do you mean he’s gone?...We’ll be right there.”
Eve slammed the door and ran up the stairs, her head in turmoil. As she got to the top she dropped the sheet and grabbed her clothes and pulled them on. Cullen took the cue and started getting dressed too. He waited till they were both dressed before he asked what was wrong.
“Eve? What’s happened?”
Eve was sat on the bed trying to tie her boot up but stopped trying to tie her boot up and took a deep breath. “Solas has disappeared.”
Cullen moved to sit next to her. “What do you mean disappeared? Did he leave no note or anything?”
He watched her finishing lacing her boots and she sprung up from the bed and began pacing the room. “No, nothing. He’s just vanished. We need to get to the war room, Leliana is waiting for us.”
The next couple of hours was spent going through Solas’s personal things trying to find anything that might give them a clue. Eve couldn’t help thinking about what happened after Corypheus was defeated. He seemed upset when the Orb was destroyed and the more she thought about it, the more it made Eve wonder whether there was a connection and promptly got her advisors to research what the Orb was.
Days seem to go by without any word and Cullen could see it was all getting to Eve. He was sat at his desk when Iron Bull came to see him in his office. “Cullen. You should go and speak to Eve.”
Cullen looked up at the Qunari. “I’ve tried but she just ignores me. She just needs some space.”
Bull shook his head. “You should try a Qunari method. Spar with her. She needs to work through this.”
“Spar with her? I’m not sure whether sparring with real weapons is the answer?”
“I’m not saying using real weapons, use wooden staffs. Trust me she needs to work through her issues and this is the best way to do it.”
Cullen looked at Bull curiously. “If your sure it will work, why don’t you spar with her?”
Bull grinned. “Anyone could spar with her. But it’s you she’ll talk to. She’s down doing drills right now.” He turned round and left Cullen sat at his desk.
Cullen sighed and got up. He didn’t put on his armour this morning and he only had a white shirt and a pair of black leggings. Eve had asked to spar with him before and maybe Bull was right. His mind made up he left his office and walked down to the Sparring Ring. Eve had it commissioned so the soldiers had a bigger area in which to practice and he could see Eve attacking one of the practice dummies. Clad in a sleeveless blue shirt and matching leggings, Cullen watched her for a few moments. Staffs weren’t her usual choice of weapons but he remembered her telling him she preferred not to completely rely on one type of weapon.
He picked up a staff and moved quickly to block her next attack on the dummy. If she was shocked to see him, she didn’t show it and promptly spun the staff around, ready to attack him. Cullen just had a split second to ready his staff before Eve came in for an attack with a loud shout.
Soon they were gathering a crowd as he blocked his left then right, Eve was relentless and hardly missed a step. Eve suddenly spun away to take a breath as she angrily glared at Cullen. “Where are we on the Orb?”
Cullen, caught off guard by her abrupt question stammered out an answer. “We’re still waiting on a couple of Leliana’s agents to come back. But that didn’t seem to calm Eve down, only make her angrier as he watched her snap the staff in two and start prowling towards him for another attack, spinning them round like they were daggers.
“Aren’t there any books in the library? Have agents coordinate with Dorian to start going through them.” She suddenly spun towards him, as Cullen tried desperately to fend her off. He realised what Bull meant as he felt like a new recruit, Eve really had a lot of pent up anger as he matched her blow for blow until he managed to slip past her defences and whacked her hard on the back. He enjoyed the hit for a split second till he saw her head go back in pain and he felt awful for hitting her so hard. It didn’t stop Eve though when she used the pain to launch a violent assault on him.
He was trying to block all the hits, while trying to get her to see some sense. “That...is...liable...to...be...thousands...” She got her two broken bits of staff under his whole one and hooked it out of his hands, while ignoring the cheers from the crowd.
“Then we will read thousands.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the arena, throwing the broken bits of staff on the floor. All Cullen could do was stand there and watch her go.
“Impressive show Cullen. She’ll feel much better now.” He looked over to the fence and saw Bull lazily leaning on it. Cullen was still confused.
“How will she feel better? She seems even more angry.”
“She had an outlet for her pent up frustrations. Keeping it bottled up is dangerous. Once she calms down, she would be more relaxed.” Cullen turned his head to look at Eve’s retreating figure. She did seem more relaxed than she had earlier. He was going to go after her when Bull grabbed his arm.
“Let her come to you, Cullen. She would not appreciate you pampering her right now.”
Cullen turned to look at him. “How do you know all this?”
Bull shook his head. “I don’t. She just reminds me of someone I know.” Before he could ask who, Bull straightened up and walked away.