Chapter Text
"Tell me Offissser, uhh, Captain"—large golden brown eyes blinked widely in a failed attempted to feign some semblance of sobriety—"Messser Curly!" A pale hand raised the amber bottle to the elf's glistening lips. "Are you whi-hith anyb-body?"
Inquisitor Lavellan leaned lazily against the stone threshold and took a long pull of the Starkhaven whiskey the bottle making an all together inappropriate pop as she withdrew it from her pink lips. A thin stream of the liquid ran down her slightly dimpled chin and onto the beige silk of her uniform.
Cullen looked away from his work to regard the wrecked woman hiccuping in his doorway then beyond her to the light pouring into the night from the open door of the rotunda. "Not this again," he muttered under his breath pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand and replacing his quill in its ink well with the other.
"Inquisitor, do you need a hand back to your quarters?" he sighed as he made to stand pushing his chair away from his desk.
Lavellan lowered the bottle, tipping it too far on its side absent-mindedly spilling liquor on the floor. Momentarily she wore an expression of confusion before grinning broadly and poorly winking one of her puffy lidded eyes.
"Was that a p-proposition"—she pushed off from the wall—"Professssor Cull-llen?" Lavellan lurched toward the Commander, but her legs did not cooperate. Cullen did not make it to her side before both Inquisitor and bottle were broken on the cold ground. He rested a hand on her shoulder and offered another to help her up.
"Well, shhhhit," she slurred examining her ruined suede boots. The elf's eyes moved from the shards on the floor to the large human hand before her. Her brow creased and then tears came in slow, silent sobs. Without a word the commander pulled Lavellan to her feet inspecting her for cuts brushing a few shards from her snot and tear stained sleeve.
"It's all right Inquisitor," he offered awkwardly patting the woman's back and silently cursing the apostate who had left her this husk of her former self. "Let's get you to your rooms." Lavellan simply nodded in reply.
It would have been easier to take the bridge from his office toward the rotunda, but Cullen knew better. So, they took the long way—the elf's slight, shuddering figure slumping against the human with each wobbly step. The late hour provided the privacy of darkness, and certainly the discretion of the few night guardsmen and scullery maids who chanced to catch sight of their Worship's walk of shame was above question. Several flights of stairs and many tears later the pair arrived at their destination.
"Shall I fetch Josephine to see to your uh—or can you manage on your own?" Cullen eased Lavellan onto the divan nearest the stairs. Lavellan wiped her face with her sleeve and squinted against the brightness of the fire the steward had lit in anticipation of her return.
"You're leaving? But"—she covered her mouth as if she was about to be sick then hiccuped—"I thought that you..."
Cullen stood before her anxious to get out of the Herald of Andraste's bedroom and back to his paperwork. He shifted his weight from one foot then to the other uncertain of what to say or if it even mattered considering the Inquisitor's state. He took too long in his deliberations. Lavellan glared up at him, rage tattooed across her bare face.
"You—you think I'm ugly. Is that it? Or perhaps my ears are just too sharp for you—you SHHHEM!" She had paused before spitting out that one last word almost as if it were an after thought.
"Inquisitor, your ears are"—Cullen sighed and turned toward the exit rubbing the creases in his forehead before continuing in exasperation—"delightful. It is late, you are painfully the worse for drink, and, honestly, I'm not keen on being anyone's consolation prize." His patience was worn far too thin.
Lavellan pulled her legs up onto the divan and frowned to herself, suddenly calm. "Yes, that is what you'd b-be, isn't it?" She yawned and flopped her head onto a pillow sending bits of down into air like specters in the night. Cullen just stared at the illuminated landing, his exit, at the bottom of the shadowed steps.
"Ir abelas," she nearly whispered as hot tears slipped from her closed eyes adhering the tiny white feathers to her flushed cheeks. "Ir isala ma vhenan."
"Right...Goodnight Inquisitor." Cullen didn't look back before descending the stairs and carefully closing the heavy door behind him.
* * *
A silvery veil of mist hovered over the dark pool; it's cool effervescence stung the insides of her nostrils as gentle ripples in the fade left her skin tingling. The blue light of the moon filtered through the clouds and fog, painting her love a new shade. Her skin goose-pimpled in response to each of his feather touches on her hands, her face, her lips, the most sacred spaces in her body's temple. His generous kisses fell gently like silver and gold into a beggar’s cup, and she, being poor, could only languidly collect these tender tokens offered without promises made, kept, or broken. They were too real.
Slowly the cloak of his warmth pulled away leaving her breathless and chilled. Through the distance between them she looked into the empty grey of his eyes overflowing with her. Thedas disappeared into the muted trickling of water falling into water and leaves rustling somewhere. His lips moved, but she didn't hear the somber words which passed through them. She only looked on as he carelessly poured her out of his eyes and released her frozen fingers. And then he was leaving her, backing away like a subject afraid of offending the crown before finally turning his back on her.
“Wait!” she had meant to shriek after him, to run and cling to the familiar fabric of his shirt, but no sound came and her body remained frozen in time. She only stood in isolation at the end of the world as he skulked away.
Then just as the gathering mist threatened to swallow her heart she turned and called out to his disappearing figure in a foreign voice barely above a whisper. “Solas.”
He stopped.
“I want you to know, I don't—I don't miss you,” she lied with the sweet taste of his saliva still on her tongue.
He didn't turn, only flatly replied, “You will, vhenan,” and disappeared into the dark beyond.
It wasn't right. It wasn't real. “That's not what you said,” she struggled to say through sleeping lips, lucidity once more shattering the familiar illusion.