Dragon Age: Inquisition, Part 1: Permanently Frozen
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“Is Cullen broken?”
Varric looks from polishing Bianca and up at the Inquisitor. Way up. “I think we’re all a little broken, Tiny, but why don’t you expand on what you mean.”
‘Tiny’ frowns at him, her brows furrowing between her arcing horns. “He suddenly has trouble speaking. His words come like a rockslide-first little pieces, then large chunks all at once.”
Varric finally turns his full attention to Ashtal. She’s easily three times his height, with skin the color of tarnished bronze, dark eyes, and long hands ending in talons. He eyes her up and down, muttering, “Really?” He doesn’t understand humans, or how any of them could be attracted to something so much larger than themselves. Of course, Ashtal could wrap a hand around his head, so maybe he was just biased.
Just a little.
“Yes,” Ashtal intones, her violet eyes boring into his. “If he is not broken, then is this normal for humans? Or merely the males? Cassandra and Vivienne have never done so.”
A Tal-Vashoth raised by Tal-Vashoth in a Tal-Vashoth community-Maker, Cassandra knew how to pick ‘em.
“Sometimes?” Varric offered, and Ashtal’s eyes narrow. For a moment, he has flashbacks to the Arishok, but simply forces a smile onto his face. “It happens sometimes, to some people, when they get nervous. That’s all.”
Ashtal frowns at him for a moment more, then practically deflates. “Then I frighten him,” she says, slouching. “I thank you, Varric.”
She turns around and trudges off, and Varric is tempted to call her back and explain, but, really, what can he say about human courting behavior? Flames, he doesn’t even know what Qunar... er, Tal-Vashoth courting behavior involves. Headbutting, maybe. Cullen’s a decent guy, and Varric doesn’t want to see him brained.
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Ashtal is not unused to humans being scared of her. Her people have been mislabeled, misidentified, misplaced as Qunari, and so carry the weight of them on their shoulders. Even being a Tal-Vashoth alone has its own burden. So the humans and elves and dwarves all quake as she walks past, and she does not falter. They choose to fear her, choose to see her in the shadow of those who are not her, choose to not open their eyes and see truth instead.
It had not mattered before. Why does it now?
Ashtal knows. She chooses ignorance, instead of pain. It is the coward’s way. Ashtal has always been good at hiding, even from herself.
She walks across camp once she is confident that the perimeter is secure and takes her usual place at the fireside. She sits on the cold dirt and pulls her daggers from their sheaths. She twirls them once to warm her hands, and then plants them solidly into the ground.
There’s a startled inhale, and Ashtal realizes she nearly impaled a foot. A foot inside a dark leather boot. A boot that disappears under a hanging templar insignia.
Cullen.
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Cullen smiles. It is small and his eyes remain large, like a spooked deer. “N-no, my fault,” the words tumble from his mouth. “I sh-should’ve announced m-myself. I-I’ve seen your routine before-should’ve realized...” He freezes, and his eyes widen further, and Ashtal wonders if they will fall from his face. “N-not that I-I watch you, or-or anything!”
He trails off with high-pitched laughter, and Ashtal wonders what happened to make him so frightened of her. Their first month of travel together had been pleasant-he was a warrior of skill and she found a kinship with him that had not come to be with Cassandra. Her mother had always said a warrior should be judged by the condition of their armament, and Cullen’s sword, shield, and armor had always been in perfect condition, even after they’d found him treking through the Frostback Mountains.
He had once asked about the make of her blades, and Ashtal had explained that, since very few would trade with her people, they had to find their own to make weapons and armor. She told of how Vashoth within Seheron would help smuggle the non-Antaam out of Qunari lands, and they would often join small villages such as hers.
He’d listened, intrigued. And, when Ashtal had asked questions of his templars, he’d explained in turn.
“I w-was just wondering,” Cullen says, “if you-if I-would you-d-do you-”
Ashtal waits for Cullen to choose his words. Cullen closes his mouth, face reddening further in the firelight, and looks skyward.
Finally, he holds out his hand, clenched tight around something. He’s still looking at the darkening sky. “I-I thought you could u-use this?”
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It is a whetstone. One side is a grey darker than her skin and of a fine grit, while the other is a greenish-beige and coarser. It is a remarkable stone, and Ashtal clutches it tight in her hand.
Cullen babbles. “I found th-that when we were going through that last t-town, a-and I thought of you,” he says, eyes yet on the sky. “Th-there were others th-there, but they had d-designs on them, or-or were textured, or were in strange sh-shapes. Like the sun!” He makes a face just as Ashtal does. “Waste of a good stone, and I thought you’d appreciate this f-far more.”
“It is perfect,” she says. That’s untrue-it’s not perfect. Nothing can be perfect, for striving for perfection is to ignore your faults is to ignore who you are. But it is what Ashtal needs and wants, and the cowardly thing she is hiding from herself sprouts and grows until her chest is full of it.
Cullen finally looks back at her, and his eyes are human-looking again, and less like they will pop free of his skull. “R-really?!” he says, and his smile is wide.
Ashtal is the one to look away. A first. “To the Antaam, the weapon is the soul of the Qunari,” she says. She rubs a thumb over the courser side of the whetstone. “Tal-Vashoth do not abide by that belief, but, the significance of a tool to its master is not lost on us.” She opens her mouth, and hesitates.
After a moment, Cullen takes a seat beside her. He has not done so since his sentences became rattling messes. “Ashtal?” he asks, gently. It occurs to Ashtal that she never hesitates like this. Not around anyone else. Never before.
The thing in her chest blooms.
“You have given me a tool to care for my soul, Cullen,” she says at last, and looks over at him. Her eyes search his face, which shifted at her words from concerned to stunned. She sees him blush again, and he swallows. His face becomes calm. His eyes firm.
“I have,” Cullen says, keeping her gaze. His words come steadily, although his tone shakes. His choice is made.
Ashtal meets his eyes for several more seconds, then, without looking away, pulls the dagger next to Cullen’s foot from the ground. As she wipes the dirt off onto her pant leg, she leans forward and presses a kiss to Cullen’s mouth.
“I thank you,” she murmurs against it, and pulls away. As she starts working on her first dagger, she sees Cullen’s expression from the corner of her eye. He goes red, then white, then green, then back to white.
He never stops smiling.
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I just. Words do not describe! The fill was absolutely stunning, and your Tal-Vashoth inquisitor was so gorgeous! Absolutely love the way she was written, love the struggle with dealing with her upbringing and coping with human culture, and of course Cullen was perfection~ Maker knows I miss how he was before he went blood mage bananas. All in all thank you so much W!anon~! I hope to see more of your work! ♡♡♡♡
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