14 / 38 / 48 for the Florence asks! ✨
Oooh, thank you so much! I will answer one here and do the other(s) in separate posts c: This gave me a push to finally finish fleshing out an idea that's been sitting for over a year, so double thank you for that! 💗
(Florence + the Machine Writing Prompts)
Hold Me Down
Summary: In the aftermath of Here Lies the Abyss, Cullen finds the Inquisitor alone at the edge of the camp.
(Elowen Lavellan/Cullen | 1,206 Words | CW: Blood, descriptions of shock/panic attack)
“Hold me down, I'm so tired now
Aim your arrow at the sky
Take me down, I'm too tired now
Leave me where I lie.”
—Florence + the Machine, “Sky Full of Song”
“—foremost priority should be seeking out and destroying any remaining demons who might have escaped the battle,” Cullen was saying to a scout as they walked, “take a group and scour the fortress for any signs, and then relay the information to Commander Rylen. He’s kept a troop in reserve for cleanup duty.”
“Yes, Commander,” the scout said, peeling off. Cullen paused as he saw an odd shape tucked between two tents and a stack of crates.
He knew the shape of that staff.
“Inquisitor?” he called, peering over the stack of crates. The shape shifted, turned slightly, and lifted its head.
Behind the cowl, her face was still spattered with blood; it was almost enough to obscure the pale lines of her vallaslin entirely, and what the blood didn’t smear was peppered with ash and dust. Her hands were set on her lap, just as filthy as her face, half-curled and limp. And her eyes…
“Lavellan?” he said, and she blinked, blood-clogged eyelashes sticking for a moment to her cheek. Her eyes did not come into focus.
Ah—he’d seen this before.
Cullen sidestepped the crates and crouched several inches away, leaving her room on the other side to get away from him if necessary.
“Can you hear me, Inquisitor?” he murmured quietly, and her bitten lips cracked open.
“I am fine.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder when he heard movement in the camp. Just a pair of sentries wandering past. He returned his attention to the Inquisitor, whose attention remained fixed somewhere over Cullen’s left shoulder.
“Can you hear me?” he asked. “Do you know what I am saying?”
There was a long pause. He noted the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the way her blood-soaked hands trembled in her lap.
“...yes,” she said at last, her voice faint and flat.
“What do you hear?”
A soft gasp and her hands twitched in her lap.
“You.”
“And what else?”
She was still breathing too quickly. Cullen eased himself down until he was kneeling between her and the rest of the camp. If nothing else, he could shield her from their speculation. A meager enough offering, but it was one he would give her without hesitation.
“The…the tents in the wind.”
“And?”
“Metal on stone. People talking.”
“Good. What do you see?”
A frown collected between her brows and she slowly glanced at him to frown. That was good, too.
“Sand. Tents. The stars.”
“And?”
“Why?”
“Answer the question.”
She sighed, but her breath had slowed slightly.
“The crates. My…my hands,” her voice shook on the last word. “You.”
“Alright,” he paused, “Are you with me?”
“Yes, I…yes,” she moved to set her face in her hands and flinched when she saw them clearly. “I—it was…The Fade was…”
“We needn’t discuss it,” Cullen murmured, shifting onto his knees to tug the tail end of his cloak loose. “You don’t have to say anything now. May I see your hand?”
Lavellan extended one hand silently and Cullen pulled the cork from his waterskin to wet the crimson fabric of his cloak. He could not properly clean her skin here; he hadn’t carried soap with him, and the cloth of the cloak was not especially absorbent. Maker, he was covered in his fair share of grime after the battle. Even so, he could get the worst of the blood off. He knew all too well what it meant to have to deal with such aftereffects of a fight.
To be confronted with the concrete proof of what had happened.
Her hands shook in his grip, and they were cold even through the barrier of leather. Cullen pressed his lips together, trying to decide if he ought to offer his gloves. Would she take them from him? He could not guess either way.
“Is that any better?” he asked when he was done. Lavellan took her hand from him and peered at it in the flickering torchlight of the camp, curling and uncurling her fingers.
“Yes, I—thank you,” she said. She lifted the other hand slightly and froze with it there, hung halfway into the air. Cullen carefully reached out to take it, selecting a different section of fabric to clean the skin with.
Someone ought to be helping her properly. Someone needed to make sure she found a bath, food, somewhere soft to lay her head. After all he had seen of her, all he knew she had done, Cullen knew better than to think she was fragile. Even so—it tugged at him, to see her so shattered now.
“It had so many legs,” she whispered hoarsely after a moment. “Too many. I—I couldn’t—I should have—”
Her voice broke at the end, and when the Commander glanced at her he saw that tears had begun to clear some of the muck from her cheeks in clear, straight lines. They dripped from her cheeks black and red-brown, leaving tiny, damp circles on her coat.
“You’re here now,” he told her, holding her hand for a moment longer than necessary once it was clean. “You aren’t there anymore. It is done.”
“I let him die,” she said quietly, searching his eyes. “I—I told him to stay behind. It’s my fault. And the Divine—it’s my fault, Commander. All of it is.”
Cullen waited for her to continue, but she didn’t go on. She bit her lip again, staring at him. Ah—but what could he say to her now? There was nothing to be done about one’s past mistakes. He knew better than most what it meant to live with regret at one’s back. What to say? All he had was the words he gave his own soldiers when they’d made a mistake, and the words seemed ill-fitting here.
“Whatever has happened,” he told her, “I’ve no doubt that you made the best decision you could with the resources available to you.”
Lavellan withdrew her hand. Cullen let it go without protest.
“I…” slowly, the Inquisitor pulled her cowl down and away from her face. She ran her hands over the relatively clean plait beneath. “Thank you.”
It was recognition, but a dismissal as well. Not “thank you for thinking so,” but “please go away.”
Cullen tucked the soiled end of the cloak away and stood, careful not to move too close.
“If there is anything you need, Inquisitor,” he said softly. “Please—do not hesitate to ask.”
Lavellan inclined her head, but she’d turned away to stare out at the vastness of the dunes and stars beyond. Cullen exhaled slowly and moved to step around the crates. He halted when she spoke again.
“Cullen?” Elowen said; not Commander, for once, but his name. He turned to look at her and found her eyes, full of tears but clear and focused on his. “Thank you. Really.”
“Of course,” he said, and cleared his throat. “It was…my honor.”
Her eyes slipped away again, but her hands were clasped softly in her lap. Cullen straightened, gathered himself, and strode back into the camp beyond.
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