Chapter Text
Cullen wasn’t very old when he met Amell.
He wore a ratty tunic and no shoes when he was first inducted into the Ferelden Circle. He was the tallest boy there for recruits, at thirteen, but he was the smallest of his age group, and even the group younger than him. A hard, lean childhood offered little food and Cullen was proof of it. His ankles and knuckles were rough and scabbed and his toenails were blunted as he padded along the stone cathedral. The floor was cool, and in his foggy memory, he remembers the echoes he created. They bounced off the walls like fat bumble bees on windowpanes-- and he felt sluggish like one.
He was bad at training, at first. His feet and hands were too big to understand the directions he was being taught, his mouth too slow for the Chant, his head too dumb to do the math or the history or even the simple book stuff, really. He had a hard time even really writing his name— the quill felt like a thorn in between his fingers and a burn on the junction of his palm. The switch felt worse. Some boys with quick tongues and deft fingers would lay long hair on their palms and when they were slapped once, twice, thrice , they would bleed and the professor would stop slapping. Cullen took his beatings with indifference. His father would beat him more if he pulled such a stunt.
He hated it all, too. There were rough hands but no warmth in them. There was hard work, like lifting and pulling and dragging and stacking— that’s all he did well, really. Couldn’t make friends worth a damn, neither. But he tried, Oh, Maker, did he try. He showed them games he played with his sisters and brother, he helped them with their chores, he took beatings for them in hopes of being included. But, young Cullen Rutherford, who had little aptitude for noble work in a world rich with pride, did not make the cut. He stumbled alone, his shoulders strengthening under the strain of his impossible loneliness.
Cullen was the poorest in the room. And he was arguably the quietest. Amongst a bunch of younger boys, he looked like a damn pillar of silence. He hardly smiled, too— his Mother used to say you mustn’t smile unless you have a reason to, and Cullen hadn’t found his reason yet. A grim childhood proved his cheek muscles untouched. His hands would find each other, twist his digits shyly as he pried at himself to find joy-- but when there was no grunt work, he was unhappy. Useless, they all said in hushed ways and soft sighs as they stared at him in pity and scorn. He could lift a sword, despite his size. He had an untapped energy, despite his sickly eyes and sunken cheeks. He just wanted to feel like a hero in a world of mediocre civilians.
__
It wasn’t probably until four months in when he had enough— Cullen was never a patient child, but he was painfully shy, so he waited.
“Sister Corinthia, m-may I have a moment?” Cullen asked after his history lesson. He had inducted Templar robes on— a black set of trousers and a customary red tunic with the collar done up to his neck. His curls were untidy, and his nose was crooked. He was an ugly boy, and though his eyes were pretty, they were purpled in sleeplessness.
“Yes, my child,” she said. She’d just had a nip of rum, he could tell. Her nose was watery like his Father’s after Sunday service.
“Is there a way I could get extra help?” He asked. He was nervous; he wrung his hands again and again. He chewed his lip. His sweat crawled down his back in a slow, tantalizing trickle.
She thought— her mouth puckered. “You haven’t caught on to the Maker’s word?”
Cullen turned crimson. “N-no, ma’am.”
“It’s not your fault you are stupid,” she said. “You cannot help who your worldly parents are.”
Cullen burned with rage. “No, ma’am.” He said. My family gave me everything they could.
“I will put a word in with the Grand Enchanter— perhaps he has a young apprentice who’s good with fools,” she flicked him away. Cullen turned on his heel and left the room. He flung a million curses at her in his head, but he did not speak them. You never open your mouth at them or they’ll send you back to be a poor farmer like me, son, his father threatened. No opportunity should go wasted on a wagging tongue.
He waited a week. Then another. Then, after all of his classes, just after dinner but before evening prayer, he met the Grand Enchanter.
His captain took him up a long set of stairs; so long that Cullen’s thighs began to seize, and Cullen had good legs, strong farmer-boy legs.
They went to a rotunda, as all of the Mage floors were, and his captain stopped suddenly at a door. He opened it.
“You never knock,” he said. Cullen filed that away in his attentive memory.
He led him into a vast room. It was littered with vellum, endless tomes, crowded desks and it glowed— mage light and candles and the fading light in the long, thin windows. It smelled like wax and books and hope.
Cullen had seen the Knight-Commander a few times, but never the Grand Enchanter. He was a slimmer man, but he appeared that way only because he was one of the first grown men not wearing armour Cullen had seen in months. He had a beard, mostly dark with flashes of grey. He was well on his way of being old, too. He had deep lines along his face. Cullen watched those craggy wrinkles for signs of cruelty.
“Hello, young man,” the Enchanter said as he got up from his desk. He had broad hands with neat nails— Cullen felt his too-long hands and raggedy nails turn green in envy. The captain nodded swiftly before he bowed out of the room.
Cullen and the mage were left alone in the room.
“Hello, sir,” he said.
“Having some trouble with your classes?” The Enchanter asked. He leaned against his desk comfortably as he clasped his hands in front of his belt. They looked normal-- rosy palms and small, dark whiskers on his fingers.
Cullen gulped and nodded.
“Where do you struggle?” He asked. His black beetle eyes twinkled gold in the flame.
“R-reading, writing, m-my memory…” Cullen trailed off and turned purple in embarrassment. “My parents were too poor to send me schoolin’.”
The Enchanter shrugged. “You’re here, so all things may be remedied.” His voice was deep and craggy, like his face, but it held comfort.
“I’m Grand Enchanter Irving,” he said. And that is where Cullen found one shred of warmth. The spark to the hearth.
The next day, he arose two hours early. The Grand Enchanter sat him down at one of the desks in the History room-- he lit a candle with his mind and gave him an hour to write his test.
“Be confident, son,” he said with his gravel-and-ash voice. Then he sat down at the professor’s desk and waited. His eyes lingered on the back wall good-naturedly as Cullen limped through his exam. When he was done, he sat up and put his quill down. The sun had peaked in through the windows and blinded Cullen-- he hadn’t noticed.
“Thank you, sir,” Cullen said as the Grand Enchanter took his papers and snuffed the candle with his mind.
“It’s not an issue,” the Grand Enchanter said. He offered a paternal smile, one that Cullen gladly lapped up.
“W-when will I get my tutor?” Cullen asked after the retreating form. But the Enchanter was gone before Cullen could get up.
He waited a week. Then another. Then after his training on Sunday but before dinner, he was summoned to the mage library on one of the higher floors. He walked alone, picking at his fingernails and holding his poor-boy books under his arm. He felt like a toddler walking between those forests of tomes. He felt stupid because he couldn’t read half of them.
He met his new tutor in an alcove between two large bookshelves in the F section. She sat alone. She was beautiful. Cullen felt his ears warm.
“Cullen?” She asked. He turned warmer.
“Y-yeah,” he answered. She motioned to the free seat across from her. She had freckles on the backs of her hands, her open palms almost red with their blush. Her nails were trimmed cleanly, and they looked long on her spindly fingers.
He sat awkwardly. She was stiff, like an unused bow, but she was supple in stature. She had a soft face. She wore too big robes, so she looked younger than even him, with his deprived body.
“So,” she began with her pouty rose lips, “perhaps we should start with the basics?” She turned to her side and lifted a few books onto her section of the desk. With this motion, her posture softened.
“From what I was told, Cullen,” she said his name again, “you seem to struggle with your life here. Truth be told, many do. So you are not alone in this,” she began. He felt an odd sense of ease over his chest, loosening the tight lung tissue, “and you likely will catch on quickly. Professor Irving said you were attentive and quick to remember in your base-skill testing and that you would be best suited to simple explanation,” she opened up a book and then another, her quick little hands finding the pages she needed, “and that’s where I come in.”
She offered a shy smile. Her voice was very light. “Have you ever done this before?” Cullen asked. His voice cracked twice, but he did not stutter. He thanked the Maker for that.
“A few times, mostly just very young apprentices.” She replied quietly. There was something in her voice that she didn’t discuss.
“How young?” He asked conversationally. She sighed.
“Young.” She said.
Cullen let it drop. She turned one of her books and pushed it towards him. “Do you recognize this?” She asked.
Cullen swallowed. He nodded. “This is the Canticle of Trials.”
“Can you read me the first stanza?” She asked. Her eyes seemed to pull the will from his belly. He nodded dutifully.
He stumbled through the first verse. When he stuttered and turned maroon, she did not laugh or give him a funny look. She patiently folded her thin fingers and began to read overtop of him, modelling with her sweet, clear voice. Then he tried again, and he was much better. She never looked at the book, and she smiled nervously when he tried to give her his shy, awkward smile. She had shoulder-length black hair, held in S -shaped curls that she kept tucked behind her ears. Cullen tucked his long blond curls behind his ears, too.
“ ‘Maker, my enemies are,’ ” he paused, “ ‘ah-bun-dent. Many are those who rise up ah-gain-st me.’ ” He read. His tutor’s eyes, like obsidian, never left his awful face. He felt scrutinized. His voice tapered off.
“ ‘But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves free against me.’ ” Her puckered-rose mouth said. He kept staring at her cupid’s bow, her oddly beautiful crooked nose.
“ ‘In the long hours of the night, when hope has abandoned me, I will see the stars and know Your Light remains.’ ”
Her hair was inky black, gold and orange dancing around the edges as they glistened elegantly in the candlelight. Cullen could not stop staring. She was so odd, so interesting—
“ ‘I have heard the sound, a song in the stillness, the echo of Your voice, calling creation to wake from its slumber.’ ”
“Cullen?” She asked. His face tucked itself downward, to force himself to stare at the page. His cheeks burned.
“Do you recognize what I am reading?” She asked.
“I-I’m starting to,” he whispered.
“Read the next stanza,” she said softly.
“ ‘How can we kn-kn-know You? In the t-t-turning of the seasons, in life and death, in the e-e-e-empty space where our hearts h-hunger for a forgotten f-face?’ ” He felt sick in the gut. His ears began to ring. He could hear the laughs already.
“ ‘You have walked beside me, down the paths where a thousand arrows sought my flesh. You have stood with me when all others have forsaken me.’ ” She continued, like he wasn’t a fool. She looked down at her hands, spread her fingers on the table and watched them frost. He should feel afraid, every other Templar looked uncomfortable when a mage casted, but he found himself staring in complete awe.
“ ‘I have faced armies with You as my shield, and though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing can break me except Your absence.’ ” She read. Cullen picked up after her.
The candle burned a little more and more as time went on. After the tenth time he stuttered and she didn’t smirk or sneer, he felt himself relax. The words, like blood through a shirt, bled into his memory. He felt them stick and imbed into his mind-- the first lesson to not be nearly beaten into him. His hands stung at the idea of failing. But by the end of the first session, Cullen could read the Canticle of Trials without help, and there was not a mark upon his thin skin.The book felt good in his hands. He enjoyed the warm smell of his tutor, a mage. He was too nervous to ask after her name. But she never gave him time to warm up to his question.
“How about we practice writing?” She asked. She was almost whispering now, her lips silky-soft looking. Cullen couldn’t stop staring at her odd face— the longer you looked, the more statuesque it appeared. Her cheekbones were high, but her face was thin, and she had a strong nose that was very crooked, but it just made sense for her—
“Cullen?” She asked.
Cullen turned scarlet. “Yes, I-I’d like that.” His scarlet moved to the tips of his ears when he stuttered.
She pulled a piece of vellum from a little folder she had. She smoothed it, pulled a quill and an inkpot from her bag on the floor. She dotted the feather, which was small and white and practical. She carefully wrote a short word and then held the quill out. Cullen, with his jumbly hands, took it and got ink all over his palm. His tutor did not scorn him. She handed him a rag from her pocket and he thanked her over the silent self-destructive mantra he coached in his head.
She turned the page quickly and slid it to him. Cullen heard someone whisper on the other side of the shelves to his left. She sniffed, waiting for him to read the word.
“Oh!” He said dumbly, setting to read the word.
It was written in a neat, effective script. Each letter was pointed and quick, but held body enough to be perfectly legible. Too bad Cullen couldn’t pronounce it.
“Forgive me, but is it… R- EHV -AH?” He asked.
The first of few laughs of the night, his tutor smiled genuinely, “REEVA. My father was big into Elvhen lore when I was born and liked the word Revas, which means freedom,” she laughed bitterly, “and my mother is named Revka, so they decided on Reva.” She smiled self-consciously. An awkward beat passed— she wore an expression of someone that shared too much.
“My parents named me Cullen because it was easy to spell,” he consoled teasingly. Truthfully, he didn’t know why they named him Cullen. But he wanted to put her at ease.
She laughed, like sharp bells in the chantry cathedral that are small and shined beautifully. If silver had a sound, it was her laugh.
“I thought it was because you were so sullen,” she smiled. Cullen shrugged.
“I don’t smile unless there’s a reason to,” he tried to hide his smile. She rolled her eyes. He smiled. And she grinned back.
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Reva intensely, as that was her only nature, made him study with her everyday, before bedtime prayers but after supper. They sat across from each other always, her back to the wall and his to the hall. In these moments every night, he got to study and become a better student— a plus, as it gave him an edge to his ostensible ignorance. But he also got to talk to Reva, on their time aside from tutoring sessions that were entirely devoted to his education. It was during the fourth week after the first Sunday she’d tutored him for the first time. A Tuesday. The first day she talked about her family.
“You remind me of my younger brother,” she said. Her eyes, although they were always thoughtful, proved to be more ruminate than usual.
“Why? I-is he as a-astute as I?” He teased. His cheeks didn’t bother to light up as he stumbled because Reva never gave him reason to.
“No, never,” she teased lightly, her near-black eyes shifting from Cullen’s face to her papers back to his face. “He had blond curls just like you… I used to play with his curls as he went to sleep…” she drifted off. Her face looked so sad for that fraction of a second that Cullen felt an unidentifiable feeling-- guilt for an act he had no part of. It gnawed at the pit of his stomach for as long as she looked that way. But her face cleared after a beat, and she smiled soberly that never met her eyes.
“But that was then and this is now. Besides, you couldn’t be my brother. You’re too blunt.” She teased. He shrugged, never disagreeing with her.
“I speak plain,” he affirmed. She laughed at his simplicity and he held that laugh as close to his heart as he could.
Cullen began to look forward to their lessons-- he learned everything he had to in class, but then he learned more. He enjoyed the knowledge-- and Reva’s building trust-- growing at his fingertips. He liked feeling smart. It made him feel less like a target. Some of his classmates began to sit closer to him and ask him for help-- which he did provide, albeit as awkward and jenky as he was himself. But even that began to lessen, too. With knowledge came power, and with that? Cullen felt useful.
By his second summer, he had a considerable group of friends-- All boys his age, with their tanned backs and strong feet from running outside everyday in play and training. They wore strained brows and cock-sure smiles-- but none were like Reva, who could make the moons twirl in dance together, as she’d cured him of his stupidity like poultice to an infection-- He’d grown some, too. He looked healthy. He’d gained some weight, some muscle, some height to his spine and knees. But he wasn’t the only development. There was another tutee.
She was from the woods, that much was obvious, with her careful gait and wary eyes. Her hair was a large halo of dark curls, burgeoning and stiff, yet hypnotic and so different to his eyes, that he couldn’t help but want to touch. He never did, however. She would cut his hands off and leave the fingers as a warning. She was an elf and dark like the forest shadows. Her ears were full of gold and jewels and her face and hands were covered in tiny, intricate swirls of burnt ochre and apricot. She was intense in stature, with broad-brave shoulders and wide, strong hips. She was gentle with Reva, too. Asked questions in her soft accent, sighed in frustration when she couldn’t understand the words floating around her page. Reva took to reading to the pair, as it was beneficial for Cullen to see how to pronounce words and Tala learned better through listening. She would sit in her chair and play with a section of hair on the back of her head and twist and twist and twist it. Cullen took to pinching the short, loose curls on the back of his neck, too-- as a recent development, when he turned thirteen, the Knights decided to give him a haircut. His head had been shaved clean, save for a short amount at the top that quickly took to curling-- to which his captain would comb away quickly.
“Keep that appearance clean, Rutherford, or I’ll bald your empty head.” he’d warned. Cullen kept them combed and oiled down. It made the acne beginning at his temples and around his gaunt (but warm) cheeks aggravated, as when he sweated, the grease would roll down from his hairline to his face in epic proportions.
One day, in the middle of a heat-wave, he was out on the front field with his platoon doing runs. His captain was feeling particularly hateful and told them to double their runs-- “The Maker will keep you cool. You run double for your laziness in your partner exercises.”
So, Cullen ran. He was not leading the pack, but he was holding his own pace. He ignored the hateful rays burning his skin and bleaching his hair and worsening his vision. His lungs rattled in his chest and his lower back ached, but he did not falter.
He was rounding the bend, towards the lake and near the berry bushes that the mages tended. A small, heavenly breeze whispered across the sweat on the back of his slender neck and he sighed at the sensation, though it sounded like a frustrated huff. The lake glimmered like a diamond in front of a poor, poor man.
“Psst!” Someone said from behind a blueberry bush. He surveyed the field of berries— because the mages took care of them, they all flourished and did not need to be held in a monoculture, but instead a cacophony of flavours, bushes and hues—Cullen slowed, throwing his blond head around to check behind him-- no boys lagged behind him.
“Hm?” he grunted as he stopped. His calves ached in absolute agony.
“Psst!” The voice said again. Cullen leaned closer to the bush. He heard feet beating on the worn dirt behind him. Two freckled hands reached out and pulled him into the row. He fell into the leaves, fat berries flying as he fell into the softened earth. Reva held him low; his fellows jogged past, their disgust becoming more and more restrained by the tightness in their sweaty brows.
“What did you do that for?” Cullen asked angrily.
Reva rolled her eyes at his sullen disposition, “Don’t you want to go swimming?” She asked innocently. Cullen looked back at the path, then he looked out at the lake, with the gulls swooping and its surface chopped only by its cool, cool breeze…
“Race you?” He asked. Reva cackled as she stood and bolted, her bare feet beating against the damp earth beneath her tanned heels.
Cullen chased after her, shedding his sweaty tunic and cotton pants. He hopped and fell as he pulled his boots off, shucked his hot socks as he rolled around on the reedy beach grass. Reva stripped to her undershirt and thigh-length smallclothes. She had freckles dotting the tops of her thighs and shoulders. She pushed him from the surf as she ran, full-force, into the freezing waves. Cullen groaned as his hot, achy muscles sighed in the water. He sat down on the pebbles and let the water rush over him in steely waves.
Reva swam in circles. She came up for air, her tousled curls sopping wet. She shook her head like a dog and gave him a smile.
“Did you know swimming is a better work-out than running because it uses all your muscles, not just your legs?” She shouted over the crashing waves. Cullen gave her an indifferent smile as he cooled himself in the bitter sunshine.
“REEEEVA!” A masculine voice called. Cullen turned his soppy head and looked at a few Apprentices walking down. Tala walked alongside Jowan, a boy of sixteen, as he ran to the lake’s cool embrace. He had skinny shoulders and a soft stomach-- Cullen felt better about his form, and puffed his chest out in response.
Tala had her hair braided down in tight braids along her head. She wore no earrings, and her eyes seemed tired, but she walked to the water with ease. She stripped methodically to her undershirt and smallclothes and treaded into the surf.
“Aren’t you coming, Cullen?” Reva called as she waved her skinny arms to get him to come closer. Cullen stood and waded into the water, an awkward smile on his face.
“And you’re Sullen Cullen! Reva tells me you’re quite good at history,” Jowan said. His dark, straight hair was combed back from his face, and Cullen watched water drip from the end of his long nose. Jowan clapped a hand onto Cullen’s shoulder. Cullen refused to shrink away, though his hands were burning hot.
“I th-think so,” he offered weakly. Reva strung her arm around Jowan and grinned up at his face.
“Cullen’s come a long way. He reads faster than you do!” She teased.
Tala swam up to them, “Yes,” she said with her deep, grating voice. It was equal parts feminine and scratchy as it was low and calm. Despite knowing little about Tala, he liked her voice very much. It made flutters of pleasure ride up his spine, the kind that tempered anger and sweetened sleep.
“Yes,” she said again, “he is quite good.” Reva gave her a big smile. There was something hidden in the corner of her lips that made Cullen’s stomach twist, and his lungs tighten. She was so pretty in the sunlight.
Then Jowan dunked Reva, and as she wrestled free and clobbered to the surface, she sucked in a dramatic breath and viciously splashed Jowan.
“This means war!” She cackled again. Tala grinned, her teeth shining like pearls. She sliced her arm in the water and showered Cullen in the cold water. He closed his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut as the wave hit him-- then he splashed her back. They laughed at each other. This was probably their first real interaction. Cullen felt shame for being so shy.
They played in the water until the sun broke over the sky, and the unbearable heat faded with the birth of the stars. Cullen knew he would likely get the switch or latrine duty, but the feeling of the fresh lake water on his tanned back was worth it. He knew his face was probably burned, and that his hair was messy again, and he didn’t want to clean himself up for his Captain, he’d get the switch again, but he wanted the world to see him with his friends, just for the moment that they had.
Reva’s freckles had joined hands, and her bob of black curls had grown to a shaggier length between her shoulders. He was fourteen, but much had changed-- she was prettier, less gangly and more refined. Her features were sharper, her eyes more intense. He was less of a child, but he still felt so young when he stood beside her with his big hands and careless feet and hairless body.
As they walked up to the Tower, Jowan and Tala were skipping along and waving at all of the other apprentices in their smallclothes, cackling like a set of crows that had found a corn patch. Cullen couldn’t help but laugh. He was wearing his clothes, his cotton pants uncomfortable on his bare ass-- he had left his small clothes in the laundry room, not wanting to dribble on the good carpeting. Reva was wearing her clothes, too, her hair dripping along her shoulders. She looked over at him.
“Hold still,” she said, before she pulled a small twig from his hair. She slipped it behind her ear-- “Oh, thank you for the stick, ser,” she joked. Cullen turned pink.
“My pleasure,” he slipped his arm in her’s, and she giggled as she began to skip. His captain stared at him as he skipped along to the stairs; his eyes were held in an awestruck irritation, as if he would say I didn’t even THINK you could get more annoying!
Oh, he’s getting switched for
sure,
he knew he would. But, when Reva pinched his side and smiled at him, her skin bright even in the dark tower, he’d take the beating just for that dimple on the right side of her mouth, as her lips parted for her pretty teeth and her big nose scrunched in joy. Even in his scarred memory, Cullen remembers that day, packed and preserved in saccharin sugar.