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mneiaifics · 6 months

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Dragon Age Fic: Mercy, Chapter 2

Earlier Part Here.

AO3 Link

XxX

Before – Kirkwall

The air was too heavy, the walls too close. He took every chance he could to get out, even taking on extra shifts of standing guard and patrolling the courtyard or city streets from others. That gained him goodwill, enough they overlooked the quickly stifled screams whenever he woke himself up at night.

His roommate, Samson, was a good person, he kept trying to help, but he couldn’t really understand. None of them really understood. Kirkwall was dangerous, but they had a Knight-Commander who would do anything to keep them safe.

Meredith was a force of nature, she reminded him of—no, it was best not to think of that, of anything from there. He’d left. It was behind him.

She liked Cullen, for some reason. He was called into her office at least once a week, asked his opinion about the workings of the Gallows and the Order in ways that made him really think. The praise he gained for some of his thoughts on containing the mages and hunting the apostates had him trying to come up with more, spending the long hours of guard duty thinking of other ways to impress her.

His world revolved around the Gallows for his first year in Kirkwall, he learned the streets and alleyways of Kirkwall, but it felt like only an extension of the Gallows.

The first letter arrived after he'd been unexpectedly promoted. A new Knight-Captain was an important enough decision for a missive directly to the Office of the Divine and he supposed any Templar skipping over an entire rank might draw attention.

Leliana was a cloudy memory, a soft voice and small, surprisingly strong hands. The waterskin pressed to his lips after days without, having been sustained only by the lyrium his good behavior could buy him. A song, light and airy as he was helped down the many stairs.

She was part of that past he wanted to forget, ignore, but she was also part of the present—she worked for the Divine, now, more closely than he ever would. He wondered if she thought of it as penance.

Writing back was excruciating, he had not written a letter since...and he did not know what to say to a stranger who had seen him at his lowest point. Leliana did not seem to mind, did not push for more information, and he spent a full year imagining she saw him as just an asset.

Still, he wrote. About patrol, about Kirkwall, nothing too informative, nothing directly about Meredith or their work. He eventually wrote about Hawke, at first a throwaway line or two, and then more as his fellow Fereldan continued to somehow be involved in every major event, any many minor ones, in the city.

With Hawke he had another person to speak to, another to share his thoughts and doubts, and it was only when he realized that they might have some sort of friendship (if he strained that word to the very limits) that he also realized that was what he already had with Leliana.

His letters became more personal after that. Mail into and out of the Gallows was generally censored, but being Knight-Captain meant he had the privilege of privacy that no one else but Meredith could expect. No one dared look through his mail, he could put in ink his worries and doubts that he could never put into speech.

After the Qunari finally attacked, after the Viscount was dead and he suddenly had even more pressure bearing down on him because Meredith ruled the city in all but name, he wrote a long, babbling letter he wished to take back as soon as he handed it over to be sent to Leliana. Everything he knew, everything he’d heard, all his fears and doubts.

The reply was surprisingly short, when it finally came (Leliana’s lifestyle was not one that lent to regular personal correspondence). She told him that the eyes of Thedas were on them and that he had to prepare for change.

Even years after their horrible first meeting, the idea of change still terrified him.

9:36 Dragon – Minrathous

Thinking of a man, any man, as close to divinity was difficult for Cullen. He could put up a show where appropriate, but to him the Imperial Divine was simply a man. A powerful man, a knowledgeable man, but a man.

Perhaps a kind man for a Tevinter mage, all things considered, though he was doing his best to put aside the Chantry (the Southern Chantry, he reminded himself) teachings on Tevinter. After all, for every evil, slave-owning, malifcar there were those innocent slaves and a variety of others. What the Chantry had said about the Imperial Divine didn’t need to be the truth, they had every reason to cast him in a poor light.

Cullen did not sense the miasma of blood magic around him, at least. He’d felt it as he rode through the streets of Minrathous and even as he was led through parts of the Argent Spire, but he did not feel it now. Even if the Divine was perhaps a practitioner, he wasn’t doing it regularly. That mattered, it had to matter.

Not all mages were monsters, just as some Templars (so very many Templars) could be.

“I am pleased that you have accepted our offer, Ser Cullen.” The Divine smiled and it was surprisingly beatific for a Tevinter, which set Cullen even more on edge.

“It is a generous offer,” he swallowed, then managed, “Your Holiness.” The Divine’s smile twisted as Cullen used the honorific, becoming the colder, darker thing that Cullen was becoming used to seeing in Tevinter (that he had seen in the Templars of the South, as much as he had denied it). “I thank you for granting me such an honorable position.”

His “offer” was indeed generous, but also no real choice. Cullen would have a difficult time finding regular work that he could stomach in Minrathous and if the Divine was displeased with him for turning him down, he would surely be blacklisted from any legitimate jobs.

The Divine held out a hand and Cullen had to take a moment to realize what the significance was. He took it in one of his own, bowing over it where he knelt, and kissed the signet ring. It was a practiced mage’s hand, with callouses from heavy staff use softened by what was no doubt some expensive salve. The ring had magic twisted around it, but none that tried to reach out for Cullen. He dropped the hand as quickly as was polite and settled back.

“You shall start immediately. A brief training to go over Imperium procedures and laws should be all that is necessary for a Seeker, I am sure. You are such adaptable creatures, if you allow yourselves to be.”

Cullen shifted in place, watching the Divine carefully. “If I may, Your Holiness...I have heard stories of yourself and Seeker Lambert...but I am unsure how much of what we were told is accurate.”

The smile twisted again, almost fell off his face, and Cullen knew these looks were for his benefit. He had no doubt the Divine could have kept the same placid smile with which he had started their meeting for the entirety of it, if he so wished.

“Lambert and I were once friends, it is true. For a time, we had similar goals, but he was too indoctrinated by his Southern Chantry despite what he might have claimed and never truly adjusted to life in Tevinter.” That meant nothing, neither confirmed nor denied what Cullen had heard. “Despite the way we parted, I have retained...an appreciation for the Seekers of Truth. I am gladdened by the chance to have one of my own.”

If Cullen hadn’t already learned more than he ever wanted to about the way slavery in Tevinter worked, he would have been worried about what he had agreed to. “I cannot make others into Seekers. And I fear they will not release me so easily once they know of my location.”

The Divine scoffed, waving his hand in dismissal. “I do not ask for more, the Magisterium may accept one in my ranks, if I keep you as a guard, but they would not abide by my creating more.” A sharp sort of pleasure shifted across his face. “And I welcome any who come to try to take a Templar from our Chantry, they will not find us meek and cooperative.” He stood, setting a hand on top of Cullen’s head. “Do not fear, Ser, as soon as you were accepted into the Templar Order, you became a Tevinter citizen.”

There was something ominous in his insistence, but there was nothing for it. Cullen could only hope that this time he had sold himself to an organization that would not abuse him.

XxX

Notes:

I debated whether I wanted Urian to still be the Imperial Divine in this, as I think it's totally reasonable he'd not last very long considering (and I despise Absolution, but it is technically canon, and so either they retconned who is Divine or they killed off Urian at some point, despite all the fans--including the wiki--seeming to think he's like a forever-Divine now or something lol). I weighed the pros and cons of having like Urian acquiring a new Seeker or having a new Divine + Seeker team and what that would mean. Also, I'm in the camp that believes there should be no way that Leliana didn't utilize a connection to Cullen to get a resource within the Gallows. When it comes to effective spying, there's lots of little details that can be taken from someone who thinks they're not giving anything away (and while Cullen probably was the last "loyal" Templar with experience commanding a large Circle left to them just before DAI, there's enough people around with military experience it felt like they'd need a more personal reason why he was chosen to be Commander).

#fandom: dragon age #character: cullen rutherford #theme: canon divergence #theme: tevinter imperium #series: mercy #character: urian nihalias

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