[ open ] Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.

[morework]

Who: Cullen Rutherford (morework) & YOU
Where: Entrance Hall
When: 08/20-08/21, the night from Saturday to Sunday
Rating: PG-13 for blood and violence
Summary: Several months have passed in Thedas. Cullen is in the middle of fighting his way through a demon army, when Wonderland decides that it's time for him to come back. He has mixed feelings about the timing of that.
The Story:

Elsewhere

The cacophony of battle smothers most sounds easily, but in front of him Cullen hears the stone crack. Hundreds of winters in a single moment, warping even rock. He brings his shield up high, and lets the icy blast crash against it like a wave. He doesn't need its attention long: The creature's shriek rise and die in an instant. Cullen lowers cover, and nods his approval to the archers.

"Hesyll, keep your men by the gate!" he calls down, and makes for the next choke point. "Barwik, to the eastern battlements!"

Somewhere out of sight the blighted dragon lets out an ear-splitting roar. Cullen jumps a set of stairs, and forces back his last memories of the sound. Not this time. Not this time. Not this time, he repeats, until he stops running. Ahead of him his men - three, four, fi-- dead, four - stand against three demons, all red-glowing with rage.

"If they disappear on you, watch the ground! Heat will give away their location before they strike!"

Cullen closes the distance, and charges in. The metal of his blade hisses, but the demon recoils from the strike. Cullen does not like their odds. He brings his shield up, finds focus in one deep breath and--

Entrance Hall, 2:17 AM

--appears in a burst of white light, crying out furiously as the holy fire strikes a wave around him. His shield connects with a mirror, slamming into glass, not a demon. Cullen barely just turns his eyes from the shards. And then he draws back for the counterattack that never comes.

His eyes dart across his surroundings anxiously. He doesn't lower his weapons all the way.

"What in the Maker's name..."

His voice is small then, hoarse from shouts across the battlefield. He stands in a large entrance hall, covered in blood and dark ooze, and too many parts of his enemies. The side of his breastplate is dented in, a souvenir of three large claws. Only one of them broke skin. On his back the metal must have run too hot once, and he feels the burn underneath now. Even deeper underneath he suspects that something might not have taken one of the heavy falls well. Cullen swallows. He is impossibly thirsty.

All just as it was a second before, or so he thinks, if the battle had left him time to notice. Were it not for his surroundings. Because now that battle is gone, replaced by silence, and memories of a place called Wonderland, which rapidly start floating back to him...

[[ OOC: In case your character stands too close to Cullen when he appears, the thing he did, aka. Holy Smite, (1)(2)(3) is an ability that can deal spirit damage and knock back or stun an opponent. It will likely hurt a bit. If your character is a mage/wizard/spellcaster or any form of supernatural creature it will likely hurt a whole lot. We can hash out details together if you'd like, or you can just go with any amount/sort of effect/damage (or lack thereof) you'd like to play out! ]]

Other

[ Cullen will get cleaned up and spend the rest of the night wandering. He will be outdoors more likely than not, but I'll roll with any starter you give me! ]

Comments

[circlejerked]

Of all the inconveniences he'd expect to befall him on the ten second walk from the stairs to the front door--accidentally tripping on a step, for instance, or someone he doesn't like walking up to him to rope him into conversation--having a templar ability detonate right in his face and send him flying off his feet really hadn't been one of them.

The first time he'd experienced a smiting, he'd been a fourteen-year-old bigmouth whose growing pains had made him dangerously militant. It had felt like crashing headlong into the sun while on the inside a feeling like sucking had drained at his mana until his core went numb to his commands, the magic in his blood siphoned out and replaced with cotton balls as one packs a wound after the anesthetic.

Blind, that's how it'd felt. Blind, and drunk, and cut off from his senses. It's not a feeling one forgets.

Hitting the floor barely registers; it's the hollow emptiness, the static where there had once been a clear signal between mind and magic, that has him groaning, followed by a whooping breath and a cough. No, he will not gag. Not until he rolls onto his front, at least.

He... hasn't missed this.

Who...? Anders' lifts himself to squint at who'd sucker punched him with a smite. Of course it would be him.

"You."

[morework]

The two worlds are still disconnected, scrambling for a place in Cullen's awareness. He turns, and underneath his feet hears the crunch of glass which wasn't there before. He turns to his target, a step forward to follow-up his strike with-- nothing. Because there is nothing; not the fortress, not his men, nor their enemies. Not the demon. Only--

"...Anders?"

Anders, years in the wind, Sebastian Vael one of the few left who thinks the world doesn't have bigger problems than extracting vengeance on the mage, but what on earth is he doing-- Here. Wonderland. No, that's not right anymore. Anders, before he even set foot in Kirkwall. Different than the chance encounters at Hawke's side, no less obnoxious now than then.

But not the demon. Nor much of an enemy here.

And when all that is said and unraveled Cullen is stuck with the somber realisation that this moment seemed a great deal more rewarding in his imagination, than it does in its accidentally practice.

"Maker, I didn't see!"

Are you hurt, almost slips his tongue, but he doesn't need to ask to know what skill he used, and what effect it has on mages. Cullen flinches, stuck - he realises - between keeping a placating distance, and providing some form of assistance. Held back by the former only a moment he quickly offers- attempts to offer Anders a hand up.

[circlejerked]

Smiting is, Anders imagines, like drinking something Garbolg had brewed back when it was acceptable to put tar in beverages. Every time is like your first time and makes you wonder what's wrong with you that you'd ever do it more than once. Scowling at a blood-soaked Cullen gives him something to focus on.

"Yes, hello it's me, the mage who was innocently minding his own business before you dropped in flecking ichor on everything--"

This makes twice this month he's had his magic suppressed as swiftly and unexpectedly as a punch to the back of the head. He can't say he's a fan, but the templar's full armor and battle-readiness has him thinking he ought to be glad Cullen had apparently only clipped him in his quest to... attack an empty entrance hall.

With all the dignity his battered pride will allow at this point, Anders groans and pushes to his feet without accepting the help. Cullen might as well just stab him now if he has to take his ambusher's hand to get himself upright.

"What just happened? By the way, thank you for reminding me why I don't miss you people."

Ow.

[morework]

--Fair enough, that is one way to get Anders to his feet and- well enough to complain at length immediately. Under the circumstances he'll be forced to mark that down as a good thing, won't he? Cullen takes a step back, really, Anders actually needed a reminder, you wouldn't suspect from spending more than five seconds near him-- Stop that. Although. Come to look at his reception, Cullen would expect Anders to be even more displeased at seeing him. Unless his disappearance went unnoticed in the first place. Well. He'll give it a moment.

"Wonderland sent me back. I remember months in Thedas. Before it pulled me back--" He hesitates. "The attack was meant for a pair of demons. I don't appreciate the timing either."

Because there is really no short or easy way to tell the rest of that story, is there? Least of all to-- Maker. Least of all to a Grey Warden, difficult to forget as it is, that Anders was-- is one of them, as well.

[circlejerked]

It's good that Cullen steps back first--the smiting had done an excellent job of exorcising the charitable mood out of him along with his magic. His eyes say accident but every instinct in him, down to the tense muscles in his calves, says a variety of things ranging from run to put your dagger in that gap in his armor and then run. Some old habits are hard to break especially when they've been provoked

Instead of focusing on the sick feeling and indignant sense of anger building in his chest, he eases backward toward the stairs, doing his utmost to make it look like he's simply putting some healthy distance between them and not what he's really doing, which is grabbing the banister to prop himself up before he embarrasses himself by wheezing and doubling over.

Unconsciously, his free hand goes to his chest, favoring an injury that can only be felt on the inside.

"Yay, you're back." The closest he can get to enthusiasm is a thin sarcasm. "It appears congratulations are in order. You were just a nervous rookie when I saw you last at home, and here you are smiting with the best of them. Kids grow up so fast these days."

[morework]

You asked. Maker.

"I was Knight-Commander since. It's been years. You knew that before I left."

It's a weary reply. He can't think of one that wouldn't be. Can't, truthfully, think of one that doesn't have as if he didn't deserve this and worse crawling below its roots, bizarre tendrils of a time which, between them, is past and future alike. But, and here is the point: Never present. Never here. Never now, and - it only goes to follow - never like this.

It's an uneasy conclusion, even more so after having dredged up years and years that will make the words he's about to say sound like madness.

"Anders, I'm sorry. I can't think how I could have prevented this, but I'm sorry."

The distance between them is enough. He gives it another step, and reaches for a flask on his belt.

"I have elfroot, if you want it. If the wardrobes still play their bizarre tricks, then they'll have lyrium potions I can get." For you. For you. For you, he adds, very loudly, in his mind. "I'll leave, if you say the word."

Frankly he suspects that leaving without saying a single word would have been the preferable choice for everyone, but-- Here they are. He'll grind through his dismissal, and let Anders have whatever last shot at him he wants.

[circlejerked]

"You became Knight-Commander?" Did he say he wasn't going to wheeze? Well, he's a liar. The rush of air behind Anders' exclamation makes his chest ache and he pulls a face. How is it Cullen's his elder but he's the one who feels too old for this? "I didn't know that much. News to me. I'm honored to be knocked off my feet by the Knight-Commander."

Anders thinks that'll be the end of it. This isn't a real attack, thank Andraste. He can slink away and wait out this paralyzing numbness in peace without a templar (ex-templar, ex-Knight-Commander, Inquisition soldier, whatever) seeing the pallor in his face. And they'll just never speak of this again. Ever.

But Cullen, weary and blood-splattered, apologizes. He's always apologizing. Where are the insults? Where's the animosity?

Cullen putting him down? That makes a certain amount of reasonable sense in the order of things. Picking him up and dusting him off? Check his head, it must be spinning like a top.

"This is it, this is when I know to check the sky for flying pigs," Anders says, looking at the flask with mild alarm like Cullen's holding live snakes and not a healing draught. "Quit being nice to me, you're weirding me out. You look as though you could use it more than me. Sorry to say, if you need a healer, you'll be waiting a while."

That well has been smote dry, my friend.

[morework]

Correction: Anders knew about the years. Cullen regrets that he supplied another detail. He nearly comments back, but what is there to gain beyond more worms from Kirkwall's pot? A mere formality, you see. The last Knight-Commander went raving mad, and turned into a statue. Half the city was burning at the time, again, no small thanks to you, and somehow nobody else seemed especially eager for the position.

"I'll manage," Cullen says dryly instead. "There was a clinic nearby, last I saw."

His eyes flick from Anders to the flask in his hand. He is going to have to put that down on the floor and walk, isn't he, like trying to coax a mouser out of hiding with a bowl of milk. Or simpler yet-- Cullen clips the flask to his belt again. Anders will manage, too.

"And last I remember the more pressing problem was the unknown dimension that keeps us all trapped still. If that's not enough to hold your interest we can schedule time to trade barbs when I'm not just back from--"

Cullen straightens. The motion is enough to pull a groan from him, conveniently. '--fighting a fortress's worth of the lot of you," is close to how that sentence almost went. Maker, but Anders really doesn't leave himself enough room for a good outcome does he? Cullen looks- through, more than at him. Take away Kirkwall, and then what? He stays with the Wardens, becomes just another slave to Corypheus? Not now, Cullen reminds himself again, but the mantra is growing weary. Not here. Not now.

"When I'm back for longer than ten minutes," he finishes through grit teeth.

[circlejerked]

He can manage. Jury's still out if he can manage not to laugh over what Greagoir would think of this. The first place that comes to mind at the thought of Knight-Commander is always Kinloch Hold for him, his childhood home and the Circle he still knows best.

They'd probably get a kick out of this--a templar who'd once thought killing them all was the best way to run a Circle now left to run the roost.

"Now this is more like it, back to the normal back-and-forth," Anders observes with mock-pleasure, pushing himself into a straighter standing position by the banister. He forces a smile. Luckily, his supply of fake smiles isn't attached to his supply of magic. "You don't need to remind me about Wonderland, I've been here the entire time. I should be asking you what you remember before you appeared out of thin air, sword swinging."

Nothing good, he'd wager. Cullen's thousand yard stare and obvious attempt to hold his tongue don't go unnoticed.