faderift | weep little lion man

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weep little lion man

WHO: Cullen and you
WHAT: jumping in head first! (by which I mean generic open log so that I can get all up in your inboxes)
WHEN: WHOLE MONTH OF JUNE - the afternoon of the 11th to the late morning of the 14th, he will be away from Skyhold.
WHERE: predominantly his office and the battlements around it, with a healthy helping of training his soldiers on the grounds, and the potential for a few other places if someone wants a custom starter
NOTE: When you tag, please tell me what day so I can figure out in what order it all happens. If you don't pick a day, I will pick it for you.

IMPORTANT!!! If you have not already left me links here and had me respond, but you plan to keep any past CR with Cullen, please do not tag this. I will be assuming that anyone who tags here and has not already had their past CR hashed out with me wishes to begin with a fresh slate. Don't worry, he will have another open post soon. I just don't want to wait too long to start playing, and since there are plenty of new characters and plenty of characters who've already been to my OOC post, I figure it's a safe bet that I can get some play now.

OFFICE
One thing that remains constant, that has not and probably will not ever change, is the endless stream of paperwork that crosses his desk. Cullen stands, hands braced and shoulders slumped, reading over a stack of intersecting and conflicting messenger's reports and trying desperately to figure out how to spread their forces when they simply do not have the resources to meet all needs as things currently stand. He sighs deeply, and raises one hand to rub at the knot of tension at the base of his skull. It's not going anywhere. The same can be said for the impressive model of the Frostbacks that messengers have created with scrolls and sheaves of paper and leather pouches along the short edge of his desk.

BATTLEMENTS
Some people say that Cullen has no aptitude when it comes to taking care of himself. Those people are, on the balance, entirely correct. He will argue that he pushes himself too far out of necessity, but that doesn't mean he's half as responsible as he should be when it comes to sleeping or feeding himself. It takes its toll. Usually, he can chase the fatigue away with a brisk walk and a little fresh air. A trip along the battlements to clear his head and gather his scattered thoughts is his go to solution. One he employs quite often.

TRAINING
Cullen does not always survey his troops with a mind toward picking apart their performances and needling them to do a better job. Often, but not always. Sometimes, he just watches. He takes note of particular skill, of someone ill at ease with the weight and balance of their weapon, of someone distracted. Their numbers are not so great that they can afford anything less than 100% from each person under him. Of course, the unfortunate extension of that is that their numbers are not so great that he can afford to turn away willing help. Particularly in light of the disturbingly large contingent of people within Skyhold who push back against the structure of authority whose protection they enjoy. It makes his job, this part of it as well as the less hands on ones, infinitely more difficult. At least the training remains direct and straightforward. Here in the courtyard, it is his job to foster the skills and determination of his volunteers to make them all that they are capable of becoming. It is their job to then give all they have in the service of the Inquisition. He knows he asks for more than is fair. He also knows that he has no choice. He is grateful for every person with the compassion and foresight to give it, anyway.

NEW OPTIONS - PUPPY!
PUPPY OFFICE
As of Thursday the 16th, there is a new addition to Cullen's life, in the form of a blue and white mabari puppy, and his daily routine just got a whole lot more interesting. The dog doesn't have a proper name, and is mostly being referred to as Puppy. Whatever Cullen thought dog ownership would be, it wasn't this. He seems to spend half his day in constant frantic motion, and the other half sleeping and eating. During the quiet times, Puppy can be found sleeping underneath the desk, or occasionally in the crook of Cullen's arm. He can also be found chewing on scrap leather or lengths of knotted rope as he tumbles about the office, though he won't wander too far from the desk and/or Cullen.

PUPPY COURTYARD
He also needs to be walked, and socialized, so a few times a day, Cullen finds himself in quieter areas of the courtyard. He brings treats and teaches Puppy simple tricks, sending him running along the wall to tire himself out, assuring anyone who wanders into the area that the dog is loud, but friendly.

PUPPY WALKWAYS/STAIRCASES/WHEREVER
Puppy might be smart and well behaved, but he is still a puppy, and occasionally one might be treated to the sight of the Commander of the Inquisition running along a battlement, trying to catch a tiny blur of fur with a roll of parchment clamped in his mouth. This is his life now. This is what his life has become.

[[OOC note about Puppy! While he will definitely be energetic and boisterous and do things that people might not like, he will not be outright bad. Please don't write about him breaking things, hurting people or other animals, or antagonizing someone who seems afraid of him. He is a Mabari, well trained for his young age, and very smart. He wants to play, and will absolutely steal things from people, tug on their clothing, and bark for attention, but Puppy will not be destructive or violent. Thanks.]]

11th (full)
visiting puppies
meeting Henry
talking with Bethany
leaving for recon/rescue mission

12th (away from Skyhold)
traveling
rescuing Meoni

13th (away from Skyhold)
traveling

14th
Mia brings him tea
Sera brings him dinner

15th
properly meeting Christine
Cassandra comes to clear the air
Gwen brings her latest publication

16th
Adelaide brings Cullen a puppy

20th
Josephine helps catch Puppy

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Christine is not often found on the battlements. She has a routine, and she enjoys sticking to it. And while that makes her predictable, it also makes her easy to find, so even though she's traveled up to the battlements, she doesn't plan to stay away from one of her usual haunts for long.

She has to admit, the view is splendid. Coming to and from Skyhold, she could see the different camps and huts that have been built in the valley below the stronghold, but standing from up here affords more of a sweeping vista of the whole area, including the settlements. People are no more than tiny ants, and their tents aren't much bigger. And yet every person down there has endured much in this war. She sees a group of those refugees that look the size of ants rushing around each other. Children playing tag, she suspects. It's good the Inquisition is here to offer them a place where they can find time and space to play.

It would be too easy to stand here for hours, watching the people below, and she tells herself there is more work to be done. She steps backwards away from the outer wall of the battlements, and straight into the Commander's path.

"Steady," he cautions, more prepared for the collision that Christine, with a hand at her back to keep her from crashing into him or tripping and falling to the stones. His small smile is indulgent. It is a beautiful view, and under better circumstances, he thinks that even he might be able to use it to clear all thought from his mind. The problem, his problem, is that there is just so much thought there. "Are you all right?" He doesn't want to withdraw the support of his hand until he's sure she is. These days, not everyone recovers from being startled as quickly as they used to.

"Maker--" she begins to say, startled, but not practically out of her skin. There is a momentarily leap of her heart, but then she clicks her tongue at herself. She shouldn't have been so lost in thought that she forgot her surroundings.

Turning slightly, she inclines her head just a little, lips pursed for a moment longer until the annoyance passes. Everyone has moments where they get lost in thought and don't pay attention. This was just her turn.

"Quite all right. I apologize if I stepped in your way, Commander." She gestures with a hand out across the valley. "I am afraid the sight distracted me."

Once he's sure she's fine, he drops his hand from her back. "It is quite a view, isn't it?" He takes a step back, and folds his arms in front of his chest, planting his feet and looking out over the terrain. Beautiful. There is a reason this place calms him, and it has a lot to do with the fact that from here he can see, in one go, a perfect representation of why he keeps on running himself ragged for this. These people, those who can not defend themselves, and those who yearn for the comfort of structure. The Inquisition is worthwhile because of the people who need it.

"I've seen you." He doesn't know her, but he's seen her. Her face is familiar in his mind, but has no name attached. He leaves the introduction for her to make, if she so chooses, or vague enough to ignore. He has not picked up much from watching Josephine, but being vague for the comfort of others is something he thinks he just might have the hang of.

"Mmm," she agrees, taking a moment to look back out that way again. Some tents are in groups separated a little from the others, representing different groups such as the Wardens or mercenary companies. But overall, it seems a good community down there. She hardly ever ventures down; only to offer her services as a healer or visit a few people she knows who don't often come up to the fortress.

"Indeed?" she asks, and were she the type to tease those she didn't know well, she would congratulate him on having eyes. But alas, that is reserved for her close acquaintances, so she merely says, "Now was it down at the healers' tents, or the library? Those are the places I frequent."

People wanting to avoid his direct scrutiny - it's a fairly new concept for him, but he's adjusting. He doesn't have to know everything. He wants to, but that's not the same thing. He's working on it.

Healing tents or the library? He considers that for a moment. Neither are places he frequents. "Walking through the Hold, in passing. I would wager it was on the way to the healing tents, if I were forced to guess."

"I am hardly set on pressing the matter," she returns, not exactly giving him a smile, but speaking in a friendly enough tone. A former Templar he may be, but Christine can't shake her wariness on first meetings with them. Or with any average person who isn't a mage, for that matter. There's always the worry that they're one minute away from lighting a torch; maybe rustling up a pitchfork.

"I am one of the Spirit Healers here," she says, deciding to be up front about it. Templars tended to keep tighter reins on Spirit Healers due to their relationships with spirits, but Christine is proud to have taken on the specialization. It's always been her dream.

"Christine Delacroix." She doesn't expect him to remember the name from her request sent to the advisors. Sister Nightingale had been the one to respond to it, and the Commander probably has hundreds of signed letters pass across his desk anyway.

Hundreds, to be sure. Some days it feels like thousands. Still, he remembers her request, her name. "Ah. You are the young lady with the red lyrium study." Anything else she could have said about herself pales in comparison to this aspect. She could have told him that she was actually four swans in a clever disguise, and he still would have been more morbidly fascinated by the red lyrium project. This is his newest and most vivid fear, after all.

"Yes," she answers, voice both surprised and slightly pleased at being remembered. "I will, of course, be in contact with yourself and the other advisors on a regular basis, now that things are finally underway."

She says 'finally,' but it was her own caution that caused delays. Researching red lyrium in the library provided nothing beyond the news disseminated by Varric Tethras, and so she'd had to meet with Varric himself to see what he knew. Then she had to research proper ways to contain the red lyrium, as Varric had, and go out to Emprise du Lion to both map out the growth of red lyrium and study the Red Templars themselves. She even sketched them out, though the images are little more than stick figures. Everything was prepared in advance because red lyrium is simply too dangerous to study without safety precautions.

"It is good of you and the others to approve of this endeavor," she adds.

"Approve." He says it with a touch of mirth, then shrugs apologetically. "I recognize the necessity of understanding what red lyrium is capable of. I've just had a fresh reminder." Doesn't mean it doesn't make every hair on his body stand on end at the thought of what she's willingly elbow deep in, so to speak. Fighting those things, once men, now something entirely different. He wonders if he will ever go numb to the pain of it, sitting heavily in his chest.

Her eyebrows lift at his reaction, but she waits a moment until he's finished speaking before she asks, "A fresh reminder? Where, may I ask, did you recently encounter it?" She'll have to add it to her notes; that's for sure.

"Not anywhere near here. No need to worry." He checks himself at that, a little tilt of his head. "Well, not about that." He sighs, and rubs at the back of his head. "A small group North of here." He wasn't the only one in those caves, and he knows how mercenaries tend to talk. It isn't exactly secret, but he would rather not be the one to recount the ordeal, and certainly not here. Of course, that doesn't mean she can't still ask.

"It seems they can be found all over, mining red lyrium." She frowns slightly before looking back out at the landscape. Here the valley is pure white with snow, while in Emprise du Lion, the white was dotted with red spires of lyrium nearly everywhere you looked.

"Was that what they were doing? Did you see any red lyrium on the surface?"

"A group of Red Templars attacking ships on the Storm Coast. They were... mad, desperate for carnage. Keeping corpses for what could grow from them." He shakes his head. It is an unpleasant thought of an unpleasant time. The documentation brought back, the woman rescued and added to their ranks, it makes the trip worth the horror. Still, it does not lessen the horror.

Her lips purse, as they so often do when she's displeased or trying to hold back some other emotion. Right now, it's disgust at all the Red Templars are doing.

"But it was a small group? They are no more?"

"Small group," he confirms with a nod of his head. "Dead now. Very dead." Hacked to pieces and drowned and fried and... nothing they wouldn't have done to Cullen and his group if they'd been given the chance, but still not something worth digging into in any sort of even remotely polite conversation.

Cullen sighs, laughs with no humour, and rubs the back of his neck. "Forgive me. It was a trying experience." Not the death. The death, Cullen is sadly used to. No, it's that this enemy started out very much like him. Templars. Men trying to do their jobs, once upon a time. Not good or bad, he can't possibly know that, but men. Not monsters.

In response to that, Christine gives him a moment. She, like all Circle mages, has a very firm opinion on Templars. Whether a mage is a Loyalist, Isolationist, Libertarian, or Aequitarian, you would be hard pressed to find one who would merely shrug and say they have no opinion on Templars one way or the other. Her experience in Montsimmard was so typically Orlesian. She sat around like a prisoner in a cell, except for the rare walks out in the streets with Templar guards. She knows other Circles weren't so lucky. And she knows that her Circle was unique in that mages could gain some autonomy by playing the Game and playing it well, but Christine had had no interest whatsoever in becoming a nobleman's pet and trying to wrestle power from there. It's her belief that mages should gain freedom for themselves through peaceful means, and not violence or underhanded methods.

"Of course," she finally says. "I have seen them firsthand myself. To most others, they are strangers, but to you and I, they may have once been people we knew, and that makes it more difficult."

"I keep waiting to see a face I recognize," he confesses. It's not unthinkable. Realistically speaking, it will be far stranger if he never sees someone he knows, poisoned and turned into a monster. It's going to happen. He doesn't feel prepared for it. "I'm not sure if it's incredibly brave or incredibly perverse, this research undertaking of yours." It might not be the most polite thing he could say, but at least he's honest?

Honesty is something Christine values. The Ferelden bluntness? A little less so. She raises an eyebrow at his wording before primly replying, "I do it because someone must. It is better to know the enemy instead of standing here scratching our heads, wondering at what they might be capable of doing next, is it not?"

Cullen can't help it. Blunt is the way he's built. There's not a pretentious or conniving bone in his body. Quite a few people would see that as a weakness. Maybe it is, in their current situation, but he wouldn't change it. Giving up who you are for a cause, no matter what the cause, is a slippery slope. He's seen people unable to get it back, in the end. That scares him far more than the thought of dying.

"I recognize its usefulness. That doesn't make it any less unsettling. I don't imagine it makes it any easier for you, either."

"It is a challenge, yes, but I have never been one to abandon things simply because they are hard." It makes it all the more rewarding when she succeeds. Of course, it also makes it all the more devastating when she fails, because she can't really process that in a healthy way. The Fade showed her what a grave marker for her would say, and it was: Failed everyone. Christine can't deal with failure. And so she has to understand red lyrium. She has to contribute to putting a dent in the Red Templars' power.

"But if the thought of it unsettles you so, perhaps a change of topic would be for the best."

"Perhaps so." If she hears a little gratitude in his voice, just let it lie. He deals with plenty of horrors in his life and in his sleep, he doesn't need them in his hypotheticals. "You were headed somewhere when we ran into each other?" Well, she ran into him, but he's being polite. "Would you like company?" He's got enough time to walk her wherever she's going.

"Merely returning to my duties down at the healing tents." She's been gone long enough. "I have no wish to take you from anything, but if you are free, that would be all right."

"As free as I ever am," he says, stepping sideways so that he can start for the stairs without turning his back on her. "The walk may help me clear my head. If anything is in short supply these days, it's that."

"Oh? The fresh air will do you good, I should think. When one stays inside with only the light of candles or a small window, a mind can feel as stuffy as the space itself." She moves in step beside him, walking with purpose instead of strolling.

"Of course, it can help to speak to others of your issues to clear your head as well." Christine is just full of advice today. Look at how helpful she's being.

weep little lion man

battlements { justinian 15th }

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