If this should end tomorrow

[mythalenaste]

WHO: Pel and Cullen
WHAT: Cullen is having some difficulties. His shoulder elf tries to help.
WHEN: Mid-Haring
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: CW: Drug withdrawal.

She's often nearby, finding it somehow soothing to be in the presence of people like him. People like Cullen and Adelaide. People she doesn't have to raise.

Pel is knitting as she keeps an eye on him. He might hear the occasional slide of her smooth wooden needles, but otherwise it is easy for him to forget she is there.

He doesn't seem to notice she notices. The grunts of effort, the moments when he almost falls asleep at his desk. The times when he stops to cradle his own head in his hands. She came prepared today, carrying some of the things she keeps for when Merrick has one of his headaches.

She pads close to him, reaching out to touch his arm gently.

"Cullen."

Comments

[mythalenaste]

"Cullen." Gently but insistently. She's playing no games, though she releases his hand. "I was Keeper's First. I know what excuses sound like; I used to make them. I still make them sometimes.

"I can tell you're ill and you're not doing anything about it. What's wrong?"

[perseverances]

"It's-" He goes to protest at first. It's not what you think. I'm not sick. I'm exhausted. I promise I'll be fine, you need not worry.

But he finds himself pausing. He's found Pel to be quite pleasant company, someone who knows what they are doing and doesn't need to be babysat. He holds her in a high regard, and if she's beginning to notice, then he's quite sure others are as well.

"I- I'm not ill." At first it sounds like a protest, but then he continues. "It's symptoms of lyrium withdrawl. I haven't taken it in some months now."

[mythalenaste]

She takes a moment to process that. Because that is not at all what she expected. She's never heard of anyone getting off lyrium, just people chained to it their whole lives. Templars and ex-templars. Cullen is an ex-templar, if rumor and Tale of the Champion are to be believed. He was a templar in Kirkwall's Circle, undoubtedly one of the worst places to be. A templar who turned against his commander when he realized (too late) that she had gone mad.

"Is there not enough lyrium to go round?" she asks carefully, but not judgmentally. How best to help him very much depends on why he's doing this.

[perseverances]

"There's enough to go around for those who use it." He leans back in his chair, rubbing at one of his hands. "I stopped taking it months ago when the Inquisition first arrived at Haven. It was a choice I made after I left Kirkwall."

That should explain at least something in regards to his decision.

[mythalenaste]

Sometimes being around people, for Pel, is like her heart being a sponge crammed into a glass vial. It can expand only so much, unless something really special happens to break the glass. Reservation cracks and shatters, lying in pieces everywhere, and she pays it no heed. The Commander has earned her utmost respect.

She pulls two linen towels out, towels she had folded and kept in case he showed signs of headache again. She spreads one out and places sprigs of herbs in a line along the center. The other towel is wetted in a nearby basin and wrung out. All this is done quietly.

She returns and places the damp towel over the other, sandwiching the herbs between them. She speaks at last.

"You want to put it behind you. I...came into my magic very young. Enchanter Adelaide said she'd never heard of it happening so young. The consequence was my Keeper decided she'd raise me to be exactly what my clan needed. From the time I was still learning to talk, I was serving my clan. When I was nine, a plague broke out and killed so many people, and I was nursing all of them. Bad thing after bad thing happened, and it was my duty to serve every time. When some of us were leaving for the Inquisition, my Keeper told me she was...setting me free. That she wanted me to replace all the parts of me I'd sacrificed for my clan."

She folds the edges in twice. Then, with a sigh, the damp towel is abruptly frozen. It crackles as she bends it.

"If my duties had involved taking lyrium, I'd want to go off it as well. To say nothing about it being..."

Precisely what was used to chain Cullen to the order in the first place. But that's too assuming a thing to say aloud, right now.

"I want to help you. One of my brothers gets these terrible headaches that leave him sick abed. I can help your pain, and keep it discreet."

[perseverances]

"The lyrium reminds me of the horrible choices I've made while on it. At the time, I thought I was doing what was right, but now it only serves as reminder that I was too blind to see what was actually going on."

It reminds him of Kinloch, it reminds him of Kirkwall. Of the person he had become on it. He didn't like that person, someone so hurt and afraid and hateful. It's difficult, changing who you are. Thoughts and ideas so ingrained into you are hard to change when it's the only way you've known. "It needs to stay secret. No one must find out."

As it was, he hates that she's found out. It's not that he's adverse to her knowing, but he doesn't want anyone to see him as weak.

[mythalenaste]

A firm nod.

"Understood. Try putting this across your eyes for the headache. If it helps, you might want to go to sleep with it on. Sleeping better is going to be key to keeping it secret."

She lifts the cold compress with both hands.

"Dry side against your face, not the frozen."

[perseverances]

"I would be sleeping if the nightmares didn't keep me awake."

He takes the compress from her, murmuring a thank you in return. He's quick to press the dry side to his head, momentarily closing his eyes and sighing. His shoulders relax, and for the moment, it helps.

"I apologize for you seeing me like this. It has been mostly under control."

[mythalenaste]

"Don't apologize. On the most recent mission to Ferelden, I helped a pregnant refugee bathe places she couldn't reach herself." A wan smile. "This is nothing. And I don't see you differently, we've all got messes of our own."

She leans against his desk.

"Who else knows?"

[perseverances]

"Very few. Seeker Pentaghast obviously knows, and she is the one whom you should tell if you see anything worse happen. If you suspect that it will interfere with my duties, you tell her immediately. The other few are not important, but they have been sworn to secrecy."

He hates keeping this secret, because it would be so much easier if everyone knew. But it is something of a necessity, because he doesn't not want anyone to doubt his ability to lead should they know if he's off the lyrium.

[mythalenaste]

He doubts his ability to lead? In the face of a dangerous withdrawal, his chief concern is that he won't lead his forces well? Here Pel is thinking about the circumstances under which she'd need to run and fetch a real physician. Collapse or seizure, certainly.

"I usually find nightmares are chased off easier if I can wake up in a place where I'm comfortable and safe. Doesn't stop them from happening, just helps me get back to sleep quicker."

[perseverances]

"It's not that I cannot fight off the nightmares. It's that I'm afraid I won't be able to tell the difference anymore." He didn't want himself to accidentally attack someone he thinks is an enemy when they are a friend.