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star--nymph · 2 years ago

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You guys don't get it, you don't understand how much of an emotional state I am over this. Morgan wrote 18K words of EURYDICE AND CULLEN CONTENT.

It's beautiful, it's magical, it's a fairytale, IT'S LAST UNICORN INSPIRED.

IT RIPPED MY HEART OUT, CRUMBLED IT, REFORMED IT, AND THEN SEWED IT BACK INTO MY CHEST. I AM CHANGED BY THIS GODDAMN FIC, PLEASE READ IT, PLEASE LIKE IT, PLEASE FOLLOW MORGAN WHO IS A FAR BETTER AND MY WONDERFUL WRITER AND PERSON THAN SHE EVEN KNOWS. TELL HER HOW TALENTED SHE IS. SHE NEEDS TO KNOW.

A Golden Bell Hung In my Heart

For Kat (@star--nymph)—happy birthday! When I was trying to think of what to write you, I couldn’t think of anything more fitting than, well…this. (And here is the AO3 version, cus it's loooong)

I’m sure you know where this is going by the title, but if not I pose the question: What if Amalthea had been the one to define what her “self” was? What if Lír didn’t have to let her go after all? And, of course—what is the point of immortality if you don’t get to choose how to spend it?

I hope I’ve done your loves justice and that this is coherent. Thank you for trusting me with them, my dear, and again—happy birthday!! May it be ever better than the last.

"Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart; I would tear my body to pieces to call you once by your name."

—The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

“Ghilan'nain's curse took hold, and the hunter found that he was unable to hunt. Ashamed, the hunter swore he would find Ghilan'nain and repay her for what she had done to him. He blinded her first, and then bound her as one would bind a kill fresh from the hunt. But because he was cursed, the hunter could not kill her. Instead, he left her for dead in the forest. And Ghilan'nain prayed to the gods for help. Andruil sent her hares to Ghilan'nain and they chewed through the ropes that bound her, but Ghilan'nain was still wounded and blind, and could not find her way home. So Andruil turned her into a beautiful white deer—the first halla.”

—From Codex entry: Ghilan'nain: Mother of the Halla

“Unicorn, mermaid, lamia, sorceress, Gorgon—no name you give her would surprise me, or frighten me. I love whom I love…You have no power over anything that matters.”

—The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

There was no sense in hunting within the bounds of the silver halla’s forest.

Everyone knew that. The great halla’s forest was a protected space—peaceful, enchanted, even sacred, in its way. A hunter would find no quarry there, nor a tracker prey to flush beyond its boundaries.

The forest’s trees and glens rang with the songs of birds, its grounds and bushes thick with the creatures of the wood. What sport they might make of each other went unmonitored, for even in such a place it was not the right of any creature to dictate the nature of another. The creatures might fall to tooth and claw, for that was their nature; almost none of them fell to arrow and sling, nor knife and spear.

The streams of the wood ran with clear water in the spring and summer, thickening and hardening in the fall and winter until their surfaces were smooth as glass and just as transparent. The leaves on the trees were beautifully green, untainted by spore or rot until the moment they turned yellow or amber or brown, then drifted away to the forest floor. The berries grew thick on the bushes, and the halla and scampering creatures grew fat on the fruit. Winters were harsh, but there seemed always to be just the right sort of underbrush to huddle beneath for warmth, just the right sort of outcropping in the cliffs to make one’s den.

On calm nights, the wind itself seemed made of song. When it played over the branches and leaves of that place, any human who’d been allowed so far might hear flutes or violins instead. A fanciful idea, perhaps, but anyone who spent the night within its borders would have difficulty denying the truth: that the land itself had its own music, even beyond the sweet songs of the birds in the trees. If one listened carefully, if one had a true enough heart, one might even hear it.

The statues had been there longest. The owls, the great stags with their proud heads, the watchful wolves—they’d stood on the walls of ruins even longer than the trees. If they’d been possessed of memory, they might have recalled a time of blood and screams, a time when elves had fallen by the score and had never risen again. A thousand years gone and more, those days, but the statues might have remembered.

There were other things they might have known, too. They might have remembered a time when the great halla who’d dwelled there had trotted past the dens of the bears without a second glance, when she’d sang of water over stone, of tree roots reaching deep, of the ponderous pace of the years. Most critically—the statues would have been able to tell the animals who dwelled in that wood that the silver halla who wandered the wood now was not the same as the one who’d once guarded these borders.

No; despite the peace of the forest, despite its prosperity and harmony, it was a different creature who stepped in the bracken and trotted through the streams now. Her body was—to her occasional, distant discomfort—much the same as the one who’d once stepped lightly over the undergrowth. The same strong legs carried her forth, and the same twisting, silver horns graced either side of her brow. For this creature, all was much as it had been for her predecessor. But her heart—

Her heart bade her slow when she saw the bear cubs tumbling down a hillside, their watchful mothers nearby. Her heart ached with a wound no balm could ever heal when she saw the swans gliding upon the lake, pair by pair, their little cygnets gliding along in a line behind them. When humans made their careful way into the wood, bowing their heads before taking careful handfuls of berries from the bushes or curling bark from the willows, the silver halla found herself lingering just out of sight to hear their voices, to listen to the sounds of their laughter.

She’d heard laughter like that once. It had been deeper, though; she was certain of it. Laughter, the flash of gold on crimson in the sunlight, and—

Gone.

Whatever it was, it was gone now.

When she sang, she did not sing of the forest, whole and hearty around her. She did not sing of slow growth through the soil and the earth. Instead, she hummed the tunes of humans and elves, love ballads and lullabies and laments alike until she could not hear the songs that the woodlands sang around her.

The land was peaceful, calm, and whole.

And Eurydice dwelled there profoundly, completely alone.

Before

It seemed like the whole world was full of sunlight for the Commander and Inquisitor since the birth of their daughter.

The two of them spent most of their time in her quarters, for it had only been a week and Eurydice still needed more rest than usual. Little Psyche was a source of fascination for both of them, for all that she spent most of her hours sleeping. There—the little curl of her mouth. Could that be a smile? Or—when she waved her hand, was that her reaching for her mamae’s curls?

But, for all that they were cozy and happy in their rooms, they could not stay there forever. Nor would they want to; with Corypheus so newly dead, there was plenty of cleanup yet to do. There were experiments she’d put on hold in her workshop, and small mountains of paperwork in Cullen’s office to sift through.

And then there were the gifts.

They’d poured in from everywhere, piling higher and higher until Josephine had, somewhat desperately, sectioned off part of the great hall for their keeping. Unfortunately for the happy parents, some of the gifts were useful, so they could not simply get rid of the lot without checking. It would be painfully inconsiderate to ask poor Josie to look through them and send her thanks in their stead, so in the end the task fell to Cullen and Eurydice.

There were bright spots: a little cloth wrap sent by one of the western Dalish clans, intended for carrying the babe comfortably on one’s back; well-cured leather from the farmers of Redcliffe made from the wolves who’d once hunted them, some of it cut into neat strips for weaving. One of the mages’ groups had even sent a small orb which, when touched, illuminated the walls with swathes of stars that perfectly matched the nighttime sky. When Eury had touched it, Psyche had been in her arms. The little one had reached for the swirls of color, making a soft noise that might have been wonderment, and Eurydice had been hard-pressed to do anything but set it aside to keep for her.

Most of it was utterly useless, precisely the sort of things nobility sent to each other to garner social capital: ornate rocking chairs it would hurt to sit in, teething rings of ivory and gold, a cradle with so many gilded faces on it that it was sure to give any child nightmares, and on and on. These things, they were more than happy to record and rid themselves of by whatever method seemed quickest. Useful metals were melted down for reuse, books on the care and keeping of children were foisted upon the keep’s librarian, and the fussy infants’ clothing was unstitched and put back together in new shapes for more practical purposes.

But—they still had to sort through it all.

Cullen stood on the sidelines now, unarmored and unarmed, Psyche snuggled into his shoulder. Eury pressed one last kiss to their daughter’s cheek, her eyes closing for a moment at the contact.

Maker, how he loved her; it still took him by surprise sometimes, as if his love of her was a force that knocked him breathless to the ground. It had been a wonder to watch her grow round with their babe; it was a wonder now, every day, to watch her be a mother. As he had many times since he’d first seen their daughter cradled in Eury’s arms, he thought how painfully sweet it was to hold something so soft, so breakable, and know that she depended on you utterly. To know that the whole glory of her life still lay before her, every possibility untested, all of it yet new and fresh with no mistakes nor faults to mar its potential.

“Let me know when you’re ready to trade,” he told Eury, catching her mouth with the briefest of touches. It would be too easy to get caught in each other, even now. If he let himself hold on to her, he would never want to let her go and there was still plenty of work to be done.

His love nodded, her mind plainly elsewhere. She stroked a hand over Psyche’s curls and stepped into the hills and valleys of the gifts sent for the Inquisitor’s first child.

“How is the little one this morning?” Josephine asked, stepping up beside him and smiling at the babe pressed to Cullen’s shoulder.

“Quite well,” he said, smoothing a hand over Psyche’s back, “She slept all night, so Eurydice did as well. It was much needed.”

“I am not surprised,” Josephine said, “It is a tiring thing, to have a newborn. I remember when my Mama had Yvette that not one of us slept easy for what felt like a month. We threw a party for the family the first time she slept through the night. A very quiet one.”

Cullen chuckled, eyes still following his beloved. Eurydice sidestepped an ornate statue of what looked like an irate toddler and flicked the hem of her skirt to the side just before it would have been caught on the edge of a surprisingly realistic rocking horse.

“Yes,” he told Josephine, “My youngest sister used to cry constantly when she wasn’t held. I would carry her up and down the hallway until she calmed just to give my mother a break. Thankfully, our Psyche seems to sleep well so far.”

Josie chuckled and adjusted her grip on her writing board. The smell of breakfast cooking began to drift up from the kitchens, and Cullen’s stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in quite some time. Amongst the gifts, Eury held up a loose, soft-looking dress and tilted her head consideringly before tossing it in the direction of the things she wanted to keep.

“Our Inquisitor seems to be recovering well,” Josie went on, bending her head to jot something down on her topmost page.

“She is,” Cullen said, watching as Eurydice considered an ornate, beribboned box.

“Motherhood suits her,” Josephine said absently, and her quill scratched over the paper. In Cullen’s arms, Psyche stirred, making a soft noise of protest.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he murmured, rocking her slightly, and she subsided against his shoulder.

How soft she was, and how warm; he’d forgotten how boneless infants seemed, how vulnerable and fragile they felt to hold. Perhaps the effect was magnified now because she was his own. Cullen did not know; but holding her now woke a fierce, protective streak in him. He wanted to clutch her tight and shield her from the world, nearly as much as he wanted to wrap her in layers and layers of soft things to keep her from every sharp edge and bumpy road.

Foolishness.

It was foolishness, he knew that. To remain static and unchanging was to cease being truly alive; no amount of protection could save her from the world.

Eury fiddled with the ribbons on the box, then drew her ever-present dagger from the small of her back and slashed them away. Cullen smiled fondly, still rocking Psyche, and watched as she finally lifted the lid and took the contents out in her left hand.

It happened so quickly. None of them could have stopped it, no matter how much Cullen told himself otherwise later.

As soon as her hand touched the twisting silver horn in the box, it lit with the light of a thousand noons. Its light was white, harsh, and as soon as it lit the room it was impossible to look away. Eurydice’s mouth was open in a silent scream, lit from within by that horrible light. Cullen willed himself to move; willed himself to step forward, to draw the sword he wasn’t holding, to call up powers he no longer held to end whatever spell held her in its grip.

He could do none of those things. His blade and armor were upstairs still, tucked out of the way. His strength had drained away with the last of the lyrium, and he could no more Purge this spell from her than he could spread wings and take flight.

Stuck. Helpless. Vulnerable—he could do nothing to protect the woman he loved, and she was right there.

Beside him, Josephine stood frozen as well, and he couldn’t tell if Psyche was breathing in his arms—Maker, if she was—she couldn’t be—

As his thoughts turned desperate, as he tried to turn his head to look, the light dragged his love into the air as if pulled by a rope at her waist. Eury went, her head turning barely, barely toward him, those lovely violet eyes as wide and desperate as his felt.

As if she needed him; as if she was asking him to help her.

He couldn’t move; couldn’t even take a breath.

The light dripped from Eurydice’s skin and hair, stronger and stronger until it hurt Cullen to look at it. When it had coated her entirely, something changed—he did not know what—and the light cast a different shadow on the wall: a halla, horns weaving backward from its head in spirals, shining with that same merciless light.

And then she was gone.

Everything, from the moment she touched the artifact to the moment it fell to the ground, dull and lifeless, lasted only seconds. Cullen knew this only because, as the horn thudded against the stone of the great hall, the ribbons cut from the box finally, softly, finished drifting to the ground in a coil.

All was still.

Psyche, at last, sucked in a breath and began to cry.

The ground below was damp and soft. When the silver halla first struggled to her feet, the earth gave away beneath her and she sank in slightly into the welcome forest floor. She stumbled, righted herself, and panted into the cool air for a moment. Her breath rose from her in a mist, visible against the dark trunks of the trees around her.

She stood in a forest.

Why that surprised her, she did not know. It was her forest after all; she knew that as well as she knew…well.

Not her name.

As well as she knew that up was up and down was down.

Something was…strange. She could not hold it in her mind, but there was something not right. For a moment, the halla stood frozen, ears pricked for any sense of movement.

The wood was still around her. Only the trunks of the trees stood dark against the expanse of white, the snow settled into drifts and hills over the forest around her. She stood in a curiously bare patch, the earth under her feet soft as mud in springtime, the snow melted away in a clean circle. Not right; it did not seem right.

There were no sounds, no skittering movement. No birds flapped their wings, and no other halla darted past near-invisible in the snow. The silver halla wanted to…reach for something. Strange. But how she might reach, she did not know. Her legs were strong and good, but they were not meant for…whatever they wanted to be doing. Twining with…something. Tugging at…something.

She did not know.

A shiver worked its way under her flank; the halla flicked her tail to work it out, then stepped delicately into the woods. Soon enough, she blended in with the ice and snow, save the faint glimmer of green that twined around her front left hoof.

Eventually, all that was left to signify her arrival was the circle of bare earth. When the snow began to fall that evening, soft and downy as cotton, even that much was gone.

Two Weeks Later

“I can’t,” Cullen said, knuckles braced on the desk, head hanging low, “I cannot leave her. Not after what…she needs a parent.”

“Of course,” Josephine said, gripping her writing board, “It is your—”

“Not of course,” Dorian said, slashing his hand through the air, “There is no choice—and you’re a fool if you think otherwise. Did you make a vow to the Inquisitor or not? I cannot seem to recall.”

“Do not—” Cullen began hotly, but cut himself off at the soft noise from the cradle beside his desk. Psyche had been restless ever since her mother’s disappearance—which Cullen understood well, because he felt much the same. She’d finally fallen asleep only moments before these two had walked in, because that was how his luck had fared since Eurydice had vanished.

He bent over the cradle now, but she was not quite awake; only frowning slightly, one hand curled into her own hair. Cullen ran a hand over his face and turned back to the other two. Josephine stood near the desk, poised as ever, and Dorian paced on the other side of the room.

The problem, as they’d just explained, was this:

Tracking spells no longer worked on Eurydice.

Oh, they were no phylacteries—she would never have allowed it—but there were spells to be done with hair, for example, that should have given some direction. And—nothing. They’d used her sister as a focus for a spell next—something which Aegle had taken part in with her usual cheer—but this, too, had not given them enough. They needed more. They needed someone who’d known her more recently, who could focus their thoughts on the essence of her. For that, there was nobody more fitting than Cullen.

“I cannot leave her,” he said more softly,

“I know you are not a gambling man,” Dorian said, planting his hands opposite Cullen on the desk, “But consider your odds. If we do nothing, she remains lost, possibly forever. That kind of magic is powerful—and I know of nobody who can counter it. If you come with us, we might yet find her. The Inquisitor is a powerful mage; she may have knowledge of the Dalish that I do not. If the spell continues to affect her, that is. We’ve no confirmation of that now, of course.”

At this, Psyche began to cry. Cullen turned at once and lifted her into his arms, automatically falling into the soft, bouncing rhythm that soothed the worst of her cries.

“Shh,” he said, “Shh, shh. It’s alright, darling; I have you. I have you.”

Cullen pressed his cheek against her head, murmuring soft nonsense until she calmed again. He would need to call the wet nurse in soon enough; Psyche was due to eat, and he could not hold onto her forever.

“Consider,” Dorian went on, and Cullen knew at once from his tone that whatever he said next would hurt, “What she will think about this when she’s older. What will you tell her about her mother? Will you tell her that you did everything in your power to bring Eurydice back? Or will you tell her that you abandoned her, alone somewhere with none of her allies to support her? Vanished by some foul magic that none of us know, lost, perhaps captured?”

“That’s enough,” Cullen murmured, but Dorian wasn’t done.

“Will you tell your daughter that you gave up on her mother?”

“That’s enough,” Cullen said, sharper, and Psyche made a soft noise of protest into his shoulder.

The Commander turned away from them, pacing toward the window that looked out over the valley below. The snow was blinding down there, its covering complete. There might have been nothing under it; there might have been rivers frozen over, or hard stone, or homes and lives lost a thousand years ago. The Frostbacks were like that; they did not give up their dead. They held their mysteries close.

Out of sight of the others, Cullen reached under the bottommost layer of clothing, drawing a locket from around his neck. He did not open it. Looking at the picture inside only hurt him now, Eurydice’s face detailed with exquisite care, her expression beautiful and at peace. He held it not as a remembrance, but as a reliquary, as if praying to some distant god for guidance. The metal warmed in his hand, and his pulse thrummed harder where the locket pressed hard into his skin.

In the end, he…he couldn’t allow her to wander out there, lost and alone. Not when he knew their child would be safe here.

He had to take the chance—that she could be found, that he could bring her home, that they might yet raise their daughter together. Dorian was right to say that there had never really been a choice at all.

“Alright,” Cullen said at last, turning from the pitiless landscape below, “Give me today to prepare myself, to hand the most urgent matters off to others, and…”

“She will be cared for with the utmost attention,” Josephine said, stepping forward at once, “Please, allow me to handle it. I will prepare an appropriate list and you can approve it; her aunt will, of course, remain with her at all times, and when she is not nearby I will be. There is nothing to fear; she is safe here.”

“Thank you,” Cullen said, his attention already divided. Half of him was somewhere far away, his thoughts on his vanished love; the other half dwelled on the soft shape against his shoulder.

The daughter he would soon be leaving behind.

Abandon one by leaving; abandon one by staying. No; it was no choice at all.

“Leave me,” he said, “to my preparations. We’ll leave at dawn.”

Dorian nodded sharply and turned on his heel at once. Cullen did not watch him go. He sat instead, the weight of the world pressing down on him all at once.

“She will be safe here,” Josephine said again, already writing furiously on her board, “I guarantee it.”

“Thank you,” Cullen said again, but he hardly heard her words at all.

When the party rode forth the next morning, Cullen hung back an extra moment to kiss his daughter’s sweet forehead, to brush her wealth of curls away from her face. He lingered a moment longer than the others, just holding her, trying to make it last as long as he could.

“Be safe, darling,” he told her, as if she had any power over such a thing, “I…love you more than the entire world, and so does your mamae.”

The locket was in his hand again, though he did not recall pulling it from where it rested over his heart. He hesitated, then lifted it over his head. When he would have handed it to Aegle, Eurydice’s sister shied back.

“Keep it,” she said, “Keep it. It’ll be luck.”

“I—” Cullen spoke around the tightness in his throat, “She should know what her mother looks like. In case…”

“There are plenty of court portraits,” Josephine said, “Of both you and the Inquisitor. Should something happen—be assured that she will know precisely who her parents were.”

Cullen’s hand drifted back to his side, the long chain dangling in the frigid winds of the mountains.

“Every day?” he said, “You’ll show her?”

“I will,” Aegle said, adjusting her grip on her sleeping niece, “I will, every day. Promise.”

Cullen nodded, because words were beyond him. He drew the chain back over his head and let it slip soundlessly back beneath his tunic, where it was safe.

“We’ll be back soon enough,” Bull said, striding the other direction, “She won’t have time to miss you. You’ll see.”

Cullen nodded, already turning toward his own mount—but he had his doubts.

Whatever had happened to her—it would have no easy ending. This, he knew all too well.

The silver halla happened upon the den one bright morning, when the sun on the snow refracted rainbows into the cold air. Her steps were sure and careful in the powder, but when she rounded a certain corner she saw them:

Two older bears, a mother and father, fat for the winter. They were curled around babes—one, two, three little cubs, curled safe and warm between their parents. They did nothing; it was too early for them to wake and go foraging.

She stood silent for a long time anyway, watching and watching and watching, until the sun fell over the horizon and she could see them no longer.

Several Months Later

Cullen couldn’t count how long they’d been traveling. The days had blurred together very quickly, each one so like the next that it seemed pointless to count. If he thought about it, thought hard, he might have found the answer—but it grew harder to think the longer they searched. It seemed that by now, the four of them had seen Thedas in its entirety, from sea to mountains, from forests to plains. They’d been cordial at first, then grouchy, and after the months of searching they’d all settled into a sort of weary, companionable rhythm.

In the morning, the four of them rose quietly and packed up their night’s camp. There was usually something hot to drink and something simple to eat for breakfast. None of them were at their best this early in the morning—frankly, Cullen didn’t know how the Inquisitor had stood traveling with them all that time—so after several increasingly heated arguments they’d agreed to spend their pre-travel adjustments in silence.

After that, when the mounts were loaded with gear and the campsite was cleared of belongings, Dorian would do his spells and Cole would do…whatever it was Cole did. Searching through the Fade, perhaps. Then, if they could get a direction from either Dorian or Cole, they’d turn themselves that way—sometimes backtracking for miles, sometimes heading in an entirely new orientation—and when they or their mounts were too tired to go on they would make camp and settle in for the night.

The morning this routine finally changed, Cullen waited beside his mount while the mage worked. Bull leaned against a tree nearby, finishing a letter to update the ones they’d left behind. The raven to carry it waited on Cullen’s shoulder, preening its wing feathers, a loose string hanging from one foot.

“What do you think, Knight? Is it a lucky day?” Cullen murmured to his horse, his back to the mage.

He dreaded the moment that he would see Dorian’s head bow in resignation. He didn’t want to see the look on the man’s face when he turned to tell Cullen they were traveling without a course again today. Instead, he kept stroking his gloved hand over the horse’s neck, leaning into the warmth and solidity of it. For a moment longer, he could pretend that today would be the day, that all would at last be well.

Let it be today, Cullen hoped silently, squeezing his eyes shut. If he tried very hard, he could still feel Eury beside him, could still see her as she’d woken that last morning. Her hair had been in a mass, drifted over one shoulder and splayed over the pillows, her expression peaceful in the early morning light. Their daughter had been curled into the crook of her arm, equally serene. They’d been beautiful, the two of them—perfect. And then—

“Yes!” Dorian shouted behind him, and Cullen spun around, his recollections set aside for the moment.

“What?” he barked, “What is it?”

“We’re close,” the mage said, cupping an orb of violet and green light in his hands, “And I’ve made it stable—we should be able to track this to the source very soon.”

“How soon?” Cullen asked, gripping the reins tightly in his left hand. Cole stood there, too, his face tilted down and away so his face was hidden.

“We might expect a day’s travel until we reach her, maybe two,” Dorian said, flicking a stray lock of hair from his forehead, “We should be close enough to search visually once we’re within the range.”

“Maker preserve me,” Cullen murmured through an abruptly tight throat, “I—thank you. Thank you.”

“Well, what’re we waiting for?” Bull boomed behind him, causing one of the other mounts to shy back, “Let’s go!”

The raven shot into the air with a rustle of black wings, the scrap of white on its ankle visible for only a moment before it passed into the trees and was gone.

The wood itself was always loud, but the silver halla walked in silence.

The forest was her charge. As any other creature that needed care, it was finicky, fussy, needing the halla’s constant attention lest it fall to ruin. She could hear the trouble like a low hum in the distance—poachers, rot, and such—and she made her way in its direction quickly whenever something was amiss. Hunters could be run off; those too foolish to leave fell to her horns and hooves.

They were better as food for the forest, anyway, she might think absently before trotting away again, their bodies splayed and lifeless behind her on the soft earth of the forest.

One memorable afternoon, she happened upon a hare trapped in a cruel snare. The wire loop hung from a low branch had caught its neck as it ran along its path. The snare gleamed silver from the recesses of its fur now. The more it struggled, the tighter the snare wrapped until it was choking, gasping for air, its wide feet kicking feebly against the soft earth below. The silver halla watched it in sorrowful silence until the creature’s eyes finally filmed over, for she did not have the means to free it. Breaking the branch would not have let it go; it would still have been trapped, snagged on another branch somewhere else down the path unless someone with careful hands had come upon it and twisted the loop free. She was the only witness when its body went lip, when its legs stopped kicking at last and its soul left its body behind.

When the hunters came back for its body some time later, she made very certain they knew better than to try that again within the bounds of her forest—if they made it back out again.

It would be hard for them to leave after she’d broken some of their pieces in return. But this, unlike the rabbit, was not her problem.

Yes—there was much she could do for the creatures who lived there; some things, few as they might be, were beyond her.

The snare was one. The cottage was another.

There was only one of its kind built within the bounds of the wood, and she didn’t see it until the thaw was well underway, as if the snow itself had hidden the house beneath. It stood near the northern edge, closer to where most of the humans were. It must have been there for an age, for its whitewashed walls had long since fallen prey to storms, the pale covering flaking away in large patches that littered the forest floor around the outer walls. Its thatching was in disarray, the tightly-bound reeds now home to any number of birds and rodents.

Curious, the halla peered through the time-worn windowsills and holes in the brick of the fireplace. She saw little of the insides; told herself she ought not care. Whoever had once put it here, it was clearly better used as a home for the forest creatures.

Except.

Except she kept coming back anyway, circling the clearing around it, admiring the strength of its walls, the surprising evenness of the wooden floors within. There was even a shed tucked up against the main structure, and to her sensitive nose it smelled faintly of herbs and magic.

She…did not know why she liked that smell so much.

The cottage was her one indulgence, her one concession to selfishness. She wished only that she had some means to see the rest, to put it back as it had once been, to walk those even floors and lay down in the shelter of its damaged roof.

But why she might want such strange things—that, she did not know.

Their quartet reached the wood that night and camped on its outskirts, Dorian rightfully arguing that searching around in an unfamiliar forest in the dark was too foolish for words. Cullen chafed at the delay, though, pacing along the boundary long after the others had begun to make noises about turning in for the night.

“Hey,” a deep voice said behind him, and Cullen spun on his heel.

“Yes?” he snapped, then sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“’s alright,” Bull said, waving a hand the size of Cullen’s head, “Here. Message from Josie.”

“Is—” Cullen began, already reaching for the letter with his heart in his throat, but Bull was shaking his head again.

“All good. Just an update,” he paused, surveying Cullen’s mussed hair and shaking hands, “Be up a little more if you need something. Almost there.”

“Almost there,” Cullen echoed, and the letter crinkled in his hand.

Bull nodded once more, then strode back to the campfire, his steps improbably near-silent. Cullen took a deep breath, tucked a finger under the wax seal, and opened the letter.

Commander Cullen, it read,

Before I address other matters, I must begin by informing you that your Psyche is in good health and progressing beautifully.

Cullen paused here, eyes squeezed tightly shut. After a moment, his lungs reminded him that they still needed breath. Shakily, he sucked in air and went on:

She is beloved by everyone who sees her, and she now ably flips from front to back. Though she struggles with the reverse, I and her aunt are confident she will continue to learn. She is certain to inform passers-by of her every thought and seems most perturbed that none of them quite seem to understand her yet. We are careful to show her the court portraits of her mother and yourself daily—

“Maker,” Cullen said with feeling, sucking in a sharp breath and turning his face to the sky.

The faint wind cooled the tears on his cheeks until he scrubbed at them with his sleeve. One hand found the locket on its chain, tucked under his shirt where nobody else could see. Since the day he’d lost his Eurydice, he touched it often—though he still hadn’t opened it again. He was afraid to; as if her expression might have changed to one of accusation. He had left their daughter behind, after all.

It was not fair. Not fair.

None of this should have happened; had Eurydice not given up enough? Had she not sacrificed her role with her people, time with her family, her own eye for all of Thedas?

Had they not suffered enough? And now they must miss every milestone of their young daughter’s life. Had they missed her first laugh, her first smile? Would she even know his face when he returned to her?

More importantly—would she know Eury’s?

Above him, the moon sailed on, serene through the night sky. Clouds had gathered along the horizon, puffy and white, silver where the moonlight touched them. He’d looked up at that moon every night since she’d vanished, wishing he could know for certain that wherever she was, Eury could see it, too. Whenever he stopped for long enough, the questions crowded in: was she safe? Was she hurt? Had she been confined somewhere, locked away from the air and the sky?

But now, as every other time he’d asked himself those questions, he still had no answers. Only the wind and the stars and the cool light of the distant moon above.

And the little sketch Josie had tucked into the letter of a small, round face and two tiny, pointed ears surrounded by a fountain of curls on either side.

By the Maker, if there was any good left in this world he would make damn sure she would see them both again.

When the silver halla dreamt, it was often of a strange, brilliant figure shaped like one of the People but formed of light instead of flesh. In the dream, she sat amongst the trees and the halla lay her head upon the light-woman’s lap. Her horns ought to have eviscerated the woman, ought to have pierced her in a dozen places, but they never did.

“You have seen much pain,” the woman would say in these dreams, one hand stroking along the halla’s neck, “You have known betrayal and abuse. You have felt pain beyond your years. It is calm here; it is quiet. There are no demons nor voices calling when you would not answer. You are safe now—safe from everything. This is what you were meant to be—where you were always meant to go.”

It seemed to the halla that this was not right, that the information was somehow incomplete. In the way of dreams, she never knew precisely why she thought so. She just lay still and let herself be comforted for hurts she neither felt nor remembered.

Each day she woke again, lifted her head, and began her daily wanderings.

Each night she lay down her head and felt a deep, sourceless sense of grief and dissatisfaction that no manner of dream could lift.

No—regret. That was the name for it.

The halla felt regret.

She prodded at the feeling as one might a bruise, feeling for its boundaries and origins, but to no avail.

Perhaps it, like the loneliness, was simply something she was meant to feel.

The trees were tall and dense. They did not welcome outsiders.

As the days went on, it became more and more clear that the forest itself was alive, knowing in a way that did not fall neatly into any category of magic Cullen had yet seen. After days of brambles that seemed to spring up directly in their way, branches near-falling on Dorian when he tried to use his tracking spell, and Cole’s somewhat ominous pronouncement that they weren’t all welcome, Cullen had begun to despair.

Now, with a headache pounding at Cullen’s temples, the four of them faced a racing river. There was not supposed to be a river here. No river entered nor exited this wood on the map, though there was meant to be a lake somewhere further in. And yet—here it was, and no bridge with which to cross it.

Eury was somewhere on the other side. Dorian’s spell, before it had been broken by a falling tree limb, had been clear about that.

Cullen crouched, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment and trying to think around it. There could be an easier fording place elsewhere on the riverbanks. They might split up, search for a better place to ford it further down- or upstream. They might cut down a tree or section off one of the downed trunks to make a simple bridge. Or—

“Cullen,” Cole said in a strange voice, and Cullen turned his head to look at the boy.

“Yes? What is it?” Cullen said.

“The wood doesn’t want us.”

“Yes,” Cullen said, frowning, “I’d divined that for myself, thank you. Now, we need to—”

“No,” Cole said, shaking his head and coming closer to crouch at Cullen’s side, “It doesn’t want us. Wrong, too much metal; push it out, like a splinter under skin. The river is a wall.”

“Metal—What…?”

Ah; yes, perhaps that was it after all. He’d heard of such places before—places that had a mind of their own. The Blackmarsh, the Korcari Wilds, the Brecilian Forest—and there were some things such places did not tolerate.

Cullen pushed to his feet, ignoring the usual wave of dizziness that followed. One hand reached for the buckle at his shoulder.

“Here,” he said, catching Bull’s eye, “Take this for a moment.”

It was quick work to remove it all, for he’d long practice donning and unlatching all his armor. The Qunari took it with a look of understanding, and none of them stopped Cullen when he shouldered his pack and waded into the shallow end of the river.

Cullen’s boot stretched over the water for a moment. He steeled himself, took a breath, and set it in the white foam of the rushing river below.

To his shock, the racing water stilled. The foam gathering along the top of the water drifted gently, piling up until it made a sort of path through the center. In the smooth, still water, he could see a clear reflection of the tree’s crowns, the small patches of blue interspersed amongst the green. He could see his own face, drawn and unshaven and haggard.

Cullen swallowed and waded on until the water was at his knees, then mid-thigh. He hoisted the straps of the pack higher to keep it from the wet and strode on, ignoring the drag at his legs, ignoring the reflection in the water, until at last his feet met the damp rock of the other side.

“I think—” he began, turning, but his words were lost in the roar of the river as it sped up again behind them.

The others tested the waters as he had, but it would not let them pass and it would not let Cullen return. It seemed that they had come as far as they were going to come.

The rest of the journey must be his and his alone.

At last, Cullen swallowed, pressed a fist to his heart, and turned away. His pack was a heavy but reassuring weight at his back. The forest echoed with sudden birdsong around him, and the sun shone brightly between the gaps in the canopies above.

Maker, he prayed silently as he stepped into the clear path between the trees, let her be near.

It was almost eerie the way the forest seemed to part for Cullen now that he’d left his weapons, armor, and traveling companions behind.

The ease of it left him uneasy, jumping at shadows, wary over every rustle in the bushes even after it became obvious that the wood was improbably full of wildlife. Birds winged from every bough, some in colors he’d never seen on such a creature. He saw glimmering eyes in the distance at night more than once. After one day’s fruitless searching, he returned to his camp to find tracks all around the fire. Cullen slept in the trees after that, careful always to pack up and hang his food when he was gone. Something told him he’d have very little luck with hunting here, even if he were equipped with something he could use to hunt.

Uneasy as Cullen was, he never really felt like he was in danger. Nothing growled in the dark; nothing hunted him in the bushes. For all that the forest was technically located in Ferelden, there were no signs that the Blight had ever touched this place. He saw signs that other people had been here recently, but as far as he could tell none of them remained. At least, in his days of searching he never heard or saw someone else.

Still: it was a beautiful forest, and edible roots and berries seemed plentiful enough. If Cullen hadn’t been searching for the lost love of his life, he might even enjoy himself. But…well, as matters were, he felt guilty for every beauty that he saw, as if even the potential for enjoyment took something away from the seriousness of his search. In recompense, he doubled down: less sleep, more walking, even when it was by the light of the crystal Dorian had passed off to him before he’d left.

On one such evening, Cullen held the crystal aloft, peering into the darkness around him. He was fairly certain he knew the way back to his makeshift camp. This direction was simply the only one left that he hadn’t searched yet. If he just went a little further—

A tree root in the path; his foot caught on it unexpectedly and he launched forward, then down, down, down. There’d been no rain, but the bank he rolled down was slick with newly-wet mud anyway. By the time he reached the bottom, he was all but coated in it, and dizzy and sore besides. As he rolled the last few feet and stared, dazed, at the sky, he let go of the crystal lighting his way. It slid away in the bracken, still lit.

Briefly, before he gave in to the dizziness that fogged his mind, Cullen could have sworn he saw a…halla, standing over him, its horns glimmering silver in the intermittent moonlight.

And then all was dark.

It wasn’t that the halla had never seen a human up close before. She’d seen plenty: gatherers with lowered eyes and upraised palms, backing slowly away; hunters she drove away and those she left broken in the bracken and earth.

In all her days, she’d never seen one quite like this.

The human’s face was lit in the flicker of the stone he’d held. He was pale, dark under the eyes, with muddy golden hair. She saw little of his eyes, for he closed them almost as soon as she stepped closer, but what she had seen reminded her of the soft underbark of a pine tree, beaded with sap in the sunlight.

Strange; another of those odd urges she could not shake. She wanted to touch his hair—but carefully nudging it with her nose did not seem to satisfy the urge. What did she want?

Why did it distress her to see the creature lying at the bottom of the slope like that, limbs askew? He reminded her of that poor snared rabbit, kicking and kicking until the wire finally cut its neck.

She did not like that.

No; no, she did not.

So instead of turning away, as she so often had, she stepped closer and made a choice.

Cullen woke on the forest floor.

For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. A raindrop hit his cheek, filtered from the overhang above, and when he blinked it all came into focus: a grey day, but it was day now. He lay half-under the shelter of a large, flat shelf of granite. The cold wall of rock pressed against his back, and when he shifted he found himself supported by a bed of leaves and vines. What…?

You were injured, a painfully familiar, rough voice whispered. Cullen sat up, immediately knocking his head against the rock above.

That was unwise, Eurydice’s voice went on, cool and disinterested and agonizingly dear, your head does not need more damage, yes? Yes.

“Eurydice,” he gasped out at last, eyes still squeezed shut, one hand bracing against the earth and the other pressed to his aching head.

A pause.

Rest now, the voice said, a note of command in its tone.

A note—but not one he heard aloud, Cullen realized. However the voice was speaking, its words were whispered directly into his mind. The old fears crept back again; that this was a demon somehow reaching into his thoughts to give him what he wanted most deeply. Would he betray himself by giving in just because it sounded like his…his…

“Eurydice?” he said again, and opened his eyes.

A creature stood before him, silhouetted against the grey of the day beyond. It was a halla; he knew that at once. But where bone-white horns ought to curl back from its head, it bore a different set. They were silver, as if they’d been dipped in metal or mercury, and even the faint sunlight seemed to trace them with exquisite care. Along the creature’s foreleg, there were traceries of green. At first, Cullen thought that it might have stepped through undergrowth of some sort, but then he looked closer.

The green pulsed with a faint, near-inaudible hum that Cullen knew very well. He’d slept beside that hum. He’d held it to his lips, against his skin. That was the Anchor; he’d stake his life on it. There was no fabricating something like that. And her eyes…

Violet, beautiful deep violet, shining faintly when she blinked.

Those were Eurydice’s eyes. He knew them better than he knew his own.

“Eurydice?” he said again, and slid from beneath the granite shelf, “Eury—it’s me. Don’t you remember…?”

She didn’t. He could see she didn’t.

The halla cocked her head, silver horns winking in the light.

You will not heal if you do not rest, she said, If you walk away, I will not follow you.

Cullen’s hands curled into fists at his sides, the abrupt fear and anger and relief twisting inextricably in his chest.

She was here; she was gone. He’d found her; she was lost to him.

Beyond all that—Maker, his head ached. He could barely think past the throbbing.

Rest, she said again, and—well. There seemed to be no better choice. Still watching her as if she’d vanish when he took his eyes away, Cullen settled back into the hollow made by the granite and lay on his side.

Eurydice was gone when Cullen woke, but his head had stopped aching. Rather than try to find his camp again, he stayed in place, neatening the little alcove for lack of anything better to do and then performing his usual stretches in the sunlight when she still hadn’t returned.

She arrived in the glen at last sometime around noon, judging by the height of the sun, when Cullen’s stomach had begun to grumble badly. He was just beginning to consider trying to forage in the berry bushes just past this little clearing when she broke through the trees on the other side, trotting into the light and surveying him with a tilt of her head.

You are still here, she said, Are you in pain?

“I—no,” Cullen said, throat tightening at the sound of her voice, “No—I am quite well.”

Then why do you remain?

“I…wanted to offer my thanks. And—offer to help you, if I might.”

She tilted her head the other way, the sharp points of her horns catching the sunlight. Cullen ignored them and focused on her eyes.

“There must be tasks you need help with,” he said, for he’d had some time to think about how he might stay near her, “I—I would be glad to offer my service. Surely…surely having hands would be of use to you? I would be glad to assist, however you may need it.”

For a long moment, he thought she might simply choose not to answer him at all. Then, she huffed and began to trot away.

Come, then, she said, there are things to be done, yes? Yes.

Cullen swallowed hard, straightened his shoulders, and strode after her.

The halla still dreamed, but sometimes the words were different.

This night, the light-woman stroked her flank and spoke in the gentle tone of a mother correcting a wayward child.

“Do not trust a human,” she chided, and the halla wished for nothing more than to not be touched, though she could not lift her head or move away.

“He is not meant for this place,” the woman went on, “He upsets the balance. You do not need any help he can offer; you are better off on your own. You have been doing quite well so far, have you not?”

For the first time, the halla, dreaming, wondered:

Who is she? And, Why does she tell me what I should do? I know what I should do. I do not need her help.

When the dream ended, she did not send the man away. There were things—specific things—that she wanted him to do. But…perhaps she would not start with those. Perhaps she would watch him first, to see what he would do.

Yes; yes, that was wisest.

First, she would learn more; then she would ask.

Cullen knew when he was being tested.

There were simple tasks: move this rock here or there for the snakes to den under, drag this branch closer to the river so it doesn’t start too large a fire, put this little bird back in its nest before it’s trampled. He performed all the tasks without complaint, searching always for some hint that she still knew him. Two years ago, he would have thought himself mad for playing errand boy for a talking forest creature, let alone believing that said creature was the mother of his child. Now, though…

Now, he did as she asked simply for the pleasure of hearing her speak to him again.

He thought often that he should go back to the others, explain what he’d seen, but then what? Could he guarantee that she would still be here when he returned?

They’d searched for too long for him to walk away now. So he stayed instead, did all she asked him, and lived for the next time he heard her voice—distant as it was.

At last, perhaps a week after he’d woken under the rock shelf, Eurydice nudged him awake and indicated he follow her. Cullen rose, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and trailed behind. It seemed that the forest itself moved for her, or perhaps it was simply that she knew the wood so well that she could easily pick a path between the trunks and bushes without needing to consider where she was going.

There is a place, she told him after over half an hour of walking, It is near the edge. You can fix it.

“What?” Cullen asked, for he’d expected another trivial task.

The halla looked back over her shoulder, one delicate hoof raised. After a moment, she turned away and carried on.

It is an important place, she told him, a note of impatience in her voice, A good place. A…house. It is broken, but it is good. You can fix it. You are a human. Use your hands.

“I…” he bit back the refusal, the explanation that for all his youth growing up at a farm he didn’t clearly remember how to make major household repairs. The explanation would mean little to her, though. He knew enough to know that much. Instead, he took a deep breath and continued:

“I will do what I can.”

The cottage might have been lovely once, at the top of a low hill with the forest laid out around it. There was a bit of a meadow, too, with tentative flowers tucked her and there amongst the tall grasses. A stone path still led up the hill to it, and the stone steps seemed intact.

That was the best he could say for it.

The walls were falling apart; he could see daylight through them in several places. The roof was missing large sections, and what remained was patchy at best. A large section of the fireplace had fallen in, and when he stepped inside the floor reeked of animal droppings and rot. On the fifth step, his foot went through.

At first glance, he would have said it was hopeless, except he walked outside and found Eurydice, dancing back and forth in an attempt to look inside again. When she turned her violet eyes upon him again, there was only one answer he could give.

“I’ll try,” Cullen told her.

So he did.

There was much to be cleaned from the dwelling. The silver halla drifted back periodically to check on the human. He fashioned a broom from twigs and things and cleaned it all out first. That was the boring part. But the rest…

She liked watching him. Sometimes, he grew angry and shouted at the wood and the paint. Sometimes he sang. Sometimes he did nothing at all; only lay on his back before the damaged building and watched the sky above. At night, when the stars came out, sometimes she came and watched with him. That…made sense, somehow. Seemed right.

“Do you remember a time before this forest?” he asked her on one such evening. She sat with her legs folded beneath her several feet away, just in case. When the man spoke, the hart tilted her head his direction.

What do you mean?

“Before you came to be here,” he said, his face lit only by the moonlight, “Do you remember what it was like?”

There was no time before the forest, she told him, puzzled, There is nothing to remember. I have always been here. I am the forest.

He seemed to consider this in silence for a time, but he spoke again at last. His voice was odd; crumbling, like old clay.

“Have you tried?” he asked, “To remember?”

Why should I? I have everything I need. I am happy.

She hadn’t spoken false, but the words didn’t sit right with her. The halla shifted uneasily, flicking her tail to the side, shaking her head as if casting off the touch of an insect.

I am leaving, she said abruptly, and trotted away into the woods.

The man didn’t call after her.

At long last, the cottage was clean and dry. Now, the floors had to be patched and repaired in places. Water had soaked into the corners, expanding and rotting the wood in turns. Whole sections had to be ripped up and replaced—and Cullen wasn’t certain at first if he could trust the timber and tools that simply turned up one day, set neatly beside the front door.

So: floors, which he must then sand and finish. But before that, he must do something about the roof—for what was the point in fixing the floors if they might be rained on again before he could get to them? So, then, the roof, and then the floors—and the stairs, of course, to the small second level.

Maker, he was glad the foundation was solid, that the bones were good. He’d no idea what he might do if he had to shore it up from beneath, if he had to replace the studs and struts or patch a cracked foundation. At least he could count on the fundamentals.

“Do you know where all this comes from?” the man asked the halla one day. His foot nudged a board, laid to the side of the door.

The halla glanced at it, then turned her attention back to the man. He was fascinating, with his curling golden hair and his strange fingers and ears. Sometimes he waved his hands when he talked, and sometimes his face turned paler or pink or red in the sun. It made little sense to her, but she could not shake the feeling that if she just kept watching him she would come to understand it all in time.

From me, she told him, and he looked at her with surprise.

“From you? But how? You don’t carry them here.”

No, she said impatiently, I told the forest how I want this place to look. It brings the things for me.

“But the forest can’t build it for you,” the man said, looking at her for a moment and dropping his eyes, “That’s why you asked me.”

He did that often, too—looking away. She did not like it. She wanted to keep looking at his eyes.

Yes, she said, Yes. When will you be done?

The man sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. The curls were pressed back for a moment, then sprung back into shape again. The halla watched them intently, as if each coil held a secret she might yet unravel.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t know.”

Eury came to watch Cullen sometimes, and despite his hopes she never seemed to see him as anything more than an intriguing distraction. There was no sign that she knew what they’d been to each other or what they’d left behind at Skyhold. There was no sign she had much personal interest in him at all.

Until one day there was.

Cullen was resting by the side of the house, sipping from his water. The thatching was near-done, and thank the Maker for that. He’d move on to replacing some of the boards on the stairs and…

What is that? Eury asked.

Cullen started; he hadn’t heard her arrive. Well, he rarely did these days.

“What?” he asked, and she inclined her head to his arm, where he’d been toying with his braided leather bracelet.

“Ah,” he said, and the grief struck him out of nowhere, as it often did. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and toyed with the cool bump of the bead at the end.

“It was a gift,” he said, “Someone I care for a great deal made them for me. I’ve more in my pack.”

He’d packed nearly all of them when he left Skyhold. He’d taken several from the hilt of his sword before leaving it with the others, too. It had seemed…wrong to leave them behind. Wrong, when he needed every piece of her that he could hold.

He had left a few, though—the ones without beads. For Psyche, he’d told Josephine, who’d taken them from his hand like they were made of crystal or porcelain instead of worn leather.

Eury watched closely while he fetched the rest and even deigned to come closer to inspect them up close.

They are very neat, she said after a moment, doubtfully.

There was something odd about her voice, and it took Cullen a moment to place the tone. She’d sounded like that before, he thought. When she was unhappy with how one of her gifts had come out, when she wasn’t sure if she should give him yet another to wear on his wrist.

“They are good luck,” he told her, and when he held one out she didn’t move away, “I…could give you one, if you’d like?”

She looked like she might shy away at that, so he kept himself carefully still. If he moved an inch, he thought she might bolt at once. One minute went by, and then another. A breeze blew through, cooling the sweat on his clothes.

Yes, she said at last, Yes.

Cullen moved closer than she’d allowed him yet, moving very slowly. She tilted her head his way and he marveled at the shine of silver on her long, braided horns, at the graceful slope of her neck. It was horrible, what had been done to her; and yet, it did not seem horrible to look at her now. She looked like moonlight given form, like art that breathed and moved.

It seemed wrong to tie the bracelet off around her horn; too much like some kind of harness. He wove it into the base of the horn instead, tying only the ends together so it wouldn’t fall off. She allowed this maneuver and only shook her head back and forth when he finally stepped away.

Thank you, she told him gravely, and darted off for the forest again.

But—but she’d nudged his arm first. She’d let him touch her.

And so—there was still hope.

The forest was well, but the silver halla was not.

Something was wrong.

She did not know what. She did not know what.

She visited the human fretfully, watching him from a distance for a time. The roof was finished, and the work moved inside. She did not like this. How could she see him if he was hidden away?

Yet she could not determine why this bothered her. Why losing sight of him caused her to creep closer than she’d meant to, to peer through cracks and windows at the man.

Why did she care? Why did she want to look at him again, to hear the sound of his voice? Sometimes she could hear him singing from a distance and the sound of it made her want to wail in grief.

Something was wrong and lost, and she couldn’t find it; she couldn’t even name it. But he…

He made the hole seem smaller somehow.

So she kept coming back.

The stairs were solid enough to trust, though Cullen despaired about the color of some of them. He supposed there was no way to properly match wood this old, but the lack of evenness bothered him. Ah, well; there were more pressing things. Repairing the fireplace, for one, and that was a chore. Filling in the worst of the cracks and holes in the walls—yes, that too, and fiddly work it would be. At least he could move his things inside and sleep under cover when it rained.

One evening, he lay outside looking up at the stars as he often did. There was a rustle in the bushes and she was simply there, all at once, as if she’d appeared to him from nothing. Cullen didn’t react; he’d learned it was best not to.

Where did you come from? she asked him, Before you were here.

There was a focus to the question that made him turn his head.

“I was…at Skyhold,” he said after a moment, “I…used to lead an army.”

Used to; that stung, even though he knew he would never have been able to stay without her there at his side.

Skyhold, she said, and nothing else.

That night, she slept just outside the front door. When he couldn’t stop checking to see if she was still there, Cullen took his bedroll outside and curled up only a few inches away.

This…wasn’t quite what it had once been, but it was still her, and they were still here together.

And…even if she was gone when he woke, he’d still spent the night close to her. Cullen would count it as a victory.

He needed every victory he could get.

The time before.

That was the problem. She’d known it for a lie when she’d told the human she was happy, but there had been no question in her mind that the rest was true, too.

But—there was a time before the forest. She remembered arriving here, so she must have arrived from somewhere.

But where?

The silver halla pondered this question for a long time. She even returned to the spot in her earliest memories, though it looked different in the spring than it had in the winter.

The dissonance troubled her, fretted at her mind, and she spent more and more of her time at the cottage to make the thoughts go away. The questions seemed less pressing when she watched the man work, filling in the cracked walls with white clay that had appeared in a bucket one morning. They began to speak to each other during these hours.

Even stranger, she began to enjoy it—an alien sensation, that, to crave the sound of someone else’s voice.

Why are you doing that? she might ask him, and he might find a window to peer through for his answer.

“If I don’t close up the holes between bricks, the heat will escape,” he might say in response, or, “I am tired. I am sitting down to rest now.”

Or, one sun-drenched morning when she’d wandered into the glade to find only the sound of him breathing inside, labored and heavy:

“I cannot work today,” he told her when she made her presence known.

Why? she asked, peering through the hole where a door ought to go. Her horns made it so she could not look entirely inside, but she tried anyway, until the sharp ends scraped along his new doorframe.

“I am not well.”

He seemed unwell—or, at least, he seemed like he wasn’t himself. His face was even paler than usual, almost as pale as her coat, and the pleasant flush of exertion he usually had about his cheeks was gone. He looked wet, too, golden ringlets sticking to his forehead, the collar of his tunic dark and damp.

She did not ask what was wrong. She had little understanding of such things, and even if she did it seemed…wrong to ask, especially when he looked so dreadful over it.

Can you reach the door? she asked, and the point of her horn carved another new line on the lintel.

The man made it at last, stumbling toward her and crawling when his feet would no longer cooperate. When he reached her at last, she bent her head and bade him hold on. Surely it would be better for him to rest in the light; it offered the forest creatures comfort to curl up at her side in pools of sunlight. Perhaps it would be the same for him.

Indeed, he did seem to rest easier once he’d curled up along her flank. After a time, his hand curled into the longer fur along her neck, and the silver halla found to her surprise that she did not mind his touch at all.

Odd, that this should feel so perfectly natural; odd, that she felt the urge to tuck the hair back and away from his face. How would she even do such a thing? She hadn’t the fingers for it.

She considered this while he slept, when he murmured fevered words in his sleep:

“Eury,” he said, and “No,” and, most bewilderingly, “Psyche.”

That last word revolved over and over in her mind, fixing itself in place. She could not think around the word; it took up all the space, frightening in its intensity. She might have run if he hadn’t been lying bent over her flank, but instead she lay in place, stiff, trembling, frightened of the word that would not stop resonating in her mind.

Psyche. Psyche. Psyche.

What did that mean?

Eurydice stayed away for days after he recovered from his bad spell.

Cullen blamed himself; how could he not? But he went on working even so, taking more care to rest when he could. If he had a dizzy spell and fell from the roof, no amount of comfort from her would put his bones back together.

The back of the fireplace was finished at last, solid as he could make it, smoothed over along the back with more clay in case there was a crack he’d missed. The walls inside were a mess; he’d need to scrape the old plaster off in places where moisture had gotten under the first layer, and after that he would have to reapply a new layer. Exhausting; but at least the bottom floor had walls of wood, so only the top would need the work. Strange—that a cottage in the woods would be constructed thus. He wondered who’d once lived here, so long ago.

So Cullen scraped the plaster, applied new in place of old, neatened up the corners, painted the walls that needed painting—alone. He felt her absence keenly after so much time together; but he knew Eury. She would come back to him when she was ready.

He spent the warm nights lying in the grass outside, staring up at the stars and wishing himself in two places at once.

Eurydice always came back to him. He had to have faith in that even now, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

“My poor child,” the dream woman said to the halla, and this time the halla did lift her head, did pull away when the woman tried to lay her hands upon the halla’s fur once more.

“My poor child,” the woman of light said again, “You are disturbing things best left alone. You are like the rabbit, thrashing against the snare. The more you fight it, the more it will hurt. Do you not see? You are meant to be here. You were always meant to be here. You marked yourself for me long ago, did you not?”

No, the silver halla told her, You are wrong.

“Am I? You have wished for this your whole life, or you would not be here. Are you not free? Are you not fast enough to get away? Strong enough that none will touch you? Free of petty concerns and arguments, of foolish requests and all the noise of those creatures and their cities? I have given you the gift that I was given, long ago; the gift of freedom. Will you spurn it now? Will you throw it aside without a care?”

The halla took a step back, then another.

She didn’t have an answer. Didn’t know. The woman kept speaking of…a time before the forest. So—the man was right; there had been something before.

“Do not leave what you fought so hard to find,” the woman pleaded, and for the first time the halla peered past the light and saw her. She had horns of her own, skin that was both fur and not-fur, eyes that were both eyes and not-eyes, hands that were bound and free at once, fingers and hooves at the end of her wrists, a face that was a halla’s face and the face of one of the People simultaneously. She was there and not-there, light and not-light, and the harder the halla looked the less she felt she saw.

When she woke, rain poured over her. She stood, shook herself, and turned at once for the cottage.

She may not understand—but she wanted to. And there was one person she knew she could ask.

What is Psyche?

Her voice was abrupt, and Cullen dropped the paintbrush as soon as he heard it.

“Eury!” he said, and winced; she wouldn’t answer to that name. Or—she hadn’t before. It had to have been at least a week since he’d seen her, though it was hard to keep track of time here. It slipped through his fingers in a way that didn’t seem entirely natural—but then, it was hard to tell when he had his bad days. How much time was passing? He could not say.

What is Psyche? she asked again, and Cullen leaned out the window on the upper floor to look at her.

“Where did you hear that name?” he asked, fingers curling hard around the wood.

She shook her head, the silver winking in the light, the bead on the leather band in her horns throwing a flash of red amongst the rest.

It is a name? Whose? one silver hoof dug at the soft earth, leaving a deep divot behind, Whose?

“Our…my daughter’s,” he told her, and cleared his throat, “Psyche is my daughter.”

There was a sound, then, a pained cry that came from her throat and not her mind, as most of her speech seemed to. She wheeled around and raced away without another word, so quickly that the forest swallowed her in seconds.

Cullen, alone on the second floor of the house, bowed his head and felt the weight of time on his shoulders.

How long would he spend here, hoping that repairing this cottage would somehow bring her back to him? How long could he hope? This magic was beyond him, far beyond him. He could never imagine wanting to leave her side, to leave her behind.

But…but his daughter needed him, too. She deserved to have both parents. If both could not return, she deserved at least one. Maker, that much at least, when he would rather give her the world.

“A little longer,” he murmured to himself, taking the paintbrush from the floor, ignoring the splotch of paint it left behind, “I’m so close. The walls, the cabinets in the kitchen, and then…”

And then, he acknowledged silently, there would be more. He couldn’t help himself; he wanted to make it right, and fixing a cottage was a poor stand-in for bringing back his beloved.

But—for the moment, at least, rebuilding this place was all he could do.

A little longer, at least; and Maker let that be enough.

A dream, a nightmare; she could not tell which:

It was bright; perhaps too bright. She ached from somewhere in her midsection and her head, but this did not seem to bother her. A soft noise roused her at once, and she sat up, lifting hands with fingers on the end, pushing away thick grey curls that hung from her own head. Another soft noise, and she lifted a soft bundle of blankets into her lap.

(It did not trouble her, in the dream, that she had hands and hair and such. She knew them, and they were hers, and that’s all that mattered to her. The rest was irrelevant.)

There was a little face in the blanket, and a wealth of curls which acted as a frame. It had two tiny, pointed ears, a perfect little nose, and soft, plump cheeks. The sun shone brilliantly through an open door somewhere to the side, and the light of it played along the babe’s golden curls. Someone touched her back, and it was expected, wanted, comforting. The warmth of a hand she had chosen to welcome; the soft, incomprehensible murmur of a deep voice she both knew and did not know, all at once.

And the little babe tucked into soft blankets, held safe in her arms.

Psyche.

Cullen was shocked to find that she’d come back to him the next day. He paused midstep, peering out the great round window in the largest bedroom. She waited below, circling the little cottage, plainly waiting for something.

Waiting for him.

“Good morning,” he told her when he reached the bottom. She turned to look at him, for she’d been walking away, and approached very slowly over the meadow flowers and grass.

...Good morning, she said after a long moment’s consideration, I have questions.

“Ask them,” he said, taking a step closer, “I will answer as best I can.”

She did not shy back from him. Instead, she bent her head until they were nearly eye to eye.

Your Psyche, she said, Tell me about her…mother.

Cullen sucked in a sharp breath. His heart seemed to pause in its beating before picking up speed quickly, and he clenched his hands at his sides.

“What about her?” he asked.

Eurydice considered him for a moment.

What…was she like?

“She’s fiercely loyal,” Cullen said at once, “Strong. Beautiful. Clever. Curious…Fascinating.”

The halla shifted uneasily, and there was…something in the tilt of her head that abruptly reminded him painfully of how she’d been before. He took a step forward.

“I miss her terribly,” Cullen said before he could think better of it, “I think of her every morning when I wake and every night before I fall asleep.”

Perhaps that was enough. Or—he thought, his heart hammering against the inside of his ribs, maybe he should keep talking. She’d been speaking to him more often of late; maybe talking was the key.

He…he might as well try.

“When I close my eyes, I dream of the day I lost her.”

One more step.

“Do you…do you ever dream?”

She took a step back just as he might have brushed his fingers against her neck. Cullen froze in place, hand still outstretched. For a moment, they looked at each other. The woods around them went quiet.

Yes, she said, and took another step back, But I do not want to anymore.

This last was said quickly, as if she was trying to get the words out as quickly as possible. Without saying any more, she turned and bolted, the sunlight rippling over the silvery-white fur for only a moment before she made it to the shadows of the trees again.

Gone. Gone.

Cullen’s hand dropped to his side.

After a moment in the sun, his head bowed, he turned around again and strode into the house.

He had things to set right—and no time to feel sorry for himself. This much he could do, so he would do it.

But he owed their daughter more than groundless hopes. Soon, he would need to pay up.

But not today.

He did not see the pale shadow amongst the trees, watching, watching, still and silent as the trees themselves.

When she opened her eyes that night, the halla was in the same glade in which she usually saw the woman of light, but the figure was not there. The silver halla turned and turned, hemmed in by trees on either side, her horns catching on low branches until she must wrench them free over and over again.

She woke moments later, sides heaving, and crept back to the dark cottage on the edge of the wood.

The man was snoring inside. She could hear him through the big, round window on the second floor. The halla listened for a moment, ears twitching at the rhythm of his sleep. At last, she lay in the meadow outside the front door. She did not sleep again, but listened to the soothing rumble until dawn broke over the treetops again.

Do you dream? He’d asked.

Only once, as far as she knew, that had actually mattered.

That night, when Cullen stood in the meadow to watch the sunset, she came to him.

“Hello,” he said. She regarded him solemnly.

“Ah—did you need something?” Surely she’d come for a reason; Eury would not have needed one, but she did not remember that she was Eury.

Cullen did not try to move closer. He just stood, and waited, and hoped.

She came closer, each step as deliberate as a note played on a lyre.

Something is wrong with the forest, she told him when she got closer. Cullen straightened, reaching for a sword he no longer wore.

“What is it?” he asked, “Can I help?”

She angled her head, her eyes wise and distant. After a long pause, filled by the birds in the trees and the last sunlight splayed over the treetops, she spoke again.

There is something wrong, she said, I do not know what. I want to stay.

“Oh,” Cullen said, and his hands fell loose to his sides, “Well, I…Of course. It’s your cottage, isn’t it?”

She did not answer this. Instead, she settled herself beside the door and stared at him.

“Right,” he said, “Right. Let me get my water and I’ll join you.”

The night was vast and deep and neither moon hung in the sky.

The halla regarded it all as if from a great distance, the wrongness stirring again in the back of her mind. The human sat to her right, resting against the cottage wall. He’d spoken earlier, but she hadn’t taken note of the words; now, the wood seemed too loud, though the wind had stilled in the leaves and the night creatures did not call any more than they usually did.

Her eyes were good, but they saw little in this darkness that felt infinite and deep. The jangling in her ears intensified, no matter how she twitched them to dispel it. It was too loud; the quiet was too loud; she needed—

Say something, she told the human, who startled like a hare in a bush.

“Ah,” he said, leaning forward with a rustle and peering at her, “What should I say?”

I do not care. Something. Sing. I like when you sing. The night is too—

The halla cut herself off; to say would be to admit some weakness. She waited, though, picking out the shape of him in the darkness. He shuffled closer.

“Do you care what I—”

No, she interrupted.

The man sighed and took a sip of water. Then, he took a deep breath and began to sing.

She’d heard little of human songs. Or—she’d thought she had. But this one sounded familiar. The halla shifted closer to him, the soft words filling her ears, driving away the dark of the night and the discomfort in her heart. By the time he was done singing, she’d moved closer to him and settled herself against his side, careful to keep her horns out of the way. When the tune died out, he cleared his throat again.

“Another?” he asked.

He smelled pleasant; like leather and clean skin.

Yes, she told him, and he sang again.

The halla closed her eyes in pleasure at the sound, relaxing for what felt like the first time in her life. After a long, long tune, he set a hesitant hand on her forehead and stroked the fur there. It did not bother her; it was not unwanted. His hands were gentle, light, nothing like the ones in her dream.

Much to her surprise, when she fell asleep she had no dreams at all.

But she woke with her head in his lap, and that was far too much; the halla bolted into the forest before she could think better of it, and the soft cry behind her did not halt her steps.

Cullen built the cabinets for the kitchen, fit them in snug and neat beside the intact fireplace. He woke one morning to find glass windows leaned against the side of the house, and installed them with only a few minor incidents. The shattered glass was easy enough to clear from the floors, at least.

It looked like a home now. It had seemed like spring in the woods when he’d first seen this place, but now it seemed…well. The flowers had not been anywhere this thick on the ground then, nor as lovely. It was odd how much time had passed, how little time it seemed at all.

But time had passed. Time would continue to pass; he could not stop it.

One morning, Cullen woke and trudged downstairs to see what the forest had left for him this time. He found only four pieces of wood and a small pail of nails there, and puzzled over them for a moment before he realized what they were.

A simple rectangular box, its shorter sides ending in curved pieces. A cradle—the forest had sent him a cradle. As if by finishing the house, the forest had decided he ought now furnish it.

How cruel, to see it and remember all of their hopes, all of their wishes for their little one. How cruel, to look at the pieces of it and remember that his daughter had been left behind—with family, perhaps, but left nonetheless—and he couldn’t even remember how long he’d been away from her. He might have been fixing this cottage for an age; it might have been only a month. He could not say.

Cullen sat on the small set of stairs leading to the house for a long time, elbows resting on his knees, his head in his hands.

At last, he carried the pieces inside, nailed them together with care, and gathered up his waterskin.

It was time to send a letter—long past time.

He could not be forever split between the forest and Skyhold; there was only one solution he could see.

The man was gone.

The silver halla didn’t know when he’d left. It must have been when she’d been on the other side of the wood, watching a swan and her cygnets drift over the water. She’d lost track of time, and when she’d come back…

She hadn’t needed to look. She just knew.

He was gone. He had left her.

She hesitated for a long time, her ears pricked, her eyes trained on the pretty cottage. He’d done well with it, from what she could see. The walls looked sturdy, the roof was watertight—as they’d discovered during the last storm—and the hearth could happily hold a fire without causing the rest of the house to go up in a blaze.

It had only seemed worth it to ask him to do this because it was a special place. It was still special, whole and beautiful against the green of the meadowgrass and the yellow and pink and blue of the flowers. But it was also…empty. Empty.

For many hours, the halla paced around the cottage, trying to make sense of the emotions that crowded her chest and mind, hammering against the inside of her skull when there was nowhere for them to go.

No matter how she tried, she could not understand.

At last, when night fell, she curled herself up by the front stoop and allowed her head to droop low. Maybe…if she could not find him here, in the cottage he’d put back together, perhaps she could still find him in her dreams.

Cullen strode through the forest with speed, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He passed the rocky overhang where he’d first seen Eurydice again. He ducked past trees where he’d once slept, retreaded paths he only half remembered, and at last he reached the river again.

It all looked exactly the same as it had the last time he’d seen it. Even the other three—somehow, they were still camped on the other bank, in more or less the same state he’d last seen them. Strange; he’d expected them to return to Skyhold and take up their duties again. But he could hardly complain when their presence made his task so much easier.

The moment he set foot in the river, it calmed for him in a path straight across. Cullen blinked, then cleared his throat.

“Thank you,” he murmured, hand absently reaching for the hilt of a sword he hadn’t held for months and then dropping to his side. Nothing changed; nothing responded. He waded into the water even so, eyes trained on the far bank.

He wasn’t sure when he felt the change; perhaps it was only his imagination. But sometime between lifting his first foot onto the riverbank and lifting his second, there was a sensation like a…snapping against his skin, like something breaking loose. Cullen grunted at the feeling, and the dizziness that accompanied it, but shook it off.

“Done already?” Dorian asked, standing from the camp and frowning, “That was far too quick—did you find a path? Something more from us?”

Cullen blinked, fighting back a moment’s disorientation.

“What do you mean? It’s been months. I’ve been gone for…what do you mean, ‘done already?’”

The other three looked at him. Cole clasped his hands around his knees, then tilted his head to speak. Cullen could not see him past the hat and all the hair, but his words were gentle enough.

“Time can move faster and slower; you don’t decide. We don’t decide, either. It’s the trees that know, and the forest.”

“Yeah,” Bull said, watching Cole, “I don't know what that means, but you’ve been gone for two days. We haven’t even got a messenger back yet.”

“Two days,” Cullen repeated, then raked a hand through his hair, “Two days. Right. Right.”

There was no time to think about the implications of this now—that there was, apparently, a forest that existed out of time in the middle of Ferelden, that nobody had thought to explore or record it until now. All of that was rather decidedly not his problem.

Cullen turned again, eyeing the river. It rushed on and away into the woods, as fast and uncrossable as ever. What if…what if it wouldn’t let him through again? What if he’d lost his only chance to…

To what? Remind her of what had been? Would it not be cruel now, to show her what she’d had before she’d touched that gift? When he had no way of turning her back to what she’d been before?

Was it not enough to bring their daughter to her? At least then she might still be able to watch her grow. Cullen, for his part, would much rather spend the rest of his life in a cottage in the woods with a Eurydice who did not know him than in Skyhold with only her memory.

“I need to send a message,” he said instead of voicing any of these questions aloud.

They would not have the answers anyway.

When the silver halla slept, her dreams taunted her.

They were pain, the arc of steel cutting into her eye, hands dragging her by the hair, huddled alone in the earth; they were joy, the swooping feeling in her chest while she stood with her hand on an unfamiliar wooden door.

“Was it not all too much to bear?” the woman asked her in the dream glade. The halla wheeled around, looking for her, but there was nothing to see; the clearing was empty, and the voice came from everywhere.

“Is this not better in every possible way?” she went on, “Does it not make more sense? All of that messiness, all of that pain and uncertainty; you can leave it behind. He left you, did he not? So let him go. You might yet live forever, little one. Be happy with what you’ve been given. It is more than most can begin to comprehend.”

The halla—Eurydice, she remembered all at once; her own name was Eurydice—shook her head as if shaking off the voice. Her silver hooves dug furrows in the ground, the green-laced one ringing with a strange song with every blow.

“No,” she said, and struck at the encircling with her hooves once, twice, and—

It took Josephine and Aegle only a few days to reach them along the king’s road. How strange it was that the path they’d taken had dragged them back and forth across the country for months when the journey was really only three or four days by the Imperial Highway.

The days waiting for his daughter seemed to drag on and on. Cullen spent most waking minutes pacing back and forth before the river, wondering if he should have left the forest the way he had. Surely he should have told her what he was doing. Surely he should have explained.

He knew why he hadn’t, though; it would have been far too painful for her to tell him she didn’t care if he stayed or went.

When he wasn’t worrying, he was planning: How could he get Psyche safely across the river? How would he find Eurydice again? Could they arrange for a supply to feed the babe while he sought the cottage again?

By the time they rode up through the woods, he’d planned and planned again, accounted for every possible obstacle and concern between him and his beloved Inquisitor.

He hadn’t accounted for how he would feel when he saw his Psyche again.

She was riding with Josephine. He’d been very specific when he’d left, once it had become clear that they wouldn’t be finding Eury without his presence. Either Aegle or Josephine was to remain with her at all times; it would be all too easy for anyone with a grudge to take or hurt her and, by extension, the Inquisitor and their organization. So, when the small party came to a halt, he knew exactly where to look.

She was still so small; so perfect. But she’d grown in the months he’d been gone, and he saw the flash of one hand over the sling as she reached beyond the confines of the cloth.

“Here is your Papae, little one,” Josie said, even before she’d greeted the rest of them, and lifted the babe to hand him.

For a moment, he stood frozen, as frozen as he’d been before he’d taken her the first time. What if he’d forgotten how to hold her? What if she didn’t remember him?

But Psyche turned her head and met his eyes, and when she lifted her hand she was reaching for him.

All at once, she was in Cullen’s arms and he was clutching her to his shoulder, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“I’m so sorry, darling, I’m so sorry,” he was saying, his eyelids not quite managing to keep the tears from his cheeks, “I didn’t mean to be gone so long, I swear it; Maker forgive me, I did not mean to leave you.”

Psyche made a little hiccup against his shoulder and cooed, one hand with its tiny, sharp fingernails curling into the collar of his tunic. For a long time, Cullen held her just like that, ignoring the voices of the others in the distance.

Nothing else really mattered; only that he had her safe again.

Only that soon enough her mother would, too.

Cullen was tall enough, strong enough to carry Psyche over the water without getting her wet. He couldn’t seem to stop talking to her, little as she seemed to understand. Her eyes peered up at him with keener interest than she’d had before he left, and he wanted, all at once, for her to know everything.

Her eyes—those were different, too. When he’d ridden away from Skyhold, they’d been the undifferentiated blue that all infants had. He’d told Eury that he’d hoped they would be like hers in time, shining with the violet he loved so well. Now, they were like his own eyes looking back at him, warm and brown like sunlight on a tree branch. When he would stop periodically to rest, he would marvel at them over and over.

How strange it was, how wonderful, to see a piece of yourself in someone else and find that you loved it after all.

The forest let him pass without any trouble, though it was much quieter than he remembered. Again, he passed his old camps, the ways he’d wandered looking for his lost love, the overhang where she’d tended him, and…

And the cottage, right where he’d left it.

Cullen paused just before the trees broke to the green meadow beyond. It all looked much the same as it had when he’d walked away a few days prior, save one major difference.

Eurydice lay beside the door, curled up and sleeping. She still looked like a halla, with horns of silver and one green-vined leg. The bracelet she’d woven for him was still twined around one horn. Unlike other mornings when he’d woken to find her resting by the front door, flowers had grown up and around her, stark contrasts against her silvery-white fur. She seemed almost like a statue there, a statue that nature had grown up around and accepted as one of its own.

But she was no statue; she was the love of his life, the mother of his daughter, and he would not give her up to the forest. Not while he still had breath in his lungs.

Cullen leaned down to press a kiss to Psyche’s forehead, then straightened his shoulders and at last strode across the meadow to the cottage where Eurydice waited.

“This is a battle you cannot win,” the woman of light told Eurydice, who struck again and again at the borders that held her, “You are fighting yourself, poor creature. Can you not be content with the peace you’ve been given?”

And, when Eurydice continued to ignore her:

“It hurts me to see you like this, so full of desperation. Be still—calm yourself—”

“You speak too much,” Eury snapped back, and a branch cracked free from the encircling briars, “Too much.”

“You are only hurting yourself,” the woman said, from the trees and the earth and the sky, “Do you not remember the rab—”

“The rabbit died because I do not have hands. I do not have hands because you took them. Stop talking.”

The voice was silent for a moment, and more branches broke free.

“You could be at peace. Why do you not wish for peace?”

“I wish to make my own choices,” Eury said, and though her limbs were shaking and weakening, she struck out and snapped one more branch free.

A hole opened in the undergrowth.

A hole through which she could see the man walking through the meadow before her, an infant cradled in his arms.

Psyche.

Her Psyche.

No; she would not be held any longer. Not here. Not by this being, whatever she was. Her daughter was right there and Psyche needed her mamae; Eury needed to leave now.

“Why do you not wish for the companionship of the wood? Why do you not wish to be amongst kin, amongst those who would understand you?”

“I wish to be my own self,” Eury said, and the hole widened before her.

“Why do you not wish for strength? For freedom? When such concerns only drag you down, only trap you where you would not be.”

“Eurydice?” there was her name, called gently through the space she’d made in the trees and thornbushes, “Eurydice, love; wake up.”

“Freedom?” Eury said, and at last it was enough: she could fit through, push through to the other side, “I am free.”

And—all at once, she was.

Cullen knelt before Eurydice, he on one side of the circle of flowers and she on the other. He did not know how to wake her; in the old stories, it might be done with a kiss. Given the circumstances, he thought it might be better to call gently from a distance. He was holding something fragile and precious, after all; best he not surprise her too badly.

“Eurydice?” he called, and settled Psyche more comfortably in his arms, “Eurydice, love—wake up.”

To his shock, she began to glow. It was not the harsh, merciless light he’d seen in the great hall all those months ago. No. This was a softer light, the gentle glow of the moon on a dark and cold night, the light that guided one home through inhospitable lands. It was the light one saw through one’s window on waking from a nightmare, the light that brushed aside the cobwebs of unfriendly sleep.

As she glowed, she changed. The fur melted away, blowing gently in the wind like dandelion fluff. The horns fell bloodlessly aside, one to her left, and one to her right. When it faded away, as gently as it had come, she opened her eyes.

Cullen might have thought, given the gradual change and the light, that it would be a gentle awakening. He would have been profoundly incorrect.

Eurydice sat bolt upright, her eyes wild, her hands already reaching for him.

“Psyche,” she said, “Where—where—”

“Here,” Cullen said, because he could no more deny Eurydice her child than he could choose not to breathe, or not to love her wholly. Eury leaned past the encircling flowers, snatching the babe up in her arms, and cuddled her close, her face twisted with pain.

Maker; what was there to say? What was there to do? What time they’d lost could never be retrieved.

“I’m…sorry,” he managed after a moment; for what could one say to such pain? He’d failed her, in not finding her sooner, in not preventing her from being taken from them in the first place. They’d lost months with their daughter, both of them; they’d lost all of the first changes, precious moments they might have lingered over together.

“I should’ve,” he began, choked, but she had none of it. Eurydice reached for him, too, and dragged him against her free shoulder with an iron grasp.

“Cullen,” she said, pressing his face into her shoulder, and he gave a gasp at the sound of his name on her lips, “Cullen, ena’vun, my ena’vun; You are here. You found me; you came back.”

Words were beyond Cullen for a moment. He didn’t even bother to try searching for them. He just pressed his face into her shoulder and wept, too overcome to bother with anything but holding her just as tightly and making sure Psyche wasn’t being pressed too hard between the two of them.

They stayed just like that for a long, long time. Cullen lay half-across the crumpled flowers, Psyche already rested sleeping against her mother’s shoulder, and Eurydice held them both as tightly as she could.

Whole, together, and free.

Eurydice’s memories of Psyche were still foggy. She could not remember what the babe had been like before; had her eyes been so clear, so bright? Had her fingers been so clever, her ears so sweetly and faintly pointed?

She did not remember, but it mattered little at the moment. They sat among the flowers now, Psyche laid over her knees, and she traced the babe’s features over and over again with her fingertips. The touch at her nose made the infant sneeze, her tiny face screwed up with surprise, and Eurydice laughed when the babe did. Joy spread across her face like ink in water, and the sight of it warmed her. She had been so cold for so long; it was a relief to let it all melt away.

She was loath to let go of her daughter for even a moment; holding her felt right, filling the hole in her heart immediately and perfectly. There were pieces of her mind that remained fragmented, trapped in some other body with its other, graceful limbs. As long as she held Psyche, none of that mattered. This body had hands to stroke her hair; this body had arms to hold her, and a lap to set her in, and a mouth that could smile. That was all that mattered—and the longer she held the babe, the more the broken pieces found new ways to fit together.

Yes; this was her body. The other one was hers, too. It did not matter that the two ideas did not agree; she could make them both true.

What mattered was the sun on her skin and Psyche’s, the way the babe seemed determined to stuff fistfuls of her mother’s hair into her mouth.

What mattered was the soft noises she made as she waved her hands around, as if trying to explain something very important to Eurydice.

What mattered was that Cullen was here, too, leaning against her side and watching them both with a smile on his tired face. As if this was all he’d wanted—as if he, too, was content.

As if he, too, knew that this was home.

Much, much later when the stars were spread across the sky like a comforting blanket, Cullen stepped back from checking on Psyche in her cradle. Eury, lying in the grass, held out her hand to him.

It was hard to stop touching even now; setting their daughter aside to rest had felt like too long apart, even if she was only a few steps away. Neither of them had really wanted to put her down, but they’d badly needed a few moments just to hold each other without checking to make sure Psyche hadn’t rolled off down the hill or stuffed a handful of flower petals in her mouth.

When he lay down beside her, Eury rolled onto her side and into his arms, sighing faintly. Cullen laced his fingers together, holding her against him, savoring the familiarity of the sharpness at her hips, the weight of her head on his shoulder, the waves of her hair flowing over his shoulder yet again.

“You’re here,” he said, because he couldn’t help himself.

“Yes,” she said, and he could feel the tickle of her eyelashes against his neck.

They lay in silence for a moment, the rise and fall of his chest matching hers.

“It is still there,” Eury said after a moment, and he tilted his head to look at her, “The other one. I did not undo the spell. I did not want to give it back to her.”

Cullen tilted his head to look down at her, and she angled hers to look up at him.

“She should not have given it to me if she wanted to keep it for herself,” she said, “I can still be the other one if I choose it.”

“But…” Cullen frowned, “But—would you forget, as you did before? Would you…you wouldn’t…”

“I will not leave,” she told him, “If I go, I will come back to you.”

“I believe you,” Cullen said slowly, trying to wrap his mind around the concept, deciding at last to think about it later, when his mind was not in a fog, “I…suppose it is like being able to change shapes, as some mages do.”

Eurydice hummed in agreement and squirmed even closer, the arm across his chest tightening.

“We will come back here someday,” she said, “It is supposed to be ours, this place.”

“Is it?” Cullen considered this for a moment, “I suppose it does feel that way, doesn’t it? Like you and I were meant to find it.”

Earlier, when the three of them had stumbled into the house, he and Eurydice half-distraught, the cottage had seemed almost to curve around them, comforting and solid. He’d written it off as another quirk of this strange place; the wood that had always seemed alive in its own way. Perhaps what he’d felt had been more than the forest’s usual strangeness after all.

“Yes,” he said after a moment, squeezing her as tightly as she was holding him, “Yes. We’ll come back, someday. Together.”

“Together,” she echoed, and lifted her face to be kissed.

The wood sang around them, a song they might have heard more clearly if the world hadn’t already seemed full of each other. Only a few steps away, little Psyche, curled in her father’s mantle, supported by the cradle he’d built for her, dreamed of warm arms and purple eyes that shone with love. In the distance, cygnets huddled on their parents’ backs to drift sleeping for the night. The trees rustled with the life of the night creatures, while the creatures of the daytime sought their dens and burrows for the night.

The statues of owl and halla and wolf, overgrown and tucked amongst the ruins, might have been able to tell that this had all happened before, in its way. They may have been able to speak of loves found and lost, of a cottage built for a family once before and now again. Perhaps they may even have told the story of one transformed ages before, of the creature who’d once found freedom in four legs instead of two, of fleet feet and the emotions—or lack thereof—that only immortals can feel.

But statues, as we know all too well, do not speak, nor do they tell tales.

That is for the living.

And Cullen and Eurydice’s tale was far from over.

~The End~

#Cullydice #cullen rutherford #eurydice lavellan #cullavellan #cullen x inquisitor

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