My Warden (COMPLETED)

Dreams

Chittering erupted in the back of her mind. No. The chittering crawled along the walls! Lana threw a fireball towards it, breaking apart the eternal darkness. In the flare, a multitude of teeth glittered in the deep, each fang snapping in rage. Baring down upon her, every darkspawn in the deep roads raced to finish the job. She tried to reach her arms back for another spell, but it was too late. Her tongue lolled to a standstill, her fingers locking in place as the darkspawn leapt off the ceiling towards her.

Lana bolted awake gasping for breath. Her body trembled from the memory, no, was that one just a dream? Was it both? With each year it grew harder to tell reality from the fade. She blinked in the soft grey shadows, gulping to bring sense to her tumultuous brain. Unable to make out anything in the room, Lana shifted uncomfortably on the narrow bed. The room felt wrong, the grey shapes and shadows unfamiliar. But she hadn't been anywhere familiar in a year. Her entire life was abandoned for...what life did she even have before she turned to the deep roads? What life could she have?

Placing her head in her hands, Lana sat up in the bed and waited. She could feel another presence in the bed beside her, but Hawke wasn't speaking up. No matter how deep into sleep her cousin got, any moment Lana was roused by nightmares Hawke would always mumble out, "Are you a blood mage?" And upon Lana insisting she wasn't, she'd roll back to sleep as if it was that simple an answer.

Lana waited another breath before casting a minor spell in the fireplace. It wasn't enough to catch the log, only lift a few embers to life and return a hint of color to the grey world. She gazed down at the form beside her and the past night walloped her memory. Cullen fell asleep exactly as he held her, his hand still curled under her pillow, the other pulled back to his own naked chest. Andraste's tears but he was so heartbreakingly perfect while asleep. The peace of slumber wiped away his worries leaving behind so much of that young man she knew in the tower before everything changed. His eyelashes fluttered from a dream and Lana slid back down onto the bed. This time she faced him, her hands curled up under her head.

One of his waves disobeyed the new order and curled in on itself, twisting until it scattered across his forehead. Those golden brown eyes stayed shut tight while his lips huffed a breath in deep sleep. Maybe you need to accept you have a type, Lana. After she left him in Kirkwall, she questioned what drove her to give in to her temptations in the deep road. She knew it would never be a relationship beyond a few days, but she pushed it as much as he did. In the dark of night, when her mind refused to release her to sleep she thought back to what she'd considered only a minor infatuation with that awkward templar in the tower. At the time it had seemed childish fun, nothing more. But upon being freed from the circle, who was the first person she fell into a foolish love with? A blonde, brown eyed man with a sweet heart and lofty ideals. She worried that she was trying to replace one with the other, but she wasn't certain who was the replacement and who the original. It was a foolish concern either way. Alistair was...in the past now, forever. Nothing would change that. And Cullen, he had his duty, always filled his heart with...Maker, she knew better than to hope for more.

As if sensing her thoughts, Cullen's lips rose in a smile and his hand ran along her shoulder. He didn't open his eyes but whispered, "Are you awake?"

"Yes."

"Is it morning?"

Lana glanced out the window and saw no hint of a rising dawn on the horizon. "No, I...had a bad dream."

Now those honeyed eyes opened and his once blissful face filled with concern. "A darkspawn one, or the other kind?"

"The other kind, though there were darkspawn in it so it's not easy to tell," Lana forced a smile, not wanting to heap onto his worries. Nightmares were so much a part of her that even Hawke grew immune. Though the first time it happened, her cousin sat bolt upright and threw a carafe through the window.