My Warden (COMPLETED)

Epilogue

Cullen whistled for the dog to return to his side. She perked up, her dark nose coated in yellow pollen from burying herself snout deep into a bush, but she didn't run to him. Instead, her stub of a tail wagged, nearly taking the entire back half with her, as a tongue lolled out. Sighing, he dug through his hair, "Right, we still have to work out a few of those commands. Come on, Honor," he tried again, jerking his head towards his office and patting his leg. They'd been on a walking tour of Skyhold getting her acclimated to her new home. She'd been particularly enthralled with the stables pre-mucking, Cullen less so.

Barreling past him on muscled legs, Honor bounded through the open door and skidded to a halt. She had all the grace of a rampaging ogre, but it drew a smile to his lips to watch the vigor with which his new adoption enjoyed life.

"Welcome back, Ser," Addley smiled widely at him as she placed a few reports down on his covered desk. Maker only knew how much work awaited him after the return.

"Captain," Cullen nodded his head to her politely, but she shook off the formality. "I can about guess the mountain and a half of paperwork awaiting me."

"Large enough to build us another fortress in the Frostbacks I'm afraid," Addley sighed. She was perched upon his desk, one leg knocking into the back with a friendly ease that washed over his troops after Corypheus fell.

Cullen approached the terror waiting for him courtesy of every noble in thedas poking their noses into his business, but he paused to scratch along Honor's head. Her leg slapped into the stone when he found the spot just behind her ears. "As if we thought turning the entire operation over to Divine Victoria would be easy..." He hunted through the top missives, trying to find the most pressing matters. The Inquisitor was not back to himself after both a loss and a near one, but -- in her last days serving them -- Josephine volunteered to assist in the transfer of power. "Addley, we need a count of the troops. An accurate one, no one-two, skip a few. Numbers for weaponry, typical smithing fees, the amount of feed consumed for cavalry..."

His musing paused as he turned up to her lit eyes. "It's good to have you back," she said.

"I suppose," Cullen dodged from the potential flattery. It seemed Addley didn't notice his cold turn as she reached across the desk to grip his hand. Cullen stared at his work instead of her.

"Stopping a qunari invasion deserves celebrating, I'd say," she smiled at him.

"Stopping an invasion, nearly plummeting all of southern thedas into a lawless chaos. It's all in how you look at the situation," Cullen said, but he didn't yank his hand away. He was uncertain what to do. Mercifully, Addley hopped to her feet, her orders in place. His fingers curled up as her hand left, holding themselves.

Adjusting her braid back, she bobbed her head, "I'll speak with the quartermaster first."

"Good," Cullen nodded, already slipping back to work.

Addley paused at the door and in a sing-song voice, as if just thinking of it, mentioned, "Oh, and now that you've returned, perhaps we could continue that game of chess we abandoned."

Cullen blinked, his shoulders tightening from a senseless guilt, "I'm afraid I have a lot of work. But..." he turned from his work and slapped on a small smile, "later, maybe."

"I'll hold you to it," she smirked and tipped her head. Throwing open the door, Addley vanished to do her job.

Watching her wake, Cullen tried to will back a guilty thrumming knocking against his heart. Tossing the paperwork aside, he strode to his bookshelf. At the center of the middle shelf sat the blue bottle. He felt foolish for keeping it knowing there was no part of her inside, but it also lightened his heart to see it. It took a long while to reach that point. A year, perhaps even longer before he could speak of Lana without needing to excuse himself, when memories of her made him smile instead of wall up alone in his loft. He'd gotten better, day by day.