My Warden (COMPLETED)

Memory - Stars

9:30 Kinloch Hold

He was supposed to be patrolling along the roof following a set pattern worn into the soles of every templar. Their assignments rarely deviated beyond the occasional mage spell gone awry or the even rarer runner. By this time of night, Cullen should have circled past the slanted roof section that bore a resemblance to a nose and slipped down to the lower eaves off the northern edge. Instead, he stood just out of the circle of lantern light while a pair of mages sat upon the frozen roof's tiles. One stared up at the night sky, while the man beside her kept unearthing small bits of gravel to toss off the roof.

"It's freezing out here," he complained. Jowan. Normally, Cullen wouldn't much care about him as he blended into the average rank of troublemakers, but he was always in the range of...

"Then warm yourself. It's an easy enough spell," she flitted her hand towards him but didn't look over. All her attention was upon the stars enveloped in a smattering of clouds. Various books piled across her lap each begging for attention. At such a tiny size, only two could really rest upon her thighs, but she tried to keep a third one balanced anyway. It wasn't going well.

Jowan grumbled from her answer. He didn't want suggestions, he wanted to leave. Ever since they first popped out of the hatch on the roof, he'd been complaining loudly about the cold, the wind, and anything else to get them inside. She waved each grievance away as inconsequential. "I don't know why I came. It's not as if you need me."

"Because you owed me, and you know why you have to be here."

"Yes, yes. Rules," he slapped his hands against his thighs, watching his stretched out feet knock together. Cullen couldn't see her beyond that halo of curly ebony hair bent downwards, then up, as she kept a tally in her book.

"What's even the point?" Jowan began again, getting a sigh of impertinence in response. "You can't see the thing you're looking for with all these clouds."

"I can make due," she answered, back to scribbling in her notebook. The quill was one of those oversized white feathers yanked off a the tail of a bird from Seheron. A novelty joke, he rarely saw anyone use it in good standing, but she seemed to enjoy it, the cottony ends of the feather wiping over her face.

"This is stupid," Jowan whined. "I could be doing a dozen other things that would be a hundred times more useful than staring up at clouds hoping to find a star."

"Since when?" she volleyed. "Do you have some great meeting to attend to in Denerim I'm unaware of? Going to finally offer your arcane services to king Cailan?"

"Ho ho, aren't we hilarious. It just so happens I do have a meeting, of sorts." He puffed out his sunken chest to match a sudden jut to the weak chin, "Lily's waiting for me and I told her this would only take a minute."

Her quill paused and she turned towards the man acting more like a child with each passing moment. "Wait, are you serious?"

"Of course I am," he flapped his arms like a vengeful chicken. "Don't start that 'she doesn't really exist' thing, again. She's as real as the bitter cold up here."

"I'm fairly certain it was Margie you couldn't convince..."

Jabbing a finger towards her, Jowan scoffed at the mention of the third member of their trio, "I'm perfectly capable of wooing someone, regardless of what Marguerite insinuates and you encourage. Just because you can't bother to find anyone doesn't mean the rest of us have decided to go celibate."

"Well, you agreed to help me first, so... And this research is important. It'll help with navigation for--"

Jowan leapt up to his feet, hands landing upon his hips as if he intended to scold her to death, "Help how? So all of us in the tower can be even better at figuring out which way is north? Oh look, I bet it's along that north wall with the bookcases. Hurray, Lana Amell saved us all from the heartache of getting lost on the way from the privy."