My Warden (COMPLETED)

Mistakes

I'm writing to you because...

This letter is in regards to...

I never thought that I'd...

"Maker, damn it all!" Lana cried, digging the quill over every attempted sentence with such vengeance it split open the vellum. Her head collapsed onto the desk and she rotated her forehead against it a few more times for good measure.

"Lana, are you...?" Cullen's voice echoed from the sitting room. She heard his approach towards the office, the one she took over for the vital task of writing a necessary letter for the past hour, all of which amounted to absolutely nothing.

Extending her fingers clutching tight to the quill, Lana jabbed her hand in the air but didn't lift her forehead.

"I am guessing it's not going well," he said. In answer, she rolled her head against the table and moaned more. "Do you have anything of use?"

Her fingers dug across the desk and lifted up a half dozen scratched and mutilated sheafs of vellum. Cullen flipped through them and sighed. It took two days before they returned to the apartment which was chilled to the bone from the windows being thrown open to allow the scent to clear. Lana's first concern was for the poor Adder's Hiss, nearly covered in frost, its ice crystal dirt dry to the touch. It was the only time she let Cullen water it, as she found it hard to focus on anything.

The days sharing an apartment with Leliana weren't as long as the nights. She offered up her bed to Lana, said she could easily keep a watch on her, but Lana refused. Sleep once again chilled the blood in her heart. A few hours here and there, she'd drift off while propped up in a chair but Lana hadn't gotten a full night's rest in days. The worst was what it did to Cullen. Not willing to leave her alone, and insisting he didn't need a bed either, he spent every night trying to fall asleep upon one of the benches in the Divine's quarters while clinging tight to Lana's hand. His sneer seemed to be permanent now, as well as a hunch along his knotted shoulders.

While Cullen was grateful to be back in walls without the Divine and her bevy of clerics, as well as Honor, Lana inched around the rooms terrified that a glance at her failure would send her crashing back to bottom. The cleanup crew did wonders buffing up the walls and scrubbing away all soot and ash. They took the time to replace the burned up rug with a new one and instead of the vanity a new, empty bookcase sat in its place. Cullen chuckled that they'd have it filled in three days.

She tried that first night. With the help of a sleeping draught from the Divine's personal apothecary, Lana slid into bed beside Cullen and attempted to embrace sleep. For an hour she lay stretched out upon her back glaring at the ceiling and trying to not look over at the hole where the vanity once stood. Snores reverberated from the man who passed out almost instantly, not that she could blame him. She was so hard on him even if she didn't mean to be. Sleep, it was necessary, it would help, but what if...? What if she did it again? What if it wasn't fire or ice, but something far worse that slipped from her fingers? Very few people could combat a death hex from her, much less reverse its effects. Every way she could ruin and maim someone she didn't mean to floated through her mind.

When Cullen woke, he found Lana curled up on the divan while Honor lay on top of her. He tried to get the mabari off quietly, but it was enough to rouse Lana from her shallow sleep. After making certain she didn't hurt anyone, she apologized for not lasting the night. Books she began to read, then abandoned for others were stacked like small towers around the couch. Which was how she'd spent the last two nights, always starting in the bedroom with the plan to last but trekking out to force Honor to share her favorite sleeping spot. The breaking point was looming ever closer for them both, but Lana had no idea how to stop it.