The Wolf and the Lion (a Dragon Age Inquisition fanfic)

Five

Thunder boomed in the foreboding clouds as the heavens began to slowly release their tears. Lightning flashed revealing Talila staring down the man from earlier who now stood not too far from her as the members of the Inquisition gathered for the coming duel. Tension seemed to choke out any and all words as Talila unsheathed her long sword from its resting place. Now that Cullen could get a good look at it he noticed that at the end of the hilt sat a wolf's head with snarling jaws and ruby eyes that seemed to glow with the same angry aura that Talila seemed to own in that moment. Talila's own eyes seem to glow a very eerie and unnaturally ghostly-blue;her armor glistened thought it was an ebony to obsidian black, her natural blue-black hair was straightened out by the pouring rain and a lock of it was in her face as it had landed between her eyes. As the tension rose into the air a bolt of lightning landed between Talila and her rival, who she had come to learn was named Ymbert. She waited until he was beginning to circle too copy the motion. Thankfully the training grounds where large enough to hold the hundreds of people in Skyhold and still gave the two combatants enough space to not harm anyone. For a while Talila and Ymbert circled each other, both waiting for the other to make the first move, but Talila was patient, more so then Ymbert who finally made the idiotic first move and charged her. Talila, being a bit more experienced with combat thanks to dueling with both the Commander and the Inquisitor, had waited for this moment and dodged the incoming attack and thrn with her blade swinging out she struck him hard. His blood splattering onto the ground, onto her armor her and on the tip of her sword as she quickly brought it down and managed to dig into his arm. Ymbert cried out in rage and turned on her bring up his own sword to slash her across the face causing her turn her head away from him.

Cullen watched with batted breath and when he saw her turn back towards Ymbert he caught his breath at the look in her eyes as they gave away what was about to happen and his heart stopped. His eyes grew wide and something in him, possibly the Templar side of himself, wanted to jump at her and pin her to the ground but he forced himself to stand in his spot.

******

Talila turned back to Ymbert whose smug smile faded away and was replaced with pure terror when he saw the look in her eyes. Her rage was unbridled and now he would face a fury he had never seen the likes of. "You will pay for that!" She snarled at him. What he did not know was that his blade had caused her to bite into her own cheek and like a rabid wolf with the scent of blood, she had tasted her own blood. She had blacked out, and her formerly bottled up rage was now her way for revenge. Giving an almost inhuman snarled battle cry, she lunged at Ymbert and swinging her sword with her full strength she caused him to go flying backwards, but Ymbert refused to go down so easily and lunged back at her. He swung his sword over his head but when she reached out over her own head she gripped the blade with her bare hand, stopping it in its tracks and the steel bit into the soft flesh of her hand. Her dark red blood slid down her arm and down along the blade as she yanked the sword away from Ymbert and threw it behind her. "You will learn your place like your brother did when he was killed." She snarled out, "I have no time for your petty games anymore, slaver." With that she reached out and gripped the man's throat in a choke hold with just her injured hand, smearing her blood on his throat; though Talila was only five foot three, she lifted the taller man up into the air and managed to cut off his air supply. "You believed yourself MY alpha, my ruler. You thought you could control me, but now you will see that it is I WHO AM THE ALPHA." She threw the man across the field towards his blade but he landed heavily and the sound of his shoulder breaking was audible to everyone. Ymbert looked to Talila and in that moment he did not see her as a human woman, but instead saw what he believed to be a huge black wolf with ghostly blue eyes and pearly white fangs bared for all to see. When he blinked he saw Talila walking towards him and look to his blade he lunged for it at the same time she lunged at him, he spun around in time to stab her, causing her to snarl out in pain, but he watched as that did not deter her, only serving to enrage her further and saw her blade come down faster then his heartbeat. Bones snapped as the blade dug into the man's chest, something akin to a squelching sound echoed as her blade found his heart and the sound of more breaking bones echoed as the blade finished its journey into the chest of Talila's enemy. The man felt blood well up and out of his mouth as his last view was of Talila snarling over him and he heard her final words. "No more will you enslave anyone, no more will the thought of you having escaped your death, torture me through sleepless nights. Join your brother now in the deepest pit of Hell that you deserve you sorry sack of dog shit." Talila yanked her sword out of the man's chest and he fell to the ground, dead. Talila backed a good few feet away and collapsed to her knees as she came out of the sudden black out, only to see her side bleeding. She heard voices but only one voice reached her ears as she felt herself fall onto her right side.

"TALILA!"

********

Cullen paced worriedly, he and the others waited just outside of Talila's room for news on how she was doing. "Cullen, sit down I'm sure she'll be fine." Bull spoke as Cullen looked to him.

"I can't." He replied, "I'm worried about her."

"We are all worried about her, even if she survived how bad the wound on her side is, it'll prove that she is hard to kill."

"Iron Bull is right, Cullen." The Inquisitor spoke as Cullen looked to him. "Pacing a hole into the floor won't speed up the work of the surgeon." Cullen looked defeated, but before he could sit down the surgeon walked out of Talila's room. "Any news?" The Inquisitor asked before Cullen could speak.

"She is in a lot of pain, the bleeding has stopped for now which gave me the chance to see that the wounds are not too deep. I managed to stitch and bandage her up, but she keeps asking for you by name, Commander. She refuses to rest until she sees you." The woman spoke calmly as Cullen nodded. "Just make sure she sleeps after your visit. She needs to allow her wounds to heal properly, I can only do so much for them while they are fresh like they are." With that the surgeon left and the group disbanded to do their own things, while Cullen entered to see Talila bandaged up and only one of her eyes staring towards the ceiling.

"Talila?" He asked her name carefully as she managed to look at him from the corner of her good eye.

"Cullen," she managed through a hoarse voice. "I...I'm sorry..."

"For what?" He asked as he gently sat down on the edge of her bed. He took his hand and brushed his fingers through her hair which had her close her eyes. "There's no reason you should be sorry."

"Yes there is..." Talila spoke as he continued to brush her hair with his fingers. "I...I let my rage get a hold of me. I blacked out and killed the man who I had been waiting to do so to for so long. If he hadn't stabbed me through the side like he had, I could have hurt someone else or worse." She spoke as her voice changed from just being hoarse to a tired sounding hoarse.

"Talila, listen to me," Cullen began. "This time it's my turn to say that you don't know the struggle I had to go through watching that. I was holding myself back from jumping in after I saw the look in your eyes that signaled your black out." He told her in a low voice. "I don't know if that was the Templar in me or just me but when I saw the murderous rage in your eyes, I had to hold myself back from ramming into you and pinning you to the ground." He admitted to her as she managed to look at him again. She could see that he was not lying but couldn't find the energy to smile as she closed her eyes once more.

"I'm so tired." She whispered as he nodded.

"You can sleep now, I won't leave you."

"But Cullen-"

"If I start to get tired I will lay right here with you, that way if you need me I will be close by." He promised her as she nodded and fell into a dreamless sleep. He kissed her forehead and couldn't help but watch her as she slept and felt his heart skip a few beats as he brushed some hair out of her face. "I will always be right here." He whispered in an oath as a thought struck him. But it was a thought that could wait until he felt that the time was right.