The Feckless Muse

08.10.2011

Prompt/title: Tea and Biscuits

Rating: T

Word count: 668

The Knight Captain hated Tea and Biscuits. Especially the Orlesian kind of biscuits with the frosting and jam. So cloying and sweet. They made his teeth hurt just thinking about them. Stupid name for it as well. Tea and Biscuits. Afternoon Tea. He didn't even drink tea. Maker take it, he was a Ferelden after all, not Orlesian. He was a practical man.

Day after day he choked them down listening to the Knight Commander worry and moan about how the mages were all turning to blood magic. How the Templars were being too soft. How they must remain vigilant.

The Knight Captain hated Tea and Biscuits. At least if he got to her office early enough in the afternoon he could salvage the beverage and have coffee instead. He would make it himself, unsweetened to counter the cloying confections that went with it.

Day after day at 3 bells precisely he would have to sit there nodding and taking useless notes as the Knight Commander plotted and planned. Plotted to keep 'the solution' quiet. Planned to promote Alrik because of his exemplary service. Demanded that Cullen remain silent about her plots and plans.

All the while the Knight Captain remembered the beauty that could come from magic, the innocence as well as the evil. He remembered who he wanted to be all those years ago. Remembered another Amell here in Kirkwall who was fighting for safety and freedom from the other side of the chantry.

The Knight Captain hated Tea and Biscuits. He hated how even the blighted food stank of lyruim in the Commanders office of late. He hated how he had taken to eating even more of the Maker damned sweets to make it easier to vomit up the extra lyrium the Commander would insist he take before leaving her office.

Day after day he would grip the edge of his seat and bite his tongue until it bled for fear of being accused of insubordination if he disagreed with her decrees. He would silently recite the good deeds of the five apostates who had done so much good for those around him. Amell, Hawk, Anders, Bethany, Merril. He would hold the names close like a jealously guarded possession. They were his life line, his link to sanity in this prison of lyrium addled insanity. Those names he could hold because contemplating the sheer numbers of the dead and tranquil at his hands would have driven him mad in an instant.

The Knight Captain hated Tea and Biscuits. Fortunately today, he realised, he would never have to endure them again. He watched impassively as the chantry blazed and sent hot ash like pinpricks against his cheeks.

For the first time he stood up to Meredith. For the first time he saw a group of mages running amok and did nothing to stop them.

As he watched the last molten light go out in Meredith's eyes he allowed himself the luxury of a small smile. He may be damned for what he had allowed to day, but how many would be saved by it?

After Hawk and her band of revolutionaries had left and all hell broke loose in the city, the Knight Captain was nowhere to be found.

Cullen, the friend of the Hero of Ferelden, the mage lover, the insubordinate wretch, and the man who would never again feel guilty for being who he truly was, was whistling tunelessly while walking through the woods outside the burning city of chains.

As he walked into the camp of bloodied, weary and frightened people he had come to think of as friends he smiled. When the warriors drew their swords he smiled again and took the lid off the crate of supplies he was carrying. He was smiling a lot more lately.

"Hawk, my sword is yours." was all he said as he handed out the food and drinks.