Nothing that He has wrought shall be lost

By R2s Muse

Disclaimer: The Dragon Age setting and its characters belong to Bioware. I'm just borrowing! Set during DA:I, with spoilers.

A/N: So, I wrote this in honor of Sebastian Vael Appreciation Week on Tumblr, and altho I missed it by a day, it's always Sebastian Appreciation Week on my blog. So, better late than never, I reckon.

Cullen automatically suppressed the surge of hope he felt at hearing the commotion outside his command tent. Tramping feet and raised voices most likely meant it was just another problem for him to solve in the chaotic aftermath of the assault on Adamant Keep. Supply line mix ups. Unexpected darkspawn raids. Skirmishes with rogue Grey Wardens who wouldn't surrender. But, he welcomed the distractions.

He hastened to commit his final thoughts to paper in his report before the next distraction burst through the tent's canvas door.

In a breathless voice, the messenger stammered, "Commander, he insisted on seeing you. Wouldn't take no for an answer."

Cullen frowned and followed the messenger back outside, only to walk into the middle of a tense standoff. Wary Inquisition soldiers holding tight to their weapons eyed a string of hard-bitten men-at-arms in unfamiliar, sandblasted armor. More bickering soldiers poured into the clearing in the desert sand before his tent, swarming like a cloud of angry hornets. At the cloud's calm center strode a hooded man in dusty white armor and a dark green travel cloak. Slung across the man's shoulders was a powerful bow.

Cullen squinted at the newcomer, who stopped just in front of the tent and threw back his fur-trimmed hood. There were differences since the last time Cullen had seen him, the dark hair was longer, the face more world weary. But he could never mistake those fierce blue eyes or the aristocratic beak of a nose. Cullen only wondered to see them in the middle of nowhere in the Western Approach.

The man studied Cullen dispassionately. "Your men allowed us to bully our way to your doorstep, Commander," he said in a strong Starkhaven brogue. "Perhaps you should see to their training."

"On the contrary, Prince Vael, we've trained them that attacking our allies is considered rude in some circles," Cullen shot back. "Perhaps our good manners would be instructive to your uncouth Marchers?"

The Prince broke into a broad grin at this and stepped forward to clasp Cullen forearm warmly. "Well met, Cullen."

Cullen returned the smile. "It's been too long, Sebastian."

"It has indeed, old friend." Sebastian clapped Cullen on the shoulder with his free hand and then stepped back.

"So what brings the Prince of Starkhaven to the Western Approach, bullying his way into the heart of my army? Trying to cut off the head of the Inquisition while we're vulnerable?" Cullen grinned to soften his words.

"Not at present. But, the day is still young," Sebastian deadpanned.

"Last I heard, you had your hands full advising the Chantry while simultaneously fending off usurpers to your crown."

"The Maker has blessed me with worthy challenges. As He has you, I understand. Your Inquisition flourishes, breeding new adversaries. A sure sign of success."

Cullen rubbed his back of neck. "Ah, yes, we have had our own share of challenges. Like Hawke used to say, we'remaking the world a better place, one enemy at a time." He laughed, but trailed off when Sebastian's face became instantly grim, all humor gone.

The soldiers in the clearing sensed the sudden change in the tenor of the conversation and also fell silent. A plaintive wyvern cry could be heard in the distance.

"Cullen, where is she?" Sebastian demanded in a deadly quiet voice.

Cullen glanced a question at the messenger, who shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"You had best come inside," Cullen said, motioning toward the command tent.

Sebastian considered this for a moment, and then swiftly strode past him and through the tent flap. As soon as Cullen joined him inside, the Prince repeated his question. "Where is she?"

"Maybe you should sit down." Cullen rubbed the back of his neck again, knowing he was stalling but he wasn't quite ready to delve into grief. Even if it was someone else's.

"Just tell me," Sebastian said tensely, making no move toward a chair. "Every inquiry since I arrived at your camp has met with silence. I'll have the truth. Where is Hawke?"

"It's . . . complicated." Cullen frowned, furrowing his brow. "How much do you know about why she came here?"

"Nothing!" Sebastian cried. "One minute she's taking a side trip to see Warden Stroud, next thing, I receive a short letter telling me she's going with your army to assault the Wardens at Adamant Keep."

Sebastian paced across the room before spinning back around. "My wife decides to go to war—with you, no less!—and I get a letter! So, needless to say, I set out for this Maker forsaken place. And, now that I am here, no one will provide me a straight answer about her. Including you. Old Friend." He glowered at Cullen and clenched his fists at his sides.

Cullen sighed in resignation. "Inquisitor Agnes Trevelyan and Champion Marian Hawke are missing."

"Missing?" Several emotions flitted across Sebastian's face. Not the worst, as he'd feared, but far from reassuring. Cullen knew the feeling. Sebastian sank onto the camp stool beside him and looked up at Cullen. "So, you've misplaced my wife."

Cullen gave a strangled bark of laughter. "Misplaced is a curiously accurate turn of phrase. At the end of the battle, the Inquisitor, Hawke, and several others fell through a Fade rift. That was . . . yesterday. They have not been seen since." Cullen clenched his jaw, holding himself very still.

Sebastian had paled a little, but sat a little straighter. "Perhaps you should tell me the whole story."

Cullen explained the odd developments with the Grey Wardens being controlled and manipulated by their enemy, Corypheus. He impressed himself with how evenly he told the tale, including their siege at Adamant, the confrontation with the Warden-Commander, and even the final attack from Corypheus's dragon. "The battle was won," Cullen concluded, "but Trev and the others accidentally fell from a damaged battlement. They . . ." His throat started to constrict, so he coughed to clear it up. "They surely would have died if Trev had not opened the rift. But once they fell through . . ." Cullen shook his head. "We waited. But, it hasn't opened again. We don't know why. Maybe she can't reopen it. Maybe her only exit back to the real world is somewhere else altogether. Maybe she was thwarted in some way. Maybe she is . . ." He had to stop. He simply couldn't utter the next words. Even if his mouth hadn't dried up and his throat hadn't completed closed off.

Sebastian had listened carefully without interrupting and now his eyes were thoughtful and distant. "So what are you doing to find them?" he asked softly.

Cullen had to swallow before he could answer. "We . . . we are still mopping the last Warden resistance. Securing the Keep."

"What are you doing to find them?" he asked more brusquely, enunciating every word as if Cullen just hadn't understood him the first time.

"For now, we keep the Inquisition running. And hope."

"Hope?" Sebastian jumped to his feet, his face suddenly livid, his nose crinkling up in anger. "You have a whole army of mages and templars at your command. Why aren't you using them? Why aren't you looking?" he shouted, pointing vaguely toward the expanse of desert around them. "She could be out there, needing our help!"

"You don't think I know that?" Cullen shouted back, losing what remained of his fragile temper at long last. "You don't think that I would move every grain of sand in the Approach if I thought it would bring Agnes home safe to me?

"Corypheus is still out there, too! If she is truly gone, then we are the only thing that stands between him and taking over the world. The Inquisition needs our leadership to be strong. It needs us to be here. It needs me to be here!" Cullen drew a trembling hand across his tired eyes, rubbing them and wiping away a trace of wetness.

After a minute, Cullen felt a gentle hand on his arm, and opened his eyes to see the quiet compassion in Sebastian's knowing eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was like that for you and the Inquisitor. Forgive me for not seeing past my own pain to yours," said Sebastian with a sigh. "I'm happy for you, even if to have love is to forever risk losing it."

"Then how do you do it?" Cullen asked in a quiet, strangled voice. "How do you send her off into danger? Knowing that she might not come back?"

"Ah." A wistful smile tugged at the corner of Sebastian's lips. "You see, with Marian Hawke, that's never my decision. She is a woman of indomitable spirit, compelled to go out into the world and make it right, whatever the cost. That is simply who she is, and I would not change it for the world." Sebastian's eyes glowed as he thought about her. "One of the reasons, I think, that we both fell in love with her all those years ago, yes?"

Cullen could only grimace in response.

"So, to answer your question," Sebastian continued, "for all that I am, for all that I have, for all that I've earned, the only thing I can truly give Marian is my unwavering faith that she'll always return safely. Even if someday she may not. Even if I still chase half-way 'round the world to be at her side in case she does not."

Cullen sank onto the stool Sebastian had abandoned, finally letting loose all the worry and regret and fear that he had bottled up. The weight of it bowed down his shoulders in despair. "I don't know if I have the strength," Cullen murmured. "I've spent my whole life working for the greater good. Putting the needs of the many ahead of the needs of any one person. Including myself. But now. What do I do when . . ." He paused and looked away in shame. "When part of me wants to let the world burn just to see Agnes smile one more time?" He let out a shuddering breath. "Maker forgive me."

"I think the Maker understands doubt. It is part of being human. But you will find the strength. You always do."

"And if I don't?"

"I have known you for some time now, Cullen. It is good that you always question. That is your strength. So I know that, if such a choice need be made, you will make the best choice you can. Have more faith in yourself. And in her." Sebastian's lips twisted in chagrin. "Advice for us both, I wager. Maker willing, they will find their way home to us."

Sebastian set aside the bow from his shoulder and knelt down on one knee. "Come. Pray with me. Like old times."

Cullen lowered himself down beside Sebastian, his heart not really in it. But it was worth a try. When Cullen used to bring his troubles to Sebastian when he was a Brother in the Kirkwall Chantry, they would often pray together. Whatever his problems, Cullen had found that the peace he derived from the practice inevitably helped, even when the problem had been as intractable as the friends having feelings for the same woman. Ten years and hundreds of leagues later, their problems had matured, but luckily so had their friendship.

Sebastian clasped his hands together and bowed his head. Cullen followed suit and waited for the other man to begin.

"Maker, my enemies are abundant," Sebastian intoned, and Cullen joined in, echoing the verse from Trials.

"Many are those who rise up against me.
But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion,
Should they set themselves against me.

"Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,
I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm.
I shall endure.
What you have created, no one can tear asunder."

In the distance, the ambient noise from the camp swelled, breaking Cullen's concentration for a moment. He closed his eyes, feeling the words of the Chant roll from his tongue and his heart.

"Though all before me is shadow,
Yet shall the Maker be my guide.
I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond."

The commotion outside grew even louder and closer, slipping through Cullen's attempts to block it out. Again, he tamped down the inevitable spike of hope, pulling his focus back to the calming words of the Chant.

"For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light
And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost—"

"Ser!"

Running boots suddenly tramped loudly right up to his tent door, and Cullen's heart started to pound in his chest.

"Ser! Ser!" The messenger barged in without asking for permission, his face flushed with excitement. "They're here!"

Without conscious thought or agreement, the two men were instantly on their feet and running outside. They crossed the sandy clearing outside the command tent, dodging around milling soldiers all chattering animatedly, and headed toward the growing crowd atop a shallow rise ahead. Cullen and Sebastian shouldered their way through the throng of soldiers who belatedly attempted to move out of their way. The press of bodies lessened just as two figures topped the rise.

Dark hair cinched in a messy bun on the tops of their heads, tired faces obscured with grime and lined with tear tracks, the two women could almost be twins, particularly when they caught sight of the approaching men and smiled.

Sebastian ran up and swept Hawke into his arms, lifting her high up in the air and spinning around once in an unstable circle. She giggled and then shrieked when he almost dropped her. He let her slide down his chest within the circle of his arms.

"Mmmm, I take it my letter was terse enough to encourage you to come find me then, love?" Hawke asked. He answered by slanting his mouth across her in a devouring kiss.

After Sebastian and Hawke's enthusiastic display, Cullen hesitated before reaching Agnes, checking himself at the last minute. His relationship with the Inquisitor was far from a secret, but they still tried to be circumspect in public. His hand crept up to hold the back of his neck.

Agnes tilted her head to the side, her blue eyes curious. She closed the distance between them. "Commander," she murmured.

His eyes searched her face, absorbing every detail, noting with concern the dark bruise spreading across her jaw, the blood dotting her temple, the jagged scores across her breastplate just above her heart. "You're back," was all he could say, his mouth quirking up into a lopsided smile.

She smiled and her eyes softened. "I'm glad to see you, too, Cullen," she said, before folding herself against his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist.

He blinked and then almost convulsively enfolded her in his arms with a deep sigh, burying his face into the crook of her neck. He inhaled her scent, which was heavily overshadowed by ozone and other unmentionables, but he could still catch the familiar trace of elderflower from her hair. "I was so worried," he whispered.

"I know." She moved to step back, but he held her just a moment longer before letting go. She grinned somewhat foolishly at him, and he knew he did the same.

Sebastian and Hawke had come up for air and were similarly beaming as they joined them, hand in hand.

"You'd think we had been gone a week instead of a few hours," Agnes said, smiling at Hawke.

"Um . . ." Cullen started.

"Try more than a day," Sebastian said, his eyes not straying from Hawke, "but for some of us, it has been weeks." He arched an eyebrow at Hawke.

Hawke smiled back, unrepentant. "I was just trying to earn my welcome home."

"You all made it back in one piece?" Cullen asked anxiously, and both Agnes and Hawke's faces fell. "No. Who?" he continued in dread.

Agnes raised her head. "Stroud," she said solemnly. "He sacrificed himself for us all."

Sebastian snaked his arm around Hawke's shoulders and pressed a kiss to her hair. "I'm so sorry. May he rest at the Maker's hand."

"He was a good man," Hawke said glumly, a solitary tear making a new track down her face.

Cullen nodded. "We will remember him as is befitting when we return to Skyhold." His eyes turned back to Agnes. Home. Alive. Safe. Warmth suffused him as he gazed at her. She was filthy and lovely. "In the meantime, let's get those wounds tended and see if we can wrangle up a hot bath."

"Is that a promise, Commander?" Agnes drawled. She slipped her hand into his, small and warm, and looked up at him with her own promise in her eyes. His heart started to pound again.

"Um," he glanced around them self-consciously, but both Sebastian and Hawke just smirked at them.

"We will see you two tomorrow," Hawke said, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"But, I should check in with—" Cullen started.

"Tomorrow," Sebastian reiterated firmly, his eyes passing between Cullen and Agnes. "Always a pleasure, Commander." He nodded at Cullen, and then at Agnes. "Inquisitor. Nice to meet you briefly." He then strolled off holding Hawke's hand in his, their fingers laced firmly together.

"But . . ." Cullen repeated uncertainly, duty warring with his personal desires.

"Tomorrow, Commander," Agnes said in amusement. "That's an order. Now, come." She took his hand, and pulled him off toward the command tent.

Fin

A/N: Agnes Trevelyan and Marian Hawke were designed specifically in my game to sort of resemble one another, since I liked the notion that perhaps Cullen has "a type." It was fun to imagine that he'd had a thing for Hawke back in Kirkwall that didn't work out, that in this Universe Sebastian got the girl, instead of the other way 'round. Incidentally, this is the same Trev from my Chocolate and Sex series. Thanks for reading!