CHAPTER THREE
Casseroles
"Please, you have to try this," Mia attempted to goad Cullen into eating some more of a yam dish that'd passed him by twice now.
"No, I am far beyond stuffed. Sometimes I think you're trying to fatten me up," Cullen complained. To elucidate his decision, he scooted his plate across the table and folded his arms across his stomach.
"You're nothing but bones," Mia continued, waving at the in no way skinny figure sitting beside Lana. "I can understand not gaining any weight on Orlesian food, but you're home now. Fill up."
Shaking his head, Cullen turned to his brother sitting beside him. "Does she harp on you as well?"
"Every moment she gets," Branson responded, reaching across the table to snatch up a roll.
"It's not my fault neither of you know how to eat," Mia huffed, about to put the yams down, when Lana spoke up.
"I'd like to try some, if that's all right."
"See," Mia beamed, passing over the plate. Her smile grew wider as Lana scooped three clumps off and dug in. "Maker, I don't know where you put it all on that tiny frame."
Lana shrugged, having already eaten through some of the roast pork, a sage and squash dressing, parts of a cold bean salad, and the pie Mia promised to save. As she scooped the yams into her mouth, she caught Cullen out of the corner of her eye. He wasn't smirking at her bottomless appetite, and certainly not squicked out at it. Instead, he was smiling in relief, always grateful every time she'd go for seconds or thirds. If she'd ever frown at a slight bulge rising in her stomach, he'd slide his hands around her and thank the Maker that she was back in his arms and healthy. It was hard to feel self conscious when that was the man who held her naked.
"That's nothing," Cullen spoke up, "she's gone toe to toe with qunari before."
"You mean in an eating contest?" Angie asked. She had her boy bouncing on her lap while the other children had quickly finished up their dinners and raced upstairs to do something. They spoke so ecstatically about it Lana couldn't understand a single word.
"Ah," Lana glanced over at Cullen, "Yes, in an eating contest." The siblings in on who she was politely coughed behind their hands.
"I don't remember you eating so readily during the wedding," Branson spoke up. "Nerves throw you off?"
"Among other things," Lana said diplomatically.
"Like say a Sister suffering continual panic attacks, Leliana arriving just before dusk and insisting we herd everyone together to get it over with, Varric...being Varric."
She reached over to grab her grumbling husband's hand, and he smiled in spite of all that went wrong. In the end, they were married and they never told a soul that they'd tied the knot the night before. Absently, Lana dropped her spoon and tugged at the chain around her neck bearing Cullen's coin.
"It was a lovely wedding," Mia said, nodding her head.
"Must have been very small. Did you even use a chantry?" Angie asked.
"Ah, no, we had it at the abbey," Cullen answered when Lana stayed silent.
Angie sniffed, "Humph, my parents would have had a fit if I didn't wed in a chantry. What about the proper blessing of Andraste?"
Sharing a look, Lana clung tighter to Cullen, neither of them certain what to say. It was Branson who waded right in, unaware of the force of his words, "Who needs a chantry when you have the Divine herself there?"
"What?" Angie whipped her head back and forth. "The Divine? The Divine was at your wedding?"
"She served in the Inquisition with Cullen," Lana interrupted. "They are friends."
"Of the sort where she'll draw and quarter me if I ever break your heart," Cullen whispered to Lana. She knocked into his shoulder playfully, fairly certain Leliana wouldn't.
"By the void," Branson continued, "on top of the Divine, there was our Arl and the King himself, with the princess no less."
"Who bears no resemblance to him at all," Mia interrupted Branson, the pair of them sharing a curious look.
"For which she should thank the Maker," Lana laughed, "being blessed with her mother's looks."
Angie scooted tighter to the table, her fingernails drumming against it. "King Alistair he...he attended your wedding?"
"Yep, I had a rather charming chat with him about dogs," Mia said. "He's more approachable than one would expect."
"Very simple," Branson agreed, getting a snort from Cullen. At everyone's curious stare, he wiped at his nose to pass it off as a broken sneeze, but Lana prodded him in the side with her elbow.
She mouthed, "Be nice," and her husband only shrugged.
"How do you know the King, Cullen?" Mia's husband turned to him, speaking up for the first time since they sat down to eat. "It was never said."
"We, uh, the Inquisition had dealings with Ferelden often and...I'd, Redcliffe in ending the mage rebellion," his eyes widened as he raced to find any excuse better than 'He was the old lover of my wife who recruited me to travel across thedas and save her.'
"Oh, was that why Arl Teagan was there as well?" Mia smiled, trying to cover Cullen's obvious flop sweat.
"Huh, seems a strange reason to show up to a wedding," the man continued, getting a glare from his wife. At that he was happy to lapse back into silence.
"And I spoke with the Champion herself," Mia continued. "She's a rather, um..."
"We call her imposing," Lana interceded, well aware of Hawke's boisterous qualities.
"When she hauled that cask over her shoulder and brought it down upon her head, I thought I'd split my sides in laugher," Branson spoke up, guffawing at the memory and wiping a tear from his eye. Lana and Cullen shared a look, both rather suspecting Hawke hadn't meant to do that, but she bounced back from it quickly. Somedays she wondered if even a mountain falling on her cousin's head would only receive an "I'm good, I've got this. No problem!"
"The Champion of Kirkwall? Who started the mage rebellions?" Angela tried to pry into the reminiscing she missed out on. "Another friend of the groom's through the Inquisition?"
"Ah, no," Lana spoke up, her first time addressing the woman since the child question. "She's my cousin."
"Which I shall never understand," Branson continued. "That's a woman who could shatter mountains if she had half a mind. Taller than me, and nearly as broad too. It's no surprise Kirkwall adopted her as their own, though perhaps came to regret it in time."
"So there's some greatness in your family after all," Angela lifted a glass towards Lana as if to toast her.
"Excuse me?" she shook her head, certain to have imagined the poison drowned in the sweet tone.
After taking a drink, Angela returned her mug to the table, situated her son in her lap, and smiled. "It seemed rather strange that after having such success with the Inquisition, Cullen would settle down with a random scullery maid. The family connections make some sense."
"Hey!" Branson thundered first.
Mia followed quick with a, "You don't know what you're speaking of."
Lana felt Cullen's grip tighten around hers, as if he wanted to leap forward, grab his cousin-in-law, and toss her out the door. Shaking her head, Lana smiled wanly at him. It didn't matter, it never did. She became the warden because someone had to, had to rise up to end the blight. In truth, before that she was no one special unnoticed beyond a few teachers and the man clinging to her hand. That was all she needed.
Smiling at Angela's vain attempts to wound her, Lana spoke, "We all do what we can. I believe I've finished eating."
"Here," Mia reached over, snatching up the picked clean plates. The ones speckled with food got shoved to the side and an eyebrow raise at Cullen. As he shook his head in confusion, she sighed, "Scrape it off into the bucket for the pigs. Maker, did you fully forget how to be proper?"
"I..." Chastised, he rose to his feet, the fork digging against metal as his untouched bean salad slid with a plop into the bucket hanging off the end of the table.
Lana took up the plates as Cullen scraped them, gathering each into her arms before rising
out of the chair with the haul. Already out towards the wash basin, Mia paused and shook her head, "Oh, you don't need to do that."
"It's all right, I'm..." her eyes glanced over at Angie who was busying herself with trying to straighten her son's hair and couldn't be bothered to look over. "I'm good at cleaning things up."
Mia led Lana to the washing room a few doors past the eating area. Mia insisted it not be called a dining room because the real one was under a never ending pile of tarps and sawdust as someone kept failing to finish what he started. That drew a laugh from Lana as she remembered back to their own trials and tribulations with the abbey. While Mia shot a threatening finger at her brother for behaving the same, Lana stuck up for him. If Cullen made a promise it would happen, it might take him some time to achieve it, but he'd move the veil itself to accomplish his task. No, Lana had a habit of beginning things and then growing distracted as another more exciting project popped up. Rather than sigh in consternation at his wife's lack of focus, Cullen would pick up the slack and try to steer her back towards something necessary.
"I've already got the suds up in the first, but it'll need more hot water off the fire. Hold a moment," Mia placed her armful of dishes on a counter already heaped from the day's cooking. Wrapping her hands in a towel, she pulled a steaming pot from the stone hearth and dumped half into one deep basin sitting at waist height, then filled the other beside it. "Think we'll need more water?" she asked Lana who shrugged, but turned a worried gaze at the tipping tower of bowls.
Nodding, Mia placed the pot in the doorframe and called out, "Love, fill this pot and put it on the fire." With laborious movements he appeared in the frame, one hand gripping onto the towel. After he yanked it up, the stoic farmer risked a daring kiss upon Mia's cheek. She rolled her eyes at the display but took the time to reposition the wrap in her hair while watching her husband's backside.
"Shall I wash or...?" Lana asked, her fingers reaching for the stacks of metal and some porcelain. So many people stopped by for this holiday the good stuff had to be broken out.
"Ah, certainly if you'd like." Mia ran her hands down her apron, then pointed at it, "Would you like one?"
"It's only water," Lana smiled, dropping the biggest pot she could find in the sudsy basin first. With a vigor, she drug the scrubbing brush across the bottom, coating it in every bubble available to her. Mia settled beside her, ready to rinse the pot and dry it once Lana finished.
"How are you finding the farm?" Mia asked, rolling the pot under the water before lifting a towel off the stack.
"It's hardly the first time I've been here," Lana said, having hit the ground running to catch up with the goings on everyone else knew by heart.
"True, but you weren't a married woman then."
"Oh," Lana couldn't stop the blush as she dumped a tray of spoons into the water. Going at them with all her power, she tried to distract herself from the embarrassment rising in the room. "We, uh, we're not being too...um, I hope."
"No, no," she chuckled, wiping off each spoon as they rose from her clean water. "It's to be expected. Though, it is surprising to see such ardor coming from my baby brother."
Secreting a smile away, Lana dove both hands into the water. "He has his moments," she sighed, her mind racing back through the examples of the day.
Mia didn't ask for an elaboration, but she felt a sly glance upon her cheek from the older woman. People laughed at the newlyweds being so stars in their eyes in love, few of them aware of what lengths they both took to find each other again. Even less knew that their time remaining was ephemera, as uncertain as a wisp of smoke.
"What was he like in the tower?"
The honest question caused a plate to slip from Lana's fingers, the porcelain plummeting to the bottom of the basin where it landed with a pronounced thud. "I, uh," she raced to check on the state of the plate, which didn't seem to have any cracks from her blunder. "He, uh, what do you mean?"
After swiping back the sweat building upon her brow, Mia responded, "Cullen was thirteen when he left, uncertain about everything except being a templar. Next time I see him again he's thirty and making decisions that shape thedas. I...I was wondering what, if any of that existed before, or..."
Lana smiled, "He was as dedicated a templar as he could be in the tower, but..." She rolled her head upon her neck, the grin increasing, "the uncertainty was there as well. He had this adorable stutter any time I spoke to him. And he was always rubbing the back of his neck or worrying his fingers as if I was the most terrifying thing he'd have to face."
"Sweet Andraste," Mia laughed, "that sounds exactly like what I remember. Once, we were at a fair and he was, I want to say nine or ten. Cullen spots this girl who easily had a few years on him showing off her prized lamb. He gets it in his head to give her a flower. The whole day he's telling me, Branson, Delilah, everyone that he's going to do it, he'll walk right over there and give it to her. We've finished up selling for the day, everyone's locking up their stalls and there's little Cullen still clutching his flower. Tired of his constant certainty I dared him to get it over with and talk to her.
"I still laugh at the sheer panic in his face when I called him on it. But he screwed up his courage, glowered a 'Fine' and marched over to her."
"What happened?" Lana was on the edge of her seat, picturing her husband as a boy with hands shaking attempting to woo a girl.
Mia rubbed her chin and shrugged, "He chucked the flower at her, shouted something incoherent, and ran."
"Oh no," Lana couldn't stop laughing at the image.
"We didn't find him for a good mile. He kept his march up, scowling down the road and planning on heading home all by himself. Took him quite a few years to live that one down," Mia chuckled.
"He never lobbed any flowers at me, but...it was rather evident he was nervous to talk to me," Lana paused in scrubbing a serving bowl to let her mind travel back to the tower and what felt a hundred years ago. "We weren't supposed to speak to the templars, but that never stopped us from trying. A lot would rebuff a mage, a few would play the games, some got into arguments, but Cullen he... He'd find any excuse he could to trade a few words with me. I don't think he thought I noticed, but it was rather obvious when a quill of mine would wind up on the floor by some mysterious accident so he could point it out. I, uh, started dropping my own books and turning my back just to...um." She sounded foolish, their little games barely even that, as they were two young people terrified to acknowledge each other.
But Mia only laughed, nodding her head in agreement. "I am not surprised, the way he wrote of you..."
"Wrote of me?" Cullen, in perhaps some need to protect her privacy, didn't tell any of his family about their relationship, not during the Inquisition, certainly not in the deep roads. It wasn't until he brought her into Ferelden that they all learned the truth.
"Yes, in his letters from the tower. Well, he never named you, always called you 'The mage.' 'Today the mage walked past, and she did the funniest thing.' Or said the smartest thing. Often performed the most graceful spell."
Lana scoffed, "That had to be an exaggeration." Even as she rolled her eyes she felt her cheeks lighting up. She had no idea he'd written of her back then, before it...before everyone's life changed. "There were many mages, Circles are known for it. Could have been any one of us."
"For being unable to write beyond a seven to eight word sentence with most matters, when it came to describing you he suddenly transformed into Brother Genitivi. There were practically footnotes on your birthmark alone."
"Oh..." the blush took on a life of its own, blooming from her cheeks down her neck and enflaming that mark that also enflamed his passions. "I didn't know that, um," she moved to wipe at the sweat on her brow, which coated her forehead and hair in soap.
Mia chuckled at the embarrassing move, her eyes focused fully on her rinse tub while Lana tried to pull the biggest bubbles off. "You wouldn't happen to have thrown any flowers at boys
when you were a child as well?"
Her fingers froze, half the suds out, when a great laugh rose from her belly out through her throat. Mia joined in, her laugh much like her brothers: quick, brash, and sincere. "I suppose we are more alike than different," Lana surmised. Before she reached into the bucket, her fingers tugged along the chain, digging the coin out from the safety below her dress. She was his other side.
"Do you ever miss it? Being all dressed up to rub elbows with kings, and arls, and great heroes?"
Lana rolled her eyes, "You've done the same."
"Yes, and we still talk about it months later. I suspect the tale of when Auntie Mia and Uncle Branson passed the king of Ferelden a napkin will be spun around the fireplace for generations."
Shifting on her feet, Lana tried to take the strain from her weary knees. They never lasted long when she washed up her glassware. Cullen suggested that he or one of their volunteers do it, but there were bottles blown to exact specifications and if a single crack appeared they'd ruin months of work. Instead, Lana draped a few pillows on the floor for her to stand on. It didn't entirely solve the problem, but it gave her a few more minutes. On the stark wood floor, she knew she didn't have much longer.
Dumping a greater load into the suds, she rolled the sleeves of her dress up higher and dug elbow deep in, "After a time the luster wears thin. I believe it took about three months of listening to nobility complain endlessly about where they last left the shoes they were standing in."
Mia snorted, her head turning back to the rest of the family left in the dining room, "Too damn alike, you two are."
"May I ask you something?"
"Maker's breath, you don't need to ask me before you ask me. We're kin now. Just go on ahead."
"Right," Lana couldn't hide the blush again. She'd reached the point in her life where she'd been out of the tower longer than she was in but some things still caught her unawares. It wasn't until her seneschal begged her to stop asking for permission that she realized it was a nervous tic from answering to the templars her whole life. "Does...have I done something to offend Angela?"
"What?"
"She seems to, I don't know, pry at things perhaps unawares and..."
Mia groaned and threw her head back before unearthing a string of knives to quickly dry, "Oh, she's plenty aware of what she's doing. She's just jealous because she can't lord over the fact her great grandfather was once an advisor to an Arl. It was one who turned against the Rebel Queen, but that don't matter as long as one's got some claim to nobility."
Hanging her towel off the rack to dry, Mia grabbed another to tackle the endless supply of dishes, "Course her little bragging bit means nothing when Cullen's rubbing elbows with kings and the Divine herself. Could you imagine if we'd mentioned the Viscount of Kirkwall too? She'd have blown sky high with jealousy."
"She needs to use me as a stepping stone for her own ego," Lana groaned. She'd suspected it deep in the dark parts of her heart, but wanted to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. Which was rather funny, when if any Bann under her had so much as sniffed at her for being a mage, she'd have destroyed all their credibility in a moment. Lana shook her head at the assumption everyone wouldn't play the game in some capacity. Mages were notorious about their pecking orders and factions, it made sense some families would as well.
Mia's watery hand landed upon Lana's unclothed forearm, drawing the mage's attention to nearly identical amber eyes. But where Cullen's had a soft umber rimming his pupils, Mia's sparkled nearly yellow green. "I'm sorry she thinks you're easy prey because..."
"I'm a scullery maid," Lana answered. "I know. It's all right. The lie is preferable to, I'd rather be a scullery maid here than a hero anywhere else."
A bittersweet smile washed over Mia's face and her eyes scoured Lana as if searching for a lie, but none was there. She meant it, even when she was up to her elbows in potions gone awry, or rising before dawn to tend to a templar taken a bad turn. Being a hero, a commander, a warden; none of them were what she wanted in life. Helping with her two hands dug deep into the minutiae, making small gains in finding an answer to lyrium addiction, that gave her a purpose. And having the most handsome man in thedas at her side certainly helped.
As if she could pluck Lana's thoughts from her mind, Mia's smile widened. She patted her arm once before returning to the darkening rinse bin. Groaning at the pile remaining, Mia cracked an eye at her, "I don't suppose you know any spells to make dirty dishes disappear?"
Lana chuckled, "I'm afraid not. Though, by the Maker, did we try. One apprentice got close, right until the entire first floor flooded and the brooms came to life."
"Brooms?"
"We're not sure, took forever to destroy them and they made a horrifying noise while alive. Like nails across slate but with a sputtering cough underneath. No one dared try after that."
Mia stuck a hand on her hip and turned to the once Arlessa with pruned fingers and filthy dishwater soaking into her dress. "I thought you mages were in the tower studying. You would do dishes and the like?"
"Oh yes, all apprentices had chores starting when we were ten. One of the perks of passing the Harrowing was you get the stick, the robes, and you don't have to scrub down water closets anymore. The, uh, tranquil would handle some of the bigger day to day duties, but we all took shifts doing dishes, sweeping, everyone had to make their own beds. For awhile we did laundry too until an apprentice tried to escape out with the dumped buckets. It didn't go too well for him...that time."
"What about templars?"
Snickering, Lana dropped a stack of plates into the water. She could just see the end in sight beyond them, "That would have made every apprentice's day."
"What would?" Both women turned from their buckets to watch Cullen slide into the room. "Pigs are fed, table's disassembled, and Branson's up with the kids while they 'get ready.' Did you two need any help?" He offered it to both, but Lana caught his eyes lingering over her body no doubt noticing her waning stance and her fingers clinging to the bucket's lip for support. Without waiting for her answer, he slipped in behind her, his hands wrapping against her stomach as she leaned into him.
Cullen rested his chin against the top of her head while he struggled to look into the basin where edges of plates lurked below the grey sludge of soap. She moved to pick up the brush, when he beat her to it. "Here, let me do that." He was about to dive fist first in, when Lana grabbed onto his arm. With wet fingers, she rolled first one sleeve then the other up to the elbows. "Thanks," he smiled, pressing his grin into her hair.
While he dove elbow deep into the bucket, Lana leaned against her always sturdy support, her fingers trailing up and down the light hair dusting his forearms. She could easily lose track of time watching his biceps work, or grabbing onto them as he flexed, but there was something to his forearms she couldn't explain, especially with his sleeves rolled up to reveal them. Unable to help herself, her palms smoothed over the muscles undulating below as he scrubbed against the clinging food.
"What were you two talking about before I so rudely interrupted?" Cullen spoke up, wading through the silence as he passed a plate to his sister.
"I was asking if templars in the circle ever did their chores," Mia said. "The courts remain uncertain about the one in the kitchen."
"Me?" he scoffed. "I have plenty of work that always keeps me busy and..."
"Yet you leave your poor, newlywed wife all alone to do the washing," Mia threw a hand over her heart in mock outrage.
Giggling, Lana interrupted their sibling mockery, "I'm quite capable of washing dishes."
"It's not as if she'll let anyone at the abbey help," Cullen pouted, but his arms wrapped closer against Lana's chest as if he was hugging her while also scrubbing away.
"I've explained why, and it's not as if we have enough coin to go throwing away on teaching new people through broken glassware."
"Uh huh, so you say, but I think the once Warden Commander has trouble sharing power," he ban
tered, sliding his chest even tighter against her. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could have sworn she felt something else stirring into the small of her back.
"Oh," Lana picked up a plate, yanked the brush out of Cullen's hands, and brought the two together, "because the mythic, ex-Commander of the Inquisition is known to sit back and let everyone else handle crises when they erupt."
Freed of the dishes, Cullen's wet hands swept around her stomach and he dipped his knees lower to whisper in her ear, "You know no one else can handle it but us."
"Andraste's tears, even when you're arguing it sounds like pillow talk," Mia cried, her eyes rolling to the ceiling.
"Ah," chastised, Cullen released his grip on Lana and rose up. But she could certainly feel his excitement prodding into her. Maybe he needed to try wearing some small clothes after all. Lana shook her head at the thought. No. She'd hate it the moment he tried.
Quietly, the three of them worked through the few stacks of dishes, but every time Cullen dipped deeper down to reach for a spoon he'd place a kiss on the top of Lana's head. She struggled through the exhaustion climbing up her legs and heading right for her hips, all to enjoy a few more minutes of him wrapped up behind her. It sounded silly, it wasn't as if they didn't enjoy a whole day, have another week here, and countless more at home. Sometimes, she felt they were back at Skyhold clinging to what moments they had before it all fell apart.
"Mum!" A shrill voice managed to echo down the stairs, through the eating room and into the kitchen by the power of childhood need.
"What is it?" Mia shouted back, not bothering to turn around.
"I can't find my teeth!"
"Her teeth?" Lana tried to turn her question back at Cullen, but he kept his hands buried in the suds, his biceps flexing against her waist.
"Did you look in the box?!" Mia responded to the inane question. Teeth in a box? Maker, what was going on?
"Ye-es!" echoed through the house.
Yanking her towel off her shoulders, Mia rubbed her red hands dry with the rage only a beleaguered parent could manage. "Very well, I will come find them, but if they are in the box as I said..." she threatened while slipping out of the room to find her daughter.
Carefully, Lana turned in Cullen's arms so she could look at his eyes. "Teeth? What's going on?"
He cracked a half smile, then dipped his head down, "I keep forgetting you're not Ferelden."
"What does that have to do with teeth in a box?" Even with his non-answers driving free the beginnings of a headache, she slid her arms along his waist.
Cullen released the last of the dishes into the rinse bin. Shaking his hands free of as much water as he could, he wrapped his arms around her, tugging her tight to his chest. "It's a little, well, maybe it's better if you see it first."
"Don't tell me," Lana said, "'I'll like it. Trust me.'"
Her husband laughed, his warm chest shifting below her cheek and she felt the urge to sleep off the feast right there in his arms. "Are you getting tired?"
"Sitting would do me good," she admitted, accepting her limitations.
"You'll want to rest up before the next part."
Lana lifted her head off her living pillow. "Next part? What next part?"
"You'll like it," he whispered, his damp fingers shifting some of her soapy hair behind her ear, "trust me." She jabbed a finger towards him, but he gave her one of his most sincere smiles and Lana melted in his arms. Shrugging a shoulder, she prepared for whatever was to come next.
While Cullen guided her out towards the sitting room already stoked with a crackling fire, she caught sight of a few of the not carved gourds taking up space on the mantle. She began to ease into a chair when Mia poked her head around the staircase.
After locating her brother and sister-in-law, she jabbed a harried finger and shouted, "Hey, the moon's gonna be up soon. You better get your faces on."