{6} The One And Only Woman

The sound of a hiccup brought him back to the present. The woman he now loved was crying.

 ‘It’s very...emotional. They way she wrote...Maker...’

Cullen threw his arm around her, kissing her tenderly on the neck. She looked back at him, surprised.

‘So, you no longer feel...’

‘Anything for her?’

He lowered his head, frowning a bit.

‘I know what she and I had were real. That is enough for me to know. But now, I have only one woman in my life. And that is you.’

She stared into his eyes, unsure. Soon enough, she cracked a smile. His sincere gaze was reassuring.

‘Thank you for coming with me to Honnleath. I...hadn’t really intended to expose you to all this, but...’

‘It’s alright.’ she interrupted.  ‘I’m happy you did. You wanted to show me something important. She was once very special to you. I now understand.’

A worried look overshadowed his features and he delicatedly held her face with both hands, staring at her with a troubled look.

‘You really are the only woman in my life, Trevelyan. Have no doubt about it. My feelings for you, I share them with no one else. Not even her, anymore.’  he nodded towards the letter — ‘I owed that to you.’

Her eyes glinted in response and her lips rested in a natural smile. He was a rare kind of man. No arranged marriage, no amount of wealth in the world would make her trade him for anything.

His past was finally buried, along with that chest. That heavy chest...

‘I used to look at this small treasure and feel the weight of it, as though filling my heart with the weight of memories. Memories I needed –no, I craved- to go on, to remind myself of who I was...but now, I feel nothing. Just...a strange detachment. Lightness. As though these memories belonged to another man; a different man.’

‘Do you like this new man?’

He hesitated for a while, taking in each one of her traces as he considered his answer. His expression was serene and his eyes glinted tenderly.

‘Yes.’ – came the humble murmur.

They shared a slow, long kiss before leaving the house and Honnleath behind. Something told her this would be Cullen’s last trip back home. His past had now remained where it belonged. All that he had ahead of him was the future.

And Maker willing, one they would shape together. In spite of Corypheus, in spite of demons and darkspawn, in spite of the world and all its weariness and corruption...they would vanquish the worst it had to offer, fighting back as many times as it tried to beat them down... and in the end, they would always prevail.