#okay i am going to try scheduling this again lmfao it hasn't worked yet but i'm crossing my fingers

[shivunin]

From Behind

(Emmaera Lavellan/Cullen | 513 Words | No warnings)

The sun shone on the courtyard outside. Cullen stood in the kitchen, kneading the bread dough, so he was grateful for the window that allowed him to watch the garden. 

Emma was out there now, half-asleep in the sunlight. Perhaps half an hour ago, she’d been gardening with their hound. Now, she lay on her side with their daughter, who was also quite asleep. A rare sight, that: Adhlea not in motion for once. The moment she’d learned to walk, one of them had needed to have her in sight at all times. The two-year-old seemed determined to pitch herself down the stairs while stubbornly declaring that she could climb them herself. 

They were a lovely sight, the two of them, Adhlea curled with her knees to her chest and a thumb half-fallen from her slack mouth, Emma’s body curved around her in a lovely arc. For perhaps the thousandth time, Cullen wished that he had been given more graceful hands, that he might somehow immortalize this moment in a drawing of some sort. 

As he thought so, Emma stirred and gestured to the hound. Deftly, the two of them traded places, and his wife stood with a yawn and a stretch that had her briefly balanced on her toes. He’d long since stopped thinking it was odd to still feel so caught in watching her, had come to accept that this was simply how it would always be. 

Maker, how grateful he was for that. 

She disappeared from the frame of the window, but he could hear her walking through the dining room to the kitchen, and the swing of the door when she pressed it open. 

“Oh, it smells lovely in here,” she murmured, stopping behind him to wind her arm around his midsection. She was warm from the sun, as if it had soaked into her clothes and skin, and the scent of earth and lavender rose from behind him. 

“I could say the same to you,” Cullen said, turning his head and bending slightly until she rose to her toes and kissed his cheek. 

“She is going to terrorize all the other children,” Emma said with a yawn, settling her cheek along his back, “I can’t wait.”

Cullen huffed, rounding the bread and setting it in its bowl under a damp cloth to go on rising. He had flour on his hands, but he twined his fingers with hers at his waist and looked out the window. 

Their daughter slept on, peaceful as she never was in wakefulness, and the sun shone gentle over her many curls. Soon enough, she would wake and the mabari would be hard-pressed to herd her through the house. Cullen would need to set his bread to baking, and Emma would need to let go. 

But this moment—held in her arms, safe, with a future to look forward to—it was one he never thought would come. So for this moment, he held his wife’s hand, watched his daughter rest safely, and felt with every ounce of his being how very, very lucky he was.