#she was ALWAYS my little amnesiac surana and played them the same way

[spainkitty]

After the Adamant Nightmare (a.k.a. she FINALLY knows her name)

Lanil's Pieces Masterlist

The last place she wanted to sleep was anywhere in the Western Approach. Being near where that Rift had been, where those eyes had stared hungry and terrifying through the Veil, it was impossible. Lavellan walked the battlements of Griffin Wing Keep, arms around her torso tightly, eyes on the dotted campfires. She would rather be down there, hearing the soldiers talk while anonymous and silent and mindblank for a few hours.

Anything would be better than sleep.

She turned from the edge, heading for the stairs with determined strides. She was wearing borrowed armor which would help her blend in. Her own was somewhere being cleaned of its filth and memories.

But not all the memories.

She paused midstride.

Lanil.

Her name was--is Lanil. Lanil Lavellan, once known as Lanil Surana.

She was from Kinloch Hold, born in the Denerim Alienage.

Cullen saved her life. And then Divine Justinia saved it again more than ten years later.

How ironic. She had left Circle and Chantry behind, and she owed her life to servants of both.

She needed to tell him. Soon. Anyone who made it through the Fade and back with her could let it slip at any moment. A juicy bit of gossip like the Inquisitor and Commander having known each other when they were younger would spread like wildfire. Especially if the part where he defied Templar orders to free her from the Circle made it out there.

She knew she was smiling now. For her, it had been the beginning of her freedom. A freedom she hadn't even known she didn't have. He forced her out of that cage and she'd found so much more than she ever could have imagined.

But Cullen.

Her smiled wiped away as the desert's too chilly night breeze sent goosebumps down her skin.

Cullen carried the trauma of what happened at Kinloch Hold inside him. Had carried it for years. Had grieved a girl he thought he'd never see again even while blood mages had used that infatuation against him, poisoned it and his memory of her forever. It wasn't some mystical other girl anymore. An elf girl with grey eyes and white hair who happened to look like her.

What if... what if everything they'd gone through, everything they'd become, was ruined by this? What if the truth of their past turned their present into something like a lie? Would he look at her and see only the wraith, like that first day he'd seen her in Haven?

With an ugly snort and toss of her head, Lavellan--Lanil began to walk again. Knowing Cullen, he'd be midbrief with his night scouts. She refused to let this fester even a moment more.

Whatever their past, whatever she had forgotten and was slowly regaining, they were different people now. They had forged something new, in this new life, together. He cared about her. And while neither of them had admitted it aloud yet, she knew she loved him and that he felt the same.

Probably.

Her steps faltered.

No. Definitely.

Her steps continued.

As she'd predicted, Cullen was wide awake. An Inquisition scout was standing at attention next to him while he scanned a handful of documents.

"I think even our Spymaster sleeps, and if anyone is inhumanly perfect, it's her," Lavellan... Lanil said.

"Lane--Um, Inquisitor." He glanced at the scout, visibly mortified by his own slip.

"I almost died in the Fade today, eaten by my literal worst Nightmare. You can treat me like a friend instead of the Inquisitor in front of a single soldier. Just a little." She held up her finger and thumb, pinching the tiniest sliver of air.

Cullen's eyes closed and a shiver ran over his face. He looked ready to punch the nearest wall and La... Lanil wondered if maybe it wasn't yet time to joke about it.

"Harper, you're dismissed."

"Yes, Commander." The woman saluted and moved to walk past Lanil.

Lanil.

"Your Worship..."

Lanil startled in place and turned to the scout. The look on the woman's face was intense, her words fervent as she spoke,

"Every one of us is glad you made it back alive. You give us all strength and we would've lost something truly irreplaceable today if you had not."

Lavellan stared at her, eyes too wide and heart squeezed in a fist.

"Ha-Harper, was it? Thank you. I..." Lavellan reached out to clasp the soldier's shoulder. "Thank you."

The soldier, Harper, nodded once sharply. Then waited as still as stone for Lavellan-Lanil to move her hand. Another salute, and the woman was gone.

"Well, anything I would say just wouldn't compare to that," Cullen said after a long moment.

Lavellan abruptly remembered where she was and entered the closet of an office Cullen had claimed. He braced a hand on the desk and rubbed between his eyes with the other, sighing softly. All but silently, La...nil, Lanil closed the door and moved to perch on his desk. By the time his red-rimmed and weary eyes opened again, she had already stolen his stylus and was twisting it between her fingers.

"I know I joked about it just now, but I can't sleep. It's there. Waiting for me in the Fade..." she whispered. "It was a Nightmare. In every sense of the word. Solas said it was old, older than anything else he'd ever encountered. Maybe the first Fear Demon ever formed. Do you know what it means that I survived it twice? That it... knows my name?"

"Lane." Cullen's voice shook. But she brushed off the hand that reached for her.

She felt too exposed. Too raw. And she still hadn't told him--

Inhale. Exhale.

Open your eyes.

Meet his.

She gazed into amber, saw his struggle, the twist of his mouth. Desperately wondering what she needed.

She reached up to touch his cheek. The stubble scratched against the back of her fingers, and the glow of her wound cast a sickly greenish light on his too fair skin. She had to pull away and hide the ugliness of it in her fist.

"It told me my name. More than that, my memories, all of them, were there. That's why I couldn't remember me. All the important parts of me were trapped there because it had stolen them."

"Not all the important parts," Cullen denied vehemently.

Her gaze dropped to the desk, chest too tight, throat too full. Which is how she saw when he lifted the hand she'd pulled away, unfurled her fingers, and kissed her knuckles, the heel of her palm, and then right in the middle, his lips brushing the glowing scar.

"Lanil," she whispered. He froze. "Lanil Surana."

He lifted his head and met her eyes.

"That's the name I forgot. I was adopted into the Lavellan clan after escaping the Blight. I took their name to... to symbolically forget the life I left behind. When I was made First two years ago, I got my vallaslin. I found my People, my heritage, my home, because a young Templar broke the rules and forced me to run."

Cullen still said nothing, eyes darting over her face, lips parted.

"You told me you'd protect them. All of them, but I had to go and not turn back, or they'd catch me. Then, you slammed the door shut. I stood there screaming and throwing every spell at it I could, I didn't know you runed the other side, I don't think I cared... until the spiders came. I'd run them out of the storage room days before, did you know? I wasn't scared of them then. But in the dark, all alone, I was... I'd never known fear like that. Not in my Harrowing, not when Jowan sliced open his hand, or when Greagoir wanted to Tranquil me. Spiders and blood mages and demons, they all got mixed in my head and I ran. I ran as fast as I could and I didn't turn back again. Not once. I ran all the way to the Braecilian Forest. The Sabrae clan took me to Kirkwall. I tried to go back to a Circle, but the Gallows... it was..." She broke off. Inhaled. Exhaled. "It was nothing like Kinloch. And none of the Templars were you. Keeper Marethari found the Lavellan clan after that."

"Lanil."

Papers scattered to the floor. The stylus rolled and clattered after them. Cullen had both arms tight around her, so tight she could barely breathe, and she wanted them tighter. She wrapped her arms around his waist as best she could, but with all his layers and width, it was hard to return the embrace as tightly as she'd wanted, needed.

"Maker's breath, Lanil. I thought. In Haven, I thought I'd gone insane. I told myself you were gone, I'd never see you."

"Surprise?" she whispered hesitantly.

He laughed into the crook of her shoulder. Startlingly, something wet spread over her skin.

"Cullen, I didn't--I'm sorry. Is this bad? Should I have told you a different way? Maybe let Leliana do it?"

"No! No, definitely not."

"What about Dorian--"

She mmphed, cut off by a desperate kiss. She melted into it, fingers burying in those gingery-blond curls, pulling him closer. He dragged her over the desk, arms tight around her waist, hands spread over her back. Covering her, enveloping her as completely as he possibly could. It felt like an eternity, and not nearly long enough, when he pulled away. They both gasped for breath, foreheads touching.

"You were... supposed to be safe," he gasped at last.

She burst into laughter, damp and thick and relieved.

"That's not exactly my forte, but I appreciate the effort," she quipped. Their eyes met and she smiled softly. The smile he always managed to drag out of her. "I really do appreciate the effort. You saved my life ten years ago. I should've been made Tranquil, or Uldred should've gotten to me, but you--"

"You never should've been made Tranquil. It should never be a punishment. I believed that then, that's why I did it," Cullen said fiercely. "I believe it even more now, especially since we know about the Seekers and the lies they kept, the people killed to cover it up."

Lanil nodded. "Does this... change us?" she finally asked.

He shifted, moved to sit or lean beside her, only for the whole desk to wobble under their combined weight. Lanil yelped and Cullen shouted wordlessly, and they barely managed to keep from toppling to the ground. They froze, Lanil clinging like a limpet to him, him basically holding her entirely aloft, his shoulder wedged against the wall he stumbled back against. They stared at each other and then burst into laughter. They almost forgot to smother it, desperately pressing their faces against fur and collar.

"This is not Skyhold and that is not my desk," Cullen said.

"Do you make a habit of crawling on your desk?" Lanil asked, smirking.

"I have to make sure it's sturdy. Who knows what's going to happen next. Do you know how many people like to come in and punch it? One time Iron Bull did in the middle of laugh and it didn't even buckle."

"That is a good test of sturdiness." She leaned back to meet his gaze. Despite how little sleep he still hadn't gotten, his eyes didn't look so weary or red. "He was laughing at you, wasn't he?"

Cullen groaned, head tipped back. "When are they not laughing at me?"

She grinned and, because it was there, pressed a featherlight kiss under his jaw. His pulse jumped under her lips, and she wriggled out of his clutches to place both feet on the floor. She didn't quite escape, his arms remained locked around her. But that wasn't so bad

"You didn't answer."

"Hm, what?" he asked dazedly.

"You really need sleep," Lanil said in some concern. She glanced around, found the pathetic cot shoved in a corner, and sighed. "They must've assigned you a better bed than that. You gave it away, didn't you?"

"Dorian needed it more. They gave him a bedroll and I thought he was going to cry," Cullen explained sheepishly. Lanil rolled her eyes.

"He'd never ruin his eyeliner for that, not here where he can't fix it properly afterwards. You've been had." She shoved him towards it.

"Wait, what--?"

"One of us is going to sleep, and as long as we're in the same region as Adamant, it won't be me. So it's you. Sleep." She carefully unwrapped and shoved the cloak he always wore off his shoulders. It would make a better blanket than whatever was lying on the cot. "I'll keep awake for any emergencies."

"No, I have too much to do and you need it more," Cullen protested, slapping her hands away from his arm... things. She glared and slapped his hands back. He meekly let them drop.

"I told you. I can't. I'll accidentally will my consciousness right back to the Nightmare, I know I will. You however are safe, lucky little ex-Templar that you are."

His hand fell over hers on his arm, where she still struggled with the buckles. Why did he always have so much armor on? She huffed, frustrated. Her own armor was all leather and very little metal. Very easy to lace and unlace in comparison.

"I'll go to sleep, I promise."

"Good."

"And it does change things."

She froze, slowly raised her head. His hand cupped the side of her face. Carefully, almost reverently, as if reforging the two pieces of her into one, his thumb traced the line of her golden vallaslin, then down along her cheek, following the scar she'd gotten in Braecilian Forest. She remembered that now. A rabid wolf had attacked her when she'd been exhausted, torn open her face before a Dalish hunter, the first one she'd ever met, had put an arrow through the wolf's heart. The next wolf, Lanil had burnt to a crisp in a fit of bloody, pain-filled rage.

The scar just under her lip was newer, it needed no lost memory. Cullen thumbed it gently. Jagged at the edges where rock had sliced skin open when she'd fallen through the Breach the first time.

"You are Lanil Surana, but you're also Lavellan. Whatever I felt for Surana was important to me then, but what I feel for you, right now, is... incomparable. It changes things, but the parts that matter remain the same. If that... I don't know if I explained that right."

Lanil pressed her cheek into the curve of his palm. "I understand. And agree. Just so you know, I had no idea you had a crush on me then. You were just a Templar, the easiest one to tease." Her eyes glittered when she looked at him. He sighed under his breath. "But I also just... didn't care to notice anyone. I cared about my magic, and that's it. I can say it for sure now. Feeling like this? It's hard for me. If I don't want to feel it, I ignore it until it goes away, and it doesn't even hurt. Didn't. It didn't hurt. I never got this deep into it before, I never wanted to. I don't think I could turn it off now."

Cullen leaned forward. Just like they always did, their foreheads pressed together and she could breathe.

"I'm honored that you, Lanil Lavellan, let me in."

"Yes. That's me." She smiled and brushed her nose against his. "That's who I am now."

"Happy to meet you."

Lanil laughed softly. "Cheesy. So cheesy."

"Yes, I instantly regretted saying that."

She laughed again, interrupting herself to kiss the rueful look off his face.