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Title: Stories Yet Untold
Author: ElCapitan18
Game: Dragon Age
Characters/Pairing: F!Lavellan and Dad!Cullen
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware

~*~

“Tell me another one, papae!” she shouted before launching herself from the bed and into his arms.

Cullen caught his daughter and spun with her once before tossing her onto her mattress in an unceremonious heap, where she then proceeded to roll around in a fit of giggles. He couldn’t wrangle the grin from his lips nor silence the chuckle rumbling in his chest if he tried. His daughter’s happiness was a contagion and he was throughly infected by her mirth.

He watched her with great adoration as she climbed back onto her feet and prepared to throw herself at him one more time. At nearly five years old she was almost as tall as his hip, with a slight frame comprised primarily of bone. Her fiery blonde hair was typically a mess of curls that fell around her shoulders like a halo of rose gold, but had been wrangled by Delani into a braid that hung all the way to her waist. Impossibly large hazel eyes stared up at him so full of adventure and mischief, reminding Cullen of his wife.

In truth, his little girl was the perfect blend of him and Delani. She was curious and playful, but also thoughtful and cautious. She was as likely to prank her instructors as she was to behave through her classes. Her high-spirited demeanor oftentimes got her into all kinds of trouble, but Cullen would be a liar if he ever claimed to find her anything short of enchanting. She was his baby girl, and she could do no wrong; a fact that she found most advantageous.

When she hurled herself at Cullen again he caught her as he always did and held her to his chest. He kissed her repeatedly until her giggles turned into breathless complaints about how his facial hair was tickling her. Soon there after his kisses turned into nibbles and then Cullen had her back on her bed where he was pretending to feast upon her kicking feet.

“Papae!” she screamed, trying to wriggle out from his grasp and free herself from his torment.

He had a firm grip on her ankle to keep her from kicking in his teeth, and continued to playfully nip at her ankle and calf. “Da’s sorry, pup,” he said, looking up from his pretend meal to meet his grinning daughter’s gaze. “I didn’t eat my supper and now I’m starved.”

Cullen started to gently gnaw on her leg again and she hollered in laughing protest. After a few kicks he allowed her foot to pull from his grasp and her to crawl up the bed away from him. She reached under her pillow and pulled free the wooden sword that Delani had carved for her when their daughter had shown an interest in swordplay.

Seated at the corner of her bed, Cullen raised his hands in surrender when his daughter turned to toy blade on him. He eased himself off of her bed as he jokingly beseeched her, “Mercy, my lady.”

“Only if you tell me one more story,” she bargained before taking a threatening step in Cullen’s direction where she then poised her self to strike. “Or else I’ll have no choice but to slay you, foul beast!”

The corner of his mouth curled at the sight of the very serious furrow of her brow. Cullen knew that he should have refused her and instead insisted that she be put to bed. But those eyes were glittering with adventure, and her imagination was too wild for her to find sleep if he sent her to bed just yet. What could one more story hurt?

“As you wish, my lady,” Cullen conceded with a bow of his head before asking, “Which tale would you like for me to regale you with before you go to sleep?”

She lowered her wooden blade so that she could think. Gnawing on her bottom lip, she considered all of her options before settling on a story. “Tell me again about when mamae defeated the bad magister.”

Cullen smiled before nodding his approval of her selection. He’d already told her the story no less than a thousand times. By now she had the whole recantation memorized from beginning to end and back again. But this was not a story he would tire of telling.

Of all the stories he’d told her, from how the Hero of Ferelden defeated the Fifth Blight, Bella Hawke’s battle against the Arishok, how Guard Captain Aveline held Kirkwall against Prince Sebastian’s vengeful army, Cassandra’s rise from Seeker to Divine, it was the stories of Delani that their daughter loved the most. Always they filled her green and amber eyes with stars so bright with awe that Cullen fell in love with her all over again.

“Very well, pup,” he agreed before getting himself into character, knowing how much she enjoyed acting out these tales of heroism. His voice dropped several octaves as he started the story. “Years before your birth the land was torn apart by war…”

“The mages and the Templars were ravaging the countryside,” she finished for him, pretending to fight an imaginary foe.

He nodded that she had it right before circling around his daughter’s bed. Cullen continued, “Brother fought against brother and all stood divided until the Maker and the Creators decided to send someone to unite the south. Andraste, the Maker’s bride, chose a mighty Dalish huntress and marked her hand with an anchor that opened and closed tears to the Fade.” Grabbing his daughter by the hand, he trailed a finger over her palm in a mirror of the mark that slashed over Delani’s hand.

Lifting her hand from his hold, his daughter raised it up and pretended to seal a rift. “But the magister wanted to destroy mamae’s power.”

“He did,” Cullen agreed. “But your mother is a skilled fighter and diplomat. She traveled across the land fighting the Venatori,” he pretended to fight his own invisible enemy, parrying an attack before lunging forward to strike, “uniting Orlais and even attending a ball where she disrupted Corypheus’s plans yet again.”

Cullen then picked his daughter off of the bed and danced with her around the room, spinning her in circles before twirling her around and releasing her again. She spun toward the bed, her laughter alight in the air as she climbed onto the mattress toward the pillows. Trailing after her, Cullen sat on the edge of her bed as she climbed under the covers and began to settle in underneath the sheets.

He plucked her toy sword from the corner of the bed and placed it over her blanket covered lap. Cullen smiled down at his daughter as she settled into the pillows, picking her sword up off of her lap and hugging it close to her chest as he continued his story. Leaning his weight on a hand, he used the other to tuck an errant curl behind her ear and Cullen marveled not for the first time at the slight point at its very tip. It wasn’t prominent but it was there. She was part elf, her mother’s daughter, and Cullen was completely enamored with her.

His hand lingered on her face for a moment, the warmth of her cheek was cupped in his hand as he admired her beautiful features that reminded him so much of Delani. “Your mother fought across the land, not always with blades. Oftentimes words save lives and your mother was wise enough to know when to raise her voice and when to wield her blades. When she had the support of the Templars, the Grey Wardens, and both the Empress of Orlais and the King of Ferelden, she met the magister in combat—”

“And after defeating his archdemon she was able to banish him to the deepest, darkest, depths of the Fade,” she completed for him, only for a yawn to then escape her. Stretching her arms up over her head, she fell deeper into her pillows and pulled the blankets up to her chin. She stared up at Cullen with sleepy hazel eyes.

“Papae,” she started, blinking heavy eyelids as she waited for him to answer.

“Yes, emma da’lath?” he replied with a smile edging its way across his lips.

She rolled onto her side, hugging her sword to her chest as she struggled to keep her eyes from closing. Peeking up at him, she asked, “Do you think that I’ll ever have stories like that told about me?”

Cullen smiled down at his daughter and stroked his hand over the softness of her braided curls. She was so tiny now as she fought to stay awake. Once again she was the baby he’d held, pure and fragile, his to love and protect until she could claim the responsibility for herself. From the first time he held her until the rest of time, she would always be his baby girl, and Cullen was as smitten now as he had been then.

“I have a feeling that history’s grandest tales have yet to be written, pup.” Her breaths were even now, having lost her battle against sleep.

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple and whispered, “Nehnan Eras, emma da’lath.” Carefully peeling the toy sword from her grasp, Cullen placed it against the nightside table before blowing out the candle light shining in her room before tip toeing his way out of her room.

Quietly closing the door behind him, Cullen let loose a heavy breath when he’d made it out of her chambers without disturbing his daughter. A small smile curled the corners of his mouth as he cut a path through the Keep toward the chambers he shared with his wife. Up some stairs, past the catwalk, and over another set of stairs Cullen found himself in the warmth of his room once more where Delani was waiting already in their bed.

Cullen stood by the banister to admire his wife for a moment. Her long auburn hair cascaded around her in ropes of crimson, longer now than it had ever been. Lovely bronze skin reflected the orange glow of the hearth, making her seem all the more inviting. Her crimson colored vallaslin branched out over the arch of her cheekbones and across her brow in a familiar pattern that drew his gaze to the yellowish green of her sea toned eyes. She was seated on the large bed, leaning against the headboard with pillows stacked in support of her weight.

His gaze then dropped to her swollen middle, which Delani was using to rest papers on as she sorted through the pile of reports. At six months along she was fuller than she had been when carrying their daughter, a fact that she lamented when she had difficulty finding clothes that fit, or when she looked into a mirror. But to Cullen she had never looked more beautiful, and he would never tire of telling her just as much.

“So how many stories did she make you tell before finally releasing you from her tiny clutches,” Delani asked, not looking away from the parchment in her hands.

Grinning, Cullen started to undress before he answered her question. He took off his shirt and his breeches until he was down to his small clothes before joining her in the bed. The pillow he grabbed took several punches before it was fluffed to his satisfaction and he laid his head down on top of it.

“Three,” he stated before chuckling at the impressed expression that found its way onto Delani’s beautiful features. Typically their daughter demanded no less than four stories before she was anyway near satisfied. The low number was a testament to how tired she had been. “Two about the Hero of Ferelden and then the story of your fight against Corypheus.”

Delani smiled at that. Collecting the papers that scattered the bed, she stacked them together before setting them aside. She rubbed the heels of her palms into her tired eyes and Cullen took the moment to admire his wife in all of her beauty.

He reached out to feel the swell of her stomach, and Cullen grinned at the warmth that radiated from her. Delani burned hot on any given day, but when she was with child that heat doubled and was a welcome comfort during the cold winter months. Looking up from where his hand was rubbing circles on her stomach, Cullen met Delani’s gaze.

“Maker, you’re beautiful,” he stated, breathless as the sight of her had plucked the air right out from his lungs.

She smiled down at him and placed her hand over his. Moving their hands around to the other side of her belly, Cullen felt a series of strong kicks press against his palm. “A beautiful mess, perhaps. Your child is restless, vhenan’ara.”

“We can’t have that,” Cullen stated before helping Delani to ease into the bed and get comfortable on her side. Once she was settled he inched his way down until he was snuggled against her middle. With his hand splayed over her belly, Cullen felt each impact of their unborn child throttling against Delani and started to sing the Chant of light. It took several verses for the kicks to calm, but eventually her womb was still.

He glanced up at Delani only to find that she too had fallen asleep to Cullen’s singing. A contented smile expanded over his lips as he repositioned himself in their bed and wrapped his arms around his wife. Cullen’s thoughts then returned to what he’d told their daughter.

Any child born of Delani was bound for great things. Everything that they had faced together, the struggles they’d endured, the wounds they’d helped heal, it had all been so that their children would know peace. History would remember the Herald of Andraste and all of her great deeds, but the future belonged to their children and Cullen was proud for all of the things that were still to come.

Description

Title: Stories Yet Untold
Author: ElCapitan18
Game: Dragon Age
Characters/Pairing: F!Lavellan and Dad!Cullen
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware

~*~

“Tell me another one, papae!” she shouted before launching herself from the bed and into his arms.

Cullen caught his daughter and spun with her once before tossing her onto her mattress in an unceremonious heap, where she then proceeded to roll around in a fit of giggles. He couldn’t wrangle the grin from his lips nor silence the chuckle rumbling in his chest if he tried. His daughter’s happiness was a contagion and he was throughly infected by her mirth.

He watched her with great adoration as she climbed back onto her feet and prepared to throw herself at him one more time. At nearly five years old she was almost as tall as his hip, with a slight frame comprised primarily of bone. Her fiery blonde hair was typically a mess of curls that fell around her shoulders like a halo of rose gold, but had been wrangled by Delani into a braid that hung all the way to her waist. Impossibly large hazel eyes stared up at him so full of adventure and mischief, reminding Cullen of his wife.

In truth, his little girl was the perfect blend of him and Delani. She was curious and playful, but also thoughtful and cautious. She was as likely to prank her instructors as she was to behave through her classes. Her high-spirited demeanor oftentimes got her into all kinds of trouble, but Cullen would be a liar if he ever claimed to find her anything short of enchanting. She was his baby girl, and she could do no wrong; a fact that she found most advantageous.

When she hurled herself at Cullen again he caught her as he always did and held her to his chest. He kissed her repeatedly until her giggles turned into breathless complaints about how his facial hair was tickling her. Soon there after his kisses turned into nibbles and then Cullen had her back on her bed where he was pretending to feast upon her kicking feet.

“Papae!” she screamed, trying to wriggle out from his grasp and free herself from his torment.

He had a firm grip on her ankle to keep her from kicking in his teeth, and continued to playfully nip at her ankle and calf. “Da’s sorry, pup,” he said, looking up from his pretend meal to meet his grinning daughter’s gaze. “I didn’t eat my supper and now I’m starved.”

Cullen started to gently gnaw on her leg again and she hollered in laughing protest. After a few kicks he allowed her foot to pull from his grasp and her to crawl up the bed away from him. She reached under her pillow and pulled free the wooden sword that Delani had carved for her when their daughter had shown an interest in swordplay.

Seated at the corner of her bed, Cullen raised his hands in surrender when his daughter turned to toy blade on him. He eased himself off of her bed as he jokingly beseeched her, “Mercy, my lady.”

“Only if you tell me one more story,” she bargained before taking a threatening step in Cullen’s direction where she then poised her self to strike. “Or else I’ll have no choice but to slay you, foul beast!”

The corner of his mouth curled at the sight of the very serious furrow of her brow. Cullen knew that he should have refused her and instead insisted that she be put to bed. But those eyes were glittering with adventure, and her imagination was too wild for her to find sleep if he sent her to bed just yet. What could one more story hurt?

“As you wish, my lady,” Cullen conceded with a bow of his head before asking, “Which tale would you like for me to regale you with before you go to sleep?”

She lowered her wooden blade so that she could think. Gnawing on her bottom lip, she considered all of her options before settling on a story. “Tell me again about when mamae defeated the bad magister.”

Cullen smiled before nodding his approval of her selection. He’d already told her the story no less than a thousand times. By now she had the whole recantation memorized from beginning to end and back again. But this was not a story he would tire of telling.

Of all the stories he’d told her, from how the Hero of Ferelden defeated the Fifth Blight, Bella Hawke’s battle against the Arishok, how Guard Captain Aveline held Kirkwall against Prince Sebastian’s vengeful army, Cassandra’s rise from Seeker to Divine, it was the stories of Delani that their daughter loved the most. Always they filled her green and amber eyes with stars so bright with awe that Cullen fell in love with her all over again.

“Very well, pup,” he agreed before getting himself into character, knowing how much she enjoyed acting out these tales of heroism. His voice dropped several octaves as he started the story. “Years before your birth the land was torn apart by war…”

“The mages and the Templars were ravaging the countryside,” she finished for him, pretending to fight an imaginary foe.

He nodded that she had it right before circling around his daughter’s bed. Cullen continued, “Brother fought against brother and all stood divided until the Maker and the Creators decided to send someone to unite the south. Andraste, the Maker’s bride, chose a mighty Dalish huntress and marked her hand with an anchor that opened and closed tears to the Fade.” Grabbing his daughter by the hand, he trailed a finger over her palm in a mirror of the mark that slashed over Delani’s hand.

Lifting her hand from his hold, his daughter raised it up and pretended to seal a rift. “But the magister wanted to destroy mamae’s power.”

“He did,” Cullen agreed. “But your mother is a skilled fighter and diplomat. She traveled across the land fighting the Venatori,” he pretended to fight his own invisible enemy, parrying an attack before lunging forward to strike, “uniting Orlais and even attending a ball where she disrupted Corypheus’s plans yet again.”

Cullen then picked his daughter off of the bed and danced with her around the room, spinning her in circles before twirling her around and releasing her again. She spun toward the bed, her laughter alight in the air as she climbed onto the mattress toward the pillows. Trailing after her, Cullen sat on the edge of her bed as she climbed under the covers and began to settle in underneath the sheets.

He plucked her toy sword from the corner of the bed and placed it over her blanket covered lap. Cullen smiled down at his daughter as she settled into the pillows, picking her sword up off of her lap and hugging it close to her chest as he continued his story. Leaning his weight on a hand, he used the other to tuck an errant curl behind her ear and Cullen marveled not for the first time at the slight point at its very tip. It wasn’t prominent but it was there. She was part elf, her mother’s daughter, and Cullen was completely enamored with her.

His hand lingered on her face for a moment, the warmth of her cheek was cupped in his hand as he admired her beautiful features that reminded him so much of Delani. “Your mother fought across the land, not always with blades. Oftentimes words save lives and your mother was wise enough to know when to raise her voice and when to wield her blades. When she had the support of the Templars, the Grey Wardens, and both the Empress of Orlais and the King of Ferelden, she met the magister in combat—”

“And after defeating his archdemon she was able to banish him to the deepest, darkest, depths of the Fade,” she completed for him, only for a yawn to then escape her. Stretching her arms up over her head, she fell deeper into her pillows and pulled the blankets up to her chin. She stared up at Cullen with sleepy hazel eyes.

“Papae,” she started, blinking heavy eyelids as she waited for him to answer.

“Yes, emma da’lath?” he replied with a smile edging its way across his lips.

She rolled onto her side, hugging her sword to her chest as she struggled to keep her eyes from closing. Peeking up at him, she asked, “Do you think that I’ll ever have stories like that told about me?”

Cullen smiled down at his daughter and stroked his hand over the softness of her braided curls. She was so tiny now as she fought to stay awake. Once again she was the baby he’d held, pure and fragile, his to love and protect until she could claim the responsibility for herself. From the first time he held her until the rest of time, she would always be his baby girl, and Cullen was as smitten now as he had been then.

“I have a feeling that history’s grandest tales have yet to be written, pup.” Her breaths were even now, having lost her battle against sleep.

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple and whispered, “Nehnan Eras, emma da’lath.” Carefully peeling the toy sword from her grasp, Cullen placed it against the nightside table before blowing out the candle light shining in her room before tip toeing his way out of her room.

Quietly closing the door behind him, Cullen let loose a heavy breath when he’d made it out of her chambers without disturbing his daughter. A small smile curled the corners of his mouth as he cut a path through the Keep toward the chambers he shared with his wife. Up some stairs, past the catwalk, and over another set of stairs Cullen found himself in the warmth of his room once more where Delani was waiting already in their bed.

Cullen stood by the banister to admire his wife for a moment. Her long auburn hair cascaded around her in ropes of crimson, longer now than it had ever been. Lovely bronze skin reflected the orange glow of the hearth, making her seem all the more inviting. Her crimson colored vallaslin branched out over the arch of her cheekbones and across her brow in a familiar pattern that drew his gaze to the yellowish green of her sea toned eyes. She was seated on the large bed, leaning against the headboard with pillows stacked in support of her weight.

His gaze then dropped to her swollen middle, which Delani was using to rest papers on as she sorted through the pile of reports. At six months along she was fuller than she had been when carrying their daughter, a fact that she lamented when she had difficulty finding clothes that fit, or when she looked into a mirror. But to Cullen she had never looked more beautiful, and he would never tire of telling her just as much.

“So how many stories did she make you tell before finally releasing you from her tiny clutches,” Delani asked, not looking away from the parchment in her hands.

Grinning, Cullen started to undress before he answered her question. He took off his shirt and his breeches until he was down to his small clothes before joining her in the bed. The pillow he grabbed took several punches before it was fluffed to his satisfaction and he laid his head down on top of it.

“Three,” he stated before chuckling at the impressed expression that found its way onto Delani’s beautiful features. Typically their daughter demanded no less than four stories before she was anyway near satisfied. The low number was a testament to how tired she had been. “Two about the Hero of Ferelden and then the story of your fight against Corypheus.”

Delani smiled at that. Collecting the papers that scattered the bed, she stacked them together before setting them aside. She rubbed the heels of her palms into her tired eyes and Cullen took the moment to admire his wife in all of her beauty.

He reached out to feel the swell of her stomach, and Cullen grinned at the warmth that radiated from her. Delani burned hot on any given day, but when she was with child that heat doubled and was a welcome comfort during the cold winter months. Looking up from where his hand was rubbing circles on her stomach, Cullen met Delani’s gaze.

“Maker, you’re beautiful,” he stated, breathless as the sight of her had plucked the air right out from his lungs.

She smiled down at him and placed her hand over his. Moving their hands around to the other side of her belly, Cullen felt a series of strong kicks press against his palm. “A beautiful mess, perhaps. Your child is restless, vhenan’ara.”

“We can’t have that,” Cullen stated before helping Delani to ease into the bed and get comfortable on her side. Once she was settled he inched his way down until he was snuggled against her middle. With his hand splayed over her belly, Cullen felt each impact of their unborn child throttling against Delani and started to sing the Chant of light. It took several verses for the kicks to calm, but eventually her womb was still.

He glanced up at Delani only to find that she too had fallen asleep to Cullen’s singing. A contented smile expanded over his lips as he repositioned himself in their bed and wrapped his arms around his wife. Cullen’s thoughts then returned to what he’d told their daughter.

Any child born of Delani was bound for great things. Everything that they had faced together, the struggles they’d endured, the wounds they’d helped heal, it had all been so that their children would know peace. History would remember the Herald of Andraste and all of her great deeds, but the future belonged to their children and Cullen was proud for all of the things that were still to come.