A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

At the Feet of Andraste

3 Wintersend, 9:42

When she left Cullen on the battlements, Antonia had intended to go back to her room, but suddenly she couldn't face being alone with her dark thoughts and the dread of the future that gripped her. Instead, she turned her steps through the dark gardens and into the Chantry, kneeling at the feet of Andraste.

She was alone there, but she took comfort from the presence of the Maker's Bride. "Holy Mother," she whispered, lighting a candle at the statue's feet. "What was it that you wanted when you left Maferath for the Maker? Did it come true? Was this what you dreamed of?"

Somewhere in her, she thought what she was asking skated awfully close to blasphemy, especially the part where she was in some ways comparing her own situation with that of Andraste ... but she hadn't been expecting an answer to her question, anyway, so she hoped she could be forgiven for asking it.

"Do any of us get exactly what we dream of, child?" Mother Giselle had come quietly from the back of the room to kneel next to her. "Our lives take turns we do not expect, and we have no choice but to adapt. As you did. Surely you never expected to fall from the sky and lead an Inquisition."

"No, I never did," Antonia admitted, sitting back on her heels. "For that matter ..." She let the words trail off, not certain how much she wanted to open up to Mother Giselle about the troubles that lay so heavy on her heart right at the moment. The truth was that she had never expected Cullen at all, or anyone like him. She had given herself to her work with the Chantry, putting aside any thought of love or family.

Generally, she passed off those brief years when she was sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and passed around on the marriage market as though they had been light, entertaining, and ultimately hadn't touched her ... but they had been painful years, in which she had learned how out of step her temperament was when compared to that of other girls her age, how little she truly knew about men and what they wanted, and how completely unsuited she was to be the wife of a Marcher nobleman. Or any nobleman, for that matter.

In the end, she was happier to remain unencumbered than she would have been to marry any of the men she had met, even the ones for whom she had briefly entertained feelings, but that contentment had been hard-won, and cost her many tear-filled nights.

Had Cullen been introduced to her at a ball, she would never have looked at him twice ... but by the time she had begun to look at him with the eyes of a woman, she had already come to care for him as friend and mentor.

"The Inquisition has brought you gifts you fear to accept," Mother Giselle said softly.

"No, it's not that. Not really. More ... the Inquisition has brought me gifts I want to keep, and I don't know that I can. And opened pitfalls beneath my feet that I didn't know to look for, pitfalls that in other times would be ... something else. Certainly not the dangers they are now."

"But you also have guides, do you not, child? People who have helped you see the pitfalls beneath your feet before you stepped into them?"

Antonia glanced at her sharply, wondering if Mother Giselle knew what Roya and Leliana had spoken to her about.

"I know nothing specific about your troubles, if that is your concern. What I do know is the love the Inquisition as a whole bears toward you. There is no one here who would not spare you injury if they could. Because they know that you throw yourself in between them and the danger that threatens us all every day, without thought for your own convenience and happiness. I believe every one of us would want you to embrace the happiness you have today and hope for the best, rather than see you tear your heart over fears of what the future may cost you." Mother Giselle sighed and looked up at Andraste. "She could not have known what was in her future; perhaps had she known, she would have chosen differently. And what a change that would have made for all of us."

"For the better?" Antonia asked. "Or for the worse?"

"We cannot know, because she didn't. Nor do you know how your decisions today affect your future, or ours. The best you can do is to have faith in the Maker, as Andraste did, and go forward in that faith."

Antonia nodded, looking up into the face of the Maker's Bride. Andraste smiled serenely, but Antonia imagined that somewhere in her eyes was the soul of a woman who had struggled as Antonia did now, with the weight of the world against that of her own heart.

Mother Giselle left her there, communing with Andraste, and moved to the back of the Chantry, where someone else had just entered.

Cullen let the door close behind him, surprised to see Antonia kneeling there. Not that Antonia wasn't a believer, but she rarely brought her troubles to the feet of Andraste.

"My son, why don't we walk in the gardens for a few moments?" Mother Giselle suggested.

He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the slender figure in front of the statue. The last thing he wanted to do was interfere with whatever worries Antonia had brought to the Chantry tonight. He had to have faith that when she told him it wasn't him, she had been honest ... or that if she hadn't been, she would tell him tomorrow. To his knowledge, she had never yet told him less than the truth.

He left the Chantry quietly with Mother Giselle.

"You have not spent so many of the small hours of the night in the Chantry recently," Mother Giselle observed.

"No." Cullen felt oddly guilty about that, even though the reason was that between the surgeon's powders keeping down the fevers and Antonia adding light to the dark corners of his thoughts, he had actually managed to sleep through more of those small hours than he had been used to doing. "It's been ... the answer to a prayer I hadn't known I made," he said softly, thinking of Antonia. It had never occurred to him to ask for Andraste's guidance over his wayward heart.

"Those are the most heartfelt prayers, I find," Mother Giselle said. "It is what the heart wants so deeply yet cannot ask for that She answers, often."

"Does She?" Cullen wanted to believe that. But he couldn't help thinking of all the people—fellow Templars from the Circle and the Gallows, Grand Cleric Elthina and those who had been in the Chantry with her—who had suffered because of what others had wanted. Perhaps it was selfish even to think that Andraste would concern herself with the affairs of his one heart when there were so many greater needs in the world.

"Do you not think that love is important, Commander? Andraste did. She left everything for the love of the Maker, and look at the impact that love has had on the world." Mother Giselle nodded. "While many today blame the Chantry for the unrest we live in right now, the truth is that Andraste was not the one to create those rules, nor was the Maker. People can misinterpret the words of the holy, but She sang of love for one's fellow beings. Perhaps we would all be better off embracing love more and worrying about our intentions—or Hers—less." She smiled. "Or perhaps I am just an old woman who wants to see a brighter day dawning." Patting him on the shoulder, she walked off through the darkened garden.