Chapter Text
Two Years Later
What is it they say? Break a leg? Sounds barbaric. But break a leg, love you. See you elsewhere.
She smiled, turning off her phone for the time being. Elsewhere would be Greece, at least on the stage. The only time she could remember being this nervous was before her Harrowing, but the more she thought about it, the more ridiculous that notion was. During her Harrowing, her life was at stake. Failing this performance wouldn’t mean certain doom, but it would mean death by mortification, death to her brilliant career. No Tony award for her, and the next Sutton Foster she would not be.
Perhaps dying at the Harrowing wouldn’t have been too bad.
Damnit Lydia, stop being so dramatic.
“You ready?”
The woman that played Donna, Reyna, popped her blonde head in the makeup room. “Sure thing,” Lydia replied, putting her makeup away in her kit.
“Got anyone in the audience tonight?”
“My husband, and a friend of ours from work. My mother in law and his siblings are actually coming tomorrow.”
“You’ll make them proud.”
“Please. You’re making me blush.”
Reyna smiled. Where do you come from? She asked once during rehearsal. Lydia said someplace far, and Reyna and the rest of the cast laughed, thinking she was just mysterious.
Well, she was indeed, mysterious. Also a witch, not entirely unlike the ones in the Scottish play--the first play she auditioned and got in when she and Cullen moved. She was an understudy to witch number three at the time, trying out for any shows she could, because her family said she could be an actress and work for Cassandra and damn it she believed then. It had been two years since they moved, and she was also in production of Hamlet as Ophelia’s understudy, and now she was in Mamma Mia, and she was very unapologetic about how highly she rated the musical, right along with Phantom of the Opera, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Sound of Music. Reyna promised to introduce her to more musicals after hearing that. (“Not that your taste is bad, you just need more!”) She had been introduced to so much already—couldn’t wait for whatever was next.
“Well,” Lydia rose, taking a deep breath. “Here we go.”
“This can’t be the craziest thing you’ve ever done. You’ll be fine.”
Lydia smirked. “Oh, you have no idea. I agreed to fake date my husband so he wouldn't be embarrassed at his brother's wedding."
"WHAT?"
Lydia laughed, heading to the stage to get her microphone on. "Well, how about I tell it all later? It's a long story..."
Cullen sat in the theatre, feeling his heart beat out of his chest. Cassandra told him he was as nervous as Lydia, perhaps more.
“I just know she’s always wanted something like this,” Cullen said. “She’s always dreamed of being on the stage and now it’s coming true—”
“Shh, it’s about to start.”
Truth to be told, the show wasn’t Cullen’s cup of tea. He dutifully played “Dancing Queen” and other ABBA songs for Lydia whenever she asked, and even danced with her too them. He saw Fiddler on the Roof with her not too long and decided it was his favorite, (so much about their new culture they were immersed into fascinated him.) but then the lights went all the way down, the show began, and though he had to wait for the one he loved, eventually he saw Lydia on the stage with diamonds.
Though she danced in a group with others she had a different sort of pep in her step, a shine that spoke more brightly to him than the others. Perhaps it was because he was her lover, but he knew the truth— even if he wasn’t he would have heard her voice in the chorus above everyone else, spotted her out of anyone. You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life…
He admitted he did indeed have the time of his life. He even got up and clapped at the ending rendition of “Waterloo.” More surprisingly however was Cassandra as well got up, though of course she had to groan about it, reluctantly clapping her hands along.
Maker. When Lydia sang, he swore, she was singing to him.
“Promise to love you every more!” She sang with the rest. Did he know nothing truer than that?
When the show finished and his hands stung with clapping, he met her by the stage door with Cassandra. She fell in his arms and wouldn’t dare leave, moving from both Cassandra to Cullen, to Cassandra to Cullen. She gave him kisses however, the sweetest sort.
“That was quite good,” Cassandra complimented. “I admit I am quite impressed.”
“So it’s alright to be an actress while I save the world?”
She smirked. “So long as it doesn’t interfere with your duties.”
“Why Cassandra, of course not!”
Cassandra parted from them a moment after, and Cullen and Lydia walked hand in hand down the New York street. They decided to go to Central Park, one of their favorite spots, favorite places sans Broadway and their apartment—their little Haven. This place had been their home for two years after they agreed to move, copious visits from his family and calls keeping Thedas closer to them than they ever would have suspected. He supposed he had been afraid before of leaving Ferelden, leaving that part of himself again, but as Lydia said he was so aggressively Fereldan that of course that part of him wouldn’t dare leave, even in a world where no one truly knew what “Ferelden” was.
And, as Lydia said, he wouldn’t dare cut himself off from his family again. He knew better now, knew the love was unconditional. It was sort of like the love of someone else he knew.
But the point was, he knew better now. He wouldn’t dare forget again.
Since leaving Thedas they learned about what was happening through both his family and Rylen and Barris and Aiden. Circles were reforming, templars reforming, and there would be a new Divine. In the parallel world they lived in removed from the home they loved. they were also on a precipice of change, and sometimes it did frighten him. Sometimes in between keeping the world safe and making sure the veil between worlds remained strong he shook at night with remembrances. Yet she was there for him. She was always there, and he remembered how soft she made him.
“I meant to look at this before the show,” Lydia said, stopping him as they walked hand in hand through the winding paths. Digging through her coat pocket, she brought out a letter. He knew what it was—one of the letter Aiden brought her, from her mother.
Opening the seal, she read it out loud. “Dear Lydia, I miss you every day, but I know you are learning your skills, learning about the strength inside of you that has always been able to overcome. I love you and I miss you.”
She closed the letter, pressing it close to her heart. She was working through all of them that she sent and were never delivered while she lived in the Circle, and though that was one of the shorter ones, he could tell it was one of her favorites. If only she could see me now, Lydia mused to herself.
“She does. She knows.”
“Like your father too.”
She took his hand, pulled herself in his frame, and they were two Thedosian lovers in Central Park, a knight and a witch, and though they couldn’t stay long because they did have their mabari at home, for a moment in the park they were a part of the infinite sky.
When they got home, they took Cleo out and fed her. She then went to bed on their couch underneath their imported picture of Cliodna with a wagging tail, happy that her humans were home. When they drank tea in the kitchen after, Cullen asked Lydia what it was like to perform.
“Like flying, I think,” she said. Then, she thought about it some more. “Like being with you.”
Her man was brave, her man was all things he wanted to be. She could show him how to fly a little, if she wanted. So she put on their favorite song, their wedding song, and they dirty danced a little.
Not really trying, just being together, laughing. They probably did look a little like two beached seals, but he taught her not to be self-conscious, just love and laugh. And when Cullen laughed, he laughed with everything. He learned to dance in the snow in the long march called life, and Lydia learned to dance with a partner her imagination could never have conjured.
It was something in one of her mother’s letters that she said—someday she would meet a prince out of a storybook.
Well. Cullen certainly looked a prince with his hair so blonde and amber eyes. And yet she also knew him to be quite obsessed with his dog, an uncoordinated dancer, and a rather large nerd.
She smirked, for he was far better than that storybook prince.
“Do you ever think about it would have been like, had you not seen our advert for a rommate?”
She grasped his hand, shimmied her hips next to his. Maker’s breath he was already hard and waiting for her. Well, he did so enjoy those private performances she gave. She’d have to indulge later.
He asked again. “No,” she admitted. “I’m here, far from the place I grew up, but I’ve learned home isn’t a place. Home for me, is you.”
He dipped her, sending her into titters. “You saved me, you know.”
“No. You saved yourself. I was just an anchor.”
He smiled, shrugging and supposing she was right. “I am right,” she agreed. “But kiss me again, would you?”
He obliged, and then they continued to dance some more, straight to their tiny bed, straight until their clothes were off and they happy and content in each other’s arms. For the two of them, she played it again, “The Time of My Life,” because that was the truth. She owed it all to him.
For that was the one thing she could promise. If she had to do the same again, she would. He gave her everything, the time of her life. And it would go on in the circle game called life, on until she was finally the lead in some new Broadway musical, and he was Cassandra’s commander in the Inquisition. She wasn’t so worried about the past anymore, or the future. She found a lover and a husband, a family and a home. She found more kisses, more time to dance.
Indeed they danced again—just another sort of dance that lacked clothes—and they kissed again before Cleo jumped into their bed, wagging her tail and demanding attention. Laughing, they gave, scratching behind her ears until her back leg thumped on the bed. They slept, and when they awoke in the morning, and they danced once more, Lydia in one of Cullen’s shirts, Cullen in his boxers, with Cleo jumping up on Cullen before jumping on Lydia, alternating.
Happiness was fleeting, her mother wrote to her in a letter she read before they moved to New York, their new life. Take it when you can. Cherish it when you can, with your Prince Charming. I know you dream about him, and I am sure he dreams about you.
“He did Mum,” she said gently into the crook of her lover’s neck. “We just found each other in the most unexpected way. But I wouldn’t have it, any other way.”
“Darling?”
She kissed him hard and kissed him fiercely, for if she spoke, she was sure she would cry with happiness. “I’ll tell you soon,” she promised.
He believed. He never worried. He didn’t have to, with her. Like one of their favorite songs said, the song they played as they walked into their new life together, don’t worry baby.
Everything had turned out fine.