WHO: Cullen Rutherford and Penelope Featherington WHEN: Monday evening WHERE: The library WHAT: A proposal! WARNINGS: None!
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Some aspects of tradition could be terrible: binding and stifling, preventing necessary change. It wasn’t all bad, though. Some aspects of tradition were perfectly good, things that people clung to because they were comforting or beautiful.
Marriage, Cullen thought, was one of the good ones.
This marriage (if she said yes, because though Penelope had sort of already said yes, Cullen didn’t like to take anything for granted), wouldn’t be entirely traditional. There was no Chantry in this world, no Revered Mother to perform the ceremony. Neither his family nor hers would be there to witness it. Children were...inadvisable here, despite the fact that under other circumstances he would certainly want them. The heart of the tradition, though: love, commitment, a binding of two souls together...that would still be in place. That was why, though they certainly could simply share quarters and carry on together without the formal acknowledgement, Cullen thought it was important to get married anyway. Perhaps it was just a symbol, but that didn’t mean it didn’t matter.
He hadn’t been entirely sure how to go about officially proposing. Cullen’s notions of romance were fairly limited, and accomplishing romance at Mount Weather would be a challenge even for a veteran at such things. As such, he only had one idea: to ask Penelope to meet him in the library. It was where they had met face to face for the first time, and that made it a little special, didn’t it? So there he was, waiting in the Fiction section for her to arrive.
Sure that Cullen had found a book they would both find interesting and challenging, a book over which they would debate and laugh, and possibly become irritated when one or both of them refused to consider this point or that, Penelope finished her final task of the day. There was no reason to return to their apartment first, but she did so anyway, taking care to note that her hair was presentable and that she wore no smudges of anything across her face. A bit of the lotion Alison made for her was welcome, though, to soothe the pinpricks her fingers had suffered throughout the day.
They’d spoken of marriage, before, and while Penelope would have been satisfied (truly) with the not-quite-asking that had happened over the network, she was happy -- more than -- that Cullen intended to ask her properly. Although the when and the where hadn’t been discussed, Penelope had hoped that it would come sooner than later, but the fight with the werewolves had usurped everything else for several days. Rightly so; survival was of the utmost importance. But marriage -- Penelope hugged close the idea of it. To others, perhaps, it wasn’t necessary, but it was. It was a statement to everyone that she and Cullen belonged to one another, that they love each other and have chosen to spend what time they have together here in Mount Weather, together.
She’d always attended church, with her parents and sisters when she was younger, and then with only her mother and sisters after her father died. She understood that many people truly believed, but it had always seemed to her that attending services was yet another reason for the men and women of the ton to gather. Their gossip was more hushed, of course, but they took note of who talked to whom and who cut whom, her mother and sisters among the vaunted they. Penelope, of course, had used the time before and after church to chat with her few friends, and had felt that the simple fellowship she had with them was more soothing to her soul than the fire-and-brimstone that the vicar spoke from the pulpit. Penelope had, of course, always dreamed that when she married, it would be at St. George’s, even if the wedding was very small.
There was no vicar here, or even a church, and Penelope did not suppose that it mattered in front of what god she married, so long as they did so, and that both she and Cullen were happy. There was not anyone from a Chantry in Mount Weather, either, but surely they could find a way around it. Perhaps she would speak to Sera, or Adaar, and glean some ideas from them to present to Cullen. Her thoughts were preoccupied with these matters when she turned into the library and didn’t immediately see Cullen. Thinking that he might have decided to browse, she looked for him, and found him standing sans book, and looking -- dare she say it? -- slightly nervous.
She smiled and approached, lifting her face when she was close enough for a kiss. “Hello, darling. Did you find a book?”
He gladly returned the kiss, but as soon as she asked a question, Cullen’s brain froze. “I--what? A book. No, I--”
Maker’s breath, he was stammering like a teenager who’d never spoken to a woman before. Normally he was completely comfortable with Penelope--a real feat, as Cullen wasn’t completely comfortable with much of anyone at all. This shouldn’t even have been a struggle: they’d discussed the idea of marriage, he already knew she was amenable to it, and nothing between them had changed since then. Everything, Cullen reminded himself firmly, was going to be fine.
He took Penelope’s hands in his, both of them, and let that connection calm and settle his mind. “I asked you here because this is where we first met in person,” he said, keeping his voice library-quiet. “Right by this shelf. You were trying to reach a box.”
Everything snapped into place, and she tilted her head and looked up at him, while pressing her lips together to dampen the wide smile that threatened to take over her face. She stepped forward half a step, and squeezed Cullen’s hands gently. “And you brought it down for me, after which we talked.”
Penelope was happy that she’d taken the few minutes to stop in their apartment, happy that he’d chosen this place for the next step of their lives together, and just happy. She hadn’t experienced this sort of happiness at home, couldn’t imagine it, in fact. It didn’t seem fair to call England and 1824 “home”. It was where she used to live, and home was the man standing before her.
Here it was, then: the moment. Cullen thought she knew what was coming, and she didn’t appear to be running off, so there was nothing to do now but ask. He took a deep breath, gave her a still-somewhat-nervous smile, and hoped he remembered what he’d practiced saying.
“This is where we began, so I thought to continue here as well,” he said. “Because I love you more than I ever thought possible, and though I know this world is uncertain, the fact that I want to spend my life with you is not. Will you marry me, Penelope?”
Penelope had hoped that when he asked, she would not become a walking cliché by tearing up. Naturally, she did just that, and smiled widely. She found herself nodding, though, and squeezing Cullens hands once more. “Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
Not a thought was spared towards the other direction her life had taken, in England, in 1824, where she had taken a wrong step from Colin’s carriage as he didn’t so much ask as tell her that they would be married. She did not even clearly remember the details that she had read, but this was so much better. She wrapped her arms around Cullen in a hug, closing her eyes and pressing her face into the crook of his neck. He was solid and real, and she loved him for everything that he was, and everything that she became with him, and told him so before she pressed her mouth to his for another kiss.
It was exactly the response he had hoped for: a yes, and what was possibly the best kiss of his life. When the kiss finally ended, Cullen’s smile was no longer the slightest bit hesitant. He practically radiated happiness, and that wasn’t a usual thing for him at all. He hadn’t been unreservedly happy like this since he was a child, before he’d witnessed so many horrors and lost so much. For a long time he had thought for a long time that this part of himself, the part that could love and trust and have faith in people, had been lost as well. Not for the first time, Cullen was thankful for the Inquisition, because it had truly saved him from falling into darkness--and by extension, it had given him the confidence and the faith to be standing where he was now.
“Shall we retire to our quarters, then?” Cullen asked, grinning broadly. “I think perhaps a private celebration is in order before we go telling the others.”
Penelope laughed, her eyes bright and shining with love and joy. “A private celebration is certainly in order, yes. Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow to share our news… or much later tonight. I can only think of you, now.”
Her smile promised a long, but not unpleasant, evening.