Ariadne + Cullen, friendship and a moment of joy and wonder. Odd that someone in so much pain could create something so beautiful. Odder still that so much magic sings along his skin and he’s never felt more safe. (AO3)

***

As soon as he steps over the threshold and back into the Tower, Cullen winces. He steps aside, allowing Liselle to pass, and opens and closes his hand a few times. Though he’s grown accustomed to the steady, constant thrum of magic omnipresent at Blackrock Tower, cresting waves of intentional, purposeful magic still catch him off guard. He takes a breath – breathe in, breathe out – and the waves settle into ripples of mildly-irritating pinpricks at the back of his neck.  

Cullen takes another breath and reminds himself that it’s Solstice Night; Edward makes a point to warn him when mages are working out of their laboratories or after hours, and tonight is encouraged to be full of both. He follows Liselle toward the armory to stow his outer gear and shield before walking toward the Great Hall in hopes of finding a warm drink after the chill of an outdoor patrol.  

He stops still and gapes in awe at the sight before him. He’d passed others on his way, mages and templars working together to string sparkling garland and boughs of pine through the halls, shushing each other so to not wake the young ones, but this – Kinloch Hold had only a few sprigs of holly and a log burning bright, and after years spent celebrating holidays in muted, subdued joy, he hadn’t realized how much he missed the decorations and lights. The wonder.  

Spying a familiar flash of red hair, he makes his way down the aisle. Blue cloth covers the wooden tables; delicate silver threads catch the light, glittering like snow as he passes. A group of junior mages argues whether to charm the candles to smell like cinnamon or apple (“Both,” Margaret says with a firm look and, when she turns and walks away, a roll of her eyes that makes Cullen stifle a laugh), and nearby, Michael and Ferdinand sit and weave seashells into large pine wreaths. Everywhere he looks, he finds joy and happiness – even Emelie, so stoic and reserved, holds a sprig of mistletoe over Octavia’s head and sneaks a kiss while Edward pretends to be too focused on hanging a strand of little glass snowflakes to notice.  

Off to the side, Ariadne and Joanie stand in front of a large pine tree, directing two junior templars to move it a little to the left – no, too far, back to the right. By the mischievous smirk on Ariadne’s face, Cullen gathers the tree is perfect as long as it’s generally in this corner. After a few more directions, and as Ariadne nearly loses the battle against her restrained laughter, Joanie relieves the templars of their duty. The pair rush out of the Hall, passing Cullen on the way, very intentionally not making eye contact with anyone lest they be pulled into another task involving centimeters.  

“You sure you’re okay?” Joanie asks as he enters earshot.  

“I can’t smell anything,” Ariadne assures them. She tries, showing Joanie exactly how much she can’t breathe through her nose, and ends up making a face that looks a little like her head might explode. “I’m fine. Thank you, though,” she squeezes her friend’s shoulder.

Joanie nods and returns the gesture. “I’m going to go deal with that,” they point back at the mages working on the candles, “before they light something important on fire.”

Ariadne laughs. “Good luck,” she says, and turns back to the unadorned tree. She looks up at the tree – it’s not quite as tall as two of her, but close – with something akin to both wonder and sadness, and then sits down in front of it. She glances at a piece of parchment beside her and begins to withdraw tiny glass jars from her bag and set them in a neat row front of her.  

He’s given to understand that charming the tree that will last until First Day is an honor, as well as complex and difficult. She’s been working on these plans, scribbling and drawing and testing, nearly every moment he’s seen her for the last two months. The testing has been an important part: something exploded very impressively last week and left the entire main floor smelling of scorched gingerbread.  

“I can feel you staring,” she says after a minute. Smiling, she looks over her shoulder. “Come. Sit,” she pats the empty space beside her.

The Tranquil bring out new trays of drinks and Cullen grabs two mugs – hot chocolate for her, hot cider for him – before joining her. It feels strange to just sit on the floor, but there isn’t a chair nearby and Ariadne has her oddities. He sits, armor clanking quietly against the stone floor, and offers her the mug of hot chocolate.  

“Thanks,” she says, taking a sip. “How’d you avoid decorating?”

“I was on duty. Patrolling outside.” The warmth of the mug in his hands slowly pushes away the chill still lingering in his fingers.

Ariadne sets her drink down and begins adding ingredients from her jars into a small stone bowl. “Are we expecting trouble from the snow?”

“Well, you know how ice gets.”

She laughs softly. With a touch of her finger, the contents of the bowl begin to smoke slightly. The smoke curls lazily through the air and as he takes a breath, he’s pleasantly surprised to not smell something scorched.  

Instead, he smells his parents’ house at this time of year, what he can remember of it, at least. Cinnamon and allspice, pine and peppermint, a burning fire. Orange. A hint of ginger and, he sniffs again, champagne behind it too.  

“How did you…?”

“Magic,” she grins, and dances her fingers in the air above his head. A little shower of snowflakes falls and sticks to his hair before melting away.  

Strangely, the only shiver down his spine is from the slight gust of cold. He wonders when her magic stopped grating on him. Even a month ago, atop the tower on Satinalia when she’d only tried to warm the air and stop his shivering, he’d twitched away from her and into the wind. Maybe hell recognizes itself, she mused later, when he commented on the oddity of their growing friendship.  

“Does it need anything?” she asks, pulling him back to the present.  

He sniffs again. Beneath it all, it smells of fresh snow. “It’s perfect. You really can’t smell anything?”

Ariadne shakes her head. “Always the last bit of the cold to leave,” she shrugs. “For the better tonight, really. Pine makes me ill.”

A dark cloud crosses her face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, and she slides the still-smoking bowl underneath the tree. The smoke gradually dissipates, leaving the pleasant smell of winter in the air.  

“Now the fun part,” she says, settling in beside him. With a deep breath, she closes her eyes and places her palms upward on her knees.  

Her fingertips twitch, little movements playing a symphony with invisible strings of magic, and tiny white lights gather in her open palms.  

The lights swirl and dance around each other, rising into the air. Her hair glimmers in the shifting glow, like coals in a fire about to blaze back to life. With a slow exhale, she sends the lights forward toward the tree. They chase each other into the branches, flitting around and through needles until they find their perfect perch.  

Cullen looks behind him, curious to see if everyone’s as fascinated as he is, but the Hall’s empty now. Candles glow dimly, leaving them mostly in darkness, with only Ariadne’s lights for illumination.  

“Tradition,” she says. Her fingers twitch again, this time conjuring lights of icy blue. “We light the tree alone, so it’s a surprise for everyone in the morning.”

He nods and shifts to stand, but three lights escape her palm and swirl around him, encouraging him to stay where he is.  

He smiles and holds out his hand for one of the lights. It lands gently, seeming to bow to him before spiraling back up into the air and toward Ariadne. “Thanks,” he whispers.  

She bumps his shoulder with hers as she sends the blue lights dancing off to join their friends in the tree.  

With her eyes still closed, she draws gentle lines in the air. Her fingertips leave thin, ethereal silver ribbons behind them as she weaves magic together. Ariadne gently pushes and the silver ribbons float from the air to drape along the tree’s branches. As they settle, spiraling loosely around the tree, the wispy ribbons solidify into sparkling silver garland.  

Ariadne begins to murmur quietly and light gathers once again on her open palms. Cullen watches, fascinated, as tiny radiant snowflakes form in her hands. She gives them a little nudge and they suddenly burst upward in a glittering shower, filling the entire Hall with a gentle snowfall.  

Cullen gasps. Light catches on the crystalline flakes as they fall, sparkling this way and that. It takes him a moment to realize the snow isn’t stopping – that it isn’t just from the snowflakes she created in her hands, but a constant soft snow falling from the high ceiling. The crystals stick to his eyelashes, blurring the snow and the tree before him into simple twinkling lights before melting without a trace of cold or damp.

He didn’t know she could do that. He didn’t know magic could do that.

He looks back at his friend, and finds her smiling, looking up at her creations. Snowflakes melt as soon as they touch her hair, and the lights reflect warmly against her skin. Even when she’s working with ice, Ariadne burns hot and bright.

She turns to him. “Now I’m going to make you leave,” she says kindly.  

Cullen blinks at her. “You’re not finished?” he asks, astonished.  

Shaking her head, Ariadne flips over her parchment, hiding the remaining enchantments from him, as if he had even a hope of understanding the equations and drawings. “There has to be some surprise for you in the morning.”

Nodding, Cullen stands. “Thanks for letting me watch,” he says. “It’s,” he stops. If he even had words, they’d fall flat and thin, and he finds himself swallowing against a tight and thick lump in his throat. “Thanks,” he says again, hoping she understands it’s for more than the magic.

She smiles up at him, soft and kind, with eyes shining in a way that might be from the dancing lights in the tree, might be from something else.

On a whim, he bends down and presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “Happy Solstice,” he says.  

Ariadne reaches up and gives his hand a gentle squeeze. “Happy Solstice,” she says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sleep well,” he says, and begins to walk away. Snow falls quietly around him, and darkness grows as he walks farther from the tree.  

He stops at the doors and looks back. Ariadne sits still, back straight and shoulders strong, silhouetted by her own bright lights. Something inside of her shimmers and glows, and the faint scent of peppermint and a warm inviting fire hangs in the air.  

A gust of wind blows through the Hall, swirling snow around him, politely encouraging him to continue on out through the door. Laughing quietly, Cullen pulls the doors shut behind him and leaves Ariadne to her magic and her surprises for the morning.