so long, my luckless romance; any

[leliana]

I waited for something and something died
so I waited for nothing and nothing arrived

Leliana doesn't notice when Heartfire or Ashley leaves, not really. She feels a twist in her gut when she watches the mare sidle up to Dovev, whisper in his ear, but she ignores that. Ignores all of the pain that has been building inside of her and splintering her apart, all of the ways she has let it swell within her. She has been drowning in this, giving herself over and over again, berating herself for things outside of her control. She will die from this love, Ashley had said, and she knows that is somehow true.

She will die from this love, but she is okay with it.

Because before she knows it, they are alone and, for the first time in what seems like hours, she can finally breathe. She inhales deeply and then exhales slowly, time moving like honey as he bridges the gap between them and pulls her close. She folds against him in the only way she knows how, her body so familiar to the sharp angles of his own. Her wings, still mirroring him, shift up and then out, folding over his back as she has done since the first time they lay together, two strangers colliding in the heavens.

Her head turns and her lips find his jaw, tentative because of how much is broken between them, because of how impossible their love is, and yet certain because her love has not been destroyed in this fire but forged in it. "Dovev," she replies, her voice soft, bruised. She is enveloped by him, drowning in him, and she doesn't care. She doesn't care that he is the saltwater rushing into her lungs, because he is the ocean. She knows what to expect. She knows what she loves. He is the stars and she loves him for his brilliance, but she knows that her fingers will be burned and her palms singed until she turns to ash and dust.

She loves the wild in him, the sweet agony, and if he is the dagger she dies upon, so be it.

There is joy that melts with anguish as she tastes him, as they hold one another like glass, as her velvet lips roam over the edges of his armor. So many have seen these angles of him, so many have felt the sharp cut of his desire, the fury of his burn. Her mouth finds his throat and then drops to his chest, lingering there above his heart. How many have known this though? That is what she craves the most.

"You are not nothing," she finally whispers, looking up so that her hazel eyes can find his own.

"You are everything to me."

it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end