here we are in the heart of the darkness; Dovev, open

[leliana]

Leliana

baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

It is chaos when she arrives and it is a chaos that does not slow.

Each moment accelerates the moment, each new arrival piling up on one another until she feels that she cannot breathe for it. She closes her eyes and presses all of her focus into her healing, letting it empty from her, letting the golden light of it shoot forth and work its way through the blue mare who struggles before her. There is a cry in the back of her mind that still struggles to hold her in her gaze, that still wants to bend beneath the anguish of memory that comes with her, but she refuses to break beneath it. Just because Heartfire has played such a large role in her own undoing does not mean she will turn from her.

When the second mare arrives, speaking of Dovev with such truths, she bites on her lip to keep the cry from escaping her. She can see the light escape from Luster to attach to Dovev, surrounding him with that gentle glow, and she finally drags her eyes from the two mares curled together to him, studying his face.

Was this always how their story was to go?

Was she always to be there with him and all of those he loves?

To be reminded again and again just how far his affections go?

To be continually reminded of how she was not enough?

She swallows, feeling shame at the greediness of her heart, of the selfishness of her thoughts. She has so much in her life. So much love and life and joy—was she really going to begrudge him his own? Was she really going to make this moment about her and the shattered heart in her breast?

Could she blame these women for loving him and all of his darkness?

She tenses slightly when Heartfire speaks again, pushing Luster with Dovev, talking about their children, the lives in Luster’s rounded belly. She breathes through the pain of it and then everything happens all at once. Heartfire begins to stumble away. Dovev rushes after her. The pink mare shows up and he attacks.

She is confused and heartbroken and exhausted but she refuses to simply stand by and watch the pregnant mare walk into further destruction. She lunges forward, moving near Dovev, close enough that she could touch him, although she allows lets herself press the velvet of her nose into the wicked curve of his neck.

“Dovev,” his name is sweet on her tongue, always so sweet. “They need you. You have to be here. You have to be strong for them.” She fights back all of the other emotions that collide in her breast, that wage war against one another. “These women and these children love you.” She loves him, she thinks, but he is no longer hers to love and she lets that go, lets that fade in her chest until it is just an echo of something.

Her attention is stolen by the mare falling to the ground and she moves past Dovev to Heartfire.

“It’s going to be okay,” she breathes, turning her head to cough before pulling her healing forth again and letting it work though the mare. “I’m here to help.” She begins to work through Heartfire, pressing a balm to a fevered brow, recognizing the agony of childbirth and doing her best to help her through it.

but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek

what's posting order? :|