don't know what I'm supposed to do; chaol

[leliana]

I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

She wants to seek him out, to find comfort in his steady friendship, but she cannot bear to face him.

She cannot bear to look him in the eye and try to hide away the way that she has been hollowed out, the way that her heart has shattered and the pieces of it have been used to scrape away at her insides. She knows that she still bears the marks of Vulgaris, of her husband. She knows that her wing remains battered and the wounds are still fresh at its base where he bit down to hold her still, where the flesh parted and her blood flooded into his mouth. She knows all of this and so she hides away.

She struggles to eat, to drink, to sleep.

She struggles to do anything, except pretend around her daughters.

For them, she is able to put on a brave face, although it falters around the edges. She kisses them and ignores the curious eyes that the slide toward her shoulder, her wings. She tells them stories and sends them on their way, at least content to know that Vulgaris was no risk to them. He wouldn’t harm them.

She was a different matter entirely.

But he wouldn’t hurt their daughters.

Today, her daughters are off on an adventure, and she retreats to the shadows. The skin is taut around her face, although she has not yet lost the weight she will surely lose on this path. But it is not the sharpness in her cheekbones or the fresh wounds on her sides that tell the story of her despair. It is the dullness in her eyes and the way that the fire she always carried, that she always buried so deep in her soul has gone out. Her fingers fumble around her strength, and for the first time through everything, she feels lost.

@[Chaol]

i kind of thought it would be fun to end the current thread and pick up a new one after what happened between vul and her because i am Very Dramatic.