will you rail against your dying day; isilya

[leliana]

I rise from my scars. nothing hurts me now.

Leliana often finds herself near the River. There is something in the churning of the current, in the way that the winds slap up against the bank, that brings her back to a quiet place within her—a seed of something like normalcy that feels stabilizing. So much of her life is spent in the darkness of the unknown now that she can hardly ever find her feet beneath her. So much of her life is spent just trying to keep her head above water, trying to clutch onto the core of herself before the magic burns it all away.

It has already disintegrated her family. Drawing the battle line between herself and a man she had once considered her partner in all things. Leaving her children spread far and wide. It has left her isolated, even when surrounded by allies or those she considers wise council. And, perhaps, what is worse is the way that the isolation hardly reaches her. The sharp edge of loneliness can barely carve its way through the shield that she has erected around herself, that heavy cloak of justice and fury and the unknown.

It leaves the normally calm, steady woman vulnerable to a turbulent fire within her breast. 

A chaos that leaves her ears ringing, her pulse racing, and it drives her, ultimately, to the river. 

She stands before it now, the stars having long since hung themselves in the night sky, breathing in the smell of the passing storm and the water beneath. She can feel the moss and grass begin to grow toward her, and she closes her golden depthless eyes, the glow of them shuttered as she just focuses on breathing. 

When she feels the grass begin to sway toward another, caught between the headwinds of two who channel their gifts through it, her eyes open again. Her lovely face comes down and angles toward the darkness, to where the mare of plants and magic comes. For a second, a shadow crosses her features, but it is washed away as a neutral expression instead. She considers extending an invitation, but instead she merely breathes forward a gust of wind, the warm air laced with honey and flowers as it moves to wrap around the coming magician. It is the only introduction she needs; the only language they know.

@[Isilya]