i feel a bad moon rising | any

[Lepis]

the rain that falls upon your skin it's closer than my hands have been When Leliana steps forward, Lepis stiffens. She does not mean to, doesn’t want to, but there are some habits that never change. Most days, she can stifle them, but today, when the current of her emotions runs faster than the river in front of them, there is no chance of that. But she can soften the visceral reaction with a fragile smile, can force a quiet breath and the tension from her rigid muscles. The red-haired mare hadn’t meant anything, there is no violence hiding behind her worried face. Lepis is sure of this, even amidst all her doubts, and for a moment she just looks at Leliana. She has lost count of the myriad ways she has felt about the other woman, but few of them had been positive. Even know, there is a haze of resentment. Not towards Leliana, not really, but at herself, for being on the receiving end of the pity that she is sure she sees in those hazel eyes. There has been an overabundance of pity in Lepis’ life of late; the sour taste of it – the way it sticks to her – that she cannot seem to rid herself of. Once, hiding the scars had been enough. Now she broadcasts her hurt in unseen ways, and there is no length of mane that that can hide what she wears plain on her face. Wallowing in self-pity seems a natural response, and she has certainly done a good amount of that. Even when Leliana offers to help, her voice impassioned, Lepis only shakes her head. No, she thinks, there is not anything. Nothing can bring her husband back, nothing can cure this hurt. “There is one way to remove the curse,” the dun mare says, and her golden head turns back and forth; this is not an option she can consider. “But could you rip the beating heart from his chest? Swallow it, and accept the curse with it?” Because I cannot, her blue-grey eyes say so plainly. She can’t raise a hand to him, even knowing her husband is no longer anything but a body that the evil wears. Lepis does’nt say it, and yet still she feels the guilt as though she has. “Is that selfish of me?” she asks the river, “that I cannot bear to leave my children? To take both of their parents?” Doubt fill her mind, touches each word, flavors the quiet sigh that precedes: “Maybe I should. Maybe I could, and you could lock me away where I can’t hurt anyone.” Her breath shudders, the thought of captivity far deeper, far sharper than the guilt. Terror, even, dark and rancid. Could she really? She thinks of little Elio, and sharp toothed Celina, the triplets and Marni and Pteron. She could, Lepis realizes. She could, to keep them safe. She would. lepis, comtesse of taiga queen of loess | queen of sylva | queen of the south lover of wolfbane | mother of pteron, marni, tiercal, eyas, gale, celina, and elio

@[leliana]