the firestarters always get the burns
and the good guys never get the girl
Ilma doesn’t open up in the way he’d hoped, maybe that is so. Her wannabe-friend is not the real problem however; she doesn’t know where to begin. All these things are such a tangled mess in her head that she can’t find what she’s looking for, and she can’t ask of him to help unwind it. And maybe there’s the thing that, if he’s loyal to his kingdom, if she told him all that plagues her mind, he should tell Wolfbane like a good citizen - and she’d rather get a feel of the striped king herself than be talked about. She doesn’t know what Lepis might have said, but it can’t be good. She wonders what Bane thinks of all this.
But not through Vulgaris.
Her question however, hits bullseye, and suddenly a small laugh breaks from her lips as he gets fired away. He’s found a love then, and had a child, a daughter to help him see the light in the world. He can’t stop talking, it seems, and she watches amusedly how he struggles not to overwhelm her white self with the beauty of his baby, and finally focuses on his wife, girlfriend, whatever she officially or unofficially may be. ”They sound wonderful. I hope we can visit one another in our homes again, soon.”
She grins at his joke on himself, and shakes her head. ”I know they say opposites attract,” she offers more seriously, ”But I think you’re cutting yourself short just a little.” After all, even if Leli being everything he was not should be a reason for Ilma to like her - she liked Vulgaris, too. She knew he tried. For that, he gets points too, in Ilma’s book.
And probably in Leliana’s too, judging from what he says about her.
@[vulgaris]