it's just what happens when your heart goes ablaze
Leliana knows of Lepis, but mostly only through whispers and whatever information she has been able to unearth through the reach of her magic. It is not a fully-formed knowledge but just the shape of one. It is the shadows of something—a breath of knowing—and she can only begin to guess at the feelings that tangle in Lepis’ chest when she thinks of that ill-fitted war. At the blood that now stains Leliana’s hands, despite all of the best of her intentions. She thinks that she can understand. She watched her husband fall into the volcano. She watched her daughter walk to meet her in the afterlife. She knows the loss.
Still, she also knows the pain that the woman feels now.
She knows what it is to be cast aside. To watch the one that you love morph into something entirely new.
She knows the type of singular pain when it is torn apart in your hands. When it turns to dust.
So she doesn’t shy away when she sees the woman by the river, even though there is a part of her gentle heart that twinges with fear of what will come. Instead she walks slowly up, the flowers blooming in her mane—the crimson of it curling gently around her jaw. “Hello,” her voice is mild, easy. No matter what she has ever felt in her life, she has remained skilled at staying steadfast, at hiding such things.
Her hazel eyes watch the other kindly, looking down at the crushed flower beneath her hooves.
She considers, for a moment, using her magic to revive it, but she restrains.
Let the woman have her outlet, she thinks. Let her have this destruction.
— Leliana —