I've never loved a darker blue than the darkness I have known in you

Exhaustion trails her these days. The fight for Warrick’s life, the incident at the river, the request of Dov, the pregnancy that now stirs in her belly once more—it all collides in her chest, seeping into her bones. She does her best to hide it from Adna and Vulgaris, although she has not seem him as much lately as she would like, but it continues to show in the subtlest of ways. She sleeps fitfully. She rises tired. Her face, although still lovely, has taken on a new sharpness, the skin pulled tighter around her hazel eyes. Her ribs are more prominent on her sides now, the shadows of them showing when wings are not wrapped tight.

Still, it is a relief when she finally sees Vulgaris coming.

That is, until it’s not.

The venom in his eyes, the heat in his voice, is enough for her inhale sharply, confusion contorting her features as she studies his face, trying to understand. “Where have I been?” she repeats, the words softer on her tongue, slower, as if she can break them apart and try to comprehend them.  “I’ve been here,” her voice trails off as she’s hit with the second accusation and she takes a step back, her wings turning to a defensive, glinting copper, responding more to her internal reeling instead of any physical threat.

“Do you mean Dovev?” his name slips easily passed her lips, Leliana seeing no reason to lie, no reason to keep anything from him. The wind is soft today, and it plays along the edges of her crimson mane, teasing it as it fits gently from her mahogany neck. “He needed my help. There was a mother—she was hurt.”

Her heart aches in her chest, her mind racing back to that day at the river, the scene that still makes little sense to her, the image of Vulgaris standing over her, Heartfire trailing Dovev down the river. But she can’t apologize for what she is, and she can’t apologize for something she doesn’t understand.

The confusion begins to bleed from her face, but it is not replaced with apology. Instead there is a steely stubbornness, the velvet of her strength showing in the way she lifts her chin.

“I will not apologize for going to heal someone who was hurt, Vulgaris.”

She desperately wants to reach out for him, to find that spot on his chest that feels like home, to hear his heart thudding reassuringly, but she keeps the space that he seems so intent on placing between them. She looks to find his serpentine eyes and holds them, letting silence stretch between them for several breaths before she shakes her head, the silk of her mane cupping her jaw and then falling away once more.

“You shouldn’t ask me to.”

like fire weeping from a cedar tree, know that my love would burn with me

I've never loved a darker blue than the darkness I have known in you

And, like that, her world implodes. The confusion that had crept so quickly into her veins splinters, fractures, pressing metal shards into her flesh until she is nearly crying out with pain. Her lips part on a jagged breath as he continues to toss daggers at her, each one finding purchase in her breast, the wounds opening up beneath his assault. He has never been cruel to her before—not her. He has never turned the edge of his fang her way; if she didn’t know better, she could have assumed he didn’t even have them.

But she knows now.

“Shiya?” She continues to echo his words, letting them sit like stones in her chest, the names of the one she doesn’t know. “Who is Shiya?” But she knows—she knows in her bones. She does. All of the ghosts that she thinks she has suppressed come roaring back into life and she feels her legs nearly buckle beneath her. Suddenly, she is a young girl standing in a meadow, watching Dovev race after the golden stallion. She is a young girl in Tephra, watching the little eyeless girl wander up. She is a young girl and she’s learning that the boy she gave her heart to was never hers to love; there are others, there are others.

There are always others.

She cannot stop the tears that begin to softly fall, silently making their path down the curve of her cheek. She cannot stop the trembles that begin in her spine, the edges of her vision going spotty as she tries to hold onto some semblance of control, some semblance of reality. She wants to fold to the ground and slip into the darkness that now crawls around the edge of her consciousness. She wants to give into the numb, into the tide. But he says their daughters name and it gives her a lifeline, something to hold onto.

“Why weren’t we enough for you?” The question escapes before she can hold it back, and she nearly chokes on the words, the surprising bitterness of them as they cut her tongue. She suppresses the soft cry that builds in her throat at the thought of their daughter, of the way this will break Adna.

Vulgaris is her whole world. Her hero. The earth around which she rotates.

“Wait,” she calls after him, hoping he will stop long enough to hear her. “Adna.” The request builds in her and she swallows the poison down, refusing to think of it fully now, refusing to acknowledge the enormity of it. It’ll break her, if she does. “L-let Adna stay.” The words shake and her stomach twists painfully. “Please, Vulgaris.” His name, once so sweet on her tongue makes her throat close up now, turns to dust in her mouth, ash in her throat as the agony she withholds threatens to slip and overcome her now.

“I’ll go. I’ll leave you alone. But please let her stay.”

like fire weeping from a cedar tree, know that my love would burn with me

I've never loved a darker blue than the darkness I have known in you

He softens, but it does nothing to stem the ache that floods her.

She is already shattered and falling apart and his reassurances do nothing to dull the roar that is growing in her ears. They are just lies, she tells herself. It’s a kindness. It doesn’t matter because the name, Shiya, is already rooted and blossoming thorn bushes in her chest. She feels the prick of each and every thorn on her fingertip and is surprised how each fresh wound hurts so completely on its own. One would think that she would be used to it by now. One would think that this would be a familiar pain, something that she could map with her eyes closed, drawing a finger along the familiar ridges of her own heartache.

But it is new, this time.

It is fresh and she has no defense against it.

The chasm between them widens and still, even now, she wants to race across it. She wants to unfurl her wings and carry herself over it, but she can’t. He pulls her close and she presses her lips to his chest, to taste his pulse one last time, but they are worlds apart already. “Don’t lie to me,” her voice is quiet against him and she aches with it. They've shared so much love in the years spent together and now, the rest of her life unfolds before her, empty and alone. “It makes it so much worse. Please don’t lie.”

Nothing hurts more than the way he rejects their daughter though—because, even if he softens it with his concern, that’s what this is. She feels a blade buried in her belly and it causes agony to spread through her even further as a mother’s rage builds in her throat, the feeling entirely foreign to her. She cannot be mad over him rejecting her, but rejecting their daughter? Pushing their own flesh and blood away? It’s enough for her to tremble with her anger, hazel eyes growing wide. “You should have fought for her,” she says quietly. “You should have fought for them,” because even now, she feels the life growing in her.

You have fought for us, she wants to say, but she can’t ask that of him. But their daughter? That, he should have fought for. He should have moved heaven and earth to keep her at his side.

It’s then that she realizes that she has to protect them. She has to shield them from this.

Even though she wants to sink into this anguish. Even though she wants to cradle this hurt and let it seep into her breast, this isn’t about her now. It’s about Adna, and the beautiful baby that sleeps in her belly. She has to be strong for them. Tears still fall down her cheeks but she forces herself to step away from him, forces herself to draw in a shaking breath, forces herself to stand instead of crumble.

She wants to ask him so many more questions. Why there were always others. Why she could never fill a heart alone. Why, even with a daughter, she couldn’t hold onto a love by herself. But she knows the answer lies within her own inadequacies and she’s not quite ready to face that truth just yet.

So instead she lifts her hazel eyes one last time to trace the handsome angles of his face, studying them, reminding herself of a time that they looked at her with love, with hunger, with loyalty. Reminding herself that she had once been loved. (It will be enough, she thinks, to remember.) And then she begins to turn, stopping with her head angled his way but her eyes averted. “If you change your mind about Adna,” she swallow painfully. “I won’t keep you from her. She’s your daughter. She’s there if you want her.”

She doesn't say the same about herself, because it’s clear he no longer wants her.

Then, without another word, she unfurls her wings, copper turning to crimson dragon, and begins to run before lifting herself into the sky, flying to find her daughter and a safe place for them to rest their head.

Alone.

like fire weeping from a cedar tree, know that my love would burn with me