I put everything I had into something that didn't grow; dahmer

[leliana]

I know what it is but I'm hoping that all is well
no harvest of green but it's still my heart to sell

As proud as she was of the work she could do, had done, she grows shy beneath his praise, dipping her head down so that her chin skims the slope of her breast. She glances up, regarding him from beneath her thick lashes and smiles kindly, the curve of it barely twisting the edges of her crimson lips.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she says a little breathy, the joy of her task enough to buoy her. She was natural in that habitat. Whatever fears she may have felt or insecurities may have plagued her disappeared when she stepped into that role, the rest of the world disappearing. She was good at healing. She knew it; it was as natural to her as breathing. She could piece together fractures, knit together scars.

She was talented, and it felt good to work with confidence.

Still, it was confidence that was short-lived and short-changed beneath the brightness of his blue eyes, and she finds that she stammers a little at his next question. “Oh, you don’t have to repay me, Dahmer.” She glances away, as if wringing her hands, and then looks back at him. “I didn’t mean to make you feel as if you were obligated to repay me. Consider it a gift. Just a gift between friends. That is okay, right?”

Her smile wavers on her mouth, flickering in and out of existence, her wings at her side responding to the uncertainty and changing from the onyx of his coat to the beautiful teal of his eyes. She rolls her shoulders and then finds his gaze again, smiling a little. She breathes out unsteadily, trying to find her certain of balance, before she settles again, her wings blue and pulled in close to her mahogany barrel.

“It is nice to talk to you.”

A secret that she presses into his hands before she glances down at the ground again.

I put everything I had into something that didn't grow
like going on a wild hunt, shooting arrows without a bow