so long, my luckless romance; any

[leliana]

I waited for something and something died
so I waited for nothing and nothing arrived

They clash and she makes a strangled noise in her throat, a cry as her vision returns to her. She wants to stop them, wants to pull them away from each other, but she is no warrior. She doesn't belong in their world, in this life. So, she does the only thing she knows how to do, sending out the tendrils of her healing magic toward them, letting it wrap around each of them individually and in turn. She may not be able to break them apart but she can, at least, stop them from killing each other in the process.

But, soon, it comes to an end, and she is once again in the middle of them.

Her eyes go blurry and then dark, her vision hijacked as Heartfire begins to show her everything she had once experienced: the pain, the loss, the love. Leliana aches for her, aches for what she has experienced and lost and the love she must have known—but this is not her story. This is not her, and she only shakes her head, crimson wrapping around her jaw as a tear falls down her cheek. "I don't want to fight," she says softly, "and I don't want anyone to fight for me." Fighting meant pain and loss. It meant someone was on the losing end. That's not what she wanted for her love story. Not what she wanted for Dovev.

"My love for him doesn't come with limitations or strings," more silent tears as she turns her head toward the source of the noise, the blue mare before her. "It is free." Even if it killed her. Even if giving it made her life a constant agony. She wouldn't change it. She wouldn't ask for him to change for her. She loved a wild thing, and she had to be okay with it. She had to accept that her love was a river that ran in one direction. She had to accept that one day it would empty her out, leave her as nothing but a dry husk.

She is about to turn to Dovev, to answer his question, when the ginger man comes—and although she cannot see him, she knows his scent, knows his voice. But what he says? That doesn't make any sense. "You know Dovev?" Her voice is quiet, thinking about what she had said to him that night, the sorrow so clearly breaking apart her features. Her face shatters and, finally, finally, everything becomes too much. The realization of Heartfire, watching Dovev collide with her, Heartfire's lesson, the arrival of Ashley. She trembles and sinks into Ashley's side, turning her head into his neck as sobs rack her body.

it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end