what if the way we started made it something cursed from the start; vulgaris

[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

It had started sweet—it had started innocent.

He had been still water on a cool autumn night, the edges of him unbothered and calm.

He had simply been there, and it had been easy to trick herself into thinking that the stirring in her belly was nothing. It was easy to trick herself into thinking that this was different—that she was different. But that sweetness has an edge, and it drags out a jagged breath from her when he begins to travel the length of her neck, his teeth pulling at the flesh in a desperate hunger. She pulls in the cold air, her head spinning, as her own blood begins to rise to the surface and smear against the mahogany of her coat.

The wounds quickly heal, the golden light of her gift racing along the edges of her skin and knitting it back together again, but the blood remains, washed against her, leaving the air coppery and bright. She pays no mind to it. She pays no mind to anything but the riptide that he pulls her into, until she is suddenly lost in the urgency of it. She leans against his broad, smooth shoulder, trembling, the delicate velvet of her mouth tentative as it explores him in turn, tracing patterns along his scaled flesh.

This was entirely the same.

This was entirely different.

Her heart swells painfully in her breast, emotions far too fresh for the years that have past sweeping through her—leaving her with an aching nostalgia, a bitter anguish, and an entirely new yearning that curls in her belly. She is raw in her pain and yet endlessly hopeful, and although she knows better than to give herself over to this fresh hurt, she has no way to guard herself from it.

She cannot tell him that her heart is a malleable thing. She cannot tell him that what may be a dalliance for him will forever change her. She cannot tell him that she has never walked this path with anyone before—that she is a relatively young thing, never before a mother.

So she doesn’t.

She keeps such secrets tucked away and instead closes her hazel eyes on a sigh.

Instead she simply nods at his mumbled request, ignoring the twisting of her gut, the emotions that rise like a tidal wave within her. “Yes, Vulgaris,” she breathes his name against him, the promise so clear. A shuttering breath as oil-slick wings rise and fall. “I will love you,” but she cannot utter the last word, she cannot bring herself to say for tonight—because even now, she can feel the columns within her shifting.

But she cannot bear to admit that to him.

(She cannot bear to admit that to herself.)

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

@[vulgaris]

okay, i had to write that, but we really can end it here if you'd like. <3

i'd be happy to pick up another thread somewhere else immediately or wait or whichever you prefer for your muse / vulgaris plotting. (otherwise, i will be entirely selfish with your words.)