[private] we are crooked souls trying to stand up straight ||

[leliana]

Leliana has faced sickness before. She has watched the decay as it wraps around her deft hands, watching the cancerous illness dig into a body and rot it from the inside out—but this, this is an alien thing in its power. Her face remains calm, but internally, she can feel her gut churning, fears beginning to rise in the back of her throat. She doesn’t want to show them the extent of her worry; she doesn’t want them to know the fear that they are too late, that they can make him comfortable and nothing more.

She doesn’t want them to know just how bad it is, although she suspects that the once-King already knows, and so she remains calm, her hazel eyes washing over the group, her breathing steady. She reaches over and buries her nose in the wild mane of her sister, taking comfort in the feel of her twin, in the scent that is as familiar as her own. If she was to confront this, she is glad to have Exist here with her.

Perhaps—perhaps it will be enough.

She smiles as Exist introduces them both, dipping her head when she is introduced, and taking a step forward. The healing in her breast begins to uncoil slightly, the golden light of it pooling as it rises from a never deep slumber. “It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs, loud enough that both the stallion and his family will hear it. Leaning down, she runs her velvet lips across his brow and down his sweat-slicked neck. “Just be still.” Her voice is calm, the sound of an ancient river running a path it has long ago memorized, and she begins to hum, the soft lyrical sound of it beginning to build in her throat.

Leliana closes her eyes, shoulder to Exist, and lets the healing loose, unwinding in her veins and reaching for him. She guides it slowly, in tandem with her sister’s magic, letting it root out the worst of the illness. It is long, exhausting work, and she feels her neck beginning to dampen with the effort. She has never had to battle a sickness like this, and she is surprised by the ferocity of it. She wonders if Exist feels the same strain, the way that it seems to rise up and challenge the healing, unwilling to bend to their magic.

She fights a groan that builds in her, exhaustion wearing her thin. Outwardly, the twins are still and quiet, but internally, Leliana wages war. It twists and battles and rails against her, but she presses onward. For each defense that it rises, her battles it down, the golden light pulsing as it races through his veins. She knits together that which has split apart. She staunches wounds where she can. She builds moats around the most vital of organs, reinforcing weakened walls. When she has done all she can, when there is little left for them to do—but so much left to fix, so much decaying even now—she pulls her healing back.

She trembles slightly from the effort and her neck is darkened with exertion, but she does her best to keep the fatigue from her eyes, despite the terror that slithers up the back of her throat. “That should feel better,” she murmurs, lifting her gaze to the two mares who worry over him but saying nothing more.

it started with a perfect kiss, then we could feel the poison set in