oh, i fall apart, leliana.

[leliana]

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