oh, i fall apart, leliana.

[leliana]

I've never loved a darker blue than the darkness I have known in you

He softens, but it does nothing to stem the ache that floods her.

She is already shattered and falling apart and his reassurances do nothing to dull the roar that is growing in her ears. They are just lies, she tells herself. It’s a kindness. It doesn’t matter because the name, Shiya, is already rooted and blossoming thorn bushes in her chest. She feels the prick of each and every thorn on her fingertip and is surprised how each fresh wound hurts so completely on its own. One would think that she would be used to it by now. One would think that this would be a familiar pain, something that she could map with her eyes closed, drawing a finger along the familiar ridges of her own heartache.

But it is new, this time.

It is fresh and she has no defense against it.

The chasm between them widens and still, even now, she wants to race across it. She wants to unfurl her wings and carry herself over it, but she can’t. He pulls her close and she presses her lips to his chest, to taste his pulse one last time, but they are worlds apart already. “Don’t lie to me,” her voice is quiet against him and she aches with it. They've shared so much love in the years spent together and now, the rest of her life unfolds before her, empty and alone. “It makes it so much worse. Please don’t lie.”

Nothing hurts more than the way he rejects their daughter though—because, even if he softens it with his concern, that’s what this is. She feels a blade buried in her belly and it causes agony to spread through her even further as a mother’s rage builds in her throat, the feeling entirely foreign to her. She cannot be mad over him rejecting her, but rejecting their daughter? Pushing their own flesh and blood away? It’s enough for her to tremble with her anger, hazel eyes growing wide. “You should have fought for her,” she says quietly. “You should have fought for them,” because even now, she feels the life growing in her.

You have fought for us, she wants to say, but she can’t ask that of him. But their daughter? That, he should have fought for. He should have moved heaven and earth to keep her at his side.

It’s then that she realizes that she has to protect them. She has to shield them from this.

Even though she wants to sink into this anguish. Even though she wants to cradle this hurt and let it seep into her breast, this isn’t about her now. It’s about Adna, and the beautiful baby that sleeps in her belly. She has to be strong for them. Tears still fall down her cheeks but she forces herself to step away from him, forces herself to draw in a shaking breath, forces herself to stand instead of crumble.

She wants to ask him so many more questions. Why there were always others. Why she could never fill a heart alone. Why, even with a daughter, she couldn’t hold onto a love by herself. But she knows the answer lies within her own inadequacies and she’s not quite ready to face that truth just yet.

So instead she lifts her hazel eyes one last time to trace the handsome angles of his face, studying them, reminding herself of a time that they looked at her with love, with hunger, with loyalty. Reminding herself that she had once been loved. (It will be enough, she thinks, to remember.) And then she begins to turn, stopping with her head angled his way but her eyes averted. “If you change your mind about Adna,” she swallow painfully. “I won’t keep you from her. She’s your daughter. She’s there if you want her.”

She doesn't say the same about herself, because it’s clear he no longer wants her.

Then, without another word, she unfurls her wings, copper turning to crimson dragon, and begins to run before lifting herself into the sky, flying to find her daughter and a safe place for them to rest their head.

Alone.

like fire weeping from a cedar tree, know that my love would burn with me