the sweetest sadness in your eyes; contagion

[leliana]

goodbye, my almost lover
goodbye, my hopeless dream --

It was difficult, impossible, for Leliana to discern just where it all went wrong. Was it the moment that she woke up and saw Dovev curled next to her? When she healed him instead of pushed away? Was it when she followed him to Ischia? Slept so peacefully next to him? Was it when she nearly killed herself trying to heal him from the bear attack or when she let herself get swept away in embraces she knew where not hers to enjoy? In hind sight, it all had become convoluted in her head, the threads of the past few months weaving in and out, tightening a noose around her slender throat. They all were killing her, every day.

She wandered, more and more often from Tephra’s borders, but no matter where she went, she found that she was haunted by his face. There was no corner where she was truly safe from it—no place where she had not had a small piece of her dug out and expelled. She settled for the Forest, but stuck to the borders of it, the darkness of night slipping through the cracks and illuminating her with a silvery glow.

When she reached a small enclave, the trees clearing just a little, she came to a stop and tipped her head back to look at the stars as they swam in the constellations above her. The wings by her side shifted without her knowing, turning the same silver as the moon, the feathers gleaming as they pressed to her side, wrapped her in their down embrace. A single tear fell down her mahogany cheek but no more.

She couldn’t wallow like this forever; she couldn't break apart. Somehow, she would need to find a way to piece herself back together, to be strong for Exist. She had seen what had happened when her mother had given herself over to the darkness, and she couldn’t do that to her scattered family.

Leliana swallowed once and then closed her eyes. 

Just one more night to mourn, and then she would heal.

She had to.

leliana

@[contagion]