this is the first day of my life; leliana

[leliana]

I see a ghost out on the water; I swear it has my face
I bend and drink the lonely down, the lonely down

Would he think lesser of her if knew what a scarred thing she truly was?

Would he think of her as a broken, used toy to know about the way she had been hollowed out? She had been but a girl when she had been swept away by the dark—what felt like forever turning inside out and leaving her utterly alone. She had handed her heart away so easily, so eager to lose herself into something that had felt epic only to find it rotten from the inside out. It had left her scarred and alone—shattered. It had taken years to pull herself back together, to bring even the semblance of wholeness back to herself.

Would he think less of her to know her scars?

She cannot bear to ask him, cannot bear for him to know all the ways that she has broken along the craggy rocks of empty love before—giving her heart to a man who had never picked her first. Giving her heart to a man who had turned from her and warmed his bed with so many others. She had never been enough.  

It almost causes the breath in her throat to catch, all of the ghosts crawling out and into her flesh, but his voice banishes them, opening the windows wide and letting the light pour in. She tilts her chin up to him, watching the shadows cross his features, the scales of him shimmering beneath the moonlight. He is beautiful, she thinks, but it feels foolish to tell him this. It feels foolish to tell him that she feels more whole in his presence than she has in years, that he somehow manages to beat back her demons.

It feels foolish to admit this aloud.

His question, accepted as only truth by her, makes her pause, her lovely face contemplating the words, turning them over in her palms so that she can consider them from all sides. But she doesn’t have the time because he’s there again as they stand chest to chest and his mouth is roaming her shoulder. She shudders once, closing her eyes as she feels the barest hint of fang and is reminded of the danger he brings.

He could tear her apart.

He could be the end of her.

Still, she cannot tear herself away. Instead she curves her neck and presses her cheek to his back, resting on the serpentine curves of him. “Vulgaris,” his name escapes her again, whispered like a confession into him. The emotions rise within her, confused and muddled and beautiful, and she struggles to pick them apart, to understand how quickly he has made her come undone. “Why do you feel like home?”

She answers his question with one of her own, exhaling softly.

Don’t break me, she wants to plea, but it is a silly, selfish thing to ask, so she folds it away. Instead, she just rests against him, inviting him into a glass home that has shattered so deftly before.

I’m gonna stand here in the ache until the levee on my heart breaks

@[vulgaris]