so long, my luckless romance; any

[leliana]

I waited for something and something died
so I waited for nothing and nothing arrived

For everything Leliana is feeling, overcome by, the one thing she does not feel is animosity. Even if this mare were to tell her everything, even if she were to whisper the sweet things Dovev has said, or the way that he held her, she could not feel anger toward Heartfire. Perhaps Leliana is foolish, but she is incapable of it; her heart beats too steadily for others for her emotions to turn so dark, so vengeful. So her eyes don’t sharp with anger or distrust, although the pain in them runs deep, the bruises in her chest aching.

This was everything she knew was coming—everything she knew in her bones. For a moment, a brief and splitting moment, she considers lying—if only to protect herself. Lying because all of this was so much easier when she pretends that she does not love him, that she has not sacrificed her heart to him, that the first moment he cradled her did not steal her away. But, like her kindness, honesty is not something she can negotiate away and it’s not a shield she can pick up simply because she feels weak.

She must face this, and she must face it head on. So she frowns, glancing down at the forest earth beneath them, taking a shaky breath to try and steady her nerves. Then she glances up and meets the other’s gaze, her hazel eyes unwavering. “I do,” she confesses, and a weight lifts from her chest, the unspoken words hung out to dry between the two. She doesn’t know why it is relieving to have said it, but she breathes easier, despite the sharp pain in her chest, the shattered glass splintering apart in her veins. She is ready, for whatever Heartfire has to say, for whatever she has to tell her. She is ready to know the truth.

“How do you know him?”

The words are soft and unassuming, quiet as they spill into the air. At her side, her wings shift again, this time to the indigo and peach of her sister, the base of it starting pale and then fading slowly into the blue of her sister. It was comforting to think of Exist here, of her twin pressing into her side. It steels her, readies her, and when she finds the face of Heartfire again, her expression is neutral—calm. Prepared.

it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend
it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end