I think I was blind before I met you; vulgaris

[leliana]

The last year, although stained with sorrow and heart-wrenching reunions, has also been one of immense joy. Perhaps more than she has ever felt. Living here with Vulgaris has been more than she could ever have asked for—more than she could have ever imagined. She no longer frets about that which he withholds, even though she always hungers for more, for whatever he has to give. Instead, she has learned to appreciate the stability that he brings her life, the excitement, the fresh wave of love that rises in her throat whenever he pulls her close. She has spent the year falling for him, over and over again, the sides of her belly swelling with the proof of that love. She has grown content in her pregnancy, awash with a glow that radiates over him and their little girl, this little family that they have begun to create.

Over the last few days, she has begun to feel changes within her, signals to the upcoming birth.

She has stopped traveling as much, keeping to the safe places where she can rest her head, where she can rest when it exhausts her too much. She is there now when the first pains hit, her stomach beginning its rhythmic clenching as the moon reaches its crest. She calls for Vulgaris, the sound throaty and calm, her healing already beginning to pool around and through her. It soothes her, pressing a cool cloth to a fevered brow, and she calls on it now—the golden light of it lacing through her as she brings their girl into the world. She heals herself as she goes, intent on making the world a beautiful, welcoming place, and because of it, it. is an unusually calm birth, beautiful and simple and relatively short-lived.

Her neck is slick with the effort, but her face is serene when she is finally able to turn around and reach for their child, breaking through and watching as the child takes her first gasping breath. The child is damp with birth and her scales shimmer in the milky light of midnight. Leliana’s heart swells in her chest as she recognizes that the girl is the spitting image of her father, serpentine and elegant, and she cries out softly as she reaches for her, worrying over the puffs of hair. It’s everything she could have ever wanted.

Everything.

Leliana is unable to suppress the joy that lights up her face as she watches the little girl begin to climb to her feet, wobbly and unsure, and she looks for Vulgaris. “I love you,” the confession escapes her, swells in her until she’s laughing and shaking her head, a single tear of joy falling down her cheek. “I love you, and I am so happy, Vulgaris.” She leans down to press a kiss to their daughter’s perfect forehead.

“Thank you. Thank you for giving me this.”

it started with a perfect kiss, then we could feel the poison set in

@[vulgaris]