to see where it is that you’re taking my heart; vulgaris

[leliana]

Leliana

baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

The moment is almost too much—almost more than she can bear.

It rises in her throat. Splinters along her bones. She feels the warmth of it in her chest and she wants to soak it in for all it’s worth—wants to let it light her nerves on fire. Vulgaris meets her halfway, dragging her against him, and she cries out softly, something like joy, something like relief breaking on her tongue.

“My heart,” she whispers from where her lips rest against him, where they trail up his scaled neck, finding all of the strength in the angles of him. He tastes like home, like reaching port after a storm at sea, and it would be difficult to peel from him were it not for the equal gravity pulling her to her daughters.

They have both grown since they last time she saw them and the regret for what she’s missed twists her heart, but she doesn’t let it rise to meet her eyes. When Sabbath murmurs that she had missed her, Leliana’s smile grows soft and she reaches over to press her lips into her child’s cheek. “I missed you more, my beautiful darling. I missed you terribly.” She pulls back so that she can look at the three of them, standing straighter than before, eyes clear. “But I have such wonderful stories to tell you all.”

Her voice drops mischievously as she looks at the girls.

“Your mother went to the very edge of the world—to the coldest place you can imagine.”

She twists the story deftly in her hands, taking the harsh elements of it and softening it for their young ears. “It was where the snow glittered in the sun, like your scales, and buried the world beneath its weight.” She pulls up, looking at Vulgaris, and perhaps he can see something else in her eyes—perhaps he can see the pain of the story. Where the ice sunk into her bones so that she thought she may never warm again. Where the cold froze the branch in her mouth, cracking her flesh and ripping her lips open.

But the flash of it is gone as quickly as it comes.

“I will tell you everything, my hearts. I promise.”

Surprise and then confusion curl her crimson lips down in the corner as she looks to Vulgaris, noting the nervousness in his eyes, replacing the suspiciously mischievous smile that had been there but a moment prior. “A surprise?” She glances around. “A skeleton man?” Her voice is slow, cautious.

“I don’t understand.”

Because the only one she knew who fit that description was Dovev—

and why would he be here of all places?

but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek

@[vulgaris]