01-17-2019, 12:31 AM
i could dig myself out of the loneliest of graves for you, could be taken down like a dog that got itself a mouthful of blood and liked the taste, could give myself up belly-up. crane toward you like a heliotrope in the sun.
Despair feels less like himself and more like a cigarette that’s been forgotten, all ash and liable to fall apart at the slightest touch. He watches her shake her head, smile at his humor even when he feels like death is eagerly tracing its fingers along his spine. His ears turn forward when she says it’s all going to be alright. It seems like an empty promise but he’d like to believe her all the same. Despite his exhaustion, her step towards him makes him tense and nearly bristle at the movement, but he steels himself and allows her closer. His small chest rises and falls a little faster as fear drips down his veins.
Her face grows kind as she thinks of her daughters though, a face that assures him she is built out of love and sacrifice as many mothers are. Despair tilts his head at the mention of Adna and a weak smile forms on his lips. “I met Adna. She was with my father, but he pretended not to be my father,” he says, remembering how Dovev tried to shoo him away at first. The memory is cruel and twists the knife in his heart as it remembers how hungry it is for approval, which Leliana offers up readily, even if her eyes hold all their tears in the corners of them.
Her offer comes as a surprise and he finds himself laughing in between coughs, unable to suppress the little sliver of joy that arises within him. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother. I feel like I always am.. a bother..”
His smile tilts, threatens to fall from its place as his question hangs in the air. Leliana could dismiss him and he would leave without another word, grateful just for the momentary lapse in his misery. She has already been such a blessing in his ever darkening days that he really wouldn’t mind if she did change her mind. Despair would simply resume laying in the muddy forest floor while he waited for Shiya to come home. If she ever decided she wanted to see him again, he thinks.
here is the field in my heart that bears your name. here is the whole country, aching and tender,
i named after you. here is my whole entire heart.
i named after you. here is my whole entire heart.