let me steal this from you now, leliana

[Khuma]

i'd break the back of love for you.

It’s Wane’s turn to babysit their egg and so she ventures out to stretch her legs for a while. Occasionally, she shivers, and the feeling causes her shimmering scales to cascade along her body. She eyes them all curiously as she passes by them. A faint smirk rests pleasantly her lips as the tall grasses brush along her skin. The trees have shed their leaves and they reach, naked, for the gray sky above them. This is her favorite time of year. The way her breath puffs from her lips with each delicate breath mesmerizes her for a while.
 
Until she sees a girl with serpentine wings all glittering against her tired body. She thought she could pick out most of her remaining siblings but it seemed she was mistaken. She and Kerrigan used to make a game of it and laugh cruelly at the other rejected offspring who took it personally. They were all cast aside in favor of the golden family, she used to think. Anadil told them from a young age that their father would never come looking for them and they accepted it. (It hurt so badly at first, of course, but time gifted her with a calloused heart.)
 
So she wanders closer, eyes flicking from rich hazel-brown to vibrant green with a sliver of a pupil watching the stranger. Her coat sheds along her shoulders and hips in favor of the pearlescent and blood red scales. But she keeps her teeth. Fangs never made for warm introductions.
 
“Are you one of us?” she asks with a slight tilt of her head as she examines Leliana’s body closely. She’s got a kind face that lacks the sharp lines of Khuma’s father. No, she’s something new and different. How exciting.  Kerrigan would be so envious that Khuma had found another red serpent in their midst, so she makes a note to mention it next time she sees her.
 
“I’m Khuma,” she explains as she finally brings her gaze to meet Leliana’s. She only vaguely resembles Vulgaris and Shiya – namely in the quiet danger lurking behind her eyes. But that primordial need to consume and conquer coils, twisting itself deep within her all the same.

khuma.

@[leliana]

[leliana]

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

Would she ever learn to live with this?

Would she ever learn to breathe again?

She doesn’t feel like it. Not now.

Her lungs feel too small, her head light from the missing oxygen. Her wings pressed to her side are deceptively serpentine, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, she can sometimes trick herself into thinking that it is Vulgaris. She can close her eyes and feel the weight of him, his head draped over her neck, his lips pressed so sweetly to her throat. She can feel the way his heart sounded thrumming in his chest. She can feel the way his pulse slowed when he slept, when his defenses finally lowered and she could spend hours tracing the edges of his sharp face, the discontent and anguish swept away.

But still, these wings are all she has of him and in some strange way, she clings to it. Clings to it even though it is a blade that presses into her belly even as it comforts her. She lets the weight of them wrap around her belly, protecting that which grows within her even now. She lets it hold Adna close at night, giving the girl some protection, some reminder of the father that is coming any day now.

Oh lord, how is she going to tell Adna this?

The thought nearly breaks her, this reminder that she can’t keep up the facade forever, but she is stripped from her own thoughts by the approaching mare. Her breath catches in her throat at the familial resemblance, the serpentine features and alien grace with which Khuma moves. For a second, her face is split open and vulnerable, awash with the agony of the moment, but Leliana quickly pushes it to the side, wiping her expression clean. Something still lurks in the corner of her eyes, bruises that mar the depths of it, but she does her best, crimson lips pulled into a shadow of a smile. “I’m no one’s,” she replies quietly, thinking that it is both an answer to the mare’s question and a reminder of Vulgaris’ rejection.

“My name is Leliana.”

At her sides, her wings shift, turning to unique shade of Khuma’s scales before morphing into the familiar red down of her youth, the feeling alien against her—a reminder of a girl she no longer is.

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

@[Khuma]

[Khuma]

i'd break the back of love for you.

She remembers crying when Tatter left. God, she fell to pieces when Zed stole her sister away from her. The whole world crumbled between her fingers and she could never gather all the pieces to put them back together again. All her kindness went dormant within her and kept itself slumbering beneath the weight of all her lamentations. Now it’s impossible to tell she ever felt a thing other than her smiles with too many teeth.

Khuma leans her face closer and breathes the stranger in, watches with wonder as her wings change to mimic the fallen queen. A soft laugh even finds its way through the ink black of her insides toward the light of day. I’m no one’s. The response makes her smile fade and she regards Leliana more seriously now. Not one of their clan, then. Just a girl with a heavy heart. Slowly, all that softness stretches from its hibernation. It sheds the ice and silence that kept it tucked away. She hates it, but she’s always had a soft spot for bleeding hearts.

“Leliana. We all belong somewhere,” she coos so close that her breath wisps across the pregnant woman’s cheek. Her voice has grown gentle. She used to tell Varus these things when he wept at night. “For me, I belong with my sister. I don’t know where she is but our hearts have always had a way of returning to one another.”

And it’s true. She rests easy knowing that Kerrigan will find her way back home, until the twins can raise their children together once more. Her wild emerald eyes watch the way her wings change again. Khuma resumes her usual distance and shifts her weight, looking out over the meadow for a moment as she digs her way through her memories. Her scales burrow back beneath her skin and the hazel-honey of her eyes returns once more. All her happiest memories were spent with her true face looking out at the world, after all.

“Why did your wings look the way they did?” she asks idly, unaware that her question could summon anything from the well of hurt digging its way into Leliana.

khuma.

@[leliana]

[leliana]

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

There is enough softness in the other mare for Leliana to open up, blossoming beneath the warmth like a rose, her hazel eyes peering up at her, studying the lines of her face. “I have a sister,” she says quietly, her heart thrumming in her chest at the thought of Exist, at the need to find her twin and curl into her side, pressing her chest to her sun-warmed back like they did as children. “I know what you mean.”

But before she can say anything else, the mare is stepping away again, her body shifting ever so slightly to hide the serpentine elements that are at once so painful and so comforting. How could she ever explain that to this mare? How could she tell her that the things she longs for are always the things that kill her? That she loves things that could never love her back, not as she wants to be loved.

She always tricks herself into thinking it will work, that she will be happy.

She is such a fool.

The mare’s next question causes her to take a sharper intake of breath and her brow furrows in thought, it taking considerable willpower to keep her wings from slipping back into that now familiar form. “They look like my daughter,” she gives a half-truth, a shadow of a smile curving the edges of her mouth, but even that small bit of deception bites at the back of her mind. “They look like her father,” she says on a sigh, feeling vulnerable with even that small defense stripped away from her. She cannot stop the way that her eyes bruise at the mention of him, the way the corner of her lips turn down in the corner.

“Vulgaris,” it feels like a small relief to say his name aloud, and she cannot decide if she wants to sink into it or drown in it—and whether or not there’s even a difference. “They look like Vulgaris.”

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

@[Khuma]

[Khuma]

i'd break the back of love for you.

Her maternal instincts remain firmly in place despite her distance from her incubating egg. It tugs at the walls she's built around her kindness, searching for the loose bricks to make them crumble when Leliana says she has a sister as well. The words foster a foundation for some trust to be shared between them. She thinks of how she and Kerrigan used to shift together, knotting themselves around one another and laughing at the mess they made of themselves. When Mother left, they stayed huddled close together until their knobby knees filled out into strong legs. They tore down anyone who meant to bring them harm and together they were invincible. Or so she thought.

She watches Leliana when she begins to explain, lets the lies pour between her fingers until the truth lands in her upturned palm. Like her father. Khuma’s head tilts curiously, almost too far as she waits for the words to come out of her mouth. Father was dead, buried in the sand, which meant only one could sire more serpentine offspring anymore. The prince of the prized brood, she thinks as she grits her teeth. Anadil had taught her which siblings were to be avoided, lest she tempt Father’s rage. She carved their names into her heart and let the wounds fester there. She and Kerrigan were greater than any spawn he had with his queen.

“How blessed, to know the golden family,” she says with a slight frown on her lips. “How blessed and how cursed.”

But she likes Leliana. She doesn’t want to rub salt in her wounds, so she sighs slowly to soothe her own frustrations.

“Did he ever tell you about his parents, his brothers and sisters?” she asks as she steps closer again. She begins to gently fuss with the stray hairs of Leliana’s mane as she used to with her children, smoothing the locks into place with her lips. “Mother said Kerrigan and I were born the same year as Vulgaris. She pointed him and Father out, told us to never approach them. The chapter of his life that included us was over and he had returned to the woman he loved.”

She can still recall how much it hurt to hear the words but she obeyed them. Khuma learned to be content with what she had, knowing that entertaining her greed for her father’s attention could spell death for her. Anadil used to scare the girls with stories of how Larva ate the children who displeased him until they stayed up all night watching for him in the darkness. But she says nothing else. Those are stories for another day. This moment is for Leliana, whether she’s the true love in this story or the abandoned mother.

khuma.

@[leliana]

[leliana]

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

Leliana relaxes into the woman’s embrace, letting it slip like bathwater over her wounds.

She sighs softly as she melts into the woman’s touch, letting her work through her mane, her voice so soft and kind, despite the vicious truths that she unearths. Leliana has no way of knowing what she means when she talks of the golden family—has no way of knowing that Vulgaris’ father had torn apart another the way Vulgaris had torn her apart. So she just frowns at the off-handed comments, staring at the ground in thought, concentrating on the steady thrum of her pulse in her throat as a calming force.

Leliana shakes her head softly when she asks if Vulgaris had told her of his family. “He didn’t share much,” she confesses, the words peeling off her with no little pain. She had always wanted Vulgaris to tell her more, to entrust his darkest parts to her, but she always felt him withhold. At first, she had felt herself thrash against the barriers between them, but she had eventually quieted, eventually accepted it as a price to be paid to be loved by him. Perhaps if she had fought harder. Perhaps if she had tried harder.

She listens quietly as Khuma continues, barely moving beneath her touch, but inside the storms begin to unleash. Pieces of her shatter beneath the pressure of the words, buckling under the weight.

Perhaps this was always his plan.

Perhaps he had never intended to love her forever.

Perhaps he had never loved her at all.

Her eyes close as she takes a steadying breath, wishing she could heal herself of this, wishing that her own golden light could wind its way through her heart to ease these bruises. But she knows better. She knows that these are scars that must be born. So instead of turning from it, she faces the worst of it, forcing herself to face the word that causes so much pain. Staring at it like blinding herself with the sun.

“Shiya. Do you know who Shiya is?”

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

@[Khuma]

[Khuma]

i'd break the back of love for you.

Khuma only knows what she’d been told as a child, half-truths and omitted details to spin the stories how her mother liked them. She always put a blind sort of faith in Anadil and trusted that what she said of Larva had been true. The serpent girl assumes that the reason Leliana never knew their family’s history was because of the gruesome details. In truth, it was a more beautiful story than either of them may ever realize, dark chapters and all.

She watches the horror trickle over Leliana’s face and she frowns, realizing how much her words must have hurt the other. It’s so easy to forget how unprepared others might be for these things after the time she’s had to digest it all. But then comes a question that makes her grit her teeth, a question that sounds like nails on the chalkboard to her. Khuma gently tucks the last untamed lock into her new friend’s mane as she moves in front of her. Their eyes meet and she searches Leliana’s gaze for a while before sighing slowly to herself.

“Yes, I know who Shiya is,” she answers in a bitter tone, spitting once the name leaves her tongue. “She’s our older sister by one or two years. Why?”

She resumes her careful stare as she tries to find meaning in Leliana’s expression, searches for some hidden truth that she doesn’t know. Khuma had always regarded Shiya as a spineless, sniveling thing to be abhorred and avoided. If her half-sister hadn’t been born then Larva might have never been her father. She might even have a normal family with loving parents who didn’t terrify their children just for fun.

But the damage has been done and so she lives with the weight of all that has come to pass. She begins to entertain the idea of hunting her siblings as their father had, wiping out the mistakes and the children who should not be. Kerrigan had always stayed her hand but now her precious sister isn’t here to cool the heat of her anger. There is only Leliana and her story of agony to fan the flames.

khuma.

@[leliana]