Leliana may envy Rae but she would likely never understand her. Her entire life, she has been the grounded one. She has been quiet and reserved and so deeply invested in the homes and lives she has been given. She was the still waters next to the raging fire of her sister and when Exist sparked into life and pulled down the heavens, Leliana was a quiet shadow behind her—loving deeply but quietly.
Regardless of everything that has swirled around her throughout her life, that has remained the same.
Even in this impossible chapter, the core of her remains so grounded.
But she does not pry into the mare’s mind or try to pull her apart like a puzzle piece. Instead, she merely enjoys what she can see and appreciate the whole of her. She smiles softly. “It is easy to have roots,” she thinks, but then corrects herself. “It can be.” Because getting roots wasn’t the problem so much as keeping them. Keeping them took work and focus and sacrifice; it took nurturing and protecting.
How strange that something that could feel like an anchor could also feel so precious.
How strange that it could feel like a prison and a blessing.
“I have had several homes throughout my life,” she thinks. First, Tephra with her sister and her uncle. Then Loess with Vulgaris and their family. Then this very River when he had driven her out of their home. Then the Pampas when the plague hit and the Island when she was running from her past. “But I have returned to Tephra—to the home of my childhood. I fight to dig my roots deeper every day.”
Because if she is to be a good Queen, and a good protector, then she needs to be grounded first.
And it is only now, in this conversation, that she truly understands that.
it's only you and me there until the darkness calls
let's face the dawn together; we'll brave whatever comes
@[Rae]