For all of its scars, Leliana’s heart should be more guarded than it is. 

Perhaps she is foolish. 

Perhaps she should hide it away, lock it up, keep it safe. Perhaps she should not let it leap into her throat whenever she sees the scaled stallion walking up or when she feels the beginning rustles of their child growing in her stomach. Perhaps she should be wise. 

But she is not. 

She cannot be. 

Vulgaris agreed to take her home and while she has come to embrace the wild beauty of the land, the truth is that she has made his heart her true home. Every second with him, she sinks further and further into his embrace—ignoring the pain of that which he hides away, that which he does not share. In his presence, she smoothes over the edges of her worry. 

She is grateful, she reminds herself, for whatever he can give. She is grateful for the sweetness, the tenderness, the softness in his hard-angled face. She is grateful for the tidbits that he shares and the calm she finds with her cheek against his back. 

She wants more, but she doesn’t ask for it. She wants to unfold the map of his heart and trace the constellations within it. She wants to know all of the different shadows and caves and dark corners. She wants to know the sharp edges. The haunted pieces. The places where she can knick her finger and draw blood. The places that could gut her. 

He holds such truth back from her and so she mourns, but only in private. 

Such as this morning, when the winter air bites and the sky is grey. Her lovely face is calm but inside, storms rage. Old wounds break open. Fears begin to permeate her mind. All of the different ways that he could destroy her. All of the ways she could break along his fault lines.

All of the ways that she would let him. 

In some ways, she is in love with a shadow. With the smoke of him. She reaches for him but grasps onto nothing, leaving a bitter ache in her stomach. It sinks deep and it’s only when she feels the smallest kick of their daughter that she is able to pierce the veil of her own fear. 

She cranes her neck to look at the rounded edges of her stomach, fuller now and clearly showing signs of child. It’s enough to bring a dreamy smile to her face. 

To remind her of what he has given her. 

Crimson wings of down turn to crimson wings of snake, and they rest across her back as she tips her head to look to the stormy sky. This was enough, she thinks. 

It has to be.

I’m gonna stand here in the ache until the levee on my heart breaks

Her heart leaps when she senses him near and then plummets when she turns to see him. His face, beautiful and hard-edged and sharp, is torn apart—the wounds puckered and fresh and written across his features like a storyline. She nearly reaches for him with her gift, the golden light of it pooling in her chest and aching to reach out, but she holds back at the glint in his eye, the steeliness to his voice. Something has changed. Something is different.

She pulls back and watches him, listens to his story, and although her healing stays coiled in her breast, she cannot bear to do the same. She reaches for him, the crimson of her lip sweeping across his forehead and down his cheek, the dried blood flaking off at the motion. She lingers against his jaw and then traces the angles of him, a soft hum building in her throat.

“Shhh,” she murmurs, her voice lilting and soft. “I know who you are.” She finds his gaze and holds it, intentionally looking at him in the eye. “Even when you do not share with me, I know. I won’t ask you to change.” The corner of her mouth curves into a sad smile. “I love you as you are, Vulgaris. I am not afraid.” She knows that he is a predator. She knows that his heart beats for things that she will never understand. She doesn’t understand the drums of war that beat in him, but she knows enough to know that it’s that predatorial hunger that makes him who he is.

She would sooner strip a lion of his need to hunt.

“I see you,” she whispers, “and I love you.”

Even if it doesn’t feel like enough. Even if it feels like such a meager offering, she places it at his feet. And in this moment, pierced by his gaze, her heart in her throat before him, she doesn’t think of her encounter with Dovev. She doesn’t think of the way his mouth has claimed her. Of the ache that he had opened in her heart. Of the wounds made fresh once more.

Until she hears Vulgaris growl.  

Until dark promises blossom in the air between them.

“No,” the word is choked and her insides turn cold. “He’s a ghost from my past.” She can’t bear to tell him that he is the ghost that stripped her clean. That her encounter with him is what led to the scars on her cheek and shoulder—the same scars that engulfed him with such anger before. She cannot bear to tell him the way her heart split at seeing him again.

All she can do is stand before him, hazel eyes pained, and hope that it’s clear that she is here with him. That she made a choice for him, for their daughter, for a life and a love that she has always wanted and somehow still feels impossibly out of her grasp.

I’m gonna stand here in the ache until the levee on my heart breaks

There is something beautiful that blossoms between them, but something dangerous. She recognizes it for the viper it is, recognizes the knife to her throat—the blade she holds so willingly. She invites it into her chest, pulling the poisoned air into her lungs and letting it simmer. There is part of her that tells herself that this time it will be different. This time, it will last—he will not tire of her. He will not find another to warm his bed—worse, to warm his heart. She tells herself that he will be true. That his love was rooted.

But there is another part of her.

A part that has been shattered and pieced back together but never made whole. A piece that was made all the worse for her recent interaction with Dovev. A piece that warns her of the gun to her temple, of the way that he will bleed her out and the way that she will let him. It’s enough to cause her to tremble. It is enough to cause her heart to constrict in her chest, all of her worst fears spreading like poison.

Still, she keeps it at bay—reminds herself to be grateful for what he does give, what he can give.

She just presses her forehead into the battered angles of his neck and breathes him in, tries to press the memory of him within her so that she can remember what it was like to be loved by him when he leaves.

“I’ve had my fair share of violence,” she whispers, her voice steady despite the agony curling within her. Then she is shaking her head, frustration causing tears to form in the corners of her eyes. She was so tired of others interpreting what she wanted. She was so tired of being denied because of what others assumed she needed. “I don’t need beautiful,” her plea is soft and laced with anguish. “I don’t need what you think I deserve.” She presses into him, her mouth shy as it reaches for his jaw, as it lingers, as it begins to trace down his face and down his neck, hungry and soft, tasting the angles of him, hungering for more.

“I just want you, Vulgaris. I want all of you.”

A pause, guilt simmering at the demand, as she softens it.

“I want everything you're willing to give.”

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

Perhaps theirs was not a love to stand the test of time. Perhaps it will crumble beneath the pressure of all the demons that stand screaming at the door. Perhaps one or both will fall beneath the weight of a loves from their past, the pressure of them too much for mortal spines to bear. Perhaps, but she doesn't know. Right now, with his mouth on her and his emotion blossoming so tenderly between them, she doesn’t care. They are the only thing that matters—the only thing that could feasibly ever matter.

Them and their precious child, growing steadily with each passing day.

At his request, she just sighs, the sound impossibly sad in her mouth, because she knows what it is like to fear losing that which you love. She knows what it is like to cling to the sun and watch your fingers crumble as they try to hold onto it. She knows, and she recognizes the fear in his own voice. So she doesn’t rebuff him or dismiss his worries. She just presses her kisses into the hollow of his throat, into the dip of flesh where his mouth begins. “I won’t leave,” she promises, although she has no way of knowing what way the future will unfurl around them, which way they will be rooted or set adrift.

“I’m yours,” she promises again, pressing that into him. “I’m here.”

She sighs again at his promise, but it is a happier noise this time, something about the moment settled so that she ruffles her wings in contentment. She wants to draw this out forever. She wants to sink into it. She wants to forever remember how happy and at peace she is now with the feel of his scaled shoulders against her and the taste of him on her tongue. And she wants to wash the heaviness away.

Taking the smallest steps away, there is a new light in her eyes, a joy she intends to linger in.

“Vulgaris,” his name is sweet on her lips, “would you like to take a swim with me?”

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