Leliana arrives in Hyaline in the same breath that she decides to visit.

It is quiet, that magical hour of dusk, and she does not expect for others to interrupt. Instead, the woman of red and mahogany and gold sits on the border, glowing slightly as the sun glows on the horizon. She does not know much of this land—other than what she has managed to uncover through her gifts—but she has specific attention on the golden mare who leads this land. Has led this land for quite some time.

Kensa. The name had whispered into her mind as if planted there and Leliana had turned sightless eyes to the land of lake and mountain. The woman was complex, she thinks. She was soft and yet hard on the edges, and Leliana can only think about how many may have underestimated her in her time.

Leliana did not count on being one of them.

She knew just how much strength the mare possessed and just how much sway she held in this new Beqanna. She may sit in the Council for the self-proclaimed sanctuary of the East, but she had ties to places outside of it—and Leliana did not expect her motives or alliances to be so clear cut. 

She doesn’t hold it against the woman though, nor does she pretend to understand her wholly. Instead she just waits, intrigued in spite of herself. The wind catches the edges of her crimson mane and she angles her head toward the side when she hears the sound of hoofbeats. Quietly, she sends out a small wind laced with the sulphur and ocean of Tephra, letting it find the Primarch and wrap around her in welcome.

She considers saying more, introducing herself, but she gives the mare her privacy. Instead she just waits patiently, focusing on the breeze on her back and not on the losses already littered at her feet.
 

Leliana does not need to wait long before the eagle-eyed woman finds her. She rests quietly, stoic even, with her golden eyes washing over Kensa and studying her. There is much about the woman that does not easily meet the eye. There is something about her that is complicated and layered and Leliana imagines that she only shows you exactly what she wants you to see. There’s a lot to be respected in such a thing.

Still, Leliana does not show such thoughts.

She just watches with her mouth pressed into a neutral line, her depthless, molten eyes unreadable as the wind slowly pulls the curled edges of her forelock away from her eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kensa. I am Leliana,” her gaze leaves the mare’s remarkable face to trail to the rest of Hyaline, noting the natural beauty that surrounds them. There’s something about the lake and the land that she speaks to her, and it is not difficult for her to imagine why someone would settle here. In another life, she might have too.

“You are always welcome to come visit,” her voice is quiet but each syllable enunciated so that it is not difficult to understand her. “But no, that is not why I came here today.” The corner of her crimson lips tilt upward into an almost dreamy smile, the expression just barely ghosting on the surface of her lovely face.

“There is much that comes on the winds of Beqanna,” she is almost thoughtful as she finds the mare’s gaze again, both seeing her and seeing through her in the strange way she does since holding onto her magic. “And I imagine you will be a rather large player in the coming days. I am not someone who can boast of unending diplomatic experience, but visiting key players seems to be the wise move, no?”

Leliana finds herself in situations she has not prepared for. Nothing in her years of live have readied her for this kind of life and these kind of needs. Once upon a time, she would only have found herself at the doorstep of a foreign kingdom if she was arriving to help heal their hurt or visit her family. She would only have stepped through their doorway if she was coming as a visitor or a friend or a nurse.

But now there is a heaviness in her chest and a responsibility across her shoulders.

She must grapple with questions she has never tried to figure out before and come to resolutions for problems that she only knew existed in her peripheral. But Kensa does not try to play complex games of the court with her. She is refreshing and honest and Leliana nearly takes a breath of relief before her.

Instead, she remains quiet, all of the trappings of the woman she once was hidden beneath the mask that magic has draped over her brow. “I was one of the many healers taken captive in Loess during the plague.” She doesn’t say such things to stir pity in the other’s breast and she doesn’t imagine that Kensa could be tricked into feeling anything that did not take root and flourish authentically regardless.

“I told them to release any who considers themselves prisoners and to try to right their wrongs.” It was a simple request but a weighty one. Even now, in the back of her mind, Leliana knows that the men and women of Loess would not bend to such a request. It would only stiffen their spine and she mourns it.

“If they don’t,” her voice trails off slightly and a frown crosses her delicate features like a storm. “I don’t know what will happen if they don’t.” Her stomach does not clench with hunger for violence nor does she thirst for blood, but she cannot ignore the dying star of vengeance that sets in her chest. “What would you do, Kensa?” She brings her molten gaze up to study the other mare. “If you were given access to all of the power in the world and knew you had the ability to put an end to cruelty. Even if meant sacrificing love and standing alone. What would you do if you knew you could put an end to such injustice?”

She pauses, feeling the magic simmer and spark.

“Could you ignore it?”

Leliana is quiet as Kensa speaks, her molten gaze subdued as she considers the words. The other woman does not speak lightly nor does she speak foolishly, and Leliana finds that there is a weight to her words. There is something about it that she decides that she likes—a gravity, perhaps. She is clear-eyed in the way that she views the world in all of its shades of grey and it casts a new light on Leliana’s opinion.

She nods after a while, dipping her lovely head down in recognition of what the woman has said.

“I knew that I had not made a mistake in coming here.” There is but the ghost of a smile dancing around her mouth, something that just whispers around the corners of her lips but never anchoring there, never actually pulling the corners up or planting a human warmth. It is just a shadow and it disappears almost as soon as it had shown up in the first place. “You are a wise woman, Kensa.”

Still, Leliana knows there are stones that sit in her chest and she frowns almost imperceptibly as she looks to the horizon and then back to the Primach before her. “I think choice is unspeakably important,” she inhales then. “But no, I don’t believe I have much choice in this.” For the first time in a while, her face cracks, something like the sadness of the girl that she was tinging the corners, seeping through the mask that her magic has woven over her features. “And I wish that I did. I wish that I could stop it.”

She knows exactly what is to come—or, at least, the heart of it.

She knows the hurt and the sacrifice.

But, oh, even she does not know the full extent of what she is to lose.