tell me life is beautiful; toli pony

[leliana]

I know what it is but I'm hoping that all is well
no harvest of green but it's still my heart to sell

He burned bright, like her sister, but there was something different to his flame. Where Exist raged and flickered with life, he consumed; Exist danced in the fire, but he was all edge. She could practically feel it rolling off him—the tension, mental anguish, the white-knuckled grip on what he thought was important. She could imagine that there were many who would find him intimidating, even find him frightening.

But when she looked up through her thick lashes, all she felt was sad.

She couldn’t understand him, not really. In many ways, his torment was foreign to her. But she felt her heart bleed out for him and, instinctually, she felt drawn to him. She couldn’t protect him, not the way he was trained to protect, but she could heal him. She could soothe his soul. She could press a warm cloth to fevered brow and a cool hand to warm cheek; in many ways, it was the most primal of protections.

So when he pressed his forehead to her, she sighed gently, the breath fluttering gently from between the crimson of her lips. “Leliana,” she finally offered him, although he has not asked for it. Her voice was fog on her tongue, low and pleasing—distinctly feminine but not high pitched. In many ways, it was like her. She was pleasing to look at, the blend of deep crimson and mahogany, but she had never thought of herself as particularly beautiful. She did not think of herself as much of anything or think of herself often.

“My name is Leliana.”

Her heart ached in her chest—and when he planted small kisses on her neck, something sang in her veins—something alien. She had never been touched like this, never caressed. She was not the type to draw male attention—that was Exist. Her peach and indigo sister with constellations in her eyes and galaxies in her smile. Leliana was content to sit to the side and watch, content to her own company.

Her breath caught in her throat when his teeth pinched throat, but she didn’t move, part of her confused by the turn of events and the other part finding that it made perfect sense. More curious than anything, she reached over, mouth tracing the brutally harsh edges of his face, butterfly lips grazing over the wicked arches of bone that grew there. She found them fascinating, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she just met his gaze with the russet of her own and she held it, studying him from beneath a mess of her forelock.

I put everything I had into something that didn't grow
like going on a wild hunt, shooting arrows without a bow