so long, my luckless romance; any

[leliana]

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

All she had wanted to do was sleep.

She had come to the forest to try and get away from everything, to try and find a space where she could breath without being smothered by memories. She had come to try and find solace, to find some measure of peace. She had not asked for Heartfire to come to her, to pry into her mind, to ask intrusive questions, to reveal secret relationships to her. She had no asked for Ashley to come and protect her. She had not asked for any of this. All she had wanted was a moment to breathe, to heal, to knit herself together.

She pulls from Ashley as he snarls at Dovev, confusion racing across her features, turns her hazel eyes to Heartfire as she spits venom. By her side, her wings shift, turning from that hard copper to something darker—to obsidian feathers and then onyx leather, the ridges of them shifting to ivory, the places in between spotting with the blue of the constellations. She feels Ashley’s magic twist within her, easing the worst of her hurt, the memories of the ribbons of color in the sky racing through her memory.

“I am not something to be deserved,” she says quietly, her gaze finding Heartfire. The same mare who had ripped her open, who had prodded at her, who had sought her out to pour salt into her wounds. Still, there is no heat in her eyes—there is no malice. She is calm again, the tears drying on her cheeks, her shoulders straightening. She is stronger than this, she reminds herself. She is strong enough to bear this.

Her gaze then turns to the man of ginger. “And I don’t need someone to look out for me.”

It is suffocating, to be in the middle of this, to be pulled down, to have these strangers deciding things for her, pushing and prodding and manipulating her life. She longs for Exist desperately, longs for the shores of Tephra she had so foolishly left behind—for the world she knows, the home she loves.

What a fool she has been to run from it.

But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters because from Ashley her eyes move to find Dovev, standing with a clenched jaw, his body tense, pain apparent in his every muscle. She could hate him, she thinks. She could loathe him for dragging her into this, for igniting this fire in her life that has nearly razed her clean. Those white-hot flames that have incinerated that life she had, that life she had known. But staring at him, studying him, she can’t find it. She can only feel love, can only feel grateful for every moment.

She could have gone her entire life without knowing passion, and yet here it was. This exquisite pain was everything—it brought clarity, sharpness, joy. For every painful moment, there is a counterweight. For every memory she has of him running from her, she has one of him cradling her. For every memory she has of his daughter’s accusing face, she has one of him, crushing her to him. For every barbed word or weighty silence, there is his voice, the way he cradles her name as if it is something precious.

So, no, she cannot bring herself to hate him.

She never could.

“Thank you,” she finally manages, looking at them both. “I know your hearts are in the right place.” Or she hopes they are. She doesn’t know why Heartfire has done what she has done; why she has ripped her open, pressed upon her these truths she didn’t want to know. She doesn’t know why Ashley has comforted her, why he has come to rebuke Dovev. She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care. She chooses to believe that they have good intentions. “But I need to ask you to leave.” Her voice is small, almost apologetic, but she doesn’t waver. She just shifts her attention to Dovev, aching with things left unsaid.

For a moment, her healing reaches out to him, sings through his veins, before she pulls it back and coils it in her chest. It is the lightest of touches, the only way she has of reaching out to him without them seeing, the only way she has of testing the waters. She has no way of knowing if he wants to be with her, if he even wants to face her after everything that has happened, but she has to try—she has to at least try.

“I need to be with Dovev,” a pause. “Alone.”

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