I’m gonna stand here in the ache; vulgaris

[leliana]

I see a ghost out on the water; I swear it has my face
I bend and drink the lonely down, the lonely down

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

Omg no. Don’t change a thing. It is peeeeeeerfect. Like you and him. <3

@[vulgaris]