to see where it is that you’re taking my heart; vulgaris

[vulgaris]

VulgariS

take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.

Vulgaris has known the cold and kept himself far from its reach whenever possible, braving only the snow that found its way to Loess and the common lands. Sabbath, meanwhile, has only seen the weakest reach of winter and a light powder coating of snow and frost. He wonders if she could even comprehend a place where the world becomes a frozen wasteland, but he imagines she can’t. She only blinks up at her mother in wonder and hangs on her every word as though she reads directly from some bible. Sabbath’s little jaw hangs open until Leliana finds Vulgaris’s eyes, and then she searches her sister’s face for how to respond.

He knows the lines of fear and anguish in her face, memorized them after he crushed her heart to a fine dust between his fingers. He moves forward to touch his lips to hers as though he could kiss the pain from her bones and drink the sorrow into himself somehow. Whatever desolate storm had extinguished hope from her then is gone now, and there is only the thriving warmth of their family. But he keeps quiet and tries to convey it in the way he lips at the corner of her jaw instead, careful not to alarm their girls.

Sabbath wilts briefly, ears turned back in shame when she realizes she wasn’t supposed to tell just yet. Her sweet sage eyes find the knowing smile of her sister’s lips, however, and she tries to resume her previous delight. Vulgaris sighs and shrugs his shoulders with a defeated laugh before nuzzling the younger girl’s face. No sense in hiding it now, he supposes.

“Devevev is visiting us for a whole year!” she says as she watches her mother’s face eagerly. She had practiced the name when her father first taught it to her and yet the letters remained jumbled in her mind. Still, she tried her best and she continues to smile with all her tiny pointed teeth so proudly.

“You asked me to find Dovev. I told him you wanted to know he was safe and he refused, so now he is our guest for one year, or until he apologizes to you,” he says with a short chuckle. As much as he delighted in the idea of making her former lover their prisoner, he would have rather just delivered a message. It seemed like the only reasonable alternative when he declined to even see her. Leliana’s happiness, after all, takes priority over anything he might prefer. “I told you I would do anything for you.”

And then he leans his shoulder against Adna, ignorant of her own secrets. How funny, that one of his daughters can’t keep his secrets while the other is excellent at keeping secrets from him.

@[leliana] @[adna]