and you say that i hurt you in a voice like a prayer, leliana

[leliana]

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

She gives everything she has to give.

Exist finds her, pours herself into her, and she still gives.

She sharpens the edges of her gift and uses it to hollow herself out, uses it to scrape the last bits and pieces of her healing to pour into what she already knows is an impossible task.

And, ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

Because Rhonen still falls underneath their trampling hooves.

His body breaks beneath them and she cries out, horrified, nearly rushing forward if it weren’t for her sister at her side. She screams until her throat is raw, her healing snapping back into her chest, the fog beginning slow and then curling outward, around her legs and into her lungs. She can feel the sickness settle into her like a seed, branching outward with its vicious thorns, digging into all the pieces of her.

The minutes after pass in a blur. The hours are lost.

All she knows is that she eventually ends up near the river because isn’t that where she always ends up? Where so much of her history started, where her family started. Her thoughts turn to Adna and she has to choke back the fear, the hope that tangled impossibly in her throat that her beautiful, brilliant girl would stay where she planted her in Tephra. Magnus would look after her, she thought. She would find some way to send word to her daughter that she was safe, that she was okay, and that she needed to stay away.

She couldn’t risk her. She couldn’t risk spreading this.

Her wings tighten around her belly, and she thinks of her unborn child—

No.

Not today.

She couldn’t think of what may happen to her child. Not now.

She shudders with suppressed fear and turns her eyes to the raging waters just as Vulgaris comes charging across it. Her exhausted heart leaps at the side and she crashes into him, letting him draw her near. Her lips crawl over his chest, tasting his heartbeat as she has done so many times before, and tears slip down her face. “Vulgaris. Vulgaris.” She tastes the familiar salt on her tongue and her heart hammers in her throat at the nearness, but it is only for a second—maybe two—before reality crashes around her.

She feels the trembling in her limbs, the feverish heat to her skin, the couch in her lungs.

She pushes him away with a force that surprises her.

“No,” the word sputters on her tongue. “No, you have to stay away, Vulgaris.”

His words cause her to flinch and she looks down. “I’m sick.” She glances back up from beneath the curtain of her forelock. “I’m going to try to get better—to find a cure.” Even though she knows that it isn’t likely; even though she can feel it rattling around in her. “You need to stay away. Go find Adna, if you want her. She’s at Tephra. Magnus is watching after her.” She swallows and then looks at him.

“Maybe if I stay away, Shiya will help look after her. Maybe you can both stay safe.”

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

@[vulgaris]