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

[leliana]

Leliana

baby, when I'm in your arms, I can make honest sense of love and war's alarms

It feels like she has been gone for ages.

The truth is that time has become muddled for her. Her timelines loop and collide together, all of the events pressing into her skull, changing the course of her future again and again and again. 

This is what she knows:

She answered the call of the fae to help find a cure for the disease that now spreads through the branching veins of the rest of Beqanna. She partnered with two horses who started as strangers and now, in their own way, feel like family. Her body now bears the mark of her journey, of her time during it.

As she left the mountain, she felt the tattoo etch into her skin, the cedar tree growing up her spine and branching out, delicate and barely noticeable against the mahogany of her skin. The ink of it is dark and subtle, the lines beautiful, a reminder of her sacrifice, of the way the ice has changed her.

This is what she knows:

She was in Island Resort, doing her best to help Tiphon and support his mission. She was in Island Resort and Dovev was there. Heartfire was there. More show up. It was chaos and her heart shattered in her breast. It took her apart bit by bit—but it also knit her back together because the strange pink mare used some strange magic that chased the disease from her, all but banishing it from her lungs and her bones.

She retains the cough, but she feels better than she has in months—in years.

This is what she knows:

She is home and her hazel eyes are wide, searching for her family, for her loved ones. Her heart pounds in her chest, her wings once again tucked into her side, serpentine and lovely. She does not stop until she finds them, until she can crush herself against Vulgaris, burying her head into the strong curve of his neck. She trembles, hiding her face and the raw emotions that wash across it, chasing after one another.

Relief.

Love.

Peace.

She only pulls away when she trusts herself to be steady, turning her once again calm face to her daughters and gathering them to her. Adna is growing faster and faster these days, womanhood beginning to sneak into the lines of her face, but Leliana presses a kiss into her regardless. She brushes her lips against Sabbath’s forehead, breathing in her beautiful daughter’s scent.

“I’m home,” she sighs, and it is clear that health is once more flooding into her. She is beginning to fill out again, curves taking the place of the angles, her coat taking on its familiar sheen, her eyes bright. 

“I’m home,” she repeats, almost to herself, before she finds Vulgaris’ eyes, “and I am healed.”

but there's something primal underneath and it drives this nothingness I seek

@[vulgaris]