here lies the love of my life, leliana

[leliana]

I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

Part of her has known that he would come.

That it was only a matter of time.

She has been waiting for it—no matter whether she was dragging her time out on the island, or if she was next to the river reliving all of their best and worst memories, or even if she was in the Pampas, haunting the shadows and the darkest corners. She has known that he would come for her.

So she is not surprised, even though she is startled, when she wakes up to him standing over her. She flinches briefly, drawing her injured wing over her daughter, the wounds by the base now silver scars against the mahogany of her coat. Her pulse rises in an instant ache to see his face, mangled as it is—

And fear

For the first time, she feels fear when she sees him.

For her, perhaps, but mostly for her daughter. For the tiny, impossibly beautiful little girl tucked into her side. That fact alone keeps her muzzled, although she never would have put up a fight against him. Her chest still aches with love for him, despite the terror he has slipped into her veins and the way he has crushed her spirit beneath her palms. But it doesn’t matter because he comes to her when she has her daughter by her side.

She will not, cannot, cause a fight here.

So she doesn’t call for others, doesn’t try to wrench Dovev away from his family although she knows he would come. She just rises gracefully, the moon spilling over the cedar tree tattoo twisting up her back. Her hazel eyes are quiet and bruised and, soon, all of that fear and that love—those sharp aches that had brought her so close to the surface for a moment—all of it bleeds from her.

“Okay,” she says softly, nudging her daughter to her feet to follow her.

When Malca has risen and drawn her close to her chest, she looks to Vulgaris—to a serpent who would have once completed her family and now stands as its greatest threat.

“I will follow,” her foot rises and she walks herself into her cage.