all the stars are closer; leliana and prayer

[prayer]

How fierce the trembling in her knees. The muscles spasm and quiver with the effort of remaining upright. She can feel every inch of her own body and she has never been more acutely aware of anything save for the sound of her mother’s voice at it had floated around and through her. But she can feel all of the places where the wind touches her. The air and the bugs and the sunshine. She feels these things more than she feels her mother’s voice now. She does not know yet just how desperately she will someday yearn for the sound of it. Because right now her mother is nudging her and she is tucking herself tightly against her side. She can feel every place their skin touches. Her cheek pressed firmly against her mother’s scaled shoulder, peering boldly into the face staring back at her. She flushes with heat when her mother kisses her, when she introduces her as Prayer and that great red woman drops her head to look Prayer in the eye and she does her best not to shrink even further into her mother’s side. But she says her name, too, says that she is loved. It fills her up, though she doesn’t know what it means. So, her tongue thick and clumsy in her mouth, she blinks between her mother’s face and this red face. She says the only thing she knows, “Prayer.” And then she grins and her chest fills with something hot and overwhelming and this fills her up, too. It is pride, but she cannot possibly know this. “Prayer,” she says again and delights at the shape of the word as it takes up all of the space in her mouth. She giggles then, effervescent. p r a y e r