my dear sweet nothing, let's start anew; ashley

[leliana]

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

She had not been expecting to meet anyone here—not with the twilight long evaporated from the horizon and the constellations thrown long and wide above them. So perhaps it it not a surprise that she startled a little, her eyes widening and her wings shifting by her side, cycling between hard copper, crimson down, and then the wings that were the most painful reminder of all: obsidian and ivory, the bones crawling up the sides of them, the black leather flecked with his blue constellations. It lasted but a moment before they shift again, the coloring dissolving to be replaced by the ginger of his coat, a subconscious realization. 

Focusing on her breath, she tilted her slender head in his direction, concentrating on his imposing figure. She had never seen him before—had no way of knowing who he was and the way his magic had turn her heart asunder—but even if she knew that he had unwittingly set the course that led to her ravaged heart, she still would have greeted him with the soft smile, the shy curve of her crimson lips, the dip of head. 

(It wouldn’t have mattered that his removal of Dovev’s memory had been the kindling to flames that soon engulfed her life or that his brutal lessons were the things she had worked so hard to heal, to erase. It wouldn’t have mattered because that was just who she was; she would have understood. Would have to.)

“Oh, I’m sorry,” her voice was breathy, pleasantly low and humming. 

“I didn’t see you coming! I guess I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone out here so late.” Mostly true because there had been that part of her, buried deep, that had hoped to find company—that had hoped to find someone to pass the time alongside, someone who could ease the bitter ache forming in her heart. “My name is Leliana,” a low confession, the truth of it wrapped and pressed into his palms. He seemed nice enough, if curt, and she imagined she could do worse than spending some time in his company. 

“Where are you from?” because it seemed like the thing to ask when silence hung heavy between them.

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