holiday party; any

[leliana]

Leliana

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

The days have stretched long and thin and Leliana grows restless beneath them.

Although she travels to the island when she cans, stays home with her girls for most of the time, she still feels something like boredom settle into her bones. She wakes and shakes the dust from serpentine wings, the scales shimmering like an oil spill beneath the Pampas sun. She yawns and stretches, letting her elegant body soak in the delicious relief as her muscles pull taut and then release. 

It does not take long until Adna bounds up, her face shining with excitement, and Leliana can only wonder at the elegance that overtakes her daughter as youth continues to shed from her body. She is no longer the bushy-tailed, snub-nosed girl of her first years. Adna has grown and filled out, fitting more into her body now than ever before, her limbs lengthening and mane and tail beginning to fall delicately.

Leliana feels a pang in her heart at the thought that her baby girl wouldn’t be that for much longer.

Just a year or two longer and she would be an adult.

She couldn’t keep her at home forever.

So when her eldest suggests the party, it doesn’t take much convincing for Leliana to agree. She just presses another kiss to her daughter’s forehead and then walks alongside her as they travel through the twilight. When they reach a bridge made of the same, they both lean down, sniffing in wonder at the magic that could create such a thing. They lean into one another, laughing softly, and then walk companionably down the length of it. Leliana’s wings shift at her sides, turning into soft dusk. 

It is the most ethereal version she has ever worn, the edges of them barely visible and translucent as the dark and the light chase each other. She doubts she could take to the skies with them, but they delight her daughter, and that’s what matters the most. As Leliana and Adna touch the sand that then bleeds into snow, she doesn’t try to hold Adna back. Her daughter is clearly ready to stretch her metaphorical wings and explore, and she knows that she needs to give her the freedom so she can make memories of her own.

When she is by herself, Leliana finds a spot where she can rest and observe, hazel eyes warm and her face calm as the party begins to pick up steam. Her twilight wings flare slightly and then settle along her back.

She is surrounded by others, but in this moment, she has never felt more alone.

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