it's just what happens when your heart goes ablaze
For all that they have found themselves on opposing sides before, the two women who stand here in this moment have more in common than they might think. The grief that they have shared, the way that they have felt their hearts break along the same fault lines. There are who would truly be able to comprehend the sorrow that has permeated Leliana’s life, but she cannot help but feel like Lepis might be able to.
So she has no desire to lie to her.
No desire to sugarcoat a truth that she herself has had to swallow too many times to count.
She says nothing at first when Lepis mentions Tephra and continues to look out at the river, feeling a faint frown crease her brow, the weight of it settle in her chest. “There is—to this one, at least. Vulgaris came back to us this time and took us home after months of being unwelcome there. My daughter survived, but I fear that such beginnings buried a bitter seed in her. She has returned home, but there is pain in her.”
She swallows, thinking of the darkness that has taken root in Sabbath—the anger.
“The happy ending is knowing that she is alive, that she is whole, but happy endings do not mean perfect ones.” She rolls her shoulder, trying to come to grips with it. “Still, I will take them all the same.”
Again, there is silence as she contemplates for a minute.
When she does speak again, her voice breaks the silence suddenly.
“Wolfbane did come to Tephra,” she admits, finally tearing her gaze away from the rapids to fully hold onto the gaze of her companion in this moment. “He told us about his internal battle, the demons and the curse that he is fighting. I did my best to help him. To help him control it.” She shakes her head and there are tears in the corners of her eyes although she does not let them fall. “I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t able to build walls around it—to stop it. I wasn’t—” she cuts off and swallows. “I am so sorry.”
— Leliana —