Note: The core of the story was inspired by a fanart made by BW2Gold: "After 10 years from Inquisition".
I never really meant for this to get longer than it is but the writing just...progressed to such length.
The scent of flowers had an ethereal presence in Leliana's mind, like a growing garden that never withers, adored by the tenderness of its caretaker. It was a certainty that never failed to make her smile even in her darkest days.
Every waking day as she approached the rookery to continue her duty as the Inquisition's Spymaster, she would find a lone flower near the stairway of the raven's breeding area, oblivious to the presence of others aside from hers, and she would keep it close to her cowl. The fragrance of this certain flower loomed wherever she went, like a familiar existence, quietly observing; a faint memorial that made her remember bittersweet and dear thoughts.
Andraste's Grace.
A small Ferelden wildflower; white and only garnished by blotches of pink at the center with a special aroma that she could tell from far away.
Others would think of it simply as a shrub that grew in unlikely wildwoods, but for the former Orlesian bard, it was something she knew that held so much of her. Her late mother was keen on its distinct fragrance and it was the fondest recollection her young mind could remember of maternal warmth. An uncured smell that Leliana carried over with her to Orlais and a personal tale regaled through her songs as she entered adulthood.
And while unrevealed to most, that same guileless flower also had an insipid way of remembrance and the former bard had also connected it to the bloodcurdling imagery of the Fifth Blight. The trauma admittedly never passed even after their victory and a decade of healing. The horrid marks on her skin, hidden to obscurity over the thick-leathered armor of a veteran warrior were but glaring reminders of what had really transpired.
Leliana playfully spun the flower's delicate stem between her fingers, lips creased to a smile, and her thoughts drifted to something more pleasant.
But it wasn't all about the horrors of the Blight. Half of it, of course, was prior to it ending. Leliana brooded over her peaceful life at the Lothering chantry, and the cryptic vision she got from whom she believed to be the Maker himself. But before the questions about her faith left her, she already found herself co-existing in the company of adventurers with a similar purpose; from marching along half of the kingdom with the future king of Ferelden, an Antivan assassin, a surly witch of the wilds and even a mouthing golem off to flick the life of every moving pigeons, it was a folly for Leliana to deny both the pleasure and anguish she had with her companions, or even the constant criticism about their pilgrimage, which some weighed down more than the others.
Whatever could have made them trudged further, to have fought for an ebbing world? The glory at the end of everything? An exceeded reputation for each of them? Or maybe, just maybe, they scuffled blindly towards an obvious death to look for means to end their plight so they could retire from their exclusive nightmare?
Because fighting with a purpose was better than dying and being forgotten, and the Blight was the most ideal opportunity, no?
But the answer was always there, in their silence, and the ballad from Leliana's lips soon changed into solemn words, endowed with assurance hidden in peaceful serenades. The fire at their camp flickered with renewed life, followed by an unshakeable temperance and a resolve molded into a weapon stronger than white steel formed to cut anything in its path.
Hope. Among the green lithe trees in Ferelden's dying soil and the pool of taint, Leliana and her companions held to hope. It was a virtue that seemed gray, swallowed by uncertainty and so sorely inadequate that people had forgotten among the disorder and death, but it was one they all inspired to share.
Ferelden would be delivered.
They sang to such feeling and heard the song answered back.
The sudden gust that entered the rookery made Leliana totter in mild surprise and the flower dropped from her hold. It was before picking it up again that she noticed a modish trail of snowy petals neatly placed around her station. There was another white flower that rested on an outlandish book by the table together with a parchment strangely unacquainted to her eyes.
To my other half,
The letter began with words that felt like fresh air found its way to her tired lungs. Her hardened composure faltered and, for a moment, her maiden years was in front of her, unshamed by the dreadful responsibility she strongly vowed to the cause of the Inquisition. She saw herself back on Lothering. Back on that exceptional footnote of her life.
Because, before all else, the presence of the Andraste's Grace was like an intimate prayer for her, and the sweetest memory she could gratify. It allowed her to reminisce all the hurt, all the scars yet all miraculously sundered by the tender affection she shared with the Grey Warden who stopped the Fifth Blight.
The Hero of Ferelden. The tragic yet inspiringly brave young warrior. The one who carried that hope they clung so fondly to and the one who gave the world another chance to believe again.
A strong, passionate light in the pitch black darkness.
Her Warden.
Leliana remembered herself as a woman in love for the first time.
Ballads and exotic tales of fantasy had been Leliana's weaknesses. While she was mostly teased about them during her youth, her appreciation for beauty never dwindled even as her age caught her. If it was possible to stay with who she was before everything, before the Blight, before becoming the Left Hand of the Divine, and before the misfortune that befell her dear Revered Mother Dorothea; the person who saved her from her past and one she respected the most, Leliana would have readily shared these interests with her new acquaintances.
But the Maker never intended for humanity to idle with their destiny, and with an ironic, and sadistic twist, the path of the former bard, once so animated by life and jovial stories, became darker, unnerving, ruthless...and lonely.
Save the Warden who still knew how to assuage the inculpable side of hers with wholly timed whimsical letters and love odes.
And while love had defined them throughout their time of adventure and months on the aftermath, standing on its shadow was always an unspoken rift. Duty. Both of them were pledged to an obligation: a strong personal burden like chains that existed as a constant backdrop of their life. Even if they had planned to stay together forever, it was in their strong engagement in doing good for others that they willingly parted ways when the moment came.
Leliana turned to the call of the late Divine Justinia as her Left Hand and ultimately to the Inquisition as its seneschal and advisor, its keeper of secrets, while the Hero of Ferelden, seemingly promoted to Warden-Commander, began her quest towards the western edge of the world unknown to men, to find a cure for the Darkspawn taint that was killing her and her fellow Grey Wardens alike.
The Maker, they believed, obviously had a dire sense of humor.
However, Leliana would try to tail her love like a private affair; a move provoked through the letters they shared after weeks, months, and later grew to years of separation. Despite her arbitrary connections across the continent, the Commander of the Grey never allowed the Spymaster to learn about her specific whereabouts, much to the older woman's dismay, and while she had all but respect for her love's alarming secrecy, soon, and possibly due to the depravity of closure, it had changed into a game for the both of them.
A game almost trivial yet encouraging, and similar to how they would entertain themselves during their nights at camp years before.
The game, Leliana reflected, was something she was good at, but not good enough to dissuade her other half.
Every step was calculated to bring any form of result. Leliana would dispatch some of her adept spies to learn about the Warden's recent travels, whose own quest had her crossing border to border for the past several years. They were strictly ordered to keep the traveling hero from any harm, while the target, in her own conniving ways, and to Leliana's chagrin, would distract these unwanted convoys every given opportunity, alluded with her natural charisma; a distinct quality of hers that Leliana took pleasure of and loved greatly.
The agents would report their undercover in no less than a detailed storytelling. Once, they masqueraded as peasants on the street, begging for alms, and the good-natured Warden would offer herself with a certain tenderness and mirth as if helping anybody was an initiative rooted directly to her core, and, before they could collect any vital information about her present life, she would vanish as if they spoke to no one.
Although they would positively reach back to the Spymaster with either an instructed favor or a spoken message from the Warden, the relentless chase between them that offered no plain conclusion had elevated Leliana's anxiety, and it was in her worry of losing her forever that she never stopped the hunt.
But her beloved, sweet and repeatedly astute to Leliana's feelings ever since they had been together would always send a part of herself through simple gifts, together with Leliana's most cherished flower to Skyhold, as if reminding her that everything would be alright. A tangible promise that they could both hold on to.
"Ser, the reports from Arbor Wilds are here."
Barely answering with a nod, she took the report and breathed a soft prayer at the single remark of the Warden on the paper in her hands.
The rookery was oddly peaceful for Leliana the following days, even with the constant rowdiness of her ravens flying around. She evaluated the new set of reports she took from the war table, quill and seal at hand. With their recent triumph over the Elder One, the restoration of the Inquisition had been the major focus of the advisors following the battle at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Their military strength had suffered a great cost, and one that took a lot of funding and political persuasion just to regain their foothold, and yet some crusted nobles - once their safety had been assured from the conflict - even took the luxury to revolt at such havoc. At times, she would infer the makeshift peace, that a civil war would break out faster than it would be to cause another Blight and they would be spiraled at the center of the storm once more. The strain of it all was within arms reach and she could feel the vexation at the edge of her throat.
But her emotions stayed leveled, bestowed by the pale flowers surrounding her post. She raised the new bunch of Andraste's Grace, one she picked up early morning near her private chambers almost confident that an agent of hers must have done so - instructed by her crafty lover from one of their shadowing, no doubt - and settled the flowers at eye length, gazed at them as if searching for a sign.
"You seem to be in a good mood."
How she genuinely wished she could translate this fullness, this love in her chest, and remake it into a song.
"Am I?" Leliana answered softly, unable to break her sight away in spite of hearing the familiar footstep beforehand. Josephine was the last of the people she knew that would voluntarily go to this side of the tower. They would normally converse in her office near the war room for business exchange, and occasional casual banters but rarely - if not never - here in the rookery. Seeing the Ambassador standing at the most aberrant place in Skyhold was truly a sight for sore eyes, but not entirely unasked for.
"Yes. In fact, the rookery seems to be smelling more like flowers than wet birds lately. I'm not sure which bothers me most." She eyed the source of the sweet smell, quietly judging the stark contrast of its nature around her colleague, who replied nothing short of a retort.
"The place could use a little show of grace, no?" Leliana returned, one leg crossed at the other. Her hand drooped back towards the remaining pile of papers sprawled all over the table.
"And I do love a touch of aesthetic from time to time."
Leliana had tried to keep her rigid poise as much as possible, but Josephine was quick to detect that faint smile on her face. How she could flawlessly curb herself with the constant glances and murmurs from her agents bewildered her and had she not known the Spymaster before, the visual would have stricken her too as remarkably odd.
"Oh, but it's not an uninvited change. Not at all." The Ambassador acknowledged and sat next to her, who only answered with a glance as if charmed at the amiable thought.
Josephine nearly joshed if she got the flowers from an admirer, a heed familiar to Leliana even during their time in Orlais, who had seemingly answered the mock attempts from artless nobles with disinterest. But she snuffed the question out when she noticed how her friend, in peaceful silence held the gift like it was a personal invocation that was never meant to be shared.
A few months had passed, barely short of time before Thedas would welcome the start of 9:43 Dragon. Leliana's responsibility had a noticeable change, dwindled at the clear sight of order that the Inquisition had brought, much to her early disbelief.
The following weeks had Skyhold celebrating at long last with the Inquisitor who, originally, was tenacious to the idea of 'fun and parties' (given her Qunari heritage, no doubt), had been the sole initiator for the movable feast, much to all of her companions' delight. It was no longer news that her public relationship with the impulsive, sharp-tongued elf Sera invoked such a change of heart and everyone simply tuned in to the sudden adjustment, utterly blessed altogether. Skyhold deserved the momentary joviality, at least. Free ale was always a thing sought after, and their effort was warranted for some.
While it had given all of them the chance to wind down, to forget all the things the burdened them, Leliana's mind struggled with the looming disquiet in her heart. A rare foreboding that almost swiftly shattered her cold, disinterested appearance.
As days passed, her connections with the Warden became thinner and bare until one day it stopped altogether. Seasons shifted quickly, relentlessly, and she consumed herself with prayer, silently expecting for her agents to bring news. In time, the memories strengthened by years of togetherness became but a hazy outline that quietly stood at the corner of the former bard's mind, ironically challenged by their inability to reconnect through the thick chasm of separation.
It was an eerie thought, and a fear she believed could not affect her until it began to knock and hammer through the loneliness she carried. The absence of her lover's touch, whispers and sweet endearments, all to be forgotten in uncertainty as time marched forward and mercilessly waited for no one.
There were no adoring trinkets or letters to ease Leliana's discomfort. But what truly devastated her was the missing presence of the flower she had grown accustomed to for the past few years; that dry, yet uncured smell like spring and dirt mixed together and the one protection that grounded her emotions away from the edge of her own collapse.
Nothing.
The silence had never been this loud.
9:44 Dragon. A year had passed and the peace they established was once again challenged. The Inquisition was successful in foiling the Qunari threat during the Exalted Council. Further, they had been sanctioned to serve under Cassandra Penthagast, now the named 'Divine Victoria' as the Chantry's peacekeeping force. It was an unquestionable step that ensured their expanding influence, and half of the people from both Orlais and Ferelden became even more ruptured at the intent.
It was the most hectic time, and with the support of the religious head, the Inquisition would devise plans to thwart the self-ruling Dread Wolf, a former companion of the Inquisitor and one they used to call Solas. He was an uncanny elf, yet mysteriously wise with a myriad of secrets who proved to be a greater threat than the Elder One they defeated. A threat now armed with a power to rival their own.
The response of both parties was an artistic discord of templars versus mages, humans against elves, soldiers, and spies, masked as either an innocent civilian or a friend, with bloodshed that hung loosely at the sight of retaliation. The game dragged on with people dying for their own personal agenda, and Leliana, bound to her service as its Spymaster, as the infamous 'Sister Nightingale', who relished in secrets, shadowed through the vulnerabilities of men and brought terror to the hearts of her enemies like a ruthless blade, answered all of these with relentless reprisals.
It filled her with purpose, at least, nudge that fickle hope almost barren from the cold absence of a dearest' embrace, and the irony of it was that she no longer knew how to proceed with her life beyond this heartache. Beyond all of these deaths.
And yet the former bard would wait for another sign still, implore in earnest even if she had to mark her way through blood, and perhaps the kind and cruel Maker would give a damn for once.
Eventually, the battles persisted and demanded more of what she had left, strangled every fiber of her weakness and craved more of the emptiness inside. There was a soundless grievance that escaped from her lips, akin to a prayer or her own curses, repressed as it tore her inside. Soon, the desperation that punished her feature became an emotional baggage that she could no longer hide.
The Inquisitor and her fellow advisors noticed, of course, but the Nightingale only returned their diligence with silence, skillfully muted by a heart trained in solitude. Repression was her own art form. A weapon on the battlefield, and, ironically, a perfected trait that subdued her voice to sing.
They would not implore her suffering until she was ready but her colleagues had decided to take the matter to their hands, ushered Leliana to rest as any further mistakes would cost them more than what they had sacrificed. Unwarranted emotions during a strained conflict was a recipe of its own disaster. It was an unspoken rule, originally coaxed by its keeper of secrets, and one she thought she had ruled through bardic experience and personal strifes.
And now they took what was left of her reason to keep going.
What should I do now?
Had she been long broken to have her entire being cling to the presence of some...posy?
The rookery had turned somewhat dull with only Leliana and her ravens left to fill the void. Unabashed at being cooped at such a tasteless place, the Spymaster simply continued with some small work, willingly acquited from war council participation for the time being. The sullenness was a welcoming presence, however, as it was the only place in Skyhold that still held a part of herself; a place she could lower her guard, even for a bit, and describe it close to a home.
The unrelenting days of waiting passed her, and Leliana struggled and mourned with reservation while her agents, modified to indifference yet steadily true to their loyalties, had observed her clouded obsession to contact a person of importance: the missing Hero of Ferelden. It was a search that raced for weeks that it slowly broke their hearts to witness their lady punished with grief under the hood that hid everything of herself.
Every parchment that returned had no trace of enthusiasm and all of them could only surmise of one tragic outcome.
Then came one night when a messenger bird, white as snow, flew inside her bedchamber. It looked so ominous within the cheerless space. An unnatural presence, quite an opposition to the ravens she nurtured and trained, but really beautiful, Leliana thought, and strangely, the sight of it stunned her wordless, and that it was nothing short of a marvel.
The bird stood at the edge of the window with a dignified patience and flew with barreled flaps just as soon as Leliana took the note it carried.
The letter smelled faint of a dry flower.
Leliana shortly found her knees grounded on the floor, finally too weak to fight the unexpected fatigue. She clutched the piece of paper with both hands and brought it tightly to her chest, embraced like a lover separated by an unbearable distance. It was a quiet evening but the piercing silence that suddenly enveloped her quarters chimed behind her ears in a loud parley of feminine voices, fighting for dominance, clawing, reaching out for a part of herself that had been tucked away.
Everything will be fine.
She heard the voice of the late Divine Justinia, felt uncharacteristically allayed by the lulling old yet wise voice of her deceased mentor and time seemed to have drifted to a peaceful tempo before it stilled to draw the memories back. The sight of the quiet chantry in Valence flashed in front of her, of Andraste's statue that stood ideally on the center of the cloister, surrounded by candles of numerous sizes, and the warming hymns of the lay sisters that offered the jaded with nothing short of full placidity.
But it was a temporary repose, quickly undone by the followed breathy hiss from her previous lover. Marjolaine. A dearest from a past she thought she had forgotten. Allure and cruelty defined her notable impassive temperament. She had a sweet and sultry voice yet veiled with venom and swelled with nothing but dark wickedness. A capable woman of intrigue: captivating and merciless, like a spiteful serpent born for dedicated vanity, lies, and betrayals.
Even though she answered the former bard's devotion with a cold embrace, Leliana loved her, adored her even more than her own life. But Marjolaine's ambition marked hers in endless damnation, towards a doomed life that not even the solemn presence of the Maker could subdue.
A curse that existed behind the shadow of her appalling reflection and held the last thread of a believed existence of sanity.
Her prayers were never steadfast as she had hoped because the voice that won between her ode to believe and to stay faithful for any form of salvation was the snake perpetually coiled at the back of her head, whispering that it was perfectly fine - and human - to be narrow and foolish, to freely desire for whatever was in the deepest corner of a heart divided by cureless ideals.
You can let go now, my Leliana.
There was a resounding laughter that satisfied that request, loud, fuming yet clearly dismal and so very beaten. A sound that soon died to tears that were way long overdue. A cry of release. A deliverance from a ubiquitous torment.
Now she could take her world back.
No one really discovered the true meaning of her despair and the following daylight, the residents of Skyhold found the Spymaster's chamber empty with only the eerie echo of her restless ravens looming all over the home of their mistress.
The life of a Grey Warden was a sure path of neverending battles against fate. A tale that would tragically cease once the song finally called for them.
She could hear it so clearly now. It was a like distant whisper before, she recalled; a powerless phantom, but appealed to her mind, breathed thickly through her skull as if alive. It was a heeding curse, and one she accepted the moment the Darkspawn blood streamed evenly from the silver chalice down to her throat, forever tainting the veins in her body and the last shred of humanity she could provide.
The order of the Grey Wardens offered her freedom and a chance for retribution for all the misfortune that came in her life but the realization dawned too soon that it was another prison that welcomed her, glorified only in appearance by the silver wings of mythical birds.
Yet the cage of her rebirth, as deceptively gilded as it was hollow, could not fully deter her spirit unlike the song of her taint. She blamed its entire existence with a reserved indignation, only to hear the insolence that reflected back and how it was a reminder that her life was never under her control; how her happiness, her conviction to battle the bane in her remaining years was a crude and childish pretense acknowledged only by that insolent call.
A cure for the taint? It was nothing short of a miracle that they even believed that such absolution could be true.
Because death was always your salvation.
But how, she wondered, did the wily siren learned to manipulate her wish when it beckoned her towards the darkness with the face of a graceful, and gentle Orlesian bard?
My lovely nightingale.
What she would give just to hear her voice again.
Unable to hold back the tears, the lone Grey Warden held out to the sky, and on her hand was the whitest Andraste's Grace that Ferelden could bequeath: an appeal formed from her heart and the land's own call to honor the damaged warrior's last prayer.
Lothering was the embodiment of destruction. A grim reminder of a distant past that even time had been less considerate. The stench of death was undeniably heavy as it was fresh from the day it became the expendable victim of the Blight. The marks of massacred bodies were still noticeable on the ground, pooled between darkened dried blood with a certain eeriness that sounded like screams, like haunted voices from the dead and one that seethed with a frightening retribution at the sight of life.
Only a fool with a death sentence would march to this wasteland without any second thoughts.
And yet, there she was. A young woman, stilled in grace, leaning on the trunk of a tree with a sword in one hand. She wore a cloak that seemed to have testified to endless battles, torn in every direction like imaginative scars, jarring and sublime: a veil that hid the padded blue tunic and the infamous silver griffon emblem on her chest.
An animated soul from afar, unaware of its own semblance that could paint the dreadful melancholy of this land back to its glorified youth. Noble. Broken.
And still beautiful as the day Leliana first saw her.
"You disappeared without a word."
Leliana felt the sharp wind as it answered back. Her voice, she noticed, had come out defiantly, tempered to cold aloofness even at the sight of her heart laid bare. It was a feeble defense to years of abandonment, of unanswered questions and deep longing, and the silence had prodded an unusual form of exasperation that spewed anger and sorrow, waiting to bleed out.
Are you real?
She watched her, unmoved, peered through the warrior's features with unforgiving uncertainty, and slowly, similar to a child roused from a grand dream, the Warden looked back; her tender slate grey eyes took in Leliana's radiant teal and finally - finally - the former bard felt her heart sank to the crushing feelings that surged forth.
It was a sliver of faith that impelled her legs to move and an impatience that she never knew she had, but before she could begin to scrutinize herself, they were already locked in an embrace that seemed like an eternity waiting to be held. Leliana welcomed the Warden's heartbeat: a slow, musing pulse that manifested the essence of life, a passionate fire that ebbs and consumes all the same, and a forgotten warmth sailed back to her, drowned all the parts of her very soul.
How did she live all those years without this woman by her side?
"...but now I've finally found you."
Because never had she felt so alive than at this very moment.
"Leli...ana...?"
The name came out choked in between a feeling of uncertainty and an apparent madness that the Grey Warden had considered all this time. The voice in her head was a stable companion that shot through her with tasteless humor, provoked her with the last remaining senses of her body, eyesight lost in a battle with the taint to even verify whatever it was in front anymore. But, agonizing and deceptive as it had always been, she had clung to its harrowing melody over and over again in one desperate struggle for sanity.
But the reality of the woman she adored to be in this moment, holding her beneath the shade of an aged hardwood, was a difficult concept to affirm. Not when she could no longer see her flesh, her smile, crudely dimmed by perpetual darkness now, and not when the older woman was still busy playing war as a spymaster in the name of some holy institution.
Their long detachment could mean a lot of things. She could be in the arms of someone now. Someone who would love her in the most selfless ways, heal her mending heart when she lost the late Divine from the breach that sundered the sky. An act that the Warden neglected. The shame and guilt were pressed like searing knives just an inch away from her throat and it killed her more to imagine that she had lost the only person that made her life truly worth fighting for.
Once, the thought of never saying farewell and vanish to the Deep Roads came to her. She had moderately worked through the letters she had shared with Leliana as proof of her battles and her existence. But, the closer she walked towards the inevitable, the more insufferable the strain on her legs became and a fear bore through every fiber of her being; the same crippling fear she fought during the Fifth Blight in the wake of an Archdemon, and, like reliving an old wound, a sensibility of self-awareness dawned her at a breaking point.
Time. Maker, she wanted more time. To say goodbye. To say she loved her wholeheartedly. It was a labor to live and teeter to the edge of her release in a coinciding battle only to be held back again and again with such a thought. Now she fought through the madness of berating death anew with no blood magic to help her with the dilemma that ceaselessly mocked her: succumb to the torment, honor her title and die as ordained by the Grey Wardens or abstain her duty altogether and surrender to love in its ultimate form.
"It is me."
But if only she knew that death could deliver an assurance with such a thoughtful voice, elevate her pain despite everything, it would not have terrified her so much.
"I am finally here, my love."
The blade separated from the warrior's worn grip with a dull clang and the Warden spurred herself free from that misery with the remaining flame of her life and found the long-sought protection from her unbounded nightmare in the arms of the nightingale.
Finally…
The afternoon glow from the setting sun played a shadow to the embers of a very long separation, faded in between small kisses and gratified touches. The Warden's hands - to her own surprise - had never truly forgotten the tiny details of her beloved's face. The smooth, bony edge of Leliana's cheek curved to form a perfect long face. Ten years, she thought, had changed both of them for better or for worse, where age had turned into a banal validation to the endless context of their growth. Had she not followed such an inconclusive hunt for absolution, they would have bantered about such change every waking minute with all the mirth of yesterdays.
A sound like leather being scuffed rang to her ears before she felt Leliana's palm near the pulse of her neck, delicate as she had remembered, passion and reassurance intertwined within a patch of skin, and how her heart immediately soared at the sound of the hearty laughter that echoed back when she placed the Andraste's Grace between her ear.
They stood there like lovers holding on to each other for the first time, and how dearly the memories seeped through the cracks of that very moment, felt as if the Maker had finally turned to answer their prayers and froze time so they could think of nothing else but themselves.
The wearied Grey Warden caught the redhead weaved a tale of their past adventures, listened to it with veneration until the darkness felt too cold and raw to fight anymore. She heard herself spoke before she floated towards the current. Her voice came out guileless as she had hoped, poured everything in murmured words and the last thing she remembered was the warmth of their foreheads pressed together and the conclusion of a song.
"Yes, love. I understand."
Leliana held the young hero with her very life, joyed and honored altogether even with the dismal smile on her face. She rested her head on the crook of the Warden's neck, breathed in her scent; a comfortable tang like earth and sky weaved in one body, welcomed the sound of her own name in full devotion, until she heard the heartbeat finally went to a noiseless surrender, and Leliana mourned at its newfound freedom.
All the death, the loss, and betrayals. They must have meant something more than this. But she no longer wanted to overlook the overbearing pain in her chest, so Leliana answered the agitation with a heavy laugh before she settled the point of a pale dagger on the Warden's back. It was a fine blade that shone with an undeniable beauty against the dying sunlight. A warped facade of that liberation amidst the chaos, gracefully an inch away from reaching flesh, with only the former bard's unmoved grasp on its hilt.
The final weight towards that beckoning edge.
"We go..."
Leliana's pause almost came out soundless and tears spilled down: a beautiful stream out of those cold, blue eyes, once peered through the darkness of the world from the eyes of ravens.
No Grey Wardens.
No Inquisition.
The sundered skies had never looked so tranquil than this moment.
Together