He died on a Tuesday.
He died, and the world rejoiced. The darkness slipped back beneath the cold earth, just as his body would. The skies were blue, and the people sang old songs of triumph and victory.
Gone were the sounds of metal and the smell of blood, the churned-up mud and the burning thatch.
Gone was the light in his eyes, the gleam of the sun on his golden hair, the strength in his arms.
The love in his heart.
So much love he had, enough to fill her days with hope and yearning, even in the longest night of the world. Even when all seemed bleak, her family dead and gone, all Ferelden in the depths of despair.
She had never known love before, an innocent maid from a regal line. She knew only gentle flirtations with lordlings and knaves, catching their eyes over sumptuous dinners, treading on their toes during long and boring dances. Just the way she was expected to.
She had not expected to find herself bathed in the blood of her father, her skin smelling of soot and death. Never thought she would be escaping like a criminal from the ruin of her comfortable life, crawling through tunnels like a filthy sewer rat. Dressing in tattered leathers and killing men with her arrows like a common soldier.
Yet still, the last thing she had expected was to meet him. To fall in love so completely, her broken heart held together by his beauty, his purity, his honour.
He was the bravest and most selfless person she had ever met. It made sense that he would sacrifice everything for her to live. For the world to live.
Hero, they said. Saviour.
To them, that's what he was. To her, he was that and so much more. Lover. Friend. The solid ground she walked on, the edge to her daggers, the fire in her belly which drove her on.
He died on a Tuesday.
The gleam of the eyes of the dragon, the magenta fire in its throat, the roughness of the scales on its hide. Teeth sharp as her daggers, ebony claws rending the tower into so many pieces of broken up granite. Every night she dreamed this, the dread flesh of the Archdemon clearer somehow than the face of her beloved. She raged at the injustice of death, of the memories remaining being overshadowed by the horror of his passing.
Her dreams return to her the moment when he raised the sword, his jaw set firm, his amber eyes – usually soft with love – fierce and steely. Night after night, she sees him plunge the weapon deep into the beast's head, sees the shimmering and beautiful light that exploded from the great demon, surrounding them all. Hears the grunt of effort, the cry of pain, the sound of his body collapsing to the floor.
She will never forget the desperation when she held him in her arms, still and pale, his skin already clammy under her hands. The burning in her eyes, the bitter salty taste of her own blood and tears on her lips. She knows she called his name over and over again, her voice alien and broken. She knows he could not hear her.
He died on a Tuesday.
He died, and she is left to live in this new world, the world that has been returned to them. Wherever she goes, people touch her hand and thank her, tears in their eyes, as if she has saved them all. Some have even dropped to their knees before her, in filth and mud, wailing and praising her, praising the Maker.
They do not know. They do not know that she would sacrifice them all if it would bring him back, if she could have just one more kiss, one more touch of his hand. The rage consumes her – why should they live, these people, who are nothing to her? Why them and not him? He was the best of them all, and he is gone. There is nothing left for her here.
She lies beside his grave and whispers his name, offers the Maker a trade, a deal, her life for his, anything for him to be standing there in the sun again. Anything for him to be able to smile the way he used to, shy and sweet. Anything to live for just one moment when she still had something to live for.
The Maker does not hear her, or does not grant her wish.
She stands in their bedroom, in the castle where they were to be married. She runs her fingers over the soft lace of her gown, the fabric fitting her as perfectly as it had her mother, all those years ago. Her eyes close and she calls up his fading features, the way he felt when he held her tight, when he moved inside her, the way he looked at her as if the rest of the world had never existed.
She died on a Tuesday.