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Salem Cousland

I relaxed against the upper walls of my family's castle, looking out onto the waving grass of Highever. Bats flew overhead in the night sky, and the only sounds were the rustling of the winds and the chirping of the crickets. The sunset had been a brilliant red…a good omen for tomorrow.

My heart began to beat faster and a smile came to my face, unbidden.

"Something amusing?" my brother asked, pressing a goblet of warmed wine into my hand.

"Indeed it is." I answered, lifting the goblet and nodding to him in thanks. "I am content…it is unfamiliar to me."

"Cherish it while you can." he smiled, white teeth gleaming under the moon and the faint torchlight. "Tomorrow you will forswear all contentment and enslave yourself. You will never be your own again. That is why I came to join you…to say farewell to my sister."

"Fergus!" I laughed, stopping before I spilled the wine. "Is a wedding truly such a terrible thing?"

"Alas, no." he grinned. "But it is a change, Salem. The subtleties of it inveigle you and you will not soon realize how drastic the alterations are. But I can promise you that they will come."

"To change then." I lifted my goblet and drank deep, feeling the mellow sweet of the alcohol and the spice of cinnamon and nutmeg coat my tongue and burn my throat.

"So you are certain this is what you want?" he asked.

Confused, I stared at him. Since his return from Denerim, my brother and Leliana had spent much time in each other's company. She loved him, his humor, his affability, the ease and fairness with which he managed Highever. And he treated her as he treated me…a little sister to be doted upon, teased mercilessly, and ultimately loved.

Fergus lifted a hand to forestall my inquiries. "I am merely doing my duty, Salem." he informed me. "Much as father did for me the night before I wed Oriana. He came into my room, set me down, looked me right in the eye, and asked me if Oriana was, in truth, the person I wanted to give my soul to."

I nodded my understanding, and my heart ached as I briefly wished for my father's presence beside me.

I know you are there, father. You and mother both. Watching me. I hope you can see the smile that will not leave my face. I hope that you can hear the song of joy within my heart. Music…music in a world that once was silent. Dances born of love not blades.

"So," Fergus brought me back to the waking world, "what do you say, Salem Cousland? How would you answer my inquiry?"

"Easily." I smiled, imagining my lover asleep, insistent on the ancient tradition of being apart the night before the wedding. "She has held my soul since long ago. Carrying it when I was too weak, healing it when I was too broken. I have a feeling this will change nothing, Fergus. I am inexorably hers."

"A proper answer." he lifted his goblet and I placed mine against his in a toast. "I am glad for you, Salem. More glad for myself though."

"Why is that?" I slanted my eyes at him.

"At last someone can call you to heel." Fergus needled me. "The way you cater to her every whim and need; mother would be so glad that at last someone could gentle your spirit."

I laughed again, an action that had become more and more familiar to me as the days passed by. "So it would seem." I agreed with him and he frowned as he lost the prospect for a good-natured argument.

"So why are you not following her sterling example and resting before tomorrow's grand event?" Fergus asked, turning serious. "I am quite certain Leliana would disapprove as much as I do of the dark circles beneath your eyes."

"She is accustomed to them." I avoided the question, not wishing to reveal the true reason that I lingered here, under the moon.

"You are ridiculous, sister." Fergus rested his hand on my shoulder and guided my eyes to his, taken aback as he saw the death in them more prominent than it had been in some time. "Salem…what is troubling you?"

I sighed and began my confession. "I have not spent a night away from her since I returned here." I worried the edge of my lower lip with my teeth. "Leliana…Leliana makes the nightmares bearable, Fergus. No matter what the Fade presents me with, no matter the horrors of my dreams…waking in her arms…the terror fades. The pain is muted. I am no longer whole without her."

"You could have told me." my brother spoke, the gentleness in his voice reminding me so much our mother that I nearly wept. "Salem…Maker's breath…I did not know. Why? Why would you keep something like this from me?"

"Because you worry." I ran my finger around the edge of my goblet, wondering if I could drown myself in wine and stave away the demons that haunted my dreaming. "Incessantly. Like an old grandmother."

Fergus pursed his lips, glossing over the words that were meant to distract him from the subject. "I have every right to worry." his thumb traced the scar on my cheek. "I have spoken with Leliana enough to know some of what happened to you during the months between Howe's attack and the Landsmeet. But the full measure…does it weigh on you so heavily?"

"Yes." I admitted the painful truth. "Under the sun there are distractions, moments, new memories to occupy my thoughts. But come moonrise I am alone again, with nothing but the past to haunt me. Sleep is torturous."

"And Leliana?" Fergus asked. "Does she know the gravity of this?"

"She knows enough." I pushed off of the wall and drained the wine, staring off into the dim horizon. "And, Maker bless her, she has nightmares of her own. We both do…enough horror to account for seven lifetimes."

"So…you do not actually confide your terrifying traipses through the Fade?" Fergus frowned, his tone conveying calm disapproval.

"As I said, she knows enough." my voice grew rough…I had become too accustomed to those who followed my orders without questions; who left well enough alone at my command.

"You are obviously mistaken." Fergus grasped my shoulder and forced me to look at him. "Because I know she loves you enough not to condemn you to a night of horror."

"And I love her enough to submit to it for her wishes." I smiled.

"Incorrigible." Fergus shook his head. "The both of you…my mind is not equipped for this constant bafflement."

"Accept it." I smiled and hugged my brother. "Accept it and do not worry on my account. I will be all right."

"Liar." Fergus accused, not inaccurate. "You said the same thing after I watched you nearly gored by a wild boar. Do you remember?"

"Clearly." I smiled at the memory. "You saved my life that day."

"Have you acquired so much more pride as to deny your older brother the right to aid you?" he pulled out of my embrace and appraised me with my mother's eyes.

"No." I answered. "But you can do precious little to help me in this matter. I am sorry, Fergus."

I turned on my heel to go to my room and prepare for tomorrow.

"I love you, Salem." Fergus called after me.

I looked back and him, extending my hand. He squeezed it, sorrowful but understanding.

"I love you too." I told him, leaving his calming, concerned presence, willing to endure the night's horrors for the joys of the morning.