Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to BioWare. I own nothing.
Author's Note: Hello all! This little one shot is a birthday gift for my friend and fellow author, Drummerchick7. She has been a constant source of inspiration, provided some excellent critique, and overall helped me improve my writing style in so many ways it's not funny. So, since it is her birthday, I wrote this at her prompting. Happy Birthday, friend! I hope you enjoy it.
The Village of Haven
Sick, green light consumed and dominated the skyline. Leliana pushed back her hood, allowing the wind to run through her hair. She stood beside the trebuchets, staring at the mountains beyond, to the tear in the Veil. She knew that many would believe she courted disaster by looking so long into the Breach. It birthed demons into the world, so it was quite taboo to let one's gaze linger. Leliana, however, knew better than to succumb to such foolish superstitions. She had stared darkness itself in the face, and emerged alive.
Leliana shivered in the chill wind from the mountains. She had not set foot in Haven for ten years, not even to make a pilgrimage to the Sacred Ashes that had confirmed, in many eyes, the Andrastian faith. Even though she and the Hero of Ferelden had found the Ashes, the events in Haven had left a bad taste in her mouth. There were times, even now, when Leliana felt she could sense the ghosts of those Eirik and Kolgrim had mentally corrupted. The probable innocents that they had forced the warden to slaughter.
She could still hear the High Dragon's roar…
"Leliana, no!" Zevran shouts, grabbing the back of her armor and wrenching her backwards.
The earth trembles as the dragon's mighty head swoops down, seeking an enemy to devour. The mighty jaws snap and Leliana screams as she feels heat and ice shred through her left thigh. Zevran keeps running, pulling her backwards through the snow, out of the reach of the dragon. Leliana lifts her head, seeing the horrid scarlet stains in the snow. She is shaking, trembling, living in a world that is made of pain.
The elven assassin looks at her with regret, but she knows he has to leave her. The dragon is still alive, still threatening them. She nods a 'yes' to the question in his eyes and he flies back into the battle. Leliana collapses back in the snow, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to remain conscious. She has been through this sort of pain before. She lived through it then, and she will live through it now. She has more of a reason to.
However, in the cold, her grip on coherency begins to slip. The chill drags her down, increment by increment, into the dark. She does not hear the dragon's last, angry ululation. She does not feel the ripple through the earth as the giant beast falls to the earth, a single strip of skin keeping its head attached to its neck. Only when she hears her name shrieked next to her ear does she begin to come around.
"Leliana!" Tylian's voice…Tylian Amell…her shining star. "Leliana, darling, please open your eyes. Maker, there's so much blood. There's too much blood!"
The worry in Tylian's voice forces Leliana's eyes open. The woman she loves is so gentle, so tender, but so very, very unaccustomed to the brutality of the world. Tylian is the child of the Circle of Magi, highly educated, but so young. Young enough to turn her talents to the elemental magics, and to ignore the healing arts. Leliana can see the horror in Tylian's eyes now…she does not know why her lover is so worried. Surely her injury is nothing that Wynne cannot handle with ease.
"Alistair, carry Wynne into the caverns." Leliana hears Zevran's voice, close by. "She needs to be kept warm."
"What," Leliana's throat is dry and she feels sluggish, distant, as though she is not present in the waking world, "what…happened…to Wynne?"
"She overextended herself and fell unconscious." Tylian shoves a lock of thick, black hair out of her face. "Leli…I don't know what to do. I cannot fix this. I cannot…I need to get you inside, where it's warm…"
"No." Leliana reaches up and takes her mage's hand. "The cold will…ease the bleeding. Stave off infection. Bandage the wounds and…and keep me warm."
"I should know how to heal." Tylian berates herself. "I should have let Wynne teach me, but I was too stubborn then, and now there is no time and I…I can't lose you, Leliana. I…I love you."
Leliana smiles. It is the first time that the mage has said those words, and Leliana's heart warms even though her body grows weaker. She can see Tylian's composure unraveling. She needs to speak, to ground her fragile lover in this moment, because Leliana is in no fit state to help herself.
"Tylian, help me sit up." she orders, and the mage complies, slipping her arm, which is becoming more firm with muscle each passing day, beneath Leliana's shoulders.
Tylian props her up and Leliana grits her teeth, forcing herself to look at the ragged mess the dragon's teeth have made of her thigh. There are five deep fissures in the skin; the snow beneath her is stained brilliant crimson. Wynne is not here, and the wounds need to be stitched. Even now, Leliana can see that Tylian's hands are trembling. The woman who can obliterate a darkspawn ogre with a fireball pulled straight from the abyss is pale and trembling at the sight of blood.
Leliana reaches into her belt pouch and removes her healer's kit. She has always carried one with her, a lesson taught by Marjolaine that has not left her mind, and never will. She rests her hand on Tylian's shoulder and passes the kit to her. Tylian's deep, brown eyes are terrified as they look from the contents of the kit to Leliana's wounds.
"Tylian," Leliana distracts the mage, "I love you. I need you to help me, now. I will guide you through this, but I cannot…I cannot do it myself. Be strong in this as you have everything else…" the bard's vision fades nearly to black and she clutches her stomach as it churns and threatens to expel its contents. "Please," Leliana begs, "be strong…for me."
Leliana's gaze remained fixed to the tear in the sky. A soft, sorrowful smile graced her features as she relived moments from her past. Tylian had been strong that day, and every day from thence. The shy, hesitant, naïve mage that Leliana had met in Lothering became a strong, fierce mage, unafraid of anything. Unafraid of…of even death.
"You look lost in thought." an accent that hailed from everywhere and nowhere met Leliana's ears.
The bard turned and looked into the well-known face of an old friend. When Leliana had left Ferelden after the Blight and been summoned to the Holy Palace in Val Royeaux, she had met the woman who would become her counterpart. Cassandra Pentaghast, the Right Hand of the Divine. They had clashed on many occasions in the early years of their working together. Leliana's penchant for subterfuge and manipulation of the truth had gone against Cassandra's direct approach and blatant honesty.
However, time had brought understanding to the both of them. It had made them a single entity, and, with Justinia, they had been a triumvirate of great power, three as one, doing the Maker's work. Justinia had been the visionary, and Cassandra and Leliana had been her agents of change. Now, with Justinia dead, the left and right hand were separate again, both still fighting, but aimless, purposeless, broken and scrabbling at straws. The goal had become distant, elusive, and disrupted by the hole in the sky.
"I am remembering." Leliana answered. "Remembering all that Haven has given and taken in its time."
"And, knowing you, dwelling on all that it yet may take?" Cassandra asked, offering the flash of upturned lips.
Cassandra's smile, so rare, so infrequent these days, warmed a place in Leliana's heart that had not known heat in years. The bard tamped down the emotion, snuffing the spark before it might become something more. She had loved in a time of great tragedy, and known only sorrow. She would not know that pain again, nor visit it upon another.
"I have seen heroes fall, Cassandra." Leliana said, somber. "All who dwell here, and many beyond this place and these borders, have begun to place their hope in Alaria Lavellan."
"It is a rare thing, to see an elf being named the Herald of Andraste." Cassandra assented. "And tomorrow at dawn, we go to close the Breach. Could it be that people are laying aside their petty hatreds in favor of a greater good?"
"You speak too optimistically." Leliana murmured, remembering a time before, when things had been different. When she herself had been brimming with hope for the future, and Cassandra had reigned as the voice of reason. "It is fear that drives their hope, but I tell you that their minds are largely unchanged. Should Alaria fail on the morrow, there will be a horrific retribution on the elves."
Cassandra's eyes darkened, but she nodded, accepting the truth in Leliana's words. The bard could read the Seeker in ways that none other could, a knowledge borne of honed skill and an intimate, though never physical, relationship. Leliana could see Cassandra clinging to her faith, struggling to believe that she had done the right thing by declaring the Inquisition.
Justinia had given them the order and the right…but she was no longer here to lead them, to guide them. Neither of them knew where to stand, for the one person who held any power over the rifts was the one they suspected of killing the woman they had served, admired, and…loved.
"Alaria will not fail." Cassandra spoke, iron in her voice. "She has faced every challenge thus far, and has risen to it. This will be no different. The Breach will be closed. I cannot explain how I know this, Leliana, but I have faith in her."
"Do not make that mistake." Leliana hissed and Cassandra took a step back, cinnamon eyes greeting stormy ocean blue.
"Whatever do you mean?" Cassandra asked.
"Do not have faith in one who must do great things." Leliana cautioned. "Or you will find them gone when they are needed most. It happened with Hawke, it happened with…with…"
"With Tylian." Cassandra finished for her, seeming properly remorseful. "I understand that you have lost, Leliana. But at some point, surely, the Maker will have mercy. He will grant us aid in our hour of need."
"Once, Cassandra, I thought much the same. I know that you remember those days. Days when my faith was strong."
You are the one person remaining who knows the darknesses and lights of my life. Leliana thought. And, once, I was innocent enough to hope that such a connection, such a knowledge, might mean more. There is no limit to pain in this world, but there must be a limit to the pain we bring upon ourselves.
Leliana turned her eyes away from the sky, absorbing Cassandra with all of her senses, save those she most desired to experience the Seeker with. Touch. Taste. Instead, she roved over the fine, aristocratic angles of Cassandra's face with her eyes. She listened to the cadence of the warrior's breath, letting its methodic, even rhythm lull her soul into a reasonable facsimile of peace. She smelled smoke and sparks, a unique, soldier's perfume that stirred her senses and her dormant desires.
"I do remember." Cassandra nodded. "It is my prayer for you, Leliana, to someday see your faith strengthened. Will you honor my prayer?"
"It would require my faith to return." Leliana responded, feeling a knife pierce her heart when she saw Cassandra's face fall, the glow in her cinnamon eyes grow more dim and elusive.
"Look at me." Cassandra ordered, and her hand reached for Leliana's.
The bard stiffened as she felt the heat of Cassandra's skin against her own. Because she was the spymaster, the Left Hand of the Divine, most feared to touch her. She had not known a kind touch since Justinia, and the feel of Cassandra's strong, callused hands sent Leliana's heart tripping over itself inside her chest. She struggled to keep her breathing even, to keep Cassandra from thinking anything amiss, to keep contact with the Seeker for as long as possible. To feel again.
Leliana met Cassandra's eyes and struggled not to fall into them. She could not lose herself in that deep conflagration. Cassandra the warrior, Cassandra the faithful, Cassandra the unshakeable. The romantic. The passionate. All emotions that Leliana had been forced to sever herself from were the emotions in which Cassandra found her power and influence. Leliana craved to feel such things again, but it was imperative that she not. Her work was too important, and emotion could have no part in it.
"Your faith gave mine strength, Leliana." Cassandra spoke, her voice hotter than her skin. It scorched Leliana's ears and sent shivers down her spine. "We could lose everything tomorrow. I remember the woman who sang around the fire in the darkest of nights, when fear ruled us and those around us. I remember a woman who smiled in the face of danger. A woman so kind, so valiant, that she took the burdens of the greatest power in Thedas onto her shoulders, not only willingly but happily. I need that. If I am to face the dawn, Leliana, I need that woman at my side again."
"I will always be at your side." Leliana promised, meaning more than she could say aloud. "But I cannot be that woman again."
"In that, I feel a great loss." Cassandra sighed. She was a warrior. She understood loss. She understood that pieces of one's soul were torn away and lost in the battle that was life. "But I will keep my faith for you, Leliana, and believe that when the time comes, you shall see the light again. You will find your faith restored."
"I pray you are right." Leliana whispered, watching the last edge of the sun sink below the horizon.
The day was done, and the dawn would come too soon. They would march to battle against demons and the Breach, trusting in a force that they did not understand. Leliana wished that her faith could remain as strong as it had the day she saw the flower bloom in Lothering. The day she believed that the Maker had broken his silence and spoken to her…the day that she had met Tylian Amell and fallen into eyes the color of rich earth.
Oh, she had believed in love then, and even damaged, even frightened, she had given her heart to the young mage. But life had taught her a brutal lesson. As Marjolaine's betrayal had taught her that love often masqueraded as use, and abuse…Tylian's life had taught her that true beauty would never be long for this world. Leliana turned from the Breach in the sky and retreated to the Chantry.
A shiver coursed down her spine as it always did when she passed through those doors. She could swear, when she did enter, that she stepped through the ghost of her former self, a self that had been bright-eyed with hope, filled with belief in the goodness of the world and the Maker. Even amid the blood sacrifice that had been rampant here, the worshipping of the dragon, the wounds that had almost stolen her life…there had been beauty, passion, a gleaming light at the end of the road that beckoned her toward it, promising everything she had sought for in a previous life and never received.
The bard entered her spartan quarters, sat on the edge of the bed, and frowned. A single decoration hung on the walls…a portion of a cracked mage's staff. The rest of the wood had been splintered that fateful day atop Fort Drakon. The day that Leliana had lost everything…again. The day that dark magic had once more proven that love and its progenitor, the Maker himself, meant less than nothing…
…bright light pierces the sky and a roar sounds. Even atop the sturdy structure of Fort Drakon, Leliana feels the stones shake beneath her feet. Her eyes are riveted to Tylian, who is standing tall above the collapsed form of the archdemon. She holds a stolen sword, and smoke rises from the hands that keep the weapon in place. The soldiers around her are shielding their eyes from the blinding light. Alistair falls backwards and hides his face, screaming as the archdemon's monstrous influence is torn from his mind by force.
Leliana hears nothing but a single cadence that rips her heart in two. She cannot hear the sound of the darkspawn fleeing. She cannot hear the soldier's roars of triumphs. She cannot hear the earth splitting beneath her feet. All she can hear is Tylian's voice raised in a cry of pain that shreds her heart in two. Ignoring the weakness and exhaustion in her body, the fear that would keep her locked in place, Leliana runs forward, toward the light that burns hotter than the sun itself.
The conflagration flares and extinguishes as she reaches Tylian. The mage's body bucks as though it has been sliced in half and she falls into her bard's waiting arms. Leliana cradles Tylian's shuddering form, looking for a grievous injury, anything that would give her cause to fear for Tylian's life. There is nothing. But Tylian's deep, molten eyes are going distant. Her lips are too pale, working back in forth in words that have no sound, no voice, no strength.
"I am here, my love." Leliana whispers, cradling Tylian's neck, sweeping her fingers through the thick mane of black hair.
"Did…did…I…" Tylian's voice is wet, rasping, and fear grips Leliana's heart as she sees droplets of scarlet fleck the mage's cracked, bloodless lips. "…is it…done?"
"Yes." tears fill Leliana's eyes.
She knows what is happening. She knows that her lover is dying. There is nothing she can do. She remembers Tylian telling her that this would happen. That it was the fate of the Grey Warden who dealt the archdemon the final blow. But Leliana had not believed. Not in Tylian's words. No, she had believed in a world that had treated her cruelly. She had believed in a god that would have mercy. She had believed anything but the truth, and now she found her faith cracking slow but certain inside her own chest.
"Good." Tylian smiles, and the sight of it sickens Leliana even as it gladdens her. "Everything…seems so…broad…in my head. Like I…know everything. I'm…I'm not afraid…Leliana. I thought…I would be…but you're here. You…make me…not afraid."
"Good." Leliana's throat tightens and she struggles to regain her composure. "You shouldn't be afraid, my darling. You've done so well. You've won. You've won, and we are all safe."
"Thank…the Maker." Tylian sighs and her eyes lose the light inside them. "I will…miss you…Leli. It's so…bright here. You would...love it."
Tylian's body shudders and her back convulses with a harsh, wet cough. Thick, red blood streams from the corner of Tylian's lips and drips down the side of her face. Leliana holds her tighter, as if her embrace will keep Tylian safe in her body, locked on this earth. She prays to whatever gods will listen, to turn back the tides of fate and let love triumph as it should.
"Do not close your eyes." she pleads with her mage, her Tylian, the light of her world. "Do not leave this world darker for your absence. Please, Tylian, please. Stay with me."
"Wish…" Tylian's voice is fading, weak, a whisper of its former self. "…I could. Wanted…to see…the world. With you. Because…love. I…love you."
Tylian's body goes limp in Leliana's arms and the bard stares in shock at the peaceful expression stamped on her lover's features. She knows that this is not what is supposed to happen. Not what should have been. Tylian is too young, too vibrant, too full of promise and hope for the future…but she has been taken. Taken by a darker fate, a harsher mandate, and a god who does not seem to care for the broken spirits of his children.
In the throngs of those raising their voices in victory…a singular wail of sorrow tears through the air, as the Nightingale of Orlais once more finds her heart broken…this time, beyond repair.
Leliana jerked back at the taste of salt on her lips. She pressed her fingers to her cheeks, shocked to find them wet with tears. She had not cried since the last time she spoke to Justinia, who, at the time, was simply Revered Mother Dorothea, her first true friend. Later, Dorothea would change her name and become the woman Thedas looked to in times of trial.
But, as Tylian had…Justinia had left Leliana and gone, too early, to the Maker's side. The Breach in the sky mirrored the gaping hole in Leliana's heart. Many had loved Justinia…but few had known her personally. Even fewer remembered her as Dorothea, a woman with a kind heart, a keen mind, and mortal flaws.
Leliana laughed at herself, mocking her own thoughts in the silence. Here she sat, angry at death, the inevitable end of a mortal life. Tomorrow, death might be her fate. She might see Tylian again, might walk with Justinia in the lands the Maker prepared. Confusion filled the bard as she wondered why the idea did not appeal to her now…and had not appealed to her for years.
She had loved Tylian with more devotion than she had known to be possible. However, somehow, outside of her notice, she had lost her yearning to embrace mortality and depart Thedas forever. She had continued to live, and with a vengeance. She had clung to life, and it had to be for reasons other than those she had kept forefront in her mind. It was not the mission. It was not her position as the Left Hand of the Divine.
What could it possibly be?
"Why do you weep, Leliana?" a voice spoke from the door of her room and the bard lifted her head, greeting a pair of glittering cinnamon eyes.
"For things lost." Leliana replied, seeing the answer to her question in the woman before her. "For things that might not be realized."
Cassandra nodded, her lips turning down at the corners in contemplation, stretching the rakish scar across her face.
"You feel it too, do you not?" the Seeker asked. "A hollow place inside your heart. A thrumming like the drums of war, echoing in the vast emptiness of your soul."
Leliana chuckled, feeling at ease with Cassandra, able to share her thoughts, free her mind…a gift that none but the woman before her could now give.
"You have been reading too many romance serials." Leliana teased, and Cassandra's face flushed a beautiful shade of red.
This is the reason. Leliana realized as she watched the rise of crimson in Cassandra's cheeks. The reason I stopped seeking death. The reason that I persisted in this life, fighting, carrying Justinia's burdens on my own shoulders. Is is this woman, whose discretion reminds of of Wynne's, whose cunning puts Zevran to shame, whose nobility leaves Alistair's in shadow...and whose kindness matches Tylian's.
"The words in the literature that you mock can be comforting." Cassandra replied, speaking barely above a whisper. "In those stories, at times like these, those who go into the darkness to confront it have others waiting for them, or at their side. The words that are exchanged…"
Leliana rose from the edge of the bed and walked to Cassandra, feeling her heart hammer against her ribs. She dared to reach out and trace the firm lines of Cassandra's arm with a ghosting of fingertips.
"Precious words." Leliana agreed. "Return to me. Hold me. Kiss me before you go."
"Yes." Cassandra's voice dropped an octave and Leliana felt shivers down her spine.
"Cassandra…if I were to say those words to you…in earnest, not in jest, would they fall on receptive ears?"
Cassandra's thick brows furrowed as she gazed at Leliana. They were two halves of the same whole, two parts of something greater than themselves. They were empty, lost, and afraid of what the rising sun would bring. The end of the world? Or the beginning of something greater than either of them had ever been part of? Neither could say.
"Leliana…"
"Please, Cassandra." the bard almost begged. "I cannot silence the clamor in my mind. I cannot stop the memories that assail me. I have loved and I have lost and when you entered here I have sat, wondering what has kept me tethered to this world."
"Our duty to the Divine." Cassandra answered. "The work of the Maker, surely."
Leliana shook her head. "No." she stated, adamant. "It is not that…my heart broke when Justinia di…when she left us. But still I feel within me the need to be alive, to fight…and save for you, my life is empty. Perhaps what I have been missing and longing for has been…"
"Before your eyes all along." Cassandra whispered, a hushed reverence in her tone. "I am aware, for this thing has been before my eyes as well. However, I…I cannot. This sort of…it is not who I am."
In the hollow of her heart, Leliana felt subtle warmth begin to blossom. A warmth that might have always been there, but she had only now allowed it to spread, grow, and take root within her.
"Cassandra," Leliana drew closer to the Seeker, "how can you know that? Have we not spent nights beside each other, taking warmth and comfort from the other's presence? Have we not shared confidences that surpass the secrets shared by mere friends? Have we not been more to each other than simple comrades in arms? The sole thing lacking here is the spoken definition of what lies between us."
"To speak of it would be to shatter its fragile existence." Cassandra turned her face towards the fire that burned in the hearth, away from the phosphorescent blue eyes that would scorch her. "I cannot lose it, Leliana. It is…it is all that I have left. What we are. What we have. It is all, and it is everything, and it must remain thus."
"No." Leliana shook her head, feeling tears in her eyes again as a foreign emotion once freely indulged in returned to her. There were faint stirrings of joy in her spirit, and its return terrified her even as it gave her strength. "If I have learned anything, Cassandra, it is that life is a series of moments strung together. It is for us to make them meaningful. It is for us to grasp them and make them as they were intended to be. It is for us to reach for the unsaid, unmentioned, and ignored emotions we share and merge and twine them. It is all that…all that we have left."
Cassandra shook her head, her cinnamon eyes glimmering with the sheen of tears, and the substance of things hoped for.
"I do not know how, Leliana." she confessed. "I know what I feel, I know how it lights my spirit and burns within me. I know that it drives me forward and gives me life…but the last time I indulged in this, it ended so painfully and I…I am not as strong as you."
"This is not a thing we march in and conquer." Leliana whispered, resting her hands on Cassandra's shoulders, feeling the strength and solidity beneath the rough homespun. "This is not something we can sing of or shout from the rooftops. This world is made of pain, and when it sees pleasure, it works to destroy it. But I cannot face the dawn without…without reaffirming my humanity. I cannot allow what has grown between us to be unrealized."
"Then…then what do we do?" Cassandra asked, seeking the ocean eyes that had been her comfort and her sanity on so many occasions.
They were the eyes that had held her in this world when the explosion rocked the foundations of Thedas and their Divine had been lost. They were the eyes that had shared the tears of grief, held secrets, and brought laughter for the last ten years. The lips that spoke words so beautiful and tantalizing were the lips that had haunted Cassandra's dreams, and now they were so close…
"What do we do?" Leliana smiled, slow, sweet, seductive. "We hide from the vagaries of gods and demons." Leliana whispered, moving her hands, running one down the broad expanse of Cassandra's back, resting the other on the side of the Seeker's neck. "We make this night sacred. Steal this moment with me, Cassandra."
With that prayer on her lips, Leliana leaned forward, pressing her lips against the Seeker's. The bard's heart caught fire and she moaned as the ecstasy of simple human connection rushed over her. Cassandra's lips were supple, her kiss a conflagration of power and light and all things worth fighting for. Leliana pulled the warrior's body against her own, melding their forms to another, balancing Cassandra's strength against her dexterity, letting her hands roam free over the firm muscle that defined Cassandra's physique.
Leliana wanted the kiss to last for an eternity, to go on into the dawn. But Cassandra pulled away from her and stumbled. The Seeker's hand reached out and clung to the mantelpiece over the fire.
"I cannot risk this." Cassandra rasped, her chest heaving with ragged breaths. "I cannot give this night to you, not when the morning is uncertain. I…"
"Cassandra," Leliana entreated, "be with me. Please."
"Why now, Leliana?" Cassandra demanded. "Why do you bring this to light now, when tomorrow is not guaranteed?"
"It is because tomorrow is not guaranteed." Leliana breathed, feeling as though her heart would break her ribs, as though her blood boiled in her veins. "If the Herald fails, if we die, I want to have attempted to love again. I have let my pain define my life and I will not let that be so any longer! Cassandra…I beg you…I beg you…love me as I have loved you. Let the words and thoughts we have harbored in silence be given thought and voice. Let our bodies be a prayer, here, in the sight of the Maker. You have kept me alive…"
"You have kept me from the anger that sought to devour me." Cassandra murmured, pulling away from the fire, pressing her hands to her lips where she could still feel Leliana's kiss.
"We are not our own, Cassandra." Leliana reminded herself. "We belonged to Justinia and Thedas, and now we belong to the Inquisition. Tomorrow, all of that may crumble. Tonight, let us belong to the one thing we can love and trust. Let us belong to each other."
Cassandra stood, torn between her duty and her heart. She had known this position too many times in her life. It had been there when she and Leliana had traveled together across the face of Thedas on Justinia's orders. It had been there when they had been forced to sleep beneath the same covers and huddle together for warmth as a storm raged. It had been there when they had bathed together, standing between Cassandra's insistent desire and the mission beyond her immediate want.
The Seeker had always chosen to deny her heart and her lusts. It was more important that she and Leliana be able to work together, that they strive towards the same goals and achieve them. She knew that to enter the red-haired woman's arms now would be to endanger their connection, their ability to read the other's mind, to work independently of the other for the same goal and cut in half the amount of time in which it was achieved. To go forward now would be to risk everything her mind held dear…and gain everything that her heart desired.
Steal this moment…Leliana's entreaty played out in Cassandra's mind, beautiful and impassioned. Impossibly romantic. Exactly what one might say were they a character locked in an author's mind, living only in the pages of a book. They were the words Cassandra had wanted to hear in her secret heart, a heart that she kept concealed save in the presence of one woman…the woman standing before her now.
"You will…have to teach me." Cassandra murmured. "I have never…with a woman…but I…I want this. I want this...our...stolen moment."
Leliana smiled and the war drum beating in her hollow heart turned into a softer, gentler beat. The void inside her soul, the aching chasm left by the loss of loved ones began to ache less when she took Cassandra in her arms once more.
Again, their lips touched with a tender, aching hesitancy that made breath shudder in their lungs. Each brush of tender flesh felt as pure gold being poured into their hands, a wealth that no other could comprehend. Strong, callused hands cupped Leliana's face, tangling in her fiery hair, pulling her close. Cassandra drank from the bard as a thirsty man from an oasis in the desert.
Leliana's hands trembled as they lifted the hem of Cassandra's shirt. She parted from the woman, attempting to catch her breath, losing it again as the shirt was pulled away, and Cassandra's body bared before her. Blue eyes roved over the expanse of dusky skin. Her fingertips reached out and traced the myriad scars that decorated Cassandra's muscular physique. Full, satin breasts begged for Leliana's hands and she cupped them, hearing the Seeker gasp at her touch.
Ever the bard, Leliana kept silent, knowing that she had stolen this moment, this experience from those who governed the world, who paired love alongside pain and made the two journey hand in hand in the hearts of men and women. It was with care that she lowered her mouth to Cassandra's breasts, teasing the mocha nipples into pebbled points of agonizing, exquisite pleasure.
The Seeker threw back her head as Leliana's too-skilled tongue danced over one nipple and her fingers tormented the other with feathering touches. Heat poured through the bard's body, liquefying between her thighs, a river of want that had been dammed inside of her soul and body for too long. Too long had the nightmares haunted her, images of the dead she had loved restraining her from reaching out again.
Now, however, she reached. She reached and her hands burned as they traced the scars on Cassandra's body, feeling the muscles twitch and flutter beneath her touch. Her mouth went dry, a thirst that could only be sated by the gentle dueling of her lips and Cassandra's. The short, onyx spikes of Cassandra's hair tickled between Leliana's fingers as the bard cradled her head and savaged her lips with fiery kisses.
She took Cassandra's lower lip into her mouth and traced her tongue along the inside of it, drawing a moan from deep in the Seeker's chest. Encouraged, Leliana used her teeth, gently nibbling on the sensitive flesh. Cassandra's hands dug into Leliana's hips, before reaching up, taking the collar of her shirt and ripping the material. The sound of shredded cloth kicked in Leliana's chest and the sudden wash of the chill air turned her nipples to electrified stone.
Keeping Cassandra's lower lip prisoner between her teeth, Leliana grasped the Seeker by the shoulders and forced her against the wall, pressing her bare breasts to Cassandra's own, growling low in her throat as the muscles in her sex quivered and kicked, begging to be parted, filled, for the eloquent, ecstatic seizure of release to pound through her entire body.
Cassandra's hands moved behind Leliana's back, taking her shirt in hand again and ripping through it once more. Leliana lowered her hands and the material fell from her body, leaving her bare. Immediately, large hands seized her waist and pulled her closer with a bruising force. Their bodies meshed together, skin against skin, allowing no air, no space, to exist between the two of them. Leliana tore her lips away from Cassandra's and moved to her neck, savaging the tender skin, tantalizing the nerves.
She slipped one hand down, cupping Cassandra's ass, kneading the firm flesh as her teeth bit into Cassandra's neck. The Seeker cried out in shock as Leliana ravaged her skin, intent on leaving a mark, a declaration to the gods that their creation would still find moments of peace, moments to cherish and savor in a crumbling world. That pain and the fear of it did not govern every heart.
Heat and frenzy spooled in Leliana's body, an ache too long unsatisfied spurring her to action. Her hand reached between Cassandra's legs, feeling the fire emanating from the warrior's body. It beckoned her, called to her, and Leliana could not resist the temptation. She wished to drink deep from the well of life, to let no joy go unsavored in this moment that belonged to her and Cassandra alone.
The bard dropped to her knees, praying to the goddess of the stolen moment, the panting, raven-haired warrior above her, whose eyes were alight with lust and whose lips were swollen from ardent kisses. Leliana's hands undid Cassandra's belt with trembling, flustered movements and she wrenched down Cassandra's trousers and smallclothes, not allowing the Seeker a moment to breathe before her mouth attacked the heat between Cassandra's thighs.
The Seeker cried out, a hoarse shout of pleasure and agony. Her hands moved to Leliana's shoulders and gripped tight as a new, liquid heat attacked her intimate places. Leliana's hands wrapped around Cassandra's thighs, bringing her closer. She ran her tongue across the swollen folds of Cassandra's sex, tasting the innate essence of the woman, a taste like the tang of fresh-forged steel, a new addiction for Leliana to crave.
Leliana fed on the incoherent noises spilling from Cassandra's mouth and her tongue probed against Cassandra's entrance, piercing it repeatedly until the woman above her sobbed for relief and begged in every language she knew for the torment to be eased. With a quick, focused movement, Leliana moved one of her hands, driving two fingers deep within Cassandra, letting the woman's strength surround her. Another hoarse shout echoed through the room and Leliana turned her tongue to the hard, pulsating bundle of nerves at the apex of Cassandra's sex.
She hardened her tongue to a point and attacked Cassandra's most intimate place in the style of a fencer, every hit measured for maximum damage and impact. Her fingers moved with an animalistic rhythm, plunging into Cassandra's body, feeding off of the sounds being torn out of the reserved, restrained woman's throat.
When she felt Cassandra's inner walls begin to flutter around her fingers, Leliana thrust once more and kept her fingers buried in Cassandra's sex, undulating them in a slow, tormenting rhythm. Her lips closed over the rigid bundle of flesh and she sucked it in deep, rippling her tongue in the same manner as her fingers. A harsh, discordant scream shattered the room.
Cassandra's body bucked against the wall, her hands fisted in Leliana's hair, pinning the smaller woman between her thighs. The Seeker undulated her hips and Leliana kept her fingers inside, feeling the pleasure seizure-spasm wracking Cassandra. She pressed the flat of her tongue to the bundle of nerves, quirking it upward with every thrust of Cassandra's hips, throwing the woman over the edge again, giving her no chance to recover.
When she felt the last, shuddering tremor flow through Cassandra's body, Leliana pulled her hand away and caught the Seeker as she fell, easing her to the cold stone floor of the Chantry. She covered Cassandra's body with her own, pressing her mouth to her lover's, letting Cassandra taste herself on Leliana's lips.
Cassandra's eyelids fluttered, then flared when she saw the desire and absolute need thrashing inside Leliana's stormy gaze. The Seeker's trembling hands began to roam over the open landscape of pale skin. She felt the rippled, uneven textures of flesh from the scars that Leliana's life had visited upon her. Her touch turned gentle and she began to trace each and every imperfection with a tenderness Leliana had never before known.
Tylian had been a mage. She had not understood the scars that littered Leliana's body. She did not understand why the bard simply did not have a mage erase them. Even if magic could not mend the scar, a glamour could be cast, erasing the ugliness from the minds and sight of others. However, Leliana saw none of that reasoning in Cassandra's burning eyes. Instead, she witnessed a warrior's respect. Cassandra had been dealt wounds. She had lain on the brink of death as many times, if not more, than Leliana herself.
But those moments did not matter now. Those moments were the journal entries of pain. Those moments were marks of what they had survived, where they had come from, and who they were now. To Leliana, her past no longer mattered. She knew herself, and she knew now why she had lived and how she had survived. She could sense Cassandra's complete reciprocation in the way the Seeker kissed her.
She had survived because love had promised to enter into her life again. Leliana had run so long from her own heart, but she could not do so again. Yes, they had stolen this moment of bliss in a world of pain and uncertainty, but that was what made them human. For too long, the Left and Right Hands of the Divine had known nothing but duty, honor, and service.
Tonight would be a time away from that. Tomorrow, duty would resurge. Tomorrow, they would march to battle once again in the name of the Maker. But tonight, duty could be squandered, honor could be forfeit, and service would only extend to the other. Leliana had loved. She had lost. But, when it mattered most, she had remembered to live again. She would defeat the fear of death.
A muffled squeak of surprise peeled from Leliana's lips as Cassandra flipped her onto the ground. The Seeker's hand reached for the bard's belt and Leliana let her mouth melt into a smile. She prepared for pleasure, for ecstasy, for the promise of loneliness abated. She felt Cassandra's long, talented fingers brush through the downy red curls of her sex and let one thought whisper through her mind before she surrendered to her raven-haired lover entirely.
The moments of pain make us strong. The moments of loss keep us humble. The moments of triumph seal our faith. The moments of surprise give us hope. But it is times such as these, the stolen moments, where we defy the gods and find love.
Love is freedom.
A delighted moan fell from her lips like a prayer when she felt Cassandra's fingers slip inside her.
I am free.