Remembering a Winter Star
He remembered the way the sun would catch the red in her flaxen hair, the way she would try to desperately pull it out of her eyes, twisting it away from her face like some mighty burden, when all he could think about was how soft it might feel against the tips of his fingers.
How her cheeks were so prone to get red at even the barest hints of sunlight, patchy and ugly but it was beautiful to him and he wanted to know of her skin was soft as it was pale.
He remembered the way those big, unusually blue eyes settled on him, smiling shyly as she'd shuffle past him, the hem of her mages robe dragging along the cobblestone bottom, tattering the navy fabric more than those ugly brown boots she wore, had the woman no other pair of shoes for those dainty little feet?
Her lack of material possessions bothered him.
He remembered how soft her lips were the first time she kissed him, she said it was a mistake, he agreed and kissed her again.
He remembered being sick with worry the day she went for her harrowing, and the joy he felt when she passed and became a full fledged apprentice.
"I would've been the one to cut you down if had you failed."
He remembered the day she left, it'd been raining and she'd been accused of blood magic. Helping a now apostate try and escape with some Chantry initiate, only being saved by a Grey Warden, he thought he'd never see her again.
They say hell is an open door with a broken heart, they'd been right.
The days twisted with blackness, demons filed through the halls of the Tower, killing both Mage and Templar alike, he remembered seeing his brothers-in-arms fall to both magic and the temptation of the demons.
How many times had he seen her face on the body of a demon, cooing and moaning for him, shamelessly exploiting his biggest regret and deepest secret, every day the demon would come, spurting its false promises, he wouldn't listen, he refused too...
Until one day she appeared, garbed in royal blue and snowfall white and with a crowd he hadn't seen, more demons?
No.
This time it wasn't a demon, this time it was her, with her ruddy-red cheeks and sorrowful eyes staring at him like there was a crack in her heart.
That was the last time he saw her alive.
He remembered the smell of fire, and the harsh crackle of snapping wood and the smoke from grass lit aflame, standing there with a face he probably wouldn't recognize, listening to the Templar-Warden speak words of affection for his fallen companion- a sharp pang of jealousy at the hidden secrets he shared with her.
Hero, that was what they called her, she wasn't a Mage, a woman, a Warden, she was a hero.
And she was gone.