Silence and shadows, feet that made no sound on the stairs as she listened, carefully. Sleeping breath, a deep rise and fall, rhythmic as the waves against the shore. A cautious hand pushing the door, a crack wide enough to slip through.
A dying fire, more shadows filling the room and there, laying slantwise across the bed, him. Orange and red from the faltering flames glinting on metal, his chest, the sword leaning against the bed. Faint blue flickering along lyrium lines, moonlight on gently moving water, showing what he was. What only she seemed to see.
A man, an elf who could never be swallowed up by darkness.
Gliding past the bottle laying on the floor, she paused, sniffed. Only a rich red wine scent, with no trace of her potion. Emboldened by accomplishment, she crossed the distance to the bed.
Starlight on the head against the dark covers. Head slightly to the side, showing lines faintly glowing against his throat. Eyelids closed over malachite eyes, a deeper green than any she had seen, deeper than Dalish green, deep as a promise.
Wrapped in armor, as always, a breathing fortress. Bare hands for once, one across his chest and the other thrown over his head.
She alights on the side of the bed, near his chest. Reaches up to touch a line on his chin with a fingertip. The lyrium calls to the magic within her, and her magic answers in a whisper. The blue flares up just under her finger as she traces the path it makes down his throat. His skin on either side is so soft, and the marking is harder, like a scar. Like a road that would lead somewhere new, if only he would let her follow it.
She moves her fingers to the lines of his hand and thinks of his impossible strength. Hands that could smash down doors, break chains, lift an entire people from their knees to their feet. She traces each line down the palm to his fingertip, and back over the top of his hand. Reading him as if she were blind. As if the markings were the words to a story they were telling, of freedom, for them and for their people.
The entire world was a book of knowledge she had always wanted to read, to devour. The world was a place of mystery; of unending wonder and pain. The world was a boot stepping down on the necks of her people. The world was in the palm of his hands, and he could crush it if he chose.
Once they had had a hero, Shartan, but he had loved a human woman. That love had spawned a religion that had thrown down her people's gods, and the boot had only stepped down harder.
They needed a hero that was theirs. They needed a vanguard, who would charge in first to the battle. They needed a fortress to stand behind; needed a banner, a symbol, a sign that would unite them. A comet that would blaze across the night sky and lead them into the dawn. The mirror could show her their past but now, she thought, he could show them their future.
He was the secret that she kept, even from the demons. She had learned much from those spirits, much they had meant to teach her and more that they had not. How to entice, how to slip in under one's defenses, how to offer what was most wanted, in order to gain what was most needed.
Her hands moved back to the lines of his throat, following the lines that ran under his jaw. Nothing was impossible. He was not without compromise. He had befriended a mage, he tolerated that mage's abomination lover, he had said he would not betray them to the Templars.
She was a good student, but she could be a better teacher. She could teach him to care, to care for the fate of his people. To love his people. To love her.
She felt his consciousness rising up, fighting against the magic in her potion. Even in this he fought harder than others would, or could. She pulled her hands away. For now.
She stood, and for a few more moments she watched his throat move, his chest rise and fall. She could become like that, like the air that he took in with every breath. Unnoticed, but necessary. As simple as breathing.
He woke from a dream of inexplicable longing. The dream itself was as dim as his memories, but he knew this much; there he had belonged, and now he was…bereft.
A deep sighing breath filled his lungs and brought him upright, his sharpened gaze searching the room and finding nothing. But for a moment, he had been certain that over the musty scent of the manor he had smelled flowers, and sunshine.