Her hands have not forgotten. There's a certain pride in that. A shameful thrill, even with a bow affording her a certain amount of distance. Killing is killing is killing and Leliana's nothing if not talented. The Warden concurs, nodding in her direction when the battle is won.
"You're not entirely useless," Kasari says, flicking blood off her longsword. Quite the begrudging one this Warden. A surly bundle of contradictions. It's interesting.
Leliana's lips twitch. "High praise indeed."
"You have no idea," Alistair drawls, clearing his throat when Kasari's eyes catch and sear his. He's rather intimidated by her. Leliana suppresses a smile when he busies himself with the removal of his sword.
She bends over, trying not to think of the Chantry miles behind her as she pockets arrows from a corpse. The bandits had an archer in their number. Their arrows did not fly as true as hers.
"That dagger of yours just for show?" Leliana looks up. Kasari smirks, jutting her chin towards Leliana's belt. "Or is that too up close and personal for a sister like yourself?"
A sister perhaps. Not a bard. The nature of The Game demands subterfuge, yes, but also close proximity. Such are the occupational hazards. Yet a dagger unbloodied, untouched.
She's not been a bard in some time.
Leliana straightens, adjusting the sling of her bow over her back. Kasari's lingered; Alistair's moved a little ways ahead, already drawn into another argument with Morrigan; Sten even further, a silent, steady presence, his back stiff, eyes turned to the horizon.
"Not at all." She smiles slowly, finding the perfect curve for her lips. "I confess a preference for archery but I am just as capable with sword or dagger, let me assure you."
Kasari tracks the movement, eyes burning in her face. Blood flecked over the raised skin on her cheek. Leliana wonders about it. She wonders a lot of things. "Capable, huh."
"Ah, was that too arrogant? How about not entirely useless then."
A snort. "I'll be the judge of that."
"Of course," Leliana says, bowing her head in acquiescence. "I would prefer no other."
The best lies are ones that have a grain of truth. Kasari nods, turns, steps away. Leliana follows, leaving behind a trail of corpses, dagger heavier than before.
.
Her hand is forced sooner rather than later. Besieged by Darkspawn, her arrows littering the foes around them, and one almost upon her, its breath ghosting her face.
Her fingers close around the hilt of her blade. The dagger does not whistle as her arrows do but it's nothing like the quick, silent death she perfected in Orlais. It's significantly messier.
She's had better kills—will have—but Kasari's blood splattered face grins sharp and wild, their gauntlets squelching against each other as she helps Leliana to her feet. She never would have expected such courtesy, not after such a welcome, but the Warden's eyes laugh, and there is less mockery in it than before.
"Never thought I'd see a sister gut a Darkspawn like a fish." Kasari claps Leliana on the shoulder, Darkspawn blood smearing onto hers. No pristine chantry robes, not anymore. Only leather and plate.
It's a strange moment: her dagger bloodied, the Chantry ever further behind her, and her throat aching strangely as something sparks to life under her ribs at Kasari's touch.
.
"I don't understand why you're here," Kasari mutters, the bruises under her eyes visible through the dark spiral of her tattoos. "Bunch of shems following an elf all over bloody Ferelden."
There is a Blight. There is a Blight and the undead and all manner of odd, impossible things to overcome, and Leliana looks at the Warden and thinks: I just want to see you smile.
She says, "You're remarkably easy to follow."
.
The Warden is bristling fury and determined hatred and quicksilver grins and small, faltering acts of kindness.
Her face is harsh. Too harsh, perhaps, to be truly beautiful, and yet Leliana cannot think of her as anything else.
.
When she allowed herself to dream, she imagined it would be all heat, swollen lips and grasping hands and pressing in between parted thighs.
And there is that, yes: Kasari draws Leliana's lip between her teeth and bites, the sweet sting making her moan into the other's mouth. But her hands don't wander from Leliana's hips and things don't progress beyond kissing. Leliana's fingers trace their way over her ribcage, down her belly, and Kasari's breath hitches. She pulls back slightly, a strange hesitance in her face.
"I want," she murmurs, "but I've never. I wasn't—I couldn't." She closes her eyes, frustrated, embarrassed, and Leliana remembers the ring on Kasari's left hand; remembers her haunted eyes and strange, twisted smile. No one knew, she said. Not even Shianni. Father—he wouldn't have made me if he knew.
She had assumed there had been someone else. How couldn't there have been? As surly and brittle as she is, she's Kasari.
"You," Leliana murmurs, dragging her lips from the scar on her cheek to the corner of her mouth, "are so dear."
"And you are patronizing," Kasari snaps, but it's barely meant, and they're smiling, the both of them, when she frames that beloved face in her hands and kisses her, over and over.
.
"I'd follow you anywhere," Leliana says, sleepy and sated, their legs and arms intertwined as they parcel out bits of themselves, piece by piece by piece.
Kasari brushes her nose over her collarbone. "Just stay," she says, and for once there's no mistaking the softness in her eyes, "right here."