A/N: This fic is actually entirely written by Raven Sinead. We had a fun experiment where we wrote each other's warden in our own style. When I told her she should publish it, she insisted I do so, so fans of Forbidden Magic would see it. So it's a fanfic of a fanfic? I guess? I dunno. But it's lovely and I love it and you all should see it.
It's not quite canon to FM, but it's close enough. Takes place right after Zevran returns from Fort Drakon with Leliana and Alistair in-tow. Enjoy! Again, all credit goes to Raven Sinead.
Solona
I woke up with a clenched throat, breathing heavy, sweat running down my face, between my breasts, and down my back. My eyes swept the room, the roaring fire, the dim grey of sunrise peering through the window. The sound of birds chirping calmed me, but something felt…wrong. The space next to me, always warm, always inhabited by the one who brought me ultimate comfort, was cold.
The remembrance of why brought back the anguish of the dream and I clenched my helpless hand into a fist. My nails cut into my palm and every part of me wanted to ignite that fist and drive it through the throat of the one who had haunted my dreams. But no. If magic were to be used, the templars would come running, and, Grey Warden or no, they'd cart me back to the Circle, kicking and screaming, because Loghain owned them.
Bastards!
I slammed my fist against the mattress, feeling even worse as the soft down gave easily beneath the force of my hand. I got to my feet and stormed to the washbasin, splashing cold water over my face, trying to drive the images out of my head. The images of Loghain standing over my lover, holding a blade, looking at her naked and vulnerable, listening to her cries of pain while I did nothing!
I gripped the washbasin and flung it against the wall. The pottery shattered and water splashed across the floor. The fire reflected off of the puddle, making it look like a pool of blood. The blood that remained stuck underneath my fingernails…Leliana's blood.
I flung my clothes across my back, hating myself for having slept, for having dreamt while she may have lain awake, in pain, with no one to care for her. If it were any other time, any other place, I would have been able to lay my hand on her skin and see her wounds mended, her beautiful body made whole by my touch. It was what we were to each other…each other's healer, confidant, strength and force and yet…yet she had given her everything for me and all I could do was…run.
I ran out of my room, down the stairs of Eamon's estate, and into the guest room that had too quickly become the room for the sick and injured. I slowed my steps and gathered my breath, wondering why I had not awakened here, by her side…
Wynne made me sleep, I remembered shedding tears with the senior enchanter, my friend, my mentor. We held each other and we wept out of sight of the others who needed us to be strong. Wynne knew she could find comfort and rest in Zevran's arms, but that I would be alone and so…she had handed me a drink. It had been sweet…too sweet…she drugged me?
I shook my head, focusing on the task at hand, the need most pressing. I would speak with Wynne later, but for now…I needed to see Leliana, touch her, know that she was real. That she had been returned to me, not taken, as she had been in my dream. Quiet, I opened the door, looking to the bed where Elissa Cousland lay deep in a healing rest. The cot next to her held a slumbering Alistair, whose light snores made me shake my head and a small smile quirk my lips.
I stole my way to the back of the room where we had set up a pallet for Leliana. She had taken the worst of Loghain's torture by far…every familiar scar had been re-opened, every healed wound had been torn at by blades. She had been ripped apart, and so had I, armed with only needle and thread, herbs and bandages, when I could have used the power coursing through my blood had it not been for the ignorance and fear of men and the Chantry.
My heart almost stopped as I saw the light sheet that had covered her tossed aside, wadded up, and streaked with the crimson dark of old blood. The pillow was empty, no splash of red hair, no body to be seen. Panic rose in my throat and threatened to strangle me when I heard a voice, so dear, so precious, so faint…
…almost taken from me. Almost nevermore in this world.
"Solona?" Leliana whispered. "Solona, is that you?" A harsh, gasping breath followed the inquiry, terrifying me anew.
"Leli?" I asked in the dark room, quiet so as not to wake the sleeping. I turned toward the opposite wall and found myself running, skidding to my knees beside her, bruising my skin on the stone floor.
"So…lo…na…" my name shuddered out from her lips as she trembled.
The bandages across her back and legs were striped with blood; she knelt, naked, struggling not to fall completely to the ground. I reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder, terrified of hurting her when she was so obviously in pain. I wanted to comfort, wanted to hold, and I couldn't and I felt sick of being so damnably constrained and worried.
Who cares if the templars come for me when they sense magic? I will burn them all.
"I…" Leliana panted, "…woke alone. Needed…you…but I…I can't…" she paused, gasping for breath, "…can't…seem to…walk."
Why would you do something so ridiculously stupid! My mind thundered, but I could not give in to that now. Leliana had most certainly re-injured herself, and if Wynne had drugged me into slumber, then she would have been awake most of the night, caring for the injured. Wynne needed rest, and the woman I loved needed care.
"Leli," I spoke, low, "let me carry you back to the pallet…"
"No." she whimpered, shivering so badly I feared she would fall over. "Please. I need you. Take me back to…to our room."
The way she stressed the word made my heart kick in my chest. I reached out, being as gentle as I could, and placed one arm around her shoulders, the other beneath the bend of her knees. She was cold, and it terrified me. I could not bear it if her wounds became infected, if she fell ill and I could not use magic to help her. I had never been this powerless before. I had never been this afraid…not since I had become an arcane warrior had this much fear gripped my heart.
I stood, slow, but still my touch and the movement aggravated her wounds and her pained moans through clenched teeth drove me nearer to madness with every step I took. I entered our room and looked down, wincing at Leliana's pallor, fearing what the deep violet smudges beneath her lovely eyes might mean. I set her down on the bed and drew the covers away, sighing as I saw the stains across the bandages growing larger.
Leliana's eyes fluttered as she rested her head on the pillow and I clenched my hands into fists once again, closing my eyes and imagining the liquid blue of healing magic swirling around my fingers, of being able to pour it into my lover's body and end the pain that hitched her every breath and tore moans of suffering from her lips. I ran downstairs once again, gathering bandages, herbs, and the potions that Wynne spent her nights preparing by the light of the campfire while we traveled.
They were little enough help, and all but worthless in the face of healing magic…but now, they were all that we had. I trudged back up the stairs, my heart heavy and a thunderstorm behind my brow. How could I want to destroy with one hand and yearn to heal with the other? I did not understand and I wanted to lash out at the world, to take the great power that was my inheritance, the power that had made my kind Andraste's chosen warriors and…and use it for the good of everyone.
Everyone who is afraid of you. Everyone who would prefer that Leliana lay suffering rather than be healed by the touch of a mage.
I returned to the room and the sight before me nearly doubled me over. The love within me swelled and crested in an unending wave of passion and beauty, and the anger in me clenched my gut into a knot of useless, impotent rage. I forced myself to walk to the bed, to sit beside her, quiet, to rest my hand on her body and not let it tremble with the fury that burned in me.
"Leliana?" I asked, wondering if she had fallen asleep, praying she had. I did not know if I could bear to see her in more pain.
"I'm here, my love." she whispered, turning her face to me, opening her eyes, blue like the forget-me-nots that grew in the fields amidst the fiercest storms.
"Your back is bleeding again." I fought my quavering voice. "I need…I need to look at the wounds. Removing the bandages will…"
"Hurt." she sighed. "I know. Do what you must."
Her words were resigned, but in them I could feel the love and trust that had brought and kept us together, side by side through the battles and the difficulties and the madness that was the Dragon Age. My anger boiled over as I removed the bandages across her skin, feeling her flinch, listening to her gasps and whimpers, watching her bite into the feathery down of the pillow to keep from screaming.
Tears streamed down my face and blurred my vision. My hands shook as every arcane instinct within me roared to unleash my power and stop this. I washed the fresh blood from Leliana's wounds, inspected the stitches to make sure they had not torn, then slathered the angry abrasions, lacerations, and scarifications with a healing salve. Leliana's body was trembling and cold; she did not speak and I worried yet again. My hands began to warm against my will with the familiar glow and burn of magic and I forced myself to hold back…
"It's not worth it." I hissed, splaying my fingers, willing the power to come forth from my blood, to end my lover's suffering and bring her back to me, hearty and whole.
"Solona," Leliana's hand reached back, small and pale around my wrist, "Solona, stop."
"Why?" the question burned behind clenched teeth. "I don't want you to hurt anymore."
"I can bear the pain, dear one." she assured me, making me feel weak, small, and insignificant beneath the wisdom she carried, the wisdom borne of suffering. "I can bear it, but I cannot bear yours. I knew…you were hurting. It is why…why I sought you out."
"And injured yourself in the process." my voice began to rise, something it did not often do, save in laughter or in battle. "I cannot sit here and do nothing, Leliana! I can't see blood on your skin and know it was of your own doing for my comfort and for my sake!"
"Solona, listen…" her voice sounded so weak…so weak that it broke me.
I rose from the chair and kicked it back with such force that the wood snapped against the wall. "No!" I shouted, feeling the multi-tonal voice of the arcane warrior slip from my throat. "I will not listen and do nothing! If I am given this much power by the damnable Maker, then I should use it to heal the suffering of the world! There are enemies who must be destroyed! There are demons that would end this Age and I am the one who must defend against them! Yet here I stand, hampered, powerless, broken…watching you bleed and being able to do…" I collapsed to my knees, "…nothing."
I made the mistake of looking up, staring into her eyes, watching tears she could not afford slip down her cheeks. Her energy was being drained by my mere existence and she needed all of her strength in order to heal. The anger rushed out of me as, with great effort, Leliana reached her hand out to me, beckoning me closer.
"I am wounded in my body, Solona." Leliana spoke, her voice haunting, lilting, beautiful. "You are wounded in your spirit. In some…twisted way…the two complement each other. Minister to my wounds, dear one, speak to me of your heart and let me do the same for you."
I scrambled to the edge of the bed, rested my hand against her face and pressed my lips against hers in a chaste, light kiss that meant everything. A small sound of content vibrated from her throat into mine and the world began to feel somehow right again.
"I love you." I breathed as our tears mingled. "I just…I just want to take your pain away."
"Most often, wounds are brutal." Leliana's hand moved over my short hair, then her fingers trailed down my cheek, touching my tattoo in a way that affirmed that I was cherished. "But sometimes, we are wounded in delicate ways, deep in our souls. These are the wounds which are hardest mended."
"How?" I begged for knowledge that I did not have. "How do I begin to fix how I feel; how do I stop the rage from consuming me and wrecking…wrecking all that we're trying to achieve?"
"Love." she whispered, eyelids fluttering. "Love will…fix it all."
"Promise me." I tucked her hair behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Please."
"I promise."