Risa sat up fast, and very nearly lost whatever her last meal had been, her eyes wide and trying to see into the shadows.
Her second-in-command made it easier for her, and sat forward in the chair near her bed, coming into the light. The craggy planes of his face were thrown into sharp relief, shadows in the gaunt cheeks, under the eyes…
"Well?"
She mastered the feeling of nausea just barely, then slumped back into bed, resignation in her features. "Loghain."
"Commander, you sound almost relieved to see me," he rumbled, "as if you didn't expect that I had lived. Given how much trouble you went to making sure that I would, I am surprised you doubted."
"I am. Very relieved." She looked at him, gathering her strength. "But if you and I both are alive, then the archdemon is as well." She laid back, closed her eyes, sighed. "The Ancestors must hate me, to keep me from – what was it you said? Dying decently instead of coming back again and again, no matter what's thrown at me."
He watched her in silence. He fully understood the bitterness with which she was speaking – had he not said the self-same things some four months previously? Had he too not wanted to lay down his burdens and be at peace?
Should he tell her, he wondered, about the ritual he and Morrigan had performed in the dark of night to save her stubborn little neck? Or should he simply let her assume she yet had work to do in this life?
How ironic, that he had thought he would not spend the night before the battle rutting, and yet he had. Not for his own gratification, but to spare her life.
He was amazed at how tiny she seemed now, how frail. In camp she had never seemed so; in camp, issuing orders, she seemed larger than life.
"How do you do it," she asked quietly.
"Do what?"
She looked at him searchingly. "How do you go on?"
He scoffed, "And why, Warden, are you asking me? It seems you've been 'going on' for about two years now before your tragic survival in the face of impossible odds. There's no magic to it: you just refuse to give up. You get the job done."
"But it's not," she said, so softly he could barely hear her. "It's not, and who knows when the Archdemon will show itself again." She shook her head, and sighed. "I've failed."
"You'll find out what happened," he said, squeezing her hand. Now was not the time for this confession. "And there will be a reckoning then, I'm sure." He started to get up, to leave her in some privacy. Surely she hadn't been allowed the time to grieve yet, and he knew she would not in the presence of others.
"Loghaine," she said, her raven eyes like flat black pools in her pallid face. "That kiss…."
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her.
It took five minutes, but she finally settled for, "Why?"
He smiled. It wasn't entirely a pleasant one. "Because neither of us is dead yet."