Kathyra
"Lieutenant?" I woke to another soft voice in my ear, another pair of eyes the same unearthly green.
But this is not the dream, I realized. This is the nightmare. The waking torment from which I shall soon be free. If life is kind...if life is kind enough to rescind itself.
"Kestrel." I whispered her name, scarcely feeling her hand as she pressed it against my forehead to gauge my temperature.
"You were talking in your sleep." She told me. "And it seemed so sweet a dream that I did not wish to wake you but...Seeker Leliana said that you should not be allowed to sleep for too long."
Lest I forget consciousness all together and slip beneath the black. Let it take me, Leliana. I do not want to love you. Please.
"Did I..." I still struggled to breathe, but the gnawing pain in my side had become nothing more than a dull ache. "What...what did you hear?"
"Only a name." Kestrel answered. "But the emotion in your voice, Lieutenant..."
"Maker's breath, Kestrel." I pushed myself up slightly, waiting for the waves of agony that did not come. "If being covered...in my blood...has not given you use...of my proper name..then you...are hopeless indeed."
"As you say, Lieutenant Kathyra." She smiled, such a cheeky expression in a situation of utter doom. I could not resist a slight grin of my own. "You must have loved her very much." Kestrel mused, her eyes flitting, as they would for the rest of her life, to Rylie.
"What?"
"The name you said..." Kestrel mumbled, seeming somewhat ashamed, as though she spoke of something she had no right to know. "Giselle. I felt rather bad. like a voyeur, or something else unsavory. There was so much pain in your voice..."
"Kestrel," I felt a dying woman's need to impart some wisdom, but not before searching the room for Leliana. I could not speak of this in her presence, not when I knew that she feared for the life of the one she loved...that she feared she would return to nothing where once there had been light and warmth and joy. finding that we were alone, I continued. "Do you love her?" I directed my eyes toward Rylie.
"Very much so." A slight tinge of color entered the templar private's cheeks.
"Does...does Rylie know?"
"I think so." Kestrel replied, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. "I hope so."
I reached out and took Kestrel's hand in my own. "Tell her." I encouraged. "Please...for the sake of all...all that is good. Tell her. And hold...hold her close. Cherish. Every. Moment."
Kestrel nodded, seeming to accept the advice. She pressed the palm of her hand over my heart and those vibrant green eyes went dark, saddened and sorrowed, mirroring an expression I knew so well.
"You're dying, aren't you?" She asked, and I remembered once again how young she was, how unaware of the evils of the world.
"I am." My heart kicked strangely at the words, as if it did not want to accept them, but I knew the truth.
Calm, behind the emotions stirred by memory, the physician worked, calculating, assessing, diagnosing. We simply would not reach help in time. I knew, for my life was flashing before my eyes, its beauty and its pain, equal measure. And I dreaded the dark, for I knew that the grandeur had vanished now...that the song sung for the lonely heart had reached its crescendo, and soon would end.
"Seal your lips, Kathyra." Leliana entered the cabin and knelt beside me, warning Kestrel away with a flash of oceanic blue eyes. The templar private withdrew and Leliana's gaze burned into me.
"You cannot accept this, Kathyra." She whispered, ferocity and intensity, and all doubt that she could bring the dead back to life faded from me in an instant. "You cannot lock yourself away within the dream; you cannot wish for what once was."
"Why?" I asked. "Why...do you want...me to live?"
I have done you so much wrong...more than I have even told you. I know you have a heart full of forgiveness, but if you knew, dearest Leliana, you would not be able to find one morsel of it for me. It is better...it is better this way. Please...let me go.
"Your beautiful heart." She said, wiping blood from my lips with a tenderness I had not felt since Giselle's healing touch. "Your fathomless strength. Your courage, Kathyra. This world needs those like you."
"I ran away." I countered, even though she did not know of what I spoke. "I am...a coward...Leliana."
"Shhh." She soothed me as I began coughing beneath the strain of emotions, as blood flooded into my mouth, acrid and salty against my tongue, the bitterest of wines and cruelest of reminders. "I know a different woman. One who could have run, and remained, who confessed to me of secrets and plots and swore to me an oath. Keep that vow, Kathyra. Please, please live."
You would ask me to live without hope, Leliana? I wondered. You would ask my heart to keep beating, to break open and bleed anew with this knowledge that I cannot run from for it is staring me into the face? Damn you! Damn you and your beautiful soul and your strong heart and your faith that is greater than any living being could ever fathom! Can you not hear me screaming within!? I. Do. Not. Want. To. Love. You.
"I...cannot...make that promise." I gasped, gagging on the taste of blood as I swallowed it back down.
"I know." Leliana acknowledged. "And this is not a command...this is a plea. From a friend to a friend, a heart to a heart, a soul to a soul. I know life has been cruel to you, and crueler still it seems. But there is hope, Kathyra. I know this."
I know who gave you this hope, I hated myself as the image of Salem Cousland entered the forefront of my mind, a woman so strong and fierce and brilliant that no light could ever comprehend comparison. Certainly not mine.
"Hope," I settled back against the pillow, willing the dream back into existence, to let the curtain at last fall on the mockery of my life, "is for the young."
"We are not so very old, Kathyra." Leliana reminded me. "Not so very old at all."
I closed my eyes against the painful wave of hopeful longing that crashed over me. I do not want to love you, Leliana. I thought again, perhaps for the last time. But I no longer believe...that I have a choice.
