She saw it coming.
On the morning they woke slowly, to a changed world, when the sun shone brighter than she'd ever thought it could. There were plans to make and conversations to be had, but this dawn could be theirs. Their victory owed them that much.
His smile was soft, like his touch. Like his kiss. And the fingers that tucked behind her neck and held her steady through the loving motions they knew by heart. Counting freckles on shoulders in the early light.
When he cradled her she shone, too.
The sweet after could have stretched through it all, if they let it. If they'd wanted it enough, she'd later think. A gauzy veil of rose to cover all the questions left unanswered — the shards of a broken orb and its implications, brushed aside. They'd live forever in these moments of celebration that rise from the silence that settles after great battles are won. Before Next Steps are taken, and reality descends. Before the hard lesson of 'nothing is ever so easy' — winning wars, least of all.
She saw it in his eyes when they lay entwined in silken sheets, drinking in those last golden moments before the day began. When he ran his fingers through her hair and his gaze was drawn there. The smile faltered for just a second. There, in his eyes, a terrible sorrow. Then gone just as quickly, and something else took its place. It looked like a smile… but wasn't. An old lie, instead — one she'd hoped they made into truth by now.
She did not name it then, too afraid to lend it a voice.
It was a question, unasked. A loose end. A cold mote in her chest; the hollow reminder that her vision of a future with home and hearth would always be a dream, unrealized. Lives like theirs were not awarded so richly. Work was never done.
She felt it when he kissed her cheek and left for the day. It was different. Mournful. Resolute, like the way his fingers mapped her body before he'd first confessed, when he feared she would not stay. He remembered her before she was gone.
She knew it when she rose from the bed, before the babies woke, and stood before the tall mirror. Looked upon her reflection: naked, scarred, changed by loss and love. Her fingers touched upon her belly, feeling its softness; the footprints life had left upon her as it passed through. Marks where she'd given of herself to creation.
Scars on her shoulder, hip, and throat, from times she almost gave too much.
There was little left of the Dalish elf who'd picked her way through forests and seas to spy on a great meeting of two sides. A few short years had been a lifetime. That woman would find nothing recognizable in this image. She was changed, irrevocably. Admirably. This was her story written in blood.
From the litter of lines and stretch marks, to the healthy glow of nourished skin, choppy curls that had yet to reach their former length, lips that held the memory of every kiss both stolen and gifted.
To the streak of grey that had sprouted from her temple, where Solas' eyes had strayed.
It would be the pride of a much younger self, who once held little care if she lived long enough to see it.
And an omen for another, whose lustre would never fade, and feared nothing more than being left behind.
This love was too deep. To preserve it, he'd destroy it. Unmake time itself. Weather a lifetime of wrath for the privilege of knowing it would not end. She knew he'd go. That morning, she realized she'd known it from the start.
And she felt his absence long before the bed grew cold.
