Daughter of Tethras
Disclaimer: Don't own Dragon Age
A/N: Voracious, I want to say thank you and I appreciate your concrit, looking at my writing I do agree very well with you and am trying to improve. I've taken this chapter, did my best to try and polish it up well, especially considering the content. I hope you and everyone else will enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 40 (Old Familiar Feeling)
The day had come to march on the Arbor Wilds, and all Bianca could stand to do was stare at the mirror in her room. The blank expression staring back at her matched only the numbness she felt towards what was coming. Her eyes were weary and exhausted from the worry and dreams that kept her up the night prior, but she dared not speak of them, lest people decide to coddle her.
Soon the Inquisition would have the upper hand on Corypheus, and a fight with him would be near.
Her trembling fingers pulled at the long bangs that had fallen before her face, and tore away the tiny strands of hair glued to her shaky lips. "What if we don't get to the mirror before Corypheus? What if we don't stop him in time?" In her heart, she wanted that to be the bigger fear, but she was only lying to herself.
She was confident the Inquisition could beat Corypheus. After all, they'd proven capable of doing just that both at Adamant and the Winter Palace. Bianca was more concerned with what they might find at the Arbor Wilds, and she'd grown more nervous in regards to the journey that was to come after.
Thoughts of leaving her companions behind pulled at her heart and drew tears to her eyes, so she swept them away as quick as she could and attempted to focus her mind on the Wilds.
"Once we stop Corypheus, Isabela and Thane will be waiting at port." There was no doubt in her mind that this was the right move; she wanted to take this journey away from Thedas above all else, but to sail into unknown lands was truly terrifying.
Bianca filled her lungs with air and turned away from her mirror. "At least Sera and Cole want to come with us. Dagna and Harding too." Her eyes fell to the floor. "Harding…why does she want to come along if Lantos isn't with her, I wonder."
A rustling noise pulled her attention towards her balcony and when she saw Lantos standing there, a heavy feeling grew in her stomach. "Lantos?" She stammered. Bianca shook her head and turned fully to him, her body tensed just barely and she remained calm. "What are you doing here? Does Harding know you're here?"
She scolded herself mentally and questioned why it mattered to her if Harding knew whether or not Lantos was showing up unannounced.
"Yes." His answer rolled out in a single, overpowering breath. "I want Harding to go on that journey with you and your father, hence why she's going." Lantos crossed his arms and raised his shoulders. "There's nothing in Thedas worth staying for; the both of you would be better off. Safer than spending your lives on a country destined only for darkness."
Her heart skipped a beat and a swelling lump within her throat threatened to cut off the air from her lungs. "You wouldn't leave with her?" He closed his eyes and his tight lips parted only to release a solitary breath.
"No. I'm better alone, Bianca. Always have been."
"She cares about you."
"That's why I've let her go. We are no longer together. We can't be." Her heartbeat spiked once more and her hand rose over her mouth, to muffle her sudden gasp. "Also, sorry for jumping onto your balcony like this, but I had a feeling if anyone saw me coming to visit you, they'd shoot me down first."
For a split second she could feel the desire shooting through her veins, burning her like wildfire. She doused the feeling as soon as it came, reminding her that she couldn't feel the pull that she'd begun to feel for him. It wasn't appropriate, and nothing would ever happen with him.
"I don't know what you want, Lantos. I don't know why you're here, or what you want me to be to you." She was tired of the habit he had of watching over her as if protecting her. Despite that she enjoyed knowing there was some part of him that cared enough to look after her, it didn't change the fact that he'd hurt her and broken that trust they once had. "I don't want you to think that because you broke up with Harding-"
"She ended things, Bianca. Though, it was more of a mutual end." His brow furrowed and he tilted his head to the right. "I came to tell you goodbye, and that I am sorry. For everything. I'm letting you go too."
"What?"
"You heard me." She felt a tightening in her stomach and so she turned away from him and slowly approached the corner of her bed. Her knees were beginning to buckle and for a reason she couldn't explain, her heart was starting to sink.
"Goodbye? So what. You think I need to be told goodbye by you? I don't care what you do."
It meant he wouldn't protect her anymore, not that she needed him to. Bianca hardly wanted him around, so she was baffled as to why hearing him say he was letting her go was so hard.
"No." Lantos dropped his arms with a sigh and took a small step forward. "But I thought you might like the closure."
"Since when do you care?" She crossed her arms and closed her eyes. As much as she wanted to be angry and to hate him like she had, she couldn't bring herself to do so. Not when he was being the very man she fell for when they first met; the defender who kept her from those who would hurt her. "What I don't understand is why do you care?"
"Because I loved you." Her heart burst and she raised her head, gasping as the air in her lungs depleted. "Because I never stopped. There was no justification for the way I ended up treating you, though. The way I couldn't control the anger caused by all the stress I was under. I should never have hurt you when I was always trying to protect you…"
"So you care now because you're guilty?" She spun around, smirking as her eyes travelled to him. Her smirk faded when she saw the pain behind his eyes, a pain that caused the tough façade to shatter. "Lantos?"
"I am guilty. Guilty of hurting you, guilty of letting the Carta hurt you, guilty of being that one person in your life that you could trust and then betraying that trust by causing you any harm at all."
His bushy eyebrows closed together and a strength shone in his eyes. That strength held her gaze, stealing her resolve if only for a moment. "Now, however? I didn't watch after you out of some guilty complex-I knew your mother was still out there and I knew once you found your dad, she was going to come after you like a hellcat."
"So you were, what, still trying to protect me?"
"You and your father, neither of you knew how much danger you were in from that woman." He swept his hand through the air and shook his head. "Someone had to keep her from you. Someone had to make sure you would get a chance to be with your dad."
Bianca chewed on her lip and dropped her gaze to the ground while contemplating her feelings towards the matter entirely. The more she thought about it, the more intense her heart would beat against her chest.
"I didn't come here for forgiveness, Bianca. I would be foolish to ask that of you."
"Why? Why would you be?"
"Because I don't deserve your forgiveness."
She raised her head and approached him, shrugging as her eyes locked with his. "You saved my life in the Wastes, you saved my father's life even when he didn't know it. You've kept my mother at bay when she tried to kill me. You've more than earned forgiveness."
"If you want to forgive me, that's your prerogative. I only came to tell you that I would be letting you go. You don't need me to protect you from behind anymore. You can handle yourself, and your dad should be able to keep you safe if nothing else."
"You said you continued to watch out for me because what-you 'loved me'?"
"Yes."
"What about Harding? Did you ever love her?"
"Yes, but she was different." She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow at him. Lantos crossed his arms and breathed in slowly. "Scout Harding helped me return to the man I used to be, she helped me see how to gain control of myself, of the anger I had towards the world."
"So she saved you from yourself."
"I suppose so, but I couldn't let you go and that wasn't fair to her. I couldn't hurt her like that. So I'm letting you both go. I believe that would be best for everyone."
"Will I see you again?"
A wrinkle popped up between his eyebrows and he started to frown. "Probably not." The incessant throbbing in her chest was growing louder and more rampant, and the knot in her stomach was twisting-though it was becoming harder to scold herself for the feelings that were resurfacing.
She needed to quell them, it was inappropriate and unfair to Harding and even Sandal. Despite the fact that all she had with Sandal was a friendship. "I loved you too, Lantos. Just so you know." His eyebrows curled up in the center.
"Bianca. Don't."
"No. You had your say, now I want to have mine." Bianca moved towards him and moved her hand to his chest, pressing her palm against his firm muscle. She turned a solemn gaze into his and felt her body beginning to melt away. "Otherwise I wouldn't have stayed with you through those years. I know I wasn't strong enough to leave you, but there was that part of you that I always wanted to see."
"Don't do this." A mist formed in his eyes, and the tone in his voice grew deathly quiet. "It's hard enough saying goodbye like this, don't make it harder than it has to be."
"What? Are you afraid to let me have a say?"
"No, it's just…" She felt his hand caress her cheek and closed her eyes as a sudden warmth grew at the place of contact. A shiver drifted into her skin and shot down her spine, leaving a trail of chills in its wake. "It's difficult for me to let you go, difficult for me to do this."
"Why do it now?"
"I know once you go to the Arbor Wilds, once you face Corypheus, that's it. This was my last chance to talk to you. To tell you to be safe, to say goodbye."
"Thank you then." She wanted him to know before he left that she was grateful for everything, so he wasn't leaving before she had her say. "Before you leave, I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you for watching after my dad, thank you for showing me the man you were is still in there…"
"The man I was? That man never left, I just couldn't be that person when we were with the Carta." She heard him swallow and watched the quivering of his eyes. "I've missed you. I will miss you. I just want you to know, I don't regret it. I don't regret loving you, I don't regret keeping your mother from hurting you or even fighting off the carta to keep you safe."
"Even when they did terrible things to you? To us?"
"Of course." A wry chuckle left his lips and his hand slid away from her cheek and onto her shoulder. She closed her eyes as the blood rushed to the area that he touched. It was a feeling she hadn't felt from him in years, and she craved it. Despite everything, she craved the familiar sensations. "I loved you, and I never stopped. I would've done anything for you back then, and I did. Hell, the carta forcing me to drink darkspawn blood was hell, and I'd go through it all again if I had to…"
"I don't know what it is. Part of me still…" His head moved back and he raised an eyebrow.
"We shouldn't."
"If I'm never going to see you again, that's fine. I'm going off into dangerous territory, and I'm about to face a magister that wants to be a god, then I'm going off to some strange new land that I might never be able to return from. Dare I say, I might actually miss having you around."
"Do you even know what just came out of your mouth?"
"Yes, and I don't care."
"This is why I didn't want it to be difficult." Lantos dropped his arms to her waist, pulling her close. "What harm is one last embrace? To say goodbye." She moved her arms up his back and cupped her hands over his shoulders.
Almost on instinct she closed her eyes and leaned up, kissing his lips. He flinched, and at first his muscles started to tense, but they soon relaxed. Shocked with herself, she began to pull away, but the old familiar spark of his lips on hers made her crave the feeling of the man she loved so long ago.
"Damn the consequences," she whispered, "This is goodbye." As she pulled him onto her bed, she began to consider what it was that she was doing. His touch on her skin was gentle as it once had been, sending familiar waves of pleasure throughout her body, enabling her to forget for a moment her burdens.
For this final moment with him, nothing else mattered. Neither Corypheus or her mother, or memories of the Carta or her family could cause her any harm.
Afterwards she lay on her side, curled beneath the covers. Her trembling hand clutched the bed sheets and her nervous gaze flickered across the floorboards below. While part of her did not regret the act, her heart was filling with shame the longer she thought about Harding-and even Sandal.
"I don't know what came over me." She breathed shakily and turned her head, gazing at Lantos. He was seated on the corner of the bed, his head turned downward and his powerful hands clutched the edge of the mattress as though they may tear it like bread. "Lantos, I-was it that bad?"
His body appeared to slump forward as he turned his head. A small smile graced his expression and his half-lidded eyes beckoned her. "Of course not. I just haven't felt that in a long time. Having done that, makes it so harder for me to say goodbye."
"Do you regret it?"
He remained silent and his eyes moved down her body and onto the bed sheet, where they stayed for the longest time. "No," he said finally. Her heart flickered within and her eyes welled up with tears. "No I don't, but I want you to know I hadn't planned on it."
"Me either, it just-" He looked into her eyes and her breath caught her throat, forcing a sudden intake of air to enter into her lungs. "Happened. With everything going on, I just wanted to feel something familiar…before finding my dad, you and Dasher were the only things good about Thedas, I wanted to feel that about you one last time. I wanted to remember when and why I felt safe with you…I didn't think it would go this far."
He nodded and leaned over her, continuing to gaze into her trembling eyes. "Goodbye, Bianca." His hand moved to caress her cheek, and her face warmed at the slightest brush from his fingers. "Be safe, wherever you go and whatever you do."
"Why did you ever care about me? Before the Carta messed you up, before all the hell we went through. Why?"
His head slowly leaned towards the right and his gaze softened. "Because no matter how much shit you suffered throughout your life, you still had a heart." She bit down on the lower corner of her lip and moved her hand over her abdomen as though it could quell the nervous swelling of her stomach.
"You were still a decent person, and the fact that you kept pursuing your father meant you had hope of something good happening in the future…and that is what drew me to you. I never should have tainted that, but it's good to know that you are still that person."
"Oh…"
"Don't ever change. Never stop being that person." Her eyes shot back up at him and her lips fell apart. "You were the one good spot in the clan, the one good thing in all of Thedas. Why in the hell do you think you're the leader of the Inquisition? Why do you think people hang onto the things you say and the things you do?"
Tears ran from her eyes, and her hands closed around the blanket over her in a brisk attempt to conceal the shivering of her fingers.
Lantos swept his hand away from her cheek, leaving only a tingling sensation behind.
"You have that heart about you, and you should take that wherever your journey takes you. Thedas will be fine because of what you've done for them, and whatever new land gets to have you next-they will be lucky." He flashed a smile that melted her in an instant. "Whomever you wind up with, wherever you end up, whatever that person or place may be-they will never know how good they have it. Just like I never knew."
"Lan…"
"I have always loved you. Even when I was a stupid asshole, I have always loved you." He leaned towards her and she closed her eyes. A whimper broke from her lips when she felt a warm brush from his on her forehead.
His whisper was honey to her ears, caressing them. "For the longest time I wished I had been able to stop you from walking in that door at the conclave-I would have given anything to keep you from having that curse on your hand."
She tried in vain to speak, but her heart had risen to her throat and she had become too entranced with him. "If I could kill Corypheus for you, I would. If I could keep you from having to go into that dangerous territory that you're going to, I would, but I know you'll do just fine."
"How?" Her voice broke and her entire body seemed to shake in the attempt of speaking that one word. Lantos looked her over with tender eyes and groomed her hair back with a subtle stroke of his curved finger.
"You're strong." Her heart burst open and she felt a sudden rush of emotion pouring through her veins and bleeding out from her eyes with tremendous force. It was hard to believe those words could come out of his mouth, much less with the sincerity that was in his voice. "You always have been. You're tougher than you realize…hell you put up with me, a demon, for as long as you did. Who can ever doubt that you are an incredible and powerful woman?"
"Lan, I-"
Someone knocked at the bedroom door and Bianca gasped out. Varric called out to her from behind and Lantos slowly rose from the bed. "Bianca, are you alright? Leliana said she was certain she saw Lantos somewhere, and that Harding was talking incessantly to her for the past hour."
"Looks like that's my cue." She watched him leave to the balcony. Her hands pulled the blanket up to her chin, and her tears drenched it. Lantos stood on the rail of her balcony, looking one last time at her before gesturing at something below. "I'll aim for the hay pile on the battlements."
"W-What?" He leapt off the railing, his arms extended out to the sides and his legs straightened out together. Her eyes widened and she shot out from the bed, rushing out to the balcony to make sure he wasn't killing himself.
She clung to the rail tightly as her heartbeat pounded her chest rapidly. "Lan?" She scanned the area and spotted him diving into a hay pile. He then leapt from that and climbed over the wall, using the outer edge of the castle to hide himself from view as he descended.
His stealth amazed and surprised her, offering an explanation for how he was always able to get in and out without anyone seeing. She hugged her arms and turned around as she felt the chill of the air against her.
Varric knocked again, reminding her of his presence. "Give me a moment," she answered. She was afraid of having to tell him and then Harding what transpired here. She knew Harding was owed that explanation, even though she and Lantos had ended things. It terrified her to think of how her friend was going to react, and more so she felt terrible for giving in to feelings she was almost certain had vanished long ago.
Well what are your thoughts? It seems as though there has been a closure to Lantos, but not quite, we may or may not see him one last time. The Arbor Wilds near, and that means the ancient elves come. What do you suspect Bianca will learn? Also, this chapter, what are your thoughts to the interaction of the two and the things that Lantos has told her? She's going to have to talk to Harding too, let's see how that turns out. She knew he was there, I wonder if she had any idea what events might transpire.