Hi everyone!

Here's another chapter for you. Let me know what you think.

Leliana's POV

Enjoy

I don't know how much time I spent there, gripping the stone balcony as my body was shaking with silent sobs, covering my cheeks with the tears I wished I would never had to let fall and trembling with the most agonizing feeling of pain and loss I had ever felt.

I still didn't want to believe it.

I couldn't.

The fact that I didn't fall on the ground was a proof that even my body didn't have the courage to accept this, fighting with every fiber to keep me standing and not leave me to face alone the storm that was running through my veins.

Each pulse, each breath, brought to me memory after memory, sensation after sensation of all that we faced, lived and felt together. Every painful second brought with it all the sweets and tender gesture that made me fall in love with her as I remembered the most precious moments.

All the nights spent at camp during the Blight.

The timid looks she gave to me as we travelled during the day, diverting her eyes and blushing whenever I'd find her looking at me like that, making my insides flutter and my heart swell like no one ever had the power to.

The night when I could no longer keep my feelings for myself and when I finally told her, she surprised me with the sweetest of the kisses. The tenderness and hesitancy made it feel even more special and innocent and when we broke a part and I saw her cheeks turning a lovely shade of red and her eyes shining with a light of innocence and adoration, I thought she was the most sweet and lovable girl in all the world. But when she looked at me saying that she hoped that the kiss was alright because she'd never done it before, right there, in the middle of the camp, under the lights of thousands of stars and with the heat coming from the roaring campfire, my heart melted.

And from that moment I knew.

This is where I belong.

After all I went throught, escaping Orlais, leaving my country behind because I had been betrayed by the person that meant the world to me, I was so broken. So damaged. Body and soul.
I had no one, but I found shelter in a cloister in Lothering, a place were my wounds started to heal, slowly. And then I had a vision, sent to give me a noble purpose, a chance to show that I could be someone new, someone better than who I became over the years I spent in Orlais, and that vision, made me believe. Believe that all that happened wasn't casual, that there was a reason so far beyond my comprehension that I couldn't even have immagined.
But only when I met her and saw the purity of her soul and the sincere heart she possessed, only then my faith started to rebuilt itself.

The cloister may have been the shelter that I needed to repair during the storm, but she was my reason, the one and only reason that had the sun inside me rise once again, warming places of my soul I thought were going to stay in the cold shadow forever.

And then I understood what was that flame she spoke about in the letter.

It was the same that was dying inside of my chest.

The one that had been fed with love and hope.

The one that she, somehow, managed to inflame deep inside me...

I didn't deserve her.

She was so much better than me that there was no compare.

She sacrificed so much in her whole life. First when she was taken away from her family to be sent into the Circle, that became her new home, a home that made of her the beautiful and magnificent young woman she became.
And then she was asked to join the Wardens, and she accepted. Because my lover would have done everything for her land, even be once again forced to leave the only true home where she had spent the majority of her life.

The life of a Warden is, for definition, a life of vigilance and sacrifice, but she didn't stop at doing just a Warden's duty. For all the months that we spent travelling all around Ferelden, wherever we were headed, there was always someone that needed our help and she, being the most selfless person I had ever met, was willing to do anything for the others.

That made me love her even more if that was possible.

And she managed to make the impossible, possible, in so many occasions.

My lover accomplished so many tasks, faced so many dangerous enemies, always returning to me.

In one way, or another.

She was suppose to die that day at Fort Drakon ten years ago, her life was the cost that she was supposed to pay to end the Blight. But she survived.

She took a decision that she didn't know what kind of consequences would have brought in the future, but she took it nonetheless.

For me.

She didn't tell me at the time. But looking into those deep clear blue eyes that always had the power to leave me breathless making my heartbeat race, I knew from how she looked at me, that she wouldn't have done such thing for anyone else.

I was her reason as she was mine.

And now I was alone.

Abandoned in this world first by Justinia, my mentor and guide, and now by the person that made me human again.

Another flood of pain hit me in my stomach as I gripped the stone balcony so hard that my knuckles turned white. My knees started to tremble even more forcefully and I was sure that I was going to fall, defeated.

But at that point, when I thought that all that remained was to accept a reality that was hunting me for more than ten years, I felt the wind blew gently on my face, and after the first touch of cold against my wet cheeks, I felt the warmth of the sunlight.

I slowly opened my eyes, meeting right in front of me, one of the most beautiful sunrise I had ever witnessed in Skyhold.

The sky was mostly clear and the sunlight was spreading through it with a thousand of rays, painting the few white clouds with infinite shades of pink, illuminating the snowed mountains all around and, at the same time, bringing to me a comforting touch that just a few moments before, all I felt in my body and heart, was a cold, defeating sensation.

And looking at that beautiful and oh so common sight right in front of me, had all the hope, crushed under the weight of sorrow and angst, to emerge once again, as Justinia's words echoed from my memories.

Where there's light, there's always hope.

And as simple as it was, I felt that that sunrise gave to me just that bit of hope that I needed, as I found the courage to do what I was planning.

My body still trembled with the intensity of the emotions running through me but I managed to straighten my back, take one long shaky breath and turn around to entry the room I had used sometimes over the months I spent in the fortress.

Just walking that short distance had me exausted and as much as I wanted to lean aganst the door to steady my heartbeat, I went straight toward the night stand, the one that contained the few things I possessed and the letters that my lover sent to me over the months.

Just touching them sent a shiver along my spine and I couldn't control the sob that errupted from deep inside of my chest as new tears started running over my cheeks.

And with those salty tears that were clouding my vision, I started packing a small bag, trying to swallow down the lump that was forming once again in my throat.

I wasn't going to accept this.

Not until I would have seen her lifeless body in front of me.

At the thought my hands started shaking so hard that I was almost forced to stop my movement, but stopping would have meant think, and the last thing that I needed when I finally had found the strenght, was listen to all the voices that were running through my head and the emotions that were making my chest feel heavier with every beat of my heart.

I desperately needed to stay focused and try my best to not shake my resolve.

So I decided to give voice to a thought that I knew it would have me stay strong, feeling my voice tremble with grief and sorrow despite my best efforts, as I said in the empty room

"If I'll have to walk through the Fade to find you, then there's where I'll go, my love."

The sound of the door opening had been covered by my voice cracking and by the constant forceful sound of my heartbeat in my ears.

But when the warmth of the sun caressed the skin of my hand, while I was still packing the bag, my head snapped up towards the door.

And there, I saw figure, standing right in the doorway.

The intensity of the sun glowing from behind them made it impossible for me to recognize who it was.

But when that figure spoke, answering to what I had said to myself just a few moments before, using that soft and very familiar tone, all the things I was holding fell from my hands.

"There's no need to go that far, my dear heart."