Chapter 5
I was left speechless, and more than a little confused. Maybe it was my brain being muddled after such a surprise encounter, or maybe it was the logic rising from the rest it had taken in our time in the bedroom, but I decided to ask the question.
"Morrigan?"
"Yes?" She smirked as she said it, like she had triumphed in some way. Smoke seemed to rise from her lips and brighten her eyes. Maybe that's not a metaphor. She is a witch, after all. Maybe she was trying to say something. She looked happy, though, and more than a little mischievous, in an honest way, if such a way exists.
"What does this mean? Do you love me?"
The smile was wiped from her face, and the smoke was snuffed. She's rather beautiful when she's about to cry, and that's what made it hurt more. I loved seeing her vulnerable, for I'd never seen it before. I loved knowing that she was feeling something, something more than I'd ever known her to express. But it also meant that I had done something grievous. A woman never cries without reason, especially someone as stoic as my Morrigan.
She sobbed, jerkingly, fighting the tears, and winning, almost. I could tell that she was fit to burst, but nothing came from her. She never learned how to cry. It's what makes a person's future, knowing how to let someone else take control and let yourself admit that something's wrong. In Orlais, it was common, but only behind closed doors. Lords and ladies would hide in their closets and weep, in a controlled way, so that no one could hear them over the sounds of whatever party they were hosting. As a bard, I knew the signs: people excusing themselves, doors closing and locking without notice, gossip about an Elven servant being robbed and killed.
Morrigan had no luxury, no games to play that hid her from embarrassment. I've been in enough forests to know that there's no places to cry. The boughs offer no shelter, the caves only amplify your suffering. If one wanted to find you, and punish you for being an emotional being, they could, just by opening their ears.
I held her, as she held me. She grasped, she clung, to me and her dignity. There was no need to; it was never going to leave her, not in a million years, and neither was I.