Prompt: Lay me down to sleep
Elissa and Fergus mourn all they've lost.
disclaimer: Bioware owns Dragon Age.
The flames dance before the girl's eyes, reaching up into the sky as if trying to grab hold of the stars. The Chantry mother drones on, but the girl doesn't hear a word the old woman says. The fire has captured the girl's attention, and her gaze never breaks from it as silent tears run down her face.
The boy stands further ahead, closer to the pyre than she dares. He is still- too still, his back to the crowd of people come to mourn with him and the girl. The Chantry mother finishes her sermon, and the crowd slowly disperses back down the hill and toward the comfort of their homes. The boy still doesn't move. The girl's fiancé gives her hand a small squeeze before he turns to go back to the castle, leaving only the girl and the boy up on the hill. The girl walks forward and grasps the boy's hand, and he finally moves, turning his head to look at her, and she sees the tears in his eyes that he would not let anyone see except for the girl.
There are no bodies on the pyre; none were found when the castle was retaken. The pyre stands merely as a symbol of those lost that night, all the parents and children and siblings the people of Highever lost. The boy and the girl don't just mourn their parents, his wife, his child. They mourn the lives they once had. The girl mourns her carefree days spent training with the knights, avoiding Nan's lessons, getting into mischief with her hound. The boy mourns his days when he woke up beside his wife, got to play with his child, and knew he didn't have to worry about lording over the region for quite some time. They mourn when they were still just the boy and the girl. The boy is now the Teyrn and the girl will soon be the Queen. And everything they ever had, everything they once were burns in the fire before them.
The boy shudders a sob, and the girl wraps her arms around him. In this small moment, with no one there to witness but the souls of the dead, they are just a boy and a girl for a final time, laying down all they've lost to rest.