An: Yes, I changed the title to my story, I was never happy with "The Long Road" so I switched it. Just a recommendation, listen to Placebo-running up that hill to this chapter. It suits pretty well with the content, or maybe I'm just plain silly. At least this is one of the more longer chaps, also one of the more harder to write. These feelings chapter makes me want to cry and I hate the fact I can't even put it half as good on paper, so to speak. Hope it is sufficient though. I did this one and the previous chapter continuously in one go and read it through. Sometimes it happens. Even though I should focus on my school work but darn it, this story wants to live. But when it won't or doesn't happen it will take way slower for me to update in the coming weeks. As always I love your comments on my work, it really gives more fire, inspiration and encouragement to write so I hope you won't stop doing that :)
"It doesn't hurt me.
You wanna feel how it feels?
You wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?
You wanna hear about the deal I'm making?"
Zevran was walking in his room, for the first time in years. That's how good it felt. He couldn't really walk far or fast just yet, only stagger, but it was an improvement nonetheless. He had tried walking last night when he got back from Diana's room. It had him worried how fragile she was and got him more motivated to get rid of the crutches.
It had been a very sunny day, but now as it was nearing the afternoon, dark clouds had materialized over the city, not granting any access for the warmth behind them. He couldn't remember the last time it rained, and his body had forgotten the touch of the drops against his skin. Well, that was not the only thing he had absent these days in his life. He had never been the one to regret or ponder about previous actions or events. It had happened and you can't do anything to change it. But if he haven't been so childish the morning after their first night together, things would have been so much different. He shook his head at this notion, and thought himself like a little child. Looking out the window, he saw how the storm lavished the capital.
The assassin had missed the rain, which seemed strange, since he hailed from Antiva, many things was different about him since he met her though. It had only been a bit over a year now since he first laid his eyes upon her...He remembered the event that transpired as well as it only happened yesterday.
"it looks good!" The girl said, that stood next to Zevran.
Zevran glanced over their caravan-assault-that-would-hopefully-lure-the-wardens-right-in-his- midst.
The scout just arrived from the road arrived, looking exhausted from his sprinting.
"Well?"
"yes, they are gonna pass through this way to get to Denerim, they should be here shortly." the scout said, panting.
Zevran nodded and a smile overtook his neutral expression, "everyone get in your positions and let's give the wardens a special greeting that only the Crows from Antiva can give."
He gave the look to the woman that was gonna lure the wardens the command to start running. She nodded and disappeared. Ten minutes later he heard footsteps running and he saw them, four companions. He was a bit shocked, the woman that was in front must be their leader, she looked so young and ravishing for that matter. He chuckled, it was sad that he had to kill such a lovely young beauty. He gave the signal to assassins and they emerged from their hiding grounds, the wardens pulled out their swords. Their eyes met each other and stayed fixated on one and another. He scoffed at the curious green eyes of betrayal. Had this girl no notion of the world?
"The Grey Wardens dies here."
The woman he saw came directly at him. Their twin daggers met each other, melted together by their combined force. Her eyes, he saw, was alluring. A forest could be dwelling in the depth of them. He closed his eyes for a second and found himself behind her. Her reactions had been fast and she turned quicker then he could ever imagine. Their blades met once again, and she made a turn with her leg, using the force of her hip to make him move backwards. The shock from her power left him surprised and quite wondering. He also noticed when now facing her yet again, that the noise of battle had been silenced from around him. He smiled internally, maybe he would get his wish after all. After all, he just wanted to go down like an assassin, not a coward. She did something he didn't expect could happen to him, she appeared faster then the wind next to him, pulled her legs behind him using the force of her hand and leg and pulled him down. His daggers flew right out of his hands, blasted! They both landed on the cold, damp grass. She was sitting above him with her knee almost at his throat and pulled out a small dagger from her back and placed it against his face.
"Kill me already." Zevran said smiling. By her hand, that beauty reflected in her eyes and hair, he could die at least like a happy man if he could see a woman's wonders before passing. He would finally see...
"Not just yet, I decided I wanted to torture you first. I want answers." She touched his face lightly with her dagger, his lips quirked upwards. What a girl, trying to frighten him! Her eyes looked around and saw that her companions were safe and gathered around her. How uttering boring, he thought.
"oh, so your keeping me for a bit of fun, are you?" He chuckled
Her knee pushed a bit harder.
"Who are you?"
Her green eyes glowed.
"Now, now don't get to hasty with the knee, would hate it to get a messy, such a beautiful knee it is." He said hoarsely.
She stood up and he noticed that a man in a silver armor moved sneakily behind her. A denied lover perhaps? The man looked very protective of the girl, how he was tenderly touching her arm. Which she had not noticed, he saw. Maybe he should turn his focus to the what-would-be people that held his fate by the threshold.
"Who are you and why did you try to kill us?"
"My name is Zevran, Zev to my friends. I was sent here for only one reason. That reason being killing you and the remaining Grey Wardens and anyone who travel with them. Which i sadly failed at." He hadn't been paid to keep his mouth shut and everything rolled of his tongue without any doubt.
She scoffed at him, "I'm quite happy that you failed."
He laughed at her response, and cleared his throat before continuing, "So would I be in your shoes."
She looked at him with curiosity, like a predator not really knowing whether or not to play with its food or just eat it.
"Did someone send you or were you and your men on a bounty hunt?"
"I was sent here by the Antivan Crows, my dear lady."
"The Crows?" Said a red haired girl from the back
"you know who they are?" The blond seductress asked the crimson looking one.
"they are an order of assassins." She answered slowly, while looking at Zevran.
"Indeed they are." He said, gripping, what he assumed was their leader, her attention.
"And why did you want to kill us?" She asked again.
"Its not by my own motivations that wanted you dead, my dear. It would rather seem a waste to rid the world of its beauties. My leaders however got paid, quite wealthy for wanting to stop your breathing."
She looked at him, not letting her eyes wander while he noticed the man behind her whispered something in her ear which she nodded at.
She took some steps towards him and crouched next to him. Her eyes wandered a bit before tracing her fingers on his cheek. The touch had him surprised and their eyes entwined when she cupped his cheek.
"And who exactly paid you?"
"No one has paid me, I assure you. But if you mean who paid my masters, I would say a rather tall looking fellow. I think his name was Loghain."
"Why am I not surprised." She responded more to the group then to him. Her warm touch left his cheek tingly and she went back to her companions.
...and then against all odds, she let him live, and gave him a second chance. He spent many nights at first planning to kill her anyway. His instinct wanted to keep him alive and it would be dull to die before completing his mission, would it not? He chuckled as he gazed they landscape beholding the city pensively. Who would have known that she led him to this path? He heard thundering above him. The weather was a complete dismal, and horrifying for those not used to hearing noise from the heavens. Something was tickling in his knees, a feeling he hadn't had for many months. The look from the top of the palace should be magnificent, and if he could just be there for a few moment and try to walk, it would surely be worth it. He just had to make sure that no one will see him go there.
The assassin grabbed his crutches and led himself out the door. He walked the path that would lead him to the rooftop of the castle. It didn't take long and he opened the door. He closed his eyes and stepped out quietly, feeling cold drops engulf his core. He chuckled and opened his eyes only to gape at the horrifying vision that was in front of him. His slow heart beat had become completely erratic by the sight. He saw her standing by the edge of the castle, one more step and she would fall down, surely to her death. He couldn't hide how amazing still she looked. The blonde curls slashing violently in the cold harsh wind, her long, sprinkled red(?) dress following the same notion. Her face was unreadable, her eyes were never. It was sadness in them. And she was beyond wet, you could see her every feature clearly through the dress. He tried his best to ignore the huge adding one in her belly.
"Diana?" He slowly asked.
She turned her face haltingly to him.
"Hi, Zevran." Her tone was meek and dull, like she was taken away from her every emotion, the ability to feel. She wouldn't jump, would she? He had started to shake, and it was not from the cold. He couldn't lose her, that was the only reason that kept him going in this forsaken dull world.
"What are you doing, my dear. Lets get you back inside and warm you. You could get sick like this." He said, trying to sound light.
"Don't come near me, Zev." A big trembling noise came from above that shook Zevran. The weather was getting more violent. He saw her shaking as well while she stood like a swaying ship on the edge of the rooftop. He would never expect her, even through all her hardship to be this foolish. If not for her, then for her child.
"Diana, please step away from the edge." He said, he know that saying her name always had a calming effect on her. And if he could hold his tongue from pressing a joke to hide his intentions maybe she would.
"One step is all that it takes." She whispered, and he now saw lightning struck just outside the city, followed by another a big thunder.
His heartbeat was now even beyond fast beating, she was serious....
"One step and it could all be over. I just have to..." She continued swagger on the edge.
"Why are you like this?" He asked, taking every urge of self-control to not yell at her. These crutches were holding him back. He tried to swing with them once again. She reacted and hissed at him.
"Don't. Come. Near. Me!"
He held up his hands, as a token of his surrender and his crutches fell hard on the stone roof, echoing over the surface. The rain and the thundering was all you could hear now.
"I won't if that is truly your wish." He said, looking at her face. The once careless one. The face that usually laughed and was happy, and had a certain glimmer in her eyes. It had all been fading away leisurely since Fort Drakon. And he hadn't been helping her that well either. He was so stupid and self-centered that he forgot about her and her happiness. An assassin should see these things, it was important when looking for weaknesses, not that would be his intention but still. Now it was replaced by an expression of a dying, old, a withering woman. She looked like an angel in her white dress with the wind blowing through her. A tired one, with those dark rings under her eyes and her mouth being shaped like sad rainbow. Her young beauty had been replaced by a grim look that did not suit her at all.
She turned away from him and gazed the cityscape in front of her. He hated that he couldn't tell if she would jump or not.
"Doesn't hurt me...you want to feel how it feels?" She hymned, making him raise his eyebrow.
"feel how what feels?" He dared not to move nor flinch, but his legs were beginning to shake horribly due to not being used on standing on their own.
She turned her eyes to look at him.
"You don't want to hurt me...so much hate...so much bitterness for the ones we love...." He saw taking a small step over the edge. Zevran clutched his fists.
"Diana. Please, step down." He was never the one to beg, but for her...he would do anything. What happened to her?
"Tell me, Zevran. Do we really matter?" She asked in such a abhorrent tone, a voice he had never heard from her before.
"You matter, more then you could ever realize." He said softly. That caught her attention.
"Really? You have a funny way of showing it." She said scathingly.
He cursed under his breath. How could she not understand him or why he did what he did.
"No matter. I could just end it all with one step." She laughed and looked down on the ground below them.
"End what?"
"Everything." She muttered.
"What happened, Diana?" He asked, while he staggered to the ground. He couldn't stand on his legs anymore. His one true psychical weakness, how he hated it now, being so powerless.
"I never believed it to be true. But it all makes sense now. The nightmares, and what Morrigan told me and now what he said..." She stopped her sentence.
"What did Morrigan say?" He said anything in hope that someone would see her, to help her or to buy him time to get her off there.
She laughed again and covered her face with her small hands. That eclipsed his growing fear. He used the opportunity to crawl a bit closer to her without her seeing his attempt. The rain helped damping the noise he was making. What an assassin!
"She said that my child is....not mine." He stopped his movements and managed to stand up again and stared at her.
"How could that be?"
"Oh, its mine by body. I'm just a vessel though." She lowered her hands and looked at him with sad eyes.
"I'm carrying the archdemon. It didn't die. That's how I survived." She whispered.
"How?" was all he could manage.
"Morrigan did her ritual, and it backfired."
He couldn't respond to this and they were just looking at each other.
"See? I'm nothing. I can't give birth to it..." Her voice was wavering.
"You are alive for a reason. Don't question that, you are way beyond of being nothing, believe me, my dear."
"I have been dead since I thrusted my dagger in the dragon. I died that night, my core is alive for the soul purpose of something I failed at. Don't you see, Zev?"
He shook his head. She wasn't dead, how could something divine like her be dead?
"I have to stop this." She whispered and when he saw her taking another step closer to the edge he panicked.
"How can you say that?" She stopped her movement and looked at him.
"I have to."
"we will find a way. We always do, and it will involve you not dying."
She chuckled.
"That's nice, Zev. But no, you clearly can't be around me when something happens that you can't handle, and frankly I'm tired of it. Alistair only needs me since I'm carrying what we thought would be his child...the rest I cared about are dead. My brother does not need me, in fact he would properly be better of with me dead anyway."
"That is not fair." Zevran growled.
"I'm just an abomination, a dead corpse left for the mission to give birth to something we thought we killed."
"You are not. Not to me and not to the templar either."
"Really?" Sarcasm dripping with every letter.
"You have to be blind and deft to not see that Alistair is still madly in love with you." He cursed again, why did he say that. Is he still a coward to admit what he feels so he says the emotions of another man? So pathetic, this is not like him, but this wasn't an everyday situation for him either.
"And you?" She whispered. How could she not know already?
"You know how I feel." He responded.
"No, I actually don't. You confuse to hell, Zevran. Tell me or I will fall." She said firmly.
"Oh, you are then becoming a true assassin, using blackmail to achieve your goals?" He winked his eyebrows.
"No matter." Her foot was now above the ground, floating.
"I have nothing, I thought this child would be my hope, but I was wrong there, everything is just so fucking pointless." He took steps closer to her, which was very hard, but it had gone unnoticed by her, he was close enough to grab her. She saw him and turned fast, so quickly that she lost her balance and started to fall over the edge. Zevran jumped with all force he could muster from his weak legs and plunged forward, catching one of her hands, preventing her to finish her fall. She didn't even scream. He was grabbing her hand tightly, but her weight was heavy and with the rain pouring down it was not easy to hold her. He looked sternly in her lifeless eyes. This fall would surely kill her.
"Just let me go." She said.
"Never." He responded. He tried pulling her up but it was almost impossible, she was acting like a dead corpse, with no intention of helping him, and he couldn't use his legs for support either. He had heard his back crack when he landed and he tried his best to ignore the pain that was sending vibes through his spine. He wondered how badly of he is now. Zevran knew he only had his arms to pull her up, which seemed harder and harder with every second they were hanging there.
"There is no use, Zev. Just let me go."
"How could you ask me to do that?" He responded angrily.
She chuckled and tried now to squirm her hand from his grasp.
"I'v only been a burden, I have realized it. Just let it go." He now had a bruisingly tight grip on her hand, he would not let her fall, it was getting more hard with her squirming and rain that added extra weight.
"How could I let go of the woman I love?" the words were uttered before he could stop them. Oh, his barrier was now down and beaten.
"Don't." She whispered, but her hands had stopped moving. He could see that she was crying.
"Don't say lies." Her voice was trembling.
"It is no lie...I" That he heard his own voice almost blurted out the three forbidden words, was not realistic at all for him. He never uttered these words except when she was...unconscious in the palace. She didn't know that, and that he almost said it now was beyond him.
"No, you don't!" she tried to yell at him.
He smiled at her.
"I will never let you go, believe what you want to, but you should know that I lie about many things, but not when it comes to emotions like these."
"Its too late, I'm dead already, Zev..."
"We can talk more about this when you are in your room, yes?" She didn't respond.
"Or we could remain here, but I can assure you it won't be pleasant for neither of us, pet."
"You have to let go at one point." She said. Stubborn woman!
"Never, I fall with you rather then to let go." Their eyes locked and he know saw a small resemblance to the glimmer he missed in them, when they first met. She was openly crying and nodded. He felt she locked her hand around his and he tried pulling her up. After a lot of effort and time they were both lying on the top of the drenched rooftop, neither was talking. He would never believe that she could carry a demon in her belly and chose to not think of it.
Zevran didn't feel his legs any longer and wondered how badly he hurt himself. Suddenly he felt her touch on his arm, and he could feel her little cold hand entwining within his fingers and holding his hand. He turned his face and saw her wet sad appearance looking at him. She had moved closer and her other hand traced his cheek and she was lying sideways, how she managed that, he would never know. He could make out every feature on her glowing profile as she crawled closer to him. He focused his gaze upon her emerald eyes. And without hesitation she brushed her lips lightly upon his. He had missed her so much, and his hand was holding the back of her head, caressing the hair, and pulled her closer to a kiss. They were moist and most welcoming. And he could feel her soft full lips consuming his fully.
It overwhelmed his senses, and even through all the pain that went through his paralyzed lower body, it overtook it. She is his, his goddess. She gasped and opened her mouth a little to grant him more access. The thundering was hovering above them, and they were both beyond cold, and neither seemed to care. Her aura had him even more absorbed then before. Her breath was upon his lips, which left a tingling sensation in Zevran's chest. He could lie here forever being fully covered in water, if he could only be with her...he would never let her die. He placed his mouth next to her ear, tracing soft kisses on her earlobe and took a deep breath;
"I love you. Don't ever do something like this again." He pulled away and saw her widened and surprised face looking back at him. Zevran chuckled and kissed her again. They would have to go in eventually, but not now, not in this moment. He had said the forbidden words...and he felt content and at ease.
"And if I could,
Make a deal with God,
And get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh..."
AN: So a quick question, did you like that he said it or not? I was so unsure if I should have him say those words but I thought it suited in the event that happened especially for the future chapters.