The 100th chapter! Wow. Since we've reached that milestone - and it's Christmas - I'm going to do something completely new for me: I'm taking requests for POVs for the next few chapters. If there's a character you'd like to see more of, or you're just curious, drop a comment and I'll see what I can do.
References chapter 29, "Rain". Oh, and double update today.
Discoveries
Morgana
She sneaks another look at him as he speaks with Levi, his eyes alight, and wonders how she could ever have missed this when it was right in front of her for months. He gives a laugh at something the merchant has said, a hand running through his hair - another of his nervous habits. She wonders when she started to notice things like this.
Since she started noticing it, things have been... difficult. Sparring, training, speaking with him... This sort of awareness of another person is different from the taint - and she thanks the Maker he showed her how to block that link, otherwise all this would be laid bare for him to feel; everything seems to rely far too much on closeness.
She quickly returns her gaze to the book in her hands, face heating, but she's read the same paragraph five times, and hasn't even been trying to concentrate.
"Have you told him?"
She jumps at the voice from behind her, and then Leliana sits beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she says, trying to disguise the shake in her voice.
Leliana sighs. "Morgana, I know you better than that. You care for him, don't you?"
She freezes, tries to hide it, and turns to her, her voice sharper than she intended. "I care for him because he's my friend, and I care for him because he's the other Warden in Ferelden. I'm not sure what you mean."
Another sigh, and Leliana shakes her head, the Orlesian gently brushing a strand of hair from her face. "Let me... explain, if you will." She pauses, seeming to think for a moment, then says, softly, "Do you remember when we left the Tower?"
She nods cautiously.
"It rained, did it not?"
The coldness, the patter of it on the ground around her, her eyes closing and her palms shown to the sky to treasure it. She puts the memory to the back of her mind, nodding; what is the woman getting at?
"You looked... like you had found something we couldn't understand, something divine. And you said that you were free."
Leliana heard that? She flushes, and nods. "I... I remember."
The ex-bard's smile grows wider, slightly dreamy. "Sometimes, that is how you look at him. Like you have discovered something wonderful."
"That's not... I'm not... I trust him with my life. He is a good friend, and that is all he'll be."
Leliana looks at her, and there is a pause, then she asks simply, "But is that what you want?"
Silently, not quite able to say the words, she shakes her head.