the heart is hard to translate

Morgana's got that look on her face again, and Alistair knows her too well not to notice. It's the "I'm worrying but desperately pretending not to" expression she gets sometimes, when she's bottling things up. She keeps glancing towards him, looking away hastily when he turns his head. Maybe he should leave it alone, but he just can't help himself: if she's in any kind of pain, he's right there next to her, even when she's doing her best to push him away. (And yes, he admits, part of him can't help wondering if she's come to her senses; if she's about to tell him politely that he's been a fool and she just wants to be friends. Maker, he hopes it isn't that.)

He falls into step with her. She sneaks another look at him, probably thinking he hasn't noticed, and he asks, "Something wrong?"

She talks to the ground, not him. "I was just... considering the terrain. This might be a difficult walk."

He can't help it: he raises an eyebrow and says flatly, "Hmm. I've been told I'm looking particularly gullible today."

She finally looks at him properly. The tiniest smile creeps onto her face, and then it's replaced by that silent worry again. A couple of seconds pass, until eventually she says, "It's, well, us."

Oh. He braces himself, trying to pretend this won't hurt. "Us?"

"It's just... strange." She still can't look at him. He wishes she would.

He makes himself ask, "Good strange or bad strange?"

She smiles at him then, looking him in the eye, and her words are quiet but certain. "Good strange." Looking back to the ground, she clears her throat. "I'm still not used to... Well, I always thought it was just me."

He's about to say something back - probably about him being surprised she was so oblivious, seeing as she's far from stupid and he's been acting like an idiot over her for, oh, months now - but then the darkspawn attack and the moment's gone. Of course.

She runs into the fray, sword out and fireballs akimbo, and he does his best to keep up, hacking at the creatures impatiently. It's not like he's usually pleased to see them, but of all the times -

They're nearly through it (more of the darkspawn are on the ground than standing up, always a good sign), when something changes.

He feels the Veil tear a little further, and he has to duck a spell that's definitely not one of Morgana's, getting low just in time and pulling his shield up. For a start, it feels different: darker round the edges, cold in his veins. Her magic is warm, natural. Also, Morgana doesn't usually throw a stonefist at his head.

He stands, backing away, and he's about to get moving properly when he feels a weight against his shoulder. He knows that it's Morgana under his shield too, even before she gasps in his ear, "Emissary."

"I noticed," he mutters, through gritted teeth.

"It just got here," she says. "Can you - ?" she says, gesturing towards the emissary.

He nods. She'll cover him - he knows it like he knows the sky is blue; she's Morgana. He's focusing, feeling the magic around him and seeking to mend, to change, feeling the light grow inside him like an indrawn breath -

he exhales -

and then he raises a hand and pushes.

He feels it vibrate through his bones and then leave him. Now, he thinks, and he reaches out by instinct, pulling her to him before she can fall. She wraps an arm around him in a tight, awkward half-hug, dust rising around them from the force of the smite, and then the Veil's solid, immoveable.

She's already regaining her footing. She nods to him, extricates herself and then runs at the emissary; it's actually dumb enough that it's staring at its staff, shaking it like it's broken.

It doesn't look up quickly enough. She picks up a sword and shouts as she brings up her hands, decapitating it. The move's quick, clean, and...

"Morgana?" he says slowly.

She turns, lowering the sword, her eyes still a little wild.

"Since when can you use a greatsword?"

She freezes. Stares at the sword in her hands; it's half as tall as she is. After a moment, she says, "I wondered." She looks at him and continues, "When we were in the elven temple, there was that vial..."

He glares at her. "The one where I said, 'Don't go near it, it's probably a revenant'?"

She gives him a guilty twist of her lips. "That would be the one. It was... it was suffering. I couldn't just... But it suggested that there were ways. It said I might be physically strong enough, but the magic could do the rest. It showed me." She returns her gaze to the sword, and she turns it over, seeming to consider it.

"And were you?" he prods. When she looks at him in confusion, he elaborates, "Strong enough?"

She nods, giving him the smallest of smiles. "Your teaching helped." She returns her gaze to the sword, seeming a little hypnotised. "I'd been practising..."

He sighs, and he sees what must be the sheath for it. He bends to pick it up, unbuckling and pulling until he's got it off the darkspawn's belt, and then he's walking over, holding it out to Morgana.

She stares at him. "What - ?"

"You look like it's a puppy. I'm waiting for you to say, 'Ooh, can I keep it?'"

She watches him with those big, plaintive blue eyes, and says, "I'd like to."

"Just know that I won't be much help. We did some training with two-handed weapons in the Chantry, but I'm not sure..."

"Any help would be appreciated," she tells him, as if she's expecting him to walk off and refuse her. It's so awkwardly careful that it reminds him of that first time, when they were in Lothering and they still didn't know how to talk to each other. He didn't refuse her then, either.

"I'll do my best."

Morgana finds him that night after they make camp, wondering what, precisely, his best is.

"Come on," he tells her, "let's take a look at your stance."

She tries to hold the sword and look vaguely imposing. He walks around her, evaluating, and then he's behind her.

He says, "Not bad, but if you just try this..." She feels him step closer to her, and then he reaches with his own hands to adjust her grip on the hilt. His fingers are gentle, and she watches his movements, lets him move her, until she understands. "Here," he says, and his breath brushes her neck like a touch.

That does it. She nearly drops the sword altogether. They've always been respectful, clinical, in these sort of matters, even if they mock each other mercilessly while sparring, but that was before they became... this. The first time they did this, he was just the other Warden and she barely knew how to put on her armour. Afterwards, they were simply friends, and she was always careful not to act as though they were otherwise.

"Your hands are shaking," he says; she can hear the worry in his voice, and she feels guilty for causing it.

"I'm fine." Her voice is trembling, too. She wonders how he can be so oblivious; she wonders, as she did when she first realised these feelings, why everything has to involve so much touching.

"You don't look fine." His hands come to rest on her shoulders, and he says, "Bring these down a bit. They're nearly round your ears."

She does her best, and tries to bend her knees, as he's always telling her. That brings her closer to him.

She's aware of his moving away, and then he's standing in front of her. "That's better," he remarks. "You should... well, I know it's hard to relax when a bunch of darkspawn are charging at you, but relax. Treat it as part of you." He slowly reaches out to touch her hands, lowering the blade, and his voice is low when he says, "Have I done something...?"

She shakes her head so vehemently that her vision becomes a blur. "It's not you." She sheathes the sword, puts it aside and returns to him, then opens her mouth.

She has no idea how to explain. To say that she's only kissed him twice, and that that seems like some sort of tragedy, like something she should correct. It astonishes her when she looks at him and sees this bright new thing reflected in his eyes, too. The way he talks to her, looks at her, defends her... She's spent so long stopping herself, pulling herself back, telling herself that it was all one-sided. And now, suddenly, it isn't. She's been humming with anticipation, realising that she might be allowed things she hadn't considered possible. They're alone for the first time in hours, and so very close. She doesn't know how to say that, on occasions like this -

"I should be braver," she decides, and only discovers that she's said it out loud when he gives her a quizzical look, stepping closer.

She clears her throat, and then blurts out, into the silence: "Can I kiss you?"

He blinks, and then lets out a soft laugh. "Maker, Morgana, yes."

"I, er... good," she says.

She reaches up and rubs her thumb over his cheek, just as she's done so many times before while healing him and trying to tell herself it meant something else. He closes his eyes for a half-second, breathing in, as if he wants to memorise the feeling, before he looks at her. It bolsters her courage, even if she hesitates for a moment more. She licks her lips briefly, nervously, and sees his gaze fall to her mouth, something like yearning in his face. She knows that feeling, and the thought is what makes her move to close the distance between them, even as he leans down.

When their lips meet, she's unsure who moved first. She's only certain that this is a kind of relief, an answer to a question. His hand moves to her hip and he pulls her closer, anchoring her, placing her firmly here, in this is no impossible mission looming before them, there are no Chantries in their pasts, there are none of her worries about the future - there is simply him. She loses track of time there, in his arms.

After some time, they separate, and she hears him sigh. He gives her a smile, still looking a little dazed, and says, "We've wasted so much time." His voice is breathless, his hands still lingering at her waist. "We could have been doing that for... months. Maybe after we met, we should have spent less time arguing and more time like this."

She points out, still trying to recover her thoughts, "I probably would have punched you if you'd tried."

"You have a point." He grins at her and says, "You know, if someone had told me back when we first met that it'd be you, I'd have laughed myself stupid."

"Me?" she asks. Perhaps all this kissing has robbed her of her faculties.

"'So, who's the first girl you kissed?' 'Oh, you know, the scary mage I was certain would set me on fire.'"

She stares at him. All she can seem to do is echo him. "First? Really?"

"Really," he confirms, with a brief nod. "For what it's worth, I'm glad it was you."

It's such an Alistair thing to say that she takes a moment to find her words, too touched to quite express it. "If someone had told me my first kiss would be with a templar initiate..."

He laughs. "Oh, you'd definitely have decked them."

Ducking her head, she admits, "You might be right. But I'm glad it was you, too."

They breathe in the silence. He reaches up to twirl a lock of her hair around his finger, smiling at her, and his face is so gentle that she has to look away. It's too bright; like staring at the sun.

"Morgana," he says, and he places his fingers under her chin, making her look at him. When she does, he moves to kiss her, and she feels his grin against her mouth when he says, drawing back, "You know, we really ought to be sorting out something to eat."

"It can wait," she mutters, pressing her mouth back to his, and for a while, it does.

I'm doing rewrites on this story and will probably end up updating it soon. This is more of a preview than anything else.