Leliana

I am losing my mind, I leaned on Salem, feeling guilty as she half-carried me back into the cavern. She is injured and I am too weak to support myself...so she bears the weight of my burdens and hers, yet again.

The warmth of the fire greeted us and Salem helped me sit down. I did not look into her eyes, afraid to see the pain I knew would be there. i could not face it. I could barely face her. I had only let her take me into her arms because I needed her comfort and reassurance, even as I despised myself for that desire.

Salem offered me a canteen. "No, thank you." I whispered.

My voice had been harshened by tears and screaming. I did not sound myself. In Val Royeaux, I was known as the one who could conjure tears from a stone with my voice. Now, here I am, in this mad time where the skies are set screaming, unable to speak above a whisper.

Salem quirked her lips in a half-smile. I could not tell if her mind were filled with worry. I imagined that it was. How did she stand there and listen? How did she keep her voice so measured, her movements so sure? I would be flat on my back had I done that to Marjolaine, or any other I have been with. We would both be bleeding; blades would have been drawn. I have never experienced such...calm. Such surety in the face of madness.

Salem poured water into her hand without a word, using it to clean the blood from her burned cheek where I had split the skin. My heart jerked painfully in my chest.

I hurt her again, with words and blows...in truth, what manner of woman am I? I told her I hated her...it isn't true. Maker's blood, it isn't true.

"Salem," I ventured, longing to touch her, afraid, "Salem, please say something."

"I love you, Leliana." she whispered.

My heart broke. I brought my knees to my chest and rested my head on them, sobbing. Oghren muttered something and walked away from the fire, giving us privacy and much needed warmth. I had sat in the snow for...I did not know how long. Foolishly, I had thought I had no tears left to spend. My body shivered with chill and grief.

Warmth settled across my shoulders as Salem draped a bearskin over me. Stop, I pleaded, tasting salt on my lips. Stop being so tender. I struck you and pushed you away. How can you find it in your heart to care for me still?

"How?" I asked at last. "After what...what I did, what I said...just...how?"

"It is my nature." she answered. "As it is yours."

"That's not true." I wiped my tears away and my eyes burned as more took their place.

"Is it not?" she asked, staring off into some distance that was so far away, so ink-black I could not fathom it. "How many times have I hurt you, Leliana? Every time I return wounded, I know you feel that pain. Every time you are forced to watch me go into battle, I can sense your heartache. I have not been fair to you, Leli, and it hurts me that I cannot be."

She does know, the revelation struck me across the face. She does know and has known how I have felt for quite some time. And there is nothing she can do to remedy the situation. The only thing that would end these constant battles, this ever-present danger, is the death of the archdemon, and we simply cannot march into the creature's lair and kill it.

"I ask too much of you." I whispered.

"It is no more than I am willing to give." she answered, wrapping her arm about me and sharing her warmth. "I only regret that it is more than I am able to."

"Salem, forgive me." I begged, wishing that she could see me, see the tears in my eyes, the utter wreck of my hair, my wind-chapped skin. I wanted her to see my honesty and my deep sorrow.

"You've done nothing wrong." she said, shouldering our burdens. "If you wish to walk away from this, Leliana, I will not hold it against you. If you wish not to love me anymore, I understand. You deserve another who can do what you ask, for it is so very little. It should be..." her own eyes rimmed with tears, "...so very easy not to die."

How can you think I do not wish to love you? It is painful but...worth it. Worth every moment of worry, every frantic beat of my heart.

"I...I could never stop loving you, Salem." I confessed.

"But," her lips quivered with repressed emotion, "you said that you never wished to love again. I never knew...never meant to subject you to that manner of grief. I have given everyone here the right to leave if they choose. You almost did, and I begged you to stay. I...I will not be so selfish again, Leliana. If you feel you must walk away from this, I will not try to stop you. It will do you no good to stay for my sake, if I am what is tearing you apart. I do not wish you that manner of pain."

"Salem, I cannot even remember half of what I shouted at you." I said, the memory of my rage melting away. "I was so lost in my grief and to see you remain so...so impossibly unfaltering...it infuriated me. I was not myself and I...I never meant..."

"You meant every word." Salem assured me. "What is spoken in anger is often the representation of our truest self. I am...grateful. You stripped my beliefs away and laid me bare. While it was a gruesome reflection...it is something I needed to see."

She spoke in beautiful, tentative metaphor. I pressed closer against her, trying to convey what words did not have the power to. Need. Love. Pain.

"You should have been a bard, love." I said. "A life of music and legends would have suited you."

"It suits you better." she pressed a kiss against my cheek. "Do you...do you wish to return to it?"

Do I? Marjolaine is no longer a threat; all of her cockroaches that would harm me have slithered back into their gutters. I could go back to Val Royeaux and continue my life there among the nobility. I could even return to the Chantry and enlist my skills in the service of the Divine. Or I could stay...I could stay and let my heart fall completely to pieces every morning. I could give myself over to slaughter and bloodshed, the stripping of skin and breaking of bones, camping on roadsides, covered in filth and blood. One life is far more pleasant than the other.

I admired Salem's face in the firelight. The strong, proud set of her jaw, the crooked bridge of an aquiline nose, the strong, supple bow of her lips. Loving her was wounding me; both of us knew this to be true. I also knew that her love was strong enough to let go of me...so that I did not perish of devotion.

Salem would not be with me, should I choose to go. Maker, look at her. She is tearing herself in half. My silence is wounding her as I sit here wracked with indecision. We are each other's summation and pinnacle of pleasure and pain. It will end us both, and Ferelden...Thedas...needs her.

"It...might be best." I ventured. "For the both of us."

"If that is what you believe," she did not let go of me, or pull away as most would have. Instead, she stayed, cherishing, treasuring what she felt she might soon lose. "I will not keep you here."

I became the villain. I was the one who rose and struck the tears from my face. My hands lifted my bow, quiver, and satchel. I turned from the fire.

"I...I'm sorry, Salem."

She stood with slow, pained movements. "The fault is mine." she took blame for the final time. "Be well, Leliana."

I hung my head and choked back tears, unable to speak. "I promise. When this is over..."

"You will not hear from me." she promised, though they were not the words I wanted. "Thank you, dear heart, for all you have done."

"Farewell, Salem." I began to walk out of the cavern, through the tunnels, refusing to look back. I heard Salem drop to the ground, utterly defeated.

I wanted to rush back to her, declare it a mistake, beg her to forgive me even when I could not forgive myself. I wanted to taste her lips and feel her hands on my skin, writing promises into me with an intimate touch. But no. I chose to walk away. To flee. As I had fled from Marjolaine. As I had fled from the Chantry.

"Leliana," Salem's voice captured my ear and I turned. She sat before the fire, staring through it with sightless eyes. "I wish I could have seen you." she lifted her face and I caught a glimpse of tears. "One last time."