Leliana

On your feet, Leliana! I staggered to my feet and began walking again, simultaneously desperate and hesitant to leave this place. I am more than capable of doing this. How many times have I been destroyed and forced to rebuild myself? Countless? I have even walked away from lovers before, and it did not break me then. Why is this time any different? Because it was Salem?

I leaned against the wall once more as grief poured through me. Yes. Because it was Salem. Because she had nothing but love to give, and even that she was willing to part with. For my sake. And I walked away. I took the one thing she had left and ground it into dust.

I stumbled into the main hall where we had left Alistair, Shale, and Genitivi. I prayed they were not still present. I did not want to see anyone, anyone that would remind me of her. I wished I had taken Salem's fate. I wished I were blind.

Footsteps pounded in my ears as Alistair rushed up to me, eyes frantic with worry. I stopped short, pinching the bridge of my nose as I felt a headache begin to pound behind my eyes. I snatched my hand away as I realized whose gesture I mimicked.

Salem...how deeply are you ingrained in me?

"Leliana." Alistair stood there, panting and leaning forward, his hands on his thighs for support. "I saw you come back. What's happened? Maker's breath, you're white as snow. Is everything all right? Is Salem..."

"I do not know." I raised my hand to forestall his questions and began walking.

Ignore him, Leliana. Ignore him. He will say nothing to you but what you have already told yourself. It does not matter. I cannot go back.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" he followed after me as he had followed Salem, like a lost puppy.

I turned to face the future king. A friend's anger frightened him, especially if he did not understand it. But anger was all I possessed.

"I do not know how she is and I do not care! Does this answer your endless queries!?"

"What? Why?" questions tumbled out of his lips. If he had been this talkative during our entire absence, I feared the golem's ears had been chipped away to nothing. "Did she send for us?"

"No, Alistair." I kept walking.

He clutched my wrist and pulled me around. "What are you talking about, Leli?"

I looked into his eyes; saw the fear and vulnerability. The same vulnerability that had been in Salem's eyes the night she gave me her heart. The night she had stripped away all physical and metaphorical armor and trusted me implicitly.

"It's too much, Alistair. I cannot explain. I have to go." I gently disengaged his hand, turned on my heel, and began once more the journey to make my way out of this hell.

"You left her, didn't you?" he asked, and I stopped short, not expecting the force of his words and the dark fury that lay beneath them.

"You would not understand." I hung my head, screaming at myself not to cry.

"No, I would not." he walked toward me, accusation streaming from his every pore. "You did not see her after Ishal." he told me, glaring straight into my eyes. "You did not see her when she at last had time to breathe, time to realize that she had lost everything. Her family, her home, her title. She was alone in a world of nightmares, a fledgling warden whose mentor had been slaughtered. She had me, Leliana. You think I do not know what a sorry excuse I am for a protector and a guide? There is a reason we all follow behind her. I am not that stupid."

I stood there, listening, stunned by his words, by their ferocity and what had to have been their truth. I had not known Salem at that time. I could scarcely recall her any different than she was now...I had lost my breath when I first looked on her, freshly bloodied from a fight with highwaymen. No one had stirred my heart that way since I gazed on Marjolaine. And when her eyes had met mine...I had vanished into them.

"What are you getting at?" I demanded, not knowing if I would be able to bear his next words, yet unable to walk away.

"Meeting you...changed her." he told me, tearing at my already frayed heart. "On the road to Lothering, she did not speak except to intervene in my and Morrigan's arguments." he looked down in...guilt? "I am in earnest, Leliana; she scarcely joined two words together. After you joined us she...she began to speak, to ask me about the wardens, to acknolwedge the presence of others. Hell, you made her smile, a feat I did not know she was capable of."

"What are you trying to tell me, Alistair?" I asked, knowing now that I could not hear more, but forcing myself to do so regardless.

I could not picture the warden broken, silent, over a line that could not be re-crossed. I could not fathom not hearing her voice, its rough Ferelden accent with lyric notes.

I...I must keep myself together. I cannot conceive that I have pushed her back into such a darkness.

"You kept her alive." he answered, voice low. "Whatever you made her feel, whatever hope you inspired in her...she charged an ogre at Ishal. Just...ran straight into it like she was begging it to kill her. Every skirmish after that was the same. Until..."

"Until I joined you." I finished, pinching the bridge of my nose once more. I tore my hand away for the second time, furious with myself. "It does not matter, Alistair. She asked me if I wanted to leave and said she would not stand in my way if I wished to do so."

"Because she is too good a woman!" Alistair raised his voice in anger. Anger that the good-hearted, jovial warden felt towards me. "Salem is chained to her tainted blood, to me, to this damn Blight! She has no free will! Do you think she desires another, especially one that she loves, to feel that burden?"

"Alistair..."

"Hear me out." he defended his warden-sister. "Salem carries countless fates and destinies. Every blow she takes is a thousand deaths; every victory is ten-thousand lives spared. Like it or not, accepting of it or not, you carried her, Leliana. And I was grateful, because I thought you were up to the task."

Bitterness scoured through my soul. "I am not. That is the simplicity of it. Farewell, Alistair. If Salem should return, do not tell her we spoke."

"She let you go because she loves you too much and she's too proud to beg." Alistair called after me and my shoulders bunched into shrieking knots. "I'm not that good a person. Please stay, Leliana."

"She will not be able to forgive me." I wanted to turn around. I wanted to cling to my friend for comfort and pour my sorrow onto an understanding soldier.

"She will." he promised. "Once you opened her heart, I realized its true depth. Look at all she has done, Leliana. She forgave an assassin sent to kill her. She believes in the beauty of the world because you showed her that not all of it was destroyed."

"Zevran was sent to take her life." I countered. "I ripped out her living heart and crushed it before her. She may not have been able to see me walk away, but I know she felt everything...everything. It...it isn't fair, Alistair!"

"Love is not fair, Leliana." he replied, scuffing his foot on the stone floor. "It is not to you and certainly is not to Salem. But give her a chance. Let her end the Blight. It will equalize, I promise."

"What would you know of it?" I demanded. Alistair had never spoken of love.

"I know I wanted to be for her what you are." his eyes filled with unspoken emotion.

I knew it. I knew it! I exclaimed within my mind. I could have sworn Alistair felt that way towards her! How many times have you imagined yourself in my stead, Alistair, sharing secrets and laughter, running your hands across her body?

Jealousy crept in and it felt like my soul was coated in black ice. I inhaled, deep, straining to calm my thoughts.

Perhaps this is for the best. Salem will see. She will see and understand. We could never have worked...no eternity was written for a love such as ours.

"If she returns alive," I walked away again, swearing that no other words would sway me, "you will have your chance."