Prompt: Saying goodbye (possibly) for the last time
It was summer in Thedas, yet the frigid mountainous air casted a sense of doubt in everybody's’ minds (as they yanked their furs over themselves with haste) If they had enough mental aplomb to even consider the weather. The cold, hard dread which sat low in the seeker’s gut vied with the iced over lakes at the mountain’s base and the craggy ravines which lay ominously below them, tucked away beneath fluffy white snow drifts and impermeable rock.
With a buckram posture and a miniature box stuffed deep down in the pockets of her breeches, Cassandra stepped into the uncannily quiescent hall. The inquisitor’s throne was hollow, and its spikes glistened with an odd purity in the pale moonlight. For the briefest of moments, she wondered if there would be something akin to them shoved through her torso the following morning. She wondered about how many lives are yet to be claimed in the splenetic battle which would begin at dawn. She wondered if Josephine would somehow manage to seek asylum somewhere, find a quiet place in a distant place and settle down like she always wanted to. She wondered if Josephine would remember her if her life was sacrificed in turn for world peace.
Cassandra paused. She was at her door. Muffled, disconsolate sobs slammed against the door and pestered the seeker’s half frozen ears until she had shoved the wooden slab past her beneath the guise of a long sigh. They stopped, for a moment, yet seemed to ooze from her twice as thick when her red rimmed grey and black irises met her own. There were no words for a while, and the only sonority which filled the distressfully silent office was rushed steps against the floorboards and the long, asperous sigh which broke free of the diplomat’s lips and spread in tendrils of heat on Cassandra’s shoulder. “Josie…” For once borne of something other than romance, the seeker was left speechless and was only capable of uttering her love’s name in an exhausted, scabrous timbre. “C-Cassandra, I’m scared.” The sudden desire to lie welled up and aggrandised in the taller’s chest; she wanted to say it’s going to be okay, to put both Josephine’s anguish and her own to rest. She didn’t want Josephine to worry, to weep silently at her desk and glance up at the sky when dawn would break in the morning. She didn’t want her heart to keep an irregular thump throughout the day and for her food to remain untouched. Yet what she wanted didn’t seem cardinally in reach at the moment, not until dawn broke and her adorned herself in the armour which she may utter her last stray breath in, not until she faced the monster behind it all… “I love you.” The declaration subconsciously uttered past Cassandra’s slightly chapped lips and her scarred muscular arms wrapped tighter around her frail lover’s torso. “I love you so, so much Josephine I-” She was hushed, gently with a soft press against her lips. It ended too soon; it wasn’t eternal. “I love you too. More than anybody could ever, ever fathom.” With no coherent response to respond with, the seeker’s dexterous fingers gradually grasped the small box and exposed its contents with a flick of her thumb.
There as a gasp, then a soft “no”. A soft sigh escaped the seeker’s lips. “This was Anthony’s ring. It brought him protection wherever he ventured. He gave it to me, the night I had to cross part of the waking sea to attend some business affair with my uncle. It is the earliest possession I have. If I don’t live-” “NO!” Heartache had flicked to hysteria which only a few, long kisses subdued.
“Do it for me. Please.” Hot tears angrily trailed a scalding path down her cool cheekbones and imitated Josephine’s own as she allowed the ring to slip onto her fourth finger on her left hand. The deep blue sapphire complimented her rich skin tone and the worn gold band slung loosely over her ink blotched digit. Josephine’s fingers were eagerly tucking her handkerchief into the breast pocket of Cassandra’s rough jerkin before she could protest. The smooth pale silk contrasted with the unkempt fabric and in a basic sense reflected their love.
After a while, the small sofa was the hero of the moment, as Sleep overthrew Josephine with crushing ease once she had stopped sobbing as much and had noted that her lover was still in her arms. “Please, come back to me.” Her voice was barely a murmur, and was the most placid she had been in the recent days which counted towards the end. “I will.” With every surge of adoration possible and a swell of oddly placed rage which plagued her heart, Cassandra paused until the diplomat had fully nodded off before she liberated her from the embrace and slipped back into the demoralised reality she faced.
The handkerchief never left her breast pocket.
