#dafemslash

She turns, arches her brows. “Indeed,” she says coolly, but not unkindly. “’Tis an illustrious position you have found yourself in, Sister.”

Leliana smiles faintly at that and shakes her head. “I could say the same to you,” she points out.

Morrigan’s laugh still sounds like autumn leaves scattering in the wind and the winds of sparrows taking flight. “And fate somehow finds us yet again at the center of events that shall change the world,” she observes. For a moment, she’s quiet, and then adds, “I wonder - is this what my mother intended?”

“I thought her intentions were quite different,” Leliana says. “Did she not intend to take your place?”

“And my name, perhaps,” Morrigan muses, “at least for a time. To put herself in this position - Court Sorceress, Arcane Advisor - everything I’ve achieved might have been hers instead.”

She doesn’t look at Leliana as she says it, but across the garden, eyes fixed on the child sitting on the stones, a book open in their lap, tossing seeds to the birds in the bushes.

“No,” Leliana tells her, and lays a hand on her arm. “Not everything.”

She is young and slight framed when they first meet, bones like a bird’s, eyes like a knife. She wears a cloak of feathers around her shoulders like armor and her voice is full of thorns.

Leliana knows her from the first moment.

She sees herself in Morrigan’s wary gaze, her drawn-in shoulders. She recognizes the face of a frightened girl lost in an unfamiliar world without guidance or help. She was like that, too, once. It is not a look that can be forgotten.

But the timing is wrong; she’s a few years too soon then and Morrigan’s heart is a bruised and battered thing not ready to love nor to be loved. She lashes out with sharp teeth and a bitter tongue, pushing away the frightening unknown and keeping everyone around them at arm’s length.

Leliana pities her, but she understands. She knows this, too - knows the way a lost and frightened creature bares its teeth and raises its claws against approach. She does not press. Better to keep her distance; if she cannot be the one who takes Morrigan’s hand and helps her to her feet again, she will meet another, some other time, when she’s ready.

“How is your lover?” Morrigan asks, sitting beside her on the garden wall. “The mage?”

Leliana wraps her arms around herself and sighs, looking away. “I do not write her as often as I should,” she murmurs. “She commands the Wardens in Ferelden, in the Hero’s absence, and when Justinia came to me for aid, I…I could not refuse her. It has been some time since I’ve seen Irianna.”

“Mm,” Morrigan says, and Leliana glances over to see her gazing again at the child. “Mahariel…last saw them when they were only an infant,” she says. “Still too young to walk or speak. Certainly too young to remember.” Her shoulders slump slightly with weariness. “I’ve not spoken to them since.”

“What’s their name?” Leliana asks gently.

“Kieran.” A flicker of a smile crosses Morrigan’s tired face. “They have grown into a fine child, have they not?”

“They seem a proper little scholar,” Leliana agrees. “They must take after you.”

She looks away and shakes her head, but she’s still smiling faintly.

“It feels as if it’s been a lifetime,” Leliana adds softly.

“I suppose it has,” Morrigan says, gazing at the child in the garden, “for some.”

That’s true, she thinks, and sighs softly, following Morrigan’s gaze. They fought one war as allies, and now they’ve met again to fight another - and in the space between, lives have ended and begun, and children have grown up. Time marches on and leaves in its wake vast oceans of empty space that even now seem to stretch on forever between the two of them, a distance far too great to cross even standing face to face again.

Years ago in the dim twilight shrouding the camp she approaches Morrigan and sits beside her, away from the others, at the edge of the trees. The last faint ribbons of sunlight glisten red and gold in her dark hair and set her eyes on fire when she turns her head.

“I brought you something to eat,” Leliana murmurs, offering the bowl of stew with both hands.

“I am not hungry,” Morrigan replies, her voice hollow; her eyes skirt away and gaze into the distance.

“You ought to eat it even so,” Leliana says, but she sets the bowl aside as she sits down beside the witch, following her gaze to the deep violet shadows among the wood.

The breeze whispers words she doesn’t know among the leaves and the light slants through the branches, casting Morrigan’s sharp features in rosy light that makes her look almost at peace.

“Are you alright?” Leliana asks softly, and reaches for her hand.

She flinches and draws away, brows drawing together. “I know not what you mean,” she replies after a moment.

“Learning what your mother planned cannot have been easy,” Leliana says. “Yet - she was your only family, yes? That, too, is difficult.”

“Nothing in life is easy,” Morrigan replies.

A long moment passes; the silence stretches like the shadows of the trees over their heads.

“What will you do now?” Leliana asks.

She hunches her shoulders, drawing her arms around herself. “I do not know,” she confesses softly, turning her face away. “I… have never known true freedom. I know not what to do with it.”

“Yes,” Leliana says, “I understand.”

She offers her hand again, and Morrigan glances at her, slender fingers curling into her palm, but does not pull back. Gentle, Leliana reaches out to touch her hand, which opens like a flower to the sunlight, lets Leliana’s fingers come to rest in her palm.

Despite everything, for one brief moment full of golden light, it seems as if everything might fall into place. It doesn’t, not yet - but for a moment their hearts almost touch, despite the war, despite the walls, despite everything in the way.

Leliana leans in to press a kiss to her lips, and she pulls away, draws back her hand. The light slips below the horizon and leaves her face in pale blue shadow.

“Leave me be,” she commands, turned cold and hard as stone.

“I… I’m sorry,” Leliana says, wilting, her cheeks flushing pink. “I didn’t mean…”

“Leave me,” Morrigan repeats, and her voice trembles and breaks, her eyes fierce and bright.

Leliana bows her head and returns to the camp in silence, but she spares a glance over her shoulder for the young woman sitting alone among the trees, no more than a fragile silhouette from her tent.

She remembers it now, an echo coming back across the years to haunt her, and something blooms warm in her chest as the sun begins to set upon the walls of the fortress.

“You’ve changed a great deal since I knew you,” she says softly.

“As have you,” Morrigan replies, angling her head, her eyes shining softly. A breeze winds through the cracks and around the corners of the great stone walls to toy with the loose strands of her hair.

Leliana smiles faintly at her and glances down. Their hands rest on the edge of the wall just inches apart. Her heart flutters in her chest.

Across the great empty space of ten years, she reaches out and takes Morrigan’s hand, slips her fingers into her palm which turns upwards towards her. Morrigan’s fingers curl around hers and stay that way.

The timing is wrong when they first meet; Leliana is too eager and Morrigan still too frightened, and they do not yet speak each other’s languages. There is too much lost in translation, and sparks scatter and burn them both when they touch.

But the heart, she thinks, is a growing, changing thing; like a seed it hides in darkness, wrapped tight in its shell. In the cold it sleeps, but warmth, water, sunlight make it stir, and with time it grows, it stretches towards the sun and like a flower slowly unfurls itself.

She reaches up to trace Morrigan’s cheek with her fingers and asks, softly, “May I?”

Morrigan’s eyes widen, but her face is soft. A long moment passes, and the sun gilds the edges of her face, the curl of her hair. “If you wish,” she says at last, and closes her eyes.