#tracts

It was terribly unjust for either of them, both of them, to abandon Ngayu now, at the end, when it was easy. Already failing in this first, fundamental way to honor the sacrifice she'd made to save their lives—

But if Leliana had stayed, it would have been worse. She had no beautiful words left in her. She had no right to play the grieving widow, to stand there, numbly resenting the sister who'd disowned Ngayu for speaking of her so kindly now, when it was too late. The funeral was everything Ngayu deserved, the honor and accolades she'd fought against all odds to earn, and Leliana wanted nothing more than to scream that it wasn't right, it wasn't fair, it wasn't enough.

That none of it mattered, because none of it would bring her back.

Something snapped inside of her, seeing Sten bow before Ngayu—before Ngayu's corpse. Leliana's last tether to sanity, worn thin and pulled past its limit, could no longer bear the weight. The last strands of her self-control unraveled as she slipped away from the crowd, and it was suddenly impossible to keep her hands from shaking or her eyes from welling with tears. All she could do was keep herself upright, wandering aimlessly in search of some place to be alone.

She found Loghain instead, crouched in the shadow of a crumbling wall and attempting unsuccessfully to soothe the whining dog he held in place by the back of its collar. He looked so small and unremarkable, bereft of his armor, that for a moment she could not fully recognize him. Confusion held her in place until he muttered something to the dog, the words unintelligible but the voice unmistakable.

A wave of pity struck Leliana; she couldn’t say for whom. She turned to walk past, sure that Loghain had no more desire to engage in conversation than she did. If he offered her his stilted condolences, she feared her response would be—unworthy.

Before she could move, one last keening whine broke out into a loud bark. Loghain looked up. Surprise loosened his grip enough for the dog to slip free and nearly knock Leliana over in greeting, trying to leap up and lick her face in between excited barks. She found herself smiling helplessly, laughter bubbling out of her before she could stop it, unable to do anything other than accept the outpouring of eager, uncomplicated affection.

Then she turned her face to the side, trying to convince the dog to calm down and return all four paws to the ground, and met Loghain’s eyes. He looked away so quickly she was surprised he didn’t flinch, but that one moment was enough to force her back into reality.

She knew exactly how she looked: red-faced, teary-eyed, ridiculous. A caricature of raw grief. She’d left the funeral because she didn’t want to be seen like this. Didn’t want to suffer the eyes of all those people, their useless, empty words of sympathy, their futile attempts to understand what she felt, to make what she felt into something they could understand. She didn’t want to be seen like this by him, of all people, the one man who could’ve—who should have—

It was a terrible thought. Leliana tried to push it out of her mind, but Loghain was right there, battered and weary but alive. Every breath he took fed the twisted thing inside of her until it was clawing at her ribcage to get out.

“Leliana,” Loghain said, then hesitated. There was a gentleness in his voice she’d never heard before and it made her want to scream. She froze in place instead, face burning and jaw clenched tight, eyes fixed on the ground. The dog pressed its nose against the backs of her fingers and she jerked her hand away, clutching it protectively to her stomach.

Leliana breathed in shakily, fighting the tears trying to well up in her eyes. The dog ignored Loghain’s first attempt to call it back to his side, grumbling; he repeated the command sharply and it relented, lying down beside him with a pathetic sigh.

Loghain stood, but seemed to think better of approaching. Leliana blinked until she was certain the tears were gone, exhaled slowly, and truly meant to walk away. 

She heard herself speak without having made the decision to do so. “What did she say to you?”

Leliana wasn’t certain if he’d heard her, if she’d actually said anything or only imagined it, until she managed to steel herself and glance back at him. His expression was stricken, but he met her eyes and did not waver.

She couldn’t stop herself. “The two of you spoke, before she… before she struck the final blow, against the Archdemon. I want to know what she said.” Her voice faltered. “Please.”

She’d been too far away to hear. She’d been too far away to do anything, whatever she could have done without being a Warden herself, and she shouldn’t have been. With the darkspawn swarming Denerim, there was no space to hang back and rain down arrows from a distance. Leliana had been forced to abandon her bow and start cutting her way through the horde long before they ascended Fort Drakon. 

She should have been by Ngayu’s side, at the top. They’d danced through the streets together, a clear and familiar rhythm in the midst of so much chaos. Step out of the reach of a hurlock’s swing, then back in to slash its throat; count out the time as an ogre rounded on Ngayu, then leap out to carve into its unprotected back just before its blow could land, too late for it to react. She allowed herself to find satisfaction in violence, a thrill in its perfect execution. Every darkspawn that fell brought them ever closer to that bright, distant possibility of victory, of a future—

Leliana should’ve known better. So close to after she could taste it, she saw the ballista bolt tearing through the Archdemon’s wing, the great, monstrous thing reeling back with a deafening screech, and she overreached. Her daggers carved twinned lines into its exposed underside, silverite cleaving through warped flesh with unerring certainty. She turned her face away from the black blood pouring out of the wound, breathed in the scent of rot and iron, and failed to pull one of her blades free. 

There was no time to angle for better leverage. Thrown off-balance, Leliana barely managed to dive out of the way as the Archdemon landed back on all fours, the ground shaking underneath its bulk. She stumbled backwards, only just managing to stay on her feet, desperate for distance. The Archdemon’s spiked club of a tail sliced through the air where her head had been a second ago, right before its back leg hit her square in the chest.

The healers told her, after, that she was lucky. Her ribs had been bruised, not broken. The archdemon’s claws had shredded through her armor but spared much of the skin beneath. Sent flying halfway across the top of the tower, half-blind and choking on the pain, Leliana thought nothing of how fortunate she was to be alive. She rolled onto her side despite her body’s protests, clutching at her chest, and fought to blink away the blurriness from her vision until she could see Ngayu.

Her risky maneuver looked to have paid off, at the very least. The Archdemon had taken on the guarded look of a cornered animal, its movements growing slow and deliberate as it struggled to stay upright, tattered wing dangling uselessly at its side. With every strike and snarl, more splatters of dark blood joined the pool at its feet. Despite the searing pain, Leliana found herself fighting the urge to smile in relief. They were so close. In the midst of so much darkness, she saw the coming dawn and knew it would be beautiful.

Leliana strained to pull herself upright, stomach churning as she faltered and found herself gasping on her hands and knees. She watched Loghain pull Ngayu behind him as he raised his shield against the Archdemon’s breath. She saw him angle his head downward to look at Ngayu, saw their mouths moving—she couldn’t make out the details, couldn’t decipher their expressions, but any conversation important enough to have on this battlefield must be dire. She had to get up—she needed to be there—

Loghain turned his head and met Leliana’s gaze from across the rooftop. Ngayu did not. She stepped around him, eyes fixed on the Archdemon, and raised her blade to strike the final blow.

The look Loghain was giving her now, Leliana realized, was the same as back then. There was pain, and pity, and an inexplicable, infuriating helplessness.

Loghain let out a long, slow exhale. Leliana thought of stabbing him in the throat and felt neither shame nor satisfaction, only a sickening emptiness. “Are you certain,” he asked softly, “that you want to know?”

“Please,” she said again, hating how pathetic the word felt in her mouth, how pathetic she felt for having to ask, for having been made to ask.

“She…” Loghain paused, glancing to the side before he rallied himself and continued. “We had spoken, before the battle, about who would be the one to kill the Archdemon. Who would give their life to end the Blight.” 

“She didn’t tell me,” Leliana found herself saying, the admission clawing its way out of her chest against her will. “I knew that a Warden had to kill the Archdemon, but she never told me that—”

The words caught in her throat. She wondered, twisting the knife in her own heart, if Ngayu had found herself choking on them as well. If that was why she’d said nothing to Leliana about her impending death, why she’d spoken so little that last night they’d spent together, expressing so much in the tenderness of her touches and, at the same time, telling Leliana nothing at all. Leliana could try to understand that. She wanted to understand more than anything.

His voice low and unbearably gentle, Loghain said, “I had wondered. I…”

Leliana’s entire body tensed in immediate rejection before he could say I’m sorry, Leliana. She knew it was what he wanted to say, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it. She’d lunge at him, or break down crying, or turn around and run until her legs gave out. Anything to get away from this final insult to injury, this disgusting pretense of powerlessness when they both knew Ngayu’s death was something only he could have prevented.

Whatever came through in her expression, it stopped Loghain in his tracks. A long moment passed before he spoke again.

“I don’t think she planned for it to be her, then. We both agreed that if Riordan failed, it would fall to me to make the sacrifice. After everything I’ve done, it seemed only right.”

Leliana took in the information without reacting, giving Loghain nothing to grasp onto. It was petty and she knew it, but she refused to grant him the relief of being understood.

“But when the time came… Perhaps I should have simply killed the damned thing and been done with it,” Loghain muttered bitterly. “I suppose… I was grateful for everything she’d done, for Ferelden, and for me. I wanted to thank her. To say goodbye.”

He closed his eyes, his brow creased in pain, the lines of his face carved deep with exhaustion. “I asked to strike the final blow, to do one last thing right,” he said, barely more than a whisper, “and she said no. She told me I’d atone the hard way.”

Leliana blurted out, "No," inane, instinctive. "That's not—that can't be right. She wouldn't... Ngayu was never cruel."

The look of resignation Loghain gave her was unmistakable. He regretted telling her the truth. He had no softer lie to offer.

Desperate, Leliana forged on, stumbling over her words, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "She was... blunt, and, and reckless, and she could be... harsh, when she had to be, but she was never cruel."

"I never said she was."

“You—you could’ve—” Leliana’s eyes blurred with tears. She couldn’t hear herself over the pounding of her own heartbeat. She had no idea what she meant to say, couldn’t imagine how to make sense of any of this. “She didn’t—”

She didn’t say anything to me. 

Of course she hadn’t. Ngayu hadn’t even looked at her. After telling Leliana that she still loved her, that she’d never stopped—that after all this was over she wanted to try again, to see the world with her, the grand avenues of Val Royeaux and Antiva’s towering, gilded chantries—of course Ngayu hadn’t looked at her. When she couldn’t even tell Leliana how she might die, how she would die, how could she have said anything, in the moment before she chose death over the life Leliana wanted to give her?

How selfish of her, Leliana thought, then: How selfish of me. 

Loghain said, “I’m sorry, Leliana,” and she broke.

Her legs refused to hold her up anymore. She stumbled towards the wall and collapsed to her knees next to the dog, burying her face in the ruff of fur at its neck when it turned to her with a soft whuff. Loghain gave her ample space, making no attempt to touch her or offer any more words of comfort, a consideration Leliana was horrifically grateful for. With everything in her, she wished he was dead.

The dog pawed at her, confused. She sobbed into its dense fur and it whined, craning its neck to awkwardly lick the side of her face. The poor thing couldn’t possibly understand what was going on. Leliana didn’t know if she felt pity or envy at the thought. 

Ngayu had always acted unattached to the mabari; she’d never even given it a name. The dog only cared to know that when she touched it, her hands were always gentle. Its love could subsist on that alone.

It felt like hours passed before Leliana could breathe evenly again. She pulled away to lean back against the wall and saw Loghain stood a short distance away, a hollow look on his face, the sun still just as high above the horizon behind him. He faced away from her, very deliberately, she thought. But he hadn’t left.

Leliana was too exhausted to muster up more than an echo of anger at him now, and even that was difficult to hold onto when the dog placed its front paws in her lap and made a renewed effort to lick her chin. She tried to wipe the tears from her face with one hand while scratching behind the dog’s ears with the other. As she calmed down, its agitated energy eased and it relaxed, eventually lying back down with its head resting in her lap. 

She knew Loghain had turned to look at her before she raised her head to see. When she first tried to speak, no sound came out. 

Leliana swallowed heavily, wet her lips, and tried again, finally managing a raspy, “I wanted to give her the world.”

“I suppose,” Loghain said at length, “she wanted you to have it more.”

“Us,” Leliana corrected him. “She saved all of Thedas. I’m not vain enough to think it was all for me.”

“A decent part of it was, I’d say.”

She didn’t want it. She didn’t want to know that Ngayu had loved her enough to die for her, but not to live for her. 

“It should have been you,” Leliana said, her voice drained of any emotion. She couldn’t say whether she meant to be cruel. It felt like any other statement of fact.

Just as dispassionately, Loghain replied, “Do you think I don’t know that?”

Leliana knew, with a strange, abrupt certainty, that with those words they had run out of horrible things to say to each other. The relief that came with this realization did not make her feel any lighter.

She looked out at the horizon. It was, she thought, a terrible day for the sky to be such a sweet, placid blue.

Ngayu had compared the color of her eyes to the sky, once, in a rare sentimental mood. At the time Leliana had laughed and teased her and failed to consider what it truly meant, coming from the dwarf who would stop and stare upward in awe when she thought no one was looking. 

Ngayu had died beneath a writhing mass of dark clouds in a sea of endless red, while Leliana could do nothing but watch.