He had told her not to do this. Expressed his disapproval in anger and rage and sadness. In echoing shouts and whispered pleads. It pained her to spark such things within him - it had felt like they just reunited once again. In the grand scheme of life, the short time they had spent together paled in comparison to the thousands of years she spent mourning his loss. The thought of the task at hand made her heart pound and her head ache. She could only imagine how he felt now, and the pain she would soon make him endure.
The heaviness she felt in her chest the day the Inquisitor drank from the Well of Sorrows was unlike anything she had felt in her lifetime. Not even the loss of her family had weighed so heavily on her soul. The tie that bound her to Lavellan was a poisonous one, a parasitic bond that would only produce naught but heartache. All the dragon had desired to do was right the wrongs that this world had suffered. To free the Dalish from their invisible shackles and rewrite the Elvhen back into history. Now she would be fighting for the Inquisition, she would take up draconic form and clash teeth with Corypheus’s beast.
They had barely spared an exchange for one another the morning before. For Varewyn her silence was wrought with guilt and for once, anxiousness. She could only wonder was prompted his quietness. He was always so boisterous around her, full of life and emotion. Perhaps the grayness that the day had cast infected all those residing within Skyhold. Varewyn refused to acknowledge the worry that may be gnawing at his bones, a worry that she alone caused. That morning, she didn’t think that silence mattered.
But as she lied there, unseeing eyes cast to the sky above her, she would have given all to hear him speak her name once more. To feel his fingertips brush over her shoulders and see that beautiful smile of his. A shaky breath was inhaled through bruised lungs and the dragon doubled over, her body wracked with violent coughing and sputtering. But her final wishes had become truth as the sensation of strong arms curled around her body. She tore her gaze from the ground to peer into the other’s face, and it took her far too long to recognize the person before her.
No one spared a care for the fallen beast, it seemed, save Dirthamen.
A frown curled across her lips and brow furrowed in frustration. She should have recognized him sooner. She should have fought harder. She should have survived this. The ringing in her ears barely subsided enough to hear what he was saying. Exhaustion and unconsciousness crept at the edges of her vision, threatened to steal her from this mortal plane and whisk her away from the pain that raged through her limbs like wildfire. Eye lids flickered lightly as she fought off the darkness for just a little longer. Varewyn wanted nothing more than to just be here for just a little longer.
Her fingers slid along the line of his jaw, curled around his cheek, skin covered with a toxic mix of the dirt below her and her own blood. A murmured ‘sorry’ barely passed through her lips before she pressed them desperately to his own. It was rough and needy kiss, full of apologies and unfulfilled wishes for more. Varewyn would suffocate on his kisses if he’d only allow it. But time passed all too quickly and she was greedy for more. Greedy for a life she’d never see. She broke the kiss with a breathy sigh and pressed her forehead to his. Thumb made a slow swipe over his cheekbone and she gave one final, sad smile.
❝ I never stopped hoping.I never stopped caring. ❞