Stories were everywhere, this Leliana knew to be true. The gentle crash of the soft waves that perhaps heralded a change, or the line where the sea met the sky, signifying a journey. One only had to look around to see stories. Leliana looked to the sea, the sky and the evening sun. She looked to the one she
Her love wove a thousand stories told by a thousand different people, but Leliana’s favorite stories were the ones she wove of her love herself. Tales of a woman named Alexis, a woman of noble birth, living in her golden palace in Highever. How the woman became a Grey Warden and hero, and how she saved them all. How Leliana grew to love her so. Leliana wove those stories to her during the long nights at camp on their journey, when the taint would not allow her sleep. Tell me of Aveline again, she would ask. Tell me of Alindra. Leliana, tell me of us. And Leliana would tell the story of the lost redheaded girl, who found her way to Lothering’s chantry, to find the one she loved. Leliana would stroke her long ebony hair, whisper sweet words of their life after the Blight, because it was too difficult to think of what she would do if their story ended.
Their story didn’t end with the end of the Blight. The Maker allowed it to go on. They fought to make it go on. They hadn’t always been together, but her love was always in her thoughts, near her, even when they were apart.
Life finally allowed them to reunite, be together upon the waking sea. Their sea.
Alexis smiled at her. Her hair was dancing in the wind. Leliana drifted over, smoothed the locks away from her face. Lovingly too, she caressed the scars on the side of her face. Her love was so self-conscious of them, those little reminders of the battle at Denerim. Leliana thought them beautiful. Not a reminder of her hardship, but a reminder of what she overcame. They had overcome so much, the two of them. There was more. Would there always be more?
Leliana remembered again. Her heart fell.
Leliana meant to tell her when they first met again, upon the waking sea. But then Alexis was in her arms, and Leliana wanted to tell happier stories, and make new ones with the one she loved. Days of blissful togetherness passed filled with stories of love and longing, leaving the Divine’s request tucked away in Leliana’s knapsack. It was forgotten. Almost, but not quite enough. In the quieter moments, with her love asleep and Leliana gently caressing soft curls, and admiring the slope of hip and strength of her arms, she remembered. She still kept it at bay.
The waves lapped to their ankles as they stood near the water. She was beautiful in evening light, beautiful always. As the next wave came to the shore, Alexis kneeled to the water. Leliana laughed as the salty water hit her face, laughed even more as she splashed her back in revenge. They splashed and they kissed and they were wrapped in each other’s arms, and in that moment, Leliana the bard and story teller imprinted that story in her memory, of a scarred yet beautiful face, brown eyes, and ebony hair. Her hand, worn from battle, caressed Leliana’s face. They kissed. Their lips tasted like the salty air and water. They were warm. She wondered, what she would do without such warmth. Leliana, weaver of stories, alone in her bed, could tell the stories to herself, but they would never compare or come close to having her there.
Alexis would tell her she must go.
It was why she did not speak of it in their time together. That was why she kept it to herself. Leliana wavered as the water wavered, fell a little, and when Alexis at last asked, what troubles you love? did at last the confession spill forth.
Alexis, I have been asked to be the Divine’s left hand.
There was no outward change in her demeanor, or at least there wasn’t at first. Alexis took Leliana’s hand, squeezed it gently in both romance and understanding, and when she looked away, Leliana knew every thought. Even if she would not say them, and mask them with talk of how proud she was of Leliana, how it was an opportunity for her to do more good in the world.
“I know how you admire her,” Alexis said. “I know you want to go.”
Leliana couldn’t lie. Not to her. “Part of me, yes. But—"
“But it’s cruel of her to ask this of you.”
There it was, that brief moment where her mask of diplomacy disappeared, and she was Alexis without the mask. It would come back on, Leliana could feel it as she squeezed her hand again.
“But you will tell me to go, won’t you?” she asked.
“You believe in her,” Alexis replied.
Yet even more, Leliana believed in her love. She believed in the two of them.
Soft kisses in the evening sun turned into more. Their hearts beat together as they embraced, and they beat together in their bed. Leliana wove stories. That evening, into the night, she wove stories of another sort onto her lover’s skin. Secrets and promises, slow and soft. Their story that night began with a rushed prologue, clothes torn off to be strewn about the room, the patchwork telling a story of fevered passion in their own right. Leliana fell to the bed, waiting for her, surprised but not disappointed when she sank to the floor. Kisses to her thighs elicited them to part, bring her mouth to Leliana’s center. The prologue slowed to a gentle beginning, Alexis replacing her mouth with softer digits that rubbed and swirled. A soft beginning made way for a softer ending, Leliana allowing her sighs to carry through the open window as Alexis brought her to a climax. Her own hand barely kept her satisfied in their time apart. Alexis more than satisfied her, to the point where satisfied wasn’t enough. She made her blissful, made her feel like she had swallowed rays of the sun. She made Leliana feel like the stories of love were all written about the two of them. Satisfied. It wasn’t enough to describe the two of them. Tales of them, told and passed on from one bard to the next, would never capture how alive Alexis made her feel.
Alexis beckoned Leliana to the bed. She fell on the sheets and the soft down, comfortable and soft but not home until Alexis was pressed against her. Her body was a beautiful contradiction, sinews, strength, and softness. Their bodies pulled together and connected, and Leliana breathed in her scent of the rays of the sun and saltiness of sea. Being held by Alexis was finding home after drifting for so long. She didn’t want to think of how she would be drifting when they parted again, so Leliana brought her to her back. Her tongue danced across her shoulders, and further down. Their hands clasped together as Leliana kissed her stomach and her thighs before they parted for her. At first Leliana thought of tasting her, but the tempt of watching her in pleasure was too compelling. Her eyelashes fluttered, rapt and joyous as she spoke Leliana’s name, and muttered words of praise. Her skin was flushed to a pink, and she was blooming and starry eyed. A vision and a work of art, the most beautiful and profound story Leliana would ever know. And when at last Leliana tasted her, she tasted her knowing that stories would be lost in their time apart. They had already lost so many. Perhaps she did not want to lose anything else.
Alexis came. She came and her outstretched arms, wanting to hold Leliana. Always they wanted to hold each other in their afterglow. Hold and caress, entwine limbs and mutter words of love. Alexis wanted to hear the story of Alindra again. So many times Leliana told that story to her. It became a comfort, a reminder that she would always be there. Leliana knew she wanted to hear it again so she may savor it.
Alexis asked to hear another. She asked to hear the story of the two of them. When Leliana wove their story she spoke only of the happier things. Their first kiss, the first time they made love. Their embrace after the battle and fighting was over. Their reunion, upon the waking sea. She did not go further. Not because that story was still being written, but because Leliana knew that no matter where their stories took them, no matter what duties they had, a part of their story would always remain finished upon the waking sea.
“Sometimes I worry I can’t compete with everything that—"
“No.”
Leliana peered at her, rising. “No,” she spoke again. “This. You and I. It’s all I want.”
Alexis caressed her face. “It is all I want as well. But Leliana…there is something. Something I have…”
Leliana knew. She knew all along there was something Alexis kept to herself, though she was too blind in her own thoughts to realize there was something she had to tell her as well. But Leliana listened then, and when Alexis finished, and asked Leliana what she should do, there was no hesitation. Leliana told her that she had to go.
“What if it leads nowhere?” she asked. “What if I could have been with you. If the Calling takes me, if—"
“Don’t you dare say that.”
“Leliana.”
You must try. My story with you, surely the Maker cannot allow it to end before it has begun. He cannot have given us such happiness, allow us to win the day, only to tear us apart.” She pressed her forehead to Alexis. They shared the same space, the same air. “I know you are not sure what you believe,” she said, “but I have to believe someday there will be a day for us.”
“I believe in us,” Alexis said, before kissing her again. They kissed their tears away.
“You must go,” Leliana whispered sometime after, the two laying on their sides, still wrapped and entangled. “You must come back to me.”
“I’m with you, even when we are apart.”
Leliana wept that night. She did not weep when she wrote back to the Divine, wrote that she accepted her offer. She did not cry when she parted from her lover. She never wanted goodbyes to be sad and filled with tears. Their story together, it was littered with tears. If she could spare them, she would. There would be a day with no tears. Of that, Leliana believed. She believed that, as she believed in the two of them.
It was weeks later. In her golden palace with Justinia, Leliana received her first letter. I am still upon the Waking Sea with you, my love.
So they were. So they were
