Chapter Text
“Warden Commander? There is someone here to see you.”
Nelka looked up from her reports to face the Warden who had come to bring her this news.
“Any more information than that?” She asked, the annoyance more evident in her voice than she intended. People were coming to her from the surrounding areas relatively frequently, either to thank her or condemn her, and she was currently in no mood for any sort of visit.
She hadn’t heard from Zevran in weeks. They were diligent about sending letters and keeping in touch even when a sea separated them. It drained her to think that something could have happened to him, that he might have died alone or been imprisoned by the Crows, and she hadn’t been there to help him or, at the very least, to have gone down fighting at his side.
The affairs of Vigil’s Keep kept slipping into the background as she feared a future where she would never see him again.
“They claim to be a traveling merchant who can provide goods to the Keep.”
Nelka sighed. Despite her frustrations, they could use new weapons, or at least simple goods to help the new recruits settle in.
“Alright, send them in.”
She turned back to her paperwork as the Warden saluted and left the room to fetch the merchant. The door opened again, and she didn’t look up right away to greet the visitor, but the moment he spoke she dropped everything.
“Mi amor, it has been too long.”
Nelka didn’t hesitate. She launched herself at Zevran and embraced him, squeezing him as tight as she could.
“You didn’t send letters!” She cried, shaking her head as she pressed herself into his chest. “I hadn’t heard from you! I thought… I thought…”
He held her back, and they could both feel the stress and fear fade away in the instant of their touch.
“I know, I am sorry,” Zevran said. “I had to take a rather complicated route out of Antiva, and it was difficult to find a place where I could send a letter. I wrote them, though…”
He hesitantly pulled out of Nelka’s embrace and rummaged into the bag he had dropped on the floor the moment she bolted toward him so that he could catch her in his arms with nothing to encumber him. A moment later, he pulled out two bound stacks of letters.
“These are the ones I meant to send,” he explained, first holding up the smaller parcel and then the larger as he continued, “And these are the letters you sent me. I kept them all. I read them over and over, dreaming of the day you would be mine again.”
“I kept every letter you sent me too.”
“Even the naughty ones?” Zevran asked, a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his lips.
Nelka laughed and wiped away the tears she hadn’t even noticed were falling. “Obviously. But we can act on what we wrote in those letters later. Right now, I just want to hold you. You’re here. I thought I would never see you again.”
Zevran removed his coat, then opened his arms for Nelka again. She loved the way she fit against him, the way his fingers laced through her hair when he held her with such desperation, the way they melded as one in these moments when the impossible suddenly became possible.
“I’m sorry to have worried you,” he whispered after pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “But I’m here now. And, so long as you will have me, I have no intention of ever leaving your side again.”
“Good. We were apart for too long.”
Zevran cupped Nelka’s cheeks and lifted her face so that he could kiss her, their lips meeting in a slow and purposeful promise that words could never define.
“I love you, Zevran,” Nelka said, smiling, even as more tears of relief began to trickle down her face.
“I love you too. And, should we be forced to part again, nothing will ever change the fact that I am yours, in this moment and forevermore.”