Work Text:
She was used to the sound of her heartbeat. Used to hearing and feeling the blood pulse through her. But it usually happened in battle, or after a physical effort, not right after dinner, settled around the fire. At first she thought maybe she was intuitively sensing some sort of danger, so she concentrated her senses on the outsides of the camp. The tall silhouettes of the trees surrounded the camp in soft darkness, but she could only hear the usual - and distant - animal sounds and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
After an instant, it calmed down a bit. She could still feel the blood pulsing in her throat and along her wrists, but the sound was gone. She allowed herself to get her focus back onto the ongoing conversation between Leliana and Alistair.
They were telling awfully bad jokes and making a sort of contest about it. Both of them were laughing a lot. Leliana wore an expecting side smile as she was waiting for the punchline. It was quite charming and it sat well with the twinkle in her eye.
When the punchline came, she laughed out loud. It was a light sound and her face went up, facing the night sky.
There was the heartbeat again.
She had failed to notice it the first time, but she felt a bit warm, too. Like a candle flicking in her chest. Was that … ? She sat in perfect immobility for a while, trying to grasp the feeling, to make sense of it. She couldn’t quite fathom how she’d fallen for Leliana, when she was still grieving Gorim. Maybe she had formed an attachment as a way of remembrance? Maybe that was just an illusion?“Hey, are you okay?” Sereda lifted her head to see Leliana, her hand on her forearm, obviously worried. She could feel the blood rushing right under Leliana’s warm touch.“Damn,” she breathed. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”
Leliana’s brow shot up with an inquisitive glance, before she smiled. “Okay, then. Goodnight, Sereda.”
“Goodnight.”It took a while this time, for the feeling to recede.
Maybe, maybe this wasn’t an illusion?