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He sleeps like a cat, stretching out and curling around himself, seeking warmth and finding it before settling down with a slight twitch of one of those elongated, delicate ears. He is small and sweet, and the fact that I have the Commander of the Grey, the Hero of Ferelden, dozing in my lap like Pounce is unreal. But he likes to nap. On those days when business with the arling keeps him at the Keep, or the ones where rest and recovery is more important than travel and darkspawn, he will spend hours in and out of sleep. Before, he just disappeared into his room, or, as I discovered later, the roof of the Keep. Now he finds me first.
He is quiet, but he speaks volumes with slight smiles and lowered lashes. He’ll meet my eyes and I’ll follow him up winding stairs, carrying bedroll, blanket, and maybe a bottle of wine, so that we can stretch out on the roof and watch the sky together. Light reflects oddly off of his eyes, they turn green in the daytime, and dark, muddy brown at night, but when we’re up here together I rarely see them. He sits with his back to my chest or with his head on my leg, never out of reach of my hands, but never looking at me.
But he listens, even though I’m sure I must have run out of interesting stories several times over by now. There’s only so much someone can say about living in a tower with a bunch of walking tin cans and miserable fools who had the misfortune to be born with magic. I ran out of escape attempts to talk about months ago. On days like this, the slow, warm ones, I read to him from Sigrun’s books, just so he has something to listen to. Occasionally, usually after a bottle of wine, he has stories of his own, but they are short, and they are few. I still don’t know what caused that ragged, old scar on his neck, even though I’ve touched it a hundred times.
I’ve thought about this so much. Not him, specifically, but the concept affection without fear, the idea of being in love without thinking of how someone would use it against me. I wanted it—I’ve always wanted it—but I couldn’t imagine it. I’ve barely had friends, just a lot of partners in misery, people I’m not even sure if I’d like or want to get to know if I wasn’t forced to sleep in bunks next to them. I had friends before, in the way that children have friends, but I’ve had not one relationship since that didn’t make me question if it was affection or proximity.
Theron doesn’t think that way. He may not say so, but it’s there, as clear as the red ink that feels like the Fade. Despite his demeanor, he’s genuine, he’s confident, he treats Sigrun like a sister, and discusses archery with Nathaniel like an old veteran. I do not know whether it is that he is honest, or that he is trusting, but I’d be surprised if he’d ever questioned himself the way I do. I can’t help but believe him when he says he loves me.
He’s not perfect. I think I used to dream of perfection, of those knights in burnished silver with selfless hearts, the kind who fearlessly charge into the dragon’s lair to save the princess. Theron’s no knight, and I’m no princess, but he’s gotten into a Templar’s face to defend me three times now. The first time he barely knew my name, and the last time he shattered the fingers on his right hand just to make the point that nobody would get through him to me.
He’s asleep again, fingers laced in mine, and I wonder what I thought love was supposed to be like before feeling it. I think I thought that it would make everything wonderful, that there would be no pain, no envy, and no fear. I had this fairy tale concept of love, of family, that I’d run off and find a beautiful woman to marry. Everything would be like in the tales, and I’d be able to sleep without praying that a candle would be lit when I woke.
Maybe love is just as simple as finding someone to be afraid of the dark with you.