Work Text:
The fire licks at your face, blistering in it’s heat-blood growing tacky against your cheeks. Your sister-in-law and nephew laying in their own blood, your heart ripped from it’s chest at the sight. Your family sword heavy in your hand as your mother presses it to you in haste.
Your childhood friend’s battle cry as he holds the front gate, his eyes following you as your mother pulls you away. Father’s hoarse voice calling you ‘Pup’ one last time. Your mother’s hand against your cheek, tears streaming down your face as you beg for her to come with you. Cursing Howe as Duncan grabs your arm tightly and drags you away from your parents curled around each other on the blood slicked floor.
Pain. Heat. Anguish. Soldiers swarming, Duncan’s gaunt face staring down at you, offering a chalice of death.
Cousland jerks up from her bedroll with a strangled gasp. Her chest heaves and her eyes dart around the dark tent. A pitiful moan escapes her lips as she curls over her knees, tucking her head between them. Her skin is clammy and the sweat is rapidly cooling. She shivers, and reaches over to her dog, sleeping peacefully next to her. Her fingers shake as she digs her fingers behind his ears to scratch him. Her heart is pounding.
Breathe. Breathe. Cousland opens her eyes, tugging at the light shirt she was wearing. It was soaked with sweat. Her muscles feel heavy as she sags against her knees. Her hair clings to her cheeks and forehead. It is a few more moments before her breath evens out again. The sound of the fire in the center of camp echoes faintly. She raises her head again, her teeth grit.
“Blighted nightmares.”
They came with more force since she’d taken the damn Joining chalice. Before on the road to Ostagar, she had slept fitfully, but only with the normal force of a nightmare. The kinds she had had as a child. The ones where her father or mother would stroke her hair and coo into her ear that it was ‘Only a dream, little pup. It can’t hurt you.’
Her heart clenches at the thought of her father’s warm voice, and her mother’s fingers threading through her hair.
Since the Joining every dream came in startling clarity. Nightmares in the Fade were even worse, and happy dreams were rare. Alistair caught her the night before the Battle for Ostagar, her chest heaving and eyes wild and she had snapped at him. The pity in his eyes wasn’t needed. He muttered something along the lines of understanding-but how could he?
Her whole family, her whole childhood gone before her eyes. Lost to a man her family had trusted. A man who had clapped her on the back as a child when she was learning to fight. Whose son she played with, and whose wife had aided her mother in getting her ready for parties. It was gone. Devoured in flames she’d watched from the back of her horse until her tears turned her childhood home into nothing more than an orange blob. The stone would endure, but the memories there would not. Not her brother and her’s initials carved into the wood of the storage pantry. Not the notches against her parent’s door frame marking their growth. None of Oren’s drawings, shoved in every nook and cranny of their private wing. Mother’s fine dresses and Father’s tunics. Gone.
Highever was so far away, almost another life away from her now.
Cousland’s dog whines against her side, finally having woken up. He stumbles up and licks her cheeks, his low whimpers comforting. She wraps her arms around the big, warm dog and breathes in his scent. Pure dog. Just like home.
“Thanks, old boy.”
“Warden? Are you well? I heard some noise…”
Cousland tenses at the sound of Leliana’s voice. One of the newer additions to her ragtag group of ‘heroes’. She’d proved her worth in Redcliffe, but Cousland still didn’t understand how she could be so optimistic. So devout in the face of everything else. It couldn’t be all there was to her.
“I’m fine.”
It comes out harsher than she intended, and Cousland winces instantly. This was not her best moment. She didn’t want the Chantry girl to see her. Not shivering in the darkness of her tent, clinging to her dog like a toddler.
“Are you sure? Perhaps some fresh air will help you relax.”
Cousland heaves a sigh and by this point she knows better than to ignore the request. Leliana will pester her until the end of her watch. She may as well give in. She tugs her boots on and exits her tent, blinking up at Leliana, who smiles at her softly.
Cousland stands, her eyes darting around camp, and frowns. “Are you the only one on watch?”
“It was me and the dog, but he trudged off to your tent an hour or so ago. Must have sensed something wrong.” Leliana explains, making her way back over to the fire. “He is remarkably good at that. Understanding when you’re in a foul mood that is.”
Cousland’s frown grows, as she sits opposite Leliana. “Well, there isn’t too much to be cheery about these days. On our way to bloody Haven, in the middle of nowhere, in the hopes of what? A rumor.” She suddenly wishes she’d brought her sword out with her, and a whetstone. Something to occupy herself now that it was clear she would not be sleeping this night.
“Oh Warden, there’s always something. For instance, tonight. Look at the stars. Have you ever seen such a peaceful sky?”
Leliana tips her head back, and Cousland is struck suddenly struck by the way her hair moves back, and the line her neck draws. How did she make such a simple movement so graceful? Still, Cousland tips her own head back and peers into the sky.
“It looks much like any other sky we’ve camped under.”
She’s being purposefully contrite at this point. The sky is remarkably clear. The stars look like holes poked in a dark veil, shining brightly next to a nearly full moon. It is casting a cool glow on them both, but in this light Leliana’s hair shines. Cousland’s heart thumps in her chest and it has nothing to do with nightmares.
Leliana laughs and Cousland is stuck with the thought that it sounds like bells and birds. Bright and high, much like the moon in the sky tonight. Her throat is dry suddenly.
“Oh but Warden, don’t you know? This far south, we can see new constellations. We can chart where we are with these stars, and under their light we’re safe from untowards guests entering our camp.” Leliana’s voice is soft, but the way her eyes light up as she gazes up into the sky quells some of the sharpness clinging to Cousland’s form.
“Then I suppose it isn’t too bad.”
Leliana’s head tilts to the side and Cousland gets a full view of those curiously blue eyes-so blue, not pale like her own, bright so very, very bright- “I count my blessing then, ma charie,” the way she says it makes Cousland believe her. She frowns though, leaning forward.
“Mah...cha...ry?” Cousland trips over the words, wincing at the way Orlesian feels in her mouth. She’d never paid attention to her mother’s attempts to drill it into her head. She was of the mind that it was more likely she’d be cutting down Orlesians than asking them how their day was. Suddenly, the way Leliana spoke, the liquid syllables, it made her crave the knowledge of what Leliana was saying. What she was calling her.
Leliana laughs again, and Cousland flushs, her frown growing in embarrassment. Maker, she didn’t have to be rude about it. She shakes her head, her smile threatening to break into a grin. Leliana’s eyes meet Cousland’s with a bright and mischievous glint. Cousland gulps, mouth suddenly dry.
“Ah, but what is a woman without her secrets, mmm Warden?”
“Maker, you’re confusing, Leliana,” Cousland grumbles, but her own mouth threatens to break into a grin at the glee on Leliana’s face. The bard laughs again, and tosses her head back, and once again Cousland is left admiring the way her neck arches, the tilt to her chin, her mouth, her voice-
Maker, she felt like a girl with a courtyard crush.
“Ah, but you are also confusing, aren’t you? The brooding Warden who refuses to let anyone help her, but will help everyone else regardless of the task,” Leliana’s smile softens, and she regards Cousland with amazing eyes, “You are a perplexing person, Warden Cousland.”
Cousland feels the flush in her cheeks return with a vengeance, and feels it spread to her ears. She had never dealt well in people judging her character. Praise she could take, but flattery? Judgement of a kinder nature?
“I’m just doing what is right. People need help. It’s a bloody Blight out there. Just because I-” her voice catches in her throat as she thinks of Highever burning. She ducks her head before she could continue, “Just because I am in pain does not mean I shouldn’t stop the pain of others. Not if I can stop it.”
She doesn’t hear Leliana as she makes her way across the fire pit to kneel before her, and she’s too tired to start when Leliana’s small hands reach up to cup her cheeks. She locks eyes with the bard and swallows painfully at the pity in Leliana’s eyes. She hates pity, but somehow this isn’t the forced kind she’d seen from Cailan, or Jory, or even Alistair. This is kind.
“You are a kind heart, Elissa Cousland. It would do well to remind yourself that,” Leliana intones softly. Her thumbs caress Cousland’s cheeks, and Cousland watches as her eyes flicker to look at her chapped lips before meeting her eyes again.
“Thank you,” Cousland whispers back, and takes one of Leliana’s hands in her own. Her hand engulfs Leliana’s, but the warmth of Leliana’s palm is reassuring. “You’re a good person too, Leliana.” She watches as Leliana’s eyes flicker with doubt for a moment, but the moment is too fast to comment on. Instead, the bard pats Cousland’s cheek and rises to sit next to her, their hands still intertwined.
“You’re welcome, ma charie.”