Chapter Text
The fire cracked low between them, a heart of orange and gold set against the heavy hush of the Skyrim night. Around them, the wilds stretched out in black velvet folds, stitched with the silver thread of distant rivers and crowned by the cold, clear glint of the stars. Cordelia sat cross-legged across from Kaidan, her blonde hair catching the firelight in a muted halo. Her eyepatch was a dark slash against her pale face, the scar beneath it a ghostly reminder of old violence. She had stripped off her traveling cloak, leaving her simple tunic and bracers visible, her posture loose but wary — as though some part of her was always coiled, ready to spring.
Kaidan leaned back on his elbows, his greatsword stuck upright in the dirt behind him, his dark hair tousled from the day's journey. His armor lay beside him in pieces, a rare sight; he was usually too guarded to shed it so completely. The night was cold, but neither of them moved to fetch blankets yet. Some conversations demanded the full weight of the cold, of the fire, of the stars.
Kaidan exhaled a breath that misted in the chill air. "You know," he said, his voice low and a little rough, "when I was a lad, back with my pa... I used to dream of being a knight."
Cordelia glanced at him from the side, her one visible brown eye reflecting the firelight in a glimmer.
Kaidan smiled, a self-deprecating thing. "Thought I'd wear shining armor. Save damsels. Fight evil. All that nonsense. S’funny what life has in store for us instead."
The fire popped. Cordelia said nothing, just watched him, still and patient.
He ran a hand through his hair. "Ended up a mercenary. A bounty killer for hire, in the end. No glory in it. No songs. Like my father.” His eyes turned shadowed, his smile cracking at the edges. "Sometimes... sometimes I wonder if there's still anything good left in me."
Cordelia shifted slightly, the leather of her boots whispering against the dirt. Her expression didn’t change, but there was something gentler in her presence now — like a cold stone slowly warmed by the sun. She let the silence stretch, giving him space, until Kaidan huffed a bitter laugh.
"Sorry, Sunshine," he said, looking at her with a soft, rueful expression. "Didn't mean to darken your evening."
Cordelia's mouth quirked into the smallest hint of a smile. She tilted her head a little, the firelight catching in her golden-touched hidden eye beneath the patch. "You didn't," she said simply. Her voice was low, a little rough from disuse — like someone who'd had no need to talk much for a long, long time.
Kaidan studied her then, his gaze searching, thoughtful. He stirred the fire with a stick, sending up a small bloom of sparks into the black sky.
"What about you, then?" he asked at last. "You've listened to my sorrows long enough. What's your story, Sunshine?"
For a moment, Cordelia said nothing. She gazed into the fire, the shadows dancing along her scarred cheek, along the soft line of her jaw. When she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet that Kaidan had to lean in a little to hear her.
"I've been alone... for over a decade," she said. Her eye didn’t blink, didn’t waver. "No parents. No home. Just the road."
There was a finality in her tone, like a door being shut. Not slammed — just quietly, firmly closed.
Kaidan didn't press her. His brows knitted together, a frown tugging at his mouth, but he nodded slowly. He sensed — as surely as he sensed a blizzard on the wind — that to push would be to lose her trust.
Instead, he offered a quiet, tentative smile. "Doesn't seem fair, does it? Someone like you... all that magical power. All that heart. Shouldn't have had to be alone."
Cordelia’s fingers twitched slightly against her knee, and for a moment she looked younger, more fragile. The firelight brushed over the curve of her cheekbone, throwing her features into sharp, lovely relief — the mage and the orphan, the eye of a god and the lonely girl from High Rock, all wrapped up in one.
"You get used to it," she murmured, barely above a whisper.
Kaidan didn’t know — couldn’t know — about the god whose presence burned quietly behind her gaze. About the burden she bore, stitched into the very marrow of her bones. But he saw enough. Enough to understand that her solitude wasn't a choice. It was a shield.
And maybe, just maybe, she was starting to lower it — at least for him.
The fire burned low, and in the silence that followed, Kaidan leaned back again, arms behind his head, looking up at the stars.
"You know," he said casually, as though he weren't offering her something rare and precious, "if you ever get tired of being alone... you can always stick around with me a bit longer."
Cordelia didn't answer right away. She just stared into the fire, her face unreadable, her heart a quiet, aching thing in her chest.
But when she finally shifted to lie back on the cold earth beside him, shoulder barely brushing his, Kaidan smiled into the dark.
She didn't have to say yes. Not tonight.
Her presence beside him was answer enough.