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“Bellara! We found! Bellara!”
“No, Spite, I said -”
“Huh? Oops - oh no, no, no, hang on!”
The artifact eventually calms under Bellara’s hands before the sparking catches anything on fire, and she makes sure it’s stable before she turns around to greet the two hovering at a slight distance from her.
“Oh hey Lucanis, Spite!”
“Our apologies. I told him not to yell like that and disturb you while you were working, but he was excited,” Lucanis explains.
Spite manages his own subdued noise. “Bellara is not. Hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” she says and approaches Lucanis. “It’s okay, I’m excited to see you too! I - wait, why are you here? Is something wrong?”
“No, why would anything be wrong?”
“Because,” Bellara says and draws the word out in confusion, “you came out to the middle of Arlathan Forest to find me?”
“Ah, well,” Lucanis answers and glances away from her briefly. “You have been gone a while, you know.”
“It hasn’t even been a week yet I’m pretty sure. They never send anyone out for me before then. Did someone ask you to come find me?”
“What do you mean a week? Are you often out here alone for more than a week?”
Lucanis’s frown deepens and Bellara starts to fidget; she feels like she has to defend her fellow Veil Jumpers although she’s not sure why.
“Only when I get distracted and forget to come back to check in on my own.”
“And I would wager that happens more than you would be willing to tell me,” Lucanis says and there’s a tic in his jaw muscle.
“That is. So long,” Spite says.
“It’s really not,” she tries to reassure, although Lucanis’s expression doesn’t ease at all.
“What if something goes wrong? The others wouldn’t know for some time.”
“I’m fine. I make sure to be safe, as long as nobody is coming out of nowhere and surprising me.”
Bellara immediately bites her lip and wishes she could take her words back. She hadn’t meant them to sound annoyed, and she has missed Lucanis and Spite - which is what she meant to tell them before the conversation was somehow derailed. But weeks separate them with only letters to bridge the space between them, and her awkwardness sits heavy in the gap.
For his part, Lucanis flinches slightly, which makes Bellara feel a little worse, then he sighs and covers his face with his hand.
“I know you’re cautious and the best here, but,” Lucanis pauses and seems to have to search for his words, continuing slowly. “It is a very long time to be by yourself.”
“No friends. Alone,” Spite adds.
“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Bellara tries. “I get really caught up in what I’m doing and lose track of time - it keeps me busy. And I ramble a lot but I’m not super great at explaining what I’m doing, so it’s hard for anyone else to stay with me.”
Lucanis stares at her for long enough that Bellara can feel herself start to wilt a little, then he shakes his head and steps forward.
“Forgive me, you know what you’re doing, and I didn’t mean to come here to worry at you when you don’t need it.”
The problem is that she does feel a little bit lonely, and one of the nicest things about living in the Lighthouse had been turning around when she surfaced from her projects (and sometimes being successfully coaxed from them) and having someone to talk to. It feels a little more difficult to ignore now out in the forest than it had been before, an odd hollowness in her chest. She’s always felt like a jigsaw puzzle that wasn’t quite put together right; living with her friends - with Lucanis - went a long way to ameliorate that feeling, but after weeks she thinks she’s forgotten where some of the pieces were starting to fit.
“It’s okay,” she says quickly instead of voicing her thoughts. “Thanks for coming out here. It’s good to see you both. As long as you’re sure nothing’s wrong.”
“Nothing at all. What is it that you were doing before we disturbed you?”
“Just trying to figure out how to move this safely,” Bellara says and gestures behind her.
“And it is…?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she answers and tries to tame her fidgeting. The silence is only moments, but it feels like it stretches endlessly, the distance between Arlathan and Treviso.
“You have some ideas?” Lucanis prompts.
Bellara glances between him and the artifact uncertainly. Lucanis has sat comfortably by her for hours before while she’s worked on her projects, but she realizes suddenly that was while they were waiting on Rook, waiting on the next mission. They’ve never truly been alone out in the middle of nowhere, Lucanis stuck with her until she’s done.
“It has to do with temperature. It keeps fluctuating, between hot and cold, and that changes the frequency that it resonates - I mean, it makes powering it down tricky. I don’t want to set anything on fire,” Bellara finally says.
She thinks that maybe she’s learned from how other people react to her with how succinct she managed to be, even though the rest of her explanation itches in her mouth. Lucanis’s face is unreadable; she thinks he probably doesn’t want to spend overnight out in the forest while she figures this out, but they’re also near enough to a Dalish camp that she doesn’t want to leave the artifact alone.
“You can stay with the Veil Jumpers,” she suggests. “Or back in Treviso, and I can come find you later if you need me for something?”
“Does it bother you that I’m here?” Lucanis asks with a little growl at the end that she recognizes as Spite. He amends, “That we’re here.”
Bellara shuffles a little and tries, “It’s pretty boring. You don’t have to stick around.”
Lucanis shrugs and looks around. There are pieces of ruins broken all around the forest, and he finds the edge of a cracked stairway, lounging back with his ankles crossed in front of him.
“I don’t have to,” he says.
She pulls out one of her journals with a tentative glance toward Lucanis, but he has his face tipped back and eyes closed. He doesn’t seem inclined to move, so she looks back through her notes to see if there is something she missed before she tries again.
The longer he stays quiet and relaxed, the more the tension in her cracks and starts to loosen. He’s a steady presence by her side like the sun shining on her from overhead or a breeze cooling her brow - not anything she needs to pay attention to but nice to have while she works - until she’s finally lost enough in her thoughts that she doesn’t even notice that.
It’s hours later when she raises her head. She has little burns - hot and cold - on her fingertips, and her neck and shoulders are aching, but Bellara feels close. There’s something there, something that she can unlock when she can balance the temperature fluctuations, if she can just manage without -
“If you’re ready for a break, I have some stew here for you.”
Bellara startles slightly and turns. She looks around, and there are colors streaking across the sky already. She says, “It’s getting dark, so I guess I should stop for now.”
“At least to eat,” Lucanis says. “We can find another source of light if you would like to keep working.”
Bellara realizes that she is starving, so she heads over to the campfire he made and takes a seat. “Maybe. Wow, this smells really good.”
“I added more garlic and thyme, like you suggested,” he says and hands her a bowl.
“Mm, oh yeah, that’s perfect,” Bellara says after pulling the spoon from her mouth. She remembers being in the Lighthouse kitchen with Lucanis and making this, remembers teasing him with flour handprints he dodged while trying not to ruin their biscuit dough.
“Good,” Lucanis replies and starts to eat as well.
They normally talk over meals, and Bellara’s ramblings never stop him from adding his own commentary. This quietness between them is strange, and Bellara fidgets with it, her tension building again. She feels guilty for the way she greeted him earlier, a little like their edges are grating against each other wrong, and she feels like it’s her fault.
“Sorry,” Bellara blurts out because she’s never been good at this kind of silence. “I think I made things kind of awkward.”
“What?” Lucanis’s eyebrows draw together and he looks perplexed. “How?”
“I mean,” Bellara says and gestures vaguely. “You came to see me, which is really nice, and I’ve just been ignoring you the whole time. Well not really ignoring you, because I’ve been busy trying to figure out how to power down this artifact. But anyway, my point is you don’t have anything to do out here, so I’m sure it’s boring and you could go back if you wanted -”
As she talks, there’s a flash in Lucanis’s eyes and a clench in his jaw as he holds back Spite, which just makes her attempted explanation flow faster until her tongue is stumbling over her thoughts.
“Bellara,” Lucanis says. He’s so, so quiet, voice small in a way that she’s never heard, and her words are stoppered up immediately, stuck somewhere in her throat. “If you want me to leave, if you don’t want me here - you can just say it.”
“No!” Bellara nearly overturns her bowl in her haste to reassure him, and she puts it on the ground quickly. “That’s not it at all!”
“You just don’t… seem very comfortable to have me here,” Lucanis says slowly.
“That’s not true!” Bellara immediately protests then has to clench her fists at his skeptical look. “Okay, maybe a little, but it’s not you.”
“Then what is it?”
She’s never been able to hide her emotions, and she doesn’t want to start doing so with Lucanis. It feels strange, a prickling under her skin, but he’s always reassuring her, helps her feel steadier, so she takes a deep breath to center herself and tries again.
“Nobody’s ever managed to stick it out here with me for long except Cyrian. I’m always too much, I guess, and I just… don’t want you to feel that way,” she offers.
Lucanis stares at her for such a long moment, Bellara feels her nerves spike. She doesn’t want to take her words back, but she has the urge to keep going and explain more.
Before she can open her mouth again though, Spite is in Lucanis’s voice, exasperated. “Bellara is. Stupid.”
“Hey, that’s not nice,” she says, because for all that Spite insults Lucanis freely, he’s usually affectionate with her.
“No, no,” Lucanis says firmly. “I agree.”
He leaves his own bowl so he can make his way around the fire and sits next to Bellara instead of across from her, close enough that he bumps her lightly as he settles. “You’ve teamed up with Spite against me often enough,” he muses, voice much lighter, “that I suppose it’s my turn.”
“On Bellara’s team,” Spite grumbles. “We miss Bellara.”
Lucanis is flushing faintly, barely visible in the rapidly darkening evening, but he doesn’t look away from her. “Of course. That is why we came out here.”
“I know but,” Bellara starts, even though she’s already starting to feel warmth filling up that empty space, “it’s different out here without anyone to interrupt us.”
“In some ways. Not in others.” Lucanis reaches out and takes Bellara’s hand, pressing it between both of his own. “You are perfect for me just the way you are.”
“Oh,” Bellara says, and the words lodge under her breastbone.
“It’s the same for me,” she adds when she can manage words again. “I missed you a lot too. Both of you. It’s strange not seeing you everyday.”
“Letters seem inadequate to convey everything I’ve wanted to say,” Lucanis offers. He raises one of his hands to cup around Bellara’s face, and she leans her cheek into her palm.
“Definitely,” Bellara agrees. She’s written and rewritten so many letters to him, full of scribblings and thoughts throughout the day, things that she would have been able to just turn around and tell Lucanis before - but reading them over, all laid out on paper, they all seemed too silly in retrospect to send.
“It was hard to figure out what to say,” Bellara admits. “I figured you’re pretty busy so I only tried to put down important stuff, but I didn’t know what to add or not.”
“All of it,” Lucanis says firmly and sweeps his thumb across her skin. “I don’t want just the important stuff - I want all of the things you want to share.”
“Oh,” Bellara repeats. Her hands twitch with the urge to reach out to him, the feel of him under her fingertips echoing in her nerve endings.
“Can I hug you?” she blurts out. She meant to say that more elegantly, to try to sound more casual about it, but her tongue escapes her with the thought before she can stop it.
Lucanis bursts out laughing and drops his head against her shoulder, burying the sound against her. His hand slides from her face around to the back of her neck, and he pulls her forward.
“You never need to ask,” he says.
“Thanks,” Bellara says softly. She’s twisted uncomfortably but affection beats bright in her chest, and she thinks this is what she has been missing for the past few weeks. Lucanis’s fingers start rubbing small circles against the already stiff muscles, and Bellara melts further against him.
“I noticed in your letters you did not seem to be yourself,” Lucanis says. “They were… short.”
“No bubbles and excitement,” Spite agrees.
“Sorry, sorry. I got a little in my head, I guess.”
“I have no idea what that is like,” Lucanis says wryly. He pulls back a little to look at her, gaze intense. “You will tell me next time you have these worries, yes?”
“I will, promise!”
She just barely catches the edge of Lucanis’s smile before he’s leaning in, pressing their mouths together, and she feels their pieces slot together smoothly again. Bellara forgets about working on the artifact for the rest of the night, but the next morning she feels refreshed and it only takes her two more hours to figure it out.
-
They decide that leaving visitation on an open-ended note doesn’t work for either of them. Lucanis makes an alternating schedule and just rolls his eyes when she worries about how comfortable he’ll be out in the middle of the forest.
It’s not perfect - they have to delay or adjust things sometimes, and Bellara tends to be harder to contact than Lucanis who is more tethered to Treviso for the time being than to contracts. But it’s better than it had been, and she feels her confidence in their relationship rebound when Lucanis smiles at her, open and genuinely happy to see her again.
Bellara’s in Treviso on her turn to visit with his quilt wrapped around her still, locked out of the kitchen because apparently between Davrin and Eldrin he’s acquired halla butter and a hearth cake recipe he wants to surprise her with. She would protest - she knows much more about hearth cakes than Lucanis after all - but his mattress is so much softer than anything she’s ever slept in before. She’s realizing there may be something to be said for mornings in bed with reading and breakfast.
She finishes her current volume and works on rolling herself out of the plush bedding. The book gets left on Lucanis’s side for him (and she does a little internal wiggle - the bed is big enough that they have sides they gravitate to instead of just squashing themselves on a pallet barely large enough for one person), and she goes to his desk where her notebooks and favorite quill are located. Lucanis keeps insisting she would write better there, but she knows he’s just being particular. She feels much more creative when Spite is curled around her to make suggestions though so she always ends up migrating back to bed, and anyway she’s confident in her ability to get ink stains out of sheets.
Lucanis’s journal is open, and Bellara can’t help taking a peek when her gaze passes over it. There’s the barest outline of his work - blocks of time filled with single words like meeting, travel, and tailor - but her heart flutters in her chest when she realizes there’s at least one note every day with her name on it.
Under evening in the last week, he has written out “supper preparations - stewed tomato and bean side came out well, I think Bellara will like it. I will make it for her next time she is here” and then the next day “morning - exercises, market - there was a puppet show on the way that children were watching about a statue a girl makes that comes alive. I wonder if Bellara has heard that one before. What stories do Dalish tell their children?”
On and on in his neat handwriting, little pieces of his day and the things he sees or does that he wants to share with her. Instead of the next chapter of her own story, she ends up working on a new letter to tuck away for him to find later, flipping through her journal to find her own little scribbled notes so he knows she feels the same.
And that’s something to consider - how much they think about each other throughout the day. She still feels uncertain at times, but they see each other often enough that her worries don’t get a chance to fester again. Sometimes Bellara barely has a chance to realize that she’s holding herself back before Lucanis notices and asks her questions or changes the topic to coax her into talking until she feels at ease again.
It’s a strange experience for Bellara, who has always felt like too much in most places, not quite enough in others, and has never had relationships really pan out for her. The more she feels comfortable though, like they fit, the more she wants, and the more she thinks that Lucanis might really, really feel the same.
Bellara isn’t entirely sure what to do with that though. They bridge the distance between Treviso and Arlathan as often as they can - don’t they? No matter how much Lucanis protests otherwise, he is tied to Treviso more often than not. Arlathan Forest is still a mess in places with the residual effects of the magic fluctuations, but it's calming down - much more so than Treviso in any case. Bellara wonders if she can take more time - it doesn’t take her that long to travel with the eluvians, or she can bring artifacts back and forth with her? Would Lucanis want that much too?
“I believe I left you with instructions to stay in bed while I cooked.”
“I did!” Bellara turns to him and sniffs the air. “Mostly. That smells really good, actually.”
“You doubted my skill in the kitchen?” Lucanis says with mock hurt.
“With Dalish food? A little,” Bellara says. “Next time I want to supervise.”
“The master chef should try it before criticizing,” Lucanis counters. He has a tray piled with plates and drinks for both of them, and he gestures toward the bed with a nod of his head. “Now sit, and I’ll serve us.”
“You know, if you’re going to bring us breakfast in bed, I don’t think you get to be fussy about where I write,” Bellara says as she scrambles back onto the mattress.
“That is completely different.”
“Uh huh,” Bellara says in fake agreement to see the way that makes him crinkle his nose. She reaches her hands out to help him with the tray, and she puts her thoughts to the side for the time to settle in to try his (admittedly perfect looking) hearth cakes.
-
“Hi, sorry, I’m a little late. I know I said I’d be back earlier to organize checking the artifacts, but we were making breakfast and - uh,” Bellara pulls herself up short before she can overshare with Strife (again). She takes a deep breath and starts over, “Sorry I’m a little late, but I’m here now.”
“It’s fine,” Strife answers. “Irelin actually already got things started with some of the others.”
“Oh! I’ll go catch up -”
“Wait a minute actually.” Strife puts his hand on her shoulder before she gets too far away, but the slight pressure tips her and her overstuffed backpack.
“Easy there,” he says and helps steady her.
“Thanks,” Bellara says. She adjusts the straps of her bag and thinks maybe Lucanis was right about her packing.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Let’s head over here.”
Bellara flicks back through the past week or so in her mind. Everything she was working on was relatively straightforward, and she made sure every artifact was secure before she left. Strife was always telling her to take more time off, but maybe it was too much? And then she was late getting back and Irelin was picking up her slack -
“Sorry!” Bellara blurts out again as soon as she thinks it.
They stop at the edge of the cliff near the eluvian where there’s fewer people to hear Strife scold her, she thinks, and Bellara immediately wilts.
“What do you even think you’re apologizing for?”
“For… being late?” Bellara suggests although she’s no longer feeling as sure by the way he is staring at her. She tries, “For leaving for so long?”
Strife lets out a sigh and puts his hands on his hips. “Bellara, it’s fine that you were gone. You could have been gone longer if you wanted. We can handle this.”
“But I’m back and ready to work now!”
Strife tips his head back and mumbles, “Why is this conversation my job?”
Bellara isn’t sure what he means, and her fingers clench and flex with her excess of energy.
“Okay,” Strife says and takes a deep breath. He looks like he’s centering himself the way Emmrich taught her to do when she’s got too many thoughts in her head, and she thinks it’s nice that he shared that with Strife too.
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, so I’m going to start by saying that you’re the best Veil Jumper we’ve got.”
“Thanks! Everyone does really great work, but that’s nice of you to say.”
“Not everyone could have fixed the eluvians or helped defeat blighted elven gods the way you did. Just take the compliment.”
“Right, right. Thanks - well, I said that already. But it feels like there’s a ‘but’ coming. Is there a but?”
“The ‘but’ is that you’re still young but not that young. What are you planning to do with the rest of your life?”
“Uh, this?” Bellara suggests although by the look on his face, it’s not the answer Strife wants to hear. “I haven’t really thought about it, I guess. I’m pretty happy being a Veil Jumper.”
“And nobody wants you to stop being a Veil Jumper, but is that all you were thinking?”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Bellara says, utterly bewildered.
“So you’re just going to spend the next however long going back and forth between here and your boyfriend’s house whenever you think you can spare a day?”
“Oh no, this is a relationship talk?” Bellara squeaks, and she can feel her whole face get hot.
“I’m not any happier about this than you are,” Strife says. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do here. I’m just saying that if you want to spend more of your time in Treviso, we can always let you know when we think we need your help on things. Or you can always come by whenever you want to. I know you know we’re flexible for others - but we can be for you too.”
“You do though. Stay here the whole time, I mean,” Bellara says. She’s not sure why she’s arguing entirely, since she was having some of the same thoughts herself, except that she loves what she does with the Veil Jumpers and she wants Strife to know that.
“I’m spending time in Nevarra during the next school break actually. And we’re in different places in life - maybe you want to get married or start a family, maybe you don’t. I’m definitely not the one you should talk to about this,” Strife pauses, looking at her sternly, but Bellara feels like her brain is melting out of her ears.
“Just,” Strife continues with a sigh, “we’re open to whatever you want to do.”
At that Strife turns and leaves. Bellara can hear him muttering about why Irelin thought he needed to be the one to have that conversation with her, and she kind of agrees. Then again, she thinks of having that conversation with Irelin, and - nope, relationship advice from her ex-girlfriend is the only thing that might have been more awkward than talking to Strife.
She hikes her backpack up her shoulders again and escapes towards the artifact repository; she understands artifacts, they make sense to her, and she can focus her mind on the mixture of magic and gears and ignore that Strife just essentially encouraged her to move in with her boyfriend.
-
“It’s this part here that I think you could expand - her breath caught in her throat, and she flattened herself against the wall - are you even listening? Bellara?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry, where were we?”
Lucanis frowns at her and asks, “Where did your thoughts go?”
“Nowhere,” Bellara says. He looks skeptically at her and she waves her hands rapidly. “Sorry, I’m paying attention now. What were you saying?”
Lucanis checks that the writing is dry before he closes her journal and carefully caps the ink that he insisted on holding for her, placing them off to the side. “Something is on your mind.”
Bellara lets Lucanis reel her in, tipping her into the warm circle of his arms. Despite her best efforts, the conversation with Strife keeps flickering through her head and distracting her. She could change the way she splits her time, she thinks, maybe spend more time in Treviso. The rest of it - she’d always supposed she would do that with a vague kind of expectation, but the idea of doing it with Lucanis? It sets her insides squirming.
Would that even be something that Lucanis would want though? Bellara realizes that she knows most of his family is deceased, but she has no idea what happened or if that affects how he sees his future. What does he want? They’ve never talked about it before -
“Bellara,” Lucanis repeats, and she shakes herself slightly out of her thoughts.
“Right, right. Um.” Bellara hesitates, but Lucanis rubs his hand up and down her arm until she sinks more into his side. He’s good at that, she thinks, knows when to change topics to draw her out or sit quietly while she figures out how to start.
“Traveling back and forth - we still don’t get to see each other that much, do we?”
“We see each other enough for me,” Lucanis answers haltingly.
Bellara twists a little to peer up at him, taking in his strained expression. “Are you okay? You got all tense.”
Lucanis snorts, but he relaxes against her again at least. “You have been strangely quiet and now tell me we do not see each other enough. I am perfectly at ease, of course.”
“Oh!” Bellara presses into him and rushes to explain, “Sorry, I meant it in a good way! I want to see you more. And I wanted to know if you wanted the same thing, maybe?”
“Of course I do,” Lucanis says, and he seems surprised.
“Think about Bellara. Every day,” Spite adds.
Lucanis’s face twitches the way it always does when he thinks Spite has said something embarrassing, and Bellara smiles a little with affection for the demon’s straight-forwardness.
“Me too,” Bellara says. “It was nice seeing you all the time before. I mean, the whole end of the world, fighting my gods thing wasn’t nice - but living together was. If you want to try that again.”
“Bellara?”
“That’s what I was thinking about,” she confesses in a rush.
“I don’t think I could come live with you at your camp,” Lucanis says carefully. “Not as First Talon.”
“Oh, I know that. We’d have to live in Treviso?”
Bellara fidgets a little, but she doesn’t have a lot of time to be nervous after verbalizing her thoughts before Spite is grabbing at her. He squeezes her and rubs their cheeks together in excitement. “Yes! Lucanis is boring! Bellara here. Is fun! Miss Bellara.”
“Spite,” Lucanis sounds exasperated and he pulls away a little, but Bellara’s smile widens.
“So that sounds like at least two votes yes.”
“What about your work?”
“I could bring some stuff with me here that needs fixing or just go to the camp during the day and come back here at night,” Bellara suggests. “Sometimes I’d still have to go out into the forest for a while, but maybe not as often?”
Lucanis shifts on the bed so he can face her more instead of sitting side-by-side, and he cups his hands around her face. Her heart beats faster with all his attention focused on her, his gaze steady.
“We will make this work no matter what,” he says firmly. “But I don’t want you to ever resent being here when you want to be back in Arlathan.”
Bellara feels her insides melt a little at his sincerity, and she appreciates how important he agrees what she does is, even if he keeps telling her that the Veil Jumpers should be charging at least something for what they do.
“I’ll talk to you if I’m not happy,” Bellara promises. “Honestly it’s a little weird thinking about living in a city, but I think it’ll be worth it with you.”
He stares at her quietly, thumb stroking across her cheek bone. He opens his mouth but what comes out is the nasally whine of Spite complaining, “Lucanis.”
Bellara laughs and pushes forward to press a light kiss to the annoyed twist of his mouth. “Is he being stupid again, Spite?”
“Yes,” Spite says decisively.
Lucanis huffs, but he sounds fond as he says, “I suppose I can look forward to more of that, living with the both of you.”
“So,” Bellara says and she draws out the word in excitement, but she wants to confirm even though she’s fairly sure of the answer. “That’s a yes?”
“I would love for you to live in Treviso with me if you want that as well,” he answers, voice full of warmth.
“Great!”
Lucanis allows her to topple him back onto the soft covers as she launches herself at him to press kisses across his face. Spite lets out a happy, growling noise, and the static-warmth of his wings fold over her, sending little tingling buzzes of sensation across her skin.
There’s more to talk about, Bellara thinks, immediate details and bigger conversations to be had about what they want in their future - but for now she’s content with the warm feeling beating in her chest when he pulls back slightly to brush her hair behind her ear and murmurs, “I love you.”