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She was barely fourteen when the blight claimed her for the first time.
She was almost fifteen when she chose to let it claim her for a second.
Now, nearly thirty-seven and showing no signs of it, she wonders what people think when they look at her.
Knows, intrinsically she shouldn’t care— but she’s been raised to be conscious of how others see her: not at all, when she was a child living among the trees with her clan, hiding in leafy canopies and behind peeling tree trunks; as a victim, when she lay writhing on the cot in a makeshift med tent, rot creeping through her veins; as a hero, as she swallowed the foul ichor of the blight and welcomed it into her body not in a slow creep, but an agonizing rush of power and death; as a fool, as she stands tall against her gods, facing down the enormity of their power without so much as a flinch.
It’s what she was made, for, after all.
Fight the darkspawn, protect the innocent, rise again and again.
Kill an archdemon.
Die.
She has known, since she felt the blight seeping into her bit by bit, that her death was no longer her own.
And now, on the eve of what very well could be her death, destined and pre-ordained, the person she cherishes most has the nerve to look at her and tell her that she shouldn’t. Shouldn’t care for him, shouldn’t allow him to heap the burden of his age upon her already straining shoulders. All these shouldn’ts, building up higher and higher, until all she can hear is his voice, muffled by the high-pitch whining in her ears.
“To allow you to tie yourself to me—” he says, pleading and pitying. “I only wish to be fair to you, my love.”
Her anger, so carefully tamped down, so neatly tied up, snaps through its meager restraints as the everflame in her chest gnaws through her blood. “Well, you aren’t.”
That causes Emmrich to flinch, though she doesn’t know which one— her harsh words or maybe the fury laced in each syllable— is to blame. She doesn't particularly care which it is, at the moment. “Fiadh—”
“Have you heard a word I’ve said, Emmrich? Or have you ignored them in favor of your own thoughts on what I should feel?” she asks, wishing she could be calm, be collected and cool, not this terror she can feel herself becoming.
“That isn’t fair,” Emmrich utters.
She laughs then, bitter and brittle. “But it isn’t a lie.”
Emmrich’s face twists, a mix of frustration, worry and guilt marring his normally polite, faintly jovial resting expression. “It’s something we must talk about, dearest, as much as it sickens me to think about. I will die before you, and I simply—”
“No, you won’t,” she hisses, heart hammering in her chest and vision going blurry at the edges as her breaths come sharp and quick. “And that’s not me placating you. That is a fact— undeniable and inalienable.”
Still, Emmrich argues, a faint flush to his cheeks as he gestures to himself, voice finally rising from its normally calm lilt. “I am decades older than you, Fiadh, in what conceivable world would I ever outlast you?”
“In this one!” She yells, charging forward to push him back against the bookshelves, uncaring of their height difference as she stares him down. How dare he? How— how could he? “Gods, Emmrich, I was a child when I took my Joining, and I’ve lived twenty years with this— this rot inside of me. Everyday I feel myself slip a little bit more, allowing just a tiny bit more of me to be eaten away. I had just gotten my vallaslin when I signed my death warrant, when I chose to hand my death over to this- this evil inside me.”
“I know, darling,” he utters, going silent when she glares at him.
She keeps her hand on his chest, feeling the racing of his animal heart as it drums against his sternum, pumping clean, pure blood through his veins.
She wants to sink her teeth into him and taste it for herself, the copper-rich tang of it.
Wants even more to taste it herself whenever blood from a split lip trickles into her mouth.
But instead all she tastes is blight and ash and death.
“You don’t, though,” she whispers, anger seeping away to leave her cold as she stumbles back a step. Distancing herself from the beast roiling beneath her skin, born of anger and betrayal and sacrifice. “You never can. No one but another warden will ever understand, and maybe it’s my fault for believing you could.”
Pain flashes across Emmrich’s face at the same as it slices through the viscera of anger and regret tangled inside of her, leaving her breathless as she turns her face away. Stares at the skull on the small table behind his desk, conveniently silent for once. She would have thought Hezenkoss would have a comment or six to add to their conversation, but it seems she’s either not present or chosen to keep her mouth shut for once.
“I need to go,” she eventually says once the silence stretches too long, skin crawling the longer she stands in the face of his rejection. “Be ready to go tomorrow. I— we’ll need you.”
“Of course,” Emmrich says weakly.
Coward she is, she can’t even look at him before she turns tail and exits his room, feet taking her in a seemingly endless loop as she wanders through the hallways, out into the courtyard, stepping neatly over a fallen stone and up the stairs to the guest room. And then, ignoring the fact that Davrin is inside, she hooks her fingers in the crumbling stone exterior and begins to climb, higher and higher until she stands on the roof, as high in the sky as she’s willing to go.
Then, fingers bloody from the rough climb, she tips her head back and screams.
Feels everything festering inside her bubbling like the frothing of a geyser shortly before it finally releases in one horrible, piercing cry that leaves her feeling hollowed out and weak. She screams, and she yells, but she refuses to cry, even as the pain in her hands creeps up on her, even as her knees bark a protest as she crumples, hard stone the only thing to welcome her as her strength leaves her. Only the breeze is there to keep her company as she draws her legs up to her chest and makes herself as small a target as she can, hoping that by doing so all of the emotions battering at her, vying for attention will leave her alone.
She sits there, under a false sky, staring at the ever-shifting waves of the Fade around them, ruins spinning around them, and wishes she’d held her tongue.
Wishes, above all, that she’d never, ever allowed anyone to get close enough to cut the core of her like Emmrich just did.
A grunt and the shuffle of stone against stone alerts her to someone braving the climb to check on her, but she doesn’t look up, even as the flap of Assan’s wings sends her hair flying back from her face. Davrin, then. “Rook?”
“I’m fine,” she says automatically, reaching to rustle through Assan’s feathers as he comes creeping up to her, belly low to the ground. “I just—”
“You don’t need to explain,” he says, coming to sit next to her, close enough to touch should she choose it. “Can if you want, but you don’t have to. You’ve earned the silence.”
She takes it at first, nothing but the sound of their breathing and Assan’s rumbling purrs breaking the unearthly silence of the Fade, but slowly, she begins to piece together her thoughts. And as she does, she begins to talk. “Did you feel like this, after the archdemon?”
Davrin grunts. “Lost? Angry? Useless?”
“Expiring,” she adds.
“Can’t forget that,” he jokes, long legs stretching in front of him as he leans back on his hands, eyes on Assan. “There’s still an archdemon to kill.”
“And two gods,” she mutters. “So why do I feel this way?”
Instead of answering, Davrin finally voices the question that has haunted her since she realized the final two archdemons were in play. “What do we do after this?”
“What do I do,” she corrects. “You’re a guardian of the griffons. You have a purpose. A true one. I’m just— a rook.”
“Strongest piece on the board,” Davrin replies.
“Aside from the queen,” she retorts. Then, voice shaking, “Why can’t he see it?”
“See what?”
“The shroud I already wear,” she whispers, releasing the words to the air. “There’s nothing left after— he doesn’t want to be with me because he thinks he’s going to die before me, and once the archdemons are gone there’s no point to being a Grey Warden. So what's the point in—”
“Living?” Davrin finishes, finally drawing her gaze from Assan.
He’s watching her, understanding and recognition in the arch of his brow, the slightly disappointed downturn of his mouth. She doesn't know what to say to appease him, but he's never needed appeasing; even his brief spiral after Weisshaupt was worked out mostly due to his own churning mind. So she doesn't try to appease, or look good, she only nods and clarifies. “Existing.”
Davrin hums then, a wordless little tune that tickles at something deep in the recesses of her mind that brings up vague memories of her childhood. “You remember what I said after Weisshaupt? About being a blade?”
“Honed to confront the biggest darkness in the world,” she confirms, wondering where he’s going. “But you found something else to be. A shield.”
“And so will you,” he replies, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand in offering. “We’re more than what the Wardens shaped us to be, Rook. You showed me that. Find what you want to be, and then be it.”
“Even with the Calling?” she asks.
“We don’t even know if there will be a Calling after this,” Davrin retorts. “And who cares if there is? You’re here now. A Warden doesn’t doubt what they want. They take it. So do what you need to do, Rook. We’ll be here no matter what.”
She takes his hand then, allowing him to haul her back onto her feet, away from the shadows of the roof and into the light of the sky.
-*-
She sits in stunned silence after Solas tips her over that final edge.
Remains kneeling where once he stood, staring blankly at her own visage hewn in grey stone, watching her with scared, judgemental eyes.
Voices whisper around her, familiar and unfamiliar, urging her to get up, to keep moving, to find a way out.
She follows, body moving without her sayso, and doesn't stop until she stands in front of Emmrich, carved from the same grey stone as the rest of the prison. He stares at her, expression severe and not a hair out of place as he looks down on her. Like this, his disdain made clear, she feels something in her begin to splinter. Feels it crack further when his voice resounds through her mind.
“Why did you leave me?”
She frowns. “I didn't.”
“You walked away,” he replies, expression never changing, body unmoving even as his tone twists. “I only wished to face the reality of our situation. But you misunderstood me, and reacted with emotion instead of logic.”
She recoils as if slapped.
Feels the sting of it so acutely she wonders if he did reach out to strike her without her noticing. “You weren't understanding.”
“Perhaps it was you who didn't understand.”
“Maybe I don't,” she replies, stomach twisting as she adds, “but a fake Emmrich doesn't get to tell me I don't.”
“This is the Fade, darling,” the statue croons, disgust skittering up her spine at hearing his voice take a tone she doesn't think he's even capable of making. “Everything here is a reflection of its real-life counterpart. I cannot lie.”
“You can't,” she agrees, nearly sick with the thought but pushing through to what she knows is the truth. “But reflections can distort. So I'll save this conversation for when I'm in front of the real Emmrich.”
The Fade quiets, like the calm before the storm, and then abruptly the statue of Emmrich crumbles into a thousand pieces, showing her a precarious set of stairs that wasn't there before.
“Good job, kid. Now hurry up— we've got a lot of ground to cover.”
“Varric?” she asks, not believing her ears.
“Questions for the end, Rook. Focus on moving forward.”
It's hard to do so when every corner she turns hosts faces of those she's let down, from Neve to Harding to countless others, but she puts one foot in front of the other. Faces each and every one of them head-on, and even as she finally realizes the extent of Solas’ trickery, the regret and guilt she's been carrying since the ritual, she continues to move. Wraps herself in the gleaming steel of her determination and basks in the heat of her fury as it keeps away the chill of the Fade, bolstering her as she ascends the steps to the tear in the Veil that lingers where everything ended and began.
Keeps both close as voices carry to her on a phantom wind, drawing her in just in time for a bangle-covered arm to reach through the tear and offer her a hand.
She stares at it, heart twisting in her chest, and takes it after one last look back, allowing those ring-laden fingers to clamp down around her wrist and heave.
-*-
When he feels her hand take his, he nearly weeps.
Braces himself as best he can and begins to pull, every bit of him straining as he cries, “I've got her!”
Taash leaps to help right away, plunging their arms into the tear despite the discomfort on their face, and he can feel a pair of arms thickly corded with muscle wrap around him as opposed to reaching into the tear. Together they heave, him, Taash, Davrin and even Lucanis leaping to join, all of them scrambling to help as first her hand, then her forearm, then her pauldron appear, dusty and smeared with leftover blight.
It isn't until her head finally breaks through and her eyes meet his that he finally breaks, letting go of her hand to instead cup her cheeks as Davrin and Taash grab her chestplate and haul her the rest of the way through and right into his arms.
“Fiadh,” he breathes, choking on the wellspring of emotion that nearly spills over at the feel of her spirit shining against his, her wildfire roaring once more. “Oh, my darling, my love, my dearest Fiadh—”
She's dirty and disheveled and haunted, yet he's never seen someone so beautiful. Especially not as her normally hard facade crumbles as soon as he says those words, tears collecting in her lashes as she strains to press her forehead to his, hands clutching at his vest. “Emmrich,” she whispers, voice hoarse and shaded with horror-tinged relief, “you found me.”
“Always,” he swears, knowing in the deepest depths of his soul he means it in even the darkest of regards. “Are you alright, darling? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Ignoring his question, Fiadh leans up to kiss him, lips softer than he remembers them being.
Three weeks.
Three weeks he spent regretting his every word, the agony and upset he made her feel. The pain he saw in every stitch of her soul the next day as she led them into battle, jaw set and fiery determination shining through like a beacon. Three weeks he spent doing everything he could, speaking with any spirit who would listen, frustration mounting hour after hour as his efforts yielded nothing but disappointment and terror.
He has waited three weeks for this moment, dreaming of it every night, and now that he's here, he refuses to let her go. Slips a hand to cuff the back of her neck, other arm snaking to wrap tight around her back, pinning her against him. Kisses her with all of the fervor he can manage past the relief and horror still swirling in him, a miasma of conflicting emotions that leaves him sick to his stomach no matter which one comes out on top.
The rest of the group are decent enough to allow them their moment, their footsteps fading away as he holds her, the sound of the leaves rustling and wind whispering through the ruins nearly stealing the tiny whimper that falls from her mouth.
Every piece of him strains to chase the noise, to pull more from her throat so that he knows she's truly alive, but then the faint scent of old blood hits him and he pulls back.
Does so with every regret, breathing harder than he has in weeks as he squeezes the back of her neck. “My darling.”
“I know,” she murmurs, eyes fluttering open to meet his, boldly and without reserve. “Where is he?”
The reality of their situation crashes around him, and despite his own selfish wants, he murmurs, “let us return to the Lighthouse. We can debrief you where it's safe.”
Fiadh doesn't argue, though she does go up onto her tiptoes to brush one last kiss against his lips, stepping out of his arms a second later.
She goes to join the others, welcoming a clap on her shoulder from Taash, a chuck under the chin from Lucanis, and even a hug from Davrin, which surprises both him and Fiadh. Emmrich watches, wondering if he should feel a spark of jealousy, and only feels thankful for the fact that Fiadh has at least one true friend who understands her more than he ever could.
“Emm.” The sound of his nickname jolts him from his reverie, drawing his attention to Fiadh, whose hand is outstretched, a fine tremor of exhaustion in her fingers as she waits for him. “Coming with?”
Nearly tripping over his feet to get to her, he slips his hand into hers and clings tight, heart fluttering and stomach swooping at being able to do so. In being allowed to do so. “Of course.”
She smiles at him then, the small one reserved purely for him, and holds fast as they head for the eluvian that will take them back to the Crossroads.
-*-
Three weeks.
Three weeks she sat in that prison, tortured by her regrets, facing each one over and over until she could swallow down their bitter dregs without flinching.
Twenty-one days of hell, yet as she sinks into the waters of the bath, allowing the heat to seep into her frozen bones, she feels better than ever.
She feels settled, head clear and vision wiped of the shadows she imagined around every corner before. She knows what she must do, knows the hard conversations that lie ahead, and doesn't flinch from the thought of having them, not even as the subject of her most important conversation comes back into the room, a bundle of clothing in his arms.
“You're sure you feel up to this, darling? I don't wish to push you,” Emmrich murmurs, setting the bundle down on a nearby bench and moving to kneel by the side of the tub.
Smiling at him, she pulls her legs to her chest, curling up as she turns to rest her arms on the edge of the tub, one damp hand reaching to trace shaking fingers along the cut of his jaw. “I'd go back to that prison in a heartbeat if you asked me to, Emm.”
Emmrich flinches. “I would never—”
“I know,” she soothes, gently holding his chin between forefinger and thumb as she coaxes him forward into a short kiss. “I only meant that going to your home is never a burden.”
“It can be,” Emmrich murmurs, listing forward into her orbit when she sits back. “May I wash your hair, darling?”
The offer sends a shock of pleasure through her, lips tugging into a genuine grin. “I'd love that.”
The smile on Emmrich's must mirror her own. “As would I.”
Returning to her original position, she scoots a bit closer to the back curve so that Emmrich can reach her, head tilted back as he sets about wetting her hair down before working suds through each strand. She leans into the scratch of his short nails against her scalp, a soft sigh leaking from her as she allows a bit of the tension to leak from her body. As it does, she becomes aware of the words weighing on her chest, ones she's waited long days to say to him, and while she could wait until they're in the Necropolis, she'd rather speak them here, in the safety of the Fade.
“I owe you an apology,” she mutters, holding a hand up when his hands freeze in her hair. “Let me say my piece. Please.”
His ministrations resume slowly, and his voice is guarded as he says, “very well. What is it you're apologizing for, dearest?”
“We were unfair to each other, the night before Tearstone. I… I was particularly cruel.” Her words that day shame her, her choice of them aimed to hurt, but she allows the regret to wash through her, letting it bleed into the water around her instead of festering inside her. “You've been very up front about your fear of your own mortality, and I threw mine in your face. And I know, logically, that you're aware of mine— Of what being a Grey Warden means. But…”
The words stick in her throat, catching on the knot that's begun to form, and Emmrich tugs gently on her hair, anchoring her as he says, “but?”
“But everything's changed,” she whispers. “Once Lusacan falls, there will be no more archdemons. No more true blights. And I'm… I'm not sure what will happen after.”
She doesn't say what she means— I don't know what will happen to me, but Emmrich hums in understanding anyway. Says, quietly, “you've never thought of that, have you? After?”
Huffing a laugh, she tilts her head back further as he begins to rinse the soap from her hair. “There shouldn't be an after. But now that there is… I'm scared. Of who I'm supposed to be outside of Fiadh the Grey Warden.”
“Would you like to find out?” Emmrich asks, adding, tenderly, “with a ‘dapper necromancer’ at your side?”
“I should never have said that,” she replies, a smile spreading across her face as he chuckles. “I think I'd like that a lot. But only if said dapper necromancer has the time.”
“I will make it,” he swears, using a hand in her hair to guide her until she's arched back just enough that he can place a kiss between her brows. “I owe you an apology as well, I believe.”
As much as she wants to get the conversation over and done with, the water has begun to cool, and she'd like to avoid being colder than she already is. “Can you make it once I'm dressed and we're at the Necropolis?”
Something of her discomfort must show on her face because Emmrich is quick to nod, moving to grab a towel that he wraps her in as soon as she stands. “Of course, my darling. Forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive,” she replies, catching him briefly to steal another kiss, thrilling at the way his hand finds the small of her back, the touch proprietary and confident as he draws her in, gladly keeping her close. The surety in his touches, the easy way he handles her makes her feel almost small in a way she finds herself craving, so used to being the biggest presence in the room.
“You,” Emmrich murmurs, lips brushing hers as he speaks, “are distracting me.”
“Maybe you're distracting me,” she retorts, laughing when he huffs against her lips.
He's right though, so even though she'd rather stay in the circle of his arms, she allows him to dry her off and rub a sweet lotion into her skin, ignoring her protests that she can handle it herself. They're empty protests anyway; Fiadh understands just how much he must need the touches to assure himself she's here, in the flesh and not just some demented fever dream. She draws the line at him dressing her, batting his hands away with a laugh when he tries to do the buttons of her shirt. Well, his shirt, seeing as he's somehow snuck his clothing into the pile instead of her own.
It doesn’t stop her from getting dressed, not as the scent of incense and old paper reaches her, clinging to the fabric as she does the buttons up. Then, as if that weren’t enough, he passes her a thick sweater, the knit delightfully warm as she lifts the collar to bury her face in the soft wool. She must look a sight, wearing a mix of his clothes and hers, but something in her thrills at being able to share, in wearing something that he’s worn before.
Judging by the pleased look on Emmrich’s face, the way his eyes linger, half-lidded and lazy on her body, he feels much the same.
She doesn’t call him on it though, seeing no need as she reaches for his hand, clinging tight as she instead says, “take me to your home, Emm.”
Blinking a few times, Emmrich glances down at her hand before a smile brightens his face, so genuinely happy as he squeezes back. “We won’t be long.”
“We’ll be as long as we need,” she replies, following him gladly as they make for the eluvian room.
--
When they finally make it to the private corner of the Necropolis Emmrich wanted to go to, she’s glad for his sweater.
The chill of the Necropolis seems so much more familiar now, a cold born of countless death and the thinning of the Veil that happens whenever its final pallor lingers so close to the living. Seems less frightening now that she’s felt it creep into her bones, chilling her from the core outward, twining between the branches of her ribs and lingering, sticky and stubborn in her lungs even as she breathes in real air again.
It remains close to her, clinging to the apples of her cheeks and the tip of her nose as they step into a room with a single coffin in the center, open to the air and lined in crushed purple velvet.
Notices immediately all of the candles littered around the space, even more than are normally in a room of the Necropolis, and slows. “You want to make sure I’m whole,” she realizes, looking up at Emmrich with wide eyes. “That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it? Because the Veil is thinner?”
“It’s easier to discern the finer details of enchantments here,” Emmrich says, taking a few steps closer to the coffin. When he looks at her, his eyes are serious, lined with the same steel that brought her out of Solas’ prison. “Never say you are not whole, Fiadh. You are a marvel, exactly as you are.”
With him, she feels like she really could be.
Shies away from the compliment nonetheless, glancing away from him as she instead looks to the coffin. Joins him at the edge, reaching out with still-shaking fingers to trace over the intricate carvings on the edges of it. The marble is cool under her hands, though not uncomfortably so, and for a moment she wonders what it would feel like against her bare skin. Thinks about laying inside of it, quiet and still, chest no longer rising, hands folded over her stomach and eyes closed to the world and heart finally resting in her chest.
To her surprise, she doesn’t find the same comfort in it as she used to.
Instead a sense of loss pangs through her as she thinks about the threads of her life, all of them converging to this one point. To a death she’d always known as being owned by the greater world. Not hers to claim. Never hers. But now, now, with everything so uncertain, with the threads of her life unspooling in a seemingly endless journey in front of her, she reaches out to take it for herself.
She pulls the sweater off before she can think better of it, stripping herself of all the earthy trappings that have kept her safe and warm so far. To her side she vaguely hears Emmrich voice a protest, disbelief and shock evident in his tone, but she ignores it all, listens only to the little voice in her head urging her on as she plants one bare knee on the marble lip, hoisting herself up and over in one quick, decisive movement.
The velvet is soft upon the first brush against her skin, Emmrich’s hands softer still as he guides her down, palms skimming down her thighs, over the outsides of her calves as he brings her legs together, neat and straight. Gentle as he brings her arms to rest with her hands folded over her belly. Kind as he artfully arranges her hair, fanning it about her head and tugging a few strands to drape tastefully over one shoulder.
He arranges her as he would a corpse before interring it within a crypt, and it’s with those gentle touches, the knowledge of how he would treat her in death that the splinters that began in the Fade finally give under the pressure of the lashing sea beating against her walls.
Tears flow freely as she closes her eyes, trickling down the sides of her face to dampen her hair, and it’s with that release that Emmrich begins to talk.
“Just as you apologized to me, my darling, I would do the same. For the hurt I caused. For the callousness in which I treated your feelings as we faced down our biggest challenge yet.”
She can’t see, but she feels the displacement of air as his hands move, gasps at the first tingling-cold touch of his magic as it sweeps over her.
“I was so afraid I would never see you again,” he continues, voice taking on the melodic edge it always does when he casts, “that I would live the rest of my years knowing that I had failed you. That I had allowed my own fears to overshadow yours. Mine, of death. Yours, of life.”
It scares her even now, to think about, the sprawling expanse of the future set before her, ripe for the taking.
His voice when he speaks next is strained, wracked with guilt and all-too-familiar regret. “I will never truly understand what it is you feel, living with the blight inside you, it’s true. But I will never look at you and see a monster, my dear.”
Magic sears through her, caressing each one of her nerves with shivering fingers, the universe blooming behind her lids as she arches up toward his hands, lips parting on a gasp.
“I see a woman braver than I could ever dream to be,” he murmurs, “yet so terrified that it leaves only a hollow imitation of the woman I love behind. If I could, I would ease that fear, in whatever small way I can. And I will begin now, by promising you one thing: wherever you go, no matter how dark, or dangerous, I will be there. I will follow you into the deepest pits, climb the highest mountain peaks, so long as it is your footsteps I follow behind. Not because I seek adventure, but because to see you live is a greater gift than I have ever been given before.”
His hand alights on her chest then, pressing down firmly on her sternum as his fingers splay over the only thing keeping her heart inside her chest. Under her skin his magic roils, tumbling through her faster and faster, a furious tide that rages through her until it coalesces in one great flood just under her breastbone. And then, with a soft murmur she doesn’t understand, it surges upward, washing through every vein, capillary and artery, lingering like a lover’s caress in the ventricles and atrium of her heart even as it fades from the rest of her system.
Hollowed out and scrubbed clean, she’s helpless against the emotions that tumble through her one after the other: fear of the endless expanse; anger at her blighted destiny; pride in having survived despite the world vying against her; the faintest bit of hope for what she might discover side by side with Emmrich there to hold her hand.
It washes over her, more powerful than she expected, but when she opens her eyes Emmrich is there, open and waiting for her. “I don’t deserve to be here.”
“No one deserves to live or die,” Emmrich replies. “They simply do, darling.”
She doesn’t realize either of them are moving until they meet halfway, his hand sliding to cup her throat as she tips her head, lips meeting, breaths mingling as he sighs into her mouth. She chases the noise, tastes the vitality inherent in the passing air through his lungs and out, makes some noise low in her throat in reply. None of what has happened since Tearstone truly made sense— not the prison, or facing her regrets, not getting out, but this, now, as Emmrich kisses her, makes sense.
Peeling him out of his layers, that makes sense.
Drawing him into the coffin, craving the heat of his skin, it makes sense.
Rolling him onto his back, pressing him down into velvet-lined marble, it makes sense.
Sinking down onto the hard length of him, taking him fully inside her body makes sense.
She does it all in a near trancelike state, whole body singing as she braces her hands on his chest, the thundering of his heart a twin to the hammering of her own as they moan in unison. Time suspends for a beat, allowing them to linger in this moment, beautiful and perfect, and then moves with honey-slowness as she begins to move. Follows a rhythm only she knows, spurred on by Emmrich’s hands on her thighs, her hips, one lingering to steady her as the other continues upward, fluttering over her ribs, along the shelf of her collarbone until it settles, heavy and sure around her neck.
He holds her that way, long fingers squeezing gently, shortening her breaths until she’s gasping with every movement, head spinning and blood pounding in her ears.
Then he releases, and the rush of relief, of air into her lungs and blood to the rest of her head has her shattering for the first time.
She cries out through the cresting of it, broken and weak, and cuts off abruptly when his hand tightens once more around her throat. Leans into the pressure of his hand, the steady guidance in walking the shimmering line that separates life and death that he provides while asking for nothing in return. Gives him everything anyway— her heart, her mind, her body, clenching so sweetly around him, even her very soul, patched-together as it is after hurting and healing so many times.
Doesn’t shy away from allowing him to see her cry as they drip down her cheeks, dancing over the knuckles of the fingers wrapped so fondly around her throat.
“You are radiant like this,” Emmrich murmurs, voice low enough that she remains floating in a dreamy world just to the side of reality. “Do you feel it now, Fiadh? How sweet it is to live?”
She wants to tell him she does, that if living is like this, thrilling and terrifying in one, she wants more of it. But words stick in her throat, trapped by his hand, and so she uses her body to tell him. Rolls her hips down into his, working them both closer and closer to that leap over the edge that has always felt like freedom to her. Finds herself ready for it, whole body one livewire that sparks as his hips lift to meet hers, hard and unrelenting.
They come together like two opposing tides, crashing against each other, and yet she loves it so— the initial surge, the clash, the melding as their waters mix, no longer two separate waves but one rippling tidepool.
She can’t tell where he begins and she ends, and she doesn’t want to, not now, perhaps not ever. All she wants, all she needs is him at this moment, and she takes him, uncaring of the greed rousing in her, uncaring that it may consume her one day. He wants her, as much as she wants him, and that’s more than enough for her.
They reach their peaks mere seconds apart, Emmrich first for once, helpless against the feel of her, and as warmth fills her, his hand loosening one last time, she follows him over, gasping wetly as she grinds down onto him.
Whines as all her senses overload in saccharine agony, better than she could ever have imagined.
The hand around her neck shifts then, slipping to cup her nape as lips brush against hers, tender and loving. “Breathe, my love. Slowly. There— once more for me. Good, very good.”
It feels good to breathe, for her lungs to expand in her chest, so she continues to do it, slowly, evenly, just as he asked. Finds her heart settling alongside each even breath, until the clouds in her mind begin to clear, leaving her breathless with the euphoria that lightens her limbs and settles her within her skin. When she opens her eyes Emmrich is watching her, lips quirked in a small, proud smile that has pleasure flushing through her.
“I love you,” she says, because it's true and she's done running.
“As I love you,” Emmrich replies, matching her step for step, breath for breath. “How are you feeling, darling?”
“Alive,” she replies, smiling when Emmrich laughs, bright and unfettered. “You?”
“Lucky,” Emmrich says.
That brings a silly little smile to her face, cheeks heating. “I think I'm the lucky one. Somehow in the midst of the world ending, you found me.”
Emmrich nuzzles their noses together just before he whispers, “we found each other.”
Fiadh kisses him then, wishing to taste the sweetness of the words for herself, draping her arms around his neck and sighing mournfully when he slips, soft, from her body, an instant of loss going through her before his hand skimming up and down the length of her spine soothes her. He holds her close, always handling her with the exact touch she needs at the time she needs it, and she sinks into the warmth of him, the certainty she feels knowing that with him there's nothing but solid ground to stand on.
A yawn forces her to pull away from him, jaw cracking, and she already knows what Emmrich will say before he says it. “Rest now, my darling Fiadh. The Fade will give you over when it's time to wake.”
“Will it?” She teases. “Nothing lingering on me that would keep me there?”
“No,” Emmrich murmurs, serious for a split second. “Whatever curse Solas laid upon you, it is gone.”
Not even the mention of Solas can dim the euphoria that warms her. “Then join me— we can face everything else in the morning.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Emmrich replies, waiting for her to settle down so he can curl protectively around her back, arm draped over her ribs and hand pressed to her heart. “Goodnight, my love.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” she murmurs, smiling at the way his breath hitches with the endearment.