Writer of Leliana/Inquistior

DWC prompt: (Lost souls) Wispy clouds over a full moon!

Established Relationship || Hurt/Comfort, Fluff

For @dadrunkwriting

It was autumn everywhere else in Thedas besides in the desert. These lonely sands were frigid, especially so tonight. It was a harsher cold than the bittersweet chill of the forests back home. The cold here had a unsettling intent. A nail of fear stabbed through her heart and the wound bled upwards in the form of waves of anxiety.

Blackwall had busied himself with starting a fire out of the tumbleweeds and lonesome branches they managed to scrounge up. He had been silent since the sand storm. It was one of those freezing nights that knocked on the walls Faeven had kept up during the duration of this relationship. The cold had her kept in the limbo of indecision, where she wasn't sure if she should put on more layers or if she should just let the cold pierce through her armor and skin, so maybe just maybe, it would shock her senses enough to make her truly feel real. She had tried to light up, but it was too cold that whatever high that managed to surface was immediately shredded to ribbons.

As if the universe could her her thoughts, a particularly strong wind picked up and all she could see and feel was sand and ice. The wind died as quickly as it had sprung to life, and it left her coughing and shivering. Faeven was used to coughing, relying on smoke for most things really wasn't good for her lungs. This was a different cough and it felt deeper, full of little sharp edges.

"Faeven, are you alright?" Before she had a grip on her surroundings, familiar hands had a grip on her shoulders. Those hands gently steering her. "Please don't stray from camp." She hadn't realized her feet had taken her to the top of the dune he was walking her back. "Maker balls, don't make me have to forget the desert again, especially if it took you from me..." There was a panic in his voice, however small, it was still there.

"I suppose I was looking for the others. I just don't understand how we were separated from the so fast. Do you think they are safe?" Faeven could hear the panic in her own voice as Blackwall sat her down by the fire. It had a sweet scent to it, she guessed from the saplike coating of the branches. It crackled, snapped, and popped as it burned. In this moment, Faeven was glad to be lost, even with the fear, a kernel of peace and gratitude brightened inside her chest.

"I don't think we are safe." Blackwall said as he drapped the lambswool blanket they bought back in Redcliffe over her shoulders. He pressed his body against hers, warmth filled her slowly, completely. Faeven almost laughed at how at odds with reality that statement was, because she felt so safe here with him. She took his hand under the warmth of the blanket, brought it to her lips to grace it with a kiss. With a smile, Faeven rubbed his hand with her cold hands until she was confident she had made a little body fire in their palms. "We are safe..." She said to him, the desert, and the universe.

Blackwall looked at her in disbelief, and Faeven could practically see all of the practicality that invalidated their safety running through his mind, but she didn't want to acknowledge it. She knew his mind was in survival mode, and that mode wasn't kind. The what-ifs hound you until you give the merit, when sometimes, most times, those what-ifs didn't matter. So with a squeeze of her hand, Faeven added. "...because of you."

The disbelief eased up in his eyes, but it lingered. Faeven focused instead on his crooked nose. Its lovely wonky shape. How the cold had turned it red at the tip, and eventhough the cold left that nose runny too, and they both had to sniff to keep the drip at bay. She still had the desire to kiss it, because she loved that nose. Faeven loved the man who owned it even more. Despite his anxieties and tendency to look at the more dark side of things, she loved him. So deep that she was scared of it, because they mirrored what she saw in herself. Those things she still had trouble loving within herself were so easy to love when it came to him.

Faeven let out a breath she wasn't aware that she was holding. Blackwall apparently had to been holding his breath too, and he looked at her. "What are you looking at?" As if her gazing at him like a lovesick girl wasn't so fucking obvious.

"You." That was a simple answer. He seemed satisfied with that answer and it was a lovesick boy who smiled at her. Faeven had more to say however. "I love your crooked nose, because it tells a story of how you have always been a fighter. How you have survived whatever sort of punch life has thrown at you."

"The scar above your brow tells me a similar story about you. I don't think you truly know how strong you are but I hope I can help show you the strength I see in you."

"I don't usually feel strong..." Faeven trailed off, looking up towards the moon that decided to peek through the sad wisps that called themselves 'clouds' who lived in the desert sky. "But with you here, I feel that we will survive this particular punch together and it will be okay."

Blackwall nodded. Their souls understood each other. With the moon as a witness, he kissed her forehead. "There are times when I don't feel strong either, but you are showing me that it is okay to be vulnerable." He was quiet for a moment, still looking at her. "I am very grateful I met you."

It was in that moment that they were no longer two lost souls stranded in a desert, but two souls who realized they have found each other after all this time.