Blessed are the peacekeepers

[worldtosave]

Even in the warm hut they shared, the cold could be felt at the edges of the building and it bit into Lannistia's skin as she climbed out from under her covers. She couldn't sleep. There was a demon in her head and she didn't know how to fight it alone.

Her bedclothes felt too thin in the cold mountain air and she went to stand by the warm stove that offered the single room's heat. Every pace their parents had taught them, every exercise the Keeper had showed her could not calm her mind and clear her heart.

'I touched so much of you. But you are selfish with your glory. Now I'm no one.'

Envy's voice was a jagged cut in her mind, helped by Cole's efforts, but still healing. What she'd seen...Dalish did not often fall prey to demons, but it could definitely happen. The elf in the Hinterlands was proof with a slaughtered clan and a murderous Keeper. Could that have happened to her? It likely would have if Cole hadn't been there to help. She'd put herself between Cullen's drawn blade and the strange being more than readily and she'd do it again. If Envy had been allowed to know as much of her as it did without Cole's interference, it wouldn't be her standing here, but a demon. A demon who would've only destroyed everything she cared about.

Gold eyes trailed away from the stove's glow to the sleeping form of her twin, almost lost to her in his own way with the struggles he'd had to face. What if they'd both been lost? One stuck in another time and the other a host to a demon. Would Gianni have seen the destruction she'd caused then? Would he come face-to-face with the Elder One's general, a monster with a familiar face? She shuddered to think of that thing using her magic to strike him down.

'No one knows you better than I, Lavellan!'

Well, it was wrong about that.

Lannisita crossed to her brother's bed and pulled back the edge of the blanket to burrow under it with him like they'd done as children or on particularly cold winter nights. "Gianni? Are you awake?"

Comments

[smolelf]

He's exhausted. It always happens when he has an emotionally taxing sort of day. He could run up and down the Hinterlands for hours without breaking a sweat, but talk to him about something serious and heavy and he's ready for a nap the moment the discussion is ended. And after being thrown into that nightmarish future by Alexius's magic? Seeing his friends, his allies being used as potting plants for this Elder One's horrific garden of red lyrium? He could hibernate, if allowed.

Only he's not, and not just because Lannisita's voice cuts through his groggy haze of half sleep and rattles him to wakefulness. He hadn't been sleeping deeply anyway. Glowing capillaries of red energy dance ominously behind his eyelids, making it impossible.

"I am now," he rolls over to face her, blinking in the dim light until his eyes focus on her face and the gleam of firelight in her gold eyes. "As are you. I can tell."

He smiles gently and it crinkles the branches of his vallaslin.