One hand disappears to her pockets, hidden away, and draws out a length of string, and when Zevran has released his hair from Luciano's grip, she holds it up, stepping forward slightly - an offer to tie it back for him, since his hands are full.
"My home is the first to come to mind, but others will take more careful consideration. I will bring you a list with the rune." And, innocently, "Distracting? Your son?" Heaven forbid such an impossibility come to pass. It feels ever so slightly like justice. The Leliana of ten years ago might have been less subtle about it, just as she would have cooed and marvelled over a child rather more visibly. As it is, she is struggling not to make a fool of herself.
Ah. Well. "It seems rather less pressing, now." A beat. "Thank you for your assistance on the mission."
"What can I say, ah? My boy-" Ignore the way his throat goes tight around the words- something he has not thought, has not spoken often for the pure strangeness of it. "My boy demands attention."
He tips his head forward, offering Leliana leave to bind his hair far from squirming, grasping hands. But that she has moved close has drawn Lucci's attention, those wide blue eyes flitting to her face, her hood, her hair. A single chubby hand reaches out inquisitively while Zevran attempts to keep the boy from squirming too much.
"Such a thing could have been sent by note or said by crystals." He is not buying it, not even a little. "But you are welcome. It was good to see home again, stretch my legs. Do a little sneaking and be the Ombra Nera once more."
Leliana laughs, very quietly - more a breath than anything. "You're in considerable trouble, then.`'
Indulging the child, Leliana pulls off back her cowl, mouth quirking into a grin as his curiosity. "Hello, Luciano," she murmurs, tone brighter than it has been in years because children should not be treated to dark things, as she divides Zevrans hair into four segments, weaving them together into a braid. "Your daddy is silly, isn't he? Very silly." And she makes quick work of tying back the braid, so she can work the glove off one hand and crouch down next to Zevran.
Crouch down next to him and not look at him. "True enough. I wondered what you would advise in a situation when a scout has developed feelings of affection for one they work with - or believing they have, when there is every possibility they have not, and are entangling lust and wanting. Distorting them, I think."
The cowl slips off and those eyes widen further still, a pleased burble bubbling up from Luciano. High and bright and joyful. Perhaps Serena had the right of it, naming him light. Perhaps he should not find it quite so funny compared to his title. Zevran has his mouth open to protest being 'silly' when that word clicks like a knife on the rib.
'Daddy'. 'Father'. 'Son'. This is his blood, his boy, and he is...he cannot be worthy of what is supposed to come with it.
Somehow he swallows past that ache, the familiar knot of knowing he is not enough, and considers the situation offered while Luciano continues to strain and reach for Leliana. "You do realize who you are talking to, yes? I am not normally one someone goes to for advice on sentiment. But...one thing Senora Giselle taught me was this: If you can imagine whoever it is you think you lust after voluminously ill or covered in some manner of muck and still wish not only to kiss them, but to make them happy? It is sentiment."
"You are my friend," she replies, very quietly. "And I think you understand love better than you give yourself credit. I think you understand how well feelings can complicate work such as ours better than most."
Oh, Zevran has his friends he calls upon for certain closenesses, but for all his talk, he is not a loveless man, not a man with no capacity. He has not kept strict distances between himself and others in all ways, has not isolated himself, and he is a better man than he'd ever admit, she thinks.
"What if one of your kestrals claimed love for another? Not necessarily a kestral, but someone within the Inquisition, for example. Would you think of it so lightly?"
She speaks loosely, not quite easily, because she can still hold some thought that this is not completely transparent, as she leans closer to wiggle her fingers at Luciano. "War and risk, they all but breed sentiment. Not all of it is genuine."
"Conceptually, and I understand romance quite well as it would make a poor Antivan of me indeed to not." Love in truth, the romantic sort, the possessive sort- he'd known it once and it nearly killed him. He has scraps it of now he clings to with terrified hands.
Hands that attempt to steady the sudden lean of Luciano to grasp for Leliana's fingers, a child's laugh twisting a fond smile out of Zevran.
"...The timing of this conversation is suspect. Have you spoken to, say, Alistair or Anders in the past few weeks? This is not the precise situation I have been wrestling with myself, but the themes are similar." Perhaps she'd listened in. "Let me ask you this, then. Do you see the closeness of Alistair and I, for example, to be less sincere for where it was born?"
"Perhaps I am all the more Fereldan for my lack of comprehension," she replies, rather dryly. Love had not treated her kindly, in the past. That had not been love, she later realised, at least not from both sides. And if it had been, then it was a noxious warping of it. Marjolaine may have loved her, once, but she had always been a possession.
She makes a sound of exaggerated surprise, a gasp. "You got me," she informs Luciano, as if entirely scandalised, making a terribly poor effort to free herself from his terrible grasp. Alas, her ability to escape has suddenly wilted to nothing, it would seem.
It is easier to play with the child than to look at Zevran, but she manages it. "Definitely not, but..." Leliana stops herself short. To say that romantic love could be more destructive than friendship and other loves was to lie, outright. They had all of them felt the sting of deceits, of Wynne's death, of Jonas' decisions. Happy to cease upon a change of subject: "Why suspect?"
"It is Fereldens that have lectured me most on love. My lack of practical understanding comes from the Crows." Even in the brothel, the women taught him to be careful, yes, but they cared. It is more than he could have hoped for alone on the streets.
A moment is lost, admiring his boy laughing so brightly, squeezing Leliana's fingers like a grand prize. No attempt to gnaw just yet- but that is inevitably where her fingertips will go if she is not careful. Zevran is instead struck by how like her old self Leliana sounds. The change is startling, and one he wishes to encourage while being far too tired to think of how.
"It has been on my mind as of late. Sentiment. Love. Wanting more than a friend that I bed on occasion- I have nudged a few of m friends into the willing arms of those that care for them and have felt myself quite satisfied to see the results. Ten years ago I would have done the same and been content. Now...now I see them and I want something of that for myself. Alistair is determined to find me someone before he dies." So bluntly said- that. But they know what it is to hear the calling. They know how little time he might have left.
"We do that," she admits. Few know it, these days, but she has long considered herself more Fereldan than Orlesian. Now she hardly knows what she is. The fate of Thedas comes before the fate of any one country. "Although I suspect lecturing people is not a purely Fereldan past time. What do you think, Luciano? It's not Fereldan at all, is it?"
Her free hand sneaks though the air, fingers waving animatedly, a rival for his attention. Hopefully Zevran will never tell anyone about this. Ever.
"I imagine Alistair playing suitor comes with a number of requirements for any candidate," she replies, eyebrow quirking a little. There a pause before she continues. "You should. Love is the greatest gift that there is, Zevran. If the Maker has shown me anything at all, it is that love is the most powerful force, and the most precious." She believes that still, even with what she has made herself become, how the world has twisted. The Calling pulls at Alistair, and she doesn't really want to touch on the possibility of his impending death. "Do you have doubts?"
"It is a part of your charm." Fereldan charm- Leliana's charm. The two are not quite so interchangeable but he is not about to say which he means, not just yet.
Lucci squeals and reaches with his other hand, flailing fat little fingers to try and grasp those sneaking ones. Oh if only Zevran had time to paint. But he could sketch- and he would. Let Leliana see herself with his boy. Let his boy see the Aunt that struggles as much as his father.
"He is very protective of me. You should have seen the scowls he gave Michel de Chevin when we were still entangled." Past tense. No longer entangled. Alistair's disapproval can be a palpable thing after all. "I know what I want. I know...I am allowed to want such a thing. The uncertainty remains in whether or not I deserve it- or if I am able to keep it. But if it is so worthy a thing, if it is such a gift- why do you have doubts about your scouts? Are they so unable to tell sentiment from sensual indulgence?"
Ha. That gets him a look, not so terribly severe as she tends to be these days.
For a moment she manages to evade, and evade again, before-- alas. She is caught. That's it, sorry Zevran, she can never leave.
A little frown, at that. She cannot say much for the character of Michel de Chevin, though she has heard enough about Chevaliers. Like her he followed orders, but something vile twisted in her at the thought of Halamshiral. She had pitied Celene that decision, that Justinia's orders pushed her hand... and yet. Her feelings on the matter and the man are complex, and she would be hard pressed to summarise it. "Ah. Yes, I can imagine they were... expressive."
She exhales, hands stilling a moment from the game she has been providing Luciano in their odd hand wrestle. "People do not deserve love, just as they do not deserve forgiveness. It is given or it is not. Deserving... no, that is not a factor." But she does sigh. "Just because I think it is a wonderful thing does not mean that it is not dangerous. I cannot know their hearts or their intentions. I would not stand between my scouts and love, I--"
This lie is getting difficult to talk around without sounding out of her wits, but at least she is not entirely without reason for some caution on behalf of her scouts. "How many have been seduced or charmed for information? How many have lost their lives for such mistakes. They know to watch for seduction, but love? That is far more dangerous."
"Would stand between yourself and love. Out of duty and obligation to the Inquisition." Dancing about the matter is well and good but this is less about scouts- that too is a conversation to be had over crystals. And this is something he has knotted himself up over as well for so many reasons- one of which is now giggling brightly and attempting to heave himself from Zevran's arms into Leliana's.
Curious child.
"It can be lethal. The having it. The loss of it." Zevran reaches to smooth back some of Lucci's bouncing curls, eyes on the infant rather than Leliana. "I had it, once. Before the Blight, while I was a member of the Crows. It was losing it that had me put myself before Jonas' blade and hope for death- in doing so I found another opportunity for life. It is not always the way of things, luck and compassion and desperation saved me more than anything else. But is there nothing sweeter than to die from love?"
It was pleasanter when he did not address it directly.
"We have both of us been spurned. Marjolaine left me to be tortured. Intimacy allowed her to condemn me. It allowed her to steal secrets that might have started another war between Orlais and Ferelden, it allowed her knowledge that she shared with the Empress Celene that might have compromised the Divine's peace, had she applied it so." Leliana's voice is harsher now, quiet and lacking heat because of the child, but even so. "I will not endanger the Inquisition or my mission due to some fleeting whimsy. My duty will ensure the freedom of others to live and love as they wish. I cannot squander that through death."
This is a terrible conversation to be having while wrangling a delighted infant, and she shakes her head. "I cannot take that risk."
"I am to understand that for love to be honest, for it to be equal and true- there is to be trust." And there lies the trouble for both of them. Trust is not given so easily- it is not given at all by an assassin, by a spy. Tired of the juggling act Zevran simply chooses to express some of what trust he has for Leliana- and presses Lucci from his arms into hers.
He does not let go, not just yet- but he holds Lucci there long enough for her to take hold.
"If you cannot trust the one you love, then it is not a love that is worth the risk. If it cannot be honest, cannot be equal...then it cannot be." And it would not be worth the risk. "Do you trust them?"
"Trust." An echo, and she is displeased with how it lacks incredulity when she says it. "Trust is inherent," she agrees, quietly. Trust is what made it so terribly dangerous, regardless of what profession one fell into. It was what made it difficult, presumably, when secrets came to Leliana as easily as breathing and she struggled against them in others, determined to shine the light on them and expose whatever horrors people tried to keep concealed.
"I don't know." Accepting Luciano into her arms, Leliana adjusts her hold so she can cradle him idly swaying him as she eases up to stand and sit beside Zevran. "I suppose that is answer enough."
She does not know if she trusts Morrigan, exactly, or if she trusts her own trust, if that trust which does exist is somehow warped by being enamoured. The thing is that she wants to, and that is terrifying. "And you? Do you trust anyone in such a way?"
"Do you wish there to be trust?" Wanting it comes before feeling it- this he has learned. It is no small thing to let Leliana hold his child and he hopes to offer in action what he cannot quite say so neatly in words. This tiny, precious thing that he does not know how to handle- he will trust her to hold him. Trust her to know and keep the secret until he has a better plan than 'get through to tomorrow'.
Lucci coos, hands finding the folds of her hood, tugging gently on the fabric. It's new and that makes it amazing.
"In a way that is open and honest and equal with this manner of sentiment? I...trust two. And am yet working out how it is I might live with that- or if it is enough." It is different from Taliesin and Rinna and that is strange in its own way. "Mia I have come to trust like that. It is...she feels sentiment without desire, but the trust is there. That is enough. Taashath feels both but he is of the Qun and holds no claim over me."
"I don't know," she says again, with no heat in it, for all that she is frustrated by her own lack of knowledge. "I have eyes and ears all over Thedas, and I cannot determine my own intentions or wants. It is pathetic, no?"
But then there is this tiny, fragile thing in her arms, and she marvels at it. To think that they all joined the world in such a way, that once she and Zevran were so tiny and unprotected, and someone had loved them well enough to keep them alive. The terrors came later, but first they had been loved, and they had trusted. Holding him in one arm, she disentangles her free hand from his grasp to tilts the shiny broach at her chest so it catches the light and grabs at his attention, maybe, though she looks to Zevran as she listens.
"Do you feel Mia does have some claim over you?" And, after a moment of considation, she angles her head. "It would be foolish to suggest you find love with both of them together, I assume."
"No, it is not. Sentiment is confounding even for those that were raised for it. There is no one answer- and no one way to do things. That is what makes it so complicated." There are many things for which they might come to feel shame or regret. This ought not be one of them.
He watches them for a moment, weighing his options for a proper answer. Watches how Lucci's eyes follow that light, how his hands grasp instead at the shine provided by the broach. Grasping for what cannot be held- is that not love? Reaching and hoping for something they cannot touch or truly know? Exhaustion makes him poetic, apparently.
"No. We have spoken on the matter and...she knows I care. I know she cares as well. We promise nothing to one another nor make any claims, and she does not begrudge me my lovers." A beat. "I have done it before- the loving and being loved by two at once. It ended poorly. Jealousy is a terrible thing. I wish to avoid it."
And there is another thing - those who were raised for it. Leliana has no idea what Morrigan feels, if anything at all. All this could be little more than a misguided infatuation based on an old attraction and her own lack of familiarity with people reaching out and trusting her with things - with knowledge of the eluvian, because before that moment she had not appreciated what that was, how essential it was to Morrigan. She was handed the knowledge of something so precious, and it had been jarring enough that it had begun this foolishness.
Or maybe she had begun it with the dance, and if it was a possibility that Morrigan cared for her (no) then it was also a possibility that it was Leliana who was going to hurt her, no matter if there was no thoughts of manipulation and villainy involved. Morrigan had been injured enough by her mother, and Leliana balks at the thought.
She frowns.
"If you feel you must decide, then... perhaps time is the only thing that will help you determine it. Or asking them to duel on the matter."
"If you would indulge me in my wild guess- and you need not answer." This is a stab in the exhausted dark- but the options for this? Are few. Josephine is as a sister to Leliana. Cassandra does not seem her sort. "You are feeling things for Morrigan, perhaps? And you know not what to make of them."
Leliana apparently enjoys a challenge which comes as no surprise. That she comes to him to speak of it- that does.
"With Taliesin and Rinna we were three lovers together and in the Crows. Mia does not want me in her bed, Taas does not claim any one lover as his and his alone. The situations are very different- neither of them have claimed to literally own me for the bulk of my life. That helps." He manages a wry crackle of laughter at that- one that pulls a giggle from Lucci. "Morrigan is her own mystery. I am sorry I cannot offer you more."
That she does not deny, specifically, is likely condemnation enough. Her focus stays on Luciano, fingers dancing at him once again, because being caught in a child's vice-like grip is infinitely preferable to this.
She remembers Taliesin - remembers killing him. That had been a day just as any other, marked as significant only because of what he had said of Zevran, of a man who had been her brother already.
"I imagine it does," she agrees, brow still pinched, even as Zevran and Luciano laugh. Adorable, but not entirely a salve for this. "You will weather it, Zevran. If the thought of settling on either option disappoints you, then perhaps you have your answer." A pause, and, "although the same can be said for ordering dessert, so perhaps that is not the soundest advice for such a situation as this, for all that love and dessert are comparatively indulgent and sickening." A wry smile of her own, at that.
"It is not matter to apologise for. She shall remain so. There is no need to cause disturbance for a foolish infatuation."
Lucci swipes and flails, squeezing what fingers he can capture- and as Zevran expected when the game began, tugs them close to his mouth to gum upon. The little ridges of what will be his teeth leave bumps that will pain him in a little bit. Gumming always came before whining and weeping. Zevran has learned to recognize that particular pattern.
"I am content with things as they are. A lover when I have need of it- and the constant support of Mia as best she can offer. It is more than I thought I might have." And more than enough for him- for now. At the moment his mind and his concerns weigh heavily upon the infant that has come so unexpectedly into his life.
"Does she make you happy? Love is not always happiness- there are obligations and complications enough to ensure that is so. But some joy must come from it- otherwise it is foolish and it is wasteful."
Ah. Leliana has not had a great deal to do with children, save for her time as a lay sister in Lothering. Even then, she rarely found herself gnawed upon. Her expression becomes one of bemusement and a flicker of pain when he gums particularly hard.
"Then that is a reason to be glad." She hopes it remains so. And for her to possibly begin vetting these people and ensuring they are worthy, but that could wait. "But be sure to let Alistair suffer a little long. Actually," Leliana pauses, twisting to better face Zevran, "did he talk to you about Morrigan and I? Perhaps he is eager to matchmake all of us."
A long, slow sigh, and she lets her head fall back a bit so she can look at the ceiling. "I don't know," she admits, for perhaps the hundredth time in this conversation, sighing at herself. "She is the first person I consider talking to," Leliana admits off-handly, "And that is unreliable."
"No. He and I have not spoken of you or Morrigan since the Wardens were banished- though that falls more upon my shoulders than his. I did not wish to do so as it only reminded me of upsetting you. Guilt does not suit me." And thus he attempts to avoid it. Here, though, he fell into it headfirst and along with guilt? Came regret. He was content to keep Anders' secret, assuming it would cost him nothing.
How wrong he had been.
"Are you and he speaking again?" He knows Alistair speaks to Morrigan- or rather at Morrigan. Why, he does not know. But he has tried to encourage it, especially in light of his conversation with his mother.
"No, but it is indicative of wanting her company. Of enjoying it. For most everything, for a fair while? I had you and Alistair and I was content. Now things are a little different." But then he misstepped with the Nightingale and Alistair is so certain of his impending death. "It could be worth considering, you and she."
"It was unpleasant for all of us," she replies softly, not without an edge of something in it. Unhappiness, perhaps, regret maybe, but whatever it is she has learned to harden such things. "He came and rambled at me when he was sick, insistant that Morrigan and I dancing together was more than simple... absurdity on our parts. I dismissed it out of hand."
And then she started thinking about it, and then everything became infinitely more complex, of course.
"Or, possibly, it is indicative of a certain sort of masochism." Leliana knows better even as she says it, but it is safer to bristle and to maintain distance. She is, for all intents and purposes, a chantry hedgehog. And she shakes her head. "Even if I have romantic and if they are returned in some form, I remain the Nightingale. Morrigan and Kieran deserve more than a shadow, and they deserve more time than I have to give."
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"My home is the first to come to mind, but others will take more careful consideration. I will bring you a list with the rune." And, innocently, "Distracting? Your son?" Heaven forbid such an impossibility come to pass. It feels ever so slightly like justice. The Leliana of ten years ago might have been less subtle about it, just as she would have cooed and marvelled over a child rather more visibly. As it is, she is struggling not to make a fool of herself.
Ah. Well. "It seems rather less pressing, now." A beat. "Thank you for your assistance on the mission."
That is not why she came here, but fine.
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He tips his head forward, offering Leliana leave to bind his hair far from squirming, grasping hands. But that she has moved close has drawn Lucci's attention, those wide blue eyes flitting to her face, her hood, her hair. A single chubby hand reaches out inquisitively while Zevran attempts to keep the boy from squirming too much.
"Such a thing could have been sent by note or said by crystals." He is not buying it, not even a little. "But you are welcome. It was good to see home again, stretch my legs. Do a little sneaking and be the Ombra Nera once more."
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Indulging the child, Leliana pulls off back her cowl, mouth quirking into a grin as his curiosity. "Hello, Luciano," she murmurs, tone brighter than it has been in years because children should not be treated to dark things, as she divides Zevrans hair into four segments, weaving them together into a braid. "Your daddy is silly, isn't he? Very silly." And she makes quick work of tying back the braid, so she can work the glove off one hand and crouch down next to Zevran.
Crouch down next to him and not look at him. "True enough. I wondered what you would advise in a situation when a scout has developed feelings of affection for one they work with - or believing they have, when there is every possibility they have not, and are entangling lust and wanting. Distorting them, I think."
Also a lie, but also not.
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The cowl slips off and those eyes widen further still, a pleased burble bubbling up from Luciano. High and bright and joyful. Perhaps Serena had the right of it, naming him light. Perhaps he should not find it quite so funny compared to his title. Zevran has his mouth open to protest being 'silly' when that word clicks like a knife on the rib.
'Daddy'. 'Father'. 'Son'. This is his blood, his boy, and he is...he cannot be worthy of what is supposed to come with it.
Somehow he swallows past that ache, the familiar knot of knowing he is not enough, and considers the situation offered while Luciano continues to strain and reach for Leliana. "You do realize who you are talking to, yes? I am not normally one someone goes to for advice on sentiment. But...one thing Senora Giselle taught me was this: If you can imagine whoever it is you think you lust after voluminously ill or covered in some manner of muck and still wish not only to kiss them, but to make them happy? It is sentiment."
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Oh, Zevran has his friends he calls upon for certain closenesses, but for all his talk, he is not a loveless man, not a man with no capacity. He has not kept strict distances between himself and others in all ways, has not isolated himself, and he is a better man than he'd ever admit, she thinks.
"What if one of your kestrals claimed love for another? Not necessarily a kestral, but someone within the Inquisition, for example. Would you think of it so lightly?"
She speaks loosely, not quite easily, because she can still hold some thought that this is not completely transparent, as she leans closer to wiggle her fingers at Luciano. "War and risk, they all but breed sentiment. Not all of it is genuine."
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Hands that attempt to steady the sudden lean of Luciano to grasp for Leliana's fingers, a child's laugh twisting a fond smile out of Zevran.
"...The timing of this conversation is suspect. Have you spoken to, say, Alistair or Anders in the past few weeks? This is not the precise situation I have been wrestling with myself, but the themes are similar." Perhaps she'd listened in. "Let me ask you this, then. Do you see the closeness of Alistair and I, for example, to be less sincere for where it was born?"
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She makes a sound of exaggerated surprise, a gasp. "You got me," she informs Luciano, as if entirely scandalised, making a terribly poor effort to free herself from his terrible grasp. Alas, her ability to escape has suddenly wilted to nothing, it would seem.
It is easier to play with the child than to look at Zevran, but she manages it. "Definitely not, but..." Leliana stops herself short. To say that romantic love could be more destructive than friendship and other loves was to lie, outright. They had all of them felt the sting of deceits, of Wynne's death, of Jonas' decisions. Happy to cease upon a change of subject: "Why suspect?"
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A moment is lost, admiring his boy laughing so brightly, squeezing Leliana's fingers like a grand prize. No attempt to gnaw just yet- but that is inevitably where her fingertips will go if she is not careful. Zevran is instead struck by how like her old self Leliana sounds. The change is startling, and one he wishes to encourage while being far too tired to think of how.
"It has been on my mind as of late. Sentiment. Love. Wanting more than a friend that I bed on occasion- I have nudged a few of m friends into the willing arms of those that care for them and have felt myself quite satisfied to see the results. Ten years ago I would have done the same and been content. Now...now I see them and I want something of that for myself. Alistair is determined to find me someone before he dies." So bluntly said- that. But they know what it is to hear the calling. They know how little time he might have left.
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Her free hand sneaks though the air, fingers waving animatedly, a rival for his attention. Hopefully Zevran will never tell anyone about this. Ever.
"I imagine Alistair playing suitor comes with a number of requirements for any candidate," she replies, eyebrow quirking a little. There a pause before she continues. "You should. Love is the greatest gift that there is, Zevran. If the Maker has shown me anything at all, it is that love is the most powerful force, and the most precious." She believes that still, even with what she has made herself become, how the world has twisted. The Calling pulls at Alistair, and she doesn't really want to touch on the possibility of his impending death. "Do you have doubts?"
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Lucci squeals and reaches with his other hand, flailing fat little fingers to try and grasp those sneaking ones. Oh if only Zevran had time to paint. But he could sketch- and he would. Let Leliana see herself with his boy. Let his boy see the Aunt that struggles as much as his father.
"He is very protective of me. You should have seen the scowls he gave Michel de Chevin when we were still entangled." Past tense. No longer entangled. Alistair's disapproval can be a palpable thing after all. "I know what I want. I know...I am allowed to want such a thing. The uncertainty remains in whether or not I deserve it- or if I am able to keep it. But if it is so worthy a thing, if it is such a gift- why do you have doubts about your scouts? Are they so unable to tell sentiment from sensual indulgence?"
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For a moment she manages to evade, and evade again, before-- alas. She is caught. That's it, sorry Zevran, she can never leave.
A little frown, at that. She cannot say much for the character of Michel de Chevin, though she has heard enough about Chevaliers. Like her he followed orders, but something vile twisted in her at the thought of Halamshiral. She had pitied Celene that decision, that Justinia's orders pushed her hand... and yet. Her feelings on the matter and the man are complex, and she would be hard pressed to summarise it. "Ah. Yes, I can imagine they were... expressive."
She exhales, hands stilling a moment from the game she has been providing Luciano in their odd hand wrestle. "People do not deserve love, just as they do not deserve forgiveness. It is given or it is not. Deserving... no, that is not a factor." But she does sigh. "Just because I think it is a wonderful thing does not mean that it is not dangerous. I cannot know their hearts or their intentions. I would not stand between my scouts and love, I--"
This lie is getting difficult to talk around without sounding out of her wits, but at least she is not entirely without reason for some caution on behalf of her scouts. "How many have been seduced or charmed for information? How many have lost their lives for such mistakes. They know to watch for seduction, but love? That is far more dangerous."
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Curious child.
"It can be lethal. The having it. The loss of it." Zevran reaches to smooth back some of Lucci's bouncing curls, eyes on the infant rather than Leliana. "I had it, once. Before the Blight, while I was a member of the Crows. It was losing it that had me put myself before Jonas' blade and hope for death- in doing so I found another opportunity for life. It is not always the way of things, luck and compassion and desperation saved me more than anything else. But is there nothing sweeter than to die from love?"
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"We have both of us been spurned. Marjolaine left me to be tortured. Intimacy allowed her to condemn me. It allowed her to steal secrets that might have started another war between Orlais and Ferelden, it allowed her knowledge that she shared with the Empress Celene that might have compromised the Divine's peace, had she applied it so." Leliana's voice is harsher now, quiet and lacking heat because of the child, but even so. "I will not endanger the Inquisition or my mission due to some fleeting whimsy. My duty will ensure the freedom of others to live and love as they wish. I cannot squander that through death."
This is a terrible conversation to be having while wrangling a delighted infant, and she shakes her head. "I cannot take that risk."
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He does not let go, not just yet- but he holds Lucci there long enough for her to take hold.
"If you cannot trust the one you love, then it is not a love that is worth the risk. If it cannot be honest, cannot be equal...then it cannot be." And it would not be worth the risk. "Do you trust them?"
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"I don't know." Accepting Luciano into her arms, Leliana adjusts her hold so she can cradle him idly swaying him as she eases up to stand and sit beside Zevran. "I suppose that is answer enough."
She does not know if she trusts Morrigan, exactly, or if she trusts her own trust, if that trust which does exist is somehow warped by being enamoured. The thing is that she wants to, and that is terrifying. "And you? Do you trust anyone in such a way?"
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Lucci coos, hands finding the folds of her hood, tugging gently on the fabric. It's new and that makes it amazing.
"In a way that is open and honest and equal with this manner of sentiment? I...trust two. And am yet working out how it is I might live with that- or if it is enough." It is different from Taliesin and Rinna and that is strange in its own way. "Mia I have come to trust like that. It is...she feels sentiment without desire, but the trust is there. That is enough. Taashath feels both but he is of the Qun and holds no claim over me."
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But then there is this tiny, fragile thing in her arms, and she marvels at it. To think that they all joined the world in such a way, that once she and Zevran were so tiny and unprotected, and someone had loved them well enough to keep them alive. The terrors came later, but first they had been loved, and they had trusted. Holding him in one arm, she disentangles her free hand from his grasp to tilts the shiny broach at her chest so it catches the light and grabs at his attention, maybe, though she looks to Zevran as she listens.
"Do you feel Mia does have some claim over you?" And, after a moment of considation, she angles her head. "It would be foolish to suggest you find love with both of them together, I assume."
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He watches them for a moment, weighing his options for a proper answer. Watches how Lucci's eyes follow that light, how his hands grasp instead at the shine provided by the broach. Grasping for what cannot be held- is that not love? Reaching and hoping for something they cannot touch or truly know? Exhaustion makes him poetic, apparently.
"No. We have spoken on the matter and...she knows I care. I know she cares as well. We promise nothing to one another nor make any claims, and she does not begrudge me my lovers." A beat. "I have done it before- the loving and being loved by two at once. It ended poorly. Jealousy is a terrible thing. I wish to avoid it."
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Or maybe she had begun it with the dance, and if it was a possibility that Morrigan cared for her (no) then it was also a possibility that it was Leliana who was going to hurt her, no matter if there was no thoughts of manipulation and villainy involved. Morrigan had been injured enough by her mother, and Leliana balks at the thought.
She frowns.
"If you feel you must decide, then... perhaps time is the only thing that will help you determine it. Or asking them to duel on the matter."
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Leliana apparently enjoys a challenge which comes as no surprise. That she comes to him to speak of it- that does.
"With Taliesin and Rinna we were three lovers together and in the Crows. Mia does not want me in her bed, Taas does not claim any one lover as his and his alone. The situations are very different- neither of them have claimed to literally own me for the bulk of my life. That helps." He manages a wry crackle of laughter at that- one that pulls a giggle from Lucci. "Morrigan is her own mystery. I am sorry I cannot offer you more."
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She remembers Taliesin - remembers killing him. That had been a day just as any other, marked as significant only because of what he had said of Zevran, of a man who had been her brother already.
"I imagine it does," she agrees, brow still pinched, even as Zevran and Luciano laugh. Adorable, but not entirely a salve for this. "You will weather it, Zevran. If the thought of settling on either option disappoints you, then perhaps you have your answer." A pause, and, "although the same can be said for ordering dessert, so perhaps that is not the soundest advice for such a situation as this, for all that love and dessert are comparatively indulgent and sickening." A wry smile of her own, at that.
"It is not matter to apologise for. She shall remain so. There is no need to cause disturbance for a foolish infatuation."
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"I am content with things as they are. A lover when I have need of it- and the constant support of Mia as best she can offer. It is more than I thought I might have." And more than enough for him- for now. At the moment his mind and his concerns weigh heavily upon the infant that has come so unexpectedly into his life.
"Does she make you happy? Love is not always happiness- there are obligations and complications enough to ensure that is so. But some joy must come from it- otherwise it is foolish and it is wasteful."
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"Then that is a reason to be glad." She hopes it remains so. And for her to possibly begin vetting these people and ensuring they are worthy, but that could wait. "But be sure to let Alistair suffer a little long. Actually," Leliana pauses, twisting to better face Zevran, "did he talk to you about Morrigan and I? Perhaps he is eager to matchmake all of us."
A long, slow sigh, and she lets her head fall back a bit so she can look at the ceiling. "I don't know," she admits, for perhaps the hundredth time in this conversation, sighing at herself. "She is the first person I consider talking to," Leliana admits off-handly, "And that is unreliable."
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How wrong he had been.
"Are you and he speaking again?" He knows Alistair speaks to Morrigan- or rather at Morrigan. Why, he does not know. But he has tried to encourage it, especially in light of his conversation with his mother.
"No, but it is indicative of wanting her company. Of enjoying it. For most everything, for a fair while? I had you and Alistair and I was content. Now things are a little different." But then he misstepped with the Nightingale and Alistair is so certain of his impending death. "It could be worth considering, you and she."
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And then she started thinking about it, and then everything became infinitely more complex, of course.
"Or, possibly, it is indicative of a certain sort of masochism." Leliana knows better even as she says it, but it is safer to bristle and to maintain distance. She is, for all intents and purposes, a chantry hedgehog. And she shakes her head. "Even if I have romantic and if they are returned in some form, I remain the Nightingale. Morrigan and Kieran deserve more than a shadow, and they deserve more time than I have to give."
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