"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."
"Tell me you at least looked at the shoes." A gift is no true apology- but while he cannot expect her to accept either he can remain quite curious. "He rambles when he is well, too. And drunk. And tired. And hungry- he is never quiet, our Alistair."
What a terrible burden it is.
"He may be remembering a wager from a decade ago, thus my assistance is somewhat selfish. He said it would take fifteen years for anything to come of it, I said less. The sooner you kiss her? The more coin I make. Of course that was back when we were running odd, strange errands like putting blood on an alter or taking artifacts from one cave to another for the promise of five silvers and I cannot quite remember how much it was for." Probably not enough for this much turmoil. "The Nightingale is part of you, this is true. But you are more than that. And if anyone can understand the importance of time spent elsewhere? I think Morrigan might."
An extended pause. "I did," she admits, finally. "I was surprised you got the size right after so long." Then again when you are frequently lotting bodies fo shoes and Maker knows what else, you gained a familiarity with who could fit what. She was impressed they managed to find so much to fit Sten. "They are beautiful, though. Thank you."
And now her eyebrows raise.
"A wager?" It is just incredulous enough that in the moment she sounds more like she did during the Blight, animated and indignant. "You made a wager on me wanting to kiss Morrigan? She was awful." Arguably she still could be.
He made good points but she is distracted by tiny hands reaching for her broch, and by being indignant as hell.
"Some things are impossible to forget." Especially when boots were not a matter of boots but of grip and a light tread and something to protect the shins. When looting or buying equipment to keep themselves alive, one learns things. One remembers.
He could pick out boots, gloves, and full armor for everyone they traveled with a decade ago, give or take a little space.
"...Yes? I made a bet with Oghren that Sten and Alistair would kiss in the same amount of time. These are idle things. The stuff you say when you are bored and on the road and tired of playing I Spy with a qunari."
"Oh." Her indignance softens off, her back straightens again, and it is something like like the Leliana of old and closer to the Nightingale once more. Still, the Nightingale holding a baby and playing with him is perhaps never going to be so much the Nightingale that people see day to day. There are vestiges of who she used to be that she cannot shake off, for all that she denies them.
Still, the thought of Sten and Oghren wins something more from her - not quite a laugh, nor a smile, but something. A lightness. "Do you remember how Sten would stop to smell flowers, when he thought no one was looking?"
Luccio takes the moment to reach up and swipe for that bright, pretty red hair. He is going to make trouble for himself if he is not careful and Zevran likely ought to say something- but the image is still too charming for him to bother.
Especially when some of that shadow drifts back and there are glimmers of the girl he'd teased on the road. "I remember the face he made when you told him you saw him with that kitten and string."
Oh, no. It has begun. Leliana tilts her head back to try and evade Luciano's grip, but she supposes that lone braid must be especially taunting. Perhaps if she does something with the hood-- she pulls it back up, using it to cover part of her face, before flipping it back and making a face at him.
And that brings a dawning realisation, when coupled with the kitten and string comment.
"Mm." Lightly: "If you ever tell anyone about this, you will regret it."
For the first time since Leliana called him out for hiding Anders? Zevran smiles at her earnestly. Openly and without reservation, far too charmed by his boy trying to reach her hair or reach her face or reach anything- and by Leliana cooing. Playing with his little light.
How darling. Perhaps he might sketch this while his boy sleeps.
"No one will hear of it from me, and Lucci is a bit young to be telling your secrets." He reaches out to stroke his boy's hair. "I do not want anyone to know of him- they will want to visit and become attached and I am certain he is safe anywhere else."
That is the main reason he has not yet told Alistair.
"Oh, that I know. That does not mean that if you should one day make knowledge of him more widely known that this would not come to the fore."
And she will remember. Except without any actual concern to be had, because she wouldn't really mind. Probably. Maybe.
She pauses, head canting just slightly to the side, and unfortunately leaving her hair momentarily in grabbing range. "One could contend that there is nowhere safer than the Inquisition," she starts, but there is a slowness and a caution in it that belies that this apparent safehaven is the place from which the Crows plucked Zevran scant months ago. "If you wanted to keep him by your side. Arrangements could surely be made."
A poor show of pragmatism, but Zevran is her friend. If this is what would be necessary for his happiness, and perhaps his safety through that, she would find a means to see it done.
An opportune moment! Much like his father before him when Lucci sees the opening offered? He takes it, chubby hand slipping up to grasp at that hanging braid.
If he were not so certain that he had no place as a father, Zevran would feel more pride.
Well. That is untrue- he feels quite a bit of pride, a strange warmth in his chest that aches, but he cannot quite so easily express it. "It does occur to me that anyone I might send him to is already here. That sending him away would not keep me from wondering if he is well. I simply..."
His hand falls away, eyes dark, uncertain. "I am no father, Leliana. How am I to raise a child? I have my hands full with the dog and Alistair."
Leliana makes a quiet sound, neither surprise nor pain and possibly amused, as she eyes the child in her arms. "Typical," is all she offers, exhaling it with something almost like a laugh.
"No one is a parent until they find themselves faced with a child, I suspect." She, herself, had been vocally incredulous about Morrigan's ability as a mother, until she saw her with Kieran. "You have your friends, many of them, at the ready to support you. And I think... remember from your own childhood what it was you desired. Love, acceptance, kindness-- you can offer those in abundance."
And she is going to gently extricate her braid from Luciano's deathgrip. "Learning as you go, improvising to suit a situation... those are skills of yours as well, I seem to recall."
Lucci is loathe to give up the shining prize, large, blue eyes welling up with tears when Leliana finally frees that pretty red hair. Until the shrieking starts, and it would, Zevran means to let her handle it however she thinks best.
"I will...consider it. You know? Alistair joked about my fathering a child some time ago. A jest about 'little zevrans' with their little knives. What I told him then I think holds true now." Ah, there is the hitching burble of breath that is the beginning of a sob. Without thought and without hesitation Zevran tugs the end of his braid over his shoulder, pressing it into Lucci's hand. "We want their lives to be better than our own. I do not know that I can provide that for him."
"That is hardly playing fair," she informs the little bundle, pouting at him a little, exaggerated, before gently tickling his tummy with the pad of her forefinger.
For a moment she just looks at Zevran in silence, expression softening, mouth catching with something that doesn't quite make it to a smile.
"You can. You would never do to him what was done to you. And finding family when you had none... surely that is too great an opportunity to pass up."
For the moment all seems well and Lucci? Giggles. Burbles with laughter that only hitches as he remembers he is meant to be sad. It passes. There is this warmth, this softness, this incredibly fragile thing in Leliana's eyes and hands.
"...finding that I wish to try and that, perhaps, I might not need to send him away to do it...it is a frightening thought." He'd never planned on children. His bloodline was not meant to pass on. "There'd been a time in the Crows where I had a dream of being free with a woman I loved. I thought, perhaps, we might have children. Then she died and the world spun on and I put such things away."
"It is you who urges me not to give up all that is past. Perhaps you should extend yourself the same advice, hm? Those possibilities need not have been set aside permanently."
It is a kindness, a generosity, that she would extend to her people before she would council herself the same way, but she can accept she is a hypocrit if it helps people. Necessity, always.
"Besides, fear is what keeps life interesting, hm?"
"...would you- ah." He looks up to Leliana- one way or the other the child will be here for this and Luccio deserves as much as he can offer. Which, in turn, includes those he keeps in his life. "Would you stand as his Madrina at his anointing? I do not know how it is done in Fereldan or Orlais but- we have witnesses, in Antiva. Parents in Spirit to help guide the child in the Chantry's ways- or to raise him should anything happen to me."
Of all the things he could have possibly said, that is not what she would expect.
"Me?"
After all that has been said between them, or not said. After she has become something he would appear to consider something repugnant, dangerous - a corruption of a sweet girl he once knew.
But she can protect, and viciously. She is a woman of faith, she understands what freedom is and what it means. There are benefits to having connections to those in power, and yet she does not think that is why Zevran is asking this.
It hurts, but in a better way than most hurts tend to strike. "I would be honoured, Zevran."
"Well...yes." He quirks a brow at her. "Leliana- I have never known someone so driven by faith in all my years. While I myself am not quite so much as you, that is due to the Crows."
Any good Antivan child knew the Chant by the time they were seven. The Crows filled that space with murder instead.
"I would trust few others with his care- but should anything happen to me? I know you would raise him kindly and raise him well." He lifts a hand to her shoulder, squeezing it gently. "You are my sister."
It would be a bad time to mention how shaken her faith has been these past months, with all that has happened. At the root of it, though, her love for the Maker remains. It is the Chantry that she has truly lost faith in, the cruelty that they impress upon others so relentlessly, but that is a topic for another time, and she simply nods.
"He could share a basket with Schmooples," Leliana says very lightly, before she cants her head very slightly, fixing Zevran with a look that's somewhere between-- somewhere between gratitude and understanding and certainty, because she would. She would raise him kindly, and she would guard him viciously.
"And you are my brother." It is not easy to say; she manages to make it sound as if there were nothing more natural for her to give voice.
"Ah, this is how I know you love him already." Zevran crackles a soft laugh satisfied that he has made the right choice. Oh the Chantry may not be ideal-but faith, morality, goodness. These things tempered by practicality will do his son well. And none could be a more kind teacher than his Leliana.
"He would have the best bedtime stories in all of Thedas." If she felt fit to tell them, it feels as though Sister Nightingale might not often have cause.
Perhaps this will change things.
"Zia Leliana, he will call you when he can speak."
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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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What a terrible burden it is.
"He may be remembering a wager from a decade ago, thus my assistance is somewhat selfish. He said it would take fifteen years for anything to come of it, I said less. The sooner you kiss her? The more coin I make. Of course that was back when we were running odd, strange errands like putting blood on an alter or taking artifacts from one cave to another for the promise of five silvers and I cannot quite remember how much it was for." Probably not enough for this much turmoil. "The Nightingale is part of you, this is true. But you are more than that. And if anyone can understand the importance of time spent elsewhere? I think Morrigan might."
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And now her eyebrows raise.
"A wager?" It is just incredulous enough that in the moment she sounds more like she did during the Blight, animated and indignant. "You made a wager on me wanting to kiss Morrigan? She was awful." Arguably she still could be.
He made good points but she is distracted by tiny hands reaching for her broch, and by being indignant as hell.
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He could pick out boots, gloves, and full armor for everyone they traveled with a decade ago, give or take a little space.
"...Yes? I made a bet with Oghren that Sten and Alistair would kiss in the same amount of time. These are idle things. The stuff you say when you are bored and on the road and tired of playing I Spy with a qunari."
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Still, the thought of Sten and Oghren wins something more from her - not quite a laugh, nor a smile, but something. A lightness. "Do you remember how Sten would stop to smell flowers, when he thought no one was looking?"
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Especially when some of that shadow drifts back and there are glimmers of the girl he'd teased on the road. "I remember the face he made when you told him you saw him with that kitten and string."
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And that brings a dawning realisation, when coupled with the kitten and string comment.
"Mm." Lightly: "If you ever tell anyone about this, you will regret it."
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How darling. Perhaps he might sketch this while his boy sleeps.
"No one will hear of it from me, and Lucci is a bit young to be telling your secrets." He reaches out to stroke his boy's hair. "I do not want anyone to know of him- they will want to visit and become attached and I am certain he is safe anywhere else."
That is the main reason he has not yet told Alistair.
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And she will remember. Except without any actual concern to be had, because she wouldn't really mind. Probably. Maybe.
She pauses, head canting just slightly to the side, and unfortunately leaving her hair momentarily in grabbing range. "One could contend that there is nowhere safer than the Inquisition," she starts, but there is a slowness and a caution in it that belies that this apparent safehaven is the place from which the Crows plucked Zevran scant months ago. "If you wanted to keep him by your side. Arrangements could surely be made."
A poor show of pragmatism, but Zevran is her friend. If this is what would be necessary for his happiness, and perhaps his safety through that, she would find a means to see it done.
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If he were not so certain that he had no place as a father, Zevran would feel more pride.
Well. That is untrue- he feels quite a bit of pride, a strange warmth in his chest that aches, but he cannot quite so easily express it. "It does occur to me that anyone I might send him to is already here. That sending him away would not keep me from wondering if he is well. I simply..."
His hand falls away, eyes dark, uncertain. "I am no father, Leliana. How am I to raise a child? I have my hands full with the dog and Alistair."
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"No one is a parent until they find themselves faced with a child, I suspect." She, herself, had been vocally incredulous about Morrigan's ability as a mother, until she saw her with Kieran. "You have your friends, many of them, at the ready to support you. And I think... remember from your own childhood what it was you desired. Love, acceptance, kindness-- you can offer those in abundance."
And she is going to gently extricate her braid from Luciano's deathgrip. "Learning as you go, improvising to suit a situation... those are skills of yours as well, I seem to recall."
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"I will...consider it. You know? Alistair joked about my fathering a child some time ago. A jest about 'little zevrans' with their little knives. What I told him then I think holds true now." Ah, there is the hitching burble of breath that is the beginning of a sob. Without thought and without hesitation Zevran tugs the end of his braid over his shoulder, pressing it into Lucci's hand. "We want their lives to be better than our own. I do not know that I can provide that for him."
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For a moment she just looks at Zevran in silence, expression softening, mouth catching with something that doesn't quite make it to a smile.
"You can. You would never do to him what was done to you. And finding family when you had none... surely that is too great an opportunity to pass up."
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"...finding that I wish to try and that, perhaps, I might not need to send him away to do it...it is a frightening thought." He'd never planned on children. His bloodline was not meant to pass on. "There'd been a time in the Crows where I had a dream of being free with a woman I loved. I thought, perhaps, we might have children. Then she died and the world spun on and I put such things away."
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It is a kindness, a generosity, that she would extend to her people before she would council herself the same way, but she can accept she is a hypocrit if it helps people. Necessity, always.
"Besides, fear is what keeps life interesting, hm?"
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"Me?"
After all that has been said between them, or not said. After she has become something he would appear to consider something repugnant, dangerous - a corruption of a sweet girl he once knew.
But she can protect, and viciously. She is a woman of faith, she understands what freedom is and what it means. There are benefits to having connections to those in power, and yet she does not think that is why Zevran is asking this.
It hurts, but in a better way than most hurts tend to strike. "I would be honoured, Zevran."
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Any good Antivan child knew the Chant by the time they were seven. The Crows filled that space with murder instead.
"I would trust few others with his care- but should anything happen to me? I know you would raise him kindly and raise him well." He lifts a hand to her shoulder, squeezing it gently. "You are my sister."
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"He could share a basket with Schmooples," Leliana says very lightly, before she cants her head very slightly, fixing Zevran with a look that's somewhere between-- somewhere between gratitude and understanding and certainty, because she would. She would raise him kindly, and she would guard him viciously.
"And you are my brother." It is not easy to say; she manages to make it sound as if there were nothing more natural for her to give voice.
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"He would have the best bedtime stories in all of Thedas." If she felt fit to tell them, it feels as though Sister Nightingale might not often have cause.
Perhaps this will change things.
"Zia Leliana, he will call you when he can speak."
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