PSL - Starwind/Zevran

[suaveleather]

Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence

                In the first year or so following Rinna’s death Zevran had mourned the love which was lost, in his own peculiar way of course.  He had thrown himself into his work, his will to live not completely gone but thrown to the side as guilt consumed him.  The idea of love scared him but the idea of a raven haired beauty revisiting him in his nightmares, throwing accusations upon him, scared him that much more.

                In the first month or so following his joining of a certain Grey Warden Zevran had mourned his freedom yet followed the flame-haired beauty’s instruction none-the-less.  The more time he spent with her the more his former lover visited his dreams, accusations worsening each night until Zevran chose to fight until exhaustion.  Only then did were his dreams less violent but still the Rinna’s ghost visited upon him.

                Yet one night, without warning, his nightmares changed.  No longer did his raven-haired ghost visit upon him.  No longer did her cold touch caress his tan skin, promising to pull him into a hell he had flung her into.  No, not at all.  The nightmare was a new kind of torture which he had never dreamed of before.  The nightmare was one of love, an odd one which he had never asked for and which made him yearn for more when he awoke the next morning.  No, the raven hair was gone, cast aside, and yet he dreamed of caresses still.  He dream of pale hair and paler skin, a small frame pressed upon as it whispered foreign words into his curved ear.

“Ashke.”

Zevran’s dark lips turned the foreign word over as he sat by the fireside, his fingers running along the smooth side of his daggers.  The image of feathers visited upon his mind yet he could not identify his dream lover.  A name, not forgotten but lost during the chaos of battle, escaped him and made him feel empty.

Ah how he needed to be filled.  In more ways than one.

That night the elf visited the tent of one of the visiting mages, determined to find what was lost.  He needed to feel whole and what better way than to be filled, so to speak.  Yet, as pale as the mage was, as light as his hair was it was not right.  The thin fingers trailed over his skin and out of the corner of his eye Zevran saw a ghost.

Without a word he had climbed out of the bedding the next morning, guilt gnawing in his stomach.  He had woken up so hopeful, believing to wake up to a whispered language he could not remember.  He had expected to see feather light hair splayed over the covers, a feminine face lying on his chest and pale fingers hold onto him, searching for warmth.

No, this was not to be found. 

As the morning rays of light settled upon the camp Zevran dressed in his armor, readying for the oncoming final battle.  There were more important matters to consider and his dream lover must come last.  For a moment, just a moment, he thought he heard the word pass by his ear.  He had believed he felt a hand upon his shoulder and a well wish echoed in his head.  As the soldiers gathered nearby Zevran joined the side of his red-haired Warden, a cocky smirk upon his face and, for the first time in a long while, he felt as if was that much closer to being whole.

Comments

HERE HAVE ALL MY TEAL DEER

[adeptable]

Nothing was right about this place. From the strange forest he'd woken in with nothing familiar nearby, the spark of Mages in the wrong place and far too concentrated to the way the Magic beneath and around him ran wild and untamed--as it should have been, and damageless. There was no need for him in this place. As grand an idea as that was, it was...difficult to reconcile. When one has already resigned themselves to the fact that they'll be dead before their work is finished, and then to find it waiting already done (or, more likely, never needed)...

The first reaction was tears. He wasn't sure how long he cried. No, nothing was right of this place...except...for a soft pull of something... But the name slipped away when he tried to remember. He could only indulge that for so long and, dammit, he'd lived in forests his entire life. He'd been trained since birth to survive being separated from home and family.

The Tayledras didn't die easily.

He wandered, purposeless, for days, then weeks, then he stopped counting. He killed what he needed, moved when too many younglings came searching for hauntings. Rumors and stories of ghosts in the forest followed behind him like children, but he had long ago ceased paying attention to stories. Some said the ghost was a boy who had wandered into the forest and gotten lost, killed by his own body's needs or a wild animal. Others said it was a young girl, left on the eve of her wedding. Her suicide, they said, was of the grief of loneliness and kept her tied to the forest, even after death, searching for something to ease her grief.

They couldn't possibly know how close to right they were. He had lost something, was still searching for it, was empty without it. And that voice that Vanyel had once called "ancient rocks and deep water" remained silent. There was no one to speak to, so why should he speak? Only the birds of the place seemed to gather around him, sense that something was off about this man who hadn't been here before, tried to comfort him in their utterly innocent ways.

It was only by accident that he stumbled across that something feeling again, stronger this time. It pulled him to the edges of a campful of strange people that he almost entered but...something held him back and he instead watched from the fringes, observing only. Even the birds were obligingly silent for him.

Until he laid eyes on one of the darker ones. Then he couldn't help the half-strangled whisper that escaped from him before he could clamp a hand over his mouth.

"Ashke..."

And he almost ran to him--but again...something kept him hidden behind the safety of the trees.

From there he followed the group, always on the border between ghost and substance, always just beyond sight and into thought. He watched and whispered, not sure what to do with himself any longer. He watched as the dark-skinned elf visited another of the mages that night before what would be their final battle and he almost thought that he was right to stay beyond reach. Yet, in the morning when he left the tent, and the ghost watched, he wondered if that had been the right conclusion.

Yet, as they prepared for the fight, he couldn't resist any longer. A gentle mindtouch was all it took. Words and feelings of love, concern, hope...sensations of embraces, touches, caresses that he could only half-remember, might have been delusions for either of them.

It was all he could do for now, alongside praying to a goddess who had never lived in this place that they all would return whole.

He could only hope that would be enough.