My Warden (COMPLETED)

Reunion

"That could have gone worse."

The Divine's voice floated over the partition between them, a paper thin curtain that gave Lana a view of her reclining silhouette as practiced hands smoothed some mashed fruit concoction over Leliana's body. Lana's limbs felt as if they weighed another fifty pounds each, but a proud exhaustion rolled through her body. She'd lasted twice as long as the first time she swam, even managing to try a little dive here and there. Wrapped in a robe they were keeping back special for the 'friend of the Divine,' Lana watched her pampered toes knock back and forth as she reclined on a padded deck chair.

"Perhaps I am unfamiliar with worse in Divine speak," Lana said, raising her voice to overcome the partition, "but I'd say having his sister walk in unannounced and threaten to drag him back to Ferelden is pretty high up there."

"Nonsense," Leliana scoffed, the silhouette of her hand waving before one of the attendants grabbed it to coat her arm in the mixture. "There were no duels of honor, no one tried to start a war, and no chantry cleric floated the idea of someone faking their death. Maker, I don't know what it is about small town Mothers and faking deaths but that's their answer to every problem."

"You're being facetious," Lana laughed.

Leliana yanked back on the curtain revealing her normally spotless visage coated in a disturbingly lumpy green and brown mixture. As she spoke a fruity scent floated off her rather swampy look. "Three different Mothers across Orlais all came up with the same plan to deal with a pair of barely adults who wanted to run away and get married."

"What did you suggest?"

"Give them a project that they have to accomplish together; anything that takes two days. Either they'll realize they're young and can't imagine spending the rest of their lives together, or it's true love and marry them without all the simulating death potions. Maker, where do they get these outlandish ideas?"

"Says the bard," Lana cut back with, folding her fluffy arms across her stomach. She accidentally scattered a cheese plate someone left out for her, not that there was much left on it to scatter.

"Ha," Leliana leaned back to her chair, but didn't close the curtain, "touché." The attendants pulled out a knife and Lana tensed up, but they only used it to slice apart a hunk of wood and place two wedges over Leliana's eyes. Lana yearned to ask what was the point, but she remembered she was in Val Royeaux; points were beyond Orlesians. Sometimes you did things simply because if you didn't you'd be wrong.

"Have you given much thought to the family situation?" Leliana asked from below her wood and fruit encrusted body. Watching her, Lana began to imagine ants sensing the feast coating her skin and come scurrying over to bite it all off. Absently, she scratched at her legs in her friend's honor.

"I...I don't know. What am I supposed to do? She's his sister."

"Are they close?"

Lana shrugged, "He'd never admit it as such, but he mentions her often and they do write. I think Cullen likes to pretend he's above it all while enjoying the foundation of his siblings."

"So poison's probably out." The attendants both paused, their eyes darting around in concern, so Lana put on her biggest laugh.

"Leliana, do not be so silly," she laughed again, pretending to clutch her stomach from how silly her friend was being. She'd never use poison to kill someone, not the Divine. Leliana on the other hand... "I feel like I'm on unsteady ground here trying to cast a crushing prison on a Emissary before it hits me back. Probably with a mortality curse no less. For being mindless, darkspawn sure love that one."