Unbearable Beauty

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time. ~ Albert Camus

He had forgotten what it felt like to be warm.

True, the temperature had slowly been increasing as they sailed, but it was nothing compared to the wall of moist heat that greeted him when he stepped off the boat and onto the Seheron shoreline.

Home.

For the first few days, he had felt too warm, his body having apparently adjusted to the ridiculously cold temperatures of Ferelden. The colors seemed too bright as well. Unlike the muted palette of dull green, brown, and grey, everything here was vibrant and alive. In the morning, the leaves in the canopy that stretched out over the path that led from his dwelling glowed with the sun's rays, dappling the ground beneath like water running over stones. Tiny monkeys scattered wildly through the branches as he walked past, chattering and screeching their displeasure. At night, as he turned back the blankets in his bed, the perfume from the orchids that opened only under moonlight gradually permeated the air until he slept.

It felt good to be back, like slipping on a well-worn pair of boots. Everything here was as ordered and logical as he remembered, and it was a relief to leave the chaos and confusion of the past year behind… at least at first.

Old routines were resumed as he reconnected with his comrades and neighbors. He hadn't realized how much he had missed the kinship of his fellow-minded Qunari until he had been deprived of them for so long. As the days turned to weeks, however, he was displeased at how often his thoughts returned to his old companions: the Warden and the golem, Shale; the assassin; the dwarf. While their presence had been… annoying, it was still somewhat odd to not have to listen to their endless streams of banter. It was no wonder that Ferelden had no monkeys; they would have been driven mad.

More so than the others, however, it was the bard who invaded his thoughts. It was a series of little things. The tiny lizard that had clambered lazily up the wall while he was eating his evening meal was no different than the thousands of others that he had seen throughout his life. A common species, they were everywhere; basking on the hot stone walls of most dwellings as the sun set. This time, he had looked at the lizard and had seen… more. Its scales were an iridescent green that caught the sunlight like the sparkles in the waves and its movements were so graceful and effortless. How had he never noticed—truly noticed—these creatures before? She would have noticed them, admired the fluidity of movement, the shock of color on the rough stone. She found the beauty in the small things, always.

As he cleaned his armor, sitting cross-legged on the ground with the rest of the soldiers of the new company that he had been assigned to, he found his gaze wandering to a blue feather that was caught in the grass. It was the color of her eyes. He watched it ruffling in the breeze until it was aloft, the feathered puff dancing in the air current until he finally lost sight of it.

There was so much beauty here, but he'd never seen it, never cared. Now, it was all he saw.

oOoOo

When the Warden had released him from the cage in Lothering, he had not been surprised to learn that the bard had been instrumental in securing his release. She had always acknowledged his presence when she had walked past, not like the other cowardly priestesses who would march along with their heads down, afraid to meet his eyes.

For a time, he had found her prattle irritating, much like the others. When the decision was made to have two people awake for each watch—after several nasty ambushes—he had been paired with her, more often than not. As they had sat together by the fire each night, she had told stories. Sometimes she had sung, her voice as clear and sharp as the edge of a blade in the darkness. There had been something in the way she had woven her words that had spoken to him, drawing out something buried deep inside him. While the purpose and moral of most of her stories had eluded him, he had been left with a series of images that had seemed to resonate in a way he did not understand.

He had found himself beginning to notice the way the sunlight turned the loose strands of her hair into wisps of fire.

When she had caught him picking flowers while he was waiting for the Warden and Alistair to return from hunting, she had teased him playfully. Truthfully, he had been mortified, crushing the delicate wildflowers in his fist and shoving the fragments into his pack with a grunt. She had mentioned once that she liked this variety, in particular, but he had not told her that they were going to be for her.

She fought well and he had enjoyed sparring with her. Her techniques had been different enough, compared to the brute strength of his own training, that it had been a suitable challenge for both of them. It had been a moment of startled realization the first time he had called her kadan, the word falling from his lips both unexpected and heavy with truth.

It had certainly not hurt matters that she had begun leaving small wrapped packets of cookies in his pack after each town they had passed through. When he had asked her about it, she had merely smiled and remarked that she had known that he liked them. That smile—it did something to him. He had shared them with her—only her—while they had sat on watch, the crystallized sugar melting on his tongue.

They had fought the Archdemon together, a long and fierce battle that had made him feel alive in an exquisite fulfillment of purpose, a weapon to be wielded. The bard had faltered only at the end, thrown back against the stone by a wicked whip of the beast's tail. Afterward, he had carried her down from the roof, amazed at how light she was and at how, in her pained delirium, she had done nothing but murmur his name. He had stayed by her side as she had recovered; this time, he had told the stories, and she had listened. He had talked of the Qun, the parables that the Tamassrans—the priestesses who raised all the children of the Qunari—had used to teach him.

It had been then that he had realized that his own purpose here was complete; the oddly bittersweet epiphany that he had the answers he had been sent here to seek… and it was time for him to go home.

Weeks later, she had come to the docks with him and they had sat together on an old crate near the water while they waited for the ship to be fully reloaded before it was ready to set sail. They hadn't spoken, sitting side by side, and he had been surprised by her silence—she was never quiet, always talking, singing, humming. Looking back on it now, he wondered if she had been feeling the same sort of reluctance that had pulled at him, something akin to regret. When the captain had called for him to come aboard, she had smiled a little too brightly before leaning forward to place a kiss on his cheek.

He didn't know how it was possible, but the memory of that kiss had stayed with him, seared into his skin long after he could no longer see her, an ocean stretching out between them.

oOoOo

He crouched down next to the entrance of his dwelling, poking at the earth where he had planted the dried seeds that he had gathered from the bottom of his pack. There was only one feeble sprout growing, no matter how much attention he lavished on the rest of the ground he had seeded. Was the climate here too hot? Too wet? Each morning, he tended this patch of soil, fending back the jungle that threatened to overgrow his tiny plot.

The sprout hung on, growing a little taller and straighter until a closed bud began to form. He waited patiently, lingering over it in the evenings now as well.

It was in the relative coolness of the dawn that it opened, white petals unfurling in the pale light—one perfect flower that she had told him was called Andraste's Grace. He bent down, extraordinarily careful not to accidentally crush it, and inhaled the sweet scent that he remembered from her hair.

It was one bloom, an object of unbearable beauty that he knew would be fleeting, doomed to be burned by the fierceness of the sun here.

Yet, somehow, it was enough.

kadan – that which is held close to the heart

A/N: This story is for Lady Cailan and her amazing guesswork in the CMDA Secret Santa Fic Exchange. Her request was for Sten/Leliana with romantic leanings, but no fluff and maybe some angst. I really love how this story turned out and I really, really hope you like it, too. :)

Thank you so much to Josie Lange for being my faithful one-shot dumping ground and beta reading this one, too. Thank you!