#cw a cute trans girl says “i see you scars and all” sfgjksfhgk

[sometimesraven]

I Can See Through The Scars Inside You

Whumptober No. 10: “Can’t you see that you’re lost without me?”

Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition POV Character: f!Lavellan Whumpee: Lavellan

Miriel doesn't know who she is without Solas. Adris wants to find out.

AO3 Link

"My dreams are growing more abstract. Tonight was only smoke and fire, confused screaming... And the eyes of a wolf. You are lost, it told me. In his voice. Perhaps I am."

Lavellan was startled out of her thoughts by the sound of gentle padding footsteps on creaking wood. Adris tried her best, bless her, but there was no sound that did not carry in the quiet of their back-alley Orlais home. Shaking off the sudden spike in her heart-rate, she quickly docked her quill and closed her journal, spinning to greet her friend with a warm smile.

"Sorry," Adris hummed, their freckled shoulders offering a meek shrug of apology. "We need a rug."

"Wouldn't make much difference," Miriel assured, her smile falling through almost as quickly as it had come. She couldn't shake the image of those canine blue eyes out of her mind. In a second, Adris had crossed the room to kneel in front of her, taking pale, trembling hands into eternally warm brown; Adris' larger hands engulfed her own almost entirely.

"Look at me," she murmured, bright hazel-green staring into Miriel's soul as if they could replace the burning of her dream -- and they almost did. "Does it help? Writing it all down like that?"

"Sometimes." Miriel's gaze fluttered for a moment, heavy from a wave of fatigue as if she hadn't slept at all. She could hear Adris breathe a concerned sigh through her nose, resting their foreheads together; grounding the thoughts away.

"For what it's worth," she said, "I don't think you're lost."

The care in her fellow Dalish's words squeezed Lavellan's chest. How could she look upon this... this mess of a creature, scarred and sickly and fragile and sleepless, and think there was anything more to be found? The confusion quickly turned sour, pushing Adris away and shooting to her feet to pace. "You don't know that. You can't know that. If you knew-.."

"I don't know because you don't say!" Adris' voice wasn't quite angry, but it was certainly raised as she watched Miriel all but wear holes in the floorboards. "You can't keep holding in whatever it is you think is so broken about you. You're not more special than any of us just because you're big. You still get to feel."

"No, Adris, I don't." Miriel didn't know if she looked to her fellow with rage or pure desperation. Something inside her screamed, begged to be set free, but it wasn't that simple. It could never be that simple again. "You don't know the burden of leadership you never asked for. You don't know the weight of having a body that betrays you with every waking hour. You don't know what it is to have your dreams haunted by a man you haven't seen in four bloody years, or a woman you killed with your own cowardice. You don't know the pain of knowing your decisions caused the deaths of thousands of people, your own clan included. You don't know the kind of bitter, evil hatred that sits in my gut every time I have to think about the Creators, or the Chantry, or the bloody shemlen outside our door who look to me for answers but would kill me in the same breath! You don't know the madness that drove me to this!" She gestured roughly to the self-inflicted scars on her own cheek, "Or what it is to feel every bone in your hand cramping only to remember he took that with you along with your heart!"

Her breath choked and her legs gave way, crumpling her painfully to the ground as sobs hiccuped from her throat without permission, like they had been waiting a lifetime for the chance to escape her. Adris didn't move, watching her with wide, wet eyes until she spoke again; a hushed, hoarse whisper this time. "All of that-.. If I show it, for-.. for even a moment. I will be weak. Our enemies will see their chance and close in upon us. You don't know-.. You don't know how hard I have to try to stay hidden. I can't let them see me, Adris. I can't."

There was a long silence before the creaking of her footsteps sounded again. Slowly, Adris knelt before her, hand slowly cupping her scarred cheek and lifting her gaze once more. "They aren't here, Miri. I am. I see you, you have to know that. More than the pain. I could never know how hard it is to be in your body, but I know how it feels to be outside. How bright you are. I don't see some broken fragile little thing, you know? I see you. Scars and all. I see you."

And for the first time in the long years since solace was the arms of a god, Miriel almost believed it.