Unspoken

Chapter 7

Leliana rushes to check on Morrigan. She kneels down next to her. Fear takes over her mind and her hands are shaking. The worst case scenario starts to play in her head. She realizes this could be it, this could be the moment she loses the woman she still loves despite everything that happened and how much she got hurt. She feels a stinging pain in her chest. Letting her walk out of her life was hard enough, but this? The thought of losing her forever really makes her fight back tears.

Her heart is racing as she very carefully turns Morrigan’s body around to see her face and the wound. The moment she sees that the witch is in fact still breathing lets her ease her tensed muscles at least a little bit. She is paler than usual for sure, there is a lot of blood and it doesn’t look like it would stop bleeding anytime soon. The wound looks deep but the position gives her hope that no organs has been damaged.

“Morrigan…?” the redhead calls her, but she gets no response.


The bard hurries to get her bag and takes out some bandages to put on a printing compound to stop or at least slow down the bleeding.

This is her fault. She didn’t pay enough attention of her surroundings. If she didn’t get into that situation, Morrigan wouldn’t have helped her and let her own guard down while doing so and she would have noticed that Templar way earlier. And this … didn’t happen. If she doesn’t make it… she’s the only one to blame. And she will never forgive herself.

She looks at her shaking hands that are covered in Morrigan’s blood and has to fight the lump in her throat. No she cannot let that happen. She needs to get her back to the camp and treat that wound more properly. Also they cannot stay here between all these dead Templars, that’s for sure.

As Leliana is about to pick the witch up, she opens her eyes.


“Blast and damnation…!” she curses under her breath.


The bard almost tears up. Normally she would rebuke her for her language but she’s never been happier to hear her cursing.


“How do you feel…?”


“Never felt better.” She responds sarcastically and slowly tries to get up. She feels that throbbing pain coming from her shoulder area. It doesn’t even matter if she’s moving or not. It’s ridiculous how her instinct made her chose to protect the bard instead of turning around the moment she noticed someone sneaking up behind her. She’s lucky that this bastard had the worst aim and didn’t hit her lungs or her heart.

“Let’s leave this bloody wood already!” She sounds pretty fed up and who could deny her that.

Leliana offers her help to get up, but the witch refuses and uses her staff instead to get back on her feet.


“Alright. Let us go back to the camp before it gets dark, then return to Skyhold in the morning.”


With those words they get their bags and head back to their camp they set up near the river. They are both pretty exhausted. The only good news is that the bard found the two missing shards in the bag one of the red Templars was carrying. So at least they fulfilled the task.

When they arrive at the tent, Morrigan ignites the fireplace, then sits down in front of it. She’s still quite pale and her exhaustion is clearly visible even though she tries to hide it. The aching coming from her injury is very present.

Leliana sits down next to her with some clean cloths and fresh bandages. The compound she made earlier is already soaked in blood. She starts to gently take them off and clean the wound more properly this time.


And Morrigan lets her to her surprise.

„The cold blooded spymaster so caring, be careful or one might think we are still something like friends.“ Morrigan mocks her.

„Just because I’m mad at you it doesn’t mean I want you to get impaled by red Templars, Morrigan.“ she replies calmly, but firmly, her eyes on the injury.

The witch doesn‘t say anything, she silently watches the bard continuing her task.

Leliana finishes cleaning the wound and presses a clean cloth against it to hold the bleeding enough until her blade is hot enough to burn it out.

„You know, since you cannot really run away right now, you could finally explain to me why you left.“  Leliana demands, now looking directly at the witch and then takes one of her blades and holds it near the flames to slowly heat the metal.

Morrigan swallows, she forgot how intrigue her look can be. She feels already nervous enough because the redhead is unusual close to her but now she starts to feel a bit dizzy as well, it might be the blood loss that kicks in or maybe just the pain from the injury itself – probably a mix of all of them. She fears she might pass out that’s why she decides to just get over with it quick.

Her thoughts get interrupted when Leliana takes the cloth away and presses the glowing red blade against her wound. The witch lets out a painful groan and she clings to the fabric of her clothing. Every muscle in her body tenses. The blood hisses under the heat of the steel and after a moment the wound starts to seal itself up and the bleeding finally stops. Morrigan takes a deep breath.


“Bloody blast it!! Couldn’t you have warned me maybe??” she hisses und her breath.


“Sorry, I thought this was the most effective way.” She carefully wipes off the rest of the blood with a soft towel and some clean water.

“T’was the only solution that crossed my mind. I began to enjoy your company, a bit too much for my taste, it… confused me because I had no logical explanation for it. It was driving me mad. I never experienced anything similar to this in my life. Sometimes I got that sudden fear you might get seriously injured or even fall during a battle. It made me unfocused and weak, and it needed to stop.” Morrigan explains.

“And as you can easily see it still affects me to this day.” She scoffs and points her head to the wound on her shoulder.


The bard raises a brow, she’s surprised Morrigan actually gave her a serious and honest sounding answer.

“You know that I figured you didn’t exactly hate me, right? The change of tunes, the amount of time you started to spend with me, I’m trained to keep track of those little things. Did you really not notice I’ve been flirting with you for months? I waited for you to make a move, but you never did. Instead you vanished and left me brokenhearted and questioning my own perception, my skills as a bard. Everything.” She tries to sound calm but she can’t hide that she’s been hurt.


Morrigan gives her a puzzled look. She can’t believe that at the end of the day, that useless assassin Zevran was right. She did notice and it annoys her so much. Her head is starting to hurt a bit and the dizziness is definitely not getting better either. This whole conversation is just really frustrating and she clearly doesn’t have the energy to hold back her next words.

“And how would I know?? You are a bard, you flirt with literally everyone all the time.”

Leliana looks at the witch in utter disbelief. Those words, they feel like a knife right through her already broken heart.

“Wow. This is really what you think?!” the bard gets up in anger.

“Tis’ how it looked like for me.” She answers defending. “But why does it even bother you, you obviously found your romance in your precious ambassador, no?” the witch now points out what has been bothering her since the moment she arrived at the inquisition.

“Josie?!” she arches her brows. “Oh for Andraste’s sake, Josephine and I are friends, not lovers.” She sighs. “I cannot believe this, are you telling me you are seriously jealous??”

Morrigan now gets up as well to face her on the same level - she regrets this immediately. Her head starts spinning, her vision turns black. Then she faints.

“Morrigan!”

The bard catches her before she hits the floor then gently puts her on the ground. She places her hand on the witch’s forehead to check if she got a fever but fortunately it doesn’t feel any warmer than normal. The wound doesn’t look infected or poisoned either. It’s probably just the blood loss or the exhaustion that caused her fainting.

It’s getting dark, so she decides to get her into their tent. Leliana carefully lifts her teammate up and carries her inside the tent. She lays her on the sleeping mat on her back and raises her legs a few inches so they are above heart level to get the blood to flow towards her head. She is really glad she learned some basic medical knowledge during her time in Lothering because the sisters of the chantry often provide first aid for injured immigrants.

The redhead sighs and sits down next to the witch. She still tries to process their argument. The lack of communication really appears to be the reason for this mess. Too many things unspoken between the two of them, Josie was right – again.

She looks at Morrigan who’s lying next to her, breathing calmly. And even after their argument earlier, she dares to think that maybe it’s not too late to fix some previous mistakes… Maybe they could rebind where they parted. And the longer she thinks about it, the more she wants to keep this stubborn witch in her life.

A few moments later Morrigan wakes up and immediately wants to sit up.

“You should not get up yet, it’s a long way back to Skyhold and you will need your energy tomorrow.“ Leliana warns her.

Morrigan lets out an annoyed sigh but she does lay back down. She has to admit that the redhead is right about that point. And she does feel quite exhausted. Her mind is restless, somehow she’s glad she fainted, who knows how that argument would have ended if it didn’t get interrupted. Maybe they would have had a serious fight or stopped talking to each other completely. She regrets already some of the things she said and she wants to apologize but at the same time she doesn’t want to wrap it up again. At least not now.

„Fine. Good night then.“ She responds and closes her eyes.

Leliana has a soft smile on her lips. She really didn’t change at all and she was actually glad about that. It’s nice to have something consistent and … familiar in these troubled times.

„Good night, Morrigan.“