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She knows what this is. Difficulty breathing, lightheadedness, a tingly feeling in her limbs, the sick feeling in her stomach that won’t seem to go away. It’s funny, she thinks, how dying could feel so much like falling in love.
The battlefield is a blur around her, screams coming from every direction. A waste of so many lives. Elves and humans and dwarfs and qunari all fighting for a world they can call their own. Gaelowen laughs before cringing in pain at the movement. In the end, the fighting never mattered, she guessed. She begins counting stars as she lies there, bleeding out, waiting for death. She wishes it would come quicker.
Suddenly, a great boom rings over the battle. A gust of wind passes over her body and she hears a cry so pained she thinks it might be her own. Bodies go still beside her. A figure appears. She turns her head as much as she can and sees Solas, lit by the light of the twin moons, with tears streaming down his face.
“ Vhenan, it’s alright, it’s alright. I can heal you just let me-”
“Solas.”
“I need to get you somewhere safe I can’t-”
“Solas!”
“There’s no time for me to-”
“SOLAS!”
Gaelowen grimaces in pain at her exclamation. Solas finally stops looking over the extent of her injuries and looks at her face. She is smiling.
“That’s enough, ma sa’lath. You’ve won. Let me go.”
Solas shakes his head and presses his forehead to hers. “I- Gaelowen I’m so sorry.”
She raises a hand to cradle the back of his head. She strokes her fingers in comforting patterns across his scalp as he sits there and cries.
“I didn’t want this. None of this should have happened,” he whispers into her skin. “It should have been me here. You were supposed to stop me.”
Gaelowen sighs and turns her head to kiss his cheek.
“Maybe I’ll see you in another life, since this one wasn’t enough.”
Another sob tears its way through Solas’ throat.
“You were. You were, you were, you were.”
“Shh, sa’lath. It will be alright.”
She pushes at Solas’ chest to get him to sit up. She stares at him, enraptured by the sharp lines of his face, the curve of his lip, the silvery-blue of his eyes. She takes a final shallow breath.
“A sky full of stars and I still watch you.”
Her eyes fall shut. The hand on Solas’ chest falls away. Solas wraps his arms around the body and wails his grief.
He whispers, “You were enough.”