I— [His laugh is such a narrow thing, thready in surprise.] suppose it wouldn't have been, would it?

[There was an ocean's measure of lament laced through it all, to the point it comes to mind so clearly in hindsight. It lingers still, he realizes— guilt— tender and well-hidden, wrapped around his caught finger before his returns the effort. A little ouroboros. A simple, childish sort of promise, like the kind shared on rooftops between young things.

And it means the bloody world to him.]

But I waited for you for so long. I latched myself onto the hollow imprint of your footsteps in Kirkwall even when I doubted you'd ever come back— hells, I even killed for the unpalatable consolation it lent by the time I'd thought you'd been slain or moved on, finding neither hide nor hair of the Blue Wraith despite it all.

[And those words don't come from self pity, transparent as they run when they trail the corner of Leto's chin, pathed by the backs of nimble fingers; they're together, now. That's all that matters of it.]

You can't imagine a thing like what I sink my teeth into matters enough to change a thing in that respect.