Author's Note: So, this fic…well, it all started as a request from the Mad Doctor Artist (who will probably be mad at me for posting already, but it's okay, 'cause it's not done yet). She asked for me to write a fic showing the first time that Salem and Leliana declared their feelings for one another. As per usual, I have a hard time writing a singular one-shot, so this will be snapshots of their romance and its beginnings. There have been many flashbacks to these times in my series, mostly from Leliana's point of view. That is why this little series will be entirely from Salem.

On another note, it is so good to be back and writing. The 29th of June will be a day that I remember forever. I bore witness to a suicide, and lost someone who would have been a wonderful friend. It has been a difficult recovery process, but I am working through it. Augmenting that trauma was the events of last Friday, where a dear friend of mine had a gun pointed in their face while their store was robbed. And today I found out that I need a shoulder surgery. As you can imagine from this, it has been a very stressful last two weeks. However, writing this beginning is helping immensely. After this, I will immediately return to "For the Wages of Suffering is Beauty". I hope you all enjoy this tale from the past. There will be time skips throughout, as this is about the relationship between them, not the events of the mission. And, also, as per usual, I've written a story within a story, and kind of ignored canon a little bit. But, hopefully you'll all like to see Salem and Leliana's beginning days. If you do like it, thank the Mad Doctor Artist, and give her work a look-see. It's quite good.

Bright Blessings,

~Raven

Salem Cousland

In the cave, there was no light. No sound of the wind rushing past my ears and lifting my hair. No sweet scents of flowers and trees. No signs of life but the chattering of the darkspawn all around as they crowed victory. The victory I'd given them. I lay surrounded by their dead, at the end of my life. I knew what it was to die. I also knew what it was…

…to live.

I reached out into the cold, damp, dark of the floor and grasped the hilt of my fallen sword. I lifted it, staring at the hilt, flickering in the dim light of my flickering torch. I knew the image engraved into the metal like I knew the hopes and dreams of my own soul. The two were intertwined. In the red-orange glow, I could envision the wings of the nightingale moving, flying backwards, away from this moment where the heat of the sword radiated through my chest, where I could feel my blood slipping out onto the stone. The wings moved and my eyes fluttered closed, borne on a nightingale's wings, back into the past.

To the road that led me here.