Archive of Our Own

"Do you know that you lean away from people when speaking?" 

Solas blinks and frowns at the Herald as she perches on the short fence outside the small building he calls home in Haven. 

"Pardon?" 

She nods to Cassandra's retreating form. "She paces as she talks and every time she comes close to you, you lean away." She pushes off the stone wall and approaches him, but stops short with a grin. 

"You're doing it again." 

Solas feels the strain in his body, the way his shoulders are canted away from her, the stiffness in his spine as he arches back and frowns. He takes a conscious breath and forces himself to relax. 

"Apologies." Without the strain of his body angling away from hers, she is remarkably close. He has come to understand that the Dalish are unbothered by an individual’s space and often seek to encroach upon it. He has been close to her before, out of necessity, but she had been unconscious and he had been focused on other things. There are things about her that he knows: white hair, green eyes, skilled with blades, scars on her palms that far out date the new one from the anchor. But now he sees things he had missed, things he had avoided. There is a bump on the bridge of her nose, between her eyes. She has a few, dark spots across her face though not enough that she is freckled. The thought of how they must change in the summer races across his mind with the speed and grace of a druffalo, a sudden and worrying thing. His mind is an organized and clear place, yet that thought has risen up, unbridled, from the mire of it. 

Being this close to her makes his skin prickle like there are storm clouds above, like there is the threat of lightning. He decides it is uncomfortable, painful. He feels uneasy in his skin. And he wishes to find the origin of that errant, pesky thought. 

"It has been a solitary existence." 

She shrugs. "It won't be anymore. Listen, I have to head into the Storm Coast to find yet another person to join this weird little army. Want to come along?" 

She likes to fight right in the middle of everything, often lost in the sea of weapons and limbs and claws as they fight demons and templars and mages. When the demon they are fighting perishes with a fiery death burst, he isn't surprised to see her form go flying through the air. But he is by her side a moment later.

She is alive and awake and is glaring up at the clouds. 

"I think I deserved that one."

"You did charge into the blast, yes." 

Her eyes cut across to him, but there is a smile in the corner of her mouth. She lifts a hand and holds it out between them. 

Perhaps it is nothing, a simple gesture of friendship. But to him it is a trap, a vine, a snare. It is uncertainty. There have been few times he has felt touch since awaking and fewer still that he has actively participated in. He remembers examining her hand when she had first been found. It had been limp in his grasp, cold to the touch. He had been focused on trying to extract his magic from her, and then when that became impossible, stabilizing it. He hadn’t thought about what her fingers might have felt like entwined with his, what her palm might have felt like against his. Spurred on by curiosity and that strange and unwelcome ribbon of thought that always snaps to attention around her, he bends down and clasps her hand in his own. 

The static is back, the pins and needles that make his skin itch. Less pain now, but still discomfort. He wonders why he took her hand at all, wants nothing more than to release it. 

The magic in her palm sings to him, surges into his veins and seeks a way home. And for a brief moment all he can think of is his foci and his failings. Then her grip tightens as she pulls herself up and all thought leaves him save for how strong she is, how warm her hands are, how he can feel the smooth scars on her palm with his own. 

She is closer to him than anticipated when standing, her frame tucked neatly below his so she has to tilt her chin up to look at him. She flashes him a smile before looking down at where their hands still entwine. 

He drops her grasp with an embarrassed cough, though she is already jogging past him to help Varric pick through the remains of their enemies. She doesn't see him stare down at his hand or the way he flexes his fingers in the absence of hers. 

The Templars are an annoyance. The Veil left him at a fraction of his previous ability and, though he will never admit it, their smites leave him shaken. For a brief moment he is bereft of all magic, all power and is truly defenceless. It is a weakness he seeks to never experience again so when Templars flood the field, he is often far away from the fray. 

He is supposed to be far away from them. 

But they are swarming her and her daggers are no match for their swords and armour. 

It is easy to fold the Veil between them and step through it to her. He appears in the small space between her and one of the approaching warriors, crowding her, his whole body curving over hers. His barrier goes up a second later, shielding them both from the arc of the Templar's blade. He grabs her, one arm around her waist, careful to hold the places where her leather armour is thickest and not let his fingers brush the seams where her tunic peeks through. 

The ground below them shifts and they are suddenly away from the Templars and their blades and smite. And for one heartbeat she is pressed against him. Her breath is hot on his neck. Her arms are trapped between them, still grasping her daggers, but he can feel her knuckles against his chest like they are motes of fire. He exhales and it tousles the short hair by her ear. Even this, though layers of cloth and leather, feels like there is fire beneath his skin and the strangeness makes him shudder. 

His fingers tense against her back – pushing, pulling – and then she is free and he steps back and falls right back into casting. He doesn't think about how she might have fit against his chest without her daggers crammed between them. He doesn't think about her breath on his face or her eyes blinking up at him. A bead of sweat follows the curve of his spine that has nothing to do with the effort of casting.  

"Thank you," she says afterwards, quietly and away from the others. "Sorry." 

"Sorry?" 

Her fingers drum against her thigh and it's all he can see for a moment. 

"You shouldn't have been that close to the Templars. I was sloppy." 

"It is no concern." He pauses, considers, tries to convince himself in the space of a breath to not continue. Instead, "I would never say such a thing." 

She huffs a laugh. "You haven't seen me with some Antivan brandy." She leans in conspiratorially. "Very sloppy." 

He doesn't lean away.

Scout Harding tells them of a pool nearby when they arrive at the next Inquisition camp. 

"You know, to wash," she says and gestures at them. He, Ellana, Varric and The Iron Bull are caked in grime from a particularly difficult few encounters. 

Ellana lights up and rushes over to the requisition tent to get soap and emerges with clean tunics and trousers for them all.

"Creators, yes, I do not want to be wearing this much demon for the ride back to Haven." She is marching down to the pool which is tucked out of sight from the rest of the camp. It is small, perhaps a dozen feet wide in any direction and a narrow waterfall fills it from the cliffs overhead. 

"I don't know, Boss, I think red just might be your colour." The Iron Bull teases and Solas's mouth twitches into a frown. 

She dumps the clean clothes down a safe distance from the edge and begins the long and complicated process of unbuckling and unbinding her armour. 

Solas kneels near her to break off a piece of soap and when he looks up she is shrugging out of her outer armour and the tunic she wears beneath is damp and clings to the shape of her waist and breasts and he averts his eyes. 

He retreats to a ledge a few feet away and begins shedding layers until he is also in a sleeveless shirt and breeches. He feels something crawl over his back and bare, freckled shoulders and when he turns her gaze snaps down to her armour and her hair only hides some of the flush that has pooled in her cheeks. A responding echo of heat fans the base of his spine.

A few moments of silence pass as they each scrub at their clothes before she breaks it with a groan. Solas looks up to see her sitting crossed legged on the stony ledge, the tips of her fingers red from work. 

"Remind me to find another set of armour when we're back. I'm never wearing chainmail again." 

Varric pears over her shoulder and grimaces. "Is that a claw?" 

"Or a fingernail. Ick." 

"You know if you never wear armour you never have to clean it," says The Iron Bull from where he is sunning on the rocks. 

Ellana looks up at him and scrunches up her nose. "Right on a technicality, I suppose. But you aren't exactly sparkling clean yourself." 

He looks down at the smears of blood on his chest as if just noticing them and gives a slow nod. 

There is a moment of rustling and then a streak of bare grey skin and suddenly Ellana is standing and soaked. 

"Toss me some of that soap, Boss." 

She tries for indignation, but Solas can see the smile in her lips even as they drop open in shock. She glares at The Iron Bull for a moment before she wriggles out of her boots and pants and tosses her tunic aside and this time Solas cannot look away. 

Lecher, the sensible part of him curses, but the rest of him watches the muscles in her legs shift as she leaps into the pool. 

"My Keeper would have washed my mouth out for cheek!" Ellana tries her best to shove the knob of soap into The Iron Bull's mouth. It involves a great deal of splashing and squirming and twice The Iron Bull lifts her entirely out of the water and throws her back in. 

"I could show you some cheek," the Qunari jokes and Ellana treats him to another nose scrunch. 

"No, thank you, I have seen plenty from underwater." 

"Reserve your judgement, the water's cold." 

She laughs and tosses him the lump of soap and leaves him to scrub while she swims over to the ledge. 

"I thought Dalish were supposed to dance naked around bonfires," Varric says. 

"Bonfires, pools, the same really." She pushes the hair out of her eyes. "Coming in?" 

The Child of Stone waves her away. "I don't swim." 

"There are shallows on the far end." When he still doesn't look convinced, she sticks out her bottom lip. "Come on, the water's nice." 

"This is all a plot to see me naked, isn't it?" he grumbles but is unlacing his boots. 

"Varric, your coat is open to the navel. A strong wind would be enough to see you naked." 

She leads him to the far edge once he's down to just his breeches and there Varric hesitates. He is bare chested but his hands are stuck on his hips and Ellana raises her brows at him. 

"Give a man some privacy!" 

She huffs and spins in the water, suddenly facing Solas. "You know, you all make jokes about elves dancing naked around things, but we're not the ones who think that bare skin turns everyone into leering lust demons." 

Solas swallows. 

Behind her, Varric is wading into the shallows and The Iron Bull is scrubbing the blood from his arms, but all Solas can focus on is Ellana as she swims towards him. 

He has felt locked in time since she shed her tunic and he suddenly snaps back into motion when she says his name. 

"Are you coming in?" She is looking up at him from the water. He tries to focus on the smaller things, the damp hairs stuck to her cheeks, the lashes that are clumped together into points, instead of the larger image which is somehow too much for his mind to comprehend. 

His gaze follows a drop of water as it curves across her cheek and down her jaw and along the line of her neck and his mouth goes dry as it follows the curve of her breast before rejoining the water that hides the rest of her from view. Water he is thankful for and wishes were gone in equal measure. 

This is worse, he thinks, than the pins and needles she often brings. This is heat and steam and he can feel his heartbeat in his skin. The threat – the promise – of her skin feels like too much. If her fingers against his tunic had felt like flames this is the sun, bright and burning and inescapable. 

He needs to leave and is desperate to stay. He dislikes feeling like a stranger in his own skin and this makes him feel like an interloper. Regardless of his own desires – and he is unsure what those are – he cannot act on impulse. He has not wanted, he does not want what she offers. 

She swims up to the edge and her fingers leave damp marks on the stone. She leans her head on her arms and looks like a creature of myth ready to lure him to his end. 

He doesn't dwell on the irony. 

"I can turn my back if you're shy." 

It is the first time in his life that he has been accused of being shy. Aloof, yes. Standoffish, definitely, but never shy. It would be novel if he had the capacity to appreciate it. He wants to stand and strip and prove he is anything but shy. 

He needs to leave. 

He wants to see if brushing the damp hair from her neck would quell the unending heat beneath his skin. The curiosity is strong and he has never been one to shy away from a difficult question. His fingers twitch with anticipation.

He needs to be far from her eyes and lips and bare skin. 

She takes his silence as confirmation and swims a few feet away before turning her back to him and the sight of it nearly tumbles his resolve. But Sense and Duty get the better of him and he stands and slips away, leaving his tunic and belt on the stones. 

He leaves camp entirely and meditates and breathes and tries to cool his flushed skin.

Later, when the sun has set and the others have retired to their tents, he finds his tunic and belt folded by the entrance to his, clean and dry and a hollowness fills his gut. 

Around the next campfire, Solas doesn't sit at the very edge of the log, which is his custom – as far away from the others as he can manage without being rude, but instead just shy of it, halfway between her and the edge. He thinks it is a small thing until he sees the quirk of Varric's brow. He frowns. 

"Copper for your thoughts?" she asks. She has shuffled closer to him. Not touching, but enough that he could. He thinks about her skin and whether his skin would still ignite under her touch. He wonders if the strangeness could be something else. 

But he can't say that so instead he says, "I believe there are Elven artifacts nearby. We should consider finding them." He pauses to gather a list of reasons, but she has already agreed and it gives him pause. 

Across the fire, Varric balks. "What? Just like that? He didn't even have to justify it!" 

"Varric, your request was that we stock Haven with better wine." 

"A perfectly reasonable request." 

"We barely have enough food to go around, Varric. We need that, and blankets and weapons, things to keep people safe." 

She is frowning now, the furrow of her brow deep in the firelight and there is a pang in his chest as he remembers the constant work needed to keep the rebellion alive. He touches the spot between his ribs. It is uncomfortable and thorny and he shifts towards the end of the log. 

Leaving her to die in Haven feels wrong. As much as he wishes it were otherwise, as much as he tries to remember that she is not one of them, he watches the Commander light the flare and hears the roar of an avalanche, of a thwarted enemy, of a god who has lost the battle. 

The camp is restless and anxious and there is infighting already as they try to grapple with the loss of the leader of their burgeoning army and for one moment he is thankful the emotions of those surrounding him are silent and invisible. For only a moment.

In the Fade the distance isn't so far and for a long time there is no sense of her. And then she flickers into view, and something unfamiliar and warm fills his chest. Being in the Fade is good, she is still alive, but it is not where she should be. So he gathers his strength and shoves her out. 

When she falters, he does it again. And again. And again. And each time she is slower to respond, each time she is weaker. She is stumbling, she is crawling, she is weeping. 

"Keep going," he breathes because he needs the magic in her palm.

"Keep going," he urges because he is unsure of this knot between his ribs. 

"Keep going," he barks because he is starting to understand what Felassan meant. 

When she finally wakes, people flock to her, sing her divinity and he watches true belief ripple through the camp like a stone dropped into a still lake. 

He remembers this.

A time when the elves needed someone to look to, when they needed leaders. A time when war commanders became kings and wrought golden crowns for themselves. A time when kings pulled the heavens to them and made themselves gods. The memory is old and time has painted it in harsher tones, but he remembers the greed on their faces when the elves sank to their knees before them. He recalls monuments erected in their honour, created by the broken backs and fingers of those deemed replaceable. 

He remembers being on the outside and then suddenly being within. A pet. A guard dog. He recalls a time when the faithful came to him, when eyes were wide with adoration, when hands sought his for blessings and for answers. He remembers how intoxicating it felt to be seen as a god and he remembers how poorly he handled that power. 

Then that worship had turned to desperation, and hands sought his not for blessings but for safety. Worship became need, necessity and anger and he was responsible for saving them. 

Where he met worship with pride, she looks uneasy and the thorn beneath his ribs swells and stabs into his lung and for a moment he is breathless. She shows more wisdom than he possessed at a similar time and he wonders if his judgement of her people has been too harsh. 

He saves her from the camp of Andrastian song and her grateful smile warms his chest. 

He tells her of Skyhold and scouting ahead allows for some measure of privacy. 

He stands close to her as she surveys the valley before them. He offers his hand when the path is steep or uneven. Her leg brushes his as they sit and wait for the rest of the camp to catch up. 

She tells him about her brothers, about her home. He is not fond of aravels but she speaks of them like they are miracles. He wonders if she would have liked Arlathan and is then disgusted by the thought. 

Seeing Skyhold again fills him with dread and he allows only a single, sad laugh at the irony. But it is their best chance against Corypheus and once he is inside, it feels nice to be surrounded by old magic again. 

She laughs at his choice of rooms and then wrinkles her nose at the expanse of her own chambers. He remembers when they were his. 

They got little use. 

Leading a rebellion is a busy job. 

But the rotunda is familiar and he finds a small comfort in that. 

Finding her in the Fade is easy. She is a beacon even if she doesn't know it. The pang flares again at that, knowing she is cut off from the thing that is as vital to him as air. 

They walk through an intact Haven and speak of a time before it fell. 

"You change everything," is as close to the whole truth as he thinks he'll ever be able to say. 

Things are easier in the Fade. Skin doesn't feel like skin. There is no sting, no static when she touches him. There is heat, but it's welcome. 

Her lips are soft against his, though her hand is fisted in his tunic.  The kiss isn't shy, but neither is it forceful. It is a statement made against his lips, of her desires, of her intent. 

It is shocking but he likes the taste of it. Of her. 

Desire has been removed from him for so long. He thought it impossible to feel the burning lust of his youth, had resigned himself to it and to his duty for so long. They weren't People, there was nothing to stir. 

And then that day at the pools and her skin, bare and flushed from the cool water, her eyes blinking up at him, inviting him. The unyielding reality of the world had felt like too much then. It still does. But here … 

She loses her resolve and drops down off her toes, pulls away and he's chasing the distance between them, rushing to close it again, to feel her without the rough shock of touch, without the sting of reality. 

He is greedy suddenly, bending her back, sliding his tongue against hers. The very real pleasure of it feels too good and he is overwhelmed by desires that have laid dormant for millenia. He wants. He needs . His hands tighten on her, hold her close, feel the plush of her breasts against him and he very nearly growls into her mouth. 

She moans into his. 

He pulls back and greedily drinks in the sight of her in his arms. Lips swollen, cheeks flushed, lashes fanned out across her cheeks before her eyes open and she is staring back at him with open shock.

It is too inviting. He returns, slips his tongue into her mouth and strokes her own. He weaves his fingers into her hair, cradles her head. His hand slides south and presses against the small of her back, grinds her against him. 

The flames that lick at the base of his spine are wild and reckless and spreading. She moans again and though the sound is caught by his lips and tongue, he can feel it, taste it. He can't hear anything but the roar in his ears, feels nothing except where they touch. Pleasure rips through him, foreign and unfamiliar and vulgar. 

The severity of it shocks him back into his senses and he pulls back, pushes her away, puts space between them until his skin no longer aches for her. 

"We shouldn't –" he starts and his voice is hoarse. "It isn't right." 

That, at least, is true. In every sense. It isn't right. She isn't right and he needs to remember that. 

He tries to put space between them, tries to tell her that it was impulsive, ill-advised, but she teases him instead, makes a joke about tongues and the itch beneath his skin is back with a vengeance. Even in the rotunda, with ears and eyes aplenty, with Sister Nightingale's ravens watching from above, he wants to kiss her again, to find out if it would be as pleasurable as it was in the Fade. 

He wants to push her away but finds that his words fail at anything beyond a weak rebuttal. "No," is impossible, so he settles for trying to convince her to turn him away. He tries to warn her. 

She is bold in the face of risk and he fumbles through an agreement. A maybe. A perhaps. But she doesn't pry or push, just smiles at him and asks him more questions about the Fade. 

After Wisdom is unravelled, he spends time alone. He needs to think. He needs to breathe. 

She didn't stay his hand against the mages and he is thankful. But his resolve weakens and reaffirms. She understands, he thinks, she has the empathy he has found so lacking in this world. And if she understands, there might be others. Perhaps he has been too rash. But then he thinks of the fools who bound and broke his friend and he knows that they all must go. Humans who pervert magic, elves who make a mockery of his culture, those who have chosen power and subjugation above all else, they can all be sacrificed. 

He wishes for his friend, for Wisdom, but they are gone, unravelled into wisps and intent. And perhaps in time they will return, but he is alone now. 

It is some time before he returns, three weeks, maybe more and when he does, she tells him that he doesn't have to mourn alone and it shocks him. Alone, mourning or not, has always been his place, it has been his only constant. Being an outsider is familiar and it only sometimes stings. 

In the shade of the courtyard, her fingers brush against his, but she asks for nothing more. 

Her questions are starting to circle distressingly close to the truth and he finds his voice is louder than anticipated when he speaks of Corypheus and his orb and his power. He dislikes this path of questioning. It nags at the back of his mind and wars with itself. Hope that she could figure it out, dread that she succeeds. He imagines how strange it would feel to exist without the burden of this lie, to be true and honest in his entirety instead of in riddles and half-truths. But even that dream is thwarted by the cold truth of his deception. It is selfish to hope and selfish again to think that the response to his year long deceit is anything except anger and hurt. 

He distracts himself. He turns the questions back on her, seeks an escape route from the troubling truth that has begun to take root in his mind. He wants the anchor to be the reason for her insight, for her empathy, and hopes it is not in the same breath. How tidy a solution it would be if all this, the heat beneath his skin, the tug at his heart, the eagerness of his fingers when she is near, is because his magic is calling back to him. 

He is honest on the balcony. She is unique, she possesses wisdom he has not seen in ages. She is smiling at him, her face open and warm and the wind tousles her hair and he asks her plainly something he has never once uttered before. 

"Have I misjudged them?" 

She is slow to respond and then answers with something more wise and nuanced than he expects. Her response is one that seems to meet his question yet does not fully answer it and to see his own misdirection turned back at him leaves him a little breathless. 

She asks him what this all means and the truth is too awful, so he turns to things that are more enjoyable. Even if they are misguided. Even if they are cruel.

He has not forgotten the kiss as he says as much and she purrs, “Good,” in response. The sound draws him in, making him lean to her. A sudden and reckless desire to hear it again tears through him. He has not forgotten, try as he might. But he can still feel her, still taste her and even as his mind and heart and spirit war, he wants to know what she feels like against his skin, what she tastes like against his tongue. 

She stands before him, toes nearly brushing his and with a grin, she mirrors his pose: high back, hands clasped behind her. But her lips are teasing, smirking, and all at once the buzz returns and it shudders against his bones. He feels himself start to smile and knows how easy it would be to pull her close. He could press his hand to the small of her back and draw her in, kiss the curve of her neck, the line of her jaw. He could feel her pressed against him, no armour or hands between them this time, just the thin fabric of his tunic and her shirt. He could cradle her head in his hand, tilt her back and finally claim her lips with his own. 

He starts to close the distance between them, small as it is. It feels like his hands are drawn to hers, like they move without his volition, seek her and seek skin. 

Sense finally wrestles control of his body back from Desire and he stops, goes to turn away, but she stops him, grabs his arm, asks him to not go. He is glad he is faced away from her; he can feel his expression from the inside and knows he cannot explain the torment, the anger, the sorrow that lives there. 

It has been so long since he has been wanted or welcomed that such a small thing, a hand on his arm, is enough to crumble all his resolve. 

“It would be kinder in the longer run,” he says to her and to himself and it is the last thing Sense manages before they are cast aside and he is crashing into her. 

The buzz beneath his skin sings when they touch, soars to new heights when he finally can pull her close and kiss her. How could he have ever mistaken this for pain, for discomfort? She feels exquisite in his grasp, like his hands were always meant to fit hers, like his body wasn’t whole without her, like his heart was never full until she had it.

She is holding him, grasping for him, fingers pressed into his shoulders and holding fast like she can feel him slipping away. Again, the shock of her insight rattles through him and a shaky breath escapes. His fingers tremble so he holds her closer. She smiles against his lips and trails her hands down his arms, across his waist, his chest, his back. She maps him, memorizes the planes of him, finds spots that make him shudder and chases that response. 

He bows her spine against him, slides his tongue against hers, catches her breath as it leaves her. He’s greedy now, he can feel it in his skin, in the way it burns for her. She has made him tremble and he is keen to feel the same from her. He trails his hands down her back, into the small of her waist and then below, pulling her against him. He delights in the feeling of her curves beneath his palms. 

She gasps into his mouth and it tastes divine. 

He rocks one thigh between hers and presses her against the stone railing behind them. There is no space between them, only his chest pressed against hers and he curses the fabric that separates them. Her hands fist into the back of his tunic, urging him on and another rock of his hips and thigh has her moaning against his tongue. He pulls back to loose a shuddering groan and realizes he’s gasping for breath. 

She lets him gulp down a few frantic breaths before she pulls him back. Her fingers trail along his jaw, his neck, trace the span of his shoulder blades, and each touch is a line of fire. She reaches down between them, grasps his belt and it is no match for fingers trained to unravel the trickiest locks.

A cold sweep of panic and dread fills him, stark and shuddering against the flames that are now stoked so high. He cannot let this progress further. He cannot lose himself to the feeling of her fingers on his skin, to the promise of whatever trickery they will wreck upon him. He’s desperate to know, to feel, but knows he cannot. She deserves more than this and the lies he offers and he will not lie with her under false pretenses. 

He pulls back and presses his brow to hers. He needs to hide his face lest the anguish upon it bring more questions. 

“Ar lath, ma vhenan,” is the truest thing he has said since waking.

Halamshiral is both foreign and familiar. He supposes that the costumes and language may change with time, but the Game itself is eternal. It is the same bloodthirsty sport as always. It is easy to slip into old habits. When the Orlesian herald introduces him as a servant, he can feel the Inquisitor’s anger on his behalf, but he can only laugh. He does not carry himself as such and the nobility are at a loss for how to treat him. He settles for leaning half in the shadows and watching his love command attention at the centre of it all. He watches men and women flirt with her, trying to win her favour, trying to enchant her. Keen eyes track hands as they linger on her waist, on her wrist, when they grip and marvel at her strength, when they trace the lines of her coat. The air is thick with power and sex and danger and that paired with wine makes him possessive, makes him wish those were his hands instead. 

He imagines a time without the masks, but with the same dangerous frivolity and thinks how easy it would have been then to stride across the floor and claim her as his own. A time when guests would have parted for him, when they would have bowed. He gulps down the rest of his wine and a fresh glass is in his grasp before he has thought to request another. 

He watches a woman touch the Ellana’s sash and smooth some non-existent wrinkle. She keeps her hand on Ellana’s waist as she leans in to whisper something in her ear. Ellana stiffens and even from this distance he can see her cheeks glow a delicious shade of red. He imagines what could elicit such a response and his outfit feels suddenly too constricting. He shifts and finishes his wine and tries to focus elsewhere. 

When his gaze inevitably returns to her, she is approaching him. Her cheeks are still flushed and it fans something warm and molten inside him. 

“Inquisitor,” is filled with every ounce of warmth he has within him. 

“Solas,” sounds like the sweetest prayer he has ever known. “You look … comfortable.”

He considers his posture – elbow tucked beneath him as he leans against a statue, his wine glass held loosely in one hand, legs crossed at the ankle – and concedes with a small bow of his head. 

“I have seen countless such displays in my journeys in the Fade,” is technically true. There was a time when he would have been the honoured guest, where these plots and ploys would have been made against him or he would be plotting against another. He gestures to the area around them. “Besides, the Orlesians do not quite know what to make of me. They have given me a wide berth.” 

She looks annoyed at that and tries to apologize for the herald, but he waves aside her concern. 

“I know who I am to you, vhenan,” he says quietly and that lovely flush is back. 

In another time, he would have led her away from the nobles and the gossip and to some safe, secluded corner of the massive palace. Not too safe, of course, for where was the fun in that when surrounded by eyes and ears and vipers? But far enough to stave off suspicion until they were gone too long, until she returned with flushed lips and mussed hair and glassy eyes. 

She surprises him by asking to dance, interrupting the languid rove of his eyes across her and from the lip caught between her teeth, he thinks she has caught him staring. 

“Perhaps once our business here is done?” he offers, not a promise – he is unsure he can make one about anything – but the hope of a moment alone with her in his arms is enough to carry him through the rest of the night, which is unsurprisingly filled with blood and gore and secrets. And yet somehow they all return to the ballroom by the second bell, hastily wiping blood from cheeks and gloves, righting hems and sashes. All for the wrong reasons, he thinks, and if anyone notices a pin or brooch out of place, they say nothing. 

Before the night is over she creates peace among warring cousins and lovers and siblings and all of Orlais is in awe. Perhaps not better for it, but there will be peace for a time and she has secured a strong alliance for the coming fight. 

He finds her alone on a quiet balcony while everyone else is celebrating, leaning heavily on the railing. As he approaches, he sees her eyes are shut and for a moment they are both still and silent. She takes a breath and braces for another political discussion, another congratulation, another formality. He can sense it in the tense line of her shoulders and the practiced, polite smile she is already wearing. 

When she opens her eyes to see him, her expression melts into quiet joy and palpable relief and his heart thrums wildly against his ribs. 

“I’m not surprised to find you here,” he says softly. “Thoughts?” he asks as he leans beside her. 

“It’s been a very long day,” she says and looks out over the courtyard. Hesitates. And then, “I’m not sure I made the right choice.” She looks down at her hands, clad in black gloves to hide the Anchor lest she become a court attraction. “Everything so far has been, not easy, but straightforward. Save people, kill monsters, stop the bad guy. This,” she waves a hand behind them and struggles to finish the thought. 

He knows that uncertainty, more keenly than she’ll ever know. He has felt the agony of second guesses, of indecision and he has felt the violence of a poor choice. And what he thought was the right one. 

He touches her back and she starts and he realizes too late that he has never been the one to move first. He blames the wine. He blames the atmosphere. He blames a thousand things except himself. 

Except her. 

He cannot soothe her fears with words of wisdom. He cannot tell her she made the right choice because he knows what awaits them all. He knows Briala and Celene and Gaspard and all the schemes they think are new and are in fact the oldest tricks in the book. But he has not forgotten his almost-promise. 

“Come,” he slides his hand down to her waist, “before the band stops playing. Dance with me.” 

He means to lead her in a dance, but her arms wrap around him instead and she holds herself against his chest as the orchestra swells and he is shocked for only a moment. He cradles her head against his chest and kisses her temple. 

He expected something else, a return to the heated looks and stolen glances of earlier, but finds that this is enough. More than enough. He feels grounded, stable, for the first time in centuries. The breath that stirs her hair just barely shudders. His fingers only hold her a bit tighter. 

They stay like that until the band plays their final note, until the only music is the wind against stone and leaves, until the only light is the moon and stars above them. 

After Halamshiral they find the Temple of Mythal and while seeing the Well bestowed to Morrigan hurts, seeing Ellana bound to the will of Mythal would have been worse. Seeing her sentinels reminds him of everything that was lost. Even in ruin, the temple is familiar and being within its walls sharpens his resolve. 

He cannot remain in these half-truths. Stolen moments with her are too sweet, too much of a comfort to continue as he is.

He has watched her grapple gods and fragments of gods, with titans and spirits and demons and he thinks that if anyone could understand, it would be her. 

After returning from the Arbor Wilds, he asks Ellana what she will do with the power of Mythal and he feels guilty for the doublespeak, but he needs to know. He has grown to trust her, to care for her, to love her and he needs to know if her instinct is the same as his. 

He is too truthful in their discussion, too heated, but his desperation wins out and he spells out his mistakes to her hidden by a veil of hypotheticals. 

And she tells him to keep trying. She tells him he is on the right path, on the same one she would walk. And the relief is immense – to know he does not walk alone, to know that he will not walk alone. Words tumble out of him without thought, he is so relieved. 

Confusion is clear on her face, but it is edged with delight, the same way her face lights when he speaks of the Fade. Delight, that even though she has only a thread of understanding, she loves to hear it. And that confusion, and the lies that lurk because of it, turns his thoughts sour. The weight of what must be done rests suddenly again on his shoulders, only briefly lifted by the wings of her delight.

He apologizes for his melancholy and she teases him and his heart races. He matches her banter just to see her cheeks flush. She needs the truth, he decides. All of it. 

“Come with me, vhenan.”

The veil is thin where they end up and he feels it in his lungs with each breath. He is closer to who he was here. It nearly feels like home. It feels like he could draw his magic around them like a cloak. Here it feels less like he has lost the power of his foci, like his magic has not atrophied with time. 

He can feel the weight of his confession like rocks in his stomach, can taste its bitterness on his tongue. But he will wrench the words free. No matter his nerves, he knows she deserves the truth and he will no longer keep it from her. This incredible woman, a beacon of light and life and hope, his love, his vhenan . 

Nerves make him stall. He holds her face, traces the curve of her cheek with his thumb and remembers how he’d once shied away from this touch and thinks of how he cherishes it now. 

“I was trying to determine some way to show you what you mean to me,” he says, buys time for the acid in his stomach to fizzle out. 

“Then what I must tell you, the truth ...”

He stalls, stops, chokes on the next words because he can hear cries of “Dread Wolf!” in his ears. He suddenly sees faces slack with horror or twisted with fear before him, in reaction to him. “Monster!” “Heretic!” Each one stamped onto his skin and soul. “Villain!” He feels the stones and blades as they are used to remove him from camps. “Demon!” someone cries when he approaches in dreams. “I will not be fooled,” as if his pleas for understanding are a trick and a treachery, as if he, broken and weak, preys upon them. Because that is what he is to them. He is nothing but a traitor. He who had raised them from subjugation now the face of their nightmares, a tale told at night to scare young ones. A curse. Because he is. Because he has feigned weakness to exploit others, because he has donned the guise of a meek traveler to gain an advantage. 

He swallows the resentment that sits putrid on his tongue. And he cannot tell her the truth, not that truth. Because the rest of the world could label him the villain but he is too weak to see the same from her. Because experience has taught him that his telling of history is blasphemous. Because he is sure if she cowered in fear from him his heart would rend. 

Resentment turns cold in his stomach, seeps into dread and loathing because this had been an ultimatum for himself. One he had hardly considered but knows too well now. It is unfair to continue this lie. Even if he’s been lying for months, he had the opportunity for truth and is too much of a coward to take it. She deserves the truth. That hasn’t changed. She doesn’t deserve his lies. 

His fingers tighten on her waist, knowing this will be the last time. He tries to capture her in his mind, but this scene is too grim and all he can focus on is the lurking heartbreak that paces on the horizon. 

He steers the conversation in a different direction, leading her away, oblivious to the monster that lurked down that path. He watches her tiny heartbreak at yet another thing the Dalish got wrong and he cannot stand to see such sorrow in her eyes. He doesn’t mean to hurt her. This truth was a convenient, if hurtful, one. He supposes it is true and to see those cruel things on her cheeks is unfair and unjust and she is so beautiful. She deserves more than to be marked by them. It is the smallest mercy he can think of. 

He knows a spell. A spell of his own invention, as familiar to him as the whorls in his fingertips, as familiar as the shape of her lips against his. The pinnacle of all he has done for the elves, explained away as if he learned it in the Fade. They kneel together and he thinks of all the times he has done this before, all the tears that dampened his palms, all the cries that were muffled by his shoulders. A hundred elves, a thousand, and none had felt as sacred as this. 

He clears her face of the cruel brands of his People, removes the last traces of himself from her, returns her skin to a time when it didn’t know his touch. Slowly, as the ink pulls from her skin, he imagines wiping away each kiss, each touch. To ease her pain. He tries to not think of a day years from now when she’ll look at him as a villain and feel disgust that his hands ever touched hers. He tries to take it from her. He tries to save her from the anger.

A hundred elves, a thousand, and he’s never been the one to cry. 

She sits before him, barefaced and free and it lifts his heart for a heartbeat. “ Ar lasa mala revas . You are free.” Free of the Creators, free of him. 

She is shy suddenly when they stand, ducks her head and looks at her feet. He told himself that he would not touch her again, but he is and always has been weak. He tilts her chin up, holds her gaze and says, “you are so beautiful,” because it is true and it has always been true.  And because he is weak, he kisses her for the last time and pours his soul into this kiss, tries to tell her everything his lips and tongue failed to say. There are not enough words in all of Elvhen to say how important she is, how much he loves her, how she alone made this dark world bright. 

He wants this kiss to last forever, wants to sink into it, but guilt is hot in his cheeks and he knows he is taking from her something he has no right to. 

“I am sorry,” and then braces for yet another half-truth. “I distracted you from your duty. It will never happen again.”

She is quiet for a moment, confused, and he retreats from the lovely warmth of her grasp. She whispers his name, reaches for him, but he backs away, like it is their first time, like that snowy day in Haven. 

“Please,” he begs. 

Her hand drops and she swallows. He can see tears start to gather and it feels like a knife in his spine. She blinks hard and shakes her head and when she looks at him again the hurt has been replaced. 

“Tell me you don’t care,” she demands. 

He thinks of all the half-truths that have led him here, all the lies he’s told others, and yet he refuses this one. Even if it would be kinder, he cannot cheapen her with this obvious lie. 

“I can’t do that,” he says and he can hear the threat of tears in his voice, can feel them burn in the back of his throat. 

She shoves him and he stumbles back. She’s yelling now, but there are tears streaming down her cheeks, no longer hidden by vallaslin. He deserves this and worse. She wipes at her eyes furiously and his whole chest aches. One lie here could have saved her these tears and yet now is when he decides truth must preside. 

“I’m sorry,” he manages, breathless and desperate, one apology in the sea she is owed. 

He is alone again. As always. As ever. As he should be. Alone in the clearing with monuments of elven glory for company. With regret and anguish and heartbreak.