Work Text:
-Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state
A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake
No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber
Until I realize that it was you who held me under-
“Solas please, do not go through with this.” Solas regarded his former lover with quiet remorse. She was kneeling on the ground behind him, clutching to a wound to her side that filled the air with the scent of blood. His once headstrong and seemingly fearless vhen’an’ara was pleading with him, her eyes wide with fear and she was shaking with adrenaline. Another needless suffering, he thought to himself bitterly. Another foolish mistake that shall soon be rectified.
He raised his hand, turning it slowly in front of his face as he pretended to admire the flickering green swirls of magic that danced in the air around him. “I told you not to persist Inquisitor, it was your own choice not to heed my advice. Those who suffered under your charge did so because of that mistake.” He turned from her and when he heard her choked sob it took all of his strength not to take her in her arms, to take back everything he’d said and give in to her pleas.
He strode confidently forwards and away from her, ignoring the desperate cries for him to turn around, which turned to hysterics and incoherence as he got further and further away. By the time he reached his destination his hand was brimming with magic, shaking with strain and as he raised it towards the sky it sparked, a green beam of magic shooting upwards from his palm. He leaned his head back, feeling the rain on his face and letting out a gasp of relief as the overwhelming tension left his body. Above him the sky began to roar, the clouds shifted and once again the breach in the sky lit up, this time with a vibrancy none but he had ever witnessed. It spilled outwards and filled the sky and he breathed a laugh as his hard work had finally reached fruition.
-Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs-
He startled out of his reverie suddenly as a hand grasped his leg, and the pale face of the Inquisitor looked up at him, blood bubbling from her mouth with each breath and spilling down her lips. Her expression was one of unadulterated hatred as she attempted to drag him down to her level, snarling with the effort. With a panic he sent her flying backwards against a crumbling stone pillar and cried out as he heard a sickening crunch and her eyes go blank, her head slumping down in front of her. Before he had time to react the world began to fall. Demons poured from rifts that opened up at an alarming frequency, and he knew he had to leave if he wanted to live. He rushed to her side and lifted her broken body into his arms, holding her close to him as she shuddered, blood spilling from her mouth as she groaned in pain.
“You will witness the birth of the new world with me, vhenan. Then you will understand that what I have done was necessary.” He shivered slightly and shook his head, adjusting his grip on her. “I know you will.”
With that, he ran with her through the eluvian and away from the temple.
-And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack
All around the world was waking, I never could go back-
He watched with wild eyes as the world began to crumble around him. He had brought the Inquisitor to her balcony at skyhold, seating her against the wall and wrapping a blanket tightly around her. He dabbed gently at her face with a cloth, washing the grime and blood from her skin and healing the gash on her side that had began to fester. He then started to pace around the balcony. In the midst of his pacing, he turned to face her briefly before continuing his rhetoric.
“I have made mistakes as any man has, Inquisitor. The difference lies within my intent. This world was never meant to come to passage. Though my actions were necessary, it is through my own faults that it ever did.” He stopped, his hands clenched into fists at his side. He relaxed when he saw her face.
“I am sure if you were to see the aftermath you would agree with me.” He nodded as if confirming this fact to himself and then looked out over the balcony, smiling faintly as the air crackled with energy. Though Skyhold remained occupied by Inquisition agents and refugees that had yet to perish he had made sure to put up a barrier, preventing further entry into the room. Solas remembered with fondness the time he and the inquisitor had spent together on this very balcony mere months before, kissing just as the sun set. Back when they only had to worry about the mad magister that had had access to his foci, when he could pretend as if he could possibly give up on this task as long as she was by his side.
He crouched down in front of the Inquisitors limp form and tilted her chin up with one finger, looking deep into her green eyes that now stared past him, glazed over with pain. He smiled apologetically at her and brushed an errant curl away from her face as he often did.
Words from their last meeting rang in his ears. “I will never give up on you,” she had said, her words so hopeful even in memory that his heart swelled with love. He sighed and stroked her cheek gently, leaning his forehead against hers so he could feel the tickle of her breath against his face.
He gathered her once again in his arms, cradling her head in his hand as he lowered his lips to her, tasting her blood on his tongue and desperately trying to disregard how cold she had become. The kiss was a familiar comfort to him and he was surprised at how much he longed for it in the time they had been apart.
Solas nestled his face against her neck, rocking her gently with him as he spoke quietly to her in Elvhen. “Perhaps you can join me in this new world after all,” he said, smiling to himself. “To have you by my side would be all I could hope for.”
-Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open
And finally it seemed that the spell was broken-
A short while passed and he had grown still, waiting for her to react in some way. When she did not, he pulled away, and as he was about to inquire as to her well-being he froze, a sense of dread overtaking him. Her skin which was once sun-kissed and tanned had become pallored and cold to the touch, despite the warmth of the fire rune beneath her. Her eye sockets were sunken and dark and her eyes continued to stare blankly in front of her. He scrambled away from her, allowing her to fall forwards and he could not help the cry of despair that left him as her stiffened body held the unnatural position she fell in and the scent of death finally reached his nose. He rushed away from her and took in his surroundings.
-And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open
And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open-
For as far as he could see, rifts dotted the horizon, demons spilling out in amounts he had not seen in all his years. Screams of agony rang in the air and the sky was a maelstrom of black clouds and green magic - his magic - that made it seem as if the entire world was spinning. Shocks of green lightning zigzagged across the sky, bringing up barrages of dirt and rock whenever they struck the ground.
The ground had shifted, bringing Skyhold closer and closer to the ground and it was then that he noticed that the balcony on which he currently stood was beginning to crumble at the edges. He leapt inside and looked back just as the balcony gave way, and watched as the Inquisitor’s lifeless body tumbled down along with it.
His howl of sorrow was swallowed by the sound of the stones hitting the ground below and he fell to his knees, dazed and incoherent. He looked up at the sky with eyes wide and his face fixed in a grimace of pain. Even with his knowledge that chaos would ensue after he finally accomplished his task, he had anticipated a similar experience to when he created the veil. He should have known that in a place as tumultuous as the one he’d created that the aftermath would differ greatly in intensity.
His mind turned to the last memory of the Inquisitor, her eyes that he had found himself transfixed in when they had met that then had stared as if straight through him. The hand that she had remaining that had once caressed his worried brow, that steadied him when he felt as if the world was going to swallow him whole, hung cold and limp at her side. He let out a sob as he remembered the look of pain and anger that was frozen on her face.
“What have I done?”