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Chapter Text

It was a long, miserable journey. Solas sorely lacked for company, something he thought he had grown accustomed to. Master Tethras, in his own way, tried to keep Solas company, as chafed by Cassandra’s presence as Solas was by the Inquisitor’s. But, more often than not, Solas found himself riding in solitary silence.

Cole flitted from place to place, the way he did. The spirit could not be convinced to ride on a horse, but never seemed to have any difficulty keeping up. Solas wanted to catch him alone, to ask him a few more delicate questions about his new “friend,” an elven woman who had recently stumbled into Skyhold. Time, however, had not permitted it. The Inquisitor rode them hard. His determination to save his men spoke well of him, but little else did. Including his first encounter with that very elven lass.

Emma herself was something of an enigma, and lacking any other sufficient stimulation, he found himself dwelling on her. To hear her tell the tale, she was an escaped slave turned linguist, but there were too many gaps in her past, too many differences between the skills she possessed and the life she claimed to have lived. More than once, Solas had checked her for magic, first out of idle curiosity, an instinct, but then out of puzzlement. But no matter how many ways he examined her, she held no trace of mana.

She was also fluent in two ancient languages, including Elven, had at least approximate knowledge on many different subjects, and thought more about the world around her than she let on. She carried a dagger, as well, hidden expertly in the small of her back. Nothing about her added up. She had reacted to Cole’s presence with a curiosity that burned so brightly that, for an instant, he could have sworn he was looking at a younger version of himself.

The Inquisitor shouted something from where he rode, at the front of the progression, jarring Solas momentarily out of his thoughts, bringing him back to irritation. He wasn’t pleased to have been called out of Skyhold, and for little more than magical support. He had more interesting things to be doing than throwing barriers around reckless warriors. The addition of the Inquisitor to his thoughts when he had been contemplating Emma reminded him of the crassness with which the man had treated her. For all his talk to treating the elves as equals, the Inquisitor had seized upon the young elf as little more than a weapon with which to harass Solas.

The bluntness with which she had embarrassed the Inquisitor both amused him and left him curious. She was clearly flighty, easily intimidated. But when she became annoyed, it seemed she forgot to whom she spoke, be it himself, a Qunari twice her size, or a man who now commanded one of the larger military forces in Thedas. He had overheard her spat with the man, outside the rotunda door. Her response to the Inquisitor’s brash accusations had been well thought-out, the words of someone who had experience manipulating those above her. Then, she ruined it almost entirely with a barbed jab, as if her temper got the better of her.

It was unlikely she acted simply because she did not care what the man thought; she had previously expressed concern at those of high rank or noble birth paying her any mind at all. Antagonizing the Inquisitor was hardly a swift path to blending in. For all his anger at the Inquisitor’s callowness, it seemed as though she had been just as infuriated, perhaps more so.

He mused over this and other out of the ordinary things about the woman as the party rode on. It wasn’t until they reached the Fallow Mire and made camp that Solas got a chance to speak to Cole alone. He pulled the spirit aside while the others were eating. Although their companions could rarely understand Cole’s meaning, there was no use taking unnecessary risks.

“Cole,” Solas said cautiously once he was certain no one was within ear shot. “What do you think of our young friend, Emma?”

Cole said nothing, only stared blankly at Solas. The older man frowned. “Cole?” Another stretch of silence. “Cole, why aren’t you speaking?”

“Emma made me promise not to talk to you about her,” he responded promptly.

Solas’ eyes narrowed. “Really.” He ran a hand across his chin. Now this was interesting. When? Perhaps when she had taken the spirit with her to fetch dinner? He had already begun to believe the woman intelligent, but it seemed she was crafty as well. He thought back about what Cole had said before, something that could have alarmed her enough to ensure the spirit’s silence…

The first thing Cole had said was a rather tasteless reference to what the girl was likely thinking at the time… embarrassing, surely, but enough to swear a spirit to silence? How had she even managed to convince Cole to keep quiet? As Solas well knew, it was a difficult task.

A marionette with strings of sorrow. Terrified, trapped in a body that moves on its own; how could you do this to me?

Hm.

“Cole, did you promise not to speak to me about her, or to anyone?”

“To you,” the boy replied, hesitantly, clearly unsure if this counted as talking about Emma or not.

Hmm.

“Very well, Cole,” Solas said. “I won’t upset you with it further. I trust that you had a good reason for your decision.” Cole just nodded and walked away, quickly. Solas was beyond paying attention, already deep in thought.

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It was good to be back in Skyhold again. Solas rarely enjoyed trips out of the fortress when the Inquisitor was involved. The man seemed determined to only take him to the most unpleasant places in Thedas. Fortunately there was history in the Fade nearly everywhere. He could, at the very least, be mentally stimulated when he slept, even if his daylight company was lacking.

It seemed the elven woman, Emma, had gotten into no small amount of trouble while he was gone. When she had come to him, cringing as if expecting to be struck, he had expected some revelation in relation to her bid for Cole's silence. Instead, he found her guilt could apparently be traced to the care of some two dozen orphans. He had thought her confession of theft and bullying a little exaggerated until he heard a maid complain that Emma had trapped her in a corner and quite literally stolen the blankets that were meant to be brought to a group of human refugees. That, he would have liked to have seen.

Still, her confession was somewhat lackluster compared to what he was expecting. It seems he's not the only one dwelling on it, either. The night after he's returned to Skyhold, Cole slips into Solas's bedroom, quite late. Solas has not yet retired; his new stack of books is keeping him awake--The Botanical Compendium in particular.

“She thinks she has to hide,” the spirit bursts out the second he’s inside the room. “Still and silent to stay secret from predators long past.”

Solas blinks, looking up from his work. “Emma released you from secrecy, I take it?”

Cole paces back and forth, more distraught than Solas is used to seeing him. “I told her to trust but she’s timid, once bitten twice shy, the dog that bites the hand that feeds,” he says, hands clenching at his sides. “But her hurt can’t heal while she hides!”

The effect she has on the spirit is interesting, to say the least. How she persuaded him into silence in the first place is still a mystery, and now she releases him the day after he arrives back to Skyhold?

“What should she share?” Solas asks, phrasing the question carefully.

“She made me promise not to tell,” Cole says with a small pout, stopping his pacing.

“Not to tell whom?” Solas presses.

“Anyone, no one. If one knows, they’ll all know, no one can keep cats in a bag.” Interesting. Her last order had been regarding Solas alone. Perhaps she thought better of that, hoped to rectify it before he discovered. “She thinks like you,” Cole says, accusation in his tone.

“How so?”

“Around in circles. It makes me dizzy.” He pauses, hesitantly, as if he’s not sure whether or not to say something. “She said she wants to trust you. I can’t make her, but maybe you can.”

Solas traces a finger idly over his cheek, considering. “Yes, Cole. I intend to.”

-

Solas was gone from Skyhold for a scant two weeks. He has to remind himself of that often when he watches the once-skittish elven woman who had set up home in his rotunda. She flits about Skyhold as if she's always been there, a far sight from the nervous wreck she was when she first arrived. It seems she's become acquainted with half of the fortress in his absence. Cullen gives her a nod and a familiar smile as she bows at his passing. Solas hears him call her “Just Emma,” his voice more playful than Solas has come to expect from the man. When had she become on speaking terms with the Commander of the Inquisition, exactly?

She passes Blackwall as she enters the stables to visit with Revas and Belassan (the way both of them follow her about is almost comical; the Dalish might as well be a Hart himself for how enthralled he seems). Blackwall's passing grunt to her seems stern, off-putting, but Solas sees the grudging respect in his gaze.

Solas hears her outside his door, speaking with Varric in high, excited tones. He listens as Varric reads to her, seemingly an excerpt from a letter from a man named "Fenris." Curious, Solas opens the door, and watches her clasp her hand over her mouth. Shock, not horror. Only Varric is perhaps more startled than Solas when the normally reserved woman wraps her arms around the dwarf's shoulders in glee.

Solas spots her one evening, sitting closely with Cole on the roof of the tavern, their legs dangling loose and free over the courtyard. Her feet are bare in the autumn chill; somehow she's convinced the spirit to remove his shoes as well. They whisper stolen secrets to each other, and Solas is reminded of the jealousy with which she guards her own secrets.

She runs off every other evening with Sera, making vague excuses about “training.” The way they steal looks at each other makes Solas suspect they’re training little more than their tongues. The thought pesters him, perhaps because it seems to him they should not get along so well. He's had little luck engaging Sera himself, and Emma does not seem to be one to throw away the history of the Elvhen as casually as her blonde paramour. Surely they would have butted heads over it by now? Or is her interest in history only a show, easily cast away for the sake of entertaining a lover?

But perhaps the most telling (and alarming) is the change in her demeanor around Iron Bull. It's so sudden and vivid that it jars Solas when he first sees the two of them together. When he had left, she was reacting to his presence like a hissing, spitting cat, all puffed out fur and angry claws. Now, her eyes light up when she sees him. When they walk across the courtyard together, they stand close, closer even than Sera and Emma during their "training." She matches the Qunari's long strides with two shorter ones as if it's become second nature to her. They spar together in the courtyard (had she always been able to move like that?), and she wrestles and rolls in the mud with him with an effortless, comfortable grace, as if her fear of him had never existed at all.

She’s made arrangements with an elf girl from the kitchens to bring Solas his breakfasts. When asked, the kitchen worker simply states that she’s “doing her friend a favor.” Emma takes her first meal of the day with Iron Bull, then inevitably scampers into Solas’ rotunda, flushed and smiling, to begin a day’s work. She’s taken to the desk he had brought for her as if she was born to work there, filling out the space and making it her own. The glow about her in light of her newly filled social life almost causes Solas to miss the darkening bags under her eyes, or the way she desperately sags in the afternoon. Almost. She has a fresh excuse ready every time he steers the conversation to her obviously increasing exhaustion, however.

She throws herself into everything; might that be the cause? Despite clearly attempting to learn something from everyone in Skyhold, she still makes time to work on her assigned translation, decode and deliver seemingly endless missives from Leliana, and, most tellingly, pester after Solas to teach her what he knows of the Elvhen language, of spirits, of the Fade, of magic. Of anything and everything he knows.

Solas is still curious as to where exactly she had obtained her knowledge of the language. Books and scrolls are her excuse for every strange bit of knowledge she possesses, but he would very much like to know where she supposedly found so many Elvhen tomes. Her story makes some sense, admittedly, despite his skepticism. She knows old words the Dalish have forgotten, but utterly fails to pronounce them. There are irregularities, however. He’s never once heard the Dalish use “atisha’hamin” as a good night farewell, but it appeared to be one of a few phrases she could pronounce correctly. Where had she learned it?

Her knowledge of the language is incomplete, and her pronunciation poor, but she still knows it better than any Dalish. Her seemingly endless curiosity is oddly appealing to Solas. Combined with her ability to befriend essentially every person she crosses paths with, she’s becoming something of a sensation inside the castle walls. He often hears her name in chatter between workers (although some of the things he hears alongside her name are somewhat alarming).

Despite Cole’s insistence that Solas, of all people, is the one she most wants to trust, Solas has his doubts. She dodges questions nearly as well as he does, and she guards her secrets the way a dragon guards its hoard. Why should he expect her to open up to him? And, more importantly, why is he so interested in making her?

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She had come into his bedroom that morning, dressed in little but ill-fitting trousers and a terribly ratty undershirt. He could see her breastband quite clearly through the sides. Her forearms were heavily bruised--the reason she always wore long shirts, perhaps? It was only the fact she carried a tray laden with what was no doubt his breakfast that kept him from being even more severely alarmed.

She had brushed off his shock with a casual statement that “the other girl” was sick. As if that explained the state of her dress, not to mention the bruising! What he could see of her side through her “shirt” was just as alarming… ribs on prominent display, with a large bruise stretching up from her hip on the left side. He had often doubted her life story, but right then, battered, malnourished, and serving him breakfast, she looked every bit the slave she claimed to have been. The thought makes his stomach twist into guilty, nauseated knots even now, as he sits at the desk in his bedroom, staring at volume one of The Botanical Compendium, but not seeing it.

He suspects the Iron Bull is the cause of the bruises. The two of them train every morning, and while Iron Bull clearly goes quite easy on the girl, one is a tiny elf and the other a muscle-bound giant. Some bruising is inevitable, although his glimpse at the extent of it made him want to wring Iron Bull’s neck. The man could at least take her to a healer, rather than leave her to tend to her business painted with swollen bruises! As for her skinniness, that problem should sort itself out now that she’s taking nearly every meal with him; Solas can easily ensure she obtains proper nutrition. But the image of her, hair tied back in a neat bun casting sharp contrast to the sharp, bruised edges of her body… It is burned in his mind, it would seem.

With a sigh, he closes the book. It’s clear he’ll get no further in it tonight. Absentmindedly, he goes to his linen closet for another blanket to keep warm; the nights are rapidly getting chillier as August progresses. His hand falls on the enchanted one Emma had just so happened to select for her own use. Well, her use and several children’s, apparently. Mind still miles away, he picks it up almost idly; he doesn’t require its enchantment tonight. He glances it over, unfolding it as he does, as if expecting tears or holes.

A faint scent washes over him, just enough to make him pause, and then deliberately inhale the scent off the blanket. Elfroot and ink, conjuring to mind the image of faded red hair, a long-eared elf bent studiously over parchment. It smells of Emma. It’s surprising how much so, given that she’d only used it for a night or two. He inhales again, and finds himself imagining her, curled up with elven children under his blanket, perhaps finally allowing herself a good night’s rest thanks to his enchantment.

He almost would have liked to have seen it, but it was likely for the best that he’d been absent. Judging by the way she shook when she made her “confession,” she expected her actions to lead to scolding or perhaps even corporal punishment. If he had been present, she might not have had the courage to do what needed to be done. And certainly not in his name, which was an amusing notion all on its own.

He finds he’s been standing in his room, holding the blanket for long enough that it feels awkward. Clearly, she’d simply forgotten to wash this one in her rush to appease him. He could have it washed himself… Instead, he places it back in his linen closet and grabs another blanket to actually use tonight.

Chapter Text

As soon as his stomach begins to grumble, Solas stands, book still in hand. Without looking up from his reading, he walks to the edge of the rotunda, hooks a stool with his ankle, and drags it over to the corner of his desk. It’s become a practiced motion. Emma will be in with his meal momentarily, assuming she manages to walk across the Great Hall without being accosted or falling down the stairs. It seems as though every time she so much as leaves Solas’ line of sight, she’s getting into trouble. With her out running missives around Skyhold today, there’s certainly plenty of opportunity for her to do something foolish.

Fortunately, not five minutes later, she clambers into the rotunda. She’s visibly frazzled as she sets both their meals onto the desk. Likely, it has to do with the missive delivery. Judging by the scowl she gets whenever a message from Leliana appears on her desk, she doesn’t much care for being used in such a manner. She does it anyway, however, possibly because she hasn’t yet learned the concept of saying “no” to a task.

They have a pleasant conversation over dinner, as always. She plays chess… of course she does. Why wouldn’t she? She’s read Elvhen history and Tevinter philosophers. She doesn’t hold a spark of magic, but she cavorts with a spirit daily. He really should stop being surprised by now, but the breadth of knowledge in someone so young never ceases to impress and entertain him.

They talk long after they’ve both finished their meals. Solas considers inviting her up to his room for a game of chess. But would that not be too forward? She’d been in his room that very morning, and he’d forced her to strip. It had been for her own good, but... the embarrassment he’d given her had been intentional. She likely would not wish to go anywhere near his quarters again. A shame, but he could live without her company at breakfast if it meant she began taking her health more seriously.

In the end, duty calls her away yet again, and Solas resigns himself to spending the evening reading alone. He turns his attention back to Tevinter Slavery within Foreign Territories, but does not get very far before he is interrupted. When the door opens, he looks up with a pleased expression, thinking Emma has already finished her task. Instead, he sees the Iron Bull ducking through the doorway. His smile dies out immediately.

“Can I help you?” he says cooly. He suspects Iron Bull had no idea the extent of Emma’s injuries, but it’s still difficult for Solas not to hold him accountable.

“Not me, but maybe Emma,” Bull says, and he immediately has Solas’ full attention.

-

Insomnia! Solas massages his temple with finger and thumb. He should have seen that one, honestly. He had thought her increasing exhaustion had more to do with overwork and her injuries, but retrospectively, insomnia makes sense. Her astonishment with his enchanted blanket… She had probably slept very well that night.

But the part that doesn't make sense is why he's hearing this from the Iron Bull. Emma knows Solas has the abilities to help her with this. His blanket alone would have proved that, and if not it, then any one of the numerous conversations they’d held on similar subjects. No, she withheld this information from him deliberately. But why? He cannot come up with an answer. He resolves to simply ask her when she returns to the rotunda that evening.

But she never does.

Solas stays later than he is accustomed to, expecting her to return. As evening turns into night, he begins to pace around the edges of his rotunda like a caged animal… a nervous habit. There is a party at the tavern, for the return of the Fallow Mire soldiers. Has she been accosted by a drunkard? It seems like something that would happen to her. But, she has been training with Iron Bull, for weeks now. She can handle a drunk. He should resist the urge to treat her like a child.

With a frustrated, resigned sigh, he returns to his quarters. Emma has become very popular as of late. It’s more likely she’s at the festivities. He will see her in the morning. He can ask her then. But even as he sleeps, he idly searches for her sleeping mind in the Fade. Perhaps he can begin to determine the source of her insomnia from there. He fails to find her, however, and awakens mildly frustrated to the gentle clacking of Emma’s friend placing his breakfast down on his desk. As always, the woman looks terrified the second he sits up, and gives several frantic bows as she backs out of the door.

Her presence is unwelcome, through no fault of her own. The last three days, Emma had brought his meals. He would have liked to see her, not the frightened kitchen elf. He thumbs through Tevinter Slavery within Foreign Territories as he eats, then heads down to his rotunda to wait for Emma to arrive.

-

A fear of magic.

It’s so expected that it doesn’t surprise him, although his disappointment is palatable. One would expect a non-magical ex-slave from Tevinter to loathe magic. Emma had been, in all things, a pleasant surprise. All things until this.

It makes sense, in a miserable way. That she escaped her childhood with only a fear of magic that touches the mind is astonishing. He tries to remind himself of that as he flips glumly through his tome on Tevinter slavery, which now reads like a slap to the face. He fights the urge to throw it across the room, to light it on fire. Foolish. It’s not the tome’s fault. It’s fortunate that Dorian doesn’t show his face in the rotunda that day, however.

She doesn’t appear before him until lunch, when she simply shows up, carrying two meals as if nothing happened. But the puffiness around her eyes gives her away. Has… she been crying? He feels a pang of guilt, again wondering how badly he might have traumatized her with his forced healing. Her reluctance to go to healers might be related to her fear, after all. But she sits on her stool by his desk, and Solas thinks perhaps all he’ll have to worry about is an awkward lunchtime conversation.

But immediately after lunch, she vanishes again, and Solas spends his afternoon alternating between pacing the rotunda and attempting to read. Nothing can distract him. In the end, he simply tosses himself onto the couch to nap. Things are simpler in the Fade. Emma will still be a fascinating, frustrating enigma when he wakes, but at least he can escape her for a time.

Chapter Text

There had been myriad reasons Solas was looking forward to this trip to Val Royeaux. A trip without the Inquisitor was always a positive. But his real pleasure came from the news that Emma was to be accompanying him. To see her in a new environment would be to see an entirely different side of her. She had lived in Val Royeaux for some time; Solas is interested to see who she was there.

She doesn’t disappoint.

A poor night’s sleep and very early start has him sour, but watching Emma flit about the progression out of Skyhold, bribing and flirting and charming until she has their five companions firmly in her pocket cheers him immensely. She plays the fool gloriously; had Solas not known her intelligence first hand, he would likely detest her. But perhaps she knew that; she never played the fool with him.

Well, not to his knowledge, in any case... a somewhat sobering thought.

Again, she uses her knowledge of languages to great benefit. She speaks Orlesian with the Orlesian, Antivan with the Antivan. None of the others have any way of knowing what she’s saying. She even offers to speak Elven with him, although she may just be trying to wheedle a lesson out of him.

The companions themselves are… tolerable. Were he saddled with them alone, he suspects they would quickly become unbearable, but Emma acts as a pleasant distraction for him and them both. The Inquisitor had simple motives for sending them out together: a straightforward desire to have them both out of his hair, according to Leliana. Perhaps he and Emma should harangue the man more, if this is the end result.

One thing nags at the back of his mind as he watches the ease with which she manipulates the people around her, however… the seeming ease with which the Iron Bull manipulated her.

Solas had heard about her insomnia from him. Whatever her motive for hiding it, the fact remains that she showed more trust in the Qunari than in Solas. A fear of magic makes sense, yes, but would a woman still that haunted by her past in Seheron trust a Qunari so easily? She seems to have had traumatic run-ins with Qunari--possibly even Ben-Hassrath--before. Her relief upon hearing that he was a Hissrad had been palpable, so what had she feared he would be instead?

He broaches the subject over their shared dinner. She knows Bull is manipulating her; she admits as much. She seems resigned to it, however. Why? He wants to press, but he doesn’t. With so many curious ears so close, now is very much not the place for personal questions. Still, her seeming acceptance of Bull’s manipulations irritates him, enough that he jabs at her, perhaps unnecessarily. It isn’t as though she’ll simply reveal all her secrets if he prods her enough about them.

That she jabs right back, however, is interesting.

She fixates on his name. She has since she first came to know it. Pride. Admittedly, Solas knows too little about modern elven naming conventions to be able to say whether it is an unusual name or not. The Dalish he’d met hadn’t seemed to even recognize the word; he’d assumed city elves would be no different. But of course, this was Emma, with her odd understanding of the Elven language.

Emma, admittedly, was almost certainly not her name. Perhaps that explained her fixation on his, or perhaps it really was just an odd name by modern standards. But if she thought she would discover his secrets as readily as he intended to discover hers, she would be woefully disappointed.

-

How had she slipped out from the camp without him noticing? Solas blames the fool Antivan, who distracted him with questions. In any case, she’s gone now. Solas isn’t particularly worried; if she couldn’t find her way through the woods, she wouldn’t have wandered off. It’s something else that draws him out of the camp, a familiar flickering along the edges of his awareness. There is an Elven artifact nearby.

He hears the growls as he’s riding through the woods, but thinks little of them. He has nothing to fear from wolves. His lack of concern only lasts until he hears the yell, however. An frightened voice amongst the growls of wolves would be alarming under normal circumstances, but he recognizes this shout.

Emma.

He gives Ashi’lana a rough kick and the hart immediately springs into a run. He crashes through the forest until he bursts into a small clearing, where Emma seems to be attempting to fend off an entire pack of wolves with naught but a throwing knife. Of course she is.

The wolves scatter the second he thunders into the clearing, and he reigns in Ashi’lana sharply. Fear turns quickly to anger at Emma for putting herself in danger, and then into something else entirely when he sees what she’s standing in front of.

Emma appears to have located the very artifact that Solas was hunting for. His eyes narrow and flit between the woman and his prize. How had she found it? From the looks of it, it had been buried, and here she was, in the middle of the woods, having found it and dug it up. Surely there is no way she would simply stumble into the ruins, let alone know to dig through the rubble.

Once again, his mind loops back to the same suspicion. Magic. But even as he swipes his magic across her then and there, she holds no trace of it. As always. She claims to have simply happened across the ruins, seen something buried and dug for it. It seems ridiculously improbable. He examines the artifact carefully for any signs of tampering, but no magic seems to have touched it for some time. He activates it, and it functions as might any other of its kind.

Solas is incredibly frustrated by it all. Constantly, he feels as if he’s on the edge of discovery with her, only to have his suspicions repeatedly denied. It’s clear there’s something off about her, but what? Has he been weakened so much that a mage can hide themselves from him completely? Or is she something else entirely? Not an abomination; he would have noticed that right away. Nor is she a spirit in human form, like Cole. She appears to be an average, modern elf, no matter how he examines her, physically or magically. But if she is an ordinary, non-magical mortal, she has the oddest luck of any person alive.

Well… If it’s a matter of magic that he cannot detect himself, there is a simple enough way to tell. He has her mount onto Ashi’lana with him. She’s a poor rider, still learning. Rather than allow her to ride in front, where she might grip reins or saddle horn, he places her behind him, where she has nothing to grasp for support but him. He kicks Ashi’lana into an uncomfortable, jostling trot. Predictably, she clings to him, although he had perhaps underestimated how tightly she might squeeze. Her entire body pushes flush against his back; he can feel her nose tickling between his shoulder blades--

He pushes aside the unexpected pleasure, the tiny thrill; this wasn’t done just for idle amusement. He shoves into her with his mana, roughly and cruelly. Like thorned vines tearing through flesh he rakes through her, and waits for her body to tense, for her mouth to release a scream of agony. A giveaway that she can, in fact, feel magic.

Nothing. She doesn’t so much as flinch. He would know, as tightly as she clings to him. Frustrated, he goes through her again, rougher. Any mage would be able to feel this, any spirit. But no matter how he twists his mana through her, she has no reaction. Is he wrong? Had she simply tripped over that artifact? It seems ludicrously unlikely, but…

He twists the knife of his mana through her in every way he can think of, as if she might have a tender spot he’s simply missing. He goes harder, rougher, with more power, hoping to eek even a twinge out of her, perhaps indicating some form of magical tendencies not strong enough to manifest real magic, but enough to make her sensitive to the peculiarities of the Veil.

Nothing at all. By the time they arrive back at camp, he’s convinced. Whatever she is, it’s neither a mage nor a spirit. Pressed against him the way she was, he would have felt her flinch, twitch, struggle. She had been unable to feel it entirely. It’s only when she falls from Ashi’lana’s back, that he realizes he might have hurt her in an unintended fashion; she’s unused to riding in such a manner.

His fear is confirmed by her stiffness that evening. It’s perhaps not entirely his fault; she mentions the riding in general is causing her pain, although the thought that he’d jostled her so roughly when she was already hurting causes a twang of guilt in his chest. He doesn’t know if he’s relieved or worried when she consents to healing… How much pain is she in? Or has she perhaps begun to simply take her well-being more seriously? In any case, she agrees to meet with him after dinner. He can take stock of her health there and see if he’d done her any serious harm. All of that, and he still feels no closer to figuring her out. To say she’s frustrating is the least of it… But at least she gives him something interesting to do.

Chapter Text

The woman was going to drive him mad. He listens to her dodging the Ferelden man’s questions, flipping back and forth between thinking he’s overestimated her and thinking he’s underestimated her. Her injuries had been… severe for an average person, yes, but severe for a person who walked around battered for days without seeking healing? Not particularly. Had he been able to see it, her rear would probably have been quite black and blue, but most of her pain would have been from her strained muscles. From riding, perhaps? The battering from the rough ride he’d given her on the back of Ashi’lana wouldn’t have helped, but… Could she have felt some pain from his prodding and simply pretended she hadn’t?

He was confident that were she a spirit, she would have been screaming. A mage--even a mage with a high pain tolerance--and she would have at least been reacting to the pain in some fashion. But perhaps if she was merely magically inclined… She might not have even known what she was feeling. Could have thought she injured herself riding, hence her request for healing…

Ugh. He would get no answers from wondering.

He sees her mind in the Fade that night, to his delight. She is sleeping! Her connection to the Fade is tenuous at best; certainly not that of a mage, and closer to that of the average Qunari. But it may have some connection to her insomnia, and perhaps there is a relation to magic there? If something happened or is interfering with her ability to connect to the Fade, she could have magical potential being somehow suppressed.

But he’ll get nowhere without examining her closer, and he shies away from that. He has done enough magic to her without her consent, today in particular… even if she had failed to notice it. Her fear of the arcane makes him jumpy. He worries that if he pushes too hard, too fast, he will lose access to her altogether. He has become patient, with age. He can wait until she’s more comfortable with him.

-

The following day, however, brings disaster. When he sees Emma wandering away from camp, he stays within sight of her, suspecting that she may wander off again. Instead, however, she seems to lose control of Revas, who has been acting fidgety and uncouth all morning. The hart takes off out of nowhere, and Solas feels a paralyzing bolt of fear jolt down his spine. She can barely ride! He kicks Ashi’lana into a gallop, careening after her across the Dales.

Miraculously, she seems to be staying on the charging hart. Perhaps her lessons with Belassan have been paying off. Still, he pushes Ashi’lana faster, hoping to catch up and snatch the reins before she falls off.

Then he sees her throw her hands into the air. Her hair has come lose and billows out behind her, faded red gleaming brilliant in the noontime sun. She stretches upwards towards the sky in a silent shout, and he understands. She hadn’t lost control of Revas, but freedom had overcome her. He relaxes slightly in the saddle, thought his heart still pounds violently from the fright she’d given him. He could understand the craving that had caught her, but would it kill her to inform him before she did something dangerously reckless? “Oh, don’t worry about me, Solas, I’m just going for a walk, but maybe make sure I don’t get eaten by wolves? Thanks!”

Fear fades to relief fades to annoyance, but too soon. Revas gets a little too excited; the hart springs into a bound and Emma immediately careens off over the hart’s head. Solas’ heart freezes in his chest as he watches her spin through the air, head over heels, and crash into a nearby tree. Leaves fly and branches snap as she crashes brutally to the ground.

He doesn’t even stop Ashi’lana; as soon as he is close enough, he leaps from the galloping hart, landing a few feet away and running to her side. Mortals are fragile, that much he has learned. She could be broken beyond repair, even dead. He sees her twitch, then roll over. Not dead, then, no snapped spine. But she shouldn’t move; she could exacerbate an injury. He reaches her, but she seems dazed. She pushes vaguely against him, eyes hazy and unfocused. Has she damaged her skull in the fall? He struggles to keep her from moving, pushes down his burning panic in order to focus his will on her. He holds her forcibly still and silent as she examines her for injury. Miraculously, she’s avoided serious injury. Her leg is injured in multiple places, but isn’t even broken. She’ll likely be bruised, but her spine and skull are undamaged… somehow.

He doesn’t even realize quite how roughly he’s holding her until he feels something disturbingly slick and wet push against the inside of his palm. Automatically, he snaps his hand back, focus pulled back from his magic. It takes him a moment to realize what happened… Had… She just licked him?!

He’s unable to calm his shaken heart entirely, despite the woman’s claims that she’s uninjured. She is, for the most part, but his body had poured adrenaline into him and now didn’t know what to do with it. He takes it out on her, less than he’d like to but more than is likely fair. But she recognizes his anger for the fear it covers, and tries to soothe him.

”I wanted to feel free.”

She’d just flown through the air and smashed her way through a tree, and here she is, trying to reassure him. Ridiculous, and very, very much like her. He lets out a long, angry sigh, releasing some of his tension with his breath. She is fine. This time, a troublesome voice in his head reminds him. He brushes it off.

-

It takes him most of the day to stop worrying about Emma falling off of her hart again. He had tied her into the saddle mostly to embarrass her--it seemed to be the only form of motivation that worked--but even so, she was favoring her injured leg. Again, he finds himself fretting that her fear of magic might extend to healing. What other reason could she have for turning it down so frequently? He’s attempting to determine a strategy for convincing her to let him heal her when the attack begins.

The Orlesian diplomat is dead before any of them even realize what’s happening. He had been standing terrifyingly close to Emma. That arrow could have easily pierced her skull, instead. More arrows are coming quickly. Solas knocks several of them out of the air with quickly made, short-lived barriers, too desperate to stop the immediate danger to even grasp his staff.

The guards, fortunately, work quickly. They charge, but there are far more bandits than there are soldiers. Several break away to charge towards Solas and Emma. Quickly, Solas brings a wall of ice up to block their path, but too slow; one man rides the wave of spiked ice upwards and jumps down the other side, blades drawn and heading straight for Emma.

Solas lets out a strangled noise of panic as he struggles to draw his mana into another spell. Too slow, too slow! He’s still drawing his magic together when Emma rips that hidden dagger out from her back, blocks the man’s strike. It gives Solas just enough time to throw a haphazardly prepared barrier onto her. Then he grasps desperately for his staff, hoping the barrier will hold long enough for him to encase the man’s head in a block of ice.

Before he can fire his first offensive bolt of magic, however, Emma has proven once and for all that she can take care of herself when the need arrises. She catches the man’s blade on her arm--how had she known his barrier would hold?--and brings her dagger straight across the man’s stomach. His shriek echoes across the battlefield as he drops his arms and clutches at his spilling entrails.

Only a scream from the young Ferelden girl draws Solas’ attention away from Emma, who is stumbling backwards from the quickly dying man. The guards will need magical assistance with this battle, or they’ll surely be overcome. Emma takes shelter behind one of the horses, allowing Solas to focus fully on the fight at hand. It’s over quickly.

He runs to Emma first. She’s staring blankly at the Orlesian’s lifeless body. She appears utterly shellshocked; she turns to him with wide eyes. Her face is splashed with blood, giving her a ghastly, haunted look. “I-I… I was just talking to him…” she mutters. She appears to be looking at something past Solas, her eyes unable to focus. He winces, recognizing the signs of trauma. But a cry of pain steals his attentions away. She is uninjured; the blood she’s covered in belongs to Baptiste and the bandit. The same cannot be said for the others.

When he returns to Emma, she’s kneeling by the body of the Orlesian, eyes hazy and unfocused, mind clearly miles away. He needs to get her away from the bodies. The Ferelden, Garrick, appears to sense the same thing, ordering the two of them to set the tents, far back and away from the blood stained ground. Solas assembles a tent as quickly as possible; Emma spends her time staring blankly into space, occasionally fumbling with a rope in a dazed attempt to assist. As soon as the tent is up, Solas pushes her into it and closes the entrance. Hopefully being away from the bodies will help… He has work yet to do before he can tend to her.

-

Solas paces outside of Emma’s tent a few times, uncertain if his presence would make things better or worse. The guards are healed and have lit several fires. Soon, they’ll begin burning the bodies. Would she want to know? Or should he let her rest?

In the end, he winds up digging through her bags for food. It’s what she always seems to go for when she wants to make him to feel better. Perhaps it will work on her. He retrieves some bread from his own packs as well. He knows little about her, but he does know her fondness for bread; how often has she snatched his or spent her time after eating idly chewing on hard crusts?

The food does seem to soothe her. Perhaps she finds some familiarity in the ritual of sharing their meals together; she seeks him out for it every day. Solas finds his heart wrenched at the trauma plain on her face. She was a slave in Tevinter; she’d likely seen death before, but it was quite possible this was her first time holding the knife herself. His excitement at the prospect traveling with her seemed foolish now. Good company she may have been, but once again he had forgotten how fragile mortal life was. She’d had three near misses in two days; his nerves couldn’t take much more--and neither could hers, it seemed.

He attempts to comfort her, with chocolate and conversation. He suspects the chocolate works much better than his fumbling attempts to distract her. He manages to convince her to submit to healing, at least. Perhaps she will allow him to do so more readily in the future--her injured leg could have easily been the death of her.

So many things could easily have been the death of her.

He tells stories, to distract them both, although too many of his stories involve death: the inevitable consequence of a long life. Eventually, through healing, chocolate, and distraction, the dark haze in her eyes passes. She engages his stories more readily, and, eventually, goes to bathe with the other women.

Solas sits in the tent for a while longer. She may have calmed, but there was still a fist of ice around his heart. He can’t shake the feeling that more bandits would attack while the women were at the river. He winds up pacing the camp until the three of them return. Her hair is still damp, but has been braided again--thanks to the young Fereldan, no doubt, who looks nearly as shaken as Emma.

She sticks close to him all evening, which is fine by Solas. Her presence calms his own nerves--if fear begins to grip his heart again, he can simply look over and assure himself that she is unharmed. When her eyes begin to get that far-off look again, he brings her back by telling her stories of his travels. She latches onto them--so do most of the guards, but they are for her. Her eyes grow heavy, and he finds she begins to lean against him more and more. Finally, one time when he looks over at her, he finds her eyes shut and her breathing soft, slow, and easy. She has fallen asleep.

Solas doesn’t move her for as long as possible; he’s worried that the slightest jostle will awaken her, and no one needs to rest more than her. But eventually “their” watch shift is over, and he knows he needs to get some rest himself. As carefully as he can, each movement slow and deliberate, he shifts her into his arms and stands. She’s light--an indicator that her diet has not improved her health enough. Miraculously, she stays asleep as he carries her into her tent. He briefly considers examining her sleeping mind now, but her eyes flutter open briefly as he sets her on her bedroll. A tired smile flickers across her lips.

“Ar lath ma, mamae,” she mutters, her mind clearly still in the haze of the Fade. Then her eyes flit gently closed again.

“Atisha’hamin, da’asha,” he murmurs, pulling the bed roll up so she won’t catch a chill during the night. Then he leaves--quietly so that he won’t disturb her much needed sleep.

Chapter Text

To see Emma in Val Royeaux is even more entertaining--and fascinating--than Solas had hoped. The sight of her sweeping through the city is a grand one. Solas can’t help but to dwell on how well her brilliance and social graces would have served her in the courts of ancient Arlathan. There she could have truly reached amazing heights.

But even within the social strictures of modern Orlais, she works wonders. Her entire demeanor changes with each person they meet. At times she is as meek as a maid; at others, she struts about as if the city were her own personal playground. Masks, and each one fascinating, a facet of her. Each is different than the one she wears with him, as well. Here, she may be Alix Gagnon, but where does that leave “Emma”? Which one is her? None, perhaps? Emma could be a mask as well used and easily discarded as Alix.

In any case, however, Solas is more than content to sit back and observe her. As he watches her expertly work over arrogant human after arrogant human, through intimidation and charm in equal amounts, he can’t help but suspect she’s doing a better job than their actual diplomat would have. Solas rather doubts that Baptiste had Emma’s… particular connections, though he likely had some of his own.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that she was much more than a mere “linguist” in Val Royeaux. Her ability to manipulate could have come from a need to do business in a world where elves were spat upon, but her interactions with the man “Jean-Luc” alone were enough for Solas to suspect some level of duplicity. Still, he prods gently. No need alarming her now, when she’s finally showing him new things. When he does question her, he does so delicately. She makes excuses, as he knew she would. But it doesn’t matter; he’ll see the truth sooner than later.

-

Interestingly enough, as soon as the sun sets, she’s jumpier here than she was when she first arrived at Skyhold. She all but drags him from the library, insisting they need to get to the inn before it gets too dark. The foggy look of fear on her face when they “brave” the streets reminds him of the way she’d looked the first time he’d seen her run from the Iron Bull. She’s scared of the Chevaliers, but she seems more worried on Solas’ behalf than her own.

He wants to tell her that he has nothing to fear from the guards of the city, and that while he’s with her, she doesn’t either. He suspects she already knows that, on some level, but her concern for him is… touching, in a way, if misplaced.

Sharing the inn room is more awkward than he’d thought it would be. Solas isn’t used to having others in his space. It’s confusion as much as irritation when he wakes up to see her in his room. It's one thing to share a tent; when camping, privacy is an illusion no matter the circumstances. A bedroom is different, and he can't shake the nagging feelings he's doing something incorrectly. How long had it been since he slept in the same room as someone? Although that implies that she slept as well, which she almost certainly hadn’t. Admittedly, the idea of her awake and working while he slept was no less disconcerting.

The unsettling feeling of domesticity continues throughout breakfast. It’s almost a relief to be out on the streets of Val Royeaux again.

Their second day in Val Royeaux proceeds much like their first--research, Emma acting suspicious, Emma dodging questions about how suspicious she’s acting--until Emma decides that they need to go shopping. She drags him into a mask shop. It’s no surprise, really; the Orlesians wear masks, and Emma, to hear her tell it, lived here in Orlais for quite a long time. She may even feel naked without one, Solas supposes.

What he hadn’t been expecting was for her to insist that he wear one as well. The extra level of duplicity chafes at him--as does the mask. As does the fact the masks match, which she assures him is to encourage the assumption they work together. They do, he wants to point out. Whatever their earlier association was, it’s safe to say, at this point in time, that they do work together.

But he indulges her, despite the physical discomfort of the mask itself, which feels like it’s constantly slipping down his nose. He can’t say he enjoys having his range of vision limited, either. He feels somewhat akin to a horse wearing blinders. It’s worth it, however, for the added change in persona he sees in his companion. With a mask on her face, she seems to feel more “Alix” and less “Emma.” It’s interesting to watch. She’s more comfortable, more bold. She jokes more readily and speaks more easily.

And she takes him to the shadier side of Val Royeaux and proceeds to interact with a number of increasingly suspect individuals, right in front of him.

She’s given up on hiding, it seems.

Solas wonders if this is because she’s coming to trust him--she wanted to, Cole said--or if she really is just that dedicated to doing a proper job. It would fit what he knows of her. No matter how irritated she is to be given a task in Skyhold, she always does it, quickly and exceptionally well. Still, it seems as though she should have some priorities higher than accomplishing a job well. Perhaps this simply isn't something she thinks worth hiding? And if not... what is?

Solas puzzles over her change in character as she leads him on a merry run-around through the underbelly of Val Royeaux. He resolves to bring it up over dinner… delicately, again, but perhaps with a bit more force than previously. She can’t expect to go without questioning for the entirety of their trip, after all, especially when she’s behaving so curiously.

And then he meets Luvian.

Emma’s clear embarrassment over the behavior of the man is entertaining, right up until Solas realizes he’s felt that sort of second-hand embarrassment as well, watching the Dalish profess to “educate” other elves on subjects they barely have a toddler’s grasp of. Solas once witnessed a rural, non-Dalish elf express feeling “but a child” next to the Dalish. What the man could never realize is that his awkward religious flailing is likely as close to the truth as what the Dalish have put together, sheerly by accident. His “””laise””” bread, for instance, tastes more familiar than anything the Dalish have ever managed to bake--a coincidence, but amusing nonetheless.

Speaking of amusing, Emma’s face when she confesses that she’d been teaching the man Elven…

Priceless.

Solas suspects his own face upon hearing that little revelation had been something interesting to see, as well. In truth, her grasp of the language was quite good for a modern elf. But that isn’t particularly grand praise, all things considered.

Chapter Text

The unsettled feeling comes again when they’re back in the inn room. He finds himself mildly alarmed at how easy it is to fall into working together with her. The two of them are sharing wine and some rather delectable cheeses when awareness strikes him of how close they’re sitting... and how long they’ve been that way, increasingly intoxicated and alone in an inn room. More than anything, he’s surprised with how comfortable she seems with the situation. He’d thought her a bit more skittish. Simply being in a bedroom with him before had been enough to have her jumping at shadows.

He supposes again that it’s possible that was simply a show she put on in Skyhold, shed now that she feels more comfortable in the familiar surroundings of Val Royeaux… though her discomfort had felt genuine.

Or, a quiet voice in the back of his head--that sounds remarkably like Cole--tells him, she simply trusts him more now than she did before.

He doesn’t see her mind in the Fade that night--though he doesn’t particularly hunt--but when he wakes the next morning, she is passed out on the couch. He can’t help but be amused; she has an entire room to herself, yet she falls asleep on the couch? Perhaps it’s simply more comfortable than the bed in the “servant’s” quarters. He glares slightly at the bed in which he lays. He really doesn’t need anything this decadent. If she could sleep better in it…

He goes through his morning routine as quietly as possible, stepping softly and soundlessly across the floor as he dresses and prepares for the day. It seems that just the air moving through the room is enough to wake her, however. He had not made a sound, he’s certain, but still she rouses from her sleep.

She seems as shocked to see him as he had been to see her upon waking. But at least her consciousness means he can move more freely. He’d skipped his morning stretches the day before, and had felt mildly uncomfortable and stiff for it the rest of the day. The room has more than enough space, and Emma will certainly need to prepare for the day herself.

Instead of going to her room to change, however, she simply sits up and begins to pepper him with questions--not entirely surprising, in all honesty. He answers them as best he can, with his normal standby to such questioning: learned it in the Fade. It’s remarkable how well the excuse works. It’s even true in most cases... though this is not one of them. But, he finds, the eyes of most people glaze over when the Fade is mentioned. Even, depressingly, that of modern mages such as Madame de Fer, who fears the Fade--the very source of her powers--above all else.

But not Emma, interestingly enough. Her eyes grow far away, yes, but there’s curiosity in them, and… wistfulness, if he’s not mistaken. Longing. She had once remarked that she felt less of an elf for her lack of magic. In truth, she was not wrong; elves’ very essence was inherently magical. Without it, they were all shades of their former selves. But she seems to feel that disconnect a little more keenly than most. Perhaps due to her research into elvhen history? Or perhaps, he allows himself to briefly wonder, some modern elves can feel all that they have lost?

He quickly chases that thought out of his mind. It’s a bit more disturbing than he cares to dwell on at the moment.

-

She does, eventually, prepare for the day, and it seems they are going to simply have a repeat of yesterday until a knock comes at the door. Emma goes to answer it, and Solas lets her, expecting that it’s simply the serving girl. It isn’t until he hears a voice that is very much not belonging to the elven servant that he turns to look and sees Emma, frozen in the doorway, the color rapidly draining from her face.

The two are looking for Baptiste, and judging by the look on Emma’s face, she does not wish to be the one to tell them why they will be unable to find him. In fact, she looks as though she might pass out on the spot. Quickly, Solas takes over for her, guiding her to sit on the couch and bringing the soon-to-be-bereaved family into the room. It’s entirely possible--and, in fact, likely--that Emma has never had to give this particular news, but Solas has done it so many times as to have lost count. Once more will hardly hurt him.

Solas had not quite taken into account how much humans might react badly to being given such news by an elf, however. The man is clearly furious. He gestures wildly and spits accusations as Solas tries to calm him, remind him that his father-in-law worked for the Inquisition, that this was not just two random elves telling them their loved one was gone. Still, he worries the man is about to grow violent when the woman stands abruptly. She thanks Solas through her tears, effectively shutting down her increasingly irate husband, and flees the room. The man shoots Solas one last, hopeless, desperate, but still angry glare, before rushing out of the room after her.

Solas allows himself to take a deep breath. That is… never pleasant.

When he turns his focus to Emma, however, he realizes his work is not yet done. She is slumped on the couch like a broken doll, eyes full of tears and staring out past the walls, a thousand miles away. She’s lost in her own mind again, likely reliving Baptiste’s last moments and the bloody events that followed.

He sits beside her on the couch, speaks slowly and gently to lure her out of whatever blood-filled place she’s in. Her eyes half-focus on him, and she stammers out the worst lie she’s ever told.

“I-I-I’m fine, S-S-Solas.”

She seems to realize how unconvincing it sounds. A sound that could be a laugh and could be a sob chokes out of her.

The poor thing. She doesn’t deserve this much pain.

Solas reaches out and brushes hair away from her damp cheeks, testing to see if contact is the thing she needs, testing to see if she flinches away. He freezes in alarm when her quietly falling tears suddenly erupt into loud sobbing. He recoils back slightly, startled and convinced he’s done something horribly wrong, but before he can apologize, she leans forward into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

She weeps and shouts and, Solas suspects, releases a lot of pent-up emotion that she’s been holding onto for a while. Particularly judging by the colorful oaths Emma has for the Empress and her cousin, the Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons. Seems as though she holds them responsible for the loss of her home, as well, and he can’t particularly blame her. Those in power never hold a pittance of care for the little ones who get trampled underfoot in their grand games.

She has no kind words for the Templars or Circles either, and again, he cannot blame her. She’s been caught up in the middle of a great deal of unpleasantness. There are large figures shaping Thedas all around her, and it seems like all she can do is run while the world shifts under her feet. She strikes at his shoulder in frustration and he grips her arm, both to soothe her and to prevent her from hitting him again. All it really does is cause her to cling onto shirt however, and one point of contact--her forehead against his shoulder--becomes two, becomes three, until she’s effectively clinging to him.

It’s slightly awkward, but he can’t bring himself to move her. Instead, he simply lets her cry herself out. She has likely needed to do this for a while, and it’s just as well it was here and not somewhere public. Eventually, she seems to simply… run out of tears. She seems to realize just how much she’s holding onto him and recoils swiftly away. Her face is red and her eyes are puffed and swollen with tears. She refuses to make eye contact and quickly moves to fetch her mask. He watches her violently shaking hands fumble with the tie for a few moments before helping her with that, as well.

She needs the mask. It’s a layer, a wall between the rawness of herself she’d just expressed, and the world around her. Solas knows a thing or two about such walls, and he wouldn’t deny her one of her own. Especially when he sees how she visibly calms when it’s in place, running her hands over it as if it’s solid plate armor. Her back straightens, her trembling lessens. When she speaks, her voice is more firm.

She turns to him, and he cannot even tell she has been crying, so well-hidden is her face behind the mask. But her smile as a little bit sad when she tells him, “Good as new.”

Chapter Text

Emma, it seems, is determined to try his patience as endearingly as possible.

It had been hard for him to tolerate the addition of a mask into his wardrobe, and the ridiculous, rather ostentatious cloak she insisted on stuffing him in was almost too much for him to tolerate. The payoff, however, turned out to be worth it. After a long day of successes, she wants to celebrate... and does so in a most unusual fashion. She wants to go to the Grand Royeaux Theatre, of all places. The most interesting thing, however, is the way the two of them get there.

She leads him up the side of the building and in a loose window. He hadn’t snuck around like this since he was quite the young man, and he has to admit it’s as enjoyable as it is strange. It’s also exactly what he wanted to see out of this trip to Val Royeaux. Sneaking into a theatre with snacks in hand to enjoy a frankly excessively Orlesian play...

This is what she did for fun.

It was something beautiful in both its simplicity and in how it was an open window into who the young woman was. Back in Skyhold, she mostly engaged him in his own interests, or interests they happened to share. Here, he was getting to see more of the things that were uniquely her. He finds himself spending as much time imagining how she would delight to see the lengthy plays put on in the theatres of Arlathan as much as he does actually watching the play... which is, again, extremely Orlesian.

She has the whole thing down to a science, which speaks to the regularity with which she’s done it. She even knows where and when to hide--when the room lights up for intermission, for instance. She guides him behind a row of chairs to squat until the play begins again. It’s a little ridiculous, but she seems truly in her element. He couldn’t really imagine her doing something like this in Skyhold. Not with him, at least... he wouldn’t be terribly surprised to hear that she got up to similar things with Sera.

“I used to do this every time a new play began showing,” she says, voice soft in her effort to not be heard by anyone else in the theatre, but breathy, betraying her excitement.

“With a friend?” he asks, mind still on Sera and their antics in Skyhold.

She glances over, blue-green eyes glinting in the half-darkness, catching light and reflecting it back the way only elven eyes do. “Never, until now.”

She glances away quickly and continues chattering, which is a lucky break for Solas. He’s quite certain his surprise showed on his face, even briefly.

She considers him a friend, then.

It’s hard to say what that means, he reminds himself. Some people are quick to call another friend, and just as quick to throw the label away when they’ve had enough. Still, Cole would be pleased at the progress... and it had been a long time since elven eyes looked into his and said friend.

--

Solas is poor at guessing mortal’s ages. He’s given up trying. He would say that Emma seemed centuries younger on their walk back to the inn, were it not such a ridiculous statement. Elves no longer live for even a single century, by and large. But she seems both younger and lighter. She practically bounces, and responds to his questions with idle chatter instead of dodging them in the manner he’d grown accustomed to. She doesn’t actually say anything of particular note, but it’s nonetheless amusing to listen to prattle on about her younger years in Val Royeaux. She arrived in the city five years ago, though his comment about how young she must have been--meant to prompt her to tell him her age--was met with only a noncommittal hum.

“And that was when I noticed the loose window,” she’s informing him, walking backwards along the side of a planter. “I wasn’t intending to see a play that night; I just didn’t want to get run through by some Chevalier hoping to earn his--”

Speaking of Chevaliers, there’s one of the men she so fears. Solas spots the man first--no surprise, given that Emma is walking backwards without a care in the world. He remembers her words earlier, about what Chevaliers liked to do to elves out late, her trembling fear at the idea of the two of them being caught, the lengths to which she went, even now, to hide their pointed ears.

He had nothing to fear from a man like that, but he did not wish to see Emma’s uncharacteristic cheer come to an end, particularly not after the difficulties she’d been having as of late. Before the Chevaliers’ gaze can turn towards them, he sweeps Emma off her perch, spins her so that he’s between her and the Chevalier, and pushes her back into the shadows of the building they’d been walking next to. If there had been an alley, he would have pulled her into it; as it was, he simply shielded her from sight, trusting that with his hood up, he would be mistaken for a human man.

She begins to talk--loudly--and he shushes her, placing a finger across her mouth. He glances back over his shoulder, slightly, just enough to see the Chevalier out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t look back at Emma until the man has passed. He’s a bit startled when he does; he’s standing close enough to see her eyes clearly behind her mask. They are wide and dark, like a startled cat, and there’s a clear expression of shock on her face.

Ah... probably because he... swept her off her feet and shoved her against a wall.

Suddenly embarrassed by his actions, he takes a quick step back. She seems flustered, which only serves to embarrass him further. For someone so old, one would think he would have learned to think things through more completely before acting.

--

Despite the foolhardiness with which he’d moved, it seems to have worked; Emma’s cheer returns quickly and in full force. She’s positively giddy as they settle back into their room--their room, that’s slightly uncomfortable--and practically bouncing off the walls despite his desire to simply slip into bed.

She protests his desire for sleep, teasing and cajoling in an attempt to get him to stay up with her. She has no doubt adjusted to working on only a few hours of sleep, and doesn’t understand that others--Solas in particular--get rather grouchy if not given the proper amount of sleep. Or, perhaps she simply enjoyed herself that evening and doesn’t want the night to turn back into the day, necessitating their return to work.

Solas, however, simply wants to rest. He needs time to process all the new information he’s gathered during the day, most of it about Emma. For instance, she’s very clever and charismatic when she needs to be, with a focus sharper than the blade she carries at her back. And yet--

“Maybe I’ll come up with adventures good enough to keep you awake all night before we’re done.”

Sometimes, she says things like that. And by the utterly horrified expression on her face--honestly, she looks as though she’d just murdered a kitten by accident--it had been completely unintentional. One so good with words shouldn’t be able to shove their foot into their mouth so effectively.

Solas takes advantage of her momentary discomfort, however. He asks the obvious question--who was she in Val Royeaux? Who was Alix Gagnon, precisely?

She begins her traditional dodge, but he cuts her off. In the past, she’s been flighty, skittish when questioned. Her body tense, as if she might literally break into a run if pushed too hard. But now... now was different. Her body is tense, but held inwards, as if she’s physically trying to contain her secrets in her core. She’s not scared he’s going to hurt her, this time; she seems, if anything, scared of what she might say. She’s off-balance, and she’s been overly open with him all day. He can push just a little harder, and--

Tiny truths come pouring forth, like secrets spilling from the sky. A satisfying reward for hard work. She says little he had not at least suspected. Training as an Orlesian bard neatly tied together the disparate pieces of her that hadn’t previously fit. Some of them, in any case. He had wondered if she had some tie to Briala’s little rebellion... but if she did, she was not telling him now. He suspects it’s simply not the case--to hear her tell the tale, the events involving Briala, the Empress Celene, and the chaos surrounding them had affected her only in that they had broken her.

Solas finds himself beside her, comforting her in a manner similar to how he had that morning, though this time it is intentional. He had learned then the sort of things that might comfort her--a light touch, simple physical presence, a few kind words--and employed them now both to soothe her and to reward her growing honesty with him.

This trip has already given him everything he hoped--a new understanding of who she is, and an avenue through which she can come to trust him more. He may still have questions unanswered about the young elven woman... but he is a patient man.

Chapter Text

Solas isn’t terribly surprised that she begins to drink almost immediately upon even slightly recovering. She’s had an emotional couple of days, and despite the comfort of this evening, still seems frayed, and more than a little embarrassed. She doesn’t seem one to be comfortable with honesty or emotions, and she’s just displayed quite a bit of both.

She doesn’t have to hit the wine quite as hard as she does, of course, but Solas suspects he may be partially to blame for that. It takes a very strong alcohol for him to feel the effects, so he drinks with her almost absentmindedly. Emma keeps up, possibly drinks even more. What for him is barely a buzz in the back of his head, is quite drunk for Emma.

“No drink sweeter than Orlesian wine,” she says, over-enunciating in her attempts to disguise her slur. “I’ll fight anyone in Skyhold on it. I could piss inna cup and pass it off as Ferelden ale. And don’t get me started on tha’ dwarf shite! It’s dirt, Solas! Liter’ly, they ferment dirt and moss and fungus and shite! Who drinks tha’ willingly?”

“You, given by the time you’ve spent in the tavern at Skyhold,” Solas comments lightly.

“I said willin’ly,” she says with a snort. “I’ll fight Dorian, too, and his friggin Tevinter sour grapes they use to make that ancient swill they call wine. If it takes twenty years t’make a good wine, jus’ means yer shit at makin’ it.”

Solas snorts. The wine he was accustomed to in his youth aged for a lot longer than twenty years, which sounds unforgivably young to him. “And how about the Antivans? I’ve heard their wine is well-acclaimed.”

Emma stills for a moment, then glances around conspiratorially. She leans in towards Solas... a little too close, actually. They’re sitting by the desk, but have long since turned their chairs to face each other, rather than the work they’re supposedly doing. She almost seems to lose balance, but catches herself with a hand on his knee. Solas focuses his eyes on hers--and nowhere else--as her undershirt gapes open in the front, her tunic long since unfastened and hanging half-off of her shoulders. “Don’ tell any Antivans I said this... but I do prefer Orlesian wine, even th’ red... ‘specially the red.”

“Don’t tell any Antivans?” he repeats, mostly to distract from her hand--and most of her weight--resting on his knee.

She giggles, which is quite the unusual sound coming from her, and slumps backwards into her chair, much to his relief. “Think they send Crows affer you f’r sayin’ that. I lived there, y’know.”

“You’ve mentioned,” Solas says, and she makes a bit of a face.

“Have I? Can never keep that shite straight, everyone in Skyhold always askin’ questions. Can never remember who I’ve told what.”

“Is that a problem for you often?”

Emma shoots him a sour look that, very briefly, tells him she knows exactly what he’s doing. “Only in tha’ I wind up repeatin’ stories to people who’ve already heard ‘em. But since yer such an expert on my childhood, I won’ bother borin’ ya.”

“All I know is that you’ve worked there in the past,” Solas says, attempting to mollify her. Perhaps fishing for stories while she’s drunk isn’t the most innocent of activities, but it isn’t as though she’s lining up to tell him things while sober. “And you’re fluent in the language.”

“Ero un imbroglione professionista,” she says, her Antivan perfectly coherent despite her alcohol level. “Mentre ho vissuto lì,” she adds. Solas keeps his expression blank, and a smile flickers briefly across her face. “In modo simile a come si sono ora.”

“You won’t get a reaction out of me,” he informs her.

“Sei noioso, cacasenno.”

“I become less and less convinced that is a term of endearment.”

“It’s very endearing, I promise you.”

“Mmhmm.”

--

Solas does, eventually, turn in for the night. Particularly after he realizes that Emma intends to spend the evening switching between fumbling through paperwork and being vulgar in various languages she believes he doesn’t understand, rather than saying anything of particular interest. Despite her intoxication, however, he’s quite certain she doesn’t sleep that night. He’d been looking for her.

She’s in different clothes when he wakes up, and sober, but he might have suspected she hadn’t slept even if he hadn’t gone hunting for her sleeping mind and been unable to find it... the entire night. Although he also might have simply assumed the dark bags under her eyes and jerky movement due to a hangover.

The combination of her lack of sleep and obvious deception, along with not enough sleep on his end, has Solas quite grouchy. He spends the morning in a bad mood, his irritation mounting every time she alludes to having absolutely slept the night before... and particularly when she nearly skips breakfast altogether in order to work.

How she’s not fallen apart by this point, Solas doesn’t know. Perhaps the true reason behind her fascination with Elvhen history is that she wishes to uncover the techniques that ancient Dreamers used in order to no longer require food to nourish their physical bodies. Solas considers making a quip about it, but decides against it. How much do mortals even know about that sort of thing? As in all things, prudent silence is the better option, no matter how much he might wish to harangue her for her lack of self-care.

They pass the morning as expected, in the library. Despite his sourness at Emma’s attitude towards her own health, it’s impossible for him to remain in a bad mood when surrounded with so many books. She invites him to take advantage of the hospitality she’d earned, and he does so, requesting essentially every book that he believes he could make use of. It took months for the Inquisitor to manage just to send someone out to Val Royeaux for books. He might as well take full advantage, since there was no telling if or when the Inquisition would allow more resources to be spent on the matter.

After she finishes her work--which she consistently turns down help with--she takes him to yet another bakery. He’s beginning to get a very clear view of how she spent her time in Val Royeaux. This one is obviously not used to dealing with elven customers, but the owner, a blonde woman nearly as tall as Solas, is someone Emma is clearly acquainted with.

Solas barely has to press for information to get it; the woman is practically spilling details of Emma’s life with every other word. She’s quickly distracted by a request for cakes and an endless stream of compliments... and, admittedly, Solas is a bit distracted by the cakes as well. The food they’d had thus far in Val Royeaux has been quite good, particularly when compared to the supplies that manage to make it all the way to Skyhold. But the assortment of tiny cakes Emma requests are absolutely delicious, and beautifully crafted. Even Emma, who had once laughed at Solas’ slow and polite manner of eating, takes her time with them.

Before Solas even realizes it, they've filled up on sweets for lunch. It's hardly healthy, and Emma is the sort of person who needs more nutrition than just empty sugars. Still, so long as neither of them make a habit of it, Solas supposes there’s nothing wrong with a treat... He certainly can’t bring himself to regret it, no matter how much his stomach might ache in protest as they leave.

Her regularly scheduled jitteriness returns quickly; she insists Solas carries the pouch of gold for fear of being mugged or pickpocketed, and frets over the prospect of the return trip to Skyhold. Solas attempts to reassure her; he can’t blame her in the slightest for being afraid after what happened on the way here. But in the process, she says something that catches his attention.

“None of the soldiers could have doubled back in time to protect me from that bandit. Your barrier saved me.”

He’d noticed, in the heat of battle, that she had blocked with his barrier. In the chaos that followed, it had all but slipped his mind. With this confirmation that she’d recognized the magic, Solas wondered how, precisely, she’d known. The barrier he’d thrown up was not particularly subtle; he’d been in a frantic rush. It would have had a visible sheen, but it had been Solas’ experience that only those who were familiar with that sort of magic tended to recognize it on sight. Especially in the heat of battle. She might have felt something odd; even someone as disconnected from magic as the Iron Bull could feel the physical sensation of a magical barrier. But how had she known what it was? How had she known it could take a head-on attack from a sword?

Her confession the night before, about a bardic past, had been satisfying... but Solas’ curiosity was far from sated.

--

The evening continues fairly benignly until the two of them begin to head towards the Alienage. Solas is just wondering whether or not he’ll be seeing Luvian again when a shouted slur cuts through the din of the street. The noise grows hushed all at once; elves all around them find ways of making themselves scarce, slipping into alleyways or building. Solas continues for several steps before realizing that Emma has stopped.

Not just stopped. In the brief time it takes him to pause and turn around, Emma has gone from walking benignly next to him to shoving herself physically between an angry Chevalier and an elven child who, presumably, is the "wretched knife-eared thief" in question. Solas pales at once. Emma has spent this entire trip fretting over and fearing the Chevaliers, and she appears to have just charged headfirst at the angriest one yet. How had she even gotten there so quickly?

His mind is already racing with ways he might de-escalate the situation, but before he can take so much as a step, the Chevalier has brought his gauntlet down across Emma’s face with a sickening crack.

Solas’ first instinct is to blast the man across the street with a well placed bolt of force. It takes more effort than he’d like to admit to suppress that urge. An elven mage attacking a Chevalier in the middle of Val Royeaux, even in self-defense, will do no one any good; he should have more self-control than to even consider it. Instead, he moves towards the two of them with swift strides as Emma pleads her case. The Chevalier is raising his fist to strike again when Solas, tense with the effort to restrain himself from violence, grips the arm that’s gripping Emma.

The Chevalier releases Emma and turns his frustrations towards Solas, reaching to shove him. Before Solas can react, however, Emma grabs the man’s arm mid-shove and yanks it down with surprising force. A shove is far from the kind of backhanded strike the man had delivered to Emma, but from the fury burning in her eyes, it’s more than Emma is willing to tolerate. She looks as though she might self-combust on the spot.

The man seems to notice as well; perhaps the fool has a fighter’s instincts after all. Even before she pulls rank on him, the Chevalier looks a bit unnerved. Perhaps due to her sudden switch from hapless victim to someone barely withholding murder, perhaps due to some thin semblance of self-preservation. Solas’ own surprise at Emma's fury doesn’t go very far towards distracting him from his own, however. That’s still first and forefront on his mind. Fortunately--or perhaps unfortunately--the Chevalier backs down quickly.

The man spits out a few last insults and storms off, and Solas has a very strong urge to smack the man upside the back of the head. It’s quite possible to arrest a thief without brutalizing a bystander! What exactly would have happened if Solas hadn’t been here? After all of her fear of the Chevaliers, Emma had charged right into the middle of an arrest in progress! Or perhaps arrest would be the wrong word... admittedly, Solas didn’t know what was done to elven thieves in Val Royeaux. He doubts, in retrospect, that 'arrest' was what the Chevalier had in mind.

Emma catches Solas’ wrist, and it’s only then Solas realized he’d been reaching out as if he still intended to strike the man. And it’s also only then he has a moment to take in just how much of a strike she’d taken. He hadn’t realized at first, but the man must have been wearing gauntlets. Her face is bloody and her jaw seems slightly misaligned. She can still talk, so clearly it isn’t causing her too much pain--

As soon as he thinks that, however, Solas reminds himself that her pain tolerance is likely quite high, judging from the injuries he’s seen her shrug off in the past. Would Emma attempt to talk through a broken jaw? Probably. And what had she even been thinking, running into the middle of that? She had spent the entire week glancing over her shoulder and fretting about the realities of life for an elf in Val Royeaux, and then she just... just!

“Do you ever think?” he explodes, catching himself off guard. “Throwing yourself in the way like that!”

He seems to have caught her off guard as well. She blinks in surprise, shock and then anger flashing over her features.

“What would have had me do?” she protests. “Watch him strike the girl?”

He glances down at the apparent “thief,” who’s still hiding halfway under Emma’s cloak. She is but a child. As much as he would like to tell Emma that yes, she shouldn’t be throwing herself in the way of blows aimed at other people, he suspects he would have done the same had he been as quick as her.

Though he would not have caught the blow with his face.

They bicker their way off the streets and into a nearby, dimly lit tavern. It’s a struggle even to get Emma to be quiet and still long enough for him to examine her. She’s preoccupied with the little elven child. That’s all well and good, but the child isn’t going anywhere, and Emma is dripping blood on her clothing and surroundings. Her priorities need realigning, to say the least.

For example, she’d taken a blow to the face--one which had given her jaw a thin, long fracture in the bone, as he was discovering--and was prepared to take another, but had grabbed the Chevalier and yanked him about when he’d been about to lay a hand on Solas. Perhaps she had feared what Solas might do upon being attacked? Though he doubted it, thanks to the sudden fury she'd displayed. And even she must be aware that Solas isn't foolish enough to encase a man in a block of ice in the middle of a city... even if he had been sorely tempted.

She strikes Solas as someone protective of others, but not of herself. It is a habit irritating, stressful, and endearing in roughly equal measures.

Finally, he manages to get her healed up enough that she isn’t bleeding, though it’s a struggle. He once again has to physically grab her and manhandle her into holding still. Is she a child? The actual, literal child sitting across from them is better behaved, and he tells her as much... though she ignores him.

As for the actual, literal child... She is likely typical for her age, situation, and location. An urchin turned to thievery to survive... depressingly common, no matter the time or place. Abandoned by a mother who never loved her, forced to survive on the streets in a city with too many elves and not enough concern for their wellbeing... A sharp reminder of what it is to be a modern elf, and clearly one all-too familiar to Emma, who had likely once been in the same position herself. She’d been an orphan even before being enslaved and eventually escaping.

Her life must have been full of such hardships, which is why Solas says nothing as she gives thieving tips to the little child.

He can hardly change either of their fortunes, the way he is now.

Chapter Text

Just when Solas thinks Emma has shocked him for the last time on this trip, the woman comes out with the largest one yet: an invitation to break into the White Spire. The invitation comes on the heels of her confession of a checkered past of bardery, but she surely couldn’t have planned it in a day. This had already been in the works... the real question was whether or not she had originally intended to invite him along.

Actually, that’s merely one of many real questions. What interest could she have in breaking into a mage Circle? Has she done this before? Who is her mysterious ‘contact’? Solas isn’t fool enough to think she actually put all this together for his benefit. It’s too outside her normal range of behavior. More likely, she’d been putting it together for a while--perhaps since she arrived in the city, perhaps even sooner--and his inclusion was the spur-of-the-moment decision. She has been much more direct--and much more directly deceitful--here in Val Royeaux. Or perhaps he’s merely been close enough to see her behavior for what it is? Either way, she obviously has something she wants from the Circle.

Solas agrees, of course. She isn’t wrong when she calls it a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity,’ and he’s just as curious to see Emma in action as he is to see the condition of the Veil from within the White Spire. One is perhaps more technically important to his long term plans... but it isn’t as though they hinge on a successful infiltration. Still, he listens carefully to her strategy. It seems sound and relatively low risk... for what it is, anyway. A plan to break into a mage Circle can only be so ‘low risk.’ He’s more concerned for their reputations than their lives. But if Emma is willing to take such a risk, he’s confident that the risk is low and the reward is high enough to justify it.

He receives a possible answer as to why she’s involving him when she explains about the magical defenses on the tower and that he’ll need to disarm without tripping them. Her contact has given details on what sorts of wards they are--she shows him the notes, written in a broad, angular hand--and he confirms that he can get around them. Rather easily, in fact. Apparently the Circle didn’t go to a great deal of effort to ward windows eight stories up a tower... at least not from the outside.

Both of them agree to sleep for a few hours before heading out. Well, Emma agrees to lay down, in any case, which is as much as Solas expects to get out of her. As rest goes, a two hour nap isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing. Solas has ways to cram more rest into less sleep, in any case.

--

Emma stuffs them both into dark masks and stark white Circle cloaks for their little adventure. It’s the one time that wearing a mask in Orlais actually makes some degree of sense, which Solas thinks ought to make the Orlesians reconsider the whole thing. If your local fashion makes it easier for criminals to look natural while also hiding their faces entirely, perhaps the whole thing is a wash and you should begin again from scratch.

Even appreciating its usefulness in this one particular situation, Solas can’t help but chafe at the full-face mask. It’s just uncomfortable. The sight of Emma in hers is eerie, as well. Her eyes pop vibrant teal from the dark holes, but every other sign of her identity is hidden from sight.

Knowing her, she’s probably quite comfortable with that.

Solas removes his own shoes, but is somewhat surprised when Emma moves to do the same. She often removes her shoes when relaxing, but this is the first time he's seen her show any kind of real preference for being barefoot, particularly when climbing. He offers up a pair of his own footwraps on a whim, more out of a desire to see her at least partially protected from grime and broken glass. He has spells with which to protect his bare feet--she does not.

The long climb is tense, but otherwise an enjoyable taste of what her life must be, even moreso than sneaking into the theatre had been. She's serious but comfortable, and climbs up the tower beside him with an effortless grace. The way her body moves is a confident ease, the agility of someone who knows exactly what their body can withstand. It's an appealing side of her.

Eight stories of vertical climbing is no joke, even with convenient windowsills and ledges to help along the way. Each one is at least passably warded, with the first two floors the most protected. Until they get to the window they intend to go in, of course, and Solas needs to disarm far more than just the external wards.

Circles, as Emma had so smugly pointed out, are much more concerned with keeping mages IN, than with keeping mages OUT. So Solas and Emma hang from the windowsill, rather uncomfortably, as Solas tries to unwind the spell as quietly and swiftly as possible. He has a full lower arm resting on the windowsill, his hand against the window as he works his magic. Emma, however, is hanging from the corner by one arm to give him room to work. Just the sight of her dangling so precariously makes him nervous, though she looks perfectly calm about it--of course she does; she’s wearing a mask.

There. The wards unravel and he scrambles into the window, Emma following immediately after him.

Once she’s safely inside, he turns his focus to his surroundings. They’re in a dusty old attic of sorts, although it was clearly once used for more than just storage. The Veil around the area is worn in fascinating ways. Emma quickly directs him to a room where she says he can safely work his magic. She says she will be outside keeping watch. He rather sincerely doubts it, but he does fully intend to take advantage of her getting him inside the Circle.

There is real work to be done, not just the idle curiosity of a modern puzzle, used to keep himself distracted.

--

Emma is at the window when he awakes and exits the room. She’s leaning halfway out of it, in fact. She was clearly up to something, evident by the way in which she rapidly straightens and spins around. Or perhaps she simply hadn’t been expecting a noise?

Ha. Of course she was up to something. As if there was any doubt as to that.

That suspicion is confirmed by an unexpected guest, after they’ve descended the tower and paused a few streets away to remove their disguises.

The man is either a somewhat short human or a somewhat tall elf, clad all in dark clothes with a thick, heavy cloak. Most notable, of course, is his rather ridiculous and ostentatious mask. Solas almost hopes the man is human, rather than elven, based on the mask alone. A human wearing a mask with six baleful, glowing red eyes, might be said to be evoking the image of demons. An elf wearing one could only be evoking one thing, and he doesn’t particularly want to think about the implications there.

Of course, the thought’s barely through his mind before the man turns enough for Solas to catch sight of his ears, left bare when almost every other inch of his skin is covered. So much for that brief hope.

This man, this “Banal’ras”--what a wholly unoriginal name--appears to be Emma’s contact. Him showing up like this was clearly not part of Emma’s plan. She chases him away swiftly, but not swiftly enough for Solas not to notice a few things. Ignoring the obvious imagery of Fen’harel, which is as annoying as it is confusing when worn by such a brat... The man had spoken elven in an accent essentially identical to Emma’s. And Emma’s is a bastardization he’d thought utterly unique to her. Perhaps this man, then, had been the one to teach her?

He’s a mage, as well, and her familiarity with him betrays a familiarity with magic. Particularly when he vanishes by blinking through the Fade and she doesn’t bat an eye, only scowling at his showmanship.

There are many questions potentially answered by this man’s existance. What manner of bard she’d been, how she had learned Elven, why she was so comfortable and familiar with magic. How she knew to fight naturally with a barrier and all the little tidbits of magic it had been so unusual for her to know in the past.

The satisfaction of puzzle pieces fitting together is almost enough to outweigh the intense irritation Solas feels towards every single aspect of the masked man. From his appearance--obviously attempting to invoke the image of Fen’harel--to his attitude, to the unfocused skill with which he’d cast his magic, everything about him was obnoxious. And Solas did not need to see the expression behind the mask to understand the feeling was fully mutual.

--

The uncomfortable combination of irritation and enlightenment follows him back to the inn room. He’s pleased to be rid of the damned mask--while it’s more comfortable than the full-face black mask he’d worn into the Circle, it still rests uncomfortably on his nose. It’s one thing from Val Royeaux he won’t miss at all.

More to do before the night is done, however. He can sort out his thoughts about Emma and her “friend” while he sleeps; he’s good at that. First, he has to see to her injury. Given half a chance, Emma will utterly forget that she’d had her jaw fractured earlier that same day. She has a remarkably short memory for pain.

An idea comes to him as he’s working his magic slowly through her bones. Healing magic draws on the body’s own energy supply to work, along with a mage’s mana. There are exceptions... summoning a spirit, blood magic, the typical work-arounds. But generally, the real magic is just in making a body’s own natural healing work overtime. It would be very easy for him to drain just a bit more of her energy than usual... to make her tired.

It wouldn’t be affecting her mind. It wouldn’t be putting her to sleep, per se, just... making it easier for her to sleep.

Perhaps he drained just a little too much off the ends, or perhaps she really just was that tired... her eyes begin to droop almost immediately. He pulls away, and she manages to get about half a sentence out before she flops over, unconscious.

Well.

That had worked better than anticipated.

Solas helps angle her onto the bed; she’d been about halfway to standing when unconsciousness had taken her. He’s not going to bother carrying her to her own room when there’s a perfectly serviceable bed right here, and not one he really feels the need to use.

He isn’t exactly going to dress her for bed. Even the idea of removing her obvious outer layers seems unthinkably intrusive. She’ll just have to sleep in her day clothes, uncomfortable though they might be. He does kneel by the side of the bed to remove her shoes, however; no point in dirtying up the bed.

He’s a bit surprised to see the foot wraps he gave her underneath, when he finally pulls her first boot off. He’d almost forgotten he’d given them to her. He feels a rush of what can only be described as nostalgia, or perhaps deja vu. Soft feet in pale green wraps against softest silks...

But Emma’s feet aren’t soft. They’re rough and red and calloused, as full of evidence of hard living as every other part of her body, from her hands covered in tiny scars she thinks no one can see, across her rail-thin body. The pang of nostalgia turns to one of loss. He’s responsible for the state of her, because he’s responsible for the state of all these modern elves.

They’d fallen so far. Lost so much.

He shakes his head, clearing out the cobwebs of ancient thoughts. He’ll fix it. He’s made progress to that very goal today, thanks to her, though she’d doubtlessly be shocked to learn that. Ha. More than shocked. There might not be a word to describe the level of monumental confusion, awe, and revulsion that sort of a revelation would bring. ...Stupefaction, perhaps?

Now he’s just trying to distract himself.

He pulls the covers aside and shifts her underneath them. She seems a light sleeper in general, but when she finally falls asleep, she’s out. That’s good... it indicates a deep sleep. As for Solas, he retires to the couch. It would feel odd to use her bed, despite the fact she’s technically in ‘his,’ and he’s slept in odder places.

He doesn’t visit her mind in the Fade, though he’s tempted. A little leftover guilt, perhaps, from abusing a loophole in order to put her to sleep. It wasn’t technically what she’d asked him not to do, and he could look her in the eye and truthfully say it was simply a side effect from the healing, but... Well, truth and honesty were sometimes different things, and his conscience is chiding him a bit. Enough that he doesn't want to push the boundaries any more than he already had. Walking right into her dreams was rather inarguably the sort of thing she would take offense to. And she might be one of the few people in this fool world to even know the significance of it, though he doubted she’d have any chance of realizing it was him.

He’d learned it was beyond the abilities of many actual mages in the modern day, to see him for what he was in the mists of the Fade. It is almost certainly beyond the abilities of a random girl, no matter how clever her waking mind could be.

It’s a subtle shift in the Fade around him that alerts him to Emma’s awakening. He had very pointedly not been looking for her, but it was in a way akin to trying not to think of the color orange. Your mind wanted to drift to it automatically. And any sleeper’s mind effected the Fade. It was like a light going off across the street. Even if you hadn’t been looking at them through your window, you would notice the sudden absence.

Technically freed from his need to avoid her, he goes to sniff around the Fade where she’d been sleeping. Nothing has particularly taken note of her presence, which is a shame. He wouldn't have to touch her mind if she touched the Fade and then he looked... Though even acknowledging his line of thought makes him feel like a petulant youngster again, looking for loopholes and technicalities in the rules, as if that would somehow keep him out of trouble.

Besides, it had been hard enough ignoring her from nearby. If she falls asleep with him practically on top of her, he’ll be out of excuses.

Solas was by nature a deep sleeper, but he's also an aware sleeper. Back by his body, things were moving around. There was light. Emma was the obvious explanation. He wanders back to his body, stirring briefly in the physical world. Sure enough, the room is illuminated dimly by candlelight, coming from the far corner of the bed. Emma’s hair gleams a cascade of fire down her shoulder, the flickering candlelight making it seem both brighter than it is, and more alive.

She's reading a book. Of course. Why not? They spent their entire days buried in them, and then she woke from a much-needed sleep to bury herself in them again during the dead of night.

Well, as long as the two of them are both awake, he might as well make use of his time. He decides to check on her jaw again, to make sure his heavy-duty burst of healing had actually done its job. If not, well, another one might put her back to sleep for another few hours, though he’d have to be careful not to drain her too much. He’d regret it if he exhausted her and she still didn’t get proper rest. He didn’t want to make things worse.

It proves to be a moot point; she’s more or less completely healed. Although it wouldn’t do her good to be struck in the jaw again over the next few days... He’d like to think that unlikely, but... well, he is learning not to underestimate Emma’s ability to injure herself.

That’s when he realizes what she’s reading; the book on spirits he’d given her on a whim, back when he’d first returned from the Fallow Mire. She’s reading about a nightmare demon... because of course she is. He wonders briefly if she’d been having nightmares... That sort of thing should have showed in the Fade for a little after she woke up, though.

Somehow, they wind up reclining on the bed together, discussing the book and the spirits within. It’s a bit out of her range of knowledge, which is no surprise, but she has a clever mind and is able to pick up much from context. He’s more than happy to fill in the remaining gaps himself. Perhaps it’s because he’s still sleepy, but the whole thing has a bit of a dreamlike quality. It’s not a dream, of course... he’s something of an expert on the difference... but it sort of feels like one. Perhaps because any such conversations he’d had for the past four thousand years or so had taken place in the Fade.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that he falls back asleep. Emma had been reading in silence, and he’d just closed his eyes for a moment to rest them, and he was in the Fade. He can't quite gather the will to force himself awake... it feels too comfortable where he was, and his body needs the rest, in any case. He lets himself drift carelessly through the Fade, not bothering to particularly direct himself or his thoughts.

All in all, a pleasant way to spend a night.

Of course, the general peacefulness and restfulness he feels upon slowly waking is quickly dashed away by the sight of Emma, unconscious, slumped over the desk. Solas sits up, rubbing his face irritably.

Why? Two beds and a couch, and she falls asleep at the desk? Had she been working all night?

That woman needs a damned leash.

Chapter Text

Emma is still asleep, so Solas tries not to bother her. She’ll probably be stiff, after sleeping in such an awkward position... but for her, any sleep is a good thing. He stands and stretches, and absent-mindedly begins to quietly prepare for the day. He gets about as far as taking his shirt off to change into fresh clothes before he pauses, glancing over at Emma. She’s sound asleep, but he can’t just change with her here. She’d already walked in on him barely dressed once. He should...

Oh, the bathroom! He’ll just go in there and change. Simple enough, and worth it. While she’ll probably sleep through the whole thing, he’s equally certain that if he doesn’t bother with the extra privacy, there is a one hundred percent chance she’ll awake immediately.

As he gathers up his clothes, however, she begins to stir. He pats himself on the back a bit for not just risking being nude for ten seconds. He’s old enough now to know how these things go. The universe has a strong sense of dramatic irony. That much, it seems, hasn’t changed at all.

She blinks groggily, and there’s no mistaking the expression that crosses her face as she eyes him. It’s amazing how someone can fit that much sarcasm in a single raised eyebrow. Suddenly, he has the strong feeling he should have waited to take his shirt off until he was in the bathroom, as well. It never occurred to him that it might bother her; the other male members of the Inquisition would chuck their shirts off at a moment’s notice, and no one ever said anything. Other than to comment on the sheer amount of body hair on display between Blackwall and Trevelyan.

The expression passes quickly, but Solas is felt feeling a bit self-conscious. Fortunately, she exits to “her” room to give him a chance to change. He does so at record speed, then takes a few moments to compose himself as he waits for her to exit her room. When she doesn’t, he realizes she must be waiting for him to indicate that he’s done changing. He heads to the door and opens it without a second thought to let her know they can continue with their day--

...

The door clearly does not lock.

Emma is at the window with a crow on her wrist. She leans forward and it takes off, but Solas can’t focus on the implications there because it’s apparently her turn to be standing about topless. He should immediately turn away and quietly close the door, but instead he freezes as she turns towards him. Now is definitely the moment to turn away. Instead he stands like a dumbstruck moron for another second or two until she shrieks and jumps--why does she have to jump, who jumps in this sort of situation? Then he manages to spin around and slam the door shut. Something thuds against the other side of it.

He’s not even sure what she says, or what he says in return. The blood is rushing from his head to other parts of his body, embarrassingly enough. As if it weren’t bad enough to walk in on her shirtless! But it’s been a rather long time since he saw a woman, ah, in the flesh, in a very literal sense. The Inner Circle’s lax policy on shirts when traveling didn’t extend to the women... and moreover, there were none of them he’d be particularly thrilled to see nude to begin with. Emma should fall into that category--everyone in this world should. But trying to inform his libido of that was another matter altogether. It was like an overly excitable hound, chasing a thrown stick simply because it’s something that’s moving.

It hadn’t helped that it was such a frankly artistic moment. It was the sort of thing he would enjoy painting, in another lifetime. Bright sunlight flickering through a window, a natural pose, hair haphazardly pulled back, enough to show off nape and ear while still leaving loose, sprawling locks to shine in the glistening light... even a dark raven to contrast with the light glow of the rest of the scene--

Enough.

Now is not the time to get poetic. He needs to gather up the tatters of his self-control, and apologize to Emma when she comes out. He’s spent enough time scolding her for her mistakes; he should take ownership of his own.

...Also, he should sit down.

And maybe cross his legs.

Just in case she came out right away before things had a chance to... settle down.

Breakfast arrives before Emma does. He winds up just letting the poor serving girl in to place the food on the table herself, rather than standing and risking offense. Every time he thinks he has a handle on himself, Emma jumping in shock replays in slow motion in his head, and he has to start from scratch again.

You would think a few thousand years in the Fade would settle things down in that area, but apparently not. He’s finally convinced his lesser half to calm down when Emma emerges, cheeks still flushed. He gathers himself to apologize, but she just slumps down at the table and immediately begins to talk about work.

It seems she just wants to pretend it never happened... Well, Solas isn’t about to forcibly drag it back up again--poor choice of words--if that’s what she prefers. So he keeps his mouth shut until she asks him a question. It seems that today is to be a “day off” of sorts. A day of shopping doesn’t particularly interest him, but a day of wandering through the streets of Val Royeaux, led by a capable guide, does. And Emma seems enthusiastic about the idea as well.

Of course, the day begins in clothing stores. Solas tries to take a long view of the experience. Orlesian fashion is certainly... something to see. Even the elven shops have a distinctly Orlesian slant... of course they do. This is Val Royeaux. Still, Solas is somewhat pleased to see Emma picking out practical clothes in earthy colors. Sensibility is a good look on her. He can hardly imagine her strutting about the place like Dorian or Vivienne, all glitter and pomp.

That practicality lasts roughly as long as the elven shops do. No sooner than she’s picked out a reasonable number of clothes--around the time Solas assumes they must be finished with clothes shopping--she’s venturing even further from the Alienage. The sensibility appears to live in the Alienage, because it’s nowhere to be seen now.

Solas drifts idly around each shop, well aware he’s being watched but unable to bring himself to care. Even if he was a thief, they’d have to have something worth stealing first. Emma seems content to let him wander, focus on getting her own things. Despite his growing boredom, he can tell she’s rushing; every time he looks at her, it seems she’s obtained another bag. She doesn’t even show him a single thing until a store that seems to specialize in formal wear. Why they’re here, he doesn’t know; what need could she possibly have for any of these gowns?

She tries a good number of them on, in any case, and asks his opinion. It’s an... interesting experience, made moreso by the fact she doesn’t at all seem to mind him speaking his mind. She’s the target of more than a few less-than-flattering thoughts on various trends of Orlesian fashion, and with each one, she laughs more, picking at whatever high collar or overstuffed rear offended his sensibilities.

Of course, then she has to start trying to get him to try things on. He refuses right up until she becomes insistent. He’s not sure why this particular article of clothing has caught her passion. He supposes that it's rather simple, for Orlesian fashion, but it's still much flashier than anything he'd normally deign to wear in the here and now. It's shades of brown, with a deep red interior. It's a robe... sort of. He tells himself that's the reason that, after much prodding from Emma, he finally puts it on. Well, that and to get her to stop begging.

And she does seem content just having seen him in it. He may never know what idle curiosity had prompted that, but at least she hadn’t asked him to buy it or something similarly ridiculous. Though she does buy something... not even something he thinks that he saw her try on, just based on the bright colors.

Rather than push him further, in fact, she takes a break from clothing shops altogether--though he doesn’t want to assume they’re done with them completely, lest he be disappointed later--to take him some place much nicer: a book store. And what a store it is. It reminds him of the way his room used to get when he was younger--and would still get now if he weren’t so careful to keep himself organized. Books are stacked haphazardly on every available surface; every single bookshelf is full to the bursting. There’s a vague sort of general order to it, but it’s a chaotic sort of order, one possibly drawn from the mind of a clever but absent-minded fellow who got distracted repeatedly while trying to organize.

Solas can understand why Emma didn’t bother to order books from here, for the Inquisition. The owner doesn’t seem to have differentiated the importance between a heavily worn textbook on toad anatomy--complete with scribbled notes in the margins--and the diary of an Antivan Grey Warden that appears to include first hand experience of the fourth Blight. It would have taken them an entire week just to dig through the shop and find anything relevant. Still, they do their best in the short amount of time they have. Solas winds up with bags easily as hefty as the ones filled with Emma’s entire new wardrobe.

--

Solas is quite optimistic about the “someplace special” Emma professes to wish to take him for lunch. What would the betting odds be that it will be another bakery, he wonders. Small wonder she’s so malnourished, if she subsisted entirely on day-old bread and sweets.

It appears his optimism was premature, however. She takes him into a rather upscale looking restaurant, and they’ve no more than walked into the place than he’s treated to a sickeningly familiar sight.

Vallaslin-branded slaves in various states of dress and undress serve the wealthy in a wide open room decorated with columns wrapped in gilded golden vines. It’s only the not-quite-Elvhen decor that informs he hadn’t just stepped back into a six thousand year old nightmare. Even so, the scene might as well have been picked straight out of the golden halls of Arlathan and plucked directly into the center of Val Royeaux.

Of all the damned things for the present to keep about the past...!

His mind still reeling, he turns to the nearest target in his shock and fury--that would be Emma, whose expression is mischievous right up until she sees his. Even behind her mask, he can see her sudden onset of nervousness. Though she tries to keep her grin, fear glints in the blue-green eyes behind the mask. In that moment, he is glad--she should be scared. Why would she take him to a place like this?!

“Let me explain,” she says quickly, trying to guide him to follow a shirtless slave. When he doesn’t, she tenderly grips his arm, flinching a little as if she’s gripping hot steel, and pulls him forward. She leads him into a back area, thrumming with life and pointed ears, both kitchen and dining hall.

“This place is run by a friend of mine. An elf,” she explains as she sits him down at a table. “The front is a show. It brings in the pompous Orlesians, tourists, fetishists, mostly. It gives this place an excuse to be open. But the real restaurant is back here. You have to be an elf, or elf-blooded, to be here. It’s a place we can relax. Chevaliers cause problems at elven taverns in and around the alienage, but here…” She gestures around the room, and Solas takes it in again.

She’s right about the inhabitants... the only rounded ears he sees belong to children sitting with--presumably--their elven mothers. Elves appear to be both customers and workers.

“The vallaslin,” he begins, but Emma answers before he can even finish the question.

“Real, with a few exceptions.”

Looking a bit more closely, it’s not hard to pick up the ‘exceptions,’ elves whose vallaslin are clearly--to his eye, in any case--not made through a blood ritual, but merely painted on. There are elves with real vallaslin everywhere he looks. Not outnumbering the elves without, not even coming close, but in more of a thick number than he’s ever seen within city walls.

“This place employs most of the ex-Dalish who live in the alienage,” Emma explains, as if she knows what he’s thinking. “Human-run businesses won’t hire Dalish, even the ones that will hire elves. They think them savage. Here, they can blend in.”

Solas takes a few more moments to absorb the reality of what he’s seeing... mostly so that he doesn’t snap poor Emma’s head off with misplaced rage. She couldn’t have known how he’d react--could never have known what exactly this place was so perfectly mimicking. He rather sincerely doubted the elven owner did, either. They had no doubt simply seen a way to excuse a large gathering of elves in a human-dominated city.

The elves should not need to subject themselves to this sort of humiliation to get by... but they do, thanks to him. This is the world he created--he can hardly judge them for making their way in it. Though Emma made it difficult, springing something like this on him the way she had. And judging by her mischievous grin, she’d expected him to react badly... just not that badly.

He takes a deep breath, and tries to grasp what he’s seeing, from a modern perspective. Emma’s continuing explanation helps him understand that this is, essentially, a large number of elves thumbing their noses at the humans ruling their world. Gathering right in plain sight, disguised meekly as slaves--or in this case, servants. Practically invisible.

Emma says it perfectly, in the end. “Seeds of rebellion are spread wide. Occasionally, they grow into a little oasis like this.”

He was seeing a reflection of the past, to be sure... but he, like the Evanuris then, had been too blinded by the gilt and grandeur to see the underbelly... the snake preparing to strike.

There has always been the powerful exploiting whomever they can. But there have always been the exploited, gathering together to find strength and safety in numbers. For camaraderie. For security.

For rebellion.

Chapter Text

More shopping follows Emma’s scheduled midday heart attack. It’s amazing how many things she needs, really... does the Inquisition provide nothing to its workers? Not just clothing, but she’s buying blankets, candles, tea, blank journals, ink and quills, even locks. All of these things should be provided to any member of the Inquisition... one would think. He hopes she’s at least spending their coin.

The most interesting stop of the afternoon isn’t the rather boring Circle shop, but an almost humorously hidden, underground magic supply shop that she somehow knows all about. It’s a bit ridiculous, really, the steps they have to go through to get inside... though he can understand. Mages are even more oppressed and feared than elves, in this age. A shop like this would spell death for all who patronized it.

Even more interesting than the elaborate method of entry is the fact that Emma knows about it at all. She explains that she knows any number of magical secrets thanks to her association with the mage Banal’ras... though she neglects to expand on that relationship at all.

This shop, as opposed to the one run by the Circle, is actually full of useful items and curiosities, a few of which Solas picks up. The Inquisition is surprisingly good about filling magic-related requisitions, but they also go through them with a fine-toothed comb. He winds up picking up several things--supplies and curiosities both--just because it’s a good opportunity to do so with no observing eyes other than Emma’s. And observe she does, flitting around each item curiously. When not pestering him, she’s running her fingers over every other item in the shop. He’s observed this tendency in her before; every time he’s put up a barrier or rune in her vicinity, she’s wound up poking and prodding at them as if she could come to understand them through touch alone.

He wonders around in circles on whether or not her willingness to touch magic but not be touched by it means anything. What sort of trauma could result in the odd dissonance that is Emma?

Emma begins organizing her bags the second they get back to the inn room, and Solas takes the opportunity to do so as well. He'd bought a few things over the course of the day... several of them presents, but none of which he knew how to deliver. Particularly irksome is a little set of oils he'd bought on a whim. Well, whim was a strong word... He'd wanted them both for his own use and for Emma. Lavender oil is hardly magical, but it could easily aid with relaxation and sleep. If she wouldn't accept magical aid, then this seemed the next best option.

The only problem was... he had underestimated how awkward it would feel to just hand them over. Perhaps he should just sneak them into her bags? Perhaps if she’d leave them alone for more than a minute at time...

In the end, he simply places the bottle on the edge of the bathtub. They would be here for a few more days; perhaps she would think it a hotel amenity and happen to use it. If not, he could figure out some other plan. One that definitely would not involve just handing them to her.

She has one more surprise before the evening is out... She’s procured invitations for two “agents of the Inquisition” to a small soiree and auction being held by some Baron or another. She’s remarkably candid about her reasons for wanting to go: she’s curious to see how he acts in such a situation. Solas is so amused by her reasoning that he says yes immediately. How could he say no, when he has the exact same motivation for everything he’s been doing in Val Royeaux?

Of course, like the break in to the White Spire, she must have been planning it for some time... as evidenced by the fact she pulls out of a bag the Orlesian frock she’d begged him into trying on at the store. Her insistence makes sense now. When had she purchased it without him seeing? And which of the dozen dresses he’d seen her try on that morning had she selected for herself?

It takes him virtually no time to prepare, compared to Emma. The benefit of having no hair, certainly, as Orlesian men’s wear is not considerably simpler than women’s. He puts off his mask, however, until the last possible moment, only beginning to tie it on when Emma’s knock announces she’s ready to leave. The two of them will be very careful with entering rooms for the duration of the trip, he suspects.

Her dress--

He... had not seen her try that one on. He would definitely have remembered it.

The top is a vivid crimson, a wrap-around that leaves most of her chest and shoulders bare... as well has her entire midriff. The sleeves are long, but stop short of actually going all the way up her arms.

It would be an attractive look on its own, but it seems downright plain compared to the skirt, which features a series of ruffles that fade from a red so dark as to be nearly brown, through shades of red, orange, and yellow towards the very bottom. It rests low on her hips--very low--and when she moves, it shifts and flutters as if weighs next to nothing. It's also when she moves that he notices the slit up the left side that goes essentially the entire way up her leg.

That...

Is very much not an Orlesian style.

His wandering gaze catches sight of her fingers, nervously dancing together in front of her stomach, and he realizes he’s staring. He quickly wrenches his eyes back to her face. He had been expecting to see her in some sort of Orlesian frippery, much like he was wearing, not... that.

The dress is--according to Emma--Rivaini in style. She also has a well-thought-out reason for wearing it. Of course she does. The woman probably has a well thought out reason for drawing breath in the morning. He wonders if she actually is that prepared for every eventuality, or she’s just very good at appearing like she is.

The best thing about the party is how much Emma appears to be enjoying herself from the minute they step inside. Her expression is fairly hidden behind her mask, but there’s no mistaking that mischievous, smug little smirk on her lips that only seems to widen every time there’s a scandalized murmur within earshot. Although the apparent limits of what classifies as “within earshot” for her serve as a painful reminder as to how much a few thousand years can change things.

The second best thing about the party is the food. Orlesian culture may be a bit tiring in places--if only because it’s tiringly familiar--but Solas quite admires their food. Servings are delicate and small, which allows the flavors to be robust and unique. The sweet is very sweet, the savory is very savory. Solas has been eating much, much more than his body requires since coming to Skyhold--and especially since Emma arrived and inserted herself into his life. It’s nice to at least be able to enjoy it, wasteful as it is.

Everything is going wonderfully, in fact, until the auction starts.

Solas thinks at first that the introduction of the bound and broken Saarebas is another one of Emma’s incredibly poorly thought out “pranks,” like the restaurant from earlier. But the look on her face dashes that notion at once. The expression isn’t just one of shock or horror. No, it’s one of pure mortal terror; one Solas wishes he were less familiar with than he is. She looks like a deer that’s been thrust into a pen with a dragon: it knows it is about to die and that there is no escape.

Also, even a courtesy swipe of his aura reveals not a drop of magical talent anywhere in the room--including the would-be Saarebas. This is someone’s prank, but certainly not Emma’s. He fears she’s about to pass out where she sits, but instead she stands shakily, makes half-incoherent excuses, and flees on trembling legs. Solas rises and follows her quickly, unconcerned with the pleased smugness on several masked faces.

He finds her on a balcony, emptying her stomach of the fancy Orlesian fare. He calls her name and she spins towards him, but her eyes aren’t seeing him. They’re miles away, as bad or worse than when Baptiste had died. She had seemed half-gone then... now she was completely gone, but her body still moved. Her hand snaps back to the small of her back--the place where he knows she normally keeps a small dagger. But of course, her dress had left no place to hide it.

“Ayez pitié! Misericordia!” she yelps out, staggering backwards. Solas freezes at once, terrified she might blindly fall over the railing and into the courtyard below.

“Emma, it’s me,” he tries, but he might as well be speaking in tongues--she certainly is. Desperate, he turns to a different technique. “Hamin, lethallin. ” She stills almost immediately, though her eyes still don’t seem to be seeing him. He murmurs every soothing phrase that comes to his mind as he approaches her gently. He catches her shoulders and guides her away from the railing, always talking in a calming voice. She flinches wildly at his touch, but doesn’t pull away, only beginning to tremble violently.

He keeps her focus, and slowly, slowly... the fog begins to leave her eyes. Dilated pupils begin to shrink, and her eyes begin to focus on what’s in front of her again. The trembling doesn’t stop, but the murmured Tevene turns to Elven; the begging turns to rapidly stammered apologies. He shushes her, softly, and brings her to rest against him, remembering how well physical contact had worked to soothe her before. She curls against him the moment he seems to give her permission, and her breathing begins to turn from desperate gasps for air into slow, deep breaths.

“The Qunari?” he asks, after she seems to have calmed. “It’s dressed like one of their mages...”

“But it’s not, is it?” she says, pushing up away from him. Her eyes are bloodshot behind the mask. “The mask is fake. It still has its horns.”

She’s familiar with Saarebas, then, as if it weren’t already clear. She’d never reacted well to Qunari in the past--one of his first interactions with her had been her attempting to hide from the Iron Bull. When Bull had confronted her, she’d seemed nearly as scared as she did now. But if she has memories of Saarebas from Seheron, they’re likely some of the worst her mind has to offer. The Qunari had turned their mages into mindless weapons of mass destruction, enslaving and drugging them until their minds and wills completely broke and bent to the will of their keepers. They were used for nothing but death and chaos.

The fear in her eyes is still present, but something else is rapidly forming. She forces herself straight despite the fact she’s still clearly reeling. Her trembling ceases, likely out of sheer force of will.

“This isn’t Tevinter. We do not practice slavery. Whatever loophole the Baron has abused to allow this barbarity… This ends.”

She turns to head back into the soiree and Solas catches her wrist, worried about what she might do in her state. “Emma, don’t be rash.”

She turns and looks back at him. The glint in her eyes has solidified. A bit like determination, a bit like hatred. He drops her wrist. “Stop me if you’re going to, lethallin.” He recognizes that look; it’s as though someone unexpectedly held up a mirror.

She heads back into the room, and Solas does not move to stop her. How could he?

He could no more stop her than he could stop himself.

Chapter Text

This has been the strangest night, and it’s somehow not yet over.

They had made a remarkable recovery from Emma’s fright at the auction. Solas hadn’t wanted her evening to end there after she’d put in so much effort into their dress and clearly been looking forward to it so much... although in truth, they did little more than wander the streets and get caught in the rain. But her mood seems to have lifted considerably. Even being soaked doesn’t seem to have soured her high that much.

She’s in the bathroom now, waiting for water for the bath and swearing at him through the open doorway. She pauses in it long enough to ask him to bring her some fresh clothing. An easy enough task; bags of the stuff are still piled about the inn room from their shopping excursion earlier. He grabs one at random that appears to be full of clothes, and opens it wider to rummage through for something decent.

He no more than sticks his hand in to pull aside a scarf than he discovers he selected the wrong bag. The wrongest bag, perhaps.

This bag, as it turns out, is full of undergarments.

Reasonably, she would need one, and under normal circumstances, he would feel no qualms with throwing one on the pile of clothes for her change into. They were clean, after all, and therefore no different than any other piece of cloth. These particular undergarments, however, are... ...frilly. There’s simply no other way to put it. He could never have imagined her tastes would run in this direction--they are as Orlesian as the elaborate cakes they’d shared at her human friend’s bakery. They also clash remarkably with the sensible, naturally colored cotton and wool clothing she’d picked out for herself. The sorts of clothes he normally saw her wearing.

Which of course, led to the obvious question: was this the sort of thing she normally wore? Not a question Solas ever thought he’d be wondering, nor one he particularly wanted to be thinking about at all.

“Solas?”

He shoves the bag away as if it were actively on fire and spins towards the bathroom doorway, but Emma is nowhere to be seen. She’s simply speaking from inside the bathroom... of course; she’d just stated she didn’t wish to ruin the carpeting.

He manages to quickly find some actual clothing for her to change into. If she wishes to wear something with ribbons on underneath, she’ll simply have to fetch it herself. He just places the entire bag of clothing into the bathroom, rather than dig through and risk finding any other alarming surprises.

He finally strips out of the ridiculous long jacket Emma had foisted onto him. It had never gotten too uncomfortable, but felt confining in the humidity of the rain. He was relieved to be rid of it, and would be more relieved still when he was back in his normal clothing, which was nothing if not comfortable and practical.

The human owner of this establishment gets one more jab in, in the form of sending cold water up to Emma, since she hadn’t felt the need to clarify the water should be hot. Solas opts for the path of least resistance and simply heats the water up himself. He’s been using a simple fire rune to provide warmth to tents and baths for so long now that it’s practically a reflex, but of course, Emma seems impressed.

Very impressed, judging by the noises she’s making from the other side of the now-closed door. Solas is attempting to quiz her further about her intentions with the Qunari, but it’s a somewhat stilted and treacherous task while she’s practically moaning between every other sentence. Is she doing this on purpose, due to the nature of his questioning? It is the sort of thing a bard would do, but he has trouble believing it the sort of thing she would do. If nothing else, he’s never given her any reason to think it would work.

In the end, however, he maintains both his composure and his line of questioning, though he receives little reward for either. Emma refuses to reveal her plan for dealing with the Qunari, although it’s clear she has one. She’s moved from terrified, past furious, and into the comfortable range of someone who has a clear path in front of them. She falters only when he brings up Banal’ras again, and her cheerful splashing and cooing finally stops. It’s much easier to hold a conversation with her after she’s settled down.

He’s... if not satisfied, then at least sure that he’s gotten everything out of her that he’s going to for the moment. But even after he’s wandered off and changed the rest of the way out of the Orlesian frippery, Emma pesters him. It would be easy to ignore her, seeing as how there’s a door between and she can’t very well charge out, dripping and nude, to demand why he’s giving her the silent treatment. But instead, he indulges her petulance. She’s had a rough enough evening... if listening to him recite a history of the fourth Blight is something she can actually enjoy, he sees no reason in denying it to her.

He’s relaxed by the time she exits, his previous fluster at the articles of clothing he’d found all but forgotten. It’s unfortunate, then, that the world seems intent on repeatedly pulling rude jokes on him. She comes out wearing a silken sort of gown that his mind immediately affixes the word “negligee” to. It’s flimsy and somewhat short, not even coming down to her knees. When she passes by a candle, it’s ever-so-slightly see-through. His eyes linger on her until she bends down to pull something from a bag, at which point he becomes definitively aware of the fact he’s staring.

She flops down onto the couch, seemingly completely unaware of how much of her bare legs are showing. He’d never given it any thought before today, but now that he did, all of her clothing up until now covered practically every inch of her skin. Long sleeves, shapeless trousers, over-sized tunics with high collars... And she wore multiple layers underneath. He hadn’t been paying overmuch attention to the clothing she picked out for herself, but it occurs to him now that he may in fact be seeing her personal tastes for the first time. It’s certainly a more plausible explanation than any kind of intention on her part, and explains the, ah... contents of the other bag... as well.

Well... she did fancy Orlesian culture. He should feel lucky that it’s this and not shoulder pads past her ears. Not that what she wears is any of his business of course. But it is curious, in its own way. One can tell a lot about people from the way they dress, even if what you learn is that they’re practical and care little for the ever-mutating world of fashion. Dorian and Madame de Fer essentially scream their personalities with every overly-bejeweled frock they fasten on.

Ah. He’s staring again. It wouldn’t normally be staring, he thinks bitterly to himself, returning his eyes to the pages of his book. He’d lost his spot. Normally, it would be an appropriate amount of visual contact for a conversation. It was only because she’d decided to sprawl out on the couch half-nude that it felt inappropriate to so much as look at her for longer than the span of a single sentence.

Fortunately, she’s not really paying attention to his furtive glances and failed attempts to find a safe place to rest his eyes near her person. She’s brushing her hair. He had noticed a few other times, but it’s actually much longer than it looks. She always wears it up. Even at the party tonight, she’d had in a fancy up-do. It seems thin and a bit frail, and shimmers like copper in the candlelight as she brushes it.

The eye contact issue becomes easier when she asks him to continue reading to her. Then he can just look directly at the book and not feel the need to look up. It’s a relief.

Of course, just when he’s gotten used to her state of undress, she enters her room and then comes back wearing stockings for some wretched reason. He doesn’t even notice at first; he’s moved to the couch, primarily to keep her from returning to lounging on it with her legs in the air. His eyes are on his book, distraction from Emma finally gone. She requests he continue reading to her, and he makes the mistake of glancing over.

Rather than sit somewhere that made sense such as, oh, perhaps... a chair... She’s elected to sit on the floor by the base of the large bed. The stockings catch his eye perhaps because of the fact her knees are up by her chest, her chin resting on them and her arms wrapped around her legs. Legs that aren’t perfectly closed, meaning those white stockings practically frame what her rising hemline reveals.

He looks away extremely quickly, eyes trained back on his book with diamond-sharp focus.

He knows very well that it is, in fact, perfectly possible for someone to have this sort of lack of self-awareness. The average person was not utterly self-aware of their own state of dress and sitting positions at all times. She’d had a very trying day, and, he reminds himself, has perhaps just now gotten the chance to actually wear the sorts of clothing she finds natural and comfortable. Also--he had given her the bag with that outfit in it. If there was another bag with a thick, wooly bathrobe in it, he has only himself to blame for giving her the wrong one.

He repeats that in his own mind a few times as he goes back to reading, this time determined to give her some respect and not look up at all.

--

He’s not certain how long he’s been reading, how long since he’s looked away from words on a page. He risks a glance because he realizes she’s been very quiet. Surely enough, the miraculous has occurred. She’s fallen asleep, though he's not sure when. She’s sort of crumpled over onto the ground. It can’t be very comfortable... But if he moves her, she might awaken; she seems to stir from her rest with alarming ease. Also, that would require picking her up, and he’s not entirely sure of morally safe places to rest his hands, given her state of undress. In the end, he compromises by covering her with a blanket--sweet relief--and carefully positioning a pillow under her head. The floor here is at least carpeted. She’s certainly slept in less comfortable places before.

He only pulls off his tunic and shirt to sleep. He’ll change his trousers later. There are some things he just no longer wants to risk with her in the room.

He extinguishes the remaining candles in the room and slides into the ludicrously over-posh bed. Normally, he falls asleep immediately, but tonight, he stays up for a little while, staring at the curtained roof over the bed and considering all the events of the day. He finally slips into the comforting familiarity of the Fade, mind still debating what he’d fallen asleep wondering. He’d just convinced himself it was inappropriate; she was shy and skittish and terrified of magic touching her mind. It would be an invasion of privacy.

But now, sleeping so close to her, he can feel the touch of her mind of the Fade. So close. It would take but a thought to slip closer. It would be a very good way to find out more about her. He didn’t have to try and direct her dreams... he could just observe. Simply observing, he could be any other spirit in the Fade. It might also offer insight as to what, exactly, she was, if not magically inclined.

He could always leave if it was particularly private. It wasn’t as if she would know unless he brought it up in conversation. It might even turn out to be in her best interest.

Justifications. Petty justifications, and he knew it. But he still slipped closer to her dreams, curiosity at what he might find there overwhelming, perhaps, his better judgment.

Chapter Text

Solas finds Emma in a small room, wood on all sides. The creak and unsteady rocking suggests she’s dreaming of the hold of a ship, as do the metal rivets in the walls. It’s not unsimilar to the hold they found themselves in on the way to Val Royeaux, though this one is very, very empty. The only inhabitant is Emma.

She’s huddled up in a corner, sitting much the way she had earlier, arms wrapped around knees pressed against her chest. She’s visibly shaking; he’d clearly stumbled into a nightmare, likely one hinting towards the reason for her uneasiness on the ship across the Waking Sea.

The hold seems unrealistically large. Despite the fact Emma seems to be herself and not a child, he’s long since noted that things seem exaggeratedly large in dreams from one’s childhood. She had been sold into slavery, had she not? Shipped to Tevinter, to Seheron. Seems as likely a cause as any.

“Oh.”

Her voice drags Solas’ attention back to her, and away from the details of their surroundings. “You would show up here.”

She’s at least aware enough of her surroundings to take note of him. Most are, but not all. She doubtlessly takes him to be part of her dream. It’s been too long with too few Dreamers in this world; even mages frequently fail to notice the difference between him and any other figment of the Fade. In part, he suspects, because they don’t see him being there in reality to be possible.

She seems exasperated at herself, more than anything, to find him here. That sort of suggests she’s been dreaming about him regularly, to some extent. He decides, pointedly, not to read into that or wonder at it all, and instead inquires a bit as to their surroundings, wondering if he can take this opportunity to learn a bit more about her past without giving her the pain of consciously rethinking it.

“Spend a few months locked in the hold of a ship yourself,” she suggests sourly as she stands. “Your only company an amorous, drunken pirate captain–” A what? “I promise you, you’ll come to hate them as well.”

It takes Solas a moment to process what she’s said. It... certainly explains a lot, although it raises even more questions. He shouldn’t be surprised; he knew she’d had a difficult life, and been a slave, at that, but he’d been working very hard at not thinking about it particularly hard. The thought twists his stomach, pity and rage turning to anxiety and nausea in his gut. He’s distracted by that as she approaches, a dangerous sort of curiosity on her face.

He should have realized what she was thinking, recognized the twist of her gait, backed away when she stood too close.

He did not.

Not until after she’s reached up, gripped his necklace, and yanked him down with surprising force. Perfectly oblivious until after she’s raised herself at the same time to push her lips against his. Even then, it seems to take his brain a few more long seconds to catch up, and in that time he’s become aware of the way her lips feel against his. Perfect clarity despite the fact it’s a dream, sharp sensation where their faces touch, the back of his necklace biting into his neck from the roughness of her grip.

This was the Fade; he was arguably at his strongest here. Certainly stronger than her, little wisp of a thing with fading, wavering awareness, eyes phasing in and out of focus in the way of those without the training and awareness of even a modern-day mage. He could have pulled away from her quickly, could have stopped her from doing it in the first place.

He did not.

Instead, he relaxes into it, lets her push closer. Traitorous arms wrap around her frame, pulling her against him. The Fade feels electric where they touch; real contact, even in a dream, feeling vivid and sharp, the background increasingly faded. For the second time with her, his body is reminding him of exactly how long it’s been since he felt this, this closeness.

A tongue against his lips, curious, gentle but determined. Asking. He opens for her without thinking, arms tightening around her back, as if he can bring her closer than this, closer than her body flush against his. She tastes sweet in the Fade; what would she taste like in reality? Bitter tea, probably, sweat and heavy things that never make it into the realm of dreams.

It’s that thought that snaps him out of it. She is real, and sleeping not ten feet away. A thought that is appealing for five full seconds before the reality of the situation smashes into him with the force of a dwarven golem. He pulls away quickly, flushed with what he sincerely hopes is just humiliation at his lapse in judgment. Pushes her away from him by her shoulders, what had been his grip pulling her closer quickly turning to forced distance between them.

She looks confused, a little hurt, and then angry.

“Even in my dreams?” she demands, voice angry as if he’d struck her. “Not even in my dreams?”

That was right, not even in dreams, because this was wrong, this was very wrong, for a hundred different reasons. Not just because it was him, and it was her, and they knew nothing of each other. She was barely aware of the Fade around her, had fixated on him likely because he was the clearest thing. She had no way of knowing this was real, or him, and he’d kissed her, like some predator in the night.

This had been a terrible idea, from the very beginning. Which he had known, and done it anyway. So of course they had gone as wrong as they were capable of going.

Damage control. He needed to leave, now, and not come back, and then decide how to handle the mess he had made.

He flees from her mind, from the Fade around her, retreating to somewhere he can have a bit of peace, can consider the implications of the idiotic thing he’d just done.

Chapter Text

Alright.

So.

Mistakes had been made.

A number of them.

Entirely by him.

The immediate crisis is delayed somewhat by his refusal to actually wake up and deal with it. There’s a chance that Emma would be awake as well, and then he’d have to handle the situation without even having a chance to think. He did not have the best track record with decisions made without having a chance to think first.

So he hides in the Fade, distressed and slightly panicking over something as idiotically simple as a kiss. Honestly, once he realizes that, he feels like an idiot for that on top of everything else. He has much more serious problems then being kissed. But still, that doesn’t mean he can just breeze over this as if it doesn’t matter. It surely would to her, if nothing else.

The fact of the matter is, he’d betrayed her privacy. Not in any way he’d thought would matter significantly, but then again, he hadn’t expected her to kiss him. And now he’d essentially violated her--he knew her feelings where she might have preferred to keep them secret. She’d kissed him--and, for a brief moment, he had kissed back, whether he liked it or not--having no idea it was actually him. That the nature of the violation was unusual to say the least didn’t change the severity. Which was… actually, he wasn’t quite sure how severe it was, but it felt extremely dire.

His kind had been more common the last time he’d spent any amount of time in a woman’s dreams. Lines had been clearer.

And she’d clearly thought him a figment of her dreams, at that. What she’d said, not even in her dreams… There was often a line between what people were willing to entertain in the comfort of their own mind, versus what they wished to do when awake. The difference between fantasy and reality. She was clearly keeping any attraction she felt to him to herself, and likely for a reason. A personal one. Which he had just blown out of the water because he was an ass, but still.

More than the kiss, the issue was one of her privacy. Her secrets. Hadn’t he spent a month trying to gently pry them out of her? Surely, poking around her dreams was a shortcut--that’s why he’d done it. But this was a secret he should have let her keep.

He only has the vaguest outline of a plan when he finally lets himself wake up. But she’s gone when he does. Panic seizes his chest before he realizes that the door to her room is closed. She must have simply woken up and gone to her own bed at some point during the night. He wants to go check, make sure she’s there and hasn’t inexplicably run in the middle of the night, but he’s invaded her privacy enough for one night.

She sleeps in (he thinks, he tells himself, because he’s caught in a torment of wondering but refusing to let himself check). He spends the morning stewing in guilt and trying to find a way out of this situation with either of their dignities intact.

And then she comes out, chipper as a song, as if nothing in the world is wrong. She doesn’t look any more well-rested than normal--which is to say, not in the slightest--but she seems to be in a relatively good mood. For her, at least.

He just… can’t.

He tries to start and winds up stopping about three times as she begins her day. But he can’t. She might not even remember. Her dream was tenuous at best. If she does remember, she almost certainly thinks it just a silly dream. Would he really be doing her any good by dragging it out into the open? Forcing her to confront the fact he knows? She would be humiliated, and furious, and rightly so on both parts. Any trust he’d earned from her would likely be shattered, and how would they finish this trip with her mortified and upset?

So he resolves, then and there, to ignore it, pretend he never knew, pretend it never happened.

It would be better for both of them.

--

He tries not to push. It takes some effort, when she’s being so obviously secretive. But she’d opened up to him a bit, recently, so if he simply doesn’t push…

But honestly! Between the crows and the fact she’d obviously stolen books from the Circle without telling him… What did she even need those books for? Were they for her magical colleague? He didn’t really care if she robbed the Circle blind, but he did want to know why, and more importantly, why she’d hidden it from him. If she’d done it, she must have done it while he was in the Fade. Sneaky little thing…

But she seems tense already, so he grits his teeth and doesn’t push.

He suspects the tension might be because of him, actually. He has no real way to prove that, and he doesn’t want to assume her mood would be based on him. But. It seems quite likely, all things considered. Not because she suspects it was him in the Fade--he’s quite certain she has no idea, if she remembers it at all. Probably for something else, something he isn’t even aware of but is almost certainly his fault.

So he gets her to relax the only way that seems to work: by acting like it’s a favor to him. It worked with the meals. He doesn’t particularly need to eat that frequently. Or at all. But acting like it was something she had to do for him got her heating at least two decent meals a day. This could work the same way.

He isn’t exactly expecting a busy market, admittedly. He isn’t sure how anyone could relax here, even if they were fond of shopping. Too many people. Too much noise. Still, he follows her around, and eventually, he’s rewarded with something more along the lines of what he was expecting… climbing wildly up the sides of buildings that were absolutely never meant to be climbed. A fall from this height would surely kill her, or perhaps merely permanently injure her, and yet she climbs without fear. Toes and fingers grip effortlessly into stone, fluid and strong and throwing her light body as if she weighs naught but air to herself.

This is her, the way the woman running through back streets to escape a Chevalier had been her. Running away for the sheer joy of running, flighty like a bird rather than a mouse. Not full of fear, but full of freedom. She’s untethered, and when she glances down at him, one hand on a railing and one foot angled against the wall, the rest of her hanging free… He can see glinting in her eyes the willingness to do what it takes to keep herself this way. Val Royeaux has put into context her submissive simpering in Skyhold, made the disparate parts of her snap together. Missing pieces of the puzzle, still, but the outline can be seen.

Chapter Text

In the hotel room, she leaves the door to the bathroom open as she bathes. Only a crack. Solas stares at it restlessly from the couch. In Arlathan, the meaning of the scant inches between door and frame would be clear: an invitation to join. He strongly suspects this is no longer the case, but it’s still extremely distracting, especially now that he knows what he does.

But he had agreed to himself that he would pretend he didn’t know that. Would erase it from his mind. It was proving somewhat difficult, but it had only been a day.

She comes out in a nightgown that’s slightly more reasonable than before, providing more evidence to his suspicion that he’d just brought her the wrong bag. Although what she needed silk negligees and stockings for was beyond him. ...Well, not entirely beyond him, but he shouldn’t be thinking about it, in any case.

At least this time, he can be prudent and reasonable and not spend the rest of the night driven to distraction by things he shouldn’t even be--aaaand she’s curled up next to him on the couch. To read his book with him. Her thigh is pressed against his, bare arm curled against his side. It’s uncomfortable, and simultaneously not nearly so uncomfortable as it should be.

She is an enigma and impossible to read, for reasons that he suspects have nothing to do with her being a trained spy.

He can’t think of a good way to move her to the side. He’s over-thinking it; he knows he is. But what if his rejection stings her more than it should? She seemed upset that he would reject her even in her own dreams, has he done things in the past to lead her on and then dash her hopes? Does he have hopes? If so, he needs to dash them. But nicely. Not rudely, not in a way that would hurt her unnecessarily. Is letting her lean up against him and read leading her on? Should he have already stopped her? Well, he didn’t, so if he stops her now will that be extra painful? Or is it nothing like that at all, and simply that she’s grown more comfortable with him? If that’s it, he definitely should let her continue, because he wants her to be comfortable with him. It would be awful of him if he insisted over and over again she could be herself with him and then immediately reject her for trying to do just that.

He really is over-thinking this, but he can’t figure out what the right thing to do is, so in the end he just defaults to doing nothing. She eventually falls off of him and curls up on the couch. Away from him, fortunately. If she’d fallen onto his lap or something he probably would have ricocheted off of the couch, and that would have disturbed her rest.

She falls asleep, and after some time, he moves to do the same, closing his book and standing to move onto the bed. He strips off his shirt and is about to follow suit with his pants before pausing, glancing over at Emma. Given their tendency for wardrobe blunders so far on this trip, perhaps that would be unwise. She is a very light sleeper. Which is also why he doesn’t move her, just covers her with a blanket from the bed. Perhaps she’ll actually get a decent night’s sleep, for once. She slept quite well the night before. He isn’t sure what the root cause of her insomnia is, but hopes it’s getting better.

He goes to sleep himself, but this time, he stays far, far away from any sleeping minds.

--

He’d made the conscious effort not to push here, even though it was very clear Emma was hiding things from him. Pressure had worked well for him in the past, but only coupled with patience. If he pushed too hard, too fast, she might simply break and run. She seemed the type. And he’d done her a real disservice by deciding to push into her dreams despite the fact he was certain she wouldn’t want him to, given her fear of magic.

His reward for patience is awakening to Emma climbing in through their hotel window, pulling an actual, live, adult Qunari in behind her.

Later, he’ll regret losing his temper. It’s a rare occurrence and he’s never proud of it. But being suddenly awoken from a dead sleep to the sight of an entire Qunari coming in his window does it. He throws himself out of bed and to his feet, yelling first at the Qunari and then at Emma as it sinks in that she’s the one bringing it in, not that there’s just a Qunari inexplicably breaking into their inn room. This is the Qunari from the auction, he realizes, and his curses only grow in octave and creativity from there. She had to have snuck in and stolen it. More cursing, more anger, more frustration at the inexplicable stupidity of the situation he’s suddenly found himself in.

She had gone, at night, across Val Royeaux, presumably alone and certainly without him, in order to steal a Qunari and then bring it to her hotel room.

What the fuck.

She doesn’t even seem to be listening, she’s just staring at him with a blank sort of expression. She almost seems as though she might be about to smile. Furious, he grips the front of her cloak and pulls her closer, which still isn’t enough to snap her out of her bemused daze. He releases her and spins around, swearing wildly, cursing her idiocy to the skies. It’s only after he’s calmed down enough to stop ranting that he realizes he’d been yelling in Elven the whole time. Her blank stare is probably due to the fact she had no idea what he was saying.

Though really, should have been able to figure it out from the fucking context here.

He’s not really interested in her story or her excuses, because the whole thing was so ungodly stupid that he almost can’t believe it. But he listens anyway, and while it doesn’t particularly calm him down, her plan isn’t as terrible as it could be.

It’s still terrible.

And very stupid.

As is she: terrible and stupid.

But this is the situation now, so he has to deal with it.

So he spends most of his night healing a Qunari--which is in terrible shape--while Emma repeatedly flinches away from it and pretends she isn’t absolutely terrified of the Qunari she decided to pick up and take responsibility for, because she is an idiot who does not understand the concept of reasonable limits for a person to have.

And the worst thing is, he’s as stupid as she is, because he had decided to trust the obviously suspicious bard in Orlais to be honest with him when honesty was called for. He had trusted her, which was stupid, and she hadn’t trusted him, which was just rude. Hadn’t he gone along with all her nonsense here? Followed her into strange underground stores and broken into a mage circle and not said anything about how obviously suspicious it all was? And she hadn’t even told him she was intending to bring a Qunari into his bedroom?

Ridiculous. Stupefying. And he still isn’t sure which of the two of them he should be more frustrated with.

--

Her obvious fear of the Qunari does not get any less tiring. Surely a woman with her connections could find some other way to smuggle a Qunari out of a city without saddling herself with it. And now, look at her, trembling head to toe on a boat--which she hates--surrounded by Qunari--which she hates. She has only herself to blame for this situation.

Which is probably why he’s still just as annoyed at himself, for sitting it out with her on deck despite his preference for going below deck where there’s less… rocking… in general. He can’t help it, although he should just let her suffer alone so that she’ll perhaps actually learn a lesson from all of this. But his mind keeps drifting back to the little wooden room that shook and creaked with the waves. The terror in her eyes as he walked in. The way she’d been expecting someone else, the way her expression was lined with equal parts dread and resignation.

He can’t blame her for hating boats, and he can’t force her to go into the hold… or stay out here to suffer alone.

Idiot. Both of them.

But really, the slight comfort he gives her on the boat is probably not going to be enough to prevent some kind of lesson from sinking in. She has put herself in a terrible situation, and she knows it. Sometimes these things need to just be allowed to take their course. He doesn’t rub it in--though he is very tempted to do so several times--but he doesn’t assist, either, letting her attempt to wrangle both the Qunari she’d saddled herself with and the irritated Tal-Vashoth that’s taken over control of the task.

Surely. Surely he can just keep to himself and let the situation unfold without having to intervene in any way.

--

He is far more tired and far more irritated than he should be. Those two things are extremely related.

Keeping a simple barrier up for so long should be all but effortless. That he has to spend all day focusing, filtering out the endless prattle of their companions, that by the end of it he’s weak and weary and desperate for contact with the Fade… is pathetic. How far has he fallen?

And he must look as terrible as he feels, as well, because Emma has been hovering around him all day. Knowing that he must be clearly visibly as weak as he is only serves to further fuel his irritation, however, and it’s all he can do not to take it out on her more than he knows he already is.

It’s just so embarrassing to be seen like this, and on top of it, how can she fret over his health so much? She disregards her own almost completely. She can barely be persuaded to take even basic care of herself, but let him have one hard day and suddenly she’s a nursemaid.

Not to mention, he doesn’t actually need to eat. Or any of the care she offers--no, insists on. If he could just be left alone to pass out, he could get all the energy he needed from the Fade. But she can’t possibly know that, and he doesn’t really have any intention of telling her. So he eats her damn soup and takes the enchanted blanket--which, admittedly, was a good idea, even if he’s in too sour of a mood to feel like admitting it--just to appease her. She’s clearly in an absolute tizzy about this, even if he cannot possibly hope to grasp why.

It’s nothing but relief when she finally is satisfied and leaves him alone to rest. A good night in the Fade and he will be perfectly fine, and perhaps he can pretend like he wasn’t drained to the point of exhaustion by playing the role of an umbrella for one day. Ugh.

Chapter Text

He should be fine.

He rested the entire night, deeply. She should be perfectly fine. His insistence as to that fact, however, does not make it any more true when battle erupts and he can feel the wretched weakness in his bones.

He tries to play it smart to compensate, but Emma’s presence on the field is a constant worry. She’s in the middle of things--the bandits had planned the ambush well and have them surrounded on three sides. His attention is split between the battle at large and her, shrinking down low on Revas. One minute she is there, and then the next time she’s gone, Revas sitting riderless. Panic grips him, but he can’t find her on the field and he can’t risk losing focus long enough to hunt her down. There are simply too many, and one of their protectors might die if he abandons their support.

He must simply trust that she’s capable enough not to fall on her own.

It is not particularly easy.

He manages to spot her, on the field alone and wielding nothing but a small dagger, flanked by two men in armed with swords. He tries to wrench enough power away from existing spells to throw something, anything, to aid her, but he can barely see her, a glint of copper in a field of chaos and blood.

A greatsword swings at her defenseless back in slow motion as Solas desperately attempts to tear enough magic from the Fade to bring her to him. Fortunately, it seems he’s not the only one desperate for her protection--her loving hart, Revas, slams into the man. It hides her from Solas’ view entirely, and all he can do is pray that the animal can protect her where he continuously fails. A wounded scream steals his attention away--Kelsie, pincushioned by arrows. She needs him as well, and he can actually see her. A barrier to protect her, ice to steer the bandits away until Emilio can come to her defense.

No one will be dying today because he was too weak to protect them properly, no matter how much copper and blood he tastes in his mouth.

Emma’s scream shatters his focus, ice crumbling to shards across the battlefield as he tears his way through the Veil towards her, slipping through the Fade to be at her side in an instant. How he knows where she is, he isn’t even sure, but he’s beside her.

Fortunately, the battle is already well on its way to won, and even more fortunately, the scream is not for her--though she is soaked, every inch of her, in blood--but for the hart that had so well protected her… to the point, it seems, of taking the blow meant to end her life.

He eyes the creature uncertainly. He is weak, and it is very injured. But in the face of her desperate pleas, he could do nothing else but give his all to save it. After all, it had done what he had failed to.

Also, the sight of her, bloodied and terrible, violently assaulting a Qunari roughly twice her size while screeching epithets and threats, is easily one of the best things he’s seen since awakening into this haunted excuse for a world.

--

The hart is saved, though his worry is for Emma. Even Kelsie will recover; her injuries are painful but ultimately not life-threatening. But it’s impossible to tell how injured Emma is. She is quite literally coated in blood; no one could say how much of it is hers. She flits around Revas like a ghost, crimson and terrible, until Solas manages to convince her to at least bathe. Perhaps then he will be able to discern if she’s in need of medical attention, since she would likely insist herself fine even if she was actively bleeding to death.

And apart from physical injuries… he worries for her mind.

Bardic history or no, she is no warrior. Any experience with this level of gore would likely have been had in Seheron, and the last time she saw even a single death, her mind had threatened to snap. He keeps catching her staring blankly into nothing, rocking slightly back and forth on her knees next to Revas. She paints a ghoulish picture, and he’ll be relieved to have her free of blood for the sake of her own sanity, if nothing else.

He can’t help but regret his petty torment of her a few days prior as the Qunari she inexplicably and foolishly rescued proves to be a great help, assisting with Emma in ways that Solas cannot. He doubts she would be comfortable stripping anywhere near him, let alone having him help her wash. He suspects she would refuse the assistance from the Qunari, as well, if not for how shell-shocked she is, but frankly, he’s just glad to have someone else to help handle her. It isn’t as though he can ignore the others to focus on her. Even if he might prefer to.

By the time he’s done seeing to the others and Emma’s cleaned off, most are beginning to settle in for the night. Emma has taken up residence directly next to the hart, again. Just as well, looking over Revas’ health gives him a delicate excuse to look over hers, as well.

It, uh… could be worse.

Really, all things considered, it could be. She has a number of scrapes, cuts, and bruises, as well as a slight head injury that will probably be fine with a night’s rest. The real issue is her hands. They can’t possibly have happened in the fight, unless she had fisticuffs with a boar while he wasn’t looking. How long have they been like this? When had it happened? How had he missed it?!

It takes a moment to compose himself, and several moments longer to finesse Emma into accepting any form of treatment. He really does need to get to the root of her aversion to healing, one of these days. Does it stem from her fear of magic? Is it connected to her general disdain for any action that could be interpreted as properly taking care of herself? It’s as though she’s determined to grind herself into the ground.

But later, later. That’s not important now. All that matters now is repairing what little he can.

Chapter Text

She falls asleep while he reads to her. Or, arguably, to the hart, but it hadn’t been the hart’s whining that convinced him. If this is all it takes to get her to sleep, perhaps he should make a habit… No, that’s stupid for any number of reasons, least of all that she likely fell asleep because she’s had an extremely trying day.

It’s painful to think of leaving her out her on the cold stone floor of the cave, but if he picks her up to bring her to her tent, she’ll likely wake up, and there’s no telling whether or not she’ll be able to fall back asleep. She probably wouldn’t even willingly leave the hart’s side. A blanket, then, at the very least, lest she catch a chill.

Solas heads to his bags to dig out a spare blanket, but pauses when his eyes fall to the one on top… the enchanted blanket he’d used last night, at her request. He hesitates, fingers tracing over it. She said that when she used it before, she had slept long and deep. Her hesitance to use it since has been due to the enchantment and her fear thereof. But she’s already asleep… no terror to disturb her ability to rest, no distress at the thought of it. If he simply puts it on her now and takes it off in the morning, she’ll be able to rest in peace.

...Normally, he would not, but after such a day… She needs healing, and in order to heal, her body needs rest.

He snatches it up and rushes back to her before he can change his mind. He wraps her in it first, tucking it around her before lifting her into his arms. As always, she is alarmingly light. She shifts in her sleep, barely, tucking her head against his arm, burying her face against his chest. Fortunately, Revas has fallen asleep as well, and cannot protest her removal.

He settles her into her tent, resting her on top of her sleeping roll. Tonight, at least, she can rest easy.

He checks on Revas one last time, but afterwards finds himself too restless to sleep. He should sleep well and deep, to restore his energy, but rest simply won’t come. Ironic that Emma should be the one sleeping like a child tonight, when his mind won’t stop spinning long enough to fall asleep.

He winds up sitting near the fire, between it and Emma’s tent. He should be near, in any case. It’s unlikely anything could go wrong, with something as simple as a blanket, but it would be careless to wander off, even if a walk through the woods would likely soothe his anxiety.

“How is she?” a soft voice asks, and Solas glances up, startled out of his endlessly looping thoughts. It’s Elaine, her long black hair falling loose around her face, exhaustion making her features sharper and harder, emphasizing details she might normally prefer to keep hidden.

“Sleeping,” Solas replies, following Elaine’s gaze back to Emma’s tent. For once, he thinks, but does not say.

“I was fighting my way towards her when she went down. Did you see what happened?”

“No, only the aftermath,” Solas admits. Which had been bad enough. There are no good ways a person gets their hair soaked in blood.

“She decapitated a man with his own longsword while he tried to strangle her to death,” Elaine says bluntly, and Solas winces. Quite the gruesome experience for so young a woman. Bard training or no. “So… how is she?”

Solas pauses, then sighs. “Hard to say. Shellshocked, I think.”

Elaine sits next to him on the ground, a respectful distance but still close enough to have a quiet conversation. “Look… I’m not really sure what her deal is--and I don’t want to know,” she adds quickly. “When Katari took note of the longsword, I told him I did it. I’ve asked around a bit, quiet-like… I’m the only one who saw. It’s the sort of thing that gets around, and I don’t think she’d like to be reminded it of it every time a soldier wants to strike up conversation in Skyhold.”

“Thank you,” Solas says, because there’s nothing else to say. It’s nice that there are still people who can be trusted with a simple secret, whether for safety or simply out of kindness.

“And, look, like I said, I don’t know what her deal is… but I’m pretty sure her day-to-day doesn’t include decapitation. She’s been on edge this whole trip, thanks to whatever’s going on with you two--and again I do not want to know--and this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

“...I’m well aware,” Solas says, keeping his voice quiet.

“Good. Seriously, I’m glad.” Elaine runs a hand through her hair, pulling it back out of her face only for it to fall down again in loose strands. “Look, I’ve already been at this for too long and seen too many people snap. I just really don’t want to see another one, and not her. She’s cute and sweet and she doesn’t deserve the shit she’s seeing out here. Kelsie at least signed up for it, she wanted to be a soldier. And she’s got Emilio. That girl’s a linguist. No matter what else she might be, she signed up to write books, not nearly get killed two times in two weeks. Just… keep her really close, okay? She likes you--unfortunately--” Solas shoots her a slight glare at that, and the woman holds her hands up. “Hey, I’m allowed to hope for girls to swing for my team.” He snorts. “So give her whatever she needs.”

Solas sighs again, glancing over at Emma’s tent again and staring for too long.

“...I’m trying.”

Chapter Text

He awakes in an instant to the sound of screaming.

He has a barrier up before he’s fully awake, recognizes the screams as Emma’s before he can think about what that means. He’s by her side in an instant, not bothering to get up and simply hurtling himself through the Veil. One of these days he’s going to tear something doing that.

Her eyes are open but she doesn’t seem to see him. She’s struggling violently with the blanket, so he tears it off of her. Still she screams, eyes as hazy as during her worst panics. Wherever she is right now, it’s not here.

Panicking a small amount himself, he does the only thing he can think of in the moment, the only things that have worked before. He holds her, and he speaks to her in the language of her ancestors, pleas and reassurances both. She calms quickly, screams fading to confused whimpers, arms ending their violent flails and beginning to grip him, shaking.

Katari is there all too quickly, and Solas knows he’ll only worsen her condition but doesn’t know how to explain it to him. He rushes the Qunari away as quickly as he can, keeping her face buried against his chest with one hand, lest she look up, see him, and begin panicking anew.

The realization of what must have happened, of how much this is once again his fault, dawns on him only slightly more quickly than it does on Emma. The enchantment, of course. It was designed for use by him, not for some muted echo. He has complete mastery over his sleeping mind. Emma, considerably less so, just by dint of being who, what, and when she is.

He really is quite the idiot lately.

She seems too startled to really consider the full extent of what he’s done to her, and he loathes himself for being a little relieved not to feel the full force of her righteous anger. Instead, he again heals her hands--damaged yet again thanks to her flailing--and does his best to stick close to her through breakfast, in case she has any belated reactions. Fortunately, she seems to recover slowly but surely, and by the time they’re ready to leave, she appears more or less back to her regular self. Thanks, in part, to that wretched-smelling tea of hers, no doubt.

She winds up riding with him out of necessity. Revas is in no condition to be ridden, and she has no experience with horses, though she could probably pick it up without too much difficulty. However, after he’s assisted her up in front of him, it occurs to him that she might have been considerably more comfortable with one of the women--well, not Elaine, but one of the others--rather than someone with his particular… Well, someone like him, in any case. Fortunately, he’s nothing if not skilled at self-control, so with minimal shifting, he manages to get them both into a position where they can avoid any unfortunate friction.

She seems tense at first, nervous. Possibly due to the unusual riding position, possibly due to her awful experience the last time she rode with him, and possibly due to the feelings for him they’re both pretending don’t exist. But over time, she relaxes, becoming less rigid and more prone to lean backwards against him or allow herself to jostle slightly with Ashi’lana’s movements. It’s surprisingly comfortable. She fits well there, between his arms, against his chest, and between his--alright, that’s enough of that line of thought.

She chatters away amiably, mostly about her plans upon returning to Skyhold. It’s a relief to see her comfortable after the last few days. It’s also a relief to be able to easily have her close enough to keep an eye on. It’s not difficult, from here, to gauge her mood, to tell when she’s slipping into unpleasant thoughts and distract her out of them. He also gets a chance to lace more healing into her hands. He’d done himself a bit of a favor by agreeing to heal them over time. She has decades of hard living and damage there… small fractures healed roughly, the beginnings of swelling and stiffness that will no doubt plague her in Skyhold’s cold weather. He simply opts to heal her more completely than he might otherwise be able to, since he’ll be having regular access to her hands anyway. No reason not too, really.

Of course, the very second she’s out of his sight, while they stop for lunch, she utterly vanishes.

He thinks, at first, that she’s merely taking a leak behind a tree or some such, but it quickly becomes clear that she’s disappeared entirely. His only comfort--and it’s cold comfort indeed--is that Sataareth is also gone, implying that wherever she’d gone, he’d followed. He wants to go look for her, but he has no idea which direction she’s gone in, and Katari refuses to send any others out to comb the forest looking for her.

Solas paces restlessly around the edges of the clearing, looking and looking again for a sign of which direction she may have wandered. Unfortunately, she’s left little in the way of tracks. Which is ridiculous, because she has an entire Qunari with her.

How could she just wander off alone into the woods, again? They’d just been attacked by bandits, and the last time she’d done this, she’d managed to be attacked by wolves! How is it possible for one woman to be this endlessly frustrating?!

And of course, when she comes back, it’s not only with Sataareth, but with a cat. Because she’d found a cat in the woods. An injured cat, which she’d immediately picked up and carted off to take care of, because actually she had learned exactly nothing from the situation with Sataareth.

She is too exhausting to even scold. And it would be a waste of breath, in any case--she’s determined enough to care for the cat that she even cows Katari… Or perhaps she’d simply decided there was nothing to fear of him since he hadn’t snapped her neck for all the colorful threats she’s made to him over the course of the journey.

Chapter Text

It’s colder without her.

She’s riding on the cart now. The others come and go, flitting over to her to examine the cat rather than staying on their watch. Small wonder why he and Katari were the first two to notice the ambush before… but this close to Skyhold, it’s very unlikely that anything will happen. The Inquisition is a force of order, if nothing else.

Solas, for his part, keeps his distance and his watch until they stop for the evening. The cat has yet to die, and she has yet to give up on it. No surprise there. He’s beginning to suspect she has absolutely no grasp for when an acceptable time to give up on something is. A fact which irritates him as soon as he thinks it, for he once got that exact critique from a number of his friends. Long ago, when he was closer to Emma in… well, in maturity, if not literal age.

And he privately suspects that not much has changed. For instance, instead of leaving well enough alone, off he goes to prod at the cat as well, and before he knows it he’s off in the woods gathering herbs with Emma. He could be sleeping right now. He probably should be sleeping right now. But no. No, instead they spend far too long gathering far too much elfroot. That’s Emma’s fault, purely; she turns it into a game, a competition. Which he handily wins. But it didn’t need to be one to begin with. Especially since she really should have known he’d win.

Back at camp, he shows her an old, old recipe for simple elfroot broth. It would be funny if it weren’t sad, how many simple, basic things have been lost. Honestly. It’s broth. Made from elfroot. This is not something that should be capable of being lost to the ages, but here they are. Then, he helps Emma set the cat’s leg, all things he has to do before she’ll consent to seeing her own injuries treated, because she is the personification of exhaustion, born into this world purely to make everyone around her more tired.

He finally does manage to work more long-term healing into her hands, and then sends her off to bed to rest… or at least try to rest.

When he wakes up the next morning, she has named the cat.

Of course she has.

Despite his reluctance towards both Sataareth and the cat, he has to admit that both have had their uses. Emma had overcome her fear of the Qunari quickly—although she was still easily startled by him—and was willing to accept aid from him that she would not from Solas. For whatever reasons. He had been anxious for her state of mind in the days following the fight, but the cat had provided a much-needed distraction. Keeping busy soothes her, he’s realized this by now. She twitches for things to do whenever she’s unoccupied, and will simply endlessly fret if left to her own devices.

The fact that he appreciates the role the cat is playing does not make it any more difficult when she insists on caring for it while riding with him.

Not that it’s scratching him or bothering the hart, oh no. Emma is too careful not to inconvenience him for that. No, she has the cat carefully wrapped up in a sling tied around the hart’s neck. The very soul of consideration, as she bends over wholesale in front of him, on a rocking hart.

He is all the more aware of it thanks to their companion’s sly comments, and works hard to keep his eyes literally anywhere but directly in front of him—not easy when one is steering a mount—as she squirms around, bent ninety degrees at the waist.

Between this and all the things she got up to in Val Royeaux, he’s come to the conclusion that she is just a genuinely oblivious sort of person when it comes to her own body.

However, repeatedly reminding himself that she clearly means nothing by it and is, in fact, tending to a sick cat, is doing remarkably little to help with his situation. Nor is her begging and pleading with the cat in Orlesian. Nothing could possibly help with this situation, in fact, except perhaps throwing himself wholesale into a snowbank out of frustration. Not that he’s considering doing that. Not seriously, in any case. He also isn’t seriously considering throwing her into the snowbank, either. He is simply sitting, staring determinedly at the horizon, and thinking about the plight of the Elvhen people.

And it works, although he’s left feeling a bit exhausted. That’s becoming the constant state of being when it comes to Emma. But despite the cat and her… antics… the last leg of the trip to Skyhold passes relatively quickly. His fears for her mental state are fading with each step closer; he can tell how much she longs to be back. He had never thought her overly fond of Skyhold, but now he can see—and understand—how much those solid walls mean to her.

She will surely be more in her element there. And there will be significantly less danger. He’d like to say no danger, but unfortunately, he knows her a little too well for that. She could find danger in a closed room with no windows. Particularly if you locked her in with her work, because then she would do it, unceasing, until she collapsed, and then get up to injure herself trying to get out of the room.

But that’s nothing compared to the kind of external danger she’s faced out here. It will be a relief to go back to only having to worry about her overworking and not sleeping, as opposed to getting stabbed or having a mental breakdown.

After all, he does have other things he needs to be doing.

Chapter Text

They weren’t in Skyhold for five seconds before Emma immediately got swept up in yet another bundle of trouble… leaving Solas holding the leashes of both her adoptees, and none too happy about it.

Fortunately, Katari took care of showing Emma’s adopted Qunari how to enroll with the Inquisition… still leaving Solas with a damaged hart and a injured, pregnant, furious cat.

Both are taken care of with a visit to the stables, fortunately. Belassan is immediately alarmed to see the state of Revas, bolting out of a field and even vaulting effortlessly over a fence to reach them a little faster. He reaches the hart before even acknowledging Solas’ presence, resting his forehead up against the hart’s and closing his eyes, murmuring quiet reassurances and little questions the hart couldn’t possibly understand, let alone answer.

Solas waits, mostly because he has a cat that he also hopes to hand over at some point.

“What happen--Wait,” Belassan says, glancing around as if just noticing it’s not simply him and the hart. “Where is Emma?” His voice clenches in panic. “Revas is injured, is she--”

“She’s fine,” Solas says, cutting him off before he can become any more frantic. “Revas took a blow intended for her. I healed him myself, but other healers should watch him for the next few days.”

Belassan’s shoulders sag in obvious relief. “Thank goodness. Why did she not come herself?”

“She got shanghaied into helping with some refugees not five minutes after setting foot in Skyhold,” Solas replies dryly, and Belassan laughs, more of the tension leaving him.

“Of course she did. And…” his eyes finally fall to the unhappy bundle Solas is carrying.

“A cat,” Solas says with a sigh. “Hers also. And yet here I am holding it.”

“She adopted a cat in Orlais…?”

“She adopted a cat she found dying in the woods,” Solas says, and Belassan bursts out laughing again.

“Of course she did.”

Solas can’t help but share his mirth, a little wryly. “Unfortunately, I certainly don’t have the time nor the expertise to deal with an injured cat, let alone a pregnant one.”

“Sylaise! Where does she find these things…” Belassan swept the cat up without so much as asking, not that Solas would have protested a whit. “Poor dear… I should show her to Dennett. He has a fondness for cats. And the healer…”

Solas takes a step backwards, wondering if he could get away with just wandering off while the Dalish was distracted with the cat. Indeed, the man seems immediately engrossed, fussing over the split and the cat’s state of malnutrition. Just as well Solas simply slip off. He does have his own things to take care of, after all.

“Uh, Serah Solas?” Solas turns to find Kelsie, looking uncertain. “Um. There are a lot of books, and Emma’s gone…”

…

Wonderful.

Many hours later, he returns to his rotunda to find it full of elves.

It’s an extremely startling sight, but not an inherently unwelcome one, despite his exhaustion. Of course, Emma would have put them here while she worked out the details. Where else could she put them? And to hear her tell it, she’d done the exact same thing before.

They hang out in loose clumps around the edges of the rotunda, sitting on couches, examining the walls or the contents of Emma’s desk. They’re giving his a wide berth--Emma’s doing, no doubt. One small elf sits in Emma’s chair, knees curled up by his chest, a book on baby dragons on his knees.

Well… it’s not as though he can work under these circumstances. And he has little enough in common with modern elves. The idea of socialization is uncomfortable and unwelcome. Emma will take care of this on her own, with that… alarming elf she’d seem to know. He can simply retire to his workspace early, and tomorrow, they will be gone. And his things…

Er…

There are probably a few things he should take, actually, just in case.

He spends a relatively calm evening in his room, and retires early to get a long, full night’s sleep.

When he awakens the next morning and heads to the rotunda, the elves have been replaced with piles of books that take up only slightly less space.

…

Seems he’s just not likely to get a break for a while, then.

Fortunately, Emma arrives some time later to assist. With a spattering of new bruises and a split lip. Because of course, she would have found a way to get injured in half a day. He heals it almost absent-mindedly, more annoyed than anything else, that people keep putting her in these sorts of situations. She’s a busybody, to be sure, but he suspects that if she’d had her way, she would have spent the whole of yesterday running tomes around Skyhold and been perfectly happy for it. She certainly wouldn’t be wanting training with some agent of Leliana’s, given the things she’s trying to keep secret.

He should try to help, at least. Since he can, under the guise of her continued healing. And also, who’s out there making someone with bandaged hands spar in the first place? The priorities in this place… honestly. Only the fact that it’s Leliana keeps him from suspecting it’s simple jackassery. She is someone who never does things for only one reason.

And so, with healer’s orders to lay off the training and not overwork, despite Leliana’s clear desire to push her into doing both, Emma sets to work for the day. Solas watches her briefly before getting to his own research. There’s much to do… but at least now he has something guaranteed to consistently break up the monotony.

Chapter Text

The elf with whom Emma is so obviously enamored is decorated in slave marks made of lyrium.

Sometimes this world does an excellent job of echoing the worst–and only the worst–parts of the one left behind.

It's a bit difficult to look at him, but that's hardly the man's fault. Solas sincerely doubts he asked to be branded in such a manner.

According to Emma, he's an escaped slave similar to her. Very similar, if the stories in Varric's book–which he's now dully thumbing through–are at all accurate. Perhaps the two of them would make a good match. He certainly seems curious about her, though in a significantly more harmless way than the curiosity that Emma normally attracts. Even his clear loathing for magic echoes her own fear... But Emma's fear is also part fascination, something Fenris clearly does not share and could probably benefit from.

They could be good for each other. Fill in the cracks left by each other's trauma. They'd already know exactly what the other was going through, had been through. Fenris doesn't have the benefit of a few of Emma's secrets, of knowing her like Solas is coming to, but he doubtless sees part of her past without even having to ask. She probably talks to him more readily about it, as well.

Solas taps his quill idly against the wood of his desk. He's hardly Emma's guardian, to be researching her potential lovers like this. But he does feel slightly better for it, seeing as how the two of them seem to be determined to be around each other. At least the man isn’t dangerous, or at least, his disposition doesn’t seem to be. Not towards her, in any case. Unless his rage towards magic stretches far enough to catch anyone in its vicinity. But surely he knows by now what she does for a living? They’ve been spending enough time together…

He’d even caught them together outside, when he’d left to see where on earth Emma had been all day. The answer to that had been putting a farm together, as it turned out, but even in the midst of all that chaos, Fenris had been all but glued to her side. Perhaps what comes next will have been inevitable. They do have so much in common… except where they don’t. But knowing Emma, she’ll only show him the bits he’d like, anyway. For as long as she could. And when she couldn’t anymore, would Fenris be safe for her?

Solas thumbs irritably through reports on Kirkwall, not finding any real answers in them. It’s not really any of his business, he reminds himself for perhaps the thirteenth time. It doesn’t change the fact he keeps looking.

The farm had been a whole situation, actually. Solas had only learned the extent after the fact. In the moment it had just been a flurry of elves and chickens and hastily constructed fences. Solas got a little taste of how the others must see Emma, popping out of nowhere to accomplish thankless tasks with the kind of dogged determination normally employed by a drunk trying to talk his way into another pint.

She’d decided that she would start a farm, and over the course of a single morning, materialized every single thing she would need to do just that. From wood to nails to labor to the actual animals themselves, to the land to the food to the permission. Even seeds. How she did it, Solas genuinely did not know, but it was a delight to watch her work, and more of a delight to help.

It has him in a good mood no matter how long it’s taken for him to steal her away to care for herself. Ideally she would manage both without having to be forced; he doesn’t think she should have to sacrifice her good works or even her work ethic. But even just a smidgen of concern for herself would go a long way.

Thinking keenly about her words on how useful an assistant he would be–could you even imagine?–Solas spends the afternoon helping her with her artistry. It’s a pleasure to thumb through her hand-drawn copies of the drawings from her tome, but she probably wouldn’t allow him to do it just for fun without fussing. Pointing out errors here and there seems to reassure that he has a reason to be doing it. And if it saves her some time, it’s a decent use of his afternoon. His next tests need to be done in the Fade, in any case, so he’d just be burning daylight anyway.

He spends a comfortable afternoon lounging on the couch, working and reading in turns. It’s the most relaxed he’s been in… a considerably long time, although the extent of it doesn’t occur to him until later. A comfortable afternoon with an intelligent conversation partner… Which, unfortunately, ends extremely abruptly when Sera slams the door to his rotunda open and loudly declares her intent to steal Emma for the evening.

Ah, well.

It was good while it lasted.

He flops back over on the couch, torn between trying to read more and just taking a nap. Emma probably won’t be back anytime soon, and he doubts that First Enchanter Wensulus has what it takes to keep him entertained. He’s just rolled over to begin his descent into sleep when a familiar scream from outdoors sends him hurtling off the couch before he’s even fully realized what’s happening.

He throws open the door to the outdoors, where Sera and Emma had left. Sera is standing just outside on the walkway, screaming, and looking down. Not… a good combination. Solas rushes to the edge and leans over himself, where he sees Emma frantically gripping the end of an Inquisition banner that’s still actively tearing. Her hands are slippery with blood, clumsy from bandages he made her wear.

The banner tears, and she plummets downwards, and for one brief second, Solas is confused as to why she’s just not catching herself. But of course, she can’t, she never could, no more than Sera could catch her. He thrust his arm down as if to catch her, instead casting a haphazard spell as fast as he can. Fortunately, it’s magic that normally needs to be cast abruptly and with great speed. He catches her, and lets her float gently to the ground before taking a moment to wheeze against the half-wall that serves as a railing–poorly, apparently. Ten minutes. He’d left her alone for ten minutes, and she’d nearly plummeted to her death directly outside his door.

It’s a good thing he simply has no hair to go grey.

Chapter Text

Emma is, as Solas suspected, more open with Fenris. He sees it himself, when the man comes to pick her up for their ‘date’ one evening. Emma is finishing up her work, and Fenris hovers around much in the way Solas sometimes does when he’s particularly bored. He peppers her with questions, and Emma seems to have no issues answering them plainly and honestly. Solas at least makes the attempt not to be bitter about it.

He recognizes the way her voice breaks when Fenris brings up her past as a slave, and for a horrified moment, thinks he might have to snap her out of it in front of the man she likes. Something for which she probably would not forgive him, or herself. Fortunately, she seems to distract herself. He wonders if Fenris can hear the tremor in her voice. If he knows what it means. If he can guess, having gone through something similar, or if her fits would be alien and unwelcome to the man. The thought fills him with uncomfortable nerves that he quickly tries to shake off by distracting himself.

He doesn’t see her for the rest of the evening, which he expected. He wonders what she’s doing. It continues to be none of his business.

“Emma tel'isala athim,” she says, voice full of smug pleasure. “Ma solas him sulevin.”

Her shoddy pronunciation breaks the spell, but she is improving. She’s particularly self-satisfied today, not bothering to hide her pride behind a veil of false modesty. She has every reason to be proud--she’s done good work. He tries not to think about how easily magic could have accomplished her task. It wouldn’t have been quite the same, in any case. There was always pleasure, satisfaction, and power in working with one’s own hands. Even if she had more copies of her translated tome scribed magically, none would be so precious as the original she’d poured so much blood, sweat, and tears into. He would have liked it for his own collection, if he thought for even a second it would be possible to pry it away from her.

Perhaps due to her smug self-assurance, she’s more open talking about her work, particularly on how she’d learned the Elvhen language, a story she’d always kept vague before.

It’s… completely brilliant, actually. She’d cross-reference the oldest Elvhen records she could get her hands on with ancient Tevinter manuscripts, which were in comparative abundance, and which she was somewhat uniquely equipped to use. Particularly for an elf. She had seen what few of this era had--that ancient Tevinter was an empire built on the shattered bones of fallen Elvhenan.

He watches her outline her techniques with admiration rapidly approaching something else. She looks so proud of herself, so ferociously satisfied by the scant rewards she’d dug out of cold, hard, dead ground… that it broke his heart just the slightest bit when her expression faltered and she looked at him with uncertainty. And asked his approval. Asked for his seal of approval on her bloodhound-with-a-grudge techniques of digging long-dead history out of ashes.

She had no idea she was asking someone who’d scattered the ashes in the first place, but she knew he knew more than she did.

How much must that burn her? She’d dedicated her entire life to this. And who was he? No one, to her. To anyone here. He hadn’t needed to work for his knowledge of Elvhenan. It was simply who he was.

She had done marvelously with the broken scraps he’d abandoned her here with.

Of course he can’t quite say that, but he tries his best. Fortunately, she seems as embarrassed by her lapse in self-assurance as he is, so she quickly rushes the subject along to something else… something unexpected, actually. His work. She couldn’t possibly understand what he’s been doing… but, actually, maybe she could, at least a little. What she doesn’t already know might be learned. She has a basis of knowledge of modern magic that he lacks. While it pales in comparison to Dorian or Vivienne’s, Dorian knows nothing of southern circles and their magic, and Vivienne isn’t exactly lining up to compare notes.

He expects her curiosity. What he does not expect is for her to snatch his runic shorthand out of his hand and get halfway to recognizing it as Elvhen in origin. It’s obvious that’s where she’s going. He finally understands why she’s constantly comparing him and his work to ancient Tevinter. Of course she is; she’s been studying Elvhenan and Tevinter side by side. She’s recognizing things, or the ghost of things, and tracing them back to the wrong source. She needs go one step further to find his origins, but who would think to?

Her, probably, if she spends much longer looking at his notes.

Thankfully, the Chargers select then to return, sending her scrambling out of the rotunda. He is left to shove his notebook into his jacket, and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Chapter Text

She’s gone for a while. He winds up at her desk, considering her things as if for the first time. He had thought he was giving her more consideration than others, out of a mix of curiosity and boredom. Now he’s beginning to wonder if he hadn’t been underestimating her in the same manner as everyone else. He had seen her deceiving them, watched her play the fool over and over again. Certainly, it had occurred to him that she could be doing the same to him, but he’d paid it as little serious concern as she seemed to pay the idea that the Iron Bull could be manipulating her. Shrugged it off, because he thought surely he had nothing to fear.

Now, he thumbs through her work with new appreciation... and a similar amount of caution mixed in with the curiosity.

Even if she did notice something, it would be easy to hand-wave his knowledge off as being from the Fade. She knew too little about the subject to have any way to protest the plausibility. But he’d like to learn how much she knows, exactly, regardless.

Her desk is meticulous. Not clean. Messy, in fact. Cluttered, but compulsively organized. He can almost see the organized chaos of her mind reflected in it. Not even the things she’s using, but anything she might need at any point stacked close at hand. Papers in teetering piles that look hectic at first glance… but actually belie a multi-tiered organization that probably leans heavily on her near-perfect memory.

Each individual page is a masterpiece in its own right, meticulously lettered by a professional hand. Half of them still have graphite lines where she’s marked them, yet to be carefully erased. Her pace is neck breaking but uneven; she clearly simply works on whatever she wants at a given time, no doubt confident in her ability to pick up on a dropped task exactly as if she’d never dropped it to begin with.

Her past assistants must have been very patient people. He can’t imagine her consenting to much aid, just given how prickly she is in accepting help even in things she can’t do herself. In fact, if she even knew he was here, thumbing through her things, she’d probably--

“You know, Solas, most people have to wait til it’s finished.”

Her voice startles him into almost losing balance on the chair. How had she snuck up on him? Had he been that distracted? The satisfied glint in her eyes suggests that this is simply another skill she’s always had and simply never deigned to allow anyone bear witness to.

Despite the playful way she banters with him, she seems both heavier and sharper. Bad news, perhaps? Her relaxed demeanor from earlier is completely gone, replaced with the sensation of needles when she smiles. Had someone bothered her? Harassed her, gotten under her skin? There’s no good way to ask, and doing so would betray to her how much he saw, which would be of no comfort to her at all. Best just to let her work; it’s one thing that can always bring her satisfaction, no matter her mood.

“So,” Bull says, plopping down completely uninvited on the stool generally reserved for Emma. It’s still at his desk; the Chargers had just ambushed Emma and dragged her off after the two of them had finished eating dinner. He’s comically oversized for it, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping him. “How was Val Royeaux?”

“Foppish and full of unfortunate fashion decisions and racism in roughly equal measure,” Solas replies, not yet setting his book down, unwilling to indicate he’s invested in the conversation Bull seems to have decided they need to have.

“Sounds about right,” Bull agrees with a nod. “And I see you managed to bring Emma back with you.”

“Was there ever a risk of that not being the case?”

“I’ll be honest, I had 60-40 odds on her bolting once she was safely in the city.”

Solas puts his book down to look at the Qunari. He looks out of place in the rotunda, moreso on a seat only intended for Emma. “She has reasons for being with the Inquisition.”

“And you might know different ones than me,” Bull capitulates. “But I also know she’s been hating every second of me and Leliana breathing down her neck.”

“Then give her space,” Solas suggests.

“Orlais was a whole lot of space. Hence why I’m pleased-but-surprised she didn’t run. You two have a nice time?”

Solas almost says it had been comfortably free of nosy Qunari, but thanks to Sataareth, that wasn’t even the case. She’d found the only Qunari in Val Royeaux to make trouble with. “I can’t speak for her,” Solas says instead. “I’ve had worse missions for the Inquisition.”

“The Inquisitor once dragged you into a swamp filled with undead.”

“Yes.”

“I hear you two showed back up with a Tal-Vashoth, too. How’d you manage to find one of those in Val Royeaux?”

Solas can’t help the tired sigh that escapes him. “Bad luck and not knowing when to pass the torch. Tell me, are you interviewing me so you can keep giving Emma ‘space’?”

Iron Bull grins. “Maybe a little. Plus from what little I heard, sounded like maybe she’d been through enough without the big scary Qunari quizzing her about it.”

“That much is true,” Solas admits with a sigh, thinking back over all the death and blood she’d seen in two short weeks. “I doubt she has any desire to relive it just to sate your curiosity.”

“Hence why I’m here and not in the tavern plying her with large quantities of alcohol.”

“How considerate,” Solas says dryly. “I believe she’s delivered an official report to Leliana. Perhaps you could ask for a copy.”

“She probably didn’t put anything interesting in there,” Bull says with a shrug. “She seems a bit more relaxed.”

She had, before she’d gone off to greet the Chargers. Then she’d spent the afternoon all tense nerves, which Solas did not particularly appreciate. But he didn’t feel like sharing that observation with the Iron Bull.

“Which is surprising,” Iron Bull continues. “Given that Leliana seems to be targeting her for recruitment.”

Solas stiffens. He’d suspected that as well, but having it bluntly confirmed was far from welcome. Emma had, according to what she’d told him, retired, and for a very good reason. She wouldn’t appreciate another Orlesian trying to drag her back in, or the attention it would bring. Solas drummed his fingers irritably on the desk.

“An odd choice, given that she’s a linguist,” he says finally. The Iron Bull grins.

“Yeah. That’s what I said, too.”

Chapter Text

She’s gone the entire rest of the day. She has been constantly distracted since returning to Skyhold, always out for one thing or another. Leliana is making moves at her. The Iron Bull certainly has his own reasons for the things he’s doing. Her days are rapidly filling with things that take her away. It’s a sharp contrast to how limited her focus was in Val Royeaux. Now she’s scattered again, a thousand things to steal her eyes and a hundred projects balanced in a teetering pile.

She is busy. She’s out drinking with Fenris or playing with Sera or the Chargers or whomever else she manages to attract to herself with an impossible mix of charm and annoyance. And Solas is thinking of the inn room, of her relaxed smile at the theatre or hanging ten stories up off a statue. He hasn’t seen that face a single time since they returned.

...He could see her spending more time here, if he wished it. It isn’t as though he has little with which to bribe her. He has been idly considering the lessons she so desperately wants for a while now… the whole way back from Val Royeaux, at least. It would be easy to dangle it in front of her nose. He suspects there’s little she wouldn’t trade in return, but asking for anything feels… off-color. This knowledge would have been her birthright had he not ruined it ages before she was even born.

The appearance of Fenris had given him pause, as had her constant distraction and the familiar walls of Skyhold reinforcing a sense of normativity. But the next day, she spends the entire day in the rotunda working, remarkably. No Sera, no Fenris, no Chargers, nothing to distract her from work. The constant scratching sound of a quill on parchment is familiar and comforting, providing a background ambiance better than the snatches of voices or echoing caw of crows from above. Having her in for a day, and then hearing all about her plans for the next few days… well.

It makes the decision for him.

Also, her expression upon being told is absolutely priceless.

She comes in for her lessons early, eager, and dressed up. Or dressed down, perhaps, depending on how one looks at it. She normally wears the same general outfit every day for work, but today she's wearing leggings and a much shorter style of tunic in a pale red. Her thick leather boots have been left in her room for the day, and she's adorned in the leg wraps he'd given her in Orlais. They're tied the way he wears them, and he wonders if she has experience with them or if she'd simply copied the way he wore them. He isn't sure which would be more telling.

She’s so excited to begin that it’s difficult not to tease her. He only halfway manages to resist the urge. He knows that, from her perspective, he has already dragged out his denial of her desires for longer than is reasonable, but he can’t help pushing a little further now that she knows she’ll be getting what she wants.

While she’s gone, sulking at his taunting and insistence on her cleaning up the dishes first, he sets up the things they’ll need. It’s been a long time since he needed to teach anyone to read, so he has perhaps overcompensated somewhat. He has a rough idea of where her competency level is, but with old pupils, he was starting from scratch, not rewriting decades worth of faulty knowledge. Whatever old books he had lying around that probably won’t draw her suspicion overmuch, parchment, ink, a blank leather-bound tome he’d picked up in Val Royeaux… And…

On the way back from Val Royeaux, the caravan of enchanted goods… Emma had spent quite some time admiring an enchanted quill, but in the end, neglected to buy it. He had, on impulse, bought it himself, while she was off purchasing a cheap glowing bauble. He’d intended to give it to her, but the bandit attack had come just after that. The timing had never seemed quite right, even after getting back to Skyhold. Especially after getting back to Skyhold. He’d dithered around with it, considering just leaving it on her desk and saying nothing. As if she’d let that pass.

He placed it on his desk now, wondering if he could get away with pretending it was just to help her studies. Perhaps she wouldn’t recognize it. The trauma of the bandit attack could have washed the memory of it from even her mind. He could play it off as something of his, some second-hand gift…

Wishful thinking. She, of course, recognizes it instantly.

What he hadn’t expected, however, was that she’d have a gift as well. Embarrassingly, she’s clearly been holding onto it for just as long as he’d been holding onto his. There is no place she could have gotten this but Val Royeaux. It is a box of watercolor paints. It's pristine, the paint still untouched, the small bowls for mixing colors still a gleaming porcelain white. The way Emma refuses to meet his eyes, cheeks heating, mimics what was likely his expression a few minutes ago.

He wants to know when, exactly, she’d gotten it. How long she’d been holding onto it, what she’d been thinking when she picked it out. Had it been when she’d been picking out presents for half of the Inquisition, or before? Or after? She says she picked it up where she got her quills. Does he remember the store? He’d been paying so little attention during their shopping excursions.

It has been a long time since he has used watercolor paints, but he is determined to break them in that evening. But for now, he has a language to teach.

Her knowledge is as he’d suspected, piecemeal and awkward. It matches, for the most part, her description of having learned from a variety of sources. Some words she speaks with a variety of Dalish accents, others with the awkward intonation of someone who has clearly never heard a word spoken at all. The oddest part, however, are the words she speaks with perfect clarity, as if she’d stepped out of an Eluvian and into present day. It is likely simply luck; even a broken clock is right twice a day and all that. But it is still eerie.

Chapter Text

The way the Commander of the Inquisition chases after her wouldn't be nearly so amusing if Emma weren't so dead set on avoiding him.

Solas, admittedly, has no real idea why or how she's caught his interest. It doesn't appear to be romantic in nature--thank goodness--but if anything that just makes it funnier. There are hundreds of women in the Inquisition who'd stab someone for a chance to play chess with him, alone in the courtyard, flirting with him over the board, and yet here Emma is, doing it under extreme protest and flirting only to distract him enough that she can win a game with him.

During which she plays much better and enjoys herself significantly more. Were Solas a younger man, he'd be willing to admit it was a bit flattering.

Just as flattering would be the obvious change in her personality, words, and play style when it is in fact Solas sitting across from her and not Commander Rutherford. Solas would never in a thousand years have described Emma as "relaxed" around him, but in comparison... Or perhaps he's just grown used to her thorns, enough to avoid them and enough to know that when she pricks him, it's simply her nature. A defense mechanism, perhaps, developed over time to keep her from being devoured.

Not that it had stopped him from getting cross with her half an hour ago, of course.

She plays a good game, if a haphazard one, taking unwise risks likely just to see what he'll do. Afterwards, the two of them get lunch. Although it's more accurate to say she gets lunch. She all but chases him away from the kitchen with a broom. It's unclear exactly what she expects will transpire should he enter the kitchens. Mass panic, perhaps. She seems to deeply overestimate the importance of her daily task of bringing him meals, but given that the actual point is to ensure she's eating, he doesn't feel like correcting her misconception.

He leaves her to her work after that, needing to tend to his own things. He hadn't just been gathering alchemical reagents in the gardens for fun, after all. The lyrium potions that the Inquisition uses for their mages are something of a modern oddity, but he's certain he can improve on them. And in so doing, minimize the amount of processed lyrium required. A good economic decision as well as one beneficial for the health of the gathered mages, who are perhaps a bit too willing to down a potion rather than simply take a nap.

Working with lyrium, or even with potions, is not quite a specialty of his, but he has had a long life and a great deal of time to learn things. It's just enough of a challenge to be interesting, and hours tick by unnoticed as he focuses. It's dark outside by the time he gets close to the result he'd been looking for. There's something missing, however. Rather than get frustrated, he simply turns to the most straightforward answer. There is, in fact, endless knowledge in the Fade, if one simply knows where to look.

Solas wakes in the middle of the night.

That's not something he normally does, but he'd been skirting around the territory of a particularly well-known hunger demon when the cascade of thoughts had struck him. He suddenly suspected, no, knew, somehow he just knew, that if he awoke, Emma would be down in the rotunda, working away. He had no actual way of knowing this, but the thought awoke him nonetheless.

He was being ridiculous. She wasn't an invalid. She didn't need him constantly hovering over her shoulder. Yes, sure, she might skip a single meal--he couldn't quite remember how serious that was for people who needed to eat, but didn't think it was too serious--or stay up a bit later than she would if he was there serving as a reminder, but...

...Maybe he'd just... Go down. To check. To make sure she had, in fact, gone to bed, which obviously she would have by now because half the night had already passed them by, and she enjoyed rising before dawn. ...And if he was bringing some food and drink with him, it was just because of that nagging feeling at the back of his head that if he looked a way for even a moment, she would slide gleefully right back into old habits, as if not taking care of herself was something she did specifically to spite him.

...

She was absolutely still awake, hadn't eaten, and was working in the dark. For fuck's sake.

He managed to get her food and drink. Surely that was enough. He was not going to sit down here and make sure she ate it; she wasn't a child. Even if the way she pouted at him, the way she joked and then whined felt remarkably childlike when the subject of their disagreement was on whether one needed to eat and sleep.

He was going to bed, and he could only hope she would as well.

Mistakes have been made. By him. Again.

So, in his defense, under normal circumstances, nothing he had done would have been wrong or bad decisions, per se. Under ordinary circumstances, no one would expect someone to drink an entire gallon of wine by themselves just because they were handed one. However, Solas had in fact never seen Emma stop drinking once alcohol was put in front of her unless someone just physically removed it from her presence.

So he is definitely an idiot, because here he is standing where left Emma with a gallon of wine. And here is an empty gallon of wine and no Emma.

To make matters worse, it's from his personal stock, which he hadn't even thought about at the time. Made from fermented blood lotus, it's strong enough to be considered a weapon. He has a shaky-at-best understanding of how his alcohol tolerance compares to that of the average modern person, but she's probably dying of alcohol poisoning, right now.

The first place he checks isn't the healing tent, however, but her room. For one thing, if she's in the healing tent, she's at the very least receiving care. For another thing, she hates going there and only would be there if she collapsed in the courtyard or fell off something in a drunken stupor, which is actually quite likely now that he thinks about it. Especially given that she's not in her tiny closet of a room.

She's also not in the courtyard where she trains in the mornings. Neither is the Iron Bull, which probably means that if either of them were here, they've long since left. The sun is creeping up into the sky; he's never been one to rise before it. Normally she would be in the rotunda by now. He circles around to the healing tent, but there are no red-headed elves in attendance. Where else could she be? What if he missed her, coming from the dining hall? Perhaps she's at her desk by now. He'll walk in and she'll be right there, nursing a hangover and pretending she's fine, and he'll feel quite foolish for running all over Skyhold.

She's still not there.

He paces, concerned but definitely not frantic, trying to figure out where else she could be. What if she'd passed out in some hidden corner of this huge fortress? Would it be worth taking to the Fade? He could set wisps to looking for her, especially if she was unconscious, and they could tell him where--

It's at that moment that Emma walks into the rotunda.

She doesn't even look much worse for the wear, surprisingly. The bags around her eyes are something of a constant; it's impossible to tell if they're more or less pronounced than before. She seems neither overly haggard nor actively nauseous. Nor even still drunk, which had frankly been a possibility.

"I didn't drink the whole thing myself!" she blurts out, which is both an explanation and a relief. No, it turns out she and Dorian did a number on it. They're both of them practiced alcoholics, so it's no surprise, although it's also hardly “going to bed immediately.” He can't really bring himself to actually be cross with her for that, though. At least she'd tried.

And in addition, if he's being honest with himself, he's relieved that there appear to be no serious consequences to his mistake. If anything, she seems to be in relatively good humor. Tired, though. It becomes more evident after she spends a whole day working. Her alcohol-induced nap had done little for her, as he'd warned. Being unconscious was very different than sleep, and she's in desperate need of only the sounded and deepest of sleeps.

It is more than a little frustrating to be so capable of fixing the situation--given her lack of defenses, a spell delivered through a tap on the forehead would be enough to knock her out--and yet so completely unable to do so. Unfortunately, she's tied his hands utterly without even intending it. If she'd allow it, he could put her in a deep, magical, uninterrupted slumber and sleep right by her side, keeping her nightmares at bay in the Fade. But knowing him capable of either of those things, let alone both, would certainly lead to the kind of terror that would drive her from his side altogether.

There has to be a way to fix this, to fix her, but he can't quite see the path.

Chapter Text

Emma's a bit late to her work the next day, but after the frantic searching of yesterday, Solas isn't too concerned. If she can manage to get herself into bed and back after drinking half a gallon of wine that could probably be used to strip paint... He's just worrying after her too much. She's accident prone, certainly, but she's not an invalid, and he doesn't want to upset her by being overly parental.

Despite that decision, his mind seems stuck on her. He'll feel better once she's in for the day, but for now, he's having a bit of trouble focusing. With her absence flitting around the room, perhaps it's only natural he winds up breaking out the watercolor paints she gifted him. He'd felt a bit too self-conscious to use them when she was around, and has had little time for painting in any case. He's prone to fits of artistic pique; he always has been. Going for months without thinking to create anything and then getting an idea in his head and being utterly unable to do anything else until he's finished it. This is a bit like that feeling, as if once he puts color to canvas, she'll finally be exorcised from his mind.

He's painting a waterfall, falling from rocks into a verdant valley. The waterfall, however, he does with burning shades of red, orange, yellow. Liquid fire cascading down, flowing down and splashing up. Where it splashes, he paints little flowers, bursts of purple and blue, a little contrast. He's so focused on it that he doesn't know how much time has passed when he finally hears someone entering the rotunda. Expecting Emma, he turns with a slight smile on his face.

That smile falls to the floor and shatters along with his peaceful mood when he gets a look at her.

He barely even recognizes her at first, so thoroughly is her face and head bandaged. Her arms, as well, he realizes. What little he can see past the sleeves of her tunics is completely bandaged past her wrists. She looks as though she'd done battle with an entire army. What happened?! What in the universe could have happened, here, to make her look like that?!

He rushes to her side. It is, if anything, worse than he thought at first glance. He has seen Emma fly off a mount at full speed and land in a tree and be all but perfectly fine. He has seen her go through battles with armed bandits with far less injuries than she now has. Her one visible eye is glassy with whatever medication the healers gave her, and she speaks through a half-cocked, clearly delirious grin.

So what had done this? What terrible accident, what violent beast, could so injure this woman, who has the strength of body and mind to drive a man's sword through his own neck and into the ground beneath his spine?

Some Inquisition soldier.

His hands tighten spasmodically on her shoulders as she tells him, seeming half out of her mind, of an Inquisition soldier catching her alone on the walls of Skyhold and beating her half into the grave. All he can see is fire and retribution, but she informs him the man in question has already been arrested and jailed by Commander Rutherford. Solas fully intends to chase that particular tidbit of information, but later. Later. The man at the very least is going nowhere, and Emma is right here.

She should be in the healer's tent, mind, but he's somewhat relieved that she's here instead. He'd been here, painting the morning away, absolutely unaware of what was happening to her outside. Unaware even afterward, that she was in need of healing. If she was still in the healing tent, he would still be unaware, and that was simply unconscionable.

He gets her onto the couch and examines her injuries, which are extensive, as is the amount of healing magic layered into her, which implies they'd been even more severe to begin with. They're focused on her face and arms, which supports her story of an enraged attacker. The injuries on her arms are obviously defensive wounds. She is the very picture of a helpless woman assaulted by a furious man.

He's not sure what it says about him that past the rage and terror, there's still room for a quiet voice that informs him that Emma is anything but a helpless woman. He wouldn't say that he trusts her judgment on when to take a beating, either; he remembers well how she took a gauntleted backhand to the face in Val Royeaux. He would not be surprised to learn something similar was afoot here. Or perhaps a combination; she could have taken the first blow for reasons he couldn't comprehend at the moment, not expecting an abrupt rain of more.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to shake her and demand why and how or just tie her down somewhere safe with locked doors so she would stop getting into so much trouble. Neither were good or even particularly useful instincts, so he managed to quiet them, though it took more effort in the face of her battered face and drug-addled mind than he was comfortable admitting. It doesn't get any easier when she insists on being upright and at her desk working within a few hours.

He sits at his desk, leaning on one arm with a slumped posture he normally has enough presence of mind to avoid. The end of his quill taps irritatedly against the desk as he fidgets blankly, glaring at her back as if he can discover a way to psychically will her into taking a fucking nap.

The worst part of this is that he absolutely could, and it would be completely unfair and she would never forgive him for it.

That's not even close to the worst part of this, he reminds himself. The worst part of this is that she was injured. Or, if he wants to take a longer view of things, the worst part of this is quite literally everything leading up to this, the way his actions have led to her being in this predicament. Not that she wouldn't have probably found herself in any number of predicaments without his involvement. Which its own worrying rabbit hole that he has no desire to go down right now.

He focuses instead on the here and now... or tries to. What are the immediate steps; what can he do right now? He can speak to Cassandra about this ridiculous bath house situation as soon as she's back. That will make him feel slightly better. It will have to wait, however, since Cassandra isn't here. He can speak to Cullen, look into this "Underhill" and his current whereabouts, as well as the Inquisition's plan for dealing with him. But unfortunately, that has to wait as well. He has to keep an eye on this woman, lest she try to do farm labor while in bandages or fall down the stairs because she doesn't understand what only having one eye does to depth perception.

Fortunately or unfortunately, his brooding is interrupted. He's a bit caught off guard, having been distracted and also admittedly just... not being used to anyone other than Emma walking into the rotunda. Particularly from that door, as there was little outside of it other than a lot of stairs, a walkway to the battlements, and an abrupt drop into the courtyard.

Solas could count on one hand the number of times the Commander came through it, and it had almost always been to immediately rush up the stairs to the Nightingale's perch. Not today. This time, he headed straight for Emma. Of course. Solas had already noticed that he seemed to like her, and he'd been the one to find her pulverized on the battlements. Small wonder he should find time to visit, even though this catastrophe should have been keeping him very busy.

Unlike her active avoidance the other day, however, she looks pleased to see the Commander. Such a minor thing shouldn't be capable of souring Solas' mood even more, considering the depths of sourness he's already exploring. And yet. But of course, it makes sense. He had just saved her life. Emma had practically swooned--for her anyway--over Solas doing that not long ago. She was clearly not used to being rescued, and did not mind it one bit.

At least Cullen has the good sense to tell her she should still be in bed, not that it works any better than when Solas has tried. But this is a bit of providence, come to think of it. He had been intending to track the Commander down to question him, but hadn't wanted to leave Emma alone. The Commander is here now; if they have the discussion right outside, even Emma couldn't manage to have an incident in the time it would take. Hopefully.

So he intercepts Cullen and all but drags him back out the same door he'd come in. Solas' requests for an audience were rare enough that the Commander, although he clearly has more to say to Emma, acquiesces immediately. The two of them go only a few strides from the door, and that’s mostly a precaution by Solas to attempt to prevent Emma from eavesdropping. She would.

"Is this about Emma?" the Commander asks, looking back at the door to the rotunda.

"No, Commander, this is about recruitment numbers," Solas says, barely managing to keep his voice both level and not dripping with sarcasm. "Of course it is about Emma. One of your civilian workers was just nearly killed by an Inquisition soldier!"

"Believe me," the Commander says, running a gloved hand through his hair. "I am well aware. I'm the one who came across them--"

"Fortunately, as otherwise it's quite likely the Inquisition would have her death on their conscience."

"Did you come out just to berate me, Solas? Because I won't deny I deserve it, but--"

"The soldier in question. What do you intend to do with him?"

The Commander eyes Solas uncertainly, as he's not sure what the correct thing to say in this situation is. With a sigh, he squares his shoulders, no doubt preparing to simply deliver the unpleasant truth regardless. "He'll be kept in captivity until the Inquisitor can return and decide what's to be done with him."

"He's your soldier," Solas points out. "Doesn't this sort of thing normally fall to your shoulders?"

"Yes, normally," the Commander says with a sigh. "I know what you're thinking, Solas, and believe me, in the moment I would have loved nothing more than to just execute the man and be done with it. But I didn't see this coming. It's quite likely that I don't see all the causes, or all the consequences. Josephine and Leliana have already been appraised of the situation. There's going to be an investigation. The army of the Inquisition might fall under my command, but this is something that the Inquisition needs to deal with as a unit. I can't make the call. I don't... trust myself to make the call, right now."

Solas wonders idly what an investigation might discover about the defensive capabilities of the woman currently idiotically struggling her way through work for the very Inquisition that maimed her. Probably nothing. She'd been so horribly battered that he couldn't imagine this was a "you should see the other fellow" scenario. Anything that Underhill said about her could, and likely would, be dismissed as the lies of a man trying to justify his unjustifiable actions.

Still, Solas is far from satisfied with this. Only a fool would trust Eugene Trevelyan to make a good decision. About anything, in general, but about this in specific even more so. Nothing he's seen of humans, or nobles, or Trevelyan himself, would imply any sort of wizened understanding of the plight of modern elves.

"And the other soliders?" Solas asks instead.

"Other soldiers?"

"His comrades. Friends. Your men," Solas said, gesturing frustratedly. "News of what happened will be all over the fortress by dinner, if it isn't already. What are you doing to forestall potential retribution."

The Commander sighs, seemingly understanding now. "All I can, but I'm beginning to think that's remarkably little despite the fact I'm supposedly their Commander." He lets out a frustrated huff. "I really wish the Inquisitor were here; as it is I can only guess at how he'd prefer I handle it. And I never seem to be able to correctly predict him. I'm going to speak to the men, inform them of what happened and who was at fault. I'd like to think no one would possibly blame a woman for being beaten, but I would have also liked to have thought this would never happen in the first place. And yes, I'll be keeping a particularly close eye on Underhill's unit. I can only imagine he'll have some friends that may be less than happy with this turn of events."

"I will attempt to keep an eye on Emma," Solas decides. "Until she is healed, at the very least. I'm not particularly well known amongst the soldiers, so it will not seem as though she's being given a protective detail. But if something does happen, I will be able to assist. I can also keep an eye on her health, as she is... uniquely difficult to heal."

"In a magical sense?" the Commander asks, frowning.

"No, I simply meant that she is impossible."

Commander Rutherford laughs at that. "Yes, that much is true. Thank you, Solas. That will put my mind to slight rest, at least. This situation is already enough of a disaster without something else happening."

Little more is said or accomplished before Solas heads back into the rotunda. He wishes he could feel more assured, but if anything, he feels less so. Leaving this sort of thing up to Eugene Trevelyan is a disaster waiting to happen.

Chapter Text

Solas does not use magic to put her to sleep.

He might let his magic flow over her mind in such a way as to... delicately rinse off stress, adrenaline, hyper-awareness... the after-effects of such a traumatic event. It's a delicate and very gentle process that would barely have an effect. It was not putting her to sleep. At the very best, it was magically suggesting she relax.

It appears to be enough to have an effect, however. Which isn't particularly surprising. Sleep would be difficult after such an event, for anyone, but she is so heavily drugged, so full of healing magic, and so generally exhausted, as a person that Solas honestly can’t imagine it’s anything other than her body being locked into an emergency survival mode that was keeping her upright, let alone working.

Either way, she finally, mercifully, slowly nods off at her desk.

He doesn't even dare to move her, not in the slightest. Slumped over at a desk is not a particularly comfortable position to sleep in, but it will simply have to do. After he's quite certain she's asleep and not merely resting her eyes, he decides to at least try to prevent her from getting a chill. This whole tower is always fairly warm, but it's a tall tower, and the bottom here can get a bit drafty. The last thing he needs is for her weakened body to catch ill, on top of everything else.

No blanket down here--he should fix that, perhaps--but he at least has the pelt he uses to stay warm when the weather turns cold or he has need of burning the midnight candle for a particularly tricky spell or useful book. He drapes it slowly over her shoulders, but even that slightest of disturbances is enough to rouse her.

She glances up at him through half-lidded eyes, lifting her head only slightly. She lets out a discontent, quiet little groan.

"...Solas...?" Her voice comes out soft and thick, as drowsy as her unfocused gaze. One hand reaches towards the pelt around her shoulders and lands where his still grips it. Her hand is warm to the touch, but fortunately not hot enough to imply a fever. Something unnameable shivers down his spine, something about her voice and her hand and her unsteady gaze.

"Hamin, lethallan," he says quietly, hoping that will be enough to coax her back to sleep. It seems to be; her hand drops off of his and back to the desk, and she lets her head lay back down on top of her arms with another annoyed little noise from the back of her throat. He only takes enough time to make sure the pelt is wrapped securely around her before he walks as softly as he can back to his desk.

Fortunately, he has enough work to do investigating the ocularum shards that he could stay here all night. He might have to. Some of it will require magic, he realizes... but no matter. He'll simply set up some wards and do it here. He used to do that all the time, before Emma moved in and he began to worry about frightening her. He can't stomach the idea of leaving now, however. As much as he can't imagine someone walking right in under the Spymistress' nose to do her harm, he equally cannot imagine taking that risk in the first place.

His work goes slowly, at first. He looks up at every little sound from above, concerned it might wake her. Every crow's caw, every dropped book, and his eyes ricochet off the page and over to Emma's slumped form. A few times, nothing in particular happens, and he finds himself looking up anyway, staring until he can catch the sight of her form gently rising and falling with breath. Still alive. Only then he can turn his short-lived attention back to the shard and related tomes--tomes she fetched in Val Royeaux.

It's quiet enough, the only interruptions the normal quiet trickling of sound from above, but he absolutely cannot focus. She wakes up at absolutely nothing, sometimes, so it feels as though anything might wake her. Every little sound has him cursing the other people in the tower. Eventually, he realizes he's being ridiculous.

Didn't he plan on casting wards anyway? No harm in doing it a bit early. He stands to quietly--very quietly--walk the perimeter of the room, his arm out to trace glyphs in the air and generally get everything as close to the wall as possible. He practically tip-toes around Emma, but is careful to include her within some runes and not others. It's slightly temperamental work, a net of interlacing concepts as he tries to decide which protections ought to go on which side of her, but she doesn't stir. Good. Maybe she's sleeping deeper than he thought.

Solas finishes the spell, and a brief glimmer of magic shoots from one side of the room, up in an arc, and then over to the side where Emma rests, settling in a glimmering dome around her. A brief shimmer above, from the line shot through the air, cascading downwards as if settling over an invisible dome rather than forming one. As it touches down around the circle of the room, noise from outside ceases.

Normally, Solas only bothers keeping sound from getting out. Also, bright lights. Also, magic. A lot of things, actually, enough that it had been a fun, diverting complication to weave them around Emma. Inside sound, outside light, outside destruction, outside Fade modifications but inside Fade protections--that one had been particularly tricky. But at least he can be satisfied that she's safe from his magic, as well as anything it might attract to this area in the Fade... and also from the troublesome noises from above. Feeling quite self-satisfied, he settles in to work.

Everything goes a bit more smoothly at that point, although he still finds himself occasionally stopping to check and see that Emma is fine and the wards are still safely in place and operating how they should. He's particularly focused on the shard in his hands when the door flies open. The motion is what caught his notice--the door slams open completely noiselessly. Sera, mouth open and clearly talking, proceeds to walk straight into the wards and bounce off as if she'd failed to open the door before trying to walk in.

She stumbles backwards, then fixes her eyes on Solas and begins what he can only presume, from knowing her, is a long chain of curses.

This hadn't necessarily been his intent when he'd cast the wards, but he can't help but be grateful he'd had the foresight. The last thing Emma needed was Sera abruptly awaking her and getting her all worked up. Setting down the shard, Solas quickly walks over to Sera. He shoos her back just far enough that he can step outside the wards, although he keeps a foot inside just in case. The last thing he needs is for something to go wrong and to get stuck outside. Not that that's ever happened before.

"What the shitefuck do y'think yer doin, trappin' her inside some magic wall like--"

"I just walked out. From that, you should be able to infer that she is not trapped inside, you are merely trapped outside," Solas informs her.

"Tha's just as bad!"

"It very much is not. The wards are for your protection as much as hers. I doubt you would have appreciated what would have happened if you'd barged straight through where I was casting."

"Why are you casting when you've got an injured woman in there?!"

That is admittedly a fair question. "She fell asleep, and a side effect of the wards is quiet. She is, as we speak, resting peacefully, unaffected by my magic, any outside noise, and completely safe from any unkind spirits. She is likely having one of the best sleeps of her life, so it's just as well you were unable to interrupt."

Solas vaguely recognizes that this was perhaps a somewhat undiplomatic thing to say at about the same time Sera's face is turning bright red with obvious anger.

"If she were not here," he tries instead. "She would be in the healing tent, and I suspect you would be just as unable to see her."

"Yeah, and she'd be with healers!"

"Sera, you know that I am a healer. I've healed you," he says, tired.

"Real healers!"

"While I share your concern about her health, it was here that she wanted to be," he says with a sigh. If he switches tactics frequently enough, perhaps he'll find the one that can pierce through the incomprehensible tangle that is Sera.

"Ugh, because here is work I bet. Absolute loon."

Solas nods in agreement. To both parts, though he doesn't specify.

"If I hear any different from her later, I'm throwin' your staff off the battlements," Sera warns him.

Solas nods again. He's certainly not going to drop the wards and let her wake Emma, so frankly, anything that gets her to go away and not cause a fuss is worth it. Sera lets out a frustrated scoff, but turns to head back outside. Thank goodness.

Solas manages to get about thirty minutes of work done before the door opens again. This time it's much more cautious, and he's greeted to the sight of a rather confused-looking Fenris instead. With a long sigh, he sets the shard back down and stands up.

"I knocked," Fenris says with a frown as Solas steps halfway outside of his wards again.

"The room is warded to keep sound out, amongst other things," Solas informs him. "I assume you're here to see Emma?"

"Yes." He glances around Solas, eyes falling on Emma's still-sleeping body. "Please tell me she's asleep. You must know how alarming this all looks."

Solas hadn't really known, but in retrospect, she really could have fallen asleep in a more traditional position.

"She is asleep," Solas acquiesces. "At her desk, and when I attempted to move her, she began to wake."

"And the reason you're casting magic near an unconscious woman...?"

"She's outside the wards," Solas says, mildly offended. "I was tasked with keeping an eye on her, but I do have work to do. That it also keeps it quiet so she can sleep in peace is a fortunate side benefit."

"You're quite certain it's safe?" Fenris asks, still frowning.

"Quite certain," Solas replies, willing himself not to be unreasonably annoyed. People like Emma. It is only reasonable they be concerned about her well-being, especially now. That the concern displays itself in ignorant ways is unavoidable.

Fenris seems to consider, although what he could possibly consider doing, Solas doesn't know and doesn't particularly want to wonder. "How is she?" he says finally. "I've heard worryingly little, and I don't know how much of the story is hearsay."

"What are they saying?" Solas asks.

"That an elven woman--only some seem to be identifying it as Emma--was assaulted on the battlements by an Inquisition soldier. Most say she survived, some say she's in critical condition. Reasons for the attack vary wildly."

"Mostly true," Solas admits. "Emma was attacked on the battlements by an Inquisition soldier. Her condition, while not critical, certainly leaves much to be desired. She has temporary lost use of one of her eyes, but I believe it will heal. There were a number of small fractures in her face and jaw, and there was enough healing glowing from her skull that I believe the initial damage was considerably worse."

If Fenris started at "dour," by now he's actively fuming. Well, if the man runs off to do something about it, that's hardly Solas' fault.

"Why?" the man demands finally.

Solas lets out a little huff of breath. To be honest, he's not entirely clear on that, himself. "According to Emma, she's butted heads with him before, and was having a verbal altercation that abruptly turned physical."

"What kind of lunatic is the Inquisition employing?"

"Believe me," Solas says sourly. "I believe that's the question on everyone's lips at the moment."

Chapter Text

Once pulverized so effectively, one really shouldn't put up so much of a resistance to being healed. But then again, this is Emma. Solas honestly doesn't know what he'd expected, if not this.

"I'm not sure. Solas, what do you think?" Emma asks for the hundredth time. Under other circumstances, that would be a delight to hear. Emma, however, has only suddenly and dramatically decided to give him all control over her medical decisions to irritate the Dalish healer, Yuli, who had slighted him absentmindedly upon their arrival. It is the sort of thing he's gotten used to, especially from the Dalish, but it seems Emma had decided to take extreme offense for him in this case. Or, possibly, she just wants an excuse to be difficult.

In any case, he simply tiredly gives his opinions to literally every little thing in the hopes that cooperating will speed this along faster than protesting suddenly being cast into the roll of her primary care physician. If only it would actually translate into her genuinely listening to his suggestions about her health. Ha.

No, of course not. She spends the rest of the morning working, because of course she does, and it's all he can do to make sure she actually stops to eat. She at the very least seems willing and able to self-medicate reasonably. He had been worried that she would insist on going off the herbs as quickly as possible given how clouded they clearly make her mind. But no, she stays foggy and drugged and working slowly enough that he can feel her frustration from across the rotunda.

She sulks through lunch and glares through the afternoon. When a messenger comes to fetch her for Lady Montiliyet, he briefly wonders if the poor man is about to be verbally decapitated. But no, despite her injuries and the fact she's currently drugged, she goes off for afternoon tea.

He is beginning to suspect that there is no power in Thedas that could get her to stop for even the briefest of moments.

Solas isn't particularly surprised when Fenris returns yet again to visit Emma now that she's conscious and more or less upright. He is surprised, however, when the man brings an entire crowd with him.

When a small mob of elves descends on his doorstep, Solas does what he does best: he fades into the background. They're here to see Emma, after all. Given her reputation around Skyhold and proclivity for things like this, he supposes it's not long before this rotunda is known as hers more than it is his--if that's not already become the case.

One would never know she was drugged and hurting from the way she acts now. She stands tall--taller than most of the elves gathered. And yet she never seems to look down at the elves she speaks to, even the children. She has a way of getting on their level that Solas has been unable to grasp since he'd awoken to a broken future. Of course--she can relate to them on a level he cannot. But the way she rallies them is familiar.

"Make them--make us--live up to it."

It doesn't feel so long ago, now, that he'd said similar words, although in truth they'd been forgotten even before he'd become one more relic of the past for Emma to study. It had been so long as to seem impossible, since he'd expected anyone to live up to anything they ought to.

If Emma has any doubts of the moral potential of the Inquisition in the wake of her assault, however, she shows none now. She speaks as eloquently as any diplomat might. He is perhaps the only one in a position to notice the hidden blade in her words--"if you have any complaints, now is the time to voice them." She's not just comforting them; she is sharpening them and aiming them.

She has been given no time and fewer resources, but he suspects that if she had motive, she could gather an army. He would think himself slightly biased--he, at least, would listen if she told him to march, glowing as she is now--if not for the expression on Fenris' face as well. It doesn't take expertise to spot a spark when it happens, or to be able to pinpoint the moment when a man decides that someone is worth following.

Well nurtured, respect can turn into adoration. Does she know the power she wields over the gathered elves? Where so many other things are perfectly clear, Emma herself, her capabilities, her motivations... These still remain as dubiously clouded as ever.

When the elves leave, Fenris stays, begging question to just how far respect needs to grow to hit the inevitable. Solas might as well be invisible, working at his desk, as the two court in the most awkward manner possible. It's not dissimilar from seeing the romantic fumbling of those barely on the cusp of adulthood. Which is an ungenerous comparison, given their ages--he thinks--but an accurate one.

Her would-be beau is leaving, but Solas somehow doubts that will put too much of a damper on things. Perhaps, he thinks sourly to himself, they will write letters back and forth while he is abroad. She could stand on the ramparts like a sailor's wife waiting for her love to return from sea, if not for the fact that, given her luck, she would probably fall off of them.

There's no mistaking it, however, despite their awkward fumblings. Her expression when he turns to leave. The way her body half-leans, half-collapses against the door frame. She's smitten. He can hardly blame her. She might even be falling in love, and it wouldn't be a bad thing. A healthy outlet might prevent the kind of mishap that happened in Val Royeaux, and as bad of an idea as it probably was to invade the privacy of her sleeping mind, he would appreciate the option of doing so without having to worry that she would attempt to engage him in anything that would be untoward even without factoring in the whole "she believes it to be a dream" aspect.

It's just as well. They share similar goals. Clearly, now that he's seen her expertly manage the fears and ambitions of her people. An admirable woman deserves an admirable partner, and Fenris, with all his single-handed attempts to dismantle elven slavery, is certainly that.

Chapter Text

Emma comes in roughly on time the next morning, which is a relief. She was most likely with the Iron Bull this morning, although surely she was not actually training. Even the Iron Bull wouldn't be so idiotic. She looks half dead, and dazed with slowed reaction times... but unfortunately, this does appear to be the new normal while she's ingesting those herbs for pain. At least she'd managed to get here in one piece, and now he can keep an eye on her.

Given how clearly exhausted she is, and how little she can focus, it seems perfectly reasonable that she should lay down and rest, but after he suggests it--for perhaps the third time--she gets irritated.

"Here," she says, holding up worryingly shaky hands. How she's capable of getting any work at all done like this is beyond him. "If you want to help me, magic this away. Stabilize my wrists so I can get some real work done, and I won't have to spend as much time working."

It's painfully obvious, what she's doing. She can't afford any magic other than the extensive healing already in place. One hundred percent of her body's efforts need to go to recovery. She has to know that, and is just saying this to get him to let her be. Unfortunately, it works, and he simply sulks as she works throughout the morning.

He's a bit hopeful when she leaves for lunch early, but she looks, if anything, worse when she returns. He isn't even hungry--he never is--but it's important for her to eat and he knows she would never consent to being waited upon. Unfortunately. He rises to help her, frowning at the obvious tremble in her limbs as she unloads plates onto the desk. Her eyes are hazy and unfocused, but that's sadly just the state of affairs with her at the moment.

He has no more than enough time to observe this when, like someone blowing out a candle, she collapses into a heap on the ground. In the time it takes for him to rise, she has gone from upright to crumpled on the floor, a marionette with her strings cut. Porcelain smashes into the ground around her, somehow avoiding falling onto her collapsed form. It shatters into hundreds of shards as it hits the hard stone floor, taking Solas' thoughts along with it.

His mind stays shattered on the floor for a moment, and his next rational thought is had when he's already kneeling by her side. She's breathing, and she has a pulse, assuaging the worst of his fears. She is, however, completely and utterly unconscious. When he peels her eyelid back, her eyes stares blankly forward, unfocused and unmoving. There is no response to a snap in front of her face.

Is it possible that she sustained brain damage and he'd missed it? There could be damage now, from falling, but that wouldn't have caused the initial collapse. It could simply--ha, simply--be exhaustion, but he would expect someone to fall over from exhaustion far before they passed out flat.

He's surprised no one is rushing down towards the sound of broken porcelain, but it seems that, at the moment, he is the only one who knows or cares that Emma is unconscious on the ground. Carefully, he feels along the back of neck and skull, trying to ascertain the presence of any injuries that would make moving her a bad idea. She seems uninjured, so he carefully, very carefully, lifts her up, being mindful to support her head against his shoulder. He lays her out on the couch with equal care, before deciding that, fear of magic or no, he has no real choice but to examine her now without consent. He must simply presume that's what she would have wanted him to do. Despite his considerable doubts.

He starts at her skull, immediately probing for any small fractures or injuries. He examines the minute bones in her neck, but they all seem intact. How she manages to avoid injury with such frequency, he genuinely does not know, but--

Her eye snaps open, blue and sharp and full of murderous intent. As quick as she'd turned off, she is back on. She's looking at him, but her gaze is unfocused, staring through him. With a low snarl, she shoves him in the chest with both hands. She sits up as she does so, and perhaps it’s her throwing her entire body weight into the blow that makes it strike so hard. He falls backwards off of his knees, one arm reaching back to catch himself against the stone floor. Whatever condition he'd expected her to awake in, violent assault wasn't it.

She half-falls back onto the couch, body wrenching as if she's dry heaving.

"Emma," he says, hands up, hoping to bring her back to the present. "It's just me--"

She bares her teeth like a snarl, lunges towards him only to be caught up with her own weight and nearly fall. He moves to support her so she doesn't collapse yet again to the hard stone floor, only for her to try and strike out against him again. This is wildly unsustainable. Remembering what's worked in the past, he calls out again.

"Lethallin," and she stills. No doubt the origins of her mixed skills in Elven are attached to her reaction to the language when Common so completely fails to calm her. Perhaps the mother she so adamantly refuses to speak of, although her hostility when she came up had led him to believe that abuse or trauma was at the roots of that particular mystery. Perhaps, instead, it's tied to her hostility towards the Dalish. But who could know? Only Emma, and at the moment she looks as though she's barely holding herself back from more violence. Her eye is still unfocused, pupil blown wide, which is concerning.

"It's just me. I'm your friend, remember?" he tries to speak soothingly, to take advantage of her momentary stillness to move her back onto the couch so she won't exacerbate any existing injuries. "You fell. You may be injured; please be still."

"Répète?" she asks hazily. In Orlesian. This is quickly becoming a hodgepodge of potential languages.

"You fell. Blacked out," he says, in Common this time. "I moved you to the couch and was checking for damage."

"Damage?"

"Your head. I feared you might have cracked it in the fall. Particularly given you're already injured."

"Combien de temps ai-je été unconscious?"

...He is beginning to seriously fear brain damage. Fortunately, when she slips into Tevene, she seems to actually notice what she's doing, and corrects herself into Common. It takes a while longer to convince her to let him examine her, which is as unsurprising as it is exhausting. He decides not to tell her he's been partway through such an examination while she was still unconscious.

No matter how thoroughly he examines her, however, he only sees problems he was already familiar with. Exhaustion. Long-term malnourishment in the beginning stages of healing, a body giddy with nutrients. Signs of hard living in old injuries healed slowly across her body, scar tissue and broken bones poorly healed. Slowly healing fractures in her face and jaw, inflammation throughout her face. No additional damage that he can detect, none at all. The only thing that could lead to unconsciousness, it would seem, is her exhaustion, a weariness so eternal that it feels as though it has seeped into her bones.

It seems there's remarkably little he can do to help. All of these injuries piled on top of this much exhaustion is simply too much for her body to handle, and she is beginning to fall apart at the seams. Whatever the source of her inability to sleep, it is catching up with her, slowly but surely, like a slow-rising tide that nonetheless never stops. She needs to sleep, and it's unlikely she is to do it in any great amount without magical intervention... as evidenced by the fact she'd just passed out from exhaustion and then still immediately woken up at the slightest stimulus.

So he does the only thing he can think of. He twists her arm into accepting that magical aid, with every tactic he can think of. He begs, he wheedles, he makes promises, he plays on every emotion he can, until finally, finally, she relents.