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Chapter Text

Solas

The girl who interrupted everything lies still, her breath labored and though unconscious, her face twists in pain while the room glows green around them. All he can do is pace, working the threads of magic from the fade with more effort than it should take him and tries to ease the mess of energy that flows from her - energy he needed. Energy he’d have to calm into something she might survive long enough for him to study, get her away from the seekers and the templars and the agents of this new world he’d awoken in that would do more than frown at an apostate leaving with the severed arm of a woman who’d blown the Temple of Sacred Ashes sky high mere hours earlier.

The irony of Mythal’s markings carved on her face is not lost on him. It just means he does not gaze upon her more than the once, focusing instead on her hand and the magic at work.

He was dutiful and had a plan, one that could be pivoted to allow for such hiccups as these, or so he tells himself. This was hardly the last opportunity for action, it would not slow him down.

He will not allow it to.

Solas doesn’t not look up as the woman whimpers and jolts in fits, perhaps somewhere in the fade herself. He does not react to the healers and herbalists that attempt to aid him, bringing useless potions and solvents to the woman, as if this were a simple illness or broken bone that required setting. He does not look up as the seeker returns, demanding if he might have some connection to her - being elven and a mage as well.

“I am not Dalish, Seeker,” he reiterates, exhausted by the ignorance of the humans of this age. “Nor is such magic something that a simple mage would be capable of, as I told you before.”

She only grunts in response and strides away, relaying information to someone far enough away that he only hears her accented voice lilting off the stones of the damp dungeon. Her opinion is of no matter to him, so long as there are no clanging templars that follow demanding to arrest the mouthy apostate.

So he works for hours, and when the mark finally quiets and the whimpering woman finally seems to ease, he makes his way out into the snow bright mountains and begins to plan once more. The girl will have to die, eventually. There will be no way around that. Once he finds the orb, he’ll need the power from the mark back from her.

But in the meantime, what to make of her? What to do with a woman who has become a key to unlock the cage he has trapped this world in?

She is an unknown quantity and that worries him, but he has spent millennia picking apart problems of this sort.

His veil, tattered as old cloth now that the orb has fractured, fills the snowy valley with demons and wild magic - which the hands of the now dead divine seem to respond to by only sending out a dwarf with a crossbow to assist him. The rest of the soldiers are further into the valley or dead, he hears. He listens and nods and does what he’s told, unwilling to raise their suspicions any further about why he’s there and how he knows so much. They will bring the prisoner to the rift once they know more, if they deem it safe to do so, they explain.

As long as it has the magic or the trip through the fade has not driven her mad, he assumes she will be fine to do so, he tells them. They will need her, her mark, to heal the heavens, but if they listen to the apostate at a time like this, he can’t say.

As he hikes through the uneven terrain alongside the dwarf, they dispatch handfuls of demons at a time and he pretends to care about the dwarf’s idle chatter. He is efficient, if questionably dressed given the local climate, and is apparently loathed by the Seeker.

“She dragged me all the way down here from Kirkwall just for me to end up ass-deep in demons.”

“Kirkwall,” he repeats, aware enough of the last year’s events to know how central the city is to the events that bring them all together today. “So you saw the start of this rebellion?”

“Oh I was right in the heart of it, yeah. Seeker was questioning me for days before bringing me here to see the Divine and - wait, is that who I think it is? I’ll be damned,” and Solas follows Varric’s gaze over the crest to spot the seeker and the elven woman.

The interrupter.

She carries a staff he can only guess is borrowed based on how tall it is compared to her but her eyes are bright despite the bloodstained clothes and recent imprisonment. She looks well, if perhaps tired and in leathers that certainly aren’t her own.

It is a relief when she points over his shoulder at another onslaught of demons and sends an arc of lightning past them, eyes lifting to the crackling, glowing rift in the fade appearing over their heads for only a moment before she cries to watch out and sent another crack of magic toward a demon careening toward Varric.

She is nimble, he notices taking up his staff again and weaves careful barriers around each of them as claws and teeth meet sword and shield, bolts meet meat, and spells cleave what little remains. He does not think as he reaches for her wrist, guiding her hand above them.

“Quickly, before more come through!” He shouts so his voice will carry over the rift and channels whatever guidance and understanding his own magic might serve into the anchor, that ghastly mark, as the rift sews shut. There is a pulse of something like approval from the magic that now lives in her at his touch, one that hisses as he pulls away, and he momentarily worries she feels it as she stares him down in confusion.

“What did you do?” She gasps, flexing her marked hand as the color returns from where she’d been white-knuckling her staff. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears are pink with cold, but otherwise he sees no visible ill-effects from the magic she now holds. To his eternal annoyance, he also notices that she is beautiful. There is something immediately soft about her that fills him with a dread he cannot name.

“I did nothing,” he says simply. “The credit is yours,” he lies.

He tells her half-truths of the anchor and how she might close the rifts, assures Cassandra that though she is a mage, she is not capable of such extraordinary magic, and laughs genuinely when she asks if Varric is with the chantry. He makes himself fit in.

The world is fractured beyond repair, these people are little more than tranquil, and the fade is locked behind his creation. If this woman, this interrupter with the markings of the all-mother is to be the key to their salvation, so be it. He has made more from less.

—

“That name is not elven,” he says without thinking after she tells them. Morinne, he thinks it to himself, letting it sit in his mind as if he might pull it apart and find meaning where he knows there is none.

“No,” she answers, nearly breathless from the rough climb into the steep mountain pass she’s chosen for a more stealthy approach toward the Temple, “it is just a name.”

“You are Dalish,” he continues, unable to stop himself from needling more information out of her. He will need it, to reform his plans around her. “Clearly away from the rest of your clan. Did they send you here?”

“What do you know of the Dalish?”

Immediately defensive, he thinks, interesting.

“I’ve crossed paths with your people on more than one occasion,” he retorts, unable to keep the wary tone from his own voice.

“Then you may know us well enough to know we are a careful people,” her voice is quieter, perhaps only for him. Cassandra is several paces ahead of them, scouting for the missing soldiers they are to keep an eye out for and Varric is somewhere behind them. She offers this, he guesses, as the only other elf in the party. She must have assumed he’d be some sort of quick ally to her, which he could use, but…

“Well enough to be suspicious,” he can’t help but say in response.

Well enough to have been chased out while trying to aid them, trying to explain their folly and misunderstandings. Well enough to have risked his own life for trying to be the first of their gods to care enough to grant them the truth.

“Can you elves just get along for a little while longer?” Varric huffed from behind him. “We’re almost through the valley and you can let the demons kill you after we close that big hole in the sky if you’re so inclined.”

Her gaze is hard and unflinching on his by the time he glances her way, but as he holds her eyes, something in her body softens. The tension in her shoulders melts away and the storm behind her eyes, the gray-blue of the winter sky before dawn, seems to clear.

“I’m sorry,” she says and surprises him, her footsteps never faltering even on the unfamiliar terrain, “that was unfair of me. It has been…a strange day.”

“I can only imagine,” he offers in return. He does not know why she apologizes, but he accepts it, tucking it away in his mind for later study.

—

The magic leaves her unconscious for three days, but the breach stops growing and the mark seems to stabilize. She is alive and the world is not yet ended. But the veil remains, though it is mangled and bleeding. And his orb is nowhere to be found and everything is a mess.

Cassandra and the others allow him to remain though, with vague offers of safety that he supposes he should trust for the time being. He is aware that in this world, in this time, being a mage is not what it once was. They still see someone who may betray him, and perhaps he ought to grant them a sliver of credit for thinking so, though the betrayal would never be the kind they’d see coming.

Shortsighted, he decides, is how the humans of this age have decided to exist.

Before the girl even wakes, they proclaim her a Herald of a religion he has no doubt she doesn’t practice and whisper that she has been chosen by the blessed Andraste to save them all. It is almost laughable how far they are from the truth of the situation. Or it would be if he’d solidified a plan for righting it.

He gathers what he can in the meager town of Haven and begins to study the histories of this new world, those written out as opposed to what the fade has shown him. In the three days that pass, there is not much to go on - still so many questions he has no answers to. Cassandra and Leliana will tell him nothing, and he cannot press without drawing more suspicion to himself.

All he can do is continue to wait.

He hears the clamor as the townsfolk greet her, cries and cheers for the Herald who has awoken, who has survived walking physically through the fade and returned to save them all.

When Solas steps out of his little hut, back into the cold of early autumn, he sees the wisp of a girl walking alone through the crowd and attempting to hold her head high. The small flock of people that have begun calling Haven home already call to her for blessings, for salvation.

They will use her, he realizes in that moment - sees it clear as day. They will prop her up as their savior, the woman who was given to them by the gods, to further their own ends. He does not expect that they will care that she is Dalish and believes in the false gods of the elves, they will decide for her. The humans, the chantry, the inquisition he has heard Leliana and Cassandra whispering about.

He has seen echoes of it all before and does not realize he’s clenching his jaw until it grows tight and pain builds behind his eyes. Her march to the chantry at the center of town is slow going through the crowd but for some reason, she glances in his direction. She catches his eye.

Solas nods once in her direction but it’s been a very long time since he knew anything about offering comfort to strangers. Whether she interprets it as helpful or not, he cannot say. Her eyes only linger on him for a moment, and then she continues. Something in his gut twists at the sight.

He will stay, he decides. He will aid them. He will not let another be broken by duty, not by his hand. He will have to take so much from her before the end, the least he can do, Solas thinks, is make this easier for her now. If she will allow him to guide her, he can use that to his advantage as well. It is, unfortunately, the best choice.

The wind shifts and she turns. The chantry doors close.

The inquisition is reborn around him.

Chapter Text

Morinne

“I think it would be wise for us to decide who will share tents for the evening,” Cassandra announces, her voice stern as it has been all day. They are nearly to the hinterlands outside of Redcliffe, trekking ever deeper into Ferelden, and some part of Morinne knows she should probably be exhausted but she could hike well into the night. Being unconscious for three straight days granted her more energy than she knows what to do with and much more than her fellow traveling companions can claim.

“I’m not picky,” Varric says quickly, reaching for his pipe and settling down in front of the fire. “I’ll just warn anyone who gets stuck with me, I’ve been known to snore.”

Cassandra lets out a grunt of irritation before dropping the two rabbits they’d trapped and cleaned into a small pot and settling in beside Varric.

“What would our herald prefer, I wonder?” Solas asks from across the fire. Does he notice the way she can’t help but cringe every time someone calls her ‘herald’? She hasn’t begun asking them not to, thinking it would be obvious enough, and yet…

She just sighs at the title, rather than dwelling on it. “I have no preference. I can camp with anyone. Usually we would switch bedfellows each night, if need be, while on the road away from the clan. I can sleep anywhere.”

“I…suppose we could try that,” Cassandra attempts to sound agreeable but doesn’t come close enough for Morinne to even begin to believe her.

“Whatever you are most comfortable with, Cassandra,” she offers instead, trying another approach. “I look forward to getting to know each of you. It doesn’t make a difference to me, but I know the Dalish have different views on such things.”

“I would like to hear more on the Dalish, if you would be willing to share,” Cassandra asks, sipping from the wine they’d procured while on the road. She’s a bit surprised to see it, having initially pegged her as someone who might be no fun at all. “I am not acquainted with the culture of your people.”

“What would you like to know?”

Varric lets out a puff of elfroot smoke and the scent is an immediate comfort, a reminder of home. If she knew him any better, she’d ask for some. Maybe another night, she thinks to herself, sipping from her own wine instead.

“All those rumors about the Dalish but each Dalish elf I meet just mixes up everything I know about the rest,” he says, voice thick with smoke. “You hear clans dance under the light of the moon naked and worship wolves, then run into clans with the fiercest, most staunch warriors you’ve ever met. Then you hear the Dalish are full of scantily clad men and women, ready to seduce anyone to the ways of the Elvhen gods, but I meet Daisy who’s the most innocent girl I’ve ever known.”

“Almost like all peoples might have variances between them, master Tethras.”

“Say what you will, Chuckles, I’m just adding to the conversation. I don’t think I’ve offended our dear herald.”

“Hardly,” she smiles. “The rumors that Dalish women are seductresses is an old one but can certainly be useful. Human men love to be seduced - if they expect that and are open-minded to it, it can make my job easier if I need something from them.”

She’s sure she sees three faces staring back at her in mixed reactions of shock to horror.

“I don’t mean I actually seduce them,” Morinne snorts a laugh, “I mean I steal from them. Food or gold or goods, for my clan. Fenedhis, you lot took that so seriously.”

“Oh you’re a fun one,” Varric gives her a devious smile. “You ever read Hard in Hightown?”

“I’m Dalish, Varric, I can’t read.”

“Oh…I…shit -”

“I believe our herald is teasing you again,” Solas says and she meets his eye, smiling. The wine has begun to warm her cheeks and the camp smells of cooked rabbit and her hand is mangled by magic but things aren’t so bad. These people certainly aren't so bad. It dulls the ache for home, for the familiar, ever so slightly.

“You shouldn’t bother with his writing,” Cassandra says, fidgeting. “It’s all lies and filth.”

“Fiction is what they call it when it’s in books, Seeker.”

“If you’ve heard of Dalish worshiping wolves though, I’d be very surprised,” she adds. “That’s the only thing outlandish though. I’ve never heard of a Dalish elf who doesn’t take the threat of the Dread Wolf seriously.”

“Oh yeah, Daisy used to tell us stories about him,” Varric says around his pipe before taking another long, deep inhale. “Sounds like a real bastard.”

She could only huff a small laugh at his summation. “To put it mildly, yes.”

Her eyes meet Solas’ for a moment and finds him studying her, only briefly, before looking away. Strange, she thinks, but decides not to dwell on it. He is strange, after all, in his own way.

They divvy up the small portions of meat and tear apart what remains of the crusty bread they brought from Haven, giving way to relative silence as they eat. The stars in this part of the world are so clear, she chews and swallows and counts the constellations she knows - dotting her way home by way of the stories so great and grand they earned places in the sky. Varric opens another bottle she didn’t realize they had and refills each of their glasses without asking as he continues to chatter away.

“You know what I like about you, Chuckles? Your boundless optimism,” she hears him tell Solas, snapping her attention back to the world around her.

“It's comforting that whatever qualities I lack, you'll invent for me, Varric.”

“No, really. Why else would an elven apostate help crazy Chantry folk close a hole in the sky?”

She can’t help but laugh at that, especially as Cassandra rolls her eyes indignantly. It’s enough to even make Solas give a small chuckle of laughter himself.

“When you put it like that, I must concede your point.”

“We haven’t settled on sleeping arrangements and it’s getting late. We must be up and off with the dawn,” Cassandra begins again, after groaning at the two men and turns to her. “I leave it to you to decide.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Morinne can’t help but ask before she hands out the decision she’d settled on the first time the seeker had rolled her eyes that evening.

“Yes, you are the herald. It is only right.”

“Very well then,” Morinne puts on her most polite smile. “I think it would be best if you and Varric spend some time learning to get along. Tonight can be your first go at it.”

Cassandra looks appalled but Solas and Varric both laugh again, though the latter is decidedly louder. She looks to Solas, wanting to ensure he won’t be uncomfortable with such an arrangement and then thinks better of herself. They’re both adults. He’ll be fine.

They split off after dinner and Morinne manages to find a clear enough stream to rinse herself clean. She realized rather quickly that it is one of the few moments in the day that she gets alone, and is usually the longest, so she savors it. And she cries. She lets the bone deep fear that haunts her every step shudder from her with gasping sobs as the freezing but clear enough water cleans the grime from the day’s trek from her skin.

She’s been holding it in well enough, she thinks. No one seems to think her too strange, or at least they haven’t been treating her as if she has been. Or at least, not any more strange than a supposedly divine mark and surviving a cataclysmic event would change one person’s treatment of another.

She splashes her face with cold water and clears her nose before making her way into the tent, finding Solas there in simple bedclothes, his nose buried in a book that looks so old she’s not sure how the spine hasn’t given out in his hands. He doesn’t look up as she enters or as she settles on her bedroll or as she recites her prayers to the gods, quietly, and gives thanks for their blessings that day.

He is, in fact, unnervingly quiet. She’s grateful at first; glad that he won’t notice she’s been crying, but as the silence continues, it begins to feel almost suffocating in the small space.

She folds her leather leggings and then her tunic, uncomfortable suddenly. It’s one thing to play the confident young woman before the group, where attention comes and goes naturally and she can breathe more freely. With him alone…he is unknown to her. So far, most of what he’s done is question and belittle her culture, her people. He’s been friendly otherwise, she supposes, and he did save her life with the mark. But why didn’t she think harder about sharing a tent with him?

“I’ve decided I will stay,” he says abruptly, interrupting her anxious thoughts. “At least until the breach has been closed.”

“I - what?” She’s taken aback momentarily. “Was that in doubt?”

“I am an apostate surrounded by chantry forces in the middle of a mage rebellion -”

“As am I,” she can’t help but point out.

“Unlike you, I do not have a divine mark protecting me. You are their chosen of Andraste. A blessed hero sent to save us all.”

“Oh please,” she half groans her response, “not from you too.”

“From me too? I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” he says calmly, sitting up and setting his book aside.

“You don’t strike me as Andrastian,” Morinne sighs and turns to face him. His eyes are dark in the dim candlelight, shadowed. But not cold. He wants to understand her, in his strange way. “Why would you call me the herald of a faith you know neither of us believes in?”

“I did not realize it bothered you,” he counters.

“It is absolutely ridiculous,” she gripes, and before she can stop herself, the words fall out and she cannot stop them. “I am happy to help, I have been since the beginning. I have offered to aid them in any way I can. And yet it is though I have immediately stopped being Morinne Lavellan, and instead become something else, someone else, because that suits them better. They want me only for my hand and the image I’ve created, I understand that but -”

“You do not wish to lose yourself in the process,” he finishes for her, his tone softer than she’s heard it since they met.

“No one even cares that I’m Dalish,” she sighs, perpetually dumbfounded by the fact, “why the hell would the Maker choose me?”

“You could simply tell them to stop,” he offers, as if she hasn’t tried already.

“Oh, trust me, I have. They want to believe it though, and I suppose I understand the value in letting them. The value to the Inquisition’s cause, I mean. But from someone who doesn’t even believe in the Maker, in all this…” she lets the thought trail off, lets him take it to whatever conclusion he’d like to.

She knows better than to assume every elf in Thedas will be her ally just for enduring the same bigotry she might have for having the same shaped ears, but it still stung, in some childish, pathetic way she doesn’t particularly want to put into words.

“I…apologize,” he says and it sounds genuine. “I did not realize it would be something that bothered you so deeply, nor did I want to assume familiarity between us where there was none. Calling you by the title everyone else has been using felt like a fair middle ground. I will work to avoid using it from now on.”

Morinne pauses for just a moment, considering his careful words and formality but how thoughtful and contrite he sounds at the same time. “Thank you.”

“May I ask then - if the Chantry asks you to declare it, as I suspect they might, will you denounce the title?”

She rubs her face with both hands and hears him give a soft chuckle in response. “I’m no hero and there’s no way Andraste whisked me out of the fade. I’m sure we’ll learn the truth eventually and I’m sure that won’t be it. But…”

“You’ll allow the people to believe?”

“They need the hope, right now. Who am I to crush that? If they look at a Dalish elf with vallaslin and bare feet and see the herald of the Maker’s bride, well, more power to them.”

“How very generous of you.”

“I don’t know what I’ll say to the Chantry,” she admits, “So don’t tell Cassandra or she might lock me up in Haven again to avoid another crisis.”

“Your secret is safe with me, hera- Morinne,” Solas offers, catching and correcting himself quickly. He rolls the ‘r’ in her name in a way that has the tips of her ears going warm at the sound.

“I can’t believe you were going to leave,” she says, changing the subject, redirecting it back to him. “The breach threatens the whole world, you’d have to deal with it eventually.”

“Cassandra has been accommodating, but I hope you can understand my caution.”

She does, more than she knew how to explain to him. “You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you.”

“How would you stop them?”

The question is reasonable but it’s the lack of hesitation, the quickness with which he asks that surprises her. She doesn’t have to consider her own response though.

“However I had to.”

—

They spend ten days fighting both mages and templars, gathering herbs and ore, and stopping to aid every peasant who asks. Mother Giselle sends lists of Chantry folk who may be willing to hear them out and Scout Harding aids them in setting up camps and filling various requisitions. She’s surprised Cassandra only complains the once about the delays, but when Morinne insists that if she’s going to be called the herald, she’s going to do some good for the common man, the seeker is quiet about how many rams they help herd or flowers they leave on graves.

Her impatience is palpable, but she allows it without complaint. Varric seems to find it more funny by the day though, and Morinne can’t help but wonder if it will all come to a crashing end when he inevitably decides to tease Cassandra for it.

For now though, they march on.

More join their cause every day, scouts and recruits setting up camps across the area more quickly than she could have anticipated. They close half a dozen rifts before deciding it may be time to return to Haven, and she finally feels like she’s earned the praise Solas gave her back at the temple - she is getting rather proficient at it. They develop a quick pattern of how to handle the usual run of demons that spill from each tear, and as the magic connects with the mark on her hand, she finally feels useful to the world with this new gift it’s decided to give her.

Each night, they switch tent partners in an attempt to keep the peace. Varric snores loudly, Solas snores softly and mumbles incoherently, and Cassandra lays so still that the first time Morinne slept in the same tent with her, she’d worried the woman had died in her sleep. She mimics Varric’s snores each morning and teases Cassandra, but never tells Solas that when they share a tent and she wakes first, she always finds them touching somehow. His arm extended and over her own, her back pressed against his side, their ankles tangled. She isn’t sure if he knows or would be comfortable with it, so she keeps it for herself.

She should tell him, she knows in some small way that it’s wrong of her not to. But in her clan, touch was so normal, a part of everyday life - a hug in greeting, hands clasped in agreement, cheeks kissed in celebration - and since the Conclave, all avoid her touch like her mark will spread if her hands graze their own.

So she almost looks forward to the nights she spends in a tent with him, asking him more questions about the fade and his wandering in the realm of dreams, more than she’s sure he cares to answer, and wakes with his warm skin on hers. And it is a comfort, in a small way.

“Hey, you’re bouncing again,” Varric says, pulling her attention.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, sorry,” she stills herself, biting her lip and refocusing on the group of templars they’d been watching for what feels like hours but likely has only been twenty minutes.

“You know what, kid, it’s finally given me the nickname you’ve been needing,” Varric says with a smile. “Rabbit.”

“Isn’t ‘rabbit’ usually a slur against elves?” Solas asks from just behind her, and she can’t help but huff a laugh.

“Ah, shit,” Varric groans, “but she’s been bouncing on her toes all week! Every time we stop, she won’t stand still!”

“Is it bothering you?”

“No, it just reminded me of a bunny, that’s all,” the dwarf sighs but then looks back up at her. “What about ‘Bunny’?”

She looks at Solas for just a moment though she’s not entirely sure why, and he’s raising a skeptical eyebrow at her

“Since when do people get a say in what you call them, Varric?” Cassandra asks, her eyes not leaving the enemies she’s tracking. Morinne hears Solas give a soft “hmm” of agreement from behind her.

“She’s a soft one, I wanna make sure I pick right,” he smiles, “you two were so obvious, there was no option on what I’d call you.”

“Wonderful,” Solas adds and sits down in the grass beside her. She suddenly feels very aware of her feet.

“Bunny is fine, thank you for asking Varric,” and she means it, she’s always liked rabbits. “And I am sorry about the bouncing. I’m…not used to so much combat. It has me on edge.”

“Do not apologize for having to learn new ways in the world, lethallan. It is only natural to feel discomfort with so much violence when faced with it for the first time.”

“It would probably be a lot more concerning if you were totally unbothered by it actually,” Varric adds. “We have our dear Seeker and Chuckles here to be cool with all the blood and guts anyway.”

Solas simply sighs and before either of them can say anything more, Cassandra is charging down the hill toward the templars and yet another fight.

When they return to the crossroads that evening, bearing enough ram meat for the hungry refugees, a raven from Leliana awaits them. They are to meet a scout in Val Royeaux for a chance to discuss the situation with the remaining leaders of the Chantry, those that may support them and the more willing that Mother Giselle identified.

“Likely a week to get to the capital on horseback,” Cassandra explains, rolling the missive and passing it to her. “Perhaps faster if we push it. We stay for a few days, and then a week back to Haven.”

Varric groans.

“Can we spare that sort of time?” Morinne asks, glancing between Solas and the seeker. “What of the Breach?”

“The alliances the trip to Val Royeaux will afford us will be needed to help us close the Breach, we must go,” Cassandra continues, and Solas only nods at her side, clutching his staff. Morinne flexes her left hand, the ever present sensation of the mark, neither painful nor comforting, a reminder of what’s to come.

“Then I suppose we should get some rest,” she says, trying to keep some positivity in her voice. She’s never traveled so much in so little time, but at least they’ll have horses for this stretch. Not that she’s particularly practiced at riding. “We have another long journey ahead of us.”

She follows the group toward the small building they’d been allowed to bunk in the last time they slept in the area. It is just another day, another fight, another week. She can endure it.

After all, she is the Herald of Andraste, what other choice does she have?

Chapter Text

Solas

The shining heart of Orlais is not what it was the first time he’d seen it - oiled tents of leather and mud where primitive humans sold cuts of meat and fish and strings of beads made of bone. Now, it stands shining and golden, a beacon that cuts through the otherwise dull scenery of the countryside long before they cross the bridge into the bustling city.

She is awestruck by it, and they all stop to watch her take it in.

“I never thought I’d see Orlais,” she says quietly as they walk through the streets filled with cafes and boutiques and booksellers. He has seen it all in echoes and memories, smelled the frilly cakes as the qunari woman sets them in the window even in the depths of the fade, but to watch a woman who has lived in the depths of the woods take it in for the first time is like witnessing it all for the first time himself.

He’s not the only one. He sees Varric pause and appreciate the way Morinne’s eyes catch on the red banners hanging between buildings that lightly sway in the breeze, or the golden masks of the Orlesian nobility, or the children dressed in silk and lace finery and splashing in one of the many fine fountains.

A scout finds them, one of Leliana’s, and reports the presence of templars and where to find them. Morinne doesn’t seem bothered by the gasps and whispers as she passes, gloved hands covering mouths but not muting their disdain for the so-called Herald.

“That’s the mage they say killed the Divine?” “The Maker would not send us a Dalish elf in our time of need!” “The Inquisition is mad if they believe we will buy into such heresy!”

Her smile only falls once they reach one of the many city squares and find the demonstration of chantry mothers and templars they are to be meeting. Their small group approaches as the woman before them declares Morinne a murderer - the Divine’s murderer - and the crowd begins to rile with every second that passes.

“You say I’m the enemy,” Morinne says loudly, but calmly, “but the Breach in the sky is the true enemy. We must unite to stop it.”

Cassandra lends her voice as a seeker of truth, insisting that the Inquisition only seeks to end the madness before it is too late.

The madness only continues as a templar leader rises to the stage, his fist connecting with the Mother’s jaw hard enough for him to hear the crunch of bone from the crowd. He isn’t entirely surprised but Morinne and Cassandra both balk at the ridiculous demonstration from the templars.

He hangs back as the crowds clear, listening intently as Cassandra begs the Lord Seeker to see reason. Varric is, for once, quiet at his side as Morinne and Cassandra consider next steps. Cassandra, impassioned, the voice of strength and faith and concern; Morinne, her mirror - angling for patience and compassion before making any snap judgements about either group.

The chantry mother, conscious once more, looks on in disgust.

“Come on you two,” Varric finally says after the third time the two women repeat the same argument. “I have an idea for what might help.”

Cassandra makes one of her many sounds of irritation but they all follow the dwarf to one of the pastry stands they passed on their way into the city and hands over an obscene amount of gold for a dozen little cakes of different colors and flavors.

“This will help?” Cassandra snarks at him.

“Sugar helps when ale doesn’t,” Varric says, and leads them to one of the outdoor tables open for use in what he realizes is an open air market.

“What are they?” Morinne asks.

“Petit fours, an Orlesian specialty,” Varric explains, “you have to try them the first time you come here. Eat up, Bunny. Chuckles, you too.”

He hesitates and watches as Morinne picks up the small cake and takes a careful bite, her eyes going wide as she chews. “Creators, that’s sweet!”

“Orlesians don’t know how to keep anything subtle, even flavor,” Varric explains, reaching for one that Solas can only guess is chocolate. He grabs one that looks similar and takes a bite, the moist cake melting on his tongue as the vibrant chocolate bounces off his palette, accentuated by a flavor he can’t quite place. A stone fruit of some sort, like the last vestiges of summer. Perhaps apricot?

It is perfection. He could eat the whole tray.

He reaches for a second and looks to Morinne, still only half way into her first. “What flavor is that one?”

“Ummm,” she bites her lip and considers, “sugar?”

“I think it’s supposed to be raspberry,” Varric laughs. Solas reaches for the one that matches hers and nods.

“Oh you could have had mine,” Morinne says with a small frown, “I don’t think these…petty…cakes? Are for me.”

“Really?” He says, taken aback. These frilly little cakes might be the best thing he’s had since waking from uthenera. She just passes him hers and shakes her head.

“Far too sweet,” but she turns and inclines her head graciously, smiling as she says, “thank you so much for letting me try them though, Varric.”

“Of course, Bunny,” he replies warmly, picking up another for himself. Solas guesses it might be a lemon cake but is disappointed to see it’s the only one on their tray. “Glad I could make Chuckles so happy at the very least.”

He eats eight of them in the end, and feels thoroughly disgusted with himself as he stands and they make their way to leave. Cassandra is still quiet, reeling from the betrayal of her order’s leader, he guesses. Varric walks beside her, but Morinne hangs back for a moment, pausing before him.

“Is something the matter?” He asks, his eyebrows knitting together in concern.

She gives him a wry smile, “Something like that.”

And then she raises her hands to his face and long, nimble fingers brush at the sides of his mouth once, then twice, before moving to his tunic and doing the same.

“You’re covered in crumbs, lethallin,” she grins, and turns to follow the rest of their party.

He’s glad of it. It means she can’t see the blush that he feels crawl up his neck, staining his cheeks and the tips of his ears bright red in embarrassment.

—

Morinne manages to recruit two very different women before they leave Orlais - an archer who is more deviant than elven and an enchanter from the Orlesian Circle. He immediately dislikes them both, but bites his tongue - it is not his place to decide who should and should not aid her cause. The enchanter, Vivienne, lends them valuable contacts and connections within Orlais and a wealth of knowledge on the inner workings of the mage circles. The archer, Sera, runs some sort of underground network aimed at aiding the disenfranchised that suffer under the hands of nobility.

He’s surprised to hear the details of it, as he finds it to be an almost well run and a worthy cause overall, especially coming from someone as disorganized and disastrous as Sera seems to be. But it functions, and apparently does so all over Thedas.

It is a long journey back to Haven, but the new additions to their party change the dynamic of things enough to keep him on his toes for the full week of travel. He shares a tent with Varric the whole week, Morinne choosing to bunk with Sera. Even from across their meager camp, he can hear the two elves cackling late into the night and although he misses her late night questions about his adventures in the fade, some part of him is glad to hear her so happy.

He doesn’t realize it at first, but he’s warmed to them. He plays cards with Varric around the fire after watching him, Sera, and Morinne pass around elfroot - Cassandra and Vivienne frowning to the side. He tells stories of spirits and hauntings in the fade, adding dramatic moments to make them jump and finds himself genuinely bent over with laughter when they curse him for doing just that.

It took him centuries to find people to have such moments with during his rebellion. He’s not sure why these people are so different. But they are, or maybe he is, or this world is. Either way, he decides it’s not so bad to allow himself to enjoy it while he can. In moderation, at the very least.

—

“Morinnne, if you have a moment,” he flags her down as she exits the Chantry and walks in step with her, aware that every moment in Haven keeps her schedule full from dawn to dusk. He needs her focus, her attention, but knows that if he claims it for long, it will draw attention in ways he is not interested in having to explain. Especially in Haven, where there are so many more eyes than there are on the road.

“Hi, yes,” her smile is bright as than the golden rays of afternoon sun she must shield her eyes from as she turns to him. “Walk with me? I have training with Cullen in twenty minutes and need to grab my staff before I head there.”

“Training with the commander?” Solas asks, surprise coloring his tone and he’s sure his expression as well. “What training has he deemed necessary for you?”

“I asked for it actually,” She explains as they stride through the center of the small village, bustling as the day winds to a close and the townsfolk that have come to aid their cause work to finish their various tasks before sundown. She nods and smiles kindly at those that bow as she passes, those that whisper the Chant of Light as their Herald graces the air around them. “I’m not trained in the kind of combat we’re facing each time we go out there, and it’s not making me any more confident when we get in fights. I asked him to show me some basics - positioning, using my staff as a means of defense, things like that.”

“And you do not think a fellow mage would be better suited for such training?” He doesn’t consider the secondary implications of such a question before he asks it - implications Morinne picks up immediately.

“Would you rather train me, Solas?”

Her smile and tone are coy, but the warmth reaches her eyes, and he makes every attempt not to get momentarily distracted by it. There is something so disarming about her, almost hypnotizing. Like she could cut through all his layers of hurt, regret, and grief, the chains of duty that still bind him as the nightmare in her histories. Like she somehow knows all the right questions to ask to reach to the core of him, the part long forgotten by him and the rest of history.

“I was not trying to suggest I would be the best option,” he clarifies, “Lady Vivienne could certainly -”

“Lady Vivienne is terrifying and would yell at me for having my hands in the wrong position on my staff, regardless of how strong a spell I cast after,” she lets out a breath of laughter, “no, I’d been thinking of asking you, I just wasn’t sure if you’d be interested in dealing with such things.”

“Dealing with such things?” He raises an eyebrow, unable to keep himself from teasing her phrasing. “Yes, assisting the woman who will likely be the key to keeping our world from collapsing is far too much effort for me. Spending the afternoon improving your barrier spells is too much to ask.”

She tips her head back in laughter, the expanse of her neck on display as her long hair dances in the wind, and the sound - the sight - of her joy is enough to bring a real smile to his own lips. “My barrier spells are abysmal, you’re right.”

“They certainly have yet to provide a barrier against…well, anything,” his smile does not wane as she playfully rolls her eyes at his jab, “but your talent is remarkable in most other areas. I’m sure you’d have it well in hand after some focused practice.”

“In return I can show you how to properly skin a rabbit so you don’t waste all the meat we need for dinners, how’s that sound?” It’s his turn to roll his eyes, earning him another laugh. “Alright, what was it you actually wanted to talk to me about?”

“I was hoping that the next time we are in the hinterlands area, we might make a small detour, I’ve been doing some research and found that an artifact of my people -”

“The elves?” She asks, interrupting, before looking at him to continue. He watches her smile falter ever so slightly as the question settles in the air between them.

“Yes,” he agrees carefully, unsure of why she deemed that necessary to clarify.

“You always say that, you know? ‘My people’ even when you’re talking to me and we are, believe it or not, of the same people,” Morinne explains. “I don’t understand why you’re so insistent on my being something other to you just for the fact that I’m Dalish. What’s the matter? Allergic to halla?”

His eyes catch on her mouth, her accent rolling over the L’s in halla so pleasingly he wants to hear her say it again. “Are there elves allergic to halla?”

She looks at him like he’s briefly gone mad and shakes her head, “How should I know? And that’s not the point I was actually trying to make. You choose to distance yourself from my relation to you as an elf at every possible opportunity. Our people live differently, yes, but that does not mean we need to bring that distance into our lives here, where our goal is to work together and set aside such differences.”

“Our people. You use that phrase so casually. It should mean more, but the Dalish have forgotten that,” he explains as they turn the corner toward the small cabin the Inquisition decided would be her home. “Among other things.”

“What does that mean?” She leans against the wall beside her door, crossing her arms and facing them. Ah, he’d fallen into a trap, he realizes. This was now to be an argument - one that was perhaps overdue, but one he’d been hoping to avoid nonetheless.

“They are…children acting out stories misheard and repeated wrongly a thousand times.”

Her jaw drops a bit in shock and she scoffs at him, “Oh forgive us, great hah’ren, but have you shared your worldly wisdom with any Dalish and tried to breach the gap you feel divides us?”

“I have seen the memories of the fade, da’len, I have seen the history the Dalish imitate. I have been called a liar, a madman, a fool by the very clans you suggest I go to with the truth. They do not want it.”

“You went to a couple of clans and decided for the rest of us?” Her question takes him off guard slightly, but more unnerving is how calm she goes as she asks it. “Two weeks ago you told Varric that people from all cultures might have variances between them when speaking about the Dalish but because this fits into a different part of how you think of us, that statement no longer applies?”

“Well, I certainly -”

“And for that matter,” she raises a single finger in protest, stopping him so she might continue, “would you say the same of the alienages? If a single city’s alienage all happened to grow a deep fondness for, creators, I don’t know…licorice root tea, would you assume every alienage is the same way?”

“Of course not, but -”

“That line of thinking is akin to the templars believing every mage is destined to become an abomination because there are a handful that do. It is unfair. It pushes the world apart,” she finishes, crossing her arms again. Her expression is not cold or angry, but open and ready for explanation. “And you are better than it.”

“Clearly you do not think I am,” he says, crossing his own arms, mirroring her stance. It is a petty response to a perfectly reasonable argument, but he doesn’t have to enjoy having the fallacy in his thinking pointed out. And to have it pointed out by someone thousands of years his junior is…frustrating, to say the least.

“I do, Solas, obviously I do. I wouldn’t bother having this conversation with you if I didn’t think you were worth discussing it with,” and the patience in her tone, the complete lack of judgment in her expression cools the fire in his spirit momentarily. She is not trying to call him a fool, he must remind himself. She truly believes he is better than this line of thinking. It is not a matter of her thinking him a fool at all, but a man worthy of respect that has denied her respect in return. “And if the Dalish have done you a disservice, I would make it right.”

He cannot help but stare at her for a moment, taken aback. “I do not insult you directly, lethallan.”

“No, but you insult my heritage, my people,” she retorts.

“They insult themselves,” he continues, unable to let it lie although he knows full well he should. “I have walked the fade, I know the history the Dalish seek to replicate and the stories. I visited a clan and offered them knowledge from my experience, my travels, and they chose to mock the flat-ear and chase him out.”

“Again, you speak for a single clan amidst hundreds, Solas. The Dalish are far from perfect, I will not argue that fact. Of course there are the small minded among them,” She shakes her head again and he can’t determine if it’s frustration or something else this time. “If nothing else, I am insulted that your opinion of the Dalish has not improved at least a little since you and I began traveling together. Or perhaps that is also childish of me, since you think me so.”

“I have never claimed to think you childish, Morinne, on the contrary -”

“I am five, maybe ten, years your junior and you’ve called me da’len as though I am little more than a child in your eyes. If that’s what you think of me, fine, but I have been more than willing to listen and learn and discuss with you as an equal,” she lets out a heavy breath as she finishes and then pinches the bridge of her nose. Her next words surprise him yet again. “I’m sorry. I - this isn’t what you wanted to talk to me about. You didn’t come here to argue with me.”

“No, you are right to call me on such matters. I have been unreasonable with you, and your line of thinking is more than fair. In fact, it’s consistently surprising how wise you are and when you choose to show off the fact.”

“I only mean to point out that such thinking is a disservice to someone as smart as you, Solas. You are better than that terrible argument, smarter than it.”

He’s confounded and somewhat flattered and tries not to let either show on his face. It’s…not enough, nowhere near enough to change his mind on all the million things the Dalish are wrong about - all the things he loathes about the culture. But…he cannot deny the validity of her argument, at least when considering it from her perspective. At the very least, it might be enough to force him to bite his tongue when he speaks on the Dalish in her presence from now on.

“I…well, thank you,” He should be apologizing, shouldn’t he? When was the right moment? Has it passed? “And you are asking these questions, that is something. I will answer your questions as I can, I hope you know that.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re as proud as your name would suggest. Even when you have terrible arguments like this one. Now, I have to be off to training or Cullen will have my head,” she says, opening the door to her little home and reaching inside, her staff apparently just around the corner from the door, “especially since I begged him to give me these lessons to begin with.”

“I will leave you to your work. We can discuss the artifact another time.”

“Oh! Come to the tavern tonight, everyone will be there. You can tell me then and I can buy you a drink for yelling at you.”

“Is this what you consider yelling? I don’t think you sounded even impatient.”

“If I say it was yelling and I want to make it up to you, will you come? Will you let me show you the hospitality the Dalish can still offer?”

“Perhaps another time,” he tries, not entirely sure why but still certain he needs to reinforce some sort of distance between them, “there is still much research that needs to be done before we leave Haven again.”

“You’re allowed to have friends outside the spirits of the fade, you know. In fact, I was looking forward to being one of those friends, if you’d have me.”

Her smile is suddenly devious, her eyes flashing up at him through long dark lashes and he realizes a moment too late what she means.

“That should be…well,” he clears his throat and tries to think of things that might kill the blush he feels rising to his cheeks. Dying friends, raging battles, twisted spirits. He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.

“That isn’t quite an answer,” she grins. “You’ll come tonight?”

“I will try,” he lies. He cannot indulge her flirtations, cannot let himself entertain any notion of feelings between them. It is best to nip it in the bud, before he risks truly hurting either of them.

“I suppose that’s probably the best I can ask for, hmm?”

He hears the shuffling of armor and Cullen appears around the corner, come to fetch his trainee for the evening, and Solas can’t help but study Morinne’s smile as the commander greets them both. Unconsciously comparing those directed at him mere minutes before. He bids them both good luck in their work and walks slowly back to his own little home, listening intently as Morinne begins to idly chatter to the former templar. Easy conversation that makes the bumbling man stutter then laugh before they are out of earshot.

He locks himself away for the rest of the evening, forcing himself to study the same tomes he’s now read three times, even when the tavern across the way grows loud with celebration. He knows he should go, should honor her offer of friendship. Instead, he turns his eyes back to his reading, and begins again.

Chapter Text

Morinne

She returns from the Storm Coast with a band of mercenaries, two pairs of ruined boots, and a desire to never see rain again, but Varric welcomes her back to Haven with a warm hug and Josephine has a cup of tea ready for her ahead of their war council meeting and she finds how quickly she can forgive it all when back around friends.

“You’re sure you want to meet with the rebel mages?” Cullen asks for the eighteenth time that afternoon. “We can still go to the templars for aid.”

“Tell me again, Cullen,” she rolls her eyes, “can we go to the templars for aid? Are you sure?”

“I - yes, and I know I’ve been persistent but I fear that since you are a mage -”

“I will choose the mages,” she finishes for him. Again. “And I have. We leave for Redcliffe tomorrow.”

He puts both hands on the war table and groans, to which she can only laugh and is glad when Leliana and Josephine both do as well. She knows he’s genuinely frustrated, but he also is willing to trust her for some reason, so he’ll defer to her judgment. She has no clue why any of them trust her with decisions of this magnitude, but when she tries to point it out, they argue her divine blessings and that her other choices so far have all been excellent.

So Morinne is learning to trust her gut. And if nothing else, she trusts Josephine, who says she hasn’t done anything to piss anyone off lately.

“May I walk with you, Herald?” Cullen asks as they leave the chantry, his arms crossed over his armor chestplate in a way that looks remarkably uncomfortable.

“Of course,” she smiles, using her staff as a walking stick as she follows him out into the perpetual cold of Haven. “I’m headed out toward the lake to do some training with Solas actually.”

He makes a small noise of understanding and they walk in silence for a moment. The commander is an awkward man, she’d realized it almost immediately upon having met him, and the feeling that he’s not particularly good at conversations that do not revolve around the movements of soldiers or how to wield weapons. It’s quite endearing actually, to have a man as classically handsome as Cullen be as completely socially inept as he is.

“Were you pleased to have heard from your clan?”

“Oh, yes, yeah,” she looks for the right words to explain how she feels about the words from her Keeper. The phrasing so specific, intended for her to understand but not for the humans or anyone unfamiliar with exactly how Clan Lavellan operates. She smiles at Cullen and it isn’t a lie when she says “it’s a relief that they’re alright.”

It’s not a lie, it’s just much more complicated than that.

“We could send for someone, if you’d like,” he adds, reaching to scratch the back of his neck - a tick she’s noticed he does when he’s nervous. “If there’s anyone special you left behind and…would like by your side for however long you’re with us.”

“That’s kind of you to offer,” she gives him a wry smile, “but unnecessary.”

“Ah,” he blushes. “Good.”

“What about you?” She turns to him, watching his eyes go wide as he realizes the trap he’s fallen into and the blush deepens across his stubbled cheeks. “Did you leave anyone behind in Kirkwall?”

“No I…fear I made few friends there, and my family is here in Ferelden,”

“No one special caught your eye there?”

“Not in Kirkwall,” he says and his honey eyes hold hers for a lingering moment. His mouth lifts on one side, half a smile that’s more charming than it has any right to be, and she’s sure it’s her turn to blush in response.

These Southern men will be the death of her if the Breach isn’t, she’s sure of it.

“Commander,” a scout appears, seemingly out of thin air, several stacks of paper in hand, “Ser Rylan has a report on our supply lines.”

Cullen sighs and nods, first at the scout and then to her. “Good evening, Lady Herald. It was…good to speak with you.”

She understands how much the idea of her being the herald means to the Andrastians, so she hasn’t bothered to correct him yet. She will eventually. Probably. Instead, she smiles and bids him a good evening in return and heads to the meeting place she’d discussed with Solas.

He’s there waiting for her, swirling magic through the light snowfall idly so it creates dancing patterns in the air around him to keep himself entertained while he waits. She’s almost tempted to throw a snowball at him before he sees her, but instead chooses to conjure droplets of water and sends them towards him to dance alongside his floating snow.

“Now turn it to flame, if you can,” he instructs without looking at her, eyes on the show around them. She focuses and watches as the water first turns to steam and then dancing dots of flame that burst quickly in the air before disappearing, melting the snow around them as they do.

“Excellent work,” he says, turning to her. “Your Keeper taught you well.”

“Yes, I’m excellent entertainment at every Arlathvhen,” she smiles. It’s been a week since she’s seen him, having left him to rest while she journeyed to the Sword Coast, and the sight of his small smile is already strangely comforting. He’s the only one ever willing to be even remotely honest with her it seems, while it feels like everyone else is still trying to suck up to her in one way or another.

“When is the next Arlathvhen?” He asks, surprising her that he would care about such a thing.

“In a few years, I think,” she says, not entirely sure of the specific year. “Assuming I survive all this, I’m sure I’ll be quite the spectacle by then.”

He frowns at her statement and Morinne only shrugs. There is a very, very real chance this will kill her in one way or another. Denying that does her no good.

“Well, let’s try to prevent that, shall we?” Solas approaches her, staff in hand. “We mentioned barriers previously but I think your problem with those is simply forgetting to cast them, rather than casting them badly.”

“I’ve been scolded for that before,” she sighs, and mimics her Keeper’s voice, “‘Not everything needs to be offense, Morinne!’”

“That is something we can easily remind you of on the field,” Solas says patiently. “I think what might be of more help is working on your positioning, and getting you out of a bad position should you find yourself in one.”

“What do you propose?”

“Have you ever learned to quickly step through the Fade?”

She raises her eyebrows, “No, or well, I’ve tried it on my own and failed miserably. My Keeper didn’t think it was something I needed to know, given what our Clan usually dealt with, so I tried based on my readings and…well I suppose I was lucky I didn’t end up with an arm left behind in the Fade.”

“Your Keeper doesn’t sound particularly…” he pauses, considering the correct word so he doesn’t loudly demean the Dalish yet again - she can see the thoughts pass across his face and can’t help but feel a smug sense of victory for influencing him in this small way. He settles on “...supportive.”

She snorts, “No, she certainly was not. At least not of me.”

“Do you wish to talk about it?” His eyes are soft as she meets his gaze. Had she noticed they were violet before? Deep set, lined with dark lashes, and kind. Surprisingly kind.

“Not right now,” she says quietly, and then forces herself to look away, back to her staff and the snow before meeting his eyes again.

So they begin their training instead, and she is relieved of it.

Solas leads her to the center of the small clearing he’d found for the occasion and indicates for her to stand next to him. She does, and he pauses, then shakes his head and looks around before reaching for her hands, then hesitating again. “May I?”

She nods and his hold on her is gentle, warm despite the fingerless gloves he’s wearing, and she grits her teeth to try to ignore the flush of heat that races up her chest the moment his long fingers curl around hers. She watches as he considers, her hands still in his, but after only a moment he stops again, then turns to pull her to the small bench at the edge of the little clearing. When they sit, he lets go and instead grabs the edge of his cloak, holding part of the fabric flat in front of her.

“Hold this for me, just like this,” he instructs, and she does as she’s asked, crooking up an eyebrow at him as she does. He only gives her a small breath of a laugh at her expression before he continues to explain. “Your left hand is the point where you stand when you’re beginning the spell, and your right is where you’re trying to end up. You can walk the space between, the length of the fabric, to close the distance, or -” he covers her hands with his again, moving their hands together to close the distance as he’d said, by folding the fabric. “You can shorten the distance by aligning those two points, folding them like a cloth, and stepping across - pulling yourself with the energy of the fade.”

Morinne pauses and looks at his visual, his hands over hers and the folded fabric, and lets out a breath before spreading her hands back to their original positions again and gesturing for him to grip the fabric.

“But how do I ensure I am directing myself so that this hand -” she gestures to his left, “- goes here -” she gestures to his right, “rather than here?” She asks before resting her right hand on his and moving it so the fabric and path are both twisted.

“A very good question,” he nods and she takes her hands away, watching as he drops his cloak, “it’s actually much more natural to follow a straight path, you shouldn’t have to worry about such a deviation as it requires significantly more effort and training.”

“What if I’m outstanding immediately?”

“Then I promise to heal any bones you break by crashing into the trees.”

Her jaw drops in surprise at his joke and how pleased with himself he looks. She likes him like this, she finds herself thinking. He’s so much more relaxed while focused on his role as a teacher, rather than acting as the proper apostate mage she’s come to expect.

He stands and she follows, watching carefully as he aims a finger at one of the trees toward the edge of the small clearing. “I am going to go there, alright, that is going to be our goal for the day.”

She nods and then Solas turns his hand, closes together the thumb and forefinger of his extended hand in one final demonstration, and is gone - whisked away in a rush of magic and frigid wind to stand some 30 feet ahead of her. She frowns slightly at what feels like an extreme oversimplification of what she’s read to be rather complicated magics, but can’t deny it’s impressive.

“Do I have to do the hand gestures every time?” She teases, cackling as he rolls his eyes dramatically and begins to walk back.

“Pick a point in the distance to focus on,” he says as he moves to stand beside her again, the furs draped over his shoulders close enough to occasionally tickle her cheeks when he gestures as he speaks, “and as you do, allow your mind to dwell only on that space and the ambient magic between you and that point.”

She does as he instructs and watches as he raises one arm before them, “Now, as I focus on that point and gather the magic of the world between us, I will call on the energies of the fade to move me to that point - that same ambient magic acting as the guide for where the fade ought to take you.”

“But how am I to be sure I’m drawing on the right ambient magic?” She asks, turning to face him and finding him far closer to her than she expected, so close their noses nearly brush. “Couldn’t I, theoretically, pull from anywhere around me and end up in front of a striking templar instead of out of harm's way?”

He gives her a small smile, “Once you get a feel for distances and directions, you’ll have a wider range of options for getting out of trouble. But we have to start with the basics. That is why we’re practicing here and not in combat.”

Morinne rolls her eyes at him and looks back out into the snow he’d just come back from. Extending her arm as he did, she tries to focus, to clear her mind of all thoughts but the feeling of the fade around her. How it tingles on her skin, not so different from fresh snow, and then imagines the feeling straight ahead of her - like her body could fit into the space in the Fade where Solas had stepped just moments ago and feel the same energy on her skin that he’d felt on his.

She lets out a breath and closes her fingers, imagining herself closing the distance as she does, and draws on all the magical energy she can muster to push her into that new place. Then she takes the step.

And she does - she moves. Not all the way, but several feet. And those several feet she moves are in the right direction.

She squeals in victory before clasping a hand over her mouth, just as she had so many times when learning from her Keeper. When she turns back to Solas, he is grinning at her - so she drops her hand and lets herself grin back.

“An excellent first attempt,” he says, with genuine enthusiasm in his voice for perhaps the first time. “Now, again.”

They spend the next hour going back and forth through the snow before Morinne is left drained and with the beginnings of a headache, but the feeling of accomplishment is worth the exhaustion.

When he offers her his water skin, she accepts it gratefully and downs a small gulp of icy water before sitting down and reaching for her coat and wrapping it around her shoulders. She’d discarded it halfway through their practice, no longer cold as she continued to strain against the fade and the boundaries of the mortal world. As the sun begins to set behind the mountains though, the sky going shades of violet, blue, and pink, she hugs the furs to her for warmth and just lets herself breath for a moment.

Solas settles beside her on the small bench once more, quietly taking in the watercolor skies by her side as the world grows darker and Haven, not far behind them, begins to quiet.

“You did beautifully today,” Solas says without looking at her, his eyes never leaving the vistas before them. “Your talent is very impressive, especially as it sounds like your Keeper may not have been.”

She looks at him and smiles, “She…well she had a set of spells she knew and thought were enough for us. Venturing outside of that made her nervous, no matter how much I tried to justify it to her. Eventually I had to find ways to learn it myself or stop learning at all.”

“You should never be ashamed of that,” his voice is harder as he turns to her, meeting her eye again.

“I’m not,” she clarifies, “it just means some of my spell work is…imperfect. But if it gets the job done and doesn’t hurt anyone in the process, I suppose that’s not as big a problem as I’ve led myself to believe.”

She watches him consider this information, his brows furrowing as he thinks. Morinne just bites her lip and looks away, feeling judged suddenly. She feels so…inadequate compared to the other mages here. Viivienne and Solas are far more knowledgeable and much better trained than she is - having them looking to her as some sort of leader still feels like a bad joke.

“Regardless of how you did it - you did it very well, what sounds like little help,” Solas says, making to stand and offering his hand to help her up. They continue on into Haven, Solas to his house and Morinne to the tavern, and darkness finally settles over the village. She takes it, glad for one last chance to -

Shit, she thinks instead, as a flare of hot realization that starts in her core and spreads through her like wildfire. Oh shit.

“You trained your will to control magic and withstand possession, your indomitable focus is an enjoyable side benefit,” he explains calmly, pulling her attention back. “One that certainly made my job easier this afternoon.”

“Indomitable focus?” She repeats, raising an eyebrow. She leans against the wooden walls of the tavern, letting the first notes of Maryden’s songs for the night reach through the window toward her.

Creators, but he’s handsome, she thinks as he looks her over, considering her retort. The shadows cast him in stark relief and his eyes look almost hungry, his own intense focus all on her.

“Presumably,” he takes a single step closer, barely more than a breath but it’s enough to have her holding hers. “I have yet to see it dominated. I imagine that the sight would be…fascinating.”

Morinne lets the breath she’d been holding out in a huff that sounds far too much like a quiet moan, and is suddenly tempted to wrap her fist in the cords of his jawbone talisman and drag his mouth to hers and -

“Hey, Bunny! Get in here!”

Varric’s voice cuts through the noise of the evening, and immediately she sees Solas straighten at the sound. Before the dwarf can finish opening the tavern door, Solas has taken three steps towards his home and crossed his arms. Damn.

“Chuckles too? Perfect timing!” He waves them in and Morinne bites her lip, nodding. “Farewell Haven drinks before Redcliffe tomorrow, mandatory for everyone.”

“Redcliffe?” Solas asks, reaching for her arm but following them into the tavern, much to her surprise. Guilt replaces the heat that he’d just filled her with. She completely forgot to mention it to him sooner.

“I’m sorry,” she urges. “I totally forgot. Redcliffe. Tomorrow. Please come?”

“Ugh, Solas is coming?” Sera asks from across the large table that’s always reserved for “The Herald” and whatever band of friends comes in each night. She’s lucky that Solas chooses to ignore Sera this time.

“Behave,” Vivienne scolds her, to which Sera just replies by sticking out her tongue.

Solas looks frustrated for a moment but lets out a sigh and sits down. Morinne pauses, expecting some sort of reaction or answer, and just sits once she realizes none is coming. She bites the inside of her cheek until Bull passes her an ale and then she finally has something to do with her hands and mouth.

It’s only once the table begins conversation again, some sort of prank they plan to pull on Cullen, who’s yet to arrive, that he looks at her and holds her gaze. She feels so much in his eyes and yet, is sure she understands so little of what she’d find there if she could unspool it all. The heat from their shared moment outside seems to be gone, but the intensity - she’s not sure if the intensity ever leaves him.

“If you will have me...” he says in a low voice, just for her, “If I can be there for you, I will be.”

The feeling of those words goes to her head faster than any ale or spirit in the tavern ever could.

—

“So foolish Fiona has sold the rebel mages to Tevinter,” Vivienne states, with an air of superiority that makes Morinne’s skin crawl, “and now you, darling, want to free them?”

“You want to let Tevinter gain a foothold in Ferelden instead?” She shoots back, exhausted.

They’ve secured a private room of The Gull and Lantern for the evening, as safe an option to plan next steps as they can hope for, and all sit around a tattered map of Recliffe castle with half empty drinks and weary minds. It is decidedly not what they expected to walk into after the invitation they’d received in Val Royeaux - a hoax, they now know.

“Wait - so Magister Whatever is what made the veil all girlish out by the gate?” Sera asks around a mouthful of cheese. Solas only sighs at the description before nodding.

“I love the notion that the distortion of time itself is simply girlish,” Dorian quips from beside her, to which Sera rolls her eyes this time.

“This is not helping,” Cassandra tries, urging them yet again to focus. It has been variations of this for the last hour with little end in sight. “We can still go back to the templars, Herald.”

“Oh, fuck the templars,” she groans, earning her small laughs from Bull and Dorian. “Cullen would be far too smug. And I genuinely want to help the mages. They deserve better than the future Fiona has decided for them.”

Morinne sighs and looks over the maps again, resting her head in her hands to drown out the noise of everyone around her trying to come up with their own version of what might be best. There’s really only one way forward she can think of, one path that makes sense every time she comes back to it, but she knows everyone’s going to hate it the minute she opens her mouth.

But they wanted her to be the leader, didn’t they?

“Cassandra,” she turns to the seeker, “Leliana knows Redcliffe castle, correct? From her time there during the blight?”

“Better than the Arl himself, I’d wager.”

“Alright,” Morinnne stands, and lets out a determined breath before pointing at the front gate of the castle. “Then I’m just going to walk in the front door.”

“Eh?” Sera asks, the sound enough of a question to summarize everyone’s thoughts on what she’s just said.

“We will send word back to Leliana, asking her to return with scouts and a plan to infiltrate the castle -” she waves her finger along the outer walls on the map, “I have no doubt she will know a way in, if there is one. And there undoubtedly is, right? They would have built one for the royal family to safely get in and out during emergencies. While she and her scouts sneak in, I will go in the front and speak directly with Alexius - keep him occupied, focused. He’s here for me, according to Dorian, so we’ll let him think he’s about to get what he wants.”

“We cannot risk your safety like that,” Cassandra says firmly, crossing her arms.

“I will bring in a small group, an…attache as Josephine would call it, to ensure negotiations,” she explains. “If a fight starts, it will be enough to hold us while we wait for the backup Leliana would provide.”

It’s a good plan, she knows it. And the silence that follows as her table of companions considers means they know it as well.

“I’m going with you,” Dorian says plainly. “My knowledge of his methods and his magic will ensure you have the best chances.”

“You do not have to play the bait, darling,” Vivienne counters.

“I’ve been bait in one way or another since the Conclave,” she mutters, shaking her head. “Dorian, you would be invaluable - I’d be endlessly grateful if you stayed.”

“They pretty ones are always trouble, boss,” Bull warns with a wink toward the mage.

“I don’t like it, but I will admit that it is a solid enough plan,” Cassandra sighs. “Assuming Leliana can get in.”

“If she can’t, she’ll have more than enough time to think of another plan we might use.”

“Who will be our messenger back to Haven?”

The question hangs in the air for a moment, one that feels charged and heavy. She knew the answer before she started speaking, but she also knows he’s not going to like it.

“Solas,” she says, without hesitation. Her eyes meet his, watching as surprise and several other emotions she can’t quite place flit across his normally stoic face in quick succession.

“Is that the wisest choice, herald?” He uses the title as a knife, though a petty one.

“Yes,” she says plainly, her eyes on his. Later, she wants to beg him, wants to send directly from her mind to his, let me explain to you alone, let me tell you everything later.

She watches his brow furrow at her, his jaw tighten in disapproval, but he nods and doesn’t argue. Reaching for his drink, he only says, “Very well,” and looks away.

“Good,” she sighs, reaching for her own. “Then we have a plan.”

—

She waits until everyone retires to their rooms for the night, and then waits a while longer before finally knocking on his door. It’s stupid to be nervous, she knows that. It’s the right decision, for a multitude of reasons, all of which she will explain to him calmly. He is passionate, but he has never been completely unreasonable with her, never raised his voice.

So why does she suddenly feel like she drank a bottle of the blight instead of wine tonight?

He opens the door slowly, wearing a knit sweater she hasn’t seen before and loose trousers he normally wears to sleep, and looks surprised to see her. “Is it appropriate for the herald of Andraste to be knocking at my door so late at night?”

“If people were truly concerned with propriety, they’d have named Cassandra the herald,” she murmurs. “Can I explain myself? Please?”

He nods and opens the door for her, welcoming her in. The space is the same as all the other rooms above the tavern, meager but comfortable and distinctly Ferelden. He has the fire going, though only a couple of logs burn - just enough to keep the room warm and dimly lit.

Solas doesn’t make to sit, just crosses his arms and leans against the small desk at the far wall, moonlight streaming in behind him. Right, she thinks, looking around. Should she sit? But the only place to do so would be his bed and…

She decides to stand.

“I know you’re unhappy with the decision, but you’re the best choice. For many reasons, Solas,” she twists her sweating fingers in knots as she speaks, holding his gaze. “You’re an apostate who has managed to avoid templars his entire life - that alone would make you the perfect choice given the current environment. But you’re also familiar with navigating the wilderness and I have no doubt that I can send you back alone and you will return to Haven with the message, unharmed.”

He only blinks at her, considering.

“Plus,” she hears herself continue, filling the silence, “after we secure the mages, we will move on to closing the Breach. I cannot risk losing you before that - you’re more important than I am when it comes to making sure the Veil is healed and -”

“That is simply untrue,” he interjects, with little inflection to his voice to give her any clues as to what he might be thinking.

Morinne shakes her head, “I don’t think so. Creators, I would bet if I fall, you could take what remains of the mark and still make something of it. Still try. If Redcliffe is a risk, then I will risk myself before I risk the knowledge you have of the mark.”

Before I risk you, she should say, but won’t. There is no world in which he would ever look at her like that, in which she should ever bother with such thoughts. It’s a foolish crush and nothing more, a distraction in the midst of so much chaos.

“That is a reckless line of thinking, and a wrong one,” Solas shakes his head and takes a step toward her. “The Inquisition needs you. You have made an impact in more ways than just your ability to heal the rifts.”

“I…” she lets out a breath, “maybe, I don’t know. That’s not the point.”

“It should be, if you think yourself so disposable.”

“I came here to reassure you.”

“I respect your choice to do so, as well as your line of thinking,” he begins to pace, eyes drifting to the fire, the bed, to her, “but I would have done as you needed without it.”

“I don’t want you to follow me blindly. If I am making a bad call, I want you to tell me.”

“I won’t do that in front of so many who look to you for guidance and need to trust in your judgment,” he says without pausing his constant motion.

Frustration seeps into her marrow, built up from the days events and looking for somewhere to go, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she might regret. She rubs her hands down her face instead and takes a deep breath, but finds him staring at her when she reopens her eyes.

“I cannot do this,” she admits, quietly. Like saying it above a whisper will echo through the tavern and out into Redcliffe, and then the world would quickly hear that the herald is, in fact, a fraud.

“You can,” he says without hesitation. “You already are.”

“They don’t think me weak yet,” the words are out of her before she can stop them, words she’s needed to say since the moment she regained consciousness after they healed the first rift, “but they will. It’s only a matter of time. I’m not that good an actress. Look at me, I’m breaking down already - you’re just the first unlucky bastard who gets to witness it.”

Solas surprises her when he chuckles at that, “I’m a bastard, am I?”

“Sorry,” she sighs. “It’s…yeah. I’m sorry.”

“You have stepped up to every challenge of the last two months with patience, grace, and tact - which I cannot say the same for any of the leaders you have met with in that time. It is normal to be overwhelmed in such situations, I assure you. But you are a natural leader, which is why they will ask more of you before this is through. And Morinne?” She looks up when he says her name, finally meeting his eyes again and trying to hold back the tears that threaten to spill from her own. “They will ask more from you. They will take and take and take. If the way to keep yourself sane is to close the doors at night and cry or rage, you are allowed to do that.”

“It’s only been two months,” she says quietly, unconsciously flexing her left hand where the mark’s magic is ever present, ever waiting. “I feel like I’m losing my mind already.”

“I think that, given everything, it would be far more concerning if you didn’t feel that way.”

Her hands go to the end of her braid, needing something to fidget with so she can keep from crying. “You aren’t mad at me then? For sending you back to Haven?”

“No,” and his smile is real, “I am not mad at you. Am I thrilled to be back on the road so soon? Not particularly, but you are right - I am the wisest choice.”

Morinne nods and bites her lip, grateful - so endlessly grateful.

“Do you wish for me to return with Leliana and the scouts?”

She hadn’t considered that, but it’s an easy enough question to answer given his previous statement. “And ask you to spend yet another week on the road? No, I will see you back in Haven when this is done with. We’ll seal the heavens together when I get home.”

“Is that your promise to survive?”

“I…yes, I guess it is.”

“Then I’ll leave at dawn,” he says with a slight bow of his head.

When she dreams that night, it is the first time she dreams of home since she left for the Conclave. She is puttering around with the nonsense tasks that come from one’s subconscious, filling pots with flowers and mud and mushrooms with the chubby hands of her childhood, calling it stew before she dashes off after a rabbit, deeper into the forest. She reaches the furry creature and pauses to watch as it nibbles, kneeling in the soft, spring grass as quietly as she can so as to not disturb it. And then, from the corner of her eye, she sees movement in the trees.

Her child’s heart freezes as she watches, even though the rabbit doesn’t seem to notice. There, shadowed in the trees, an enormous wolf watches her with too many eyes that glow brilliant blue through the magic of the Fade. She whispers her prayers, digging her small hands into the ground and feeling dirt and grass gather under her nails as she beseeches the Creators.

When she finally looks up again, the wolf is staring at her, frozen across the clearing. It doesn’t make a move as the tears begin to stream down her cheeks, fear holding her in place. Only when the rabbit bolts away, startling both girl and beast, does Morinne finally wake.

Chapter Text

Solas

He rides hard for Haven, the path familiar to him now, dodging outposts of both templars and mages and bandits for the four days it takes to make it back to the village they’ve come to call home. Whispered words of energy, remnants of ancient magic from long before, spur his horse on when its energy begins to wane, and he rewards it each night with restorative magic and all the greens he can find in the rugged Ferelden hills.

He tries to ignore his own thoughts as he rides, but he has never been particularly good at doing so. His mind has always been a tangle and it only feels heavier and more complicated now.

She has not been what he expected, and he is the worse for it. It would have been easier if she were just another ignorant, disrespectful Dalish - or better, a human - this wouldn’t be a concern in that case. He could guide, quietly and detached, from the back line. It would be easy to wait for his orb to be found and the Breach to be sealed if all he need do is wait to be called on occasionally and read when he wasn’t.

Instead, he finds himself flirting. Flirting. Slipping into old mannerisms he hasn’t used in ages without thinking, falling back into the steps of a suave young man, still unbroken by centuries upon centuries of war and death and pain.

His mind hangs on the sound of her breath catching after he’d said something salacious and ridiculous about the intensity of her focus and about wanting to see her lose it, the way her eyes flitted from his to his mouth and back again. No more than a moment before Varric appeared, yet it lives in his head like it lasted an age - like he might take it apart and study it, second by second.

The things Felassan would say if he could see him now, he thinks - and then cuts himself off, but it is too late. Shame and guilt leak in through all the walls he’s built in his mind, replacing the heat of picturing Morinne’s wry smile.

Perhaps it’s a good tactic to sink into that shame. He needs it.

He needs to remember that above all, he is a man who lies, who betrays. She is still young and kind and good. There is nothing in him still worthy of her. There is nothing in him worthy of anything but finishing the task he started long ago. That is all he has left. Whatever he has found himself feeling for her is not worth the distraction it will present in the long run, regardless of how tempting it might be to him currently.

The gates of Haven are a welcome sight, and he makes straight for the Chantry with the news he’s been asked to relay. Plans have begun to twist in his mind again, things he can do while he waits for the party to return from Redcliffe, excuses and lies and schemes.

He does not bother with pleasantries as he pushes through the heavy doors of the council room, much to the surprise of the three meeting within. He’d gotten lucky, assuming they’d be meeting at this time. But then, they seemed to always be meeting.

“Solas?” The Commander’s voice is incredulous at his appearance in the doorway, and the two women at either side of the table look equally shocked as well. “Is something wrong? Has the Herald returned?”

“It’s far too soon for the situation with the rebel mages to be resolved,” Josephine chirped from her side of the table, and he could only nod at the diplomat.

He explains it all - the magisters, the twisted time magic, Fiona’s bargain and the herald’s plan for dealing with all they’d learned. Josephine takes diligent notes, Cullen huffs and puffs, and Leliana remains silent - analyzing and considering from her role as spymaster and the one who would have to step in and pull off a significant part of this plan.

“This is news indeed,” the bard finally offers as he concludes, turning to Josephine, who’s feather pen has yet to stop scratching at her parchment.

“It is unacceptable,” Cullen declares. “She should have come back - it is simply not worth the risk. We could have continued on to the templars, surely she knew that.”

“Cassandra reminded her of that, yes,” Solas offers, working to keep the smile from his face at the memory of Morinne’s response to said reminder.

“And?”

Well, the Commander did ask - “The herald said, and I quote, ‘fuck the templars’.”

At this, Leliana gives a small laugh and Josephine makes an impolite little sound, attempting to hide her own amusement, but the former templar before him is not as entertained.

“This is not a laughing matter!”

“She does not think so either,” he agrees, “which is why she remains and is willing to put herself at risk. She stands by the rebel mages as the best option to close the risk, and as deserving of the chance at freedom. If you want to go to Redcliffe and carry her back, I would assuming kicking and screaming, then that is your choice, Commander.”

He watches Cullen’s jaw tense, the exhaustion written across his face turning to irritation and then something darker. It doesn’t bother Solas, he’s dealt with bigger bullies and higher ranking assholes than the Ferelden dog lord could even begin to comprehend.

“Thank you, Solas,” Leliana says, raising a hand to stop Cullen from beginning any further arguments. “I will gather my best agents and depart at first light. We should be able to make it to Redcliffe in five or so days - which should, with any luck, put us back here with the Herald in two weeks. Then, we will move on the Breach.”

“We will prepare everyone here for your return,” Josephine states with a nod.

“If it won’t be too much of an inconvenience,” Solas interjects, “I would like to return to the Breach before we journey there with a full cadre - to ensure there is no lingering ambient magic that may prove excessively dangerous. I can examine alone, and from a distance, while you aid the herald in Redcliffe.”

“Alone? Is that wise?”

“I have spent my life studying such things on my own, Lady Montilyet,” he smiles at her, trying as hard as he can to make it look sincere and unthreatening, “it should be no trouble.”

She nods, as does the spymaster. Cullen only shakes his head and mutters, “Maker help us all.”

He will go to the Breach, it’s not technically a lie, but as he heads to his small house and packs a fresh bag and grabs a rested horse, he’s glad no one looks his way as he sets off in another direction entirely.

—

It takes a day and a half, but Tarasyl'an Te'las stands proudly among the snow capped mountains, though perhaps a bit worse for wear and a lot more Ferelden than it was the last time he saw it. But in its core, it feels the same - a place once known to him so well that the magic that surrounds it echoes in his marrow like it rejoices at his homecoming.

This place has known more life and death than the stones alone can tell, but simple human gates and barriers can’t keep its first keeper out. He crosses the grounds, dropping the reins to his horse and allowing the beast to roam and graze as it likes, making his way up the steep stairs and into the fortress.

He hates what the Ferelden’s have done to a once beautiful piece of Elvhen architecture, though he supposes it may no longer stand here if they hadn’t rebuilt it anyway. With a sigh, he sets down his bag in what he assumes would be called a great hall, looking out through the mostly shattered stained glass windows.

So many of his old journals and books should still be stowed away, all from the time when this was the Dread Wolf’s stronghold. The thought crosses his mind that perhaps the eluvian might still be hidden somewhere as well, that perhaps it might connect back into the Crossroads as it once had. So many wards and buried things, ancient magic so powerful, so entrenched in the very foundations of the mountain itself, there was no way the people of this age had uncovered them. And if he could get to the Lighthouse and gather what materials he had there…

He’s going to spend a week here, figuring out which of his secrets remain and what stories the Fade might tell him of what this place has seen in his absence. The Breach will be an easy stop on the way back to Haven, and he’ll return before anyone’s the wiser for his extended absence. It’s not as though Cullen will be bothered with him being gone for more than a couple days.

He makes for the village he’s come to call home twelve days later, reassured with what he’s learned both at the Breach and in Skyhold. The Fade told him much of its history, at the hands of its many owners throughout history - humans, dwarves, an enchanter, and finally its downfall during the third blight. He watched nature reclaim it, and the spirits wait and watch as the magic that lives within it grows with each passing century. They spoke to him of wanderers who found it as shelter in a storm and those who sought to dismantle it once more - neither claiming it fully in the end.

And he found some of his belongings, or what remained of them. Books and scrolls and tomes from ages past, ink and parchment and dust and decay. The information remained though, and even with his weakened magic, he could restore it. He grabbed what he could and hid the rest, determined to return after the Breach is finally closed. It would be his stronghold again, when the time came for such things. It would almost be poetic, to tear down the veil in the very place he created it.

---

Morinne

She hates needing the help, but it has been a long day at the end of a horribly long week, so when Cullen offers her his arm to escort her out of the war council meeting, she takes it. Five days since Redcliffe, and one since returning to Haven, and she still does not feel like herself.

At least her sorry state means they haven’t fully laid into her for bringing the rebel mages into the Inquisition’s fold without conscription - offering them their freedom instead. She watched the way Cullen’s jaw tensed each time it was mentioned and then the way he let out a patient breath after looking at her, exhausted, hollow, and weak, and let the matter rest.

Varric guessed the song of the red lyrium would start to quiet after a few days, but she worried she would know the tune for eternity now, that she’d been corrupted after those two days spent surrounded by it in the future. That Dorian would be as well. Even now, she could hear it - quieter than it had been, but ever present. Like the nightmare they’d walked out of refused to stop whispering in her ear, trying to call her back.

Cullen was quiet as he led her home, but with him by her side, the village people didn’t bother with exclamations of her heraldry or requests for her blessing. They went about their business, fearful of the great commander, the Lion of Ferelden.

If they’d only seen what the Elder One had done to the great Lion…

She squeezed her eyes shut against the violent memory, the stains of green and black and red, the screams of people she knew and cared about. People she couldn’t save.

“My Lady Herald, we are almost -”

Her head aches with every step. She should have agreed when they offered to let her skip the meeting today, she shouldn’t have tried to -

“You’ve returned,” a familiar voice cuts through the clutter of her mind, the ache and the song and the fear, “So early and you look ill, I…what happened?”

“Solas,” she breathes. She thought perhaps he’d changed his mind, that he’d decided to flee after all. When they’d returned and told her he’d been gone for over ten days to examine the Breach, less than a day or so ride away, she was so sure of it.

He looks at her, eyes darting across her face as he takes in the hollows under her eyes and whatever other signs of weakness she’s sure are plain for all to see, then glances at the arm she has tucked around the Commander’s.

“What happened?” He repeats the question, and she looks away.

“Where were you?” Cullen counters.

Solas’ eyes are back on hers by the time she meets his once more, and there’s something like guilt there. Or maybe it’s what she wants to find - a sign that he feels regret for not being here when perhaps she needed him. When she might have wanted him here. Would it have made a difference? No, but…

“I told you when I departed, I went to study the Breach to ensure there was nothing lying in wait for us when the time came -”

“The Breach cannot possibly have taken you twelve days -”

“It’s fine,” she says, trying and failing to calm the fragile egos of the men on either side of her. “I’m fine, really.”

“What happened in Redcliffe?” The third time he asks, Solas’ question isn’t directed at her but at Cullen, his voice turning hard as he seeks his answer. An answer Cullen won’t give him, because she hasn’t given anyone.

“You start,” Cullen challenges, raising a pointed finger at Solas, “What did you find at the Breach that took you so long?”

“Please,” she murmurs, her head throbbing as their voices raise, “we don’t need to do this.”

“Agreed,” another voice approaches and she melts into Dorian's arms the moment he appears at her side, pulling away from Cullen entirely. He looks a little more lively than she’s sure she does, but still tired from all they’ve been through. “Fighting like this in the middle of town when you expect these people to look at her as a hero? Really? What kind of organization is this exactly?”

“So you’re staying then?” Cullen asks, ignoring Dorian’s very sound questions entirely in favor of indignation at the Tevinter mage.

“Oh, didn’t I mention? The South is so charming and rustic, I already adore it to little pieces,” Dorian quips, his arm around her shoulder giving a soft squeeze of reassurance. “And how could I leave behind this little darling after our adventure through time together?”

She manages the energy for a small smile and rolls her eyes.

“See! Such charm! Absolutely no one I’d rather get stuck in time with.”

“Stuck in time…so then,” Solas pauses, visibly calculating Dorian’s remarks. “So no one tell me what exactly happened in Redcliffe?”

“It is not something you want to know,” she says quietly. It’s the only thing she’s told any of them about what they saw in that future, at least for now. Dorian might have said more, gave them hints about threats to come but…she cannot muster the words for the horrors they witnessed. “We got the mages, as expected. The rest only Dorian and I need to live with.”

“They’ve kept the details to themselves since returning,” Cullen confirms with a nod to Solas. She knows he’s equally frustrated with her for not telling them everything, they all are. But they don’t know what a kindness it is that she would keep it from them.

She wants to be done with this conversation, wants to take a sleep tonic and bury herself in bed until they march on the Breach.

“Come on, pet, let’s get you some rest,” Dorian offers, reading her mind, ignoring the rest and taking her hand. He walks with her the rest of the way to her little home, leaving Solas and Cullen behind to undoubtedly bicker further.

Someone started the fire for her while she was at the war council meeting and she’s endlessly grateful to be welcomed back to the warmth, kicking off her boots and falling apart the moment the door closes behind them.

“It will ease, Morinne, it will,” he offers, rubbing easy circles against her back as she weeps. “The song gets quieter - it’s almost gone for me already. And the dreams will pass.”

“I will never unsee their suffering, Dorian,” she chokes out around a sob. “I will never be able to forget what happens if I fail them.”

“I know,” he whispers into her hair, and she’s endlessly grateful that he won’t deny her or try to reason away the fear that’s begun eating away at her since they returned to this reality. He’s the only one who saw, who understands fully what is at stake should the Elder One rise to power. “I know,” he repeats, his own voice beginning to shake as he rests his head on hers. “I know.”

Eventually, she finds sleep, though it is no reprieve from the horrors of her mind. The Fade intends to see her suffer as well, dragging her back through the Redcliffe of the future once again. She wanders the dungeons in her nightdress, fear and despair demons biting at her heels and tugging at her hem as she begs for the lives of her friends and is instead forced to watch as they are tortured again and again and again. First Varric, then Cassandra and Leliana, then Iron Bull and Cullen. The Venatori take them apart, stripping away skin from muscle and prodding raw nerves til the screams are all she can hear even though she’s running and running and running.

The demons aren’t deterred by her tearing through the castle, they follow with ease - desperate for the easy meal they undoubtedly sense in her. She has been fighting them off every night for days, and Creators, she is so tired.

The courtyard glows with the green of the Breach, encompassing the entire sky as it had in that horrible reality, and more await her there, drawn to her like flies to carrion. But Morinne realizes it is not only demons in this courtyard, there is something there growling and snarling, scattering them.

She balks but doesn’t have long to wonder though, as an enormous beast tears through the courtyard - fear and despair scattering in the Dread Wolf’s wake.

That has to be who it is, she thinks - who else could it be? She should fear him, shouldn’t she? Yet when six blue eyes meet hers, some part of her understands - doesn’t question or run, just acts. She grabs for his mane and climbs upon the enormous beast, the terror of her people’s mythology, and lets him carry her from this place.

The Fade bleeds like water dropped on fresh paint, color swirling around them as Fen’Harel bears her out of the nightmare and into something new, something familiar. She tumbles off his back and finds herself in the small meadow she’d been in not two weeks ago, dreaming as a child - the first time he’d spied on her dreams.

She should be unnerved, she knows the stories of the trickster and the threat he poses to those who catch his eye. And Morinne has twice, for reasons she can’t name. Is being named Andraste’s herald enough to threaten her Gods in this way?

She falls to her feet, prostrating herself before him and whispering every prayer she can think of into the grass.

And then, she hears the wolf huff and collapse into the grass himself before yawning audibly.

Raising her head, she finds him sprawled out before her, in the very pose that all the statues of him are always in outside Dalish camps, and his eyes blink slowly at her. She’s sure confusion is written across her face, plain as her vallaslin, but he looks past her and watches the same rabbit that had been there before.

She turns, watching as it contentedly nibbles, her confusion giving way to more silent tears as more visions of Redcliffe fill her mind once more, endless memories of what she’d just witnessed yet again. The moment the tears are no longer silent, the rabbit bolts and the wolf turns to her again. Silent. Watching. Fear of him adds to the terror swirling within her, her chest beginning to ache with the force of her despair. The trees at the edge of the meadow shake in the sudden wind as a storm seems to pass in, quickly, turning the sky gray overhead.

She squeezes her eyes shut, one fist grasping at her chest, and then she gasps and looks up, and he does it again. A long lick up the length of her face. It is enough to have her give up the sobs, a startled laugh bubbling out of her in a surprised gasp.

She takes a moment and looks at him, deep in the eyes of the downfall of her people, that - for whatever reason - saw fit to rescue her and stop her tears, and lets out a deep breath. She needs to focus, she reminds herself. Focus against the despair, against the influence of the Fade and the pull it has on her emotions. It is making all this worse, making it feel so much stronger than it needs to be. She needs to focus. Focus, focus, focus -

- indomitable focus -

The wind slows against the trees, the meadow slowly calming. And though she knows better, knows so much better, when the Dread Wolf lays its head beside her once more, she lets him. She thanks him and promises to leave extra jerky at the next statue she sees raised for him. It earns her a huff in response, which she chooses to think is maybe a laugh.

Eventually, she lays her head down in the soft grass, letting the long fur of the wolf beside her tickle her side with each whisper of wind that passes. The Fade falls away from her, slowly, and she spends the rest of the night in a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

Morinne

“Mages!” Cassandra shouts over the thunderous noise of the Breach overhead, capturing the attention of all the rebel mages circling the smited ruin that was once the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

“Focus past the herald! Let her will draw from you!” Solas commands them, his voice like that of a general - no hesitation present in his voice as it echoes across the stones and broken pillars.

“Pfft, who knew Solas could play at bein’ general elfy too?” Sera snorts at her side, a soft elbow meeting her ribs in jest. Morinne stands at the ready, as so many do, should demons pour out of the Fade once more. Solas said it was unlikely this time, that the Breach would likely just close, but she insisted all join them to ensure they were prepared.

His eyes meet Morinne’s and he nods - they are ready. Was she? Would she ever be?

She takes two steps towards the half-broken statue of Andraste in the middle of the small courtyard where they stand and looks up into the swirling green above them. The Maker’s bride seems to look down on her with closed eyes, as if she can’t bear to see the fate of the woman named as her herald. Morinne only sighs and meets Solas’ eyes once more, nodding in return.

She was never going to be ready, so what was the use in waiting any longer?

A thunder of mage staffs hitting stone echoes around her as Solas shouts “NOW!” and her hand instinctively goes up, pulling the energy around her and sending it into the Fade where it belongs. Seconds pass that feel like hours, and then there’s silence. And then the sky is blue once more, without a torrent of green staring down at them.

And then there were cheers.

—

Haven is deep in its cups by the time their caravan of friends and soldiers and mages appear at the gates, having seen news of their victory proclaimed in the skies, and the celebration doesn’t slow once the sun begins to set. The Inquisition was victorious and the joy is contagious, and she can’t keep the happy tears from her own eyes as she watches so many of the townsfolk she’s come to know and appreciate in the last couple of months wipe away their own.

Their small parade through town gives way to a party the likes of which she’s never seen - the tavern filled to the brim, with everyone who can’t fit inside pouring out into the cold and enjoying their drinks in the snow. Children build towers in the snow and some have taken up instruments near the Chantry, singing some sort of Ferelden folk tunes she’s unfamiliar with.

She stops and greets as many as she can on the way to the tavern, shooing her friends to go on ahead of her, and receives praise with handshakes and hugs. She hasn’t learned everyone’s names, but she knows a good few and tries to learn more, though she knows that by the time the night is up, she’ll be drunk enough it may not matter.

Morinne prays over no one and offers no blessings or baptisms and kisses no babies as she goes, no matter how many ask for the Herald to do so. She thanks them and accepts their thanks when they offer it and finally, eventually, gets a drink.

Most of her friends are there already, sitting at the usual table, with bottles of everything she can think of lined up and waiting for her. Hands of cards discarded and empty glasses abound amidst the candlelight and song and uproarious laughter. It dawns on her that this place, this small town in a part of Thedas she’d never thought to visit, has become a real home to her.

“Darling, I have to know,” Dorian starts as she sits down, grabbing her a glass and pouring her a drink, “what did it feel like when you connected to the Breach? Something so big and all powerful and possibly world-ending?”

“Hmm,” she takes the heavy mug of ale from him, “A bit cold, and electric, like lightning magic almost. And just this feeling like it could go on and on and on, but I had to tell it not to.”

“Interesting,” Dorian says in response as Sera recoils at the description.

“Hey, Solas!” Sera calls over her shoulder, quickly recovering, and Morinne turns to see that he’s just walked in the tavern. “Droopy-ears-says-what?”

“… excuse me?”

“Ugh, you're no fun!” He laughs generously as Sera sticks her tongue out at him in frustration and then sits down at Morinne’s side, reaching for the whiskey bottle in the middle of the table.

“Surprised you joined us, Chuckles,” Varric calls from the other end of the table. “I bet two coppers you’d be out taking notes all night on exactly which mage tapped their staff on the stones last.”

It earns the dwarf a couple laughs but Morinne rolls her eyes and before she can think better of it, she nudges Solas’ knee with her own and leans close, “Ignore him, he apparently lost a hand of cards before we got here and is still bitter.”

“He had time for a whole round of cards already?” Solas asks in return, taking a sip of his drink, and then she realizes he hasn’t moved his leg. Or rather, she hasn’t moved hers. “Have you been here long? I thought I was rather timely.”

“This is my first drink,” she says, gesturing to her glass. “But I had to do herald-y things that slowed me down. And the minute Bull gets here, he’s demanded I try his dragon liquor…something or other so it’ll be like I’ve been here for hours rather quickly.”

“Ah,” he says simply, and then Blackwall pulls his attention with some question so he turns. She should turn as well, she should talk to Cassandra and Dorian or say something about the Breach or she’s not sure what, yet all she can focus on is the warmth of his body still pressed against hers. Seeping through her leather leggings and moving straight to her core, grabbing all her attention.

“Hey hey, the fun has arrived!” Bull announces, and the Chargers file in behind him.

Right on time, she thinks, grateful for the distraction.

A heavy bottle slams down on the table in front of her with a label in Qunlat that looks like it’s intended to mark poison as opposed to indicating what’s inside is for consumption. “Ready to put some chest on your chest?”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Dorian scoffs.

“This is a terrible idea,” Cassandra adds.

“Agreed,” Solas says at her side.

“I want one too!” Sera grins, passing out glasses as Bull uncorks the bottle, the smell that wafts out like liquid fire.

“What is it exactly?” Morinne hears herself ask, though she’s not entirely sure she wants to know.

“Maraas-lok!” Bull says enthusiastically as he pours, and with a quick glance to Dorian, who’s still shaking his head, she realizes this was definitely a mistake.

“Right…” looking down her glass, she almost considers pinching her nose like she might her first drink as a much younger woman. It’s foul and it’s going to burn like hell. She just closed a giant hole in the sky though - she just saved the fucking world - how bad could Qunari liquor be after all that?

Her vision goes white the moment the drink hits her throat, burning like she’s swallowed acid and fire combined. She coughs, loudly, and vaguely hears Sera doing the same over Bull’s loud cackle of laughter behind her. Someone raps her on the back to help with the coughing, but it feels like her body is no longer hers - it belongs to the maraas-lok now.

“Fenehdis,” she chokes out, once she can find words once more, her eyes still watering. “What the fuck, Bull?”

“I know, right?” He just laughs again and pours himself another. “The second is easier - all the nerves in your throat will be burned by the first and you won’t feel it.”

“I think I might be dead,” Sera says across from her, and then chugs her remaining ale.

“Yes, well I am surrounded by fools,” Cassandra groans as she passes the half empty pitcher of water to their side of the table.

“I feel like I just did unspeakable things to a rage demon,” Morinne heaves, her eyes still watering, and she hears Solas choke on his drink at her side. She meets his eye briefly and grins, to which he gives a somewhat bashful smile in return and shakes his head slightly.

He still hasn’t moved his leg.

By the time everyone is on their second drink, and Maryden has moved on to a new set of songs, the maraas-lok has sufficiently blurred the edges of the world and left her feeling warm and fuzzy inside. She can see the same feeling in Sera, both of them blushing and bobbing like two giddy elven girls around their first adult campfire.

“You can make magic anywhere, Solas? Ever piss it by accident?” Sera asks, resting her head in both hands on the table.

Blackwall snorts and coughs a laugh at her side, ale sputtering into his beard. “Makers tits, your mind is terrifying.”

“No,” Solas answers plainly, then hesitates, “Wait…No.”

They gawk at him in unison, Morinne’s surprise giving way to laughter first.

“What?! How would you not remember something like that?” Sera exclaims, ignoring the way Blackwall shakes his head, laughing as well.

“We were all young once,” Solas says with such an easy tone and easy smile, his knee bumping against hers for a moment and sending a rush of heat through her once more. He doesn’t look at her, just takes a long, nonchalant pull from his whiskey.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she looks around, taking in the noise of the tavern that has yet to slow as the evening wears on. Blood buzzing with the warmth from the drinks and the hum of the crowd, she still feels like she needs something but isn’t sure what. She’s just…restless.

“I think I’m gonna get some air,” she says without thinking, picking up her glass despite it being mostly empty.

“Bunny,” Varric calls to her from where he sits, extending his pipe in offering, “I’m happy to share with our hero of the day.”

“Oooh, and I’m happy to accept,” Morrine says, taking it and balancing it between her and her glass. “Thanks, Varric!”

The bite of cold outside is startling and refreshing, the clouded night sky overhead full of soon to fall snow. It seems like most of the revelers that had been outside have moved on, back to their homes or elsewhere, out of the cold, and Haven is quiet again. Peaceful, as she’s come to know it.

She takes a slow inhale of the elfroot and lets it out in a relieved sigh, watching the ring of smoke float away on a cold breeze before the crunch of snow to her side catches her attention.

“Mind if I join you?” Solas asks, drink still in hand.

“Hi, no,” she smiles, it's apparently night for smiling after all, and passes him the pipe in offering. She’s surprised when he takes it and after a deep inhale, smiles back at her softly. “Oh wow, showing off?”

“I haven’t always been as boring as everyone believes me to be,” he chuckles. His cheeks are pink with either drink or cold, she’s not sure, and it matches the flush at the tips of his ears. It doesn’t matter that it’s beginning to snow again, the drink has her warm and the sudden want at seeing him like this only takes that heat further.

“I never claimed you were boring,” She tries to be playful and bites her lip, tries to distract herself from the drunken need to get closer to him while desperately wishing he might read her mind and throw himself against her instead. “I might have been thinking it, but I never said it out loud.”

“How delightfully reassuring, thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she says with a mocking bow before bringing the pipe back to her lips, grinning around it as she takes another pull.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he says after a moment, one finger tapping at the edge of the nearly empty glass he’s still holding. “I was…concerned. And I’m sorry -”

“You don’t have to -” she interrupts but pauses, attempting to find the words she’s wanted to say to him since he returned but hasn’t had the courage to til the drink claimed her senses, “- I sent you away. It’s okay, I’m fine. I’m just…Creators, it's so stupid, I’m just glad you came back.”

“I would have been here sooner if I had any idea you would have returned as quickly as you did,” and shifts, moving to lean off the wall and standing a bit closer to her. Not close enough to satisfy, but better. “I told you -”

“I know,” she says, nodding. That’s all there is to say, all that needs to be said. He nods once in return, eyes softening.

He clears his throat momentarily and she realizes that, perhaps, she was supposed to add something rather than get lost in his eyes like a drunken teenager. “I was glad - am glad - that you’re feeling better,” he tries, brows furrowing, “after Redcliffe -”

“Don’t,” she whispers, shaking her head pathetically “I…let’s not. Ir tel’him.”

“Ir abelas,” he tries, but she shakes her head once more, like it’s the only gesture she has left in her and smiles before he can go any further.

“Tel’abelas. I made the choices I did, and the rest we couldn’t have predicted. I just…needed some time,” Morinne bites her lip, truly wishing he’d dropped it but seeing all the concerns written across his face even still, she understands why he didn’t.

“I understand,” he says patiently, and crosses his arms behind his back. “Your elven is quite good.”

“For a Dalish?”

“I didn’t say that,” he tries defensively but then calms as he sees her smirk. “Ah, yet again you tease me. I should have realized I’d set you up for a new favorite pastime with that.”

“It’s exceptionally easy to do,” she raises her glass to her lips to hide just how hard she’s grinning but based on his smile in response, she’s not sure it’s working. “Plus, watching you realize it as I do is…hmm, what's the word? Fascinating.”

His breath catches on the word, his pupils narrowing on hers and she sees something there, something like want once more. She takes a step closer to him, testing his reaction - wanting to see if he’ll let her closer, how he’ll respond.

“Is that so?”

The victory, the drink, the smoke - the combination of it all leaves her greedy for him. Leaves her greedy for a touch she knows won’t come because it’s unwise on both their parts, and while she might have her moments of foolishness, he doesn’t seem to. It would be so easy to sate her needs with Blackwall or Bull, secure one more tether of safety here by binding herself to one of them and finding a sliver of release in the process, but then Solas looks at her.

She’s an idiot, she thinks to herself, taking another long drink. A great and terrible and far too powerful idiot.

Solas only raises an eyebrow, watching her, but his own wry grin hasn’t left his face. Like he’s waiting for what her next move might be.

It would be so stupid to kiss him right now, wouldn’t it?

And then a horn sounds from across Haven and her mind clears, her stomach turning over. He grabs for her arm, instinctively, protectively, and another comes from somewhere to the distance before the bells toll throughout town.

Haven is under attack.

—

It is not enough to replace the heavy, lingering taste of ale with the bright, astringent one of lyrium before her mana totally depleted, passing the second half the potion to Solas, who downs it without question. It is not enough to ready each trebuchet and load it, collapsing tons and tons of snow upon countless soldiers, marching under no banner. It is not enough to hear the screams of the townsfolk, to smell the burning hair and flesh of the dying, to feel her cheek torn open and the blood trickle down her face and leathers.

When the boy in the strange hat grabs her, eyes glancing to the wound on her face only briefly and tells her she stole his mages, shaking her softly and pointing to the mangled range of mountains where an abnormally tall figure cuts through the snow with ease, she begins to understand. Maybe it’s delayed because of the drink, she’s not sure. There’s no time to reflect, Cullen just tells them to make for the Chantry. She pulls the boy with them. He tells her his name is Cole, but she’s sure she won’t remember.

It’s only when the archdemon flies overhead, shuddering wings fanning the flames of their ruined homes, that she realizes this is the end.

There is a chance, they learn from the dying Chancellor, that some could escape - maybe survive, with some luck. She nods and asks Cullen if it might work, an efficient numbness flushing the cold dread from her body.

She doesn’t hear what the Commander says in answer. She tells him to try, to ready themselves for the journey, to stay warm. She tells them to live. And then she grabs another lyrium potion and ignores the nausea that turns in her stomach at doubling up on the substance.

“Herald,” Cullen reaches for her, grabbing her by the elbow and turning her to face him. Even at the moment before her death, he won’t relinquish that stupid title and call her by her name. A believer til the very end, she supposes. “What of your escape?”

Morinne doesn’t answer immediately, there’s no point. He holds her gaze and then his flickers to her bleeding face and the arm she holds tightly to her side, visibly hurt in some way he can’t immediately identify.

His eyes, like honey or amber, meet hers again and are lined with unshed tears. She’s relieved she won’t have to say it, at the very least. “Perhaps you will surprise it…find a way.”

Cullen turns and gives some of his remaining scouts initial orders, gathering the remaining villagers together to follow Roderick, propped up by the boy she doesn’t recognize.

Morinne gives one last look around the Chantry, taking in the space that had jailed her and given her life a strange new purpose. The lyrium begins to hum in her blood, eager for an escape, and she taps her toes in her boots. Is it blood that wets her socks or snow?

“Bunny,” Varric says quietly, limping slightly, “take some soldiers. You don’t have to do this alone.”

She rests a trembling hand on his shoulder, the one unmarked by fate, and whispers the only truth that’s helped quell her fears since this began. “Yes, Varric, I do.”

“Morrie, darling,” Dorian tries.

“No,” she says more firmly, digging a broken nail into the leather wrapping of her staff. When she looks up, she happens to meet Solas’ eye across the Chantry as he helps up one of the evacuees. He pauses, holding her gaze, and a quiet understanding echoing between them. He gives her a single solemn nod, and she turns before the tears that threaten to fall spill over.

“Everyone who isn’t going with the Herald needs to leave now,” Cullen says a minute or so later, gesturing for them to follow the line out of the Chantry. He turns to her, face grave. “We need you to keep it distracted until we get past the treeline. Look for our signal. Any time you can buy us - anything you can do…”

“I know,” she answers, because she can’t say anything else for fear of breaking.

She whispers her prayers under her breath as she walks through the smokey remains of Haven, wingbeats loud overhead, and aims for the primary trebuchet. It’s a ridiculous idea, but it’s an idea.

O Falon'Din
Lethanavir--Friend to the Dead
Guide my feet, calm my soul,
Lead me to my rest.

She isn’t dead yet, but it’s only a matter of time, so she hopes the Guide might have pity on her. There would be no ritual burial, no carved wooden staff placed over her to guide her across the Veil, no flowers laid or words of prayer whispered.

Cutting through the last of the red templars is relatively easy, given the amount of lyrium pounding through her, and she cranks the mechanism on the great wooden war machine as the dragon and its master approach her. She lets the corrupt magister talk on end, let’s him prattle on and on, hand itchy on the trigger as she waits.

When a light finally appears in the sky, that those who might make it out of Haven have reached a safe distance, she doesn’t hesitate. She collapses the mountain on what remains of her new home, on her new enemy, and on herself, burying them all in a rush of stone and snow.

Chapter Text

Solas

He watches Cullen carry her broken body over the hill, moving as quickly as his armor and the heavy snow will allow. She hangs limp in his arms, unconscious, but alive.

Alive, somehow, despite it all.

He stands at the far edge of the tent where the healers fuss over her, exhausted mages called from other injured or dying townsfolk to tend to the hero of the day - a fact he’s sure she would resent were she conscious. The healers begin cutting away her leathers and gasping at the injuries they find hidden underneath. Three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, frostbitten fingers, endless bruising, the deep cut on her cheek - he steps away before he can hear the rest. Knowing the full extent might turn his stomach.

This is what his poor planning has done to her. Chipped away at her sanity, left her with dreams filled of endless fear and despair, and now thoroughly broken her body. It is by her tenacity alone that she survived and made it here, somehow, enduring a blizzard that should have killed her when the mountain’s collapse didn’t.

He paces, glad that everyone is so preoccupied with her return and survival that no one will look his way and notice he’s leaving no footprints in the deep snow.

The Breach is closed, yes, but the orb is still in the hands of the magister his agents left it to and much to his dismay, the creature is smarter than he’d given him credit for. He hadn’t expected him to find a way to survive the blast at the Conclave - in fact, he was still guessing he’d happen upon the orb somewhere in the wilds or picked up by an unknowing passerby and sold in an out of the way market in Orlais or the Free Marches. Was his judgement still so weak even a year after his uthenera ended?

Healing the heavens would not be the end of this journey. He would have to linger, to help fight this tyrant he helped give power to. It was the least he could offer, the least he could do to right these wrongs.

Yet, as he looks back at the tent where he knows Morinne lies mangled, watching the pulsing glow of healing magic light the treated fabric in pulses of white and blue and golden light, the thought of staying doesn’t sit as heavy in his chest as it ought to. So many of his responsibilities, his duties, are like weights on chains, locked around his ankles for millennia and waiting for him to finally fulfill the oaths that bound them there.

Staying with these people though - with her? The allowance to just exist as a man for a little while longer before requirements demand he become the Dread Wolf once more? When was the last time he ever wanted for anything - let alone something so simple and attainable that also happened to align with what needed to be done?

Hours pass and the first light of dawn begins to break, painting the sky the color of Morinne’s eyes before transitioning to golds and pinks. The thought of it crosses his mind before he can catch himself. He has become distracted so easily, and by a mortal no less. She is little more than a blip in the lifetimes he will see, a radiant spec of light in the grand timeline of what he has lived and what he will yet endure.

So why does every plan suddenly revolve around protecting her from a fate similar to one he knows all too well?

The arguments of the Inquisition’s advisors eventually quiet, exhaustion hitting them long enough that it seems all have retreated to various tents to rest. He should do the same - his head aches from the alcohol and the snowy hike and the fatigue. His body is still weak, a fact he has to consistently remind himself of.

The encampment is still mostly quiet as he walks, though Chantry folk and healers dart from tent to tent and the occasional whine and groan of the injured cuts through the morning peace. He’s sure if he finds Varric, there will probably be a bedroll he can make use of for a few hours and then -

“My Lady Herald, please -” an elderly voice insists, and he turns, watching an indignant healer trying to hold down an even more indignant Morinne. “You are still injured - !”

Morinne hisses in pain as she wrestles free of the woman, sitting up and ignoring the fact that she’s in only her breast band and a series of bandages intended to keep her shoulder set, heavy blankets piled on her lap to keep her as warm as they can in the frozen mountains. Her eyes are bruised and wild, the cut down her cheek will scar. But she is herself and she is alive.

“I am well aware I’m injured,” she spits like an angry cat, “I brought a mountain down on myself last night. You’ve also given me enough for the pain to make me insane and so hungry I could eat every injured limb I have, so I beg you, again, to fetch me a bit of broth before you knock me out again or so help me -”

“I can sit with her,” Solas hears himself say to the healer, interrupting the tirade before Morinne might make a scene, “so you might retrieve some sustenance for the hero of the day.”

“Suit yourself,” the woman grumbles, and he can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him as Morrine crosses her arms and sticks out her tongue as the woman waddles away.

“Are you cold?” He asks as he sits down at the side of her small cot, reaching for the furs on his shoulders instinctively, pulling them over hers. He tries not to let his eyes linger on the patterns of her vallaslin, painted in the color of dried blood across her collarbones and down her bare arms, marking her as Mythal’s. Just as he had been, long ago. She wears it so much more beautifully than he ever had. He watches as she goes to hold the fur closed over her shoulders, her fingers bruised and purple even still, nails caked with dirt and blood.

"I'm fine," she says with a sigh, "but thank you."

Silence falls between them for a moment, charged like the Fade itself is waiting for them to call upon it for some sort of great magic to be pulled down and the energy around them changed in turn.

It doesn’t though, even as he remembers the last moment they shared together. Charged in a different way, heat passing between them as so much unspoken tension threatened to snap at a moment’s notice.

Morinne shifts a little, and her left hand, the hand cursed by his mark, extends to where his rests on the bed, two fingers gently pressing against the pads of his. A single, tentative, touch, so innocent and simple, and infinitely more than anything he could ever ask from her - ever be worthy of. She moves a bit further, her hand half in his, before looking up and pulling his attention with the movement.

“I thought I was going to die,” she says plainly, her hand unmoving from where it rests in his.

“I thought you were too,” he tells her, the truth in all its awful glory. Her eyes line with silver tears at the simple statement, threatening to fall for all she’d been willing to do and all she’d been willing to sacrifice. The sacrifices leadership requires; sacrifices she didn’t hesitate when faced with.

He clears his throat, emotion building there he cannot let her see or hear, before adding, “I’m…very glad you didn’t.”

She pitches forward til her forehead is resting on his shoulder and turns her head to the side, surprising him. She doesn’t move her hand from his and he’s grateful for the warm tether to her, grounding him to this place and this moment and the reminder that she survived. She’d keep surviving.

“If I were a spirit, would I be the spirit of absolute, unending idiocy?”

Her voice is small and weak but close, and he can’t tell if it’s real or his imagination when he feels the warmth of her breath. The question surprises him enough to have a chuckle bubble out of him.

“No, despite all the fools in the world, I’ve yet to encounter any spirits of idiocy lingering around the Fade.” She smells of blood and lyrium and wound cleaner. “And even if so, you wouldn’t be one.”

“What would I be?”

The question has occurred to him before, though he’d struggled to come to a conclusion on exactly what felt like the best fit if he had to narrow her down in such a way.

There was also the matter of not giving away exactly how much he thought about her - how much the virtues he’d already seen in her stood out to him, and just how rare her spirit seemed to be compared to all those he’d met since awakening in this dull, lame version of the world he’d once known. He’d had inklings, ideas based on traits and virtues that seemed to stand out in her actions more than others.

“Courage” He offers but she sits up and scrunches her nose in disapproval and the absence of her warmth is more than enough to have him reconsider. “Alright, fine - loyalty?”

“Virtuous, I guess,” she leans against him once more and sighs. “But with names like that, spirits really make it sound like demons have all the fun. Courage compared to desire, I mean…”

“How much did they give you for the pain?” He teases and feels her body jostle softly in laughter against his shoulder, the fur of his wolf pelt around her shoulders tickling his cheek.

“Okay, so you’re the spirit of being a smartass -”

“You’re awake,” Josephine gasps, and he feels Morinne snap up, quickly enough she hisses in pain shortly after.

“They wouldn’t feed me,” she groans at Josie, and the hand that had been holding his falls away, moving to cradle the ribs she’d broken. Their small moment of peace ending so quickly, yet again. In emphasis, he hears her stomach growl.

“How did you make it through the snow?” He asks, realizing he hadn’t heard amidst all the chaos, her unconsciousness and his own ruminations - walking that distance through the snowstorm would have been a minor miracle even without all the injuries she’d sustained after the collapse of Haven.

Morinne’s eyes brighten a little as she turns back to him and her cheeks flush, almost bashfully he’d guess, if he didn’t know her any better. “I was still so full of lyrium…so I fade stepped as far as my magic would take me.”

—

By the time he wakes again, dusk has settled over their camp and the survivors have become a bit more lively once more - venturing from tent to tent and sharing the meager rations available with one another. Community in the wake of such disaster ought to inspire him but instead a new, fresh flame of guilt lights somewhere deep in his soul.

It’s familiar, so agonizingly familiar, to moments on battlefields centuries ago, where he might have walked as a general among his soldiers and doled out congratulations or words of encouragement after battles lost. His body tenses as if someone will approach with missives in hand of next steps or numbers lost, expecting his quick remark on what comes next, which stronghold they lay claim to tomorrow or what relic of the heretical Evanuris they will plot to steal next.

He joins the line for scraps of bread and stew, meandering through the maze of tents and wagons til he finds himself back at what he supposes constitutes the front of their encampment. Morinne is awake and dressed, speaking quietly with Mother Giselle while lounging in her cot, his pelt still draped over her shoulders even all these hours later. The two women exchange concerned glances to the loudly arguing Inquisition advisors and Cassandra, seemingly in a feud over what needs to be done next.

It is an apt concern, he will concede them that. The mountains provide some shelter, yes, but hardly enough, and there is no game to be found out here. When their scant supplies run out, they will be well and truly desperate - and then the weak will begin to starve. He’s seen such things before, such horrors. He’s not particularly keen to see it again.

The venison stew isn’t particularly good as he raises another bite to his mouth, but that’s not what has his jaw drop in surprise mid-bite. He watches the revered Mother stand and let out the first notes of a song in a surprisingly fine voice, loud enough for all in the vicinity to hear. Morinne’s head turns in rapid movements as she looks around in surprise, and quite possibly horror, at the demonstration. And then something he hasn’t seen in all his millennia happens.

They all begin to sing.

He guesses it’s some chantry song, by the way Leliana and Cullen seem to go misty-eyed as their voices join the chorus, and then it seems the bulk of the villagers lend their voices as well. He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at Morinne, clearly mortified but working very hard to keep up appearances - made all the worse by the still purple bruises under her eyes.

Solas might say it was a scene out of some chantry propaganda if it weren’t happening before his very eyes. And yet, they do it all for her - for a Dalish elf who does not worship their Maker and has the pointed ears that they might normally mock her for. Instead, they have already chosen her as their leader.

The solution comes to him before their song ends, and he makes to grab her attention, to attempt guide her once more if he can. He tries to ignore the visible relief on her face when she sees him, the way she rushes to stand, quickly enough to still wince in lingering pain, and follows him into the dark. Her footfalls, usually trained and quiet, are heavy with exhaustion and stiffness, each echoed with the crisp thud of her staff cutting through to the frozen ground.

“Humans have not raised one of our own so high for ages beyond counting,” he says as he walks, slowing his pace so she might keep up and watching carefully to ensure he doesn’t lead them down a path that would prove especially difficult for her. “Their faith is hard won, lethallan, and you should be proud.”

“Right but…that was…” she shakes her head in astonishment, “...more than I ever expected to see.”

“A very polite way of putting it,” he smiles and reaches for a downed branch, lighting it with veil fire to illuminate the small area where he knows they might speak privately. “I heard tell of what happened, of this Corypheus and the orb he carried -”

She snorts, “Oh of course, I heard Cassandra and Cullen certainly weren’t bothering to be quiet about it.”

“The orb is ours,” he says, skipping to the point, and aiming to keep his voice steady. There are facts she must know, things he has to tell her to keep her safe and alive - the bare minimum of what is necessary. “It is elven. He must have thought to use it to open the Breach and, in turn, unlocking it must have caused the explosion at the Conclave.” He pauses for only a moment, watching understanding crawl across her weary features before continuing. “We must understand how he survived…and we must prepare for what their reaction might be once they learn of the orb’s origin.”

She raises a bruised hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut in contemplation, “It can never just be one thing at a time, can it?”

“Rarely are things so simple.”

“Alright,” her eyes meet his again and they seem to glow in the blue-green light of the veil fire as she lets out a deep sigh. “What is it and how do you know of it?”

“Such things were foci - said to channel power from our Gods. Some even dedicated to specific members of our pantheon. All that remains now are faint visions in broken ruins and echoes of a dead empire that linger in the Fade,” he stacks lies on lies as he always has, and she believes him because she always does. It should make him sick, and instead it only offers a small sense of relief that she doesn’t question him further. Some part of her almost wants her to push - to make this as challenging for him as he deserves. “However Corypheus came upon the orb, there can be no doubt that it is elven, and with it, he threatens the heart of human faith.”

“Brilliant,” she says through gritted teeth, looking back at the lights of the camp and the people who have come to rely on her therein. “Even after all of this, some part of me knew they’d always find a way to remember I was just an elf in the end. I guess this orb will just be another part of that.”

It is his fault the world looks at her that way, his failures that she does not live in a world of ease and peace and full of magic. What he wouldn’t give to take that weight from her shoulders and show her the old world - the one before the rebellion and the chaos and war - to give her a moment of the truth of what it truly meant to be an elf.
Of course, then he remembers what comes after - what else he’d be forcing her to endure. How she’d likely look at him, knowing all that he’d done, all the lives he’d taken and those unknown that will still be weighed against his soul.

“Their faith in you needs room to grow,” he tries, attempting to redirect his own mind as well as hers, but stops as she shakes her head.

“Their faith in me will die in the snow along with the rest of us if we can’t decide where to go soon,” she bites her lip, shivering slightly in the cold and pulling the wolf pelt tighter around her shoulders. Then, as if finally realizing she’s kept it all day, she pulls it off and passes it back to him. “Sorry, I -”

“You’re cold, you should keep it,” he says without thinking, immediately glad his untrustworthy mouth doesn’t say more. Something unspoken passes as her eyes hold his, something that he can only hope he understands but has no assurances of once her eyes finally fall.

“No, no, you’re too kind,” she offers it again, and this time he has no choice but to accept. It’s still warm. “We should head back anyway, before someone starts to worry. Everyone’s paranoid about me still.”

“Before we do,” he reaches for her arm, unintentionally yet instinctively, “I found somewhere…in the Fade. Somewhere the Inquisition could go.” Her eyebrows raise and she waits, her eyes wide with the hope he’s come to look for in her himself, reflected back at him. “By attacking the Inquisition, Corypheus has changed it. Changed you. So scout to the North - be their guide. There is a place that waits for a force to hold it, where the Inquisition can build, grow.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

And so, without second thought or hesitation, he gives her Skyhold. When she turns, walking back to camp, his chest aches as he realizes that in only a matter of months, she has doomed the great Fen’Harel and turned him into something of a lovesick puppy in her delicate yet capable hands.

Yet, against his better judgement - against millennia of wisdom and training - he can’t bring himself to be upset with the way his heart thunders in his chest as he follows her back to camp.

—

Their journey is slow going, but she pushes them forward, going so far as to weave her horse through the ranks of villagers at the end of the procession and speak with them for hours to lend both distraction and encouragement before galloping back to the front of the line for status reports.

He’s instructed Harding and her scouts where to guide the charge, but the people see it as Morinne doing so and that is ultimately what matters. It is also a powerful symbol that she does not only ride up the mountain, but dismounts and hikes as she feels able - as her recovering body allows. She knows nothing of how she should specifically cultivate her image, her mind is not focused on strategy or manipulation - it is simply her natural state of being that is so pure; more than powerful enough to guide their weary bones to Skyhold.

It shouldn’t have taken a day and a half, but with the weak and injured among them, it does. The sun is brilliant overhead, the trees becoming more and more sparse, as he senses their final approach through the changes in the Veil. When Harding appears around an outcropping of rock just ahead, excitement in her eyes as she nods vigorously, the fear that he’d mislead them leaves him in a deep exhale of relief.

Morinne seems to have also sensed some change, attuned to the Veil as she is now that she bears the mark, and he hears her horse canter to his side as he turns.

“Come with me,” he says, without thinking about the implication of how it might look or second guessing if she’ll take his outstretched hand. Her gloves meet his with the soft crunch of leather and the rush of her jumping from the saddle, ignoring whatever discomfort she might still be feeling after Haven.

He lets go of her hand, only because he has to, and walks quickly to wear Harding stood moments ago. The dwarf has already begun the trek down the other side of the mountain, ensuring which path will be safe, so for just a moment it is just Morinne at his side to take in the view.

The early afternoon light paints the stone fortress in shadows of soft purples where it stands, proud and ready for their company to call it home. No banners claim it, no watchmen mark their arrival - it is hers for the taking.

It is his to present to her.

Solas hears her breath catch as she steps to his side, taking in the sight for herself.

“Skyhold,” he tells her, giving her this moment as well.

When he wills himself to meet her eye, to see what she might think, he finds her eyes lined with unshed tears and her mouth agape. She lets out an unsteady breath and shakes her head, one of the tears dancing down her wind-bitten cheeks. When she looks at him, it’s hope he sees in her eyes - pure, unfiltered hope.

“I don’t - I could…” Morinne shakes her head, her gaze going back to Skyhold. “Solas…it’s…”

“It’s yours,” he fills in, with more surety than he’s said anything since awakening, more than in millennia.

Her face splits into a smile so bright, so lovely and radiant, it puts the mountains - no, Thedas itself - to shame. Her gloved hand goes to his arm, squeezing softly in time with his thunderous, traitorous heart.

“Ma serannas,” she whispers around what he guesses are more relieved tears. “I will never be able to thank you enough for this.”

“You will never have to,” he holds her gaze, a wretched part of him hoping she sees what has become inscribed on his heart since he met her, the way she’s managed to etch her name there so quickly despite his better judgement and all his centuries of knowing better, being better.

“Will you let me try?”

He will. For her, he already fears what he might do.

“Ma nuvenin.”

Chapter Text

Morinne

On the first Tuesday after they arrive in Skyhold, they call her to the courtyard and hand her a ceremonial sword, ignoring her protests and name her Inquisitor. She has saved them already, Cassandra insists, through so many obstacles. Morinne tries to explain she also puts a target on their backs, that the anchor will only draw Corypheus’ ire further, but they don’t listen.

She becomes an icon within Skyhold quickly, even with the dozens that arrive each day, treating the Fortress and surrounding camps as a pilgrimage and swearing their aid in whatever way they might provide it. Word of Haven has spread, her advisors confirm, before telling her that an arcanist, two pastry chefs, and three new merchants have joined the ranks of who will be living within the fortress itself.

Everyone knows her name, her face, her title. She is treated with a deference she doesn’t want and doesn’t truly believe she deserves. It is yet another day of this when she finds Cullen in the lower courtyard one afternoon, guiding newcomers and scouts who all awkwardly salute her as she passes. She can’t convince Cullen to make them stop, and after a while, she knows she ought to stop trying.

“Inquisitor,” he smiles, one hand idly reaching and scratching the back of his neck, “More and more arrive each day, I’m hoping we can find a set up here that works better than what we had at Haven. We could never have prepared for an archdemon, or whatever it was, there - but here…”

“I know,” she says but shakes her head, “ Do you ever sleep? Leliana said you’ve been out here since dawn.”

“If Corypheus strikes again, we may not be able to withdraw…and I wouldn’t want to,” he bends forward, resting both hands on the makeshift table before him and staring at the various maps and lists sprawled out on its surface. “We must be ready.”

“And we will be -”

“We will not run from here,” his voice is strained as he rises again, looking into her eyes with startling sincerity.

“Alright, but get some rest, there are others who can do this kind of -”

He reaches for her wrist, stopping her thought, surprising her. His eyes are still sad as she meets them once more, exhaustion making them darker than the normal whiskey gold she’s used to.

“You stayed behind. You could have…” His eyes dart lower for just a moment, hardly a second, and she realizes she’s made a mistake - taken this farther than she realized. It is vain to leave him hanging, heart in his hand like this, outstretched just slightly - as if she need only take a peek for now.

She should turn him down, she should call him her friend and thank him and run. She tastes metal as she bites the inside of her cheek, watching as he stares at her with such concern and care.

“I will not allow anything like that to be required of you again,” he finishes, firmly, letting go of her wrist.

“You can’t make that kind of prediction, Cullen,” she says, when she knows should have said something definitive, something better. “You can only take care of yourself and our people as you always have. That’s all I need.”

His smile curves up on only one side when he bids her a good afternoon, and she makes her way to anywhere else in the Fortress to be thoroughly disgusted with herself elsewhere. Old habits die hard, she supposes, and that doesn’t change just because one might be granted enormous political power and a fancy title.

Most days, even with the changes, she still just feels like the out of place First, but now in a much larger clan.

“Morale has improved since you took the role of Inquisitor,” they tell her, over and over again, ignoring that she’d seen the same fear and sadness shift to something like hope the moment people began to step through Skyhold’s gates, days before anyone gave her a rank.

But they also tell her it doesn’t sound as odd as she thinks it does, and with every ‘Inquisitor Lavellan’ she hears, she finally starts to believe them.

The first real decision she makes as Inquisitor feels like an obvious one, but when she hears Vivienne, Cassandra and Solas arguing over Cole, she has no problem giving official decree that he will stay. That regardless of demon or spirit, if someone with intentions to save lives and treat others with kindness is welcome until they prove they are no longer able to do so. Cole has saved countless and continues to do so, she tells Vivienne, loudly, as the enchanter scoffs.

Her next decree is to ensure Cole has his choice of comfortable space to sleep, and she doesn’t mind when he asks for a small corner of the tavern attic, though she glares at everyone who looks apprehensive on her way out.

Work is underway and continues from dawn to dusk, hammering and stonework and the grunts of laborers all become the choir of every moment of the day since they arrived. She is thrown from her rooms the second she is dressed and not allowed to return until dinner, all to ensure her space is one of the first ready.

She pleads that it’s unimportant. She can sleep in a tent on the battlements, on a bedroll in the library, in the makeshift healer’s quarters where she’s still spending hours each day ensuring the last of her bones set correctly, but Josie and Leliana will hear nothing of it. There is an image to present now, and seeing the Inquisitor lying in such places would cause for more trouble than the additional focus required does.

They wait for Varric’s secret friend to arrive with news, hoping for aid from the Wardens, and in the meantime, they prepare her with the art of the great Orlesian game.

“You still aren’t cleared for training or combat by the healers,” Leliana reminds her, “and this is just as valuable given what we know from that dark future you visited.”

Morinne would rather be chased through the Hinterlands by wild bears, broken ribs included, than practice how to lie and flirt the Orlesian way, but neither Josephine, Leliana or Cassandra find it funny when she says so.

She’s not sure if she notices when her summer tan fades, but it feels around the same time the title of Inquisitor starts to feel less heavy on her shoulders. Before long, fall gives way to the first snows of winter and chaotic schedules become routine.

As the month crawls by, she tries to make time each evening for her friends - the only purely enjoyable part of each day, where she can almost fully shed the mask of Inquisitor and be like someone she recognizes.

Only Solas eludes her, studying every detail of Skyhold’s history from his newly claimed office at the base of the rotunda that houses the library and rookery. She holds his gaze when they pass each other at mealtimes, desperate for a chance to speak with him instead of being whisked to yet another meeting.

It is nearly two weeks before they bump into each other for longer than a moment, and only because she finds herself extremely late to a war council session and has to cut through the rotunda to have even a chance to make it in time.

The chance is lost the moment she enters, her breath catching at the sight that she finds inside.

He’d only really asked for pigment when she pressed her companions for lists of what might make them more comfortable around Skyhold as they settled in. Sera had asked for bees and eight pies and colored pencils, Blackwall a set of whittling tools, and Vivienne had sent away for several armoires to be brought in from her home in Montsimmard.

She’d been surprised by Solas’ request but now she finally understands it. He’s transformed a section of the rotunda already, the fresco of the Inquisition’s symbol and his depiction of what looks like the Breach all cast in the golden candlelight of the circular room.

“Solas, this is -” her steps halt despite how late she is, she has to take in every detail of what he’s done so far, “I had no idea you were a painter.”

“It is something I picked up on some of my journeys,” he explains, scraping a tool she doesn’t know the name of against another as he turns to her, stepping off the stool he’d been using to reach the higher sections of wall. “I found this style in the Fade - it is modeled after how the ancient Elvhen painted in the time of Elvhenan.”

“It’s incredible,” she marvels. “You’ve brought so much life to this room already.”

“Morinne,” she hears Dorian call from the floor above, his voice echoing from the library where she’s sure Fiona and several others are shushing him and rolling their eyes. “Leliana stormed out of here ten minutes ago, darling, which means you’re…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m late, I know,” she shouts up to him, waving her one free hand. She turns back to Solas, his eyes already on her, and says more quietly, “I’m sorry, I feel like I’ve hardly seen you in the last couple of weeks. Clearly, since I missed you beginning a masterpiece down here.”

“Becoming Inquisitor has its demands,” he is patient, the antithesis to her whirlwind, wiping his brushes on a rag he has looped through his belt with the practiced ease of a master. “Demands it sounds like you should see to.”

“I know,” there is no use denying it, he is not someone who would let her avoid anything important. “I want to see to this though. I can’t believe you were hiding this from me all this time.”

She meets his eyes and smiles but finds something she doesn’t understand reflected back, something brief and then it flashes away - replaced with a soft nod and a half smile. Familiar, yet not, briefly haunted by something else she cannot quite place.

“It will be here, as will I.”

—

Their war council of the week ends later into the night than they’ve ever worked, the great hall of Skyhold shockingly quiet given how, since their arrival, it has been full of activity at all hours. Or perhaps that’s just how it seemed when she went to bed at a normal hour. She parts ways with her advisors and yawns her way up to her rooms on the third floor, flopping into the luxurious bed Josephine had managed to procure for her.

And she tries to sleep. It should have been easy, given how busy they’ve been - how much work they’d accomplished in two and a half weeks and yet how much there’s yet to do. Not to mention how much her body had been through over the last few months.

She could blame her body, restless and kicking and fidgeting, but she knows the real problem.

A feather bed is absolutely ridiculous for a Dalish elf and she still has no idea how to explain it to Josephine.

On the nights where dinners lead to wine or ale at the tavern, she can make do and let the drink lead her into a fitful, but eventual sleep - waking far earlier than she ever would in any other environment. One she's more suited to. Tonight is, apparently, no such night.

She slips on the long woolen stockings someone slipped in her chest of drawers to protect against the cold mountain air, stockings she’d reconfigured into socks that reach up to her thighs and cut off both the heels and toes, then grabs a sweater, and makes for the kitchens.

It’s one of the few places in the main keep that she doesn’t feel like she still needs a map to locate on her own, the path memorized quickly in an effort to circumvent her assigned help and fetch her own tea. Having people assigned to help her fetch hot water for baths is helpful, given they’d put her room up three flights of stairs, but she can fetch her own damn tea.

She floats a small ball of light above her hand, entering the most comfortable room in the fortress and letting out a relieved sigh. No part of Morinne is familiar with human kitchens or the customs surrounding their workings, but it’s such a warm and inviting room that she can’t help feeling drawn to it.

“Inquisitor,” she hears a voice say from her side and spins.

“Mythal'enaste,” she gasps in terror, shocked to find Solas sitting on one of the small wood stools and bent over a plate of cookies. She raises a hand to her thundering heart before slamming it on the wooden counters between them, “Ir emah'la shal Solas! Fuck!

It earns her what must be the biggest laugh she’s heard from him yet.

“You scared me, you ass,” she says with a small laugh of her own, unable to keep herself from mirroring his enjoyment before turning and reaching for the kettle. She pauses, then asks “What are you doing down here?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“You can, and I’ll even answer, but I asked first,” she retorts before going to the wall of open shelves filled with various canisters, boxes and jars. It seems about half a labelled, and most are higher up than she is tall. Wonderful.

“I was caught up in a book of history on Skyhold, records of its uses during the third blight, and in turn completely missed dinner,” she hears him say while she rummages. “I made every attempt to sleep but in the end, hunger made her demands of me.”

She pulls out two jaws and pauses, turning and pulling together her eyebrows as she looks at him, his mouth closing around another bite of cookie. “You couldn’t sleep so you decided the best option was to eat a bunch of…sugar? And then you’d have less energy and be better prepared to get some sleep?”

He looks down at his plate, realization visibly dawning as two silent seconds go by. “I…”

“You are so strange,” she laughs and turns back to the shelves, finally settling on what she needs and overfilling her arms with the various containers, tins and jars she needs. She stacks them until her only option is to balance them under her chin, ignoring his furrowed brow as she juggles them between counters.

“What exactly is it that you’re doing?”

“I’m making tea, obviously,” Morinne bites her lip and turns, looking for a mortar and pestle and a teacup. She’s puttered around in the kitchen before, but the staff has been unwilling to share any information on how the damn place runs or where anything is stored. “I couldn’t sleep either. Josie gave me a lovely bed made of feathers, because she forgot I’m used to sleeping on…well, dirt.”

Each cabinet is filled with various implements and tools, all of which she’s sure are very important and valuable but she can’t be sure the exact use of and are assuredly not what she needs right now. She finds teacups eventually, and then a stone bowl that would work well enough, but no pestle.

“Have you seen a mortar and pestle? Or just a pestle?” She asks him, glancing over her shoulder long enough to catch his confused stare.

“I’ll admit, I stopped looking through things once I found the cookies,” he answers.

“Of course you did.”

“What kind of tea are you making? I assume one for sleep?”

She pads back across the kitchen to her pile of gathered supplies and faces him. She can make do without the pestle. “You’ve never had anything but one type of tea?”

“Now that is not what I said,” he quips with the tone that ought to be accompanied by an eyeroll but is surprisingly lacking one. “I was simply engaging with you. Should I refrain from continuing?”

She can’t help the smile that comes to her face, “Fine, fine - it’s an old Dalish recipe.” She opens the first containers and pulls out a pinch of chamomile flowers, adding them directly to the teacup, before remembering to turn and light a small fire under the kettle. He leans forward, watching her from the otherside of the counter from her with a curious look, as she reaches for the valerian root, then thinks of her manners. “Would you like a cup?”

“I loathe tea,” he answers plainly.

“It’s not as bitter as what you’re probably accustomed to,” she counters, digging her nail into the skin of a single stalk of root until the pungent, woody odor comes through. “Though I suppose the smell of this isn’t particularly tempting, but it's the part that actually helps you sleep.”

“Where do you learn to make this?” The question surprises her, and she looks up to find him resting his head on one hand, watching her with a calm expression.

“With my clan,” she answers, “obviously.”

This time, he does roll his eyes, and she can’t help the laugh that comes at the sight - so counterintuitive to what she feels like she knows of him. The stoic hedge mage, the wise and proud apostate - eating cookies in a dark kitchen and rolling his eyes in his sleep pants. Does anyone else ever see this side of him? Is it only for her?

“Fine,” she concedes. “My mother brewed it for me when I had nightmares as a child and refused to go back to sleep. I learned it shortly after I joined clan Lavellan because I still had them and no one would make the tea for me. Happy?”

Only she realizes what she’s said a moment too late, a moment that hangs in the air with more weight than she could have prepared for, because his expression immediately shifts to one between sadness and concern.

“Ah fuck,” she curses, looking down as she grinds the pinch of lavender buds between her fingers and prays for the kettle to squeal at any moment and save her from this one. “Sorry, that was - I shouldn’t have… Well. You asked.”

“I suppose I did, though I promise I didn’t do so with the intent of causing you discomfort -”

“Oh Solas, don’t be ridiculous,” she raises her head and cocks it at him, “You had no idea. Of course you didn’t and I wouldn’t assume you did, because I’m not an ass.”

“No,” his voice is soft as he leans back. “You’re not.”

“I’m so delighted you agree.”

It earns her a huffed laugh. “I realize though that while you have asked me perhaps a thousand questions since our journey together began and I know only scraps about who you were before you were sent to the Conclave.”

“I’m very mysterious,” she winks as she turns, grabbing for the kettle as the steam begins to rise and carefully filling her cup. “And I don’t share details like that unless I know someone is trustworthy. Call it Dalish paranoia. “ She pauses to return the kettle to where it belongs, releasing her magic still binding the small fire to where she’d used it. “I trust you now though, so ask away.”

The smell of the tea whisks her back to times of both comfort and distress but, ultimately, of times with her people. Nights in her own cot, the world around her one she fully knows and understands and can predict. The sound of crickets and the sticky sleep of a humid night spent in a tent only to wake to a morning of dew and cool breezes.

It is almost distracting to watch him and have the scent of her childhood wafting over her at the same time, her sense of place distorted as memories collide with the very real way her heart thunders as she watches him.

“You were traded to clan Lavellan?”

She’s surprised it’s the first question he asks, though she’s not sure what exactly she expected. “Yes, when my magic first…made itself apparent, I was moved to a clan that could accommodate another mage.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight,” she looks down, stirring the valerian root one last time through her tea and removing it to avoid any overpowering bitterness. Morinne clears her throat before continuing, “I was told my mother had been killed in a bandit raid while out gathering…herbs or something? I hardly remember now - and I set fire to an aravel and several baskets of grain before blacking out. They sent me on my way the next morning.”

“That is…monstrous,” his expression reflects the horror in his voice but all she can do is shrug.

“It is the way of things.”

“That doesn’t mean it should be.”

“No,” she sighs, “it doesn’t. But we did not decide that the world would find mages terrifying and unnatural - it is a small blessing we’re allowed to train with our clans at all, rather than be sentenced to life in the circles. I was utterly alone in the world and then I was moved to clan Lavellan and I wasn’t, I had a purpose.”

“You were a child, to send you out on your own to an entirely new group of strangers -”

“I know,” and there is nothing to do but nod as she gazes into his violet eyes, burning with righteous indignation on her behalf. “And that is why I will never claim the Dalish are a perfect people. But they…try and that has to count for something, even when all the other shit is sometimes -”

She has to stop herself, her memories chasing down the path that leads her to shaking, terrible grief she cannot contain and will not let him witness. Her mind reaches to become that little girl again, trying to force her back to that terrible hike to Wycome when she wailed and screamed and pleaded with her escort to take her home. To let her say goodbye, lay the flowers at least and say the prayers because if she didn’t then Falon’Din would forget her mother and it would be all her fault.

Her hands shake as she raises the teacup to her lips and the water, still too hot, and lets the familiar taste burn its way across her tongue. She’s beyond grateful that he doesn’t push the matter further.

“And so you became a First?”

“I became an apprentice, but yes, eventually a First. Lavellan somehow managed to have an ample number of children born during that time but none that manifested any sort of magic, which made me the only choice.”

“I see,” he reaches for another of the strangely green cookies, tearing off a piece, “I recall you mentioning a rather strained relationship with your Keeper.”

“You make it sound so formal and interesting, Solas,” she snorts, and deciding she wants to sit, she brings her teacup around the large counter to where he’s sitting and makes herself as comfortable as possible on the wooden stool at his side. “Keeper Deshanna was only truly fond of a few people, tolerated the rest, and had to deal with me more than anyone. And she absolutely did not want an apprentice when I showed up.”

“Is that not rather incongruous with what is expected of a Dalish Keeper?” She only shrugs in response - she has no memories of any Keeper but Deshanna save those she’s met at Arlathvhens, it’s not like she knows. She watches as he looks down at his plate, the cookies that remain uneaten as his index finger traces the edge of the plate in thought. “Did you not want to become Keeper?”

“That was never about whether or not I wanted it,” she rests her fingertips against the teacup, grounding her mind in the flash of bright pain from the heat radiating through the porcelain - locking her in the present. “It’s simply what has to be.”

“And if it were not? What would you do if you were beholden only to what you wanted?”

“Hmm,” she takes a sip of her tea and considers. I’d kiss you, she thinks immediately, watching the way his eyes follow her, her body aching to touch him again. Realistically though, she’s hardly ever given his question any thought. “I…don’t know. I suppose…” she bites her bottom lip in consideration and his eyes catch on the movement. “I’d spend time doing something like you do, I guess. Seeing the world - joining causes I believe in and aiding those who need it. Burying my nose in books for hours and hours.”

“That is not a particularly extravagant life you’re dream of.”

“Do dreams have to be?”

“I suppose not,” she watches as he shifts slightly, aligning his body more toward hers. “Tell me then, Morinne, what makes you happiest? Your ideal afternoon perhaps?”

She leans forward, resting arms on the table and her chin on both hands, smiling at him, at the thoughtfulness in his voice and in the question and the warmth in his eyes. “Does it have to be real or can I just think up all my favorite things and combine them?”

“Whatever you prefer,” he crosses one leg over the other, resting his chin in one hand to almost mirror her and he becomes the picture of ease.

“Hmm,” her mind goes wild, thinking on what she’d do if she could have anything she wanted. She takes another sip of tea, smiling around her cup as she thinks and watches as he nibbles on another corner of cookie, letting her consider. “I think…a warm afternoon with a cool breeze, somewhere in a shaded meadow - the kind where the light streams through the trees overhead and the leaves look almost golden-green with how they glow - and a very good book. And a slice of warm bread with butter and fresh summer tomato. Oh! And the knowledge that no one expects me to do anything for the rest of the day - I can spend as long as I want in the sun asleep or reading or braiding grass and no one can tell me I should be doing something more useful or important.”

He cocks his head at her a little, his brows furrowing, before shaking his head and asking “Summer tomatoes? Really?”

“There is nothing better than a tomato in the dead of summer, so ripe it might burst the moment you pick it,” she nods, reaching for her tea again now that it’s finally an acceptable temperature. “The smell alone is summer incarnate and the taste…I’ve had tomatoes better than sex, honestly.”

“I’m not entirely sure if that says more about your choice of partners or the tomatoes.”

“Probably both - but the point was the tomatoes. Smartass.”

“Again though, it is not such an unattainable goal,” he lowers his leg, leaning forward slightly as he speaks. “It’s not like you want to spend a day as empress of Orlais.”

“No, I certainly do not want that”, she runs a finger along the edge of her teacup, the valerian root slowly starting to ease the tension from her body and leave her a bit more tired. She almost regrets drinking it so quickly, regrets that the night has to end at all. “What about you though? An ideal afternoon?”

It’s her turn to watch him consider, watch the way his face changes in thought, returning to expressions she knows better than most of his. Solas lifts his thumb to his lips in thought, teeth grazing nail and dragging down his full bottom lip, Morinne momentarily hypnotized by the sight of it.

“I suppose I would love an afternoon dreaming, surrounded by magic and the spirits I call friends.”

“Ah,” she smiled, “I should have known it would be in the Fade.”

“Have I grown so predictable?”

“Perhaps I just pay attention,” Morinne tries, but she can feel the blush that creeps across her cheeks, even as she raises her teacup and drains the last of her tea to try and hide it.
He looks at the empty teacup as she lowers it, and his eyes meet hers once more before he says the dreaded words she knew were coming.

“I should let you get some rest.”

With a sigh, she stands, moving to put away all the fixings for her tea to avoid someone else having to do it for her come daybreak. He does the same, wrapping the plate in the same parchment paper he’d found it in and returning it to the shelf where someone had stored them from dinner.

“Solas…” she says, reaching to place the last tin on its shelf and watching as he turns around, “about what I said…about the Dalish.”

“Yes?”

“I know we’ve disagreed about the practices of my people before but,” she pauses and steps toward him, toward the doorway where he stands ready to walk them both back toward the section of the fortress where their rooms are. “They are not wicked, even if I have had…less than ideal experiences with them at times myself.”

He sighs, looking down at her, close enough she’s almost sure she can smell the cookies on his breath. She watches his jaw tense, but he simply says, “Ma nuvenin, lethallan. I will make every attempt to not add it to my list of grievances.”

“Liar.”

“I will add a note besides it in my list that includes your sentiment.”

“You always have to be so stubborn, don’t you?”

“If you’re just noticing that, perhaps you haven’t actually been paying as close attention as you claim.”

She rolls her eyes but smiles, shaking her head.

They walk down the hall, empty and silent save for their footsteps and the flickering candle lights. Skyhold sleeps, and finally she’s had a moment to speak with him and it is not enough but it is so much more than before.

“Maybe I don’t mind stubborn so much,” she says quietly, without thinking of what the repercussions from an admission like that might do to their already strange relationship.

She knows in her bones that she needs to release Cullen from his want of her because nothing she feels for the Commander comes close to the way her heart hammers in her chest when she looks at this blasted apostate. She has always looked for a tether, someone easy to cling to in unknown situations, and she fully expected that to be Cullen. He looked at her in that way, the one she recognized. The one she knew how to play.

Solas though…she wants to unspool his mind and learn everything he has to offer before claiming his mouth with her own and seeing how experienced he might be in other ways, outside the Fade. She wants to be enveloped in his broad chest, claimed by those strong but lithe arms, marked by him alone. It is past logic and reason at this point. Something has to be done.

“If that is true,” he murmurs, turning to her before they part - him returning to his room off the rotunda and her to the suite upstairs - “I should consider myself very lucky.”

Her heart hammers in her chest. She could kiss him, she thinks for the hundredth time, but if he kisses her back, she might try to take him to bed. It’s right upstairs after all. And that is a terrible decision, at least right now. Not to mention what happens if he doesn’t kiss her back…

Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow, she will tell him that what she feels for him is…more. She will find the words before she does, find a way to make it sound poetic and worthy of him.

For now though, she simply says, “Goodnight, Solas,” and forces herself upstairs before she can think better of it.

Chapter Text

Solas

Sleep finds him quickly. What surprises him is that she does as well.

He’s found her dreams before, but it is the first time her consciousness calls out and finds his, brushing against him like a cat might against a leg. He cannot see what her spirit might be but it is aglow in green and gold light, unusual and magnificent, and likely wholly unaware.

The first place he thinks to offer her, to give her some comfort in what is likely her first experience like this, is Haven. It’s familiar to them both, he reasons. Comfortable. Whether or not she will immediately realize she’s in the Fade in such a situation is a concern, but either way he isn’t looking to scare her.

For some reason, he finds himself outside the gates of Haven, though he rarely spent time by the lake or the stables while they lived in the village. The Fade has a mind of its own it seems though, so he strolls to the stone steps and waits, watching for her to join him.

She catches his eye to the right, over by the stables. She’s leaning against the fence where a single horse stands, the creation of her mind not his, and he watches her reach out to bet its nose before turning.

Haven’s golden light is different through the magic of the fade, making it all the more rich and vibrant against the backdrop of snow and pine. Her dark hair, undoubtedly unbound before she fell asleep, blows in the breeze and golden light, the smile she turns his way brilliant. It’s only then that he notices she’s also in a nightdress, cut and fitted to her body in a Dalish style, along with the same stockings she’d worn in the kitchen.

Solas watches her hop off the fence and dart to him, bouncing on her feet in the same way she had when she earned Varric’s nickname.

“Why are you out here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re never out here,” her voice is light, dreamlike. “Or are you? I’m sorry, I feel so…I’m not quite sure.”

Ah, she has no idea she’s asleep. He will have to be gentle with her mind then, to keep from making things too jarring for her.

“Should I leave?”

“Don’t you dare,” she grins, her hand resting on his arm for a moment. The cruelty of the Fade keeps him from being able to feel her warmth, to feel the truth in that touch. “Walk with me?“

He supposes he can work with that, if that’s what she believes should happen next. “Ma nuvenin.”

The gates open on their own accord, or rather by his urging, but she doesn’t question it as they walk up the hill and toward the Chantry. Haven will always be important to her, to them, and to give her another moment in this place is the smallest gift he can offer her given all he has taken. All he will still have to take before it is over.

“Tell me of those first days,” the request catches him off guard, and then her arm loops through his. “About you in those first few days.”

“You were there,” he tries, distracted by the eagerness in her touch, “we shared a tent, if you recall.”

“No, not then,” they walk and it is easy and she is smiling and he has to remind himself it is only a dream, that everything is easier in the Fade, “when it all started. When you studied the anchor. That very first day.”

He almost loathes to remember his mindset of that first day, given how different everything feels now. He also loathes how distracted he’s become.

“Very well, Inquisitor,” he says her title playfully and it earns him a wrinkled nose but a huff of laughter. They walk to where he’d first seen her and the Fade builds the scene for them as he remembers it. Haven’s dungeon, cold and dank, the rushing noise of panicked soldiers and villagers, the thunderous Breach overhead. She doesn’t question it, just watches him, wholly engrossed in the dream.

“They brought you here,” he began, gesturing to the floor where there had been a cot. He paces around it, just as he had around her. “Unconscious but otherwise fine, save for the mark. I sat beside you while you slept, studying the anchor.”

“I’m lucky you were watching over me,” she says from the doorway, leaning against the stone wall.

“You were a mystery,” he retorts, as if it’s some sort of explanation. “You still are. I ran every test I could imagine, searched the Fade, yet found nothing. Cassandra suspected duplicity - that perhaps we were working together and I was also involved in the explosion at the Conclave. She threatened to have me executed as an apostate if I didn’t produce results.”

“Ah, but she’s like that with everyone.”

At this, he can’t help but laugh. “True.” He guides her from the cramped room, back down the dark hallway and out of the Chantry, into the sunlight once more. He squints against it, continuing, “You were never going to wake up. How could you, a mortal sent physically through the Fade? I was…frustrated, frightened, and any spirits I might have gone to for aid were driven away by the Breach. I had no faith in Cassandra, nor she in me.”

“But you stayed.”

“I watched the rifts expand and grow, resigned myself to flee, and then -”

The Fade shifts around them, crackling and green, recreating the memory with such vivid accuracy he cannot help but raise her hand and recreate the moment - her first sealed rift.

“You sealed it with a gesture,” he lets go of her hand, turning to her again and speaking before he can think better of his words, “and right then, I felt the whole world change.”

The perpetual wind of Haven blows her hair across her face but it is not enough to hide her reaction to his words, her cheeks flushing.

“Felt the whole world change?”

She takes a step forward, her head cocking to the side and her lips lifting in a coy smile. How selfish he is to want this, to want her, to risk everything for the way his spirit clammors at the sight of her. A magnetic pull he can hardly explain and ought to deny, ought to fight.

“A figure of speech,” he tries, but it feels useless. He doesn’t want to deny this any longer, foolish as it is for him to think she might want him. He has seen her smile at Cullen, at Blackwall and Dorian. It makes infinitely more sense for her to want any of them more than him.

“I’m aware of the metaphor, I’m more interested in what you felt.”

“You change…everything.” It is too much and it will never be enough. She will never understand just how vast the statement is either. Perhaps she won’t read into it though and he can excuse himself or return to his studies with her as his friend, knowing she chose another. It would be better that way - easier in nearly every respect.

He looks back out into the village, forcing himself to look away from her in an effort to find a shred of self-control.

“Sweet talker,” she says, stepping to his side, close enough he can feel the press of her arm against his. The snow dances idly in the wind, the Fade giving life to the village in ways he should appreciate. But then he feels her shift, and fingers tentatively meeting his jaw, pulling his attention from the view and back to her.

Morinne has to pull him down to her, but she is gentle as she does, then her mouth meets his.

It is quick but not wholly chaste, her lips parting softly - wet and full and entirely for him. His surprise does not translate to hesitation, this is a want he hasn’t let himself dwell on for fear of what he might do if he did. Now though, his mouth opens against hers - his heart triumphant in his chest.

They connect for only a moment before she pulls away, eyes wide with what she’s done. Pools of icy blue meeting his and then a soft, almost bashful smile splits her face as she pulls her hands from his neck, releasing him from her hold. He can almost see the thoughts forming as she does, the exquisite way that strange mind of hers works, nervous she’s done something wrong.

He shakes his head because she hasn’t done anything wrong, she has given him everything. And he may be a fool for letting himself want this, but he is just a man. A selfish, wanting man.

It is too much and it will never be enough.

Solas grabs for her hips as he lowers his mouth to hers, pulling her into him, pressing her body flush against his and holding her as he claims her mouth with his own. She gasps in surprise when her core meets his and it awakens some animalistic part of him, one hand moving to her neck to feel more of her as his lips devour hers, the other moving to slide along the curve of her hip. He almost thanks the Dalish for their choice in nightgown design when he finds it cut high up her leg, his hand meeting soft skin.

He begs for entry with his tongue and she grants it, moaning sinfully into his mouth and fuel on the bonfire of his want. One of Morinne’s hands tangles in his tunic, the other wrapping around his neck to hold him to her - clinging so he can’t pull away and end this, not yet. He wouldn’t dare.

There is some part of him that knows this could be the last kiss of his life, of all his long years. It is a good one to end on, he thinks. Wrapped in the arms of this wonderful woman, beautiful and terrifying and brilliant, her fingernails raking lines down his scalp and leaving goosebumps in their wake.

But if it is his last, it will not be hers, of that he is certain. So for her, and for his own selfish pride, he will make it memorable for them both.

He aligns her over his thigh, pulling her body tight to his, letting her grind against him so he might earn yet another of her wickedly beautiful moans. When she nips at his bottom lip, biting gently before sucking it into her mouth, it’s his turn to groan for her - wanton and unrestrained.

It is a cruelty of the Fade that he cannot feel her warmth or lose himself in her scent, that the press of her through his leggings does not leave behind heat and he cannot memorize the smell of her neck or her hair.

Finally, they break apart, gasping for air. She is still positioned over this thigh and his hands don’t leave the tangle of her hair, they simply pant together. Chests heaving in time, eyes wild and lips swollen from the intensity of their kiss.

Solas tries to right himself then her without having to disentangle too thoroughly, before taking her face in his hands and kissing her once more - allowing himself one last chance to be lost in her lips. He is more gentle this time, pouring every ounce of passion and desire into one final, glorious kiss.

Some part of him expected to be respected by her to some extent, perhaps even friends with her, especially as the weeks in Haven moved on. Being wanted like this, with such intensity that she knots one hand in the cords of his talisman, the other wrapping around his waist - no part of him had anticipated it.

“We shouldn’t,” he says, shaking his head as some meager clarity returns to him, but not enough to keep him from tightening his grip on her waist and pressing the words into her jaw, her neck. “It’s not right.”

“Solas,” she moans and he feels the aching hardness between his legs pulse at his name on her lips. “How can this be wrong? I’ve wanted this for ah -” she stops to shudder a hiss of pleasure as he whispers a kiss up the length of her ear, “- wanted you for months.”

“Any longer like this and we’ll attract desire demons,” he says, pulling away slightly but not letting go. He knows he must and yet he cannot bear to let go.

She doesn’t either, but her eyes widen in sudden understanding as she looks around Haven again, “This isn’t real…”

“That’s a matter of debate,” he chuckles, leaning forward once more, unable to resist one final press of his lips against her skin before whispering, “probably best discussed after you wake up.”

Her cheek turns toward his in surprise as the dream dissolves around them and she melts from his arms.

The command tears him from the Fade as well, though it wasn’t necessarily his intention, and reality returns to him in a flood of darkness. Stark, compared to the brilliant afternoon of Haven and the cream and freckled skin of Morinne’s neck. The fluttering of her pulse under his lips, the way her body curved into his every touch.

She’d wanted him for months…

Her body against his had left him aching, needy, and being pulled from the Fade did nothing to soothe the desperate hardness still heavy between his legs. He is no stranger to physical connection, to the song and dance of desire and sex, the way his body might hum and pulse around another.

It’s been millennia though. He hadn’t bothered with pursuing anyone since awaking from uthenera - not that he’d had time - and it had become easy to simply disregard this part of himself. Despite that, his body has no hesitations in how to respond now.

He lets a hand wander down his chest, and then decides to sate his lust rather than go mad with it. Or rather, it is the thought that she might be upstairs, her own hand dancing between wet folds in the aftermath of their shared dream, reaching her own gasping peak at the memory of his mouth, that has him groaning as he takes his cock in hand.

Normally, in ages past, he might have started with oil in moments like these, but he is ready enough just from the dream. There is some part of him that should feel guilty for this, he’s sure of it, some part that should be screaming about how he knows better and how this is folly. A part of him he chooses to ignore as he strokes the length of his shaft, muffling his groans with his fist, his hips lifting at the first pleasurable touch he’s allowed himself in memory.

The images of her kiss-swollen lips and mussed hair sustain him until his mind wanders to what those lips might look like in an open mouthed moan or suckling on his fingers. What else had the Fade masked of her? He wanted to know the taste of her skin as he left her flushed and needy, as sweat pooled between her breasts, exactly where he might lick before moving to what he imagined must be perfect, pert nipples.

His hand speeds up as his mind works down her body, his fist twisting and tightening as his rhythm grows unpredictable and rushed. He would kiss along the inside of her thighs til she jumps and squeals and begs, and then he would descend upon her. He wants to hear her cry his name as she comes, the taste of her on his mouth, flooding his senses. His teeth bite down on his bottom lip almost to the point of pain as he imagines Morinne’s taste, honey and salt and perfection, her heat tight on his fingers as she comes undone.

The fantasy doesn’t even reach a conclusion before he spends himself, the warmth of his want spilling and pulsing over his fist as he imagines blue, wide eyes as he takes her. The moan that echoes off the stone walls of his room kin to what he imagines he might sound like if given the chance to take her to bed, to feel her clench around him for the first time.

There’s no energy left for shame by the time he cleans himself up and pulls his sleep pants back up, settling into the warmth of his bed once more. All he has is the knowledge that he cannot allow himself to have her, despite how desperately he might want to.

Tomorrow, he promises himself. He will explain that it went too far, that he’s sorry, he was wrong, that they are companions on this journey and pursuing anything further might risk how important it is that they complete this task. It will be a small heartbreak compared to what would be demanded down the line should he see her further.

Tomorrow, he repeats as he finds his eyes growing heavy once more. Tomorrow, he will be a better man, he will set her free so she might find someone worthy of her - someone who can love her as she deserves. Tomorrow he will force himself to admit that will never - can never be him.

But for tonight, he goes back to the Fade, and lets himself dream of her once more, lost in the whirl of memories all his own.

—

He sits at breakfast, a bowl of oats with nuts and dried berries before him, listening to Bull and Blackwall discuss their morning training, when she appears. Alongside Josephine, apple in hand, they march up to Leliana, chatting quickly but quietly. He cannot make out their words from his end of the table, only expressions. Cassandra seems to be craning her neck to watch for what they might be doing as well, before turning to him.

“Have you seen Varric this morning?”

“No, not this morning,” he says, his eyes shifting to the seeker only momentarily. He shouldn’t be staring, it will be too obvious if anyone chooses to suddenly consider him worthy of attention. Or rather, if she looks his way.

Leliana makes to stand, obstructing his view, and Josephine marches toward the war council room. As the spymaster turns, Morinne finally meets his eye, biting her lip to contain her smile as a blush quickly heats her cheeks. She only gives him a very quick wink and turns, following her advisors, and then she is gone.

He spends the rest of the day pacing, waiting for her to appear, practicing how he will let her down. He gives a strong attempt at productivity but is mostly useless aside from a game of chess with Dorian and a brisk run with Blackwall. He sits by the fire in the Great Hall even, attempting to read, expecting he might catch a glimpse of her in passing. Enough to grab her attention for a moment, that’s really all he needs.

Of course it is when he returns to the rotunda after dinner, resigned to speak with her tomorrow, that she finally appears - sitting on his desk, legs swinging. She is in a deep red blouse, an unusual color for her, and it is mesmeric in contrast to her cool eyes and dark hair.

She looks up as he enters, surprise undoubtedly crossing his face and a radiant smile lighting hers.
He is ruined.

“Sleep well?” The question falls from his lips before he can think better of it, but he’s lucky that based on her raised eyebrow in response, it must sound coy.

“I’ve never done anything like that before,” she says, her voice low to avoid others on the floors above them from hearing, “on a number of levels.”

He moves to stand across from her, keeping his arms crossed behind his back, but she hops off the desk and pulls him across the rotunda, into the small alcove before his bedroom door. It is the only shred of privacy the circular space offers without actually moving into his chambers.

This close though, her body almost touching his again, makes it much harder to think. And then she raises her hands to his chest again, moves them up his shoulders, want clear in her darkening pupils.

“It was impulsive,” he says, reaching for her wrists, knowing he has to stop her. Knowing he doesn’t want to. “I shouldn’t have encouraged it. I apologize. We have to work together, after all, and -”

“You say that,” she tilts her head and her smile is wicked, “but you’re the one who started with tongue.”

“I did no such thing,” he teases, his hands still closed around her wrists. She is warm. She smells of elderflower and mint and the red wine he’s sure she had with dinner. It’s the first time he realizes she’s wearing her hair differently, braided in half a crown, half of it spilling over her shoulders in loose waves. Is it for him?

“It doesn’t count if it’s fade tongue?” Eyes flicker to his mouth, her chest heaving a deep breath and the movement is enough to draw his eyes to her breast. Torment, agony, he loathes to deny her this - to deny himself…

“Was it true?” Solas asks, because he has to know, just this one thing. His eyes meet hers again “That you’d been thinking of it for months?”

He lets go of her wrists but Morinne only slides them down his body gently, loosely wrapping them around his waist in a gentle embrace for a moment before letting go. “Yes. I just didn’t think there was any way you’d want me back.”

“Then it seems we are both fools.” How can he tear himself from her - the first good thing he’s been afforded in millennia? “I am not certain this is the best idea; it could lead to trouble.”

“I’m willing to take that chance. If you are.” There is no hesitation in her answer.

There is more than enough hesitation for both of them in his. “I…maybe, yes. If I could take a little time to think. There are…considerations.”

“Take all the time you need.”

She says it to him with softness, kindness. He doesn’t deserve it, but receives it like a glutton anyway. He asks her to stay with him, to talk with him, to just be here. It’s also more than he deserves, more than he told himself he’d take. There is no hesitation in her answer this time either.

She stays and talks until the wee hours of the morning, until she can barely keep her eyes open for yawning so frequently, her voice hoarse with overuse. Her toes are buried under his leg for warmth, his pelt around her shoulders once more.

She is the key to their salvation, he was not incorrect that first day. Morinne has become more though, more than a key to the single lock, but a key to them all. And as she lays, asleep at his side on the chaise, he realizes how much he’d kept locked away for a reason.

Chapter Text

Morinne

Her hands are numb with both cold and the endless magic poured into the Fade to seal the countless rifts across Crestwood in an attempt to keep the undead and demons at bay amidst the torrent of freezing rain. It had been briefly exciting, leaving Skyhold all together and getting back into the field to do some good, and then they’d arrived. Crestwood, she decides, is just a step above the Void in terms of places she’d like to come back to.

She notices on the third morning of trudging from cave to cave, hoping for any respite from the onslaught, that only her boots remain dry. Later that night, she finds a rune carved in the heel of each boot. It could only have been put there by Solas, and only on the first night - sometime before they all split up and spread out to cover what needed to be done across this hellish stretch of countryside.

Creators, how she wishes she’d brought Solas with her, wishing she could go to his bedroll whisper her thanks. Come up with some small and indecent way to tease him just a little, just enough, before sauntering back to her own bed for the night.

But she’d needed him on the team with the others, despite her selfish wants. There’d been a very clear division of who needed to come with her to meet Hawke and his warden, and she couldn’t ignore what needed to be done. They made her the leader. She had to act like it.

So she lays restless in a damp cave, listening to the howling storm winds outside and Blackwall’s snores echoing off the stone walls, and tries to keep her mind from drifting to thoughts of Solas’ lips on her neck. To his hands moving up her hips til he finds bare skin, slipping up the cut in her nightgown, his thigh pressing against her heat, whispered words against her ear in his luscious, perfect voice.

Morinne groans quietly and turns over, pressing her face into her makeshift pillow. The stone floor of the cave is rough and will leave her back sore in the morning before they begin the hike to reunite with the rest of their companions in Caer Bronach, which has hopefully been retaken. It will also hopefully mean sleeping under a more real roof - a luxury she never thought she’d have grown so used to, especially so quickly. The Inquisition has spoiled her.

He’ll be there too. He won’t have decided yet, of that she’s sure, despite wishing otherwise. Ten days since that night and she has no idea what it is he’s waiting for, what he needs to decide - he’s made no indications and given no hints. She’d have spent every night on the trek to Crestwood in his tent, letting him consider all over her body if he’d let her, but it became quickly clear he was not the type of man to behave in such a way. And even if she liked that about him, it left her needy. Confused. Distracted.

She could not afford distractions. Maybe that was what he wanted to consider - if she could handle the responsibilities of being Inquisitor and a romance without faltering. It would hardly be fair if so, but he was certainly the type to hold her to such standards.

So annoying. He is so, so annoying. And smart, and strange, and handsome in a way she’s never seen before, and he makes her think. He’s so far from perfect, but that’s what makes him so fun to argue with, to tease and challenge.

She wants to be beautiful in his eyes. She wants to know what his cock tastes like. She wants…him, all of him, so desperately it is more annoying than anything else.

It doesn’t help that she’s wound title as a spring, her body thrumming for a release she can’t chase given the complete and utter lack of privacy to be found in the last few days. Exhaustion should make sleep easy, but the aching in her core, desperate for touch - his touch - counteracts the days of fighting and planning and freezing.

If only this blasted mark could slip her into the Fade so she could get some rest on command, that would be useful. Until then, she forces her eyes closed and imagines leaping halla and counts them until she loses the words in elven to do so, then switches to every word she can think of until eventually, finally, she loses herself in sleep.

—

Harding hands her a ceremonial flag, embroidered with the icon of the Inquisition, and she raises it over their new fortress. It is a strange feeling, to walk in and know that she had nothing to do with it’s capture, she did not directly spill this blood to claim these stones, but they waited for her anyway. The Herald lays claim. The Inquisitor conquers.

Morinne goes to pour a reluctant drink.

Harding explains that the Caer will become something of an outpost in the region, and scouting parties from towns nearby are on their way to reconvene alongside Leliana’s scouts and agents bearing news and assignments.

“She sent word, I’m to move forward to Orlais - there’s unrest brewing in the Dales,” Harding explains, setting her own ale down on one of the tables they've commandeered and brought into a central area. “Something about undead and chevalier’s that’s important enough to aiding Orlais the Nightingale believes we should look into it.”

“Understood. Thank you for all your work out here, Harding. I know it’s been unpleasant.”

“Nothing I can’t handle, Inquisitor,” the dwarf smiles, then makes her way to the table other scouts and agents Morinne only half remembers the names of.

She presses cold fingers into her eyes, sighing and letting her exhaustion take root for only a moment before squaring her shoulders and moving to where her companions sit. More are spread between the two tables on this side of the room, save for Solas who stands against the far wall, book in hand and pipe resting thoughtfully against his lower lip, and Cole, who appears to be half-asleep under one of the tables, much to Sera’s irritation. Bottles of wine from the Bandits litter the tables amidst dusty liquor they’d happened upon in the various hidden places across Crestwood, all open and flowing.

Where to even begin?

She cracks her knuckles, “Alright, before we get too drunk after a week of being cold and wet, let’s talk about next steps.”

“Boooo!”

“Thanks, Sera,” she raises an empty glass of what she expects to be whiskey to her lips but is something older and somehow both sweeter and worse. “Alright, I have to head back to Skyhold and -”

“You have to close that rift in the lake or this place keeps sucking forever,” Bull counters, an arm extending to the general direction of the lake from where they all sit.

“The Iron Bull is correct,” Solas chimes in, his voice thoughtful, “the trouble caused by the undead seems to be significantly worsened by that central rift. Without closing it, these people remain in serious danger.”

“We did that on the way here once we saw the lake had been drained,” she waves a hand in dismissal. “Thank you for that, by the way. There were some Dwarven ruins under the lake that might be worth investigating further, if some of you want to go back and dig through them for anything of interest.”

“Damn, nevermind then. You’re way ahead of us, boss.”

“Some of us kept working while you opened every bottle in Crestwood,” she smiles and takes another drink, grimacing at the taste. “Alright, like I said, tomorrow I have to return to Skyhold.”

“Why do you say that like we’re not returning with you?”

“We sent Hawke and our Warden contact ahead of us, but have to follow to ensure we have a plan on what happens next with -”

“It’s was Hawke!” Cassandra shouts, standing and waving an angry finger at Varric. “I knew you’d been lying all along, you snake!”

“Creators preserve me,” Morinne groans, lowering her head to the table.

“I actually think you’re the one who’s supposed to deal with this, your Inquisitorialness!” Varric shouts at her from where he’s begun dancing between tables, avoiding Cassandra’s wrath.

That’s a fair point, but she’d spent a week in wet leathers, skin pickling and sore, exhaustion second only to the bone deep cold of the perpetual freezing rain of this awful area.

So fine, they want her to handle it - she’ll handle it. In her own, exhausted, stupid way.

She picks up the nearest sealed wine bottle and throws it at the opposite wall, shattering it on the stones.

“Enough.”

She watches every set of eyes fix on her in surprise, some tentatively darting to the wine-soaked wall behind her.

“Cassandra, this is unworthy of you. And you can chase Varric all the way back to Skyhold and yell at him every moment if it means you stop tonight,” she flexes her left hand, still numb from closing three rifts on the hike here. “I need Dorian with me as well. I’m hoping the rest of you will remain here for another week - I know, Sera, I’m sorry - and aid the villagers as they get back on their feet. You will have all the assistance of the incoming Inquisition forces, so it may not take that long. You’ll be home for Solstice. Questions?”

“Hmm - complaints?” Dorian teases with a wry smile. She only has the energy to flip him a vulgar gesture in return, earning a laugh from Bull and Sera.

“We’ll get it done, Boss,” Bull offers simply, nodding to her with a kind smile. She hears vague grumblings from Sera, unsurprisingly, but ignores them. Morinne only nods and thanks him in return, then turns to finally pour herself a real drink.

Only she doesn’t want wine or any of this ancient liquor, does she?

“Varric,” she calls across the table, “did you bring your pipe?”

“Chuckles has it, but you’re always welcome to it, Bunny,” he says, laughing at Cassandra’s still irritated expression. “I should take that back though, given that you’ve given the seeker free reign to kill me in my sleep on the way home.”

“I’ll protect you, Varric,” Morinne promises, and kisses his cheek as she goes by.

“Quite the show of force,” Solas says as she approaches, setting his book down on a nearby barrel. “Am I to believe the bottle had it coming?”

“At least share some smoke before you start mocking,” she pouts and sidles up to his side, probably closer than is wise with such an audience - but then, does she care? Does he? She’d kiss him before all of them without question, now that she actually gives it some thought, but she has no doubt he’s not the type for such a display.

“How was your meeting?”

“Long and mostly productive, though not altogether encouraging. Getting back through the bandits and beasts was the real challenge. How was capturing this dump?”

He huffs a small laugh at that, watching her take a deep inhale of the earthy smoke and letting it wash over her senses. “Getting through those bandits and beasts to get here wasn’t particularly easy either. Overwhelming who remained when we did was bloody, but overall, resulted in a fairly easy victory.”

“Several elven statues scattered throughout the hills though.”

“I noticed that,” he takes the pipe back when she offers, “there’s a beautiful grove that appears to have once been dedicated to Ghilan’nain we stumbled upon. It was invested with wyvern, but once we finished them off, it was rather peaceful.”

“Wyvern?” She glances up at him, trying not to focus on the way his lips curve around the mouthpiece of the pipe. “Shit, those are dangerous.”

“As opposed to the docile red templars? The jovial and welcoming undead?”

“I’m relieved to know you’re a smartass with everyone, otherwise I’d feel so hurt by your mocking words, Solas.”

He bumps her hip with his, looking down at her with a soft smile. The pipe is hers again and it is damp from his lips and the taste is hot and sharp but like a heavy blanket that covers her tired bones. He offers a small amount of warmth at her side where they are nearly touching and it is enough to wake and heat her entire body.

“I am now going to ask you a selfish, foolish question,” he says quietly, looking dead ahead for the first time since she walked over.

“I’m terrified and intrigued,” she replies, nudging him with her shoulder in return, an attempt at levity.

“Did you send me from your side because I needed time? To consider…what this might be? Between us?”

The question takes her by surprise and she looks up at him, heart sinking in her chest. “Solas…”

Her mind whirls with thoughts of what she said when she split their party into two groups that first night in New Crestwood, if perhaps she said something that might make him think such a thing. Nothing comes to mind, just her desperate attempts at self control and normalcy.

Had she over-corrected?

He just glances down at her, brows furrowed and eyes dark, sad. Haunted by something she can’t name.

“I am…” she pauses and shakes her head, lost for words and damning the elfroot that clouds her thoughts, “I am so unbelievably sorry if I said something to make you think that, I -”

“You did not specifically, no.”

“Have you spent all week thinking that?”

“It has not been the only thing on my mind, if that is what you mean.” A blush spreads over his cheeks. A mix of elfroot and maybe embarrassment, a feeling she knows all too well.

“Do you want to know what I thought of?”

He looks down at her, still flushed up to the tips of his ears. His voice is a warning she knows she won’t heed. “Morinne…”

“I spent the days wishing I could look away from the arguments and tedious conversations to see you scrunching your nose or rolling your eyes,” she smiles, pressing slightly closer and lowering her voice before adding, “and at night, I had try and force myself to think of anything but you so I wouldn’t wake Hawke and Blackwall with sounds of exactly how much I had been thinking of you…”

She bites her lip and grins, watching as her words wash over him, his eyes closing softly as he leans his head back against the cold, stone wall. “I am starting to believe you were sent to the Conclave specifically to torment me, you wicked woman.”

“Do not doubt that I want you by my side, Solas,” Morinne says, taking the pipe from him once more, letting her cold fingers graze his as she takes it from him. “For more than just that I mean. I wanted to bring you with me, but I want to give you the space to make the decision you need to. I will respect whatever you want. I also have this whole Inquisitor thing going on where I have to make decisions for the benefit of the world and not just my heart, it’s silly really.”

“I told you it was selfish,” he watches her raise the pipe to her lips again, but he looks less tense. Less haunted. The warmth lingering in his cheeks certainly helps.

“You can be selfish with me,” she replies through a mouth full of smoke then glances out to where everyone else sits, starting a game of cards, laughing, drinking. No one looks their way, so she tentatively puts a hand on his side, gently, affectionately.

He hisses in response.

“What?” Her brows narrow in concern, mirroring the way his do in pain. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m healing,” he counters, though it is far from believable.

“Poorly, it would seem,” she touches him again, earning her a glare and a wince. “What did you do?!”

“It’s nothing,” Solas insists.

“Inquisitor,” Cassandra’s approaches and the ancient Caer’s floors groan with each step. “I would like to speak with you, if you have a moment.”

“Did he get hurt at some point this week?” She demands of the seeker, pointing at Solas.

“I’m fi -” Morinne pokes his side again and he lurches away from her touch, groaning. “Ah, witch…”

“He’s very clearly fine, as you can see, and yet I can’t help but feel like something happened. Call me crazy. Or, I don’t know, a witch.”

“I must admit, I am not sure,” Cassandra’s eyes flicker between them both, confused for a moment. “You did heal yourself after the final skirmish here, did you not, Solas? I thought I saw that, but I might have been mistaken.”

“As I said,” his voice is rough through gritted teeth, his annoyance directed solely at Morinne, “I am quite fine.”

“You know what, that’s grand, I will deal with you later then.” She passes him back the pipe and pats him on the shoulder before giving him a quick glower, a promise that this isn’t over, and pulls Cassandra away.

“I wanted to apologize, Inquisitor. For my outburst, it was…childish of me. Varric knew how important it was that we bring Hawke in before the Conclave, yet he lied. And I swallowed those lies, I was such a fool -”

Morinne can only snort softly in response, “Have you looked at this group, Cassandra? We’re a bunch of fools. Lucky, talented fools, sure. But fools.”

Cassandra chokes out a small laugh. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Maybe just…more at home?”

“I do not want you to believe that my anger at Varric is a reflection on you as our leader,” she continues after a deep breath. “Maybe if we’d found Hawke or the Hero of Ferelden, the Maker wouldn’t have needed to send you. But he did, and you have not led us astray.”

“I’m certainly trying to avoid that, yes,” Morinne offers. “Just…don’t kill Varric til after all this is finished, alright? We still need him, frustrating as that might be right now.”

“I will deal with him in the morning.”

“Good enough for me.”

She settles beside Blackwall, watching the warden shuffling a deck of cards and letting the elfroot numb her tired bones and the tangle of feelings she has for Solas - who has stopped sulking against the wall and moves to join the game.

“Diamondback or wicked grace?” Blackwall asks, pausing to take a deep pull of his whiskey. She’s momentarily transfixed by the way the amber liquid gets caught in his mustache and shimmers in the candlelight, like liquid glass.

“I’m surprised you’re willing to try diamondback again after our last game,” Solas smirks, pouring his own glass and taking a drink. The pipe seems to have made its way back to Varric, she notes with a small pang of disappointment. Not that she needs any more.

“We’ll skip the stripping this time, if you don’t mind.”

“Stripping? Really? You two?”

“Bastard beat me the same night I taught him the damned game,” Blackwall huffs, divvying out the cards between them. Sera and Dorian join and sit beside and across from her, watching the game unfold. “Had nothing to walk back to my quarters with but a bucket for my bits.”

She raises her eyebrows in surprise and can’t help the smile that comes to her face as she looks to Solas, holding back his own proud grin. Morinne would bet anything it hadn’t actually been his first time playing, the scoundrel.

“Why wouldn’t you just put your clothes on first, you daft tit?”

“That’s just part of the game, Sera, you’d understand if you ever played.”

“Pbbbbth, you just want me out of my knickers,” Sera elbows him twice, wagging her eyebrows, “but only Lady Inquisitor can make such demands of me. Actually, Cassandra could too if she weren’t so scary and serious.”

“Ugh,” is all Cassandra deigns to add.

Solas looks down at his cards, one hand moving to his mouth as he considers his options, and then he looks to her. Amidst the conversations happening at the table, the laughter and chatter and games, it is like it all freezes between them for a moment.

His eyes meet hers and she knows it’s the elfroot or the drink again, knows she needs to stop muddling her senses when she’s around him, but she swears time stands still for a fraction of a second. The anchor buzzes in her palm, her body tightens around nothing, her heart pounds.

She looks away first. The game begins around her.

Cole is the first to retreat to his room, followed by Cassandra, and then Sera falls asleep on her arms at the table, huffing softly and drunkenly.

“Alright, I’ll carry the little one off to bed,” Bull offers, standing and stretching. “No one tells her though, or she’ll make a stink.”

“Goodnight,” Morinne says quietly before standing and moving to clean up the remainder of the wine and extra cards lying around. Corks return to bottles, not necessarily the ones they belong to but close enough, caps are sealed, and she lines them up against the far wall for those that will remain for the next few days.

“At least we all get rooms tonight,” Varric says, moving to stand and grabbing a few bottles to help her. “Been a while since we slept without Blackwall’s nightly chorus.”

At that, she can’t help but snort, “Here, here.”

They all go off to the various parts of the Caer where they’ve managed to find enough rooms for everyone, scattered through the small keep. All but Morinne.

She makes to leave, then hesitates and turns, tip-toeing behind Solas. Keeping her distance, far enough that his addled senses don’t catch her, a hallway or so behind him at all times. When he disappears behind a large wooden door, clicking and locking it shut, she waits what feels like a full minute before rapping on the door.

“What - ?” Solas asks, opening the door a crack, then further when he realizes it’s her. “What precisely do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m healing you, smartass, let me in,” but she doesn’t wait and shoves her way through, dropping the last good bottle of whiskey on the small table just inside. “Lift up your tunic.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She has to keep herself from stomping her foot like a child in frustration. “You’re hurt and you’re being an ass about it, let me help you.”

“Morinne, I’ve healed myself, and you’ve had to much of the leaf -”

“Don’t start,” she narrowed her eyes and then lunges, reaching for his side again. They collide softly, but enough that he groans and she realizes, a moment too late, that she’s pressed against him almost completely. She pulls back before quietly exclaiming, “see!”

“I’ve decided actually, I don’t want you,” but he has a smug, teasing smile that splits his face. A rare, beautiful, full smile. “You’re being a literal pain.”

“Take your shirt off, you pest.”

“Are all Dalish women so cruel?” But he reaches with one arm and tugs his tunic off with one easy motion. Or at least it appears easy until she sees the inflamed gash, half healed but half visibly fighting against whatever magic he’d used to quickly heal it.

She meets his eyes just to give him a sharp glare but then her eyes lower and catch on his chest, the wide, strong shoulders that give way to slim hips, all dotted with constellations of the same freckles she’s so fond of on his nose and cheeks.

“Fenedhis,” she murmurs, letting out a deep breath and directing her eyes back to the wound so he might not notice the blush that she’s sure spreads from ear to ear. At least she’d hoped, until he chuckles in response. “Alright, alright, don’t get too full of yourself.”

“Let me enjoy at least a little of this,” he moves to the center of the room and lights the fire, casting the room in more light so she can better see the extent of the cut.

“Uh huh, next time I’ll get my tits out and we’ll see how composed you stay,” but she follows him and gently angles his body so more light is directly on the section of injured flesh. “What did you do, Solas?”

“It was a simple blade,” he sighs, “I healed it. I’m not sure why it is still so uncomfortable.”

“You healed it immediately? During the fight?”

“Right after.”

“So you didn’t clean it?”

“No, but it was a simple blade. I’ve healed wounds like this hundreds of times.”

Based on the scars that litter what’s visible of his body, she believes him. Based on the fact that they scarred, she believes he’s done a bad job of it before as well.

She stands, making her way back to where she’d left the whiskey and passing it to him, ignoring his look of confusion. She then reaches for his waterskin, laying next to his pack. “A bandit blade in a mucky, wet Caer. Bandits that have undoubtedly been fighting some of the many undead that crawled out of an ancient lake flooded with darkspawn.”

“Not the wisest choice, when framed that way,” he concedes through gritted teeth. “It was mid-fight, I was in a rush.”

“Drink that,” she points to the bottle before reaching for the knife at her belt. “And then pass it to me and lay on your side.”

He watches her pet the old rug on which she’s seated, grimacing, and then takes a long pull, but otherwise follows her instructions. “You know what you’re doing?”

“Please,” she huffs, then coats the knife’s edge in the alcohol and calls on a small flame, fresh from the Fade, and burns the edge of the knife til it is hot and clean. “Half of my duties as First in my clan were ensuring injuries were tended to and well healed. This is actually what I’m most qualified for. Probably.”

“Probably? Wonderful.”

“I…” she pauses, trying to be a good healer as opposed to whatever she’s doing now. “You don’t have to do this, someone else can if you’d prefer. But if you trust me, I promise I know what I’m doing. I promise…I promise it won’t hurt long, and then it will heal quickly and painlessly.”

He sighs, tired, violet eyes meeting hers. “I trust you.”

She ignores the feeling the words bring to her, the way her heart stutters at his words. “Do you want your shirt to put in your mouth? Waking everyone up won’t be the best idea, and this is going to hurt - but only for a moment, I promise.”

“Just do it.”

So she does, slicing quickly and cleanly, just deep enough to draw blood and watch the slow trickle of infection drain with it. The water from his pack flushes things clean for a moment, and then it is a mess of bright red blood once more. Her hands are cold as she puts pressure on his warm body, watching as he closes his eyes and breathes into the pain, holding the knife between her teeth.

“I’m thorry about your thirt,” she says around the knife’s handle, using his tunic to catch the blood that spills around the wound, and then pushes a pulse of healing magic through the edges of the cut to light it in gold. Just enough to dull the hard edge of the pain without sealing the infection within yet again.

She pulls a bottle of elfroot salve from her belt, thanking her mother for insisting she always have some on her, and rubs the dry green paste into the gash. The scent and sight of blood fill her senses, metallic and mint from the mixture with the elfroot, the brilliant red covering her hands. The salve slows the bleeding, enough that she can clean the site to inspect the damage free from blood, and pushes another soft wave of pain relief through him.

“Just another moment and I’m done,” she whispers, watching the quick bolt of golden light flutter under his skin. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

When it looks right, the bleeding stopped, the salve smelling as it should, she hovers her hand directly over the open cut and calls down the Fade, filling the room with the electric smell of magic and casting the steady flow of healing into Solas. She hears him let out a deep breath, watches the tension release from his back. This is always the part she’s liked best, the part that almost made her think she’d been called to be a healer. Watching the moment the pain fades away, the pain she could take from someone with such simple tools and spells.

She holds her hand over the wound for several minutes, letting it get closer and closer as the muscle then skin stitches itself back together, giving it time to flush the infection from his system. She falls into old habits as she waits, humming a familiar tune and stroking soft circles on his back. The distractions she’d offer anyone but with him, it feels different.

He has offered her so much in such a short time. This is hardly repayment, not that he looks at her as if she’s in debt to him. But it’s something, she tells herself. She can be useful to him.

“Is that any better?” She asks, pulling away the hand that had been healing him and inspecting the wound one more time. It will likely scar, but it will also heal now.

“That was…shockingly pleasant, given you just cut me open,” he says stiffly, raising himself to sit and resting his back against the edge of the bed.

“If you were one of my patients back home, I’d call you a very brave, very good boy for sitting so still for me,” she smiles, then dries her hands of what remains of his blood.

“I don’t hate the sound of that,” his lips lift in a half smile, but there’s something darker in his eyes, something unexpected. It takes her a moment to realize.

“Oh?” She scoots forward on the rug until she’s just before him, until she has to stop herself from crawling in his lap and straddling him as she says, “Do you want me to call you a ‘good boy’, Solas?”

“I shouldn’t encourage you,” but he leans closer, his face a breath away from hers, taunting, testing, teasing.

“Is this why you did such a piss poor job healing yourself?” She smirks, raising an eyebrow. “Watch me get all concerned for your well-being, take your shirt off and then need me to put my hands all over you?”

“I would never do something so dastardly.” Morinne wants to kiss the beautiful grin off his face. “Especially when I could ask you to put your hands all over me without all the dramatics.”

“You could, but you won’t. We both know you’re too proud.”

“I’m not too proud to want you,” his eyes flicker to her lips, holding for a moment. She feels one of his hands close around her wrist. “Wait, that makes me sound like an ass…”

She snorts, shaking her head. “A little, maybe, but I know what you mean.”

His hand goes to cup her cheek, warm and strong, callused from years of daily, practiced staff work. She raises her own to cradle his and turns her face, kissing the inside of his palm.

“I’m sorry, that this…isn’t simple for me.”

“I don’t mind,” she whispers, and finds that as much as she wants him to want her right this moment, to decide right now, she really doesn’t mind. She can wait. For him. “I…you’re worth waiting for, Solas. It feels like you don’t believe that, but I do. Really.”

“You are…not what I expected,” he says simply, dropping his hand from her face. “I never could have predicted…any of this.”

At this, she laughs, “Right, cause I could have guessed I’d walk through the Fade and all this -”

“Now you’re the one being a smartass, if we’re to start keeping score.”

“Can I ask a selfish, foolish question this time?”

He nods, eyes soft. She lets his hand drop from her face.

“Was that kiss…for you…?” She just lets out a heavy breath, scared of the words she needs to finish her own question. ‘Life-changing’, ‘the best kiss two people have ever had in history’, ‘the kind of kiss that inspires poetry and erotica and art’, and ‘something I desperately, desperately need again’ all feel like the wrong statements for what she needs, for how to convey just how fucking good -

“Yes,” he says without hesitating, without needing the rest of the question. She watches his chest rise in fall with the same intensity she feels in her own, the same dramatic hunger. “Yes.”

“Well,” she swallows, biting her lip. That answer was all she’d wanted to hear but it feels like a knife twisting in a wound she hadn’t been aware of, running on an ankle that hadn’t set right. It hurts, even if it shouldn’t. It has no right to hurt like it does. Suddenly everything within her feels twisted and tangled, knotted in unfair ways.

She won’t let him see that though, she’ll only let him see the want, the desire. It might be the first time she’s lied to him, even if indirectly. She’s not sure. It always starts somewhere.

“Well if nothing else, at least we’ll have that.”

Chapter Text

Solas

The snowstorm that buries Skyhold in endless white does little to dim the spirit and celebration within the great hall the evening of Solstice. Josephine’s invitations managed to reach an absurd amount of nobles and people she deems of interest, all of whom were willing to brave the trek through the mountains for the chance to judge the fledgling Inquisition’s new accommodations for themselves.

He assumes they come eager to disparage Skyhold and the Inquisitor, to spread gossip across the Southern continent like wildfire of how the Inquisition is little more than a broken stone fortress in the desolate reaches between Ferelden and Orlais. Josephine, however, ensures they can only leave with wonder and awe.

Skyhold remains far from perfect in many ways, but the efforts to restore the key features of the keep have certainly paid off. The great hall stuns in its festive glow, adorned with strings of dried fruit and ribbons, evergreen and holly, all hung over the overflowing tables of festive foods. He’s heard reactions from tittering guests that the cooks have covered every holiday staple of Thedas, ensuring all feel welcome.

Was it Josephine or Morinne who made such requests?

Solas picks at the smoked meats and the fish pies, sampling a bit of this and that, before moving on to the sweets and filling his goblet with the spiced wine everyone seems to be enjoying. It is loud for his tastes, but the music is fine and the ambience pleasant.

“You are quiet, Solas,” Cole says, appearing at his side. He’s sure any other guest would have jumped out of their skin at the sudden appearance.

“Unless I have something to say, yes.”

“No, inside,” Cole’s voice is melodic, a comfort. “I don’t hear your hurt as much. Your song is softer, subtler, not silent but still.”

Solas cannot help but give a soft ‘hmm’ at Compassion’s observation.

“How small the pain of one man seems when weighed against the endless depths of memory,” “of feeling, of existence. That ocean carries everyone. And those of use who learn to see its current move through life with their fewer ripples.”

“There is pain though, still within you.”

“And I never said that there was not.” Because in truth, he knew there always would be. It had to remain with him, needed to, or he would be lost - adrift without it. It tethered him to his duty, his goal, his being. That pain is, in some ways -

“It is not all you have left,” Cole fills in, “you are more than what you became for them. More than what was demanded. She sees it. A rabbit that looks to a wolf not in fear but as more, a friend, a guide, a dream that ended too soon.”

“You know what she sees?” He hears himself ask, before he can think better of it, finally letting his eyes move to Morinne. Her hair is tied back in a crown of braids, woven through with festive red ribbon that matches her fairly simple velvet gown.

She meets his eye, as if she senses the moment he glances her way, and gives him the smallest smile before turning back to the nobles she’s in conversation with.

“Past pain and fear with roots so deep she can’t dig up, no matter how she tries. She aches to be good, better, best but has heard too many times she is lacking, less.”

“Thank you, Cole.” He’s heard too much, asked for more than he should have, pried where he should have left well enough alone. He shouldn’t know, but now he does and his chest tightens with the truth of the compassion Cole feels some part of Morinne’s soul seeks. “I do not need to hear any more.”

“I only want to help,” the boy tries, and Solas nods.

“You have,” he says honestly, but Cole is gone before he can turn and look once more.

The night drags on and glasses remain full, though plates begin to empty and seats are left as guests move to chatter or dance. Solas regrets choosing a room so close to the great hall now, knowing that any chance of escape is impossible given his quarters will be filled with a similar level of noise until the party truly slows.

Spiced wine gives way to whiskey, his tension giving way to something resembling ease, and he watches the Inquisition grow drunk amidst the nobility of Orlais and Ferelden on the dancefloor. Cassandra dances beautifully, as does Vivienne, though the latter is far more gracious with each partner that takes her arm.

Morinne dances clumsily with Lords and Ladies before Dorian rescues her, finally earning a genuine laugh from the Inquisitor for what might be the first time that evening. Cullen spins her next, the two aware of how awkward their movements are, and Morinne ends up in a fit of giggles as the commander overcorrects each step in his bulky armor.

The music shifts, the driving strings and drums slowing from their jovial tune to something more melodic, each couple parting for new partners as a new dance begins. Her eyes meet his, hopeful, wide, blue as the icy winter sky outside. It would be stupid to act, to stand and hold her here, slowly guide her through the steps on this dance with one hand in hers and the other lightly on her hip.

His pride and the drink in his blood tells him to stand, to answer her gaze with his own outstretched hand, and ignore the righteous voice in his mind that calls him a fool for even thinking of doing so.

Regardless of what he might want however, Blackwall steps in before he can act. It is only a small comfort to watch the miniscule drop in Morinne’s smile as she notes the warden’s interruption and request, nodding politely as she takes his hand instead.

His pride and drink do win out, however, when he positions himself at the edge of the dancefloor and pours himself another drink. Not necessarily because he needs it, but because right here, he can listen in as they dance past him.

“- the wardens, I’m happy to help,” he hears her say the first time she spins, her voice lost to him quickly.

“You are an honorable woman,” Blackwall’s own deep tone cuts through the music more easily, and Solas looks to the hand at Morinne’s waist, wondering if it tightens there, wondering how want and drink mix in the man’s blood as he holds her. “I admit I have great admiration for you and -”

They turn once more and he cannot hear the last of his remark or her retort, but can see the way her eyes widen at his statement, her brows rising in surprise.

“You have the world at your feet,” the warden continues, “myself included.”

It would be a good line, Solas admits, if Morinne were the type of woman who wanted the world at her feet. If she weren’t so terrified of what it meant to have someone tell her such things.

“So you take your cue from everyone else? What if they grow to despise me?”

He does not hear the beginning of Blackwall’s answer, only the end, as he leans against the stone wall.

“- I would reject the world for lacking in good taste,” he spins her again, the music building to a final crescendo as the warden shows his hand, hoping to win her for the night. Solas cannot hear what words Blackwall leaves her with but watches over his glass as the warrior leans in close, pressing himself to her in a way befitting both the dance and his seduction, whispering his final lines against her cheek.

The song ends and Morinne goes still, hand still in Blackwall’s, eyes wide again.

“That is…a flattering offer,” he can only see half her face from where he stands but he swears her brows knit together in apology, her mouth lifting in a tentative, comforting smile. “But I… well, I’m sorry. I can’t. If you’ll excuse me.”

She gives a polite bow with the rest of the dancers as the song comes to a close, training for Orlais carefully instilled in her already, and turns from the now stuttering warden. How much of his attempt at seduction had been fueled by drink, Solas wonders, and how much had been their time together or perhaps flirtations now past?

Maryden calls out that it is to be the final song of the evening, earning many disappointed sighs from the still gathered partiers. Morinne looks at him and crosses the makeshift dance floor, moving to stand before him.

“Dance with me.” It is not technically a question, though he knows he can deny her - knows he should. She is flushed with dance or drink, or both, and slightly breathless, a few strands of dark hair having escaped her braids. She is radiant.

“Is it wise for you to dance with your elven apostate?” It is a stupid question, an excuse he knows she won’t take seriously, but one he poses nonetheless.

“I don’t care what they think,” she says, extending her hand and rolling her eyes. He still pauses, knowing it is unwise for more reasons than he can count on both hands. She reads his hesitation and only sighs. “I understand.”

“I am sorry,” and means it, reaching for her as she turns away. She lets his fingers graze her arm for only a moment before stepping out of reach. He can’t read the tight, pursed smile she offers him in return.

“It’s alright, Solas. I really do understand.”

Later, when the night finally grinds to a close and the drunken revellers stumble from the great hall back to their various rooms across the keep, his gaze follows Morinne as she nods to the guards at her chamber doors. The echo of the heavy wood door is louder in his mind than in reality.

The rotunda is cold and quiet in comparison to the great hall, but his desk welcomes him. The smell of parchment is almost grounding against the thrum of drink and music and Morinne. He was young once, he had excuses to be foolish with women in ages past. Those times were long gone, he should be better equipped to deal with a disarming smile and teasing questions.

Why then was she so different? So bright in a world that feels like it has all but dimmed to the point of near darkness?

“I’m glad I caught you,” her voice cuts through the fog of his mind, and he turns to find Morinne in the doorway with a large stack of books in hand. “I was worried I wouldn’t have the chance before you went to bed.”

“I assumed you’d done just that.”

“I couldn’t forget your gift,” she steps into the room, barefeet padding across the stone floor. She places the books before him, bound together in red ribbon, and he stares up at her in surprise. “It’s not midnight yet, is it? I think I made it in time for it to technically still count as Solstice.”

“You did not need to go out of your way on my account.” He delicately unties the red ribbon, his eyes flicking up to her, briefly wondering if it is the same silk as what is woven in her hair, then looks back to what she’s given him. His eyes settle on the first cover, dark leather with elegant Elvhen script. “These are…”

“They are the oldest elvhen books I could get my hands on, using all the power that comes with this new title,” she leans against his desk, one hip meeting the wood and creating a beautiful curve of her lithe body. “There is an ‘antiquarian’ who collects things like this, rarities, oddities, ancient things, and only trades with specific clientele. He deemed me worthy on the promise that I would come to his emporium and show him the mark at some point, because he’d like to buy my hand after I die.”

“...he what ?”

“I only had to promise two fingers for these, so it wasn’t even that bad a deal,” she bites the inside of her cheek, the effect leaving her smile lopsided. “He claims this one is from before the second blight, and these two are preserved from before Andraste’s death - though frankly I doubt that’s true. I believe they’re old, just maybe not that old. Either way, hopefully they are useful to you. Or at least interesting.”

He stares up at her, a mix of emotions not entirely familiar to him flooding his chest, leaving it feeling tight, full. “I’m still stuck on the idea that you offered an unknown…being…two fingers of your marked hand in exchange -”

She blows a raspberry and waves a hand in dismissal. “Once I die! And even then, I sent ample gold too. It was a pretty empty promise on my end.”

“I am…” he looks over the books finally, though regardless of the quality or subject matter, they are priceless given the effort she went into to secure them for him. The leather covers and binding are worn but embossed with words he’s sure she doesn’t know but gives him anyway. The pages yellowed but intact - protected by magic, undoubtedly, to ensure time did not eat away at the knowledge within.

“Rendering you speechless might actually concern me, Solas,” she takes the ribbon and twists it around her fingers nervously. “If you hate them, I have no doubt that I could -”

“I am not speechless as a matter of distaste for the gift,” he reaches out, stilling her hands with one of his own. “Rather... I'm unsure of the last time such a gesture was extended to me. If ever.”

He watches a blush rise up her neck and across her cheeks, watches as she looks down in the most bashful, girlish display he’s yet seen from the otherwise confident and bold young woman. “They’re just books. I have a long way to go to come close to being even for the fortress you gave me.”

He stands, facing her, one hand lingering on the books just a few inches from where her hip still rests. “You offered fingers for these, Morinne, I won’t soon forget it.”

“Don’t tell me they were worth more?” She bites her lips, holding back a smile, then gasps a laugh, “Or less?”

“I think you can guess whether or not I would have told you to part with flesh for books, let alone as gifts for me.”

He idly walks a few steps and she pivots to face him, nearly seated on the edge of his desk now, and it gives him a terrible idea he has no choice but to indulge in.

“How about something I might offer you in return?”

“The point was for me to level the scales a bit, not tip them even more in your favor.” He takes a step forward and watches the way she swallows, her eyes lifting to meet his. “But…what did you have in mind?”

Another step and he would be between her legs, so close he’d feel the press of her chest against his with her next breath. He doesn’t move, but he hears her breath catch anyway as he leans in just slightly, torturing himself and teasing her.

“Theneras ar ama,” he says at her ear, delighting at the flash of goosebumps that dance up her neck in his wake. It takes more control than it should to keep his hands from wrapping around her waist, pulling her against him so he might have the whole of her nestled in his arms. “Meet me in the Fade.”

“And what will I find there exactly?”

“A gift,” the words are a breath against her skin and he should move, he should pull away, but she is magnetic and he is selfish and weak. She will indulge him where she did no others tonight, and it spurs the proud part of his spirit toward recklessness, foolishness.

She pulls back first, just enough to look in his eyes. Her body is close and warm, her hands move to press lightly against his chest. Close but somehow never close enough. “Alright, I’m intrigued. But one rule before I do.”

“Name it.” He straightens finally, the tightened cord between them going slack once more.

“I’m not kissing you again in the Fade,” her voice is resolute, despite the coy grin that sneaks across her face and the thoughts he sees race through her mind, made clear by the question and the furious blush that reaches her ears. “No matter how much either of us might want to.”

“That’s entirely reasonable,” he agrees, smiling despite himself. He tightens his hands behind his back, resolute not to do more than he has already. “Might I ask why?”

“Because it needs to be real the next time,” the teasing in her voice shifts to something more earnest, a longing he understands but cannot bring himself to comfort. A promise he doesn’t know if he can make. “If there’s to be a next time, I mean. I want it to be real. Not in a dream. And I know you’re going to show me something magnificent or be a charming bastard or both, and I know once I’m with you in the Fade I’ll want to. So I’m holding us to this now.”

“If that is what you want, Morinne, I would never press otherwise.” And no matter how much he might have hoped that the night ended in her pressing another soft kiss to his lips at the end of the dream, he agrees. He understands. She is correct, as she so often is.

“I know,” her hands lower from his chest, the warmth of her touch an aching absence. “I know you wouldn’t.”

“I will bid you goodnight then, and also see you soon,”

“You’ll be able to just…find me? Once I’m asleep?”

“Unless that makes you uncomfortable -”

“Not at all,” Morinne, bounces off the edge of his desk, one hand brushing along his chest as she walks away. “I suppose I’ll see you soon. Sleep well, Solas.”

—

The night air would be crisp if dreams in the Fade offered such details. It was not hard to find nights where Arlathan sparkled, but even still, he could remember a small sense of wonder at the beauty even then. Even after centuries, there were nights it felt as though it hadn’t dulled. Conjuring it again takes little effort, as does calling the warmth of Morinne’s spirit into the dream once he catches notice of her consciousness.

“When your mind has settled within the dream and you can feel solid ground beneath your feet once more,” he murmurs the words close to her ear, smiling as her lips dance up in recognition, “I recommend that you look up.”

She tilts her head back slowly, her eyes pinched closed despite the grin she tries to hide by biting her lip. Her hair is long and unbraided for sleep, grazing her lower back as she peers overhead and finally opens her eyes.

The sky is dark, an inky, velvet blue that shines with the hundreds of glimmering stars that dance in messages long since sent, the moon giant and watchful in the distance. He realizes the final missing detail as he looks at her, waiting for her to open her eyes.

His sleep clothes disappear to a rather standard, pressed jacket and trousers, a pelt over one shoulder as he would have worn back then. Her simple tunic dissolves to a gown the color of the stars overhead, like liquid gold or warm butter, cut as he remembers the gowns back then having appeared. A high neck, a low back, fit to highlight the curve of her figure - and finished with a near-translucent cape of glimmering embroidery and beading.

Shining, radiant as any of the crystals and sculptures decorating this estate he briefly called home.

Her eyes flutter open and Morinne takes in the courtyard around them, the walkways of warmed stone amidst plush, untouched snow. Eluvians stand proud and glimmering throughout the trees, reflecting the warm strings of mage light that hang overhead and guide the colorful memories of guests toward the palace ahead.

She shakes her head, mouth dropping slightly in wonder. Her eyes catch then on the gown, the brilliant cape, and his mind empties momentarily when she spins, watching how the fabric catches in the low light. “Solas…”

He clears his throat before he speaks again. “Welcome to Solstice in Elvhenan.”

“This is…”

“This is only the courtyard, Morinne,’ he smiles, cocking his head in the direction of the festivities within. “Garas ar ama.”

He doesn’t let himself second guess taking her hand, nor does he dwell on the feeling in his chest when her fingers curl around his.

“Is this all a dream? Or a memory?”

“For the sake of simplicity, we might call it a dream of a memory,” is the explanation he settles on, for it is as close to the truth as he can offer her in so many words. “I have seen this, yes, and now I can play it out for you, allowing you to enjoy it as a dream.”

“What a remarkable ability,” but her eyes are not on him, they catch on every glittering trinket, decoration, and bauble, each ice sculpture that stands taller than The Iron Bull yet will not melt until commanded. “To just have this at your command…You mentioned before that being awake, out of the Fade, became far less appealing than dreaming and I’d thought -”

“That I was mad?”

“No,” she smiles, turning her eyes to him, the same cold blue as the unmelting ice around them, “I thought maybe you were exaggerating a little. Or strange, though that has since been confirmed.”

“I should stop doing nice things for you,” he teases, in spite of himself. His fingers tighten around hers in emphasis. “In fact, I should tell you this is the extent of your gift and wake you up right here.”

“You wouldn’t dare,”

“No,” he’s sure his smile mirrors the one that beams up at him, “I wouldn’t.”

They cross the threshold of what was once his home on the outskirts of Arlathan, to find it flush with the colorful remnants of those who might have come before - vague shapes and faces conjured to fill out the experience without risking his secrets. Wisps dance between the floating candles and bobbing lights above them. Trays float by with drinks of every color, carried on magic long since lost to her world.

He tries instead to focus on Morinne, on her awe, to keep his mind from wandering upstairs and out of the dream - to the rooms where they’d talked of rebellion and war, to the rooms where he’d take and be taken, the empty nights and broken deals.

“Tell me more of this,” she squeezes his hand, bringing him back from the edge of his thoughts, “of nights like this - whatever you know.”

He leads her through the throng, the brilliant stone pillars detailed with intricate gold that gives way to mosaic stained glass. She has seen the remnants of his time in broken pillars and ancient ruins, perhaps even the occasional glimpse in a dream. Here, he can give her the full wonder of what their time had been - before the Evanuris took and took. Before he did.

“Many parties and events of this sort would last for days or weeks, sometimes months and years - time was immaterial for the Elvhen and could be spent in excess, be that debating over the events of the last gathering or dancing til one’s feet went numb or the eventual hedonism that might come from so long spent dancing and drinking.

“Holidays though,” he continues, steering her gently past a gathering crowd, “were limited to a single day - bound by the confines of time that could not be controlled by immortality or anything else. As such, they were special, in their own right. Fleeting in a way that so little was back then.”

“Forgive my ignorance but,” her fingers casually dance across the marble balustrade “are we in Arlathan?”

“It is far from ignorance,” he rests against the railing himself, standing at her side, “but not technically. I believe us to be just outside. I found the ruins of this place not far outside where Arlathan would have been, and guess it would have been some sort of noble’s estate.”

He watches her nod, her focus lost to the dancing figures below and the spectacle of it all, eyes wide with wonder.

Had these events always been so…sparkling? The amount of refracted light is almost dizzying in its intensity, no attempt at subtlety left to the imagination. Who’d been in charge of such things back then? It hadn’t been him, he’d never bothered with such details, but now he thinks perhaps he should have intervened sooner.

“To think all this was lost…”

“It was not always glimmering parties and endless amusement,” he finds his jaw clenching at the memory, “there was suffering. Inequality. War. Taking advantage of the meek did not come with the onset of human civilization. There was darkness to be found here, just as there was light.”

“I suppose it’s far less romantic to maintain that truth once history turns to myth,” she muses, more correct than he can bear to tell her. He watches her eyes turn back once more, following the dancing memories of his guests, head lightly bobbing in time with the beat of the tune played by the orchestra just off the dancefloor.

“I owe you a dance,” he says, more quietly than he should for the crowded room.

“Ah,” she half turns to him, shoulders dropping slightly, “so now that no one is here to see you’ll consider dancing with me?”

“It is not so simple - “

“It is,” she is firm, turning so her back is to the dancers, though her hands do not move from the marble. “It is as simple as we want it to be.”

Solas reminds himself that she is young, unbroken by all that he has seen, all he has carried for these many, many centuries. She does not understand -

“Stop looking at me like that,” her brows knit together in frustration, “like I don’t understand. I do. You think I haven’t been told every single day that every move I make reflects not just on me, but on the Inquisition? That every smile, every twitch of my eyes might be read as something more than it is?”

“I simply seek the easiest path for you,” he tries, though it is hardly a lie. “I would not burden you further with complications that can be easily avoided.”

“Complications,” she scoffs. “Right.”

It feels as though his heart trips within his chest though he makes no move. “If every smile might cause questions, a dance would cost far more. Scoff as you will, posturing is necessary.”

“I agree.” The song changes around them, the shift and flow of the party altering in turn. “I agree more than you realize. I didn’t have a drop to drink tonight to stay aware of every word I said, even though it made the night painfully long. I am doing my best.”

“My intention was not to imply otherwise.”

“I’m not claiming it was - I’m annoyed because it’s fucking unfair!”

“I…don’t follow,” he admits.

“I don’t have to question Cullen’s hands in mine dance after dance or Blackwall’s hands on my hips, but because you’re an elf and an apostate, it’s too much? The reputation of the entire Inquisition is at stake? How fragile an organization have we built if that’s the case?”

“The Inquisition is not to blame for the views of the world, Morinne,” but he understands her irritation, moving to lean beside her once more. Elvhenan shimmers around them, contradictory to the truth of what waits for them when they wake and that which bothers her so deeply.

“It is one thing to be a single elf in a clan, minding my own business and enduring the truth of the world,” Morinne shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose, “to have so much hang in the balance and be constantly reminded of the hypocrisy over everything I do, everything I touch. It boils my blood.”

I will give you this world back, he longs to tell her, this world where you will never have to doubt your value for the shape of your ears, the heritage of your bloodline. You deserve better than this world I broke, but soon, it will be made right.

Instead, he only nods in sympathy.

“Now I’ve ruined the beautiful dream you crafted me,” she looks up at him, a storm of emotions behind her tired eyes. “And over nothing too, because I would’ve loved to dance with you.”

“The offer stands - whether you’d like to dance or see more of the party, it is your choice, your gift.”

She moves closer this time, like her body is pulled to him on an invisible wire, connecting her heart to his. One hand extends tentatively, fidgeting with one of the golden buttons on his jacket, the other sliding closer until her fingers just barely touch his.

“You are too good to me,” she whispers, looking up through dark lashes.

“You deserve infinitely better,” he counters. It sounds romantic. The truth so rarely does.

He moves to brush his hand up the length of her arm, an innocent touch, but one that floods his foolish soul with a hope he cannot indulge in, a want he cannot bear to let surface but threatens to swallow him whole if he continues to ignore it.

The song changes again, time moving around them as the dream continues. The pace is slower, flowing, long forgotten yet still familiar.

“I’m a mess,” she takes another small step, pressed nearly against him, until she rests her forehead against the wolf pelt draped across his body. “I want to be this…indomitable and,” she snorts softly, “sexy force by your side yet I feel like I only ever crack around you.”

“You carry the weight countless lives without prior training or experience, led only by kindness and the strength of your convictions, your heart.” He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead as he takes her hand in his own, the other lightly taking her waist. “You are indomitable, Morinne, you have been from the start.”

He moves with her slowly, a dance in half-time with the song playing around them, ignoring the imperfect steps and simply holding her close to him.

“As for sexy,” he continues, in spite of himself, “there is simply no question.”

When her eyes meet his again, some sadness remains but is countered by the warmth of her smile. He feels the hand not held in his move to his cheek, a gentle caress - a want for more he shares more than he could possibly articulate.

“Sweet talker,” she murmurs, swaying against him. “I should be asking you more questions, taking advantage of what I could learn here tonight.”

“You can ask them anytime you like.”

“Even tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, next week, a month from now - I will even bring you back here should you desire to see it again.”

“You are too good to me,” she repeats, this time with a small smile and a squeeze of his hand. The conflict it creates in his heart, his soul, might be enough to sunder the veil if he focuses on it too long, letting himself stew in it.

“I do not want you to struggle alone.” He tightens his grip on her waist when he settles on his response, finding a way to tell the truth amidst so many lies.

“I don’t feel alone. It’s silly, maybe, but…tonight I saw you across the hall, even for just a moment, and it was a comfort. I’m a fool, I suppose.”

“There is a part of me,” he should stop himself, should not admit this, but he needs to. Needs to say it because he needs her to hear it. “There is a part of me that wishes I could be the man who propositions you on the dancefloor as easily as others might. You deserve such ease.”

She rolls her eyes, surprising him. “You heard that?”

“Bits and pieces.”

“He was drunk.”

“The lines weren’t terrible, if perhaps used on the wrong audience.”

“Knowing your audience is, in fact, the most important part, I’d argue.”

At this, he can’t help but laugh. “A fair point.”

She is quiet for a moment and they dance, an imperfect set of steps far from the dancefloor, a sad melody lost to time but not his memories echoing through the dream.

“I hate that I set that stupid boundary,” she says with a sigh, and his hand instinctively shifts around her hip in surprise.

“That boundary was set with wise intentions.”

“Damn my brilliant foresight,” she gives a soft, beautiful grin. “Damn your charming smile.”

“Damn your everything,” he echoes.

“I would tell you to wake us up, to make my real gift a sneaky trip up to my room, but…”

“But?”

It is her turn to look at him in surprise, “I didn’t think you’d even consider it.”

“I truly shouldn’t,” but he is, he does, he can’t stop. The Fade presses close, a spark of want becoming a bonfire he knows better than to stoke but cannot help but revel in.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she breathes, pressing closer, as if her body might become the kindling to the very bonfire he imagines.

“It would though, Morinne,” he says, some trace of wisdom winning out, even as his hands pull her hips ever closer to his. He feels blood move in response to the feel of her against him, a coil winding tight in his core

“I danced all night, and every hand that touched me I imagined was yours, Solas.”

His name on her tongue, never Pride or Fen’Harel or Dread Wolf, but simply Solas, and yet she said it with such care and want, like no one ever had. She knew only this fragment of him, this man with so little power and no influence. She simply wanted him.

He’d never realized how intoxicating that might be.

“I don’t mean to push you,” she says after a beat of silence, “I’m keenly aware that I’m your boss, technically, and…”

“Does that bother you?”

“Only if it bothers you.”

He is a selfish, horrible man. He always has been.

“Say my name again.”

“Solas…” It is a breath and a promise, a wanton whisper and something more, something he would risk everything for just to hear again.

“We shouldn’t,” he hates himself for it, wanting so desperately to wake them both up instead.

“I know,” she fiddles with one of his buttons again. “I’m sorry I have the self-control of a nug around you.”

“It’s exceptionally flattering, actually.”

“Because you need more ego.”

“You wound as often as you flatter me, it’s only fair to keep things in balance.” He lets go of her hip finally, realizing his palm had grown sweaty with the temptation of her offer and the build up of his own lust. “Especially when you so easily unbalance me in all other areas.”

She smiles and gives a soft ‘hmm’ of consideration. “You do that to me too, you know.”

The song changes again, though he supposes he could tell the dream to change it back at any time. Solas looks down at her, the girl who interrupted everything, the key to their salvation, the one who changed everything, and knows it is only a matter of time before he falls. He is already halfway there, despite all his useless attempts to convince himself to pull away. She is everything he never knew to ask for, never knew he could want, let alone have.

“I will think of a thousand questions for you tomorrow,” she promises, “for now, can we just stay like this?”

He is going to kill her, to take her arm and destroy her world. She is a tool. He only knows her because his ritual was interrupted, his plan went awry, and she happened to be there. This should never have begun and when it ends, he will take everything from her.

And yet.

“For as long as you like,” he presses the words into her hair like a kiss, holding her close as his secrets, his pain, his guilt.

Maybe it could be different. Maybe he can find another way.

“Happy Solstice, Solas,” she whispers.

“Happy Solstice, Morinne.”

Chapter Text

Morinne

It takes nearly two weeks for the workmen, with aid from the mages, manage to clear a path through the snow. Their work is halted repeatedly by storms, but eventually, there is a way back down the mountain. In the meantime, the Inquisition is beset by seemingly endless requests for a voice of reason to settle disputes of all kinds across Thedas - both reasonable and nonsensical.

Morinnne begins to understand Cullen’s bitterness with each council meeting that ends late in the night, squabbling over nobles who can’t agree over which marriage their daughter should or should not pursue and seem to have no problem delegating the problem to those who also have to heal the hole in the sky.

She is not particularly used to such harsh winters either, and though the beauty of it is something to behold, the cold is biting and miserable. Each morning she wakes and takes a moment to marvel at the stillness, the quiet of the fortress before the day begins and the blanket of white is broken up by footsteps and wagon wheels - and each morning her bones feel heavy with the weight of all that remains to be done before they leave once more, back into the field to join Hawke and Stroud on the hunt for the missing wardens.

It is one such morning, rising well before dawn and surrounded by missives and papers of things that demand her attention, signature, or approval, that a knock interrupts her otherwise quiet work. Morinne thinks for a moment that she’s imagined it, pausing at the edge of the mattress, now on the floor after a long conversation with Josephine, and waits for it to repeat. When it does, she goes, opening the enormous wooden door to find the last person she expected standing in the dark hallway.

“Solas?”

“I need your help,” his voice is desperate and tired, his eyes wild. “It’s rather urgent, I’m sorry. I realize this is rather inappropriate but -”

“Come in.” She holds her robe closed with one hand and steps to the side, opening the door into her chambers. He moves up the few stone steps into the large room, lit by candles and firelight. It occurs to her that it’s the first time he’s been here, in her room, amidst her piles of papers, empty cups of tea, and yesterday’s clothes. “Sorry for the mess.”

“I’m sorry to wake you,” he takes in the sight of her things, the room that she’s sure does not belong to someone of her rank. Candles with dripping wax near her bed and a mountain of pillows on one end, scattered colorful blankets of Antivan silk and heavy Ferelden wool on the other. His eyes land on the map sprawled out on the floor at the end of the bed, the various papers tossed around it and over locations associated, her messy penmanship - all of it. “I would have waited, but…I see you were awake.”

“I, well, yes. I have been for a couple of hours.” She crosses her arms and fidgets, then decides to sit at the edge of her bed for lack of better options. She’s keenly aware of the fact that she’d gone straight to work once sleep became elusive, rather than getting dressed, as she crosses her bare legs. Embarrassed like some sort of shemlen schoolgirl. At least she thought to light some incense, so she knows it smells nice in the room. At the very least.

Shaking her head, she clears her throat, and asks, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“One of my oldest friends has been captured by mages, forced into slavery,” he paces before her, tense like she’s never seen him before, “I heard the cry for help as I slept.”

“Creators…that's horrific.” Morinne watches the way he carries himself - nervous but planning - exhaustion she knows mirrors her own darkening the lines under his eyes. “Were you able to tell if it was blood magic that bound them?”

“A summoning circle, I would assume.” He does not stop moving to watch her face contort in confusion and surprise.

“I’m sorry?”

“My friend was a spirit of wisdom.”

“Oh, of course,” she remembers prior conversations about his spirit friends, wishing the thought had occurred to her before she spoke. It’s still a bit strange to her, but he always has been, and ultimately it doesn’t bother her. “I should have considered…I’m sorry.”

“It was dwelling quite happily in the Fade, it was not clamoring to find a way into this world like so many that become twisted by the magic of the Rifts.” He knocks the knuckle of his thumb against his lower lip as he continues working circles into the rug. If she had options other than tea, she’d jump to give him something, anything, to settle his nerves. “It was summoned against its will, and would like my help to gain its freedom and return to the Fade.”

“Of course,” she says again with a nod, then pauses, considering the other lessons he’s given her on spirits in combination with her prior training. “I just…forgive me for asking, but are you certain? Many spirits do want to enter this world, do they not? Could your friend have changed their mind?”

“Some might want to, yes,” he finally turns to her, his voice exasperated but he explains anyway. “Just as some Orlesian peasants might wish to visit exotic Rivain. But not everyone wants to go to Rivain. My friend is an explorer, seeking lost wisdom and reflecting it. It would happily discuss philosophy with you, but it had no wish to do that here physically.”

“I understand, I’m sorry,” she tries to calm him, to settle his frayed nerves. “I only meant to look at this from all angles.”

“No, no - I’m sorry, I do not mean to snap,” Solas shakes his head again, and stills, eyes meeting hers. They are stormy with sadness, fear, and concern. “I understand the thought behind your question, and that you thought to ask at all matters. The fact that you have not laughed me out the door as a mad man matters.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that,” she frowns, and he nods, finally moving to sit by her side with a deep sigh. “Did you manage to catch anything on what the mages might want with your friend then?”

“No,” he runs a hand down his face and shakes his head. “It knows a great deal of lore and history, but a mage could simply learn that by speaking to it in the Fade. It is possible they seek information it does not want to give and intend to torture it.”

“You got a sense for where they are, I hope?”

“Yes,” he sighs again, and she watches a knot form between his brows. “Does your map include the Dales?”

“The Dales? Yes, but I have a better one.” She stands and crosses the room to her desk, pulling open the creaking drawer and rifling through the detailed stack of maps Josephine provided her with several weeks ago. She sits, clearing away another handful of missives and requests and rolls out the more detailed map of Orlais, pointing to the heavy line indicating the Imperial Highway. “That won’t be a quick ride…Can we expect them to stay by where they bound your friend?”

Solas moves around the room, standing over her to peer over the heavy parchment as well.

“A summoning of that type will likely exhaust a handful of circle mages,” he says, though it’s clearly a guess. “If I ride fast, I should be able to make it before midday tomorrow.”

“You say that like you’re going alone.” She turns, looking up at her over her shoulder and meeting tired eyes that dart from her to the map and back.

“Well, yes,” he shifts on his feet, and she can hear him tap the wood of her chair back nervously. “I came to ask for your help in confirming that my absence for the next several days would be no problem with the Inquisition’s commitments this week.”

“I’m coming with you, Solas.” She does not leave room for argument.

“I cannot ask you to do that.”

“I think you were planning on asking when you came in here and now feel guilty about it,” she counters confidently. She knows him by now, knows his mind. At least she tells herself she does, sometimes. He came to her for more than permission at least. If he didn’t want her to go, he wouldn’t have come here. He would have left a note and simply gone. “Either way, you’ll be outnumbered. I’m not letting you go alone.”

“I understand how busy you are, that was why I hesitated in asking you to step away.” She cocks her head at him and waits, knowing she does not need to argue further. He knows he needs her help, but is simply too proud to ask it of her. A minute of tense quiet passes before he sighs and nods, letting her win. “I would not trust this with anyone else.”

Her heart does a stupid, childish flutter in her chest at his words, at knowing they will be alone for likely a week to do this. That in the face of such panic and fear, he came to her without hesitation.

“I’ll have to leave information on where we’ll be, and I’ll have to check in with a forward camp when we get there, otherwise they’ll send search parties,” Morinne gathers and begins stacking papers, those she ought to bring versus those she needs to leave notes for before departing. She supposes it’s good, in the end, that she doesn’t sleep well in Skyhold, or she wouldn’t have gotten so far ahead in her work this morning.

“Harding has been working her way through the Dales for a couple of weeks, so we have detailed information regarding how things are there. And we’ll have resources, if we need them.

“Plus…” she studies the map and taps their route back, “I can tell them to meet us in Sahrnia to clear out that red lyrium mine on the way back. That will earn me some points back, at least with Cullen. He’s been aiming for that to be one of the first things done once we have the roads down the mountain cleared anyway.”

“I cannot thank you enough. I woke from the dream in a panic, I didn’t think, I just came here.”

She pauses, looking him up and down. “You got dressed first.”

Solas rolls his eyes. “I got dressed first and then came here. Is such detail necessary?”

“Distracting you enough to get you to roll your eyes is necessary, yes,” she grins, leaning on the desk between them. “Can you give me an hour? I’ll meet you at the stables. I need to leave a note and a few requests for how to handle some outstanding questions, then pack a bag.”

“An hour is perfect.” He crosses the room, making to leave, but pauses at the top of the stone steps. When he turns, his expression is softer finally, like an ounce of the anxiety that’s plagued him since waking might have finally lifted from his shoulders. It leaves a lump in her throat, and she wonders if it’s perhaps her heart leaping through her chest, knowing she could do something to calm him like this with little more than a few words. “Morinne…I…Thank you.”

Padding across the room, she raises her hands, rubbing his arms in a small attempt at comfort. She’d pull him into a hug, but is unsure how he’d react. She never knows where their boundaries lay anymore and knows, as Inquisitor, she should not be the one to push. “It was never a question, Solas. I’m honored you came to me for help.”

“It is selfish of me to pull you away, with so much that demands your attention.”

“I sent a detachment of soldiers to march through Verchiel to settle a land squabble and scare a noble for Sera and have agents hunting down any remaining trace of Seekers for Cassandra,” she crosses her arms and looks up at him, watching his eyes scan hers. “You are far from the only one who has come to me for help.”

“Those requests do not require you to leave Skyhold for days on end,” he argues, obstinate to the very end.

“Not yet,” she concedes with a single nod, “but they will, before all is said and done. And I will do everything I can to help them too.”

“You are sure then that it is not too much to ask? That your advisors will not -”

She cuts him off, shaking her head, “I’ll handle them, I promise. Now, go pack - it’ll be a much more complicated conversation if we have to leave once people begin waking.”

“Not entirely reassuring,” but he offers her a half smile that feels like a monumental victory before dawn crests over the mountains, like her stomach is filled with butterfly wings and her heart is a cage filled with hummingbirds. “An hour?”

“An hour,” she repeats and drops her hands, letting him go.

—

“All that remains now is them.”

“Thank you, the roads are dangerous and we wouldn’t have risked such a summoning but -”

“You tortured and killed my friend,” Solas roars, barrelling down on the mages with a fury she’s never seen from him before. An intensity she did not know him capable of. “You pulled an innocent creature from the Fade and twisted it against its purpose!”

“We didn’t know it was just a spirit! The book said it could help us!”

“Solas…” She reaches for him, in an attempt to stay his hand, to slow the destruction of his grief and rage before it swallows the fools before him.

“Inquisitor.”

“Killing them won’t make you feel any better,” “It won’t aid your grief.”

“Yes,” he says, turning back to the three cowardly mages, back straight. He looms over them like a wolf over sheep, ready for bloodshed. “It will make me feel better. But more than that, it will keep them from ever doing something like this again.”

In their time traveling together over the last several months, she’s seen his magic take form in all sorts of ways, but his preference always comes back to ice in combat. The destructive cold that halts their enemies, a blizzard of magic that chills and consumes until its victim shatters completely, a wall of ice that cuts through any rampaging toward them. She’d always found it a vicious contrast with the more spirit based magic he also performs, that which protects more often than it destroys.

Now though, he called on flames rather than ice. As if to send a message to her, to whom an inferno came so naturally it changed the course of her life forever after. To send the message that this was his friend, his choice, and she may be his Inquisitor but today, for these crimes, he is their executioner.

He handles flames with the deft ease he does everything, and burns the mages from the inside out.

It is a ghastly death to watch, slow and agonizing, but she does. She grants their burning, suffocating figures the honor of her vigil as they collapse, clawing at the invisible flames blistering their way out of them, boiling their blood before death claims them.

“You could have made it quick,” is all she says to Solas when he turns, face sullen but without remorse. She moves to wipe the blood that still leaks from her nose, rubbing it away with the back of her hand and tasting metal in her throat. They hadn’t fought the pride demon, focusing their effort solely on the stones of the summoning circle, but it didn’t mean she came out completely unscathed. Wisdom had become wrathful in its fury and rage.

“They deserved no mercy from me.”

“I did not say they did, simply -”

He walks past her, making for his horse at the edge of the small clearing that became their battleground and ignoring her words completely. He does not look at her, does not make a sound as he secures his staff to his saddlebags.

She follows slowly, until she realizes he’s leaving.

“I need some time.” He mounts his Ferelden Charger with ease, turning the gelding slightly before continuing. “I will meet you back at Skyhold.”

“I beg your pardon?” He makes no move to slow, continuing to turn until he is moving back in the direction they came from - back to Skyhold. “Solas - wait!”

It is enough to have him halt and she runs, catching up to him, glaring at him.

“Is that an order?” His eyes are cold but his voice is colder, a tone he hasn’t taken with her in months, if at all. He challenges her, though she’s sure he thinks she wouldn’t go so far as to command him.

“Does it need to be?” She reaches him and glares up to where he sits, letting him take in the sight of her bloodied and exhausted on his behalf. She watches his eyes soften only slightly, looking down and a way for a fraction of a second after looking over the smeared blood running over her lips

“I am grateful to you for your help, truly, however I now -”

“I will give you time and space, as much as you need. But you are not going alone,” she tugs on the reins, surprising him enough to pull them from his grip.

“I can handle myself.”

“I don’t give a shit, frankly, what you think you can or can’t handle. Your safety on the roads is only part of my concern.” She does not let go of his reins as she turns and whistles for her own mount, relieved that it trots over without hesitation. “I will not leave you to grieve alone.”

He tries for the reins, attempting to yank them from her, but she doesn’t let go. Then he sighs. “I simply need somewhere to go to sleep, Morinne, I don’t need coddling.”

“Wonderful.” She pulls her horse close enough to stow her staff, then mounts, all one handed. She doesn’t let go of his reins. “I can set your wards. I need to leave word at the forward camp but don’t worry, you don’t even need to get off your horse. From there, we can go wherever you like.”

“You should stay at the forward camp. They can ensure you have someone to ride with you back to Skyhold.”

“I can be stubborn too, Solas.”

“I am not in the mood for your games.”

“I’m not playing a game.” Morinne has the urge to take his face between her hands and shake him, but reminds herself he’s in shock, not fully himself. She knows that feeling, in her own way. It is not about pissing him off, even though she knows it feels that way. It’s about keeping him him and refusing the grief that can swallow you whole without warning.

She extends the reins to him but pauses as he reaches for them, holding them out to make sure he understands. “I have been left to mourn alone. I would not wish the experience on an enemy, let alone my…someone I care about. You can ignore me for a week if that’s what helps, but if you change your mind, I will be there.”

He levels her another glare and sighs, nodding. When she finally lets him take the reins, he lets out a string of elvhen spoken so quickly she can’t make out the words. Undoubtedly cursing her in some way.

“Yeah, you too. Let’s go.”

—

Annoyed as he is, Morinne is true to her word and leaves him alone. They ride without speaking, from the camp where she leaves word with Inquisition scouts, then in the direction of the river. She lets him lead now, keeping her horse to a canter at his side, silent save for the heavy beat of hooves on the ever-scorched earth of the Dales.

They make camp in the late afternoon, nestled between the river and the jagged rock formations that break up the verdant hills of this region. She notes how he watches, in something like confused horror, as Morinne drops her bag and grabs two links of jerky, making for the edge of their campsite. He makes no comment, he doesn’t interrupt her prayers or offerings or request they move away from the towering wolf that watches their camp, and she’s grateful. She owes the Dread Wolf, after all, for his aid in dreams past.

No other Gods have ever stepped in and helped her, not so directly. Her people speak of him in hushed whispers and cursed stories, but none of the Creators ever looked out for her, indirectly or otherwise. It doesn’t mean anything, she supposes, or it shouldn’t. The Dread Wolf locked them away, so of course he’s the only one who answered. Yet she cannot help but feel like it’s more than that, a strange tugging at the edge of her consciousness.

She shakes her head as she lays down the jerky at his paws, confused yet again by what she’s supposed to believe in the wake of all her life has become in the last few months.

“Fen’Harel,” she whispers, “I don’t know why you guide my steps and watch my dreams, but…thank you. Thank you for being the one of the only ones who seems to notice me these days. I hope this is to your liking, and I’m sorry it took me so long to get it to you.”

When she finally makes it back to the small clearing they found for a campsite, her boots heavy with mud and arms full of firewood, she dusts off her hands and finds Solas cursing to himself as he finishes with his tent. “If you don’t mind setting up my tent, I can go hunt something quickly for dinner and you can rest after that, I promise.”

They’d brought separate tents but only used them once in the couple of days since leaving Skyhold, realizing quickly that it was much warmer to share and also saved them time departing come morning. It had been like those early days, deep in the Hinterlands, each morning waking just a bit closer than the one before. Neither of them speaking of it as they roll up their things and head for the horses. It had been pleasant, if tense and leaving her full of a kind of desperate, wanting that left her heart in her throat for hours.

For some reason, he doesn’t hesitate as he waves his hand, shaking his head. “We can share.”

“Oh…” She’d expected, after his grief and irritation with her, that he’d prefer to keep his distance from her. At least for the evening. “If you’re sure…”

“I don’t need to eat,” he continues, watching as she arranges the firewood and then standing. “I will see you in the morning.”

“You really should, are you sure you don’t want me to wake you when it’s ready?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Alright…Solas,” he turns back again, peering out of the tent. She tries to be soft with him, reminding herself that she wanted to come - insisted on being here. He owes her nothing. This is what she gets. “Ir abelas.”

He only nods once in response before turning away. The tent flap closes behind him, the waxed material louder than it should be in the silence that follows.

Morinne traps a rabbit for dinner with relative ease, then skins and cooks it over the fire, pulling out her notebooks and papers and reading til the air turns too cold and the night too dark. When she turns in, the tent warm with a wisp of magic Solas must have conjured before drifting off and the sound of his deep, heavy breathing. She lights a couple of candles, enough to continue working by, and keeps up with her paperwork.

It is never-ending, this duty, this job. Being Inquisitor. She has become fluent in it, she feels confident in that at least. Every request she understands and she has come to know the names of the nobles that support them, as well as those who do not. Cullen’s soldiers are deployed on specific missions, and she knows which, just as she ensures where to focus Josephine’s efforts and how to suggest Leliana’s scouts move as well. She’s become good at this work. It’s simply the amount of it that remains daunting.

When her eyes grow bleary with exhaustion and her heart tired with the weight of all they endured today, no longer able to ignore what Solas endured, she closes her books and tries to arrange her various scattered parchments. She looks to him after setting it all aside, looks to the way his eyes flutter behind his eyelids, deep in his dreams, lost in the Fade.

She could not save Wisdom, and some part of her rages within her that she failed him, failed someone that means so much to someone who has done so much for her. And now he is angry, he is sad, and he has every right to be. There is likely nothing more she could have done but her mind reels with the possibilities nonetheless, dwelling on every moment she might have proved insufficient.

She cannot pull the sight of his tears from her mind as she finally lays down, pulling their single heavy blanket over her and doing all she can to give him the space he demanded of her. She failed him - failed to save him from the grief that swallowed her so long ago, that changed her from who she’d been to who she is now. The hollow, broken creature she is.

All Morinne had wanted to do was keep him from a fate like that, and instead, she’d watched as he cleaved apart those mages and nearly let his grief win. Tears threaten her eyes now, her chest heavy with the events of the day, when Solas moves, shifting in his sleep.

He rolls over, and she stills, wanting to be sure she’s not in his way or a bother to him. He huffs a deep, sleepy breath, still unconscious, and then his arms are around her. He pulls her into him, his head resting on her chest as a pillow and his body pressed to her side - held tight. He sighs, comfortable.

She waits a moment, thinking perhaps he’ll wake - or maybe she will. Maybe this is actually a dream or a trick. But he stays asleep, a couple of soft snores escaping as his nose presses against her ribs, his grip loosening as he slips deeper into sleep once more.

Her hands wrap around him, softly, to ensure she doesn’t wake him, when she finally falls asleep, it’s dreamless and deep - the best she’s had in months.

—

Solas

He sinks into the Fade like a stone through water, sleep claiming him quickly as the exhaustion of travel and the day’s events drag him under.

He lays down in the patch of grass where Wisdom lived - where he’d been formed and called home for so long. It had been a comfort to visit this place, to know it still housed a spirit with the kind and bright knowledge of his friend, always willing to inspire and guide, even once he’d chosen to leave.

When the Veil split the waking and dreaming worlds, it had changed, but stayed familiar - and he relearned it - finding his friend once more and once again being led by their ceaseless teachings.

It had been the one to aid him when he awoke from Uthenera, panicked and hopeless, explaining the new world and the histories he would need to see for himself. It had called forward fellow spirits to calm him, to guide and strategize and assist. It had been the first he’d found who reminded him he wasn’t truly alone.

Now, Wisdom gone from this place, Solas curls his body around the scorched earth where it was torn by the careless mage’s spells, and weeps.

The weight of his decisions, new and old, rattle through him - using the loss of Wisdom as an opportunity to finally crawl from the dark corners of his soul where he keeps his sorrow and fear. The loss of every spirit, kind or cruel, is a stain on his soul - a reminder of his failings. That he too should be among them, not here in this wretched form, having caused these wretched deeds and untold eons of suffering.

He should be in this place, in the Fade, delighting in what can and cannot be known. There should be no stain of blood on his hands or his soul, he should not know the weight of war on one’s soul or the toll of unchecked hubris. There should be no Solas or Fen’Harel, none of this.

But there is. He is here, and Wisdom is lost.

“It’s not the end of what it knew,” a familiar voice settles at his side, and he knows it to be Persistence. Just as he once floated the endless plains of the Fade with Benevolence before they took their forms, so this form of Wisdom chose to befriend Persistence. It had likely been called to this place just as he had, to lament the loss of one so brilliant and beloved.

“For wisdom may always return, stirrings of energy could still regrow - in time, its council may guide us once again.”

“It did not deserve such a fate,” he says around tears, letting them fall without fear of judgement, “such cruelty and agony. For its final moments to be perverted by the will of cowards when it only ever sought peace and guidance, for it to be commanded to kill…”

“You are correct,” and the many eyed spirit of Persistence nods to him in agreement and comfort. “No spirit of wisdom deserves such demands. No spirit should be twisted against its will. Yet the world makes demands of us all."

“I thought I was prepared to see such things again,” Solas shakes his head, sitting up. “Wisdom…was created at the beginning of time and knew all the ages of this world. It never occurred to me that it might be lost.”

“You feel kinship to the suffering it sustained, Pride, for you too, have seen all the ages of this world and were torn from it. You too endured cruelty and selfishness when you became what you are.”

“I do not mourn myself,” he counters, but it may be a lie, he is not entirely sure anymore. He longs for his friend, but he longs for himself too. He longs for so much that once was an will never be again.

“You mourn Wisdom, yes,” Persistence hovers at his side, “That which is intrinsically connected to you, since your first creation, you have known it. To mourn one, is to mourn all that has been lost.”

“I have lost my oldest friend to an act of senseless magic today. I mourn the loss of their council, their knowledge, their guidance.”

“You only disagree because of your pride,” argues another voice, and Mercy floats to his side, then studies the place where Wisdom had once been. “But it is no matter, for that is also tied to your spirit now and cannot be untangled so easily.”

He sighs but cannot be sure Mercy is wrong, he simply has no argument, his mind, heart and spirit all exhausted by what today has cost him. A third spirit floats forward on a phantom wind, bright green and glowing, one he has known nearly as long as Wisdom and familiar as his own physical form. Purpose comes to his side, settling beside him wordlessly.

“It is a great loss indeed,” Mercy’s voice is like a silken sigh, the comfort at the end of a long day, and it wraps its luminous form around him in a spirit's embrace. “Wisdom provided instruction to all who were bold enough to seek them in this age. We must find a path of forgiveness to honor the brilliant light of wisdom’s teachings until they perhaps return to us once more.”

“I fear it is too late for forgiveness.”

“Oh Solas,” It floats over his shoulders, sighing wistfully. “You desperately seek to return to your nature, yet you act with the brazen violence of one still poisoned by those who tore you from the Fade.”

“I was not torn,” he reminds them. Reminds himself. It is a wretched dagger in his heart that he will never be able to remove, nor should he, but he reminds himself nonetheless. “I left of my own accord.”

“As you say,” Mercy sighs, wistfully. “Though forgiving yourself would have been a first step to the path of redemption, as I have pleaded all these many years.”

“It is not so easy as all that,” another voice adds, honeyed and warm. A stark contrast to the tone of grief that has held them captive since he arrived. Since Wisdom was lost. “Wolves were never meant to hunt alone for as long as Pride has...”

“Of all the spirits to come and pay respects to wisdom, I must say, I hardly expected Love to be among them,” Purpose challenges from his side, their strong voice finally added to the chorus of spirits. “Your flights of fancy rarely required the delicate touch that Wisdom offered in their time.”

“I knew of Wisdom, yes, as did all who have walked this plane for as long as we four have,” Love retorts, as it curls around his leg like a hungry cat. “I ache for the loss of all stripped from our world, gone too soon…”

“You are called to those whose hearts you might sway,” Persistence moves and twines its floating form with the other spirit, scarlet flashing against brilliant blue. “Love cares little for mourners and grief.”

“I have turned the hearts of many who ache in times of pain and sorrow,” Love counters, long tendril fingers brushing along his shoulders. “I have been the very foundation of their healing and the light that guides them out of the darkness.”

“Perhaps,” Persistence whispers, “But you have long been the darkness as well. You have created as many mourners as you have healed, by your measure.”

“I came here for quiet,” Solas murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “To grieve.”

“Quiet would undo you, Pride,” Mercy whispers, “you have been left to your grief so many times before, old friend, we only seek to share in the memory of Wisdom and to share in your mourning.”

“You sound almost like…” Solas shakes his head before he utters her name, unwilling to give them something else to cling to. Tears prick at his eyes once more, his throat going tight as he thinks of her - disappointed and confused at his violent rage earlier that day. He should have said something before going to sleep, offered her a kind word of some sort. But he’d seen her go to the wolf statue before he set up their tent and another fragment of his already shattered soul broke again.

Of all the people to lay worship at his altars, to whisper praises at his feet, seeing her do made him sick. He’d broken her, cost her so much already, and she…

“She is very interesting, is she not?” Love croons at him, already aware of who his thoughts drift to, interrupting his never ending song of self-disgust. “The one who finally changed the wolf’s mind?”

“You should have listened to her,” Mercy adds, its light glowing alongside Love’s as a testament to their agreement. “A compassionate leader is one worth following, especially in a time of such violence and hate. And mercy…how long have you been denied it, Pride, since joining the mortal world?”

“Is that what she is then?” He looks to Mercy, despite knowing it is a question he should not ask and an answer he should not have. “A spirit kin to you? One of mercy?”

The ethereal being shakes its tendrilled head, “No. I have watched from afar, cast eyes upon her dreams since the world shifted around her. She is unique, and carries mercy in her actions, but she is not directly of my likeness.”

He turns his gaze to the rest of them, Purpose, Persistence, and Love. All virtues that might describe Morinne, but with similar answers of ‘no’, it seems they are not what she is at her core.

“Your heart has long called to her,” Love’s voice sounds as though the spirit is grinning, if it had taken a form with a mouth to do so. “Much as you have tried to deny it. The kindness she showed Wisdom -”

“She risked herself,” Solas sighs. “She could have been killed in the process of destroying that summoning circle, but she did it without question.”

“For Wisdom, yes,” Love’s tone is like that of a coy grin, a knowing smile, “more than that though, she did it for you. But you do not need my confirmation of that, you already know it as the truth.”

He looks to Purpose, to the spirit that ought to step in and remind him of his goal, his duty. “You look at me seeking denial? That I would steer you away from her in favor of the duty you still bind yourself to?”

“You choose to say that in a peculiar way, Purpose,” he notes in return, filing it away for further study when he might have more energy.

“It would not mean the end of that which you have sought for millennia, Pride. You look to me as though I will absolve you to go ruin the young woman who holds the world in her hands, as if her purpose does not also matter. As if it is not also intrinsically tied with yours.”

“She is not Mythal,” Persistence adds, ignoring the wince Solas cannot help in response.

“By tying Morinne’s purpose to mine,” Solas shakes his head, standing so he might pace the grove, feel the cool grass underfoot. “I have set her death in motion. If I choose to love her, I only risk her further. I risk everything.”

“Nothing is inevitable,” Love croons. “Haven’t you learned that already, Pride?”

Chapter Text

Solas

Nothing is inevitable.

The words of Love echo through him long after the spirit says them, still ringing in his mind when Solas awakes to the tent filled with the first purple and blue light of dawn. He is cradled in Morinne’s sleeping arms, much to his delight and surprise.

There’s no way to know when he might have decided to call her chest a pillow for the night, but she holds him to her, fingers twitching lightly as she dreams. She is warm, her body soft against his, and for a moment he wonders if he’s still dreaming.

He should pull away, for both their sakes, he should tear himself from her and face the cold dawn alone. He should regain an ounce of propriety and let her go, let her sleep.

Rubbing a soft circle with his thumb where his hand rests along the soft muscle of her stomach, indulging in the feel of her, the warmth, he looks up slowly, trying to avoid rousing her. The long, dark mess of her hair is spread out around her like a halo and she pouts slightly. The expression is silly, and one he’s sure he hasn’t seen despite the times they’ve shared a tent together, and he revels in it. Even like this though, she is beautiful. She is a wonder.

She is not just the key to the lock, though she hasn’t been in so long.

She changed everything. She keeps changing everything. It is no use to continue denying it to himself, not when every conversation with her leaves him desperate for just another minute, another hour, another day to spend speaking to her. Not when every touch feels as though it was the true reason he took a physical form, so that he might feel the way her perpetually cold hands warm in his.

Morinne Lavellan interrupted everything and he is in love with her.

He is in love with her.

Admitting it to himself finally, fully, cleaves him open, leaves his heart racing and his spirit clamoring to entwine with hers like it might have before he’d taken this form. She is nothing he expected and somehow everything he’d been longing for, without realizing how desperately he'd wanted someone like her to come and challenge him. To question him, laugh with him, and shake him from his twisted, endless cycles of doubt, grief, and self loathing.

Though it is a selfish, absurd thought, there is a part of him that thinks she might love him too. Or could come to, at the very least. It is terrifying and exhilarating and he worries that if his heart continues to hammer in his chest like this, she will wake from the way it thunders against her.

It was not supposed to happen this way, but then what was?

He did not believe that it had been inevitable, it had all been a choice. Taking a form with hands that might wield a blade did not predestine him to take that first first life. Knowledge of strategy and war did not demand he share it. But he had. He had chosen to command legions that killed and killed and killed.

If that hadn’t been inevitable, why had he been so convinced that Morinne’s fate by his hands was?

She shifts slightly but makes no move of discomfort, no signs she wants to pull away. He has been alone for millennia, and she makes no move to pull away.

He has hated this body for even longer but it allows him to feel the rise and fall of her chest, to hear the way her breath varies in her sleep. He has loathed the need to feed this form but it has meant he can dine with her, steal moments in dark kitchens after hours by her side. This form requires rest that his spirit did not before he took the stone to build this body, but rest means the chance to dream and guide her through the Fade - to dance with her in his arms and kiss her again, and again, and again.

She is real, and she has shown him this world is real. It is not simply a nightmare from which he must save his people, a dreaded future he must wake himself up from. There are good people around him, and she has forced him to see it - to take the time and consider more than just how single-minded he had allowed himself to become.

It had not felt real when he awoke. It had not felt real when he found Felassan again, or when his old friend betrayed his orders, claiming these people were good. It hadn’t felt real when he watched the mages and templars march toward the Temple of Sacred Ashes, waiting to grasp his full power once more with the unlocked orb and finally set this world free.

He’d spent a year watching these people, tranquil shells of the Elvhen before, and felt nothing. Then she’d interrupted. Then he watched the Inquisition go out of its way to help every suffering stranger they came across. He watched Morinne fight for the mages, downtrodden for centuries, granting them freedom.

Then Blackwall shared war stories over campfires with him, the two commiserating over the worst times in their lives, the burden lifting somehow by speaking with the warden who actively fought to kill his imprisoned brethren.

Then Cassandra, faithful to her core, opened her mind and heard him out - willing to consider his perspective even if it meant re-examining what it meant as someone devout to her Maker.

Then Josephine, yelled at by every noble that stepped foot into Skyhold and never wavering in her kindness and grace, guiding them to ensure the success of their mission without question.

Then Cole…Cole. A spirit of Compassion so eager to aid them, it had taken a physical form…

And Morinne. Her unending curiosity. Her sense of humor. The sadness he knows lies somewhere in her heart but she fights through, radiating warmth and kindness and humor instead. Her confidence, and the quiet fear she only lets him see. The way the scar she earned after Haven slightly splits her smile, making her wicked grin all the more devious.

He’s found a home, a family. He’s happy, for the first time in centuries upon centuries. There is still more pain than he knows what to do with, but there’s hope too.

He tightens his hold on her for just a moment, pressing his face against her to stifle the overwhelming emotion that rises in his throat and tends to rip through him, then lets her go. He is silent, crawling from the tent and pulling a cloak over his shoulders as he greets the first light of the cold winter morning.

This was the land promised to the elven people, once upon a time. He supposes it is, in some ways, beautiful, if not dulled a bit by the dried grasses of winter and the barren trees. It must have been lovely before being ravaged by war, but it is no Arlathan. It is nothing compared to what they should have.

Morinne would fight for them, he knows this of her. She’d do everything she could to show the strength and passion of her people. Their flaws had been all he’d seen since waking, all he’d been able to dwell on - that this was what his people had been reduced to. Slaves and wandering wild folk, worshiping their former masters as benevolent gods while humans reduce them to living on scraps.

If they could make someone like her though, someone so willing to look at their flaws and love them anyway - even after what she’d been through personally by the hands of her clan - had he been wrong to judge them? If they could sculpt a mind so ready to consider every possibility, so eager to learn and grow at every opportunity, how could he write them off? How could he deny that she’d been right - he’d been the one unfair.

Yet he looks at the copse of trees at the edge of their small campsite, and the twisting, bare branches immediately call to mind the vallaslin carved into her skin. The ever present reminder of the one who came before.

When he’d loved Mythal, he’d given her everything, and it had never been enough.

Solas had followed her for centuries that became millennia. Her lapdog, her general, the counselor. She was his creator, his inspiration, his queen, and eventually, when she needed it, his lover. Solas bowed before her and emptied himself, against all the screaming cries of his spirit that told him not to, until there was nothing left. Until Fen’Harel was born. Until the Dread Wolf left her.

It had never truly ended, not quite. He’d walked away but she’d followed, into darkened corners and hidden alcoves, whispering promises that she would join him. It was not the right time, never the right time, but there were secrets she’d proffer in exchange. Dangling in front of him, to keep him on her line while she played both sides of the rebellion.

He’d taken Felassan as his general, his friend, and sometimes more - a distraction and a companion and something deeper, something beloved to him - but it hadn’t mattered. It had always revolved around what demands Mythal made, and what she might require next. Even when he said it was for the People, for Elvhenan, it had been, in some large part, to win her favor back.

He’d finally stooped to begging.

“Join me,” he’d cried, “denounce them and make this right, before the blight consumes them all.”

There had still been time then. She’d offered him promises that she would soothe them, remind their kin of the danger that lurked within the magic of the blight, and whispered words of love to him as she gave herself to him that final time.

When they killed her, it still hadn’t been over. The memory burns his eyes, his throat, and the landscape of the Dales blurs before him as he hangs his head.

How he’d raged and grieved her. How he’d loved that wicked woman, given her everything of himself time and time again. He’d loved Mythal, but in equal measure he had loathed her at the end.

They stole her, killed her, made a spectacle of her corpse.

And in return, he bound them.

All he’d ever learned from love was how to ruin himself and others. How to give and give until nothing remains.

Morinne deserves better.

It is with that thought, he hears the tent shift behind him and footsteps pad across the cold earth, stopping at his side. He swallows the last of the emotion that blankets his senses from the onslaught of memory, and turns to face her. She is still wrapped in the blanket they’d shared, eyes tired, hair long and loose, but there is a smile on her face that makes the dread in his heart ease.

“Good morning,” she whispers, voice still heavy with sleep.

“Sleep well?”

The question earns him a blush and she looks away, out to the morning painted the first bright shades of blue. “The best in months, I think. I sleep terribly in Skyhold.”

He gives a soft ‘hmm’ in response, watching her for a moment before following her gaze out to the landscape before them. They sit quietly for a moment, and he wonders if she thinks perhaps he’s still upset with her, if she’s gone back to being quiet as she offered yesterday.

He’s eternally grateful when she interrupts the silent moment, though she doesn’t look at him when she asks, “Are you feeling any better today?”

“I am,” he says, glad that he doesn’t have to lie to her. “And I owe you a sincere apology for my behavior.”

“You owe me nothing,” she says, grey-blue eyes meeting his, intense in her sincerity. “You endured something terrible. You don’t have to apologize for feeling that pain.”

It is staggering how wise she is, despite being so young. She puts him to shame in moments like this.

“Perhaps,” he concedes, “but I should not have lashed out at you.”

“You can lash out again if you like. You can yell and scream every day until we’re back in Skyhold, and I will be by your side to take it.”

He can only shake his head, willing the emotion that sits like a weight in his throat to vanish as he asks, “Why?”

“Because you don’t need to mourn alone, Solas. Whatever form that grief takes, you are not a monster for feeling that pain,” he watches her pause and fidget, the blanket falling off one shoulder to briefly expose a flash of warm skin before she bundles herself once more. “We must all feel grief when it comes for us, and we must all hold each other when it comes for those we care about.”

“I…am coming to learn that,” he shakes his head, thinking again of the host of spirits that sat with him for hours as he slept and held vigil for Wisdom. “I suppose I am not entirely used to having someone I can trust with things of that nature.”

“I’m not entirely either,” she smiles again finally, softer this time, but he feels it in his chest all the same. “It’s nice though.”

“It is.”

He is in love with her, and there is no use denying it.

If she can change everything, so young and so wise, so determined, then perhaps so can he. Perhaps there truly could be another way through this quagmire without destroying himself or breaking her. Perhaps he can finally have one good thing.

“How were your dreams?”

The question interrupts his reverie and he watches as she reaches for her pack and pulls out a wax-wrapped square of cheese, a couple of apples, and finally a small bag of mostly intact crackers. His body requires far less than hers but after a full day without food, the sight of food calls to him and he is grateful she thought to raid the Skyhold kitchens before their departure.

“I visited the place in the Fade where my friend used to be,” he says, reaching for a corner of the cheese, “and found solace with some spirits who knew it well. We grieved together, and perhaps something similar might reform one day. It might have a different personality and would likely not remember me, but hope is not lost for what the spirit stood for.”

“I’m glad you weren’t alone, even in dreams,” Morinne’s voice is careful and she cuts a slice of apple for herself. “And that the Fade might once again have that Wisdom returned to it, in some form or fashion.”

“Your compassion humbles me, Morinne,” he says, watching her pause around the bite she takes, the juice of the apple gathering on her lips in a way that he has to force himself to look away from. “It is important to see in a leader but as the frequent recipient, I find myself constantly awed by it.”

“Stop,” she says, shaking her head. “You would have done the same.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” he says. “You were right not to let me leave on my own, but I cannot say if I would have mustered the same determination.”

“Well,” she chews her bottom lip, “I…just know what it is to be left alone in a moment like that. And you deserve someone to fight for you.”

“Tell me about her,” he says, knowing where her experience with tragedy likely originated, “your mother.”

She stops for a moment, studying him, then looking down at the cracker in her hand and smiling softly.

“Hmm,”she thinks for only a moment, popping the cracker in her mouth as she ponders. “I remember her being funny. I remember laughing, she was always trying to make me laugh. And she was a brilliant cook, she could make anything taste good - which was a wonder given how little we usually had. She told me all the Dalish stories and would do voices for every character.

“They thought of her as an outsider, so she worked hard. Harder than anyone I’ve ever met. I remember she would be out from dawn to dusk, helping with anything she could. Sometimes she’d bring me along, sometimes I’d have to stay with other children and play or do other things. After she died, I resented her for that - that she’d spent so long away instead of with me, but she was always trying to be the best she could, both for me and herself, and for the clan.”

“She sounds like an impressive woman,” the sun has begun cresting over the treeline and he takes another bite of cheese. “Why was she an outsider, if you don’t mind my asking?”

She only sighs. “Do you…do you remember that first day? You immediately noted that I didn’t have an elven name, which is strange for a Dalish elf.”

“I…yes,” the change in subject surprises him, but he remembers it vividly. Yet another tactless moment on his end, in retrospect. “I apologize for my rudeness that day. I’m not sure if I ever extended apologies for the way I came across.”

“You didn’t need to. Anyway, you were right. It is odd for a Dalish elf not to have an elven name, but I’m not strange, because I do. I have an elven name.”

His eyes go wide at the admittance and she fidgets. This is a truth she does not share lightly, a truth that makes her anxious when so little does.

“My mother was born in the alienage in Starkhaven,” she does not look at him as she speaks, her eyes focused on the dried golden grasses she pulls at nervously. “When she was thirteen, she was found by a pair of Dalish elves in the city trading. They normally wouldn’t interact much while in the city, but they spotted the frail girl being beaten by a shem man and chased them off. The woman was a mage, she managed to intimidate them.

“The Dalish couple didn’t realize that by aiding her, they’d doomed her life in Starkhaven. The embarrassed shem man burned down the building she’d been living in in a drunken rage, and my mother spent the next three weeks living on the street. She happened to see them again when they came the following month to trade, and they took her in out of guilt.”

“Isn’t that exceptionally rare? For Dalish to take in city elves?”

She nods. “Very. If elves find the Dalish and need aid, we will generally offer it to them - assuming they are respectful of the Clan in question. The reverse is extremely rare. And my grandparents were scolded for it for years, but they took her in and ended up raising her as their own. My mother grew up loving the Dalish, she adored the culture and took the vallaslin and fought every day to prove her love for her people. Her new people.

“When she died…when the clan she served so faithfully for so many years threw out her daughter without a second thought, I rebelled in the only way my nine year old mind knew how. I threw away my Dalish name and took hers, the last thing I had of her, and insisted when I joined clan Lavellan that I was to be called Morinne.”

“I am surprised they chose to honor such a request, given what I know of the Dalish.” It takes everything in him to keep the comment light and without further damnation of the people he knows she still holds deep fondness for, despite everything.

“They didn’t know any other name to call me, or I’m sure they wouldn’t have,” she finally looks at him, her eyes a bit sad but otherwise only tired. “I’ve…never told anyone else this story. I’ve never said this out loud actually.”

“I am honored to know it, Morinne,” and he means it. He is honored to know her, all of her, and any truths she is willing to share with him.

“I feel like perhaps I should have told you sooner, but that name is not a part of me, not really,” Morinne sniffs against the cold morning air, shaking her head again, “I’ve had this one longer than I ever had my mother. Mirevas was lost the day she was.”

“Mirevas,” he repeats the elven name, and it takes seed within him, something bright and distinctly her growing at the sound. “My freedom.”

“Ridiculous, isn’t it? It doesn’t suit me at all.”

“I think it does, perhaps more than you realize now,” he murmurs, though he can hardly explain why. Perhaps you are the freedom from damnation I have been bound by for eternity, his spirit cries, foolishly. Perhaps you could be my freedom, my love, my salvation. “Either way, both names are beautiful. As are you.”

She blushes and it is the kind that reaches her ears, “Sweet talker.”

“I am grateful to you for sharing this with me,” he longs to touch her, to show her what this means to him, but is unsure how. So he stands, wipes off his leggings, and extends a hand to help her rise as well. “I am grateful for you, Morinne. Or, would you like me to call you Mirevas?”

“I like the way it sounds when you say it,” her mouth curves into a small smile, her eyes the same color as the cold winter sky above them, “but it hardly feels like my name anymore. I’ve been Morinne for, well, a long time. It’s mine now.”

“Then Morinne,” he cannot keep one hand from reaching for her, and he makes to stroke her cheek but catches himself and instead rests his hand on her shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. It feels hollow in comparison, but it’s better than nothing, he supposes. “Should we be on our way?”

“I suppose we should.”

—

They ride for Verchiel, a full day of travel whipped by cold wind, only stopping to answer questions for the occasional convoy of chevaliers patrolling the Imperial Highway. Empress Celene will risk none of her cousin's men taking the main roads, Morinne explains, though he doesn’t tell her that he’s aware of the situation in Orlais.

It is also why they will be staying outside the main city, as opposed to claiming Inquisition status and finding fine lodgings - they cannot be seen visiting one the many cities ruled by Gaspard de Chalon. Or so Morinne believes Josephine would advise, and she is not willing to risk more work for her advisor on the chance she is wrong.

It doesn't matter, they agree, settling on another simple patch of land on which they might camp for the night come late afternoon. It’s actually rather beautiful, despite more dry winter grasses and the endless mud of late winter. A small pond reflects the amber light of the retreating sun, and after setting up their tent, Morinne goes and stands at the muddy edge, casting for an easy spell of fire to warm the water enough so she might dip her feet. He tries not to let her audible groan of pleasure get to him, but feels it settle in his core like a hot stone.

It is far from the worst place to tell her, he thinks, tying their horses to a nearby tree for the night, watching her stretch her shoulders, her back. He’s thought of little else on their journey, unable to say much against the noise of wind and hoof beats as they journeyed. Practiced words run on a loop in his mind, correcting and changing as he thinks them over, preparing to give her his heart in what he can only hope are steady hands.

Mirevas, he thinks to himself, again and again and again. It feels like yet another sign, a promise made long before they’d met that she could be the one to change everything. It is the kind of relief that feels both beautiful and terrifying all at once. My freedom.

The villain of her mythology, offering himself to her in the hopes that she might love him, might free him from the shackles that have haunted him for eternity. There’s undoubtedly a joke to be found there, but he doesn’t have the focus for it. All he thinks of is her.

He walks to the water's edge and unwraps the leather from his feet to join her, bracing himself for cold but finding it wonderfully pleasant with the magic she maintains.

“This is more along the lines of a winter I can tolerate,” Morinne sighs, shifting her feet in the water as he stands beside her. “Cold, yes, but just brown. No snow.”

“Are you thinking of returning to the Free Marches when all this is done?”

“Hmm,” she looks down, studying the water and making a face he can’t decipher as she thinks, “I suppose that depends on how all this ends.”

“How so?”

“Well, there’s still a part of me that’s convinced I won’t survive it, but,” she huffs a small laugh and shakes her head. The thought of her death because of this, because of him, makes him sick. “If people don’t hate me by the end of it all and I still have some shred of good will, some power, I’d like to do something with it. For the elves, ideally.”

“They would be lucky to have you fight for them,” and it is the truth but he still watches that he does not say too much.

“They’d be lucky to learn from you as well. Perhaps…well, if you’d consider it, maybe we could do some good together. For them. When this is done, I mean. If you’d…well, if you’d be interested.”

Her words are quick and nervous, and he watches as she digs her toes into the mud of the lakebed. She wants him to go with her, to stay at her side and do good for her people after they finish saving the world. She has thought about this enough to verbalize it alongside the plans she’s thought of for herself.

She wants to aid the elves, and she wants him to help her. If he could only tell her…if she only knew…

“What were you like? Before the anchor?” He hears himself ask the question before he can think better of it. “Has it changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals….your spirit?”

It is the point he has returned to again and again as he thinks of loving her, of keeping her at his side. If he has already mangled her spirit in some way, if his mistake with the orb could have fundamentally changed her, he will not - can not - risk doing more damage to her, regardless of what he feels.

“I don’t believe so,” she says, though her tone sounds almost like a question. One he can’t entirely explain without giving too much away. “I feel like the same woman I was before, at the very least.”

He chews the inside of his cheek, glad to hear it, and she cocks her head, watching him.

“Why do you ask, Solas?”

“You are unique,” he meets her gaze and watches it soften. The cold breeze blows strands of her hair across her face that she makes no move to adjust; his heart thunders nervously in his chest. “In all Thedas, I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade.”

“I suppose you expected a stubborn Dalish First - so set in her ways she would refuse to hear you out or would take offense to any attempt at education on elven history?”

She asks it playfully, with a wry smile, but he isn’t sure that she’s wrong. Whatever he expected when he’d stood over her, weaving his magic through the angry, newborn anchor, it hadn’t been the woman who stands at his side now. He watches her look down at her hand, at the ever-glowing mark of his ancient magic that she’s harnessed without second thought. Like perhaps it was meant for her all along.

“You have shown subtlety in your actions,” he tells her, watching her flex her left hand before lowering it, “A wisdom I have not seen since... since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade.”

A wisdom that reminds him of himself, before he’d been twisted and broken. What he once was, what he’d long given up the hope of still being - wise and clever, cunning and quick - but with the delicate touch that centuries of war and rebellion broke out of him long ago.

In his very core though, he knows Morinne longs for his wisdom, not the untold power he will once again wield. She knows nothing of godhood or immortality. He came to her in rags, an outcast and an apostate, a stubborn and often frustrating guide at her side. He had been so quick to judge her, and she’d been sure to do the opposite. To give him every opportunity to share his wisdom and his mind, regardless of his arguments and condemnations.

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” she jokes after a pause he realizes must have been longer than normal.

“If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours... have I misjudged them?”

She lets out a surprise puff of breath and looks back out to the expanse of the small pond for a moment before meeting his eye again. “You know I don’t claim to believe the Dalish are perfect, but no people are. For all their flaws, they work hard to preserve the old ways. But they also do not make my decisions, I do. So I suppose I’m not sure.”

“Yes, you are wise to give yourself that due.” He considers, his heart continues to thunder, his palms grow damp. “Perhaps that is it. I suppose it must be. Most people act with so little understanding of the world. But not you.”

“I’m not sure I follow, Solas,” she turns her body to face him finally and his name on her tongue is such a beautiful sound. “Why all these questions? What does this mean?”

“It means I have not forgotten the kiss.”

He watches her brows raise in surprise, and then a blush creeps from her throat to her cheeks and up her ears. She tries to contain her smile by biting her bottom lip as she takes a step toward him, crossing her arms behind her back.

Morinne looks up at him and her face is lit in the splendor of the setting sun, and she simply says, “Good.”

He shakes his head, trying to keep the smile from his own face. He should walk away, should stop this madness before it ruins him any further. Perhaps it’s not too late and he could deny himself still, could reject the way his heart burns for her until the work of the Inquisition is done.

“Don’t,” she says, reading the way his mind screams at him to turn from her, to walk away. Her voice is barely more than a whisper - a soft, final grasp at hope for them to be something more than whatever they are now. “Solas…”

“It would be kinder in the long run,” he tells her, tells himself, “but losing you would…”

Would be unthinkable, would ruin him, would be a cost he can no longer think of paying after millennia of giving and giving and giving.

So he decides he will not lose her, and lets himself take instead. He covers her body with his own, wrapping his arms around her, and kisses her once more.

It is not the kiss they shared in the Fade.

His lips are tentative against hers for only a moment, reveling in finally knowing the taste of her, the warmth of her in his arms, against his mouth. When he licks the seam of her lips, she opens for him with a soft gasp and he feels one hand move to his back, the other to his neck, holding him to her with the same boldness he feels in his own grip.

If their kiss in the Fade was a storm of anticipation and tension finally unleashed, thundering urgency and need, then this the heavy push and pull of the ocean changing tides. It is deep and hungry but unrushed, and Solas savors her. She tastes of sun-bright afternoons and laughter, like love and acceptance and home. She nips at his bottom lip, teasing it between her teeth only briefly, but he cannot contain the groan it pulls from him in response. He wants to crawl inside her skin to grow closer to her, to find her spirit and curl around it with his own.

Eventually though, they must come up for air, and he once again curses this simplistic form. Her lips are bright and pink from use, her skin flush with desire, and she smiles up at him tentatively. He answers with kisses peppered along her cheeks, her eyelids, her jaw, then her neck. When he reaches a spot that earns him a gasp and a giggle, he presses more and then sucks, lightly.

“Solas,” she hums, a hand moving to the front of his tunic. She needs clarification, he supposes, and he has given none. He kisses her forehead, her nose, and he is unsure if this feeling that floods his heart is one he’s ever felt before or if finally, after all these millennia, he’s found something truly new.

“Morinne,” he whispers in response, letting one hand move to the wild mess of her hair, finally feeling the silken strands he’s ached to touch for longer than he should admit. She smells of her usual soap and perfumed oils, of elderflower and mint, even out here in the wilds.

“Morinne,” he says again, and kisses her once more, briefly this time but still passionately, pouring all his eons of pain into the love he feels for her, as if it might absolve it all. His arms around her are tight, but she holds him back with equal force, like nothing will part them.

“Morinne,” he hums a final time and pulls away enough to look in her eyes, where he has found acceptance and passion and understanding. Tears prick his eyes for the untold time that week, but finally they are of joy and not of grief. “Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

It is her turn to move, and her hand rises to the back of his neck and pulls him into another kiss, soft and quick but still fervent.

“Solas,” she says, pulling away only enough to speak, his forehead pressed to hers. He can feel the quick flutter of her eyelashes, her lips moving to rest almost completely against his, as if she needs to speak the words directly into skin. “Ar salin banal ar ama.”

“You are far more than I deserve,” he murmurs against her in return, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice as his fingers press more insistently, more desperately, into the soft leather at her hips. He holds her to him as if she might disappear, as if this moment will fade away and it will all be proven a dream or a hallucination.

“Ar lath ma, Solas, ma vhenan,” her words are the song his heart has longed to hear since ancient Elvhenan stood proud and beautiful. They mark his soul with the same permanence and force as his anchor marked her hand. She is his, and he is hers. He kisses her eyes, her mirrored tears of relief and joy, feeling her shake with a soft laugh as he does. “I didn’t think it possible, I’d thought perhaps I’d lost my mind.”

“Vhenan, if your mind is lost then so is mine.” His spirit sings in his chest, and he is whole, and he is hers. “Ar theneras mala renan.”

The kiss that follows is more, love becoming passion and then ravenous need taking hold of them both. He wants to touch her, explore her, to know where each gasp might become a moan and then a wanton plea for more.

The sun begins to set, its light dimming around them, but she is fire and warmth intended solely for him. Her hands find the edge of his tunic and move upward, finding skin and igniting where she touches with a blaze of heat and want. She purrs and he twists, his back hitting the grass as they fumble, needing more, more, more.

Morinne straddles him, and he isn’t sure if the heat between her thighs is exaggerated by his imagination or if it is real and a heaven all its own. His hands find the curve of her ass as she takes his mouth in hers again as she grinds against his length, biting at his lip once more, and he is lost to how desperately he wants to be buried in her. He wants to taste her, love her, fill her. Solas has had no shortage of lovers in his long life but there has never been a need that compares to this.

“Solas, vhenan, emma salin,” her voice is a plea, a moan, and he ought to tell her no, some sensible part of him screams, but she rolls her hips again and he is so achingly hard against her. She kisses along his neck and her body is warm and she is his. He loves her. She loves him.

He growls and flips her so she is under him, the giggle of delight it earns him is somehow just as desperately tempting as each flicker of her tongue against his. He licks up the column of her neck, and she whines for him so beautifully.

He is no god, and though he is remembered as such, he never claimed to be. He is only a man.

It has never been more true than when she kisses him again, her hand cupping the hard length of him through his leggings. He groans, rutting against her palm for more, and says the only thing he can before his mouth finds hers once more.

“Yes, vhenan, yes.”

Chapter Text

Solas

He tells her yes and is again lost in the wet perfection of her mouth, widening her hips so he might settle in the cradle of her legs and grind against her there. Something tells him to stop, to slow down, screaming that he will not last if he continues at this rate though every eager, foolish, damnable part of him needs more.

Solas manages to pull his hands away for a moment, an attempt to slow himself, when his hand finds purchase on something other than her skin and he realizes she is laying in little more than dried grass and dirt, begging him to take her.

The cold ground is a sharp bell of clarity in his mind and though he doesn’t feel deserving of her in general, he knows she deserves more than to be taken like this.

“Vhenan,” he rasps, forcing himself to pull away, though he makes no move to halt her hands that dance up his tunic, “Not like this, not here.”

Her pout is almost more than he can bear, her swollen lips temptation incarnate. “You said yes.”

“I meant it,” but he moves to kneel, “you deserve better than a rut in the mud, Morinne.”

“I’m Dalish,” she grins, “I’m not scared of a bit of dirt.”

“Humor me,” he smiles, taking her hand before dipping to kiss along her jaw only once. Then Solas turns, and lights the clearing with glowing orbs of magic that bob and float in the cold breeze. The trees and their tent glow, soft beams of light reflecting on the pond’s surface as the last of the sun’s light dips behind the hills to the west.

“Would you care to warm it?” He raises an eyebrow to her, watching understanding flicker across her features, “Or should I?”

He can, of course, but her control over fire is exceptional and he cannot deny his curiosity at how her perfect focus might strain under the distraction of his touch. Morinne raises a hand and mirrored orbs of orange and gold light settle within his, providing both light and warmth.

“Impressive,” he declares, and reaches to pull off his tunic in a single, efficient pull over his head. His mind jolts back to a similar moment in a Caer in Crestwood, the way she’d stumbled over her words at the sight, how it had stirred the prideful beast within him. Now, he watches her bite her lip, grin still wild as her hair, and she begins to copy him, slowly working open the buttons of her own top.

Before it falls open she stops, a single eyebrow raised as she shifts, undoing the laces of her leggings instead. It is a performance, one he cannot look away from, as her long lithe legs slip free. Smooth muscle, dotted with the occasional freckle and a number of small scars; she doesn’t brace against the cold, only twists and shifts, muscle flexing with every movement.

Solas remains transfixed as small clothes are stripped away, leaving only the long linen blouse from her and being completely bare before him. She is perfection, sculpted solely for him, and backing slowly toward the tent with a smile he cannot wait to kiss from her lips.

Morinne reaches the tent’s edge before pulling the top from her shoulders and he pauses his work to take in the full wonder of her. She flaunts perfect, full breasts and her hair reaches to the tips of flush, raised nipples that he longs to pull between his lips, to suck as she rides him.

By the time his cock is free, heavy and leaking between his legs, she backs into the tent and holds it open for him - a siren calling him to sea. He follows her in, a sailor ready to meet his doom, and finally feels her bare skin against his as he kisses her once more.

It takes all his strength not to lose himself in it, at the feeling of her breasts pressed against his chest, his cock against her with no boundary but his own foolish will. Her legs wrap around him and she is soft and wet where he is hard and aching.

“I see now how you will be my undoing,” he whispers against her jaw, hand roaming her side feeling the place where her ribs give way to the soft, supple expanse of her stomach. “How am I to ever get anything done again, knowing you might be within my reach?”

“Maybe that’s the point,” she smiles into his touch, “maybe I like you distracted.”

“Wicked creature.”

“Sweet talker.”

“Vhenan,” it is both a curse and a moan and a promise as she sucks his earlobe between her teeth.

“I knew you would be something to behold but,” she shakes her head and raises both hands to his cheeks, before curling both arms on his neck, “you are magnificent, Solas.”

It is the second time that evening that he is proud to hold this form, and he wonders if this is another thing she will change in him. “Yet I am the one in awe of you.”

He finds her mouth once more and then they are breathless, mouths and tongues and teeth relentless in the need for more. Her nails dance across his back, and his mind conjures images of love bites, bruises, and proof that she is his and he is hers. He pulls her against his hips again, needing to be closer, closer, closer and she mewls into his mouth.

When he finally lets his fingers find the heat between her legs, she gasps at his touch and he cannot help the low growl that escapes him - she is soaked beyond what he could have ever imagined, ever dreamed of.

“Vhenan.”

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you to touch me?”

“Tell me,” he lowers a voice to a purr as he presses the words against her neck, pride roaring within him at the feeling of goosebumps that dance across her skin in response. He spreads her arousal, finally making contact with the bundle of nerves where he knows she wants him, and her hips raise and buck, seeking more.

“Since that first dream,” she pauses to whimper as he begins to stroke her, setting a rhythm with two fingers and kissing down her neck and across her collarbone, “I have thought of you with every release. Your hands,” she moans and he notes the position, the pace, that leaves her nearly breathless, “your mouth, your cock. Solas I have…”

He slips a finger inside her, hissing at the tight promise of her warmth, and she gasps, one hand fluttering to her mouth as if to stifle the sound. He continues to work her open, slowly, kissing down the center of her chest. “Tell me, vhenan.”

“Mmm So-Solas,” he smiles, watching her attempt to focus against his ministrations, “I have wanted you more than I have ever wanted anyone.”

Her eyes seek his at the admission, the first tentative, truly nervous blush crawling across her face since the night began. He withdraws his fingers, noting the small sound she makes at the absence of his touch, and he kisses her once more.

“You have me, Morinne, ma’vhenan,” he whispers. “I am yours.”

Solas shifts, hard and needy, between her legs so she might feel how desperately he wants her in return, and he kisses her with all the love and passion his millennia upon millennia of life can afford him. He may never be able to explain to her just how much he echoes the sentiment, the depth with which his want echoes across time and history. But perhaps, he can show her.

Between their panted breaths, he asks, “might I taste you?”

“Please,” she whimpers, and Solas descends, kissing his way down her body. Her soaking, perfect folds part for him and he takes a long, slow lick up her core - delighting at the sound she offers in response - before giving in to the taste of her completely.

She is sweet like sparkling wine and bitter like grapefruit, her arousal salt and honey and musk as she moves against his face and tongue. His hands rove her hips, her thighs, her stomach and he promises himself to memorize every inch of her soft skin, to learn every scar and mark, then kiss them all.

She keens when he sucks her clit between his lips, but he finds that she truly melts when her nails scrape his scalp and claw for purchase as he alternates deeper, slower kisses against her and buries his tongue in her core. It is all he can do to keep from taking his cock in hand as he moans into her, the pleasure of her echoing through him with every fluttering pulse of her body.

When he replaces his tongue with two fingers, curling them inside her, the tent flashes brightly hot for a moment as Morinne comes undone, her cries high and breathless as a gush of moisture floods his senses. His mouth does not move from her as she rides through her pleasure, and only once she begins to calm does he draw away slightly, kissing up her thighs and stomach.

“Never -” she is breathless, and his fingers continues working within her, “never done that - mmmm, fuck, Solas - never done that before, ah!”

He presses against the internal wall of her once more, fingers curling and working, as another stream of pleasure floods from her. He chuckles, knowing she is experienced enough but still proud to give her something new, something she can only know by his hand.

Withdrawing his hand, he rises to his knees and lines himself up with her entrance, pausing only to bend and finally take a pert nipple between his lips, then looks over his lover. She is wide eyed, hazy and flushed with release, and immaculate.

“Solas,” she whines, bracing a hand on his chest to slow him, “can I ride you?”

Every time she speaks his name, wild with desire but breathless with need, something within him grows brighter and stronger. Pride, he’s sure, but for once he does not fight that which is normally his enemy. He revels in it, the way she looks at him, the way her chest rises and falls.

All he can do is groan in agreement and fall back on the blankets and his spread out pelt, taking in the sight of her rising on bended knees, moving to straddle him. Her hand reaches between them to align him with her entrance and she strokes him once, twice, smiling as his own eyes flutter back at the feel of her hands finally on him.

“Something to behold,” she repeats with her beautiful, wicked grin.

My freedom, he thinks, with the first slide into her, both their jaws dropping in unison at the sensation of her stretching around him. She settles on him fully, to the hilt, and pauses, luxuriating in the feeling of their finally being united in this way.

There were times, in ages past, that he’d heard poets and artists insist that sex improved when truly in love with one’s partner, that the connection one’s spirit felt mattered just as much as the connection of the physical bodies. He’d written it off as foolish nonsense, the talk of romantics with too much time on their hands. The physical form was not so intrinsically connected to the spirit, after all, how could such things matter when taking care of such simple physical needs.

As his forehead meets Morinne's and she reaches her marked hand to his cheek, he realizes there must have been some foolish value to their words after all. When she begins to move above him, like a queen on her throne, feeling the way her fingers tighten on his chest as she moans and how her breasts dance as she writhes, he realizes he was a fool to ever doubt at all.

The sight and feel of her is more than his most debauched dreams could have conjured, and he joins her rhythm once she sets their pace. She is heaven and warmth and light, pleasure incarnate.

A chorus of “oh please, oh fuck, Solas, fuck, Solas, Solas, please, oh fuck,” echoes off the canvas of the tent walls, her cries turning to whimpers as he watches begin to Morinne lose herself.

“Yes,” he tells her, his voice ragged with exertion and lust as he feels her body clench around him in response, “for me, vhenan. Yes, good, yes, yes.”

In Elvhen, faster than she can keep up with, he praises further. “I have laid with the very gods you worship and compared to you, they are worms, they are maggots. There is nothing like the taste of you, there is no heaven but the feeling of your body on mine, there is no love but the love we share.”

It is breathless and gasping but she nods as if she understands, biting her lip and whining, as she rides him. He does not know how he could be so lucky to watch her fuck herself to release on his lap, but the memory will serve him for eternity. His hands move to her ass and she leans forward, taking his mouth in hers and moaning at the taste of her release still bright on his tongue.

He feels his own release coiling tight within him - close, too close - but then she pulls back enough and her breasts are there, and his mouth finds purchase. It is enough to bring her to the edge again, and with a cry, she goes over.

It is not her first release but it is still strong enough, he worries, that she will end him with each pulsing clench. Yet his mouth does not move from where he stays latched and her hips do not slow from her desperate grinding.

“You are -” she pants, kissing along his neck and down his chest, and he realizes her eyes are wet with tears from the intensity of her finish, “ - never so good, never like that, Solas…”

“You are immaculate,” he breathes, and she is crying and laughing, wild and overwhelmed, but she kisses him again and again. He lets her, his arms tight around her frame, letting her calm before flipping her again.

He needs to adjust, to avoid losing himself from her praise alone, cursing the fact that he did not find some way to spend himself the days before. Perhaps having done so might have made him last even longer. How can he allow this to end when he could spend centuries like this, buried inside her, chest bursting with joy and love?

He kisses her again as he drives into her, feeling his body tighten and beg, needing to empty and he has to ask, selfish as he is to even consider it.

“Morinne, I -”

“Yes,” she nods, her lips moving against his with the motion, “yes, fill me, Solas, yes yes yes.”

It is his name amidst the confirmation that almost breaks him, and he growls as her legs curl around his back to let him take her deeper, fill her further. Pleasure takes over and he thrusts with abandon, needing more, needing to finish and chase the high she has promised, lost in the sounds of her gasping moans and his own desperate grunting.

He feels her clench around him and it pulls the gasping howl from him as hollows out, emptying inside her. His heart thunders as he collapses at her side, breathless.

Even as he pants, still hazy with the intensity of his release, his pride roars that he must give her more, that she needs to find her pleasure again, again, again, or he will not be worthy of her. In Arlathan, such a demonstration would have been a failure on his part, to last minutes and not provide hours or days of pleasure for one’s partner would have been mocked mercilessly. Morinne deserves more than any of those leeches ever did, yet this awful form could not provide it to her.

Shame crawls from the few dark corners that remain, the small spaces where Morinne’s light had not yet reached, and it’s sickening, twisting reach threatens to ruin the beauty of the night more quickly than he’d climaxed.

There’s still time, he thinks, he can bring her another release and then another while his body resets. If he keeps her focused on her pleasure, perhaps she might not notice his failure, or at least, won’t think so much of it. He still had magic he could use as well, it hadn’t occurred to him at first, but he knew more than a handful of spells that would wrap her body in sensations of warmth or multiple hands ghosting across her skin as his mouth brings her over the edge again and again.

But before he can bury his tongue between her legs once more or he might cast a spell to have her writhing, making up for his negligence, she nuzzles into his chest. It is not a move seeking more, but of comfort, contentment. She hums a soft sigh, an easy, happy sound, and looks up at him with her brilliant, stony blue eyes. There is no disappointment there, which confounds him.

He holds that gaze, and turns on his side, offering his arm to her as a makeshift pillow and running his fingers through the wild tangles of her hair. It is softer than he imagined, even after sex and days of travel. Some part of him knows he should speak first, own the failings of his body, offer her more, but words fail him before she scoots closer and presses a soft kiss to his lips.

“You are everything,” she murmurs, and Solas wonders if, this close, she can feel his treacherous heart in his chest. He can tell it is no lie, and she would not mock his performance, but it makes no sense to him even if it is a comfort to hear. She lingers close to him, holding his gaze, and his nerves begin to quiet as his cock goes limp between them, their joining still fresh on his skin.

She props herself up on one arm and he watches her index finger dance across the freckles on his chest as she catches her breath, leaning to softly kiss the trail her hands leave behind. The tent is hot and smells of sex, love bites beginning to bloom on her skin in faint trails of pink and purple along her breasts and neck. He senses her connection to the Fade a moment later as she pulls back the heat from her magic, the space around them cooling as a result.

“I wish I could paint,” Morinne says absentmindedly, looking over his body, “I would capture this moment again and again if I had any talent at all. Skyhold would be covered in your likeness, exactly as you are now.”

He snorts a soft laugh at the image she conjures, “Perhaps for the best, I cannot imagine many of our friends or guests of the Inquisition being too fond of such changes.”

“Hmm,” she smiles, finger tracing the bone of his hip, then fluttering up his abdomen in soft, feather light touches, “they would if they could see you like this.”

“You flatter me.”

“I spent so long trying to imagine what was under those clothes of yours,” her hand stills on his chest, over his heart, “and the real thing is so much better than all my wildest dreamings.”

“Vhenan, I…” he grabs her hand and kisses the inside of her palm, “it has been a long time. I hope…” he lets his voice trail off, unsure of how to elaborate sufficiently on his failings as a lover and praying she might understand and instruct him on how to make up for it without needing to list the ways he let her down.

Her hand moves from his lips to cup his cheek, her eyes soft, “I could not have asked for more, my love.”

“You could,” he argues, in spite of himself, “you can.”

“You make it sound as if it is not only our first time together but also our last.”

“That is not my intention, I simply wish to ensure…”

“Solas,” she interrupts him and strokes his cheek, his neck, “It’s been some time for me too but I don’t think there is a person alive who would call that anything but a riotous success.”

“You flatter me,” he says again, though he desperately wants to believe her.

“I love you,” she says with full sincerity and his heart leaps at the words. “And I don’t know why you would doubt yourself but I intend to let you have me again and again, until you realize just how much I love you. And how much I love bedding you.”

“We have to travel all day tomorrow,” he argues, as if it matters to him, as if it stops the first rush of blood back to his cock, eager again already.

“Yes,” she grins, “and then you’re going to take me all night tomorrow as well, and all of the following night, and we’re never sleeping again.”

“How terrible for us,” he smiles and sits up, wrapping her in his arms and feeling the press of her chest against his again. This was what this form was meant to do, he thinks, this was what it was all for. To be held like this, by her, to feel the way her mouth lifts in a smile as he kisses her and to hear the soft bells of her laugh. All the blood on his hands, on his soul, maybe it was worth it for this.

Later, it might settle in his gut that it should have always been like this, the times that people claimed to love him and did not. Perhaps guilt will swallow him whole, the burden of his duty rearing its ugly head to remind him what he must still do, who he must still be.

For now though, his lips meet hers in an answering smile, the calluses on his palms dance across the muscles of her back, and he earns the first sweet sounds of pleasure from her once more, and none of that exists to him. All that matters is the way her legs curve around him and the way her moans melt in his mouth and the love made flesh, made so real he could weep for it, as he takes her again.

And again.

And again.

Chapter Text

Morinne

She has always thought of herself as a patient person.

In fact, if asked, she’d describe the Dalish as a patient people in general. A life lived quietly, in the forest and away from the hustle of humanity, required patience.Their slow hunts, days spent in quiet meditation while enduring the agonizing process of receiving the vallaslin, the weeks and weeks travel spent in caravans of aravels; none of it was a particularly hurried existence.

Waiting for war, for Cullen to arrive with hundreds of men ready to die under her banner, twists her understanding of time and patience. In one moment, she is desperate and eager, ready for this to be over and done, twitching with impatience. She bites her nails down to the quick, cursing herself when drops of lyrium potion burn her fingers and both Solas and Cassandra glare at her in concern. Hours later, as dread fills her veins like ice water, she hopes the soldiers never arrive and the battle never comes. That perhaps this is all a nightmare, one she won’t have to wake and face.

It goes like this, variations in restlessness, while they wait. Unsettled, agitated, nervous.

They are trapped, effectively, in the far Western expanse of Orlais while they wait. She never thought she’d miss the snow until being surrounded by nothing but sand. It is a kind of unique punishment, she realizes, that is only added to by the fact that she is not sharing a tent with Solas.

For some reason, when they arrived in Sahrnia, they acted as if nothing had changed between them. Both of them. Unprompted. As if they hadn’t admitted their love for one another and rewritten the definition of what ‘great sex’ is over and over again.

It hadn’t been too much of a concern until the emergency missive from Leliana arrived while in Emprise du Lion, noting that Hawke and Stroud called for her to arrive in the Western Approach in ten days - requiring them to leave immediately and ride hard to make it in time or risk missing the ritual the Champion and Warden claimed would be performed there.

Three days without tangling in his arms at night and falling asleep with the rise and fall of his chest as her silent lullaby, immediately became two weeks. Then two weeks became…well, what would eventually be nearly two months, assuming they waited to return to Skyhold.

She’d been patient, once, she tries to tell herself. Tries and tries and tries.

“Two weeks on foot,” one of the scouts assigned to this desolate, bleak part of the world tells her, “but I’d guess closer to three and a half or four since they will need time to mobilize a force of that size.”

“I really am in the ass-end of nowhere now,” Varric sighs, as if the comment helps in any way. She has to bite back her annoyance, more than aware of her frayed nerves.

“We should have gone home,” Morinne groans instead, leaning into the camp chair. The desert wind blows, sand dusting her skin as if in agreement. Every part of her feels dry and cracked by wind and sun.

“You’d have gotten back to Skyhold and had to turn right back around,” Hawke says from where he stands at the scouts side, looking over the maps. “All that does is give you tired backs and more tired horses.”

“I wouldn’t be caked in sand,” she spits, as if she needs to emulate the horses in question, “and that is worth more than I can explain at the moment.”

The man huffs in agreement, but doesn’t answer. Instead, the scout looks up, a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Oh, ser! We recently had a group return with word of a desert oasis northwest of here,” she points to a spot on the map and Morinne stands to look at where she’s marked. “There were notes included on it somewhere in our reports, let me see…”

She turns and pulls out a handful of scrolls and missives, and then they have a new task, a new plan. Something, amidst all this waiting, to do.

“Two weeks,” she tells their crew of seven, glancing over the papers from the last scouts that had examined the area. “Then we have to come back and make our way to the meeting point. But for now, two weeks in this so-called oasis and ooh, there’s an elven temple there. Solas, finally something fun for you.”

Yet when she cast her eyes on him, expecting them to brighten at the opportunity, they were instead hesitant, almost concerned. “Are you sure we should depart, Inquisitor?”

She frowns at his use of her title. Not that she expected him to call her ‘vhenan’ in front of the crowd, but it irks her each time he calls her Inquisitor all the same.

“I’m sure if we sit here for the next month waiting for war, I’ll go mad before our soldiers get here, yeah. Does that sound better, Solas?” She pinches her lips together in a fine line, ignoring Varric’s bark of laughter and Hawke’s snort that follows.

“An oasis sounds like water,” Blackwall adds, stretching as he stands, “and I can’t imagine anything that sounds as good as a nice long swim right about now. Feels like there's sand in my lungs.”

“That’s the spirit!” Morinne claps once, though no one else seems to share her enthusiasm. No one moves at all. “Fine, no one is forced to go. You want to stay in this place and hunt wyvern and Venatori for the next four weeks, be my guest.”

“Griffon Wing Keep is comfortable enough,” Cassandra adds from where she leans against one of the sandy stone pillars, “should any wish to stay, that is.”

“Exactly,” Morinne agrees. “A whole fortress to play in if you don’t want to go skinny dipping.”

“The darkspawn are below us. A long way, but still singing,” Cole adds, his voice lyrical despite the darkness in his words. She extends a hand to the spirit boy in emphasis, glaring at Solas.

“Does that really make you want to linger here?”

Her lover rolls his eyes, aware of the cheap ploy in her words but unwilling to challenge her further. Or rather, unwilling to challenge her publicly - she’d put gold on quiet teasing and quips she’ll endure later.

“You had me at skinny dipping,” Hawke grins, clapping Cassandra on the shoulder and guffawing at her sharp elbow at his ribs in response.

When they manage to finally depart a day later, it takes little more than an afternoon of riding into the sun’s heavy rays to reach the outcropping of rocks that shelters an old system of mines and, to their delight, an enormous natural pool surrounded by lush foliage. Inquisition scouts have marked where is considered safe to camp and they follow the instructions left by those that just left.

It is…unlike anything she’s ever seen. They take it in for a moment, stunned at the splendor hidden amidst endless sand, then split into groups, some setting off for dinner, others to deal with the giant that stomps around the pool, and she leaves with Solas for the elven temple.

They climb through rocks and stone, worn wooden ladders leading them up to an outcropping in the cliff face above the waterfall, coming to a stop before a stone door. Breathtaking, she thinks, looking around. Breathtaking but somehow wrong.

“The Veil is strange here…”

“You say that everywhere.”

“Morinne…”

“No, wait, you’re right,” she stops, fingers dancing over the stone. Cold, somehow, despite the heat that presses against her skin like a heavy weight. “Something feels wrong here, it’s worse by the door.”

“A magical ward of sorts,” Solas says, craning his head to study the six points slots set around the center of the enormous door, his voice sounding like a guess as he continues, “a warning, perhaps, or a test for those who might seek this place.”

Penitents, she guesses, though to whom she has no idea. Normally, the God in question would be made clear with statues outside. None adorn this place. Words, she then notices, are etched in a careful hand in the stones at her feet. A welcome, perhaps, to the visitors who would enter the temple.

“Help me with this, will you?” She asks, staring down at the inscription, then kneeling. Her elven is improving, dramatically, thanks to Solas’ teachings, but she is still far from the expert he is. “Emma solas var…umm din’an…?”

“Emma solas him var din'an,” he recites, his accent flawless. The way his tongue rolls over the words of their shared language makes something in her core light up like veilfire. “Tel garas solasan. Melana en athim las enaste.”

She bites her lip, thinking over his translation as she studies the words again. “Tel garas solasan…’come not…to this prideful place’?”

“Excellent work, vhenan,” he nods. “It seems this was some sort of warning to those approaching the temple to dissuade them from entrance, assuming they had the keys - those shards, I believe - to do so. The full inscription reads - ‘Arrogance became our end. Come not to a prideful place. Now let humility grant favor.’”

She crosses her arms and begins to pace. Six slots mark the circular position in which one might place, as he guessed, the shards to open the heavy stone door. None of the intricate carvings, decorative patterns and runes, are familiar to her. “‘Let humility grant favor’...” she taps a knuckle against her bottom lip as she thinks, stopping. “I guess we gather what shards we have and see what’s inside.”

“Despite the explicit warnings to avoid it?”

“Written by the ancients,” she argues, narrowing her gaze at his hesitation, “whatever was inside is long dead, I’d wager. Imagine what we could learn from what remains. Don’t tell me you’re not curious.”

Curious, though, is not how she’d define his expression. Apprehensive, seems more accurate. On edge might also apply. She can almost see the way he bites the inside of his cheek, her eyes catching on his hands flexing at his side.

“You’re weird,” she adds, watching him, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I…” his hands relax at his sides and he lets out a breath, taking a step toward her, then another, “I apologize. You’re right, there could be much to learn from what remains within, should we have the shards to access it.”

“You’ve been studying them, haven’t you? I recall seeing one on your desk in Skyhold since we found the first in the Hinterlands months and months ago.”

“There has not been much information to be found on their origin,” he crosses his hands behind his back, studying the door for himself and offering nothing else.

“Strange, that they would be connected to the ocularum and to this place, all the way out here,” she muses, digging the toe of her boot in the sand absentmindedly. “Perhaps when you dream here, there might be something to find? In the Fade?”

“Perhaps.”

“I could join you,” she offers, glancing back at him but he only offers a quiet ‘hmm’ in contemplation, continuing his thoughtful analysis of the temple’s secrets.

The sun’s setting rays cast golden, glimmering light over the endless dunes and amber stones and here, she is loath to admit, the desert is beautiful.

She leans over one of the stones that serves as a makeshift railing and looks down at the intrinsic pool below, the waters shimmering in the last of the day’s light. It would make for a lovely evening soak, she thinks, now that Blackwall, Cassandra and Hawke trapped and killed the giant that resided here in one of the old mine shafts.

Eventually, Solas pads across the sandy stones, his arms coming around her center in a quiet embrace, and she leans into him, humming softly. So much time waiting, stalling, and restless, yet so little of it spent in his arms. A travesty, she thinks to herself, as he presses a gentle kiss to her temple and rocks her in his arms. His body is sturdy but soft, wrapping around her in comfort, and she sighs contentedly.

“More of this,” she whispers, “less of everything else.”

He breathes a laugh, kissing the top of her cheekbone. “Ah, but whatever will the world do if the Inquisitor abandons her duties to spend her life in the Orlesian desert?”

She snorts, “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“You could institute tent sharing again,” he tries. “Then we’d have a shared bedroll once a week.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“I would never.”

“You would and do, more frequently now that you can do so and kiss me after,” and she turns her head enough to see him, to see the way his eyes glow violet, brilliant and happy, as he smiles and presses a teasing kiss to the tip of her nose.

“It’s easier now that I know I won’t lose you on accident for a mocking comment,” he admits.

“You were never going to lose me,” she murmurs, her eyes drifting to his lips. Her body is in an awkward twist but she doesn’t care, she cranes her neck up to kiss him until he spins her around fully.

She’s come to expect it like this. That he will come to her with a casual touch, that it might even become a soft embrace, especially if she holds him to her. He might press a chaste kiss to her cheek, her forehead, her hair while his hands warm hers, but he will not press further and will not ask for more. Something stops him, holds him back, and she does not press because someday, she hopes, he will tell her.

So Morinne learns that when she twists, when she gives him that permission through the press of her lips on his or pulls his face to her own, and hears the soft breath of approval or surprise every time, it is genuine. He does not want to take from her, nor does he expect her to give. But for him, she will, again and again and again.

It takes a second of their lips pressed for him to understand, she thinks, that she means it, and then his passion is unleashed. He opens for her, as he so often wants to do, and pours himself into her waiting arms and open mouth with the kind of eagerness that makes her heart ache and core heat.

“Ar lath ma,” she whispers, when she pulls away, aware that if they spend too long like this she will be entirely unable to keep herself from pulling him behind an outcropping of rocks and begging him to take her again for the first time in a week.

“And I you, vhenan,” he returns before pressing a kiss to each of her cheeks, atop the highest curve of her vallaslin, both hands softly resting on either side of her neck. “Come, before they send someone after us.”

They return to their companions, holding hands until in view of the camp once more and then dropping them and giving each other one last lingering look, before rejoining their group.

Patience, she tries to remind herself, as she opens her elven dictionary and history books, the ones light enough to travel with. She looks over her notes and compares her scribbling to what Solas had translated from the door above the temple. Pride and humility and arrogance. A puzzle that feels half written and millennia old. The shards have no visible clues to them, but none are willing to climb back up with her and see how they might fit into the temple door now that the sun has disappeared behind the rocks and dunes.

Varric and Cole arrive with what can be called dinner and they cook while Solas hovers by her side, correcting her elven and guiding her endless questions until they call for his aid with the tents.

“Not enough, technically, but our grumpy Bunny can have her own,” Varric winks, and she wants to groan but forces a smile and offers her thanks.

Stew is ladled out and she enjoys the first cup of wine she’s allowed herself since Crestwood, feeling it go to her head before she finishes the bowl before her. Conversation hums around her and all settle into the usual routine of their nights of travel and it would be fine, easy, normal, were it not for the thrumming need for more that stirs within her.

“Elfroot,” Blackwall muses, turning his gaze to Solas then Morinne, interrupting her thoughts, “do elves just call it ‘root’?”

“Here we go,” Varric smiles around the lip of his pipe and Cassandra shakes her head.

“No, we have another name for it,” Solas says, spooning himself another bite of stew.

“You’re no fun,” Blackwall says, then looks to her.

“Canavaris,” she says with a shrug, “is that the kind of fun you were hoping for?”

She watches the warden consider for a moment before shaking his head, “Not particularly, no.”

“Riveting conversations had with the Inquistion,” Hawke teases, and to this Cassandra deigns to grunt in response.

She watches as Solas finishes his meal, licking the last of the heavy stew from his fingers in a way that shouldn’t have her heart racing the way it does. Each long finger between his perfect lips. She crosses her legs, letting the seam of her leather leggings press against her core. Hawke’s booming laughter should pull her attention, but Solas catches her eye and if it weren’t for the darkness that settles around them like a heavy blanket, she’s sure everyone would see the way her blush sets her cheeks aflame.

“He cannot hear you when you do not speak, calling out, bright as summer and counting birds against the sun. Silent in the same ways, when you want him. He calls you Heart, he calls himself Pride. You call him Forever.”

“Cole!” She jumps at the sound of his voice appearing at her side, whispering his riddles as he stares into the fire and then at her. Waiting, she guesses, for her to understand. “What have I told you about sneaking up on me?”

“You reach across, mindful, meaning. My salvation and my freedom, his heart calls when he sees you, spirit grateful and whole after so long stretched, seeking.”

“‘Calls himself Pride’?” She repeats and looks up from her bowl, now a mess of spilled stew, and sees Solas deep in conversation with Varric again. They animatedly talk about the dwarven kingdoms, if she has to guess. They’ve been at it for several days, with Solas persistent and Varric mostly confused, though they also seem to be having a good time with whatever they’re discussing.

“You love him, but you are still scared. Why?”

She meets the boy's deep but kind stare and wishes she could explain, that she could reassure him in a way that would last. “It’s…complicated, Cole.”

“I want to help.”

“I know,” she reaches for a rag, wiping her hands. “And I am always grateful when you do.”

Her friends drink on, the night dark and heavy around them, and her mind is fuzzy with impatience and wine and Cole’s lingering words. Meant to comfort, she guesses, but they twist in her gut. Something she should know, something she should understand. He stays by her side, silent, a pillar of compassion that emanates his unique warmth.

Pride, she thinks. Calls himself Pride? Prideful places…?

Cole leans his head on her shoulder and she strokes his hair, watching Solas, waiting to understand how all the puzzle pieces connect.

She falls asleep in front of the fire before they do.

—

Blackwall and Solas had spoken of war several times, the way it consumes you, the smell and the noise and the despair of it. The day it arrives, the sky blackened by storm clouds heavy and ready with rain, she tells herself it will be terrible, just as they said. As they go over the battle plan again, and she feels the first beads of sweat drop down the back of her leathers, she tries to stay calm, to at least look calm. She is their leader, she reminds herself.

The impatience is gone from her now, replaced with terror, cold and horrible.

They strap healing and lyrium potions to her and Solas both, then outfit Cole and Blackwall, as they will serve as her core team. The rest will have access to the ample stations of supplies amidst the Inquisition's soldiers. Her armor is oiled and polished and ready, her body fed. They tell her she is prepared. At some point, she guesses, she will begin to feel it.

“How do you feel?” Solas asks quietly once the armorers move from their sides.

“Like I’m going to be sick but otherwise fine.”

“It will be -”

“Horrible, I know.”

“You will get through it,” he turns to her, one hand pulling her to face him and for a split second, she wonders if the entire camp is suddenly going to hear that the apostate kissed the Inquisitor before battle. Instead, just for her ears, he offers a different sort of comfort. “I will be by your side.”

“Even if I get sick in the middle of our first show of force?” She tries to make it sound playful but more fear seeps into her voice than she intends. “In front of the magister or a pride demon or on the battlements?”

“I am relieved you still have a sense of humor, at the very least,” his eyes make an attempt to look soft but she can sense the tension in him as well, can see the way it pulls his shoulders down and lays heavy in the dark, sleepless lines under his eyes.

Morinne makes the march through the lines of soldiers to stand with her party and commander, and the warhorns sound. Cullen yells for a volley, a charge, just as planned. She watches the sky fill with arrows, then screams.

When the first of the trebuchets launch heaving stones through the sky and the fires begin to burn, her fear becomes a heavy weight in her stomach. It feels as though it grows and expands to a deep well, an endless black pit, as the battering ram caves in the ancient fortress gate. Cullen waves her inside. He tells her again what the plan is and says a quick prayer over her she tries to feel grateful for. She tells him to stay safe and something more, but the words fall away in the noise.

It begins then in earnest.

Demons and wardens fall around them, the smell of burning flesh fills the heavy air and soon rain begin and douse the horror around them, but for now she fights and fights. Solas is untiring at her back, his barriers weaving between chaotic storms of snow and ice, all of which Cole and Blackwall dodge around as they cut through more and more and more.

It is endless as they charge through the stronghold. Screams and crashes and warhorns. The dying and the ruination and the sweat. She spares those that look scared, that give her a moment to speak before raising hands and lowering their weapons, and they run in surrender for where she tells them Cullen will be. Solas nods in approval and Blackwall gives her a breathless word of thanks before they must continue on and do it all again.

Their soldiers though, Creators save her, look to her for bravery, for strength - as if she has any to offer. As if she has any at all. She presses a hand to their shoulders, their cheeks, when she has a moment. She tells them to fight on and stay strong. Solas admonishes her when she gives up a healing potion to a man skewered by a demon’s pike, arguing it is of no use, and she cannot bring herself to listen.

“I will not ignore this,” she tells him, tells herself, but she feels the way the screams fade into the background as time goes on and more around them fall. Even still, she pours the red liquid down the dying man’s throat and prays Falon’din guide his soul to rest. “I will not numb myself to this.”

She empties her stomach before they reach Hawke, her flames splitting apart a woman before she’d finished the transition between human and demon, body contorted and burning. Blackwall offers her water, tells the men to give her a moment, and she shakes the warden off. It is not the last of the horrors, she thinks, downing the lukewarm water as her feet continue of their own accord. There is no point in halting now.

“Inquisitor! Please! Here!”

“To the Inquisitor!”

“The Herald, she’s here! We are saved!”

Perhaps it should be a comfort, their faith in her. They do not see a woman trembling in boots she is still unaccustomed to wearing or a knife-ear that stole the honor of their beloved Andraste. A trembling bunny, running through the burning woods. They still see some sort of hero, mystifying as it is.

She is sick again at the thought, but hides it from the eyes of all but Cole.

The magister and warden commander stand in the fortress courtyard and open an enormous rift as the blighted dragon circles overhead and her fear moves into her very marrow, twisting her stomach into knots that would empty if she had anything left to retch. She yells, makes commands that some heed and are enough to bring doubt to Clarel’s eyes, offers sanctuary.

“The Elder One will not suffer rivals,” Erimond spits, more demons tearing forth from mage bodies at his command.

“He will suffer me,” she shouts, and flames follow, whipping toward him and sending the magister running.

More stairs, more running, more blood and death and torment. Their enemies run and they follow.

“O Falon'Din, Lethanavir,” she begins, body growing weary as they climb yet another staircase. The prayer is more familiar to her now than it has ever been, and she guesses she could recite it in her sleep, while drunk, while bound and gagged and bleeding out.

“Don’t,” Solas shouts over the din, having heard her somehow, despite how low she’d kept her voice. “Do not invoke the guide, for you are not dying today, vhenan! Vir enasalin!”

There is no room for argument in his tone, no question of his steadfast belief. His eyes meet hers for only a moment and the relief she feels in the violet exhaustion she finds there could bring her to her knees.

It is a moment too long however, for them both. A second of distraction amidst hours of focus and weeks of patience. He does not see the bolt, but in her periphery, she catches its flight and doesn’t hesitate, turning and shifting to interrupt its course.

“Mythal’enaste,” she breathes as it tears through her right shoulder, the pain so bright and hot it momentarily clears the fear from her mind.

Clean through her, nearly to its mark if her flesh hadn’t slowed it. Solas’ heart behind her, the target she’d intercepted. Knees suddenly weak with pain. Victory and agony and -

Then his hands around her and the noise is louder, much louder, as the dragon roars.

“No, no no no no,” Solas breathes, his arms wrapping around her, holding her up. Strong, always strong. She should be strong too, needs to be. The pain, she can - has - to endure it.

Morinne tries to push herself up, gnashing her teeth around the pain that leaves her vision white as battle continues around them.

It’s just her shoulder, no time for this, her mind screams, shouldn’t have tried to be a hero when you aren’t one. Solas’ heart, hers shouts in answer, Solas’ life!

“Vhenan,” he sends a pulse of his bright, cold, healing magic through her as he tears out the bolt and she heaves at the feeling of it move through her, nails cracking, breaking where she grips at the stone.

“We have to keep moving - Maker,” Blackwall says, eyes catching on her. “They’re getting away, Solas.”

“I can -” she groans as Solas pulls her to stand, his hands staying at her waist, holding her up. “I’m fine, I’ll live, let’s go.”

Her feet falter under her once, then twice, but she moves through the throbbing in her shoulder until her mind replaces pain with adrenaline and the magic he used to fill in the gaping hole in her shoulder attempts to seal the injury that shifts and moves as they continue their chase.

This time, Solas’ hand doesn’t leave hers as they run, and no one questions or mentions the sight. Blood joins the sweat that travels down her back. Pride demons lash at her ankles, violent purple magic stroking her ego as the last of her magic roars from her in a conflagration that swallows more wardens and shades.

Morinne’s prayers to Mythal are silent, begging for the protection of the all-mother, her Goddess, her guide. They run and run until Clarel falls under the dragon’s claws and the stones crumble under foot. The bridge collapses.

Thunder cracks overhead and the rain finally begins as they try, try, try to reach safety but the downpour is immediate and the stones are slick and their feet are weary with war.

There is no time to think as they fall, as the rain begins a deluge around them, as she reacts on instinct and a terrible green light opens and swallows them.

Safety, she tries to tell herself, as they land in the Fade. It is a kind of safety, more than falling to their deaths would have been. They are alive. That is something.

Cold and wet and bleeding, she has landed them in the home of fear itself, delivered them unto its doorstep. Unconsciousness is a mercy when it consumes her.

Chapter Text

Morinne

The anchor pulses and burns in her hand, welcomed home.

“Are we dead?”

The first words she hears upon opening her eyes do not inspire confidence, but Solas’ face, his hands and his body cradling hers, almost do. She is resting on his leg, she realizes, raising a hand to her temple.

“How long was I out?”

“Only a moment,” his words are quiet, careful. “I need to look at your shoulder.”

She nods, hissing as she shrugs out of her jacket, looking at the expanse of gloom and green around them. The stones glimmer with unknown moisture and the air is cold, and it is all twisted and strange like nothing she’s ever seen. Or rather, nothing she can remember having seen. Clouds seem to mingle with steam or smoke, hanging in the air like waterfalls. Almost beautiful, but instead it is all distinctly wrong.

“If this is the afterlife, the Chantry owes me an apology,” Hawke rises, pulling Blackwall to his feet. “This looks nothing like the Maker’s bosom.”

“No, no no no no. This is the Fade, but I'm stuck. I can't... why can't I... ?”

“It’s alright, Cole,” Solas tries, his hands still pressing firmly into her shoulder, “do not worry yourself, we’ll make it right.”

“Is that the Black City?” She asks, looking into the sky, studying the infamous towers that float above them.

“Almost close enough to touch,” Solas nods, following her gaze.

“Incredible.”

“They still remember when they were higher, before it woke up and everything fell,” Cole adds, pacing nervously, his eyes on Solas. She makes no attempt to unravel his riddles this time.

“Is this what you remember?” Hawke asks her, turning on his heel. “The stories say you walked out of the Fade at Haven. Was it like this?”

“I don’t know,” she looks down, watching Solas’ magic work, just enough to stop the bleeding and ease the pain before she puts her hand over his to stop him. “Wrap it up, any more magic and you risk infection in the muscle.”

“Morinne,” he chides, and she ignores him, turning back to Hawke. Solas follows her instruction, though she senses his displeasure.

“I still don’t remember what happened the last time I did this. Shit, I didn’t even mean to do this now.”

“In the real world, the main rift was close by - in the main hall. Do you think we might escape the same way?”

Stroud’s question gives them all pause, but she looks to Solas and he doesn’t seem to think it a particularly bad idea based on his subtle nod.

“It’s our only shot,” she says, standing and holding back yet another groan that longs to escape her tired body. “Let’s go.”

“This is fascinating,” Solas begins as they walk, making their way over puddles filled with goo and muck, unknown liquid that seems to move on its own. “It is not the area I would have chosen, of course, but to walk physically in the Fade…”

She is sick again, bile the color of the twisted sky and the Fade around them the only thing left in her stomach as fear grips her. Solas’ hands rub quick circles on her back in comfort, but all she feels is the power of the Fade, of the demon that commands and consumes this place.

“No one uses your name anymore, interrupter, intruder, inquisitor, because no one will remember you long enough for it to matter who you were before.”

Between the broken, shattered columns and the jagged rocks, she sees eyes, waiting to pounce. Waiting to bring news, to carry out a body, broken and precious. She is a child again, watching through the trees for her mother to return and knowing, knowing, that the eyes bring only doom. It is more cruel, more effective, that they only circle, lying in wait.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wringing me out. Wrought right and rigid. Can't relax. Can't release…”

“Stay with me, Cole,” she reaches for the spirit boy, taking his hand. “We’ll get out of here quickly.”

She can only pray it is true. Do Gods hear prayers in places like this?

Hawke sees spiders, Stroud sees snakes. Cole and Solas make no comment on the small fears that appear to them, nor does Blackwall. Morinne bites her tongue, watching the maggots that pulse and feast and grow on bodies around them. Children mostly, ghastly and burnt, filled with the awful white mess that moves to follow her. They clamor for more, mandibles biting at her boots as if she is to be their next feast.

“They want your fear, so they look how you feel,” Cole says, his hand slipping back into hers as he stows his blades, and the compassion that radiates off him almost cracks through the fear that claws at each step. “It’s not real.”

Yet it is, she wants to yell, because the spiders and the snakes and the maggots bite and wound and tear.

Blackwall reaches for letters of dreamers, written in shaking hands of those running from the blight, from Corypheus, from death. Children and mothers and she tells him to stop reading, can’t stomach any more. The Nightmare laughs.

"Ah, there's nothing like a Grey Warden. And you are nothing like a Grey Warden.”

Stones in the shape of screaming mouths, cracked ribs, and gaping wounds. Broken furniture set in the arrangement of homes, destroyed and long forgotten. Blight and boils and families torn apart.

“Breathe, vhenan,” Solas whispers at her side, but she cannot, her mother is there, just behind that column, waiting for her and -

"Are you afraid, Cole? I can help you forget. Just like you help other people. We're so very much alike, you and I."

Memories returned and confirmed. The Divine a ghost and a guide. Never holy, just like she told them, just unlucky. They follow her anyway, trudging through the land of nightmares that she forced them into. Her shoulder thrums in pain with every heartbeat, every step, but she needs it, lets it focus her. Solas offers another spell, something to dull the pain, and she shakes him off.

One hand on her staff, the other tight in Cole’s until more villains demand fights of them.

“You might wish to call him Forever, but you feel the questions even now. Don’t you see how time runs short? How, just like the rest, he will leave you in the end?”

Solas’ hand at the back of her neck, turning her to him, ignoring the Nightmare’s mocking words and the confused looks of their companions. He lowers himself slightly to meet her eye, and Cole’s hand falls away.

“It does not know you,” he murmurs, “it does not know us.”

“I know.” Yet there is no confidence in her voice, in her words. The Nightmare makes a home under her skin even as Solas’ eyes try to pull her back, to remind her that it is false, what this demon screams into the sky around them.

He kisses her, soft and quick, unconcerned with the eyes of their companions that she is sure widen at the sight or the skittering fears that tug at their pant legs. No one comments - not here, not now. This time, when his fingers twine with hers, she lets him.

Comfort lasts for only a moment in this place.

"Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ena mar din."

“Banal nadas.”

His hand tightens, and her mind races. Trickster, it calls him, liar. Justinia appears before them again but Morinne pays little attention to the guiding light, trying instead to untangle the ancient language thrown at Solas.

I know you, liar, it mocks. His jaw remains clenched, discomfort and unease written in every line of his body. Her left hand burns in his. ‘Enasalin’ she knows, but has no time to determine the meaning of the rest as more snakes, spiders, and maggots are set upon them.

“Come to me Cole, and we might feast together as we once did. Brothers of Compassion, we once were. We can be again, my friend.”

“No, no, no,” he cries and reaches for her again. “It’s nothing like me. I make people forget to help them. It eats their fears. I don’t know if I could do that. But I don’t, I don’t want to. That’s not me.”

“Peace, Cole, we do not think you are like the Nightmare,” Solas says, and continues in his attempts to reassure his friend. “Fear is a very old, very strong feeling. It predates love, pride, compassion…every emotion save perhaps desire. Be wary, it will do everything in its power to weaken our resolve.”

Her mind chants harellan, harellan, harellan as he speaks. He calls himself Pride. You call him Forever. Something ancient she should understand, should recognize, gnaws at her. A question she should ask but can’t find the words to.

It grows fat upon their terror. She wonders if it will be larger than the archdemon outside by the time they reach it, if by opening this rift, she will only have postponed their death. They will die in fear, cowering in the green light of the raw Fade, and it will be her fault. The Inquisition will fail, the future she saw at Redcliffe will become a reality, all of this will be for naught.

"Warden Stroud. How must it feel to devote your whole life to the Wardens, only to watch them fall? Or worse, to know that you were responsible for their destruction? When the next Blight comes, will they curse your name?"

The Fade becomes a maze as the Nightmare mocks them. Graves appear, lining their path. The names of her clan-mates, her grandparents, her mamae. This time, Hawke is sick, shaking them off. She wonders what names the demon conjures for him, what eyes glow in the dark corners of this place, lurking and begging him to wander off course.

"Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered? You couldn't even save your city. How could you expect to strike down a god? Merrill is going to die, just like your family, and everyone you ever cared about."

Solas does not look down, does not stop, until the path comes to a dead end. There, she sees him tense, finally acknowledging whatever the graves show him with the sort of dread she does not normally see so easily reflected in her lover.

Their names, she realizes, as they all catch up. All of her friends, the Inquisition, in tight lines. Their fears in careful script, etched in stone. And they must be correct, based on hers cutting straight to the bone, based on the way Solas stands in silent horror, staring at his own. They all line up, gazing upon their fears, named so succinctly.

“Mirevas Lavellan?” Blackwall asks, looking at her in surprise. “Were we supposed to know that name?”

“No,” Solas answers for her. His voice leaves no room for questions, though she knows there will be some, many, if they make it out of this place.

“Abandonment?” He whispers to her as the others begin to trudge back up the path, his eyes desperately sad. In any other moment, that expression might have broken her. Now, she wonders if there is anything left to break.

“Dying alone?” She asks in return.

Neither question is answered. There is nothing to be said, no comfort to be offered. Somewhere in her periphery, she sees the hunter walking between two pillars of stone, a familiar body in his arms.

She sees a disappointed Keeper, a mocking group of so-called friends, a boy who asked to touch her but laughed at the way her breasts looked at thirteen. Even her small fears and embarrassments crawl between the natural horrors she knows aren’t designed just to torment her.

Time in the Fade blends and bleeds like the water that becomes clouds, unbothered by gravity. There is no way to tell how long they walk, how long they are haunted, but when they come to the end, it feels like an age has passed.

The many eyed stare of the Nightmare follows her as its mandibles bite and clawed arms stab. She hears it scream in elven at Solas, hurl curses at Cole and Blackwall. It’s minions chase them, despair and rage biting like the maggots of the fearlings, but her fire is comforting and cleansing. They burn, just like they should.

She is given a choice, a terrible choice, before the rift closes and the Fade becomes their home. Neither man is her friend, not really, but she thinks of Varric and she cannot bear to give the news that she condemned Hawke to such a fate. It is cruel, it is unfair, it is a goodbye to a good man and a brave Warden and then they jump.

Stroud defends them to the bitter end. She closes the rift with a snap and pull, her marked hand thrumming in satisfaction and power. She shouts for the Wardens to honor their fallen comrade and when they kneel, when Cullen looks to her in shock, she tells them they will join the Inquisition and aid their fight in taking down Corypheus. She hears gasps of surprise and ignores them, stepping from the dais.

“I need a healer,” she says to the commander, and he nods.

“Right away, Inquisitor.”

The crowd parts for her and she makes her way out of the stronghold. If anyone follows them, she does not notice.

Cullen explains the flight of the archdemon, the capture of the magister, how she will be asked to judge him upon their return to Skyhold. Morinne nods. It seems manageable, now that the sky is the right color and fear is one of a handful of emotions.

“We thought we’d lost you,” he says quietly as they pass through the ruined gate, back into the field of mud and bodies and smoke. “The men fought on, but panic settled in quickly without their leader. You…must know how you inspire them.”

Morinne only shakes her head, sighing. Her shoulder begins to bleed again, sticky under her leathers. She has survived her first battle, though she would guess that she is changed by it. Marked, though less visibly than her visit to the Conclave. Her soul cleaved open, terrors made flesh, but survived. The anchor, she will notice later, has changed as well. Growing, spreading, eager. Hungry as the nightmares she survives.

Chapter Text

Solas

By the time the healers finally release him, as if his minor wounds need such attention, the war camp is slowing down, quieting for the evening. The rain has stopped its deluge in favor of a bleak, cool darkness, devoid of moon and stars. Mages run from tent to tent, providing what additional healing is still needed, and he wonders if Cullen and Vivienne might now be happy at Morinne’s insistence that they recruit the mages and offer them their freedom.

In the distance, lingering smoke still billows from various sections of the destroyed ramparts. The reek of death hangs in the air and likely will long after they depart. The crows will feast until the vultures come to scavenge the remains.

At the surface, it is no different now than it was in his time, he supposes.

The primary war tent is set up in the center of their encampment, and he makes his way through the heavy mud and muck until he finds it, glowing with candlelight and echoing with voices he’s come to recognize.

Morinne sits in a makeshift camp chair, legs folded under her. It is rare to see her with her hair unbound with so many around, but the dark waves that fall down her back contrast the thick white robe she’s been given in place of leathers. More relaxed than she ever allows herself to appear before advisors and officials, given her concern with maintaining her appearance as strong and capable in their minds.

Cassandra stands behind her, deft, practiced fingers working Morinne’s hair into careful braids. A show of friendship, he realizes. Compassion. So unlike the Seeker, yet he assumes she’s been made aware of the horrors they endured and this is one small way of reassuring her Inquisitor. More than that though, he so often forgets that they’ve become friends. Cassandra is precious to Morinne, though the two are so different and began their journey on such uneven footing. Now, despite it all, they behave almost as sisters.

Sera sits on the floor, head in her hands, and a glass of what he has to guess is whiskey before her. She sports a thick bandage along her torso, but otherwise looks well - or rather, looks like herself. Bull sips from a similar glass and Varric puffs quietly on a pipe in the corner, eyes dark with exhaustion. All in one piece. All alive.

When he makes himself known, Morinne’s eyes catch on him and soften, and in turn, something within him softens as well. She stands, ignoring Cassandra’s quiet plea at the unfinished work in her hair, and wraps her arms around him. He holds her, closes his eyes and presses his lips to the crown of her hair where the braids aren’t quite finished but the smell of her soap is the strongest. He ignores the mocking retching sound that comes from Sera and the soft whoop of approval from Bull, but does not linger in her arms and risk further unwanted comments. Or so he intended.

“Pay up, Seeker,” Varric says brightly, a puff of heady smoke escaping his lips. “Before Summersday too, told you so.”

“No,” Cassandra waves him off. “Blackwall wins if it’s before Cloudreach.”

“Ah, forgot about that, damn.”

“I’m sorry, are you meaning to tell me,” Morinne turns to face them, though one arm stays loosely at his waist, “that you placed bets? On this?” She waves a finger in the air between them.

“Yeah, when Chuckles got pissed about being sent home before Redcliffe,” Varric brings the pipe back to his lips, winking at him. “I could tell.”

“You could tell?” He asks, indignant. “That will certainly make you the first then, Master Tethras, as neither of us could.”

“That’s exactly why I could tell, Chuckles. You couldn’t keep your eyes off her but got annoyed with every decision she made, of course you couldn’t tell.”

At this, Morinne looks up at him with wide eyes and a mocking pout, “Couldn’t keep your eyes off me?”

Sera makes another heaving, gagging sound and knocks back her drink, extending her hand for the bottle. Bull passes it to her with a grin. “Pbbbthhh. Bet he calls out "Elven glory" when he does it.”

“I do not - !” Morinne’s hand around his waist tightens and pinches, silencing him before he might truly yell at the awful, miserable excuse for an elf on the ground before him.

“You weren’t in a position to brag, boss,” Bull interrupts, looking to Morrine and stepping between him and Sera with a pointed look, “you did the same thing.”

He has half a mind of lowering himself to the point taunting his victory or yelling at Sera despite Morinne’s clear wish that he not, when Dorian appears behind him, glass of wine already in hand.

“Oh well, if it isn’t the talk of the Inquisition, I had certainly hoped to arrive in time to give my congratulations -”

“Alright, alright, enough,” Morinne waves them off but her face is split in a wild smile that almost makes their goading worth enduring. She is happy, despite it all. “We get the point, and you’ve officially scared us off too.”

She tugs on her boots, that easy smile lingering as Dorian approaches and quietly checks on her. Morinne responds with a nod and what looks like the promise to tell him more later, but before he can make out anything else between the two, he feels movement at his side.

“Hey Chuckles, sorry about that,” Varric elbows him softly in the side, “but we’re happy for you both, really. You lighten up around her. It’s good to see.”

“She is a good woman,” he says, keeping his eyes on Morinne. Uttery transfixed on the way she glides between her friends with such ease. “I am very fortunate she found me worthy of growing close to.”

With that she appears before them, bidding Varric goodnight and taking his hand. He almost forgets what conversations await them upon entering the private tent laid out for the Inquisitor.

“So,” Morinne begins, slipping back out of her muddy shoes and moving to start a fire. “Harellan.”

Ah, she will allow him no preamble then. No moment to recover from the onslaught of their friends’ barbs.

Solas has, for a sickening moment, the urge to tell her. To have it out, here and now, bare it all for her and be done with it. The image is conjured in his mind, the desire is so clear - falling to his knees before her, begging for her understanding, her patience as he explains how her gods are a lie, how he broke her world. Telling her, now, that the people around them and the heavy scent of death that still lingers on the wind is not her fault but his.

But the circles around her eyes, the exhaustion that hangs heavy in her body from a day of horrors, are among the million reasons for him to bite his tongue yet again. To tell her is to conscript her in another fight, another war, one he does not want to condemn her to. Not when this battle has only just ended.

“It sought to weaken your resolve, vhenan.” The evasion is not yet a lie, though it is destined to become one. All the same, it is poison on his tongue, painfully familiar. “I am sorry if it did.”

“It bothered you,” she argues, clever and perceptive as she is, crossing her arms. “I could see it, the way you reacted. Why are you lying to me?”

The response he needs, one that will suffice and ease the doubt in her mind, does not come quickly enough. His pause only adds more doubt, and he imagines her tallying it in a long list of his sins in her mind. He takes a step forward, then another, til he is before her. She lets him, but her expression does not soften.

“I need you to understand, Morinne,” he breaths, looking into her stormy blue eyes, “that I am not an entirely innocent man. I have done things I am not proud of.”

“You say that like you’re the only being alive who has,” she crosses her arms, unsatisfied. He runs a shaking hand down his face, looking for the right words, the right phrasing to get him out of this in a way that will satisfy her. Instead, she continues. “I know you have secrets and things you still need to tell me, I’m not an idiot, Solas. It’s fine that you do. But if you are actively lying to me…”

She lets her point hang in the air, a thread for him to pick up at his leisure. Or perhaps the lead to an explosive. He moves to sit down at the edge of the cot, simply to move and settle himself. The cot is made up with downy blankets and quilts for their mighty Herald’s rest, even on the battlefield. Josephine’s influence, he has to assume.

He sighs, and tries a truth he knows she will not be satisfied by, “I have not always been a good man, Morinne.”

“Fine, and I’ve not always been a good woman. What else did it say? The rest of the Elven?” She is painfully matter of fact, as if it can all be so simple. ‘I know you, harellan’ and then what?”

He tries for simplicity and his throat burns.“‘That was no victory. Your pride will be your death.’”

“Hmm,” she begins to pace, “and you said ‘banal nadas’.”

“‘Nothing is inevitable’.” At least with those words, he can be honest, though he will have to twist why the Nightmare used them, why it chose them as its blade.

“Do you regret teaching me more elven now?”

“Never,” he whispers, and though the question takes him by surprise, his answer is honest. “I fell in love with your mind first, vhenan, I do not regret indulging its curiosities.

“It’s words to you, though,” she looks up at his question, her pacing coming to a sudden halt, “do you wish to speak of them?”

“Which ones?” The question is a scoff, her head shaking, lip curling up before she bites it back and continues. “That no one bothers to know me past my title because I do not matter or that you will run from me regardless of my love for you? Which would you rather start with?”

“Come here,” he murmurs, and she does. She moves until her body is between his legs, so she might stand over him. To look down and see how he gazes up at her in near worship, ready to abandon all sense and duty for her. “Statues are being built in your name -”

“Stop,” she shakes her head, pushing lightly on his shoulders, but his hands around her waist hold her - keep her from running. “You’re changing the subject and you know I loathe the statutes business.”

He hangs his head, resting it against her chest. She is right, of course she is. Yet if she sees any more, she will see the fangs in his smile, the blood on his mouth. The wolf that waits for a moment to rear its head. She will run.

Anything he says, any truth he offers, and she will run. His curse for eternity, he imagines. He who must forever hunt alone. The truth will send her from him yet more lies will do the same. Something in his chest cracks and his grip on her tightens, knowing that soon enough, he will no longer have her to hold.

“Solas,” she whispers, running a hand down his head, nails down his scalp. “Please, I just…I just want to know you. Please.”

He looks up at her, chin leaning against her, face held safely in her hands despite everything. Sadness and fear spark in her eyes again. His fault, to bring it back after the day she’s had, the nightmares she’s witnessed. What comfort can he possibly offer her now that will not prove later contamination to the life she has built?

“There were battles I was a part of, in the past,” his words are slow, deliberate. She thinks it is driven by emotion, not simply because he has to choose the lies carefully, spin the web of deceit around her as he speaks. “Sacrifices I made in the name of winning fights. A temporary, perhaps futile victory, in the long run. That is what it spoke of. The pride I claimed in that triumph, despite the blood on my hands and the lives that it cost. I now see the truth in it.”

“What truth is that?” Her question is quiet, her thumb tracing the line of his ear.

“In battle, in times of strife, loss of life is inevitable. It is something to be endured, to steel yourself against. It is not something to take pride in, regardless of one’s success.”

“Oh my love,” she whispers, and his lies take root. “I’m so sorry.”

He looks away from her, sickened by her forgiveness. He does not deserve it, or her.

“Battles I would know?”

“There are struggles across Thedas at any given time. I doubt you would have heard of it.” He’ll be sick, he’s sure of it now. At least this time, it is not a lie when he speaks. “And you have nothing to apologize for, vhenan.”

She nods, and with the soft movement, the robe slips from her shoulder. He moves, lifting it, and then his fingers catch on gauze wrapped tight and his might catches.

“Your shoulder.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t yell at me first, quite frankly,” she sighs, stepping out his grasp and adjusting her sleeve herself. “I thought if I didn’t start, you’d beat me to it.”

“You took that bolt for me, you could have…Morinne, that was foolhardy and -”

“It would have hit you,” she says plainly, looking at him with no anger of confusion at his words. It is a statement of fact, there is no room for doubt. “And it didn’t have to.”

“You are of unbelievable import to the Inquisition, to the world, Morinne,” he is exasperated by her, by the casual air in her tone, her stance. “You cannot take arrows for those who are disposable -”

“Disposable,” she almost laughs at his choice of phrasing, and it is the wrong word, he knows that, but the point remains the same. “You are anything but disposable to me.”

“While I appreciate that deeply, you cannot just -”

“I can, and I did, and I would do it again. Get used to it.”

“Get used to it?”

“I told you I would protect you,” she shrugs and shakes her head, as if he is the fool. “I told you on our first night in that tent together that I would do whatever it took to keep you safe. Why is this a surprise?”

Because he never expected her to make good on it, he thinks, because he never expected to fall in love with her and because she is mortal, and soft, and any farther to the left and the bolt might have stolen her from him.

“Because…” he breathes out, taking a step toward her as he decides which of the innumerable reasons to tell her, “you did not know me then, I suppose. I did not love you then, so the risk that such a statement posed…”

She moves, reaching for him and he stops speaking, his chest tightening and eyes suddenly burning, but then the light catches in hers and he goes still.

“I…look at me,” he pauses, shifting so her hands fall and instead taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“I am?”

Yet she obliges him, of course she does, though clearly apprehensive. “Come into the light. Let me see your eyes.”

“What’s wrong?”

Green. A touch, cutting through the blue, barely noticeable and likely would not catch the eye of someone who does not gaze at her as often as he does, but distinctly there. The spread of the Fade and of his magic, leaching into parts of her where it does not belong.

“Solas.”

He is scaring her, he realizes, pulling her forehead to his lips in a kiss. His body wars between tears and nausea for the untold time that day. “I’m sorry, I believe the mark is beginning to turn your left eye green.”

“Oh,” she lets out a breath, “yeah, I know.”

“You know.”

“I didn’t realize it was visible enough for anyone to notice, but yes, I know.”

He wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her, as if it might make her see the insanity in how casually she treats the horror of what is occurring to her. “You should not draw on more power from the mark or -”

“Right, yes, that should be very simple in my position.”

She tugs her face away from his grip but does not pull away from him otherwise when he says, “this is serious.”

“So is the fate of Thedas,” she shakes her head with a frown, as if he is a fool to think of her at all, and perhaps he is. It should ring ironic, that she is the one reminding him of duty, but it only worries him further. “The Fade calls to the anchor, and the anchor answers, and I am its master. Or at least I should be.”

His eyes narrow at her choice of words, the way she begins to bite her lip after finishing. One of her tells. “You have something in mind I’m not going to like.”

“I wasn’t going to bring this up tonight, but,” she shifts and he lets go of her face, letting his hands drift to her neck, then shoulders, “I want you to train me in how to better work my magic through the anchor and the Fade. To connect my magic through them for both offensive and defensive spells.”

“No,” he says immediately, without thinking and she only cocks her head, giving him a look he cannot deny as a request to say more. “Manipulation of the Fade is dangerous.”

“Right, we never walk into danger together. Nothing we do is ever dangerous.”

“Morinne.”

“You have to admit, I’d be learning from the best.”

“I will not risk you.”

“You risk me everyday,” she argues. “Whether you like it or not, I am constantly at risk. Training me to master this would likely reduce that threat -”

“This is raw power you are looking to employ, using your mark as a catalyst, there would likely be as many complications as benefits while learning something like this.”

“But there would be benefits,” she needles him, fingers working the cord of the jawbone around his neck, idly twisting and untwisting, “I have seen the power you wield through it, you know that the anchor would aid my study, and you know I’m a good student…”

“Your ability to listen has never been in question,” though he does not catch the play in her words until looking back down at her and seeing the wry grin that lifts her smile. “It is not a game, vhenan.”

“I thought you’d be pleased that I wanted to better understand and use the Fade.”

He grinds his teeth, “I am, but the risks must be weighed against -”

“So it'll be dangerous. I've been in danger since I walked out of the Fade the first time.” She steps away, pacing again, shrugging out of the robe she’s been in all evening now that the tent is warm with her fire. A simple, cream linen slip hugs her body underneath, but his eyes only catch on the wrappings around her wound. “And what of the risks that come with my not understanding the damn thing? What of the fact that I sent us into the Fade, the domain of nightmares, by accident today? My ignorance is a form of danger, Solas, whether you like it or not.”

“We survived because you opened that rift -”

“Not all of us.”

“You are not to blame for Stroud’s death.”

“What? Yes, of course I am. I am very much to blame, and I will carry his death with me like I should. Like I should carry every death with me. How callous and cold will I become if I let them fall away from me like nothing at all?”

“Corypheus is to blame,” he counters, because he cannot tell her that neither is true and all of this, every moment of this, is his fault, “the blood is on his hands, not yours.”

“No,” she whispers, crossing her arms over her chest. “No, it’s not just Corypheus. But either way, I want you to teach me.”

He sighs. It is not, in the end, the worst idea. He can see the value in it, can understand her argument and the perspective that led her down this path. Better he teach her than she experiment on her own, risking herself in the process.

It is also something he can do for her, amidst all his lies. Something tangible. That, he thinks, is also worth more than he can currently name.

“When we return to Skyhold, I will do some research on if it is a risk that is worth taking. Consider that a compromise.”

She comes close again, nodding in appreciation, then smiling in a way that he’s come to expect spells trouble.

“Is it more tempting if I promise to call you ‘hahren’ while you train me?”

“You’re incorrigible,” but his hands wander to the curve of her waist and he tugs her to him, not entirely displeased with the way her mouth shaping that word makes his stomach tense in anticipation of something more.

“I think you’d like that,” her voice is a purr as he watches her eyes move to his lips. The fire in the hearth feels briefly warmer, though whether that is by her magic or his reaction to her words, he cannot tell. Her arms loop around his neck and it doesn’t matter. The thought melts away in the warmth of her touch.

“I’d be willing to find out, da’len,” and though she hates to be called ‘little one’, she snorts a laugh and shakes her head. Her eyes are bright he kisses her, taking more than he knows should given his endless, wretched lies, but her lips call to him. He only takes momentarily, enough to sate his selfish need for a physical sign of her forgiveness, her belief in him.

When he pulls away, her smile falters slightly, a finger whispering a touch down his scalp as she murmurs, “I don’t think I’d have made it through today without you.”

“You never give yourself the credit you deserve for the strength you possess,” he argues, and it is another truth, one of the few he can easily and happily offer her tonight.

Morinne turns her head quickly to yawn, and he becomes suddenly, painfully aware that it must be late into the night by now and she has been on her feet and moving since well before dawn. There is undoubtedly a tent somewhere in the field with his name on it, one he should begin forcing his feet toward.

“I should let you rest.”

He should make his feet move, force himself out the door.

“Stay with me tonight?”

He feels her chest rise and fall with her breath, the bandages that wrap her shoulder under his touch. Soft and real and vulnerable. His. To protect and love or break if he’s not careful.

“As long as you’ll have me.”

The Nightmare’s mocking words to her - You call him Forever - suddenly play in his mind as she looks up and pulls him into a soft kiss. He feels her pulse flutter where his fingers rub lightly at her wrist, and then she moves, tugging him toward the made up cot.

Solas pulls her into him, nestling her against his chest until her face is buried in the crook of his neck and he holds her. He cradles her, smiling into her hair at the sound of her contented, sleepy sigh, then feels her head pull back.

Their noses touch as he looks down at her, and a sleepy smile slips across her face.

“Thenera ar ama, ma lath?”

“Ma nuvenin, vhenan.”

When he finally closes his eyes, letting the day of killing and darkness slip away, he finds her there in the land of light and dreams, smiling and clad in only sunlight. He does not deserve the way she runs into his arms or how easy it is to find comfort in her like this, but she indulges him anyway.

Chapter Text

Morinne

“Inquisitor Lavellan.”

She has no choice but to ignore the heavy knock at her door, focusing instead on the hand that covers her mouth to stifle any more of the noise she’s making as the voice calls out. Her eyes roll back at the feeling, the way his hips don’t slow as he chuckles over her, earning his nickname.

“My Lady Lavellan, I’ve come to prepare you for morning training -”

She bites his hand, giving her room to shout, “I’m awake, I’m going, I’m headed down right now!”

“Ma harel, da’len,” Solas whispers, nipping her ear, sucking at her neck. His hips do not slow, do not relent. Close, so close, damn her handmaiden for interrupting.

She arches off the bed, nails digging into his back, grabbing to hold on to him so that she might have more, more, and he groans, following her into the bright abyss of release. She clenches and he empties and they moan in unison, arms knotted around one another and ankles tangled in sheets.

There is no time to catch breath in each other's arms, no time for slowly kissing her way up his nose and trading stories of their scars one by one, as they do most mornings and nights now. They bound to their clothes, tugging on the closest practical things for training as quickly as can be gathered.

“Da’len,” she snorts, reaching for her leg wraps, “really?”

“It was a calculated risk,” he slips his tunic over his head, proud grin splitting his face, “and I would say that it paid off.”

“Bastard.”

He reaches for the jawbone necklace, laid on her desk, and she watches his eyes catch on something. She wraps strips of leather from ankle to calf with practice ease, layering and unrolling as she works her way up her leg. Solas lifts what’s caught his eye off her desk and extends his hand to her, a familiar sylvanwood ring laid flat in his palm.

“What’s this?”

“Oh, that's the ring I earned when I was named First of my clan,” she says, then realizes he likely needs more context as to what that exactly means. “The rings are an old Dalish tradition - given to Keepers and Firsts as a reminder of Fen’Harel’s betrayal and our duty to protect our clan.”

She begins to wrap her other leg, aware that with every moment spent they are more and more late, but Solas only stares at the wooden ring and the engravings inlaid in the fine wood. Carvings she knows the feels of so well, she’s sure they’re also etched in her soul. Countless times she’s spun it around her finger, working the grooves over mindlessly while pacing forests and campsites. Turning and twisting it while reading over mundane spell theory or elven history or shemlen serials. A quiet comfort since Deshanna reluctantly bestowed it to her.

“You don’t wear it?”

“I did back home, but I worry that here it will get lost or damaged or catch on fire - who knows. Wood isn’t particularly practical for everyday wear while in combat.”

“Hmm,” he rotates the ring between careful fingers once more, then sets it down.

“It’s one of the few things I have of home,” she adds, suddenly feeling as though she needs to defend herself for reasons she can’t quite explain. Remembering, for the first time in weeks, his harsh opinion of her people. Her customs.

“Of course,” he nods, slipping the jawbone over his neck and moving to the door. “The Dalish would certainly be remiss to forget the Dread Wolf’s betrayal.”

“Says the guy wearing the wolf jaw around his neck,” Morinne retorts, and they descend the steps from her rooms and into the bustling spring morning.

They run through stretches and drills as a group, Cullen’s diligent instructions guiding them. Sprints, sit ups, sprints again. Push ups, sprints, squats, and more sprints. Her lungs ache before she’s even reached for magic. There is something gratifying in it, pushing and pushing - seeing the way her body has changed since she left the forest’s outside Wycome.

Once they’ve ‘sufficiently broken a sweat’ by Cullen’s standards, he breaks them out into two sparring groups. Soldiers begin to gather around the outside lines of the training grounds, as they always do when the Inquisitor’s inner circle gather now. All at her insistence, since Adamant. They would not risk being caught even slightly unprepared if they could help it. She would not see them put in danger again, not if she can help it. And in this small way, it feels like she can.

“Cassandra, Vivienne, Sera, Iron Bull, and Solas on one side,” Cullen announces, pointing to the right half of the field, “the rest of you and the Inquisitor on the other. Your goal is to get through the barrier of both mages on the opposite team while defending your own. No damage serious enough to need a healer, ideally, but past that you have free reign to use whatever force or weapons you choose.”

“This is going to be an absolute disaster,” Dorian gripes at her side, “your barrier work is terrible.”

“Solas has been training me on it actually,” she snips back at him, watching the warriors and rogues fan out for their preferred weapons in preparation. The sun beats down overhead, the first truly warm day in ages, and they’re all bearing more skin than she’s seen since meeting everyone. “And I was bad about that six months ago.”

“Oh, you two have had time for training? Amidst all the whispering and giggling in the rotunda I would have sworn your free time was all accounted for.”

“Right, because with the way you’ve been around Bull lately, you have so much room to judge.”

“We used to be friends once,” Dorian says with a playful sigh, “such a shame when men have to ruin a good thing.”

“Should we leave them behind and run away together?”

“I suppose that’s the only way to solve this, yes. Breach be damned?”

“Breach be damned, of course.”

She shrugs out of her jacket, knowing that the moment they get moving, she’s going to wish she had. A couple others do the same, and then positions are taken, places set.

“Solas will be the hard one to crack,” Blackwall says, turning to gather them together in a small huddle in the moments before they know Cullen will shout to begin. “I’d put money on Sera pissing off Viv enough to distract her for us.”

“Clever that,” Dorian nods, “though they do have a small advantage in both Bull and Cassandra.”

“Bianca can keep the Seeker distracted,” Varric says, patting his crossbow with a wry smile and a wink.

“Cole is our best bet for some surprise attacks,” she adds, keeping a close eye on Cullen’s movements so they won’t be caught unaware. She turns to the spirit boy, “stay in their blind spots and only go for the mages if you see a real opening. I’m probably going to regret saying this later but if you see the chance to take down Vivienne, take it.”

“Alright,” he says from under the brim of his hat, and then Cullen is shouting. They move.

Her barrier moves into position at the same time as Dorian’s, fitting over her like a second skin made of the Fade itself, and she feels the anchor purr in her hand. Always so eager to be used, to funnel energy around and over her, to serve. Buzzing pain follows, but nothing she is not used to - nothing like closing a rift.

One of Sera’s perfectly shot arrows sinks cleanly into Blackwall’s raised shield and the two both snort laughter as everyone else begins to move. Dorian begins setting small ice mines as their attackers move forward, glyphs appearing in a dull glow of white before masking into the ground and waiting to be stepped on.

She has no interest in waiting, however. She has the mark, and she can see Solas working intricate channels of his own icy power some fifty yards away; can imagine the intensity of his focus and exactly how he’ll look when distracted.

“Cover me,” she shouts to Dorian. She hears a curse shouted behind her as she fade-steps into the throng.

Her options for offensive spells are limited, given the number of people running around and not being entirely keen on burning anyone, but she’s had an excellent tutor willing to ensure she’s learned a better variety of spells even if it leaves her panting and raging at him after.

Cassandra and Bull both halt and turn, seeing her appear mere steps away, raising wooden practice blades to strike. She opens her left hand, channeling additional power through the anchor. A mind blast reverberates out from her, pushing them back and off their feet before she moves, disappearing again.

Her breath burns in her chest as she does this again and again, teasing her friends and opponents on the field as they work both to keep her at bay and move through to find Dorian. Her team keeps him safe, Varric at his side with dulled bolts firing at all who approach.

Cole and Blackwall seem to be moving in on Vivienne, weaving carefully through the minefield of ice conjured by her and Solas. Perhaps the first time she has seen them working in unison with so little griping, though Sera between them seems to be talking enough to distract both.

She makes a quick game of watching the pace of Sera’s arrows as she pauses to catch her breath, and while no one walks in the center of their training ground, Morinne raises a wall of flame to catch the wooden arrows that soar toward Dorian and her teammates.

“Cheating!” Sera yells, pointing at her. “Too dangerous!”

She douses the inferno just as quickly as she conjured it, the Fade burning in her veins, watching as Sera raises another arrow. In the same moment, Cassandra seems to have turned her attention back to her, running at full speed. It makes no difference though, fast as her friend is, she can’t outrun magic.

As Morinne steps into the space several feet from Vivienne, she watches Cole reappear just behind her as well.

“Stepping into the parlor, hem of my gown snagged, adjust before I go in, must look perfect.” He whispers in her ear, moving close and ducking as she raises her staff in an attempt to strike him from behind.

“Get. Out.”

“Cole…” she hears Solas warn, then Blackwall catches his attention and Solas fade steps away as well, distancing himself from their group to move closer to the other.

“He hurt you. You left a letter, let out a lie so he would do something foolish against the Inquisition. A trap.”

“Stay out of my thoughts, demon,” Vivienne’s voice is a shard of ice in the warm spring morning and she makes the mistake of turning to Cole to shout, “my memories are my own!”

With her back turned though, Blackwall is able to strike. Cole disappears before Vivienne can suitably react in further rage and Cullen whistles. One point.

She turns, looking again for Solas, then finds him and Bull on Dorian with Cassandra chasing Varric. Shaking her head, she tries to make out what the hell is going on, but then Sera turns and points to her and she has to keep moving. As she does, Cullen’s shout for Dorian divides their score once more.

Fine, she thinks, her and Solas. As it should be, perhaps, though she’s not sure any part of her truly believes that. The only way to drop his guard is to get her hands on him, but there’s no realistic way she’ll be able to do that here. Right?

She considers as she runs, finding sanctuary amidst the remaining members of her team. Cole flips his knives, and Blackwall circles his shoulders. Everyone regroups for a moment. Solas is across the field, gesturing dramatically as a general might give his troops orders and she wonders if she should be doing the same.

“What’s he saying?” She asks Cole, deciding perhaps that’s a better use of her skills. It’s a practice not just in fighting and positioning, but outmaneuvering. Using Cole is…something along those lines.

“Is that cheating?” Cole asks in return, perhaps reading her mind.

“Not if we win,” she tries, biting her lip, waiting for them to move. “I just need to know what will work when I get close enough. Because I know I can get close enough.”

“He’s proud. Sharp like sunlight through frost, glinting quick, cutting paths where others falter. Not enough. Not yet. Cunning can’t bridge the gap of years, a trainee’s grasp too shallow for a master’s ocean.”

“Fuck,” she sighs, understanding as another arrows flies for them and Sera’s cackle echoes in it’s wake.

“If you two are finished back there,” Blackwall chides, “I think they’re done waiting.”

“He sees you - clever, swift, though not quite fast enough to unmake him. Not yet. But almost.”

“Yeah, well,” she checks her barrier, sending another bright pulse of energy through it. “Didn’t we just hear a demon tell him pride would be his downfall?”

She murmurs an idea of how they might get through them as they move in slow unison, watching Solas’ instructions play out. Blackwall snorts a laugh, shaking his head slightly.

“Oh this should be good,” Varric locks a bolt into Bianca, and they move.

She watches carefully, and Varric moves from behind her and begins his first shots at Cassandra. The annoyed growl from the Seeker echoes across the grounds as she raises her shield again, catching the next bolt.

Right on time, Cole appears, just behind Sera, and Morinne watches as he ducks down, reaches for her ankles, and pulls. Sera immediately drops to the ground, kicking and hissing like a feral cat, but Cole’s job is done so he disappears.

“Evil, wretched, piss-shit, thing!”

“I’m sorry!”

She swears Solas chuckles and it echoes to her, or perhaps she is attuned to the sound now, but there’s no time to pause. With everyone more or less in place, she raises her left hand, and lets the anchor sing.

Everyone pauses for a moment as a small tear opens and glows vivid and green in the grass between them. Gravity shifts with it, and they are pulled toward the sliver of abyss she conjures.

There is no time to focus on their yells of frustration and perhaps, in some cases, fear - she has to move, has to strike. She can see Solas scrunching up his face in effort, working to undo the tear himself. It is no true rift, just a tear, he needs no anchor. In their more recent training, they’ve found that while he is the master of the Fade, the anchor is eager to make her a master of the Veil. She stretches and toys with it, calling forth what she needs from the Fade with a different sort of ease than that which he commands. Even now, the mark on her hand seems excited to grant her the magic to pull apart the seams of reality, the magic it grants painless compared to so many spells that reverberate painfully through flesh and bone.

“Vishante kaffas,” she hears Dorian exclaim from the sidelines. The crowd murmurs grow.

She steps.

Her left hand meets Solas as she rematerializes, ready with a quick flash of heart to burn away his barrier, but it drops at the anchor’s touch. She feels it falls away, the pulse of his magic cold and familiar at her hand, and lets the rift drop as Cullen calls her victory.

She ignores the variety of expletives shouted at her from the crowd pulled together by her rift, she’ll apologize thoroughly later. It was only a moment, tugged by invisible hands and the buzzing magic of the Fade to hold still and come close. She watches them for a moment, then looks to Solas with a victorious grin.

“I feel inclined to say that was cheating,” he says with a shake of his head.

“Cheating would have been my first idea, I think.”

“Oh?”

“I was just going to come up behind you and tell you to be a good boy and drop your barrier for me,” she watches as he rolls his eyes, a quiet chuckle escaping in spite of himself. “Would that have worked? ‘Be a good boy for me, hah’ren, and drop your barrier?’”

Half a smile lifts one side of his lips at her teasing and the sight is nearly devastating. The way the sun casts light through his ears makes something in her heart stutter and if she weren’t already working to catch her breath, it might steal it. “I have to assume you’ve been saving that line since Crestwood and you choose to use it now? I expected better, vhenan.”

“You sound so unhappy in your defeat, sa’lath, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a sore loser.”

Solas turns, studying her through narrowed brows. She’s struck a nerve. Shouting to Cullen over the various voices of companions and crowd, he asks, “Again, Commander?”

“I…well I had no intention but I suppose -“

“Yes,” Morinne gives a thumbs up, ignoring Dorian and Cassandra’s combined eyerolls and groans of displeasure. Varric curses. “Again.”

Cullen resets their teams but keeps her and Solas separate. It makes no difference who is around and defending her though, she is swarmed with magic and weapons alike the moment Cullen says ‘go’. She dodges and swipes and runs, but is taken out first all the same, taking Dorian out as she falls.

“I want no more of this lovers quarrel,” Vivienne announces, stepping from the field. “If the Inquisitor and her apostate wish to continue, they may do so without me.”

Sera nods, still annoyed from her stunt with Cole and the rift. With one finger up in the air, she departs, calling out “Yeah, Vivvy’s right - absolutely done with this shite,” as she leaves.

Solas smirks, and she sees the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. Feels her own gathering under her breasts, down her back.

“Do you need a lyrium potion, Inquisitor?”

“I’m sending you to the Fallow Mire,” she retorts, unable to keep the same taunting smile from her face, mirroring his. Creators, he’s perfect. And so fucking annoying. “Enjoy the undead and the reeking bog.”

In response, he tugs off his tunic, wiping the sweat from his brow with the simple linen cloth, then throws it to the side.

In chess, she supposes that would be considered ‘check’.

“I am not entirely versed on judging mage sparring of this sort,” Cullen interjects, making a point not to look too long at the very obvious love bites she is almost certain Solas is unaware of. Proof of their earlier joining, made plain at the place where neck meets shoulder, that perfect groove of skin where her mouth always finds purchase as his hips collide with hers. Bite marks on his collarbone, and if she had to guess, matching on hers. But she kept her clothes on.

“Well, well, well,” Dorian croons, coming up behind her as Solas steps away to take a sip of water, “I knew you had to be a minx but this is quite the confirmation.”

She elbows him as Solas narrows his gaze at her, confusion written in his eyes.

“No, really, I’m so happy to see he offers something worthy of such colorful -”

“I’m signing you up to help Mother Giselle with cleaning up the Chantry,” she bites at Dorian, sticking her tongue out at his mocking look of horror. Turning to Cullen, she says, “the barriers game still works. We won’t take long.”

Rather than move to opposite ends of the training grounds as they had in groups before, now she walks with Solas to the center of the small field and they remain only a few feet apart.

“Taking your shirt off is stooping rather low, don’t you think?” She twists her sweaty palms around the leather wrapping of her staff. “I mean, I would think you shouldn’t need to settle for such distractions.”

“I’m merely meeting the rather low standards of my opponent,” he clasps his hands behind his back, staff held firmly. “Da’len.”

She can’t help the purr that sparks at his teasing. Even that damned word and the way he says it.

The barrier slips over her skin again, with less ease than the first time but she still has enough mana to get through the rest of the training if she doesn’t get too ridiculous in what she conjures. Solas does the same, a quick flash of green coating his bare chest and disappearing. They both nod to Cullen, then back to each other.

“Begin.”

For a moment, neither move. Too long a moment, she thinks, assuming he’s put together some sort of plan while teasing her.

“You’re covered in love bites, you know,” she tells him, hoping it might distract him for at least a moment. Morinne lingers long enough to see his brows raise in surprised understanding, then fade steps.

It gives her enough distance to start running, conjuring flames in her wake so he might struggle at least a little in following. Enough time for her to try and think of a real plan.

Damn him. Damn his torso.

Ice appears under her feet as she runs, crackling as it freezes the newly rooted grass into a solid, glittering layer. She slides and pauses, looking up. Solas hasn’t moved, has only shifted so his staff rests in front of him now instead of behind. The picture of ease, while she runs like a rabbit through a burning forest.

The anchor, she thinks, if she can get close to him again, then maybe the anchor can get through his barrier as it had the first time. She’ll focus on how in the void it was able to do that later.

Burning forest conjures as good an idea as any, and infernos come to her as easily as breathing. So she lets go, lets out the breath she’s always holding on that part of herself, and the space between them ignites.

The blaze stands taller than her, hopefully taller than Solas as well, and she can feel the strain on her mana as her body tires. Just this last one, she tries to promise the well of power inside her, as if it will understand. She takes off running again. Crowd chattering, her companions voices exclaiming, but doesn’t let herself focus on their words. She can sense his magic trying to untangle hers, clear the fire, see through the smoke, weed her out.

“That’s a lot of fire, Bunny,” she manages to hear Varric call out, and he’s right but it’s only for a moment. Just needs to get through to him, surprise him, and -

Sooner than she expects though, before she can orient herself in the direction in which to fade step, he pries apart the etheric threads of her flames, splitting the wall of bright red heat and stepping through it with a shake of his head.

“You made a valiant effort, Morinne,” he says, and she watches, letting his pride bring him closer to her. They move slowly around each other, wolves stalking in slow circles, and she knows he’s toying with her. Knows he’s waiting to strike but looking to make some sort of show of it.

“Efforts not done yet,” she breathes, adding exhaustion to her voice she doesn’t necessarily feel. She breathes harder, makes herself look more winded, pulls back her flames. “It’s not done til you have my barrier.”

She feels a rigid pillar of ice form at her back and then another, pushing her forward. Another forms somewhere behind it, and ice at her feet, and she’s moving without meaning to, inch by icy inch.

“You’re an ass, you know that?” She purses her lips, tightening up her face. She lets him believe she’s resigned to this.

“Your training has come a long way,” he says, so smug and calm, “and it is good to see you in this environment to know where further improvement might be needed.”

Another shard of ice propels her forward, and she decides it’s close enough. He needs his ass kicked.

“Alright, fine,” she extends her right hand, doing everything in her power to look tired and dejected, “you win.”

When he finally moves to take it, or perhaps to cast something else, she pulls for a quick, and admittedly weak mind blast. The spell is barely enough to knock him off balance, but he is off his feet and that’s more of an opening than she’d otherwise get. Flicking her staff between hands, she reaches down and pats him on the shoulder with her left. The anchor slips into his barrier, a key in a lock, and sends a radiating jolt of energy up her arm at the contact.

Solas looks to where her hand rests on his shoulder, then up to her, squinting against the sunlight.

“You made a valiant effort, vhenan,” she smiles, gloating.

Understanding flickers and he merely nods, “I suppose next time I would be better off holding my tongue.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” she extends her hand and helps him up, pulling him off the grass, “How would I know how cocky you can be if you didn’t talk such a big game?”

He tuts once, looking back out to the scorched grass that still gives off a few puffs of smoke. “Ah yes, but now I also know how willing you are to risk setting me on fire to claim victory.”

“I could just as easily have broken my legs on your ice!”

Cullen approaches and holds up her arm in victory, a show for the gathered crowd. She laughs through their cheers, blushing, and gives a mock bow in the way she remembers painting of chevaliers in Orlais doing. Solas huffs a quiet laugh at her side, then turns, moving to retrieve his tunic.

Varric passes her a mug of water, shaking his head. “Might be the first time I say this, kid, but I might have decided to call you ‘Bunny’ too soon.”

She snorts a small laugh between gulps of water, the rush of cold that fills her heated veins clearing her mind, “Why do you say that?”

Extending a hand, he gestures out to the blackened line of her victory.

“Bunnies can’t exactly do that, can they?”

“Oh, they don’t have those here? Wycome is filled with that type,” she laughs as he rolls his eyes with an exaggerated ‘ha, ha’. “Those pesky nightmares never made it to Kirkwall?”

“What’s in Kirkwall?”

“Oh,” she says, Solas’ hand resting softly at the curve above her hip, startling her slightly. “Um, fire breathing rabbits.”

“Ah,” he nods, rubbing a circle over her back, “naturally.”

“Mmm,” she sips the water again, watching everyone gather their things and the crowd disperse. Varric bids them goodbye, promising to see them at breakfast. With his back turned, Morinne stands her tiptoes, leaning up to whisper, “seeing you on your back like that made me want you again.”

Solas’ face flushes at her words, and she bites her thumb nail to hide her smile. Body flushed with exertion, with victory, and with renewed need. It’s constant now, the desire to be touched by him.

“You’re insatiable,” he murmurs in return. His hand tightens where it rests at her hip.

“You like it,” she watches him as he gives a cheeky nod, then turns to kiss her briefly, deeply, with a warm hand cupping her cheek - more than enough to fan the eager flames of her want.

Every moment spent in his presence reignites the fever of her want, regardless of how inopportune the moment might be or how recently they might have been together. Each kiss, each touch, is only a momentary reprieve from the overwhelming fever of her desire.

It is unlike anything she’s ever felt for anyone and it’s all she ever wants to feel again. Overwhelmed with want and love, even when exhausted. Even when terrified or hungry or angry. It’s like he’s in her blood, her marrow now, how could she possibly shake how much she feels? Why would she ever want to?

They walk up the stone stairs with the rest of their group and she can tell Solas is doing his best to remain a good sport in the face of his defeat. The great hall is lively, readying for breakfast, and they split apart in search of separate rooms and fresh, changed clothes for the long day ahead.

Morinne thinks through her schedule, one of their last days in Skyhold before they depart for festivities at the Winter Palace. Meetings and fittings and final preparations, all that demands her understanding and approval before she’ll be unfortunately focused on the Orlesian court.

The last of her dance lessons this afternoon. A final run through with Leliana and Josie of everyone’s roles. She slips into a fresh pair of leggings and wraps her feet again, then shakes out her hair. Sign off on the Verchiel march for Sera. Send a scout to ensure Dorian’s father made it safely out of Ferelden. Check on Josie’s family.

It’s finally warm enough to wear a simple tunic and sweater without a coat, and she reaches for her perfumed oil. Two dabs behind her ears. Make sure the scout she’d sent out for Cole’s amulet has left and will be in Rivain within the fortnight. Check on the thing Bull said he needed but wouldn’t elaborate on. Check on Cullen. Apologize to Vivienne for Cole too, she thinks, assuming she’ll need to add that to the list after this morning.

Busy, always busy, always moving. She downs a swig of lyrium, crossing the room and letting the heavy door pound shut behind her. Think and move and decide all day long, and then at night he is there and she can just be. Can wrap herself around him and pretend life is uncomplicated and the world isn’t depending on her.

She tears down the stairs of the tower, left right left right, towards the smell of breakfast. The sound of her companions gathering once more can be heard through the stone and Morinne realizes how much this has become her home. How much she loves it.

She would even say, much to her surprise, that she doesn’t hate being the Inquisitor anymore either. Though that has every likelihood of changing the moment they depart for Orlais and hand her the keys to the Empire’s future.

Chapter Text

Solas

“Hunt well, vhenan.”

She squeezes his hand with a wink in passing. He lines up with the rest of them, toy soldiers in velvet dressings. They follow their Inquisitor into fray.

Six months ago, he watched her eyes widen at every glimmering pillar and sconce in Val Royeaux, stunned to near silence by the dominating opulence of Orlais. Tonight, she is the one shining, a gown of embroidered and beaded leaves glittering like dew drops on dawn bright trees, as she glides through the gilded corpse of Halamshiral.

The knife-eared herald, he hears them murmur, ignoring the supposed rules of their game. Venomous insults from masked snakes hum around her, but Morinne does not falter as she strides toward the empress, prepared to carve the empire’s future with her own bloodied hands.

Titles are called as she shows the world those who stand by her side. The right and left hands of their divine - warriors, heroes and spies alike. The illustrious son of a magister. Enchanter to the Imperial court, and grand dame of the circle of Magi. He feels suddenly hesitant that Morinne chose to tote him along, surely Blackwall or Varric would be better fit to impress the court.

He walks at the cue given, shoulders back despite knowing he is to be announced as a servant. The lowest among them, trailing in their wake. A careful strategy, that in many cases would be too obvious. Not here though, not among them. Here he is Solas, lowly apostate, strange master of the Fade. Here he is meek.

“The Lady Inquisitor’s scholar of ancient magics, Solas,” the announcer drolls out as he reaches the center of the floor and gives the mandatory small bow to the empress. His jaw aches for how he grinds his teeth, wishing he’d anticipated such a move on her part.

She does not move from where she stands at the Empress’s side - unshaken, defiant. He cannot see the grin of victory that is hidden in her restraint, only the momentary glance - the flicker of her eyes meeting his. It is the only acknowledgement she can offer before turning, speaking to the Empress as the two decorated leaders climb the marble stairs.

Both queens take their places on the board and the Game begins as the orchestra starts, somewhere behind him.

—

He is not entirely sure what he expected when considering the woman that changed Felassan’s mind. He’d only considered what she might know, what she might be thinking or how she might use her eluvians and his general’s teachings to further set back the duty he still has to the People.

Wide, dark eyes common among the elves of this age hidden behind an unadorned, silver mask marking her as a handmaid. Tanned skin and curly hair. She does not look particularly special from where he stands, watching from the corner of his eye.

Were he an utter fool, he could even walk up to her and ask about Felassan - who he’d been while Solas slept, the kind of hah’ren he’d been to her. The wine turns over in his stomach but he takes another steadying drink all the same.

Does she know of his death? Did she know Felassan’s penchant for tall tales? That he smelled of campfire smoke and dried pine needles?

But then, would he still have been that man all these millennia later? Did Briala know him better than Solas did now?

Regardless of what she looks like, what she does or does not know of Felassan, she holds the passkey to the eluvians - his true goal for the evening, assuming he can still work around this new title Morinne decided to bestow him with.

Staring at her, he tried to place how she might have convinced his most trusted general and the companion he’d held most dear to abandon their cause, their shared duty. It is almost painfully distracting, the itching need to know. Everything he had entrusted to Felassan when giving him that final mission. Everything lost when he met this shrill servant of the Orlesians.

But then, some part of his wretched mind whispers, doesn’t Morinne threaten to do the same?

“The same double-dealing, poisoned words, canapés... it's lacking only a few sacrificial slaves and some blood magic - but you could almost mistake this for a soiree in the Imperium,” Dorian cuts in, interrupting the all-consuming void that swallows his thoughts, pulling out a stolen bottle of wine and refilling his glass. “Is that the infamous handmaiden?”

Solas only gives a single nod, then takes another drink, letting the rich flavor linger on his tongue. Dorian sets the bottle behind an ornate statue, moving to better observe one of the many pieces on tonight’s board. Solas does his best not to stare, forcing himself to look away and into the crowd. Forces himself away from the memories of the man he never wanted to have to kill or the blood that coated his hands once his blade struck true.

“Hardly looks like the type to seduce an empress,” Dorian offers, far too loudly. “Or was it the other way around?”

“I can’t say I recall the exact timing of their romantic dalliances being included in Josephine’s briefings.”

“Ha!” Dorian’s laugh is genuine and loud, though hardly enough to draw more than a couple turned heads and for only a moment. “With wit like that, I can almost understand what darling Mori sees in you.”

“Any louder,” Solas says, hiding in his goblet, “and Vivienne or Josephine will appear out of the marble and have you strung up in the courtyard for ruining their games.”

“Ah yes, I suppose you’re right. I would hate to embarrass our local scholar as well, forgive me.”

Solas rolls his eyes, ignoring the jab, though the first warm punches of drink in his blood call for him to snap back. The wolf named Pride that lays locked between his ribs rises, stretches, longs to bare its teeth.

“Oh and since you apparently won’t ask, I suppose I’ll just tell you,” Dorian huffs, turning back to him, “our darling girl is doing wonderfully, charming the pants off the Empire’s finest.”

“I didn’t need to ask,” he says, “because I had no doubt.”

“Well how about if I tell you she’s had three marriage proposals already?”

At this, he can’t help but raise his head. “Really?”

“Of course not, we’re in Orlais and she’s Dalish and barefoot,” the Tevinter shakes his head and Solas doesn’t bother keeping the scowl from his face. “Oh, keep your ridiculous hat on, the night is still painfully young and I’m too painfully sober for your glowering.”

“You know where she is then?”

“Snooping, from what I understand,” Dorian doesn’t bother trying to conceal his devious grin, “I believe she brought Cole along with her to watch around corners and make anyone who sees her forget they did. She’s expected to dance with the duchess after the second bell tolls, if you can be bothered to watch.”

He considers. Morinne - and others - will undoubtedly notice if he is absent the entire evening, however if she is at the center of attention it will likely be the best opportunity to search for the passkey.

“I presume you have yet to see anything of note?”

“Rumors and gossip our lovely Nightingale will undoubtedly stir up trouble with, but otherwise no.”

“Hmm,” he sounds into his glass, offering Dorian nothing more.

“You are certainly more comfortable amidst all this than I’d have expected.”

“I have seen countless such displays in my journeys in the Fade,” he lies, then finds the truth more easily, “The powerful have always been the same. Only the costumes change.”

“You know, that’s almost comforting. Almost,” Dorian reaches for the bottle again, then pauses, instead taking a glass off a tray in passing. “I’ll be ready for the signal, if you see anything. Provided this spicy punch isn’t as strong as it seems.”

—

He crosses the finely polished marble floors, ignoring the tittering masked nobility that seem to pause and stare as he passes. Their curiosity and their barbs mean nothing as he maneuvers through their crowds, just as he might have before this empire had a name. Their lives are as fleeting as mayflies, and just as useless. They might enjoy their gilded decadence, their wasteful scheming, just as so many kingdoms before them. And he will watch, as this empire eventually falls, just like so many others.

Rounding a corner between towering, gilded pillars - he stops short, caught by sight of Morinne. Shoulders squared, eyes alight, lips curved in a mischievous smile, she listens and nods at the crowd around her. She is surrounded by masked faces, eager listeners. When she speaks, perhaps a reply to something said, her audience erupts in what sounds like genuine, unguarded laughter. Morinne simply raises her goblet to her lips, hiding what he’s sure is another victorious smirk. He knows, without a doubt, the goblet full of either water or juice, compared to her increasingly drunk conversation partners. He’d wager all his gold on it, in fact - she avoids drink now to stay sharp, to keep her own invisible mask of Inquisitor polished in every eye that beholds her, friend or foe.

He makes a note to find a bottle of something rare, just for her, so she might indulge when all is said and done. A fine drink of something expensive and extravagant she can toast to as just Morinne, when the masks can finally come off at the end of the night.

“Is that her?” He catches a whispered woman’s voice in passing, all eyes on the infamous woman before them.

“The Herald of Andraste, yes!”

“What do the tattoos mean again? Do you recall?”

He attempts to ignore them, to keep moving toward the ballroom once more - if for no other reason than to reorient himself in this maze of a palace - when he overhears Morinne excuse herself from the group she’s speaking with. Her hand is at the crook of his elbow a moment later, her eyes meeting his.

“Solas, if I might borrow you for a moment?”

“Of course, Inquisitor.”

Turning, she guides him down a hallway, then another. The distant hum of the orchestra still murmurs across the marble, candlelight glowing and shimmering golden on every polished statue and sconce. It catches on the pins in her hair and the dark shining curls. It is not how she might usually wear her hair, more in line with what he sees is the trend among the nobles of this country, but it is striking all the same. Casting her face in stark relief, hard lines, as if to emphasize to these vipers that she is not a naive, young woman to take for a fool.

“Have you seen or heard anything?” Her voice is quiet, barely louder than the brush of her gown against the floors.

“Nothing worthy of reporting,” he says, unsure if it’s a lie. Simply spotting Briala can hardly count as interest, can it? “I caught a glimpse of Briala, but cannot say she was doing anything worth noting.”

Morinne nods, tapping a nail against the golden goblet in her hand. They come to a stop between two statues and away from the bulk of the ball’s crowd, and he sees some of the tension fall from Morinne’s shoulders almost immediately.

“No, I met Briala already,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “She’s apparently in charge of the servants tonight though - and Cole heard whispers of servants going missing. I have him and Sera looking into it.”

“Sera? Is that wise?”

She finally meets his eye again and sighs, “I don’t know, but they know of the Jennies here so she’s more trusted among them than the rest of us. Probably. Maybe. …Hopefully.”

“Hmm,” is all he has time to offer in response as a couple of loudly arguing men pass them. He shifts, turning so his back largely obscures her, and takes a drink of his wine - anything to further blend in. To them, perhaps he looks like a guest of the Inquisition, lost in the charms of a woman and ignoring his duty. Perhaps it’s all too true.

“I also found these,” Morinne says after the two pass, and pulls a small figurine out from the confines of her fitted arm wrappings. She holds it up to him and in her hands is a tiny stone halla. “Do they look familiar to you in any way?”

“It looks like a halla.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “No shit. I meant is there anything that strikes you as…I don’t know - something particularly magical or special to them in some way? I have four of them.”

“Four?” He looks at her arm, at the place where she’d pulled the first. “All in your sleeve?”

“Solas,” she bites out, “we have no time for this - focus!”

As if on a cue - the first bell tolls and he recalls Dorian saying she was to dance at the second. Morinne lets out a huff of breath through her nose, and she shifts, pulling out the other tiny figures.

“Take them, see if you can figure it out or if they’re useless then…I don’t know, find a child to give them to I guess,” she passes the rest to him and suddenly he has one hand holding an almost empty wine glass and another full of tiny halla, warmed by her skin. “I get the sense that they’re useful though and I can’t get a sense of why.”

He nods, taking the figurines and stuffing them in a pocket, “I’ll figure it out, Inquisitor.”

She scowls but doesn’t complain about his use of her title, not tonight. Even with the unhappy set to her brows, she is beautiful. She will bring the empire to heel like no elf in this age has. What a fool he was to ever doubt her, all those months ago. To ever question who or what she could be, what she could do.

“I have to go dance,” she groans and he wonders if the masked nobility have noticed the way she glimmers in the candlelight or if all they see are a pair of pointed ears. Wonders if anyone sees the flash of green in her left eye or just the woman they decided is a herald. He looks at her, wine mingling in his blood with the heady atmosphere of the court, oddly familiar in all the wrong ways, and finally sees the divinity they pronounce in her.

“Not much longer now, I’m sure,” he says, in a vague attempt to reassure her.

“I don’t suppose you would be interested in a dance with me?”

“A great deal... although dancing with an elven apostate would win you few favors with the court,” he says quietly, wishing he could stop the way she works her lip between her teeth by taking it between his lips. By pulling her close to him, weaving his hands through the dark curtain of her hair and breathing her in until both their minds are finally at ease. “Perhaps once our business here is done?”

She only nods and gathers her skirts in one hand, the other reaching for his. She touches him only long enough for him to register the cold of her hands against the silk of his gloves, and then slips away, careful not to be seen in this palace of gossiping snakes.

He looks at her, setting herself to become their Inquisitor once more, and some part of him knows Felassan was right. The dread and drink turn to lead in his stomach.

His traitorous mind conjures the memory of Mythal walking away, across polished marble and gold floors, toward damnable, awful people who would take and take and take. And she would give, just as Morinne will. Just as Morinne has to.

He follows, and grabs for another glass of wine at the first tray that passes.

—

Solas is not the only one transfixed by the way she moves through the crowd, weaving from one courtier to the next like a butterfly from flower to flower. He spots Josephine and Vivienne across the ballroom, brows raised and smiling into their glasses before softly knocking them together in victory. He sees the smiles under masks lift at her questions and jokes, and people clamor for her attention, for the chance to speak with the exotic Dalish elf and the blessed herald.

She maintains a careful hold on one corner of her gown, the other on a fresh glass, and he wonders briefly how she might have fared in his time. How a woman of her fiery but tender heart would have looked at the cruel beauty of Arlathan, how she might have survived it. Would she have joined him, eager to fight for the elves then just as she seeks to now? Would he have broken her then too?

The eluvians, he remembers, as the thoughts of her and Arlathan collide. They would allow him a way to explain everything, not just continue forward with his plans as they stand now. He could simply show her. Use the remaining mirror in Skyhold and show her the whole truth of what remains. Of who he was, and who her gods were. Of how it all fell. Let her decide for herself then, just as she might have millennia ago.

She takes the duchess’ hand as the second bell tolls, meets his eye, and nods once.

He moves through the crowd with less precision than she does, the nobility uncaring as he weaves through their ranks. He tries to think of how Felassan might coach a young woman, how he might guide her to hide things or how that might help him - though truly he has no idea. He knows very little about Briala, save the quick briefing Josephine gave them all when they arrived yesterday. The briefing and Felassan’s parting words, before his blood soaked his hands.

“So that’s the so-called scholar? I’ve never heard of an elf being a scholar in anything,” someone snickers as he passes.

“Scholars in breeding like rabbits perhaps,” their conversation partner giggles. “Ten silver they’re lovers. Not many elves in that Inquisition are there?”

He lets out a deep sigh through his nose and keeps moving, forcing himself not to turn and cast the two fools in pillars of ice.

Her lead on the servants is certainly somewhere to start, but following Cole and Sera will likely only lead to more trouble. The more bodies following a single trail, the more chances for whispers, and for eyes to follow where they don’t want them. His mind races as he makes his way from the grand ballroom to the first vestibule and then down the stairs, unsure of where he’s going except that he needs to move. Needs to be doing something.

The hallways he finds at the bottom are mostly marked off for guests, however no one is paying attention, so he steps around the rope barriers and tries doors. He meets locks to most, an open broom closet, a washroom. At the end of one hall another locked door, though a strange sigil by the handle manages to catch his eye just before he turns away. It’s almost uncanny how familiar it is, and then he feels the shift of something in his pocket and remembers.

Slotting three of the tiny halla into the door, he finds his way into an office, dark save for a sliver of moonlight coming through the nearly closed curtains. Summoning a blaze of veilfire, he lights the small lamp on the desk and begins to look through what he can, unsure of who this office belongs to. He’s unsure what he might find in an Orlesian nobles office, though he supposes it doesn’t entirely matter. Either he finds something helpful to him, helpful to the Inquisition, or nothing.

Pocketing a handful of what look to be illegal trade receipts, two more halla figurines, and letters that sound like they confirm a series of affairs between foreign dignitaries, he sighs, sitting back in the plush leather chair. Defeat mingles with the first whispers of exhaustion, all aided by too many glasses of wine. He used to be a master of this, he thinks. These people are nothing compared to what he’s used to facing in his time; the adversaries and brilliant minds he would conquer in battle and ballrooms alike.

A third bell rings finally, and though he’s not sure what precisely it indicates, he’s sure he shouldn’t be caught down here and risk the Inquisition’s goals for the evening. Doing what he can to reset the papers and desk to how he found it, disorganized chaos, he extinguishes the veilfire and leaves. At least he can tell Morinne he solved the issue of the halla.

When he returns, she is spinning with the Grand Duke. Her smile looks tighter, more strained than it had at the start of the evening. The months of dancing lessons have clearly paid off though, she moves with ease, misses no steps despite not being raised with entirely different traditions. Have any barefoot Dalish dancers ever graced the floors of the winter palace? Have the Orlesians ever looked upon one with anything but disdain?

“She is doing quite well,” Cassandra says, coming to his side. “Better than I think any of us expected.”

“Because she’s an elf?” He cannot help the barb before it escapes his lips.

“No,” the seeker’s tone is defensive, “because Orlais is ridiculous and anyone not raised here should not take to these games so easily.”

“You don’t sound entirely at ease with her success though,” he notes.

“Her ability to lie will be a success for the Inquisition tonight, to be sure, however am I wrong for taking stock of it?”

He considers, looking down at her and considering what he knows of the woman he calls his heart. “She has worked her whole life to survive, in one way or another. I suppose lying comes with the territory.”

“Hmm,” Cassandra offers in reply, watching Morinne as well. “I do not question her resilience, nor her adaptability. I only consider if perhaps… she has ever lied to us. And if so, about what - or rather, when we will be faced with whatever truth she sought to hide.”

He looks to the Seeker, unable to hide his surprise. “If she had lied - would it change anything now? Would it lessen the devotion with which she serves your cause?”

“You do not need to defend her, Solas, I do not doubt her or her service. I suppose I’ve had more wine than is appropriate, I apologize,” she shakes her head, pinches the bridge of her nose. “It is this ball and the Orlesian foolishness. Yes, let us treat murder, corruption, and deceit as delightful amusements. How wonderful. I detest this place. Please, forget I said anything.”

As Morinne bows, the strings going quiet with the end of the song, he watches her sneeze into her left hand. It makes no sound that reaches him, but it is not intended to. He watches her excuse herself to the Duke, bowing her head in apology and stepping off the dance floor as the rest of the Inquisition moves, acknowledging her signal. Cassandra stiffens at his side.

“I suppose she’s learned what she needed to then,” she says. He nods in affirmation, moving. Following the careful orders for where he knows they are all to go and meet, which path is designated for him so they don’t all move at once and together.

Morinne has her next success for the evening. He leaves the ballroom, meeting the gaze of a golden eyed woman as he exits. Something in him, something ancient, stirs at the sight, but he has no time to focus. He moves, because duty demands he move. Morinne, in her way, demands it. And he has always done his best to be a faithful servant.

Chapter Text

Morinne

The spring night is surprisingly pleasant, and Morrigan bids her a good evening as the strings pick up a new tune. Out on the dancefloor, laughter and conversation doesn’t seem at all dimmed by the events of the evening. Orlesians are unbothered by executions mid-party, someone had joked earlier, and she is horrified to learn how right they were.

“I’m not surprised to find you out here,” a familiar and beloved voice sounds from behind her and she turns to see Solas in his shining, acorn-shaped hat. It brings an easy smile to her lips.

“It feels like I can finally catch my breath,” Morinne sighs. “I’m exhausted.”

“You handled everything very well.” There is no hesitation in his voice and for a moment she thinks that should be enough to convince her. His confidence and praise is hard to earn, even for her, even now. “There will be more trouble ahead, certainly, but for now, you have denied Corypheus his victory yet again.”

“These people - this whole country,” she keeps her voice low but shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose, “if I could have let Briala take the whole damn Empire for herself and let the rest rot, I would have.”

“An understandable idea, however I do not believe it would make the Inquisition’s goal easier in turn,” he shifts, turning to face the balustrade she leans over and rubs a gloved hand over the small of her back. They look out to the lingering guests still speaking and drinking out on the lower garden below. No one looks up, all well and truly lost in their cups now that the political drama of the evening seems to be concluded.

“An empress is an empress,” she grumbles, though they both know she knows it’s not so simple, “why shouldn’t she be an elf?”

“You would start a coup?”

“I would give the elves a better life. Better than being elbowed and called ‘knife-ear’ all night by people in hideous masks who have never had to work a day in their lives,” she knows his tone was joking, playful, but the whole scene in this stolen palace has her jaw aching from forcing a smile all night. From fake laughs and pretending instead of setting the whole place on fire and walking away from the smouldering rubble. “Maybe I actually sound a bit like Corypheus. But Gaspard started a coup and no one here batted an eye. They threw a party and invited him. How serious can it be?”

“I’m sure for an elf on the throne of Orlais, it would be serious,” his hand falls from her back, eyes darkening.

“I know, I mean, of course I know that. Creators, some wicked part of me was tempted though. Cause a real uproar and threaten them with tearing open the breach if they don’t like it. ‘See the elves as people or else!’” She shakes her fist in jest but knows she shouldn’t be saying this out loud, not here. Not when the very marble of the winter palace seems to be made of listening ears that report back to either Briala or Celene. With a sigh, she just turns to him, and gives her best attempt at a weary smile. “I think I’m probably just tired.”

“I know, vhenan,” he says, ignoring the roaring applause from the crowd as the song shifts into another tempo. “I smuggled some sparkling wine for you, so you might enjoy a drink without worrying about a grand audience but if you’d like, I can escort you back and see that someone has your room prepared for bed.”

“My, aren’t you thoughtful,” she decides to risk another step closer despite Vivienne and Josephine’s remarks that it would be easier if none saw evidence of her entanglement with Solas, at least while the ball still raged. “Exactly what I’d expect of my elven serving man.”

“Ah,” Solas chuckles softly, and moves to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, “I knew that change was you and not the spymaster.”

“Of course it was me, it was a ridiculous request.”

“I thought it best to have someone who might remain unnoticed, as servants do.”

“Dressed in Inquisition finery and handling no serving matters all night?”

“Well -”

“Not to mention,” Morinne taps her index finger into his chest, the velvet soft to the touch in contrast to the firm muscle beneath, “I would be leaving you, as an elven servant, to deal with this lot all night. That’s like sending a wounded halla to a pack of hungry wolves.”

“I take your meaning,” he grabs her hand where she pokes him, holding it tenderly before kissing the back of her knuckles and letting it go. “But I maintain that it was a viable plan, simply different.”

“I maintain you’re a fool,” she smiles, stepping around him and moving to the farther corner of the balcony. Out of direct view of the open doors and the ballroom inside. He follows, understanding without a word spoken.

“The evening has left you mad with power, I see.”

“Delirious with it,” she grins, watching as he shakes his head, smiling in return, “but don’t worry, I’ll remember your prowess as both a serving man and a scholar when I claim Thedas as my own.”

“Come, before the power completely goes to your head,” he extends a gloved hand to her, bowing slightly at the waist, “and before the band stops playing, dance with me.”

“I’d love to,” and taking her hand, silk on skin, he pulls her close and they ignore the ball around them. Ignores the whole of Orlais, perhaps, with the way his eyes hold hers and he spins them. He ignores the orchestra somewhere out of sight, and begins to hum a tune she can’t place, the feel of it vibrating through his chest into hers.

It is not the tune but the rhythm of their steps that reminds her of a shared memory from not so long ago, under a similarly starry sky. Held close to him like this for the first time but in the safety of the Fade, in the memory of a world long lost.

“I’m proud of you,” he says quietly, once she’s caught the pattern of their dance and no longer needs his hummed song to guide her feet, “six months ago, you’d never been to Orlais, and now you’ve charmed and changed the court in ways that will echo through it for centuries.”

“I had help -”

“Do not deny yourself the credit where it is due,” he interrupts, “you worked hard for this victory, I will see you claim it, or I’ll launch myself from the balcony.”

“My goodness,” Morinne snorts a small laugh, looking up at him. The pattern of his freckles more interesting, more beautiful than the night sky above. “How much wine did they serve you tonight?”

“Enough,” he flushes, “but that is not the point.”

“Well I hope that means you might have had a little fun then, amidst it all.”

“I do adore the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex that permeates these events,” his hand tightens around her waist and they spin, keeping to their corner of the balcony and their song of the night. “Coups and machinations of an empire ongoing, yet I witnessed three couples in various states of undress after you went off to finish your deals with the Empress and Briala.”

She feels her brows shoot up in surprise. Trapped amidst the nobility in the main hall, she’d seen nothing so scandalous. In her searching, she’d been so focused that if someone’s hands had been down anothers pants, she definitely hadn’t noticed. Damn.

“Anything inspiring?”

She watches him grimace and can’t help the cackle that escapes her, far too loud for the quiet night. Loud enough she swears she hears the floor below go briefly quiet, listening for who might be above. Solas pulls her into him, laughing quietly in turn. The velvet of his uniform presses against her bare skin, warm and soft, and he holds her close enough to cause a scandal. She doesn’t particularly care, given their work is done, but she’s surprised he doesn’t either.

“What more do they need you to do tonight?”

They lock eyes for a moment and both smile softly before Solas leans in and presses a soft kiss to her lips. He tastes faintly of wine and smells of pine and magic, intoxicating and wonderful against her.

“I think we can make a break for it without causing a political incident.”

—

“I had a bit of an idea in the midst of everything,” she says as the door to her suite closes behind them, the hum of the ball quieting finally. “And I’d love your opinion.”

“Oh?” He steps to the small table where a bucket of ice holds a bottle of wine, just as he’d promised, then pulls off his gloves. “Would you care for a glass as you catch me up?”

“I would love one,” she says, glad to finally have a chance to relax for the first time all day. “With Briala in position to continue working through Celene and the likelihood that Celene will feel indebted to me, at least partially, and the fact that apparently I will be included in the vote for the new Divine -”

“You will?”

“I’m the Herald of Andraste, of course I will.”

“You don’t believe in the Maker,” he says, twisting the cork of the bottle off with a startling pop.

“They don’t seem to care,” she passes him the crystal glasses, watching the bubbling golden liquid dance as he pours. “As I was saying, all of those things combined, had me thinking. Perhaps, after this whole business with Corypheus is done, assuming I’m alive,” he gives her a glare that immediately has her sighing, “yes, yes, fine, I’ll be alive. When it’s all done, I’m going to angle Celene for land in the Dales to be returned to the Dalish.

“It’s…a longshot, I know, but it’s the best shot the elves have had in…well, I don’t know, you know history better than I do. A very long time. They look at me and not all sneer in distaste! I was only called ‘knife ear’ behind my back, like, a dozen or so times tonight. That’s progress! If I can use that momentum, and the gold Josie says we’ve been accumulating, maybe I could needle a small home for the Dalish out of the Empress. What do you think?”

“I’m impressed, though truthfully I worry the humans will disappoint you,” he passes her the glass, clinking it against his own softly. “As for the elves of Orlais, I believe Briala is doing quite well on their behalf and with your aid, I believe that perhaps, true change could be possible.”

“I expect the humans probably will, yes, but it’s worth a shot, I think,” then takes a deep sip of the wine, surprised by the bright and fruity taste. “What is this? It’s delightful.”

“You’ve never had sparkling wine?” He watches as she takes another deep sip, the sweet flavor so much easier to drink than the usually dry and bitter wines she’s served. “I don’t think it’s intended to be enjoyed quite so quickly, vhenan.”

“Think about it though, if I could pull it off, even the city elves in the alienages might benefit! If the new Divine recognizes the elves in a way that grants them greater equality, then they have somewhere to go if things become horrible…” she takes another long sip, twirling a small circle in the rug, “Briala will likely be an ally if she thinks it benefits city elves as well. She was kind to me, but I could tell she’s not particularly keen on the Dalish. You two would probably get along in fact.”

She watches him shift in his seat at the edge of the bed before asking, “What did she say to give you that impression?”

“Just that most Dalish she’s met haven’t been particularly easy to work with, but the one she knew best wore the same vallaslin,” she pauses, taking a sip of the wine as she paces, working through the last of her nervous energy. “If I honored the same God he did, she’d give me one chance, for his sake.”

“Did she say who this man was? Perhaps he could be an ally to you as well?”

“Hmm? No, and she didn’t leave much room for questions,” she finishes her glance and he lowers his brows at her in a questioning look, to which she only nods. He pours her another. “Anyway, I don’t have details for this idea just yet, I just kept thinking about it between dances and killing venatori and pocketing trinkets while no one was looking. Which reminds me -” she pulls the last annoying item out of her wrapped arm bands, passing it to Solas. “I found this and thought of you.”

“It’s beautiful,” he says, turning it over in his hand, studying the pattern of gold and green branches and leaves.

“It looks elven, though I suppose you would know best,” she kneels before him, looking at the ring and resting her arms on his knees. “I don’t want it to be weird because it’s a ring, either, I simply thought it looked nice. Dalish aren’t like humans, we don’t exchange rings for the purposes of bonding. So, what I mean to say is this isn’t a formal declaration or anything and, fenedhis, I feel a bit like a fool now, not having thought that through.”

“Your ability to overthink can truly be a remarkable thing to comprehend, vhenan,” he slips the ring on the middle finger of his right hand before cupping her cheek, “it is beautiful, and I am grateful you thought of me while pilfering your way through the palace. Thank you.”

She takes a deep breath and another sip of her drink. “Is my idea terrible?”

“On the contrary, if anyone can turn around the way Orlesians treat their elven citizens, after tonight it is more than clear it would be you.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but…it feels like it could be something good, something real,” she sighs and sits back on her heels, feeling the bubbling effects of the wine in her blood. “I couldn’t say it out there though, too many ears that might ruin it before it has a chance to become anything.”

“Did I tell you how proud I was of you tonight?”

“You might have.”

“Hmm,” he grins and she feels it in her blood as strongly as the drink, her face unable to resist mirroring his in a smile, “very well, I suppose I also mentioned how beautiful you look?”

“Actually,” she bites her lip, “that I don’t think you did.”

“You should have me hung in front of the palace gates for my failures,” he takes a sip from his own glass before gesturing toward the window, out to the gates below, “put in the stocks for all to see.”

“You’re ridiculous tonight,” she smiles, delighted and deliriously in love.

“Have I told you that I adore you?” She shakes her head, standing and taking a step toward him, slotting her body between his legs. He shifts to set down his glass before wrapping his arms around her body, his hands resting on her ass. “Hmm, another crime for which an eternity of punishment seems the only fitting end.”

“So dramatic,” she giggles before taking another sip of the wine, letting the bubbles linger on her tongue. “Say it again though, I like hearing it.”

“I adore you, Morinne Lavellan,” he looks up at her and the sight is devastating. Freckles and violet eyes, dark with want and drink. Bone structure that might as well have been carved by the hands of the Gods themselves. “Something about watching the way all those eyes turned to gaze upon you all night, and then I realized you’d come back to me,” he shakes his head softly, “I cannot tell you the things it did to me, vhenan, even in the midst of such chaos.”

“You can show me,” she breathes and without a second thought, she pulls up her gown and crawls into his lap. Balancing the crystal glass in her hand, she takes a sip as his eyes follow her, hands moving to maintain a careful hold against him. His eyes follow her every move, his grip tight on her hips slide along the curves of her body. “You should show me.”

“I should,” he repeats, one hand moving up her thigh, where her skirt is hiked up to allow her to straddle him. His touch heats her skin, a trail of need left in his wake. “Who am I to deny the hero of the night?”

She feels him undo the few buttons of her gown at the base of her spine, careful with the fine silk, while his eyes remain fixed on her. She takes another deep sip of the wine, cold and sweet bubbles filling her mouth, a stark contrast to the heat building in her core. Next, he works open the two at her neck, holding up the rest of her gown, and she slips out of the sleeves. He’s careful not to catch her hair in the loops, every touch delicate despite the inferno that silently builds between them. As her dress falls away from her chest, he looks over her only briefly.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, one hand threading through her hair, the other moving to cup her breast. Her breath is heavy, filled with anticipation. The slowness in his movements, his adoration, has her desperate for more. She shifts her hips, needing some sort of friction from him, and he huffs a laugh. “Patience, my heart, I plan to take my time with you.”

“You make it exceedingly hard to be patient,” she says, his lips pressing all too softly against the pulse that flutters in her neck. Need is too small a word for what blooms under his touch, his lips.

When Solas finally kisses her again, the whole night melts away, as though the entire court of wolves doesn’t exist just outside this room. As if the silks and beads that still hang around her waist are there for no reason other than to be taken off by him. Her arms extend behind his neck, her chest pressing tight against his as she offers herself to him with an open mouth and a whimper.

With ease, he picks her up, keeping her legs looped around his waist and turning so her back meets the plush mattress and down blankets. She gasps, the last of her wine still in hand spilling with the movement, but he smiles and takes the crystal glass, setting it aside and then lapping the sparkling remains from where they land on her stomach. Prowling over her like a beast over prey, dipping his lips to turn lust-dark eyes to her skin.

“Please,” she says, watching him, arching her body into his touch. He only chuckles and pulls away, slowly unbuttoning his own formal overcoat and discarding the fine velvet to the floor behind him. The loose white shirt underneath is simple, but still manages to look impossibly handsome on him, especially as he rolls both sleeves up, the muscles of his forearms exposed.

She sucks on her bottom lip as he pulls the gown down her body and discards it somewhere behind him. The sound of beads hitting the wooden floor lingers in her mind for only a moment before his gaze returns to her, and then she is lost in him again.

His eyes pause on the fine Orlesian lace she’d forgotten was under her gown, black flowers curving up her hips and back between her ass - a style she’d been unfamiliar with but Vivienne insisted would be a delicious gift to whoever unwrapped her at the end of the night. Based on the rumble in his chest and the firm press of his body against hers, mouths colliding in another desperate, aching kiss, she can only assume the Enchanter had been correct.

Even clothed, she can feel the press of his hardness between her legs as he kisses her, hands holding a firm grip at her neck and hips. Morinne wraps her legs around his body, a promise and silent request for more, and Solas rolls his hips against her in answer, dragging a deep moan from somewhere unholy within her. He pulls away the fine lace, sliding it off her with care, then covers her nipple with his mouth, sucking languorously.

He shifts then to kiss down her stomach, teeth grazing the bones of her hips as his hands roam her thighs, her ass, then up her ribs and he groans in delight with every breath and whimper, as if memorizing exactly which touches draw sound from her.

“Solas,” she finally gasps, unable to take any more of his teasing, hands fisted in the Antivan cotton sheets so tight she might either tear or immolate them. “Vhenan, please.”

With that, he finally meets her eye again, holding her legs open, licking along the inside of her thighs. “Say that again.”

“Please, Solas,” she groans, hating to beg but needing his mouth more than she’s ever needed anything.

He only smirks in response, then lowers his mouth to her cunt and gives her what she desires. First in soft, sucking kisses at her clit, holding her open with two fingers. She nearly cries when he begins to lap her in earnest. Wicked, talented tongue taking slow, flat strokes against her and letting his own deep moans rumble through her.

Soft yet calloused hands hold her in place against his mouth but rove the planes of her body - her hips, her ass, her thighs are all caressed by his eager touch as he works her toward her peak. He knows what she likes now, studious in this as he is in all things, and hums low in approval when she moves against him, needing more, more, more.

It has never been so easy, so quick, but then in so many ways, it has never been Solas.

His pace is set and she moves with him, panting and bucking and writhing like a wild thing, and then she feels him pull away, just as she nears her peak. She can’t help the whine that escapes her when he pulls away.

“Turn over,” he purrs, sending a teasing chill down her spine.

She does, a mix of curiosity and drink bringing a flush to her cheeks as she obliges him. His hands rove her back, dancing over scars and sore muscles. She feels his index finger move down the column of her spine, tracing the detailed lines of the vallaslin marked there. The tree branches of the All-Mother, drawn across her shoulders, flexing and shifting as her body moves under his slow touch.

Solas lifts her hips then, and she feels that same finger trace slowly down her center, another gasp drawn forth at his touch. Finally, with agonizing softness, he presses another kiss to her waiting, wet heat and she swears can almost feel his smile against her, the teasing in his touch. His mouth finds her again, working her open with his nose while his mouth continues to bring her toward a roaring peak. With his lips sucking around her clit and his hands kneading her ass, she breaks for him, shuddering and nearly collapsing with the strength of her release. His mouth doesn’t leave her until he feels her breath return to an almost steady pace, and then he bites softly at her and pulls away.

“Solas -?”

He does not speak, her only answer is the shuffle of pants being discarded and then his hands return as he guides his cock against her, rubbing his firm head in her slick.

It is with an inelegant but disastrously attractive groan that he slides into her, straight to the hilt, and the feel of him stretching her, after the diligent attention of his tongue, has immediately nearing another peak, sooner than she’s sure she ever has before.

A string of elven she doesn’t understand pours from his mouth when he meets her eye, and he bends forward, keeping his body moving as he presses inelegant kisses to her back, shoulders, neck. Everything he can reach, he tastes, he kisses. He moans at her ear, then nibbles it, and she clenches around him in turn.

“Please,” she moans, needing somehow more of him even though he already overwhelms all her senses.

She arches her back, cat-like, and presses her chest into the mattress so he might reach the deepest places within her. They moan in tandem. One hand holds her waist, her back, guiding her along his length as he fucks her. A string of unintelligible elven praise leaves his lips and she should focus, should catch the words he uses to adore her now that he’s taught her more of their shared language.

When his hand reaches around her body, deft fingers finding her clit again, her arms threaten to give out from the intensity of sensation. Solas keeps moving, keeps pumping within her, but she senses the Fade pull tight around them and then the tiniest spark where his fingers work. Not enough to shock, only enough to buzz, to thrum against the ball of nerves as he does it again and again.

“Garas,” he tells her, and this word she catches. His voice is hoarse with desire, and her body listens.

“Fu-uck Solas,” she cries, going limp with pleasure, but his hands do not leave her, do not stop caressing her as he fucks her through it. Any less control, and she wonders if the sheets would go up in flames where she holds them, her body clenching around him with an intensity that leaves her breathless, mumbling and gasping for him.

“Good, vhenan,” he says, switching to the common tongue, still moving with agonizing slowness as the last fluttering contractions subside. “You are perfect for me, my love.”

He does not often speak the common tongue while taking her, but wine has loosened him or perhaps this position undoes him in a way she was not aware of. Either way, it ignites a fresh spark within her. She looks back at him, watching the way his body moves in perfect rhythm, and holds his gaze.

It is disastrous to see him so undone, so deliciously wanton - canting her with abandon. Firm abdomen and freckled chest, skilled long fingers working her body open for him. She watches over her shoulder as he fucks her and when he meets her eye, he moans and stops abruptly.

He pulls out for only a moment, guiding her to turn over for him again, and kisses Morinne deeply before sliding in once more. He tastes of her, his tongue soaked in the pleasure he offered like it is the very thing he was born to do.

She molds herself around him, soaked for him now, and if she had the presence of mind, she might wonder if she truly ruined these fine sheets. He moans in her mouth and it doesn’t matter. None of it matters, only his body on hers and the need to grant him his pleasure. His mouth moves to the column of her neck, sucking and licking as he chases his own release, but he always comes back, needing to kiss her again. As if that is where his true pleasure lies in wait.

He presses his forehead to hers as his tempo becomes erratic, fingers likely bruising where they hold her hips. She nods, holding his gaze, the intensity in his eyes met with the melted puddle of what remains of her under him. He finishes like that, eyes wild on hers until she feels his warmth fill her.

“Yes ma’lath, garas ar ama,” she murmurs as his eyes pinch closed in release, and it earns her another deep groan from him, his hips still moving slowly in the final throes of his climax. He empties within her and her body is warm, his, filled with love and lust and him.

He lets himself collapse on her, and she draws slow circles on his back as he catches his breath, growing soft within her. “Ar lath ma,” she says, kissing his temple where he lays against her. “Ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma.”

“Mmmm,” he hums, a hand moving down her body, resting low on her hip. “If you still have your faculties for elven, perhaps I haven’t done enough just yet.”

She laughs, jostling them both, feeling his cheek lift where it rests on her chest. Slowly, he rolls off her and goes to the small washroom, returning with a small towel that he softly presses between her thighs, cleaning the spend that leaks from her.

“If I had any more energy,” Solas says as he works, “I would offer to do this with my mouth.”

If she had any more energy, her body would beg him to do just that. “Then I suppose it’s good you did so well on the first round and wore me out as well.”

He chuckles and tosses the towel to the side, flopping back onto the bed beside her. “Next time then.”

“There is some foolish, childish part of me that longs to be so selfish with you,” she says after a few quiet moments, pressed against him while he idly rubs her back, “enough that I hate the others you’ve touched. How dare they exist, even in the past, when you had to have been made to hold me?”

She keeps her tone light, she isn’t fully serious, of course she’s not, but some part of her wants to claim him all for herself. To know he is only hers in a way no one ever has been. Selfishly, foolishly.

“I give you every right to be selfish,” he murmurs, like he can hear her traitorous thoughts, though it’s almost like something strange passes over his face for only a moment before he continues. “None have ever come close to you. What you ignite in me, vhenan, I did not think myself capable of feeling.”

“Have you been in love before?”

The question escapes her before she can think better of it. Perhaps fueled by the sex or the drink, the song of the feeling of his heart beating under her ear. Or the night filled with liars and masked snakes, eager to smile then mock the moment she turned her back.

She’s been desperate to know, deathly curious, given his generally stoic nature yet how intensely his love burns against her, even so quickly into this…well, whatever it is they’re doing. He does not have the air of someone foreign to love, and yet he has moments of being taken off guard by the strangest things, things she would think ought to be normal for lovers. Or at least, normal for any lovers she’s ever known, observed, or read about.

“Not like this,” he absentmindedly runs his fingers through her hair, then turns to look at her. “But yes, for a time, and in a way, I suppose I was.”

“Always finding the most complicated path to an answer,” she clicks her tongue at him, smiling when he scrunches his nose and lifts half a smile in response.

“And you?”

“I thought so,” she traces the pattern of freckles on his cheeks with one finger. “I thought so until you.”

“Unfathomable that someone could think to leave you,” he says, “but I am happy to indulge in their loss.”

“As am I,” she whispers. There are hidden depths to him he has not yet shared, secrets he is not yet willing to part with, and itches she longs to scratch. I just want to know you, she told him weeks ago, his face pressed into the soft linen of her nightdress, clinging to her like a lifeline.

It's still true, still terribly, horribly true as he begins to hum the same melody from the dream to her again, lazily tracing lines from the freckles on her stomach. One line to another, just like steps in a dream.

“Will you tell me about this one?” She lightly touches the scar above his brow, and his eyes flicker to hers in surprise. “I’ve heard about so many, but not that one.”

“I was a much younger elf,” he murmurs, taking her hand and kissing the tip of her finger, “and was experimenting with a spell. It was still far from perfect, and I was left with this as a reminder.”

“Hmm,” takes back her hand, running her finger along his bottom lip. “Not as exciting as I’d hoped.”

“My sincerest apologies. Should I come up with another that might be more entertaining?”

“I’ll allow it, on one condition,” she sits up, looking over the length of his body, beautiful in the slowly dimming firelight. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

He shifts, tugging her back to him, huffing a small laugh when the surprise of the movement leaves her giggling. Solas studies her, eyes soft but tired, then leans down and presses a soft kiss to her lips. “As long as you don’t think it will cause any trouble with the court in the morning, I would love to.”

“Trouble would be worth it for you,” she drags her index finger down the proud line of his nose. She doesn’t say what she thinks, unwilling to say more than she should, always scared the wrong words will send him away like so any number before him.

All of this horror, this fear… I think I’d endure it all once more if it meant I could know you again. All of it is worth it for you. For this.

Chapter Text

Solas

Summer burns bright and hot on the stones of Skyhold, and though things in the Inquisition never truly slow down, everything seems to finally come to a more reasonable pace.

It feels as though everyone manages to catch their breath. Evenings spent watching fireflies in the cool night air, standing outside the tavern as Maryden’s songs echo behind them and elfroot smoke clouds above. Morinne and Sera eat cookies on the roof and he hears their cackling from where he sits, playing chess with Dorian. Blackwall spends mornings training the youngest recruits and he sits beside Varric, watching the warden grow increasingly impatient as the teens fumble with wooden swords. Cassandra starts a small book club of sorts and Morinne forces him to endure passages from Varric’s smuttiest series each evening, read aloud with dramatic effect until he has to beg her to put the books down.

“You don't understand literature!” She cackles, holding the book above her head, trying to keep it out of his reach after enduring a mocking, moaning rendition of how the heroine’s ‘heaving bosoms’ capture the attention of her lover. “I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet!”

“I understand sex well enough to know this is not going anywhere worth our time!” He tackles her to the bed, pulling the awful novel from her grasp and tossing it across the room, despite her squealed protests.

“Noooo, I’m never going to understand how love making works now,” she cries, and he silences her with his mouth, tasting the smile on her lips. He moves to kiss along her jaw and feels her open her mouth to speak, to make another ridiculous joke, and he covers her mouth with his hand.

When his mouth moves to her breasts, to take a perfect nipple between his lips, she manages to squeak out something about him ‘loving her heaving bosom’ and he decides to kill Varric in the morning, then sucks hard enough to earn him a squeal.

As the days grow longer, Solas thinks now that, perhaps, these moments together are the best of his very long life. Between the demands of the Inquisition, he looks for every opportunity to spend time with Morinne, eager to simply sit together or walk the grounds and talk, laugh about everything and nothing. So small, compared to the grandeur and enormity of all that he has witnessed, yet her giggles like bells that become cackles like bird calls feel written in his marrow in the same way the grief and guilt have been. His stories of moments in the Fade are mirrored by her encounters in the physical world and he finds himself hanging on every word, regardless of how mundane or trivial she claims them to be.

The mountain flowers begin to bloom, moon drops that paint Skyhold in soft white petals between the footpaths, and she weaves him a crown of fragrant blossoms. Practiced fingers looping petal and stem, adorning him. It falls apart and her smile does with it, but he catches each picked flower and adorns her loose braids in turn.

He is more than aware that life will not be quiet like this for long, but while it is, it is heavenly sweet. He begins to find words in his mind for how he will tell her the truth, weaving them together like flowers for a crown. He drags her to quiet corners of the fortress and kisses her until the words become a mantra in his mind, until they become a fervent drumbeat echoing in every quiet part of his mind.

Morinne sits with him while he paints the rotunda, pouring over treaties and missives. He does not realize how regular their afternoons together like this become until her notes start being brought to her at his desk, along with her afternoon cup of tea and enough biscuits for them to share. When she leaves for council meetings or to attend to visiting dignitaries, the sound of her puttering, humming, and pen scratching absent as he works, it is stark how much her presence adds to his life. How much life she brings to the silence he has always enveloped himself in.

It stuns all of them to hear news of Blackwall running off to Val Royeaux, determined to see himself hung or jailed for the crimes he can no longer bear to keep on his conscience. Morinne drags him back to the fortress, like a mother with a petulant toddler, and pardons him before the entire Inquisition. She does not hesitate in offering her forgiveness - declares that regardless of if he is to be called Blackwall or Rainier, he is a good man, a free man, and he has served Thedas honorably. He has earned his redemption. They watch the would-be Warden weep and their Inquisitor embrace him. They call her just, merciful as the judgement is adjourned, and his hands sweat watching her walk toward the war table with her councilors, entirely unphased.

Solas goes back to his room, not the rotunda, to scribble furiously before the ideas leave him. Before the image of her forgiveness can be stricken from his mind and replaced by the ever-present, ever-gnawing hunger of his guilt and the leaden weight of his duty. To anyone else, it will look like scribbled attempts at elvhen, but the sheets he stuffs under his mattress are the first words of a script he’s had in his mind for weeks. Maybe months, if he’s being honest with himself.

There are ways he might show her how her stories and myths were not entirely true. Not entirely wrong either, however, but she will understand. She is brilliant and kind. He will show her, and she will be the first to know the truth of him in this age. Who could be more fitting than her?

Memories of Mythal buried in the depths of his subconscious may scream that he’s doing too little, but no one insisted he do this alone. He demanded that of himself, all those years ago.

Now, he thinks, it would be easier to have a partner. A companion, when it becomes bleak, when the work is more than he alone can take. She would be there, to comfort, to fight beside him, to fight for their People. So he will fight his instinct to lie, to trick, and he will tell her the truth. Soon.

And then Morrigan arrives with her son, and things begin to change all too quickly.

—

He finds himself wandering toward the garden one afternoon, lost in thought and needing the distraction that comes from leaving one’s desk. The sun hangs golden in the sky but the air is heavy with the promise of rain, thick and sticky on the skin as the humidity melts into the summer heat, leaving the usually busy courtyard quiet.

No one else appears to be ambling around the garden save a strange boy he doesn’t recognize, closely studying one of the twisting branches of crystal grace he remembers Morinne requesting be planted not long after they arrived at the fortress. The boy seems to be watching a bee flutter from flower to flower, passively taking in the sight with a heavy tome in hand.

There aren’t many children around Skyhold, so he stands out immediately - Solas can only guess at his age, perhaps ten? And though he’s interacted with plenty of children in his millennia of life, it has been a very long time, and none of that time was spent with human boys in this age.

An unusual sense of dread floods him when the boy meets his eye and smiles politely, and Solas knows that in turn, he ought to approach the child. Ought to figure out how in the void a child was able to sneak into the fortress where they’re planning how to stop the end of the world.

He decides to make for the chess table, as he’s never seen children play chess. The game is undoubtedly too complicated for their underdeveloped minds, he thinks. But to his horror, the boy follows.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“My name is Kieran.”

“I am Solas,” he says, realizing that he is, in fact, entirely unsure how to converse with a child and glad Morinne isn’t here to mock him for it.

“Do you know the Inquisitor?”

“I…do, yes. Do you?”

“I thought the Inquisitor would be scarier. Mother said she was scary.”

“Why would your mother say such a thing?” Has this boy’s mother met Morinne? Has anyone that’s met her outside of battle thought her frightening? He has almost a hard time picturing it, the woman who’s chosen weapon in conversation is smiles and blushing, speaking sweetly until she finds exactly where to drive her blade. He can think of many words that come to mind far before ‘scary’ ever would.

“Because people fear the next age if it comes too soon.”

To this, he is stunned into silence, feeling himself cock his head to the side and studying the boy. The aura of magic around the child is both unusual and extremely familiar, like finding something you once thought lost but somehow cannot remember ever having either.

“I…suppose that is a very good point,” he says, trying desperately to unspool the meaning in such words, as the boy continues.

“Your blood is very old. Older than the Inquisitor’s,” Kieran says, “mother did not tell me there would be anyone like you here.”

“Ah, and what exactly do you mean ‘someone like me’?”

“Kieran,” a woman calls, and without hesitation, the boy turns, smiling up at his mother. “What did I tell you about talking to strangers?”

“He’s not a stranger at all, mother,” the boy smiles, and something in Solas is unsettled by the sight, though he can’t name why. “Hello, Inquisitor.”

Morinne appears behind the dark haired woman, both coming from one of the usually locked doors on the far end of the garden. The door he knows houses the unusable eluvian, locked with magic he can no longer access. Nothing else remains in that room but old crates and broken beams, which means the women can only have been there for one purpose.

Anxiety grips him as fiercely and quickly as recognition does.

“Hello, Kieran,” Morinne smiles, lowering herself slightly to be more at level with the boy, “how are you enjoying Skyhold? Has anyone offered you a tour yet?”

Kieran looks to his mother quickly, then shakes his head, smiling slightly.

“Well, we’ll have to remedy that very soon,” she says, then turns to him, still smiling. “Solas, have you met Morrigan yet? I see you had a chance to meet her son.”

“I don’t believe I have, no,” he says, standing, folding his hands behind his back and giving a small bow of his head in greeting.

“Morrigan was Empress Celene’s arcane advisor, and was introduced to me at Halamshiral. She’s been assigned as the Empress’ liaison to the Inquisition, and will be staying with us for the foreseeable future.”

“Welcome to Skyhold,” he says simply, meeting the woman’s golden eyed stare. The witch that he recalls Leliana and Morinne murmuring on their journey back from Orlais. She had fought alongside the Nightingale during the Fifth Blight, and some tension remained there, though he had not heard much more.

The Fifth Blight. Ten years ago. A probably ten year old boy that emanates the strangest and most familiar magic he’s encountered since waking. A witch with golden eyes.

“And you are the ‘scholar of ancient magics’, I suppose?” The question breaks his spiraling thought and he sighs, turning to Morinne to explain that particular lie.

“Solas is a scholar of many things,” Morinne says on his behalf, smiling brightly, “I simply felt ‘ancient magics’ would be the most appropriate description to keep the court at ease while granting him the respect he so deserves.”

“You played them well,” the witch looks between them, studying Morinne’s expression, the warmth in her stance, her gaze.

“She gives me far too much credit.”

“I would be nowhere without the help of the people here,” she insists, “I give credit exactly where it is due.”

“‘Tis remarkable, what you have built. I will give you that. You have an army, a web of agents, and political favors owed you from every major player. All this in precious little time, conjured from thin air through the power of fervor alone,” the woman’s hand tightens on her son’s shoulder, though the boy gives no reaction. “I wonder if Corypheus suspects what he was enabling, just as I wonder what will become of all this once he is defeated.”

“We have to defeat him first. Then I’ll worry about what’s next.”

“Beware the heights you reach, Inquisitor. When this is done, many will be eager to knock you back down.” She says it with no obvious malice, only a frankness he cannot bemoan, and then pulls her son and excuses them both from the garden.

Morinne, cheeks bright from summer sun and eyes alight with mischief, tugs him into a kiss the moment Morrigan and Kieran disappear from view.

“You have no idea what I just saw.”

Golden eyes burn in his mind as his heart details her first trip through a mirror and into the land created by his people.

—

To dream of the battle of Denerim and perhaps place some of the strangeness he feels around this Morrigan woman, he must dream of a dream of a memory. Even as a dreamer, undoubtedly the most talented somniari in history, this is complicated. Sorting through echoes and chaos, all blanketed in the dulling haze that follows memories of Blights. The ever-present red, the pulsing sense of wrongness, of disease, that only complicates how he might construct the dream he needs.

He simply wants to see the final battle again, the slaying of the archdemon, and to watch this witch more closely - now that she’s to be a player in this game of theirs. He can feel the connection, knows that there is something in the recent past he needs to pull apart and re-examine, and so the Fade must be sculpted to his needs.

As he works though, he feels his mind drift to Morinne - the feeling of her lips on his, her smile as she recounted the wonder of the Crossroads. All this is for her, after all, this Morrigan woman is of no real threat to his plans or duty. It’s for Morinne.

And he has to assume that’s why the Fade conjures her at the corner of a blighted battlefield, the rest of the memory still coming into focus in shades of browns and reds. She is there, under a tree, and though her back is to him, he has no doubt that it is her there waiting.

He holds his focus on constructing the rest of the memory but approaches, lets himself see what she is doing in this section of scorched, ruined earth. He goes still when she turns to him, a wide smile splitting her face, bouncing a bundle in her arms with practiced care.

“There you are,” she coos, “we’ve been waiting for you.”

Solas stares at her in shock and no small amount of horror, then down at the child. A perfect, small elven babe, quietly staring up at Morinne with wide eyes. His eyes, he realizes, his heart lurching. Without thinking, he takes a step closer, and then his hand reaches out to touch and the baby is wrapping a tiny hand around his finger. Warm and soft, though that can’t be - this is the Fade - but he swears he can feel it. He is not entirely sure what part of his mind, what absent, unconscious longing might have created this, but he indulges it all the same.

“She missed her papae,” Morinne says with a smile, “we both did. But you’re back now, and that’s what matters.”

The little girl, his little girl, holds fast to his finger, as if his hands are not covered in the blood of thousands upon thousands. “Where have I been?”

“Oh where you always are, dreaming and chasing times long gone,” Morinne’s voice is playful and light, but the truth in her words is a barb. The truth his mind conjures and uses against him. The first remembered sounds of battle begins somewhere behind him, but he is transfixed. “Here, you should hold her.”

“I should?” But she is passing the child created of their love and his arms somehow know how to hold her, how to cradle her against him, and he is unsure if his chest has ever felt so tight. The little girl has Morinne’s nose and his eyes and a wisp of brown hair that he supposes could be from either of them. “What is her name?”

Morinne runs a careful finger down the baby’s nose and he watches as her eyes flicker shut in response, chubby cheeks lifting in something like a tiny smile. “It won’t matter, will it? You’re going to kill us both anyway.”

“Morinne…” he stares up at her in horror, feeling his grip on the child tighten. It is no longer his heart before him though, no longer the Inquisitor or the woman he’s come to know. It is another.

Long black hair, some pulled into twisted horns behind her. A silver crown upon her brow, accentuating the sculpted, perfect features he once worshipped. Golden eyes. Her smile is like that of her dragon, terrifying and full of teeth, full of the promise of blood.

“Perhaps you can teach her the elvhen for ‘forgotten duty’,” Mythal spits, circling him as Morinne’s simple shift melts away into the stately gown he so often remembers his queen in. The deep red of dried blood. “That would certainly be an appropriate name, don’t you think?”

“Mythal…”

“You are so keen to forget me now, Solas, and for what? For this? A mortal girl and a crying babe? The mighty truly have fallen…”

“I have not forgotten,” he whispers, holding the baby tighter to his chest, refusing to let go of this sliver of Morinne. As if when the dream child disappears, all of it, all of their love, will be lost. “I could never forget.”

“Yet you cling to this little worm as if your life depends on it,” she scoffs. “I needed you. They killed me, and I needed you.”

“I know, Mythal, and I am -”

“This darkspawn horde you conjure, this memory,” she extends an arm to the sweeping battle behind them, recreated by wisps and spirits that toil relentlessly in a war they will never see the end of, “this failure was yours. This blood, this death - it is your fault.”

“I know.”

“And this girl you call your lover, she will die for your failure. Just as I did.”

“I…know, but there are possible alternatives. There are ways to avoid further losses once the veil falls, to restore the People to what they once were.”

The Fade’s recreation of the Goddess stares at him, disgusted. She had gazed upon him like this in life, though not particularly often - she only needed to wield the blade of her disappointment a few times to keep him in line. The rest could be done by his guilt alone, and he is sure that even in life, Mythal knew that. Mythal used it.

He meets her golden stare with his head lowered in shame, still clutching the babe, though now his grip is so tight, she begins to cry. She wails, and the clashing spirits behind him wail, and somewhere overhead a dragon roars. Through it all, Mythal laughs.

The sound is enough to pull him from the dream, gasping and clutching at his chest. The feeling of an absent weight in his arms and the haunting words, the truth of his failure, and Mythal’s golden, damning glare all send him into a fit of gasping tears.

He is in his room, surrounded by the quiet, familiar darkness. It has been ages since he slept here instead of in Morinne’s chambers, but he chose to stay behind when she departed that afternoon for Caer Oswin and the Storm Coast with Cassandra, Bull, and Varric. He needed to keep planning, to keep readying himself to tell her everything. So now he sits alone, panting, in this bleak chamber, gasping for a child he will never hold. A child he will never know how to talk to, born of a woman he will more than likely condemn to death through his failures.

He hears the wailing in his head longer than Mythal’s laughter, long after the sun rises and his hand grows stiff from scribbling notes and planning. When he goes back to sleep, finally, he sets things in motion. Things he should have done long ago.

The dream was a reminder, if nothing else. The People will die without him. They die every day he sits idle, playing lover and apostate. He must act, and act soon, before it is too late. Through it all, furious golden eyes are his constant, damning reminder. 

Chapter Text

Solas

He knows, in the depths of his broken, wretched soul, that it is not an eluvian Corypheus chases.

He knows there are dozens, hidden throughout that temple. Or at least there had been. Countless mirrors linked to the far corners of Elvhenan and all of Mythal’s children’s homes, connecting back to her favorite golden palace in the depths of the wild jungle. A pilgrimage, for her priests and devotees, built by the slaves who called her mother.

He remembers when June and Sylaise showed her the intricate plan, how the design and sweeping architecture would be served by her son’s clever innovations. How when their beloved Mythal was there, she would want, would need, for nothing. He remembers standing by her side, tight lipped, aware of how many bodies would need to carry stones through this stifling wilderness for their ego. He remembers thinking that she had just built another glorious temple in Arlathan, what need was there for yet another this far south.

He remembers ignoring it when she smiled back at him, excited to share the beauty of the south with those who loved her. And how she’d shimmered like the wild birds in the colorful silks she draped herself in to keep cool, wandering through the lush vegetation with ease.

“To know this place,” she told him, away from the ears of the other Evanuris and her guards, “will be to know me, and to know all who served me. It will be a way for our people to remain connected through time, regardless of battle and blight, Solas. This place, and the knowledge we will hold here, will remain.”

He had not understood then, not until the pool was built and she asked him for the incantations - spells that would take years to cast. When the vir'abelasan was filled, when the priests gave their minds to it, he tried to look at it as a beautiful thing. A means of connection, of eternity.

“Ensure the enchantments are a geas,” she’d told him privately, “ensure that all who might earn the privilege of the Well’s knowledge cannot turn and use it against us.”

“I will not bind another being, Mythal -”

“So you would give this magic to another? You would allow it to fall into the hands of my husband or my spoiled children? How about Anaris?” She thundered, bearing down on him. “You are not binding a being, you are binding the waters. If you love Elvhenan, as you say you do, if you love me, you will protect this knowledge, Solas.”

It had all felt like folly.

But as she commanded, he did. He always did.

She had not demanded much more of him, though he knew she did of the priests and the sentinels who made their home in the temple upon its completion. They would stay, entering uthenera only to awake when the temple was threatened, at which point they would die protecting it. None would be allowed to drink from the Well of Sorrows but those Mythal herself deemed worthy.

The war began before she ever had the chance to find such a person.

He knows all this, and yet when they begin their march toward the Arbor Wilds, he finds himself unable to question Morrigan’s sure grasp on the Inquisition’s movements, nor can he deny Morinne the excitement he sees in her. The chance to glimpse a sliver of history she would otherwise be denied. He sees her decide to ignore how annoying she’s begun to find their new liaison; she takes the witch’s suggestion and runs with it as soon as the argument is clear and sound. To be granted the honor of protecting the All-Mother’s temple from Corypheus, to march her Inquisition into the wilds to lay claim to this piece of her people’s history so it can be denied to him, Morinne is clearly satisfied at the prospect.

So Solas stays silent as dread overwhelms him.

To see it in all ruins now, overtaken by the jungle Mythal had been so fond of, forces him to choke back another slew of emotion as they fight their way through Corypheus’ armies. Red templars and tainted wardens block their path, and Morinne wields flame and veil with ease, the anchor happy to aid her tear apart those who seek to take it from her.

He only halts when the first flashes of familiar armor catch his eye. When Cole, assigned to Leliana’s aid, shouts that the elves want to kill them. When Morinne has to pull a side blade to cut her way free of an ancient sentinel’s grip, then stares, panting, at the familiar vallaslin.

“What the fuck?”

He cannot bear to kill them, the few remaining people from his time. He casts barriers and shields instead, pushing them away from him when they draw close and reinforcing his companions with the rest of his energy and focus. The glimmering armor is unchanged from the last time he was here.

“Perhaps a rogue group of Dalish,” Morrigan offers after another group ambushes them, “estranged from their clan.”

“That makes no sense,” she says, shaking her head, studying the armor, the blood writing, the weapons.

They continue on, and much to everyone’s annoyance, Morinne insists on the detours that pull them off the beaten path. She claims it will save more scouts, more soldiers, but he knows she is fascinated with the history surrounding her. Her eyes hold on the massive statues of halla in honor of Ghilan’nain, the owls for Falon’Din, his own towering wolves. She whispers prayers, under her breath, and shame floods his veins like ice water.

If she only knew the truth of the monsters Ghilan’nain created, fusing her faithful with beasts until even Andruil grew nauseous at what her lover formed. Though then it was only further fuel for Andruil’s sacrificial pyres, burning blazes reeking of flesh and disease and death.

The obsession with death, with seeing his fellow elvhen die in every manner he could dream up, that began to consume Falon’Din from the inside out, igniting in him an insanity that could only be quenched by further bloodshed.

If only she knew how he had broken them all, and then the world. He supposes she will, soon enough. She will know how he became the horror of her people. Why she recoils from the wolf in her dreams. Why all of this has come to be.

“You set your coattails on fire with that last spell, Solas,” Vivienne shouts at him from where she stands, backing up Cullen and smirking like a cat. He doesn’t even have the heart for a witty retort or to cover how distracted he’s become, and luckily, he has no need to. Another group of red templars come barrelling through the trees a moment later, grabbing everyone’s attention.

It is no better once they are finally safely inside the temple itself and all have finally learned that, yes, an eluvian is not the only ancient power here. Nor is it better when Corypheus proves he has mastered the ancient ways of using the blight to jump from body to body, taking apart a corrupted warden and reforming it to fit his own sickening shape. He is nauseous with guilt and nerves, his hands slick with sweat where he grips his staff, white knuckled. Through it all, Morrigan’s lies could put his former titles to shame.

“You said Corypheus wanted an eluvian, but he mentioned a ‘Well of Sorrows.’ Which is right?” Cassandra is frustrated as she always is, though Solas longs to thank her for speaking his thoughts aloud.

“I… am uncertain of what he referred to.”

“As harel,” he whispers to Morinne, the moment backs are turned. His heart gives a single, careful nod of understanding.

“Let’s find this Well before Corypheus’s people do,” she says calmly, and they move forward.

“The Temple of Mythal. Constructed in an age when elves, not men, dominated this land,” Morrigan says proudly, ever willing to spout her thoughts. “They believed Mythal a goddess of justice. Elves came here to request judgement. After they proved their worth.”

He has to control the urge to roll his eyes. Were it so simple back then, he thinks. Instead, he tries to focus on the changed beauty of this place he once knew so well, the way nature has reclaimed it in the time he spent asleep. Trees cut through the carefully chosen and placed stones, once laid by bleeding hands, and make room for colorful mushrooms and wildflowers to bring vibrant life to the ruins. Birds sing overhead while nugs and rabbits run through the tall grasses from bush to bush.

In death, the temple is more alive than it ever had been in the time he knew it.

Morinne makes her way through and they follow, her footsteps careful as one both faithful and aware that these places are not so easily trespassed upon. She does not disturb the long forgotten stacks of gold, tutting disapprovingly as Varric eyes them greedily.

He’d forgotten the wolf that had been placed inside until she stumbles upon it, nodding her head in a show of respect, and looking through the bags at her waist for an offering. How he wishes he could swat her hand away, tell her there is no need. She has any blessing he is capable of giving already.

“Why would this be here?”

Morinne doesn’t turn to the witch and doesn't react to her derisive tone, only pulls out a couple of crackers that will undoubtedly be set upon by the brightly colored birds the moment they turn away. “Is something wrong?”

“It depicts the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel. In elven tales, he tricks their gods into sealing themselves away in the Beyond for all time.”

“Yes,” Morinne grits out, half turning to meet Morrigan’s eye, “I am well aware that it is the Dread Wolf, thank you.”

“Setting Fen’Harel in Mythal’s greatest sanctum is as blasphemous as painting Andraste naked in the Chantry,” Morrigan argues, a manicured hand extended, “why would the priests allow for such a thing?”

“Statues of the Dread Wolf are commonly used as wards in elven tradition, aiming to send away wicked spirits,” she says plainly, “and these were the ancients. I would be sure they have more meanings to things than we can fully understand now.”

He follows a few footsteps, then turns to the witch. “For all your ‘knowledge,’ Lady Morrigan, you cannot resist giving legend the weight of history. The wise do not mistake one for the other.”

“Pray tell, what meaning does our elven ‘expert’ sense lurking behind this?”

“None we can discern by staring at it.”

Varric whistles, then laughs and pats him on the back. “I think that’s one point to Chuckles.”

—

Watching Corypheus’ general bomb the floor of the temple to cut through it more quickly disgusts him, but it seems to only enrage Morinne. A fuse lit within her, watching more and more of her history explained to her like she is a fool before it is further ruined before her very eyes. Still, she does not rush ahead. She announces they will follow the steps the priests took, they will honor Mythal and show the temple respect - regardless of the delays it might cost them.

“Perform a ritual to appease elven gods? Long-dead or no, I don’t like it,” Cassandra says, her hand going to the sword at her side. “An army fights and dies for us. The longer we tarry, the more soldiers we lose outside. Let’s jump down and be done with this place.”

“The faster we get out of here, the more people go home,” Varric nods.

“No,” Morrine says firmly, leaving no room for further argument. “This is ancient, holy ground - deserving of our deference. I have this Goddess’ markings on my face, out of reverence, I will not defile this place.”

And so she walks the petitioner's path, just as countless before her might have. Those who shared her vallaslin, who sought to please Mythal and earn her favor. She completes each ease, and then they are in the receiving hall, surrounded by sentinels, and he forces himself to drown out even more memories. Memories of standing at Mythal’s side for executions and petitions alike, of meetings with Elgar’nan or the others. She would greet them there, surrounded by her guards and her loyal wolf.

“You… are unlike the other invaders,” their leader announces by way of greeting. “You stumble down our paths at the side of one of our own and have the features of those who call themselves elvhen. You bear the mark of magic which is… familiar. How has this come to pass? What is your connection to those who first disturbed our slumber?”

“I am Inquisitor Morinne Lavellan,” she announces, giving a small bow of her head in respect, “and they are my enemies, as well as yours.”

“I am called Abelas,” the elvhen priest answers, and Solas realizes he was there at the beginning. He had been one of the first Mythal brought here, who offered his mind unto the Well at the very start of it all but was instead asked to remain and guard it for eternity. “We are Sentinels, tasked with standing against those who trespass on sacred ground. We wake only to fight, to preserve this place. Our numbers diminish with each invasion. I know what you seek. Like all who have come before, you wish to drink from the vir’abelasan.”

“‘The Place of the Way of Sorrows,’” Morrigan hisses, unable to contain her greed, “he speaks of the Well!”

He sees Morinne take an impatient breath, turning her head back up to the dais and ignoring the witch. “We did not come here to fight you, nor to steal from your temple.”

“And you shall not. It is not for you. It is not for any of you.”

“But if the Well of Sorrows is a source of power, now is when it’s needed. A grave danger threatens this temple, threatens the entirety of Thedas, and the vir’abelasan could save countless lives.”

Abelas does not answer, only stares at her, expression unflinching. Morinne grows exasperated, turning to him instead, eyes wide. “Say something.”

“What shall I say, Inquisitor? Shall I sway him from millennia of service by virtue of our shared blood? He clings to all that remains of his world, because he lacks the power to restore it.”

“Why should I offer such power to one led by the very Wolf who destroyed our world?” Abelas asks of him in elvhen, spoken so quickly that neither Morinne or the witch can catch the meaning of the words, though both snap around in surprise as he speaks.

“A world cannot be restored if it is first burned to ash,” Solas breathes out, feeling every set of eyes in the room turn to him.

“Have you no shame?” Morrine interrupts, visibly frustrated to not understand, shouting up at the elvhen on the dais. A dozen bowstrings go taught around her. “Would Mythal be proud that you have stood by and abandoned the elves of this age when you could have aided them? Our people have lost everything. They needed you. They could have learned from you!”

“‘Our’ people? The ones we see in the forest, shadows wearing vallaslin? You are not my people. And you have invaded our sanctum as readily as the shemlen.”

He realizes in that moment how he must have sounded the dozen or so times he said something similar to her, months and months ago. How arrogant he undoubtedly came across from the first moments she stepped out of that first tear in the Fade. Willing to hear him out, looking for a companion amidst a sea of rounded ears, and finding only ridicule.

“We completed the trials and respected what remains of this place to the best of our abilities,” Morrine argues, gesturing to their party and the door they entered from - the trials completed just beyond it. “I bear the vallaslin of the All-Mother, just as you do, I do not want to see her sanctum despoiled - but this world needs help, and what remains here might be the only thing left that could save it. Would she not want her children to survive? Would she not want what has been guarded for these ages to live on - rather than burning under the rule of a darkspawn magister?”

Abelas’ eyes narrow in consideration, flicking between each of them, and then he gives a single nod. “I…believe you. Trespassers you are, but you have followed rites of petition. You have shown respect to Mythal. If these others are enemies of yours, we will aid you in destroying them. When this is done, you shall be permitted to depart… and never return.”

“This is our goal, is it not? There is no reason to fight these Sentinels,” he urges, unwilling to kill more of his brethren if it can be avoided. Luckily, Morinne nods, shifting her staff to rest against her shoulder in a sign of peace.

“Fine. Yes. I accept your offer,” she says with a loose breath and a nod, to which Solas can only sigh in relief.

“You will be guided to those you seek. As for the vir’abelasan… it shall not be tainted, even if I must destroy it myself.”

“NO!” In a flash of brilliant purple light and conjured wings, Morrigan flies towards the dais and, presumably, the Well, overcome with her lust for the power contained within. Abelas murmurs something to a remaining number of sentinels, and gives chase. They hear the clash of combat in halls to the right and left, the telltale sounds of red templars that beat them through the maze of the temple, and what sentinels remain scatter to defend their kin.

“At least they left someone behind. A handy guide, maybe?” This is, Solas realizes, the quietest he’s ever seen Varric in the time he’s known the dwarf. He looks uncomfortable, fidgeting and cradling Bianca to him like an anchor. It is good, he thinks, that the child of the stone has no idea what horrors the elves of his and the sentinel’s time committed against his ancestors.

“Mythal’enaste,” the hunched guide croaks to Morinne, who bows her head in turn.

“Ma serannas.”

“Penshra! Ghilas vellathan!”

“I believe she would prefer that we remain close.”

—

They move through the bowels of the temple, the maze-like halls of green and gold tile, that had all been hand selected by Sylaise during the temple’s design. Now, they walk through ankle deep water and stumble over broken stones and tiles, damaged by time and fights long past.

The last of the red templars and the corrupted man who was to be Corypheus’ vessel for the Well, had he reached it first, put up a fight but ultimately fall - more blood and lyrium tainting the holy, ruined stones. Moments later, before they can catch their breaths, a crow soars by them and an elf in glimmering armor follows in hot pursuit.

Abelas conjures steps up to the vir’abelasan as he runs, and Morinne doesn’t hesitate to follow. They have no choice but to pursue her as well, just as Abelas chases the witch, and Solas feels his mouth go dry, his hands shake around his staff.

“You heard his parting words, Inquisitor. The elf seeks to destroy the Well of Sorrows!”

“So,” Abelas pants, having chased Morrigan on feet rather than wings, “the sanctum is despoiled at last.”

“You would have destroyed the Well yourself, given the chance.”

“To keep it from your grasping fingers! Better it be lost than bestowed upon the undeserving!”

“Fool! You’d let your people’s legacy rot in the shadows!”

“Enough,” Morrine says firmly, despite her panting, placing herself between the two and raising her left hand.

“You cannot honestly–”

“I said, enough.”

The anchor glows in warning, in protection of its mistress, and both Abelas and Morrigan seem to finally heed the Inquisitor’s words, eyes flicking between her glowing hand and sour expression.

Eventually, once tempers settle, Morrigan turns to her again, the look of scheming returned to her dark eyes. “The Well clearly offers power, Inquisitor. If that power can be turned against Corypheus, can you afford not to use it?”

“Do you even know what you ask? As each servant of Mythal reached the end of their years, they would pass their knowledge on… through this. All that we were. All that we knew. It would be lost forever.”

“It’s better that knowledge remains in the Well, never passed on? You’d rather destroy it?”

“There are other places, Abelas,” he tries, though to what end, he’s not entirely sure. “Other duties. Your people yet linger.”

“Elvhen such as you?” Abelas asks with a derisive scoff.

“Yes,” Solas answers, raising his head, “such as I.”

Morinne glances between them, brows knitted together in confusion, and he tries to disregard her - doing everything he can not to add to any suspicion she might have. Luckily, before she has the chance, Abelas sighs and continues.

“You have shown respect to Mythal, and there is a righteousness in you I cannot deny. Is that your desire? To partake of the vir’abelasan as best you can, to fight your enemy?”

“If you will grant me the right,” Morrine says, and suddenly he realizes that she is the alternative to the witch. Someone was always going to obtain the power stored in this place, and now it will be Morinne, and the voices will whisper words of the ancients in her ear before he can tell her the truth…

“You?” Morrigan asks, and Morinne ignores her.

“The vir’abelasan may be too much for a mortal to comprehend. Brave it if you must, but know this: you shall be bound forever to the will of Mythal.”

“Bound?” The witch scoffs yet again and how he longs to scold her for the insolence. “Elven legend states that Mythal was tricked by Fen’Harel and banished to the Beyond. How can one be bound to a goddess who no longer exists, if she ever did?”

“‘Elven’ legend is wrong. The Dread Wolf had nothing to do with her murder,” Abelas looks in his direction, meeting his eye for a moment, but long enough. He bites the inside of his cheeks as Morinne’s eyes go wide at the revelation, at what it means for her history. At least in this small way, Abelas has made one part of his confession that much easier for him.

“Murder? I said nothing of–”

“She was slain, if a god truly can be. Betrayed by those who destroyed this temple. Yet the vir’abelasan remains. As we did. That is something.”

“Don’t you see,” Morinne urges, “how much knowledge was lost? How much you could teach us?”

“You might teach them yourself after drinking from the Well. My time here is ended.”

With that, he departs, giving little more than a shake of his head and a lingering look at the temple that he has guarded for eternity. The temple that has been protected by the ancient Elvhen since the first stones were laid, is finally free of it’s sentinels. The waters of the Well unprotected, undefended at last.

The two women standing at the edge of the stone basin seem to recognize it as well, both unmoving but tense. Two animals preparing to strike.

“No closer, Morrigan.”

“I am willing to pay the price the Well demands. I am also the best suited to use its knowledge in your service.”

“Or more likely, to your own ends,” he says.

“What would you know of my ‘ends,’ elf?”

“You are a glutton drooling at the sight of a feast. You cannot be trusted.”

“I do not like this,” Cassandra adds, carefully. “She is far too eager.”

“Of those present, I alone have the training to make use of this. Let me drink, Inquisitor.”

“‘You alone’? This is my heritage!”

“I have studied the oldest lore. I have delved into mysteries of which you could only dream! Can you honestly tell me there is anyone better suited?”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she says, shaking her head. “Solas, before I continue, I assume you have no interest?”

“No.”

“Then I will drink of the Well. The last knowledge of the Elvhen will remain with the People, regardless of how ignorant you deem me,” she pulls her hair over one shoulder and begins to redo her braid, messy after so many fights. “You do not know me well enough to make judgements on my knowledge or education, you simply do so by judging my heritage. Very well - I shall do the same. No shemlen witch will indulge in that which my ancestors have protected for millennia.”

“Morinne,” he hears himself say, pulling her attention, “there is risk involved here that you must consider.”

“It is a compulsion,” she nods, “a geas. I can hear it - the collective will of the priests.”

“How would you know such a thing?”

“Ah yes, how would an ignorant, uneducated Dalish savage know such a thing?” She turns back to Morrigan, near livid. “A mystery, to be sure.”

“To be bound by a God is no small thing, vhenan, I beg you to -”

“You don’t even believe in the Creators,” she spins, exasperated. “This should be of no concern to you.”

“Magic of this caliber, when it affects you, will always concern me!”

“If anyone is to use the Well, it will be me,” she says with finality, and another piece of him crumbles as she passes her staff to Cassandra. The Seeker looks unsure, as does Varric, but they do not argue. She has left no room for questions or comments, her intention is clear.

“Drink if you will, for the sake of us all,” Morrigan says, pacing, “but steel your will to do it.”

“You will be Mythal’s creature, Morinne…everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her,” he urges, taking a step forward, then another, forcing himself to go to her. She doesn’t turn, instead sits at the water’s edge and begins adjusting her hair, pulling it off her neck as if to avoid wetting it. “You are giving up a part of yourself.”

She sighs and shakes her head, eventually looking at him, once her braid is secured in a knot at the top of her head. “Again - for someone who doesn’t believe in Mythal -”

“I don't believe the Creators were gods, no, but I believe that they existed! Something existed to start the legends! If not gods, then mages, or spirits, or something we've never seen.”

“Perhaps…if Solas is concerned,” Cassandra starts, her hands working the leather wrappings of Morinne’s staff, “then it would be wise to let her take the risk…”

“If the God in question is dead though…” Varric posits, shrugging as he leans against the far stone wall.

“You’re all mad if you think I would ever let so much elven history fall in the hands of someone who wasn’t raised in the Dalish or elven traditions, who doesn’t understand what it means to be an elf!” Morinne stands, turning to face them, ignoring the snide, insulted sneer that crosses Morrigan’s face.

“This is not a matter of pride, Morinne,” he urges, near shouting at her. He has never raised his voice, not at her, but she has to listen, has to hear that this devotion is not born of wisdom, it is folly. “You are risking far more than you consider!”

“You trust me to lead this Inquisition and save your world but not with my own people’s legacies? Not with the choices I am actually interested in making, the risks I am actually happy to take?”

Before anyone can say otherwise, she takes a single backwards step into the waiting waters, and a soft glow begins to emanate from the calm surface of the water’s edge.

“I am so sorry you all ended up with an unsophisticated, foolish, Dalish elf as your Inquisitor. How dreadfully inconvenient for you all.”

He’s sure this fire, this rage within her, might be exactly what Mythal would have wanted to see. This momentary lapse in politeness, the mask dropping and revealing the slow-simmering rage that burns as surely as the flames of her magic, would have impressed the dragon hearted goddess.

Tears well in his eyes as she walks until she stands waist deep in the crystalline waters that have waited, undisturbed for time untold, and raises cupped hands to her lips. Morrigan’s mocking stare meets his gaze, golden eyes brimming with jealousy and rage that only flicker away when Morinne collapses.

Was it an unspoken requirement upon taking this form, so many thousands of years ago, that he would watch time and time again as his failures came to life before him? To endure the sight of wisdom gone unheeded and as such, endless risk invited? He understands her argument, her anger, and yet some part of him blames his own reasoning for being unable to stop her. Had his words been more convincing, could he have spared her this fate? To become that which he has been since he became flesh and bone and blood? A creature, bound to the will of a vengeful woman, fickle in her affection and unyielding in her demands.

He knows Mythal to be gone. He saw the blade left in her gut, the blood that pooled around her, as she lay dying. The very blade he’d used to break the titans and would use to break the world. He knows that the will of her priests should, in turn, pose little threat as the magic pulls Morinne under and he rushes to her side. His feet move before his mind can tell him to pause, to consider, and he cradles her unconscious face, stroking her face with his thumbs.

Come back to me, he thinks, feeling a tear spill down his cheek, the rest of their party gathering around them. Come back to me, vhenan, do not leave me now, not like this.

She comes to with a gasp and staggers to her feet. She wakes the eluvian with a wave of her hand and conjures a towering wave of water to block Corypheus from their escape as they dash for the mirror. She is changed, but the same, and alive - for which he knows he ought to be most grateful.

“What happened?” Cassandra asks, the moment they are back in the safety of the Skyhold garden.

“What did you offer for the power?” Morrigan questions, echoing the raging thoughts in his own mind.

Morinne catches her breath, looking between each of them. “Anything they wanted. I offered anything they wanted in exchange for the key to defeat Corypheus.”

And he sees it in her, the determination and the power - deep, ancient, and familiar. Endless as the years it spent in waiting; as endless as the suffering the world is determined to see him endure.

What will become of her now?

What will become of them both?

Chapter Text

Solas

Before the world was changed by the First Born, it was wild.

Some might say it is wild now, pockets of untamed wilderness only encroached upon by the most dedicated of hunters and yet unknown beasts. Then though, it was something else entirely - raw, magic infused in every cell of every living thing, and vibrant in ways that words cannot capture.

The world was colorful and the beasts enormous and the humans, though rare and wild, were simple and kind. Spirits were formed from the thoughts of the hunters and the mothers or the wolves and the hares, moments of emotion and intention given life.

Centuries pass and the world grows, as do the spirits. The humans change, though their quick lives extinguish in a blink, making it difficult to understand their minds, their hearts.

“It is hard to see them grow sick or fall to injury,” Sympathy sighs. “If only they could grasp the beauty of the magic this land offers in abundance, perhaps they might grow stronger.”

There are spirits, those that have come to love the humans, that attempt to guide them to no avail. They followed the human tribes across the plains and deserts of this world, and reported back stories of shimmering oases and the beauty of an endless sunrise over untamed golden grasses. Spirits of Inspiration and Beauty take diligent notes and dance at the stories brought back from such journeys, birthing wisps that would grow into Ingenuity, Innovation, and Creativity.

Things continued in this way until Command witnessed the first queen of the stone emerge from her mountain home and cast her eyes upon the sun, shielding them from the brilliant light and warmth, and Command became entranced with the glowing blue crown upon her brow. It flitted around her, desperate to understand her people, her mountain, her stone, but she spoke in an unfamiliar tongue and swatted away the spirit, for she had no need of its magic in her mountain.

It did not stop Command from following, from delving into the places no spirit belongs and seeking the secrets no spirit was destined to ever know. It found the civilization being built under the dirt and grass and the children of the stone living under the wild beauty of their earth. When Command spoke to them, demanding to know of their strange magic and their blue stones, of the power that emanated from them, he found no answer among the small folk, for its words were too strong, too demanding.

So Command sought out its closest friend and ally, and went to Order. But Order saw the folly in disrupting the people below the earth, in seeking magic they did not know or understand in the form of the blue stone. Order reminded Command that they had all the magic they could need in the waking and dreaming world around them, what lay beneath the stone was not for the spirits or the humans to seek out, or it would have been provided to them.

Command did not heed such warnings or the logic that comes from following the natural order of the world, so Command sought out another it knew well. Benevolence, unlike Order, followed Command deep into the earth.

Together, they travelled deep into the heart of the mountain and found the blood and soul of the stone, touching it with tendrils made of magic and intention. The mountain spoke unto them, and they did not heed its words, for the call of its blue blood and the magic within spoke louder and promised a new power, a new life, they could not deny themselves.

Command took the first body, and became the first of the First Born, sculpting and perfecting that which had been seen among the humans and wielding magic with the same ease as he had in his spirit form. He became the first among them to feel the sun on his skin, to understand what it was to feel at all, and called himself Elgar’nan.

It was not long before he told Benevolence to do the same, and when she cast her body in flesh and lyrium, she called herself Mythal, and greeted the evening moon as she walked from the mountain and felt the night air on her bareskin for the first time.

The two spent decades alone, walking the wild and raw earth, feeling grass and soil underfoot and learning the demands of a mortal form. It was not long before they grew bored and called upon other friends to join them, looking to create as only beings of flesh and lyrium might.

Knowledge sought to join them and upon taking the form was sundered in two, becoming split twins of Fate and Secrets that took the names of Falon’Din and Dirthamen. Soon, in its jealousy, followed Determination, and he called himself June as he fell into Mythal’s waiting arms - greeting his mother on trembling new legs as his new siblings had before him. Soon others followed, among them Peace who took the name Sylaise and Purpose who became Andruil.

Elgar’nan commanded the dwarves to allow his new family to be forged of their mountain’s blood and Mythal brought them into the world. Though the earth raged with each new being they crafted, a family emerged from the mountains across our world and decided it was time they shaped it into something that might suit their needs.

A new world began to form amidst the wilds, and the spirits that remained tittered to see it built, whispering and buzzing as mighty buildings rose in the sky and the mountains shook underfoot. Mythal walked the forests still, looking for more that might join her, more that might be worthy, though she would only beg one. An old friend, her oldest perhaps, save Command.

Wisdom did not want to join the world as flesh and blood. It called her plans foolish, dangerous, and spent an age resisting, watching as others who took the glowing stone caused the earth to rage and the foundation of the world to crack. Mythal came and spoke to it of how their cities would grow, how they would create a mighty land and call it Elvhenan, how they had become the best of human and spirit. She spoke to it of a pleasure that came from a body and the joy of watching creation made real, how Wisdom might find endless delight in guiding the hand of those who would shape the future of their world.

“I have no desire to live as humans do,” it told her, again and again.

“I need your wisdom,” she said again and again, and eventually, watchin the way the cities changed and the might of this new Elvhenan began to transform the once raw splendor of the earth it so loved, he conceded.

Wisdom had always loved Benevolence, and so when Mythal’s warm hands shaped his flesh and guided his new form from the lyrium, he asked her what he might be called. She responded with a warm smile, and told him that was a decision only he might make.

“Then I will take the name Solas,” he uttered, the first words spoken in this new form. The feeling of tongue meeting teeth to shape the words, while foreign, was not altogether unpleasant. “For I will bring pride to you and the Elvhen people.”

—

He’d tried to pull her directly to bed, to rest, but she ran to confirm all went, more or less, according to plan with Josephine first. The ambassador would send ravens to the Arbor Wilds and the troops, along with their friends and advisors, would return within the fortnight. After that, watching her sway on her feet in exhaustion, he excused the Inquisitor and tugged her to her rooms.

“I’m fine,” she attempts to swat him away but gives in quickly once she lands on the bed and he goes to his knees before her, unwrapping the leather bindings from her feet and calves. He watches her worry her bottom lip between her teeth, the rage and confidence from earlier that afternoon lost or washed away in the waters of the vir’abelasan. “Are you mad at me? For drinking?”

He sighs and meets her eye for a moment, though his hands don’t leave her calf. “No.”

“Oh,” he watches her brows raise in surprise, “alright, well…good then.”

“I wish you would have listened.”

“Ah,” she nods, and he goes to the other leg, unwrapping it in the same manner.

“You gave yourself into the service of an ancient elven god.”

“I know. I…had little choice. And I was angry, I was tired of being talked down to. I didn’t want to give it to Morrigan.”

“You gave up a part of yourself,” his hands move to her thighs, as if his touch might take it back, might purify her.

She raises her left hand to his cheek and the stinging kiss of the mark serves as a reminder that it is not the first part she has given up a part of herself, nor will it be the last. “This is what the world asked of me, Solas. It has need of me, and so I give.”

“It is unfair,” he whispers, lowering his brow to her lap. Her hands meet his scalp, as if the movement is instinctual to her now, and though they are always cold, they are a comfort all the same. “The world is cruel.”

He feels her body move as she nods, her nails stroking patterns against his scalp. Eventually, he shifts, realizing they are still both in armor as the metal cuts into his sides, and they undress, making their way into bed as if it might erase the day they both endured.

“What will you do with the power of the Well once Corypheus is dead?”

He cannot curb his need to know, his mind turning over and over the image of her wielding the power of Mythal with such ease. The power that once caused such horrors. He has no idea how much of it will be available to her, what the Well will allow her to do and what might be demanded in return. So many questions remain, but the future presses, claws at his mind, as it always does.

“I'll use whatever power I have to undo the chaos that Corypheus and his allies have caused,” she yawns, tucking herself against him, wrapping her body around his.

“You would put things back the way they were before?”

“Yes. I mean, not exactly…”

“I know what you mean,” he kisses her brow, reassured. Salvation, he remembers, a key. Mirevas. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You…continue to impress me,” he smiles as she raises herself on an elbow to look over him, one corner of her wicked, beautiful mouth turned up in a little smile. “You honor the past and work to recover what was lost, even if the cost is high. I respect that, and I am indebted to you for the reminder. Forgive my melancholy. Corypheus has cost us much. The Temple of Mythal did not deserve such a fate.”

“No, on that, at least, we can agree,” Morinne sighs, looking out the windows to the darkening sky beyond, the mountains cast in inky blues. When she turns back to him, she places a single, wonderful kiss upon his lips. “I’m sorry for worrying you. And I’m sorry for losing my temper. And for not listening.”

“I should have known with all that fire in your blood there was a temper there to match.”

“I do my best to keep it under control. I just…I hate being talked down to. I hate people assuming I’m some kind of idiot just for being Dalish.” She lies down again, settling at his side as if the curves of her body were meant to be slotted against his.

“I am sorry as well,” he says against her skin, and he feels her move in surprise, “I should not have raised my voice at you.”

She nods and yawns again, then nips at his chest. “Ar lath ma.”

“Ma arasha,” he whispers, stroking her hair, “Ma sa’lath. Ma’sal’shiral.”

He continues to fashion and rehearse the story of how the world was born in his mind as Morinne sleeps, curled beside him, mouth turned down in a small pout and breath deep and even. He thinks that he will tell her first of the vallaslin, of how she saw it on the sentinels and what it truly meant to the Gods, how the meaning was lost after centuries passed. She will ask how he knows, and he will tell her he saw it and based on her reaction, he might offer to remove the markings and unbind her from their meaning.

He spins the gold and green ring on his index finger as he thinks, turning over the reminder of Morinne’s love from her galavanting through the winter palace.

She will listen, he knows she will. He just has to frame it in a way that she will not fear him, will not rage at him for his lies, before he can get the whole story out.

Morinne shifts against him, her left hand tightening against his thigh as she dreams, and he considers it for a moment. Considers what he has done to her, what his mistakes have demanded, and the cruelty that his actions forced upon her life. A Dalish woman, clever and brimming with potential, setting out to see the world, to see history made. Instead, she became history, and with every breath she shapes it further.

She’s a deep sleeper, so he takes her hand in his, knowing it won’t wake her, and turns it over to look at the glowing green mark that splits her palm. The mark is a jagged, strange thing to behold, the light it emanates pulsing with her heartbeat and casting the mostly dark room in unnatural luminescence.

He thinks back to that first time he studied it, willing it not to kill her, calling upon the magic that was once his and in turn, refused to answer him after so many millennia. How he’d changed since then - how everything had changed.

The mark, he notices, has changed too, and to his horror, he realizes it’s grown. It cut across her palm at the beginning, but now reaches up toward her index finger and connects almost to the edge of her wrist. Spreading.

Solas sends a pulse of magic through his hands and into hers, attempting to calm the magic he’s always known would eat away at her but has, in his happiness, managed to forget. Distractions had never been a problem in his life, not before her. He’d always been focused, capable of containing his needs and the demands of his work in ways that guaranteed nothing was left behind.

The mark quiets, the glow dimming and slowing until it no longer matches her steady heartbeat, and he’s grateful that this time, it chose to listen to him once more. If he keeps her at his side, after all this is done, he can keep a close eye on it. He can maintain the mark until he needs to take the magic from her, ensuring it doesn’t eat away at her or do too much damage.

It is all, he tells himself as he sets her hand down and picks up his notebook, just a part of the plan.

A plan that has him hiding the truth with careful deceptions and half lies that he then strategically feeds her.

Out of necessity, he tells himself time and time again. Though he can’t stop wondering if that is yet another lie. One he tells himself simply to soothe his mind for the storm that is bound to hit them.

And it will hit. Sooner or later. As it always does.

—

The empire of Elvhenan grew mighty as the titans fell and the world grew quiet in the power of the Evanuris and their kin. Towers of pearl and jade and gold reach into the clouds with ease and the spread of their people reaches far out into the world, with new marvels built every decade until it seems impossible that they might manage to create more. Yet they do, there is no end, it seems, to what the Elvhen might create, tame, accomplish in the spread of their empire.

He did not want to become a general, but allowed that title to stick all the same. He supposed, in the end, he had earned it. Through the butchering of countless lives and the creation of power they had yet to fully understand, a blight that Andruil eyed as readily as her new lover. He refused the title of God when the others began to proclaim it for themselves, for it was a lie - whether they could see it or not.

They were not Gods, simply those who remained, those who survived. Those who Elgar’nan still tolerated and hadn’t burned out of existence and memory. They had no reason to mark slaves and priests and categorize those who decided to listen to their voice the loudest.

Yet when Mythal had come to him, after they walked the glittering grounds of Arlathan and reminisced on times gone by together, times in that wild and raw world, adventures during the first war, he understood why they’d come to call her the All-Mother. Why crowds longed to sit around her and listen to her gospel, the way she could weave a story with words and magic to paint a scene around them, infusing words and messages of strength and justice into her teachings as easily as reminders of love and care.

“I need your wisdom, Solas, to withstand the louder voices who would go too far, like Elgar’nan,” she says as they walk, turning into the gardens and watching as the glowing green butterflies made of magic dance in the darkening twilight.

“We are not Gods, Mythal,” he sighs, shaking his head.

“It is only in name, my friend. The people need something to believe in, and they look to us for leadership and guidance.”

“Is it only in name to your husband? To your ‘children’?”

“Don’t you see,” she smiles, the same smile he has always known, and it chips away at his resolve, “it is your contrary nature that guides me, as it always has. Join my court, Solas, officially. You will be my right hand, and you will aid in ensuring we are all kept to heel. You will make me so proud in all that is yet to come, should you stay at my side.”

So Solas takes the blood writing, the branches and roots of the ancient trees as a reminder from whence they came and a declaration of his devotion. She tells the scribe to write them in glowing gold, for he must stand out among her faithful.

They claimed the vallaslin were as inevitable as the towering, sparkling spires of Arlathan, as the wondrous inventions that powered the city, as the bloody wars that forced the world to shift and change.

They never mentioned the inevitability of Command becoming Tyranny, of Benevolence becoming Vengeance, of Purpose becoming Sacrifice. And as he became pride embodied, each insult of those that had once been his peers began to drive them further and further apart.

He is called lap-dog, slave, and fool by those he fought alongside since the empire was in its infancy, just as they had been.

“Ah, here comes your dreaded wolf,” Elgar’nan scoffs at his approach and it becomes a common refrain among the Evanuris.

Here comes Mythal’s dreaded general, her awful annoyance, her loyal pup. Watch how he lowers himself to bow before her, his creator, his master. How she deigns to allow his endless prattle, how patient and good our Mother is to endure the wolf’s chiding and schemes. Look how he longs for her and how she humors him, look how he begs for her.

At first, Mythal scolds them for such words, such insolence. He was born alongside them after all. A decade later, she stays silent as their mockery continues, as her jaw grows tight from gritting her teeth and frowning, her brow wrinkling from scorn and judgement.

It takes only a century before she laughs at the jabs with them, sparkling wine in hand, before throwing it at a slave for serving it at the wrong temperature. The party does not slow, the lovers in the corners do not slow the rolls of their hips or the echoing of their moans just as the dancers on the floor below do not stop the stamping of their feet to the rhythm of the drums and strings. It is commonplace now, yelling and pain and scolding amidst the shining grandeur. The parties last longer than the lives of their slaves in some instances. The opulence catered to the Evanuris, to the Gods, is a wasteful, wretched, tasteless thing that serves only their egos and appetites.

When he frowns at her treatment of the young elf, she sends him away, and he leaves.

They call themselves Gods and Evanuris, then stop visiting their spirit kin in the Dreaming and push the remaining humans to the farthest edges of the land, until only the lowest of their own peoples might one day find them out in the world. Centuries continue to pass and June builds mirrors to connect the far corners of their civilization as Sylaise continues to build and build. He might have guided either, told them how the mirrors could connect in more ways or how the cities might stand stronger, but his own pride holds his tongue.

Why should he help them when all he receives is derision in return?

Eventually, he grows sick watching their work, watching their abuse. Even Mythal, while he knows that she tries to be better, takes more and more slaves and watches bloodied, broken hands build her palaces across the continent. Sylaise becomes the matchmaker, and those who find love must go through her trials and whims to see it made true - regardless of how sick and twisted her games become even as their numbers dwindle and generations shrink. The twins and their endless torture. Andruil and the blight, her new pet Ghila’nain and her experiments.

It becomes a horrible, mind-numbing blur, but somehow, in spite of himself, the downtrodden and hopeless start looking to him. They whisper for the wolf, hoping that perhaps he might be able to change a mind or two, as he has turned Mythal from wickedness more than once. A friend finds him amidst the court of snakes and fools, and with Felassan’s encouragement, he begins to see the value in what could be done. In what a rebellion could mean, for the people, and for Elvhenan.

The magic to undo the vallaslin is simple, or so he thinks, yet the scar it leaves on his brow feels fitting all the same. The blood, red and warm, surprises him as it always has. He always expects it to run blue as the lyrium from whence he came. Yet it cascades down his nose and over his lips and serves as a reminder that he joined this world, made himself a mortal and he must fight for it, for those within it.

He leans his brow against the cold glass and tries to remember the time when he was wisdom and not pride, tries to recall floating in an untamed paradise instead of walking through endless streets of stone.

“Ar lasa mala revas,” he whispers to himself, staring in the mirror at his unmarked face, seeing it again for the first time in more centuries than he’s willing to admit. The words he hopes he will someday say to the broken, the hopeless among them, even if he is unsure he will ever believe it for himself.

It comes to war as it always would have. That, unlike so many things, truly felt inevitable. Generations of immortals don armor in defense of what they believed and changed history by way of blood and bone. Solas had experience in warfare, had the wisdom to guide factions of soldiers to victories, and let the stain of their deaths eat away at his soul with every fallen friend and foe.

“Find the Dread Wolf,” they began to mutter in dark, dirty alleyways of the cities that stood to change the world.

“The Dread Wolf will take you, if you go to him,” they whisper between themselves in the larders and the laundries of the fine estates he once frequented.

He did not care for the title, but he cared for the people, so he humored them. He wiped away their markings, he held them as they wept for lost kin, friends, and neighbors. He promised them freedom, justice, and safety. He built them safehouses across the world and the dreaming alike, refuges for spirit and elvhen to share, to hide from those they once worshipped.

He did not intend to become a God, but they began to whisper that too before the end, just as they came to curse him for millennia to come for the mistakes that would tear that beautiful, terrible, wonderful world in two.
—

“Solas?”

Morinne’s voice startles him, and he looks up from his desk, smearing the ink where he writes and closes the leatherbound notebook before she might see his scribbling.

“Yes, vhenan? How was Morrigan? How is her odd little son?”

She pads across the rotunda on quiet feet, and he turns his chair where she perches at the corner of his desk. Her eyes are wild with something like excitement or intrigue, and she is flush with magic both familiar and not. Not the magic of the anchor or the Well, but something older, something kindred.

“You will not believe where I just came from,” she shakes her head, as if still processing it herself. “But more than that, you won’t believe who I just met.”

Chapter Text

Solas

“What do you say we get away for a few days, just the two of us?”

Her eyelashes flutter open against his cheek, her body shifting as she stretches awake, “on what occasion?”

“You have a week or so without your advisors and limited work to do,” he presses a kiss against her brow, trying to contain the nerves in his voice, the anxious flutter of his heart, “and you deserve a few days with nothing to do but relax.”

“Hmm,” she smiles up at him, opening her eyes, and the blue is the same as the morning sky just outside the balcony doors, “did you have somewhere in mind?”

“I do, yes.” Somewhere the veil is so thin, it’s almost like it was in his time, almost like you can ignore it’s there at all. Somewhere he can almost pretend what it was like before he broke the world, and show her what that felt like as he tells her everything. He’d found it again several months ago, tucked it away in his mind, just in case. A waterfall, two halla and a mirror. “Come away with me, vhenan.”

“A few days with just you, how scandalous,” and he kisses the mischievous grin off her face, wrapping his arms around her as the dawn light spills into the room and paints it golden. “I’ll have to double check with Josie, but I think that should be fine.”

“Let’s leave today,” he says between swipes of her tongue against his lips, his neck, his earlobe, “in a few hours.”

“Since when are you so spontaneous?” Her hands reach for his back, grazing up the length of his spine and he knows where her mind wanders, so he raises both her arms over her head, pinning them with his own. She quirks a single brow up at the movement, rolling her hips to meet his, and he shakes his head with a soft laugh in return.

“Go, talk to your ambassador, and I’ll pack some things for you,” he gives her one more kiss, then pulls away, sitting up. “Some spontaneity might do us both some good. As might some time away from the fortress.”

“Alright, alright, if you insist,” Morinne sighs, sitting up with a yawn and running a hand through her sleep-wild hair. “Where are we going?”

“I was hoping you’d let me keep it a surprise,” he answers, tugging on his trousers.

“Mmm, I hate surprises.”

“Your life as of late has been one big surprise, has it not?”

“Exactly, so you ought to have some mercy on me.”

He rolls his eyes and her, watching as she grins and leans back on the bed, holding the blankets over her chest. The sheet of dark hair that falls over her shoulders reflects some of the morning light and the sight almost undoes him, almost brings him back to bed to hold her to him and never let go. As if he might be able to save some of her joy and bottle that sunlight to keep for himself forever.

“Fine,” he finally says, “do you remember the grove I told you about during our first visit to Crestwood?”

At this, she frowns, wrinkles her nose, “Crestwood?”

“It was beautiful, peaceful,” she looks skeptical, even as he works to sell the plan that everything else relies on, “and there will be far fewer rifts and undead to deal with this time. Since we already dealt with them all.”

“Fine, if you insist,” she says with a sigh, finally standing and reaching for a fresh set of clothes. “To Crestwood we go, I suppose.”

—

“The Veil is thin here. Can you feel it on your skin, tingling?”

It is, in every sense, a perfect night. Beautiful in ways he might not have thought of conjuring himself, if given the chance. They walk into the serene little glade hand in hand, having left the horses just outside the cave entrance, and he watches her eyes light in wonder as she takes in the sight of the waterfall and the towering halla.

“Alright, maybe I was wrong, Crestwood has one redeemable feature,” she grins, squeezing his hand, swaying against him with each step.

The night is balmy and the chittering bugs sing the late summer choir and he is content. This is the right choice, he thinks, this was the right place.

“I appreciate that you trusted the suggestion despite our last visit here.”

“Well, I trust you after all, and you were right. Even the anchor feels…almost happy with how calm the veil is,” she flexes her left hand, as if testing the feeling. “It’s like a place out of a dream. Plucked right from the Fade.”

“That is precisely why I thought you should see it.” They stop at the edge of the water and he turns to face her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, the length of it like shining silk down her back. “I noticed it during our first visit, and hoped to return. Ideally with you.”

“Hmm,” she smiles, reaching to absentmindedly fiddle with the strands of his jawbone pendant, “all I remember thinking about back then was how desperately I wanted to kiss you again.”

“You were not alone in that, vhenan,” he smiles down at her. “I’ve been trying to determine a way to show you just how much you mean to me.”

“That’s not necessary, Solas, you’re my…” she pauses, considers.

“That’s the question, is it not?” He keeps her hands in his, fiddling with them nervously as he talks, running through the mental checklist he prepared for himself and rehearsed one final time as she lay sleeping beside him at the roadside inn the night before. It is unlike him to be nervous, to stress, but then so much about this time with her could be described as unlike him. “For now, the best gift I can offer…is the truth. You are unique. In all Thedas, I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You’ve become so important to me, more important than I could have imagined.”

“As you are to me, ma sa’lath.”

“Then what I must tell you... the truth…” he pauses, nerves and fear turning in his mind, his gut, like a storm. Before he can think better of it, reconsider what he’s saying and the order he’s saying it all in, he hears himself say the wrong thing. “Your face.”

He pauses in surprise at himself and she looks equally surprised and confused.

“I mean, the vallaslin. In my journeys in the Fade, I have seen things. I have discovered what those marks mean.”

She continues to stare, confused, brows knotting together, as if they don’t both know the meaning already. When he doesn’t immediately respond, she nods once and shrugs, as if the answer should be obvious. “They honor the Gods.”

“No. They are slave markings, or at least, they were in the time of ancient Arlathan.”

This time, she pauses. Balks. Blinks and looks out to the water briefly, then back to him. “We…the Dalish have always said they honored the Gods. These are their symbols.”

“Yes, that’s right,” she tries to tug her hands away, processing, but he holds fast to one in some vain attempt to reassure her or keep himself grounded. He’s not entirely sure which anymore. “A noble would mark his slaves to honor the god he worshiped. After Arlathan fell, the Dalish forgot.”

Morinne bites at the thumbnail of her free hand, then pinches the bridge of her nose before looking back to him. “So this is…what? One more thing we got wrong?”

“I’m sorry, I did not…I simply thought you should know. That you deserved to know the truth of what you wear.”

“We try so hard to preserve our culture, and this is what we keep? Relics of a time when we were no better than Tevinter?” She takes a shaky breath and takes a step forward, into him, into an embrace, and he holds her. He strokes her hair and presses a soft kiss to the top of her head as she thinks, adding it to the tally of all the new information she’s learned about Arlathan, about her Gods, in the last few weeks.

“Don't say that. For all they got wrong, the Dalish did one thing right,” she looks up at him, eyes wide with the first hint of hurt, “they made you. And you know how I admire that indomitable spirit. I didn't tell you this to hurt you. If you like, I know a spell...I can…remove the vallaslin.”

At this, she pulls away and he watches her consider, lifting a hand to the high curve of her cheekbone where Mythal’s branches are carved in magic and blood, feeling the scarred tattoo there.

“These marks have been part of me for so long. I don't know if…”

“I'm so sorry for causing you pain. This was selfish of me. I look at you, and I see what you truly are…” he attempts a comforting smile, squeezing her hand and trying to draw her back into him, like perhaps that will return the evening to the course he intended. One of peace, of calm, of truth and understanding. “You deserve better than what those cruel marks represent.”

She hesitates and takes a deep breath, meeting his gaze. He wonders what questions that clever and quick mind is conjuring; wishes she would speak them aloud so he might hear and answer. In the end though, all she does is nod, fingers tangled in his right hand, and tell him what he’d spent weeks hoping he’d hear.

“Then cast your spell. Take the vallaslin away.”

“Come,” he smiles softly, “sit with me.”

They used to kneel for him as he removed the marks, having to perfect as he went until the process was eventually painless. He would stand over those seeking freedom, studying their features to best undo the deep and intricate incantations woven into the marks by the Evanuris.

For her, he kneels, and he knows it will cause her no pain. It is done quickly, more easily than removing graphite from parchment, and she is wiped clean of the Evanuris’ stain, of Arlathan’s evil. The blue glow of his magic melts into the hazy twilight and she blinks twice, raising a hand to her cheeks to see that it’s real, that they’re gone.

“Ar lasa mala revas,” he tells her, and the words feel so good, so true, he’s almost glad he chose to go off script and do this for her. “You are free. You are so beautiful.”

They stand and he brings her into a kiss, tugging her body to his and wrapping his arms around her until they eventually settle low on her back, earning a smile as they deepen the kiss. The relief of one successful truth lasts only a moment, and he cannot hide forever in her embrace.

His mind races as he processes what must come next, the kiss is only a delay, a pause in the evening that will change everything, and he knows it cannot last forever. Even if he so desperately wishes it might, wishes he could just freeze this moment of blue dusk with her smiling against his lips forever.

He realizes, opening his mouth to her, feeling her hands wrap around his neck, that he could take it all back. He could walk away from his duty and stay like this, with her, for as long as she’ll keep him. She hums a low note of approval as he tightens his grip around her, thinking of all the ways he could stay and be this man forever. This man that she loves and he has loved being. The one who did not ruin the world and tear immortality from the elves in a final attempt to free them, but instead remain one who plays chess and laughs and eats sweets and makes love to a woman who fiercely defends the world with her every breath.

There have been so few things he has wanted in this life, and all, he thinks, have revolved around her. Is it so vain that, in his many millennia of life and servitude, he should be allowed to want this? To have it and keep it?

She pulls away for a moment, smiling, resting her forehead against his, and he fully takes in the changes to her face.

And he realizes the truth in what he’s done.

The devotion to her Gods, her people, her heritage - all tied up in the meaning of the vallaslin as it stands in this age compared to his own - and she had given it up so freely, with so little challenge. She’d trusted him, implicitly, trusted that he would not mislead her, and in doing so, fundamentally given away part of herself yet again. His eyes scan her face and he knows, he knows, that this cannot be. If he keeps her, he will only ruin her in the way he has so many before her.

She will give and give and give and he will have to take even more before everything is finished. Just as Felassan did. How far will they go down this path before his blade is buried in her back for the sake of duty? How long before she becomes the same sort of monster he is destined to return to?

Morinne’s brows pinch together, watching his face change, reading something there, and he feels his chest cleave open as effectively as if she’d raised an axe to him. There is only one thing he can do to truly protect her from what he must do, what he must return to, though doing so will surely ruin him for good.

But he has to protect her, the goodness left in her, from the darkness that still claws for control of his soul. For her, for her people, for the chance to give her forever, he will break this last part of himself. He will force himself to watch her heartbreak, to watch her hate him.

“I am sorry. I distracted you from your duty,” he swallows, attempting to dislodge the knot that has already begun to form in his throat, speaking quickly so he has no opportunity to take it back and change his mind and damn her for eternity. “It will never happen again.”

She shakes her head slightly, giving a confused little snort of a laugh, then straightens and her smile begins to fall as she realizes that he’s not making a poorly timed joke. He wonders, briefly, if it is the last smile she’ll offer him freely.

“What?”

—

Morinne

Her arms are still around his neck as she watches his face contort, watches him harden from the Solas she knows into someone who could do this to her. She bites the inside of her cheek and tries to steel herself in return, though her mind and heart begin to war between anger and grief faster than she can keep up with.

“I don’t understand,” she says, stroking her thumb down the length of his neck, watching his eyes flutter closed in what looks almost like pain.

Fuck.

He doesn’t speak, only looks down, pulls his hands from her waist, as if forcing himself to find some sliver of distance. She doesn’t let go of him, not yet, even though her hands begin to shake and she has to make fists of them to keep a hold of herself. She won’t let go of him that easily.

“Solas…”

“Please, vhenan,” he breathes, and she knows her eyes go wide in understanding and horror based on the look reflected in his.

“What…what are you saying? I don’t understand,” she repeats, shaking her head again, mouth agape. “What just changed?”

“You have a rare and marvelous spirit. In another world—”

“We only have this one, Solas, why not this one?”

It stuns her how quickly the first tears spill from her eyes, her jaw trembling as she holds back the force of her hurt. Even her chest aches as the reality of what he’s saying truly sets in. He reaches for her wrists with both his hands and gently pulls her arms from his neck, his jaw tight and eyes dark.

“I can’t.” It is all he’s apparently willing to offer, denial and a shake of his head again and again. “I’m sorry.”

She takes a step back and looks out to the waterfall, the great halla that frame it, the blue dusk and the lightning bugs. It should be beautiful. It was supposed to be beautiful, all of it. Why else would he have brought her here? Why would he have dragged her all the way out to this awful corner of Ferelden just to end things when a quiet corner of Skyhold would have done the job just as easily?

She should pray to Mythal, for a clear head and heart, to see justice through the pain that feels almost too familiar, but why would the Goddess answer her now? Bare-faced and foolish, a Dalish without vallaslin, the herald of a shemlen God.

There is no one out there that might still listen to her. Not after this.

“We should return to the village for the night,” Solas says, “the inn will likely have room for us both, but if not, I will make for the Caer.”

“No,” she decides to ignore the way he pulled her off him and takes his shirt in her hands, hammering her fists against his chest again. “Not until you explain why. You can’t go without giving me some sort of reason, I won’t let you.”

“Morinne,” he sighs, “no excuse or reason I can give will satisfy you. I am sorry. It was selfish of me to allow this to go on for so long.”

“Why did you bring me here to do this? You could have,” she pauses to catch her breath, pressing the knuckles of both thumbs into her eyes as if it might ease the pain in her chest, as if it might indeed provide a shred of relief. “You could have done this at Skyhold. You…everything was normal until just a moment ago…you didn’t plan this, so make it make sense, Solas,” she takes a sharp inhale of breath, chest rising and falling sharply, cheeks warm with tears. “You loved me a moment ago, you…tell me what changed.”

“I…cannot,” he says again, with the kind of resigned sigh that only hurts worse as it settles into her bones. As if he’s grown impatient with her, impatient with her pain. Yet still, he gives no answer, and it hurts all the worse for it.

“Then tell me you don't care. Tell me I was some casual dalliance so I can call you a cold-hearted son of a bitch and move on!”

“I can’t do that,” he shakes his head and she lowers hers, shoulders shaking as she takes a deep breath, attempting to steady herself. “I never wanted to hurt you, I -”

“What the fuck did you think this would do?” She pounds her fists against his chest, still holding his shirt like a lifeline, and she feels the anchor buzz in response to her emotion, to how thin the veil is here. When she raises her head, his shoulders curve in toward her, softening. Unshed tears line his eyes like silver in the evening light. “If you don’t want to hurt me, take it back. Explain and take it all back, Solas. Love me as I love you and stay.”

The Inquisitor of the Second Holy Inquisition, marked Herald of Andraste, reduced to begging for a man who does not want her, who will not stay.

Dziecko Mythal banal nie powinno żebrać. Banal solas swojemu ludowi ani swojemu patronowi.

She tries to tune out the Well, the dull thrum of the voices and the noise that comes with understanding one word in ten. What could ancient beings trapped in a magical well know about her heartbreak, about her lover? Why must they interrupt now of all times?

He only clears his throat, pulling her hands from his shirt, and frowns.

She just stares, dumbfounded, chest heaving and jaw trembling, shattering before him. Biting the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood, hot and metallic. Considering. Reeling. Her knees long to go out under her, to bring her to the soft earth so she might curl up in the grass at his feet and weep but she holds herself upright with the last of her strength.

“You bring me here, take the vallaslin from my face, and now you just end it?” She is nearly panting, voice garbled with sobs, but it’s clear enough. He’ll understand. “If I’m not good enough without my vallaslin, why did you tell me this? You could have left well enough alone, you could have -”

“This is not because of you. You have done nothing wrong.”

“Then give me a reason! Tell me why this cannot be! I love you - why isn’t that enough anymore?”

“I wish I could be the man you needed,” he swallows, knotting his hands together behind his back, returning to the formal pose she knew him by when they met, the one she mocked him with by that pond in the Dales when he told her he loved her…

“Then be him,” she argues, sniffing deeply to try and pull back some of her tears. “Whatever you need, we can find together.”

“No, Morinne. We cannot.”

“So that’s it, truly? You throw it all away, throw me away, just like that?”

He meets her eye and his own tears begin to fall, his chest rising in a heavy breath, but he doesn't answer.

“Why love me at all if you were going to do this, Solas? I cannot…I was so convinced you were different.”

“My love for you was inevitable, Morinne, regardless of how unwise or selfish it might have been in the end.”

“Why would I believe that now? Why would you do this with no explanation if that were true?”

“Vhenan, I -”

“Harellan,” she curses in return, a single, rasping breath filling her lungs as she breathes around the tears, “I should have listened when every voice called you that. I should have realized that wasn’t a mocking jab, but a warning. How much of it was a lie? All of it? The whole year?”

The word is a knife, one she didn’t realize would strike quite as hard and deep as it seems to, his face contorting as she is finally the one wielding it against him.

Wreszcie słuchasz, w końcu dirthara! Harellan tak! Wyjdź spod wilczego Fen’harel i uciekaj!

“Fine, keep your secrets and your lies,” she tries to pull her shoulders back, tries to give off an air of confidence, but has none and is sure she just looks like a sopping wet fool. Luckily, it will be enough to cover for her own lie this time. “I’ll see you in the village, harellan. Unless you also intend to betray the Inquisition with no warning and run for the hills. I suppose you won’t give me any warning on that either if so.”

Before he can say anything more, she forces herself to turn on her heel and leave. She cannot be here anymore, cannot stand in front of him and hope for another moment while he stares at her in quiet, horrible silence. It takes all she has not to burn this stupid glade to the ground as she walks, to unleash all the magic she has within her in a torrent of grief and rage.

The horses graze happily where they left them and she tugs hers free in a hurry, mounting and galloping away quicker than she ever has. She has no intention of sleeping in Crestwood, no intention of spending a single moment on the road with him. If the Inquisitor is attacked by bandits on the road in the night, let the blame be on his head.

Her mind hurts, her heart hurts, the anchor seems to echo her agony with every heartbeat and feels like it’s tearing her hand open, and nothing, nothing feels like it will be right again. All the times she had listened to him, learned from him, opened and emptied herself to him. She thought it would be forever, because how could a love like that be anything else? How could anything, anyone, ever make her feel anything even close to again? She’d been so sure, so fucking sure. So blindly confident, so foolish, so naive.

And none of it makes sense, there is no answer or blame to place on a single moment or action or word. She has nothing to react to, nothing to sit and dissect except everything, which will surely drive her mad.

Going home is the only thing that makes sense. Skyhold makes sense and the need to be there. To wrap herself in her blankets and have Dorian call Solas all sorts of names as Cassandra paces, trying to figure out something she might not have thought of. The image is almost, almost comforting.

She weeps as she rides and the late summer wind burns and dries her tears as she flees into the night, leaving her treacherous, betraying love somewhere in the dark behind her.

Chapter Text

Solas

We only have this one.

Hoofbeats echo through the short stone tunnel, and Morinne is gone. Lost to him, freed from the slow acting poison that is his love, taking his heart with her.

Hollowed out, he lets his knees give out under him, lets his body sink to the soft earth below as his own sobs begin to shake through him. A lightning bug lands on his hand, blinks once as he weeps, and flies off. The grass is cold and slightly damp, just enough to seep through his linen leggings. A bird calls somewhere overhead, unbothered by the late hour and on the hunt for a meal or a mate.

The world continues to exist, time does not slow, though for Solas it feels as though everything has come to a crashing, broken halt.

Why not this one?

Morinne’s voice, shaking with tears and anger. Morinne’s chest rising and falling with shock and hurt, her heart breaking before him.

Morinne - his pillar of strength, of purpose, of devotion.

Morinne - who he cursed with the anchor, who he doomed with the burden of power as he was once doomed. Who he cursed with his love, and who he would have taken from until there was nothing left, until she looked at him like he was a monster or the terror her people believe him to be, and he would have to keep her from getting in his way.

Morinne - the only one to ever love him truly.

Morinne, Morinne, Morinne.

Harellan.

He stands on shaking legs, wiping the dirt and grass from his legs, then walks toward the mirror that lies hidden in darkness and crumbling stone.The waterfall parts with a swipe of his hand through the air and a tug on the veil - parting like one might drapes before a grand window, and there it stands. Worse for wear than the last time he’d seen it, the gold edges tarnished after so many millennia spent in the fickle Ferelden weather, waiting to be remembered by those who held the power to unlock it. Had any come? It was not keyed to a specific passcode or more intricate magic, unlike some that stood hidden in the forgotten places of the world - it simply needed blood of an ancient to awaken the magic within.

She hadn’t understood why Crestwood, and he couldn’t give her an answer that was entirely truthful because only now can he face it. A mirror that was supposed to carry them into the Crossroads, where he might prove everything to her.

Instead, he slips through the eluvian alone, the magic familiar as it passes over his skin like a cool breeze. The Crossroads are bright and welcoming, the stones underfoot warmed by sun that exists somewhere outside the bounds of the waking and dreaming worlds. It has always been familiar, this place, these paths, even after so many thousands of years away. He knows every walkway, every winding branch frozen in time since the Veil altered this reality along with every other.

And so he walks, careful and cautious, as he would have with her. Trying not to think of the words he’d been practicing of how this place came to be, how he first came to control the labyrinth and how he’d have to again. Solas walks over grass and stone and snow, watching for lookouts and travellers as he looks for the mirror he needs, flooded with memories of his past and a future he’d been dreaming of but is now lost.

It is strange to see this stretch of the maze of paths between mirrors so quiet. It had once been bustling with travellers and merchants, families and spirits. Even the occasional bird or squirrel might sneak through a mirror and make itself a home amidst the magic.

He would not call it lifeless now, that would be unfair and inaccurate as the plants and trees stand happy, lively and green at every corner, swaying in a breeze that comes from nowhere. The flowers are colorful, blooming eternally. Yet it’s so quiet it feels lifeless, as though the entirety of the Crossroads has been hollowed out and emptied of the life it once held. Is it all like this, he wonders, has it all gone eerily dead in the time since he last wandered here?

Would Morinne have thought it quiet, or would she have been focused on other things? Where would her eyes wander as her mind, ever curious for the history of her people, questioned the events he’d witnessed firsthand?

He’d wanted so badly to tell her, to show her, he has to pause for a moment thinking he’ll be sick at the thought of what the night became instead. How horribly wrong it had all gone, but how inevitable it was with even a moment of hindsight.

The enchantments linger, even after all this time, and it should be a comfort to know the magic was strong enough to withstand all that came to pass. But when he passes under a grove of pine trees and remembers the spells cast to bring comfort, to remind travellers and refugees of home, the tears come to his eyes all over again.

Once, it had brought to him the scent of parchment and the books of the Vir Dirthara, the days and days spent surrounded by the magic of the fade and the endless tomes of wisdom both new and old.

Now, it is elderflower and mint. A staggering, overwhelming reminder of where - or rather, who - home has become in the span of the last year or so.

What will be worse, he wonders as he begins to move again, to smell her on the wind for eternity? Or for the scent to fade and to know that eventually, he may never know it again?

He will never forget her but the details of her - can they be lost? Will he remember the flutter of her heart as she stretches awake, dawn spilling through stained glass, the warmth of her body pressed against his? Will the pain of what’s happened and will still come to pass challenge the sound of her laugh in his memory or the way she bites her lip as she thinks?

Will he ever forgive himself if he loses even a fragment of her? How could he?

Solas finds a mirror still coded to the vi’revas after what feels like perhaps an hour of walking and as he thinks the name of the mirror, stepping through, it too brings her to mind. Mirevas. It is cruel and agonizing and exactly what he deserves. Every step will be cast in the shadow of this loss, this pain, and all he can do is hope that one day he might bring back the old world and show her…make her understand, if nothing else.

Harellan.

To hear the mocking word, the horrid title from her lips…although he knows he deserves it, deserves worse, it is a jagged blade that saws through him again and again. A simple word that became a tear-stained, broken hearted curse, one repeated only because she’s heard it before and knew enough, knew it would hurt as he hurt her.

So standing in the Lighthouse, one of the few remaining vestiges of who he’d been before that title was quite so apt, is an eerie, out of body sort of feeling. He is, in his very marrow, a betrayer - especially in this moment, especially now - yet here stands proof of when he tried so hard not to be. Or perhaps tried to be more in spite of his betrayals.

Yet it has, for whatever reason, been a part of his nature since he took this form. As if the lyrium that gave him this flesh branded him ‘betrayer’ before he opened his eyes for the first time. Before he had any chance to prove his worth otherwise, this fate was decided for him.

It stands even more quiet than the rest of the Crossroads now - the center of his rebellion, the beacon in the storm that was a war lasting centuries. It had been a hub, bustling with Elvhen and spirits alike, a ground for healing the wounded, reuniting the lost, and where generals and refugees might mingle while waiting for the next plan of attack.

How many meals were had in this place, surrounded by friends and strangers alike, learning more and more about the far corners of the Empire and feeling all the more inspired to fight for it? How many children ran through the gardens, now crumbled, as their parents worked toward securing their futures? How many had he condemned to death in his final, ruinous plan?

What would Morinne have seen when casting her eyes upon this place, having learned the truth of his life and her histories just before? How would she look at him after seeing the murals portraying his creation and the devastation he wrought soon after?

Why had he thought this was a good idea?

“Wolf,” a familiar, haunting voice echos at his side, “you have finally returned.”

Solas turns to find the Caretaker, the longtime spirit guardian of this place and the Crossroads itself. “Only for a moment. I thought to see if this place was still standing.”

“I have ensured it is ready for your return, as instructed in the year -”

“Yes, I recall the instructions,” he interrupts, unwilling to hear exactly how long has passed since that order was placed. “I should return in the next few weeks, I believe. Likely for a more…lengthy stay.”

“I will ready the Lighthouse,” the spirit says with a nod, and disappears.

Because Solas knows, in his body, his blood, his spirit, that it will only be a few more weeks. That is all the time they will have left together, even in this fragmented, broken state.

A few more weeks, and then his time as Solas will be over. He had taken her heart, and without her coming with him - to spare her in this fight - he would have to find a safe way to take the anchor from her as well. To claim yet another piece of her. Take and take and take.

With one final look around the tower that had once been a symbol of hope, and now feels like little more than yet another anchor chained to him, his gaze settles on the murals he once painted of the first moments that inspired the rebellion. The first moments as a man, the silencing of the titans, the war that followed. Then peace and more war. They were meant to serve as a reminder of why all were gathered together, fighting for a better future, and what the Evanuris were truly capable of.

The images were to serve as a final point on his story, the final confirmation as he showed Morinne this last sliver of truth in his long, horrible tale. She would know the art by his hand, should she still have doubt, and any stories he hadn’t yet explained he could through the images rendered in paint and stone. He would walk her from corner to corner of the lighthouse and tell her the long tales of each, stroking her hair, her arms, her hips as he spoke against her skin - finally fully known and accepted by another.

What a beautiful image it had been. What a beautiful lie.

When he returns to this place, returns to being the Dread Wolf and nothing more, he will change what these murals depict. Change the lighthouse completely. It should no longer reflect the peace and sanctuary it once brought the People.

It will become a haven of war and destruction - no, reconstruction. It will…

He shakes his head, overwhelmed. It is, thankfully, not time yet for such things.

—

He makes his way to the Crestwood Inn a couple of hours before dawn, hitching his horse and pushing open the heavy wooden door. A single human sits at the front should visitors arrive, and to call him prepared for visitors is a stretch. The pink faced, pudgy man is miraculously balanced on a stool, legs resting on the desk across from him, and arms crossed over his chest, which rises and falls evenly in sleep.

Solas hates to interrupt, would rather simply go through the books and pick a room to disappear to for a few hours until dawn, but there is a question only the night clerk might have an answer to. So he clears his throat, and watches the man open one tired eye and grunt.

“Excuse me,” Solas says evenly, “I am here with the Inquisition, and the Inquisitor should have checked in a few hours ago. I want to ensure she arrived and has a room, as her safety is, of course, of our utmost concern.”

“‘Quisitor? Eh, ain’t seen her ‘round here in,” he pauses and lets out a long breath, considering, “since ‘fore Solstice I believe. Came and cleared out all the undead ‘n whatnot. Good woman I hear, but not ‘ere now.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Been ‘ere all night, woulda seen ‘er.”

“She could have slipped past you while you slept,” he tries and fails to keep the judgement and irritation out of his tone.

“Listen, knife ear, she hasn’t been here - now you need to go too ‘fore I see you out myself.”

It is a similar, though less argumentative, story when he reaches the Caer around sunrise. They haven’t seen her since the Caer was claimed months and months ago, though they’d all love to.

Solas pauses, paces, and reluctantly accepts a bowl of porridge from the scouts on duty. He tries to think as the guard rotations change, trying to formulate his thoughts amidst the panic of what might have happened to her in the space of time between when she rode off and when he came searching.

“Any news from the main road?”

The question draws his attention, posed from one scout to another that seems to be returning from the night watch, shucking off his gloves and wiping his brow with the back of one hand.

“Not much,” the man replies, nodding thanks to the skin of water passed his way and then taking a long drink. “Single rider passed to the south about…oh hard to say, three or four hours ago. Riding like a dragon was on their tail, but didn’t raise any other alarms.”

“Could it have been the Inquisitor? This elf here is one of her companions, says she’s supposed to be here or in town but hasn’t shown,” the first scout nods in his direction and Solas stands, bowing his head in greeting.

The night guard pauses, then shakes his head. “No way to be sure - too dark. Was on a beautiful black horse though.”

Solas nods his thanks and offers the duo a small bag of gold, which they accept with excitement and plans for a drink in town that evening, and makes his way out of the fortress.

She’d lied to him.

It makes sense. She wouldn’t want to spend two days on the road alongside him, not after what he’s done. She’ll want to be home, surrounded by friends - with Dorian and Cassandra. In her bed, where she might grieve their love comfortably, properly.

He exchanges more gold for additional rations, both for himself and his mare, and hops back on the saddle. With a soft click, they take off, and he makes for the main road that will bring him south toward Skyhold once more.

His tears are dry but sticky on his cheeks even as he takes off, the morning sun warm and bright above him. The breeze burns his exhausted eyes as he rides into the wind, in pursuit of the brilliant, wonderful love he never deserved.

Chapter Text

Morinne

Guards heave open the gates of Skyhold, restored by countless Inquisition hands to protect a single marked one.

Perhaps that’s unfair, but after two days of tireless, endless riding, she isn’t particularly in the mood to be fair.

She hauls her exhausted body off her equally exhausted steed, passing off the reins to the secondary stablemaster - taking over while Dennet is off at dinner or something, she’s not sure given the hour. The last rays or daylight shine over the high stone walls and by all accounts should feel comforting, like a homecoming of sorts. If nothing else, the beauty of the scene should strike some chord within her, as it usually does, pinging through her with the deep wish that she had the artistic ability to capture the way Skyhold seems to constantly glow in golden and amber light.

Instead, it just leaves her feeling more tired.

Morinne stretches as she walks, working her back from the hunched seat she’s spent the last forty-eight or so hours in, and catches the eye of exactly who she needs as she passes through the small makeshift marketplace in the fortress’ courtyard.

“My lady Inquisitor,” her lady in waiting, as Morinne has been instructed to call her, says with surprise, leaving behind the young, scrappy looking man she’d been talking to. “I didn’t expect you for days yet, or I wouldn’t -”

“Peace, Ellana,” she says, trying to keep a sliver in her own voice. “My plans…changed unexpectedly.”

“I will be more than happy to assist with whatever you need tonight, Inquisitor, I…” her voice trails off as her eyes stop on Morinne’s cheeks and she feels her face flush under the first confused, questioning gaze. “My lady, your face…”

Ar lasa mala revas.

Yes, so free, so painfully free. Bastard.

Morinnne ignores Ellana’s stare and the question left in her dropped sentence. “If you could, I only need maybe an hour of your time, and then I’m happy to let you back to your relaxing. I need a bath drawn, and a sleeping tonic. A meal too, if there’s anything left from dinner. I’ll also need a bag packed for a few days, maybe a week, on the road. The meal and bath would be first priority, ideally, and I’m happy to eat and soak while things are gathered if I meet you upstairs before everything else is complete.”

She hates making such demands, but Josephine has spent the last nine months insisting this girl is here to assist with such tasks and she’s too exhausted to fight the inclination tonight.

“Have you requested a fresh horse for the journey? And I presume you’d like to leave at dawn?”

“Yes, at dawn,” Morinne pauses, biting her lip and looking back at the stable she’d just come from. “And no, I didn’t think - actually, we can go through the eluvian, now that it’s an option.”

“Oh, of course, Inquisitor,” Ellana says with a soft smile and a hand on her arm. The girl is a handful of years younger than her, a city elf that fled Denerim after the blight and ended up in Redcliffe, then joined the Inquisition. Fair haired and beautiful, kind and even-tempered. The type that should be leading the Inquisition, not Morinne. Not the fickle, fire-wielding, grief-prone Dalish that can’t remember to ask for her own horse.

“I’ll head to the kitchens, then to your rooms and take care of everything,” Ellana continues with a nod, and Morinne thanks her profusely before the two part ways. She pauses for only a moment as the girl waves goodbye to her friends and takes off toward the stairs that lead to the kitchens, a pang of guilt ringing through her at ruining their night, and then heads toward the tavern in search of her own friends. She only came up with half of a plan while on the road but the need to destroy something far larger than herself was more appealing than planning, so she goes in search of those who might agree.

The Herald’s Rest is lively as ever at this time - twilight bringing together young and old as the day winds to a close. The sight of such gaiety only exhausts her further, but she has one last thing to do before she can consider bed, and she finds them in the corner - a deck of cards and a bottle of something dark split amongst them.

Morinne sits down at the end of the long bench, beside Varric, and reaches for the bottle, ignoring the way the conversation goes quickly quiet at her arrival. She takes the dwarf’s glass, pours a shot, and downs it - hissing at the burn of the whiskey that follows. It’s her first real drink since…Creators, she isn’t even sure. Perhaps the first trip to Crestwood.

That thought has her pouring another and immediately downing it as well, coughing once as her mouth waters around the unpleasant taste.

“Hey Bunny, you aren’t supposed to be here…umm…” Varric pauses, looking her over, then back out to the door of the tavern. Looking for Solas, undoubtedly.

“Maker, your face - did something happen?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be with Solas until the end of the week?”

“Elfy finally fucked it, eh?”

Sera’s question is the one that finally draws her gaze up, eyes filling with tears she refuses to let fall. Her fellow elf doesn’t say anything else for once, just pours them both another drink and takes it with her. The rest of the table is horribly quiet in the seconds that follow.

“I can’t believe it,” Varric says, genuine shock in his voice, a heavy, warm hand rising to her back and rubbing a soft circle of comfort there.

“Tomorrow,” she says finally, clearing the stone of grief that’s lodged itself in her throat yet again, “I need Bull, Sera, Dorian, and Cass with me to go kill that dragon of Mythal’s. We leave at dawn. Or I leave, I mean, you all can come along if you want to or not. I need to go kill something enormous.”

Varric doesn’t question the fact that she hasn’t included him, his hand continuing to rub her back. Someone, she thinks, fool that she is, should be here when Solas gets back. Someone he likes. It should be Varric. He wept too, after all. And if anyone can get a sliver of information out of Solas, maybe it’ll be Varric.

She starts to pour another drink, already feeling the warmth in her belly of the first three. Between this and the sleeping tonic she requested, if she sees the Fade tonight, it will be absolutely incomprehensible.

“Morinne, darling -”

“Dragon, dawn, come or not. I’m going either way,” she downs the final shot with a wince and stands, trying to push back the bench with the back of her legs and unable, given the group of bodies still sat atop it. The drinks hit faster than she expected. Marching to the door, unwilling to hear anything else about how she’s being rash or stupid - they love killing big things, if they give her trouble about killing something big now of all times - and bumps into Cullen in the doorway.

“Inquisitor,” he says with a slight bow of the head, looking better rested than she does for the first time in…ever. “Are you…what happened?”

Her fucking face. Gods, this is going to get old. It’s been less than an hour and the reactions already make her want to cry and set fire to the rotunda, to think this is to be her entire life from now on…

“Quite. Thank you Commander,” she replies firmly, using a finger to wipe at her eyes and hopefully, subtly hide the emotion that still wants to swallow her whole. “Have a good evening.”

Morinne turns before there’s a chance for lingering, sad looks over her cheeks that move to the tired lines and the bloodshot, tearstained mess of her eyes. She has no doubt her hair looks dirty and tangled, she reeks of the road and now alcohol. She is heartbreak and grief given form. There is no question what’s become of her, those that ask are only doing so out of a mix of politeness and a want for details. Not that she can blame them, she’d undoubtedly be reacting in a similar way if the roles were reversed.

She only makes it up the first couple of stone stairs before another voice cuts through the evening behind her, one she’ll actually stop for.

“Morinne, you cannot possibly think we’d just let you storm out of there like it’s absolutely nothing,” Dorian tuts, walking up with Cassandra at his side. “You look almost as haggard as you did after crawling out of the ruins of Haven and walk in, have more to drink than you have in Maker knows how long, demand we slay a dragon in the morning, and storm out. And you shouldn’t even be here - you should be on some romantic excursion -”

“Dorian,” Cassandra cuts in, noticing the way Morinne winces at the word romantic, biting the inside of her cheek til the pain almost cuts through the warm haze of drink that’s spreading with every minute.

She sighs and looks around the courtyard, the lingering groups of scouts and soldiers, those that just returned from the Arbor Wilds and still await the rest of their comrades, the healers and merchants and everyone in between. Even as darkness falls, Skyhold has yet to slow down.

“She’s exhausted,” Cassandra adds, looking her over, “surely this can wait.”

“I haven’t slept in,” she pauses, thinking for a moment, “oh I don’t know, 50 something hours. More than that probably.”

“Ah so you’re going for the healthiest possible way to deal with whatever it is that happened,” Dorian takes the last few steps up to meet her, his arm looping through hers. “Come, we’ll get you in a bath - you positively reek - and you can tell us what happened before we tuck you in for a nice, long sleep.”

She nods, Cassandra grunts, and they make their way up to her rooms.

—

She might have thought, not so long ago, that the thrill of meeting one’s God would last longer. Fighting the dragon beholden to one’s God ought to have also felt monumental in more ways than one.

It does little to heal the aching, gnawing hole inside her.

When she chose the simple branches of Mythal’s vallaslin, it had mostly been because her mother had worn them, and her grandmother before her. It felt like a connection to them, those that fought for her to be here. But even as a girl, Morinne had always loved the stories of Mythal more than any of the other Creators. The All-Mother in her love and strength and wisdom, guiding the rest of the Gods in the ways of Elvhenan with a firm but caring hand. How she climbed out of the sea to calm Elgar’nan’s fury and bring balance to the world, hanging the moon in the sky.

She’d found strength for her own life in those stories, in how to treat others when her own rage and grief felt too much to bear. It connected her back through her family and her people and settled all the horrible feelings within her just as she imagined Mythal settling Elgar’nan’s fury.

She walks through the clearing, gathering firewood for the evening, trying to reconcile how much of that must have just been childish fantasy. How much of that she threw away at the first whisper of another possibility, another story.

Mythal jest sprawiedliwa i cudowna jak księżyc, głupie da’len, masz szczęście, że w ogóle znasz jej dirthara, że znasz jej nauki i że ją spotkałeś.

The Well’s whisperings are a constant thread of Elvhen that echo through her mind at a speed she can only sometimes make sense of, even after Solas’ many, many lessons. It is by no means loud, but the kind of insistent, unnerving hum that leaves her with a headache and makes her feel half-insane day after day after day.

Even still though, in spite of everything, she doesn’t regret drinking. It’s even better now, knowing that this Flemeth woman that carries the spirit of the All-Mother is Morrigan’s mother.

Mythal. The All-Mother. Exiled to the beyond by Fen’harel.

Except she hadn’t been, she’d been here. Living in a swamp as a witch, with a husband and a child. As a human.

Morinne sighs and fills her arms with branches and twigs.

How much more could they have gotten wrong as a people?

Wszystko. Kroczysz u boku harellan, lath przez fen, i wciąż banal dirthara. Jak nisko upadli Elvhen, by podnieść tak żałosną wymówkę i uznać ją za godną łaski Mythal.

Harellan, she thinks. Fucking harellan.

She works her bottom lip between her teeth as she thinks, letting out a heavy sigh.

Morinnne considers the pieces of the puzzle as she knows them now, tallying what’s left of her sanity, and what questions remain after the last few weeks.

How will she explain everything to the Dalish - to all the elves - now that she knows? It would be wrong of her not to tell them, wouldn’t it?

She supposes she could start with her clan, those that know her best and still likely trust her to some extent, though she knows most will look at her and say she’s become too involved in ‘shem nonsense’ to be trusted any longer. ‘Look at her face,’ she hears them whisper in her mind as she bends to gather more firewood, ‘she made herself less Dalish for them, why should we accept her back now?’

An uphill battle awaits her there, once she finally returns - or rather, if she ever returns. She has to survive everything first, and a large part of her still isn’t convinced she will. Then there would be Arlathvhen, should they allow her to speak, she supposes she might be able to spread further truth there. Educate the Dalish as a whole on all she’s learned since becoming Inquisitor.

But has she become too human after all this time? Morinne looks down at her booted feet, lifts a hand to her bare face. When was the last time she had a hearth cake or a warm cup of halla milk? She says her prayers, makes offerings to the Creators and the Dread Wolf when she can, but is it enough?

Is she enough?

A twig or branch cracks behind her, interrupting the awful, twisted cascade of thoughts that consumes her, and she turns to find Cassandra with a worried expression on her face, arms folded across her chest.

“You’re certainly taking your time.”

“Not a lot of wood out here,” Morinne snips, looking around the forest and taking a deep breath, pulling back the tears that feel constantly ready to spill.

Her friend gives a little snort and steps forward, taking half the bundle of wood from her arms. “You should have taken another day or two at Skyhold.”

“Are you saying I did a bad job today?”

“I’m saying anyone who was treated the way you were by someone you clearly loved so fiercely only to turn around without taking a moment to pause is madness.”

“My whole fucking life is madness but now I’m…trying to stay normal,” she sighs, her jaw trembling. “It’s just…I finally felt like I had a real grasp on what my life was. What it all meant, where I fit into it, how to handle everything. I finally felt like I knew how to be Inquisitor and then I had…him when I needed to be myself again and now everythings is fucked. It obviously was all along, I was blind to it, but I was quite happy in that delusion and -”

“You truly believe it was all a lie?”

She meets the Seeker’s eye and considers. Morinne hadn’t said exactly that to them before, she’d barely said it to herself. It’s such a horrifying thought, one that eats away at her like termites through old wood, but one she can’t let go of. How much of it was a lie?
“I don’t know,” she answers quietly, both to Cassandra and to herself. “I don’t know if I ever will.”

“Have you…” Cassandra pauses, as if to gauge whether the question is a good idea, but continues anyway, “have you been in love like that before?”

“You mean been in love and lost it like that? No and no. Not even close.”

Cassandra huffs, “Perhaps he will speak with Varric upon his return.”

“Honestly, if he does, it will almost be a bigger insult than if he doesn’t. But answers are answers, I guess,” she shakes her head. “I just really thought he was…we were…”

“We all did, Morinne,” Cassandra says quietly, reassuring her, “if he fooled you, he fooled us all.”

Morinne lets out a soft breath and they make their way through the wood, the trees lit in the golden afternoon light and the edges of the leaves beginning to turn color with the change of the seasons. In a couple of weeks, it will be a full year since she left home for the Conclave. A couple after that, and it will be a year since the explosion.

She forces herself to change the subject before the thought makes her feel sick.

“How are you feeling? About what we found at Caer Oswin, now that you’ve had some time to sit with it?”

It’s Cassandra’s turn to let out a heavy sigh.

“I thought to rebuild the Seekers once victory was ours. Now I'm not certain it deserves to be rebuilt. Yet it seems that it falls to me to make such a decision.”

“If anyone can rebuild them into something worthwhile, it’s you, Cass.”

“But are they worth rebuilding?”

“Hmm,” Morinne considers, stepping over a large stone and catching a glimpse of their campsite’s fire again finally, “you could make them worth it.”

“Thank you, I…will think on your words,” she pauses and eyes the group they approach, coming to a halt and facing Morinne. “Tell me, what guides you? You make decisions that shake the world, yet always seem so assured. I wish I had your confidence.”

Morinne snorts. “Careful, Cass, you almost sound like you admire me.”

Cassandra’s eyes soften, almost to the point of what looks like sadness, and for a moment her heart aches for Solas. The expression feels so much like him, so familiar to his constant state of existing between happiness and some distant, unknowable and unshared grief. “I absolutely do, and I am sorry, for my part in making you feel as though we do not appreciate that you are our Inquisitor, and not someone else.”

“Oh.”

“I may not always agree with your decisions,” and she rolls her eyes as Morinne snorts another laugh, “but how many could do what you have done? You were a prisoner, accused and reviled, yet you’ve emerged from every trial victorious. That is worthy of admiration. You are not what we - or rather - not what I expected, but… you’re more than I could have hoped for. I am sorry that anyone has made you feel otherwise.”

Morinne sets down her piles of firewood and wipes the dirt and splinters of wood from her jacket, and despite knowing it will earn her an annoyed grunt, she tugs Cassandra into a hug.

“Thank you for saying that,” she says, pulling away, “and thank you for…well everything. I could never have done all of this without you.”

“I am not entirely sure that is true,” the seeker retorts before taking a single step in the direction of camp, “but I am glad to have been on this journey with you all the same.”

“A toast then,” Morinne raises a stick, earning an eye roll, “to being friends with the woman who thought you killed her boss, and then becoming her boss in return.”

Cassandra groans but knocks a stick against Morinne’s all the same. “‘The Inquisitor was hilarious.’ That’s what they’ll say one day, you watch.”

“Oh I hope so. Maybe I can ensure that by bribing Varric so if we fail, there will be at least one source of good news about me. Someone to say that, despite any failures, I was funny and had a great ass.”

They reach camp and find Dorian, Sera, and Bull splitting a bottle of wine as a trio of hares roast on a spit over a small fire, one that grows as their gathered wood is added. Bull passes her a glass, clinks his against hers softly, and she takes a seat beside him. The deep, sweet red is a comfort, but hardly enough to drown the thunder of her mind, so she reaches for the pipe Varric lent her and begins to pack that as well.

“I think we should actually kill a dragon on the way home,” she says, stuffing the dried elfroot in the bowl and lighting it with a flicker of her flame.

“Boss, have I told you, you’re the best?”

She coughs a laugh around the first pull of smoke, letting it puff from her in a cloud.

“No more dragons. We should return to Skyhold and ensure Corypheus has not made a move on the keep,” Cassandra argues, and Morinne considers her point for a moment.

“Wouldn’t the sky be split open if he had?”

“Isn’t your family full of dragon hunters, Seeker?” Bull asks as well, earning a glare from Cass.

“That does not mean I am immediately inclined to think hunting down another dragon is a good idea,” she tuts, reaching for the glass Bull fills for her.

Sera extends her hand for the pipe and Morinne passes it to her.

“Elfy left, now she’s finally fun - let’s be big heroes, yeah?”

“I was always fun,” Morinne pouts.

“Maybe but Elven Glory was no freakin’ fun at all so cancelled it out a bit. Glad to have you back on our side though.”

“Sera…” Dorian’s voice is a warning, though frankly Morinne doesn’t think it’s warranted. They’re welcome to say whatever they want about Solas at this point.

“What? I don’t know words that fix things, but I am sorry he left you, for whatever that’s worth. You smoking and drinking again is fun though, not gonna say sorry for that.”

“I…thank you, Sera,” she says with a smile, taking the pipe back and filling her lungs with the heady smoke once more. “And you know, I just think actually getting to kill a dragon would help me right now.”

“Maker help us all,” Dorian groans, and Cassandra makes a similar sound of dissent. “As if watching you pull boulders out of the Fade, set them on fire in mid-air, and then launch them at Mythal’s beast earlier today wasn’t enough.”

Morinne shrugs, “Wasn’t enough for me.”

“Solas better watch his shiny head when you get home,” Bull grumbles with a wicked grin, raising his glass to his lips. At that, Morinne can’t help but smile back.

Perhaps that’s the attitude she needs to adopt, rather than the dread and avoidance she’s been sitting with since departing Crestwood.

Perhaps he should watch out. Why shouldn’t she be the one to fill him with dread, instead of the reverse? Why should she be the one to suffer when he betrayed her?

The thought quiets her mind long enough for the smoke to envelop her senses and dinner to be served, after which conversation and laughter and wine are almost enough to distract her from the pain in her chest until exhaustion can no longer be ignored. They talk her out of hiking all the way home in order to hunt a dragon, given there is now an eluvian they can use for a more direct route back, and come to an agreement on hunting some of the giants through the nearby Emerald Graves instead.

They offer her a couple more days away and she says that’s all she’ll need, desperately hoping it’s not a lie.

Morinne crawls into her tent and is hit again with the stark absence of him. It’s the first night without him joining her, warming the bedroll beside hers, running his fingers through her hair to untangle the various knots amidst the mess of braids. His breath warm against her skin, pressing soft kisses against her ears, her cheeks, the place where jaw meets neck - smiling when her breath would catch with want, arms wrapping around her and pulling her down to the bedrolls.

The wine and smoke aren’t enough to keep the sobs from rattling through her, like a storm forming and striking with little warning. She falls to her side and cries, reaching for the place he should be lying next to her. Where Solas should be rattling off his many thoughts about fighting Mythal’s dragon, questioning how she feels and waiting for her to ask whatever questions come to her mind after his own.

The bedroll shouldn’t be cold. It should smell like parchment and pine and the air after lightning strikes. It should have a far too tall, far too smart elf who loves…

She rolls over, pressing both palms into her eyes and her chest heaves with the force of her tears. Who she thought loved her, is what she should be thinking, she realizes a moment too late, a moment after the pain has already made a horrible home under her skin.

She has endured grief, she tries to remind herself with some distant, far too quiet part of her mind. Grief worse than this, by most accounts. She can endure this. She just has to want to.

And she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to endure the loss of him. She just wants him back, wants him here, holding her, pretending it never happened. She can forgive, forget, if he were to take it all back. She could -

Fen’harel naprawdę cię zrujnował, da’len. Ghilas chętnie gonisz fen, wprost ku swojej zgubie, nawet po tym, jak próbował cię oszczędzić. Wzywałeś go bellanaris, a ta wieczność będzie tylko mala din’an, jeśli do niego wrócisz.

The voices of the Vir’Abelasan interrupt her pathetic reverie and though she still catches so little of the meaning behind its judgemental scolding, yet again it invokes the name of the Dread Wolf. It’s enough to make her think, to stop the flow of tears.

Harellan.

Fen’harel.

It’s been telling her over and over again since she stepped into the well and raised the water to her lips, yet she didn’t consider the implications, the deeper meanings…

What exactly has she been missing? What exactly, in her love, has she been blind to?

Chapter Text

Solas

She does not meet his eye for two full weeks.

Even when Cole drags him and Varric to the war room, explaining that they must all go with him to Redcliffe, she keeps her eyes to the missives and maps before her. She listens attentively as he explains the situation with the amulet brought back from Rivain, how they tried it while she was off gallivanting and killing giants, and she glances between Cole, Varric, and her advisors as he speaks.

It is immature. It is unnerving. It is a knife she wields with perfect precision.

“Are you quite sure the Inquisitor is needed for this?” The question comes from Josephine this time, but it’s been asked in some form or fashion by each advisor since the meeting began. They remain unconvinced, or rather, they remain steadfast in their belief that she should remain at the ready, should Corypheus appear.

Morinne sighs at the question, “I cannot sit idle until the bastard shows his face again. We have been moving at a breakneck pace for a year, sitting on my hands now is…frustrating.”

“You will go with a sending stone then,” Leliana offers, “so if something changes, we might contact you more quickly.”

“Kid,” Varric says, turning to Cole, “are you sure you need us all though? What if just Solas and I took you? I know you know things have been…”

“Your hand hurts. A heartbeat, not yours, hammering the beat of a song in its next to last verse,” Cole whispers, digging the boot of his toe into the stone. Solas tightens his fists behind his back, knuckles white with tension as the blood rises to his cheeks, but his eyes stay on her. “I need her, she shows us the way when things are wrong.”

“I’m…happy to come,” Morinne says, nodding to Cole. “He won’t have you Cole, I promise.”

He watches her shove her left hand out of sight and tries to send a pulse of his own magic toward the anchor, a balm to whatever pain she’s apparently feeling, but she stands and walks toward the far wall. Back turned to him and out of reach.

The advisors look at her, concerned, then to him once more. He deserves their judgement, but tenses his jaw as a reflex to their scrutiny all the same.

The party is to leave in the morning, which should apparently be long enough to finalize something specific that Morinne’s been working on and enchant a sending stone. Then their group is ushered out of the war room.

He waits, trying to leave last, trying to catch her eye in some vain, fruitless attempt to…he’s not even sure. He doesn’t deserve to know what she’s thinking, to make that connection, but longs for it all the same. After months and months spent knowing what’s in her mind, her heart, to be shut out like this is agony.

And it’s the least he deserves.

Finally, a full minute after Cole and Varric walk out, and Leliana and Josephine look at him like a beaten dog left in the rain, he turns. Before the heavy wooden door of the meeting room closes, he hears a sigh and pauses, unable to help himself from listening.

“Are you quite sure you wish to travel with him? You don’t have to put up with such requests if -”

“Cullen,” Morinne says, steel in her voice even as the door muffles it, “I’m fine. Leave it.”

“Very well, Inquisitor,” the Commander clears his throat, “shall we return to the matter at hand?”

“Yes,” Leliana says, “the Deep Roads…”

The Spymaster’s voice doesn’t carry well enough for him to hear much more, but he makes his way back to his rooms all the same.

It isn’t until that evening that he sees or hears from any of them again, late enough into the night to believe all should be asleep. He is hiding from the Fade, hiding from the torment that awaits him there, sitting in bed with the door propped open and book in his lap that he hasn’t turned a single page of in over an hour. His mind is in a maze of contingency plans, working through ideas of exactly how he might need to move should something go wrong come the final fight with Corypheus, when the far door of the rotunda pounds open.

“Come on,” he hears Varric say, shuffling with at least another pair of feet through the space just outside where he lurks, “I think it’s time for you to get to bed.”

“This is certainly unlike you,” Cullen adds, and at the Commander’s voice, Solas sits up, careful to remain silent.

“You don’t fucking know me,” Morinne slurs, “you’ve never once called me by my name.”

“I -”

“And for that matter,” he hears what sounds like more shuffling, then the groan of his desk, “bringing me through here is uniquely cruel.”

“And yet you’re loud as ever, Bunny,” Varric sighs. “We brought you through here because it was the closest path back to your rooms from where you were wandering. Drunken Inquisitors and walks in the dark aren’t the winning combo you might have thought they were.”

“You act like I was going to jump from the walls or go find Thom in the stables.” Steps, a sigh, then a cabinet opens and he hears a bottle uncork. “I was just having a walk. You two having a romantic and nosey stroll at the same time isn’t my problem.”

“We were playing cards in the tavern!”

“Maybe I was too,” Morinne lies, and he can almost hear the smile in her voice. It’s enough to make him want to pull her in his room, hold her to him and beg for forgiveness, all to see that devious smile again. “Whatever, you win, I’m going to bed. You two are no fun.”

“Chuckles is going to notice that bottle is missing,” Varric says, his voice a warning.

“Chuckles owes me for a lot more than a bottle of brandy,” she retorts and walks past his door. He’s looking out, eavesdropping, and the moment she passes is when she realizes it’s open, that he’s awake and listening. Through the crack in the open door, their eyes catch, but only for a fraction of a second. She looks to the ground, away, before he can even think of how to react.

A second later, he hears the interior door of the rotunda close. Hanging his head in his hands, he feels the all too familiar stone lodge in his throat, tears eager to spring to his eyes, and then he hears Varric sigh and remembers he’s still not entirely alone.

“Poor girl.”

“She is far too brilliant for someone to let go of her so easily,” Cullen replies, the sound of their boots moving toward the far door echoing as he speaks. “She should be with someone who understands how magnificent she is.”

“Geez Curly, didn’t realize you hit the bottle as hard as she did tonight, but I did clean you out of a lot of gold…”

“I simply mean to say -”

“I know what you mean to say,” Varric cuts in, “and I advise you not to say it. Not to even think it. Her and Chuckles were something else, on another level. They’ll work it out. Your pining is only gonna keep pissing her off.”

The door closes behind then before he can hear more or before he might chase after them to tell Cullen he’s right. She does deserve him, a stable, easy man who would give her a life without troubles, without questions. She deserves the kind of happiness she might find if she took the hand of a man like that, a beautiful home somewhere in the country with a couple of plump, happy children. He can’t entirely picture Morinne choosing a human to do all that with, but the sentiment remains.

All the same, she’d chosen him, and based on the dreams he keeps finding himself in - the dreams the Fade or her unconsciousness or some combination of the two keep pulling him into - she doesn’t intend to stop choosing him.

Which, much to his surprise, is a torment almost worse than if she had.

Even for him, for an experienced dreamer, it can be hard to tell where her dreams end and his begin. Perhaps because of the anchor, perhaps because they have spent more nights than not tangled together in sleep physically as their minds tangled together in the Fade. The why of it all no longer matters, only that he finds himself there at all and cannot bring himself to walk away from her when he does.

Solas tells himself it is to keep her safe, to guard her from the spirits that might prey on the emotions she’s feeling after what he’s done, but it is also a reprieve from his own nightmares. Visions he could wipe from his dreams with little more than a blink, a thought, but forces himself to endure. He deserves to.

He doesn’t stop the dreams that come to his own unconscious mind, enduring the endless visions of her screaming and crying for him, again and again. Watching as his hand raises, his blade angles to end his closest friend seated at the fire before him, only to realize Felassan’s voice is now behind him and his blade is stuck in Morinne’s heart. In others, he watches as he cuts a screaming babe from her, telling her they’re both doomed to die anyway, that it’s easier this way. The Fade conjures endless ways for her to suffer at his hands or at others, while he is just out of reach and completely unable to save her.

So when their consciousnesses collide, for whatever reasons that they do, he slips between the cracks and takes shelter in her dreams, under the delusion that he’s helping her.

In truth, she doesn’t seem to need his help at all.

The first time he finds himself wandering a grove he’s only seen in her memories, he finds her sprawled between the trees, with his hands between her legs. Or rather, a spirit wearing his visage, intent to deceive her with her own desires. He stands, cloaking himself in invisibility between the trees, dumbfounded at the sight of fingers that are his but are not working her open.

The spirit of desire, the demon, whispers in her ears and he moves closer, desperate to hear what his voice tempts her with in this place.

“Forgive me, vhenan,” it drawls, licking up her neck, “forgive me for my idiocy. I should never have been parted from you, and I never wish to be again.”

Morinne only hums in agreement. She makes no sounds of pleasure at each touch offered by the man before her. Disgust settles deep in his core, and he should intervene, should step between them and do something, yet his feet remain planted where they are in shock and horror.

He watches his figure kiss down her body, taking her nipple between his lips. “Will you forgive me, ma’lath? Forgive me, give your heart to me once more, and I will never let go of it again.”

It does not wait for her answer, does not notice how her gaze drops to the side, unfocused. Kisses dance across her ribs, her stomach, her hips, and then he - it - is aligned with her core, as if preparing to feast on her, but pauses. Waiting for the offer of her heart, and its ticket out of the Fade, before granting her anything further.

“Why should I?” Her voice is little more than a whisper and he watches the spirit that wears his skin look up in surprise.

It scoffs, looking up from where it rests between her legs, “How could you ask such a thing, my love?”

“Why should I offer my heart to you?” She sits up, pulling away. “Why should I offer you anything when you are not him?”

“You would doubt me, vhenan?”

“I don’t have to doubt when I know,” she stands, crossing her arms, “and I know Solas well enough not to be fooled by such weak ploys.”

It goes like this each time he finds her in the Fade. While he is battling horrors of his own imaginings, she is battling the temptations of the spirits that long to prey on her emotions. She walks alongside despair that takes the form of her mother, her grandmother, then another elf he does not recognize. Desire returns, wrapping his arms around her waist and begging for another chance, another attempt to repair their shattered love, and she only weeps quietly as she pulls away.

Tonight, he finds her in a dance with a spirit of Rage, the flames of it’s melting form crawling up her own though she gives no indication to any pain. With each step in a song only they can hear, he watches her scream at the demon as its flames crawl further up her body, each to absorb more and more of her. He cannot hear her voice over the inferno, standing behind a boulder and hidden by the same spell he always uses, but finally wonders if now she might need him to appear. To pull her from the demon and cast it from her dreams.

Just before he makes to step from cover, Morinne pulls the demon closer, her face alight in the red and orange flames, twisted in her own fury as the ooze that makes up Rage consumes her arms and begins to crawl up her legs. But then the encounter shifts, and orange flames are challenged by brilliant green that coat her in a second skin. She channels the anchor somehow, twisting her own anger into some sort of defense, becoming a pillar of violent, green flame that swallows the Rage that sought to take her over.

The flames blaze around her for a moment longer, and then she extends her left hand, as if to draw them back into the anchor, then winces. It shouldn’t be affecting her like this, shouldn’t allow her such magic, and yet…the magic serves her in ways he never needed. Perhaps it was always capable of such feats, or the existence of the Veil somehow shifted the initial magic he imparted into it.

Something to consider, he tells himself, something to examine and test once the orb is recovered and the magic returned to him.

As if the anchor senses the thought of its separation from its mistress, she looks in his direction, and though the magic keeps him hidden, he tenses. Were she to find him in her dreams now, after everything, he would have no explanation that would suit her hurt, the further betrayal. He should leave now, disappear before running any further risk.

Before he has the chance, she vanishes instead, and he wakes in his dark room, staring at the stone ceiling overhead. Something woke her and, given the hour, it must have been unexpected. Still hours til dawn, and though he could wake, could further his own plans, the Fade calls him back too quickly and sleep pulls him under once more.

—

Solas wakes a couple of hours later, rested enough, and dresses in his usual garb before heading out. Skyhold is beautiful and still so calm at dawn, taking a walk before the rest of the fortress rises, before even the sun has fully crested over the Frostbacks, is a more than ideal way to wake up.

He doesn’t expect to look up and find her standing out on the ramparts, something like a ghost in the morning light, wrapped loosely in white sheets and long hair blowing in the early autumn wind. Something is wrong, he can see that now, even from where he stands across the fortress.

He has no right to approach her, not anymore, not like this. It will not help, he tells himself, but his feet move of their own accord, across the morning dew and still cold stones and up the steps.

Silent as a wraith, she is unmoving, unflinching, even as he arrives before her. Even now, she does not look at him in greeting.

“Inquisitor…?”

Her title is the wrong thing to say, he knows that, but anything less formal feels worse, like it would be an insult of a higher degree. How dare he say her name, he thinks, how dare he speak it after what he’s done. The title though, how she’s always loathed it, is like pressing salt into a fresh wound.

When she turns, his breath leaves him in a gasp of guilt and horror. Eyes puffy and pink and hollow with exhaustion and tears, her face gaunt, she finally faces him. Her jaw shakes slightly, barely perceptible, as she frees one arm from the wrappings of the sheet that make up her eerie, makeshift gown. A note, he realizes, extended to him.

“‘The Duke of Wycome is dead, and the soldiers of Wycome blame us.’” He scans the letter, confused. She never mentioned to him any conflict in the Free Marches. “‘All the elves in the city have been killed, blamed for some plague that only strikes down humans. Now they hunt us as well.’”

Morinne’s eyes hold his when he looks up after reading the next line, and he expects she must have memorized it entirely since it arrived. In a moment of understanding between lines, he realizes this must have been what woke her in the night.

“‘Live well, da'len. You carry Clan Lavellan with you. They are coming for us.’”

She turns back to the mountains, her head falling again only a moment before her knees give out under her.

The linens fall from around her shoulders as she weeps, facing the Frostbacks,

“I did not realize…you never mentioned a struggle in Wycome.” He doesn’t know why he says it other than he doesn’t know what else to say, stunned by the horror of what he’s read and the display of her grief. Grief his presence only adds to.

“It happened so quickly,” she gasps between sobs, clutching at her chest, “I…I made the wrong call. I sent Leliana’s agents in and…”

“You have never been alone in making these decisions, your advisors carry that weight with you - this is not your fault.”

She shakes her head, “I insisted. I was…emotional. I was scared. I thought…I thought I’d take out the biggest threat to them, because if I lost them after losing you…I…” she stops speaking, shifting to pull her knees against her chest and burying her face in her arms, becoming a tight ball of pain.

“Ir abelas,” he whispers, moving to sit against the wall across from her. He does not say it, and will never tell her, but he adds the tally of their deaths to the untold count that weighs on his conscience. It is not her fault, it is his. “They did not deserve such a fate, such cruelty.”

“No,” she says into her knees, voice still ragged with the tears that shake her frame, “no, they didn’t.”

“This note, however,” he looks over the words once more, “this is not blame, Morinne. They would not wish for you to torture yourself with such guilt -”

She sits up abruptly, snatching the paper from his hands with a scowl. “And how would you know? You hate the Dalish, I’m sure this is exciting news for you. A couple dozen less for you to run into while you gallivant around dreaming and breaking hearts.”

“Morinne…”

Standing, the sheet falls off her shoulders, hanging around the crook of her arms to reveal the summer tan that’s begun to fade from her shoulders, the freckles he once counted upon them. He watches her bite the inside of her cheek, wiping at her nose with one hand.

“They were good people and you hated them on principle, even though you didn’t know them - you don’t know any of them. How can you think I’m…” she pauses, lowers the finger she’d been pointing at him in accusation and her face shifts from rage to grief once more. “But then I guess you don’t, you don’t think I’m any different than them after all.”

“You know that is not true, lethallan,” he tries, wishing he could remind her of his words to her in that grove or by the cool pond in early spring or all the other times he proclaimed her immaculate, unique, perfection - all in spite of the frustrations he might have with her people. He holds her gaze and wonders if the memories play through her mind as well, wonders how much more weight they add to her already aching heart.

“That was unfair of me,” she concedes after a moment, beginning to pace.

“Only slightly.”

“You were unfair to me.”

“I was,” he nods, and when he meets her eye again this time, the tears that finally settled begin once more.

“I have nothing left,” she whispers.

“Morinne…”

“I have no home. No heart. No name. All that will remain is the Inquisitor.”

“That does not have to be true -”

“Yes,” she insists, sniffling and running a shaky hand through her windswept hair, “everyone has decided it for me. You, them, fate, the maker, the creators - take your pick. There is nothing left.”

“You will endure this,” he says, standing, daring a step closer to her, “you will survive Corypheus, heal the sky -”

“Oh fuck off, Solas,” she crosses her arms over her chest, “if you’re going to keep the polite, useless mask on, then go. I have no use for it. I might as well talk to the walls.”

“If there is something you would have me say -”

“You know what I would have you say. You know exactly what I want to hear from you. The fact that you stand there and feign ignorance, asking me to tell you is both cruel and unfair,” she takes a step closer, then another, and it is the closest they’ve been since Crestwood. Since he broke everything. “I stand here grieving and you came here to, what, watch? Have a chance to rub some extra salt in my wounds? Stick pins in my eyes for an extra twist of fun? My ride home alone from Crestwood wasn’t enough - you need to humiliate me now too?”

“I understand your anger. I am furious with myself as well.”

“You understand my anger,” she shakes her head, and raises her hands to wipe at her eyes, keeping the letter balanced between two fingers. “I don’t know why I bother trying to talk to you.”

“Because you are hurt. Because I made a selfish mistake. Because you deserve better. Pick any reason.”

“I was a mistake.”

“No - no, I simply mean to say -”

“Why can’t you give me a reason? Why must you keep this pain shrouded in mystery, Solas?”

“The answers would only lead to more questions, another emotional entanglement that would benefit neither of us. The blame is mine, not yours. It was irresponsible and selfish of me. Let that be enough.” It will never be enough, he knows that as well as she does. It is a terrible, useless attempt, one his voice cracks on immediately.

“I would have married you,” she says, looking up at him. “I would have followed you around the world and tried to save the elves by your side, and then I would have given you a babe and a home and a life. I had a whole dream of it, stupid as it was - it would have never happened. Even if you hadn’t left, I’m the Inquisitor, there was never any…” she shakes her head again and sniffs, wiping away more tears, and he watches her give up, letting go of whatever sliver remained of that dream in a small puff of air. A dream he never told her he once had himself, of her holding that tiny girl, of the way it made his heart sing to see her with the babe. “I would have given you everything. Do you remember that night in the kitchens? I wanted to read and see the world, that’s all.”

“I know, vhe- Morinne,” he wants to hold her, to kiss her and wipe the tears from her eyes. She is close enough to reach out, to pull into his arms, and yet he cannot - for her sake more than his own. “In another life -”

“Right,” she whispers, “in another life, another world. Whatever the fuck that means.”

“I’m sorry,” and his voice breaks on the word. “I am so sorry.”

“Just go,” she murmurs, turning from him and walking back toward the edge of the stone wall. The white linen of her nightdress is thin enough to show the peaks of her nipples in the cold morning air. Morinne looks away from him, hair moving over her shoulders in a dark sheet, and her chest rises in another pained breath.

“I…I am inclined not to leave you alone,” he says softly, hating the nerves that flood him when he does, “at least until an hour where Cassandra may have awoken, or Dorian, and someone else may sit with you. You told me not so long ago that no one should have to mourn alone, and I am a fool but I will sit in silence by your side as you did mine.”

She only stares at him, eyes filling with tears once more, and he’s unsure what he’s done or what else he’s said to hurt her, so he keeps speaking. “I’m sorry, I know that you hate me and that -”

“For someone so smart, you can be such an idiot.”

“I…I’m sorry?”

“Of course I don’t hate you, Creators, that’s the fucking problem.”

“Then…I am not the one you would choose to sit with through this, not now, after…” He pauses, watching her shake her head again, watching the way her long dark hair shifts with the movement.

“I would always choose you, Solas,” Morinne says quietly, “look at my bare face and believe me when I say I would always, always choose you. What a fool I am, thinking I had found my nas’falon, to believe in the concept at all. It makes sense now, that the Dread Wolf stalked my dreams not long after we met - I should have taken it as a sign, I should have heeded the warning. I should have listened to my people and -”

The mention of her people again brings up the heaving cries once more, the reminder of the horrific slaughter and loss, and she collapses in on herself for a moment. He lets her weep, lets her grieve them, thinking it might be the sort of thing she would tell him to do were the roles reversed. Solas does not allow himself to touch her, but he stands vigil at her side while she mourns, and perhaps in some small way, that’s something.

“I should never have left them, never come here and let any of this happen,” after another long moment, finally catching her breath. “I wish none of this had ever happened to me.”

“So do I,” he whispers, drawing her gaze. “You do not deserve what the world has demanded of you. Yet the world needed you. It didn’t deserve you, but it needed you all the same.”

It is a line Felassan once told him, in the darkest days of rebellion, when he lamented what he had become in the name of war and justice. Tan hands on his knees, his friend kneeling before him in concern, in comfort, in an attempt to drag the Dread Wolf from his despair.

She might never understand the extent with which he understands this journey she is on, this heartache. Becoming something larger than you feel you deserve to save the people who look to you for aid.

She’s found success in so many ways he never did, taking a mantle not unlike the one forced on him with grace and patience, becoming what the people needed of her with little hesitation. Leading her own rebellion, defying empires and nations as an outsider from his mountain fortress, his one-time hideaway. She is what he might have been, were he less proud, were he stronger.

And he can never tell her.

He takes a step closer and sees the sunlight reflecting off the tears that coat her cheeks, finding himself wondering if they are warm from her skin or cold from the morning breeze. He dares another step, then another, thinking that offering her a small comfort - something, anything - will be better than standing here in silence and watching her cry.

Solas is almost before her, almost close enough to touch, when the pain in his own heart takes form in unshed tears, ready to spill. Ready to fall for her, for her pain, for both of them. There’s no plan, no intention in his movements other than the visceral need to comfort her - a need that has only compounded over the last weeks without her by his side, in his bed, at his desk.

They have been apart for longer than any period since they met and it is agony but with every breath the distance closes and he should fight it, should fight the way she draws him into her, like a ship fighting against a changing wind.

When Morinne meets his eye again, still red and raw with pain, she holds his gaze unflinching. Her jaw trembles slightly, a tell he’s learned only recently of how desperately she’s fighting to maintain her composure. Does her skin smell like tears, like salt and sweat, or like her soap? Would the thin fabric of her nightdress catch under his hands, were he to pull her into an embrace, a selfish attempt at comfort? How much more would it hurt to feel her sobs against his chest as he held her, instead of watching them at arm’s length yet again?

She does not look away, does not weep, but her chest rises and falls with quick breaths of nerves or grief or something else entirely, he’s not sure. His own chest aches but he doesn’t dare move for fear of breaking the spell that keeps her so close.

He doesn’t break the spell, nor does she. Footsteps echo over the stone stairs of the walls and her eyes remain on him until she has no choice but to glance around him at whoever’s just arrived.

“There you are,” Cassandra says, short of breath, “I’ve been all over Skyhold looking for you. Josephine sent someone to check on you this morning and found your door open and your room a wreck, she was worried something might have happened to you.”

“Something did,” Morinne says flatly.

“Of course,” the Seeker says, approaching like she might a skittish animal, “I am so sorry to hear the news, my prayers will be with them to find peace in the Maker’s embrace.”

He exchanges a look with Morinne, but she only lets out a sigh, rather than fighting back.

“I believe it would be best for the Inquisitor to have some company back to her rooms, Cassandra,” he turns, and Cassandra nods in agreement. “I’m sure she’s exhausted.”

He watches Morinne gather the sheet from the stone floor, wrapping it around herself once more, becoming something like a ghost once more. She doesn’t respond, doesn’t say a word as she heads toward the stairs, only glancing over her shoulder at him for a moment before disappearing.

“Did she come to you?”

Cassandra’s question is both concern and accusation, neither of which he can blame her for given his current status around Skyhold.

“No,” he says simply, “I woke early and thought to have a walk around the grounds, but found her standing alone up here before getting very far. I…didn’t think she should be alone.”

“You were likely right on that front,” she nods, “I will have a messenger send you word when the change of schedule is planned. Thank you, Solas.”

She departs before he can say much more, bounding down the stairs after Morinne to ensure her temporary charge makes it back to bed, and Solas lets himself slide down the stone wall to sit.

Nas’falon. He mouths the word to himself, turning it over in his mouth for the first time in millennia. He didn’t realize the concept of a soul bond, a partnership so inseparable that it became as if two beings shared a single soul, a single spirit, carried into this age from the time of Elvhenan. It had been considered rare then, the only two he knew that claimed such a status were June and Sylaise, though they also invented the term. He’d heard of it becoming more popular outside the city, rumors whispered before the rebellion changed the focus of all around him. There had always been a sort of appeal to it though - a partner with which to share eternity, a confidant to see all the ages of the earth with.

How had her people thought of such a bond, he wonders, watching her shoulders shake for those she knew, those she lost. A marriage bond is common now, unlike in Arlathan - a soul deep connection must be something they still considered rare though, given her disbelief.

It hadn’t occurred to him, and yet it’s so obvious, so agonizing. His spirit called to hers, his soul longing for its partner, and hers had answered. She’d loved him, chosen him, again and again.

In return, he discarded her, and sat at a distance, yet again unable to think of what to do as she wept. The answer to the longing in his soul, and the best he can offer her is to be rid of him.

“You let it keep hurting, because you think hurting is who you are. Why would you do that?”

Cole appears at his side, no doubt drawn by the reverberations of their pain, eager to lend that which his own spirit is called to offer. Solas knows he should allow it, should accept the balm that might come from sharing the load of this pain with Cole, but he will not, cannot. Not only because he deserves it, but because every second of agony is a worthy reminder of the sacrifice he’s making to keep her safe. To save all the other people like her, like her clan, to avoid further tragedy like this one.

"Wisdom knows enduring is pain. You hurt them, so many more you couldn't save. You carry necessary deaths," Compassion says, fingers tugging at a loose thread at the hem of his shirt. “She does not blame you.”

“She blames herself,” Solas whispers, “and that is worse.”

“I want to help, but it's all tangled with the love. I can't tug it loose without tearing it.”

“I would like it to remain, Cole.”

“You want me to stop?”

He sighs, turning to the boy. “No. You exist to help others. You are kindness, compassion, caring. If you stop giving comfort, you would twist into something else, as you did before I suspect.”

“Yes. I will not be that again.”

“Good. Never forget your purpose. It is a noble one, even if this world does not understand.”

“You're different now, Solas. Sharper. You're in both places, readying to leave yet longing to remain. Becoming two things at once.”

“It is nearly over now, I suspect,” he murmurs, “just as I suspect you know what must come next.”

“Yes,” the spirit agrees, hanging his head, “but it will be sad, and she will be hurt to lose you again.”

“She will need you all the more,”

“You always help to heal my hurt, but yours is old inside, vast across the Veil. She made it brighter, lighting the dark forgotten places, but you sent her away.”

“I will endure,” he lies, knowing that Cole will sense the pain in him, the deception. “You should go to her, she will need you far more than I do.”

“Yes,” Cole says sadly, with a nod, and after a brief pause, he disappears. Vanishing into thin air and, hopefully, in the direction of Morinne.

Which leaves Solas alone, in the chilled morning air. Alone as he has been for nearly all of his endlessly long life. He remains until the sun is high enough in the brilliant blue sky that the rush for breakfast has begun, the hum of the Inquisition starting its day, and finally rises.

Weaving his way through the morning crowd within the great hall, he returns to the rotunda and finds a letter with the Inquisitor’s seal on his desk, along with a plate of biscuits and jam. He looks around, as if he might catch whoever left this for him to question exactly why this was left, who sent it, their motives. Yet the coast is clear, the library and rookery above quiet, so he pinches off a bite of the biscuit and pops it in his mouth as he reads the tear-stained note.

Redcliffe in a week. You’ll obviously understand the reason for the last minute change in plans.

And in case there is any question, I love you. I hate you, but I love you infinitely more. Nothing will change that. You are my nas’falon, whether or not I am yours.

Mi’nas sal’inan

-M

Chapter Text

Morinne

She grieves.

She cannot bury her dead, cannot plant the vallasdahlen over their bodies as tradition dictates, and the shame eats at her, yells at her continued failure as a woman who was once called Dalish. But she finds a sapling, and two branches she believes are oak and cedar, and prays that Falon’din will see their safe passage to the Beyond all the same.

In her dreams, she seeks the wolf who once found her, hoping she might catch the eye of Fen’harel before he blocks the way of her kin to their afterlife, to their peace, but he doesn’t show. So each morning, she prays and prays and prays, ignoring the shouts and curses of the vir’abelasan as she invokes the Creators.

A week later, Morinne, last of clan Lavellan, keeps her promise, and saddles her mare, joining the men on the journey to Redcliffe. Dorian insists on joining their party, claiming she needs someone sensible to keep an eye on her, but she knows he’s unable to keep himself from wondering what his father has to say. He’d insisted he didn’t want to know when she informed him of the note, passed to Mother Giselle and then to her, but she knows. Were she in his position, she’d be just as painfully curious, and just as unwilling to admit it.

They ride, and the first day is spent in uncomfortable silence, all unsure of how to handle her change in demeanor and the proverbial wyvern in the room that exists between her and Solas. Cole chatters away at nothing, eager to close this chapter for himself, and they all listen to his musings as they ride down through the mountains and into the first paths of the Hinterlands.

She feels fine, steady even, until they make camp under a golden birch tree, the sun beginning to set, and two black wolves run through the copse of trees at the edge of their circle of tents, and she remembers the damned Dread Wolf.

“Fenehdis,” she curses under her breath, sure she should find a statue in Fen’harel’s honor to leave a proper offering but unsure if there are any in this part of Ferelden. She hadn’t made a note of any the last time they spent extended time here, but maybe over the next couple of days she could scour the foothills for one and...

Zostawianie ofiar dla Fen’Harel, jakie to żałosne, gdy siedzi naprzeciw ciebie, jak ślepy jesteś nawet wtedy, gdy stoisz.

“Everything okay, Bunny? Once we get a fire going, those wolves shouldn’t bother a group this big.”

“Yes, fine, just…” Morinne pauses to bite her lip, thinking, then looks to her friend, “wait, Varric, wasn’t one of your friends in Kirkwall Dalish?”

She sits at the stack of wood Solas sets down at the center of their encampment and lights it before anyone else has to ask. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his eyebrows raise, but she keeps her own gaze on Varric.

“Yeah, Daisy - I mean, Merrill - was about as Dalish as they come,” Varric sits down on the log to her left, setting down Bianca. “Why do you ask?”

“Did she ever tell you any stories about the Creators? Or, more specifically, about Fen’Harel?”

The voices that have constantly buzzed in her mind since she drank from the well grow quiet, as if they too want to hear the answer. Solas looks up, narrowing his eyes at her, then takes a long drink from his glass of wine before accepting the small plate of rations Dorian passes him for their dinner.

She doesn’t let it phase her, working to keep from staring and grinning at Solas taking the bait, like a spider spinning in her web, and focuses on Varric.

Here, here, Dread Wolf, she thinks, come to mama, harellan.

It's a suspicion - an absurd, ridiculous, impossible suspicion - but one she can’t let go of, can’t get to leave her mind. A God in her midst, in her bed no less, is a laughable idea…and yet, the voices of the well, the stacking excuses and unanswered questions and the knowledge he does have…it all points to something more. Something she might as well prod, while they wait for Corypheus and she has to sit at his side, pleasant and as though she’s not still very much in love with him.

“Fen’harel - that’s the Dread Wolf, right? The one who locked up all the other Elvhen Gods in the stories?” Varric watches Morinne nod, patting his seat for Cole to sit down beside him. “Yeah, she would tell us all about that stuff - would tell us more stories about the Gods than herself when drinking. Got frustrating sometimes during drinking games.”

“Do you remember any of them?”

He lets out a breath, thinking, “About the wolf specifically?”

“May I ask what brought this on, lethallan?”

“You may,” she answers politely, turning to Solas briefly, then back to Varric. “I’ve been going through the burial rights and prayers for my clan, thinking back on all the old stories. It’s so interesting to hear what stories other clans tell, which other First’s deem worth repeating to friends over drinks. The stories of the Dread Wolf were always some of my favorites too, so I just thought…”

She lets the end of her point dangle, and Varric picks it up, “I understand, yeah, stories like that connecting people and all that. Let me think…”

Morinne doesn’t make eye contact with Solas again, though she can feel his gaze on her, likely aware of her lie - she never gave a damn about the stories of the Dread Wolf and she’s sure she told him once or twice that Mythal’s myths were her favorites. No matter though, she stands and turns, picking up a bottle of wine and uncorking it, passing it around once her own glass is full.

“I don’t remember them all, it’s been a while, but one I always thought was interesting - interesting in the way of using it in a story of my own someday, that sort of thing - anyway, it was a tale about the Dread Wolf taking on human disguises to play tricks on the people. Appearing in humble clothes, modest but knowledgeable in their ways, with worldly and fair advice that slowly turns to tricks and poison to distract from the true lessons of the…good gods, or whatever they’re called.”

“The Creators.”

“Creators, right,” Varric takes a drink, “anyways, that was one of the first that made me really pay attention to her stories - you elves have some crazy gods if that’s what they’re willing to do.”

At this, she finally looks back to Solas, “Crazy, indeed.”

“The Dalish place such weight on these stories,” Solas interjects, “yet not all connect from clan to clan. Is it not worth acknowledging that the lack of connection from tale to tale might, in fact, indicate the stories passed down have since lost any remaining truth to them?”

“Ah yes, my mistake, hah’ren, I forgot the most important aspect of tales told ‘round the fire with kin is the factual accuracy.” Dorian grumbles something as he passes her a plate, but she doesn’t pay attention, taking her dinner without looking up. “How dare a scattered people, existing for millennia without a central country to call home, have more than one story shared for their pantheon of Gods?”

“Can you two please -”

“My problem is not with the variety of tales told, merely with the fact that the many I’ve heard hold so little truth it’s as though the Dalish have chosen to create entirely new Gods rather than worship the truth of who the Creators were.”

“Oh, and you’re still somehow the only one who knows the truth.”

“I’ve told you before -”

“Solas,” Dorian finally cuts in, voice raised, “enough. You don’t get to break her heart, watch her grieve her clan, then insult the Dalish just to get a rise out of her. I won’t stand by for that - you only get to be a prick for so long before I’m inclined to cut you off.”

“I don’t want to win the argument simply by you ending it, Dorian.”

“Morinne, you tyrannical little beast,” he sighs at her, “we have to get along for the rest of the week. Fight with him when we return to Skyhold and the rest of us don’t have to sit and endure it.”

She crosses her arms like a petulant child, “Fine.”

"He broke the dreams to stop the old dreams from waking. The wolf chews its leg off to escape the trap,” Cole taps his leg beside Varric, staring into the fire for a moment before looking up to her. Dorian sighs at her left, frustrated on her behalf, but there’s a puzzle in Cole’s words, as there always is. A puzzle she can’t quite piece together, but has Solas taking a long drink from his glass, jaw clenched.

“Should we know what that means, kid?”

Cole just continues to look at her, as if she should be the one to know, but she doesn’t - doesn’t have a clue. The wolf she can guess, but the rest? The spirit boy eventually stops looking at her, turning back to Solas before saying words that feel like she’s swallowing broken glass.

“Ar lasa mala revas. You are free. You are so beautiful. But then you turned away. Why?”

Her heart thunders but it’s as though her body goes cold, as though everything around her goes to a freezing, horrible halt at the words. She cannot help but look up, a lump already forming in her throat as she sees him, staring in horror at Cole. Solas opens his mouth to speak and she’s sure the other two are likely confused but she can’t look away. Only Solas and her pain exist at the sudden reminder of what she’s been trying so hard to forget.

“She is bare-faced, embarrassed, and she doesn't know,” Cole urges Solas, and she realizes it’s in her defense - in some twisted way to make her feel better. “She thinks it's because of her.”

“You cannot heal this. Let her carry her anger in peace.”

“Oh Maker…”

“Perhaps Cole can get a better answer from you than I did,” she murmurs, unable to keep the hard edge from her voice. It’s preferable to more tears, though those also feel imminent when Solas meets her eye again. Pain is written plainly on his handsome, damnable face.

“You love him, but you're angry,” Cole turns to her now, getting up and kneeling before her, taking both her hands in his. “They mix together, boiling in the belly until it kneads into a knot.”

“Don’t exactly need to read minds to figure that one out,” Dorian spits in Solas’ direction before taking a bite of the bread and cheese on his plate.

“Solas, bright and sad, observes and accepts. Spirit self, seeing the soul, Solas, but somehow sorrows.” Cole stands, pacing around the fire as if his musings are bringing him a sort of wild energy he can’t contain by staying still, staying seated. “And she is bright as the sun on snowfall, brighter than he thinks he deserves. My freedom, my key, my hope, my -”

“Cole,” she says, interrupting him, unable to take any more, “it is cruel to lie about such things.”

“He is a spirit of Compassion,” Solas whispers, “cruelty is not in his nature.”

“He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. They sleep, masked in a mirror, hiding, hurting, and to wake them…” he stops speaking with a horrified gasp, turning from her to stare at Solas. “Where did it go?”

“I apologize, Cole. That is not a pain you can heal.”

“What did you do to him?” she asks, a hand going protectively to Cole’s shoulder when the boy stops at her side once more.

“I closed my mind to the place he was drawing from,” and Solas abruptly stands, pouring the remainder of his wine out in the grass. “If you'll excuse me, I believe I will retire for the evening. Goodnight.”

“Oh Chuckles,” Varric sighs, shaking his head, “should I go check on him? I should, shouldn’t I?”

Morinne just watches him disappear into his tent. The very tent she spent so many nights in beside him, tangled between his long limbs and mess of furs, happier than she’d ever been.

“Whatever will help keep the peace for the next few days is what you should do,” Dorian answers, and all she can do is take another drink, swallowing the wine and her pain in the same gulp. “That little trick, Cole, when you dip into someone's mind and take a drink? Do you choose what you're looking for, or is it random?”

“It has to be hurt, or a way to help the hurt. That's what calls me,” Cole answers, looking around as Varric stands, walking toward Solas’ tent.

“Was it his hurt that called you…” Dorian starts carefully, glancing between her and the boy, “or the Inquisitor’s?”

“Tangled like legs in sleep, where do I end and where does he begin, the pain is muddled because the hurt is everywhere, endless like the love was.”

She feels bile and wine rise in her throat, and realizes she hasn’t eaten, too distracted to ever take a bite of the meal before her. Now the pain is too visceral, too plentiful, for there to be any kind of appetite left. Morinne just presses her fists into her eyes, rubbing until her vision goes from black to white to red. Wishing the world below her feet might open up and swallow her whole, or better yet, a fade rift could appear and -

“I've been trying to imagine how to explain it to you, Cole,” Dorian pauses, considering, and gestures for the boy to sit so some of the restless energy around them might be quieted. “The thing is, sometimes the ones you love are also the ones who disappoint you the most. You think that if they love you, they should understand. They shouldn't want to hurt you. So you feel betrayed. You say things you can't ever take back.

“‘Get out. You are no son of mine.’”

“Yes, like that.”

“He wishes he hadn't meant it.”

“Well, don’t we all sometimes,” Dorian clears his throat, and looks to her. “Sometimes... sometimes love isn't enough, Cole.”
–

“He killed me. He killed me. That's why it doesn't work. He killed me, and I have to kill him back!”

They stand around the fountain in one of Redcliffe’s many squares and the gathered townsfolk, milling about as the afternoon grows warm and bright, pause and stare at the sudden exclamation from the strange looking boy in the enormous hat. She looks down at Varric, at the Inquisition sigil emblazoned on his leather pauldron, and sighs. The added rumors of…she’s not even sure what Cole might look or sound like right now, other than mad, will no doubt complicate things for the Inquisition long term if they have this out here. With a sidelong glance at Dorian, she can tell he’s thinking the same thing.

“Cole, this man cannot have killed you. You are a spirit. You have not even possessed a body.”

“Yes, well, either way,” Morinne glances around the buildings surrounding them to see if any might provide a small, quiet alcove for their party, “this is not a conversation to be had in the middle of town, if for no other reason than to spare our lovely Josephine extra work on repairing the Inquisition’s already ridiculous reputation.”

“A broken body, bloody, banged on the stone cell, guts gripping in the dark dank, a captured apostate,” Cole doesn’t stop pacing, though his voice quiets slightly, and he stops before Solas, wringing his hands.

“So that’s who the real Cole was - an apostate, captured and taken to the Circle by templars.”

“Solas,” Morinne grits out, and finally he turns from their panicked friend, “not here.”

He nods once, and she realizes how long it’s been since she took in his face - or rather, how long it’s been in contrast to how often she used to. The pattern of freckles she’s sure she could draw with her eyes closed, the violet eyes that always look both soft and pained and kind. He looks so tired, the hollows under his eyes deeper than she’s ever seen, and Morinne wonders if her own look similar, though she hasn’t bothered with a mirror in well over a week either. Is the Fade haunting him, just as it stalks her?

It would be so like him, she thinks as they move toward a quiet path near the town’s chantry, afternoon light dappling the stones through the coloring leaves overhead, to endure nightmares out of a twisted sense of guilt, some idea that he deserves the sleepless nights or the conjured terrors.

On na to zasługuje - skrzywdził cię bez ostrzeżenia, bez planu. Taka niesprawiedliwość, taka harel, nie zasługuje na atish’an.

“They threw him into the dungeon in the Spire at Val Royeaux. They forgot about him. He starved to death,” Cole continues to rattle off the truth of the real Cole’s - the first Cole’s? - life the moment they come to a halt. “He forgot. He locked me in the dungeon in the Spire, and he forgot, and I died in the dark! I came through to help... and I couldn't. So I became him. Cole.”

Morinne thinks she understands well enough, but one glance at Varric and Dorian is enough to understand that they likely do not. She opens her mouth to attempt to explain, but Solas begins instead.

“As the young man starved to death in a dungeon, his pain caught the attention of a spirit... one of compassion - an uncommon spirit and a fragile one,” his hand goes to Cole’s arm, a soft reassuring touch meant to soothe the boy’s anxious pacing that only seems to help a little, “to regain that part of himself, he must forgive.”

“Andraste’s flaming teat, have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“No, but everything about the shit we deal with is new and ridiculous. Anyway, if Cole was an apostate, that’d make the guy we just saw a templar,” Varric muses, “must’ve been buying lyrium.”

“Let me kill him. I need to... I need to.”

“Dorian, could you…” she nods in Cole’s direction and watches as her friend rolls his eyes, standing.

“Oh marvelous, yes, what else was I brought along for?” He scoffs at her dramatically before taking Cole by the hand, “Come on, let's get something to help you calm down for a moment, shall we?”

“We cannot let Cole kill the man,” Solas says, turning back to her and Varric the moment the other two are out of earshot.

“I don’t think anyone was going to suggest that, Chuckles.”

“Cole is a spirit,” he explains further, though she knows it’s for Varric’s sake, not hers. “The death of the real Cole wounded him, perverted him from his purpose. To regain that part of himself, he must forgive.”

“Come on! You don’t just forgive someone killing you.”

“You don’t. A spirit can.”

“The kid’s angry. He needs to work through it.”

“A spirit does not work through emotions. It embodies them.”

“But he isn’t a spirit, is he? He made himself human, and humans change. They get hurt, and they heal. He needs to work it out like a person.”

“You would alter the essence of what he is,” Solas is visibly growing impatient, upset, crossing his arms and doing what he can to avoid raising his voice. It’s strange, she thinks, making a note of it to examine further later. So few things rile him, she’s not entirely sure why this would be something that does.

“He did that to himself when he left the Fade. I’m just helping him survive it.” Varric turns to her, leaning on Bianca with a far more casual air than his opponent in this argument. “What do you think, Bunny?”

“I…” she pinches the bridge of her nose, hating who she feels herself agreeing with for no other reason than innate stubbornness, “spirits of Compassion are rare in this world, and we need them. But on top of that, changing oneself in pursuit of revenge…I’m not entirely sure I feel comfortable encouraging that.”

“Wise as ever,” Solas nods, eyes softening as he regards her. Morinne has to control the urge to roll her eyes.

“So that’s what you’d do?” Varric asks, looking up at her then back to Cole, “in his shoes, you’d just forgive and forget?”

“No,” she scoffs without hesitation, “no, I’d kill the bastard, and I wouldn’t ask you two for permission before doing it either. That doesn’t mean it’s the wise choice though, especially for Cole.”

“Hmph, fair enough I guess,” Varric crosses his arms, looking to where Dorian stands with Cole, who’s still pacing and shaking his hands, “templars like that…a part of me thinks they should be put down like mad dogs.”

“A part of me agrees with you.”

“Then the two of you are welcome to return after things are settled with Cole,” Solas says, standing, “I will hardly keep either of you from ridding the world of someone of such a nature.”

He picks up his staff and goes back toward Cole and Dorian, speaking to them briefly before guiding Cole, a hand on his back, toward where they last saw the offending templar. She watches him walk, watches the way the sun glows on his skin, and feels the urge to curl up in bed and weep. Instead, Dorian begins to approach and she knows they need to meet with his father next for what will undoubtedly be yet another argument.

“Ya know, Bunny,” Varric says with a laugh, and she looks down at him, smiling as he bumps her arms with his elbow, “everytime I think I’m starting to understand him, he says something and I go back to square one.”

At this, she can’t help but give a small snort of a laugh, “He prefers it that way. No one gets to see under the polite mask.”

“Pretty sure you did.”

“I don’t know anymore Varric,” she lets out a long sigh, flexing her stiff left hand, “I really don’t know.”

—

They decide to indulge in rented rooms at the inn at the edge of town as their meetings crawl into late afternoon and it becomes clear that setting back to Skyhold so late won’t be much of an option. Morinne opts to share with Dorian, and the other three stay together, all parting ways after a hearty but tense meal of venison stew. No one wants to spend any more time dissecting the day’s events, lest it lead to further discussions or bickering, so they sup and sip their wine in near silence.

It makes no difference, they’re all exhausted as it is, and the moment her head hits the pillow, she is lost to the Fade.

She finds herself on the seashore, the pebbled coast of the Waking Sea harsh under her bare feet as the cool water laps at her toes. They’d camped here just before she left for the Conclave, the easiest point for which her small travelling party might depart for Ferelden and as far south as the rest of the clan might venture. None stand around her now, but it’s the same cloudy skies, the same grey, windy day, as it had been that last full day with her clan. The last time she saw them all alive.

Any moment, a demon will approach with an offer it believes she cannot refuse. It will tempt and harrass until she runs or fights or wakes, the same story as every night for the last several weeks. It’s grown exhausting, predictable, and overall, rather boring. There are only so many ways a despair demon might stir the grief in one’s heart before it grows rather repetitive.

So Morinne walks the shoreline, keeping her feet in the water as she balances on the slick stones underfoot, and waits for whatever is destined to appear to find her. She picks at her nails, tearing at the skin in the Fade since it won’t bother her when she wakes, and thinks over Varric’s story from the other night.

Solas couldn’t possibly be…it would be completely unhinged to let herself begin to even consider…

Wouldn’t it?

And if so, why can’t the thought leave her mind? Why does it keep twisting there, nagging and writhing like an unwelcome parasite, everytime she reflects on his actions of late? Everytime she thinks of him at all?

What would it even change if he were? Besides everything, of course, but would it change her? Would it change them?

Suddenly, the anchor begins to throb in blinding pain, cutting through her thoughts almost to the point of waking her, and then the trees on the horizon begin to shake as something approaches. Something massive. The stones under her feet rattles and jump as whatever it is takes step by step closer.

Before she can figure out how to react, where she might hide, a towering wolf with six blue, glowing eyes stands before her, towering as tall - no, taller - than most of the trees it cuts through. She’s fought dragons and the Dread Wolf before her is easily their size, no longer appearing to her as a docile, average sized wolf.

“Speak of the Dread Wolf, and he shall appear, da’len,” Deshanna always told her after she used Fen’harel’s name as a curse or a swear. Perhaps her mentor hadn’t been so far off.

The beast - or rather, God - is certainly more disheveled than she might have expected. Covered in scars and mostly hairless, it circles the small clearing by the shore, studying her. Its blue tongue licks its lips, as if it means to devour her, and she knows the part of her that has heard the stories all her life, the tales of caution meant to instill fear, ought to kick in.

But Morinne only feels indignation.

“So you finally choose to appear,” she puts her hands on her hips, looking up at the great beast, “do the shouted prayers of the People mean so little to the great and terrible Fen’Harel that you ignore my pleas? You won’t find many others who seek your aid, only those who curse your name, so it’s a wonder why you would avoid someone willing to make a deal with you rather than run screaming.”

“Is this how a faithful woman of the Dalish speaks to a God?” The voice that rumbles from the wolf is masculine, more or less, but like layers upon layers of voices that echo through the Fade all at once, rumbling until the words settle into her very marrow. It feels as though it’s made up of the young and the old, the ill and the well, generations upon generations.

“If it’s deference you seek, then very well,” Morinne goes to her knees, looking up at the massive wolf before dipping her head in a show of respect, “I bow before you, oh great Fen’Harel, Lord and Roamer of the Beyond, and beg you hear my simple request.”

She feels the puff of breath as the wolf almost laughs at her demonstration, “A hollow show, da’len.”

“Whatever you would have of me, I will give,” Morinne looks up, then dares to rise from her knees, “the world has taken almost everything I have, but whatever is left I will give to you in exchange.”

All six eyes narrow at her, “In exchange? You offer much, yet have made no requests of me.”

“Forgive me,” perhaps it’s the pain in her hand that makes her so impertinent, or maybe it’s just the weeks upon weeks of grief, “I thought you sought deference. If there is a common order of events when requesting aid of a God, I have not been formally trained on such things and must ask your pardon.”

“Such insolence,” the wolf’s great claws dig into the dirt before her as it settles on all fours, laying down, “tell me what you seek for I am curious to hear what a woman with such cheek might demand of me.”

“Safe passage for my clan,” she balls her fists behind her back, squaring her shoulders, “I had no way to offer them the funeral rights as needed to guide them to Falon’din’s side, so I beg you to see them to the Beyond, to the realm you wander freely. I have so little to offer but,” her voice cracks slightly and she swallows the tears that threaten to form, “I could not save them in life. I must do what I can for them in death.”

The wolf makes a sound almost like a hum in consideration.

“Anything, I swear it,” she continues, this time falling to her knees in earnest supplication, “my body, my mind, my own eternity - I will proffer anything for this, and I - I’m sorry for the disrespect, sincerely. It is simply out of impatience, I’ve called out to you for days praying you might find me again, that I might beg this of you. And now, I cannot help but fear that I’m too late.”

All its many eyes look down at her, and something in them feels almost sad as she gazes up. When its next breath warms her skin, she realizes it smells vaguely of elfroot, blood, and something else, something familiar.

“You need not beg of me, Morinne of Clan Lavellan, for their spirits soar through the Beyond and await you in eternity.”

A dam bursts within her, and she weeps again, relief and joy and grief released through her as she kneels at the feet of the first betrayer of her people. She vaguely senses that the wolf lowers its head, resting it on its paws while she cries.

“Thank you,” she finally manages, wiping at her nose and trying to compose herself.

“I have done nothing you must thank, it is merely the way of things.”

“May I ask you a question then, Dread Wolf?”

The wolf squints at her again, surprised, then gives a nod of its enormous head.

“Did you ever have priests? Faithful? There are no stories of such, as there are of the Creators, and you have no vallaslin, but -”

“I claimed none in such ways,” the voice, or voices, rumble in response, “I did not seek followers or praise in such forms.”

“Of course, right,” she nods, adding it to the million theories in her mind as a potential answer that only adds more questions, “thank you.”

“I leave you then, da’len. May your mind be at ease with the knowledge of your kin.”

She wakes and finds it to be dawn, though the dream felt as though it lasted only minutes. Dorian’s rumbling snores still sound in the bed across the room, so she doesn’t rise, instead considering what she’s learned.

All she can think of though is the immediate realization that comes with waking. The scent of the wolf’s breath, it had been familiar, but in dream’s she couldn’t place why.

In waking though, she knows, and it has her sitting up quickly, struck by a sudden, anxious burst of energy.

Paint. It had been paint on the beast’s breath. The kind so familiar to her for one reason, by one person.

And it’s not enough, not nearly enough to condemn him - she knows how the Fade loves to play tricks of the mind. But her mind screams harellan again and again, and dread fills her veins like ice water. Dread and then pain, pain in her hand, in the anchor - so bright and hot she gasps and cries loud enough to wake Dorian.

He rushes to her side, where she’s fallen to her knees on the threadbare rug, clutching the anchor to her chest and panting into the pulsing, thrumming pain.

“What? What is it?”

“Something’s happening, I’m not…fuck I’m not sure,” Morinne extends her hand, looking down at the mark that glows so bright she can see the way it extends down the veins of her wrist and up to the tips of her fingers, farther than it has ever spread before. “I think - I don’t know - maybe…we need to go.”

“Corypheus?”

She meets his eyes; dark, tired, and etched with deep concern, “I think so.”

Chapter Text

Solas

They race across the countryside, a blur of autumn leaves and familiar hillsides disappearing for perhaps the last time as Morinne’s mare tears off in the direction of the ruins where the Temple of Sacred Ashes once stood. No one questions how she knows, how the anchor pulls her toward the orb that granted her such power, they simply follow.

Dorian spoke into the sending stone at some point, he’s lost track of time now, confirming with the advisors back at Skyhold exactly what’s happening - who out to be sent, how many soldiers, where they are and so on. The Inquisitor refused to slow, so Dorian shouted through the stone until all was confirmed before tucking it away and rolling his eyes with a very dramatic flair.

“It’s a four day trek, Morinne,” Dorian calls to her as twilight blankets the world around them, the horses growing sweaty under their palms, “we must rest, and rest the horses. You cannot expect us to ride straight there without stopping.”

“We will stop at dawn, long enough to water the horses,” she yells over her shoulder without slowing, and the Tevinter glances at him as if to make some sort of mutual plea to reason with her. Solas knows, however, that Morinne will not listen - not now. Should they delay, it will result in countless deaths, in a future only she and Dorian have seen.

So Solas doesn’t question her, nor do Cole or Varric. They ride, lit by the bright light of the full moon and the stars overhead. Only once the sun begins to turn the sky shades of violet, then pink and peach, does their leader finally slow by a small lakeside, leading her horse to the water’s edge so it might drink and rest.

“This is madness,” Dorian whispers to no one in particular, “she won’t be rested enough to fight.”

“She’ll be fine,” Solas says firmly, then jumps from his own saddle, his body protesting to finally move again after so long in one position.

They eat quickly in a small circle, scarfing down the remains of their rations that serve as their meals for the last twenty-four hours, and he watches her. The nervous bounce of her leg as she eats, the tension in her jaw between bites, the exhaustion under her eyes. Some part of him thinks perhaps Dorian is correct, but then so is Morinne - they have no choice but to rush toward Corypheus and the battle that awaits them.

“Maybe,” Varric starts, also looking at Morinne, “we should double up or something. Take three horses instead of five. That way at least a couple people can rest at a time.”

He turns to Morinne, watching her consider the proposition around the bite of an apple. Watching the way her lips part around the fruit, the way the juice collects on her lower lip just before falling to the grass below as she takes a bite when her eyes meet his, a shadow of the mischief he used to find there daily almost alight in her gaze once more.

“You ought to consider it,” Solas says, agreeing with Varric, and Dorian lets out a loud, relieved sigh.

“Fine,” she concedes, “I’ll consider it.”

They linger around the lake, allowing the horses to rest and stretching their own stiff muscles. All the while, Morinne paces, then lays down in the grass with a hand over her face to block the sun, then paces again. He watches as she mutters to herself, flexing her glowing left hand, stress and something he can’t place making her more tense than normal. It doesn’t seem to just be the looming battle that bothers her, he’s more than able to predict her behavior before a fight now - and this is not it. Dorian and Varric both attempt to calm her - Dorian going so far as sitting with her, braiding her hair while she taps her foot as if it might release more of her endless, restless energy. Eventually, she rises, demanding they get moving once more.

On the first day of riding, she sits in front of Dorian first, then allows him to rest after. Solas switches with Cole and Varric, allowing each to get a few hours of rest before finding a place to stop.

On the second day, he watches her climb into the saddle behind Cole, the two immediately whispering closely as they take off. He can’t make heads or tails of what’s bothering her, but has no right to ask, so they continue on.

They only stop again at the sight of a small Inn, one they haven’t passed since the days travelling to and from Haven, at which point Varric and Morinne sell their exhausted but beloved horses for fresh, rested mounts and a handful of gold. While the horsemaster prepares them, they tuck into the ramshackle building for the chance at a meager supper. After desperate pleading from all around their table, she finally acquiesces to spend the night in real beds, but demands they depart at sunrise and not a moment later.

“I need to speak with you,” she says, approaching him at his gelding as he repacks his saddlebags. Her hand stops shockingly close to where his rests on the leather, and then she leans against the horse to face him. “Ride with me.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s appropriate.”

“I won’t hold it against you if you can’t help your body’s reaction to mine bouncing against you in the saddle for hours,” she snorts, and he feels a blush heat his cheeks just as thoroughly as the sun does the back of his neck. It hadn’t been part of his concern, though he supposes she might have a point. “It won’t change things between us. At least, that won’t. But this is important, and it needs to be before Corypheus.”

“Lethallan, I -”

“Morinne, absolutely not,” Dorian scolds from where he stands two horses away, glaring at the way she’s turned her body to him, the conspiratorial, low tone she’s taken. “Come here, you’re riding with me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must be mistaken - I didn’t realize you were the Inquisitor! How foolish of me!”

“Whatever argument you wish to have, we can speak after Corypheus. There will be time to speak later, Morinne,” Solas urges, knowing he cannot share a saddle with her, not since it will be the first time to be so close to her since Crestwood. Since the ride there, when he’d tugged her to him, kissing the soft skin of her neck, breathing at the place where she dabbed her perfume, every bouncing jolt of the horse made the both of them more eager to arrive.

“You don’t even know what I want to talk about.”

“Given our last several conversations, I’m able to guess.”

“Whatever you’re guessing is wrong,” she puts both hands on her hips, frustrated, “I’m not going to beg you to want me again or something, Solas. I have some dignity.”

He can’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose, “That was not what I meant to suggest, simply -”

“Paint and blood on his breath, a blessing given in dreams becoming an answer in waking, she sees through time and pain and the love burns as bright as the wolf’s eyes.”

At Cole’s interruption, his insight into whatever is going on in Morinne’s mind, she gives a half smile, mouth lifting into something almost near a smirk before her eyes return to his. “Exactly.”

And then, finally, it dawns on him.

“No.”

“No?”

“You will ride with Dorian.”

“You’re fucking joking,” she says, ignoring Dorian’s call for her again, “there are things for us to talk about, Solas.”

He cannot - will not - tell her. Not yet. It’s…No, he cannot. There is so much at stake, so much to - and to do so on horseback, on the way to fight the imitation of a god he gave this power to, it is unthinkable. He went too far, speaking to her, showing her what he did in the dream last night - it had only been to offer her a bit of comfort. To ease a bit of the grief he knew haunted her every step since Crestwood, since her Clan’s untimely deaths.

“Whatever you think you’ve uncovered, Inquisitor, I assure you,” he swallows back bile and the truth, forcing forward the lie, “you are mistaken.”

He sees her hand tighten where she grips the saddle, as if she might raise her foot and climb into the seat to spite him. “You’re not as good a liar as you think you are.”

“As you say,” he clears his throat, nodding toward Dorian, “I can ride with Cole or Varric to ensure we -”

“As Inquisitor,” Morinne says firmly, looking at him, then over her shoulder to the rest of their party, “I am making it clear that this is what is happening. Get on the horse.”

“Are you quite serious?” he stares at her, brows raised. “You would pull rank into this?”

He watches her step forward then mount, adjusting to sit forward in the saddle so there will be room enough behind her for him, no question left in her eyes. “There’s no time for further debate. Come on, up.”

“And if I refuse?”

He can sense the stares coming from everyone else, slowly climbing into the rest of their saddles, Cole and Varric riding double for the time being, but ignores them - focus staying entirely on her.

“Ma harel lasa,” she seethes, patting the space behind her again, “viran se lan'aan, fen?”

Solas feels his blood go cold, nerves tightening his stomach and dampening his palms, and against his better judgement, he raises a foot to the stirrup and lifts himself into the saddle.

Her body should be a comfort against his, after so long without it, but he cannot focus on it, can focus on nothing but the road in front of them as they set their course and set off. Once all are at varying distances, horses spread out as best they can on the simple road, he feels her almost relax against him. Her back curves into his chest like it once had, and his heart thunders at the sensation despite the lightning of fear that still storms through his mind.

“Your elvhen is certainly improving.”

“I have countless angry priests in my head,” she says in return, their horse beginning to walk back toward the road, “they are angry and unwilling tutors but I’d rather know than remain in ignorance. Which, I suppose, might come as a shock to you.”

He cannot help the loud sigh that escapes him, fumbling as he tries to find an appropriate place for his hands, trying not to focus on the feeling of her thighs between his own.

“Did you really think I wouldn't draw some conclusions eventually?” she finally asks, voice loud enough to carry over the heavy hoofbeats and the wind in their faces. Her hair smells like home - like sweat and the road and the last year spent in her arms, her tent, her bed.

“I’m not sure what you think you’ve discovered,” he murmurs at her ear, forcing himself to keep from nipping at it, instinct stirring something wicked within him, “but I can assure you -”

“What will it take for you to stop lying to me?”

He sighs, “Morinne…”

“Did you think you were subtle? That, in combination with everything we’ve learned and the fucking voices of the well in my head, that I might not start piecing things together? That I - oh, I don’t know - might suddenly realize that the Dread Wolf caught my scent immediately after we met, for the first time in my life?”

“I did not realize you’d come to trust the -”

“Stop talking in circles, Solas,” she turns slightly, enough that as pressed together as they are in the saddle, her cheek almost brushes his nose, “stop playing this game.”

“There is no game,” he says, though he’s no longer sure how true the statement is. She simply rolls her eyes, turning back to the road, and he shakes his head. “You ought to rest.”

“You know that’s not what’s going to happen.”

“Then you won’t mind if I do in your stead.”

“Of course I mind - you can’t end this conversation before it even begins!”

“The bitterness you feel at the way I ended things is understandable, Inquisitor, and I will accept further admonishment after we conclude our dealings with Corypheus,” their horse swerves to avoid a rock in the road and he cannot help but grip her to him, cringing at the contradiction in his words and the way his heart burns to hold her so close. “For now, I must insist you harden your heart to a cutting edge and put that pain to good use against our foe.”

“I take down one would-be god with a real one at my side,” she grumbles, and he feels truly sick to hear her say it, “I’m sure it won’t be anywhere near as dire as we imagined.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right.”

“I’m quite serious.”

“I’m going to be a tale told ‘round the campfires, you know? The Dalish girl, sent to the shems, who found her way to Fen’Harel’s bed, gave up her vallaslin, and -”

His hand leaves the reins and grips her arm, tighter than he intends, “Morinne.”

“Tell me I’m wrong, harellan,” she challenges, looking at him once more, “lie to me outright, Solas. Deceive me, oh Lord of Tricksters. Play me for a naive fool, Spirit Speaker. Betray me again, God of - ah!”

She stops, hissing in pain and pressing her left hand to her chest, the anchor glowing vividly, horribly green. The hiss becomes a groan, guttural and somewhere behind him, Varric calls out in concern. He tightens his arm around her waist, holding her upright, to him, and then she slumps against him, panting. Fear and guilt tangle in him, dark and awful and familiar, the only emotions he knows anymore. Only his love for her matches the strength he feels in regret and horror of what he’s done, what he’s put her through, but it won't be enough to save her.

“Fuck,” she moans, the pain of the anchor glowing as she stretches her hand before her and he looks down, horror overwhelming him as he realizes the anchor has spread. The power glows from her fingertips to her wrist now, vein-like tendrils of bright green snaking up from where the bulk of the light pours from her.

“It will pass,” he attempts to comfort her, willing some of his power into the anchor in an attempt to calm the magic that was once his. It dulls, less bright thought still pulsing with light, guiding them toward their destination. “You’ll be alright, we’re almost there.”

“Why won’t you tell me the truth?” her voice is smaller than it was before, as though the anchor consumed not only her remaining energy but her rage as well. No longer demanding he admit anything, simply the truth, and somehow the simplicity in the shift is so much worse.

“After Corypheus,” he tries, unsure if it’s truth or lie that leaves his lips, “I promise.”

“Your promises don’t mean as much as they used to.” She slumps against him, gasping and flexing her hand as the pain seems to slowly calm, the light of the anchor starting to dim.

“I…am well aware, however this time I am simply delaying as opposed to outright denying.”

“Fine, I’ll pretend to believe you.” She sighs and nods, then yawns, shifting against him to find a more comfortable position. He cannot help the arm that goes around her, hugging her tighter, the warmth of her body a balm for his own weary soul.

“Ir abelas,” he whispers against her hair, doing all he can to keep his eyes on the road and not on her, on the way her eyes grow heavy despite how her left hand is still clenched in visible pain. “For now, rest, Morinne. Please.”

“Tel’abelas vhenan,” she says sleepily against his chest. The winding blowing the strands of her hair that have come free from her braid tickle his cheeks as they ride, and slowly, finally, he notices Morinne’s hand loosen as she falls asleep.

He was always going to ruin her, he reminds himself, guiding the horse toward either victory or doom. Love was never the plan, never the intention, and he should have never been allowed such light, such care. Not after all he’d done, both to the world and to himself, but also to her. Whatever knowledge she claims to have, it cannot come close to the truth of the matter, the full story, will always be worse than she imagines.

What a fool he was to consider telling her in such a cavalier way, back in that glade. Once the world is repaired, the Veil sundered and the old world restored, perhaps she will understand. She will have eternity to forgive him - for his betrayals, the deaths that might come with the changes, for everything. For that, he can wait, he tells himself again and again.

Within a couple more hours of riding, the sky overhead shifts, darkening as they approach the Breach and the ruins where they find their enemy. Morinne stirs once more, waking but holding tight to him all the same, her arguments from earlier in the day quieted by the jagged landscape and dark clouds.

“How do you feel?” he asks at her ear, their horses beginning to slow as they approach the scene of floating rocks and massive, towering red lyrium shards.

“Ready to be done with this,” she says, dismounting and throwing a blazing wall of fire up to keep a handful of red templars at a distance, “once and for all.”

Morinne

“Solas?”

“The orb…”

“I’m sorry…I know you wanted it in tact,” she takes a few steps toward him, looking over the artifact that’s split cleanly in two. The intricate grooves marking the exterior of the onyx that feels like it ought to be crackling with magic, yet is wholly quiet and unremarkable between his outstretched hands.

“It was not your fault,” he breathes, his voice disappointed and terribly sad, as if they didn’t just complete the task they set out to do when they began this journey. As if they didn’t just kill a would-be god. He stands finally, leaving the orb on the stones behind him.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“It was not…it was not supposed to happen this way,” he shakes his head, taking a step closer.

She sees, out of the corner of her eye, Varric, Dorian and Cole move toward the edge of the rocky outcropping, down toward the makeshift stairs. A small offering of privacy.

“You were right to be angry. I hope, in time, you will understand,” his eyes search hers, desperation, pain, yearning there in those haunted violet depths, all of which she’s sure she no longer has any understanding of. Or maybe she does, but either way, she knows it’s too late.

Her fist goes to her heart without thinking, pressing there as if the dull push of pain might distract from it breaking yet again. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Solas takes another almost tentative step toward her, and he doesn’t have to answer - she knows it to be true by the awful quiet that hangs between them. She needs him to grant her one final goodbye, to mean it, with the knowledge this time that it will indeed be the last so she might pour her whole being, her very soul, into the entirety of the exchange.

She swallows around the building tears in her throat, though it does nothing to alleviate the ache.

“It doesn’t have to end like this,” she tries, “I meant it before - whatever you need, we can find together. I still mean it, Solas, I always will.”

“Do not wait for me, Morinne, live your life,” and he pauses again, stops himself, as if he might say more and chooses not to. He closes his eyes for a second, then two, and she sees tears coat his cheeks. She should demand answers now, before he disappears for good, so she can finally know the truth - if it’s really been the Dread Wolf at her side all this time.

Instead she decides to step forward, closing the distance, knotting her fists in the pelt draped over his shoulder. The wolf pelt, she notes, ignoring the smattering of dragon blood caked in the fur.

“Inquisitor!” A voice calls in the distance, a scout or a soldier, and she holds back the instinct to loudly groan.

“One moment!” She calls over her shoulder, and when she turns back to Solas, his eyes are on hers again. She can see the decision has been made, the course set. He will go, and she will remain. They will part ways, and it will be over, for real and for good.

He nods with her, unspoken understanding passed between them and they both let out shaky breaths as if it’s the last few tears they’ll shed together over this love, over what it might have been.

“No matter what comes, I want you to know that what we had was real,” he says, and before she can believe what she’s seeing, one gloved hand goes to the cords of the wolfbone around his neck and tugs. It comes undone, and then he’s holding her hand, wrapping her fingers around it, but she can’t look away from his face - not when it’s the last time. “I love you, more than I have words for, and I swear to you that was never a lie.”

“I love you,” she gasps around her tears, the teeth of the jawbone in her hand sharp even through the leather of her own gloves.

He’s fully crying with her now, but pulls her into a real embrace, a last goodbye, and she lets him. Lets herself relish the scent of him after battle, one she’s come to know so well - sweat, smoke, leather, and magic and still, under it all, him - and tries to burn it into her mind. So that years, decades, centuries from now, be it in the embrace of the Maker or the Creators or the Void, she will remember.

“You could still stay,” she says against his chest, unsure who the words are for. He won’t stay, she knows that, but the desperate last attempt still leaves her lips as if, perhaps, he might. “Or -”

“No, vhenan,” he pulls away only slightly, uttering the awful words against her forehead, “I cannot.”

“Inquisitor?” Cassandra’s voice yells for her this time and Morinne tightens her grip on Solas’ armor, knowing it’s time, it’s the end.

“I know who you are,” she says, voice muffled by his armor, “I know everything, and I’m not afraid. I don’t love you any less for it.”

“You will find, in time, those feelings will change, will sour -”

“Fine, I -”

“Morinne!?”

“Gods, yes, a moment!” she shouts back to the soldier or scout or whoever needs her before turning back to Solas. “Please, come back to Skyhold, just long enough for us to speak.”

He sighs, and for some reason she believes it to be enough, to be a confirmation, an agreement. She turns, jawbone in one hand, the other wiping at her eyes, and moves toward the makeshift set of stairs where the rest of their friends and soldiers have gathered, waiting for her. They ask her if it’s true, if Corypheus is defeated - it’s only final once the words come from the Inquisitor’s mouth, after all - and she says yes. It’s over. It’s done.

A few people clap, a few breath loud sighs of relief, letting tears fall between them as they embrace to know it’s finished. Cassandra asks her what they will do next, as if Morinne has any idea, and she says all will return to Skyhold. What else is there to do? Cassandra claps her on the arm, the closest her friend will come to congratulating her in public, and turns back to the soldiers she led here from Skyhold.

She nods at Dorian and Varric, then inclines her head back up toward where she left Solas, wordlessly telling them where she’d be before sprinting back up the stairs.

“Solas -!”

She calls out, biting the inside of her cheek as she comes over the crest of steps, some horrible, ridiculous part of her hoping that, in spite of it all, he’ll still be there. He will be standing where she left him, shaking his head, and when she runs into his arms they will weep together, because it can get better finally. They can fix it, truly, like it was always meant to be fixed.

Only silence remains where he stood. Where he broke the last of his promises, took the truth and the last of her love, and ran.

Morinne wishes she had the energy to fall to her knees again. To weep and weep and weep. The pain lodges in her throat, familiar and awful, but all she can muster is a sigh before turning back, and returning home. In the midst of the celebrations, no one seems to notice that their Inquisitor’s heart has once again broken.

—

It takes almost a fortnight for Skyhold to rest and gather the resources, invitations, and energy to celebrate the Inquisition’s victory. When the evening finally arrives, dressed in leather leggings and a velvet coat, cut to be more flattering than what the bulk of their party arrived in at Halamshiral, Morinne cannot deny that Josephine certainly has a knack for such arrangements. Strings of lights hang across the courtyard, casting it in a magical glow of golds and ambers.

Guests and Inquisition residents alike mingle throughout the courtyard, gardens, and Great Hall, the buzz of conversation as lively as the music being strummed.

Morinne smiles and thanks the dignitaries and various politicos that offer her their congratulations with toasts and smiles and offers to have her visit in their various residences across Thedas. She sips her sparkling wine, dodging questions about her missing vallaslin, before eventually excusing herself. She walks the length of the Great Hall, smiling softly at her friends, all in various states of drunkenness and merriment, before slipping upstairs to her room.

In another month, they will be off to the Storm Coast, called on a mission to investigate problems in the Deep Roads. She can think of no better place to stew in her anger than deep underground, scorching darkspawn hordes. There are still rifts to close as well, the anchor’s thrumming energy is a constant reminder of the fact that life will hardly slow now - she will be on the move until all are closed. Until the Veil itself is healed, and only the scar of the Breach is left to remind the world of what happened.

The first stars begin to shine overhead before Morinne registers the cold of the balcony, but by then, it hardly feels like it matters. It hardly feels like anything does right now. There is work, and there is little else, and she supposes that is fine. No invitation came for Arlathvhen, though it is to take place in a few months, so she’s sure the Dalish have heard of her betrayals. Do they call her ‘harellan’ now? The idea is almost enough to pull a laugh from her. Almost.

She bites her thumb nail, considering. Somewhere out there, Solas is planning something. She just has to find him, find out -

“Inquisitor?”

“Hmm?” she turns, looking up to find Leliana standing at the top of the stairs lowering her hood. “Oh, come in.”

“There are still several people looking for you downstairs,” the spymaster says, taking a few steps forward as Morinne comes in from the balcony, “should I inform them you’ve retired for the evening?”

“No, no, I just…needed some air,” she moves to sit at the edge of her desk, crossing her arms.

“I thought while you were alone, we might speak on what you asked me to send scouts out for,” Leliana says, stopping a couple of steps from Morinne, watching as her brows go up in interest. “My agents have found no trace of Solas. He has simply vanished. If he does not wish to be found, there’s likely nothing we can do. But I will keep looking.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. I just don’t understand. He…we still had several things to discuss, things he promised to speak with me on, I…” she shakes her head, sighing, “well, it is what it is. Thank you for the update, and I appreciate that you maintain scouts on this. I do think it’s important - for more than just personal reasons.”

“The two of you were close. Perhaps he had no choice? He might return at any moment.”

Morinne can’t help but frown, though she shrugs for Leliana’s sake, “I suppose he could, yes.”

“I am sorry, Inquisitor, for the pain he caused you.”

“Oh, you - I mean, thank you, Leliana, that’s very kind,” she trips over her words, surprised to hear such kindness from the spymaster who always seemed to keep her at a distance, as if she never entirely trusted her. “I’m sure it’s not the last of him, honestly. Things are far too complicated for it to end as they have. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.”

“Well I hope you know how grateful the rest of us are for you, even if Solas chose not to make such things clear,” Leliana crosses her arms, looking out toward the mountains briefly before meeting Morinne’s eye once more. “If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be standing here. And I… would still be lost. You gave me back my hope and my faith. And for that, I thank you.”

“Oh…” she feels a blush rise to her cheeks, “there is nothing to thank, Leliana, truly.”

“That isn’t even mentioning the vote for Divine, which I am aware you took part in.”

“Your vision for the future of the mages made it a very easy choice,” Morinne says, standing from where she’s perched. “And again, there’s nothing to thank. At least not yet, because you know we’re going to be working together plenty, and I’m probably going to be a big pain in your ass over the next few years.”

“You assume I’ll be appointed. And agreeable.”

At this, she snorts a laugh, drawing a smile to the spymaster’s usually stoic face, “I do assume that, yes!”

“Come, there is still much to do before worrying over such things,” Leliana says with a shake of her head, “in the meantime, let’s have another drink to your victories.”

Morinne nods, knowing she’s right, she needs to get back to the party, the guests, the many people who finance the Inquisition and make all of this happen. There is still plenty of work to be done. Part of he almost thought she'd hang up the mantle of Inquisitor shortly after this was all done, after defeating Corypheus. It seems, however, the world has no intention of letting her go so soon. And even if it did, she thinks to herself, where would she go now? Who would she be?

They walk from the tower and just before she closes the door, she swears that, somewhere in the far distance, she hears a wolf cry.

Chapter Text

“Solas.”

It's been two years, eight weeks, and nine days since he last heard her voice outside the Fade. He’s wandered her dreams as a wolf, watching in the dark corners of her memories when he can no longer resist the lure of her mind, the call of her heart. She stroked his fur as she wept, telling him of her lost love and the life she claims is crumbling. She’s known she was speaking to him, and yet she tells the stories like he’s a stranger to her. In some ways, he supposes, he is.

It's been two years since he looked upon her. Two years to lure her back to his side, to finally pull the threads of fate and agents of Elvhenan and Inquisition alike to bring her back to him.

Now that she's here, he is near breathless at the sight of her.

She approaches in new armor, caked in the blood of their shared Qunari enemies, her left arm uncovered and glowing with the uncontrolled magic of the anchor. Thinner, he realizes as she approaches, she is thinner, and looks exhausted. Her hair is a tangle that had once been a braid, somehow even longer than it had been when he left her.

Changes that mark the agonizing passage of time. Of a life lived without him.

“...Or should I finally call you Fen’Harel?”

The name in her mouth is expected, but still a blade.

“You were correct before, but I could not, in that moment, explain everything to you.” He takes a step toward her until they are closer than they have been since before the orb lay broken at his feet. “I suspect you have questions.”

“I suspect I do,” she looks up at him, expression fierce though he knows the hurt that lies under it, knows it mirrors his own. “Though I yet again have to wonder if you’ll even bother answering. And if you do, whether or not it will be the truth.”

“I regret the way things had to be, you must know that -”

“They didn’t have to be anything, Solas, you made them that way by choice.”

“What would you have had me say? That I was the great adversary in your people's mythology?”

“I would have had you trust me!”

He pauses, surprised by her yet again. He bites back the tears that immediately jump to his throat, the hate and rage he feels for all he has consistently put her through when all she has ever wanted is truth. He is a fool.

“I understand your anger. In your position, I would share it.”

“So formal,” she chides, shaking her head. “Our legends about you are wrong, you know I know that now.”

“You did not then.”

She shrugs, unsatisfied by his shameful attempts to dissuade her. “I figured it out - I wanted to know and I would have listened, you know that. I would have loved you anyway.”

“Then you would carry the same burden I do,” this time, when his voice cracks, he wonders if she might finally believe him.

“Don’t you understand,” she takes a step forward and he forces himself to retreat in turn, the hurt in her eyes a wound he will never recover from, “I wanted to then and I want to now, Solas. Ma ghilana, vhenan.”

Another blade, another heartbreak. “I will answer your questions, Morinne, to the best of my abilities.”

“So you’ll lie.”

“No,” he says, turning to meet her unflinching gaze, shining with unspilled tears of hurt and anger. “No, I will not lie.”

So she asks, and he answers as he says he would - to the best of his ability. He tells her the truth of her legends, her gods that became monsters, how he had to do the same to stop them, that he will do so again. She asks as many questions as she can, though he sees the pain in her eyes, in the way she flexes and relaxes her left hand as the anchor fights against his magic.

“Why do any of this then? If the world is going to end anyway?”

“Why give you peace? Why ensure you do not fall to a world of cruelty and agony at the hands of a master who would -”

“No,” she seethes, “Why me, Solas? Why build me into this, when you knew I wanted none of it? You could have steered any of them, fuck, you could have taken it yourself. You knew this power was eating me whole, that this title, this whole business was never meant for me, but you stood there and told me to take it and then kissed me anyway.”

He has no good answer, because she won’t be satisfied hearing he’s asked it of himself every day since he left her.

“I am such a fool,” her voice breaks on the words when she speaks again, her anger finally relenting to the sadness he knew lurked within her. “I knew you had some sort of plans, but…I thought you’d finally talk to me, or - Gods, I don’t know. I thought, in time - thought you’d choose me again and -”

“It is not a choice I can make, Morinne,” he says, watching the tears fall down her cheeks, watching the way she screws her eyes tight to try and contain her emotions, as if she needs to. She shakes her head, turning from him, gasping around the emotion, and the sight is a horror he will not look away from because he deserves it. He deserves the torture of watching what this does to her, the torment and agony of how it feels in his own heart.

“It could be,” she bites her lip, catching her breath and sniffling. “You do not have to go through this alone. You never did.”

He cannot speak, cannot move, for if he does there is a chance he will break and she will have an opening, a way through and into him. And he cannot, cannot bring her with him. He knows what will be asked of him again, what duty does to his heart, his mind. He sees Felassan’s dying breath, Mythal’s rotting corpse, the thousands upon thousands condemned by his pride. Not her, he prays to gods he does not have, never her.

So he changes the subject, looking down at where the anchor flashes and sparks in her fist.

“Your mark is getting worse.”

“No kidding,” she bites out, but before she might say more, another lash of green magic cuts through the space between them, loud as lightning. The mark fights him, magic she should have never known so bound to her spirit now that he can hardly contain its fits and spurts without surprising effort. It is killing her, no longer taking its time, but eagerly consuming her now.

He knew that. And yet it is excruciating to face.

“The mark is killing you,” it sounds so matter of fact, as if it has not caused him immense agony for years to know what will become of her because of it. Because of him. “Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you... at least for now.”

“Solas,” she breaks, finally, unable to hold the last of her strength together any longer as the pain and the magic win and bring her to her knees. “Please, Solas, please. Ma sa’lath, please, I cannot do this -”

“I know, vhenan, but we are running out of time.”

“Then buy us more,” she tries, through another wave of tears. He had no idea how fitful the anchor has become in his absence, how it fights against them both, even now. “Two years without you, how can you send me away now? Like this?”

“I must, vhenan,” he chokes out. “I will not have you see what I become.”

“So I must linger here, knowing the world’s fate and you are out there alone ending it? Knowing your greatest fear, your nightmare, and you expect me to walk away? I cannot bear that, Solas,” her voice shakes and she takes another step toward him, and he thinks he knows that she wants to shake him. To take him by the pelt on his shoulders and bear down on him for leaving, for forcing this upon her. Instead, she only says, “I cannot bear to think of you alone.”

“I walk the din'anshiral. There is only death on this journey.” It will not deter her, he knows this. Death has never frightened her, not truly, but the last several years have cemented that.

“If you do not take me, I will follow behind you. I will chase you, Solas, you know that. We will both walk this din'anshiral, even if you will not let me walk it at your side.”

“Vhenan…”

“You love me, Solas!” It’s no question, but a declaration. “You left for this, you forced me to endure the last two years, to feel all of this in some inane attempt to spare me. It is my choice now, and I will not let you go.”

“You truly should,” but he cannot force himself to tell her anything more damning. The idea of her on his heels, that she might be somewhere, in the periphery, on this journey with him, takes a small weight off his shoulders. He is a greater monster for the thought alone.

“It is not over,” she tries, “and when you hate yourself for this later, like I know you will, remember that I forgive you.”

“You will change your mind when the pain subsides.” He has never deserved her, he’s always known it, but now it is as stark as the slap to the face he truly deserves.

“I forgive you, I will not let you go,” she grits her teeth, flexing the glowing left hand that pains her, “and, Dread Wolf take me, I will love you until you kill me yourself.”

The anchor flares again. It throws her to her feet and she cradles her arm to her, as if broken, as if breaking, a deep scream of pain echoing through the mountain pass as the magic rends its way through marrow and vein. He tries to quiet it again but it fights, wrathful and desperate. He must take it from her here, now, or she will die. He watches her rise to her knees, tears on her cheeks and her arm extended, glowing. Glowing and glowing and glowing. “Solas, please, I can’t…”

“It’s time, my love,” he breathes, and feels the weight of the heart he never wanted like a sinking stone in his chest. “I am so sorry, ma vhenan, ma arasha.”

He kneels and removes the armored gloves so he might touch her, in spite of himself, so he might wipe away some of the endless hurt he’s caused her. His thumbs rub soft circles on her cheeks, those he’s kissed countless times and knows, in his soul, he will never kiss again.

“Ar lath ma,” she begins, her voice broken and quiet. “Ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma.”

Her love is an offer and hope and torment as he cradles her face, kisses her forehead and tugs on the magic of the anchor. He pulls the first threads of it loose from where it has become tangled in her spirit, her essence. She gasps, the sound from deep in her chest, and he swears he can feel the pain in his own from the sound alone.

“My love,” he whispers, and tears fill his eyes as they meet hers. One is now completely green, terrible and bright, matching the color of the anchor and the Fade. Forever stained by his magic and his touch. Forever ruined by his impact on her life. She is beautiful and she is changed.

His magic tugs again as he kisses her, softly, the smell of the burning magic and flesh ripe around them as the anchor fizzles and burns. She tastes of salted tears and sunlight and a home he will never see again. Whatever unbroken parts of him there were left before her shatter again and again, glass under a striking hammer.

“Ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma.”

She shakes in his hands, repeating her love in a prayer and proclamation and a desperate attempt to keep him. He has known the death of millions, has been soaked in the blood of thousands. This pain is still new to him. It threatens everything.

The anchor comes free in his hands, magic that was once his and became hers, twisted beyond either of their recognition. Power returning to its master. He begins weaving a powerful healing spell into her veins to hold off the bulk of her pain while tying off the unwieldy ends of the anchor, and looks over the damage. What remains of her left arm is little more than charred flesh, dancing black veins reaching above her elbow. It will hold until she is back at the winter palace, and then the healers will likely take it. Just another thing, another piece of her, ruined by knowing him.

He needs no focus to house the magic now, he absorbs it into himself, adding it to the deep well of magic he’d retrieved from the fragmented spirit of Mythal and feeling suddenly like the lake of power he might have been able to draw from is now vast and unending as the sea.

Perhaps, long ago, it felt more familiar. More like his own magic. Now, it feels like her hands on his chest, her legs tangled with his under camp blankets, her breath slow and heavy in sleep. It feels like sunlit grasses and the first warmth of a fire on a cold night. Her. Woven in the very essence of the ancient magic, one hundred times older than her oldest imaginings, and she has imprinted on it more deeply than he ever might have.

Morinne pants in pain and exhaustion and heartbreak, tears streaming from her eyes as her recitation continues. Devotion and distraction and -

Devotion, he realizes, as she continues.

“Ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma, ar lath ma.”

Her fist tangles in his pelt, her body shuddering in grief, but the words do not stop. A knife she wields relentlessly; pain he deserves without end. He gives her a moment, then another, because it is all he has left to give.

A spirit of devotion, a far off part of his mind finally recognizes, amidst the utter pain and chaos of the moment. Devoted to her cause, her people - to him. Devotion that becomes, so easily, despair and terror. The spirits of devotion became so rare…so easily misguided in their pursuits…yet she endured with strength, with grace, with wisdom.

He is a monster, he reminds himself, looking back at the face of his love, his heart. She will come to understand it, he is sure. This love, this pleading, will finally, eventually, become hate and rage. Heartbreak will harden until she meets someone else, someone worthy of what she can offer in the time left of this world.

He is a fool. Changed, by her, but terrible, unforgivable, and foolish.

“Solas,” she whispers, interrupting the tirade in his mind, her one good hand reaching for his cheek.

“I will never forget you,” he offers, though it is nothing in the face of what he’s taken. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and he knows he has to stop, to keep touching her is to delay the inevitable. He presses his forehead to hers, and they breathe together, words stopping as time seems to slow.

He forces himself to stand, to reach for his gloves and pull away, watching as she slowly closes her eyes in understanding. She says nothing, perhaps because she has said everything she can. She’s claimed his heart and he’s let her keep it.

He turns, lowering his head and knotting his hands together behind his back, making for the familiar glow of the towering mirror before him.

“This is not the end, vhenan,” she calls after him. “Var lath vir suledin.”

“I wish it could, vhenan,” his voice breaks, tears choking him on the promise in her words.

He does not look back as his first step through the mirror ripples with familiar magic, nor does he when her quiet tears turn to keening wails. He only breaks as the lighthouse fully materializes around him and the vi’revas closes behind him, the sound of her, of his broken heart, disappearing in the empty void. Only then does he fall, does Solas shatter and break, perhaps fully lost to the demands on his duty once more. Just as it had been before, so it would be again.

When he stands, it is as Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf rises in his place, leaving his heart behind in a mountain pass he tries to force himself to forget. He tells himself he will, that it can be done, that a year with her in the scope of his life is nothing compared to what is demanded of him. His best lies have always been the ones he tells himself.

“Mala suledin nadas,” he whispers to himself, to the Lighthouse around him, and the cycle begins again.