Chapter Text
"Ellana!"
She sprinted toward the bedroom, certain that either Solas or Parchment must be injured judging from the urgency in his voice.
"What is it? What happened?" Ellana asked as she swung wildly around the door frame.
"Have you seen my cufflinks?"
Solas looked truly distressed as he dug through his closet, pulling out shirt after shirt and tossing them on the bed. She stared at him, quickly adjusting her understanding of just how dire the situation was.
"The way you yelled, I thought it was something serious."
He raised his eyebrows, an expression that looked a bit like betrayal settling on his face.
"Sorry. Sorry." She waved her hands in an apology. "Which pair of cufflinks?"
Ridiculous question to have to ask, she thought, wondering exactly what the version of her who'd first met him a few months ago would think of her current situation. She might kill me, Ellana realized.
"The gold squares. I know I saw them only a few days ago and now …" Solas threw up his hands in frustration.
"Did you maybe wear them when we were in Val Royeaux on Tuesday night?"
They'd been summoned to the capital city for a tense, after-hours meeting at the Archives Nationales with a handful of administrators who were adamant that the Inquisitor's letters should immediately be put into their care (and, therefore, into the possession of the Orlesian government). Ellana sat in furious silence, digging her nails into her leg, as she let Solas respond to their questions with an impressive arsenal of non-answers.
In the end, they'd agreed to make the digital scans of the letters available to the Archives - though they'd neglected to specify when precisely they would do so and the people they'd met with hadn't thought to insist on a deadline.
Briala was waiting for them on the front steps of the Archives when they emerged. She was in town trying to calm a few nervous gala invitees - particularly the ones with deep pockets who the museum at Halamshiral counted on to add to its endowment each year. She stopped them only long enough to deliver the news that had been the bane of Ellana's existence for the past several days. Briala asked her to prepare a short speech for the unveiling of the Inquisitor's portrait.
Ellana had agreed. What other option did she really have, given how charged the subject of the Inquisitor had become over just a few short weeks? Nevermind that she was also trying to finish the book proposal, incorporating both the section Solas had written on their Vyrantium research as well as his and Leliana's edits to the initial drafts she'd given them. Why not add to all of that a speech that would need to be carefully crafted not to piss off any Orlesian politicians, but also didn't give them room to claim Inquisitor Lavellan any more than they already had?
Sure, Ellana had thought when Briala asked. Why the fuck not?
Solas was nodding slowly, obviously recounting the trip just as she was. "I think that's right," he said, finally. "I must have worn them then."
Their final stop in Val Royeaux had been a dinner that was, thankfully, just the two of them. The food was excellent - truly the only good excuse for moving to Orlais if she hadn't also been stupid in love with someone who lived there. A quiet moment for themselves after such a stressful evening had soothed Ellana's temper somewhat. And Solas, as usual, offered a welcome distraction.
She'd never had much patience for romantic nicknames, and she had a feeling Solas had guessed this from the way he was sprinkling little epithets too casually into conversations - almost like he was daring her to voice an objection. Lately he'd been experimenting with calling her my love - and Ellana truly believed it was an experiment on his part, one that he conducted more frequently when he was sleepy or had been drinking. Given the late hour and the wine they ordered, their dinner had been filled with such endearments.
Ellana found the entire idea hilarious and stiffly formal - but also, unfortunately, extremely romantic in a way that made her want to drag him out of the restaurant by his tie. She held back, making her feelings known with a tolerant smirk each time he let a my love fall from his lips, knowing she had a train ride and a walk back to the house before she could do much else about it.
"Then, after we arrived home …" Solas trailed off as he remembered what had happened next.
After they'd arrived home, Ellana had dragged him by his tie, all the way from the front door to the spare room, which they had recently begun to refer to as …
"The office," they said simultaneously.
"I'll get them," she offered.
Now that Ellana had fully moved out of her apartment, they'd added a few pieces of furniture to the spare room to make it more usable for both of them. They'd found a secondhand desk and positioned it beside Solas' easel, facing out the back windows. It was ideal for her to look out into the garden while she worked but also a perfect birdwatching perch for Parchment, which meant the cat now spent much of her day sitting on top of Ellana's closed laptop. Every time she passed the door and saw the cat napping there, it felt a little like a reprimand for not actively working on her draft.
To fill the last empty corner of the room, they'd purchased an enormous armchair that they could just barely occupy at the same time - and that was precisely what they'd been doing after they returned from Val Royeaux. Ellana had removed Solas' cufflinks and set them on the nearest bookshelf before she'd returned to the more important work of removing everything else he was wearing. They were precisely where she'd left them.
She hurried back to the bedroom.
"Here," she said, dropping them into Solas' waiting hand. "Now what are you actually pissed about, because this whole thing -" she gestured at the discarded shirts on the bed, "- can't just be about missing cufflinks."
"No. It's also about that." He pointed angrily at his phone, which was also sitting on the bed.
"You didn't install an app by mistake again, did you? You have to be careful where you click on those ads."
"No," he said with a withering look, as if it were an unreasonable thing for her to ask when he'd done exactly that a few days ago. "I just received two concerning emails. The first was from the Halamshiral trust saying there will be a 'surprise announcement' at the gala."
"Well I hate that," Ellana said. "And it seems like something Briala would have mentioned when we saw her."
"If she were aware of it."
"So what do you think it is?"
"I think it may be related to the second email I received."
The angry crease in his brow suddenly faded and was replaced by something much more hesitant.
"Why are you making that face?" she asked. "Now you've got me nervous."
"The university's Research Director informed me that I am to provide the digital copies of the Inquisitor's letters to the Archives Nationale by the end of business on Monday."
He sat on the edge of the bed, irritably crossing his arms over his chest.
"I guess it was inevitable they'd force a deadline on us at some point," Ellana said with more calm than she felt. "But why is it coming from your university?"
"Because it receives public funding. Thus, the Ministry of Culture has substantial leverage with which to influence its administration. And as the letters were examined using university resources and personnel, it is within the university's purview to decide when to turn over the results of that research."
"Why now?" Ellana began to pace back and forth at the foot of the bed. "Is this just because they're mad we didn't immediately agree to hand everything over after that meeting? What's suddenly so important that they can't wait?"
"There was some allusion to diplomatic efforts between Orlais and Tevinter."
"Diplomatic efforts?" she scoffed. "The Inquisitor is a historical curiosity, not a trade agreement. Why the hell do they care so much about her?"
"Had I to guess, I would say Orlais cares about the letters because Tevinter is forcing the issue. You have already seen how desperate they are to maintain their fragile relationship."
She nodded reluctantly, remembering how little support Orlais had offered Solas in the Arbor Wilds. Then, a much worse possibility occurred to her.
"Wait - you don't think the gala announcement is something about the letters, do you? Maybe Orlais trying to force our hand, claiming they'll be displayed along with the portrait?"
Solas shook his head. "It would be an enormous gamble to announce something like that when they are not actually in possession of items in question."
"Exactly!" Ellana said, now making an increasingly tight and frenzied loop around the room. "If they pull something like that, I'll just throw out my stupid speech and yell 'fuck Orlais' at the top of my lungs instead."
His lips twitched a bit, as if he were fighting back a laugh that he knew would only encourage her. "While that would certainly make for a provocative scene, it is perhaps worth remembering that you are currently living within Orlesian jurisdiction."
"But I'm a Dalish citizen. That makes things a lot messier for them."
"A loophole not available to everyone," he countered, raising an eyebrow.
"You'll be fine." Ellana rolled her eyes at what struck her as an obvious non-issue. "You'll get -"
She abruptly shut her mouth as she came to a halt. You'll get Dalish citizenship through me when we're married, was how that sentence was going to end.
"… through it," she finished flatly. Solas eyed her like she was crazy which was, admittedly, sort of fair.
"What a rousing vote of confidence," Solas deadpanned. "Truly, all my concerns are alleviated."
Ellana fought the urge to tackle him.
"There are other potential ramifications you have not considered. It has been some time since I last reviewed Orlesian law regarding the seizure of personal assets in the interest of maintaining -"
"Excuse me? Seizure of personal assets? They can fucking try!" She could hear herself getting louder. "Do you have any idea how much shit that would cause? Dalish clans don't let these things go easily, especially not when we have our own facilities to study them."
"Yes. I recall your opinions on the subject."
Ellana frowned at him, remembering too clearly his grip on her wrist the first time they'd met. She plopped down angrily beside him on the bed, accidentally landing on one of his discarded shirts. Good, she thought with spiteful satisfaction. Hopefully she'd wrinkled it badly enough that he'd insist he had to iron it before wearing it.
"As soon as I see Merrill, I'm giving her the letters," she decided. "I'll say it's a donation, and she can accept them on the Markham archive's behalf. Then, if Orlais wants them, they won't be fighting with an individual, they'll be trying to steal them from a Dalish-run facility. Surely they won't want to risk those optics, no matter how hard Tevinter leans on them?"
Solas nodded thoughtfully. "It would also bring the Free Marches into the dispute, which - if nothing else - would slow any negotiations considerably. Three separate nations, in addition to your clan and the Dalish governing body that oversees the archive? It would be a bureaucratic knot that would take years to untangle."
"You're going to have to give them the scans, though," Ellana begrudgingly admitted. "They're on your university's server. Even if we could delete them, it would be completely obvious who'd done it. We're the only ones who have something to gain from those scans disappearing, and I wouldn't have the slightest clue how to hide my tracks."
An odd expression crossed his face then, like he was halfway to forming a plan. She had no idea what he might be considering - he certainly wasn't any better equipped to do something complicated with technology than she was. But the last time she'd seen that particular spark in his eyes, she found herself jumping off a moving train a few minutes later.
Ellana interrupted his scheming before he could convince her to do something else vaguely illegal and definitely dangerous.
"I have to get that proposal submitted to the publisher. I was planning to finish it early next week, after we get through the gala, but I don't think I should wait. Do you have that last letter for me yet?"
The scowl on Solas' face answered her question. For some reason, he'd been putting off deciphering the Inquisitor's final letter. It was extremely unlike him to procrastinate about this sort of thing - Ellana had barely been able to drag him away from the letters to eat and sleep when he first started working on them. But he seemed to have some irrational aversion to this last one.
"I don't want to send the proposal without it, Solas. And I definitely don't want Orlais getting a scan of it when we don't even know what it says."
"I understand," he replied, making an obvious effort not to sound too defensive. "I can take a look at it as soon as I clean up here."
"Go now," she countered with a kiss on his cheek. "I'll put everything away. I need to call Merrill anyway and give her a heads up."
Solas reluctantly retreated toward the office, all but dragging his feet as he left the room. Ellana realized too late that saying she'd clean up his shirts meant she'd just volunteered to iron out the wrinkles she'd created. She pushed herself up with an annoyed sigh and got to work.
More than an hour later, he still wasn't finished. Ellana went for a quick jog in the scorching late afternoon heat, hoping to sweat out some of her frustration. She took a shower when she returned to the house, and was already dressed and squeezing the water from her hair when she suddenly heard Solas call out again.
"Ellana!"
This time she knew something was wrong. She followed his voice to the office, where she found him already rising from his desk.
"We have a problem."
Charter,
I agree there is a need for a consistent narrative now that treaties have been signed. My preference is simple: leave his name out of it. Use Fen'Harel as much as you want, in all the ways we already have and more if necessary.
I can hear your objection. Was Fen'Harel not his name as well? But the answer is simply, no. He only ever had one name - the one he gave us.
It is my fault for not being clearer about this. For too long I was also guilty of thinking of him as someone else, a different person entirely than the one who worked beside us all those years ago. But I think, given what he sacrificed, the least we can do is to call him by the name he chose for himself.
Anyone who does not already know his story will be incapable of understanding it in a few generations, perhaps sooner. Already the Veil is so strong that I struggle to summon a flame small enough to light a candle. I suspect even this will be impossible by the end of the year.
This will be my final letter to you. I am leaving in the morning to return to what is left of my clan and to help them however I can for as long as they will have me.
Please convey my wishes to the Divine. If she disagrees, would you make one additional, personal appeal on my behalf? Remind her that his death provided the catalyst that tipped the scales against Tevinter. Remind her that I was there to see it.
The world has the symbol. Leave me the man. Leave me Solas.
Yours,
Inquisitor Lavellan
Ellana sat dumbfounded in Solas' desk chair, grasping the ends of her hair in her towel so she wouldn't drip onto the notepad where he'd deciphered the Inquisitor's coded words.
"Why would she …" she started, then became distracted looking between the scan of the letter on Solas' laptop screen and his notes. It was bizarrely disorienting to read something she knew she hadn't written and yet felt eerily like she might have - and stranger still to see the words transposed into his careful script. "She wrote your name?"
"Well, not my name. Not exactly."
"No, right. I just …" She turned away so she wouldn't have to deal with the letter any longer and found that Solas looked every bit as stricken as she felt. "Are you alright?" she asked, unnerved by the possibility that he wasn't.
"Yes," he said immediately, though it didn't seem true. "I - of course I believed you when you told me he shared my name, but seeing the evidence of it is …"
"Completely fucking awful?" Ellana suggested.
"Disquieting, at least."
"It's completely fucking awful," she mumbled as she briefly leaned her head against his stomach, leaving a damp spot on his shirt when she pulled away. "No one else can see this letter," she said at the exact moment she realized it was true.
"I agree. It is already challenging for some to accept your similarities to the Inquisitor. If they should learn that a person with my name was also a major figure leading up to the Radiant War -"
"It would seem ridiculous. Like we somehow made it all up," Ellana finished. "We'll lose all credibility, and Alexius could say whatever he wanted about the Inquisitor. He could dispute the authenticity of anything we tried to publish. He could even claim the portrait isn't real - that something wasn't handled correctly at the dig site. I'm sure he'd be happy to blame Dorian for it."
"Breathe," Solas said, resting a heavy hand on her shoulder.
She hadn't realized just how much she was spiraling until he stopped her.
"I am," she said - and she was, but barely. "But what are we going to do? I can pull this letter from the originals I give Merrill, but what about the scan?"
"Why can we not simply delete this specific file? If we are leaving the others, it could go unnoticed."
Ellana rubbed her temple, taking in a few deep breaths as she prepared herself to explain to the best of her ability, but also as simply as she could.
"Those scans are on the university's server, which probably backs itself up every so often. Even if we delete the file, there could still be a backup copy that someone could restore. The system might also keep logs of what changes are made and by whom. And since we only have your login, it would be traced right back to you."
"I understand," Solas said. "And there is no way to circumvent either of these issues?"
"There probably is, but I wouldn't know where to start. And those are just the things I know about - I'm sure there must be plenty of other ways it could be tracked."
He was getting that look on his face again - the train jumping one. Ellana eyed him nervously.
"It has been some time since we last spoke, but I know someone who might be willing to help," Solas said.
"You do?" He nodded, and Ellana did her best to set aside the intense curiosity that was itching at her brain, at least until after more important questions were answered. "Do you trust this person?"
"Yes. Well - it varies. But he would never decline an opportunity to obstruct the Orlesian and Tevinter states simultaneously."
She could feel her mouth hanging open but there wasn't much she could do to stop it. If Solas didn't offer some explanations soon, the questions were going come pouring out of her mouth whether she wanted them to or not. He must have recognized this, because he grabbed his phone from his pocket and held up his other hand to stop her.
"Allow me to make the call first, before we lose any more time. Then, I promise I will explain."
He went out into the garden and Ellana moved to the armchair, watching as he paced back and forth across the patio with his phone to his ear. She absently ran her towel over her hair and leaned back in the seat. Parchment hopped up beside her, staking her claim on one of the arms.
Ellana knew she was being even nosier than usual, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the scene outside. She and Parchment watched Solas flail his free hand as he spoke - sometimes very forcefully - into his phone. Occasionally he'd pause, moving his hand to his forehead or sometimes his waist, like he needed more concentration than was possible while also wandering around. He continued on for at least fifteen minutes, until the sun had set and the string lights flickered to life.
When he finally hung up and came back into the office, Ellana didn't bother to pretend she'd done anything other than stare at him. Even Parchment twisted her head to follow his movements as he collapsed into his desk chair. He looked every bit as exhausted as if he'd just run a marathon.
"That seemed … bad," Ellana observed. "I take it he said no?"
"What?" Solas looked over at her. "He said yes. He's going to help."
"Oh. Well then, what was all the arguing about?"
"Praxis," he cryptically replied. "The same debate we've been having for the past twenty years."
Twenty years? Immediately, Ellana recalled the scattered photos on the bedroom floor the first night she'd come to Lydes - and one in particular of a man with his arm around Solas' shoulders while he laughed in his face.
"It's not -" she began, before Solas cut her off.
"His name is Felassan, and I will explain the rest on the way."