Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She heard his voice. That was how she justified it. As she drifted in and out of consciousness after… whatever happened, his was the only voice that didn’t shout. Didn’t sound displeased, or impatient. In fact, it was the smoothest voice she’d heard in her relatively sheltered life, sliding in and all around her mind like what she imagined Orlesian silk felt like. So once she woke up and officially met the owner of it, there was no way she wouldn’t get attached to him.

Most of the other friends she had managed to make in this new, unwanted life didn’t understand why. They’d say that he was pretentious, self-righteous, and didn’t bother to socialize with anyone unless they came to him first. 

“Not with me!” She’d be quick to retort, flapping her arms about as though she could physically stop any disparaging words against him. “He’s so nice… and smart… and he’s teachin’ me aaaaaall about the Fade so I know what to do’.” Or some variation thereof.

(He was pretentious. He was self-righteous. When he approached her, it was only about the Anchor, or a decision he wanted her to make. She was the one who wanted to talk about everything else.)

“I never knew what I was missin’.” She talked to fill the silence in between his explanations, especially during the many times they explored the Fade together. The unfamiliarity made her guts churn, but surely he would be kind about it. Like he was before. “I couldn’t even, heh, dream about what dreamin’ was like. I get, uh… pictures in my head, sometimes, but it’s not like this. They’re gone right quick, but this… lasts. Right?” He was still silent, but she assumed it was because he was giving her more time to verbally process. Because he was just so sodding kind . “I wish I could share this with Varric, and Dagna, and-- ooooh, the Hero of Ferelden’s a dwarf, ain’t she? That’d be great, if I could. Dwarves would be like everyone else. Wouldn’t that be so great?”

Recalling it now, his smile was so, so tight. “Dreaming, oftentimes, only reminds us of what we’ve lost.”

He was right - he was right all the time, because he was so smart . As often as she dreamed, she was also plagued with horrific nightmares - of Corypheus killing her; of her abusive mother dragging her back to the Carta all over again; of coming back from the market stalls to find her old farm razed; of kids and adults alike laughing at the stupid, ugly dwarf girl who couldn’t read or talk without stumbling over her words, who was so eager to make friends that she trusted all the wrong people. She was haunted by the bad times enough in her waking hours, she didn’t need the vivid weirdness of the Fade making it worse. But as much as she had lost a somewhat normal life, lost freedom and being unburdened, she’d gained so much. More food than she could ever eat, clothes and furnishings nicer than she’d ever had, people who listened to her, people who would surely be her friends forever.

And him.

After her return to the raw Fade, after seeing their greatest fears side by side - Dying Alone and Abandonment - she came to him in a tizzy, gazing up at him with bloodshot eyes as her chubby hands shakily grabbed his slender ones. “You’ll never be alone again, okay? I-- I can’t imagine ever… I don’t ever wanna leave ya. I’ll take care of ya, I’ll do anythin’ ya need or ask. You’re so amazin’, y’don’t even know how much you’ve changed my life…” She gave him a toothy smile. “I’m so in love with ya, Solas.”

If she was supposed to be a hero, then surely the story would play out like it always would. She would get the love story the hero always got, with the supportive person who’d been there from the beginning. Always there. But… he pulled away. Turned his back on her, facing the unfinished mural behind his couch.

“I… Leda …” Unable to see his face, she didn’t know what his tone meant. She was stuck staring at the space where he’d been, hands hovering in the air where he’d left them. He folded his own behind his back, straightening his spine and sticking his chest out. It was a stance she’d never seen him take before. “I value your friendship. More than you know.”

Friendship. As though he hadn’t heard a word she said (or ignored it). Her limbs shook as the anger she tried so hard to repress simmered, a demand of why are ya brushin’ me off?! , but it was gone just as soon as it came, replaced with emotions that were all too familiar to her. Sadness. Guilt for bothering him at all. She could never get angry at someone she liked - how would they know she still cared about them?

“...Okay.”

She left, and spent the rest of the day sequestered in the stables, tending to her beloved war nug Obio perhaps a little too much. Her lonely life had taught her something, however - people lied, hurt, or just didn’t want her around. All the animals she’d cared for had loved her purely. Honestly.  

She could sympathize, then, when Solas asked for her help finding a friend of his in distress. A spirit - pure in purpose and sincere, just like her own charges. However he’d hurt her, she couldn’t not help. Couldn’t not get just as enraged when she saw what happened, when she watched him mercy kill what remained. The fact that the mages were out in the Exalted Plains all on their own, scared and defenseless, was secondary to Solas’s misery - her own misery that she’d taken on as though the spirit were her friend all along.

So she simply watched as he killed them. Tried to stop him as he left (why was he leaving when she let him kill them… she did it for him, and he still turned her away… did he not want a friendly ear?). When she retired to her tent that night, she dreamed of her farm in the Ferelden countryside, and it was a needed reprieve.

She thought nothing the familiar silhouette in the corner of the vision, too focused on refilling the feed, but the footsteps, however faint, were too purposeful to be that. She sighed, forcing a smile to her face before turning up to look at him. “Solas! You didn’t leave! Or well, um-- this is where I used to live!” He sunk to his knees. “Oh, are ya gonna help? I didn’t think ya liked--”

Before she knew what was happening, he’d grabbed her face and pulled her in for a clumsy kiss, more teeth than lips, hungry. She made a point of carefully setting her bucket down, before reciprocating with all the passion she could muster; all while her mind struggled to reconcile ‘friendship’ with them clutching and groping at each other on the ground of her favorite place in all of Thedas. The air was filled with the sounds of her nugs squeaking and eating, the breeze stirring the leaves, and their frantic breathing and soft moans. It was the closest thing she’d ever heard to a symphony, and she doubted a real one would sound any better.

She managed to get him flat on the ground, her laying half atop him as she broke away to catch her breath. “Does this mean--”

“Shhh.” He pressed his fingers to her lips, and flipped the two of them over with surprising speed. “Please.” And then he dove back down for more. So much more.

She should have known better. She should have known, left bereft as she was of any more visits from him on the journey back to Skyhold. Just a few hours after they got back, he returned, and he held her at arms length when she rushed toward him to embrace him in front of everyone else in the courtyard. “What transpired between us cannot happen again.” He fixed her with a look of hardened determination, like she was one of their many adversaries instead of someone he’d had sex with.

“...Why?” She managed to croak out, pressing her lips together so they wouldn’t wobble, trying to will the tears gathering in her eyes to disappear.

“It was a brief respite. A--” He squeezed his eyes shut, and minutely shook his head. “Please respect my wishes, Leda.”

Yet… he was the one who couldn’t.

He came to her in the Fade, time and time again. The first time was when she opted not to take him with her on her next expedition, so notably unprecedented that even Varric teased her about it. She didn’t know how he could still find her when they were so far apart in the waking world, but either way, he held her for a moment like he really did miss her. And then his lips and hands were on her once more. She let it happen, because maybe this time, he wouldn’t turn her away after. He would see just how touch and affection starved she had been before him, and be moved to treat her gently. He would stop avoiding his greatest fear, dealing with it in the wrong way, and pledge to never leave her like she’d already done for him.

Leda never lied. She didn’t know how. She tried to pretend to be “The Inquisitor”, the confident and capable leader everyone needed her to be, while breaking down in fear behind closed doors. She didn’t think hiding her pain counted as lying, at least she hoped not. When she said she never wanted to leave him, she meant it. No matter how he always pretended they were nothing more than friends when they discussed her next course of action, or more Fade knowledge; no matter how he forbid her from sharing their “affair” with any of the few friends she had. 

Cole knew, voiced her feelings to her in words more poetic and deep than anything she could think of, but she didn’t know if he said anything to Solas. “You call to him, waiting, wanting with every breath. Delving so deep, wanting to feel his mind just as much as his unfamiliar flesh… but yours is more similar than you know.” That was the one she remembered most of all, coming out unbidden when she sullenly joined him on the wall one day. 

“Ya gotta deal with me enough as it is--”

“I help people. You need help, so I help you.”

“Fine, but… can’t ya talk to him?”

“A spirit cannot speak on matters of the mind and body.” His imitation of Solas’s cadence was so perfect that she almost believe he was speaking through Cole at that very moment. “He knows he’s hurting both of you.” He’d said nothing else about it, after that.

Dorian knew too, as the person she’d grown closest to out of everyone - he’d asked if things were okay, if she was okay, cloaked in layers of friendly banter as was his way, and she simply said nothing rather than lie. He’d even been the one to take pity on her and spin her around the Halamshiral ballroom when Solas shot her down, leaving her cowering and crying in the trophy room. In retrospect, she should have clung to friendship. She did already, what with how she was running herself ragged to make sure people were taken care of. That they cared for her, not her title or achievements. That they would want to stay.

But she had always been a romantic, long before she learned to read any tales of such things. She clung to girlish, human ideals of romantic love being everything. That it would give her purpose, someone to be the most important person to. That it was the only possible way someone would want to stay with her forever. If he kept touching her, kept drowning himself in her, he would eventually want the same.

Wasn’t that how it was supposed to work?

When people kept lying to her, another part of her burned away as memories of her parents’ manipulations came back to the forefront, and she was back there again. Being used. Blackwall - tch, Thom Rainier - had been nice to her. Gentlemanly. He carved her nugs and pigs, talked to her whenever she’d go to decompress with Obio and the horses. He’d even fallen for her, she’d later learn, but he was too subtle about it, and she was too laser focused on Solas. She was glad she hadn’t taken that path, because learning who he really was as his mere friend nearly broke her. In her anger, she’d sent him to the Grey Wardens, even while Josephine was in her ear warning that the Joining could kill him. But he’d murdered people, for bad reasons. Tried to run away from it. It was fair.

(It didn’t matter that she had killed more people than he had in his past by now. Didn’t matter that sometimes, she enjoyed it. Didn’t matter that she would have hunters and poachers she encountered arrested and locked in the Skyhold dungeon, while she would let off people who’d done far worse easier.)

Killing Corypheus had left her incredibly weak, bleeding from multiple points in her body, head full of cotton as the world dimmed around her. Even though she consciously spoke to Solas, heard the bone-deep sadness in his voice as he confessed… something , she didn’t process any of it. But one realization struck true.

It felt like an ending. For good.

She blacked out at some point, and though she recalled flashes of getting back to Skyhold, she wasn’t fully conscious again until a healer had seen to her. Once more, she was back within the stronghold that had never felt like a safe space. As soon as she was cognizant enough, the War Council convened for an emergency meeting, all of their faces grim when she entered the room.

“Solas is… gone,” Josephine spoke first, her tone and mannerisms careful, but full of sympathy. “I suspected that you might-- either way, I know that you spent most of your time with him. I’m so sorry.”

She couldn’t speak. She just blinked, heart pounding in her ears, before he cleared her throat. “...Where did he go?”

“I don’t know if you recall what he said after Corypheus was slain, Inquisitor.” Leliana was being formal with her. The woman could be cold, even scary when need be, but Leda thought they were beyond that. If she hadn’t been so busy as the spymaster, they could have talked nugs for days. But they never would now; she was about to be Divine. “I’ll be blunt, as I fear you won’t understand otherwise - we suspect the Orb of Destruction originally belonged to Solas. How it ended up in the hands of Corypheus is another matter we don’t have the time to speculate.”

Cullen interjected, talking about nothing - or maybe it was something - turning up in the search of what little belongings he left behind, but her mind was already far away. She stared down at the map, eyes unfocused, struggling to reconcile assumptions and truth.

“Oh.” She cleared her throat, rolling her shoulders back. “...Good meetin’.”

She left the War Room despite insistences of needing to discuss and prepare . That was all they did in there, though - it could wait another day, right? Or several? Because she couldn’t think about what they’d just posited. She couldn’t. She was fed this world-shattering information just before she had to go out into the main hall for muted celebrations, only to be told by almost everyone she’d gotten to know over this long fight, had shed blood with, cared for , that they were leaving. “Not forever,” some said. “Come visit,” others said. And she had to smile through it and wish them safe travels like her heart wasn’t being torn into a million pieces.

(Dorian had been the one to notice that her smile didn’t reach her eyes; maybe everyone had noticed, but he was the only one to acknowledge it. He asked if she wanted him to stay - not outright, of course - but she told him his home needed him. “It’s not the only one,” he’d replied, eyes glassy.)

Solas leaving without a word was devastating enough, but he couldn’t have been responsible for Corypheus’s bullshit. He couldn’t, because if he had, it meant everything about him was a lie. Everything about them was a lie - more than it had already been. 

It meant she was doomed to be had, over and over again.

That same night, Leliana found her trying to quietly lead Obio out of Skyhold’s gates, a month’s worth of supplies that had been reported missing from their storehouse earlier stuffed in his saddle bags. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said gravely, an edge of regret to her tone when, with her back still to her, she could see how badly Leda was shaking. “You cannot run from your duty .”

Leda let out a pathetic wail, turning around and all but falling into Leliana’s arms, bringing the both of them to the ground. Leliana hadn’t been the comforting type for years now, but she put one hand on her shoulder and the other on the back of her head as the dwarf sobbed and sobbed, tears and snot getting all over the armor that she was going to be hanging up for good soon. Leda might have been saying something, but the words were indecipherable, until she’d suddenly gone silent, breathing shallower.

“...I’m a mistake.”

She didn’t know what she was hoping for once that was out there. Comfort? Affirmation? For them to sit in the silence and stew in it? If anyone was going to find her, she wished it could have been someone who would actually hug her. Stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be alright. Tell her that she could leave and be free to grieve what her life could have been, had it not been for the Enclave. For the orb. For Solas.

“In times like these… in positions like ours… we must work with what we are given, Inquisitor.”

She scoffed. She pulled away from Leliana, and as she stood and guided Obio back to the stalls, what little remained of her hope slipped away - all so she could keep giving her blood, sweat, and tears for people she would never know to keep theirs.

Chapter Text

“I suspect you have questions.”

She didn’t. She might have, if she were Cassandra or Varric - someone who wanted answers, but didn’t have enough of a personal stake for the answers to ruin their entire life. As soon as the torment of the Anchor made her sink to her knees before him, amidst a graveyard of stone qunari, the only sounds that came out of her mouth was her sobbing and pained moans. So, Solas took that to mean he could do what he did best - talk at her about all the knowledge he hid from her - held over her. Who, or what, he really was. Why Corypheus had his all-powerful ancient orb in the first place. What his plan was.

The last two years of her life had led up to this awful, awful day and this monumentally more awful moment. She felt like she was packed inside a hollow shell that was far too small, breaking and stabbing into her flesh any time she tried to get comfortable. For all she knew, that was exactly why the Anchor was acting up - it wanted to become a fade rift, or something worse, which meant it had to grow large and burst out of her like she was merely its cocoon.

That was all she was good for now.

She hadn’t been able to continue looking at him after a point, and she bent her body forward to rest her forehead on the ground. She only realized he had stopped speaking when the scrape of his armor replaced his voice, and when it stopped, his gauntleted hand rested on the back of her head.

“You sheared your hair off.” He sounded sad, but it was probably just her mind desperate to fill in the blanks. “It was quite beautiful…”

“...What?” Her voice broke, throat and mouth parched. “Why didn’t ya tell me before?”

He drew in a sharp little breath, and she realized he mistook her question as an eager one. “There is so much I wanted to share with you. Now you know why I didn’t.”

“I don’t. I don’t know. I want to-- I feel like I’m dyin’.” She rose her head, croaking as she gasped for air. “Why do ya hate me? ”

He winced as though she had slapped him. Part of her wanted to. “I do not hate you, Leda. Not by any measure.”

“Then why didja tear me apart?!” She pushed herself up to sit back on her haunches, aggressively wiping away all the snot and tears with her sleeve. “You made love-- no, ya fucked me so many times, and ya never gave me any pretty words or compliments or-- or the things that people who fuck should say! That lovers should say! That was what we were, no matter what ya think!” She shocked herself with how quickly she’d escalated to yelling, instinctively covering her mouth and lapsing into nervous laughter. “Oh, gods… Maker, Andraste, if you’re real… send me --”

“You would be better off entreating the Stone.” His tone was dismissive as he turned away from her - although she suspected he did so so she wouldn’t see whatever his true expression was. “Or have you experienced a crisis of faith since last we met?”

“I don’t got any gods to pray to!” Just as she regained what little remained of her strength to shout at the top of her lungs, she rose to her feet again, hand clutching her chest. “Your Evanuris killed ‘em all!”

She couldn’t tell if her voice was actually echoing off the dilapidated ruins around them, or if the reverberation was solely in her own head. Either way, his silence was deafening.

“When ya said dwarves were like a severed arm, was that what ya meant?” Her voice shook, the crying far from over, but there was an edge of mounting rage to her voice that the god - man - in front of her had never heard before. “Because y’knew exactly who cut us off?”

“We are not discussing this.” He didn’t bother turning around, merely gave her a hard look over his shoulder, the huge pauldron obscuring the lower half of his face from view.

“Say it.” Her good hand balled into a fist. “Say that every time ya talked shit, y’knew exactly why we’re like this. When I questioned why I didn’t feel like a good enough dwarf, and ya told me I was right to feel that way. That I was better than ‘em. It wasn’t ‘cuz of anythin’ I actually am. It’s this--” She stepped around him and shoved the hand being consumed by the anchor right up into his face, “isn’t it?!”

“Do you think a mere admission of guilt will satisfy you? I live with the destruction of the Titans every moment of every day, with what it has forced your people to become; it weighs just as heavy as all my other failures.”

“No it doesn’t. It doesn’t, ‘cuz you’re not makin’ big plans to bring down the Veil for our sake. You’re doin’ it for the elves; only the elves.”

“And? They are my people, Leda - the ones I could not save, then or now. Tell me you would not do the same, were you in my position?”

“Stop twistin’ my words!” She screamed in pain, emotional and physical, as the Anchor flared once more. He looked at it, his expression twisting in concern - so she supposed. It just made her laugh. “I bet it killed ya… havin’ a dwarf catch your artifact. Havin’ to answer to one. Bein’ beneath one; inside one.” She stepped closer, glaring up at him; when he met her eyes again, she didn’t know what to pin the look in his eyes as. Maybe hatred. Maybe misery. Maybe he was just hard up again.

“Say you’re a liar.” She fisted a hand in the fur attached to his armor, tugging him flush against her. “A dirty fuckin’ liar who used me to clean up your stupid mess, and-- fuck, was bein’ alone and untouched for forever enough to make ya wanna chase it away with someone like me? Fat and hairy and small when I shoulda been the opposite?”

“I came back to you, did I not? Over and over again?”

“‘Cuz I was willin’! You never woulda spared me a second glance if I was just another face in the crowd, huh? Just a common, lowly dwarf? Ya had to talk to me. Get close to me. Maker, I loved having ya close...”

Before he could say another word, she used her grip on the fur to tug him down and kiss him with so much teeth that a slap might have been less painful. But she couldn’t stop once he started, and though he tried to pull away once, it hadn’t been all that hard. After that… he fell to his knees and kissed her back even harder, hands on either side of her face to keep her just as chained to him as he was to her. 

Both of them were utterly, absolutely, horrifically fucked in the head.

“You owe me this,” she rasped when they parted for breath, hand moving to clutch the back of his head. “I did everythin’ for ya. Every moment of every day, I tried to do things that would make ya like me. I sucked up to ya, threw every compliment I could at ya, found the best materials for all the robes I had made for ya, so many flowers I brought ya just thrown on your desk like they were nothin' special… I deserve all your love ’n attention.”

“That was your own folly.” Despite the hint of a growl to his voice, he stayed on the ground, eyes fixed on her swollen lips. “I am beholden to you for nothing.”

“Yes you are! Fuckin’ liar.” She wanted to dive back in, use him, but the moment was fading fast. “If you’da told me from the beginnin’--”

“Ah yes; ‘I am a newly awakened ancient elvhen who made yet another grave mistake in a never ending deluge of mistakes, and now need your help to remedy it’ would have gone over so well with an Andrastian organization.”

“Who cares about them?! I woulda believed ya. Woulda helped, forgiven ya if ya owned up to what happened to me. But it was just lie after lie after fuckin’ lie, when I told ya how much lyin’ hurts me. And ya broke my heart.”

“For that… I am sorry.” He sighed, pulling away fully and standing back up. “I could not have anticipated you.”

“What’s that a riddle for?”

He huffed a laugh. “I have not the time to tell you.”

“Nah - ya only have the time when what you’re sayin’ makes you sound smarter 'n better than whoever you’re talkin’ to.”

He opened his mouth, whether to refute her jab or change the subject, but she wouldn’t give him an inch.

“I hate myself. Y’know why; I told ya all the reasons way back when. All the people I couldn’t save, all my shitty decisions, how low I felt with so many better people all ‘round me. S’only gotten worse since ya left. But the baddest part? Knowin’ everythin’ I know about ya now, how you’re gonna damn everybody-- I’m still in love with ya.” A ragged sob ripped its way out of her throat, tears falling down her rough cheeks once again. “I dunno how to fuckin’ stop. Y’treated me bad, made me feel dumb, left me; I haven’t even seen ya for two years, and I’m so fuckin’ terrified to have to go back to livin’ without ya. What am I gonna do? If you can tell me all the awful shit ya plan to do and I still wanna hold ya in my stupid fuckin’ arms, what hope is there?”

He looked properly sad now. Good. “...I do not have an answer for you. None that will suffice, anyway.”

“Of course ya don’t. Y’probably love it - anythin’ to fluff your ego. But I do. I do, just… just come back.” 

“I am afraid that’s not possible.”

“I’ll-- I’ll get over the hurtin’, just stay with me… please. Y’don’t have to change, we can be awful together, shut off from the world and--” The Anchor flared yet again, the searing pain burning down her arm, and she shakily lowered herself to the ground before she could fall over. “No… no, ya like seein’ me like this, don’t ya? Powerless to do anythin’, all miserable?”

“I have never, and will never, take pleasure in your suffering, Leda. You are…” He swallowed, “You have left an indelible mark on my long life, but you know that I can’t come back. That we will never see each other again.” He knelt in front of her once more, gingerly pulling her arm from where she clutched it to her chest. “This pain, at the very least, I can soothe.”

Then why are ya gonna keep hurtin’ me, rested unsaid on her tongue, whether from physical agony or emotional exhaustion, she couldn’t tell. He held her hand as he wove powerful, ancient magic through the space between them, the pain gradually subsiding to a tingling sensation that slowly spread up her forearm from her fingertips.

“You will not go unmissed by me,” he muttered, briefly chancing a look at her face before returning his attention to the Anchor.

“I don’t believe ya.”

“I have not given you cause to.” Seemingly, he finished his spell, as her entire forearm began to glow green. “I’ve done all I can - the Anchor will no longer cause you harm. It’s… time I left.”

“Just like that?” She was muted in all respects - tone, slumping posture, eyes downcast. “After everythin’, this is it?”

“I have already lingered longer than I intended to. For you. To ensure this would not be the day that you succumbed to my failures.”

She was about to ask him, yet again, what he meant by that, but something was happening to her arm. The tingling feeling was starting to fade - any feeling in her forearm at all was fading. She held it up only to realize, with horror, that it was actively dissolving in front of her eyes. 

“...What did ya do?”

“I prevented--”

“What did ya do to me?!” She bellowed, huffing and panting as her utter fear and returning anger mixed into a dangerously explosive cocktail. “My fuckin’ arm, I-- it’s gone. I didn’t… I didn’t consent, I--”

“You were going to die, Leda!” He met her with mounting fury of his own, mouth set in a snarl. “The Anchor, the magic of my orb, was going to swallow you whole. No one else could have saved you - I had to act.”

“Shut up! You and your fuckin’ orb! Ya took everythin’ from me - my life, my freedom, my sanity - and now you took my arm!” She screamed through her sobs, pounding her single fist on the ground as her other arm hung limply. “What am I supposed to do with-- aaaahhh , you piece of shit, what else are ya gonna take, huh? People I care about? My home? My entire fuckin’ race?”

“If this is how you wish to express your gratitude, I need not hear of it any longer. The shock will pass, and you will adjust to this new reality.” He turned his back on her - for the final time, it would seem - and made his way towards the eluvian. “I… do not wish for these to be our parting words. For what it’s worth, I am more than grateful. For all that you have given me. I will not forget any of it - nor you.”

All that she gave… so very willingly, so very eagerly. To help him. To secure him. To please him. All he could give her in return was remembrance - something he would do on his own, as he would so confident he would see his plan to restore the old world through. A world built on the bones of her people.

A world without her.

She rose to her feet, thick rivulets of snot dripping from her mouth and nose, and she stumbled forward a step before catching herself. As she struggled to think of something to say, something that would stop him, she thought of who she was. Who he would think of her as. Giving… such a well of boundless love she was so desperate to give to anyone who paid attention to her. Who she would bend over backwards for to keep them in her life, at any cost. When they still left, it just meant she had to try harder. Stretch herself thinner. That love had allowed this fucker to reattain godhood so he could remake the world how he wanted it.

Love, she was realizing, wasn’t shit.

“If I ever see ya again…” She took a deep, shuddering breath, hardening her expression. “I’m gonna kill you.”

The declaration did not shock her as much as she thought - though it did scare her. And when he turned to look back at her, his own expression hard, that apprehension doubled.

“Then… on that day… I fear I will have to kill you first, ma vhenan.”

With that, he stepped into the eluvian and disappeared. The only sounds in the air were that of the waterfall, the wind, and her agonized howls reaching the heavens where nothing awaited.

Chapter Text

“So,” Varric began, thumb circling the rim of his glass, “how is she?”

Dorian huffed a laugh, intently eyeing the wine he expertly swished around in his own glass. “You came all the way here to ask me that when she lives in your city?”

“We don’t exactly talk much these days.” The dwarf lightly scratched at his head, sighing. “And since I’ve all but taken the reins on the hunt for Solas, I haven’t been back in months.”

Dorian rose a brow, leaning across the table slightly. “Risky move for the viscount, no?”

“Eh. Kirkwall can handle itself, even on its worst days. …Listen, though - she never leaves that house anymore. Shit, last time I saw her, she could barely get out of bed. You talk on that sending stone you gave her, don’t you? Otherwise she’d be going stir-crazy.”

“Well, yes, but what do you want me to say? If you’re hoping for a sign that she’s willing to get back into the fray, you’re not going to find it. Most of our conversations, I do all the talking, and have to plead with her to get her to share anything. When she does, it’s all…” He stared intently down at the table - his table, one of many he picked out when the estate became all his, little choices that had given him so much joy at the time - as his face fell. “I am so worried about her, Varric.”

“I know.” Varric gave him a tired smile, and he was struck once more by how the last seven years had slipped by in a chaotic flurry that he could scarcely recall any memorable details of. Barely enough to fill a few chapters, if that, of a new book. They both wore the years - Dorian very well, the bastard; him… he wasn’t so sure. “If I can’t get the Inquisitor herself to contribute to this little ragtag team at all, then… well, we’re hardly screwed, but it’s gonna be a lot harder. I reached out to most of our other, er, ‘associates’, but the only one I managed to hook was Harding.”

“Harding… why does that sound so-- ah, yes, the dwarven scout with the freckles. Lovely woman. Good sense, clearly.” Dorian craned his head. “Did you… reach out to Cole?”

“I sent a letter to the place his last one came from, but that was a while ago; he’s probably moved on by now.” Varric’s brow furrowed. “The last time I saw him, he burst into my office, crying his eyes out over how Leda turned him away.”

“So he’d, in her words, ‘go off and see the world instead of wasting his days with me’? I remember. Considering I only ever hear her speak of him in the past tense these days, he clearly took it to heart. But with how close he and Solas were, I would assume… mmm, perhaps I’m overthinking it.”

“He’ll find his way into this mess one way or another. Somehow.”

“I don’t doubt it. Hm… what about any of your old companions from the Kirkwall days?"

“They’ve been through enough, didn’t want to burden them with this.”

“Oh, and we haven’t?”

Varric managed a chuckle, grateful for the least bit of levity. “You know it’s not the same.” He sighed again - he’d been doing that more and more these days. “The best we’re gonna do is fresh faces who haven’t been bogged down by all the shit we’ve seen, but… I can’t be the figurehead they all rally behind. That’s never been where I fit - I can take care of the business and logistics, but that’s behind the scenes stuff. They gotta be the one I spin a yarn about.”

“Do you really think she could be that? Again?” Dorian had his glass raised to his mouth before he spoke, but the seriousness of the topic made him lose his taste for wine. “I know the plan was, for a while, to go out of your way to find capable people he has no knowledge about. Whether or not you were already familiar with them.”

“That’s still the idea. With her, though… it feels like settling a debt, I suppose. I can pay her back by letting her even the score with him on her own terms.”

“Those terms won’t be anything good,” Dorian interjected, growing defensive. “But you’ve asked her to do this before, and she refused. I doubt you’ll be able to change her mind, and frankly, I don’t particularly want you to.”

Varric wanted to protest, argue all the ways he could, potentially, do so. In his heart, though, he knew Leda was in no fit state. He’d witnessed the deterioration of her mental state before his very eyes, having readily given her refuge in Kirkwall to be away from war and crippling expectations, to process her overwhelming trauma. He tried to help her get a seat on the Merchant’s Guild - it was the first time he’d seen her excited about something in a while, going on and on about how it meant she was a “good dwarf” - only to be refused on the basis of her surname, even though she had never willfully participated in any of their Carta bullshit. He’d tried to involve her in running Kirkwall to make her feel useful, only for her to stop showing up. He’d tried to bring old friends out to see her, or to introduce her to his if they ever visited - but those were fleeting moments of connection, and when they left, she would feel more abandoned little by little. 

The second to last time they’d spoken, he had talked about his latest run in with Bianca and all the guff she’d put him through once more. "I don’t understand why ya let her keep hurtin’ ya. Usin’ ya. I care about ya too much to see ya go through this again," Leda had said, and he’d never forget that undercurrent of fury in a voice that had grown so monotone. He’d made the mistake of trying to de-escalate things by calling his never ending mess with Bianca “complicated”. After that, she couldn’t stop yelling, he yelled back, and he barely remembered most of the hurtful things they’d flung back and forth at each other for minutes on end. But he’d never forget what she’d said to shut him up.

”Cut her loose - or I will.”

Varric, in his fury over her audacity (and the fear over that empty look in her eyes), had cut Leda loose. Chosen Bianca. He didn’t think Leda would do anything without some sort of affirmative from him, but he just didn’t know with her. Not anymore. The last words they’d said to each other had been right before he left - one last request for her to join him, as a courtesy more than anything. To have her redirect her warped sense of justice at someone more deserving. She’d simply told him go, and that was that.

“You’re… probably right.” He set his glass down so he could rub at his eyes with both hands, the weight of the world pressing down like it had on his friends before him. “So we keep going. Bring another person into this shit. Give ‘em way more responsibility than they should have to deal with.” He rubbed his closed eyes with his thumb and pointer finger. “But that’s how the stories I tell always go. ‘That’s how unexpected heroes are made’, and all that.”

“I don’t know, Varric. I still think you’d do well enough on your own, but…” He pursed his lips, taking a swig of his wine. “What sort of person do you think she would want to go after Solas?”

“You know her better than I do, Sparkler.”

“I see you still haven’t come up with a more stately epithet for me.” 

“Hey, you admitted it was clever. That’s something I don’t forget.”

Dorian hummed in displeasure, but brought his glass back up to his lips to hide his smirk. “You’re right - I do know her best. But you’re quite adept at finding the most unexpected people for the important jobs.”

“For all the good that’s done.” Varric shifted in his seat, cracking his neck. The mood of the conversation had never been wholly friendly, but now, it was time to solely focus on business. “To start… heh, it’s gotta be another dwarf, right? Being a ‘good one’ and what happened to our people’s been most of what she could focus on ever since she saw him again. Until we need some heavy-hitting magic on our side--”

“Which I cannot provide--”

“Yeah yeah.” Varric waved him off. “...It wouldn’t be the worst operation. Them, me, and Harding. Three dwarves trying to find an elven god. Shit - I don’t know if anyone would buy that book.”

“Oh please. I know for a fact there are myriad people in Minrathous that would buy a Varric Tethras book about the exploits of a few dwarves.”

“That’s because at least half of your non-mages are dwarves.”

“What's wrong with that? Readers are readers - and more coin in your pocket.”

“Like I need any.” Varric considered him for a moment, sitting back in his chair. “Y’know… since I’m already here, it wouldn’t hurt to look among the dwarves here for someone to recruit. Anyone you know come to mind?”

“That depends.” Dorian replied all too fast - like he’d been waiting for the conversation to head here. “Who are you picturing?”

“Know any nug herders?” The question was rhetorical, but he half expected a reply. “Not a cynic - not a complete one, at least. Someone with more combat experience than her, or just better at managing anxiety. Unyielding to their foes, kind to their friends. Someone who won’t fall for anything Solas says. Someone a lot more immersed in dwarf culture and customs than either of us.” He chuckled as Dorian smiled sadly. “Other than that… the rest is just details.” His eyes narrowed as he watched Dorian take a long sip of his wine, expression shifting into something approaching smug. “...You’ve had someone in mind this whole damn time, haven’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Varric - why wouldn’t I tell you immediately if I did, instead of keeping my mouth shut and letting you stew in it until I took pity on you?”

“Because you’re dramatic?”

“And imagine how much more depressing this conversation would be if I wasn’t.” He finished off his glass and set it down, steepling his fingers together. “Are you familiar with the Mercari family?”

“I already know most of the big dwarven families of the South more than I care to; I’ve tried not to acquaint myself with any more.”

“That wouldn’t be the only reason to know their name - but the other one won’t make sense either, considering you’re still wearing that same raggedy coat.” He continued before the dwarf could protest. “They’re fashion designers, believe it or not. They’ve been making rather inventive and outlandish couture for whomever can afford it for two generations; they’ve outfitted a good number of the Magisterium, Mae and myself included.”

“Okay… that’s interesting. Aside from an excuse for you to brag, how is this relevant?”

“Maker, I’m trying to set the scene! You’re not the only one with the right to embellish.” 

“Might wanna hurry it up; Solas’ll have already brought down the Veil by the time you’re done.”

“You are such an ass. My point is, the family is huge. Big enough to have their own in-house enforcers to watch the shop, settle debts, and deal with more unscrupulous sorts. Like Venatori who think relying on dwarven artisanship is further evidence the old empire needs to be restored.”

“And you didn’t lead with that?” All Varric could do was shake his head, but he couldn’t find the amusement in his expression. “Alright, you’ve got me intrigued. Are we talking to all of ‘em to see who’ll join up, or…?”

“Just one. The one in charge of said enforcers, in fact - although I’m not entirely sure if she still has the job. She’s in hot water after she got in the way of a Shadow Dragons operation, and her family’s all but confined her to their estate so she doesn’t go out and get arrested or killed by any one of the factions she pissed off.” Dorian smirked. “I’d say she’s looking for a reason to leave Minrathous for a while.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“I’m sure she’ll expect to be paid handsomely - but as you said earlier, you can afford it. Other than that… well, getting far away from her family is motivation enough, is it not?”

“Shit.” Varric couldn’t help but whistle, feeling overwhelmed by simply picturing it. He stared at his glass, still just as full as it had been when Dorian poured it for him, and shrugged a shoulder. “Alright - I’ll meet with her.”

For all that Leda was content to wallow in self-pity alone, any company from a friend was a welcome break - especially Dorian. When they’d talked the night before he set off, however, the reason for his visit gave her pause.

“Varric is coming along, and we’re bringing a new face with us. Hopefully you’ll have a lot to talk about - and some advice to impart. I don’t want to say much else until we’re there.”

All she could give was a resigned oh, okay, a common phrase in her vernacular these days. Dorian was one of the few people in all of Thedas whom she still trusted; if he wasn’t going to tell her something right off the bat, he had a good reason. She hoped.

Years ago, she was the sort of person willing to leave the dreary comforts of her Hightown manor to greet them at the dock, pulling Dorian in for a hug that would’ve lasted longer than necessary. Now, all she did was get out of bed, put on a robe over her crumpled house clothes, pad into the foyer, and sit in her armchair to stare at the door until she heard the knocker.

Upon opening the door, Dorian was the first to greet her, bending down to press a kiss to the top of her head as he squeezed her shoulder. “As grateful as I am that we can speak any time, it’s always a relief to see your face again.”

She managed a smile at him, earning her a brighter one in return. “Yeah, um… yours too.”

“Now - a meeting is in order.” He looked over his shoulder, scoffing. “You don’t have to just stand out there, she’s not going to bite.”

He stepped aside, only for Varric to enter first. He met her eyes for a brief moment before looking away as he went to stand by the fireplace, and her lips pursed. Her attention was drawn back to the door way as the last figure came inside and closed the door behind them, boots clanking across the wooden floor before they were muffled by the carpet. Leda blinked a few times at the sight of them, struggling to parse all of this person’s very distinct features.

They were a dwarf; a little taller than her but still incredibly short, and just as fat. The low cut neckline of their white satin shirt showed off some dwarven ink, along with a fair amount of chest hair. They had a large scar starting at the middle of their forehead, bisecting part of their dark yet thin unibrow and intricate facial tattoo, ending on the edge of their cheek. Their eyes were beady, but not cold - curious, calculating maybe. And they were wearing more makeup than she’d seen most Orlesians wear - dark lipstick, winged eyeliner, glittering eyeshadow. But the most shocking part? Their hair, long and silky, and their thick mutton chops were…

“Your hair is pink,” were the first words out of her mouth, feeling just a tinge of excitement. “How?”

“I dye it.” They shrugged, taking a chunk of their hair and combing it between their thick fingers. “It’s not hard.”

Were they condescending to her? No, no, probably not. Leda thought that a lot about most people who spoke to her nowadays, but she was mostly just paranoid.

Mostly.

“Okay…” Leda cocked her head, pulling at the sleeves of her robe. “Who are ya?”

The dwarf immediately looked to Dorian, and he shrugged in turn. “I mean, you clearly wanna do it,” they muttered to him, and they shared conspiratorial smiles that immediately struck her with jealousy. 

“Allow me to introduce Callisto Mercari. You remember the--” Varric cleared his throat from across the room, and Dorian rolled his eyes before continuing. “We all think she’ll be a good fit for the cadre Varric’s putting together. To go after-- well, you know.”

Leda folded her hand behind her back so no one could see how she started to dig her fingernails into her palm. “How come?”

“Because I’m willing, for starters.” Callisto chuckled, sliding her hands into her coat pockets. Upon realizing that Leda expected a serious answer, she cleared her throat and straightened her posture. “I’m trained in multiple fighting styles, and I’ve been in charge of handling all threats against my family’s business for the past five years - successfully, might I add. Plus, I’m very good at dealing with difficult personalities - I have six siblings and twenty-nine cousins, not counting the in-laws.”

“And you recently helped free dozens of slaves, don’t forget that.”

“That was an accident, as you damn well know.” She gave Dorian an exasperated look, sighing. “Not that it wasn’t a good thing, but… eh, I guess you could say I also have too much experience in cleaning up catastrophes. Which might be the most relevant skillset of all to deal with a clown that unironically calls himself the ‘Dread Wolf’.”

She was clearly hoping for a laugh, and Varric gave her one if that’s what the huffing sound was supposed to be. Leda didn’t find it easy to laugh anymore. “Say what ya mean.”

“Hm?”

“Say that you’re here to clean up my mess. I screwed up and caught feelin’s for the biggest bastard in the world, and now things gotta be fixed again when I shoulda fixed ‘em myself.” As soon as she heard Varric’s answering sigh, she glared at him. “And when I tried to, I couldn’t do nothin’.”

Her eyes darted down to her left arm; she’d opted not to wear her prosthetic just for seeing her best friend again. She wished she had, now.

“That isn’t-- Stone, fuck me.” Callisto pressed her lips together and scratched the top of her head, giving Dorian a wary look. “You didn’t mention they had history…” She seemed to realize something, and pouted over at Varric. “It wasn’t in the book, either.”

That prompted the man to make his way back over to the group, rubbing the back of his neck as his mouth set into a hard line. “I wasn’t about to humiliate her like that.” Despite speaking to Callisto, he and Leda were the ones to exchange a loaded look. He’d said the same thing when she had talked to him about it upon reading, although she wasn’t so far gone to be angry about it again. Just sad; sad that Solas would get exactly what he wanted, and the world at large would never know that an ancient elven god had dared to exchange spit with a dwarf. Even if it would have made her look more incompetent than she came off already.

“I thought it best that she tell you herself,” Dorian interjected, and tried to catch Leda’s eye, smiling encouragingly. “Only if you want to.”

“We were fuckin’.” She shrugged. “Nothing couple-y about it, noooo, he made that clear. But y’know, he called me ‘vhenan’ right when he told me he’d have to kill me ‘fore I killed him. I asked the Dalish, and fuckin’ apparently, it means ‘heart’ in their language so… what the fuck does it all mean, right?”

Dead silence followed, the only sound the crinkling of Callisto’s leather coat as she rubbed her hand over her mouth.

“You never told me the last part.” Dorian’s voice was quiet, disbelieving, with the barest hint of hurt.

“No point. You gotta hear ‘bout too many of my problems already.” Her face scrunched up as she swallowed hard. “Guess I’m a liar now, after everythin’.”

“I want to hear about everything you struggle with, and not just because you do the same for me, unfailingly, every time.” He stepped closer to her so he could pull her into his side of a half hug, squeezing her tight as he rubbed her arm. Despite herself, she melted against him - so desperate for any physical contact - bringing her other arm up to wrap around his back.

“I don’t know if I wanna get in the middle of-- I mean, that’s not what it is, but…” Callisto cleared her throat, straightening her slackening posture once more. “If anyone’s going to stop him once and for all, shouldn’t it be you? Not just because of the ‘woman scorned’ of it all, but you’re so inspiring, you know that? Everything you did for the Inquisition, even though you were constantly terrified, is absolutely insane. No one else could have survived what you did.”

I didn’t, she wanted to fire back.

Leda didn’t often to get to talk to people, much less dwarves, who were actually fans of her exploits. When she talked to anyone at all, it was friends, or people who took issue with all that she did or didn’t do. But here she was now, looking into the sparkling eyes of a younger dwarf so much more accomplished than she was, and she was on the receiving end of the admiration. It was nice, but it also brought back that crippling fear of expectations. And the inevitable failure that followed.

“Ya probably could’ve. Y’said you were in charge of people enforcin’ stuff? The Inquisition prolly woulda felt the same, just a lot more. And scarier.” She managed a small, crooked smile, and Callisto waved her off even though her chest puffed out at the vote of confidence - if that was what it even was. “But I’m done. I did way more than I ever wanted, and when I wanted out, no one would let me leave. So I fucked off here as soon as Varric told me I could; the Inquisition’s gone on in secret, sure, but they do everythin’ on their own, and if they gotta consult me on somethin’, that’s all I do. I made that clear.”

“I-- fair enough. I guess he’s just another villain in a whole string of villains with egos the size of continents. After the shit I’ve seen back home, he doesn’t scare me all that much.” She pursed her dark lips. “I just-- I don’t wanna rob you of anything. You, of all people, deserve to slit his throat.”

“I can’t.” She clung to Dorian’s side, not letting go any time soon; he knew her well enough not to try to pull away. Callisto frowned, pityingly, and that just compelled her to overshare. “I don’t-- he-- I promised I would kill him. And if I actually saw him again, heard him say my fuckin’ name… I dunno if I can keep it…”

Only then did she step away, pressing on her chest and trying to take deep breaths so she wouldn’t hyperventilate. This was too much. Everything was too much all the time, and she couldn’t escape it. It was all because of him, and he should die for it, should suffer like she suffered… but despite all the people that had died from her arrows, how quick she was to threaten to inflict harm, she wasn’t a killer. She wasn’t.

“If-- if ya want my endorsement, ya have it. Just don’t ask me to join ya.” She forcefully cleared her throat, pressing the heel of her palm into her forehead. “Um-- help yourself to any food in the kitchen, I dunno what there is. And I dunno if ya saw the nug pen outside - I got three right now, I’ll get more sometime, they’re very friendly just don’t spook ‘em if ya plan on touchin’ ‘em. And my war nug Obio’s in his stall and he’s very calm 'n nice, but be careful ‘cuz he’s gettin’ up there in years.”

She cast a meaningful look at Dorian, and promptly scurried back upstairs to her bedroom without even acknowledging Varric again. Callisto clicked her tongue several times, waiting for someone to say something.

“That went better than I expected.” Varric chuckled, shaking his head. “I would've bet coin on her kicking us out, or bursting into tears.”

“She almost did.” Dorian looking up at the second floor landing, and started making his way towards the stairs. “If you both will excuse me, I have some long-overdue time to give her. Do help yourself to anything, Callisto, she won’t mind.”

Callisto watched him leave, lips pursed, and turned to Varric. “I can’t tell what she thinks of me.”

“You were honest. And respectful. It doesn’t take a lot for Leda to warm to someone, even these days - she just doesn’t show it well anymore. Besides, she’s trusting you to deal with Solas, considering all the shit that went on between them. I’d say that’s a pretty big deal.” He clapped her on the back, giving her a crooked smile. “Welcome to the shitshow, kid.”

Chapter Text

“You’ve gotta find ways to calm down, Rook.”

Callisto’s eyes darted to Varric in the corner of her vision, laid up all pathetic and bruised in that uncomfortable looking cot, before returning to the mirror. “I hate that nickname, I’ve told you so many times.”

“Too bad - it seems to have stuck.” She grunted, staring intently at her reflection so she wouldn’t have to be faced with his shit-eating grin. “I won the right to pick your name fair and square; you can’t back out on a bet that’s long over.”

“Kiss my ass.” He barked out a short laugh, cut off from having aggravated his wound. Oh well. “I’m calm. As calm as can be, considering I’m in the Fade for the first time in my life.” One hand pulled the skin next to her eye down, while the reapplied her liner with a stick of charcoal she’d have to replace soon. “And considering you got stabbed ‘cuz you’re an idiot who thought talking--”

“How many times are you going to repeat that?” Despite his annoyance, there was still fondness in his tone.

“Until you say the words, ‘I’m an idiot’.”

“No sympathy for your poor, old mentor in mourning?”

“Yeah yeah - rest in peace Bianca, gone before her time, the Stone will sing a song of woe for such fine craftsmanship so callously blown apart.”

“That was almost beautiful.”

“Hmph.” Once she’d drawn an arc that she was pleased with, she smudged it a bit with her thumb, almost matching what she’d done her other eye. “Damn, my hand’s too shaky.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

She rolled her eyes, moving to set the charcoal down with the rest of the meager beauty supplies she’d thought to brought with her in her pack ‘just in case’ - as though she’d known, deep down, that the night wasn’t going to end in their favor. “The plight of heroes, I guess…”

“Where’d that come from?”

“Reading your books. Some people in my family basically become poets to describe colors and fabrics in thousands of words - like that’ll help sell the clothes better.” She rolled her neck around, cracking it in several places. “Where does it end? We were supposed to do a monumental job, and we fucked it up so badly that everything’s gonna go to shit. So, like… what, then? We find another hero to fix everything? Where and how?”

“Relying on ‘heroes’ to fix the world means you’re gonna be waiting a long time to find them.” Aren’t you one? she nearly blurted out before thinking better of it. “But you, Harding, and Neve got this, so long as you’re willing to reach out for help wherever you can find it.”

“I don’t want to get this.”

“That’s a familiar sentiment.” He sighed, looking off to the side. “Like it or not, you’re in this now. And the other two listen to you. I don’t know much about you, Rook--”

“Callisto.”

“Rook. Point is - what I do know, you don’t shy away from responsibility. If no one else is willing to step up, you do.”

She made a sour face. “For all the good it’s done me.”

“Well, guess what - that’s what a hero is. Putting others before themself on a big level. You’ve been the hero this whole time - surprise.”

“Hah-- if you weren’t injured, I’d throw a pillow at you.”

“All my aching bones thank you.” He tilted his head, giving her a commiserating closed-mouth smile. “You’re gonna try to help, at least?”

“No shit; Harding would probably knock me upside the head if I tried to leave. She’s been so high-strung since we got here.”

“If fear of that can keep you going, that’s good enough for me.” He coughed a little, wincing, before turning over on his side. “Any time you need a pep talk, I’m here.”

“This room has the only mirror in the whole Lighthouse that I don’t have to hold up - I’m gonna be in here a lot.”

“I’ll take the company either way. Before you go, just one more thing.” Callisto rose a brow. “Mind your new, er, passenger. I know you’ll be tempted to cuss him out endlessly, but hidden within all his self-congratulating and lecturing, he’ll have helpful things to say.”

“Ugh… I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’m gonna leap across this chasm and strangle you.”

She was never good at taking Varric’s advice.

“Oh? How very mature - I see now why you are the perfect person to do what you claim I cannot.”

“You’ve been throwing a bitch-fit for years just because the world wasn’t how you left it when you took your big sleep, and I’m the immature one?” Callisto paced back and forth from her side of wherever the fuck - the Fade, an illusion, or maybe he was trapped between the folds of her brain like a parasite. What ever the circumstance, it was a miserable state to be in. “At least I’m owning up to what happened and running damage control.”

What did the Inquisitor see in him to get so heartbroken over?

“Because that is sure to be sustainable in the long run?”

“We won’t know until I do it. But you’re gonna cry like a baby because I proved you wrong.” She wasn’t pissing him off, not that she could tell, and that pissed her off. Exactly what he wanted, she knew, but she couldn’t help that she was doomed to be the only one who could communicate with him. One of the few types of people that got on her nerves so intensely that she couldn’t hide it behind her ‘official business’ mask of stoicism. “I didn’t come here to talk about your gods.”

“They are not my--”

“We found your dagger. And Harding got magic rock powers when she touched it.”

Silence, except for the whooshing and inaudible whispers of the space around them. His face was impassive, but if she hadn’t just punched him in the metaphorical nuts, he would still be running his mouth.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember her. One of the nicest people you and me both have ever met. One of the nicest dwarves, rather. A dwarf with magic. From something you made. Isn’t that interesting?”

If she hadn’t been watching his expression carefully, she wouldn’t have noticed the ever so slight twitch in his brow. “You are goading me.”

“My goodness, I wonder why?” She knocked her fist against her skull. “Think, Solas. Use that huge head of yours to think of why that would happen.”

“It was forged from the purest lyrium. From what I have gleaned, such lyrium is not handled often, if at all, by mortal tools.”

“So any dwarf who touched pure lyrium would be talking in riddles and turning people to stone?”

“I highly doubt that. There is something about Lace Harding that resonated with it, thus her connection to the Stone was awakened. That is a guess, at any rate - I witnessed something similar happen to a Shaper from Orzammar during my time with the Inquisition.”

“What?” Callisto sputtered as she tried to re-orient herself, having lost the upper hand in the conversation. “And that didn’t end up being a big deal?”

“What we discovered was… delicate. Sharing it with the world, or even the Shaperate, would lead to exploitation and disaster. We understood that, and let it lie.”

She dug her nails into her palms to try to ground herself. She was so desperate to shove all the awful things she knew he said about her people in his face, but she was enough of a tactical thinker to realize that it wasn’t the right time. He had yet to bring up the Inquisitor at all, not even now when he spoke of the Inquisition directly, or dwarf shit. There was some sort of armor-piercing reason why - or he was just that much of a dismissive dick - so she just had to wait. Wait until she needed to throw him off, drop little hints that she had been privy to details of their relationship, and once there was an opening, she’d reveal the full extent of what she knew. Hopefully it would cause his head to burst and solve the problem of his continued existence, but that would just have to be a fantasy she could turn to when she needed to self-soothe.

“Sure. Fine.” She took a deep breath, plastering the fakest smile possible on her face. “Whatever you say, Dread Wolf.”

“The situation troubles you.” He tilted his head ever so slightly, considering her. A chill went down her spine. “It cannot truly be that what occurred in the Deep Roads was hidden from the world. Someone who protects the interests of a business that caters to the richest people in Tevinter must understand that some things are better off hidden.” The corner of his mouth tilted up ever so slightly. “Especially since your family then turns around and gives a sizable amount of coin to the underground resistance movement.”

She had to suppress a growl, and a threat in the vein of ‘if you tell anyone, I’ll bash your head in’; even if he wasn’t trapped here, who would he even tell? He should’ve been thanking her if he knew that they did what they could to help his people, but he would sooner throw himself into the abyss. 

“I wonder… you’ve touched the lyrium dagger with bare skin, yes?”

“Yeah? And?” She had an uneasy feeling that she knew exactly where he was going. And that he might’ve been right.

”Have you not questioned, then, why Harding was bestowed with these powers… and you were not?”

Shit.

“I don’t have the time to waste worrying about things like that. Harding’s got powers, great, whatever, and I cut through stuff like butter with my axe. We’re both equally accomplished dwarves.” She stood there in the uneasy silence, fidgeting and bouncing her leg, until she couldn’t stop herself from mumbling, “even though she’s an Andrastian and I’m the one who actually believes in the fucking Stone…”

“Ah. I see why that would upset you.”

“No! No you don’t! Aaauuughhh, you’re fucking with me!”

He had the gall to scoff at her, unfolding his hands from behind his back. “I have nothing to pass the time with in this prison other than to reflect on all that has come to pass. Why then, when you appear and give me something else to focus on, would I not do my part to ensure you are sound of mind enough to handle the enormous responsibility ahead of you?”

“‘Sound of mind’? Pfft - no wonder you keep failing. You’re off your rocker.”

“And yet, I am still offering help, despite your determination to lower my opinion of you with every word you say.”

“I will never care what you think of me.” She crossed her arms over her chest, pouting down at the ground. She really didn’t care what he thought… and she realized, with horror, that meant that he may the only person she could actually vent to without the risk of hurting Harding. Even Neve or Varric. She knew he was going to use whatever she said against her, she knew this… but now that he opened that box, she had to reach inside. 

“It pisses me off, yeah. It pisses me off that I became the leader of our operation by accident, and I don’t get any special powers or-- or divine foresight or anything to help! Just you, one of the worst people I’ve ever met.” She snorted. “Or maybe I’m lucky and you’re just a hallucination from all the brain damage I got at the ritual site.”

“I would say the same, but I would not wish a hallucination of you on anyone.”

That actually made her laugh a little; she couldn’t tell if he was just insulting her again, or if he actually had a sense of humor. “And she just accepted it. It freaked her out for a minute - I mean, I was freaked out, she fell off a cliff and then rose back up encased in lyrium-veined stone speaking some bullshit. But when we got back to the Lighthouse, she was just the same. Always so do-goody and determined. Where was her long dark night of the soul, huh? Where was the crisis that she can pull rocks out of mountains like a mage when dwarves can’t be mages, or that she could accidentally petrify one of us if she’s startled? Where was her faltering, even a little, so I could… so I could be a part of it somehow. Instead, I told her I’m worried that it’s not a good thing, and she just said it felt right. That she felt ‘connected’. And I… shit, what I want more than anything right now is to feel connected to something stabilizing. Some sort of, I don’t know… harmony through the Stone. And maybe somehow, I’d be able to feel every member of my family, scattered throughout Thedas as they are. Know if they’re okay or not.”

She expected him to follow up immediately with something that would make her feel stupid, but he was oddly silent. When she chanced a look at him, his expression was contemplative, his gaze far off. Given the time to think about her own words, her gut churned, and she decided to keep talking before he could chime in on a rant that ended up being far too personal. “I guess I’ll tell her about that Shaper. We can get in contact with Orzammar and-- yeah.” She cleared her throat, fiddling with the ends of her hair to give her hands something to do. “You’ve never seen the dagger affect dwarves in any other way? Ever?”

“I have not had cause to use it on dwarves directly.”

“How generous of you.” Directly?

“That it led to this is quite remarkable. To experience the Fade through dreams for the first time in one’s life is…” He got that far-off look in his eyes again, but it passed quickly. “For her sake, and yours, I hope it does not lead to her ruin. One way or another.”

“We all live in the Fade now, Solas. It’s already lost its novelty - especially since I get to see this awful side of it too.”

“The Fade is neither grand nor terrible - it simply is.”

Callisto managed a mere “mmff” of acknowledgment. They both stood there, stewing in the rawness she had unintentionally opened up, and the fact that they had gone more than five minutes without berating each other was starting to make her itch. So she had to tip the scales once more. “I still think you’re a manipulative asshole.”

“And I am still of the opinion that you are an inept child who will leave the world worse than I did.”

“Great. Good talk.”

She tensed up as she tried to mimic the same actions, or perhaps train of thought, that woke her up the last time she was here. She was interrupted by him calling out, and she rolled her eyes as she barked a, “What?” back.

“You do not need magic to be formidable, Daughter of the Stone.”

She blinked, shoulders rising up to her ears… before his words really sunk in, and her entire body relaxed like a screaming kettle taken off the fire. He didn’t say much, and it shouldn’t make her feel anything, but… it was something she needed to hear. She said she would never care what he thought - and she meant it - but if the affirmation she needed to not feel like shit happened to come out of his mouth, well…

“If that’s you saying I’m great, I’ll take it.”

“I hardly--”

“Nope. I won’t forget it. Enjoy prison.”

“You know… when he said he wouldn’t wish having to deal with me on anyone… I kinda understood, a little bit, what the Inquisitor saw in him.”

Neve promptly stopped writing her notes about Callisto’s latest mind-meld with Solas, her quill scratching the page. “How could that have possibly been titillating? He was speaking down to you.”

“No, but--” Callisto grunted, adjusting her position on Neve’s desk to fully face her fellow Tevene. “Haven’t you just-- haven’t you ever talked shit to someone’s face, and then they talk shit back, and then you just have to wonder… hey, do they hate me, or do they wanna fuck me? Both, maybe?”

Neve considered her for a moment, then sat back in her plush chair and rubbed the feather of the quill back and forth over her chin. “Mmm… that does take me back.”

“I knew you’d understand.”

“Just walk softly. And for your sake, don’t tell him anything. He’ll gloat, dismiss you, or Maker forbid, latch onto you like a leech at the possibility that one other person in the world doesn’t find him repulsive.”

“Hey, no offense to the Inquisitor, but I know when to keep it in my pants. …Even if I do think he’d probably get on his knees for anyone who slapped him and asked if he was their ‘good boy’.”

“Okay!” Neve promptly stood, smoothing down her blouse in clear discomfort as Callisto snickered. “I think I’m finished with these for now. Please get out until you want to talk about something else. Magisterium politics, gruesome sacrifices - anything would be more pleasant than that visual.”

“Yeah, yeah - I just came up with the perfect way to bring him in line and no one will listen. I see how it is.”

“Out.”

“When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?”

…

“It is awful, what we’re doing.”

“And the only way to end this war.”

…

“Have you come to avenge the Titans from whom you were born?”

“I wish I could splinter you into a million fucking pieces, you megalomaniacal cunt,” Callisto spit with all the vitriol she could muster, wishing the piece of Mythal before her wasn’t incorporeal so she could tackle her to the ground. “And once I kill you, I’m coming for your lap dog next.”

Mythal’s answering laugh was short - deep and assured, the kind of laugh one would expect from a woman who committed genocide to shore up her immeasurable power. “Lap dog? You sound so much like Elgar’nan.” She began to glow, stepping backwards. “Come, little Titan. Prove you are worthy of more than your dreamless existence. Or fade away, like all the rest of you.”

As Callisto trudged away from the snow-covered battlefield afterward, Mythal’s essence clutched in her bloody hand, two thoughts were on her mind: 1) wasn’t vengeance supposed to feel better than this? 2) she was so grateful she happened to bring Taash, otherwise there was a good chance she and Davrin would have died. 

There was a third thought too, although it was one she was trying hard not to think - she should have brought Harding. Should have doubled back to the Lighthouse as soon as Morrigan told her she would have to face Mythal, whether just a fragment or not, and told Harding, ‘Hey, you know how I had you embrace the anger of our massacred Ancestors? Here’s the perfect opportunity to take it out on one of the people who did it.’ But this was hers , especially after witnessing how everything went down in Isana Negat; how the Titan acted as though Harding was the only dwarf there, how Callisto was just as willing to acknowledge and be angry for what had happened to their people - but it was like they couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her, just because she wasn’t “connected”. And it was fucking with her far more than she had admitted to Solas.

Solas. How could she have said anything to him… when he… when he --

By the time she was conscious of what she was doing again, she had all but kicked in the door to Harding’s conservatory, startling the woman away from where she’d been tending to the mint plant Lucanis bought her. She slammed the essence figurine onto the floor by the bedroll, breathing heavily and swaying as the exhaustion and bruising caught up with her. “We need to talk about the Titans,” was all she said.

“Okay…” Harding rose to her feet and made her way over to her, the sound of her weird wooden clogs grating on Callisto’s frayed patience. “Don’t you think you should sit down, first?”

Callisto held up a finger. “Not before we hash it out.” Harding kept looking at her with those stupidly kind eyes, mouth set in a slight frown, and as the adrenaline wore off, she just felt worse and worse. “...Fine.” She moved back a few steps and sunk into the armchair, groaning involuntarily as she felt aching everywhere.

“I thought we already talked about the memory,” Harding started, sitting down cross-legged on the rug, taking the statue into her hands. “Didn’t we?”

“Not enough.” She slumped further into the cushions, rubbing the side of her face. “You weren’t angry.”

“What? I was - at least I think so. I told you, I was feeling a lot of strong emotions at once, and didn’t know which one to latch onto.”

“And I told you what I felt - misery. Hatred.” She rose her overplucked unibrow. “And that’s without me getting to hear the Song of the Stone or move rocks or speak in Titan tongues.”

The concern on Harding’s face hardened, bit by bit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You, apparently, are our peoples’ legacy! And the meanest thing you can say about Solas is that you pity him!”

“I do! That doesn’t mean I’m not angry for what he did! But… he wouldn’t have done it if Mythal hadn’t ordered him to--”

“Don’t. Do not blame a woman for his actions, even if that woman was a piece of work all on her own.”

“I’m not blaming ‘a woman’, I’m blaming Mythal period. Maybe the idea would’ve never entered his mind on his own. We’ll never know.”

“We do know! We went through that memory of him throwing spirits at the Evanuris’ walls for a diversion! He said it was all for a way to end the war - the same rationale behind making the dagger.”

“That was different.”

“How was it fucking different, Lace?!”

“I don’t know! I don’t know how to feel, or if something like this can ever be truly avenged.” She rested her elbow on her calf, and propped her chin up in her palm. “I didn’t know Mythal. She was just a name, someone people revered, someone who had statues and temples but never a face or a voice I could put to her. But I knew Solas, even if we barely ever spoke. I knew…” she smiled wistfully, shaking her head, “I knew how the Inqui-- Leda gushed about him. Every time we’d talk, she always found some way to bring him up, and she never ran out of anything nice or sweet to say. It was never outright lovey-dovey, but even an idiot could tell how she felt. I built up this picture of him in my mind based off all that - something completely wrong, I know that now, but… I wanna believe there’s some truth to everything she thought he was. That, despite all he’s done to us, he’s someone who could be talked down and made to care with the right words.” She looked at Callisto, frowning. “Is that really so wrong?”

“Yes.” Callisto pressed her fingers into her temples, trying to staunch her own anger.

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.” Harding gaze turned weary. “Even after everything, I can’t change how I feel.”

Callisto’s eyes darted down to the figurine, sitting ignored as they argued. She bit the inside of her cheek, bouncing her leg. “I killed Mythal.”

“...Huh?”

“Morrigan was the one waiting for us in the Crossroads. Long story short, there was an extra piece of Mythal sequestered away by all the docks. Solas protecting his precious-- ugh, get his name out of my mouth. The point is, Morrigan was all, ‘you may take it by force, or appeal to her nature’--” Despite the tense atmosphere, Harding snorted at how bad Callisto’s impression of the prolific witch was, and that was almost enough to make her drop everything and apologize. Almost. “But no shit I’m not gonna talk things out with her. So she turned into a dragon and we killed her. It felt great.”

Harding was frowning, contemplative, and that just annoyed Callisto further. “Why aren’t you spitting mad at me? This should’ve been your moment to let the Titan out.”

“I do that with every shot I take. Everything we do hurts Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain - they killed Titans too, even if they weren’t the ones who hurt them the most.” She looked down at the figurine, reaching out to it before hesitating and pulling her hand back. “You said it ‘felt’ great. Not ‘feels’.”

“Okay, okay, I’m just gonna get out ahead of what you’re about to say - revenge doesn’t bring back what was lost. Right?”

“I didn’t know what I was gonna say. Something like that, maybe. But you don’t need to hear it.” Harding shrugged. “...I’m glad. That you killed her. Only you could have done it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. In the moment, I might’ve wanted to try to-- well… I just went on that whole spiel about having hope in Solas, of all people. If there was a way to get her essence without coming to blows, I would’ve taken it.”

“But you don’t regret that I didn’t?”

“No.” Harding gave her a small smile. “You did our Ancestors proud. Or-- well, your Ancestors. I’m not… can they be mine, too, if I’m a Surfacer? If I believe in the Maker?”

“Uhh-- thanks for the praise, but I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.” Callisto leaned forward, as best as she could with her injuries. “How can you not believe in the Stone, with all you’ve experienced?”

“What dwarves understand as the ‘Stone’ isn’t-- I don’t really know how to explain it. All I know about it is what’s come up in all the reading I’ve done, so maybe it’s different for you. But from my understanding, the Stone is almost like what the Fade is to Andrastians. Where we pass through when we die, what we draw our fortitude from. But the Stone isn’t what they think it is. They don’t realize that the very Ancestors they venerate aren’t just our actual family, but blood all the way back to the waking, singing earth. The very earth itself. And I can’t…” She shook her head, sighing. “Maybe someday, after all this is over, I’ll explore it. But Andrastianism has been my whole life, you know? It’s what brought me and my neighbors together, how I made sense of things. It’s the whole reason the Inquisition came to be. I can’t just give it up, whether or not the parts I thought were true aren’t.”

It was kind of different for Callisto. The only worship of the Stone she’d ever known was her family’s brand of it, something loose and free to interpret as they saw fit so long as they didn’t turn her back on it completely. Her grandmother was casteless in Orzammar, and by coming to Tevinter, she was eager to cast away the chains of that awful life. Still, there were parts of dwarven tradition she wanted to keep in such an overwhelmingly Andrastian world. Worship would not be rigid, wouldn’t demand tithes or kneeling, but they would not turn their backs on the earth and magma that forged them. Their daily work was their ritual - every thread sewn or cut, every metal inlaid, honored those who came before and those who would follow. Their place of worship was their sprawling manor, and nightly service was their insanely loud dinners where they would gossip, or argue, or simply lay out what the plans for the next day were going to be. 

Maybe that wasn’t supposed to be what worshiping the Stone looked like. Now that Callisto knew about the Titans, she doubted it would ever feel like it again. But, just as Harding had said of her own faith, the thought of trying to change it up felt all too hard.

“I suppose I get it,” was all she ended up saying.

“I wish you were going through this with me.” Harding stood, untying her sash from around her waist and using it to pick up the figurine with. “I don’t say that enough.”

“I don’t think you ever have. But worded like that? I don’t want you to.” That got another snort out of Harding, and Callisto managed a smile this time. “I’ll live. At least now I can say I killed another elven god in addition to the other two.”

Harding smirked as she handed the figurine back to her. “We haven’t killed them yet.”

“We will.” Callisto took it back, turning it around in her bare hands, trying to resist the sudden impulse to smash it on the ground. “You know, if you want someone to talk to about dreams and dwarf magic fuckery - that won’t be cryptic as fuck like the Oracle - you can always reach out to the Inquisitor. Didn’t the Anchor make her dream while she had it?”

“I’ve thought about it… but I never really knew her all that well, and I know she hasn’t been in the best state of mind…”

“You should.” Callisto stood, wheezing involuntarily. “I know you said you weren’t part of her inner circle, but-- I mean, I barely know her either, but she really doesn’t seem like the type to care about things like that.”

Harding eyed her garden, smoothing her sash between her hands. “It’s not that easy to get over all the titles, even now, but… I’ll think about it. Either way, thanks. For the honesty.”

“Is that really what you’re thanking me for?”

“I know this has been bothering you for a while. I figured you would come and talk when you were ready.”

“Oh, is talking what we did? Not arguing?” Callisto chuckled, waving her off. “I’ll see you, Harding.”

“See you.”

Chapter Text

The Inquisitor was supposed to be brave, strong, responsible; to meet danger as it hurtled toward Thedas and strike it down, even if it took everything they had. They were supposed to be on the front lines, lending knowledge and tactical know-how if they couldn’t lend a blade. They were supposed to smile and make the innocent feel more at ease, no matter what turmoil went on in their mind. Most of all, the Inquisitor was not supposed to hide and do nothing while evil encroached.

But Leda wasn’t the Inquisitor anymore. The Venatori were coming to Kirkwall, and people were screaming and running in the streets trying to get out and anywhere else before the city could be overrun. All the while, she was hunched in the corner of her room, shivering and struggling not to hyperventilate. 

What in the world happened? The last she’d heard from Dorian, the wolf hunters ("Gods, he thinks he’s so clever with his silly little names,” Dorian had said, fond exasperation in his tone) were on their way back to Minrathous to meet with someone else who might help. Something going wrong had to be separate from a new Blight… but she couldn’t ignore the timing of it all.

She should help, she knew that - she should go to Aveline and tell her she could help prevent the mass exodus from becoming a riot, or even help gather supplies. Something worthy of someone who’d once been called a hero. But she’d never felt like a hero; why bother now?

She stayed in that same spot for hours - the noise outside didn’t die down, but there were no screams of death that she could hear. The nugs were still padding about elsewhere in the house, and that was all she cared about. She was hungry, and antsy, but so long as she stayed in this spot, nothing bad would happen to her, and no one would know she wasn’t helping. Definitely.

Maybe the Stone - or the Maker, or whoever - saw fit to punish her for that, because she was scrambling to her feet as soon as she heard Obio’s distress cut through the cacophony. All her movements after that were pure instinct - grabbing her bow and arrows from where they rested beside her bedroom door, racing down the stairs, going out the back door in the kitchen, and rounding around the house to get to the stalls. There, she saw one of her rich neighbors pulling hard on Obio’s reins while he resisted.

She wasted no time nocking an arrow and pulling the bowstring back, aiming down at the man’s calf. “Let ‘im go. Now. Or I’ll hurt ya.”

He didn’t relent. “Are you kidding? I’m freeing him. You keep him in his bloody stall almost all the time, I’ve seen you. He’ll be grateful to actually stretch his legs while I take us far out of Kirkwall.”

“I-- I take him out… when I can…” The familiar weight of guilt pressed down on her chest, making her slacken her grip just a little - before the sound of a rat’s squeak brought her back to herself. “He’s not yours. You won’t treat ‘im well.”

“I’ll treat him better than you’re doing. Unlike you, I was actually able to grow up affording horses, and the proper care for them.”

“He’s not a fuckin’ horse!”

She was going to fire. She was going to fire on a civilian, but-- he wasn’t a civilian, he was a monster wearing human skin, or a demon trying to make her doubt herself… or maybe he was just someone who deserved to get shot.

She nearly lost her grip when she felt something crawl up her leg. Swallowing hard, she looked down to see that a black-haired rat was making its way up to her shoulder. From just a surface, in-the-moment evaluation, it seemed surprisingly clean and well-kept - maybe a pet that got lost in the chaos. She couldn’t afford to take her attention off the asshole, but she was hard pressed to refuse the opportunity to give an animal affection, especially when it was on her shoulder of its own volition.

“Eugh,” the man exclaimed in exaggerated discuss as he watched her nuzzle her big nose against the top of its head. “At this rate, you’ll get him ill with all the diseases you catch from these things. But I suppose vermin flock to their own, hm?”

When the rat crawled back down her arm and jumped onto the ground, the best case scenario, in her mind, was that it had enough intelligence to go over there and bite the man - even if it would probably get harmed in the process. What she couldn’t guess would happen, despite all she’d seen in the Inquisition, was the rat transforming into a human - who, after Leda’s eyes adjusted, cut a familiar silhouette.

“You would do well to heed the Inquisitor’s warning - lest you wish to be wounded, forgotten, and left for dead.” 

Her neighbor almost immediately dropped Obio’s reins, seeming to finally recognize the amount of shit he was in. “Well-- if you want him to die here, that’s on you.” He scurried off like real vermin, and only then did the woman turn to her - not a smile on her face, like Leda was hoping, but not threatening, either.

“Morrigan! Um… hello! And thanks.” She set her bow aside and rushed over to Obio, trying to soothe him as best she could with all the chaos around them persisting. “If I’d known the rat was you, I wouldn’ta been so…” She struggled to find the right word, just offering her an awkward smile.

“Ah, tis no matter. I thought you might need a moment of connection. Grounding.” Morrigan finally offered her a brief smile in turn, but it was gone as quickly as it came. “Dark times are encroaching upon us.”

“When aren’t there dark times?” Leda pressed her lips together, patting Obio’s snout. “You wouldn’t be here while the city’s fallin’ apart for a friendly visit. But I dunno why you’re here instead of anywhere else - acting-viscount’s got everyone leavin’ for Starkhaven so the Venatori don’t get ‘em.”

“Because you are here, and you are needed.”

“Wha-- I keep tellin’ everybody, I don’t have what made me special anymore. The Inquisition that’s not ‘the Inquisition’ is fine without me.” She huffed. “‘Sides, haven’t ya heard? Thedas got new heroes - or two old heroes ‘n one new one. And they’re gonna do the thing I shoulda done and get the bad guy immediately.”

Morrigan stepped into her line of sight, and every time she tried to turn her head and avoid her, it was as though the woman was all around her. She might’ve been, with all her magic. “It is because their plans went awry that we are facing ruin - by hands more insidious than those of the Dread Wolf.” Before Leda had any time to process her intentional vagueness, or form a question, she pressed on. “I would have gone elsewhere, had I not the certainty the South will not survive without your guiding hand.”

“Don’t say that… Please, there’s not-- you know what hand was guiding mine.”

“Solas may have been in your ear, but you were not his thrall. You have earned your place in history.”

“As a failure? As everybody’s enemy?” Leda gestured vaguely in the direction her witless neighbor had run off in, before pressing her prosthetic hand to her mouth and screaming into it. “I just… why can’t ya get Warden Brosca for this? Aren’t ya close?”

“She…” Morrigan faltered for a moment, sadness passing over her face in a wave before disappearing. “I may yet find her and entreat her aid. Still, she has always been adept at making herself scarce when she smells the fuel about to burn - you, however, are not. So I have found you, and I am trusting you are still the same woman that stands as a Titan against those who would sunder the earth.”

“Dammit…” Tears sprung to her eyes, and she took in a few quick, gulping half-breath half-sobs. Morrigan really did know everything, it seemed. “I dunno how I’m gonna do this again…”

“All of Thedas is primed to be in chaos at once; far less eyes will be on you, as they will too busy squabbling or attempting to save their own skins. Cooler heads will prevail, and such heads will carry much in the way of patience. Delegate, negotiate, and trust those who place their trust in you. You will not have to go back onto the battlefield lest you wish it, or Skyhold itself is under siege.”

“Skyhold.” The word left her breathlessly, the mention of the old keep that held so many bad memories punching her right in the gut. “I don’t wanna go back.” Morrigan said nothing, just continued to watch her. People were still screaming and running just a ways away; the city guard was going to do a sweep soon, most likely, make sure everyone got out. They would yell and scream at her that she had to leave, shove her right out without any time to gather her things. What little things she still kept. “...Y’have to promise the nugs’ll be okay. I don’t-- I dunno how you’re travellin’, or we’re travellin’, but… I wouldn’t be able to take them with me, would I? I can’t leave ‘em here, I’d die first.”

“There will be no need for that. We are travelling by eluvian, so I fear Ser Obio would not fit. Though I have seen your impressive wrangling skills firsthand, I doubt trying to get three nugs along with yourself through at once will be easy. But if you allow it, I will ensure they make safe passage to Skyhold to join you.”

“I-- thanks. You’re a good person.” Morrigan gave her a slightly bigger smile than before. “...Do ya really think I won’t just ruin everythin’?”

“So long as you improve the worsening state of things in some way, you will succeed. This, you are more than good at.” 

“Will ya be there? For me?”

Morrigan chuckled. “My role as arcane advisor to the Inquisition has not ceased. I will go wherever duty and destiny dictate - when I am not in Arlathan assisting the Veil Jumpers, I will be at your side. This, I swear to you.”

She almost hated how hard it was to falter in the face of Morrigan’s certainty, of her storied wisdom and fancy words. She wanted to ask what nonsense was going in Arlathan, but she would probably just tell her it wasn’t the time to keep talking. So she wiped at her eyes, and folded her arms together. “...Okay.”

Leda expected she’d feel fear when she stepped back into that damned old keep; that panic would flood her system the moment she stepped over the threshold, and the oppressive stone walls would close in around her like they always did.

What she didn’t expect to feel was loss.

Skyhold was humbled by the people who came and left during the Inquisition; no matter how full the courtyard or halls became again, it wasn’t the same. Most people were refugees, displaced by a disaster far bigger and bleaker than Corypheus and the Breach ever were. The rest were the disjointed forces and agents that had been cobbled together from temporary alliances and desperation, when they would never work together otherwise. As dire as things were back then, there was a general feeling of hope pouring off people. Of divine purpose, whether or not everyone there shared the same faith.

There was Vivienne, smiling and waving from the balcony whenever Leda would come up the steps; no matter their differences of opinion, Leda would always think that she was the most beautiful and graceful woman she’d ever seen. There was Bull and the Chargers, who roped her into getting drunk and merry with them so they could all forget the horrors of their collective pasts for a while. Sera helped her lower her inhibitions with all the pranks and bad jokes they shared, commiserating over how othered they felt for the way they talked and thought. She avoided Cassandra like the plague most of the time, convinced that when the woman found out just how mentally fragile she’d been this whole time, she’d see her as a failure and clap her in irons again. Instead, after her public mental breakdown towards the end, the Seeker had given her nothing but grace, and regret that she had regarded Leda as titles first, personhood second for so long.

At the time, Leda bristled whenever someone she passed would call her “Your Worship”, worse still if she noticed them bowing their head. She would have preferred it, however, to barely being regarded at all. People were too involved in yet another potential end of the world, too angry and frantic over the dissolution of Thedosian countries and society to perceive her at all beyond fleeting curiosity. That persistent wonder of, what ever happened to her?

Why don’t you ask me, was what she’d bark back if she had the courage.

But there were little pockets of familiarity, here and there, that she clung to. The new war council may not have been friends, but they were faces she had seen at least a few times before - kind and competent ones. Charter made sense in becoming spymaster, having been the most senior of Leliana’s agents by the time of the Inquisition’s official “disbanding”; Leda would always trust her judgment, even if it proved hard. She had only spoken to Commander Barris a few times, but even in just those few interactions, he exemplified everything a templar should be - dedicating to serving and protecting, without being ruled by fear or malice. He had also come into a high-ranking position under the Divine, so it was to be expected that he would be sent back to Skyhold to command their forces on her orders - and with Cullen’s endorsement. 

No ambassador this time around, however. Josephine sent a very heartfelt letter full of apologies, but things at home were too dire for her to leave, and everyone who could have replaced her was also occupied by their own wartime duties. This messy operation didn’t need an ambassador like the Inquisition did, and there certainly were competent negotiators at their disposal to help facilitate temporary alliances, but being without someone who was good at smiling and spinning golden words for anyone who required them didn’t help the mounting pressure.

Her only solace, for a time, was all the other letters from old friends or supporters that came in. Many of them she still struggled to read, her vocabulary not very broad even after a decade of learning, but they all made her feel better. Leliana wrote her many times, keeping her abreast of the bad schism in Orlais and any updates she received from the agents she hadn’t lent to the Inquisition; and then, at the end of every letter, she would take care to update her on the activities of her nugs, safe and sound, and asked after Leda’s. Vivienne, too, wrote to her about the situation from Empress Celene’s side - but, hearteningly, she said that if her country was not falling apart at the seams, she would be at Skyhold. Sera wrote from Denerim right before she was about to get out, having returned home to aid what remained of the Red Jennies there in evacuating civilians until it proved futile. Even Rainier wrote her, saying how he and many southern Wardens had ignored the First Warden’s order to return to Weisshaupt, intending on  joining the unified Free Marches forces. He worried for her, and it made her painfully wistful; at the very least, after hearing what Ghilan’nain had done to the order, she was so grateful he stayed put (and so, so guilt-ridden that she sentenced him to this life).

Letters from Harding never brought relief. There was good news in them, sure, and simply bizarre news (dwarven magic… the Titans… Harding didn’t elaborate much beyond that, and Leda was too overwhelmed to ponder). But ever since the one that came after… after, she braced herself for more bad news every time.

Every day that went by without hearing from anyone else, the pit in her gut grew larger and larger, so very fearful that the last time she saw them would truly be the last time. Dorian contacted her shortly after Morrigan got her out of Kirkwall, only to forlornly relay the news that Minrathous had been ravaged by Ghilan’nain, giving the Venatori opportunity to seize control. She hadn’t heard from him since, and distracting herself by poring over maps and giving orders that all felt wrong was all that was stopping her from exploding.

“You cannot save everyone,” Cassandra had told her back then, when she caught Leda spiralling over allowing the templars to fall to Corypheus. “It is the reality of leadership. Of war. To save someone is to let someone else fall. And sometimes,” she had smiled bitterly, making the scar on her cheek pull, “our best efforts only result in death on all sides.”

Once, when she was naive and hopeful, she was better at being selfless on a broad scale. Of course civilians should be prioritized, or anyone who simply wasn’t part of the fight no matter where they landed on morality. Sacrifice was good , one or a handful of people she stood beside dying so thousands upon thousands of nameless faces could live another day. The person she’d sacrificed was the version of her that could be that selfless exemplar of virtue, to make the tough calls and accept the body count for the benefit of all. But who made up the “all”? No one she spent time with; no one who’d had her back in countless skirmishes; no one whom she guided through their problems, who never knew the extent of her own misery in turn. If she could choose between those few people - people whose names and faces she could actually recall - or a sea of people who would never care to know her… she would choose the former.

She was terrified such selfishness would end up damning them anyway.

She was in the stalls when the dam broke. They didn’t look the same as they had - the area was littered with tents and bedrolls, makeshift campfires and screaming children. There were far too many mounts to fit in the stalls, so most of them had their reins tied to whatever sturdy thing could be found. As Obio was one of the first to be brought back to the keep, he got the luxury of his old stall, where Leda was currently feeding him, stroking one of his horns as she did so. She’d already stayed out here far too long, and she had so many things to do so the world didn’t fall apart, so with a frown, she set his feed aside and closed the gate. When she turned, she thought she was hallucinating a very exhausted Dorian approaching her, but considering some of the other people around were staring right at him, and Maevaris trailing behind him… they had to be real.

If they hadn’t both been so weary, she would have launched herself at him as she had done so many times before. Instead, she trudged toward him, and when they finally closed the distance, she slowly wrapped one arm around his back and held him tight, while the other extended towards Maevaris for her to take.

And then, as she was so wont to do, she started to cry.

“Oh, Leda…” Dorian pressed his face into her hair and held her tightly, his body sagging. “I wanted to be here sooner…”

“It’s okay. I’ve been dyin’, but it’s okay.” She sniffled, turning her head towards the other displaced magister. “I’m so sorry this happened.”

“It was an inevitability, ultimately - just not at the hands of elven gods and a blighted dragon.” Maevaris managed a wry smile. “Despite the circumstances, it’s good to see you again.”

“Always good to see ya too…” Leda hiccupped, burying her face into Dorian’s chest. “If I had to wait another day to hear from ya, I woulda chucked my guts up.”

“Not on anyone, hopefully?” Dorian pulled away, if only so he could cup her face in his hands. “Though, if anyone here still believes you’re the Herald - which I’m sure they do - they would probably consider it a blessing.”

“Blech.”

“My sentiments exactly.” Maevaris released Leda’s hand and sighed, casting her gaze around the area. “Before we settle in, I was hoping you could point me in the direction of your spymaster. I’m sure you have eyes and ears in Tevinter already, but if they have any agents to spare…?”

“Retakin’ Minrathous already? That’ll be dangerous.”

“Just planting the seeds. The gods need to be dealt with before we can make any serious moves, but that task seems to be falling on the other dwarven hero in play.” 

“Uh… yeah.” Leda cleared her throat, pointing towards the main keep. “Charter’ll either be in the war room,” she moved her hand leftwards, “or in the rookery we set up in the ol’ tavern. Can’t miss her. And good luck.”

“Ah, don’t wish me good luck yet; we’ll need it for later.” Maevaris bowed her head, beginning to head off. “In the meantime, you two have some catching up to do.”

Most of the liquor in Skyhold’s cellar had been cleared out and repurposed for emergency wound disinfectant. Leda had managed to squirrel away the first three bottles she could grab before the healers took the rest, storing them under her bed as she waited to open them with an old friend. Any old friend, really, but Dorian most of all. She’d thought, maybe, they’d manage to laugh like they used to if they were a little drunk, or be able to pretend things were okay for a few hours. Instead, they just sat in front of her fireplace, passing the bottle of awful whiskey back and forth in between stilted bits of conversation and silence. They’d updated each other on the respective situations in the North and South, sure, but war was an easy enough topic to speak of these days. Far easier to broach than personal losses.

Barely having anything to say to each other was a lot worse than hurting again.

“Y’heard about Varric?”

“Via Harding, yes.” The corner of his mouth quirked up as he stared at the burning logs. “I keep recalling his last visit with me. It was good fun, waxing poetic about how the fate of the Veil would be left in the hands of dwarves.” He turned his gaze toward her. “It still is.”

“I guess…” She took another swig from the bottle, belching loudly before setting it down. “How’s Mae takin’ it?”

“You know her, far better at compartmentalizing than I am - but losing both family and our city in such quick succession? I worry…”

“Ya worry ‘bout everyone.”

“Not everyone. Just those who matter.” He picked up the bottle, circling his thumb around the neck of it. “He was our family, too.”

Leda whimpered into her arm, biting her skin to try to ground herself.  “I never-- we never made up.”

“I know.”

“And he died ‘cuz of… he…” She clutched at her chest, on the verge of choking from how tightly her heart twisted around itself. “If I’d been there… maybe I coulda--”

“No. You couldn’t have. Maker forbid.” He took a much longer drink than she had, hissing through the burn when he finished. “Varric’s a hard loss, but I cannot, under any circumstance, lose you. Especially not to that bald waste of air.”

Leda failed to stifle her laughing, but it seemed to give him some relief that they didn’t get mired in such an oppressively heavy topic, if only for a moment. “Harding said she wasn’t sure if it was an accident.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps all pretense of camaraderie is gone from his mind, and he’ll do the same to any of us if we dare confront him.” She stayed silent for a little too long. “...You don’t still believe in him, do you?”

“No! ‘Course not! I-- I don’t know.” She made to reach for the bottle, but her head already felt like it was swimming enough. That, and he seemed intent on clutching it for security. “Every day, every hour, I hear more awful things comin’ in from all over. What the Blight’s doin’ to people, what places it’s wiped out, and how it’s all ‘cuz of the gods. Gods that--” She rubbed furiously at her eyes, rocking from side to side. “That, from what Morrigan told me, he was tryin’ to lock away better. And that’s what he was doin’, even if it was gonna ruin everythin’. So I guess I get why, kinda. Maybe.”

“There’s nothing to get! We would have been condemned either way - at his hand, or theirs. One thing I’ll give Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain credit for, they don’t hide their atrocities behind a veneer of righteousness. They know what they are.” Leda opened her mouth to protest, but Dorian merely shook his head, setting the bottle aside. “Lucky for both of us, the gods aren’t your problem.”

“Nah - just everythin’ else is.”

“Yes, things are chaos here, aren’t they? Both our homes are all but gone for the moment, however; nothing better to do than to save the world again.”

Her lips twitched, turning to look at her bed behind them. She’d bought the dwarven-style frame from a furniture seller in Val Royeaux, of all places. There was probably nothing left of that place now. “If-- when this is over, and Minrathous is okay again… maybe I could live with ya?”

“What, no desire to stay here in this veritable castle?” She swatted at his arm. “No, please, come with me. It hasn’t been the same all these years, not being able to bother you in person at any hour. And once I manage to secure the palace, we’ll have plenty of room.”

Leda blinked, turning back to him with a quirked brow. “Palace?”

“Surely you don’t think Mae and I sat idle on our journey here. We discussed the future. Plans. Seizing power.” He reached for her hand. “Merely being a Magister was a dead end in terms of enacting change. If the Lucerni are to be a viable political power again, not to mention the Shadow Dragons needing to safely rebuild, one of us needs to be on the throne. We debated for days about who would be best suited to lead, but it became clear that with the Venatori so brazenly hanging bodies in the streets, they need to be snuffed out by whatever means necessary.” He tightened his grip. “I’m the one willing to go to those lengths.”

She stared at him, processing. “...Oh.”

“Please tell me you understand. I… I realize this is more severe than the decisions you’ve made, but--”

“No. I understand. When, uh, someone’s crushin’ people, the only way to crush ‘em worse is to get a bigger hammer.”

“But this gives you pause. I know you too well.”

“S’not you, I swear.” She squeezed his hand back. “Just fucked up, is all. What we gotta do to make things better. Promises we can’t keep.”

“I never promised not to take my homeland back by force, mind you. But I couldn’t have guessed I’d want the Archon’s seat to do it when we first met. My father’s likely rolling in his grave.”

“It makes sense. I’m scared for ya, but it makes sense.”

“Don’t you worry. If the power ever goes to my head - which is a laughable idea - Mae will be right there to remind me of who I am. So will you, no matter where you are.”

“That’s an easy job.” With a huff, she leaned against his side, smushing her face into his arm. “Are ya sure Skyhold’s the safest place for the next Archon?”

“You’re here; that makes any potential complications worth it. Besides, O Holy Inquisitor, you’ll protect me.” She grunted. “That’s you agreeing, yes?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not even going to pretend to fight me on it? Mm, you’ve always been too earnest for your own good.” He brought his hand up to brush through her brown curls, carefully so as not to get his rings caught. “I’m grateful that hasn’t changed.”

She said nothing else, too focused on the fire. She didn’t know how to respond, really; he was painfully right. She wished she could be like him, intentionally choose to be vicious and indiscriminating to do the right thing, but every time she had, it hadn’t been a conscious decision. That, and she felt like she was losing her mind every time. She’d lost her mind anyway, so what good was it all, in the end?

“Everything will work out,” he said, if only to fill the silence. “It has to.”

Chapter Text

For all that it was often a detriment, Callisto was blessed to be a rather rational thinker most of the time. Not just in matters of business or any other situation that required a cool head, but… well, her family had an unspoken policy not to let her talk about fiction books with most of them anymore, the bulk of her critique being, “but why would they do that if it makes no sense?” Not that she didn’t understand irrationality, or strong feelings - it was that she understood them all too well that it was so easy to judge decisions spurred by such things from the outside.

The most irrational, of course, being love. Love was what drove Solas to tear down everything about this world to bring back his old one (and, as she’d later learn, to willingly commit atrocities for the woman who made him flesh). Love was what made the Inquisitor willing to do anything for praise and a soft (or not so soft) touch. Love was what had Varric believing he could possibly dissuade an old friend from doing the only thing he cared about. Love was why Neve was furious at her for leaving their shared birthplace, the place Callisto was supposed to love just as much, to burn while she went to deal with Treviso first.

“What was I supposed to do?” Callisto just barely managed to keep her voice level as Neve and Tarquin faced her down, the perpetual Minrathous rain doing nothing to extinguish the fires burning all around them. “Let my personal bias rule my decisions? I was being a good leader, Neve - who knows how far blight would have travelled if it got in the waterways?"

“And who knows how many people we could have saved, had you helped?” Neve fired back. “This is your city. The people you care about live here.”

“Don’t bother. If they can’t throw money at the problem, her family never bothers with the little people.” Tarquin sneered. “The rich neighborhoods didn’t get touched at all. But you already knew that’d be the case.”

Callisto fixed her gaze on the ground, not able to bear seeing Neve’s expression darken. “Why’s it all on me? I’m just one fucking person…” Her voice was small, defeated.

“Evidently not, if Treviso’s just fine.” Neve huffed. “You can’t do anything now. Just go.”

She kept her chin raised and stiff upper lip as she returned to the Lighthouse, white-knuckled her way through her next conference with Solas, and only then did she pound her fist against the wall and grit her teeth.

Love didn’t help anybody. Love would most definitely hinder her, and while it was proving hard not to get attached to her companions, fire-forged friendship was different than deliberately choosing people to care about. Or, worse yet, instant infatuation.

When Solas had suggested (re: expected, demanded in clever words) she should seek out a Fade expert, she felt ill. Not that she didn’t agree, because she didn’t ever know what was going on with all the magicky bits of their journey, but… it was for that very reason that she was given pause. After all, Solas had been the Inquisitor’s expert, the ultimate font of knowledge to a dwarf connected to the Fade for the first time in her life - the perfect set up for him to deceive and ultimately use her. Callisto was nowhere near as desperate for attention or validation, but what if all Fade experts were as insufferable as he was when dealing with dwarves? What if she just so happened to find yet another mage hiding a world-shattering secret that was going to doom them all?

She nearly shot Bellara down as soon as she told her about the expert she’d been corresponding with. Him being a Mortalitasi wasn’t a problem; no, what she was hung up on was that he was a professor, near-certainly guaranteeing he’d be an old prick with an overinflated sense of self-worth. Plus, if Varric and certain members of her family were any indication, men over fifty never fucking listened. But they were in a race against the clock, and if this Professor Volkarin was interested on putting his life on the line for impossible odds, she had to at least pretend to give him a chance.

When she finally got a look at the man, she did more than give him a chance. If Bellara had thought her rambling was embarrassing, it was nothing compared to Callisto taking off one of her gloves and reaching out to run her fingers down the side of his coat, promptly silencing the other two. 

“This material feels incredible … ” she breathed out, biting her lower lip. “Suede? Of the highest quality, no doubt - the dye took amazingly to it.” She then moved to rub her thumb over small skull on his side, before trailing over to the cord hanging from it, giving it a light tug. “These adornments are something else… bog standard for your order I’d imagine, but even magister fashion doesn’t get that outright gothic. The colors are cheerier, too…”

The professor, who’d been watching her with his mouth agape this whole time, relaxed some, his expression morphing into something between pleased and sheepish. “You have quite the eye. Many in our order opt for more muted attire, both in color and cut, but… it’s not uncommon for us senior Watchers to embrace a little vanity.” He smiled down at her, all his bracelets jingling as he moved his arm up, as if to punctuate his point.

Bellara flapped her fists, eyes flitting back and forth between them. “Callisto’s whole family knows fashion super well! It’s the highest compliment possible from her.”

“Is that so? I look forward to discussing potential additions to my wardrobe with you, then - assuming we are to see more of each other.”

“Heh… well…” Callisto started to twirl some of her long strands of hair around her fingers, chuckling. “I don’t see why not.”

She felt Bellara’s eager gaze boring into the side of her head, and she froze. Had she been-- surely-- if someone else noticed…

Uh oh.

“He said he’d always be glad to show me around the tombs. And then he called me his ‘dear’. What does that even mean?”

In retrospect, Callisto could have gone to any number of people about what was quickly morphing from a stupid crush into Something. Anyone in her family, for one, but she was trying to limit contact outside of checking on them when she could, just in case any of their enemies could fuck with her through them. She’d already subjected Neve to her unfiltered thoughts about Solas, but things between them hadn’t been the same since Minrathous. She even considered Lucanis, considering how surprisingly in tune with his emotions he was, not to mention how he’d been mothering them all, but she’d probably never be able to look him in the eye again.

So, who turned out to be lucky option number four? The person who’d been talking to Emmrich longer than anyone, of course.

“Um…” Bellara shifted awkwardly as sat next beside her on her couch, having come by to see if Callisto had the time to patch a hole on her sleeve. It ended up coming with a price she wasn’t sure she could pay. “It means he’d be glad to show you around the tombs any time?”

“He showed you and me around, and that was when I was a stranger.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t really a leisure tour. And this is just you, so… it’s something. Something good, I mean.”

“But what?”

“I don’t really know why you’re asking me about this…? We never talked about personal matters in our letters. Plus I haven’t had a lot of experience with couple-y stuff.”

“So you think he did mean it romantically?” Callisto ripped off the current thread between her teeth with a pop, before reaching into her unnecessarily luxurious sewing kit for another color.

“Is that what you’ve been wanting to hear…?”

“Yes. Yeah. Ugh, no.” Callisto paused, both in thought and to focus on threading the new string through the eye of her needle. “This is the last thing that should happen.”

“It’s nice. You two are. You deserve someone who calls you things like ‘dear’. And, you know, takes you on long romantic walks through… tombs…”

“Um… thanks? So do you, I guess.”

“Oh-- nahhh.” Bellara waved her off, mouth twisted into a sort of nervous grin - only to freeze, worrying she’d moved too much and screwed up all the work Callisto had done thus far. “I’d wanna take a romantic walk somewhere where the sun is, but, a tomb’s great! For you, I mean.”

“Yeah; if it goes badly, there’ll be an open coffin nearby to throw myself into.”

That got a good laugh out of Bellara, making Callisto chuckle in turn. “You know, when you put it like that, maybe I should take my next date to the Necropolis. Whenever that is - if ever.”

“I dunno - kill the gods, live through it, and people’ll be lining up for your attention.”

“That’s only how it goes in stories.”

“You know what else only happens in stories?” Callisto paused expectantly, only for Bellara to stare at her as she expected her to answer her own question. “You’re the voracious reader - you tell me that our current situation isn’t like something out of fiction.”

“Well… I’ve never read any that had this much to deal with. It’d be something to talk about. With potential, um…” She ducked her head. “Can we go back to talking about you?”

“Do we have to?”

“Hey - you came to me! Or-- I came to you, and then you started talking about it.” She looked down at her sleeve. “For an axe-wielder, you have a really steady hand.”

“Every Mercari - even some of the in-laws - learns to sew and mend, whether or not we actually go into the fashion side of the business. Handy life skill, ‘you never know when a torn seam is the difference between living and dying’, etcetera etcetera.”

“Wow. Your family sounds intense.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Then… just be you.” Callisto looked up at her with a raised brow, causing her to smile sheepishly.  “What I mean is… any advice that’s coming to my head comes from stories. It’s stuff you do already, though. Dressing nice, dolling up, flirting a lot--”

“Not ‘a lot’.”

“Aren’t you always in there, though? When I go to see him, or you, well… there you are!”

“What’s your point, Bel?”

“You don’t need me to tell you anything. Anyone else to tell you anything, really. Just do what you do. Which is going back to the tombs, I guess.”

“You’re no help at all.” Callisto rolled her eyes as she set back to work, bouncing her leg and pursing her lips. “Gonna have to get something white to stand out amongst all that green and gloom…” She grumbled.

Bellara just smiled.

“Have you ever had a romantic moment that didn’t happen inside the Necropolis?”

Emmrich promptly coughed some of his wine back into the goblet still at his lips, wiping his mouth with the back his thumb. “They haven’t all been here, no. You don’t think I spend all my days down in the depths, do you?”

“Just most of them?”

“...Touche. I’ll count myself fortunate, then, that it didn’t deter you from wanting to be close to me.”

She chuckled lowly, looking at him through lidded eyes. “I’m Tevene. Weird things, magical or not, were part of my daily life. Even so, you’re charming enough to make plodding through blighted wastelands together a nice outing. I’d picnic with you anywhere.”

“You humble me, my dear.” His dumb little smile was almost enough to lift her mood entirely. “I admit, when my teaching didn’t necessitate my being elsewhere, that was certainly becoming the case - had you not whisked me away when you did.” He sighed. “There’s always some problem to solve, something unexplainable to figure out. The Necropolis - the nature of the Fade itself, really - is such that we will never fully uncover its mysteries. It can become rather addicting to try.”

Callisto grunted, aggressively driving her knife through one of the slices of ham on her plate. “If Solas brought the Veil down, it woulda been a lot easier, I’ll bet.”

“Such a thing isn’t healthy to speculate. Besides, malevolent forces nipping at our heels would be distracting enough to make up the difference.”

She snorted, setting her utensils down and resting her hands in her lap. She was hungry, but in her experience, ‘dinner’ was just a pretense for dates. Conversation was the real meat to devour - if there wasn’t much to talk about, or if hings were awkward for any other reason, the food would be there to keep their mouths occupied. “I don’t mean to bring him up, just…”

“You’ve taken on the burden of leadership all by yourself, Callisto. Believe me, I know how hard it is to divorce oneself from their responsibilities when they’re not shared.”

“Yeah, ‘cuz that lazy asshole won’t get outta bed…” She mumbled. Upon seeing Emmrich’s confused look, she shook her head. “You’re right. But it’s not only that, it’s… I don’t really know how to explain it without it sounding kinda stupid.”

“Nothing you say is stupid, my dear.”

“Hush.” She slapped his hand, resting next to his plate, but made a show of slowly pulling her hand away so she could caress his. Even in the green light cast by all the veilfire lighting the space, she could see his blush. “Did you follow news about the Inquisition? Read Varric’s book?”

“Oh, I did both. Did you know, Ambassador Montilyet and her team were single handedly responsible for preventing war between our countries during that time? Over a border dispute, at that.”

“I vaguely remember hearing about it. Bellara would say that makes you and I a hairsbreadth away from having been starred crossed lovers.”

“We still are, in a sense.” Emmrich smiled warmly. “After all, there is the threat of the world’s end. A threat without which we may have never met.”

“Finally, someone who’s thankful I fucked up the ritual.” He chuckled, taking the hand she set in the middle of the table. “So, then, you know all about how Inquisitor Cadash latched onto Solas?”

“Yes…? Am I missing something, here?”

“You could say that.” She scratched at her chest with her free hand, cringing a little. “I don’t know how she’d feel about me spilling the beans to whomever, but of all people, you should know. For context’s sake.” She swigged some of her own wine, gritting her teeth against the sourness. “She loved him. Romantically. From what she told me, he was just using her for sex. Who knows what else, given what a downer that whole conversation was.”

“...Oh.” He traced his thumb back and forth over her knuckles as he processed the information, wide gaze far away. “Does this have anything to do with why Bellara was so concerned about my intentions?”

“She told you?” Callisto groaned, drinking even more wine - and rolling her eyes as he chuckled again. “Don’t laugh.”

“I thought it was rather sweet, personally. Both that she cared enough to tell me--”

“She’s just awful at keeping secrets.”

“That, and that you cared for me enough to fret.” 

“Yeah, well… you’re lucky you have feelings for me, too. Otherwise I would’ve ruined your life.”

“In a way that would encourage my affections to develop regardless, I’m sure.”

It would be so much easier to get lost in the moment, to keep smiling at him with half-lidded eyes, to use her grip on him to tug him forward, or even over the table, and forget food and conversation altogether. But then the worries would fester, and as she kept questioning his intentions, what he was and wasn’t revealing, there would be a fight. Or worse. “To answer your question, no - it doesn’t. I don’t know if anyone else besides Harding knows; if they do, I didn’t tell them. But considering you even asked, you must know why I brought it up…?”

“An inkling. I’ve pondered the parallels ever since I joined you - a dwarf, up against forces drawing from the Fade and twisting it to their whims, in need of an expert in such things to help her understand a world she’s experiencing for the first time. In fact, I may have even overshared both academic and personal information with you at times… I don’t ever want to give you the impression that I’m hiding things from you.” He smiled sadly. “Especially now.”

“So is that a no to you being some sort of secret god who thinks my people aren’t shit?”

“It’s a no.” He squeezed her hand. “Many are under the false impression that Mourn Watchers are all Mortalitasi, or only those connected to the Fade, but we gladly welcome dwarves into our ranks. In fact, your inability to be possessed is a great asset.”

“I don’t ever see any dwarves around here.”

“There are few among us at the moment. Must change that, when this is over.” He hesitated, beginning to pull his hand away. “If I’ve been condescending when answering your questions about spirits, darling, I deeply apologize.”

“No! You’ve been wonderful.” She grabbed his hand again, lacing her chubby fingers through his slender ones. “You couldn’t condescend to me if you tried.”

“Only because I value your opinion so much.” He leaned forward so he could more easily raise their joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Have you ever asked Solas why he thinks so lowly about your people?”

“He has bad things to say about everyone who isn’t an ancient elf.” She uncurled her pointer finger so she could stroke his jaw with it. “The few times I brought it up with Varric, he said the gist of it was that Solas thought dwarves had, like, given up on themselves. Didn’t wanna reclaim what we lost, or we don’t know what we lost - something like that. And now, I live to piss him off, so we rarely talk about things other than his ‘advice’. He had some about Harding’s powers, but that was only because I opened my big mouth in front of a fucking literal trickster god. He’s-- I don’t care about his reasons - whatever he thinks about dwarves doesn’t mean anything, because all he actually cares about are elves.” He frowned a little, leaning into her touch, and she sighed. “Begs the question of why he bothered with her.”

“Perhaps he wanted to bury himself in another lonely soul without contemplating the consequences.”

“In a dwarf, though? In a fat dwarf? Someone he’d have more cause to look down on than usual?” She screwed her eyes shut, massaging her brow with her free hand. When she opened her eyes, his frown was even deeper.

“Are you… still speaking of the Inquisitor and Solas?”

“Yeah. Kind of.” She groaned, tugging her hand back and slumping back against her seat. “Ugh, forget it - it is stupid.”

As she pushed her cooling food around her plate, he got up, picked up his chair, and carried it to her side of the table, setting it down next to hers. He sat down once more, reaching over to cup her cheek and turn her face towards his. “It is decidedly not. Talk to me.”

“I could go on and on about how dwarven beauty standards differ from that of humans and elves, but I’ll spare you. But… no, you know what? It’s really tough being in a mostly dwarven family that adheres to so many facets of dwarven culture, and then turns around all like, ‘actually, we have to look like the rich mages do so they’ll want us to make their clothes’. You can keep your hair long, but it must be smooth, never ratty. Makeup, glittering or bold, no matter how impractical it is. Blemishes must be hid, and if they can’t, draw attention away from them. Beards must be trimmed short, and eyebrows must be thin. I mean, look at this monstrosity.” She motioned to her unibrow, plucked pencil-thin. “And whatever you do, hide your fat artfully under however many layers of pretty clothing it takes! But that’s the one guideline I can’t stand following, so everyone gets to look at my ‘undesirable’ flabby flesh all the time.” She pressed her lips together, refusing to meet his gaze. “And that was with me being brought up in a loving family. I can only imagine what the Inquisitor had to deal with…”

“You are incredible.” His thumb traced the intricate lines of her facial tattoos. “I didn’t think you needed me to tell you so.”

“It’s more than just who I am, right?” She hated how uncertain she sounded, voice shaky, but when she joked about it being time to dig into their feelings when the meal started, she supposed she set herself up for failure. “Because I think any loving declaration that’s like, ‘oh, I fell in love with your soul, not what you look like’ is bullshit. So you can tell me I’m great, but until you--”

“These halls have never been graced with a greater living beauty.” She chanced looking back at him, stunned by how molten his gaze grew as he leaned over to kiss the tip of her large, protruding nose.

She tried to fight a smile. “Just living? Not dead?”

“You would have to pass on, first. Then yes.”

“Fair enough.” She grabbed his hand so she could kiss his palm, nuzzling into it. “On top of thinking about those two way too much, I got all into my head about… well, who can blame anyone for thinking a Mourn Watcher would only find ultra skinny people attractive.”

“I hope you don’t think that we have relations with mummies.”

“No! Just, you know… bones and stuff.”

“Bones, I work with. I find all manner of people attractive, but I confess I’m partial to those who don’t remind me of the dead.” He reached out, placing his free hand on her ample side. “Those who are full of life.” His hand started to trail over her silk shirt, over the rolls of fat underneath, achingly slow, causing her to shiver.

“...Heh.” She smiled dumbly, giving him a look that was just as dumb and sappy, before surging forward to grab him by the hips and pull his much lither frame onto her lap. “And I like how easy to throw around you are.”

He sputtered with how quickly she’d managed to change their positions, his flusteredness not helped by the chittering of the wisps starting to gather around their table, intrigued - or perhaps titillated - by the sudden show they were putting on. “I can’t say a woman’s ever held me in her lap before.”

She snorted again, bumping her nose against his. “I find that extremely hard to believe.”

“Perhaps I’ve been waiting to find the one who would.” His face flushed redder than she’d ever seen on him, and she let out a little “awww” before leaning up for a kiss, arms tightening around his waist as his own hands cradled the sides of her face. As they got lost in each other, she had a fleeting moment of clarity - maybe it was as simple as momentary connection for the dwarven hero and arcane advisor who came before. Even if it never lasted, it didn’t change the fact that what she felt - what they must’ve felt - was enough to get high off of. Something to get hooked on, no matter how bad it was for them. No matter what their values were when they weren’t using each other.

She, however, didn’t have to worry about that. For all the horrors she had to fear, the exquisite man embracing her was not one of them.

Just as she broke away to take a breath, the distinct blue light of a wisp flooded her peripheral vision, and she turned her head to see one hovering right next to them. “We have a voyeur, Em.”

His eyes lit up as soon as the nickname passed her lips, giving her a gooey little smile. “Wisps can be too curious, sometimes, but I see no harm in letting it be. If our affection for one another was enough to draw it so close, I feel rather honored.”

It circled around their heads several times, as though to prove his point. “When you put it like that, it can watch all it wants.”

He chuckled, focusing his attention back on her as the wisp floated over to the fruit and cheese on the side of the table, meant to be their dessert. “I am not Solas, and you are not the Inquisitor. Whatever happens between us, to the world, it will not go awry from anything we do to each other.”

“If I had a hand free, I’d ‘cheers’ to that.”

He chuckled, leaning forward to press a second, sweeter kiss to her lips. “I give all my knowledge of the Fade to you freely - just as I give you myself.”

“Mmm, sounds divine.” She pulled him in even tighter, smirking. “And in return, you get me - the greatest, hottest dwarf to ever live.”

His answering laugh was bright, enough that she could swear the Memorial Gardens were a little less dark for a moment. “Now that’s more like it.”

Chapter Text

For all that Solas wanted to stop Elgar’nan - or rather, for Callisto and the others to stop Elgar’nan as he twiddled his thumbs in Fade jail - he sure didn’t bother telling her why so many elves knelt to him in his time.

Simply enough, he got into their minds and made them. It should have been obvious, in retrospect.

Aside from the powerful magic making her unsteady, it wasn’t hard to resist his honeyed words at first. Abusers and charlatans always knew what to say to draw people in, and those desperate enough would take the bait before it had even been put on the hook. But she knew what he was, and what they were here for - there’d be no distracting her. Besides, just how gullible were the Venatori to fall for this? How could he say anything that wasn’t painfully generic so everyone would feel as though he was speaking right to them? He was just pulling parlor tricks, dressed up in a velvety voice and ancient power.

“Titan Child… you know the truth of what Mythal and Fen’harel took from you. I can grant you the revenge your Awakened sister refuses to seek, if you’d only give yourself to me.”

…Oh. Okay.

Fuck.

To say she was distracted going forward would be an understatement, Emmrich and Neve having to do most of the heavy lifting to keep the lot of them from getting their shit rocked. So many questions superseded her ability to compartmentalize and put the mission, innocent lives , first. Did Elgar’nan’s abilities give him some sort of mass empathy, or mind-sifting in addition to telepathic communication? Were ancient elves able to process information more quickly than modern day mortals? Was his magic as such that it would simply play on one’s subconscious desires, making them hear what they wanted to hear without him needing to know anything at all?

If that was the case… was that truly what she wanted, more than anything else? Her home was in ruins, her lover was terrified of dying, she was up against impossible odds that she had no idea how to overcome - and what she cared about most of all was avenging something that could never be brought back?

Not that she was about to buy in to any of this. But as they ran around his stupid little mindfuck maze, trudging through puddles of blight only to end up in the exact same place, she had to concede his point that things would be a lot easier for her if she just gave up.

Not that she had ever been one to take the easy way out, to the chagrin of both her and everyone around her throughout her life. She just had to figure out the trick; the crack in wall that would made the whole thing fall apart, if they kept picking at it… for years…

“Callisto? Can you hear me ?”

“Oh bust my-- not you! No! Shut up!” She yelled up at the sky, or whatever was up there, pressing the heels of her palms into her temples. “What do you want?”

“Dearest…?”

She pointed to her head, as though that was supposed to explain anything to the other two.

“I will do you the courtesy of ignoring that, and continue to graciously offer my help in escaping.”

“You better not fuck us over.”

“If I wanted to do that, I would let you rot here. And before you answer flippantly, know that I am not giving you a choice in the matter - the elves must be saved, so you must leave.”

“Fine. Can’t wait to see what you think you can do from inside--”

And then began the pissing match. From the reactions of the others, they could hear Elgar’nan throwing a fit, but only she got the joy of hearing both men go at it. Goody. Maybe she deserved it for goading him so much. Or maybe it wasn’t all that bad, aside from the disorientation and splitting headache. She derived a sick sort of satisfaction from hearing Elgar’nan insult Solas. Nothing she’d said had been able to rattle the smug bastard, but his fellow elvhen knew exactly how to hit him where it hurt. After all… he was kind of right, wasn’t he? Solas really was just spewing more bullshit.

“Your cruelty forced my hand.” He’d been cruel too, but he dressed it up with apologies and guilt to make it ‘justified’.

“Again you have caged our people, and again, I will set them free.” He ruined the Titans, caged them in their madness, and caged the dwarves just the same in a world bereft of magic.

“You could heal the world. You have the strength to repair the damage without using the blight!” Like he was going to do? Bring down the Veil, no blight needed - just the deaths of countless mortals instead? 

Did that make it better?

By the time they were back in reality, Callisto fell to her knees, just barely holding herself up against the stone railing she found herself next to. Her head throbbed, her vision swam, and she couldn’t discern their animosity from her own. Emmrich immediately knelt next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as Neve circled around to her other side.

“We made it out. It’s all alright now…” 

“Not quite.” Callisto didn’t have see Neve’s face to know her expression was grim. “Take a moment to get back on your feet, but we have to move.”

She grunted as she used the railing to help her hoist herself back up, pulling her greataxe off her back so she’d be ready for whatever clusterfuck awaited them beyond the doors. “This better be the place…”

"You should be near where you need to be. With luck, you can still save the elves."

As soon she heard those words, all other sound in the space around them seemed to cease. There wasn’t anything beyond the door, or back behind them - the world narrowed down to this singular space, this singular moment, where she just heard the elven god of lies expect a dwarf to save his people.

A dwarf who knew what he did to hers.

“He spent so much time talking about how sad he was for what he’d done to the elves.” The team had heard Callisto angry before, but not like this. Instead of spitting, red-faced anger, instead of endless-cussing anger, this was the sort of fury that spread through the veins like a slow poison, mounting and simmering under the surface, so much so that the mere promise of how it would explode was even more terrifying than the end result. There was anger in Lace’s eyes, yes - but not like this. “They’d lost their immortality because of him. They’d lost their empire because of him.”

She got up from her chair, flung out her arm, and shoved everything on the table that she could reach to the floor, burying her face in her hands. “He took our fucking magic! We can’t dream! We-- we’re not even whole people, we’re splinters of what the Titans were… we’re not supposed to exist like this… and it’s all his and Mythal’s fault. He doesn’t even care. He’ll bend over backwards to fix the elves, but we’re a fucking footnote in his long list of regrets. You said it yourself Davrin,” she motioned to him, and she nearly laughed at how shocked he looked to be addressed in the middle of her unprecedented tirade, “his regret is making the blight, not why it happened. If it didn’t have world-shattering consequences, he wouldn’t care… he wouldn’t care at all…”

She had apologized for her outburst the next time the team all convened in the library. Said that the shock of the revelation go away from her, that she usually wasn’t so ‘irrational’. That it wouldn’t happen again.

Promises, promises.

“Oh… you mean, like how you saved the Titans?” She waited a beat, two - enough to hear Neve mutter, ‘oh, gods, don’t do this now’. “Wait-- that’s right,  you helped commit genocide! Hm… what to do…”

Elgar’nan chuckled darkly, and in the moment, it made her feel pretty fucking good. “I see you’re not nearly as adept at erasing the evidence of your mistakes as you think you are.”

“Are you mad? ” Yes, she was - perhaps in both respects. “You would let blameless Dalish die just to spite me?”

“Of course not. Innocents shouldn’t have to get fucked over because of your mistakes… not that we share that mindset.” Elgar’nan’s laugh kept ringing out in the background; it was starting to piss her off further, but it fueled her fire to have someone on her side, even if it the worst person possible. Even if he wasn’t on her side, just on the side of Solas suffering. “But for a moment, a pristine fucking moment, I considered it - and few other pleasurable sensations have compared to what I felt when I imagined what your face would look like if I did. Why not, right? Why not become just like both of you, if that’s what I have to be to do hard things? To change things? Why not do--” She swung her axe into the crumbling stone of the staircase, “whatever the fuck--” she swung again, knocking rock and debris loose, “I want to--!”

“Stop!” Neve directed a stream of frost at her hands, the shock causing her grip to loosen and the axe to fall to the ground. She grabbed Callisto’s shoulders before she could round on her, eye level with her for once thanks to her standing a few steps below her. “You are not like either of them. No matter what I said to you about Minrathous, you’re not. But we can’t waste time trying to incense them, not right now.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with embracing your anger,” Elgar’nan purred; it felt as though his lips were right next to her ear. “It can be incredibly effective, when wielded in the right hands. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The events of Isana Negat flashed through her mind, but she tried to push past it, focusing on the grounding sensation of Neve’s touch. When there was a job to do, anger only served a purpose if it would lead to something productive. And directing that anger towards the Venatori would actually accomplish their incredibly delicate task.

“You’re right.” She shuddered as she picked her axe back up, Emmrich coming into step beside her as she climbed the stairs. “We’re going.”

“Mmmm. What a disappointment that your pet dwarf can be reined in so easily.”

“I’ll make you my pet by the time I’m done.”

“How amusing that you believe you can even try.”

She was about to fire back, until Emmrich’s hand settled on her shoulder.

“Are you going to be alright?”

At least he didn’t ask if she was currently alright - that would have been a solid ‘fuck no’. “Let’s just get through the door and see how the situation’s looking before I answer that.” She turned her gaze to the sky, her mouth set into a hard line. “If civilians aren’t involved the next time you need something from me… the outcome might be different.”

He said nothing.

As the three of them went through the doors to see the imprisoned Dalish and a whole cadre of Venatori waiting for them, it was almost a relief to hear Solas and Elgar’nan start going at it again. 

Callisto knew she had to talk to him again, but she was making a point in putting it off as she made her rounds around the Lighthouse. She didn’t know if the others heard Elgar’nan’s relishing in her toeing the proverbial line, but if they had, they didn’t seem to know what he’d been referring to. Neve and Emmrich hadn’t told them what happened either, but maybe they should have. It felt disingenuous to look both Bellara and Davrin in the eye as they commended her, not knowing that the thought had crossed her mind, however briefly, to use their people as mere pawns in the long game she’d been playing with Solas. Maybe Varric had been right on the money all along to call her Rook. Blind vengeance sure seemed like a straight line to her - right into damnation.

Once she escaped Bellara’s workshop, she lingered in Davrin’s guesthouse, laying sideways across his armchair as he organized Assan’s food stores behind her. She stared, unfocused, into the fireplace, idly messing with one of the buttons on her shirt. The texture of the burning wood was a different shade of red, but it was so similar to…

“How would you kill a Titan?”

He didn’t stop what he was doing, but the sounds slowed down. “You sure you want me to answer that?”

“I asked.”

“Titans aren’t monsters - the Shade wasn’t, either.”

“Indulge me.” She pulled herself up and sat on the arm of the chair, peering around the back of it so she could look at him. “You were there. If we didn’t have Harding to absorb it, or whatever happened, and it kept trapping dwarves and who knows what else, what would you do?”

He sighed through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck before making his way over to his workbench. “There wouldn’t be much I alone could do, except observe. Delve deep, try to find weaknesses - and get killed by any number of things in the process.” He picked up his carving knife, turning it this way and that. “I doubt the heart could be pierced by conventional weaponry - save for a trebuchet, but even that might not be enough. It could take a whole team of miners or stonemasons to attempt to carve away at it, but who knows what force it would unleash in its defense.”

“More than just demons, I’ll bet.”

“It can do what Harding does with pulling and retracting rock, except on a much bigger scale. Impalement, pulling the ground out from under you, all that.”

“You sound like you’ve thought about this before…?”

“Not much, but… eh, it’s habit at this point. Every new foe we face I catalogue in my mind, try to recall as much as I can about what fighting them for the first time was like so I know how to end the fight quicker next time. I doubt I’ll ever face the anger of a Titan again, but… I know better than to say that for certain.”

“I don’t even know where the others are.” She picked at the dry skin around the scar on her cheek, bouncing her leg and knocking her heel into the side of the chair. “The one the Inquisition went into was somewhere in Ferelden, but you won’t catch me in that country - especially now that everything’s crazy down there.” Davrin hummed out an affirmative as he began to carve. “But that’s it, though? No other ideas?”

“From what little we’ve gathered, the only people with the power to kill them were the Evanuris. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly eager to learn any wartime tactics from them.” He aggressively scraped his knife over the wood. “Death would’ve been kinder to them, to the world, than what ended up happening. No offense.”

“No, I know.” Callisto pushed herself up off the chair, coming over to him. “Well… I don’t, really. This whole revelation is making me lose my head at the worst times - dwelling on what if's isn’t helping anybody.”

“It may not be helping, but it’s not like I can’t think about it. It doesn’t just concern dwarves - it concerns everyone .” He choked out a disbelieving laugh, setting his knife down and shaking his head. “Solas and Mythal producing the blight from what they did to the Titans has to be the biggest fuck-up in history.”

“Bigger than the Magisters Sidereal breaking into their prison and letting the blight out?”

“They wouldn’t have let it out if it hadn’t existed in the first place.”

“That’s weirdly comforting. I’ll never say that what the Evanuris did to your own ancestors wasn’t inhumanely criminal, because it was, just… I dunno. It feels like the rest of the world, even in spaces that care about justice and personhood, doesn’t care about all that the dwarves lost, or what could have happened to them. It’s always humans or elves, depending on where you are, to say nothing of the qunari…”

“As a Warden, I’m biased, but…” He looked up at her, smiling warmly. “Under the same skies, we’re all kin, salroka.”

“Oh? So you weren’t blowing smoke out your ass when you spoke to Stalgard.”

“Ouch.” He waved her off before resuming carving. “You’ve been around Lavendel - you must’ve seen all the dwarven wardens about. We had a lot of them in the Anderfels, almost half the ones I’ve met.”

“All the stuff I’ve read about the Hero of Ferelden made it seem like one was a rare commodity.”

“That’s the South for you.” He shook his head. “Point is, being Dalish doesn’t mean that’s all I have to care about. I mainly left clan life behind because I was restless, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the world would become too limited if I stuck with them. If I only focused on our history - the wrong history, ultimately.”

“At least we’re lucky our other Dalish elf is open-minded. I almost laughed when she was so quick to apologize after the revelation.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s at your door hoping you’ll help her learn some dwarven, soon.”

“Sounds like you could do that yourself.”

“Don’t tell her that; I’m having a hard enough time teaching Assan phrases in Trade.”

They shared a laugh, and Callisto grunted as her shoulders slumped. “Thanks. I needed to, I dunno, work out some of my feelings with someone I knew would tell it like it is.”

“I could tell.” He put the wood down for a moment so he could reach over the table and give her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m always here. Though I wouldn’t mind not being sober the next time.”

“Fuck, me neither.” She gave him a playful salute as she reluctantly made her exit.

She put off returning to her room for hours, skimming through whatever books she could stand in the library, over-exerting herself in exercises with Taash to the point where she had to lay on the floor unmoving for a solid twenty minutes as they heckled her, and of course, accosting Emmrich against his own bookstacks and making out with him like they were dumb kids - until he very flusteredly told her he still had work to do before he retired for the day. At least there was the promise of later.

Later . Later had to come after now, which entailed her finally going under and talking to Solas. Ugh.

Just as she sat on the floor in front of her table to try to clear her mind, there was a knock on her door. “Thank you,” she hissed under her breath as she scurried over, opening it to see Davrin holding out one of his wooden carvings to her.

“When we realized we were looking at the outside of that Titan, I don’t think any of us could look away. I’ve seen a lot of horrifying things in my life, but that… shit. I won’t ever be able to forget it, so here.” She took it, realizing it was a pretty accurate depiction of the petrified Titan, raising its arms to the heavens in a silent scream. “Not to say you want a Titan corpse decorating your space, but… I know you not being connected to the Stone like Harding bothers you. So this is something, so you can carry what you experienced with you. What we all know, and what we’ll remember.”

Callisto cleared her throat hard to dislodge the lump that had formed, moving to cradle the carving securely in her arms. “Your memory recollection’s fucking incredible.”

He chuckled, shrugging a shoulder. “It wasn’t always, but I’ve had practice.”

“This means a lot. Wish I could bring it with me so I could shove it in Solas’s face.” He let out a quiet ‘heh’, and much like he did to her just hours ago, she reached up to put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re a real one, salroka.”

She may not have been able to bring the Titan carving into her haunted mindscape, but the stark reminder of the expression on its face gave her the drive she needed to hold her head high under Solas’s gaze. After everything that had happened today, she wondered who would be the first of them to break. She updated him on the prisoners’ safety, he expressed his relief, and then they just… stood in silence for a moment that felt longer than it actually was. And then…

“Thank you for allowing me to help. I fear what would have become of them, had I not.”

Of course he’d be the one to start things off. Not an outright jab, no, but a statement worded so carefully that most people wouldn’t hear anything wrong with it. It was what was unsaid where the insult lied. “You mean me leaving them for dead to piss you off?”

He smiled, a little one that didn’t meet his eyes. “Your words, not mine.”

“I wasn’t actually going to.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Yes.” Her fists clenched at her sides.

“Regardless, all the prisoners were saved and returned safely to their camp. I suspect having the Venatori available to take out your anger on helped.”

“They weren’t the ones who assaulted the Titans.”

His expression morphed into something approaching contrite. “If that is what you wish to call it.”

“You-- no. No, I’m not gonna have a repeat of my fucking breakdown earlier. Not gonna give you the satisfaction.” She pressed her fist to her mouth, beginning to pace a bit. “We have next steps to discuss, and after that I’m outta here to sleep all this insanity off.”

Red lyrium dagger. Ritual. Eclipse. Preparation. She definitely wasn’t going to be able to get sleep now. Although, Solas’s tendency to say in ten words what could have been said in three was certainly making her eyes droop. 

“For all that the Inquisition was chaos, both within and without, it did not fail the world nor the people involved. I am certain you will do all that you can to follow their example.”

Now this had her paying full attention. Over the course of all their talks, he had never once mentioned the Inquisition, not in name or memory; likewise, she had never brought it up for fear it would make him cagey. He wasn’t exactly talking about it now, sure… but she would take any other glimpse into his psyche that she could. “Are you saying the Inquisition didn’t fail you, either?”

“Without it, my mistake in entrusting the eradication of the Veil to Corypheus would not have been corrected. I would say that was a success.” He paused significantly, considering. “And… the companions I fought alongside were welcome. For a time.”

She should be subtle. She knew she should. She should start with a leading, ‘like who?’, see if he let anything in particular slip. Further insight into his and Varric’s talks, gauging just how evasive he’d be about their discussions about dwarves. What he’d thought of Harding, what he’d think of her having a high opinion of him, once. Which advisor he’d clashed with the least, if he ever got the sense that Leliana was unraveling his half-truths. What he’d thought of the Halamshiral ball. If he’d wanted to dance, somewhere in his shriveled up little heart. With whom.

Her patience, however, was razor thin after the events of the day. And her curiosity about the other side of the mismatched coupling that had been living in the back of her mind was overwhelming. So, she simply blurted out, “Including Inquisitor Cadash?”

“She was…” The corners of his open mouth turned up ever so slightly, but she couldn’t tell what emotion that was supposed to convey. They fell a moment later, as though he remembered himself. “She was a friend, of sorts, who nonetheless turned on me when I revealed my true nature. I suppose that was my folly, in the end.”

The gears of her mind ground to a stuttering halt as she turned his words over, and over, and over like they were meat on a cooking spit. And then, for the second time that day, the ignorance of this man’s words drove her to rage.

“Are you kidding me?” She scoffed, stomping right up to the edge of her side of the chasm. “She was a friend ? ‘Of sorts’ ?”

“...Ah. Am I to assume Varric informed you of what transpired between us?”

“He didn’t tell me shit! She did!” That actually seemed to stun him, however minutely. “Straight from the mouth of the most broken person I’ve ever seen in my life - you did such a number on her, and you have the gall to say you were only friends?”

“I do not need to defend my actions to anyone, least of all you.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care about whatever shit comes out of your mouth, because that’s all it is - shit. What was it, hm? Were you that desperate for anyone to want you, and she happened to want your attention so bad that you thought ‘oh, great, if I get my dick wet in someone I don’t even consider a person, that means I won’t have to take their feelings into account.’”

“You truly are a foolish child.”

“I’m the child?! Who’s the one throwing destructive tantrums and playing with people like toys? It’s not me! Tch, did you treat her like a child? She couldn’t read or write when the Inquisition started, I bet you loved that - you could spin whatever pretty balderdash you wanted, and she wouldn’t have any context to fall back on.”

“I fear you’ve lost track of exactly who you’re disparaging, Callisto.”

“How is me pointing that out talking bad about her? I’m stating what she explained in her letters to me; she even apologized for not writing them like poetry. How many times did you make her feel like she had to apologize to you for not understanding things, I wonder - a thousand?”

“I will admit to culpability in my myriad mistakes,” his brow furrowed, “but I never set out to hurt her.”

“Stone almighty, that makes it so much worse. You’re so fucking stupid you don’t even understand how badly you messed up.”

"Enough.”

“You kept sleeping with someone who’s the direct result of your worst mistake, and you think she’s the problem?! You abused her! ” She was screeching now, and if she wasn’t in some sort of dream state, spit would be flying everywhere. “You fucked with her head, fucked her, made her so eager for your praise that she did whatever you wanted, and then you pretended like she didn’t exist. Rinse and repeat. If she was an elf, would you have treated her like that?”

“You know nothing about me! ” His enraged bellowing echoed all around her, like the rolling of thunder. She wasn’t perturbed; her head was already storming. “You know nothing of what I felt for her.”

“I know more about you than she ever will, to my utter disgust.” She pointed an accusatory finger at him, hoping against hope that if she stretched hard enough, he’d be within arms reach enough for her to jab him right in the face. “You could look past what was on the outside, so long as she wasn’t dwarf-y on the inside, right? How romantic. But tell me, Solas - what did you really reject her for? Was it what she is… or that it was your fault?”

She started to get that same out of body feeling that indicated she was about to come back to herself, and she snarled as Solas’s stony face started to get hazy. “Don’t you fucking run away from me, you sack of shit! This just proves me right! I’ll string you up by your--”

She tipped forward and just barely caught herself before she brained herself on her table - her very real table, in her very real room. She took deep, angry breaths, eyes fixed on the flickering candles in front of her.

“He’s stuck there…” She rubbed at her eyes, dragging her hands down her cheeks. “He’s stuck there for who knows how long, and then he’ll be a problem for someone else… it’s fine.”

Her eyes darted down to the Titan carving.

“It’s fine…”

Chapter Text

Leda didn’t dream anymore, hadn’t for years, but the thoughts that raced as she laid in bed were almost the same. Just like dreams, she couldn’t control them; all she could do was ride them out until she fell asleep. As hard as it was to sleep these days.

Most of these not-dreams were about familiar faces appearing at Skyhold’s gates, safe and sound aside from the inevitable injuries that came with travelling through a Blight. They would embrace her, shake her hand, or merely bow their heads before saying they were here to help. Conversations would be better, different now that she could be honest about how she struggled, and they would tell her it was okay. That she didn’t have to be strong, that she could cry and scream and tear her hair out without being a failure. And then… she didn’t know what came next. The thoughts would restart with someone else, while whoever she’d just been contemplating lingered in the background with everyone that was actually in the keep.

Night after night she clung to these not-dreams; when she ran out of people to fill them with, she just started over again. But day after day she’d get out of bed, exhausted whether or not she slept, and find that no one she’d been thinking of came. Just new forlorn faces, or returning agents and envoys. Skyhold was quickly reaching capacity, but such an issue wasn’t something she was prepared to deal with. It was hard enough convening her war council now that she was surrounded by people who actually wanted her to lend her own ideas, rather than being talked over and going along with whatever sounded right.

“The scouts I sent to Redcliffe report that it’ll be overtaken by the darkspawn within a week’s time, maybe less.” Charter relayed the information as though it wasn’t a crisis, gloved hands resting on the edge of the massive table. “The queen has yet to call for a retreat, but some civilians are taking their chances and evacuating.”

“To where?” Though Barris was doing his best to keep a cool head, his fear and worry were plain on his face. “Redcliffe is the last bastion of non-blighted life in Ferelden. Even if most everyone gets out of the village safely, they’ll be overtaken on the road no matter which direction they head in.”

“Is there…” Leda’s expression puckered as she scrutinized the map in front of them, her eyes beginning to cross from trying to take in all the details at once. “Can we… I mean, isn’t the obvious answer for ‘em to try to make it to Skyhold? If they head west, there’s really nothin’ for ‘em…”

“We won’t be able to shelter anyone else here, if they do.” Barris sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “And that’s assuming no one else will be lost, which won’t be the case even if they start leaving this very moment.”

“What about Orzammar?”

“Orzammar is hanging on by a thread, and that’s with the assumption that the situation hasn’t worsened since their last correspondence. Most of the remaining Fereldans aren’t fighters, even if they’ve taken up arms - I’m not sure how wise sending them closer to the deep roads is, for either group.” Charter tugged on the bottoms of her gloves, and Leda felt judged, even if the rational part of her knew that wasn’t the case at all. 

“The dwarves need help, and the Fereldans need shelter so they can… they can regroup, I guess. And I bet King Bhelen would be ‘specially open to it if it meant him and Queen Anora could work some sorta alliance out… maybe…” Leda furiously rubbed her face, groaning. “I’m not good at this…”

“It’s an impossible situation, Inquisitor.” Barris didn’t smile, but the sureness of his gaze made her feel a tad bit better. “You’re doing the best you can. We all are.”

“I sympathize with the dwarves’ plight just as I do the Fereldans, but the decision we may have to make is leaving their fate to their respective rulers; whichever way the wind blows.” Leda all but squawked in protest, but Charter merely shook her head. “If we recall our forces from the area now, we’ll have more manpower to spare for any attack on the keep itself. That, and we could divert some agents to the North to aid with the efforts against the gods.”

Barris’s eyes darted between the map and Charter, considering. “Getting the remaining Fereldans to Orzammar could work with our soldiers acting as bodyguards, perhaps if we’ve any time to send some of our Chasind forces for aid. But even if we send said orders to our people, everything depends on the queen. Ultimately, the decision is up to you.”

“I--” I need time to think, was something she couldn’t say, because time was a luxury that was long gone from their lives. With every second that past, someone died; if she thought about it too hard, she could find a way to blame herself for every death that happened since this shitshow began.

Yet, as the war room doors opened and a guard rushed in, she was granted a precious few seconds to breathe.

“There’s-- there was-- oh, Maker, I need a moment.”

“What’s got you in such a tizzy, recruit?” Barris rounded the table as the man doubled over and caught his breath.

“Inquisitor,” he finally managed to get out as he straightened back up. “It’s about your nugs.”

Her blood ran cold.

“Kids like playing with them, yeah? And some of the older people need a kind little face to look at sometimes when it all gets--”

“Please spit it out!”

“The most peculiar man just waltzed into the pen and laid down . I’ve no idea what his intentions are, but you made it clear that--”

She didn’t hear him finish - she was already sprinting out of the room, through the halls, and down the steps to the point of nearly tumbling down and cracking her head open. She had so few joys in her life, and her sweet, sweet charges had always been one of the most important. Nothing could happen to them, and whoever dared think they could be touched or taken would know what it felt like to be small.

Her pen was the same as it had been when she built it herself upon first discovering this place; in the corner by the stables, next to the staircase leading up to the kitchen. She’d refused to move the fence inward to give the refugees more space; a decision that made many people see her as greedy, tyrannical, or simply nuts, but her nugs would always receive the best care possible. At the least, everyone had respected the area - helped, perhaps, by the very threatening sign posted next to it. 

DO NOT TOUCH COTTON, BEV, OR DUCKY WITHOUT THE INQUISITOR’S PERMISSION OR SUPERVISION. DO NOT FEED. DO NOT GO INSIDE THEIR PEN. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THESE RULES WILL HAVE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES.

BUT DO WAVE AND ADDRESS THEM BY THEIR NAMES AND THEY WILL APPRECIATE YOUR POLITENESS.

This man had the gall to ignore it all, to break the boundary for what was sure to be evil things. This was a problem she could solve in a day, not some awful lose/lose decision that would determine if what remained of a whole country was wiped out.

“Hey!” She screeched as she marched up to the pen, people around her making way and starting at what ever weird spectacle was about to unfold. “Get outta there right now! They don’t know ya!”

Now that she was closer, she saw the man on the ground next to the horse statue. Well, the bottom half of him - the top was obscured by a blissful nug pile, all three of them seemingly content where they were instead of running away. And then, she heard it - an airy voice that made her eyes sting.

“So few of them are left… It’s very loud here; they could jump over the fence if they wanted to. But they stay, for you. And the grass is much better than the snow.”

She swayed on her feet, heart pounding in her throat. “...Cole?” She took a cautious step over the fence, her extremely short height making it a constant toss up if she’d clear the fence or if she’d bash herself in the leg or crotch. “Are ya really here?”

“I’m always here now. No forgetting - remember? But here, in Skyhold… I arrived just today.” He carefully moved each nug to the ground before sitting up, notably hat-less. He couldn’t get another word out before she barrelled towards him, all but tackling him onto his back once again. She began to sob so hard that her voice kept cracking, arms wrapped tight enough around him to crush.

When Leda gave affection, it was almost never met with the same fervor. She loved too much; had nowhere to put it but constant praise, acts of service, and hanging off everyone she liked. Some people humored her, but only when she initiated. Most made it clear they didn’t want her smothering them. And Solas, well… he only liked it on his terms.

There were only two exceptions. The first, of course, was Dorian. His affection was more muted than hers, and too much often overwhelmed him thanks to the bullshit of his upbringing - but constant contact was important to both of them. Of course, such contact was usually when it was only the two of them, or around a handful of people they were comfortable with. She understood. She always understood. But she so longed for being able to have that contact no matter where she was, or who was around.

Then… there was Cole. The spirit-human who existed to help. As much time as he spent tending to the wounded and the overworked, no one saw just how much he helped her. Even when she wasn’t ready to admit just how scared she was, he held her hands as she trembled, tried to pretend she was that image of the shining Herald who would save everyone. After Adamant, as he spiralled from fear of being bound, he still put it aside to hold her for hours as she sobbed and screamed. As she lounged in the garden one day, trying desperately to relax, a much more human Cole sat next to her and cuddled her close.

“You said being with my friends would help me feel better.” He had buried his face in her hair. “So I’m with you. A friend. My best friend.”

Everyone in earshot had stared, including Morrigan. But she hadn’t cared - she buried her face into his ratty shirt, and stayed that way with him until the sun got too warm.

She didn’t know if her own touchy-feelyness shaped Cole into becoming much the same, or if that was just how his innate warmth and caring manifested. Either way, as she embraced him now, he wasted no time in pulling her against him. His body felt different - he’d built a little bit of muscle, but there was also a softness to him, a layer of fat from what she assumed was eating well for the first time in his existence. 

“I’ve been so fuckin’ worried…” She could barely understand herself through her teary mumbling into his shoulder, but laying with him without speaking wasn’t an option. “I’ve been worried ‘bout everybody, but you… Cole, I--”

“You needed me. I’m sorry…” Shit, he was crying too. Not as hard, but enough for his voice to warble, and tears to trail down his face, jaw, and neck until they mixed with her own. “You’ve needed me this entire time, but now… it grabbed, pulled hard enough to tear, led me here. You’re still pulling, but now I can pull back.” He let out a shuddering breath, fanning over her hair. “I wanted to come back before, to Kirkwall… but you were so angry. The words didn’t match what you wanted, but I didn’t know what would hurt less.”

“I just wanted ya to see the world…”

“I did. It was… it is complicated, but beautiful. I saw all manner of people in all manner of places; talked a lot, learned a lot. Oh, and food! I can cook, now - I can make you meat stew, like you always made for us when we camped.” She smiled against him. “Rivain I liked best - there were others like me there, and the people who made them real. People who understood, either way.”

“You couldn’t stay?”

“The others helped so I didn’t have to, so much. It didn’t feel right. And…” He pressed his nose into her scalp. “You weren’t there.”

“But--”

“I always wanted to stay with you.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say; what could measure up to the words that meant everything to her? She couldn’t hold him any tighter, couldn’t press any closer, but maybe it meant enough that they were together again. That she wasn’t trying to push him away in the depths of her self-loathing.

“I missed ya so much. More than ya know.”

“I do know. I still feel it - but I can make it better. We won’t have to miss each other if we’re together.” Carefully, he sat them both up, taking one arm off her so he could scoop up the nug snuffling against his leg. “Sera named this one.”

“Yeah.” She joined him in rubbing their ears. “She wanted ‘em to be ‘Sera Jr.’, but Ducky was good by her too. She used to call me Ducky… I always liked it.” 

“I didn’t come back soon enough to see the others again.” He turned his gaze to the side to watch Obio in his stall. 

“Nugs don’t live long.” She sniffled, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “I should be better at dealin’ with ‘em dyin’.”

“You don’t have to be; I miss them, too. I don’t want you to hurt, but I’ve learned hurting can come with remembering. When things or people we care about are gone, memories can be torture, but also touching…”

She followed his gaze up to the main keep, the corners of his lips just barely down-turned. Charter and Barris mostly likely left the war room already, knowing that anything involving her nugs always took a while. They were still expecting an answer, though, and maybe Cole could help given his timely arrival. People would die regardless, and people would find a way to blame her for what ever happened.

Pressing her lips together, she placed her wooden hand on his shoulder, purely so he could feel its weight. Instead of giving time… she would take some for herself. “Do ya wanna go remember together?”

“...Yes.”

All the tables and chairs in the main hall had long since been cleared away, some even chopped up and used for wood. Space around any of the fires was a hot commodity, but especially around the fireplace; more than a few fights needed to be stopped by the guards over who had more right to set up their family’s bedrolls in front of it.

To think, Varric had commandeered the whole space back in the day. All for him and whoever decided to stop by for a chat.

The two of them pulled Dorian away from the decrepit gardens, and went to stand as close to the fireplace as they could without disturbing any of the refugees. They didn’t talk about their fallen friend at first, Dorian content with flinging endless questions at Cole about his travels, Leda merely listening.

“Maryden taught me more card games, before we went our separate ways.” His tone veered into something sad, and the mood of the conversation immediately shifted. “I wanted to see if he knew them, so we could play together now that I get the rules…”

“It would have satisfied me eternally if you managed take his coin.” Dorian gave him a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “On the other hand, you’ve successfully avoided knowing what it’s like for him to lord a debt over your head. Cheeky bastard that he was.”

“But I did owe him… he made me real.” He sputtered a little, seemingly forgetting himself, and hurriedly took Leda’s hand. “And you.”

“I know.” She leaned against him.

“I felt the end come quickly. I told him I’d be there when it came, but I didn’t know it would be so soon… I don’t know when that part’s coming anymore, for anyone.”

“You can still feel us, even though you’re human? Nations apart, at that?”

“Yes. It’s fainter, and not all the time, but I felt him. I feel many people from before - you, but not a lot.”

Dorian cleared his throat, expression souring. “Well… that puts the last few years in an unfortunate light.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it--” He sighed. “I worried about you too, Cole.”

“Thank you.”

“Not him?” It was hard for her to even say his name, but the mere lack of it told Cole all he needed to know.

“I can’t feel Solas anymore. It… it hurts more than feeling his pain did, and knowing he--” He trembled against her. “Varric was sorry for dying when he did. But he thought of himself as a fire that had finally burned out. It wasn’t that, he could’ve kept burning.” A small sob escaped his throat. “He was snuffed out. Misplaced confidence, or… maybe faith. ‘You didn’t mean to, Chuckles. It’s okay.’”

Dorian put his hand on Cole’s shoulder. “I know you were close to both of them, so I’ll refrain from any disparaging words I have to say about Solas.”

“No. You should say them.”

“Oh?”

“Solas did not mean to stab Varric… and the templar did not mean to forget Cole. It doesn’t matter; they still died.” His grip on Leda’s hand tightened, but it was not at all a gesture of comfort. “It’s different, I know, but in a way that makes it worse. They cared about each other, and this still happened. Varric said that you don’t forgive someone killing you, but he forgave Solas… it’s not right.”

“Cole--”

“So I won’t forgive. For him. He taught me that I don’t have to forgive wrongdoings, and things will still get better. And he cared about everyone so, so much - cared about me. He made a point to stay in my life, even though we weren’t in the same place anymore; I’ll never get his letters again, or make better jokes I can hear him laugh at. But Solas was going to hurt people, even after all the time he spent with us, and he’s still alive. He never sent me letters, and he wouldn’t like it if I joked.”

“No. No, he most certainly wouldn’t.” Dorian squeezed his shoulder before finally removing his hand, smiling a little more genuinely. “I’m oddly proud of you.”

“Oh… thank you?” Cole squinted at him for a moment, before his dark expression melted into something softer. “I’m proud of you, too - what you’re going to do. The crown isn’t heavy if you don’t make it heavy.”

“What could you-- oh. Ahem, digging aside… it’s appreciated.” He leaned forward a bit so he could look at Leda on Cole’s other side. “You’re awfully quiet down there.”

“I guess I’m relieved. Hearin’ that ya think that. Makes me feel less bad.”

“You deserve not to forgive him, too.”

“Which I’ve been saying for years , mind you.”

“Can we just move on? We can keep bein’ sad without havin’ to talk about ‘im.”

Cole loosened his grip on her hand, but didn’t let go. “I… I want to go inside, first. I might be able to help, if there’s something he left behind that I can feel.” He cast a hopeful glance at the door next to the fireplace - and frowned as he realized a plank of wood had been hammered into the doorframe to block it. “It’s blocked…?”

“Maker, here we go.” Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose, before moving to stand in front of them with a tight smile on his face. “Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

“Why’re ya actin’ like that? It’s plain ‘n simple - no one’s allowed inside the rotunda.”

“Or the library, or the rookery - those doors are locked, too. No one has anything to read unless they brought it with them--”

“I told ya, and everybody else, there’s a library in the cellar that anybody can get to!”

“Do you know how infested with spider-webs it was when I went down there? Barely anyone aside from very desperate mages - myself included - wants to go near it.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “And no one wants to go inside the Herald’s Rest, either, now that all of Charter’s birds live there.”

“It’s bigger than the ol’ rookery!”

“Imagine how we could have used the space for some much-needed revelry, or at the very least, more space for all the poor souls here.” He turned back to Cole, chuckling humorlessly. “You don’t even know how angry she’s gotten when anyone suggests they open the tower back up for little reasons. And then--”

“Dorian...”

“She found one of the refugees - a craftsman, I believe - taking it upon himself to remove the plank without her approval--”

“Please don’t.”

“And Barris had to intervene when she tried to have the guards put him in a bloody cell!” Dorian threw his hands up, as though this were the first time they’d had this fight. “I’m still baffled…”

“No one’s allowed inside the fuckin’ rotunda! ” Her yelling was loud enough that it caught the attention of everyone in the vicinity. Despite his frustration, Dorian immediately moved his body to obscure her from view. “Why can no one understand that…?”

“You’re afraid of him,” Cole finally remarked.

“I don’t--”

“There was space on the wall for one last mural. You never went back in, after he left - no way of knowing what it ended up depicting. If no one else went in, no one could tell you.”

“Is that really what it’s all about?” Leda shrunk in on herself, and Dorian sighed. “Not about bad memories?”

“Bad memories you’re forcing to be good.”

It was Leda’s turn to tremble against Cole, now, eight awful years of rage and grief and disgust summed up so simply that she felt sick. “Please don’t make me open the door…”

“We can’t keep it locked forever, Leda.”

“Yes we can.”

“You--”

“When we found the templar, you said that I wouldn’t be real until I came to terms with what happened. You’re real already, so… we need to make the room real by you coming to terms with it. But the room is also already real… wait, let me--”

“I got the gist.” She wiped at her eyes, even though they were dry. “But I can’t do it.”

“Then… you’ll have to put me in a cell.” Cole dropped her hand and shuffled over to the door, and before she or Dorian realized what was happening, he produced the dagger from his belt and began to hack at the plank. It was so sharp it was actually working, and the people around him scrambled to get clear as splinters started flying. 

“Cole, don’t ya--” Dorian grabbed her arm as soon as she took a single step. She didn’t fight him. “Let go!”

“We need the tower, Leda. And you need to go in there and get any potential revelations over with already. Please.”

She could protest, stubbornly say ‘no’ over and over again as if it would change either man’s mind. But she was tired, and she knew they were right, so when the sound of what remained of the plank clattered to the floor a few minutes later, she didn’t make a fuss. Cole had somehow cut through the plank on either side of the door in record time - he must’ve gotten an enchanted dagger on his travels, or something. With how kind and helpful he was, she was sure he was decked out in all manner of enchanted gifts.

He wasted no time in opening the door and going inside, a few civilians even peering in and following, unaware of the specificity behind his actions. Dorian used his grip on her to slowly lead her over. Admittedly, the presence of other people helped. When they weren’t talking - or when one of them wasn’t talking at the other, rather - the only sound in the room was the whispering of the one veilfire brazier hanging from the wooden scaffolding. Now, there was the “ooh”ing and “ahh”ing of people who had never seen Solas’s artistic talent before, and their whispering and murmuring about, most likely, the man himself. Her thoughts, whatever the revelation ended up being, would consume her regardless, but it was a little easier to step into the room than she would have thought.

Cole was finishing lighting all the candles he could when she stopped in the center of the room, Dorian holding her hand tightly as she scanned the murals - all the ones she knew, and then, the one she didn’t. Solas had never depicted her as herself, just the world-shattering events she endured, or the sunburst eye and sword imagery of the Inquisition. When she asked him about it, he’d told her it was all still about what she represented. 

“To everybody, or to you?” She’d asked. 

“I am part of ‘everybody’, am I not?” He’d smirked as he said it; it occurred to her now that it was because he’d never considered himself as such. He was different. He was above.

Best case scenario, the last one would depict her, finally. Most likely, it’d be another sunburst eye on a sword, but at least it was still her, even if she didn’t recognize it as herself. Maybe it wouldn’t be anything about her, but at least he would have cared enough about it.

But it was worse than that. 

“...There’s nothing there.”

“No, no, it’s just blending in with the wall. That’s a-- oh, joy, another wolf. The fool is not nearly as talented at metaphor as he believes. And then a sword is next to him, yes? In the ground, I suppose.” Dorian cleared his throat, releasing her hand only so he could pull her into his side. “It’s not very good.”

“He left before he could finish.” Cole finally joined them, folding his hands in front of him. 

“I doubt it would be any better if he did.”

“It’s not about me.” She began to knock her wooden hand against her thigh. “Not about me at all.”

“They’re all about you.” Cole’s eyes followed the motion of her arm, frowning deeply. “But not in the way you want.”

“We could paint over it? See if he left some paints anywhere, or procure some. We could even make a day of it for all the children here, let them have some fun in the midst of all this awfulness.”

“Sure. Yeah. Do what ya think is best.” She sniffled, and hit her thigh so hard she winced. At that, Cole grabbed her hand in between both of us, and she only tugged once before relenting. “I’m not gonna cry again… I can’t fuckin’ cry again!”

“Because hurting yourself is a better idea? You could do awful things to yourself with that thing.” Dorian’s own eyes were glassy as he stared intently at her, tightening his grip on her other hand even further, almost to the point of crushing.

“I know!”

“He wouldn’t--” Cole stopped himself, only taking a second to realize what that particular line of thought would lead her to do. Even with so many years of practice, he still didn’t know exactly what people needed to hear like he did when he was a spirit. And they’d been apart for so long. “...He’s hurt you enough.” That would have to do.

She was still holding back her sobs if the awful noise she made, not unlike a dying bronto, was any indication. But the tenseness in her frame slackened, and that was the closest all three of them were going to get to a win.

She opened her mouth to ask if they’d help her get to their chambers, maybe even stay with her and reopen the whiskey she’d started with Dorian, but she would get never get the luxury. People outside began to scream, prompting everyone still lingering inside the room to run and open the door back into the hall. The sky, early-evening orange, rapidly reddened as they all watched the moon move in front of the sun in real time.

“The light is going out,” Cole remarked; from the horror in his voice, he clearly wasn’t only talking about the sky.

“There was supposed to be an eclipse in a month…” Her voice was devoid of emotion as she went through the one-two punch of processing what was happening, on top of the high-emotion situation she was just in. “It’s what the gods needed to do their ritual to… fuck, I don’t remember, but it was bad. I gotta find Harding’s missive…”

“Kaffas,” Dorian hissed, just barely loud enough for Leda to hear as everyone kept shouting and wondering what the hell was going on. “Did none of those geniuses manage to account for this?”

“Too late now!” Leda steps away from them, pressing her hands to her mouth as she tried to think of something to do. “Okay… okay-- Cole, help the guards make sure no one leaves. Better yet, everybody should go inside the hall - and the rotunda, even my chambers if they gotta. Anywhere they can fit, so long as they’re not outside.”

“I--” Cole hesitated, before latching onto her arm. “I want to go with you.”

“What?” She couldn’t allow herself to falter, linger on how he was prioritizing her over hundreds of people. “They need a calmin’ presence if they get pissy or scared when the guards are orderin’ ‘em inside - you’re that. Dorian, I need ya to find Mae’n anyone else here with tactical knowhow and meet me in the war room. I need to-- ah fuck, I haven’t seen Morrigan all day--”

“She went to Minrathous to meet with Callisto. I’ve no doubt she’s already on her way back to mobilize us.”

“Alright, shit, I’m gonna-- just send her to the war room too if ya see her ‘fore I do. I gotta find Charter ‘n Barris.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay without us?”

No. Not at all. “I gotta be. I--” She took a deep breath, so deep she was momentarily lightheaded. “I’m still the Inquisitor.”

And with that, she disappeared into the growing crowd before she could break.

Chapter Text

Callisto’s deteriorating mental state made her question if she’d ever been as rational as she thought. But she’d never thought of herself as particularly selfish.

The accusation had been flung at her more than once by family members, often the same people, but ‘selfish’ was their word for ‘doesn’t help me or let me get what I want’. Conversely, her last partner thought she was selfish for focusing so much on her family, and her family’s business by extension. It wasn’t as thought her elders preached utter selflessness and generosity - they were in the business of vanity just as much as they were armor and clothing. A bit of self-possession encouraged each Mercari to be the best they could be for themselves, and no one else.

But being entrusted with grand heroics had a way of inflating one’s sense of self, or exploding it entirely. All the revelations about dwarves and the Titans had her voraciously searching for tales of her peoples’ heroics, all the deeds that made Paragons, and of course, refamiliarizing herself with the Hero of Ferelden. A casteless Carta thug who was pulled out of Orzammar’s Dust Town and entrusted with standing against the Fifth Blight, only to callously browbeat and intimidate all her allies into honoring the Grey Warden treaties. Callisto used to be of the opinion that Warden Brosca set a shitty example for surface dwarves and gave them all a bad name in the eyes of other races, trying to shut down gossip and speculation when she heard it. After all this, though - bearing the burden of unwanted leadership, being driven to burning hot rage in the face of resistance, and being faced with the horrific realities of poverty and subhumanity for the first time in her privileged life - she saw the woman in a new light. She more than understood not knowing where to direct one’s desire for retribution, to inflict pain so others would feel what they felt… not that she experienced those things to such extremes, but still. 

It made her worry, when she started to have less patience for solving her companions’ problems, or even to chat casually with them. It made her worry when she started discreetly slipping out to Minrathous some nights to abscond to her family’s estate for a few hours, eating meticulously prepared food (not at all like Lucanis and Bellara’s lovingly made home-cooked meals) and to hear her cousins fight over who would get to take the measurements of the attractive gallerist coming in for a fitting the next day (not at all like quiet humming of the Lighthouse). It made her worry when, during a surprise meeting with the Inquisitor, she got up from the table with an, “alright, that’s it, I’ve had enough with your obsession with him,” and left as soon as it was suggested Solas might not ultimately fuck them all over. She hadn’t even bothered to open the next letter she sent. 

But when her companions expected her to weigh in on life-altering decisions? That was scarier than the Blight. Some were easier than expected - of course Taash should embrace Rivaini culture, that was clearly want they wanted; of course Thedas’s remaining griffons shouldn’t be wasted on more war, instead living out their days in the strange beauty of Arlathan; of course Neve should take over the Threads and protect Dock Town with all she had, because knowing Minrathous, nothing tamer would fix things. And, of course, Harding should be fucking angry that their forebears were ruined, and forgotten.

For all the good that did.

It was a no-brainer to suggest Bellara let the Archive go - not just for some nebulous ideal of the elves making their own future, but so they couldn’t become who they were before. The sort of people who would harm her people; the Evanuris were the ones to slay and render the Titans tranquil, sure, but how many elves had taken up arms against them? How many blindly fought them, believing them to be the enemy that would take their existence away from them? What if it could happen again?

Callisto was barely mentally present for Cyrian’s funeral, the best emotional support she could provide in a situation like this being letting Bellara talk and fret at her (although, every time she doubted if freeing the Archive was the right decision, Callisto had to clench her jaw shut). Deaths in her own family were odd - funerals were made into a spectacle, whether they followed dwarven traditions or something more secular for in-laws of other races; once they were over, they tried to move on like their grief had evaporated. To be at the Lighthouse where people were in various states of mourning all around her, for even Neve to carry the burden of the death of a man she barely knew all that well, was sobering. Scary.

She nearly sighed in relief when Bellara brought up the Evanuris again.

“I keep trying to remember, the elvhen were the first people the Evanuris enslaved.” Callisto’s lips puckered in response. Yes, that was undebatably true, and it was horrifying beyond belief… but Callisto just couldn’t let go of what the memories of the Titans evoked. Not slavery, no - but it was subjugation. Violation. What was done to the Titans allowed the Evanuris to rise to power, which then enabled them to enslave their own people. Perhaps no one would understand this line of thought, not even Davrin or Harding, but she still felt it.

“They broke us. And kept us broken.” Bellara hadn’t been present for their descent into Kal-Sharok or Isana Negat. Callisto didn’t know what she and Harding had even discussed of her Stone sense, or of Solas’s memory. The only malicious bones in her body were reserved for malicious people, rightfully so - she didn’t mean for her words to evoke-- no, no, Callisto had to calm down. These were rites for her brother, she could stand to keep her shit together for ten minutes.

“We survived in spite of them. Not because of them.”

“You took everything from us, and you thought you won. But we’re still here. We’re different, but we’re not gone. We will thrive - in spite of you .”

“How dare you?!” Callisto howled right in her face, face as red as the angry lyrium in the Titan’s heart. “How dare you say that like it’s at all comparable?!”

Bellara looked understandably horrified, backing away with her hand to her chest. “I-- are you-- did I do something wrong…?”

The sound of Neve jogging up behind them took Callisto back to the present moment - to her friend needing support in saying goodbye to her brother. She gripped the sides of her head, throat closing up - who was she, anymore? Who had she ever been?

“I’m sorry… I fucked up, shit, that was-- a bad memory came back.” She cast Neve a desperate look as the woman came around to wrap her arm around the elf’s shoulders. “Neve, can you help her the rest of the way? I can’t be here anymore. I’m so fucking sorry, Bel, I--”

She shook her head, and without another word, she turned on her heel and booked it back to the camp so she could go back through the eluvian, crouch in a corner of the Crossroads, and scream like a feral animal.

Why did anyone, ever, trust her to make decisions? 

Emmrich was a uniquely special case, for reasons of the palm-sweating, heart-racing variety. Just as she enjoyed his explanations of the Fade, she could listen to him wax poetic about his life and work with the Mourn Watchers for hours, in a way she’d never had the patience for with  anything else. Whenever he brought up his ambitions of becoming a lich, however, she’d laugh nervously and nod a little too much, waiting for the quickest means of changing the subject to present itself. Theoretically, she wanted him to follow and achieve his dreams, as any good partner would. In that theoretical universe, she would keep kissing his lipless, tongueless mouth willingly until she died.

But therein lied the problem. 

“Can only mages become liches?” The question slipped out of her mouth unbidden one day, surprising even her.

“As far as I’ve been able to glean, only necromancers have achieved lichdom, yes.” He had steepled his fingers together and got that far off look in his eye that he always did when he was sifting through his boundless mental library. “However… considering the nature of the ritual, it’s possible that any well-intentioned person connected to the Fade could be a candidate; granted, the preparations would surely be more numerous and demanding. Hm… you’ve actually gotten me quite curious about this; I’ll have to research further.”

“Ah… have fun.”

That answer was so much worse than if he’d just given her a simple ‘yes’.

Their return to Blackthorn Manor was brought on a veritable mess of emotions. When Myrna described Hezenkoss’s gathering as a ‘soiree’, could Callisto really be blamed for assuming the plan would be for them to dress up and go in undercover themselves? Drink some ancient wine, make fake small talk, dance? Instead, they got to watch from the balcony as Manfred got to have all the fun, Taash brimming with anxiety over being surrounded by corpse stuff and corpse people (both literal and figurative). And then Manfred talked. And then Hezenkoss talked way too much, as was her way (although, Emmrich didn’t object to Callisto pulling him down for a sloppy kiss as soon as the half-lich expressed a modicum of disgust about their coupling; that was a win). 

And then Manfred fucking died , which she didn’t even know was possible. And when, once again, she was asked for her opinion on steering the course of her companion’s life, it didn’t even take her two seconds to say, “screw lichdom, you love Manfred.”

But Emmrich wasn’t just a friend that had their own life to live. He was her lover; no, the love of her life, she was certain. His life would be intwined with hers, if all went well, from now on - which meant she’d have to see the consequences of this decision play out every damn day. 

Ever since, Callisto never truly felt at ease anymore, especially around Emmrich. She couldn’t relax, couldn’t laugh as hard at jokes as she used to, couldn’t sleep without succumbing to fits. She tried to focus on what she used to be good at - keeping her head down and dealing with any outstanding problems or requests for assistance as the days until the next eclipse ticked down. Perhaps this was her most selfish move of all - compartmentalizing to the max, shutting herself down so she could survive without having another outburst like she did at the Artlathan Crater, and then again in front of Solas just hours later. She had to, lest she lose herself, lest the pit in her stomach grew large enough to swallow her and everyone in her orbit; just until the gods were dead. Yeah - she’d stop their ritual, save the day, and then she could be a flawed person again.

“Why not become just like them, if that’s what I have to be to do hard things?”

No. It had to work out the right way.

“So.” Callisto all but slammed her half-empty wine glass onto the wooden table, staring down the woman sitting across from her in the Cobbled Swan. “Is there a reason the Inquisitor’s not here?”

“The fate of Southern Thedas has been in her hands alone, and now you beseech her aid for the fight to hold up the world itself. She requires time to find those who can help her do both.” Morrigan’s yellow eyes scanned her and the table calculatingly, lingering on her still-full wine glass - and the empty glass next to the dwarf’s current one. “After your last meeting, she was noticeably reluctant to speak with you face to face once more. She would not tell me why, but I can speculate.”

“Do you willingly suffer fools?” Morrigan arched a brow so high it disappeared behind her bangs; that was enough to make Callisto swallow hard and straighten her posture. “Sorry… she’s not a fool, she just-- ugh, I don’t want his name in my mouth.” She took another drink of wine, as if to wash the mere idea of the man off her tongue.

“Tis a shame he holds power over her still, however minute.” She cast a look out the window, gaze fixed on where the sea met the horizon. “I am privileged to have known many formidable women throughout my lifetime - yourself included.  The Inquisitor is formidable, in her own right, but never have I known someone who remained so utterly terrified of her title and power. Fearful of being damned for any decision, oblivious to the fact that everyone in earshot hangs on her every word.”

“Bet he had a hand in making her that way.”

“Not intentionally.” Morrigan shifted in her seat, folding her hands in her lap as she looked back at Callisto. “I hold no love for the man, but carrying Mythal’s memories have instilled me with a certain amount of understanding of why he makes the numerous mistakes he does. Not forgiving, nor excusing, mind you. If anything, knowing the inner workings of his psyche makes it all the worse.”

“I wish he was in your head; you’d have a better chance of bullying him into submission.” She smirked bitterly. “I lost my ability to stay calm as soon as I learned my true history. I screamed at him and called him the vilest things I could, and he just ignored me.”

“In his eyes, he is only further justified in his actions if they elicit wrath for wrath’s sake.”

“That makes no fucking sense.”

Morrigan chuckled. “Indignation is the last resort of those backed into proverbial corners, so goes his philosophy. However true that proves to be. Tis the storm of festered misery and disappointment that he cannot defend himself against as easily. Had your words come from the Inquisitor’s mouth, perhaps he would have quivered under their weight.”

“Oh, yeah, I bet she’d relish having a direct line to him whenever she wanted.” The truth was, for all that Callisto had gotten a sizable glimpse at the pain Solas had caused the older woman, she didn’t know what she ultimately wanted from him. Revenge? Acceptance? Both? Like she kept trying to remind herself these days, though, it wasn’t her problem to worry about it. The remaining Evanuris’ deaths wouldn’t change the fact that Solas was trapped inside their old prison with no way out, until the magic weakened in the future. “But, you know, speaking of Mythal…”

“I believe I know where this is going.” Morrigan smirked, though not unkindly.

“Yeah I’ll bet. I-- you said the fragment of Mythal in you’s been tempered by time among mortals. Does she regret what she and Solas did to the Titans?”

“The fragment does not have feelings, as such, but the memories I recall are tinged with impressions that could be considered similar. The sundering of the Titans from their dreams is a vision that did not have cause to be conjured in the majority of her hosts, nor even I, until news of Harding’s awakening reached me. In that sense… I suppose her actions are colored by guilt, yes.”

“Huh.” Callisto shrugged, sipping more wine. “Cold comfort to me and my people. I doubt she’d do anything to fix it if she still had her powers and whatever else Solas took from her when he killed her again. …Fuck me, what a sentence.”

“We will never know, now, but there is much evidence to support your claim, given her and my mother’s past actions.”

“Mmm. Well. Fuck it all, I guess.” She set aside her wine glasses to fold her hands on the table. “So-- let’s talk plans.”

Good plans. Great plans, both for the world and interpersonally. But what was it people said about best laid plans? Oh, yeah - they always went tits fucking up. As Morrigan, Callisto, and the rest of Thedas were forced to watch helplessly as the moon moved to obscure the sun way ahead of schedule, she swore she could hear Bellara’s voice in her head going, Yeaahh… so… Elgar’nan is the god of the sun… and Lusacan was the god of the moon… sooo… it’s not your fault, though! That you didn’t realize, I mean.

Why didn’t any single one of them realize, would be a better question to ask. But there was nothing any of them could do but take what hours they had left to mobilize and prepare, all while most certainly not being able to count on any outside help anymore - especially not the Inquisitor’s.

Who could blame her for wanting some soothing attention as they stood at the mouth of ruin? When they had no time to account for every possible mistake they’d make, every moment of hesitation that could get them hurt or worse? No matter how weird she’d felt in the wake of bringing Manfred back, now wasn’t the time to push aside feelings for “later”. There couldn’t be one, or the later that ended up happening could be vastly different than the one she wanted. That either of them wanted. She didn’t know what that meant, as she walked down the hall to Emmrich’s lab; confessions, gifts, that fucking “anatomy lesson” they were long overdue for? She would take any, or better yet, all.

She really should have expected he’d be passing the time working on his will and testament.

“Is writing up bequeathments something Mourn Watchers do for fun? Or is it part of joining up, or something?” She couldn’t fight her smirk as she made her way over to his desk, resting her elbows on it.

“I’m glad you can keep your sense of humor, even now.” His answering smile was small, uneasy. “But I fear I can’t laugh along with you about this.”

“I was kind of being serious in asking, but alright. Don’t be so dour, though - it’s not gonna help any.”

“Surely you can’t blame me for some amount of wavering in the face of danger. And… I question whether or not we should go on as we have.”

“What does that mean?”

 “I…” He sighed through his nose, arms twitching to move upwards until he folded them in front of them to keep himself still.  “Darling, there aren’t words to describe what it’s meant for you to have blown into my life and changed the course of it irrevocably. I struggle to-- mmm. It is because I care for you that I must insist that you find solace in the arms of someone whom you will not outlive.”

She stuttered out a disbelieving laugh, bile rising to her throat. “No.”

“Don’t be stubborn about this, please.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“I-- I have been all too aware of the years I have on you, but now, with the consequences laid bare before me, I cannot place that burden on you.”

“What? It’s not like I’m some fresh-faced little thing, I’m in my mid-fucking-thirties.” Her eyes widened, and she grit her teeth together. “Is this because of everything Harding said? Literally no one else cares, ‘cuz they’re better at minding their damn business.”

“Her observations have not helped, for certain, but even without them, I would not be oblivious to how it looked. From both the outside, and within.”

“Okay, well… lucky for you, I don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks of us.”

“Don’t you?”

That threw her for a loop. “No…? What gave you that impression?”

“Ever since the Crater, I’ve noticed you pulling away, little by little. I had attributed it to the weight of the world pressing down on your shoulders, but I cannot help but wonder if it’s simply me.” He looked down at the will in front of him again. “And I know - well, we all do - that you’ve been going back to visit your family. I thought you might’ve liked to bring me with you, once.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

He huffed out a sad, deflated little chuckle. “I convinced myself that if you truly wanted to - if you saw us having a future - you would extend the invitation yourself…”

“Who willingly wants to meet their partner’s insane family?” Someone who was orphaned young and had to grow up among the quiet of the dead, the rational part of her brain supplied, and that pit of guilt grew just a bit bigger. “I probably set you up for it, with all those jokes I made about my mother wanting to adopt you for your slacks alone.”

“I’ve pictured the woman many times, I’ll admit. What it might feel like to be in the embrace of a large family, to be welcome and approved of while on the arm of their most wonderful and beautiful member.” He looked back up at her, eyes glassy. “But I am no longer under any illusions - I wouldn’t fit, and let us not pretend otherwise.”

“Yes you would, dumbass!” She screwed her eyes shut. “No, you’re not a dumbass, I’m sorry; but you’re being absolutely ridiculous.” She hopped up onto the desk, taking his hands and putting them on her ample hips. “You fit. You fit with me. And we’re both gonna live through this; if anyone comes near you I’ll cleave them in half.”

He hung his head, squeezing her hips before reluctantly withdrawing his hands. “I have every confidence in that. But I know it will be better for you, in the long run, if we admit things between us have run their course.”

“I won’t, because they haven’t. What’s going on with you?!”

“I cannot put you through my death, Callisto! Nor can I put you through being responsible for me as my health inevitably declines; you should be elsewhere, living.”

In the heavy silence that followed, something clicked, and she felt as though she’d just been socked in the face. “You can’t punish me for what I told you to do.”

“...What?”

“Why did you ask me for my input at all, if you wanted immortality so badly? If you had all that beautiful shit to say about Manfred earning his rest?” She slid off the desk, backing away as the pain and frustration shone clear on her face. “You made the decision! Not me, you! You could’ve accepted his death soooo easily, like a Mourn Watcher should, you said… accept death as it passed you the fuck by… accept my death…”

“I-- no, hold on a moment--”

“You wanna know the truth? Huh? Maybe I should’ve told you to be a lich - but only if I could follow. If you coulda loved me as a lich, then I guess they don’t have rules against relationships, or whatever. I bet all sorts of mage couples become liches together so they can be bulwarks against evil together, forever . And you said it yourself - anyone with a connection to the Fade could theoretically be a lich. If I were anyone else, there’d be a way we’d be it ‘til the end of time.” She smiled, the one of someone at the end of their rope. “But I’m a dwarf; thanks to the little asshole that lives in my head, I’m not connected to the Fade. And I’m not Harding, no matter how many damn times I hold the dagger with my bare hands, hoping something happens to me…”

“I…” He was looking at her with such open regret, she very nearly ran back over to him when he made to stand. Instead, she just took a step backward, hands hovering near her head as though they didn’t know what to grasp at. “I had no idea you felt this way. That I made you feel this way.”

“It wasn’t you. Well, it was, but it’s not like you meant it - this was your whole shtick, your life’s passion. Of course you’d wanna talk about it whenever you could, and I wanted you to talk to me more than anyone else…” She swallowed hard, eyes burning. “Even if I… Stone, when I first figured out I had feelings for you, I was so worried because I thought that someone like me would have nothing to talk about with someone like you. That a dwarf would never be able to mesh with a Fade expert, outside of all the teaching. I know I already talked to you about all this, but the fucking worry never went away. I mean, can you really say you’ve enjoyed talking with me about random shit that doesn’t matter, or the fate of the world, compared to all the long talks about necromancy and the Fade’s secrets you had with Johanna over the years?”

“Yes!” He surged forward, taking her hands. “The focus of so much of my life has been academics, about what I do rather than all that makes up who I am. It has not been until joining this team, meeting you, that I’ve been able to fully explore all the topics and hobbies that lie beyond the Necropolis - beyond even Nevarra. Our talks may be short, but they are numerous, and not a day has gone by where we have spoken less than three times. Do you know what that means to me, that we never run out of things to talk about? That you do not make me feel foolish, nor I you? How can I not--” He scoffed as he promptly dropped her hands, seemingly remembering himself.  “I’m supposed to be dissuading you…”

“No, you know what? I’ll be the asshole, then - I’ll give you a reason to leave.” As tears began to spring from her eyes, she took a deep breath, readying herself to scream. “Fuck lichdom! Fuck you getting to live forever after I die! Fuck your big fucking goal in life being to become some unseen force against evils you don’t even know about! I should be your life’s fucking obsession; you can't just toss me aside! You love me, and you should die loving me! ”

He gaped at her, stunned, but at least he didn’t turn his back. He fidgeted with his jewelry, expression flitting between confusion and hopelessness. The silence, save for the clicking and scraping of Manfred’s bones as he came down the stairs, stretched on too long.

“I… maybe the last bit was too far. But you can’t even admit it. Heh.” She wiped her tears away with practiced delicacy, using only one finger for each track. There was no point in smudging her makeup even more, after all. “Fine. Let’s face the gods with things left unsaid - that’s always a great idea. I mean, look at Taash, they’re clearly doing so well after what happened to their mom.” Just as he made a noise of protest, she held up a hand and shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Just fine. I’ll go off to deal with the mindscrew of having to lead an assault against the end all by myself! No support! Like I always do, because Varric is fucking useless!”

With that, she turned on her heel before she could see Emmrich’s expression morph into one of utter confusion.

“Don’t go!” Manfred shrieked, bringing the tiniest of genuine smiles to her face. She wondered how much he heard; even with his improving struggle to communicate, his very nature led him to understand more than she’d ever expected.

“Sorry, bud - I need the space. You can come join me, if you want - leave him to mope.” With that, she left the room, keeping her gait casual despite her overwhelming urge to run to her room and slam the door shut. 

She should have just kept compartmentalizing.

Chapter Text

Nearly a day after Elgar’nan’s eclipse began, Skyhold was graced with the presence of Neve Gallus. She’d chosen to deliver the grim results of the assault on Tearstone Island herself, citing that she felt she owed it to the Inquisition not to merely send it in a missive: Ghilan’nain had been slain, yes, but the price had been all too steep. Bellara Lutare, their Elvhen technology expert, had been kidnapped by Elgar’nan, and no one knew if she was still alright. Solas, bastard that he was, had played the long game with Callisto and trapped her in his Fade prison to gain his own freedom. And Harding - ever so kind Lace Harding, who had been the first to express relief that the Inquisitor was a fellow dwarf, who shared slices of her ma’s pie, who now carried the bright future of their entire race in her veins - had sacrificed herself to give their Antivan Crow the opportunity to cut Ghilan’nain down.

Leda was lucky that Cole was there to catch her when she fell to her knees, otherwise she would have brained herself on the edge of the War Table.

“I’m so sorry.” She barely heard Neve, the agony in the mage’s own voice, as she sobbed.

“First Varric… now Lace… we’re droppin’ like flies…”

“As the only one left of the original team, as it were, I…” She sighed, hanging her head. “There’s nothing else to say, is there? ‘Sorries’ are only helpful to cushion the immediate blow.”

“It’s okay.” It really, really wasn’t. But Neve was right. “Didja come for help, too?”

“Admittedly, yes. We’re determined to find an exploit to free her, but without Bellara, we’re struggling to even know where to start…”

She sniffled, using Cole’s arm as leverage to start lifting herself up. “Um… first off, can somebody find Morrigan? She knows all kinds of old elf magic stuff, plus the whole Mythal thing.” Barris, who’d been watching in sympathy, startled and motioned to the guard in the room to go do just that. “There’s also Mae ‘n Dorian, ‘n... other mages, somewhere. Do ya think your magic-nullifyin’-whatever Templar stuff would help, Barris?”

“I don’t take lyrium anymore, Inquisitor, but I’ll ask if any of the other Templars seeking refuge here do.”

“Okay. That’s all I got off the top of my head. Charter?”

Charter was rather stone-faced, but a spymaster had to be able to hide their emotions to be able to play the game of secrets well. She’d have to find her later, inevitably mid-cry, and sit with her a while - something she wished she would have been better at doing for Leliana. “A question, first - do you have any idea what Elgar’nan’s next move will be?”

“We stopped him from completing his red lyrium dagger; I’d say he’s gone off to lick his wounds, but any tantrum he throws is going to be in full view of Thedas and twice as destructive. As for where … well, we all had differing ideas when we were yelling at each other when we got back, but nothing we can come to a consensus on.”

“And Solas?” Leda flinched at the mere mention of his name.

“Scores to settle,” Cole mumbled, looking rather forlorn himself. “Where Elgar’nan goes, he will follow. That's all he cares about...”

“My scouts will keep their eyes on the horizon. As soon as they find anything, I’ll have them send copies of their reports to the Lighthouse.” She squinted down at the map. “I have a few ideas on how to aid you, but most of them require time you most certainly won’t have.”

“Not surprising. We’re appealing to our other allies for help as well - hopefully, between the hundreds of heads we’re putting together, we’ll come up with something.” Neve looked down at Leda again, giving her a grateful smile. “And thank you, Inquisitor. I wish the circumstances of our meeting were brighter - Lace spoke of you often, and very fondly.”

“Oh, fuck, don’t tell me things like that.” She laid her hands flat atop the table, Cole continuing to be a notably silent support behind her. “I don’t need more reasons to be wrecked.”

“Then allow me to rile you up, instead.” She crossed her arms, her prosthetic leg clanking distinctly as she took a step forward. Leda looked at her own prosthetic arm, frowning - if they both survived, she’d have to ask who made hers. “We’ve both been caught in cleaning up Solas’s messes now, and it’s cost us far too much. I’ve lost my home, my city, friends - you’ve lost that and years. Can I trust that he doesn’t have you so twisted that you won’t get in our way when the time comes?”

Leda’s breath hitched, not at all expecting her question to go in that direction. It was fair, she supposed - there were days, including the last time she’d seen Callisto face to face, where a tiny part of her still clung to the idea that he thought he’d hurt her enough. That he’d put her out of her misery by giving up, or by falling into her arms and crying just as hard for her as she’d cried for him. Other days, she’d all but slapped herself in the face for ever believing that bullshit. Regardless, fire was blazing so bright in Neve’s eyes that she would say anything to get that gaze off her. “Yeah. ‘Course.”

“Not that much farther now, Inquisitor,” The messenger trailing just a ways ahead of Leda piped up, as though it was comforting. Any distance traveled in the Fade would be too far, too much - until Morrigan had come to take her back to Skyhold via the Crossroads, she enjoyed eight long years of not having to deal with the Fade at all. Something that had once been such a mysterious wonder to her, something that must’ve been good to experience if every other race got to, forever sullied by pulling back the curtain. By the right man doing the wrong thing - or maybe the wrong man doing the right thing. She wasn’t sure which was more fitting.

In truth, in the only ten minutes they’d been making their way through, going from mirror to mirror and then onto sodding boats like they were in the Antivan canals, she was terrified she’d catch sight of him lurking around every corner. The latest intelligence from Charter’s network had placed him in Minrathous helping the resistance, but that didn’t stop her from swearing she saw his face or eyes in her peripherals.

“Did-- sorry, what did ya call her earlier…?”

“Rook, ma’am. Can’t say what the title denotes, I just know that’s what Strife called her when I was entrusted with missive running.” 

“Uh-huh…” She struggled to recall if Dorian had ever referred to Callisto as such, but thinking straight wasn’t easy ever since Thedas had all but caught on fire. “Did she say why she wanted to meet so bad?”

“It wasn’t even her that told me. The Mourn Watcher came out of the Vi’Revas all frantic and told me to come find you and bring you to the Lighthouse immediately.”

Leda had a good guess as to why. It had been weeks since Neve gave them the never-ending shit pile of bad news, and what little she’d heard from her group since is that they were close to finding Callisto a way out, but hadn’t yet. If she was suddenly around to ask for an audience, they must’ve succeeded. But why her first demand had been to talk to her, Leda couldn’t possibly fathom. 

“Guess I’ll find out soon, one way or another.”

“Definitely.” They came into what seemed like some sort of nexus point, one of those distinctive goblet-like Fade trees in the center; behind it, up two flights of stairs, was another eluvian. “Well, we’re here; running through the Crossroads is a lot faster with conversation, gotta say. Good luck!”

“Yeah… you too.” She bent down and patted the messenger’s mabari on the head, chuckling as he butted his cold nose into her palm. “Bye, handsome.”

As she trudged up the stairs, approaching the Vi’Revas with the sort of caution one might reserve for a wild animal, fear crept up her spine. After all, she’d found it heart-wrenching enough to go inside the single room Solas had commandeered at Skyhold.

The Lighthouse had him all over it.

As soon as she emerged on the other side, she was struck by the beauty of just this single room alone. There wasn’t anything in it save for the eluvian, the walkway up to the door, and whatever material below that refracted light on the walls, but it was breathtakingly peaceful. 

“Inquisitor?”

“Fuck!” She nearly jumped out of her skin and tore her gaze away from the depths to look at whoever just entered. An elf, Dalish, and the hand he extended to her was marked by the scars and callouses of both a warrior and a craftsman. And he was amused at her little scare, to boot. “Sorry, was rude, just… y’know, fuck.”

“We’re all on edge,” he said, though the much fainter smirk that was on his face said, 'and it seems you’re the most on edge of all'. She finally took his hand, giving it a firm shake. “Davrin. It’s an honor.”

“The Grey Warden! I know ya from the letters.” She’d sent out far more letters to Callisto than she’d received, but they told her enough to get a picture of what was going on - while reports from her own agents filled in the numerous blanks. “I’ve never met a Dalish Warden before. But I mostly knew Orlesian ones, and one Fereldan one, but he died.” She smiled awkwardly, finally releasing his hand.

“Haven’t met that many, myself. I’m from the Anderfels - I operated in and around Weisshaupt.”

“Ohhh… that makes what happened extra sad for you, then.”

He choked out a laugh, despite himself, and shrugged. “Has anyone told you you’re not very good at tact?”

“...Many times.”

“That’s the first time I’ve managed to laugh when talking about it, though, so I’ll take it as a good thing. But we’ll rebuild - until then, operations have been moved to Lavendel. Actually, you’d like Evka - she’s a dwarf Warden I’ve known for a long time, all but running things now alongside her husband."

“Oh?” That did have her perking up. “Are they happy?”

“Yes…? Happy together, at least; happy in general…we’ll see. Things seem to be getting better with the blight in the area, but--” He shook his head. “Sorry, I was sent to bring you to Callisto when you came in, but instead I’m talking your ear off.”

“Nooo, you’re nice to talk to.”

“Even if you’re just saying that, I’ll take it. But here.” He held up the wooden carving she’d seen in his other hand, slightly obscured in shadow, and she covered her mouth as soon as she realized what it was. “I know one of your big ‘things’ is that you’re a nug lover, and I’ve carved a shitton of them over the years to practice so I figured--”

She took it and then threw her arms around his waist so quickly he didn’t have a single moment to process any of it. The hug was over just as quick, and she all but bounced on her feet as she stared into its tiny, lifeless little eyes.

“This is an amazin’ gift! Ya didn’t have to give me anythin’, I just-- that’s so kind.” She reached out to playfully hit him on the arm to expel some of her mounting energy, cringing immediately as her social faux pas continued to wrack up. “I got a lotta nug carvin’s and other stuff over the years, but I lost it all when the Venatori took Kirkwall. I didn’t have anythin’ nuggy for my Skyhold room anymore, so I can put this in there now.”

“Uh… glad to help.” He cleared his throat, motioning with his head to have her follow him up the stairs. “You might need it as some sort of good luck charm for whatever’s coming next.”

“Whaddya mean? Takin’ down Elgar’nan?”

“That, and tonight.”

Leda pointedly ignored the mural and its all-too-familiar art style in front of her as they came up the second staircase, and suddenly, there were so many different aspects of this new room to take in that she was utterly overwhelmed. A ceiling so high it might as well have been the sky; bookshelves floating around some magical ring; more bookshelves on the ground; distinctly Tevinter furniture and the red fires illuminating it all; more of those damned murals; and in the middle of it all, Callisto slumped forward in one of the chairs surrounding the circular table, no less than a dozen bottles of various wines and liquors atop it. 

“...Oh. Shit.”

“Shit, indeed. She hasn’t found all the alcohol in this place, but she sure got most of it.”

“I heard that,” the other dwarf in the room ground out, hands coming up to brace the back of her neck.

“And? Good luck finding the rest, drunk off your ass as you are.” He nodded to Leda before making his way over to the double doors on the opposite wall. Leda approached her warily, not sure which chair to sit in, before she decided to stretch out her body on the couch, setting the nug carving down next to her legs.

“...Hi--”

“I’m not alright.”

“I wasn’t gonna ask that.”

“It’s what everyone else has been asking.” She straightened her spine out, pushing all the long hair that had fallen into her face out of the way. “It’s what someone like you would ask.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just that you’re so caring. Aren’t you? If I asked for you to bleed for me right now, guaranteed it would make me feel better, would you?”

“What the fuck? What’s wrong with ya?”

“Everything.” She raised the bottle directly in front of her to her lips and taking a long drink. “People like you, you never last. She said that she figured out quick that things worked out better if people liked her. So she played nice, and would do whatever someone asked of her if it meant more nice things would happen. She learned it the easy way - how’d you learn it?”

“Who’s ‘she’?”

“Harding. Who else?” Leda’s heart sank. “I told her to do something, she followed my orders, and now she’s fucking dead. ‘Cuz she had to help. But if she didn’t, Lucanis would be dead. And if he didn’t fly in, I’d be dead. So all in all, fuck everything, fuck helping, and fuck your ex fucking lover.”

“He’s not…”

“Oh, you think you’re still together? You’re delusional.”

“Don’t call me that! That’s not what I fuckin’ meant and ya know it.” She swung her legs over the couch, leaning forward to try to catch Callisto’s eye. “We’re not talkin’ ‘bout him.” A dark laugh bubbled out of Callisto’s throat; Leda didn’t like the sound of it, so she ignored it. “I dunno what to fuckin’ tell ya, but whatever Lace did to… y’know, she woulda done whether or not you’d ordered her at all. That doesn’t make it better, ‘course it doesn’t, but it’s just the truth.”

“Proves my point - fuck helping!”

“And I agree with ya!” Callisto finally looked at her, albeit disbelievingly. “I don’t wanna be where we are - in life, in this monument to the man who ruined our lives - anymore than you do. I hid from it all for almost a decade, even when people were beggin’ for me to do somethin’ about whatever crisis they had when they found out where I was. And I felt bad, but it didn’t compare to the relief of just bein’ able to be sad without havin’ to be made fuckin’ sadder.” She took a deep breath. “But we’re fucked and we’re stuck here. If I couldn’t outrun it, ya sure as shit can’t either. So we might as well help and get people thankin’ us when we aren’t bein’ pelted with garbage.”

Callisto stared at her for a few moments, utterly silent, before motioning to the table. “I’m not talking to you anymore unless you get drunk. You’re so godsdamned depressing.”

“Yeah, and you’re a real field o’ flowers.” Leda scrunched her nose up. “I dunno… I don’t wanna be--”

“Drink.”

“Alright! Maker, you don’t haveta be scary about it…” Leda grabbed the first bottle that looked vaguely wine-like that she saw, uncorking it and taking a big swig. She nearly choked on the burn, but at least the taste wasn’t terrible.

“I didn’t think you were Andrastian. You weren’t, in the book.”

“M’not. Was around so many that I just started sayin’ it. And, I mean…. I talked to ‘em, sometimes. The Maker and Andraste.”

“Eugh, why?”

“People were tellin’ me all the time I was her Herald! I… I needed help, and I couldn’t ask anybody for it. So I asked her.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Fine. Do you believe in the Stone?”

“I dunno.”

“How can you not know?”

“What even is the ‘Stone’? I didn’t know what it was before the Inquisition, and I sure as shit don’t know now after all this Titan fuckery.”

Callisto smiled tightly, taking another swig of her bottle. “Maybe we’ll never know, since I let the only hope for the Titans die.”

“Not this again…”

“Fine! Let’s talk about how I fucked over even more dwarves, instead! You wanna know something awful? I prioritized saving Treviso from their dragon all that time ago because I knew, whatever happened, that my family would be just fine. Tarquin was fucking right.” She slapped the arm of her chair. “The Venatori would never bother Hightown in any debilitating way - most of them live there. Our storefront’s there, our villa’s there, and so are the other smaller houses that the others live in with their partners or patrons. And even the ones who insist on living humbler don’t live in any of the areas that were hurt the worst - the poor ones, of course. But now it doesn’t matter - the entire city is blighted and burning, and there’s no way to call in any favors to see if they’re alright. Even if they are, there’s so many of them that there’s no way they all didn’t get separated. Guess this is me getting mine, or maybe the Titans themselves are punishing me.”

“No, it’s-- I woulda saved Treviso too, probably.”

“Really? I’m-- oh. You’re from Antiva, aren’t you? Was just a footnote in the book, but I remember now.”

“Yeah, but not Treviso - Antiva City. I was only there for the first year of my life.”

“Still. Where you’re born is supposed to mean something.” A laugh bubbled out of her throat. “Or maybe you would’ve gone for Minrathous in the heat of the moment after all - your best friend’s home. The one most likely to get fucked with in the long run.”

Leda leaned forward, putting her head in her hands. “I-- I dunno what to say. You couldn’ta known--”

“Couldn’t I? Tevinter worshipped the Evanuris’ Archdemons, and they’re the ones they reached out to to break them out of their prison. Elgar’nan thinks the Archon’s seat is his by divine right - of course he’d come to Minrathous. Last ditch effort to come out on top now that his right hand monster-maker is dead. Wish we could kill her again for Lace.”

“I know how ya feel.

“No you don’t. I let her die at Ghilan’nasty’s hands--” She hiccupped. “Tentacles. Even in the modern fucking age, the Evanuris killed another Titan. Fucking genocidal pieces of fucking--”

“Ghilan’nasty’s real funny.”

“Of course that’s the point you take away. Don’t you care?”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ care! What else can I say other than ‘sorry’? Other than… I dunno the dwarven thing to say when we die. May she find peace in the Stone’s embrace...? I-- that can’t be right…”

“Wait.” Callisto held up her hand, staring off into space. “...Atrast tunsha. Totarnia am… amgetol… what’s the last part…” She looked desperately up at the ceiling, pounding the heel of her boot into the floor several times. “Totarnia amgetol… tavash aeduc! Fuck!” She was momentarily lost in her success, oblivious to Leda’s deep frown.

“What’s that mean?”

“‘Atrast tunsha’ is farewell. The rest… If I got told once, I don’t remember now. Every funeral we had, we’d all approach the burial site and recite it one by one.” She sighed, rubbing her face. “Had to say it for the first time at my dad’s funeral; he was in Ferelden during the Fifth Blight. I was… fifteen? Yeah.”

“Shit. That’s awful.”

“S’posed to help the spirit back to the Stone, I think… but now we know that’s probably bullshit, and dwarves don’t get to go anywhere when we die. We just die . Maybe that explains why my family was so insistent on moving on so quick every single time.” She sniffled, and mechanically took another drink right after. “But maybe Lace got to go back to the Stone, or to the Fade. I’d have Em revive her and ask, but we don’t even have a body.”

“He would what?”

Callisto waved off her confusion. “And now all we got left is Shaper Valta… the Oracle, oooohh, so mystical.” She scoffed, putting her current bottle down and grabbing another one full of indeterminate booze. “Useless.”

“Lace didn’t tell me a whole lot ‘bout her - guess there wasn’t a lot to say - but… I dunno, if she was so cryptic and stuff, that had to be a good sign, right?”

“How do you possibly figure that?”

“Important information’s always hard to understand and explain. I think.”

Callisto rubbed her forehead, shaking her head. “It shouldn’t be, not when it comes to us. To trying to recover all we lost.”

“Maybe the Titans don’t got a better way of speakin’ through her yet.”

“No shit;they were silenced.”

“I know…”

Callisto barked out a laugh, smiling dangerously. “You don’t know anything. Fuckin’ idiot…”

Everything screeched to a halt. 

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t call me stupid, or imply it, or-- or say anythin’ like it!” The skin of Leda’s face turned red, white knuckling the bottle in her hand as she sat on the edge of her seat, poised to pounce. “I’m not stupid! I’m not… I’m not…”

“Okay, I’m sorry I said--”

“I’m not.” She began to rock herself back and forth, other arm thrown across her midsection, unfocused gaze fixed on the table. “I’m not stupid… I know a lotta things, I just never got any learnin’ ‘cuz no one cared… I’m not stupid… I’m sorry I talk so bad, I’m sorry--”

“Leda--”

“I’m not stupid! I’m a good dwarf! I’m good, ‘cuz I know the secrets that no other dwarves knew… but now more people know, and I’m just-- I’m just me. Me who’s not like a dwarf, and me who sucks and fucked everything up…”

She was so lost to her awful thoughts she didn’t notice that Callisto had stood and gotten so close to her that when she lifted her head, she saw her very carefully placing the nug figure in her lap - and then jumping away like she’d just set off a mine.

“You’re not stupid. And you are a good dwarf.” Callisto swayed on her feet, sitting on the arm of her chair and fumbling around for another bottle. “Tell me why you love nugs so much.”

Once she registered the weight of it, she picked up the carving and held it in her hands like it was the most precious thing in the world. “Do ya really wanna know? It’s sad.” Callisto just raised her bottle to her before taking a new swig. “Got lied to my whole life ‘bout what my family did for a livin’ and was basically trained to be a fuckin’ criminal without me even realizin’. Ran off to live with my uncle on his farm in Ferelden, but I guess it wasn’t really a ‘farm’ if all he raised were nugs and had vegetables. But those nugs… I dunno if you’ve ever had a pet, a real good pet, that loves ya ‘cuz ya take care of it, so it takes care of you in turn. I had that times a dozen - for the first time in my life, I had livin’ beins that wanted to be around me, wanted my attention all the time, knew when I was sad and snuffled all up against me ‘til I was laughin’. My uncle fucked off to Antiva not too long after I moved in, so it was just me, the nugs, and any travellers or other farmers who happened to pass by for years. Without ‘em, I woulda gone crazy. That’s what nugs are to me - any of ‘em, anywhere.” She smiled a little. “Yeah.”

“That’s really sweet.” Callisto was starting to slur her words. “Now you should definitely try to get a little drunk - you deserve it after that, and also, I’m probably gonna piss you off super bad again.”

“Why should I stay if you’re just gonna be shitty to me?”

“It’s not-- uuughhh, it’s not me being shitty. This next time - again, sorry, I’m going through it. I’ve been putting off sharing an insane amount of information ‘cuz I don’t even know where to start, and, heh, if two minutes ago is any indication, I don’t know how you’re gonna react.”

The mere notion that Callisto had been hiding things from her made her take a massive swig from her bottle, only stopping when the urge to cough became overpowering. Being lied to was a massive trigger for her, and she was fairly certain that Callisto was already aware of that, but… well, if her perception of reality got fuzzy enough, maybe she wouldn’t end up feeling betrayed. “...'Kay.” She belched.

“Okay? Okay! Where do I even…” She shook her head, finishing off the bottle in her hand and dropping it on the ground in search of the last one she touched. The bottle didn’t break, thankfully. “So… I didn’t know Varric’s been dead since Solas stabbed him.”

Was Leda already drunk? How else could she have misheard her so incredibly? “I… did you say ya didn’t know Varric died?”

“Yeeeepp.”

“How?”

“Solas. It’s always Solas. Or maybe it was just me losing my mind, but hallucinations don’t hold long-ass conversations with you, do they?”

“I-- I mean, even when I thought I saw lil hints of Andraste, she never talked back, so prolly not. But if it was him… what was the point?”

“I may have started with the wrong thing, lemme back up. So…. okay-- fuck me, it’s so ridiculous to even recount. The bastard only ever bothered with me to-- well, for one thing, to tell me what to do because this poor, silly little dwarf bitch can’t figure out how to kill the people who killed her ancestors, or how to kill the stuff that came from their minds on her own… she needs to be guided by someone older and wiser.” Leda shifted uncomfortably, raising her own bottle back up to her lips. “Yeah, I bet that sounds familiar. But for the other thing, he was using our connection to…” She snorted. “I dunno, he said a lot of over-complicated words while he was standing over me quite literally hanging on by a thread, but all I know is, he’d been laying in wait to switch places with me and take the dagger from us this whole time. And he got his chance, all while telling me… telling me I’m not ready to ‘make the sacrifices leadership requires’.”

This time, when she dropped the bottle, she slammed it to the ground and shattered it to pieces, the dark liquid inside pooling on the floor. “He only would have cared about Bellara - barely.” She rubbed her face with one hand, sniffling sharply. “He wouldn’t have cared about Lace… he knew her, and he’d still throw her to… hah, to the wolves any day. Swallow her up right in his own jaws. So his mistakes couldn’t come back to bite him in the ass.”

“...What’re ya not tellin’ me, Callisto?”

“I’m getting there, dammit - I’m honoring Varric by doing a whole expository lead-up.” Both her hands moved to scratch at her scalp, before she got up, almost fell forward, and braced herself on the table, knocking two bottles over. “It’s a prison that makes ya relive your regrets, over and over. Guess I was lucky that I was only there long enough to be tormented by my freshest ones - I dunno what I would’ve done if I… nothing. But Lace was there , all but holding me by the throat and screaming at me that yes, I had let the last hope for the Titans die. That-- that I let it happen because I was jealous. Me being fucking pissed that I didn’t get powers from that stupid dagger and her getting killed by someone who wasn’t me are completely fucking unrelated, and I told her - told it - that, but I’m still thinking about it now. And then, Stone, Bellara was mad for the same damn reason… did I not try hard enough to save her because I wanted an elf to suffer so badly? All the elves? All for what their own ancestors did?”

“I--”

“Varric was the only helpful one. It hurt the most, ‘cuz it meant I’d been going it alone this whole time. That I was helping everyone else with their shit, but no one cared to know enough about me to find out I’d been talking to a dead man. Not even…” She shook her head, using the table to help herself stand back up.

“You don’t have to stop talkin’, if ya need to get it out.”

“No. No point in it. Anyway, are you drunk enough for us to move on to the really shitty stuff?”

“I mean…” Leda looked at her bottle, hesitating, before committing to downing the rest of it, only pausing to take a few breaths. “I--” She hiccuped, “I guess.”

“C’mon, then.” Callisto futilely tugged on her arm, grip loose enough for Leda to pull away and stand on her own, vision only just starting to swim. Callisto pointed at the wall behind the couch - specifically, as Leda turned to see, the mural behind a crystallized wolf statue identical to the one she'd found herself. It was a little less obscure than she was used to Solas's work being, purely by virtue of the fact that there were humanoid figures present rather than just wolves, or eye imagery, or buildings in the sky. She still had no idea what to make of it. She did recognize a few elements, however. "Is that... that's the crown Flemeth wore. Mythal's crown. And then... a spirit?"

"Just wait, it gets worse." Callisto carefully made her way over to it, as though she were on a narrow beam over a chasm, and slapped her hand on it as soon as she was within arms reach. "No time to sugarcoat it - ancient elves were spirits who said, 'oh, look at those weird humans, let's have bodies too for some reason'. Like, if you're a spirit, why would you even want a body? Bodies are awful."

"To be a person." Leda frowned, rubbing her chest as she thought of Cole.

"They didn't wanna be 'people', though. People don't have insane powers. Although, maybe that came--" She cut herself off with another sharp laugh, shaking her head. She backed up a few paces and slapped her hand over the featureless face of the elf on the other side of the mural. "Know who this is, with the ugliest hair I've ever seen? Solas. He chose to look like that, wasn't an accident of birth or anything."

"Hey--! I..." When Callisto took her hand away, she squinted and turned her head, wondering if the alcohol was making it look so questionable or if it just was. "What are ya tryin' to tell me, 'side from raggin' on 'im?"

"You get five guesses as to what they used to make the bodies."

"Can ya not play games with me?"

"You're gonna wish I made it more fun when we get to the worst of it." She licked her lips, smearing her dark lipstick even further around her mouth. "Lyrium."

The orange lines in the ground that he crouched on... oh. "They... they took the Titans' blood without askin'."

"You are smart; even I had to have that explained to me the first time I saw it." Callisto leaned back against the wall, crossing one arm over her chest while the other hand held her bottle and swished around the liquid inside. "The Titans - our fucking people - said, 'hey, greedy assholes, stop or else,' and the elvhen said 'no I don't think we will', and--"

"The war."

"Uh-huh." Callisto began to go up the stairs, but even hanging onto the railing, she lost her footing and fell right on her ass just a few steps up, Leda faring little better as she scrambled up to help her. "So everyone's killing each other, and... I gotta tell you, I'd give anything to be able to see what it was like on the Titans' side. To see them crush the elves' bones into dust and take back the lyrium they stole."

"Do ya think..." Leda ducked her head, counting each step she helped the both of them take upwards. "If-- if they took lyrium to make themselves--"

"Does that make them dwarf-adjacent?"

"It's just a thought..."

"I thought it too; almost taunted Solas with it, but I didn't wanna hear him say something more awful than he already has."

"Would he?"

Callisto's eyes bugged out. "Brace yourself, is all I'm gonna say." When they reached the second floor, she pulled away from Leda and went to stand in front of the mural there, her expression grave, even as another hiccup escaped her throat. "Remind me - you found out what happened to the Titans during the mess of the Exalted Council, right?"

"Yeah. Mythal helped destroy ‘em. I dunno how, and when I confronted him about it all he said was that he felt guilty 'bout watchin' it go down, nothin' else." Callisto gave her such a devastating look, then, that made her feel sicker than the booze ever could. "...What?"

"It wasn't only Mythal."

"Okay, I knew that; who else, then? Ghilan'nain seems like the type, prolly one o' her experiments, or maybe--"

"It was him." Her eyes pointedly darted over to the mural, and only know did Leda take in the details. Mythal, the lyrium dagger that she'd seen on Callisto's belt, the screaming Titans... and a pale elf with an awful mullet that could only belong to Solas.

"...No."

"Mythal gave the order, but Solas did the ritual. Made them Tranquil."

"No."

"Solas is the reason we don't have magic. That we can't dream. He did this to us, and acts like it's our fault that our civilization's in fucking ruins." She stifled a laugh. “And he’s the reason the blight exists, ‘cuz of the dreams he took from us.”

"Stop it. I don’t wanna hear any more!"

"He did this to you, Leda! He violated us, and then he violated you!"

"Shut up!" Leda grabbed her by the shoulder, snarling. "Why didja tell me this?!"

"Why are you even asking? You can't just bury your head in the sand when it comes to him!"

"I'm not!"

"Then what?!"

"He was everything to me! He made my world bigger'n it had ever been! No matter how many times I try to forget, think ‘n obsess about how badly he hurt me, I keep goin' back to that first feelin'... when I had so much hope that he could fix me. Make me… make me somebody whole. I've never felt anythin' as good as that hope again."

"Of course you haven't - he broke you. Before you ever met him, and even worse after."

She didn't realize she'd started crying until she registered the familiar dampness of tears and snot, her ragged sobs echoing of the high walls. "I-- fuck, I fell in love with... Ancestors please forgive me..."

"You're a good dwarf," Callisto echoed.

"No... no m'not."

"Well. I don't know what else to say, then. Save for that you'd probably be dealing with this even worse if you were sober, and that you can keep getting drunk to get numb, if you want.."

Leda released her and turned back around, blurred vision taking in all that she could of the Titans' agony. Agony that he took time to illustrate so viscerally. Agony that he shared a canvas with, as though the pain of any guilt he felt could measure up to the act of robbing an entire race of something so precious that they ended up worse than dead.

Without thinking, Leda grabbed Callisto's bottle and launched it at the wall with a roar, wishing it had done worse than simply broken, and stained his visage.

"Damn," Callisto breathed out behind her, sounding impressed. Leda only gave a moment's thought to her next course of action before she was stumbling back down the stairs while gripping the railing, making a beeline for the table so she could gather four more bottles in her arms. "Wait… what are you doing?" She didn't answer, focused as she was as getting back up to the second floor while keeping all the bottles secure. "Everyone's gonna be pissed we wasted the liquor on this."

As soon as Leda was back in throwing distance, she sent another bottle flying at his face, accompanied by another scream, and she had the third raised above her head when the sound of a door opening followed by thundering footsteps gave both her and Callisto - who had been crouching and covering her face - pause.

"What? What's happening?" Said the very tall qunari - Taash, if she remembered right - that had just emerged from the furthest hallway, all but skidding to a stop. "We under attack?"

"Only emotionally." Callisto managed a slight smirk as they scrunched up their face - in disgust or confusion, Leda wasn't sure. "Taash, the Inquisitor. Inquisitor, Taash. Bad time for a meeting, but you know... whatever."

"Hi..." Leda still had the bottle raised above her head.

"Hey." Taash padded over, adeptly avoiding all the broken glass on the floor, and put their hands on their hips as their eyes scanned over the scene the two dwarves had made. "You trashing Solas's paintings?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Can I join?"

Leda paused for a moment, looking in between Taash and the painting now dripping with red wine, before wordlessly handing the bottle to them. Taash bounced it in their hand, considering its weight and heft, and waited before Leda also took a semblance of cover before tossing it skillfully at the wall, causing the resulting spray of honey mead to splash on the wall in an arc.

"That's beautiful..."

"You improved it!" Callisto came back behind them, slapping them on the back.

"Eh. Not as fun as I thought." They shrugged. "Anyway. Bye."

"Wait wait wait." Callisto tugged on their arm. "I have a thought. Bring the other two bottles over to this one." She pulled them over to the mural on the opposite side - one that Leda could glean the subject of immediately as she followed behind. Solas, as she'd known him - deceptively humble, notably bald - holding Flemeth's dead body. Right. He did that, too.

"Does she know?" Taash asked Callisto.

"Not that part."

Leda deflated, nearly dropping the remaining bottles in her arms. "There's more...?"

"They were fucking." Taash's expression was neutral, as though they weren't plunging Leda further into mania with their words. "Solas and Mythal. S'why he did whatever she wanted."

Leda barked out a laugh, setting down her bottles so she could bury her face in her hands, muffling the hysterical sound. "Sure. Why wouldn't he fuck her? Makes all the sense in the world. He fucked her 'n killed her, which means there's nothin' stoppin' him from killin' me."

"So kill him first."

"I'm not strong enough."

"Sure you are. All he has is magic - out of armor, he's a bald little shrimp. He doesn't have survivor's grit like you do."

As Leda gaped at them, unsure how to accept the compliment (if that was what it was) without putting herself down further, Callisto whistled to draw attention back to her. "What that fucker is gonna do isn't the point - the point's hating him for what he's already done. And this? The fact that this is his only big regret from around the time of the Inquisition, after all he did to you, is bullshit. So we're gonna spray it with all the booze it takes to cover the whole thing, first."

Taash shrugged and bent down to grab one of the bottles, wasting no time in uncorking it and splashing the contents up and down the wall. Leda's spiraling was immobilizing her for a little too long, so Callisto rolled her eyes and picked up the remaining bottle herself, having to work a little harder than Taash to compensate for the height difference. Once the whole of the mural was sufficiently drenched, making a sizable puddle on the floor, Callisto grinned. "Alright, go on. Light it up."

"Ohhhh. I get it now."

"What do ya mean 'light it up'...?"

"You both might wanna stand back - I've never ignited this much alcohol before."

"Huh?!"

Callisto dragged Leda backwards a safe distance as Taash took a sizable inhale - and released a stream of actual godsdamned fire from their throat, setting the wall ablaze. Callisto cackled like a maniac, squeezing Leda to her side as she bounced up and down.

"Burn, bitch! You and your dead whatever-she-was. Fucking murderers." She groaned. "C'mon, doesn't this make you feel something?"

"Yeah - scared the whole place is gonna burn down."

"This is the Fade - land of dreams. Nothing bad will happen unless we want it to. Which... I mean, I want something bad to happen to that mural, but not to the whole Lighthouse."

“But what if…” The flames briefly mesmerized Leda - contained to only where the liquor had been splashed, but burning hotly and brilliantly. The image of his Skyhold murals being set alight flashed into her mind, leaving just as quickly. “What if he gets mad…?”

“You can’t seriously care.” Callisto stepped away from her, glaring. “He won’t even know - if he tries to come back here, I’ll axe him to pieces.”

Taash finished up, only pausing to breathe before finishing off the bottle still in their hand. “Vashedan-lok! Ebra dothrasi-raas.” They mockingly raised it to the burning wall, before dropping it to the floor, frowning when it didn’t break.

Neither dwarf needed to ask Taash what they’d said to know it was rightfully hateful. It was a nice punctuation to not only the fire, but the tumultuous last few minutes. 

“Vashedan…” Leda echoed, stepping close enough to spit into the flames. “Mud-worm.”

“So you do know some dwarven things.” 

“It’s just slang. Don’t say it often; ‘fucker’ works a lot better for how angry I get.”

“Hear-hear.” Taash rolled their neck around to crack it, casting a look over the railing. “You still need me? Think I’m just gonna grab a bottle and go back to my room. Take the edge off.”

“By all me--” Taash was already hustling down the stairs before Callisto could finish, and she just shrugged before lowering herself to the ground, sitting cross-legged as she watched the fire continue to burn. “It’s still going like it’s one big fireplace.”

Leda watched Taash come back up the stairs with a bottle of rum - the only bottle, it would seem - and disappear back down the hallway. Only then did she lower herself down as well, sitting on her knees. “I’m worried he’s got an enchantment on ‘em so nothin’ can ruin ‘em.”

“You didn’t see what they looked like before we restored all the fragments. Complete wear and tear, even the more recent one. Can’t say if he just let them fade, or if the Lighthouse made them that way when it became ours.” She smirked. “So if it doesn’t burn, we’ll just smash the wolf.”

“I dunno.” Leda frowned, turning her wooden hand this way and that so the metal plating would catch the firelight. “If you went through his memories just by settin’ ‘em up, maybe we could show ‘em to others. As evidence of everythin’ he did. Everythin’ Mythal did, too.”

Callisto gulped, trying to hide her apprehension with a smile and a nudge to Leda’s arm. “We can worry about sharing stuff with the world once we know there’ll still be a world to share with.”

“Guess you’re right…” Leda shifted from side to side, squinting at the fire. “Shit, is it ever gonna die down?”

As if on cue, the flames began to ebb and lessen, Callisto snorting next to her. “I was exaggerating earlier about the Fade and intention, but shit…”

Unfortunately, when the fire dissipated altogether, most of the mural was still in-tact, shoving the supposedly tragic tableau back in their faces once more. They both slumped, Leda rubbing at her eyes. “Maybe we shoulda let it keep burnin’...”

“Maybe. But I wouldn’t have wanted to sit here all night watching it to make sure it didn’t get out of hand.” Callisto patted her shoulder. “But it’s his mistake - not yours.”

“You can keep tellin’ me that, but it won’t sink in.”

“I’d get you wasted enough to actually have some fun, but I don’t know if there’s enough alcohol in the world to do that.” Leda snorted - better that than taking the tease to heart. “And I can’t drink anymore either, so I’m not hungover for the very last situation I should be hungover for.” Callisto groaned, pressing her palm to her forehead. “Shit, and Em tonight… I need to dunk my head in cold water, or something.”

“Why? What’s happenin’?”

“Talking stuff out. And I’m gonna ride him into oblivion, that’s what.” Callisto whipped her head around, her hair hitting Leda in the face, before gripping the railing and using it to help her stand. “And we gotta clean up all this broken glass, I don’t wanna make Caretaker have to do it…”

“Who?” Leda was flushed as she slowly rose to her feet as well, trying very hard not to picture Callisto and the aforementioned ‘riding’.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, there’s brooms somewhere…” Callisto blinked several times, before her whole face lit up and she immediately started tugging Leda down the stairs. “We gotta go to the kitchen. Fire up your Antivan blood.”

“What’s that have to do with anythin’?.” Leda resisted the hold just a bit, trying to carefully take the stairs at her own pace so Callisto didn’t end up sending both of them tumbling down.

“You might be predisposed to it, so you won’t find it gross like I do.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Callisto turned back to her and pouted, before guiding her through the corridor that led outside. “Fucking coffee.”

Chapter Text

So an Antivan Crow, the Inquisitor, and some other dumbass people insisted on calling Rook are all trapped in a room together...

Callisto was sure some hack somewhere had come up with a similar joke. One that would be exciting up until the punchline, involving Venatori and lots of death. The real situation was far more mundane - all three of those people were stuffed inside Lucanis's sad pantry room, but he could leave at any time. Instead, he sat vigil on his bed, watching over the two dwarven saviors of Thedas as they sobered up on his ridiculously strong coffee.

"This better work..." Callisto's tongue reflexively lolled out of her mouth as she took another sip, the taste so bitter she might as well have been drinking medicine. "I dunno what me and Em are gonna talk about, but it's gonna be heavy, so..."

“You didn't consider that before you got drunk?" Lucanis rose his own cup to his lips with practiced elegance, though the edges of his shit-eating grin couldn't be completely hidden behind it.

"I wish I could stay drunk, believe me.” She dragged a hand over her face. “I went through a mini Ossuary, man! What, you didn't wanna drink everything in sight once we broke you out?"

"Nothing alcoholic." He shrugged. "Liquor is for talking, or for cooking. Drowning sorrows just ends up coming back around to bite you in the ass."

"You're such an odd guy."

"It's so good, Lucanis..." Leda was just barely understandable from her position, laying face down on the cold floor.

"Right... should I bother asking if you're alright down there?"

"M'great."

"You're not great." Callisto stretched her back against the wall, only relaxing once she felt a satisfying pop. "But you will be."

"Happy not to be in Skyhold..." She turned her face to the side as her hand pushed her cup closer to her face. "Everythin' down there was too much. It's too much up here, too, but at least I'm not the one everyone's lookin' to."

"It is hard not to look to you, Inquisitor. Especially now that we have also been personally burned by Solas." She made sad little croaking noise, eliciting the faintest huff of a laugh from him. "But having to supervise you while you sober up has done wonders to humanize you."

"Uh... thanks, I guess."

"That's why you won't leave?" Callisto scoffed. "So we're not holding you hostage, then?"

"No, I definitely consider this a hostage situation. Just one I happen to be a semi-willing participant in."

"Thanks, mother." Callisto sighed, taking another awful gulp of coffee. “Ugh, tomorrow… what time is everyone convening?”

“I told the Crows mid-morning; I assume everyone told their people the same. Time enough for our allies to begin preparations while their leaders square plans away.”

“Can’t give ya anyone…” Leda yawned.

“Don’t tell me you’re sitting out getting to kick Solas in his ancient elven orbs.”

Leda snorted, nearly tipping over her cup. “I didn’t say ‘me’, I said ‘anyone’ - rank ‘n file. I can give ya me, and… well I guess I’ll see who else when I go back in a lil bit.”

“You’re not staying? I don’t know if I trust that you can get back to Skyhold in one piece at this point.”

She gave Lucanis a look that held no heat behind it - whether she meant to, or she was too exhausted to make the right expression, who could say. “I can’t sleep on your floor, as good a time as I’m havin’ down here.”

“Uh-huh.” Callisto rolled her eyes. “You’ll just stay here. If a new room doesn’t magically open up, like they seem to, just use mine. I doubt I’m gonna use it tonight.” Lucanis made a noise into his cup. “What?”

“Nothing.” He smirked again, before finishing off his cup and rising from his sad little cot. “You know… so neither of you will fall off the ledge once you get back outside, and so your mouths will be otherwise occupied--”

“Hey!”

“I’m going to make you two something to soak up whatever’s left of the booze. Something quick and greasy…” He artfully stepped over Leda, even now that he seemed off in his own word as he mentally went through what was left of their food stores. “I can fry up what’s left of the blood sausage, with some bread perhaps… “

“After having coffee?” Callisto grimaced.

“Sounds great. Tha-- oh, he’s already gone.” 

“So much for making sure we don’t die in here.” 

“Maybe he wants us to follow?” Leda made no effort to get up. “Not right now, though.”

“Uh-huh.” Callisto didn’t move either, watching as she swished her coffee around in its cup.

“So… Emmrich’s the Fade expert from your letters, I think. You’re with him.”

“Yeah. I mean-- I guess.”

“Ya guess?”

“Things are weird. Complicated.” She waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. Why are you asking?”

“Must be nice, is all.”

“It is.” Except that it wasn’t, right now, but the Inquisitor didn’t need to know that more than what she’d already let slip. “Do you want me to be miserable?”

“Like I am, ya mean?”

“That’s not-- mmm, yes, fine. Like you.”

“A lil bit. Not ‘cuz of anythin’ ya did. Just ‘cuz.” She smiled ruefully. “Bet he’s shown ya lots of amazin’ things…”

“He could show you, too. Just ask him.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I know.” Callisto looked antsily at the door, wishing Lucanis had thought to cook a lot sooner so she’d have the excuse of being too busy shoveling food into her mouth to say anything else. “I… could ask if he has any colleagues who--”

“That’s not the same, either.”

“I’m trying to help.” Leda just shrugged. “Once we kick Solas’s ass, you’ll feel a lot better. Trust me.”

“...Sure.”

Callisto was still drunk enough not to protest in the slightest when Emmrich insisted on whisking her away to the Necropolis instead of just talking - or doing the other things she hoped they'd do - in his room. Drunker still to see the open coffin surrounded by blooms of Shroud's Kiss and immediately think, is this the Mourn Watcher fool-around room? Is there more than one? Thankfully, the coffee had made her present of mind enough to not blurt those thoughts out.

"What quality satin." She reached inside to brush her fingers against the lining. "Do you happen to know where it's sourced from? Might have to get in contact with them to get--" She cut herself off with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I guess that's a question for later; when I know whether or not... you know."

"I do. With all you've told me about your family, I'm sure they were resourceful enough to get free and clear of the chaos. Even if your properties might not have survived."

"You have more hope than I do." She aggressively rubbed her face as she turned around to face him, plastering on a smile in the face of his anxious and sullen expression. "But we're not here to fret, right? We're here to connect." She sauntered up to him, putting her hands on his hips.

"I-- well, I brought you to the Necropolis specifically to--"

She pressed her finger to his lips. "Shhh. Whatever it is, it can wait." She pulled him with her as she slowly walked backwards, only stopping when her heel hit the stone foundation of the coffin. "Of course you'd wanna fuck in a tomb, you delectable little freak." He squawked in surprise, or maybe indignation, stepping away from her. "Oh, sorry, are you not into that kind of talk? We don't have to talk at all." With her hands free, she began undoing the buttons of her shirt.

"Callisto, please." He reached out to gently grasp her wrists. "Talking is exactly what we need to do."

She pursed her lips, fingers twitching. "Fine." He gave her a little close-lipped smile, leading her over to one of the two stone benches on the edges of the room.

"We lost far too much on Tearstone Island." He sat the both of them down, his gaze fixed on the coffin. "Dear Harding... selfless and valiant to the end. I am sure her mother will have Andrastian rites performed, but I hope her spirit returns to the Stone all the same. Although, the Titan revelations call into question just what death means for dwarves..."

"You've never seen a dwarven soul?"

"I fear not, no. In all my years of talking to the dead, I have only had cause to use my ability on a dwarven corpse once. At the time, I thought perhaps that I was simply exhausted, or low on mana, but now I wonder if the reason I wasn't able to call them back was simply..."

"Yeah. Funny - I was contemplating the exact same thing tonight."

"I am not surprised - you have cause to." He frowned, sad eyes boring into her. "We both do."

"Em..."

"I once thought myself content with my solitude. Of course, it helped that I had Manfred and my many colleagues, but matters of romance were far from my mind. The purpose being a Watcher gives me was my great love, I suppose, along with my dogged pursuit of lichdom." He released a shuddering breath, his expression melting into something both loving and aching. "These last few weeks without you... not knowing if I'd ever see you again... I have not experienced such agony in a long time."

"You're not gonna try to comfort me with fake confidence? 'I know the Fade well enough that I was sure I'd find you'? Something like that?"

"That's just it - everything I thought I knew failed me when it came to weakening, let alone finding, your prison. It was kept secret for a good reason, until now. Us eventually pulling you out was all down to you forging your own way forward." He snorted softly. "My yearning grew so unbearable that I accompanied Lucanis to Treviso to find a copy of--"

"Oh no - not The Mercaris of Minrathous - Memories of Mess and Megalomania."

"I'm afraid so. The shopkeep told me no one had bought a copy in some time - I don't know if that comforts you at all."

"It didn't sell well, but it's still embarrassing." She grimaced. "Did you read the whole thing?"

"Only the chapter about you."

"That's worse. It went into way too much detail about all the bar fights I got into back in the day."

"On the contrary, the author didn't paint you in as bad a light as I expected. I wouldn't call it a glowing portrayal, per se, but... I felt closer to you, all the same."

"You must've been even more desperate than I thought."

"I was." He didn't take her bait; she didn't know why she was trying to bait him at all, save for it being easier than addressing what was surely coming. "But you're back, free of any trace of Solas's magic."

I'm not free up here, she wanted to say, all while pointing at her head. "Hooray," flatly left her mouth instead.

"I..." He looked off to the side, uncertainty plain on his face. "You needn't assuage my guilt, but I could not help but wonder if I sealed your fate, somehow. How my attempt to resolve things from where we'd left them came in the middle of the battlefield was so ill-timed I--  as though I was begging for something to prevent us from working everything out.”

“Ahh - that’s what you were saving your pessimism for.”

“Mmm, you may keep rebuffing my anxieties with snark if you wish, but that will not deter me.”

“It’s easier than having to face it. I don’t-- I mean, you heard me screaming out in the library earlier tonight. That was hard enough, even with how much I drank. I don’t know how to talk about it. Calmly.”

“You don’t need to be calm. Not with me.”

“Are you sure you can handle that?”

“If I might remind you, our argument ended with you screaming in my face about my death. Yet I’m still here.” He slowly reached for her, expecting her to jerk away, but managed to take her hand without trouble. 

“I haven’t been able to forget.” She pressed her lips together, chest tightening. Fuck it. “You were there. Or a version of you that would actually chew me out and berate me for my mistakes. Solas couldn’t just trap me under the weight of the agony of every dwarf I’ve ever known, nooo, I had to hear--” She swallowed, “that I damned you to die. How we coulda saved Manfred without you giving up lichdom, if only I had any semblance of magic. How I’m a selfish, petty monster, wrong for you in every way, and as soon as a better option comes along--”

“Darling, no.” He pulled her into his chest, resting his cheek atop her head as he wrapped his arms around her. “You must know none of that is true.”

“I knew it then. Had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get out - nothing forces you to make peace with tough shit like being trapped in a literal prison of regrets.” She buried her face into his shirt, muffling her chuckle. “But as soon as you told me what had happened while I was gone, they all came back with a vengeance.”

“We didn’t mean for that to be the case.”

“Of course not. But I’m 'the hero', right? I bear the brunt of the mental and emotional burdens so everyone else is only semi-miserable.” Before he could interject, she chuckled again. “It was always like this, though. Probably why I took to Varric’s job so easily. Heading up all the enforcers and bodyguards and personal assassins for my family didn’t just mean I was dealing with concerns relating to the business - somewhere along the line I became the dumping ground for so fucking many of their personal problems. Like I was supposed to solve my older brother’s fear that no one was ever gonna love him by… what? Sending someone to beat it out of him? My least favorite aunt even wanted me to intimidate people into buying her shitty paintings. This is just that on a massive, ‘everything is actually going to shit if I don’t solve these problems’ scale.”

“You deserve so much more. I…” He huffed through his nose. “I am so sorry for making you feel that the burden of sacrificing lichdom lies on you. I knew I would do anything, give anything, if it meant I could have Manfred at my side again - your input was the last push I needed. Letting go of what I had shaped most of my life around… to make mortality a certainty… it was terrifying. It’s still terrifying.”

“But--”

“But,” She felt him smile into her hair. “it’s caused me to come to an important revelation. Something it took most of my life to achieve and work up the courage for would not compare, in the slightest, to all the joy I’ve felt in the short time since Manfred, this team, and you have come into it.”

 “...That was so corny.” Only then did Callisto finally return his hold, arms snaking tightly around his waist.

“Oh, I’m not done.” He cupped her chin, pulling her up so he could kiss the apple of her cheek. “If there is a way to further help the dwarves regain what you’ve lost, I swear to you, I will help find it. In the meantime,” another kiss, this time to her jaw, “you have brought so much magic to my days that you need not be a mage at all.”

“Emmrich!” She tried to hide her stupidly big smile in her shoulder, but he grabbed her face and turned it back towards his own, holding the most molten sweet expression.

“To call you my life’s ‘obsession’ objectifies you too much for my liking. So, I will instead call you my life’s passion. My guiding light. The person I cannot envision a future without - however long or short that ends up being.”

She bit her lower lip as it quivered, eyes searching his as she lifted a hand to twirl her hair around her finger. She’d been waiting for an ‘I love you’, all but demanding it, because that was the best thing her former partners had managed to say to her. But this, coming from the mouth of the loveliest, most incredible man she’d ever met? It meant so much more than a simple phrase ever could.

So, she returned the sentiment behind those words in the best way she knew how - pulling him in for the deepest, rawest kiss she could muster, hoping he could feel all the love pouring off her in waves. Without breaking the kiss, she slowly rose to her feet, taking his hands into hers and tugging. He hummed into her mouth, a pleased little sound that signaled he was eager to move this elsewhere as well.

“So,” she mumbled out against his lips, straining up on her tiptoes. “Am I finally gonna get to have sex with a Mourn Watcher in a Necropolis crypt?”

He scoffed, staying bent over to meet her extremely short height even as she started to pull away. “Why did you put it like that? I’m not just any Watcher, surely?”

“No way. But being enigmatic about it is, like, a wild story I can bring out at gatherings when I need to top someone else’s. If I just say ‘oh, me and my husband fucked for the first time in a coffin,’ that takes the mystery out of it. ‘Of course you had coffin sex with your husband, that’s baseline weird for you two,’ something of the sort.”

“...Did you just refer to me as your husband? Twice?”

“In the future, yeah. Or, you know, whenever you want.” She paused in her ascent up to the coffin proper, frowning a little. “Do you have a problem with--”

He kissed her fiercely, then offered his arm to help her step inside. “No. I never could.”

She grinned, and as soon as she sat down atop the surprisingly plush interior, she grabbed his arm and pulled him down on top of her. 

Leda had always thought her quarters at Skyhold were extremely fancy. She’d never had a room that big in her entire life, and extra things like a desk, a fireplace, and a couch were things she hadn’t realized were commonplace for most homes until she was well into adulthood. Sure, it wasn’t safe from the ancient and crumbling nature of the keep, but part of the ceiling threatening to cave in could hardly be so bad that it took away  from having two whole balconies that overlooked the frigid barrenness of the Frostbacks.

Callisto’s room at the Lighthouse, however, made her Skyhold quarters look like a shithole in comparison.

In the years since the Inquisition’s disbanding, she had stayed in far bigger and objectively far more luxurious rooms - her bedroom at her Kirkwall manor, and the guest room Dorian designated as hers the many times she visited his Minrathous estate. But it didn’t feel right to her to add her own decorations and trappings to the guest room, no matter how many times Dorian insisted she do whatever she liked to make herself feel more at home. Her own “home” had never felt homey at all, really, despite her attempt to add a smattering of personal touches over the years. This room, however small, felt both pristine and lived in at the same time, and it did wonders to keep her emotions stable - if nothing else.

Or, perhaps, it was just the aquarium that mesmerized her so. A cross-section of undisturbed nature at peace, behaving as it should, unaffected by war or the blight - a precious commodity, one that would only become more fragile if they failed tomorrow. That… and the light it cast onto the room was just so, so pretty.

She stood in front of the glass for a while, eyes tracking the movements of the fish and undulating anemone until she made herself dizzy enough to necessitate moving to the couch and staring at the floor. She had set the nug carving down next to the dwarven puzzle box on the side shelf, afraid the candles on the table would cause the wood to ignite. It was enough just knowing it was there with her in the room, even if it wasn’t directly in her line of sight, next to something that represented her and her history. Her torment.

Her unforgivable mistake.

She didn’t realize she was white knuckling the edge of the couch cushion until a harsh knock at the door jolted her upright, trying to shake out the strain in her hand as she hesitantly approached it. “Inquisitor? You in there or not?” The tension ebbed out of her shoulders; it was only Taash.

Still, she only opened the door the barest sliver, unsure what they could possibly want of her. “Yes…?”

Despite only being able to see part of their face, she could make out a distinct pout of discomfort. “Uh. Yeah. Someone’s here to see you. Don’t know what for, but-- yep. He’s out here. So… that’s your problem now.” Leda opened the door just in time to see Taash all but scurry away from the awkwardness of having played the eluvian doorman by pure accident. Now that their large frame wasn’t obscuring the hallway behind them, sure enough, Cole was there, his worried frown softening into a smile as soon as he took her in.

“What’re ya doin’ here?” Her tone wasn’t at all accusatory, just pleasantly surprised as she came out, took his hands, and pulled him back into the room with her.

“You left. As soon as I found out where you went, I asked Morrigan to help me get here.”

“Why? Is somethin’ wrong?”

“You left,” he repeated, maneuvering their hands so his closed around hers as best they could. “I want to be where you are, always.”

“I--” Her voice petered off into a squawk. “I didn’t think that meant all the time!”

He blinked, confused, stepping even closer to her. “Why not? I-- sorry… did you want to be alone?”

“Now? No. Tonight’s been a mess, in a lotta ways.”

“I saw some glass, and all the wetness. The murals…”

“Yep.” She led him over to the couch, sitting down and slumping against the back of it. “Did ya touch any of the statues?”

“No, but the magic still reached out. Gave me impressions, made sense of the things I didn’t understand feeling in him at the time. Enough to know what happened - what he did.”

“How could I let him-- I-- why’d he bother with me if he saw me as even less than I thought he did? What’s less than dirt, anyway?”

“You were real to him. More real than you should have been.” He used his grip on her to pull her closer, into a loose sort of hug that he only tightened when she wrapped her arms around him in turn. “None of what happened is your fault.”

“It still happened. I let it happen.”

“It filled a void, one he only made bigger.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Will you face him?”

“I gotta.”

“What will you do?”

She swallowed hard. “...Don’t know.”

“You’re not telling the truth.”

“Yeah I am. I dunno what I’m gonna do.”

“Yes you do.” He pulled away, frowning at her. “You don’t like to lie. Why are you lying now?”

“Been doin’ more and more of it these days.” She pulled her hands away to hug her arms to her chest, diverting her gaze. “We both changed a lot - you for the better, me for the worse.”

“That’s not true, either. I don’t like it when you’re cruel to yourself.”

“Dunno how else to be.” She noticed his hands reaching back out in the corner of her vision, and she acquiesced to them wrapping around her upper arms. 

“Because I left you alone for so long…”

“Cole. If you’da come back, I woulda just sent ya away again.”

“I could have refused to leave.”

“That’s…” She could envision it - attempting to avoid him for days on end in that massive manor; telling him he wasn’t welcome any time she happened to pass him only for him to smile and say that he’d wait until he was; and once she came to terms with the fact that the short-term satisfaction that would come from martyring her happiness for his sake could never compare to what it meant to have him at her side again. But dwelling on ‘what-ifs’ was deeply unhealthy - she’d know, she did it all the time. “I still woulda found a way to kick you out.”

“You’re lying again.”

“I got no clue what else to do!” She crumpled into herself. “Honesty can be so, so bad. I wish he’d kept lyin’, about everythin’, so I’d never have to feel like this. Wish everybody’d keep me in the dark so I didn’t have know what awful things are goin’ on in the world that I gotta do somethin’ about even though I don’t know how. So I wouldn’t… so I wouldn’t be the kinda person that wants to do worse than killin’ him. Killin’ him’s too kind for all he did.” She smiled bitterly. “I don’t think he thought I’d actually do it, when I told ‘im the first time. S’why he let me go. He’s not scared of me ‘cuz I’m just a little dwarf with no powers 'n no arm, just anger I can’t put into nothin’ good. But maybe I could. Maybe I can be everythin’ I fuckin’ hated and run ‘im through even though I loved ‘im. He’ll prolly get me first, though, but I can take him with me… maybe…”

“No.” He hugged her first, for once, folding himself around her. “That won’t happen. I won’t let it.”

“He won’t give you a choice.” She squished her face into the hollow of his neck, his pulse beating against her nose.

“I don’t care. If he won’t stop, then I’ll do what I have to.”

“But then he’ll kill ya! And then we’re both fucked either way!” She whined. “I don’t wanna make be ya like me… you used to care about him, and he actually cared about ya. I don’t want-- I--”

“I told you, I won’t forgive him for Varric. I can’t forgive him for what he did to the Titans - he hurt them, made it so that they would always be hurting. Made the dwarves lost.” He tightened his hold on her so that there was no space left between them. “I don’t forgive myself for not stopping him from hurting you.”

“I wouldn’t’ve listened.”

“Still. I’m sorry, and I’ll protect you. I won’t get in the way of what you choose to do, but I’ll get in his way.” He moved a hand so he could guide her face up to look at him, eyebrows raised, eyes determined. “Okay?”

“...When I tell ya to go, you go .”

“Not unless you go, too.”

“Please. Don’t hurt me by gettin’ hurt.”

He pouted, lifting the dour mood in the room just a little. “...Okay.”

“Okay.” She sighed, petering off into a big yawn that strained her neck. “I’m guessin’ ya won’t go back to Skyhold without me.” He shook his head. “I was gonna try to get some sleep soon… so…”

“I will sleep on the floor. I slept on floors a lot while I traveled. Good for my back - it aches, now, but apparently that happens to everyone.”

“Nuh-uh, no ya won’t if ya insist on stayin’. The couch is plenty big, and…” She sighed again, “maybe I won’t be kept awake all night by my thoughts if someone’s right next to me.”

“I can hold you. Help you.” 

After they both removed their shoes, Leda laid down first, using the arm rest to support her head. Cole followed, repositioning her so that she was closed to the back of the couch and he laid along the edge. The light in the room dimmed as the candles all went out - the Fade’s magic, no doubt. He wrapped his arms back around her, pressing a kiss to her forehead, earning him a big squeeze when she wrapped her own around him.

“‘Night. Can’t say good night, ‘cuz tomorrow’s gonna be awful.”

“I can say ‘good night’ - with you, nights are always good.”

“Don’t make me cry again…”

He pressed another kiss to her forehead, smiling against her skin. “I’ll be right here, if you do. Even if you don’t.”

She craned her head up, just a little, to kiss his cheek. “I know ya will.”

Chapter Text

Upon returning to Minrathous, Callisto thought the Inquisitor would be the most nervous person in their retinue. It was in the woman's nature, after all, and she had even remarked that the scale of their planned assault was bigger than anything she'd personally overseen for the Inquisition. Not to mention, it was to be her first time in active combat since the Exalted Council. Despite Callisto ultimately questioning if she should risk a war hero and religious icon getting herself killed, the Inquisitor was rather adamant about being at the heart of the action after all the awful revelations of the night prior.

But as they fought their way through the ruins of Hightown, through places Callisto had been to and seen so many times throughout her life, she was the one who had to keep stilling her limbs and taking brief moments to collect herself. Being on the lookout for signs that the other dwarf was about to have a panic attack only added to the stress, even though the woman seemed surprisingly adept at channeling her emotional turmoil into killing their foes. If anything, Leda was the one giving her loaded looks full of sympathy every time she had to pause and check if a vaguely-familiar looking corpse was in fact someone she knew.

She was supposed to be perfect for this; stoically leading their forces, however disparate, to a unambiguous victory with minimal losses. She was supposed to press on until they got where they needed to go, to ignore the dead, to be far removed from the devastation. Then again... she never thought her home could look like this.

"We will prevail, darling," Emmrich murmured to her after she stopped to lament the state of the rooftop where her younger brother had been proposed to. Taash had meant to help when they remarked that it looked like any other rooftop, but of course it did - all the rooftops were crumbling, now.

She had yet to decide if she was looking forward to or dreading coming face to face with Solas in the flesh. On one hand, she could make good by her promise of throttling him by the throat - whether or not he could use his stupidly powerful magic to break her arms in the process. On the other... ugh, they "needed" him. One thing she'd learned through all his memories and the Inquisitor's own trauma was that no one ever needed the guy on their own - he was just awfully good at engineering situations in which the other party had no choice but to rely on his help. Help that came with a price that made things worse than they had been before. This time around, she needed to get the fucking dagger away from him - a dagger that should have been hers, Leda's, Harding's, Evka's, her family's, and anyone on the battlefield and beyond who possessed an ounce of dwarven blood's by right. Instead, she had to play along with him because he made it; only he could "use it properly".

Fine. She would play. But she wouldn't play fair.

After the four of them made sure that Teia and Lucanis got away unharmed from their altercation with the Venatori mage, they took a moment to brace themselves. The Crows had confirmed that there was little in the way between them and Solas from here on out. Callisto took Leda by the shoulders, looking at her intently.

"I've got a couple choice words to say to him. He might even let me get a slap in, if he's gonna make a big show of playing apologetic." She cocked her head to the side. "And you? What are you gonna do?"

"I dunno..." Leda looked down at the ground, a shiver passing through her body. "I don't even know if I can do this."

Ah. There was the long-awaited uncertainty. "Look - you can confront him, or not. But I doubt he's gonna pretend like you're not there, and if he initiates whatever wild fucking conversation you end up having on his terms, you'll lose the upper hand. That's all I'm gonna say."

With that, Callisto released her and motioned for everyone to follow her onward. It only took them a few minutes and one more group of Venatori to come upon a clearing being assaulted with massive Blight tendrils, Viper and Tarquin making what looked to be a last stand. At least, until the tendrils were stopped and thrown clear, revealing Solas's distinctly bald visage a little ways away. She hadn't really wanted to ask Tarquin how he was and what was going on, considering all that was said the last time they'd seen each other; upon hearing him attribute his and Viper's survival to Solas, that made her lose even more respect for him (whether or not he was simply stating a fact).

"Alright. Shit. You two, stay with them." She turned to Leda, who was utterly petrified as she stared off in his direction. "Are you gonna come with me to hold me back from beating him to a pulp, or what?"

"I--" She blinked several times, hand moving to pull at the collar of her coat. "He's over there."

"Mm-hmm."

"He's right over there..."

"Yes, I realize that; I need you to make a decision right now." She squeezed her shoulders again, snapping her attention back to her. "Are you coming or not?"

"I might…" She swallowed visibly, eyeing one of the many piles of stone and debris a little ways behind where he stood. "Talk to him, for a lil bit. I have an idea."

"I-- fine. Don't take too long."

Leda scurried off to crouch behind the debris, hidden from sight as Callisto marched up to the bane of her - and everyone's - existence, who was ever so valiantly casting away the remaining blight tendrils. How kind of him, how noble; like he was helping Minrathous for the sake of helping - and not dealing with the monstrosity he had made his own damn self. Further, still, when he stopped one from crushing her - how ironic he must've found it, saving a dwarf from the mutated dreams he stole from her.

"You are as surprising as ever." He was sneering - he must've been. "Even I could not have escaped that prison. For you to manage it..."

"I'm incredible, yeah. And because I'm incredible, I have people who care about me. You must know what that's like? Oh, wait, I'm sooo sorry, that was insensitive of me - of course you don't, because the people you want to care about you don't, and the people who do, you treat like shit." She shrugged, making a face of exaggeratedly fake chagrin.

"I cannot deny that you are right. I am unable to offer anything else but that, and my utmost apologies."

"Hah, no, you could offer me so many fucking things." She lifted her crystalline greataxe off her back, resting it on the ground and leaning against it. "You know what else helped me get out? Envisioning all the ways I could kill you."

His brow was still furrowed, mouth still set in a pathetic frown - ever so sad, and it pissed her off that she couldn't get him to drop a single tell. But she knew, in her heart, that he must have wiled away some of the hours in the prison by thinking about killing her just the same. "Would that truly satiate you?"

"Yes! Cutting your head off and watching it roll across the stone you spit on would make me euphoric for the rest of my life!"

"If you are willing to work together from here on out, it may well bring about a better outcome than my immediate death."

"Please - don't waste your breath on me." But that begged the question of what the person he should've been wasting his breath on - maybe - was doing that was taking so fucking long. "How's being the only possible person who can stop Elgar'nan working out? Hm? Because it's been several weeks, and he's still on the Archon's throne... Minrathous has been ravaged to shit... people are dead all around us. Seems like it's going really bad for you."

"I have been too occupied trying to help resistance efforts and protecting civilians to confront Elgar'nan directly. You might be pleased to hear, in fact, that a few of them were members of your family."

"You couldn't possibly know that," she spat out all too quickly, panic gripping her throat.

"The Shadow Dragons I briefly accompanied recognized them as such." His frown grew even deeper. "I felt I owed it to you."

"Shut up." She balled her hands into fists at her sides; come on, Inquisitor, don't tell me you're just gonna hide. "If you told them I was dead, I'll--"

"I said nothing of your whereabouts. I felt that would be best left to your companions, but thankfully there is no need for that now."

"'Thankfully' my ass. Helping them was at all an accident, I'll bet. You would never go out of your way for dwarves."

"You have fair reason to hold that opinion of me. I have much to atone for in regards to your people, not just when it comes to the blight."

"Don't pretend you--"

An arrow whistled through the air, landing at Solas's feet. She hopped out of the way instinctively, and was about to turn towards the rubble pile and demand to know why Leda missed when the head of the arrow exploded, releasing a cloud of smoke so thick she couldn't see anything.

Heavy footsteps rushed towards them, and there was am aggravated yell before a body collided into Solas's, the following sound of metal and flesh hitting the ground indicating he had been tackled. Callisto didn't know what was happening, eyes burning as she choked on and tried to wave away the smoke. There should have been yelling, accusations, the sound of punching or slapping, but after that initial commotion there was nothing. Just her coughing, and Taash wondering if everything was alright from where they were.

Only when a chillingly spectral wind blew through the area did the smoke clear, Callisto briefly occupied by catching her breath and registering Emmrich next to her as he drew soothing circles on her back. The sight in front of them, ultimately, proved to be nothing pretty - Leda was indeed on top of Solas, straddling him, flesh hand frozen halfway to his throat and face twisted into an immensely distraught expression. He wasn't faring any better, looking genuinely miserable instead of just contrite for the sake of convincing. To Callisto, that was worse.

When he opened his mouth, she raised her axe and made to surge forward - had Emmrich not caught her first. "No! He doesn't get to speak!" She hiss-whispered.

"Give her a moment," was all he said in turn, squeezing her arm.

Solas, meanwhile, was either deliberately ignoring them or unaware that they were even still there now that his past had literally caught up to him. "Leda..." he breathed out, raspy from having the wind knocked out of him. “I am so relieved to see you unharmed..."

That's what he's starting with?!

Leda faltered, fingers alternately flexing and locking as her hand hovered above his neck. She seemed to be waiting for something, rather than merely paralyzed - but it wasn’t coming. She opened and closed her mouth several times, eyes darting all around his face, and she seemed to be shrinking into herself more with each passing second.

For all those who blustered about being able to face down the person who hurt them, being back in their orbit changed things. Made them susceptible all over again. She was no exception, and people far bolder than her had been reduced to much the same. Callisto was doing her best to stay back and let her pick herself back up on her own, but fuck if it wasn’t torture.

“I'm not unharmed…” finally left her mouth in a wheeze.

He sat up astonishingly quickly, uncaring of the fact that this all but deposited her into his lap. “Where?” His hands lit up with soft green magic, poised around her torso.

She shook her head. “You’re supposed to kill me - that’s what ya said.”

“You are not attempting to kill me, so there is no need.”

“I could be.”

“I have seen you kill numerous times, Leda - I know well what it looks like.” He shot her a brief smile, as though this were some sort of inside joke they were playing out. Her face didn’t brighten in the slightest.

“So ya wanna help me…” She stared at his hands, “not kill me?”

“Of course.”

“But ya can’t.”

“I assure you, my magic is potent enough to reach--”

“I hurt in here.” Leda thumped her hand against her chest.

Realization passed over Solas’s face, and not only did he withdraw, he moved her off him (taking care to barely touch her, Callisto noticed) and stood. He hesitated a moment before offering his arm. “I see. You have come for retribution, then.”

“I can’t.” She turned away. “Not as easy for me to hurt people like it is for you.”

“You think it easy? To live with what I've had to become?” His voice was starting to raise, but he caught himself, schooling his features into an expression that could once more be seen as sympathetic. “We are well matched, in our pain.”

“Y’don’t wanna be matched to me at all. Never have, never will.”

“Is that what you think?”

Before Callisto could even open her mouth, Leda was the one laughing, finally rising to her own feet. “Yeah - of course ya don’t. Titan-killer. Blight-maker.” He opened his mouth - to apologize, to explain, perhaps both - but she just shook her head again and pointed to one of the tendrils. “Those are my dreams. Thedas is bein’ choked by my dreams. I’d say that can’t be right, but you were the one who taught me that anythin’ can happen in the Fade. In dreams.” She advanced on him, jabbing a finger into his chest plate. “‘Specially things y’don’t want happenin’ anywhere else.”

“I did not set out to create the blight,” left his mouth all too quickly. “It was the Evanuris who corrupted your dreams, not the ritual itself.”

“They would have not been vulnerable to corruption had you not severed them in the first place!” Emmrich interjected indignantly, which seemed to surprise even himself. Once the words were out, however, he couldn’t seem to stop. “For all that the spirits speak highly of you, I fail to see how something so utterly inhumane could ever be justified.”

Solas slowly turned to look over at them, expression carefully unchanged. “With all due respect, Professor, you know nothing of--”

“Hey!” Callisto snapped her fingers twice, glaring at Solas as she wound her arm through Emmrich’s. “You don’t get to speak to him.”

“I believe he can decide that for himself.”

“On the contrary, I’m rather inclined to stand back and listen to her say what ever she pleases to you.” He cast Callisto a fond look. “But I’m alright, darling.”

She pointedly ran her finger down his jaw, before glaring up at Solas once more. “He’s someone who actually knows how to treat his partner.”

“I’m still here…” Leda muttered, sounding exhausted. “I’m over this. Just give us the fuckin’ dagger so we can all stop fightin’ each other and fight everythin’ else.”

Solas turned back to her, brows knitting together as he considered her for a long time - suspiciously long, in Callisto’s opinion. “I have failed the world since the beginning.” He took a step forward. “I failed you, Leda.”

Congratulations on coming to that realization ten years too late, jackass.

She flinched, eyes narrowing. “And?”

“And regret is not enough.” Then, he honest-to-goodness fell to his knees before her.

“Are you-- get up, don’t even bother pretending!” Callisto barked out. “Don’t buy any bullshit he’s about to spew.”

“You have no reason to believe me.” That was the last acknowledgement he seemed willing to give her; after that, he focused his attention focused solely on Leda. She shook visibly as he reached out, gently gripping her arms. “Nevertheless, I am here now… imploring you to help me accomplish what I cannot alone.”

“Don’t do this to me.” She gulped audibly. “Don’t use me again; I’d rather ya just kill me.”

“I cannot fathom it.” He lifted a hand tentatively, uncertainly - or merely slow, the way a predator circled prey - and cupped her cheek. Her shaking escalated to full-blown tremors, jostling his whole arm as she moved to hold his hand there, meld it into her skin.

“Yes you can!” Despite her words, teeth bared and spit flying, she leaned her cheek heavily into his gloved palm. “It’s all your fault! Everythin’!”

“I know.”

She whacked her prosthetic against his chest plate, hard enough to make him wince the slightest bit. “Why us? What did we do wrong for you to hurt us so badly?”

He caught her before she could strike him again, holding her arm aloft. “Nothing that could have justified such extreme measures.”

“So why didja listen to her?”

The words hit him harder than her hand appeared to. “I-- it was a grave error on my part.”

“But why?!”

“Why did you listen to me, Leda? Why did you follow me everywhere, look to me for guidance, trust in me even though I was the very person who led you astray?” He forgot himself for a moment, as had proved to be the case so many times over whenever Mythal was involved - even the implication of her.

“I woulda done a lotta things for ya… I did. I guess that makes me just like ya, like how ya were with Mythal. And that… I don’t got words for how much that hurts .” She ducked her head, her grip on him slackening. “But I never, ever, coulda ruined an entire people - even if it meant we’d be together forever. That shouldn’t be some sorta radical thing to decide to not do.”

“Hindsight is a gift to all but those who hold fault.” Another sad smile. Sickening.

"No. No, y'knew it was bad, but ya did it anyway. For the elves. For her.” She wheezed again. “I almost banished the Wardens right outta the South - not 'cuz I thought it would be the right thing, or even 'cuz Cole was pleading with me to." He grimaced, just a tad, at the mention of Cole's name; there was no telling if that was real regret, or all part of the show. "I woulda done it for you. Only you. 'Cuz that was what ya thought I should do. I trusted your opinion, and I--" She made a shrill noise, forcibly moving both their hands to rest against her chest. "I wanted ya to be proud of me... were ya ever?"

"I was." He chanced dropping her other arm, holding her face once more. “I did not want to be, but it was humbling to see how you persevered under the tremendous weight I had inadvertently placed upon you. How you were not corrupted by it.” He combed some of her hair behind her bulbous ear, rubbing a few strands between his fingers. “And I am proud of you, still. You are truly the most remarkable woman I have ever known.”

“But not more remarkable than Mythal, right?!” Callisto called out, pointedly louder than she should have, hands cupped around her mouth to amplify her voice further. Solas levied one of his most menacing glares yet at her, shifting slightly so that he now partially hid Leda from view.

“Darling, he was a Wisdom spirit. Any direct blow to warped his nature will only cause him to double down.” Emmrich gently coaxed her further away from the two; she followed, reluctantly, buzzing with nervous energy.

“I can’t let this keep going; he’s starting to get to me , and I’m not the one he’s trying to con!”

“Take heart. You’ve done more than enough; the rest has to be up to her.”

Solas seemed to be gearing up to say something, something lyrical and evasive that wouldn’t require him to give a straight answer at all, but Leda shook her head. “Talkin’ circles… no point in it,” she mumbled. “Didja mean to kill Varric?”

“Intent matters not, anymore - he died at my hands.”

“He was one of my best friends. Y’took him away from me.” He said nothing. “From everybody.”

“I know.”

“You fucked Callisto over.”

“I am aware.”

“Y’keep hurtin’ dwarves…”

A sigh left his lips, brows knitting. “That is unintentional.”

“I wanna know-- will you do somethin’ that I ask of you?”

He seemed surprised, by both the words and the hard set of her plush jaw. “...Yes.”

“Anythin’?”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a moment, clearly surprised herself as her eyes darted around the area. “I--” She deflated a bit. “Leave the Veil up. And y’don’t get to just fuck off, you got way too much to answer for.”

“If that is the price that I must pay, so be it.” His hand on her face moved to join the other in gripping hers. “I swear - to you, to your people that I so carelessly sundered, to everyone I’ve left behind and hurt… I will not bring down the Veil.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“I mean it,” she mumbled, dropping her chin to rest atop their hands. “Don’t lie to me again.”

“It was not a lie.” His voice got low, raspy, gaze flitting to their hands; as though he wasn’t only speaking of the present.

Give me a fucking break.

“And then--” She swallowed, sitting back up, “when this is over, I’ll… we’ll… I don’t know. I dunno where’s better to bring ya to pay your dues - Orzammar, or Kal-Sharok. Or-- or back to the Titan in the Frostbacks, if Valta’s still there…”

He rose a brow. “I would not wish for my actions to be the catalyst for war between elves and dwarves.”

“What? Whaddya mean? Everyone’s gonna find out anyway, whether they know it was you or not.”

“The dwarves’ ire will not end with me.” He squeezed her hand. “You must know that.”

She growled, pulling her hand away. “There ya are, always with the big smart fuckin’ ideas; what do you want, then?”

“To help the dwarves regain what you’ve lost. It may well be possible, with both the dagger and my returned magic… there may yet be other forces at work to discover.”

She scoffed - almost in unison with Callisto’s own. “I don’t believe that ya wanna do that for a second.”

“Do you not believe me truly penitent?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know anythin’ about what ya feel! I don’t know what the fuck’s goin’ on, now that you’re here on the ground touchin’ me and bein’ all…” She shook her head, whole body tensing. “I can’t-- I’m fuckin’ up, I’m lettin’ ya get in my head, I’m just gonna--”

He grabbed both her hands, flesh and wooden, keeping her in place. “Do you not wish you wouldn’t have traveled into town that fateful day, that you had stayed on your farm so you could have protected your charges from your mother when she--”

“Don’t! Don’t ever use that against me! It doesn’t matter how much I want to, it’s not the same!”

“Choices, whether innocuous or grave, always have consequences. Since we cannot change them, all we can do is atone - lest we succumb to the void of guilt. Why else have you so single-mindedly tried to care for every nug you have come across, if not because you could not save your own when it counted?” A choked sob was his only answer. “It is different, I know, but I still hope it will have you sympathizing with what I have come to realize. What I can no longer ignore.”

Another sob. “You ruined us…”

“I know.”

“You didn’t give a shit… we were people too…”

“I am sorry.”

“How can ya even begin to make up for something like that?”

“I can only try.”

Callisto waited with bated breath as Leda stared at him in heavy silence, face crumpling with her intensifying cries. She was waiting for the cincher, the explosive ‘what about me?!’ that was surely coming. Any minute now…

Instead, Leda quite literally fell into his arms, burying her face in his uncomfortable-looking shoulder armor and wrapping her arms around him. For comfort, not to crush. 

“I can’t watch this anymore.” Callisto threw her free arm up before stalking back towards them, pointedly scraping her axe blade across the ground for maximum sound pollution. She stowed it when she reached them, so she could have both hands free to clap loudly in their faces. “Are you cooperating, or not?”

If she could get rich off the dirty looks this man gave her alone, she’d be able to swim in all that gold. “Yes.”

“Let’s go, then. We’re wasting time.” She pointedly eyed the dagger still on his belt. She pulled Leda up before Solas could make any move to, and tugged her aside. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, or what he’s done to put you back under his spell--”

“I’m not.” Leda stared at the ground, one arm hugging her waist.

“Sure. But Neve told me what she said to you when she came to Skyhold, and I think it bears repeating - if he’s got you twisted enough to try to stop whatever we do, I can’t promise you shit.”

“Don’t misjudge me,” was all she said, before scurrying over to fall into step with Taash now that they rejoined the group. Callisto just rolled her eyes before taking point with Solas, looking forward to cutting into all the darkspawn and Venatori that fell into their path. 

She wanted him to see exactly how she could hurt him beyond mere strangulation.

Chapter Text

"So..." Cole started as he came up to the only lit fireplace in the safe house, Leda and Dorian staring into it. "Solas is a real dread wolf?"

Leda shrugged. "Dorian would say he was a dread-ful wolf."

"And not just in the ways we already disliked him." Dorian managed to give the most dignified snort she'd ever heard. "Myriad eyes? Furless? I'm shocked you didn't have a more severe reaction."

"Callisto and Taash were cursin' and makin' disgusted noises so I think that pulled me outta it a little. It's not like hairless animals gross me out, obviously, but that was... there sure was a lot of it. Him. It...?"

"It’s an ‘it’, definitely." Dorian crossed his arms over his chest. "But I can't deny my burning curiosity over just how potent his real magic is."

"I barely got to do anythin'. He'd wave his hands, and all of a sudden the darkspawn and Venatori in front of us were frozen solid, or bleedin' outta everywhere. And then Callisto ‘n Taash would go in with their axes ‘n finish 'em off if he hadn't, and me ‘n Emmrich were just in the back of 'em all like, 'oh, okay, guess we’re just chopped liver'."

"Dreaded Wolf," Cole supplied, smiling to himself.

"How tragic that I'll never be able to call him that to his face. Among all the other choice phrases I've been compiling in my head for the last eight years."

"You could have," Cole looked to Dorian, then Leda, "if we'd gone with you."

"As awful as it was, we had it handled. I needed ya in the battle proper." She reached out and squeezed Cole's hand before letting it fall back to hide side, then shot a fond smile up at Dorian. "And you're still okay, so I don't feel bad about it."

"You feel bad about something else."

"Always do." Leda shrugged a second time, as though that would be that. "Things were tense the whole time. Every time he'd try to talk to the other two, she interrupted, she told him to shove it when he tried to talk to her - heh, when he said he couldn't go any further with us 'cuz he attracted the blight, she said 'why, you don't want them to come home to their daddy?’ all gross ‘n mockin’ but… she didn't do nothin' when he talked to me. The few times." She turned her gaze downward, to her gunk-covered boots. "It wasn't like before, not really. But he was-- he watched my back."

"Because he had to." Leda tensed at Dorian's change in tone, the light-heartedness they'd managed to find in the middle of this madness slipping out of their grasps. "He always had to."

"I know." They were all quiet for a few moments, the three of them close enough to the fire that they could hear the crackling of the logs over the other conversations and sounds of war coming from outside. "He said he wouldn't bring down the Veil."

"That doesn't sound like Solas."

"It most certainly doesn't, Cole. Which is why we, of course, know that's a lie." Dorian looked at her expectantly. "Yes?"

"Dunno. Not this time."

"Leda, I am imploring you, do not put your faith in him. It is utterly misplaced, and the world will be swallowed by it."

"I don't know what I think!" Her exclamation drew the stares of the few other people milling about, including several members of Callisto's team. At that, she booked it down the stairs and rushed over to the alcove that had the only other fireplace in the building, this one full of blight. No one could stare here, at least, as Dorian and Cole inevitably followed her. "I can't put it into words, what the sick feelin' in my gut is..."

"I never know how to make the words come either; even less, now. But they come anyway." Cole guided her to sit in one of the chairs at the little table. "You've already started."

"I don't want ya to hate me..."

Dorian scoffed so aggressively it sounded like he was coughing. "If I ever turn my back on you, may the Maker strike me down because clearly, I’ll have been possessed."

The corner of her mouth ticked up a little, more still when Cole knelt next to her chair and patted her knee, a silent re-affirmation of what he had promised the night prior. She looked up at the ceiling, trying to find strength in the worsening cracks, before craning her head back down.

"This can't end cleanly. It can't. I need an excuse to hate him again, to wanna hurt him, 'cuz if he was tellin' the truth this time... if we kill Elgar'nan, and everythin's gonna be okay, and he's gonna... he's gonna help us," she poked her chest twice, "I'm scared I'm--" She sucked her lips in and shook her head frantically, hunching over.

"You're more afraid of him keeping his word?" Dorian raised a brow. "There is no possible scenario in which he won't, but I'm rather surprised that you have no hope whatsoever."

"'Cuz I'm pathetic?"

"Don't."

"Sorry..."

Cole took her hand, tracing the path of her tendons and veins to try to soothe her. "You're in tangles and knots - I can pick out the roots, but there's..." He tenses. "Everyone is frightened. Many, in pain. When I was less me, I'd know already, but now it's hard to parse what's your hurt and what's theirs. Talk to us. Please?"

She didn't want to try to articulate herself at all, much less have Cole bluntly spell out her inner turmoil. It was debilitating enough to be in this situation at all, no matter which way it shook out - to have had Callisto glare at her the whole time, her trust in her drying up with every second that passed; for Solas remark that she fought just as he remembered, when she'd tried to practice, tried to get better and faster even with the added strain of one of her hands no longer being flesh; when he'd lingered just before transforming to tell her that he would return, the unspoken ‘to you’ hanging uncomfortably in the air long after he left.

Pathetic. It was all pathetic.

"I don't wanna be who I was." She smiled tightly. "I wanna be ignorant to the whole damn world again, 'course I do; I didn't know shit about shit, didn't know just how bad the world was outside my awful family and lil things I heard when I went to market. But after that, takin' that me into Haven... that me meetin' Solas..." She hit her wooden arm on her thigh again, but stopped when she felt both their gazes boring into her head. "I was cooked. And if I get a smidge o' hope back that things might be different this time..."

"That's presuming he won't be rotting away in the most secure prison possible. Or worse."

"He wouldn't do any good answering for his crimes like that..." she mumbled.

"Your words? Or his?"

"I don't want you to be like Varric." Cole squeezed her hand, kept squeezing like she would try to pull away. "Things are different. You're different. Solas stays the same."

"Is the version of me who could run right back to him worse than one that could kill him?"

Uncomfortable silence again, save for the squelching of the blight. Before they could respond, she walked away once more, this time to stand on the steps leading down to the street outside. The air was thick with smoke, the massive blight growths making even more disgusting noises in addition to all the screams, bangs, and sharp clashes of metal. Being out here was, objectively, not a reprieve.

Until she found herself distracted by seeing Evka just a ways away, conversing with the small group of Wardens huddled by the edge of the street. She carried herself confidently, but not haughtily; the woman was helping to lead what remained of their order, but refused to say as much or wear anything fancier than standard fatigues. Even Leda had gotten swept up in the pageantry that being the Inquisitor brought, especially when it came to nicer clothes and armors. She might've gone over to say hello, having already met her once at the strategy meeting that morning... had one of the elves she'd been talking to not caressed her face with his gloved hand, causing Leda's heart to all but stop in surprise. Right. Davrin said she had a husband. A husband who was an elf.

Leda hadn't known that last part.

She was only vaguely aware of Cole and Dorian finding her again at this point - they might've been saying something, might not, but everything was white noise to her as she watched the couple.

"You just aren't." Cole's voice broke through the din, right next to her as she turned to see him standing a few steps below so their height would be level. "Why you aren't her."

"Wh--" Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose as he realized what she had been doing, and gently took her by the shoulder. "Don't torture yourself. Come back inside where it's less noisy."

"But I--"

"Inquisitor!" All three of them turned to see Evka approaching them. Dorian was the only one to compose himself, straightening his posture and folding his arms in front of him; Leda and Cole just stood there like wild animals caught in fire light. "Glad to see you all made it here intact."

"Yeah... you too." Leda shifted her weight from foot to foot, willing either one of the two men to carry the conversation forward; they had also met her at the meeting, after all.

"'Return to Lavendel... have to, to see all the blooms come back... even if flowers cover the entire village, there will be no more exquisite sight than her.'" Cole lost his signature faraway expression, then smiled at Evka. "Antoine loves you so much. You both will make it out - he'll make sure of it."

Evka blinked owlishly, and Leda glared into the side of Cole's head. Of course. Of course he had to do this. "Thank you...?"

"Sorry, he does this! I mean, ya probably knew - everyone knows about 'im, these days." She continued to fidget, torn between doing what Dorian suggested and retreating, or just blurting out the thoughts burning her head so it didn't bother her for the rest of eternity. "So--" she cleared her throat, "I don't ever see dwarves and elves together."

"Oh - I guess that's some of the unwritten appeal of becoming a Grey Warden. You meet people you never would've otherwise, and connections are made quickly considering death could be around any corner." Leda forced a light laugh, waiting until Evka looked away to let her features sag into something devastating, pulling them back up once she turned back. "The only time I'd even heard of it happening before was the Hero of Ferelden and Zevran Arainai. Two names I’ve admittedly cursed a lot lately; sure would've been helpful to have them around..."

Right. Her.

"Did you know? I mean, um-- did you like him when you first saw him?"

Evka rose a brow, clearly surprised that this was the conversation happening a few city blocks removed from a battlefield. "I thought he was nice to look at, but it's not like we talked much at first. I passed the time with people who wanted to spar and arm wrestle; Antoine was always off in his own little world trying to use his hands to make things - whether or not they served a purpose for the Wardens, mind you." A fond smile started to spread on her face as she spoke. "It made sense for us to patrol together, considering our skillsets. Things just snowballed from there."

But how? What was it that drew them together despite their physical differences? Was it truly just about an emotional connection? Did he always find her pretty, or did it only happen once they knew each other better? What did it all mean? It had to mean something, or else...

"That's nice. Sweet, I mean. Really sweet. Every happiness 'n long lives to both of ya."

"We hope so." Evka crossed her arms, smirking. "After this is over, and Lusacan's dead... no more Archdemons. Not that the Calling goes away, not yet at least, but the threat of a Blight won't be on the horizon any time soon."

"But the possibility of Blights would be eradicated altogether, no?" Dorian interjected, now that the subject had turned to something he could actually chew on.

"Well, yes , but we're not saying it out loud yet so we don't jinx it."

"I see! Fair enough."

"Y’get to be happy... at the end of all the bad stuff." Leda sucked one of her cheeks in as she tried not to wheeze, or yell, or cry. Their paths couldn't have been more different, she knew that, but all she saw in front of her was a capable dwarven woman who had an elven man who seemed to love her dearly. A woman who would now get to reap the most bountiful rewards possible from their shared labors.

What was Leda getting? Even in the best case scenario?

"Thanks for tellin' me all that. We gotta go, though, I know Callisto wants to talk next steps, ‘n what Bellara learned. Are ya comin'?

Evka chuckled. "No, representing the Wardens on my own was a one time thing. I belong in the war, not at the war table." She gave all three of them a nod. "I hope this won't be the last time we meet. Watch your backs." She returned to the group before the rest of them moved, immediately returning to Antoine's side.

"So... that went better than I thought it would, for certain," Dorian started, taking a step up, "however, we should definitely leave now before that changes."

"Yeah. Okay." Cole wordlessly took her hand and led her up and back into the safe house, Leda using all her willpower not to turn back and watch them further.

"If we kill Elgar'nan, the Veil collapses." Bellara relayed this information hurriedly, anxiously, like everything hinged on her sharing this with the group of friends and allies she'd finally been reunited with. Really, though, everyone knew this was coming - no gasps of shock followed the revelation, just near-audible eye rolls and scowls, including few sighs that said, here we fucking go again. Callisto took the dagger off her belt and thunked it onto the table with a laugh.

Leda wasn't sure if people looked at her as the discussion went on, or not. She swore she felt some eyes on her, but that could have just been part of the stress reaction she was experiencing. Everyone in Thedas could have been staring at her and she wouldn't have lifted her head or said a word, hand clenching and unclenching as she felt the rest of her body tighten.

"...'Scuse me," was all she said before she turned around, walked over to the stack of paintings propped up against the rubble, and drove her wooden hand right through one. Her agonized screams still managed to be louder than everyone shouting at her to 'stop' and 'calm down' as she set about laying waste to everything she could. Throwing books and scrolls to the floor, knocking over chairs, smashing pots and barrels with her hand, boots, or bow. It was only when she would have accidentally set her prosthetic on fire that Callisto grabbed her and pulled her off to the side, holding a finger up to Dorian and Cole when they tried to follow.

"There's no way you didn't see this coming." Callisto released her and started to pace in a circle, hands wildly gesticulating even though she had finished speaking.

"I did. 'Course I did. That's what makes it worse."

"Being prepared is supposed to lessen the blow. I don't get you."

"Ya should." Callisto stopped moving, looking at her expectantly. "When we first met, y'said you were good at dealin' with 'difficult personalities'. How's this any different?"

"I said I was good at dealing with them, not that I understood them." She groaned. "And I wouldn't say you're 'difficult', just... ugh, people who wear their hearts on their sleeves always get them trampled."

"Yep."

"So why do you still do it?"

"Tried not to." She held up her prosthetic and turned it back and forth, able to see some scratches and dents that weren't there before her tantrum in the dim light. "Couldn't. 'Specially not when he was right in front of me."

"He used you again. Worse this time; he actively did it on purpose."

"Yep." Leda sniffled, then aggressively shook her head. "Did ya hear him say he'd help us dwarves?"

"Sure fucking did. Should've confirmed he was lying right then and there."

"Maybe he woulda, in a better world where he wasn't so fucked in the fuckin' head." She blinked twice. "And in a better world, he wouldn't have to die."

"Whoa whoa - we can't kill him now, that's the whole point." Callisto groaned. "One last way he personally screws me over."

"Then we hurt him."

"You sure you're up for that?"

"Yes."

"There's no going back, you know. Once we get his blood, it's over for him."

"I know! Y'don't have to keep talkin' down to me! Why don't ya think I understand what's about to happen?" Callisto opened her mouth to protest, but just shook her head and closed it. "I want him to bleed! Right now, I would slaughter him if I still could!"

"Well. Alright, then."

"It's not a good thing..."

"Morality shouldn't be bogging you down at a time like this."

"Why not?" Leda blurted out quickly, to both their surprise. "I don't-- I don't wanna be like him."

"Leda--"

"Stabbin' him so easily when we used to share a bed... usin' the dagger to trap 'im to end a war..."

"No, it's not remotely comparable to what he did. And, quite frankly, all the things you've tried to say to him to make him feel bad haven't worked - so at this point, his own knife getting shoved into him might be the only way to get him to learn."

"He won't learn nothin'."

"Then do this for you!" Callisto took her by the shoulders, leaning in close enough that Leda could see how incredibly bloodshot her eyes were. "Ten years of ruining your life? Ruining dwarves and Titans forever? He deserves worse." She tightened her grip. "But think of his expression when he registers the pain... that you're the one, right there, inflicting it on him when he thought he had you successfully fooled. It'll be so much better than any half-assed pleasure he gave you - if ever."

Despite the situation, Leda managed a little snort, the fear becoming just a tad less oppressive. Still, she didn't say anything either way, too many thoughts and possibilities vying for their place in her head.

"If you can't do it, I will," Callisto added, finally releasing her. "He's hurt me plenty. But not like he hurt you."

"He's hurt all of us."

"Then I guess it's a good thing, either way, that a dwarf will be holding the dagger this time." An unspoken if everything goes according to plan hung between them. "We're setting out again soon - we gotta climb to get to the palace, so time's of the essence. Brace yourself."

With that, Callisto made her way over to her partner, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck from side to side as she went. Leda lingered in the corner for a few more moments, before coming up to Cole, Dorian, and Morrigan by the fireplace. "Couldn't stop myself from havin' one last breakdown," she tried to jest, but her feeble tone conveyed that it wasn't funny at all.

"You have always put your heart first, Leda," Morrigan started, eyes full of sympathy, "even when logic would beget otherwise."

"He didn't lie," Cole spoke up, "but it was a lie all the same. It was what he always did - there are just bigger stakes, now."

"Did you believe that he meant what he said?" Leda leaned heavily into his side, prompting him to wrap his arm around her shoulders.

"I wanted to. Or... now that I'm a person and can't hear what's coming from his mind instead of his mouth, I was fooled too."

"Mislaid trust in old friends has damned nations, so seductive is its promise - it is understandable why you would want to believe."

Dorian had been notably quiet as he watched the fire, prompting Leda to reach over and tug on his sleeve. "What's wrong?"

"Hm? Oh, forgive me - I was merely wondering if I should procure any additional supplies before we make the climb." Leda looked stunned. "Did you really think I would stay behind while you do this on your own? You wound me."

"I-- it's not your problem, though."

"I beg to differ. I refuse to leave to you confront Solas alone again - and no, Callisto and the others don't count. I may or may not be easing my guilt over not being there to help you face him after the Exalted Council. Besides," he sniffed disdainfully, "Elgar'nan's made himself all too comfortable in my future home. I'm rather entitled to take it away from him myself, wouldn't you say?"

"But you could die, and then what'll happen?!"

"Oh, come now, remember what we talked about? You won't let me."

"I'll protect you, Dorian." Cole let her go so he could look intently in her eyes. "And you."

"I can't be worryin' 'bout both of ya..."

"Don't. We will simply worry about you."

"But..." Leda forced herself to take a deep breath, "I don't want ya to feel compelled to try to talk 'im down... I know ya, ya might try, and then ya might--"

"Be Varric?" Leda looked at the floor. "I care about Solas, still. But he has given me more things to be unable to forgive, and the anger is so strong . He and Elgar'nan are different in their intentions, but not different in what they do about them."

"Cole..."

"I care about him, but I care about the world, too. He doesn't." He sniffled, prompting her to immediately reach up to try to wipe his eyes with her coat sleeve. "I can't fix it the way I'd want to."

"It'll be okay." It wasn't a lie, not really. "It's gotta be okay."

Morrigan cleared her throat, bringing them all back to the present moment. "Should I sense the Veil thinning dangerously, I shall fly up to the palace and lend aid. For now, I stand vigil with the others here; Elgar'nan's forces are no doubt approaching."

Should I sense the Veil thinning dangerously. If the worst came to pass, she meant; if Solas managed to incapacitate them, or worse. As terrified as Leda was, she was certain about one thing: she would fight tooth and nail so he couldn't hurt her again.

Chapter Text

The only reason Leda made it through everything that happened in between beginning the climb up to the palace and now, stumbling into the throne room to watch Callisto slash the throat of a tyrant-god, was by shutting her brain off. It had never been something she had been good at, especially not during the Inquisition, but she spent so much of the past eight years utterly numb that she knew how to go back to that place. To focus only on the ascent, to filter out the noise and worries so she didn't fall, didn't slip, so she and her friends didn't die against the onslaught of darkspawn. Dorian kept making stressed quips about the awful state the palace was in as they moved forward, but she couldn't fire back; she'd have to acknowledge that this was supposed to be her future home, too. That everywhere she tried to run to would be overrun by her worst fears. She couldn't even let herself feel anything when she watched Lusacan throw Solas around and bloody him up - neither worry, nor satisfaction.

Thanks those giants and the constant shifting of the smaller blight tendrils, some of the structure giving way caused her, Dorian, and Cole to get separated from the other three - much like how Bellara's group had earlier. The blight, or perhaps Elgar'nan himself, was too intelligent for this not to have been intentional. More climbing had to be done, more fending off waves of darkspawn, more hacking through such disgusting substances that she agonized over just what had been done to the Titan's dreams to turn them into this. It was only the other two keeping up a constant stream of chatter (even Cole contributed equally; maybe he could sense she needed it) that stopped her from losing it and futilely hacking away at everything in sight just to have something to hit.

"We're close. We weren't thrown too far away, thank the Maker." Dorian pointed up ahead, the entrance to the throne room in their line of sight a ways away.

"They're already fighting." Cole winced, knuckles turning white as he gripped his daggers. "Shit. Something's wrong, they're... they're stuck."

"What do ya mean 'stuck'?!" Leda had only ever heard Cole cuss when reciting other peoples’ thoughts, not his own.

"I mean stuck! Elgar'nan's magic, he's frozen them, and... oh, no no, we have to go now." He took off running, leaving the other two to scramble after them. Just as they reached an incline that would take them right to the door, an incredibly thick blight tendril burst through the concrete and obliterated it. The irony was, all they could do now was futilely blast, slash, and shoot at it, as though getting it to fall would solve their problem.

In Leda's mind, taking Elgar'nan down was supposed to be Callisto's big hero moment. One that would actually mean something, unlike Corypheus's demise. She didn't want to take that from her or her allies when they'd be the ones doing all the hard work going after him and Ghilan'nain, while Leda and the Inquisition had been dealing with the run-off in the South. But now, she could tear herself apart for not being there, for not protecting Callisto from her mistakes. If anyone was going to be trapped and helpless, it should have been her. 

It had always been her.

"Wait." Cole stopped, casting his gaze up at the throne room. "Bellara, she… the blight is her."

Before the other two could ask any questions, the tendril in front of them pulsed and glowed with a healthy redness, before flopping against the ledge in such a way that it made a makeshift bridge. Cole, once again, wasted no time in moving, leaving Dorian and Leda only a second to marvel and wonder what the fuck before very carefully trekking across the fleshy, wet surface.

"Before we..." Leda started as they reached the doors, "I--"

"Don't you dare start." Dorian grabbed the handles and pulled. "This is not the day for parting words. Save those for Solas - or Elgar'nan, if we even get a crack at him."

In they stumbled, and only once they reached the throne room proper - past the entire dead Magisterium, which Dorian was most parts thankful, some parts mournful for - did they see that no, Elgar'nan would not fall by any one of their hands. By the time they reached the others, Elgar'nan was on the ground, using his last bits of life to curse the unfinished red lyrium dagger in his hand.  

"Well well well." Callisto was breathless, but satisfied, putting her hands on her hips and grinning. "What took you guys so damn--"

Elgar'nan's lifeless body exploded into nothingness, sending all six of them flying in various directions across the room. Even when Leda stopped skidding, she had to lift herself up enough to grip part of the stone wall surrounding them thanks to the powerful gust pulling the equally dead Archdemon who knew what else into the open void in the sky. When it closed, it exploded just as well, the red tint everyone had grown used to over the last few weeks dissipating and giving way to... horribly oppressive grey smoke. Everywhere that wasn’t Minrathous, she imagined, would be pretty again.

If they managed to stop the man who was now standing, bleeding, and ambling down toward Callisto.

"It is done. The world owes you a debt. Both for defeating Elgar'nan..." Green light cast over their faces from the Fade tears that were beginning to form, and Leda's stomach dropped, "and for bringing down the Veil."

"You bastard." Dorian spit out, his voice coming from farther away than she anticipated. "Only you could be this smug when you're bleeding out from every orifice."

"I should have expected I would see you again, Dorian." Solas didn't give him the dignity of looking at him. "Especially here. Not that this changes anything."

"On the contrary, I--" Dorian cut himself off with a cough, and only now did Leda look back to see him slumped against the wall, holding his bleeding head. "I rather like that we're going to do this here. When we're not in session, we can give tours - 'here, in front of the throne of our illustrious Archon, is where the most pig-headed man in Thedosian history realized he had fucked up beyond belief'."

Leda was too busy trying to push herself onto her feet to try to get to him to see the look on Solas's face, or the reason for his extended silence. "I am sorry for this final betrayal... but I will do what I can to minimize the damage."

"Minimized damage is still damage. Still hurts so, so many." She whipped her head back around to see Cole crouched over Emmrich, helping him to sit up. "What's 'minimized damage' to a world on fire, Solas?"

Solas actually faltered at the sound of his voice, stumbling down two steps instead of one. "If you had remained a spirit, you would understand, Cole. When you see the old world restored--"

"I am me! Human or spirit! I've been out of the Fade so long that this has become my world, no matter what I am. My friends will be hurt - our friends. It is not my fault that you don’t consider me one anymore." Solas shut his eyes for a moment, before opening them and taking a step forward. Cole shot up and blocked him before he could take any more, Leda taking the opportunity to run over to Dorian.

"Cole, I will not--"

"You killed Varric. You would have killed me." Cole got uncomfortably close to his face. "You could kill me now."

"What are you doing?!" Dorian hissed at her when she reached him. "Go for the bloody dagger!"

"But ya hit your--"

"I have potions! Get over there!"

Both Callisto and Taash were crawling for the dagger themselves, all while Solas and Cole stared each other down. But, to Leda's horror, Solas used his magic to shove Cole across the room, drawing the dagger towards him in quick succession. Leda screeched as Callisto found the strength to jump for it, only hustling towards Cole once she saw that Callisto grabbed it. He had landed near Taash, who was now on their knees next to him supporting his head. "What happened?!"

"He's still breathing, but I think he banged his head. Some friend Solas is." They spit on the ground. "Asshole."

"I-- this is my fault, I--"

"Why are you wasting time freaking out to me about it?" They used their other hand to rummage around in their belt bag, pulling out a small pouch. "Got lots of herbs on me for my throat. I'll use 'em like smelling salts and wake him up."

"Are you sure it'll work...?"

"Only idea I got!"

Both of her best friends in the world were out for the count, now. She should have run back over to Dorian to see if he had any extra potions, but she'd have to cross the room again after, and fuck all only knew what Solas would do if he finally became aware of her existence. Considering Cole’s current state, there was no remote possibility that he wouldn't harm her. If all she did was talk.

He stalked towards Callisto, the woman curling in on herself as she tried to find the strength to lift herself back up. With astonishing speed, Leda grabbed her bow, nocked an arrow, lined up the increasingly delicate shot, and fired - right into the unprotected, fleshy junction between his arm and chest. He recoiled and cried out, adding to the incredible pain he already felt; by the time he looked over to see who had been the source, Leda had another arrow poised.

"I'm done," she stated, only so he couldn't speak first. "I've fuckin’ had enough."

His expression was hard to discern - he was enraged, or maybe just incredibly annoyed, but there was an edge of hurt there that she probably made up. Now that his focus was on her, she fired again, knowing full well he'd just swat it away mid air. What mattered was that Callisto had managed to roll herself over and pull herself onto her knees since his back was turned.

"Do not make me fight you, Leda." He took one step, and another, his hand still radiating magic. "I could not bear it."

"I can't bear you!" Her voice shook more than she would have liked, but this situation was more terrifying than anything she'd gone through before. These precious few seconds where she faced down the root of her agony, alone, so Callisto wouldn't have to. "I'm so fucking sorry I ever loved ya."

He stood absolutely still, processing the words that had burned her mouth to even get out. The pain and sadness that passed over his face was real this time; honestly, Leda was sad, too. Not because her words bruised him, but because she had witnessed him be the awful person that warranted those words. The sorriest part of the time between now and before was that, despite all the hate and resentment she felt, she continued to love him. Less and less with each passing year, but even after their awful parting at the eluvian, she still did. After this... it would finally leave her entirely.

"Ir abelas. Dirthara-ma..." Just as she made to nock another arrow, he rendered her bow from her hands, flinging it over the edge and sending it hurtling down to the blighted streets where it would splinter into pieces. She grabbed her knife from its thigh holster as his eyes began to glow, and...

"May I cut in?"

He whipped his head around to see Callisto on her feet, slicing at the air with the lyrium dagger. As much as Leda had liked it, announcing her presence was a detriment, as it gave Solas time enough to freeze her entirely in place and twist her arm to the point of breaking to get her to release it from her grasp. When Leda tried to rush him, he did the same to her with his free hand, though without breaking any bones. A small mercy - maybe a perverse parting gift.

"It is over." He turned away from them, slowly making his ascent back to the tears. "The Titans could not stand against me - nor will two mere dwarves."

There it was. No more lies, no more false promises, no more skirting the truth. Them and their problems were truly insignificant to him. Always were.

"I'm sorry." Leda was utterly shocked to hear those words coming from Callisto, turning to see her face crumpling in despair. "If I was quicker--"

"No. You were amazin'." If she could move, she would be hitting her leg hard enough to bruise. "I shoulda dealt with him a long time ago."

In the early days of learning to read, a lot of the stories she tried out taught very obvious lessons. One pattern she noticed was thus - the protagonist had something to learn, and they went through the story until they found themself in a bind. Once they admitted what they needed to learn, or the root of their problem, the means to get out of that situation would present itself and all would be well. Call it coincidence, or that they had actual deities watching over them, but as soon as Leda expressed herself, Davrin hoisted himself up over the ledge near the Fade tear, his griffon Assan flying up next to him. Better yet, Solas remained oblivious to his presence. She had never been so elated to see a Grey Warden in her entire life.

Chaos descended quickly. Davrin rushed him, shield raised, with a yell, Solas just barely fending him off thanks to Assan pestering him as well. Solas rose him into the air, rendering him helpless as Assan squawked in panic and tried to dive before Solas brushed him aside too. They were saved by Emmrich, now on his feet, if unsteady, blasting him with a strong stream of his own magic. This was enough to drop the hold Solas had on not only Davrin and Assan, but on Callisto and Leda as well. The two wasted no time booking it up the stairs alongside Taash, who roared as they struck him with their golden axes. Despite drawing blood and wearing him out even more, Solas blasted Emmrich and Taash away, and readied himself to do the same to whoever dared to continue the futile assault on the great Dread Wolf.

Clearly, he hadn't prepared himself for something as mundane as a punch to the face.

Callisto socked him so hard she sent him soaring, her fists the only magic she needed. The dagger flew out of his hand in the opposite direction - landing right at Leda's feet.

"Do it now!" Callisto screeched before running towards Emmrich, and just like before, Leda tried to put aside all despair and uncertainty as she picked up the very thing that would do what she feared, what she'd dreamed of, for years.

He stood with a grunt, registered that Leda now held the dagger, and rushed towards her, hands glowing and eyes full of nothing but fury. 

Ancestors… I’m so sorry. Give me the strength to do this.

She braced herself, wound her hand back, and as soon as he was in reaching distance, surged forward and stabbed him between the ribs.

It was a sensation like no other. She had struck people with blades before, but only in the limbs or fleshier bits; never anywhere vital. That was what her arrows were for - killing from a distance did the job without ever having to feel skin, muscle, and organs being pierced. To be close enough to see the life drain out of someone's eyes. But oh , the simultaneous resistance and give of the blade slipping in between his armor plates, breaking through those layers of leather and flesh, and the realization in his eyes once the glow faded away... she had every power over him.

"This isn't to save the world - this is for me." Despite her near euphoria, she was still scared shitless. The longer she looked in his eyes, the more she was afraid the glow would return, or that he'd look at her with hate. But there was nothing of the sort. If anything, she recognized what she was seeing - panic. "You made me this. I'm hurting you, making sure you fail, all because of you."

He wasn't saying anything, just staring and gaping, so she shoved the knife in deeper; c'mon, tell me ya fuckin' hate me, that I'm nothin'. As more blood spurted, coating her bare hand, much of it landed on the dagger; both the blade and the ornamental circle of the hilt. She figured the sudden warmth and slight buzzing she felt against her palm must have been a side effect of how much adrenaline was coursing through her veins, but it quickly grew more intense. And then, the blue of the lyrium gave way to an angry, creeping red.

"Oh, fuck." She heard Callisto's voice, closer than she thought it be. "Leda, let go of it!"

An intense wave of fatigue crashed against her, but she refused Callisto's warning. If she let could, he could pull it out, and whatever they were doing could be for not - worse yet, he could use it on her. That, and... she didn't think she could let go if she wanted to. Her hand seemed stuck around it, and trying to move it just moved the blade with it and slid into Solas more. Then, her entire arm went rigid as that same angry red glowed through the veins in her hand, her muscles tensing progressively and arm glowing faintly through her layers of clothing as though an unseen force was moving through her.

Suddenly, she was out of her body, floating in complete darkness. But she wasn't afraid, no - she was pissed.

"Avenge us." The voice was deep, mangled - a dissonant chorus.

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

When she was in the throne room once more, she wasn't quite herself. She was pushed backwards in her own mind as something seething with ancient rage took over. There was a new sound, a steady current beneath the yelling and the magic in the air.

Then the ground started shaking.

"YOU!" The voice was hers, if distorted - but the words weren't. Just so, her hand twisted the dagger, making a sickening squelching noise and causing Solas to drop to one knee - but she hadn't meant to do that. "SOLAS… FUCKING DEBAUCHER..."

"Masal din'an, durgen." His face and gaze hardened, but there was still a hint of alarm there. "I am nothing like you."

The ground lurched, causing everyone to stumble further save for the two of them. "WE BORE THE ELVHEN. OUR MINDS BUILT YOUR EMPIRE." Her other hand rose up and, faster than anyone could process, wrapped itself around his throat. Her prosthetic hand, now mobile, was no longer wooden - it had turned into lyrium-veined stone, glowing just as red as the rest of her. "YOU ARE US! BROKEN. CORRUPTED. ALONE."

"I will not bother with regret." He gasped for air between words, hacking up more blood. "Your own descendents erased your existence from history!"

"WE'RE A SYMPTOM." The air thrummed as the largest Fade tear flashed brightly, the sensation of Solas being pulled backward causing her to tighten her grip on him. "YOU TORE US APART; YOU ARE THE VERY ROT INSIDE US!"

The animosity Leda felt was so overwhelming, the words may very have been her own.

The room rumbled with ferocity, ceasing only when a stone spike emerged from far beneath the floor and impaled itself through his bicep.

"WE'RE NOT DONE." He howled in pain, choked off by how tightly his neck was still being gripped. Leda tried to jerk away, move at all, but she couldn't. "WE WILL NEVER BE DONE WITH YOU."

"Hey!" Another hand clasped her shoulder; she couldn't make herself turn her head, but she knew it was Callisto's. "We're running out of time; you have to let him go!"

"DON'T YOU WANT TO SEE HIM SUFFER? HE TOOK EVERYTHING FROM US; WHY NOT TAKE EVERYTHING FROM HIM?"

"He doesn't have anything left to offer! His life is the only thing worth shit!"

"WE BEG TO DIFFER."

"Too bad!" Notably, though, she was making no move to help Leda release him - and Solas was saying nothing else to defend himself. "If he dies, his mistakes will fuck up dwarves and what's left of us - of you - worse than it's already been."

"HE WON'T HURT US EVER AGAIN."

"I doubt he'll be able to from where he's going anyway!" Callisto re-positioned herself so she was in Leda's - their - line of sight, her eyes desperate and wild. "Even without the Fade, without our dreams, we'll find our way back to each other somehow. To isatunoll."

Her eyes blinked, and her head nodded all of its own accord. "MATHAS GAR NA FORNEN… PA TOT ISATUNOLL." Her hand fell away from his throat. "HOLD HIM, AND BRING ME THE AXE."

Leda's stomach churned in apprehension, and Callisto didn't look all that certain herself as she grabbed Solas by the back of the neck with one hand and lifted her greataxe with the other. Leda's pulled the dagger out of his torso and hooked the ring round her middle finger to let it hang. As he slumped forward, blood gushing from the wound, she took the axe with both hands.

"'DWARVES ARE THE SEVERED ARM OF A ONCE MIGHTY HERO, LYING IN A POOL OF BLOOD. UNDIRECTED. WHATEVER SKILL OF ARMS IT HAD, GONE FOREVER.' YOU SAID THAT. IT'S BURNED INTO HER BRAIN." They didn't have to sift far through her mind to find it - she recalled that conversation at least once every damn day. "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT US. DON'T THINK OF US. AND YOU COULDN'T RESIST EXPLOITING US ONE LAST TIME." She stepped around to his left side, next to his impaled arm, and lifted the axe.

"AN ARM IS NOT ENOUGH... BUT IT WILL DEVASTATE YOU. THAT WILL HAVE TO DO."

She brought it down, slicing through flesh and bone; when she finished, she saw his arm from the shoulder down laying lifeless in a pool of blood after the spike had been drawn back into the earth. He threw his head back and screamed, the ground finally stilling completely. With nothing else holding him down, Callisto let him go so the Fade tear could pull him up into the sky, his body pressed against the Veil as it sucked him in.

"You will never regain what you've lost," he spit at them, even from so far up, voice trembling from extreme pain and blood loss. "You have nothing... compared to the power of a god."

The tear widened enough for him to slip in, disappearing forever as the sky closed. Leda's body was frozen while she thrashed against the confines of her mind, wanting to cry until she made herself sick. It was only when Callisto reached over and tentatively lifted the dagger from her finger did the other presence recede entirely, the new power that had been pulsating through her dissipating just as quick. Bereft of both, she stumbled, two pairs of arms catching her and keeping her upright.

"Holy shit." One pair belonged to Callisto, looking her over worriedly. "Are you hearing it? The Song of the Stone?"

Leda listened for the undercurrent that had lasted through the whole confrontation, but... "No. I-- it's gone."

"What does that mean...?" Callisto said it more to herself, looking at the dagger intently.

"He's gone, too." Leda glared at where the tear had been, lips wobbling. She tried moving her prosthetic hand again, but it was static. However, the change to stone seemed to have been permanent.

"Yep. Good riddance." The other pair belonged to Taash, who withdrew them now that it seemed likely like she wasn't going to fall. "You good?"

"No." She startled. "Cole 'n Dorian, they-- the floor kept--"

"They're fine, Emmrich's got them."

"Are ya sure?"

"Yes. We really need to all get out of here before something else collapses."

Leda cast her gaze down to all the blood on the ground, chest tightening. "I don't know what happened..."

"It's what happened to Harding. But yours didn't last; no idea why."

"Uh-huh…"

Callisto tugged on her arm. "We can contemplate it more elsewhere. And especially away from Solas's blood."

"I... I did this."

"Who cares? You heard what he said - what he chose to be his parting words to you." Another tug. "You gave him what he deserved."

What he deserved. What did she deserve?

"Bellara's okay!" Davrin called from across the room as Assan squawked triumphantly, breaking the tension just a bit.

"Oh, thank fuck." Callisto tugged harder. "Now we really need to go."

Her impulse was to stay and dwell on what happened, what she'd done - to hurt herself. But this wasn't like their last confrontation, where he had willingly went into the Fade and left her behind to cry alone. This time, it took him, all alone - and she had people all around her to snap her out of her stupor and take her back to warmth and comfort.

It was over.

"...Okay."

Chapter Text

The prison was the same - dark, desolate, seeping with desperation. There were no tricks nor backup ploys Solas could conceive of to escape once more, at least not at the moment. There would be time yet to form another plan, but without a connection, the beginning wasn't presenting itself to him as simply. Time was truly all he had at the moment - endless, boundless to the point where the world could be completely different again once he found his way back out. He would not have to live with that world, like he had been forced to live in the one he had just been torn from. He would succeed this time - he was a god.

What he did not have... was a space free of distraction.

"Hold still! I keep tellin' ya." Said the spirit of Compassion tending to him, wrapping his weeping arm stump in the leather strips that had been torn from his armor.

"Don't waste your time," the demon of Spite sneered from his other side; he was currently trying to hold them at arms length while they reached as far as they could to thumb at any one of the open wounds on his head. "No matter how much he bleeds, he can't die. He should suffer."

"He's stuck here! That's sufferin' enough!"

"Nah - it'll never be enough."

WE WILL NEVER BE DONE WITH YOU.

No - he couldn't have that plaguing him, either.

He did not know what magic or forces managed to pull in these beings into this restricted part of the Fade - the old Palace - alongside him. They could have very well found a way to follow him there purposefully, with how much the Veil had changed. Ultimately, they were all too perfect denizens of a place that was designed to be his worst nightmare. The spirits, it seemed, were the sorts who were attracted to watching specific mortals go about their mundane lives to the point of emulating them; so much so that Determination had been corrupted into Spite - the second he'd seen in a matter of days.

Compassion was Leda during the Inquisition - bright eyed, eager to help, and utterly oblivious. Spite was Leda as he had just seen her - jaded, anguished, and dedicated to hurting him. What he found peculiar - aside from being haunted by the woman twice over - was that though they took on her appearance and affectation, they knew who they were. What they were. A small mercy, he supposed.

"I do not require your help." Despite his words, he didn't move - as desperate as he was to get away from them, he did not want to risk twisting them. "Please, leave me be."

"I need to help. You need help."

"You, kiddo, need help if ya think he needs help." Spite pointed an accusatory finger at Compassion. "The only help he needs is bein' reminded what a fuckin' idiot he is."

"He was Wisdom... he can't be--"

"Direct your ire to me, only." Solas turned on Spite, glowering. "I will not allow them to turn because of you."

"Hmmm. Since ya told me not to, I'm only gonna be meaner to 'em." Solas rubbed his brow; perhaps the headache they would cause would kill him eventually, and the Veil would come down. "Hey! He's getting a headache and the Veil's gonna come down! Do something!"

Yet another problem - he could no longer keep his thoughts to himself.

Compassion immediately directed soothing energy at his temple - the magic was weak, but it gave some relief. Spite stalked back and forth, eyes narrowed as they tried to figure out what else they could do to him.

"One pain soothed... oof, all those cuts, but the arm's the big one. Priority. Don't want ya passin' out." They stood on their tiptoes, and before he could even wonder what they were doing, he felt a faint pressure on his cheek - a phantom kiss. Memories came unbidden, all the times Leda tried to sneak simple kisses in Skyhold, eventually getting too fast for him to turn away in time. All the times she'd start their encounters in the Fade with a cheek kiss, or a kiss to his hand - something all too tame to precede the passion that would follow.

"Awww, ya miss her." Spite mocked in a sing-song tone. "She doesn't miss you."

"Yes she does." Compassion finished binding his arm, tying it incredibly tight. "Felt it, before we were drawn in... didn't wanna let you go."

"Because she wished she could finish the job." Spite drew their hand across their throat, complete with a squelching sound.

"Her feelings matter not." Speaking to spirits was folly, he knew this - his thoughts rang louder to them than anything spoken. He couldn't help the kneejerk reaction, the instinctual urge to insist that she was nothing to him.

Was she? At this point, they might have been the only ones who could tell.

"You loved her!" Compassion's voice was airy, like he remembered it being when she would shyly shower him with compliments during the early days in Haven.

"Love her still." Spite's voice dripped with poison - like it had when she told him she would kill him. When she said he made her what she turned into. "You did. Ruin her, that is."

"The world would have swallowed her whole if she stayed the same." He winced as Compassion set about treating the large gash on the top of his head.

"It did anyway."

"You were her world." Compassion sighed. "So vivid was her dream of retreating to the middle of nowhere with you... a farm, peaceful, nothing but the mundane worries of a normal life."

"Sounds nice, doesn't it? Ya wished for it, too."

"Anyone can wish for something - the nature of wishing is inherently fanciful. Often senseless."

Compassion paused their ministrations, frowning down at him. "You wished for an end to tyranny. Made it happen. Why not this?"

"But see, when wishes aren't righteous enough, they're selfish. Save for the fact that your ascent - descent? - to Rebel Wolf was purely for yourself."

"What would spite know of righteousness? Your purpose is pettiness and ill will, nothing more."

Spite barked out a laugh. "Oh... you aren't petty?" He breathed in sharply, indignation inevitably bubbling in his veins.

"They're not wrong." Compassion stepped away from him, shrinking into themself. "Y’helped the most helpless, mostly for them, but all the others... who were they, compared to how you could hurt your old friends?"

"You were not there." Solas straightened, mouth twitching downwards as he folded his remaining arm behind his back.

"Your mind's more open than ya think. Makin' murals for us without ya ever havin' to lift a finger." Spite clicked their tongue. "Good thing she didn't chop off your paintin' arm."

" She didn't do it. Not really..."

"A Titan, perhaps many, commandeered her body due to her contact with the pure lyrium of the dagger. A different phenomenon than the powers that were bestowed upon Shaper Valta and Scout Harding. As to why..." He cleared his throat, "I do not care to ponder it."

"Was that raw honesty comin' outta your mouth? We should jump for joy, it's a fuckin' miracle."

"You should care." Compassion looked up at him with big, sorrowful eyes - the look Leda fixed him with whenever he rebuffed her. "She was so scared the whole time."

"And so were you." Spite came in close once more, and squatted a little next to his side. "It wasn't just touchin' the dagger. It was your blood." They poked his stab wound, causing him to flinch and clamp his jaw shut so not a single noise could escape. "What didja have to do to make the dagger, Solas? Must've been fucked up..."

"It was all fucked up. Every single bit." Compassion turned their head to peer into the inky blackness that surrounded the lot of them. "It's in here with ya somewhere... isn't it?"

"Don't remind him - he doesn't wanna pretend to care."

He pressed his hand to the wound, applying enough pressure that it aggravated more than it soothed. "Yes."

"Why aren't ya helpin' it?"

"Because nothing can be done."

"Something can always be done," Spite drawled.

"Not always. But in this case... yes." Compassion returned to fuss over him, pointedly eyeing his hand - flattened so hard against his wound he was gritting his teeth. "Please stop."

"He's just doing it so I won't. Don't worry, Solas - there are plenty other wounds on ya that I can bother. Not the ones that are bleedin', either."

"He's bleedin' everywhere - outside, and in."

He couldn't help but let out an indignant little scoff. Mythal oft told him he had a bleeding heart, gently chided him for it; then, thousands of years later, he heard the same levied at Leda. Hers would inevitably damn her or worse, so he thought. As for his... he had accounted for many contingencies caused by his, but not this. Never this.

"Something will be done." He pulled his hand away, leaving his side to throb dully. "Once I return."

"How? You gonna drive your thick head through the Veil 'n smash it to pieces that way?"

"Elvhenan was not built in a day. Unlike you, I possess ample patience to think it through."

Spite burst into laughter, Compassion watching them in utter confusion. "Is that so? I look forward to testin' it, then."

"Y'don't have to leave to change things! You can stay and fix, all at once. Heal."

"Nothing here can be fixed." He closed his eyes, slowly breathing out through his nose. "Especially not the blight."

"That's not the right name."

"It is the only one that fits."

"No - give them the respect they deserve and call them what they were."

He stiffened, raising his chin. He knows they can see the memories playing out in his mind, guilt cursing him relive it with near perfect clarity - the sundering, the earth stilling at the cost of the life within it.

"The shared dreams of the Titans and dwarves... their togetherness, oneness... givers of life and song..." Compassion held onto their shoulders, crossing their arms over each other. "Gone in an instant at your hand."

"Tranquility was a steep price for Mythal's continued trust in you." Spite cocked their head. "But you didn't have to pay it, so..."

"I paid by watching the Evanuris abuse it to abet their cruelty, and letting it go too far. And then, to rise to a world that had been infected by it despite my best efforts..." He clenched his hand into a fist. "The guilt has festered within me more than the blight - the dreams - ever could."

"Dreams aren't the point..." Compassion moved to put themself in his eye line, shifting to the side when he tried to turn away. "It's that they were taken at all."

Silence followed, more heavy and itchy than any venom that Spite could lob at him.

"Dreamin' was her favorite part of the day, after tendin' to the nugs." Compassion's mouth twitched up into the ghost of a smile, arms moving to cradle something nonexistent. "It meant she got ya all to herself."

"And you got her all to yours." Spite smirked. "How fittin' it was, then, that she couldn't dream anymore once ya finally left her for good. Heh - second time ya willin’ly sundered a Titan-Child. How'd that feel?"

Ya took everythin’ from me - my life, my freedom, my sanity - and now you took my arm! …What else are ya gonna take, huh? People I care about? My home? My entire fuckin’ race?

"...Necessary."

"It always is, in your mind.”

“I could not let her die.” His voice quivered.

“Why?”

“I owed it to her.”

“Which part of you did? The regretful part, or the loving part?”

“Enough.”

Perhaps their presence wasn’t an accident. An eternity spent alone with only himself, his uninterrupted thoughts through which he could justify everything he had ever done and tried to do… it would be too kind, compared to the torment of being challenged. To have a mirror held up to him at all times by something that wore the face of the only person who… who…

“It’ll never be enough,” Spite parroted.

“You owe her more than her life,” Compassion muttered, softly, sighing before finally getting back to work on his injuries. “You owe ‘em all more. You’ll be here a long time - time enough to visit the dreams and ease their anger…” He said nothing, focusing on his physical feelings of suffering so as to empty his mind of thoughts that would betray his intentions - or lack thereof. After long, Compassion pulled back in the middle of mending the skin of his neck, giving him that wide-eyed stare once more. “Only you can do it.”

“Ohhhh, they said your favorite phrase. How’re ya gonna compete with that?”

He huffed. “I expressed that to the ‘heroes’ of the world many a time, and never did they heed me. If they are so content to let their world shrivel and die with the Veil intact, so be it. I can only hope there will be civilization yet to salvage when I come back.”

“That really what ya believe?” Nothing. “Fine. Change your mind or not. We’re not goin’ away any time soon.” Spite laid themself down on the ground, moving to lounge on their side while they continued to stare him down.

“Lethallin …”   That startled him enough to break his concentration, utterly conflicted over hearing the elven affectation come from Compassion’s - Leda’s - voice. “You have never been the only one in great depths of pain. Not even here.”

“I know,” he murmured.

“I don’t think ya do. Maybe you’ll learn. Maybe you won’t. I hope ya will, but…” Compassion cast a pointed look off into the distance, their smile tinged with strain.

“That’s up to you.”

One more, Leda told herself. One more day of heartache before the healing could begin.

Despite her title, she had never attended a formal funeral. She had received a handful of invitations over the years, but all of them had gone unanswered. When people she had actually known died during the tenure of the Inquisition, there was too much going on to hold a ceremony (that, and they hadn't been important enough for the high-ranking Andrastians in Skyhold to come to her about putting on rites and pageantry). She supposed she was lucky, in a way, that they hadn't been a part of her life thus far - but it just went to show that her life had been miserable enough without people close to her dying all around her.

But now, at age forty-one, the time had finally come.

"Wow," left her as the Titan of Isana Negat came into view, stopping in her tracks to take in the heart-breaking sight.

"Yeah." Callisto came up next to her, shoving her hands into the pockets of her fancy suede coat. "I felt the same way."

"Has it been like that since...?"

"Since Solas? I'm guessing so." She took Leda by the arm and continued their trek through the snow, taking note of the dwarven reliefs on the walls. "The memory didn't tell us much, like if they could still move around after what happened. Either way, they're like this now." She hesitated. "Have you... you wouldn't--"

"M'not connected anymore. Can't move rocks or nothin'."

"That sucks. Seeing that happen to you was a lot, but it made me hopeful that at least one of us was gonna get to be like Harding."

"Still got the stone arm, but it's too heavy." She pulled her arm from Callisto's to motion to her notably prosthetic-less one. "Dunno yet if I'm gonna try to wear it, or get another wood one made."

"It being heavy seems counter-productive, no?"

"I feel like I gotta, though. Wear it. It's all it gave me, so..." She shook her head. "What are we gonna do about the dagger?"

Callisto whined, shoulders slumping. "Stone, don't ask me that, I have no idea. It might be safest with us, but who knows? My only other thought is to let Kal-Sharok hang on to it, see if they can make anything of it, but considering what it did both you and Harding... well..."

"Fuck, I dunno what happened. It didn't feel like it was me , just someone else puppetin' me and makin' magic happen."

"I think it was them." Callisto inclined her head toward the Titan's pained visage. "The Shade that had been hunting Harding. Maybe when she died, it had nowhere else to go again, so it just came back here even angrier, and then... and then something about the dagger made it find you...? I have no fucking clue."

"Do ya think it can see me?" Leda's voice came out small, eyes fixed in front of her.

"No. It's calm out here; I don't think it'd be if it could." Callisto pat her shoulder. "Someday, we'll delve back into the heart to get answers. This isn’t the day for it."

They continued onward, the snow getting higher as they reached the lookout point bracketed by braziers where Harding had brought her.

"'A good place to say goodbye'," she echoed, voice watery.

"Hey." Leda stopped her, craning her head. "Ya sure you can do this?"

"Pfft - I'm not the crier of the two of us." Leda smirked, the glassiness of Callisto's eyes noticeable from a mile away. They kept going until they reached the top step before the lookout proper, Callisto getting on her knees before the sizable pile of snow against the railing. "Here."

Leda knelt next to her, pulling her pack off her shoulder. Upon opening the top flap, she reached in and pulled out a broken, but sizable, piece of worn wood - the kind of wood that had been fashioned into something well-loved. Callisto, in turn, pulled the shortbow she'd carried off her back - a simple design, but also well tended to.

Upon closer inspection, both items had words carved into them: the bow, Lace Harding, and the wooden piece, Varric Tethras.

Callisto began to clear away some of the snow with her gloved hands. "Do you know how you're gonna get the rest of Bianca to Hawke?"

"When I get a chance, I'll go to the Lords and hand it off to Isabela. I think Hawke'll appreciate gettin' it from someone she knows more. Who--" she frowned, "who knew Varric more."

"You were the one who lived in Kirkwall with him after everyone else but Aveline fucked off. You knew him plenty."

"I dunno. Sometimes I felt like I was just a placeholder friend for him until he could see Hawke, or any of ‘em, again. Never admitted that to anyone before, but there it is." She scoffed. "Y'know I had a thing for him at one point?"

"Of course you did."

Leda managed a chuckle - a good sign. "It went away quick, and it was just me bein' lonely, I guess. When we were tryin' to think of ways we could con my way into the Merchant's Guild, he made a joke 'bout how we should have a fake marriage to get me a spousal seat. And I said 'hah, you're so funny, no,', but I thought about it. I thought about what a life with him would be like. How he could care about me for real." She shook her head. "But considerin' his taste in partners, I think I avoided makin' a bad mistake. For once."

"I considered hooking up with him too when we were on the road, you're not alone. Not that there were feelings involved in my thoughts, but... I dunno. The man pulled people toward him like nothing else. He'd say it was the chest hair, but I never thought it was anything impressive."

"I got more chest hair than him."

"Do you really? I don't have enough."

"I'll show ya sometime." She pursed her lips, setting the smallest piece of Bianca they could keep for themselves into the snow. "He wouldn't wanna be buried near anythin' dwarven. But he can deal with it."

"He should've been more proud of it. Who he was. Dwarves have been carrying the safety of Thedas on our backs for twenty years." Callisto blew out a long, shuddering breath. "Harding stared down a mutated elven god, even if she didn't make it out alive."

"I don't think we're real proud of who we are in general. Dunno if we'll ever be, even if we try to spread the truth around."

"Should we?" Leda raised a brow. "Spread the truth around?"

"Dunno. We should, but it'll make everythin' worse in a different way." She dared a look at the Titan again, visions of her face wrenched in that very same expression passing through her mind. "I wanna be honest."

"Maybe once things are better. A year or two. Ugh, maybe that's just wishful thinking." Callisto rubbed the back of her neck. "Start by bringing people we trust here. Evka, your Arcanist--"

"Dagna would flip her shit." Leda grabbed a handful of snow, watching it slowly fall between her fingers. "Maybe not Warden Brosca. Not yet. She might lead the revenge charge."

"I don't know. I don't know anything about who she's become, or where she is. I just know she wasn't at Weisshaupt. I-- for now, I had a thought."

"Yeah?"

"'Isatunoll'. Harding and I never figured out what it exactly meant, but... in essence, it's unity, isn't it? Togetherness. If we can't be a whole, we can try to at least find each other. Establish more topside communities, especially now that Minrathous is fucked. Dwarves really thrived there, and I haven’t even gotten any news about the state of the Ambassadoria - if the darkspawn fucked it up, then we’re really displaced. So… we’ll band together and thrive other places. North and South. And, if Kal-Sharok allows, we can bring more of us. To show everyone how they’re living well, or even to find a place there."

"Ya make it sound easy."

"It won't be - we're all stubborn assholes. But maybe your faith in people's rubbed off on me, I dunno."

"And you keepin' your head on a swivel's rubbed off on me." Leda shrugged. "We can try. I'd rather do that as Inquisitor than have to go back to Ferelden and figure out the logistics of relief efforts." She buried her face in her hand. "I dunno if anyone in Orzammar is even still alive..."

"We don't have to think about this now, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent." Callisto rubbed her back. "Let's just keep focusing on the really sad thing in front of us at the moment."

"Y’didn't have to put it like that." Leda watched as Callisto settled the bow in the snow alongside the piece of Bianca, and then... "Uh... what now?"

"I brought some sayings that we can fashion into rites so we don't have to, you know, make speeches." She pulled two pieces of folded up parchment from her pocket, handing one to Leda. "They're Kal-Sharokian pillars. Tenets of their society. After what we found out about the Titans, they mean all the more." She waited until Leda had unfolded hers and skimmed over the words before clearing her throat.

"We are kin, bound by blood - blood shared and blood spilled in the dark. We are a shout from the deep places. Dissonance and harmony - a chorus, sung by the many, in one voice. We are the living--" Callisto stopped with a loud sniffle, wiping her face aggressively, "we are the memory of our ancestors, who dwell within us. We remember, and are not alone."

"'N are not alone," Leda echoed, before moving to rub Callisto's arm.

"I fucking hate funerals."

"It can be over, if ya want. They wouldn't want us to be sad."

"It's all I can offer them." Callisto shut her eyes. "Especially Lace."

"And she would wag her finger and get in your face if she knew you were cryin' over her at you guys’ special lookout. She might even throw one of her clogs at your head."

"Damn, I would've loved to see her get that mad."

"Just think about that, then." Leda positioned her hand above the snow. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

They both set about burying the items in the pile, leaving about a quarter of each sticking out. The best they could do for tombstones, at least for now.

"Atrast tunsha, salrokas."

"Atrast tunsha." Leda blew one kiss to the handle piece, and one more to the bow. She waited for Callisto to tease her, but it never came - she looked over to see the woman sporting a devastated look that was woefully out of character.

"You know," She started, not entirely sure where she was going yet. "It was-- Varric sung Hawke's praises in both the Kirkwall book 'n the Inquisition book. There was this one part in the chapter about her workin' with us where he went on about how two of Thedas's greatest heroes 'shook Skyhold's very foundations' just bein' in the same room. I never felt that way, talkin' to her. She was so... she was just a bad vision of what this mess was gonna turn me into. Maybe even worse - she barely talked, was real skittish, 'n just not real interested in bein' my friend. I wanted somebody to weather the storm with who knew what it was like to be the one person everybody was lookin' to, but I didn't get that. I barely saw her, and once the mess with the Wardens was over, she was gone. I got one letter from Warden Brosca, but at this point, I dunno if I actually did or if it's some fantasy I managed to convince myself happened."

She looked back up at Callisto with a shaky smile, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. "Ya just-- you straight up volunteered for this shit. Wasn't fair that ya had to be the Big Hero outta nowhere, but I guess we shoulda known better."

"I'm still waiting for my payout from the Tethras estate for this job." Callisto smirked, just the barest bit, unable to stop it from melting into something more genuine. “Or whoever the money went to…”

"Everybody everywhere should pay ya tenfold. I'll even chip in."

"Pssh - I should be paying you."

"We can call it even." She squeezed her hand again. "Point is... I dunno if we're friends or not, but I just-- thank you. For helpin' me get through this. For bein' strong when I couldn't.”

"For heckling Solas, you mean."

Leda still stiffened a little at the sound of his name, but not as much as she used to. "If it'd make you happy for me to call it that, then yeah." She leaned into her. "We stood together. As heroes. As dwarves . It meant everythin' - without ya, who knows what woulda happened."

"We won't have to know. Not yet." She flipped some of her hair over her shoulder. "Disaster. Ruin. People screaming in the streets. That's what always happens when I'm not around."

"Uh-huh." Leda released their hands, so she could wrap her arm around Callisto's shoulders and pull her into her side. "That stuff happens when I am around."

"Good thing we've developed a working relationship going forward, then." The younger woman chuckled, before they sat in silence for a few moments. "Kalnath-par kallak. Kalnath-gat parthas."

"That sounds familiar... means we're friends, right?"

"'Family through war. Family unto peace.' That means I'm gonna be expecting you at every single one of my dinner tables, salroka - the Lighthouse, mine and Emmrich's, wherever my family is going to set up shop next... all of it."

"Are ya sure?"

"No, I'm being a cunt and playing a trick on you while we set up our friends' makeshift graves." Callisto squeezed Leda's shoulder. "Yes, I'm sure."

"That's amazin'! Thank you!"

"You don't have to thank me for extending you basic hospitality."

"Not basic at all." Leda kissed the top of Callisto's head before pulling away, moving to cup her cheek. "Means everythin'."

"Right, right - you think big, loud dinners with dozens of people are a good thing."

"Don't you?"

"I used to, but I'm looking forward to getting some peace and quiet for once in my fucking life."

Leda gave her cheek one last squeeze before settling her hand back in her lap. "Where are ya goin' after all the aftermath’s squared away?"

"Nevarra City, I'm guessing - Em's whole life is there, and it's not like I'm eager to try to pick mine back up while in Minrathous is in shambles." She grinned. "I'm gonna buy him a house."

"Aww. That's so romantic."

"Yeah. I'll make that man question and regret trying to push me away for the rest of his life." At Leda's questioning look, Callisto waved her hands frantically. "Through making him feel loved and appreciated! I'm not a monster - just spiteful."

"You're really intense. You and Lucanis's demon must have a lot to talk about."

"Heh. Maybe so." Callisto lightly nudged her with her elbow. "What about you? You were quite popular when everyone reconvened this morning."

"Kinda... I guess..."

"Don't play humble with me."

"I'm not! It was overwhelmin' just how many people were like 'hey, you should definitely come and see me sometime!' Not just an empty-ended, 'oh, yes, visit me, but don't actually because I have my own life 'n I'm just bein' polite'. I mean, first, Davrin was goin' on and on about how the only griffons in Thedas are livin' in Arlathan now, and then he told me that the forest is 'nug heaven' at least twice. Nug heaven! Bellara even jumped in and told me she'd enjoy tellin' me 'bout the artifacts, and even seein' if there was one I could use."

"Damn, so that's--"

"I dunno who told Lucanis I've been dyin' to go back to Antiva, or if he could just smell it on me, but he said he'd show me around Treviso whenever we both had time. Would even help me find a house there."

"Maybe he--"

"And then,” Leda flapped her arm out, nearly whacking Callisto with it, "Neve said that if I wanted to protect good people by hurtin' bad people, I could join her anytime and she’ll pay me in more fried fish than I could eat in a lifetime. I love fried fish..." She had to take a moment to catch her breath. "The last one would make the most sense, considerin' Dorian wants me to live with him in the palace once its all cleaned up and his position as Archon is secure. I mean, I wanna help 'im secure it too, but..." She frowned.

"It'll be bloody?"

"Not that. It will be, but I support him. To a point." She turned her body and moved to sit on her rear so she could stretch her legs out. "Havin' that kind of responsibility on your shoulders is hard enough, but bein' in charge of somewhere with corruption and the slimiest of humanity by the bucketful is just-- I'm scared."

"I don't know Dorian like you know him, but what I can say is that I really, really doubt that will happen to him. He has the benefit of having full certainty of who he is, and not adhering to outdated customs. Uncertainty and tradition is a lot of what breeds Venatori and other extremists, I think."

"Sometimes, you gotta become what you hate to get things done." Leda gave her a rueful smile. "Do things you know are wrong."

"I'm gonna tell him you compared him to Solas - that'll set you straight."

"Stop, this is serious!" Despite her words, Leda let out a little huff of a laugh. "Everyone changes. Sometimes too much."

"Then deal with it if it happens. Don't worry about it now - at this point in time, it might warp your friendship, and then where will you two be?"

"In the gutter."

"Sounds about right."

"I guess ya got a point." She knew full well the worries would come back, but like Callisto had just said, she'd try to deal with them then. "But I dunno if I can be in the palace itself right now. After... you know."

"Ohhh. Right." All their blood, especially Solas's, had no doubt left a permanent stain on the ground of the throne room. "Well, look at the bright side - Dorian is most definitely gonna use the structural damage as an excuse to completely redesign the entire interior. So, at some point, it won't be the same room anymore."

"But I'll know. I'll know it's the same place I--" She physically recoiled from the words, "I cut his arm off." Callisto started clapping. "That doesn't help!"

"Am I the only one who thinks that was one most amazing things to ever happen? First off, it’s an equivalent exchange - he took your arm, you took his arm. Balance.” Leda groaned. “Whenever we finally tell people what happened to the Titans, we're not leaving that out. Everyone will know. Besides... it wasn't really you who did it."

"I wanted to do worse."

"I mean, in my opinion, he would've deserved it." She held up her hand. "Don't protest. He's not around anymore for his precious little feelings to be hurt. And because of that, we're not talking about him - we’re moving on, both of us."

“If ya say so.”

“...Do you miss him?”

“Not really.” She rubbed the front of her throat. “I’m just sad it couldn’t’ve been different. That I latched onto the last person who coulda ever given me the love ‘n peace I needed.”

“Things’ll get better, now that he’s gone. Yeah?”

"Okay."

"Where do you think you're gonna go, until the palace is fixed?"

The question brought a smile to Leda's face again. "I really don't know. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can go anywhere I want without somethin' bad nippin' at my heels. I'll probably still have to go back to Skyhold to delegate even more, but after that... so long as my lil guys and Cole are with me, I can go wherever with whoever."

"I'm surprised Cole's not with you now."

"He wanted to be, but this was something for just us to do. 'Two mere dwarves'." Leda smirked. "'Sides, when I left, he 'n Manfred were happy as clams."

"Curiosity and Compassion, heh. Em's probably watching them with rapt attention."

"Cole’s got way more patience to be able to teach Manfred to talk better than Emmrich. No offense to him."

"Oh, full offense. I almost got into a fight with him over having a problem with 'dunno' instead of 'don't know'. I say 'dunno', for fuck's sake." Leda snorted at how red her face had gotten. "Oh. Guess I'm still annoyed about it."

"Guess you are." Leda pursed her lips in thought. "I could even... y'know, the Vi'Revas is big enough to fit a war nug through. I could stay at the Lighthouse - I bet it'd make a stable 'n pen for me 'n everythin'. It didn't seem like anybody was gonna pick up 'n leave permanently - I know Taash didn't have any plans to go anywhere, and Davrin said Assan loved it there so he'll probably spend a lotta time there too."

"I... didn't even realize."

"It makes sense. It's the Fade - it made all these special places for everyone so they didn't miss home all too much. It's a special place, period. I've barely been in there long, and even I can tell."

Callisto grinned, casting her gaze up to the sky. "You make a fair point." She started twirling a good chunk of hair around her gloved finger. "With the eluvians at our finger tips, I guess no one spot has to be home. We can be everywhere."

"Even here." Leda gently patted the mound of snow covering Harding's bow.

"Are you implying we're gonna be buried here too?"

"No! I was tryin' to do somethin' beautiful, and ya ruined it!" Leda shoveled some snow into her palm and threw it at Callisto's head.

"You wanna build a house that's looked over by the biggest, most horrifying corpse you've ever seen for all eternity?" Callisto managed to get out in between snort-laughs.

"Ah, fuck you." Leda leaned against her side again, foregoing the urge to turn this into a snowball fight. She didn't wanna risk messing up their careful work.

"You can, if you want." She picked up her head in question. "Live in the Lighthouse. It's not mine, so you shouldn't feel the need to ask me, but--"

"It's yours." Leda smiled, holding out her hand for a shake. "So thank you."

"And I'll even be super generous and not charge you a single coin." Callisto took it, shaking it firmly. "For the first year."

"On second thought, I'll take my chances in the forest."

"Uh-huh." Callisto picked herself up with a groan so loud it echoed off the distant mountaintops, causing them both to lapse into more laughter as she helped Leda stand. "C'mon - we should leave them to rest. Meanwhile, you and I get to attend a meeting about Minrathous recovery plans."

"That's the kind of heroic stuff Varric never wrote about."

"Now that he's outta the game, we should finance the next great Thedosian novelist and make sure they include all the mundane shit."

Leda snorted, and they began the trek back to the eluvian. "Can't wait. Let's go home."

Home. Something the Lighthouse had been unaccustomed to being for millenia. After waking, even its previous owner could not bring of himself to think of it as such anymore - it housed the Vi’Revas, served as a base of operations for planning and contemplating when he wasn’t travelling to and fro between eluvians. The Lighthouse would be whatever it had to be for those who dwelled within it - but the arrival of eight disparate people in search of purpose, of belonging, breathed life into it in a way it desperately needed. To become their safe haven where they could lay down their weapons and rest their heads - their guiding light in the storm.

As soon as it was made aware that the Inquisitor - the other dwarven hero of the Fade it had the pleasure to host, if only for a few days - sought shelter there, it once again began the process of making the perfect space for her. Uncovering what was hidden, and shifting it accordingly. What its mortal residents had yet to realize was that, to do so, other rooms that had outlived their purpose had to disappear.

When everyone met in the dining room once more to discuss the future, the Caretaker appeared in the library, floating in front of the sliding stone entrance that led to the music room. “Come, now. This door is best left closed.” 

With some reluctance, two of the wisps left their receptacles, flying off in the direction of Neve’s office. The last stayed put, chittering stubbornly.

“Time marches ever onward. There is no use for what is inside - the woe and obsession that transpired.”

Clearly intrigued, the wisp flew inside, reaching the room proper just as the Caretaker manifested alongside it.

During the Wolf’s uthenera, the room was rather empty. The only instruments to speak of were the piano and lute, position just off the center of the room, while the rest of the space was used for miscellaneous storage. When he awoke and returned, it changed drastically - furniture from southern Thedas began to populate the space, alongside food items he compulsively hoarded to be available while he worked. Not his work to bring down the Veil, no - his painting, the only way he could express himself truthfully.

Recreating all that he had painted during the Inquisition was compulsive. At first, it had been to remember his failings, where he’d slipped up, alongside the fond little memories he had made with specific people. Doing so, however, hadn’t been enough. Even after he was finished, he would spend days correcting little mistakes he perceived, or redoing specific areas if he thought he had misremembered them. And then… after the time the Caretaker had heard him scream and sob and throw things at the walls, he never returned to that room again.

Callisto hadn’t, either, after she had accessed the portal for the first time. “Too personal,” she had remarked to them with her nose scrunched up. “Bad vibes.”

Indeed.

“Do you understand?” They said to the wisp. They chittered affirmatively, a little down. “We will find somewhere better for you to stay.”

They left together, and once they were back outside, Caretaker directed their energies towards the door, sealing the gaps and the concrete and closing the door forever. No one else, at least for now, would see all that lied beyond. The music. The beautiful view from the windows. The murals cataloguing the experiences of the Inquisition…

Almost entirely covered by mad, miserable, desperate splatters of pink.