#I love how nice Emmrich is🥺. so respectful of the Dead ugh I love him

[fenharel-babe]

BROOO THIS WAS SOOO GOOD BABE!!! AAAAAAAH!!!! SOLAS WISHING HE HAD SPENT LONGER TAKING IN HER APPEARANCE, LEARNING SHE WAS KILLED BY ELLGY AND HE KNEWWWWW AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!

Poor Solas……my man was so close to losing her forever, and that thought broke him out. It broke him out of his plan only to put him into another prison, one idk if he could EVER get out of. If she wasn’t there, then he wouldn’t be able to. No other hand would he grasp to get out of a hole or that prison, it would have to be HERS. AND SHE NEVER WOULD BE THERE AGAIN!!!!! Gosh that hurts.

And DORIAN!!! I LOVE DORIAN STANDING UP FOR HER WHEN SHES NOT THERE!!! HE MENTIONS HOW SHE LOVED HIM AND THE WORLD!!!! Dorian was NOT going to let Solas get away with this, with leading to her death. And I love him supporting her being like “go take wolfy home🥹” I LOVE HIM!!!!!

Babe this was soooo delicious. Thank you for this meal💙💙💙💙.

@fenharel-babe this is your fault. You left some tags and… time for me to live up to the gut-wrench of my name, I guess.

Memory was cruel.

His was sharp, acutely efficient at recalling the most minute details, from a scent on the breath of an Elvhen noble to the pauses between words meant to convey emphasis.

He could remember the first time he saw her. Laid flat on a sour straw pallet, drenched in sweat, the green glare of his Mark on her palm. Solas hadn’t focused much on her face then; he’d noted the Dalish markings of Mythal and that was enough of a reason not to examine the woman’s features for too long.

Would that he had. Would that he had simply stopped and allowed each and every single moment of their time together stretch for as long as they possibly could. There was always something drawing his attention. Always the next event, or mission. Always a bit of research.

And there was the matter of the Inquisitor’s own duties. She had been cast headlong into a den of vipers and she was at war from all sides, besieged and harried, fighting for not only her people and the world… but herself. Her personhood.

Her true self.

“I feel safe with you, my Solas,” she’d said once.

He could remember smiling at being called hers. He wanted to be. He longed to rise in the morning, warmed by her body and spirit, to live days at her side performing only simple tasks of the home together. It was the dream he liked best, even if it increasingly cut away at his heart; dreams with no chance of coming true were often jagged, weighty things.

Solas had also taken pride in the fact that out of all of their companions, he was the one in which she sought refuge and respite. He was the calm for her storm. There were times when he felt that his heart could soar for her, on the wind of her success and triumph…

Now, Solas felt as if his chest contained a fractured shard of obsidian. It sliced away at him with each breath, each push of blood through his lyrium-formed veins.

She lay still. As still as she had in Haven. The arm he’d severed some years back rested at her side. Her hair, longer with time, fanned out behind her head. Her face was serene and soft as driven snow. Not a crease, not a flaw; the blood from the wound in the center of her body had been cleaned away.

She could have been one of his paintings.

Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain were no more. Rook and the surviving Veilguard core team were quiet now, mourning their own dead. Morrigan was… somewhere. The various groups Rook had allied with were working on the wounded, fighting. Trying.

He hadn’t even been able to fight for her. She had been gone when he’d reached her. Face slack. Eyes wide open. She’d looked so small. Abandoned. Alone.

The Nevarran professor, Volkarion, Solas recalled numbly, had helped him bear up the Inquisitor. He was a slender man, graying of hair. But with kind eyes and an even kinder heart. He’d not made Solas speak while he made a place for them. Emmrich had even been so good as to find something to place under her head, and covered her with his own cloak.

It had been hours since it was all over. Solas hadn’t moved. He’d sat beside her, clasping her hand, watching her face. Pleading. Pleading with whatever gods there had ever been, in dreams or in the waking world, pleading with his own magic, with any Spirit that might hear him…

Elgar’nan had stabbed her with a blight tendril. He’d laughed, sensing Solas’ shock upon seeing her. Connecting the dots, as Sera once said.

Something in the mere recollection of their old Inquisition partner broke loose a final barrier within him, and Solas leaned on the table where Emmrich had laid his love, and wept.

He touched her arm, her shoulder, her face. Whispered her name. She had only wanted him to love her. And he had been too bent on his own internal morality that he’d refused both of them what they truly desired. Over and over he had pushed her away, but she had never stopped following him.

Solas had heard her calling out to Rook in the battle, Elven flying from her tongue, strong and swift. She’d moved with a grace befitting Andruil, quick and agile. Determined. She’d run to him, intent on freeing him from a huge arm of Blight. And she’d succeeded... Her life was the price for his freedom.

“Vhenan,” Solas begged. “I stopped, I- I will not… please. Please.” She, of course, did not answer. All Solas could do was hold her dead hand, kiss her dead lips, and hate every fiber of his being for bringing her to this fate.

It was exactly what he had done. He might as well have plunged the Fang into her heart, as well as Varric’s. He’d never deserved a second of her time. He’d never earned the gentle touches, the embraces round his back that made him want to melt… the kisses. The precious touches of her hands.

“She got your letter.”

Solas shuddered, unable to lift his head from her. But the knowledge seemed to claw its way through him, a demon born of grief. She’d come because of him. Why had she loved him? What in him had she been so… why? Why couldn’t she have loved one of the others? Blackwall… Thom? Or the General? Bull… they would have been good to her.

“For what it’s worth… she wouldn’t have been anywhere else. She spoke of you so… she never gave up. You proved her right. Stopping…”

“I killed her… I-“

Rook drew near, boots scuffing the ground. Their hand rested on his back. “… I’m so sorry, Solas. She deserved that future she wanted… she dreamed of being with you, you know? You were happiness to her… even just… the thought of you.”

“I wish she’d never loved me,” Solas whispered, cradling her face in his hands. He’d never held her with abandon before, placing his hands exactly where he wanted. Where she wished. He could never.

“Solas… I’m sorry but… I have an idea.”

Solas didn’t immediately look up. But he sighed, heavy, exhausted… he hoped he was dying. He hoped it would all just stop. Drawing back, he kept the Inquisitor’s hand, brushing his lips to her knuckles. Her fingers.

“Please leave me alone,” he asked in a gray, lifeless voice.

“It is just that… the Veil needs a source of power. To remain effective, a life must supply it.”

“Please…”

“You’re not hearing me, Solas. If your life could sustain the Veil… it could sustain her. I am a necromancer. Her spirit is here, with you. It will always be, until you release it. Stop for a moment… feel for her.”

Rook’s hand withdrew, giving Solas space. He lifted his head a bit, letting his eyes close. Tears fell across his cheeks, down his neck. His mind was so very tired, battered. He wished to stop… to cease.

“Vhenan?”

All at once, there she was. Warm. The light. He couldn’t see her but… she was there. As if his use of the name, her name, had given her just enough tether to let him see her.

“What must I do?” Solas half-sobbed, opening eyes that pled with the Professor, and then with Rook, who clasped his shoulder. Steadying him.

“Shed your blood, for the Veil and for her, let… let them mix.”

“Dorian.” How long the Wizard had been there, Solas didn’t know. But the man looked every bit as wrecked as Solas felt. They looked at each other across the broken down courtyard, matching haunted stare for haunted stare.

“I’m here for her, Solas. This wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for you… but she wants… wanted you. You fail, at least you’re protecting the world she loved. The world she died for.” Then Dorian’s face darkened, hardening. “And you will protect it.”

Solas swallowed, nodding once. There weren’t any words to speak.

Rook slipped something into Solas’ hand. The dagger. “Here… best hurry.”

He’d never done anything so easily in his long life as draw the blade over his hand. It stung, but he turned toward the glowing rift behind them, and slung the cupped handful of his own blood at it. It pulsed as if receiving it. Then Solas gingerly pulled open the Inquisitor’s tunic and laid the flat of his cut palm over the wound near her heart.

“Please,” he whispered, bending close to her, gathering her up to his chest. “Vhenan, please.”

But she just slumped there, her head nestled into the hollow of his shoulder. Not a stir of breath. Not a twitch.

Dorian stepped forward but Emmrich held up a warning hand. “The bond must be made. Give it a moment.”

Rook fidgeted, rocking side to side worriedly.

Only the necromancer watched with a serene understanding. And then… a slow smile.

“Mm… what… Solas? Solas…”

He wept. He’d broken before Mythal, as she released him. He’d shed tears so often in the Fade that Spite had remarked that he smelled of them… as well as in the Lighthouse. But never like this. Solas collapsed, knees buckling under him. He pressed his face into the Inquisitor’s lap, clutching her to him, unable to do anything else.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry-“

“Solas! Solas, Vhenan, Vhenan.”

She was crooning at him, her voice was divine, she was alive, she was alive!! Her hand smoothed over his neck, the back of his hand and shoulders. Then she made him look at her, and she smiled…

“Ar lath ma,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes. “I knew you could save us. I knew you could.”

He surged up into her arms, lifting her, shivering under her kiss at his forehead and temple, and then, miracle of miracles, Solas kissed her. It was a tearful, graceless thing full of trembling lips and hands that clutched at the other too tightly.

And it was perfect.

How Solas allowed her to leave his arms, he couldn’t ever know. She didn’t let go of him, though; she gave him her prosthetic hand to close his around.

Dorian wept but kissed his best friend’s forehead. “Take your wolf on home, now.”

Rook and Emmrich gave her encouraging smiles.

She tugged at his hand, giving him a wide, unrepentant smile. “Vhenan. Ir ghilana.” So he allowed her to lead him. Up the steps. Across the platform.

“Hamin.”

“Solas. Garas.”

He drew her close, close enough to see the flecks of green dance in her eyes. Her alive, vibrant, empowered eyes. “Ar ghilas vir banal… .” She was bound to him, to his life force… but the thought of her suffering his own fate. There would be a time where he may find atonement… but peace… no. Not if she remained. But she should remain.

The Inquisitor shook her head and smiled. There was nothing but pride and love in her face. It made Solas want to bow down to her. “Tel’banal ar ama. Vir shiral malasa… bellanaris.”

She kissed him. Short and gentle. It took his very breath. And then she tugged at him again. “Garas.” When the rift sealed behind them, neither looked back.