#I like to dance on the edge of “what's solavellan and what's not”

[greypetrel]

Solas Claus is coming to town. 🎶

Yes Aisling maybe telling your child that the Dread Wolf brings gifts to good children wasn't your best idea ever. Particularly if said wolf actually shows up.

"Just a quick sketch" of the peaceful, absolutely relaxing First Day eve these two had. Related fic linked!

[crabs-with-sticks]

For the DADWC, from the "It's all about the YEARNING" prompt list: "Just let me look at you for a little bit."

Tumblr is being a bastard about me posting this rip. But have a whole bunch of solavellan fluff where Solas is definetly NOT pouting. @dadrunkwriting

Respite Ghilara Lavellan x Solas

1375 words, brief suggestive flirting

No matter what Dorian said, Solas wasn’t pouting. And he certainly wasn’t sulking. He wasn’t pouting over studying alone. He wasn’t pouting about the music that was swirling through the gaps in the door to the rotunda. And he most certainly, and most ardently, was not pouting about the fact that Ghilara was busy tonight.

Because that was something that teenagers did the first time they were in an actual relationship. Pouting was for men far less mature than he was, boys with a couple thousand years less experience than he. So he absolutely, very definitely was NOT pouting. Or sulking. Or brooding. Or moping.

He knew that she was a very busy woman. He knew that she was very important and had so much on her plate. He knew that nearly every person in Thedas was watching her to see if she would bring ruin of salvation. He knew that, in the grand scheme of things, the fact that she had to attend a political ball held in her honour, was a very small deal.

But he still found his mind unable to focus on the book in front of him, his thoughts turning to the knowledge of how she felt curled up in his lap. The way her hair smelled like honey and thyme and brushed soft against his nose. The way her hair curled up, tickling him under the chin. The press of her back against him.

And then it was just a simple jump across to thoughts of what she must be doing now. How she would be asked to dance by the swarms of noblemen and women that had wormed into Skyhold for the event. The thought of their hands brushing against her back as they danced, their hands entwined as they tried to rationalise her power with their hatred of her people.

He wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t! He was near certain that tomorrow he would have a full cuss filled rundown from her of the event. Complaining about the stuffy nobles, their tedious dances, their boring small talk and their stupid food. But that knowledge did very little to soften the ache in her chest that longed for her.

Okay so maybe he was pouting. But only a little!

He sighed and snapped the tome in front of him closed. He strode over to the wall of the rotunda, eyeing the latest piece of the mural he had been working on. He was still in the early stages of planning it, only having sketched out a few ideas on paper.

He was so focused that he never had a chance to hear the soft slide of the door opening. Or a person slipping through until he felt the brush of a body against his back, and a face slinking up to press a kiss to his cheek. He turned around and nearly took the other person out with him as he moved wildly.

A woman’s chuckle echoed through the rotunda. “I surrender! I surrender!”

Something seemed to settle within Solas’ chest and his entire body relaxed around it, a smile popping up on his face. “Ilara!” He said, catching her in her arms even though she had long since steadied herself.

He pulled her close to him. He pressed his lips to her grinning lips and stepped back until he felt the edge of the couch against the back of his legs. His hands were on her back, feeling the even bumps of vertebrae under the pads of his fingers. Whatever she was wearing it was open backed and his hands slipped down her spine, sliding a fingers length under the fabric, pulling her even closer.

His mouth was still on hers, inhaling her as if she was the oxygen necessary for life. Not breaking their kiss, he pulled her down with him to the couch. He came back up for air, but Ghilara only had time to let out the first melodic notes of a giggle before his mouth was on hers again swallowing the sound.

“So did you miss me?” She asked, her face so close to his own that he could feel her lips moving around the words.

He chuckle, “was it that obvious? But what are you doing here? Don’t you have a ball to attend?”

She pulled back from him, her teeth biting at her lower lip and a blush climbing onto her cheeks. “I may…have gotten bored and snuck away…? I’m hoping nobody will notice.”

His hands were still on her back, and he slipped them further down until he could feel the bony vertebrae give way to softer, fuller flesh. “I doubt they will miss you. There are always so many dark corners for two people to vanish into at events such as these.”

“Solas, are you proposing to ravish me right here and now?” She whispered, waggling her eyebrows with frankly impressive alacrity.

“I do find myself hungry for dessert.”

She grinned, “now, I would normally consider your offer, but unfortunately I think Josie and Leliana might kill me if I ruin any part of this outfit.”

He smiled, the playful lust pulling back from his eyes to be replaced with utter fondness. Pulling her up to sit on his lap he said, “well we couldn’t have that. For I am sure you are most beautiful.”

“You’re sure are you?” She retored, acting haughty and offended, though he could see the playful spark in her eyes.

He could feel the blush spreading across his face and up to the tips of his ears. “I must admit, I have not actually had that much opportunity to admire your appearance this evening. I was missing you and now here you are.”

“Oh yes, Dorian said you were pouting.”

“I was not- anyway, that is besides the point.” He stood the two of them up and took a few steps back so that he could take in her form fully. She started towards him but he reached out, holding his hand out to slow her movement. “Just let me admire you for this moment ma vhenan. I should not ever want to forget this.”

And he did. Her bone white hair had been braided half up from her face, the rest curling in running waves to brush against her shoulders. The braids were woven between antlers- halla he thought- which had been carved with swirling leaves. It was a subtle look, the way the white of her blended with the white of the antler. Similar in colour enough that it did not draw away from her with gaudy colours or metals, but instead allowed her natural beauty to stand on its own.

The curls drew the eye down to her dress, which was a light leaf green, embroided with flowers and leaves of the same colour- giving it texture without it being gaudy. White beads brought out the colour of her hair; settled across the hem like morning dew on grass. The neckline plunged to just below her sternum, showing of the muscles of her body, and the soft hang of her breasts. The dress was loose, with a full skirt made of layer upon layer upon layer of near sheer green fabric. It was freeflowing, rather than the usual fashion for skirts stiffened with layers of petticoats or crinolines, and the sleeves were wide and draped down to her elbows. It reacted with every graceful move she made, the fabric swirling as if caught up in an invisible wind.

Ghilara was blushing, he knew, picking at her fingernails. But she gave him a twirl, and the dress fanned out around her, reminiscent of a swell at sea. The back was open as he had felt earlier, showing off the archer’s muscles she had developed from decades of practice.

Matching her timing her stepped forwards and slowed her spin, stepping behind her and entwining their fingers together. “You like it then?” Ghilara sighed as he pressed his lips to the nape of her neck.

“I would love you in anything,” he said against her skin, lips brushing against her as he spoke the words. He tucked his chin up onto her shoulder, leaning his head against her own. ���But yes…since you asked.”

AN: For those interested, I based the dress Ghilara is wearing off of this one by Teuta Matoshi (I adore basically every single thing they do and would 100% get one if they weren't a few grand each T-T)

[elveny]

Solavellan ❤️ 21. … leaving hickeys on the other’s neck

I’m sorry this took so long, but as an apology, this actually also got long. And explicit ;)

|| For the ficlet prompts || Read it on AO3

______

“Are you alright?”

Lyssa’s voice reached his ear just before she laid her hand on the small of his back, and Solas let out a long sigh. He stood in the shadows beneath the pillars leading into the garden, staring out into the night. Lyssa had seen him slip outside half an hour ago already. But she had been caught in the talks and false compliments, the flirting and dancing around the important topics that the diplomats were so fond of, so she hadn’t been able to follow him until now. The silence and cool night air was a welcome reprieve from the heat and too many people inside that had left her tense and on edge.

“No,” he confessed, and the line between his eyebrows told her that he was still barely containing his fury. A muscle worked in his jaw as he clenched his teeth, but when she murmured his name and let her hand wander up his back, he let out a long, strained breath and closed his eyes.

“What has made you so angry?” Lyssa asked softly. It was not the first time they were attending one of the diplomatic festivities Josephine was so fond of and that the Inquisition relied upon for support, and she knew that most of the time, Solas even enjoyed such gatherings. He found the talks and dances intriguing, the battle with words and the secrets being exchanged. But today, he had been on edge nearly from the beginning, his face darkening as he watched the crowd, the attention slathered onto her.

“Gaspard,” Solas answered curtly.

“Ah,” Lyssa nodded quietly, looking to the floor.

The Orlesian emperor had been getting more bold lately in his attempts to make her come to meet him. There had even been talk of a more official connection between them. He was still unmarried, and she was powerful, a power he craved. Any attempts had been blocked, of course. Lyssa was even sure that Josephine had not even told her about everything, but today, several of the Orlesian attendants had openly questioned her about it. Lyssa had managed to dodge the questions to the best of her abilities, but she had no doubt that it would not be the last time she would be submitted to the insinuations and proposals.

“You know I’m not angry at you, vhenan,” Solas said suddenly, and Lyssa looked up at him. One of his hands came to her arm, wandering up to her shoulder, and the line between his eyes had smoothed over.

“I know,” she quickly assured him, and some of the tension in him left him at her words. “I’m just on edge as well. It’s not you.”

“Good,” he said, turning slightly so he faced her as he cupped her face. “And I know that this,” he made a gesture towards the Main Hall where the festivities were still ongoing, “is a necessary part of our work. Still, sometimes, I wish I could…”

Lyssa tilted her head when he trailed off. “You wish you could what?” she asked. “Normally, you enjoy this much more than I do. Heady blend of power, intrigue, and sex, wasn’t it?”

A slight curl of the corner of his lips showed her that he remembered the last time she had quoted his own words at him only too well, their stolen moment of intimacy on the balcony in Halamshiral. The thought alone was enough to send a streak of warmth down her spine, turning her tension into something else entirely that curled in the depth of her belly. The tip of her tongue came out to run over her lips, and his eyes fell to her mouth. His gaze got so intense that Lyssa felt it nearly like a touch on her skin, and her heart started to beat more quickly.

“Indeed,” he murmured hoarsely, the cadence of his voice tingling through her whole body, and the hand on her face wandered to her neck, tightening slightly on her skin. An anticipatory shiver ran down her back as his eyes darkened slightly when she instinctively lifted her face invitingly towards his to brush a barely noticeable kiss onto his lips. “Ah, but, Lyssa,” he said, his other hand coming to her waist and pulling her closer, “being the watchful observer in the corner stops being delightful once something precious is at stake and you are prevented from interfering.”

There was a gravel to his voice that sent a shiver over her back. “If you could interfere, ma lath,” she asked, giving him a coy look and shuffling a bit closer so she could feel the whole of his body press against hers in a way that was definitely no longer appropriate for an evening such as this, “what would you do?”

His sharp intake of breath at her question and look made her skin tingle. There was still a hint of his earlier fury inside him, a fire that seemed to burn just beneath the surface, ready to lash out at the first opportunity, and the way he tilted her head with his hand was rougher than usual, but Lyssa couldn’t find it in herself to care. His mouth on hers was hard and demanding, the way he pressed her against him relentless, and her breath quickened. The hand on her waist suddenly dipped deeper, grabbing her ass with a single-mindedness that made her gasp against his lips, and Solas used the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue stoking the simmering heat between them into an open fire.

There was a mere wall between them and the events inside, but the sounds of the people in the Main Hall and all that came with it disappeared into meaninglessness as Solas suddenly moved them. Lyssa’s breath left her in a low oof as her back hit the wall, swallowed by his kiss, the sound turning into a breathless moan when his mouth fell to her neck. One of his hands was still on her behind, grabbing the fabric of her skirt to pull it up while the other had fallen to her breast, rubbing deftly over it until he could feel her nipple pressing into his palm even through her dress. Lyssa’s head was swimming, the tension inside her fuelling the needy desire he woke with his possessive touches, and she started to nestle at the laces of his pants.

“I would show them their irrelevance,” Solas murmured against her skin, his teeth scraping over her pulse. As she urged breathlessly against him, he groaned slightly, and the next moment, she felt the pinch of his teeth sending a spark of pain through her that he smoothed over with his tongue. His lips wandered over her neck, pausing every other moment to suck and kiss, teeth and tongue alternating as they came to her ear. “I would teach them the respect they fail to show.” His voice was rough, vibrating over her whole body and coaxing a moan from her as he ran his tongue over the shell of her ear to the tip.

She had managed to free his length and closed her fingers around him just as he said, “I would show them—”

His words were cut short by a low, throaty moan as Lyssa started to move her hand up and down. For a moment, Solas just held onto her, a whole-body shudder wracking through him at her ministrations.

Lyssa was trapped between him and the wall, rubbing her legs slightly together to find some kind of friction to ease the throbbing need inside her, Solas’ hot breath shivering over her neck before he claimed her mouth again with a deep, demanding kiss. It took him only a moment, though, until he pulled her hands off him and she found herself tugged off the wall long enough until she could wrap her arms around his neck to hold her where he needed her. 

His hand fell between them, and she moaned eagerly into his kiss as his fingers pulled her underpants off her and dipped into her wet heat, making the desire inside her curl tighter with each flick of his finger over the hard nub nestled there.

A slight whimper was chasing each breath when he lined himself up with her, the tip of his cock sliding through her slick folds with ease as she wrapped her legs around him. Just when she felt him breach her opening, his mouth was back on her ear, a hot whisper along her neck as he said, “I would show them that you’re mine.”

With that, he thrust his hips forward, sheathing himself inside her with one push, and Lyssa buried her moan at his shoulder. The tension that had held her in its grip for most of the evening pulsed through her with nearly unbearable intensity, and as Solas buried himself in her with deep, languid thrusts that soon came more quickly, she urged him on with desperate little movements of her hips.

With a low groan, Solas pushed back, changing the angle of her hips ever so slightly, and Lyssa’s fingers clawed into his shoulder as his pelvis hit her most sensitive spot just perfectly with each successive thrust. Soon, the heat gathering deep in her belly curled more tightly, making her whole body tingle as her breath lodged in her throat. A strangled little sound left Solas as he snapped his hips into her, and Lyssa’s head fell back against the wall as she tensed in his arms. Biting back a desperate whimper, she held on for another few hard thrusts, then something inside her seemed to give, and her release washed over and through her with searing waves. As she quivered around him, Solas’ movements stuttered slightly, the cadence of his voice turning into a deep, throaty growl. Lyssa found his lips with an open-mouthed kiss, drinking his moans as he came undone, spilling himself inside her with a few more hard thrusts.

For a long, breathless moment, they just held each other through the aftershock, the kiss turning from desperate and hard to soft and lingering. When Solas let her down again and they had fixed their clothes, Lyssa gave him a smile.

“I am, you know,” she said softly.

He just raised an eyebrow in question.

“Yours,” she clarified.

The smile coming to his lips took her breath away, and he pulled her back into his arms to kiss her again. “Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he murmured tenderly when they parted.

“Ar lath ma,” she answered in kind.

In that moment, a door not far from them opened. “Inquisitor?” Josephine’s voice came towards them, a hint of panic to it. “Are you here?”

Lyssa gave Solas a bashful look, but he only smiled secretively, his posture impeccable and not a hint of what had happened visible on his face.

“I’m here,” Lyssa called back, and the ambassador hurried towards them with a relieved look.

“Oh, thank the Maker, I’ve been looking for you all over the place. We have to—” Josephine interrupted herself with a sharp intake of breath. “Sweet Andraste, what is that on your neck?!” she exclaimed, her hand already reaching for Lyssa when sudden recognition dawned in her and it fell down again. “Oh.”

Lyssa couldn’t help the slight twinge of guilt as she saw the exasperation on Josie’s face, but the way Solas’ smile deepened when she exchanged a look with him told her that he didn’t regret a single mark he had left on her.

“Really?” Josephine just said defeatedly when Lyssa looked back at her. “Today?”

Lyssa straightened slightly and smoothed her hands over her dress. “It’s a statement,” she only said, biting back a smile of her own as she motioned towards the Main Hall. “Shall we?”

[emerald-amidst-gold]

No Title. Only Self Indulgence.

This little idea was stuck in my head, and it was an excuse to make Fane and Solas act like dragon dads again, so I had to. I had to. 

I guess you could consider it ‘spoilers’, but I think everyone knows what the hell Fane is. I haven’t decided how the later chapters are gonna go exactly. So, just view this as a ‘creative’ process - a potential concept for later.

Pairing: Solavellan (Male Lavellan/Solas)

Warnings: None

“Are you certain of this, vhenan? There is still time to intervene.”, Solas asked him with a somber expression - the two of them watching from the shadows as his sister and the others of the Inner Circle swarmed around the clearing of where they had fought against Corypheus. 

Fane merely watched with a semblance of indifference, but inside his whole soul was roaring in anguish and agony, especially as he saw the wave of tears begin to run down Mhairi’s pale cheeks. The pure agony in his sister’s eyes had him shutting his own as the emotions embedded in them were too much for him to bear.

“No. This is the way it has to be. I have accepted that.”, he stated with a pained grimace cracking his stoic mask before continuing, “I wish there was another way, but all I have discovered does not point to one. And so, I must break the leash that binds me.”

Solas simply gave him a hum in sad agreement as the mage reached back to throw up the cowl to conceal his head before delicately brushing a few fingers against the palm of Fane’s hand. 

“We should leave, then, or all of this will have been for naught.”, Solas warned him gently as his hand slowly slipped into Fane’s own.

Fane continued to observe the display below them before closing his eyes once more. Yes, it was time to go. With a quick flick of his wrist, he threw up his own hood before taking Solas’s hand more firmly - giving it a tender squeeze which elicited a small, but sad smile from Solas as the mage began to guide him away from the edge of the hill they were on. Fane followed without a word nor chancing a glance back as he heard his sister’s agonizing wails from beyond. 

Observe and accept. Accept that this is the path you have chosen, but do not forget where it began. He told himself with firmness before striding up to walk beside Solas more confidently. 

Solas gave his hand another soft squeeze before a tiny chirp sounded from the mage’s pack - a tiny white head popping out of it not a second later to look around curiously. Fane and Solas both looked at each other before the mage let out a fond chuckle - reaching back to stroke the tiny dragon’s head.

“Good morning, little one. Or I should say, ‘good evening’. Sleep well?”, Solas asked the white baby dragon - its scales bristling from the touch before it let out a quiet chirp of confirmation, spurring Solas to let out a fond coo, “Excellent. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Fane couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his sky and his newborn kin despite the grief that weighed down on him. This was what he was abandoning everything else for - his kin. He was willing to sacrifice the world and the people in it only so that his kin could live without fear of being broken and bound again. He hoped that in the months to come, that there would be another way to achieve that without killing everyone, but in his heart, Fane knew that there would be death and heartbreak no matter what. Even so, the sight of his newborn so happy washed away the pain he was feeling; if only for the moment. 

“Hey.”, he called to Solas softly, the mage stopping his fawning over the little dragon to look up at him with a sad, but hopeful smile. “Yes, vhenan?”, Solas asked - the little dragon chirping at Fane excitedly. Fane chuckled fondly at the little dragon, reaching over to give it a gentle stroke before leaning down to nudge a pale cheek tenderly. 

Solas met his action immediately with a nudge of his own - stormy eyes filled with sorrow, but fondness for him.

“I love you.”, he said with a tenderness he rarely ever showed before stopping his nudging to put their foreheads together. 

Solas’s eyes immediately shifted with hues of deep blue and indigo as the love Fane had professed became reflected in them - a tender smile spreading across Solas’s face as he tilted his head to gaze into Fane’s own eyes more deeply.

“Ar lath ma, ma’isenatha.”, Solas murmured to him quietly before their lips brushed together lightly. 

Fane huffed in amusement at the timidness. This fool still thought he couldn’t handle a kiss, didn’t he? Well, then.. 

With a bold, but gentle movement, Fane closed the distance between the two of them - slotting their lips together easily as he tilted his head a bit to deepen the kiss with a calm huff through his nose. Solas froze for a moment upon the contact, but immediately relaxed as Fane deepened the kiss - allowing himself to be swept up in the emotions harbored within it. 

“Hm..”, he hummed out softly before taking another step towards Solas - cupping the man’s face firmly as their lips moved together more deeply and slowly. 

Solas responded with a hum of his own, reaching up to gently hold onto the hands cupping his face as he allowed Fane to lead. Fane slowly became more insistent with his kisses as he carefully, but boldly slipped his tongue into Solas’s mouth - the mage offering no resistance at the action, immediately entwining his tongue with Fane’s in a slow, but bold dance. 

Fane let out a soft growl leave his lips as he began to stroke Solas’s cheeks - the grief from before beginning to crop back up as his emotions ramped up. He wanted to lose himself in the kiss. He wanted to forget everything - if only for the time being. All the pain he had inflicted and the doubt and grief that went along with it was reflected in the dance of tongue and lips as Fane tilted Solas’s head back more with his hands - the elven man letting out an understanding, but quiet moan to let Fane know he knew. With a slow movement, Fane gently pulled his lips away from Solas, a trail of saliva connecting them before he shut his mouth with a pained grimace. 

“Shit..”, he cursed as tears began to prick at his eyes, “Shit..”, he cursed again as the tears began to flow despite his efforts to hold them back.

“Oh, Fane..”, Solas said with a sorrowful tone, carefully leaning up to peck at his cheeks gingerly - a thumb coming up to catch the tears as they fell. “Shh, my heart. I know it hurts. I know.. I am sorry for the pain I have caused you..”, the mage apologized brokenly - the little dragon watching the two of them with a sad growl. 

Despite the tears rolling down his cheeks, Fane couldn’t help but offer the little dragon a smile when he saw the hue of gold attempt to light up - the newborn attempting to ease his pain with its abilities. 

“Look at you. Already, you wish to use your nature as you should..”, he told the little dragon before more tears began to flow, “I..I will make sure you can once again. You will never know a magical leash as long as I am alive. I promise you..”, he vowed around a sob as he let his tears flow unbidden. 

Strong arms wove themselves around his neck to pull him into a tender embrace as he cried - letting his face bury itself into Solas’s shoulder as choked sobs wracked his body. Solas’s hand gently worked its way under his hood to lovingly stroke at whitened hair as he murmured soothing to him.

“You will free them, my dragon. You will..”, Solas encouraged him quietly. All Fane could do was offer a single, but firm nod to Solas’s words before took a deep breath to compose himself - slowly standing up straight to stare into stormy orbs before speaking with resolve.

“We will. And we will free your people, as well, my sky. I vow to you.”, Fane proclaimed passionately, even as tears continued to stream down his cheeks, but kept his face hard with feigned strength.

Solas gave him a grateful, tender, but sorrowful smile before opting to give him a single nod - his own face hardening despite the continued softness in his stormy blue eyes.

“As I vow to you.”, Solas echoed his words before taking Fane’s hand once more - intending to lead him away once more, “Come. We must go.”

Fane nodded once more before easily falling into step next to Solas - their hands linked as if it were the only thing keeping the two from drifting apart. The little dragon’s head swiveled between the two of them before it let out a happy cry. Fane watched as Solas startled before he himself chuckled.

“It seems he has made a vow, as well.”, Fane explained when he saw Solas looking up at the little dragon on his shoulder in confusion.

Solas glanced up at him before a smile of understanding spread on his face, cracking the hardened mask from before.

“Is that so?”, Solas asked the little dragon softly, tilting his head so the newborn could nuzzle at his cheek happily, “Then I accept your vow, little one. As does he.”, the mage said, indicating to Fane with his free hand. 

Fane nodded with his own strained, but soft smile when the white baby dragon looked at him with wide emerald gold eyes. 

Those are the eyes I wish to protect more than anything. They will never be grey again. He thought before nodded once more at the little dragon, “I accept your vow made amid bloodied fields, and vow to you in turn so that emerald pools may forever echo the warmth of gold.”, he said with ease, the little dragon’s wings spreading with excited chirps. 

He watched the little newborn fondly, even as Solas’s hand squeezed his own - the intensity of his stare feeling like no more than the warmth of the sun even as pale moonlight shrouded them in shadow. Yes, this was what all the agony and heartbreak would accomplish; a future where his kin could live as they deserved - as they must. So, he would endure it all in their stead. He would endure until the moon and sun went dark. He would endure until the land beneath his feet crumbled into ash. And he would endure until the day storm colored eyes refused to reflect the sky; his own then refusing to reflect golden trees from the sky’s absence. 

For Fane - no, Aterian - was a dragon, even as his body belonged to the creatures of the immutable world; the wolf currently walking next to him with his own head held high from endurance was the sky, even as he was connected to both the physical world and the Fade. And the only way to fell a dragon was to tear the sky asunder; the only way to tear the sky asunder was to fell a dragon that guarded it. And neither would happen unless the other fell first. 

Solas was ‘He Who Walks Alone’, but the world always forgot what the two of them never would, and that what Fane had and still was. 

Fane was ‘The One Who Flew Above’ - the Dragon of the Dread Wolf, and it would be the only title he would allow to bind him to another. For now and forever.

[maythedreadwolfbreakyou]

Character Profile

NAME: Ghilina Lavellan

NICKNAME: Ghili (Gill-lee)

AGE: 30 at start of Inquisition

SPECIES: Elf

GENDER: Female

ORIENTATION: Sapiosexual

INTERESTS, HOBBIES, PASTIMES: Ghilina's prowess with magic classifies her strongly as a Mage. Even so, she holds an interest in rogue talents and skills. Because of this, you will often find Ghilina at the end of the day venting frustrations of the day with every arrow loosed from her bow.

Ghilina also has creative interests, such as self expression through dance (think modern and lyrical meets ballet) and music. She cannot play an instrument to save her life, in fact many musicians go out of their way to keep their instruments from her reach. However, Ghilina does enjoy singing elven folk songs and lullabies to an audience of none. 

SPECIALIZATION: Rift Mage. Ghilina always had an interest and fascination with the Fade and the spirits that swelled there ever since she was young. When that fascination came to light among members of her clan, they feared for her safety and sternly discouraged her interest. They told tales of demons masquerading as friendly spirits in the hopes of encouraging her to agree to possession. The normalized superstition and fear pressures Ghilina into agreeing to stifle any interest in the Fade she had. She had all but forgotten her fascination when she met Solas, who rekindled it anew. That fascination gave way to her study of Fade magic with the help of her trainer and Solas.

BODY TYPE:  Lithe, willowy spoon (pear) shaped figure. 

EYES: Icy blue

HAIR: Long, wavy, raven-black hair

SKIN:  Fair, milky white

HEIGHT:  167 cm (5'6")

COMPANIONS: Cassandra and Blackwall have saved Ghilina's hide more times than she would care to count. Whether it be from a surprise flank attack, or a charging shield wielder. Thank goodness for her Fadestep ability. 

Dorian quickly became Ghilina's closest friend within the Inquisition. She trusts him implicitly, and as such he often accompanies her outside Skyhold. Iron Bull also tends to accompany them, as Ghilina enjoys his company and unique yet unimposing views. 

Varric she enjoys around for his stories and his wit, while Cole she enjoys to have around for the insights he offers and the swift knife in the dark that protects her from harm. 

The only companions that typically remain at Skyhold, with the exception of extenuating circumstances, are Vivienne and Sera. Vivienne is enjoyable when she is discussing nobility scandals, etiquette, and fashion. However, Ghilina has found on more than one occasion Vivienne's very conservative views on Mage rights and the Chantry have been at odds with her more progressive ones. 

For a similar reason, Sera tends to stay within the confines of Skyhold, terrorizing the nobility, due to her rather offensive and unapologetic views of elves and elven culture. 

COLOURS: White, Lavender, Black

SMELLS: The wet earth after a fresh rain, lilacs, cedar

FRUITS: She loves the sweet tart of Rivaini peaches, and the spiced baked apples of Antiva. Strawberries grown in Fereldan's Hinterlands are also very sweet and juicy.

DRINKS: Not much of a drinker at all. Sometimes socially. 

ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES: If there is anything that doesn't taste strongly of alcohol, or has a sweet taste to it, Ghilina will drink it on the off chance she decides to do so.

SMOKES: Not applicable.

BAD HABITS: biting her lip when thinking, strumming her fingers when waiting impatiently, and fidgeting with or picking at whatever is in her hands of she is nervous or anxious.

GOOD HABITS: proper hygiene maintenance, up early each morning, goes for a morning walk along the ramparts (greets the soldiers along the way), and mostly keeps a healthy diet.

What do they say about themselves?

Eyes blue and piercing like the frigid bite of a plunge into a frozen lake peered back at you from beneath long, dark lashes; a rather thick tome cradled in her lap. Those twin pools of winter made your heart thud inside your chest. You wondered, momentarily, if this was how the canary feels before a cat.

All around were shelves of musty tomes waiting to be read, their fading gilded titles illuminated in the dancing torchlight. Tomes with tattered spines lay stacked unevenly amidst scattered parchment upon a time-worn table at her side.

Her eyes closed, brow knotted as a frustrated sigh passed her bow-shaped lips. The tome in her lap slammed shut with an echoing thud before it was gingerly rested upon the table's surface beside her. 

The simple white gown she donned complimented her lithe figure, glistening in the torchlight with her movements. Silk, perhaps? Her hands gripped the armrest edges as she leaned into her high-backed chair. A leg gracefully swept beneath the other until they rested askew, interwoven at the ankles with one another.

Her eyes met yours then, and not only did she meet your gaze, she held it there. Pinned. And as your heart continued to thrum in your chest, you realized then that this woman who was lovely yet appeared so frail, was in fact a spider sitting patiently upon her web. Never to be underestimated. Though she may be beautiful, she was equally as deadly. Only a fool would overlook such knowledge. 

As you debated internally with yourself whether to feel awed or intimidated, her gaze lowered from yours to the floor before she spoke, "What I have to say of myself may no longer apply. The young Dalish woman I was before, the woman who stumbled out of a rift, she became who I am for a role she didn't ask for." 

Her voice was soft and sad as her fingertips thoughtlessly touched the bare flesh of her cheek. But when she looked up at you, hand fallen away, she was beaming, "Though looking back, if I could never go back to who I was before, I believe I could make peace with that."

Smile still playing upon her lips, she picked up her book from the table and opened it to the page she had last left it. 

So this was a post I found while browsing the tags on @honeypeabrain 's blog. It looked like fun and I could think of many on this side of Solavellan Hell who would enjoy this. So...

Tagging || @waterwhisp-rivergoblin @wayward-lavellan @modernagesomniari @dreamerlavellan @dreadwollf @calwyne @my-solavellan-hell @sopml @solaspls @riazures @river-goddess-sionann @lavellanpls @wepepe-draws @ar-lath-ma-vhenan

And anyone else who wants to participate. No pressure if you don't. If you have done this before, please disregard. If you don't want to be tagged, let me know.

[salexectrian-heir]

Loki: Chapter 12*

Pairing: Solavellan Rating: E*, this chapter is NSFW

Summary: Lavellan rescued a mischievious sphynx kitten outside her work who loves her dearly. But his destructive habits start to get out of hand when he steals her attractive neighbor’s underwear… repeatedly.

Chapter 12* (4.8k, NSFW)

Anise wove in between bodies at a record pace, clutching her lunch bag to her chest, dodging interns left and right. She needed a moment of silence to clear her throbbing head, and if one more first year came up and asked her how to properly intubate someone, she might just scream. Normally, she would be all for teaching freshly graduated doctors-to-be techniques, but after what she just witnessed in the resident lounge? Absolutely not. 

Anise took a sharp right and dove into the stairwell that would lead her towards the basement, her feet moving on autopilot to the once familiar place she would run off to escape to early on in her career at Haven. At the second to last door from the bottom, she slumped into it, letting her weight push it open. Her brows arched as she saw someone else who apparently had the same idea she did, sitting on a gurney in the hallway of the abandoned wing of the hospital. 

“Old habits die hard,” Dorian said with a smirk, and gestured for her to sit in empty space beside him. 

“Gods, this takes me back to first year when we all would eat down here,” she said, hoisting herself up on the forgotten piece of equipment. She proceeded to open her own packed lunch, a tuna wrap with carrot sticks.

“Let me guess, your reason for avoiding our common area is the same as mine?”

They locked eyes, and said in synchrony, “Anders.” 

Dorian cackled. 

He fished a carrot stick out of her bag for himself before saying, “Honestly, I don’t know what we all saw in him. It ends the same way for everyone. You can’t fix him, no matter how hard you try,” he bit into the carrot stick with a loud crunch, “but at least it’s Hawke this time, and not a new intern. Maybe she will finally knock some sense into him.”

Anders was a brilliant doctor, one of the best neurosurgeons in the nation if not the best. He turned down multiple offers from hospitals all around the country before settling at the Ferelden teaching hospital. But his personal life was a total mess wrought with commitment issues, and he was constantly getting in over his head with the medical board with his fiery attitude and unorthodox approach to medicine (which was not necessarily always a bad thing, and definitely something that had drawn Anise to him in the first place, but his sometimes he just skirted the lines of what was ethical). Anise had made the mistake of getting involved with him shortly after starting her internship (as did Dorian) but quickly realized Anders was… a lot to say the least, and she politely ended things. To her surprise (and relief) he was understanding. They got along much better as colleagues than they did as lovers, anyway. Anise vowed never to date another doctor at her hospital moving forward. She was much more content to over hear gossip, than be the reason for the gossip.

And then, there was Hawke--their fellow resident, good friend, and ruthless rival. She was a handful, too. Equally as fiery, passionate, always managed to make everything a competition, and went tit for tat with Anders. He may have finally met his match. It didn’t surprise Anise they were sleeping together, or that they were airing out their dirty laundry in the resident lounge at this very moment. Something she had walked in on in her effort to get her lunch.

They had both stopped yelling and stared at her, mortified at the fact they had gotten caught. She had given them a painfully awkward wave before zipping over to the fridge, snagging her lunch, and darting out of the lounge in under ten seconds.

Their fighting resumed before the door had even shut on her way out.

“Let’s hope only metaphorically, Anders has a surgery this evening, and I’m getting to scrub in and perform the craniotomy.” She stuck her tongue out at Dorian’s envious expression.

“Brat. Does Hawke know about this?”

Anise rolled her eyes, “If I were to hedge a guess, it’s what started their fight.”

As she bit into her wrap, her phone vibrated in her pocket. When she checked it, she promptly choked.

[Vhenan]

Will you let me take you out to dinner this Friday? 

Schedule permitting, of course

[1:13pm]

Friday. 

As in The Fourteenth of February. 

As in, Valentine's Day.

“Best steer clear of Hawke for the rest of the day then. Otherwise she might just knock you instead.”

“Hah..ha,” Anise replied weakly, eyes still glued to her phone. Her brain, temporarily out of order.

Solas wanted to take her out.

On the national holiday for couples. 

Granted, he had taken her out before, but that had been more casual, and hadn’t felt as exclusive. From the outside, they could have just been good friends dancing together, grabbing a bite afterwards. People did that all the time. 

(Well, he did kiss her, but no one had been around to witness it, so therefore it didn’t technically count, or so she tried to rationalize.)  

 That date also had been before they started sleeping together…before he called her vhenan... 

A wave of heat rolled up her neck, burning the tips of her ears. She had been too cowardly to bring up what he had said to her in his sleep filled haze the day after the last time they had slept together. Their snow day together had been too picture perfect, and she didn’t want to chance ruining it. She spent the entirety of the day on top of him on her couch (they had switched apartments for Loki’s sake). And when they weren’t alternating between their favorite movies… they engaged in other forms of entertainment.

[Anise]

I believe my shift ends at 5 next Friday--if you don’t mind having a little bit of a later dinner, I would love to join you

[1:20pm]

[Vhenan]

I do not, I’ll make the arrangements.

[1:20pm]

[Anise]

Nothing too fancy!! You’ve seen my laundry, I only own scrubs and that one dress

[1:21pm]

[Vhenan]

It is done.

[1:22pm]

“Who’s Vhenan?”

Anise nearly jumped out of her skin and almost dropped her phone on the floor.

“Dorian,” she chided, shoving him hard, and scrambling to send off one more text.

[Anise]

No presents! And we go halfsies 

[1:22pm]

“It’s your fault you made no effort to hide your screen.  I’ve been talking to you this whole time and you’ve so carelessly ignored me. I had to know who was more important than your very best friend.”

“Absolutely no one.” Anise tucked her phone safely back into the privacy of her pocket.

“Darling Anise, we both know that’s bullshit.”

It was at that moment the door to the hall bust wide open, the sound of it slamming against the wall echoed like a gunshot, startling both Anise and Dorian.

“Oh fuck,” Hawke’s horrified face was quickly covered by her hands, sending tufts of her pixie cut jet black hair to stick out at even odder angles than they normally did, “and here I thought I could escape today for one fucking second.” 

Dorian and Anise exchanged a quick glance and said together, “Old habits die hard,” 

Dorian shifted further down the gurney, as did Anise, leaving space for one more body. Anise gestured to Hawke to take the spot, and offered her a carrot stick. Hawke made a disgusted noise but took the seat, and carrot stick, anyway. It looked like she might snap it in half. She fell into an awkward, tenuous silence beside Anise, who suddenly became very interested in the tuna of her wrap, taking small nibbles and examining the bite marks she left behind.  

Finally, at long last Hawke said, “I can’t scrub in with Anders anymore.”

“Because you’re sleeping with him?”

Hawke shot Dorian a dark look. “I’m dating him, asshole.”

Anise paused mid bite, “Wait… like…?”

“Like, it’s official, All-Spice,” she quipped at Anise using that stupid nickname that speech pathlogist gave her that Hawke hung around with. Apparently, he gave everyone nicknames. “We went to the Chief, came clean, and everything. Anders had to speak privately with Viv for like an hour.” Hawke rubbed her face. “And then he comes back and tells me that I no longer am allowed to scrub in with him anymore.”

“I mean, that makes sense,” Dorian said, which was clearly the wrong thing to say to Hawke, earning him another, darker, glare as she chomped down on her carrot stick.

“Fuck you,” Hawke said with her mouth full, pausing to swallow before continuing, “I know that. I still get to be upset about it.”

“Valid,” Anise said, taking another small bite of her wrap.

“Sure, but you don’t have to scream about it,” Dorian retorted.

“Also, valid point,” Anise commented, covering her mouth with a hand as she chewed.

“Fine, you’re right. Sorry,” Hawke sighed, shoulders rising and falling dramatically. “And I’m also sorry for what you walked in on, Anise. I want it to be clear, I didn’t mean to sound like I was angry at you. I’m not. I just let--”

The door to the hall opened again, with considerably less banging this time, but all three residents snapped to attention as they saw who stepped through.

“The Witch,” Dorian hissed.

The Chief Resident’s expression soured.

“I heard that, Dorian,” she drawled, “why is it that when I need a competent resident, the three of you are nowhere to be found. Incoming abdominal gunshot wound, no exit, OR three.”

All of them immediately jumped up, pushing each other out the way to stand before Morrigan, Dorian and Anise shoving their lunches haphazardly back into their packs as Hawke edged them out.

Morrigan rolled her eyes. “Lavellan, you have a surgery tonight, you’re out.”

Anise didn’t fight it, given the circumstances, and quietly stepped back.

“Hawke with me. You look like you need it.”

“What,” Dorian protested, gesturing flippantly at Hawke, “how is that the basis of your decision?”

“Dorian, you suck up to every attending, you’ll find a surgery to scrub into before I make it back to the OR floor.”

Hawke’s amber eyes sparkled as she flipped off Dorian when Morrigan had her back turned. Dorian returned the gesture with equal flair. 

“Remind me why we’re friends with her again,” Dorian asked, after they were gone.

“Because she’s a pariah like us, and you do actually like her as a person, flaws and all.”

Dorian grumbled something in Tevine under his breath, slumping back down onto the gurney. “And remind me why I’m friends with you, when you won’t even tell me all the interesting bits of your life?”

Anise sighed.

If she started telling Dorian about Solas, it would mean someone else would know, which would make it all the more real.

It really didn’t take her that long to decide.

“Okay, but you have to promise me not to laugh and call me crazy,” Anise warned, and Dorian’s face lit up, “but it started with my kitten and my neighbor’s boxer briefs…”

***

The restaurant was one of those scratch kitchen types, where everything was locally sourced and organic. It had a rustic feel to it that reminded her of home the moment they sat down at their booth, surrounded by plants and large glass windows. Surprisingly, it was comfortably warm. She had shrugged off her winter coat, but kept on the black blazer she had dug out of her closet that she hadn’t worn since she graduated medical school, and was happy to know it still fit perfectly. She had gone with a floral turtleneck underneath with a pair of tight jeans and ankle boots. Not too fancy, but still dressed up. He had worn something similar in fashion, a pair of nice jeans, a green sweater, and sport coat over top.

It was surreal. To be out, with him, clearly as a couple. Her heart hadn’t stopped fluttering since he took her hand when they left their apartment complex.

She hadn’t meant to talk about work, or make Solas talk about work, knowing how bringing it up seemed to ruin his mood. But when he asked about how the surgery with Anders she was able to scrub in on went, the incident with Hawke naturally came up, and suddenly she was discussing work. 

“I’m sorry, I’m monopolizing the conversation. I would ask you about your week, but I get the impression it wasn’t any better than the last.”

“You would be correct in that assumption,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I managed to avoid the C.E.O for most of it. One awkward elevator ride was all I had to endure. Luckily, in silence.” 

Even with that simple statement, she could see the tension set in his shoulders. “Let’s not talk about work anymore.”

He peered over his steepled hands at her. “What would you like us to talk about, Anise?”

Anise ran her tongue over her teeth and thought for a second. “I want to learn more about you. So let’s play a game.”

Solas’ brows arched. “What kind of game do you have in mind?”

“You try to make an assumption about me. If you’re right, I drink. If you’re wrong, you drink. And vice versa.”

He chuckled. “Where did you learn this game?”

“Med school. We had to find some way to cope,” she said with a laugh of her own.

“You might want to order a second glass of wine before we start.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you think I’ll only make wrong assumptions, and you’ll only ever make right ones?”

“Indeed, I do.”

Anise rolled her neck. “Game on. I’ll go first. Your favorite color is green.”

“You went for something easy.” Solas took a generous sip of his wine. “What gave it away?”

Anise grinned. “Your sweater. Your ties are mostly green. Your socks have intricate green patterns on them. Your briefcase is a very dark green, almost black if you’re not looking close enough. But your sweater tonight really sealed the deal for me.”

“Astute observations. Then let me counter with this, your favorite color is blue.”

“Guilty.” Anise blushed behind her glass of wine, and took a sip. “I’ll bite. How’d you know?”

It was Solas’ turn to smile. “Your bedsheets are blue. As is the accent wall in your bedroom. The gift wrap you covered my wintersend gift in. Most of your scrubs are light blue, though this could be required at your hospital, but I took the risk.”

There were also two very obvious reasons, she wasn’t about to admit to as she gazed into them. 

“Only attendings have a specific uniform color, and its navy ironically.”

Their dinner arrived after that, but they continued their little game even after their drinks were finished, using water instead until they ordered a second glass each. Solas guessed Anise had broken bones as a kid--she drank, she had broken two in her arm when she was four years old, and was religious--he drank, which prompted a long philosophical conversation about the elven gods and their teachings in which he was surprised to find she wasn’t religious, or spiritual, at all. That she viewed them more as lessons in morals more than anything. Anise soon learned, after a few more wrong guesses, Solas hated plums, but not as much as tea, loved to read research articles, if only to critique their methodology and sample size, and to her greatest surprise, had been arrested twice before the age of eighteen.

Anise finished off the last of her ravioli, and asked, “For what?”

“Disorderly conduct, and Trespassing,” Solas said, pusing around some of the vegetables on his plate, “I was very misguided in my youth.”

“I remember you saying that. My my, what a troublemaker you turned out to be,” she teased.

His lips twisted into that half smile she loved so much. As he studied her from across the table, setting aside his cutlery and dish, her stomach did flips. “You are the youngest child.”

Anise took a sip of her wine. “Youngest of three.”

“All girls?”

Anise shook her head triumphantly, “Only girl.” Solas took a sip of his. 

“I have two older brothers. One is in law enforcement, the other is in a metal band.”

“Metal band? Diverse interests in your family.”

“Hah, you don’t even know what my father does for a living.”

Solas did that deep stare again. There was silence for a beat, then he said, “Politician.”

“Damnit,” Anise whispered, taking another sip.

Solas eyes lit up with a realization. “Is he--?”

“The Dalish politician, yes, yes, the one and only,” Anise rolled her eyes rather dramatically, feeling the wine settling in, “kind of obvious. Know how I mentioned in the past my family was busy with legal matters in Wycome? Well, I’m sure you saw recently on the news, the Dalish settlement in the Free Marches was officially recognized as a historical site and can no longer be bought or demolished, because of his advocacy and support from Wycome residents who rallied.”

“I did, it’s incredible what he has done for the history of his people.”

‘I agree.  They are in the process of creating a museum to preserve the artifacts and culture from the ancient Dalish in the city. The land will remain untouched and essentially become a nature preserve with trails and historical markers. He keeps saying I have to visit once everything settles down and it’s opened to the public.”

The waitress came around to collect their plates and ask if they wanted dessert. The answer was obviously yes, as if Solas could ever say no to anything sweet. It was entertaining to watch his face light up over a simple frilly cake. 

“I do believe it's your turn,” he said, licking icing off his fork. 

That was… distracting.

Anise recovered, tips of her ears burning, “You’re an only child.”

Solas stared off at the space behind her quizzically. “What happens when someone does not know how to respond to a statement, do we both drink?”

“I’ve never encountered that kind of situation before playing this game,” Anise admitted.

“To answer your question, I do not know if I have biological siblings. I don’t remember my biological parents. I was placed into foster care in Arlathan when I was very young. I met kindred spirits there, people I would have considered siblings, at the time.”

“I would say they absolutely count.”

He nodded, and drank. While doing so he dug out his phone, scrolled through it for a moment, before smiling, a true smile, and catching her eyes again. “You must not laugh.” He held out his phone.

Anise raised a brow. “No promises without context,” she said, accepting his phone and turning her attention to the picture he had left up. 

“Oh, my gods,” her hand quickly shot to her mouth before she could let a giggle escape. “This is you. You have hair. How old are you here? This is… your friend that took you dancing?”

“Seventeen. And yes, that’s her. Her name was Sage. I met her while in the boarding school the state sent me to. Scroll if you want to see more.”

The picture was of two teenagers in school uniforms, standing in the middle of a city street. Solas clearly the younger of the two, with messy brown hair that just barely glinted red in the sunlight. The girl beside him had a shock of green hair that fell just below her chin. One of her arms slung around his neck, laughing at him, as he flipped off whoever was holding the camera.

The next one was Solas eating a cupcake in a dorm room, or to more accurately describe it, having a cupcake shoved into his face by Sage, who had icing on her nose already. The third was an action shot of them dancing. They got a little older every couple photos or so. At the bottom she realized the photos belonged to a memorial album he had on Facebook. While she was busy admiring photos of Solas’ over the years she had not known him, and tearing up as she realized what he had given her, a piece of his past, he had paid for their date. 

Sneaky.

“Hey wait, that’s not fair,” she said, returning his phone and standing up, “you baited me.”

“I did.” He pressed a quick kiss to her temple and helped her into her coat. 

***

The moment they made it into the lobby of their apartment complex, they were inseparable. In their favor it was empty, and the elevator was theirs alone. How they got that lucky, she didn’t know. What she did know was how badly he wanted her, evident with each pass of his tongue as it pushed past her lips. How his hands slipped under her shirt and roamed her stomach sending heat sliding down her spine to pool in her core. How the elevator brought them to their floor all too soon. 

They stood in front of his apartment, her back pressed against his door with clothes entirely wrinkled and lungs breathless, torn between not wanting to stop but also wanting to move inside. She chased his lips as he pulled away to take out his key, but landed on his neck. She continued to kiss him as the lock clicked open. He groaned as her teeth grazed his pressure point, the fingers of his free hand digging into her hip. As the door swung inward, she grabbed a fist full of his shirt and pulled him across the threshold.

“I thought you might want to come back after,” he said between kisses, stripping themselves of their outer layers once the door had closed securely behind them. “Bathroom,” he instructed, nudging her with his nose to her cheek to get her to turn in that direction. 

Her bra was shed somewhere between the entryway and his bedroom, leaving her only in jeans. She didn’t want to break their connection, but when she stepped into the bathroom what she saw demanded her full attention. Candles and flowers in petite mason jars lined the tub and sink counter. And a bath bomb on the lid of the toilet seat, still in its packaging. Her heart throbbed.

Oh. He remembered I liked those.

The strike of a match brought her focus back to him. He went to grab one of the candles, but Anise got between him and his target, blowing out the lit match. She took the box from him and tossed it somewhere on top of the toilet without breaking his gaze. Her mouth was on the skin of his neck a second later, backing him up against the wall. Nipping and sucking with a couple little  harder bites in between, her tongue caressing spots she had marked him. But when his fingers slid into her hair and clenched, it sent a sharp twinge of pain across her scalp making her moan. 

“Mm, interesting,” he said, licking along her bottom lip.

It would have taken way more self-control than she had to to resist the impulse to roll her hips into him, and as she did she was rewarded with feeling the hard press of his erection against her hip through his jeans. It sent a current through her, making her throb between her legs.

His fingers curled into the waistline of her unzippered jeans, yanking them, and her lacy underwear down her thighs. It took a little effort as they clung tightly to her thighs, but eventually he wrestled her out of them. He managed to get his pants off with one fluid movement, and had her against the counter in a heartbeat, the cold stone biting into her lower back, his mouth slating against hers.

He lifted her with no effort, setting her atop the counter space, spreading her legs wide open. His fingers raced along the inside of her thigh, finding her clit and starting a steady and slow rhythm that had her writhing in what seemed like no time at all. He pulled away and lazily dragging his fingers aroud the lips of her sex, taking a sharp breath at wet she had become. 

“Anise,” he groaned, sliding a finger inside her. 

She gripped his shoulders, nails biting into his skin as he moved within her. One finger soon became two, and she bit her lip to stop from mewling as they curled in just the right cadence that set her nerves on fire. How he had memorized her body, and the way she liked to be touched so quickly was beyond her. When she couldn’t hold it back anymore, she let a whine escape in the form of his name. He removed his fingers just before she could tip over the edge he had brought her to. Some part of her brain realized she was so wet she was dripping onto his counter, but she quite couldn’t bring herself to care. He pulled her hips forward, bringing her to the edge so he could angle himself to take her. 

And take her he did.

Her back arched as he smoothly thrust up and in, her head pressing into the mirror behind her. Her legs curled around his waist at the pleasurable stretch she felt as he filled her, pinning him there against her. The other hand wound its way back into the tresses of her hair, spilling out between his fingers as they scraped along her scalp. He twisted her hair sharply, forcing a blissful cry from her mouth into his, which he devoured greedily, and only encouraged him to fuck her harder. With each snap of his hips his grip in her hair tightened, the tension in her pulling taut until she broke, clenching around his cock in such powerful waves she couldn’t help herself from riding against him. He barely pulled out in time to finish on her stomach. They remained as they were, her legs wrapped around his waist, ass on the counter, foreheads pressed together as they caught their breath. 

“We did this out of order,” he said, his breathless laughter dancing on her cheek, “Bath first, then sex, was the intention.”

She hummed blithely,  “I have no regrets.”

He released his hold on her hair, tucking several loose strands behind her ear, and laid a soft kiss on her temple before pulling out of her embrace. He cleaned his mess off her, and then himself while she wiped down the counter. Through some unspoken agreement, he went to draw the bath and she attended to the candles.

Finally, they sunk into the blessedly warm water, Solas first then Anise. Unable to contain her excitement, she unwrapped the blue bath bomb, and dropped it into the water with a very quiet, noise of delight. An explosion of blue and purple spread like smoke beneath the water as the scent of jasmine rose to greet her. 

“Thank you,” she said, settling in against his chest, enjoying the way the heat of water made his body a cool relief at her back in comparison. An inky twilight surrounded their limbs, making anything underneath invisible to the depths of its color.

He laced his fingers through her own resting on his knee above the water, and squeezed.

For some reason, that simple gesture, that subtle contact, overwhelmed her. Her vision swam as the too familiar sting of tears rushed to the corners of her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it in. It wasn’t sadness, no that was a raw, hollow aching feeling that suffocated you until you could feel no more.

This… this was different. This was overwhelming, and in the best way imaginable. Like taking a breath for the first time after not being able to breathe, like lungs so full of fresh air  it sent racing through her veins straight to her heart in a sweet release. 

Am I really that lonely?

Or…is this…?

She knew the answer. Had known the answer for a while now, but refused to let it surface. At least, until... 

“Solas,” she whispered.

He drew his free hand out of the water to caress her arm. “Yes, Anise.”

“Did you mean it?” She swallowed, her throat suddenly thick. “Did you mean it when you called me vhenan?”

He let go of her hand, and tugged on her to turn around. She hesitated for a moment, realizing he was going to see her crying but obliged, twisting her torso to face him.  His furrowed brows that softened when he saw her expression. He cupped her face with both hands, the water from the bath mixing with the tears on her cheeks as he stroked her face with his thumbs. 

His ever steady eyes bore into her own as he leaned in and whispered, “I meant it,” before closing and capturing her in a kiss. “Vhenan,” he said against her lips, kissing her in such a way she felt dizzy when he finally broke from her mouth to pass over her eyes, whispering “vhenan,” over each one, before coming to rest on her forehead. 

“Ar lath ma.”

[pikapeppa]

Solavellan smut: Talk

Happy @dadrunkwriting Friday! My offering today: a piece of shameless Solavellan smut, in which Elia Lavellan confesses to Solas for the first time that his voice is her catnip. 

This is dedicated to @elbenherzart, who is an incredibly talented artist (LIKE SERIOUSLY CHECK OUT HER BLOG, IT’S INSANE), and who is my Solavellan soulmate when it comes to being total trash garbage for Solas’s voice.

 So here, as though I haven’t already done it enough (twice in fact… here and here…): have some Solavellan voice kink smut.

Read on AO3 here instead.

****************

Solas leans over Elia’s shoulder and points at the page. “There. That is the line I was speaking of yesterday. It stands in direct contrast with a passage in that Chantry-sponsored treatise you borrowed from the Empress’s private collection. Do you recall the passage I mean?”

Elia looks up at him from her cozy spot in his desk chair. His voice is quiet but vibrant with enthusiasm, and she knows exactly the passage he’s speaking of; just last week they’d spent the better part of an afternoon picking apart the treatise in question, so of course she knows what he is talking about.

She grimaces apologetically. “I’m not entirely certain,” she lies. “I think the trip home from the Hinterlands scrambled my mind. Could you remind me?”

“Of course,” he says. He straightens and walks around to the front of his desk. “It was the passage regarding the use of barriers. The author attempted to argue that the sole purpose of a barrier was to repel energy, when any learned practitioner of the magical arts knows that a barrier can both repel and absorb.” 

Elia nods dreamily. Solas is pacing in front of the desk now, and his voice is growing brighter as he gets into his groove. “A skilled mage can produce a barrier that does both at once,” he says. “In fact, the most efficient and effective barrier is one that self-sustains by absorbing an enemy’s attacks and incorporating the resultant energy into the protective matrix.”

She nods, enthralled as usual by the enthusiasm in his voice. “The author’s Chantry leanings were obvious, though,” she says. “He seemed particularly keen to emphasize the fact that absorbing an enemy’s magic was a heretical act.” 

“Precisely,” Solas says. “It is a logical fallacy. It…” He trails off and gives her an odd look. “I thought you couldn’t recall the passage in question.”

Elia freezes for a moment, then wilts slightly. She should have known better than to try and lie to him. “I… I do recall it, actually,” she says. “I’m sorry, Solas.”

His frown deepens. “Why did you say you couldn’t recall?” 

She hesitates and plucks nervously at her sleeve. She doesn’t want to tell him why, but his bemused expression is deepening by the second, and there’s nothing for it but to confess.

She hunches her shoulders slightly and lowers her voice. “I, er… I have to tell you something,” she says. “But it’s… embarrassing.” 

He raises his eyebrows and comes around the desk to stand beside her. “What is the matter, vhenan?” he says quietly. 

She nibbles the inside of her cheek, then says the words in a rush. “I like your voice, and I wanted to make you talk some more.”

His eyebrows jump high on his forehead again. “I beg your pardon?”

Elia sighs. She can feel her cheeks warming already, and she can’t help but curse her complexion for giving her away. “I like your voice,” she mumbles. “I just wanted to hear you talk some more. That’s why I said I didn’t remember the passage.” 

Solas doesn’t reply, and Elia ducks her head to hide her burning cheeks. Then Solas leans against his desk. “You like my voice?” he says slowly.

She chances a quick look at him, then wilts even further. He doesn’t look censorious or annoyed; in fact, the corners of his sculpted lips are curled in the faintest smile. 

She gives him a pitiful look. “You’re teasing me.”

“Not at all,” he says mildly. “I am simply curious to know what you mean.”

She rubs her nose awkwardly. “Is my terrible blushing not clear enough?” she mutters.

He chuckles, and a tingling shiver runs down her spine at the sound of his mirth. “You are teasing me,” she complains.

“I assure you, that is not my intent,” he says. “Am I to understand you haven’t been paying attention during our many lengthy discussions, then?”

He’s fully smiling now, and his slate-grey eyes are dancing. Elia abruptly rises from his chair. “Please, Solas, don’t,” she begs, and she turns toward the door and strides away.

He follows her swiftly. “Elia.” 

She keeps up her pace as she hurries through the Great Hall. It’s largely empty at this hour of night, and Elia is thankful for the lack of witnesses to her flaming cheeks. 

Before she can reach the door to her quarters, he catches her hand. “Elia, wait a moment.” 

She shakes her head but clasps his hand, unwilling to speak further until they’re alone. She unlocks the door to her quarters and pulls him in behind her, but before she can make her way up the stairs, he pulls her to a stop.

“Elia,” he says softly. “Look at me.”

She stops and gives him a frank look. “I like the sound of your voice, all right? It makes me, um…” She licks her lips nervously, then meets his eye once more. “It turns me on.” 

His face is lighting into a smile once more, and Elia groans and twists her hand out of his grip. “You’re laughing at me. This is why I didn’t want to say anything. I knew you would–”

She breaks off suddenly. Solas’s hand is cradling her jaw, and as Elia stares breathlessly at him, his thumb skims across her lower lip in a petal-soft caress. 

“What sorts of things do you enjoy hearing me say?” he asks. 

A rush of liquid heat pools instantly in her belly. His voice is pitched low and soft, exactly the way she likes it the most, and she struggles for a response. “I… honestly, Solas, I… I enjoy everything you have to say. And I do listen to our discussions, you know,” she adds belligerently. 

He chuckles again, and Elia presses her lips together. His mirth is rare when they’re in public, but his laughter comes more easily when they are alone, and when he chuckles like this – this soft and private laugh, like he’s heard more than just the words she meant to say… 

He takes a small step closer to her. “I’m glad to hear that our discussions of the temporal warping of the Veil haven’t fallen on deaf ears.”

She takes a careful breath. “No, I definitely listened to those.” 

He nods thoughtfully and takes another step closer, and Elia is forced to step back to accommodate his nearness. “And the time we were talking about the borrowing of Elvhen words into Tevene?” he says. “Were you listening then?”

She swallows and nods. “Y-yes. Yes, I was.”

He steps closer still, and Elia stops short. Her back is against the stone wall, and Solas is looming over her. When he tips her chin up, she loses her breath entirely. 

He smiles faintly. “I recently came upon a recipe for an elfroot tonic that boasts three times the potency of the average brew by adding a small measure of dragonthorn to the base,” he murmurs. “Shall we converse about that?”

Elia forces her lungs to breathe. His words are not a turn-on in any shape or form, and yet she’s standing here with her spine arching and her heart racing and a delicious buzzing warmth between her legs even though he’s barely touched her, and… fenedhis, imagine if he did start talking about something sensual instead of the relative safety of this academic oration. 

She licks her lips. “You can tell me that recipe if you like. I’d be glad to hear it.”

He nods slowly, then steps closer still and tilts his lips close to her ear. “Perhaps there are other things I would rather discuss.”

She blissfully closes her eyes. His voice is like a summer’s breeze: a heated breath across her ear carrying the smooth music of his voice, and she’s so busy enjoying its tone and timbre that it takes her a moment to realize what he’s suggesting. 

“Other things like what?” she says weakly. 

“The rate of your breathing, for one,” he replies. “It is quite rapid for someone whose supposed interests are the adjuvant benefits of dragonthorn.”

She opens her eyes and gazes at him incredulously. “You’re playing dumb with me?”

He smiles. “I was inspired by you, vhenan. You have only yourself to blame.”

She leans her head back against the wall and lets out a breathless laugh, but before she can formulate an appropriately snarky reply, Solas speaks again. “You inspire many sorts of urges, Elia. If you crave something other than intellectual discourse, you should feel free to ask.” 

She meets his eyes once more. It’s easy for him to suggest that she make carnal requests. He’s not the one who is crumbling into an incoherent lustful mess at the mere sound of a lover’s voice. 

She gazes pleadingly at him until his expression softens. He smoothes the edge of his thumb along her cheekbone and tucks a tuft of hair over her ear. “Perhaps you would like to discuss what will happen when we reach your bedroom.”

And there it is. There he is – the side of Solas that only Elia has the privilege to see: the patient and confident lover whose elegant hands lift her into a deeper ecstasy than anyone else ever has before. 

She breathes shakily through the vice of anticipation around her chest. “Perhaps I would,” she says.

A smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “Ah, good. Another topic we agree upon.” He takes her hand, and as he leads her up the stairs, he twines his fingers with hers. “I should think you would like to remove some of your clothing when we get upstairs.”

Absolutely, she thinks, but she doesn’t say it. Instead, she coyly tilts her head. “Remove my clothing? For what purpose?” she asks.

He shoots her a quick sideways glance, but Elia only blinks. If Solas insists on teasing her, well… two can play this game.

He smiles at her –  the rare, uninhibited kind of smile that she has only ever witnessed in private, and it lifts a bevy of butterflies in her belly. Then he returns his attention to the stairs. “Your shoes, for instance,” he says casually. “I’m aware that you’re only wearing them for the sake of decorum. You would far rather be barefoot instead.”

“True,” she says. “Should I remove anything else?”

He leads her up the last flight of stairs. “Your coat, perhaps,” he suggests. “I worry you might feel overly warm otherwise.”

She bites back a smile as they approach the door to her bedroom. “Why would I feel overly warm?”

He suddenly takes her arm and crowds her back against the bedroom door, and Elia gasps. Then she gasps more excitedly still as his lips graze the pointed tip of her ear. 

“Because I will kiss you when we step into your bedroom,” he murmurs. “And I will be offering you another manner of staying warm. One involving considerably fewer layers.”

Elia pants desperately for breath. His lips are a hairsbreadth from hers, and his chest is a mere inch away, and his hands – damn it, his hands: one is still holding her arm, and the other is penning her in against the door, and neither of them is anywhere close to where she wants them to be. 

Please. The word rings through her mind, a pure and simple plea, and she nearly allows it to fall from her lips. But Solas is watching her face, and his half-smile is sly but eager, and she knows that a plea is what he’s expecting. A plea is what she usually gives him, after all, since a plea is what gains her the heat of his tongue and the stroke of his careful fingers on her greedy skin. 

With no small degree of effort, she withholds the plea. “That’s an intriguing proposition,” she says. “I’ll certainly consider it when we get inside.”

His eyes widen briefly with surprise before crinkling at the corners with mirth, and Elia grins as well. Then Solas nods politely and opens her bedroom door. 

Elia steps through the door and traipses up the final flight of stairs. She turns to Solas with a smile, but before she can say a word, his hands are on her body – one hand at the back of her neck, and the other on her hip – and his lips are gracing hers with the kiss he’d promised. 

His kiss, his perfect patient kiss… Elia melts into him instantly, just as she always has since the very start. The kisses Solas gives are unlike any kiss she has ever received before, both careful and hungry in equal measure, and Elia shamelessly parts her lips for him and runs her palms along his chest. 

His hand is travelling over her hip, stroking the small of her back before slipping down to cup her bottom, and she whimpers into his lips as he pulls her closer against his body with his hand at the back of her thigh. Then his lips are breaking from hers to tease her ear once more.

“I would like to suggest again that you take off your clothes,” he says. 

“What for?” she pants. “I thought we were going to discuss the adjuvant properties of dragonthorn.”

He laughs. It’s a smooth and happy sound, one that rings straight to her belly and below, and all at once Elia admits defeat. He’s won the game, won it with that damned smooth laugh of his, and Elia has never been happier to lose. 

She quickly unbuttons her coat, and Solas steps back so she can strip more swiftly. In the space of a minute, her body is bare, and she lifts her chin to boldly face him. 

Already he is studying her, perusing her body slowly with his attentive grey eyes, and Elia tries hard to control her ragged breathing. “Do you have any more suggestions for me?” she says. 

He smiles slightly but doesn’t stop scanning her, and she shifts restlessly when his eyes land on the apex of her thighs. “I wonder what I should do next,” he muses. “Perhaps you have a suggestion for me.” He raises his eyes slowly to her face, and the naked intent in his eyes raises the pulse between her legs.

He reaches out and trails one finger along the line of her neck. “Should I lick the lines of your collarbones, Elia?” he says. “That is one suggestion I can offer.”

She swallows hard. His finger is following the path of his words, skimming lightly along the line of her clavicle, and when it comes to rest at the base of her throat, she nods her head. “Yes.”

He nods slowly as well, and his eyes resume their slow and thorough examination of her naked form. “I could trace the subtle planes and curves of your body with my fingers and my tongue,” he suggests. “Is that a course of action you would enjoy?”

“Gods, yes,” she blurts. His hand his moving again, his knuckles brushing lightly over the tight pink tip of her breast, and when he strokes the hollow of her belly with the back of his hand, she twists her hips restlessly. “Solas…”

He speaks again as though he hasn’t heard her. “Perhaps I should I taste the desire that collects between your legs. Would that please you?”

His words are like tinder to the flame of her lust, and his smooth and maddening voice is the bellows giving it life, and she’s unable to resist; she grabs his gentle hand and tries to push it down between her legs. “I want that, please!” 

He resists her desperate tugging and tilts her chin up instead, and Elia loses her breath as she meets his heated sterling gaze. “I could lay you on your bed and spread your legs for our mutual enjoyment,” he says. “Or perhaps I could set you on the couch, or on the desk. No matter the place, I want you prepared to announce your pleasure to the rafters.”

His voice, his words, his stubborn hands that refuse to give her the contact she’s so desperate for: it’s all too much, too difficult to bear, and Elia fists her hands in his tunic and presses herself against him. “Solas, please!” she sobs. “I want everything, all of it, everything you – just – just touch me, fuck me, please!” 

He smiles. “That is what I hoped you would say,” he purrs. Abruptly he lifts her up, then walks over to the bed and spills her onto her back. 

She rises to her elbows to smile at him as he pushes her thighs apart. “You are so smug, you know that–? Ah!” She breaks off with a cry: Solas’s mouth is already between her legs and he’s lapping up her eager moisture with his tongue, and Elia shudders with rapture as the heat of his tongue bleeds into her tender flesh. 

He nips her thighs with his lips, then graces her center with an open-mouthed kiss, and Elia falls back on the bed and spreads her legs wider to grant him access. He’s just as careful and thorough between her legs as he is when he kisses her lips, and it isn’t long – no, not nearly long enough – before she can feel her pulse rising and beating with growing urgency at the ministrations of his talented mouth.

She whimpers and twists her fists in the sheets, wishing vaguely that she could draw this rapture out for longer. Then, almost as though he knows her thoughts, Solas lifts his face. 

“You are especially eager tonight,” he comments. “I hope this means I’m pleasing you.”

She laughs breathlessly and lifts her hips toward him. “Solas, you have no idea,” she moans. 

He strokes her cleft with his fingers, forcing another desperate gasp from her throat. “I do have an idea, in fact,” he says. “This is no small indication of your need.” 

She mewls wordlessly and rocks her hips toward his teasing hand. Truthfully, she can’t decide whether she prefers the smooth and heated words he’s bestowing on her lustful ears, or the smooth and careful stroke of his fingers through her slippery feminine folds. 

“Shall I continue?” he murmurs. “Or would you have me talk some more?”

She opens her eyes and looks at him. His lips are glossy with her moisture and twisted with a smirk, but his eyes are so utterly tender and warm. 

She beams at him, then shakes her head and falls back on the bed with a laugh. “Truly, I regret saying anything,” she jokes. 

“No,” he says firmly, and his emphatic tone prompts her to lift her head from the bed once more. “Do not regret sharing your feelings. I… the esteem you have shown me, it…” He breaks off and exhales, and Elia watches curiously as his eyebrows rise in an incongruously wistful way.

“Solas?” she says gently. “Are you all right?”

He meets her eye once more, then nods briefly. “I am more than all right,” he tells her. Then he ducks his head and sweeps his tongue along the length of her cleft once more. 

Her breath leaves her in a shaky sigh, and she lies back once more to savour the dreamy rise of her climax as he coaxes it from her body with his skillful lips and tongue. When she finally comes, it’s a burst of glory and pleasure and warmth that ripples straight to the tips of her toes, and when she lazily opens her eyes, it’s to find him smiling at her once more. 

She pants breathlessly for a moment before speaking. “Come here. Join me,” she pleads. 

“Gladly, vhenan,” he says softly. Then he quickly shucks his clothes. 

He crawls toward her as she reaches for him, and their eagerness is such that barely a minute goes by before he’s poised between her legs, her knee hooked over his arm to spread her wide while he rocks the hardness of his cock against her wet and willing heat. 

Solas exhales sharply, then lowers his mouth to her breast. “Elia…” he groans. 

A fresh ripple of want trickles down her throat and into her chest, and she arches her toward him to goad his greedy mouth to take her nipple deeper. He suckles the hardness of her nipple until she’s bucking her hips toward him, and then – and then –

Elia arches her neck and releases a needy cry. His length is pressing inside of her, thick and hard and so damned right that it brings a burn of tears to her eyes, and as his hips fall flush to hers, he presses his lips to her neck. 

“Elia,” he groans. He nips her neck with his teeth. “Vhenan… ar isala ma.”

She nods in desperate agreement. The cadence of his Elvhen praise is even more enthralling than his common tongue, and as he starts to move inside of her in a patient rocking rhythm, her heart continues to pound between her legs and beneath her ribs in a matching staccato of pleasure and love entwined. 

They rise and fall and meet in an increasingly urgent blur of hips and hands and tongues. His gasping breaths are coloured with a groan of pleasure that thrills her attentive ears, and Elia blissfully listens as they move and shift and fuck together on her cozy cotton sheets. 

At the moment that his face twists with his impending orgasm, he presses his lips to her ear once more. “Nothing I have seen or touched in this world thrills me more than you,” he breathes. 

Her breath catches with lust and pleasure and an undeniable surge of love. Solas pumps his hips twice more, then groans his climax into the sweat-dampened side of her neck. 

She wraps her arms around his shoulders, holding him tightly as the shudders wrack his body. When he lifts his face from her neck, his cheeks are flushed from their love, and his expression is tender and soft. 

“Elia, I want you to know,” he says quietly. “I… I was not laughing at you. Downstairs in the rotunda.”

She raises her eyebrows in surprise at his choice of topic, then smirks. “Weren’t you, though?”

“I was not, no,” he says seriously. “Not at you. I laughed because…” He trails off and shifts off her body to lie beside her. “Such a compliment is rare,” he tells her softly. “It has been a very long time since my talking – or my company – have been so enjoyed by anyone.” 

She softens and gently strokes his arm. “Well, I certainly do enjoy your company. Among other various side benefits.”

He smiles at her little inside joke. “As I enjoy yours,” he murmurs.

The genuine joy in his face makes her heart thump, and she smiles helplessly at him. Then he shifts a little closer and skims his palm over her belly. “Speaking of enjoyable side benefits, I might be tempted to tell you some of yours,” he says quietly. “Would you care to hear me list them?”

His voice is low and sly and smooth, and a happy ripple runs down her spine at the mere sound. “Yes please,” she says. “You can tell me anything you like. I’ll never tire of listening to you.”

His hand on her belly falls still for a moment, then resumes its slow and soothing stroke. “Then I shall do my best to speak to you for as long as I can,” he whispers. 

She smiles, then closes her eyes as his exquisite voice murmurs in her ear. Solas might be a maddening tease at times, but if it means she’ll earn his calm and soothing voice in her bed, she’ll happily submit to his teasing. 

If it means Solas will talk, Elia will do nearly anything.

[in-arlathan]

Eyes Wide Open

Back in the writing game with a new Solavellan story. When I started writing, I was convinced it would be this short fluffy thing. Oh boy, I was so wrong. It turned rather dark towards the end and I love it. I hope you do, too.

A want to give a big shoutout to @serial-chillr who beta’d this for me and help me really polish this piece. Your advice was amazingly insightful. I can’t thank you enough ♥︎ 

This is available on AO3, too.

___

One of the first things her father had taught her about hunting was to watch out for the green light. 

“When you’re in the forest and see the faintest glimmer of green, promise me to run. When the Fade opens, terrible things are bound to happen.”

She remembered his words with such clarity it was as if he was standing right next to her. A flicker of emotion danced on her skin, making the small hairs on her arms and neck stand up.

“Don’t let the patches of sunlight in the underbrush distract you,” she heard him say. “Your eyes won’t know where the Fade is thin and where it’s not. In some places, it quivers and if you’re not careful, you will attract attention from the other side.”

His words carried all the grief and sadness of a man who had lost a brother to the temptations of the Fade and even without an ounce of magical talent, Elenara could see the trauma it had caused him. She had wanted nothing more than to reach out to him and hold him close. 

She wondered what he might think of her now that she bore the mark upon her hand. Would he be afraid of her? Would he run? Or would he hate her for what she had become?

Elenara leaned closer to her own reflection in the mirror, tracing the fine lines around her eyes with her fingers. At 32, age had already begun to mark her and the blood writing of Dirthamen was slowly fading. But that was not what set her teeth on edge…

With two fingers, she pulled open one eyelid. Her eyes had always been as green as the leaves of a birch tree. Her mother’s eyes, as her father often reminded her. Another cause for grief he never learned to let go. Another loss she would rather not remember. A wave of guilt washed over her.

The dead never leave us, do they?

Pushing her feelings aside, she focused on the color variations in her iris – the fine lines of dark green intertwined with strands of lighter green and yellowish-brown that reminded her of the woods near Wycome. And flecked across it all, new sparks of ghostly green that  gleamed like stars in the vast and endless sea of the night sky. Green as the rifts that had been torn open all over Thedas. Green as the Breach that threatened the world. 

She let her hand sink, resting it on the washbasin below the mirror. It hadn’t been an illusion then. Her eyes had changed since getting the mark. 

When the Fade opens, terrible things are bound to happen.

The demon that had tempted and consumed her uncle had come from a rift that barely deserved the name. More like a fissure, as her aunt, Irileth, had told her. And yet it had been powerful enough to let Desire slip through, possess Tere’lan Lavellan and claim his life.

Oh, how she wished her aunt were here. Her father, too. But one was with their clan on the other side of the Waking Sea, and the other rested forever in a burial site in the Vimmark Mountains.

Elenara sighed. Since the keeper had graced her face with the blood-red vallaslin that declared her an adult among her people, she had known so many things – her place in the world most of all. And she had known what she was capable of. Now, she was not so sure. The explosion at the Temple of Sacred Ashes had changed everything, and now she walked among humans to fight in the name of a god she didn’t even believe in. 

“Creators, I have no idea what to do”, she whispered as her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away and sniffled, pushing back her feelings once more.

Outside her cabin, Haven was slowly awakening. The talk of townsfolk mingled with the bells of the Chantry ringing in the distance. Not long until her party would set off to Val Royeaux. Surely, Cassandra was already saddling their horses. 

Elenara splashed a few drops of water from the wash-basin on her face, then turned to the bed and grabbed the boots standing next to it. They were sturdy and warm and not nearly as uncomfortable as she had expected them to be. Still, she hated those boots with a burning passion. She missed her foot wrappings and the feeling of grass between her toes as she stalked the open plains of the Free Marches, looking for a ram she could hunt down for dinner. 

Someone came knocking on her door while she was still struggling to tie the laces.

“Lavellan, are you still in there?”

That was Varric’s voice.

She coughed, then said: “Yeah, I’m here. Come in.”

A second later, the door swung open and Varric walked in. But he wasn’t alone. Solas was beside him, carrying his staff as if it was a holy relic. 

“Andraste’s ass,” the dwarf said. “You look like shit, Lavellan.”

Elenara forced herself to smile. “You’re a real charmer, Varric. Has anyone ever told you that?”

If he took offense, he did a perfect job of not showing it. “Did you even sleep last night?” he asked. “Or any night since we returned from the Hinterlands? Because you sure don’t look like it.”

“Not a wink,” she said and sighed deeply.

“Well, shit.” Varric scratched his head. “Is it because of the Chantry folk in Val Royeaux? I know they can be a bit intimidating, but Cassandra and Chuckles and I will be there to have your back. If they so much as point a finger at you, we’ll be glad to chop it off.”

Elenara smiled again. Genuinely, this time. “Thanks, Varric.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Solas pursing his lips. Was he pitying her? 

“What are you looking at?” she asked, more bitterly than she had intended.

Solas blinked and his chin jolted upwards as if she had awoken him from a pleasant dream. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He raised a hand. “I was just… wondering…”

Her brows furrowed. “Wondering? About what?”

“Have you noticed any… changes since you stopped the Breach from growing?” he asked.

She cast a curious side-glance at Varric, but the dwarf just shrugged. 

How can he possibly know …

The thought perished as she remembered what Varric had told her about Solas. How he had stopped the mark from killing her while she lay unconscious. The apostate clearly knew what kind of magic they were dealing with. Or he had a decent grasp of the situation, at least, and that was more than Elenara could say about herself.

Once more, her father’s voice echoed in her mind. “Promise me to run”, he’d said to her. But she couldn’t, not any longer. All those cautionary tales about the dangers of magic were utterly useless to her now. Maybe her best option was to give herself to magic and have a skilled mage help her deal with the problem at hand. 

“There is something,” she said slowly. “My eyes… they’re…”

Solas didn’t let her finish her sentence. He bridged the distance between them with three quick strides and kneeled before her. Then he placed the staff beside him on the stone floor and took her face into his hands, his fingers resting lightly on her cheeks. “Look at me,” he said and his voice carried a sense of urgency.

Despite herself, Elenara held her breath and stared at him.

She had never noticed the true color of his eyes before. From a distance, they looked grey, like a storm cloud on an autumn day in the Free Marches. Now, she saw the hues of blue and violet mixed in there. 

“Fascinating,” she breathed.

“Indeed,” Solas said, lost in thought while examining her eyes. “It seems your body is responding to the magic that has placed the mark upon your hand. An uncommon occurrence but not completely unheard of. Most mages undergo a process of change when their talents make themselves known.”

“And that’s supposed to reassure me?” 

Solas offered a smile, his gaze still locked with hers. He brushed her cheek with one thumb.

“I would not worry if I were you. As long as the Breach remains stable, you are safe. Still, if you find any other changes or feel pain of any kind, let me know. I will look into it and help as best I can.”

Elenara felt her hand twitch with the urge to reach out and touch his face to trace the lines of his chin and mouth. She licked her lips and wondered what it might feel like to kiss him. 

Don’t be foolish, she told herself. This must be the worst of all the bad ideas you had in your life. For all you know, he’s an apostate who has no love for the Dalish. Creators, he might leave as soon as the Breach is sealed, just like you. 

And yet, there was a fluttering feeling that had settled in her stomach and refused to leave – like some kind of premonition.

“Thank you, Solas,” she whispered breathlessly. 

“It’s okay.” He chuckled. “I came to help after all.”

“Yes, you did,” she replied.

Varric coughed as noisily as possible.

“Great,” the dwarf boomed. “So, we’re done here, right? We should get going before the seeker sends a search party to look for us.”

Solas pushed back and let go of her face. She, in turn, rubbed her cheeks to cover up the blush that bloomed there. “Yeah,” she murmured and hurried to collect her travel bag. Solas, however, took his time to pick up his staff and get back on his feet again.

“It doesn’t seem like a good idea to keep Cassandra waiting,” he said.

Elenara shouldered her bag, casting a sidelong glance at Solas. He cradled his staff with one arm and watched her intently while she readied herself for the journey, a soft smile tugging at his lips. It almost seemed like he was enjoying himself. To say she was confused by this would have been an understatement.

“Tell me about it,” Varric said to Solas, then turned to Elenara as she grabbed her bow and quiver. “You’re good to go?”

“Yes,” she told Varric and nodded. “Let’s go.”

“Lead the way, Lavellan. We’re right behind you.”

********

Solas cupped her cheek with one gloved hand. She wished she could feel the warmth of his skin on hers as she stared into his eyes, searching for the man she loved so deeply.

Two years had gone by since she had been this close to him. Two years wondering where he had gone, why he had left her. And now she knew. 

His name was Fen’Harel and he was about to shatter her world.

“My love,” he breathed.

The magic of the anchor flared and sent a wave of agony through her body. She bit her lip and forced herself not to cry out in pain. In this moment, she wanted to pretend that everything was back to normal and that nothing had changed between them.

She wondered if he could still see the light in her eyes. It had spread more and more with every passing day since the Exalted Council began. The green glimmer flickered and flared just like the anchor and the pain almost blinded her. Still, she kept her eyes fixed on Solas while he leaned closer, caressing her cheek with his gloved hand.

She had promised him that their love would endure. There was nothing in this world or the Fade that she wanted more. And yet, as the magic drained her life, she couldn’t help but wonder if her father had been right after all. Maybe she should have run when she still had the chance. If not from her duty as Inquisitor, at least from the elven mage that she had come to care about so deeply, despite knowing so little about him. When he had left her in Crestwood, she should have seen it as an opportunity to begin again and find someone new. She could have been happy, for a while.

And still, when he brushed his lips against hers, the world began to make sense again. He was her destiny and her duty and she would hold on to him as long as she could. He was hers again and that was all that mattered, even if it was only for a moment.

Elenara focused on the delicate movements of his mouth and pushed aside the pain that seared through her left arm. She remembered the day when she thought about kissing him for the first time. Back then, she had brushed the impulse off as just that: a terrible idea that had crossed her mind. Now, she felt incapable of going on without him. 

Tears filled her eyes, as he withdrew from her and got back on his feet. She didn’t even dare to look at her left arm. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on Solas. He gazed at her with a stricken expression on his face.

“I will never forget you,” he whispered.

She saw him turn away ever so slowly as if walking away from her caused him physical pain. 

And with that, it was over.

Light erupted behind her closed eyelids, rendering her blind within seconds. She leaned forward, clasping her healthy hand around her left upper arm. The magic of the anchor went wild, roaring inside her body and soul one last time. She cried out in pain as her left hand and arm dissolved into nothingness. 

Overwhelmed by agony, she barely heard Solas slipping away through the eluvian. All she could think about were the words of warning her father had spoken to her all these years long ago that she had completely failed to follow.

When you see the faintest glimmer of green, promise me to run.

“You were right,” she hissed, repressing another wild cry. “You were always right.”

She had failed her father, just like she had failed her clan. Maybe she should have turned her back on all of this when she still had the chance to flee back to the Free Marches. She might not have been able to save her clan from the treacherous dealings of the Venatori in Wycome, but at least she would have died knowing she had honored her father’s teachings. Instead, she had chosen to run into her own misery with her eyes wide open.

What was she supposed to do? she asked herself, hoping secretly that a voice from beyond the Fade would answer her call. The world was in grave danger. And it still was. 

I’m sorry, father.

Elenara inhaled sharply, still blinded by the green light that reached across the Veil, and focussed on the low thrum of her own heartbeat. Steadying her breath, she waited until the pain in her arm slowly faded away.

Carefully, she let her right hand slide down her arm. A dry sob escaped her when her trembling fingers reached her elbow–or what was left of it. Through the remains of the chainmail that had protected her arm, she could feel the cauterized wound. And then… nothing…

She let out a long, controlled breath. To stop the mark from spreading, Solas had taken a part of her with his ancient magic. Maybe she should be thankful. Without the anchor, she had one less burden to carry. If only her heart did not feel as heavy as if it was made of pure lead.

When she opened her eyes, the world remained a bright haze of light. She blinked and new tears streamed down her cheeks. Slowly, the shadows came back. Blurry shapes of rocks and foliage surrounded her as she drew herself upright. Her knees shook violently as she made her way back to the mirror she had come through, passing by the frozen shape of the Viddassala. Elenara paused and pushed back the urge to touch the stone statue’s arm. You had no idea what you’d gotten yourself into, she thought. Just like me.

As she walked over to the eluvian, the shapes sharpened around her and the world regained its vibrant color. She saw bushes and trees swaying in the wind and the golden streaks of sunlight dancing on their leaves. “Creators help me,” she whispered with a bitter taste in her mouth. The words had never felt so hollow before. With all that she had uncovered at the Temple of Mythal, her faith in the elven gods had faltered. Now, it was all but shattered. 

Maybe I should evoke the Maker instead. Or even Andraste. They haven’t had their chance to let me down yet.

The eluvian was still dormant when she finally reached it. Weakened from the fight against the qunari, exhausted from the truths she had learned that day, she leaned against the silvery surface of the mirror and closed her eyes. 

She had come so far only to realize that she had been set up to fail right from the start. Oh, how stupid she had been. All her meddling in politics to steer the world onto a safer path had ultimately amounted to nothing. Maybe the hunters had been right to mock her for her interest in history and shemlen politics. She should have run like her father told her to. 

When the Fade opens, terrible things are bound to happen.

But in truth she had known there’d be no going back ever since she had seen the terror of the Breach with her own eyes. With a threat that dark and powerful, there was nowhere safe to run to. And so she’d done the only thing that had seemed plausible at the time–she had joined forces with Cassandra and the others to heal the sky. And along the way, she had come to know the world so much more intimately than she could have imagined as a young girl devouring books about faraway lands and long-forgotten kingdoms. She had her companions to thank for that. With their love and friendship, their ambition and folly, their victories and failures, they had shown her what Thedas truly was and what it might be. It had kept her going despite all the fear and darkness she faced.

And while she thought of Varric, and Cassandra, and Cole, and Dorian, and Blackwall and all the others, she knew she had to take at least one more step. Because all these years of fighting would have been for nothing if she gave up now.

“I have to get back”, she whispered and her breath fogged the mirror’s surface. “Please.”

She could feel a ripple as her naked hand touched the eluvian. A moment later, the portal unlocked itself, its surface warping into a cascade of violet light. 

Elenara breathed a sigh of relief and stepped through. 

“She’s back.”

“Inquisitor!”

Before she knew it, Dorian was by her side, slinging an arm around her waist to help her stand. Varric and Cassandra, who had been standing by the corpse of the enormous Saarebas they had been fighting before, rushed to meet them. The Divine hissed as she beheld Elenara’s missing arm.

“Holy shit, Lavellan.” Varric looked more miserable than she had ever seen him. “What happened over there?”

“I found him...”

Her knees gave out and she would have sunk to the ground if it wasn’t for Dorian. “Careful,” he whispered soothingly.

Cassandra swore under her breath, brows furrowed. “Solas did this to you? Why would he do such a thing? I thought he and you were… ” 

The former seeker let her sentence trail off

“I’ll explain later, I promise,” Elenara replied wearily. “We have to get back and warn the others.”

Dorian cast a quick glance at the dead qunari that lay scattered among the old elven ruins, then cocked his head in disbelief. “Warn them? About what?”

She gave him a sad smile. “This is not over yet.”

____

Thanks for reading. <3

[mrstethras]

Fade Child [Solavellan oneshot]

I wrote a quick Solavellan one-shot as a gift for @kita-lavellan​ and her Inquisitor/Solas. Playing around with the loss and longing for Solas post-Trespasser. Non-canon, pretty angsty.

Solas inched the very corners of her dreams -- where the edges blurred and wavered, tangled and intertwining with the thrum of the Fade, an endless dark forest beyond, curling black roots gnarled and writhing beneath his bare feet as he padded the ground, silent and watchful. Lilac eyes followed the ghostly glower, to a single open space, where vibrant veilfire illuminated all the things Kita had subconsciously shaped in the dreamspace as she slept. And Solas recognised, with a soft smile, the rushing waterfall in Crestwood, the spot where he had taken her vallaslin, years ago. Drawn the blood and magic from her face, as those wide eyes had watched him curiously, closely -- so close -- full of trust. It tugged at his heart to see it still, as it played in her thoughts, those moments repeated, as it had done for him ever since. How he had wanted to tell her all, then. But had dared not ruin her, as his cooling magic cleared her face of the vallaslin, Solas wished not to mar her again with his own tainted past.

There was snow on the ground, crisp, sparkling and virginal, as it had been out in the wilderness -- Haven, Skyhold. The scent -- trees -- fresh and piney, as though the winds blew through from the Emerald Graves themselves. They had stood together once, alongside a statue of a watchful wolf, surrounded by lush greenery, blanketed by stillness, as Kita reminisced her life to him, crystalline eyes glistening, how she’d played there as a child, wild and free. Solas was certain that even the dead, curled in the roots of the silvery trees, were quietly listening and equally captivated.

And there, jutting oddly, out of the snow, the wood, the cavernous waterfall, all at once as the Fade made possible, layers of memories upon memories, was the ruin of Calanhad’s Foothold. Solas remembered, a whispery breath of laughter as he reminisced the days, how had made the comment only once to her, how he had hoped to explore the crumbling wreck of the castle further in the Fade, for Kita to then make camp there on their travels through the Hinterlands. How she woke him gently the next morning, eager to hear what he had seen. She’d stayed there, only for him.

He remembered.

He remembered all of it.

As tangible and real, as though he could taste it.

As did she.

Vhenan...

It sounded as soft as breath, like the gentlest gust of breeze. For a moment Solas wasn’t sure if it had passed from his lips, or he had heard it drift through space. Then it came again. Vhenan. And his chest ached with it, his throat tight and dry. He eyed the dreamspace in search of her, stepping through the undergrowth and into the snowy meadow. It crunched but there came no cold. He would leave no footprints in this place. This sacred place Kita had filled with her most intimate memories. He would not desecrate this Fade realm, built on the very fabric of their times in love, and all of her longing. 

Vhenan.

It echoed. Rippled. Like a finger dipping into a watery surface, Solas felt the disturbance and the dreamspace felt changed. It had been some time since he had visited her in sleep -- as he lifted the Veil, the world and Fade were both changing. He regretted that he had neglected Kita, tried his best to ignore and avoid her echo ringing out for him. Her search for him. He had not been watching over her as closely, as the chaos of the things to come had pulled his attention and direction elsewhere. Solas stepped gingerly, curiously, the landmarks of their love served as his guide. He longed to call out to her, as he felt the ripple again. His mind, the vision, the Fade, vibrated. Something disturbed her once peaceful slumber. A giggle bounced upon moist stone and reverberated for longer, and longer and longer. An eerie sound when it seemed not to end. Solas’ brow furrowed as he stalked the crumbling entrance of the ruin. Unfamiliar to him, he was cautious, wary. Fingers felt the damp moss, rolling the gritty mortar between his fingertips.

Var lath vir suledin. 

It was his own voice that called out from Calanhad’s Foothold. Solas’ stomach writhed at the words. Words that were not his, but hers. Spoken in a voice akin to his own. A mocking reflection. He was snapped from his thoughts -- now worry, hurt, filled his heart. He hurried onward, weaved fallen pillars, a stoic statue of a wolf whose muzzle was turned away, and Solas saw her then, aglow in the azure blaze of the firelight. A campfire -- veilfire. The vision of her -- of them -- had him stunted, collapsing back into the derelict wall as though winded by the sight alone. There she was, his vhenan. Kita Lavellan, her eyes reflecting the blue haze of the flames, the magic dancing across her pale skin. How young and vibrant she looked without her vallaslin. The soft, plumpness of her lips. She was smiling -- she was beautiful. The purest look of love in her eyes that wracked his body again. And there, by her side, sat a child. Laughing. Giggling. As they weaved together crowns made of Arbour Blessing. Small pale ears poking out of a mass of dark hair, big, gentle eyes, purple iris in the ambient light.

A trick of the Fade --

Or --

He could barely stand it.

He knew the child to be his. At least - - in her imaginings brought to life in the Fade, this was so. The way Kita brushed the plumpest cheek, tucked a curl behind an ear, he felt the pain like an arrow to the heart, struck hard and true. A life they were forbidden to have together, one that she clung to, the way Kita looked with such adoration. Solas could hardly stand it. And there he sat too. By the fire. Flickering and faltering against the sparking of the campfire. Ghostly. False. A demon of desire that laughed along with them -- having taken and bastardised the thoughts and feelings of their host. Solas felt sicker too, to watch it in his shape, take Kita softly by the jaw and plant the lightest kiss upon her lips. To see her happiness shining, as she closed her eyes and drew it in. The three of them, a family. How the spirit of love had been corrupted in Solas’ absence -- how it now filled Kita’s dreams with all that she desired.

Anger boiled in his blood, a rage he could barely quell, his stomach knotted, fists clenched, chest panting. It was not the demon -- the spirit -- that was to blame in this. But the hole he had left in Kita's heart, he had left it wide open. For the lingering and the curious to crawl right inside. The guilt clogged behind Solas' collar. Having brought down the Veil and exposed her, so vulnerable that she was - - he could feel her longing for it matched his own. Solas watched, winced, as the demon played amongst their things like a curious child itself, and giggled, laughed and spoke, all at once, to keep Kita enthralled by it’s visage. Playing on her every whim. On the love they had shared, that they both longed to share still. 

Solas shrank into his own darkness, anger -- seething -- panting madly -- as he curled back into Fen’Harel, a great and momentous shape, a fleeting blackness. Fur and Fade. Blooded eyes, jaws snapping madly, eyes upon eyes opening, roving and glowering madly as he darted from the shadows of the ruin and out into the snow, trampling the fire where they had all sat together. Fen’Harel yelped as the child, like a wisp, disappeared into the ether the moment he trampled the ash, and Kita reeled from the sudden, maddened chaos. The demon with his face had been taken by surprise. It’s guise fell, and white eyes turned on him, snarling too. Horns that veered up into the sky, the desire demon's mouth flew wide, claws and flesh and screaming. Fen’Harel pounced to tear at its middle, clamped within his jaws its screeched loudly and painfully, as he tossed it aside, grievously wounded.

Away with you. He warned, a low rumble that shook the dreamspace -- the demon stuttered in it’s shock it vanished, child, fire and laughter too. The ruins, the snow, the waterfall, all descended into immediate darkness, endless, where Kita scrambled, alone in the black abyss, the demon had swept the substance from her sleeping mind. The sadness in her eyes as she turned to him, blinded and lost in the nothingness. Solas watched her in stillness as his anger turned to sadness.

 And Kita cried out. 'Solas?' reaching through the blackness, Fen'Harel shuffled from her outstretched hands, as she looked for her love. 

He felt the lightest of touches, as Kita’s fingertips brushed at his fur, and with horror, Solas saw the sudden understanding that flitted across her features, torn again by a new agony. Raw and realising. And real.

'Is that you?' She breathed, into the dark. 

He whined.

Kita stepped forward -- she reached again, ‘I know you’re out there,’ and he --

Not yet, Ma Vhenan. 

Fen'Harel recoiled, into the nothing. Away from her reaching arms and eyes that streamed, tears hovering in the absence of everything. He could not go to her. 

Not yet.  Fen’Harel turned to the very fabric of the Fade, and plucked at it with claws as long as knives. He was thankful for the endless darkness, that Kita could not see him in this monstrous form. Regretfully, his chest aching in misery, Solas finally spoke.

Wake up. 

[wyrdsistersofthedas]

Gaiety - A Solavellan Oneshot

 by Artemis, a Wyrd Sister of Thedas.  

Posted in honor of Dragon 4ge Day.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The memories curling at the edge of the Fade were strong in the Emprise du Lion. 

Remnants of a time forgotten haunted the shadows of crumbling fortresses while the children of the villages played under the watchful eyes of relics devoted to gods whose names they did not know. Where once the lost elven nation thrived now occupied spires of crackling scarlet crystals thrumming with sinister power, taking root in the cold earth and in the hearts of men, turning them to crazed zealots mad with the song of corruption whispering promises of power.

The snow crunched beneath Solas’ feet as he followed the Inquisitor past ice-covered towers and looming, barren trees. The chill in the air turned the breath from the entourage to clouds and tinged the tips of their ears a rosy hue rivaling that of a sunburned nug. Glistening specks of crystalline latticework danced throughout the grey sky before falling silently to the ground, pulling an earlier memory of Kialla’s surprised remark of the quiet in the mountains of the Emprise to flit across Solas’ mind, and a fleeting smile crossed his features. 

Despite the deceptively serene landscape of the area, it was anything but. Solas could feel the energy of dark forces at work, simmering beneath the quiet facade presented by the abandoned elven fortresses. Memories tugged at the surface of the Fade throughout the ruins of his people, while the lonely howling of wolves in the distance was rivaled only by the howling of the wind past his ears.

He would rather not linger here.

As the group trekked through the near pristine powder toward their destination, Solas’ mind wandered further. He pondered Kialla, unwittingly thrust into a position of power and influence over a magnitude of frightened and desperate people. The name of “Herald” carried significant weight in Thedas as of late, and garnered her a great amount of attention that she seemed indifferent to at best on some days.

And there was the Anchor. In his days keeping watch over her while she lay unconscious closely following the catastrophic events at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, he had contemplated the drastic turn of events. Initially, he had been perplexed, and wondered at how the seemingly ordinary Dalish woman could have possibly survived receiving the Anchor at all, accident or no.

And then she woke up, fought by his side, effectively putting the Anchor to use, and tirelessly asked him question after question plucked from an endless flood of curiosity. For a moment that dissipated rather quickly, Solas was hesitant to reveal anything about himself to her, but he saw that sparkle of wonderment in her eyes as he spoke of the Fade, and soon he was speaking of the grace with which she moved in battle before he hardly had the thought to consider the gravity of the words that tumbled from his lips.

Never before, in all his many years, had he ever felt —

A shock of startlingly cold struck him mid-thought, just behind his ear. 

It was all the man could do to blink and sputter as the snow fell from his head to creep beneath his cloak and slither down his neck. Through his surprise, Solas heard a soft giggle emanate from somewhere nearby, and he scanned the trees for the source while doing his best not to squirm as he wiped the icy water picking up speed down his neck. 

A pair of impishly gleaming blue eyes caught his, and Solas glimpsed a coy smirk on Kialla’s lips before the Dalish woman ducked back behind her tree trunk. She dipped down to scoop up another handful of snow, quickly shaping it in her gloved hands before sending it soaring in his direction.

This time, however, he had the mind to sidestep the attack, so that the tightly packed snowball barely grazed the tip of his ear as it flew past and landed some short distance away from his feet with a quiet  Plat!

Ah.

Pieces falling together swiftly in his mind, Solas leapt into action, gathering his own projectile from the blanket of snow. He waited for just the right moment, when she popped out from behind her tree once more with a new pile of snow in hand, and then let it fly.

The problem with his plan, however, was that Kialla was a skilled rogue, and her reflexes were sharp. As soon as she saw his arm wind back to throw, she disappeared from the line of fire. Solas’s own snowball whizzed right past its intended target, flying through the trees to hit none other than the group’s resident Seeker, landing dead center on the back of her head.

Cassandra whirled around, hand already at the hilt of her blade, brown eyes darting wildly around in search of her attacker. Her dark brows creased when she found none. 

“What—”

A sputter of laughter burst from Varric, just a few yards away, drawing her attention, and the woman frowned deeply. The dwarf guffawed heartily, clutching at his belly.

“You — you should have seen that, Seeker!” Varric cackled out when he finally had to stop for air, bending over his knees. “Your face!”

In the midst of his enjoyment at her expense, Varric missed the scowl Cassandra wore, and the tightly packed snowball she sent sailing toward his hunched frame until it nailed him on the crown of his head.

Oh, there was no turning back now.

In a matter of moments, the friendly snowball fight escalated into utter chaos. All manner of dignity was shed and abandoned as it rapidly became every man for himself, taking cover behind trees, snowballs flying left and right, and delighted, near-childlike laughter ringing out like bells through the frozen air.

While Cassandra and Varric were preoccupied in their own battle, Solas took the opportunity to hunt down his sly beloved. Shielding himself behind the trunk of a rather thick pine, he waited, eyes carefully scanning the area for any trace of her familiar evergreen cloak, or her pale blonde hair, or the tip of her treasured longbow.

However, the Dalish-trained hunter was, evidently, exceptionally elusive.

A small and subtle movement in his line of sight caused a light dusting of powder to stir from the snow covered branches, and Solas could feel himself tense, senses honing with anticipation. Another miniscule rustle in the tree kept his eyes glued forward, snowball ready and waiting in his hand while his arm hovered on standby to throw as soon as the time was right. 

Then once more, a flash of movement in the branches that disturbed the snow, and his arm jerked back to wind up his throw...

...and a squirrel emerged from the branches, scurrying down the long tree trunk.

Brow creasing, the mage paused, and in his confusion almost missed the quiet rustling of fabric and quick footsteps approaching from close behind him. A pair of hands enclosed over his eyes and pulled him backward as he grunted in surprise, snowball dropping to the ground where his feet had been seconds before, quickly forgotten. 

A few awkward and fumbling steps backward, and the hands vanished from his eyes to spin the mage around, meeting Solas with those same impishly smiling blue eyes that he so adored, dizzying him in a very real sense.

He only had time to sputter out a dazed, “Vhenan, what are—” as Kialla pinned him against the nearest tree and captured his lips with her own. 

Her mouth was hot, a direct contrast to the bitterly cold nip in the air. The kiss sparked a flame to life between them, and it didn’t take long for Solas to catch up after his unfinished question, reaching up to take her jaw in his hands while simultaneously lessening the distance between them. They explored each other’s mouths for what seemed like hours, until their heads were spinning and they were forced to come up for air, locking eyes as their breaths mingled.

Not a minute later, a burst of cold quite literally smacked them in the face, effectively and abruptly pulling them back to reality as a high-pitched cackle rang out from somewhere behind the trees.

It seemed being taken by surprise was becoming the theme of the day, Solas noted in equal parts mild amusement and indignation as he, yet again, wiped his neck dry of snow with his sleeve, working to repress a scowl. 

“Was that...?”

“Sera?” Kialla finished his thought.

“I wasn’t aware she was accompanying us,” Solas remarked, brow raised.

“Neither was I.”

Kialla, at least, looked just as bewildered as he did, this time. As she shook her head with a quiet laugh, Solas felt his own features soften from annoyance into an affectionate smile. His hand reached out, seemingly of its own accord, to brush back a stray blonde curl from her cheek, tucking the strand behind her long, pointed ear. 

The simple gesture was so unexpected and gentle that a light tinge of pink dusted Kialla’s cheeks. She smiled, lashes fluttering as the woman looked down bashfully. 

“We should... probably keep moving.”

“Yes,” Solas agreed, running his thumb along her cheek. “Of course, Vhenan.”

As their eyes returned to one another, he couldn’t help but capture her lips once more before setting out, this time in a sweet and chaste kiss that was interrupted only by the grins that neither one of them cared to smother.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

Title: Masked Ball Fandom: Dragon Age Pairing: Solavellan Words: 3195 Series: [Talking To Yourself] Also read here: AO3

Tallin Lavellan x Solas | Post-Crestwood (memory of before) | romance | angst In one of the many instances of Tallin ruminating on her now-defunct relationship with Solas, she recalls the Winter Palace: The initial unkindness suffered at the hands of the nobility, an unnervingly out-of-character Solas, and a failed dance.

Remember the Winter Palace? Of course you do. That was a stupid question, sorry.

I was out-of-place. I knew. They knew. It was the first time that I could feel my vallaslin burning on my skin since the initial scabbing had sloughed off. Burning from..what? 

The human nobles’ eyes on me, just like back at Haven, just like in the courtyard of Skyhold. Waiting for me to do something. Do what? What did they want? I couldn't hide from them. 

Cullen told me you slipped in ahead of us, and you remained out of sight until it was time for me to be presented to the court and greet the Empress. Like Cole, you materialized without a word and remarked upon the task before us. I could only nod and try my best to not allow the glaring lights from the chandeliers and candles blind me, not fiddle nervously with my gloved hands, not forget to breathe as I descended the red carpeted stairs and crossed the ballroom floor.

Josephine told me to watch what I said, so I said nothing unless I had to, and I was so nervous that I just said what I thought. They wore masks. How could I possibly tell what they wanted to hear if I couldn't see their faces? You can fake so much with the mouth and voice. I was glad I brought Cole along. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to go with just you! Ah, n-not that I had forgotten why we were there! Not that I'd forgotten that this was the place that my people--

Ah, I'm sorry. You don't like it when I talk about Dalish history. I'm sorry.

They called me a savage under their breaths. The clan elders had talked about what the humans called us and how we should not allow those words to wound us like arrows as they were intended to, but it was the first time that I had heard someone use such speech to describe me. I told you I had never met a human before the Conclave. Or rather, I hid behind the aravels or ducked behind the halla whenever they approached the elders for trade and disagreements. I listened but didn't speak to them then, and those men were usually civil.

Ahh-haah, I suppose I should consider myself lucky that Cassandra never resorted to such words, even when she suspected me of causing the explosion at the Conclave. Roderick didn’t, either. He hated me, you know--of course you know, you were there--but he never insulted me like that...

So no, I truly had never been called such things before that night. I always fear that people speak badly of me when they think I am not listening, but it was only there, surrounded by those people weighed down by ostentatious amounts of silk and cotton and gilded metals that I realized that my nightmares had finally come true.

The words did end up hurting. I wasn't used to it, not like you were, not like you always were.

Very quickly I fell back to my old ways in order to paste together my quickly-crumbling composure. Rocking nervously on my heeled boots. Fixing my hair. Pretending yet again to look out one of the many windows so I could just practice breathing and collect myself. I could not blow this. I could not. I absolutely could not. I could not disappoint anyone, you most of all.

But I knew people were watching. They were watching every single second of it. That was what these gatherings were for, weren’t they, an excuse to pick people apart. Why are these noble humans so cruel, why do they find cruelty to be fun? And why is cruelty rewarded with more cake and tea?  

I resolved to find you. I needed you. Again, you had disappeared from the ballroom as soon as I concluded my self-introduction to Empress Celene. Ironically, it took a momentous amount of courage to leave the ballroom. If I was flagging so miserably here, surely other areas for the mingling of guests would prove just as difficult? 

But I gingerly walked through the only open wing, past guards who did not so much as glance at me, and there I saw you.

When I saw you leaning against that statue in the guest wing, my heart flooded with a warm ache that was both suffocating and comforting. I thought we would be able to bond over how frivolous everything was. Being elves. Being outsiders. You were not Dalish, and I was, and though you knew so much of the world better than I, you dressed so simply, always, you spoke plainly, truthfully, you chose your words carefully to mean what they meant. I love you for it. Plain and simple and honest, like home. Like home.

I walked towards you, a beacon situated at the end of a long, polished floor. The sight of you, red and gold and blue, gave me strength to smile politely at the whispering guests as I passed them. I pictured what we would do together: We would laugh at them the same way they laughed at me, private jokes they would never get. You would agree it was all pointless but it must be done and how much better would the world be if this glittering one never existed?

But when I got closer, my hopeful smile had been wiped away: Tucked away in that corner, you were watching everyone, smirking. At first I thought you had started without me--what jokes would you have for me about what you had seen so far? Cullen told me you slipped in before us. How did you do that? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. It was a stupid question.

When you saw me, the edges in your face--cruel, I thought. For only a moment, I swear!--softened. Somewhat. You were still shining with so much happiness, and a small fearful thought in the back of my head, a wordless one that speaking with you gradually began to give sound, whispered that you were happy because of them, not despite them. I saw it in your eyes, and you told me that you felt at home here. 

Here, among these humans that would scheme to keep lands from ou--my people? That would levy heavy taxes on their serfs, or kill each other over a perceived slight without a moment's hesitation?

And as you spoke, that glimmer in your eyes had only confirmed my fears. How much you reveled in the trysts and the gossip and the games the humans played with each other! There were lives at stake, and they cared about such silly things. Even Leliana! You were deriving amusement from this entirely different world than the one I knew.

You were always so reserved even when we were together, and it was rare when I managed to even make your teeth show in your smile. And yet these people, these cruel people who sneered at our race--they made you smirk, they pleased you in a way I hadn't yet been able to.

It was the first time I remember...doubting. Doubting you. You and myself. I don't know for what, but..

But I pushed those thoughts away. Because they suggested you were not honest, because they would lead me to question you, and I couldn't let that happen. Not now.

You asked what was wrong. I could not quite form the words, and instead chose to watch as you lifted a silver cup that had been perched on the base of the sculpture, held it out to the empty space to your left, have it be promptly filled by an elf servant standing idle, and then proceeded to take in a half-mouthful of the drink. All with the air of someone who had been born into gentility. Your eyes never left my face.

 My nervous stutter resurfaced in full force as I recalled all the things these people said with the sole intention to hurt, and how it hurt more because I was not brave enough to protest like you were, was not clever like Vivienne or Dorian and able to navigate their maze-like conversations. 

Another sip and a thin smile that had no teeth, not at all like the one you gave them. As you casually swirled your cup, you remarked that these people were quite inconsequential; I should not allow their words to poison my self-worth because I was far more honorable and accomplished. It is in the nature of humans to prey upon what they do not possess.

My throat clenched and I tried to swallow. Failed, but I tried. You did not offer me a sip of your wine, which I appreciated: My distrust of alcohol was established very early on in my childhood: the erratic ways it made people behave and speak was frightening. 

I wanted to stay near you despite this concerning change in your personality. We were there with an intent to save the Empress, but with people I didn't know whispering of my mistakes, my slip-ups behind their hands ... I needed you to ground me, protect me. I couldn't do it myself. I didn't want to be here, and now I was terrified that this would be yet another world that I could lose you in.

When you kindly suggested I eavesdrop on the servants, my mouth went dry. Your tone was amicable, but the words were dead nails in my ears. I stuttered, bowed my head because it was a scolding from an elder even when it wasn't. It was to me, so it was. No matter that I dared to think that we were together, I still hadn't allowed myself to think that, not yet, not yet. You were just being considerate to me, acting as a mentor, a guide, patient, patient, patient, patient with me when I never deserved it.

I remember thinking what a foolish thing I was doing, clinging to you like a child to her mother's dress. Foolish, foolish, childish.

Before I turned to return to my investigation..I don't know how, but I asked you if you would dance with me when everything was all done. Your voice held a tinge of surprise -- when I was forward with you, you were always taken aback. I still don't know where I got my courage in those moments. No, not courage. Desperation that bubbled over until I couldn't stop myself. I don't know, I don't know...

A small cant of your head and a softening of the creases at the corners of your eyes as the Solas I knew momentarily descended from his lofty libertine pedestal. “I would be honored.”

It gave me courage. I bowed my head and left you to weave between crinolined dresses and puffy shoulders to find Dorian, my other beacon of refuge, concentrating on keeping the tiny flame of a future reward burning in my gut.

After acquiring the key to the kitchens, you, me, Cole, and Dorian came together to further investigate the interior of Halamshiral. I did not expect how much more horrific the world of the nobility would reveal itself to be.

I tried not to cry when I saw all those dead servants. I did not scream when Leliana suggested we allow Empress Celene to die in order to draw out Florianne. I knew you would not approve of such an outburst that could jeopardize this mission, but also the calculated slaughter of a potentially strong ally. I did not want to do it in the first place, but I saw you in my mind's eye and I knew you wouldn't approve, so it's why I put my foot down. When Florianne was caught before the court, when I convinced Gaspard, Empress Celene, and Briala to work together for the betterment of the kingdom.. I was numb by the end. How I managed to rally the nobles to support these three powerful figures who were revealed to be just as untrustworthy and ambitious as the flocks they commanded, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Morrigan found me looking at the stars and trying to count each one so as to distract myself from the urge to cry. She was invaluable to the success of this mission, but I remained wary of her sudden presence even when she informed me of her new assignment to the Inquisition. I was grateful she did not pry into the reason for the misery painted on my face, nor my lack of enthusiasm for the celebration inside. She was gone as swiftly as she had come.

I waited for you with a quiet, pitiful desperation. My shoulders ached, my eyes hurt, my chest was hollow from the speech I gave as I addressed the people I had saved, the people that had scoffed and labelled me "savage" only two hours prior. They hadn't known me, and they still didn't, but now they were jubilant for something that did not involve the mockery or abject humiliation of another living being. 

And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to leave with you right then and there. But all I could do was stand on the balcony and try not to throw up while my face prickled and buzzed from the afterglow of all of those lying eyes staring up at me from the dance floor.

I cried again for a bit as I waited for you, I think some of those tears were out of fear that you had forgotten about what you promised earlier. Time stood still and circled around itself as I realized that my vision was blurring and the stars were turning into smeared firefly lights instead of concise pinpricks.

And then again, like a ghost, you alighted by my side and settled against the bannister as I had.

“I am not surprised to find you here.” Simple warm conversation with you, what I quietly wished for as my heart was buffeted unceasingly by the sordid words and threads of schemes interwoven by these unbelievably amoral people.

And now that the opportunity presented itself?

Silence as I stared out beyond the wide expanse of dark forest stretching into oblivion far beyond the grounds of the Winter Palace. Again, you offered a prompt for chatter by remarking upon the fickle nature of human nobility with that same wry tone. The purpose was for irony and consolation, yet it did not help as much as I wanted it to. My mouth didn’t even twitch with mirth.

Your fill of drink and sweets had not dulled you to the severity of my gloom. After a further few more minutes of me wiping my eyes and sniffling, you placed a hand on my shoulder. “Come.” 

The night had worn heavily on me, but there still remained the desire to make you proud, to not disappoint you or look any more juvenile than I already had. I wanted to dance, I really did, so when you offered me the chance... 

As we stepped back to allow ourselves more room, I mentally screamed at myself to drum up the enthusiasm required. Where had it gone? How could it all be snuffed away?  

You pulled me close and I smelled the wine you had earlier this evening on your breath. Tendrils of dull distress creeped beneath my skin. This was not you, this was not the hahren I knew. It was you but it wasn’t. It was not the right person.

I closed my eyes to shut out the world and my self. Doing so, however, helped bring attention that beyond the drink still remained the faint scent of forest moss that clung to you like a second skin. A faint flicker of hope cautiously kindled itself. After reassuring if I was okay, you began to guide me across the balcony. 

I tried my best to keep up with you, I did, I wanted to show you all the steps Josephine had taught me, everything I practiced for this night, everything I practiced hoping to impress you. 

But I faltered. I tripped, like an idiot, like a fool. A stupid, stupid Dalish elf girl out-of-place among the silks and fake smiles and sweet cakes and this treacherous world that entertained you more than I ever could.

You caught me before I could collapse on the ground, as my body was by now overflowing with despair. Give up, give up, give up.  

There was no means of stopping the tears from falling down my burning cheeks. “I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I apologized to the shiny brass buttons of your coat. “I--I--I can d-do this.” And yet I wasn’t, not tonight, not with the person for whom it mattered the most.“I’ve b-been practicing,” I added weakly, shaking visibly in place. “I h-have--”

Your hand left my waist, and I hung my head in defeat as an entirely new wave of misery washed over me. I was beyond help, you realized in that moment.

The tiniest surprised huff of air left me when your fingers gently tucked my chin up. I sniffed, wet eyes wide with curiosity. “I know you have.”

You closed your eyes and turned your head to bring the back of my being-led hand to your lips. It was warm and soft. I sniffed. My ears picked up on the tiny sounds your kisses made as they were planted at random across my skin. This lasted for a minute, perhaps fifteen, I couldn’t be sure. 

“You do not need to impress me.” Hand back on my waist. A soft smile that reminded me of Mother. “Enjoy yourself, help me celebrate your diplomatic success.”

I tried to smile, to accept your optimism, but it hurt my mouth. You didn't shake me off when I stumbled again after only four more steps and gripped you tightly and once again whispered my stuttered apologies for ruining this moment we had together. I was done, I was done for the night. I couldn’t do this. No more. No more.

When it's you I can't think straight. Everything was already fuzzy and knotted that night and you made it--you didn't make it worse, don't think that, no, no I needed you then, I need you now--I made it--

I'm still sorry for ruining your evening, even though it seems so long ago. You told me you understood, you gave me the same look I remember Mother always gave me when I was small and didn't know why I was crying, only that I needed to for some reason, needed someone to tell me I could.

And you did. “Exhausted” as I was, “considering everything that had happened”...

You then took to meeting my numerous sorry’s with hushes. I said "sorry" a lot that night, but you eventually let me explain why I was sorry, and I managed to get in another sorry in for being so difficult. You gave me such an exasperated look then, but before I could start crying again your brows lifted and you said that I was too hard on myself and that you loved me, it was fine, you loved me, it was fine, hush, hush, hush.

I think I even napped for a minute on your shoulder as you held me close while we swayed in place as the violins began to slow. What was it like, to dance with a child?

That was the first and last time we ever did something like that.

[allisondraste]

Favorite Passage Written in 2018

I was tagged by the lovely @apostatetabris to share the passage that I wrote in 2018 that I love the most.  I know that I have shared bits and pieces of this scene at other times, but it is probably my favorite thing I have ever written, not just in 2018.  It is from my Solavellan at Halamshiral piece, Be Still (which is also probably my favorite fic I have ever written).:

Before she had the chance to leave the ballroom, she was approached by a man in an intricate gold and ebony mask . He was short and round, very obviously wealthy and well-fed. He sauntered over to her in a way that induced an eye roll and an immediate, internal dismissal of whatever it was he had to say.

“What an enticing creature you are,” he slurred, the only thing thicker than his Orlesian accent was the smell of alcohol on his breath. “Inquisitor, eh? Pfft. You’re still a little knife-ear whore. I know just how to treat women like you.”

“I’m so sorry! You must have the wrong whore,” Niamh spat, “I’m the one who sets men on fire if they so much as lay a fat, grimy finger on her.”

“Looks like you need to be reminded of your place, elf.” He held her by the chin, and she could not see his face, but she expected he would be scowling.

Just as Niamh was preparing to spit in his face and tell him to “piss off,” Solas appeared beside them, his posture pristine as ever, hands behind his back. His intoxication was betrayed by a light flush that colored his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He seemed to have discarded his wine glass.

“Do tell me how you intend on showing the Inquisitor her place,” he said sharply, placing an arm protectively between Niamh and the drunken man, forcing him to release his grip on her chin, “If you have the vocabulary.”

“You dare insult my intelligence,” the man shouted as he recoiled from Solas, drawing the eyes a a few bystanders, “You have no idea who you are dealing with!”

“Clearly, I am dealing with someone foolish enough to assault  someone with powerful ties to the Chantry and more than a few powerful people in Orlais and Ferelden,” Solas replied “I am not insulting your intelligence; I am simply describing it.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of Niamh’s mouth as the man stumbled over his words, and Solas ushered her away from him. She was ever aware of the soft pressure of his hand on her lower back. Her typical response to his intervention on her behalf would have been fury. She could take care of herself, damn it… and yet, he was absolutely ruthless.  It was impressive, alluring even, to see him direct his sharp wit at someone that was not her for once.

His hand fell from her back to his side, fingertips dancing with hers as they approached the spot Solas had seemed to claim as his. In an impulsive moment she took his hand in hers and laced her fingers through his softly, reveling in his surprise. He smiled and shook his head, pulling her close to him in the shadow of his pillar.

“You have had an eventful evening.” He brushed a loose strand of coppery hair out of her face and allowing his fingertips to linger on her cheek. He moved to trace the edge of her ear, seeming to become distracted by the golden cuff and piercings that adorned the lobe. For a moment Niamh allowed herself to revel in the warm, tingling sensation the caress sent through her body. She loved it, but she hated it. At least, she tried to tell herself she hated it.

“And you have had lot of wine.” Her playful answer hid her apprehension as she stepped away from him again,“A serving man, fraternizing with holy whore of Andraste. What shall the court think?”

I’m going to tag @veridium-bye, @mocha-writes, @star--nymph, and @gingerbreton.  No pressure, of course.  I’m just following tag etiquette for once in my life. 

[melodious-stars]

Hidden;

A prompt from a drabble list, requested by @shiroyuri!! Sorry this is super late, hun - real life is a killer sometimes. Angst #24: "I never thought I'd see you again." Andddd once again, it's Solavellan.

-x-

The news comes to him from one of his agents; Fen'dal - a particularly spirited boy - who is disturbingly subdued when reporting in this night. Solas feels a sense of dread before the boy stops, opens his mouth and then closes it. He raises an eyebrow, prompting him to continue, and the boy looks at the rest his peers behind him before seemingly gathering his own strength.

There is more, Lord Fen'harel...

"Then speak it." He cannot afford to be attached to these mortals, not after all that he has sacrificed to restore the People, but he can admire their dedication to a cause... like he had admired the Inquisition’s and... and...

It's the Inquisitor, ser. She's... gone.

It's said quickly, as if Fen'dal is afraid of his response; which doesnt quite make sense, since it is no secret around his keep that he and the former Inquisitor had been lovers. The general consensus amongst his agents is that she had been merely a pawn; used and discarded when necessary. He hadn't discouraged such a rumor, since it was to his benefit, but a part of him burns when he hears it anyways. 'It was real' he thinks to himself, always, 'what we had, it was real'.

"Why am I being told this?" His voice is tight, uncaring; his posture that of a leader - hands forever behind his back - as he stands tall in front of his desk. "As long as her and hers aren't interfering, I care not about location. That is why I have you to monitor her." But that's a lie, he wants to know, needs to - is she taking care of herself, has she moved on, does she still -

Then Fen'dal blinks, lowering his head.

Forgive me, ser. We figured that you would want to know she was dead.

Everything stops.

"Dead." He repeats, arms coming to his side, as he's unable to hold them back any longer. Face and eyes blank, "how so?"

It's quiet for a moment, and then hesitantly Fen'dal continues.

She was with Magister Pavus, we hadn't realized until it was too late. She was originally thought to be one of the servants, as she was disguised and dressed down. She took Deandhl's blade instead of...

"Dismissed."

Ser.. don't you want -

"Get. Out."

Yes, ser.

There's a ringing in his head as his agents leave the room, and he grips the front of his desk to keep himself balanced. Dead? She can't be... It isn't possible..

Ellana Lavellan isn't dead. Even Corypheus hadn't been able to stop her; an agent of his with one mere blade could never... not when she wielded two like they were part of her very soul.

He isn't aware of the exact moment when he picks up one of his paperweights off his desk, but all of a sudden he's flinging it and it feels like power as he shatters it against the stone wall.

His magic flares then, helping him to finish the job he has started; maps are burning, the baubles around his space shatter, and the notes on the raid in Tevinter are torn to shreds as a deadly wind whips through the entire room.

Vhenan, he pleads, you cannot be...

Logically, he should feel relief that his plans are in tact, that no one will be able to stop him now, but all he feels is a terrible, aching emptiness and a growing pit of despair in his stomach. She cannot be gone... He refuses to accept such a thing.

But if she is... It is his fault. The thought almost sends him to his knees, the destruction in the room halting in its tracks.

His agent had struck the killing blow...

It's my fault she's dead.

He's weeping before he realizes it, his legs really giving out underneath him then, head in his hands.

No, no, no...

He had told her once to harden her heart to a cutting edge, and he thought he had done the same.

It is a cruel thing to realize he hadn't.

He had let foolishly let himself hope that one day they would be reunited, that one day she would convince him of the hopelessness of his plan, and she would be in his arms and whisper to him, with that smile he loved so very much: Vhenan, I never thought I'd see you again...

And that he would whisper in return, utterly and completely besotted with her: I couldn't keep away.

But he can't now. He will never hold her again, and she will never smile again.

She is gone.

She is gone.

He lifts his head finally, after what feels like days, tears drying and eyes glowing, as he somehow finds strength to stand once more.

She is gone.

She is gone.

She is gone, and he is empty.

She is gone, and he has an agent to punish, and a world to burn.

He does not notice, but it is that very moment that bright blue eyes start to turn to familiar yellow, as something hidden starts to boil deep below.

Old friend... didn't I ever tell you? So long as the music plays, we dance.

[alyssalenko]

Favorite Passage Meme

Tagged by @joufancyhuh because she hates me and likes to make me make tough choices. 😘Tagging @guileandgall @poweredbycoffeeandwine @natsora @naromoreau @vorchagirl @amarmeme @foofyschmoofer @inuy21 @imbiowaresbitch @starsandskies @goddesstiera @inquartata30 @obvidalous @pikapeppa and @hawkeykirsah.

From my Solavellan Hell piece Bound to You

ALSO IT IS NSFW WITH BONDAGE AND SLIGHT BDSM BUT I AM ON MOBILE SO I CAN'T CUT IT.

Solas held out his hand, Newti sliding her hand into his when she got close enough, his fingers stroking her skin as they closed around it. The heat in his gaze caressed her body, a promise of what was to come, and she felt a twinge in her body, heading straight to her core. He spun her so the four-poster canopy bed was behind her, his movements graceful like they were engaged in a dance. Her body curled into his, gentle fingers cupping her chin and making her look up at him, lips meeting in a passionate kiss, Solas catching her lower lip between his and grazing it gently with his teeth. Newti’s hands slid up under his tunic, fingers cold against his hot, flushed skin and she hadn’t even cast a spell. Running her hands across his chest and stomach muscles as she pushed it upwards, tracing every muscle she exposed with a gentle finger, her lips finding his in a heated, passionate kiss that left them both breathless.

The jawbone pendant he wore came off, tangled in his shirt as she peeled it off over his head, catching it in her hand before it clattered on the stone floor. The fabric fluttered to the floor, immediately forgotten. She grinned seductively, circling around him like he was prey, blue eyes following her every movement before she drew her left hand down his arm to catch his hand in hers. She brought it behind his back, as he glanced over his shoulder at her, his right hand joining his left, wrists crossing over each other. Newti kissed him between his shoulder blades as she wrapped the leather cord of his pendant around and around his wrists and tied it off. His trousers and smalls pooled on the floor around his ankles, her movements barely registered in his muddled brain; though he’d had no idea what he’d been getting himself into, but he’d been thinking about this far longer than he cared to admit, and he was ready to relinquish control. He was putty in her hands and she knew it. She whirled him around, a firm hand on his shoulder as she pushed him down to sit on the edge of the bed.

Achingly slow, she peeled her jacket off and then the teal scarf tied around her neck, her tunic following close behind. She bent over him, her palms braced against his thighs, nails scraping the skin gently as she curled her fingers, breasts threatening to spill out of her brassiere. Solas’ erection twitched, begging for her attention. She kissed the tip of his ear, sucking slightly and making him hiss, before trailing along his jaw, his neck, his chest, leaving little red marks in her wake. Heat emanated from her gaze, making Solas flush red in excitement; she’d always been the one in control, the one who held all the cards. He’d spent so long dancing just beyond her reach, contenting himself with dreams of her—of them together—imagining this scenario many times but no fade dream, wish, or fantasy had panned out quite like this in his head, entrapped by the object of his forbidden desires.

“Vhenan, please!” He hissed.

She smirked and backed away, leaving his skin bereft of her touch, an involuntary groan escaping him at the loss. “Haminas, ma da veraisa. This is only fair after making me wait so long.”

He twisted his hands in the leather, testing the give of the cord, but he shouldn’t have been surprised at how incredible her knot tying was, after all, he’d seen her tie their mounts up when they stop for a breather while traveling, and they hadn’t lost one yet. Newti pushed his knees farther apart and stepped between his thighs, her hand slipping between them and stroking his swollen cock as she went to her knees taking it fully into her hand and giving it a playful tug, the skin pulsing in her palm under her touch as she caressed him with her fingertips, traipsing gently up and down his long, thick erection. His nostrils flared as a blast of cold emanated from her teasing fingers, followed almost immediately by an arc of lightning. Her hand curled around him pumping him slowly, watching as the precum bubbled up from the tip before she twisted her fingers around his shaft making him groan and arch his hips, thrusting into her hand. His head lolled back and she took advantage of his distraction, her tongue darting out from between her lips, licking the tip of his erection. Solas’ eyes snapped open on a growl as he struggled against his restraint, resisting the urge to set the whole thing—pendant and cord—on fire as Newti traced patterns on the skin of his shaft with her tongue.

[maythedreadwolfbreakyou]

What Dreams May Come

A Solavellan Story

     Waking each morning was no longer the pleasure it had been in Skyhold. There was always that moment when she felt whole again, refreshed by the visions of the night before. But as they gave way to daylight, that happiness evaporated with their memory like a summer rain from the dry earth. Leaving only a vague memory of feeling hope, wrapped within a sharp edge that made it difficult to reach.

     It had been strange to see that towering monolith, once a bustling citadel of trade, spies, and military, now stand cold and silent like a discarded old bone in the soil. Yet as Ghilina walked the winding mountain path away from Skyhold, the place she had strangely come to call home, the mountains closed like theater curtains at the end of a play. 

No, she thought, her jaw set with determination, this is not the end. This is only an intermission. 

     It had been many months since that day, and if losing an arm hadn't been an odd enough experience to live with, leaving Skyhold felt like losing the ground from underneath her feet. But the Dalish were nothing, if not adaptable, and Ghilina took pride in being especially so. She had her father and his teachings to thank for that; moving from place to place and never lingering for long took little effort. She was, after all, Dalish. It was the constant watching of her surroundings while avoiding the prying eyes around her that proved to require more. 

     The days seemed to stretch far longer than they had before. The Inquisition was now a shadow of it's former glory, an echo, and operating what remained of it's forces with such necessary secrecy took more getting used to than she had first thought it would. 

     Even now she lay upon a bed within a rented room for the evening, waiting for contact from one of Leliana's agents, staring up at the tattered wood ceiling from the comfort of a warm and plush feather bed. 

     The countryside just West of Nevarra was lovely. Not somewhere she would choose to linger had she the choice, but it was lovely.

     Somewhere beyond her open window, she heard crickets sing with joy as the aroma of the night wafted in on the cool evening breeze, bringing with it the promise if rain. A hush as a torrent of wind rushed through the gusty trees.

     As much as Ghilina disliked being left with her own thoughts on nights such as this, there was also a sense of peace she enjoyed. Along with the hope for a better tomorrow. 

     Her thoughts began to slow with the progression of the night like the flow of a lazy river. Each one danced as the ribbons from a kite string reaching toward the sky, inviting the dreams that would inevitably take her. 

     Ghilina's dreams always took her to a happier future, the sort she secretly hoped for, yet tucked away into the darkest recesses of her heart. They were bittersweet wishes, for to wish for them earnestly would invite further heartbreak.

     It began as it often did, with the colors of a thousand ribbons and streamers decorating the town square of Wycome. They billowed and swayed on the unseen breeze as people danced and laughed all around her in celebration. 

     Ghilina looked down and found herself dressed in a simplistic white gown, her arms and shoulders exposed.

That was when she noticed that her left hand and the part of her arm that had been consumed by the anchor was no longer missing. It had returned, the same as it had been before the mark, and beautiful bracelets of gold and gems decorated her wrist. Interwoven with her dark hair were the small flowers of Prophet's Laurel.

     Standing before her, taking her hands gently in his, stood the man to whom her heart belonged. 

     Solas, down-turned gray eyes staring so lovingly into her own, wore a red and gold vest with a tunic beneath. It's billowing sleeves tapered at the wrist by leather wrap cuffs, and a white wolf's pelt draped over one shoulder. 

     "You look beautiful," Solas whispered admiringly. 

     Ghilina looked down with a shy smile, "You as well."

Then came someone's familiar dulcet tones, she immediately turned to look in their direction, "are you ready, da'len?"

     Standing there, with a kind and knowing smile, was Keeper Istimaethoriel. She looked beautiful with her graying hair pleated and braided elegantly, pulled back into a neat bun to display her intricate Vallaslin. She was the only one in her entire clan left that she truly thought of as family. To see her again here, Ghilina felt happy tears bud at the corners of her eyes.

     "She can't marry him!" A sudden voice protested angrily. 

Ghilina turned to the gathering crowd, her brows knotting as she stepped into Solas's arms, but she could not find the voice's source among them.

"That's the dread wolf! He tried to kill us all!"

Other faceless voices spoke up in agreement with the first.

Ghilina looked up into those gray eyes she loved so much, only for sadness and regret to look back. The same look Solas had given her that night in the glen.

"But she loves him!"

"He's a trickster god of many guises, he must have tricked her too!"

Chaos erupted all around them as more raucous voices rose with their own protests, the crowd beginning to surround them. All around her were angry and fearful faces. They were growing far too loud, and to block them out, Ghilina placed her hands flat over her ears. 

     In her fear, she looked again to Solas for some form of guidance. Solas, his eyes never faltering from her, slowly backed away and disappeared into the crowd. 

     The voices around her reached their crescendo, sounding more akin to a raging river. Then she realized the shouting and screaming she heard was no longer the voices, it was a torrential wind sweeping all around her like a vortex. It whipped her hair this way and that. Ghilina pressed her hands more firmly against her ears and tightly shut her eyes. 

     When the wind died, and she dared open her eyes again, she was suddenly surrounded by the stone infrastructure of Kirkwall's Hightown. 

     The sun glared down on her from its zenith in the vacant sky, an oppressive presence with it's unyielding summer heat. What trees she saw around her held drooping, flaccid leaves like wilted lettuce. Even the air was dry, not the usual humid warmth that came with living so close to the sea. The stones themselves looked bleached by the sun. The smell of baking pastries and fine perfumes wafted into the air, mingling with an occasional whiff of odor from the sewers far below.

    In spite of it all, the city was bustling with activity. Citizens swarmed merchant stalls, as others shouted for the attention of potential customers. Nobles strutted like peacocks through the streets, as others hurried to their work. The blending of voices echoing off stone walls was a welcome white noise.

     Suddenly a child's voice rose above the din, "Mummae!"

Ghilina whirled at the sound, catching the bobbing black head of a beaming young elven girl with gray eyes running toward her. Behind her strode the man she knew to be the girl's father: Solas. 

     In his arms was a small elven toddler, the same features as his sister, watching the scene before him serenely.

     Solas watched his daughter barrel into her mother for a hug, a gentle smile playing upon his lips As the corners of his eyes crinkled.

"Oh!" Ghilina exclaimed, looking down into the still-smiling face of this little girl who resembled her so strongly it made her heart ache.

"Mummae, I'm almost as tall as Uncle Varric!"

     Ghilina looked into the face of the child before her and rested a hand on her cheek. She tried to smile, but the muscles of her chin would not obey. They trembled as she felt the sting of unshed tears.

     Her knees buckled, catching her upon the stone. Her arms hastily wrapped around her small daughter and pulled her close, burying her face in the child's hair. The girl's hands lifted jerkily, tentatively returning the embrace. 

When she spoke, her small voice was laced with worry, "Mummae, what is wrong?"

The tears burst forth from her like a charging Druffalo before she could stop it, and suddenly the dam holding them back was shattered. The sounds that tore from her sounded like the wails of a distressed child, raw from the inside. 

     Her daughter suddenly began to fade from her arms until she disappeared, her worried and sad expression never leaving her eyes. Ghilina blinked back tears and looked up at Solas, finding only that he too, along with their son, was fading from existence. Hurrying to her feet, she ran to them, reaching for them too late. 

     All around her, the people faded away one by one until none remained. The scenery around her stilled, and the sky shifted, until everything was like looking through a filter of green. It was no longer the sweltering heat, nor the strange scents, of Kirkwall. This was the fade in it's more base form. She had been here too many times already in the flesh not to recognize it now, even as a dreamer. 

     A shimmer of mist, diffuse, lingered before her as if the air itself was being warped and twisted. 

     Finally, it congealed into form, "I did not mean to cause you pain."

Before her floated the translucent humanoid form of a spirit, it's voice silvery and soft-spoken, like an ethereal child speaking in a large room. 

Ghilina exhaled a breath she did not know she had been holding. 

"What manner of spirit are you?" She asked.

"I am what perches upon the soul to sing the wordless song, a driving motivation for change. I am the glimmer of light in a dark ocean of Despair. I am Hope."

She blinked, "Hope?"

"Yes, you have much in your heart. For the return of a lover, of a future together, of a better world for you both. Full of happiness, surrounded by those you love. But it is so very tangled amidst the thorns of your fears and worry, I cannot nurture it so long as you cleave to them so desperately." 

"How can I shed fear and worry when so many things could go wrong?" Ghilina demanded, "Even if I succeeded in changing the mind of Fen'harel, and returning Solas to my side, there is still so much that could go wrong."

"Then you would face it together. You are not alone, da'len. Even now."

"What do you mean by "even now"?" 

The spirit moved to the side to reveal a sad, lone white wolf across a vast distance. It's gray eyes looked into her's once, then quickly turned away. It faded as quickly as it had come.

Ghilina reached out instinctively, "Solas!"

"You will not catch him, not here." Hope warned.

"What?"

"Here he knows. Endless years spent learning how to bend and twist all things across the veil, his creation, into shapes; into what he wills it to be. You cannot find him here."

Ghilina frowned and looked down at her feet, thoughtful and sad. What the spirit said next startled her, "He sees your hopes as well as your fears. He sees them play out here in your dreams as he watches over the dreamer. He sees the place you hold for him there, and the thought of that future with you has already planted the smallest of seeds in his heart."

Ghilina's brows furrowed with confusion as she searched the spirit's featureless face, "he… wants that future?"

"As surely as he wants the other. He is torn and hurting. But hope for the future he would share with you is one I cannot reach. Only you have the ability to reach it. To nurture it."

"How?"

"You have touched his heart deeper than most ever have. He has tried to harden his heart to you, but cannot. You, only you, are the key to the Dread Wolf's heart. To reach him, though, you must first wake up."

     Waking each morning was no longer the pleasure it had been in Skyhold. There was always that moment when she felt whole again, refreshed by the visions of the night before. But unlike before, her heart retained a lightness it hadn't before. Though her dreams faded with the rising of the sun, glistening off the morning dew from the night's rains, she felt motivation returning. A sense of hope she hadn't felt since the disbandment of the Inquisition. 

And as the knocks on her Inn room door signaled the arrival of the informant, Ghilina rose to answer. Purpose renewed, she was ready to continue fighting for a way to change her lover's heart.

[dinoswrites]

Black Coral Chapter 24: Red Sail on the Horizon

Solavellan, Mermaid AU. Ongoing.

Masterpost | Read from Chapter One | Read on A03

My ko-fi

They buy a razor and soap in a small village, and one evening with the sun setting over the water, their aravel pulled safely ashore, Aevalle shaves Solas’s head, and then he shaves half of hers.

If she finds her touch lingering on his skin a little longer than necessary, Solas does not seem to mind. If she takes a moment to brush her hands over his scalp, if she pauses as she finishes and studies his features a little longer than she needs to, to make sure she hasn’t missed anything—well, he doesn’t say a word about it.

And if he runs his hands through her hair far longer than he needs to, if his nails brush her scalp, if he gathers the length of her hair in his hands and lets it lie over one of her shoulders with slow, deliberate movements… she finds she won’t complain.

They do not speak, the whole time. As the sun dips low, as the sky turns to scarlet and rust, and then to rich wine and darker still, they work in silence.

When the sun has set, and they are lit only by the sliver of a waning moon and the scattering of stars in the sky, accompanied only by the sound of waves lapping on the shore, Solas runs the back of two fingers along the length of her jaw, and down to her chin. With his fingertips, he draws her gaze up to his, and they study each other once again.

How much he has changed since she first met him. How much they have both changed—even just in these few weeks away from Seahold, salt and sun on their skin, waves under their feet or above their heads, every night spent falling asleep in each other’s arms. No walls of stone to separate them from the sea, or from one another. Only sealskin, sailcloth, and the call of the deep they both feel in their bones.

She has learned to read him a little better, these months since the sea tossed her up at his feet. She knows how he enjoys the pleasures his station at Seahold provides—a roof over his head, meals delivered to him, space to work unfettered. She wonders if he looks forward to the little cakes he likes so much, or perhaps if he wishes for a meal that is not fish for a change.

But she has never heard him laugh so often, or so loudly. She never would have expected him to raise the waves around them with magic and launch their aravel into the air, to catch a school of tuna by surprise. How did they go from considerations to dancing around a Dalish fire, him leading her on some dance where she does not know the steps but it hardly seems to matter? They lie awake at night and they watch the sky, and he tells her of spirits who inspired stories and constellations long forgotten, though the stars themselves remain. She tells him of her clan, long gone now, sometimes in halting gestures but sometimes she smiles, or, rarer still, can’t finish a story because she’s laughing too hard.

This night, however, her hands are still, and he does not speak. For tomorrow, they will arrive at Seahold—and it hangs between them, unspoken.

She knows him now, as sure as she knows the beat of his heart under his skin and the feeling of his breath on her skin, as sure as she knows she wants nothing more than to live like this a while longer, among the sun and sea, moving from one place to the next, following where the wind takes them.

He does not want to return to Seahold.

She knows that she must. And it’s strange, but she feels that sense of duty in him, too.

He breaks the silence first. “Swim with me?” he asks, soft as the breeze. “I fear we won’t have many chances after tonight.”

She lets herself be distracted from her thoughts, and he takes her hands as they stand.

He leads her into the water, step by step, his gaze never wavering once from hers.

 --

Just over three weeks after the Keeper and its crew set sail for Adamant Fortress, one of Seahold’s lookouts spots a red sail on the horizon, and two figures on the boat—one with a familiar shock of red hair.

The docks at Seahold are a mess of people on the best of days, but the sight of an aravel sailing into the harbour has brought half the damn fortress down to see who it is. Varric has to follow close on Cassandra’s heels to even have a prayer of getting through the crowd, which parts for the Seeker like a reluctant wave.

The excitement in the air is so thick that Varric can feel it buzzing around him like one of Dorian’s flashy spells. All around him people are shouting, standing on toes to try to get a better look, and sometimes shoving one another.

Cassandra breaks through the crowd, and Varric has to rush so it doesn’t close back in around him after her. Some of Cullen’s soldiers are maintaining a perimeter, keeping the pier in question free of foot traffic so that the boat may safely dock, and its crew back on dry land without incident.

It takes him so long to get down from his room in the keep that the boat is coasting up to the dock, her sails up, and Dorian is already standing on its edge.

“Where the hell have you been?” he’s yelling as Aevalle braces one foot on the dock, and she and her passenger start to tie the aravel off. “Three weeks! Three miserable weeks I’ve been sitting here, convinced you’ve finally managed to get yourself killed this time—”

“I told you she was safe,” Cole says, almost sounding annoyed.

“—and how many times have I told you to think before you act! That is twice now you’ve nearly died fighting the same Blight-ridden dragon! Do you ever learn, or do you just try the same thing over and over and hope it works out for you every time?”

The moment Aevalle’s knot is secure, she jumps off the boat, throwing her arms around Dorian and embracing him fiercely.

Dorian’s resolve lasts for an entire three seconds before he folds like a bad hand and wraps his arms around her.

Aevalle’s passenger finally speaks up. “I have already given her significant grief on the subject, Dorian,” he says—and Varric actually has to look twice as Solas steps out of the boat and onto the docks, tugging at the hem of some Dalish hunting gear like it’s his usual green vest. “But perhaps it would reinforce the notion of caution if she heard it from another source for a change.”

“Alright Drifter,” he calls, shoving past Cassandra and making his way up the dock. “Who the hell is that and what have you done with Chuckles?”

Solas tucks his hands behind his back and rolls his eyes—but it seems he can’t help a fond smile as Varric approaches, his eyes bright with mischief.

“Look at him,” Varric cries, gesturing up and down at Solas. “He looks—downright fashionable. And—and he has a tan! And—did he have hair, and you let him shave it without showing the class, Aevalle?”

Solas lets out the most put-upon sigh as Varric squints up at his head, and the tanline on it that would indicate his hair had, at some point, grown out before being shaved off again.

“Why would you need to see my hair, Master Tethras?”

“Aevalle,” Dorian hisses, “when he asks you later, the answer is brown. Alright?”

Aevalle pulls back, a curious frown on her face. But as she lifts her hands to form a question, she’s tackled from the left by Sera, and then Bull rushes in to scoop them both up in his arms and lift them off the dock entirely in a bear hug, Sera cackling with delight the whole while.

Varric stands next to Solas as he and Aevalle are rushed with welcomes by their friends. And Varric can’t help but glance up at Solas more than he should—trying to shake the feeling that something seems different. Something more than the dark freckles dotting his skin, the high-collared hunters’ leathers he’s wearing, new callouses from rope on his artist’s hands.

Maybe it’s in the line of his shoulders, and how they do not sit as straight as before. Maybe it’s the smile that lingers in his eyes, every time he glances over at Aevalle.

“She made him better,” Cole says, just over Varric’s shoulder. “Took the broken parts and taught them how to be whole again.”

Solas sends Cole a sideways glance—and Cole quiets, as if chastised. But Solas only smiles, and inclines his head in thanks.

In the end it is Cassandra who breaks the circle of welcomes—she is the last to greet Aevalle, her hands on the Dalish woman’s shoulders, and her genuine smile falters after the welcomes are exchanged.

What’s wrong?

Cassandra sighs. “I would have let you rest before I told you—but, you would want to know. We have located the Magister Alexius and have him in custody, awaiting trial.”

Just like that, Varric watches Aevalle’s expression fall.

 --

Aevalle’s not sure she wants to see Alexius at all.

She would have been perfectly happy if he never showed up again. She had honestly almost told Cassandra to simply shoot him—this is the man who owned her. The man who found her in Seahold and tried to take her away from the happiness she found there, who walked into a room with her clan being ripped apart on tables, and did nothing.

But this is the man who raised Felix. Felix who helped her laugh again, and let her sleep under the shade of a tree when her nightmares kept her up all night. Who had freed her—and then saved her, over and over.

Alexius is the man who tried to tear the world apart to save his son—and she cannot blame him for that.

She follows Cassandra to the dungeon with a heavy heart, Solas at her side every step of the way. She wants to reach out for him, but—but there are a hundred eyes watching, soldiers and servants and all the other people who come and go around Seahold. And she might not know everything about the society of humans Solas has lived among, but she knows that it is one thing to dance with him around the fires her people have lit to celebrate, one thing to walk hand in hand with him where tree branches sway over waves rolling up on shore, and another thing entirely to ask for that where a word sent across the world could link him, irrevocably, to her.

“You do not have to see him,” Solas whispers, as they pass through the dark stairwell, keeping his voice low so it does not echo on the walls. “You owe this man nothing.”

She does not answer him. Instead, she reaches for him, and he takes his hand in hers, squeezing it reassuringly.

They drop their hands before they reach the guarded dungeon doors. The guards salute Cassandra, and seem prepared to allow Aevalle through, but they look curiously at Solas before one of them says, “Ma’am, civilians aren’t—”

“He is Captain Lavellan’s interpreter,” Cassandra informs them, and that seems to settle the matter.

They pass Erimond in the dungeons. He sneers at her as she walks past, and starts to shout insults at her when she does not stop, but they are silenced when Solas waves a hand and a wall of ice rises up around his cell.

Cassandra turns and raises a brow at it, but does not stop walking either. “I trust that will melt before his trial.”

“Certainly—just not before his next meal.”

Alexius himself is in the back, tucked away somewhere more private than Erimond. He sits slumped on his cot, his head hanging and his lyrium-shackled hands resting on his knees.

“I’ve already told you everything,” he drawls without looking up as Cassandra stands in front of his cell. “Or are you just here to gloat this time?”

“Captain Lavellan is here to speak with you,” she informs him, before leaving them.

The only sound for several heartbeats are her footsteps as she marches back down the narrow line of cells. Alexius doesn’t move—doesn’t look up at her, or even acknowledge that he’s heard Cassandra at all. Until at length, he jerks in place once, then again, as if he is about to laugh or to cry, but Aevalle doesn’t know which.

“Gloating it is, then.” He leans back against his cell wall, resting his head on the stone and closing his eyes. He has an uneven, scraggly beard—as if he has tried to shave with a dull blade, and simply given up partway through and let it all grow out afterwards. There’s more grey in his hair than she remembers. More lines on his face, too.

“Dorian deigned to inform me that my son has died,” he says. “So you don’t have to pretend that you’re here for that.”

Aevalle can feel Solas’s gaze on her—watching her, waiting for her hands to move so that he can begin to interpret. But she finds she can only stare at Alexius, and try to read his expression in the low lamplight.

Felix had told her a story, once. About how his father took him into town when Felix was very young, and Felix had been so frightened of all the crowds and people that he just clung to his father’s robes the entire time. And a time when his magic came, and then simply failed to grow beyond a meagre spark, that he remembers creeping to his father’s study in the night, and hearing Alexius and another man argue about sending Felix away.

“Whoever the other man was, he wanted me gone,” Felix had said. “A stronger heir with more magic power in my stead. But my father wouldn’t hear of it. They just shouted at each other about it until the other man left, and I never saw him again.”

She hadn’t been able to reconcile the kind man Felix described with one of the men tied to the death of her clan, and to everything that had happened to her since. And whenever she saw Alexius, she could only hate him—could only glare at him, and clench her hands into fists, and hate her own inability to do anything with all that rage.

But then, she thinks, reaching up to hold the black coral halla hanging around her throat, she hadn’t known Felix was sick.

What would she have given, in those dark days before Felix and Dorian became her friends, to have her clan back again? What would she give now?

“Well?” Alexius opens one eye to look at her. “What do you want with me, then?”

She doesn’t want anything from him. She drops the coral halla, letting it rest against her chest, before turning on her heel and immediately walking away.

She’s walked ten paces when Alexius says, “He was in love with you, you know.”

She stops. She turns back to look at him—but he hasn’t moved from his spot. She can barely even see him past the stone walls of the cell next to his.

“Felix, that is. I suppose I should thank you for that,” he continues, his tone flat and matter-of-fact. “He was like his old self, with you around. Giving him something to… to go on for.”

Solas stands at Aevalle’s side, his expression carefully neutral. He watches as Aevalle raises her hands and signs, and when he speaks for her he does it in a precise, even tone.

“Miss Lavellan says, ‘If you think Felix’s will to live was only due to his affection for me, then you did not know your son as well as you think.’”

With that, she turns on her heel and walks away.

Alexius does not call out for her again.

 --

“You’re just in time,” Josephine says as Aevalle and Solas enter her office. “I’ve just finished your paperwork, Captain—perhaps you could have a read and ask as many questions as you like, I kept it in as simple a language as the law allows. Solas, please feel free to look it over as well, I have faith you will find any errors I may have made. Do be careful not to touch any of the letters, I’m afraid the ink hasn’t quite dried. But please! Sit! I believe refreshments are shortly behind you.”

Paperwork for what? Aevalle signs, curiously, just before she drops into one of the soft cushioned chairs that Josephine indicates.

Josephine gives her a polite, if slightly puzzled smile. “For your discharge, of course. The terms of your conscription have been fulfilled, have they not? I understand that, circumstances being what they are, you’re not precisely free to leave Seahold, however you would have no cause to throw yourself in harm’s way with such an alarming frequency.”

Solas lets out a short, abrupt laugh as he sits in the chair beside Aevalle’s, but thankfully keeps his comments to himself.

The aforementioned refreshments arrive—a silver tray carried by a silent-footed servant, containing a pot of tea for Aevalle and Josephine and a smaller, single cup of steaming water with lemon and honey for Solas. There are delicate-looking cakes and very tiny pastries that look far too sweet for Aevalle’s tastes, but which Solas immediately reaches for instead of his cup.

I need to go to the Winter Palace, Aevalle signs, once the food is settled and the servant has closed the door behind them, and Josephine pours two cups of tea.

“The Winter Palace?” Josephine gives her a polite, if slightly puzzled, smile. “Aevalle, I hadn’t thought you interested in the least in politics—you are aware of the situation in Orlais?”

I know. She doesn’t really know all the details, but human power struggles spilling out and affecting Dalish clans are nothing new to her.

From the look on Josephine’s face, she is clearly less than impressed with Aevalle’s answer. She drops a few cubes of sugar into her tea, and then a touch of cream, while she seems to consider how to respond to that. “I doubt you want me to inform you of all the particulars, but the Inquisition will have a presence at the upcoming peace talks. The late Felix Alexius provided us with information that lead us to believe Corypheus plans to assassinate the Empress and send Orlais into chaos.”

Based on her limited experience in Orlais, Aevalle isn’t entirely sure that would be a bad thing.

“We discovered some information in our escape from the Blighted Dragon regarding the Winter Palace as well,” Solas replies. “We encountered a spirit, which hinted that we might find some information regarding Corypheus’s intentions with Miss Lavellan in the caverns beneath the palace.”

To her credit, Josephine hardly bats an eyelash at Solas so casually mentioning a spirit as their informant. She merely sips her tea and ponders what he said. “Fascinating,” she says. “The flooded caverns below the palace are impossible to explore—there have been countless attempts made, many of them intending to discover what ancient treasures the elves who built the first Halamshiral may have hidden there. Now that I know what you are capable of, Aevalle, I understand that of course there has been no success—it’s very possible your ancestors hid a great many ancient treasures in those waters, too deep for even the most stubborn of humans to reach.”

“I believe so,” Solas replies, a hint of a smile forming on his lips.

With a thoughtful expression, Josephine sets her cup and saucer down. “That means there is a dreadful amount of work to be done—and little time to accomplish it. I must obtain invitations for you both—am I forward in presuming you wish to accompany Miss Lavellan, Solas?”

His smile spreads. “You are not forward at all.”

Josephine gives him a fond smile before she stands and crosses to her desk. “I doubt Mister Pavus will be allowing you out of his sight, what with the Adamant fiasco. Don’t give me that look, Aevalle, he was beside himself. I should ask the Iron Bull if he would be willing to come, should something go awry… Madame Vivienne is already attending, but I must speak with her regarding the latest fashions. Oh, and Sera’s connections with the servants would be invaluable…”

“Shall we leave you to it, then?” Solas asks, moving to stand.

Without even looking up, Josie waves at him to sit again. “At least eat the pastries before you go, I’ll never hear the end of it if I have to send those back.”

 --

The rest of Aevalle’s first day back at Seahold is filled with checking in on the Keeper, making her report to Cassandra, having her measurements taken yet again by an extremely frustrated tailor—how are they to make a dress worthy of the Winter Palace without fabric, Ambassador—tea with Vivienne, the start of a new training regimen with Cullen, and a Wicked Grace game arranged at the last minute by Varric.

Solas remains in the Undercroft when she leaves it, facing a list of questions and theories a mile long from Dagna.

It is the first time she has been separated from him for so long since the dragon dragged him into the Deep.

She feels his absence at her side keenly—when her throat aches, she nearly turns to where she expects he would be. But then the tailor tuts, and she remembers that he is elsewhere, and bites the inside of her lip. Training in the courtyard with Cullen, she sidesteps out of the range of his practice sword, only to hesitate instead of taking advantage of the opening she’s created. Expecting a blast of ice to take the commander instead. At Wicked Grace, she keeps expecting him to leave his work and join them, to take the empty seat next to her—waiting for it, even going so far as to deal an extra hand when it’s her turn.

He does not.

She knows it can’t be the same. Solas has his duties, his responsibilities. Her strength has returned from teaching him how to change his shape all over again. He no longer needs to hover. She no longer needs him to.

She does miss it, though. More than a little.

She returns to her room late that night, after delivering a more-than-tipsy Dorian to his, and finds it exactly as she left it three weeks ago. The few things she has collected neatly arranged, her clothes folded in drawers or hung in the wardrobe. Her small bed, and the chill in the air from that infuriating hole in the wall that no one can seem to find.

She closes the door behind her and stares at the bed a while—thinking of how she will miss the curve of the aravel at her back, and the sway of water beneath her. She might open her window to hear the waves crashing on the rocks below, at least, and to smell the salt in the air…

She tugs on her bracelet. It’s not the sea she will miss most, she has to admit.

Before she can second-guess herself, she turns on her heel and opens her door once more.

Only to see Solas standing right in front of it—hand raised as if about to knock.

He smiles when he sees her, and sheepishly lowers his hand. “Good evening.”

She finds his smile infectious. Nearly morning now.

“Quite so. I had thought you would be sleeping—Dagna had me so occupied with improvements to the Keeper’s auxiliary life support, I hardly noticed how much time had passed. Then I heard you return to your room, so I thought I would… well. Knock.”

So you’ve knocked, she teases, tilting her head.

His smile only deepens, his eyes bright with amusement. “So I have.”

Did you have a plan for after you knocked?

“I believe I had something to tell you.”

Can’t wait til tomorrow?

“It cannot.”

She can’t help but grin up at him. Ridiculous man. Then tell me.

“When I returned to my rooms this evening, I discovered that I have no desire to sleep alone.” He inclines his head, but his eyes do not leave hers. “I wondered if, perhaps, I would find that sentiment echoed here.”

She answers him by reaching forward, grabbing the laces of his Dalish vest, and tugging him into her room.

His lips and tongue are clever enough—but though she is quick to unlace his vest, and his hands wander, she finds that once they lie on the bed, facing one another, she feels the busy day catch up with her, all at once.

Solas seems much the same. Or perhaps he notices her heavy sigh, and only leans in for one more long, slow kiss. Then he pulls back to regard her a moment, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw.

She can she in the way his brow furrows that there is something else on his mind. So she props herself up on her elbows, and tilts her head a little.

He sighs. “It’s… it’s nothing. I was just thinking you must be tired. You’ve had a busy day. Rising early to sail, meeting everyone again, settling old business...”

There’s something significant about the way he says old business that makes her raise a single brow. She sits up properly, so that she can answer him. Solas rises with her, not quite meeting her gaze.

You mean with Felix’s father?

He lets out a small, embarrassed breath, and he watches her hands instead of her face as he replies, “I… yes. I do.”

Ah. That.

There’s an ache in her heart still, for losing Felix. She’s tried to think as little on his father’s words as possible, but… perhaps Solas has been giving her space. And thinking a little too much on them, in turn.

So she reaches forward, and guides his eyes to meet hers with her fingertips on his chin. Then she leans in and kisses him. He meets her eagerly, as if relieved—their lips drag, and she tastes his breath on her tongue, as he pulls her closer. She winds one arm and up to the back of his head, to run her nails along his freshly-shaven scalp.

The other hand remains between them, her palm pressed flat to the skin over his heart.

When they part, Solas settles in bed once more while Aevalle leaves the bed, briefly, to open the window. Then she climbs back in the bed behind Solas, and tucks herself neatly against his back, hanging her arm loosely over his waist. She presses a kiss to his shoulder blade, just to hear his breath hitch, and he reaches down to grasp her hand, twining his fingers in hers.

They lie like that awhile, slowly drifting off to the sound of the sea through the open window, and the waves crashing down on the cliffs far below.

 -

Aevalle is standing on the shore, looking out into a bay her clan frequently finds harbour in. There are halla sleeping among the aravels, white forms bobbing in the gentle waves that lap at the shore. She can hear conversation around the campfires behind her; Emren is teasing Veris about something. She’s too far away to hear the details, but she can hear Veris’s indignant protests anyway. A baby is crying—someone sings a lullaby while someone else tells Veris to shut up.

She holds her mother’s spear. She has never stood in this place and held her mother’s spear, so this must be a dream.

Not a bad one, however. She runs her thumb over the carvings and listens to her clan. She digs her toes in the sand, and she stands there and regards the bay before her, and watches the waves draw closer as the tide climbs higher.

There is an aravel out in the water. Not quite the same style as her clan’s… a little different. Higher in the water, for seas prone to winter storms. She can see a figure lounging in it, one hand dragging the water, the moonlight shining off his bald head.

Solas.

She feels the rush of incoming tide run over her ankles.

As the wave retreats, it pulls at her.

As it rushes forward, it pushes her back towards her clan.

Just as she moves to follow its next retreat—why is Solas in here, with her clan—she hears a voice call to her.

“Da’len.”

Deshanna is approaching from behind her, digging her own spear into the sand with each stride. She is smiling, and healthy, her cheeks warmed by sunlight and her eyes bright with happiness.

A far cry from the last time Aevalle saw her Keeper. Wounded, sickly...

“You have returned, da’len,” she says, as Aevalle shakes her head and tries to clear her thoughts. “Come, sit by the fire. It’s too cold to stand out here alone.”

But still, she hesitates. She turns back to the bay, even though the pull of the retreating wave feels weaker, now.

Solas has raised the aravel’s sails, and is sailing away into the night. The little boat slipping silently towards the horizon, and away from shore.

She feels Deshanna’s hand on her wrist, just above her bracelet. Deshanna tugs ever so gently on her arm; trying to guide her up the shore, and back to camp.

“Hurry now. We have much to discuss, da’len.”

The keeper tugs again, and Aevalle takes a single step away from the sea.