#I think stroud mostly said what he meant in the books aside from a few exceptions

[krash-and-co]

"it's so nice to see what's going on without being stuck in Lucy's head" sounded pretty fun but now I'm like what did we even mean by that other than locklyle and finding people aren't as ugly as she described. like. the girl wasn't insane she's not TOO far off from reality guys

[patricianandclerk]

Vigil

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The sounds of Elvish were surprisingly calming, actually. Lavellan’s voice wasn’t anything like Daisy’s, when he spoke in Trade – he had a kind of posh accent he’d obviously learned to use, and Varric couldn’t deny it didn’t work. When he gave his speeches, the nobles took notice even if he was an elf with bloodwriting on his face.

He wondered, sometimes, if Daisy would like Lavellan.

He was very focused on his Dalish heritage, on the Elvhen people as a whole, and the way he told stories, the way he knew stories… Yeah. Yeah, she’d like that about him, like that he came off as a fusty old Dalish hahren even though his eyes were bright and new and his face was still relatively youthful.

Varric leaned back in his seat, and he watched Lavellan’s face as he prayed, quietly, his voice a constant litany of Elvish. It wasn’t like how Cassandra had prayed, earlier, the Chant running past her lips like water, flowing to meet the air. You could hear the names on his lips, the different gods he called on, and he’d lit a candle at Cole’s bedside, a talisman wrapped around the white wick.

There was no god on it – it was just an elf root leaf carved into silver, a symbol for healing, or something.

Cole’s room was small. Not many people really fit in it at once: there was the bed, a single mattress on a plain wood frame, and there was barely a gap either side of it for Cole to move down, the dresser beside the door only just able to open out all the way. Varric had been worried, given how the kid had… Well, not how Cole had died, but how—

Anyway.

He’d been worried that it would be too small, but he’d actually picked it, and Varric had watched Blackwall help him pin blankets and tapestries to the stone walls, and affix rugs on the stone floors, so that every single surface was soft with fabric, even the awkward bends in the stone where they went to meet the pink-stained glass of the window. Cole said that it was nice, to have such a small room with such soft walls. Varric hadn’t argued.

The roseglass made the light into the room come in warm pinks, and it laid a pink spotlight over Cole’s chest, rising and falling under the blankets, his head tossed to the side.

You could believe he was sleeping, his expression was so peaceful.

Varric looked away from the boy, and instead at the rest of the room. Books were piled high on the dresser, the only reason they were in any order at all because Dorian or Solas always picked them up and stacked them properly whenever they came to see Cole and saw that they were in disarray. He had a stuffed nug with wings that Krem had made for him, sitting on the dresser, and scattered on the surface beside it were various knick-knacks, rocks he’d liked the look of, paint swatches, tools, some scattered thread and needles. Varric knew the drawers were mostly the same – he only used one drawer for clothes, and one for armour.

Lavellan and Varric were both sitting on chairs they’d just managed to squeeze into the space on either side of the bed, Varric with a book in his lap, Lavellan leaned forward, a candle held in his palm.

Wax dripped slowly over his loosely clasped hands.

Varric didn’t want to ask if it hurt – he knew it did.

“Lethallin,” said Solas from the doorway. He said something more, in Elvish, and Lavellan looked up at him, his expression not changing. Solas’ stern tone softened, and he said something else.

Lavellan nodded, and he set the candle in his hands aside the one on Cole’s end table, on the little plate to catch the wax, and Varric looked at the wax marks on the elf’s hands, the red streaks of not-quite-burns where wax had peeled away, and the wax still clinging to the skin in places.

Lavellan’s face was a mask without expression – he was a born diplomat, in that sense. He didn’t show a thing on his face if he didn’t want to.

Lavellan said something; Solas, his face falling, replied, and when Lavellan came toward him, he actually reached out and touched Lavellan’s shoulder. Solas wasn’t a very touchy-feely guy, but Lavellan slumped a little, leaning into his palm, and Solas murmured something that sounded reassuring, quiet.

“Ma serannas,” he heard Lavellan say, and Solas stepped back to let him past. His gaze landed on the candles beside Cole’s bedside: Cassandra had left a tiny icon of Andraste against the cloth wall, but it was at the elvish trinket that Solas’ lip curled.

“He was praying,” Varric said softly.

“Yes,” Solas murmured. “He would do.”

He reached for the chair Lavellan had been in, and to Varric’s surprise he set it down beside Varric’s, sitting down beside him, setting his elbows on his knees, his mouth against his steepled hands. Somehow, he looked graceful, even sitting like that, leaned forward.

“How long ‘til we know?” Varric asked.

“Another thirty hours or so,” Solas murmured, his gaze on Cole’s face. “We will then be able to see if his body is digesting the venom, or if it is succumbing. In any case, even if the venom weakens him, we will then be begin using magic to better heal him.”

“I thought magic activated the venom or something,” Varric said, thinking back to the panicked, scattered explanations that had poured out of Dorian’s mouth as he’d carried the boy back to camp, all but begging Solas or Vivienne to tell him he was wrong. “That trying to heal him would just kill him.”

“At the point where the venom is definitely killing him,” Solas said quietly, “using magic would lower his odds only marginally more.”

There was something grim in the way he said it, and Varric could see his hands twitch.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Varric said. “Kid’s a fighter.”

“You have yet to leave his bedside. You must sleep, sometimes, Varric.”

It was the first time Solas had ever actually used his first name, Varric thought, and he felt a pang in his chest, looking at Solas’ face, at the guarded expression on his face.

“I’ll sleep here,” Varric said.

“He is lucky to have you,” Solas said quietly. “That he has chosen to be so… human…” Solas trailed off, and there was something in his face that Varric didn’t know how to pinpoint. Like Lavellan, Solas could be very guarded, when he wanted to be, but it was so hard to actually figure out what he did feel, when he felt it.

“You know,” Varric said, not sure if he was misjudging things, but… “You know, Solas, it isn’t like he’s chosen me over you. He just wanted… Well. It was his choice. You said that, after, you said it was his choice.”

Solas met Varric’s gaze, and he looked so damned sad that Varric fel`t it punch him in the chest. There was sorrow in his face, in the downturn of his lips, the way he—

“No,” he whispered. “You’re quite correct, of course. It… My apologies. I am so used to feeling that I might assist, with my powers of healing. It ails me that I should be so powerless, seeing a friend so deathly ill and being unable to aid except by waiting.”

“Me too,” Varric said simply. “You ever…” He thought about the Fade. Thought about Solas’ stone in the graveyard, Dying alone, written on the carved stone. Thought about leaving Stroud behind, how easily it could’ve been Hawke… “Do you miss anybody?”

“Like your Lady Bianca, you mean?” Solas asked. “Or your man Hawke?”

“Sure,” Varric said, not letting it cut at him. “Like that.”

Solas leaned back, laying his hands on his knees. “No,” he said. “But, at times, I miss…” He set his jaw. He didn’t talk about what came before – Varric knew that, that he didn’t talk about it, whatever it was, whatever he was like, wherever he came from. He knew there were scars under Solas’ tunic, because Dorian had seen them, once, when they stopped to bathe in a spring out in the desert; he knew that the village he said he’d come from was a ruin, when Leliana sent a scout to see.

“He said to me, once, that you shouldn’t be on your own,” Varric said softly, “but that he wasn’t enough. What do you think he meant?”

“You might ask him,” Solas said softly. “When he wakes.”

There was pain in his voice. Varric wondered if he should feel guilty, trying to talk about Solas instead of about Cole, because… Fuck, it was like how Solas had said. Felt like nugshit, to be powerless. You wanted to try to fix other stuff instead, even though Varric knew he wasn’t gonna fix Solas any time soon.

Varric leaned forward, and Solas’ hand was warmer than he would have expected under his own, the flesh more calloused than it looked at a glance, a few scars to be felt under Varric’s fingers as he wrapped his hand around Solas’ and squeezed.

Solas didn’t look at him, but Varric heard him gasp, softly, a little inhalation.

“You won’t die if you let someone touch you,” Varric said.

Solas face gave a twitch, but he said nothing.

“He dreaming?” Varric asked.

“No. He is resting, apart from the Fade, separated. Tomorrow… for good or for ill, he will dream.”

Solas’ hand remained in Varric’s.

When Varric fell asleep, at some point, he woke to find Solas gone. Blackwall had taken up the vigil instead, and Lavellan’s candles had burned all the way down.