#behold the oneshot i said i'd write but never finished lmao

[emmg]

I'm likely never finishing it so here's whatever I wrote for this ellana x solas x elgar'nan one-shot lmfao, releasing it into the wilds of tumblr and away from my brain, be free, you unfinished thing, you. If I ever finish it, I'll throw it on ao3 and maybe like make it a three-shot because it will get long, but idk, probably not, we'll see.

100% inspired and owed to @teamdilf and their succinct and delicious A Flower in a Cage which all of you need to check out and admire. Their Elgar'nan has me in fits lmfao, ripping bongs and being suave, so freaking delicious

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Solas' anger has always been a quiet, simmering force. Even when Wisdom was lost, twisted into an abomination, he remained unsettlingly composed. There had been fury, of course—words of rage—but he reduced the mages responsible to ash with a cold, clinical precision. 

It’s that same look she sees now as she watches him from the corner of her eye. His narrowed gaze, fingers interlaced and resting on the table. For ten years, she had imagined all the sharp retorts she’d throw his way, the righteous fury, maybe even a slap or two. But now, seeing him like this, she just feels tired. Exhausted, really. 

They haven’t had a moment to talk. No chance to confront one another, to scream, cry, or even laugh together. So she lets her anger go, at least for now, and reaches out to touch his forearm. The cold metal of his armor unsettles her. He was never like this with her—never this sharp, this guarded. He used to wear an ugly sweater, soft fabrics worn thin with age. Not this hard, unyielding plate. Still, he feels her touch and, with the smallest tilt of his head, the briefest shudder, he exhales, just a little. 

She finds his hand—with her own, the one that’s still flesh and bone—and gently pries it from its rigid grip. She pulls it under the table, a small gesture. Not quite a reunion, but a quiet truce. 

The Evanuris are awake, their prison, past and present, shattered. Just two for the time being. Your problem now, she's heard Rook tell her of Solas' bitter words to them. Blame and responsibility tossed upon an innocent party just as had been done to her at the Conclave. She disapproves, of course, but she knows Solas too well. Duty is his constant companion, like a cloak he never removes. He wouldn’t have reacted this way unless he had been pushed to his breaking point.

These... negotiations—if she can even call them that—are bizarre. There isn’t a word that quite fits what’s happening. Solas says they want to talk to him, but it’s clear they also want to crush him for what he’s done to them. And yet, she supposes she understands. As much as they might hate him, he’s still the closest thing to kin they have in this strange, unfamiliar world. 

She never imagined she would meet one of the creators. Then again, she never imagined she’d find herself holding hands with the Dread Wolf, either. 

Ellana glances at Elgar’nan, seated across from them at the war table, legs casually crossed, his head propped on a loose fist. He’s odd, strange, but she’s relieved that he’s the one speaking. Ghilan’nain unnerves her in a way she can’t quite explain, fear that sits deep and wordless. One moment a mass of writhing shadows, then a woman, then a grotesque creature—twisting flesh, charred bones, marrow spilling out. She shapes her creations, scratches her monsters beneath their chins, all while her own form distorts. She speaks of life and inception, even as her body unravels. 

"What does an Inquisitor do?" Elgar'nan asks, his smile soft, almost teasing. 

She’s come to know him as the indulgent kind, always redirecting the conversation back to those around him. His words sometimes catch, slipping over sounds that seem strange on his tongue, as though their language itself tastes bitter. There’s a lilting accent in his voice, one she recognizes in Solas, though Solas has carefully refined it, polished it smooth to blend in. But Elgar’nan lets the imperfections linger, and when he falters, she asks him to repeat himself. He always does, patient, with a quiet, whispered apology—forgive me.

"Not much these days," she admits, rolling a shoulder with casual indifference. "Once, I closed rifts in the sky." 

"A fragile pursuit," he remarks, his gaze drifting to the metal-and-wood fingers of her left hand. "And a thankless one." 

"That’s behind me now," she replies. 

"Ell-a-na," he says, drawing out each syllable slowly, deliberately. "That is your name, correct?" 

"Yes," she nods, her tone sharper. "And it’s not a difficult one. No need to linger on it." 

She’s not the same girl who was sent to spy on the Conclave. Not even the same "Herald" who took up a mantle less sacred than it appeared, simply because her palm happened to glow. No, the years have reshaped her. The Inquisition took the forest out of her, and time since has stripped away her simplicity. Her hair, once wild, is now styled in an elaborate Orlesian fashion—three braids woven into one, cascading down her back like a ribbon, still white, but now more from weariness than nature. She wears the diplomatic garb of a dignitary, and sometimes, when she catches her reflection, she feels lost, unable to recall what it felt like to sleep in an aravel. 

"And whose are you?" Elgar’nan continues, unbothered, as if it were the most casual of questions. 

She arches an eyebrow. "Pardon?" 

He waves his free hand, a fluid, careless motion, as if he's painting invisible curlicues. She realizes he means her face, bare now for ten years. 

"I wore June's vallaslin," she says evenly. "Before I knew the truth." 

"Ah," is all he offers in return. 

The sound seems to shatter something deep inside Solas, splintering the quiet that had settled between them. His fingers twitch violently, then convulse, jerking away from hers as if they burn. He spins toward Elgar’nan, his hand rising to point, trembling. His voice erupts, sharp and venomous, every word cutting like a blade. It’s an onslaught—a rapid, fierce tirade she cannot comprehend. 

They’ve slipped into Elvhen, arguing with one another, but the language isn’t soft and lilting now. It’s jagged, like broken glass—an ancient tongue that still carries a musical cadence beneath the anger. It rises and falls, melodic yet taut, as though the very words are wound with tension, ready to snap. 

Solas all but hisses, and the sound of his voice, cracking under the strain, makes her stomach churn. She loathes hearing him like this—so frayed, so vulnerable. 

She slams her hand down on the table, the one that barely feels anymore, and the impact is harsh and jarring. The sound reverberates through the room, loud and ugly, sending the untouched wine glasses teetering, their contents sloshing dangerously close to the rim. 

"None of that," she snaps, her voice slashing through the tension like a whip. "If we negotiate, we do it in a way all can understand." 

"Certainly," Elgar'nan is quick to agree. "But I do believe we are out of time."

With rising dread, she realizes he is right. Solas cannot stay. His connection to the Fade, his prison, is tightening its hold. Whatever time Rook's intricate rituals had bought him is running out. He must return. And she can see it—feel it. He’s been glancing at his hands, turning them over, trying to shake off the pain but unable to hide it anymore. He’s told her little about the torment, but she senses it in him, just as she did all those years ago, when he kept her at arm’s length, refusing to let her help. She feels it even if she doesn’t, and that truth gnaws at her. 

She rises. "Then we shall go," she says simply. "And we will return." 

Elgar’nan waves them off with a dismissive flick of his hand, offering no words. 

Solas is quiet as they leave the grand hall. Once outside, the doors closing behind them with a finality that makes her chest tighten, he pauses, leaning heavily against the stone wall to catch his breath. She wants to touch him—to brush her fingers against his face, hold his hand, feel the pulse in his throat. He’s grown so pale, his skin nearly translucent, yet the faint dusting of freckles remains. She can still see them, those light speckles across his nose and cheeks. They aren’t visible from afar, but up close, she could trace them like a map of their shared history, a quiet testament to all they’ve been through, the jokes they shared, the bears they evaded. 

Then, she forgets her anger, the words she has yet to say, the blows that are to come, and the eyes that linger on them. She leans in, her movements slow and deliberate. She takes his face in her hands, but the kiss she gives him is not that of a lover. It’s brief, a mere whisper of touch—her lips brushing the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, his brow, his nose. It’s not passion that drives her, but something softer, sadder. She hasn’t seen him in so, so long, and here he stands—so pitiful, so broken, teetering between what he once was and what he can never be again. Pathetic. He is neither monster nor savior, a man who deserves the noose, yet she knows if it ever comes to that, she would be the one to tie it. Without her, he’d never hang. 

Her mind floods with memories as her lips trace his skin. She thinks of the tea he always hated, the paints he used to mix with care, the long, rainy days on the road, when Dorian complained of the weather and Solas, with quiet patience, fed a few more sticks to the fire. She thinks of the disastrous Diamondback game where he had outwitted Blackwall, leaving the false Warden stripped to nothing, his pride as naked as the rest of him. It is that man she remembers—the one who didn’t wear cold armor, but soft, worn leathers. The man who spoke in familiar tongues, who hadn’t yet driven knives into the backs of old friends.

She loves that man, loves him still, and with a quiet, aching guilt that weighs heavy in her chest, she loves the man standing before her now, broken as he is. All the gods, false and true, forgive her—she still loves him.

Her kisses slow and cease, and with a weary sigh, she pulls back. 

"I am sorry," Solas says, his voice barely above a whisper, and he’s not looking at her. 

And then the world shifts, wraps around him, pulling him away. He disappears, as he always does, when the Fade reclaims him, and she is left alone. 

The sentinels at the grand doors remain motionless as she approaches, neither acknowledging her nor opening the way. They stand like statues, their eyes fixed on some distant point. Her frown deepens, anxiety rising within her as the weight of their silence presses in. 

So, she turns back, retracing her steps to where Elgar’nan still sits, now idly flipping through a book. 

"Have a drink with me, Inquisitor," he says without looking up. 

"You waited for Solas to leave," she deduces, her tone more of a statement than a question, but she obliges, perching herself on the edge of the war table and lifting one of the untouched wine glasses. 

"Hm," he murmurs, a soft smile curling his lips. 

He stands, and she realizes he is taller than Solas. She wishes he had remained seated. There is something unsettling about his grace, the way he moves with quiet, effortless ease. He takes the other glass and toasts her from across the room before strolling to the window. He moves like liquid—fluid. His deep-set lines and silver-threaded hair suggest age, something ordinary, something all inevitably come to, but in the right light, he truly could be the All-Father from Dalish legends and murals, regal and distant. He feels like a shadow detached from fables, something both ancient and elusive. 

He gazes at her, but not as one would look at a person. It’s as though she is both insignificant and the most intriguing artifact in his possession, a contradiction that sends a chill down her spine.  She doesn’t think he sees her; not really.

Maybe it’s the headpiece, she thinks, those twisted, gilded horns that curl like gold spun from myth. Or perhaps it’s his eyes, nearly empty of pupils, giving him an ethereal, distant quality—like he sees through her, beyond her. 

"I do not like your words," he says softly, a quiet confession that deepens the lines on his face. "They are... crude. Too sharp for my ears, too heavy on the tongue." His frown lingers, but then his gaze returns to hers, more thoughtful. "Yet, you wield them skillfully. Or at least, you once did. I have read of your Inquisition," he adds, waving the book in his hand like a leaf caught in the wind, "and of the Imperium that swallowed my lands, born from the betrayal of the one you cherish." 

She swirls her wine, though the gesture is more habit than purpose now. It has been breathing for hours, lifeless in the glass. Still, she lets the quiet stretch between them, the pause heavy with unspoken thoughts. 

"Then you must see," she says finally, "that not everything is wrong. Not everything needs to be destroyed." 

He shakes his head, eyes still distant. "Your world... it is broken. It breathes, yes, but not as it once did. The fire in it flickers, dim, starved of air." With a flick of the wrist, veilfire ignites in his palm, a soft green glow that quickly flares into true flame, bright and orange, like a sun rising in the hollow of his hand. 

The flames dance around him, licking the air, alive with a hunger they no longer seem able to satisfy. He sighs, almost a lament, and the fire dies with his breath, as if exhaled from the very heart of him. "In my time, it would have consumed you," he murmurs, his voice touched with a far-off sorrow. "Now, it is shackled. You strain harder for less, the very world constrained by invisible fetters." 

"Perhaps that’s a blessing," she says, steady, though the air feels heavier. "I have no desire to burn." 

He laughs then, a sound both sharp and light. "Oh, no," Elgar'nan says, almost playfully. "No, no, one such as you was never meant to burn." He offers a mocking nod, as if considering. "Others—" his tone becomes oddly teasing, "—oh, certainly, but not someone with the power to shape things. With a mere touch," his laugh once more follows, not entirely kind, "or the semblance of it. Or more precisely, with a word. Politically, socially, religiously—you are someone." His gaze sharpens, the fire in him sparking once more. "And I do not burn those with faces."

She tunes out his words, letting them wash over her as her gaze fixes on a distant point beyond his shoulder. Her voice drips with bitterness when she finally speaks. "So, you’re like Solas," she accuses. "You want to tear down the Veil." 

"It is unnatural," he replies, calm, cold. 

"Not to me." She lifts her glass, drinking not out of thirst, but to stave off the silence pressing in on her. "What about the people it will destroy? Some of them are yours." 

"None of them are mine," he snaps, dismissive, like the notion itself offends him. But then, a slow hum escapes his lips, low and discordant, the sound lingering in the air like a half-formed melody. "Though they could be," he adds, his smile thin and eerie. "Religion, devotion—such exquisite tools, wouldn’t you agree, Herald?"

The way he draws out her title makes her skin crawl, each syllable sinking deep, heavy with intent. She knows exactly what he means, the kinship he’s attempting to weave between them, a shared understanding she does not want. 

"You can force a thousand men to their knees," Elgar’nan continues, his hand sweeping through the air as if shaping unseen forces. "And they will indeed kneel. But once the blade is lifted from their throats, they will rise again, defiant, waiting to strike. Faith, though—" He pauses, raising one long finger in punctuation. "Faith is a leash that requires no hand to hold it. It binds on its own. You know that already, however." 

His truth curls around her, thick and suffocating, as though he’s inviting her to share in it, to acknowledge the power she herself wields. Power she wishes she didn’t understand so well. 

"You're not a god," she blurts out, too quickly, the words tumbling from her lips before she can gather them, as if every lesson in diplomacy Josephine had drilled into her had vanished in an instant. "Neither is Solas," she adds hastily, a futile balm meant to soften her sharpness, though she knows it won't soothe him. "And I’m no divine representative." She rolls her eyes, feeling the bitterness in her own voice. "You were a slaver, like all your kind. But you don’t have to be one now." Her voice takes on an edge of naive hope, and she hates how it sounds—like an idealist who can’t accept the shades of grey the world truly holds, reaching only for the pastel colors she wishes were real. 

Elgar’nan shows no hint of offense, or if he does, it is buried so deeply she cannot see it. He simply watches her, appraising, as though he sees through her bravado and into the softer parts of herself. His scrutiny drifts over her slowly, with a kind of clinical interest, as though studying something fragile, something almost pitiable. 

"What I am," he says at last, his voice like silk unraveling in the air, "is irrelevant. What matters is what they believe me to be." The words hang between them, heavy, weighted with the truth of them. "Is that not what raised you to the pinnacle of your world, Ellana?" 

In the way he speaks her name, he strips away the titles, the masks, as though acknowledging her roots, the bare bones of who she is, wrapped in the illusions of power she’s been given. Yet, behind his stare, there is no warmth, no real recognition. He sees her, but only as one sees a fleeting shadow—curious for a moment, but ultimately unimportant. What she is beneath it all doesn’t truly matter to him. 

When his smile spreads across his face, a wave of profound anxiety washes over her, so deep and consuming that her hand begins to tremble. There is something terribly wrong in his expression. The smile is too perfect, too precise, as if it’s been borrowed—stolen—from someone else. It is beautiful, finely crafted, like a mask made by the finest hands. He is as breathtaking as the Mother of the Halla, just as ethereal, but something about him is fundamentally amiss. He is not like Solas. His refined politeness unnerves her, a facade too polished, too practiced. 

And still, he does not drink. 

In their old, foolish legends, she recalls him wrestling the sun from the heavens. And looking at him now, she believes it. If he were to tell her that he reached up and plucked the glowing orb from the sky himself, she would trust him without question. There’s something in him, something electric, as though that sun still sizzles beneath his skin. Magic, power, or something else entirely—it thrums in him, an otherness that sets him apart from the world around him, makes him feel like he’s not quite of this realm. And he isn't. Not really, not truly, even if he once walked it freely. 

"I should go," she says, setting her glass down with a quiet resolve. 

His head tilts ever so slightly. "No," he replies, his voice gentle but firm. "You will stay. And we shall talk more." His smile is disquieting, unsettling in its decorum. "But tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow." 

****

When she sees him next, he hands her a map of Tevinter and a quill. 

She is bone-tired, her body aching with the weight of sleeplessness. Fear, raw and primal, pulses in her chest—a fear she hasn’t felt in years. She loathes being alone in this place, the stillness unsettling, the ancient stones seeming to drink in both light and sound, leaving only silence in their wake. 

She hates them, the ones who awoke with the Evanuris. They are ancient, strange, devout in a way that defies comprehension—a faith so deep and unyielding it could shame the Chantry, even if Andraste herself walked in during a morning service. They are not like her, despite the shared features etched in their faces. They speak little, their silence more oppressive than comforting. They remind her of Abelas—distant, ageless—but where Abelas had been kind in his own way, they are colder, detached, their faces marked in the same strange patterns that make them feel even less...alive. 

"I don’t appreciate being locked in," she says, though her fingers have already wrapped around the quill. 

"You are not," Elgar’nan replies calmly. "Have you not walked freely? Are you not doing so now?" 

"And yet, the front door is barred." 

"A contingency," he says, dismissive, as though the locked door were nothing more than a trivial inconvenience. "Nothing more." 

She holds his gaze, her resolve wavering before she finally sighs and shakes her head. "What do you wish to know?" she asks, motioning tiredly toward the map. 

"Borders."

"They're already depicted," she says, her patience thinning, her words clipped. 

He smiles that maddening smile, his tongue clicking in a soft, rhythmic tsk-tsk-tsk, the sound as if chiding a child who has missed something obvious. "The unspoken ones," he corrects, his voice a velvety murmur, indulgent, almost tender, as though her ignorance were something to be gently shaped. "Show me where those you call Venatori creep through the cracks. The paths your former Inquisition slips along, unseen."

His finger glides over the map like a knife tracing an invisible wound, following the jagged contours of the Hundred Pillars. "All the hidden crevices where your people crawl," he continues, smooth and coaxing, "where they lie in wait like spiders, ready to ambush mine. And where they scatter like shadows," he adds, his tone darkening, "when the tide inevitably turns against them." 

She sets the quill down, her eyes following the slow fall of a single drop of ink, fat and heavy, as it splashes onto the parchment, smearing the careful depictions beneath. "I cannot give you that," she says quietly, but with finality. 

"Then perhaps," he muses, his voice as soft as the ink still spreading across the page, "you will give me something else." 

Her brow furrows, uncertainty flickering in her eyes. "What could that possibly be?" 

"Peace," he says, the word lingering on his tongue as if it were a secret, as if it could reshape the very air around them. 

The next thing she knows, his hand is in her hair, fingers coiling through the strands she left loose, unlike the dignified style she wore yesterday. He doesn’t yank her upward, but the pull is firm, commanding—like someone catching a pet by the collar. It’s not forceful, but insistent, as though he knows she will follow. He leads her to stand before a vast map, one that spans nearly the entire wall, where shadows shift and flow, and figures seem to rise and fall as if alive. 

"No, no," he murmurs, his voice tame but unyielding. "You will look." 

His grip tightens just enough to keep her head still, fixing her gaze on the swirling masses before her. He is behind her, a looming presence, yet she feels the brush of his arm as it extends past her shoulder, his fingers furling and unfurling like tendrils, pointing at the restless shapes on the map. 

"I do not know much of the Chantry," he begins, sounding very much the scholar. "Nor of this religion it champions, a faith that has swallowed the land like a plague. And I know little of this Orlais you speak of." His tone shifts into something uglier, like his patience is thinning. "But I do know how many despise both. Many who look like you. Many who have already come to me, and more who will continue to come." 

She thinks of the elven alienages, of the unrest simmering like a cauldron on the brink of boiling over. She remembers how it erupted in Denerim—riots, rebellion, and the bloody purges that followed. It is a story she has seen play out across Thedas, each version a little different but always steeped in horror. And then her thoughts turn to her own clan, the Dalish, blind in their unwavering devotion to gods of a forgotten age. The offerings, the prayers, the way they shun the present, clinging to ancient stories like lifelines, dreaming of a past long buried, of how to breathe life into it anew. 

No, no, he is not lying, she realizes, and the dread coils tighter around her heart. She knows, with sudden clarity, that there will be many who see him as the harbinger of change—a living myth walking among them. They will kneel without question, without hesitation, and offer themselves to him as if their every breath had led to this moment. 

And Solas? If the All-Father walks, if Ghilan'nain walks, then Solas is no fabrication, no mere story whispered in the dark. He is real, and he is the Betrayer. The Dread Wolf of legend. And they—her people—will turn on him at the mere word of these two. Her people, who have carried their resentment for Fen'Harel like a festering wound for millennia. It would be so easy, too easy, for these ancient relics of the People to wield that hatred like a blade, to turn it against anyone who doesn’t revile him. Against those who show him sympathy. Against her. Against her friends. Against the fragile alliance Rook now leads—this little band that grew into something far larger, something that, in the eyes of many, might appear to stand beside the Betrayer himself. 

"So, let your words flow, Inquisitor," he murmurs, his voice pleasant, yet heavy with an undercurrent of menace. "Let them hear you. Let them withdraw. It will be easier—easier for you, for them, and yes, even for me." His hand glides across the map once more, this time stopping at its tattered edge, where the South, her home, is cut short. "Or, when this Veil, this hollow illusion you cling to, crumbles, and your wolf rises to his full strength, so too shall me and mine." 

With a sudden, unsettling motion, he gives her a shake—not violent, but enough to rattle her. "Why do you think your trickster, your deceiver, locked us behind a door without a key? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to end the threat completely?" His fingers begin their relentless tap-tap-tap against her shoulder, each strike a quiet taunt. "He couldn’t. He simply could not. And he cannot do it still—will stand even less of a chance when the sky ignites with fire." His words slide over her like poison as he continues, "So, I repeat myself: speak. Call for surrender. Don’t let this end in flames."

"Let me go," she snaps, shaking him off. His fingers slip from her hair as he takes a step back. Her body pulses with raw anger as she shoves him. "And never presume to touch me like that again." 

"You snarl like a cornered dog," he muses, but he is frowning now and she knows he is unnerved. "Baring your teeth, snapping. But I don’t offer a gentle hand to a beast that bites. I catch it by the scruff instead." His voice softens into a mockery of kindness. "Show me a fragment of decorum, Inquisitor, and you will see me return it tenfold." 

She watches as he brushes at his flowing sleeves, as though wiping away the very memory of her touch. The gesture is a quiet dismissal. Without another glance, he turns and begins to walk away. She steps forward, instinctively wanting to follow, but the air shifts—solid, impenetrable. An unseen force blocks her path, as if the very room bends to his will, keeping her trapped in her fury and isolation. 

****

"I do not like this," Elgar’nan mutters. "I do not like this at all." 

There is a cool detachment in him, she has learned—a restraint in the way he moves around her, as though the mere act of contact would shatter the brittle glass of his self-forged divinity. But not today. Today, without warning, he reaches for her hand, his fingers slipping into hers unbidden, even as she recoils, questioning, trying in vain to pull free. His touch creeps upward, like the encroaching shadow of some ancient force. Up, up, his fingers glide, finding the delicate curve of her elbow, where the clockwork joint meets her prosthetic, a careful mechanism of birch and dawnwood and magic. Then higher still, until two fingers press against her skin—living, warm—and two more against the cold metal. 

Suddenly, her balance deserts her. Her knees buckle, and for a breathless instant, she teeters on the edge of collapse. But his grip tightens, iron-strong, holding her fast. She would scream if she could, but the sound is trapped, suffocated, as fire blossoms through her arm—sharp, relentless, alive. It surges from the hinge of her elbow and winds its way inward, a serpent of agony twisting through her flesh. 

With horror, she watches as the finely-crafted prosthetic—a gift, a masterpiece forged by Tevinter's finest artificers at Dorian's behest—begins to dissolve. No, not just dissolve—it melts into her, her flesh absorbing the metal, and the metal melding into her skin. It is a grotesque fusion, an unnatural marriage of living tissue and lifeless machinery, bound by a fire that devours and reshapes. Three separate entities—her, the arm, and the magic—become one, a morbid union that should not exist. The flame sears through her, then dies just as quickly, leaving only the echo of its wrath behind. 

When he finally releases her, she staggers back, trembling, trying to make sense of the transformation. The prosthetic is no longer just an arm—it has become part of her, fused seamlessly to her body, moving with a fluidity that was once impossible. And the sensations—oh, the sensations. Her dawnstone fingertips burn with a newfound sensitivity, every touch more vivid than she ever thought possible. She can feel him still—the heat of his skin, the softness of his palm lingering against her. She can feel the whisper of the air as it brushes past, a breeze so faint it might as well be a phantom. 

And beneath it all, she feels the pain. Still, endlessly, the pain lingers, sharp and relentless. 

"How does it feel?" His voice is idle, almost distant, the question more a musing than a demand for truth. His arms fold neatly behind him, his head tilts with a feigned curiosity. Then, as an afterthought, comes her name, as if he's suddenly remembered she has one. "Ellana." 

She responds with a resounding strike across his face. 

The impact is so swift, so vicious, that it rocks him. His gaudy, ornate headpiece, that ridiculous crown of gilded arrogance, slips askew, tangling in the grey of his hair, pulling at strands like thorns catching in silk. For a heartbeat, it teeters precariously, caught between falling and staying, before it finally gives in, tumbling to the floor with a muted clatter, the sound so small against the thunderous echo of her slap. 

There is a moment, just a breath, where the world seems to still—her hand still tingling, his cheek reddening with the imprint of her defiance—and for that brief heartbeat, she knows he feels it too. Knows that he sees her as something alive, the same realization Solas struggled with. 

"Wonderful," she finally rasps, her voice rough, each word scraping painfully from her throat. "And I believe I already told you not to touch me again." 

Eh fuck it, I’m gonna write that ellana (lavellan) x solas x elgar’nan one-shot we’ve been fantasizing about and make it à la dinner & diatribes, something so utterly toxic and angsty and downright deranged that the asylum will be calling to check if i still have a soul. Lesgo my beautiful wine & dine charming villain, get the liquor and propositions out on the table