#ellana Lavellan | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

babe-a-yaga · 2 months ago

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Alright, I haven't written fiction, fan or otherwise, in probably close to 15 years, so take this for what it is. Took a stab at a short character-exploration piece of Dorian at the end of Veilguard grappling with the loss of a Solas-romanced Lavellan best friend. I've always loved the friendship dynamic between them, and wanted a bit more from their goodbye.

The howl rang through Minrathous, and the chill left in its wake clung to her bones. Solas. She unleashed an arcane volley on an advancing hurlock as she turned. The archdemon was rising above the city skyline, it's great wingbeats stirring the air, otherwise thick and sticky with Blight. And locked in its maw, fighting fiercely, the body of an enormous wolf.

"Solas! That's Solas!”

A wave of ghouls took advantage of her moment of distraction, charging the gap in her defense. Incinerated in a blink by the magister who stood, back to her back. Ten years had passed since she last laid eyes on him outside of dreams, and the creature she beheld now was a far cry from the humble scholar she had loved, or even the grim commander she had met during the exalted council. But she knew.

"What do you bloody mean 'That's Solas'?!" Dorian swore. He caught a glimpse of the look on his friend's face, following her gaze to the battle between behemoths unfolding above them.

"Kaffas!” Dorian shouted over his shoulder, “'Dreadwolf' was a touch more literal a title than I expected."

Lusacan roared as the dread-beast managed to clamp its jaws into the dragon's shoulder, the sound eclipsing the dull roar of the fights raging in every quarter of Minrathous. The dragon thrashed hard enough to dislodge its assailant, and the tremors as the Dreadwolf collided hard with a nearby building were felt even in the lower city where they stood, punctuated by a yelp more befitting of a kicked mongrel in Docktown than the monstrous animal they watched now.

Dorian heard the sharp intake of breath from behind him as he hurled another ball of flame at a darkspawn that had strayed too close.

He had never understood the hold Solas had on Ellana's heart. She had been Dorian's dearest friend for over a decade. A brilliant woman, a woman who inspired Southern Thedas to follow her, an elf. Solas had never appeared worthy of her. Not as the arrogant apostate he had begrudgingly worked alongside in the Inquisition, not as the betrayer God of her people. But he did understand her, and he could feel the fear for her former lover radiating from behind him.

He quickly scanned the street, and finding they were free of enemies for a moment, placed a hand on the Inquisitor's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"We'd best make haste to the Archon's palace then."

Dorian would never understand the hold Solas had on Ellana's heart. But after ten years he'd be damned if he would watch it break again.

........................

"So after this...you'll be off again?" Dorian asked softly, shooting a sideways glance at his friend. It was no small miracle that they had all made it here, to the highest peak of the city, the magisterium halls beneath the floating palace of the Archon.

Now not so much floating, as entrapped in an enormous tendril of Blight curling against the eerie red glow of the unnatural eclipse.

The times they'd been able to meet in person, in the intervening years since the Inquisition disbanded, were fewer and briefer than he'd have liked. His own doing, he knew. She had offered to come with him to Minrathous, all those years ago, when he had first ascended his father's seat in the Magisterium.

Without the Inquisition, without her clan to return to, without her lover, Dorian was the closest connection she had had left, and he knew she would have followed, and laid before him the entirety of what resources remained to her, but he had turned her down flat. Some of it had been pride, he had wanted to build his reputation as Magister Pavus free of any more whispers of Southern Influence than were unavoidable, and having the former Inquisitor behind him in the shadows would close as many doors as it opened to him.

Part of it was a protective doubt. Dorian loved his country, fiercely so, but whatever clout her name still carried in the South, this was Tevinter, and she an elf. The Inquisition was not so fondly thought of in Minrathous as in the backwater villages of Ferelden. The best he could do was leverage the status of his birth, and fight toward a Tevinter where his friend could one day be seen for the marvelous mind and gifted mage she was, and not the pointed ears she was born with. So Dorian had refused her. He privately cursed himself for that lost time now.

Still, they spoke nearly daily. The sending crystals they shared were a lifeline in his early days as magister. Whatever perceptions he cultivated of the cocky, assured Altus mage, forging confident new political paths for the Lucerni on his own merit alone, privately he relied on Ellana's council more than he'd admit, even to Maevaris. The Inquisitor was a leader of people, and a wise and steady hand besides, and he valued her insights more than he'd ever put voice to out loud.

But late night chats muttered into a glowing rock were poor substitute for the full presence of his friend. For all of his performative confidence and bravado, Dorian Pavus lived for those brief trips, for laughter over too many cups of wine. For the knowing glances and sly smiles between two friends who had faced and conquered more ends-of-the-world and would-be Gods before this moment than any living people could boast. Ellana Lavellan was his rock.

"Something like that." She answered with a reserve characteristic of herself, but beneath it lay an evasiveness more akin to the man battling the Archdemon on the rooftops around them. She was tense. More-so than the rest of them. Dust rained from the ceiling as something massive collided with the roof above, causing the entire building to shudder. The battle between Archdemon and Dreadwolf had been raging for hours. With each impact and each canine yelp and howl that rang out, he could see the tension wind tighter within her. And she avoided his glance when she replied.

A casual observer wouldn't see it. The Inquisitor kept her cards close to her chest. Perhaps it was a 'Dalish thing', perhaps it was prudence from years of leading a large para-military organization under intense political scrutiny, but she was not a woman who allowed her emotions rule her in sight of others. In all their years of friendship, through all the challenges and losses they had seen together, Dorian had only seen her undone twice. Not after Haven, not when they received word that Clan Lavellan had been exterminated to a man, not when Solas had first broken her heart at Crestwood. These trials, which might surely have broken a lesser man, Ellana had borne with a stoic serenity, at least in public, that only fueled the religious fervor that followed her.

Even when it was just the two of them, away from prying eyes of servants, religious devotees, soldiers, and the many nobles aspiring to allyship with the Inquisition, it wasn't a shoulder to cry on she looked to Dorian for. It was laughter, that Dorian brought to soothe the troubles of the Lady Inquisitor.

It was only after they had come face-to-face with the first Inquisitor, Ameridan, after they had slain the Avvar God Hakkon Wintersbreath, and chased the man's scattered memories to hell and back across the Maker-forsaken Frostback basin, when they found the final memory of his elven lover, Telana, did he finally witness his always-steadfast friend crack beneath the weight of it all.

There, on a remote island in a mountain lake, far removed from any onlookers besides her closest companions, Ellana Lavellan came untethered. It was Solas who comforted her then, as she sobbed in the dirt by the light of the moons, and Dorian had had to furiously bite his tongue. He had seen the parallels, of course. You'd have to be blind not to. The first Inquisitor, a mantle thrust upon his shoulders without his ask or consent, but one he rose to carry just the same, a Dalish mage. All traces of his Elvhen nature, of his magic, of everything politically inconvenient. Everything that comprised who he truly was, stricken from chantry history. And he could see in his friend's face as the truth was revealed to her, some 800 years later, carrying the same title, the same legacy, with no clan, no Vallaslin, nothing left but her ears to tell the world who she was, where she'd come from, that she knew the same fate was already unfolding for her.

The elven dreamer lover, separated from Ameridan at the end, when the battle was nearly won, and then dying alone in this isolated place, her spirit crying out for her Vhenan centuries later, was a bridge too far, even for one as strong as she. So Dorian had stood back while his friend grieved the life she had lost in pursuit of a better world for them all, as any remaining hope that her sacrifices might have bought some safety or influence for her people evaporated. While her own elven dreamer, separated from her just before the final fight, held her quietly until her emotions had run through her. They hadn't then known the truth of who Solas was. Didn't know why he had abruptly cut off their entanglement, with little warning, citing only 'duty' in his defense. Most worthy thing the man ever did, thought Dorian privately. But when he disappeared entirely after the defeat of Corypheus, Ellana had never been able to let him go.

The second time was after they foiled the Qunari plot at the Winter palace. As they finally claimed their victory over the Saarebas, the last obstacle in their path, Ellana had forged ahead through the final Eluvian, toward what they had expected to be a final confrontation with the Viddasala. A barrier had sprung up behind her, blocking Rainier, Cole, and Dorian from following her through. What awaited her on the other side, of course, had been a confrontation not with the Qunari, but with Solas himself.

Dorian, for all of his not inconsiderable magical talent, had been unable to even begin to untangle the wards between them, though he fought desperately to reach her. The magic at work to keep them away was more powerful than anything he had encountered, in Tevinter, in all of Thedas. In living memory, it turned out. Then, as abruptly as it had sprung up, the barrier fell, and Dorian had sprinted through the mirror, gripped with the terror that he had perhaps lost his best, and perhaps only, true friend.

They found her screaming. It was a sound that etched itself, in sharp detail, into Dorian's memory forever. Her arm, the one that had borne the anchor that had set in motion the events that had lead them all to this moment, was disintegrating before their eyes. Solas was gone. He had finally given Ellana the truth she deserved long ago, the truth of his identity as Fen'Harel, the truth that he still claimed to love her. The truth that that love was not enough to turn him from his path. He gave her the truth, and then saved her life from the wild magic of the anchor that was actively consuming her. The process involved removing the anchor arm entirely, and the agony was beyond fathoming. Dorian was the first to her side, lifting her tiny elven frame with so little effort she might as well have been a doll. The screaming only stopped when unconsciousness finally took her.

When they arrived back at Halamshiral, Dorian barely left her side to piss. It was days before he could finally be convinced she was truly on the mend enough to see the rest of the Exalted Council through to its, and the Inquisition's, bitter end.

Dorian had never forgiven Solas for that. She was alive, he was, though somewhat venomously, grateful to the mage for that much. It was a truth not discussed, but ever more inescapable, that the anchor would have claimed her life without intervention. The magic had been growing more volatile by the hour, by that time, and despite his best efforts, its power was beyond Dorian's ability to contain. Not without time to study the forces at work, anyway. And time had not been on their side. But for what Ellana had been through, Dorian had a lengthy list of things he intended to visit upon Solas should their paths ever cross again, and all of them violent.

Rook had departed some moments ago, ascending the blight tendril to launch her final assault upon Elgar'nan, and the mood in the rooms below was dense with anxiety. Ellana inhaled slowly, her back rigid and hand twitching toward her staff, clearly steeling herself for something.

"She's killed at least as many Gods as you have, by my counting." The corner of his mouth quirked with the half-hearted attempt at levity, "If anyone other than you can wrap this up cleanly by supper time, Rook is the one."

Her hand arrested before reaching the staff, and this time Ellana caught his gaze. Though on some level, he had known her intention, the full realization hit him now and the smile faded from his face.

"You're not coming back."

Before anyone in the room could react, the former Inquisitor and the soon-to-be Archon were locked in a tight embrace. All of her reserve, all of his bravado, and all audience forgotten. Ellana had launched herself around Dorian's neck. Dorian's breath caught in his throat.

"I have to try."

"He'll never deserve you, my friend." Dorian muttered in her ear, trying to blink away the sting that threatened his eyes, arms wrapped around her, squeezing her fiercely to his chest, Ellana's toes fully lifted from the ground with the force of his hug.

A thousand scenes of a thousand shared moments played in his mind. Dozens of hands of Wicked Grace in the Herald's Rest, bawdy stories of the times Before they came together, traded freely as drinks flowed and bets changed hands. Dozens of moments when he, who had never had her gift for gracefully bearing his troubles, had turned to her for gentle words and a steady head when he was deep in his self-pitying cups. When his father had first reached out, conspiring with that insufferable, meddling Chantry Mother to trap him into reconciliation. A reconciliation he'd have thrown away for pride and anger without her to temper him. When Alexius had been captured. When word arrived of Felix's passing. When a flirtation with a handsome Laetan mage had turned sour. When Maevaris had taken the fall for a political misstep, allowing herself to be stripped of title and position to protect his own. Dozens of moments of explosive laughter in Skyhold's library, trading jokes, and flirts, and the best bits of gossip about the Inquisitor and the Tevinter they managed to glean from eavesdropping on the cooks and the servants. All ludicrous, but they both lived to feed into the tales. Their shared little rebellion amidst so much duty to Chantry image. All of them, moments Dorian treasured. He wasn't ready to face a world where she wasn't a whisper to a sending stone away.

"You'll make an incredible Archon, Dorian." She choked back, "You have always been my dearest friend. That doesn't change, wherever I may go."

Even now, when she was about to face perhaps the greatest storm yet, it was she who reassured him. Finally, with one last squeeze, Dorian relaxed his grip, lowering her back to the floor, and Ellana pulled away, swiping her hand across her eyes as she turned.

"I know it's a tall ask, Magister Tilani," Ellana smiled, "but do try to keep him out of trouble."

"It's just Maevaris to you, Inquisitor." The other woman stepped forward, placing a hand gently on her shoulder and returning her smile, "and I'm afraid trouble is what he's signed up for. But he won't face it alone, I can promise you that much."

Ellana took her staff in her hand, decisively this time, and turned her gaze back to meet Dorian’s again.

"Whatever will I do without you?" Dorian whispered, a noise that was intended as a chuckle but came out half-choked escaped him.

Ellana shot him sideways smile. "Unparalleled wit and powerful magister that you are? You won't even notice I've gone."

Dorian managed the chuckle then. "You forgot breathtakingly handsome."

The silence stretched between them, the weight of another last time hanging from every moment of it.

"I won't be the one to say it." Dorian declared, raising an eyebrow with feigned petulance.

"No, I suppose this one is on me." Ellana sighed, then offered him one last sad smile. "I love you, Dorian. Goodbye."

And then she was gone, disappeared into the corridor where Morrigan awaited.

...................................

Dorian stood alone on the balcony, surveying the city below. Dawn's first rays coloured the sky. The soft silver of morning painting a stark contrast to the apocalyptic red sky of the eclipse that had preceded it. The day was won, the world saved again, for now. But as Dorian gazed down at the wreckage of the city - his city - it was difficult to feel victorious. Minrathous was in ruin. It would be days at least before they had any idea of the toll in lives. Blackened, dessicated Blight crawled over what felt like every other building. Removal alone was an intimidating undertaking, to say nothing of repairing the actual damage.

Minrathous had never in history fallen - until now. And he was its Archon. How was he meant to remake Tevinter socially, when he now needed to rebuild it physically? Stone by stone?

Dorian reached for the wine on the nearby end table, ignoring the goblets that had been placed beside it and instead taking a long swig directly from the bottle.

Two goblets, he had had the servants set out before the battle began in earnest. One for himself, one for....

Dorian had been waiting at the head of the crowd when Rook and their companions descended the now-blackened tendril that anchored the Archon's palace above the city - his palace, now. If they could figure out how to free it without bringing it down around their ears. Eyes scanning the climbing figures for signs of a small elven woman, returning against all odds once more.

"Rook! You've done it?"

The Shadow Dragon nodded as she jumped the last few feet from the Blight tendril back down to solid stone. She looked as worn down as he felt. Probably worse, he thought. "Elgar'nan is dead. The Veil stands."

A cheer went up in the crowd behind him. People hugged, and cried. It was over. The Blights, the city's occupation. It was over. Dorian was not deterred.

"And Ella- the Inquisitor?" He pressed, "Solas?"

"Get my people healers and you'll have my full report, Archon Pavus."

Dorian took another swig from the bottle. Rook had been true to her word, she had told him everything, in as much detail as she was able.

He had known, of course. Long before this, even, that Ellana was going to try to convince Solas, to save him from himself. She believed, long past the point of sense, - or evidence - Dorian thought bitterly, Varric's face flashing in his mind, that there was good in Solas' heart and that it could be reached. And she had reached it, in the end. And she had gone with him, to the Fade. Perhaps to the Black City itself.

"You'll never beat the 'Herald of Andraste' allegations now, my friend." Dorian said to the empty balcony, with a chuckle.

He felt the heat of the tears on his cheeks, irrepressible now, in the solitude of his own chambers, with the wine spinning in his head. He ran a thumb over the smooth facets of the sending crystal, an unconscious gesture he made often, the stone always around his neck, an ever present reminder that he wasn't alone. Except where she had gone now, not even Dorian's magic could reach her.

He lifted the pendant from his neck, and held the stone in his palm, staring at it. It was mad - futile. The magic was of his own design, crafted to carry words across distance, not dimension. But grief makes fools of the best men, and despite his posturing, Dorian did not count himself among the best men. He raised his palm toward his face, and whispered into it, a plea he did not expect an answer to.

"Ellana Lavellan"

The stone glowed.

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