#i like fatalistic solas

[pinacoladamatata]

blink and you'll miss it moments around skyhold....

[baphometsss]

I don't wanna sit here and act like I'm a professional or anything, because I'm not, but as someone who has had to do a lot of work to overcome trauma and reconfigure my brain more or less from the ground up, there's a lot I have to say about Solas's mental state

We know that Solas was essentially used and abused by Mythal for millennia. Even if he wasn't under a geas, he was twisted from his purpose by being made to fight, and then created the Wolf's Fang which was used to make the Titans tranquil and started the Blights. He made those choices himself, but it's important to understand that no choice is ever made in a vacuum. She took advantage of his vulnerability when he was given a body after however long as a spirit semi-existing peacefully in the Fade, and moulded him into a weapon.

He is broken, because Mythal broke him. I'm not incapable of seeing why she did what she did because like I said, no one makes choices in a vacuum and I could write about her for a long time too (in a similar way to how I have had to do myself in my own life in understanding why others abused me). He was so traumatised by everything that happened and he was trauma bonded to Mythal pretty much from the minute he gained a body. Trauma bonds are not about love. He definitely interpreted it that way, as most people do, but that's the weapon abusers use to keep the victim under their control. Abuse abuse abuse show a scrap of love and then abuse some more. If I just take it, I'll get the love/attention I need. I will earn it, because love is suffering, and I have to suffer to earn getting my basic needs met from my family/friends. Mythal, as his creator, was the one who he would've attached to in a similar way to spirit Cole/human Cole.

Trauma bonds are pathological. Mythal made him believe that if he did as she asked, and kept supporting her, then eventually he would gain her favour and they would be able to free all the elves, and he'd be able to live according to his true nature, which is one where he doesn't have to fight. (Remember his personal quest in DAI? He actually kills the rebel mages for corrupting his friend--another Wisdom spirit--into Pride.) In reality, she was just using him. She always kept the bone just out of reach for her lapdog. The line from Rook where they say (paraphrasing here) 'you know, I was actually excited about getting your approval... That's how you do it, isn't it? Keep giving little scraps of approval to keep someone loyal, and then you turn around and betray them' is so telling too.

Where--or from whom--do you think he learned to do this?

It literally reeks of a pathological trauma bond and honestly, with how isolated, 'grim and fatalistic' Solas is, it is not a surprise that he's so broken.

Solas, essentially, is little more than a lap-dog to Mythal. He followed her like a lost puppy, because especially in his early days, that's kind of what he was. You have to remember that most of the insight we get about Mythal is from Solas's perspective, and he is not a reliable person when it comes to her after so long being repeatedly terrorised and twisted and manipulated. There are several instances where he describes being betrayed by her, and mentions some of the things she did, but he never quite holds her fully accountable and ends up directing his rage elsewhere. (The parallel between Mythal/Solas and the rebel mages/Wisdom is important here.)

This awesome post by @mythalism only reinforces this. He is so messed up in that scene, he is broken, he is holding the Wolf's Fang up, trying to give it to her because it symbolises the burden he has carried for thousands of years trying to avenge her death. He never wanted the Fang, like he never wanted a body. Mythal just stands over him, fully aware of what she did to him, and only getting him to stop because Rook petitioned her successfully, and the reunion with the more benevolent Mythal within Morrigan tempered her anger. She was a goddess, with the unequal power dynamic, right to the end.

As a side note, on the potential romance element between Mythal and Solas, I read an excellent breakdown of it on Reddit a while ago about how out of character it would've been for Solas to keep something like that from a romanced Lavellan, especially in Trespasser when he comes clean about his plan/past. I can't find it now because it was pre-Veilguard release, but it made a lot of sense to me. Solas and Lavellan never have a love scene in DAI because Solas didn't want to 'lay with them under false pretences'. Lying about who you are when sleeping with someone is nonconsensual. You can't consent to sleeping with someone if you don't know their true identity, and someone who knowingly lies about who they are to get into your pants is a sexual predator. For someone who led a slave rebellion (no doubt many of them being sex slaves), and a former spirit of Wisdom, Solas would've been well aware of this. In the unsent letter from Solas to Lavellan he says he came so close to breaking and desperately wanted to stay with them as Solas, with the implication being that that is where he planned to sleep with them once he'd come clean. But because he stops, because he's still unable to forgive himself or release himself from his trauma bond with Mythal, he breaks away, and they never have sex.

Bottom line: Solas would've been honest about it. Especially that. As the Inquisitor says, he can't lie about his heart.

And it's why the Solas/Lavellan romance is so powerful because quote, 'you change everything'. Solas thought he knew what love was, that love was loyalty, devotion, worship, etc. It's not just his plans or worldview that Lavellan changes. Lavellan sees him for who he is, without the mantle of Dread Wolf, and because of that he's able to express his true nature to her, even if he's not being totally honest in Inquisition. Lavellan got much closer to the real him than most, as he says, and changed his understanding of love completely. Unfortunately, he has unfinished business, an unresolved trauma bond, and his crushing sense of duty to the past is what keeps him from taking that final step towards letting go of it entirely. Trick also says Solas doesn't think he deserves love, which tbh is kind of a hallmark trait of people who have survived abuse.

And honestly? Call me a simp but I think he really was trying to get the Inquisitor to stop him. He saw himself being unable to let go because he was so broken and burdened by his guilt, and knew he couldn't save himself--was too proud to admit that he couldn't, because how pathetic does it make him look? And how could he stop now without rendering all the damage he'd wrought pointless? Yet here was someone who had changed him right down to his core, who understood him in a way few people ever had, whom he trusted, whom he loved in a way he hadn't loved anyone else before. It took him 'centuries' to build up rapport with the members of his rebellion. The man does not know how to form attachments without trauma, and suddenly he forms a strong one with someone who loves him completely and without condition. It's a jarring change.

Lavellan says that maybe they're being prideful themselves, refusing to see their own folly. But I think in admitting that they might be wrong, that it might be wishful thinking borne from misguided love to a truly terrible person, they've rendered the point moot. It shows self-awareness, which isn't folly.

If anyone can make Solas understand true love, it's Lavellan. Lavellan loved him when he was being his true self. Lavellan loved him after his betrayal was revealed. Lavellan loved him when his guilty conscience and terrible actions almost destroyed the world. Lavellan loved him because they knew the real him, and knew that his heart and spirit were broken, and knew that their love would endure, that their love would heal him.

And that's exactly where they end up. Healing the past, soothing the Blight, and loving one another completely.

[babe-a-yaga]

Just thinking about how Crestwood was where Solas decided to reveal the truth and really commit to Lavellan, before changing his mind at the last second. How the "I am grim and fatalistic...getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit" line immediately precedes this. Solas is IN IT when he decides to take her there.

And just imagining the travel time to get to Crestwood, I can only imagine that Solas is at this point probably walls down with his affection more than he's ever been. You even kind of see this in their body language as they walk into the cave together. They're holding hands, walking in together with a kind of casual closeness, almost knocking shoulders together as they're looking more at each other than where they're walking, hand in hand.

Like imagine how this probably played out, Solas, who's been super guarded in spite of being obviously in love all along, after the temple of Mythal just invites her to travel with him - promises he has something to tell her - and for this likely couple of weeks on the road is suddenly warm and open with his touches, and the way he's looking at you. Because at this point he's decided not to hide anymore! He didn't take her to Crestwood to break up, that was an in the moment choice! So Lavellan, who's been used to a very private, cautious romance, is being spoiled for affection all of the sudden. She doesn't say I love you UNTIL the breakup in Crestwood, remember. Crestwood is the lock in moment on this romance.

And then you get to the cave, and the Crestwood scene happens. And after being spoiled for affection for the last few weeks after months of caution, its all ripped away. And then you have to travel back the other way in frigid confusion and grief, possibly with a changed face so your other travel companions are also being weird to you.

Like, the likely context surrounding this that all happens offscreen makes Crestwood all the more cruel to Lavellan. And he refuses to tell her he doesn't love her.

The change in his eyes when he realizes he can't tell her haunts me Every. Single. Time.

[anne-is-confused]

OH MY GOD THEY WERE FUCKING

Solas being called Mythal's lapdog in canon is the best possible thing that could have come out of datv

[christinabindon]

all-in switch-Solas

Man has been in a "im too immortal, I must sleep for 1000 years" coma- its entirely unsurprising to me that dives into those kisses like he hasnt fucked in 1000 years (because he hasn't). I feel like it would be honeymoon phase the entire time theyre together- like its the first time every time. He's eager to please someone AND be pleased. And given that he is Fen'Harel, the breaker of chains, he is deeply intuned to dom/sub culture and how it plays into sexuality. If being "grim and fatalistic" gets Lavellan into bed, can we not assume that he's a very serious lover? All-in, 100%, 100% of the time. Life and death, giving yourself over completely to someone else in trust and then taking them like they belong to you in turn. *fans self* He also lacks power at this point in his life, he is desperate for it- he had to turn to Corypheus to unlock the orb. Man would be seizing it wherever he could.

He YANKS Lavellans hand and shoves it to the sky to close the first rift.

He murders a group of mages for fucking with his friend.

It's only later that he realizes how impulsive and passionate he has become- before he reveals the truth of the Vallaslin and breaks up with Lavellan.

[darkurgetrash]

What Is It That Stays My Hand?

Rook/Solas — Mature — Read on AO3

Rook believes in redemption; Solas is grim and fatalistic. He refuses to give in. She refuses to give up.

Tags: slowburn, enemies to lovers, eventual romance and smut, angst

This story takes place during the events of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

—*Chapter One: Disrupt and Conquer*—

“Is that—? No… it can’t be…”

Cold air coils around Rook, biting at her ears as she sprints toward the ruins, her boots crunching heavily in the snow. Ahead, an elven man donning Mythal’s vallaslin addresses a crowd, his voice fractured by the wind—Spirits? Circle?—but the meaning is clear enough. Whatever he’s commanding, the elves hang on every word, their breath suspended in both air and anticipation.

As she nears, realisation hits her like a stone in her chest. Beside him, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the onlookers with practiced detachment, stands a figure she knows all too well.

Solas.

But something is… different. For one, he has hair. For another, there’s a strange uncertainty in the way he carries himself—a hesitation that feels unlike the man she’s unfortunately come to know.

Though his face is almost the same—the same etched lines of frustration, lips curved into a habitual scowl, his brow furrowed with equal parts determination and anguish—there’s an unfamiliar weight in his posture.

He shuffles slightly, kicking the snow at his feet. Then, as the man beside him addresses him, ‘Dread Wolf’, his hands curl into fists at his side. He turns to the crowd and his lavender eyes, soft in colour but always burning with hatred in her memory, now seem dull and detached, scanning the faces before him without truly seeing.

There’s no fury, no scorn—only cold indifference.

“The false gods, the Evanuris,” Solas booms, his voice every bit as commanding as his general’s. “They have overreached. I shall humble them.”

“We’re seeing the past—a memory!” Emmrich whispers at her side, his tone alive with fascination.

She forces a small, wry smile. “I figured. Pretty sure Solas hasn’t been able to call himself ‘humble’ in centuries.”

Bellara leans in, equally enraptured. “He must think we’re one of these spirits,” she murmurs, her voice vibrating with excitement.

Rook stays silent, cold dread gnawing at her. While her companions brim with curiosity, all she feels is a rising tide of nausea.

“Within their citadel lies a relic with the power to imprison even a god,” Solas continues, speaking over them. “With it, I can bring their tyranny to an end forever.”

Rook exhales sharply, the words like ice in her veins. She already knows how well this plan works out. Could she warn him? Could she tell this version of Fen’Harel that, in a thousand years or so, a hapless reject from the Mourn Watch would undo his work—freeing the Evanuris and plunging the world into chaos—all because he was dead set on destroying it?

Or, perhaps, she could tell him how that very same novice would be his only connection to the world and—in a cruel act of injustice and terrible luck—the only hope of putting things right. Even if he was insistent on acting like her life was created for the express purpose of ruining his.

She scoffs inwardly. He’d never listen. He’d probably laugh. When did Solas ever appreciate advice—or anything, for that matter?

Read more on AO3.

[eeriemothz]

actually I want to make a full post about this. I've known about Solas for a pretty long time but I didn't expect him to be so silly?? I love it so much. I love how genuinely lighthearted and goofy he can be (like how he'll tease an inky that romanced iron bull or his "I am grim and fatalistic, getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit line) and I believe this is who he wants to be, just a man who can live life with his friends and be with his beloved. I could be reading him wrong but hell, it sounds like he's doubting his plan by the end of tresspasser it's so knife twisty. He's capable of loving and being loved but is forcing himself to be the sacrificial lamb (wolf?) In a sense.

Me and Veilguard will have words if they do my boy dirty. (Also I'm realizing epic the musicals "just a man" is such a Solas song)

[stankhole]

i find it so interesting that solas says he’s grim and fatalistic when you romance him because he is a man who is constantly fighting against fate. he was the one who set thedas onto the trajectory it’s on now and instead of leaving the world be, he is actively fighting against the reality of what it’s like in this future. he’s hopeful enough that his plans will correct the course he’s set thedas on and change the world, for better or worse. that doesn’t sound very grim and fatalistic to me

[mumms-the-word]

In the Company of Wolves

Characters: Solas x fem!Lavellan Summary: Solas spends part of the evening at Halamshiral admiring Iren and pondering the similarities between an Orlesian masquerade and ancient Arlathan. When he's not being grim and fatalistic about it all, he's imagining a few naughty things he would like to do with Iren, should the evening give them a chance. Basically it's a whole lot of Solas pining and pondering and wishing, at least for one night, that he were not the Dread Wolf after all. A/N: Some of this is inspired by information we learn in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but does not contain any Veilguard spoilers. Also, tried something new with verb tenses and flashbacks. I haven't decided if I like it yet, but an attempt was made! AO3 link if you want to read it there! MDNI 18+ even though most of the smut is relatively tame (teasing and such, you know)

Solas cradled a glass of wine in his hand, lifting it to his lips as he watched the Orlesian nobility wandering past. Each one was dressed in their finest silks and brocades, buttons and buckles gleaming, feathers floating, jewels sparkling. There was more wealth in one antechamber or narrow hallway here than in whole towns and villages around Orlais and Ferelden. And as was the fashion, the requirement of Orlais, every single one of them was masked, their faces covered with thin plaster or porcelain, paper-mâché or paint, imitating lips and noses and mustaches and carefully plucked brows. Faces upon faces. Falsehoods upon falsehoods.

It was as familiar as it was foreign. Had he come here alone, had there not been any threat of Corypheus and his Venatori conspirators, he would have been content to watch and observe. Smile to himself at the frivolous concerns of a nobility that cared more for their appearances than anything else and stand unseen and quietly amused at how seriously they conducted their clandestine affairs in half-hidden alcoves and darkened stairwells.

In this sea of masks, it was all too easy to believe they were little more than mindless animals, prettied and painted up to appear as intelligent creatures. If he wasn’t careful, everything would seem as a dream, each person drifting by as no more than a blur of meaningless color. Not real. Completely beneath his notice.

But then she would appear again, sweeping quietly through the hall, and the world would sharpen into focus again.

Iren. His vhenan.

She stood out among the crowd as easily as a single star in a void of night. Whereas everyone else here was dripping with color, turning about the room in their jewel tones, vibrant satins, and complex patterns, she was dressed simply and elegantly in a white dress of soft linen and breezy chiffon that left much of her sides and all of her arms bare. A brushed gold collar and matching thin belt gave the dress shape and held it close to her body, preserving all the necessary modesty that the court required, though her bare arms and sides had already been the subject of several scandalized whispers. Solas alone had overheard a handful of remarks here in this hall where he lingered, so he could only imagine the talk that went on in the ballroom proper. The court was undecided on which was the most offending detail, the sight of her bare skin or the dark red vallaslin she wore so boldly on her face, a vallaslin that also adorned her back and curled gently beneath her collarbone, faintly visible even beneath two layers of chiffon over linen.

She was ornamented lightly with gold in the same brushed finish as her collar and belt—a golden armband around one bicep, a set of simple thin bangles around both wrists, earrings that threaded thin chains between her earlobe and piercings that sat halfway up the line of her pointed ears. And of course the thin ring she always wore in her lip, the gold indenting her bottom lip and drawing the eye there every time. She had painted her hands with dark henna, a pattern of swirls that matched the markings of Sylaise on her face and darkened the tips of each finger to a shade of dark rust red. Crowning it all was a gold headdress of sorts, shaped in curving lines to form a pair of halla antlers that stretched back from her head.

She looked like a long-forgotten goddess among distracted mortals, a being from an ancient empire whom nobody could remember. She appeared simultaneously as a creature out of place and a being that rose above as something more.

She looked like one of the ancient elvhen.

No. He smiled to himself. Even among the nobility of ancient Arlathan she would have stood apart. There, the nobility had been just as opulent and colorful. More so, in fact, when Arlathan was at the height of its power. Iren, in all her simplicity, wearing only white and gold, would have appeared not as one of the Evanuris, but as something set apart. Something not even they would know what to do with.

He doubted she knew the effect her appearance had on those around her. She had wanted simple and she had gotten it, for better or worse. For here, simplicity was an outlier. Here, simplicity was rare.

Simplicity meant every eye was on her now, rather than passing over her.

As she drifted by him again, offering him a small smile that he returned as she made her way toward the gardens, he recalled how nervous she had been in the days leading up to this ball.

She paces his rotunda restlessly as she frets over the ambassador’s choice of fashion and uniform. “She’s talking about corsets and laces now, Solas.”

“Oh? Has our ambassador already selected your outfit for the evening?”

“She’s working on it.” She stops with a sigh, resting a hand on a stack of books that stand on his desk. “I requested her to go as simple as possible, but I’m not sure she understands what that word actually means.”

He laughs at that and takes her hand from his books, raising it to his lips for a gentle kiss. “Lady Josephine can be reasoned with, after a fashion. She will honor your wishes if you communicate them clearly.”

“I just want to be…comfortable,” she says. But he knows that isn’t the word she wants to say. She wants to be helpful. She wants to heal hurts and move on. She wants to be invisible. She wants to be herself. It is, in part, why she is so drawn to Cole, and so protective over him. If she were a spirit, she would be Compassion.

But she is flesh and blood, and the Inquisition needs an Inquisitor. Who better than the woman who heals the sky and who stops the pain of every conflict ravaging the land?

He gently pulls her in close for a soft kiss. “Whatever you wear, you will be beautiful, my heart. You always are.”

And she was. The light of hundreds of candles illuminated golden light over her warm, dusky skin as if to cast her in polished bronze. The dark red of her vallaslin and henna added an enchanting, otherworldly effect to her natural beauty that these Orlesians, in all their paints and powders, didn’t know what to make of.

So as with anything they did not understand, they warped fear and curiosity into scorn and hostility.

Primitive. Rabbit. Savage. Knife-ear. Witch. The nobles used these words so carelessly, as though the sight of her bare skin and unmasked face were an open invitation. Like wolves, they surrounded her, thinking they scented blood, ready to sink their teeth into her flesh and tear her to shreds. They saw the halla antlers that adorned her head and thought her a prize beast to fell in a hunt.

She had predicted that.

He steps into her rented room in the city of Halamshiral, nodding quietly to the assistants who are putting the final touches on her face. A subtle dusting of shimmering powder on her eyelids, a line of dark kohl around her eyes, and a dark red stain on her lips, just a shade or two darker than that of her vallaslin and henna. Iren sees him in the mirror and dismisses the assistants with a smile.

“What do you think?” she asks, standing as the others file out of the room, leaving them alone. “I doubt I’ve ever worn this much finery in my entire life. This part in particular seems a little excessive.”

She touches the golden horns that curve and curl back from her head, an elegant mimicry of halla antlers to remind the court of her proud Dalish heritage. Her dark hair has been carefully arranged to cover the headbands that keep them secure on her head, the rest of her long tresses left to fall loose down her back and over her shoulders. He clasps his hands behind his back and smiles.

“You wear them well,” he says. “And the court will certainly have opinions about them.”

“Of course. I can’t wait for someone to call me a halla rider and think it’s a compliment. I’d almost rather they just insult me outright.”

Her eyes drift away from him, toward a painting that hangs on one wall. A group of Orlesian nobility dressed in the fashion of the age long since passed, gathered as a hunting party, their bows drawn. At their feet and beside the fine horses, sleek gray hunting hounds lead them through the forest. Their prey, a white halla with silver horns.

“They hunt them for their pelts and antlers, you know,” she says quietly. “In Orlais, a single halla is worth a fortune. Dead, of course. No point in capturing the creature alive.”

He says nothing. He is all too aware of the destructive tendencies of a people who would rather attack first than seek to understand, to appreciate, to learn. After a moment, Iren purses her lips, playing idly with the bangles around one wrist.

“I wonder what they will think of me.”

“They will think you are simple and easily defeated.” He smiles. “And like the stubborn, clever halla, who has no doubt felled many an arrogant Orlesian hunter, you will prove them wrong.”

She had said nothing to that, but he had seen how she entered the main ballroom, how she had navigated the first hour of the masquerade. As they thought, the nobility here watched her with predatory stares, eager to pounce on a single mistake. They tittered behind their fans and perfumed the air with cruel whispers. They murmured ridicule just low enough to sit at the edge of one’s hearing,

She had acted as though they hadn’t spoken, keeping her back straight and her chin high as she entered the ballroom on the Grand Duke’s arm. She had curtsied to Empress Celene, walked a confident circuit of the ballroom, and made it out into the hallway where Solas had taken up a place in one corner. It wasn’t until she had slipped her hand in his that he noticed the tremor in her fingers, the fine trembling tension that sang in her body as her blood thrummed with adrenaline and fear. On the surface, she had kept all of that hidden away.

He was the only one who knew how terrified she was.

“You will be fine, vhenan. And I will be here if you need me.”

But she didn’t need him. Or at the very least, she had no need to rely on him as a wounded man might rely on a crutch. She was, above all, adaptable and clever, and she had a natural grace and elegance that made her seem nearly at home among the more civilized Orlesians. They still derided her, of course. But they found very little purchase for their barbed words and veiled insults.

He watched her through the window as she perched on one of the railings that lined two sides of the Winter Palace garden, only a few feet away from him. The only things separating them were clear glass panels, but she didn’t look his way. She sipped from a glass of wine and pretended to find something interesting in the statuary of the fountain, but he knew she was listening for secrets. Feigning indifference or boredom to lure others into a false sense of security, where they may let slip something vital within earshot.

But then, as he watched, she lifted a hand and traced one finger against a spot on her neck, beneath her hair.

Ah. He smiled again. Perhaps her mind was not as much on the mission as he thought.

She turns to look again in the mirror of that room in Halamshiral. Her eyes are on the halla horns she wears, contemplating his words about proving the court wrong. He comes up softly behind her and wraps his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. Beside her, he looks pale and sharp, his indigo eyes darkened by the falling evening light. Still weak. A shadow of what he had once been. A humble disguise he didn’t even have to fabricate.

He focuses on her instead, admiring the curve of her brows over her dark brown eyes, the shape of her lips when she purses them faintly as she considers the two of them in the mirror.

He presses a slow kiss to her bare shoulder. “You will be the envy of all the court, ma vhenan.”

Her lips flicker with a darkly amused smile. “No, I won’t. Even with all this finery, I have no doubt I’ll be the most underdressed guest at the masquerade.”

He hums into her skin as he brushes another kiss against her shoulder. “But you are beautiful. You are enchanting. I doubt even the empress herself could compare.”

“Only to you, perhaps.”

To that he says nothing. Instead, he carefully moves aside the long, dark hair that trails over her shoulder, pushing it back to bare her throat above her golden collar. From his place behind her, he has easy access to the space just below and behind her long, slender ear, and it is there that he kisses now, lathing his tongue against her neck before gently taking her skin between his teeth in little nips. She relaxes against him, nearly melting, listing her head to one side to give him better access.

“Solas…” His name is a sigh, a breath from her lungs.

“Relax, my heart,” he purrs against her throat.

One of his hands finds purchase in her skirt, slowly and carefully drawing it up until his fingers brush against warm skin rather than cool fabric. He brushes his fingers up the inside of her thigh, inching closer and closer to her heat, only to smooth his touch back down and away. Teasing and tempting, the game they play, have played, since that first kiss in the Fade. She shifts, parting her legs to give him better access as she leans back against him, but he ignores the invitation. They don’t have time for what he wants, what he has planned. It would have to wait. For now, though…

He flicks his gaze back toward the mirror, watching her eyes flutter closed as his fingertips brush featherlight against her inner thigh again, close but not quite where she wants him. He sees himself in the reflection, too, his lips pressed against her skin as he sucks a dark mark onto her throat just below her ear. He watches them both, his gaze hungry, intense, while she relaxes back against him with her head to one side. The halla antlers curve back over their shoulders, glinting in the warm evening light. As the last of the daylight falls, shadows creeping into the room, his pupils reflect gold-green, a predator’s gaze in the dark.

If they had a few moments more…

A knock at the door brings him back to his senses.

“Are you ready, Inquisitor? We are gathering outside at the carriages now.”

The ambassador’s voice. Iren shifts as if to draw away, but Solas wraps an arm tighter around her, determined to finish what he started with the mark on her neck. “Y-yes,” she calls. “I’ll be down in a moment!”

He listens for the telltale sound of a latch being thrown at the door, but instead they hear footsteps drawing away. Satisfied, he finally lifts his head, brushing her hair away to admire his work.

There, just below her ear, a red love mark almost dark enough to match the red of her vallaslin and henna. By the end of the night, it will be bruise purple. A semi-permanent mark of his own making. One more adornment to add to her finery.

He smiles and rearranges her hair to cover the mark, hiding it from view. A secret, just for them.

Back in the garden, she seemed to catch herself and dropped her hand in her lap, idly rubbing the fabric of her dress between her thumb and forefinger. She had chided him when she caught a glimpse of the mark in the mirror. But her hair hid the bruise, so long as she kept it over her shoulder, as she did now. No one knew it was there, except for the two of them.

She turned her head again, following the sound of some whispered secret or another. With her dark profile set against the white and blue of the Winter Palace, he was free to admire the curve of her aquiline nose and the plump shape of her lips. Strong features. Regal features. You would not have found them among the nobility of the ancient Elvhen, who favored delicate noses and pointed chins, large eyes and small mouths. But the ancient Elvhen had not made her.

She was a product of this world. The world he had been forced to create and had hated with each step in its hollow realm. Millennia of elves fighting, surviving, fleeing, dying, carving out an existence in a world that should have been their ready inheritance, all funneled down to the happy accident of her birth, her creation. Solas hated the Dalish for the same reasons he hated the Orlesians—their arrogance in thinking they knew the world, knew their own history, better than any outsider might. But for all that he disliked the Dalish, they had done one thing right.

They had made her.

She was so beautiful. But that wasn’t the only thing that had drawn him in. She was kind and empathetic; she felt every emotion too deeply, raw and ragged, even as she was forced to suppress it all to maintain her solid facade as the Inquisitor. And she was stubborn, too, as immovable as a rock in a churning sea. She didn’t stop until a task was complete and someone got the aid they needed, whether that be healing a wound, clearing out bandits in a fortress, or saving a wayward druffalo. She sought wisdom and guidance when she needed it, but once her mind was set, there was no persuading her.

But she wasn’t reckless. If anything, she was patient, selfless to a fault, watching everyone else and planning ways to help them, often at the expense of herself. He recognized these traits easily. He shared them, or he had once, when the world was different. When the Evanuris ruled, and these traits were what he had aspired to. Kindness. Patience. Resilience. Selflessness. She bore these traits better than he ever had.

His stare must have been more piercing or intense than he intended. She turned her head, as if feeling the weight of his gaze, and their eyes locked through the panes of glass that separated them. He offered her a light toast with his goblet, a smile playing on his lips.

To your hunt, ma vhenan.

A hint of a smile flickered on her plump lips. She pretended not to notice his toast, turning her head away again. But then she gathered her hair carefully over one shoulder, bearing her neck toward him. Bearing the side that was, as of yet, blemish free. He saw her dark eyes flick back toward him, trying to gauge his reaction in the corner of her eye.

An open invitation, or a tease. Solas suppressed a smirk.

He wasn’t certain whether it was the wine or the atmosphere or some other terrible influence that was weakening his resolve, but the sight of her skin, offered so freely, tempted him almost beyond his control. He longed to pull her aside into some hidden shadowed corner and make a mark to match the one she already wore beneath one ear. To guide her away, his hand on her hip, fingers brushing over her bare waist, while the eyes of the court followed them and whispered about how dreadfully forward the Inquisitor’s elven serving man was being, to touch her so openly and boldly. Then to find a private corner away from all else and press her back against the cold marble of some column or wall, inhaling her surprised gasp as he closed the distance between them for a kiss, slipping his hands through the opening of her dress to the smooth planes of her back.

If this were any other party, if they were there for any other reason than to stop a madman’s agents from threatening chaos over an entire nation, he might give in to such fantasies. It would be all too tempting, once he had her there in those imagined, stolen moments, to lose himself to her henna-stained touch. To guide her fingers to the buttons of his coat and press in close, hiking her skirts up just enough to slip his thigh between her bare legs and leave her with nowhere to go, save closer to him. Her sex against him. Her perfect breasts heaving against him. Her panting breaths mingling with his.

They’d have to get rid of the halla antlers, of course, if he was going to make such ample use of the wall to satisfy them both. Pull them free from her hair and toss them aside as he caught the skin of her neck between his teeth again. A halla caught in the jaws of a wolf…

His smirk faded as the thought, unbidden, bitter, sarcastic, invaded his fantasy. What was that old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf take you? And now the fantasy was ruined, as reality crashed down around him. A reality of his own making.

Not that she had any way of knowing the irony. Here, she thought the Orlesian nobility were like wolves, crowding around her on the hunt for blood. If she had any idea who he was, who he had been, would she bare herself so openly to him? Would she look at him the way she did these days? With nothing but tenderness and care, and perhaps more than a little hunger of her own? No. If she ever truly knew…

There was no one here to warn her save himself. And he could not. It would risk everything, ruin everything, and it…it was too soon.

Even so, he could all too easily imagine the whispers that would follow her if his secret was known. Old Dalish warnings and snide comments from the ancient elvhen, allies of the Evanuris, mingled together in his mind.

See how the Dread Wolf stares at her, so lurid and open. See how his great, fanged jaws salivate for a taste of her flesh. Cavort not with wolves, young elvhen, lest you fall prey to their charms. For He Who Hunts Alone may devour you, if you let him draw close, and then where will you be?

He tightened his grip on his glass of wine and then, after a moment, set it aside. This masquerade brought too much of the old Solas out of him. All this courtly intrigue, this heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex, it all felt so familiar that he could easily conjure the sort of talk the elvhen would have said, had said, about him.

Some things never changed. The scorn was the same, it was only the words that differed. And here, just as it was then, the powerful preyed on the weak and boasted their victories prematurely, while others lay in wait for their chance to usurp, to upset the balance, to rebel and create change.

Like his Inquisitor, he supposed. For all his wine-muddled thoughts about wolves and halla, predators and prey, Iren was ultimately neither. Though she wore the halla antlers for the sake of costuming and carried herself with the elegance of nobility, and though she was on the hunt for agents of the Elder One to stop his plans before they even began, she did not fit so easily in these categories. She was neither halla, nor noble, nor huntress.

She was what she had professed to be from the start, when she had first introduced herself to him. A shepherd guarding her flock. A Dalish Keeper in training.

Therein lay the true irony. He should have seen it from the beginning.

“I am surprised you offered to stand watch,” he says, approaching her as she sits by the campfire in the midst of the Ferelden Hinterlands. After only two weeks of knowing her, she remains a mystery. Beautiful. Gifted in magic and in healing. Quiet, but stubborn. She is the bearer of the Anchor, a gift that should never have been hers, but which she has learned to use with surprising rapidity. But as with so many others in this world, she still seems a little unreal. Unfinished. Unrefined.

Yet he can’t help but be drawn to her, at least a little. The warm tones of her skin, the soft fall of her dark russet hair, the ring she wears in her lip that never fails to draw his gaze. The way she tilts her head, listening closely to his words when he speaks. The way her eyes flash with surprising anger when someone attempts to dissuade her from a path she has chosen to take. There are hints of cleverness within her he wants to see more of, despite knowing that what he ought to do is keep himself distanced and aloof.

At his casual remark, she looks up at him, the glow of the firelight warming her dusky skin. “Pardon?”

“I would not have expected one of the Dalish mages to be accustomed to the task,” he says, by way of explanation. “I suspect most of them sleep comfortably while their hunters do all the watching…and lose all the sleep.”

“Oh, on the contrary,” she says, smiling dryly. “In my clan, the Keeper, the First, and the Second each take one of the three night watches with the hunters. The Keeper always takes the first watch, then the First takes the middle watch, and the Second the third watch early in the morning. In Clan Lavellan, there is always a mage awake and relatively alert every hour of the night. Just so you know, the middle watch is the worst.”

He tilts his head. These Dalish clans never do the same thing twice, he’s found. “Fascinating. And what do you keep watch for? Bandits and wolves, like your hunters do? Or are you there to watch for demons?”

Her dry smile is still on her lips, but it shifts. “Any of it. Among other things.”

She twists a thick sylvanwood ring on her first finger, carved to depict a wolf flanked on either side by delicate elven figures. The elves face away from the wolf, as if marching toward a destination not depicted on the ring. He recognizes the scene instantly. A depiction of the Betrayal. Or at least, how the Dalish remember it.

It was a gift from her Keeper to guide her on the way to the Conclave, she had once told him, the first time he had noticed the ring. A reminder of the people she left behind. A people she hopes one day to return to and eventually to lead.

“Anyone can watch for bandits,” she continues. “But we were meant to watch for something else. Someone else.”

She twists the ring on her finger again. He knows the answer even before the name crosses her lips, a title he will never be able to escape, not even in death.

“Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf. It is our job to keep him from leading our people astray.”

If she only knew…

No. It would shatter her. She would be left ashamed and embarrassed, or worse, betrayed. He would lose her in an instant.

He would never be able to tell her the truth. No matter how much he longed to. No matter how much he saw in her the traits and strengths and the determination that he himself had once exemplified in his early days of rebellion. If this were another time, another place, perhaps then he could bring himself to trust her with the truth. But those days were long gone. Elvhenan was gone. He had destroyed it.

How different would things be, would things have been, if she were there in the days of the Elvhenan empire? Would she have sided with him in rebellion, or clung to Sylaise as a devoted follower or slave? He doubted sincerely that she would be content in slavery, content to sit idly by while people suffered the whims of the powerful and the corrupt. If she had been born in the time of ancient Arlathan, if she had been part of his rebellion against the Evanuris, if he had been drawn to her in the days after Mythal, would she have been able to find a better solution that he could not see at the time? Would her wisdom have shown her better paths?

Would he even have listened?

That was the real question, and he knew the answer. He wouldn’t have. He hadn’t listened to the friends he’d had. And even now, seeing what world he had created, he wasn’t entirely certain that if he had the chance to go back and correct his mistakes he would choose any differently.

All this, to stop powerful tyrants and would-be gods…

“Solas?”

He blinked, drawn from his brooding thoughts by the sound of Iren’s voice. She stood now just a few steps away, waiting for him to see her. And as before, the world crystallized with her at the center. Everything made a little more real.

He softened his brooding expression as best he could. “Ah. My apologies, vhenan. My mind was…elsewhere.”

She fought a smile, but he could see it twitching at the corners of her mouth, her lip ring glinting in the candlelight. Unbidden, his thoughts were drawn there, focused and warm. He wanted to catch the ring between his teeth and tug gently at her lip while his hands pulled her flush against him. He wanted—but then she smiled, amused, and he realized how brazenly he stared at her mouth.

“I can guess where your mind was,” she murmured. “But…later. We still have work to do.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice even further. “No matter how much I might wish otherwise.”

“Indeed,” he breathed. Better that she thought his mind wholly distracted by her than to suspect him of other treachery. And, if he were honest, it was all too easy for his mind to turn, again and again, to the subject of her beauty, in praise of her figure, lost in fantasies of what he would do if he didn’t fear the consequences so much. He cleared his throat gently. Back to work. “How goes your search?”

“Something is happening in the servant’s wing nearest the ballroom,” she said, keeping her voice quiet, lest anyone try to overhear. “It has me worried about the elven servants…”

“You think they are involved?”

“I think they’re being killed, and that worries me.” She gnawed at the corner of her upper lip a moment. Then she forced a little smile, as if they were once more flirting, their words meaningless and shallow. “Can I interest you in a distraction soon?”

“You are already a distraction, ma vhenan,” he said softly, taking the risk, despite all the eyes and ears potentially turned their way, of taking her hand and lifting it for a brief kiss. “But I understand your question. I would be very interested. And I am ready whenever you are.”

“Good. The door in the next room, down the stairs, to your left. I’ll have it unlocked soon. Meet me there in a few moments.”

“As you say.”

“And…Solas?”

“Yes, vhenan?”

She hesitated, the first obvious sign of reluctance or even doubt he had seen in the time since they’d entered the grounds of the Winter Palace. Her hand was still in his. In her hesitant silence, she gave his fingers a fierce, firm squeeze, as if she were nervous and seeking reassurance.

“Nothing,” she said quietly. “I’m just…I’m glad you’re here with me. That’s all. I don’t think I could do all of this without you.”

And just like that, he remembered just how mortal, how fragile she was compared to the elvhen, the Evanuris, compared even to himself, weakened as he now was. This was not Arlathan. She was not one of the People. She was Dalish, part of a quickened race of elves who forgot everything and clung to legends and fanciful stories as if they were true history.

And he loved her. His foolish bleeding heart couldn’t help but love her. Try as he might to harden his heart, to remain callous, distanced, cold, neutral, he couldn’t. With her hand in his, drawing strength and courage from his touch, her warm brown eyes earnestly seeking his to convey not just gratitude, but love, her plump lips holding the hint of a smile meant just for him and no one else, how could he do anything but love her? As she was. Mortal. Dalish.

Real.

He wished he could be anything but the Dread Wolf in that moment. That he could be nothing other than an odd, wandering, elven apostate, a scholar of the Fade. That he could set everything aside and be what she needed him to be, nothing more, nothing less. That this night would end with a victory, in some form or fashion, and her hand once more in his as he led her to a private room to celebrate. No more danger of the Dread Wolf leading the Dalish Keeper astray. Just a man in love with a woman and proving his love with searing touches and whispered words. He would give anything to be just that, to be the man she believed him to be.

She saw the best in him. He wanted so dearly to live up to her vision.

Perhaps, for tonight, he could try.

Let there be other wolves. For one night, let him be as he began, simply Solas, and as he wished to become, a man devoted to his heart’s desire. His Inquisitor. His Iren.

He lifted her hand to his lips for another kiss, reverent and slow, a silent response to her remarks. Then he let her go, watching as she slipped her hand reluctantly from his and drew away; watching as the eyes of Orlesian nobles and elven servants alike turned to follow her as she left the room.

She had nothing to fear from them. She had already faced worse than an Orlesian court. Like so many other obstacles she had already faced and overcome, she would find a way forward, a way to help those who needed help, a way to stop the Elder One from sowing chaos. She would succeed, one way or another, because that was simply what she did. She could handle a few predatory glares and poisonous whispers, in light of all that.

She would be fine. She had grown accustomed to the company of wolves, for better or for worse, whether she knew it or not.

But for tonight, he would not be another among them.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

tbh i dont know how you could dislike Solas because even if I didn’t like him, I’d sympathize with the fucked up history he had and the impossible choices he was given. Either allow the elves to be wiped out or neutralize the titans. Either sit by and allow Elgar’nan to become a tyrant or lend your council in the hopes of maybe changing his mind. Either rebel to free the enslaved Elvhen or sit by and permit it. Either banish the Evanuris or allow the war and bloodshed to claim countless more spirits and elves forever.

In Trespasser, Solas intimates that the Veil was purposeful, but in Veilguard it’s said that the Veil was meant to be restricted to the “holding cell” of the Evanuris but it leaked out and spread across the world. The Veil was never meant to be a global phenomenon, which further justifies his desire to take it down in his mind. It was a slip-up caused during the (very grueling, dangerous, difficult, complex) ritual to seal away the Evanuris. If anything the Evanuris are the reason why the Veil is a huge blanket over reality instead of a small concentrated barrier in one pocket of the Fade.

The Fade should come down, I think, but Solas’s way is far too wholesale fatalist. There has to be a way to take it down in a way that causes the least amount of discord and chaos. Instead of ripping it off like a shroud, could it perhaps be “thinned” over time, like how fabric is worn with friction? Gradual leakage over time like climate change, except it’s not going to spell the end of civilization. I don’t know, I’m spitballing. If the change is gradual, then wouldn’t the heat be off the elves, too? So long as you keep the truth a secret. I don’t know. What I do know is that at the very least, all of Thedas needs to install leaders who are sympathetic and progressive about elves. The Divines are huge keystones, as is the king of Fereldan, whomever is in charge of Orlais and Tevinter. That is imperative regardless and again, I feel like there was a huge missed opportunity to use the Agents of Fen’Harel to do some covert politicking during Veilguard to secure those liberties and rights for elves. Davrin’s concern that the elves would be blamed for everything is as pressing as it is because the gamea don’t seem that interested in granting us avenues to secure protections for elves. They’re just the permanently marginalized group. Even in the European and Middle Eastern medieval period, there were kings and such who secured protections for marginalized groups (of course they were lifted, reinstituted in a never ending cycle, but it happened). We are allowed to advocate for elves as HoF and then a tiny bit with Briala as Inquisitor, but despite having all of this supposed political sway we can’t fulfill the fantasy of making lives easier for elves? Lameeeeee

[senseandaccountability]

I probably could have sent you a message about this, but I figured an ask will do. How do you feel about the limitations of choices for an Inquisitor who isn't Solas' love interest? My favorite inky you wrote about was probably Evelyn, and it makes me sad her canon will likely not be acknowledged by DATV aside from how she feels about Solas. The south falling off-screen really has me sad, too, and I'm glad you've written about Elissa doing more for it. Genuinely love all the touches of both their stories. I cried a lot rereading them after DAV broke my heart.

Thank you for your ask, I've been mulling it over for a while. I have some substantial points (mountains? Titans?) of criticism when it comes to DAV, but this is not one of them. I understand the impossibility of implementing all of our previous choices and if they can’t be used in a meaningful way, then I’m actually all for just leaving them alone. Write me a codex entry, nod at the character in passing.  This is where my feelings differ from a lot of fandom, I feel, but I want the themes and the narrative to make sense on a grand scale rather than on a personal role-playing level. I'm not a role-player at heart, I guess, but a writer and a lore nerd. (For me, the anger at the ME3 endings had little to do with Shepard not being able to make any substantial changes with her choices and everything to do with how very Edgelord Dudebro Who Took Philosophy Classes at Uni and Loves Walden Too Much the writing was. I can die for the dying galaxy, but don't fucking make me die for some college boy fatalistic bullshit.)

So it’s fair, from my POV, that some characters - and for DAV that's Solas, Morrigan and Dorian - have more importance to the main story than others or are important for different chunks of the story. Even with the datamined game files suggesting more choices were to be imported at some point, those also look like they are mostly about things relevant to the gods and Solas. Which is fine, to me. For a character like Thom Rainier who had his story arc closed in DAI/Trespasser, well, I’m happy to meet him in the shape of a letter to Evelyn. Same goes for Iron Bull, my beloved. I’m happy he’s alive and I can headcanon the stuff they’re up to while not fighting darkspawn. My world state is not usually Bioware's world state (my Hawke isn't BFF with Varric and would never drop her mage revolution, Loghain always lives, Anora usually rules etc) and that's fine, too. Just compensate for my time spent making headcanons by giving me a good story. Did DAV give me that? That's another question. The Solas arc ending with the Lavellan flavour is hands down what I like most about Veilguard and that’s not only because of the romance, but because it closes his character arc in a satisfying way given the premises of the game. That’s what I want from imported choices and if there’s no prospect of resolving anything or bringing up new aspects of it, then I prefer if the new canon just lets the old canon rest in peace. If that makes any sense? I’ve been burned too many times by various media ret-conning previous events and am forever wary of it. TL;DR: no news is good news and I will happily headcanon a lot if you don’t break my lore and/or kill my people without good reason. 

[luzial]

Prompt List

These lists are primarily for the Friday Night Drunk Writing Circle but I’m also always happy to get prompts in my inbox! I usually try to fill one a week, so if I have a backlog I may not have answered yet. 

If you want to specify a ship in your prompt, I mostly write F!Lavellan x Solas, though lately I’ve also been dipping my toes into Teia x Viago as well. I’m also up for friendship prompts for any Inquisition characters.

Prompts below the cut!

Sensory Prompts: (original post)

Watching a meteor shower

Digging your fingers into fresh dirt

Snow being shoved down the back of your coat

Napping in sunshine

Trying to walk on ice

Walking through the woods

Raindrops on eyelashes

The way cold glass fogs when you press your hand against it

A perfectly brewed cup of tea

The taste of wine at the back of your throat

Blood at the corner of your mouth

Cloying sweetness on the back of your tongue

The first glass of fresh water

The taste of salt on the tip of your tongue

The taste of almonds

Your bed after traveling

Red wine stained lips

Satin in candlelight

Reflections in glass

Thigh-high stockings and garter belts

Darting shadows in the corner of your eye

Dust floating in golden sunlight

The smell of ozone during a storm

The smell of Cologne/Perfume on warm skin

The musty smell of an abandoned home

The smell of burning wood

The smell of freshly baked bread

The cold, sharp smell of the first frost

The smell of blood

The feel of fingertips trailing over a bare shoulder blade

The feel of fingers brushing together by accident

Blowing a raspberry against someone’s skin

Being so close that you can feel your lips brush when you whisper 

The tender ache when you press against bruises

A person’s weight as they lie on top of you

Stepping in something squishy

Gritty eyes when you stare into fire too long

A door closing

A ticking wristwatch

Your favourite song on repeat for the hundredth time

Distant traffic

The creak of leather

The waver in a person’s voice when they’re stressed

A quiet sigh as they turn away

Trying to pull on clothes with damp skin

The empty space that can’t be breached between you in bed

The jittery, sick feeling when you can’t do anything

Exhausted numbness after crying

The relief of fatalistic recklessness

The moment when reality starts to make sense again

Finding old letters you’d forgotten about

Someone accepting the bad parts of you without judging

Rust red dirt

Orange sunsets

Yellow candlelight

Green wine bottles

Fingertips smudged in blue ink

Indigo skies just before dawn

Violet bruised eyes

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

Two-part Drabbles (pick a Situation and a Sentence below): (original post)

Situations

1 - Stuck indoors on a rainy day 2 - The aftermath of a bad fight 3 - At a bar 4 - In bed at 2am, blissfully drowsy 5 - The anniversary of something 6 - After working for six hours straight 7 - Settling in for a cozy night together 8 - After a near-death experience 9 - Finally home after a hard day 10 - Someone does something stupid 11 - Stuck together for a long period of time 12 - Someone is jealous/hurt 13 - After their first date 14 - One is recovering from a wound/illness 15 - Someone’s birthday 16 - Comforting the other 17 - Both are drunk and happy 18 - Spending a holiday together 19 - Jealous 20 - Miserable/in a bad mood 21 - Right before a passionate/first kiss 22 - Being somewhere you’re not supposed to be 23 - A very cheesy date 24 - Seeing each other for the first time in a while 25 - Love confession 26 - Breaking up 27 - One person is scolding the other 28 - Lost in the middle of nowhere 29 - Date night gone wrong

Sentences:

1 - “You didn’t have to scare me like that.” 2 - “I just want to let you know that I love you. A lot. Never forget that.” 3 - “I can’t believe you, sometimes.” 4 - “A cup of coffee would be nice.” 5 - “You’re one of the most important things in my life.” 6 - “Do I love you? Yes. Do I like you? That’s still up for debate.” 7 - “You didn’t have to do this, you know.” 8 - “You’re lucky you’re cute, because your taste in music is awful.” 9 - “I wish I never met you.” 10 - “No, I love you too much to let you walk away like this.” 11 - “Need some help?” 12 - “If you’re so bored, I have other ideas on how to pass the time…” 13 - “Tell me what you’re thinking right now.” 14 - “Well geez, if you don’t like what I’m wearing, I can go and change.” 15 - “If you think I don’t feel anything for you, then you’re more stupid than I thought.” 16 - “There’s nothing to be scared of, okay? I’m right here.” 17 - “I like spending time with you.” 18 - “I promise I’ll always be there for you. No matter what. You’re not alone anymore.” 19 - “What? No, I never said that…” 20 - “Don’t tell me what to do.” 21 - “They’re wrong about you.” 22 - “I can make you some tea or something? Read you a story. Lie down in bed.” 23 - “Hey, at least the stars are beautiful tonight, right?” 24 - “I never want you to feel like you’re not good enough.” 25 - “You don’t have to do that. Really.” 26 - “We should go out more often. You’ve been so busy lately. It’s like we never have fun anymore.” 27 - “Sorry. You’re just…really adorable.” 28 - “If I kissed you right now, what would you do?” 29 - “You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are.” 30 - “You smell nice.” 31 - “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” 32 - “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” 33 - “It’s too hot.” 34 - “It’s 2am. Go back to sleep.” 35 - “You wanna bet?” 36 - “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.” 37 - “You’re stuck with me, like it or not.” 38 - “You just feel really good. Soft and warm…” 39 - “I don’t want to leave you just yet. It wouldn’t feel right.” 40 - “It’s just hard for me to forgive you after everything that’s happened.”

[baphometsss]

thinking about it, the way solas thinks about/remembers mythal hits really close to home for me

when someone dies, especially if they die prematurely, there's a tendency for those who survive them to kind of... look at them through rose tinted glasses. i had this experience with my brother, who died when he was 22 and very unexpectedly at that. because he died before i really had a chance to spend much time with him (i was 11), i missed out on all sorts of things. both my family and myself have a tendency to ignore all his flaws and the bad things he did because we miss him and wish he was still around to be flawed and do bad things. because then at least he would actually be here.

i think this is what solas is doing with mythal, although it's complicated from their trauma bond and the somewhat abstract way the first elves experienced emotions. it's true what (davrin?) says -- when someone dies before you have a chance to tell them all the things you want to tell them, it stings. mythal and solas had a complicated relationship, and solas really wanted to believe that she would join the rebellion one day. she never did, because of her own pride and refusal to give up godhood, and bc she believed too well in her own ability to control the evanuris from within. to join the rebellion would be like admitting defeat, something she could not do because, as morrigan says, she can't tolerate being wrong. by his own admission, she betrayed him by joining the evanuris. then she died before they had a chance to really iron out their issues, and because solas rebelled against her (in his mind, failing her), it messed with him badly.

so he doesn't allow himself to be angry, because if he really loses it with her (the way he did with the rebel mages in his personal dai quest), what the hell is he supposed to do with that anger? there is no one to direct it at, except the world and himself. he himself is the easiest target, because he already carries so much guilt and shame over the things he's done. but he does direct it outward too. that is at least in part what he's doing when he wants to tear down the veil--not just for mythal, not just to 'repair' his past mistakes, but because he is simply angry and frustrated, too, which blocks his wisdom. and yet, he doesn't feel he has a right to that anger, even though he really does when you think of all the things mythal put him through. he cannot be angry until he has corrected his mistakes he made in failing her.

it's not surprising that he puts her on a pedestal. you do that when you're grieving and hate yourself that much. that's why his perspective is so warped, and why he's an unreliable narrator when it comes to mythal. like i loved my brother, but my recollection of him will always be coloured by his death.

mythal was not the great mother goddess of legend and she was likely not really the person solas portrays her as either. the fragment in morrigan is closest to who the legends portray her as, but it isn't the only part of her either. she was very flawed, and petty, and all the things solas described the evanuris as being. she was a monster in her own way too. but when you're surrounded by far worse monsters, you come out looking okay. that's essentially all mythal had going for her: she wasn't as much of a monster as she could've been.

it speaks volumes about solas's 'grim and fatalistic' outlook when you consider that. the more you learn about solas's past, the more you realise how important the inquisition was to him, how helpless he would've been to have bonded with these mortals who were so free in their goodwill and determination to build a better future--something that was severely lacking in elvhenan.

[thekrazykeke]

I think in Veilguard, romanced or not, how Rook and the Inquisitor treat Solas will lead to him being a bigger antagonist or some form of him revising his plans.

For those peeps who chose the angry options throughout the Inquisition game and made morally questionable choices and will continue this trend in Veilguard, this might be Christmas come early as Solas could turn on your Inquisitor quickly but also try and make Rook see that they're the problem, not him. Depending on the bond between them, that could lead to a 2 v 1 against the Inquisitor. Later this bond could change into something even more twisted and lead to an evil ending.

Or if we show compassion and wisdom, but cunning, perhaps the Inquisitor and Rook can be the things that show Solas that the world is not completely unfixable. Maybe its during the confrontation with the two big bads that it really solidifies in his brain that this is his doing and if he had asked for help with the ritual, things wouldn't be this bad-? Maybe there's a better way than tearing down the Veil.

I don't know.

I just see too many hard lines for how they want the game conclusion to go, either with an unrealistic HEA or something more grim and fatalistic, no middle ground. Judging by the achievement spoilers online, it's gonna get very dicey and convoluted. So while killing Solas can and likely will be an option, will you be standing alone or will your companions suffer as casualties for some other choices made?

[morganaseren]

I'm curious about what Niamh thinks about Solas, since we haven't seen her interacting with him a ton yet, and he'll be a big part of the rest of the game and expansion. Like, does she suspect him or think something is off about him, or is she more focused on everything else going on?

Well, in chapter 16 during the flashback scene, Niamh was already vaguely suspicious of Solas.

Because of her apostate status, she went to great lengths to disappear out of the Chantry's eyes after the Blight, but she couldn't stop at least a few eyewitness accounts from popping up about her presence occasionally.

Now, to just disappear and have no history attached to a person whatsoever like with Solas, however, is another thing entirely. While she's probably curious about the matter, there's enough happening within Inquisition's yearlong timeline (I'm still annoyed about the fact Bioware somehow thought EVERYTHING was somehow canonically supposed to fit in the constraints of a year... Like, a YEAR? Especially when you figure in all the non-Trespasser DLC for it?! Really?! 😑), that the matter gets pushed to the back of her mind more often than she would like.

With the revelation that Blackwall isn't who he says he is, we're hitting that point of the story now where Niamh's calm mask as a leader begins to shatter as she reaches her breaking point--the very thing Aunt Eithne warned Leliana about in chapter 24.

For someone like Niamh, who's worried about her legacy as Inquisitor and how her story will be portrayed to the masses, her thoughts regarding failure are often fatalistic. One of her biggest flaws as a character is that she'll always focus more on the negatives she brings than the positives. As mentioned in chapers 17 and 18, the last thing she wants is to put her people in danger over a mistake she made. As such, she'll push herself to the extremes to see it through.

In regards to both Blackwall and Solas, despite her initial suspicions, she was content to let them serve as part of the Inquisition since they seemed happy and willing to help. However, considering Blackwall--or rather Rainier's--past and his part in the Callier Massacre that involved children, that's going to come to a complete stop. Considering how her own family was killed and how young Niamh's nephew Oren was when he died, I think you can understand why she'd deem that unforgivable enough to where she'd want nothing to do with him, no?

We'll see that detailed somewhat in the next chapter during Rainier's judgment.

Then, with Solas, her suspicions will come even harder during the What Pride Had Wrought main quest for reasons that I can't get into without spoiling stuff.

Honestly, if it seems like I'm not giving certain characters a lot of screen time, it's honestly because Niamh didn't interact with them very much during her canon run. 😂 I just go with her canonical decisions as best as I can and try to brainstorm the whys around them in what I hope is a cohesive manner. Whether or not I actually succeed in that is another matter entirely. 🤣

[icharchivist]

But also, imagine your writer just fucking putting you on blast and outing your preferences like that

You could not torture this information out of me

oh that's classic by DA standards honestly

and i think Solas is going to survive having his writer says he has an ass thing. Because first he should check on 1) the fact he does regularly has his hand on his lover's ass when they kiss 2) the fact the literal second fliring of the game if you're a mage is him clearly talking about wanting to see you dominated because that'd be fascinating 3) the fact he said "I am grim and fatalistic. Getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit." 4) the fact he jumped at the occasion to make a bdsm joke to tease you when you're in the romance-that-involve-bdsm

maybe he should check his own attitude before going after his writer for just making it real clear that "yeah no he puts his ass on your ass on purpose during cut scene he likes asses."