#or at least in their otherwise unromanced verses 😅

[fadewalking]

You know what else is criminally underdiscussed? Is Felassan's grief. How he copes with the loss of his people, his cultural displacement.

He's so whimsical that we don't often shine a spotlight on what he goes through, but allow me to shift that into view.

He didn't get the benefit (or curse) of sleep, so he had to live through a first hand account of everything. The fall of Arlathan, not knowing at first where Solas was spiritually, and perhaps even physically.

Solas was always the mastermind, the Big Plan Man, the one who says, "Okay, here's what's next." Solas was the Rook to the rebellion. If we can imagine how the veilguard might've felt when they lost Rook to the Fade prison, well, that's how Felassan felt losing Solas after Solas put up the veil.

The only difference was the battle was "won", and instead of the looming threat of the big bad hanging over them, it was only the catastrophic destruction of their entire empire, and profound death and suffering en masse of all their people that Felassan had to contend with without Solas.

There's grief for his friend, bc "Solas, where are you? Please don't have left me to do this by myself." And There's also guilt because "Oh god, we did this."

But Solas isn't coming back for him, not for a long, long while. So he has to fill the shoes of a "god" (awful), and deal with the fallout of a choice that wasn't even his, but it may as well have been now. Solas takes the historical blame, but Felassan is the one actually living it.

Somehow, he manages to endure. Somehow, he finds a way to help. The humans invade, the Elves cling to the Dales, Felassan and those he meets (i bet he's known personally Andraste and Shartan) cannot prevent the Exalted March, he watches his people further snuff out and fracture.

Solas is still gone. Will he ever come back? Does he hold onto hope, or has he let go? I think he tells himself he's let go, but he hasn't.

Felassan becomes "Dalish", doing whatever he can to help however he can. But you know the Dalish. Stubborn, prideful, mistrustful, wounded. They remind him of Solas in a way Solas would hate. They care so much for a past that self-destructed, and they're not even remembering it right. But they're trying, and he cares, too. (Bc he hasnt fully let go either). He hops around from clan to clan because he does not have a home, and staying in one place too long would become suspicious, eventually.

And then. Solas.

Solas who is Not Coping Well, because he's had less time to do it. Who gives him orders like he's still his general. Who has these Grand Plans that don't quite sit well because he's spent lifetimes being forced to adapt, and Solas wants to upend that again. Solas rips open wounds he barely had covered.

Solas has finally come back to him. Only to put the weight of the world on both their shoulders all over again.