#I just wish it was OOOOH ADAM KNOWS TIME TO THREATEN YOU

[seaweedraindraws]

I kind of wish they met in the first episode

[nerdanel01]

Victory March

Chapter 21 of my ongoing fic, There Is Only Forward, available in full on AO3

(Following the Assault on Adamant, the Inquisition celebrates the victory with an extravagant party and parade, to impress some visiting nobles.)

Thanduwen found the dress—which, she had been assured, was made of the lightest, most breathable of silks—to be uncomfortable. Yes, it flowed and rippled beautifully around her knees and legs, but it was cinched tightly across her abdomen, to accentuate her waist. That alone was unbearable enough, but Josephine had insisted she at least attempt to wear a corset. As Josephine had tugged the strings in the back of the bodice, the boning clenching tighter and tighter around her waist, Thanduwen had given Josephine a look of horror over her shoulder.

“You wear this every day?”

There had been a scuffle, a riot, and any hopes Josephine had of getting the Inquisitor into a corset had been dashed to bits.

Now, corset-less, she was only marginally less uncomfortable as she stood in one of the ancillary rooms at the gate house, to the side of the great portcullis. She was in the company of Fiona (who, as a former Grey Warden herself, would lead the procession) and Cullen, who would have the honor of marching at her side.

Beyond the portcullis, stretching across the great bridge, all the way to the barbican and along the stairs that lined the lift to the mountain’s feet, all the Inquisition’s soldiers and mages stood in perfect rank, waiting for the procession to begin. Thanduwen imagined one of Josephine’s many assistants—trained bards and diplomats in their own right—fussing along the their lines, correcting posture, chastising those whose uniforms were not flawlessly pressed, correcting the drape of braids of rank. Everything for the Victory March had to be perfect.

So much order—too much order. The Siege had been anything but orderly. To celebrate it with such great organization seemed, to her, a farce.

Since yesterday, her only consolation—the one thing that had eased her anxiety about all this display of circumstance and pomp—was that she would, in her own small way, through conspiracy with Marco, disrupt all of the Ambassador’s carefully laid plans. 

(It was not Josephine she wished to spite, she reasoned, and this was true; it was just that as long as they had made her Inquisitor, she wanted to do things her way. She was insistent. She would not be the Chantry’s figurehead any more than she would be the perfect pretend-noble they all wished she would be for the sake of appearances, to prove she was not as ‘uncivilized’ as her woodland kin. In truth, she knew no amount of fine dresses and imperious posture would convince them that she was every bit the person they were, deserving of respect and dignity. So why bother? There was a power, she felt, in defying the expectation that she would even try.)

Earlier, Marco had caught her staring as she roamed the campgrounds after her final dress fitting. She had hoped the stroll (which would take her along the newly erected and winding paths among the entertainer’s encampments, delightfully disorganized, unlike the straight lines between the tents of her soldiers) would take her mind off the frustrations of the meeting with the tailor and inspire in her (she hoped) some excitement for the March and the subsequent festivities. Instead, she had found him—Marco, a handsome dancer from Rivain—and as they chatted (as he flirted, idly, despite knowing full well who she was, demonstrating a boldness she could not help but admire) the chatting had gradually turned to mischief, and scheming, and the hatching of a plan.

  But for now, she was not thinking about Marco, or her mischief; all she could think about was how impractical a white gown was. Fiona looked on with an amused smile as Thanduwen gathered the hem of her skirt into her hands, lifting it off the floor of the gatehouse. It had, in all likelihood, never been swept in here—or at least, not since the initial round of repairs and tidying since they Inquisition had made the castle its home. On second thought, as she looked at the coat of grime on the floor (ages of caked pigeon droppings at mud that had covered the floor in a thick, hard crust) it seemed more likely that it had never have been tidied to begin with. 

Thanduwen huffed at the impracticality of it all. If she had been wearing boots, she wouldn’t have noticed the dirt at all. As she attempted to manage the hem of her dress, her floral coronet (laurel for victory, white lily for grace) drooped over her face, settled over her eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so uncomfortable,” Cullen mused, walking over to her, “and that’s including a certain afternoon in my tower. May I?” he asked, reaching his fingers towards her hair.

“Please,” Thanduwen begged, and Cullen acquiesced; he adjusted the band of flowers around her head, tucked the midnight hairs that had escaped from her carefully styled coif back where they belonged. “What nonsense this is. I’ve never felt so overdressed in my life. It is a military parade, isn’t it? Why couldn’t I have worn a uniform like you?” 

She had been fitted for a military uniform in Cullen’s style at the same time that the final adjustments had been made to her dress. Much to Josephine’s consternation, however, she had insisted that her uniform be cut in black; black and gold, it was decided, in collaboration with the tailor, with a lovely cape of pitch black velvet, foil-stamped with the Torch Tree of Elvhenan. The palette of Cullen’s uniform matched the Chantry colors: red and blue, the very same that Josephine had ordered for the rest of the Inquisition, though his was decorated with various medals and stars of rank. She had taken umbrage with the color choice earlier, but here, in the gatehouse, she would have given anything for sturdy boots and a pair of trousers, even if it was that awful Chantry red.

“Why do you think?” Cullen practically drawled. Once the siege had been behind them (Cullen, sober, performed admirably; his leadership at Adamant was the reason for one of his many medals), and the Inquisition’s advisors had began looking forward to Celene’s ball, it became clear that for whatever disagreements they may have between them, she and Cullen shared a mutual disdain for Orlesians. 

This simple fact had bonded them closely. In every strategy meeting leading up to the ball, they had exchanged knowing glances across the table in the War Room. Their eyes had met frequently across the table of the War Room, trading knowing smiles, disparaging jokes and snickers at the Orlesian’s expense. Josephine and Leliana bore this, for the most part, with patience.

There was, however, the one occasion when they had worn Josephine’s tactful demeanor down. Cullen had made a joke at the Empress’ expense, but this quip, beyond being a wry expression of bitterness, had been genuinely funny. Thanduwen had fallen into such a fit of laughter that she could hardly suppress it. Better even than the joke was the look of surprise on Cullen’s face when he realized how much it had amused her. Several times she had tried to compose herself, only to start trembling again moments later as the laughter threatened to bubble out of her again. Leliana had scowled. Josephine, her patience already thin, had suggested they break for the afternoon and reconvene when their leader was prepared to treat the matter with the seriousness it required.

  And now this Victory March, and all its pomposity! And so Thanduwen had been forced into this impossible dress.

“They don’t set the Holy Andraste in glass wearing a uniform,” Cullen continued, adjusting one of the lilies in her coronet. “Paintings, icons, statuettes—she’s always wearing a gown, isn’t she? Even as she’s crushing Tevinter with her Holy might.”

Thanduwen’s jaw dropped; then she wrinkled her nose, eyebrows knit. “Ooooh!” she seethed, and shook her head, risked upsetting her coronet again. “Josephine! She said she wanted me to look feminine, merciful, benevolent…. I would have far preferred to be formidable.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” Cullen said, smiling. It was almost nice, for once, to see her riled up at something inconsequential: not the cruelties of the world or the insidious threats that faced them, but something as trivial as a gown. “I am sorry for your discomfort. But for what it’s worth, you look lovely.” He nodded his head lightly in acknowledgment. “Formidable, even, to this Andrastian.”

Thanduwen looked at him suspiciously for a moment. Briefly (eyes held, a tension between them) she felt a faint warmth, a discomfort that had nothing to do with the dress. But then she pulled a face, sticking her tongue out, swiftly defusing whatever tension had thickened the atmosphere of the gatehouse. 

“Gross, Cullen. Knock it off.”

Cullen laughed. “As you command, Inquisitor.”

From outside the gatehouse came the sound of trumpets, complemented by other brass instruments rarely sung in Skyhold. Thanduwen straightened herself—going rigid all at once—took a deep breath.

“Are you ready?” Cullen asked, kindly.

“Born ready,” she asserted, unable to look at him, voice full of a confidence she did not feel, staring hard at the gatehouse door.

Cullen reached in front of her, and pushed the door open. 

The sound of the trumpets crescendoed. As soon as she stepped foot outside, a slash of white on the cobbles of the gatehouse, the Keep erupted in a raucous cheer that nearly deafened her.

She winced, tried to hide it with a smile; with any luck, most of the spectators were too far away to have noticed. But not Cullen. As she took her first steps into the Keep, she heard the deep rumble of his chuckle at her side. They set out to cross the courtyard, the might of the Inquisition proceeding behind them. 

Fiona, bedecked in the mixed regalia of both the triumphant Inquisition and the conquered Wardens, led the procession. Cullen and Thanduwen followed. Just behind them walked Mother Giselle, flanked on either side by two Chantry Sisters, each bearing the Inquisition’s banner. The gold spun thread caught the bright light of the midwinter sun, the all-seeing eye flashing triumphantly in the courtyard. Behind them, a pair of acolytes in the full flush of their youth swung a pair of thuribles; though the smell of frankincense could barely be detected on the mountain wind, it carried the smoke away in elegant, twisting trails away towards the mountain tops.

Mother Giselle was followed by the several Grand Clerics who had come at Josephine’s invitation from Val Royeaux to behold the might of “their” Inquisition. But Thanduwen knew their participation for what it really was: many of them hoped that, by closer association with the Inquisition, they would seem a stronger candidate to become the next Divine. After all, the reports from Val Royeaux suggested no one had yet emerged as a clear front-runner; a strong allegiance with the Inquisition could alter the course of an ambitious cleric’s campaign. In their midst, they carried a bier on which had been placed a bronze statue of Andraste, white flowers strewn across the platform around her feet, as though she were standing in a grove in full bloom.

(No matter that this was winter; no matter that no such flower could be found for miles around. This was the Inquisition, and they were Victorious; no expense had been spared.)

At the top of the stairs that led into the main keep they had raised a platform. Thanduwen had seen Blackwall nailing away at it furiously all afternoon, ensuring it was sturdy. Atop the platform stood what few Chantry sisters could be found within Skyhold (their numbers somewhat exaggerated by women Leliana had planted there, to dress and sing as Chantry sisters; Thanduwen’s particular politics had frightened many of them off long ago) singing the Chant. Their voices, raised in harmony, echoed off the walls of the fortress and towards the heavens. 

Thanduwen was thankful to have Cullen beside her. There were so many eyes on her—so many people looking at her behind their masks! As if that were not enough they hid those selfsame masks behind their fans, tittering, whispering to one another. She did not know whether she should feel offended or powerful, to have inspired such a murmur in them when solemnity would have been more appropriate, what with the Chant of Light ringing out across the courtyard. 

More trumpets; behind her, she could hear hoofbeats over the portcullis. Knight Captain Rylen rode over the bridge on a white horse, armored in gleaming mail and clothed in rich, impractical saddle blankets. Thanduwen was not sure where any of it had come from. The Inquisition had not been using horses for some time, able to cover longer distances at greater speed with their herd of harts. Most likely they were the gift of some noble trying to curry favor; that usually explained most of the absurdly impractical and decorative things that ended up on their doorstep. 

Behind Rylen came the percussive sound of the footfalls of her many soldiers, stepping perfectly in time with the rhythm of the trumpets and drums. The archers led the procession, followed by the spear men. Behind them (and by far the largest contingent of the procession) were the Free Mages.

They, too, had been outfitted with new robes. They had vociferously declined to be dressed in Chantry red, a refusal that had Thanduwen’s full-throated support. They had pledged themselves (they reasoned) not to the Chantry (who, in their eyes, had abandoned them in their hour of greatest need, after many centuries of abuses in their Circles) but to the Inquisition. It was decided, therefore, that their robes would be cut of green cloth, the color best suited to subtly evoke the anchor. Unlike the other soldiers, they had not been permitted to bear their weapons. They marched without staves, but looked no less proud to march freely with the others, their contribution to the Inquisition’s victory both acknowledged and celebrated. 

Behind them came a (far smaller) contingent of former Templars, the few that the Inquisition had managed to sway to their cause. At the front of their group, bound and gagged, was Erimond. He was flanked on either side by knights, tightly gripping his forearms to keep him in line. The gag, unfortunately, had proven necessary; since entering into their captivity, Erimond had been prone to going off on long (and often vulgar) rants, denying both the Inquisition’s authority and their sound victory at Adamant. Even now he was resisting: at times, the Templars who flanked him were not so much holding him in place as they were lifting him, dragging him, his feet just barely skimming the ground as they led him across the courtyard into the Inquisition’s keep.

But this, still, was not all: behind the Templars came Alistair, the last remaining Warden of significant rank, here to pledge the service of the Grey Wardens to the Inquisition until their married might defeated the darkspawn,  Corypheus. 

Following him was procession of small biers, held aloft on the shoulders of soldiers, piled high with the armaments and artifacts of the conquered: the gleaming horns of Venatori helmets; tattered banners of the Venatori and Tevinter both; artifacts of old reclaimed from their camps. 

This was, to Thanduwen’s taste, a bit of sly overkill: though the Wardens had been misled by Venatori, there had not actually been any Venatori (other than Erimond himself) among their number at Adamant. This armor had instead been collected across the Western Approach as the Inquisition repelled them from Echoback Fort and Griffon Wing Keep. But Josephine had insisted upon the display—“to demonstrate that, though their enemies were many and varied, the Inquisition had prevailed against each of them”—and Thanduwen had relented.

And though she was at the front of the procession, and thus could not see the length of the procession she knew how extravagant and aggressive the display was. As she passed each set of Orlesian eyes, she tried to gauge their reaction—impressed? Intimidated? Bored?—but that was difficult to do with their features concealed behind their masks.

In this, it may have been helpful to have an Orlesian at her side, or at least someone who was more familiar with their ways; Leliana, or one of Josephines bard-diplomats. But she was glad to have Cullen instead, who found the whole exercise just as ridiculous as she did. 

It wasn’t that Thanduwen thought her army did not deserve recognition. Their victory at Adamant had been hard won, and in her eyes, their army had done far more to ensure that victory than she had herself. But this March did not feel like it was for the benefit of the Inquisition, for honoring their efforts. It was (to her eyes, at least) clearly for the benefit of their visitors, emissaries from the Empire that (unbeknownst to them) would be the next institution under attack from the Elder One. And the Inquisition would defend Orlais, as much as Thanduwen might have liked to see it crumble (though it revolted her, slightly, to admit, even to herself, that any chaos Corypheus might sow would bring her some secret delight.)

The whole thing seemed grossly intemperate, a waste of funds in a harsh winter that had already seen Skyhold’s resources pinched. The cost of the siege had been… significant. But Josephine had said it was necessary, and thus far, Josephine’s leadership in such things had not led them astray. She hoped the celebration would allow them to enter into Empress Celene’s negotiations from a position of greater strength—and that, Josephine had reminded Thanduwen, was as good for the Orlesian nobility as it was for Orlais’ elves, if Thanduwen wielded that influence with precision.

“Do you think it’s working?” Thanduwen couldn’t help but whisper to Cullen at her side. “All of this, the mages, Erimond, the new uniforms… is it having the desired effect?”

“I believe the term you’re looking for is ‘shock and awe’,” Cullen replied, and she could hear the distaste in his voice. “Your guess is as good as mine, Inquisitor. But I’m glad for our men. They deserve an opportunity to be recognized, to march with pride. After all, we’d be nowhere without their sacrifice.”

They ascended the stairs to the keep, then passed through the doors of the throne room. The procession had been timed precisely with the progression of the sun across the sky so that, within the Keep, the afternoon light was shining directly through the colored Serrault glass behind the throne. Jewel-toned shafts of light filled the room, shining on the Chantry statues and the throne upon the dais. The throne had been polished to such a shine for the occasion that Thanduwen could see the room reflected back at her on its surface, distorted as it was by the rippling, frozen pyre depicted on the throne’s back.

As they walked through the room—filled only with the most high-ranking members of the Inquisition, and the most influential of foreign dignitaries—Thanduwen cast her eyes about (as discretely as she could) for Solas. In the ten days since they’d arrived at Skyhold after their journey from the Approach, she’d seen him hardly at all.

  They’d had a sort of… she hesitated to call it a falling out, but what else was there to call it, when he made himself so scarce? No longer could he be found pouring over esoteric tomes and scrolls in the Rotunda, or working on his fresco. Whenever Thanduwen was free (which, admittedly, was not often; she had been away for some time, and the tasks requiring her personal attention had piled up somewhat: dress fittings and diplomatic meetings, strategy and planning with her advisors around the war table) he was no where to be found. At night, when she retired for the day, she hoped to meet him. But she never found him, neither in her bed nor in her dreams. 

When she had ripped open the Veil, carrying them safely from their Abyssal descent and into the Fade, she had thought the experience would bring them closer together. It had done anything but. The hope that the trip could be enlightening—academic, even—had been swiftly crushed. 

It had started with the Fears. Spiders, some had called them, but that was not what Thanduwen saw. Instead, she saw—

"Drohan!"

—rushed towards her brother, even as her companions shouted warnings behind her, even as she questioned how it was that he could be here when it had taken such a feat of power and magic for her and her companions to come through. But though he was no mage the same blood flowed through his veins, the same strength of their father’s magic. And it was the Fade after all, and she had not seen him in so long—the ache of his absence—and Fiona had told her of Wycome and the nobles there and perhaps in such danger, in such need he had simple reached for her, and the fabric of the Beyond had yielded to him, and—

But he was not as he should be. Not as she remembered. His pale skin was sallow, his Dalish armor drenched in blood. And his eyes—angry. He’d never looked at her with such rage.

“You left us!” He shouted at her. And he as he reached behind him as if to knock an arrow into his quiver, she saw in place of his arm a bloodied stump, fumbling vainly at the fletched ends over his shoulder. “You have left us to die!”

Behind her, Blackwall’s voice: “Andraste’s bloomers, what is she doing?”

“Drohan, what happened?” Thanduwen asked, advancing towards him, staff sheathed, arms out stretched, hands already fluttering, fussing—his blood or another’s, all over his tunic?—with an ache in her heart that threatened to break her. 

“Traitor!” he shouted, voice thick with grief and righteous anger, his arm still reaching in vain for his quiver. “Harellan!”

Thanduwen was mere feet from him, now, but his words stopped her dead in her tracks. Traitor. Still, she shook the insult off, forcing her footsteps forward even as his words struck her harder than the sharpest blows. (How could he? But she—) She could almost touch him. Almost embrace her brother, after so long. Ten months now since she’d seen him, and not one passed that she did not feel his absence. Whatever grief, grievances—irrelevant. Whatever insults he chose to shout now, irrelevant. Reduced to nothing as the space between them closed. She would hold him. They would embrace, as they used to. All would be forgiven. They would—

Fingertips inches from him, she paused, froze; she could feel it, with greater sensitivity in the Fade than on the other side of the Veil, the magic being pulled as if out of thin air. Solas’ magic, fully formed and whizzing past her before she had time to shout. 

Drohan snarled like a beast, the smell of death and decay on his breath as he clawed for her—

But before his yellowed fingers could reach her, her brother fell beneath a rain of hail, each piece larger than her fist, each exploding upon impact, tiny ice shards sharp as glass digging themselves into her brother’s rotting flesh until (gasping, choking on his own blood) he fell—

“Solas, no!” she cried, “how could—he was—” but then no longer able to form intelligible words, sentences; only grief, only a wailing. 

The lamentation ricocheted and echoed, bouncing off the dreamlike topography of that realm, announcing their presence in the Nightmare to all within earshot.

Thanduwen fell to her knees over her brother’s crumpled body. By the time she had gathered it into her arms, he was already cold and still, eyes cloudy. Traitor. She had abandoned him in the Marches. Traitor. She had failed to adequately protect him. Harellan. She had left him behind with the others, and now he was—

Arms encircling her, loosening her grip on the body, gathering her into a lap. Solas held her tightly, restrained her as she reached again for Drohan. She could tell it was him by the words he whispered to her in Elvhen, soothing nonsense, meaningless, now. 

“You killed him!” she shouted against his tunic, struggling to break free of his grasp. She did not want his words, his touch; she hated him.

“It isn’t him,” he breathed softly against her temple, rubbing circles against her back. “It is a trick of the Nightmare. It isn’t him, Thanduwen. It’s alright.”

She beat her fists against his chest, still struggling against his embrace until her grief and her shock overtook her, and she allowed herself to be held, soaking Solas’ clothing with tears.

Alistair and Hawke were kind enough to avert their gaze, retreating to a distance at which they could not hear the words of comfort and reassurance that Solas whispered to her as he rocked her on the ground. They whispered instead with Blackwall and Cole. 

“If our coming was a secret, it is no longer,” Hawke asserted. “We cannot stay here. We are sitting ducks. They’ll be coming soon, more of them. We have to move.”

When Thanduwen finally gathered enough strength to stand, she looked unwell; pale, still shaken from the ordeal. Nevertheless they continued onward. Into more of the same:

Keeper Deshanna, her staff snapped in two, arrows embedded in her chest. “This is all because of you, and your weakness! I should have sent another to the Conclave in your stead! Harellan! You were supposed to protect us! It was your responsbility!”

Ithras, his face bloated and deformed, as if he’d been left to float and rot in the waters outside Wycome. “There is no one to sing the rites! No one to lay us to rest with an oaken staff, none to guide us home!”

“Harellan!”

“Harellan!” 

“Harellan!”

  This was how she reasoned it: they were not real. That much was certain. Apparitions of the Nightmare, taking a different form in the eyes of each member of their party. That did not make it any easier to fight them, as she must, but it was true. More true: her Clan did need her. And if she was not to abandon and betray them, she must make it out of this place. This Nightmare. So though it shook her to her core—made her nauseous, weak, less efficient in her killing than usual—she slaughtered the Fears with the others. She watched her friends and family assail her, then fall, then still under the violence of her own magic.

Harellan…

(Later, he would ask her, “What did it say on your gravestone?” and she would tell him: harellan, a traitor of the people. And Solas would turn away from her, unable to meet her eyes, her admission stirring something in him he did not disclose. And when she asked him, (though she already knew the answer, as she had caught a glimpse of his stone) “What did it say on yours?” she would catch him in a lie. “It said the same thing,” he said, quietly, still looking away from her. “Traitor.” He had, to her knowledge, never lied to her before; this threatened to unsettled her more than the screaming accusatory voices of her perhaps-already-dead kin. For not only was it a lie, but a flimsy one. Traitor. Solas claimed allegiance to no one, nothing but himself. Whom did he have to betray?)

| Though, like many of Fen’Harel’s lies, it was not entirely a lie—lie-adjacent—though the Child of the Dales knew it not at the time. If Fen’Harel feared dying alone above all other things, it was because he knew already with certainty that he was a traitor, had been a traitor, would be a traitor again. Harellan: he had worn the title like a badge of pride, for that betrayal had been justifiable, righteous. But not the betrayal that must come next. He would betray her. 

Began to see it now, though he had been ensnared by the idea that she might stand beside him when the time came. Doubting, as he saw her grieve over her phantom brother, that he would succeed as he had planned. Might fail to turn her, wholly, to his cause. 

Could she bear to be his Queen? To stand beside him in the ruins of this world, help him remake one that was Just and Fair? Could she leave this place, these people, this broken world behind? 

Fen’Harel began to doubt…

If he feared dying alone it was because he knew his nature would lead him to that very fate. His nature. As though he could not change. Refused to. She saw the words “harellan” on her gravestone and resolved not to let such a thing come to pass. He saw the words “dying alone” and knew that it would. 

But, as Fen’Harel knows as well as I, one often meets one’s fate on the road one takes to avoid it. |

   The one definitive thing they had learned was that it had been Divine Justinia, and not Andraste, who had pushed Thanduwen through the Veil and back to the Temple. And it had been Thanduwen, intruding on Corypheus' blood magic ceremony, who had put the mark upon her hand when she had seized the orb at the critical moment during the incantation. This, however, had done nothing to persuade Josephine or Leliana to put an end to this business of her being "chosen." (After all, as Cullen had so insightfully noted, she was dressed even now to evoke images of the Holy Bride.) There had been a bit of a throw down about this. Thanduwen eagerly wanted to put to rest forever this question of her holiness. But, Leliana had argued, to tell the truth would require an explanation of how they'd arrived at it, and it was probably best not to announce the Inquisitor had been able to breach the Veil and enter the Fade unscathed. Others, no doubt, would try to replicate her feat, and whether or not they succeeded their attempts were likely to do further damage to the Veil, already thin, thinning still from the damage Corypheus had brought upon it. 

  Back in the Waking World, in Adamant’s bailey, the Wardens had surrendered. Perhaps the spectacle of the Inquisitor appearing as if out of thin air, her companions in tow, had been enough to shock them into submission; those still possessed had no doubt come to their senses when the Nightmare had been slain. Hawke had done that. Hawke had freed them. And when Thanduwen told them as much, that such sacrifice had been required correct their folly, this seemed to add further shame to the Warden’s already considerable burden. 

The Champion of Kirkwall, lost….

But that left the question of what to do with them. And here was where her falling-out with Solas had come to a head.

“Why did you allow them to remain here?” Once they were in private he had practically snarled the words at her. He respected her enough, at least, to wait until they were unseen and out of earshot to scold her with such ferocity. “They are unwise, selfish, ignorant—they contend with forces they do not even begin to understand—”

“Because, Solas,” Thanduwen had hissed. “Because if there is the chance that they are still susceptible too Corypheus’ will, I want to know about it. I don’t want to be halfway across the continent, and not find out until they come knocking on my doorstep! I want to be able to keep as close an eye on them as possible. Trust me when I say, Solas, that it was not out of pity.”

“You have made a foolish mistake,” he said, shaking his head. “They could turn on you again at any moment. There is no telling what other allegiances Corypheus may have in the Fade, how many other demons could command the Blight-song within them and corrupt the Wardens again, and now they will be, as you put it, perpetually on your doorstep.”

She shot him a look, pulling her armor over her head, undressing, desperate for rest. “There was a time when I might have listened to you, Solas. Searched for a better solution. But I must admit I find your criticisms far less palatable now that I know you’ve been lying to me.”

“And when, precisely, did I lie to you?”

“About what you saw. In the graveyard, in the Fade. And I can’t imagine why you would lie about such a thing, but that almost makes it worse.”

He looked at her, deadpan for a moment, before a new anger rose in him, unlike anything she’d ever had directed at her before. Seething, fuming, like the roar of a tide rising, “You looked.”

  They had argued into the night about it: invasions of privacy, breaches of trust, the wisdom (or lack thereof) in the decisions she had made. In the end they had slept that night in separate tents, Solas exiled to Cole’s. There had been apologies the morning after, as they embarked on their journey back to Skyhold. But those apologies had not been heartfelt, both of them still sore over the trust that had been broken. And though Solas returned to her side, sleeping beside her for the remainder of the journey, she feared now their was a rift between them that she could not cross.

| And she was right. He had deluded himself for some time that this union of theirs would last. But now the doubt grows within him, a seed germinating. 

When the time came, he was sure, she would leave him. If she had found that small lie so unpalatable, she would never forgive him for his other deceptions. When she saw him for the beast he was she would cease to love him wholly.

He would not give her the chance. He would not torture her with that choice. All of this—the betrayal, the leaving, the limited time that was left to them—now seemed to him inevitable. |

And now in the throne room he was nowhere to be found, though she would have dearly liked to see him; even the sight of him there would have steeled her considerably for what was to come. But though she saw many of her companions cloistered at the front of the room—Dorian, Leliana, Bull, each of whom cheered her by their presence in their own way—Solas was absent.

Thanduwen did her best not to let her disappointment show on her face, but Cullen must have sensed it, or seen her searching the crowd. “He’ll come,” he said, keeping his voice low, his expression neutral, though he passed her a warm, comforting glance out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m not so sure.”

“But how could he resist,” Cullen said, appraising the crowd, “when there are so many people and decisions about which he can vociferously express his disapproval? Is he not like a moth to flame, in those situations?”

Thanduwen shot him a warning look out of the corner of her eye. He pretended not to notice, but even at this angle, with his face turned away from her and into the crowd, she could see him grinning.

  Gradually, they reached the dais. She raised the hem of her skirt to prevent her from tripping on its length as she ascended the stairs. She could see her form (so feminine and unfamiliar) reflected back at her in the polished bronze of the throne, wreathed in holy flame. Thanduwen turned, eased herself slowly (regally, she hoped) onto the seat as all the eyes in the room turned to her. 

But the dress (made of the finest, smoothest of silks) had no traction against the throne (polished to a shine) and as soon as she let her weight fall full on the seat she realized her mistake, slip-sliding—

Cullen’s arm came out to steady her. Save her. Spare her from the embarrassment of a fall. He held her upper arm gently as she shifted her weight on the throne, corrected her posture. Thanduwen passed him a grateful smile, and then he took his place to the left side of her throne. Fiona, who now technically outranked him (leading both the Mages and the Wardens) held the place of honor at her right. 

The procession wove through the throne room, following in their wake. The room was far too small to contain the mass of bodies that came through the high door, so each group entered, bowed to her on her throne (often accompanied by pledges or shouts, “Glory to the Inquisition!” “All hail the Herald of Andraste!”) before proceeding out a side door into the garden, to make room as rest of the procession to wound its way through the room. 

Archers, swordsmen, mages; biers stacked tall with the raiment of those who fell beneath the Maker’s Holy Blade…. The procession ended in an array of benedictions and invocations by Mother Giselle, in the name of a God in which Thanduwen did not believe. 

When they had finished, Alistair approached the dais and knelt before her. Fiona descended to greet him. And Alistair, Hero of the Blight, swore an oath of fealty to her: the Grey Wardens would rebuild their order at the feet of the Frostbacks; they would seek to regain their lost honor by supporting the efforts of Inquisition. (Though Alistair himself—being of the highest rank of those Wardens that had survived the coercions of Erimond, and the siege of Adamant—would return to Weisshaupt, to relay the events that had conspired to drive the order to ruin, and how the hand of the Inquisitor had delivered them.

He would not go alone. After the oath was pledged, Erimond was brought forward for judgement. And Thanduwen knew what those gathered wanted from her then. They wished to see a display of Power—of mercy or cruelty, they did not care—to see her grind this man beneath her boot. Today, she would not do it. Erimond had not, she reasoned, wronged her; he had wronged the Wardens, who were largely autonomous and, though they recognized her authority, were not obliged to yield to it. Alistair would take Erimond on his journey to Weisshaupt (with a few companions, who would serve as guards, to make certain the slippery eel did not vanish in the ink black of night) where he would face the judgment of those he had wronged most gravely.

(Later, Leliana would congratulate her for this: this restraint, this deference. She would say that it made her look both benevolent and ruthless at once, well fit to sit on the pyre-shaped throne that she had only moments prior nearly slid clean off of.)

  And then—at last!—once the sordid business (judgements, oaths, parades of martial might) was finished, it was time for the celebration.

The Orlesians, by this point, were positively quaking with anticipation. They had little patience for religious ceremony, tolerating it just enough so as to not appear they found the whole display distasteful.

The celebration began in earnest. Costly cordials, ales, and liquors of every conceivable variety flowed freely from their casks, imported from the farthest reaches of Thedas for the occasion. Goblets were filled once, perhaps twice, to better lubricate the humors of their noble guests before the party began.

And here no expense had been spared: performers from across the continent had come (at the promise of gold but, ahh, more importantly‚ the right to say they had performed in the Inquisitors court, knowing what such bragging rights were worth in publicity and the promise of future engagements) to entertain at this most festive occasion. It was the most life and mirth Skyhold had seen in many centuries.

There was a long list of performances: feats of acrobatics, with gymnasts descending from the ceiling on spools of unravelling gold silk; a troupe of nine singers (one for each canticle of the Chant) who sang an excerpt of the Trials so beautifully it almost moved even Thanduwen to tears, disbeliever and heretic though she was; Nevarrans, come down from across the sea to perform a rite to ease the passage of the dead, those valiant souls felled in the Siege; from Antiva, the Sword-Dancers; from Val Royeaux, an all-female dance troop that stood so high and erect on the toes of their blocked shoes it gave the impression their limbs were all smooth, sanguine lines, uninterrupted by such inelegant things as ankles, wrists. 

Then came the Inquisition’s mages who, despite being honored, were keen to honor in turn, and to no small degree impress upon their guests that their magic could be used to delight as well as destroy. 

One mage cast a spell that caused all of the flowers decorating the hall to bellow like trumpets, and rain down upon the guests a stardust like pollen that caught so magnificently upon the eyelashes. Another weaved an illusion that at once changed the liquids in everyone’s cups, carrying them all through a retinue of sweet and savory flavors (the freshest of blueberries from the south of Ferelden at the end of summer, pressed into wine; a molten, golden cocktail that tasted of cream and butterscotch and warmed not only the throat but the tongue with its burn) before transfiguring all the liquids back into their original substances. A pair of twins, parted at birth but reunited when the Inquisition freed them, wove a narrative of the Inquisition’s victory out of sweetly scented and brightly colored smoke. It rose from the braziers that lined the hall into the air above the heads of the collected crowd, twisting into shapes of soldiers and fortress walls and massive spiders lurking in shadows. All the while their twinned bodies undulated beneath this display like snakes, willing the smoke into action as if by force of their dancing alone.

It was between these shifting shapes of smoke (crimson, then shining silver as fog on a chill autumn morning, then green as the Graves in the flush of summer) that Cullen stepped closer to her, bent towards her ear, whispered: 

“On the left, between the statue and the tapestry.”

Thanduwen turned to him, seeking clarification, but Cullen had already retreated to a respectable distance, his hand on the pommel of his sword. She turned her eyes then to the left wall of the throne room and—yes—there.

He was pressed against the wall, managing to look so apart and distinct from the evening’s festivities even though he stood only a few feet outside of it. He sipped from a goblet, hardly bothering to hide his boredom, but Thanduwen hardly cared; she was so pleased to see him there she sat up straighter, smiled, indifferent to the eyes that watched her. She needed no one’s approval, cared little what anyone thought about the happiness it brought her to see him, once again: her Solas, in her castle.  

| Altogether bored at this display of merry-making, which could not match even the most perfunctory of the celebrations we had witnessed in the glorious days of Arlathan. Flowers blooming and singing, as if by magic? In those days even an apprentice could make the very walls sing and transform, crystal pillars blooming into vines and flowers that reflected and refracted the light from the many-tiered chandeliers, hovering in midair, suspended not by chains but by charms. There, the lights would rain not this pitiful glitter but gemstones of every color and size: teardrop shaped rubies, red as blood; sapphires cut in the most pleasing of shapes, pearls as big as your fist. |

Soon, Thanduwen would encircle him, throw her arms around him, drag him into the chaos of the revelry—but not yet. Even now, she spied Marco in the wings. When their eyes met, his were sparkling with the mischief of their secret; she felt, at last, a nascent excitement within her. 

   When the mages had completed their performances, and the applause had faded, there was one moment of near-silence: hushed whispers of anticipation of what would come next, and the delicate sound of bejeweled fingers tapping against goblets. 

Then, from the balcony where Vivienne most often perched, a musician dragged his bow across the strings of his fiddle, letting loose a long, low chord, followed by a succession of brisk, lively notes. A fast and boisterous melody.

Suddenly, dancers vaulted outwards from the sides of the room into the center, clearing a wide space. 

A few nobles cried out in surprise as the dancers flipped backwards and spun into the center of the room. Marco entered with a springing step that carried him far into the air, his leg kicked up past his shoulders as he turned. Scissoring their legs into lines divinely parallel to the floor, women leapt and twirled, dancing behind him. 

What followed was a feat of athleticism as much as dance; in its own way, it put the military parade to shame. The men float their partners into the air by no more than momentum and an arm circle tight around their waist. The women allow themselves to be lifted, making it look effortless, weightless, though it is the strength of their own legs that has allowed them to soar so high.

Marco is paired with a woman in a purple dress. At the center of the room, as the other Rivaini’s look on and clap, he reaches between her legs, grabs her hands, and guided her in a full revolution, feet over head over feet, a tumble. She lands soundly on her feet to great applause, nimble footed as a fae.

Another pair: the young man holds a girl under her shoulders, swinging her torso with great force. Her legs pivoted around her waist in a full revolution, never once touching the floor, spinning like a compass needle; with each turn, he lifts his legs out from under him in time, to give her legs unimpeded passage: left, right, left. 

Each feat builds upon those that preceded it. Each is more daring than the last. But not quite so daring as the scandal that occurs when the music lowers, slows, just for a moment; hardly more than a breath.

Marco approaches the dais; Thanduwen meets his eyes. 

His chest rises and falls dramatically beneath the flowing white gauze of his shirt, and when he extends his hand towards her, beckoning her to join him, he winks, saucily, in full view of the gathered audience. He is dauntless. In the wake of the ostentatious display that began the celebrations, the gesture thrills Thanduwen. And when she rises off the polished pyre throne, gathering the long white train of her dress into her hand to free her legs, kicking off her shoes as she descends the dais to join him, the nobles utter a gasp: a sound of collective, scandalized synchronicity. 

The tile of the room is cool beneath her bare feet; Thanduwen’s toes curled and flexed in delight, both at the joy of being free of the heeled shoes Josephine had pressed her into, and in anticipation of the footwork to come. She presses her hand (finely manicured, but too scarred and callused from months of battles to be mistaken, really, for the hand of a lady) into his. His palm is warm and slick with the sweat of exertion, and tanned from warm summers on the Amaranthine coast.

Marco’s hand closed over hers; then, without hesitation, he wrapped his arm around her waist, and carried her off with a sweeping gesture, into the fray of other dancers who turn their heads and welcome Thanduwen into their dance with a cheer.

  No doubt the eyes of the Orlesians are pressed upon her: in scorn, disapproval, curiosity. But Thanduwen does not think of them, not for a minute. Her body is pressed close against Marco’s. She can feel the strength in his arms as he holds her, leading her in a series of effortless, lightning quick turns. They had rehearsed so carefully in the cloistered shadows of the Skyhold courtyard that the steps come quickly to her, already mastered the afternoon before. It is easy to follow him. To become lost, subsumed into the dance. Daisy-chaining along the round they have created, linking arms with each of the dancers in turn.

The throne room passes around her in flashes. The dance moves so quickly that in the corner of her vision, beyond the faces and bodies of the Rivainis who have welcomed her as though she is one of their own, the Orlesians are no more than smears of garish color. Their reactions, whatever they may be, do not touch her; she does not pay them any mind at all.

It is, no doubt, a vigorous dance: a display of strength as much as prowess and grace. When she comes together with Marco once again he leads her in a series of hops and leaps, sweeps her off of her feet as he lifts her, spins. He makes her feel weightless. Not in the bodily sense, a tallying of bone and meat and sinew, but that she feels… free. Here, now, at the end of the scheduled performances, he has allowed her into this space of joy and freedom, shed of her responsibilities, crossed the invisible line that kept her isolated on the dais throughout and apart from the merrymaking. She is no longer condemned to look upon it alone. 

 A second time the music slows, but still does not halt; there is some faint and tentative applause, swiftly hushed. Among themselves the dancers share a conspiratory glance. Then, as the volume of the music crescendoes and its pace begins to quicken once more, they disperse like pollen: each reaching out to the gathered crowd, beckoning them to join. 

Many are tentative, hesitant to join in. Surely this restraint can be justified, as many of the nobles wear dresses with trains far too voluminous to be suited to such nimble dancing. But Thanduwen knew of two close at hand who were no so impractically adorned. 

She beckoned to Fiona, reaching out her hand; Fiona grinned, stepped forward without complaint, and was swept away in the arms of one of the dancers across the floor. 

Then Thanduwen turned to Cullen. 

He gave a barely perceivable but distinct shake of his head: no. But Thanduwen only grinned at him mischievously, playfully crooking a finger, come hither, come hither. Those who were not being badgered themselves had turned their attention to the Inquisitor and her Commander; under their glances, Cullen's face was turning a lovely shade of beet. 

There was no where for him to turn, to hide from her approach. When she was three feet before him, palm opened upwards for his, he groaned. 

“If Josephine had told me I’d be obliged to dance, I wouldn’t have come at all,” he said, keeping his voice low.

Thanduwen laughed. “Don’t blame this on her! She was not privy to my plans.” She extended her arm farther, wiggling her fingers expectantly. “Come on, Cullen. Join us, loosen up. You're wound so tightly sometimes I worry one that of these days you'll simply snap. And this is your victory to enjoy, as much as anyone’s.”

“Fiona is the one who led us to victory,” Cullen said, nodding to the other Commander, whirling across the floor in Marco’s embrace. “She kept it together while I was in pieces. I hardly deserve—”

“None of us,” Thanduwen interrupted, “deserve anything. Any of this. The wine or the spun sugar or the celebration. We’re only patting ourselves on the back for spilling more blood, spending money on luxuries we can hardly afford. Even so, we shouldn’t let the Orlesians spoil the occasion for us entirely; we can’t let them win. Now, are you going to join me,” she said, slowly, barely able to suppress her smile, “or are you going to embarrass me in front of all of our guests?”

Cullen looked hard at her for a moment, his gaze flickering between her hand (still extended in greeting) and her eyes. Then he sighed. “You haven’t really give me much of a choice,” he said, crossing the space towards her, and placing his hand in hers.

The leather of his glove was warm to the touch. Thanduwen squeezed his hand in welcome, and led him down the dais.

At the foot of the stairs Cullen stopped, stood. Uncomfortable still, he scratched the back of his neck as was his manner, elbow pointing skywards. Too hesitant. Thanduwen crept behind him and gave him a hard push, sending him reeling into the arms of the Rivaini dancer who had been Marcos’ partner, the girl in purple who smelled of sea breeze and orange blossoms, with a laugh like sea spray. Thanduwen laughed aloud to see him swept away by her, footwork clumsy, blushing madly—lips moving to an apology she could not hear, but looking, despite himself, a little pleased to be led. His blush had crept to the top of his ears; when the girl reached around him to adjust his hold of her, to lower his hands and press tighter, the blush burned deeper. 

She only paused to watch him for a minute, nibbling her lower lip to bite back her laughter, before she turned along the left side of the hall, making her way across the room to Solas.

When she found him he was still leaning against the wall, goblet in hand. Looking, Thanduwen could not help but note, every bit as disapproving as Cullen had said he would be. But when he caught sight of her making her way towards him, one eyebrow arched dramatically in amusement.

“So you've come for me after all,” he said. “I was beginning to think I would get off easy, that you’d make the Commander your partner and leave me in peace.”

“Never,” Thanduwen said, grinning, seizing his hand and dragging him onto the floor with such urgency he barely had time to set his goblet on the table. 

When it was over—when the music ended with one last triumphant note, and the dancers whirled to a stop with much rustling of fabrics and cheers—Thanduwen whisked Solas away, through the doorway that led to the passageway into the garden, well-trod by the military parade that had come several hours before. 

Empty, now. She pushed him against the cold stone walls, pressed kisses (feverish from the exertion of the dance) to his collar, his neck, and begged, implored him to disappear with her.

“You looked lovely,” he heaved, still breathy from dancing. “A vision.”

“How would you know?” she chided, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “You only crept in at the end.”

“Did you really think I was not watching you? I saw you enter the room. I saw you nearly slip off your seat of power in front of all those nobles. I merely watched from a place where I would not have to endure the company of our Orlesian guests. You would not, I think, blame me for that.”

The idea that he had been watching—looking out for her, even if she could not see him—warmed her. She snuck her fingers under his tunic, stroked the skin of his sides.

Two casks of cold ale had been set aside for the Rivainis (a part of their contract) and following their performance many of them were retreating to their camp to partake in a revelry that would likely offend the sensibilities of the Orlesians. “Let's leave them, then. The Orlesians,” she had said. “Let’s go off with the Rivainis. I’ve done what the occasion required of me. Let's disappear.”

“I'd thought you might want to,” Solas replied, fingers squeezing gently, affectionately, along her upper arms. “But I have a different destination in mind.”

“Oh?" Thanduwen asked, delighted, curling her body closer to his. “And where are you whisking me off to this time? The bedroom? And then the bedroom as a gateway to some fanciful dreamscape?”

His lip twitched. The idea appealed to him, but he wrestled with his desire until it was under control. He had already made other plans, too elaborate to abandon now. 

Still that did not stop his hand from coming to the collar of her dress, loosening it from her shoulder, pressing a kiss to the exposed skin of her clavicle. “The bedroom, first,” he said. “To change. As radiant as you look, this dress is not very practical.” His lips trailed lower, along her sternum to the swell of her breast. He mumbled against her, “Change into something comfortable for riding, and warm. Then meet me down by the stables.”

It took longer than she would have liked. The task required her to cross the throne room to the entrance to her tower, and now the party was in full swing. Solas (as slippery and unremarkable as always) crept past without trouble, but Thanduwen was pressed at each step to greet some dignitary, each indistinguishable from the next. Gradually, she made her way to the entrance to her tower; once the door had closed behind her, she took the stairs two at a time, racing to her chamber.

  Once she had changed into more suitable clothes, she descended the full length of the wooden stairs in her tower, down towards the back exit that would lead her directly to the courtyard.

Solas was already in the stables, standing beside a grey hart, already saddled. He was patting its nose, whispering soothing words to it. The hart gave a snort as it saw Thanduwen approach; in the night winter air, two plumes of steam issue forth from his nostrils.

When Solas saw her he smiled in that way he sometimes did, a secret tucked into the corner of his mouth.  

“I brought you this,” she said, extending her arm. She’d brought him a cape (a patterned velvet monstrosity) knowing how thin his clothing was. Solas looked amused, but draped the cape around his shoulders without complaint.  A little tipsy, Thanduwen could not help but think it suited him. He looked regal. Kingly, even. But she kept the observation to herself, the warm and secret pleasure of it. She had no wish to embarrass him.  

Solas vaulted easily up into the saddle. Thanduwen followed him with greater care, fussing with his cape, arranging it snugly around his body before she rose into the saddle in front of him. His body was warm behind her as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

And then, they were off. Even as the hart’s hooves echoed across the courtyard they could hear the sounds of the party in the Keep above through the thin winter air: delighted laughter, music, the clinking of goblets. The sounds brought to mind the castle’s warmth, the wine, the banquets laden with foods of every description, but Thanduwen did not miss it.

On their journey to the gatehouse they saw not one but two couples fondling one another in the dark and (mostly empty) corners of the courtyard. Thanduwen could not help but wonder idly if they were bards, so practiced in their art she could not disentangle their passion from their profession. But no, she thought, as the hart clopped softly past and they went on in their fondling undisturbed, that looks real. That is real.

  They descended to the valley floor in the barbican’s lift, and from that point picked a trail along the riverside, still descending, until they were bellow the treeline. The moon was half-full—waning—but the night was clear, and all the mountainside was cut in shapes of glittering silver and crushed, dark shadow. The snow crunched softly as they made their way along, and all in the night was still, even the river silent,  frozen. 

She thought of the tent filled with sweet fruits, the hiding place he’d erected for them in the Approach. Did a similar surprise await her in the dark forest? A refuge among the trees? 

And then, remembering that first night, and the passion, and the argument that followed, and the reconciliation that followed that… she leaned back against Solas, turning her head just enough to press a kiss to the corner of his chin. 

“I missed you,” Thanduwen said. In the night’s silence it struck her how soft and warm the declaration sounded, or perhaps it was merely the sincerity of the thing, so unquestionable in its simplicity and so unlike the pomp that had occupied the larger part of the afternoon. “I missed this.” Not the night, nor riding with him, but this silence that only they could share. A comfortable warm humming betwixt them. It hadn’t been that way since leaving the Approach.

“I’m sorry?” he asked behind her, voice muffled.

“I missed you,” she repeated, turning her head towards him to carry her voice, but he did not wait for the words; instead, he leaned forward in the saddle, pressing his mouth to the corner of hers. She felt color touch her cheeks. A thoroughly girlish gesture, unbefitting of her years, but the affection had caught her by surprise.

When she settled back his arms were firmer around her waist; she leaned backwards, into the warmth of his chest. The hart plodded along on his own, picking a path along the river, and Solas tucked his chin over her shoulder, his breath warm on her cheek.

“It pained me terribly to be apart from you.” There was a sincerity in his voice and a sadness too, as if the grief of their parting still lingered, like the taste of wine on the tongue long after the cup has been emptied. “It was not the first time we were parted. I know too it will not be the last. But on this occasion was… particularly bitter.”

She wished dearly that she could see him, watch the worry lines crease his face as he confessed, then hold his face in her hands, warmed between her palms as she kissed him. This would not be possible. She thought perhaps that was why he had chosen the single hart: to hold her near to him and whisper contrition into her ear, all while maintaining his privacy, the secrets his visage always kept.

“And did it do you good?” She chided, gently. “Your self-imposed, painful exile from the castle. Was it worthwhile?” She held her breath, waiting for his answer. 

(And he could feel it, the tightness of her stomach underneath his palms.)

“You will be the judge of whether or not it proved worthwhile—had I not left, I would not have been able to arrange your surprise,” he said, smiling against the warm flesh of her neck, pressing another kiss. Then he sighed—she felt the warm puff of it against her, longing exhale, and the way he went concave behind her—untucked his shoulder. “I am always having to surprise you, to make something up to you. All my disappearances, my careless words. Always asking your forgiveness.” 

“I forgive you,” she said, softly. “As I will, always. As often as I can bear it.”

He sighed again, and she could feel the tip of his nose as he dragged it against the back of her neck, before he pressed one last kiss to the hairline at the nape of her neck. “Then I pray your generosity and understanding does not run out, no matter how regularly I try it. But I will not do so tonight. Tonight is for celebration.”

“Will you tell me, then, where you are taking me?”

She felt him grin into the back of her neck. “It isn’t far, now.”

Solas guided the hart down the mountainside, into the mountain pass that lined the border between Ferelden and Orlais. But then he steered the hart off the road and into the forest, through a dense cluster of trees, still green in winter. The scent of pine was heavy in the air, shook loose by the light rain taut had fallen earlier that day.  Eventually they came to a grove of blue spruce. A circular space had been cleared between the ancient, towering trees. It was a beautiful spot but otherwise unremarkable. Still, "We've arrived," Solas said, and slowed the hart to a halt. 

When he had said "surprise," she had thought of the oasis he had led her to on the lip of the Abyssal Rift. But there was nothing here. The snow was untouched. 

She was left to puzzle over the mystery for but a moment. Solas raised his hand into the air to perform some subtle, staff-less magic. His palm began to glow with a bright, golden light. As he opened and closed it, the light flickered. He did this once, twice. The third time he let the light linger, a longer beat before he closed his fist over it. One fourth, brief pulse; then the magic was extinguished. 

A signal, unmistakable, though she knew not what it signified, nor whom the message was intended for. But then, the shadows surrounding the grove began to move. 

Soft sounds, barely perceptible. The hart’s ears twitched in alertness, and he brayed, soft and low. Then—there!—in the distance, came a soft and musical whinny in response. 

Thanduwen's pulse quickened; her heart seemed to leap into her throat. “Is that…?" But she could not bear to finish her question, as if by naming the creature she thought she'd heard the possibility of it would shatter and leave her bereft. Solas turned to her, and by the faint light reflected off the snow she could see him smile.  

“Keep listening.”

Then, she heard it: faint but distinct among the murmured sounds of night, the practiced patterned and near silent steps, the way each young Dalish was taught to walk the woods without drawing attention to themselves. “Oh, Solas,” she moaned. And all else slipped away. The party, the nobles, displays of military prowess, the burden of the Anchor and the political difficulties that came with it. These things fell away from her as easily as the white gown had slithered down her shoulder to the floor of her bedroom. And then she was only Thanduwen, daughter of Soufei, child of the Dales and Clan Lavellan—no more. Complete and undivided by mixed allegiance. 

They appeared at once from the darkness: eight Dalish elves, all wearing the ceremonial dress that was only worn on occasions of celebration. The torches they bore cast a glimmer on their polished iron bark, and holly was wreathed about their heads. Thanduwen could tell from their raiment they were all from the same clan, though she could not say which one. As the crowd grew closer her eyes fell upon a young man. His copper colored hair flowed freely around his face which was marked bright red with the vallaslin of Elgar’nan. Bright eyes shone at her, a playful smile on his lips. 

He was familiar to her, she realized, but from a part of her life that seemed to her now so distant and alien it might as well have been a dream. Her first Arlathven, many summers ago, the same summer she had met Keeper Hawen. Like a warm spring his name bubbled to the surface of her mind and then past her lips in a cry of such elation she trembled as she spoke it.  “Ellathin?" she asked, incredulous, leaping across the grove to greet him. 

He bent into an exaggerated bow, though behind his curtain of copper hair he kept his eyes trained on her. His hair fell back into place elegantly as he tilted his chin to look up at her from his playful prostration. “Herald of Andraste,” he said his voice full of laughter. “Inquisitor. Thanduwen, Daughter of Soufei, first of Clan Lavellan.” “Please spare me your formality so that I can greet you properly, lethallan.” 

Ellathin laughed as he righted himself. Thanduwen hardly gave him the time to do so before she was upon him, clasping his elbow firmly in her hand, caressing the pate of his inclined head with her own. As their faces touched she could smell upon him the scents she so dearly missed from her old life: the smell of the polish that kept his ironbark fit, the remnants of his dinner (Dalish stew) upon his breath, the musk of the halla that had bore him here.  He moved away from her but she did not release him, still clutching to his elbow, breathing in his scent. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, needed to know how he had come to be before her. She feared she would wake and all of this would prove a dream, a fantasy brought on by homesickness and too much wine.

“We outnumber you four to one, sister. You've stumbled into our territory; it seems I should be asking that question of you.”

“Clan Tillahnen does not keep territory so high in the mountains,” she scolded. “You couldn't. I know these mountains better than I'd like. In this forsaken cleft between Orlais and Ferelden, there’s nothing here to subsist on.”

Solas had tied the hart to graze at one of the spruce trees. As he approached, Thanduwen turned to him, incredulous. “How did you—”

“Not easily,” he answered, smiling. “But Josephine is not the only one skilled in diplomacy. I did not think the celebration of your victory would be complete if it was not acknowledged by your own.”

Ellathin’s eyes met him. “Your friend here is very persuasive, for a tor’vhen,” he said, nodding in Solas’ direction. “He knew our customs, knew how to approach us without drawing suspicion. And he knew we would not perform for outsiders, in your Keep, as our dance is not entertainment—it is history. He must have brought plenty of coin to sweeten the offer—Keeper Roshin hardly bat an eyelid before sending us off with him, to come here.”

“That’s not the only reason, Ellathin,” one of the other Dalish scowled, tightening the ironbark brace around his calf. Then he peered around Ellathin’s form, nodded in turn to Solas. “He told us of your deeds. Keeper Roshin is now convinced that you are the Light-Bearer.”

“Oh, no,” Thanduwen said hurriedly, shaking her head in refusal, “that’s not—”

But Ellathin put a finger to his lips, shook his head, eyes crinkling with mirth. “If you say otherwise, we’ll have to turn around and return home,” he joked.

Thanduwen leaned in close to him, whispered. “No one else is saying that, are they?”

Ellathin only shrugged. “I wouldn’t trouble yourself over it, lethallen. They’ll debate at length it at the next Arlathvhen. Until then, Roshin can say it ’til he’s blue in the face and it won’t mean anything.”

{ The Dread Wolf saw the myth and seized it, hammered it, fashioned it into a shape that would fit you. But you will not know this yet—not for some time. And when the Arlathvhen comes, there will be far more to debate than whether or not you are the Light-Bearer, the one who is Destined to Lead the Dalish out of Darkness. By then, you will no longer have the green shard in your palm. By then you will be dead—or else, something different entirely. } 

“But please, sit,” Ellathin said, gesturing to the edge of the grove behind them. Solas had already laid out a blanket. “We are almost ready to begin.”

  Of all she saw that day and night—the lines of men and women in uniform, the magic in the Keep—nothing moved her so deeply as the dances of Clan Tillahnen, in the grove ringed with spruce. They meant something. The Dalish had been dancing the same steps since they’d left the Dales. It was a way of remembering the old stories—a kind of immortality. Though the dancers changed, the dance never did.

The dance was percussive, as it must be: hard-driving and lightning fast, as violent as war. As expulsion from homelands once cherished. And as communal: each beat was created by the smack of ironbark on ironbark, forearms clashing against one another, dancers beating the front of their own chest plates, their fingers ringed with different materials, each that struck a different tone on the armor-dancewear. A vibrant blaze of movement, matched by shouts and bellows from the mouths of the dancers.

“This one,” Thanduwen whispered to Solas, curled in his arms, “depicts the diaspora after the fall of the Dales. But it ends happily. It says that, when all the scattered children of the Dales come together again, we will make a home for ourselves that none will take from us.”

“Are they being led by the Light-Bearer?” he asked, brushing his lips to her ear.

She snorted into his tunic, curling closer to him, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw. She mumbled against the smooth skin, “Do not give the Keeper’s words too much thought; I am no Light-Bearer.”

“If you were,” he said, his lips brushing against her scalp, “would you know it?”

She tilted her face up to him, smiling wryly. “I think if I were, the Gods—my Gods—would tell me so.”

In response, Solas purred. 

“They might yet, vhen’an. They might yet.”

  Later, after many bittersweet farewells, their faithful hart carried them back to the castle. All, now, was still, the moon low in its arc across the sky. Morning was not far off. Thanduwen led Solas through the castle, never releasing his hand, even as the climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She had such things planned: she wanted to unclothe him slowly; she wanted to take him into her mouth and taste him; she wanted to ride on top of him as the new day dawned, pink and yellow, its light and its warmth finding them just as they reached the height of their passion. She wanted to thank him, come together with him as they had not since Adamant, but the night had been long. In the end, they had climbed into bed together, and fallen swiftly asleep.

She dreamt of a tower | his tower | of seamless, milky marble, that stretched towards the sky as though it might endeavor to seize it. Within the tower, in a high chamber, there is a bed; she is stretched across it, and Solas is beside her. It is no less and no more comfortable than the bed she fell asleep in. The walls are lined in golden-green mosaics, stories and characters she cannot name.

| She does not remember the stairs along the outside. It is difficult, now, for her to keep track of where she is when; of who she is where; of how she is here. It is easier to forget the stairs spiraling along the tower’s length, and the coldness in his eyes at its peak, and the artifact he manipulated between his hands. But I remember. And I weep to see him take her here. 

Look at him: he is staring into the distance, idly stroking her hair as she dozes, longing for a way to make the pieces fit. To keep her. Here. Both then and now.