#Papae Solas | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

1800i-dont-write-fanfiction · 3 months ago

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just found out babies are real. spiraling

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65406511

The place they had made for themselves followed a kind of rhythm, a borrowed facsimile of day and night. And though it bore no allegiance to the sun or any clockwork order, it held its own patterns from which certainty might be fashioned. Somewhere outside, wind rattled through bare branches while the sky gradually turned pale. It could have been late autumn, or very early spring. And in the hour before dawn, many ages after making their home in the Fade, a small, fearsome creature came into being.

He scarcely believed it possible . Not for lack of trying, but because he lived so wholly in the present with Ellana, so entirely taken with his heart, that the notion of a future seemed almost impertinent. How could enough time have passed for this ? How could such a change have stolen upon him while he hardly marked its approach? The fault, he supposed, lay partly in his own nature; he was a creature of emotion, and though he formed his flesh in an echo of conviction, it was never a true beginning. Spirits, after all, did not enter the world as infants. He had never been small, or helpless, or in need of anything he could not seize by will alone. Mostly .

A man might learn, through study or stubbornness, to shoulder the weight of the world. But to be entrusted with something so small and fragile was another matter entirely. He had little personal experience with children, nor the strange, soft creatures they were before becoming so, and feared he lacked whatever inborn qualities might guide others. And then there was the private unnameable thing, that she would place her trust where it was neither earned nor proven, simply because he was there to receive it. The enormity of that faith demanded a forbearance he was not certain he possessed, and a steadfastness he feared he had already spent.

He sat before the hearth, watching flames throw shadows across the stone. He was faintly aware of the absentminded circular motion of his thumbs tracing over his kneecaps. Ellana had not spoken in some time.

The ordeal had been equal parts brutal and strangely silent. She had trembled through each wave of suffering, shaking, in truth, as the bare-limbed trees. Dalish women were not encouraged to scream. They were expected, from the time they were very young, to endure the brands of adulthood without so much as a whimper. That tradition, it seemed, extended to motherhood. If the vallaslin could be received without sound, then surely this, too, could be done. And what Solas offered, she had accepted only sparingly. In the end, it had been her body, not his comfort, that knew the steps.

Yet the silence she fought so fiercely to preserve was soon broken; a low hum of breath that became a whimper, then a scream. A rising, spiraling shriek, the almost but not-quite- music sound– it was something more primal, then. A howl, jarring in its newness and altogether ungoverned by any laws of rhythm or harmony. Demands made by a creature of instinct, shouting displeasure into a world she had only just entered. A fugue , Solas thought absurdly.

Now, Ellana sat propped against the pillows with their daughter cradled to her breast, looking both flush and pale all at once; the colour was high in her cheeks, but her lips were drawn faint with fatigue. The hair was damp at her brow.

Upon latching, the child made a new sound, something between a hum and a sigh. Perhaps the ordeal of her arrival had been greatly exaggerated, and the business of living was, in fact, rather agreeable. Or at least the eating part. She then quieted to occasional murmurs punctuated by soft coos that sounded almost conversational.

“She’s calmed down,” Ellana murmured, stroking her temple with gentle fingers. Her voice was low, for the quiet between them had been hard-earned.

Standing at a cautious distance, Solas braced one hand against the mantel while the fire snapped softly in the hearth. He did not dare speak, barely dared to breathe, for to do so too loudly might disturb the fragile peace that had settled over them.

It was clear his heart had long since abandoned the boundaries of her strength, clinging with a merciless devotion to the infant even before it had fully acquiesced to her love. When she grit the words between her teeth, a decision born of either love or blood loss or nescessity, Solas obeyed with only mild hesitation and took the creature into his arms. She was now satiated and utterly unbothered by the historic nature of the occasion, and settled against him with the ease of one who presumed belonging, as if his arm had been shaped not through muscle or magic but to accommodate her alone.

He looked down. She looked up.

Oh .

He had anticipated some measure of difficulty. Awkwardness, perhaps. A certain emotional distance that would, in time, dissolve into fondness. He was instead ambushed, seized entirely by affection. Overcome by the particular curve of her ear. The length of her eyelashes. The slow, rhythmic rise and fall of her breath. He bowed his head over her. Even the idea that this faultless creature might ever know pain, or loneliness, or fear, was enough to hollow out his chest and leave him gasping. If he cradled her closer, he might yet shelter her from every cruelty the world had known. “ Emma lath… ” he whispered, voice shaking apart at the seams, “I am...” Unraveling like poorly hemmed robes . Solas began to weep in earnest.

She yawned, then studied him with all the solemn intensity of a savant. Or perhaps it was the shadows that she watched, or the flicker of light across the ceiling. Her small brow furrowed. A strangely severe expression, when stretched across new skin , he thought. A tiny wrinkle lay between her–

Eyes. He swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. Pale grey-blue, and violet . Mercifully unclouded. Scattering soft brown freckles across her cheeks and brow, and a pair of full, pink lips. So he had left his imprint there with a careful hand.

He had seen her eyes first during the birth, though the memory of that moment, staggering at the time, was already made pale and insubstantial. They were his, unmistakably, but somehow lovelier, clearer, brighter being hers . He never imagined he might see them reflected in another creature, least of all one knit from the very flesh he had fashioned to house his own weary spirit. Perhaps , he thought with a flicker of belated irony, I ought to have been more intentional .

“You are… very serious,” he murmured, as if she might understand. “A trait I assure you is not solely your own.”

She smacked her lips with what he could only deduce as vague dissatisfaction before curling tighter against him. Is she cold? Perhaps she requires more warmth . He scooted closer to the fire, turning toward it until his eyes burned. He was determined that she should not feel even a whisper of cold. If necessary, he decided, he would burn the entire Fade-cabin to keep her warm. That might even be preferable.

“I…” His voice caught in his throat. He tried again. “You are…” But what was she? Hope, perhaps, or punishment. A promise made flesh. His heart thundered wildly against his ribs. He swore he would lay it at her feet could he tear it from his bodily cage. If she commanded him to build her a fortress from sticks and moss, he would begin at once. If she asked for the moon, he would attempt to trick it personally. Consumed by something dangerously blissful, he thought he might simply cease to exist and collapse into raw energy to be reconstituted.

What if, he thought gravely, I fail to support her neck properly?

She sneezed.

He gasped.

The next moment saw him muttering a panicked assessment beneath his breath, crouched low to diagnose a wounded animal or defuse an unstable magical artifact. “Does she require something?” he whispered, “Is she ill?”

Bending lower still, so close that she was entirely obscured by his own nose, he peered into her face with a desperate sincerity. “Are you hungry, da’len?” he asked, and when she made no response, “Would you prefer,” he faltered, “Do you require your Mamae ?”

The words emerged in a jumble, as though he were attempting to negotiate with a very small and unreasonable god. She blinked once, then opened her mouth for another wet, skeptical yawn. Her eyes, though clearly unfocused, were altogether unimpressed as they drifted to the ceiling with an air of long-suffering. He had been quite clearly dismissed.

There was a fire in the hearth, somewhere behind him, and a world beyond the door. He was aware of these things in the abstract, the way one might recall a half-remembered social commitment. But at present, they could not have interested him less. All that remained was the child, so slight, so utterly new that he scarcely believed she was real. She was perfect. It was unearned, unreasonable.

“You,” he whispered against her temple, still weepy, “What am I going to do with you?”

Then, there was madness that he accepted with the same sober clarity with which one might recognize the first signs of winter. It would not pass over him, it would endure, and he would, in all likelihood, spiral again tomorrow, and the day after, and all the days to come.

Ellana slept. Her posture was slack in the fullness of exhaustion, her brow still faintly drawn in the memory of pain. He turned to look upon her– just slightly, not far, not enough to shift the child. Only to remind himself that she, too, was real. That she had brought their daughter into this world was a strength and strangeness he could not yet begin to fathom. There would be time to contemplate her nature, yet.

In her early years, she followed her father with the steadfast devotion of his own shadow. Eyes were wide and filled with questions that tumbled forth as naturally as she breathed.

“Why does the sun move?” she asked one day, tugging earnestly upon the hem of his robe. And Solas, ever severe, but never unkind, knelt before her until each question was satisfied. He addressed her not as one might a child, but a scholarly pupil, albeit a very small one.

She listened with the whole-bodied attention particular to the very young. Her head cocked as though she were a bird learning the melody of his words. When he concluded, she clapped once, decisively, and declared her intention to know next why frogs croaked but never sang.

Ellana would watch them from a distance, though her heart rarely strayed far. She felt their daughter was brilliant, perhaps dangerously so. And Solas, so accustomed to secrets and solitude, had become the most devoted of fathers, answering her every inquiry with unflinching sincerity. The girl’s childhood was stitched together, not with lullabies, but lessons in the architecture of forgotten cities and the shape of dreams.

She named constellations before she could tie her own boots. At breakfast, she posed questions of metaphysics and philosophy with her legs swinging from a too-tall chair. Yet with each passing year, Ellana’s fond amusement was laced with a gentle, persistent unease. She bore her father’s voracious mind, yet none of his caution. She was bold, impulsive, and startlingly direct, untempered by the quiet codes of mortal society. How could she be otherwise? She had known only indulgence, and a world sculpted gently by those who adored her.

In the years which followed the death of the last two Evanuris, the Crossroads regained something of its former tranquillity, and once more became a haven for spirits. It was during this comparatively peaceful interlude that Solas and Ellana, encouraged by a mixture of philosophical curiosity and parental fondness, resolved that their daughter ought to be introduced, under careful supervision , to the wider Fade. The decision was made, as so many are, not solely out of necessity, but because the child had insisted with eloquent tenacity that to deny her would have been not only unkind, but profoundly exhausting.

And so it was that they departed the quiet security of their home for a place where spirits assembled– not for commerce in any ordinary sense, but to engage in the lively exchange of memory, metaphor, and other such intangibles. The city rose before them according to the logic of dreams: towers shaped like questions, courtyards that sang as one walked through them, and narrow alleys that whispered lullabies in languages long lost to time. Through its many squares drifted spirits in a parade of impossible forms.

“Some of them look like elves,” she hissed conspiratorially to her father. Solas, amused, permitted himself a quiet chuckle. “And where do you believe elves come from?” he asked, having not yet encountered the topic. She did not reply, hving already been distracted by a spirit shaped like a stormcloud, to whom she asked whether it ever rained on purpose, or only by accident. She then struck up a wordless but apparently meaningful conversation with a group of wisps. Another spirit, more shadow than form, whispered a riddle that left her quiet for nearly a full minute. This was so unprecedented that Solas placed a hand to her forehead, certain she must be ill.

Her father corrected gently where he could, or rather, where he thought it prudent to do so. However, the day was not without incident.

It was their hope, perhaps a naïve one, that introducing her to a small settlement of spirits might encourage a degree of social refinement. The spirits themselves, being largely of the temperate variety, welcomed her with the kind of indulgent interest usually reserved for young animals and particularly earnest scholars. She, in turn, regarded them with unfiltered delight. Unfortunately, she spoke with the same.

“My Babae said if you get angry, you turn into a rage demon,” she announced to a spirit of Calm with no evident inclination toward combustion.

The brief silence that followed was so immediate it might have been broken only by the spontaneous and accidental collapse of the Veil. (that would have been better). Solas felt the color drain from his face. Ellana stopped mid-step, nearly spilling an entire basket of elfroot and embrium. The spirit of Calm, whose nature was not inclined toward haste, furrowed its brow, attempting to decide whether this was a genuine inquiry or a deeply unfortunate provocation.

Fenhedis , He thought desperately.

“Can you show me?”

Solas, whose expression had settled into something faintly tragic, took her hand with the delicate urgency of a man removing a lit candle from a library shelf, apologized, and murmured something vague about decorum as he gently steered her away.

He could not bring himself to speak, and walked stunned, stunted, with his daughter’s small hand tucked into his own. Her’s was warm and impossibly trusting, as if he had not just witnessed the complete discompose of what little social equilibrium remained in the settlement. His gaze was distant, fixed somewhere beyond the horizon of nonmaterial comprehension as his thoughts cycled through a dismal litany of failure: I have failed as a father, he thought, bleakly. As a mentor. As a scholar. I failed Mythal, and the People, and Vhenan, and the basic principles of conversational restraint, and–

The spirit of Calm, to its credit, had recovered first, bowing its head in something like gentle bewilderment before drifting away.

Ellana, having composed herself just long enough to appear the more reasonable parent, now stood with her back to them, shoulders trembling and eyes glistening from the heroic effort of suppressing laughter. Her mouth twitched treacherously at the corners as she pressed a hand to her face, purportedly to adjust her hair.

Beside him, their daughter skipped lightly. “I only asked because I thought it would be very interesting ,” she offered, swinging their joined hands. “And it did look like he could, if he really wanted to. You said spirits change to reflect different aspects of their nature,” she pointed out innocently, “I thought maybe he just needed someone to ask.”

Ellana coughed loudly to hide her laughter. Solas closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. Slowly. The words were, in fact, his own , repurposed and returned to him by a child who had taken them as an invitation. It was a peculiar kind of horror reserved for those who find themselves quoted by their offspring.

#solavellan #solas #lavellan #kidfic #papaesolas #kid fic #papae solas

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