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roseategales · 4 years

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WHERE FIELDS OF FLOWERS BLOOM — CHAPTER TWO: GHILANAS, DYS.

fic rating: explicit, for eventual smut. | chapter rating: teen. | categories (for this chapter): missing scenes, mild angst, hurt/comfort. | pairing: solavellan. | content warnings (for this chapter): canon typical violence, death, war, racism, experimentation on lavellan as a prisoner. | word count: 4.3K. | alternate link: ao3.

author’s notes: all my love to @brietopia and @spacedadpicard for beta’ing and putting up with me going, “but! but! but!” every few comments. full authors notes are on ao3. | ghilanas — luck, fate, destiny, lit. "guiding soul" the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities; dys — chance, luck. translation by fenxshiral.

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The Herald was a symbol of his mistakes made manifest.

She was of the People. Dalish. Left without empire and without home. Sundered from her history, herself. Marked and marred by vallaslin, the chain by which the Evanuris’ slaves were bound, that elves once died to have him break, in an attempt twisted by ruination and ignorance along restoring what was.

Were that not enough, she had found her way into the Conclave between the Templars and the mages, and thus stumbled upon Corypheus and the ritual meant to unlock the foci, the Mark bestowing itself upon her hand in the process. She would have died in the explosion if not for that chance encounter, and all the world would have been reshaped to feed the arrogance of a madman he had never wanted to enable. He would have had to devise new means to again procure the foci and tear down the Veil—if he even survived.

But whether her survival could be called miracle or mercy remained to be seen. For her and for the People.

And yet… It seemed she would be unlike anything he expected.

It was nearly nightfall when he arrived at Haven’s gate, the first rift having burst into the sky that morn. Already it was spreading—like a wound unable to heal, splitting across the heavens, sickly and virid, over the high mount that cradled the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The ancient structure itself was a wreckage. Broken, jagged pieces of its remains hung suspended in between the two halves of the world, visible from the village below.

There, the Divine’s people were reeling from the shock. Bellringers sounded continuous alarms to action. Scouts were racing to uncover answers, soldiers marching to fight against the demons pouring from the Fade, clergy and pilgrims were scattering. Everywhere, a whirlwind of boots hitting the ground, hoofbeats, blades ringing in the air, confusion searching for clarity. The same questions repeated over and over again, in a multitude of forms:

What happened? Sabotage? Who would do this? Why?

Treading on a snow-laden road and leaning on his staff, Solas navigated his way through the people moving past him, the breezing winds and snow flitting by, grazing his cheek. Those who noticed him threw suspicion with their glances. They murmured their surprise, and some even stared. The two male guards standing at the gate in particular.

They saw an apostate mage, after all, donning wool and linen. Arriving on a day of a cataclysm, during a time when mages across Thedas were demanding freedom from the confines of the Chantry.

Although he was no threat, he called out his surrender and intent to assist as he came to the gate, and gave up his staff as a gesture of goodwill. The guards immediately seized his pack, bound his hands with tightened rope and arrested him—as he expected they would—and one of them barked for a soldier to take him to a tent near the chantry on the hill, where one whom they called Sister Nightingale would subject him to questioning.

The soldier who was called to lead the way took him and charged forward. He was a man who could not have been more than thirty, whose bold features curled into a sneer, and whose gauntleted grip would bruise flesh through to bone of the arm he pulled on. Solas said nothing, but showed a slight smile, determined to ignore the injury and the onlookers. It was a minute inconvenience, in the grander scheme. One that would end quickly once they reached the Sister.

Who, he recognised upon seeing, was no mere Sister of the Chantry at all, but a figure of high rank, associated with the Divine herself.

She was surrounded by wooden tables set at each corner of the tent, supplies, and scouts receiving and handing over missives and messages. She gave orders like it was bred into her nature. And unlike the laity and the other robed clergy about, she was outfitted in plate and mail, an insignia emblazoned on her chest that differed from that of the Templar Order’s. It was not a sword upon flames. It was an open eye in the midst of them.

Hearing the crunch of footsteps on snow, the Sister turned her head from missives arranged on a table facing west. The soldier announced the arrival of an apostate, and repeated his alleged surrender and offer of assistance. Waning light glinted off the Sister’s hard gaze, and she dismissed the soldier. Leaving herself alone with a character unknown, to interrogate without interference.

No time was wasted in launching her inquiry, her conduction of it extensive and circumspect. What was he called? Why had he come? Where had he traveled from? Would there be witnesses who could verify his story? Did he have family? Friends? Connections? What did he know about the tear in the Veil? How had he come into his talents? Pursued his studies? And how did he avoid capture by the Templars? She spared no boundary, no diversion of her waiting, watchful gaze.

Solas answered as required. He told the Sister his name, his purpose for coming, the village he embarked from. He told her there were indeed witnesses who could place him, that he traveled alone and had no family, friend, or connection to speak of. The paths that led to details he could not give, he furled into half-truths and omissions, spun back toward his knowledge of magics, the Veil and the Fade. He explained to her what he’d seen, the tools and gifts he gleaned and dreamed, how he walked through memories ever fluid. He laid out secrets of the Fade, made plain its nature and channels, expounded on its hosts and dangers presented. Still, he named his childhood village, for needed trust.

And it was then that the Sister cautiously asked: Did he know there was a survivor?

He heard the rumours.

Did he know who she was?

He did not.

He took the opportunity for his own inquiry: If he might study the survivor, for signs of what caused her survival, as he believed that could be the key to sealing the tear in the Veil.

Could he help them wake her?

He would try.

There was a falter in the Sister’s trained mien. Solas saw the denouement in shard-like precision, when resignation demanded a choice be made.

She slid a dagger from her sleeve to cut his wrists free, a warning and an agreement without need of speech. He thanked her, and she escorted him within the sunburst-painted doors of the chantry.

The chill of winter had stolen through, even there. Stone walls had become vessels for it. Any warmth the candles, torches, and the Eternal Flame could provide was feeble, snuffed out by damp air, the further down and down he and the Sister went, into the depths beneath the place of worship. A sting of cold shot up his soles with each step. She assessed him in peripheral view, for a flinch, an indication of duplicity, as he did her. They were silent but for their footfalls, passing by intervals of luminescent sconces and deepening shadows, empty cells and statues of Andrastian legends on both sides, to the end of the tunnel—where the prisoner was lain.

There were two Templars at the mouth of the corridor, atop the steps that led to the prisoner, in the low incandesce of torches fixed at the four corners of the cell. A man and a woman, who saluted the Sister, gauntleted hands at the hilts of their swords, faces hidden behind the visors of their steel helms. They were waiting, undoubtedly, for some volatile effect of the prisoner’s magic, or for her to turn into an abomination upon her waking.

She would pay the price for his failings.

They all would, if he could not set things right.

The Mark flared virescent. The guards tightened their grips on their swords. Solas looked warily to the Sister, who stood steel-stiff. The guards moved to protest whatever he would do, but she shook her head and gave her permission. He was enabled to take the steps down, to kneel beside the prisoner herself.

She appeared a slight thing. Sweat beaded at her forehead, down the dust and halla-spirals of her vallaslin, her body shivering and paled, shrinking into the too-large coat of a human mercenary she had padded out, into itself. As helpless as the Dalish patchwork depiction of the Halla Mother. Bound as the would-be goddess was in the stories as well, her hands cuffed in iron chains. Like a hunter’s kill.

A waft of elfroot hit him. He spotted an emptied flask in the corner, used up to afford them precious time and opportunity before her probable slaughter, and he questioned if it was too late. If he had failed before he’d begun.

He turned to the Sister, and gave her a list of spells he might attempt, what he could try, gently drawing the prisoner’s marked hand to his. It was like ice. Magic ebbed from the scar along her palm—magic composed by him—pulsing green, a current thrumming on his skin, strange and unfamiliar now.

The Sister nodded. She bid him to do what he could.

He sheathed himself in a layer of protection, and cast above them a map of the prisoner’s channels and links of mana and magic.

That was the first day.

The second day passed. Solas was again interrogated by another of the Divine’s aides, a Seeker Pentaghast. She assumed suspicion of him until witnesses could corroborate his story, and threatened execution if he did not wake the prisoner. Then they returned to him his pack and staff, conditions and expectations clear. They placed him in a hut, Templars stationed and stalking outside. Everywhere he went, there were eyes on his back, waiting for a single offence.

All the while, the first rift continued to spread and grow. Reports of more rifts came from the surrounding areas. Demons were ravaging whole camps and villages. Scouts and soldiers were lost. Refugees replaced them in exchange for shelter and safety. The tear in the Veil was dubbed as the Breach, perhaps so they could comprehend it: what was swallowing the world whole.

And the prisoner? The prisoner remained unconscious.

He did what he could. He tried to separate the Mark from her, but he was still too weak. He tried to siphon the excess energy to lessen its effects, but it overflowed. He penned notes with each attempt, each method he could think of and perform. At his request, the apothecary, who attended to her with elfroot every morn and eve, brought him a draught of spindleweed to combine with his spellwork. He had to stop a trial when the Mark resisted and her body began to thrash. Reading his report, the Sister and the Seeker pressed the importance of her survival and a solution to the Breach.

At his wits’ end, he entered the Fade with the intent to make contact with the prisoner’s mind or a spirit who could advise him, or one who might’ve witnessed her actions preceding the blast, to grant her time and prove her innocence. It was of no use. Ill as it was, her body hadn’t the strength to sustain itself, and her spirit was compensating for it, confined to its form in the cell, unable to slip fully into a dreaming state. The spirits who possessed knowledge of the ancient magics were driven away by the Breach. The ones who might’ve witnessed the events of the Conclave were twisted by Terror. His options for saving her life and the Mark were all but exhausted.

The best he could do was give her a less fitful sleep, by suppressing the Mark’s link to her mana.

No one expected her to wake by the end of the third day. While Solas hoped—neither did he. How could she? When she was a mortal made in a world rendered immutable? A mere shadow of who the People were? When she had been thrown physically through the Fade? When the foci’s magic was never supposed to be tuned to anyone else’s but his own?

No, she would pass. He had to find other means of repairing the rifts, and brace himself to flee.

He turned his back on the prisoner, and diverted his research to alternatives. To mending the Breach alone.

She woke on the dawn of the fourth day.

She was an impossible sight—a force who fought her way to the riverbanks, the Seeker at her side, staff in hand, flickers and flares of flames and thorns at her fingertips, her face a fury as sharp as the crimson shock of her vallaslin. He nearly stumbled as he saw her, the rift at his back, demons outpouring toward them, assailing. She burned a number of demons to ash at her feet, the Mark’s magic pulsing and crackling in the air, as awake and alive as she.

There’s a chance, he thought, banishing the demons before him, opening a path to race to her side. There’s a chance, there’s a chance, he repeated to himself, like a plea, a prayer, as he grasped for her hand, and felt the surge of power, pushing it up toward the rift.

She sealed it. And another at the forward camp. And another in the valley. The Mark and effort drained her, left her gasping for breath as they forged on to Temple’s remains, but she persisted, assured him she would do what she could while she lived. And she did. She closed that first wound in the sky, stabilising the Breach, and the Mark’s symbiosis to herself. The world had its hope of healing the Veil.

But what little relief their victory had, Solas could not take comfort in. Talk of her divinity, her mantle as Andraste’s favoured, flew faster than ravens across Thedas, witness accounts carrying its wings. They spoke of the woman behind her in the Fade, the echo of the Divine’s tenebrous slayer. As a new villain entered the story, she was titled its hero, her transfiguration occurring over a matter of days. From survivor, to prisoner, to the Herald of Andraste.

How bitter the irony was. He had devoted his life to freeing his People from would-be gods and their false images, and here, his actions had indirectly led to the creation of yet another.

He would deserve his enemies’ mockery.

Thus, his service to the Inquisition would be twofold. He would lend his expertise and talents as they were required, and he would take it upon himself to observe the Herald, to counsel her, to check her if necessary. Corypheus, the Breach, and the Mark were his responsibility. She was the solution and a consequence, a complication that could put an end to his plans if he was not careful. He needed to learn who she was, gain her trust, and prepare himself for who she would be.

At first, he thought to do so at a distance. But after her recovery, she’d come to him. She wanted to understand the nature of what befell, the cause of the Breach, his theories on the Mark on her hand and its effects. She asked to see his notes. Reasonable requests. Pragmatic. If she was the possessor of unknown power and subject of study, it was her right and, arguably, her obligation to be informed. He sat with her in his hut, on the stone floor warmed by the hearth, his notebook between them, the desk’s nook too small for them both. Snow was falling with the afternoon sun outside, strong winds blowing past. They explored each topic, one by one. How could the Veil be rent like this? Think of it as a chord’s constant vibration, anything with enough power can disrupt it. Could such a thing be expended, destroyed in the blast? She survived, did she not. Will the Mark’s volatility resurface with use? It’s difficult to tell, but it appears stable, for now.

She paused when they turned to the dog-eared page of his tests on her. Her fingers traced the diagram he drew of her mana lines, like veins, like roots and branches forming an indistinct figure. Beside it was his scrawl, in Common for transparency:

Using spindleweed achieved the opposite of the desired effect. Its remedial properties on wounds caused by demons and spirit magic were absorbed by the Mark, amplifying it momentarily. The survivor’s connection to the Mark is too intrinsic. Casting a sleep spell stopped the thrashing. Pulse is still elevated. Other methods may have to forgo supplementary elements, or prove fatal.

Frowning, she thumbed the scar on her palm. Cast in the light of the fire, shifting shadows and golds on her sun-warmed skin, Solas remarked to himself how she looked less like a religious icon, or a helpless creature, and more like one of the People who fled to his rebellion; with circles under her eyes, her form meals away from filling her plain cotton tunic, apprehension at her spine and heavy on her exhale, his notes echoing Ghilan’nain’s. It was like the past impressed upon the present. Yet that would imply she chose the road they were on. On some level, he pitied her. He wondered what she must have thought of it all.

A strand fell from her flaxen braid. She tucked it behind her ear, and asked him softly: How did he wake her?

He told her the truth. He didn’t.

Her eyes snapped to his, disbelieving. She lifted her hand from the page, curled it in her lap. He anticipated reproach. Anger. Contempt. For her to spit that colourful Dalish curse at him. May the Dread Wolf take you. Instead, she asked him another question: Was he threatened?

Would she absolve him for that reason?

No, she said. To absolve him would be to declare him condemnable, his position easy—he did what he had to.

He wasn’t sure what surprised him most. Her understanding, her willingness to be sacrificed, or her solicitude, genuine and thoughtful. She swore she wouldn’t let anyone use his help against him. Of course, this was in part due to her deeming his knowledge and skills an asset. No one else could offer her the explanations she wanted, not in detail. But when had anyone in this world, let alone a Dalish elf, considered his point of view so readily?

He didn’t know how, but over two weeks, their time together became routine. If she wasn’t in meetings with the Inquisition leaders, or in her hut, or with whomever needed her, she was with him. They discussed the Fade, his travels, the war, lands and cities navigated by her clan, texts she’d read, heroes of the age and prior, hour upon hour. The company was unexpected, but not unwelcome. It was refreshing to have someone listen, and to hear them speak to him so freely, without reverence, without prejudice. And he was provided opportunity to learn much of her. Of her idealisations for a world of peace and magic, of routes she traveled in the Free Marches and Ferelden that overlapped or just missed his own, of her decision to scout in her father’s honour, of her inclination to study, her discomfort in her new role as Herald.

He commented on that discomfort once, people bowing to her as they walked by and she entered his hut. The door closed, safe inside, she told him it was like no one saw her as she was.

He knew the feeling, he said, before he could catch himself.

Did he?, she questioned. But a sadness underlied her smile, and she supposed that he did.

Such was her longing to make sense of her circumstances, and for connection, that she laid down her skepticism, accepted him. By this, he was disarmed. He would give away more of himself than he intended. Encourage her jokes and teasing when he should have been more reserved. It was dangerous, frightful. She had an openness he admired, and he’d forget himself in it. He had to raise barriers, recall the purpose of dialogue with her.

Yet—he regretted not returning her favour.

One mistaken sentence, spoken unfairly of the plight of the Dalish, and she was gone. He felt betrayed, that he misjudged her. She was the one who asked for his opinion and insights on Elvhen culture, only to scoff and turn on him, as a foolish, insolent child would, like the rest of her kind, was she not? He was left cold, dismissed, abandoned as soon as she heard truths she disagreed with. He caught glimpses of her on two occasions, when the apothecary requested his assistance; once as she was leaving the chantry with the Inquisition’s Chief Ambassador, another when she was ushered into the tavern by the Child of the Stone. He wanted to go after her, but thought better of it. And if she indeed cared for him or what he had to say, wouldn’t she have approached him by then?

He didn’t think... She’d felt betrayed as well. Nor did he guess she would have apologised, though she was not to blame, and neither were the Dalish. But she did.

She called him lethallin. Her friend. Her kin. As if their People were one and the same.

As with all his mistakes, however, Solas paid a price. Although she was still happy to listen, she was comparatively reticent with what she shared of herself. His questions on her clan and her life before the war would often be met with nonanswers, subject changes, or questions of her own. Her trust was damaged. On these matters, at least. It had to be mended, with time.

But as for the matters she continued to trust him with, he was grateful for them. The day after the Sister’s agents were sent out, they received a report, that the Mother was found tending to wounded in the Hinterlands. Because he was to accompany the Herald along with the Seeker and the Child of the Stone, he was privy to the briefings. A section of thirty soldiers was to travel with them, six as an escort, the rest to bolster the forces already there. They were warned of what awaited in the war-snatched territory—corrupt Templars, apostates driven to madness by desperation, displaced refugees, farmers and village folk clinging to semblances of their lives in between—and charged to set up posts, protect whoever they were able to, win influence and allies, gather supplies, and make their way to acquire a horsemaster if they could. The journey lasted two days, and they paused little for rest and refreshment.

The Herald was at the center of preparations throughout. She’d ask the Seeker for advice on Chantry politics. Write letters with the Child of the Stone to a mutual friend in Kirkwall’s alienage. Rise early and retire late to help the soldiers around camp. Allow him to examine the Mark periodically for any signs it would conflict and destabilise with use of her magic.

The one thing they could not fully prepare for was the devastation of the Hinterlands itself. Ancient towers were torn down, homes razed, the crossroads blocked by bandits taking advantage of the chaos. People were at death’s door due to lack of medicine, food, shelter, and something as simple as a blanket to keep them from the bite of winter’s winds. Worse, the Templars and mages were little more than animals. The Inquisition’s party was attacked upon arrival, calling out peace to both sides. Neither could be reasoned with, even as the Seeker and the Herald pointed out the Inquisition’s banner, the camp of sick and injured nearby, their voices high above clashes of metal, blasts of fire, lightning, screams.

War, as ever, spared neither the neutral nor the innocent.

He could feel how the battle weakened the Veil. Terror, Despair, Rage, all threatened, humming on the hairs at his neck and in the back of his mind. The party was disconcerted by the encounter, the scene of death and suffering around them. The Herald especially.

She was no soldier. The first time he saw her fight, she was driven by pure instinct, against creatures she’d been taught to fear, to see as an other. But against humans and elves, those living and breathing to her, her spells were defensive, roots and vines coiling up from her staff as shields or holds. Were it not for his barriers and the Seeker’s blade, she would’ve been wounded. Her kills were hesitant, last-minute. And in the aftermath, horror and grief were plain on her face. Grief for her parents and clanmates, perhaps.

Perhaps that was why she wore her diplomatic posture like armour when meeting the Mother to acquire potential allies. Why she turned her focus to aiding the refugees, hunting medicine, food, and whatever they needed to survive. Why she insisted she was fine when he and the Child of the Stone expressed concern, refusing to eat, or even sit, until she was certain every last supply they had was distributed.

He would never forget how she knelt before a dark-haired Elvhen woman and her daughter, gently placing a blanket in the child’s small hands. Cooking fires limned the camp, ambers and golds painting its inhabitants, the background of obsidian night tinted green. The Elvhen woman prompted her daughter to thank the Herald. But, she shook her head, leaned close to the child and said, “Eludysia will do,” as an entreaty, not unlike when she first came to him, sadness in her forest-green eyes.

Eludysia. In Elvhenan, your name’s meaning evoked who were. Your vices and virtues, your past and your present, your deeds, your failures, your triumphs. Hers meant: She who’s lucky with a secret.

He hoped she would be.

#dragon age fic #dragon age inquisition #da fic #solavellan fanfic #solavellan fic #mine.#my fics.#fic : where fields of flowers bloom.#inquisitor : eludysia lavellan.#solas.#ship : solas & lavellan. in another world.#dragon age.#posting this like a weight off my shoulders. finally #at the same time..... oh god i'm posting this

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