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wootensmith · 2 months ago

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Redcliffe

Solas regretted pulling them out of the Titan’s dream immediately. He did not expect that his own trap could surprise him, but it did. He wondered if one of the Evanuris had added the nasty little trick trying to punish one of their fellow prisoners or if it were just a terrible side effect of what he, himself, had done.

He had expected to emerge at the same overlook where they’d entered, to walk back through the grove of stone Qunari and the memory of her in pain, kneeling in a puddle, for that was how it had always happened before. It never occurred to him that the Fade might pull from her regrets rather than his. Nor that hers could ever be so dire. So he did not immediately recognize Redcliffe as they emerged from the eluvian, but the anguished cry from the Inquisitor said that she certainly did.

Lake Calenhad was burgundy and black, crusted with the floating corpses of darkspawn and villagers and castle guards alike. The windmill on the hill was ablaze and most of the houses showed signs of charring. The Inquisitor sprinted for the castle, though he called for her to wait. He chased her over the rubble that had once been the castle’s drawbridge. More of the Ferelden royal livery flashed up through the fallen stones or fluttered raggedly in a foul-smelling wind. Whatever this was, her memory of it was intense.

A dwarven woman with a thick, graying braid wrestled her axe free of a fallen ogre’s grip at the end of the bridge. A warden, by her armor. The King of Ferelden was cleaning his own blade beside her. The gate and part of the bailey wall were gone, leaving a gaping hole into the courtyard. The Inquisitor didn’t even pause when she reached them, simply climbing over the wreckage hurrying past. Solas hesitated, drawn by the two figures. He had not seen a memory of the Hero of Ferelden in years and it struck him how much she had aged in this one.

“You should rest, Majesty,” she said to the king. He scowled. “Maker’s breath, don’t start. You know I hate it when you call me that. Besides, the Inquisitor's people aren't resting and they’ve been at this days longer than we have.” He slid his sword into its scabbard and pulled his left gauntlet off. “Don’t scratch that, Alistair,” Warden Brosca warned him. “It only makes it worse.” She grabbed his hand to stop him from scraping at the dark veins that twisted through his wrist. “Getting worse anyway,” Alistair muttered. “Don’t tell Teagan, he’ll panic.” “Might get him moving at least. We’re going to have to persuade him to retreat you know.”

“We’ve already retreated,” Alistair fumed. “Free Marches lost, Denerim lost, now Redcliffe? Where would you have us go? If she hadn’t been so rash at Adamant we’d have an army here now to save these people instead of—” Warden Brosca turned toward the jagged rubble of the wall behind them. “That’s not fair and you know it. Even without Clarel to lead them into disaster, you know how bad the false Calling got, you felt it, just as I. The Inquisitor did as she thought best.” “She was wrong,” he snapped. “And now all my kingdom will fall to the Blight.”

The warden and Alistair faded out and Solas knew that was all the Inquisitor had heard of this particular exchange. He remembered she had run farther in and followed. The courtyard bustled with chantry sisters and a few remaining mages who tended to the wounded, but the Inquisitor was not among them. Some part of her realizes this is memory, Solas told himself. She would be here trying to mend them otherwise. What is she racing toward?

A far greater number of soldiers waited in the Keep, the Queen’s personal guard, Solas assumed, because she was deep in an argument with a very flustered courtier. “My father was right about the Orlesians,” Queen Anora snapped at the nervous little man. “They cannot even be bothered to set aside their lust for Ferelden to aid themselves against the Venatori. Instead they’ll just wait like vultures and feast on our corpses when the darkspawn get through with us—” “Come now, my dear, it is not de Montfort’s fault. He is as doomed as the rest of us.” Alistair spoke up from the Keep’s doorway, Warden Brosca entering with him. “I agree,” the man cowering away from Anora added quickly. “My country has its own troubles, certainly, but I tried to warn all of you eight years ago. The Inquisition harbored the villain who released this scourge on us all. You scattered their forces rather than keeping them in tight control as we would have done. There’d have been none of this wild goose chase after elven blood mages if we were in charge.”

The Inquisitor’s voice rang out from the shadowy depths of the large room and Solas hurried toward her. “Enough! Blame me if you will. Yes, I banished the Wardens for their sake. Yes, I overestimated the loyalty of Orlais to old allies. And yes, I let the Inquisition disband and people return to their lives. Are all of you happy? Good. Let us finish these preparations before the next wave overruns us.” He found her trying to plug holes in the Keep wall with a combination of rubble and magic. He could see the tiny muscle in the corner of her jaw pulsing and tears escaped her as she worked. He touched her shoulder.

“It is done, emma lath,” he said gently, “You cannot change the outcome. It's all over now.” Blackwall hoisted a piece of wall into a hole beside them, trying to hammer it with a wooden mallet to secure it. He appeared much older than Solas remembered, though he could not say how. Perhaps it was not a physical difference at all, but the battle weariness he could sense in the Fade. “We’re going to have to fall back, my lady. You know that,” said Blackwall. “I know,” she said, as if she had not heard Solas at all. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to. Her spell completed and she swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s all gone so very wrong.”

“You mean them back there? Nothing but talk, that. Those of us who’re with you know where the blame really lies.” She lifted another piece of wall with a spell. “Don’t care about the blame. Let them. Knew I’d be blamed for anything going wrong, right from that first day when Cullen nailed the proclamation to the Chantry door in Haven. Doesn’t matter. I just want help. Twelve years learning from Josie and Leliana and Vivienne to be diplomatic. And twelve years of blood and effort to save them, to save us. You’d think they’d stop arguing for one bloody day and help us keep them from being slaughtered.” The piece of wall slammed into an open space with the force of her spell. “And it doesn’t help that they’re all right. About all of it. If I hadn’t sent the Wardens away—”

“Vhenan,” Solas tried again, distressed by how lost she seemed in the memory. It was Blackwall she turned toward though. “Then maybe they all would have walked into the Deep Roads,” said Blackwall. “That Calling didn’t end because we arrested Erimond. Or maybe they would have been wiped out in the battle with Corypheus. We cannot know what would have happened. Besides, the North needs the Wardens even more than we do, my lady. Perhaps it was a boon that you sent them back to Weisshaupt.” She shook her head. “Or if I hadn’t chased Solas, sent Varric after him.” She was becoming more distressed, wiping frantically at her face. Blackwall put an arm around her shoulder, turning her away from the rest of the Keep to shield her from curious eyes, though Solas knew none could have seen her anyway.

“We both know he would have completed his ritual sooner. Despair makes it seem like nothing we’ve done, nothing we’ll ever do can matter. But it’s not true. He hung on this long because of you. Of us. Whether it was love or constant harrying or because you had a piece of his power stuck where he couldn’t reach it, what we did made a difference. A few years, at least.” “What does it matter, Thom, when they’re all going to die like this?” “Because there was peace and good days before it, where there might only have been war and pain, my lady. What is it you kept telling me after I returned from Orlais? All those dark nights where I doubted myself, doubted your judgment of me? Sometimes, to make amends, you must pick up your work tools and put down your guilt. No one’s hands are big enough for both. That’s what you said. I don’t think you need to make amends. But they’ll keep piling on the guilt if you let them. And right now, we both need our work tools. You know what we have to do.”

Solas felt something in the memory still. Shift. “I can’t. You’re going to die,” she said. Blackwall was frozen in place. Solas glanced back at the rest of the Keep. All the other figures had frozen as well. He tried to seize his chance to draw her out of it. “It is a memory, my love,” he told her, pulling her gently free of Blackwall. At last, at last, she looked at him. “I left him to die. I left him with a shoddy ballista and a handful of volunteers to cover my own retreat,” she protested. “I can make another decision, find another way.” Solas shook his head. “It is a bad dream, fanor. Long past.”

Something flickered at the corner of Solas’s vision and he turned to look. “There was no other way, Poppet.” There was only one other instance that Solas could remember Blackwall’s tone softening so much. When he spoke of his sister. Blackwall stood in a shaft of sunlight that leaked through the broken wall. Cole beside him, suffused in gold. The memory Blackwall remained where he had frozen. “What is this?” she asked. Solas wasn’t certain. “Something new. And curious,” was all he said. “We both agreed that this was how it had to go, don’t you remember?” asked Blackwall.

“They came swift and rabid, boiling up the mountain after her,” said Cole, quick and quiet. “Get them to Skyhold, he said, swear to get them to Skyhold. I failed him in Redcliffe and now I’ll fail him on this mountain still leagues from home. There is nothing that will stop the creep of this shadow.” She shook with a suppressed sob beside Solas. “But you didn’t, my lady. You never failed me. Not in Redcliffe or any other time. And those people did survive to see Skyhold. And the shadow did stop. It is turning back, though you cannot see it from here.” Blackwall reached out and touched her hand. “Do you wish to?”

“What are you that you can pierce this place?” asked Solas, suspicious that something had followed them through the eluvian. That some piece of the Titan’s misery had infected the memory. Blackwall glanced at him. “What remains,” he said. “You can ask Cole about the particulars if you truly care to. All I know is that my friend was in pain for something we had chosen to do. Together. I did not stay because you were the Inquisitor. I stayed because I wanted to believe that what we did mattered. Just like you. Do you wish to see?” he asked again. She pulled her fingers from Solas to wipe her eyes again. “Yes,” she said.

Blackwall pressed his hand against the wall of the castle. The memory slowly dissolved, the figures fading. They stood in the tumbled, mossy ruins of what was once Redcliffe castle. Far, far too little was left to be solely the result of even the darkspawn onslaught. Only time could have left it in such a state. Arbor blessing twined around the stones and little lizards lay basking on the remains of the stone steps. Solas could see the town below. A new windmill stood where the old one had, though it spun much faster than the breeze that blew over the hill and Solas suspected a spell helped it along. A large market teemed with people next to the docks and Lake Calenhad was brilliant blue. “So many people,” she said, climbing over a mound of debris to better see. “More than were here when we arrived.” “Yes,” said Cole, “All sorts.” He pointed to one of the stalls. “Orzammar sends metalworkers and scribes. And there— Rivaini seers help loved ones who are stuck move on. In the corner is a school. A history lesson is next. The teacher tells a story he heard from his grandmother long ago. About the man with the borrowed name who held back an ocean of monsters while the people fled to safety. He wishes he knew the name that was hidden. That he could let the sunlight hit it again, just as his grandfather once pushed aside these stones to let the light hit the man’s bones once more.” Blackwall put his hand down and the pretty vision of Redcliffe faded back into the sterile gray of the Fade.

“It was a good end. I never doubted you would get the King and his people to Skyhold. Not once. And I was at peace.” He grasped both of her hands and turned the living one palm up. “I wish that I could extend that peace to you. But there is still work for you, here.” He nodded at Solas. “You have the strongest hands of anyone I know, my lady. But even you cannot hold onto both your guilt and your work. It is time to put it down now. It’s time to let this day go.” “What happens to you if I do?” she cried.

Solas was surprised at the genuine ease with which Blackwall grinned. “I’m going home. Liddy’s waiting, I hope. And my old hound. And a hundred others who got there first. Don’t fret, it’s only a short walk. And Cole’s going to see me on my way.” Cole nodded. “He was waiting for the doorway. He was waiting for you.” Cole turned to Solas. “I cannot keep it open for long, but I will return. You will keep making spirits. They need a path.” “Ma serranas,” said Solas.

“Were you waiting long? Ir abelas,” said the Inquisitor. Blackwall shook his head. “I don’t think time works the same here. Probably explains why Solas is… the way he is. Expect he’d be like that Xenon fellow otherwise. Worse. Sometimes feels like I only ran out of my mum’s house this morning with my fish net. Others that I’ve walked the entire breadth of the Fade and know what’s around each corner. But that can’t be so, can it? I knew you’d come here in the end, one way or other. Just wanted someone to be here to meet you, is all. In case you were low. I’m glad that I waited. Be glad with me.” She nodded and hugged him. “Dareth shiral, falon. I am happy for you. I only wish I hadn’t left—” “No, now. There was no other way. If you hadn’t left, those people would all be darkspawn now. And Solas would be lost. And maybe all the rest as well. We did it right, my lady. The cost doesn’t make it worth any less, what we did.” He let her go. She seemed about to speak again, but held her tongue.

“You should ask him,” said Cole abruptly. “It would help him to know he left you peaceful.” Blackwall waited for a moment, but she did not speak. He laughed and tugged his beard. “Something I can answer that Solas cannot? I cannot imagine you always yearned to know about beard maintenance, my lady.” She flushed, shook her head with a faint smile, but still did not speak. Blackwall clasped Solas’s arm. “Don’t know if you’ll believe it from a mortal, Solas, seeing how long you’ve been around, but this will not last forever. Your work will end, the Titans will wake, and the world will be ready someday for the Veil to fall. You’ll come home too. Can feel it in— whatever’s me. We’ll have a pint. Or a— ether. Or whatever’s there. Have a good long jaw.” “I look forward to it, Thom,” said Solas, though he wasn’t certain he could believe Blackwall’s foresight. “Dareth shiral.”

Blackwall nodded. Cole stared intently at the Inquisitor. “Ask him,” he urged her again. “He’d want you to.” “Is it— is it awful, Thom?” she asked, her fingers rubbing the prosthetic nervously. “Not— not the battle, not the physical part I know that was—” her voice broke and she took a breath. Blackwall waited. “The dying, is it awful? After?”

“Oh, Poppet, no. No, it isn’t awful. It was— do you remember how Sera used to hate swimming in Lake Luthias because it was dark? How she shrieked when her feet got tangled in the blood lotus reeds?” He chuckled and the Inquisitor smiled slightly. “Iron Bull got so fed up with the shrieking he dunked her in so she could see it was only the reeds. Dying was like that. Like being suddenly submerged so that you can see. And all the things you were scared of, the things you thought you saw in the murky water from above— they’re just reeds, Poppet. Flimsy and temporary and not painful at all. And you can see all the things that worried at you, you can see how they unroll over years and years. It eases the heart. The wars end, the people you’ve saved have children, have grandchildren. The fields go to forest and the forest becomes farmland and homes again. Every so often someone still stumbles over something you’ve done or left or touched and their voices filter to you, like they are coming through that same murky water to caress you before swimming away. And it’s enough. It isn’t awful at all. Cole was waiting for me. You’ll have Solas. Or he’ll have you. And then the rest of us.” He patted her arm. “But take your time, won’t you? Got some catching up of my own to do first.”

She nodded and Blackwall let her go. Solas slid an arm around her, not certain if it was to stave off her loneliness or his own. Cole’s dagger flashed and the air rippled. Something like sunlight, gold and warm, flooded the Fade. Blackwall lifted an arm in farewell and followed Cole. The light drifted away as if a sun was setting just beyond the horizon and they were gone. She curled into him. A thin echo of his own voice swirled around them. “People are always dying, Varric. That is what they do.” He ignored it, pushed it away, and held onto her as she wept.

#solas #lavellan #solavellan #dragon age veilguard #dragon age

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wootensmith · 2 months ago

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Stalagmite

“What made you think of the Storm Coast?” he asked, watching as she concentrated on the depths of a tide pool, creating something there, her brow furrowed with the effort. The Titan’s rage was easing, but not enough. He needed some anchor, some focal point that would comfort it. They would not be able to stay much longer here without rest and Solas did not want to leave the dream half constructed.

She glanced up and then a fierce blush rose in her face. She laughed at herself before answering. “I was trying to think of the largest beast I could imagine. I thought the Titan might see it as closer to itself. But I never saw it, the great sea serpent. Krem convinced me one morning— this morning, that if I climbed up to the top of the cliff, I would see them writhing in the water. I don’t think he realized I had little experience with the sea. I did not know it was a jest. So,” she sighed and waved toward the water below, “I cannot make it for the Titan. Still, perhaps it will be intrigued by the rest. The wind and the tides and the salt. I always was.”

“Alas, the great serpents inhabit the Boeric Ocean. They do not migrate as far south as the Waking Sea,” he said. She lit up, as she always did when he offered her something new, something long hidden from her. “You have seen them?” she asked. “I have. They are fascinating animals. One of the last of Ghilan’nain’s creations before Andruil’s whispers of power turned her head.” She touched his arm. “This is not the Waking Sea, Solas,” she said, the small plea clear in her tone. “It is a dream determined by your intention.” He laughed. “So it is, Vhenan.”

A rushing flood of water smacked against the basalt columns below as the serpent breached. She knelt on the edge of the cliff with a gasp, wholly entranced by the flash of its gargantuan scales, maroon and silver in the sunlight, the slither of its vast wake as it moved and coiled and slid through the water. And Solas was wholly entranced with her. He was so accustomed to self-denial that he barely even recognized when he was doing so any longer. It was vanishingly rare that he’d ever dared reach for her first, but it didn’t diminish his longing to do so. Especially as she leaned toward the serpent’s massive head and reached to touch it, though she was much too far to actually do so. It prickled off of Solas, the wish to touch her, to whisk her from the top of the cliff and walk across the waves with her to the serpent’s back, to let her feel the smooth, rigid plates of scale as she so obviously wished to. To kiss her and absorb a tiny portion of that wonder she was lost in.

Maintaining his restraint over his flesh was habitual, reflexive. Successful. He could never say the same for his emotions. He didn’t realize how badly he’d failed in that moment until his desire slipped free of him and formed a spirit just beside her. She still marveled at the serpent, which began its dive back into the water and she did not see the spirit until it slipped around her and took the kiss Solas had wished to. It quickly abandoned her, eager to stretch its form, to fill itself with this new existence, leaving her startled and bemused. “What was that?” she asked. It was Solas’s turn to blush. “Ir abelas, it was only a wish. I will keep a better rein on myself.” She stood up. “But why, emma lath? Why keep wishing when I am he—” She gasped again, this time in reaction to the Titan’s emotion. They had both been too distracted to prepare for it as it overtook them.

Whether it were the serpent or the spirit that drew it, the Titan’s rage began to be subsumed by a sense of curiosity. Its grief did not diminish but it seemed to fade into the background slightly. Whatever had drawn its attention, it lingered. It didn't pass over and through them as it had before. Solas found her hand and pulled her past, freeing them from the wave of sorrow and anger and intense scrutiny. It was a relief to see that the Titan’s attention did not immediately turn back to them but swirled around the dream-serpent as it plunged into the depths. They retreated from the cliffs and the Titan’s focus. “Did it work?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder. “It seems to have had some effect,” he said. “If we can distract it a little more, then perhaps we can return to the calmer parts of the Fade and have a rest. It will take time to recall its agony. We may be able to help the other Titans in that time or find a way to undo its sundering gently.” “Other… how many?” “Twelve. Unless— unless Mythal repeated our ritual without my knowledge. Twelve that I’m aware of. There were certainly more Titans, but twelve were involved in the war. It was those I sealed away.” He braced himself, expecting her to break, to turn on her heel and flee from him, from the enormity of the task. He’d open the eluvian for her and then— She took a breath, nodded. “We had better figure out whether it was the serpent that distracted it then. I confess I’m having some difficulty holding onto what is Titan and what is me. I do not want to run out of time.” She was not abandoning him. The relief he felt was disorienting.

Her fingers tightened around his. “Maybe it wasn’t the serpent that interested it, fanor,” she said, “Maybe it was the spirit you— maybe it was your wish. You didn’t answer me, before. Why do you keep only wishing when I am here? Why don’t you just ask for what you wish?” He hesitated, not entirely certain he knew either. “Very well,” he decided. “May I tell you a story?” The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “You know how I love your Fade stories. And I do not even need to beg for this one?” “Not about the Fade. About this day that you’ve remembered so clearly. About you.” “I don’t remember anything else remarkable about this day,” she said, willingly following him down the beach. “Ah, but there was. I was with you, do you remember? And we encountered something you’d never seen before.”

He waved his hand at the sand and a horseshoe crab flailed at their feet, trying to right itself. She took a hasty step back, ducking partway behind him and he laughed. “Exactly so. You asked me what it was with that same disgusted expression.” “It’s the— it’s the legs, and that spear tail,” she said, still peering at it from behind his shoulder. He felt her shiver. “I’ve never seen you react so viscerally before or since.” “Yes, yes, I’m sure my horror made a good jest,” she said, crouching next to the struggling creature. She reached hesitantly out, flinching once, and turned it carefully over. It crept quickly back into the water. He knelt beside her. “No, Vhenan, it is not your horror that sticks in my memory, it was this. As soon as I told you it was stuck, that it was harmless, just trying to tip itself upright, you did the same. I could see in every line of your body and face that you did not want to touch it, that it frightened you. It still does. But your impulse for kindness overwhelmed even that instinctual fear. You did not harm it or flee, as I had expected. It was not the first time you’d surprised me, nor the first inkling I had of my feeling for you, but it was an important one.”

He helped her up, walked easily with her along the sand, drawing her farther from the ripple of the Titan behind them. Another would come, he could not stop that, but he could lengthen the window of peace between. “It will sound odd to you, perhaps, who have a much better understanding of love than I, but I didn’t understand how much danger I was in by this day,” he told her. “Even in the Fade, when you see another fall in love it appears a sudden, overwhelming thing. It seemed to require certain conditions, to be predictable even, from the outside. And with Mythal it felt inevitable. As if I had come into existence feeling that way. There was no way something so massive could creep up on one, I told myself.”

He glanced at her, hoping his confession would not make her uneasy. She only watched him, no judgment in her expression, no distress, only curiosity. “With Mythal it was… a mountain. There from the beginning of the world and slowly, slowly, time and deed and what she wanted of me eroded it. Little by little, the mountain shrank. My affection for her is not a mountain. Not for a long time. But it is not a plain either.” She touched his arm. “We all have our own landscapes, Solas. You do not need to explain to me. Besides, I am far, far more worried about the valleys than I am of any competing mountains.”

He pressed her hand where it lay on his sleeve. “I thought that was the only way it could happen. That it was a sudden upheaval and then diminishing, diminishing until it was gone or at least— unremarkable. I thought I was safe as long as I guarded myself from any strong attachment. That was why I did not act on my wishes at first. But you, you were not a mountain. You are water dripping onto a cavern floor. Steady. Slow. Bearing gifts with each drop. For a while, if I had realized, those drops could have been swept away. A casual conversation about griffins and heroes. A wild version of a misremembered tale about the Evanuris steeped in your hope. A compassionate gesture for a creature that frightened you. For a spirit who became a friend. For me. I could have ignored all this, dismissed it, in the beginning. By the time I realized I did not wish to, it was far, far too late. All those little acts had hardened into stone and larger drips kept coming. Sealing the Breach. Trying to rescue my friend who was nothing but a stranger to you. A kiss. Steady and slow and immovable. Until you became a mountain. And then I did not act upon my wishes because I was afraid that it would somehow erode, just as my love for Mythal. Every time I expressed my wishes to her it was…” he trailed off.

She waited.

“It wasn’t the refusals. You and I have argued too, and it has not, will not diminish how I feel. It was the coldness with which she’d sometimes acquiesce. I feared to ask too much or to give too little. It wore away at me. At my resolve, at my purpose, at our love. And then— ir abelas, my love, it took all these years to realize I had inadvertently treated you the same way. Or close enough. That the restraint I had struggled so hard to maintain had likely left you with a similar impression of coldness.” “No,” she protested, but her fingers drew away from his arm. “It was something Rook said. That I ‘made people so eager for scraps of my approval that they never saw the knife coming.’ That I’d done that to her, to Varric, to you. That was not my intent. Not with you. I meant to keep you from this place. Alas, so very little has gone according to my intent. If I had followed my wishes less, perhaps I could have convinced you that I was, indeed, as indifferent as Mythal. And you would be living peacefully with your clan now. Or better still, if I had been more aware of what was happening years ago I would have avoided your affection entirely.” Her hand had not returned to his and they walked slowly down the beach. Toward the next wave of the Titan’s loneliness.

“Solas,” she asked so quietly that the sea breeze almost swallowed her words, “Do you regret meeting me at all?” He did reach for her then, slipping his fingers over hers. “No. But I often regret that you met me.” She stopped them, her prosthetic lying gently across his shoulder as if to hold him back. “I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t.”

“Your existence would have been a much— easier one, if we had not met. If you had never touched the focus, never been afflicted by the anchor.” “If I had not touched the focus, then I would not have survived the Conclave. Perhaps only Corypheus would have. Or perhaps all would have gone as you originally intended and the Titans would have woken. But then where would everyone I love be? Whatever the outcome of your plan, Solas, it was always going to come at some great cost. Easier does not mean ‘better’. The world in which we did not meet would be a much bleaker one, for us all. Perhaps now, together, we can keep that cost to what has already been sacrificed and no more. We’ve both had obligations to the world, fanor. And we have fulfilled them. Are still fulfilling them. Parting is no longer a requirement. Do not mourn for what my life might have been, for I do not.” She glanced down the beach and he could see her physically brace herself for the oncoming wave of the Titan.

He tightened his grip on her hand as if the Titan’s anger would rip her away if he released her fingers. “Let it pass, let it pass, let it pass,” she whispered into his shoulder, her eyes clenched tight. It was not as fierce as he had expected, diminishing still more as it passed over them, racing deeper into the dream. Still, the intensity of the Titan’s emotion was battering and exhausting. He would not last for many more waves. He imagined she must be just as tired, perhaps more. “It has, Vhenan,” he said to her, “It has passed. And the Titan is calming.” He felt her loosen, she took a small step back from him. The breeze swirled against his side where she had been a moment before. He realized he’d done that, created the breeze, because he missed her warmth even for that breath.

She glanced up at him. “You are wishing again,” she said, watching the sparks gathering around him. “If only you would tell me your wish, I would grant it, were it in my power.” He hesitated. “But if I ask too much or too often—” She was stern. “For good or ill, I am not Mythal. Those small moments you cherish— do you think that is all I have done for the love of you? A kindness here or there, a kiss, that is all?” “No, Vhenan. I know what I have already asked, what you have already offered.” “I begrudged you nothing. I remain with you still. It seems a blink to you, these last years, but they have not been swift for me.” She touched his cheek and chased his gaze. “Nothing has eroded, emma lath. Here I am on the brink of the Void with you. And even a Titan cannot move me from your side. What do you imagine a greater task than this?” He had no answer for her.

Her thumb slid softly over his cheek. “Then stop holding yourself back from me. Do not make me guess at what you wish. I so often get it wrong, fanor.” You don’t, you don’t, he wanted to tell her. “I only wanted to reach for you,” he said. “To touch you and for you to smile at my touch. I only wished for a kiss.” And she did smile, surprised and bright, tiny luminescent sparks bubbling up in a halo around her. “A kiss? And I do not even need to beg for this one?” she teased. “Begging was never necessary. For stories or kisses. My answer was always ‘yes,’ Vhenan.” He leaned toward her. “So is mine,” she said and stood on her toes to meet him. There was a flare of light as the effervescent sparks from her mingled with those from him. He did not care to see what spirit they made, his attention utterly consumed by her. Beyond the warmth of her fingers against his face, the softness of her mouth, she radiated joy. Pulsed with it, as if she wanted to push it into him, into the Titan, fill the very Void with it.

She broke the kiss with a small laugh against his lips. “You are happy, I can feel it,” she said. “It is to be expected when a wish is granted, is it not?” She laughed again, trailing her finger along the curve of his mouth. “Then you should wish more often so that I can keep granting them.” “Very well,” he said, and kissed her again. The pulse of the Titan overtook them and he did not notice at all until her prosthetic hummed loudly.

All the runes were ablaze. He panicked, terrified it was harming her. “Is it painful?” he asked, hurrying to undo the clasps. “No, no, all is well,” she glanced up at the spirit they had made as it flickered, busy and building the dream around them. “I think it is the Titan. Maybe Dagna’s magic has intrigued it?” She traced one of the runes with her finger. “Now that it is calm enough to notice it.” She glanced up at him, noted his worried expression. “Don’t slip away from me,” she admonished, pressing her hand to his chest. “It was there, I felt it. I felt you. Sathan, emma lath, tel’vara. The Titan has calmed and the day is fine and there are sea serpents and I am here. Stay happy with me. Consider it my wish.” He drew her arm through his. “Then I will be glad to grant it,” he said, and let himself drift in the sound of the surf, in the heat of her hip against his, in the gradually settling calm of the Titan.

#solas x lavellan #solas #lavellan #dragon age veilguard #dragon age #solavellan

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wootensmith · 2 months ago

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I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

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wootensmith · 2 months ago

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Sulevin - he/they/any

one day i'll decide what colouring style i'll stick to. today is not that day

#lovely

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wootensmith · 3 months ago

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Some Solavellan nose smooches for @cityscapeinview!

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wootensmith · 3 months ago

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The Void

His feet touched no surface. The Void was lightless, silent, still. All that remained was the cool metal of the Inquisitor’s prosthetic in his hand. “Solas?” her whisper was muffled, as if it came from far away. As if a sudden wind had wicked the sound away. “Are you there, emma lath? I cannot see. I cannot feel. Sathan, Sol—” “I’m here, Vhenan. All is well.”

Her outline fizzed with tiny, muted sparks beside him, the only image that he could find. “Sathan, my other hand,” she pleaded. “I cannot feel you.” The sparks grew more intense, erupted faster, thicker. He pulled her prosthetic toward himself, found her arm, her cheek, her ear. “I’m here. I know it is disorienting. I will not let go,” he said, finding her living palm. The sparks that surrounded her slowed, thinned.

“It aches, this place. There is nothing here and yet I feel as if I could—” a plume of sparks rolled from her in sinuous pulses until they gathered into a cloud of light. It briefly resolved itself into a definite shape, but Solas only had eyes for the Inquisitor. Bathed in the glow of her own creation, her expression had softened into wonder and shock. The spirit she’d loosed wrapped around her for an instant and then flickered away into the endless dark. “Oh,” she breathed, again invisible to him. “It is creation thwarted,” he said into the dark. “That ache you feel here. Decay. Destruction. Frustration. Emotion without intent. This Titan can no longer dream with any will as you just did. It grieves but does not have the structure to understand why.” A wave of deep red sparks made a distant horizon that was neither physical nor dream. “It is the very essence of the Blight,” he said, watching the slowly approaching wave of red. “That is all that escapes this place in tiny trickles. Until now. I do not know which spirit you created— inspiration, compassion, desire— but it will find its way to the Fade because of your intent. The Titan’s wrath can only leak through where it happens across tears in the Veil. I hope that none now remain. If we can calm its anger, even that little will no longer be the threat it once was.”

Silence for a moment, only the approaching crest of sparks to break the dark. “I have… so many questions,” she said. He laughed. “I know,” he said. “I suppose the only urgent one is how we calm a Titan.” “Alas, that is a question for which I have no true answer. I thought, perhaps, a good dream might soothe it.” “What did the Titans dream of when they did dream?”

He tried to remember, dredge it up from the long, long vigils he had kept studying the Titans. Ancient, brittle memories that barely survived the moment he took his first breath. “The slow gathering of oceans, droplet by droplet. The sculpting of wind and storm on the mountains as they aged. The spread of a lone seed into forests vast and dark and moveless. And later, they dreamt of each other and of the Children of Stone that they created,” he said, half-remembering, half-guessing. The wave of writhing scarlet sparks was very close now, close enough for him to see her in the crimson glow. “They were vast dreams,” he sighed. “And I am very small. Will you aid me, Vhenan?” “Every time,” she said.

The Titan’s wrath broke over them in a roaring, fiery burst of stars and he curled around her as if that could shield her. He had expected immolation, bright, hot, suffocating rage and grief, the kind he’d felt only once, millennia ago. Instead, the Titan’s anger was brittle and cold. It sucked all the memory of love from him as it passed over and through. As if he were utterly alone. As if he had not existed at all, nor any creature that had ever touched him. For an instant he believed himself a mere dream. An emotion with no will, no origin, no receiver.

And then the Inquisitor’s prosthetic thrummed and sparked and her voice returned as the wave of sparks traveled on and away from them. “Not me, not me, not me,” she muttered, even as the wave of the Titan’s anger yanked sparks of something similar from her to travel with it. Unformed, loose and unraveling. Not like the spirit she’d purposely created. The runes in her prosthetic still glimmered. “No, not you,” he agreed. “Hold on to that. The feeling will return until we can assuage it. You must hold onto yourself until then.” Her hand squeezed his. “Then let us move as swiftly as we're able, Solas. Even if it is only the speed of an ocean gathering. Ma ghilani, I do not know how to create a dream.” “Just as when we dreamed together in the Fade. The intent, the will is what drives it. We must be the Titan’s will for now. Let it borrow our ability for a time. Until I can restore its own.”

“It wants— I think it wants someone, Solas. It is so lonely.” “We want someone, emma lath. It knows only the loneliness, not the solution.” “But I do not know who it would want, if it could.” “This is the very edge of the Fade, yes, but it still functions the same way. It will alter to reflect the Dreamer. Focus on who you most wish beside you in this empty place, on what is most comforting. Whatever the Titan experiences when it touches your dream will comfort it. Or at least distract it from its rage if comfort is not something it can accept.”

He heard her take a deep breath. And then the feeling of cool, dew-slick pebbles touched the soles of his feet. “Vin,” he said, beginning a spell to amplify what they wrought, “Good.” The sound of surf booming against the gaping mouths of caves came next and the scent of brine and drying seaweed. He could see a fresh wave of the Titan’s rage on the horizon and tried to push aside the dread, concentrating on completing his spell. And then the dawn. Slow, at first blending in with the glow of sparks that broke the dark. A thin curl of light flickering over restless water, the soft touch of a breeze, the sleepy call of gulls first waking. The light crept up the base of massive stone pillars beneath them. He could see neither his own hand before him, nor the Inquisitor, but far below the wash of foam where the land sundered the ocean was just visible. The rising sun hit the enormous, blocky knees of a paragon statue and a swirl of silver and yellow erupted from its axe as a pair of Vinsomers took flight.

Ah. He remembered this day, this moment. His spell complete, he added to the dream, coloring it more fully, rushing to build in what she was constructing, eager to see her face again in the grey, tumbled dawn that filtered through the thick clouds. The Titan’s wrath was close and he wanted that glimpse before the loneliness could slam into them again.

Green. That is how he remembered the Storm Coast. Green where the kelp clung to the stone and green where the stone gave way to first grass and then heather, still too chilled for it to bloom. Green where the pines hunched themselves over the game trails and beside the river. And green where the anchor shone in her open palm as she reached for his hand. They had climbed the slippery basalt columns to an overlook together one morning, long before their companions had woken. She was new, then, to the Inquisition, to him. Still gradually finding her footing with both. He had mostly agreed to the climb because she was pleasant enough company and the coast was cold, whipped by wind even when it did not rain. Movement seemed to be all that could warm him at the time. But she had loved the coast. Had hardly rested in days, needing to fill her ears, her lungs, her eyes with the sea. He had just not realized it. Until this morning.

The dawn had finally reached the peak of the cliff and he turned to her, relieved to see her form hadn’t changed into that younger, less-familiar woman. The Titan’s touch still lingered in her prosthetic’s runes, laugh lines still deep around her eyes, her mouth, she was still here with him, not a dream, not a memory. “You always did love—” he broke off as she raised her arm over her face as if to shield herself and he instinctively grabbed for her just as the titan’s wrath again plowed into them. He struggled against it. The dream was fragile and it took all of his effort to keep it from collapsing into the barren Void again. Her prosthetic’s runes hummed loudly this time, diminishing only several seconds after the wave passed by.

“We have to stop it,” she gasped. “It cannot remain this way. To be alone for so long— we cannot leave it so. I cannot leave it so, Solas.” “If we can calm it—” “Then it will not flood Thedas with Blight, yes, I know. But what of it, fanor? You wish to calm it with this dream, but it is not the dream of a Titan. It is not what this creature truly longs for. I’m not even certain the Fade will be able to stretch a dream so small as mine to fit it. We may fool it for a time but this is— did you know? Not— not when you caused this, that is a different. Have you come here before? Did you know how it suffered?”

He closed his eyes, unable to look at her. “Long ago. Before the Veil. It is— yes, Vhenan. I knew. I did not do enough to persuade the others. After Mythal was slain I thought to— I thought if they could feel this, if they finally faced their awful deeds and emerged here, they would understand why they could never be released. They would know what we had done. And they would know why it was now their task to guard the world from the consequences— from the grief and anger of what we had caused. Bellanaris.” “But the Titan, Solas,” she cried, “what of it? Did it deserve to suffer, too, for eternity?”

He opened his eyes. “The things Morrigan and Rook told you, they could not have known it all. Not even Cole. Can you understand now, what all this was for? Why the Veil had to be sundered?” “I confess that I do not, emma lath. After what I’d been told about how you came into the Waking world, I imagined it was something the remnants of Mythal asked of you.” He shook his head. “No— I— we argued about it when last we met. She thought it should stay in place to protect you— us. Protect what we had stolen so long ago. Alas, Vhenan, it should be she and I and the remaining Evanuris who suffered the Titans’ rage when they were finally released. We were the cause of all of this pain. But we are so small. And the Titans do not distinguish between ants. Mythal was correct that you, that all of Thedas would come to harm if I restored them. I did what I could to prevent that, but it still would have meant the death of so many. What I owed to Mythal was the punishment of those who slew her. I meant to transfer them somewhere safer. But what I owed to the Titans and to their people was an end to this, even at a cost that I could not fully pay myself. This was not what was meant to happen. When I bound myself to the Veil, it meant that this agony would remain for the Titans. I— have been trying to right this wrong for so long that I am no longer entirely certain that I know what is right.”

She shook her head. “I— how would dropping the Veil have restored them? This is meant to work like a reversal of Tranquility? As that ritual that Cassandra found?” “Vin. You have seen a few reversals now, haven’t you?” “Yes, I’ve helped her with some.” “And the mage who is restored, what happens to that mage?”

The sea breeze whistled between them. Solas could see the wave of sparks returning. Something was different in them, a cooling of the red, just slightly. He was uncertain how many more waves he could withstand and maintain the dream if she refused to aid him further. “Oh,” she realized. “They are— it is as if all of the emotion that was stripped away comes flooding back all at once.” “A solitary mage can be comforted, drawn back to a sedate, stable self in time. Until that happens, they are guarded from harming themselves or others, isn’t that so?” “Yes. And the power of a Titan’s emotions would be… There must be a way, Solas. There must be a method to ease both the suffering of the Titan and protect Thedas. If you had just told me, I would have helped you find it, years ago—”

“I know, Vhenan. And we will find it, together. Until then, we can give them a peaceful dream. You are right, we cannot nullify all of their loneliness with a dream of the Waking Sea, but we can distract them from it for a time. They have not seen the world they created in thousands of years. Even our memories of it can fascinate them. We can draw their attention long enough to find that way.” He hesitated, then held out his hand to her anew. “It still comes at a cost I cannot fully pay myself. I will understand if you cannot bring yourself to do this for my sake, but for the Titans and for Thedas—” She took his hand without hesitation. “I don’t know if we can ever make things right, fanor, but all I want to do— all I’ve ever wanted to do is to help make them better. For Thedas, for the Titans, and for you. Still for you.” She pulled him toward her and wrapped her prosthetic arm around him just before the wave of lonely rage slammed into them again. Around them the bubble of her barrier swelled, a fragile, hope filled sphere that shone the same green he remembered. “Don’t let go,” she told him, just before the leaping sparks of the Titan’s misery shattered the barrier. “Never again,” he said. The runes in her prosthetic trembled and rattled against his back and the breath-stealing chill of the Titan mingled with something else, something different.

#solas #lavellan #solas x lavellan #solavellan #dragon age veilguard

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wootensmith · 3 months ago

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Beneath the Mask

He was uncertain how long he remained sitting at her side, her hand twined in his. He realized he felt less hollowed out. Less rattlingly empty and fragile. He shifted slightly, hesitant to break contact with her but knowing the urgency of their task. “We must begin,” he said.

She rose and reached down to help him up. He picked up her prosthetic. “I do not know what we will encounter on the other side of the eluvian,” he warned her, taking her hand to stand. “I can no more protect you now than I could when we first met.” “I am capable, remember?” she winced as she re-clasped the prosthetic. “I am not immortal but I survived the Fade twice before, emma lath.” He wanted to tell her that it was not the same, this place they were headed. A realm not entirely Fade and not entirely waking either. Nor the Crossroads. It was the edge of the Void, where the Titans’ frustrated urge to create bubbled and frothed and then consumed itself.

It could not help her to dread it. He was frightened enough for them both. He led her through the ruins toward the eluvian. She stopped at the frozen stone of the Viddasala. She slid her thumb across the back of his hand. “All your thousands of years, all the death and enslavement and war— why is it this day that you regret most? As devastating as it was to me, this day and all the ones we shared before, it all seems so— small compared to what I know now,” she said, staring at the Viddasala’s stone grimace. “Because all of my past mistakes, all that death and enslavement and war, led directly to this one. I meant to make enough of my past clear that you would turn willingly from me if you had not already done so. But I— found I could not bear to. I meant to tell you that I was not the man you thought you knew. That I’d taken the mask you accused me of wearing, the one you begged to see beneath, that I’d made that mask into my flesh and there was nothing beneath it.”

“That isn’t true, Solas,” she cried. “If I’d had enough courage, I’d have told you that in donning this mask, I had stolen what I had no right to. That it had resulted in centuries of war. But I hid behind the others— Elgar’nan, Andruil— all of them. I would have told you that what I had— what Mythal and I had done to end that war had doomed us. Doomed you and all that you loved. Any who could be polluted by the madness of the Blight. Instead, I told you of creating the Veil. Because I knew you could— would forgive that one action. Your entire existence has been contained by the Veil’s boundaries. You could not know what was truly lost. I knew you would forgive that mistake, even fear its reversal. I didn't tell you more because I could not face you turning from me even as I walked away from you.” He released her hand, but she did not draw away from him, even now, her fingers slipping to his back instead.

“I told you that I did not wish for you to see what I would become, Vhenan,” he stammered, “but the truth is that I did not want you to see what I had already been. The Inquisition, as dire as the events were which drove it, was a bright dream. And this day, this moment— I should have slept on instead of waking. This was the last moment I could remain something near to what I ought to have been. The very last. Instead,” he waved his hand and the eluvian rippled to life, “I sullied even this. I do not even have the softening of time, the claim of change— Varric, my general— my friend Felassan, all the ripples of harm I have caused both recent and ancient— they all collide here. Such terrible deeds.”

Her hand did not retreat from his back, her fingers did not tremble where they rested. “I know, fanor,” was all she said. “How can you love such evil then?” “Solas, you are more than a spirit now, for better or worse. What you’ve been in the past, Wisdom, Pride, Desire, Fear, is not what you’ve become. We are not the pure embodiment of anything. It is our actions that create what we are.” “Just so. And so many of my actions have been wicked.” She hesitated, obviously torn about what she would say next. “Yes,” she admitted, “You have committed evil acts. As have I, Vhenan. As have most who have held the type of power that we have. But the grace, for us, is that we still live. We have the chance, you and I, to make our deeds reflect our desires, even now, even here. You are free, fanor, to become what you have yearned for. Duty no longer forces us to thwart our better instincts. Do good with me, Solas. Heal the Titans. Heal us.”

Solas shook his head. “I will never be forgiven for what I have wrought.” “That is not something you control. Is it not worth being better for your own sake, regardless of how the world thinks of you? You rebelled against the Evanuris because you believed it was right even after centuries of the world smearing your name, telling lie upon lie. That does not seem like someone who relies upon the world’s approbation.” “It’s not myself— if the world cannot forgive me, then it will surely not forgive you for continuing to love me despite what you know. And that, I find, I cannot abide.”

“Ah,” she said. She dropped her hand from his back. “And that is why you dismissed your agents? Why a stream of them suddenly drifted back to me? Because you feared what the world would do to them in the aftermath.” She sighed. “No matter what the Fade or the Titans’ dreams may have in store for us, I am, at least, safe from the world’s judgment here. As are you. Whether it is right or wrong for me to love you, I do. You can no more control that than you can control the world’s forgiveness. All you can do— all any of us can do— is strive to be a person worthy of it.” She took a few steps toward the eluvian and held out her hand to him. The one of metal and magic. The ghost, the memory of the one he had taken just a few steps away in another world.

“Here is that choice over again,” she said. “I know it is not an easy one, even now. Back there, through the ruins, is that bright dream. Of the Inquisition, of the Fade and who you used to be, of your memories both good and ill. You can sleep on, Solas, if you wish, just as the others did. The Veil will remain, for you will endure, just as you are in that dream. The Blight will roil and fester beyond this mirror where you’ll keep it at bay from Thedas, yes. But the Titans will not heal. The spirits you care for will remain sundered from the waking world— safe, but ungrowing. Stagnant. The waking world will go on as it has, a thousand petty wars over thousands of misremembered tales, but it will not fall. Or we can release that dream and build a new one. Together. I know that what is beyond this mirror is misery and madness and labor. But meeting it, solving it can help the world we both once loved. I cannot tell you what will emerge on the other side. Another world, perhaps. All I know is that I will love you in dream or in waking or the Void itself.” She stood there, waiting for his choice, her arm still outstretched to him.

“And if I choose to stay, you will walk into the Titans’ dreams alone?” he cried. “No, Vhenan. I will remain beside you, whatever the choice. I am not here to compel you. Ma ea revas.” He took her hand and strode the last few paces to the eluvian. “Don’t let go,” he said. “Never.” He stepped through as her barrier shimmered outward to shield them.

#dragon age veilguard #solas #lavellan #solas x lavellan #solavellan

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wootensmith · 3 months ago

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Deja Senti

He was hollowed out. Sore. Empty. As if someone had scraped his chest cavity raw and then flooded it with seawater. He was an old shell with nothing except the tidal winds rattling through.

He couldn’t quite remember how he had arrived here in the ruins of his sanctuary. It hardly mattered, not when he was so exhausted. It’s where he always ended up, sooner or later. That same bright, breezy autumn day when he’d made his final decision, over and over again. Always this instant when he stepped through the eluvian and closed himself off from any chance at retreat. His mouth tasted of metal each time, though it was stronger now. It was a remnant of his magic silencing the Qunari, leashing the anchor, wounding the Inquisitor. If he turned his head just a little, he knew he’d see the memory of her kneeling where he had—

“— watched you hand a week of your rations to that mother in Sahrnia. And because you…” her voice drifted in and out of his conscious thought and he did turn to look because he didn’t remember her saying those words. She was not kneeling but beside him. The hand he’d wounded replaced now with a facsimile of spell and metal, cool in his own. He stared down at it while her voice threaded through his confusion.

“That soft tune you hum when you’re painting—” He glanced behind them and saw a trail of broken armor pieces. Ah. He remembered now, the numb, exhausted stumble into the Fade. He had started trying to shed his armor immediately, fearing he would suffocate beneath it. She had helped him, removing piece after piece as he wandered, speaking to him all the time.

“— fearless even against the most powerful foes if the cause is just. And because you don’t suffer fools even when it would be easier if you did once in a great while,” she said. “What?” he asked, still too dazed to truly follow her speech. She smiled slightly. “You’re right. You did suffer me. Though I assume I am the lone exception.” He forced himself to focus. “You are no fool, Vhenan,” he protested. “I meant: what are you saying? I don’t— ir abelas, I cannot understand.” The corners of her eyes crinkled as her smile deepened. She reached to touch his cheek with her living fingers. “You asked me once, long ago, why I loved you. I told you I would make a list. It occurred to me that you might need to hear a little of that list just now.”

He did not expect that he had any tears left after the events of the day. They came nonetheless. “Do not treat me with such kindness, Vhenan. You do not know all that I have done,” he warned her. Her hand closed around his chin, twisting him to face her fully. “They found your veilfire murals, fanor. All of them. Between Lace’s letters, Morrigan’s piecemeal drips of information, and Cole’s fretting, I believe I have a fair idea. Though— when you are ready, I would prefer to hear the tale from your own lips. I have had years to discover what I could of you, Solas. I did not join you blindly.” She swept tears and grime from his cheek. “I do not know how to treat you without kindness, emma lath,” she added. “And I never will.”

He pressed his hand over hers. “Ma serannas,” he said. She waited for him to recover, but his fatigue defeated him first. His balance failed slightly and she caught him as he leaned too far. “You need to rest.” “No—” he started. “We need to rest then,” she insisted, knowing he could not deny her as he could himself. “We have been through a dire battle. And I am not so young anymore.” He hesitated, but then forced himself fully upright. “I must address the Titans. Every moment I wait, the Blight spreads,” he said. “I know the urgency. I have pushed myself too far in the past as well. But you have tied yourself to the Veil now, Solas. If you do not rest, your injuries may kill you and then all of Thedas. I did not join you solely because of my love for you, Vhenan, but also for all of them. I cannot let you fall.” She was stern, determined. The way she’d always been at the darkest points. He hated seeing this facet of her, every time, hated the necessity of it, even as it made his love for her more fierce.

“I will not fall,” he told her. “The Fade is already helping me repair.” He held out his palm to her. The dagger cut he had made only a few hours before already closed. She shook her head and guided him down to sit on the rocky ground. “It isn’t the injuries to your flesh that worry me, but the ones to your spirit. I do not yet know how to heal those, but you are exhausted. Rest will help. If— if there is such a thing as resting here.” He stared numbly at the spot where she had fallen once, her knees splashing into a shallow puddle behind him. He tried to shake himself free of the memory, focusing on the present. “You intend to be my guard then?” he asked, fully realizing what she’d said just a moment before.

“If by guard you mean ‘guardian’ then, yes. I would always protect you. Though I think the only thing remaining that is powerful enough to harm you is yourself. If you meant ‘jailer’…” she stopped herself with a sigh. It took her several seconds to continue, staring at the same spot he had been, perhaps with the same memory. “I could not stop you in the waking world, how would I be able to here? If you wished to flee me or the Fade— I know little of this world except what you have already shared and what little I have seen for myself.” She rubbed her cheek. “I am unsure of everything, except that I could not bear for you to endure this alone. I did not intend to be a punishment. I— ah!” Her arm erupted in emerald light and she curled into herself in pain.

He pulled her into his side, already casting the spell to calm his anchor, still muscle memory all these years later. “Ir abelas,” he muttered as he realized the spell could not quell a memory. “I do not think it’s you,” she gasped. “It’s the Fade.” “Alas, we had to come here to reach the Titans’ dreams. A safeguard. They are only accessible by passing through one’s deepest regret, something the Evanuris would never do. But now… I hoped you would not recognize it.” He frantically tried a different spell to soothe at least, the crackling snap of pain. It did not appear to subside as she clutched what still remained of her arm.

“These were the most painful moments of my existence,” she said through her clenched teeth. “Of course I remember this place. I failed, Solas. I failed and I lost you and doomed everyone else. I recognize every pebble and leaf of this place.” She shook with the effort of trying to contain the memory-anchor. She fumbled with the clasps of her prosthetic. He knew her agony was not truly in her absent arm, hadn’t been for years. But if he could alter her thoughts, draw her attention to something other than her own guilt— he helped her unclasp the prosthetic. “I was, indeed, lost this day,” he admitted, “but it was entirely my own doing. If you must remember this awful day at all, I beg you to know that you did not fail. Know it in the deepest essence of you.”

The memory-anchor stuttered slightly. He pressed his hand to the nape of her neck and pulled her forehead to his. “I prepared for that meeting for months. Long before the Qunari tipped their hand. I knew that I would need to take the anchor. I did not intend to be so late to do so, nor for it to be here. I didn’t intend to expose all my deepest failings to you either. I steeled myself, convinced myself that you would be— that I would little more than a bittersweet memory to you. Felasil. You fail? As soon as you called out to me, I lost the battle with myself. Every word you spoke was a coup upon my resolve. I wanted to return to you as soon as it was clear you still cared for me. You did not fail.” He watched the glow of the anchor ever so gradually dim between them.

“And you can never lose me, not truly,” he continued. “It was only that long, long ago, I lost myself, Vhenan. I was still a thrall to my duty, to my failings, to the memory of Mythal. There existed no spell, no phrase, no act that could have bent my will on this day, because I did not believe that my will was mine to bend. You did not fail. And you are no punishment, not even in the cruelest tauntings this place can muster. You wish me to rest, to heal my spirit. You are the medicine for my spirit. But I don’t wish to bind you to—” She brushed the back of her fingers over his cheek to stop him. “As you are the medicine for mine. Do not send me away thinking it will save me, emma lath.” The memory-anchor seemed to be subsiding. She did not shake as hard against his grip.

“I do not have the strength to send you away,” he admitted. “Not even enough to truly ask you to spare yourself, though I know that I should. I cannot promise you this pain or others will not return. Not here.” She shook her head slightly, still pressed to his. “It cannot return. Not this one. Not now.” “Alas, Vhenan, this is my deepest regret and will likely remain so. Every time I return to soothe the Titans it must be through this mirror. And every time we return, the anchor may overwhelm you.” Her soft laugh startled him. “The anchor? The anchor is nothing. It is the loss of you that overwhelmed me. You are here, alive, safe, here. The anchor is nothing.” “Ar lath ma,” he whispered, letting it tumble form him as if it had not sat, scorching like a live coal, upon his tongue for years. She tilted to kiss him and the thrum of the memory-anchor dissipated entirely under his fingers.

(sorry I'm so late. We had a terrible housefire and lost literally everything in October. Got a chance to play VG after Christmas and been mulling it over kind of since then. More coming, dunno when, still kind of in the middle of the sh*t at the moment, but this is my relief)

#dragon age veilguard spoilers #solas #lavellan #solas x lavellan

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