Work Text
“Do you miss it?”The fadewalker had been the first to ask, but wasn’t really asking. Sizing her up, more likely. Wondering if she was like the other Dalish he’d encountered, so small-minded when confronted with his grand and worldly self. She had lied, told him yes, because she just couldn’t give him the satisfaction.The ambassador, Josephine— Josie, Leliana had called her—had asked all her questions with such graceful curiosity that Athi didn’t want to disappoint. So she'd lied again. Said yes, of course I miss my home. People were supposed to miss their home.The truth was, she didn't think of it at all. Not on purpose, anyway. For as long as she could remember, she had always wanted out. Went missing as a little one, ran away a couple times, and then she grew and learned how to keep her hands busy so her feet wouldn’t wander. Yet nothing could keep her eyes off the horizon.She had begged Deshanna to send her to the Conclave, had sworn to be quiet and cautious and she had been one of those things to the very end. Now her companions were dead. Better scouts, better hunters, better Dalish, but somehow she was here and they were not. She'd mourned them. Not properly, what with their bones fused to the ground up on that holy mountain, but she did cry. It might be her fault, after all. They were gone, but she was out and it was hard to grieve the loss of her wooded cage.Even so, there was a liminal space between asleep and awake in which she reached back toward that other life. Only seconds, but they stretched out long enough for her to remember what came next.The smell of breakfast: coffee and tea, toasted hazelnuts, eggs with wild onions. Twinkling peals of laughter weaving carelessly around the aravels; she winced in anticipation. It was late summer, and if the wind and the little ones would pipe down she might hear the far-off river’s susurration. Maybe she could swipe a cup and make it to the treeline before someone claimed her for a chore.Then it was over. Her mind and body caught up to the rest of the world and like words on the pages of a book slammed shut, it all disappeared at once. In its place, a warm bedroll in a borrowed tent. Simmering bone broth and hardtack and too-thin air. Stories in strange voices, of heroes and spirits and dragons and death. A different, more interesting sky. Something new.An adventure.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She was a quick study.After hearing her story, he’d agreed to her request but had armed himself with patience and prepared for disappointment. But now? Now, he was beginning to wonder if, perhaps, she’d never been the problem at all.It wasn’t a question of mechanics. Her willpower was fierce and her connection to the Fade as strong as any he’d seen in this age; she lacked only the ability to channel its powers properly. From what she’d told him, her magic had manifested while she slept, and her Keeper had been an inflexible, unimaginative teacher. For many years, she’d been limited to clumsy spells of destruction and raw elemental conjurations, dangerously managed by instinct alone.Yet only a few evenings into their “arrangement,” she had already improved. He’d tried a method from the old days, a sort of shared casting. It seemed strangely intimate now, weaving one’s magic into another’s, but he had to admit that it had been incredibly effective.He lifted his eyes to watch her through the flickering light of the campfire. She lay sprawled on her back in the grass, brow furrowed and eyes fixed, her steady hands spinning a simple white light between them.She had beautiful hands, he thought. Sure hands that were rarely idle. Small hands with nimble fingers, the nails filed down close but still broken in places. Hands with his Mark, yes, but marked also by tiny scars and rough callouses that had nothing to do with him. Hands that had hurt a thousand times over, but had never managed to heal. Hands he could still feel between his, radiating heat in defiance of the chilled night air.Solas looked down at his own hands and flexed the stiff joints of his fingers. They were pale. Crooked. Capable. Clean and free of scars, yet bloodied with the stubborn souls of millions no matter how often he washed.And they ached to hold hers again.Cursing his weakness, he stood and made his way around the warmth of the fire, closer to the blaze of her hands.They would learn to heal. He could give her that much, at least.“Are you ready for more?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The aftermath was always quiet. Not quiet like peace or the eye of a storm, but quiet like winter.Quiet like death.Smoke rose in the distance where the bodies still burned. Their souls, if such a thing existed, would be long gone by now; soon they would be little more than bones and ash. But here, by a fresh mountain-born stream, the stench was no more than a nuisance.This was becoming a ritual of sorts—a cleansing, a comfort. First she cleaned her weapons. The blades of her daggers, the ends of her staff. Then she removed her armor, carefully wiped the leather free of blood and viscera and laid it to dry on the rocks beside her. Next, she peeled off her linen tunic and leggings, soaking them through and scrubbing with soap and stone until the stains came loose. Those, too, were set aside.Finally, it was her turn. With her toes in the water, she dragged a wet cloth down her shoulders and arms, between her fingers, and under her nails. One was broken and would inevitably tear; she would have to cut it later.Her cheek stung, but from afar, as if from someone else’s wound rather than her own. She vaguely recalled a wide-swung blade, a glancing blow from a warrior’s shield, an arrow whizzing past her ear, but couldn’t remember if any of them had landed. All she could think of was her blood and theirs, blood from all those bodies, mixing and drying inseparably on her face.Her hand shook.“Allow me.”She hadn’t heard Solas approach, but he spoke so softly that she barely startled. A month ago, she would have told him to go fuck himself. Two, and he would not have offered. He took the cloth and knelt down beside the stream, holding it beneath the surface until the water ran clear.If only it could be so easy.When he pressed it to her forehead, the fabric was surprisingly warm. His knuckles under her chin, though, were cool, and his strokes long and firm.“Don’t say it.”The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. “Say what?”“There wouldn’t be blood on your face,” she said, lowering her voice to imitate his, “if you would only use your magic, and fight from a distance.”He laughed heartily, an infectious sound that washed the thought of blood and ashes from her mind. “I suppose there is no need, now that you have done it for me.”Solas used his thumb and a corner of the cloth to clean her lips, and her skin, still damp, prickled in the cool air. His eyes searched her face as he turned it first one way, then the other. They settled on her cheek, on the cut she couldn’t remember.“Feel free to leave a scar,” she teased, then hissed when he closed the wound.He scoffed as if insulted, and began his spell. “No, you have quite enough of those.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lavellan did not linger long within the walls of Therinfal. After making her offer, she left the way they'd come in, then he watched her disappear into the woods a few hundred yards to the west. Uninterested in her absence, Cullen and Cassandra set to work collecting weapons, names, information, readying those who had been Templars to don new colors—and a new cause.
Solas slipped out unnoticed. Found her nestled in the roots of a giant oak, knees hugged to her chest, ripping up grass by the handful. Her daggers were embedded in the bark above her head, various pieces of her armor strewn about the ground.
“Is Cullen pissed?” she asked.
Cassandra's face had been unreadable, but the Commander’s frustration had indeed been evident both in his scowl and his apologies to the recruits. He had clearly expected Lavellan to defer to his judgment, but she had not. In fact, for someone who claimed to despise her position of authority, she assumed it with surprising ease.
“Yes,” and he smiled at the thought. “I believe he had hoped to have some say in the fate of the Order.”
“Maybe he shouldn't have left it, then,” she snapped. Her brow furrowed and she glared at her knees. “I didn't mean that.”
The anchor flared. She winced, holding her hand up to him in a wordless request. He sat beside her and took it between his own, one below—thumb hooked with hers, fingers on her wrist—the other above. Whether due more to the spell or the silence, he could not tell, but she seemed to calm as they rested quietly together, the tension in her frame melting away.
He did not notice her tears until she sniffed and wiped them away with her sleeve.
Something had happened to her in Therinfal. That fact was clear; the details were less so. She had changed between one step and another, had become less focused and more fearful. Frantic, in her attacks. At the end, her anger toward Envy had been almost personal. And now, she felt—what, afraid? Angry? Ashamed?
He wanted to ask. Wanted to know. Wanted her to want to tell him.
But what he wanted was, as ever, unimportant.
Instead, she asked about his travels and he told her of his dreams. A distraction. An indulgence.
At her request, he began another story, but did not make it to the end before the weight of her head came to rest on his shoulder. Her sleep-softened features made her look far too young to carry so much.
He smoothed her hair back. An indulgence. A distraction.
A mistake, to know its texture.
No. His fingers hovered just above her head, then he tucked them back in underneath his own arm. She was temporary. Fascinating in her own way, but merely a curiosity to be considered and observed and if she would allow herself to be guided by him, then all the better.
No. There was no danger here.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
There had to be a hundred people packed into the tavern. All caught up in their drinks and the day’s victory, squeezed up against the walls and spilling out into the street, yelling one name or the other. Their roar pounded in Athi’s ears.
Solas didn’t counter as she circled, nor watch where she moved. But, ready to shift his balance, his toes gripped hard against the stone floor when she stepped out of his peripheral. This was a bad idea. Though, in all fairness, she’d expected him to decline the challenge. Claim it would be improper or childish or whatever.
He took everything far too seriously.
But he’d agreed, and now she needed a mistake—an overstep, a false start, a hesitation. She had been fighting since she was old enough to keep a secret, but he was better with a staff. Much better.
A flex of his jaw when she’d waited too long, a twitch of his fingers, then he turned his head and she lunged. Strong, fast, precise, flawless. Yet the blow never landed; he was there, then he wasn’t. And he did not let her recover. She deflected his strike—barely—then steadied herself and smirked at the self-satisfaction on his face.
“Remember, Solas: arrogance is never an advantage,” she taunted.
He answered with a series of blows, easily evaded, though she lost ground in the process. In an effort to regain some, she thrust the end of her staff out, but instead of dodging, he deflected. She followed that momentum to the side, rolled over one shoulder, and sprang to her feet behind him.
Without hesitation, he swung low and she leapt back, countering high. Realized her error too late. With her weight so far forward, she had no room to maneuver as he blocked the blow, flung her staff aside, then lowered his to her shoulders and drove her backwards. She heard the soft tear of canvas as her back hit the wall and wondered which painting they’d just ruined. The crowd that had parted for them roiled with a collective disappointment, then thinned as Athi thrashed against the unyielding wooden staff.
Finally, chest heaving with exertion, she relented.
Solas dipped his head low and the smell of his sweet cider filled her senses. “So you
were
paying attention,” he said with an infuriating smile. “If not taking the lesson to heart.”
Her cheeks warmed at the admonition. Nerves raw with adrenaline, every point of her body that touched him was overcharged. Overpresent. Her thigh, where he hemmed her in with a well-placed knee. Her ribcage, keeping pace with his breaths. Her fingers, curling around the staff beside his.
“I want a rematch,” she hissed back. “Without the crutch.”
“And the audience, I hope.”
“The . . . yeah.”
What?
Lips gone suddenly parchment-dry, she wet them with her tongue and could not miss the way his eyes darted downward, nor the panic they held when he forced them back up to meet her own.
Then Haven’s warning bells rang.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He told himself it was the anchor he’d lost.The anchor, that had drawn the magister’s gaze and saved them all. The anchor, buried with the rest of Haven under snow and ice and rock. The anchor, gone forever, its absence a yawning chasm between his ribs.And he’d kept his hands occupied, his thoughts on what was left. He couldn’t remember when the wind had ceased its howling or the canvas walls had stilled, but surely it had been hours by now. Hours of quiet. Hours of waiting. Hours of hanging onto scraps of hope that maybe she had survived.The anchor, not her.Then a soft and earnest voice interrupted his vigil.“Pale, pulse faint, fluttering, fading too fast. Cold, but not a corpse. Not yet. ‘Maker’s breath, we almost left her.’” Cole turned to him. “She is here. Found. Safe.”
Here. Found. Safe.
Impossible.“You should go,” Cole said. “You should be there. That will help.”The night was cloudless and dark and utterly, eerily silent. Cold starlight glinted white off the snow—a bad time for a new moon.But there, Cullen emerged into the commons, in his arms a body with familiar dark hair and Dalish armor. Her limbs dangled lifelessly, jostled by his gait. Gently! Solas thought. But Cullen was not a healer, and he could not know.Hushed whispers of Did you see? and I can’t believe it grew, and Vivienne, ever-prepared for command, sent Cullen to her own spacious tent, barking out orders for fresh water, dry blankets, healing herbs, and candles.Cullen laid her on the bed of furs and Mother Giselle took over, insisting Solas avert his eyes as she removed her armor and cut through her clothes. But he would not look away. Not now.Angry bruises blossomed on her skin, black and purple, sprawling and cruel. He found himself thankful she was unconscious as his magic raged through her body, checking for fatal injury. Any such spell would be agony in her condition. Moderate hypothermia. Broken ribs. Broken fingers. A likely-broken arm. Torn ligaments, strained muscles, excessive swelling, a probable concussion. And that was just his first pass.It was a miracle she had made it, and it would be another if they saved her.Her, not the anchor.A cocoon made of quilts. Candles, lit by chantry sisters and placed around her like a shrine. To Andraste, he thought wryly, and could almost see her sneer. Dry towels, heated by the fire and draped across her chest. They cleaned her wounds and set her bones and he healed what he could. Then, his mana spent, he sat at her bedside and held her hand under the blanket, ignoring the string of visitors. Her skin beneath his fingers was pallid, cool to the touch, her lips ashen and dry.It ached more than expected, to see her so close to lifeless. So far from herself.He stayed and held her hand and willed it to be warm.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Athi rested her head on the scaffolding’s ladder, one arm draped around the rung. The more she revisited the memory, the more it blurred into an elusive mess of charred bodies and wishful thinking. The only clear image she had left was the deep sorrow that had come over Solas as Wisdom had drifted into the ether.He had promised he’d meet her here. Hadn’t he?They had arrived nineteen days ago. Nearly three weeks of this deception. Of ignoring his absence, and this room full of evidence. The dust gathering on his desk, the unlit candles, the faint sketches on the wall. Josephine had insisted she avoid it, worried someone might get the wrong impression.Which would be, of course, the right one.Officially, Solas was in Lydes on Inquisition business. Leliana had left certain people in certain places in case anyone bothered to investigate. Couldn’t have people believing their resident expert on the Breach had gone missing.But he was missing. They’d had no word. No sightings. No sign of him whatsoever. She hadn’t even been able to find him in the Fade—not that her searches amounted to much more than groping around in the dark.That first time must have been an accident. Athi squeezed her eyes shut. The memory of their encounter was further away by months, yet somehow more vivid. Take all the time you need. In retrospect, too hyperbolic. But how could she have known he would need so much? How the fuck could a man who’d kissed her like she was his salvation have so many reservations?Would she ever get to know? What if he was gone for good? Or worse, lost or injured or—Athi jumped as the door to the throne room creaked open. Josephine emerged from the short hallway and gave her a gently reproving look.“Josie, look, I can’t just—”Josephine shushed her, then took her by the arm and steered her through the outer door. “Solas has returned,” she said once safely outside. “Or, rather, he means to.”“What? When? How do you know?”“Leliana’s agents spotted him taking a less-traveled route toward Skyhold.”Thank the fucking Creators.“However, it would reflect poorly on the Inquisition if he were to be seen re-entering Skyhold alone. Someone must inform him.” She smiled. “I thought you might want to be that someone.”Athi sprang into action. Packed hunting supplies to dissuade further suspicions. As twilight descended, she found him on a slope to the west, whole and healthy as far as she could tell. He stopped at the sight of her. Waited, breath white like clouds, for her to reach him.A step away, she hesitated. He looked tired. Heavy with grief, but there were hints of healing here and there. An apology in his eyes. Affection, nestled in the upturned corner of his lips.Heart aching with relief, Athi threw her arms around him.“I missed you.”The weight of his hand on her head echoed it back.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He woke to the sound of soldiers and the gray light before dawn. To the smell of sweat and Dalish soap. To the press of her skin, the weight of her head on his shoulder, the steady rise and fall of his hand on her back.To the bare leg thrown across his own, her thigh trapping his morning hardness between them.Deep, even breaths. Think of something else. He attempted to slip back into the Fade, but found he did not want to. Not with her held against him just so, flesh and bone and so much bare skin, real and grounding him here.She shifted and he bit back a moan, breath shuddering with the effort. Was this what it had come to, then? All his years of self-restraint, self-discipline, self-denial, only to have his willpower rendered useless by the accidental touch of a half-naked woman?Solas laughed despite himself, then sobered just as suddenly when she stirred, sleepy fingertips grazing his ribs. Her touch was grasping and languid and his nerves sang in its wake. An amendment: not a woman, this woman, and she could undo him with a finger.A warning bell sounded in his skull, but was swiftly drowned out by the sound of her breathing.She blinked her eyes open.Her gaze took a slow explorative path up to his own. He froze, as though a sudden movement might spook her, frighten her off. As though he were a hunter with his sights set on skittish prey, except he was the one ensnared.She did not move.He did not want her to.If her eyes were not so expressive, he would think her still dreaming. But she saw and she understood and she hovered there, one step from action. His heart beat out of his chest with the waiting, and the knowing she could feel it on her cheek, but as the seconds stretched out into ages he felt hers, too: beating, pulsing, mingling with his own in a syncopated staccato. Fight or flight or freeze; this was only a different sort of dangerous.“Hello,” he said, startling at the sound of his own voice in this sanctum.She looked at his mouth and he wondered if she might go back on her word. Might not wait for his decision. Might kiss him again. He half-hoped she would close the gap and save him the trouble of trying not to, but surely he’d reconsider in the daylight.Her fingers twitched—may I touch you there—and their hearts kept that breakneck pace. Then she smirked, a small self-conscious thing, as she unhooked her leg from his.“Morning, I assume?”There was no mockery in her teasing, only a warmth, a simmering suggestion.“Yes,” and he could not help but smile, “though it is early yet. There is time, still, if you’d like to sleep.”She considered his offer, then closed her eyes and tucked herself back in beneath his arm.“Perhaps a while longer.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Stay, she thought, with his body warm and solid underneath her.It wasn’t something she’d ever wanted. Not like this. Her sexual experiences, such as they were, could be counted on a hand and a half. The first was awkward limbs and budding breasts on a bed of moss, barely far enough from the aravels to call it privacy. The fourth was a dare, a conquest, an older boy who’d never so much as looked at her before. The last was unremarkable.She had wanted to try it, wanted to please them, wanted to be wanted. Then he’d kissed her out on the balcony like he craved her touch the way she did his, and she’d tried to say it. Instead, she’d stood breathless and witless and boneless in the doorway.Tonight, she’d try again. Stay, she thought, with her legs astride his lap.Their dinner sat cold and forgotten on the desk, but his taste, his scent, his fingers on her spine were sustenance enough. She could feel his arousal and his restraint, stillness at the cost of his fingernails in her flesh. The dull pain sharpened when she ground her hips against his, shuddering at the pleasure that sparked in her core. Stay, she thought, with his breath gone heavy.It was hard to pull away, but she had to ask him. Again, she rolled her hips and this time he moaned. She watched his face contort, watched as his dark brows knitted together and his cheeks flushed, lips parted and red from the work of her own eager mouth. Her eyes traced the sharp angles of him, dark and warm, almost youthful in the firelight.“Stay,” she whispered, with her heart beating out of her chest. “Please.”“That would be unwise.” But she wet her lips with a dart of her tongue, and his eyes flicked downward.It was impressive, his self-restraint. Impressive and maddening.“Unwise?” she scoffed. “If you don’t want to, just say so.”“If only that were the case.” He sighed and brushed her hair back. “Are you certain?”“Well, I did say please. What more do you want from me?”The smile he gave her was cryptic, somehow suggestive and sad. “A great deal more than I should,” he said.“Let’s just start with the basics. Do you want”—she slowly drew her tunic up and over her head, throwing it to the side—”this?”His palms ran hungry up her naked sides. “Yes.”She climbed off his lap and stood between his knees, sliding her smalls down her thighs until they dropped to the floor. “And this?”His voice was lower, ragged, hoarse. “Yes.”“Good.” She took his hand, interrupting its lazy perusal of her thigh, and led him to the bed. “How about this?” she asked, and climbed onto the too-soft mattress.His gaze did not waver as he carefully removed his jawbone necklace and hung it on the end of the wooden frame.
Yes.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
One touch was all it took. One touch and he caved, surged forward, pressed her back against the railing and kissed her. It wasn’t gentle, either. Certainly not the calm, comforting “welcome home” he had intended. No, instead of sweetness it was sinking. All fingers in her hair and hands twisted in his shirt and her searing skin trapped under too many clothes.One touch was all it took, his fumbling at the strings and she had her leathers off faster than he’d imagined possible. Then it was her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Her skin, bare and all his to touch.Solas laid her on the rug, fur by the fire and the doors flung open. Practiced fingers made short work of his clothes, then pulled him back down to her prayer-filled mouth.Her teeth grazed his chin. He shivered.“Turn over,” he said suddenly, sitting back on his heels.At first she didn’t move, and he worried he'd been too demanding. But he waited. Waited until the twitch of her lips and the catch in her breath. Then he repeated himself.“Turn over.”This time, she obeyed. Hands and knees, peering curiously over her shoulder. He rested his length on the cleft between her cheeks; how could she take him so deep? She rocked her hips and her velvet skin slid up and down his shaft.“I should leave you here more often,” she said, while the smirk on her face said please.He reached down, felt her with a finger—wet, but not enough—then spit generously into his palm and pumped himself twice, thrice, then pushed steady and slow into the tight wet heat of her. Stared downward, watching as she took him in and in and in until his thighs met the backs of hers, and she whispered an exaltation.Breathtaking, the sight of her. Her ass, curved and perfect, and the groove of her spine stretched out above it, disappearing into a sea of dark hair still woven into a braid he'd mostly ruined.He ran his hand up her side. Bent forward to pull the tie from her hair and steal a sideways kiss. Then a single shallow thrust and she moaned into his mouth.Another, for the taste of it.She asked for more and he gave it, hips snapping forward faster and harder and deeper. Her hand snaked down to chase her own end while he fucked her with abandon, face pressed tight to the shifting skin between her shoulder blades. He held out long enough for her to climb and peak and come clenching around his cock, before his own orgasm crashed through him and spilled steaming into her.As they collapsed together in a mess of skin and sweat and sex, he found he loved her somehow more than when she'd left. Then he buried the danger of that discovery deep, next to his duty, and ran his fingers through the tangles of her hair.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Emerald Graves were aptly named. A green and sprawling monument to battles long-since lost, a place where life and death collided—but gently, like the give and take of surf on sand. A place where piles of ancient stones, broken down by time and war, lay covered in rambling vines, and every tombstone sprouted new growth in the spring. And it was anything but silent.Athi rubbed at her eyes and pounding temples. In the daylight the relentless chatter of the forest was gentle and lively, but as night fell it thickened. Intensified. Crescendoed into a scream. The lack of sleep had begun to wear on her, though at least the rest of the party were in better spirits. A game of dice, a round of less-watered-than-usual drinks, a song everyone apparently knew sung wildly off-tune. Even Solas seemed content as he watched the goings-on with his arm wrapped around her shoulder.At the first few notes of a new song, however, he stood and flicked his fingers at her, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. With a groan, she took his hand. She could think of a hundred Dalish songs she’d rather move to. But these formal dances were romantic in their way, and she had been instructed—in no uncertain terms—to practice for the Winter Palace.He led her a few paces and twirled her into his arms, transitioning smoothly into the first sweeping steps. Catcalls from Sera and Bull and some of the scouts made her giggle despite herself, but Solas’ firm lead kept her from stumbling.Athi shook her head.“Something to say?”“Well, I was about to ask where you learned to dance so well, but let me guess: you saw it in the Fade.”He only smiled.Others joined them, and being part of it made her lighter. Less smothered in all the sound.“Feeling better?” Solas asked when it was over.“Yes,” she said and settled her arms around his waist. “I am.”“Good.”“Should’ve figured you’d notice.”He smirked. “You are not exactly difficult to read, though you may give me credit if you like.”“Come on then, hero.”A tug of her hand and he didn’t fight it. They stole away from camp, their escape masked by the rustling trees and the colorless dark. The path along the cliff’s edge took them higher and higher, then suddenly spilled them out into a sea of little white flowers, barely there but for the glimpse of moonlight peeking through the canopy. Athi bent to brush her fingers against their petals.Unlike the sharp, stiff grasses of Skyhold, the groundcover here was dense—soft and cool against their bare feet. A floor of moss and snowdrops with a vaulted ceiling of branches; even Celene’s ballroom could not match such grandeur. “Ar lath ma.” Solas lowered his forehead to hers as they swayed to the far-off music.She pressed her lips to his once. Again. Inhaled the scent of smoke lingering on his skin. “I know.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He had spent the evening sipping fine wine and listening for whispers, using his relative invisibility for the Inquisition's benefit. And for his own. Yet even as he watched the peacocks posture and palaver, his eyes passed unaffected over the deep reds and blues, the lace, the rich patterns, and the heavy fabrics. Instead, they leapt toward every glint of gold, hoping for a glimpse of rich dark hair, swept up to bare a slender neck and graceful shoulders.Understandably, her task consumed much of her time, and took her far from his shadowed corner. Yet she had made it a point to ask how he was enjoying his night—and to make sure he’d been treated well. Despite his pointed ears, she had meant, but did not bother to say.She had passed him twice more before the sun had set. Each time, he had watched her slip down the hall from one gluttonous grasp to another. Each time, he had resisted the urge to take her by the wrist and pull her close. To draw her to his chest. To bury his nose in the curve of her jaw. To inhale the curious blend of expensive perfume and her own intoxicating aroma.From there, his fantasies diverged. He could ask her to dance. Lead her through these new and unimaginative steps, then introduce a few of his own. “Let them see,” he’d tell her. “Let them watch.” And oh, they would watch. She would have been a sight, dancing in Arlathan.But his baser instincts drew him down another path, one in which he forgot the wine and the music and the nobler purpose of the evening. He was already drunk on the sweetness of her lips. He could already feel the heat of her against him, his hands dividing fabric from her silk-soft skin, a fist in her hair. He could already see her green eyes heavy-lidded for him—and him alone.“Let them see,” he’d tell her. “Let them watch.”There. She entered from the garden, though he had not seen her through the window, and smiled demurely as she approached. Driven to distraction by his own imagination, he could resist no longer. He stepped into her path and she slowed as if for a moment of private council."You are lovely."It was nothing. A single hushed moment, a low murmur in passing that raised the blood to her cheeks before she inevitably slipped away to resume her part in this game of threats and liars. Given the setting, their nearness was hardly intimate, but as his fingers brushed her hip and hers drifted toward his thigh, the tension between them hung heavy in the air and lingered long after she’d gone.An agreement, unspoken but understood:
Later.
Later, then. And in the meantime, he would simply have to content himself with wine and whispers and wanting.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The air felt like penance. Every breath like glass in her lungs and she breathed in deep.
Live well, da’len.
The statue sat in a clearing, as they often did, holding vigil over clans long-since gone from this haunted, hollow place. There was another just like it outside their camp at Wycome. Hand to frozen chest, she circled him slowly. Shoulder to flank and around, rough dry rock catching at her fingertips until she stood before his empty eyes.Fen’Harel. The dread wolf. Hunter. Watchman. Protector.She spit into the snow.
Useless piece of shit.
She hadn’t believed in the gods for a long, long time, but that seemed unimportant just now. Because this one, this pretender here in front of her had failed her friends, her family, her people, his people, people who had trusted him to keep them safe and then he had let their murderers walk right under his nose to kill them within their own fucking borders.A gesture, and a flame was lit in her palm, pooling and growing and whispering of rage and destruction, it swallowed him whole yet it did not touch him. Vacant stare and ears perked, always listening, not even scorched black.
Traitor.
She rained fire down upon them both, snow hissing and melting around her; a few branches caught and smoked and burned, but still he sat on his pedestal, unbroken, unaffected.
Deceiver.
When her mana was spent, she put her blades to his hide. But they were cold, brittle, and when they broke against it she threw them, ruined, aside to attack him with her fists. Skin and flesh and knuckles on stone and the gray began to bleed. Something snapped; maybe a bone. She had been numb for hours.
Fraud.
She screamed—accusing, condemning, cursing without language or letter. Then, fury echoing exhausted off the red-infested cliffs of the Emprise, she knelt before the statue in an icy pool of her own making, and wondered when exactly the dread wolf had caught her scent.And when, exactly, she had become so very like him. For it was her foolishness, not his treachery, that had brought her people to ruin. And it was their trust in her, not him, that had been their undoing.Of course he’d caught her scent. She had left him a trail of blood a mile wide to follow.
They are coming for us.
Not da’len.
Harellan.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
For the second night in a row, he could not find her in the Fade. Loosening his grip on that world, Solas arose to search for her in this one. He rubbed at his eyes. Stretched his stiff joints. Then wrapped their blanket around his shoulders and pulled on his boots and stepped outside.Blackwall looked up from his carving, then pointedly toward the lake.It had been weeks since that letter had arrived. Weeks since he had seen her smile. She was listless and subdued, eating no more than prompted, tossing and turning when she came to bed at all. Their journey toward Adamant had been easy so far, but Athi was reckless even on a good day. To fight a battle so distracted—No. Such thoughts must not gain a foothold.He found her as she walked the shoreline and she came to him readily enough, resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped the blanket around them both and pressed his lips to her forehead. Her skin was freezing. “I am worried for you,” he said.Her fingernails scratched idly against his back.“Please, vhenan. Talk to me.”“You can’t forgive me.”“You require no forgiveness but your own. Wycome was not your fault.”Her scoff made it clear she had already dismissed the notion. He leaned back and lifted her chin so she’d meet his eyes.“Your guilt will consume you,” he said. “You must let it go.”Those were the wrong words. Athi wrenched herself from his embrace and shoved him; taken by surprise, he staggered backwards.“Tell that to the dead,” she snapped, pacing along the water. “You don’t know what it’s like to choose! Who we help and when we don’t and who lives and who dies and it’s always someone who matters to someone. That this was my people makes no difference. It’s always my call. Always my fault.”She glared up at him as he took a cautious step forward. “Who have you killed, Solas? What people have you to lose?”Eyes afire, voice full of venom. To hear her say such things and be unable to tell her—oh, how he wished he could tell her.
I know. I have been there. Let me help you bear this.
Instead he sighed and raised his hands in submission.“I am sorry,” he said. “It was not my intent to cause you more pain. Yet I understand your grief better than you may think”—he brushed his thumb along her jawline, sharp and tense and stubborn but at least she allowed it—“and a very kind friend once told me that I did not need to mourn alone. So if you believe I will abandon you now over an insult, you are mistaken.”As her fists unclenched and her scowl untwisted and her shoulders sagged and her cheeks glinted wet in the moonlight, he held her once more. This time she clung to him like a lost child. Hands cold, heart wide open.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Stargazing was supposed to be romantic. Alone together, wrapped up in blankets, finding excuses to touch. This had all the pieces, but somehow it wasn’t the same when it wasn’t on purpose. The Well had gotten into her dreams again. It was easier to understand images than words from a dead language, but these had been terrifying. Mass slaughter, rivers of blood, a cataclysm. A reckoning? She had run from it. Tried to let Solas sleep, but he had brought her outside instead.Athi stared up into the dark and looked for all the constellations she could remember, all the ones Papae had taught her. But they would not sit still. Voices hissed and churned inside her head, insisting on old names and off-kilter charts that left her dizzy. Had the ancients lived under a different set of stars?“I don’t know that I’d have taken it before,” she blurted out.“The vir’abelasan?” Solas asked. “Why did you?”As she searched for the starting point, the black went navy and the stars began to fade. “You once asked me if I missed life with my clan,” she finally said.“Yes, I remember.”“I lied to you. Back then I was afraid, sure, but more than that I was excited. I always wanted to be elsewhere. To go off on my own. See everything. Try anything. And now they're gone, and I realize I only wanted to leave because I knew I could come back.”A light beyond the mountains was turning the eastern sky gold, with scattered streaks of lavender and rose.“They were the soil that grew me. My tether to safety, to something solid. I just feel so—” Incomplete. Inadequate. A deep, trembling breath. “Adrift.”His hand found hers. Squeezed gently, a comfort. “You have lost a great deal.”“I’m all that’s left of Clan Lavellan.” The fact cut no matter how softly it was spoken. “I couldn’t lose this too.”Athi laid her head on his shoulder to watch the sun rise to full glory, draping the morning clouds in ever-changing colors. Romantic, even by accident.“I love you, you know.”Solas stiffened.She’d never said it out loud, but it couldn’t be an unprecedented revelation. It had been true for ages. Besides, neither of them really loved that way. He had said it in the first five minutes, but then had waited so long to repeat it she’d thought she misheard. She clung to his arm. Traced his fingers. Looked up at his face and wondered if he knew how he made her feel—strong and weak all at once, unstoppable and fearless and whole—even if she never told him. Wondered if she had the same effect on him.Something serious flashed across his features for a fraction of a second before he smiled and said, "I know."As he kissed her, he spelled it into the small of her back, and she breathed it into his lips: I love you; I would not lose you.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Solas had been wrong so many times. By now it was almost a point of pride to know when to swallow his and admit it. To know when to stop, to apologize, to make things right. A skill learned from Wisdom—and from having had countless opportunities to practice.
Freshly washed hair between his fingertips, swept off her face and tucked behind her ear. The hot bath had been coin well-spent. Crackling flame from the hearth lent its color to the bed sheets as he ran his knuckles down the smooth curve of her side; even in her sleep, her skin prickled.
An error in judgment, to burden a mortal with the matters of eons. A moral failure, to have kept it from her so long. A miscalculation, to draw his confession out with a substantial journey, forced to spend half of each minute in certainty and the other in doubt. A selfish mistake, to stop at this inn for the night rather than pressing on to their destination.
But to love her in the first place? To accept her love in return? Did these number among his sins?
The effort of preparing for her reaction left his stomach in knots and his mind in turmoil. At every turn Athi proved herself worthy. Of accolades. Devotion. Trust. Of the loyalty of her friends, the honor bestowed upon her name, the power laid at her feet. And every morsel of truth he’d offered her so far—his mastery of dreams, the inaccuracies of history, the orb’s origins, the importance of strengthening the veil—she had considered with respect, but never blind deference.
However, those truths had not been personally felt, and the ones he yet withheld likely would be. What would she do, once she had heard all he had to say? Would she even let him finish speaking? Would she feel betrayed? Horrified? Would she turn on him? Would she sympathize with his reasons, admire his cause, or think him a monster? Would she love him still? Love him less? Not at all? One way or another, she would pass judgment on him as she had so many others for far lesser crimes than his own.
She stirred, stretched, smacked her lips. Muttered something unintelligible. Caught his hand in hers and held it close.
Solas recognized no gods, no true higher powers. So he laid his head on the pillow beside her, nuzzled his face into her neck, and whispered his prayer into the soft skin of the only person who could grant it.
He knew her. Knew her hands, sharp knuckles and scars, small inside of his and almost always warm. Knew her scent, indescribable but familiar. Knew her heart, full of empathy and compassion. Knew her vibrant spirit and quick temper and open mind and endless, obstinate hope. This was the one he loved, and he knew her—fears and flaws and all.
It would be wrong to let her love him without knowing.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Sure you wanna do this, boss?”Sure?She had been sure that he loved her. Truth in his face, his voice, his hands, then he’d turned away. Told her it was done. Fended her off like a plague.She had been sure he’d change his mind. Find her at the inn and take her in his arms, take it back, take her home. Tell her again how perfect she was, but two nights full of liquor and loneliness had proved her wrong once again.Now she was sure of nothing. Not this plan. Not their survival. Not even the promise of a violent catharsis. Absolutely nothing but the itching, aching anger screaming beneath her skin.Far above her, the dragon shrieked, and it left her ears ringing. The air around the beast hummed, its electric charge snapping bright and hot off its scales and leaving blackened scorch marks in the green. Lightning on land; a storm made flesh; a wild, lovely thing. And its eyes gleamed with purpose: murder, or hunger, or terror, or indignation.Hopefully, more of the first one, as she had no room for compassion today.They approached, practiced but cautious, looking to her for the signal and when she gave it, the dance began. Her magic was barely a distraction for the beast, to keep its gaze from Sera's true aim and Bull's pure force and Cassandra's sharp blade. She did her best to keep their barriers up, but her mana reserves ran low more than once.In her defense, they were lucky she’d managed to learn the spell at all.The fight lasted less than twenty adrenaline-fueled minutes that felt like seconds and days all at once. Then the dragon, exhausted, overreached.Cassandra did not waste a moment. There, her sword plunged deep into its heart.A fatal blow.The dragon raged against the end as all living creatures do with their last bit of breath, but the battle was won, or would be in a matter of moments. Athi walked away as the beautiful beast came thundering down behind her.“Lavellan!”Like their prey, like a fool, she had let her guard down too soon. One final thrash of its tail caught her side, throwing her down and pinning her beneath its weight. She hit the ground unprepared. Uncontrolled. Head and shoulder and hip to the hard-packed dirt; surely her bones would be in pieces. Ears ringing, vision blurry, air too thick to suck it into her lungs. All she knew was her arm, and her hand connected to it, and the black burned grass stretched out in front of her toward infinity. She flexed her fingers.Blood under her nails—maybe hers, maybe not.She didn't care.It didn't matter.She was just so very, very tired.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Magically gifted or otherwise, any healer worth their salt knew how to mend a wound. Rest, fluids, time. Certain flora could be applied directly or brewed as a tea or dried, ground, boiled, and refined into a potion. There were spells to ease headaches, knit broken skin, set and fuse bones. The exceptionally skilled could even grow new limbs.Solas knew thousands of remedies, all of them useless. Even if he could somehow help, Athi would not even look in his direction.His own wound was nowhere. Everywhere. It scabbed over in the frenzy and cracked in the quiet—in the time he couldn’t fill. Though well-meant, the kind gestures of his friends, all their questions and platitudes, only quickened the drip of wistful self-pity that stained his sleep like inkblots on a page. He did not have to dream in such a passive untrained ordinary sort of way, but when he did, he dreamed of her. And it always hurt, in the end. To tear himself away. To accept the loss, over and over, again and again.Yes, it always hurt—but not until the end.So he slept, and opened his eyes in the Oasis. The falls thundered down, glittering and gleaming and cleansing his pores of the stench of sulfur and the stubborn sand that had dogged them all for weeks and rubbed both skin and tempers raw. Nearby, Athi combed her fingers along her scalp. Deft, ginger strokes, then she pulled her hair to the other side and repeated the process. Tipped her head back and closed her eyes, blissful. Solas remembered this. The water lilies and blinding blue sky and the play of light and shadow across her face.
Forgive me.
He focused on her reflection.Fell through.Surfaced.She writhed underneath him, tender busy touches that traveled his body like a long-awaited reunion. He recalled this, too. How she giggled in anticipation and grinned at him from the pillow as he slowly kissed his way down between her breasts, her ribs, her hips, her legs. Two fingers sunk in deep, curling and coaxing her towards climax while he drank of her greedily. Of her heady taste and her noisy little ecstasies. Of her lower lip drawn between her teeth. Of the pleading press of her thighs, tight around his head as she tried to pull him ever closer, then remembered to let him breathe.Breathing be damned—he wanted her. Desired her.Loved her.He could stay here tonight. Could immerse himself in this memory, this vision shaped by spirits of love and nostalgia and intimacy, but to what end? Her ghost was not, would never be, enough.Alone once again, he wandered.He would tell her. Once it was over. Once he possessed the orb and the power therein, and the fate of the world no longer hung on her acceptance of one man’s word. He would tell her the truth and tell her he loved her and then he would do what must be done.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It tore her from a dead sleep. Carved into her dreams like a searing hot knife and she woke up startled and sobbing.The Anchor was getting worse. It sputtered angrily in her palm and she clenched her fist to keep from crying out. Her nails were short. Blunt, but strong. They would leave marks, but Skyhold was quiet and her windows flung open to let in the stars. She would not loose her pain on the winds only to have it be caught and spread by whispers through the halls of this keep. Green light leaked from between her fingers, flaring as a fresh wave rolled up her arm and crested in her shoulder. It overcame her, and she vomited onto the floor.She had put this off for too long.It happened twice more on her way to his room. Twice more, she bit back her screams. Twice more, her stomach turned. And to think, after Crestwood she’d been grateful for the distance. But at last, she stood outside his door and knocked.It opened within seconds.“Inquisitor.”She tried to say the words: Help me. Fix it. Make it stop. But Solas did not wait for her to speak. He took her hand in his as he had so many times before. One below—thumb hooked with hers, fingers on her wrist—the other above. Tears of relief spilled onto her cheeks when he pressed the soothing spell into her skin.“You should have come to me,” he said quietly.“I did.”“Athi—”“Don't." Her voice was clipped. Shaky, like her limbs, her strength sapped by the night's attacks. “I may require your skills, but I don't want your concern. So you don't get to lecture me on taking care of myself or hanging back in a fight or reconsidering my strategy or ‘utilizing my unique power to enact change.’ Or this. Not anymore. ”It was unfair, and ungracious, and unkind. And it cut him deeply. His mask slipped, only for the briefest of moments, but it was long enough for her to see underneath. Long enough for her to see the dark circles under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders before they straightened.“You regret it," she said. "Leaving.”He glared at her, cool and stern and telling, and took his hands from hers. “No, it was the right decision.”“Yet you regret it.” She got up to leave but stopped at the door, turned, and met his eyes for the first time in weeks. “I know the feeling well.”She left him, left his tired eyes and heavy shoulders and curiously broken heart, and did not sleep the rest of the night.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
One year to the day.
Not that Solas was keeping track of such things; sentimentality was an indulgence he could not afford. And had he stuck to his intended route, the occasion would have been safely overlooked.
Fate, however, had other plans. Ones that involved a weak seam on his pack’s shoulder strap, a broken tree branch, and a sewing needle with a death wish—at least he had learned not to attempt repairs by a water source when one has already lost one’s spares. Luckily, he was close enough to a town for a detour.
At first, the cause for the widespread festivities had not been apparent. But while he perused a stall full of cloth, yarn, and spools of thread—and, hopefully, the needles he sought—a child’s shout of “Gut him, Inquisitor!” turned his head toward a crowd surrounding a nearby marionette show. Wood and paint and string made a marked improvement on Corypheus’ figure even as they did the Glorious Herald of Andraste no justice whatsoever.
Solas watched for a while, amused by the dramatic reenactment, then made his purchase and left.
Later, at camp, with the necessary repairs made to his gear, he struggled to take his mind off the memory of that day. The magister’s gruesome end. The sense of triumph followed by a crushing defeat. The touch of Athi’s hand on his shoulder as he had cradled the dead fragments of his plans. The misplaced guilt on her face.
It was never your fault.
He intuitively reached up to grasp his shoulder as though her hand were still there. Insides aching at its absence, he leaned over and pulled his sketchbook from the pocket of his pack as well as a charcoal pencil, tip still sharp.
The first empty page stared at him, so he turned back a few to remember how the lines used to go and instead recalled the reason he stopped. Each attempt had somehow turned to her. What once had been a simple, gentle act of creation had become painful. Solas flipped once more to that clean new page and set his pencil to its blank slate, resolved on a plan of action: he would draw her. Intentionally, this time, and perhaps, like an itch finally scratched, his folly may at last be laid to rest.
He drew her eyes, filling two full leaves with every expressive iteration he could conjure. Her face, mid-smile. Then that miserable creature she always fed, curled up in repose underneath her throne. The view out her balcony. Her hand, extended as if to close a rift, fingers splayed and strong, magic threading out from the palm toward the paper’s surface.
Toward him.
He tossed the leather-bound pages aside and buried his head in his hands.
It was no use. Even if she were no one of importance. Even if he never again heard her name uttered aloud or saw her likeness carved of marble, he could not forget her. Not in one year, nor in thousands.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Anchor hissed and crackled with another violent flare. Athi whimpered, steeled herself, then discharged the energy with a pulse that shook her bones and set her nerves on fire. The effort to keep from screaming out into the expanse brought copper to her tongue and tears to her eyes.It was killing her. Had been deteriorating for years, but not like this. The pain was blinding in its intensity. She couldn’t even recall the last night she slept through till morning or the last full meal she ate and kept down. Momentum and spite were driving her now, and Bull’s soothing hand on her back nearly broke her, so she shrugged it away and pressed on. He knew how bad it was, though he didn’t say as much. The others seemed to accept her word on the subject, though she’d seen their increasingly frantic expressions.Maybe if she had been better prepared; two years of relative quiet had made her slow and soft and, apparently, stupid. She hadn’t been ready for any of this. The Winter Palace. Politics, corruption, plans for war. The Crossroads. The mountain fortress. The deep roads. The library. The Viddasala and her dragon.And Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf. Solas.She should have known. Should have seen it so much sooner. Maybe not the whole ridiculous truth, but something. She hadn’t told the others yet. Hoping it wasn’t true, or that it wouldn’t matter, or that this fucking thing would kill her before she had to come clean.So long as it waited until she found him.She had wished so many times for a reunion. Imagined what she would say to change his mind and bring him back. Or, instead, her fingers at the nape of his neck, her lips against his saying everything without saying it at all. Time had dulled that particular pain—time, and a newfound appreciation for her work. Varric had been the next to go. Then Dorian, Vivienne, Thom. Gone to return home, to seek a new one, to move on. At least they had told her why.And it was comforting, in a way, the impermanence of it all. Nothing endured. Not pain. Not love. Not the immortal evil of Corypheus or the power of the Elvhen. Not the path of a river. Not even the strength of the Veil.Everything changed. Everything faded.Yet even so, some small persistent part of her held fast to every sliver of hope. The same part that stung at the mention of his name glowed brighter with each clue to his past or hint of his presence. A secret shoved deep, hidden by countless distractions and deflections and outright lies, it swelled at the thought of him. Somewhere ahead. At the end of her path. Through the next eluvian or the one after that. With answers, if nothing else.As she stepped through, she wondered if he’d even kiss her back, and her heart strained against its shell of gauze and glue.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Weak, foolish man.
He had stayed away from her for so many nights, only to be driven back here by a cheap periodical. An exclusive, its cover had claimed in flourishing script. Placed atop more pressing concerns, important reports and files, but none of those had captured the likeness of her eyes so well.
Across a great chasm, the Fade whipped around her like a sheet hung out to dry and caught by a fierce autumn breeze. It was more difficult for her to control it now, like this. Without the Anchor. And she seemed less inclined to make the effort.
Her focus sharpened, quieting the noise to a steady hum as tendrils of white and gray and green flowed into the stone shapes of Skyhold. From where she stood just outside the portcullis, its walls loomed above her, conjured in such detail that one could almost smell the usual blend of shit and smoke and potent healing herbs wafting out from its gaping mouth.
Athi straightened, turned, lifted her gaze to meet his. The bridge stretched out empty and endless before her. Between them. He waited for her to try to close the gap as she always did. A wasted effort; her dream, but his domain.
This time, however, she remained where she was.
“Solas,” she said, voice soft as a caress despite the impossible distance. “Aren’t you tired of this?”
A pause. A chance to respond though they both knew he would not take it. Being here at all was a broken rule, and she had been his downfall too many times already to risk even one single step more.
“Of fighting?” she continued. “Of staying away, of being alone? Aren't you sick of it?”
When again he did not answer, she laughed, but it was made of tin and not sunlight. “I know you read it. It’s fucking everywhere. That’s why you’re here, right? Because they asked if I still loved you and I said, ‘No.’ Said you meant nothing.” Hands at her side, she squeezed them into fists, flexed the fingers back out, pressed on each knuckle with her thumbs. “You want to know if I lied to save face. If I miss you, even now. Even after everything.”
An unnecessary breath. A sad smile. A tilt of her lovely head.
“So ask me. Ask me, and I’ll tell you.”
A ploy, and an effective one. As the silence simmered, he found himself contemplating the minimum number of words needed to extract the information he desired.
Do you?
was only two; could a rule so barely broken really endanger all he had worked for?
How much might she say in exchange for so little?
Solas clenched his jaw tight. Whether she did or did not love him was immaterial. No good could come from knowing.
Disappointment plain on her face, she lifted her left hand in a gesture of farewell, then looked at it curiously. It flickered. Shimmered. Sputtered out.
Stay,
but she was already gone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This didn’t feel like the end.She wasn’t particularly ready, to be honest. Her life had been spent in great swaths, not steady little bits; she could divide it into sections, count them on her fingers, and toss them to the wind. One time for growing. One time for waiting. One great adventure. One great love.He stepped away from the ritual place and took her hand. “It’s time,” he said, like the universe had told him so.It wasn’t fair, but it didn’t matter.She had tried to stop him, had schemed and pleaded and fought and failed. She hadn’t found another way. Everyone they both knew was dead. Everything was lost. There was no going back. There was only this inescapable sacrifice and the sliver of hope it offered.There was only the end of the world, and at the center of it all, the two of them.So they waited above quiet battlefields with their broken hearts, hoping at least to catch a glimpse of the next one, together.“We could have been happy,” she said, and searched the unknowable horizon. “If you could have been content. I would have helped you mend your clothes and warmed you at night and kissed you every single morning. We could have seen every vile and wild and beautiful place in this world, you and I. We could have had—”“I know, vhenan.” His voice was heavy, and she looked up to see tears spilling down his cheeks.He made no attempt to hide his sorrow, and nothing could alleviate hers. But still she fit herself into that space between his shoulders, and he cried into her hair, and they grieved what had been irretrievably lost, together.Then the air rumbled, everywhere, all at once.Her eyes burned and her skin went cold. She stayed in his arms—not safe, but satisfied—as they watched, and breathed, together.Around and above and below and within them, shards of the universe cracked into being, wavering like water, shattering like glass. The sky rained in broken pieces, pooling pure light in every dark place and leaving a shimmering radiance in its wake. For the briefest, sweetest moment, this new world was bathed in full color.And the last thing they knew was each other. Ancient and new, whole and broken, pride and hope and love.Ephemeral and infinite.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
· | ·
i did my best, it wasn't much
i couldn't feel, so i tried to touch
i've told the truth—i didn't come to fool you
and even though it all went wrong, i'll stand before the lord of song
with nothing on my tongue
but hallelujah
· | ·