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Chapter Text

"Our Augur knows many things; the bounty of a hunt, the harshness of a coming winter, bloody disputes between our clans. But sometimes, the Spirits show them something greater, ever-spanning; a knot, tied in the web of fate."

She hears water drip from somewhere in the looming darkness, an echo thrown down stone-laden halls. And here too she sits, chained, with bloodied hands fastened in solid-iron manacles. 

There are guards nearby, she knows, shifting in their battered plate armor- eyes trained warily upon her. Watching as she sits as still as the stone where she is kneeling, head raised and eyes open to the darkness around her. Her muscles burn with anticipation, bones rattling in the wrongness of her iron ties- 

"Never captured, never caged. Sooner to die on our own spears than as prisoner to lowlanders. Die free, and your soul will return to the Lady."

She does not regret charging and bashing the little guards as they entered her cage to wake her from her feigned "sleep." But she does regret not reaching for their leaf-thin blades in time, before they wrestled her to the ground like a bogfisher for slaughter. So now she listens to the movements in the shadows, knowing that another armored whelp will soon come; to try to intimidate her, or convert her to worship their Maker, she's sure. That's how the lowlanders do it. 

When her next chance comes, she will not miss it. 

For now she keeps her ears trained like a cornered hold-beast; feral and tense, muscles coiled and ready to charge. Grinding her teeth and eyes wide to the shadows, watching for movement, she feels her mind slipping. To the bitter chill of the wind that blows through the hold, a respite from the warm, heavy damp she sits in now. The caw of the ravens that follow the hunt back home, the bleating of the goatherd, the cry of a winter's wind as it whirls over mountain crags and peaks and funnels through the pass. 

She remembers the careful and wrinkled hands of her weaver-teacher, who taught her how to braid rope and nets and basket for the fishing of the river. Remembers her voice, croaking and quiet like dawn-frogs that became strong with clan songs telling tales with wild, expressive eyes. But when her hands shook too much to weave the netting, and then too delicate to do much else, and when her voice could not shout, but only warble, then lull, then hum. She then became the next lead-weaver, sitting at the feet of the fire where old Liva rocked in furs and blessed charms, humming under the cyclical tune of the spring weaving song. 

That lughead Stone-Spear said he would watch over her cares while she was gone on this cursed mission, and Gudrun only hoped that the fool would keep his hollow words this time.

The bitter chill of the ice season still looms heavy in the mountain peaks- but she can taste the promise of spring in the air, carrying the weight of running water and rain, the clearness of light breaking from darkness. She doesn't know where she's been taken and tied like an animal for slaughter- but by the taste in the air, the weaving season will have grown fat in her clan's home as all prepare for the coming time of harvest. The spirits of the rivers wake in the light of the sun, and water runs through cracks in the mountain like blood through veins- and Gudrun will miss it, when she dies her lonely death in this forsaken cave. But she will not go alone, she thinks, eyeing the teasing glint of her captor's leaf-blades. 

A heavy, metallic roar sounds through the dark tunnel ahead of her- and she sees two figures step through a blinding white light before the door closes. More whelps, she thinks before eyeing the sturdy blade resting on the hip of the woman with hair like night, the look in her eyes shining even darker. A chief, then. 

Keeping her eyes locked with the spike-maned warrior, Gudrun feels her back tighten like iron and her throat closes against the heavy grunt rising from her chest- the humming pain from her hand weaves like thornbrush through her veins, but she only balls her injured hand closer to her legs. The spirits have answered her calls; an honor-bound death draws near, and she can let nothing steal this moment.

The dark-haired woman finally speaks her empty words after circling like a hungry carrion-bird above her, but nothing is louder than the sudden rush of blood sounding through her ears- louder than the first run of rivers after a white-fur winter, louder than a crack of thunder ringing through valley paths, and even louder than the shouts of that dark-haired woman who swoops down to drag her manacled hand to her face.

Green.

Green light swarms her blurring vision as her hand bursts open in a cruel spasm, and she can no longer control the grunt of pain that tears itself from her throat as she watches her hand in the throes of it's attack. Lowlander magic, she knows, and has heard of the twisted and spiritless practice they perform in their Chantries and busy marketplaces. Mages too deaf, too dumb to speak with the spirits- who use their empty magic to destroy, not consult, not guide through the bitter seasons, or lead their clans through treacherous mountain passes.

"Die free, and your soul will return to the Lady."

This empty magic is no honorable death.

The raven-haired woman is still holding her injured manacled hand when she twists her opposite wrist in it's iron cage, swinging the bar of metal out towards the other woman who deftly avoids it's momentum. Clenching her jaw tight against the knife-sharp pain, she uses her injured hand to grab the wrist of the other warrior, attempting to drag her body down while lifting hers from it's kneeling. Her bones creak through the movement and the damp that settled in her aching joints, but she pushes that pain down with the rest of it- she must work fast, muscles moving hard in their binds as she grapples the raven-woman. 

In their sudden tussle, the guard-whelps stand and watch helpless around their swinging limbs and clashing fists- yet the fight is brief, before a fire-haired woman approaches from the darkness and eyes the panting warriors, stalled in their brawl with wild eyes locked on the other; butting heads like fighting rams stuck together. 

"If you two are done..." The woman trails off with an odd look, gesturing towards the heavy iron-wrought door. A guard-whelp rushes to tug the door open, looking nervously between the stalled warriors and the fire-haired woman- as blinding light and bitter winds flood to fill the metal cavern. "There are larger things to attend to."

Suddenly, the chiefly woman swings her arms out and around Gudrun's deadlock hold- grappling the woman's bound arms until she can lower the Avvar to grasp around her neck like a pup, letting out a frustrated breath. She flips the sweatened spikes from her darkened eyes, burning with fire-like anger- and growls through grated to the woman struggling in her grasp, "You are right. We will show the prisoner what she's done," she emphasizes with a jolt pushing the Avvar forward.

Her eyes burn against the blinding white light as they step into the mountain air, and she feels like a pup oncemore- eyes barely able to open against the daylight she hadn't seen in weeks, with an armored hand digging roughly into her nape as a bite to the scruff. She willfully drags her fur-bound feet against the stone ground as they step into the bone-deep chill of the mountain pass. This is not her people's mountain, she knows- the air settles too heavy in the crags and valleys, and the sky is not that familiar stormy blue but...

Green.

Once again green light floods the squinting slits of her eyes, stubbornly blinking away her snow-tears as her eyes adjust to the daylight reflected in the ice-packed cliff faces. Her hand aches in pulses oncemore but she ignores it, looking mournfully at the cursed sight with her hands limp in front of her.

The Lady is torn asunder. In a swirling mass of green light and fog that settles like clouds, moving as lazily as a summer wellspring, the spirits of the skies knot themselves with magic-sickness, torn open and weeping. No hunting birds soar 'round the cragged mountain peaks, where the rockmice would be sprouting like seedlings from their winter breeding. No calls carried from roaming herd-beasts coming down to green valley meadows. No sound of the spirit of the mountain drifting on the wind- only a distant crack from the Lady's sky-wound, flashing like lightning.

Her own hand, where that same green spiritless magic pours from her fist, radiates in sharp pains before cracking like it's mother wound, sending more pain up her arm- through her elbow, to her shoulder, and spreading like spiderwebs towards her heart. Another grunt of pain erupts from her throat, and she watches the green light from both wounds beat in a low, pulsing rhythm. It thumps like a clan-drum through her veins and through the air itself, and she knows the spirits of the sky weep to the song of it.

 
The raven-haired ram woman turns to her and before she can speak, the other woman with her hood falling against her eyes, interrupts: "You know she's no mage, Cassandra." 

Cassandra looks skeptically at the other woman, a wrinkle forming between her harsh brows and a frown twisting her lips. With the ease at which her face settles into that expression, Gunhuld has a feeling she does it often.

The skeptical woman looks up at the Avvar through a dark and heavy brow, and seems to weigh her carefully- from her fur-wrapped feet to the wild mane of hair atop her head, to the stubborn set of her eyes where she looks with a mixture of mourning and hateful anger to the tear in the sky.

"I will take you to the Breach, where we believe it all began- this is our only chance. To seal the hole in the sky." Cassandra watches the woman in front of her with an intense look, seeming to will her through eyes alone to follow her in this duty. "Then, we will see if you are guilty- or not."

The tall warrior sets her shoulders mournfully, a harsh look settling in her eye as she straightens her back to look the Seeker in the eye. Determination and anger in equal parts settle in her eyes- like rocks in water, rippling through her body until all the aches of her captivity are forgotten, and the pain in her hand feels like a whip against the backside of a packbeast.

"Not for your courts or judgement, Lowlander-" she spits out with anger, "but for the Lady, I will weave this wound that you have given her." She looks down at the palm of her hand, cut in matching wound with her Lady as a low, groaning wave of energy spreads from the sky to her hand.

"Die free, and your soul will return to the Lady."

Chapter Text

There he stands, the elf-mage with his back to the village with pale hands clasped behind him- dressed in forest-colored rags that hang off his form in patchwork swathes. From where she watches him, she can see the green light of the sky dance on the shiny skin of his head, and she huffs a laugh at the image that forms in her mind, of a very round rock covered in morning-dew moss.

Her chuffing gives away her position behind the elf, and though he doesn't turn she watches his shoulders tense briefly. Her clan never got many of the elf-kind passing through their remote mountain camps, but Varric; the barrel-chested dwarf without a beard, told her that this elf is the sole reason she lived while the wound of the Lady consumed her.

He's a talented mage- different from the others of this strange land that she has seen so far. At the Breach he spoke with clear knowing of the spirits that spat out at them, thrown like pebbles from rockfall. "You watch the wound of the Lady all day, elf." Her tone is teasing as he addresses him, and he turns with a polite smile pulling at his eyes and lips, "Do you watch for more messages from the sky-spirits?"

He shakes his head gently but his eyes don't leave her approaching form, now watching her as he watched the sky before. "Tell me," he asks in a calm and lilting voice, "what do you see, when you look to the Breach in the sky?" He turned his back to her again, once more looking upwards towards the sky- eyes trained solely on the swirling mass of green light and magic.

Lumbering closer towards him, her fur-wrapped feet shuffle through the snow next to him as she stands beside him, her head raised towards the bleeding wound in the Lady of the Skies. Her mouth twists together, pained for a moment while she considers his question.

"An Augur would know better than a simple-minded weaver," and a roguish light flashes briefly in her eyes for the moment that their eyes meet, a small smirk across her face- "but I hear the silence in the mountain's spirit. Even the northern winds dare not blow 'neath that scar." Her hand suddenly pulses with more green light, sputtering magic as the Lady coughs a pained murmur from above. "And this pain of a pit in my palm…" She shakes her hand as if throwing the magic of the mark to the earth.  "I know that whatever the spirits told the Augur that ordered me to be here ," she gestures with one fell sweep of a strong arm to the village behind them, "is connected to this scratch on my hand."

Solas turns himself to face the Avvar fully, "An astute observation-" he adds, "and you are correct." Sea-blue eyes alight with playful mirth, hands still clasped unconcerned behind his back. "The magic of the mark on your hand seems to be tied with the very magic of the Breach itself, likely of the same origin." He considers her carefully, watching the loose strands of her hair flutter wildly in the bitter wind, slipping from the haphazard braid slung over one brawny shoulder. "Many would not have noticed, or cared to notice."

The Avvar woman cocks one rounded hip to meet her hand, resting on the quilted leather padding- and a raffish grin stretches broad across her features. She looks towards the elf with playful skepticism, despite the chiding tone of her voice. "You've already saved my life, elf- do you think I need flattery to extend my proper thanks?" 

"You do not appear as a woman who rejects flattery," he says, a smirk curling at the corners of his mouth- and Gudrun watches the plumpness of his lips move, reddened in the bone-biting chill of the air. "or one who gives gratitude in any proper way, for certain." His teasing words set her blush alight, and she curses the blood that climbs so easily to the pale of her cheeks- and curses herself for forgetting the entirety of what she approached the man for in the first place.

"I, ah-" and it feels as though a frog has leapt in her throat, " did come here to thank you. Myself. For that." He looks at her quizzically, a playful arch in his brow and another quip on his tongue, she's sure- but she pipes up before he can speak to fluster her again.

"Spirit-mage, you kept this pit in my hand from swallowing me whole," and her eyes are sincere as they look to his, and a fire burns within them. "when those other Lowlanders would have let me rot in that damned rubble." Her feet shuffle in the snow, feeling as if she was but a whelp in training once again- uncertain and vulnerable in front of the man before her. "Thank you." Her hand swing up to thump the barrel-drum of her chest, ducking her head low as her eyes stay on the ground beneath her- a proper sign of thanks. "The sky-spirits will be pleased from your effort."

Solas smiles wistfully at her then, bowing his head politely at her display before turning once more towards the Breach. "Do you know what the Chantry proclaims of the spirits?" He asks, and she's surprised by the sadness in his voice.

"Nothing good," she huffs, "or so I've heard."

A rueful smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, "A fair summary." But his eyes grow guarded as he continues, "The Chantry believes that all the spirits of the Fade are demons, driven solely by sin and temptation alone." He holds his hands behind his back once more, pacing as a caged animal in this small, secluded spot from the village. "They believe that the very nature of a spirit is evil, and reject any opposition against this." But he turns once more and she sees the angry thorns fall from his eyes, overtaken by a desperation that Gudrun recognizes- "But I have seen a world beyond this mindless antagonism. Where a spirit may drift as freely as wind through the air," his hand sweeps in an arc in front of him, "and magic flows as easily as water." His face grows guarded once more, and he flicks stormy blue eyes up to watch her. "I have seen countless numbers of these memories in the Fade as I traveled, through ruins and battlefields- through the lifetimes of empires which would rise and inevitably, fall." He continues, settling near her once more. "I have watched all of these as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past in ancient wars both famous, and forgotten."

Gudrun feels curiosity buzz wildly between her ribs. The Augur never spoke of the matters of spirits with those not apprenticed in spirit-work, giving only cryptic messages and orders from their demands- yet this mage freely shares his knowing with her... "You've seen the spirits in their veil-hold?" she asks with unbridled awe growing in her wide eyes, "You've heard their messages with your own ears?"

Solas smiles truly this time, a gentle curve lifting his features- "I have." And her mouth gapes like a river trout at this. He chuckles pleasantly, "Though the Chantry may not be pleased to hear it." His eyes are bright and teasing once again, though a sardonic twist to his mouth shows her the hesitancy he feels.

She places her fist against her chest again, "You've saved my life, elf. To my people you are Hold-Friend, and I would not let a Lowlander Chantry harm you." Her eyes burn aflame as she pledges her oath to him, and Solas feels a strange, niggling feeling twist in his belly. The intensity of her promise moves him, for he can see that her dedication- and anger at the "Lowlander Chantry"- is true.

He gives another nod in thanks and relaxes back on his heels, pressing into the snow with a contemplative smile in his eyes. "Thank you."

"Now you must tell me of the veil-hold," she adds with a sudden youthful excitement shadowing the gruff bellow of her voice, "Does water flow from the south, like they say? Is it true that the birds fly backwards and the leaves fall up ? What does it smell like.." she trails off in anticipation, waiting for his answer with her breath held frozen in her chest.

She knows she acts like a young trainerling following loyally to her master's heel, but the possibility of knowing the secrets of the veil-hold are too great to pass up. She'll just apologize to the Augur later, when she returns.

The elf lifts his head in a jovial chuckle, and then shakes it slightly in disbelief as their eyes meet again- her wild eyes grown wide with suspense, and he pushes down that curiously niggling feeling once again. "All good questions," he says with a teasing smile, "though you could always see for yourself, now." He looks pointedly at her hand, glowing only faintly in the blinding winter's daylight. She lifts it to her face curiously, and while her mouth opens for another question, Solas interjects- "At least I believe so." his hands fold in contemplation as he thinks. "The guards who found you saw you fall from a rift, formed from the Breach at the Temple." He looks towards her again, studying her- and she feels a bit like a cricket trapped in the grasp of a curious child. "And the vision of the woman from your dream- or memory." His smile twists strangely at that, "All lead me to believe that despite your personal lack of magic, you may now be more connected with the Fade than before."

Gudrun looks down in shock at her hands, turning them with her fingers splayed wide- imagining herself conjuring fire, or any of the other elements that she's seen mages swing in battle. But when a fireball doesn't fling itself from her palm, she looks in disappointment to the elf-mage, brows raised in silent question.

He lets out another chuckle, and she finds that she enjoys the melodic sound that she can draw so easily from him. "It is only a theory." he admits, "But I believe we may be able to explore it, with time." and his eyes soften once again as he watches her curiously. "Though again, many would have not considered the spirits of this world at all- let alone care, or curiosity for their world... " he looks the Avvar up and then down, "Are you typical of your home clan?"

His question makes her bristle slightly, heat flushing her cheeks as an old, familiar defensive rises up her back- flaring like the spines of a quillbeast. Her mind harkens back to when she stood barely just hip-height tall, made of clumsy flailing limbs and toothless laughter. She remembers the relentless curiosity for the world and inner workings of the clan- approaching anyone just to ask "why?" 

Why did the hunters leave the innards of their kills in strings for the carrion birds to take to the skies? Why did the tanners stretch the hide before they cleaned it? Why did Old Liggesif always rub her back when she rose from the weaving tablets? Why does the Augur- and that was always as far as that question went, before an elder would smack the back of her head in warning. "Do not interfere with the ways of the Augur; they are secret and sacred."

It took only a few smacks to her thick skull to learn her lesson. They would never tell her the ways of the Augur, no matter how much she asked.

She shuffles her feet, looking down at the print-marks she leaves in the wet, muddy snow. "Typical is a tricky word, elf." and her eyes become distant as she looks to the foothills and peaks of the Temple, and the Breach. "But all of the Avvar know the spirits in the land, and the sky." she gazes up, watching a scattered flock of wild geese struggle beneath heavy, rain-laden clouds. "All Avvar know the messages that they leave through the flying of birds, or the cracking of trees in the bitter season. We learn the messages that the spirits leave when they guide our hunts, or our health." She turns back towards him with steady eyes, watching him carefully. "But only the Augur can hear the messages that the spirits tell from their veil-hold."

He looks at her inquisitively, nodding in understanding as she speaks. He's familiar with the Avvar. In visions he's seen the people of the Alamarri pass the treacherous Frostback range eras and ages ago- and then watched again as her people were beaten back to it's peaks as the began to Tevinter Imperium spread. He knows of her people's prophetic connection to the realm of spirits and magic, untainted and untouched by Chantry law. Yet he can sense the defensive hackles that rose at his questioning, and he decides to drop it. For now.

So he returns to what brought that intense fire to her eyes, that feeds the curious feeling in his gut. "Although with your warrior's determination, I am sure even the Veil itself would have to part for you." and he lets another polite smile raise his lips. "Your strength of will is admirable. And I am sure the muscles are but an enjoyable side benefit." he teases, watching her eyes as his deflection takes her off-guard.

Gudrun feels her eyes widen slightly at the elf's unexpected quip, watching as he stands still near to her- yet his arms still behind his back, non-threatening. He holds himself proudly with his spine as straight and tall as a valley pine, very much unlike the lugheads of her clan- who would approach her arrogantly, flaunting themselves and their "assets." She can hear her own scoff in her mind's ear, and remembers the way they would retreat with their tail between their legs- mistaken to think of her as an easy prize to be slung on their shoulders.

Yet this elf seems to be very, very different from those cowering whelps. "My muscles are an enjoyable side benefit?" she questions him gruffly, yet lets her brow raise in lighthearted jest.

He lets another smirk pull the corner of his mouth, "I only meant that you enjoy having them, presumably." and Gudrun folds her arms over the furs draping her chest with a skeptical look, flexing the brawn of her arms where she knows they will catch the light and shadow the lines of her muscles. He looks at the moving sinew instinctively, watching as her strong arms seem only to grow in power.

"But... Yes." His eyes flick up to meet her own, and though he attempts to suffocate the feeling growing lighter inside his chest- he can't stop the smile teasing at his eyes. "Since you asked."

Chapter Text

Solas feels as his mind is pulled from his wanderings in the Fade- wrenched back beyond the Veil as a stone on his chest and cotton between his ears. The miasmic images of spirits and their echoing words slip from his grasp, until they are replaced with the dawn-breaking sunrise above Haven, the only sounds of creaking, old wood and distant caws of ravens across the valley. Those twin moons still languish in purple-hued sky twinged with green, mocking the absurdity of his waking at this hour- and he rubs at an ache behind his brow, sitting to let tattered blanket fall onto his lap.

Yet another clanging of metal sounds suddenly from outside this rickety cabin and Solas feels himself start- heart jumping to his throat in panic as a rush of magic draws to pale fingertips; a surprise attack before dawn, after patrols have dried to their thinnest and those few soldiers remaining sit bleary-eyed and dozing at their posts, weapons fallen at their feet...

But when he hears that familiar grunting (and pointed Avvar curses) echoing under the rhythmic bashing of iron his magic drains from his lighted hands, and his heart settles back into his chest. There's another, different tension that pulls behind his heart this time however, remembering the warrior from whom those battle cries sound- and images fill his mind of a wild, untameable mane cascading around fur-covered pauldrons, her eyes alight with a raging fire and a controlled body swinging as a dervish through wastelands of battlefields.

Your muscles are an enjoyable side benefit. His traitorous memory reminds him of that brief encounter, bringing a shameful rush of blood to paint the tips of his ears. Like any true dweller of the mountains, Gudrun wraps herself warmly in heavy-plated armor with thick drapings of furs and stiff leathers- but Solas notices, in a purely inquisitive observation, that she often frees herself of heavy plating while at camp to recover in her undertunic; a still-thick stitching of soft leathers that show the strength in her arms, and the curve of her waist.

He lets his hand fall to press weary circles into his closed eyes, exhaling a regretful breath. Foolish is the loudest word to ring in his mind, barely audible under the banging of metal to heavy wood. He is an impulsive fool.

Swinging tired legs from his shabby bed he slips into familiar, threadbare robes- stepping carefully into the empty courtyard, watching the stillness of this early morning village, well-worn paths empty before the full light of the sun yet breaks over jagged mountain peaks. His borrowed cabin is close to the training grounds outside the Chantry, something he is only grateful for this morning.

His quiet steps are led simply by curiosity, he thinks ruefully. And nothing more.

He does not let himself think of the way in which his feet knew exactly where to carry him, led by the promise of an all-too-familiar face and form which move so freely in her training- battle passion made palpable, her form holding both power and softness. Curiosity can be a wicked thing, though he knows truly it's not the curiosity which leads him but the promise of something (someone) he has already seen before...

Gudrun- the Herald , he reminds himself- represents the very Inquisition itself, a towering order meant to restore justice and law to a wild land wracked with Fade rifts and civil wars. The Avvar cares little for the Chantry and their quest for control, but even she could not ignore the violence they witnessed in the Hinterlands- rolling hills tainted black with rivers of blood; mages, templars, and those who would take advantage of all sides in the chaos. Her suspicion swayed seeing the desperate need for a leader- someone to shine as a beacon of hope for those suffering people that remained after the war. A light to look to when the world grew black with despair.

On the battlefields, she was that light- literally glinting with broad-plated armor under tied pelts, standing heads above crowds of fighters swinging madly, uncontrolled. Her own movements always firm and intentional, as if every swing of weighty sword was but a pointed word at her opponents, stinging and neat. Despite the whispers of the curious masses speculating on the mysterious beginnings of their new Herald- she was no barbarian he realized, watching her for the first time cut through the battlefield outside the ruined Temple of Sacred Ashes. The warrior bearing the mark of his stolen orb’s power had a power of her own, brimming under a surface of temptuous glistening skin and rippling muscle.

Every move was measured, each turn and swing made with careful eyes- sharp and intense, even behind a tangle of braid-loosened hair. And on the training grounds, he stood witness to the relentless effort that made such trained technique look only effortless.

With closed eyes she could almost feel as if she was home- as a bitter chill rained from snow-cloaked mountains, with wind to whip around her bones and sting the skin of her bared arms. The low, throaty call of a ptarmigan echoes from the valley cliffs and she can almost taste the red stew that her Mother would make in the deepest of winter, when only the spotted ptarmigans remained in the head-high snow of the Hold.

And as she tests the familiar heft of her sword in calloused hand- a long thorn of silverite mined from the sky tall crags of her home-Hold, she can imagine that she is down in the valley where they would travel to trade, just waiting for the trademaster to finish counting coins before they make the long journey home.

But she is not. And the heavy logs that she has tied as a target drum and rattle like thunder when she cleaves her sword, memories of movement stitched into the muscles of her arms and legs- to twist her torso and hold her stomach firm as she slashes. A familiar burn rises beneath her skin and turns fatigue to a low ember that melts her burdens to a trickle, dripping from her mind. Now she sees only the prey ahead, a bludgeoned pile of wood and hay-filled sack.

Stabbing her sword into the mess of shattered timber she steps back on her feet, settling sore hands on the roughskin tunic on her hips and tossing her head back towards the sky- watching green scars spread and scatter through the sky, the Lady pulsing with light.

Despite the little lowlanders and their barked demands, the countless orders they recite from book pages instead of reading the very sky around them- this is why she trudges onward through this chaos like a druffalo in the squalling season. The Lady spits sickness on the land in a spray of demons and green light, sending birds to circle overhead before the sky splits open like a wound. All the land becomes sickened and chaos only spreads- no creature too small to escape its reaches.

Memories of those twisted bodies tossed throughout the Hinterlands flood her mind, gnarled and mangled like preserved meat hung to dry over a fire. She remembers how small they all looked then, too small to be piled in towers as tall.

She shakes the bitter memories from her head- hair surging around her face with the rough, jerky movements. Her nose draws up and flares with anger, another wave of fire to burn in her eyes and melt the pain from aching muscles. She will remember why she fights for these Lowlanders and their foolish war, and she will remind them when they squabble over their "land rights" and "inheritance." No one owns the land destroyed by rifts in the Fade or the blighted lyrium. The lugheads run with gold packed in their breeches and gemstones hidden under their tongue- only to roast in the tracks of a lost rage demon, or on a bandit's pyre.

One weighted cleave of her sword stabs deep into the timber heartwood, and she braces a fur-wrapped foot against the battered target to pull it free- grunting with her teeth bared at the force, and frustration. 

That strange little elf-mage makes her trudging here easier, though. 

Her mouth sets in a firm line to push against a smile threatening to curl her lips, far too sweet and sickly, like a young whelpling in their first puppy-love. The elf- Solas, her mind thunders with a flutter in her belly- healed her as she slept and continues still to heal her wounds. Every scrape and scratch from battle he approaches with tender eyes and even softer hands… She doesn’t stop him, or admit that she always carries her own bundle of elfroot in her pack, or that for most of her life she has ignored the little scars and lines that mark her body. When he looks at her with blue eyes soft like the Lady on a harvest day, and stitches her skin closed with gentle, singing magic- she lets him, silent and grateful.

And when their battles are over he sits with her across the fire, weaving old tales of lost stories and spirit-wisdom- and it reminds her of nights in the Hold filled with the murmuring of elders, and of the Augur with their riddles. But Solas actually speaks to her. 

He tells her of the world beyond the Veil and the mysteries of spirits within their world, the stories that he sees from the memories of spirits woven into the veil-hold itself, the Fade. He answers her rockslides of questioning with an always-tender smile, his hands clasped calmly at his back; all the picture of a sage of old- eyes growing distant and cloudy as he draws up from that deep well of knowing.

After days of blood and battle, in an order of lowlanders looking to her as their leader and a sign from their god- she finds refuge in the spirit-mage and his wisdom, of gentle hands and careful words. 

The hard jut of his proud chin and fine angled lips don’t hurt, either- or the long lines of his body draped with threadbare robes holding perfectly to firm shoulders to cinch over lean hips and strong, tall legs… 

No, she thinks it really doesn’t hurt at all.

The rising of dawn’s light cast a gentle hue across snow-coated hills, still a sleeping village even as those few trickle slowly to waking- but here Solas stood unassuming, his back against the Chantry stone as he watched the Avvar bludgeon a slouching, pitiful target. 

Just as he remembered from her daily routine training whilst traipsing the Hinterlands- her hair was mussed and wild, plated armor gone to leave her only in the tight-laced roughskins of hide underarmour which bared her arms and held the swell of her hips. Yet beyond where his gaze trailed up her heaving chest he watched her mouth curl with laughter, teeth bared in a broad smile, head tossed back with a throaty bellow to echo in the silent morning air. 

“Here to enjoy all my side benefits, elf?” she teases, eyes flicking from the battered target at her feet to where he stands, sword at her side where hands wait on her waist- and he feels like new prey caught in the sight of a hungry eagle. 

He ignores the rush of blood that floods the tip of his ears and walks forward into the courtyard, hands held calmly together as he takes slow, careful steps and lets his eyes show the open appraisal he knows she has already seen. “It is fortunate that the Inquisition has you in their ranks-” he starts with a light smile at his lips, “rather than against them.”

The Herald scoffs but he notes the dusky blush that spreads across her face, flitting down to her chest and she tosses him a cocky smile. "By the luck of the Lady," she turns back to her slumped and battered target, "Cullen trains well. But the whelps coming from those soft farmlands are scared of their own sword." Her own silverite greatsword glints brightly in the morning air before flashing downwards in a wide cleave, swiping easily- a familiar motion.

"You are exceptionally skilled for a simple weaver, as you've called yourself before..." His head tilts quizzically at her moving form- admiring the clean and trained lines of her shifting forms, now aiming above her slumped target to an imaginary foe in the air. "Are all weavers from your Hold as fearsome in battle?"

She laughs a rich and hearty sound again, and he swallows hard. "I'd imagine not." Swinging at imagined targets, her old target left to lay bested on the snowy ground, she continues with a building sweat shining on her skin. "Old Liva was the weaver-master. She knew every song. Every knot. Every weave to catch the fish from water, or berries from the valley." Her eyes grow suddenly wistful, and her arms slow to stab her sword to stand upright in the ground. "She taught me how to read the signs of the bogfishers to know when the ice was melting, when the fish were coming back to the Hold." Her lips turn to a sudden and easy grin, "But she didn't teach me how to fight."

Solas raises a curious eyebrow at the warrior, watching her sling her sword again to fight invisible enemies in the ice-tinged air. "Did you learn it from the bogfishers, then?" Another teasing smile tugs at the corners of his eyes while she guffaws another bout of hearty laughter, and he finds that he likes to make her laugh so easily. Only, he reminds himself, to lessen the burdens of leadership. The Herald carries many decisions on her shoulders, and he has seen the weight of them become heavy in the nights when she thinks no one else is looking... The Inquisition needs her strong and her shoulders light to lead the fight against the darkness.

The light which blooms in his own chest is merely an enjoyable side benefit.

"Only when they came from behind." And when he looks at her, she flashes another cocky smile and tests her sword in hand again- readying her stance despite the laughter still ringing through her body. "Got knocked on my ass more times than I could count as a whelpling." Her broad grin is light-hearted and he finds himself chuckling at the image of the tall warrior as an over-confident child, raising a rickety wooden sword against an indifferent bogfisher that flings her to the water with a flick of its snout.

"My Pa trained me first. He died far from the Hold and Old Liva said my Ma died from heartbreak, only one season later. Then I got my training where I could." Silverite flashes bright in one big swing, fur-wrapped feet swiping through the snow. "The Augur said I never got to pick up the weakness of any one fighter. I'm stronger because of it." Her shoulders shrug at this, broad muscle glistening with sweat. "Everyone who trained me beat the habits of my last trainer out of me. Until I became unpredictable." She leans back on her sword stabbed again into the snowy ground to rest one strong arm on it's hilt, her ragged breath making white clouds in the air. The sun rises higher past the mountain peaks, now hours since she began-

"We'll see the Augur's words tested in the Fallow Mire." With another easy smile she sheathes her sword behind her back and tosses the battered target on her shoulder, cocking a hip as she waits where he stands. "Join me for breakfast. When I go early I talk the cook into giving me an extra ladleful of snowberry jam, I can talk her into giving you one, too." She gestures towards the side door and looks at him with invitation in her eyes, hair sticking to her forehead in curls, cheeks flushed pink and bright.

He wills himself to look away.

But nods in thanks and declines with a polite, guarded smile- and turns back to the path he made on his journey from his cabin, nearly covered with a fresh sheet of snow. "Thank you... But my breakfast will have to wait." His smile turns teasing as she waves him off, eyes sharp and playful. "I will return to my studies now that there is not the sound of a thousand blacksmiths working outside my window." She guffaws again, a bright and loud goodbye as she tramples towards the Chantry with that heap of wood and hay slung over her shoulder- and he chuckles silently to himself as he thinks of the looks on the faces of the sisters in its halls, for the oblivious warrior and the trail of hay behind her.

Fighting the childish smile threatening to overtake his face, he walks back to the safe seclusion of his cabin and sits at cluttered desk- with all manner of papers, opened tomes, and roughly-taken notes scattered along it's surface. Despite the rising chatter of the waking village, as people walk now in droves from their homes to the Chantry and other markets- his mind is quieter, "curiosity" sated from it's early morning rising. And as he compares notes of surviving Elvhen crossroads to possible sightings tied to the magic of his stolen orb- he's once more taken in by the work which must be done, pushing all thoughts of mortal forms and broad, hearty smiles from his mind.

It is only later, much later, that he steps outside his cabin to nearly stomp upon a folded linen parcel, wrapped around a half-frozen wheat bun, split and filled with ladlefuls of snowberry jam- and a generous dusting of sugar.

Chapter Text

The Seeker tears her iron blade from the body slumped at her feet, huffing like a bogfisher as the bandit’s blood is strewn along the grass- the smell of death heady on the northern wind. 

Gudrun smiles wide at the other warrior, sheathing her own greatsword against her back where a sludge of blood soaks already through.

"Tell me again, Inquisitor, why we must come to the very outskirts of the Hinterlands when there are still matters at Skyhold demanding our attention?" Cassandra swipes an armored hand against her nose, grunting as she only feels more blood smear across her skin.

Gudrun watches as clouds shift through green scars stitched in the sky, healing slow as a death-wound. "The lowlander lords always make demands. They will survive a week without my face to shout at." She claps a hand on the other woman's pauldrons with a hearty laugh, her head tossed back. "But if the Lady is kind, maybe not."

“It is not a jest , Inquisitor-”

“I recommended that we come, Seeker.” Solas walks to the warriors as Varric trails behind him, flicking entrails from his eyebrow with a nettled look. “My studies found that the Veil here grew thin in the fighting, and it seems I was correct. It can be felt even now.” His eyes flick to the edge of the clearing, to the stand of trees at the foothills of the surrounding mountains. “There should be an artifact within the nearby ruin allowing us to strengthen the Veil, and prevent further rifts.”

“Great. I’ll let you all get to that.” Varric steps around Solas with a heart-heavy sigh, folding his crossbow to rest at his back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to put my feet up for a few hours after running behind you three all day. And not in some damn ruin.”

“Not yet, my friend.” Gudrun strikes a playful cuff at his shoulder, hair teased as a wild mess from her braid as she grins a crooked smile. “Some ways to go still. And we need our mighty dwarf to record my feats of battle in legend and song, not lift his feet like an expecting maid.”

Cassandra scoffs, rolling her eyes while Varric turns to pat the hand at his shoulder. “Trust me, kid- I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough of that to fill every tavern here to Minrathous until the next age.” He shakes his head with a chuckle before the Seeker interrupts, frowning.

“If you truly believe it may strengthen the Veil and stop more rifts from forming…” Her hands settle at her hips and rest above the sheath of her sword, heavy with spiked iron. 

“Solas knows. He saw it in his dreaming.” Gudrun faces the other warrior and turns her hand as the glowing green scar pulses with light, eyes aflame with questions. “And if the spirits allow it, this mark might open the veil-hold like a key.”

“It may.” He steps forward as the Seeker’s frown deepens, her brows pinching a line. “Provided the Veil remains stable enough I can study the effects of the mark on the Fade, and learn more of its abilities within.” Solas regards the two women with a tepid smile, watching as Gudrun traces the line on her palm with a curious finger and Cassandra shifts to face him with a disapproving look. He tilts his head, eyes firm. “I would not consider it were it unsafe, Seeker.”

“Would it truly help the Inquisition? To find this ruin and… study the mark?” Her hands still rest at her hips as stern brows sit low over dark eyes, but her voice is soft as she questions him.

He folds his hands behind his back, softening in kind. “I would not have recommended it to the Inquisitor if it would not aid our effort.”

Gudrun stills as the wind comes again with a rustling of leaves, green and young on their branches, bending south with the breeze. The Lady mends and the lands begin their thawing and melting to take the green from the sky. She turns to Cassandra watching the elf with an eagle’s glare, and barks a laugh at their silent and soft-bellied standoff. 

“It helps by keeping me sane, sister.” She knocks a light fist against the other woman’s strong arm, meeting her eyes with a broad smile. “And far from those gold-wrapped whelps across the mountains.”

The Seeker’s lips turn slightly before Varric pats her back, chuckling as he makes for the deer path marked on their map. “Then we’ll just follow after you, Bruiser.. Lead on.” 

Gudrun’s head tosses back in another hearty laugh as she walks alongside him, knocking at his broad shoulder with a teasing tilt of her brow. “That’s funny, dwarf. A new name every time, but I enjoy that one the most.”

Cassandra groans lightly behind them before stepping to the Inquisitor’s side with a stern look in her eyes, and a sharp gauntlet giving a soft touch to the bared muscle of her forearm. The Seeker’s voice is low but firm. “Just be careful, Inquisitor. Please.” 

Gudrun grasps the hand with a strong grip, flashing a lopsided grin at the other warrior. “I’ve earned the hides on my back and the pelts of my hold, sister.” Her fingers give a gentle squeeze before the other lets her hand fall, her eyes bright. 

“And nothing will keep me from a nug-roast supper!”

Solas’ lips twitch lightly at the woman’s bawdy theatrics while her arms swing wildly, eyes teasing as she bumps shoulders with the Seeker.  

Yet the other woman only rolls her dark eyes in exasperation, shouldering the familiar grapple of armored hands. 

“It is odd to think you were once capable of standing against me like a stubborn ram, Inquisitor.”

“Is it truly so strange, Seeker? Or do you two simply now lock horns in less deadly ways?” He surpasses them on the trail, staff in hand as he flashes a narrow-eyed smirk behind him.

Gudrun sounds a loud guffaw, raising her fist to aim a pelting blow at the passing elf before she stops suddenly- head tilted towards the valley bend. A roarous wind builds in the leaves again before there’s a great clapping of wings, one dark plume of birds rising like smoke from a gully carved within.

“By the Lady there’s our ruin!” She jogs further on the path and claps Varric’s shoulder with a wink.  “And your rest, friend.”

The camp has been set and the fire lit as Gudrun shoulders a heavy pack, stuffed with papers and tomes Solas swore to her would be needed. And if it means that she can walk beyond the worlds with this mark of pulsing, green light- she is happy enough to carry his burdens.

Yet the elf is not without his own pack, stuffed with their bedrolls and clinking, metallic tools as he settles beside her and looks towards the ruined spire, hidden in tall trees and clinging vines.

Varric lifts his head from the journal in his lap to watch them, his feet crossed high on a small stool. “Well, you two headin’ off?”

“As I said: be careful , Inquisitor.” Cassandra settles beside the dwarf to sit at the warm fire, stoking the embers with a severe look. “We will keep watch here.”

Gudrun barks a laugh, adjusting the pack on her back before giving the other woman a gentle nudge. “And I told you that I am a fine warrior, who will not be bested by overgrown cave spiders or demons!”

The dwarf leans back with his hands behind his head, flashing Cassandra a wry smile. “Give ‘em a break, Seeker. You know these two can handle themselves just fine… Against ancient, risen Tevinter magisters, at least.” Her dark eyes roll again as she grunts dismissively, poking at the burning logs.

“I will set wards as always, do not worry. We will arrive back at second light.” Solas nods towards the kneeling warrior, and she gives a small nod in return before Gudrun claps her shoulder, turning towards the towering ruin.

The air here is warm, certainly warmer than the thin, biting chill of her mountain home. She’s gotten used to the weight of the humid air in the lowlands, but never the muddy feeling it builds between hide and plated armor- the stick of sweat and blood and constant sun. After a long day of fighting in the Hinterlands she has missed the dry chill of the mountains, and the warm springs in their narrow crags.

“Did the spirits tell you who lived here, Solas?” She looks back at the elf following behind her, a curious sheen in her eyes. “What this place was used for?”

His voice grows soft as they approach the crumbling spire, staff held carefully in his hands. “I have seen long-forgotten memories of the elves who once came here, traveling for countless ages. To prepare for Uthenera..” he stills, “the endless dream.” 

She looks back to the ruin and the glitter of stone which peeks from the vining, green leaves and shines in the sunlight. Even under moss and tall trees, the arches and spire stand proudly under centuries-woven greenery. 

“Uthenera, that was the great sleep that you spoke of?”

“Yes.” He nods while his eyes fix on the glinting spire, tilting his head in thought. “The Elvhen would spend years preparing for the journey. When one’s spirit grew frail in life they laid their body in Uthenera, so that their spirit might wander the Beyond and a new generation might carry their duty. Some were able to draw life from the Fade itself, sustaining their physical form.” He paused. “Others never woke again.”

Gudrun shivers as a brief chill is carried on the wind, a balm to heated skin. But it leaves as swiftly as it comes, and she looks back to the elf beside her. 

“Their souls grew frail? Even though they could live forever?” 

“Your own life has limit, Inquisitor. And as a result your heart is full of fire and fervor.” He softly smiles and glances at her wild hair and blood-soaked armor before lowering his gaze. “But for some of the Elvhen the burdens of immortality became too much to bear. It was an eternity to make mistakes, and carry endless regrets.”

His eyes lift then, proud chin raised with a tepid smile. “But the Fade shows many things, as you may see tonight.”

“Lady willing.” The mark shimmers with green light as she turns her hand, turning to the mossy arch ahead of them. “Is it a magic door, then?”

He chuckles heartily, approaching the door easily as it opens with a single push inwards. “There was little need when the site itself was hidden well enough from clumsy, stubborn humans.”

“Oi!” Her barked laugh echoes loudly through the halls of the ruin, shining faintly with light that streams down from the crumbling roof. “Not so clumsy- I was the one who heard the damn birds first!”

His eyes soften as he looks at her, watching her curiously. “And you are quite unlike anyone I had met before, Inquisitor.”

Her face flushes despite the throaty scoff and teasing wave thrown at him as she walks ahead, tracing lines on the wall. “Don’t try to save yourself now, elf! This stubborn human holds onto words like that.” 

“And I am glad that you do.” He smiles, seamlessly weaving wards along the entrance as he moves to unload his pack. “Now if you would stumble to the dais we might begin with-”

“These markings, Solas. What do they mean?” She runs a finger through the deep gouges of stone, swirling in great waves and ripples to create shapes her eyes can’t make out with meager vision.

He appears behind her with a raised torch lit with veilfire, to push the shadows from a great carving stretching in spirals towards the ceiling. His eyes flick to Gudrun, head tilted back in awe as she looks at the towering figures revealed.

“Falon’Din and Dirthamen.” His voice echoes quietly around the domed chamber. “Guides of the Beyond, who walked its shifting paths and led the elves as they slept. The children of Mythal…” 

“Your gods have children?”

Solas smiles faintly, looking back towards the tribute. “In a sense, though not in the way we would consider it to be today. The Fade speaks of… complicated ties between the Evanuris. Relationships born of power, rather than blood.”

“The Lady of the Skies bore no children, blood or not.” She taps a finger against her chin, brows drawn in thought. “But she does have a great love for birds.” 

He chuckles, “That would explain your affinity for their flight, then.” His staff clinks against the stone as he rounds towards her.  “Tell me, Inquisitor… What does your Hold tell you of the ancient magic created in places such as this? Your people are very old and proud. I imagine they would carry many stories of what they had seen.”

“We have no memory of the elves, Solas..” She hums a low sound, turning to look back at the ruined chamber. “And we have never seen a place like this in our mountain home. If the spirits told the Augur of your ancestors, she never told me.”

“Did you learn nothing of elves at all with your people? Not even the Dalish?”

Her laughter echoes against the stone. “Only dwarves passed the mountain’s spine to trade and travel with my people. Too far up from your flouncing fields- for elves.”

“Elvhen’an stretched once across the entirety of Thedas as countless cities were built into the very air itself, even the young mountains were no stranger to them…” He arches his brow, petulant. “And we do not flounce .”

“Did the spirits tell you so? Because I disagree.” She knocks her shoulder against his with a playful smirk. “About the flouncing.”

He watches her, eyebrows set and wholly unamused. “Let us search for the artifact, Inquisitor, before I change my mind of bringing you anywhere near the Fade.”

“I know you well enough to see a man who does not break a promise so easily.” Gudrun eyes him before turning to the main chamber. “One of your good qualities.”

He sighs, moving to follow. “And my bad quality…?”

“The flouncing.”

The glowing, humming artifact between them weaves green light as a little swirling sun, shining brightly in the dimly lit chamber. They sit at the edge of the dais and watch as Gudrun waves a hand through the flowing magic, wide-eyed.

“It feels like… bees. Not stinging, but like the song in their hives. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

Solas tilts his head, a gentle smile at his lips. “You have handled this sudden proximity to strange and ancient magics surprisingly well, considering. Many might have floundered as the world opened before them.”

“What use not to handle it? Accept it as it comes, or it will topple you anyways.” Her laughter echoes through the chamber and fills his chest with a warm, contented feeling- tossing him a playful wink. “Fate is a rutting bronto in spring. No use in running.”

He hums to lean back on his haunches. “Not all see destiny as clearly as you do… Many will spend the entirety of their lives attempting to change it. To hold it at bay.”

Her hand stills in the air as her voice grows distant. “I couldn’t know where the Lady would take me.” She smiles, watching the pulsing magic of the artifact. “But I like where I am now.”

“As do I Inquisitor- for what it is worth.” Their eyes meet and the air hums between them. His smile is still polite, despite the flash of something deeper glinting like a gem in sandstone. 

She sits back from the dais, hands drawn down to her lap. “...I miss my Hold and mountain home. I miss ptarmigan songs in the dark bitter evenings. The fire-talks, the weaving. At this moon’s turn the rivers are yawning and waking, and the fish will be plenty. But there, we have nothing like the worlds I have seen.” 

Her eyes hold a simmering fire that stills him in his spot- her wild tresses of hair form a crown around her head as her voice dips low within her chest. “Nothing like what you have shown me, Solas.”

He swallows, eyes falling to the stone beneath them. “In my travels many others have not cared to see. Some listened with only hatred, fear- and spite for the truth.” He watches her with a curiosity he cannot, and does not bother to hide. “You are as much an oddity as myself in this world.”

“And we’re the only fools in this old ruin.” She says, a smirk playing on her lips.

He shakes his head with a surprised chuckle. “That we are. Though there may be friends yet further within.” Standing with his hand outstretched he looks down at her, brows raised. “If you would care to join me, of course.”

She takes his hand, a smile on her face. 

“I’m ready if you are, elf. Show me where these spirits hide.”

He leads her through another hall with their hands still intertwined- and his fingers blessedly cool around hers, burning hot as a midsummer’s sun. He is a cool lake washing over her and she drinks the feeling greedily, passing walls of mosaics that shine brightly despite their age.

“How did these ones prepare for their Uthenera? There are a great many chambers, but I see no place for sleeping.”

His voice echoes softly down the hall. “Some would take decades to cleanse their bodies and minds, and amass a loyal guard to watch over their dreaming bodies. Both spirit and elf conscripted to protect them for eternity.” He turns away to walk silently on the worn stone. “With the fall of Arlathan, eternity never came. Though there are rumors that some few yet live, in chambers such as these and untouched entirely by time…”

Gudrun stops like a stubborn goat on a lead, mouth agape as she stares at him.

He cannot hold his laughter, light eyes mirthful as the sound rings pleasantly in her chest, another pleasure to which she holds tightly. “I imagine that the sight would be fascinating. Yet as I said, these are merely rumors.”

She is grateful for the shadows that shield him from her blushing, and clears her throat. “The spirits here would be of those people, would they not?”

He nods. “The spirits inhabiting this place may have formed from the countless attendants caring for the elves here. We may find many spirits of service and dedication. We may also find many spirits of grief and sorrow; the memories of the waking who mourned the dreaming.”

Her head tilts, brows arched despite the elf walking ahead of her. “Mourning? They weren’t dead.”

“Yet for all purposes it was the closest the Elvhen once had to such a concept.” The fingers around her hand tighten for a moment and she strokes a thumb against the chill of his skin. “One might emerge from Uthenera only once a millennia if drawn to share their wisdom. If they felt theirs was a journey yet unfinished.”

She lets out a low hum. “The Augur spoke with many spirits of those wronged in life, causing trouble for the Hold along the mountain roads.”

“There are many such spirits formed from injustices around Thedas. There is a chance to find one here, though their story is likely to be lost to time now.” He trails off with a soft voice, barely heard above the clinking of her armor.

His sad words make her frown, mouth drawn in a pout that Liva would have long walloped out of her. But she tells herself that she is not in the Hold now- and in her mind’s eye she can see Solas with a gentle smile as he swipes a thumb across her lips, pressing a kiss to chase her pout away.

She shakes the thoughts from her head, blush still burning at her cheeks as her fingers trace the rivulet carvings along the wall. Her mind is still filled with dreams of soft smiles and the man’s softer hands when she hears the sound of water- a low and quiet babble. 

“Solas.” He stops as she stills by the dark chamber where the sound now echoes, poking her head curiously inside and tugging his hand along. “Do you hear that?”

He turns to her and tilts his head towards the shadows, raising a veilfire torch past her eyes to light the room.

Deep within the chamber is a shallow pool, dug from the stone, reflecting its light in ripples and bobbing waves. It is a small pond and yet she watches as tendrils of steam dance along its surface, the scent of wet stone heavy in the air, and knows she cannot resist this simple, hungry pleasure. She moves faster than she can think not to.

Her armor clanks noisily against the floor before she moves to the quilted doublet, clumsy fingers unlacing its leather straps and kicking her boots aside. Barely turning towards Solas, she throws him an easy smile. “A warm bath in the middle of an ancient ruin? The Lady sent her blessing today.” Her hair falls from its braid, and she shakes it with a laugh that fills the small chamber. “I have a day’s worth of blood to scrub from my skin, and three days’ of mud.”

His hand still holds the torch in the doorway as she settles into the warm water, eyes slipping closed and groaning like a waking bear in winter as it melts the muscle of her back. Letting her head rest against the stone behind her, she watches him lazily.

“Well? Jump in, else I’ll be the only one smelling sweetly to our friend-spirits.”

She sinks to the water with a low, tempting moan that threatens to shatter something fragile and small in his chest- pulling at the tie he has tried so hard to bind. 

A challenge burns in her half-lidded eyes and as warm, shallow waves lap at his bare feet stopped on the stone. He cannot find a reason to deny himself or her the harmless pleasure. Their group has bathed many times in their long travels, and this time is no different.

Despite it feeling so.

Securing the veilfire so that they are not shrouded completely in darkness, he settles his staff against the wall and steps carefully from his robes, turning his nose at the grime that sticks to his skin. 

He needs the bath desperately, he tells himself. It would be ridiculous to deny himself because of the stubborn, simmering pride that has latched itself to her. Because of the gnawing ache in his heart which yearns to please her, to revel in her easy laughter and the soothing warmth of her smiles.

She is easy to be around, and it need not be more than that. Cannot be more than the friendly brush of fingertips as he delivers studious translations, polite smiles as they pass where she is pushed and pulled by a well-meaning Josephine. 

There can be no hunger in a heart filled already with pride, and he refuses to hurt her more than he already will. 

“I was beginning to wonder if all elves were as prudish as Chantry sisters.” Her arms settle against the stone with a splash as he steps into the pool, flashing him a teasing grin. “A thing I’m still getting used to.”

He laughs, remembering their last encounter with a scandalized sister as she made full use of the stream behind the Crestwood Chantry. “Evidently. Luckily spirits have no use for clothing, and a lifetime of studying ruins tends to desensitize one to such niceties.”

“Do all ruins have these heated springs,” her lips quirk as she lays her head against the stone, watching him lazily- “or just the ones you go to?” 

His answering chuckle echoes softly above the sounds of splashing water as he scrubs his arms, grime lifting and then draining away. “I will not deny that places such as this are a personal treasure… The ancient elves revered these spaces as cleansing sites, and the glyphs they set into the stone hold fast still.” His fingers touch their shape on a stone in the water, shining as his magic fills it. “It is a simple pleasure- one connecting us to the past.”

She hums, hand tracing where the glyph slowly begins to dim again. “Hjorki Stone-Leg used to say that our ancestors cried and loved the same as we do today. Not so different from us, as time would make it seem...” she smiles and flicks water across the pool- “and I thought he was a batty old coot.”

“I would not want to know your true thoughts on myself, then.” He says as he wipes the droplets from his cheek, brows arched as her hands sink back in the water.

“I promise it is only good things.” She nods cheekily, tilting her head as if to consider it. “Mostly.” 

“...How lucky I am.” 

Her answering laugh settles warmth along his spine, shivering with its echo. “I never thought I’d understand his words.” Gudrun’s eyes flick to his and simmers the air between them. “Until I heard it from you. We had only stories and secrets in the Hold- but you didn’t keep the secrets from me.”

Shards of ice settle sharp in his chest and wrap like brambles where the warmth had gathered, cold now with the flush of shame down his spine.

“I…” He begins and a wrinkle deepens between his brows, uncertain of his words.

“And you’ll show me the spirits, and their veil-hold.” Her face is drawn up in excitement, fists settling against the stone as she rises from the water in a swift movement to sit upon the ledge. His gaze is drawn instinctively to trace the drops as they trail down her skin, and he forces himself to look away, a shameful knot in his throat.

As she hurriedly swipes the water from her body to slip into her linen trousers, he attempts to think past the crushing ache clouding his own mind. It would do nothing to disappoint her now, to break yet another promise he has foolishly made from that small, fragile thing in his chest.

He silently raises himself from the water in kind while she chats away, and though he could easily dry himself with a spell- he does not want her to suffer alone in her soaked linen underthings, slipped into before he could think to offer. He is slow as he ties his laces and buckles the leather straps of his robes, settling his staff against his back. But it does no good to stall the inevitable, and her words sink like a stone behind his ribs.

His nod is polite as he looks to her, however- and he hopes that she cannot see the strain in his smile or the pained narrowing of his eyes. 

“Then let us continue, Inquisitor.”

I can at least give her this.

Chapter Text

He watches her eyes flick to the trees beyond their path, where black pines sway under harsh northern winds, tossing snow and ice from the mountain's ridge. 

It is a wet, bone-deep chill which sinks past the bare linen of his robes and weakens their warming glyphs, leaving a creaking ache within. He can tell from Varric's relentless complaints, as well as Cassandra's matching grunts of frustration, that it affects the rest of their party similarly.

All except for the woman who strides easily beside him– wrapped warmly in thick pelts, entirely at home in the bitter mountain wind.

She meets his observant gaze and flashes a broad smile, sending warmth to bloom shamefully within his chest. Her fur-wrapped hand points to the distant trees and he welcomes the sudden distraction, squinting his eyes up the mountain pass and searching along the ridge where her finger leads. 

“The Lady blesses us this day!” Her voice booms above the whipping of the wind, echoing throughout the rocky crevasse. At the sight of only more white-packed snow and flinging ice– he hazards a skeptical glance back towards her, and she laughs heartily in response. 

“The buntings pass their branches in twos and threes.” She says, as if it is the most obvious truth in the world. “Or are you still a snow-blind whelpling?”

Her smile turns teasing and another bout of warmth blooms beneath his frozen skin. “No, simply unfamiliar with this practice.” He watches her curiously, lips quirking despite the numbness spreading underneath. “You have mentioned seeing the signs in birds many times and yet I must confess that I still cannot see them, myself.” 

The wind whips at her braided hair to send tendrils flying through the air, and he watches her gather them behind short, rounded ears to chortle heartily. Her brow is raised and playful in her wild, hayseed way.

“I’m surprised the elves didn’t notice the Lady’s signs with all their frolicking and fielding about…”

“If they did, they never told me–” He catches himself abruptly in his chuckle, “or the Fade, rather.” His eyes flick to watch her reaction, paranoid for any signs that she has finally caught onto his web of lies, stumbled into understanding his shameful betrayal–

“Well it’s easy enough, once you notice it!” She claps a soft, warm hand on his shoulder and points again to the ridge where the black pines stand and he sees small, dark birds titter between them. 

He attempts to ignore where his heart seems to leap from his chest to reach towards her touch.

“The buntings are hungry and stubborn beasts, but don’t dare risk flying in harsh storms that bring the heavy snow to bury them.” Her voice is easy and assured as she speaks, as if she were reciting this to a child. “If they fly with their mates and their hatchlings, then you know it’s a kinder wind than the storms that bring the mountain down.” …And with her easy gestures, he finds that with her, he does not mind it.

Yet his robes whip around his body with another gusting wind flying through the ravine, carrying fragments of ice to redden his cheeks and nose. “I suppose this is a kind and gentle wind then?” 

“Right you are, mage!” Her guffaw echoes above the wind, and she kneads at the junction of his shoulder with a teasing grin. “I swear– if you had more meat on your bones you wouldn’t be feeling this little chill.”

His brow raises, affronted at her light-hearted jest despite himself. “I find that I have plenty of ‘meat’ enough, Inquisitor.”

Gudrun suddenly keels over with the force of her howling laughter, holding tightly against her stomach while Solas stares dourly, and with his own twitching smile. The curve of her rump rounds itself under fur-lined leather and his eyes dart quickly away, mouth suddenly dry as his throat bobs.

“Oh… Sera will be fuming mad to have missed it.” She flicks a lonesome tear from her eye, still huffing with fading laughter. “That’ll teach her to stay in her cozy bed while we go off speaking with spirits.” She knocks her shoulder against his with friendly, half-lidded eyes.

He smiles politely, attempting to quell the pride which burns at her mention of their travels; where she had looked to him the first time their eyes met, tinged with green. She had marvelled in the world of spirits, and he called only his closest friends– Wisdom, Compassion, though even fiery-hearted Duty came at the beckoning of the brightly burning Inquisitor. 

They had dreamt the night away entirely, deep within the Fade filled with easy, booming laughter, to wake tangled in their furs with her laughter unforgettably warm against his chest.

He smirks down at her. “I am glad that you have enjoyed yourself– and that Sera has not. I still find myself cleaning the lizard dung from my furs.” His pout grows, gaze steady on the distant path. 

“Our dreaming put even the Augur to shame!” Her smile is bright, eyes going distant and wistful beside him. “I’ve never seen anything like that, Solas. Never even heard of it. Our Augur speaks with spirits, but to meet with them as friends… ”

“Thank you.” He says and turns to face her with a sincerity that he cannot will himself to control, smiling softly. “For sharing your knowledge of the buntings– It is a practice that I had not heard before.” His eyes flick to the snow-covered stone below them, voice low. “And for being open-minded where others had not.”

Her smile widens and that warmth spreads now like honey-soaked sunlight down his spine, settling at his fingertips and buzzing like Sera’s beloved bees. 

His eyes follow the wildly flying tresses of her hair and the memory of this short moment etches itself onto his mind, a solitary joy that he will not forget… He could not forget, though it would be kinder in the end. 

Her mouth opens to respond– before a lively conversation echoes from behind them.

“I’m telling you, Seeker: most people don’t want happy endings. They want the angst of real love, the kind of shit that hurts and burns and gets blood all over the place.” Varric huffs as he treks up the steep ravine, clutching his knees as he climbs. 

A sharp scoff whispers against the stone, “That’s preposterous! And crude.”

Gudrun and him both turn their heads with tilting, snickering eyes, and watch as Cassandra narrows her gaze towards the wheezing dwarf. “Love does not have to be full of such pain to be considered real . Love can be gentle, or–”

Varric lets out a sardonic chortle. “Well gentle doesn’t sell manuscripts… and Swords & Shields isn’t getting another deal, anyhow. So this whole conversation is useless.”

The Seeker pleads an uncharacteristic noise, brows drawn in a pout. “But if you simply told your publisher that there are tens of us waiting for a new chapter–”

Their eyes meet and share silent laughter as the impassioned argument continues to echo through the ravine. She knocks her shoulders against his with an easy, playful smile. 

He does not play her little game of seeing who can knock the other off the path or sway them from their feet, but he enjoys the warmth of her beside him all the same.

The journey back to Skyhold is long, and the wind carries a bitter and bone-deep chill. The buntings sit on their branches and fill the gully with their tittering, chirping birdsong– and he is warmed with the smiles that he pulls so easily from his walking companion, speaking of spirit-friends and dreams gained.

And later, when the snow comes to lay its thick blanket with a battering ferocity, they are all already tucked safely within the walls of Skyhold.

In the darkness, a weight settles sweetly to lay against his chest, puffing warm air against his neck as he breathes in– the scent of wild mountain crags, of wet river stones in shaded moss. He holds that breath like a carefully-guarded secret, savoring the scent of her. She is a warm and soft heft atop him, and he trails a hand over soft skin to trace familiarly taut muscle, rounded curves. 

He curses his weakness for indulging this mirage, a wicked and empty apparition.

He knows Desire comes to cruelly twist both lust and guilt against him, and even here he cannot bring himself to will her away, twirling soft tresses of hair in his fingers.

His eyes crack open and flit to where she settles on his chest with a hungry, wolfish grin and swirls a calloused finger along his flesh. Her brow raises as his eyes rake down to where she lays bare against him, before they close again shamefully… It is not right– even here, and especially in a way such as this. 

It is yet another betrayal he will bring to lay at her feet.

“You must not punish yourself, my friend…” Her voice chimes high and smooth like bells in the summer air, and entirely not Gudrun. He is grateful for the spirit’s small mercy. 

“Why not enjoy what is so freely offered, hmm?” She trails off, raking a nail down his chest to catch against his sensitive flesh and send shocks of pleasure down his spine. “At least for a little while…”

His brows pinch as he fights a panting, yearning hunger howling within his bones and sings through his flesh. He bites a lip to swallow the pleasure that threatens to burst forth, keeping his eyes closed against temptation.

She only chuckles at his resolve, an airy and depraved sound, raising another red mark along his skin as her finger swirls.

“I hear her too, you know. Calls out almost as hungrily as you do and my… does she call …” He can hear the wolfish grin wringing her lips. “Lets no pleasure pass her by, that sweet thing.”

His eyes crease pitifully at the deluge of thoughts that run through his mind, and still does not will the apparition away. His fingers press desperately to the soft flesh of her hips, unthinking of the gnawing hunger that swells deeper within his chest.

“But do you know what the sweet thing dreams of..?” Her laughter is cruel against the pillar of his throat, grinning into his flesh. “Oh, what am I saying... Of course you do.” 

His jaw clenches under the finger tracing along his cheek, and the softness of her body drags against him as she raises herself from his chest.

“Your hands…” She brings them to trail down the path of her heart, teasing touches against the swell of her breasts. There’s a devilish laugh underneath his palm, “and these long fingers…” 

She settles atop his hips and the warmth of her core burns against his skin, so close to where he’d take her. He bites the groan within his throat, and she only looms above him as her hair falls around them like a curtain. He breathes in the rushing of river stones and shaded moss, with something deeper, muskier that seizes his blood in his veins.

“Your teeth on her neck…” She leans to drag her nose along his throat before whispering over his open, panting mouth. “Your pretty lips…”

Her teasing touch pulls back, leaving cold air on his lips. “But do you know what she wants the most?” 

His eyes flick open, all reason within his addled mind howling for him to stop– to will this wicked vision from his dreams, and be free from self-inflicted torture. 

But he does not, and waits for her words with wretched, lidded eyes.

Her echoing voice drops to a low rumble, the gravel of cold river stones that grind beneath river waves, and sends a pang of regret to his chest with every word.

“Forever to have you, always…” Her crooked smile is bright in the darkness surrounding them, and she stares with a familiar fire to pin him where he lies. “To see the world with you at my side.”

Her hands come to fall beside his head, the soft muscle of her arms twitching temptingly. Yet he can only stare into her iron-locked gaze, her plush form pressing upon him. “Why don’t you take me, elf-mage?” Her voice is a low, familiar taunt. “I’m right here, open and waiting for you…”

He breathes out, pitiful and panting underneath her as she bites against his neck, dragging lower until she bites a kiss above his very heart. “You know that I cannot.” 

She looks through her lashes up towards where he is pinned. “Leave your burdens and join me, Wisdom… You know that it would please you.” Her nails drag along his skin and send pleasure down his roiling spine, hips bucking weakly beneath her. “You know that I would please you… The world can wait just a little while longer, can’t it?”

His brows pinch with the pain of his heart gripped like a vice in his chest, a stone between his ribs. “I must–”

She rushes upwards to capture his mouth in a searing, biting kiss. “Give yourself to me.”

He gazes up to where she looms over him, wild and searching as he traces a gentle and longing hand along her cheek; savoring the warmth of her skin. Everything within me yearns to, my heart. His eyes flutter closed as his hand falls, a slow and regretful descent.

“I can’t.” It rips from his throat like a dagger, strained under her piercing gaze.

She sits back hard upon his hips, writhing with a sharp laugh and pinning him as a boulder atop his chest. “Oh but you can, can’t you?” 

He keeps his eyes shut against her ministrations, chin raised from where she rocks atop him and wills himself to still that howling, yearning hunger. This foolish game has gone on long enough, now.

“You are the only one standing in your own way, Pride. ” She spits with a high, chiming voice once more. He is grateful for it, even as she rakes vengeful marks along his chest with a frustrated hiss.

He inhales a deep, resounding breath with closed eyes, regaining his reason and calming that relentless hunger. “I know this, spirit.” 

Her weight shifts atop him and he ignores the warmth of her core, burning sinfully into his skin. 

“Her dreams really are a lot more fun, you know.” The spirit’s voice is petulant, pouting as she undoubtedly stares down at him with piercing, hollow eyes.

I am sure that they are. His lips only quirk as his eyes remain willfully closed, swirling now with clear thoughts of duty and purpose and wisdom– willing the warm weight of her to fade finally away.

He hears her first, in the patter of quick steps on old, creaking floorboards and puffing breaths as he ascends the stairs. Her clobbering of some hastily constructed target grates and groans against the floor, echoing as hollow thumps throughout her quarters.

The stack of tomes and loose-leaf parchment tuck easily into his chest as he emerges from the stairway to watch her with a pensive, raised brow.

“I can see that you are occupied, Inquisitor…” 

She turns from her battered target, a pitiful pile of lumber and– feathers ? He shakes his head with a faint smile. “I assumed the Lady Josephine had informed you of our meeting today.”

His eyes trace the damp, curling tresses of hair framing her face when she wipes at her brow, and watches the undone laces of her leathers stretch with each heaving breath as she regards him curiously. “I’ve enough time for a simple meeting, what’s this about?”

He clears his throat and places the parchment stack delicately onto her desk, cluttered with gathered tokens and runes, and turns to her with a polite nod. “The Lady Josephine and Spymaster Leliana have instructed me to provide–”

“How formal you now are, ser Fade-walker Solas …” Her voice dips low and teasing, puffing her chest as she raises a fist her heart. He ignores the playful flutter in his own chest to raise his brow at her, again.

“I refer only to their given titles, Inquisitor.” His hands clasp behind his back as he watches her slouch against the battered target. “It is something you must consider if we are to approach the court at Halamshiral–”

She growls a deep, guttural groan to the sky. “This again? I’ll wrangle all those noble-whelps into a pile and let them fight it out the honorable way.”

“Interruptions as well as informality reflect poorly on one’s standing within the Game, Inquisitor.” He steps towards her, casting a skeptical look towards her wild, untamed hair and threadbare tunic marred with unnameable stains. “It may be unfamiliar… but it is necessary.”

Her yielding sigh is a relief, and she flops into a chair which groans with the force of it. “Alright, mage.” She casts a dubious glance over him, arms crossed. “Though I thought they would send the Orlesian to be the one to stuff me in gold breeches. I’m surprised.”

He tilts his head, pacing slowly in front of the Inquisitor as he regards her. “Why have I been requested in the Court Enchanter’s stead? One might even expect the Lady Josephine to educate you herself, and they would undoubtedly perform the task well.” 

“However, I have seen many countless empires rise and fall within memories of the Fade, and the courtly machinations which caused their end… I suggested to the Spymaster that I may be of some assistance.” He looks to the ice-draped mountains towering beyond the balcony, the last light of day carrying little warmth. “ La nuit porte conseil … ‘The night gives council,’ as the saying goes. I suppose it struck a chord with her own sensibilities.” 

She groans another lamenting sound. “Now you’re talking Orlesian, too.” 

“It is always wise to heed the warnings of history, Inquisitor.” He warns, rounding to stand in front of her with a chiding look. “Especially for one in such a formidable position. The Inquisition cannot afford to fail this endeavor.”

“I still think the wrangling is a good idea.” Her eyes cast to the side as she pouts, a grin twisting at her lips.

“It may well be, Inquisitor.” His own small smile is teasing as he watches her. “Yet it is not the only path ahead, and it would be foolish to bind ourselves to one plan without considering alternatives… The Game, of course, is about giving yourself the advantage.”

He takes an old, wolfish grin that he has not felt in many years. “And with enough court approval, you may even find the Orlesians willing to wrangle themselves.”

Her laughter is hearty, and drips warmth down his spine. “I’d like the sight of that.”

He swallows the smile at his lips and tilts his head towards her. “It must be said, however, that you approach this Game with an inherent disadvantage, Inquisitor.” He paces calmly ahead of her once more, back straight. “You are an Avvar, and visibly so. But what sets you apart may also be an advantage, should one know how to utilize it.”

“It makes the wrangling easier.” Her arms flex openly at her sides, thrown over the sides of her chair carelessly. He averts his eyes swiftly from the plush, twitching musculature with a soft chuckle.

“No,” he corrects, “you are a… fascination, to the sheltered nobles of Orlais. Your tribesmen are a symbol of ancient power, linked closely to the Alamarri Andraste herself– yet just as easily dismissed as barbaric or blood-thirsty.” He turns to face her, meeting her eyes in an earnest stare. “It is now your duty to embody the former.”

She quirks a teasing brow, and he is afraid that he will indeed have to turn to the Court Enchanter with his tail between his legs, in the end. “I’m a fascination?”

“You are undoubtedly a fascinating figure, yes…” His pacing slows to a hesitant stop. “Even the Orlesians, despite their initial protests and existential fears, are able to see that.”

Her smile widens as she leans back into her chair, wood creaking and groaning with the movement. “I wonder what the elf in front of me sees.”

His chest constricts for but a moment– as he considers his words carefully.

“There has never been another in history to accomplish what you have.” She lounges in the old, rickety chair and stares at him as if he were a mouse beneath her claw. He exhales a stiff breath. “...You are a constant fascination, Inquisitor. To many.”

“And what about my– what did you call them… “enjoyable side benefits?” Her smile sharpens as her arms flex below short patchwork sleeves.

He does not allow his eyes to catch on that glinting flesh, shining still with the sweat which clings also to the  tunic against her chest. “I am sure that they will be of great use to you, at Halamshiral…”

Her laughter is rough, and playful as a raven’s call. “And what about right now?”

His mind whirls, watching her stretch languid in her chair as her tunic rides up her hips only briefly, offering a brief glimpse onto bare skin– and if he was a lesser mage, he might believe that he was still being haunted by Desire. “You are an admirable woman indeed, Inquisitor… and…” 

The spirit is unnecessary, however, once the Inquisitor has set her sights on assailing his patience herself.

Her legs cross bawdily and he ignores the plushness spreading under sturdy leather breeches, her feet bare and tapping along the floor. “You know much of my bargaining benefits, for a man that has not once attempted to ask for a chance in my furs.”

He baulks at her brazen words, brows raising. “It would not be appropriate–”

“And if it was?” Her head tilts with a smirking, curious look…  altogether both hungry and satisfied with what she is wringing from him.

He shoots her a dour look, warning where she treads unthinking. “It is not, Inquisitor.” 

“And who decided this for me?” She asks, and her voice is gruff– low like the rumbling of a rockslide– but not unkind. “Have I no say in what I am allowed, in this game of yours?”

“It is not a matter of allowance, Inquisitor. It would not be wise to–”

“So you would..?” She teases, and the patience within his chest wears thin and snaps at her relentless push forward, unyielding as a frontline guardsmen. Her tower shield presses and the wolf within him snarls, cornered.

“It does not matter what I would do because I cannot–”

The chair underneath her scrapes as she stands suddenly, stalking towards him until the back of his legs hit the hard surface of her desk. Her eyes are lidded lazily, and her smile reminds him of those hungry beasts of the Western Approach– caging their prey with confident advance.

“Well I say that you can,” she grunts, pressing a strong hand to his shoulder until he sits back– some trinket falling to the ground unseen. “If I’m their ‘Herald of Andraste’ then I won’t let these lowlanders keep us from it.” 

Her hand wraps around his linen tunic, bunching the patchwork fabric where his heart races wildly in his chest. He knows that she reclaims the title of ‘Herald’ purposefully, where he has seen it used before to keep her powerless– small, despite her size.

The fire grows within her, and he feels it burning where she stands strong against him.

His own fingers twitch to touch her and stoke the warmth within, bringing her to its roiling edge and watch her come undone beneath him… He does not, however. 

And he only hopes that his desperate grip does not leave unsightly lines in the polished wood below him. “It is not simple authority which has me bound, Inquisitor.” 

He swallows against the tightening of his throat, averting his gaze to watch the still ashes of the fireplace beside them. With her fire pressed so closely to him, he does not have to wish for any other warmth. 

“You are bound? By what?” She is intrigued, wide-eyed and searching as she settles her hands beside his hips, trapping him against the desk’s edge. 

And with her question, he is trapped in more ways than one. That howling within him circles in a carefully constructed cage, snapping at old iron bars. 

There are many truths that she asks for, and all end poorly for the both of them.

“I do not wish to hurt you.” He breathes out into the air between them, her face peering up so close that his eyes shutter closed, defeated. 

She only chortles gruffly, and it sends tremors to dance along his skin. “Men are so proud of their own form. What makes you think you could hurt me?”

He smirks despite himself and huffs a quiet, intimate laugh against where she leans to him. “It is not a matter of strength, Inquisitor. Though it is my… decided lack of it.”

“I think you’re fine enough.” Her shrug is small and casual as she rakes an appreciative glance down his form.

“Thank you for your ringing endorsement.” He chuckles softly, his gaze soft. “But it would not be wise to pursue this path. It can only lead to painful ends.” He traces the back of his hand along her cheek, brow relaxing as he studies her. “... and I could not bear to be the cause of it.” 

Not for this .

She grasps that hand, turning it easily as he yields to her touch and nips a kiss the thin skin of his wrist. Her smile is warm against his skin, the tease of her teeth against him sparking desire downwards. “You speak as a seer, Solas. Which spirit told you this?”

He hesitates, a painful humor twitching on his lips. “My own.” 

Wisdom. Pride. Wherever they touch to meet.

“Well,” she begins, brushing a soft finger at his lips. “My spirit tells me now is all we have. What use in fearing what has not yet come?” 

Her nose trails against his cheek as he tilts his head unthinking, trailing a hand to the swell of her hip while she breathes a whisper against his lips. “I’ll chase happiness as it crosses my path.”

His eyes close with a reluctant exhale as he presses gently at her shoulder, swallowing the yearning hunger that twists in his throat and aches in his ribs. This satisfaction could be only fleeting, an empty temptation in the face of the feast before him: his duty. “We cannot–”

He feels as her fingers lock beneath his chin, dragging him to face her as his eyes burst open with indignant shock. 

Her voice steels, unrelenting as the stone of a mountain. It is not cruel, however– despite the way it traps him underneath her. “Honor me to look in my eyes as you deny me.”

His gaze rakes along her bright cheeks blushing wild and fire burning in the depths of her hard, pinning stare. “This is unwise,” he exhales, hand falling from her shoulder as she presses her thumb against his frown. “I should not…”

The callus of her finger catches against his lip and she watches with hawk-like focus. He understands now why so many on the battlefield turn tail when caught in her path; sword and armor blazing. 

She is captivating, and entirely unbreakable– as fiery as a holy beacon before him. 

He blinks slowly as his eyes avert from that blazing fire, brows drawing painfully as he soothes a repentant hand down her arm. She is warm and soft beneath his touch, and he does not let his fingers linger.

“I find that I cannot deny you,” he says, eyes flitting to meet her breathless gaze– “and that is dangerous.”

Her smile widens and feeds that howling hunger within his chest, dipping low within his belly as she whispers lowly against his lips. “You don’t need to deny me, Solas.”

Each word sends a puff of breath against his skin and snaps the once-tightly wrapped bounds of his soul, setting free the howling yearning that burns beneath his skin. He lurches from beneath her, and he chases his hunger as little more than a mindless beast.

His arms wrap around her tightly and drag her to his chest, pressing the softness of her flesh against him as he wraps a hand in the wild, tangled tresses of her hair. She gasps against his lips, and he takes her open mouth between desperate, biting teeth– the desk creaking dangerously beneath them with the strength that his hips rock to meet hers.

Her own hands drag up his arms and around his neck, catching his nape in a firm hold to drive him ever deeper into their searing kiss, a gnashing of lips and teeth. He follows her firm grip willingly, diving into her as he anchors her leg around him.

It is she who gives way for air and pants hard with red-bitten lips, her chest heaving above his own fast-beating heart, already howling for him to take her again. 

“This will not end well for us.” He whispers, desperate against the warmth of her skin.

“Many things don’t.” She says and tosses her head back in a breathless laugh, as he eyes the long stretch of untouched flesh that it reveals, craving the salt of her skin beneath his teeth.

He kisses her roughly again, trailing soft nips from the swell of her lips down the plinth of her neck until she rumbles a moan beneath him. He growls against a reddening mark, flushing already with his worrying teeth. “This one will end particularly poorly.”

Her moan lightens to a happy hum, breathless and playful. “You all seem to doubt my knowing, in this place.”

His gaze flicks up to her, brow raised curiously as she traces a teasing finger along his ear, and he shivers in her arms.

“You don’t play the Game as well as you think, mage.” Her laughter rumbles beneath his stilled lips, his mouth slowing against her neck. “Though I have known it well enough.”

She does not bring a dagger to his throat and so he does not let the stone within his chest drop at her vague jests, and she continues in his silence.

“Lowlanders don’t know the mind of a hunter, who knows each drop of snow as it falls– for the rivers rush quickly, and bring the fleeting trout runs with them.” Her smile is wide, teasing him as he looks up to her. “Not much harder to read a man’s heart from his nostrils.”

Ah.

He has not been as subtle as he had hoped… at least, for his desire.

The stone lifts from his heart and it is a strange thing, to be relieved that she speaks only of his desire and not of the secrets holding the entire facade of him in place.

“You have been… highly underestimated here, then.” He attempts a playful smile at the soft kiss he presses against her skin, trying to swallow the frown tugging at his lips. Despite the pride that burns at her unexpected talent for the Game, he can see the storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

“It’s my gift,” her smile is crooked, and she rocks her hips against him to knock the air from his lungs with a soft laugh. “Let them see what they want from me… I always take what is mine in the end.” 

He growls lowly against the hungry kiss she presses to his lips, “I would hope for you not to use this particular set of skills in Halamshiral, Inquisitor.”

Her answering laughter echoes throughout her chambers, grown dark with the fading sun set behind the mountains. “Worry not, elf.” She nips against his lips, and trails a hand to tease at his front. “I hunt only one prey at a time.”

“How lucky for me, then.” His hand grasps hers and turns it in his grip to lay a kiss at the thin green veins, trailing biting kisses down her wrist to her palm. 

He smirks, flicking his gaze to where she watches him dark eyes, blown wide as he teases his lips along her skin. “Yet I did not imagine Orlesians would be to your tastes anyhow.”

The fingers of her hand clench and she meets his lips in a rough kiss, soft groans rumbling between them. “I hunger for much… and you have kept me wanting, Solas.” 

She winds her arms around his neck and cages him in her the strength of her arms, at her mercy of her pressing, bitten lips. His grip flits hungrily along her body and grasps at the soft, generous swells of flesh.

“It would be kinder, in the long run.” He pants against her lips and tucks his nose beneath her ear to mouth at the skin, cradling her nape as her head falls backward. He pulls her closer against him, setting her atop his rocking hips and sweeping an arm behind them to clear the desk carelessly– tomes and papers flying to the floor.

“This will end only with pain…”

He growls into the softness of her chest and nips at the skin revealed as he tears at her laces and tunic. His fingers stroke teasing touches at her warmth as her legs part wide for him, and he laves wet, hungry kisses against her skin. He watches her through his lashes as she writhes atop him, gripping at his arms with desperate sounds.

“But I cannot deny you, my heart.”

Chapter Text

She breathes in the salt-bitter winds burning at her eyes and half-healed cuts of her face and hands. But those are little scrapes, hardly worth the elfroot her own elf insists that he scrape upon them. 

This place is worthy, though– where twisting pines hang from steep cliffs battered by white, foamy waves and the endless calling of gulls overhead… One of them soars through the heavy clouds sitting low above the mountain and coasts on wild, swirling winds. 

The skies here are a glorious battlefield, heavy with wet and bitter winds, with the promise of lightning sticking to her furs. It is all a grey meadow above, without the snaking green scars of her duty.

Here the Lady is wild, and completely, utterly free.

It had taken few words for Solas to join her, his own packs ready and light as he smiled knowingly. The fire-haired Spymaster had been tougher work, but even her steely gaze melted like a spring river when caught onto their meaning. After seasons of constant advance into unending lowlander wars, and the new threat of Corypheus erupting, her threads were thinning– and it was only a retreat from towering stone walls and barking orders which could set her right again.

It was only the Storm Coast that brought her a wild, unfamiliar freedom and so far from her home... Along with that one who now sleeps soundly, curled and lain in furs beneath the wind-battered canvas of their tent.

He is thoroughly spent, she thinks with a huffed laugh– poking at the embers of their fire as it heaves a dying breath. She sits on a log of roughened bark turned dark and damp from rain and fog, and settles into the pleasant ache of her shoulders, her core, her thighs. He is entirely unlike the mannish louts of her Hold, and she is glad for it.

His affections are quieter, whispering words into the shell of her ear as he drags longing hands across her skin– pressing her into whatever corners he finds for them, or wherever she drags him when his gentle affections begin to chafe like untended leather. 

It is very different from declarations shouted with fire and banging iron from mountain peaks, different from the complex, generational negotiations and bartering between warring families, and by the Lady– all those damned goats…

Her lips curl as she remembers their unhurried touches last night, his hands slipping along her skin and holding her tightly against him, the scent of wild herbs and parchment fogging her mind even above salt-spray and embrium floating them… His breath puffing against her lips as he whispered strange, lilting Elvhen words with bright eyes that blazed, blue as moonlight. 

She told him that she could never catch the meaning of his words, always too complex than the simple sentences and words she picked up– but he had only smiled, and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips as his hands traced soft lines along her skin. ‘You understand them more than you know,’ he said, whispering into her lips.

He is lucky that he is otherwise much better company than goats– and smells far better, too.

Another gust of wind whips from the roiling sea below, where jagged rock stands to break the crashing waves, and mists the air heavy with brine and salt. It rattles the stretched hide of their tent, flapping like gull’s wings with the force of it, and suddenly the salt of the air turns green like the herbs and the leaves he keeps– with something smoky, warm in the musk underneath.

She grins broad and pokes at the flooded embers, feeling his hands come to massage the stubborn knots of her spine, and he breathes a greeting kiss to her nape. “You are awake,” he mumbles, voice still rich with his dreaming. “Much too early.”

His trailing hum rumbles like distant thunder beneath her skin as he settles behind her, and she huffs another laugh. “You've spent all of first light wrapped tight in furs and snoring.”

“Admittedly– I am stalling for time, vhenan.” He smiles slow against her neck, nipping unhurried kisses as his hands settle wide around her hips. “We have had few moments such as this, to enjoy ourselves with no interruptions.”

Their meetings have been silent, private kisses stolen fiery and pressed hard into old stone walls, with whispered confessions and desires lain bare– and even still Josephine had found them– her mouth gaping as a trout as she sputtered and glanced frantically between them. The Iron Bull, when they had stolen away behind some boulder to press desperate kisses to bloodied flesh and aching bone, only laughed heartily as they fell apart with wide eyes, kneeling in the dirt. 

Yet here was another as Solas cornered her onto the war table, eyes shining with some bold glimmer she had only seen at Halamshiral, when the sparkling wine left him giddy and loose. He slipped his hands beneath her and rolled her onto the table, uncaring of falling pawns and parchment, and pressed between her spreading thighs with a reverent, hungry moan–

Before a pail of water, cold as the snow-coated rivers of Skyhold, dropped and soaked them to the bone. She did not have to move the hair from her eyes, and Solas did not have to lift his weary head from her breast, to know the source of the cackling above– from shouts of “Let your elven glory have that, icy breeches!”

No, it is not any secret that keeps them because rumors spread quickly in close company– and quicker than a hungry quillbeast when the world wants to end– but it is the interruptions; of duties, unending dignitaries, and even passing messengers seeming to flock to their stolen moments.

His hands trail curiously up her sides, tracing cold lines under her furs as he hums a kiss behind her ear. “Now you are the one lost in thought,” chuckling a warm sound into the mess of her hair, “and entirely indecent.” 

He works at the bindings of her armor with quick, familiar movements and she leans against him, watching with great amusement. His face is still lined with sleep, eyes drooping further with each slow blink against her cheek– and she smiles beneath the soft kiss he presses sweetly there, huffing a laugh at his fumbling fingers.

“Take a few days to recover, hahren–”  his eyes narrow and she holds her own laugh, nipping a kiss at the freckled cut of his jaw. “You’re stumbling like a half-starved bogfisher.”

His gaze flicks to hers, brows drawn low at her light-hearted teasing. "I have slept on flooded, rocky ground for the past three days, my heart…" he complains, "I am perfectly capable of keeping with your appetite, however."

Gudrun rumbles a deep, chest-warm laugh as his arms tighten around her, and she rolls a thumb over stern lines gathering on his brow. His lip quirks and he softens again under her touch, resting his chin at the weld of her neck and shoulder with gentle hums. 

He had rushed with smug, haughty grins and that familiar gleam in his eyes to prove himself when she had approached him for her desires, in the beginning. It reminded her of the whelps in her own clan parading proud as griffons, when first catching their lover’s eye– though she is pleased that he has since proven far, far more capable.

She had only ever known to be open with her hunger, much to the red-faced anger of Chantry sisters and priests, and Solas has always risen to the hunt when she calls for him. 

The memory of some particular meetings, especially those rushed and bucking fumblings in the side halls of Halamshiral– where he unraveled under the sweet, bubbling wine and the quaking of her thighs. She flushes at the sudden memory, and aches where his hands now trace around her hips as he breathes hot behind her ear.

He cannot read minds, she is sure. But even when they are tangled together on lichen-covered timber, he reads her pining like stone-sigils set upon her skin. 

Her head leans and turns toward him, meeting his lips in a lazy, lolling kiss as he comes to cradle her jaw, dragging up from her breast. His hips begin to roll behind her as he pulls her ever closer, one arm wrapping and kneading across the softness of her midsection. 

“So desperate to please,” she laughs– a husky sound that vibrates between them, sending a soft moan to rumble in his chest. “I am a proud woman.”

His own laugh is a gentle breath along her skin, where he smirks at the bare skin of her shoulder that he slowly reveals, pulling at the laces of her tunic. 

“I am always happy to please, ma asha’nehn .”

The midday sun looms high by the time their camp is finally packed away, and he shoulders their supplies with a familiar weight. They are not far from the Hessarian camp now, and camped close enough that the coming walk will be quick enough– whenever they decided to finish it.

Gudrun stands at the peak of the cliff, tying her bindings absently as she looks out to the stormy waters, frothing with white foam and crashing against rugged rock. The merciless wind whips her hair from its braid and he has to shout to be heard above the breaking waves, just below.

“We have delayed long enough, vhenan.” He steps carefully over rain-laden grasses to stand beside her, watching where far, cresting waves gleam with dappled sunlight and reaches to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear– so round and painfully human… She looks longingly out to sea, flashing him a twitching smile as he traces down her jaw. 

“The Spymaster will not overlook our lingering much longer,” he continues, pressing a sorrowed kiss to the warm skin under his touch. 

Her hand comes to grasp his own, a brief squeeze of warmth before she starts to shuffle on her feet and takes a deep, sweeping inhale of the salt-brined air and mist of rain. She turns her face towards the skies as another gull calls, and his heart pulls painfully in his chest. 

She is a glimpse of starlight between clouds; a passing season in the lonely eternity set before him, and what he must do. Her years will be short no matter how tightly he hangs to that foolish hunger within his chest. But she is a bright flash of fire, burning hot and quick and he cannot bring himself to step away…

So he takes his next foolish leap, beyond all the reason that she tears so easily from him.

“Have you ever felt the sea,” he tilts his head to look at the waves lapping over pebbled sand, and his eyes meet hers, playful– “beyond longing glances?”

Her brow quirks bemusedly, and he steps towards a narrow deer trail snaking along the mountainside, shouldering the camp pack with a sore breath as he sweeps an arm outward down the rocky path. “It would be on the way,” he assures her with a twitching smile.

She claps a strong hand to his shoulder, warmth spreading easily through the thin linen of his tunic. “If my watcher wills it,” she winks, teasing– always teasing… “Then I would be a fool to deny you.”

And hops excitedly down the steep path as she looks towards the water; a massive, swirling current of mist and sea foam. 

He shakes his head fondly, and follows dutifully after.

And as he steps onto the beach laden with rock and pale, twisting wood– Gudrun is already toeing carefully into creeping waves, slipping over smooth pebbled sand. Her trousers are rolled to the knee and her strong calves clench entering the frigid water, looking back at him with a hearty smile.

“By the Lady,” she laughs with a hooting bellow. “It’s as bitter as a winter river... get in here!”

“That is not the most convincing argument I have heard, vhenan .” He deadpans, huddled into threadbare robe as the skies send wind, rain, and speckled light to whip along the water. Yet his heart warms to see her fascinated, stepping cautious into crashing waves and calling happily as she pulls a string of seaweed into air.

No, he is perfectly content to watch from the shore– at the curve of her hip as she bends, staring curiously into the frigid waters and turning to smile back at him, tucking hair behind her ear. 

He realizes the sharpness of her innocent smile far too late, when she sends a wide, gulping kick of icy water to soak him. Her laughter is a bellowing clap of thunder, trailing off only when she realizes that he has not made a single sound, standing deathly still at the edge of the water... one brow raised in question, a challenge.

She spots his intentions with a trained hunter’s eye, faster than he himself saw the shift of her own smile, and runs along the shore with a guffaw as her feet splash frantically in the water. “Oh, the beast has begun to hunt–” she laughs, a deep and wild sound that fits well amidst the rugged coast.

He smiles, a familiar daring building in his chest as he swings the staff from his back. He will humor her games, then.

“Even the sky herself cannot save you now, my heart.” His resounding chuckle echoes above the water as she runs, hopping through budding waves, until he pulls at the thread of the Fade beneath her– warping the Veil to send her legs flying through the air.

She lands in the waters with a great plopping splash, and he twists his magic to raise another wave to land atop her head, drudging a clump of seaweed to sit like a fanciful, uncannily Orlesian hat. He lifts his trousers to wade calmly toward her, plucking the seaweed from her hair and tutting a soft, gentle sound. 

“There you are,” he hums with a quiet laugh, crouching to lay a kiss upon her cheek. “Tasting all the sea has to offer."

But he does not laugh for long as she swings a sudden arm to sweep his feet from underneath him, landing in a heap of his own splash beside her. 

She laughs for quite some time and he sputters seawater brine, grimacing and shivering in the cold, frigid water.

But he feels her warmth settle soon beside him as she kneels to drag him into another kiss, deep and thrumming with shared laughter as a tall wave crashes salt spray between them. 

She pulls back slightly, breathing hot against his lips and holds his face towards her. “Tastes bad,” she rumbles and her smile tilts, lifting his chin for another heated kiss– her own laughter settling warm within his chest.

‘This is but a passing moment’ echoes like a binding curse in that bitter corner of his mind, even as he holds ever-tighter to that familiar, armored dip of her waist, pulling her further into him.

They stumble back to shore with kiss-bitten lips and drunk on those fervent, fleeting touches. 

It’s a better brew than any stagnant ale she’s had before, from the malted rye of her mountain home to that sweet, bubbling wine of Orlais. Walking from the frigid waters with furs soaked and dripping, her lips buzz with reddened bruises he’s bitten into her, and some strange airy feeling erupts in her belly.

It’s not just the coast, or the soaring gulls shouting endless songs from the sky, or bitter waters that spill the familiar feel of her Hold. 

Solas approaches from behind, a gentle hand trailed along her back as he rounds to face her, eyes checking her carefully as he whispers a spell across her skin– drying and warming all at once. He begins to fumble with her leather ties again and at her raised brow he smirks, another proud and cocksure look.

“I will behave myself, vhenan.” His voice is rich and smooth as the syrup-sap lowlanders tap from trees, and glances up with a wolfish look. 

Her teasing smile is a familiar habit and she traces the lines of his arms beneath his tunic, testing the lithe muscle there. “That doesn’t mean that I have to,” she begins and dips her head to take his neck between her teeth.

He clears his throat of a groaning moan and grabs her hands gently, bringing them to his lips as he breathes soft kisses to her knuckles. “The Hessarian camp is not far,” he continues, trailing down to her fingers. “There is still the rite, after all.”

It is the rite the Hessarians had sent for, asking a small retinue of soldiers for a ceremony that had little reason for the Inquisitor herself to come. But it became the skinned pelt that their escape hid beneath, and that which Leliana spread news of.

The Hessarians will no doubt be strengthened by her arrival, welcoming them with open arms and letting them slip into duty with little question. There will be little privacy when they get there, however. 

And even less when they return to Skyhold.

They’ve been spoiled in touch and the break of their duties, with endless wild to roam and roll in open grasses without fear of another interruption, or passing eyes to watch and speculate, or even their own volume. It’s a fleeting moment of what she craves, just beyond her reach.

But she has him now, and for her– that is good enough. 

Her hand slips up to cradle his jaw, and she kisses a loud peck against his freckled cheek as he finishes the last of her bindings. “You’ll go back to your books, and your painting,” she teases. “And I’ll have to drag you back to dark and hidden corners, once again.” 

“You sound as if you are unsatisfied with such affairs...” He chuckles, shaking his head as they begin to move on the narrow path down the rocky, flooded hillside. 

He’s seen the hunter’s blush that flushes bright down her chest when she corners him, wrangling with frantic grasping into forgotten hallways and vine-hidden alcoves. There’s a desperate, hungering spirit that flames in such meetings– and she does enjoy the fire. 

But these past days have revealed that it’s not just the fire that feeds the cravings. For even their gentle, unhurried journey lights her hunger for something else, something that waits in a hut in the woods, just for them. Somewhere far to the future.

“I wouldn’t be unsatisfied with you,” she jests with a soft clap to his shoulder, but knows that by now he can read easily her earnesty, even as she chides him. But his face falls, and he looks down the trail to a distant rockslide.

His eyes flick to hers, soft and sad all at once. “One day you may see my own flaws as I have seen them, vhenan.” 

“I’ve seen plenty enough,” she laughs– knocking a shoulder against his to shake that cloud always seeming to loom over him. But it’s a stubborn thing. “I knew you were strange the first moment you stayed despite being a Fade mage, of all the chances you had to flee.”

She herself had offered to escort him off the mountain in the first months, seeing the way he looked to the horizon as if he was far too far from home. It was a feeling that she herself knew well enough, after all. But always he denied with a polite nod, and brief murmur of thanks.

His answering chuckle is a pale, muted sound. “A foolish optimism, perhaps.”

“I’ve seen plenty enough to know that I enjoy it.” She beams and another gull calls overhead. “And you are… a good strange, like a pine tree tall in a forest of juniper,” she nods.

At his calculating look, weighing her words like a tome passage that he must chew over, she continues with a hearty laugh. “ And you are handsome.”

His lip quirks. 

“A ringing endorsement,” he drawls. Then another cloud comes before him, and his face grows strangely serious again. “But I ask nothing to be by your side, for as long as you would have me, It…” His brows cinch, conflicted. 

But he slows and turns to trail a gentle hand across her cheek, the barest whisper of a touch. “The future will always be uncertain.”

She takes that sorrowed hand and presses it above her heart with a bellying laugh, a vow against her rib. “I’m stuck to your side like spring’s leech, mage. You won’t shake me that easy.”

He rumbles soft laughter at the imagery– willfully creative, he had once told her. “And if I am a husk without blood, what then? I would not ask that you bind yourself to an empty man…” Still humoring her with a tilting smirk, “Even if handsome.”

“You have plenty of blood,” she protests. 

“But if I do not,” he challenges, “and wish to save this leech from a short, and disappointing lifetime?”

They’re nearing the camp now, and she narrows her eyes playfully at his continued testing. “You couldn’t remove me with the damned jaws of Hakkon,” her grin is crooked and teasing, and she continues. “And you won’t ever have to try.”

He laughs a gentle, breathy sound and his eyes flash to meet hers. “There are many things of which I am incapable when around you, vhenan. It seems reason is the first to go.”

The Hessarian guards spot them from the trail and call the gates to open, a great heaving sound torn from the wood as it shifts to reveal the huddled crowd within– all ready to receive their Herald, and begin the rites. 

She reaches to hold his hand with a soft squeeze. “I’m with you,” her voice drops, a familiar command. 

His own answering smile is a tight pinch that he cannot hide, a twisting grimace flicking his gaze downward. He traces a thumb down her knuckle, studying the familiarity that he has known now for months, and could not forget even in an eternity.

You had my heart before I could have hoped to stop it. 

Before I realized that I was already sworn to you.

He squeezes a gentle grip of her hand, of a soft heartbeat shared between them as he looks back to her, unyielding. 

But nothing more is said– for there is nothing he could say beyond what his eyes have already revealed, downtrodden and blinking in blue.

Chapter Text

The valleys of Crestwood are tucked neatly into flooded stone, which reflect a greenish sheen from the scarred night sky above, and are lain with a sea of tall, gently waving grasses. Beneath his feet, the rocks are smooth and rounded from ages of battering rain– and the air blows a crisp, biting wind.

They’ve walked here silently, with Gudrun only huffing each time her furred boot splashes into sodden puddles. She has noted his own silence sagely, he realizes. In another moment they may have walked closely together, their fingers brushing as they sent knowing gazes to each other. Laughter would ring brightly in the air– even beneath the heavy clouds, pelting rain to flood the land. 

This moment… is not so easy.

He took many days to wander the Wilds after the events of the temple of Mythal. The Inquisition harried forward, desperate to forge new plans and work through the revealed weaknesses of Corypheus. The Inquisitor, however, did not.

One of the scouts ran forward to relay his message, and he was already atop the hill leading away when she turned with curious eyes, watching him silently. He, too, said nothing– simply veering from that long procession of soldiers, and trailing after his own spiraling thoughts. The Well, their new carrier in that mysterious, Wilder mage… and the stark reminder that he had been shown: of what he is truly here to do.

So when he returned again to Skyhold and to her curious, searching gaze– he resolved that he would not let that reminder slip. Not as easily as it had before.

He knows she did not understand his anger at the Well, nor his outburst towards the human mage parched for its power. She could not know, without himself revealing the truth of who he is. And despite how she watches him and reaches for his hand, seeking to bring him comfort, he cannot unravel himself before her.

This will be kinder in the long run, he knows. 

It is, at least, a mantra that he tells himself.

And when she huffs again to yank her foot from muddied mire, he repeats his mantra to himself, beneath the gentle tilt of a smile, glancing back at her. He is lucky enough that she has given him this chance– for he has existed on a knife’s edge of sanity these past weeks, which she has read all too easily. 

She watched him like a snowcat might study an oblivious hare, staring from the edges of the rotunda as he tried, daringly, to ignore her. He is only surprised that she humored him to do so, and did not drag him to some corner to tear his thoughts from him as she always did, so easily.

Another reason to abandon this weakness of his, then.

They approach tall standing plinths of stone, upright against an eruption of stone– and he walks forward with familiar steps, slipping between them into a place he has seen often in his dreams. 

There are remnants of the People all over Thedas, and yet this one may be his favorite.

The clearing is a gully between towering hills, with cliffs streaked in waterfalls like silver hair, gleaming with moonlight, and lapping to the mossy shore where he now stands. There is only the whispering of trees, and a wind that falls from hilltops to ripple among the waves. Old, moss-covered statues stand tall beside the water, and Solas inhales the scent of those forgotten enchantments like salt on the wind.

He turns towards Gudrun with a pleased look, but her eyes are busy amongst the stars– face turned upward in awe towards the clear, inky black sky. He takes his time to watch her all the same. It may be the last time he is allowed such a sight, after all. 

Something sharp pulls within his chest at the sudden reminder. His gaze falls back to the bowed, dewy grasses at their feet. 

This will be difficult, even more so than he imagined.

Despite him knowing what he must do– his time with her has passed like sun-warmed fancies. She is a bright pyre, warming through rock and snow, and dragging him from tangling in his own misery with her grasping, tugging touches–

There is a sudden clanking of armor, and his gaze flicks upwards to see her dropping armor and furs, kicking off her boots with a huff as they land at the water’s edge.

She only lowers to lay atop the folded grasses, left only in her cotton bindings now, and watches him with a curious, challenging tilt to her brow. Her smirk reminds him of that snowcat again, only now he is not the oblivious hare but some prey trapped beneath her paw. “So this is the reason for your silence and sulking, mage?” she says, and rakes her fingers through the grasses at her hip. “The pouting was unneeded, to drag me for a roll in the… peat.”

“Pouting?” he questions, and lifts a brow. “I do not pout, vhenan.”

She only laughs heartily, throwing her head back and stretching into the grass, looking at him with a teasing twist of her lips.

“I was… preoccupied,” he says. With thoughts of you, he thinks– and thoughts of what comes after you.

She stares curiously at him. “You are always ‘preoccupied,’ mage.”

He knows what she means with her spared brief words: he is always thinking, and yet has not been so lost in his thoughts that he attempts to ignore her entirely, leaning over old tomes and parchment to sulk by his lonesome. Often she even joined him in those moods, amused when he bared tangling thoughts of the Fade, or rifts, or enemy movements. 

Only now has his evasion, ever-trailing behind their fleeting, yearning kisses, finally caught up to him– and he could no longer tell her of these tangling thoughts– not when they brought so much else with them. 

Stories, myths, old pains that would require him to not only tell her the truth– but also what became of the truth: tales that every Dalish clan spins and weaves in a poor attempt to reclaim what was lost. And to explain why he alone knows what was lost…

She is an Avvar, and already blind to their ways. This would only be another rift between them.

His foolish attempts to overlook that have only come to head, now.

“Even now, you are preoccupied” she smirks, interrupting his spiraling thoughts. “And pouting.”

He huffs a laugh, stepping closer to where she now lays, as she folds her hands behind the mess of her wild, untamed hair. “It is my mistake, then–” he begins, “for arguing with a trained hunter. I should know that you would catch every movement…" His words trail off, and he tucks a stray tress of hair behind her ear.

The short, rounded shell is a familiar warmth beneath his fingers. 

“So I will tell you the truth then,” he says, and she rolls onto her side to stare up at him, raising a questioning brow. “You are like nothing which I expected to see,” his lip quirks, “not in this lifetime. You are… more important to me than you could know.”

She huffs a breathy baring of her lips, and as he settles in the grass beside her, leaning to look towards the stars, her fingers rake along his arm. She need not say anything now– because the light in her eyes is familiar enough– and mirrors the passing looks they share when it is too quiet to say anything, and no hidden corners to be pulled into. When even whispering of love would be far too loud.

But he should tell her, now. The snaking vines of affection have embedded themselves already into his veins, winding deeper until it may tear out his own heart to part with them… It may already be so. 

But it will be better to cut them now, tonight– before they crawl even further. 

“You have risen above many expectations,” he starts, and his brows tense as he stares down at her. “Even mine,” he drawls with a small, secret smile.

She lifts a brow, tilting her head as she meets his gaze with a challenge. “I was a hunter before I was a weaver, lowland–”

“Because you are an Avvar,” he interrupts with a chuckle. “That in itself carries beliefs, about your capabilities and talents, or fears for how you might adjust. Or how others would adjust to you…” Her head tilts, and he looks again towards the sky– where little gleams of light stare to watch them back. “Yet you instead remind them that Andraste herself was an Alamarri, and suddenly the tales of Avvarian tribes stealing children from Fereldan farmholds are forgotten,” he says.

Gudrun scoffs, rolling her eyes as she leans in the soft, cradling grasses. “Lowlander myths,” she sighs. “We would have no more need of mouths to feed,” she says, and then smiles. “Especially not the picky ones.”

“That may be,” he laughs quietly. “But even in myths there are truths, even if it is only the fear itself that is real. You have challenged their ignorance,” he turns again towards her, and trails his fingers down the muscled plinth of her neck, where her heartbeat wobbles softly. “And mine.”

He does not know if this is a kindness, to reveal how she has wound herself so effortlessly into his heart, and defied all the ways in which he attempted to confine her, to explain her very existence– but he only wishes that she would know that it is him who is faulted. 

That if he did not have this path set before him…

He must tell her before he leaves, at least. Perhaps in another lifetime he will be rewarded for this foolish, senseless sacrifice.

“When we discovered your… origins,” he starts, and remembers the Seeker raging with a cut on her cheek– and the worrying of the Spymaster’s lip, as she sought agents to plunge into the Frostbacks to find the Herald’s clan. “There were fears about the Maker’s chosen lacking such timidity… and how the Chantry would respond to claims of an Avvar, worshiping foreign gods, as the leader of the Inquisition.” 

“And yet,” he begins, and raises her hand to his lips, where he presses a reverent kiss, “it was your determination that has saved the world– despite their doubts.” He smiles against the softness of her skin, and meets her eyes through the hills of her knuckles. “I still do not know if the Orlesians are threatened by it… or find it all incredibly quaint,” he drawls.

It is likely both and neither, he thinks. Certainly it has already inspired some imaginative fiction about conquesting Avvar women-warriors, and their timid lowland ransoms. If he has seen such pamphlets sitting in the Val Royeaux bazaars, he would not admit to flipping through, staring with a quirked brow at some generous depictions of the Inquisitor’s lookalike, standing in immodest fur wrappings with familiar, fiery eyes. 

Her laughter breaks his thoughts– mercifully. “It pokes at them like a spinehog in their bedrolls,” she says, chuckling as she leans against him. 

“The values of the Avvar are different to those of Orlais, or even Fereldan.” He rumbles into the wild mess of her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of mosses, and river rocks. “Your amiability towards spirits, while not a mage, caused many concerns within the Chantry– even beyond only accusations of heresy. I will admit that it worried even me,” and he smiles into the crown of her head. “If only out of sympathy.”

Her eyes set into narrowed, blazing lines as she looks up at him, huffing. “I would not let them raise a blade against you, Solas.”

It is not the first time she has told him so, and yet still something pulls within him– from that twining, twisting tightness throughout his chest. His fingers twitch from where they wrap around her, and his smile wanes.

“I know,” he says, leaning to press his lips to her temple. “And that has been the most surprising of all.”

She hums as he shifts closer to her, and he takes another wistful inhale of breath to mark this moment in memory: the press of her softness against him, the wind through trees that dusts a chill against her skin, which he rubs away with a soft, worshipful hand. 

He hopes there is some spirit here, pressing against the Veil, and capturing its perfection as a Fade-held respite. 

“For all the Avvar may have done,” he starts– “they have done at least one thing right.”

“Consort with demons?” she teases, leaning back in his tight, cradling arms.

His chuckle is a deep, resonant rumbling and he shakes his head, staring to fall into her gaze. “They made you,” he says, and leans to capture her lips again, soft and yearning. Even now, the warmth of her mouth sends a bolt of lightning down his spine.

This hunger keeps twining deeper within him, and he moves back– shifting from the bite of her teeth, scraping along his bottom lip, resolved to rip the roots of it like vining ivy.

He must do it now, before he falls deeper into this well.

“I must–”

“I don’t know where you come from, mage–” she interrupts, surging to take his mouth between her teeth again in a searing, tenacious kiss. “I have never traded nor heard of your village, far to the north.” 

Her hands wind through the roughened fabric of his tunic, pulling him forward roughly as he falls deeper into that kiss, the heat of her lips and the insistent press of her teeth and tongue, the nails he can feel raking down his chest already… “You are a strange man,” she huffs against his lips, and he blinks blearily through his head-heated high. “More questions come when I try to unravel you.”

At his hazily raised brow she laughs, and gives him a simmering, heated stare. “But I would reward your people with all of the hunts of my lifetime for making you,” she smirks a twisting grin. “Which are a great many.”

His building chuckle is interrupted by the press of her hands against his chest, and he falls backward into the bed of fragrant grasses while he holds tightly to her hips. He is desperate to remember the feeling; the give of her flesh beneath his fingers, and the warmth atop him as she settles on his lap. 

Another memory he will not soon forget– as even regret for what must come could not make him desire to. 

“I would–” he tries to begin again, until she begins to rock her hips and stare him down with a devouring gaze.

“The Lady has blessed me to have you,” she says, nipping down his neck with a breathy rumble, “in many ways–” and his tunic is tugged roughly away before her legs wrap tighter around him, until the world is only her and the give of her body atop him. “I will enjoy my gift,” she teases with a crooked grin, and looks up at him with another nip at his chest. “Now that you are done pouting.”

He presses a slow hand against her shoulder. “I–” and stumbles as she grabs his hand, trailing it across the heaving swell of her breast beneath her furs. His hands already crave to touch her, after only days apart, but he clenches his fingers to still his hunger. “We should not–”

“No more talking, mage.” His lips are taken again into the wet, heated warmth of her mouth, and the scolding bite of her kiss as she hushes him. 

His hands press against her shoulder again from within their embrace, and he cannot pretend that he has put any power into it. “It would be wise–” he says, before he is silenced by her pressing lips once more.

“No,” she finishes, breathing hot against his lips. “I will tell you, but not in fancy words, mage.”

Some knowing and rueful part of him howls at his weakness now– the same weakness that has dug him so deep a hole that it is practically a grave, now. 

But there is another, far more victorious side of him which relishes in the twining of her legs around his middle and the arch of her spine as she leans down against him, rocking her hips to meet his own pressing need. One of his hands trails up to wind through her hair, baring her neck for his own teeth and tongue. 

That side of him ignores that this victory will inevitably be short-lived, however.

But nothing in this world could ever be so simple– and especially not for a story such as theirs– where his foolish cowardice, and selfish desire, has doomed them all.

He is overlooking the verdant, blooming valleys below by the time she finally arrives, huffing not in exertion as she barges up the mountainside to meet him, but in a fuming anger that sets her eyes alight. 

And still he cannot subdue the soft smile which emerges as he turns to meet her, excitement and pleasure in equal measures bubbling within his chest, where his heart had once settled empty for so long. Now there is that strange, fluttering yearning he has not felt for months. 

“I suppose you have–”

“You didn’t even send a messenger,” she interrupts, storming up the stairs as she pins him in place with the fire of her stare. “Only the spies saw you leave, after the battle.” Her hands clench at her sides, and he wonders briefly if she would begin to bludgeon him, now.

He watches her softly. “I did not think it wise to approach…” his voice trails off, and he ducks his head with pinched brows. He cannot face her– knowing how she so easily weakens his resolve, and so he stares at the crumbling stone beneath them.

“You were gone for months,” she says. But then her lips pull into a crooked, familiarly teasing grin once more, and her voice is a low huff. “That was your head start.” 

His own smile tilts at her teasing. “I knew that I could not truly elude you, or the Inquisition’s forces,” he admits. The Spymaster would have had little trouble tracking his movements before he reached the eluvian, of course. “But I gave you time to find the truth yourself… The truth that I was too weak to tell you myself.”

He meets her eyes then, as his face draws tight in sorrow. His skin buzzes with the desire to reach out, drag her closer and end this separation– but it would not be fair to her, when he knows that he must leave again. 

For good, this time.

But her own gaze is searching. “Did you try to tell me, before?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says simply. “Many times– and yet every time that I tried, my cowardice eclipsed my attempts. I could not…” His head shakes softly, brows drawn together. Another stiff breeze blows from the valley below. “The end was inevitable, even if I could not face it myself.”

He watches the setting sunlight cast an aura through her hair– and she seems now all of the bright, towering leader that she has ever been. “Despite my foolish mistakes, vhenan…” and he steps closer to her, brushing a hand along her cheek to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. This touch: another regret that he will hold dearly to. “What we had was real. That is my only promise.”

Her smile twists painfully, and his gaze falls just as her hands come to grab roughly at the drape of fur across his shoulders. 

If she notices that the fur is a familiar cut, she does not say it.

“I recall that you made more than just one promise,” she growls. 

He stares firm at her strong, roughened hands gripping him tightly. Her knuckles are bruised and bloodied, and he aches to heal the spidery cuts. “I told you that this could only end in tragedy, my heart.” 

“It seemed to be one of those things I could talk you out of,” she huffs, and her grip loosens against him. The scent of river rocks drifts gently on the wind, standing this close to him. 

His answering chuckle is a low rumble. “Yes, you always were quite good at that,” he jests. He stares sadly at her then, though, and feels the settling warmth of her arms soak through his armor. “But not for this, vhenan– I’m sorry. If there were another way…”

But his resolve steeles, and his hands clasp gently around hers, moving them slowly from the furs. “Yet there is not. It was… selfish of me, to elude it even for a little while.”

Her eyes narrow, and she worries her lip just as she does when she stares at a particularly wide ravine, or steep cliff. It is the face that she makes before she jumps, he knows. He turns with a sad and wilting smile. 

“I must go,” he says.

She grabs at his tunic this time, her hand bunching through the fabric as she stills him with a warrior’s strength. “You did not see how I shouted the fire from my veins, standing in the snow where your tracks led away.” He keeps his back to her, but his lips pull heavy downward. “It took months for them to disappear.” Her voice trails off, and it is smaller than he has ever heard it.

Months that she waited for him– even as she marched through cheering crowds and cities, and was adorned with exotic furs and armor, and slashed at brow-beaten training dummies.

Because he did see, from the far reaches of the Fade where he watched her, in those paths he walked when he could see only her face in the darkness as he wrapped himself in freezing, threadbare bedrolls. Those nights when he fell back into that yearning weakness, and heard only her voice in his hollow thoughts.

His brows fold together, and he dreads the return of those longing nights, after this meeting awakens his heart again. “I had hoped it would be easier for you– should the parting be swift,” and he grabs her hand softly, a glow of light beneath his fingers as he stitches her skin together again. When her skin is healed, he turns again to leave. “...I am sorry.” 

And yet despite the pain this will likely both cause them now, and the renewed hunger that reaches out for him to grab her, take her into his arms… He cannot regret it.

Not truly.

But when he moves to step away, there is a cracking of energy and a burst of light as her mark flares– and she is brought to her knees on the stone, barren ground. She doubles over with the pain of it, and her groan grits through her teeth. 

His eyes widen, and he kneels quickly beside her. “I can–”

“No,” she grits out, and stands suddenly on her wobbly legs. “There was–” another groan of pain, “a story that I remembered, at the path where your tracks disappeared.” He stares up at her with his brows still drawn. His fingers twitch to ease her pains, all these he has caused… “Of the Mountain Father throwing his heart into mountain crags, and losing himself in the hole of his chest.”

He has missed her stories as well, he realizes. Every word she would tell him at the fireside stood as a stark reminder of all he still had to learn– that some must be heard first, before they can be seen across the Veil. 

His hand aches to drag her closer just as they used to in the slow, wild evenings tucked into shared tents. Perhaps some illusion of the Fade would be kind enough…

“The Lady sent her ptarmigan to fetch it from the ice and snow,” she continues with a hard, determined light beneath her heavy brows. Beads of sweat roll down her neck, clenched with pain, and he reaches out before he stills himself. “Just as she sent me.”

There is still a teasing challenge in the light of her eyes, as she pants and grips his sleeve harder. “Then I will bind you with iron and ice to keep it in,” and her hand beats hard against his chest.

He twitches a sad smile, his hand falling back to his side. “I wish that it were true, vhenan. In fact it seems that you often prove me wrong…” Yet he knows this time, it cannot be so. “The path ahead is a necessary one, however. It was selfish of me, to stray from what I knew would come.”

“In all my years,” he starts sadly, turning from her again. “I will never forget the moments we shared.”

Her determination burns hot from her skin, as she surges forward to drag him back to her. “I won’t let you,” she says– and captures his mouth in a searing, biting kiss.

His lips move instinctively against hers, and it is as if some floodgate in his chest has opened wide and let a sea flow forth. Every yearning moment that he was away from her, dreaming of her hungrily and desperate, has flooded his body as if it never plans to leave again. He wraps his arm around the curve of her waist and presses her tightly to him, one hand twining through her hair.

It is only the last vestige of sense left in his brain, buried deep beneath the heady fog, which has him lift away to pant against her lips. “I only wish that you could stop me this time,” he says, mournfully. 

Beyond the haze of his lidded eyes, she glares at him and pouts her kiss-bitten lips cruelly. “Then let me,” she growls– and takes his lips once more between insistent teeth.

His own resolve wins out and he drags himself away, tearing himself backwards as if stumbling from a summer-sweetened field into an icy, frozen river. One of his hands presses firm at her shoulder as another reaches back, towards the hum of an eluvian. “We cannot,” he pants out, and his voice breaks. “Goodbye, my heart…”

Before he can bow his head, and reach his hand to unlock the eluvian with but a brief flicker of magic– she calls from behind him. “I’m not one of the dreams of your Veil-hold, Solas.” Her voice is a small sound beneath the murmuring magic of the eluvian. “I’m real,” she says, and takes another tripping step forward. “Did you ever see that?” her voice breaks.

It pierces him like a blade to his gut, and he nearly doubles over with the force of it. If it were any other cut or wound… This one, he does not know how to heal.

So his words are simple, as his foot stills on the threshold. “More than you could ever know,” he says sadly, and lifts his foot again with a face drawn in tight and merciless sorrow. This will not make the journey any easier, still.

But it is then, just as he reaches the rippling haze of the eluvian’s edge, that his feet are suddenly swept out from underneath him– and he tumbles crudely through the mirage, tripping along the cracked stone of the Crossroads– before another hefty weight crushes him from above. The breath flies from his ribs and he heaves, lying flat on the ground.

Through the settling dust he can see Gudrun sitting atop him, like a familiar vision he has seen many times… But this time, she is staring down at her hands with wide eyes, and moving as if she was pushing through thick, viscous honey. 

“The Crossroads…” her voice echoes, lowly.

He sighs from beneath her, but when he moves to sit up, she stays firmly atop his hips– and his head falls back towards the ground with a crack. “This is becoming a dangerous game, vhenan.”

“More than Halamshiral?” she drawls, slow and teasing. Her laughter booms pleasantly through the otherwise still silence, and he does relish in the feeling of her settled warm against him, pressing firm atop his hips, though he knows that this cannot…

She watches his struggle. “Cassandra is already leading what stays of the Inquisition,” she murmurs, her voice low and slow. “They have Vivienne’s support… and I will not weep after you, a world away, like some forgotten fishwife.”

He shakes his head, but her hand– reaching towards him like a slow demise– grips his jaw gently. “I’ll stop you,” she says. “By your side.”

Something within him crumples. He does not know if it is because they are in this place, or perhaps because the promise of this reaches so deeply into his chest… But he remembers the fate of that place where he walks now, and his hand comes up to grasp her arm, and trace his thumb at the hollow of her wrist.

“Where I go, vhenan… I would not allow you to walk in such regret,” his voice moves naturally through his place.

“I’ve ripped the worlds apart with my own hand–” she says, standing slowly from her place on his hips. “Survived several gods seeking to destroy the world…” and her smirk pulls higher at that. “And dragons,” she finishes simply. “I do not know regret, mage.”

He does not know if he envies such simplicity, or is irrevocably and absolutely threatened by it. Regardless, a small smile tugs at his own lips as he takes her hand, standing beside her.

“I should have known this time would be no different,” he says, and it is like a release has been drained from his lungs. That yearning hunger which she brings so readily forward in his chest comes senselessly forward, and he cannot find it within himself to swallow it back down. “It is a favorite pastime of yours,” he admits. “To defy all which I could ever anticipate.”

Her lips pull into a slow, victorious smile, and he cannot will himself to bite his own away. 

“Let us go, then,” he says, and grabs her hand softly. “There is still much for me to tell you…”

If he regrets this– inviting his own defeat to his stand willfully and proud at his side, then he knows that he will place it with the rest of his most treasured regrets, close to his heart and held tightly in his hand.