AN: Dear beloved Solas and Aili fans, YOU ASKED FOR THIS. This story works under the assumption that the events of "World Enough and Time" did not happen. I had a few ideas about how I thought this scene might play out, and I might write one of the other ones at a later date, so...let's call this "Option A".
Rated T: for the Feels and a bit of cussing.
Disclaimer:Broke as a joke and still not working for BioWare.
Besides being a bit more worn down than he remembered, the road to Skyhold had scarcely changed, though it has been more than half a century since he had last passed through these gates. He arrived on the back of a wagon filled with crops and various sundries the stronghold had purchased from Denerim, just another elf seeking employment as a messenger, a cook, or a stable hand. He kept his gaze lowered and his hood up, but he doubted there was anyone here left who would recognize his face. Besides, if Thom Rainier could disguise himself as Blackwall with nothing, but a beard, there was no reason to think that anyone would identify him as the Herald of Andraste's former elven companion when he was sporting a full head of hair.
When he asked for work, they had just shrugged at him and said to make himself useful. Skyhold was no longer the seat of power of the Inquisition, after all. There was no reason to suspect an attack from without or within. It had been over twenty years since they had chosen a new Inquisitor, an Orlesian nobleman who was very human, very devout, and wholly invested in rebuilding the still-flailing Chantry. Most of Thedas found him much more palatable than the little heathen elf girl who had fallen out of the Fade and saved them all, but Inquisitor Oswelle was rather fond of the Great Game and the creature comforts of his homeland. So, once again, Skyhold had been abandoned, a 'gift' to the former Inquisitor, along with a handful of guards to protect her person and the honor of being labeled an advisor, though the times they had actually heeded her counsel could undoubtedly be counted on one hand.
All the members of her Inner Circle had long since moved on or passed away, and the former Inquisitor spent most of her days in solitude. There wasn't a single person in the keep who thought poorly of her, however, and Skyhold probably had the most even footing he'd seen between the humans and the elves in…a very long time. No slurs about the shape of someone's ears, no serving girls found crying and clutching at their torn clothes, no poorly concealed bruises; the community of Skyhold might have shrunk, but they had all banded together in service to their beloved mistress. Everyone knew Lady Lavellan's rules of conduct, and anyone who didn't follow them was hastily thrown out into the snow to find lodging elsewhere.
He took a job in the kitchens, where he would have the best chance of hearing castle gossip. He had never been the most dazzling cook, but he could follow directions easily enough, and there was no great skill required to peel potatoes. It took less than two days for him to learn the ropes, and by the end of the week, most of the wait staff had accepted him as one of their own. One of them in particular, a dark slip of an elf named Thea, had almost immediately taken him into her confidence. She was one of Lady Lavellan's personal maids, and she became a source of invaluable information. There was something about the way she looked up at him with her big brown doe eyes that reminded him of Aili; affectionate and hopeful, shy. He tried to be kind without being misleading. It did not make her tears less painful when he told her that he was saving up his coin to bring his wife here from the Free Marches. Still, the heartache of a serving girl would not dissuade him from his purpose.
Aili was dying.
He had overheard the rumors about her failing health completely by chance, as he tended to avoid taverns and even most villages of any notable size. That she was ill was bad enough, but when he learned that she lived a solitary life with few friends and no family, he had immediately grabbed his scant belongings and began his trek back towards Skyhold. He would not let her die alone. She would know that she was still loved, she would understand why he left, and, if she let him stay long enough to tell her, she would know his true name.
And, of course, there was the matter of the anchor.
The problem now was trying to get near her without raising suspicion or alarm. He was uncertain how Aili would react to seeing him again after all of these years, and he had no plans of ending up in the dungeons of Skyhold; he still had too much to do. But he had to see her.
Time seemed to slip past him, and soon nearly two months had gone by since his return, and he was growing desperate. Lady Lavellan hadn't left her room for almost a week, too feeble to even walk down the stairs to dine in the Great Hall. He was running out of time.
Late one night, he decided to make his move, coming up through the kitchens and into the Great Hall to head towards the former Inquisitor's bedchamber. He hated the thought of waking her when she needed her rest more than ever, but he was running out of options. There were not many guards to worry about, but he still moved as silently as he was able; bare feet softly padding across worn carpets. He was standing in front of her throne on the raised dais at the back of the hall when he heard a noise coming from the direction of the main doors.
And then he saw her.
For half a moment Aili appeared untouched by the time that had separated them, the cool light of the moon pouring in through the high windows casting some sort of spell upon his eyes. Her silhouette was still as slim and willowy as it ever was, though her shoulders were stooped slightly; the weight of so much worry, so much sadness. She had let her hair grow down to her waist where she kept it in a single neat braid; it had long since faded from pale blonde to an even paler white. She moved very slowly, as if each step was a struggle, but her goal was clear: she was heading towards the rotunda.
He followed her cautiously, curious as to why she was visiting his old study and not wanting to startle her in her delicate state of health. He stood in the shadows just outside the door as she flicked her hand casually to light the braziers along the walls. He had to bite back a small gasp. The room was completely unchanged.
Every book he had left on his desk was exactly as he had placed it, every note he had scribbled hastily was in perfect order, the artifacts he had been researching were still waiting for his inspection, and the chair was pulled out just so, as though he had only stepped out for a moment. And then that moment had turned into fifty years. Everything had been kept clean, but other than that...
He looked back at Aili and felt his heart clench painfully in his chest. She had waited for him. She was still waiting, even now.
She ran her fingers over the murals on the walls reverently, tracing the shapes of his gift to her. They were stories of her heroics, of the time they had spent together, so many precious precious memories. He had filled an entire room with her, and it had still not seemed like enough to properly convey his feelings. Aili paused and pressed her lips to the muzzle of one of the howling wolves.
"I really thought you would come," she told the painting in a hoarse whisper. "...before the end." She paused to wipe at her eyes in apparent irritation, sniffing loudly before continuing, "I still miss you. I hope you're safe... There were still so many things I wanted to tell you, Ma sa'lath." She broke into a fit of deep wet-sounding coughs, clutching her chest as she staggered into the wall before crumpling to the floor.
He was at her side in an instant, scooping her up into his arms and hurrying back towards her bedchamber as quickly as he could without jostling her. She groaned slightly, but made no other protest. She weighed practically nothing.
He gently laid her down on her bed has soon as he entered her room, pulling up the coverlet and tucking her in as though she were a child. Her face was marked with deep laugh lines as well as crow's feet around her eyes from decades of smiling, but the furrows that creased her brow spoke of burdens and doubts. He felt a sudden stab of remorse that he had not been there to share in the former and soothe the latter. The bloom of youth had long since faded from her cheeks and her skin was slightly sallow from age and illness and not spending every day out in the sun as she had when he had known her. Despite all of these things, he still found her beautiful. She was still Aili.
He pulled a chair over to the side of the bed, hovering anxiously. He was uncertain whether or not he should try to wake her. He smoothed several wisps of bone white hair back from her brow with painstaking tenderness, his fingers lingering over the familiar bronze whorls of her vallaslin. Her eyes blinked opened slowly before rising to meet his gaze, cloudy amethyst crashing into deep soulful blue.
"Why do I know your face?" she managed to croak out in a rasping whisper. She raised her hands to his face, mapping the shape of his chin, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes, reveling in her touch, leaning into it as much as he dared. Her fingers found the scar on his forehead and faltered. "No...not...Creators..."
He opened his eyes to see her face crumpled into an expression of anguish, tears welling in her eyes as the truth dawned on her.
"Solas?" Aili asked in a voice that trembled with equal amounts of staggering disbelief and fragile hope. She attempted to pull her hands away, but he caught them with his own, holding them fast.
"Vehnan," he whispered thickly, afraid of what the next few moments would bring, but so glad he had returned, if only to hear her say the name she had loved him by one last time. His heart thundered in his chest erratically, as though it had finally remembered how to beat after fifty years of slumber. She was crying in earnest now.
"Is this...a dream?" she sputtered, fighting to sit up, cupping his face with shaking hands once she had managed it.
"No," he told her, shaking his head slightly, covering her hands with his own.
"Am I dead?" Aili asked, sounding more curious than afraid. He shook his head harder, making a few dark locks fall into his face. She gave a wet hiccupping laugh as she brushed them away, "You have hair."
He leaned towards her, intending to kiss her for that laugh, for inexplicably not hating him, for not letting age and illness dampen that marvelous spirit he had fallen for so many years ago. She stopped him, turning her face away slightly and frowning.
"I'm…old," she said, the faintest trace of a blush spreading across her cheeks.
"I am older," he assured her, trying to return to the playful banter they had once enjoyed, but falling a bit flat. He could not deny that seeing her this way pained him. The quickening of the People was, after all, his fault to some extent. She gave a huff of laughter, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.
"So… you're Elvhen, like Abelas?" she asked him, not sounding wholly surprised.
"Yes," he admitted softly.
"Is that why you left?" That question still held so much heartache.
"That is…one reason, yes," he told her. "Discovering my origins would have undoubtedly led to more questions, some of which I could not afford to answer honestly."
"Then the reason you knew about the orb Corypheus had was…." she trailed off, her silence expectant.
"It…it was mine," he said hesitantly, dreading the question that surely must follow.
"He took it from you?"
"No. I…gave it to him," he confessed, hanging his head. "That is to say…I let him find it. When I awoke from uthenera, I was…weak. I lacked the strength to unlock the orb's power. I knew that Corypheus would not wield it properly, and I knew that the orb's magic would react violently to such fumbling…. I assumed it would kill him. I did not think he would attempt to use it somewhere where there were many people for fear of discovery. Things…did not turn out as I had hoped."
Aili threw back her head and laughed. She laughed until her face turned pink and her shoulders shook with it. She laughed until there were fresh tears streaming down her face, shaking her head at him all the while. She laughed until it bled into a series of violent coughs, gripping his arms when he reached out to steady her.
"That," she managed to gasp, "might be the biggest understatement of the age." She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, still breathing hard. "You gave a nutcase the means to blow up a mountain, kill hundreds of people, and rip a gigantic hole in the sky with the very high probability of destroying the Veil entirely…and all you can say is, 'oops'?"
Solas grimaced.
"I am well aware of the consequences of my miscalculation," he said bitterly. "I did my best to atone for it, though whether or not I succeeded on that front, I willfully submit to your judgment. You are, after all, the party most injured by my actions."
"You mean the anchor?" she queried, baffled.
"You didn't even think of that, did you?" he asked with a wry smile. "About how I have ruined your life. How my mistake nearly killed you, and how the power it granted you placed you in more danger than you ever dreamed you would have to face. How it took you away from the home you loved and stole the chance of becoming your clan's Keeper, a dream you had been striving for since you discovered your magic. And, as if that were not enough, when I realized that you might return my feelings, I did not even possess the strength to distance myself from you so that, if nothing else, your heart might be spared some small portion of grief." He buried his face in his hands. "Forgive me. I have not right to ask it, but-"
Aili put her hands on his shoulders, and he met her eyes. She looked tired.
"Is that why you came back?" she asked, her face impassive. "To make yourself feel better?"
He recoiled as though she had struck him.
"You…you are right," he said dejectedly. "I should not have presumed… However, my reasons for coming back were not wholly selfish, I assure you. I came to offer you the truth, if you would have it. The same truth I meant to give you on that night in the glen when..."
"When you left me?" she prompted. He nodded solemnly. "Was there honestly more to it than you being an ancient elven mage who accidentally let an incredibly powerful artifact capable of destroying the world wind up in the hands of a crazy blighted magister?"
"...yes," he whispered, "there is much more. The incident with Corypheus was not my first nor my most grievous mistake." He close his eyes, inhaling sharply through his nose. "'Solas' is only one of several names I have adopted over the course of my life."
"I imagine one gets bored with a name after a few hundred years or so," Aili commented dryly. He raised his eyebrows at her nonchalance. She chuckled, "It's hardly the most astounding thing you've told me tonight. Although, if you're about to confess that your name is actually Thom Rainier, I will be surprised."
"No," Solas said somberly, his mouth pressed into a thin line that spoke of bitterness and remorse. "I am much more widely known than our false Warden…and my name has been much more reviled. There has not been a Dalish child born in this age who was not taught to fear and hate me…including you."
"Who are you?" she asked him suspiciously, every line of her body tense. Part of him wanted to run away from this even now, to let her pass from this life thinking that he was merely a foolish man who had tried and failed repeatedly to make the world a better place, and not the monster lurking in every dark corner of her childhood.
"You know who I am," he whispered faintly.
"I want to hear you say it," she said firmly. Her mouth was a grim slash across her face and her eyes burned into him like a pair of fierce violet flames in the semidarkness, and he knew she would accept nothing less than the absolute truth.
"I am…" He trailed off for a moment, uncertain. "I am a great many things. I am he who hunts alone. I am a wandering apostate. I am a solider, a mage, and a scholar. I am a Dreamer, and the self-proclaimed protector of the People. I am the unwilling god, torn down by those he sought to save. They call me the Trickster, the Traitor, the Thief. I have worn many masks, and taken many names in the course of my life, but before any of them, before the war, and the rebellion and the fall, I was known as the Dread Wolf, Fen'Harel."
There were several emotions warring on Aili's face, and he honestly couldn't tell if she was about to laugh or cry or hit him. One thing was certain however: she was not afraid of him, and he could have loved her for that alone.
"What does that mean, Sol-" she began, breaking away and frowning in apparent exasperation. "What should I even call you?"
"I am Solas," he promised ardently. "Or rather, Solas is me. I would not have you think I ever hid my true nature from you, only my past."
"Why should I believe anything you say?" she scoffed.
"You see that I have not aged," he told her evenly. "What other proof can I offer you?"
"I believe that you are Elvhen," she said slowly. "And I believe your real name is not Solas, but the rest of your story is hardly convincing."
"Fenedhis," he swore darkly, "Why would I claim to be Fen'Harel of all people, unless it were true? Do you think I enjoy people being terrified of me? Have I ever given you the impression that I wanted to be revered or powerful, or that I took some sort of pleasure in causing people harm?"
"If you wanted to leave the Inquisition, you could have just said so," Aili sighed wearily. "You didn't have to run off without a word. And you don't have to make up some crazy excuse for it now."
"An excuse?!" he barked in disbelief. "You think I am pretending to be the most hated god of your people to disguise my own cowardice? You think I wanted to leave you? What do you take me for, exactly?"
"What should I take you for, 'Solas'?" Aili bit out tersely. "I've spent more than half of my life waiting for something from you. A messenger, a letter, a dream- something. I searched the Fade, called out for you, asked for help from spirits, asked Leliana to send out agents, anything I could think of. But I couldn't find you, and you never answered." She sighed heavily. "And now I'm old and sick and dying and very very tired." She closed her eyes and frowned. "You don't get to come back after all this time and tell me that you were the one who was hurt by leaving. You don't get to pretend that you loved me when all you came for was the anchor."
He blanched in surprise.
"The voices from the Well of Sorrows told me," she explained when she noticed his expression. "They don't say very much anymore. To be honest, I think they're a little disgusted with me for dying."
"I admit…I did come for the anchor," he said heavily, "but it was never my sole purpose in returning, nor is it the reason most dear to my heart."
She gave a wistful sigh.
"You still say things like that so prettily," she commented.
"If I do, it is because I mean them," he told her seriously.
"Look," she said with a slight air of annoyance, "Either you aren't Fen'Harel, which makes you a liar for trying to sell me such a crazy story in the first place, or you are Fen'Harel and… Well, that makes you a liar because that is what the Dread Wolf does. He lies to people. Tricks them. Even if the legends aren't completely accurate, they must be based on some small sliver of truth."
"You make it sound as though I shouldn't have come at all," he told her glumly. "I can leave now, if that is your wish."
"No," she breathed quietly, laying back down on the pillows and closing her eyes. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm not mad at you anymore. I was for a long time, but now… I'm just…I'm so tired. I'm tired of secrets and lies and disappointments. I don't need a reason. I don't need an excuse. Knowing why wouldn't change anything that has already happened anyway. You are the only man I've ever loved, and you are here. It is enough. Stay with me, Ma sa'lath. Please."
Solas swallowed thickly and reached out to hold her left hand with his right. She curled her fingers around his and squeezed them a little, making his lips twitch into a faint smile.
"Ma nuvenin," he replied in a choked whisper, "Vehnan." They were quiet for a time, and Solas thought that she might have fallen asleep.
"Talk to me," Aili implored hoarsely, surprising him. "I missed your voice."
"What would you have me say?" he asked.
"Anything," she murmured sleepily.
"All right," he agreed before pausing for a moment to gather his thoughts. "Since I cannot seem to convince you that I am Fen'Harel, let us speak of what you do believe. You believe that I invented the man you called Solas and you believe that when this man that I pretended to be ceased to exist, the feelings I professed to have when I was Solas somehow vanished with him. You think that I left you out of fear, because the game was becoming too serious and soon you would have started to have real expectations of a future together. Am I correct in these assumptions?"
"More or less," Aili sighed noncommittally. He nodded in acceptance.
"I can understand why you would think so," he told her grimly. "I did little enough in those days to assure you that, while my affection was genuine, I had to distance myself for your own safety, as well as to ensure the continued secrecy of my own personal duties. I tried to tell you before I left, I wanted you to know that it was real..." His grip on her hand tightened fiercely and he buried his face in the other, losing himself to the thought of losing her. Again. "I wish we could have had more time. I wish I could have stayed. I wanted to be Solas. I wanted to let Fen'Harel fade away completely into legend and become nothing more than the strange and simple apostate who had fallen for the leader of the Inquisition. I was half mad with it at one point, convinced that it wouldn't matter if I delayed my responsibilities a few more decades, but…"
"But what?" Aili asked.
"But you deserved better," he replied fervently. "You deserved to know the truth about who I am, and when I realized that, I knew that the world you had been born into was unworthy of you. And that it was largely my fault. I had to set things right again, not just for my own absolution, but for you. This world should be teeming with magic, it should not be treated as a plague. The People should have their own land, their own culture, separate and equal to that of any other race. And you…you should not be dying." He shook his head. "But I failed in this as well, as I seem to fail at everything that matters to me. I made several attempts to correct my error over the last fifty years, and now...I am too late for you, Vehnan."
She reached up and touched his face with her right hand, running her thumb across the apple of his cheek.
"If this world was not exactly as it is, we might not even have met," Aili reminded him gently. "The Dalish are the descendants of slaves, from Tevinter as well as Elvhenan. If you are who you say you are... Would the mighty Fen'Harel really have spared more than a passing glace at the serving girl pouring his wine?"
"Not as I should have, no," he admitted. "I never approved of slavery, but... I would not have seen you as my equal, and you are. And in many ways, you are my better."
Aili squeezed his hand again, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth as she spoke, "Sweet talker."
He leaned down and this time she let him kiss her. Deep and gentle. Slow and burning. A plea for forgiveness. A wordless goodbye. She smiled at him when it was over and he thought the sight of it might shatter him.
She stared at him pensively, possibly mulling over all that he had said. She bit her lip guiltily, like she used to when she was feeling foolish, but there was something in her eyes that made him feel as though she might finally believe him. Her flushed cheeks seemed to lift ten years from her features.
"So...if you're Elvhen," she began, "did you visit Arlathan? You told me you saw it in the Fade once."
"I lived there," he told her.
"I still wish I could have seen it," she said with a sigh of longing, "Arlathan, Elvhenan...it must have been beautiful."
"I could show you, if you like," Solas said with a sudden burst of inspiration. "Join me in the Fade, Vehnan, and you shall have all the answers you seek."
"Will you be here when I wake up?" she asked with a hint of worry.
"I promise," he said, reaching out and stroking her cheek. Magic flared in his fingers, sending her into a deep gentle slumber. He shifted a bit in his chair, getting comfortable, before closing his eyes and slipping into the Fade after her.
He found her at Haven, young and strong and burning as brightly as a summer sun out in the snow. She smiled when she noticed him, and did not pull away when he took her hand in his.
Solas waved his free hand and Haven dissolved into the strange sickly green of the Fade before reforming into an immense forest. The trees were as wide as buildings, and they would have towered well above any castle Aili had ever seen.
Aili found herself standing on a sliver trellised balcony high in the canopy of one of these trees, the branches curving up along each side, the leaves rustling faintly on a warm breeze. The floor was made of a cloudy white stone which reflected the fiery glow of the setting sun, glossy and cool beneath her bare toes. A pleasant floral scent hung in the air, emitted by the pale blue flowers twining through the gleaming latticework. Facing north, the rest of the valley was spread out before them, and no more than a mile away, what could only have been Arlathan lay at its heart. Aili felt her breath catch in her throat.
Lofty spires of elegant pearly crystal reached up into the sky, not unlike the antlers of halla, low hanging clouds catching around a few of them. Great glowing orbs hovered over broad twisting walkways and hanging bridges made of finely woven silver, illuminating the paths for travelers. The city was a dazzle of light. Even from here, everything glittered with the gold and lavender and orange of the fading sunlight as well as the cool blues and greens of Elvhen magic. Aili felt tears welling in her eyes. It was beautiful.
"How…" she choked out, "How did we manage to lose something like this?"
"Because every empire, no matter how great, eventually falls," Solas told her sadly. "Because we enslaved an entire class of people and built our wonders from their suffering. Because the council that was meant to lead us became corrupt and petty. And…because I made a foolish mistake."
"I want to see you," she said, grinning eagerly. He smiled and pointed behind her wordlessly.
Lounging in a delicate-looking chair which had not been made to endure such abuses was a young man with his feet propped up on the desk in front of him. His skin was slightly darker than Solas', hiding the light band of freckles she knew were scattered across his nose and cheeks. His blue eyes burned underneath sharp agitated brows as he read through the scroll in his hands. He had a distinct air of restlessness, occasionally giving little irritated huffs to blow a few rebellious locks of dark brown hair out of his face.
"You look moody and arrogant," Aili noted. His younger self shifted in the chair, revealing a long strip of tan skin under his partially open shirtfront, the lean muscles of his abdomen flexing sinuously. "And intolerably attractive," she added. Solas laughed, a touch of color rising in his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
"So, why did they call you 'The Dread Wolf'?" Aili asked after a moment, her eyes still fixed on the man in the chair. "Did it just sound flashy or…"
"Wait a moment, and you will see," Solas told her, pleased that she had finally come around to taking him at his word.
As promised, a large white bird came crashing onto the balcony a few seconds later. The animal shivered violently before shifting into the shape of a young trembling woman bearing Mythal's vallaslin and clutching a crumpled piece of parchment in her outstretched hand. She was bleeding freely from a deep gash in her side and there were tears streaming down her face.
In an instant, Fen'Harel had tossed away his reading and was at the woman's side. He attempted to heal her, but she waved him off impatiently, forcing what was undoubtedly a letter into his hands. He tore it open hastily, his eyes flying across the page. Reaching the end of the message, he balled the paper in his fist before flinging it away from him, a roar of anguish and incomprehensible rage tearing from his throat.
His cry morphed into a deep rumbling bay as his rose to his feet. All four of them. In place of the young man stood a great black wolf with eyes like blazing veil fire. The beast snarled, raced to the edge of the balcony, and leapt off the banister into the open sky without hesitation. Aili gave a startled squawk, but the wolf vanished, fade-stepping down onto the forest floor and moving at incredible speed. In less than a minute he was out of sight.
"What was that about?" Aili asked, gaping in awe as the other elven girl vanished, leaving them alone on the balcony once more.
"There was an attack on the Temple of Mythal," Solas told her gravely. "By the time I reached her, she was already dead. This is the day the war of my people truly began, and our empire shattered."
Solas watched her as she looked back over at the city, a distant sort of yearning in her violet eyes. He regretted not showing her sooner. She glanced over at him and smiled wistfully.
"I wish I could have lived here…with you," she said softly.
"Ma nuvenin," he said in a low voice, quirking his lips in a confident grin. He made a gesture with his hand, and Aili found herself wearing a gown as pale and delicate as sea foam. It was covered in thousands of tiny pearls that shimmered like starlight when the skirt fluttered in the evening breeze. Solas himself was dressed in a simple but elegant tunic of gold and cream. He stepped up to her and lightly swept his hands over the top of her head. There was a slight weight on her brow and a strong smell of lilies.
"A bride should have flowers," he told her with a wide smile.
"What are you doing?" Aili laughed, something sharp flashing in her eyes as she drew away from him. He gave her a puzzled frown, cocking his head to one side.
"I thought… Is this not what you wanted?" he asked doubtfully, still holding his hands out to her uselessly.
"What I wanted?" she repeated incredulously, "I'm dying, Solas. What is the point in promising to be with me always when always is already over?" Her face had flushed an angry red and tears had begun sliding down her face as she quivered in barely suppressed fury.
"You…you're an ass," she sputtered. "You think you can just show up after all this time and dangle a vision of everything I used to dream of in front of me and I'll just…play along, as though you didn't just walk away without a word? Ha!" She shoved his chest, making him stumble back a step. "Banal vehnan! Fuck you and your Fade weaving, it was never real and I'm sick of your lies!" Solas grabbed her biceps roughly, an expression like an old deep wound twisting his features.
"What would you have of me then?" he asked desperately. "What can I do to earn the smallest fraction of your forgiveness? What would give you peace? How can I bring you joy? Of all the things I have ever hurt or destroyed with my arrogant fumbling, the thought of irreparably harming you is by far the most painful to me. Please, Vehnan, for once in my life, let me make something right again." She scowled at him.
"It's always about you, isn't it?" Aili sneered. "You destroyed one world, and you think your own guilt justifies destroying the one that rose up to take its place. You feel bad about breaking my heart, and you think that means I owe you some kind of pity. Dirthara-ma, Fen'Harel." She glared at him as he recoiled from her.
"You want to make it up to me?" she asked. "You can wake up every morning for fifty years with my name on your lips and my face burning behind your eyelids. You can smile in public even though you spend every night crying yourself to sleep. You can write a thousand letters you will never send because there is no place to send them. You can have your heart leap into your throat every time someone mentions my name, or some girl in the street has my hair, or my eyes, or wears my perfume. You can conjure a hundred different reasons for why I left, and slowly tear them down one by one as reality devours your foolish hopes. You can sit alone somewhere and lose yourself in daydreams like this one, because you know it is the closest thing you're ever going to get to a happy ending." She spat at his feet. "You can rip your heart out of your chest and hold it in your hands until it stops beating."
"What makes you think I have not?" he whispered. "I have been alive for thousands of years, and not once has someone touched my heart as you have. Did I not say that you are unique? Do you think that is something easy to walk away from? Do you imagine that in all the time that has passed between us I have never thought of you? There was not a single day I did not entertain the idea of returning to Skyhold. There was not a night I did not linger on idle fantasies of forgiveness and oaths of devotion. There was not a passing hour in which you were far from my thoughts. I swore to myself that if I was still standing when my mission was done I would return to you and face your wrath, but twenty, thirty, forty years slipped by, and I seemed no closer to achieving my goal. And by then…I felt my return was more likely to destroy whatever peace you might have wrought rather than give you any sort of pleasure."
"Then why return at all?" she asked, her anger bleeding into something more like sorrow.
"Because I am in love with you, Aili Lavellan," he reached out and touched her cheek hesitantly, "and I could not bear the thought of you passing from this world alone."
"…prove it," she demanded thickly, a few more tears rolling down her cheeks.
He pulled a plain band of gold from nowhere and deftly slipped it onto her finger.
"You are my heart," he told her in deep lilting Elvhen. "Now, and always. Through my devotion, you are eternal. In my eyes you are ageless. In my memory, you are pristine. In my life, you are a single shining truth that lights my way in the darkness. I bind my life to yours, willingly and without regret."
"So sentimental," she chuckled, before mimicking his gesture and placing a ring on his left hand. She bit her lip nervously as she met his gaze.
"You are my only love," Aili said tremulously, fumbling with the language she had not spoken for years, "I have waited for you my whole life, even before I knew your name. My time is short now, but I want to share it with you. And when that time is spent, I will wait for you again. And again. And always. As you are mine, I am yours. I bind my life to yours freely and with a great deal of impatience, because honestly, it is about damn time."
Solas laughed in both amusement and joy as he swept her into his embrace, kissing her fiercely, desperately, burning the taste of her into his memory along with her words and his vow. He lifted her in his arms, making her break into peals of giddy laughter as he carried her through the high archway at the back of the balcony that led to the rest of his home.
Time passes differently in the Fade, as it does in most dreams. Months and even years can slip by in what has been mere moments in the waking world. Solas and Aili used this to their advantage, squirreling away lazy hours of reading together, exploring the city, and taking long forays into the forest below. She sang traditional Dalish songs to him in her high clear voice, and they spent several evenings laying out on the balcony tangled up in blankets and clinging limbs as Solas told her stories, real stories, about his life and his wanderings, both in the Fade and out of it. It was the life they had always dreamed of.
Aili was stretching as she got out of their bed one morning, shivering slightly as the cool air hit her bare legs. Solas watched her with an extremely contented smile, he had never been an early riser, but he thoroughly enjoyed the side benefit of seeing the sunlight paint patterns across the smooth tan skin of her shoulders where they peeked out of her loose sleep shirt. The vision of her flickered out of existence for an instant, and he gave a frightened start.
"Vehnan!" He called to her, his voice edged with panic. She turned back to him, completely whole and clearly confused. He gave her a shaky smile and tried to hide his concern. He had known this day would come, but there was no way to truly guard his heart from it. He was scrambling to find a way to tell her when Solas heard Aili gasp in dismayed alarm. She was gazing down at her feet in horror; they had become ghostly and translucent.
"I- I'm going," she told him in a quaking voice, her eyes wide and suddenly afraid. The entire lower half of her body was now hazy as a cloud of smoke. Solas pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. He took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of lavender; he wasn't ready to lose her again. She wrapped her arms around him, digging her fingers into the soft fabric of the same beige tunic he used to wear around Skyhold.
"Thank you," Aili whispered. "For coming back. For this. For...everything." She drew back far enough to meet his eyes. "What comes after? Do you know?" He shook his head.
"Even the ancient elves did not know everything," he told her sadly.
"I guess there's only one way to find out, then." She tried to sound chipper, but there were tears in her eyes. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, soft and chaste. He trembled against her.
"How do I give you the anchor?" she asked, glancing down at the glowing mark.
"Like this," he told her, taking her hand in his, and slowly dragging his left palm across hers. The magic flared and crackled, and when he was done, the anchor had returned to its true master. Aili blinked down at her empty hand in surprise.
"Did you always know how to do that?" She asked. He nodded, looking slightly ashamed. "Why didn't you take it sooner?"
"I could not have been the Inquisitor, nor did I wish to be," he explained. "And...it probably would have killed you." His mouth twisted into a frown and he opened his mouth to say something, but she put her hand to his lips to silence him.
"I forgive you, Solas." Aili said the words slow and quiet, stroking his cheek. She turned as though to walk away and he grabbed her by the arm bringing his mouth to hers this time, hungrily chasing after her for more, once, twice, four times, refusing to let her break away. They only parted when her form had faded to little more than a wisp of light that barely retained the shape of her body.
Arlathan had disappeared and left them standing in the empty green nothingness of the Fade. Aili took a few gliding steps away from him before seeming to think of something. She look back at him over her shoulder and said in a voice barely more than a whisper, "Ar lath ma, Fen'Harel."
"Ar lath ma, Vehnan," he called after her brokenly. Aili smiled at him brightly, turned, and was gone.
Thea gave a startled squeak when she entered Lady Lavellan's room to bring the elderly woman her breakfast and the medicine the healers had given her to ease her cough. The former Inquisitor was laying in her bed, smiling and still, and pale as death. Slumped beside her bed in a chair was the handsome elf who had come to Skyhold a few weeks ago looking for employment, fast asleep and frowning. His right hand held onto Inquisitor Lavellan's left with an air of desperation, and in the other flickered the strange ethereal glow of the Fade.