Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age. I'm just borrowing (?) their stuff for my own pleasure.
A/N: Hello! So this is my first fanfic for Dragon Age, having been introduced to its wonderful world at a relatively old age (haha). Basically what I'm doing here is letting out all those Sollavellan feels that built up inside after playing through that Solas romance. I'm such a sucker for drama and angst.
I'm sorry if I'll just open up those wounds by replaying those scenes in Crestwood, so you have to ask, what would make this fic unique? Hmm... I'm offering up my take of Solas' reasons behind the break up, inspired by another of Gareth David-Lloyd's work for Torchwood, an audio drama called Dead Line. I didn't use the whole of the drama, though, only a cut scene which I found in YouTube. (I'll explain more of this at the end). I hope you give this a chance and let me know what you think.
The Price We Pay
"Ar lasa mala revas," Solas whispered. "You are free."
Ellana raised a hand to touch her face. The smoothness of her skin told her the vallaslin was truly gone. Now she felt naked, stripped of her identity as a Dalish, unmasked like Florianne at the Winter Palace. She couldn't lift her eyes to Solas, but when she did, he was looking at her again with those devastatingly hungry eyes.
"You are so beautiful," Solas whispered longingly, and bent down to kiss her. Ellana basked in the touch of him, the taste of him in her mouth, as Solas kissed her more fiercely than he had ever kissed her before, pulled her so close to him she could feel his racing heartbeat. She tried to match his ardor, but he surpassed hers by leaps and bounds, so much that she felt as if she was being taken away by a flood of desire, of yearning... of love.
The kiss ended with a gasp for air. It took a while for Ellana to open her eyes, not wanting the magic to go away.
And rightly so. For when she did open her eyes, she caught a brief glimpse of despair in Solas' eyes, before it hardened into the mask of politeness he was wont to place before other people.
"And I am sorry," Solas said in a polite tone that he hadn't used with her in a long time. "I distracted you from your duties. It will never happen again."
His words and tone caught Ellana off-guard, making her blink slowly at him. "Wait, what?" she finally blurted out. "Solas..." She tried to reach for him, but he stepped away from her.
"Please, vhenan," he said pleadingly and shook his head.
An awful pause followed, where Ellana heard buzzing in her ears. "Solas, you can't..." she said brokenly, not even knowing what words to use to stop this... him... from... She couldn't even think about it. She couldn't believe this was happening. One moment, she was basking in bliss and security in his arms, in his love... and the next...
She saw him start to move away from her. "Don't leave me!" she said sharply, surprising him and herself at the shrill echo of her voice. She held his gaze in hers. "Don't leave me," she whimpered, "not now... I love you!" She said the words aloud, finally saying them, somehow knowing that if she didn't say them, she never would again.
Pain momentarily flashed in Solas' eyes. "You have a rare and marvelous spirit," he said. "In another world..." His cool politeness broke, and his thoughts went unspoken.
"Why not this one?" Ellana asked angrily as she still reached out for him. He kept stepping back, away from her.
"I... can't," Solas blurted out.
That broke Ellana's restraint. In a few steps, she crossed the distance Solas created between them, and, with all the anger she felt, hit his chest, pushing him. "Then tell me you don't care about me," she growled. "Tell me you've never felt anything for me. Tell me I was just some momentary dalliance so I can call you a selfish bastard and move on with my life!" she almost screamed at him.
Solas looked down and away from her. "I can't," he repeated. With a final shove that almost outbalanced him, Ellana ran past him out of the cave. When he heard her footsteps die away, he sighed and raised his eyes towards the night sky. "I'm sorry," he whispered almost inaudibly, not noticing a lone tear fall out of his melancholic eyes.
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It punched her in the gut, rendering her breathless, making her double over in pain and fall to her knees.
"Inquisitor!" Varric cried out as he sent bolt after bolt to cover the Inquisitor. They were fighting red Templars once again in the Emprise du Lion, the last remnants of Imshael's corruption, and one of the Shadows managed to hit the Inquisitor unawares. He rushed to her side. "Are you all right?" he asked her as Bianca shot a bolt right between a red Templar's eyes.
"Yes..." the Inquisitor mumbled, "...just have to catch my breath." She took another gasping breath, and winced at the pain burning through her abdomen.
Ice mines grew under the Inquisitor's feet, freezing another Shadow that attempted to slash her as she struggled to stand. Gritting her teeth from the pain, she quickly propelled herself up to her feet and did a Leaping Shot to finish the Shadow that was frozen, jumping away from the protective ice mines. She drew her daggers out and slashed at the enemy until all crumbled to ashes.
Varric shouldered Bianca and walked over to the Inquisitor. "That was quite a blow you got, Inquisitor," he said with a tone of concern.
The Inquisitor smiled at the dwarf as she uncorked a regeneration potion and chucked back its contents down her throat. "I'll be fine, Varric," she said, breathing quite easier as the potion took effect almost immediately. "All in a day's work, eh?"
"More like two weeks straight," Varric grumbled. "Are you in some kind of high?"
The Inquisitor laughed. "You can say that," she said. She made a funny face and waved her hands around like a crazy woman. "Or maybe the voices from the Well are telling me to kill all Red Templars on sight." A hint of hysteria crept in her tone. Varric wondered if that was only for effect.
Iron Bull narrowed his eyes. "That isn't funny, boss,' he rumbled. The Inquisitor laughed harder at Bull's obvious discomfort at anything related to demons. "I'm just joking, Bull," she said, hitting his arm with all the strength she had in her fist. The Bull laughed with her, but Varric furtively looked over to the elven apostate, who was busy looking another way.
The Inquisitor finally sobered. Slinging her bow on her shoulder, she looked at a distance and said, "Seriously speaking, we need to clear out the Emprise to make it habitable again." Looking disdainfully at the red lyrium protruding out of the ground, she added, "These things don't contribute to the landscape much, don't you think?"
Varric nodded in agreement. He had to give it to the Inquisitor. No matter what storm brewed inside her, she didn't let it overpower her and distract her from her duty. She kept a tight rein on those tempestuous feelings, and anybody else wouldn't catch her abandoning her responsibilities for selfish reasons. He sighed. Looking at how the Inquisitor seemed more driven nowadays, however, it would be a matter of time before the storm hits land and causes chaos.
Varric hung back to keep in step with the elven apostate who surreptitiously kept his distance from the Inquisitor. They never went beyond formal greetings and civil exchanges nowadays, when before they were almost inseparable. Even Cassandra could guess what happened during that time they both asked for time out and went to Crestwood, and then returned separately sooner than expected.
"Nice work on the ice mines," Varric commented, prodding the silent elf to talk. To his dismay, Solas only nodded. "I think she broke some ribs," he continued, "though how she could laugh that loud and throw that punch and not scream in pain is beyond me." The elf didn't reply. Varric persisted. "I would've cursed Andraste's pants off if I did that."
"She's Dalish," Solas mumbled. Varric choked on a laugh, but at the sight of a muscle twitching in the apostate's jaw, stopped. Other than that wry comment, however, Solas didn't say anything else. Varric sighed. Pride. Bloody pride.
"You really won't do anything else but stay on the sidelines, are you?" Varric finally snapped at the elf.
"Excuse me?" Solas said, baffled at the dwarf's sudden vehemence.
Varric scoffed. "Don't play dumb with me, Chuckles. I know there's something going on between you and our Lady Inquisitor. Something bad's going to happen to her soon if you don't do something about it."
"I'd rather not," Solas simply said. "I've done too much to her to do more."
Varric wanted to whack this elf's egg of a head with Bianca. "She's hurting, can't you see that?" he said through gritted teeth. "And a hurting Inquisitor is bad for business."
"She's learing how to put pain to good use, hardening her heart to a cutting edge," Solas said evenly. "I don't see how that couldn't be beneficial to our "business" of ridding the world of Corypheus' taint."
Varric gave up. "Suit yourself, elf," he said, throwing his hands in the air. "I'd better see where she went to. Up close, I ought to be able to protect her better." He ran as fast as his short legs could carry him, leaving the apostate to his inner thoughts.
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Heavy footsteps could be heard outside the rotunda. Solas had a split second to prepare before his door banged open and Ellana marched in. He raised his eyes from the tome he was reading, or was trying to read anyway.
"Inquisitor," Solas said in acknowledgement, closing the book and standing up. Ellana visibly started at the formal term. "How may I help you in the final battle against Corypheus?"
Solas could read confusion and pain in Ellana's eyes as she tried to compose herself from hearing him address her as Inquisitor. "I'd like to discuss about what happened before, Solas," she demanded, both implicitly understanding what she was referring to. "I think I've given us both enough time to think about that thoroughly."
"I'm afraid that wouldn't be appropriate at this time," Solas said evasively, maintaining the polite tone even if the hurt in Ellana's eyes shot through his heart as well.
"Solas -" Ellana tried to cut in, but Solas continued on. "You must focus on what truly matters. Harden your heart to a cutting edge, and put that pain to good use against Corypheus." He said those words for her benefit as much as for himself.
"It would help if you could explain why," Ellana said between gritted teeth.
"The answers will only lead to more questions, an emotional entanglement that would benefit neither of us," Solas answered evenly, even if his resolve was slowly crumbling at the pain in Ellana's eyes. "The blame is mine, not yours. It was irresponsible and selfish of me. Let that be enough.'
"That's what you think?" Ellana cried out incredulously, her frustration finally breaking through. "You were selfish and irresponsible? How can that be your explanation for what happened between us? How can that be enough explanation for what we are?"
Her anger was starting to draw curious gazes from the library and the rookery above. "Inquisitor," Solas tried to placate her, but she was too focused on her anger to care.
"You say that's what you are, but that's what you really think I am, isn't it?'" Ellana's teeth gritted in anger. "Selfish in asking you to love me. Irresponsible in forgetting my duties just to be with you. Selfish and irresponsible in giving you my love, my heart, everything good that I have!'"
"No,'" Solas replied quickly and firmly. "I didn't. I don't."
"Don't lie to me!" Ellana hissed.
Solas caught Ellana's arms in a tight grip and stared directly into her emerald green eyes. Like that gem, they were hard with the pure anger she felt towards him, but they glimmered with unshed tears that he knew she was keeping back. "I would never call you those things," he said slowly, calmly. "You, of all people in this waking world, are the furthest from those two words. Whereas I..."
Ellana wrenched herself from Solas' grip. "Save it," she hissed vehemently. "You will never let anybody see under that polite mask you wear, will you?"
"You saw more than most," Solas whispered, averting his gaze from her. From the corner of his eyes, though, he saw Ellana ball her fist tightly.
"This was a waste of time," she spat out. "I don't even know why I tried talking to you."
"Because you are hurt! Because I made a selfish mistake! Because you deserve better! Pick any reason!' Solas threw out in desperation. Because you have to let us go, vhenan, he added in his mind as he looked at Ellana's beautiful face. He resumed his cool, collected tone and said, "Let me know if you need help in our final battle against Corypheus."
Ellana turned sharply on her heels and almost ran out of the rotunda, banging again the door behind her. Solas sank into his chair and exhaled. He closed his eyes, but he couldn't shut out the sight of her tears falling down her face.
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Looking ahead, Solas could still catch the slight form of the Inquisitor running ahead of Iron Bull. He couldn't admit it to Varric, but he was concerned about the broken ribs the Inquisitor seemingly ignored just because she already took a healing potion. He had to bite back a scolding when he saw her run around right after being injured. He had to shake out the memory of her cheeky response to his scolding, and instead simply quickened his pace to keep her in sight.
Solas knew Varric was right. The Inquisitor did take his advice quite well, in the days that followed their falling out (he couldn't think of using another term for what happened between them). It was just that one time that she let her feelings loose, but after that, she was as efficient in accomplishing her tasks as before, if not better. Better came with a price, though, because recently, he had begun to worry about the darkening circles under her eyes, and the almost manic quality in the way she drew her bow and wielded her daggers when facing enemies. And now, this.
But as he told Varric, he can't do anything more for the Inquisitor, other than protect her and assist her in her work, even if it was unwelcome for her, judging from what he could see on her face.
A tremor in the ground almost unbalanced him. Solas looked up, and immediately sprinted towards the Inquisitor and the others.
A giant came crashing into the clearing: It wasn't a normal giant even, but one corrupted by red lyrium. When he caught up with the group, they were already engaged in battle, again. The Iron Bull swung his heavy mace at the giant's knees, Varric fired shot after shot at the giant's hairy chest, and the Inquisitor...
His heart leapt to his throat as he saw the Inquisitor launch herself at the giant, wielding her daggers, undefended and heedless of her danger. The giant gave a huge bellow as she sank her daggers into its back, and turned sharply around. The Inquisitor leapt away, but the giant's wildly swinging hand smashed into her and the force of it sent her crashing against a rock wall.
"NO!" Solas shouted, and tried to run to her, but a red Templar engaged him. Through the Templar's attacks, he saw the Inquisitor attempt to rise, only to cough up blood. Incensed, he raised a spiky wall of ice, effectively impaling the Templar. "Inquisitor!" he cried out, but she remained motionless on the ground.
Varric saw her too. "Cover up for Bull, Solas!" he shouted. "He's going to get the Inquisitor, and let's get out of here!"
Solas summoned up a firestorm as Bull picked up the unconscious Inquisitor and all three of them dashed back towards camp, with Solas putting up ice mines behind them every now and then to hinder any enemy that followed them. He gritted his teeth at the sight of the bright red trail of blood on the snowy paths of Emprise du Lion, at the Inquisitor's limp arm dangling on Bull's muscular ones, at one of her loosened braids, blond locks now coated with blood.
At the first sight of an Inquisition scout, Bull bellowed, "Healer!" The scout quickly descended from the makeshift watchtower, and in a few minutes, an Inquisition healer and a few soldiers took the Inquisitor from Bull's amrs and took her into the healer's tent. Bull, Varric, and Solas were left breathing sighs of relief that the Inquisitor was taken care of.
Bull was the first to excuse himself. "I've gotta get this washed off," he said, showing them his bloodied arms. He walked away, leaving Varric and Solas still standing.
"I told you elf," Varric growled, hands tightly balled into fists. "Did you have to wait for this to happen to her?"
Solas stared unseeingly ahead, but the simmering anger from the dwarf did not escape his notice.
"If I could, I'd punch your smug little elfy face black and blue," Varric said. He walked away from the still immoveable elf, towards the camp. "But I know you'd do that to yourself anyway."
When Varric was gone, Solas expelled a harsh breath. He leaned on his staff heavily as he looked at the trail of blood, the Inquisitor's blood. The sight of the bright red against the white drew his gaze. Hadn't he seen her bleed many times already? Hadn't he personally healed those cuts and bruises from time to time? Some of them were even worse than this, and she'd always get them no matter how many times he cast barriers to protect her. Hadn't he soothed her nightmares, comforted her in her sorrow, gave advice to right her path, as her companion? Hadn't he seen her sacrifice herself to save the people of Haven, have a mountain of snow almost bury her alive? The sight of her bloodied body shouldn't be a shock by now, but...
Solas fell on his knees as a lightning-sharp pain suddenly emanated from his heart and spread all throughout his body, sapping him of strength. Sobs wracked his body violently, as he let tears fall freely from his face. He beat his heart repeatedly, as if he could tear that beating organ out of his chest to stop himself from hurting.
In the end, he couldn't see her bleed without bleeding himself. He couldn't see her hurt, without being hurt himself. He coudn't see her wounds, without feeling them himself. He couldn't see her broken. without breaking himself. And if she were to die, then there was no point in walking this waking world without her in it.
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The healers looked at each other at the apostate's strange request.
"But she's unconscious," one of them voiced out the obvious. "How can you talk to an unconscious person?"
"Please," the apostate simply said.
The healer opened his mouth to argue, but a light touch at his elbow stilled him. It was the Inquisitor's dwarven companion, the storyteller. "Let him in," the dwarf said. "There isn't any harm in him talking to her, is there? As you said, she's unconscious." He threw a nasty look at the apostate at the last word.
"Very well," the healer conceded, and he stepped away from the mouth of the tent where the Inquisitor lay sleeping.
Solas stepped quietly inside the healer's tent. The soft green glow of the healer's spell surrounded the Inquisitor's prone body, and its warmth was somehow comforting to him. But as he went nearer her bed, the green light failed to hide the pallor in her face and her stoic expression as she slept under the effects of the healing spell. He anxiously watched her chest rise and fall in regular intervals, to reassure himself that it took in air to keep her alive.
He knelt beside her and for a while, did nothing else but to watch her sleep. He wanted to join her in the Fade, but thought the better of it, because she might not want him there. Instead, just for something to do, he drew her blankets a little closer, and smoothed them. When his chest grew tighter, he sought her hand to hold it in his own.
He hadn't fully realized how rough they were. True, her long, slim, white fingers looked like they belonged to nobility, but her palms were full of callouses that could only come from extensive use of weapons. His sketches couldn't fully capture the grace with which she wielded her daggers or drew her bow. He traced a finger along a fading scar that cut across the back of her hand. He shook his head as he remembered how she used this particular hand like a shield to deflect a knife thrown by those White Raider Claws. "You've always forged ahead of us, taking on enemies before us," he began, his voice cracking at the beginning from the dryness of his throat. "You always use your body as a shield instead of the actual thing.'
He also remembered his purpose in coming in. He cleared his throat, dry though it felt to him. "I didn't come here to scold you, vhenan. I'm sorry." He surprised himself at hearing how easily the endearment slipped from his lips. He found it difficult to swallow as he remembered how broken she was right now, but he couldn't seem to let her hand go. "The healers don't believe I can talk to you, unconscious as you are now, but here I am now, still attempting the feat." Solas looked at Ellana's closed eyes. "Whether or not you can hear me, vhenan, I will still tell you some part of the why you have craved to hear from me."
Solas took in a deep breath. "When you first showed an interest in me, in my studies, in the ancient knowledge I can share with you, you have lit in me a spark I have never felt in a thousand years. I became... fond of you, fonder than anyone else I have been in contact with, and that wasn't a lot of people, to be honest." He tucked in a stray lock of hair behind her ear. He continued, "But I never thought it could go any deeper than a mere distraction, a transitory feeling, so to speak, and that you were just a novelty in the monotony of my life." He laughed self-depreciatingly. "I apologize, vhenan. Thinking of you as a distraction...how could I have been so blind?
"But everything changed... at Haven. When I heard you declare that you'd rather let Corypheus take you rather than let him kill everyone else, when you shouted at us to run, but you didn't follow, when you released that last trebuchet and buried the village... you broke me. You made me think I lost part of myself when you were nowhere to be found, when you didn't come running behind us, when I thought you were dead."
His voice cracked a little at the last word as the memories washed over him again: Ellana's determined gaze as she steeled herself to go back to the swarm of red Templars, seeing the avalanche come crashing into the little village, staring futilely into the blizzard, hoping desperately that she had somehow managed to pull through, holding her cold hands as she lay, just like this, on Mother Gisele's bedroll. He had to take a deep breath before continuing.
"How can you die, while I continue to live on? How can I live, when at the moment I realized what I felt for you was no transitory feeling, you were going to be lost to me? How can I lose you, when you made me see this world differently, made me believe that there was a lot of good and bright and beautiful still in this world that you fought to preserve?"
He kissed her slim fingers. "In my despair, I thought, maybe this was my punishment, for not seeing this world for what it is now, for not caring enough for the world you loved, for not loving you enough."
He watched her eyes move behind her eyelids. "And so, when fate gave you back to me, I let myself love you, despite my hesitations, my reservations about us. You are the Inquisitor, and I... I am an apostate, your companion, but when we were together, that didn't matter at all. You were just you, and I was just me. For a time, I thought that would be enough. Nothing else mattered. NOthing else should have mattered more than our love for each other, but..."
He held her hand tighter. "You have a lot of duties to fulfill, my love, a lot of people who look up to you, and I ... am the same. I cannot shirk my duties to my people too, not anymore. When you told me how you'd make use of the Well in order to return things to what they were, I was reminded of those duties. Your full conviction in your ability to restore what we lost reminded me of... of the larger picture that is your role as the Inquisitor. I couldn't let us be diverted from what we must do, so I had to... sever our ties, cut out the feelings we had for each other, end this relationship." He kissed her hand again. "I am truly sorry, ma vhenan. You are right to call me cruel and heartless, because I am, because I have to be. For us to be who we should be, for us to do our duties well, for us to fulfill our promises to our people, we have to stop being us. We have to be someone else. We have to stop being us."
He reached out to touch her face. "This is the price we have to pay for being us." He leaned over and kissed her forehead gently, but he lingered to look at her sleeping face. "This is a painful price, but only we can pay it, vhenan." He stood and slowly walked out of the healer's tent, not aware that Ellana had opened her eyes to look at his retreating back, tears falling and drenching the pillow beneath her head.
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The following day, Bull and Varric looked up from their breakfast to see Ellana exit the healer's tent.
"Inquisitor!" Bull roared, while Varric chuckled. Ellana smiled and moved to where they sat in front of the campfire. "Back from the dead, eh? Come to fight another day?"
Ellana winked at him. "Of course," she said. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
"You shouldn't encourage her, Bull," Varric chided.
Ellana curled an arm around the dwarf and pulled him into a quick hug. "Of course I won't go into battle immediately, Mother, " she teased. "I'll be a good elf and listen to what the healer says." The three of them laughed.
Just then, Solas walked in. He stilled as he met Ellana's gaze, then quickly schooled his expression to become more natural. "Inquisitor," he said, nodding slightly, "I am pleased you are awake now. I hope you're feeling better?"
"Yes, thank you," Ellana matched his polite tone, smiling to hide the hurt she still felt hearing him talk like that. Varric narrowed his eyes at that, but Bull only shrugged and continued munching his breakfast. Solas made to walk on, but Ellana caught his arm.
"To the three of you," Ellana started to say, but her eyes were on Solas only, "I want to say I'm sorry."
Solas knit his eyebrows slightly, and Varric asked "What for?"
"I promise I'll be more careful and not do anything that reckless again," she said softly. "I am the Inquisitor, and I know I shouldn't be taking risks with my life, when so many things are at stake." Varric smiled sympathetically. "But more than that, I am your friend, and I don't want to worry you that much again. I'll be fine, no matter what happens."
Ellana smiled at Solas, and this time, she meant it. Solas saw that, and returned a genuine smile of his own. He gave her fingers an affectionate squeeze before Ellana let him go.
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...fin...
Okay, that's done. So, the inspiration behind this is the cut speech that Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd's character) delivers to a comatose Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). If you know Torchwood, then you know Ianto's relationship with Jack. If you don't, Google it. Ok, just kidding. Jack is immortal. Ianto is not. Solas is immortal (sort of). Ellana is not. So I think you see the dilemma and the parallelism between these two stories. On a side note, I loved Doctor Who and Torchwood long before I loved Dragon Age, and I was thinking of patterning my Sollavelan story to the Tenth Doctor and Rose's story. I was soooo happy when I heard in an interview that Solas is sort of based on David Tennant's version of the Doctor! I got it right!
Okay, and the running away from templars thing that I made the characters do there? I admit I was that much of a scaredy cat. Whenever I was about to get killed in the game, I just ran. =D I'm not much of a gamer. I started off by watching other people play, then playing a bow wielding rogue so I can fight at a distance. I'm getting the hang of dual wielding (daggers) rogue, and I haven't yet gotten around to swords and shields. I have to admit Solas romance spoiled the game for me. I know there's other romances I can dabble in, but... the tragedy... of Sollavellan... got stuck on my mind. I just can't.
Thanks for reading! =)