(A/N): Playing a little fast and loose with the rules of magic and the Fade. I'm going with the anchor as my excuse.

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Ripples in a Pond

"Darling, you're an absolute treasure," Vivienne exclaimed as Evelyn withdrew the tome from her pack. "Wherever did you find this one?"

"Abandoned on the top of a tower in the Hinterlands," Evelyn said, handing the book to the First Enchanter. "The thief probably tossed it up there to avoid being caught with it in their possession."

"Fools," Vivienne said heatedly, fingers skimming over the book's cover. "They'd have left it to rot, and they never even knew what they carried. Thank the Maker for you, my dear," she said, fixing Evelyn with a warm smile. "The wisdom of centuries mustn't be lost due to the short-sighted greed of men."

"I'm glad I could help," Evelyn said.

"Are you leaving so soon?" Vivienne asked as Evelyn made to turn away. "Off for another clandestine meeting with the apostate, perhaps?" Her expression was grave when Evelyn glanced at her, surprised. "Tread carefully, dear. Tongues are already wagging after your rather...public display of affection with the Commander on the battlements. The last thing the masses need is reason for further speculation on the nature of your relationship with an elven apostate."

A dull flush crept up Evelyn's neck. "I'll have to speak to Cassandra – we're clearly not utilizing our people properly if they have time to sit around speculating about my personal life."

Vivienne's laugh was a peal of bells. "Darling, you could work them to exhaustion and they'd still find time to speculate about you – you're the Herald of Andraste. It is a burden all great leaders must bear."

"There is nothing untoward about my relationship with Solas," Evelyn said with a slight roll of her eyes, sighing when Vivienne's lips pulled into a small moue. "You really don't care for him, do you?"

"My opinion isn't the one you need to fear, my dear," Vivienne said. "Do as you will, but do consider what I've said." Evelyn nodded before turning away, swallowing down another sigh. Resettling her pack's strap across her shoulders, she left the First Enchanter's balcony behind, cutting through the library to reach the rotunda.

Solas glanced up from the map he was studying when she rapped her knuckles against the stone archway. "Inquisitor," he said, half-rising before she waved him back into his seat. "Did you need something?"

"No, I just wanted to pick up the book," she said, striding over to the table.

The elf glanced at the copy of Beyond the Veil resting at his elbow. Multiple heavily-inked scraps of parchment sprouted from between the pages, marking where the apostate had run out of room in the margins to detail just how wrong the information contained within the pages was. "I must confess, when you said you wished to learn, I didn't expect you'd tackle the subject with such enthusiasm," he said as he passed the tome to her. He paused, his lips quirking into a smile. "Though perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, given the dedication you've shown in pursuit of your other goals."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Evelyn said wryly, flicking through the pages, careful to keep the loose scraps in place.

"It was intended as such."

"Mm."

Solas watched her study the book for another moment before his gaze flicked back to the table, tapping two long fingers thoughtfully against the wood before he spoke. "Will you have a few hours free this evening, Inquisitor?"

"Hm?" Evelyn blinked and dragged her attention away from the book. "I believe so. Why?"

"I thought you might accompany me outside Skyhold for a slightly more...practical lesson." For a second, Evelyn hesitated, Vivienne's words flashing through her mind, and Solas glanced up at her with a quizzical frown. "Inquisitor?"

"Yes, sorry," she said. "That should be fine." She sighed when Solas only looked at her. "It's nothing – just something Vivienne said."

"Ah." Solas almost managed to keep the dislike from his voice. "And what did the First Enchanter have to say that's put that look on your face?"

Evelyn fixed him with a look that let him know he wasn't helping. "She said people are noticing the time we're spending together. She's concerned they'll...talk."

He arched an eyebrow. "'Talk'? About what – your choice of reading material? Or did you tell her we've been slitting our wrists and dancing naked under the moonlight?"

She burst into a startled laugh, clapping a hand to her mouth as she stifled a series of helpless guffaws. "No, but I might have to the next time I see her," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "If only to see the look on her face."

"I imagine it would greatly resemble the one she wore after you offered the mages an alliance." Solas' expression sobered. "She is, however, not entirely wrong – "

"Stop, no, don't," Evelyn interrupted, waving her free hand emphatically. "Just...no. Forget I said anything." Solas inclined his head in silent acquiescence as she slid the book into her pack. "When did you want to leave?"

"An hour before dinner. I'll bring provisions," he added, anticipating her protest.

She clicked her teeth shut with a rueful grin. "All right. I'll meet you at the gate." Solas nodded, and she turned and left the room.

He was waiting at the gate at the appointed hour, pack slung over his shoulder and ragged coat cinched tight in anticipation of the colder temperatures that held the mountains outside Skyhold's walls in an icy grip. "I'll never understand how you manage to go traipsing through all that ice and snow with no shoes," she commented as she approached him, resting her staff in the crook of one elbow as she did up the fastenings of her own jacket.

"A person can adjust to almost anything, provided the need is great enough."

She huffed at him. "Fine, be cryptic. I'm going to assume it's some secret apostate spell for staving off frostbite." A smile flickered across his face, but he only turned and began the trek across the drawbridge, his own staff gripped in one hand. Evelyn threw a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, biting back a sigh when she noted the number of people marking their departure with undisguised curiosity.

She only counted herself lucky Vivienne wasn't among them.

The temperature plummeted as they left the fortress behind. Evelyn quickened her stride to match the elf's, fighting down a shiver. Solas glanced at her from the corner of his eye as she drew even with him but didn't speak, the sound of their steps crunching across the frozen ground loud in the silence.

They followed the road for roughly twenty minutes before Solas suddenly veered to the left, pushing aside a snow-covered branch with his staff to reveal a trail twisting away into the trees. Evelyn fixed him with another look. "Is my getting frostbite an integral part of your teaching method, Solas?" she asked, unable to keep a slight edge of exasperation from her voice as she tried to stamp some feeling back into her feet.

"Of course not, Inquisitor. I have secret apostate knowledge to prevent just that, if you'll recall," he rejoined dryly. "There is a camp already set up not far from here. Please." He motioned for her to precede him and, with a sigh, she moved past him, blinking rapidly in an effort to let her eyes adjust to the gloom beneath the tightly packed trees. Behind her, Solas stepped onto the trail, letting the branch fall back into place, screening them from the main road; then he slipped around her, taking the lead once more as they wound further into the woods.

Another ten minutes and they stepped into a small clearing, a large fire pit already cleared and stacked with dry wood that Solas ignited with a flick of one wrist. Evelyn paused at the edge of the trees, taking in the rough lean-to, a bed-roll neatly tied and wedged in one corner, and the pile of chopped wood sheltered by the trees on the other side of the encampment. "Maker, Solas, you've been busy."

He chuckled. "Skyhold is what you needed, Inquisitor, but the press of so many other people can be...distracting. I come out here when I need to clear my mind." He clasped both hands around his staff as he glanced over at her. "The Veil is thin here. It helps."

Evelyn hummed a response as she moved to join him at the fire's edge. "So what does this lesson consist of, exactly?"

"Meditation." He didn't acknowledge the decidedly nonplussed look she shot him.

"I assume there's a good reason I couldn't have just meditated in Skyhold?" she said.

"Aside from the fact that you would forever have people interrupting you?" he rebutted. "I brought you here specifically to meditate on the Fade – can you not feel it on your skin, tingling?"

"Solas, I'm a mage," she deadpanned. "I know what the Fade feels like."

"Indeed. And that is precisely the problem," he said. "You regard the Fade as your Circle taught you to – with suspicion at best, hostility at worst. Do you not recall when I said spirits shape themselves to the expectations of mortals?"

"And...how will meditation help?"

He fixed her with an inscrutable look before he sighed. "You must overcome the way you currently think of the Fade if you wish to see it as I do. I can deface as many Circle tomes as you like – gladly," he added, mouth twisting, "but ultimately the change must come from you. Humor me," he said, indicating the low stool set before the fire.

"I had an instructor like you in the tower," she muttered as she sank down into the seat, settling her staff across her knees. "Couldn't give a straight answer to save his soul." The suggestion of a smile flitted across the other mage's face before he turned away. "Now where are you going?"

"To set wards," he answered over his shoulder. "I doubt the Seeker would appreciate the Herald of Andraste being eaten by a timber wolf because she happened to be wandering distracted in the Fade on the advice of an apostate." He tilted his head. "Meditate." Then he was gone.

Evelyn sighed and straightened, resting her hands across her staff and letting her eyes fall closed. For a time she concentrated on the warmth from the fire against her face, the creaking of the tree limbs in the slight breeze. Solas was right – she could feel the energies of the Fade swirling around her, prickling against her senses. She breathed deeply, trying to concentrate only on the physical sensations, the ebb and flow of mana pulsing through her like a tide.

She could feel it when he entered the clearing again, energy swirling and parting around him like waves. "Solas?"

"Yes, Inquisitor," he said, seating himself on a fallen log beside her.

"How do I know when I'm finally doing this properly?" she asked, not opening her eyes.

There was a pause before he chuckled. "It is not a new spell you can master with enough practice. It will take time to overcome a lifetime of Circle propaganda. I said I would teach you – I did not say it would be easy." She heard him shift, felt the weight of his appraising gaze. "For now, simply do as you are – concentrate on the feel of the Fade around you, without prejudice, without fear. Someday the rest will follow."

She made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat, brow creasing when she heard him digging in his pack. She cracked an eye open. "That wouldn't happen to be food, would it?"

He sighed and shook his head. "You make a very poor apprentice, Inquisitor" he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he withdrew a small, cloth-wrapped loaf of bread. "Your concentration is entirely lacking."

She rolled her eyes. "Perhaps my concentration wouldn't suffer so much if insufferable apostates didn't drag me into the freezing woods for mysterious 'lessons' right around dinnertime."

"So you're saying the fault lies with me, then?" he queried, eyebrow arched in clear amusement.

"Absolutely," she said, grinning. "You're a horrible teacher."

"I shall bear that in mind," he said, laughter lurking just below the words as he broke the bread and passed her half. Hand disappearing back into his pack, he took out a wedge of fragrant cheese, cutting off a generous slab and passing that to her as, well. Finally, he withdrew two strips of salted ram meat and offered her the larger piece.

Evelyn shook her head, snatching the smaller piece from his other hand. "You're too skinny, Solas – I can't have my Fade-Rift Adviser wasting away on me."

He blinked. "Excuse me?"

Evelyn's grin fell away. "After we sealed the Breach, some people started...well, agitating about some of our members. So I came up with titles for all of you – it makes you all sound incredibly official and necessary, even to people too dim-witted to realize how important you already were." She shifted self-consciously under his gaze. "You were going to be my Official Consultant on Matters Regarding the Fade, but I wound up giving that title to Cole, since he's an actual spirit. Plus he liked it."

"Hm." The elf looked thoughtful. "Well," he said at length, rubbing a finger against the bridge of his nose, "I must say that while my title seems entirely appropriate, I'm failing to picture one that might be applied to Sera."

"She's our Morale Officer." Evelyn took a bite of her make-shift sandwich as Solas grimaced.

"'Morale Officer'. Really."

"If people are distracted by her pranks they're not worrying about when Corypheus will get tired of lurking somewhere out there and come for us again," she said with a small shrug. She scoffed when his expression remained skeptical. "You're just still sore over those lizards in your bedroll."

"I am not that petty."

"Mm-hmm."

The apostate shook his head, pointedly ignoring her smile, and turned his attention to his own meal. A companionable silence stretched between them as they ate; when he'd finished, Solas rose long enough to add more wood to the fire, stirring the embers with a stick to encourage the flames to burn hotter as the sun dipped low towards the mountains. "Now, Inquisitor," he said, the very image of long-suffering patience as he turned his gaze on her, "while we still have some light, if you would be so good as to meditate in earnest so that this trip will not have been wasted."

Evelyn nodded, brushing the crumbs from her lap before assuming the same posture she'd adopted earlier, eyes sliding closed. Beside her, Solas busied himself tidying up the remains of their simple supper, but she did her best to ignore his movements, instead trying to concentrate as he'd asked her to. Slowly, her breathing deepened, fingers curling loosely in her lap as she achieved a light meditative trance. The Fade whispered around her, familiar and yet too close.

She flinched when she felt something brush against the thinned Veil from the other side. "Solas?" she said, voice low. "Is this one of your friends?"

The elf stilled. "I will not be with you to answer every question, Inquisitor. What do you feel?"

She drew in a shaky breath. "Please just give me a straight answer."

There was a short silence that lasted several lifetimes. "I do not know this spirit."

Her heart jumped in her chest and, as if in response, there was another, firmer push against the Veil; in an instant she was on her feet, staff crackling with restrained lightning. The presence fled, leaving her tensed for a fight over a dying fire and Solas regarding her with an unreadable expression. She expelled a ragged breath. "Sorry."

"For what? Not mastering in one evening what took me years to learn?" The elf rose to his feet in one smooth motion. "In all my years, no one has ever asked what you have. It is enough that you try, Inquisitor."

Evelyn propped herself up with her staff as she waited for her breathing to return to normal. "So...meditation, huh?" she said wryly.

Solas' lips crooked into a small smile. "Yes, though less panic would probably prove beneficial in the long run."

She managed a laugh. "Right. I'll have to work on that." She hid her eyes briefly behind her palm, taking a deep breath, expression determined when she let her hand fall back to her side. "I don't suppose you'll have any time free tomorrow?"

His smile spread. "I believe it could be arranged." She nodded her appreciation as he bent to retrieve his pack from the ground. "Well, Inquisitor, I believe we'll call that the end of today's lesson. We should return to Skyhold before the light fails." He extinguished the fire with a gesture, summoning a small ball of flame in almost the same breath to light their way in the sudden murk.

Evelyn halted him with a hand to his shoulder when he made to move past her. "Thank you."

Solas nodded, and she smiled before letting her hand fall away, turning and following as he led her back toward the road.