The news came when they were painting.
Soft raindrops pattered onto Skyhold's grounds in a musical rhythm, like old friends greeting each other in a deliberately serene tempo, meant to calm and soothe. The rain, of course, made everything wet, causing a myriad of surfaces to be covered with grey pools of reflective water that churned just as the sky did above them, all broiling clouds tinged with darkness underneath. Even the battlements looked dreary, the mist clinging to the massive walkways so desperately that it was as if they were melted into the chain of endless mountains donning every side. It was a masterpiece portfolio of grey - muted, vast, but undeniably beautiful.
Overall, it started off as a quiet day for the Inquisition. Ellana, feeling the joy of such a rare occurrence, wandered the castle's corridors with a mind absent of the dedicated focus she was so used to bearing. She trailed a few fingers along one of the stone walls, liking how its rough texture gently scraped against her callused skin. The castle was finally starting to feel familiar after all of these months. It was becoming… home, even, despite its squabble-some residents and the petty complaints they drowned her in.
Ellana shuffled towards the end of the corridor she now traveled and began descending its staircase, her fine leather boots making a padded noise similar to the raindrops dripping onto Skyhold's roof. She let her feet carry her into Solas' study and spotted him at once, the fact that this was his room barely registering in her vacant mind. He stood before the room's east wall, the stone there covered in dark, thick paint that also covered Solas. His clothes were stained with the stuff, ominously looking more like blood than actual paint, but Ellana shook her head free of the thought. Such gruesome notions would certainly not do, for this was a peaceful day. Right now, the only trouble Solas could fall prey to is running out of paint and being unable to finish his work! What would such a situation look like anyway? Ellana glanced at the studious elf and had to fight back a laugh that threatened to spill out of her throat. The sight of him scowling amidst his own hopelessness… it was almost too comical to imagine. Instead, it was his eyes that invited Ellana, their grey depths bright with a pure dedication he seemed to reserve for only the most important things. Things that mostly consisted of spirits and the Fade.
Ignoring the usual pang in her heart she always associated with Solas, Ellana strode into the room, inhaling the bitter fragrance that the paint emitted and cringing. She closed the distance between them with a few, playful skips, hopping dramatically one final time before smiling up at him, her face bright and expectant. "What are you painting now?" she asked Solas, her eyes darting to the dark outline displayed magnificently upon the wall in front of them. "I can't quite make it out yet."
The next moment passed by with slightly bated breath. The last time she and Solas had been alone, their meeting had ended in utter heartache, the pain from such an ordeal still in the healing stages. Would he remember? Words from those instances hung suspended in the air, momentarily clouding the room with a heat both intense and dizzying.
I have not forgotten the kiss.
Perhaps you should.
But this was not that day. When their eyes met, Solas smiled warmly at Ellana, and the light radiating between their souls abruptly came together as one - elf to elf, friend to friend, kin to kin. The elation and relief inside her heart was so profound, Ellana couldn't help but grin back. Solas' pale eyes shined excitedly as he gestured towards the mural with a hand that curled around a thin painting brush smeared with black. Ellana immediately found herself resisting the urge to snatch it out of his hand, and after a moment's hesitation, she did just that, impishly leaping away from him before he could retaliate.
"It's the siege of Adamant Fortress. Well, more specifically, it will be," he said in a confident manner, raising a narrow eyebrow in response to her theft. Solas wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or glower at his loss. He only sighed, shaking his head while the mischievous Inquisitor inspected his handiwork with another glance.
Ellana wondered at the mural, curious to know when and where it was that Solas had taught himself this skill. Her gaze scanned over a cluster of ominous looking things towards the far corner of the landscape… wait, were those eyes? Round and circular and positively… well, evil looking - they were! The familiar eyes peered back at her in a frozen stare and Ellana fought down a wave of nausea that pooled in the bottom of her stomach. Frowning deeply, she pointed towards the outlined drawing, her wordless question burning darkly in the tense lines of her scowl.
Solas followed the direction of Ellana's outstretched arm and shrugged innocently. "Are you pointing to the eyes? Surely you remember Nightmare, the spirit we fought in the Fade? Do you think it is a good likeness of its face? I find that the animosity behind the eyes is perhaps the most difficult part of the mural to portray…"
Ellana's scowl deepened, her intricate vallaslin furrowing along with the muscles beneath it. She combed both hands through her long, silver hair and shook out the loose curls sticking to her skin, attempting to cool off the sweat that had dewed upon her neck. Solas watched and remained silent, though his shining eyes dimmed slightly in concern.
"It is a true likeness, Solas. All too true of one, I think," she said quietly, though not unhappily, before reaching forward and touching him on the shoulder. "You are very talented, friend. You should be proud of this."
Solas softened at her touch, his eyes set ablaze with sincerity once more. "If it troubles you, Inquisitor, I could certainly paint something else in its stead. Perhaps the representation of Divine Justinia would be a more appropriate account of our experience?"
But that wasn't what Ellana had wanted. She laughed lightly and toed a few steps towards the fantastic mural, trying to imagine what would be there in just a few short days. She extended a few fingertips up to touch the wall but ultimately restrained herself; she did not want to disturb or smear the magnificence of Solas' work in any possible way. She turned back towards the waiting elf instead.
"No," Ellana said, her full lips turned up once more in an encouraging smile, "Keep it. If you are to document our experiences with these paintings, then I want them to be as accurate as possible. Add the Divine if you wish but please do not modify your mural on account of my idle comments. It would be a waste of creative talent," she said evenly, knowing that she would probably never be able to understand the artistry that this sort of creation demands.
A pleased grin tickled Solas' lips apart and he bowed his head respectively in response. "As you wish, Inquisitor."
Ellana snorted loudly, an immediate and involuntary response that nearly shook the castle's walls. The smirking elf quickly closed the distance between them with a loud smack on the same shoulder she had just embraced. Solas could not help but flinch away from her. "Don't friggin' bow to me, Solas. Especially when I'm trying to be nice to you! Maker's Breath. I can barely stand all of you calling me 'Inquisitor' most days. It makes me feel itchy, like I'm wearing a robe made of nettles that's stuck to my skin."
"That's greatly descriptive of you, da'len," Solas said mildly. "And I see you have been spending time with Sera again! How quaint." There was a wicked gleam deep within his eyes that betrayed his polite courtesy, however, and his pale irises shone once more with mirth and laughter. Like this, Solas remained a magnificent sight, and Ellana wanted nothing more than to take his stained hands in hers and twirl about the messy study as if they were but mere children. The two of them together and free of troubles and demons and heartbreak… Ellana's gaze found purchase with his once more and she was suddenly breathless, tempted and mesmerized by the idea taking form and the nearness of his body in proximity to her own.
When… had he gotten so close?
"Solas," Ellana breathed, his name tasting like honey upon her shell-shocked tongue, "I didn't know you had freckles on your face." Clusters of pale amber dotted the tops of his nose and razor cheekbones, like some sort of pigment bridge made of magic and childhood. They were so faint from afar but so noticeable up close; how could she have missed this about him?
"Why didn't you tell me you had freckles?" she asked, her breathless whispers replaced by an adamant strength that sustained her. They were close enough so that a warmness was pressed between them, operating like a thin veil of insulation which threatened to dissipate at the slightest movement or jilt of their bodies. She smiled up at him and suddenly her countenance was all dimples and light and hope and grace; Ellana was a glowing torch of beauty in the day's rainy afterglow. She was absolutely radiant and all too-inviting, even unconsciously, and so it seemed proper when Solas clasped each of his palms behind his back in a silent reminder of the restraint he promised to show her in times like these, such as when their private moments grew… intimate. She had asked as much upon that fateful afternoon when she'd turned away his advances, slight as they had been. Even so, Ellana was utterly unaware of the rapier pain now blooming throughout the entirety of his chest, clinging to his heart and lungs like the thick ivy he had seen lay stake over the ruined metropolis that was Ostagar in the Fade. Yet, Solas said nothing of the matter and shrugged lightly, not daring to move an inch closer to the marvelous woman in front of him, though he did not move away from her either.
"I suppose… because you have never asked, da'len." He spoke evenly enough and although his voice was calm, the facetiousness of Solas' words betrayed his masked demeanor, earning yet another smile from the lovely Lavellan. This time he grinned back; her cheerful spirit being entirely too infectious to deny. "It seems we share this trait as well, though your vallaslin does well to cover them. They are so faint between the ink… I almost did not see them."
Ellana's face registered surprise, creating long arcs of space between her brows and eyelids. "Wait, really?" she asked. Solas nodded, and she brought her hands to her cheeks, tracing each index finger along where she saw his eyes scan over. "I used to get them as a child, but only in the summers when I'd play all day long in the forests. It must be our running around Thedas," she mused appreciatively before beaming to herself. "At any rate, I'm glad they're back! I have missed them."
"You have?"
"Of course I have."
Solas cocked his head to the side, true bewilderment igniting the paleness of his irises into marvelous opals. "Why is that? What exactly do they mean to you?" he asked, once more surveying the white and freckled gold landscape of her visage. In the excitement of his confusion, Solas had forgotten himself; all pretenses of stoicism had evaporated, leaving nothing in him but a ferocious desire to swoop down and press his lips to every precious freckle upon her body. If not for the countless years of meditation he spent isolated from the world and the instincts of the flesh, Solas might have found himself doing just that, simultaneously undoing every thread of trust between them they might have ever had in a single second. He wanted to laugh at the thought and curse himself for being the fool he knew he was, but Ellana was soon misinterpreting the renewed smile he donned for one of mischief or wickedness; did she not understand how tempting she already was to him, or even, the depths of his care for her?
No, of course she didn't. Ellana was blissfully unaware of many things, Solas being one of them. The glint of a faraway memory filmed over her eyes as she considered, and answered, his original questions. "They mean many wonderful things to me, friend."
"Like?" Solas questioned, his brows furrowing low towards the bridge of his nose. "Should I repeat my questions? Or will you continue to dance around them so persistently that even Dorian would be proud of such a feat?"
The mere name of the Tevinter caused Ellana's face to become brilliantly illuminated, and her loveliness was suddenly so fierce that any additional words which bubbled on the surface of Solas' tongue was instantly dissolved into a nothing made of further confusion and idle wonder. It warmed him, and before Solas could stop himself, he was smiling down at Ellana, speaking in such a soft way that it returned her thoughts to him, and wildly so.
"You love him very much," he said, knowing himself to be right. "You have come so far in your journey, lethallan; remember a time when you couldn't help but be distrustful of humans?"
Ellana nodded, silver hair spilling and curling around her delicate features. "Every night I would retreat to my tent racked with shivers and body spasms," she explained, the memories of the Inquisition's initial months heavy in her mind. "It seemed their mere presence to be a toxin to my body, one I was afraid I would never recover from. But then I started to listen to them, and with that, came eventual understanding. By the end of Haven, I had all but decided their companionship to be a neutral one, for though they might have not meant me harm, that did not mean I still wasn't a foreign thing to them - something to be accustomed to rather than accepted. Everything changed when I met Dorian. All of my previous ideals and thoughts and convictions; they didn't seem to matter any more. I grew to trust him, quicker than with any other shemlen, and before I knew it…"
"You found yourself loving him, despite his human heritage."
"Yes," she confessed ardently. "So much. More deeply than I have loved anyone, save my Keeper."
Solas grew curious again when Ellana searched him with her violet eyes, trying to find something in his face, it seemed. "I didn't know there were so many types of love until I came here," she continued on, speaking more slowly and more carefully than before, "Loving so many people here makes my heart feel like it's both endless and empty, and that even if I were to be drunk on love's intoxication and completely immersed in it, I would still want more. Despite my troubles and burdens, despite the blind rage I fear will consume me before our quest is over, it feels like I will always want more and to give more in return. Does that make me foolish?" she wondered aloud. "And if it does make me a fool, then why don't I care?"
The day's rain seemed to all but cease for a moment, so quiet was the study. The beat of their hearts was nearly audible as Solas freed his hands from their own grasp, their nerves tingling and stinging with fresh blood flow. He extended one of them towards Ellana and proceeded to caress her chin with his thumb and forefinger, just as a comforting friend, perhaps even Dorian, would feel unashamed to do.
"It is my belief that you are brave, lethallan, and much stronger than those who do not let any amount of love into their hearts. A life without love seems hardly a life at all, so I am glad to serve under the name of one who feels so deeply in their passions. It would be a tragedy if the one who inspires so much good and grace around her remained unmoved by it all," said Solas, his melodious accent curling around the words in natural and lilting embraces. Ellana continued to peer up at him while he held her face, and he watched as her eyes softened, liquefying into bottomless chasms of violet oceans. He could see that she believed him and took what he said to be true, for she offered up no other response than to stay embraced in their gazes and surrendered to his touch. Their silent moments together satisfied the harshest depths of his soul, the places his being called out for her, for Ellana, soothing the ache that was her name branded into his organs. They were enough like this, however distant the narrow space between them seemed, and he contented himself to touch her for a few seconds longer, enjoying the feel of her elegant chin now in his palm.
I see you, their wordlessness seemed to speak, I see you and you are beautiful.
At last, when the rhythm of their hearts untangled themselves from their merge, Solas willingly allowed his hand fall to his side. Ellana looked almost thankful for the release, though she smiled up at him in encouragement, eliciting an unconscious twitch of his own lips. So much of their words was easily communicated between them by expression and gestures alone; how could their souls not have the understanding they did? Was there a world where they would not be inclined towards one another?
Solas found himself chuckling when Ellana suddenly offered up his stolen paintbrush. She held it between their faces like a talisman, the edges dangling precariously from the tips of her fingers. She unexpectedly let it go, and Solas caught it with a deft move from his wrist, triumph and smugness written all over his angular face.
"Let me watch you paint," said Ellana, seemingly back to her playful disposition from before. "Let the rain fall and the evening come and let me see what talents possess my kin." She, for all her mischievous ways looked equally as triumphant, as if she knew Solas could not and would not dare refuse her.
Refuse her, he would not do. Solas nodded, a pleased notion, and strode over to the eastern wall once more. Ellana followed suit and found an bare space of stone for her to lean upon, and she tipped her head back, momentarily closing her eyes in the comfort of the rain crashing down above them.
"Trees, sunshine, wildberries, strength, love, promises, childhood, and laughter," she murmured absently, stifling a yawn the tranquil atmosphere provoked in her.
"What?" asked Solas, pausing his work momentarily to look at her again.
"Trees, sunshine, wildberries, strength, love, promises, childhood, and laughter," she repeated, nearly humming out the words. "That is what my freckles mean to me. They remind me of my home in the Dales. Of my first home, that is … this is my home now. You are all my home."
Completely unaware was she of the magnitude of Solas' grin, the dazzling gesture dawning as slowly as the sun when it rises beyond the peaks of the Frostback Mountains, and just as luminous. He turned back to his work and Ellana resumed her humming, both of them completely in bliss, and at peace.