This was written for astrakhan, who requested Solas x Skyhold for the r/Solasmancers Secret Santa #2 exchange.
Waking up is a gradual process, so gradual that she can't pinpoint exactly when she starts to notice the world around her. At first it's just the sky, the wind, the ever-present blowing snow catching on her ramparts, but then she starts to notice the little things that live in her. They're very busy little creatures, hurrying here, scurrying there, and for a long, long time she doesn't know what to make of them.
Then they stop living. That's when she realizes that she'd quite liked them.
The time goes slowly then, with only the wind and the sky and the rock of which she's built, and she stretches her towers to the sky, roots herself down into the rock, and prepares to wait out the many, many years before her.
It's a lonely time.
Other little things come later, delighted to find such a strong castle in such a remote place. She's delighted for other reasons: she hasn't worked out movement yet, and they're so pleased to see her that they're happy to perform the little repairs she needs, the crumbling edges on one tower, the impromptu spring that's drowning her basements. They even extend her walls and put in a portcullis. She promises herself that when she figures out how to move as they do, light and quick and free, the first thing she'll do is raise and close it as many times as she likes.
These things don't seem quite as fast as the first little things had, and she wonders at that for a long time before she makes the mental leap and realizes that they're not slowing down, she's speeding up, thinking more quickly and much clearer. It makes them easier to understand, at least. She can almost hear meaning in their chatter.
The little things live in her for a long time before nearly three-quarters of them die from a debilitating plague. The rest of them go out of her, bearing what little they can carry on their backs, and she is alone again.
She does not put herself into that queer sort of sleep again, preferring rather to watch the world go by – for there is a world outside of her. There are creatures outside her walls that she hadn't noticed before, for they are even quicker than the other little things, and sometimes, if the wind is just right, there are bells. Once there is a forest fire, and when the flames reach her walls she feels the heat of it licking at her.
She mulls over these sensations, turning one over and over until she feels she knows the secret of it, the truth of it, and then she puts it away and moves on to the next. It occupies her until the next lot come over the hill.
This time she's a plan. If she sets her mind to it, she can just separate out the words in their babble, and as far as she's concerned, anything these little things are capable of inventing, she's capable of learning.
When she figures out their language, an entire world opens up to her.
She learns about magic, which only some of them possess, and about little human things: food and wine, fighting and sex, songs and tales, and the everyday existence of a humdrum little life. There is a far-flung world out there somewhere, beyond these peaks she lives amongst, and it too is full to the bursting of mortals, of things called elves and dwarves, of magic, and of something called an ocean, and it is almost more than she can comprehend.
These little things, the humans, live a long, long time inside her. They live and they die, generations of them, each living inside their own little world in their own little universe for their entire lives, their wants and goals and deepest desires so human and basic. And yet sometimes they surprise her with the depths of their compassion, their quicksilver curiosity about the world they live in, the joy that they can find in such a simple life.
And then the wars come.
Armies march against her and the humans that live inside her, battering her walls, crashing through her doors on more than one occasion. It always comes down to blood in her courtyards, flashing swords and bright magics competing to kill each other the quickest.
Though what happens next is always worst.
She can do nothing, about any of it, no matter how hard she tries, and so she is forced to be the silent witness to their suicide pact.
The armies keep coming, though they grow increasingly more ragged and ill-equipped as the years wear on and the war fares ill. The humans living inside of her are dying more quickly than they expected, and they are worried about her, about their Sky Hold. It has occurred to more than one of them that living closer to the heart of the empire would be safer.
They convince the rest, and the humans depart en masse, leaving her alone again.
Smaller groups find her once in a while, but she is always too something: too cold, too high, too far, too big, too expensive. She gives them no more notice than she would an ant, for she has something else to while away the time. All she wants is to touch the world in some way, to be able to make her own repairs, to speak to whomever she wishes. There must be a way, for there is magic in the world, and is the fact of her existence not its deepest expression?
The next mortals to discover her are a group of humans and elvish mages on the run from some oppressive force, and they live in her for a good long while before they're caught by men with fire and steel. Not a one of them thinks to check her lower levels, where the little fools kept their most precious books of magic, and when they've gone again, she regards the library hungrily. This will teach her what she wants to know. She will make sure of it.
She cannot read, but she doesn't need to. There is magic in the books, ingrained in their essence, and she learns entirely new ways of sensing the world in order to taste each one. She builds her own magical library entirely in her mind this way, comparing this one to that, and finally, finally she stumbles upon the secret of it.
There's a barrier, something she'd never conceived of, something she'd never been able to sense, but everything she's learnt insists it's there. On the other side is... she's not exactly sure, actually, but that's where her goal is and that's what she has to reach. So. If she does this...
She cracks the barrier. The light and fire and sound that flood through her are so alien that she cries out in a silent scream. It washes her away until nothing is left but the pure, flaming heart of her, the seat of her emotions and desires, everything that makes her her.
Far, far later she comes back to herself. Some people have been and gone again, for there are new-old statues here and there, a new well dug in her courtyard, and new plants in her garden, but she doesn't care. There's a way she can reach out now that she's never been able to use before, and when she does, things start to happen. Water redirects itself, the trees outside her walls grow lusher and more verdant, and then finally, finally she lucks upon the way to move a pebble.
It's such a little thing, the smallest of things, but it's all she needs. She's the way of it now, and through trial and error and luck and more hard work than she'd ever imagined, she builds herself a body shaped in the human fashion, made of rock and stone and good, hard earth, and finally she fulfills the promise she made to herself so long ago and raises and lowers her own damned portcullis.
She laughs right out loud, and that's when she learns that she's wrought better than she knew. Her new form is capable of speech, though she's no idea how to form words, and she's not sure any of the creatures would understand her if they stood in front of her.
Maybe someday she'll test it. Wouldn't that be a delight?
There are so many things she wants to do that it's hard to decide which should be first. She walks her body out as far as she can, across the mountains, and finds her range when she loses control over the body and it tumbles down a sharp cliff. No matter, she decides, and turns right around to build a new one.
The spring in her basements has opened up again, the hasty patch washing away with last spring's snowmelt, and she walks her new self down and tries her hand at repairing it with her own hands. She can hardly do worse than the humans, after all. She doesn't figure out the way of it for several days, but each failure teaches her something new and it's not like she doesn't have the time, after all.
In the end, her new patch holds, and she'll watch with interest to see how long it lasts. She turns then, contemplating the other end of the room, which ends in a rough wall no one's ever bothered to finish. If she's right, the cliff face is, oh, five lengths that way.
She, her mobile body, and an abandoned shovelhead dig through in what seems like no time at all, and she's left with a long, long room with a fantastic view of the mountainside.
But what's that? There's something...
She directs her attention down, below her, where something is flickering through the floor of her newest room, something wild and bright and so obviously magical that she has to find out what it is. She takes the measure of it, checking the floor of each room on this level as she goes, and what seems to be the best, closest place to dig through is at the end of the hall opposite the stairs that lead up to her throne room.
Well, then. She'd been thinking about digging that out, too, and why not?
The rock separating her and the bright thing is excavated easily enough, between her and the shovelhead she's long since crushed into a pick, but she's stymied by a barrier made of pure magic which is quite impervious to anything she has to throw at it. She tries quite a few things, including thrusting at it with her mind in the way she'd learnt her magic, but it's not until she touches it that she realizes the thing is alive, or as alive as magic can be. It queries her, sending cool, impersonal touches through the far reaches of her mind.
You are not right, it says to her.
She doesn't know how to respond to that, so she says nothing, only watches it testing her with fascination.
You are not right, but you mean no harm, it concludes in the end, and then it tugs her straight through the barrier and into a room under her basements, one she's never seen before.
Had it been here all this time?
It's such a little place, though, that she can forgive herself for not sensing it once over the centuries. There's only one thing there, a little stone bier that bears a little pillow and a man.
It's an elf, she thinks, though it's tall for that race, and possibly dead, though it looks pretty good for a dead thing. She leans over it to check whether it's breathing.
Its eyes open.
They stare at each other for a minute, and then it snarls something at her, something she doesn't understand. She backs away, though, because it's clearly agitated about something, possibly her.
It sits up on its bed, though it takes a few attempts. It's obviously weak. She stands there and watches him, intrigued. It has to have been here since before she woke up, and that's been a long, long time. The little humans and elves don't live nearly that long. It must be magical, if it cast the magical shield that surrounds this place, and it must be powerful, to keep that shield alive for so long. Perhaps its magic kept it alive.
It repeats itself, though it's less harsh this time, and she watches it curiously when it goes on to say something else in that other language that means nothing to her. It hits the bier hard with one fist, shakes it, and swears quite a lot.
She thinks that's probably easy to identify in any language.
She doesn't understand its language, and has no way to teach him hers, except the magical library upstairs. Perhaps it can teach itself from her books?
She beckons to it, pointing up, through the hole in the ceiling that leads into her basements. It watches her for a long time, considering, and faintly she can feel that cool, calculating magic brush by her again. It takes forever deciding, but with an expression she doesn't know how to interpret, it puts its feet on the ground and pushes itself away from the slab. She catches it before he can fall, and she knows that expression - that one is pain. She lets it go quickly and pretends not to see the bruising she has left behind on its forearm.
She points upward again, and this time it nods, so she pulls herself up using the lip of the hole and then watches, fascinated, as he rearranges the stones with magic to provide himself stepping stones. It seems to frustrate it how long it takes, how slowly the stones move, and he fumes as he forces himself up the stairs and into her basements.
She points the way to the library and it falls in beside her, studying everything they pass with growing displeasure. It hisses something when they go through her great hall. It doesn't sound complimentary.
He likes her library, though. It immediately pulls down three of the most magically interesting books, spreads them out on her desk, and disappears in between their pages. She watches it for a little while, but now that it's inside of her spaces, she can see him all the time without her body. She wanders it off to do other things.
It studies for hours, casting magic occasionally as it does, and it's not until the next day that it raises its head and looks around the library for something. It doesn't find the thing that it's looking for, and its snarl is most impressive, almost feral.
Perhaps it's looking for her? She takes herself down to the library, and when she enters, he opens a book and says carefully, "Is this speech - " He flips a page, and seems to lose his place. "Alas'dirth'ena - is this speech your language?"
She doesn't know how the little creatures do it, she thinks, frustrated. They just open their mouths, like this, and out comes - "Yes," she says.
She has no way to express the surprise and consternation that wakes in her. She hasn't taught herself how to speak yet, but apparently she knows how.
"Ah," it says, satisfied. Then it dives back into her books and ignores her. She ignores it right back, does it so well that it can't find her when it tries, and it leaves a week later without ever speaking to her again.
Good riddance, she thinks after it, and thinks no more of it.
She occupies the time then with her little library, and teaching herself to read. As she expects, it doesn't take her long, and then she's able to really learn the way the humans can, and use what she finds in the pages.
A few years later, it comes back. She catches it approaching her a long ways away, and she watches him, brooding. What does it want?
It stands in her courtyard and looks around, scowling. It's cut the stuff that grows out of its head and dressed in simple coverings, but she recognizes him not by sight, but by its magic, the same magic that still lives beneath her.
"I know you're here!" it says, projecting its voice so that it crashes off of her walls and creates a storm of echoes that he patiently outwaits. "Show yourself."
She's likely to know no peace until he goes, so she uses a nasty little trick and forms herself out of one of her own walls, growing out of the wall nearest him. It watches her flatly, waiting until she stands before him. "What are you?" it asks.
She doesn't know the answer. The humans had called her Sky Hold, but that doesn't feel true, doesn't feel right, like she has another name she just hasn't heard yet. But he hadn't asked who, he'd asked what, and she doesn't know that, either. She remains silent in the face of his increasingly stormy expression, and she enjoys it.
"Very well," it says, stepping back a pace. "I shall do it another way."
He touches her then, not with its little fleshy fingers but with his magic, in the same way his shield had probed her mind. It makes the leap from her body to the rest of her quite easily, and she enjoys the cool wash of it as it slides delicate fingers down her thought patterns, her memories, her emotions. She laughs then.
He opens his eyes, and for the first time she sees it without the underlying anger she'd thought was an integral part of it. "You are something entirely unique," he says, staring at her in wonder.
"I thought so, but I am presumably biased," she says, and while the readiness of her words is less of a shock this time, she still wonders what she does when she builds these bodies to make them so ready to speak her thoughts. She does good work.
He talks to her for a long time then, asking for what she can tell him about the circumstances of her birth, and isn't he disappointed when she has no answers for him? But waking up had been such a long, slow, gradual process that she doesn't know what might have come together to allow it to happen.
In the end, he asks her permission to come and go, and to use her library. She's charmed by the idea of a little thing asking whether it can use her, and so she agrees.
He comes and goes many times over the long years, and while it's hard to tell with the little fleshy things, he doesn't appear any older. He does change, though. First he comes to her with no hair whatsoever - he calls it bald, and she laughs. He goes through emotional states like they're candy. Sometimes he's so angry he won't even speak to her, though he usually apologizes later, and all he wants to do is complain about little wild elves that like to live in trees. Sometimes he's calmer, even hopeful, and that's when he brings out the orb that he carries with him wherever he goes, looking at it like it's got all the answers and they're just out of reach.
The last time he comes to her, he is without the orb for the first time since she woke him so many years ago. He paces more than usual, snaps at her once when she's only asking him a question, and finally she forces him to sit and tell her what's the matter with him.
"I gave my orb to someone," he says. "It was necessary, I do not have the power to unlock it..." He trails off, troubled.
"Was it a bad idea?" she asks.
He looks away, and that's answer enough for her.
"Then perhaps you should do something about that?" she suggests, gesturing at the wide world out there that she will never see except through the books and through the tales that he tells her.
She convinces him slowly, but eventually the defensive tension melts out of his shoulders and he agrees. He leaves not long after, and she is alone again.
And then the world explodes. This is something to do with him, she just knows it.
She spends a long, long time looking at the hole in the sky, wondering what lies on the other side. She's only experienced the Fade once, when she found the magic, and she has no desire to go through that again, but... there are things on the other side of that portal, he says, spirits and dreamers and something they call the Black City. She would like to see them, if she can figure out how to dream.
Months go by with no word from him, and she occupies herself with scraping the patch out of the crack in her basements and channeling the spring to run through her undercroft.
Then she builds a jail.
As she's framing out the last room, she hears something and stops working. It's not a physical noise, though, it's something in her mind, and she listens hard.
Can you hear me?
It even feels like him, stuffy and accented. She tries to project assent.
I am coming, he says to her in that silent way. And I am not alone. I have many with me in need of a shelter against the storm.
If she had a mouth, she'd be smiling. To play fortress and home again, to fulfill the purpose of her birth, and to have her friend here for good? It sounds perfect.
Then she remembers the mess she's left everywhere, the rubble in her hall, the collapsed blocks that cut her courtyard in half, and she curses.
Ah well, she thinks, settling in to wait. I'm sure they'll be happy to help.