Chapter 1
"Solas…" There was a very long pause, something in his gut told him that what she was about to say would not be good news, "What do you think of our relationship?" Ellana ventured finally.
He was laying on a bearskin rug in her room in Skyhold recovering from their last and rather energetic bout of physical lovemaking. For all his passion, his body did not seem to have the endurance that it once had, welcome to middle age, Fen, he thought ruefully.
It seemed that their relationship had reached that stage, the awkward stage. Why, he recalled that just last week she had asked him what her body looked like in her latest pair of leggings, fortunately he had managed to dodge the question with a reply that was tactful flattering and sincere all at the same time, but tonight, not only did he feel spent, he felt entirely out of inspiration.
"It is good." He muttered.
"Just good?" She asked sitting up. "Is that all?"
He pursed his lips. "Very good. Extremely good. Marvellous. Outstanding... Exhausting…" He added hoping she would take the hint.
He saw her grimace in the firelight, "I'm not been very fair am I?"
"Probably not." He agreed.
"I think we'd better go to bed." She concluded. One of the things he liked about her was that she always took a practical approach to life.
"That might be a good idea."
But even as she lay in his arms he could feel her fretting, tossing and turning, something was troubling his Ellana and like a horse with the bit between its teeth she just didn't seem to be able to let go of it. He hoped against hope that it wasn't settling down or having children, he could give her a castle, he'd actually given her a castle, this castle, in fact… but he could not give her those other things…
They had been together now for almost a year. What they had between them in the here and now was so good, yes that word again (what other word would he use?), that he was genuinely fearful of anything coming along and spoiling it. Grim and fatalistic as he was, her words (oh, she knew him very well!), he was fairly certain that sooner or later that was exactly what would happen. He had rather hoped later.
In the end, he knew, it had to be confronted. So lying back on the pillow watching the last light of the last embers dying on the ceiling high above them, his arms around her, he said, heart heavy: "Tell me."
Ellana nuzzled against his chest, her nose was cold. "Do you really want to know?"
"Probably not." He said to her for the second time that evening, "But I think you need to tell me anyway." Any other woman would have lambasted him for that, but another thing about their relationship is that they seem to have reached a very solid bedrock of sincerity, so Ellana merely sniffed in acknowledgement.
She sighed, "I don't know exactly what to say… I mean it is probably not even your fault, but…" And she trailed off, and then she rallied, "I mean, Solas, the other day you even passed my finger up the arse test… No elf or man I have ever lain with has passed that test…"
Even in the dark she must have somehow picked up his puzzled expression, because she jostled against him in annoyance, "but I enjoyed that…" He said defensively.
"Precisely!" She said, "That is the issue here, you seem to enjoy everything I do…"
"But I do enjoy…"
"That is what worries me… There doesn't seem to be anything special about me, you have no particular dislike of anything I do in bed but at the same time, nothing I do seems to cause you particular pleasure…"
"That is not… You satisfy all my primal urges, and you have no idea… "
"Shhhhhsh!" She warned and he realised he had raised his voice. Something he rarely did, especially with Ellana. "Don't interrupt." She said in a whisper "I don't know whether I am explaining myself properly… And anyway why do you talk about yourself like that?"
And this was one of the few things that annoyed him about her, she had the accursed habit of jumping from one subject to another with no warning, it often took him unawares, perhaps that was what he actually disliked about it… "How do I talk about myself?" He asked.
"'All my primal urges' as if you will weren't talking for yourself but about yourself, as if you were standing outside of yourself looking in…"
"I am attempting to understand, Ellana, I see that I may have displeased you in some way, but what I'm telling you is true… I do like everything you do… we do in bed," he corrected himself, it seems particularly important to be precise, "I revel in it, and it gives me satisfaction, rare joy… If the issue is that you wish me to take more of the initiative, then I will do so…"
She sighed, "We've tried that… And the first thing you do is ask me what I want to do…"
"How…" He realised that that particular line of communication would not be productive tonight. "But that is because what gives you most pleasure gives me most pleasure, Vehnan, can you not see that? There is always a part of me that enjoys anything you propose… Perhaps it is because I am a complicated person, a sophisticated person, a person who appreciates…"
"No," she said, as she straddled him, placing her knees either side of his waist leaning on his chest and looking down at him, eye-to-eye. "I think you are wrong, I think one of the issues may be that you are not a complicated person…" She let the phrase hang there and sink in and then continued, "But several persons… And all of them are complicated… And there are some, that, however much I try, I will never get through to, I will never even access…"
She paused for breath, "I do not know how to explain this, and it may just be an impression, an intuition… But it is very frustrating… You are holding back…" She stroked his face, "I love you, I love you very much indeed, but there is something about you, something that doesn't quite feel right…"
And now he began to understand, she was getting close to the bone to the heart, suddenly he felt even more tired. "And supposing, just for argument's sake," he reached up and by force of habit, pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face, tucked it behind her ear, "that that were the case… What then, Ellana?"
She shook her head. "I don't know, Solas, I really don't know…"
Half an hour later she was snoring quietly and he found himself still looking, sleepless, at the shadows and darkness on the ceiling.
"Fenedhis!" he muttered out loud and then almost giggled, something he only tended to do when under a great deal of stress, when he realised that after all these centuries he had just sworn by his own dick…
Which gave him an idea…
