Updating story. It's still the same but I took the time to read it again and found a lot of mistakes (english is not my native language), so I tried my best to edit it by myself.
This story still is (and will always be) dedicated to my lovely beta Melicious Intent who supported me and encouraged me to write this one-shot and my other story As a Lyrium Lullaby (that you can find in my profile page). She also let me borrow her Lavellan.
If you want to know more about the Inquisitor's dream you can read about it in Melicious Intent's story "The Wolf Hunt". It is a wonderful and beautiful story ( s/11319505/1/The-Wolf-Hunt)
To all the people out there that follow this story: sorry if I made you think I had added another chapter with this update :(
oOo
May the Dread Wolf take you
The ancient curse reverberated in her head, like it had since she found out who he really was. She remembered it in the lips of many elves of her clan, both without really feeling it and cursing someone from the deepest part of their hearts and souls. Those words, the worst damnation they could think off. She remembered how her Keeper used to make the kids who behave badly took care of Fen'Harel's statues, telling them that they should serve the trickster and traitor if they were to behave like that with their peers. She had been in that situation more times than she could remember. Even when she was still too young to take care of the statue, she was forced to stay for a few hours in his presence to made her realize what she had done. Those had been terrible moments. She was not bad just because, she was just temperamental, and adventurous, and curious, and that sometimes was a bad combination. Therefore more than once she found herself cleaning and guarding Fen'Harel statue, and she didn't mind a lot. Usually a slight fear would assault her at first when she went near him and then she would relax, except maybe if the camp grew quiet in the distance, hidden beyond trees a mile away, not wanting to offend the god but not desiring his presence in the camp either. No, she didn't mind a lot, at least until the dreams began.
When you are a child sometimes you don't pay full attention to the same things your elders do. When she was little -really little, maybe three or four years old- the stories about the Dread Wolf and how he would come to take her if she misbehaved was one of them. But then one night, at the age of seven, when the fade received her with a heavy heart and a tortured mind, repented for having misused her newfound magic to freeze an abusive child's pants, she had her first nightmare.
The Dread Wolf take you indeed.
In the nightmare Fen'Harel chased her through the Veil, his many eyes fixed on her with a chilling determination and his teeth and claws at a ready, preparing to rip her apart. It was always the same, she was unable to outrun him and eventually, the Dread Wolf would take her. Over and over again.
For years she had had that nightmare and, ironically, it was the Dread Wolf himself who had made it stop. She had conquered the Dread Wolf of her dreams, accepting him as a friend and not a foe.
How little she knew!
She had conquered the Dread Wolf, and in the same time, she had let him take her. And she had been happy for it.
Now, those words "May the Dread Wolf take you", were for her more like a blessing than a curse. She wanted it, she desired it, she dreamt of it. She had slept between his paws and took cover against his skin. She had been protected by his claws and fangs and had enjoyed laying with him, being his mate, his vhenan, as he was hers.
And now she was free.
Ar lath ma Revas, vhenan
In the silence of the night, laying in her bed, she laughed quietly and bitterly. How many times she had wished she could be freed of the Dread Wolf? And now that she was, she wanted nothing but the contrary. He did not understand. She could never be free again, not when her heart ached for his presence, his touch, his kiss, his voice, all of him, good and bad, his smile and his tears, his bravery and his fears.
She sat on the bed and went to take the glass from her nightstand, effectively knocking it from it when she tried to take it with her missing left hand. She shut her eyes with force, frowning and waiting, hearing if the sound invited a visitor to investigate what had happened. When she did not hear anyone stir, she got up and went to a nearby table to get a new glass of water.
She drank in silence, her eyes fixed on the night beyond the window, idly wondering where he was and whether he would be thinking of her. It had been several weeks since she last saw him and even now she felt his presence nearby. His touch, fleeting as it was, still burned in her skin. She could feel his hand in the one she had lost, and his lips caressing hers in the most bittersweet kiss. A goodbye kiss.
A wayward tear fell from her cheek and wetted her lips. A part of her mind remembered Varric telling Blackwall he had eaten a ham from the Anderfells that tasted like despair. Back then, she had taken it as her friend had intended, like a joke. Now she knew the true meaning of those words. Her tears tasted like despair. The first one was followed by several more. A silent cried in the middle of the night, like a muted howling from one wolf to another. Back in Skyhold, Solas had painted the Inquisition as a pack of wolves. She wished they could have been that, a pack, a solid one, unbreakable, together until the end. But it was impossible. His departure was the first, and with time, more followed it. Even when his was the worst, her broken heart had splintered with the ones that followed, culminating in Cole going back to the Fade. Time and time again she had searched for the spirit in the world beyond this reality and even when she had felt his presence each time, he had made himself visible only a couple of times. Always coming to hug her in silence, sharing her pain, her solitude, her desperation. Doing his best to calm her, willing her to let it go with him, and face the waking world with new energies, as she needed to.
Her hands went to her neck and absently touched Dorian's crystal. They had briefly tried it once when he had gone back to Tevinter. Just a "one, two, three, can you hear me? you had better not change your clothes to that old ragged shirt already or I'll send you a corpse to follow you around Halamshiral and laugh on how you try to explain that" and he was gone. She could talk to him, he was adamant in his insistence that she would contact him whatever she needed but, what could she say? He had been really furious with Solas when she asked him, Cole and Blackwall to cut her arm. This was not going to make things better, and even when she could not blame him, she could not help but feel a tug in her heart every time someone cursed him.
No, this was her burden to bear, and she should take it alone.
Sighting and drying her tears she came back to bed. As if the Fade had been waiting for her, sleep took her in its arms only minutes after she laid her head in the pillow. While she was traveling to the world of dreams she heard his last words in her mind.
I will never forget you
With a whimper, she fell completely asleep.
Ellana recognized the place immediately. The Fade mimicked it perfectly, the large pond in the middle, the waterfall in its back, even the quiet whispers of the forest animals that surrounded her. Her heart felt heavier, battling between both the last times she had been here. One had been in another dream, one that repeated itself almost every night since she saw him again, giving her what she desired the most and making her live her fantasy as if it was true, at least during the night. The other one had been a lot more bitter, and then too, he had been there. She knew the spirits were feeding on her memories, recreating the grove perfectly, in all its beauty almost as mocking her pain when they brought back her own voice pleading him to stay, and his begging her to forgive him while he left her. At least this time the voices were quiet, the spirits waiting to see how things developed.
In the back she heard a laugh and hasted steps, as if the spirits were playing in the woods behind the pond. She inhaled the fresh air deeply and held back her tears. She did not want to draw Compassion spirits to her presence, and above all, she did not want to disturb Cole if he was near. Once again she reminded herself this was her pain and she should not place it upon anyone else.
Out of force of habit she prayed the Creators to let her have a pleasant dream instead of a painful one, before she could cursed herself. Those were not her gods anymore, they had never been gods nor worthy of adoration, at least not anyone but Mythal..., and him. But he was not a god, that's not how he wanted to be recognized and she respected that. For her anyway, he was even more than that. More than a god, a deity to bring comfort by praying. He was her life, her every breath, he was her happiness and her worst pain, he was everything, and he will always be.
She sat on the verge of the pond, her toes touching the water, and waited.
She felt it before she could heard it and unconsciously she smiled. His steps were muffled by the grass but she would recognize them anywhere. The Dread Wolf had come.
-Vhenan.
Solas had been drawn here against his wishes. He had felt the spirits claiming his presence, one in particular had been so curious he could not refuse its childish curiosity. When he recognized the place he almost woke up. He did not wish to be there, not alone, not without her. And being with her was beyond his possibilities. He did not need the Fade to remind him what he could not have, the worst thing he had lost just because he was him. The ultimate cost of his mistake.
When he saw her he could not stop his lips from spilling the single word that had changed its entire meaning since he met her, a meaning that had remained invariable from a millennia until Lavellan.
-Vhenan
She turned and looked at him smiling. That's when he realized she did not know he was really there. She looked at peace in the surface but he could see the pain in her eyes and it killed him to know he was the one that had made her feel that way. The Void take him once and a thousand times for defiling such a perfect creature. The love in her eyes was there as the first time he had seen it, but there was also an unending ache that spoke of the torture he had inflicted on her. And yet, she smiled at him, with warmth and desire, with understanding and acceptance. He deserved the worst and yet desired the best. Her, only her. He wanted to take her in his arms, to bring her close and never let go. To make her his as he was hers and love her as he had always wanted. He wished for her touch, the sweetness of her lips, the sounds of her voice when she joined him in the peak of their pleasure and their connection. He wanted to live forever in those days in Skyhold but with all the truth out in the open, as it was now. He wanted to hear his cursed name in her lips, with the same sweetness she pronounced Solas when she woke him up between kisses while they still had time to love each other before the daily chores demanded their presence.
And even when he wanted all of that, when his deepest desires had her as a protagonist, he was killing her, slowly and painfully he was hurting her beyond her feelings, the mark consuming her until nothing remained but a husk. And he was unable to do anything to change that.
She got up from her place in the grass and he had to hold a gasp when he saw her left arm. It was there but barely, its contours blurry and its mass faint. He knew what that meant, her arm was missing, present in the fade only for her will and her memories recreating it, but in the waking world, wherever she was laying in bed, he knew she was mutilated. And he realized it had been his fault. A new wave of guilt hit him, but in order to not upset her he remained the same, looking at her only with adoration in his eyes. She thought he was part of her dreams and even when his conscience screamed at him for tricking her again, he wanted her to keep believing that. He told himself it was for her own good, but deep down he knew in part he wanted to live her dreams as they had once did, long ago. Just once he wanted to indulge himself in something as beautiful as only she could summon, and share it with her.
-Emma lath. I missed you...- she choked, and ran to him- so much.
She buried her face in his shoulder, both her arms without difference between the real one and the one made purely of a piece of Fade, held him tight against her. He reveled in the feeling of having her in his arms again, the smell of her hair in his nose, the movement of her chest while she breathed, the thrumming of her heart over his. It was glory and he could not stop himself when he removed her face from his shoulder and immediately fussed their lips together, hungry for her, deepening their connection as if this was the last moment of his existence. As maybe it should be.
When the kiss was over she smiled again, a tear running down her cheek. Her eyes screamed of her pain, the torture of thinking this was nothing but a dream, an invention of her mind, and he had to repeat himself over and over that the truth was worse and would only hurt her more, to stop himself from comforting her whispering he was there and would not let her go, just like he used to do every time she woke up scared from her nightmares.
She took his hand and walked a few steps back, looking at him. She swallowed, took a deep breath and began to talk.
-I wanted to tell you so many things. I never could, but I have to. Even when is not really you- she chocked again and he pressed her hand tighter- I will never forget you either. You are a part of me, I need you as I need to breath. I won't give up on you.- she swallowed again as if trying to stop more tears from spilling. Then, almost too violently she hugged him again, placing her lips near his neck and kissing him there, then again on his jaw and the last one in the tip of his ear lobe, taking it between her lips and lightly caressing it with the tip of her tongue as she used to do when, exhausted and satisfied, they laid in bed naked and together, whispering loving words to each other. Her breath in his ears intensified the chill that the kiss had ran up his spine when she told him.
-Ar lath ma, Fen'Harel.
He was about to crack. He had everything he wanted in his arms. He had shown her and told her the worst of him, the things he had done and the ones he was planning to do and yet she loved him, needed him, wanted him. It was too much, even for him. He took her arms where her flesh was real, he needed to feel her physical body but since that was impossible then he could not cling to her unreal arm, he needed to take the part of her that still remained with the woman in the real world, the one he loved, the one he ached for. He was about to make her look at him and give her all she needed, at least for tonight, when he felt the presence of the spirit whose curiosity had finally drawn him here. He wanted to be alone with her and was about to rudely dispel it without analyzing that that kind of action would put her under suspicion of his real identity, when she let go of him and went in the direction the spirit was, at his back.
He turned to see her kneeling in the grass waiting to catch a child in her arms, a laughing boy with pointed ears and silvery blonde hair that ran to her laughing while a playful spirit chased him, disappearing when it clashed against them, leaving echoes of the child's laugh in the air.
-Da'len!- she exclaimed when she caught him, her voice filled with love. She kissed his puffy cheek and looked at him again- where were you?
-Playing with Innocence!- the child's voice sounded delighted and when her arms around him loosened the boy began to fidget in her grasp as if wanting to run away again.- It's my turn to chase him, can I go?
She laughed and for the first time in years he heard that tilting sound that she made when she was honestly happy. His heart gave a jump in his chest.
-Of course you can.- she let the kid go and the boy stayed there for a second smiling at her before he looked back at him. He felt his heart almost fail this time when a pair of deep blue eyes watched him with an intelligence, innocence and strength that spoke volumes. It lasted only a second and then the boy turned and ran towards the entrance of the grove, his form blurred with another one when he began to chase the spirit away. Between the shape of his tiny body, one of a wolf cub overlapped, a powerful magic aura surrounding them.
Lavellan got up and turned to see him. His gazed remained where the boy had being for a while before he could look at her. He was dying inside, his heart, already broke and burning since he had to leave her, not once, but twice, was twisting in pain and almost scream with his suffering. Could it be possible? No, this was probably just part of her dream, her illusion. Yes, that was it, just a wish taking form in her mind, in this part of the fade that was only hers.
He could not precise if that was better or worse and he realized that even when he never considered it before, he wanted the same. Seeing her with a child in her arms, feeling the illusion of his child running and playing in the Fade, was too much for his tortured soul.
-I wished I could have told you when I saw you. He had walked the Fade since he could understand it. He is just like you- she was crying now. She was about to dry her tears with her left hand and decided to do it with the right one in the last second, a bittersweet look on her eyes.- His name is Revas. He will never go to a Circle, nor have a Vallaslin or live in an alienage, he will always be free. This much I promise you, my love.
The Fade began to disappear around her and even against his will Solas woke up in the real world.
That night, for the first time in a millennia, the Dread Wolf howled in pain.