For the Elves die not till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief. -The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Blinding agony tore at her chest like a twisting, white-hot blade, each shuddering beat of her heart sending flames coursing through her body as if it were a million barbed needles in her veins rather than blood. A shaky breath rasped through her throat – even that hurt, the crisp mountain air like shards of jagged glass piercing her lungs. Dry sobs wracked her small frame at intervals, but her eyes were bare from too many tears, and the tracks they had left down her cheeks burned like liquid fire.

Yet, all of that was nothing compared to the pain in her soul – or what remained of it. The relentless ache that crushed it asunder, tearing her open from the inside out. It beat against her will, her very spirit, and threatened to drag her under. She had fought it, fought it as it broke down her being, fought it as it tormented her mind with ceaseless mocking, murmurs of happier possibilities had she just been better, fought it until it had beat her bloody and bruised and jolted her awake every night in tears from cruel whispers of blissful memories.

Now, she could fight no more.

Lying under the covers of the too-big bed in her lofty quarters at Skyhold, Inquisitor Lavellan took another breath – stabbing, mind-numbing – and looked out to the open doors of the balcony, to the Frostback Mountains greeting a new dawn. The howling wind grew still on calm mornings like these, barely a hint of a chilled breeze sighing through the gleaming glass doors. Melodious twittering reached her ears from the garden below, the birds rousing the fortress with their harmonious tandem. The rising sun threw its first rays across the landscape, colours reflecting off the mountain peaks in an elaborate kaleidoscope, staining the pure snowy canvas a myriad of brilliant yellows and oranges and pinks in a life-sized panoramic painting. Breath-taking. Beautiful. Just like his frescos in the rotunda, perfect and untouched as the day he left them.

The day he left her.

She closed her eyes to the beauty around her, and the image of his face came to her mind's eye, the ghost of his presence shadowing her since his absence. Memories brimmed to the surface unbidden, but she let herself be washed away. They swam to the surface, recollections of a time that felt like a thousand years ago but she remembered as if everything had happened only yesterday. His steel blue eyes settling on hers. The small, reserved smile that made them shine, the smile he kept for her alone. The scar on his forehead wrinkling between his brows as he scowled at the steaming cup of tea on his cluttered desk. His pale hand brushing his clefted chin as he pored over a dusty old tome. Kissing the bare crown of his head, twining her arms around him from behind his battered armchair. Grazing warmth from his fingers brushing her cheek, sweeping over her jawbone in a feather-light touch. Pulling closer, laying her head against his chest as he nuzzled her hair. Basking in the unique smell that was him and listening to the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart, the same rhythm that patterned his speech when his serene voice caressed her ear with the words that made her own heart sing.

Ar lath ma, vhenan.

She flinched, clenching her eyes and gritting her teeth as she held back a gasp as another wave of agony crashed over her.

She was dying.

She had persevered long enough, pushing herself through day after day, fulfilling her duty as Inquisitor. Each day was harder than the last, a growing weight on her shoulders that burdened her, weighed her down, but she soldiered on. The Inquisition needed her and there people who needed the Inquisition. She had to go on. The days dragged into weeks, weeks into months, until finally one day, she collapsed without warning upon leaving the war room. Her advisors and companions desperately sought expert help far and wide, but even with the flexibility of the Inquisition, a true cure was beyond their reach and the strong, fabled Inquisitor of living legend continued to deteriorate.

Keeper Deshanna had once told of a myth that their ancient ancestors, though immortal, held such sensitive souls that were capable of dying from heartbreak. She had scoffed then, dismissing it as just that – a myth. The ancient elves could only truly die if they suffered serious injury, everyone knew that.

Now, as the Inquisitor lay unmoving in her bed at the heart of all the power in Thedas, she felt it deep in her bones, felt it in her very spirit aching to leave her body, that she had been deathly wrong.

She clutched the memory of him tight, drinking in every detail of him she could remember. If this was how she was to leave the world, she wanted nothing more than to see him again, if only in the faded memories of her clouded mind.

A draft rushed in from the eastern balcony, sweeping the hair from her face, the cold biting at her exposed cheek, void of vallaslin. The air before her stirred, and she heard his voice call to her again, as if he was right in front of her.

'Vhenan.'

She was imagining things now, the phantom-him in her memories manifesting to haunt her in her final hours. She smiled, simply happy to have his voice grace her ears one last time. A mere slip of the real thing, but she would take what she could get.

'Vhenan, open your eyes. I am here.'

She didn't want to. She didn't want to open her eyes and take in the empty room again. Didn't want the phantom-voice to dissipate and leave her like a half-remembered dream.

'Vhenan, please,' the phantom-voice took on a more desperate tone, the underlying notes fraught with tormented pleas. 'Please, look at me.'

Something touched her then, gliding across her forehead in an achingly familiar caress. It made her open her eyes. They pricked with hot tears; she'd thought she had no more left to shed.

He stood by her bedside, looking the same as ever, but more vivid – more lifelike. Worn fabrics and furs wrapped loosely around his frame, ruffling in the light breeze that still drifted in. Reflected light from the snow-capped mountains at his back illuminated him in a radiant halo. The rays of the rising sun created a shining aura around him as he stood over her, a divine being of light rather than the pale apparition in her mind. The phantom-him dropped to his knees next to her, grasping her limp hand in his as if afraid she would slip away.

"Solas," she uttered in wonder, her voice a sliver of a whisper nearly snatched away by the humming breeze.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced with him with a distant smile. "No, you can't be him. He is far, far away from me. He walks among dreams in another world."

She sighed, the breaths coming easier now, his hand holding hers; his presence making everything easier. Or was it because she was dying? She didn't know. "I still love him, you know. I love him even now as much as I loved him then, despite all that happened. I just … wish I could tell him that one more time."

"Ar lath ma, and I, you, vhenan. You can tell me now. You cannot leave me, not after all this. Not when I just got to see you again. This should never have happened. None of this should ever have happened. This was not what I intended– "

He implored her now, the way she had implored him before he had walked away from her and left her all alone once upon a time. Her only answer was a sad smile, her hand sliding from his hold.

"No!" cried phantom-Solas, his voice breaking, for the first time not bothering to hide his true emotion; the grief in it shattered what was left of her already-broken heart."No, no, no, do not do this to me, my heart. You are stronger than this, so much stronger. Please, don't go. I – "

She tried to whisper something, some farewell or comfort, but the words died in her mouth, her failing strength halting even speech. A soft warmth enveloped her like a woollen blanket and pulled her heavenwards, tender contact upon her brow, a whisper across her lips –

Then the dream ended.

Solas did not know how long he stayed there, cradling her to him as he watched her. It had to be hours, for the sun had long passed over Skyhold and vanished below the mountain peaks, the dim face of the moon rising in its stead. It did not matter. A whole day could pass or even a thousand and he would still never tire of looking at her. Drinking in the sight of her sated an unquenchable thirst that had plagued him since their parting. Even pallid and fragile as she was, she still appeared to him the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. But a deep pang of regret resonated in his being when he noted how the paleness had seeped into her skin, how thin she was. He'd very nearly been too late.

He ran his hand through her hair again, his movements slow and deliberate as the silken strands slipped through his fingers. He repeated the motion for the hundredth time, relishing in the familiar feel of it and simply having her near again, her presence a balm to his bruised soul. She stirred and he paused in his ministrations, hand hovering over her pointed ear as he waited, but she settled back down with an incoherent hum. His hand came down again, fingers resuming their threading of her hair.

Something else moved in the darkened corner of the room, though Solas did not react. Truth be told, he'd been wondering when he would show himself.

"I am glad you seem to be doing well, Cole," he said by way of greeting, finally tearing his eyes away from her face long enough to look into the pale, cloudy eyes of the spirit.

Cole's eyes flickered up at him from under the wide-brimmed hat, arms loosening their hold on his knees as he spoke, "Night's eye weeps silver. It melts over her skin like mist, rolling. She is pale. Thin. Brittle. She shouldn't have had to burn for his sake. Ir abelas, ma vhenan." The ghostly boy raised his head from his spot on the floor, his light skin and hair giving off an ethereal glow in the luminescence of the full moon. He rose to his feet, advancing towards them with carefully measured steps.

"Empty where once every space overflowed of her. Remorse took its place, cutting from the inside out. He would have stayed, but the heart's song was drowned by pride's music. Orchid's touch, petals on his tongue. Small gestures that changed everything, that changed the world. It's sweet. Tender. Too much. If he doesn't move, the serpent will constrict and devour them both. He tried. Putting the broken pieces back together, but the shards fall apart and cut him all over. Far, but connected by thorned vines that pierce with every move, hurting both. I could not help her. She did not understand. Twisting. Stabbing. Clawing. Wanting to get out, then he could bear it no longer."

Cole gasped, stopping dead in tracks as if waking from a trance. He looked up at Solas with wide eyes. "I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. The others have been trying to teach me about asking before … before seeing. They say it's rude. But it's hard. It's harder when the hurt and music are loud– "

"There is no need for apologies, Cole," Solas replied, tone soothing in an effort to calm. "Being … human is not easy, but you will learn in time."

Cole nodded, "It's worth not being easy, to be human." Lowering the hands he had been clenching at his ears, he continued, "People thank me now when I help because they remember. Not all of them do it, but the ones that do smile at me when they say 'thank you'. It makes me warm inside and I want to smile back. Varric said it was 'being happy." Hesitant, the spirit – no, boy, the boy looked up and met Solas's gaze. "It's like the light you and her once share, but a different colour."

"The light we shared … is that light no longer there?" Solas ventured to ask, before dismissing the question with a shake of his head. "No, never mind. You need not tell me. It is not you I should be asking, after all."

"No, not me," Cole agreed, "But I think you already know the answer."

Solas stared at the intricate embroidery on the downy sheets, not really seeing the luxurious red velvet and gold thread. His heart throbbed in his throat, and he felt he couldn't trust his tongue with words.

"She is different," Cole commented, interrupting his thoughts. "Brighter, but odd. Like something that belongs, but doesn't. Water rushing out of a crack in the pitcher, the hurt forcing out the light. Emptying. Hollowing. On the throne of the world, the eagle flies highest of all but no one else can fly as high as her and it makes her lonely. Ma vhenan. He was her heart and it vanished along with him. Water pools, the pitcher almost empty. Pools like his eyes, tears in hers. Last drops seeping through, and then – "

A pause. "A new light growing, drawing the other back from the dark. They meld in embrace, like mother and child. Not one, but not really two. The water returns, the crack patched and no longer bleeding. Not healed, but no longer broken." Cole glanced in askance at him next. "She lingers, but how? She wasn't supposed to. I didn't want her to face nothing. Josephine and The Iron Bull and Dorian and the others didn't want her to either. But there was nothing any of us could do. But you did it. How did you do it?"

"I … extended her life. I was just in time to transfer a spirit into her body so she may live on."

"Oh, a spirit?" Cole enquired, childlike excitement creeping into his tone. "A spirit like me?"

"Yes and no. This is the soul of a long-forsaken being, Cole. It … it is no spirit of compassion, but it will help her heal. Given the choice, I would rather it never happen, but I was left with no other option."

He offered no more than that, but it was all Cole needed. "I understand. I'm glad you can fly as high as her."

A thought crossed Solas's mind and Cole twitched his head, like a small animal catching something on the wind.

"You want to be alone."

Solas nodded. "Thank you for your understanding, Cole. I will … re-join you and the others in the morning."

Accepting this as a satisfactory answer, Cole nodded, retreating back into the shadows of the bookcase.

"She still means what she said," Cole interjected. Solas looked up, but Cole was facing the balcony and not looking at him. "Whatever it is you need, we can find it together. Fly high and yet higher as one, far away from the world. If you're with me, there is nothing to fear."

Then Cole was gone.

After a moment's contemplative silence, Solas returned his attentions to the elf in his arms, his beloved. She slumbered on his arms, leaning against him with a faint smile upon her lips, oblivious to the enormous sacrifice he just made on both their accounts.

He reached out with his mind and touched his spirit with hers, the core of her being reacting to the contact with rippling waves of empty thought. But another entity accompanied her now, one that emanated a much more ancient, much more powerful air.

Giving her Mythal's immortal soul had been a huge gamble, but it was the only way he could save her. She would have slipped away from him forever then and there had he not acted. Regret stacked upon the immense pile already weighing down on his shoulders, regret for bringing this upon her. But he could not bring himself to regret the fact that it had saved her life.

It would be better this time. This time, he would not leave. He would never leave her side again. He would be there to guide her if she would have him.

And so he waited, waited to herald in a new dawn with his love for the first time for the rest of forever.

[End]

A/N: This is usually where I begin by yelling ' I LIIIVE' or something to that extent but I honestly feel like this law programme is legit killing me so I would be lying.

This was what I felt like writing after finishing DA:I, just raw feels because ... first-time blind playthrough Solasmancers will understand. T.T After Anders in DA2, my friend is actually concerned that my choice of Dragon Age boyfriends might reflect my future choices in real life. I guess we should all just be aware of apostate party members with an affinity for having animal plumage/fur on their shoulders (Morrigan/Anders/Solas). xD

I had this idea because I knew I wanted to write something about the post-game heartbreak and give a less downer ending and also also I thought, 'what if DA elves were like LOTR elves and they could die of grief?'. My main issue was about the Mythal soul transfer thing since a vessel would have to be willing and an unconscious person doesn't exactly have the capacity for consent. I think I cooked up a workable reasoning of how it worked anyway, but I forgot what it was and I seriously need to take my bath right now. xD

Sumi out.

P.S.: Can anyone spot the ME2 reference?

Beta'd by the ever awesome Palaven Blues