Solas left.
Solas left, and nothing would ever be the same.
She won't go into the rotunda. That way lies...
She just won't. That's all. If she wants to go talk to Dorian, she goes the long way, past Vivienne and her alcove of Orlesian excess. If she wants to talk to Cullen, she goes up the stairs to the battlements next to the stables first, and walks the long line of Inquisition agents trying to get a word with their commander.
As she goes by, she hears one of them ask another, "Did anyone try that ham they had at camp yesterday?"
Her pace slows. Having been one of the ones who hunted for the table last night, she knows for a fact that wasn't ham. Who on earth could have thought it was? She stops and turns around, trying to figure out who'd spoken. It had been a man – was it the soft, shy human with the bow? The dwarf? Or the Dalish elf?
"Ah, do you mean the ham that was green and fuzzy on the outside?"
That was the human, and he and the dwarf are both looking at the elf like he's lost his head. It was him, then? He doesn't look fool enough to eat what was meant for her dracolisk.
She has to ask.
"Do you often eat the animal fodder?"
"No, your worship," the elf says with a slight bow. "But it's hardly the worst thing I've eaten."
"Dare I ask?"
"I lived in a cave for eight years, your worship," he says, grinning. "I've eaten nearly everything one time or another."
"In a cave?" She draws a little closer, interested against her will. "What happened to your clan?"
Nothing, it turns out. He left them, on purpose, to delve the secrets of the ancients. So many of their best and brightest have done the same over the years, taking their skills and their knowledge and their bloodlines with them, and so few ever return. He hasn't gone back to them yet, and when she asks why, he laughs and points out another elf, a sour-looking woman who nonetheless inclines her head respectfully when their eyes meet, and says his clan came to him instead.
He's a Knight Enchanter like she is, though he calls it something different, and they talk technique and strategy for a long time, long enough for the line to move on and his friends abandon him. She picks up a few tricks, and so does he – and she's gratified to find that he seems just as interested in the conversation as she does.
"But I've lost you your place!" she says when she finally looks up. The line of Inquisition agents is gone, the sun is low in the sky, and the supper bell has just begun to ring. Even Cullen must have stopped working by now.
"No matter," he says cheerfully. "It was only another assignment anyway. I'm in no hurry to go back out."
Creators, neither is she.
What follows is another hour-long conversation about the worst places they've been, the strange mysteries and lost civilizations that lie in the Hissing Wastes, the tired, sorrow-drenched hollows of the Emerald Graves, where Dalish history and Dalish bones lie just under the grass.
It's so nice to talk to someone who understands, at least a little, that it takes her a while to recognize what's on his face. He's looking at her with admiration, with that kind of delighted interest, that she... that she's seen before.
She's up like a shot, excuses spilling out of her mouth like water, and flees before she can say anything she can't take back.
She didn't even get his name.
She turns right around the next time she sees him in the distance. Then he must have gone on assignment, because she doesn't see him for weeks. That gives her time to talk herself down from the insane reaction she'd had – to an expression on his face. Creators. She must have seemed like a perfect idiot.
She doesn't see him for a while, but when she does, he's coming out of the surgeon's tent with his face swathed in bandages.
"Aneth ara," she says with a small, cautious smile.
"Inquisitor." He sketches that little bow again, but he's not so graceful this time, listing to one side and nearly overbalancing. She has to take his elbow quite quickly to steady him. When he comes back up again, smiling like the rising sun, there's a tell-tale glassy sheen to his eyes. The surgeon swears by a remedy of her own making, prophet's laurel and blood lotus in equal proportion, which tends to leave people high as a kite. The surgeon says it's only a side effect, but to her it seems more like the surgeon doesn't want to deal with people as people. She'd rather treat them as a collection of wounds. It probably helps if they're drugged.
"What happened to you?" She can't quite wipe all of the amusement out of her voice, but he won't notice that she's laughing at him, or care if he does.
He shrugs, lifting his elbow out of her hand a little, but for some reason she doesn't take the opportunity to withdraw her hand. His elbow settles back into her palm and makes itself comfortable. "Cleanup in the Frostback Basin. You would not believe – Have you ever seen a giant?"
She's killed four or five of them, in point of fact, but she lets him tell her all about his assignment and the giant who'd nearly squashed his whole group while she steers him back to the barracks. She could have handed him off to someone else... but she's interested. He's interesting. When she delivers him to the barracks, and to his quiet archer friend, she finally learns his name: Cillian.
The next time they meet, he apologizes for anything he may have said under the influence, and somehow that turns into another long conversation. They meet a few more times after that, usually in one of the courtyards, until she finds herself passing that way more often than usual, hoping to see him there. He's around more often, too, and the interest in his eyes has deepened, warmed, to something that should make her uncomfortable but instead is as comforting as a campfire.
That scares her a little. Is she ready to trust again? She still sees Solas in her dreams. It's so hard to tell if he's real or not, if he's haunting her dreams in his own person or if her mind's producing what it thinks she wants to see.
On the other hand... if she lets this friendship die, she'll miss him, both what is and what could have been. She'll regret it. She's too old to let possibilities slip through her fingers like they're limitless.
She's almost talked herself into seeking him out instead of wandering through the courtyards like a love-struck fool when he gains the top of the stairs across from her and takes a few steps toward the tavern. He sees her before he gets very far, though, and the wide, uncomplicated grin that lights up his face brings an answering smile to her own face. She's grinning like an idiot, in fact. That means something. So does the way she suddenly feels like she could fly, or jump off the battlements.
They start to meet on purpose after that, walking through the gardens or currying the horses and moose that crowd the stables. Cillian introduces her to his fellow agents, Hall and Belinda and Korbin. She introduces him to Varric, who watches them thoughtfully and then reaches for parchment in a way that near terrifies her. Dorian is both easier and harder, because some of the things she'd put him through after... Well. She owes him one. Or two. But he just looks Cillian over, a thorough up-and-down that would have made her blush, and waggles his eyebrows at her. He approves, then. The knowledge warms her. She'd been prepared for concern or disapproval.
Quit it, she mouths at him.
He won't, she knows. Dorian's lucky she likes him. She's lucky in her friends. Everyone's lucky.
Cillian gets on with all of her friends, in fact. He has the gift of listening with genuine interest in the person he's talking to, one she doesn't have and never will, one that's rare among the Dalish. She watches him charm everyone he meets, and she only grows more certain of her choice.
She kisses him for the first time in the garden. He kisses her back immediately, like he's been waiting for her to make the first move. She shows him a few things after he points out that a cave in the wilderness is a poor place to meet willing women, and he shows her a thing or two in return that tells her that his imagination is fertile indeed.
It's all most satisfying. Even her dreams are easier, less fraught. Solas appears less and less. Maybe she's healing.
She doesn't go out into the field as often anymore, not after Corypheus' defeat; instead Josephine has her cementing many of their temporary allies into something more permanent to keep the Inquisition from being just another flash in the pan. She seizes on the first opportunity that comes along to get out into the world, only to find that she's being sent with a sizable retinue – and Cillian's one of them.
They have a ridiculous amount of fun sneaking away from camp to make out like teenagers surrounded by trees.
When they get back to Skyhold a month later, she takes her heart in a firm hand, goes to him and invites him up to her room that night.
Cillian puts a gentle hand on her face, rubbing his thumb along her cheek. "You're sure?"
She nods, stretching up on her toes to kiss him. "I'm ready," she says. "I'm ready, and I want you." He studies her, like he's not quite sure what to say. A sudden horrible feeling wells up inside of her, wondering if she's made a huge mistake. "It's an open invitation. If you're not... If you don't..."
His thumb passes over her lips, pressing lightly, silencing her fumbling attempts to give him a way out. "After supper," he says, watching her intently. "I'll be there."
She nods again, choosing silence as the better part of valor, kisses him again and flees like all the demons in all the Fade are on her heels.
He'll come or he won't. He said he would, and pacing isn't going to change anything, she tells herself, but still, pace she does around the large open area in front of her bed. Once in a while, for a change, she detours onto her balcony and watches Skyhold settle into the evening quiet.
It's such a change from her old life, with her clan. But oh, she misses them. She carries the guilt of that every day, ever conscious that she is the last of the Lavellans, and she must do her part to carry on their traditions and their race.
She's distracted from her heavy thoughts by a knock at her door, and she calls for him to come in; he takes the stairs two at a time up to the landing, where he seems to catch himself and then comes one stair at a time until he's at the top.
Maybe she's not the only one who's nervous. The thought settles her, allows her to regain a little of her natural equilibrium and good humor. They'll sort it out. Humans do it all the time, and aren't the two of them smarter than a bunch of shems?
She smiles at him and holds out an appealing hand. He smiles back and comes readily to her hand, tugging her to him in a smooth motion that leaves her pressed against him all the way down. She laughs. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of hermit? Where did you learn something like that?"
But then he kisses her, and she's not thinking about talking anymore. He kisses her breathless, until there's nothing left in her but him and the way he makes her feel. When he finally draws back, keeping her held tight against his body, he sighs. "Remarkable," he says. His eyes are disconcertingly direct, absolutely serious. "I am in awe."
Her heart expands two sizes in an instant. "We're not done yet," she tells him, drawing his face back down to hers.
They figure it out. Indeed, after a while it's hard to remember what she was worried about. He has... well. His fingers are particularly nimble. "Mmm," she says with her eyes closed, hazy, satiated, delighted. "I think I'll keep you."
He laughs and kisses her on the forehead. "Good, for I've no intention of letting you get away now."