The Dread Wolf's Blessings
By KSCrusaders (Sable Rhapsody on BSN)
Part Four: Valor
Clariel thrived at Skyhold, this ancient fortress with so much more to offer than mere walls and battlements. He could practically hear Tarasyl'an Te'las sing to her, the very presence of her spirit reawakening the magic in stone and earth. This was old, old magic, a sympathetic sort that did not respond to runes or gestures or even magical potential, but rather to the essence of the one who wielded it.
He had chosen well.
And yet a shadow hung over her, one that only Solas could see. For the first few days at Skyhold, she was too busy and exhausted to dream clearly. But once the Inquisition had settled in, he started to hear the screaming.
The first night, her screams of terror in the Fade were quickly cut short; she had probably startled herself awake. The next day found her just as warm and cheerful as usual, and Solas simply wrote it off as a fluke. But the following night and the night after, as he delved into the human history of the fortress, he heard her crying out again, close enough in the Fade to touch.
No good could come of intruding on another's dreams uninvited, even to relieve a nightmare. He couldn't go to her, but neither could he bring himself to abandon her. He gritted his teeth, trying to tune out her terrified cries.
"Why is this happening?" she kept sobbing, her voice tearing across the Fade. "What did I do wrong?"
When he saw her in the morning, she had dark circles under her eyes. Every time she spoke, Solas heard the faint echo of her screams in his mind. He ate breakfast quickly and returned to his room to paint, only for Clariel to corner him in the doorway.
"Solas? Could I ask you something?"
He was getting worse and worse at refusing her anything. "You just have, but of course." He ushered her into the room and sat down at his desk, examining one of the strange shards she'd found. She immediately flopped down on his couch, looking up at the half-finished frescos with a smile.
"Is this what you've been doing? Your contribution to refurbishing Skyhold?"
Solas laughed, running his hands over the nearest panel. "Skyhold is yours now, Inquisitor. This is your story." The way she smiled at him almost drowned the tired, haunted look in her eyes. Almost. "But that can't have been the question you wished to ask."
She shook her head, sitting up on the couch with her knees hugged against her chest. "I haven't been sleeping well," she admitted. "I keep dreaming of..."
"Corypheus?"
"No," she said. "Not him. He doesn't scare me as much as he used to. I keep seeing...what the Envy demon showed me."
He put the shard down, very slowly and deliberately. She hadn't said a word about the Envy demon's botched possession attempt to anyone; there hadn't been time, what with Corypheus attacking almost immediately after their return from Therinfall, followed by the exhausting march to Skyhold. He got up from his chair and came to sit beside her.
Solas chose his words carefully. "Lethallan, you should know better than to believe what a demon would show you. Observe, listen, but trust is a different matter."
"It's not like that," she said with a bite of impatience. "It's - Solas, will you promise not to tell this to anyone else? Excepting Cole, since he was there with me."
He hadn't made promises of any sort in a very, very long time. Few things in this world were more powerful than a promise kept. But this would not be a difficult one to keep, so he nodded and waited for her to continue.
"It showed me what it wanted to do to the Inquisition, what could happen to Thedas at the Herald's hands," she said. Her voice was soft but her eyes were leagues away, back in Therinfall, wrestling with the demon. "I saw holy war, the title of Herald turned into a rallying cry and a curse. Orlais fallen, blood running through the streets, legions of zealots flocking to the Inquisition's banner."
She stopped, drew a shaky breath, and kept going. "I saw Josephine, begging me to grant her a quick death over starvation. Cullen with his throat slit. Cassandra driving a bloody sword through any who opposed me. Envy is dead, but I can't stop replaying it." She looked up at him, out of words, an unspoken plea on her lips.
He leaned forward and firmly grasped both of her shoulders. "The Envy demon showed you its vision for the Inquisition. I know that future is not what you want."
"Do you think Emperor Drakon envisioned all this madness when he first founded the Chantry?" she asked. "Did the nobles of the Dales foresee the diaspora of our people? The Inquisition is becoming a juggernaut, Solas. How much can one person's intentions matter?"
They weren't questions he could answer. He knew the bitter path of good intentions all too well, and he could offer her no comfort or wisdom in that regard. It would be hypocritical for him to even try.
"You are wise to fear power and its corrupting influence. But I can offer you nothing beyond what you already know. The path of the Inquisitor is one you must learn to walk on your own. If it is any consolation, anyone truly drunk on her own power would not self-examine the way you do."
She let out a small sigh of disappointment. "I understand, hahren. Thanks for listening." She got up to go, but Solas gently caught her arm.
"Wait. I can assist in another way. I can defend you from your nightmares...if you will allow it."
He said the words knowing fully well what it would mean if she accepted. But he was so tired of shielding himself from her, tired of hiding behind his walls when her spirit burned so brightly before him. He let go of her and Clariel sat back down slowly, watching him with a mix of hope and apprehension. "What do you mean, if I allow it?"
Solas took a moment to sort out his thoughts. "I told you once that the Fade reflects the minds of the living. You suffer worse nightmares than most for two reasons; first, I believe the Anchor grants you additional powers beyond opening and closing rifts. When I dream, I can sense you more strongly in the Fade. It allows you to dream with greater focus, like a mage."
She didn't say anything, drinking in his words with that curious spark in her eyes alight once more.
"Second, you have experienced more horrific events than most. The combination draws demons to you. They weave your nightmares, feed off of your fears. Individual demons crave novelty and will eventually leave you, but more will inevitably come."
"What does this have to do with you?"
"I can find you and help repel the demons. If you like, I can even guide you through the Fade as I explore it for hidden knowledge and memories." He couldn't quite keep the excitement from his voice; the exploration of the Fade was one of his few pure pleasures, and the prospect of sharing it with her hit him in a heady rush.
"However," he continued, "I will need permission to enter your dreams."
"You need my permission? Or you want it?" It hardly sounded like a question.
"I need it," he said firmly. "I would never take that which is not given freely."
"And what, exactly, would I be giving?"
This was the real question, the one he'd been building toward and dreading. "Access to your dream would give me...flashes of your thoughts. Your memories. Scattered and disjointed, but still something I couldn't normally see. You will eventually learn to exert control and build up your mental defenses, but not at first."
He expected her to flinch, draw back from him, walk away without another word.
She was so very good at defying expectation. She made a soft, thoughtful sound, searching him with those bright green eyes. Solas was used to being the one observing others; he held himself still, fought the impulse to break eye contact under the powerful intention of her gaze.
"I accept," she said simply. "And before you start getting cold feet, I do understand the trust I have to place in you." She laughed a little. "Besides, if you wished harm on me, all you had to do was walk away while I was dying from the Anchor."
He fought down the choked feeling in his throat. She trusted so effortlessly, though it still carried so much weight. That it was him she chose to trust filled him with both warmth and shame. "That is...an odd way of putting it," he replied, casting about for something safe to say.
"It's the truth." She got to her feet. "I'll see you tonight, then, I guess."
"Best not to phrase it that way. Ears."
Clariel's soft laugh finally erased the exhaustion from her face, eased the burden on her shoulders. "Sorry. And thank you, Solas."
He watched her leave his room, graceful as ever. She stopped at the doorway, gifting him a tiny, secret half-smile. When she was gone, Solas fell back on the couch and closed his eyes, drawing a shuddering breath.
He was already in too deep, and at the moment, he couldn't even bring himself to care.
Solas went to sleep early that evening to give himself a few more hours of exploration before he needed to render aid. There was a spirit of Valor who dwelt in this area of the Fade and remembered Tarasyl'an Te'las of old. He could see the imprints of its influence all around; it was merely a matter of approaching and finding it. It was elusive at the moment, watching from the fringes of Skyhold's dreams, waiting to find one worthy of its gifts.
It wouldn't need to wait for long. Clariel had already physically walked the Fade, twice thwarted a magister of old, unleashed the Inquisition upon Thedas. Her actions would feed the spirit, strengthen it far beyond what it was now. When the Inquisition was gone, the spirit would remember her. And so would Skyhold.
It was hard to track the passage of time here, but it seemed to take longer tonight for Clariel to find herself in the throes of nightmare, for her cries to reach him in the Fade. Solas steeled his will and moved to her dream evenly, unhurried. He didn't want to attract any more attention to her.
He found himself not in Therinfall Redoubt, but in Skyhold, its courtyard flooded with several inches of blood. His Inquisitor stood on the stairs above, cradling a limp, dying form in her arms. He made his way up to her on silent feet, shrouding himself in the deep shadows of the dream.
"You abandoned us. You failed me, da'len."
Solas's feet froze to the stone. His own voice came from the demon masquerading in her arms. A petty creature of terror that dared use his form to cause her pain. Sudden rage tore through him, and all he wanted in that moment was to rip the demon to shreds and disperse all that remained of it into the raw Fade.
He forced himself to swallow his anger, burying it for later. If he unleashed it now, he would only frighten her and make the nightmare worse. It would be best if she helped herself, rather than learning to rely in him in dreams. Gently so as not to startle her, he stepped from the shadows directly in front of Clariel, clearing his throat to get her attention.
Swollen, tear-stained eyes looked up at him. "Solas?" she whispered. "What-" Her eyes flitted from him to the bloody doppleganger in her arms, wide and frightened.
"How did you get here, Clariel?" he asked gently.
"Don't ignore me," whispered the terror demon through bloody lips. "You sacrificed all of us, and now you don't even have the courtesy to look at what you've done?"
Solas hid his smile. This demon was strong but overeager, and its mask was relatively thin. "Think, Inquisitor. Do those sound like words I would use?"
Clarity began to dawn on her face as she pulled herself from the demon's weakly clutching hands. "No," she said slowly, looking again from it to Solas. Her eyes scanned the bloody, corpse-strewn courtyard. "How did this all happen? Which one of you can tell me?"
"Does it matter?" Terror's control broke slightly, turning into a hiss entirely unlike Solas's voice. "This is your fault!"
If it was anyone's fault, it was Solas's. But he couldn't say that to her. "How did you get here?" he repeated instead.
She blinked at him. The Anchor on her hand flared unconsciously as she exerted her will. "I...don't remember," she said hesitantly. She looked down at the demon, her frightened expression turning to something colder, calculating. "If you're not Solas, who are you?"
Its form broke, limbs stretching and elongating into Terror. Long green claws extended toward his Inquisitor, but Solas threw himself between them, pushing her behind him. The demon's eyes turned toward him, and its mouth opened in a furious hiss.
"You, dreamwalker. You've cost me my meal!"
"And you should know better than to take my form," Solas whispered, softly enough that only the demon could hear him. It lashed out at him, the savage blow meeting his barrier as he effortlessly deflected it. Terror reeled back and Solas unleashed the anger he'd been saving, shattering the demon into a thousand strange little shards with a wave of his hand. What remained of it silently dispersed it into the Fade, banishing the bloody courtyard with it.
He closed his eyes briefly, steadying himself. He hadn't meant for Clariel to see the full extent of his mastery over the Fade, how powerful he was here. "Are you all right?" he asked, not turning around.
A flash of a smile, fear quelled for the first time in hours by fascination with an unusual stranger. Hahren, she says, thanking him for her life, keen to know more about him even as the Breach crashes around them.
Her memory of the first time they met shot through his mind, brighter and sharper than he'd expected. He heard her get to her feet slowly. "I'm dreaming," she said. "You helped me, just like you promised."
A wide-eyed child walking into the forest for the first time with her father, listening to the chattering of starlings and whistling back to them. A teenage girl taking shelter in a cave with nothing but the wind for company. A young woman stumbling across a dead templar in that same forest, her heart squeezing with cold dread.
Solas shook his head and pushed the fragments of her memories aside. This was no time for memory, not when he had so much to show and teach her. "You helped yourself," he said. "All I did was prompt you."
He turned around to look at her; the hazy light of the unformed Fade reflected in her large green eyes, giving her the ephemeral look of a spirit. He extended a hand and helped her to her feet; although her hands still shook ever so slightly from the nightmare, her grip was firm and strong.
"What now?" Clariel asked.
Solas smiled, joy flooding from him into her and their surroundings. Here in the Fade, everything was as it should be. The world literally opened before them, inviting them to seek and learn.
"Now, we explore. There is so much I want you to see."