Somehow she is real. Wonderfully, impossibly real.
He spent hours in this tower trying to capture her eyes, her nose, and everything he could imagine pales in comparison to the sight of her. His heart begs him to rise and greet her properly, but his body refuses to move. If she decided to strike him down he doesn't believe he could move an inch nor does he wish to - this is his moment of judgement and he will accept whatever fate she chooses.
"There is another translation of Fen'Lin besides Blood Wolf. Do you know what it is? The blood of the wolf."
And he sees it. There is so much of another in her- the shape of her face, the black of her hair, the bright yellow eyes that watch him carefully, but he sees himself in the freckles across her nose and the soft dimple in her chin. He sees but he cannot believe.
She drops to her knees before him and offers a smile that's all her own, a small thing full of irony and disbelief too. "Hello, Father."
They stare at each other, father and daughter, wolves without masks. He thinks back to their last meeting. When the necklace pulled him to Vir Dirthara he could barely stand against the shock of it all. He saw her suspended there and thought his suspicions confirmed, that Keela had survived against the odds of his transgressions. That she was saving him yet again even when calling for his aid.
But when she spoke without the aid of magic he knew the truth. Beneath the mask was someone he dared not think of for years lest the pain of it turn him to madness. It is not his vhenan, but she still lives on. Their love still endures just as she promised. "I do not…how?"
"She never took me to that meeting in Redcliffe. She didn't trust them. I was left with Taliesin outside the city but we were found regardless. They stole me away and after he woke up, he went to the inn and tried to dig through to find us. Through the fire they created." She holds out her hands, turning them over. "His hands were burned from it. He thought I was dead too until a few years later."
"They meant to use you against me."
"There were many plans for me at first. To deliver me to you with a bow and a walking bomb inside my veins or for me to live long enough to gain your trust before I slashed your throat. Some were more creative. Early on they discovered that I could pass through your locked eluvians. They-" she looks away, wipes the heels of her hands against her legs. "There were plenty of experiments to see what my blood could do."
His eyes travel across her skin, seeking out old scars and blemishes amidst new cuts and bruises from tonight's battle. How much horror has she lived through to reach him? His stomach tightens at the thought and he wishes he had spared a few more minutes disposing of the Red Knights' leaders for what they put her through.
"Nevaelathsan used me to gather materials for him that you hid away in the Deep Roads and further. They helped you build the eluvians where you imprisoned the Evanuris. A fitting end for the Dread Wolf, not dead or alive. Apparently death doesn't stop your kind very well. When all the searching was done I would become bait. This-" she points to the wolf's mask, "thing was my idea. To taunt you with your own image and past. I wanted to drive you mad with it, to make you suffer with the reminder of all you'd done."
"A clever thing, for it certainly garnered my attention."
Her spine straightens a little at his praise. "Yes, well, my goals changed."
He thinks about the drawings and gifts, of her cat and mouse game. There was never any cruelty. Her every action only gave him hope. "Why?"
There is a pause as her composure begins to crack. "I was supposed to lure you into the eluvian and if it meant being trapped in there forever too it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Because…because for sixteen years they made me believe my father killed my mother and tried to kill me too. I-I hatedyou, hated myself. I was the spawn of a murderer and whore and I…"
She looks away again and inhales deeply, gaze beginning to glisten despite the determined set of her jaw. Regret builds hot in his own eyes and he does not try to hold the tears at bay. He desperately wants to lean forward and console her, to tell her she is wrong, they were wrong, but he keeps his hands balled into fists at his sides. He has no right despite the blood they share.
With a sharp motion she pulls a small crystal from her pocket and rolls it between her fingers. "Taliesin found me, told me the truth, and gave me this. It's her memories. It is how I know about everything, how I know my family. Why I changed my plans. I want to save us. I'm trying to save us."
"Fen'Lin, I-"
"No! That's the name they gave me. It's not who I am." She holds out the stone to him. "The last memory was always meant for you, I think."
Using a memory crystal is much similar to walking through the visions of the Fade. As his fingers wrap and around it he closes his eyes to let the magic seep inside, images open like blooming petals before his mind. He recognizes every one. He watches himself grab Keela's hand and thrust it towards the rift, dance through dreams and spirits in Halamshiral, kiss her beneath a waning sun and snow. There are harder things too - arguments over wardens and qunari, her anger as she tries to understand his rejection, but these things only make him love her more. Her stubbornness, her will, her all-encompassing presence that made him believe in things thought unthinkable. Every memory fills him with the notion that this, everything they were, was something worth fighting for.
The final one is something he doesn't know.
The room is modest, wooden walls and floors, barely any trappings save for shifting curtains and dried flowers hanging from the bed's headrest. His attention is drawn to its occupant. Keela rests with a mountain of pillows at her back and something nestled within her arms. He sees a crown of dark hair, a little fist tucked close to a tiny nose. The babe slumbers but he knows if their eyes were to open they would be a startling color, amber caught in the sunlight.
"You should have been here. She's perfect. She has your chin and it is much cuter on her." Keela laughs, the sound wavering with the thickness of emotion. Her smile is something of awe and joy despite her fatigue and the shadows of old wounds. She moves her fingers through new, soft hair, wipes away the drops of saline that fall from her eyes and anoint their child. "You should have been here, Solas. I…I don't want do this without you."
He tries to speak to tell her he is here, to move forward and kiss her hands in supplication, but the magic only lets him see what he never should have missed. There can be no changing what has come and gone - he can be here now, for her, for their daughter, and it is a calling that he can give all his heart to this time.
The door creaks open and ushers Taliesin in. "The midwife's gone. Said she'll be back tomorrow morning with some remedies and blankets."
"We should leave before then."
"Are you aware that you have recently given birth?"
"Yes and soon all of Thedas will know it too. You should not have called for her-"
"Basta," he says the command with affection. "I paid her well enough that we should have a few days of peace. I will not let anything happen to either of you. You have my word. Rest. In any case she cannot greet the world without a proper name, no? Have you decided?"
She leaves a gentle kiss upon a crinkling brow and whispers the name. The memory ends and throws Fen'Harel back into the present. He comes up gasping for air, searching for yellow eyes that he doesn't know but cherishes all the same. His body heavy is with the weight of this knowledge pressing upon him, of just how much Keela truly loved him.
He swallows the ache to taste this miracle on his tongue. "Fenera?"
"And am I?" It comes out quiet with a breath held like a wish. "Am I your dream?"
Hands pull her in for a crushing embrace. Perhaps he shouldn't, but they have already lost so much time and he can't- he cannot let this go. She is rigid against him, shocked into place, and he only holds her closer because of it. "Yes. Yes."
Her breath escapes in a whimper, the tension melting away until she is all but clinging to him in support, and he feels her tears collect in the crook of his shoulder. He tells her how sorry he is, how incredibly proud and amazed he is at what she has become. The Blood Wolf was something larger than life, but Fenera is something small in his arms, so much younger than he first believed, and he promises she will never walk alone again. He tells her loves her last. It is true - he loves her, instantly and irrevocably, with every part of his mending soul.
At that she slowly moves away and swipes an impatient hand at the water on her face. "I-"
A great bang echoes up the staircase. Together they stand to face the violent shouts and twisting fire, red and angry, that dance up the walls and prelude the Elven coming for their justice. They are out of time. "It will take me a moment to replace the spell. They will be upon us before then. If you could-"
"Wait." Fenera grabs his hand and stops him. "You have an eluvian here, right? Let's go."
He gives a brief thought to the precious items littered across the room, the mural made, the delicate perfume bottle holding a last piece, but there is nothing more precious than the hand holding his. "To where?"
"Home."
As they emerge through the Skyhold's eluvian, Fenera gasps at his side, hunched over with a hand clutching the fabric above her chest. "I'm all right," she says to his worryings. "I said I could go through your eluvians. I never said it was easy. I have both of your blood in my veins and it's like I get torn apart each time."
"You could have told-"
"It doesn't matter." With a steadying breath she straightens and shakes away the last trembles of pain. "Come on."
They amble their way through the main hall and rotunda, through gardens and gatehouses. There seems to be no rush nor designs to their moments here, but he notes how she runs her fingers over everything they come across, as if memorizing their shape and feel. For a while they do not talk. He is content to simply watch her for he is lucky enough that she now allows him to share the same space. He knows he is not forgiven, if such a thing can be earned through the muck of his sins, but her willingness to try is a cleansing thing all on its own.
She catches him staring at her in marvel and gives a quick laugh, her mouth forming into a shape so similar to her mother's clever grin that Fen'Harel falters a step. "I spent a lot of time here. Rifling through all her things you left in the tower, sitting in the middle of the rotunda. It felt…it felt like a home and the closest I could get to being with either of you. I never told them you kept the orb here. I know they would've wanted me to steal it."
There are so many things he wants to ask her all jumbling for space in his throat that it is difficult to fit a single one through. She would have only been five when Keela was killed. What does she remember of her mother? Where did the Red Knights take her afterwards? Was there any joy in her life? Friends, music, laughter? He knows she enjoys to paint if their journey has been any indication, but there are a thousand unknowns he wishes to know.
"You look ready to burst."
"I have many questions but there will be time for them."
Her smile twists into something he can't quite catch but the edge of it makes his skin prickle with unease. He follows her down into the depths of Tarasyl'an Te'las, through doors and passageways no one should know of save himself, but he is not surprised that she has discovered them. They enter the room far below Skyhold's main courtyard and step into the morning light filtering in through the wide hole still left from years ago.
"You almost caught me once before, you know. It was three years ago. I was in the tower and heard you coming up the stairs. I-" she laughs as she bumps passed him through the narrow doorway. "I hid under the bed until you left."
His own mirth bubbles up at the thought only to quickly fade as her expression shutters into something serious. It is then he notices she holds the orb in her grasp. It should be an impossibility that she can at all and yet he thinks of her ability to travel through his defenses.
"I wonder what would have happened if you found me that day."
"What are you doing?"
Her expression is sharp, the final snarl of a defiant wolf caught without escape. "Something monstrous."
She twists her hands and the device unlocks with a blast of energy that forces him back a step. Fenera lets out a cry, falling to her knees against the strain of holding on, but she does not let go. She is a soldier on the front lines facing a ferocious horde, hiding the horror and accepting it all the same. He moves to help or stop her, he cannot decide, but he knows he cannot abide the agony across her features.
"No!" she shouts and the desperation in it stops him. Her chin is lifted but he sees it tremble all the same, sees the fear and fever making her eyes wide. With shaking fingers she reaches in her satchel and pulls out a small vial that she uncorks with her teeth.
"I said I would pay any price, even yours. I'm sorry for what will be but you will endure it. For us, for me." She pours the sparkling liquid atop the orb.
He rushes forward but it is too late. The potion seeps into the swirling lines, changing them to a brilliant white that grows brighter and brighter until it is a blinding, unstoppable force. The air shakes, splits with a screeching power and her sickening screams. "Fenera!" he calls as the world is swallowed once again by the power of Fen'Harel's legacy.
When he opens his eyes everything is darkened, still. Most of the orb lays shattered before him while he clutches a cold piece of it in his hands. The air feels strange, heavier, a half remembered feeling that he forgets about as soon as he hears her voice.
"Solas?"
Keela stands behind him, not in Fade but flesh that's whole. Her armor is bloodied and beaten, arm intact and grip glowing from the anchor embedded in skin. He looks around to find himself not in the ruins of Tarasyl'an Te'las but that of a battlefield still raining down in dust and pebbles. The sky holds a fresh scar, a banner of her victory over the Breach and its creator.
He has been transported back through time to the world before the Veil's fall by a magic that should not be possible, should not be allowed. The ramifications of such a thing makes sweat break out upon his brow. All those years, all those people born and changed, futures that might never exist now, all of it sacrificed and gone to bring him here. To give him another chance. And Fenera-the focus falls from his grasp with a loud thunk. "No..."
A hand drops down upon his shoulder as Keela comes to sit beside him. There is no anger or defeat in her eyes, no long suffering wounds he has clawed into her soul - only concern and confusion tempered by wariness, and he remembers that only a few days ago did he dare try to cut the threads between them thinking they were mere twine when they are something unbreakable.
"Solas?" she says his name again, his name, and for a moment all his sorrow lifts with the sudden realization that she is alive. She is alive and here. She is real, this simple touch felt more than decades of others in a world without hope.
A gasp flies from her mouth as he takes her in his arms. She struggles to understand and he thinks of Fenera's reluctance at his touch at first too, and the weight of her memory pulls loose a broken sob. He tells Keela the same things, apologies and declarations half slurred by his insurmountable grief and gladness, says her name over and over like a chant to bring him towards the light. His sins are already too numerous to count, a thick vine that strangles him and the world in its grasp. How can he live knowing what has been done?
Keela does not untangle herself when he tells her he loves her. Her grip only tightens into his tunic and when she lifts her face to his her kisses heal and much as they hurt. Her laughter fills his mouth, a breath of solid strength that makes him believe again that it was no accident his power found its way into her palm. The future should have always been hers to mold. "And I love you, you fool."
If this is to be his penance for the opportunity to set things right then he will do it for her, for Fenera, for even if it means she may never exist it is a sacrifice she was willing to make when she knew he could not, would not. A choice, a last gift, that will echo for eternity and he will carry its consequences for her. He will endure it, if only for the small hope that there might still be a world with his freckles and Keela's eyes.
"Please, what's happened?" she asks and he kisses her eyelids, her brow, tastes the bitter water in the corners of her eyes. She weeps even though she doesn't understand, but she will - there will be no more lies from Fen'Harel.
"Everything. There is so much I must tell you."
Solas tells her that he loves her one more time, and then starts from the beginning.
