Six days passed since Idalya was the unwilling recipient of a smite in the training ring. Awaking from her Fadewalk, Solas was waiting, his eyes patient, even if sarcasm flowed from his lips. He used a steady hand holding on to her shoulder to help her sit up while he summoned the healers to assist her back to her room. Her head spun, but the healers forced her to make the walk across the fortress.
Upon arrival, they set about removing her bloodstained clothing and forced her into a metal basin of hot water where they bathed the remnants of blood from her hair. Though she sustained no lasting visible injuries, Idalya found herself to be much weaker than expected. By the end of bathing, she gasped for breath, holding onto the edge of the tub until her knuckles were white in contrast to her tanned skin as the healers' words became a jumble of overwhelming sound around her.
She sighed in sheer relief when Solas enter the room unannounced. He instructed the servants to remove her from the bath and prepare her for rest. Reentering the room when they finished, he thanked the healers and handmaidens and told them he had important Inquisition business with the Warden and would notify them when needed.
Idalya slumped back into her bed in exhaustion and he left her to get rest in peace. Visitors were allowed, but she was advised to stay on the strictest rest since she was leaving for the Winter Palace with the Inquisitor in less than two weeks' time. Solas warned her that Evelyn had no patience for those who could not pull their own weight.
She assumed no one would have time with preparations for the Inquisition's voyage, but visitors dropped by during her week of solitude.
Cullen came by with an old weathered chess set and two chatted about their memories of growing up in Ferelden and their mutual love of mabari as they played through a game she lost to the strategist.
Cassandra dropped in with some of her favorite novels for Idalya that turned out to be smutty love stories which Idalya hid under her bed and only took out to read with flaming pink cheeks and a roving hand when alone.
Dagna, whom she helped out of the Deep Roads so long ago, now worked with the Inquisition, came by multiple times to ask for samples of her for testing while Idalya turned her down while internally cringing in horror.
Even Blackwall made time from training Idalya's soldiers to visit and check on his fellow Grey Warden. Idalya avoided the subject of her not sensing the taint in him and was grateful he avoided the subject. They shared stories of traveling across Ferelden and different anecdotes about their time in the Wardens.
For giving the first impression of a man of few words, Blackwall became more comfortable as he told stories of the sights he'd seen and the places he someday wanted to show Josie. Idalya was shocked when Leliana told her about the Warden and the Inquisition's Ambassador. Listening to Blackwall speak of her with such warmth and care made it seem unbelievable that she ever thought they would be a mismatched pair even if she knew someday they would be separated by the taint that ran through their veins.
She thanked him for saving her without question in the training ring, but Blackwall was adamant the thanks should go to Knight-Captain Barris. The man standing defiantly in front of a row of Templar swords when Blackwall overheard the commotion. Blackwall recounted how he dragged off the incapacitated Templar and dropped them onto the floor into a very confused Commander's office as he was in the middle of a lieutenant meeting.
Idalya laughed until tears peaked at the corners of her lavender eyes, holding her ribs in pain at Blackwall's description of Cullen's reaction to the disturbance. Blackwall might appear stuffy and cold to others, but as a brother in arms, she was glad to have him fighting by her side.
When time wasn't pulling her in a million directions, Leliana would come and brush out Idalya's long silver hair, re-oil it and braid into the current trending hairstyles in Orlais. The Spymaster claimed it was practice for the Inquisitor's hair for the peace talks, but Idalya knew better. She smiled to herself as she listened to Leliana's melodic voice drift over her explaining the newest trends in Orlesian shoes.
When Leliana wasn't there rambling about fashion, Varric would come by and read selections from his works and his fresh finished chapters, much to the envy of the Seeker. Through the darkest hours of the night, Varric would keep her company reading and asking her honest opinion on stories since she hadn't been alive to read his novels.
The squabbles of the carrier pigeons traveling in and out of the Spymaster's rookery overhead awoke Idalya from her sleep. Her lavender eyes opened and squinted shut as the rays of sunlight bore into her skull. She groaned throwing an arm over her eyes and rolling to her side.
Asleep in the chair next to her bed was Varric, his head tilted to the side, an open copy of Tales of the Champion in his lap from where he had fallen asleep once again reading to her.
There was the softest rapping on her door and Solas entered his bare feet silent on the stone. He paused and watched the dwarf sleep in amusement before making his way to her side.
"How are you doing, Asha'lan?" He made his way to the empty armchair next to her bed opposite of Varric.
Her expression soured, and she rolled her eyes. "I don't speak Elven."
"I know." He stated. "But I do, deal with it."
The Warden arched an eyebrow at the mage but didn't argue with the matter-of-fact tone of his voice.
"I'm very weak. This will improve, won't it?" Her fingers picked at the sheets of the bed as her hidden level of concern showed through the cracks in her exterior.
"To be honest, it has already. The bedrest was a safety precaution while I waited to see what info made it to the Inquisitor. It appears your loyalty outranks hers since no one, not even the Commander, mentioned what happened in the training grounds." Solas leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs with a smug look on his face Idalya assumed was his joy over having any advantage over Evelyn.
Varric stirred across the room, grumbling in displeasure as his eyes adjusted to the rays of light from the bright morning at Skyhold.
"Morning sleepy head." Idalya giggled as the dwarf straightened himself in the chair and wiped the stream of drool off his face on the back of a tanned muscular arm.
"Shit Kitty, why did you let me oversleep so long? I'm long overdue for my first ale of the day." Varric raised his arms of his head stretching as a deep yawn worked its way out of his body.
Solas shot an eyebrow up as he took them in. "Kitty?" He asked incredulously.
"Ah, yes." Idalya began, "After many weeks of trying every nickname on the face of Thedas, Master Tetheras has decided my nickname is Kitty since the Inquisition is hoping I have nine lives." She shrugged, her shoulders dropping back against the headboard. "Nice sentiment, but I'm starting to think two lives are one too many…"
Standing to his feet, Varric looking at Idalya, his expression softening. "Hey Kitty, two sounds just about right. One life to live the way you see fit and another to fix the mistakes you made in the last one." She nodded and turned to him with a genuine smile on her face.
"Thank you for keeping me company Varric, even if you snore like a Hinterland bear."
"Don't tell Cassandra that!" Solas scoffed. "She has enough prejudices against bears at it is."
Varric rolled his eyes and made an exaggerated bow as he left her room.
Idalya and the mage sat comfortably in the silence until he spoke. "Why don't you understand any Elven? Your mother was Dalish."
"'Was is the key word there. Her clan struggled for years with resources, so they picked a clan representative to trade good and wares within cities they passed. In one such city, she met my father. He was a city elf, an assistant to a blacksmith. It was love at first sight." She looked out the window to place thousands of miles away.
"He would give up everything to be with her. She returned to the first of her clan and asked for permission to bring him in. Even though he was a city elf, his skills with weapons and metals would be invaluable for the Dalish. The clan disagreed. They said she'd never see him again and if he came looking for her, he would be shot on sight."
"My mother was stubborn. She thanked the elders then in the dark of night, packed her belongings and hiked back to the blacksmith's cottage and found my father sleeping in the barn. She helped with small jobs in the city until they saved enough to move to Denerim. The Alienage isn't a wonderful place, but they made a life together there. They had four children while my father worked odd jobs for blacksmiths and cobblers. He died in riots with the Denerim Guard when I was five."
"I'm sorry Asha'lan, I should have realized this would not be an uplifting tale for you to share, forgive me."
Idalya turned and found nothing but compassion filling his eyes.
"I'm not sure how many of us here today have a happy backstory, Solas." She noted. "My mother blamed her clan for his death. She knew he would have strengthened the clan for the better. They were stuck in the past and refused to see reason. After my father died, she never mentioned her upbringing again. She taught my siblings and I to never forget that how we treat others defines you and to not get too caught up in titles or to hold on too tight to your past, so you suffocate your future."
"She sounds like an intelligent woman." Solas nodded in appreciation.
"She was. I think you two would have gotten along well." As difficult as it was to comb through more recent memories, her memories of her family were untarnished and almost enough to fill in the empty voids in her mind. Losing her families' memories would have been more than she could handle.
As Idalya sifted through her thoughts, Solas carried on prattling away on planning for the Winter Palace and what their roles would be when they infiltrated the Elven staff for the night to be the eyes and ears of the Inquisition. She noticed the sound of a particular set of metal boots making their way across the stone walkway outside the windows of her room.
In the near week of being stuck in the room, she amused herself by listening to the sounds of walkers outside her windows, identifying them and creating stories based on what she perceived as they walked by. One set of steps became intriguing to her, a set of heavy metal boots that came by in the morning and as the sun would set in the sky. Their fast steps would slow to an agonizing pace outside her door before picking back up their speed to continue down the walkway like nothing happened. She thought it was fellow soldiers checking in with the guard stationed outside her room, but with her sensitive ears, she would have heard any conversation.
Here were the boots again.
In her deep thoughts, she missed that Solas had stopped talking and was analyzing her with a raised eyebrow. Hearing the same steps, she did, he rolled his eyes, jumped up from his chair, and made his way over to the door. Without pause, the elf threw open the door of her room to unveil a very awkward Knight-Captain Barris, who stopped and stared at Solas in horror before the elf hit his limit on teenage bullshit.
"Ah, Ser Barris, I believe the Lady is awake for visitors if you're interested." Barris was silent as he looked back and forth between the two elves and Idalya struggled with all the self-control she owned to not burst out laughing.
Barris cleared his throat, "Yes… I, uhh… I would like that if the Lady is available." Solas stepped past him out the door while shaking his head.
"Thank you for coming to visit, Solas." Idalya thanked him with a cheeky grin.
"You're welcome, Asha'lan. Remember, you are resting. Try not to overexert yourself." He gave a crooked grin to the elf who now blushed all the way to the tips of her ears.
Maker, take me.
Barris was staring at his feet, his own blush showing through his dark complexion as Solas left them alone with a chuckle that carried down the stone walkway. Her heart raced as her initial excitement faded and she found herself frightened at speaking alone with the Templar. She imagined spending time alone with the handsome Templar before, but talking wasn't a part of those festivities.
"Please come inside, Ser Barris. I'm sorry I have nothing for hosting, I could order us some tea if that pleases you." She hoped her voice sounded less shaky than it felt it her chest.
Barris snapped out of his silence and moved forward after closing the wooden door behind him. "Thank you, my Lady, but I cannot stay. I wanted to see how you were feeling." He took the seat closest to her, his armor dwarfing the average-sized chair, electricity traveling up her spine at the velvet sound of his voice.
"Ser Barris, I am no Lady. I'm an elf and a warrior. I'm confident that moves me as far out of the Lady category as possible." She laughed as she sat up straighter against the headboard, realizing she was wearing only a thin sleeping tunic underneath her piles of sheets and blankets. The thought set off a cascade of thoughts running straight to her core. She needed to change her train of thought before she said something stupid.
"I am doing well. Blackwall says I have you to thank for that fact."
"No, my La… Dal. It was my fault you were in the fight. I cannot take credit for helping when I put you in danger."
His sword hand tightened around the pommel of his sword as the pink in the creases of his fingers suggested as he talked over her without making eye contact finding something of importance on the ceiling.
Idalya took this moment to study him if he was unwilling to look at her. The muscles in his neck tensed, accenting the handsome slope of his jaw, her eyes traveled over his broad shoulders accentuated by Templar armor. Her mind was cascading down a rabbit hole as she removed each piece of armor with slow precision to see what delicious surprise lingered underneath.
"I suppose we must agree to disagree, Ser Barris. Either way, I'm thankful it was you I had watching over me. You didn't have to turn yourself against your men after what happened."
She looked down at her hands, calluses in her palm and lining her fingers. These were the hands of a warrior, not a lady or a woman. Not the refined hands of a Lady that a noble like Ser Barris would look twice at as more than a comrade. These were the hands belonging to a difficult mission, an impossible one if she was honest with herself.
She snapped out her self-depreciation by Barris leaning forward to look in the eyes, his deep emeralds swimming with complicated emotions.
"Yes, I have to protect you. Not only is my duty to protect those that cannot defend themselves, but I could never let anything happen to you…" His words trailed off in a whisper and Idalya's heart seized.
Her eyes opened in surprise and found Barris shared the same look on his own as though his words had gotten away from him. She moved forward as the compulsion to touch him was screaming through her veins.
Barris' eyes glanced off her fingers stretching out towards him before drifting back to her eyes. His scanning emeralds traveled the length of her body as he tightened his fists at his side.
This day was taking a much different turn than Idalya expected, but she was okay with that.
As she stretched forward to reach for the Templar that was so close yet so far away, the door to her room opened. An elven servant entered with a full tray of tea and pastries. Unaware of what she just interrupted, the servant hummed to herself as she brought the tray to the empty table.
"Compliments of Master Solas for the Lady and her guest." She bowed to Idalya and Barris before exiting the room.
Idalya sat in stunned silence, her jaw slack.
She would murder that smug bastard.
"You fucking asshole," she growled under her breath.
"Excuse me, my Lady?" Barris was standing against the far wall since he jumped to his feet, not looking suspicious at all when the servant entered the room. His eyes were wide with horror at her flippant words.
Idalya gasped. "Oh no, not you Barris! Solas. I was referring to Solas… nevermind. I'm just going to stop talking now." She slid a hand over her mouth to keep any other words from leaking out.
Barris shifted from foot to foot as though his armor was on a bed of hot coals.
"I… uh, I must make my leave, my Lady. Thank you for accepting my visit, I am glad to see you in full health again." He bowed stiffly from his waist, hand wrapped back around his sword.
Idalya nodded still refusing to remove the hand from over her mouth for fear of something else stupid being said in front of this man. Barris waited a hesitant moment wondering if she would speak, but upon realizing she'd committed to keeping her silence, he mumbled something to himself and exited out the door, shutting it behind him without another word.
Idalya listened as his boots paused on her doorstep and she fought her self-control to not run out the door and apologize for acting like an idiot.
After a long pause, his boots began their trek away from her door. Sighing, she threw an arm over her eyes and flopped backward on the bed.
Solas was so on her shit list even if he was her mentor.
