Chapter 20
Fainariel raised her hand and then lowered it, pressing the bent knuckle of her index finger to her lips instead of touching the mural before her. "The plaster and the paint are dry, you won't damage it by touching." Solas' voice made her whirl to face him and blush a deep crimson.
"Ah, ir'abelas, lethal'len, ah, excuse me." She floundered and fled through the opposite door like a child caught stealing cookies. It took her two hours to work of the courage to find Solas and explain. She had changed her long sleeve sweater for a tank top with spaghetti straps and a light jacket to keep her warm. Solas was where she had left him, in the rotunda with the burgeoning mural. He was at his desk reading and making notes, he did not look up when she entered.
"When I first left home, I was only nineteen." She started as she sat the settee. She looked at the mural instead of him, it made the explanation easier. "I had the opportunity to join a dig at some ancient ruins that had recently been discovered. It was rumored to be Skyhold. There was a war going on. The area was politically unstable, and my Keeper and the council refused to let me go, but I had spent my whole life obsessed with finding the truth of the stories behind the death of Fen'heral, and Skyhold was the beginning."
Fainariel removed her jacket as she continued talking, her eyes never left the mural. "The first thing I found was a fragment of that mural, that scene you just finished. I don't know how to explain the feeling that image invoked. It wasn't just proof I was right, the beauty of the work itself haunted me, I had never seen it's like, until now. The day I removed my vallas'lin, I received another tattoo, to remind me of what I had given up and what I had gained."
She stepped to the desk and turned so he could see his work in miniature, depicted on her shoulder, twin wolves, howling at the rift in the sky. "It reminds me every day that the truth is always more important than pretty lies and that finding the truth can be it's own reward. Nine Thousand, three hundred and seventy-five years, and when I walked in here today and saw that painting." She swallowed around the knot of emotion bubbling into her throat, "I felt like I am suddenly at the beginning again. A young girl running away from home, chasing wisps." Her voice was shaking; she was shaking. Fainariel took a deep breath in and let it out, finding her focus and calming herself.
Solas did not speak as she put her jacket back on and then turned to face him calmly, but she was unable to meet his eyes. Instead she focused on the green cotton weave of the fabric covering his left shoulder. "Ma melava halani, Solas." She said very formally, "I am sorry I behaved the way I did earlier, and I am sorry I interrupted your work. I just felt you deserved an explanation."
She turned to go and his hand shot out and grasped her arm, this time she met the gentle look in his stormy eyes, "You." He began softly and was interrupted by a shout from above.
"Move yer shite!" Sera exclaimed as she came flying over the balcony above and landed heavily on Solas' desk dumping the book he had been reading onto the floor, spilled a jar of liquid with soaking paint brushes and spreading sheaves of notes all over the room.
"Fenhadis!" Solas swore.
"Sera you RAT! You will pay for this!" Dorian screamed at her over the balcony as she backflipped off the desk and bolted through the door with a maniacal laugh.
"Never a dull moment." Fainariel said as she moved to help the older mage recover his notes and salvage what they could from the solvent spilling onto the floor.