The newly-named Moineau sat on the scaffolding and swung his skinny little legs. Solas found the elven child's bold and steady stare a tad disconcerting. Crumbs fell from where the cookie in Moineau's hand met his stained mouth.

This early, none but he and the Spymaster tended to be in the rotunda and library. He liked the quiet noises of predawn. Leliana shuffling paper, the ravens' occasional caw or rustle of feather. And now it seemed the elven child's cookie crunching must join that soft symphony.

Solas did his best to ignore the boy as he painstakingly rendered a single petal of dawn lotus. A pile of drawings lay by his right hand, ready for inscription, then insertion into the Tir'alas's tome.

"Moineau, little sparrow, where did you run off to?" said the Spymaster, from above. Then her hooded head popped over the third story railing. "Oh, there you are. Is he bothering you, Solas?"

"Not as such, though I have some dangerous plant cuttings here." Solas turned to see the boy scowl at him in almost adult consternation. The apostate smiled. "But I do not think he will be foolish enough to bother with them."

"He is a very bright boy, though a touch of a troublemaker," said she, with fond appraisal in her eyes. It seemed attending to the children lifted the Spymaster's occupational grimness. Who could have guessed the dangerous, vicious woman would have a soft spot so endearingly everyday?

"A touch of trouble is a good thing, Spymaster. It will lead to being more curious and adventurous."

Leliana laughed, and said, "Why do I think perhaps you have firsthand experience there?"

Solas smiled, light and full of humor. "As do you, Left Hand of the Divine."

"Touche, messere. I did love trouble as a young thing. Trouble was my mistress, my companion, my one true love. Even now, we meet occasionally to catch up."

The Inquisitor swept in, covered in sweat and mud and practice clothes. Blood coated the wraps over her knuckles. She walked over to Solas, with a rushed, "Solas, I had a thought. What if we had a chapter, a foreword, to define the new instruments. How to make them and-"

Then she spotted the boy. Solas watched the words dry up in her mouth as she straightened with a frown. She called to the redhead still watching upstairs, "Leliana, you said you would watch them."

The Spymaster frowned herself. "Do you not see me? I am watching them, Inquisitor. Alouette is right here feeding the ravens. " Then she looked around, puzzled. "She was right here."

"Alouette is in the yard with Sera. If you cannot keep track of them, find someone who will."

"They are fine. No one in Skyhold would harm them." Leliana's voice sharpened, "Why does it concern you? You haven't spent more than five minutes with either one in the entire time they've been here."

"Shall I dote on them like you? Stuff them with sweets, give them frilly little frocks and coats? They are not pets!" she scoffed. Then she turned to Moineau and mouthed 'go' and pointed up. With a hurt wince, the boy scrambled up the wall like a monkey, deft little fingers finding cracks and crevices in the worn stone.

Solas watched the exchange with sympathy for the boy.

Leliana called, "Well, until you see fit to tell us why they are here, don't expect me to just stand by and let you neglect them!"

Tir'alas looked stricken for a second, before she spun on a bare heel and stomped out the exterior door.

"I swear she does not have a kind bone in her body," said Leliana, in a low cold voice. "Come, Moineau, let us go collect your sister."

The boy asked, "Alouette is my sister?"

"She is now," the Spymaster said, smile in her firm voice.

Solas heard them exit by the second floor and turned to consider the door Tir'alas had left through. He crossed the floor in a few, efficient steps and went outside. As he'd suspected, the Inquisitor still lingered, leaning on the wall of the tower walkway. The sun had just crested the horizon and lit a fire in her shoulder-length hair.

"Not fond of children?" he asked, keeping his tone light.

She spun, startled. Solas watched as she forced herself to calm, at least on the surface. Then she scowled. "I have said I will not speak on this subject."

"I'm aware." He held up his hands before her glower. "Leliana thinks you are unkind to them. But I have watched you more closely than she has. You don't dislike them." He leaned one elbow on the wall and turned her chin toward him so he could see the truth in her face. "You are afraid of them."

Shocked, she opened her mouth, then shut it with a snap. Her wide, unblinking eyes told him all, confirming his assertion. She yanked her chin out of his hand and looked away.

"Or rather," he continued. "Something they represent. What is it, lethallan? Why do you quake so when you are near them?"

She shivered now, in her loose linen garb. Hands clenched and unclenched where they rested on the crenellations. Then she whispered, horrified, "I am afraid of myself around them."

His brows drew up and when she did not say anything else, he touched her hand. She jerked away in reflex. He said, "Tir'alas-"

Then she swung around and leapt into him, wrapping her arms around his middle. He took a step back to recover his balance and his wits.

At a loss and breathless, Solas stared at her black-haired head where it rested on his chest. Slow, as though she might evaporate, his arms rose. They curled around her shoulders, embracing her back as fully as he could. His one hand came up to smooth her wild locks.

Her whole body shook against his, tormented by some hidden pain. Solas pressed his cheek to her head, trying to calm, to soothe with wordless murmurs. She seemed so fragile just then.

What a study in contrasts; this woman. At once, light and shadow. Strong and weak. Brave and frightened.

Utterly … real.

She took in a hitching breath and whispered, "Tomorrow, I leave."

Solas closed his eyes and swallowed the fear-spawned lump in his throat. "For the Storm Coast once more. With Bull and the others."

"I wish you were coming with us."

A longing to do just that filled him, but he pushed it aside. "We talked about this. You need to fly free. To test the limits of your magic."

"'Free?' What is free? Whatever that is, I am not it. I have never been it." She shuddered again and clutched tighter to his waist. "How I envy you."

"Envy me?" He chuckled, sorrowful. A pang jabbed him through the heart. No one had ever said that to him before. No one should.

"Yes. You could walk away from here today. No ties keep you bound to this place, this cause," she said, sniffing. "You are free."

How wrong you are, lethallan. But he did not say it aloud. Instead, he said, "I would not. I, too, have … fetters keeping me here. Duty. People. Like you."

She pulled back to look at him in the face, as though testing his earnestness. Her brow smoothed at what she must have found in his eyes, for she tucked her face into his collarbone again and relaxed. Every taut muscle unwound and she melted into softness in his arms.

Their embrace became more intimate, but less tense. A level of comfort in closeness achieved.

He breathed in her earthy scent, still tinged with blood and sweat, and just held her for as long as she wanted to let him.

"Tell me I'm ready," she pleaded, quiet as the breeze ruffling her hair.

Solas gave her a warm squeeze. "You are ready."

When she left the next day, seated like a queen on the red hart, bladed staff at her back, he stood in the cheering crowd. Ignoring the fear squirming in his entrails, Solas waved when she spotted him. The brightness of her smile seemed just for him and how it thawed the cold core that lay deep within.

'Be safe.' he mouthed. Be safe and come back to me.

Ma Tir'alas.

Ma vhenan.

He slipped out with the pilgrims that made evening excursions to the camps below Skyhold. Dressed much like they, Solas let himself be pulled along in the stream of humanity, just another hooded and cloaked missionary, delivering bread and succor to the masses.

Slowly, he worked his way to the edge of the group, then darted off into the woods. Gone before anyone was the wiser.

Breathing easier, Solas ran through the dense pines that dotted the snowy foothills around Skyhold. His senses alert for any interloper, he made his way to a thick copse at the base of the northeast face of the mountain. The pounding of water from above made him glance up. The waterfall flooded out of the ruined dungeons of the fortress in rocky tiers to plunge into the river that ran alongside Solas. The wide pool at the cliff base churned and frothed, a maelstrom.

The swirling chaos reflected his own inner turmoil.

He picked his way along the rocks behind the waterfall until he found a small recess. Breathing deep, he sighed in relief that no one had found this place. That it remained undefiled.

Nothing but a rocky alcove to the naked eye, Solas reached for the truth behind the illusion. The wall shimmered and blinked out of existence, revealing a domed antechamber. Crafted stone floors in hues unknown to any mortal eye stretched under his wrapped feet. Faded murals adorned the whole of the curving wall, familiar and sorrow-invoking.

Fingers drifted out to trace along those murals. He remembered every stroke, every line and mixed tint. A distraction to fill his days when not crafting the Great Work.

Sighing, Solas finally turned to the centerpiece of the chamber. A mirror, clouded gold in tarnished frame, sang to him a song made from his own bones. His own spirit.

The eluvian sat, un-activated but calling, begging for the touch of its master once again. One of the few remaining mirrors in its network whole enough to sing, it wept for loneliness.

He sat before it in meditational repose and called, "Ir'arla." I am home.

The passphrase echoed as it bounced around the chamber, gathering strange resonances with every revolution. Glowing with a growing radiance, the eluvian's surface began to warp and ripple. With a sound more felt than heard, the door into the Beyond opened.

In the shadows past the portal, Solas saw a shape emerge. He tensed then relaxed as he recognized its aura. Her aura.

A leg encased in crimson armor led, then hip, torso, a swinging arm. Finally, a face, human in aspect, topped in palest frost. A spiked crown sat on her head. Hair flowed back into shapes reminiscent of the horns of her other seeming. She strode through the eluvian and filled the chamber with her awe-inspiring presence to the brim.

Her face broke into a warm, sad smile. "Ma'fen."

Solas averted his eyes and bowed his head in deepest respect. "Mythal."

She laughed, then said, "Do stand. You never played the penitent well."

With an uncertain smile of his own, he stood before her. The evidence of age, the ravages of time carved into her very flesh drew his eye, and painted deepest sorrow on his soul.

She should not be old, this shard of the immortal, exalted being he once knew. She should not have needed to take refuge in frail, decaying human skin.

She should never have been murdered.

His fault.

His unforgivable inattentiveness that led her to become vulnerable to the Evanuris' schemes.

Her hand touched his cheek. She said, with a frown, "Oh, stop it, Fen'harel. My wrinkles are not there to torment you. We none of us can undo the past, only seek to undo the damage caused by our mistakes. And I refuse to begrudge you the freedom you took for yourself."

"You should." Solas remembered it well, the day he'd stood before her, un-bent, un-abased. He'd stared at her face, watched it contort in surprise, rage and … pride.

Proud of him for elevating himself to her side, rather than stay at her heel. He'd been the first to rip the vallaslin from his flesh, his spirit. Cutting away a part of himself to be free. He still felt the trickle of blood down his visage.

He said, "It was wrong to run from you when I knew Elgar'nan fell to madness long before."

"You were joyful, and I would not have denied it to you even had I known what knives lurked in the dark. Anyway, I always did enjoy watching you run." Mythal looked around in interest. "I knew you would call, but I didn't expect you to open this particular door. Where is the sky? I remember how the midday sun would make rainbows dance under my feet."

"When I knew this place would be left to whomever might find it, I dreamed a mountain on top of it."

"A caern for broken hope," she mused. "You were always the dramatic one."

"Says the one who takes the dragon for her own," he teased.

Mythal chuckled. "Ah, there you are, at last. My rebel."

He laughed with her.

Then she said, "I feel a host of souls above us."

"While I slept below, various … 'interests' had come and gone to occupy what they think of as sacred grounds of the ancient Elvhen. I discerned what I could from the endless dreaming of uth'en'era. They built a fortress on this site. Currently, it is held by the Inquisition."

"Ah, so that's what has the girl so interested of late. She stands at one Empress's side, yet seeks to pull strings at every throne in Thedas. Her fingers find more and more skeins in which to tangle. She is truly her mother's daughter," said she, with a satisfied hum. At his questioning look, she continued, "I watch. From an appropriate distance of course. Which is, to her eternal dismay should she ever find out, not very far at all. Always a murmur just out of earshot. Right around the corner, but out of sight. I love to haunt her."

Then her eyes pinned him. "So you have joined this Inquisition, ostensibly to … help?"

He nodded. "It is led by one of the People."

Something in his voice must have given him away, for her sharp gaze sharpened further. "Is it? I'd heard something of the sort. A woman. A Herald of their martyred saint, Andraste. She must be quite … intriguing."

A tingle along his spine set off a tightening of his frame. She saw it. Of course she saw it. He'd never been able to hide anything from her.

"Well, she certainly has your attention. Do you have hers?" Mythal asked, curiosity and some other emotion dancing in her eyes. "I don't think I need to tell you how entanglements will complicate what you are trying to accomplish. Should she really see you …."

"She won't," he asserted, with a shake of his head. His gaze found the floor. "I dare not risk it-" He cut himself off, for he thought of all he had already risked. All he'd already conceded to Tir'alas. His private yearnings. His hopeless dreams. His fool heart.

What would she do if she knew?

His throat closed on a pained exhale. She'd hate him for using her. Send him away.

Wouldn't she?

Her hand touched his chin and pulled his gaze up to meet hers. She said, "How far has it gone?"

The answer must have sprung from his eyes, for she dropped her hand. "My wolf. You always take the hardest path. No road will satisfy you unless it has every briar and thorn strewn across it."

Sighing, Solas nodded. "I did not mean for it to happen."

"A mantra well-rehearsed and repeated by anyone who 'means.' I can feel you wavering." Mythal hummed and continued, "I have seen you love, and I have seen you broken. But I have never before witnessed you stray from purpose because of either. Is this, is she, so different?"

His silence could fill a library.

"Perhaps that, too, has some deeper meaning?" she then asked, coaxing him with hands held palm up.

After a minute of dangerous internal debate, he said, "It does not matter. I will do what is necessary. You will have your vengeance. And the People will be restored."

Mythal sighed. "As much as I appreciate your many sacrifices, my vengeance may come by many roads. It all comes full circle whether we help it along or not."

"If I don't do this, then all those sacrifices mean nothing." Dead Felassan flashed before his eyes. His friend. His failure. His fault. "None of it will," he stated, cold tone masking his confusion at her sudden reticence. Or had it been sudden at all? Now, doubt tickled him. "It has to be unMade. I have to fix it."

"Even if fixing it means enduring the loss of what is?" She gestured upward, indicating everything that had come to be real to him over the last two years. All those people ….

Ma Tir'alas ….

"Even so." Despair almost choked him.

"Is there no other way?" Something in her tone drew a suspicion from him. What did she know that he did not? She smiled before his piercing look. "Have you even thought about it?"

When she turned back to the eluvian, he followed her gaze to where the Great Work stood. And the cradle in which had once sat an innocuously small orb.

… Yes.

Yes.

Ever since he'd woken in this nightmarish place, he'd sought only to tear down the Veil. He'd built it. He knew how to do so. With quickened orb in hand, it would happen in a matter of seconds. One monumental tug and the blindness holding the Beyond back would fall, restoring the world to the malleable, half-solid state it had been created in.

But what if-?

He balked at what loomed ahead on that other path. He could barely let himself think it.

Oh, but it would be a long Working and he would have to learn so much. He'd need help. More help than just his few agents in the world.

And he was so much less than he used to be.

Impossible.

Mythal leaned close and whispered into his ear, full of portent, "What happens when the coin lands on its edge?"

The whisper seemed to echo in the antechamber, becoming a sussuration of ghostly murmurings.

He shivered. "The impossible."

Such gaping promise threatened to swallow him into the abyss. Did he dare? Could he truly defy that which he'd always held before him as the only road and possibly damn everything on the slimmest chance imaginable?

That he could somehow find a way to save the 'then' and the 'now?'

If he failed yet again, nothing could be salvaged of the now. Everything and everyone would be damned. Forever. No restoration for the People. No world left for any of them to reside upon.

Terror sought to steal his feet from under him. He could only stare at Mythal, baring the anguish torn from within him by her gift of terrible ... merciless … hope.

Pitying, she said, "And if hope should still fail, at least you will have had it."

Clenching his eyes shut, he gritted his bared teeth. His hands came up to cover his face. "It doesn't change the path. Only the endgame. I will still have to obtain the orb."

"You'd already resigned yourself anyway." She held him then, thin arms grasping with surprising strength. "As I did long ago."

Taking what comfort he could, he rested his cheek on her strong shoulder, much as he had when he'd been new. "She will turn from me when she learns the truth."

He didn't say 'if.'

Even he could see that one day, she'd know. "Even if I can somehow preserve her and her people. Her world."

"Hmm." Mythal rocked him, a gentle soothing sway. "Probably. Who can say? Safer for her if she does."

The lump in his throat grew, throttling his breath. "Yes, it is."

"There is only so much one can hope for. Pick your battles wisely, old friend. Defeat Corypheus. Regain your orb and the mantle you lost. Then see about what future you can salvage." She thrust him back and held him by the shoulders. "Now. Be cautious, Fen'harel. The tightrope only gets thinner, the razor's narrowing edge only more cutting."

He had to smile at her maternal concern. Taking her hand, he turned it to lay a kiss in her palm. The act of a supplicant. "Mythal."

Charmed, she smiled and patted his cheek. "My beautiful Solas. This world does not deserve you. It never did. But I'm also not too sorry I made you a part of it."

Mythal turned on her heel and strode back through the eluvian. Turning at the last moment, she called, "And do come visit me more often. You know how I worry."

Solas nodded, smile bittersweet.

Then she was gone.

The eluvian shimmered and solidified, closing.

He pulled a deep breath of ancient air into his lungs and let it out in a ragged sigh. Already his mind started weaving new plans. Plans within plans.

A game within a game.

One he'd have to play so close to his chest that none could ever see it, for the hope that had written itself into his soul seemed about as strong and solid and safe as a soap bubble. He despaired of ever managing it.

But his feet flew back to Skyhold. As expected, no one had noted his absence. His rotunda, so like the chamber directly below it, welcomed him back. People chattered above, laughing, cajoling. They taunted. They consoled each other.

They lived.

Solas could hardly hold still as he listened. The idea that perhaps they could all be saved took root and grew, a vine that threaded through his whole being. His heart seemed overfull, fit to bursting out of his ribcage.

He would try.

A/N: Only now does he even try to think of alternatives. That silly Solas. Perhaps the path is not as straightforward as he thought. I don't think a character as empathetic as Solas spent the WHOLE game denying the 'realness' of the people around him. I really think he tried to find another way. That's just my opinion, though. Anyway, hope the winter weather is being kind to everyone out there. Stay warm! :)