Ahrue was too tired to argue, and if letting Solas clean roots and cut up herbs would get him to turn his eyes to something besides her for a while, then let him have at it. She didn't expect to sleep, but an hour or so of being still and letting her muscles and eyes relax would do her good. She would be able to deal with Solas more easily once she'd rested for a while and had a good meal. She shifted a little on her bedroll, trying to find a comfortable position. Exhaustion won out and the events of the day became quickly hazy and jumbled. "I hope you know what you're doing with that dale root," she murmured quietly as her thoughts began to drift dreamily. Within moments of closing her stinging, strained eyes, Ahrue was sound asleep.

She hopped lightly from the Inquisition aravel, or whatever the human word for the inferior wheeled, horse-drawn thing was. The ground gave a little under her weight with a mossy springiness that she knew her feet would be grateful for. She felt a tingle spread across her skin, and the history of this place seemed to hum through her veins.

"Ungh!" Sera whined, jumping down behind her. "It's all bugs and damp here! Why can't the Inquisition go to proper places? It's always ruins, swamp, ruins, cave, cave ruins, desert, desert ruins, bog, forest, muggy buggy forest."

"Careful, Buttercup," warned Varric. "Keep up that whining and I'm sure the Inquisitor will dig up a muggy buggy forest ruin for us to poke around in."

"It's like the air is sticky," Sera continued. "Should air be sticky?"

Ahrue ignored them. She would take a lush forest over cobbled streets and stone walls any day. Solas stepped beside her and smiled at her ecstatic expression.

"You can feel it, can't you? Our people were here," he said softly.

"Yes! It's extraordinary. Like a chorus singing. One moment the song is mournful, and the next jubilant."

He nodded. "There has been much sadness and joy here. It is important to forget neither."

She watched as Sera swatted at a bug on her neck. "Just the same, better to keep this conversation between us. Let's not give Sera more to whine about."

His eyes flashed impishly and he raised his voice. "Can you feel it, Sera? Our people were here, and their spirits yet linger."

"Ungh!" Sera groaned. "Can you shut it about dead elves?"

Ahrue jabbed a finger in Solas' ribs. He tensed against her touch, trying to maintain composure. He met her grin with a glower. In private, he would have tickled her in return, but among their comrades he furrowed his brow in mock disapproval and cleared his throat. "Please, vhenan. Control yourself." His precarious frown twitched as he spoke.

"I could say the same to you. Why goad her?"

"She should learn, whether she wants to or not."

"Yes, hahren," Ahrue teased.

He chuckled. But looking at her face, his mirth was quickly displaced by tenderness. He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "This place suits you, ma'arlath."

"Daaw!" Sera called out. She pointed at the couple and other eyes followed. "Elfy loves Elfy!" she said in a sing-song voice. "Knew it. Would be cute, except it's boring."

Solas sighed. "Ir abelas," he muttered. "I forgot myself in the moment."

Ahrue planted him with a kiss, and was met with more cheers and jeers from the crowd of onlookers. The kiss broke and she smiled. "It doesn't bother me, Solas. The rumors began months ago anyway. Half of Orlais saw us dance at Halamshiral." She searched his face. "Does it bother you?"

"No. I only worry how our dalliance might impact your reputation."

"I think my reputation can take the hit of a scandal or two."

"You are no doubt correct. It is astonishing to see how the humans exalt you."

"Astonishing. That's one word for it," she grumbled.

He laughed. "I know you find it unsettling, but you should be proud of all you have accomplished. Your achievements will impact elves everywhere."

She bristled at the thought of that impact. "For better or worse."

He looked at her curiously.

She sighed. "I worry what the People will think of what I've done, how I'm changing things. I've become the very picture of a 'respectable' elf, completely palatable, for the sake of shemlen approval. What does that really accomplish for elves? Try as I might, I can't imagine my clan approving. My grandfather used to call elves who behaved like humans 'harellan.' Kin traitors. I hate to imagine what he must think of me being the Inquisitor and Herald of Andraste." She frowned. "Perhaps I am harellan."

Solas winced. "Don't say that. Whatever the Dalish may think of your actions, you are no kin traitor. If your people are too short sighted to see that…" He stopped himself, likely aware that he was treading too close to insulting her heritage. He too had been wounded by elves who put too much stock in tradition.

Ahrue smiled weakly and caressed his face. "On the bright side, if I end up an outcast, I'll be in good company."

He snorted. His response stung her a little. She wondered, not for the first time, if he envisioned their relationship continuing past the end of the Inquisition. They had not discussed their future, and it troubled her not knowing. Not growing up among the Dalish, Solas had different ideas about romance than she did. He'd been with other women before her, and left them easily enough. Why should she be any different? He loved her, but it was entirely possible that he had plans for his future that didn't include her. She'd avoided asking him about his intentions so far; she was aware that she had no sense of the proper pacing of a relationship by non-Dalish standards, and didn't want to seem inappropriately eager. But she hated not knowing where they stood.

He noticed the contemplative expression in her eyes, but perhaps misinterpreted its source. "It will be alright," he said, tilting her chin up and kissing her softly. "Whatever the Dalish may think now, once Corypheus is dead and the sky healed, those outcomes will speak far louder than whatever social niceties you engaged in to meet that end. Your people will understand."

She smiled, grateful that he was trying but unconvinced.

He grasped her hand. "Come with me, vhenan. I'd like to show you something."

Ahrue let him guide her to a wolf statue near camp, overgrown with moss. It had a small offering dish affixed to its base. "Fen'harel!" she said laughing. "My grandfather used to scold me for playing on Fen'harel statues near our camps when I was little."

"You played on statues of Fen'harel? You were certainly a bold child." He sounded vaguely impressed.

She shrugged. "Not really. Just not particularly inclined toward superstition. I just always liked the look of them." She considered the statue. "He never looked evil to me. Just clever and watchful. Like he's curious about what's going on around him. Sometimes I would do his voice." She deepened her voice into her best Fen'harel impression. "Aneth era, Da'len. Why have you come to my part of the forest? And what is that fascinating glowing mark on your hand? Does it tingle? And who is your handsome friend?" She shook her head and resumed speaking in her own voice. "He sure does ask a lot of questions. Probably gathering information so he can trick us later."

Solas smiled lightly. "These statues are all over the Emerald Graves." He pointed to the northwest. "You can see another there in the distance."

"Odd," Ahrue said. "I wonder why they built so many here. Dalish clans often make our camps with the statues facing away, and we leave offerings to placate Fen'harel and ward off nightmares. But to have so many built in one place suggests…"

"That he was perhaps once revered or at least honored," Solas finished nodding.

"Or, perhaps there was a cult devoted to him here: elves who worshipped him because he tricked the gods and shunned the People."

"I.." he started. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. "Yes. That is possible."

Ahrue's eyes fell to the bone that hung from a leather thread around Solas' neck. "It's a wolf's jaw isn't it?"

"Hmm?" he looked at her quizzically.

She pointed at the bone. "You wear a wolf's jawbone. It is an odd choice of adornment."

He looked down at the necklace. "Ah yes, a gift from a friend a very long time ago."

She cocked her head. "But why a wolf bone?"

He shrugged. "I am not Dalish, so the mythos surrounding wolves did not influence my decision to wear it. If that is what you are asking."

"I thought maybe you wore it as a charm against nightmares as you travel the fade."

"Do you believe that would work?" he asked her with a note of teasing in his voice.

"It might. Focusing on a concrete object that holds symbolic significance or personal meaning seems like exactly the sort of thing that would be helpful while traveling a place that is shaped by the mind's eye."

Solas smiled at her. "That is an excellent point. But as the wolf has no symbolic value to me, it would not be effective as a totem. Besides I have not had nightmares in many years."

"Maybe because you wear a totem against them," Ahrue said smirking and tugging playfully at the chords of the necklace.

"Ha! Perhaps so." He pulled her close to his side, his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder, and they contemplated the statue in silence. Despite his claim that the wolf had no personal significance to him, Ahrue wondered if Solas, himself a solitary wanderer of the fade, might find Fen'harel's story more meaningful than he let on.

After a few minutes, Ahrue heard Scout Harding's voice coming from the camp. "Inquisitor!"

Solas kissed Ahrue's head and stroked her closely cropped hair. "It seems your presence is required, vhenan."

"Can't someone else be Inquisitor today?" she grumped. After hearing the scout call again, Ahrue away from Solas and reached into the pouch on her belt, fumbling through the contents for an appropriate offering. She pulled out a cloth satchel with candied nuts she used as trail rations, loosened the sting that held the satchel closed, and poured the nuts into the metal dish affixed to the base of the Dread Wolf statue. "Accept this gift Fen'harel, la en'el hamin atisha." And grant us peaceful rest. She touched the statue's side as she spoke, and the dream shifted around her.

Disorientation and confusion overtook Ahrue. She was standing in front of the same statue of Fen'harel, but instead of broken ruins, steps led up to a stone pavilion to her right. The sun was low in the sky and Solas was gone. In his place two young elven women knelt praying to the statue. Ahrue had never seen them, but they were familiar to her, and the sight of them brought names to mind: Elwyn and Atish'era. They seemed unaware of Ahrue's close proximity to them.

"Fen'haril, fade walker, spin us dreams of victory and courage, so we may wake enlivened to our cause," said Elwyn in an unfamiliar elven dialect that Ahrue never-the-less understood clearly.

"Fen'haril, rebel soul, turn our enemies' gaze and hearts to visions of our suffering, so they may recognize our cause as just," said Atish'era.

"Fen'haril, with watchful eyes, grant us vigilance and restraint, so we may know when to strike and when to hold, when to push onward and when to fall back."

"Fen'haril, elvhen's blade, sharpen our edge and our sight, so every cut may be vital and just, the blood we spill necessary, the lives we take a tribute to our ends."

The two women turned to each other, faces ashen. Elwyn stood first and offered a hand up to Atish'era. "I still can't imagine sleeping tonight," Atish'era said as she got to her feet.

Elwyn tucked a stray strand of hair behind Atish'era's ear. "Would company help?" she said smiling wickedly.

Atish'era laughed. "Hardly! But I expect a sleepless night with you would be more fun than a sleepless night by myself."

The women kissed. Elwyn studied the face of her beloved, lined with worry, and eyes heavy with fatigue. "You should have faith, my heart. Fen'haril would not lead us astray."

"Fen'haril never promises anything, so I'm not sure what exactly I should have faith in. We don't even know what his plan is!"

"Whatever he's doing, he'll succeed. Believe it. He stopped the War of the Sun."

Atish'era snorted. "So some say. But that was a very long time ago."

Elwyn took a step away from Atish'era and fixed her with an incredulous stare. "Don't tell me you believe Elgar'nan's lies!"

"Creators! No!" She took her lover's hands in her own. "I believe in Fen'haril, and I believe in our cause. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. But nothing is certain, The Wolf would be the first to admit that."

The smell of cooking herbs and vegetables reached Ahrue's nose. For a moment, she thought it was coming from a nearby camp, maybe the young women's companions cooking the evening meal. But the dream faded around her and her eyes snapped open. She was in her own tent, not far from where she'd just stood in her dream. She rolled to her side to see Solas stirring a small pot suspended over the fire by supple branches bent into a simple frame. His wolf jaw necklace swung slightly with his movements.