Solas looked up at the sound of Ahrue shifting in her tent. Seeing that she was awake and sitting up, he frowned in disapproval. "Not happy to see me?" she asked as she crawled out of the tent and took a seat by the fire.
"I was hoping you would sleep for longer," he said.
"Tired of my company already?" she said smirking.
His eyes caressed her face, surely taking in the signs of exhaustion that lingered there. His gaze then fell to her abdomen, and he sighed. She got the meaning without him having to say it: You should be taking better care of yourself, vhenan. You need sleep now more than ever. Solas returned to stirring the pot. "I simply wanted to finish preparing the meal before you woke. It will need some more time before it is ready to eat."
Liar, she thought to herself, but this time with a degree of fondness. It wasn't that he didn't want her to know he cared; his eyes and anxious frown spoke volumes about how much he worried for her. His words were an attempt to respect her choices both in terms of the boundary between them and her persistent distaste for patronizing comments. He did not want to make things worse between them.
"Did I wake you?" he asked.
She waved his concern away. "Weird dream. Busy mind. And…" she thought for a beat before adding the persistent cause of her frequently disturbed sleep of late to her verbal list. She had not yet mentioned Despair's torment of her nor how difficult it had been to get a full night's rest when she was constantly braced for its return. "Well, my sleep has been off for a couple months. Nightmares after Corypheus." He looked at her, brow furrowed in concern. "Nothing I can't handle, just a restless night here and there," she assured him.
He nodded his understanding. "What did you dream of?" He blushed immediately after asking the question and looked away. "You needn't answer. I simply wished to make conversation, and, as you know, dreams are a favorite topic of mine."
Perhaps he intuited his regular appearance in her dreams. Ahrue recalled her dream of the day she drank from the Vir'abelasan, waking certain that it was really him in the dream rather than just a figment of memory. Maybe Solas had his share of dreams about her that brought that blush to his pointed ears. Her dream from the previous night had been tender, but not embarrassingly so. She didn't mind sharing with him, skipping over the romantic parts; his own memory could fill in the gaps. "I dreamt of arriving in the Graves, when you showed me the Fen'haril statue."
He raised an eyebrow. "You've taken to calling him 'Fen'haril' now?" he asked.
She laughed. "I didn't even notice I did it. It was strange, after I dreamed of our conversation at the statue, I had… a vision, I guess." She told him of the conversation she'd witnessed between Elwyn and Atish'era. He listened in rapt attention. "They talked about Fen'haril ending the War of the Sun. Do you suppose that's a reference to Elgar'nan's feud with his father?"
"That would make sense," he responded. The muscles in his neck were tense. Ahrue wondered if his injury was still bothering him after all, but decided not to interrupt their current conversation to ask.
"That would mean that there was a second war or some kind of battle that Fen'haril was meant to end, long enough afterward that Atish'era doubted that the War of the Sun had really taken place."
"That is assuming that your dream was actually a memory from the Vir'abelasan rather than just a dream. You also assume that Fenaril, Fen'haril, and Fen'harel are all the same person."
Ahrue was certain. She hadn't even considered the possibility that the dream was of her own making or that the three names didn't refer to the same person. Since the thought had occurred to her in Din'an Hanin, she'd been certain it was true. It was the same clarity that told her that Flemeth was Mythal. "No. I'm right about this."
Solas looked taken aback by her surety. "How do you know?"
"The Vir'abelasan, maybe. But it makes sense. Fenaril was the name of the man leading a rebellion, Fen'haril the name of the same man when he was elevated to divine statue as the god of rebellion, and Fen'harel was the twisting of his name and reputation as part of a political maneuver."
Solas gaped at her, saying nothing.
Ahrue blushed, thinking that he must be marveling at the ridiculousness of her silly theory. "You don't have to look at me that way. I know how it must sound," she said, angry at herself for still being so affected by his judgment.
Solas shook his head and a strange smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You are extraordinary," he said breathlessly.
Extraordinary? Not at all what she was expecting. She laughed. "Well I like that better than 'idiotic' or 'out of your blighted mind.' I have no evidence. Nothing in the ancient texts or oral history corroborates this version."
"Ah! But you have witnesses! The memories of the Vir'abelasan stretch back millennia. In your mind, you have access to the least corrupted document of elvhen history ever discovered." Solas reached for a tin cup and began dishing the herbaceous stew. He looked at her quizzically for a moment before handing her the cup and a spoon.
She took it. "Ma serannas."
Solas served himself some stew into his own battered cup. He starred at her while she ate.
She grew gradually more uncomfortable as his gaze remained fixed on her after several bites. She laughed awkwardly. "I'm beginning to feel like a fascinating artifact. Would you stop looking at me like that? Just eat your stew."
He shook his head as though to clear it. "My apologies. I was… lost in thought." He took a bite of stew and stared into the cup, his eyes slowly glazing over while he chewed.
Anxiety flooded her as she tried to interpret his vacant expression. Was he thinking of how he could use her buried knowledge to his advantage? Or was he simply caught up in the implications of what she'd told him about Fen'harel? "Out with it," she said firmly, placing her cup on the ground beside her.
He lifted his curious eyes to her face. "Tell me, lethallan, why do you supposed your thoughts are drawn to Fen'harel? Why not to the Emerald knights, or the monks of Din'an hanin? Why not to Elgar'nan or Mythal, or any other deity honored by statues in this place?"
The question was a good one and one she hadn't considered. She'd always liked the Fen'harel statues, but Mythal was the goddess who'd occupied her attention as a child and young adult. It was Mythal's vallaslin that marked her face, and it was Mythal's Well and will that had drawn Ahrue here to the Graves. The voices of the Well had been pledged to Mythal. So why should Fen'harel be the one who she was repeatedly pulled to? "I suppose perhaps I feel a bit like a harellan myself," she thought out loud as it occurred to her. "Rescuing Fen'harel's reputation could be a subconscious attempt to save myself from the injustice of the label. Maybe my will is directing what memories surface in the well."
Solas shoulders dropped and his face went a little slack. He looked disappointed.
"Sorry to let you down," she said sharply. "Just a silly girl trying to find a reassuring story to tuck myself in with."
He looked confused. "No, it makes sense. You worry that you have betrayed your heritage, so you understandably find comfort in a figure that has been accused of the same. It also highlights the fallibility of the people whose judgement you fear; if they were wrong about Fen'harel than they could be wrong about you. It is a logical explanation, and recognizing it demonstrates an impressive depth of self-awareness."
"Then why did you look so disappointed when I suggested it?"
He looked down into his soup cup. "It is nothing," he said before scooping a spoonful of stew into his mouth.
Ahrue's temper prickled. "Right," she said. She stood up and dumped the remaining stew in her cup back into the pot. "I've lost my appetite," she said flatly in response to his confused expression.
He sighed. "I have upset you."
She sat back down, in part because a wave of dizziness was threatening to fell her. "Why would you think that? What reason would I possibly have for getting upset when you decide to keep things from me?"
He stood up. "You are right, that was thoughtless of me." He reached for her mug and proceeded to refill it with stew. He handed it back to her. "Eat, and I will say more."
She looked at him icily.
"Do not punish yourself as a way to punish me." His voice was firm but edged with sadness. "You nearly collapsed just now; you need to eat, regardless of what your appetite is telling you."
Ahrue blushed a little. He was right, she was being passive aggressive, and it wasn't fair to either of them. She took the cup from him, and he settled back into a seated position. "I'm sorry." She raised her hand in a gesture of oath. "I'll punish you more directly from this point forward."
He laughed. "Glad to hear it!"
He watched and waited as she dramatically resumed eating her stew. She smiled as she took a large mouthful. "Mmmm."
Solas nodded his satisfaction. "I was not disappointed in your explanation of Fen'harel's prominence in what you've learned from the Vir'abelasan. I had my own theory that yours did not corroborate. That is the source of the expression to which you responded."
Ahrue swallowed. "What was your theory?"
He sighed. "I had wondered if Fen'harel, like Mythal was perhaps still in this world in some form. If it was he who drew your thoughts to him, perhaps subconsciously."
Ahrue thought of the wolf in her dream of the waterfall. He had seemed so real. At the time, she'd thought him a spirit, but maybe he'd been more than that. She laughed off the idea; the notion sounded completely insane. "Why would Fen'harel take an interest in me?"
Solas smiled slightly. "Perhaps for the same reasons you thought yourself drawn to him: he may see in you a kindred spirit. Or, he may have done the same to anyone who possessed the knowledge of the Well. Those memories could be his only chance at redemption after millennia of being labeled a traitor."
Ahrue nodded thoughtfully. Put that way, Solas' theory actually sounded possible. Was the Fen'harel haunting her dreams and directing her thoughts really any less plausible than finding Mythal in possession of an elderly shemlen woman? Or an ancient magister invading heaven and then coming back to do it again? "Stranger things have happened, I suppose."
Solas smiled fondly at her. "A third possibility: you are an extraordinary woman, and try as he might, he cannot resist you."
The mouthful of stew Ahrue had just taken was very nearly sprayed out of her nose at Solas' bold and absurd flirtation! She coughed as she tried to swallow the soup down with a modicum of dignity. "Wow," she said, whipping her mouth with the back of her hand. "That would be something indeed!"
"It would not be the first time one of the Elvhen pantheon pursued the affections of a mortal," Solas said completely seriously. "Ghilan'nain was a simple shepherdess when Anduil became infatuated with her."
Ahrue gaped at him. "Are you actually being serious? You don't even believe in the gods."
"Whether man, spirit, or god, I find it likely that you would draw his attention from the fade."
Ahrue snorted. Solas had said something very similar to her before. You are unique. In all Thedas, I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the fade. And then he'd broken her heart. "I seem to have that effect on people," she said wryly. Solas frowned. "But why did you say that Fen'harel may be subconsciously drawing my mind to him? Why subconsciously?"
Solas looked startled. "Did I say that?"
"Yes, you did."
He looked flustered, and his skin reddened slightly. It reminded her of the expression her Keeper had worn when she'd come to tell an eight-year-old Ahrue that her parents had been killed by human bandits. Her panic rose instinctively and her heart started to race. "What is it, Solas? What do you know?"
"There is something I wish to tell you. But I… cannot find the words." His voice wavered as he spoke, and for a moment Ahrue thought he might be sick.
"I can relate," she laughed weakly, her own voice trembling slightly. "Do you suppose we can arrange to have a Venatori tell me for you? I'd prefer to skip the torture, if it's all the same."
He laughed through his nose. Suddenly a look of determination passed over his face. He took a deep breath and stood up.
Ahrue thought he'd lost his nerve, decided again to shut her out. "Stop!" she ordered firmly. "Solas, so help me…"
He walked to her side of the fire and knelt beside her. She pivoted to face him, and he took her hands in his. His palms were sweating and his fingers shook. She had never seen him so unnerved. He looked into her eyes. "Vhenan, I have something important to tell you. And… it will require you to suspend your disbelief."