Chapter 28
Solas avoided campus. One week turned into two; two weeks turned into three.
He had barely slept since the evening he had fled Dr. Lavellan's apartment in the middle of the night. Some of his insomnia was grief. Mostly, he thought dreaming might cause him to show up in another of Ellana's dreams. How would he account for such a phenomenon?
Solas had read as much as he could about the ancient dreamers, called sominari in Tevene. For years he had sought out obscure texts with disintegrating pages. He found cryptic notes about arcane rituals and herbs used to bring on trances and visions-but not much concrete information on what sominari did. Not knowing the discrete limits of the powers made him shaky.
Over the last decade, he speculated he might even be the last sominari in living memory. Until he read Dr. Lavellan's book that is.
Understanding that dreams mirrored the actions of the real world, Solas buried his mind in work. The more paperwork, patient appointments, and lab reports, the better. His calendar was overbooked with extra shifts at the hospital. He even willingly endured several of Leliana's intense brainstorm sessions at Inquisition headquarters, a chore he had shunned mainly over the last decade.
To evade campus even further, Solas' research students working in the campus lab were forced to make the trek on public transportation to report their findings. It wasn't an arrangement without precedence, depending on the ebb and flow of his schedule. Solas was painfully aware it was not his proudest moment as an instructor, even if his students might not be conscious of his sulking,
Until he perfected his explanation, Solas thought it unwise to risk running into the art historian. Solas wanted to put his hubris aside, drive over to Ellana's apartment, and tell her the whole truth. Only he remained indecisive about what to say. Solas had made several charts and diagrams in one of his graph paper notebooks, attempting to map how Ellana would react to what he had to say. So far, no projections ended well.
He was pessimistic that any justification would mend the rift that lay between him; until then, he deliberated.
The endless cycle of frustration and doubt made him increasingly sour.
Solas could keep it together for his patients, his voice was never overly friendly, but his bedside manner was professional and to the point. Everything else in his life was unraveling.
Dagna had intervened yesterday afternoon when he had sent two students back to the lab in tears, his angry red pen tearing into their dissertations with meticulous line-by-line edits. It wasn't that his strict approach was unexpected; only he had been dismissive and impatient. He had long faulted his colleagues who were short with their students, not taking the time to guide and mentor them.
Now Solas was one of those domineering professors he complained about.
"Out of character," the Dwarf had gently brought up to him as he slunk into his office chair. He didn't even bother to look up from typing notes, "Is how Jana reported that meeting. She said you wouldn't let her speak to clarify any of her points. She also said the condescending voice you used when talking to her felt worse than being yelled at."
"The research was subpar," Solas had defended himself. "Incorrect experiments put lives at risk."
Dagna, wearing a chunky homemade scarf over her white lab coat, surveyed his hospital office. It wasn't as pleasant as his campus post, a dark room with no windows, covered in charts. He hated it there.
"Where is the chair in your office usually reserved for student meetings?" She asked, referring to one of the felt chairs she had purchased for him and placed opposite his desk for students to feel more welcomed when they reviewed materials with him.
"I thought it would make meetings run more efficiently if the individual stood to deliver their findings."
"OK, professor. What is going on?" Dagna signed, "Everyone is walking around you as if on eggshells. You look terrible. Did a consulting job go badly again?"
Dagna looked up at Solas eagerly, her large blue eyes warm and attentive. He had not always found Dagna's sunny and forward disposition favorable. The first week she worked in the lab, she had followed him around chatting almost nonsensically, small drops of coffee falling on the floor from a mug she carried as she ambled around. Dagna had won him over, however, when she had pointed out how he had incorrectly read an MRI report, and then again when her interference for anything emotional helped smooth several longstanding issues with his students and colleagues.
"Thank the Maker for Dagna," he had heard his chair say once, "She's like the Solas whisperer."
He could always depend on Dagna to call him out when he needed it.
"Among other things," He admitted.
For all her sass, Dagna was respectful of his need for privacy. His assistant would never bring up his strife with Dr. Lavellan, even if Solas suspected she was acutely aware of the animosity that existed. Dagna had brought up the exhibition several times, asking for approval on Ellana's requests. He had waved her away, Unable to speak about the matter directly.
Eventually, Dagna stopped asking.
"Do you think you should take a day off-maybe more than one-you've been working a lot of overtime," Dagna suggested in a voice that made it clear that even if he protested, he'd show up at the hospital to a cleared schedule.
"There are at least half-a-dozen..."
"How about tomorrow afternoon?" Dagna said in a forceful tone that made it clear she was not asking.
"Fine," Solas said, pulling off his reading glasses and setting them down on the desk. "If you break one of the machines again, however, I will be very cross."
Dagna giggled, picking up and sorting the charts that were in disorderly piles on every available surface. A few minutes later, Solas found a glass of hot water with a lemon slice in it. He didn't remember his assistant leaving it there.
A day off? Solas couldn't remember the last time he had elected to take a day off. Occasionally, Dagna would clear off a week, usually around the holidays. One time he had even showed up to see that she had used his personal credit card to book a trip to an Antivan resort. Another time, she sent him to Denerim to tour the old town and the surrounding vineyards.
He was unsure where he would go that morning, only to realize that he hadn't been to the Modern Art Museum for some time. When he first moved to Val Royeaux, he visited almost every week enjoying the innovative exhibition programming. He finished up a round of patient check-ups in the morning and set out in a cab. Afterward, maybe he'd read a newspaper at one of the sidewalk cafes, sipping on a glass of red wine.
Walking through the sun-lit atrium of the museum brought Solas instant tranquility. The large floor to ceiling windows led into a sculpture garden he spent an inordinate amount of time exploring. He always enjoyed the sizable split-open rock sculptures overgrown with twisting vines. The intention, he knew, from the artist whose name Solas had forgotten, was to allow the works to erode over the next thousand years; judging from the rough surface of the stone, the progress of the decay was incremental from the last time he had visited.
When he was done in the sculpture garden, Solas visited his favorite painting in the museum, a gargantuan tondo of abstract lavender and green, vaguely floral, shapes applied to a clean white surface. The artist had used nontraditional media to render the brushstrokes, like mops and newspaper, affixing a hot pink neon light to the center, the color fields reflecting off one another in the gallery halls in soft waves.
He had no idea why he liked the painting so much. Nor did Solas want to ruin it by wondering; viewing the work always made him feel as if he were visiting a friend.
Solas proceeded to the big show in the upstairs galleries. Reading a pamphlet of the exhibition on entering, he was pleased to discover it was a major retrospective of a Dalish artist.
The show was provocative, in the first room, a projector set-up in the corner mirrored two videos side-by-side playing different clips of ancient purity rituals performed by Dalish hunters. On one screen, a man butchered a halla, stopping to collect the blood carefully into a bronze dish. In the other, the hunter bathed himself, singing a throaty song in words whose meanings were long forgotten. The camera lens focused on the movement of his hands, blurring the surroundings into ethereal light.
Reading the didactic Solas learned it was a self-portrait of the artist. The film was a recording of his last observance of the rite as his clan was forced out of their ancestral homelands. Shortly after that, the artist considered himself an exile.
In the second room, there was a room-sized pool with Dalish hammered bowls that floated over the surface, the chime produced when they hit each other echoed like a lament. Solas was contemplatively sitting on one of the surrounding benches when he saw a flash of blonde hair and the sound of a familiar laugh. It couldn't be.
Solas felt as if someone had punched him in the gut.
He stood up quickly, rushing into another gallery space peering back from behind a large concrete sculpture. He could see the outline of two figures, their slick black outfits standing out amongst the colorful frills of Orlais.
For a time, he couldn't make out the two figures.
When the pair walked by him, towards one of the large photographs on the opposite wall, Solas caught a whiff Ellana's lavender and rosemary perfume. Any sense of calm he had gathered over the past few hours vanished, observing Ellana whispering to a silver-haired elf, their hands clasped as they discussed the work in front of them.
Solas had to flee. His legs could not carry him fast enough.
He exited the gallery, attempting to exit through the room with the pool installation. A tour group in front of the video obstructed his passage through the room, the docent sharply scolding him with a gentle, "Sir, you'll have to exit through the other end."
Reluctantly, Solas spun around towards the gallery he had just come from, hoping that Ellana and her companion would have moved on. No such luck, looking up at him, was the face of Dr. Lavellan.
She was at the start of the entrance, standing alone in front of a photograph of an Elvhen ruin, appearing to float across the foggy landscape. Her face was paler than Solas' remembered, an intense expression on her face as she processed his appearance, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Dr. Lavellan, Solas stuttered, feigning surprise when she spotted him. He didn't want Ellana to think he had been willfully following her.
She was dressed in tight black cigarette pants with a low cut blazer that wrapped around her tiny waist, the high shoulders adding a flare that was wholly contemporary and vintage at the same time.
"Professor Fen'Harel," She said in place of greeting him, her voice terse. Ellana regarded him with an icy stare beyond malice. It had been easier to bear her anger when it had been hot and bright.
Solas had no words, nor did Ellana. The two simply stood frozen, staring at each other like two dumbstruck deer. Solas could feel steps echoing in the background, coming closer to the two professors.
The stand off was interrupted when a silver-haired man with a shaggy haircut came to stand next to Ellana, wrapping an arm around her waist-planting a soft kiss on her forehead-with an ease that made Solas burn with jealousy Looking up, Solas recognized the man from the photograph he had seen in Ellana's apartment on the beach. A tan face, with gray eyes with barely any blue tint, two striking silver lines on the edge of a chiseled jaw, curving around his neck extending down below the collar of his shirt.
The tattoos didn't look like vallaslin; Solas couldn't place the markings otherwise.
The man was what Solas would call "cool." The outfit he was wearing was edgy, the baggy pants and t-shirt loose and artfully rumpled. Seeing Ellana lean into the man's chest made Solas feel a pulsating sadness he did not think possible. The two individuals standing in front of him seemed to fit so perfectly together.
What would Ellana want with a man like Solas? A dry academic whose colleagues sometimes joked was so aloof he didn't have a pulse? It was clear to Solas that any overtures he made would be futile if the man standing in front of him was as interested as Solas thought he was.
Any possibility of reconciling with Ellana Lavellan was lost to him.
Perhaps it would be kinder in the long run.
"Oh," the man said, catching Ellana's gaze, and extending his head in Solas' direction, thin metallic lines stretching over two strong, biceped arms, "You must be one of La's friend, I'm Fenris.."
Solas gruffly took Fenris' hand, clasping it a little more tightly than was polite. It was a struggle to keep his face neutral.
"Solas, its a pleasure," He muttered. He wasn't sure what sort of reaction he would receive from Ellana's companion.
Solas was aware of Ellana watching the whole exchange with the sort of interest one might have for a car crash.
"Ah!" The man gripped his hand with a smug smile, nodding with sudden understanding. "You're the doctor. Nice to meet you."