Solas Fadewalked.
The magic in Skyhold made the place safe and protected — a new Haven, in every sense of the word. It had seeped into every stone, every battlement, every sunken stair, creating a home that loved its occupants and protected them from harm.
The inherent magic of the place also thinned the Veil to the point where one could cross it with a mere thought.
It was rare that Solas dreamed without intent, but tonight was different. He'd set none of his wards, had not prepared his mind or his body, and now he was adrift. The Fade would show him what it wanted.
It was like it was when he wandered in uthenera — pieces of world colliding, floating apart, connecting in the most wrong of ways. The Fade, shattered by what he'd done, sang in sour notes the half-remembered stanzas of old melodies. Spirits, both familiar and new, were drawn to Skyhold by the new activity — the power of the Anchor drew them to Evelyn most of all. But, as he slept, aware and lucid, they turned their attention to him instead.
A half-familiar spirit coalesced and guided him by the hand until they sat on a bench in Skyhold's gardens. The plants, trees, and the newest of improvements wavered as if viewed through water — the Fade hadn't imitated them convincingly yet. It lay, instead, like a thin sheet of paper over the waking world, its form mirroring and cloaking the physical beneath.
"I miss it," he found himself saying in elvish.
The spirit reached an arm around his shoulders. A wave of empathy washed over him. Compassion.
"You hurt," it replied in the same tongue. "I can help."
"I am not sure that you can."
It inclined what existed of its blurry head. As time passed, as he looked at it, it began to take shape. Soft hair, green eyes, curved mouth. In a moment the air around it cleared, as if a great breath had blown away a cover of mist. The spirit took the shape of Wisdom as it appeared in the Fade — an elven woman, with kind eyes and a wry smile.
"You are not my friend."
"But I can heal with my familiar presence. I remember your friend. It was here once — it came ahead of you to this place, where the Fade lies over your home. It wanted it to be ready for you."
Hot tears pricked at his eyes until he closed them. He leaned his face in his hands.
"I failed Wisdom. It was truly the only one I could lean on and be myself with. The only one who understood."
"Oh, Pride," Compassion said, its hand rubbing soothing circles on his back. "You know better than that."
"Do I?"
The Fade shifted. They sat now in the great hall, empty except for the crackling fires on the hearths and the soft whispering of banners against stone. The ground shimmered like a mirror, firm beneath their feet, and shadowed forms danced beneath the surface, as if they were fish beneath the frozen surface of a lake.
"Wisdom's realm is not the space on this side of Skyhold," Compassion said, "but it did keep its pocket of the Fade nearby. Wisdom came here often, preparing, reinforcing, until the mortal side was steeped with what you'd left behind."
He looked around. The walls were nearly new, the cut of the stone clean and angular, not worn down by time. The fireplaces were not yet stained with smoke and soot, the roof was whole, the tables of fine elven make. The banners were green instead of the black and gold of the Inquisition, each marked with a familiar symbol.
It wasn't until his eyes found the throne that he fully realized what Compassion was showing him.
The banner above the seat was massive, flowing, embroidered with the skill of many hands. Six red eyes glowed from the central seal, composed from something akin to rubies. The throne beneath it was humble in comparison, and on closer inspection looked to be carved from stone. It took the form of a kneeling demon, its hands and arms forming a seat.
"You told the Herald that Pride is simply the corruption of Wisdom," Compassion said. "Were you thinking of yourself when you told her that?"
Solas stood, and the room folded upon them like paper. A twitch of his finger brought the world back, this time with his feet at the foot of the throne. Compassion stood beside him.
"It doesn't matter what I thought."
"And yet it does. What you tell her reflects your innermost thoughts. You so desperately want to tell her the truth. You're making her your new Wisdom."
He brought his hand slashing down in a silencing gesture. "Enough."
Compassion shrugged, its mouth forming a mockery of Wisdom's smile. "As you like. You hurt, and I hurt you again so that you may heal."
"That's simply unkind."
The spirit's voice sounded far away. "Which is more unkind? To tell you comforting things that do nothing but ease your way through deception? Or to burn the infection away until only honesty remains?"
Evelyn drifted awake.
Her room was dim, and the fire had fallen low on the grate. It was warm beneath the blankets, and the air beyond nipped at her exposed nose and cheeks. She felt strange — rested, content, but oddly… bruised, stretched in ways she wasn't used to. She shifted, and she realized her thighs were tacky.
It came rushing back; Solas, his touch, his kisses, his fear and his hope and the connection he forged at the end that brought them together like one, feeling what the other felt, knowing what the other knew. She turned over the gifts he'd given her in her mind — "ar lath ma," a glowing, hot tightness in the chest, a consuming desire to hold, to protect, to never let go, a barren, starving wasteland of time, stretching back, back, back into mindless horror, then coming forward in time to end, finally, in her kiss.
He'd given her what it felt to be loved. She understood now why he shook when she touched him, why he was both starved for and averse to physical contact, why he felt on the verge of tears when she kissed him. It had been so long, and elves cannot survive without another's touch.
She thought of how difficult it had been in these mere months — nearly now a year — since she'd slept in an aravel with her clan. It had been torturous to sleep in this stone room, in an empty human-made bed, without the sounds and sensations of company, of family. And what Solas had shown her? A dearth of years? It felt like millennia of loneliness, and she still ached from the memory of it.
Evelyn turned, then, searching for him. At first her outreached hand found only warm emptiness — the dent where his body had been — but the incline of the bed was evidence that something, someone was still there. Her bleary eyes found him then, sitting on the edge, his bare back to her as he held his head in his hands.
She didn't speak. Instead she half-rose and slid beneath the blankets until she was on what she now considered his side of the bed, then leaned her forehead between his shoulder blades and breathed in the scent of him. He pressed back against her with a sigh.
Her hand danced along his side, and he reached down to take it in his large, warm one. "On dhea, vhenan."
She kissed his freckled skin. "Mmm. Do you want to talk about it?"
He chuckled humorlessly. "Not particularly."
"That's okay."
He pressed back against her again in gratitude. Their silence now was much like it was before, when most of their time together was spent on the road or in the rotunda — companionable, understanding, intimate. The knowledge crossed between them that they accepted each other's lack of words, and welcomed the chance to be together in whatever capacity the other wished.
Finally, it was Solas who spoke first, breaking the silence with a shuddering sigh. "Thank you, vhenan. I… dreamed in ways for which I wasn't prepared, and it shook me. Your company alone is the best of comforts."
She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. He turned then, inviting her with gentle movements to lay back again against the pillows, and slid back under the blankets beside her. His face was creased and furrowed with too many thoughts for that early in the morning. She cupped his cheek, her heart melting when he pressed into it and closed his eyes with a sigh.
"I know there's a lot you'd rather keep to yourself," she whispered. "There's probably even more than that that you can't tell anyone at all, either because you've sworn not to or don't think anyone will understand. But I'm here, if you ever want to share any of it."
His eyes blinked back open, fixing hers with a gaze that said so much and not enough. He seemed caught on the edge of confession — a battle waged behind the nakedness of his visage, before he managed to raise his mask for the day.
For a moment, she thought he wouldn't mask at all. But then, inevitably, there it was, paired with a soft smile and a few extra lines between his brows and at the corners of his eyes.
She cut him off before he inevitably said something cryptic. "It's okay, honestly, Solas. You're the most private person I've ever met, and it'll take a long time for you to trust someone enough to open up, if you ever do at all. I just wanted to set the groundwork for… something, anything. And I wanted to let you know that based on your actions and your priorities, I can't find fault with you. Except, well —" she laughed — "maybe just ease off the high horse a little."
He met her laugh with a dry chuckle of his own, but the curious expression didn't leave his face. The mask cracked, just a little. Then, as if splitting a dam, the words came.
"You've plunged into this Inquisition with both feet, no resentment, no preparation, no anything. Your actions could shape the entirety of the next world, and I wish to be here with you until you've brought it to its glorious end. But…"
His brow twisted, and he gnawed the inside of his lip. But, finally, he continued. "But what if, in the years ahead, you wake up one day and everything you've done to save this world has instead made it worse?"
She pondered this, wondering about the relevance of the question. It felt as if there was more to it than baseless, theoretical speculation. But, instead of answering a question with a question, she told the truth.
"I would go back to work. I'd keep at it until things went right."
He pressed his cheek into her hand again, eyes intense. "That's… comforting. It is one of my worst fears, Evelyn, to do my best and still harm the ones I love."
"Is that why you came out of your… loneliness?"
He looked askance at her, then realization dawned. "Like the feeling I gave you last night? You felt the emptiness."
"Yes. It yawned and ate at me. I don't understand how you could stand it."
"I did not know I was, until you surprised me with a kiss inside the Fade. It was like the first bite of something delicious after I spent so long hungry — after a long while without, the hunger stops hurting. But once I tasted… I could not get enough."
She let them stay that way, eyes locked, her hand at his cheek, until she took a deep breath and dragged her fingers down, down, until she could trace the curve of his lower lip. He watched her, curious, as she studied his mouth, followed the lines on either side with her fingertip, and finished at the cleft in his chin. She felt as if she were mapping something both familiar and new — skin she'd studied, kissed, but only ever in the context of taking, of enjoying. She touched it now as she would a piece of art she wanted to understand, as if she could pluck meaning from his very pores.
There it was again in his eyes — a strange yearning, confusion, compulsion, like he was on the verge of confessing a deep, dark secret. But when his lips parted under her hand, he only sighed, then kissed her knuckles.
"Soon we travel to Adamant," he whispered. A faint touch of fear colored his voice. "Are we ready?"
"No," she replied. "But as ready as we'll ever be. Are you still willing to come with me?"
His reply was more forceful than she expected. "Vhenan I cannot bear to stay behind, not when you face such danger. I will be at your side."
She nodded. "And Blackwall."
"And Blackwall."
"And Varric."
"Of course Varric. Hawke would have no one else."
She nodded again and took a steadying breath. "I'm afraid."
His brows furrowed in sympathy, then he leaned forward and kissed her. He pulled away too soon.
"Remember what you told me," he said, voice rough and intense. "That's how you know you should plunge in headfirst. Let's be scared and jump together."
"I did say that, didn't I?"
He smiled, wide and earnest. "Yes, you did. Now," he grunted and rose in a flurry of limbs and blankets, "my lady Inquisitor, it's time to prepare."
She wrinkled her nose at him and followed, naked as the day she was born, and let him pull her into another embrace.
Solas: "pride"
Vhenan: "my heart"
Ma'lath: "my love"
Ar lath ma: "I love you."
On dhea: "good morning"
Uthenera: "immortal," a prolonged slumber used by ancient elves, practiced when the elder ones tired of life and chose to wander the Fade instead. Solas unintentionally fell into uthenera when he created the Veil, and slept until only a year before the events of DA:I