In a previous series featuring an Adaar/Rutherford pairing, I gave a non-canon background to the Skyhold surgeon (Anderfels origin) and hinted at the development of a frenemy to something else entirely developing between Solas and the surgeon, to the degree that she is devastated when he disappears and is haunted in her dreams after his betrayal of the Inquisition. This picks up after joining Adaar and Rutherford on their farm, now a retreat for Templar veterans, and works as one of the resident healers. With that "previously in my imagination" taken care of, fair warning, I'm also incorporating the idea of lucid dreaming into the mix and taking liberties with certain spirits. Now on with the show!
Serilda would be hard-pressed to say when everything had changed between them, even with a knife to her throat. She certainly had expected nothing to develop, and not just because he was an elf and she a human. As a healer and being from the wilds of the Anderfels, there wasn't much use in assuming superiority of one race over another. They were all in need of healing at some point or another and were all quite capable of bleeding to death. In fact, one feature of working with the Inquisition that she'd appreciated the most was being able to meet and work as colleagues with individuals from all walks of life, from nearly all regions of Thedas, and from all known races. It had been humbling, enriching, and fascinating. So, it wasn't the difference in background or culture that made it seem unlikely they would ever give notice to one another aside from mere recognition of another living being.
When they did finally have occasion to trade more than mere greetings or polite missives in passing, that he had found her non-magical methods of healing to be near barbaric, and she'd found his excessive reliance on magic alone for nearly everything to be more of a hindrance than a help, had made the other stand out in Skyhold. From that point forward, he'd been marked as a target for her, and she for him, as someone to challenge, someone to debate with, someone to be as iron sharpening iron—and back home, those were always the most sought-after friendships cum rivalries. Serilda did still feel some satisfaction in that he'd never been able to give her a convincing answer of what the hell he'd do if there ever came a time when his magic was gone. But then neither had she ever been able to convince him of how her methods of healing were, in fact, far more natural than his magic, and that in a fashion made her far closer to how things should be than he. And there was beauty in that, a beauty that she'd appreciated and now missed dearly.
From the moment she'd met him, Serilda had wanted to do something physical to him, at first violence and then, much later, something else entirely. From the look of superiority he flashed to basically everyone in the Inquisition, to his cynical comments that oft led to backhanded compliments, Serilda had known at the first meeting that this elf would leave a mark on her life. Of course, at first, she'd expected the mark to be one of annoyance and a desire to prove the apostate wrong at every turn. And that had been true and still was true. Her desire to wipe the smirk off his face with a well-aimed surgical hammer or feel for herself the satisfying crunch of bone on bone as she smashed her fist into his face after yet another one of his barbed insults only gradually waned as their rivalry and spirited debates continued and increased in frequency and soon occurred over meals. Eventually, the self-told bedtime stories that lulled her to sleep featured less physical maimings of a certain impish elf and instead showcased almost affection passing between them—this, of course, only being pictured in the last moments before Serilda fell entirely into the land of dreams.
Serilda supposed it had been her puckish move that had begun the additional switch from rivals to friends. That book she'd given him in jest—not knowing the apostate was familiar enough with Anderfel culture to understand her people intentionally chose one person to gift to on Wintersend—had not only taken him by surprise but began a flurry of exchanges between them. He drew upon his extensive network of resources to find increasingly strange and overlooked tomes and artifacts that supported his perspective on health and healing. In contrast, Serilda had to rely on the good graces of the Inquisitor or her friendship with Ambassador Montilyet to procure similar items, but that spoke in support of the opposite perspective.
Even when out in the field with the Inquisitor, this did not stop the dastardly elf from sending her items with notes—of course, written with impeccable loops and swirls by a steady hand. It had been a rare occasion that Serilda had returned the favor, finding out where the Inquisitor would be stationed next and sending along her own "gift" for the elf with a hastily scrawled note, written by a determined hand that didn't have the time to waste on elongating a bloody loop. These notes also took on a life of their own as the days drew on, eventually traveling between them, even unaccompanied by the irksome—or surprisingly considerate—items they found for one another. For it had been by that time that their "war" shifted to include items that made them think of one another, granted at first only of how wrong the other was in their perspective on things, but that too also morphed to include less "aggressive" items that merely served as a memento or that would be something of assumed interest by the other when studied. Even after all the pain he'd caused them in the end, Serilda had kept every item and note he'd ever given her. Locked away in a trunk she had tucked under her bed at the farm.
Serilda was still fuzzy on the details, having had to rely on the accounts of eyewitnesses of the likes of Sera and Ironbull, but what she could remember of THAT night still brought a buzz of frustration to her mind. She'd rarely been one for the cups, at least not for deep cups, and yet that night, she'd fallen in with Rainier and Montilyet. Serilda couldn't even remember now why she'd drunk as much as she did, though she knew the Antivan ambassador had very much had a hand in the copious amounts. Regardless, at some point in the night, Serilda had apparently gotten it into her head to confront the devious elf on some matter or another and had marched into his room as drunken as a prepubescent child at their first festival back home in the Anderfels.
Serilda didn't know if what she remembered were facts, dreams, horrors even, but Serilda felt for certain in her verbal assault she'd either kissed him or tried to kiss him to prove an argument and, well, according to Sera and Ironbull, Serilda spent the entire night in his room, and he did as well. This was where Serilda felt they were in jest since when she woke the next morning, feeling as if Wardens had dragged her mouth across the Hissing Wastes and led darkspawn to drum in her brain, she'd been alone. Yes, in his room, but alone and with no evidence that that had ever been previously altered. Worse yet, when she did finally see him face-to-face, nearly two days later, when he returned from some personal errand, he acted as if nothing had happened and made Serilda feel she'd imagined the whole ordeal.
But Serilda knew it had not been her imagination or the result of excessive alcohol that led them to share a tender moment in his room days after the "did we kiss" fiasco. With several dignitaries visiting from various kingdoms, a recent victory over Corypheus' efforts, and resources flush from Montilyet's well-connected network, a festival was hosted at Skyhold. She'd only gone to his room to drop off a book Harding had found in the Frostback Basin, more scraps of a book than a complete tome, hoping that he'd be elsewhere for the festival and could come back to find her gift. He'd been in his room, however, and she'd been forced to give him the book in person. It had been a thoughtful gift instead of an aggressive one, and he rewarded her more sincere efforts with an invitation to share a glass of wine. Then they'd sat and talked of things they loved or appreciated about the world, the Fade, and life itself, while music began playing from the adjacent main hall. Serilda had been commenting on how the style of dancing that accompanied this genre of music didn't exist in the Anderfels when he'd invited to teach her how to dance to it. She'd balked at first, half expecting his invitation to be a jest or another opportunity to tease her for her "barbarity," but he'd spoken in truth.
The first dance had been full of twirls and bends and required her to move with a lightness of step that no dance in the Anderfels required; so horrid had been her attempt, it had surprised Serilda he'd invited to teach her another when the music eventually shifted into a new song. The second dance had also been lively, though with a slow, repeating twisting lift that had Serilda astonished, one because he had the strength to lift her to his full arm's length extension—she was marginally taller than him and much denser than his lithe form—and two for the fact that he seemed to enjoy teaching her the dance. The third and final dance had been slow, almost like one of those Orlesian waltzes the Nightingale and Montilyet taught the Inquisitor months before when they'd gone to the Winter Palace. It required he hold her hand with his other hand on her lower back, their bodies close and nearly touching, as he led her through a series of swaying turns that wove around the entirety of his room.
Throughout the dances previously, he'd regaled her with their history, the memories he'd encountered in the Fade that had featured these dances and had given her pointers how to improve her technique should she seek to dance them again. But on the third dance, he'd been silent, a content expression upon his face. By the end, something had again moved in the companionable fetters between them, and it had been he to lean forward and press a soft kiss to her cheek, again thanking her for the gift, and now the dances. They'd lingered together a few soft moments more, and with a gentle hand squeeze, she'd taken her leave of him.
The final fight with Corypheus had been mere weeks later, and he disappeared immediately after. With no explanation to any of them on the whys of his actions, his abrupt disappearance left Serilda wondering if anything at all had passed between them or if it had all been fanciful dreaming on her part. He'd said nothing in particular that would lead her to believe he felt more for her than friendship, and aside from the kiss and the growing affection between them in the last days, he'd done nothing either. So, the affront against her heart when it came to light, two years later, he'd been using them all to right a wrong he'd committed centuries before was not merely a crush from a failed potential romance—even if the affair had only ever been in her own head. It was the devastation of a friendship she'd held such value for, and it was the insult that in the time he'd been gone, she'd lost so many hours of sleep and waking moments worrying about his safety only to find out he'd been the nefarious puppet master behind all the recent chaos.
Serilda stretched her arms over her head as she opened her eyes. The place was empty still, but that didn't surprise Serilda. She liked the quiet, the solitude, and found the calm and self-controlled atmosphere a much welcome mental salve. Though she found purpose and worth in her work with Ataashi and Cullen, the near-daily reminders of the past often rubbed at the edges of her heart. Especially as she watched the love deepen and grow between the former Inquisitor and her Commander, their mutual desire to be a source of healing for their former comrade-at-arms a further reminder of how much she'd never had in common with HIM. This bade her enter this place nearly every evening to ready herself for another day. She was not jealous of the Inquisitor or the Commander, she envied their joy, but did not begrudge their happiness in the slightest. She was content to be a part of their mission to improve the lives of so many even after the end of the Inquisition. Only, she needed a place to come to continue her own personal healing, as she'd never shared her true thoughts and feelings regarding him to a living soul and didn't plan on it either.
While at first, it had been without definite form, now, after nearly a year of the Inquisition's disbandment, her retreat had grown in detail. Evocative of her surgery at Skyhold, a long stone house stood in the middle of a wooded glade while a spherical pool surrounded by elven murals with a fire burning from its center sat adjacent. Serilda knew this pool was reminiscent of HIM, and while its first appearance had pained her, over time, she'd grown to appreciate its beauty and the fact that her mind could recall such details as to even make the murals as accurate as they were.
Serilda had created this place as a retreat from the nightmares that haunted the early days after his disappearance. Memories, misshapen by her feelings of betrayal and anger, had taken hold of her every night and left her drenched in sweat and feeling exhausted the next day. If not memories, then images of wolves, giant, with a half dozen eyes, stalking her, and devouring her friends, controlled her dreams. Not wanting to suffer the rest of her days as a victim of restless nights, Serilda had retreated into the teachings of her grandmother for aid. She supposed, had he known of her people's ability to control dreaming states, Solas would've been impressed. But the bastard had never taken the time to know, to truly know, far too content with condescension and prideful assumptions of elven superiority when it came to dream walking. But then again, she too had allowed her own pride and disdain to cloud her ability to truly know him as well, and how things had ended proved testimony to that fact.
Serilda walked through the longhouse's stone wall, always delighted at the ability to do such things in her dream but stopped in surprise when another figure approached from the opposite end.
"Hello."
Serilda's eyes widened, "…hello?" The figure came closer, and with each step he took, she felt her heart race all that much faster. "After all this time, all you have to say to me is, 'hello?'"
"That is the usual greeting between friends, is it not?" His familiar voice both grated and soothed her nerves.
"This is MY dream, Solas. I get to choose who comes into my dreamscape and greet me. I never invited you." To keep herself from punching him, Serilda turned on her heel and walked back out to the glade. She didn't need to look over her shoulder to know he followed. "And can we still be classified as 'friends' after the stunt you pulled? Ataashi tells me you plan on destroying all Thedas, and all peoples in it, to bring back your elven kingdom. Not sure that destructive desire constitutes friendship between us since I'd be on the 'destroyed' side of the coin if you have your way."
Serilda's eyes strayed to the elven pool at the same time she knew he noticed it as well, and she groaned.
"It seems that whether you intended it or not, you have invited me here." He walked past her to stoop and dip his fingers into the pool, his eyes taking in the details of the murals. "Tell me, Serilda," oh, it pissed her off how nice it sounded to hear her name rolling off his tongue again, "what would you not do to save the world you love?" Solas turned and sat on the pool's stone edge, one hand lazily drawing circles in the water's surface while he braced his weight on the other.
Serilda crossed her arms over her chest, "I would not destroy multiple civilizations, peoples, and cultures. A few dozen, maybe hundreds, perhaps in a pinch a few thousand, IF in the destroying it ensured peace and prosperity to my people AND the neighboring peoples, but never an entire continent. I do not believe my people, my culture, to be so far superior that it should exist while all others are trampled into vague memory." Her eyes narrowed as she continued to study her elven companion, "That is where we are very different, Solas. I believe some lines should never be crossed, whereas you believe yourself to be so far above everyone and everything that you get to mandate whether lines are drawn at all, let alone if they are crossable."
"Perhaps." He looked back to the water's surface. "And yet, despite your own sense of superior morality to my ideals and the actions I'm willing to take for them, you have created this space," he lifted his hand, droplets falling from his fingers, to point towards the murals that were exact duplicates to the ones he'd painted in Skyhold, "with these details. Why is that? Why would you invite someone so amorally deplorable in your eyes into your dreamscape?"
He sounded genuinely curious, and it was her first clue that perhaps this wasn't Solas at all. To have him unaffectedly voice curiosity without a hint of disdain or threat of challenge put Serilda on guard. She had been listening when Solas explained to her what dreams really were and how mages, or certain skilled individuals, could walk the Fade with controlled efforts, encountering spirits or demons as a result of their emotional state and mind. She'd met those demons in the early days after his disappearance, hence why she'd built this place and kept it so well guarded, finding solace in the solitude. But somehow, it seemed, a spirit had ventured here, latched onto her thoughts and feelings, and projected for her something it believed she wished to see. At least, that was her quickly forming hypothesis of the situation.
"Are you a spirit?"
"Solas" smiled, "Does that matter?"
Shrugging and throwing caution to the wind, Serilda stepped forward and pushed. "Solas" fell into the pool with a satisfying yelp, sending splashes of water in every direction, drenching the front of her clothes, and spraying her face. When he finally came up, his skin glistening and his eyes wide, Serilda let out a bark of laughter.
"I suppose it doesn't if I get to do that." She doubled over as her laughter continued. He looked like a drowned kitten, and the sight of it did wonders to her soul. "Solas" looked at her in confusion for a few moments more before he too filled the glade with the sound of his laughter.
And that was how it began, these visits between Serilda and "Solas." Even as they continued to meet every night, he never confessed to being a spirit, though Serilda knew the truth. She didn't know what kind of spirit, but whichever type, she found the pain of the real Solas' betrayal and absence wane as the visits continued. As she was able to vent her anger and have him patiently listen, scream out her confusion and have him comfort her, and occasionally douse him in the pool or be soaked in return, Serilda found the cracks in her heart fill as hope for a better tomorrow returned to the marrow of her bones.
Little did she know that with each visit to this place, and with the hours she spent in control of this corner of the Fade, she drew the curiosity of a certain elven acquaintance. Known by many names, he had by now grown accustomed to one over all the others: Fen'Harel.