The dusk slipped at last into night, the larger and more vocal insects of the basin coming to life and beginning their strange songs. The small fire he built burned low in the rear of the cave, providing just enough light for the outline of her features to be visible. He lay beside her in the dark, supported on his side by one elbow. In the distance, the otherworldly chanting of the Hakkonites floated through the thick underbrush. They would not dare wander this close to their camp, maintaining just enough distance to unnerve the guards in the trees. They rested here on his cloak, pulled hastily from his shoulders to provide some protection from the hard stone beneath them, breathlessly grasping as if it were their last night together. How often he worried each of their nights might be.

It was a moment stolen as so many of their moments on the road together were, a retreat from the noise and inquisitive stares of the camp. Although he had become a restless wanderer in the time before Evelyn Trevelyan, he now found he preferred the thick walls of Skyhold, with their piled beds and thick pillows, blankets. When things were quiet, they could lose themselves for days in such luxury, pulled away only for the primal need of food and the constant demands for her input on various matters of state.

With a single finger, he traced a line from the hollow of her throat to her shoulder, feeling more than seeing her shift toward him. "Do you worry? That you will be forgotten?"

"I worry more for you. I couldn't bear for you to wither away, were I... were I to fall before you."

Solas sighed, settling onto his back. "I do not think that Ameridan's end is prophecy. You walk a different path, no matter how many similarities we might find in your histories."

The words hung unspoken, the reasons he could list why her end would most decidedly come after his own. Instead, he kept to the simple, to the obvious. "Even in the unlikely event that I outlive you, I will remember." He turned his head toward her again, "I remember events, places, people, from lives that are not my own. You can rest easy that I will carry the memory of you, of your deeds, and of us to my grave, whenever I might find it. My memory is long, ma'salath, and it is clear."

He felt the words threaten again, desperate in his mouth to bring her in, make her complicit in his plans. He often dreamed of this, when they lie together in their athlean. He dreamed of impossible things, things that could never be. Of making her a general in his own great army, of ruling with her side-by-side, equal and well-matched. In his dreams she was the one to usher in the next chapter, to honor his memory by instilling his vision once again, in his absence. In his memory. Impossible, dangerous dreams, these. Then, words from her that fell like daggers.

"And what if that memory of me were to be... ruined?"

"Ruined? What is ruining this?"

Evelyn sat up, shrugging herself into her undervest. She pulled her hair out of the collar and slumped forward, arms dangling over her bent legs. "I suppose if we're destined to be eaten by an ancient god sometime tomorrow evening, there's no reason to be coy."

"I was not aware you were capable of being coy."

Her lips pursed and she narrowed her eyes. "I'm trying to be serious."

Solas pushed himself up into a sitting position. "I apologize. Please, go on."

"My father came to Skyhold."

"Did he? I must have missed that."

Another withering look shot his way.

"... sorry. He came to Skyhold. Was there a reason?"

Evelyn made a strange self-conscious shrug, then clasped her hands together, hugging her knees to her chest. "He thinks it's time that I make some... adult decisions."

"Of course, leading one of the strongest forces in Thedas against an immortal Tevinter magister is clearly child's play." Solas rose to his feet and began to pull his trousers on. "I wish you had told me this earlier. I can understand why you have been so quiet and reserved. Insulting for him to step in and decide that the decisions you are making, the changes you are bringing about are not serious, not adult enough." He shook his head with irritation.

"He wants me to get married, Solas."

Solas paused briefly in retying the threads at his waist, then resumed. "And I take it this is not your way of proposing."

"There was much talk, much forceful talk of finding an appropriate match."

"Yes, of course. I realize I am not on your father's short list." He pulled his tunic over his head.

"He has someone in mind already."

Solas stood quietly, arms hanging loosely at his sides, suddenly unable to look at her. He frowned at his bare feet. "I see."

"I told him no, Solas. I told him that I wasn't ready for something of that nature."

"Do you think he accepted your refusal?"

Evelyn was quiet. He heard her stand, footsteps soft across the cave floor. Her arms snaked around his abdomen from behind, her forehead resting between his shoulder blades. His eyes snapped shut, pain familiar and long-forgotten spreading across his chest. "I love only you, you know this."

He placed a hand on top of hers. "Foolish girl, what has love ever had to do with marriage?"

They stood like that for awhile while he felt the warm damp spread of tears on his back. "What do I do?" she said in a quavering voice. "I need you to tell me what to do."

Solas turned to face her, his hand moving to her chin to turn her face upward. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" she laughed incredulously, sniffing back her tears.

"We take it as it comes. We worry about it another time. There are dragons to fight, nations to bring under your sway. How does something as silly as a betrothal compare?"

"You're telling me not to think about it? When it's all I can think about?"

"I am telling you there are far more important things that need to occupy your thoughts. Damn your father for failing to appreciate that."

She nodded, tipping forward to bury her face in his chest. There was a time he feared that loving her would mean watching her wither and die as he lived on, before he knew how close, how easily realized his ultimate goal truly was. Now the end was imminent, clicking ever closer with each advancement in her journey, each increase in her strength and power. Soon this would come to its messy end, and he was in no way prepared for it.

This was by no means his first love. He had his prior affairs, as any hotblooded young man with too much to prove and endless time would. Each were fleeting things, over before they could properly begin. Any woman he had focused his sights on for anything more than a meaningless tryst had never taken him truly seriously. It wasn't until after Fen'Harel that anyone had considered him anything more; and by then it was far too late for flowers and romance, promises of "forever." In Evelyn Trevelyan he had found something he had often sought without realizing, something he had not quite known he wanted: the possibility of a future. How strange that it came now, when he no longer had one.

She had composed herself, put her brave leader face back on, and was now gathering her things from the ground. "Once we've woken it, tomorrow... do you have suggestions for how we should approach taking it down?"

Solas pushed the feelings down into a dark corner of his belly. "Don't die?" he suggested lightly, smile spreading slowly as she shoved him. "You act as if I am some sort of expert in the destruction of old gods, vhen'an. " He stooped to pick his cloak off the ground, eyebrows knotting as he considered their options. "I would suggest going ranged. Fire and lightning offense. And probably the Bull, as he would rage-quit the Inquisition if you didn't bring him along."

He extended his arm, fingers encircling her wrist. "It is no different than any other foe. We will discover its weaknesses, develop a strategy. Together."

"Together," she breathed, relaxing the tension in her shoulders.

He smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile. For now.