I have three short chapters in a row here that all go together, so my intention is just to post one each day for the next three days so you won't have to wait long and also won't get overwhelmed.

Deep into the Fade

Cassandra wasn't forced to send scouts for us - or so I was told, anyway. I was profoundly asleep by the time we arrived back at camp, and barely even remembered Solas accepting Bull's help to pull me from Sylalhan's back and take me back to our tent. I slept the rest of the afternoon, and all night, as well.

Solas found me in the Fade sometime during the night. I had, as expected, seen very little of him during the two days we spent away from everyone else. He still looked shadowed, even here, but I had insisted he begin waking to eat at regular intervals on the second day, and it seemed to have helped his appearance somewhat. Whatever I had been dreaming faded away into vagueness the moment he entered the scene, as I snapped into full consciousness.

"I - this is a surprise," I told him.

"I missed you," he told me simply, but then his mouth twisted wryly. "As pleasant as it may be to ride your hart with your body pressed against me, the conversation was somewhat lacking."

"Ir abelas - I know you probably didn't relish being alone with your thoughts," I interpreted.

"No," he agreed softly. "It…was almost a relief to return to camp, which I had not expected. I thought the expressions of regret - and the lack of true understanding - would weigh on me. The expressions are, however, heartfelt, and not snide or smug, as I now realize I feared." His laugh was quiet - both surprised and self-deprecating. "Even those who least agree with me about the spirits' natures seem sincerely grieved by Wisdom's loss. Cassandra and Scout Harding even raised a monument at the place where she died. They mean for us to detour to see it before we go north to the camp near the bridge."

I blinked quickly to clear the sudden rush tears of from my eyes. "Yes, that does sound like something they would do. You should probably expect a good bottle of wine waiting for you soon after we return to Skyhold - I think Dorian used up the supply he brought with him toasting Felix."

"Felix Alexius?" Solas asked. "Did something happen to him?"

Of course Dorian hadn't said anything to anyone else. "The Blight caught up with him."

"Tragic," Solas murmured. "He was, from everything I observed, a fine man."

"I should have Josephine plan some sort of service - not specifically Andrastian - to honor the fallen when we return to Skyhold," I mused.

"Your forces would likely appreciate it," he agreed.

"I'll make certain Felix and Wisdom are both on the list," I told him. And Hawke, I thought sadly, but didn't say it. Hawke had fallen at Adamant, just like most of the soldiers we would be honoring - of course she would be on the list.

Solas held his hand out to me, and drew me into his arms when I took it. "I missed you, arasasha," he repeated, pressing a kiss to my brow. "Would you…allow me to show you something?"

I didn't understand the hesitation in his voice. When had I ever protested him showing me things in the Fade? "Of course," I replied.

"Come with me," he said quietly, releasing me and wrapping my hand in his long fingers.

I followed him from whatever shadows remained of my dream and into the raw Fade. His eyes narrowed briefly, and all at once a forest path stretched before us, sun-dappled where we stood, but leading into much darker depths. It wasn't frightening - the darkness before us merely seemed…solemn, as though it were the entrance to an ancient and venerable building, heavy with the weight of history and meaning. "I think this will be easiest for you to navigate," Solas said. "How deep into the Fade have you already ventured?"

"I…hardly know how to answer that," I told him. "I have no way of measuring such things. There have been times when the air around me began to feel weighty, and then I feared to go any further alone, but you drew me to similar places when I was young, and the weight seemed…" I shook my head, at a loss for words. "It wasn't welcoming, but it wasn't hostile, either - it was watchful, perhaps. And with you, I always knew that whatever watched would bend to your will, and that I was safe."

He smiled down at me. "They are good observations, and of use, vhenan. Now I must guide you into depths where the 'air' of the Fade will press upon you much like water, and I would not recommend you visit such realms unaided. The most ancient spirits and demons dwell there, and you'd be at risk without a knowledgeable guide."

"I understand," I agreed, and we set off down the path together.

It remained a forest path for quite a long time, though the trees shifted from maple, cottonwood, alder and birch, to oak and beech, and then from deciduous to evergreen - pine and spruce, then red cedar, and then the dense, green-black foliage of hemlock, fir, and cypress closed in around us and over our heads. The air, as Solas had warned, seemed to become steadily thicker, but rather than making it hard to breathe or hampering my ability to move, I instead felt buoyed up, as though I might float away at any moment.

He must have caught me trying to dispel the slight sense of vertigo I felt with a shake of my head, because he slid his hand up my arm and around my shoulders. I felt steadier, then, as though attached to an anchor. "You're having trouble staying focused," he observed. "I will lose you to unconsciousness if I try to take you much farther - but our destination lies just ahead."

I looked around again and realized we had left the forest behind entirely. What I had taken for trees in my unobservant state were actually pillars made in the image of trees. Their stone branches stretched toward the sky, intertwining into delicate lace so many layers thick that it made a kind of naturalistic cathedral ceiling, giving the impression of the outdoors while still providing shelter. Even as I watched, the perforations grew smaller with every step, until we were walking beneath a series of rib-vaulted arches, very characteristic of ancient Elvhen architecture, though these seemed to be clad in pale marble, with fastenings and inlays of some metal whose hue I couldn't quite identify.

Hues were problematic because, though the light had grown, it shone an eerie blue-green that washed everything in its own color. It rose from the floor, which I now perceived was carpeted in thick moss. Golden wisps danced here and there, sometimes briefly offering hints of what the true colors before us might be, but their small lights weren't enough to overcome that of the moss.

When I looked up from my feet again, I saw that the wisps were - slowly - dancing toward a space in the center of the hall where we had found ourselves. That point, at least, was illuminated with their golden light. The broken and burned stump of a tree that might once have been silver was there, and the gathering wisps circled it in a slow pavane, their movements somehow expressing regret and sadness.

"I suppose the remains of the tree represents Wisdom," I said quietly as we neared. The atmosphere was so solemn and reverent that I feared the sound of my voice might disturb it. "Where are we?"

"This is the place where Wisdom was born, and where she made her home," he replied. "It was once a place of joy, but it has fallen largely into silence since her passing. Still," he added, "you see how the wisps gather, eager to remember her. In time, something new may rise here."

"She said spirits must be…" I spent a moment deciding on a translation, "reborn."

"Yes, but they do not arise as who they were in their past lives," Solas hastened to tell me. "The energies of the Fade do not transmit memories that way. Whatever is born here, however worthy, won't remember me. It will not be the friend I knew."

"No," I sighed, "I didn't expect that would be the case."

"I wanted you to see it before it faded any further," Solas told me. "I wanted to share with you the stirring potential, too. Though my friend is gone, her memory may yet shape a new spirit - and that is a worthy legacy, even if it does little to comfort me in my grief."

I turned toward him and wrapped my arms around his waist. We stayed that way until the weight of the deep Fade eroded my focus and forced me into true unconsciousness.

Arasasha: Can mean "my only joy" or "my everything"