A few tags before we begin: Inquisition retelling, canon-divergent AU, main character with a disability, bonded Solas/Lavellan, Lavellan POV with occasional (mostly short) Solas POV chapters.

I would like to say "this will update weekly" or something sensible along those lines, but I am bad at schedules. This will start off with five chapters because covering the prologue of the game is always a little dull, and then it will update weekly except when I am overly excited and cannot bear to wait. Good enough?

Also, this is labelled "in progress" because I have an outline (first time ever, can't believe I didn't do it sooner) and I am approaching the end of the main story, but there is still writing left to be done. Even after, there are a lot of little stories I want to tell to finish things off, and I feel like they're integral enough to a satisfying conclusion to warrant an "in progress" designation. They'll be from a bunch of different perspectives and POV characters because...it's a big world. I don't think any problems are getting permanently solved without a lot of work from a lot of people.

Explosive Start

My first memory was dreaming of him, and by that time, he was already a familiar presence.

How old was I? Impossible for me to say precisely. Young - I had yet to see a human or any elf from outside my clan. He looked like no adult I had ever seen, with his clear, unmarked face. He was smiling, in my dream - the patronizing smile of an adult to a child, though I was too young to put those words to his expression. He looked at me, smiling, offering...something, some fragment of the Fade. I touched it and it sang out, harmonizing in color as well as sound and...flavor?

I recounted the dream to Deshanna, my maela and Keeper, the next morning as we ate breakfast, and she had me tested.

I was a mage.

I suppose she would have been able to tell me when that dream occurred. I had been too young to care - too young, really, to be manifesting a talent for magic, and yet there it was. Maela told me that I was dreaming of a spirit, perhaps one that had chosen to guide me, but I already knew spirits, and he was very different from the rest of them. I didn't tell her that, of course - I didn't even think it, not for a long time. In my childhood, her word was the inviolable truth, and so in my mind he was merely a kind of spirit I hadn't otherwise encountered. It was only much, much later that I understood these were flashes of something else: old memories, visions of the future, brief moments of shared dreaming.

It wasn't until the failure of my vallaslin that I learned Maela could be wrong, but the rolling years in which I gained in insight and maturity and yet was denied the status of a full adult within the clan wore away all the faith I had placed in her as a child.

All? Perhaps not all. I still had faith in her love for me, smothering though it became.

That was why I didn't ask permission before leaving. I dreamed of the Conclave, and so I went. Then the explosion. The spirits all scattered, their terror evident even through the Veil. Spirits had guided me to the place where I camped, carefully leading me around obstacles in my path that on my own I could see only indistinctly or tap out slowly with my staff. I knew I would never make it to the temple without a spirit to guide me, and they were all running the other direction - but I had to try.

So I did.

I tripped halfway down the first slope, and after that - darkness.

Then: darkness of a different sort, fear, and a knife-blade of magic slicing through my palm, dragging me back from unconsciousness into a reality composed of shadows and more fear. Those first moments awake, when I didn't know if Leliana and Cassandra intended to kill me or not, were bad. I heard what I later learned were soldiers in the dark where I couldn't see them, and their breathing, the scrape of metal-on-metal as they shifted minutely, sent chills through me. Cassandra and Leliana were indistinct shapes full of threats and rage and grief, constantly moving before me, leaving me dizzy and ill.

Even so, bad as that waking was, it wasn't as bad as my first exposure to the Breach, which was much too far away for me to see it with my dim, near-useless eyes. I did see the light it cast and knew the light was wrong, but it was my view through the sundered Veil that told me precisely what had happened. "It is a rift into - " Cassandra began.

"The Fade," I finished for her. "More than a rift - a wholesale dissolution of its natural tides, twisting the force of them into - something else. Something...terrible." She was close enough, by then, that I could make out the suspicious look she gave me. "It must be closed, or it may swallow the world," I told her. "It may," I corrected myself, watching the Fade twist around it, "obliterate the world." I looked at the strange mark on my hand. "It is tied to this, somehow. Do you know how? Is it something I can control? Will it help?"

She suspected I was attempting to deceive her, but I knew later that the moment also inspired a cautious hope - hope that I was honest, hope that I might aid them without coercion, hope that I might help put words to what in the Void was happening. She even gave me a staff when it became clearer to her how limited my sight was, even though the only one available was a mage-staff. Then she took me to the nearest rift.

I imagine, based on my memories of the tight expression on Cassandra's face and the pallor of her skin, that it was a harrowing journey. It was a path through the mountains, but I was bad at judging distances, and so I didn't know precisely how many times I nearly fell into some abyss versus merely coming close to sliding down an inconvenient hillside. The former must have happened often enough to put to rest any doubt Cassandra might have had regarding the murkiness of my sight. We fought demons, and that was no trouble - they, at least, were clear to me, carrying as they did some of the Fade with them, flaring bright against Veil. These signs I could read with more ease than those made of light and shadow.

Cassandra remarked on it as we caught our breath standing on a frozen lake after a fight, and I explained as well as I could. "You can see through the Veil?" she asked in disbelief.

"No," I told her. "Or...not precisely. Think of the Fade as a kind of light, and the Veil as a heavy curtain that mostly keeps it from illuminating this world. I can see where the light spills through, or when...fragments of it are brought here, as by these demons. And I can see spirits as a kind of shadow-play against the Veil, the shadows clear enough that I know when they are about, sometimes clear enough to identify them, sometimes even clear enough that I can communicate with them. A little."

"I have never heard of such a thing," she said, giving me a hard look.

"Neither has anyone else, as far as I am aware. My - our Keeper - thought it might have had something to do with my birth," I explained. "My mother was killed by raiders two months before I should have been born. It took precious time for Maela - the - the Keeper - to free me, and all her skill as a mage to keep me alive. Something in that chain of events perhaps damaged my sight, and left room for a mage's senses to fill in the gaps."

"I'm sorry," Cassandra murmured, and it was only then that I realized the story might be considered tragic.

"Oh, well - I never knew my mother, and children are always treasured among the Dalish. None would ever want for anything the clan could give," I told her. "I was...particularly cherished, as the Keeper - I was her only daughter's first child, and I came into my magic early."

"And magic is also held in high esteem among the Dalish, as I understand it," Cassandra added, and I nodded my agreement. "Let us go on."

I followed close behind her, using my staff to feel for uneven places in the ground that I couldn't see.

It wasn't much longer until we reached the rift. I could feel it even before I could see it. The strange spell on my hand reacted to it, but I could already tell that it was...wedged open, and something would need to change before there was any hope of my affecting it.

As we crested the hill, pieces of the battle surrounding it came into view - more demons, fighting blurry streaks of movement I couldn't properly separate from the background terrain. There was another mage. I could taste his magic - though how I knew, then, that he was male wasn't a question that even entered my mind - and there was something familiar in it, though I didn't have time to question that, either. I lashed out with my own spells, trying to choose targets the other mage wasn't already engaging, though I could be no more strategic - not when I couldn't see any of Cassandra's soldiers arrayed against the demons.

Demons fell, and I felt the rift shifting with each loss, becoming more erratic and yet also easier to influence. As the last demon dissolved, its essence falling back into the energies of the Fade, I understood that this was the time - the rift was vulnerable. I raised my hand tentatively, feeling the energies of the rift respond - and then a voice called out: "Close it! Quickly, before more demons come!"

It was a voice I knew. I turned in shock as he approached me, his fingers closing on my wrist, his face near enough that I could see it with perfect clarity.

He was - the man from my dreams.

A shock of recognition and something else I couldn't name pierced me as his hand guided mine in a sharp gesture that threw the energies of the rift out of balance. The pulsating wound in the fabric of reality obligingly folded in on itself, fluid harmonies of the Veil rushing into the space it had left behind.

He released me instantly, inclining his head in a mild apology - perhaps because my eyes were wide and my cheeks were warm as though I were blushing. Creators, I hoped I wasn't blushing. "You - " I began.

"The credit is yours," he said quickly, issuing a denial for something I hadn't said and hadn't been intending to say. I couldn't tell whether he had misunderstood my intent, or whether he was warning me away from the subject. I saw no sign of recognition in his face - but now he was beyond the range of my ability to see clearly, and his expression was somewhat indistinct.

"So," I said, looking down at my spell-encased hand, "if it can close these small rifts…"

"Whatever magic opened the breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand," he explained unnecessarily. "I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts opened in the Breach's wake - and it seems I was correct."

"Meaning it could also close the Breach itself," Cassandra concluded, and I twitched, startled, not having seen her approach.

"Possibly," he responded to her. "It seems you hold the key to our salvation," he continued, speaking to me. I could feel his gaze searching my face, and dropped my eyes before he could study them. I was, as far as I could tell, nice enough looking but for my strange eyes - dark hair, golden-brown skin, regular features. It was only my eyes, the palest imaginable silver within the nearly-black outer ring of my irises, that marked me out as strange. The other children of the clan used to call me inanen'elgares - spirit's eyes. I was eager - foolishly, humiliatingly eager - to make whatever good impression I could on this man I had spent my entire life dreaming of.

"Good to know," a new voice said, and again I flinched, both because I hadn't seen the man who spoke and because he seemed, for a moment, to be responding to my thoughts. Then he went on: "And here I thought we'd be ass-deep in demons forever." When he moved, coming nearer, I was able to pick him out from the background. He was shorter than I expected, and I realized he must be a dwarf. "Varric Tethras," he introduced himself. "Rogue, storyteller, and, occasionally, unwelcome tagalong."

Nearby, Cassandra made a strangled sound of irritation.

"Inana Mirwen Lavellan," I replied. "Tuelanen i'na." My brow furrowed as I realized that I was greeting someone for whom the Creators meant nothing, but moved past it when he didn't ask for a translation. "Are you with the Chantry, then?" I had always thought the Chantry an organization of humans and non-Dalish elves, but I knew very little about it.

It startled a laugh from the man I had dreamed of, anyway. "Is that a serious question?" he asked, and I felt my ears heat, wondering if he despised my apparent ignorance.

"Technically, I'm a prisoner, just like you," Varric told me, his jovial tone at odds with the words.

"I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine," Cassandra said. "Clearly that is no longer necessary."

"Yet, here I am," Varric responded cheerfully. "Lucky for you, considering current events."

"I am pleased to meet you," I said, ignoring the byplay I had only limited context for.

"You may reconsider that stance in time," the dream-man told me, an undercurrent of sardonic laughter in his voice. I couldn't tell whether it was directed at me or at Varric, and wrapped my arms around myself.

"Aw, I'm sure we'll become great friends in the valley, Chuckles," Varric replied in a similar tone, so perhaps the remark had been directed at him. Was that the name of the man from my dream, though? "Chuckles"?

"Absolutely not," Cassandra broke in. "Your help is... appreciated, Varric, but - "

"Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker?" he asked her. "Your soldiers aren't in control anymore. You need me."

"Ugh," Cassandra said, and I heard more than saw her walk away several paces - my peripheral vision was particularly poor. Her response wasn't, I noticed, a denial.

"I am Solas, if there are to be introductions," the man from my dreams told me. "I'm pleased to see you still live." His tone was light - pleasant - and I felt myself relax marginally.

"He means, I kept that mark from killing you while you slept," Varric informed me helpfully.

I wished I could study his face. "You seem to know a great deal about it," I observed quietly.

"Like you, Solas is an apostate," Cassandra's voice told me, drifting in from somewhere behind me.

"Technically all mages are now apostates, Cassandra," Solas admonished her. "My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade, far beyond the experience of any Circle mage."

"I...know very little of Circles," I confessed, though he was speaking to Cassandra at least as much as to me.

I felt his gaze on me again. "A fair point," he allowed, and I thought I could hear a faint smile in his voice. "I have no duty to any clan, and am therefore free to pursue...more esoteric disciplines."

I nodded - that actually made considerable sense.

"In any case," he went on, "I came to offer whatever help I can give with the Breach. If it is not closed, we are all doomed, regardless of origin."

A shiver passed over me as I looked toward it. "A commendable attitude," I said.

"Merely a sensible one, though sense appears to be in short supply right now," he replied. "Cassandra," he continued, "you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have seen. Your prisoner is a mage, but I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power."

I looked up at him sharply, squinting in an effort to better read his expression. He seemed relaxed, and yet it was clearly spellwork encircling my hand. Powerful spellwork, yes, and intricate, but it had been cast by someone. Just because I hadn't done it didn't mean that some mage, somewhere, hadn't.

"Understood," Cassandra sighed, and I said nothing, because even though what Solas said was patently ridiculous, she seemed to have a degree of trust in him, and I had no desire to be blamed for what had transpired at the Conclave. "We must get to the forward camp quickly," she added after a brief hesitation. "Follow me."

All Elvish comes directly from or is cobbled together from FenxShiral's incredible archive of work.

Maela: Grandmother