My entire family has covid because schools are petri dishes full of disease. This wasn't unexpected, though, and we are all as vaccinated as it is possible to be at this moment, so we've gotten off quite lightly, all things considered. That said, I was basically confined to bed for two full days and spent half my time asleep, so it hasn't exactly been sunshine and roses, and my daughter is going on sick for a week and is still unable to breathe through her nose.

Anyway, updates will continue to be unpredictable, probably all winter, because...all the viruses apparently suck this winter.

Comforts of Home

I glanced at Solas, sitting at his ease on the other side of my desk, still feeling some residual pleasure at being back in a place where I could see across a desk. He was watching me, though, as he had been for the last half hour as I caught up on my correspondence, and it was becoming increasingly distracting. "What?" I asked him at last.

He considered me for a moment before answering. "I believe that is my question for you," he said, looking away at last.

Sighing, I put down my pen.

The journey back from the Dirthavaren had not been precisely…comfortable. Anxiety was beginning to creep over me regarding the ball and the decisions about it I had made in the heat of justified fury. Just because I was right didn't mean that my choices couldn't doom the entire world to burn as Corypheus ascended to godhood. I was also anxious about the decisions I had yet to make, such as whether to save Celene's life if she refused to give me some guarantee of better behavior going forward. My head was still reeling somewhat with Cole's confirmation that my suspicions about Solas were correct. I was still puzzling over Solas's emotional reaction to Ghilan'nain's tomb and the statue of Fen'Harel - or Fen'Elvhenes, whatever that was. And as if those weren't enough to occupy my thoughts, I was worried for Varric, who seemed to be falling apart somewhat now that he had the time to do so. I wasn't certain he had left the tavern once since we had returned.

Not that I could blame him. I had cried myself to sleep the night before due to Josephine giving me the news that Thom had rejected the Inquisition's offer to serve in our ranks as liaison to the Grey Wardens. I had expected him to - he hadn't agreed to come back until Leliana had a way to smooth over the political problem he posed - but it had still struck me like a punch in the gut. Then I had somehow found I was also crying over Hawke, a little over Felix, and perhaps even over Wisdom…and it was all a tangled mess.

As far as Ghilan'nain's tomb went, I could think of a very limited number of explanations for the emotions Solas had briefly lost control of: first, that I had misread them. Second, that they were related in some complex way to Ghilan'nain more than the wolf. Third, that the wolf - regardless of whether Fen'Harel was the same person as Fen'Elvhenes - was deeply important to him somehow. I thought the first unlikely - I wasn't in the habit of misinterpreting Solas's feelings, even when I caught them only in flashes. I thought the second possible, though it seemed to me the link would need to be convoluted for his feelings to have broken free in that moment as opposed to some other. I thought the third option the simplest, and therefore the most plausible.

Which…still left me with many more questions than answers, including just how many wolves had been roaming the empire of my ancestors, and why my sympathy for one might inspire lust, of all things.

"Solas," I groaned, feeling the beginnings of a headache as all my questions and concerns spiraled through my thoughts. He looked up at me. "If you're going to insist on lying to me, the least you could do is not play games. You don't have to ask what , you're just fishing for information to see if it's what you think it is." I rubbed my eyes, which were still a little sore after my hours of weeping the previous night. I had no patience for politics right now, least of all from my own bondmate.

He let out a gusty sigh and averted his gaze. "You are considering the possible patterns underlying my omissions and sporadic inconsistencies. Whatever speculations and conclusions you are entertaining chill you."

That wasn't true at all - what chilled me was grief over the past and anxiety for the future. At the moment, Solas's reticence only frustrated me. " Ma vhenan ," I said firmly, feeling his dread no matter how he tried to suppress it, " ar lath ma ."

"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't," he replied.

"Solas, ma vhenan, ar lath ma, " I repeated.

"Ar lath ma," he echoed at last, his voice caressing each word as though it were precious. "You won't tell me your thoughts," he added after a moment.

I snorted. "I think that would be unwise just now."

"True," he allowed. "I had hoped you might contemplate it anyway."

I stood and stretched, then came around the desk and dropped myself in his lap. It was true that I had been a little more distant than usual as my head spun trying to fit together all I knew into a coherent picture. Emotionally, anyway - our first night back I believed we had made use of every single piece of furniture in my chamber. "I'll trade you," I told him, half teasing, leaning in to place a kiss on the flat spot where his nose had been broken sometime during his centuries - millennia? - of life. "I'll tell you my leading theory if you tell me why you feel the need to lie to me."

He snorted and tried to frown, but I could feel the corners of his mouth stretching as I continued to trail kisses across his cheeks. "My speculations and conclusions aren't especially chilling," I told him between kisses. "Just confusing and hard to fit together. Ir abelas - I didn't mean for my preoccupation to worry you."

"Tel'abelas, vhenan," he replied. "The situation is one of my own creation, after all." In spite of his words - or perhaps because of them - he ran his hand up my back, cupping my head and pulling my lips to close enough to kiss. I had already been kissing his face - and enjoying it - but the touch of his lips made warmth bloom in my chest. It spread as his tongue touched mine, traveling up to my cheeks and the tips of my ears, down to my fingers, now clutching his tunic, and then all the way down my legs to my toes. After a long moment he exhaled a sigh of regret and pulled back, his hand sliding from my hair to instead grasp mine, which he then pressed to his chest, over his heart. His eyes met mine. "None of this good fortune is deserved, and you should know I treasure - "

I leaned over and kissed him again to make him stop talking. "You're worth it," I assured him as I pulled away again. "And I also need you to stop distracting and tempting me now, so that I can finish these letters before the vigil tonight. Don't you have…books to read, or something?"

I had sent a letter ahead to Josephine regarding the vigil, and she, of course, had planned something beautiful for two nights after our arrival - enough time for the Sing-quisition to practice a Chantry hymn as well as learn a Dalish song to Falon'Din. It was, as I had requested, not a specifically religious ceremony, though of course matters of death would touch on matters of religion. In mere days, Josephine had somehow managed to obtain a candle for every soldier lost at Adamant and at Haven, in addition to Hawke, Wisdom, and Felix, and had had every name written in elegant calligraphy and affixed to the base of each polished brass candlestick. We would also be releasing floating lanterns which, in Rivain and Antiva, were said to carry the prayers of the ones who released them to the Maker. The Dalish actually had a similar tradition, though ours involved floating candles down rivers as a metaphor for the paths of the Fade that led to the Beyond and to the spirits of our ancestors, so the lanterns weren't overly Chantry-specific.

It would be gorgeous, I was sure. Josephine had put it together, after all.

Solas's eyes narrowed playfully when, in spite of my words, I didn't actually rise from his lap. "Who is tempting whom, again?" he asked.

"Will you sleep with me tonight?" I asked. He had stayed up late to paint the night before, and not only was his own room much nearer the rotunda than mine, he had been reluctant to disturb me by coming in so long after I had - supposedly - gone to sleep. Given the length of time I had spent crying into my pillows, I wasn't certain I had actually slept before he had, but I hadn't relished the thought of him walking into that entire scene, either. Thom was still alive, I had barely known Hawke a handful of months, and I really hadn't known Felix or Wisdom at all. It didn't feel right to force him to deal with my relatively minor grief when he carried so much of his own.

His face softened. "Of course, arasha."

I stroked his jaw with my free hand and leaned in to kiss him again, feeling his heart rate pick up under the hand he still held pressed to his chest. I still didn't know how to reconcile the sensation of his heart beating a perfectly normal rhythm, or the taste of his mouth, or the texture of his skin, with the fact that I now knew him to be ancient and immortal. For all that it made perfect sense when paired with the breadth of his knowledge and his aristocratic bearing, it made no sense at all when he kissed me like I was the only thing that existed in the world or looked at me with palpable wonder in his gaze.

You don't understand how empty and lonely my life has been. He had said that to me in the future version of Redcliffe I had been thrust into. It had been sad enough then, but to think of that loneliness echoing through centuries upon centuries of emptiness - ? What was the point of immortality if that was how it was spent?

My kiss had become entirely too fierce, and I had to break it off abruptly as I realized that if I continued any longer, I really wouldn't finish my correspondence today. Solas growled a small protest and his lips tried to follow mine as I pulled away. "Ir abelas," I whispered. "I didn't mean - " I stopped, shrugged, and offered him a conciliatory half-smile. "Think of it as a preview of later tonight?"

Neither Solas nor the erection beginning to poke my thigh seemed impressed by my proffered interpretation, and Solas seemed even less impressed as I got off his lap. It necessarily involved some sliding, and he let out a hiss of frustrated desire. He was on his feet before I could retreat behind my desk, wrapping his arm around me so he could catch my wrists in one hand and use them to pull me back against him. His other hand cupped my jaw, forcing my head back so he could whisper in my ear as he rubbed himself against my ass. "I think this a better preview of our time together later," he told me with quiet menace.

The thought sent pleasant chills down my spine, and I turned my head enough that he could see my smile. "Me tied up and you frustrated?" I teased him. "I fail to see how it's all that different from what is happening right now."

I got a snort of laughter and a sharp bite on the edge of my ear for my impudence, and then he released me abruptly. "It's true I've yet to make a thorough catalog of changes to the library since our return. I shudder to think Dorian might have already taken stock and laid claim to some of the tomes I wish to study."

I raised an eyebrow at him as I made my way around the desk to reclaim my chair. "But the two of you study entirely different disciplines. Do the books you want to consult really overlap that much?"

"By Dorian's account, they do," Solas replied dryly.

"Are you accusing him of holding books you want to read hostage just to annoy you?" I asked, amused by the thought.

"You don't believe him capable of it?"

"Oh no - I absolutely do," I responded with a laugh. "Except I don't think he would do it just to annoy you. What is he trying to get you to do for him?"

"He… may have asked me to acquaint him with some of my theories on the workings of the Fade," Solas admitted. "But I had little time for that endeavor - I was training you and planning out my murals, besides engaging in my own research about the Anchor - "

"You aren't really training me anymore," I pointed out.

"I promised that I'd train you as a Dreamer," he countered. "Outside circumstance may have prevented me from making good on - "

"And that's going to take up a significant portion of your waking hours?" I argued back.

"It…may," he temporized unconvincingly.

"What if I asked you to teach me some of your theories on the workings of the Fade?" I demanded, smiling.

Solas heaved a sigh. "I will make up a reading list," he offered in compromise. "I don't believe I currently have time to write my own book on the subject, which is what would be required to fully voice my thoughts."

"Ma serannas, vhenan. I'm sure Dorian will be reasonable about returning your books."

I didn't need to see his expression - or even feel his pointed doubt through our bond - to know he had no such confidence.

Arasha: My joy