Sorry for anyone actually reading this as it goes up - I have to spend the day watching my own toddler (nonsense, right?), so probably only a chapter or two today. More tomorrow.

One translation at the top, because the irony doesn't make sense if you don't know: "Dread Wolf take you" in Elven is "Fen'Harel ver na." Keep it in mind.

The rest of the translations at the bottom, as usual.

The Dread Wolf

Gils and I stayed long enough to be certain all the eggs had caught fire, and then, in unspoken agreement, walked away from the choking smoke, until we found a small ledge that was comfortable enough to sit on. I pulled out my waterskin and offered it to him. He took a drink and handed it back to me so I could do the same. We sat for a few moments, trading the skin back and forth, until I realized we weren't alone.

"Latha," I sighed, as a figure that matched Solas in nearly every detail emerged from behind a pillar of stone some distance away. I couldn't even quite put my finger on the reasons I knew it wasn't Solas, other than how unlikely it would be for him to appear - Latha just didn't do it quite right. In spite of Gils's confused glance, I waited to speak again until the demon had joined us.

"Gils," I said, forcing my voice to remain pleasant, "allow me to introduce Latha. It used to be a spirit, but has been corrupted into a demon, and it is hoping that it can possess me now that I am physically within the Fade."

"Hm," the mage grunted.

"Latha, I don't really need to introduce anyone to you, because one of us is about to destroy the other, and soon it won't matter," I went on.

The demon sighed. "You misunderstand, arasha. I am not here to destroy you - nor, indeed, to harm you in any way. I am here only to give you what you need - what you have always needed."

"It did give me some useful information about the monster we killed," I continued conversationally, to Gils, ignoring Latha's claims. "But it pointedly failed to mention where the spider nested - no doubt hoping that, with no time to plan, I would be driven to enter the Fade myself, and then would be trapped here."

"Hmmm," the mage said, drawing out the sound this time. "And why does this demon want you? You are no mage."

"Yes. Well. I'm certain there are rumors of my connection to Fen'Harel," I sighed. "As it happens, he is my bondmate, and he invited Latha to reflect his love for me, even with all its contradictions and regrets. The real wonder is that Latha managed to avoid becoming a demon immediately. It was naturally drawn to me, and now it wants to fully claim me."

Gils frowned, disapproval evident on his face.

"I don't need you," I told Latha clearly and precisely. "I don't need anything you can offer me. I clearly don't even need Solas. I want him - I want him desperately. But I want him as he is, flaws and all. I don't want your...pathetic interpretation of him."

Latha smiled at me fondly. "As true as those words may be, ma vhenan, they cannot be the whole truth. You are mortal, and capable of wanting many contradictory circumstances at the same time. And like anyone mortal, you want - and, yes, need - to be happy."

"I'm happy enough," I retorted.

"No, you aren't," the demon replied, and its whisper seemed to echo in my mind, pulling at thoughts and images, and all at once the Fade disappeared entirely.

I was in one of my memories.

I stood in the Emprise du Lion again, on the ice, and Solas stood before me. His hands cupped my elbows. "I fully expect you will match, if not exceed, my limited proficiency by the time the afternoon is over," he said - much too solemn, really, for an afternoon of ice skating. There was something in his eyes - but then he bent towards me.

In reality, he had merely rested his forehead against mine for several heartbeats, but in this version he instead did what I spent months after the actual event dreaming he had done: he kissed me, completely disregarding the public nature of the setting. In the background, our friends laughed and called out encouragement - some more sincere than others - and he ignored them, too.

And, for just a moment, I fell under the spell of again being with him. He smelled like Solas, tasted like him, his skin was exactly the texture of Solas's skin, and it was so sweet and so right, except -

I tried to push the doubt away, because it felt good, so good, to be here, except -

Except that it wasn't him. No matter how he smelled, tasted, felt - Solas had never acted like this. At some point, I had stopped dreaming about it, because trying to make him someone he wasn't, even just in my own mind, did nothing but leave me dissatisfied.

I shoved Latha away from me, opened my eyes -

And found myself facing Gils, my blade drawn.

"Inquisitor," he said, sounding almost desperate, and I knew it wasn't the first time he had called my title.

"It's Silea," I reminded him thickly, my head beginning to pound. "If you're going to try to recall me from demon possession, I imagine you'll have better luck using my name."

"Did I…?" he asked.

"No," I told him, turning to face Latha. "It almost had me, but it is just not Solas."

"My apologies, vhenan, but - he attacked me." It was still Solas's voice, but Latha didn't sound much like him any longer. It sounded desperate.

"He attacked you because you tried to possess me, dahn'direlan," I pointed out, sounding quite reasonable, I thought, in spite of my aching head and the fact that I was arguing with a demon trying to possess me.

"I can give you more!" Latha promised, and I felt its voice reverberating in my skull again.

"Etunash," I swore, but I couldn't keep it from reaching into my mind - only resist it once it was there.

This time it pulled up the memory of the Exalted Plains - of Solas with me, alone on a wooded path - of him peering at me with concern. You aren't sleeping, either.

His hands stroked my shoulders. "Perhaps you might join me in the Fade? And - perhaps you might find your way there more easily from my tent?"

This time, I laughed. "That's laying it on a little thick, Latha."

Everything went - strange - and I had to shut my eyes tightly against the sudden stabbing pain in my head. When I opened them again - Latha hadn't possessed me enough to take control, this time, so I was standing in precisely the same place. Gils, however, had moved.

What might have happened, had I not called his name? I will never know.

Magic spent, Gils was charging at Latha, his staff raised for a strike. I called his name, already seeing how many ways this could go wrong, wanting to let him know I wasn't going to fall under the demon's sway, trying to give him a chance to change course.

Instead…

Instead, Latha's fingers grew, extending into enormous claws, as Gils glanced back at me. He never even had a chance to use his staff to deflect - by the time he refocused on his target, Latha's claws were already stabbing through him. A moment later, they emerged from his back, dripping with blood.

I screamed, caught between fury and regret - he wasn't supposed to be here; I tried, I tried, to make him leave with the others - and leapt at Latha. The demon looked at me, looked at Gils, still hanging from its sword-length claws, and, with a sneer, threw the mage's body at me as easily as I might toss away a shield.

The deadweight of my dead companion knocked me flat, my dagger skittering away across the ground. "You are mine," Latha snarled, its face entering my field of vision. "Mine! I will have you - and if I cannot, no one else, certainly not that liar, will take your love from me! Accept me - or die."

Possession or death? That required no thought at all. "Fen'Harel ver na," I spat reflexively.

And then, against all odds, he did.

I watched as Latha's claws - retracted to more easily hurl Gils at me - extended again. I watched as it raised its hand to strike, hesitating only the barest moment to give me one last chance to recant. I stared into its eyes, still defiant, waiting for the killing blow.

Instead, the air vibrated with a note of pure wrath, and Latha fell back as though struck.

"YOU DARE TO CLAIM SHE WHOSE NAME YOU ARE NOT EVEN WORTHY TO SPEAK?" The voice was impossibly vast, and seemed to come from every direction, including from within my own skull. Latha turned, cringing, as I struggled to sit up. "YOU HAVE BECOME CORRUPTED, AND THE ONLY REMEDY IS DEATH."

There was a rush of hot, heavy air, stinking of ash and burning, and the shadow of something absolutely enormous passed just overhead. I flattened myself on the ground again instinctively, still struggling to pull my lower legs from beneath Gils's body, when the stone beneath my hand trembled. I glanced around for a dragon before my mind even had time to catch up - I knew how it felt when a high dragon lowered itself from the sky - and instead I saw a...monster?

It was the size of a high dragon, but black and covered in fur. The snout was vaguely canine, but with dragon-like spikes and horns. Six red eyes, glowing with lightning, crowded its face. It seemed to carry shadows with it, and so I could not truly make out the shape of its wings or the exact configuration of its body - only that they were huge, dark, and strange.

That was the part that clearly should have been a monster. The question came from the fact that I somehow recognized Solas.

The wolf-dragon-demon head bent low, its neck grotesquely elongated, and snapped Latha up, swallowing it whole.

Then it turned its lightning-filled gaze on me.

The part of me that was gibbering in terror was surprisingly small and quiet. The rest of me yanked my feet from under my erstwhile companion's body, stood up, and ran, stumbling, straight to Solas, colliding with his still-lowered snout, and pressing my face into his fur. He smelled all wrong - like blood and smoke, and something indefinable that I had never thought to associate with the Fade until this moment. And yet, beneath, there was the barest hint of herbs. Of soap. Of him. The scent held the promise that perhaps he wasn't entirely subsumed in this creature - not yet.

It wasn't until I found myself raining kisses on his fur that I realized there were tears running down my face. I felt so many things - regret and guilt over Gils's fate, relief at Latha's destruction, joy at finding Solas at last, grief over what he had become, or was becoming - that tears seemed the only reasonable response.

There was a strange sound, a little like rushing wind but also - not - and I tightened my hold on Solas - but all at once my face was no longer pressed against the furred snout of a monster. Instead, the much more mundane fur of a wolf pelt, worn across the chest of the man I loved, tickled my nose. "Silea," he sighed, and his hand found mine long enough to press a piece of cloth into it, "you should not be here."

A handkerchief. I used it to wipe my face. "Gils," I choked, half turning from Solas to gesture towards the body of the mage. "Is - is there anything you can do? To save him?"

"No," Solas said, the word heavy with finality. "Was he important to you?" The question was cool, detached, and yet something hot and prickly lurked beneath.

I could guess what it was, but Solas had no grounds for jealousy - for any of a number of reasons, some of which he knew every bit as well as I did - and so I ignored the subtext and simply answered the question. "No," I choked out. "There wasn't time. I hardly knew him - but he gave his life for me. Because of me-" When tears silenced me again, I didn't turn back towards Solas. He wasn't as comforting when he was acting like an ass.

"Ir abelas," he murmured, turning my face toward his with one hand while he wiped away my tears with another handkerchief he had found somewhere - or possibly pulled from the raw stuff of the Fade. "I would help if I could - regardless," he told me.

"I know," I whispered. I had known it a vain hope even before I asked - there was a difference between unconscious or swiftly bleeding out and dead. Gils was just dead. "Even after all this time, I still hate it, people dying for my mistakes - because someone thinks I'm too important to bear my own consequences."

He handed me the square of cloth so I could blow my nose, and I realized the other handkerchief had disappeared at some point. "Ironic, isn't it, that your desire to bear your own consequences is one of the many qualities that makes you into a leader too valuable to lose?" Solas asked me.

"Huh," I laughed, "is that what you call what I've been doing the past few years? Leading? Because it feels a lot more like parading about uselessly while other people do the real work."

"Leading from the front isn't the only way to lead," he told me, his voice gentle.

"I shouldn't be talking to you about this," I realized, dropping my eyes to the wolf pelt he wore across his chest. "Why must you arrange everything so I can't ask your advice just when I need it most?"

"If it gives you any comfort, I always tell you too much, as well," his voice full of both regret and affection. "Which is why I must send you away," he added in a near-whisper. "For both our sakes."

My eyes flew to his face. "No. After all this - after you sent a demon after me - the least you can do is give me a chance to speak."

"I had no part in Latha's decision to seek you out," he replied, his expression hardening, "and the least I can do is send you home. Alive."

"Because no one could have predicted that the spirit you invited to reflect your love for me might seek me out," I snapped, "instead of - I don't know what you expected. That it would drift about sighing with longing as it reconstructed our memories together somewhere out of your sight?" I threw up my arms in disgust. "Vyn esaya gera assan i'mar'av'ingala."

He dropped his eyes, but the set of his mouth remained stubborn. "I will not make such a mistake again."

"Oh, good, I'm so glad to know you're moving on to novel ways to make my life miserable!" I growled at him, turning my back and walking a few steps away to avoid either throwing a punch at him or breaking down and begging.

Behind me, he whispered something, and I understood a moment later when a spirit came bearing a linen sheet to wrap Gils's body in. "Come," Solas told me, "you can honor his sacrifice by readying the body. We both can."

I owed Gils that much, and so I didn't argue - but doing it at Solas's bidding was hardly calculated to soften my resentment.

We worked silently, still so effortlessly in sync that words were unnecessary. In a few moments, Gils was wrapped, the linen tied at his feet and neck with rope from my kit, ready for the pyre. Solas gestured, and the familiar green light of a rift bathed us both. I wondered if my skin looked as sickly as his - and if it was only the light. Beyond the rift, I could see the gates of the darkened College of Enchanters. Not even an entire night had passed.

Solas looked at me, and I could see him weighing his intention of asking me to help him move the body. I glared at him, daring him to do it so I could tell him to take a long leap into the Void. I would never step through that rift willingly.

Perhaps reading on my face exactly how the conversation would go, he instead gestured for a spirit to help him. Together they lifted the body, took it beyond the rift, and laid it before the gates.

Then he returned to my side, and we faced each other.

"I don't want to force you," he told me gently.

"Yes," I agreed, biting off the words as though I were sinking my teeth into him, "I imagine that will be unpleasant for you." I looked away. Swallowed. "Solas, if you make me do this - I think I will hate you."

"Good," he replied softly.

"Good," I repeated. "Good." I laughed, hearing despair creeping in. "You think completely robbing our time together of all meaning, turning the choices I made inside out so every last one was wrong, stripping away every shred of contentment I have managed to gather around myself - will make things better for me? How? How does any of this work out in your mind? Please enlighten me, because all I see waiting for me is..." I took a breath and shook my head, hoping he wouldn't make me say it out loud, but when I glanced at him, his face was carefully impassive. "Are you trying to rob me of all hope, all incentive to - to do anything, including, perhaps continue breathing? Because between Latha and this…"

"Are you...holding yourself hostage?" Solas asked, his brows drawn together in a skepticism that felt far too near contempt.

"I am trying to make you acknowledge how your choices affect me."

He opened his mouth to protest.

"Don't try to feed me that etunash, Solas. I don't want to hear about how you have no choice - you always have choices," I growled at him. Even if what he chose was objectively correct in every circumstance - and I was absolutely certain it was not - his choices were still choices. I was beyond tired of him somehow believing he could take responsibility for everything wrong in the world, while simultaneously acting as though fate had forced him every step of the way. "I know you think my ability to live on nothing more than hope is foolish and childish - "

"I never said that," he told me, as though he had ever needed to say it.

"But even I can't conjure hope from the Void. Do you think I don't know that we're losing?" I let out a breath. "Or maybe for you our conflict has reached the point of no quarter. Maybe you think that, without me, the Inquisition will crumble. Maybe that is exactly what you are trying to engineer."

"No," he said, and I could see the denial was a reflex, made before he even had time to think. "No," he repeated quietly a moment later.

"Please let me keep our past," I requested in an equally soft voice, my gaze falling to the ground. I couldn't bear to watch his deliberations as he decided how to exercise the power I had just let him know he had over me.

Part of me regretted ever coming here and giving him that power - the power to reshape a past whose meaning I had thought firmly settled - but another part of me, the part that had seized on the role of Inquisitor, understood that this was all I had ever had to bargain with. The chance to get close to him, even briefly, was worth the risk of my own destruction. At least - I hoped it was.

These thoughts barely had time to flit through my mind before strong hands closed on my shoulders. I looked up and his mouth instantly covered mine, raw and desperate. Yet it was only a heartbeat or two before he pulled himself away. "How long?" he asked, his breathing ragged. "How long do you need? You cannot stay indefinitely."

"You know," I said, swallowing both my relief and my heartache, "you still owe me a forfeit."

He blinked at me, and I watched as he brought his desperation under control once more. Then he arched one eyebrow and tilted his head, though his voice was still rough when he spoke: "I am not trading you a single ink blot for a place here. Nothing will rob you of all hope faster than seeing - " He stopped and took a breath.

"You're wrong," I told him, stepping closer so I could run my hand up his chest. "I know you know that you're lying to yourself. Perhaps you fear what my observation would do to you. I wouldn't entirely blame you. I have been told I ask far too many inconvenient questions."

"I believe I called them insightful questions," he retorted.

"Aren't the two synonymous in this case?" I asked pointedly, and then went on before he could answer. "I'm not trying to trade a single ink blot for the chance to stay by your side. One forfeit, one day. Will that suffice?"

He bowed his head in agreement. "You might have asked for longer," he said in a low voice as, beside us, the rift closed with a brief crackle of energy.

"I might have, but I'm not at the point of despair and I still have responsibilities. If I am gone for more than a day, word may start spreading that I have died," I explained. "Solas," I raised my hand and touched his face, "there are things I need to say, questions I need to ask, points I need to argue with you. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I believe some or all of those things may be true for you, too. Will you take me somewhere that we can talk comfortably?"

His lips quirked slightly. "Something can be arranged."

Etunash: Shit

Fen'Harel ver na: Again, "Dread Wolf take you."

Vyn esaya gera assan i'mar'av'ingala: You would try to catch an arrow in your teeth