Translations at the bottom.

Breakfast

I must have made some movement or sound that let Solas know I was waking up, because the first thing I felt was his lips on mine. I smiled and kissed him back, pleased he was there. Though he had said he would need to leave to tend to some things while I slept, from my perspective he might as well have stayed - he had held me until I fell asleep, and now woke me with a kiss. It was lovely, and completely unlike all the times I had awakened alone in Skyhold, sighing over my empty bed.

Still - when I opened my eyes, there was something just slightly...off. I wasn't certain I had ever met anyone as bad at hiding his feelings as Solas was. Which was ironic, considering how much lying he did - and yet oddly endearing, as well. "What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing," he lied, and I let it go for the moment, deciding he seemed more preoccupied than upset. That meant that either it had little to nothing to do with me, or it wasn't something likely to make my life miserable. I could take my time looking for another angle from which to approach the subject.

"Did I sleep long?" I asked instead.

"No," he replied. "It's barely mid-morning. How were your dreams?"

I felt a smile cross my face. "Fascinating. I never knew there were spirits of innovation, but I met one. It studies dwarves."

"They are extremely rare," Solas told me, his smile mirroring mine. "I know the one you mean, and it is the first I have ever encountered. Did it speak to you for very long?"

"Yes," I said with a laugh. "It was still asking me questions even as I was waking up. It wanted to hear about some work I have been doing with mathematics," I added by way of explanation.

"Ah, yes, that makes sense. And did you learn anything of interest?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered, laughing again at the understatement. "I fully comprehend how you spend so much time exploring the Fade and talking with spirits. They know so much. It's...awe-inspiring." I didn't mention, of course, the time Innovation and I had spent discussing him - and I was lucky I was better at hiding mixed emotions than he was. It meant I had likely never outright lied to him, even if I didn't always reveal exactly how complicated the truth was. I would have felt more guilty about my half-truths if they hadn't universally been in service of either understanding my own mind before I let him see what I was thinking...or saving the world.

His eyes lit at my words, and it struck me that his solitary fascination with spirits and the Fade had been lonely for him since he woke in this world. More so, likely, when it had been under assault by those such as Vivienne and Sera - but the rest of the time, too. It pleased him to find that I also saw value in it.

"Was Innovation the only one you spoke to?" he asked.

"I had brief encounters with Honor and Mercy," I said, "but neither was well-defined enough to carry on a long conversation - so Innovation was the highlight. What did you do?"

That something crossed his face again. "I visited your memories," he offered. "And also managed to acquire breakfast, if you would like to eat."

The mention of food was enough to distract me from whatever he was hiding - at least for the moment. I got out of bed, focused briefly on my chemise and changed it into a simple shirt and breeches with a pretty, belted overcoat inspired by those Josephine often wore. My braid was unraveling with alarming speed, but I could attend to that after breakfast.

Solas led me out to my side balcony, where he had placed a table, chairs, and a thoroughly Dalish breakfast. He had provided smoked fish, a porridge of mixed seeds and berries with a swirl of honey topping it, a hash of various root vegetables, a plate of fruit, an oddly-shaped teapot and, in the center of the table, a small platter of dil'dalavast. "You and Fiona both remembered," I said, taking one as I sat down and immediately biting into it. I chewed thoughtfully. "This one tastes exactly like my clan makes them, though - the ones Fiona served were a little different."

He smiled. "There is a simple reason for that: I sent an agent to your clan to obtain some."

I refrained from asking whether he had obtained them from what remained of my clan in Wycome, or whether he had found someone making them among those who had elected to join him. The fact that so many of my clan had chosen him was a sore spot, but for reasons that made me feel foolish. Besides my Keeper, who had acted in place of a mother to me, there was no one in my clan I was specifically close to anymore, after all - for a variety of complex reasons. Though - most of them came down to the fact that I was different, and my people often reacted poorly to "different" if it wasn't accompanied by "mage." I had also been given too much responsibility too young. Not too young in the sense that I couldn't fulfill my duties, but being precocious had won me a little fawning attention and absolutely no friends. It had also earned me some unwanted romantic interest that I had been too immature to handle well.

All that was to say: I shouldn't have cared that half my clan had chosen Solas even after I sent warnings through our Keeper. Nor should I have blamed Solas for accepting them - why should he turn away any converts? But it hurt, from both ends - both that they had chosen him and that he had accepted them. Another confirmation of how little I mattered in my own clan - and another confirmation that Solas wasn't going to refrain for my sake from doing anything that aided his plans, no matter how small it might be.

So I smiled, thanked him for the dil'dalavast, and didn't ask.

"Here," he said, picking up the teapot, "I wanted you to try this." The pot was different from those I knew - metal, like those the Dalish placed over the fire to brew tea, rather than the porcelain humans seemed to prefer, but gold rather than steel or iron. The shape was different, too - both humans and Dalish had rounded pots with flat bottoms, but this one had almost an hourglass shape, bulbous at both ends and narrowing in the middle. The spout was also different, unlike the short, somewhat stubby spouts on a normal teapot, it was long and graceful, shaped rather like a crescent moon.

"Have you discovered a tea you can actually stand?" I asked, amused.

He smiled. "No, but I would like to share with you the root cause of my disdain for tea," he replied. A cup to match the pot appeared in his hand, and he poured out a dark, steaming liquid whose scent immediately colored the air. It was rich and complex, and I breathed deeply. "This is already sweetened," he told me, "but you may still want to gentle it with milk. Try it first, though."

I accepted the cup, breathed in the fragrant steam, and wondered what he meant by gentling it. Then I sipped, and understood. The scent gave only the barest hint of bitterness, but the flavor of the liquid was equal parts acrid and sweet, with the complex flavors the steam's aroma promised only present in faint, lingering notes on the back of my tongue. I grimaced and Solas laughed, taking the cup from me without being asked, and added the milk.

"See if that suits you better," he said, handing the cup back to me.

A second cup appeared in his hand and he busied himself pouring another serving while I sipped tentatively again. Gentled seemed precisely the correct term for what the milk had done to it - though the bitterness was still present, it was in better balance with the other flavors. Now I could taste some of what I smelled. I sipped again, finding I liked it.

Solas drank his without milk.

"What is it?" I asked him, setting my cup down to make myself a plate of food.

"A popular drink, in Elvhenan - our people called it gavalnulam, usually shortened to gava. The plant, and the berry it produces, were native to the place I was born," he told me. "The bushes still grow wild in the north, descended from those once cultivated by the Elvhen. One of my few indulgences has been sending agents to harvest the berries, though it took trial and considerable error to find a proper method for roasting them." He grimaced. "It wasn't a trade I was ever involved in, and requires delicacy and patience to avoid a burnt, undrinkable mess."

"This is considerably stronger-tasting than tea," I allowed, taking another sip before trying the hash of roots.

He shuddered delicately. "Tea is pallid, near-tasteless hot water, in which any flavors that manage to come through are vaguely medicinal and thoroughly unpleasant. Any sweetener at all, and you are drinking sugar-water - add milk and you have a drink suitable only for children."

"Well, don't feel the need to hold back, Solas," I teased him dryly, amused, as ever, by his unwavering disdain for tea, but more interested in my breakfast.

He laughed and put the subject aside, reaching for his own plate.

I spent the rest of breakfast telling him about lyrium lenses, Caridin, and the possibility of life within the Stone, while he listened with an interest at least as rapt as mine had been. "I wish I could bring Dagna here," I finished. "Can you imagine what she and Innovation would make of each other?"

He gave a short laugh as I cleaned my bowl of a last bite of porridge. "I can imagine what they would find to blow apart in the name of learning how it worked," he replied.

I smiled at that and leaned back in my chair, appetite satisfied, as we both fell silent - a comfortable silence, at first. As we sat, though, I watched as the something from earlier crept back in to nag at Solas's mind.

I let it worry him for several minutes before I attempted one more direct assault. "Solas, we have a day together. Either tell me what's bothering you, take a few minutes to give some orders and take care of it, or do a better job putting it from your mind."

He looked at me, clearly surprised, and I wondered how he managed to be surprised every time someone saw through him. When he looked away again without replying, I got up, walked around the table, and sat myself in his lap. "Might you find the resolve to focus on me for one day?"

His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "Very well - tell me this: do the Dalish still reference the idea of nas'taronen?"

"Soul twins? I...suppose. As a joke. You know: 'the only reason you don't get along with your brother is because he is your nas'taron, so how does it feel to have to live with yourself?'" I shrugged.

"Of course the remnants of the Elvhen come around to my way of thinking just as I begin doubting myself," he scoffed, shaking his head. "Nas'taron - and nas'falon - were taken seriously in my time. Young and arrogant as I was, the majority of people seemed much the same to me, acting without thought or understanding. I didn't know how one differentiated enough between unthinking individuals within the herd to pair them together as nas'taronen or nas'falonen. I once joked that perhaps all of them shared a single soul, and that was why they had so little imagination." He gave a disgusted snort.

"What changed your mind?" I asked.

"You, of course - though I wouldn't call it changed so much as...open to the possibility of irony on an empyrean scale," he replied, wrapping me in his arms.

I peered into his face, confused.

He sighed. "You saw the ruins, where grateful former slaves exalted and praised me." I nodded. "I...worked to free them, yes, but never think that I did not consider myself far beyond the ordinary masses. I knew I had failings enough, but my virtues were so great as to eclipse any small, personal vices I engaged in, or so I believed. Worse, I saw my failings as inevitable, a consequence of my burden of superiority. What is it the Orlesians say? Noblesse oblige. That describes my attitude well - generously granting the lower classes enough reason to make enslavement an injustice, while still holding them in contempt."

"That doesn't sound like you," I told him, tracing the edge of his ear with my finger. "You are suspicious of people generally, true - but I have never seen you judge someone simply based on class or status."

"No?" he replied, raising one eyebrow at me. "And why do you think Sera took such an instant dislike to me?"

"Because you're 'elfy,'" I told him.

"So are you, as she understands it," he retorted. "She was equally wary of us both at the start - and then I confirmed her already-low opinion by talking down to her, outright stating that her upbringing was inferior to what it might have been - that there was a better version of her, somewhere, that might have existed with more education. You, meanwhile, became one of her closest friends."

"But you really believe that is all true - that she has lost something important by rejecting our people," I pointed out. "And - I can't entirely disagree, but if she is happy with who she is, I don't see why I should try to make her dissatisfied with it."

"I do believe it," he agreed. "And her immaturity grates on me. And yet - how much more mature is your perspective than mine? I don't see why I should try to make her dissatisfied with who she is. How much happier a place would the world be, if everyone embraced such a philosophy? Besides, is growing up among the Dalish a certain cure for immaturity?"

"No," I said with a laugh. "Nor does it guarantee good-natured immaturity, which is mostly what Sera's is. Say what you will of her, she isn't a bully. She looks out for those weaker than she is, and saves her pranks for those who can afford them."

"You see all of that effortlessly - and by seeing the best in her, you create an opening by which she may learn those things I deem important, the things that would bring her more into balance," he said. "Did I, with all my lectures and superiority, do anything to create such opportunities? No - she felt my contempt and rejected me and all I stood for." He sighed. "I have learned - tried to learn - from past mistakes, but the habits of a lifetime as long as mine are hard to unravel."

"All right, I suppose," I conceded after a moment of thought, "though I don't think you're as bad as you think you are. Have you met Vivienne? Mistakes don't rob you of your worth, Solas. Anyway, what does this have to do with nas'taronen?"

He sighed and pulled me closer. "We would never have fallen in love, were we not similar in some ways - if we did not share a number of values in common. But sometimes I feel looking at you is like looking in a mirror - one that reflects possibilities as well as realities. You and I possess many of the same strengths: curiosity, openness to new ideas and experiences, self-awareness, confidence, a concern for injustice, a - pragmatic sort of idealism - "

"Efficiency at killing things," I added wryly, trying to deflect him from continuing a litany that was making me increasingly uncomfortable.

He shook his head and gave a little snort of laughter. "Yes, well - I suppose killing things inefficiently would be unnecessarily cruel."

"There's that shared concern for justice," I teased lightly.

His smile was fleeting, and then he leaned his head against my shoulder. "You possess all my greatest strengths, and yet you are generous, unpretentious, charismatic - "

"Tel'tua," I begged, my face burning. "Solas, I'm not somehow you, perfected. I grow dissatisfied and restless when bored. Holding as much power as I do still makes me uneasy - I am often terrified of using it in the wrong way, which sometimes means I don't use it the right way. I hate not being self-sufficient any longer, which tells me just how much pride I had wrapped up in my self-sufficiency before I lost my arm. And - sometimes I selfishly choose to spend time with the man I love instead of ensuring the political stability of the entire continent by remaining firmly within the public eye. I am full of doubts and resentments, conflicting desires - I - "

"Humble," he whispered, interrupting me.

"What?" I replied, thrown off.

"That is certainly the greatest difference between us. You are self-aware enough to know your flaws - and humble enough not to believe yourself entitled to them," he told me, and then let out a long breath. "I deserve to be destroyed for the mistakes I have made. But the thought that you might be destroyed - that the world might be robbed - "

"Your mistakes do not warrant your destruction," I protested, pushing him back against the chair so I could glare into his eyes.

He merely smiled sadly. "You are in no position to judge, vhenan."

I turned a little away from him, blinking in an effort to keep my eyes from filling with tears. "I am not engaged in this struggle against you because I believe the Veil should remain forever in place. I don't. What I object to is your unwillingness to seek a solution that doesn't amount to genocide. That doesn't mean, if you found one, I believe you would make it through alive or - or with your mind and personality intact." I paused to take a ragged breath. "I understand sacrifice, and I realize that a change of this magnitude may very well require one. But if you must sacrifice yourself for this, death isn't your due. In the best case, the one in which you pause long enough to let your creativity work, your sacrifice makes you a hero. In the worst, it's the first in a long line of tragedies. In no scenario is it just, or fitting, or - "

Solas pulled me back around to face him, and he stopped me from going on with the simple expedient of a kiss. "I needed to know how dropping the Veil would affect the inor'alas'enaan - what Morrigan called the Crossroads," he murmured, his lips brushing mine, and surprise at the abrupt change of subject stole my will to press on with my argument. "The answer came back while you slept: just as raising the Veil did not materially alter the makeup of the labyrinth, the inor'alas'enaan will likely weather the lowering of it with similar ease." His breath was warm on my face as he sighed. "I want to protect you by sending you there - but I also have little desire to spend the rest of the day arguing about it."

"Then let us treat it as a negotiation," I proposed. "Tell me the terms you offer, let me reflect for a while, and then we can attempt to come to an agreement. If we don't - we drop it." I waited for his nod before going on. "What do you intend to offer me in return for granting your request?" I asked.

He pulled back far enough for me to see his raised eyebrow. "Safety?" he said.

"Because I'm well known for my avid avoidance of life-threatening danger," I replied in the same tone. "My safety is for you. What are you offering me?"

"What do you want?" he asked.

"To be with you," I breathed. "Occasionally, if you can't bear to have me beside you all the time."

He leaned in again and gave me another kiss before whispering: "No."

I would have claimed, had I been asked, that I placed no hope in his "yes," but the denial still hit me like a blow. I had to bite my lip to keep the little sob that constricted my chest from emerging audibly.

"Silea…" Solas whispered.

"Ir abelas," I gasped. "I - it was no less than I expected, I don't know - I need time to consider what else might serve."

"Tel'emathas abelas." He sighed. "That you continue to ask...you have my gratitude, vhenan."

"Do I?" I asked, my voice slightly unsteady.

"I am aware of the value you place on your autonomy, and flattered you would consider giving it up to be with me. But leaving aside that the bargain is a bad one - for you - I would place no blame on you if it hurt you too much to continue asking." His eyes met mine, searching.

"It would hurt more not to ask," I told him.

He held me close for a moment before releasing me and indicating that I should get up. "Come, we will be more comfortable on the sofa. I am certain we will find something to argue over while you consider your next proposal."

I smiled, acknowledging he was likely right, and led the way back inside.

Gavalnulam: "Biting bitterness" - coffee, if that wasn't clear

Tel'tua: Stop, imperative form

Inor'alas'enaan: Between-worlds

Tel'emathas abelas: "Don't embrace sorrow" - don't be sorry