Translations at the bottom.

The Sins of Elvhenan

I might have spent the better part of an eternity happily wandering through that forest at Solas's side. Though he apparently had a destination in mind, he didn't seem overly eager to reach it. We ambled along a path, stopping often as he picked flowers I didn't recognize so I could smell them and he could tell me of their properties, or as he paused to drape his arm across my shoulder so he could point out which of little drab birds belonged to which songs, his breath tickling my ear as he named them for me. He drew my attention to large, spiny caterpillars whose poison could be harvested to make a potent anesthetic, and then showed me the butterflies they would eventually become, their red-and-orange wingspans wider than the length of my palm. There were wonders everywhere, and he seemed as eager to tell me of them as I was to learn of them.

At last we emerged on a rocky beach, and I realized we had reached the shore of the Waking Sea. In Cumberland, this area would certainly be covered in docks and warehouses. Here, far above our heads, crystal platforms extended out beyond the cover provided by the trees, and I gasped as I watched a griffon take off from one of them, its rider crouched low on its back as it dove toward the ground to gain speed and then spread its enormous wings, flapping to regain altitude. Its wings were so powerful, and its wingspan so great, that even though it remained many times my height above my head, the wind it stirred still ruffled my hair. I caught Solas's arm in my hand as I gasped at the power and grace of it.

When I glanced at him to see if it affected him in anything like the same way, I found he was instead watching me with a smile. "Did you - " I began as a new thought occurred to me. "Did you bring me here to impress me with all the wonders of your world so I would understand why you insist on restoring it as quickly as possible?"

He blinked. "No, but…" His breath caught in a laugh. "I ought to have thought of that. I would prefer if you assumed it was one of my reasons." His tone made it more an instruction than a mere statement of preference, which made me laugh, and he briefly smiled at my amusement. Then he sobered. "There is something less pleasant I need to show you, because I have a request - but - " and here he smiled again, "this has been unexpectedly…"

"Unexpectedly what?" I prompted when he trailed off.

He took my hand, turning to face me. "Your world is not - cannot be - my home. And yet...it rarely occurred to me to wonder why I was so dissatisfied with this world while I lived within it. I...was not as wise as you were." His smile was bitter. "You were hardly more than a child when you understood you didn't want those things the people around you prized. It took a terrible, brutal war to make me understand something similar. And so I spent my youth chasing power, prestige, and honor, and wondered why they fed only my pride, and left me hollow."

"I'm not particularly wise," I protested. "Consider the life of a Dalish hunter: it overflows with time to contemplate the shape of one's life. And Deshanna - she never tried to mold me into a more convenient shape, even if she did continue to hope she could find a place for me within the clan. Again - you and I had different circumstances."

"Perhaps," he allowed, though he clearly remained unconvinced. "I had always explored the Fade for knowledge, but after I began to understand myself better, I started exploring it for wisdom. That was - far more satisfying. Still - I failed to understand how alone I was."

"What about Mythal?" I asked. "The spirits? You told me fairly early on about how fulfilling you found your friendships with various spirits. I didn't really understand then, but I do now. How could you be alone, with so many beings who shared both interests and affection with you?"

"Mythal was too practical to understand my determined pursuit of wisdom, though she was a true enough friend to be considerate in her lack of comprehension," he said, turning my hand over in his and tracing its creases with his thumb. It tickled and made me shiver, but he didn't notice. "And of course I have taken great comfort in my spirit friends. Still," his voice sank to a lower volume, "a single spirit can never take in the entirety of a fully physical, fully conscious person. My friendships are - of infinite value, and yet also fragmented. I believed it was enough. It was enough to carry me through a great deal. It was only after I met you that it felt as though - as though the sky had somehow been kept from me through all those ages of the world."

I leaned in so I could rest my forehead against his. "If you are the sea and I am the sky - that doesn't sound promising for us ever finding a way to be together."

"So the metaphor is appropriate then," he retorted, but his hand closed possessively over mine. "Ir abelas," he added after a moment. "I am - not reaching my point with any particular speed or efficiency. What I mean to say is: bringing you here, into a place so prominent in my memory, casts all of this in a new, happier light. This world should always have been my home, but it never truly was - not until now."

"Will you have to take care not to think of it, then, after today?" I asked.

"Perhaps, but don't concern yourself. I am happy now," he replied, trailing the fingers of his free hand along my jaw, and then tipping my face so he could kiss me.

"Now is nearly over," I whispered into the space between us when the kiss ended.

His hand tightened around mine, and his fingers ghosted down my neck. "I know, vhenan, and - there is still something I must ask of you."

I sighed and stepped back, though I also laced my fingers through his. "You make that sound ominous."

"It's - I want you to know that what I mean to ask is far too much for any one person, and I know it. Still - you are the only one I trust to understand, to make the attempt, and to have any hope of succeeding in it." He began walking as he spoke, and I kept pace. "Look there," he said with a gesture as an area further down the shoreline became visible. Palaces of pristine white marble and shining gold hovered above the waves, and boats made of substances I couldn't even name rode them with ease - perhaps by magic, or perhaps by some property inherent in the materials used in their construction. I could just make out small figures lounging on balconies and decks, playing on the shore, and cavorting in the waves.

"The homes of the aristocracy, I suppose," I hazarded. Solas had a point about the similarity of royal courts: even from this distance I recognized the posture - and posturing - of individuals who need not care for anything but their own status.

"Beautiful, are they not?" he asked, his tone acerbic. "The sea is a pleasant place for recreation, and, because of the eluvians, trading vessels are nearly unknown, so there is little of base practicality to spoil the beauty."

"They must not care for fish," I said with a small smile. "Or do they use eluvians to import that from elsewhere, too?"

Solas's laugh was fuller than my small gibe deserved. "I suppose I ought not celebrate your immediate grasp of what I wanted to speak of in this case - Dalish practicality is ingrained, and so naturally you think of subsistence first."

I blinked at him for a moment, piecing together the meaning of his words within the larger context of us being here. "You brought me here to talk about fish?" I said after a pause.

He indicated the direction opposite the one boasting the palaces of the aristocracy. We turned to look at a coastline that bent back towards us, a small ridge of hills marching down to the shore and out into the waves, providing some shelter from the sea's incessant beat. A breakwater had been constructed to better protect the area, and within the lee of the hills a series of buildings had been erected, along with - I hesitated to call them anything so pedestrian as docks, but judging by the boats tied to them, that was precisely what they were.

"Is that…" I paused, studying the graceful buildings, the docks made from ven'ter, the boats - painted? - a pristine white. "Is that...someone's idea of a fishing village?"

"If only," Solas scoffed. "That was Falon'Din's idea of a place to kill and process fish for the markets. The slave housing was under the eaves of the forest - a small mercy, as that put it beyond the worst of the winds from the sea. They lived semi-communally, with no heat in private spaces."

"Why?" I asked, feeling my brows draw together.

Solas's jaw clenched. "Come and see for yourself. See if you can discover the sins these particular slaves were forced to pay for."

I followed him, half jogging to keep up with his angry strides. After a few moments he noticed and murmured an apology, slowing his pace slightly so that I only had to walk quickly - which was admittedly more comfortable on the rocky shore, where it would be easy to turn an ankle.

As we neared the docks, I began to hear something over the roar of the sea, and eventually identified it as singing. Not the kind of conversational singing Solas brushed aside as an affectation, but real singing. The song was simple with a repetitive melody, but the voices sang it in canon, creating a counterpoint rich with complex - if also repetitive - harmonies. Slowly I began to pick out words and short phrases: leanatha, give glory; ove'din, through death; Falon'Din leanash, Falon'Din the glorious.

We passed through a tingling barrier of magic and the overwhelming smell of fish suddenly assaulted my nose, distracting me from the song. "Ugh," I grunted.

"Indeed," Solas agreed, his face set in an expression of distaste. "Thus, the barrier to scrub the stench."

"Mm," I said. "Can't have anyone wealthy accidentally wandering by and smelling something unpleasant."

"Precisely," he replied.

"Wait a moment," I requested, tilting my head to catch the words of the song now that we were nearer - I didn't want to get closer and find myself even more distracted by the smell.

They sang:

Leanatha, leanatha, leanatha,

Su'leanatha Falon'Din leanash

Isa banal re ma'lean

Ove'uth'then'era, ove'din

Sule'isa'emathe

The singers were divided into four groups, staggered by a measure each, repeating the song ceaselessly. "Do they sing all day?" I asked Solas.

"They do, though not the same song. In the morning, the fishers sing thanks to Falon'Din for the sea and the fish," he told me, his voice heavy with irony. "They sing one of several hymns of Falon'Din's faithfulness as the fish are unloaded - these have a steady rhythm to keep the group working in concert with each other. This is the afternoon song as the fish are killed and gutted, and in the evening, as they clean the workspace, they will sing of the beauty of Falon'Din's night."

"And...none of the Evanuris ever thought, 'All right, Falon'Din is definitely going to become a problem at some point'?" I asked, unimpressed.

Solas laughed. "Perhaps they might have - had all the Evanuris not been 'a problem' at one point or another. Even Mythal had her...less than shining moments, though most of her attention was spent on her own people and cleaning up after the others."

"Others of the Evanuris tried to drown the world in blood for no particular reason?" I asked.

He spent a moment considering me. "Andruil grew to find no pleasure in anything outside the thrill of the hunt and the moment she took a life," he offered. "She kept slaves solely for the pleasure of having something rational, powerful, and cunning to hunt. When she grew bored of slaves - and later humans - she set up Ghilan'nain to unwittingly offer her an insult, and then attempted to hunt her. And that is leaving aside her periodic bouts of true madness, in which she lashed out without even knowing what she did. The only reason she didn't start the same sort of war Falon'Din did, was because she had no interest in the clash of armies - only in personally feeling the blood drench her hands as she watched the light fade from another creature's eyes."

"Oh," I said. "Hm," I added, regarding him thoughtfully as I put some pieces together.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm thinking of circumstances," I told him. "Remember earlier, when you told me you once thought yourself entitled to your private vices? Did you never consider that perhaps your sense of entitlement came from watching Andruil ruthlessly murdering anyone she could get her hands on, Falon'Din forcing slaves to literally sing his praises - in harmony - all day long, and - only you would really know what horrors the rest of them were engaging in?"

"That-"

"I know," I interrupted before he could even finish telling me it didn't excuse anything. "But it does explain quite a lot, doesn't it? Ma vhenan, you came of age in a world where anything was permitted so long as one possessed enough power. You possessed that kind of power - and managed to realize that it didn't justify any of your actions. Instead, you believed the good you did justified some of the bad decisions you made. That certainly isn't ideal, but it's still a step forward from the ethical landscape where everyone else apparently lived." I turned to him, raised myself on my toes and kissed his cheek. "Finding your way even that far, alone, is still admirable - and being able to look back now and recognize the limitations in your understanding then is even more admirable. You have lived all these thousands of years, and managed to keep what we mortals usually manage to lose within three to seven decades: the ability to recognize and learn from your mistakes instead of spending all your time and energy justifying them."

"You give me too much credit," he said, closing his eyes.

"Perhaps - but you give yourself too little credit, so maybe all the excess I offer will make up some of the difference," I retorted.

He smiled, though he wouldn't look at me. "That...is unlikely to work."

"It would work if you let it," I pointed out, stepping away from him and turning back toward the buildings from which singing and the odor of fish still emerged with unequal vigor. "Come - let me learn how much more I can loathe Falon'Din," I sighed.

Solas chuckled darkly and followed me.

There were four buildings, one much larger than the other three, in addition to several smaller smokeries. The largest building boasted a bay clearly meant to hold carts that would then transport finished products elsewhere in the city - and perhaps beyond. The smokeries were white-washed stone with plain tile roofs, while the rest of the buildings were white marble with pink veining, roofed with what appeared to be copper tiles that had been punched in elaborate patterns. Clerestory windows admitted daylight, and all the windows and doors were the pointed arch shape that I was familiar with from ancient elven ruins. In short: the buildings bordered on the ludicrous, considering their functions. I chose the largest to inspect, as I expected it would be the least foul-smelling, since it clearly didn't house the fish-killing or fish-cleaning operations.

The interior was much less ostentatious than the exterior, though - no doubt by architectural necessity - it did boast extravagant rib vaults. The pillars supporting the clerestory were plain stone, however, as were the floors, and the latter had been set on a slope to allow for drainage.

Half the building was given to packaging prepared fish, or packaging preparations of fish. Smoked fish - including shellfish - was brought from the smokeries and packed into crates. Fresh fillets were packed in salt and either taken at once to the other side of the building to be loaded onto carts and taken to the city, or set aside to ferment. The fermentation produced a strong smell of its own, but I was familiar with fermented fish and didn't find it as distasteful as the stench of stagnating seawater and spoiling fish guts - both of which were, of course, still present, just with somewhat less intensity.

A cart was pulling into the bay as we entered the building - the first I had seen drawn by an animal, though it wasn't the halla I had unconsciously expected. Instead it looked more like a dracolisk, only one that had been bred into something the general shape of an ox, but scaled down to about two thirds the size. It sported stubby wing nubs similar to dragonlings, only smaller in comparison to its bulk. I couldn't tell if it was a juvenile or an adult, but any wings it grew would probably be non-functional.

Solas saw me staring at the creature. "This representation of Nehnadahlen comes from a time period roughly equivalent to my arrival in Mythal's court," he told me. "At this time, Ghilan'nain was still a young woman fascinated by mage-constructs, but I don't believe she had yet been found and incorporated into Andruil's court - certainly she had not yet created halla. In the south, they tamed harts as beasts of burden, and rode them as well. But here, there was only the sounatha, and no one was fool enough to ride them. It may bear a kinship to your dracolisks, though that is far beyond my area of study."

As I watched, the sounatha snapped at one of its handlers and was smacked across the nose with a cane apparently carried for that purpose. Once it had subsided, though, it was rewarded - and likely kept from further misbehavior - by a pile of offal, which it gulped down eagerly as the cart was loaded.

The sounatha's handlers wore the white of slavery, though they were too far away for me to make out the precise patterns of their vallaslin. They clearly considered themselves of higher station than the slaves loading their cart, though. I drifted closer to better catch the sharp words they directed at the loaders, and noted that the handlers appeared better-fed. Indeed, the men who worked in the warehouse - for they were all men at that end of the building - were thin and hollow-cheeked, and moved with a graceful economy of motion clearly born of necessity. They hadn't the energy to spare for extra movement, though they continued singing as they worked, not even lifting their eyes as harsh words were directed at them by their fellow slaves.

I turned my attention to the people working inside. They, too, seemed half-starved. I also noticed, now that I was looking at people not backlit by daylight, that they all bore - call them blemishes. Nearly all had visible scars, and a few people moved with halting limps.

Then a child came in, bearing strings of smoked fish, and my breath froze in my lungs. She was tiny, clearly on the point of starvation, and I couldn't guess her age, but I could see the reason she was here: a red, puffy birthmark rose just above her eyebrow on one side, covering nearly half her forehead.

I turned to look at Solas. "They are flawed - not beautiful enough to please Falon'Din. He doesn't want to see them - or for anyone else to see them. At least not up close."

"They are sent to do this work until they die," Solas agreed grimly. "He starves them because he believes it makes them more graceful - and more docile. The only magic he is willing to see spent on them isn't to heat their workspaces and homes to bearable temperatures - it's to keep any dirt or blood from spoiling their white robes. Thus, if anyone sees them from a distance, all they hear is lovely singing, and all they see are lithe figures in pure white. The beauty of Nehnadahlen is preserved." He closed his eyes. "Come, I cannot bear to remain here."

I followed him as we left the little cove behind. He led us inland, back into the trees, and seemed to relax fractionally once the sea was behind us, only just audible under the sound of birdsong, chimes, and distant conversation. At last he stopped, and turned to look at me as I stopped beside him. "This is what our empire was."

I nodded, looking around. "Wonder and peerless beauty built on how many thousands of corpses?"

"Not all of it was this corrupt," he told me. "Only Falon'Din and Andruil allowed chattel slavery within their realms. Mythal disallowed slavery altogether, though indenture - with certain protections - was allowed. But she was the only one to reject it entirely, and her protections were by far the most detailed and robust."

I snorted. "How lucky for her people. What a shame for anyone with the poor taste to be born anywhere else."

Solas let out a breath. "I knew you would see it as I did - as I came to. Mythal was not perfect. She was practical. She counted up the numbers and saw I would never succeed if I set myself against the rest of the Evanuris, not even with her help. And...I suppose she wasn't wrong."

"Neither of you can ever know that," I told him. "On your own, you upended everything - which might not have been a success, but it wasn't a failure, either. With her - perhaps her insistence on practicality would have dragged you down into failure, or perhaps not. You can't know."

"I...suppose that is not an inaccurate assessment," he allowed. He turned to face me. "Silea - when the Veil comes down, some of the Dreamers of my time will wake. These are, in most cases, among the wisest of our people - but also the most powerful, the most accustomed to the prerogatives of power. Many of them exercised that power with care. Others...thought as I once did, that their wisdom entitled them to vice, and some of those vices ran more towards hurting and humiliating others than my own did. Even for the best of them, I would not assume the evils of slavery are self-evident."

"You want me to make sure the best of this world is restored, without the worst of it also being restored," I surmised, my brows drawing together. Then I laughed, the sound of it harsh in my own ears. "Solas - I don't even know that I can stop you from completing your mad plans, and you are only one wise and powerful mage. If you succeed, I will have failed. I will enter your world stripped of my armies and most of my organization, my titles made entirely meaningless - oh, and the Anchor may reawaken and begin killing me again. I may become a mage, but likely not a strong one, and certainly one without any training. What do you expect me to do?"

He took my hand. "I know. I know what I ask borders on the absurd. And yet...you are the most resourceful woman I have ever known. The wisest. The least corruptible. My… provisions for you following my success and destruction don't only have to do with Enansal. All my people, whatever is left of my organization - I have left orders that all are to answer to you once I am no longer in a position to offer instructions."

My eyes went wide. "That won't work," I told him reflexively, my mind immediately going to my own clan. "They won't listen. That won't work. Everyone knows - they must all know that we are - that I am among your chief adversaries."

"And what will that matter, after the Veil falls?" he retorted. "No," he went on, cutting off my protest, "I know not all my agents will follow you - those loyal only to gaining a place of power in the new world will likely turn away, and may even oppose you. But some loyal to me will understand the mistakes I wish to avoid seeing repeated, and they will give you an opportunity to win their loyalty for yourself - which I expect you will do with your usual enviable ease. It will admittedly be an unstable apparatus to begin with - but you have started with less and still managed tasks that bordered on impossibility."

I sighed and looked around the forest, feeling as though I was searching for a way out - but of course there wasn't one, not now that I had seen how terrible slavery in Elvhenan could be, not now that Solas had promised me at least some of his agents to prevent it from ever happening again. "You know I'll do it," I told him. "Or try, anyway. You know there is no real choice involved. Of course I must do all I can, though I wish you had chosen someone else to lead."

"I know, ma vhenan. Eolasan - tuan delal na. If there were anyone else whose capabilities as a leader I trusted as I do yours - I wouldn't place the burden on you. But...here we are." He shrugged helplessly.

I looked at his hand cradling mine. "Are you certain you aren't forcing me to lead so I haven't the time to give in to despair?"

A sad smile tugged at his lips. "That is merely one of the few side benefits in my plan. They are, admittedly, sparse."

I stepped forward and he put his arms around me. "We should probably wake," I whispered.

"Stay with me until dawn," he begged. "The College won't open its gates before that, anyway - not unless you want to make a particularly ostentatious show of your return."

"That - wouldn't be ideal," I agreed. "All right. Dawn. But I need to wake in time to bathe. If - I will need to be Inquisitor upon my return, perhaps for several hours, before I can - before I can...be me. Without you." Broken, though I spared him from hearing me say it. "If I can still smell you on my skin - I don't know that I will make it."

"I didn't ask," he pointed out.

"There is so much we have finally made clear. I don't want to leave behind a new cloud, no matter how small. You deserve...not to have to guess at my reasons," I told him.

His hands caressed my back. "I wouldn't have bothered," he said in a low voice. "You are not the one whose actions betray - and thereby instill - doubt." One of his hands found my jaw and tilted my face up so he could kiss me, but, for all its sweetness, it also felt like swallowing shards of glass. After a moment he gave up and simply wrapped me more tightly in his arms, and we stood like that for several minutes, until he finally said, "I want it to be impossible - letting you go again. It feels impossible. It ought to be impossible."

"It isn't," I told him, "but I won't force you to make it possible this time. I will leave you."

"That doesn't make anything better," he growled.

"Ir abelas - 'better/worse' isn't an axis I have the capacity to manipulate," I said. "All I have access to is simpler/more complex and easier/harder. I can give you a point near the nexus of 'simple' and 'easy' by taking the decision out of your hands, but 'better' is entirely beyond my reach."

He sighed and rested his forehead against mine. "Your admittedly insightful analogies were always absurd, but I think studying mathematics has made them more so. Still - I am going to miss them."

"If you allowed yourself to think of me," I reminded him.

"Your absence is not one I need to think on to be aware of," he responded. "It is like - walking on the other side of the Veil. Even when I am not thinking of the absence of the Fade, it is palpable - fundamental."

"Now who is making absurd analogies?" I asked him.

"That is hardly absurd," he retorted. "It's simple - comparing one sense of loss to another. You end up creating entire alternate worlds, with ecosystems to fit them. The marvel is that most of the time they not only have some internal logic, they even manage to say something true about reality."

"Most of the time, they also make you laugh," I replied. "Once I told you that you were Skyhold, and you had sex with me. So - if you want me to be less absurd, you may want to rethink the way you have positioned your incentives."

That certainly made him laugh. "No," he said, "I lack any desire to rethink my incentives. You are perfect. And if I am the only one who has properly incentivized your absurdity, then I am pleased to be the only one who has had the opportunity to appreciate your slightly mad genius in full."

It hurt less when he kissed me this time, although I was aware it was only a temporary reprieve. "We should wake," I told him. "We're just being together now, and we can do that unclothed, in a bed, and perhaps also in a bath, if we are awake."

"Very well," he agreed. "Do you need me to wake you?"

I lifted my chin, proud to be able to tell him: "I don't."

Eolasan - tuan delal na: I know - I continue wronging you

If you want a translation on the song:

Glory, glory, glory
Give glory to Falon'Din the glorious
His darkness is my light
Through uthenera, through death
Into his embrace