I re-wrote this, trying different times, perspectives, and means of presenting the scene eight times before it finally felt right. That's why it's coming so much later.

Epilogue: A Meeting

Fen'Harel did not look well.

Elze had met him personally only twice before: once when she let him into the Inquisitor's private chamber in Cumberland, and again later when he demanded an explanation for why she would not do anything similar again. At their first meeting, he had been sober and firm, with an austere charm that gave Elze some insight into why a beautiful young woman might be drawn to him, particularly in circumstances as fraught as those he and the Inquisitor had faced together.

The second time they had met, he had seemed tired and restless, impatient with her unwillingness to do his bidding, and something else beneath that - something she couldn't quite put a name to. Frightened? Despondent? Desperate? Elze suspected, whatever it was, that he looked to the Inquisitor to fix it with her presence, and Elze was uninterested in making such a bad bargain for her new mistress. She had witnessed the state he had left the Inquisitor in before, and, at that second meeting, there had been the child growing within her lady to think of. Elze had stood firm, and he had backed down.

Now he looked terrible - pale and sweating, eyes red-rimmed and surrounded by deep, bruise-like smudges, and it was possible his hands were shaking, though, if so, he was taking care not to make it obvious. He paced along the small patch of ground in this part of the inor'alas'enaan, hands clasped behind his back. "You failed to report on her labor, and the birth," he said, giving Elze a look brimming with distrust and resentment.

"At the time I was busy, and what was there to say after that wasn't in the official announcement from the Divine?" Elze asked him calmly.

"Silea has failed to appear in public for almost a month!" he snarled, pausing in his restless movement to fix her with glare. "And the Divine's announcement was somewhat lacking in detail. The sex of the child, for example - I have yet to learn whether I have a son or a daughter!"

Elze dropped her eyes, trying to decide what the Inquisitor would want him to know. Though she still wore the earrings she had once confessed were a token of their bond, she spoke of him so little and, when she did, now referred to him by his title, even in private, placing careful emotional distance between them. Elze could not escape the guilt she felt over that change - she had let Fen'Harel into the Inquisitor's chambers, not yet understanding just how complicated the dance between them was. Or, she admitted to herself, just how thoroughly it was possible for the two of them to divide the loyalty of someone who sought to serve them both. Elze wanted Fen'Harel's future - but she wanted, equally, to be worthy of her lady's trust and good opinion.

It was an impossible position, but not one she could abandon. If she did, someone else would need to keep watch on the Inquisitor, to keep her safe - and that someone else might not care for her as much, or might let herself be bullied by Fen'Harel.

"You have a daughter," Elze told him at last, still not looking at him. "The Inquisitor has not been seen publicly because she is busy being a mother and sleeping very little, as new mothers do. Pia and I help with the baby, and her Keeper has come from Wycome for precisely that purpose. Both are well. The labor was...not short, but no longer than usual for a first birth, and without complications."

Elze glanced up at Fen'Harel as she finished speaking, and found him staring at her, his expression rapt. "Her - " he began as she trailed off, but the word emerged as no more than a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. "My daughter - her name?"

It would be public before many more months passed, so Elze shrugged and told him: "Laleala."

His lips moved as he repeated it silently, and then he closed his eyes against some emotion too large and dark for Elze to put words to as it swept over him and twisted his features. "Do you know what it means?" he asked, the flatness of his voice at odds with the expression on his face.

Elze faltered. She had almost no knowledge of the language - why would he ask her? "The Inquisitor said it translated to something like 'brightest hope.'"

"That is one translation." He swallowed. "She used elements of both our names, as the Dalish sometimes do in naming children. Her piece is simple - sileal, wisdom, translates literally as 'bright thoughts' or 'bright mind.' But mine…"

He trailed off, and Elze wasn't certain he intended to continue. She didn't know why he was telling her any of this.

Perhaps because there was no one else to tell.

"Solas - pride - " he went on after a moment, "is a contraction of sou-lasa, 'to grant power.' The root of lasa, 'to grant or allow,' is las, which translates to hope, ambition, or anticipation. 'Laleala' may be translated as 'brightest hope,' but it also translates as 'brightest ambition.'" He took a slow breath, looking at Elze for the first time. "She turned pride to hope and ambition in our child." Again he paused, and again closed his eyes, shaking his head as his voice sank low. "Silea has always appreciated an apt metaphor."

Elze didn't know what to say. It was a beautiful gesture, and yet inexpressibly sad, too - and those were only the layers of meaning she could read. She suspected there were many, many more visible to Fen'Harel, and present in the Inquisitor's thoughts when she had named their child.

Fen'Harel glanced at Elze. "Whatever it may seem, I did not call you here to berate you," he told her, his voice dull now, somehow matching the unabated pallor of his skin. He reached into a pouch at his belt and removed three items, one of them a note or letter. First, he handed her a flat piece of wood shaped into the form of a halla fawn in profile, all the edges and rough spots carefully sanded away. "Vasnu," he said, and she looked at him blankly. "The sap of the wood has a mild numbing effect. The Dalish of the north give their children teething toys made of it, to ease the pain," he explained, sounding self-conscious, as though he suspected either Elze or the Inquisitor would think his attention to such a detail foolish.

Elze didn't, and she knew her lady wouldn't.

"Where am I to say I found it?" she asked him.

He handed her the letter. "Don't. This will tell Silea what she needs to know."

Elze nodded, accepting it, already trying to decide whether she would place the items herself, or pass them to another of Fen'Harel's agents to have them placed. Faster if she did it herself, but safer to let someone else do it.

She put the decision aside for later as Fen'Harel handed her the last item. A...bone? Perhaps the jawbone of some animal? "I don't understand," she told him.

"Silea will," he said simply, and yet there was a world of meaning contained within the words. "You were right," he went on, "not to let me see her all those months ago. I will not ask again, and if I do, Leena knows not to heed me. Similarly, I will not ask to see you again, because no good can come of it now. Even so," he hesitated, "it would be a kindness if you would keep Leena apprised of - of my daughter's growth and development. She will...tell me as little as I will be satisfied with, but merely having such information within reach may help calm me in...dark moments."

Elze weighed her options, and decided that if the Inquisitor ever learned she worked for Fen'Harel, it would soften the blow somewhat if Elze could say he had asked to be told of his daughter. "Very well," she agreed.

"Ma serannas," he said, looking like a man who has learned his execution is to be put off a few more days, even if he knows there is no hope of an ultimate reprieve.

Elze left hoping that the Inquisitor never learned of her divided loyalties - in part, of course, because she would at best send Elze far away, and might have her imprisoned. But she would also ask after Fen'Harel, and Elze didn't know if she could bear telling her lady what the man she loved looked like as he completely unraveled.

In case you're curious, Laleala breaks down like this: La is a contraction of las, which means, as Solas noted, hope, ambition, or anticipation. Leala is a contraction of leal'ala, leal meaning bright, and the ala suffix acting as an intensifier. Thus: brightest.