This memory corresponds to Silea's memory of debating Koslun.
"Tell one of the others, Cole," I insist, turning away from the spirit.
"But she suspects them - suspects some seek to scratch her out, substituting someone satisfactory in the story. After Ameridan, she anticipates her account's annihilation - wonders which of the witnesses will write or rewrite her record."
I shake my head silently, holding to my resolve only with an effort, because Ameridan's fate was upsetting to me, as well, and I have far less attachment to his history than Silea must - especially now that she bears some of his memories. Even so, to go to her now, to attempt to offer comfort when I must still keep my distance, would be cruel to both of us.
"Ehn ame?" Cole asks quietly, and he speaks with her accent, her cadence - her agony. "Ehn sule'jutu em?"
In spite of myself, I look at him.
"Please," he whispers. "You are the only one she has any hope of listening to right now."
"Where is she?" I ask.
I feel myself go pale when Cole answers: "I will show you the tree."
We waste no time. Leaving aside my own distrust of the swaying heights the Dalish have claimed as their native environment, the treetops are hardly safe for one in distress, and I suddenly fear that Silea's despair is worse even than Cole has let on. Normally, I would never suspect her of harboring the intention to harm herself, but this latest blow follows mere weeks after my own betrayal, and I know very well that she has not yet recovered her emotional equilibrium. Hearing Dorian and Varric take turns trying to coax her into eating at every meal is only the most concrete piece of my daily torture. Her nightmares are so powerful that even I, with all my skill in the Fade, can only mitigate the damage by warding off demons who would prey on her. I can do nothing to protect her from the thoughts and memories that plague her, at least not without revealing myself and ultimately compounding the problem.
We reach the tree Silea has retreated to, and I take a breath, looking up into the branches, briefly picturing myself attempting to scale it as I know she did. Thankfully there is no need - I Fade step up to a higher limb, and from there to another. Peering about carefully, I eventually spot Silea another layer of branches above me. A third Fade step brings me to the limb she occupies.
I appear beside the trunk. Silea, meanwhile, stands twice or three times my own height beyond me, just past the place where the great limb first splits. Though the branch she stands on is still at least as big around as her waist, I feel a thrill of fear as I take in her position. Not only does she hold nothing, her arms are wrapped tightly around her ribcage - a position from which she would have trouble grabbing for safety should anything disturb her composure. Her only concession to balance is her stance, her feet hip-width apart with knees flexed. Of course she is entirely at ease, her weight shifting minutely - unconsciously - as the branch sways beneath her, but I am hardly reassured.
"Silea." Though I say her name quietly, gently, she still flinches in surprise or pain at the sound of my voice, and before I even know what I am about, I have cast a barrier on her, certain, for the blink of an eye, that I have caused her to fall.
Then she turns her head to look at me in mild confusion, as much at her ease as ever. Her weight doesn't even shift. "What are you doing?" she demands without heat, her voice thick with tears. Her eyes and nose are red, and I can see she has been chewing on her lower lip. She lifts her arm and frowns at it, feeling my barrier pressing against her skin.
The tips of my ears heat. "I - Cole requested - " I exhale. "Your comfort in the treetops never ceases to dismay me. I'm always certain you are one wrong move from falling."
Her brows draw together. "I...am? Everyone is always one wrong move from falling in a tree."
"That observation is hardly calculated to reassure me," I tell her dryly.
"That is why I have been trained to avoid mistakes," she goes on, ignoring my interjection. From anyone else, it would likely be a boast. She says it as a simple statement of fact, taking no pride - and, at the moment, no pleasure - in her skill. "What do you want, Solas?"
I avoid answering that question. "Cole said that Ameridan's fate troubles you."
The sound she makes falls somewhere between a sob and a bitter laugh. "Ameridan's erasure troubles me," she corrects me, her voice a little choked, and then she closes her mouth resolutely, as though she intends to say no more. If that is, indeed, her intention, her resolve lasts only a handful of heartbeats before her indignation bursts free. "History wrote out everything about him that others found inconvenient. Another Inquisitor - another elf. How long will it take them to rewrite my ears into a different shape? To erase my accent? To translate the Elven phrases I habitually use into a more palatable language?" She looks away. "I already took the first step, when I erased my own vallaslin." Her lips tremble. "No one will remember, now, that my face was ever marked. No one will believe in a generation or two that I was Dalish - they might not even remember accurately enough to wonder."
"I took your vallaslin," I remind her.
"I asked you to," she retorts. "I didn't think it through. I thought - I thought we - " Her hands tighten, nails digging into the flexible jumps she wears laced over her loose shirt. I hope the layers of cloth are thick enough to keep her from harming herself. "I thought," she says more carefully, "that I was acknowledging reality. Both the history you shared with me, and the simple truth that I will never return to that life - to my clan - to any clan. I thought...I thought I was ridding myself of a divisive symbol. Many city elves have had experiences with the Dalish in line with your own, or with Sera's - and those who haven't have heard the stories of those who have. I didn't think I was changing who I am. But I did." A sob catches in her throat. "I did."
" Vhenan." I mouth the word more than say it, and so she doesn't hear. "It is the nature of the past, I fear, to be changed and fitted to the needs of the present," I tell her in a stronger voice. "It's inevitable, and your choice to wear vallaslin or not has no bearing on how you will ultimately be remembered. If it is your fate to have your race and beginnings erased, you could daily wear cloaks with 'I am Dalish' embroidered in gold thread and gemstones, and it would not change - would likely not even delay - that outcome."
She makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh, and tilts her head. "Are you trying to make me feel better?"
"I am reminding you that you cannot control the words and actions of others." I take a step away from the trunk. The limb is easily twice as wide as I am - Silea and I could lie comfortable side by side without either of us being in particular danger of falling off - and barely vibrates in the breeze that slides through the basin. Even so, I can feel the movement through the soles of my feet, uninhibited by either the material of the tree or by magic, and it sets me on edge. "None of us chooses how we are remembered."
This, at least, is a lesson I feel qualified to offer.
"In any case," I add as she thinks over my words, "Ameridan had no Varric Tethras dogging his footsteps, and though Master Tethras takes considerable liberties with questions of how , he seems conscientious in his depictions of what and why ."
Her laugh is a little more laugh-like this time, even if it remains bitter. "I doubt even Varric can turn the tide against an entire world trying to tell my story in a more convenient way."
"Likely not," I concede, "but he may at least provide a historical record for future scholars to argue over. Besides, Varric won't be alone. Dorian is a man with considerable power who loves you too well to intentionally misrepresent you. Cassandra is, similarly, part of the royal family of Nevarra, regardless of whether she ever chooses to lay claim to that lineage. Even were you not friends, she is too scrupulously honest to allow any inaccurate record to stand without challenge. And then there are those like Thom Rainier and the Iron Bull, who hold you in such high esteem that I would claim their admiration excessive were it possible to admire you too much."
She frowns at that, glancing sidelong at me, and I realize I have not guarded my speech as I ought to. "If only someone else admired me so much," she murmurs.
"I believe the only one of your circle you need concern yourself with is Vivienne," I hasten on, pretending not to hear Silea's words. "She would place you in whatever light best reflects on her. Even so, I do not believe she would tell many outright lies. At least none about your background as a Dalish elf. Scandalous love affairs, illegitimate children, and ill-advised political affiliations, yes, but not lies about who you are."
Silea's lips quirk in an ironic smile, acknowledging the justice of my jab at Vivienne, even though her eyes remain wary. "And what of you?" she asks. "How will you remember me? What stories will you tell?"
"I don't believe the current framers of Thedosian history care much for my opinion," I dissemble.
"I care for your opinion," she retorts. Once, my deflections were generally effective at changing the course of our conversations, which I believed a testament to my conversational skill. Now I think perhaps Silea was treating me with a tact she no longer feels the need to maintain.
I hesitate, at war with myself. She is my heart, and always will be, but stating the truth aloud would only confuse and hurt her. "I imagine I will speak of you as the only person who has ever lent meaning to my purpose," I tell her after a long moment spent choosing my words with care.
Her brow furrows as she tries to work out the significance of my statement. She can tell, I hope, that I am complimenting her, but of course she cannot know my purpose, or its weight, or the millennia I have spent pursuing it doggedly, bereft of either hope or passion. As much as her existence has complicated my understanding of her world, it has also made tearing down the Veil - and perhaps granting the elves of her world immortality in the process - an emotional as well as a moral imperative.
"You, I imagine, have as much chance of being remembered accurately as anyone does, and perhaps more than many," I tell her, turning to go before she can launch a barrage of questions at me. "Ameridan's fate may well be yours, but I would advise you not to despair of a better ending for yourself."
"It won't be that much better," she says before I can Fade step away. "Whatever wrongs history committed against him, at least Ameridan and Telana died loving each other."
"And thereby proved that a lack of love isn't the only thing which can separate two people," I counter rapidly, before I can think the better of it. I am stung by the implication that I no longer love her, even though I feel I have made my position, if not my reasons for it, clear.
I know immediately that I have said too much, and quickly pull myself away, flickering down to the base of the tree. My final impression, however, is of Silea's face twisted into a look of confusion as I yet again run from her.
"Idiot," I growled at no one in particular as the memory ended. It was occasionally hilarious to me, how convinced Solas was that he was hiding his feelings when he wore them openly, and how utterly opaque he could be when he believed he was being perfectly transparent. Occasionally. More often, I wanted to kick him. He was always convinced open communication would ruin everything one way or another, and so I was ultimately left pounding my head in frustration against whatever obstacle he had put up.
He had, at least, identified in hindsight the moment at which I had truly understood that he hadn't simply...fallen out of love with me in a matter of seconds, or seen my bare face and realized he hated it, or ended some cruel, months-long joke he had been playing at my expense. I could feel the apology surrounding the memory he had left, even though it was absent from the memory itself. This was his admission that he was a blind, arrogant fool - he no doubt wanted me to know that at least he was an honest blind, arrogant fool.
Well, not honest, exactly - not intentionally callous, anyway.
Solast masa.
Ehn ame? Ehn sule'jutua em?: Who am I? Who will they make me into?
Solast masa: Arrogant ass