Solas fascinates me, and I love his romance path because of it.

Here's the thing about Solas: he fills the "god of rebellion" role, right? Led a big movement against the tyrants of his time, against slavery, was even maybe kind of successful at some points - but have you met Solas? He doesn't like people. They overlook him. He has no personal charisma to speak of. He's arrogant, resistant to asking for help, and he just blurts out his opinions with no regard for timing or tact. This is not a guy who led a movement because he's a good leader. This is a guy who led a movement because he had the raw power to do it, and there was no one else with similar power who wanted to. People followed him because they were desperate, not because he personally inspired them.

Enter Lavellan. She's a talented {insert class here} (in this story, warrior), but not singular. She's Dalish, a people Solas has no patience for (to the extent he has patience for anyone). She has some of his magic attached to her hand, but that's mostly by chance. He sees her as a child he can nevertheless use to right this damn stupid thing he rushed into doing because he's too arrogant and impatient to ever fully consider consequences.

And then he realizes...she's charming. People like her. And not only is she willing to put her life on the line to right injustice, she has intellectual courage, too. She asks about his knowledge, and doesn't get angry or defensive when it conflicts with what she's been taught. She is thoughtful in a way he has always aspired to be, and yet still resolute in much the same way he sees himself. Presumably, she is also at least pretty. And she flirts with him. And he finds he's flattered by the attention, so he encourages it out of vanity and interest in the novelty, probably assuming she isn't serious.

By the time he realizes she is...too late. He's captivated, and he's not exactly great at self-denial.

That's how I see this playing out, anyway, and so that's the emotional history behind where this story picks up. Be warned: this is not a happily-ever-after. More...an interlude with an ambiguous ending, because we still don't know how this story ends. I just needed more of them together than we got in-game. It's completely finished. The only thing delaying chapters going up will be editing. Solas speaks in this really specific and interesting way, and I'm trying to capture it as much as possible. It can be hard. I have to listen to him speaking a lot so I can get his voice right in my own mind, and then just go over and over and over what I've written trying to get the phrasing right. Also, for anyone who really hates present-tense storytelling, most of this isn't in present tense, just dreams and memories because I liked the effect. More immediate, especially with the contrast.

The Elven I use in here is courtesy of FenxShiral, who is basically my hero now. I'll post translations for most of the words and phrases used in a chapter down at the bottom, to avoid spoilers.

Without further ado, here is a scene I needed in the game. Since it wasn't there, I had to dream it up myself.


The Past

She is where I expected to find her, pacing the rocky outcropping beyond the ridge sheltering our camp, and looking south toward the final battleground with Corypheus. Winter has already descended in the mountains, yet she wears no cloak, and I am glad of the one I folded over my arm before coming.

I approach quietly, yet uncertain how to say what must be said. During lulls in the howling of the wind, I can hear her whispering to herself - battle scenarios, lines of retreat for Leliana's scouts and those of us she will take to fight beside her, calculations she usually leaves to Leliana or Harding, who are better trained in them. But tonight she second-guesses every decision they have made, trying both to make victory a certainty while also using her own life to shield the lives of her people.

I lean against a boulder behind her, unnoticed, waiting for - I do not know. An obvious opening? A tidal shift in my own courage?

All at once she stops, her hands hugging her upper arms tightly enough to bruise, and her chin drops. I hear one ragged breath before the wind picks up again, and drowns her out.

"Vhenan," I say softly.

She whirls to face me. Crystal tear drops shiver on her lower lashes, and one falls to her cheek. She wipes it away impatiently, angry that I have caught her in so vulnerable a moment. "What do you want?" she demands.

I do not answer, because I am not here to lie to her, and that truth would do neither of us any good. "It wasn't you," I tell her instead.

She turns from me. "Vara, Solas."

"Not until I have said this the way I should have said it then." I pause, trying to put my thoughts and feelings into an order I can express, and that she will have some hope of understanding. "I cannot know," I tell her carefully, "whether I love you more than any other man possibly could. I have no certain way to compare my feelings to those of others. I do know that I love you as much as my own nature allows. There is nothing you could do, nothing you could be, that would make me love you more. You are already flawless."

Her face is only three-quarters turned from me now, offering an assurance that she is listening. "By that same token, nothing you did or didn't do would have had any effect on my decision to relinquish - what we had."

As though realizing her posture has softened, her head snaps back to its original orientation with a little jerk. "You have to say that," she insists. "We ride out to face Corypheus at dawn, and Leliana would take your head for a trophy if she thought you had not at least tried to placate me."

"Leliana might try, but she would not succeed," I reply, forcing my voice to remain even, though the memory of the spymaster's blade-tip against my abdomen makes me want to scowl. "I am here because we ride into the unknown tomorrow, and either or both of us may not ride back out. I cannot - I must - " I pause, take a breath - it is rare for me to have so much difficulty finding the correct words. "The blame needs to fall in its proper place, ma'sa'lath. I offered to remove the vallaslin because it was the only lasting gift I felt I had to give. I realize I should not have done so and then - my timing was…"

"Terrible?" she offers when I trail off. Now I can see the profile of her face silhouetted against the sky, surrounded by stars. Beautiful.

"Far too near catastrophic for anyone's comfort," I correct her, as much to remind myself as her.

"You kissed me," she yells, wholly justified anger erupting abruptly. Her emotion propels her around to face me once more. "You kissed me as though - " She breaks off, shakes her head, and her anger is gone just as suddenly as it appeared, leaving her fighting back tears.

"As though I would never let you go?" I offer, approaching her with the cloak held out, so she will not misunderstand my intentions. She averts her face as I wrap it around her, and for a moment the breeze of its movement brings her scent to me, and I feel myself falter once again.

Then an icy gust of wind cuts me free, and I take a step back, away from the temptations of happiness. "In fairness, arasha, my resolve wavered first one way and then the other until the very last moment." My voice drops low, and I don't know if she can hear me over the wind - or if I want her to. "If I knew how to hold you without crushing you, I would never have let you go. As it was, even with the certainty of not knowing, I was yet uncertain whether I loved you enough to put your interests before my own." I reach out, trace with one finger the place where the vallaslin once marred her skin. "I did. I do. But only just."

"That doesn't make any sense," she tells me, her voice near breaking.

"I know," I reassure her. "Someday it may - and if it ever does, I hope you will realize how much more you should hate me for ever allowing you to love me, than for trying to set you free when I understood how much I had come to love you."

"But...I don't hate you at all," she protests.

"Then start," I advise, making my retreat before I can be enticed into destroying her.


Elven terms, in order of use in the chapter:

Vhenan: My heart/my home

Vara: (You) go away. Imperative form.

Ma'sa'lath: My only love.

Vallaslin: lit. Blood writing. Facial tattoos the Dalish believe honor their gods, but that were actually used to mark slaves. Dalish use them as a coming-of-age ritual. (I guess this entry is for anyone who hasn't played the games, but is here anyway for some reason?)

Arasha: My joy