Elven translations at the bottom.
Letter, Day 2
I thought yesterday that I could have no more to say, not even enough to know how to end this letter. Just as well, for today is another morning after another night without sleep. Just as well, too, that I need so little, because I have been getting almost none.
The problem with wishing for another day with you, is that I do not believe I would have enough self-control to avoid reneging on the only part of our history I am not entirely ashamed of. Had I known how things would end - had I not believed my own lies so thoroughly - I do not think I would have been able to resist making love to you.
Do you remember the day the two of us got caught in the storm on the Exalted Plains? The season had been full of storms, no matter where we travelled, and our tents were much the worse for them. Blackwall suggested we hunt halla and tan their skins to make the needed repairs, but you were too impatient - either to get on with our mission, or to get dry again. So you and I trekked three miles to trade with a passing clan of the Dalish.
I have always wondered - did you take me with you because I was the only other member of our group at whom the Dalish would not look askance? Or did you merely want to spend the afternoon alone with me?
The storm blew in with incredible speed. I wasn't certain we were going to find shelter before the lightning was on top of us. Lucky that we had already scouted the area, and knew which way to go to find elven ruins - none of which had roofs, of course. But a rocky outcropping in the lea of one wall kept most of the wind off us, and sheltered us from the lightning. You were already soaked. I suppose I was, too, but the metal plates on your armor stole the warmth from your body at a remarkable rate, and you were shivering by the time I finished making a fire. There was no help for it - you needed to be out of your armor.
The padded leather jerkin beneath? Well, it was wet, too, but I'm still certain it had to be warmer than nothing. Only you claimed the leather chafed and offered little protection from either the cold or the wind, and so I helped you remove it, as well.
We let down your hair. You had loosened your helmet when we saw the storm, the better to take in our surroundings and find a place to shelter. The wind had dislodged it further, letting in rain to drench the top of your head and pulling strands loose to tangle with the buckles. I was as careful as I was able, but you winced more than once as hairs parted ways with your scalp, and you asked me exactly how much trouble it was to shave my head each morning. I believe I made up something exaggerated, because your hair was soft between my fingers and smelled pleasantly of herbs, wood smoke, rain, and you. The ends dripped slowly but steadily down your shoulders, and so I took off my outer robe and we tried to use the sopping fabric to wring out some of the moisture - a largely futile attempt.
Instead, I hung my robe on a small thrust of stone that jutted out near the fire, hoping it would dry a little faster in the warmth, and when I returned to you the full import of our situation struck me. You were huddled as close to the fire as you could manage without burning yourself, clad only in breeches and a chemise that had gone translucent where your hair dripped onto it. My state was little better - breeches, a thin shirt, and an equally light under-robe, all damp.
I shrugged out of the robe and wrapped it around you - it was something - but my hands froze on your arms when you looked up at me, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. You were so beautiful and inviting that, for a brief, mad moment, I wondered if you had engineered all of this. But no, of course not - the storm had blown up so quickly, and you still shuddered with cold under my hand. Even your lips were several shades paler than their usual hue, and, looking more closely, I could see how your jaw clenched to still its tremor.
What else was I to do, but take you in my arms? You lifted your face, asking to be kissed, and I could not deny you. It was one way to keep myself from watching your chemise slowly become gossamer as your hair soaked it. I could already remember, all too clearly -
I never told you - well, far too many things. I was always waiting for a better moment, one when there was no danger of some emergency calling one of us away. Or I waited for a time when self-control would no longer be at issue, when spurs to my lust would be a pleasant diversion rather than a torment.
I never told you of the day I unintentionally came upon you bathing. We were returning from the Storm Coast, and had seen little of the sun for two weeks. That day was my turn to bring in something fresh for the evening meal, and so I went out hunting before camp was even fully set. After nearly an hour of fruitless searching for signs of some beast small enough for the dinner pot, I decided perhaps fish were a more likely wager, and turned my attention to the river.
You must have announced your intention to bathe after I left, and whoever sat lookout for you was likely stationed between you and the camp, for I never saw anyone, and I was making no attempt at stealth.
I didn't see you, either, as I stepped out of the trees, only an odd swirl of bubbles, already breaking into loose strings as the current carried them downstream.
Then up you rose, water sheeting from you, the sunlight on your wet skin nearly blinding. You had been rinsing your hair. The water came nearly to your waist, and the glare of the sun made it all but opaque. But above the waterline - ah. I could only stare in helpless wonder as you reached up to squeeze water from your hair, the muscles in your arms and torso shifting under the skin, your breasts lifting a little with the motion. You raised your face to the sun, eyes still closed, and I wrenched myself free of the spell of your beauty, darting back into the trees, my breath coming in gasps.
We had stewed mushrooms and herbs that night, and I am only grateful I did not poison the entire camp.
Later in the night - much later - it occurred to me that I perhaps ought to tell you what had happened, and apologize for my carelessness. This thought stopped me: if you were a little angry or embarrassed, I knew you would forgive me as it had been an accident. But if you were not? If you laughed, teased me, asked why I had not joined you - asked if I wanted another chance to do so? I knew I would not stand such a test. Certainly not at that moment, perhaps not even now, all these years removed.
Perhaps especially not now.
That event was only a few weeks removed from the storm on the plains, still fresh in my mind too many nights when I tried to sleep. And in between, something else had occurred. Leliana invited me to observe one of her training sessions the day we spent at Skyhold before leaving for the plains. "A chance for a friendly chat," I believe she called it. As she pointedly stuck a target full of well-placed arrows, she questioned me regarding your state of mind.
At last she came to her point: "The Inquisitor has taken no vows to the Chantry - a fact which we have obviously not publicized. It is not politically expedient for her to carry on an affair with an Elven apostate. Luckily, with her inner circle as large and close-knit as it is, we can muddy the waters - spread rumors of the time she spends closeted with Varric, Dorian, Sera, Cullen, and even myself and Josephine, all in different quarters so there are always competing narratives, always doubts about whether she is involved with anyone at all. And affairs need not be politically useful to have uses, especially if the Inquisitor is kept happy and relaxed as opposed to wound up with sexual tension. Don't you agree, Solas?"
I should not have been surprised - I am not often, and I have a good understanding of Leliana's skills of observation. I suppose I didn't think my personal affairs were worth her notice, but of course anything that involved you had to be worth her notice.
I sputtered something - I believe the words "spying," "privacy," and "personal concerns" were involved, but I don't remember their arrangement. Not among my more facile moments, certainly.
Leliana smiled her sweetest and deadliest smile, and placed another arrow in her target, neatly shattering her previous shot into splinters. "I do not need spies to see how my Inquisitor blushes under your gaze, even in public. How carefully you place your hands when you cannot avoid touching her. Or the fact that you so often try to avoid it in the first place, as though you fear and distrust your own impulses. Either do her some good, Solas, or step aside. But decide soon - things are racing toward the finish, now, and I do not need my Inquisitor riding into a final battle distracted by a broken heart."
Of course I could not appreciate her interference, though a part of me to which I didn't listen understood that she had to keep watch over you, and therefore us. But there we were a week later, sheltering together from a storm, neither of us fully clothed, and I was kissing you as I pretended not to notice your fingers working their way beneath my shirt.
Your hand on my skin felt like lightning had, after all, struck us, and then you pulled back just far enough to whisper, "Sathan."
I could not explain everything, certainly not then, when the shock of it might conceivably send you rushing off into a dangerous storm. Nor, I found, could I bed you before giving you enough of the truth to allow you to make your own decisions. And yet, what Leliana had said had merit, too - I knew the frustration I was inflicting on you, and could only imagine how much worse it was when it was not your choice, but mine.
So I allowed myself a compromise, reached between our bodies, and gave you what you needed. You wanted to reciprocate, but you were finally warm, drowsy with the aftermath of pleasure, and I held you close as I stroked your hair. It wasn't difficult to soothe you to sleep. By then, my outer robe was no worse than damp, and the fury of the storm had settled into a light rain. I covered you and left for a while to see to my own needs. When I came back, I watched you sleep a little longer, more pleased by the opportunity than I cared to admit, and then kissed you awake after the storm had subsided to a drizzle. We completed our errand, but you blushed every time anyone so much as mentioned my name for the next four days, and could hardly string together a sentence when speaking to me directly.
I think often of that day, and the ones that followed it, and two regrets pull at me ceaselessly. The first, as always, is that I never made love to you. Perhaps it is just another self-delusion, but I think now that a partial truth, one that gave you some understanding of what you stood to lose, would have been enough, had I been clever enough to carve one out. As charming as your blushes have always been, I think you would have found less discomfort in my company after, had I shared an equally unguarded moment with you.
My other regret is that I acted at all. Though I relieved some physical discomfort, I placed you in an emotionally untenable position. Instead of the dialogue between equals that it should have been, I appointed myself the guardian of your well-being, and a capricious one I was, as I could only see to it when my own desires were firmly under my control - which they rarely were. Ir abelas, vhenan'ara. The ways in which I wronged you would fill volumes.
Elven translations, in order of appearance:
Sathan: Please
Ir abelas: I'm sorry, lit. much sorrow
Vhenan'ara: Heart's desire/heart's journey
