Know where the translations are yet?
Yeah, I made up some Avvar traditions. I think it fits. Since their marriages aren't permanent, I imagine it makes child-parent bonds extremely important.
Gifts
"She's still asleep, I'm afraid." Esiel's hands twisted in her skirt. "She's - you - you shouldn't wake her, Fen'Harel."
"No," I agreed. "Let her body use what she ate, and recover." Lisell's last meal, or so Esiel told me, had been larger and heavier than any she had yet been allowed, and she had been sleeping most of the afternoon. "You spend a good deal of time with her," I said, tilting my head toward Lisell's door. "What do you think of the Chantry's Inquisitor?"
A smile lit Esiel's face, rendering her words unnecessary, but I wished to hear them in any case. "She is - she is not what one would expect, is she? Practical - feet on the ground and eyes on the level, as we used to say in my alienage - but not too serious. Not - not full of herself, as I thought she would be, when they called her Herald of Andraste and we learned she was Dalish." Esiel ducked her head. "She helped with my sewing this morning. Insisted on it. Even with just the one hand - we doubled a piece of leather on her leg like a kind of large thimble, and she used her teeth to finish pulling the needle through. Slow, but her seams were just as straight as mine."
"Though the typical Clan is large enough for the Dalish to specialize," I explained, "it behooves them to train everyone in a little of everything. She used to help the scouts patch clothing when we were on missions away from Skyhold for long periods. I am glad she has found ways to compensate for losing her arm."
"That is the story they ought to tell," Esiel said. "But I doubt it would win her any favor with the nobility, so perhaps that is why they don't."
I laughed. "Yes. Is there any aristocracy, I wonder, that finds value in practicality?"
"Perhaps in Ferelden," Esiel said with the disdainful tone of a lifelong Orlesian. The double standard amused me, but I didn't point it out.
I spared Lisell's door one more glance. "Ma serannas - for your candor. As she does not seem to be waking, I will take my leave of you."
"Shall I send word when she does wake?" Esiel asked. "I don't dare let her sleep all night - she needs to eat at least once more before that."
"No," I said. "I will hope for better luck tomorrow. On dhealam."
Alas, the next evening we managed to exchange only a few words of greeting before Lisell fell asleep. "It is the first time she has slept since she woke up in the morning," Esiel reassured me. "So it is progress."
The following day I told myself that I ought to make up the time. My truce with Lisell was still fragile and the boundaries not fully clear, and so I put my books and runes away early in the afternoon and returned to the manor. I was familiar with the path to Lisell's door by now, but this time I found another walking it with me - a young woman, soon to be married, was apparently carrying a coarse woolen chemise up to Lisell's room. Though loathe to admit it, I likely only remembered her because of her upcoming marriage - few of my converts were openly optimistic enough to perform such rituals, even when they met someone else among my people whom they were drawn to. Even so, I had to ask her name. Zara. She smiled and blushed as I did it, not at all offended.
"I'm - I'm terribly sorry Fen'Harel," Zara said as it became apparent we were going the same direction. "You can't see Lisell just now - we are about to start dressing her."
I felt my eyebrows go up. "Dressing her?" I repeated.
Zara chewed the inside of her cheek in apparent consternation. "I can't tell you," she said at last, all in a rush. "The others would never forgive me. You'll just have to wait outside." We had reached the room by then, and she flew through the door ahead of me, shutting it firmly behind her.
As I was not certain of Lisell's state of dress, I did not attempt to open the door - or even to knock, because if she needed to dress it would take the time it took, no matter whether I stood impatiently on the other side of the door or not. Esiel's chair was still beside the door, and empty, so I sat down to wait. After a moment, I realized I could hear most of the conversation on the other side.
"The lace!" a woman's voice said. "That is real Nevarran lace - three tiers of it!"
"Mmm," Lisell answered. "I would suggest removing it from the neckline - it's insufferably itchy in the summer."
"Forget the lace," another voice with a broad Fereldan accent said. "What is this made of? Wool? I never seen wool so soft and light…"
"It is wool, of a sort, but not sheep's wool," Lisell said. "Some of the Avvar keep the oddest beasts you can imagine - wooly like sheep, but with a long neck, almost like a horse's, only with less curve in it. They're kept like Dalish halla - for milk and to bear burdens - but they are, by all accounts, remarkably sure-footed in the mountains. And then they can be sheared, like sheep, to create a light, soft, warm cloth."
The women murmured among themselves for a moment before Lisell went on.
"When Avvar girls reach womanhood, they make a chemise of the animal's wool. Then, after they have children, they cut up the chemise for swaddling. It represents a mother's care and love for her children in a harsh world."
"And this is that cloth? How did you come by it?" a voice I recognized as belonging to Esiel asked.
"Oh. Well…" Lisell began, her voice suddenly more cautious. "There is a hold of Avvar - I visited, and my people and I helped them resolve some problems. I...became fond of the Thane. After I had my vallaslin removed...she asked about the change. I…" Lisell hesitated. "I explained what it meant to the Dalish, and what I had learned it meant long ago, in Arlathan - that vallaslin was once a slave marking. She understood my dilemma immediately. She said...it was the kind of choice that had no right answer, because to remove it was to reject my people, but to wear it was a dangerous symbol, inviting bad luck. I asked her what she would have chosen, and she said she thought that she would have had it removed, too, because slavery is the worst thing one person can do to another.
"A few months later, I received a package at Skyhold. It was that chemise, from Svarah and one of her daughters, along with a note explaining that, since I had been forced to reject the coming-of-age rite of my own people, she would offer me one from my adopted clan - from her people. It was - I have never found a way to repay her."
Lisell would believe freeing one of Svarah's gods and protecting the clan from a sect bent on destruction wasn't enough - she had done that in part for her own reasons, and therefore discarded the action as insufficiently altruistic. Absurd. How much better would I sleep at night if she held herself to less lofty - and dangerous - standards?
There was a long moment of silence as I scowled at the floor, absorbed in my own reflections. "You can't give me this!" a voice wailed, recalling my attention. Zara, I thought.
"No - the item itself isn't the point," Lisell said quickly. "And Svarah would be the first to tell me not to put sentiment before survival. If I wear that for weeks in the forest when I leave here, I will ruin it, and I can't possibly justify packing it along merely because I want it. I would much rather it go to someone who will cherish it and make use of it."
There was a pause. "Besides," Lisell continued at length, "I will never marry - "
"You are married," Esiel reminded her with a soft laugh.
I could easily picture Lisell's face. "I will never marry in a way that matters," she clarified with exaggerated patience, "and I expect I will never have children. I would like it - it would give me a great deal of pleasure to think on - if you completed the rite and used the fabric as blankets for your children one day."
Everything was silent for a moment, and then I heard a shuddering intake of breath and a rustle of fabric. "Of course," Zara said at last in a choked voice.
"Ma serannas," Lisell said, sounding so grateful that I almost forgot she had just bestowed a near-priceless piece of clothing on one of the women who worked in my kitchens.
Though I couldn't begrudge Zara Lisell's kindness, it was abundantly clear why she would never marry in any way that mattered to her. And for the first time I wondered - had she ever wanted children? She had been so young herself when we met - but perhaps I had taken that from her, too.
"What about the rest of it?" asked a voice I recognized, with surprise, as belonging to Ailis. Somehow I had supposed this was a gathering of the younger women in the manor.
"Do what you like," Lisell answered, her tone a shrug. "I can't possibly wear any of it home, and carrying it - well, same problem as the chemise."
"Those petticoats are good lambswool, they are," said the girl with the broad Fereldan accent. "Trim off the fancy work, dye 'em, couple someones will have new skirts come winter."
"What about the embroidery thread and the section already nearly complete?" Esiel asked.
"The thread is yours," Lisell said quickly, and then was silent for a long moment. "The completed needlework...Eliwys designed that halla pattern for me. She knew I loved it, so she was going to make a pair of dancing slippers with that, because she also knew how much I hate dancing slippers." Her voice broke on the last word, and she made a choked sound that was a sob or a laugh - or perhaps both. A short flutter of overlapping voices followed, offering sympathy.
"Between not being well and being so far from home, it has been easy not to think of," Lisell said at last, sounding more composed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to smudge your work."
"Take the embroidery with you," Ailis advised. "It's light and folds up small - you'll no more notice it than you would a leaf falling onto your pack. And you'll regret it if you leave it behind."
"All right," Lisell agreed.
"We will just wash your face again and start over," Esiel said. "There is no rush."
Someone gasped. "Fen'Harel," Zara said.
"What of him?" Lisell asked.
"I left him. Outside. I was so caught up in thinking of the chemise…"
"Well, I'm more or less decent. Let him in," Lisell instructed. A chorus of dismay rose to reject her direction. "All right!" Lisell said over them at last, laughing. "I suppose it won't kill him to wait until you're finished with me."
"It will be good for him," Ailis said in a much louder voice than she had been using, apparently to make certain I would hear. "If ever a man needed a lesson in patience..."
Lisell replied in a mutter whose words I could not entirely make out through the door, though I thought I heard "too much" in the middle of the phrase. Whatever it was, it made several of the other women laugh knowingly. A voice that I had not yet heard, but that I recognized as belonging to Mihren, one of the few Dalish converts, said, "And how is it, Inquisitor, dancing with the Dread Wolf?"
"In bed," the girl with the Fereldan accent clarified, to another round of laughter. Alas'nira aron fen'en - "dancing as the wolves do" - was a common Dalish euphemism for sex. I wondered if the Fereldan girl knew it, or had merely understood the context.
I wondered, also, what had happened to the awe Lisell claimed they held for me. The subject was not one I would have entertained - but Lisell had more patience for others examining her personal affairs, and I had no reason to second-guess her. She seemed to find friends and allies no matter where she went. Had my disposition been more suited to it, I might have learned a good deal from her.
"I do not think she knows," Esiel said in an arch tone, responding to Mihren's question in Lisell's place.
"What?" Lisell sputtered. "How do you - why would you - "
"Ah, seems it's true," Mihren concluded, interpreting Lisell's embarrassment correctly.
"There is a different kind of longing," Esiel said, answering Lisell's half-formed questions, "when a man looks at a woman he both loves, and has bedded before. Here, sit for me now, and I will line your eyes again."
"Then we only need to arrange and tie your sash, and you will be finished," Zara said.
"It's...truly, it's as lovely as one of my court gowns," Lisell said, and then added in a voice low enough that I almost couldn't hear, "He never did see me in anything like that, while we were - before - "
Someone clapped her hands and someone giggled, but whether it was the same someone, I couldn't say. "Well," the Fereldan girl said sagely, "dressing up fancy when you want a dance - either kind - never will hurt your chances for getting it."
This time I heard Lisell's laughter woven into that of the others, and Esiel admonished her to sit still. "I asked Josephine - Lady Montilyet - once, whether men preferred to see women dress the way she does, and the way they do at court, but she just reminded me of Commander Cullen at the ball we attended at Halamshiral. He was swarmed by a crowd of beautifully-dressed people, male and female, all bent on admiring him - and I have never seen a man look so uncomfortable in all my life." There were a few giggles and Lisell paused. "But Solas enjoyed the ball."
"He will enjoy this, too," Esiel promised. "There - all fixed. Now for the sash."
It required no great leap to pinpoint when and why Lisell might have asked Josephine's opinion, however obliquely, on her manner of dress. I knew already how I had made her doubt herself - Cole had not let me go without knowing it - but this facet was yet another scrap of shame added to the burden I would always bear.
The thought came to me that perhaps I should not be here, listening at this door. But before I could decide what I ought to do about it, the door opened and Zara's eager face greeted me. "She's ready, Fen'Harel."
I looked beyond her to Lisell, and the rest of the world fell away.
My eyes sought her face first, noting that she looked well - her skin no longer pale and her eyes no longer shadowed. The sides of her hair had been braided back, away from her face, the braids twined with narrow ribbons of cream, blue, and green. The rest of her hair had been left to fall in a shining river down her back. I observed for the first time how much longer it was than the last time I had seen her - nearly reaching her hips.
The gown she wore was cream, a simple, high-waisted cut - or so I thought until she turned toward me, and the small movement revealed panels of blue and green cunningly hidden by the fall of her skirt until she moved. The panels were embellished with - I was uncertain after so brief a glimpse. Perhaps lace and seed pearls, or some less-costly bead with a similar appearance. The bodice was cut distractingly low, and though a fichu of sheer fabric offered the pretense of modesty, it tantalized me with shadows and suggestions of what I could almost see clearly.
I did not attend the silence of the room until Esiel took Lisell's hand and led her the three steps that separated us. At some point, it seemed, I had risen to my feet and found my way to the door. I swept Lisell a courtly bow almost reflexively, habits long disused surfacing in response to her altered appearance. Then Esiel gave me her hand, and I brought her fingers to my lips, as I had seen Orlesian men do at Halamshiral. Lisell blushed, but her face was otherwise unreadable, and she pulled her hand gently from mine as soon as I had completed the gesture.
Though perhaps not the response I had hoped for, I was treating her with a formality heightened by the eyes currently watching us. I made a quick glance around the room and counted at least eight women crowded into the small space - and I might have missed one or two curled up on the bed. "Well?" Esiel prompted. "What do you think of your Inquisitor, Fen'Harel?"
Two days ago, I had asked her nearly the same question. "Dazzling," I said, speaking to Lisell. "You are always dazzling. But this is a facet of your beauty I had not yet seen and appreciated."
She smiled, and I wondered how most politely and efficiently to eject our audience.
Before I could settle on a course, Ailis did it for me. "Time for dinner, I think. Lisell cannot afford to miss meals yet. One of the girls will bring something up for you both."
"Ma serannas," I told her, more than willing to forgive her earlier comments if she managed to clear the room so I could be alone with my beloved.
"Ma serannas," Lisell echoed, but her gaze touched every one of the women gathered. "Thank you for the company and - and the stories. They were..." She shook her head, unable to find the words she wanted. "I won't forget."
There was a weight behind her words that said she meant more than stories about places of origin or reasons for conversion. I wondered what these women had been here talking about when they were not accepting the gifts Lisell cloaked in practicality, or making light of her association with me. I tried to catch her eye, but she was busy exchanging smiles, whispered greetings, and the occasional pressed hand as the women filed out. Esiel was last, giving us a knowing smirk and closing the door firmly behind her.
Lisell bent her head, silent. "It was...kind of them to make this for you," I said, a little unnerved by her silence. "But the materials don't look like anything available here. Where did they come from?"
"Wedding garments, mostly," Lisell answered, glancing at me, but then looking away again. "A few robes, from children who were dedicated in the Chantry. But - they didn't make it for me, Solas. At least, not mostly. They dressed me because making me more - attractive - was something they felt they could do for you."
"For me?" I repeated.
"I told you how they admire you. You never seem to lack for anything and you aren't precisely approachable. After Esiel walked in and we were...well...they finally saw something they could give you. Me."
"It didn't sound from outside as though they were thinking of me. It sounded as though they wished to help you," I argued.
"It doesn't have to be all one or the other," she told me, and I began to understand why her manner made me uneasy. She seemed subdued, and that was not a side of Lisell that typically saw much daylight. "Yes, they got to like me. I-I asked them about the clothing they brought, and they told me the stories - their own, or that of a sister, a mother, a daughter. Some were happy. Many weren't. There is a reason these people are ready to risk their lives on a new version of history."
"You didn't want them to dress you for me, then? You seemed happy enough before I came in," I offered, trying to find the why of the change in her manner.
A smile flitted across her face and she blushed. "No, I don't mind it. No - let me try that again. I don't just not mind. It's nice to know you will have a memory of me that doesn't involve me falling out of a tent, already half clad in armor, with the back of my hair standing on end."
I took her hand. "You were dazzling then, too," I reassured her - but her smile was already gone.
A knock on the door interrupted whatever I might have asked or she might have offered. One of the girls from earlier, one whose name I didn't know, opened it a moment later and peeked in. She pushed it open the rest of the way with a sniff that sounded suspiciously like disappointment when she saw we were only standing together, Lisell's hand held loosely in mine.
"Enaste, Eilin," Lisell said.
The girl paused and tilted her head. "Mm-mm, sorry, I don't know that one." I realized, hearing her speak, that the voice I had identified as Fereldan belonged to her
"It's a blessing, a way of giving thanks," Lisell explained.
"Ah, I got it," Eilin agreed, and proceeded to lay out our meal. When she had finished she stopped, hands on hips, and studied us.
Lisell began to laugh. "You don't have to see it, but he is."
"Long as you see it, I guess, right?" Eilin said with a shrug.
"On dhealam," Lisell said, and immediately translated: "Good night."
"'Night," Eilin returned, grinning at us over her shoulder as she retreated through the door.
I looked to Lisell for an explanation, but she only shook her head. "We should eat," she said, pulling her hand from mine once again.
"Have I done something to offend, Inquisitor?" I asked before she could turn away entirely.
She winced. "No. Or, at least, nothing new. It's only that I've had time and strength to think now, and - I suppose it won't be any better over dinner." She looked away for a moment composing her thoughts. "I am still a prisoner here."
"Lisell - "
She held up a hand to stop me. "No, don't start arguing with me until you know what you're arguing about. If I wanted to leave right now, you wouldn't let me, isn't that right?"
"You agreed - " I began.
"I know what I agreed, but it's true - the decision still isn't mine. I can decide other things, like whether to eat, but staying or not isn't one of those things. And…" She took a step away and turned until I was looking at her profile, then wrapped her one full arm around herself, the remains of the other held tight against her body. "I could get lost in you so easily," she said. "I think it's what I was asking for when I made this agreement. But the last time I did that, I almost lost myself in the process. I let you have too much power to dictate the terms of...us...because I didn't know any better."
Was it better or worse that I hadn't known, either? "Ir abelas," I murmured, not wishing to interrupt, but also unwilling to let her think I had failed to recognize the problem myself.
She let out a breath. "You are restricting my movements. Fine. Your reasons aren't terrible. But it doesn't change the reality that none of it is really up to me, that - that I'm supposed to have charge of myself, and I don't. Not eating was - a lot of things, including the ones I was able to express to you, but it was also about taking charge of myself the only way I had. Only now I've agreed to give that up, too."
"Would you rather not see me?" I asked.
"No," she answered quickly. "I thought of that, but - it doesn't make anything better. But I do think I - I need you not to touch me. If you're my jailor, even temporarily, you can't also be…"
Put that way, I had no real excuse for not recognizing it before. "Very well, then, that seems entirely reasonable."
"It does?" she asked, glancing at me warily.
"Of course," I replied, trying to keep my tone matter-of-fact to avoid letting on how much her words and my own culpability hurt. "Recall, I am more than a little fond of who you are. I would prefer that neither of us lose that person. Flawless, I believe I once told you. I have not seen the need to revise my assessment."
"Solas…" Her posture relaxed and she gave a soft, incredulous laugh. "After saying all that, now all I want to do is…" Her gaze travelled over me, nearly as compelling as her touch.
"You did ask me not to touch you," I pointed out after a moment standing breathlessly under her perusal. "While you might prefer not to make a habit of it, lest it come to feel like an obligation - "
I got no further before her hand on my face pulled me close enough to kiss. I clasped my own hands behind my back to ensure they did not do any of the many things they desired, and put all my attention on kissing Lisell for as long as she wished to be kissed - and not a moment longer.
And perhaps it might have been a very long time, had her body not chosen that moment to remind her, audibly, that she was past due for a meal.
We both laughed, but she stopped abruptly, an expression of awe crossing her face. "What?" I asked
"I...believe this is the first time I've seen you really smile since I arrived," she explained, stroking my jaw. "I forgot," she hesitated, blushing, "exactly how magnificent it is." Then something about her own statement made her laugh again, shaking her head. "Let's eat," she suggested.
Someone from the manor had seemingly spent the day fishing, because our dinner was freshly grilled fish alongside a few early herbs from the kitchen garden, and of course bread. Lisell's meals, I could see, were still being carefully managed - her portion of fish was small, while she had been given plenty of bread and herbs, and a small dish of stewed fruit. I forbore comment, as I knew her well enough to guess she would be impatient with the subject.
Instead I said, "The gown they made - I don't believe I have ever seen one put together that way."
Lisell's look held a mild reproof. "Well, what do you expect when you have so many former seamstresses - and a number of washer-women, who are the same thing, but poorer and busier - among your converts?"
"Do I?"
"You should spend more time talking to your people," she said.
"Perhaps," I allowed, "but they are unfortunately not the point, and I have a good deal to do and to think about."
Lisell applied herself to her meal, letting that comment go. "I'm sorry," she said a few moments later, "that I won't be able to take the gown with me when I leave. They should keep it - it is, after all, made up of other pieces of clothing they kept because they were precious for one reason or another. But those full Orlesian skirts - what I wouldn't give to walk into the formal gardens wearing something so different, beautiful, and shocking that I instantly started a new fashion trend. One with skirts that fit through doorways."
I smiled at the thought. "Have no doubt, someone would alter it to make you equally uncomfortable within a fortnight, vhenan," I assured her. "In any court, impracticality is always a marker of status."
"I will pass that on to Josephine," she said, and then her smile faltered. "Solas…"
"Let us leave the question aside for a few more days," I begged her. "You are not yet as strong as you were, and I…" I had not yet come to terms with her presence. How was I to countenance her absence?
"If you ever read whatever Eliwys sent you, you should know I'm not as helpless as I may appear," she said, not precisely pressing the subject, but moving to one that ran too closely parallel for my comfort.
"My aide gave me weekly summaries," I admitted, "with personal references edited out."
She put down her fork and looked at me.
"I did try to read them myself," I told her more quietly. "But hearing of you so often - and Eliwys was a lively storyteller. As much as I tried to calm myself, I...began attracting demons to the work we were doing, too many for the friendlier spirits to ward off. It was too dangerous."
"Oh," she said, picking up her fork and fastening her eyes on her plate to avoid meeting mine. Her face had gone completely unreadable again - I couldn't even begin to guess at the emotion behind it. Hurt? Anger? Perhaps she even found humor in it, but thought laughter might be insensitive.
I had no doubt, watching her, that she was now as adept a player of the Game as anyone born to it.
After a few moments spent eating thoughtfully, she abruptly went on without my prompting. "I told Eliwys things I hoped she would tell you. It comforted me to think you knew - many small things. About our friends, about what made me laugh and what made me want to scream in frustration, about my life. But you didn't know any of it, did you?"
What could I say? She already knew I was sorry, knew why I had to stop, there was nothing accusatory in her tone - just a bottomless well of sadness. "Do you remember," I said carefully, "the day we killed the last dragon in Emprise du Lion?"
She looked at me quizzically, but didn't protest. "Yes," she said. "Sera wanted to try the hot springs afterward. Is that what you mean?"
"She said…" I cast my memory back, searching for her words. "Something that consisted of the word shit, repeated multiple times in various forms."
"Oh yes. 'We took them back from the dragons, so let's get in and get all that stinky hot water commoner-y before those rich shits come back and fill it with all their shitty shit again.'"
"Yes," I chuckled, amused by the accuracy of her impression. "It went very like that."
"Then she insisted on one pool for men and one for women, because she didn't want to risk the trauma of seeing Bull's 'weird Qunari bits.'"
"And Bull accused her - probably accurately - of hoping to see your 'bits.'"
Lisell laughed. "Probably accurately? Did you see her blush? Someone had to help me with my armor, and we had already divided up by sex, so it had to be her, even though she wasn't quite able to keep the appreciative murmurs to herself."
"She didn't want me to send up the flare to bring the others, either," I remembered, not wanting to dwell on Sera undressing my beloved.
"Well, yes, but I think that was more about Vivienne than me," Lisell pointed out. "And after you did - Cassandra, running up, certain we were already being eaten by the dragon - "
"Yes," I laughed. "Varric wasn't terribly pleased, either, as I recall."
"At least Cassandra joined in after she was done yelling at us."
"Cole had forgotten, again, that physical creatures wear clothing that we remove at intervals," I remembered.
"Yes, that did seem to trouble him considerably. Perhaps that's why Varric didn't join us," Lisell mused. "He always was - I don't know. Where did he learn to treat someone like Cole with so much care and - and dignity?"
"My guess would be no better than yours, and perhaps worse," I told her, reflecting that the question was an insightful one. "They were kind enough to go back to camp for linens, in any case, so we didn't have to dress wet after we were finished."
"That's right - and they missed out on seeing Dorian, much to Dorian's dismay." She bent her head, laughing at the memory of Dorian strutting around the springs, searching for the perfect spot to enter and making sure that everyone got an eyeful.
"It is still my belief that the risk of frostbite was the only thing that finally goaded him into halting his parade," I maintained.
"He did have good, um, symmetry," she said. "So his vanity wasn't based on nothing."
"You looked?" I asked, surprised. I mostly remembered her blushing furiously.
"Well, I had never seen a human naked before," she defended herself. "And I might never again. So yes, I peeked - I was curious, and he wanted everyone to look."
For a moment I was taken aback, unfounded jealousy sending out tendrils to trip me, but I shook them off by reminding myself of Lisell seated across the table. From me. And that was even leaving aside Dorian's preference for anyone in the male pool over anyone in the female pool. "At least the spectacle he made of himself let Blackwall slip in without being noticed."
"Maybe that was some of why he did it," Lisell said with a shrug. "Dorian is often kind - especially if he can do it while also making everyone pay attention to him." She hesitated. "Why did you bring this up?"
The only answer to that question was, I could not bear to see you hurt again, and so I evaded it. "I will go back and read every word Eliwys wrote, arasha. You know - you must know - how much difference the awareness you intended to communicate with me about your life makes. I was not, as I believed, an illegitimate voyeur."
"Oh," she murmured. "Yes." She took a thoughtful bite and then looked up at me, one eyebrow raised. "You didn't seem to mind listening in at the door."
"Well, perhaps you shouldn't tell such interesting stories, and then I will not be tempted to listen to them," I half-teased her. "It was kind of Svarah," I added more seriously. "I didn't know she had done it."
"No, you and I weren't...talking, then," she agreed.
There was no need to dwell on that. "Why did you give it to Zara?"
"Well," Lisell explained, "in her alienage it was traditional for the bride's mother - or someone who had acted as a mother figure - to get some good quality linen or wool before the wedding, and make her a new chemise. Then her friends brought whatever they had to decorate it - ribbon, lace, beads - so that on her wedding night, she would have something pretty to wear for her husband. That - isn't possible here."
"So you gave her yours," I concluded, wondering at her easy generosity.
"It wasn't a sacrifice," she insisted. "Or not much of one. I would ruin it if I wore it home, and I will need whatever space it would have occupied for food and useful clothing. Not owning the actual item does nothing to negate Svarah's kindness in giving it."
I leaned nearer to her, across the table. "That was a kindness, too, ma vhenan - letting Zara feel as though you had traded favors."
"It also happens to be the truth," Lisell insisted.
I merely smiled fondly at her and didn't press the matter. "What were you and the Fereldan girl - Eilin? - speaking of earlier?" I asked instead, wondering if I could surprise her into giving something more away.
She blushed, but also laughed. "It was just something I misunderstood."
A swift glance through her lashes showed her that I was waiting expectantly for her to continue.
"Oh very well," she sighed. "It's embarrassing, but there's no other reason for you not to know. The gown was proposed the day before yesterday, while I was still in somewhat of a fog. Esiel and Farina took my measurements, and then Eilin and I were tasked with sorting all the donations into colors, so the designers would know what was there. She...talked. So much. I was having trouble concentrating, and so I tuned some of it out. At some point, I realized she was asking me something - something about how you and I first became drawn to one another. Someone - made a joke. I still can't remember who it was or what they said. I had managed to focus on Eilin, and didn't dare repeat the process somewhere else, just to have to draw my attention back to her. But, in any case, she gave me a smirk and said, 'There's for sure a difference in how attractive you two are. You must see it, right?'"
Lisell shook her head, blushed all over again, and laughed a little. "I...completely forgot how most people look right past you. All I remembered was your satisfied smile that first day, the day we met, when you used the Anchor to close the rift - and then after, when my question about Varric as part of the Chantry made you laugh. I said, 'I know he's beautiful, but - '"
My incredulous bark of laughter interrupted her. "It doesn't matter what else I said," she told me, blushing even more hotly. "The point is - "
"No," I interrupted again, unwilling to miss a word. "This, I must hear."
She blew out a breath. "I pointed out, completely unnecessarily, that you aren't much good with people. And - I don't know, Solas - I told them I seem to get on easily with others, which you admire and have occasionally found useful, and that...sometimes my relative optimism keeps you from abandoning all hope."
"True - as far as it goes," I allowed. "But you forgot that you are also intelligent, curious, resilient, and - resolute, but rarely impulsive."
"Well, forgive me if my memory wasn't at its best," she replied tartly, cheeks still burning as she declined to address my additions. "Anyway," she said more quietly, "that was about the time I realized everyone was staring at me, and then realized I had entirely misunderstood what Eilin was saying."
"I nearly forgot brave and creative," I added, just to watch her blush again - which I did still smiling. Though she had always made it clear she found my appearance endearing, I had supposed it was a result of her care for me, rather than a contributing factor. She had never before put a descriptor to her thoughts on the matter. "You are a wonder," I told her, wishing I could touch her. "Ma sal'shiral."
Lisell took a shaking breath, and, careful not to look at me, continued: "They laughed at me, of course, and I had to admit that I was having trouble with my concentration. Eilin, extremely skeptical, asked if - well, it was a little bit crude, so I won't repeat it. In any case, I didn't want to - but that hardly matters. I told her it was your smile that had first captivated me. Her eyes went wide and she said, 'Fen'Harel smiles?'"
Lisell's exaggerated incredulity made me laugh, though I wondered what it was she didn't want to. "I rarely have much to smile about just now - or at any time since I chose to be without you. Nor did I spend much time here before your arrival. I don't wonder at her lack of experience with my facial expressions."
In response, Lisell gave a little choked laugh. "Solas, your smiles have always been as rare as a golden halla, and winning one has never ceased to thrill me. If you are under the impression that was abundance, they are probably as common as griffons now."
I found myself at a loss. Winning one has never ceased to thrill me. Did she even realize that what she wanted from me, she equally wanted for me? No - what need had she to weigh her selfishness? Her generosity was so reflexive that there could be no guilt attached to whatever small portion of her due she chose to claim. Likely as not, she would give that up, too, if pressed by sufficient extremity. She had always been far too generous to understand how little I resembled her.
I realized I had been silent too long when she spoke. "I'm sorry," she said, angling her body as far from me as her chair allowed. She might have drawn her knees up again had she not been wearing the gown. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"Vhenan, it is not discomfort. Or - what discomfort exists is because I cannot - " I took a breath, coming to the understanding that I would not be able to stay and refrain from touching her. I stood before saying the rest, because I needed the physical distance. "You seem to labor under the impression that I feel you are too attached to me. Perhaps you believe that because I can entirely put aside my feelings when pushed to it by necessity, I believe it a virtue you should acquire." She looked up at me and I felt I could trace the doubt I had instilled in her in every curve of her face. "When I said flawless, arasha, I meant it."
"You do always seem to be the one leaving," she pointed out, dropping her eyes to her hand gripping the back of the chair.
"This is - I am not leaving so much as temporarily disengaging. To...regroup." She was looking at me with considerable skepticism when I glanced at her, and I realized my language was too opaque. She didn't understand how profound her statement had been. "If I were to stay - " And how was I to finish? Did I mean to tell her that if I stayed, I would temporarily beguile her into forgetting every condition she had set to keep herself safe?
Actually - with two languages at our disposal, perhaps I could caution her regarding my oft-fractured self-control.
"If I stay, Lisell, jutuan ma ir rosas'da'din, ma tel'aman melin." It was a long phrase, and I didn't bother to inflect it as the Dalish would. Her Elven, or what passed among the Dalish for Elven, had always been fairly good - Clan Lavellan used more of the language than some, in spite of their interest in human affairs - but some of the words were not necessarily those that would be passed down from elders to children through the generations.
Still, she seemed to understand enough - and grasp enough of the context - for it to widen her eyes.
"On dhealam, ma vhenan. Until tomorrow." And I left before she could attempt to respond to the warning - or promise - I had given.
Translations, by order of appearance:
Ma serannas: My thanks
On dhealam: Good evening
Enaste: Blessings or grace, more formally paired with a specific deity
Ir abelas: I'm sorry
Ma vhenan: My heart/my home
Arasha: My joy
Ma sal'shiral: My life, lit. "my soul's journey"
Jutuan ma ir rosas'da'din, ma tel'aman melin: Uh, I'll only translate the part Lisell understood and let you infer the rest, as she had to: "I will (some terms the Dalish never reconstructed) until you forget your own name."
