No translations.
Deliberation
The leaves, as I turned them in my fingers, were still spotted with spray from the nearby brook's tumble down a ledge of stones. On my lap - the letter from Solas. It felt as though I were choosing between the two, though I couldn't find a way to stretch the feeling into anything resembling logic. I had merely recognized the plant while contemplating the contents of the letter - no doubt that made them feel connected.
If I chewed the four leaves I currently held, I would destroy virtually all chance that I might conceive following the evening Solas and I had spent together - whatever chance there was to begin with, which I judged was likely slim. I couldn't know where I was in my cycle thanks to all the disruptions my body had been through, but any one of those disruptions - let alone all of them - might have temporarily curbed my fertility. And it had only been the one evening we spent together.
In favor of taking the leaves anyway - a child would complicate my position immeasurably. Whether I saw it as valid or not, the world believed me wed to Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven. Chastely wed. It would be scandal enough if I bore his child. One that was clearly a full-blooded elf?
The consequences might be far beyond what could be termed mere scandal.
I tried to make myself care - and failed. Sebastian and Leliana had arranged the marriage. I hadn't been forced into it, not in the least, but I had been prodded and persuaded against my better judgment. Let them deal with the fallout. The very worst that could happen was that I would lose my position and influence. In the first place, that would be at least as much a relief as not. In the second, it wouldn't happen because Leliana found me too useful. Even if she had to use me in a less public role, she would have a use for me.
Very well, my position played no part in this decision.
Other reasons in favor of the leaves - well, I had no active desire for a child, even if one connected to Solas did pique my interest in a way I had never before thought to consider. That was foolish, perhaps. I had known Solas was not just singular, but singular to me, almost from the first time he touched me, using the Anchor to close a rift. At least, I had felt it then, even if I hadn't been able to identify exactly what I felt. Still, even during the blindest periods of my love for him, he had never struck me as a man to live in an aravel, or any sort of house, with his bondmate and children. And that hadn't bothered me. Before him, the thought of spending my life bound to anyone I had met in my Clan made me want to take to the forest and never return. After - well, I was the Inquisitor, and the world needed saving too much for me to worry about trivialities like children and how or where I preferred to live.
That was another reason in favor of the leaves. The world hardly needed saving less now than it had when the Breach threatened to swallow the sky. If I had a child to think of, would I be able to do what was necessary? But perhaps - with that life at stake, as well as my own, I might have more reason to do what was necessary. That was a thought put in the wrong column, but never having had a child, I didn't fully understand what my attachment might feel like.
By that same token, though, was I bringing a life into the world just to watch it snuffed out as Solas burned the entire thing to the ground? And - I had no sure way to get word to him of anything, but surely his agents would notice if I acquired a child, and he would be able to add up the months and come to the correct reckoning. What would that do to him? Would he pause to reconsider? Well - perhaps, if I judged him right, it wouldn't be re-considering so much as just considering.
Would he burn the world, even if it meant killing his own son or daughter?
I shuddered a little.
Yet - there was another facet to consider. Solas was, by his own admission, one of the first of his people - our people. How much of that power would a child of ours inherit? Perhaps he or she might be more likely to survive the burning of the world, if my own diminished blood didn't impede any benefit Solas's might confer.
So many ifs.
Very well, the truth was, then, that I didn't have enough information to judge on the merits of what Solas would think, or how it would affect his plans, or whether I would be dooming our child along with me.
I looked at the leaves. The most reasonable thing to do was probably to take them.
But I hadn't yet decided.
Why?
I turned my thoughts almost reluctantly to my other mental column: reasons to let nature proceed as it would. Only one item was clearly delineated there.
I didn't want to take the leaves.
My reasons were utterly irrational - a feeling that if, in spite of having every variable stacked against it, a life managed to take hold in me now, I owed it to that spark of something to see things through and let it become whatever it would become. It was just a feeling, and a senseless one at that. Foolish, even. And incredibly fierce, even so.
I struggled against myself for a long moment, and then let the leaves fall. Likely it would all come to nothing in any case. I had been attacked, driven into the forest with little to eat and little will to spend my time foraging, shot by an arrow, informed two of my closest friends were dead and a third was badly injured, and then I had spent days starving myself in order to get my captor's attention. With no gods left to believe in, I didn't know that I believed in miracles, either, but managing to conceive in these circumstances did seem like it would be nearly as impressive a feat as, say, physically entering, and then emerging from, the Fade. Twice.
Which also reinforced the degree to which it was possible.
I shrugged - I didn't hope for it, it would complicate everything, and I dreaded how Solas would react if and when he learned, but if it did, I would see it through as I did so many other non-ideal circumstances.
Well, it was time to orient myself - I needed to find the Imperial Highway to get my bearings, though I intended to remain deep enough in the forest to avoid creating a tempting target for anyone willing to rob or enslave an elf traveling alone. Cumberland was, at least, much closer than Nevarra, and it would take less time to reach Kirkwall than Starkhaven. I had lied to Solas, as was necessary - if I had had to escape, after all, I couldn't be headed the way he expected. Even now, he might find a reason to change his mind.
Besides, Starkhaven was deeply uncomfortable - Sebastian's nobles knew enough to suspect that the chastity vows were all on Sebastian's side. That meant that if I ever took over the rulership of the city, there was nothing stopping me from marrying and giving a noble house children. Elf-blooded children, but as I was the Inquisitor and Princess of Starkhaven, that was currently being ignored. If I did conceive, and then arrived in Starkhaven for the birth, half the noblemen in the city would probably try to claim parentage, no matter how pointed the child's ears were, or how far along I was upon arrival.
No, Kirkwall was by far the better option, and if Solas had any sense he would keep watch for me there, too. I had an estate of my own, and Varric would offer any help I needed. Truly, I wasn't certain Varric was happy any time he wasn't courting scandal or involving himself in a deep-laid, high-stakes political gambit.
Before that - Cumberland, where Fiona still oversaw the College of Magi, and I could have a message sent to Leliana. She would want to know I did, in fact, live, and that she ought to send all requests and orders to Varric. That was still days away, though, with leagues of forest and silence in between. I picked up the letter from Solas. He had thoughtfully included the written version of the song he had promised me, which I had thought I forfeited by slipping away without saying anything. At the end of his letter, another Elven phrase that might take me a long time to decipher, but I supposed it was something to start on when I became lonely in the evenings.
I closed my eyes briefly against the ache that threatened to rise in my throat. Leaving had been hard - was still hard - but it left me peaceful in a way I had not found since - I didn't know. Loving Solas had always been equal parts giddy and frustrating while he vacillated between eagerness and hesitation. After he chose to end things - that had just been maddening. Then he left, and that had been worse. Going back further, before the Anchor and the Inquisition, I had never been satisfied by anything - which was the reason my Keeper had sent me to observe the Conclave to begin with.
So perhaps peace was not an emotion with which I had ever been well-acquainted.
It was pleasant to encounter it so unexpectedly now, just when I needed it. But the world was not peaceful and I knew myself too well to believe it would last. Soon I would no doubt have ample reason for regrets, misgivings, and fears for the future. I was, for one thing, still avoiding some of my grief by focusing on my more immediate needs. That would catch up with me.
And Solas. Solas would, as ever, remain beyond my reach, distant as the god he insisted he wasn't. The Dalish didn't believe in an afterlife, not really. In my Clan, though, many believed that when we died we still entered a kind of uthenera. One day, when the Elvhen people were restored to glory, all the dreamers might still wake. I had never quite understood how scattered bones would wake as anything but abominations, but it had seemed like a possibility, however distant.
Now, knowing the truth about our gods, our people, and our world? I had lost hope in finding anything beyond death. Ironic that the truth had, at the same time, given me a pressing need for that hope. As Solas had once told me, the only hope for the two of us together lay in another world.
A pity I knew now, as he always had, that there were no other worlds. Only this one, in which nothing ever changed. Not history, not slavery, not cruelty - and not the impossibility of ever spending my life with the one I loved.
I took a breath.
Cumberland, then Kirkwall. I didn't believe I had ever felt the role of Inquisitor as such a burden, but Eliwys had been right - duty did tend to stiffen my spine when necessary. I stiffened it now, turned my back on the setting sun, and began walking east.
