Okay, I would like some input. This fic has chapters that are pure smut, plus chapters with short sexually-charged moments. This site's rules on depictions of sex are both stupid and relentlessly unclear, so I was thinking about just dropping the pure smut chapters entirely when I post here. I would leave in the shorter moments (probably edited? maybe not - I hate editing these things) that are integrated into chapters with actual plots.

Thoughts? Opinions? Is anyone here mostly for the smut? Is anyone here mostly because smut is technically disallowed?

Oh, and:

CW - Depictions of anxiety while reviewing past trauma for this chapter

Capitulation

We left the Chargers within the trees that edged the clearing where the Blades had built their compound and went on alone, just the four of us. I was in front, wearing the Crest of Mercy prominently on my chest, and we were allowed inside without incident. It made my back itch, but the members of the Blades we saw displayed no hostility.

Their leader was a big man, and arrogant with it - at least until he got a good look at Bull. Then he sounded frightened, though he tried to hide it under yet another layer of bravado.

He also fought dirty, releasing his hounds to attack us before we had even finished speaking. I couldn't see them, but I could see him - as if his aura weren't distinct enough, he was wearing several pieces of enchanted gear - and so I kept him away from the fight while the others dealt with the mabari. Then I let Cassandra and Bull take turns hitting him until he was on his knees, ready for the killing blow.

That was when I brought him to me.

The fight didn't make me feel anything - it wasn't even difficult enough to stir the frenzy of clarity that battle usually gave me. But staring down into the face of the man who had ordered the murder of the Inquisition's scouts - of my scouts, I thought for the first time, because Haven had taught me how responsible I was for all of them - I finally felt something.

Anger.

I put my hand on his head and channeled my lightning straight into him. "Fen'Harel su'ver na rajast anbanal," I snarled as he howled in pain, electricity crackling along his skin, leaving charred traceries in its wake. Some of them split open and began weeping fluid as I finally let him go and he collapsed, still convulsing but already dead.

Then I stared at his body, waiting to feel...something. Satisfaction that he was dead? Regret for the way I had killed him?

Neither was forthcoming - it just reminded me that better people than he had been were also dead, and that I had never been in a position to save them.

"Congratulations, my lady Herald," a smooth voice said behind me, and I whirled to face the speaker - a human man of medium height and build, brown-haired. I couldn't say more - he stood too far away for me to make out his features. "The Blades of Hessarian will answer to your hand."

"That's all?" I asked. "You have no loyalty to your commander?"

"Our individual feelings on the matter are irrelevant," he assured me. "But for this man? No, he was a bastard, and I don't believe any of us will weep for him. I, for one, am pleased to be wielded by Andraste's chosen."

"And yet you did his bidding, followed his orders," I said, feeling my eyes narrow.

"It is not the place of the blade to question the one who wields it," he intoned solemnly.

"Halla shit," I snapped, stepping forward until we were as near nose to nose as our difference in height allowed, and I could finally see him. Passably handsome - quite likely born to minor nobility or wealthy landowners, I decided. Cullen's rank by birth, or thereabouts. The accent was right.

His eyes went wide and he stepped back a pace.

"If my staff had a mind and will of its own, I would expect it to use them ," I growled. "If you ever follow orders from me that demand the killing of people who have offered you no threat or insult, if and when I return to my right mind, I will wipe your order from the face of Thedas. Are we clear?"

For a moment, his mouth worked - and then he dropped to one knee before me, hand pressed to heart. "Yes, Your Worship. Entirely clear."

I glared down at the top of his head until a flicker of movement directly behind him caught my attention, and then I looked around, realizing the same movement was occurring across the courtyard. The rest of the Blades were mimicking the posture of the man before me - I couldn't see it, but the movement of falling to one knee was distinctive enough for me to interpret.

I swallowed and tried to retreat, remembering too clearly the last time humans had bowed before me, but found Solas's hand on my back, preventing me. I turned to look at him and was just close enough to read the look on his face - sober, and yet satisfied as well. Posturing is necessary.

Taking a breath, I faced forward again, raised my chin, and swept from the compound. I managed not to start swearing until we rejoined the Chargers at the treeline.

"Was it the sort of thing you would expect the Herald of Andraste to say?" I demanded of Cassandra after I had finished consigning Andraste, the Chantry, and all the human-elven history I was expected to ignore to the Void - in my own language, of course. I might like Cassandra, and trust her to a considerable degree, but that was no reason to casually insult everything she held dear. It was, in fact, a reason not to do so. Only Solas knew what I had said, and his face remained impassive.

Well. I imagined Dalish from the Chargers understood at least some of it, too, but she didn't seem inclined to intervene, either.

"It was...the sort of thing they expected the Herald of Andraste to say," Cassandra replied with rather uncharacteristic diplomacy.

I shot the blur I knew to be her a dark look.

"It was also the sort of thing I would expect the Herald of Andraste to say," she admitted. "Though, Inana - the way you killed that man seemed...unlike you."

"You weren't at Redcliffe, Cassandra," Solas said quietly. "Everyone has a breaking point."

"I read what occurred between the Herald and Alexius," Cassandra replied, "but this was different. Less...personal."

"After Haven, it's all personal," I told her flatly - and then reflected on how true that was.

Was it right or wrong? I didn't know.

We didn't return to camp immediately - it was still early in the day, and the Inquisition had done very little exploration along this part of the coast. The Chargers went to meet with the Blades to exchange information, and then to continue their hunt for signs of the Wardens. Cassandra, Bull, Solas, and I went looking for herbs that Skyhold was short on, keeping an eye out for other points of interest, including rifts I should close.

We found one rift, and also stumbled onto a battle between a high dragon and giant. Even I found myself watching with fascination - the figures were so enormous that I could make them out, broadly, with my normal sight, though I missed many of the finer details with regard to the giant. The dragon, at least, showed up sharp and clear for me, magic worked through every fiber of her being. We watched for a quarter hour, until the giant fell with a final groan, and the dragon flew off heavily, one wing damaged in the fight.

"Aww, we should have gone after it!" Bull told us as we watched her wings beat unevenly.

"Another time," I told Bull dryly.

"Promise?" he asked, only half joking.

"We probably ought to practice fighting dragons before we face Corypheus's archdemon again," I said, trying to sound casual, even though just the thought of the monster made me vaguely queasy. "Now we know where we can find one."

"Not sure how much overlap there is there, but it can't hurt," he replied, clearly relishing the prospect of facing down a dragon - or likely a series of dragons, if he had his way.

We got back to camp as afternoon was beginning to bleed towards evening. Solas and I took possession of the herbs we had gathered and began bundling them for transport back to Skyhold. "Do you have space to hang them in your tent?" I asked him. "They can hang in mine, if not." He was always keeping an eye out for plants we could use while we were on the road. Ideally we would make decoctions of the fresh herbs, but alchemical supplies were limited here, and would be even more limited as we made our multi-week return to Skyhold. Drying was usually the only practical option.

Solas gave me a significant look. "We will hang them in your tent. Together. And then we will talk."

Oh. Somehow I hadn't thought he would pursue the matter so immediately. I probably should have known better.

He excused himself to retrieve something he wanted while I finished organizing and binding the bundles, and then he helped me carry them back to my tent, where we began hanging them from the central pole. "So," I said as we worked, "what precisely did you want to talk about?"

"In a moment," he told me. "I would rather not be distracted."

I would have preferred that both of us were distracted, but it seemed I had agreed to do this his way. "All right," I acquiesced meekly.

By the time we completed our task, my shoulders were tight with anxiety, wondering what Solas was going to ask of me. We finished tying the last of our knots by feel in the dark, and so when his hand caught my wrist before sliding down to grasp my hand, I flinched at the unexpected touch.

"Atisha, ara'lath," he soothed me. This was the first time he had put words to his feelings for me in this timeline. It should have been thrilling.

It wasn't. All I felt was a deep ache where the excitement should have been, followed by shame. None of it was right. I wasn't doing anything right. I couldn't even feel the things I was supposed to feel.

Solas was touching me, and so he felt it all, too.

He pulled me closer without comment, though I could sense his rejection of the conclusions implied by my emotional state. His affection was a steady beacon as he drew me onto his lap and wrapped me in his arms. I felt a breath of magic shiver across my skin as he put up a spell to muffle and distort our words, and then placed a glyph beneath the tent to warm it.

Then he hesitated. "I…would prefer to be able to see you as we do this, but I think perhaps it will be easier for you in the dark." He lowered his forehead until it rested against mine. "I suppose sight is unnecessary when I have better ways of reading your emotional state."

"What, exactly, are we doing?" I asked.

"You need to - you will - tell me everything that happened at Haven, and after - in the tunnels and the snow," he said, his voice steady.

I began shaking my head before he even finished speaking. This wasn't what I had expected him to ask for - I had expected him to want to tackle my feelings directly - but I supposed I should have known better. Hadn't I seen Deshanna coax my clanmates into recounting experiences that led to feelings they couldn't resolve hundreds of times? Hadn't she done the same for me when I was a child? It was always the first step - of course it didn't matter that this was so much worse. Why had I thought it would?

"I can't," I told him anyway, because it was true. Remembering gave me the same sense of helplessness I had always felt when I thought about my vallaslin and how to confront Deshanna about my place within the clan. I knew what happened when I tried to speak around it: my mind went blank, and the best I could do was stutter out disjointed phrases that made no sense.

I remembered her hands smoothing my hair. Hush now, da'len. Breathe. Take some time to compose your thoughts, and we can try again when you are calmer.

My thoughts never had remained still enough to be composed, and I never had managed to find the calm she deemed necessary for the conversation to go forward.

"You can," Solas told me, and I thought the utter certainty that reverberated from him through the shivas'lath might break me.

I pulled my knees tight to my chest and hid my face against them, as Solas rearranged his grip to accommodate my new position. "I can't," I repeated carefully. My voice was too high, but at least I didn't stutter, and only I heard the words echo through my mind. Can't. Can't. Can't. I took a breath. "The words d-don't fit together or make any s-sense."

"Then tell me in words that don't fit together and that make no sense," he replied, untroubled by the idea. "The only way to do this wrong, Inana, is not to do it at all."

I found myself staring up at him. There were lamps placed throughout the small camp, but they were few and the constant rain shrouded their light in a murky veil. It was, consequently, very dark in the tent. I could really only see the gleam of his eyes.

"You are not alone, ara'lath," he promised, holding me closer. "Never again. Not like that."

I swallowed, knowing it wasn't really something he could promise, but grateful for the attempt anyway. All right. Well. If he was willing to listen to whatever managed to emerge from my mouth, I supposed I was willing to try to force something out. "I - " Where did I begin? With Corypheus, I supposed. But where? With the archdemon? Or maybe when I first noticed his focus. Or - no - before that, when he lifted me from the ground? Was that before or after? And what about the soldiers we had found the red templars tormenting? My thoughts were beginning to spin. I took a breath. "I don't know where to start," I squeaked.

His hand smoothed my hair in a somewhat disconcerting echo of my memories, but his words were entirely different: "Very well. You, Cassandra, Blackwall, and Cole left the chantry. Then what?"

Haven. All right. I could speak of walking through Haven.

Then what?

Step by step, I took him through our battle to reach the trebuchet, and then to defend it while I aimed for the snow-shrouded mountainside. I shuddered in disgust as I recounted seeing the red lyrium behemoth and repeated Cole's words about it, but nothing worse than that. It wasn't until I told him of Cassandra's hesitation and the moment when his words finally made sense that I ran into trouble. "It was so close," I mumbled into his chest. "I came so close to losing her. I should never - I should have - "

"Cassandra survived," he reminded me. "The nearness of your victory is not a mark of failure. To remain clever and resourceful under duress is a rare talent - one we will all have reason to be thankful for in the coming weeks and months, no doubt." Though it was far too dark to see it, I heard the smile in his voice when he added: "I am already filled with gratitude for your obstinacy. I have never before witnessed someone remain alive through a sheer refusal to die."

"That wasn't what happened," I muttered. "It was mostly luck."

"You had moments of luck," he countered, "which you took full advantage of. No one expects perfection, ara'lath. Not even me."

I snorted. Of course he had known precisely where my mind had gone when Cole had attempted to reassure me. "Don't you? Your definitions of perfect and the best you are capable of are all but indistinguishable to me."

Somehow the observation surprised him. "Well. I do expect your best, and you are capable of a great deal. But, thus far, you have never failed to rise to any challenge. I admire your dedication."

"I thought you were disappointed by my lack of progress," I told him, not quite managing to keep the accusation from my voice - though I supposed that didn't matter. He would feel it through our bond in any case. "You didn't even stay while I was trying to find Cassandra on the way back from the Storm Coast after we hired the Chargers."

He was surprised once again, and then bleakly amused. "Ah. Well. As to that…" He cleared his throat and I suddenly wished we did have light - I thought he might have been blushing. "I was trying my utmost not to indulge my attraction to you, arasha. I was, at that time, still operating under the impression that you were...uniquely vulnerable."

"Uniquely vulnerable how?" I demanded, thinking that if he said anything about my inability to see clearly, I might bite him.

"Your clan denied you the privileges and responsibilities of adulthood," he reminded me, and I relaxed a little. "To notice how desirable you were - and are - at such a moment, while you were still trying to find your footing - " He broke off, shaking his head.

"How - " My breath caught, but I was already in the midst of telling him about the worst night of my life - worse even then the one after my vallaslin had failed - and so I pressed onward. "How desirable am I?"

"Relentlessly," he replied, his forehead coming to rest against mine. "It colored our every interaction no matter how I tried to reason or shame myself out of noticing. Rarely have I despised myself so thoroughly. It wasn't only your undeniable beauty - though that worsened matters considerably. You have an enviable sense of proportion which must somehow be innate. I cannot imagine how you would have obtained the experience to come by it through observation."

"Oh," I said, aware that I was now blushing.

"My conduct is a topic for later," he told me, "though I can hardly begrudge you the opportunity to review it. Tonight - "

I sighed. "I know." As hard as talking about Haven was, it was already shaking loose some of the paralyzed apathy that had gripped me over the last weeks.

One of his hands found and tilted my chin up so that he could place a light, approving kiss on my lips. "Tell me of Corypheus."

Fen'Harel su'ver na rajast anbanal: Dread Wolf take you straight to the Void

Atisha, ara'lath: Peace, my love

Ara'lath: My love

Arasha: My joy