Okay, so there's a poem there first thing, but I'm not going to give you a word-for-word translation. It's not that good. I'm not much good at poetry anyway, and writing it in another language is ridiculously hard. The punning is frankly embarrassing. Clearly a semester of devouring John Donne taught me virtually nothing about writing good poetry. The summary: it's about the narrator remembering berry-picking with their lover years before. It seemed like the sort of charmingly rustic form of courtship Merrill might teach Hawke a song about.

The Arts

He still wasn't there and the door was still locked, so I started the song again:

Unithan da'thai felan
La'var unvenan vhenan
I lam'bellannar unsilan
Melahn da'thai'veremal unvhellir
Lam'bellannar, vunleast lam'vir
Ehnas lealos tel'silaiman.

It was stuck in my head. I never should have let Hawke prod me into singing it just because she had been mixing up or omitting words and singing off key. I snorted a quiet laugh. La'var felan vhenan didn't even make sense. It was completely lacking an action word. She had a tendency to just insert the word felan - plant - wherever she had forgotten some other word.

Ridiculous shemlen.

I had the right door, didn't I? I was fairly certain I had the right door. The covered walkway was admittedly a little tipsy. It didn't quite want to decide how wide it was - or, probably, where it ended, though I couldn't see that far - and all the doors looked very much the same. But I had counted and everything, and I thought I still remembered all my numbers in the right order.

What if I didn't, though? Maybe I was disturbing someone.

Not enough for them to come out and tell me where Solas's room was, but I could probably fix that. I sang louder.

"I don't believe I've heard this song," Solas's voice said from the shadows, and I startled, my song ending with an undignified squeak of alarm. I squinted towards him, trying to make him out, but there was a wind blowing through the garden, tossing the branches of the trees and creating too much dizzying motion for me to locate his physical form, and his aura was blurry for some reason that might or might not be related to the amount of wine I had consumed. "The punning is somewhat rudimentary," he went on, "but enthusiastic for all that. You will have to sing it for me when you are sober enough not to slur half the words." A magelight flared beside his head, making me blink as he squatted down beside me. "It's much too cold for you to be sitting out here, vhenan."

"Not that cold," I argued, gesturing expressively at the garden, which was always noticeably warmer than the rest of the outdoor spaces enclosed by Skyhold's walls.

"Only, I suspect, because you have been drinking," he retorted. "I expected you to return to your own chamber."

I blinked at him for a moment, trying to remember why I hadn't. "Stairs," I recalled, summing up the problem for him. One side of his mouth twitched, and I was abruptly admiring the sculpted planes of his face, somehow both harsh and enticing. "You should kiss me," I decided. "And then fuck me."

He chuckled and took my arm, pulling me to my feet. I was a little unsteady, but he was solid beside me, and so I leaned happily against him. "I fear you are a little too drunk to be making decisions like that tonight," he told me.

Decisions like what? I tried to remember what we were talking about. Oh, right - I wanted him to take me to bed and make me scream. "I'm not that drunk," I argued, trying to pull myself up to stand straight and succeeding only into pulling away from him to fall against the wall instead, which was not at all ideal.

"You are certainly that drunk," he replied, unlocking his door. "If you remember more than half of this conversation tomorrow, I'll be surprised."

"Want to bet?" I asked. "Still have some coin. Or," I suppressed a giggle, reaching out and tracing a finger up to the tip of his ear, "we could bet something more interesting than coin. Wouldn't mind losing clothing to you."

He gave a breathless laugh as he pushed the door open and then took my arm to help me inside. "Nor would I object to winning your clothing, but I fear you are also too drunk to be making such bets."

"No fun," I groaned, throwing myself on the bed that had conveniently materialized at my side. Or Solas had helped me cross the room. Whichever.

"So I have been informed," he told me evenly, and his head disappeared. For an excited moment I thought my stunningly reasonable arguments had convinced him to do something - but, no, he was just unwrapping the leather from my feet.

I heaved a frustrated sigh.

"Take heart, ma vhenan," he said as he rose. "You are very near passing out, and in the morning will be much too hung over for regrets about the delay, though you may well regret the amount you chose to imbibe."

I grumbled something, but he might have had a point - the next thing I knew he was helping me sit up while he pressed a beaker of water into my hands so that I could drink. Afterward, he helped me strip off my outer layers and arrange myself on the bed, and then I might have lost a little more time before he slid into bed next to me. "Perhaps tomorrow night I will join you for drinks after all," he said quietly into my hair as he wrapped his arms around me.

"Mm?" I hummed, unable to articulate what I wanted to ask.

"If you choose to become similarly inebriated again," he said, sounding amused, "I think I would prefer that my level of intoxication roughly match yours. That way neither of us can be said to be taking advantage of the other."

I smiled and pressed my nose against his neck, letting out a satisfied sigh as I promptly fell asleep.

The morning went more or less as Solas had predicted, though I was fairly certain I would have won any bet we had entered into. My memory of the night before might have been a little hazy, but I could recall almost all of it. He was entirely right about the hangover, unfortunately, though he was kind enough to bring me water and tea, and to offer a small pulse of healing to soothe my head and stomach. After that I felt capable of facing breakfast, not to mention the rest of the day. Solas didn't actually bring breakfast, though, and when we left his room, he didn't lead me toward the Rest or the kitchens. Instead we headed toward the library.

"Is there some new book you desperately need to show me?" I asked, my tone a little dry. Though I no longer had an active headache, there was a pressure behind my eyes that felt like the beginning of one, and my belly felt both queasy and painfully empty.

"Something like that," Solas answered enigmatically, tossing a smirk over his shoulder.

He led me to the rotunda that housed the library and Leliana's ravens, but to the lower level, which I had only briefly passed through once or twice. It seemed he had spent considerably more time there. There was a desk and other furniture - definitely some bookshelves and what might have been a sofa - and...a painting. A fresco, to be precise, in the ancient Elvhen style. There was scaffolding on the wall next to it, which made me think he might be planning additional panels.

"Is this...the destruction of the Conclave?" I asked, stepping forward to examine the details so I wouldn't have to squint.

"And the creation of the Breach," he agreed from behind me.

"You're painting history on the walls?"

"I am painting your history on the walls," he told me, taking my hand and placing a buttered bun in it.

"Oh, ma serannas." I turned to contemplate him as I bit into it. "I didn't know you were an artist."

He made a small sound, almost a scoff, and looked away. "That is a large word for something I pursue strictly in my own time, for my own pleasure."

I glanced back at the panel. "Perhaps. Also fitting, though."

He was smiling when I looked at him again. " Ma serannas, vhenan. I'm pleased you approve."

"Well, I can't let Varric's perspective stand as the only first-hand account of my time as Inquisitor, can I?"

"You could," he pointed out, "though it isn't a course I would recommend."

His smile widened as I laughed.

"Did you do all of this last night?" I asked, turning to admire the fresco again as I realized there was a reason he hadn't come to the tavern and hadn't planned to join me in bed.

"Half of it," he replied. "Once the top coat of plaster is applied, I only have roughly six hours to apply the paint. Best to work in smaller sections. The first half was completed the day before."

"And no one noticed?" I asked, amazed that a room so open to so much bustle could hide something so important for any length of time.

"I'm certain some noticed, but most no doubt assumed you knew what I was doing or that I had permission." His voice was amused.

"Maela would give nearly anything to see this," I told him. "You must have observed many memories of frescoes - I imagine this is what the ones we find in ruins were like before centuries of weather and clinging plants wore most of the details away."

"I have observed many memories," he said, and it wasn't a lie - but there was something he wasn't telling me.

I took a breath and put it aside. "Maela is something of an artist, too," I explained, studying the smoothly-blended colors, free of any visible brushstrokes, "and she makes copies of every fresco we find, and then copies of the copies - several other clans have her books cataloging the art of our ancestors. And when I was still her apprentice, we took time every winter to duplicate our Elvish books so we could give them away to other clans at the Arlathvhen. Firsts and Seconds are supposed to learn to read, but not every clan has books for it."

"Your clan values knowledge more than most," Solas observed. "Your handwriting is perfectly legible - attractive, even - which I admit surprised me the first time I saw it."

"Clan Lavellan has been lucky enough to cultivate reasonably good relationships with the humans living at the edges of our range," I told him. "Even once the war between the mages and templars broke out, neither side went out of its way to target us. We have time to care about things beyond survival."

His footsteps approached me, and all at once his arms came around me from behind, his cheek coming to rest on top of my head. "You shame me, vhenan - both for believing a few clans representative of all clans, and for ascribing the closed-mindedness to cultural deficiencies rather than practical realities. Ir abelas. Undelan se."

"Lanastan ma," I replied, leaning into him. He had been slowly approaching a full apology for his prejudices against the Dalish for some time, and now it had come at last. "I didn't tell you," I said, "but I finally read Deshanna's letter - and wrote back. It was...really much more accepting of my choices than I had dared to hope. I told her about you. Not our bond," I added hastily, "but enough for her to understand how I feel about you."

He felt conflicted. "Will she disapprove?" he asked.

"I don't think so," I replied. "You're an elf, and she knows as well as I do that I'm not coming back - not permanently, anyway. Even if I were, it isn't as though we don't accept elves from outside the clan. They just have to be able to live our actual life, and not a romanticized version of it. Few make it beyond their first winter." I shrugged. "I doubt you would have the kinds of problems the average city elf does. Your problem would be adjusting to how involved we are in what you would consider each other's private affairs."

"Are you going to insist I meet them?"

"If there's a chance, perhaps," I allowed, and then turned to look at him. "Would I have to insist?"

He spent much longer than I was strictly comfortable with contemplating the question. "No," he decided at last, "but you would have to request." One of his hands stroked my arm in a soothing motion - perhaps he had picked up on my discomfort even with the space his own took up. "I have never been the sort of man lovers introduced to their families," he explained after another moment, "and that always suited me well. I find familial entanglements…" He trailed off while searching for the right word.

"Foreign?" I offered. He was so intensely private that I really couldn't picture him having a family, even though I knew there must have been someone at some point in his life. It wasn't as though anyone was born self-sufficient.

"Yes," he allowed with a small breath of laughter.

"Bring a few books, speak some Elvish, tell a few old stories, write a translation - you'll have won Deshanna over in no time," I told him wryly. "She'll be sorry I'm not returning to the clan, just for the chance to bring you into our midst. Once you have her, the rest of the clan will find things to like, whatever their first impressions."

"I suspect she is already sorry you aren't returning to your clan," he told me gently, "and for far better reasons than my scholarship and dubious wisdom."

There were no words adequate to reply to that, and so I tugged him down and kissed him.

Undelan se: I wronged you (all)

Lanastan ma: I forgive you