This is the second chapter I'm putting up today, and it really won't make sense without the first, so make sure you didn't miss that one.
Solas Sees No Alternatives
For once, Solas was not the first to enter the Fade.
Inana lay peacefully in his arms, her breathing even and her muscles slack in repose. It was too dark to allow him to see her face, but he could picture the thick, dark lashes resting against her brown skin, the graceful arch of her brow, her full lips perhaps parted slightly as though in invitation. He wanted to bend his head down and press his own lips to them, but he refrained, afraid of waking her.
Someday, I'm not going to let you get away with doing this.
On that day, he would leave her questions unanswered. He would absorb her frustration, and probably her anger, and would never let her see the effort it cost him. And the next time that day came, it would be the same. And the next. And - how many days would she spend questioning him before her resentment grew too great for her love to support? She had surprised him before, true, but he was still convinced it was not a question of if all his lies and secrets came between them, but when .
What, after all, was the alternative? The truth? Nothing would drive her away faster than that, and she would probably oppose his plans, as well.
His duty was no less urgent than that of the Wardens, though he at least had the advantage of understanding the source of his foe, if not its ultimate remedy. The Blight was not somehow contained within the dragons these quick-children mistakenly named gods , nor had it originated in the magisters, as their Chant claimed. Darkspawn, egomaniacal magisters, archdemons - all were mere symptoms. First, the source had to be dealt with, and only then might there be some hope of the world riding out the symptoms.
He took a breath, his gut clenching. Five dragons corrupted and destroyed - five seals broken. Only two remained, and these fool Wardens sought to destroy them, too, with no understanding of the Void-drenched hell they would unleash if they succeeded.
His body curled instinctively around Inana's, both seeking the comfort of her warmth and trying in some useless way to shield her from the reality that would tear her from him, and then tear her to pieces, if it could.
Sleep was a long time in coming.