Sorry about the wait, I've been very busy working on the house, and then all of my friends seem to have realized it's the end of summer and have been wanting to take advantage of the nice weather while it lasts. So, yeah, busy.

Service

We accomplished a great deal before the sun set, clearing out Var Bellanaris and sending the scouts with food and medicinal herbs for the clan. Solas had also spoken to the halla-keeper, Ithiren, and learned that Hanal'ghilan had been seen on the plains. Ithiren had requested Inquisition help in herding her towards the camp, and my companions had done so, stripping off their armor to chase after the flighty halla like children playing tag. I hadn't been able to help, of course, though the sound of their laughter - interspersed with curses and shouts of dismay - had made me smile. Afterward, Ithiren let me meet her while we were still apart from the clan and out from under Hawen's watchful eye. Halla had never taken to me as they did to born halla-keepers, but Hanal'ghilan was gracious, deigning to snuffle my face and taste my hair before Ithiren led her away.

I didn't let myself think on Hawen's taunts until after we were safely returned to the Inquisition camp. By then, the words seemed to be beating at my mind, demanding my attention, but I was careful to tell Harding where I was going, and I stayed within the ring created by our outer sentries. This land was still the front of a war, even if that war had shifted from a confrontation between lions to one between the lions and those who would scavenge from the dead they left piled behind them.

Staying close to camp meant I had to swallow my screams of frustration.

My sobs were still enough to draw Solas to me when he came looking - or perhaps it was the bond we shared. He sat down next to me and slipped his arm around my shoulders without a word, achingly helpless and yet trying to project calm sympathy for my sake. "Solas - " I managed to choke after a few shuddering breaths, "is this - were you - did they say such things to you?"

He didn't answer immediately, and for a moment he felt absolutely ancient in his weariness. "And worse," he acknowledged at last.

"How dare he?" I whispered into his shoulder, and we both knew I wasn't speaking only of Hawen and what he had said to me, but everything he and those like him had said to or implied about Solas. "How dare he? Who is he to be believe he is the arbiter of who ranks among the People?"

Solas laughed humorlessly. "An old, experienced man, stubborn and, above all, proud," he replied. "I fear I know him far too well."

It took me a moment to understand that he didn't mean he knew Hawen, but that he knew someone who answered to the same description. "You are nothing like him," I insisted, attempting to glare at my lover in spite of the tears filling my eyes, my already-poor sight, and the darkness of the late evening.

"Vis ma nuvenin," he replied. "But if I may remind you, I once - recently - judged all the Dalish just as Hawen judges any elf who doesn't have a place within a clan?"

"Maybe you were right about the Dalish," I muttered, scrubbing at my eyes. "I was so young at the last Arlathvhen. I didn't know…"

"No," Solas said firmly, his fingers under my chin tipping it up so that I would look at him again. "You are all just people - some apparently possessing an astonishing variety of virtues, and some others having willfully drowned any qualities that might have otherwise redeemed them." His lips quirked in an unhappy smile, and I felt a trickle of guilt across our bond. I supposed he regretted writing off the Dalish so easily. "Keeper Hawen isn't uniquely terrible due to the Dalish. He isn't, I'm sorry to say, uniquely terrible at all. The Dalish are far from the only people readily inclined to view those insufficiently like themselves with disdain."

It made me laugh a little, even though I was sorry it was true. "Ir abelas. It's just - I believe he said everything I have ever feared might be true about me and the reasons my clan - I couldn't - " I had to break off and swallow another wave of tears. "All I wanted to do was help them," I whispered when it had passed.

"They know - or some of them do," Solas told me as he smoothed my hair from my face and then combed his fingers through it. "Nissa - who was in charge of stores - and Ithiren both apologized to me for Hawen's treatment of you, and the rest of us by extension. I told Ithiren how we located the camp, and he was both pleased and impressed that you had thought to speak to the wild halla, and more struck you had done so successfully. That was no doubt the reason why he waited to introduce you to Hanal'ghilan."

"Oh," I said softly. "Ma serannas."

"The tale was a good one," Solas replied, "and now he will tell it."

"Are you suddenly in league with Varric?" I asked.

"No, nothing so dire as that. Posturing is necessary," he reminded me.

"Right," I sighed in agreement.

"Come eat," he coaxed, producing a handkerchief from his sleeve so I could wipe my face clean.

"Everyone will see I've been crying," I grumbled, accepting the square of linen anyway.

"They will already know, ara'lath," he replied. "Even if we didn't know you well enough to see how much that confrontation cost you, there are few, I think, who wouldn't be put off by such a display of disrespect from one who should regard you as kin." He stood and held his hand out to me. "Come. When I left camp, Cassandra was storming, and I doubt she will cease until you return."

I let him lead me back to camp.

They were gentle with me, even Vivienne, who sat beside me long enough to say: "You accomplished your primary goal, my dear, and preserved your dignity as you did it. It is a victory, even if it tastes bitter right now. Remember that the only hope you will ever have of winning such men to your cause is to prove to them that their disapproval holds no power over you. If you bow to it, they will continue wield their approbation as a means of reinforcing their authority."

It was an insightful observation - more insightful than I expected from Vivienne - and I found myself looking at her with new respect. "Ma serannas," I told her. "I will remember that."

She patted my hand in a gesture that might or might not have been sincere in its affection, though I preferred to believe that the sliver of warmth she allowed me was not entirely an affectation, and rose to retire to her tent.

Dorian began to say something, but then simply put his arm around me and drew me into a hug.

"There is a great deal I don't understand about the Dalish and your beliefs," Cassandra said after he had released me, "but you deserve every honor merely for the threat that all know you have already averted. Anyone who looks at you and sees anything other than a hero is a fool ."

"I have to agree with the Seeker on that one, Vanish," Varric put in. "I haven't started outlining this chapter yet, but I don't think Keeper Hawen is going to come out looking very good. Might need your help getting in there to find his motivations, though. Otherwise he's too flat to be a good villain - just an asshole lording it over you because he can. Think you could translate the Elvish the two of you were throwing around for me?"

"Varric," Cassandra sighed, exasperated, but his cavalier treatment of Hawen's incivility made my breath catch in a laugh. It put things in perspective, I supposed: what was the rejection of one Keeper - or even one entire clan - against everything I had done, and everything I had yet to do?

Bull pulled a log over nearer the fire, and stopped to look at me. "Yeah, you'll be okay - you've come a long way since the kid who would have been destroyed by hearing her worst fears repeated back to her."

"Well, those are only my worst fears with regards to my place in my clan," I allowed with another breathy laugh. "I have…somewhat larger worst fears now."

"Take your silver linings where you can find 'em, Boss," he advised.

"Would you care to join me in the Fade while we sleep tonight?" Solas asked quietly when the others had decided that enough had been said on the subject of Keeper Hawen.

For a moment I almost demurred, certain I was too emotionally worn out, but then I remembered where we were and what might await us within the Fade. "Can we explore Revas'an?" I asked him.

"We may be too far from the site to delve deep," he cautioned me, "but yes - we can at least learn about the recent history of Revas'an."

He rose, and I followed him to our tent. I felt his hands on my shoulders even as I tied the flaps closed, and they began pulling off my robe as soon as I had finished. "Solas?" I whispered, craning my head to look at him, even though the tent was far too dark for me to see anything.

His laugh was quiet and gentle in my ear. "I can't protect you from the insults the rest of the world is eager to hurl at you. Please, allow me to care for you in whatever small ways are available to me."

I didn't know quite what he meant, but I let him strip me down to the shift I still habitually slept in, and handed him my brush when he asked for it. He was far more gentle in untangling the knots in my hair than I ever was, and afterward he braided back the sides until the ends could be woven into a short fishtail plait, which he tied off with a bit of leather he found somewhere amongst our gear. I explored it with my fingers, identifying the techniques by touch. "I take it you spent a lot of time fixing your own hair before you…shaved it off? Lost it?"

"I shaved it not long after I removed my vallaslin," he told me quietly. "It was a symbol of…mourning. As you alter your own body to avoid your cycles, I similarly altered mine not to regrow the hair on my head."

"Will you ever let it grow again?" I wondered.

He didn't answer, but pulled me close so he could press a kiss to my lips. "I would give you the world precisely as it ought to be, if I could."

His feelings were strangely fervent, but I still smiled at the sentiment. "Of course you would. I would do the same for you," I told him. "I…think perhaps I dismissed the pain my people caused you too easily. The conclusions you drew from it might have been wrong, but it was more real than I gave you credit for. Ir abelas, ma vhenan."

"If memory serves," he said, breathing a soft laugh, "I claimed I was not offended by the way your people treated me."

I had forgotten that particularly transparent lie. "That's right. I was confused by that assertion at the time. It was obvious their treatment of you was precisely what you were offended by."

His laughter this time was a snort. "I was - and often am - a fool. Your patience is as prized as it is undeserved. Ar lath ma, arasha."

The compliment made me smile, and I tumbled peacefully into the Fade, cradled in his arms, with his face pressed against my neck.

Hanal'ghilan is the name of the legendary golden halla said to guide the People in times of danger. I can't remember if it was mentioned in-game, though it definitely wasn't emphasized.

Vis ma nuvenin: "If you wish" or "if you like"

Ara'lath: My love

Arasha: My joy