I had a stomach flu yesterday and got quite dehydrated since even water was upsetting my stomach most of the day, so this morning it feels like I have the least fun hangover ever. This winter cannot end soon enough.

Even So

Solas was very actively waiting for me in the Fade. It felt like I had hardly closed my eyes when I sensed his long-fingered hand clasping my wrist, pulling me more firmly into my dreams. "Are you well?" he asked immediately, his worry somewhat attenuated by the distance between us, but not much.

"You know I am," I replied, amused. "We're at one of Briala's safe houses, as promised. Her agent fed us an excellent meal, not at all poisoned, and I'm sharing a large bed with Sera for the night."

His posture stiffened slightly and the corners of his lips turned down. At first I thought he might be reacting to my insincere reference to poison, but then he said: "Sera. Why not Loranil? The Dalish share beds at need, do they not?"

I laughed. "Loranil was afraid of offending you, actually," I told him. "What's the difference? It's just sharing a bed - it doesn't really matter whom I share with."

"True, but - " His sigh was almost a rueful laugh. "I envy anyone in your bed, of course. Loranil, however, hasn't expressed an appetite for anything outside of kinship. Unlike Sera." I didn't need to tell him I wasn't interested in Sera that way, or remind him that she was thoroughly obsessed with Dagna now, and so I just waited. Eventually he sighed again and shrugged. "My objection is foolish - pay it no mind."

"All right, I won't," I agreed impishly.

He ignored my teasing. "I miss you."

"I've only been gone a few hours," I pointed out, but then admitted, "I miss you, too. I keep half-turning to point out something I've noticed before realizing you aren't with me any longer."

"Like what?" he wondered, leading me to a comfortable seat that shaped itself obligingly from the stuff of the Fade. I heard a hint of birdsong and a whisper of wind through tree leaves, though all the other details of our surroundings remained hazy.

"Scents that suddenly reminded me of home - food, tea, salves when we passed a stable," I told him, sitting down and then leaning into his side. "I caught a few phrases of spoken Elvish here and there - idioms, I think, because they didn't always make sense, but I don't know whether all city elves have those same small pieces of elven culture, or whether it's because I'm in Halamshiral. I caught a few emerging mage auras - children, I suppose. I'll have to do something about that. I didn't see any among the children at the camp, so it would seem their parents are keeping them close."

"Can you blame them?" Solas asked me bitterly. "After so many hundreds of years of the Chantry and Circles stealing children away from their parents?"

"No, of course I don't blame them." I rapped his chest meaningfully with my knuckles as a mild rebuke. "Even so - mages must be trained. I need Fiona to send someone to see to it, preferably without any children being forced to leave the city, but first I'll have to try to convince them that my intentions are benign."

"Even if they believe you, they may not believe in your ability to reshape the Chantry," Solas pointed out.

"I know," I sighed. " I don't entirely believe in my ability to reshape the Chantry, or at least take the mages out from under its thumb. But no one's belief - or lack of it - changes that fact that mages must be trained ." I tapped my lip thoughtfully. "Maybe I could find someone Dalish to teach them both magic and some woodcraft, so they have options no matter what happens - though that isn't going to work for every city in Thedas. Fenedhis lasa , this is such a mess."

"Send some of Fiona's Circle mages to learn woodcraft from the Dalish," Solas suggested. "In the meantime, other tutors can be sent to the cities, but in a year you might then have a reserve of tutors trained to best help the elves within the alienages, whatever befalls the Circles."

I looked up at him fondly. "I knew there were good reasons I fell in love with you. Ma serannas. I will do as you suggest. In fact, if you could send a letter for me - you have ravens and I don't at the moment."

"You flatter me," he replied, but he leaned down and kissed me, his lips warm and soft in spite of their unreality. "Were there less on your mind, I'd take this opportunity to begin teaching you to shape the Fade as a Dreamer does," he told me as he pulled away.

"Oh?" What did having things on my mind have to do with it? And why now, specifically?

His answering smile was rueful. "Trysts within the Fade will not be safe, I fear, until your mastery is sufficient to keep demons out of your dreams. Though I can protect us both to a degree, you'll always be a weak point if you do not learn a basic level of control."

"You just want to have sex with me while I'm lying in a bed next to Sera, because you know she would hate it if she knew," I accused him. It appeared the urge Sera displayed to get one over on Solas was entirely mutual.

"That would merely be a fortunate side-benefit," he reassured me, though his smirk was far from reassuring.

"Right," I replied dryly. "Why can't you teach me now, exactly?"

"Your sleep will likely be disturbed for a span of nights," he replied. "Learning is work, no matter whether one does it while waking or while sleeping. I'd not undermine the efficacy of all Josephine's instruction, nor deliver you into a ballroom with your mind dulled."

"Oh. Probably wise," I allowed, though a part of me wanted to press for lessons immediately, especially if it meant greater freedom in how Solas and I interacted in the Fade once I had mastered some of the fundamentals. I let go of my regret and resolutely turned my attention to another subject. "How is the camp?"

"Not in complete disarray," he allowed, "though I have made a number of small changes that will augment comfort at the cost of some efficiency. Most of the people sheltering here seem relieved to have an elf to speak to, and I've been receiving the complaints they dared not voice to your commanders."

"Abuse?" I asked sharply.

"No," he assured me quickly. "Whoever chose the soldiers for this task chose ably, whether it was Leliana, the commander, you, or all of you in concert. The dilemmas are all small, and easily fixed."

"Sera chose them," I informed him.

He huffed a small laugh. "Impossibly, that is both unexpected and, in hindsight, obvious."

"You may not like Sera, but she's very good at what she does," I told him.

"Whatever that is," he muttered, irritated by something. Then he waved it away. "Your ability to lead is far superior to my own, and you've just reminded me of a reason why. You are right - Sera chose well," he said firmly. "As far as I can tell, there've been no abuses, at least not by members of the Inquisition - only moments of misunderstanding."

"Thank the Creators," I sighed. "I wanted to offer them a few weeks of safety ." I didn't actually know whether it was better or worse, giving them this space to think over the injustices of the empire. Some might find the strength to return to their lives. Some might be driven to Briala. Some might simply be destroyed by the jarring contrast.

"And so you have," he assured me.

I hid my face against his shoulder and burrowed as close to his side as I could. "I'm not going to let Celene die," I told him in a small voice, absorbing first his surprise and then his suspicion. "I owe that to Sera, too - she pointed out that this isn't a plot by the powerless of the empire to save themselves - that it is, in some ways, the precise opposite of that. Also - saving Celene's life and Orlais from chaos doesn't mean allying myself or the Inquisition with her. I…somehow failed to grasp that, as well."

His fingers rose to stroke my cheek. "Perhaps because, within the Game, protecting her life and securing her throne mean precisely that," he said.

I looked up at him. "The Game is an arbitrary set of rules managed by people with much smaller concerns than my own. They can take their Game and choke on it. What I do means what I mean by it, and the ability of others to change my meaning is limited - at least while I remain in power. Afterward…" I sighed. "Afterward I may not even remain an elf in their minds, for all I know."

He wrapped me up in his arms, tucking my head beneath his chin and stroking my hair with one hand. "In moments such as this," he said quietly, "I find myself imagining how you must have looked facing down Corypheus alone. I wonder how we - any of us - find it possible ask this of you. I am…awed by your successes."

I had no desire to think about any of that, and brushed it aside quickly. "Would you show me how Halamshiral looked when it belonged to my - to our people?" I asked, stumbling a little over the possessive - much the same way he sometimes did, I now realized.

Thankfully he didn't seem to notice, or assumed I meant the Dalish and had briefly forgotten to include "flat-ears" such as himself among them. "I would be happy to, vhenan ."

We walked through the now-fallen city hand in hand, and Solas pointed out to me the differences between Dalish and Elvhen architecture. Though my ancestors had mimicked the pointed arches and rib vaults of old, the buildings lacked other decorative elements, like friezes and frescoes. The Dalish had also used mortar between the stones, while the Elvhen had not. "The stones cut by the ancients are fitted together with exacting precision," Solas lectured.

"How were they shaped so precisely?" I asked.

"Perhaps by exceptionally skilled artisans, or perhaps even with magic - who can say?" he replied.

You can say, probably, I almost told him, but stopped myself. I hadn't yet decided when or how - or whether - to tell him what I knew about him. I still didn't know why he felt the need to lie about it to me, which meant I was missing something, which meant that if I revealed how much I had already worked out, I might simply enable him to better cover his tracks. Depending on the day, the subject, and my own mood, it was either amusing or frustrating to listen to him attempting to maintain the pretense that he only knew about the ancient Elvhen through the observation of memories, though.

Tonight it was a little of both.

Though comparing its architecture unfavorably to that of the Elvhen, Solas found things to admire in elven-run Halamshiral. There were large public gardens, maintained by Dalish noble houses out of a sense of civic pride and open to all. Sections, it appeared, had been set aside for less affluent families as garden plots where they could grow fresh produce to help feed themselves. We walked the paths between, listening to neighbors gossip and watching barefoot children make games of pulling weeds, chattering away in the Elvish that formed their native language. These were among the poorest citizens of the city, and yet their children were sturdy and bright-eyed. Solas's eyes softened as he watched them.

"Though your people may be as quick to label others as outsiders as any other people," he told me quietly, "at least they are equally quick to care for their own. This city has neither slaves nor slums. Even the poorest are treated with dignity."

"And how much of that is because they can all hate the shemlenaan instead?" I asked.

He made a sound that might have been either admiration or a rueful laugh. "Too much, undoubtedly. Even so…" He trailed off, watching the laughing children, and I didn't need him to finish.

Even so.