"Please, da'len, eat. You must replenish your strength. You have suffered a travesty at my behest," Solas urges, the lyrical lilt of his accent catching in her ears. He pushes the tray toward her but she does not touch it.
Her brow furrows. "Your behest? You are working with Alexius?"
Solas regards her for a stretch of silence. "I do not know of this Alexius. Is he the one who tried to sacrifice you to me?"
"I…" Her mouth gapes open, unsure of the proper words. "He was using me for a spell. Blood magic."
He stares at her, the only sounds coming from the twittering of birds in the garden.
"Did he invoke Fen'harel?" Solas asks quietly. She nearly jumps out of her skin.
"Fen'harel? How would he know of the Dread Wolf? He is a Tevinter magister. He cares not for the well-being nor the culture of any elf." Her eyes swim with confusion, and something else. Fear, perhaps?
"It is the name they use to mock me, my enemies. I thought perhaps if he invoked the name, it might have sent you to me. The Tevinter Imperium is a great many leagues away. How did you come to be here?"
She is barely listening. This could not be Fen'harel. Surely it was only a joke. Was he not afraid of the stories, to so casually mention the name in such an unflinching manner?
"Why do they call you Fen'harel?" she whispers, and she searches his face for signs of the trickster. But she sees only mild befuddlement, and kindness.
"It is meant as a mockery. My symbol is a wolf, and so they use 'Dread Wolf' to slight me."
"Do you turn into a wolf and wreak havoc upon your people?"
"I…must admit, I am not the most adept at shape-shifting. My talents lie elsewhere." A light blush spreads across his cheeks to the tips of his ears as he shifts uncomfortably. "But no. To answer your question, I do my utmost to prevent havoc."
"All the stories I heard growing up warned us of Fen'harel, the wolf who tricked the gods and locked them away."
Mild befuddlement turns to moderate bewilderment across his face and he jolts forward.
"How do you know of my plans? Why do you speak as if they have already occurred?" His eyes are wide, there is panic blossoming across his features. He grabs her shoulders roughly. "Who sent you here? You must tell me what you know!"
She gasps and pulls away from Solas, snatching the silver instrument from the tray. She scoots back off the bed and stands, brandishing the tool and gazing at Solas in astonishment.
"Your—plans? But—Fen'harel did this ages ago. This isn't funny in the remotest sense! In fact, it's a huge insult to Dalish culture!" She breathes heavily, her starved lungs reaching for oxygen her body's low blood supply cannot replenish fast enough. She feels dizzy and sways on the spot.
Solas jumps up from his spot on the white bed. He looks at her in alarm as the darkness claims her consciousness and she crumples to the ground, her head thudding loudly against the white tiles as the clink of the small utensil goes skittering across the floor.
The world is hazy and white. There are sounds, but they seem far away, as though she is standing deep within a cave and someone is shouting from its mouth. She opens her eyes but clamps them shut again as everything spins, flashes of green alternating with white.
"Ir ladaral'ma," a soothing voice whispers in her ear. The sound fractures and repeats, overlaps, until she feels so dizzy and nauseous, she finally turns her head and vomits. The world quiets and darkens as she passes out again.
When she awakens – again – it is nightfall. The room is bathed in blue light from the moon outside. The birds are asleep and the insects chirrup and sing their entrancing cacophony.
She climbs from the bed, stilling for a moment to allow the small wave of vertigo to pass. Then she treads carefully to the open wall and reaches out. But it is like placing two equal poles of a magnet together. No matter how hard she pushes, an unseen force diverts her hand back toward her. She reaches for her magic, but it is curiously absent. Perhaps an effect of the strange ward. She can taste the night air, hear the cicadas, feel the breeze across her face, and yet she is unable to escape via the open wall.
Turning, she eyes the archway, noting the darkness hiding beyond in the night. She glances around warily before creeping across the room. She does not meet the same invisible force here, and so she sneaks through the doorway, her bare feet silent on the tiles below her, every nerve and sense fraught with alertness.
She is in a long, unbroken passage. She has no choice but to head toward the end of it, as there are no other doors or windows. She feels like a sheep being herded to its owner's destination. She stops at the end, not daring to walk out into the open.
A soft orange glow lights up the room, casting shadows across her face and over her white gown. Inching forward, she peeks around the corner. Empty.
She steps out into the chamber. It is another round room, though nearly twice the diameter of the bedroom she just vacated. It seems to serve as a multipurpose area, with shelves of books, a table with stacks of papers and more books, and a chair serving as a small library or office, and the other side resembling more of a kitchen, with a stone hearth, piles of colorful fruits and vegetables, a wedge of cheese, a clay pitcher, and a large pot sitting in the fireplace. The embers are low, but will likely burn through the night.
Small globes of light dot the room at varying heights. They are self-contained and magical in nature. She has never seen such a thing, and she feels her feet betray her trepidation as they lead her across the room to the nearest one for closer examination. As she reaches out to touch it, she hears a sound behind her. She jerks her hand away and whips around in fright. It is Solas, standing near an open doorway.
"I felt the wards move," he admits, his arms at his sides as he leans against the door frame.
She crosses her arms stubbornly across her chest and fixes him with a stern glare.
"Am I your prisoner, Fen'harel?" she hisses. He looks at her, his expression unreadable.
He sighs. "No. Of course not. I…had only hoped you might stay long enough to answer some questions."
"Questions?" she sneers. "For one who is called Dread Wolf, who wears the name like a badge of pride, who does not even protest the significance of such a thing? Have you completely renounced the Dalish? Or are you just a city elf unaware of his own ignorance?"
"Ir abelas, da'len, but I do not know what the Dalish is. Is it your religion, where you are from?"
She looks at him in shock. How can he not know about the Dalish? Does he live under a rock? Or is this place so secluded?
"They are my people. Elves. We wander from place to place. There is not much left that the Shem'lens have not claimed, and they are not willing to relinquish much," she explains, searching his face for signs of recognition at her words as her eyes narrow in suspicion.
"They must be very remote if I have not heard of them. Do you come from across the ocean? I believe that is where most of the Shems come from as well. I was unaware of any Elvhen over there."
She simply stares at him, mouth agape.
"Across the…I am from the Free Marches. I was taken to the Tevinter Imperium as a slave after my clan ran into a group of Vints. In exchange for their lives, I was 'sold' into slavery." She spits the word sold out bitterly. Her clan had received nothing for her, and that was only after several members had already been slaughtered. She would have preferred death to slavery, but in the end, she did not wish to see the others suffer.
She could see pity well up in his eyes. "So people from the Tevinter Imperium took you from your homeland and forced you into slavery? Are there more elves being forced into servitude like this?" He was so eager in his thirst for knowledge. He looked genuinely interested in the answer.
Something wasn't right. Either he had never spoken to another being in his life, or something sinister was going on. It just wasn't possible for him to not know about slavery in the Imperium, or even about the Dalish. Why was he feigning such blasphemous ignorance? Did he take her for a simpleton?
"Slavery has been going on in the Imperium since before the fall of Arlathan. Everyone knows that. Where are we that you do not know this?" Her voice is quiet in the shadows of the room. Solas is frozen, unmoving in the doorway.
"The fall...of Arlathan?" he whispers, his eyes searching hers in the flickering light of the orbs.
She glances around the room again, a growing suspicion gnawing somewhere at the edges of her awareness.
"Solas," she emphasizes. "Where are we?" His face is blank and pale, even under the glow of the orbs.
"Arlathan," he breathes.
NOTES:
Ir ladaral'ma - I am healing you.
As I am certain it is now obvious, Lavellan has been thrown back to ancient times. Remember, Lavellan has never met Solas before now, even in her own timeline.