When she steps out of the Eluvian and into the dim light, she is struck not with awe and wonder, but instead with a certain degree of disappointment.
Is this it? she wonders to herself, taking in her somewhat average surroundings. She supposes it is pretty, but pretty in a generic sort of way. She had expected a wonder to behold. Perhaps it was yet another thing the Dalish got wrong.
Solas stops and turns back to where she has stopped in her tracks, noting the crestfallen look on her face.
"Is something the matter?" he prods. She fixes him with a look of mild confusion.
"Well…I suppose…I just expected a little more…grandeur," she bumbles awkwardly, looking down at her feet. Here she is, insulting what is considered to be the jewel of the Elvhen civilization to one of her own gods. The god she was taught to fear, no less. She knows now that he is not actually a god, but old habits die hard.
Solas gazes at her for a moment before throwing his head back and letting out a deep belly laugh, the dreads of his hair cascading down his back and dancing in merriment from the movement. The sudden booming of his laughter startles her and she looks up at him in bewilderment.
"This is not Arlathan, lethallan. This is just the In-Between, the realm between Eluvians. Were you not paying attention earlier?"
She flushes a deep red as she suddenly recalls the history lesson Solas had given her not even an hour ago. "I was paying attention, I just…forgot. I got a bit excited. It's not every day you see an intact Eluvian, you know."
"Actually, it is." He smirks and his eyes crinkle in amusement.
"You know what I mean!" She lunges out, intending to give him a playful shove, but he merely cackles and leaps away.
He reaches out and ruffles her hair before turning abruptly and strolling away. Shaking her head in bemusement, she struggles to catch up to his lengthy strides. Eventually he leads her to another mirror, tucked away in a gazebo-like structure.
Turning to him, she says, "You know, Solas—Fen'Harel—whoever you are…I like you better when you aren't being all grim and fatalistic."
He reaches out to activate the Eluvian. As it flares to life beneath his fingers, he leans back toward her with his eyes twinkling mischievously and says, "I am grim and fatalistic. Liking me is just an enjoyable side benefit."
He winks at her and then steps out and disappears through the mirror before she can react. Slightly stunned, she quickly follows before it can deactivate. She shudders as the sensation of being immersed in an ice bath washes over her body, but in a moment it is over and she stands blinking in the sunlight.
The first thing she notices is not the city, but the magic. It fills her, surrounds her, buzzes through her veins like a sweet and heady wine. She feels it enter her lungs with each breath she takes, rejuvenating her very soul.
"Oh," she breathes, her witty retort to Solas already forgotten. And then she sees the city on the horizon. Great spirals of gleaming crystal peek out above the distant treetops, prismatic from the angle of the sun. And there, floating like a cloud above even the tallest of the trees, a magnificent palace unlike anything she could have ever imagined stands against the brilliant blue sky.
Speechless, her eyes search for Solas, and she finds him standing there, looking not at the city but at her. A small crease has formed between his brows and he opens his mouth as though to say something, but clamps it shut after a moment of hesitation. Clearing his expression, he smiles.
"You mentioned that you were not from this area in your time. Have I assumed correctly then that you have never visited Arlathan City before?"
Unable to speak, she merely shakes her head and returns her awestruck eyes to the city.
"No, I suppose you would not have, if it has fallen as you say it has," Solas says quietly, trailing off into his thoughts.
Taking a deep breath to steel herself, she looks to Solas, sorrow in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Solas. The Arlathan of my time is nothing more than ruins. There is nothing left of it to even attempt to rebuild, or the Dalish would have done so long ago."
His mouth presses into a straight line and he sighs, the air blowing out through his nostrils in a hiss, all traces of joviality gone from his features.
"I will think on this matter. Perhaps I can find a way to keep it from happening here in this time, now that I know."
She searches his eyes, distant and unyielding. "That would be nice, I think," she replies. His gaze shifts out of his reverie and onto her.
"I have never been to Arlathan in the company of one who has never before set eyes upon it. Would you do this old man the honor of being the first?" He proffers his elbow out to her, a spark of excitement returning to his eyes.
"It would be my pleasure," she beams as she loops her hand through his arm. They turn and walk at a leisurely pace toward the gleaming city in the distance.
As they draw closer to the entrance of the city, she notices small things within the landscape. Creatures she never knew existed frolic in the underbrush, birds with colors that had ceased to be known in her time swoop overhead. Her eyes delight upon every surface they touch and she finds herself giddy with anticipation as the city grows closer, looming over their heads.
When they finally step inside the city gates, she feels as though she has been transported to another world.
Although I've already had that happen to me once, she thinks wryly to herself. The streets bustle with activity. Elvhen people, tall and broader shouldered than the ones from her time, skitter to and fro, all on some errand or another. She draws a few curious glances, but it is Solas they cannot keep their eyes off. More than a few of them bow their head toward him with mutterings of "my Lord" and "Fen'Harel" under their breaths.
Their vallaslin look nothing close to the familiar tracings of her time, and so she has no idea who is slave to who. Solas, sensing her confusion, begins to explain it to her as they turn onto an emptier street.
"There are different markings for different levels of servitude. The simplest markings are on the lowest class. The more complex the vallaslin, the higher in rank they are. If an Elvhen man or woman moves up in class, which is rare, but not unheard of in an ageless population, then he or she will have more detail and complexity added to their markings indicative of the rank they are stepping into. The highest of the noble classes will have vallaslin so complex, you will not be able to tell which Evanuris they serve unless you spend a great deal of time in their company, for they all look too similar."
"What happens if someone loses rank?"
"I will let you know if it ever comes to pass. As it is, no one would ever risk losing anything above the lowest class. As for those of the lowest class, if they commit a crime, they are sentenced to death."
"That's…horrible."
"I agree," Solas says solemnly, the corners of his mouth turning down in a frown.
"So then what do the Evanuris themselves look like?" She pushes the conversation forward again, steering the topic away from execution. "Is their vallaslin simply a huge black marking upon their faces?"
"The Evanuris do not wear vallaslin. Did you forget you have already met Andruil?"
"I…it was dark," she says sheepishly, her cheeks turning pink.
"And what of me? Technically I am considered an Evanuris, whether I partake in the same…activities or not."
"Well, you're you, aren't you?" she snaps defensively as she crosses her arms over her chest. Solas chuckles and continues.
"A bare face is the mark of freedom, where no one can claim ownership of you. These people…I hope to one day free them all, to rescue them from the tyranny they live under. They have never known free will the way you or I have." He looks around at the scurrying masses with a bone-deep weariness.
"How will you free them? Their vallaslin gives them away. Couldn't they just be snatched right back up the moment they are discovered fleeing their masters?"
"If they do not have vallaslin, then they will belong to no one."
"But they do have vallaslin. So your point is invalid."
A smile spreads across his face and he comes to a stop on the street, pulling her around to face him. Secrets dance behind his eyes like candles flickering in the wind.
"I can remove them. I can lift the ink from their skin and leave them blank as they day they came into this world. I can free them, each and every one of them, until the free outnumber the chained. And without the foundation of the class system, it will collapse beneath its own weight." He is speaking feverishly, his voice low to avoid the ears of eavesdroppers. "I have already freed hundreds and ferried them to safety, and the Evanuris are none the wiser to my involvement. They are too arrogant to ever suspect someone from within their own ranks. Think of how many more I can free before I finally strike the final blow!"
As he speaks, her eyes begin to narrow and her brow wrinkles in confusion. He leans away and examines her before him.
"What is it? Have I said something to offend you?"
Slowly, she shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "I'm just so…conflicted."
"By…?" he presses, taking a step toward her.
"By you. You're just so…good. You are nothing like what our legends paint you to be."
"Do not be so certain. I was not always the way I am now. I do not even know that I will ever come to call myself good, knowing what I was like in the past. Arrogant, conceited, egotistical…ignorant. Take your pick. I may not have taken slaves, but that did not make me any better a person."
"Does it matter what you were like then? What matters is who you are now, and what you're doing to make up for it. That seems to me like a man who looked in the mirror one day and hated the person he saw. And then he did something about it. That's more than the Dalish have ever done. They prefer to sit around telling the same tired stories over and over again, but never actually doing anything to change things."
"I… Thank you. I do not believe anyone has been so kind to me in a long time." The tender look in his eyes causes her breath to hitch for a moment and she suddenly becomes aware of his close proximity to her.
She opens her mouth to say something else when she notices his eyes focus on something over her shoulder. Before she can turn to see what he's looking at, he leans close to her.
"I am sorry to do this, lethallan, but I must ask you to wait here for a moment. There is someone I need to speak with. It will not take long." He is gone before she can even respond, down a narrow alleyway behind her.
Suddenly insecure without his reassuring presence, she looks around and hugs her arms to her body. The street they're on now is mostly empty and the curtains are all drawn shut in the windows of the buildings around her. She steps back into the cool shadows cast by the roof of the closest building.
"My, my, what a curious creature," a velvet voice says in her ear. Her heart jumps to her throat and she whips around in fright. There stands a tall red-haired Elvhen woman in opulent robes of deep violet. Her emerald eyes glisten dangerously, like a lion sizing up its prey. She is struck by the woman's terrible beauty and suddenly realizes that she has no vallaslin.
An Evanuris, she thinks to herself, her throat constricting.
"How did such a strange thing like you come to possess such powers? I sensed it the moment you stepped into this city. I had thought perhaps one of my fellow brethren had come for a visit, but here I find this unfamiliar varmint wandering the streets."
She is walking around her at this point, sneering down at her as though she were no more than a feral cat. She stops in front of her and reaches out a long finger to trace a line down the side of her cheek.
"To whom do you belong, servant? These markings are none that I recognize."
"She is mine," a voice speaks from the shadows behind the woman. Solas steps out into the sunlight, his steel blue eyes flashing.
"Ah," the woman says, turning to face Solas. "So it was someone familiar I sensed. Tell me, Fen'Harel, what makes this pathetic mutt so special? I have never known you to take on a pet. What prompted you to change your mind?"
"What I do or do not do is none of your business, Sylaise. We will take our leave now." Solas strides over to where she is cowering and places a firm grip on her wrist to steer her away from the woman.
"I suppose I owe Andruil an apology," Sylaise drawls, forcing Solas to stop. "She had mentioned you had taken on a stray, but I refused to believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. I must say, I find it rather amusing. Here I thought you found eternal servitude beneath you."
"Perhaps I wished to ensure nobody else could claim her," Solas says in an icy voice, his grip on her wrist tightening. Sylaise's fingers twitch and for a moment, she thinks the Evanuris is going to attack. Solas must have felt the same way, for he suddenly yanks her behind him, keeping his body between her and the Evanuris.
"Do my eyes deceive me?" Sylaise says in a mocking tone. "Does the big bad wolf pup actually have feelings for the little abomination? How very intriguing… Very well, take your leave. But you and I will speak again about this, believe you me." With that, she spins on her heel and glides away, her robes billowing out behind her.
She lets out a breath of relief as Solas releases her wrist and turns to face her.
"I thought you said they didn't know about your plans?" she asks with narrowed eyes.
"As far as I am concerned, they know nothing," Solas responds, his shoulders still tense from the encounter.
"Then why the open hostility?"
"They may be too arrogant to sniff out treason from beneath their own noses, but that does not mean they consider me a friend. On the contrary, Mythal is the only one who ever treated me with any respect. The rest were content to use me however they saw fit, even after Mythal raised my status to equal theirs." A flash of anger passes over his face before he hastily rearranges his expression into something more neutral. "But let us not waste time on such heavy conversations. I wished to show you Arlathan and here we have barely breached the city."
Solas spends the rest of the afternoon giving her a tour of the city. There are entire buildings made of nothing but crystal, mansions that float above the earth, even structures floating on a great lake at the center of the city, like tiny house islands. Everything is so imbued with magic, she feels drunk on it. She is thankful she didn't bring the orb with her or she might feel tempted to use her magic here. As it is, she is certain that until she learns to control it, it would be disastrous to attempt anything in a place so pregnant with power.
As the sun begins to sink beyond the horizon, the city begins to light up around them. The crystal towers that had acted as prisms in the sunlight, spraying dots of light in every color across the city, now light up like beacons in the waning light, as though colorful fires burn within them. Solas takes this as a cue to begin leading her back toward the outskirts of the city.
As they pass through the servant housing again, she notices that the streets are now completely devoid of activity.
"Where is everyone?" she asks Solas as they walk toward the open city gates.
"Curfew," he says simply. "Their masters prefer to have complete control over their everyday lives. They are granted no extra freedoms when the sun goes down."
"Why don't they revolt?"
"Because they have never known another way of life. This is how it has been for millennia. Oppression is as natural to them as freedom is to you. While you could never imagine living this way, neither can they imagine your life."
"That's sad. And…I don't know. It sort of makes you want to do something about it."
"Precisely."
They walk in silence until they reach the Eluvian. By now, darkness has fallen completely over them, with nothing but the stars above to guide their footfalls. Solas activates the mirror and they pass through, into the In-Between.
"Now that you have seen the city, what is your impression of it?" Solas inquires as they make their way to the mirror that will take them back to his home.
"It is beautiful," she sighs, remembering the magnificent architecture she'd seen. "And the magic is so…concentrated, I suppose it the correct term. I've never felt so alive in my whole life."
"Yes, there is much energy to be found within denser Elvhen populations," he agrees, keeping his eyes on the path before them.
"But…" she begins, trailing off as she tries to find the right words. "There is a certain sadness there. The people are enslaved, and it is such a way of life for them that they do not understand what it means to have hope. Hope for a future without tyranny, where they are free to think and act of their own accord. I can understand why you wish to help them. But I also fear that it won't be so simple for you. You can remove their vallaslin, send them to safety, but how do you rewrite what's already written in stone for them? How do you make them understand that there's more to life than just following someone else's orders?"
They reach the second Eluvian at this point and Solas stops to look at her, a sad smile on his face.
"And there you have hit the heart of my plight. I know that not everyone will be so receptive to my actions or intentions. They will likely wish to continue living as they do, for there is comfort in having the future already decided for you. There is fear in the unknown, and because of that, I can only help those who wish to be helped. My agents have so far been mostly unsuccessful with the Elvhen living in the cities, where their owners can keep closer watch over them. After I have sealed away their masters, they may not take too kindly to me showing my face to them again. It is a tragedy, but they will persevere, I am certain."
"At least you are trying," she offers, her heart full of sympathy.
"But…" he continues, "every alternative is worse. If I do not create this barrier, if I do not seal them away…they will destroy the world. They will search for another creature below the earth, they will go to war with those who guard these creatures, they will slaughter any who stand in their way. They will not sit idly by and allow their power to wane to what it was before they had lyrium. Now that they know what it does, now that they have grown used to its effects, they will not be content to let it simply fade from their veins. And I cannot stand by and watch my people suffer for it any longer."
She reaches out and takes his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "I will help you, however I can. I promise. I will do everything I can to learn the things you teach me, so that you can get your foci back." Solas gazes down at her, his eyes softening as he reads the determination in her face.
"I… Thank you. You…are not what I initially believed. There is something remarkable about your spirit that I cannot ignore. I have been isolated for so long…but it is nice to have company again."
For a moment, they do nothing but stare at one another, their gazes focused sharply on the other. She notices his eyes travel to her lips for a split second before snapping back up to her eyes and she finds herself leaning in without quite realizing what's happening. Before she can tell herself to stop, she is kissing him, and, to her utter surprise, he is kissing her back.
Her heart feels ready to burst as her pulse rushes in her ears. Solas reaches up and tangles his fingers into the hair at the base of her skull, pulling her deeper into the kiss. His lips move tenderly against hers and she sighs into it, bringing her hand up to rest at the back of his neck.
Suddenly, Solas breaks the connection, stepping back so that her hand falls away from him. His breathing is ragged and heavy, mimicking her own, his eyes wide and disbelieving at what had just transpired.
"I—I should not have… I am sorry. We should be getting back. It is not wise to linger in the In-Between."
Trying to keep the disappointment from surfacing on her face, she looks to the ground instead and nods. When they reach his home at last, she pads down the hall to his bedroom without a single word.
After she lays there for what feels like an eternity as her mind churns and puzzles over the kiss, she finally drifts off to sleep, unaware of Solas lying awake in the next room, his thoughts consumed with the exact same thing.