III.

The eventual path back to the keep had been a long and tiring one. The rifts in and around Haven had taken what little she had had left and returned her a bit worse for wear. Even though Solas had bore the brunt of most of the energy required, serving repeatedly as the equivalent of an elvhen lightening rod had burnt through what little fortitude she had had left. And with Solas' proclamation that he did not think her responsible for the breach, she had spent the majority of their trek bringing up the far rear of the party and being dragged from rift to rift in order to be pitted against their legions of differently flavored fade daemons. They had already begun discussing her new fate as though she were not amongst them, and though all she had wanted to do was to return to her clan she had feared anything other than silent acceptance would perhaps draw them further away from canonizing her as the new "Herald of Andraste"and closer to remembering her obvious mortality and dashing her once more into the loathed role of probable heathen assassin. She had not felt particularly holy or ordained, not even at that time, but she had known that if this new vision of theirs would serve to keep her from being chained up again that she would have sung the chant of light naked in the center of camp day in and day out until they had begged for her to stop.

"So, it appears you are no longer to be the unwitting scape goat for a budding inquisition."

Solas had come to stand in the doorway of the four leaky walls she had been given in which to reside. She had eventually given over to it as they would not deign to allow her to sleep outside. With the door open, and several windows within easy enough reach, she had eventually convinced herself that she was not suffocating. She had never stayed indoors nor slept in a human bed. Even in her future years she would never figure out how the shemlen could stand it.

"I know I have you to thank for that," she had said. " I would have been hung by now had you not been there. I never would have known how to use...this." She had gingerly taken a poultice he had been offering and applied it to the back of her wrists, turning the right one over to stare at the new mark on her palm, now forever engrained there. "I just wanted you to know that I appreciated your help, Solas. I will never forget it."

The look that had crossed his face had passed far too quickly for her to read, but in the end he had smiled, slightly. She had decided it suited him.

"Then perhaps I will stay."

"You mean you had thought to leave?"

He had gestured for the poultice and she had passed it to him, averting her gaze to hide her expression.

"While you had lain unconcious, I had researched the anchor. Never had I encountered anything of it's like before. Nothing I found in the fade, or in texts, could explain it's nature."She had seated herself and watched as he had knelt and hovered fingers above a raw spot on her ankle. The chains Cullen had initially put her in had rubbed them to the point of blisters, and travel and exhaustion had done very little to heal them on their own."I had tried to run tests," he had continued, " but nothing I did could answer the questions the Inquisition posed. In time, they accused me of being duplicitous. They questioned my motives. Though I am the only one that seems to have come here of my own free will, they would have seen me bound and chained beside you if you had not returned from behind the veil. I'm an apostate surrounded by the chantry. How welcomed do you expect me to remain? "

He had leant long thin fingers to the tender application of the herbal compress as he had spoken, and she had hissed through her teeth at the coolness of it. It had smelled of elfroot and river mud."But, you've come here to help. I'd never allow for them to harm you."

"And how would you stop them, Lavellan?"

"However I had to."

For a moment in time he had seemed genuinely amused.

"Ah. A fearless warrior. I am fortunate, it seems, that for now we are on the same side. You do have such an indomitable focus."

"Indomitable focus?"

"Our time here has been short, but I have yet to see it dominated. Though I imagine that site would be...fascinating."

"Then perhaps in time we can find out, together."

Concentrating, she had allowed a bit of the anchor's fade energy to completely encircle him, his own magic responding as though it had been awaiting anxiously to receive it.

When at first he had stood he had looked down at her with something slightly akin to interest. Though it had quickly manifested in to something much more primal when his magic had readily risen to tease at hers.

"It would seem that the anchor was still in it's infancy when first I encountered it. New magic is always highly susceptible to it's surroundings and I have spent a great deal of time in the fade. It has taken a bit of my own magic within it. Like will always respond to like."

He had opened his aura to her then and allowed for her energies to mingle with his, the two unique strains of power intertwining and merging until she could no longer disinguish between them. Though she could imediately tell he had errected a barrier in order to protect her from prying into his thoughts, intentionally or otherwise, a single image had emerged. It had been merely a flicker, but it had been one that would never leave her. It was of a large gray wolf laying next to a sleeping woman, her small elvhen form naked under a wanning moon. As it's eyes had gleamed back at her her breath had caught and she had been imediately overwhelemed with an intense feeling of foreboding.

"Be careful where you let your magic wander," he had warned. "There are many things from within the fade that it may also attempt to adhere to. It is still too unpredicable. It may try to take power from where ever it can."

With that he had gently lifted his hand to the side of her face, his index finger and thumb making the shape of an "L" as he had rested it against her temple.

"Asha, hamin..."

Slowly, and with a well trained control, he had let the accumulative energy between them filter back through her, the warmth of it permeating her body and spilling out against her skin from within. As the sensation itself had subsided, the consistent throbbing within her bones had ebbed and the angry welts along her arms and ankles had faded into a perfect nothingness.

"You should have been nursing lyrium droughts upon our return," he had said, simply. "You have barely enough power to draw a proper torch. It is obvious our companions understand little of magic."

"Then I suppose that is yet another reason I should be thankful for your presence here"

He had bowed his head slightly, shifting his eyes up to meet hers only briefly. "You are no longer a prisoner here. Take what you would need."

As he turned to leave, she had wondered if that offer had included himself.

A/N: I know Solas could have just healed her without ever having bothered with a poultice, but I assume using magic on another mage without a direct request or invite to do so would be rather taboo. Especially if their magics already respond to each others as theirs has been wont to do.