X.

She had awoken with a start, her body numb and tingling as Solas had aided a potent amber liquid to her lips; her head tilted back upon his lap to allow for the mixture to have a proper passage through. When she had flailed and attempted to sit up, he had placed a firm hand at her center, forcing her to remain steadily in place.

"Try to lie still. Your muscles have started to atrophy. This should help, and perhaps it will also lend a little more warmth."

Blinking up at him, she had gagged slightly around the bitter taste of herbs, her eyes tracing the lines that had seemed to etch years around the corners of his mouth and eyes. She had had to force herself to quell the urge to follow along them with the tips of her fingers.

"You haven't slept..."

He had continued to hold her, though it was not his voice that had given the reply.

"Would that we could. You've been putting us both through our paces these past several hours." Dorian had lifted a warm cloth to her forehead as Solas had guided her through a round of cold resistance tonic. She had grimaced, realizing that they must have been running on a very short supply if it had already had to be cut so heavily with spindleweed. "Don't worry," he had continued on in true congenial Dorian fashion, "I've chosen to forgive you. But what you need now, my little Dalish snowflake, is a warm bath and copious amounts of mead. Luckily for you, I seem to have arranged for both."

"A bath? Here?"

"Not a proper one. But, there is a spring that pools within one of the small caves, nearby. "

"A hot spring?"

Dorian had actually smiled and shaken his head at her optimism. "I'm afraid not, but I'm sure that that is something that our dear, Solas, could arrange. He's been quite the attending physician, already."

The two had exchanged a brief round of glances before he had properly chosen to excuse himself.

"I've never tended to a naked woman. I doubt now would be the ideal time to try. But, if either of you should have a need of me..."

In the resounding silence, she had watched him take his leave, sauntering as he had fallen slowly from view of the fire.

"Have the two of you finally made peace?"

Solas had made a noise somewhere in-between amusement and disdain, her body weight shifting easily into his arms as he had lifted her.

"It appears that it would take more than an evening of blood magic and the gift of a single fire rune to make that so."

"Blood magic?" She had swayed a bit with his gait, his bare feet making his steps purposeful as he had picked his way carefully along the snow covered stones leading up the natural path to the cave face.

"You were going into shock. You were too weak for me to draw upon the anchor, and most of our provisions were used by the Redcliff mages to try to help you reseal the Breach. We used what was available to us."

"I didn't know either of you were familiar with...those arts."

"Blood magic is not, by it's very nature, evil. As in all things, it is based souly upon intent. Most mages in Tavinter have at least some basic training in its usage. Like lyrium, it is a source of power, nothing more."

"That's why you sent for, Dorian."

"Of course. Our companions have just begun to fully trust you. Maybe, perhaps, they have even begun to trust me. I doubt there would have been an easy way to explain it to someone who was not yet familiar. We've come a long way just to be executed as maleficarum."

"Yes, "she had nodded in full agreement, "and Dorian has told me rather a lot recently that he is far too pretty to die. Were you able to heal yourself easily, after?"

"Your concern humbles me, but it is unnecessary. Healing and blood loss do not often coincide well within a single mage. One requires energy to be passed from one person to another. The other simply takes it. Dorian, provided the one so that I could, in turn, provide the other."

Sitting her down to rest against the dampness of the cave wall, he had used his right hand to call forth a ball of fade fire, it's light guiding his way to the edge of the internal spring as he had both activated the rune and watched it sink.

"Dorian, opened a vein...for me?"

"Several."

"I do not enjoy the thought of someone causing themselves pain just in order to help me..."

"Would you not have done the same for him?"

"If it were truly the only way-"

"Then you must learn to receive as well as give. Though, perhaps, you should offer to buy him another cravat. It seems silk does not hold properly against ritual blood letting."

In a moment of surprise, she had allowed herself to laugh, fully. It had appeared that Solas had been capable of humor, after all.

"And how many more times, exactly, do you plan to save my life, Solas? This...fledgling Inquisitor whose greatest new foe now appears to be... snow. "

If she had ever seen him smile before, it had not mattered until then. There had been something thoughtful about it, as well as something inherently and hauntingly sad.

"As many times as necessary. But, if I have ever truly saved your life, it is only because you have completely changed mine."

As he had returned to kneel beside her, his hands working to gently unravel her from her many various blankets, she had temporarily found herself unable to respond. She had obviously misunderstood him countless times, before. If she had been wiser, or perhaps simply less drawn to him, she might have even been able to allow for that moment to slide peacefully into an amicable silence. But, if surviving Corypheus, and...snow..., had left her with anything, it was the feeling that everything could change and quickly. She had known that if they were to ever confront the magister, again, and it was inevitable, that she might not get another opportunity to walk away. If Solas had had something that he had wished to say, she had suddenly become quite earnest in making him say it.