A/N: A bit of fluff for you. Also, an important moment that I just couldn't fit into the story in the way I decided to break it up. Leliana and Solona have an important realization.

Solona Lost the Taint

Against her sincerest wishes, Solona sits at the reins of one of the wagons. She tried to walk with the others, but she is still battered and bruised, and her ability to heal herself does not affect that. The wagon driver was more than happy to surrender his seat to the Hero of Ferelden. The tiny redhead that was her lover had bullied her into accepting it.

The sun is bright, the air is frigid, and the snow all around them brings horrid memories to her from the days before. Walking through the blizzard, keeping Zanneth behind her so the little elf could get some relief from the wind. Digging in the snow when it was clear they would not make it, taking refuge in a snow cave which the blizzard quickly added to. She and Zanneth lay together, their embrace unfamiliar but necessary.

They both suffered hypothermia in the end, and Zanneth now had frostbite on the tip of her ear. At some point in the coming weeks, Solona will have to do something about that for her. She can't salvage the dead tissue. But she can heal it immediately once it is amputated.

So much has happened in the last day. They were rescued, warmed, fed, and now Zanneth is Inquisitor and leading from the front. Solona can see her standing atop a hill of snow in the distance, where she has been scouting ahead, Bull and Cassandra ever at her side. The rest of the newly formed inner circle are nearby: Vivienne, Dorian, Solas, Varric, and Sera. Sera runs between them, skipping up ahead to check on everyone, and then slowing so she can hop up on the wagon with Solona. The girl has boundless energy. Solona doesn't remember a time when she had the kind of excess energy that would allow her to go skipping through snowdrifts.

It sounds like an exercise in futility. Of course, Solona does likely weight half again as much as Sera, at least. More once she regains all the weight and muscle she's lost.

One advantage of having so many mages with them is that the path can be cleared for the wagons. Rather than clearing the entire path, someone placed a charm on the first pair of horses. The snow moves to the side, and all subsequent wagons follow in the path made. The spell takes energy, however, so the mages take turns powering it for half an hour at a time. Some of the little ones are even helping, learning as they go. It's a game for them, and when they succeed, such cheering is raised.

It makes Solona smile.

Hers is not the chosen wagon for the job. She is third in line, driving a pair of riding horses. The poor things aren't accustomed to being beasts of burden, but stuck in the snow in the mountains with winter upon them, they all need to make sacrifices, the horses included. The trip is monotonous, cold, and miserable, and yet she can't help but feel grateful to be alive. Corypheus nearly killed her. She thought herself so powerful, and yet that ancient Magister nearly cost her everything.

How does he come to possess such an artifact? The device that held her captive in Alexius's custody was also of the elvhen. The Order of Arcane Warriors was more elvhen than human in Andraste's time. Perhaps there is some link? Perhaps the elves of old needed a way to control arcane warriors when they went rogue, much how the templars are supposed to watch the Circle in case of possession?

But then, how did Corypheus get these items? Surely he didn't just find both of them by accident?

She sighs. She'll probably never know.

"Such thoughts written all over your face."

Solona blinks rapidly, almost needing to physically pull her attention back to the present. Leliana has sidled up next to her wagon, blue eyes sparking up at her. She wears her vestments and a cloak, but the cowl is pulled back, showing her long, red hair in its braid. It was short, at her chin, when Solona left Val Royeaux. Leliana hasn't had it cut since then. It makes Solona's heart fall. Solona was always the one who cut it for her. She's the only one Leliana trusts to do it.

The mage lifts her hands to speak, first laying the reins in her lap. {I never did learn to keep my thoughts from my face.}

Leliana smiles. "Or perhaps it is simply that I know your face so well. You did well enough at court."

{There is that.}

"Might I join you, Hero?"

Solona smirks. {What is this? Trying to keep us a secret?}

Leliana does not answer, climbing up next to her even as the wagon continues to slowly move. Solona watches, spying Leliana's lithe grace even under all the layers of her clothes. It is not the first time that she has noticed how the years have filled out Leliana's curves. She always possessed a feminine beauty, and was certainly curvier than Solona herself ever has any chance of becoming, but now the spymaster borders on voluptuous and Solona can't seem to get her fill even now, weeks after she was returned to the world. Of course, that might simply be because it was always hard to get her fill of her lover even before they were parted for a year and a half.

"In all honesty, though, Solona, what vexes you? Are you thinking on the blizzard?"

Solona sighs, handing the reins to Leliana so she can speak while the horses still receive direction. {Not precisely. I was thinking of Haven. Of Corypheus. Of his elven artifacts and how they seem fashioned solely to work against people like me.}

"Arcane warriors?"

{Yes. I was thinking that perhaps the elvhen created these objects specifically to work with or against their arcane warriors.}

"The arcane warrior was once quite common among the People," Leliana nods. "It would follow that they might need some way to control them. You are enough of a handful on your own. Imagine a sizeable force of people with your gifts?"

{It would be mayhem. I am powerful, but still human. I have made my mistakes. My judgment is far from infallible. Having a way to control someone who has gone insane… or if an arcane warrior had become possessed? Though I do not know how that could be possible. Demons and spirits are so much easier to recognize than they seem to be for regular mages…}

"Corypheus must have wished to control you explicitly," Leliana muses. At Solona's questioning expression, she elaborates. "Well, when he could not control you through the taint, he leashed you and kept you from the Fade. If he could not use you, then he would keep you from intervening. The orb that gave Zanneth the Anchor also siphoned your magic. He is well-armed against you specifically."

{You have a very good point.}

"Upon thinking of it, I must say that what happened was really the best we could have hoped for," Leliana says after a moment, her voice somewhat shy, hesitant, entirely unlike her.

{How so?} Solona could be offended by Leliana saying that her capture and torture was good, but she knows her lover well enough to know that's not what she means.

"Think about it, Solona. If you still had the taint, you would be his thrall. You were tortured because he could not control you. He could not make you take him into the Fade. I shudder to think what doing that would have reduced you to. And it would have been with your consent. That, I think, is the scariest part." Leliana's voice becomes very quiet. "I have been forced to do many things, but never with my own permission. It's somehow even worse than not giving consent."

Solona is slayed. Her heart drops through her stomach and her eyes nearly well with tears. She stares over at her lover, seeing the fear of what could have been in those cerulean eyes. She never considered just how terrible it would have been if Corypheus had obtained all he wanted from her. She had been too focused upon how bad it was when he did not. And it was bad. But if she had been coerced- nay, if she had conspired to get Corypheus into the Fade, to the Black City and the Golden Throne?

And that says nothing for the power it would have taken. To generate that kind of power… Solona thinks she might have been left an empty husk after that, if she were alive at all. It very well could have caused the same kind of explosion that happened at the Conclave, only her own body would have been at the center. And there would have been no Herald of Andraste to receive the Anchor, for there would have been no Anchor.

She finally speaks, forgoing hand gestures. "Leliana, I…"

"It is all right. It was bad enough as it was. I am just glad you retained your mind." Leliana pauses, cocking her head to the side. "I am far more interested in the fact that you no longer bear the taint. I… well, how did you not know? Does that mean Alistair does not bear the taint, as well?"

Solona frowns. "Corypheus spoke to that, actually." She begins gesturing as well as speaking, giving Leliana the option of where to look. "He said, 'The spirit healer cleansed you of the taint and robbed me of my tool.'" She cocks her head to the side. The memory is vivid, but she did not have the mental capacity at the time to think on his words. The spirit healer, though… "Leliana! It is Wynne. When she…"

Realization dawns upon Leliana's face, her skin turning white as a sheet. "Fort Drakon!"

"Yes!" Solona is getting excited now, but she tries to hold it in so Leliana can still understand her. "Wynne used all of her energy, all of the spirit's power, to heal you. It healed everyone else atop the fort, as well. I always assumed all it did to me was hasten the process of healing my body, but… it must have cleansed us of the taint, Leliana! Alistair, as well! He was up there with us!" She pauses, considering. "Elissa was in the Alienage…"

"So little Wynne would still bear the taint," Leliana finishes, nodding. She looked guilty when Solona mentioned Wynne's sacrifice, but now she looks almost as excited as Solona feels. "It is unfortunate, but… none of the rest of the children will be so affected!"

"Precisely!" Solona nearly jumps in her excitement. "Alistair would not have borne the taint for their conception!" She pauses, thinking for a moment. "But all that time. I've been without the taint for all this time…"

"Did you truly not know?"

Solona shakes her head. "There were signs, but I sincerely thought my tie to the dakrspawn was not as strong without the archdemon there. I had no elder wardens to ask. In Amaranthine, I had the others to detect the 'spawn. I never asked Alistair. And…"

"What?"

"Well, my courses never returned. Alistair's fertility was restored through Morrigan, not through Wynne. So there was never any reason to ask him about that."

Leliana purses her lips. Any mention of that ritual Morrigan and Alistair performed puts her in a sour mood, despite the fact that Solona lives because of it. They have given up arguing about it. Solona does not know how she feels about Morrigan, but Leliana most assuredly does: Morrigan is a snake, and the only thing she ever wanted was the Old God's soul. She broke Alistair's heart to obtain it, and she manipulated Solona into being friendly with her to keep her around long enough to fulfill her own selfish goals. Solona is not so sure, not after her conversations with Alistair, but Leliana's mind will not be changed.

Leliana moves deliberately around the topic, however. "So Corypheus found he could not use you as he had planned. Because of Wynne. Will her gifts never stop revealing themselves?"

"I don't know. But the greatest gift was giving you back to me, Leliana."

The bard smiles. "But now we know something else, too, Solona. She gave you back to me. Twice over."

Solona is confused. "How? She saved me from Corypheus's control, yes, but…"

Leliana's eyes are wet as she answers. "She gave us the time we were sure we would not receive, Solona."

Again, Solona is flabbergasted, unable to do anything but slowly blink down at her lover. She remembers that night, when Leliana pulled the information about the Joining and the taint from Solona. It was a promise Solona regretted making, but at the same time, how could she really keep something so important from Leliana? The details of the Joining the bard perhaps didn't need to know, but her shortened lifespan? The fact that, by the age of fifty, Solona would begin to see the Old Gods in her sleep, would understand their Calling? That she would need to say goodbye, venture to the Deep Roads, and take as many of the darkspawn with her as she could before she lost her mind to them and became a servant of her blood enemy? Even if she'd wanted to, that was a lie Solona would be hard-pressed to keep, especially from Leliana, former bard and, though she could not guess it at the time, future Left Hand of the Divine.

Leliana reacted badly, though, once Solona understood why, it was also predictably. Leliana ran off into the wilderness to process all she had been told, Max giving chase to keep her warm in the chill of that autumn night. Solona stayed by the fire, first with Alistair for company, then alone, awaiting her lover's return. It turned out all right, of course, but still Solona remembers it.

And now Solona sees why Leliana would side-step an argument about Morrigan, why she would be happy even while speaking of what might have befallen Solona if Corypheus had succeeded in using her. It is a grim subject, but what it means for the two of them…

"I thought I would barely have you into the first years of my old age, Solona."

"It is a priceless gift," Solona breathes, nodding.

"Yes. I do not care that this means you were the Warden-Commander without the taint running through your veins. Perhaps that was part of why the wardens from Weishaupt suspected you. Perhaps they knew. Or perhaps it truly was all about the archdemon and the Architect. But… I cannot find it in me to be anything but overjoyed, Solona. You are free of the taint."

Solona nods, taking a deep breath and looking forward, toward the Herald, toward the horizon, toward the castle that will hopefully be their new refuge. Her soul is light, her mind awash in the possibilities for a future she had not dared hope for, and her heart nearly bursts for the love of the woman sitting beside her. She thought her life more than half-over. Now?

"We might just get that cabin in the Emprise du Lion after all, my dear girl," she says, her smile mirroring Leliana's as she takes the bard's hand.