Cooking on the Trail

Iralen never shared the communal cooking pot. Quietly, she built her own fire and prepared her ingredients, counting on food to distract the others from her strange withdrawal every evening. Tor lay content half in and half out of her tent, gnawing the marrow out of a haunch he'd already picked clean. The sharp cracks of his teeth in the bone matched the snap and crackle of the cookfires.

Iralen glanced up at the Iron Bull and Sera, arguing over who got the larger share of the meat bubbling away in the large, cast iron pot between them. Their spirits were higher than ever, doubtless a result of the mission she'd selected them for. A smack, a shout, and Sera ran off giggling, stew juice streaming down her chin, Bull in hot pursuit. They tore around the camp, kicking up enough dust to raise a displeased outcry from the scouts, who were trying to eat their own dinners or sleep off a long shift. To Bull and Sera, spirit and demon were synonymous – but they were good at what they did, and Iralen had the feeling she would need all the help she could get to free Solas's friend.

She carefully took a waxed paper-wrapped bundle out of her pack. Kneeling by the much-smaller pot she used, she fanned a handful of thin yellow sticks into the boiling water.

Solas, who usually disappeared around dinnertime, seemed to deem it wiser to stay in the Inquisition camp with Keeper Hawen's clan so close. There had already been some "flat-ear" comments flung at his back in the last two days, and even his patience was wearing thin. "May I join you?" he asked.

"Of course." She wished he would more often. She smiled at him through the rising steam, and he lowered his eyebrows, watching her.

"An unusual choice for one of our people," he observed. "Is that Antivan cuisine?"

"They call it pasta," she affirmed. She swirled a wooden spoon through the noodles, patiently waiting for them to soften and submerge completely. "My clan once ran across an Antivan sailor so addled with the wasting memories that he couldn't return home."

"You had more contact with humans than most Dalish," he remarked. She glanced at him, but his face was smooth, expression serene. It was nice to know that he wasn't going to hold the bad manners of her people against her.

"We saw no reason not to be peaceable, especially when the humans outnumbered us," Iralen said. In spite of the attitude of some of her clan, she had never minded making contact with human villages. At her Keeper's behest, she was always the spokesperson. Humans were loud, and smelly, but they could be fair when they wanted, and there was only so much land to go around. "The sailor's daughter made the pasta. We used to trade with her because, dried, it travels so well. All of my clan took a liking to it. Josephine was able to procure some for me."

From the other side of the tents, Bull gave a roar that let everyone know his stolen dinner was resting comfortably in Sera's stomach. A few halla that had wandered too close bounded for cover in quick, white leaps, vanishing in the brush like moonbeams behind clouds.

Solas settled cross-legged on the ground, unperturbed. "And the sauce?"

"Solanum," she said, lifting the lid of the saucepan for him, which released a tantalizing curl of scented steam into the dusty air. The ripe, red fruit simmered in its own juices, breaking apart easily with pokes of her spoon. "Oil of olives," she went on, adding the ingredients as she spoke, all of them standard fare that existed just as readily in a pack as in a pantry, save the solanum, which she had foraged that afternoon off sun-drenched vines in abandoned Orlesian gardens. "Salt. Garlic. Red pepper."

"Oregano. Interesting." Solas sniffed appreciatively, and then reached for his pack. He dug around in it for a moment before coming up with a bit of rolled leather. Out of the bundles of dried and fresh herbs, which he gathered as they traveled, he selected a large sprig of leafy green with purplish veins. "Basil," he explained, holding it out for her to examine. "A member of the mint family."

At her willing nod, he crumbled the herb into the sauce with long, aristocratic fingers. He then claimed a chunk of the hard bread for them to share that everyone in the Inquisition's army hated, and helped her ladle the noodles and sauce on their trenchers. They reclined side by side against a boulder releasing the day's heat as the night cooled in companionable silence.

Iralen was thrilled. She kept sneaking sidelong glances at him from under her lashes, which he pretended to ignore. According to her kitchen staff back at Skyhold, Solas subsisted on very little. Elven appetites as a whole were less demanding than those of the other races in Thedas, so she had never given it much thought. Still, it was nice that he had chosen to join her this evening.

"Were you able to sense your friend?" she asked after a minute or two.

"No," Solas said sadly. "There is too much unrest here. The presence of the undead obscures it."

"We'll find it," she said earnestly, and she believed it. "Tomorrow. I promise you."

He smiled at her, the firelight bright on his face. "Thank you."

"So, what's for grub?" huffed a disgruntled Bull as he plopped onto the ground next to Solas.

"Excellent, are we on?" Sera asked, rubbing her hands together. She flopped next to Iralen.

"How can you still be hungry?" Bull asked her, aggrieved. "You ate my dinner as well as yours."

"What, that? It was just a bit of a nosh," Sera said. She reached for the ladle, but Bull snatched it away from her. Immediately, she pointed at Iralen. "Nu-uh, the Inquisitor is sharing. Give it here."

Bull held it above his head, out of her reach, lifted the lid to the saucepan, and gave a wary sniff. His craggy face puckered like an apple left too long in the sun. "What's this? There's no meat."

"What?" Sera dove for the pan.

Bull put his huge hand in her face and pushed her onto her rear end. "There's no meat."

"And you're eating it?" Sera cried in disbelief, goggling at Iralen.

"I was trying to," Iralen said. She lowered her plate, and waited for the inevitable interrogation. Her friends did not disappoint her.

"This isn't a real meal," Bull said, scratching his head. "You don't have to ration tonight. There's plenty of meat left over from the snoufleurs."

"I didn't want any," Iralen said, with another sidelong glance at Solas. This look, he returned.

"The elvhen refrained from the consumption of flesh," he said.

Sera burst out laughing. "But we aren't elvhen," she said, making a mockery of the word. "I eat meat. Know why? Because it's delicious. Dee-lii-shiiss."

"I don't think it is," Iralen said, but then she pursed her lips. She didn't want to say more than that, about how the thought of putting the cooked flesh of an animal in her mouth was as vile as the stink of corpses. She didn't know why she felt that way. She always had, for as long as she could remember. Once, as a very young girl, she'd dreamed a bear hunted her down. Not long ago, she'd faced the terrifying possibility of being eaten by a high dragon. For her to eat another living creature? Never.

"You're a hunter," Sera said, on the verge of breaking into more laughter.

Iralen sighed. "Yes."

"You kill animals for a living."

"Yes."

"And you won't eat them because –?"

Iralen frowned. She wouldn't eat them precisely because she was a hunter. It had nothing to do with the shape of her ears or the place of her birth. She didn't mind if others partook. She took lives in order to keep her clan alive, but that didn't mean she had to take more than that. She hunted. She killed. She offered prayers of thanks. And she didn't eat meat.

Bull eyed her with his one good eye, then stood up and whacked Sera in the back of the head. "Come on," he said gruffly. "We'll try Harding. She's usually got some extra."

"Beat you there," Sera said. She took off again, her energy seemingly inexhaustible.

Bull didn't follow her right away. Over his shoulder, he offered Iralen a crooked grin. "Makes no difference to me one way or the other, boss. Sorry to bother you."

He lumbered off.

Iralen sighed, pushing her food around her trencher with waning interest. Bull may not have understood, not about her eating and not about Solas's friend, but he was one of the most accepting people she'd ever met, qunari or no. Sera, however . . . why did it hurt so much that another elf didn't understand?

"Do not let it trouble you overmuch," Solas said, breaking into her thoughts when he laid a hand on her arm. "Sera has wandered so far off the path she is nearly unrecognizable, even to herself. Listen to your heart, for it speaks true, and I shall always be glad to share your fire."

Iralen smiled her thanks and resumed eating. An unwilling Tal-Vashoth. A city elf who may as well be human. A Dalish hunter who would not eat her kills. And a spirit of wisdom. All collected by a gentle apostate the same way he collected his herbs and called "friend."

There were worse things to be.

A/N: Dragon Age: Inquisition Omake Gekijō Presents: "Cooking on the Trail."

So many disparate thoughts came together for this one. The Solas Romanced tarot card shows him petting a tree, and I can just imagine him wandering around while he's awake, talking to various plants and collecting samples. The card also features a white wolf, which was the inspiration for Toror'ai. When I learned that Solas doesn't eat much, that sort of extended to Iralen. I like oddities, and having a vegetarian hunter tickled my fancy. I figure that in a world with so little technology, torn by war and natural disasters, "waste" is an abhorrent concept – which would include refusing to eat any food presented. I feel like Iralen's aversion to meat, however, is something deep-seated in her, something she doesn't understand, but that maybe Solas does, and that could be part of the reason he's physically attracted to her even though she's biologically different.

I apologize for taking so long to update this story. I got stuck on the next tidbit until I finally realized that I couldn't tell that particular story well or originally. I threw the idea out and moved on to this one. I have just two more oneshots planned! I do hope you'll stay until the end, Dear Readers.

So, news! I changed the cover image for "Grace" to the Solas Romanced tarot card, and I've created a YouTube channel. There, I have begun to post clips of my gameplay (mostly that just interest me for one reason or another). I'll probably put up one a day. Please feel free to check it out if you'd like to see Inquisitor Iralen in action! The link is in my profile ~ :3.

Reviewer Thanks! I truly could not do any of this without you. The Night Whisperer, Blackpantherlilies, and Shilyn. You guys rock!

Ever Yours,

Anne