I.
The first thing that he noticed about her were her eyes. They had solid black irises, something that reminded Jowan of the desire demons that would sometimes haunt him in the Fade. But she was just a little girl, perhaps a year or two younger than himself, and looked just as frightened as all the other new apprentices that were brought into the Tower. He bet that the templars hadn't even explained that they needed to take her blood for her phylactery yet. And sure enough, she squealed when they brought out the knife and the cup. Jowan turned his eyes away to look at his palm and heard the girl whimper, which was a lot less than what he himself had done when they made the cut.
When he looked back at the girl, she was wincing as the templars wound the bandage around her hand. That was when one of the templars caught his gaze.
"You are supposed to be in bed, young apprentice." said the templar sternly, his voice slightly muffled from the steel helmet he wore.
Jowan nodded silently but did not turn around to scurry back to the Apprentice Chambers just yet. The girl was looking at him, fear and pain plain to see on her face and in those black eyes of hers. He brought up a hand and waved at her, a sheepish smile on his face.
"Now, young apprentice," said the templar again.
Before he turned and sprinted down the hall back to his bed, Jowan saw the girl's thin and pale mouth curve into a weak grin. Such was the first meeting that would change both his and her life forever.
II.
The other apprentices were aware that they had a stranger in their midst, but none of them dared to risk the templars' punishment if they were caught talking after curfew. It was not until morning that Jowan and the rest began to pepper her with questions.
"What's your name?" asked Anders, sitting on the edge of his bed as he slipped on his shoes.
The girl took a moment to answer and when she did so, it was quietly.
"Amell. Solona Amell."
"Like Croft's cat?" asked Humbert.
There were a couple of sparse giggles as the apprentices got up and into line at the doors, ready to be taken to the dining hall for breakfast by Ser Barron and Ser Crosby.
"You're an idiot," said Anders, sniggering. "Croft's cat's name is Sloan, not Solona."
Humbert shrugged, his true feelings betrayed by the high color in his cheeks, and looked away. Anders laughed openly now, only stopping when Ser Crosby turned his head to give him a dirty look. The second the templar's head snapped back, however, the boy stuck out his tongue at him and made a crude gesture.
Solona covered her mouth and let out a cough that sounded more like a disguised chuckle as they were entered the dining hall. Once the apprentices sat down at their long table, the Knight-Commander called for them to speak a portion of the Chant of Light as they did at every meal.
Jowan repeated the words as he had three times a day for the past year, looking down at his empty plate as he had been instructed to do so. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Solona's head bowed but her lips moving randomly. When she caught him looking, her eyes grew wide and her lips stopped moving entirely. He gave her a ghost of a smile, and her eyes darted quickly back to her plate. Still, Jowan could've sworn on Andraste's ashes that she smiled back at him.
III.
"Is your name 'Jowan'?"
Jowan looked to Solona. They were both supposed to be busy studying their texts in preparation for next week's test on creation spells but, as usual for young apprentices, they had simply stared at the pages instead of really learning anything. That was what Solona was doing now at least, her strange eyes never looking up at him even as she asked a question.
"Yes," answered Jowan.
Solona licked her thumb and flicked to the next page of her text. It was a moment or two before she said anything again.
"I suppose you already know my name, don't you?"
Jowan nodded and watched as she pulled a hand through her thick, black hair, scratching as if in concentration. She didn't remove herself from the page, but her eyes didn't move back and forth as if she was reading.
"That's a bother," said Solona suddenly. "I wish you didn't."
He was genuinely puzzled at her statement and asked, "Why?"
There was a heavy silence between them.
"I wanted to introduce myself to you, but that's just stupid if you already know my name."
"You can still do that, if you want. It's not like it's against any of the Circle's rules or anything."
Solona's brow furrowed for a moment, and a scowl passed over her lips. She lifted her head up and looked him straight in the eye with a tiny smile.
"Hello, Jowan," said Solona, sticking a hand out to him over the table. "My name is Solona Amell. May Andraste bless you."
Jowan cocked an eyebrow and tentatively took her hand in his own, shaking it once. She let herself fall out of his grasp after that.
"Well, that's how my mother taught me how to introduce myself to people anyways," said the girl with a hint of humor in her voice.
He cracked a smile and was pleased when she beamed back at him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something told him that this would be the start of something truly wonderful.
IV.
Jowan didn't really pay any mind to Anders on the best of days, and it was not until they were both about fourteen that he started to do so. It was around the time that the templars and the mages began to separate the male apprentices from the female ones when it came to lessons and accommodations. Jowan had been unlucky enough to get a bed directly below Humbert, he of the perpetual sleep farting, and one across the way from Anders. This was shortly after Anders' second attempt to escape the Circle, so templars were on high alert in the Apprentice Chambers. That didn't, however, stop Anders from trying to engage Jowan in conversation after hours.
"Psst. Jowan," hissed Anders just as Jowan was about to fall into the Fade.
It took a great deal of willpower not to attempt to cast a sleeping spell on himself, but Jowan knew that Anders could do much worse than talk with him if he tried.
"What?"
There was a brief pause as the shuffling of templar armor pierced the silence.
"Are you or are you not slipping it to her?"
Jowan blinked twice in bemusement before shifting over to his other side. He would not be answering that question, not even if—
"C'mon, Jowan. You know who I mean."
Jowan sighed and muttered, "No. I honestly don't."
Anders chuckled softly.
"Are you saying that you can't?"
Jowan felt his cheeks flushed and he whispered harshly back at the other boy.
"I am not talking about this with you."
"So that means she's fair game then? Because she's pretty cute, once you get past the whole 'really weird' thing."
Jowan desperately wanted to get out of bed and pummel Anders with his fists until he begged for mercy, but the men that could potentially run him through with a giant sword tended to frown on that sort of thing.
"She absolutely is not. You're disgusting."
"I feel like we're just going around in circles here, Jowan. Are you—?"
"Shut up, Anders."
"Oh, what games we play."
V.
Jowan paced nervously at Solona's bedside, waiting for some sign that she would wake up. Finally, she opened her eyes.
"Are you alright, Solona?"
She looked to him with a scowl and said, "Please let me sleep a bit more, Jowan."
He shook his head.
"Sorry. The First Enchanter wants to speak with you."
Solona knocked her head against the bed above her as she sat up quickly. Jowan chuckled at her expense before remembering what he wanted to ask her.
"So…"
"I'm not going to tell you about the Harrowing, Jowan," said Solona flatly.
"How'd you—?"
She gave him a wan smile, the one that was reserved for him and him alone, and said, "You're very easy to predict. Hardly any trouble at all figuring out what you're up to."
Jowan smiled back at her as if she had told a sick joke that only he found funny and extended a hand to help her out of bed.
"You're so serious about this," said Jowan, pulling his friend up and out of her bed. "Did one of your fellow mages get to you so quickly that you can't even prepare a friend about what's to come?"
Solona looked to her left and right suspiciously like they were children talking out of turn and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
"You have to go to the Fade. That's all I can tell you.
Jowan chuckled at the feeling of her hot breath against his ear and pushed her away.
"Are you trying to set off the templars or something?" he asked. "Think for a moment before you start acting like a little apprentice gossiping about her menses."
Solona's smile fell, and she said, "I was trying to—"
He laughed loud enough that some of the other apprentices on the opposite side of the room looked to them for a moment.
"Ah, it seems that you're the predictable one."
Jowan did not know that this would be one of the last times he'd speak to his friend without the threat of death weighing on his shoulders.
VI.
He caught sight of her exiting the guest chambers and ran towards her. Her face was a mask of surprise.
"Solona!" whispered Jowan, taking her by the shoulder and moving her away from the door. "I've got to talk to you about something."
"Why are we whispering?" asked Solona, her brows knitted together in puzzlement.
"Just meet me in the chapel in about, oh, fifteen minutes? We can't be seen talking to each other right now."
Her lips twisted into a scowl of concentration, and she closed her eyes. After a moment, Solona opened them again and her expression relaxed.
"Fine."
He gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze and smiled at her. Solona didn't hesitate to return with a small grin of her own. For a moment, Jowan wished he had the guts to tell her and, looking back on it, he wished he had. But it stuck in his throat, and he walked away down the corridor without another word to her.
VII.
Jowan watched her face as Solona slowly puzzled through what he had asked her to do. He had seen her do it a million times before, but it had never been this nerve-wracking to wait for her to come to a conclusion.
He could feel Lily's gaze upon him as she asked, "Is she going to help us or not?"
He licked his dry lips and replied, "Give her a moment, Lily. Solona just likes to think everything through."
After a few long seconds, his friend gave him an answer with her eyes still closed and her hand tangled in her hair.
"I… I will help you, Jowan. And you too, Lily. But we must be clever about it."
"Thank you, fruh—" said Lily.
"All I ask of you," interrupted Solona, "is that you leave without asking me to go with you."
Jowan's throat went dry.
"You don't want to escape with us?" Lily asked.
Solona shook her head slowly and opened her eyes, looking straight at Jowan.
"They have already taken my phylactery to Denerim," she said with her stare unwavering, "and I am under no delusions that I might change that fact. My place is in the Circle now, and yours is obviously not."
Jowan stepped forward with his right foot. He recognized that look in her eyes when no one else could. Before he could comfort her, however, his friend stepped aside and closed her eyes again so he could not see her sadness.
"What is it that you need of me, Jowan?"
VIII.
"Would you have destroyed your phylactery if it were here?"
Each word made a puff of smoke come out of his mouth in the freezing chamber. They were just moments away from breaking the tiny vial of blood that separated Jowan from everything that he desired. Solona didn't even bother to turn her head before she answered.
"We must get out of here, quickly, before someone notices we're gone."
Jowan swallowed the lump in his throat and followed her up the stairs. Lily grasped his hand as they reached the door, and he looked to her.
"Do not remind her of what she cannot have, Jowan," she said.
He nodded silently and focused his eyes on Solona's feet as she took each step as if it were her last.
IX.
Jowan did not expect to see her again, especially not with himself locked behind bars in a dark and dank dungeon.
"Solona? Is that you?"
He asked a question to which he already knew the answer just to hear her voice again. He was cruelly denied that when she simply nodded her head, refusing to look at him.
"Solona. Please, speak to me."
Her eyes raised to meet his own, and Jowan wouldn't have needed to have been her friend through childhood to recognize the emotion there.
Betrayal.
"Do you know this man, Solona?" asked the strong-looking man standing to her right on the other side of the bars.
Jowan felt something oozing off of him, sapping his magical strength. What was Solona doing travelling with a templar?
"Let's move on, shall we?" said the dark-haired and wild woman standing to her left. "We don't exactly have the time to be chatting up prisoners when there is an army of the dead stalking the halls. No doubt he'll be here later, should the skeletons not sink their teeth into him."
Solona looked to the woman and then to the man before placing her hand on the bars, those black eyes boring into him. He brought up his hand to touch hers.
Without a word, his friend let her hand fall before he could do so and turned away, her face scrunched up in that ever so familiar thinking expression.
"Morrigan's right," said Solona finally. "We must move on."
She took a final look at him before setting off down the hall and repeated, "We must move on."
X.
"And what of the blood mage?"
It took Jowan a few seconds to realize that Bann Teagan was referring to him.
A silence fell on the room as Solona paused to think.
"Do not ask of me the impossible, Grey Warden," said Bann Teagan, "for I am not inclined to be merciful to one that would endanger all of Ferelden by poisoning the Arl."
Solona shook her head and said slowly, "Nor do I expect you to be. All I ask is this: allow me to be his executioner."
Jowan's heart skipped a beat painfully, and his mouth opened in a silent scream.
Bann Teagan regarded her with a cocked eyebrow.
"Do not think that you could set him free then, Warden. You will be performing the task with many eyes upon you."
She shook her head again.
"I am under no delusions of that nature, Ser."
"Tomorrow, then. The Arl will have recovered his strength enough to witness the deed."
XI.
Jowan felt that this should have been a private moment. One childhood friend offing another did not happen every day. Or, at least, he hoped not.
They were in Arl Eamon's chambers, and the old man himself sat up in bed to watch—a terrible hatred piercing Jowan's soul when their eyes met.
Solona stood above him, the final vestiges of a thought playing across her features.
Slowly, she brought up a hand. Jowan did not flinch, for he knew this was the end. He did, however, close his eyes. He did not want her to have to do it for him once he was gone.
He awaited the inevitable.
Nothing happened.
Jowan cracked open an eye and saw something that made his heart melt.
Solona was waving at him, a simple yet friendly gesture that they had shared on many occasions. It suddenly occurred to him that this was her final goodbye: a mirror of their initial meeting. How the years had changed them.
Jowan smiled up at her and said his final words.
"Andraste bless you."
In the brief moment between the flash of light and the darkness, Jowan could have sworn that she smiled back.