The sun was low in the sky, the shadows long through trees that were now twice Mairenn's height by the time she felt Solas draw near. Felt was the right word for it. There was something about his presence, something about the way his magic connected him to the Fade that she had become attuned to, at least enough that she became aware when he was close. Once she'd thought that was the way of things when two mages fell in love, but lately she thought perhaps it was more to do with how frequently Solas wandered the Fade.

"You're really here," she said as she heard his footsteps draw to a halt beside where she sat, unable to look up from the flames of her campfire as she greeted him. "I didn't think you would come."

He paused, then echoed the response he'd given her in the Fade with a weak smile. "I could not stay away."

Being together in the waking world had never been quite so effortless for them as walking together in dreams, but now it felt worse than before. He was too intelligent not to have seen her dream for what it was; her hopes for the future. Mairenn's soul had been laid bare before him, yet she still had no idea what she had done to make him push her away.

Her tone was bitter as she gestured to the circle of trees she had worked so tirelessly to create. "You're probably here to tell me how all of this is something else my people got wrong, I suppose."

Solas didn't answer at first, and she glanced up to see him bowing his head, muttering words in elvish under his breath. She couldn't catch them all, but what she could hear sounded close to a prayer for the dead that her own clan would often recite for the lost.

When he was finished, he lifted his chin to meet her gaze. "No. It is beautiful," he assured her in a gentle voice that made her want to rush to him, to wrap her arms around him and bury her face against his shoulder. For whatever reason, he couldn't be that for her anymore, and she cursed herself for needing it so badly.

He moved to sit beside her, and for a while, neither one spoke. The silence seemed to last for hours, until eventually Mairenn began to suspect that he was waiting for her to speak.

"It was my fault. My decision." She had to pause to take a deep breath or she would have broken right there. She refused to let Solas see that. "I thought things in Wycome could be resolved peacefully. I didn't want to send the soldiers. I was supposed to become their Keeper someday and I killed them all before I ever had the chance." She glanced down to where her hands rested in her lap and realized that they were trembling violently.

"You could have sent in the Inquisition soldiers and lost them as well," he pointed out. "Sometimes there are no right answers. We will never know if you could have saved them."

Mairenn swallowed back a lump in her throat and forced her breath to remain steady as she answered, "Nor will I ever forgive myself."

"That is likely true," he admitted sadly. "Still, If Keeper Deshanna was as wise as the woman you described to me, she would not wish you to blame yourself."

"I know," she sighed. "It isn't just the blame it's… I need to be away. I can't be seen to be broken. No one can see me like this. Least of all you."

"Why me?"

You know why, she thought, but didn't say it aloud. "Harden your heart to a cutting edge, and put that pain to good use against Corypheus." Words she still felt bruised by. "That's what they need from me. How can I lead them if they see that I'm broken?"

"You have already led them," Solas insisted almost fiercely. "You have foiled Corypheus at every opportunity, and those who follow you know that you will defeat him this one final time. This tragedy changes nothing, save that those who care for you will fight him all the more fiercely in its wake."

He sighed heavily before continuing. "Still… What I said before was unkind, but not wrong. You... are a person who cares deeply. I have always seen that in you. To put your feelings aside is against your very nature, I know. But there will be time to mourn later, and our final battle with Corypheus is approaching now. Broken or not, you cannot lead them to victory if the battle happens without you."

Her head tilted to one side as the voices began to whisper in her ear for the first time since leaving Skyhold. She was dimly aware of Solas' eyes narrowing slightly as it happened; he hadn't approved of her drinking from the Well of Sorrows, after all.

The message was a reminder of what she had already been told; that she had the time. That it was right to put her clan to rest properly.

Solas raised an eyebrow. "Or have you received to the contrary?"

"There is time. This is important," she said as firmly as she could manage. She expected him to scoff and dismiss that, but he didn't. "Was that the only reason you came here? To drag me back to Skyhold before Corypheus strikes?"

"No." Solas sighed. For a moment his hand seemed to hover, as if he was considering placing it on her shoulder and giving a reassuring squeeze. He didn't though. "I came because you said you are alone."

Mairenn closed her eyes, recalling what she'd seen when they'd been physically trapped in the Fade with the Nightmare. That odd little graveyard where every tombstone was inscribed with their greatest fears. Dying alone, Solas' had said. For a moment, she was touched, but her thoughts quickly turned to anger.

"That was true even before my clan were lost." Solas opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "Do you really think I could have gone back to my people? Being named the Herald of Andraste, having this… this thing on my hand. That would have been hard enough for them to accept. But this?" She gestured to her bare face. "They would have assumed I had turned my back on our ways."

In a way, she had. She recalled that moment. That terrifying moment when she had agreed to have her vallaslin removed, even knowing what it would mean to her clan, even knowing it might mean she could never return. She had opened her heart in that moment, she had let herself fall in love with him completely, knowing a part of her soul would always belong to him from then on. It had been a terrifying leap of faith on her part, and Solas had not caught her.

The memory of it made her eyes sting with tears that she hadn't wanted him to see. "I'm alone because of you."

She could feel how deeply those words cut him just by looking at the pained expression on his face. "I know, vhenan," he said quietly. "You deserve far better."

Her voice was more angry, more bitter than she'd ever heard it sound before as she snapped out her response. "What I deserve doesn't really matter, does it? You're still not going to explain why." Before she had simply begged him to stay. Her body shook as she let him see the darker emotions that had taken hold in the wake of his betrayal.

"I don't know how to carry on, Solas," she admitted in a broken voice.

When she felt the warmth of his arms envelop her, she could scarcely believe it. His lips pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, and heard him let out a soft shushing sound as he began to rock her gently.

The comfort made the tears come in earnest, made her feel every emotion she had pushed aside in her attempts to show the Inquisition a strong and brave leader. All that she'd lost, all the things that should have killed her but hadn't, every decision she had made that led to people hurt and lives lost crashed into her like a great wave. The person holding her was the only thing that kept her from being swept away completely.

He didn't let her go, even when the tears subsided and all fell quiet.

For a while, Mairenn lay completely still in the warmth of his arms, exhausted but afraid to go to sleep in case it was the last time he would ever hold her.

When sleep did eventually claim her, she found herself in the Fade, with Solas standing before her, a knowing smile on his face. Now they were in a forest she didn't recognize. It was autumn, by the looks of things. Leaves of crimson and burnt orange raining from the treetops and coating the ground below. This was somewhere he remembered, and it was beautiful.

"Would you care to walk for a while?" He offered her his arm. "I would be honoured if you would share some stories of your clan."

A wan smile touched her lips as she realized that it was exactly what she needed to do. It took her a while to decide where to begin. "Did I ever tell you the story of when my Aunt Eyra accidentally slipped the Hahren a sleeping draught?"

"How does one accidentally do such a thing?" he asked with a raise of one eyebrow.

Mairenn let out a fond chuckle, remembering Eyra's slightly-too-firm hugs and the way she always smelled like elfroot. "My aunt was the healer. She wasn't a mage, but she could mix remedies for anything without even checking her notes. A pinch of one herb, some of the root of another. Her eyesight though left a lot to be desired though, and as she got older, she got worse and worse at being able to read her own labels…" It surprised her how soothing to speak of those she would never see again.

Solas let out a chuckle as he realized where the story was going, but Mairenn still continued to the part where the Hahren had fallen asleep while telling the children one of his stories, which had led to some rather imaginative pranks being played on the poor man.

Things were easier in the Fade for both of them, they always had been, and now was no exception. They walked together until the morning came, with Mairenn sharing the dearest memories of her clan and Solas offering comfort whenever those memories became too much.

It was temporary, only for while she needed it. She understood that. In the morning, she would be the Inquisitor again. He would go back to pretending for all the world that there had never been anything between them, back to denying that he loved her even though she knew in her very soul that he did. She was more sure than ever now that he had come to find her.

Perhaps when all of this is over, perhaps when their battle was behind them, perhaps then he would tell her. Perhaps then they would be together.

Even in her darkest hour, she still had to hope it could be so.