Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?
—Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven
.
.
.
.
.
.
The Herald would be departing for Val Royeaux without him, despite his protests. There was no convincing them otherwise, as it was exceedingly difficult to argue one's advantages when he couldn't even scale a set of stairs without assistance.
Sleeping had been difficult — the pain which radiated from his thigh had disrupted any ability to dream, or to truly sleep at all. When he tired of continuing the farce of resting, he left the infirmary. One of the medics had fashioned a crutch for him, which eased the weight off of his injured leg and made walking marginally easier.
He found his companions having breakfast in the tavern, and he'd been immediately alarmed by the sight of it as they were all armored and dressed for travel.
None had come to wake him, and they could have surely left without a word.
Tephra noticed his arrival first, and frowned, "You should be resting."
He had not thought they would be leaving so soon.
He knew that they intended to address the chantry in Val Royeaux, knew the urgency in doing so, but he'd though that he had more time to prepare. Or, at the very least, enough time to heal himself beyond this state of disability. A few days rest might have given him the ability to heal himself more thoroughly, so that he could be something other than entirely useless, but from the look on the Seeker's face he knew that there would be no waiting for him.
"It seems I have plenty of time to do that in your absence," Solas replied.
He took the unoccupied spot beside the Herald, and attempted to sit at the table without the appearance of one who'd been stabbed in the thigh not six days past.
"Sorry, Chuckles, but you're no good to us if we have to carry you," Varric laughed, as he spread soft cheese and jam over a thick slice of oat bread.
"To be fair, I did suggest strapping you to a horse," Tephra teased, not quite meeting his gaze as she fought the smile creeping across her mouth.
There it was again — the odd pull of her gravity.
Solas was suddenly and acutely aware of his disappointment in being left behind. He'd gotten so used to her presence, that the sudden prospect of its absence was surprisingly disheartening.
"I'm not looking forward to going without his barriers, though," Varric remarked, as the conversation continued. "Nothing but miles of mages and templars running amok between us and Val Royeaux."
It would take them at least three days to reach Jader, if their trip was uneventful. From there, the ferry would take two, perhaps three days to reach the port of Val Royeaux. However long they lingered there after the summit with the chantry, they would return to Haven — at best — two weeks from now.
His disappointment deepened.
"It is unfortunate that you were injured, Solas," the Seeker agreed. There was something almost conspiratorial in the sharp look she shot towards the Herald, and the almost-smile as she mused, "Your magic has been an invaluable part of our group."
Tephra frowned at the woman, as she shifted stiffly and pointedly avoided his gaze.
Was the Seeker teasing her?
He was clearly out of the loop on whatever had transpired between the two of them, and it curiously involved him. He could only expect it had something to do with the Herald's charade with the bandages the night before, and her fear of what the others might think of his having healed her.
If any had been able to see through the ruse, it would have been the Seeker. And perhaps, to her, it looked curiously like—
Solas cleared his throat, and said, "I had not intended to be injured, Seeker. Do forgive my passing out; it has been some time since I was last penetrated."
The statement hung in the air, in the silence that fell over the table. Varric gave a cough, but politely held his tongue. The Herald, however, was struggling; the amusement was breaking across her face despite her best efforts not to laugh. A snort escaped her, and she turned her face away as she began to laugh.
Briefly, he cast an arch look at the Herald, which only served to set her off again just as she was beginning to compose herself.
It was delightful to hear after such grief, and he could not help but think that if her laugh were a mead, he would have readily inebriated himself each time she offered it.
Which terrified him.
He was toeing a dangerous line, and yet he kept returning to it, again and again.
Cassandra gave a long-suffering sigh.
Solas turned his attention back to Tephra. He did not expect the answer to have changed, but still, he tried, "If you insist on tying me to a horse, I'm more than willing to allow it."
"We've spoken of this already, Solas," she reminded.
"Yet here we are, once again."
"You're rather stubborn, aren't you?"
"A trait we share, I'm afraid," he mused. "I do remember your insistence on departing Haven before you were fully recuperated after the Breach. If I must insist—"
"No," Tephra interjected, in a tone that did not invite further debate on the matter. "You need time to recover, and they need me to go to Val Royeaux. The sooner we speak with the clerics, the better."
"Without—" Solas reached for the nearest excuse available to him, "—a healer?"
"Who says that I am?" She studied him a moment, as though puzzling over his insistence, before a coy smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. "I've survived most of my life without magical healing. I can manage a few weeks without yours."
"Fair enough," he conceded.
"If you still insist on departing for Val Royeaux immediately, then we should dispatch a unit to accompany you," the Commander spoke up behind them. "They can begin the process of establishing outposts in various locations of Orlais."
The ex-Templar was accompanied by the other two advisers, whom took their places at the table opposite of the Herald.
Solas paid little heed to their conversation amongst themselves and the Seeker of where to establish camps, of advantages and disadvantages, and how many scouts would be needed. Instead, he turned his focus back to the Herald, who'd gone quiet.
There was an old leather-bound book laid open on the table before her, having seemingly materialized from nothing, and her marked hand loosely clutched a pen as she wrote in it. He could not see what she was writing, not without leaning closer and being entirely obvious about it. Whatever the subject, it was clearly a passionate one to her, given the pace of her writing.
Now this was curious.
In his experience, very few Dalish were ever taught to read, let alone to write. And she had enough confidence in her ability to be using a pen, rather than a pencil.
Tephra caught him staring from the corner of her eye. She briefly stopped writing, and he saw her defenses lift ― slight frown, sudden rigid posture as if braced for impact.
He offered an amiable smile, hoping to ease her concern, as he began, "A Dalish who can read and write, how—"
"Shocking, I'm sure," she cut him off in a flat tone. She turned her attention back to the book as she continued to worry away at the paper with a furious scrawl, chasing whatever train of thought which meant to elude her.
Solas felt a flash of annoyance, but it was extinguished at the sight of a faint smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
She was teasing him.
So quick to ill-temper, he chided himself. What was it about her that brought out his emotions — positive or negative — so strongly?
Solas let his irritation seep away entirely, before asking, "Who taught you?"
"My father," she remarked, offhandedly.
That she offered it so simply, and without hesitation, made him feel entirely secure in his decision to destroy the report on her.
Patience had its rewards.
Solas scooted down the bench to get a closer look at the book. It was terribly rude of him, but he was admittedly curious. The pages which were visible to him were a jumble of clustered notes, and the script was wholly foreign to him. Intrigued, Solas asked, "Is that a cipher?"
How fascinating.
Sudden emotion warmed her face, as she said, "He was very fond of constructing cryptographs as a hobby. He taught me this one, which he regarded as his best work."
The thrill of discovery coursed through him, as though he'd just laid sight to an untouched ruin, which was waiting to give up its secrets to him. His hands twitched in his lap with excitement, as he casually asked, "May I?"
Tephra gave an amused huff, before sliding the book toward him, "Knock yourself out."
The symbols were complicated, and resembled no Thedosian writing system he was aware of. They arced and curved sharply, running into one another so closely as to be seemingly inseparable. It was complicated in structure, and utterly fascinating.
It reminded him of Arlathan, of the rebel days he spent constructing his own coded missives. He very much wanted to try his hand at decoding it, as such things appealed to his endlessly curious nature. Not simply to know her thoughts, but to crack such an elaborately well-made cipher which would have been rewarding in and of itself. Her father must have been considerably intelligent to have constructed it entirely himself.
Turning through the pages, he caught sight of a fragment of text that wasn't coded — it was old, slightly faded, and it clutched at him immediately as he read it.
Why do we seek the past so restlessly? Why do we seek to know the ones who came before? How can we understand them, when they are so far away? Then, an addendum in furious scrawl. We never will. We don't speak the same language, not anymore. But we are stubborn, and keep speaking to the ones who came before in hopes that they may one day hear us — and answer.
Grief — endlessly old, and endlessly sad — turned in its sleep in his chest and clawed at his heart.
Solas cleared his throat, and made a show of rifling through a few more pages before handing the book back to her. "Fascinating," he noted. "Perhaps one day you might permit me an attempt at solving it."
She gave a throaty chuckle, "Perhaps."
He knew that it was a sore subject for her, but curiosity compelled him to ask, "How did your father come to be so accomplished?"
The Herald regarded him a long moment with a measured look, as though suspicious of his intent. It quickly passed, and she relented, "My father's father was Keeper of his clan. He taught him everything he knew, and he learned much more on his own. He knew a scholar in Hercinia who would trade him books for rare herbs. He would read to me, and taught me as much as he could."
He had no choice but to ask, "Is he with your clan, back home?"
He already knew the man's likely fate, but she did not know that he did, so asking about her father's whereabouts was the natural progression of the conversation. Not asking could invite suspicion, which he very much wished to avoid with her. Still, he was pained to ask it of her, as the shadow of her grief flitted across her face.
"No," she replied quietly. She cast a glance around the table to reassure herself that the others were not listening in to their quiet conversation amidst the heated chatter about supplies and logistics and whatever else the advisers saw fit to argue over. "He's gone, along with my mother, and—" She turned the pen between her fingertips, staring hard at the book before her. With a sharp sigh, she closed the book and began to pack it away in her traveling pack, as she said, "They're gone."
"Ir abelas," he offered, quietly. She returned his sentiment with a tight smile that wasn't a smile.
It was no wonder she harbored such a vested interest in the Fade, and the fate of souls beyond death.
Tephra gave a sharp sigh, as she eyed her advisers, "They're likely to argue right up to the moment we leave. I'd sooner wait with my horse."
Leaving, and so soon; disappointment once again clutched sharply at his chest.
She gave him a sudden smile, this one real, "See that you let this—" When she reached for his thigh, he stiffened. Tephra froze, and flushed, before immediately diverting to clasp his arm with a gentle touch, "Do heal quickly, Solas. I hope it doesn't trouble you much longer."
She'd meant to jest about his wound, but he was certain that if her hand went anywhere near his thigh that neither they, nor the the rest of those present, would soon forget it.
The momentary lapse of boundaries, the sudden display of considerable casualness with him, sent his stomach rolling. But his attention was easily diverted to where her hand had grasped him, to where he could still feel the phantom pressure.
Once again, he found himself overwhelmed simply by being touched by her. The barest gesture, and unbearably brief, yet it rushed across his nerves like flashfire. She offered it so freely, as if it were nothing at all, and he accepted it greedily — as though he were starved and made hollow after so much time spent wandering the Fade alone in uthenera.
It felt like ballast.
It felt like a line thrown out from the dark, to pull him from centuries of solitude.
Solas sat there stiffly, watching her rise and take her leave without a further word. Her advisers and the Seeker continued to argue as the Herald made her leave unnoticed. She'd only made it halfway through the tavern, when she stopped suddenly. From the tension in her posture, he was immediately aware of the shift in her mood.
Solas rose from the bench to see what had caught her attention.
Through the myriad of conversations trickling through the crowded building, he heard the sudden sharp reprimand of a Chantry cleric, who was overseeing a group of refugee children gathered for their morning meal. The cleric was an older woman — swallowed up in robes too large for her wizened body — and was berating a young girl for not using her utensils properly. The cleric made the child hold out the palm of her hand above the table, before striking it sharply with a switch.
In a blur of movement, the Herald bounded up onto the table where the Chantry woman sat, sending various dishes clattering to the floor. The old woman stared in shocked as the Herald crouched before her, tense and still as a serpent poised to strike.
A hush fell over the tavern, as all eyes turned to the spectacle unfolding.
The cleric feebly protested, "Your Worship—"
In a low dangerous tone, Tephra said, "If you strike her again, I'll pull the eyes out of your head and shove them down your throat."
Tephra plucked the switch from the woman's hands and snapped it in two, as the cleric gaped at her. Tossing it aside, she straightened and used the height of the table to address the whole of the tavern, "If anyone harms a child under my protection, they will have to answer to me. That goes for all who serve the Inquisition, or have sought refuge with us."
Without a further word, the Herald descended the table and left abruptly.
In the startled silence that remained, the Seeker remarked, "I believe she is still troubled by the events we experienced in The Hinterlands."
"Perhaps when you return from Val Royeaux, a sabbatical will do her good," Josephine offered. "She needs time to consider who we must approach regarding the Breach, whether that is the templars or the mages. That should give her time to... well, it would do her good."
Varric huffed and grumbled, "Have any of you considered that perhaps all this shit might be too much to put on one person?"
With that, the dwarf also took his leave.
Solas followed after at a slower pace, leaning heavily on his crutch. She'd had a good head start to the gates, but he found her idling outside and attending to her horse. It was young and spirited, twitching with excitement to leave the town.
She'd brutalized the Ferelden saddle which had been affixed to the animal, cutting away the excess until it resembled something closer to what the Dalish used on their mounts. Light and efficient and less restrictive, so that she could dismount at a moment's notice. She had also spent a great deal of time bonding with it, patiently earning its trust and speaking to it in low tones until it followed even the quietest of commands. It reacted to the slightest of touches or the shift in the grip of her thighs, and altered its course accordingly.
At first, he'd found it curious that she would expend the effort to retrain the horse so thoroughly. It was only after their first proper battle in the Hinterlands that it became clear to him why she had done so. She had flown around the outskirts of the battle atop her mount, her body moving as one with the horse as she fired upon their opponents, and her arrows found their targets with brutal grace.
"What am I doing here, Solas?"
It was a useless question to ask, and she seemed aware of it. Yet still, she asked.
"The best you can, given the circumstances," he replied. "No one else is coming to these people's aid. And none are attempting to quell the unrest, nor or attempting to close the Breach. For that, your Inquisition is honorable. I do admire the intent."
She rounded on him sharply, "My Inquisition?"
"You are the Herald, are you not? In that way, it is yours," he reminded, gently.
He could see the futile anger wrestling inside of her, before she sighed, "And yet?"
"All organizations fall prey to infighting, to corruption," he replied. "It is inevitable. Do what good you can, while that power is available to you."
"I'm trying," she bit back sharply, before softening and averting her gaze back to fastening her pack to the horse's saddle. "You could go, if you wish. Whenever you want. No questions asked. I would not let them stop you."
He suspected that she offered it because she knew that it was not something she could do herself. Perhaps, in that way, it provided her comfort that she could free him whenever he wished.
"I am committed to seeing the Breach closed; I will not leave until that has been achieved," he replied, fighting the smile which threatened to break across his face. "Though I do appreciate your concern."
"And if we fail?"
"Pray that is a day that never comes to pass," he advised.
She laughed. "To who? All the gods are gone, or so they say. Who should I pray to — the Wolf?"
The irony of it amused him, and he gave her a small smile, "Perhaps he will hear you."
Still amused, she huffed, "I prayed to him before, once. He isn't listening any more than the rest of them."
It was a curious statement, coming from her, as she had so heartily denounced the gods of her people. Had she once believed, at some point before? What had she prayed for?
He was stirred from his thoughts by the sight of her producing the leather-bound book from her satchel. She held it out to him, with a look of warm amusement. Solas accepted it gingerly, as though she'd given him a priceless treasure.
Excitement coiled tightly in his gut, as he said, "You do realize that if I crack the cipher, I will be compelled to read the whole of it?"
His tone was teasing, but he was looking for her implicit consent. Otherwise, he could not bring himself to trespass into her private thoughts.
Tephra grinned, "If you can crack it, then you're welcome to all of my secrets."
"What will you write in, without this?"
"Varric is always stuffed to the gills with parchment. I'll manage." With that, she hoisted herself up onto the horse. It whickered as she settled, and she teased, "Good luck with that, Solas. You're going to need it."
With the barest touch of her foot, the horse bolted off to carry her where Varric idled down the road with his own mount.
He was reluctant to watch her go, but there was little to be done for it.
.
.
.
.
.
.
He waited all of one day before laying siege to the Herald's book.
There was little to occupy his mind during his waking days, as he'd found the Chantry library to be utterly lacking. He tried to distract himself with the few books he'd found of passably interesting subjects, but too often his focus shifted from the pages to peer over the edge of the book at hers, laying innocuously where he'd left it.
It had been a futile endeavor, in the end, and he abandoned any pretense of putting it off any longer and went to retrieve it.
Returning to the small desk which occupied the corner of the cabin he'd been assigned residence to, Solas meticulously inspected the leather covering and binding. It was expertly crafted with a secure binding, and had kept well over time with minimal damage from frequent use. He suspected it had been one of her father's many books, possibly among the few scarce supplies which had been hastily packed before the children's escape from the bandit attack.
Inside it, he found that the first few pages were filled with a crisp script by an unfamiliar hand, but was soon replaced very obviously by a child's. Her penmanship steadied over time, and grew smaller and sharper, with the space on each page fully utilized. There were also botanical drawings with notations, and long rambling passages of unknown subjects. Despite being unable to read most of it, he could tell some of the pages were complex recipes, perhaps medicinal or otherwise, as she did not encrypt the numbers and equations amongst the texts. And on many pages she had gone back to scrawl in the margins — upside down and sideways along other passages, likely unrelated to each other, as the blank space in the book became increasingly used up. Flipping to the end, he found that the last page had been intentionally left blank. The book was nearly full, with very little space left for her to record her thoughts or observations.
Where had she gotten ink over the years, alone in that forest? If she'd had some from the supplies they'd fled with, wouldn't it have run out eventually? Or had she learned to make her own?
He spent hours pouring over the pages, collecting each of the many symbols to make a complete list once he could untangle them from each other. He quickly became sidetracked when he found another small passage written in the common tongue, which encouraged him to scour the entirety of the book for all the small fragments which had been left unencrypted. They were small glimpses into her life, both in the forest alone, as well as later, after she'd rejoined her clan. Quiet contemplations and fragments of grief, and struggling to belong to a people and way of life she'd been separated from.
As he neared the middle of the book, a small bit of parchment slipped from between the pages, and darted down between his legs to the floor. Solas grimaced as he shifted, and leaned down to retrieve it.
It was old and faded, but the ink remained strong. It was a lover's note in Elvhen script, written by her mother — he assumed — and intended for her father.
Ephram—
Ar lasa ma enansal, vhenan.
—Tirra
Her mother had likely bound the book herself, and given it as a gift to her spouse. It was a frail slip of parchment, and he tucked it gently back into the book with a careful hand.
It was then that he saw it.
Leading rebellions and living as long as he'd had, had afforded him an almost natural predisposition to ciphers, to looking for hidden meanings in words, written or otherwise. He looked first at the mother's name, and then the father's, as he realized that the Herald's name was an amalgam of both.
Fond of cryptographs, indeed, he mused.
The Herald's name had once been nonsensical to him, but now seemed poetic in how it honored the love of the two who'd conceived her.
When he finally retired for the night, he laid awake a long time going over prior events, which inevitably led him to seeking out those particular memories in the Fade. Despite the distance, he could feel the gravity of her through the Anchor which connected them. It made finding her in the dreaming almost too easy, as he was drawn almost unavoidably to her when he slept.
Drawn, as lodestone drew iron.
How could a non-mage, let alone one who wasn't a Dreamer, exert such gravity in the Fade? Was it the Anchor magnifying how loudly her dreams resonated, as she unknowingly transmitted and drew the attention of so many spirits? They hovered at the edges of her dreams, drawn by the power of the mark and the strength of her emotions.
He was certain that the light afforded her through the Anchor made a beacon of her there. It was no wonder that they clustered to observe her dreams.
He made attempts to avoid her in the dreaming, searching instead for any sign of Wisdom, but it was a futile endeavor. He always found himself circling back, caught in the currents of their shared memories. He'd revisit conversations they'd had, seeking answers to the riddle of her existence, to what made her different — to what made her more. He also found himself returning far too often to the small moments of contact which had transpired between them — accidental, or otherwise.
Her hand clutching his arm, or when he'd held hers in the creek as he healed her, or her touch at his brow as she saw to the wound there. Or most recently, the almost languid observations of his to the marks left from his attempt to heal her burns.
That one was the easiest to return to, and the most dangerous.
Other nights, he slipped into an old familiar form to stalk the nightmares which seemed to hound her so often in the dreaming. He was not all that surprised, given the griefs she carried. Such things tended to draw the gaze of spirits who fed on such emotions. It took no effort on his part to banish them and calm her dreams, but he never once directly entered them.
In the end, extended convalescence proved to be a unique test in the extent of his patience. One of which he was failing, with nothing to fully occupy him between dreaming and pouring over the puzzling cryptographs in the waking world.
As the days passed, his strength trickled back to him. Not remotely that which he was accustomed to, as he was still greatly weakened from the time he'd spent in uthenera. But even compared to the lesser state he'd woken in, his current one was little more than pathetic.
He could not manipulate viscera and sinew with the ease as he'd done before — with ease even depowered as he was — he could only coax it gently each day into healing marginally faster than it was already. It time, that would change, but for now he had no other option than to wait.
He was not used to healing as mortals healed, and his magic was still unbearably limited.
It was maddening to be so weak — to be practically mortal.
Reports came in often of the Inquisition's progress, as camps were secured and their influence spread, but often there was little said of the Herald herself. Neither of her welfare, nor how she fared under duress. The last communication mentioning her had come from the Seeker, detailing a confrontation between Val Royeaux's Chantry clerics and Lord Seeker Lucius and his templars. The encounter had ended with the Lord Seeker withdrawing all of the templar forces from Val Royeaux, leaving it effectively defenseless.
Since then, there had been nothing for days until a missive came during dinner one night as he was feigning interest in his stew and listening to the chatter between the advisers. The Herald had been invited to the chateau of Duke Bastien de Ghislain, to meet with Vivienne de Fer, the First Enchanter of Montsimmard.
The Enchanter had thrown a gala in the Herald's honor.
Idly, he wondered if she'd danced. If she enjoyed herself at all.
The meeting had ended with the Enchanter joining with the Inquisition, and the Ambassador informed them that they would be expecting her arrival shortly.
But there was nothing of the Herald's return, and it left him languishing in his solitude.
He was appalled by his own loneliness. Its depths only became more apparent to him as the days dragged into weeks.
Weeks.
In which the Herald did not return.
Frayed and frustrated, Solas rose from the table and moved to depart from the tavern.
"Solas?"
His surprise was genuine, when turned back to find the Ambassador on his heel.
"A letter came for you," she informed, and held out a small envelope.
"Thank you, Ambassador," he replied automatically, as he took the letter from her and tucked it into his vest. "If you'll excuse me, I intend to retire for the night."
"Of course. If you have need of anything, the healers are at your disposal."
He resisted the urge to leave more quickly than his limping gait allowed, and he did not open the letter until he'd returned to the privacy of his cabin.
Settling on the bed, he retrieved the letter from his vest and looked it over. The envelope was unmarked, but for his name. Briefly, his pulse spiked from sudden alarm that one of his agents could have been foolish enough to send a missive directly to him through the Inquisition's scouts, but it was quickly dispelled as he broke the wax seal and looked over the letter, as his sight was met with her familiar handwriting.
Have you cracked the cipher yet?
I suspect not.
—Tephra
It was a playful taunt, which brought a smile to his face, and a laugh bubbling out from some deep well in his chest. It was at once pleasant, and painful.
He turned the page over, but there was nothing else. He'd hoped for—
More.
Anything.
All that she offered of herself, however small, was never enough. He found himself greedily taking all that she offered, like some half-starved vagrant snatching at scraps.
He toyed with the idea of sending a response, but it would only serve to distract her out there — wherever she was.
Still, the letter only served to make his dreaming more restless, which was already compounded by the healing wound in his leg.
It itched something fierce as it stitched itself anew.
As such, sleep eluded him.
The next morning, he found himself restless still, and sought some semblance of peace outside of the village with meditating in solitude. It soon became his daily morning routine, to seek solace out in the snowy woodlands, meditating and centering himself enough that he could slip into the Fade. He would drift between revisiting conversations with the Herald, to meeting with his dreamer agents to coordinate various operations with his people stationed throughout Thedas. And when dusk inevitably fell, he would retreat back to study the cipher in hopes of cracking it before she returned.
He very much wanted impress her with the feat of doing so, yet it continued to elude him.
His routine was disrupted one morning, when one of the refugee children found him in the woods outside Haven.
The children of this world were not much different from the children of the old world — small bundles of energy, bustling and bursting and bounding through the township. Tiny terrors of mischief and glee. He'd escaped their notice, for a time, until the voice of a young girl interrupted his meditations one morning.
"What are you doing?"
He had gone further from the town this morning, and into the woods to find the tree he'd found the Herald in, all those nights ago. He'd sat against it, as he had before, meditating and considering slipping into the dreaming to revisit the memory of that night. Not of her dream, but of their conversation the following morning.
Everything had been so much simpler back then, when he thought courting her trust was merely an advantage — a logical move to make, and not a perilous trap waiting to ensnare him.
"Meditating," he replied, without opening his eyes.
"You're the Herald's apostate, aren't you? The chantry sisters said you know everything about the Fade," the girl said. "Does that mean you can talk to the dead?"
Solas opened his eyes and regarded the dark-haired girl with a measured look, "That is not how it works, I'm afraid."
She was human, and one of the children from the cabin fire. She sighed, "It's okay. I didn't think you really could, either."
"Then why seek me out?"
"I was curious," she admitted.
Solas smiled, despite himself, "A good motivation to have in all things."
"Will you keep her safe?" The girl shifted from one boot, to the other, as she clarified, "The Herald."
"To the best of my ability," he assured.
"She was with you in the wagon, you know," the girl informed. "I brought her things to eat because she wouldn't leave you. And water when she asked for it, for you."
It was an odd thing — caring. Odder still, the nets they cast between people who were no more than strangers.
He had forgotten how nice it could be to have the concern of another.
"You should not wander this far from the town," he advised, ignoring the pleasant sensation the child's information had brought him. He had not known she'd stayed with him the whole time he was unconscious. "You should return, before you worry your family."
The girl glowered at him, clearly displeased at being dismissed, before departing.
When he was alone once more, Solas allowed himself to drift into the dreaming.
He was met not with memories of the night she'd fled Haven, but of another, out in the Hinterlands. Sitting by the campfire, and occasionally breaking the silence by asking him questions as the others slept.
"They were spirits, first, weren't they? The demons from the rifts."
"Correct," he had replied, enjoying her receptivity to the truth. "Being drawn through the tears in the Veil has twisted their nature and made demons of them. They are victims of the Breach just as we are."
She'd rested her chin atop her knees as she watched the fire, and said, "I feel sorry for them. They didn't ask for this anymore than I did."
It had been just another small thing, thundering in and surprising him when he'd least expected it, and reminding him that she was not what he had expected at all.
The scene shifted, as he thought of the cabin incident in the Hinterlands. Of after, when she sank into the water and let her fury and grief tear out of her in a wordless cry of frustration for having not saved the boy.
He approached the same way as he had before — slowly stepping around her, and crouching in the water to bring himself down to her level. He regarded her for a long time, as the memory stalled in that moment before he reached for her burned arms, as he studied the depth of her emotions wrought raw and raging across her face.
It was different than simply being able to sense her emotions, as he could sense magic. Even here in the Fade, it was difficult, but this moment — something had woken in him, and seen her pain with startling clarity.
Before, he'd felt sympathy for those of this world and the pain they endured, as one might feel for the suffering of lesser creatures. They may have not been people, but he still did not wish to see them endure such terrible pain.
But watching one throw themselves into the fire without a second thought to their own fate, to save one of their own from imminent death, to exacting such brutal vengeance for the senseless deaths, to—
In that moment, he had sensed her pain. Not the wounds on her arms, but the pain vibrating from her soul and across her face. Something had opened in him, which had been closed to this world and its occupants, and forced him to feel what they felt. It had humbled him, after, to watch them treat their dead with such care.
And then later, in the tavern. Her quiet grief and restless fury at the world around her, at the state of her people, which had locked him in place and forced him to acknowledge her. He'd done her such a disservice in being such a poor conversationalist, but in truth she had so thoroughly caught him off guard with her seemingly casual wisdom. It seemed effortless to her, and he could not help but wonder if it was manifested by the Anchor's presence in her.
Still, he lingered there, in that moment when she'd forced him to look, to truly consider her as something more than a shadow playing at a person. The bright spark of her spirit had reached across the table, across the seemingly impassable gulf he'd cultivated between himself and this wretched world, and took hold of him. Made him meet her defiant gaze, and acknowledge her.
And despite their differences, their previous antagonism, she'd tended to him and he had tended to her. Stitching wounds beyond simply flesh, but in his soul.
Even now, he could feel the burn of her skin against his. The lightest of touches, yet it had commanded his full attention.
"And so you have found yourself at the crossroads," a familiar voice intoned.
Solas startled, and the Fade shifted around him in formless shades of color as he quickly disentangled himself from the memory. He had not sensed Wisdom's approach, and did not know the extent in which it had observed his examinations of his memories — of her.
"I am heartened to see you safe, my friend," Solas replied, pointedly avoiding the spirit's observation.
"Many have sought safety in the deepest reaches. Curiosity has brought me back to observe the fates unfolding." The spirit drifted through the remnants of the memory, which were quickly fading back into the formless raw energy of the Fade. "You are drawn to this one," it noted, with interest. "Why?"
This was their oldest dance — of seeking and sharing, of asking and answering. At times, the spirit's observations and responses were straightforward; at other times, it amused itself with answering in riddles and prompts.
"Necessity," he replied.
The spirit made no movement as it pulled remnants of the memory back into being, and the Herald's voice echoed through Wisdom.
"Sometimes, when you look at me, it's like you're looking through me. It's the same with the others, too. As though we're not quite real to you," the spirit parroted. Wisdom tilted its head, "Are they not? They still dream."
"Technically, but they are deaf and mute," he countered. "Their dreaming is no better than the basest biological function for them — an involuntary twitch from a muscle they no longer remember how to use. They are no better than their Tranquil."
The spirit continued to regard him with a sharpness that cut through him.
It occurred to him that it was the same look Lavellan so often mirrored, with eyes that saw far too much.
"Is that so?" the spirit queried. "Then what is it that draws you to her dreams?"
Of course Wisdom would know of that, as well. And that he did not have an answer for — at least not one he was willing to admit, even to himself.
"She carries my Anchor," he replied. "It has, perhaps in some way, bound her to me in the dreaming."
The spirit brightened with amusement, drifting in his periphery as it declared, "I have not known you to fear the seeking of truth, of where it might lead you. Do you prefer the comfortable lies in which you tell yourself to ease your guilt?"
Solas startled, and turned himself to keep pace with the spirit as he argued, "They are not. I have seen that they are not."
"How can you know, if you do not look?" Wisdom chided. "You cannot seek truth — seek wisdom — without being willing to lose all that you cling to. You know this, Solas."
"The path," he conceded.
His oldest and truest ambition — knowing and understanding the truth of all things. It was not simply one path, but a many-forking network of crossroads and detours, an endless journey of seeking. This was not his first such impasse; it would not be his last.
"You have lost yourself many times on the path to truth," Wisdom reminded. "You need not fear change, nor where it leads you."
"It is my fault that they are not whole. I cannot condemn them for what is not their doing," Solas conceded. The truth of it was an old knot in his chest, too stubborn to be pried from where it had hardened, and turned to stone.
"How many moves ahead did you consider, Solas? Were you prepared for all the possible consequences of your actions?"
"I thought I was," he replied, quietly. "I had no other choice, and time had run out."
"No, you did not," the spirit agreed. "We remain because you acted against the Evanuris. The world is still here because of what you achieved. But it does not undo what has been done. We have paid the price of survival — we have all been sundered."
"I know, my friend." His grief was a raw abyss, for which he had no manner of escaping. "That is a debt I intend to pay, to restore what was lost. Whatever the cost," he assured.
It was a debt he owed to all, and the world itself.
Wisdom regarded him with curiosity, "Are you so certain you're willing to pay that price? It is not an easy thing to sail into the eye of the storm and face one's destruction."
"I must," he replied, simply.
"And here is the crossroads," the spirit reminded. It shifted and brightened, amused by the complications and implications, as it observed, "You have considered telling her."
"Of?" he asked, uselessly feigning ignorance.
"Yourself," the spirit lilted. "But fear keeps the truth silent in your mouth."
He had considered, far too often lately, that she might be capable of understanding, of accepting the whole truth of himself. It had become a dangerous preoccupation, which threatened to divert him from his course. His alarm resonated in the Fade around them, disrupting wisps from where they nested in the rocks.
"Your fear of revealing your whole truth is not misplaced, Solas," Wisdom advised.
"Perhaps not, but what I must accomplish outweighs everything, even this. I cannot afford to be distracted, even by—"
Companionship? Understanding?
He couldn't begin to hope for more than even the smallest of what she offered, let alone—
"You have wanted for understanding," Wisdom noted. "Does she not?"
"I haven't given her the chance to," he admitted.
"But you have seen she is capable."
Solas thought of her, throwing herself into the fire to save children. Her anger at the world, and not just for her own people, but for all who suffered. If she knew why they suffered as they did, and all that led to this miserable world's existence, would she understand? If she knew she courted the companionship of her people's long-feared Dread Wolf, would she continue to seek him ? Or would she recoil and condemn him, as all the rest had?
"It is our nature to seek understanding and companionship," the spirit mused. "To seek one who identifies with what we think, or feel. Elements of empathy. There is no longer an echo. They speak to that part of us which no other has spoken to before."
"I have that with you, my friend," Solas replied.
Wisdom was one of his oldest companions, unmuteable in its nature, one of his last links to the world that was — and it was safe.
But the Herald?
It was perilous, in how easily and willingly he would drown himself in the ocean of her.
And if she was real, if that was an unavoidable fact, then the others of this blighted world could be—
His mind reeled from that prospect, as if burned.
He'd killed the world once, and its people. He had told himself it would not be the same this time, unmaking this one to bring the old world back.
But if they were as real as she seemed to him, then—
It was too much.
"What we have is not the same," the spirit reminded. It was not its nature to coddle him, however stubborn and prideful he could be. "People are of the waking world, as is what you seek. We spirits are only reflections now."
It continued, "You fool yourself with half-truths to move forward — not real, not people, no path but forward — but this will not ease your burden. The truth may not, either. This is the nature of knowing. You are at the crossroads of what once was, what is now, and what may be. There is always a choice, Solas, and no matter the circumstances, you must choose. See them for what they are, or do not. All of the mitigating excuses of avoiding it are of your own making."
How could he even begin to consider a different path?
There were no options left to him, but to save what remained of his people and of the world itself. There was no middle ground that could be reached between the two. There was only the world that was before, where everything sang the same, where everything was whole and unbroken, where his people had thrived — and the world as it was now, whose song was abject silence, where they withered, sundered into shadow, as the blighted world limped onward towards its ending.
As its presence began to recede back into the Fade, Wisdom intoned, "This will be the hardest thing you will ever do, my friend."
He woke, still sitting against the tree, heavy with the burden of choosing truth. Perspiration beaded at his temple and ran cold tracks down to his neck.
He owed it to her to try.
Rising, he began backtracking toward Haven. He had not gotten far, when he heard the soft sound of a crying child. He followed it to a small glade, which was sparsely filled with aspen trees. Its center was occupied by the girl who had interrupted his meditations earlier.
She was huddled down in a squat, with her face buried in her hands. When she heard his approach, she bolted up and wiped at her face furiously.
"Are you—" he began to say.
"I wasn't," she insisted, despite her flushed, tear-stained face.
"My mistake, it seems," he replied, mildly. "You did not return to Haven as I advised. What are you doing out here by yourself?"
"Practicing."
"For?"
She gestured at the tree nearest to her; its trunk was besieged by small, haphazard sheets of ice.
Of course.
An apostate's child, who'd barely escaped a fiery death, doing her best to teach herself to be prepared to never let it happen again.
"I'm not very good at it," she admitted, miserably.
He could not help but soften for the child, as he said, "Because it is harder to channel magic without a focus. However, if your intent is strong enough, you can manage well enough without one. May I show you a helpful trick?"
She looked at him curiously, before consenting with a nod.
"Take off your boots," he instructed.
"My—"
"Off," he said, brooking no further argument. When she continued to gape at him, he said, "Bear with me, if you would."
Finally relenting, the girl shucked off one boot, and then the other. She hopped in the snow, and exclaimed, "It's too cold!"
"It is precisely as cold as it needs to be," he said, before turning her by the shoulders to face the tree she'd been practicing her spells on. "Now calm yourself, and focus. Feel the ice beneath your feet, and hold it in your mind. Will it to go where you wish it to be."
The girl trembled with effort to remain still, before reaching her hand toward the tree. He felt her repeated attempts in the residual mana building in the air around them, before it finally burst forth.
Great arcing sheets of ice enclosed the aspen, stretching up into its bough. A porcupine monstrosity of ice blooming through the boughs.
The girl gave a shrieking whoop as she hopped forward in the snow. Then she was cursing, and scrambling to put her boots back on. The girl turned back to him, grinning as she said, "Thank you, Mister Solas."
"You are quite welcome," he replied, as he subdued his smile.
"Audra," she insisted. "That's my name."
The child's insistence for acknowledgment mirrored that of the Herald's, as if to remind him to look.
To see, and to acknowledge.
"My name is Tephra."
"Well met," he replied.
The girl cocked her head and regarded him with a curious frown, "Were you leaving to go meet her?"
"Who?"
"The Herald. The soldiers said she's returning today. I heard them talking about it," she replied, matter-of-factly.
His pulse jumped, and his heart began to beat an erratic pace, but he kept his tone even as he advised, "You should return to town. Night will be falling soon."
"Will you teach more, another time?"
"If you return to Haven and do not wander, I will consider it," he replied.
She gave a fierce, dimpled grin, and bolted off into the direction of the town.
Solas turned his attention to discerning the magic of his Anchor, which had been embedded in the Herald. He could sense it in the dreaming, or when she was close enough for his senses to pick up on the residual energy. He sensed it now, faint, but growing as she drew nearer to Haven. Its magic called to him, even over the distance which separated them. She was not terribly far, somewhere near the road which ran from Haven to Redcliffe.
What had she'd been doing in Redcliffe? There had been no messages about them diverting to the Hinterlands from Orlais. Had something happened, that hadn't been mentioned to him? And why had she not stopped in Haven on her way there?
Frustrated, he continued on through the trees.
It would not be difficult to find her, and his gait had improved over the last week, with only a minimal limp left as evidence of the almost-healed wound. Still, the knot of scar tissue inside his thigh impeded the fluidity of his movements. It would take time to dissolve it and replace it with healthy muscle.
He began southward, letting the pull of the Anchor guide him.
He did not attempt to quell his growing excitement to see her again.
Whatever this was — wherever this path meant to take him — he could not help but let it unfold.
Solas caught sight of her striding through the forest before she was aware of his approach. He stopped to watch her, as her path was bringing her almost directly to him. She was thoroughly engaged with tracking something through the forest by its footprints, likely some prey animal he had inadvertently sent fleeing in his approach. She held her bow aloft, with an arrow resting on the mounting and ready to be nocked.
She caught sight of him between the trees in her peripheral, and startled. She moved with an automatic, deadly grace, as she nocked and loosed in the blink of an eye.
He raised a barrier just in time to deflect the arrow. It glanced off the magic harmlessly.
"Pissing hell!" And then, just as angrily, "Solas!"
"Greetings to you, too, Herald."
She bristled with outrage, "I could have—"
"You didn't," he reassured, with amusement. There was an odd warmth pooling in his stomach, at the sight of her. "Welcome back."
She stared at him a long moment, furious, before giving a sharp sigh.
"It's good to see you've lost the crutch," she grumbled, as she brushed roughly past him.
It was a purposeful contact, shoulder into shoulder. Something like an accident, like a misstep — but infinitely not.
He felt almost dizzy as he turned on his heel to follow her.
"Come, you should meet the others," she said.
Distractedly, he asked, "Others?"