I imagine you in every possible direction, and then I cover my tracks and imagine you all over again.
Sometimes I can't stand how much of you I don't know.
—Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams
If I seem to be caught in a slow circling of the subject, it is only appropriate,
as she and I have always moved toward each other in slow circles.
—Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
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Sailing was something that Solas was decidedly unaccustomed to.
He never harbored much interest in life on the seas, nor the lands beyond them. As such, he'd never bothered to search those particular memories out in the Fade. Perhaps if he had, he would have been better prepared for it in the waking world. Though this was not the sea they were sailing across, merely Lake Calenhad, it was still a massive body of water and far from calm.
There was something unnerving to him about open water, with no land in sight. It spoke to him of a time before, of abyssal voids and the world before there was a Veil, only without the ability to control one's stability or sense of gravity. Of falling into the deepest Fade, where even light did not dwell. The ceaseless pitch and sway of the boat beneath his feet was disorienting, and disrupted his sense of balance. Worse, his stomach seemed to have gone into full revolt, much to their new companion's endless amusement.
The elf — if one could even call her such — gave a sharp laugh, as she cheerily continued to fletch arrows while carelessly perched on the railing of the boat. How she managed to do so without toppling into the water below from the ship's swaying was beyond him. "Got anything left in there, or did you toss it all on the last go?"
She was one of the strays who'd followed the Herald back to Haven.
He hadn't had much time to observe the elf, but it was strikingly clear — even at a glance — that she was far from what she had meant to be. It made him curious, though, to see if the latent connections still resided in her — to the Fade, to the Elvhen language, to her true self.
It was something he looked forward to investigating, when his stomach wasn't attempting to violently launch itself up through his throat.
"Pretty sure he's gotta be empty by now, Buttercup," Varric mused, from where he sat on a stack of crates with a book in his lap.
Sera gave another laugh, "Even his ears have gone all green."
The Seeker spoke up beside him, with a note of concern, "If you are so terribly adverse to sailing, Solas, you could have stayed in Haven with Madam de Fer. Your leg is still healing, is it not?"
The former Orlesian court Enchanter had arrived with a full traveling party in tow, multiple carriages stuffed to bursting with unnecessary possessions, and the impression of being the sole authority on mages amongst the Inquisition. She was certainly not pleased to see him, nor learn of his particular role as the "Fade expert."
What few conversations they'd had thus far had been strained, at best. Scorching, at worst.
"And miss out on this adventure, Seeker? Hardly," he replied, straightening from where he'd been resting his forehead against the banister of the railing. He turned to press the small of his back against it, holding on tightly for ballast.
"You'll change your mind soon enough, Chuckles," Varric grumbled. "They called it the Storm Coast for a reason."
Cassandra shot the dwarf an amused look, "You could have stayed behind, as well."
Varric laughed, and shook his head, "I'll take mercenaries over clerics any day, Seeker. Better stories to be heard with them."
Solas's attention shifted to the mercenary who'd prompted this outing in this first place; a young man, who'd identified himself as Cremisius Aclassi.
Mercenary or not, he was every young person who flocked to a cause, looking for glory and validation and camaraderie in the common struggle against those who would subjugate them. So it was only natural that the mercenary gravitated toward the Herald, as she had become the symbol of the Inquisition.
Yet, he knew with startling clarity that what was now awe and admiration would soon become fear and deification, as she became increasingly elevated above those around her — until apotheosis rendered her into myth, and made her entirely unreachable.
And she would hate it just as much as he had.
It was like watching his past play out in front of him, like some macabre construction of the Fade parroting his memories — only with different faces, in a different world.
The Herald neither dismissed nor rebuffed Aclassi's company, and spent a good portion of the time on the ferry listening as he regaled her with stories of the mercenary company he belonged to.
The sight of it only seemed to magnify his sense of alienation and loneliness. He wasn't sure if it was envy that he felt, or perhaps just a sense of longing. He had not felt such an easy kinship with another, not since the time of his people, and not at all in this one. It made him insatiable and he would have gladly stolen all of her time, if she let him.
You have already stolen all of her time, he reminded himself. Her whole life, in fact. She's living on borrowed time because of you.
Every look, every moment, every word to her was painted in the guilt and the grief he carried for what was done to her. Each time that she came to him, seeking him out for company or to ask questions, the stolen power in her hand sang out to him as a reminder of what little time she had left.
He worked tirelessly to subdue it to the best of his ability, to slow its progress, but he could not stop what it would inevitably do to her in the end.
Do you really suppose that she would come to you all the same, if she knew the truth?
Something the mercenary said elicited Tephra's laughter, and Solas's stomach heaved and rolled.
"Is he flirting with her? That is not... appropriate," the Seeker remarked.
Varric gave an incredulous laugh, "What's appropriate? She's a grown woman, and she can decide for herself whose company to keep. Or does the Inquisition own her personal life now, too?"
"I did not mean it like that," Cassandra retorted, hotly. "Only that we know nothing of this... Krem, or his fellow mercenaries. They could have been paid to lure the Herald to a conveniently remote location in order to assassinate her."
"She's laughing. She doesn't do that very often if you've happened to notice, Seeker," he replied. "You've taken enough from her, haven't you? The least you could leave her is that."
Cassandra sighed, "Yes, you would think it is my sworn duty to keep her miserable."
Solas left the two of them to their argument, not wishing to be third wheel to their bickering.
Yet, the dwarf was right.
What small kindness and peace she could find in this world, with the time left to her, was wholly her own. He could only hope to add to it, to give her what relief he could, and to not have the gall to expect anything in return for it.
His thigh had not troubled him much in the past few days, but the sway of the boat overworked the muscles in his legs as he attempted to keep steady on his feet, which woke the angry knot of scar tissue nestled in his thigh. It would still take some time to dissolve it with healing magic, and restore the muscle anew. Until then, it was an annoyance to be endured.
Solas walked the perimeter of the ship in a slow, steady pace, as he kept his eyes on the horizon to maintain a sense of equilibrium. It did not banish his seasickness, but it did serve to diminish it for a time.
The other passengers of the ferry consisted mostly of merchants, as well as Inquisition reinforcements for the camps being established in The Coastlands. He could not help but observe the unease and bemusement of the merchants, as they in turn eyed the soldiers.
The presence of heavily-armored soldiers, regardless of whatever emblem or insignia they bore, often made most rational people uneasy.
When Solas tired of walking, he sought out the Herald again. Surely, she had tired of mercenary's bravado by now. Yet, when he found her idling at the stern, he was dismayed to see that Aclassi had been replaced by the Tevinter mage who'd followed her back from Redcliffe.
He could hardly be all that surprised, though, given that as the Inquisition grew and her companions became more numerous, her time would be a highly sought-after commodity.
Solas wasn't quite sure what to make of Dorian Pavus, but his first impression was that of most nobles, that he was hardly different from the others — brightly colored birds showing off their plumage, preening for attention. Likely some Magister's son, bored of court life and looking for a bit of excitement as well as the disapproval of his parents.
That was another thing which had not changed from the time of his people.
Nobility and their court politics were laughably predictable.
The Tevinter was leaning against the railing in a relaxed slouch, which spoke to some degree of familiarity between the two. As Solas neared them, he caught the tail end of Dorian's excited barrage of questions directed at Tephra.
"—how you would even produce it. How do you extract the desired compounds? What's your distilling process? Do the Dalish even have glassmakers?"
Tephra's gaze shifted to Solas, in acknowledgement of his arrival. The corner of her mouth quirked, briefly, before she turned her attention back to Dorian. She feigned ignorance, and deadpanned, "What's glass?"
The Tevinter gaped, briefly, before erupting into a hearty laugh.
She continued, "My people of the Dales have beggared half of Orlais with their beadwork, or so they claim. Nearly every Orlesian I met in Val Royeaux saw fit to complain of it to me, never mind the hole in the sky."
"Priorities, of course," Dorian remarked, with dark humor. When he caught sight of Solas, he straightened and said, "Ah, it seems our dalliance must be postponed. Another of your suspicious friends has need of you. Later, perhaps? I want to hear more of this Dalish alchemy."
With that, the Tevinter bowed with a flourish, before departing.
Though he was not sad to see him go, Solas said, "I did not mean to chase your new companion away."
Tephra fixed him with a small smile, "Yet here you are, like a wolf to the herd."
He arched an eyebrow, "And what has prompted bestowing me with such an odd metaphor?"
"You've been tailing me all day," she remarked, with amusement. "Observing, assessing — waiting to pounce once you finally found me alone. Gods forbid you suffer the company of our other companions."
Solas gave an uneasy chuckle as he moved to lean against the railing, trying and failing to not appear half as sick as he felt.
"I heard you've been a bit seasick," Tephra remarked.
"This isn't the sea."
"Lucky for you. The sea is far rougher than this," she laughed, as she pulled a small vial from her pocket and held it out to him in offering. It contained a fine, pearl-white powder. "Put this in your waterskin, and sip it each time you feel the nausea coming back."
"An apothecary as well, it seems," he noted. It explained the subject of the conversation he'd interrupted. Curious, he remarked, "I was not aware the Dalish sought many scholarly pursuits outside of clan leaders and their Firsts."
She gave an annoyed huff, and said, "If you'd prefer to fondle the railing for the duration of the trip, you're welcome to it."
"Ir abelas, that was rude of me," Solas replied. As if to emphasis his point, the boat lurched beneath them as he said, "I am not... accustomed to this."
"To what? Sailing? Or to Dalish knowing things?" Tephra plucked the waterskin that hung from his pack and began adding the medicinal powder to it, as she said, "As it happens, I'm fairly accustomed to both, so perhaps you might trust me on this, Solas."
Trust.
Yes, he was certain he very much wanted to.
She handed the waterskin back to him, and said, "Drink."
There was a playful edge to his tone, as he asked, "Is that an official command, Herald?"
"If it gets you to drink, then yes," Tephra replied, with dark amusement.
The tension which seemed to course through him now each time they spoke alone, regardless of subject, was a pleasing distraction. As were the small, purposeful liberties he could take — such as a seemingly accidental brush of his fingers against hers while reclaiming his waterskin — which she did not seem to mind at all.
It was dizzying, the effect she had on him.
His head swam as he drank from the waterskin, and his fingers burned from the brief contact of her skin.
Tephra, however, wasn't the least bit flustered. If she harbored any interest in him beyond simple curiosity, the Herald was very good at keeping it to herself.
As he sealed the waterskin, Solas remarked, "You've never mentioned an interest in alchemy."
"You've never asked," she said, simply.
"That is true," he conceded.
For a time, he was content to enjoy the comfortable silence with her, punctuated by the creaks and groans of the ship as it meandered through the choppy waters of the lake.
"You've still got my book," Tephra reminded him, after a time. She gave a crooked smile, and teased, "Is it not giving up all of my secrets yet?"
"Perilously few, I admit," Solas replied. "Though I will say you are quite proficient at botanical sketches."
"Proficient? Such high praise, coming from you."
Solas sighed through his nose and shifted against the railing, and asked, "Was your father an apothecary? Or an alchemist?"
"He was many things, as was my mother," she said. "They often worked together to make medicine and other things that were needed for the clan, and for trade."
When she turned her dark, curious gaze to him once again, he knew what she meant to ask — of his origin — and that was decidedly too complicated to touch upon. He diverted quickly, "You haven't said much of your time in Orlais. Did you not enjoy yourself in the capital city?"
The abrupt change in topic flustered her, but she thankfully let the subject drop. She turned to lean against the railing and frowned at the water below, "It was a spectacle of decadence and charades. You'll forgive me if I wasn't impressed."
He would have liked to have been there to see her reaction to the city, and the people who inhabited it. "Not even a little?"
She fixed him with a measured look, and informed, "There was a place where they queued for hours just to sit and eat tiny pastries adorned in gold. Shaved like flakes crusted all over it." She made a sound of disgust. "They're eating their wealth, while people starve just outside their city, and in the alienages. It was obscene."
A sudden, sharp sense of pride gripped him, to see such a rejection of wealth and privilege by one so young. It had taken him far too long to reject it himself, in his own world, to see the injustices beyond the glamour and to be moved to act against it.
Tephra fell into a brooding silence beside him, and took no notice of his discrete scrutiny.
It was a careful, cautious indulgence — brief glances that traced the sharp lines of her jaw, and the soft contours of her mouth. He wondered if she had ever eaten anything remotely decadent in her life. Being that the Dalish were a practical people, and that their nomadic lifestyle left little room for luxuries, he highly doubted it.
He could not help the sudden, idle thought of bestowing such a pleasure upon her. It mattered little if it were decadent, or plain — whether it were a finely crafted meal or simply a perfectly ripened peach — only that he very much desired to see her enjoy something. Anything. For all that had happened to her since the Breach, for all that was yet to come, she deserved whatever small comforts she could get, as often as she could. And he found himself compelled to do just that, to offer what he could, to please her if she welcomed it, to—
Solas averted his gaze and cleared his throat, which had suddenly gone perilously dry. "Speaking of decadence, that Tevinter mage—"
"Is ridiculous," she huffed. A breath later, she declared, "And I adore him."
That Dorian had accomplished as much in such a short time was an enviable feat. And more troubling, she seemed as equally — if not more — fond of the crass city elf, as well. From what little he'd seen of her interactions with Madame de Fer, he could sense that Tephra had a striking fascination with the woman, despite her dislike of wealth.
Whatever her drove her tensions before when it came to bonding with those around her in the Inquisition, it seemed it had lessened its reins a bit.
"An Orlesian court Enchanter, a Tevinter nobleman, and... Sera," he mused. "You have collected quite the assortment of companions in your time away, Herald."
"Ah, yes, I have missed the warm embrace of your disapproval," Tephra sighed with rueful amusement.
He turned back to her, "Did I say that I disapproved?"
She fixed him with a look of dark amusement, "We both know you say far more with what you don't say, Solas. You just enjoy making a game of it."
Her observation caught him off guard, and it took considerable effort to not react to it.
Tephra continued, "Vivienne gave up her position to join us. A gamble, perhaps, but I would not have taken her if I didn't think her intentions were genuine. Dorian is ridiculous, and he's also incredibly intelligent. He knows things that I don't, and I need him for that. And Sera — should I only accept the help of the wealthy, of those who bring connections? She wants to help, and she wants to knock a few "rich tits" on their asses in the process. I'm fine with that."
"Well said," he conceded. Almost playfully, he asked, "So what does this humble apostate have to offer that neither a court Enchanter, nor a Tevinter mage can?"
He knew that his position within the Inquisition, his knowledge, was indispensable. She did not hesitate to seek his opinions, or his assistance on matters she felt beyond her capabilities. And yet, it pleased him to hear it from her nonetheless.
Was it really so prideful of him to want to be needed?
Perhaps so, but you never could rid yourself entirely of prideful things.
She eyed him carefully as she considered her response, and the brief drop of her gaze did not escape his notice. His stomach clenched, as her eyes lingered briefly at his mouth before darting away as she laughed.
"Who else is going to remind me of all the things I'm wrong about?" she asked.
It was confirmation of nothing, and yet the warmth which settled over him was near-suffocating. He let the sway of the boat, and the gravity of her, pull him a step closer as he mused, "I would have hoped to have more to offer than just—"
"Ah, there you are!"
Solas shifted back a step as Varric approached, appearing as if he'd manifested seemingly from nowhere. There was nothing to betray him to either her, or the dwarf, but for the pounding of his pulse in his ears — which he was grateful for the fact that neither could hear.
"Seeker wants you, Teph," Varric informed. "She's got half the boat looking for you."
"Of course," the Herald sighed, with weary acceptance. "Duty never ends."
The dwarf laughed, "Hurry up and save the world, right?"
The laugh Tephra gave was brittle as she began to head the way the dwarf had come from. She stopped, and turned on her heel to call back, "Stories." She gave him a conspiratorial smile, and added, "Also questions, and sometimes answers. And sometimes I still dream about those white moths. That's what you give me, Solas."
He watched her go with great reluctance.
The dwarf remained behind, and moved to take the Herald's place at the railing. If he had an opinion on the Herald's confession, he did not voice it. Instead, he gestured at Solas's thigh, "How's the leg?"
"Inconvenient, but better each day," Solas replied. "Sailing is more troublesome."
Varric laughed, "No worries, Chuckles. We'll be on steady ground again soon enough, then your head will stop swimming."
As long as the Herald welcomed his company, he highly doubted that.
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It was the same as she remembered it, only from a different shore.
Here, the Waking Sea was a tumult of motion — ebb, and swell, and crash. Endlessly restless, like the grief it had given her long ago.
This is its honest face, she thought to herself.
Somewhere far across the darkening horizon was the little beach where the water was warmer, and calmer — where it was a liar, and a thief.
Tephra laid her hand over her chest, pressing through the layers of armor and clothing, to push the shell hidden there against her sternum. The pressure brought some measure of comfort.
Hadn't she always told him?
Little birds didn't belong in the sea.
His bones are sleeping somewhere down there, beneath all those dark waters.
She had not been able to bury him, or to plant a tree for him. Perhaps that was why her grief was like a broken bone set wrong, and unable to heal.
Tephra breathed in the salt air, slow and deep, before sighing and pushing her grief back to where it slept in the dark corners of herself. When she turned back to the others, she was greeted by the sight of them working to make camp.
Even though this particular trip was meant to be a respite from "Herald's work", they'd still ended up sorting out problems for the locals, as well as their own people. Harding had sent them looking for missing soldiers, which had turned into a two day endeavor of clearing out bandit hideouts and tracking down their main camp. Now that it was sorted, their people could focus on locating the Wardens, which was one of many new issues which the Inquisition had taken on as a priority.
She had the curious certainty, that for however long this all lasted ― being the Herald, fixing things, saving the world ― it would involve a lot of traveling and a lot of exhaustion.
Mostly exhaustion.
It didn't help that even after resting, even in a state of stillness, her heart beat out an erratic, discordant pace. It was a constant reminder of the magic that marked her ― that was slowly killing her.
There were so many things they needed for her to do, and she wasn't even sure she had the time left to see it all done.
They'd come to a small fishing town along the coves, which had more than welcomed them for the work they had done dealing with the bandits as well as various rifts in the outlying areas.
As it had no inn to speak of, they had no other choice but to make camp on the edge of the town near the beach, amongst the ruins of an ancient elven site. Most of the walls had fallen long ago, and the stones had been worn smooth by the ceaseless damp winds of the sea. It had been perhaps a waypoint, or a shrine, but she could not say for certain. There was, however, a shrine to Fen'Harel — which she found fascinating. It meant that this place predated her people, as well as her people's fear of the Dread Wolf. She could not help but wonder if there was a time before, when her people did not shun the Wolf, but embraced him.
She had briefly entertained the idea of seeking Solas's opinion on the matter, but as both the subject of her people — as well as their gods — provoked his ire, she felt it best not to.
He was watching her, of course, as he so often was. As though he could divine her thoughts, and disapproved before she'd ever opened her mouth.
Always frowning, that one.
As if the world itself weighed on him.
Or, perhaps, he simply didn't approve of her dallying at the water's edge while everyone else worked to set up camp.
She was too practiced to let her grief show, at least when she was aware of being observed. Still, she couldn't help but wonder why he seemed so troubled by the sight of her there.
Perhaps he anticipated that she would come ask him about the ruins — unsavory Dalish stuff, of course — and was simply preparing himself in advance to ward her off with some biting response and swift dismissal.
Would that subject ever be reconciled between them?
She found it endlessly amusing — and oddly hurtful — that as far as Solas was concerned, the Dalish had it all wrong, on everything, yet rarely elaborated on why. If he'd bothered to, perhaps she would find him justified in his convictions.
Until then, this strange dance would continue — vaulting between fraught arguments and intense, probing discussions.
Nor could Tephra discuss the ruins with her other elven companion, as the entire subject — not just of the Dalish, but anything to do with their race — was taboo with her.
Too elfy, as Sera put it.
Not enough for Solas, and too much for Sera.
The dissonance was compounded by the fact that she'd always felt like an outsider to her own people, in a way, having been apart from them for so long as a child.
It made her feel as though there were no true place for her anywhere.
It was a cold, isolating feeling.
Tephra was surprised when he did not drop his gaze, as he so often did when she caught him staring, with that look he always had — as though she were some unsolvable riddle to be worked out.
The stubborn part of herself refused to break it first — to admit defeat, or to show that he flustered her so often, and so thoroughly. Yet, her eyes were drawn to the fullness of his mouth, to the line that creased the center of his bottom lip.
Her stomach clenched at the idle, intrusive notion of kissing him — how it might feel, or if he would be so inclined in the first place.
When she lifted her gaze, she found Solas regarding her with a tightened, complicated expression.
Certainly disapproval, to be sure.
Still, she had to admit, it would have been worth the trespass to see the surprise on his face if she ever dared to. Perhaps it might banish his perpetual frown, at least for a time.
It was a foolish, useless notion, as she was certain that he harbored no interest in her. At best, he tolerated her, and her fumbling questions. And she wasn't even certain that she held any for him, as her life had become far too complicated to even entertain the idea of such things anymore.
Huffing, she conceded defeat as broke the staring contest first and headed into the camp.
The Chargers, as well as their leader, were accompanying them back to Haven. The mercenary company was small, but formidable. Their leader — the Iron Bull — insisted on drinks and dinner at the tavern after they'd made camp. She had not seen many Qunari in her travels, but he was arguably the biggest she'd ever seen, a literal mountain of a man, and certainly the most jovial. They'd already finished setting up their tents and had long-since departed into town.
Tephra wasn't certain it was the best decision — accepting them into the Inquisition — but then, she was bound to fuck up eventually. At least this mercenary crew made for amusing, and interesting traveling company.
Cassandra was assisting Varric in assembling his tent, as he grumbled endlessly about the weather. Sera, however, was finished with hers. She was pointedly ignoring whatever Solas was saying to her as she chucked her belongings inside the canvas tent.
As Tephra neared, she realized Solas was speaking to Sera in Elvhen.
"—ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma'sula e'var vhenan."
The words pricked at her ears, at once familiar and foreign. I speak honestly and earnestly. The rest was lost on her. She began to ask, but was cut off by Sera blowing a loud raspberry in Solas's general direction.
He looked positively affronted. "Excuse me?"
"Excuse yourself," Sera shot back. "Whatever you said and what I did, same difference to me."
"I'd hoped, well—"
He's flustered, she realized, with amusement.
Their travels had gotten much more interesting with Sera added to the mix.
"Our people can sometimes feel the rhythm of the language despite lacking the vocabulary," Solas replied, still attempting to connect with Sera on common ground.
Our people.
The words sat heavy and sour in the pit of her stomach, and she couldn't help the strange sense of hurt that washed over her by his careful distinction between himself and Sera. Not after he'd so thoroughly insisted on reaffirming that the Dalish were not his people — that she was not — time, and time again.
Sera, however, was wholly unimpressed. "Uh huh? Know what else is good? Words that mean things. Like these — words," she mocked, derisively.
"Fenedhis lasa," Solas cursed. His exasperation was palpable.
Sera blew another raspberry in response.
"It is truly a shame, Sera, that you were denied an elven life," Solas continued, with a sigh. "Even one as patchwork as the Dalish interpretation."
The sense of hurt was quickly replaced with outrage, burning in the pit of her core.
Was he so oblivious to his own biases? His naked bigotry?
"Yeah, well, you can take your shame and shove it where the sun don't shine," Sera shot back over her shoulder, as she barreled past Tephra.
She'd clearly had enough of Solas's prodding.
Tephra turned from the scene, as she felt a flush creeping up her face. He'd gone out of his way to separate himself from the Dalish and the city elves — elves entirely — and especially her. At least, he had in the early days of their knowing one another. He had been very specific about who weren't his people, and yet here he was asserting it with Sera. She could not keep up with his inconsistencies, and it angered her to feel even remotely envious of whatever kinship Solas was seeking with Sera, which he clearly did not seem to see in her.
It was a stupid, useless feeling, and she had no time for it.
The spurned apostate was abruptly at her side.
If he meant to console himself with her attention now that Sera had rebuffed him, she was decidedly uninterested.
"Perhaps—"
"No," Tephra replied, in a flat tone.
With that, she left him there as she followed after Sera. She did not look back as she went.
Varric's laugh followed her as she exited the camp, "You sure know how to make the ladies feel special, Chuckles."
The woods were sparse between the beach and the town, and her anger faded quickly as she moved further from the camp.
There was something intrinsically, intensely lonely about Solas, but it was a prison of his own making. She could not fault him for being particular about whose company he kept, but he was unfortunately terrible at connecting with the people he did seek out. He often framed his conversations with probing questions and observations on race and culture, which naturally made most people defensive, or combative. And it did not help his position that he was often more inclined to scathing debate than approaching the subjects with a gentler hand. It took a good deal of patience to endure it, which Sera certainly did not possess.
Tephra caught up to her just outside the town.
"Don't mind him, he's like that with everyone," she assured.
Sera grimaced, "Yeah, well, his head's crammed up a thousand years ago. It's his problem — not mine — that he's all, "Elf this, elf that." Blah, blah, blah, shove it up yer arse."
"Well, you are an elf," Tephra teased. "In case the ears didn't give it away."
"Yeah, well, I'm not all elfy about it!" she huffed. "At least you're not too elfy. I mean, you are, but you don't use it to make me feel wrong. You don't rub it in my face like Solas does. I think his balls shrivel up every time he looks at me."
They both laughed at that, and she was grateful for the break in tension. She had some small doubts when she first recruited Sera, but the younger woman's ridiculous sense of humor and rebellious worldview had all but banished it.
"I needed someone like you around," Tephra mused.
Sera gave a wary frown, as though she suspected it were an insult, "What do you mean, like me?"
"Like you." When the woman continued to frown at her, Tephra rolled her eyes and huffed. "You know, someone who'll take the piss out of everything."
Sera gave a sharp laugh, "Yeah, I'm good at that. Besides, elfy or not don't matter. You glow. You fix things. You jump into fires and save babies, yeah? That's my kind of people. Piss off about the ears. It's what you do that matters."
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Despite her earlier rebuff, Solas sought her out in the tavern almost immediately when he arrived. As the others were pushing tables together and collecting chairs, he caught her idling by herself with a bottle of mead as she inspected a large painting that had been hung near the fireplace. It was a grim depiction of the burning of Andraste, which did little to lift her mood as she suspected a similar fate likely lay ahead for her.
Being that she was labelled a heretic, and an upstart to boot.
Solas said nothing as he idled at her side and waited for either her acknowledgement, or to be rebuffed again. His hesitance to speak freely, as he had before, elicited a sharp stab of guilt.
She had perhaps been a bit rude, rebuffing him without so much as clarification as to why.
Still, Tephra pridefully held her silence for a time as she nursed the bottle of mead, before remarking, "She must not have been all that favored by their Maker, if he did not save her from such a fate."
"Perhaps even gods make mistakes," Solas offered.
He was silent for a time at her side, with his hands locked behind his back. She had come to know it as a defensive posture for him, when he held himself distant and apart from others.
Her guilt deepened, as she realized that her rebuff had wounded him more than she'd realized it would. If anything, she had only meant to jab at his sense of pride, perhaps deflate it a bit — not elicit whatever this was.
For all his ire of the Dalish, he had opened himself up to her in a way he had not with the others — in sharing his opinions, his knowledge, his stories. He'd spoken of being scorned so many times before, that it seemed unlikely to her that he had anyone at all that he trusted being truly open with.
She knew all too well how difficult it could be to allow oneself to be vulnerable — to fear that sort of connection, or intimacy, as it opened oneself to the possibility of rejection, or worse, its loss. And she reckoned that he had few, if any, close companions outside of the Fade.
Was that what they'd been becoming? Close?
If it were, she was not doing a very good job of establishing that by throwing him out any time he happened to step on her toes and wound her pride.
You're supposed to fix things, Herald, not break them, she chided herself.
So fix it.
"You don't believe in the gods," she reminded.
"That they are gods, no, but something inspired the stories," he replied. His stance loosened, if only marginally, as his tension eased. "It's in our nature to make sense of our history through stories, which often become steeped in myth and metaphor. There are precious few, if any, left who remember the truth of things."
"Such as spirits?" she offered.
"Yes, and—" Solas lapsed into a thoughtful silence, but the sudden bob of his throat as he swallowed caught her gaze.
There it was again — his habit of holding back, of omitting.
Whatever it was that he held back, that he needed to keep to himself, she had pushed him perilously close to saying it.
What beyond the spirits, would live long enough to remember such history? And what did it matter to Solas if they discussed it?
And then, of course, it became clear to her.
"The ones who came before — the immortals," Tephra said, brightening, as the realization hit her. It made her heart skip a beat at the thought of it. He tensed when she turned to him, and asked, "Do you think there are any still alive?"
He fixed her with a measured look, before he replied, "I think that it is possible, yes."
She held his gaze, as the palpable tension weighed on her.
Not his people.
His often-recited declaration echoed in her head, alongside the drumming pulse of her blood.
Then who were?
She studied the lines of his face, and carefully withheld the suspicion she felt from reaching her face.
There was something strangely naked in his expression, despite being entirely inscrutable.
Could he possibly be—
No.
It was an absurd notion.
He was mortal, was he not? She'd seen him on the brink of death, with nothing but the grip of her hand keeping him tethered to life. The immortals had walked the world and bent it to their will, surely they would not be so weak as to nearly die from a single stab wound.
Still, the suspicion and tension gnawed at her. Her eyelids fluttered as she turned back to the painting, and mused, "How small we must seem to them. Like insects."
After a moment, he asked, "Where did you learn to doubt the past, to question history? Surely not from your clan."
"Surely not," she echoed in a mocking tone. Her jaw tensed, as she swallowed the anger he provoked so easily in her. After a moment, she said, "I'm curious, and I ask questions. Sometimes I meet people who share things that change my perspective."
"That's not quite an answer," Solas remarked, with a small smile.
She fought her own, as she said, "Says the guy whose content to attribute everything he knows to 'I saw it in the Fade'."
"Fair enough," he conceded, with an awkward laugh. After a moment, he asked, "What did you do, before this? Back home with your clan. You were a ranger, were you not? A scout of some sort?"
Tephra frowned, "Why do you ask?"
"Simple curiosity," Solas replied. He turned his scrutiny from the painting and back to her, as he continued, "You are clearly trained in the ways of hunting and stealth, and make for a formidable defender of your clan. Yet you also have knowledge of things those of your position generally do not have."
He had that look again — seeing, and not seeing. As though she were a puzzle he hadn't worked out yet. She had hoped they were past this. "Does it matter, what I was? Clearly, I cannot go back to it," she said, in a clipped tone. "It seems I belong to everyone but myself now, as everyone sees fit to extract every piece they can, including my history. Forgive me if I try to hold onto what small parts that are still mine to keep."
His eyebrows knitted together in concern, "Ir abelas, I simply wished—"
"I'm not a mystery, Solas. I'm just myself."
His frown deepened, "On that, we disagree. You once asked that I see you as more than just the mark on your hand, did you not? You have had my full attention, Herald, and I have seen that you are different from any of your kind that I've met. Forgive me if my questions get out of hand, I am simply interested in what has made you so different than those I've met in my journeys."
Tephra gave a mirthless laugh, "I'm truly not all that different from my kin, I assure you. Yes, some would rather accept what is handed to them of our past and culture as absolute fact, and pass them on like priceless treasures. But many are just like me, who question what we've been told because all we have left of our history and our culture is fragments to puzzle over."
Solas said nothing, as his jaw tensed and her considered his words. "Yet, still—"
"I did not grow up with my kin," she interjected sharply, and a bit too loudly.
Her face flushed as she cast a glance at the others, who'd begun dinner without them. None had seemed to have heard her outburst, or if they had, they were discreetly ignoring it for her sake.
She was acutely aware of the fact that he would never let it drop until he figured it out.
Pissing hell.
Tephra stopped one of the waitresses passing by, and plucked two more bottles of mead from the woman's armful. The waitress bowed her head briefly, before rushing off to deliver drinks to her companions. Shifting the bottles into one arm, she pushed at Solas with the other.
He tensed beneath her touch, yet he allowed her to herd him back further from the others, to the far corner near a fireplace. She handed him one of the bottles, which he accepted without protest.
It would have been easier if he'd managed to crack the cipher, then he could have sated his ridiculous fixation with her history without needing her to say it. He could feast on all of the grim details and useless solitude and near-madness of her youth in that forest alone, and it would save her from speaking her grief aloud.
Yet, it continued to elude him.
That, at least, gave her some satisfaction and pride — that the great apostate, who derided the Dalish so often and so thoroughly, could not crack a Dalish man's code.
Still, she could not bear to tell him everything. There was too much, and she had never spoken her grief to anyone, not even her kin.
Tephra popped the cork of her mead, and took a long drink as she fixed her gaze on the fireplace and kept it there.
He waited with patience, as she gathered her courage.
With the sweet burn of the mead lingering in her throat, she said, "I was born to them — to clan Lavellan — and I lived with them for a time with my family. Circumstances, which I do not care to delve into, separated me from them as a child. I had neither kin, nor family, for a good portion of my life. I didn't have anyone. All I had were a handful of my father's books — bits of history, of our culture, of the world — and myself. I had nothing but time to think and wonder and question, in every way that my mind would take me. It was likely the only thing that saved me from losing my mind, and perhaps it had some hand in who I am now, but I am Dalish. It was the only thing I had left to hold onto for all that time, was that I belonged somewhere. That someone might come looking for me. And they did, eventually."
His silence prompted her to meet his gaze, she found that he was looking at her with an unsettlingly soft expression. As though somehow, despite how vague she'd left the details, he knew.
As if he could see right through her, back through all those years, to the little girl doing her very best to survive alone.
Tephra flushed, and averted her gaze. "If I'm so very different than the Dalish you've met, perhaps that's why."
"Whatever the nature of your circumstances, it has afforded you a purity of mind not indoctrinated by superstition," Solas said, gently. He did not clarify it as Dalish superstition, for which she was grateful. But then, he continued, "For that, you are unlike any other—"
"Telling me that I'm not like other Dalish you've met isn't a compliment, Solas," she replied, rather sharply. She felt perilously exposed and vulnerable, as she continued, "You're implying that my good qualities are an anomaly based on an anomalous childhood, and that I am otherwise flawed and possibly awful."
"I didn't — I had not meant—" Solas stopped himself short, flustered. He took a moment to take a generous drink from his mead. "You are, of course, entirely right. Forgive me. I am not often thrown by such casual wisdom. You wield it as gracefully as the bow you carry."
Now it was her turn to be flustered.
Was he complimenting her? Or, possibly—
A ridiculous notion.
"Are you suggesting that I'm graceful?" she asked, carefully, as though she expected a trap.
There was an odd, if subdued warmth in his face, as he firmly replied, "No, I am declaring it. It was not a subject for debate."
She felt her face flush again, as she frowned and averted her gaze back to the fireplace.
Well, that was—
Something.
What exactly, though, eluded her.
From the other side of the tavern, Varric hollered, "If you two are done colluding in the corner, the food's ready!"
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Come now, Herald, at least give us his name. We all fessed up our firsts," Varric cajoled. He shot an amused glance at Cassandra, "Well, except the Seeker here, but good luck prying that one loose."
Cassandra merely gave a snort of disgust.
"This whole modesty thing is drawing out all of our anticipation marvelously, my dear, but do put us out of our misery sometime this century," Dorian added, with a laugh.
"It's not modesty, you ass, it's just that I'm not sure why it matters at all," Tephra replied, incredulous, and was met with expectant silence.
She refused to meet anyone's eyes, as she attempted to conceal her amusement.
Damned children, all of them.
She huffed in mock exasperation, before taking a quick swig of mead.
"Her name was Ebba," she admitted, with a flippant wave of her hand.
"Now there's a scandal to turn Andraste in her urn," Dorian mused, with delight. "What wasn't entirely atomized, that is."
The Seeker choked on her ale, and the rest erupted in a scattering of laughter.
Sera grinned. "Yeah, I knew I liked you. So is it just ladies, or...?"
Her faced burned.
Truly, what did any of this matter at all?
Void take them all.
"I'm—" Tephra's words stalled in her throat, as she pointedly avoided the amused scrutiny of her companions. She cleared her throat, and fought the smile burning across her mouth, "I'm not strictly drawn to one or the other, really. Gender doesn't matter much to me, I suppose."
Sera gave a skeptical snort, "What about elfyness?"
"Uh—"
Varric cut her off with a sudden laugh, "Wait, wait — if we're gonna discuss elfyness, how does Chuckles here rank on the Dalish attractiveness scale? I don't remember ever seeing any of your people sporting his bold look."
There was more laughter, and her ears burned as she shot the dwarf a dark look of annoyance. She avoided looking at Solas as she turned to gesture at Sera, "Well, she's an elf, too. Have her judge him."
"Pfft, not my deal, Lady Herald," Sera shot back, cheekily. "You're more my deal, not him. Phwoar."
Tephra leapt at the change of subject, in a vain attempt to steer the conversation another way, "Oh?"
Sera laughed, "You're kidding, yeah? Decent with a bow, nice arse, legs up to here—"
Tephra covered her face with her hands and laughed, as Sera gestured at her own chest in an exaggerated gesture.
Varric gave a wink, as he badgered her, "Come on, Teph. Quit dodging the subject. Let's hear it."
Tephra attempted to kick at his boots under the table, but the dwarf avoided her easily as he lifted his legs out of reach and crowed with laughter.
As she straightened in her chair, she was acutely aware of her own inebriation.
Solas was looking at her with subdued amusement. There was a faint flush to his face from the mead, but he was damnably better at holding his alcohol and seemed entirely unfazed by the personal nature of the question.
Perhaps he was interested in the answer.
For fuck's sake.
She regretted drinking so freely with all of her ridiculous companions. Her growing embarrassment was certain to kill her by the end of the night.
Tephra cleared her throat, and fought the urge to avert her gaze, "Well—"
There was a chorus of snickers.
Tephra took a slow drink from her mead, and bought herself a moment to regard him. Her gaze swept over him — the relaxed slouch of his posture, the way he cradled his drink between slender hands, the lines of his shoulders and neck, then up to meet his amused smile.
Damn them all the Void.
Solas arched a brow at her protracted silence.
Especially him.
"He's, uh—"
Varric snorted, and doubled over to press his laughing face against the table.
He was handsome, in his own striking way. Why was it so hard admit that?
Because he's enjoying this far too much, damn him.
"He's rather tall, for — for an elf," Tephra finally managed, to the endless amusement of her companions. She groaned, "I'm surrounded by children."
When she glanced back at Solas, she found him still watching her with amusement. He held his mead aloft, as it idled at his mouth, pressed against his bottom lip.
It seemed entirely, infuriatingly purposeful in how it draw her gaze.
Damn him — and his ridiculous face — to the Void.
Tephra rose from her chair, and immediately shifted her attention to the Chargers. They were engaged in various rounds of competitive arm wrestling matches with each other, as well as other patrons of the tavern.
If anything, it was a perfect distraction to avoid furthering this ridiculous conversation.
As the qunari slammed down Krem's arm, she announced, "Alright, it's the Herald's turn."
The sound of disbelief and laughter filled the tavern around her, but she ignored it as she downed the last of her drink. She slammed to bottle down, noisily, and stalked around the table.
Krem vacated the seat opposite of the Iron Bull, and when she sat and regarded the massive qunari sitting across from her, it occurred to her that this was probably not her best idea.
He grinned with smug amusement and positioned his massive arm on the table, hand ready to clasp hers.
When she lifted her marked hand — which was her dominant hand — the qunari flinched, and roughly huffed something in qunlat. Certainly a curse, which was amusing.
She'd watched the towering man tear through hoards of bandits and raiders with the same glee a children frolicking through a confectioner's shop.
Tephra arched a brow, her hand poised to clasp his, "Scared of a bit of magic?"
"'A bit of magic,' she says," Bull grumbled, and closed his massive hand around hers.
There was probably more weight in his arm than her entire body.
This was most certainly not the best idea she'd ever had — likely ever.
Still, she was too stubborn to back out now.
"Three, two, one — go!"
The qunari amused himself by giving her a shot at attempting to win, and simply kept his arm locked into place as she pushed.
It was like trying to move a stone wall.
She struggled in vain with one arm, until fury and indignance boiled in her gut and propelled her up onto the table. The tavern erupted into laughter as she grappled with the Bull's arm, her whole body straining to move him even an inch.
Bull gave a deep, rumbling laugh before he playfully pinned her down on the table with one hand, knocking over empty cups and bottles in the process. Tephra struggled to free herself, but it was no use against his immense strength.
"Another crushing defeat! Truly, I am the mightiest specimen here tonight," the Bull declared loudly, before he let her go.
Tephra rolled off the table in a flurry of curses and threats.
"You're a fierce little thing, though, I'll admit that much," the qunari laughed.
Cassandra hauled her up from the floor, as she admonished the Bull, "You could have wounded her!"
"The only thing I wounded was her pride," the Bull quipped, with a rumbling chuckle.
Tephra disentangled herself from the Seeker's well-meaning assistance and stalked to the far corner of the tavern, where a small table sat unoccupied. She was flushed, flustered, and out of breath. It suddenly felt far too warm in here, and her head was swimming. She needed a moment, and—
She nicked another bottle of mead from a passing waitress, before plopping down into a chair by herself. Another unwise idea, as she was already thoroughly inebriated, but she found that she cared little for caution at the moment. She'd only just popped the cork off of the bottle, when Solas sat down opposite of her.
He settled into a comfortable slouch, as he set down his own mead, and regarded her with an amused smile.
There was an odd bubble of mirth which tickled in her chest, as she thought, Why not?
Tephra leaned forward and put her arm into position — a open invitation.
Surely, she could beat the apostate.
When he straightened and leaned forward, she thought for a moment that he meant to accept the challenge.
Instead, he took her by the wrist and gently brought her hand closer so that he could inspect her hand. Solas ran a fingertip along the lines of her palm, in an almost languid manner, and his careful prodding prompted the mark to glimmer in response.
It was curious to her that he could do that at all — as if he could summon the magic right out of her. No one else could, that she knew of. She'd even let Dorian try his hand at it with a few probing spells, but he could not summon the mark from its slumber.
"Has it been bothering you?"
"Not particularly," she said. "Though without your healing spells, it seems to have gotten a bit cranky in your absence."
It was a jest, and yet he looked contrite as he frowned at the magic glimmering in her skin, as if it were somehow his fault.
Tephra had the sudden, striking urge to reassure him. To banish whatever troubled him so clearly.
"It's an annoyance, nothing more." Tephra laid her free hand over his, and assured, "You're welcome to ease it, if that pleases you."
Solas blinked rapidly, and the muscles in his jaw worked silently as he avoided her gaze.
It was pleasantly amusing to have flustered him with such a casual touch. She briefly recalled the night in the Crossroads, when she'd administered medicine to his wounds, and how tense he'd been beneath her touch.
That night had been the beginning of an odd dance between them — this seeking and giving of balms to the other's wounds. And she realized now that it must have been some time for him since the last time anyone touched him — whether through the casual affection of a friend, or the heated grip of a lover.
It was no wonder he startled every time she'd touched him.
Solas laid his palm against hers.
She could feel the erratic beat of his pulse, where her fingers laid against the underside of his wrist.
And somewhere along the way, his touch had become just as distracting to her, and touching him had become—
Complicated.
There was a shimmer of blue, and a brief tugging sensation, and then nothing as the mark calmed and quieted in her bones. She let out a slow breath; she had gotten so used to the mark's residual ache, that its sudden absence was blessedly calming.
It was no wonder that she'd been so on edge lately.
Solas did not release her immediately, and instead he brushed his thumb at her wrist where the skin was marked darker by the memory of fire. "It is a shame I could not wholly prevent the scarring," he lamented.
The faint scars were still sensitive to the touch, even after all this time. She could not help the shudder that rippled through her. From the look on his face, and his obvious enjoyment of her reaction, it seemed to be entirely intentional.
Tephra couldn't remember the last time she was flustered by something as small as another's touch, and she stubbornly chalked it up to the sensitivity of her scarred skin.
Tephra cleared her throat, as she pulled herself free of his grasp. She reclaimed her mead and slouched back in her chair.
She was, perhaps, a bit too drunk.
Her pulse was pounding too loudly in her ears, and she wasn't entirely sure where her sense of caution had gotten off to, as she eyed him far too openly.
This — whatever it was that was unfolding between them — could be trouble, and yet, her usual sense of caution had fled her somewhere between the third or fourth bottle of mead.
Oh, boy.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The tension which had settled between them was unbearably palpable, and the way her eyes had lingered at his mouth, as though she considered—
No.
It was too dangerous to consider, and too prideful of him to assume whatever she might feel in regards to him. For all that she freely declared of her opinions, her thoughts, she had never once given any inclination to that — to desiring him.
And yet, he found himself staring at where her fingers idled at the corner of her mouth, as she sat slouched deep in her chair and regarding him with a gaze he couldn't begin to interpret.
He found himself absurdly envious of her fingertips, treading territory he didn't even dare dream of exploring.
Solas averted his gaze, and cleared his throat as he straightened, "The mark should not bother you, for some time at least."
"You're not like any other elf I've ever met, Solas," she mused. Briefly, she bit at her pinkie nail, as though considering something, before sitting forward to fold her arms on the table. Her face was flushed from the alcohol, and her guard was certainly lowered, but her eyes were bright and sharp.
"As are you," he replied in a careful, measured tone.
It was too easy to provoke her, or for her to provoke him, and he did not wish to break this pleasant gravity which had begun to build between them.
It was perilous and against his better judgement to continue.
If he were a wise man, he would have left it at that — a simple compliment — and he would have risen and bid her goodnight.
But wisdom had never quite been his strongest point.
"It has been... refreshing," he continued, heedless of his own foolishness. "I had not thought I would find another in this world who reflected the spirit and true nature of what our people once were. You have... surprised me."
"That's a high compliment coming from you," she teased. "And what have I done to earn such praise?"
His pulse pounded in his ears, as he replied, "You have simply been yourself."
The mead had dulled his senses, so when she bounded up to her feet, the movement was quicker than his instincts could react to. He did not have time to brace himself as she leaned over the table and pressed a quick, soft kiss to his brow.
"Nira!" she exclaimed, as she withdrew. "It's a momentous day when I have finally managed to meet the impossibly high standards of the apostate and resident Fade-expert," she teased, as she settled back in her seat.
The skin burned at his temple where it had been touched by her mouth.
For a moment, he could not center his thoughts, nor calm his pulse.
The Herald downed the last of her mead, before declaring, "I should sleep."
"Yes, I rather think so," he agreed, despite desiring the opposite.
Time always moved far too quickly when she was with him, and there was never enough of it that she could give him.
Tephra swayed as she stood, and caught herself on his shoulder. She laughed to herself, before bidding him goodnight.
As inebriated as she was, it was not a good idea to let her wander back to camp by herself. Still, he would not wound her pride by insisting on escorting her, so he simply followed her a staggered pace.
The Seeker caught his eye as he passed, and gave him a terse nod — as though she knew he intended to see her safe back to camp, and approved.
The town was not very large, so even at her unhurried pace it did not take long to reach the outskirts. He kept a quiet distance, following her out into the sparsely wooded outskirts.
Despite the sway in her movements, she was still light on her feet, and far more graceful than any mortal had a right to be.
The camp was silent, and empty, as she was the first to retire for the night. He was surprised to see her pass her own tent, and watched as she gravitated to the far end of the ruins, to where a statue of the Dread Wolf sat. Alert and wary, teeth bared with the promise of threat against his enemies.
This place had once been a waypoint to guide escaped slaves to his people, to freedom, to Tarasyl'an Te'las.
He'd been anxious that she would ask him about the ruins, but she had thankfully avoided doing so. It was likely that she expected another argument to arise between them, as her people were not very fond of him.
He could have spun a story, if she had asked, but he found himself increasingly reluctant to mislead her. It was hard enough simply holding back certain truths — outright lying was beyond him, now.
Idly, he wondered if she had been poisoned by the myths they told, if she too looked upon the Dread Wolf as something to scorn and to fear.
But the way she casually strolled up to the statue, it was clear there wasn't a hint of fear in her.
Only curiosity.
Solas moved to lean against a tree, as he watched her inspect the statue.
As much as he disliked deification and the shrines which had been erected in his name — or the poisonous mythology perpetuated by the Dalish — her lack of fear as she drew closer to the statue was dizzying.
He briefly recalled her confession that she'd once prayed to Fen'Harel; what had she desired so greatly that she had not feared praying to the so-called Great Betrayer of her people?
The statue was finely crafted, and had stood the test of time. The wolf had been carved to be sitting on its haunches, with its gaze directed down towards those who would bring it offerings and prayer. He watched with curiosity as she climbed up onto the foundation, so that she could reach up to touch its face, which loomed just above her own. Her hands smoothed up along its neck and then down the head of the statue, with awe — as though she were touching a real creature. Her hands hesitated at the open mouth, where the teeth were carved to brutal precision.
When she ran her fingers along the sharp pointed ends, Solas felt a shiver run through him at the sight of it. It spurred him to playfully call out, "Do be careful, Herald. Your people say that he bites those who extend their trust to him."
Tephra startled and stumbled back off the statue, cursing as she landed in a heap in the sandy grass.
He laughed despite himself, "Apologies, I could not resist."
From where she sat, Tephra snatched up a small stone and launched it in his general direction. "You scared me half to death, you ass!"
Solas ducked to avoid being hit, still laughing. When he straightened, she was storming off out to the beach, to sit and watch the water. He followed after, feeling contrite as he sat beside her in the sand.
"Truly, I did not mean to startle you," he assured, warm with amusement and mead.
"You're still an ass," she insisted.
"Fair enough," he conceded, with amusement.
The moon was high over the sea, full and bright, and the dark waters shimmered silver where the light caught it. Bright arcs danced over the choppy waves.
Solas said nothing as she lapsed into silence, for a time. He was simply content to keep her company as she chose fit.
Her mood had been dark ever since they first arrived in the Storm Coast, and had not lifted.
He did not blame her for that, not one bit.
Tephra drew her knees up to her chest, as she locked her arms around them, and said, "I was thinking, earlier, of all the ways a world can end without really ending."
Solas kept his silence, as he let her unburden herself however she meant to. He would not ask, nor probe — not with this.
It was why he had not approached her earlier, when she'd spent her time staring out across the sea. In that moment, she had been neither the Herald, nor the unfortunate bearer of his Anchor, only the little girl who had tried so desperately to save her brother.
That grief was hers alone, until she decided to share it with him — if ever.
"People die every day and the world keeps turning. The sun still comes up the next day, like nothing happened at all," she mused. Her eyes were impossibly dark despite the moonlight, and impossibly sad. "But a person dies, and the world ends for the ones that loved them."
Finally, she turned her eyes from the sea to meet his gaze, as she asked, "What am I saving, if everything just dies in the end?"
It was a knife to his heart, and he had no answer that would pry that pain from her.
What comfort could he give her, when his path took him so far from what she desired? When what she needed to do was merely a stepping stone in his path, and not the destination itself? He could not confess that he needed her to stabilize this world, simply to buy him time to restore his strength — so that he could unmake it. To shape it far beyond what she knew.
"Hope," he replied in a hollow, brittle tone. "You are saving hope itself. For a chance to make things... better."
"Hope." Her quiet, bitter laugh raked his ears. "I don't know how I'm supposed to do this, Solas. It's all too much."
He thought of her, screaming and sobbing into the sand, and how he'd tried to console her there in the memory. And then after, when he'd woken in the chaos of being carried to the infirmary, how she clasped his arm.
Solas shifted to reach across the short distance between them, and laid his hand on her arm. He held her gaze, as he said, "You can only try your best and hope that it will be enough. Whatever comes, I promise that I'll be with you, until the end."
Wherever that path took them, he could promise her that much.
Tephra stared at his hand where it laid on her arm for a long moment, before looking at him with a soft expression. She laid her hand over his, and clasped it. "Can you help me stand?"
Solas's mouth pulled into a crooked smile.
He stood, and drew her up with him.
She swayed, and leaned into him to steady herself.
Amused, he asked, "Do you need assistance back to your tent?"
Tephra laughed, "It's that, or I'll be spending the night face down in the sand."
"We certainly cannot have that," he chuckled.
"Cassandra would certainly kill both of us," she agreed. "Then the Inquisition would fail and all would be doomed. A tragedy, truly."
Tephra's laugh was low and throaty and entirely delightful as her arm looped around his back, and she clutched at his shoulder for steadiness. He, in turn, put an arm around her waist to hold her steady as they walked.
He could not account for the sudden, erratic pace of his heart.
He did his best to ignore the curve of her waist and the movement of her body beneath his touch as they walked side-by-side, nor the press of her against him as she leaned on him for steadiness.
As they made the slow trek back into camp, she said, "I'm sorry I was rude to you earlier." Her voice was far too close to his ear, nearly intimate in proximity. Her breath tickled warmly against his skin, as she confessed, "The sea makes me sad, and far too angry."
I know, he wanted to say, but didn't.
In truth, her sudden coldness earlier in the day had caught him by surprise.
He had suspected that he'd provoked her while assessing Sera, probing for some seed of familiarity in the elf for her own true nature. Appealing to commonality had prodded a sore spot in Tephra, he realized, because that was precisely what she'd attempted to do with him. And he'd rebuffed her, as Sera had rebuffed him.
And it had simply been bad timing that she'd overheard him when her emotions were rubbed raw, after having spent so much time alone nursing her grief and staring at the sea.
"You have nothing to apologize for," he assured.
Solas helped the Herald into the tent that belonged to her, which was spacious enough that he could direct her to her sleeping roll without tripping over her belongings. He'd only just released his hold on her, when she began to strip off the layers of her traveling clothes. She was halfway through pulling off her top when he turned on his heel.
He hadn't been quick enough to avoid seeing the naked expanse of her back — the movements of her toned shoulders and the sharp lines of her scapula, or the acute tapering of her waist.
It was burned indelibly into his memory.
His hands flexed anxiously, as he quickly clasped them behind his back.
Her laugh sounded behind him, as she said, "I didn't peg you as particularly modest, Solas."
"It is not for the benefit of my modesty, Herald," he replied, unable to keep the flustered tremor from his tone.
Tephra gave a throaty chuckle, before declaring, "Alright, I'm decent."
Solas turned to find that she'd simply changed into a light sleeping shift, but had not bothered to remove her traveling pants, nor her boots. She was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping roll, still flush with alcohol and watching him with amusement.
His stomach clenched when Tephra held out her hand to him, as if to beckon him to bed with her.
Surely, she did not mean—
"It hurts," she said, meaning the mark in her hand.
An obvious lie, as he'd just recently tended to it.
Which meant the lie was to keep what she truly meant unsaid, which was that she wanted him to touch her again — not for necessity, but simply because she desired it.
It would hurt nothing to cast the spell again, and he could not bear to refuse such an open, intimate offering.
His throat was decidedly dry as he swallowed nervously, and moved to sit on his knees before her.
It was perilously foolish of him to continually allow himself to get this close with her. It could only bring trouble, and complication. Yet, when she beckoned him like this — as she permitted him this precious bit of trust — he was helpless to turn her away. Everything about her drew him out, and the potential danger of it — the consequences — were becoming increasingly irrelevant in the wake of what she woke in him.
She had given life to a world that had seemed dead to him, and he had not felt this alive in a very long time.
Solas cupped her elbow and drew her arm to him, bracing it flat atop his own.
The contact was dizzying.
He studied the slender length of her arm, letting his fingertips brush whisper-soft across the skin of her arm, as though it still held secrets from him — but is was nothing more than an indulgent farce, as he knew every mark by now. Every freckle and scar.
Solas ran his fingertips from the crux of her elbow, following the path of her veins to where they converged in her wrist.
He felt her pulse jump beneath his touch, like confirmation.
"It should not be hurting you this soon," he mused, as he played along with her farce. "Perhaps I was inattentive with my spell."
His fingers lingered there, at the juncture of her wrist, where the blue lines of her veins bundled together like latticework. They were pathways that were becoming increasingly familiar; delicate lines that thrummed beneath his touch.
"Yes," she agreed, huskily. "It must certainly be that."
The tone of her voice sent a thrill through him, and when Solas pressed his index finger to the middle of her palm, the mark flared and danced in response.
Tephra turned her hand, and she pressed her palm to his.
A purely exploratory gesture, as the mark glimmered between the connection of their skin. He shifted his hand to better align with hers, and her fingers settled loosely between his.
Alarm and trepidation and excitement all warred together between his ribs, as his heart beat furiously in his chest.
"What does it feel like to you?" After a moment, she clarified, "The mark."
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and it was clear that she did not truly mean the mark.
His thoughts clamored and stuttered, as his attention was entirely drawn to the warmth of her skin against his. At how it seemed to fit perfectly with his own.
As if it belonged there, as nothing else ever had before.
Ballast, he thought. And—
The possibility of knowing — all of her thoughts, her dreams, her history, all of her — and being known. Of being able to tell her everything. Of the possibility of her accepting his truths, of accepting him — of forgiving him — and wanting him, nonetheless.
The ache inside of him for those things was unbearable.
Her hand in his felt like a lifeline, like safe harbor, like connection — honest, and complete.
But the fear of rejection kept him silent on that truth, as however much he wanted to tell her of the effect she had on him, he could not be certain that she'd meant any of this as beyond platonic compassion. And the words and feelings that churned inside of him were worn and frayed and tattered by eons of loneliness. They were colored entirely by longing for something bereft of him for so long.
He did not deserve the peace her affection could give him, not for what he'd done, and not for what he must still do.
"Old magic," he diverted, truthfully, trying to cling to what little composure left to him.
The orb had been constructed in the world that came before this one, as was the power it carried.
His power.
"I would not be surprised if it hailed from the time of Elvhenan," he said, as though he didn't know precisely when and how the orb had been construct, nor the power imbued it that had been transferred to her.
Tephra withdrew her hand; it was a languid movement, meant to ignite the nerves in his palm, and too purposeful to be anything but deliberate on her part.
She gave an amused huff, as she stretched out on her sleeping roll, "If you insist."
It had been an offer, Solas realized with thundering clarity, but not one he would take. Not like this, and especially not after a night of drinking.
No matter how very much he wanted her to pull him into bed with her.
His hand fisted at his side as he rose, still burning from her touch. He did not wish to leave, not truly, as he said, "Rest well, Herald."
"Mhm," she hummed, as she settled into a loose curl on her side. "Tas ma."
When he stepped outside the tent, Solas closed his eyes and let out a slow, trembling breath.
He was a fool to have ever thought that he could have avoided this. That he could have avoided caring, that he could have avoided—
Solas retreated to his own tent, with the knowledge that his sleep would be anything but restful. He stripped off his jerkin, before settling down onto his sleeping roll. He laid a trembling hand over his eyes, and sighed.
She was an abyss, into which he'd thrown himself willingly.
His hand shifted, and he pressed his fingertips where she'd kissed him earlier.
What would she have done, if he had allowed himself to kiss her back?
Never mind impropriety, nor that their companions were present, nor that it was entirely ridiculous to entertain in the first place.
He could not help but indulge that train of thought.
Would she have let him lay his hand against the nape of her neck, and draw her back to him? Would she have let his mouth catch hers first, or would she have thrown herself into it, the way she threw herself head first into danger at every turn?
Solas gave a irritated huff at his own foolishness; this was a masochistic exercise in futility.
He could not keep her, even if she had wanted him to.
He slept fitfully, and sought nothing else in the Fade that night but the staggered seconds where her skin had idled against his, and the moment she had kissed his temple.
The softness of her mouth was a pleasure Solas had never anticipated having knowledge of, and now it would torment him forever in the dreaming.
He could not banish it from his memory, even if he wanted to.
It was not like him to be so self-indulgent in the Fade, not like this, yet when she moved to kiss him once again at his temple, Solas manipulated the ambient energies around him to shift, and met her mouth with his own.
It was hollow.
It could never be more than a pale imitation, not without true memory, not unless he sought her in the dreaming, not unless he dared to—
Solas woke with a start, flushed and fevered, and his heart raced with the sudden knowledge that it was entirely possible to miss what he'd never had.
There was no way to avoid the pain of that truth.
.
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.
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Author's Notes: This was a fun chapter. I had to write something nice before all the shit happens. Buckle up, kids. The next handful of chapters are gonna get real.
Also, if you have any doubts to my commitment to this story, imagine for a moment, the image of your dear writer — currently with no internet at home, stubbornly hobbling down the street on crutches with a broken ankle and a laptop in her backpack to go leech wifi from Pizza Hut, so that she can post this chapter.
That's love, y'all. And if you're loving this story, let me know!
Specific Elven used and credited to the work of FenxShiral:
Nira — to celebrate, to party, to be joyful, to congratulate
Tas ma — You as well