Big fat disclaimer: The song sung by Melanie in this chapter is not written by me; it's a Frank Turner song called "I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous." You can check it out below if you'd like to hear it:
watch?v=NcQ2XmNvjk4
...
He arrived at Almada Station the same time as always next Tuesday and played for nearly two hours, half expecting the Dalish girl from last week to show up at any minute. When at last the morning commute petered out, he shrugged inwardly and started packing up his violin. Good riddance, he thought. Maybe, if he could convince Varric that he'd followed through on his part, he could still…
"You're good," A familiar alto voice said begrudgingly from behind him.
Still holding his violin, he stood up and turned around, and there she was. All five feet and three inches of her, with the same half-short, half-long auburn hair he remembered, dressed in clothes that, unlike his, were ragged and worn by design rather than age. She was staring at him sullenly with startlingly green eyes that were accented by the matching vallaslin framing them, and carried a soft guitar case slung over one shoulder.
"You don't have to sound so surprised," he retorted dryly.
A strangely inverted sense of deja vu struck him then, of a conversation he'd had long ago in this very spot. Back when it was he, not the woman he spoke to, who stood glowering whilst being paid compliments on his playing. When it was he who had carried himself with unwarranted arrogance, while the serene vision who had stood before him met him with nothing but innocent curiosity and warmth.
If she were here with him now, he thought with a sudden hollow feeling in his chest, she would have slapped him on the wrist and threatened to break it if he didn't play nice. She would have said it all in sweet tones, as well, that were not to be underestimated or taken for mere playfulness. He allowed himself one quick, barely audible exhalation to expunge the sorrow threatening to slip between the cracks of his self-control.
"Well, you know, it's just not often you see someone…" the girl before him faltered for a beat, contemplating her choice of words, "...like you that is so well-versed in Dalish folk music."
Vexation was a welcome distraction from unwanted recollections of the past; he embraced the feeling.
"Oh, I see. You mean to say it's highly unusual that I would play the style so well because I don't have my face painted like I've been to the county fair?" he retorted derisively. To further illustrate his distaste, and, with any luck, to annoy her, he waved his violin bow in front of her face, roughly tracing the tattoos beneath her eyes.
She clenched her jaw, and a forest fire burned in those green eyes of hers, but, to her credit, she didn't lose her temper. He was genuinely impressed.
"I'm sorry," she said through gritted teeth. "I didn't mean to insult you."
"You're only insulting yourself, displaying ignorance like that. The music I play is Elvhen, not Dalish; it does not belong solely to your people."
His statement wasn't completely false, but the reality was that no black and white distinction could be made anymore. A great deal of Dalish folk music, particularly the type he favored, had only been written in the past several centuries, but the genre nevertheless owed much to the ancient stories and traditions of Elvhenan. Precious few Dalish clans in this day and age were solely devoted to keeping the culture of their ancient fallen empire as unsullied as possible. The vast majority of clans throughout Thedas had long since decided to embrace the people they become, instead of holding on to an increasingly deteriorating image of what they had once been.
Indeed, between the already wide gulf of difference between the various Dalish clans, the elven diaspora, and the citizens of the young but slowly stabilizing Elvhen nation of Var'nas, founded just over two centuries ago in the Arbor Wilds, any ideas of what 'true' Elvhen culture was would likely be debated for centuries.
He knew all of this, but truly, he just wanted to take a chunk out of that typical Dalish self-importance he knew and loathed. At his remark, her eyes did drift away from him to stare at the ground, so he supposed he had been successful.
"You're right," she said with a sigh, surprising him with the genuine regret in her tone. "I'm sorry. Really. I get carried away with calling people out on cultural appropriation; I forget that sometimes, it's their culture, too."
He blinked, feeling sorry for having snapped at her and hating the fact that she wasn't even making him feel that way on purpose. He cleared his throat as if to exorcise the guilt.
"It's fine, don't worry about it," he muttered with some reluctance. "I have a tendency to make… uncharitable assumptions about the Dalish. We haven't always gotten along."
To say the least.
Having reached a strange sort of impasse where they had nothing else to argue about, an awkward silence ensued, and he realized he had all but forgotten the supposed reason she had come to see him. He started preparing a question that would steer her into coming to the point without implying that he already knew what it was, but she spoke before he could finish.
"You were right, you know."
"I do know," he agreed with a trace of his former smugness. After a beat, however, he furrowed his brow. "About what, exactly?"
"About the lyrics to 'Give In'."
"Oh. That."
He really shouldn't have argued with her on that point, to be honest. He had just been looking for something to take her down a peg, and he had impulsively chosen to point out a discrepancy in a famous song that precious few people were aware existed.
"It took a lot of work to find out," she said. "A friend of a friend happened to have a first printing of the original release, which included a copy of the correct lyrics. His theory was that after everyone misheard the lyric for what it is today, the studio must have edited the lyrics they printed for every future release of it." She peered up at him curiously. "How did you know?"
"I'm a raging Mythal fan," he tried.
Immediately sensing from her look that he wouldn't get away with humor, he shrugged, trying to appear noncommittal.
"I travel frequently; you learn a lot on the road."
Not the most ironclad defense. She narrowed her eyes at him, skeptical.
"Is that how you're playing it?" she asked.
"Apparently," he replied evenly. Before she could pry any further, he changed the subject by asking, "I'm curious - why choose that song? Why not play your own music?"
"You're assuming I have my own music."
She was beginning to exhaust him. He made a mental note to ensure that Varric gave him access to the bar as well as the basement, because if she was always going to be this hard a nut to crack, he was going to need a steady supply of alcohol.
"Am I wrong?" he asked pointedly.
"Well, no," she admitted, tilting her chin up. "I guess I just figured, who wants to hear that? It's enough of a struggle trying to wrangle an audience for our shows."
"That doesn't mean people want to hear decades-old histrionic pop music with too much radio play. I'm sorry," he said off of her withering glance, "But that is a fair and accurate description of that song."
"It's an important song for me," she said in a tone that clearly indicated he was not forgiven for insulting it. "I suppose that was part of why I picked it. I've never done anything like that before - playing in the streets or anything - so I wanted to play something I was comfortable with."
"And you're not comfortable enough with your own music?" he baited, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course I am," she returned, looking at him defiantly.
He gave her a challenging smirk, stepping aside and gesturing for her to take his place.
"Prove it."
A portion of the confidence in her posture instantly melted away before his eyes.
"What? Now?"
She tried to make it sound like his suggestion was preposterous, when he had just played violin in that very spot for two hours and she had made sure to bring her guitar with her. It disappointed him a little, to be honest. No, that wasn't it - he didn't care about her enough to be disappointed. It ticked him off.
"Too nervous, da'len?" he asked, his smile widening at the way his use of the diminutive never failed to make her eye twitch.
That did the trick.
Already unzipping her guitar case, she stepped forward, unnecessarily shoving him further out of the way and glaring daggers at his eyes. Placing the empty case on the floor, she placed the guitar strap over her shoulder - an acoustic one this time, he noted, weathered and covered in faded band stickers - and plucked a few strings experimentally.
"Just so we're clear before I start, I don't give a fuck if you like it or not."
With that, she was off, singing the first lines accompanied by nothing but a few sparsely strung chords.
"Let's begin at the beginning: we're lovers and we're losers,
we're heroes and we're pioneers, and we're beggars and we're choosers.
We're skirting round the edges of the ideal demographic.
We're almost on the guest list, but we're always stuck in traffic."
Her voice was quiet at first. He thought for a moment that she was self-conscious, but her volume increased as she continued into the second and third verses, and he realized her soft start had been deliberate, measured; she was building up to something. Her song transitioned into a rousing roll call of what he assumed were her fellow musicians and friends, her voice growing more impassioned with each compatriot she mentioned as she lauded their strengths and their flaws with equal fervor.
There had been one reason that her choice of "Give in" puzzled him that he had neglected to mention, and it was that her voice did not have the smooth, silken qualities more typically suited for pop ballads. Hers was a wild, rough voice, more of a thistle than a delicate rose, and the strength and beauty of it were on full display here, not stuffed into a box while she tried to conform it to an entirely different standard. He found himself slowly but surely being drawn into the current of it, as if he were drifting down a river that would sooner or later send him over the edge of a waterfall.
As she entered the final stages of her song, singing an entreaty that was nearly ferocious in tone, he closed his eyes, trying to imagine the instrumentation he wasn't hearing.
"I am sick and tired of people who are living on the B-list.
They're waiting to be famous and they're wondering why they do this.
The drums, he reckoned, would be beating out an almost march-like rhythm; this song was, after all, nothing less than a call to arms.
"And I know I'm not the one who is habitually optimistic,
but I'm the one who's got the microphone here so just remember this:
Also, if she knew what was good for her, she'd have someone on electric guitar fretting away in the background the second she began the latter half of the song, kept just low enough so that the acoustic melody could still dominate.
"Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings,
about fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings,
and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering,
and help us with remembering that the only thing that's left to do is live.
His eyes snapped open, all rumination driven from his mind by the raw passion with which she belted out the climactic penultimate verse, her last note held clear and long. She was so focused on her music, staring unseeing into the middle distance with her brow set in a furious line, that she remained completely oblivious to how she had just made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Something between how her song had affected him and the sight of her standing there with all the passion and purpose of a revolutionary caused a smile to form unbidden on his lips, wide and open. He nearly chuckled as he wondered if she was aware that she was all but shouting; that, if the subway were not nearly abandoned by now, she would have turned quite a substantial number of heads, and it wouldn't have been merely the volume of her voice that drew their attention.
A smaller part of him, one that could still think through all the melodies running circles around his brain, wondered if it had ever occurred to her to bring in an orchestral xylophone for just after the climax, for effect. It would sound quite good, he thought.
"After all the loving and the losing, the heroes and the pioneers,
the only thing that's left to do is get another round in at the bar."
He was still thinking about xylophones, bells of various pitches and timbres ringing experimentally in his head, well after she finished her song. Something to keep the tone light; hopeful.
"Well?"
"Hm?" He looked down at her, still half-distracted by his imaginings of a fully produced recording of her song.
"What did you think?" she asked, disaffected, her guitar now slung across her back so she could cross her arms at him.
"You said you didn't give a fuck what I thought."
She shrugged her shoulders without uncrossing her arms, looking to the side momentarily as if she were bored.
"You were grinning like an idiot," she pointed out, a ghost of smirk on her face.
He balked, unsettled by the transformation of this once haughty, excitable upstart into the self-assured, cavalier young woman who stood before him now.
"I was doing no such thing," he denied adamantly.
"Okay. Sure." She directed her eyes skyward in some kind appeal to the heavens before removing her guitar and turning away from him to reach for her case.
"An idiot would have no concept of how much potential your song holds," he continued.
She stopped in the middle of zipping her case back up, turning to look at him as if he were some kind of strange and exotic food that she wasn't sure if she should try. After a moment's consideration, she leaned her case against the wall hesitantly.
"So you're saying, I'd make more money on the streets if I played my own stuff?" she asked.
"No. I'm saying if the rest of your songs are anything near as good as that one, then with the right level of polish and practice, you could have yourself a hit record," he told her, keeping his voice deadly serious.
She took one step closer to him, crossing her arms again, that scrutinizing look never leaving her gaze.
"What do you know?" Her question could have sounded rude so easily, but she voiced it with such genuine confusion that any notion of impertinence was thoroughly dispelled.
He shrugged again, as nonchalantly as before.
"I only know what I hear."
"You're not really into answering questions, are you?" she asked with a sigh.
"Depends on the question."
She tapped her foot, her mouth set in an uncertain line.
"Okay, fine. What kind of polish?"
"Oh, I don't know," he drawled slowly, pretending to think. "I suppose I'd have to hear your other songs to know for sure. It will probably take some time, of course. These things don't happen overnight, you know…" he trailed off deliberately, looking down at her expectantly.
If she squinted at him any harder, her eyes would be shut.
"Are you offering to teach me, hahren?"
She spoke with such feigned appreciation, drained any semblance of respect for the honorific with such efficiency, that he laughed before he could restrain himself. Was this what she was really like, underneath the posturing and free from the underlying insecurities? Fenedhis, did he actually like this side of her?
"If you'll have me," he replied earnestly, before mercilessly adding, "da'len."
His pet name invoked the usual irked eye twitch, but this time, it was joined by an equally involuntary upwards quirking of her lips.
"Why?" she asked simply, a suspicious gleam in her eyes.
He could be honest with her, here. Come clean about being an old friend of Varric's, about the deal they had made. It would give him a credible reason for offering her his time and advice indefinitely. He could strip away all the mystery, paint a nice and safe cover story around him that Varric could corroborate. Strangely, however, he found it rather more interesting to see how far she would go without such easy reassurances. He could already see that her curiosity towards him was starting to win out over her caution and skepticism. Could he convince her to accept an offer of aid from a stranger wrapped in enigmas?
"I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I said something hackneyed like 'music is it's own reward'," he answered breezily.
"No, I wouldn't. Why go through all this effort to help me for free?"
He shrugged, affecting an air of boredom and reluctance.
"Well then, pay me, if you insist."
"I can't. I don't even make enough money to pay my rent."
"Then I suppose I'll have to teach you how to do that, as well," he said with a sly grin.
Her posture relaxed slightly; clearly this was an enticing prospect. Still, something in her eyes stubbornly refused to trust him.
"Why does it seem like you want to help me a little too much?" she asked in a faraway tone, almost to herself.
"Perhaps I do," he answered vaguely, "But it seems to me that you need my help a little too much. So where does that leave us, da'len?"
He had expected his words to irritate her, or perhaps merely bemuse her; he didn't see her smile coming from a mile away. It spread across her face slowly, laced with mischief and amusement and a little mystery of her own making. Under its power, the light shining out of her veridium eyes seemed like sunlight creeping in between the leaves of the Free Marches forests where she had spent her youth, in spite of the clinical fluorescent lighting of the city's underground.
"I guess it leaves us with no choice," she conceded with no trace of resentment as she extended her hand out to him.
As he took her hand in his to shake on their arrangement, feeling the familiar callouses in her otherwise unmarred skin, he had the strangest, inexplicable feeling that he might be heading for trouble.
They spent a few more minutes briefly discussing logistics. Once she ensured she was free the following morning, he instructed her to meet him early at the Herald's Rest cafe, and to bring with her any and all sheet music she had for her songs.
He initially resisted when she asked for his cell phone number, attempting to deny that he had one, but in a badly timed moment of silence it buzzed in his pocket for both of them to hear. Before she could make any wild speculations about his evasion, he claimed, quite believably, that he was not fond of human interaction, and reluctantly surrendered the number to her on the grounds that she only use it to confirm their appointments.
"Wait," she said, furrowing her brow as she paused in their middle of punching his number into her contacts. "What's your name, even?"
Right, names. People had those, when they actually lived and communicated with other people. His mind went frantic for an instant, searching for one.
"You can call me Solas," he said, smiling as he thought of it.
She looked up briefly to raise an eyebrow at him, suggesting a healthy amount of disbelief, but she nevertheless typed the name in and looked at him expectantly for a moment.
"Don't you want mine?"
He grimaced at the thought of adding even one more contact to his temporary phone.
"What reason would I have to call you?" he asked.
"My name, you weirdo."
"Oh. Sure, let's have it."
"It's Melanie. Melanie Lavellan," she said. Then, looking at him warily, she ventured, "You're just going to keep calling me da'len, aren't you?"
Solas grinned.
"You catch on quickly, da'len."
It wasn't until he was walking down the street, well after they parted ways, that he remembered his phone had buzzed during their conversation. He took it out and flipped it open, expecting it to be Varric checking in and stopping in his tracks when he saw who it was from.
S.V. 11:04am
Need to talk to you asap - hurricane pulled from album.
Meet me at usual place - 1030pm.
I can explain.
Solas's hand shook with rage as he read out the message several times over in his head. In less than 100 characters, Vael had dismantled a deal that had been years in the making.
His song. The one he had written so long ago that it felt like a different lifetime, waiting patiently for the right talent to come along. The song for which one for which he had spent years carefully cultivating the career of said talent when it had come along - and now that talent was telling him the song had been pulled from release.
For a brief moment, he nearly smashed the unwanted phone then and there, but it was saved at the last second by the sole grace that he might need it in case Vael needed to contact him further about their meeting.
I can explain.
It had better be a damned good explanation.
Sebastian had, for a long time now, resented his good looks. He resented that they made it impossible for him to blend into the background, as he so desperately wished for these past few years. He resented that they made so many women want things from him that he had no desire, intention, or right to give. He resented that they were used to call into question the integrity and quality of his music. Most of all, he resented that they had played no small part in making him as famous as he was today.
Aside from these heavier, ongoing grudges he held against his own reflection, he had just added a lesser but nonetheless equally irritating side effect: it was nearly impossible to escape into any kind of solitude. He had just spent an hour absconded in one of the restrooms at Divine Records, wandered blindly through dimly lit subway tunnels wearing dark sunglasses and a hat, and had very nearly pawned off his easily spotted white leather coat to a homeless man. The coat was silly, he admitted, but it was a well-meant and treasured gift from Merrill, and as he bounded the last steps and stepped out onto the roof of the Old College Theater, he was glad that he and his coat had made it to the appointed meeting with a few minutes to spare.
No one arrived late to a meeting with the Dread Wolf - not if they had any respect for their peace of mind.
Sebastian breathed a labored sigh of relief as he took in the empty rooftop before him. He was glad to have a few minutes to himself before what promised to be an unpleasant conversation. He approached the edge of the roof and leaned heavily on the railing, his eyes idly tracing the headlights of shrunken cars drive by ten stories below him.
"You're not about to do anything stupid again, are you?" The familiar Starkhaven-accented voice, rough with age and something new that Sebastian couldn't quite place, drawled apathetically behind him.
Sebastian whirled around, suddenly regretting his position, to see the old wolf himself leaning up against the wall just behind the door Sebastian had come through, watching him with a lazy disinterest. Seeing him there was startling enough, but Sebastian nearly did a double take at both the unruly mop of dark hair that had appeared since their last meeting, and at the glimmering embers of a nearly spent cigarette in his left hand.
"I didn't know you were already here," Sebastian began cautiously.
"You weren't meant to," he replied as he tossed the cigarette on the ground and stamped it out, watching as its light died out.
Then, without warning, he looked back up at Sebastian with predatory fury, all traces of his former lethargy gone as he stepped forward a few paces menacingly.
"Just so you are forewarned," he began in a voice that as little more than a growl. "I am likely, for the duration of this conversation, to employ a great deal of what you would probably define as 'excessively vulgar blasphemy' to properly illustrate the full extent of my disappointment in you."
Sebastian hastily took a step away from the edge, keenly aware that this put him closer to the man advancing towards him with a vengeful glare.
"Listen, Fe-"
"No. Not that name. Never that name."
The warning was unnecessary; Sebastian stopped speaking his name the second he saw the flash of fire in the man's ice blue eyes.
"What am I supposed to call you, then?" Sebastian asked, risking an exasperated shrug of his shoulders.
The man sighed, exhaling a fraction of his anger.
"It's Solas now, if you must," he answered reluctantly, before muttering, "Though I hardly see why it's necessary."
"Elvish, I take it," Sebastian pressed, hoping the tangent would further placate 'Solas'. "Why that name?"
Solas took a few more steps forward, relaxing slightly as he ran a hand through his hair to keep it away from his forehead. The effort failed miserably.
"No particular reason. Just my latest sin," he replied, flashing a grin that managed to be self-deprecating and intimidating. "Listen, it's not that I'm feeling particularly charitable, but it's late enough as it is. What do you say we cut straight to figuring out how to fix this mess, and skip the part where I flagrantly invoke the name of your nonexistent god to condemn you to fate so horrific you'll wish I'd never stopped you jumping off that bridge all those years ago?"
Sebastian clenched his jaw; whatever name he went by, Solas had a way of testing your patience. Still, he thought, it was only going to get worse; it wouldn't do to lose his composure so early in the game.
"Before you say anything, F-Solas..." he began, but Solas continued speaking, as if he hadn't even heard Sebastian, as he paced back and forth restlessly.
"The first thing I need to know is why they cut the song. Knowing Diving Records, let me guess… they thought it was too bleak for your image."
"No. What I called you here to tell you…"
"No?" Solas stopped for a brief second to look up at Sebastian in confusion before setting to pacing once more. "Did they think it was too old for you, then? No, probably not. Not the right time, perhaps, with your current circumstances? Not my fault that you live such a charmed fucking life, in any case. I warned you, if you had to go and get yourself a wife and a kid, to try to keep your personal life to yourself, but you couldn't help it, could you? How are you supposed to maintain the brooding allure of a successful rock star when you're on honeymoon in Antiva City and changing fucking diapers? Well, never mind; what's done is done, the point now is to…"
"Solas!" Sebastian all but yelled.
The elf stopped pacing and looked up at him with a look that was simultaneously irritated and impressed.
"I'm sorry, Vael," he said, slowly and far from apologetically. "Is there something you'd like to say?"
Sebastian looked Solas in the eye, acquainting himself with the hostility growing there that he knew was his destiny, and took a deep breath to steel himself.
"Solas, Divine Records didn't pull your song; they loved it. It was me. I made them do it."
In the blink of an eye, Solas's hand was gripping him tightly by the collar of his jacket, and Sebastian somehow found himself back up against the railing at the edge of the roof. The elf, seemingly unconcerned with the upper hand Sebastian had in stature and physical strength, glared up at him with a cold, threatening ire that made Sebastian himself disregard any such advantage.
"I want you consider your answer to my next question very carefully." Solas emphasized his point by squeezing tighter on the collar of his coat and pushing Sebastian ever so gently backwards against the railing. "Why?"
...
-Sebastian's music is not heavily discussed in this chapter, but in my head his style is similar to artists like Brian Fallon/The Gaslight Anthem and Chuck Ragan; classic rock inspired rock/punk.