Solas's long tapered fingers ran over the parchment absently. He didn't really appear to be looking at the map laying across his desk, but instead through it. There was a frown on his face and a deep crease between his eyebrows. He didn't look up when Varania came in, not even when she sat on the corner of his desk.

It wasn't until she laid her hand on the top of his head that he noticed her at all. He looked up quickly and tried to smile, but failed at it. She moved her hand around the back of his head, resting against the warm skin on the base of his skull. He closed his eyes for a moment, soaking up the sensation. He always purred when she touched his head, as if he was storing up the memory for later.

"My heart," he said quietly before opening his eyes again. He leaned back in his chair to look at her.

"You look troubled," she said. Her own heart felt far less troubled than she expected, considering.

Fenris and Hawke had left that morning, baby Bethany and two dozen broken Grey Wardens including Kya Amell and Nathaniel Howe in tow. Varania had kissed Bethany and Hawke on the cheek and hugged her brother without being afraid for the first time in her life.

She might never see any of them again, but her heart was content.

Solas, on the other hand, looked anything but content. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"I am fine," he lied, clearly.

Varania gave him a look. "How many times am I going to have to remind you that you can talk to me?" In the beginning, it felt like it was her hesitation that kept them apart. Now, she knew it was his. No matter how close they became, no matter how many nights they explored each other before exploring the Fade, there was this invisible barrier between Solas and everyone else. Varania was able to press herself against it, but she was no closer to getting through it than a stranger.

Solas sighed. "I know, but there are some things-" He didn't continue. There was no need to rehash the same refusals again.

She turned herself on the desk so her legs pressed up against his, her fingers flexing against his neck. She slipped her feet on to the floor and angled herself to slide into his lap. He couldn't see the map if she was in the way.

There wasn't much comfort he'd allow. Varania kissed the shell of his ear and then set her chin on his shoulder.

"Atisha ma'lath," she whispered. "I don't need to know what is hurting you to try to soothe it."

His arms wrapped around her back. He didn't speak, but relaxed underneath her. It was impossible to know what it was that was bothering him, whether something from his own life or the memory of someone else's life. She felt him shake his head.

"You shouldn't be comforting me when its your brother who left today," he said. His hands on her shoulders shifted her back so he could look at her. "Are you well?" He changed the subject so smoothly she almost didn't realize it at first. It sounded like concern and it was, but more than that, it was deflection.

She resisted the urge to tell him she noticed. "I'm fine, really," she said instead. It was the truth. "I never expected to see him at all, and certainly didn't expect to part on good terms. We almost caused each other's deaths the last time. If it hadn't been for Hawke, one or both of us could easily have...but instead I have a family, even if they are going to be far away. It's a comfort to know they are safe."

A wash of emotions danced across Solas's face. Sadness transitioned into wonder and amazement. His smile spread wide across his face, even as tears dampened his eyes and made them look bright. "I don't know how you do that."

"Do what?"

"Say the right thing; what I need to hear even when I..." He trailed off. It didn't need to be said; when I don't tell you what is going on, what is hurting me, what is tearing me apart.

Varania didn't know how to respond. He hadn't told her anything; how could she answer a question she hadn't heard?

"Just lucky, I guess," she said. Whatever she'd said right, the look on his face did wonders for her heart. She cupped his face between her palms and drank in the sudden shift in his mood. When the corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk, she kissed him.

It only lasted for a few heartbeats, that precious little smile, before he swallowed it again.

"When do we leave for the Arbor Wilds?" he asked, somber again.

Varania sighed. "That depends on Leliana's agents. She's sending out ravens as we speak. If they are quick to reply, it could be as soon as tomorrow. Corypheus and Samson are running the Red Templars hard. Whenever we leave, they will probably beat us to it. Whatever it actually is."

"A temple," he said, matter-of-fact, though they only had rumors. He backed up and added, "If our sources are correct, of course."

She didn't waste time asking. If he'd even reply, it would be something cryptic about the Fade. She wondered sometimes if that was just another deflection.

"Morrigan seems certain," she said and Solas immediately grimaced. He despised her on some general principle, though Varania honestly didn't understand why. Then again, he wasn't there when Morrigan brought Kya Amell to speak to her son. Varania had a hard time seeing Morrigan as anything but sympathetic after that, though she was still surprised that she and Loghain had been involved.

It was an odd pairing, though perhaps no stranger than the adopted Dalish, former Tevinter slave and the apostate with a chip on his shoulder about the Dalish bigger than his head. She didn't waste more time on worrying about it. She liked it better when Solas was smiling and she was kissing him, instead of this incessant frowning so she endeavored to make that happen instead.

She slipped her arms around his neck and made a show of looking at him carefully, scanning her eyes over his familiar face, over all those sharp corners and soft details, focusing for an overlong moment on the bow of his mouth. Varania bit her lip, then showed just the tip of her tongue between her teeth before letting her eyes slip up to his, to check where he was looking. He was watching her mouth carefully.

"I don't want to talk about Morrigan," she said, voice low and quiet.

He hummed, a soft seductive sound, transfixed for a moment before abruptly clearing his throat and meeting her eyes. He was a bit flustered and nearly embarrassed but it passed quickly.

Either of them could die whenever they got up in the morning. That constant reminder of mortality had a wild side effect of making her powerfully drawn to anything that reminded her she was alive. The warm ridges of Solas's thighs under her was doing wonders to remind her. She wriggled herself on his lap, eliciting another of those throaty groans. She felt his voice like fingers on her skin.

"I find that I don't want to talk at all," he said. He rarely admitted his desire, leaving it to her to initiate their intimacy, even now after all these months of sharing her bed - at least when she could talk him into it. But she wasn't going to question it now as he looped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, his other hand trailing up her arm and into her hair.

Solas kissed her, suddenly wild as if he wanted to devour her, pressing her back against the solidity of his desk, pinning her there with his slight weight. He always surprised her with this wiry strength and the force of his passion when it was inflamed.

Varania clung to him.

He once said that she changed everything. He was changing her now.

So many things about him she still didn't know; he still kept his past private and close and his future shrouded. But she knew his touch and the fierceness of his love. It made the rest seem unimportant.

Both hands on her waist now, he shifted her until she was straddling him in his chair, heedless that it was the middle of the day, that there were people walking in the library above them. Voices carried even through the closed doors from the main hall into the rotunda. Solas didn't seem to care for a moment, one hand sliding down the arch of her spine. Varania could feel his unmistakable arousal, so intimately pressed against her.

A wave of desire washed over her, overwhelming her. She wanted him all the time; there was no point in pretending otherwise, but this was savage, animalistic. She didn't care if Andraste herself was in the room with them. Varania tucked a hand in between their bodies, touching him, reveling in the answering pressure, the strangled, heated sound he made against her lips.

It was awkward, fabric bits between them and Varania laughed as they both had the same idea at once. Fingers fumbled with laces and buttons. Solas chuckled into her neck. Somehow, they managed to shift enough, get the offending clothes moved so there was just enough skin on skin.

The laughter burned away when he sunk into her. Her fingers grabbed at the ridges of his sweater, mangling it as she pulled him closer. They couldn't have been closer, but still they wanted it, clutching and grabbing at each other, struggling to even move even as they both wanted, needed that delicious friction.

It became an act of desperate need; not sex, nothing so simple. Varania hardly understood what was happening but her heart didn't care if she understood. Her pulse beat hard, she felt the frantic beating of his heart against her.

Solas bit into her shoulder, his teeth just hard enough to leave am impression in her skin as she felt him come undone.

She clung to him in silence, only the ragged cadence of their breathing to betray them. Neither of them dared to move, except for Varania laying her head on his shoulder and the reverence of his lips pressing kisses where his teeth marked her.

"Ir abelas, ma vhenan," he muttered before pressing his lips against the crescent moon his teeth left behind.

Varania's eyebrows drew together. "Why are you sorry?"

"I hurt you." His voice sounded far away.

"No, no, you didn't," she said. Varania put her hand of the back of his head, knowing how he relished that, how it comforted him. He didn't relax this time, and though he was still inside of her, it felt suddenly like he was a world away from her.

His voice caught. "But I will."

"No," she repeated but couldn't think of comforting words to add. They all might hurt each other, in time. Life had a way of twisting things. The deepest love often lead to the most painful wounds. "No, I know you won't, not if you can help it."

Solas tightened the circle of his arms around her.

"I wish I could promise that to you." His words made her heart ache.

She flexed her fingers on his skull. She loved the overheated, so soft texture of the skin of his scalp, the way she could feel where the muscles in his neck tapered as they spread over the bone underneath. It made him feel real, alive and normal, just an elf like she was, even if sometimes he made her wonder.

"You don't have to," she said. "Its true."

She couldn't say he wouldn't hurt her, or even that she wouldn't hurt him. But she knew it would never come from intent, from the desire to damage each other, only from the currents of life wherever they might lead.

Solas didn't speak again, just held her as their breathing slowed and their heartbeats returned to normal. Varania tucked the sweet sensation away in her brain, just as she used to do with the moments of sweetness when she was a slave.

Then, happiness came small. A strawberry. An afternoon in the sun with her brother. A stray kind word from the Master. She never wasted those moments, just saved them up in her memory like coins in a bank to withdraw when she needed them.

She kissed Solas in the hollow behind his delicately pointed ear. This moment, she'd keep.

Atisha ma'lath - Peace, my love

Ir abelas, ma vhenan - I'm sorry, my heart