This Lavellan does not belong to me. Saevin is elvencommander's and she is a precious gem that does not deserve this.
…
The room was more empty than usual, somehow. The thin air around the castle bit into the tiny nicks and bruises on her bare arms with teeth sharper that the tainted dragon. The legs of the bed had been bent and broken and the books had been shaken from her shelves to be thrown askew across the carpets. Absently, she picked one up and tried to return it to the shelf she soon discovered to be just as broken. The book fell from her grasp with a soft thump and Saevin quickly followed. Her robes barely sheltered her already sore knees from the shards of carefully dyed Seraultine glass and it all meant nothing. None of the books, the fancy Dalish decorations, none of the exquisite window panellings mattered.
She heard herself sobbing as if from a distance. She couldn't feel it, couldn't emulate it. Her shoulders were shaking but they weren't her shoulders. Her voice twisted into something she had sworn she had heard in the fade but the wetness on her hands told her this was real. Corypheus was dead and gone, his dragon obliterated. She had won. She had won. She had won.
And he was gone.
The anchor still rested in the palm of her hand. Green flames licked out hungrily at the world around that matched the hushed tones from the well. He exists, they hissed into her ear. Foolish child. He will always exist. He does not exist for you. Saevin wanted to scream, but wretched cries choked her throat. Her eyes slammed shut. Existing made it worse. It meant he had not been taken from her but that he had left. She didn't want him to exist. She wanted to be home, to be back by the fires and the aravels. She wanted her vallaslin to be back and meaningful as the day the needles pierced her skin. She wanted the keeper to have chosen someone else for the damned shem conclave. She covered her ears and pressed hard. The voices did not care. They beat upon her mind like the Blight itself. She could hear them now as well as if she were standing next to the source.
He is here, the voices shrieked, then fell silent.
Her heart pounded. Her fingernails had dug into the skin around her ears and each spot throbbed as she slowly removed her hands. Blinking her eyes open, Saevin could barely bring herself to look up. If it was a trick, if he wasn't actually…
Solas stood in the center of the room as if nothing had happened. His robes were the same plain green they had always been, as unruffled as the day they had met. He looked at her and flinched away. His eyes locked insistently on the designs on the drapes. He had insisted once that the stories they portrayed were incorrect, and that her keeper had been wrong. Saevin had argued until she was red in the face. Now they were just drapes. She couldn't look away. She would have given anything to argue over drapes again.
"Vhenan, I'm—"
"Don't call me that."
He looked at her again. Sorrow shaded the thinness around his eyes and cast shadows. She regretted her words, but still did not think she could hear that damn word again for the rest of her life. Suddenly self-conscious, she wiped at her cheeks until the tears had been removed. It was far too late to pretend they hadn't happened, but some vicious part of her wanted him to see what he had caused. She pushed herself off the floor and tried to hold herself with the dignity and strength her keeper had taught her. He didn't look away.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She swallowed. She tried to keep her focus, but salt kept prickling at her eyelids so she walked out onto her balcony instead. His soft footsteps fell in line behind her own. Her heart hammered in her throat and her fingers clutched into fists. The voices of the well rattled around in her mind like they had a story to tell but could not overcome the persistent silence. He was protecting her from them even now.
"I know a spell," he had said. "It won't remove the effects of the well, but," She had just felt the death of a foot soldier. The voices told her about his family, about the significance of his death but all she saw was a young man smeared across the stone. She had nodded numbly.
Though Solas' eyes were averted, he offered no shame. His shoulders held back, his stance was firm; had they been on the grassy fields in the Hinterlands Saevin would have sword he was about to reign unholy terror on their enemy of the hour. Hot tears welled and blurred her vision without her permission. she brought a balled fist to her cheeks and furiously scrubbed. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair that he could just stand there so spotless and proud. She had saved the damn world it left her broken. Saevin was a First, not some squalling infant and yet her heart beat harder each second he wouldn't look at her.
"What is it then?" Her voice cracked but she ignored it. "Is it because I'm Dalish? Come to gloat?"
His eyes snapped up to meet hers. There was nothing bashful in his stride. He took no patience, no gentle steps towards her. He was suddenly close, closer somehow then when they had danced but the intimacy was foul. His eyes bored into her without mercy but pride would not have her look away. Saevin did not shrink. She kept her shaking knees firm and gripping the handrail for dear life. His breath came evenly but it suggested a calm that was barely tempering the storm. He started to speak slowly but Saevin took the bait.
"Did you remove my vallaslin only to show more disdain for my people?" Her words were cutting in and she knew it. "Was it a joke to you? Was I a joke, Solas?"
"Do not be so foolish to presume the Dalish," he snarled the word and the air around him crackled with power like Saevin had never seen, "would be able to hold sway on my actions or my feelings for you."
"A fat lot of good your feelings have done, Solas. Do not forget who left." Saevin felt faint, unsure how she was forming the words. He was so close now, close as the day she kissed him. She could feel her eyes wide and watering but she could not look away from the anger in his eyes. It was alien and predatory, speaking nothing for the gentle patience she had known. As she schooled her expression back to an appropriate steely calm she watched his falter. Regret flooded his features as quickly as the wrath left and he looked away once more.
"I cannot stay vhenan, and I do not wish to spend this on fights." His voice was softer. "If you would have me leave say it and I shall be gone."
Her neck ached from holding her chin high in the way he used to tease her about and she wanted so bad to relax. She wanted so badly for him to kiss her, to take it all back, something. She wanted him to know exactly the ripping in her chest and she wanted to twist the fucking knife.
"Is this it, then? Are you to disappear forever from me?" she said. The words sounded stronger than she felt. She stopped herself from continuing and blinked the familiar hot sting from her eyes. He watched her carefully. Softness flickered across his eyes as he caught a tear she had missed. She savagely wished for more. "Is this another lesson for me?"
"No," he said. "This… This was a mistake. A cruelty I should not have afforded. I'm so very sorry, vhenan."
Saevin choked on a laugh. She clamped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She would not cry, she would not cry, she would not cry. She focused on her breath and thought of the hymns her keeper had sung her. Nothing worked. Tears flowed on her cheeks and a harsh hiccup bubbled up her throat. She fell against the balcony railing and sunk to the ground. The stone was hard and cold against her back and she tried as best she could to focus on it. The hand she pressed to her mouth shook.
"How can you call me that and still insist you must go?" She could not stop the sobs. She could barely see him slouch down next to her. It was a tired and graceless movement, nothing like her Solas. Her pride.
"I could not call you something you are not." The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable now. A warm arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace. She quivered in his arms and moaned out something unintelligible. Her sobs came out wretched and broken, barely able to pause for breath. He pressed his nose to the top of her head and kissed her. His arm moved outside her limited field of vision to grasp something briefly and returned to press something cold and hard into her palm.
"You have my heart, Saevin. Please know this."
His voice shook, but Saevin couldn't look to see if he cried with her. All she knew was that sometime within the hours she sat there, the warmth around her turned as frigid and sharp as the blackened jawbone necklace she clutched in her hands. He was gone.