Redcliffe Castle.
The Herald fell into the portal. The portal exploded and disappeared.
The magister opened a new rift. This time, without the Herald to close it…
Solas fought back. With all the might he could squeeze out of his puny form, out of his body sapped of all its former power, he fought back. With desperation and anger, he fought back.
They caught him. Later, he woke up in a cell.
It was not the first cell he had ever been in, and he was determined to see it not become the last.
He started counting the days.
Day 1
It was too soon to proclaim the Herald dead.
Day 7
He would fare better if the occupant in the next cell was Varric and not the Imperial Enchanter. In rare instances when she talked to him, the topic would always be some flavor of demonic possession. Their conversations were always brief and always ended abruptly. He had nothing to offer her that would ease her fears and she had nothing else good or neutral to say to a poor apostate.
Day 30
She had a small crease on the right corner of her lips, a sign that her smile always pulled that way, lopsided. Sly, knowing, like a secret tempting you to reveal it.
She would chew her lips until they bled. She would absentmindedly massage the tiny tear with gentler teeth and tongue, and sip the blood until she was distracted by other concerns.
These tiny details his mind captured and cataloged. He still had not found a use for them.
He wondered how it would be like licking the blood from her broken lip and sharing the salt and heat of it with her, like they were partaking a secret.
He ran a finger over his own lips, chapped and dry. What he wouldn't give for a drop of drink from the Herald's lips.
Day 60
It is a different kind of cell, this body. Mythal called it handsome when he first stepped into the light on two feet and stumbled into her arms.
Bodily instincts will kick in,she yourself.
She bathed and clothed him. She was there for his first sip and bite. He soiled himself; she cleaned him are all a normal part of the process, my friend!she said, laughing.
He shivered and his entireprisonshivered with him.
Before then, he always thought of time passing in terms of years and decades. Having a body forced him to think in terms of seconds and minutes and hours. It takes a second to feel pain. Minutes to react. Hours to heal. Seconds for the stomach to grumble. Minutes to satisfy it. Hours before he was hungry again.
He developed a better appreciation for humans after this.
Mythal called the Elvhen the best of the physical and the spiritual. Immortals in mortal bodies.
His soldiers, most of whom were born of elven parents and would never know how it is to be pure Spirit, had a different way to describe it: eat, shit, repeat.
Wisdom did not recognize him at first…until he spoke. She shuddered when she realized what he had done. Her wail disturbed the wisps and filled the glade that until then had never heard the sound of Wisdom crying.
Lethallin, she said, her edges sharp and jagged and bristling,you never even gave me the chance to change your mind!
He had to use his mouth to speak. It was inconvenient having to articulate that way but over time he realized it afforded him the chance to choose his words carefully.
Benevolence needs me. You understand more than anyone how highly I regard her…
I do…but I did not realize how little you cared for me! Am I not your kin?! Did we not spring to life together?! You are lost in your admiration for her, you forget all others who care for you!
Many centuries and battles won and lost after, he said to Wisdom,It is time.
She refused, even when he pleaded.
It is the best way to prevent our enemies from binding you. I will not see you enslaved, lethallan!
She acceded, but only after Felassan convinced her.
It was all for naught. Not long after, before she entered the lyrium-heavy ritual, his own ritual failed and cast her aside to a new prison where she would forever be separated from the physical world.
Day 100
It became harder every day to remember scents. Good scents.
He remembered Mythal's perfumes, sweet and heady. He could guess the alchemical ingredients. She would wave her hand a little and the scent would fill the space she occupied and linger even after she left, like a ghost haunting its favorite room. It was more fascinating watching the chemicals dance in the air like motes of various colors than it was experiencing it with a physical body, his body, the form he didn't want to take but which she insisted—implored—he should have. Because then, the perfume became sharper and pungent, the mist it left no longer colorful but torturous, and later on, treacherous.
It made him think impure thoughts. He respected Mythal too much for that.
He knew lust as a concept but never truly understood it; it was only until Desire drove his body to madness while wearing Mythal's perfume did he realize how much his regard for her had been twisted.
Jasmine. While remembering Arlathan, memories of another scent penetrated his thoughts, like a salve to his old, aching bones.
Andruil's bed smelled of other e to me, wolfpup, your beloved has given me her blessing…He laid spent on her bed, still blown away and bewildered by all the new sensations Andruil introduced to his corporeal e, wolfpup, she would never give this to you, she loves you too dearly as a friend to sully you with sex!Andruil rode him again, crying loudly as she came. It was faint but he recognized it in the thick soup of smells, passing like a ghost checking in on the wild ruckus: Mythal's perfume.
The physical form has needs,she must learn how to address never thought to question her "blessing." He simply accepted that the arrangement with Andruil made her feel secure knowing she was taking care of his bodily needs. He thought it was because she felt responsible for him; he realized later on it was to keep him close but at an arm's length. She loved him as a friend but thought he loved her as a lover. Having a body deformed her understanding of love, twisting it with lust, defiling him in turn…and all because he promised to follow her wherever she may go. Wherever her quest takes her.
In truth he did not need it from her, this short-lived intimacy that burned and died like embers to ashes; he preferred decades of pining that climax in a complete and shared understanding of a word: that when he sayslove, she would understand exactly, perfectly, what he means, the entirety of his feelings. She never gave it a chance to ripen, however; he worshiped her like a role model, like a leader, like an epitome to follow and a symbol to protect. Centuries more and it would have blossomed into something deeper. It would have made for a better story than this sweaty, tiring exercise. He relished the release but always felt empty and disconnected afterwards.
But it soon became a quick drug, a heady way to ease the shaking of his hands and silence the small inner voice that found fault in his choices. After Andruil, it would always be with a different woman, someone willing, until he tired of the emptiness. Not even Mythal's touch could soothe him. "I worry for you, love," she said, "you have not found a partner yet. Do you tire of coupling as I have?"
Even then he respected her too much to speak his mind. He only said "Yes" in response; it was the only way he could speak the truth without betraying himself.
Because the truth is, he loved her with the innocence and hunger of a parent-less orphan, with the admiration and respect of one master to another, with the gentle regard of a loyal friend. She had sullied it all when she begged him to have a body. He could not bring himself to resent her for it; there was too much at stake at the time. She made it feel like he would lose her if he didn't help her. That he would lose the world as it was if she kept the Evanuris in check on her own. Manipulative, but her intentions were true. In that, at least, he was assured: however she was using him, however he was allowing himself to be used, she was using him for good.
Back at Redcliffe, he sniffed in his cell. Sneezed. When he recovered, he remembered jasmine. How bright and clean that scent was. Dangerous but nourishing in the harshest winters. Evhen'arias…
He thought of jasmine and elfroot and a little elven flower smiling and laughing before he settled into a dreamless sleep.
Day 101
Elgar'nan laughed in his face. Called him her lap dog. Dismissed his warnings.
He didn't care for his words; there was nothing the tyrant could say at that point that would surprise him. But he cared that when it mattered, Mythal echoed the tyrant's words.
And then he realized that must be what a fool looked like: the way she looked victorious at Elgar'nan's side while throwing away her own principles.
He couldn't bring himself to hate her then, not when he had been the exact…same…foolfor her.
Day 199
They had families to go home to. He didn't. It was a deliberate choice. The longer the war waged, the deeper his conviction to stay alone. A good husband and father he would not make. He would betray those roles for the chance to save others. What parent would willingly send other people's children to the slaughter? What friend would willingly betray his friend and stage a rebellion against her? He could not have other roles, other purposes. He had to be alone so he could make the choices that mothers, fathers, siblings, friends and lovers would never make.
He was, as Varric described himself, 'married to the job.' Ineligible because he had devoted himself to a cause.
No, that was not the entire picture. But Wisdom cautioned against becoming too well-acquainted with his oldest regrets lest they cripple him.
There would be no redemption without sacrifice. He did not deserve a family to go home to. Nor would he subject anyone to that life sentence.
He only had one family left that he cared for.
Wisdom—friend and kin. Do you still live, lethallan?
The sky swirled, emerald and grey. The silence was deafening.
Day 299
She had changed. His Rebellion had not been good to her. He warned her of trouble coming, bigger and more important than Fen'Harel's war with the Evanuris.
She listened.
Her presence emboldened him to cast the past millennia aside and offer her his hand once more. It was not too late to change her mind. It was not too late to remedy her mistakes, something he had hoped to achieve with his rebellion.
Alas, she brushed him aside. Reassured him he was wrong about the Evanuris.
He wanted to be proven wrong. Alas, he was not.
That was the last time he saw Mythal alive.
Day 359
At some point his captors would forget to bring him food and water. At some point his captors would realize he was still alive after the others had succumbed to thirst and hunger. They might wish to experiment with his body then.
He would use blood magic if he had to, to escape. He had prohibited its use in his rebellion; he vowed never to misuse life's essence ever again. But this, he would do; he could not afford to hold on to his vows now when he had already lost everything but his body and mind.
He had only been this desperate, once. It led to the birth of the Veil. He wondered what his next desperate move would unleash onto the world.
Day 365
In her company he felt for the first time in millennia like he was Wisdom again, answering endless questions and nurturing her curiosity. It was not always easy; what little she knew was shadows of the truth, or leftover propaganda, or the blind's closest approximation of colors. She had centuries' worth of ignorance and misinformation weighing her down in one place like an anchor.
But she always made his efforts worthwhile, even when he couldn't see it in the moment. It was always gratifying to see her fight her own chains slowly.
She was no mere student that he filled with knowledge, like Benevolence who trusted him wholeheartedly before she claimed the name Mythal. Nor was she like Andruil who questioned everything he said just because she could, and who never let the truth stop her from pursuing her own gratification.
If he ever managed to get out of this prison and survive whatever came next, he would look for the Herald in the Fade. A new spirit must have been born in the Fade at the moment of her death.
But then again…none of this world was real. She was not real. Now she's dead, and he would go on and on living, forever wondering why she shone that way, a gem in the rough.
If they had made their acquaintance in the Fade, or in the time of Arlathan, in the middle of his rebellion…
No, even in that world, she would have still died by his hands, directly or indirectly.
He preferred meeting her the way he did, almost a year now by his poor reckoning of days and weeks, at the temple ruins, when she fully intended to sacrifice herself to save the world that had been cruel and unjust to her kind.
He preferred her company by the fire, in a fight, or on his early morning walks. Fighting in the frontlines or commanding from the back—both had the power to make one feel apart from one's self. One becomes a weapon instead: a blade, a ritual, a strategy. It had been harder to nail down a role he could take to suit her; her wise elder, her teacher? She respected him enough to listen to him, but not enough to take his word for truth; she would insist on learning everything she could until she felt she knew sufficiently enough to make up her own mind. It would be easier if she trusted him unconditionally, but then again if she did, he would not respect her as much. The beauty is in the struggle. That they arrive at the same conclusions most of the time made for a pleasant surprise, and even the ones they continue to disagree with do not chafe as much as they add interesting contrasts to his own thoughts and opinions, making them—and him—sharper.
She wanted him as a friend. And all he ever thought about was keeping his distance.
All because of what his experiences taught him.
And because she wasn't real.
Because shecouldn'tbe real.
And now she is dead.
And he would go on and on living, forever wondering how a quickling managed to shine that way…