I’m so far down this spiral oh my God.
You’re Solas. You’ve had an existence of tragedy and pain and just… awful. So much awful. You’ve been hurt and you’ve hurt. You’ve ended the world. You had to. You never wanted this. You never wanted a body or to leave the Fade or to exist in this way. You wanted to be Wisdom.
Your friend branded you as a slave. She said you aren’t but… Why would she do such a thing? You try not to think about it.
Your friend convinced you to extinguish the magic and spark of an entire race. And you do it. And you’re sick. You’re sick and you can’t get well. But… it was what your friend wanted. And you loved her and… isn’t this how you love people?
She dies. You warned her, you begged her and she still… and they killed her. Her own family killed her. You’re rage. Rage and grief and you have to do something. Vengeance. Her blood calls out for it. And yours does too. The lyrium in your very bones sings for it.
And then it’s all… dead. Gone. Imprisoned. You’re nearly dead yourself. And so you sleep. For so very long, you sleep.
But now you’re walking the in the millennium aftermath of it all. You know you’re becoming something rotten not too long into this fight. Felassan fails. You don’t care about why. You don’t listen to him. Your rage rises up and you strike him.
And you’re truly alone now.
Perhaps you should’ve always been.
So you bear down and while you lack much of your former power… you find you aren’t above acquiring a tool for the job.
This admittedly horrible plan messes all the way up trying to fix what you’ve done and an innocent Dalish woman gets caught in the crossfire, one of the people who whom you’re hoping to return themselves, and now she’s got a piece of the Veil stuck in her hand.
Great. Well. Time to try to fix this enormous mess and refuse to admit that if you go through with your ultimate goal, the whole world’s going to look like this.
And then you start to fall for this woman. Not only is she a firebrand of simple goodness and kindness, she’s quite kind to you. She reaches out to you for wisdom and advice and talks with you, not at you. When you reach back to her, she meets you in the middle and tries her very best to understand. And then she protects you with the flimsy, unstable shield that your own mistake s have branded her with. She protects you in this world that hates elves and mages and apostate elven mages even more.
Your friend is bound and corrupted and she runs off to the Exalted Plains to help them. She weeps at your side as you grieve. She gives you space and then when you come back, she welcomes you with gladness. She tells you if ever you must grieve again, she’d like to be there.
And you clutch her into your arms, and then again, because you suddenly realize your entire being has been yearning to touch and be touched by her for so long. You’ve never experienced anything like this. It’s intoxicating and agony and fire and the very air you need to breathe.
You are tempted to run but… you’d be without her. And you ask her to just sit and talk and she obliges, happily. She enjoys you. This mortal creature who you’ve branded with doom; she enjoys you.
You then start to wonder: has she always been this way? Maybe the Mark’s done something to her? Maybe it’s done something to me too; maybe it’s why I can’t stay away from her. So you ask and she just “mm. No, I’m me.” And you’re so incandescent about this that you shock yourself.
You tell her you’ve not forgotten the kiss. And she smiles like the dawn rising over the mountains. And you try to leave. “It would be kinder in the long run.” But she bids you stay…
You can’t fit her inside your body. But you try. You keep your hands from clawing their way into her clothes and skin but your arms lock around her like they were made to do that, and only that. You want to protect her too. You want to leave it all. You want to be Solas and her to be a simple Dalish woman and to live in the quiet woods with her and dance under the stars.
You get to. At Halamshiral, you draw her into your arms and dance until you forget you have feet and until the music is long abandoned to the sounds of night.
She does something so incredibly stupid at the Well. You want to claw your face off because she’s agreeing to what you did. She’s signing away her freedom… but then she tells you “I’ll use this to help this world as best I can”. And you feel… so seen by a person who can’t possibly see…
You will tell her. You’ll tell her everything. But when you stand in Crestwood, in the ruins of everything you did to get here… you can’t. You panic and you lie in that true way you have so it isn’t a lie but it isn’t what you meant to say. She lets you remove her culture, erase herself from who the people have become. She’s like you now. And oh whatever gods there be, she’s so beautiful that you feel like you could stare into her eyes for eternity… but… what have you done?
You’ve taken from her something she didn’t truly want to give up. You’ve made her change because you wanted her to. You’ve enforced your will on someone you told, you loved them. You’re Solas… you’re not Mythal.
You will not do this to her.
So you do then what you can only conclude is right by her. You break her heart and you break your own and there is somehow a worse pain than anything you’ve suffered before. She’s right there. All you need do it extend a hand, whisper one word. And the awful part, you’re so in love with her. You can’t help but watch her steps and listen for her voice and…
You do. And you get to work. Two years crawl by. And you have your ear out for her still. It’s all part of the plan you tell yourself but you just want to keep a tether there in some form and you know you do.
Seeing her again is like falling on a spear. Shes dying. You knew she would. You knew she’d come too, curious and determined as ever. But you didn’t expect to hear her scream in pain and collapse in front of you. You go to your knees with her. You… you have to kiss her. Just one more. And you save her… you take her arm.
She tells you your love will endure and you could howl in anguish. She still loves you?! After all this? After what you’ve done? You watch the Fade bleed from her body. You ache to gather her up and take her with you. She even asked to go with you. But you know what the Evanuris were in their determined goals… what you’ll be by the time you’re done. Let her remember you as Solas… the apostate mage with stories and paint under his nails, who loved her helplessly.
You will not allow her to become another Felassan.
Eight years pass and while you’re at work, deeply committed, restless in your plans… she isn’t gone from you. Your sleep betrays you and you find yourself watching her. You watch her call out and search for you. You watch yourself, a dream, meet her and touch her and your mind burns with the hunger for just the brush of her hand. You listen to her weep over choices she made that haunt her, and you’re unable to comfort her. You can feel her terror as nightmares assail her, and if you weren’t a wolf in this form, you’d scream. You feel mad when you wake, tortured and raw and you’d run to her… but then you redouble your abstinence. Like opening a vein, you let the urge to drop everything and go find your Dalish heart and put her in your ribs where she belongs and never let her out. The truest horror of it all is she knows you’re there in all this. She can see you. She can see you refusing her, over and over and over. Ignoring her nightmares of being Blighted, ripped apart by Terrors and Shades, staring while she mourns the fallen who she sent to their deaths.
But then it’s all going to happen. Finally. And you don’t even feel energized by it. You simply think of her. You write almost automatically, as if your hand has a mind of its own. You tell her everything you wanted to scream in her dreams. Everything you wanted to in Crestwood.
Varric dies. No. No. You kill Varric.
You use Rook’s blood to make them see him. They loved him. He loved them. It’s… so cruel.
You repeat that to yourself on the steps in Minrathous. You’re barely able to keep your feet, your ribs feel pulped from the dragon’s teeth. Your skin feels hot and wet under your armor. You’re bleeding, so much so that you can taste it in your breath. The Blight burns on your lips. Your eye is blurred over with blood salt and tears.
And out of the night a voice speaks up to you that steals every single ounce of focus from your exhausted mind. You stare at her. She’s coming closer. “I forgive you!” she cries, her face pleading that you listen. She’s unarmed. She knows you killed Varric and she knows you could kill her. She knows you might. You can see it in the way she moves, the way her hands open at her sides as she moves closer.
Felassan’s face swims in your mind.
Please don’t you want to sob. Don’t make me hurt you. I’m a monster; I told you I didn’t want you to see me like this. So you try to explain again. To find some purchase on your own logic as to why this is still something you should do. Something she should allow. You look away, and you almost sigh in relief. She’s too bright; your eyes aren’t worthy of the sight of her anyway. You’ve hurt that woman so many times. And she’s still speaking of forgiveness?! FOR YOU?!
You almost fall to your knees in front of her spirit. You can’t tell what the feeling is. Despair? Fear? Worship? Maybe all of them. But she tells you your sins are hers too. She took you from your home, twisted you… broke you. And you feel something slide off of you that somehow doesn’t make you stand straighter. You’re sick again. You’re collapsing. You’re a ruined wall, the last piece of a derelict castle on a crumbling mountain, and you’re giving way.
“Banal nadas. Ar lath ma, Vhenan.”
Mythal said that she broke you. Your being admits it. You weep, bowed, humbled… but free. You didn’t know you were shackled. But now that the chains are off, you feel it now. The chafed wounds where they’ve been locked for centuries. The sudden lack of weight that leaves you trembling and weak in its absence. You don’t remember them not being there.
But you do remember when you were able to ignore them. You remember how the Dalish woman refused to allow bigotry and hatred stop her from saving the world. You remember how she ran herself ragged for people who didn’t even care if she lived. You remember how she called them innocent.
You decide, or you are finally able to decide, that you want and perhaps have always wanted, to be like her.
So you shed your blood, not that you aren’t bleeding enough already, to ensure you’re bound to the Veil. Your life is its life.
“I will go and seek atonement.” You look into her eyes, as long as you can stand it. You hope she’ll be proud of you for finally being the hero she believed you could be. She looks back… so very beautiful. But no. No you’re not allowed to even think about that marvelous, bright creature like that.
“But you do not have to go alone.”
The touch of her hands makes you want to collapse. One of metal and wood, one of flesh and bone. She gives them both to you. Dumbly, you look at them. You’re touching her. This divine, unearthly thing is smiling at you, speaking to you. Holding your bloody, murderous, betrayer’s hands in hers. Your’s tremble and bleed. Her’s do not.
But what did she say? You don’t have to- No. No, Vhenan. Into that place? Into that prison? To war with madness and agony for eternity? No. You can’t…
“Ar ghilas vir banal.” You feel your heart crack and shatter as you say it. You’ll have to walk away from her again. You’ll have to leave her again. You’ll have to be alone, sundered from even her dreams… it’s what you deserve. And she deserves to be free of you. Finally.
But she just… keeps smiling. Her grip on your hands tightens. With a little shake of her head and a fondness on her face that you can’t begin to even fathom, she sings to you.
“Tel banal ar ama. Vir shiral la ma sa. Bellanaris.”
She comes nearer. Nearer. You wonder what she’s doing and then you realize like a slap to the face that you’re being offered a kiss.
You don’t think. You don’t even try. Your body screams as you bend spine and ribs and shoulder down to her. You’re filthy and bloody. She’s pristine. Gorgeous. She’s everything you aren’t.
She pauses. It’s a breath’s pause, eyes searching yours. And somehow, you know what the question in her’s means. “Do you want this?”
You don’t hesitate. For the first time, you don’t. You close your eyes and let the moment wash over you. Perhaps she’ll change her mind in a little while. But for this one slice of time… you’re going to let this one thing be entirely good.
Her lips are everything your longing has has been good enough to remind you. Soft. Gentle. But also this is… so unlike anything you’ve experienced, even with her. It’s not like even the first kiss in the Fade. It’s so terribly tender that your throat tightens and your eyes burn. She’s so very gentle with you.
So you’re gentle back. You turn the Blight on your lips as far from hers as you can. You don’t yank her against you and bury yourself in her as you’d like to. You rub your thumbs over her knuckles. You caress her cheek with your nose. And when she withdraws with an even more angelic smile on her face than before…
You have to smile too. It’s as if her lips have infected your own.
Rook and Morrigan smile at the two of you. You can almost feel it, like the glow of flame. Warmth. You’ve been so cold for so long. You thank Rook. They smile at you, eyes tender. And your heart smiles at them too as you step toward the Veil. Knowing. Grateful.
Standing alone for a moment feels like standing on the edge of a cliff. You almost lurch forward, considering the decision to leave her. To make her stay. But… no. You lack the strength to rip yourself away from her again. It would be cruel to reject her promise but… if it spared her…
Her hand weighs down on your shoulder. I’m here. Let’s go. Vhenan. You can feel the words, as if touch is enough for her to speak to you. Perhaps after sharing dreams for so long, it’s true. You dare not look at her. You might shove her away.
And then you’re passing into the Fade. And you’re not alone. And you feel her hope burst into a flame of unrepentant, inextinguishable joy. Joy because of you. Joy because you never have to be parted again. Joy that you finally, finally chose her after having chosen you so many times.
You could weep and you do, with how you know you’ve made her feel. But when your feet are upon solid ground again and she is surging toward you with a quiet cry of Vhenan… you catch her. You crush her to you and she laughs, sounding like the younger woman you abandoned, and she kisses you and you kiss her because you can’t bear to do anything else. And there’s no pulling away. Even as your knees give out and your body begins to betray the amount of damage you’ve suffered, you hold each other. Her tears mix with your own and your blood and she’s all you know and all you care about. She’s real and she’s here and she is with you.
Your mind stumbles over a cluster of words that reorganize into something coherent and you almost feel disgusted at them. But then… it’s true. You know it is. If it meant her, if it meant being cradled to her even in a prison made of regret and failure and pain… safe and loved and whole, in a terrible place unmade simply because of the person hiding you in the hollow of her body… It was all worth it.
