@hoboblaidd. [ shoulder ] – for the sender’s muse to place a hand on the receiver’s shoulder to comfort them, or stop them.
The Warden-Commander was in a dark mood.
It may not have been to the degree that others might consider a ‘dark mood’; there had been no stomping or raging, nor an undue shortness at unsuspecting passersby, but it was enough of a shift in her typical demeanor that it garnered whispers nonetheless. Nothing cruel, simply…cold.
With no missions to attend, Nanna had contented herself with staying, not in her room, but the little loft above it whose holed floor had never been repaired, thus leaving it free for her own claim. It was a good place to work. But nothing she’d tried to set her mind to seemed enough to distract her.
It had been like this ever since returning from Redcliffe. She had wanted to help Cole, and had insisted to Inquisitor Lavellan to come along. But as soon as they started delving into the problem, and the source, everything had just… locked up.
It all came back to the Templar.
Lost in her own thoughts, Nanna hadn’t paid as much attention as she should have to the mixture she’d been tending, and the vial started to bubble and smoke from the incorrect amounts colliding.
“Maker’s- shite-” the rolling lit slipped past her practiced accent in a wave of irritation, and with a cry of pique, took the bottle and flung it out of the hole in the wall. In a calmer moment, she might feel ashamed at her lack of self control. Right now, it felt good to chuck something.
“Nanna?”
Frustration bubbled a creaking groan in her throat. Not now.
“Just busy.” The lie came quick and easy, waving him off as his familiar shape climbed the ladder before he could begin his usual barrage of questions. She wasn’t in the mood. “Local supply for the Wardens the Inquisitor sent out need to be tended while I deal with the fallout of Clarel’s mess. Of which partly needs to be diverted to Amaranthine, where I am dealing with the fallout of Fiona’s mess. Clearly, that is what I am here for. Cleaning up everyone else’s messes, because why should that change in ten years?”
Solas hesitated behind her, his arms locking behind him as he did when he was analyzing something critically.
“It has been clear something has bothered you since we returned.” He didn’t specify, but they both knew what he meant. There was concern in his voice, but tension covered it like a worn blanket. Something taut like a bowstring when held in a draw. “And you withdrew yourself from voicing your stance on the matter. You disapprove of the choice?”
“What?” The low disapproval in his voice seemed enough to momentarily jolt her from her agitation, turning to face him incredulously. That his expression was hard from an answer she hadn’t yet given just further soured her. Her expression withered, and turning back to her work. “Do not be ridiculous.”
From behind her, Nanna could hear him loose a slow exhale and some tension seemed to leave the room with it, as though he’d been preparing for an argument.
“But it has something to do with what happened.” That was a statement, not a question. A hand found itself on her shoulder, and for a moment, Nanna felt some of the tension slacken.
“Is he well?”
Solas nodded. “He is adjusting, and settling back to how he should be.”
As a spirit, she remembered him mentioning. That was good enough, then, but it did little to soothe the caged energy still running bolts through her nerves. In a rare moment of distance, she shrugged off his hand.
“Then that is what matters.” Her smile was practiced, a perfect imitation of reassurance. But it was an iron smile, intentionally bent into the right shape, but there was a roughness to the grip in her hands as it continued to grind at the pestil. “Just do not ask me to feel sympathy for the man he had to forgive to be so.”
For Asha, dreams are not respites. They're usually reflections of the past, new angles he couldn't see before in his own flesh, allowing him to puzzle over problems and push pieces until they were solved. A year without dreams and then even less once Solas' presence made them evade sleep just meant that when they did dream-- well. They were a lot. Asha had unfortunately found a comfortable place in the Crossroads, lounging in tree branches and listening to the market not far away, and had been found by sleep so quickly they hadn't even realized it. The chaotic scene that unfurls is commonplace enough for them, but maybe not the other dragged into the dream with them.
The dream starts in-between caravans. There's people yelling, bodies moving, and bright colors swirled with the mud and dust of travel. There's gaggles of people moving all about, carrying boxes or supplies, or carrying each other. Some are dressed for labor, working on erecting the Big Top and the other tents. Some are dressed for practice, walking past on their hands or practicing smaller tricks as they moved. A former Harlequin limps past, their mask emblazoned with the Ringmaster's design, tweaked to hold a semblance of their past glory-- a glory stolen with their leg. A qunari with both horns cut far too short brushes past the interloper, leaving an opening in a crowd. An opening taken advantage of as an elf with docked ears darts up, the half mask on her face also marked with the Ringmaster's design, but also overlaid with... more. The mask is made of leather, odd for most Orlesian masks, and extends past her face. The leather cups around her scarred ears, carefully cut and shaped to look like cupped, purple frills, adding whimsy to the horror of what had been done to her hearing. "Monsieur! Come come." She's grabbing the interloper, leading him through the crowd to a brightly painted caravan, and pulling him inside.
Inside the scene changes some, obviously still influenced by the troupe, but blurring the lines. The inside is far too large, cluttered with costumes and weapons, but also more familiar uniforms. One of Neve's prosthetics if laid across a desk, (one of the ones with magnifying glasses fixed to it that Asha had quickly claimed from the Lighthouse) the top opened up and new leather pads waiting to be sewn in lying next to it. Next to it is more leather work; the bases of masks that still needed to be completed. The epicenter of the 'controlled' chaos is on the floor, next to one of the murals in the Lighthouse, even as they paint masks obviously meant for the troupe. Open pots of paint surround them, with somewhat neatly lined up brushes resting on an oil cloth between their uses. The interloper's presence is acknowledged once a fine line is finished, the hunched elf straightening their back and mismatched eyes falling on Solas without a conscious hint of recognition. Leave it to a dream to obfuscate the obvious inconsistencies.
"Are you here for your mask? Might be a bit." They gesture at the masks circling them, grinning or scowling back at them, with a flick of a paint stained hand. "If you find a place to sit, feel free." They're turning back to the mask in hand, pausing as they stare at it, then at the mural. The mural is one of Solas', celebrating what was probably a holiday or some type of play? Asha wasn't sure consciously and so the line blurs even more here. The mask in their hand is borrowing themes from the mural, but the layers on the mask speak of how many times Asha has painted over their work again and again. The other masks surrounding them represent their comrades and memories-- some theirs and some not. "Do you know what group you will be joining?" There is still no recognition as Asha glances at him, then back to the mask in hand. They lick the tip of their brush into a fine point and start working on details again. "I may have a spare to tide you over until I can get yours done."
@hoboblaidd. ❝ i could go where you’re going. i could keep you company. ❞
Despite the branch being so narrow, it seemed to hardly move as the figure above shifted their stance on it. There was only the slightest rustle of the tree’s acknowledgement of their weight, with only the soft scraping of bark against their bare feet . She spoke, but not in response to him; an idle murmur mixed in quiet accord with the whisper of wind that moved the tree more than she did. Whatever was said between them, no one could say, but a new insect suddenly began winding its long body around the branch above.
A dim light broke through the shadows of the leaves as Ghilan’nain considered him, head cocking so far to one side that it sent the wavy tumble of her white hair spilling into the leaves. Watching as Wisdom trailed Curiosity from beneath the winding branches, his auburn hair a trail for their eyes to follow against the shifting green of the summer wood.
He was.... a curious one, this follower of Mythal.
Sufficiently distracted from her creatures, Ghilan’nain let themselves slip like rain between the branches till their feet planted firmly on the ground right before this follower of Mythal. She leaned in, their heavy eyes fixed on his reaction.
“Do you like the sea?” she asked, unprompted. And wordlessly turning on the ball of her foot, fled into the trees toward the shore.
She had lost many a curious soul this way, natures and bodies too grounded in the immutability of this form to follow the freeflowing river of their interest. But he had asked to go where she would, had he not? And a scout of Andruil was intrigued by nothing if not a pursuit.
There is too much movement around him. There is a hand in his, and it’s all overwhelming. He squeezes that hand, and a sharp voice clears that noise. He finds himself in too much pain, gasping, but it is air. Is it air in his lungs? Lung? He’s not sure and not sure if he can ask, as his voice is rough and claimed by disuse, and he is a kind of weak he’s only ever written about.
But there is air in his lungs, and perhaps he is not a regret after all. His hand curls into the quilt, one of the few things in this room he recognises other than the face at his bedside; no, there are fragments of life in this room, soothingly so, like the scratching of quill against parchment or the crack of an open fire. It allows him peace, peace enough until a healer comes and rips him wide at the seams and sticks him in all the uncomfortable and painful ways.
It’s exhausting, and the edges of darkness find him before he can fully complain or explain his misery and his apologies. The blotting of sleep claims him slowly, settling behind his eyes rather than an ache in his bones. So it’s sleep that finds him before his voice, a hand still in his, a story still ongoing and the voices of the world ( a bar maybe? ) below them. It’s soothing, and the world does not bleed into a true dark to find a distant memory; rather, it bleeds in a world of technicolour hues he only sees in the day, and it is not the foggy haze over a memory.
It is clear, it is familiar and a tavern long ago. But the place is full of friends, some who have never met - some who would never meet. So, for a flash, he wonders, maybe he was a regret after all of this, the last dying flame of his soul summoning those who had gone before him and those who would never walk the long march. Then there are two, a laugh that cuts through him like a knife and the other like a bell - two sounds together he never thought he would hear again, and he knows he must be dreaming.
He has to be dreaming.
High water has not claimed him, nor wound or world; he has not drowned, he has not starved. But they are there and talking. There are others, just as surprising - the laughter of children who should be far from here, friends long lost to fade or madness, a brother well and whole.
It’s a dream, it’s a dream. It’s repeated until it’s cemented in his mind as Bartrand claps him on the back, reminding him to lighten up.
He’s dreaming.
He’s dreaming.
Everything is too vivid, much like the words someone would summon on a long trip, and Varric summons his own will. Pushing past the crowd and cutting into the middle, the inner circle awaits. That bell of laughter and that dry wit is heard again, a sharp laugh and giggles softer and full of wonder, Hawke’s voice, his mother’s perfume…the smell of hot metal as it comes out of the fire.
When he pushes through and into the circle - it’s not that, and the world does shift again; it’s not sawdust on the floor, not a room full of people - it is a rotunda and a desk, plaster on walls, wet lime and freshly pressed ocher mixed with oil. This place is more than familiar. It is quiet, and he finds himself at the desk quickly enough, pulling out the bottom drawer and finding it still locked.
Even in dreams, locks.
Why not?
It’s easy enough to open, as he finds his hands still work and the lock pops.
“You could have asked.”
“More fun this way.” Varric posits, pulling the drawer open. There are no papers to pilfer through; rather, he’s after the bottle and glasses left at the bottom. “You think in dreams the bottle would at least be full.”
“That is not how it always works.”
The bottle of amber something is fished out and thunks against the desk. He leaves the glasses and stands, nudging the desk closed with a booted foot. Eyes narrow on him, and he shrugs. “Must you do that?” Solas asks, Varric has heard those words before, as he’s done this before - years ago.
“No, but I will.” It’s not a proper reply by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, he’s already made himself busy with the decanter of amber swill. “Besides, it’s a dream.”
“So it seems.”
“Lighten up, Chuckles; it’s like you’ve seen a ghost.” Varric punctuates the statement with taking a swig of the liquid. It’s warm, tastes like cinnamon and has hints of oak. He’s never asked where it comes from, and he’s sure he’ll never get a straight answer. The glass is offered with a flourish, a gentle shake before offering it across the divide. There is that hesitation, as if the elf is still sizing him up.
But Solas takes it, taking a swig himself before he speaks, “Haven’t I?”
“Depends on how you interpret a ghost, Solas.” Varric shrugs and falls against the chair in the rotunda, eyes drawn up, and he’s met with the empty cages, once filled with all of Leliana’s birds. “Did they ever shit on your work?” He says it as Solas tips the decanter to his lips, timed intentionally.
“I beg your pardon, Varric?” It’s sputtered, and Varric laughs, a full laugh, one drawn out of him like when a bad hand is intentionally played, when a job goes well, when a joke lands somewhere over a fire, like when he is home and warm.
“Nightingale’s birds. Dorian said they would peck his papers; I never asked you.” It’s a dumb thing to ask in the scheme of things; there is plenty to say and plenty to be sour about over a missed life and missed chance to help.
“Of all the things to ask?”
“You asked about my views on humans and dwarves, answer the question about shit.”
“Why do you think I would tarp the floors?” That pulls a laugh from Varric, one that causes him to slap his knee, and the conversation flows, like whatever noxious mixture they face fished up out of his memory, their memory, whoever’s memory. They pass that bottle again, and Varric swears the level never drops - even if his memory warms and things become hazy. There is ink on parchment, and the colour finds the walls; two things left undone begin again in that rotunda as they continue to prattle, aimlessly as it always was before.
But the ink blots on his paper and falls like blood from a wound, and it pools there like the anger in the pit of his stomach. “Hey, Chuckles?”
“Yes, Varric?”
“Do you realise how much you missed?”
“I’m not sure what you’re implying by that; there are spans of time I have—”
“Not that, too cerebral. I’m asking about something more tangible. The lives you entwined over the years - I knew you - do you know how much you missed, even of my life?” It does not rip out of him, not like thunder or the rage he once knew to bubble in his belly when he dared to call Skyhold his home. “Do you even know me anymore?”
There is a timing to frescos, and Varric is cutting in front of it, forcing his time to talk, forcing a hand he never got to play, stealing the cards Solas always had tucked in his damned sweater. The words are drying the plaster, and Varric can watch the elf grapple with each word as if they are the very valleys and hills etched into wet lime that crave colour. So pen taps paper again, another blot of ink - another word on the page.
Another silent moment. “Rook’s a good kid, not the first one I’ve taken in. Did you know that?”
More silence; it’s not surprising it’s a dream after all, a fucking dream of all things.
“Varric, if you are looking for something…”
That causes a dark laugh to rip out of him, one that he has not heard come out of him in some time, a decade - two? So anger ripples through him like a stone against a still pond. “I was, I did, for ten years, hoping that somehow - some way I could get anything through your skull. I have children, Solas, and a family. Did you ever consider the people around you the people that held you dear? Even if just for a moment?”
Of course not - it’s just a dream after all - just his body and mind reacting to something he helped undo. It's just another time he’s released another evil onto this world. So he pulls himself from the chair, leaving ink on parchment and the man standing there in his thoughts in the endless well of their own regrets. He moves through them, leaving the elf behind. There’s a door, the door to the great hall - where it is warm and his work awaits if his memory serves him well, “Don’t answer; you’re just a dream after all.”
“Varric.”
“Naw.” He replies, and the knob turns in his hand. “Stew in it.” After all, they are both men just trying to get home, which angers him more.
yes the solas breaking out of prison & no longer being in her head wasn't a mutual thing, but that doesn't stop my goodbye from epic from giving me inspiration for this short lived era
so i know there's a lot of comparisons made between the player characters of all of the da games but i've just mostly taken interest in the parallels between solas & sidri & the eventual difference between them that i think leads to solas have a story that's largely defined by regret and sidri with a story focused on peace. while i could go on about the numerous and (i think anyway) narratively rich parallels going to choose to go on about that primary difference that becomes so important: solas decides to change the essence of who he is for love and sidri decides to maintains the essence of who she is for love.
solas, as a spirit of wisdom, is noted as being gentle. there is nothing about him during as existence as a spirit that would ever hint at the dread wolf, at the desperate and viciously determined solas we see throughout all of veilguard and its many flashbacks. at mythal's request and out of love, solas makes the decision to alter the very core of his essence and take on a physical form. to be clear, solas wholly has his own agency and makes the many decisions that we see in flashbacks and as are revealed throughout veilguard, but there's no denying he is coaxed along by mythal to overlook his hesitations, worry and outright disapproval over the many actions he decides to take part in. the solas we see at the end of veilguard, to me anyway, feels recognizable from that gentle spirit: hardened by war, brutal if needed, and undoubtly driven by the profound, aching regret of countless centuries. solas changes because of and for love, for mythal, in a way that breaks him from that core he once was.
sidri, at her core, is gentle. to be clear, gentleness doesn't equal naivete as often as this site and fandom generally wants it to be, but this to say she doesn't want power or glory. her primary desire that guides her actions throughout the first quarter of inquisition is a revenge born out of fury for her brother as well as the goal of creating some sort of justice in an inherently inequitable world. however, instead of losing herself to that and losing herself to the endless brutal, miserable choices required of war like solas did, @extravagantliar reminds her time & time that she's more than her title. he reminds her to consider her own thoughts, her own feelings, time and time again when she begins to lose herself to the inquisition. she takes the first steps towards the well and is fully ready to change irreparably change herself because she thinks its not a unfair trade, just who she is for the knowledge needed to end this war, but it's varric who takes her wrist and begs her not to do it, that she as herself, not as the inquisitor, is worth saving and preserving. sidri is reminded of who she is at her core because of love and does change because of it, for varric.
i just think that dragon age, over and over again, shows that when you fundamentally alter the essence of something you irreparably wound it, that when you rip something from its core you break it in a way that is almost always beyond repair. sidri makes the choice to preserve herself and recognize that there's something beyond the inquisition and being the herald of andraste because of and for love. her life becomes defined by the decision to seek peace over power. for solas, he makes the decision to change himself for love and makes so many choices that go against his true nature in furtherance of an end. poor solas then has a narrative all but wholly marked with regret and the desperation to undo those very many mistakes and there's just a quiet, aching tragedy to that and him because of it.
The uncomfortable air of whisper and gossip following Harlan since his strategic exposure as a Crow turns into a quiet buzz much easier to ignore just as soon as the novelty wears off. The distrust that remains is reasonable in a place like Skyhold, filled to the brim with all sorts of hidden motives, so it's hard to be offended when assigned with seemingly random tasks while they're not in the field. Harlan knows this dance well, so he politely ignores being tested, minding his own business while his hands are carefully watched.
That's how he finds himself facing Solas in his study. A polite greeting is issued, purposefully nodding like a humble servant before explaining, “ I've been told to help you in anything you need. ” Harlan glances around. Whatever strange feeling he feels, he consciously pushes it to the strange artifacts of this room. “ In case you haven't requested it yourself or have no need for someone's presence, feel free to dismiss me. You seem quite busy. I will find something productive to do myself. ”
❝ there's one thing i know in my bones. there is no force in this world that can control you. ❞ - dealer’s choice
arcane season 2 // @hoboblaidd // accepting
There is much that we have forgotten. I have come to accept that, one way or another, we - the dalish - are not the last of the elvhenan. How could we ever be if such a place (A place for Our People) was broken so long ago? I think a lot about something I was told, upon first discovering that some of the People still walked and protected those same spaces that we had tried so hard to recover.
They never sought us out, they knew were lived in forests and in Clans and yet simply watched on, thinking of us like Shadows wearing vallas'lin. Shattered pieces of a past that had once been their present.
Despite the oath at the Dales, the reality is that whatever empire the elvhen once had - it is not something we can recover; nor should we. I have had enough time to think about it and, truthfully, while I believe the vallas'lin no longer carry the meaning of old, if I were to be asked once more, I wouldn't be able to carry it, to keep it. Not after learning what I have. It is an uphill battle that every dalish person will have to reckon with: to preserve the past and poison the future, to remember what has happened with nuance of knowing how fickle memory can be.
Or perhaps, to allow ourselves the nuance and the grace that comes from change. In the end, however, it should still be each of that Dalish person's choice: To keep it with its changed, new meaning, with a shameful past but a brighter life. Or to leave it behind and allow memory to destroy it too.
The Vallas'lin were markings with which the Evanuris branded their slaves, both high and low. But they are no longer. The Evanuris are dead and we are not.
"You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you."
She had said, almost in disbelief when he had spoken almost as if he had seriously been considering leaving. This new title, Inquisitor, still felt like a fresh wound against her. Raw and impossibly larger than any life that Asharen had ever known. Solas was the only person that had seemingly cared whether she lived or died regardless of the anchor in her hand. However, this much she knew, understood: Cassandra, Leliana and Cullen, they listened to her. She wasn't sure how far she could push it.
But three humans, non mages, listened.
"How would you stop them?" she hears him ask and his eyes are on her.
Her brows arch as if she doesn't understand the question. And perhaps she doesn't. How did you defend the younger ones of the clan when you knew templars were marching in the surrounding clan areas? He was bare faced, but so were many in Antiva City, many that had come to her defense too.
"However I had to."
The First Inquisitor of the Chantry's Inquisition was a dalish elf - a mage - who worked alongside humans in Orlais. He died holding another world shattering threat, hoping that would keep the dales safe. It didn't.
It should not surprise me how frequently history repeats itself and yet we stand at the closing of another cycle: I too am dalish, a mage and Inquisitor during the fight against Corypheus. It does not escape my thoughts that this too is likely to be my fate. Even as I write these in the hopes of clearing my mind, I know that one way or another they will likely find themselves in hands that are not mine.
While I know that is outside of my control, my wishes, I instead find myself hoping that while it will be the interest of my title (and, hopefully, name) which will draw eyes to the writing, that it will be its contents and the History within that will keep it being repeated and passed on.
Those who hold the records of History, true or not, are the same that will control the new path the Dalish will take moving forward. The Oath of the Dales has promised that we shall never submit again. We are more than our aravels, our halla, our arlathven. We are more than our oath. We are more than our loss, our grief.
Do not forget the lessons of old, but do not allow them to destroy the joys of the present.
