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A Far Better Fate

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Solas is many things. An elf, a spirit, a liar, a god, and a slave. But what is he behind the masks? Could he be more the summation of his lies… or will he forever languish and suffer—alone—fulfilling the orders of others and destroying himself, and the world along with him?

[Part write-a-long, part re-write. A Solas x Lavellan Inquisitor story from Solas’s POV.]

AO3

Tags: Spoilers for DA:I and VG, soft smut, hurt/comfort, eventual happy ending, ending fix

WC: 15k

…

Guilt

…

Slave marks, all over her beautiful face.

That’s what Solas thought when he saw his Lady Lavellan the first time. He didn’t even know her name in that moment, but he knew she was Dalish.

He couldn’t help but sneer to himself, and think what a despicable thing to do to a young woman. They marred this fresh soul by putting these brands on her precious skin. Like she was chattel. Those stupid children were lining up to make themselves enslaved, and were lucky that those who would take advantage of that were long asleep.

He’d never imagined there would be a time when elves would uptake their own oppression with such eagerness. He hated this world and what it had become on nearly every conceivable level.

While the elvish woman who would soon be known by many names struggled to hold onto life in that time between the Conclave exploding and the first attempt to heal the Breach, he nursed her, prayed for her life, and cursed the Dalish more than any other people.

It was easier to rest his upset on their shoulders than direct his ire towards what truly troubled him, since there was nothing his anger could do to fix this blasted situation.

That said, he had a real reason to be irate.

The plan had backfired.

Solas was aware that in order to activate the orb he’d given the ancient Magister, it would need a worthy blood sacrifice. The act of killing would both empower the device and cause the necessary path to open between it and the fade so the power it held within could be unleased. Now, such an ancient and powerful magical item was fickle and it desired the highest kind of human offering.

It needed a person of virgin attitude, chaste and who took the same pride in their body as one does a temple. They would need to be of nobleness, in both character and blood, and well regarded by most persons they knew. Someone who carried significant communal authority. Such an orb craved goodness, and to feast on the grief of those who would pour their thoughts into the void where once a beloved person once stood.

This was a wretched toll, but one Solas would pay in order to receive the blessings it promised. He found a suitable target, and a weapon to set against her, and put the events that led up to the explosion of the Conclave into motion.

His plan in the aftermath? To do what his mistress desired all those eons ago, and reset this begotten world by cutting the curtain of the Veil down once and for all. This would end things, in a sense, and begin a new era where spirits and mortals would walk together. In such a world, magic would flow through minds as it did in the ancient days and order between man, spirit, and nature would once again be rebalanced.

This fate he dreamed of, it had been the mission given to him by his master eons ago. Finally, he found himself in the position to make strides towards their desired destiny.

What he did not know, was that the binding of the Anchor would cause this much collateral damage.

If he’d known… well, it was too late now to tweak his plan. Something must have gone very, very wrong indeed, because all things were not as they should have been. He was not the one to receive the gift of its power as he was supposed to. Nor had Corypheus, who’d been tasked with completing the opening ritual.

This woman he now tended to must have interrupted the proceedings, which also irritated Solas to some degree. Didn’t that mad man know how important this operation was? How could someone be allowed so close to the ritual, at such a delicate time?

Perhaps, Solas should have considered that a man who attempted to storm the Golden City would not be reasonable once he was risen up into a blighted second life and been given the means to once again attempt to claim the creator’s throne.

Summoning Corypheus was the closest Solas had ever come to doing blood magic and he’d given the Magister specific orders before setting him out into the world. It was all for naught. The binding spells he used were not tight enough. It seemed like whatever he demanded became half-forgotten urges, and now the ultimate darkspawn was running free and there was so much more mess to clean up in his wake.

Ultimately, his plan had not just back fired. It had failed.

The mark that was supposed to be his seemed to taunt him as it flickered and glowed as it finished imprinting itself on this elf’s flesh instead of his. She had to live or they were all damned. This much he was sure of, even as her brow sweat and she did not seem like she would make it through the evening.

Then the Breach began to get worse. In his weakened state, he knew there was nothing he could do to stop the Fade from ripping open right then and there should it become any more unstable.

One would think this would suit his purposes fine, but it did not. Should the fade attempt to overrun this world with the veil still risen, it would cause the demonification of all beings. This was not his desired outcome. He wanted spirits to be free, and by birthing themselves through the Veil they would only be held captive to their vices instead of liberated.

It was a waste of an opportunity though, he thought. The veil pierced, and he could in no way take advantage. Only one person had the skill to stabilize the fissure now, and she lay mostly dead and sleeping restlessly.

Eventually the dark haired and stern Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast became so desperate to save her men, and this town, that he and the other prisoner (a red-headed dwarf rogue by the name of Varric) were sent out to fight in the madness. He went without argument, curious to see if he even needed the anchor now that the fade and already began splitting. Quite confident he wouldn’t, he set out with Varric and faced the demons spilling forth from the sky.

They ascended high into the Frostback mountains.

When they did, he faced the rip and used all his focus to attempt to close it. Nothing worked. It did not matter what he chanted, or how he approached the green tear in the air, it would not bend to his will. The only thing it did was weep more furious spirits into this world. After he realized this, avoiding his own premature demise had to be his tantamount priority.

They wouldn’t have lasted forever. The demons could spawn endlessly, as the hungrier spirits were attracted to these breaks, that on the other side of the veil must have appeared like wells, spilling the water of creation into their dead realm. Certain spirits, most of them really, were starving for energy. So hungry they were, it drove them to madness and turned them into these violent things.

Again, he thought as he slayed them, more wasted life.

Hours were spent on that mountain pass, defending themselves from the horde before there was a break in the fighting. Then he saw her, the marked one, in the waking living world.

It was as if a tool had finally been properly delivered to him. He stepped up to her without much pomp, then thrust her hand into the rip and made the mark do as it was made to. It didn’t matter who was attached to the Anchor, after all. If one bore the mark, they could contort the Fade. All she needed was the proper prompting to utilize that skill.

Legends that led him to seek this power said the feeling of the Veil was one no one would—or could—forget. After this first fissure, she would be able to use the mark on her own with little issue. This would soon be proven true.

After the demons were felled and the rift closed, she turned her eyes to him. They were searching for answers to questions she didn’t even know to ask. Like a doeish spirit of curiosity, she looked to him for help.

Solas was many things to this world. He was once just a spirit, then made a tool, then turned into himself, then turned into a parody. He was remembered still as the Dread Wolf, god of liars and betrayal.

This was a role he had grasped to make Solas the elvish mage, and he wore the face well of a wise even-tempered man of her race. There was probably no one better suited to stand before her right in this moment, as a figure of leadership or companionship. Whichever she preferred. If she wanted answers, he would be there to give them in due time, and they would all lead her down the due path.

If she bore the mark, he would need to be close to her. He would find that her openness and trustworthiness would be very… useful… aspects of her personality.

He told her a truth and a lie in those first moments of meeting, while they were still standing in the dissipating green haze. At the very least, he was not as forthright as he could have been in that moment. He didn’t say one way or another, but he knew exactly what it was on her hand. He even knew how it must have been bestowed, though the exact particulars of the leading events were not in his awareness.

He didn’t need to know to know. And he also didn’t need to know to know that it certainly wasn’t Andraste walking her through the Fade and giving her power over the Veil. He had, in some roundabout way, done it. Though human religion taking credit for some part of this disaster would make a very good cover. Indeed, he couldn’t have asked for better.

He could have sighed to himself. All of this was getting complicated.

What a troublesome turn of events, though it was no matter, his goals remained unchanged. He would be the one to merge this world and the Fade, one way or another. It just seemed as if fate had picked him the vessel to purse that goal from, rather than the viceroy he decided with his own hand. She would do. She would have to.

As she thanked him for both tending to her and helping her understand her new power, he felt no guilt for lying. He was deceiving all of them, and his heart was not to be swayed by these mortals at this stage.

No, the shame of guilt did not come until much later.

…

Interest

…

There was an unexpected kind of magic in being a small piece of an organization that grew as honorable and large as the Inquisition quickly did. Despite himself, he found himself drawn quickly into the romance of being a dashing hero on the frontlines of many grand battles. To be like one of the many he’d witnessed in the fade memories of past, the thrill of actually making that history in a mortal material way was very enticing, he had to admit.

He decided to stay with them at first for a pragmatic reason. The mark that was supposed to be on his chosen hero was now attached to another body, and where the Anchor was, he would stay. At least, he would do so for the time being.

The Breach in the sky was also worrisome, and certainly not a part of his grander plans. That would need to be dealt with before anything else.

He and the newly formed Inquisition could agree on that.

All to be said, being in the Inquisition was a completely rational decision based on both his ability to use this camp as a place to gather intel and as a shield of sorts. Staying became less a chore as his eyes set on the holder of the Anchor, however.

That is, the dalish Lady Lavellan, who became something of a fixation. She was pretty and dangerous, and moralistic in a way that always caught him off guard. Who else had he ever met who was so intent on helping everyone? There was no one else alive who was so faithful to always seeking the best path, with the most benefit to all.

Even if it was to fit her own definition of “better” her vision for it was stronger than any other in the encampment. He found it an admirable trait.

And she was so, so curious. That was one feature of hers he noticed right away, and it was a part of her personality which only grew more appealing to him each time they spoke. She was so open about everything he spoke of, even if she didn’t always agree with him (like their small dispute on blood magic), that it made speaking with her worthwhile.

Initially, he kept all his talk of the fade and the spirits he’d known, and the things he seen, to a more academic level. He explained the how’s and the what’s but not really the why’s and whatever feelings he’d had spawned from witnessing all that he had. Dry as he tried to be, this never lessoned her interest, and he found himself saying more and more, instead of less.

She had a focus in conversation that matched her attitude in battle. He’d never met someone as indomitable as she was. He’d almost call it prideful, should she appear to covet power and fame, but she did not. She was simply one person who never stopped putting one foot after another, never lost sight of the unseen goal over the horizon, and never took for granted a moment of life.

Such eyes set on his person made him feel oddly revealed. Thankfully she was so trusting, for she saw though him constantly, but never thought to lift the curtain of his lies and reveal his true personage. It was a dangerous game he played being near her, yet he found it very exciting.

Then, especially after the collapse of Haven, he found himself telling her more stories. Stories that sparked a bright shine of amazement in her eyes, and made her eager to hear more adventures. Those sorts about the long distant past, the fables of recent memories, and tales of him and his friends in the Fade who he still considered with affection.

Anything he said seemed to spawn a thousand questions and she listened always to the answers with such an earnesty, that his heart couldn’t help but be swayed to like her. She did nothing to flatter him in a way that made her interest seem forced or like what tied them together was the shape of their ears and a fragmented way of life he didn’t believe in.

It was a sweet, innocent relationship and a fair bit intoxicating.

Yet, he troubled himself, because he had a feeling he would not be so keen on her person if she was not lethallan. This bothered him. Not that he would have refrained from growing to respect the spirit she had if it had this same personality but a different body. It would be impossible not to grow an admiration for such person.

That did not change the fact that she was not Qunari or Human or one of the stone children. Nor did it change the fact that she did not know who he really was, or what he wanted, and if she did, she would likely mark him a villain.

Of course, this was not the case. In reality, she was an elf and she knew only his goodness, which left her vulnerable to being very soft to him. Yes, if she looked different he would not want her in this same way, and yet she was what she was, and he did (which all the time caught him off guard.)

They were talking now. It was a nice distraction; her conversation always was. Though he often did most of the speaking, she was here now instead discussing freely with him.

She was talking about the Inquisition and its problems. He found out that he was a person she could come to about things, as he would listen without expectation. He would not offer endless solutions or cower at the thought that the Herald and her leadership were not completely infallible or unwavering.

Since he’d help lead the Inquisition’s way to Skyhold, she often came to him after trapsing off to some war-torn place, wishing to relax in his company while she drank tea that he (politely) always refused his own serving of. It was an amusing habit, that he’s grown to appreciate as it gives him an interior look into her mind, and the direction of the Inquisition without himself needing to pry much.

Is he taking advantage of her comfort with him? Perhaps. But in the end they both benefit, so he sees little wrong with the arrangement.

He was in the middle of listening just then, staring at her talk. They were out in a quiet part of the garden, where she had to speak low, but was more free to be open with her language than they could be should they be in his study in the tower, with the mages and spies always leering from above.

She’s upset that they have to attend this event for the Empress more than anything, it sounds like. As much as she wants to prevent the future she supposedly saw in Redcliffe, the pageantry of Orlais goes against her principles and manner in a way makes doing the duty of going undesirable.

The Inquisitor is a pretty woman, but she is not posh in any sense of the word, like Vivenne or Josephine. She is from the country, hailing from a tribe of herding wanderers. The idea of all this formality makes her uncomfortable, and he understands why.

For all he looked down the Dalish and their failures, she was proudly a representative of her people and he had to respect her for it. Her people, however, were outdoorsy and insular. Their problems derived mostly from survival, and political issues were often also family issues. When they wore fancy clothes, it was furs and garments passed down through generations and imbued with ancestral magic. These were outfits of war, often repurposed, and not made of silk or velveteen.

The dramas she faced mostly dealt with seasonal changes and the squabbling of tribe’s people that never truly threatened the status quo. Such conflict was of a different character than the kind that could be found at a court in Orlais, with its extreme diversity and wide scope. Not to mention the far reaching, and often deadly, consequences of their politicking.

He and she did not often argue. However, their biggest disagreements come from the fact that her mind sees problems in a very straight forward manner because of this upbringing.

Where he sees a situation and becomes aware of all things in it as separate facts and logics that may be in disagreement with each other and himself, she only sees enemies or allies. Alliances or conflicts. She was so intelligent and thoughtful, despite the way she was raised, he had to believe this stilted way of thinking came from her upbringing and he hoped she would grow past it.

Even if she did not, such a rigid mindset was not well suited for court, where enemies and allies often quickly shifted form and position.

This he thought about while she’s ranting about her distaste for politics, looking all too simple and adorable, like a freshly bloomed flower bouncing in the wind. Even irate, she is pleasant, and he wants nothing more than to touch her in that moment.

He’s reaching out before he can rationalize that urge.

His thumb traces down the swell of her cheek, then he pinches her chin in a playful fond way. How wrong it is, in a sense, to want her. She does not know what he is really, or how his spirit towers over hers, or even something as petty (in his eyes) of the many centuries of conscious life he as over her own scarce few decades.

The only thing that ruins the moment are those damn marks on her face… He can’t believe them still, even if they are now a familiar smear on her otherwise pleasing person.

“What are you doing that for?” She asks, open, curious, and pliant as he turns her head his way.

At one point, before Haven fell, he’d called her indominable. He really did believe it, still did. And yet, as he’d said that, he’d wondered what it would be like to see her submit. This was just a wick of that power, he realized, and it was all too sweet to have just a taste. It made the tips of his fingers almost burn with a sense of unfamiliar power threaded with desire.

For this mage, who could make her icy fury known at any unwanted touch, did nothing as he grasped her in a random and intimate manner and turned her to face him.

“Solas?” She prompts, when he doesn’t immediately explain.

“You seemed anxious, I just wanted your focus.” He lies through a non-apology, though he doesn’t let go. “If you like, I’ll join you at the Winter Palace.”

“With how they treat us?” She rolled her eyes, and launches back into her complaints despite the fact he’s still holding her. “They’ll probably say horrible things about ‘our kind’ all night.” She scoffed, “It’ll be bad enough that I have to go, let alone if we bring along you or Sera or Bull. These people know nothing of real strength and they don’t care to. It’s foul.”

“I know. And I do not care.” He tells her, and she softens a little.

He doesn’t even disagree with her here, not really. They will be an unfortunate group of people to be around, but he has a soft spot for politics and legends of intrigue. There is a particular kind of energy to these things that is always at least intriguing. She’s never even really been to anything like the Winter Palace before, not when it was full of people and lively with intrigue instead of an empty ruin.

Who knows? She might end up liking it. If she does, he’d love to see such a transformation take place before his eyes. Not to mention, the night is sure to be memorable either way.

“Would you come?” She bids, “If you are there, I feel as if I might be able to walk with more confidence, as I will know there is at least one soul in attendance who would be completely on my side.”

“You don’t think your advisors are on your side?”

She shook her head, “I do. But I also believe that they are on the Inquisition’s side.” And those words insinuate something that is more precious to his ears than it should be. Petty as it is, he does have a desire to be favored, especially by her.

And so in return, he says something he probably shouldn’t, even if he means it. Something unfortunately honest. “My lady, even if you think I am gone far from you one day, I will always be at your side in fellowship.”

“I…” she looked surprised but very grateful, “I appreciate that. I’m aware that I don’t always make decisions you like.”

“Who does?” He joked, “In fact, I don’t even make decisions I always like.”

This earned her giggle, a pleasant, uncommon sound on the air, though what he said was true and he meant it seriously. In the aftermath, he let her go, admiring her bashful glance his way as he does.

He can’t help but wonder what that that look means. It leaves a heat on the air, as if she wouldn’t mind if he’d done more…

…

Desire

…

She kissed him. It might have been done in the Fade but with the solidity of her inner world it might as well have been done in reality. He was left in a jittery state of excitement, even as his mind returned to his body. His fingers traced over his lips and he stayed laying down longer than he’d intended to.

She’d kissed him.

He’d only took her to the fade to talk, to perhaps probe her mind and mystify her a bit more. In her mind, he could impress on her exactly the kind of appearance he wanted her to have of him. Firstly, a consoler. Secondarily, someone who had been by her when she was weak and still a non-entity to the world. There would be no doubt that she should trust him in the aftermath of this vision.

That was his plan, anyway.

It started off well enough. But he did not expect her gratitude or her playfulness or how real everything would feel in the beyond. He’d thought it would feel less intense being in her orbit if he walked beside her in her mind where he’d always felt more at home, not more. How wrong he had been.

He remembered the feel of her hand in his that first time he’d reached to her, and used the Anchor to pinch the Fade back together through her body. That memory flicked across both of their minds. And that seemed to spur in his mind all the other times they’d touched, and he’d had to refocus before the vision would wander.

Still, when he recalled this, then turned back to face her, there was a warm kind of bashfulness coloring her expression. She looked up at him like he was a dream, it brought a warmth to him as well.

“Then you closed the Rift.” He said to her, finishing his should-have-been perfect, convincing monologue. “And I felt the whole world change.”

“You did?” She asked, just on the air, like she didn’t want the phantom voices of Haven to hear. It was almost a confession. “I felt the very same.” And he had a feeling she wasn’t talking about the feeling of the Rifts.

“It’s a figure of speech, of course.” He clarified, “At that moment, I thought, maybe the world wouldn’t be lost.”

She stepped closer to him. “I’m aware of the metaphor.”

“I didn’t mean anymore by it than that.” He almost stuttered but he did not shrink away. Not when she was so close to him, and the space that remained between buzzed with the charge of something not-so-just-friendly.

“Are you certain?” She didn’t step away, but she paused before coming that little bit closer, and spoke her heart better than he would have dared to. “Because I did.”

“I must admit…” He looked away than back to her, “You change… everything.”

“Is this an attempt to sweet talk me?”

And despite himself, he was honest. “Yes.” He admitted, and he meant it for far more than just this very moment.

He doesn’t have to curse himself long for such a slip of the tongue, because his confirmation is all she needs to bridge the slight gap between them. He doesn’t push her away when her hands come up, one laying on the back of neck and the other light on his check to guide their bodies to meet.

Her lips on his were surprising, foremost, which caused him to totally freeze. In the fade, he feels not just her body on his—though that is its own kind of stimulation—he feels all her desire. All of it.

Just like her attention in the waking world, her emotion is a mass of directed focus that seared him. He saw all she wanted, probably more of it than she was aware of. He wanted nothing more than to fill that phantom version she’d made of him, and all the imaginings she’d considered which she unknowingly shared in that touch of skin.

He, however, was completely stunned as all that information came so openly in a vision of devotion and physicality. It was not a desire that reeked of lust and so repulsed him, it was something much harder to obtain than that.

She saw in him a lover, and a partner. Someone irreplaceable and special, with whom she also wished to share her body and hoped he wished to do the same. Something about the unrealness of the Fade world they were it brought all this to the surface, as well as a rush of gratitude.

This was too much forthrightness for him to bear. He moved not an inch, other than to be pliant to her guiding hands. This she notices once she starts moving her lips against his and he remains motionless.

Before she’s barely let her lips raise from his, she’s already apologizing.

“I’m sorry, I must have mistook—”

But this is much too soon a parting for something that should have never happened to begin with. He will not be denied the forbidden, now that she’s offered it to him so willingly. He grabs her waist, pulling them hip to hip. The friction was compelling and her arms braced around his neck when they again kissed.

This time, mouths pressed close and his own desires overwhelming, the warmth of her lips was followed by the fleeting softness of her tongue which made him wish to chase pleasure into the recesses of their bodies. He could not have enough of her.

He let her go, horrified with himself for thinking such a thing or letting this happen, then was made so distraught by such a sudden parting he grabbed her again. By the waist he held her, half bent over and as close as his arms could make them, feeling her fingers curl into the flesh of his arm and shoulder as he showed her how he felt in all the ways a mouth could without speaking.

They stayed like that for some time, until she was dazed and panting. He can feel she wants more, and he too can feel that desire bud within him. When it becomes so intense that she struggles to rub herself against the front of him, heating their spirits until he begins to covet more than just her lips and her love, he must put a stop to this before it goes too far.

The third time he pulls away, he gathers himself, though this does not mean he lets her go. He holds her, and denies her, much to her confusion.

“We shouldn’t, it’s not right.” He says to her, abhorring that the flush needy look in her eyes is interrupted by having to try and understand his words. “No.” He mostly says to refuse himself from taking any more advantage. “Not even here. We must stop.”

She blinked, still dazed and slightly confounded. “Here? What do you mean here?”

“Here.” He repeats, looking at the memory of Haven, so real in her mind. “Just where did you think we were?”

And then as the realization that they were in the Fade dawns on her, the dream dissipates.

Awake and alone, he is left with all the rationality that comes flooding in when she is not there to sway him. It was one thing to tease—that is all he had done. Teased, and perhaps allowed too much familiarity to breed between he and the Inquisitor. This was not just teasing!

He may have called her, my lady, and thought of her as my little Levallan a few times, mostly for the joy of the alliteration, but this was a step passed light excusable touching. This was not just an exchange of warm looks shared over mostly trite or academic conversation. Passing, daily topics, not—

Nothing that would— Nothing that he meant to—

Nothing that could possibly be construed as…

Taking a deep breath, he tried to let the passion of the moment slip by so he could rather focus on the future. He could not convince himself that such ramblings were true. They were false, and he had sworn to himself that he was not be led astray by his own falsehoods as he stood in the center of a storm of lies.

One could not lie both to the world and themselves, or they would be forever lost.

In truth, of course, he’d been very interested in her and displayed it. He shouldn’t be so surprised when she returns his favor in kind. He’d danced with her at a royal ball in the aftermath of an intense political victory! He’d read enough, and walked the fade enough, to know what a grand romantic gesture that was.

But he’d never thought…

It didn’t much matter now what he thought, because the reality was before him. He had clearly inspired some kind of lust in her. And now he had to do something about it.

This had already gone too far. He could not let it escalate.

She returned to him not so long after the dream ended, but long enough that he knew she must have gone to clear her head as well before coming to talk. She was embarrassed, as was he.

“Did you sleep well?” He asks her.

She half laughs, “At the time I did. Though I’m unsure if it was so nice, now that I’m awake and looking back on it. I’m sorry for putting you in that situation, I feel as if I’ve misread you.”

“No, please don’t. I apologize. The kiss was impulsive and ill considered, and I encouraged it when I should not have. It’s just…” He looked around, and prayed that the damn spymaster didn’t have any ears in the room as he admitted, “It’s just been a long time since I’ve considered anything like this. I’m not certain anything intent between us is the best idea. It could lead to trouble.”

“You say that as if I’m not already often in trouble. I don’t shy from hard things, Solas.”

No, you certainly don’t.

“I just find such things easier in the Fade. I’m not…” He then reconsidered, and said, “you did nothing wrong. It is true, yes, I would like to be with you.” He admits, and she looks just a mite relieved. “But I must think on things a while, there are, considerations… things I must be sure of.”

I already have a mistress and she is jealous and covetous, even in death. Is what he knows to be true. And I do not know where you would fit in the world we’ve envisioned for the future.

He will have to decide who he stands for, and it will be a harder choice than he would like it to be.

“Take all the time you need. I mean not to rush you.” She says, always so gracious.

Left to my own devices, it would be me rushing you. This he thinks, but he does not say.

“It is just not often that I am thrown off by things that happen in dreams,” He instead injects with as much playfulness as he can muster, “but I’m reasonably certain we are awake now, and if you wish to discuss anything, I would enjoy if we continued talking.”

“Truly?” At that she seemed completely at ease. It seemed she’d thought she’d just about lost a good friend. That was interesting to note as she did branch the conversation into more usual paths.

Perhaps, even if things hadn’t gone as he’d expected them too, things were even better off than he’d meant them to be. She had no suspicion of him at all, and this was what the dream was meant to verify anyway. What could it matter too much to his ultimate plans, if she also found him as something more than just trustworthy? Could his mistress really be so upset by that?

…

Devotion

…

He’d asked her for help, so of course she was eager. There was nothing his little Levallan liked better than to be of service, though he wished he asked her to preform a more pleasant task than the one he had given.

Indeed, he was not used to unexpected things happening in his dreams, and now twice in a short time he had been completely caught off guard. It shamed him slightly, and yet he could turn to no one else when he needed assistance with this sudden matter. No one would take him as seriously as she, and he didn’t have the power to go on his own. He was not yet too prideful to ask for help.

There was no way he could let his friend suffer in her fate. He knew what if felt like to be summoned and twisted, made into a tool that was not suitably compatible with its original purpose. He might have wanted to end the world as everybody knew it—but he meant to do so in a way that mitigated harm to those who were unworthy of being mutilated.

This was proving to be a difficult desire to make happen, or so would become obvious looking at the state of the Inquisition and all the affairs it had involved itself in because of Corypheus’s failure to take the Anchor.

Failure bit at his ankles often, as of late.

Perhaps this was why he was so angry when he received that dream, the last hailing call for mercy from a being that had no way of protecting itself from such a selfish and unjust fate, like he had endured. He was murderously furious at the state of his friend and how she had been pushed to an ultimately useless death. All herself, her knowledge, her experiences, her life, snapped out like a flame without even a burnt wick left to remember her by.

This fury he knew exactly where to place, and it was on the heads of those humans who had summoned her, and ruined her. This was a fury beyond the moment. A fury from beyond time. An anger that he could never turn on his mistress, even if she tormented him in much the same way.

“Solas.” That voice, the voice of the one who brought justice to this world, called to him. “They are beneath you.” She told him.

This almost enraged him further, but for her, he stayed his righteous words and attempted to listen. Still, through gritted teeth, he asked, “Does that mean I should not kill them for what they did?”

“No. I’m not here to stop you if you desire vengeance.”

His first curled. “Good.”

“But,” She cautioned, “don’t let it stain you. Nothing is heavier than the cost of that, and nothing more worthless.”

Those words made him pause in his rage. He was glad not to hear her tell him not to. His stomach would have curled had he heard her beg for their lives because they were human, and so somehow above the life of a spirit. They had killed so many, it would feel almost unjust if she denied him here. And if the Inquisitor was to ever be a spirit, or ever had been one, she was surely an agent of Justice, even more so than curiosity.

Yet he did not like how revealing those words sounded. They hit just shy of his true heart and it was startling. How could she go from seemingly so unworldly and naive, to so… brutally perceptive. He had to be more cautious around her. But this worry could wait until after the mages were dealt with.

In the aftermath, he was troubled. Not over killing the humans—he didn’t spare them a second thought. But over what she’d said and the plight of his friend in wisdom, and the humanization of Cole, and, of course, over the Inquisitor as an entity he cared for.

Was he, maybe, wrong about his ideas for the future? Was it better to be mortal and doomed, than spirit and endless? Was it best if one could step from one world to the next, rather than all being as one? Coexistence had for so long seemed impossible, yet it was happening before his eyes, and he wasn’t sure how to reconcile this with these events as he lingered in the upset cause by his friend’s dissolution.

He left Skyhold, for a while, then returned, still feeling heavy.

As if she could hear his thoughts, she appeared to him just as he arrived, with a soft voice and offers of condolences. He took them, though he did not need them, and he then took her hand. She followed him to some forgotten part of the fortress, where he sometimes came. There were some pillows around, a blanket to soften the floor, and a few books to keep his mind busy when he became to lost in his own thoughts.

She found it a quaint place, and soon made herself comfortable, allowing the silence between them to be unbroken as he lit a few candles so they wouldn’t be in the complete pitch once the sun finally set all the way. There was something about the physicality of fire that he was drawn to in that moment, over the simplicity of casting some kind of light spell.

“I wish…”

He almost voiced after a long time of no one speaking, a wish for a different life than the one he had. He almost wished it had been he in his friend’s position, for at least she could find peace from this world in the nothing. He wished he was free. He wished he’d never learned of the mortal world. He wished he’d never been bound and that he’d never stepped into the body of the lethallan. He felt cursed.

In the end, he silenced himself. It was best not to speak aloud some things or he would soon find himself becoming more honest than he means to be.

“Tell me about her.” She asks, “Of your friend I mean. She seemed a lovely spirit, once she was calmed.”

He hardened himself, of fear of hearing something like jealousy in her voice. But he heard nothing. Just patience, and calm, and a genuine desire to bring him peace. He took a deep breath.

“She was.”

“You do not have to morn alone. You did all you could for her, but I understand that the loss is still difficult. I’m here for you.”

And truly, she was. In the light of such grace, the guilt for deceiving her so often clawed at his throat.

“It’s been a long time since I could trust anyone.” He admitted. “I’ll work on being... present.”

“That we can practice now. Talk, and I will listen.”

And so prompted, he talked at length about his friend, and those he knew that were like her. He mourned the fact that she would not go on to what lay beyond the Fade, but was also comforted to know that what was of her would be planted back into the space beyond so that a new innocent consciousness could grow where she once stood.

The spirits in the fade that were at once so inhuman, and so alive, he thought they deserved more than their half-formed existences. He talked far more than just about his friend, as his train of thought slipped to this core idea which had motivated him far beyond the Inquisitor’s knowing.

He spoke of the Fade and his philosophy and how it had become so challenged, and the frustrations of his inner heart that were best left unspoken. If she thought to shame him and his ideals, no such judgement was obvious on her face. He spoke, she listened, and he was grateful.

He talked until the weight of the world didn’t feel so heavy on his shoulders and it was well past any reasonable hour to still be up waking. He said too much—he always did around her—and yet she did not look at him as if he had.

By the time he was done, the candles had burned low the light was dim, and instead was very fetching on her cheeks. She was staring in his direction with none of her usual focusedness. It was all soft and rounded, this attention, as she just laid back and listened to him go on and on for hours.

He sort of froze, realizing how totally taken off guard he’d become, and how comfortable.

His gaze cast to her, and he knew in that moment that she would lay with him if he asked her to. If he put his hands on the right place, pulled her in, she would follow. The immensity of his desire for that hit him with a suddenness that made it impossible to act. He was already so outside of himself in this situation—he couldn’t add to his long list of sins an indulgence in lust.

Or so, if that had been his mission, he would soon be (once again) a failure.

In the moment though, he asks something seemingly at random to distract him from his impulses, “What is like, having the Anchor tied to you?”

“Hmm.” She hummed, still so open and unconcerned. He’d never seen her this relaxed. “What do you mean by that? In what way?”

“I mean, has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your… spirit? It must be a heavy burden; it has brought a whole institution on your shoulders.”

She is quiet for a moment, thinking. She raises her hand and looks to it. For a moment he curses himself for ruining their moment of peace and her serenity, but he is too curious. He must know, and there is no other time he might ask.

“No, I don’t feel much changed by it. I feel as if the whole world changes around me because of it, though. That is at times troubling, and at other times very useful.”

“Ah.” He almost laughed.

He should have known she would think that. He wonders if he saw her, before the explosion of the conclave, and if he would see a difference had he known her. He’d noticed a few Dalish while he watched the proceedings, perhaps he’d cursed her in passing as he does most her kind. Perhaps he would have never looked twice at her, had things been different. What a shame that would have been.

“Why do you ask?” She prompts.

“You just show a wisdom I have not seen since…” He struggles on the words, for who he reminds her of would scare her, with the kind of sensibilities she had grown up with. “A wisdom that is unlike any I’ve seen outside the deep recesses of the Fade. You are not what I expected.”

She has the freedom to laugh at him, eyes crinkling as she smiles, “What did you expect?”

“You have shown subtly in your actions. Thoughtfulness in the way you pick our next direction. Yet, you lack no decisiveness and have a dedication like no other. If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours, have I misjudged them?”

She sat up a bit, and considered him. “You have not misjudged us. We are stubborn, and divisive, and mean just to live in the spirit of meanness while calling ourselves righteous, and we will not let go of our idea of the past.”

“Do not say we, like you believe as they do.”

She sighed, some of her contentment slipping out with it. “You are right, I don’t believe as they do. But I still love them.”

“That there. That is what makes you so unusual to me. Even in our enemies you seek understanding, though you do not hesitate to cut them down. You don’t act as if all the world is made of opposites, as if we are on the board and sitting on black or white squares. So many act without even attempting to understand the world, but you do not behave as they do.”

She laughed again, though it was a light, fluttering sound. “We still see things very differently, I think. The world is black and white in my estimation.” She said steadily, more evenly than he had explained his view in the hours pervious, when he had practically ranted at her. So though he recoiled at the idea, he remained patient and listened.

“It is steady.” She continued. “There is this solid world, and there is the ephemeral. There is day, and there is night. Just because there is a dawn and dusk, or the veil, between these things, that does not make them grey by nature. They blend for just a moment, but the blending only highlights their separation. The same can be said of all things.”

She reached out to him and brushed just the tip of his ear, then put her hand down, and he was certain he flushed.

“It is us people, the living and the half living, that change our colors.” She said, “We try to appear like several things at once, when we are all just one thing.”

“What are we?”

“Alive.” She said simply, “Beautifully alive, and struggling to remain so.”

This conclusion had his voice stick in this throat before he could give an answer.

“So yes,” she continued, “I have much empathy for our enemies, and spirits, and all the things we meet. But I do not believe that life ends when the body stops drawing breath, and so it does not trouble me to continue forward, even when the path is bloody and the way hard. This is my duty; I will do it until I am victorious, or I too am released from the glorious struggle like the others. In that way, I stay the honorable path.”

He was left to consider that, and utterly speechless. She really was a spirit of Justice. There was no other aspect that suited her more, and she was brilliant in its light. He was almost totally convinced by her.

“I admire you.” He admitted in the silence that followed her small speech.

She sounded so wistful, “You know I think the same of you.”

“No, I very much admire you.” He said more sincerely.

Amused, and happy to see him in better spirit, she turned her head and asked him, “So what does that mean, if you do not think we mean it the same way?”

“It means I haven’t forgotten the moment we shared in the Fade.”

She knew the one, she must have been thinking about it to, for she didn’t even hesitate a moment to say, “Neither have I.”

“Maybe we do mean it same then.” He confirmed.

“Does that trouble you?”

“Yes. Especially in the face of loss. It is already so hard to lose someone dear.” He admitted, and was at once stunned by the realization that today, and all the while she’d been helping him, he was the most honest he’d ever been with her. The most honest he’d been with anyone, really, in he couldn’t even count how many years. She was dear to him indeed.

“But losing you would…” He cannot bear to finish the sentence.

“Do not lament what is not lost. I still lay here in front of you.”

Compelled by the heat in her eyes, and her welcoming posture, he turned over and crawled a few paces closer, feeling like a half-tamed dog.

“That you do.” He agreed, voice lower than usual and bidding.

They hesitated for a moment. She was only uncertain of approaching first this time, for he hadn’t been the most receptive before. This time, he held onto no hesitation. What he wanted was very obvious and he was not going to deny himself this time.

He, very slowly, put the back of his hand to her face and stroked her cheek slowly. Again, the only thing that soured this moment were the damn marks upon her skin which almost ruined her perfect picture. Instead of lingering on such thoughts, he instead cusped her head and drew her closer, so that their mouths might meet and his eyes could close and the vision that caused him upset would be gone.

It was a slower kiss, one he wanted to enjoy. He wanted to know which way she liked or did not like his teeth pulling at her bottom lip, or his tongue in her mouth. He wanted to taste her breath on his tongue and make her sigh sweetly. She did, and became all the more open to him, and he intended on taking advantage.

He moved with her, as she fell back into the cushions and he hovered over her. With one hand, he braced himself up, and the other traced down the front of her body, the curve of a breast, the way of her stomach, then between her legs went his long thin fingers.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” She asked him before he could touch her at all properly.

“Ar lath ma, Vhenan.” He whispered against her ear, a deeply felt admittance of love.

“Ar lath ma.” She repeated to him, and with those words he felt all at once pulled up to the highest of divine spheres and the lowest of hells.

“I want you.” He continued in elvish.

“Then take me.” She answered.

And so he did.

His hands moved to remove her clothes, then his own, and that night he is taken in by the passion of the flesh.

He would forever remember the tremble of her thighs against his, and the feeling of her nails digging into his neck. Hot breath flashing against his ear, as her inner most person squeezed and took him. And that was just the physical things. He felt the heat of them coming together, a sense of rising both in emotion and in aura, charging up as friction intensified.

It rose up in his mind like literal magic rising, a flurry of colors and feelings. Maybe sex was different for mages, and mage spirits like himself. It was a rush of sensory overlord which could not be compared to any other. He could feel her womb, and the place where a new spirit was ready and willing to enter her if he should open the gateway with his key.

The idea of that was exciting—could a spirit bring forth new life through a mortal? Had such a thing ever happened before?

He could see her then, with his children, who would be raised like no other elves before. He could see the glory of the old ones in them, and a future spent weaving the mysterious back together. It was a beautiful future, distracting from the moment and he pulled out immediately. When he did the imagining faded, avoided for now.

Huffing and puffing and frankly overwhelmed, he finished on her person and instead of in, denying the call of the void which beckoned to be filled.

In that moment, he touched something spirits should not, and it almost got him. He brimmed with conflict. Was there no part of him the material would not try to take into its grasp? Was there no way to escape this influence or reverse it? Were all things to be taken in, as the elves were, and magic was, and the gods, and Titians, and even the one who stood before them all?

Even as he finished and basked in the physical rush of sex, he tried so hard to steady himself.

No. He was loyal to his mistress. He determined in that moment, as he brushed the wetness from her sweaty forehead fondly and she smiled blithely up at him. He would not be swayed from his goals. This world was a dead one, he would not add another living soul to it to be damned even if… even if it were for her.

Maybe, in the new world, there would be space for this love he now cherished.

Maybe…

…

Betrayal

…

Slave marks, all over her beautiful face.

It was the first thing he thought, when he first saw her. When she was just a stranger, and a conundrum, and an added twist in the path he would take to reach his ultimate desire. It also became the very last thing he thought, when he walked away from her victory against Corypheus. Much as it broke his heart to do so.

Not because she was marked anymore, she’d allowed him to free her skin of the burden those marks pressed on her spirit. It was the only act of devotion he could offer her, that didn’t involve making promises for the future that he could not keep. And he was grateful she allowed it. But even so long after he had relieved her, he could never forget that they had been there and they had been for most of her life.

Her own father put them on her skin, as if it was an act of blessing. As if one was not complete without one.

Solas knew what it meant to be a slave. He’d lived the torment of being declared “owned” and twisted past his born purpose, turned into a perverted shade of himself. What a fate to submit a spirit to, be it with a body or not. What even more evil to commit, by making such a contract without that sympathy even understanding what it was consenting itself to.

She was the most divine, pure soul. So true, so unwaveringly good, the world bent to see her vision of peace come to life. It must have been that way since she was a child, he couldn’t imagine her different.

And they marked her. Proudly, even. It sickened him.

He felt the desire to bend to her will too. Perhaps it would have been better if he did, yet… Yet, the wrath within him would not rest, not even when she was in his arms.

He couldn’t be with her when things were still the way they were. He would rebuild the world into one worthy of her vision, and their love. And when he was done with this task, he would return to her side as victorious and righteous as she was in this moment.

That was, if she could ever forgive him for leaving.

His resolve wavered in just that last moment, as he wonders if he would excuse another for this kind of betrayal. He probably would not. He was lucky that his Vhenan did not share his nature then, for he was sure she would have it in her heart to offer him the kind of forgiveness he did not deserve. Or so, he would hope until he next saw her again.

…

Acceptance

…

His plan was a failure, and his vision wholly unacceptable.

The Veil simply would not fall. He’d risen up the might of the hands that first laid the soil of this material world, twisted souls which were never meant to wake. He had split holes in it. Thinned it. He killed endlessly, trying to find some way to end the separation between spirit and material, so that the world could return to what it was before the humans were created and life quickened.

Doing this had been the fixation of his life for so long. And now it seemed as if there was no way to make his plan successfully unfold before him. Everything was screaming in pain, and eeking on the edge of total destruction.

The blight had nearly taken the world, the darkness of the black city nearly consumed all the spirits he’d said so many times were what he was trying to preserve. It was over, what he wanted could not be done.

He wasn’t unaware of himself. This was a hopeless pursuit, yes. But there was no space in this world for him to turn back, he’d gone too far. He was utterly totally and completely wrong. Yet, he’d committed so deeply to his revenge and his ideas that it had stained him, just as she’d warned, and he was afraid he’d never turn back to the right color. He was already a different shade than he used to be, and sinking deeper into darkness.

Is this what if felt like for a spirit to become a demon? It wasn’t an altogether pleasant kind of transformation, not that he ever thought it would be, but it was more miserable than he expected. He’d thought there would be some kind of power gained, a sense of new empowerment. Not this. He held a certain sorrow for all the demons forced to turn into a caricature of themselves.

Then again, he also had a more hands on experience with it now. There was some part of it that was a willing fall, at least for those that weren’t bound to mages than forced to take actions outside their nature. He had chosen this, and he had damned himself.

How sick could he have gotten without even realizing it? Was this what it felt like to be blighted?

Everything he ever cared about was dead or gone. Either because it was the way of this world to take and kill and waste. Or because he had done the same, and pushed away anything that could have saved him from this pit.

He’d lied. He’d lied and lied and lied and lied—almost every word he said to anyone besides the one who now had his heart had been a fabrication or a manipulation, at most a half truth. Even what he told her at times was more his love stirring than an act of true honesty.

This left him with only one future, and one way forward. He had to make one last attempt at destroying the Veil, if only so at least his dream of a world that would one day recover could take root, and from some miracle of magic erupt into true reality. Even if it killed him, he would have to try.

He was interrupted many times trying to invoke this reality by another person, who had been trying to stop him since. Rook, who he’d been tied to since the interruption of the first attempt at this ritual, never let him get far, and every attempt after the first had also failed. Rook grew more desperate with each time they spoke in their shared fade-space, looking for a way out of hell that did not exist.

There was no exit. He had doomed them all.

Such were the voices in his head when he put himself up on the altar of his mind and endeavored to try his magic one last time. Either he would finally succeed, or he would give his life up to the Veil in hopes of making it once again stable. That was all he could offer the world.

He rose his hands up, and began, but once again his work was interrupted.

It was not rook that arrived at the door this time, at least not Rook alone.

When he heard her voice, all the façade fell. He was crushed, feeling not so different from a caught child, and yet all the more vulnerable because worse than failing as an innocent child, he knew better than to do what he did and here he still stood. He turned to face her, feeling unworthy.

“Vhenan…” The word sounds broken on his lips. It means more than he says.

“Thank you for taking me here, Rook, I will finish this. One way or another, and if I fail—you know what to do.”

It sounded like how one might talk about a wounded feral animal. The truth of that comparison was all too apt. There were two paths ahead obviously visible to him. Either she would talk him down or the whole world would come to put him down. This was the end.

Without another word, Rook bowed and left. They had shared enough speech and neither had been moved by it. Though Rook glanced at either figure, they then closed the way, so that he and his love could be alone.

“Lay down your pride.” She bid to him, once they were only in each other’s company. “I see you, Solas. I know your dream. I see what you saw. But please, step away and forsake what you plan to do.”

With how the world around them looked, it seemed a strange thing to say. It was like the fabric which was used to make this world was now moth ridden and weak, the cloth to tear at any moment. When it did, it would send everyone who’d survived the onslaught of destruction further asunder and there would not even be the fade to pass through into the after.

They would be lost souls, trapped eternally in this chaos that he had made. They would damn him forever, and rightfully. If they did not remember his name before, now he will be as known as the gods of old, and as reviled as the memory of the Golden City is admired. That is how they will think of the world before, and in the after, the blight would look like a common plague.

He can see it in his mind’s eye so very clearly. It is decimation.

His voice is low when he answers her. “I cannot. Can’t you see that too much has been done. There is no going back anymore.”

“I see what your desired outcome was, my love.”

She calling him that strained at his heart, and his will. He had destroyed everything she’d worked for and known; how could she still call him that? He had enough audacity to think of her in such a light of fondness, but she? Such feelings must have been self-harm.

“I know what destruction came before, that you wished so much to undo. I know what terror you wished the future not to endure in turn.” She said to him, so steady, as she always was in the center of conflict.

She could not know truly what he saw or she would hate him. He’d been so certain of that. Why was she being so calm?

“You are not so far gone that I can’t open my arms to you anymore. I just wish you would have told me that this plagued you so. I would have helped you before this.”

“I know.” He lamented, so far already in regret. “But I could not accept. I never could.”

“Solas. It’s not too late.” Her voice, low and lulling, called to him so sweetly. “Come back to me. All your enemies are dead and all your friends are crying, seeing you like this. It’s over.”

She put out her hands in offering to him. She had no weapon, not even a knife. There was no sign of a staff and her clothes were plain clothes, not even armor. In this moment he had all the power, though it did not feel so. He tilted his head, and looked at her somewhat below him and was set oh so heavy.

Her hand… he was so disarmed by just an upstretched hand. With weak, defeated steps he descended from his place of power and dared to grasp her hands, to feel her skin again. He deserved the pity in her eyes when he did so and brought her fingers to his forehead.

He pleaded to her with all his might, “There is no return. The Veil is too weak now, after all that has been done to it. If I don’t tear it down, it will fall anyway, then who knows what will happen. At least if it goes at once, the devastation will come swiftly.”

“And if it does not work once again, as you know will happen, what will you do?”

She asked, and he twisted up inside, “Then I will throw my life to it, and fix the fabric best I can. I never meant for the Breach, or for this to drag on for so long. I know my life has stretched longer than this tragedy, and I have the means and the power to stitch myself across what I have sought to destroy. I will not be capable of healing it, but…”

“Replacing it?”

He nodded.

“So you already know that is what you must do now, don’t you? There is no undoing the Veil, as you’ve long dreamed.”

He nodded again, and braced himself for her chastisement. He would try his spell again and fail, he already knew it, and it seemed like so did everyone else. He wanted the taste of her betrayal and anger to break him before his eventual sacrifice. It seemed only right.

“Yes. I’ve done so much wrong, let me make it right with this sacrifice.”

“No.” And she denied him everything with that word, as her grace continued. “There will be no more sacrifices, this is what the Maker has told me.”

“The Maker?” Solas was altogether startled.

He looked up to her, searching all the more for answers.

“You have not been the only one learning, Solas.” She told him, and leveled her steadiness his way. “As you ruined the world, which I thought was rescued from the jaws of destruction, I had to watch all I had worked to save, rot. Orlais, taken by the Blight. Ferelden soon followed. Red lyrium erupting from the ground, death breathing down the backs of every person whose life I’d touched. Every place I saved was in vain…”

He had curated all of it, he knew, and he could never make up such losses.

“I was furious, I was in denial, I was tempted, I thought about ending my life—me the Herald of Andraste, and I’d fallen in love with the one who would end the world? Even if it wasn’t true in a literal sense, I felt the burden of it as if it was. The guilt made me waver in my virtue.”

Her true pure virtue… he was truly a cruel man. “I am so sorry.”

She hushed him. “I decided one day I would end myself. I planned to go off and fight the dark spawn. Like the Gray Wardens, at least I could finish my time in this life with a fight. I found myself at home, in what remained of the woods I favored most in the East Marches and I went to die. But in those woods, I found the voice of the Maker. Truly, I heard him speak through me.”

Wide eyed, he could not believe her words. But he could see her honesty, and feel it tremoring the air of this in-between place.

“Just like…” Andraste.

The time of the Maker, if there ever was such a being, was before Sola’s time. he knew little of the world before it was made, only the shape of the hands that were set to make it. The titans spoke rarely of one who made them, and through them eventually all the material and immaterial came to be. In fact, he thought the human’s silly for looking back on the past and seeing some ultimate divinity responsible for all things, when he’d been most powerful in the age of the many-gods.

He knew of the Golden City, a place in the fade that even before it turned black no one but the most high were allowed to enter. He remembered when it cast off its light and set the spirit realm to its morose dimness.

But when the Inquisitor said she heard the voice of the Maker, he couldn’t help but believe her. And even if it wasn’t truly a great He that she spoke to, nonetheless the encounter had been divine.

She nodded again, “Yes. I was equally startled. Truly, even when I was named the Herald of the Chantry folk, I never thought there could not be an ultimate god who cared at all about us, but I think that was foolish now. There is always the one who made all. The first. And there are no Gods, no Titans, no Person, no Spirits,” she said the word pointedly, “that rise higher than the Maker. There is no vow He cannot break, there is no fate He cannot rewrite, there is no world He cannot save—even the one we thought He left begotten and damned.”

It was almost like she started to shine then, so bright compared to his darkness. He could not recoil, it was like she had a hand around his throat with these words, and he could not tear himself away.

“Under His light you are unbound, in His creation you are free. He told me of this and set me on the path that led me to you now.” She told him this and he could not believe her.

She must have seen this in his eyes, because she drew closer and implored him to believe. “You, are free, Solas. No one owns you any longer. You grand spirit of Wisdom are not a slave to Mythal any more, I through Him have made it so. You must let her orders and her faith go. She is dead besides, a shade of the one who first bound you, and you owe her nothing.”

He fell to his knees then, unable to stand. He knew of this, that his tether to his old bounds had been weakened. Yet he had not abandoned the mission. To many years of his life had been dedicated to it, to walk away simply because he was no longer indentured seemed impossible.

Weakly, he can’t help but ask, “How... how did you know that?”

“I just know.” At this she sounded very tried. “But I do not know what you want to do with your freedom.”

“I have none.” He bit back. “I have no freedom. I never have.”

“No!” She then did reprimand. She grabbed his forearm, harder than he expected and shook him. She felt like a Saint above him, begging him to see the light when he was teetering at the abyss. “You are free. Choose your fate, Solas. Now, with the world ruined at our feet I want to know what do you want?”

He remained silent. He couldn’t speak, for shame.

“What do you want?” She demanded.

“I want to go on.” He admitted. “I want this cursed life of mine to be finished—in the way humans and elves now can have. I was jealous of Cole when you made him more human, when you lead him down that path that I wanted to go down. I wanted to be one of you, and I looked down on you for it I… I want… I want to dream again, and not in this nightmare I’ve made.”

The confession spilled from him; a dam broken.

“Then come home.”

He hung his head. “Would you still have me? Even after all this time?”

“Of course.” She said, like it was the easiest thing to offer.

And no, he did not deserve forgiveness. He did not deserve her love, nor did he deserve to love her in turn. But he possessed both things, and more than he ever knew.

“But how can I ever accept that? The world is ruined. There is nothing left for us to return to, I’ve ensured that I’ve destroyed it well.”

Then she pulled out something he did not expect. An amulet with a blue glow dangled between them, an artifact of high magic, this he could at once recognize. But this object was totally unfamiliar to him.

“What is that?” He asked, very tired now.

“Do you remember Magister Alexius? He used the magic stored in this amulet to banish me into a dark, forsaken world. A world I told you was just one year in the future at the time.”

His mind reeled. “It wasn’t?”

“It was 10.” She admitted.

It seemed like he wasn’t the only one withholding information. Perhaps he had looked down on his heart all this time, seeing her as more innocent than she was. How foolish of him to underestimate her, he should have known better.

“I lied for I didn’t want to scare you all, and Dorian agreed to keep the secret. I wanted the Inquisition to think it could act swiftly and decisively, and win over our enemy—and we did that well. What I figured out at another time, much later, was that the future I saw was not the one brought on by Corypheus and his red infection. He was just a hand, one of many.”

This was when his heart twisted. The truth was heavy on him. He did not need to hear it.

She would tell him anyway.

“The Elder One was never Corypheus, it was you. They all served you. The Venatori, the Red Templars, the Blight, even Corypheus himself, whether he knew it or not.”

He hung his head. She was right—he had been the one who set Corypheus on his mission. He was the one gave him an archdemon.

He could imagine a world where he ‘won’ and became a terror on the mortal and immortal planes, he could feel the sprit in him already. A wolfish, devilish beast with a howl to shatter mountains. He hadn’t known what all the consequences of his meddling would be, but he was the one that set this future into motion.

“I remembered that future so clearly, I thought over what I learned there for years, and one thing always bothered me. When we left it, there was a howling sound before we slipped through the timelines that was not like the dragon. I dismissed this for so long, and we were all so fixed on the enemy at hand… I should have known the moment you named yourself the Dread Wolf and forsake me that the true identity of the demon we would have met that day was you.”

“I can never say words that will make up for what I have done, nor what I have become.”

“No, I’m sorry I couldn’t save you before you walked down this path. But it is only fair that I got to suffer for my hubris, as they had to suffer in my absence, and you suffer in your self-made misery. Are you happy with this future, Solas? Have you seen enough?”

His voice broke. “Yes. I would do anything to reverse what has been done.”

“You are free, I meant it when I said that, I set to free you myself when I first met the one they call Rook. Together we made it so you are no longer bound. You can do what you like with your life.” She was so sure to say it. “But if you want to come with me, I need to hear you swear to me that even if you do not agree to what I am about to offer, you will let me act as I see best.”

In elvish, he said while looking into her eyes, “My heart, you could draw a blade and slay me now and I would not raise a hand to stop you. Whatever you want I will do. Whatever you say, I will obey.”

“I do not want a slave.” She countered in high tongue, and he hung his head.

“I want to walk with you hand-in-hand, anywhere you go.” Then he took a deep breath, and says in a way that doesn’t so destroy his own agency, “Tell me of your plan, then I will make a choice to follow.”

“Thank you.” She then continued explaining. “Dorian gave me this amulet in the aftermath of Redcliffe as a show of faith. I insisted he keep it, but he refused, and I’ve had it all this while. I’d read all of Alexius’ notes in the future, I knew how to use it, and how we may use it for one last jump, should it have the proper power.”

The possibilities suddenly swarmed before his eyes. “One jump to where?”

“To when.” She corrected. “We learned in the future that Alexius could turn back time only to the point the Breach was made, not a moment before. Even as the years passed on, he could go no further back, and never forward.”

“All the way back then?”

“All the way. But I must know, you had to understand what it would mean—what it would cost to give Corypheus the power he would have had, had his ritual been successful?”

“I did.” He confirmed. “I did not know it would cause the Breach, however. I never meant the tearing of this place—” He cut himself off. “I meant it to be a quick transition. It has not been.”

“You knew, yet you stayed with the Inquisition?”

“I thought at first to use you where I could no longer use the Magister, and then…” He shook his head. “Then I fell in love.”

She smiled weakly, “I knew that was the answer.” She looked up to the amulet. “The amulet still works.” She then admitted fully. “It needs no more power, it contains within it an unbreakable link with that moment.”

This again shocks him, “After all this time?”

“Yes. I’ve been waiting for the perfect chance to turn back the clock to that day when the Conclave exploded and you gave Corypheus that orb. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, knowing that nothing would change if I went back how I was. So I gave up on the idea, until now, as I stand here. Now I know what must be done.”

It seemed too good to be true. “Is it really true. We—could, we could undo all of this?”

“As if it never happened.” She confirmed. “I’ve done everything to make it so if we use this cursed wretched thing, we will step back into the places we were then, as we were then, but knowing what we know now. I love you so much, that I will walk through that fire again. But if I see you stray back to this path, I will strike you down, my heart, though it would kill me to do so.”

“I won’t raise my hand against you again.” He swears. “But what will we do to make things different? I can’t go back to that world and drive myself crazy all over again?”

She shook her head, “Trust in me. Have I ever led you astray?”

No, he was the one that led everyone else down the winding dark path.

“I would rather see your future, even if it fails as well, than allow this one to subsist a moment longer.”

“We won’t fail.”

He almost scoffed. “How can you be so confident?”

“Because this time, we will be together. No more deceit.”

“No more.” He agreed.

She pulled him in then, and put her lips upon his, and it felt like the first time in ages like he could breathe. The amulet grew a brighter color until a blue glow enveloped them in a swirling, vortex, and they were pulled through it, back in to a better time, which was once the worst of times.

…

Repentance

…

The spell was fragile, and yet they were still returned, the amulet disappearing from reality once they were delivered to themselves in those moments just after the Conclave. As one mind, and one force, with all the knowledge of what was to come, Solas and the would-be Herald came together with the Inquisition, and they fought even harder to ensure that Corypheus was defeated than they did the first time.

Neither would not rest on laurels. Triply more focused than he ever realized she could be, they ensured a hundred more lives could be saved than before. And as the Inquisition grew to power, and another amulet came back into their hands, she crushed in the privacy of their shared company, shocking him.

“What if we fail?” He asked, aghast as she cast aside what magic they had already used to rewind time and undo a terrible future.

She just turned to him, and told him seriously. “We will not treat this world like a dice in a game, where we may roll and re-roll for an outcome we like. If we cannot save it now, we do not deserve to.”

This perspective he took with due gravity. There would be no more second chances. Even with himself, he dedicated every word he said to their cause, be they more necessary lies or complete forthrightness. He used all his resources to help the Inquisition this time, and with more intel and a keen perception of what was to come, they fought through the conquered all conflicts faced by southern Thedes.

So soon, they face down the old Magister one last time. And in that battle Corypheus falls, and the world rings out in celebration. With the death of the first blighted one, and no spirit to step up and replace his monstrous desire for destruction as Solas once had, the thorn which held the withering curse to the mortal plan was removed.

The world will begin to heal from the darkening of the Golden City. The darkspawn will roam without purpose and dwindle in number over the years, and the red lyrium’s glow will fade and become deadened.

When the work was all done, this time, Solas did not walk away from his love, and head into the night to his doom. He returned to Skyhold a hero, and weaved between happy faces who cheered him. To the satisfaction of the one he called love, they had avoided much trouble, saved many people, and set to create a new, more satisfying future.

When the party was loud, she stood up and made her most grand announcement.

“The Inquisition is over.” She announced, proudly and happily. The party sank at first at those words, before she continued to speak. “But that does not mean our work is done.”

At that, drinks raised again and they cheered. The Inquisition was done, but peace was not yet settled.

All of them were happy to follow a good leader down a just cause, as they listened to their Herald, and willfully up took a new task. They would reform under a different banner, and they would stand where the Chantry and the Templars had failed. They would not be a force for or against any one nation, nor try to unite them.

The Veil was still torn across the realm, and demons would always be an issue. This imposition on reality they would seek to manage, as the new peacekeepers of magic and wisdom. They would go to all the kingdoms and request Skyhold and their new order be declared an independent vassal, with the freedom to travel cross borders.

With this independence, they would be a political power which sought out disruptions in the Fade and moved always to solve them. They would do all the operations necessary to secure the sanctity of the Veil, magic, and mages since the Templar Order had been utterly destroyed. They would teach of the fade, and spirits, until the world no longer feared the beyond.

Then one day, when the eyes mortal hearts changed, perhaps this world would no longer twist visiting souls into sin and demons would no longer commonly roam and kill.

They would not be Seekers, Cassandra would see to that order being revitalized. No, they would be Sages, and they would help the world establish a new relationship with magic.

As the hall shook with the cheers of victorious men, basking in the idea of this idealized future place they may or may not live to see, and Solas was so very proud of them in that moment. They had brought peace, and they would make the world the way he wished it to be all this while. Albeit, slowly.

Perhaps, his idea of quickness had also been an unaddressed weakness. For when was there ever a better way to lead people, than by example? He could be that example, this time, and he swore to himself that he would be just that—a true embodiment of Wisdom, instead of Pride.

Some years later, equal to those he’d lived in his nightmare, with his daughter in his arms and a son at his feet, a woman he devoted his life to at his side, and a host of people who took his ideas seriously and learned to walk with the Fade rather than against it, he thinks, why didn’t I just do this the first time?

X...X...X

A/N: Finishing this, I came to one conclusion: My Grey Warden and Solas would not get along.

Solas is not my favorite of the love interests, but something about him is very interesting with his dynamic as a twist villain. I started a third playthrough of Inquisition right after my last one (which I’m not sure I’ll finish, I think my Inquisition fever is waning) and thinking about him as a love interest and as the ultimate evil from the jump made me wonder more and more about his perspective…

Obviously, I found it compelling enough to write all this lol. I also felt like he was completely robbed, even though the best of Veilguard is his ending, but with how that game totally destroys most of Thedes we know (literally, it’s all destroyed) I thought the happier ending would be if they could just reverse it all and go back to Inquisition and finish the mess before the world has to become so broken. The very last section is a little rushed feeling, but I didn’t much want to linger in this any longer.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my interpretation.

With love, Bede

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