Of Mistakes:
Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
“Da’len.”
She paused, letting her eyes claw away from the parchment before taking in one singular word. It seemed to float about her, indecipherable except to the practiced dreamer’s eye.
The she-elf sighed sharply through her nose, almost amused. But this wasn’t the cheery glow that Fen’Harel coveted from such dreams. No.
This was so very bitter, his own features souring with the taste of anger. And pain. Such old pain from one so young to the world.
The Fade shifted about her, revealing the woman’s hidden, inner thoughts. It felt like an intrusion to him. But he couldn’t stop. There would be no reunion, no possibility of him using this against her.
A part of Solas insisted he would never do such a thing. To Ar’sulahn Lavellan? To his Vhenan? His Sa Lath? But… he would. He had hurt and betrayed her so easily those years ago. Even now, reliving the past through her memories, the way his own guilt clawed at him forced him to stop. To brace his weight on the table near Ar’sulahn’s bed and try to force his lungs to work.
It took several minutes.
As if sensing that he’d lost his place, the Fade “repeated” itself, allowing Ar’sulahn’s thoughts to open up for Solas when he could think again. She could mentally summon her grandmother’s voice from a toddling age, but this word… she’d never heard the woman use it.
Solas sighed heavily. Such callousness. When the woman should have been so very proud.
“Da’len,” she began again, trying it aloud this time to try and read the entire thing all at once. Perhaps doing the thing quickly was the best choice. Like removing a thorn or swallowing a bitter tonic. “Andaran atish’an. It does my heart well to know that you are safe.”
“Sylaise curse you.” Her hand slammed down onto the desk so hard that an ink bottle atop it wobbled and then toppled to the cobbled floor. Solas jumped, despite himself. He’d never seen her react in such a way. With such raw anger.
“What do you know about her, Chuckles? Hm? You have any idea what the word “mistake” means to her?”
Varric’s words echoed in the Fade. Solas’ breath shuddered, his own self confidence wavering. It’d taken him nearly ten years to allow himself to visit these memories. But the sting of them was in no way less sharp. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing it. He rarely slept. But… perhaps nearing the end of his journey, he felt he could afford it now.
That’s what he told himself, at least.
The ink bottle shattered, black splashing over stones in a violent explosion. But then it crept, spending its usefulness into the crags between them.
A noise outside the cabin’s door caught both sets of ears, one present in the moment, the other just an observer. Solas didn’t miss that Ar’sulahn remembered knife ears, knives for sound like the blacksmith nearly said, and watched her turn. She was expecting that nervous attendant to scurry away as before. But this wasn’t them. This creature who gently pried the door open was too short and thick of body to be that particular elf.
Far too much chest hair.
“Hey there, Birdie… you okay?”
Varric’s voice was rough as a rockslide but there was something warm and gentle in it that Solas has to admit he’d liked since the moment they met up on the mountain. He sidled into the cabin, the thick golden ring hanging around his neck glittering in the firelight.
“Just… news from home.” Ar’sulahn gave him an attempt at a smile, so strong, but Solas could feel that it didn’t behave properly around her eyes. Too much sadness there. Already. Before he’d barely entered her life.
Was that a relief? That he didn’t put it all there? No, it was far too heavy with regret to be relief. He didn’t heal any of it either. Just… added more.
“Oh, Vhenan…” He reached for her, fingers passing through her tattooed cheek like so much smoke. But he lingers there, the moment frozen for him once more. He’d not recognized this before; he hadn’t been looking for anything.
With a sharp little shake of his head, Solas withdrew his hand. Of course he hadn’t been looking for it. She’d been nothing but another Dalish, steeped in the false memories of her culture, hardly worth paying attention to save the Mark.
She’d been… nothing to him.
“Oh. Everything… okay?” Varric’s voice drew Solas from his reverie again and he sighed, trying to pay attention.
“I… don’t know. Haven’t gotten far enough.”
Varric snorted. “Oh. That kind of home. Yeah. I uh… yeah. You want me to read it?”
“You’re just wanting gossip, aren’t you?”
Solas gave a little laugh at this despite himself.
Varric struck a sarcastic, innocent shrug. “Who? Me?”
“Twit.” But Ar’sulahn flung the letter at him, which he caught. She didn’t know how they’d become such chums up there in the snowy wastes but they had. Necessity maybe. Some little bit of reprieve from all the nightmares around them.
Solas shook his head. Chance and necessity was so at work on that mountain. Upon all of them.
Varric chuckled, sitting down in one of the chairs while Ar’sulah take the bed, drawing her feet up before the fire before massaging them. Solas’ chest ached as he watched her, the desire to pull her to him, to warm her so strong that the dream must pause once more. He knows then that she’d tried to stick to the traditional foot wraps like he had, but she conceded to herself that there must have been something else the slightly haughty, cagey elf was doing because her own toes felt like ice slugs at the ends of her feet.
Solas searched her face again, a smile touching his own. He couldn’t help it. She made him smile and want to laugh even like this.
“A warming spell, Vhenan,” he whispered to her ear, knowing she couldn’t hear. “You were right… ar lath ma.”
Ar’sulahn’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. She was focused on Varric. Listening to the letter. Which was so good of the dwarf to read. Even if Solas turned to listen too with a jealous little huff. If he’d had his own head on straight, he might’ve been the one sitting here. Reading to her. Occupying this attention. When there was such little time allowed to simply… enjoy her.
“Day-lin-“
“Dah-lehn,” Ar’sulahn and Solas corrected quickly, and Solas laughed, pride in the woman sitting beside him on the bed cramping his arms with the desire to embrace her. Then she smirked when she realized Varric did it on purpose.
The dog. It was harmless. But the real envy in Solas’ heart burned like a hot ember.
“Ha ha… anyway.” He read the note, giving it just enough boring drone that Solas could see Ar’sulahn’s mind glide over it. She didn’t think too hard about the person who’d written it. Which was a shame. That was the person Solas wanted to know more about.
“Come now, Vhenan. Show me… Varric is allowed to know.”
Was he truly pleading with a reflection? A memory? But then… did he truly deserve to know her? All Solas had ever done for her is betray her.
His vision blurred with tears and Solas turned away from this corner of the Fade, allowing it’s memories to pass from him. They leeched something from him, a warmth he only felt when speaking or thinking of Arsulahn. The cold left is its absence was unbearable… he needed to see her.
The real her. Or an near to real as he could manage.
His body slipped fluidly from two legs to four, his armor swallowed in a sea of thick black fur. His vision, still smudged with grief, sharpened and took on colors that even his elven eyes couldn’t perceive.
The wolf’s distance devouring stride carried Solas across vast distances. He didn’t pay attention where his feet carried him. The Fade bent to his desires, shaping itself to his purpose. Her scent was all he needed and that was one smell that Solas would never allow himself to forget.
It grew stronger and stronger, a keyhole of warmth, light, home in what had become a shadowed void to him as he ran.
Solas wasn’t expecting the shriek of utter despair that greeted him. He stopped short in his tracks. Just a nightmare. Only a nightmare. But Arsulahn was a mage. Nightmares were as dangerous to her as dreams could be blissful.
She screamed again, this time the flavor of it in his nose and upon his tongue full of pain and blood. “SOLAS!! VHENAN!! Halani…” The word drained out of her, weak and growing weaker.
He couldn’t stand it. What if there were demons? What if they were killing her? Possessing her? And he did nothing?! Surely, she might die when his mission was complete. But… it would be her choice. Not like this. Not like this.
Solas, the Wolf, dove into her dream, into the place where the Fade rippled and shimmered with that light that only Ar’sulahn’s spirit radiated.
The sudden change from the muddled shadows of the Fade to a candlelit room, heady with the scent of blood and chemicals was staggering. Solas caught himself on the edge of a table, hurriedly robing himself in another form so as to adequately hide in the nightmare.
Ar’sulahn’s voice reached him then. She was crying. Sobbing. Solas couldn’t bear it. But he had to.
She was on another table, dressed only in scant underthings. A mage and a nurse stood near her, whispering and shushing her. Spirits of calm and compassion, Solas could see. Dear things. They looked at him and recognized him, and backed away so he could use the bandages in his hand.
Her left arm was gone. Entirely hewn away. There was so much blood… why had they taken more? He could see her bones, sheered off, and her muscles twitching in agony at the severe trauma having been wrought upon them. She was bleeding out. It was his job to staunch the bleeding.
“Hold still,” he told her, hoping his voice didn’t betray how close to collapsing across her and clutching her to him that he was. “I’ve got to bandage this, my lady.”
“Solas,” she whimpered, tears streaming down her face. But then her eyes, which had been squeezed shut so hard that her skin was somehow even whiter where it had wrinkled. “Vh… Vhenan…”
“She’s been drugged a little. To lessen the pain. It’s… affecting her differently. Elven, you know.”
Solas snapped his attention up at someone speaking at the edge of the dream. He couldn’t see them clearly… Arsulahn couldn’t.
His anger ebbed. He had to play his role in the dream, else she’d suspect him. Carefully with deft, tender fingers, he bandaged her stump, murmuring gently to her in the Elven tongue.
“Mm… you’re… Dalish?”
“Yes,” he whispered to her, smiling. It was only then that he realized his face was wrapped in a sheet of some kind. To keep the room as clean as possible. To prevent infection.
To hide him.
Even when he’d at least like to show her a smile. Oh his poor vhenan… “Who… who do you call to? Your vhenan, my lady?”
Arsulahn’s naked brow furrowed, her eyes shining suddenly as she visibly recalled, the haze of medicine bringing an almost childlike expression of hurt and sadness to her face. “It’s… something he called me… thought he was such a sweet talker… just… just a liar.” Her brow pinched together and she heaved in a shuddering, almost sob. “Waste of his time.”
An icy spike of sorrow clove the elf in two, at least, it felt like that. He wanted to fall on his knees beside her. Grip her good hand in both of his own. Beg her to understand. Please know it was never that he didn’t love her. That she wasn’t his heart but his life. His existence. His everything... But wasn’t it what he’d intended? For her to hate him? To run as far from him as she could?
And was she truly? If she was his everything, wouldn’t he stop for her? If she asked? Wouldn’t he…
“A fool of a man to have lost you, my lady,” he finally replied, securing her bandage with bloody fingers that trembled. “You… you must rest now. It’s all over.”
And he dared to touch her. Smoothing the now dark, sweat soaked hair back from her forehead, Solas cupped her both flushed and chilled face with one hand. “You’ll be alright.”
“… do you smell that?” Arsulahn tilted her head back, inhaling. “Pines…” Her greenfire eyes flashed at him, realization and clarity jolting into them.
“Solas!”
Solas ended the dream. It slammed shut around them in a thunderclap of jarring reality. He bolted awake, sweating, droplets rivering down the sides of his face and neck. He was on a stone couch, the only place he’d slept in weeks. The only place he’d allowed himself to. Anymore, all he dreamed of when he did was her…
Then he looked down at his hand. His fingers felt slick still with her blood. Hot. Too thick to be water. But they were clean.
Or were they?
He shivered. They absolutely were not.
