It’s been 84 years since I wrote anything, largely thanks to Smol Beach, but when @scharoux asked me to do a commission for the 14 Days of DA Lovers event, I couldn’t resist this delicious, angsty prompt.
Thank you as always for trusting me with Rhaella, Sacha, and everyone check out all the lovely art and writing for the event!
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Pairing: Rhaella Lavellan x Solas
Rating: G
Rhaella was over the edge of the cliff before she knew what had happened.
One moment - frost at her fingertips as she cast a glyph to freeze the Red Templar barrelling towards her - the next - nothing but iron-grey sky and her stomach hollowing out as she fell. She was too shocked to be afraid, to do anything but fall. Her right side hurt. Why did it hurt so terribly?
She shouldn’t be falling.
She needed to stop falling.
“Rhaella!”
The voice broke through. She reached out blindly, all animal instinct, caught hold of the edge of one of the basalt pillars that marked the Storm Coast, scrabbled to hold onto it. Processed finally that the ache in her side was an arrow. She must have been shot by a different templar as she cast the glyph.
She was slipping.
“Rhaella!”
The ocean roared below her. It would be easy, she thought, to let go. To fall. She knew she needed to hold on though. The Anchor crackled in her hand, pain lancing up her left arm as it did. She needed to hold on.
“Rhaella!”
There was a loud crack on the cliff above her, a concussive wave of force. A spell. The magic from it rushed through her own aura, made her flinch at its power.
She was slipping. She was slipping. She was going to fall. She was going to fall.
And then there was Solas above her, his hand outstretched.
“Rhaella, take my hand!”
She did it without hesitating. He pulled her up. It was as easy as falling had been. Trusting all her weight to him. He had her. He had her.
Even through their armored gloves she could feel the strength of his hand and his arm. She could feel how he hauled her close to him as she cleared the edge of the cliff, kicking and pulling her way along to help him. She could feel his warmth, how heavily he was breathing.
He had her.
She looked at him - at the raindrops on his cheekbones, his eyelashes - at the way his pupils were blown wide, his full lips parted like he was about to say something. Like he was about to kiss her. She melted against him, willing him to.
And then she remembered.
Crestwood.
The pale blue light that wreathed his hands as he burned her vallaslin away.
Solas stepped away from her then, as he had that night.
“The boss okay?”
Bull was hefting his axe out of the body of the archer who’d shot her. The wet crunch shocked the last of the reverie from Rhaella’s system. Her wet armor clung to her and her lungs burned from screaming or panting or both. She’d nearly fallen and died in the midst of a battle. The Anchor buzzed and flickered. How could she have been so careless? Who would have sealed the rifts and defeated Corypheus if she was gone?
And how did she lose sight of all of that as she fell, as he rescued her? How did her mind circle endlessly back to him when he'd rejected her? Harden your heart, he'd said. She started to -
“I believe so,” Solas called back to Bull.
And then his hand was on her right side, where the arrow was, and Rhaella was lost again.
“I can -” she began, though the words seemed to come from somewhere outside herself as she focused on that point of contact.
“Let me -” he said, his words tripping over hers.
Rhaella let him.
Rhaella let him examine the wound even though she already knew it was more bruising than anything else, something she could easily have tended herself, because it had been only a fortnight since Crestwood (would she ever look at that name on a map again without her heart cracking open?) and that fortnight had felt like falling, freewheeling, untethered, as she replayed the scene over and over again. Standing there, his hand on her side as he examined the wound, felt like solid ground again.
Why? She wanted to ask him, even though she knew it was pointless. He hadn’t given her an answer that night or any night since then. But the terror in his voice as he called her name - as he begged for her to take his hand -
In another world. Why not this world? If you are that afraid to lose me -
“It did not pierce your armor,” he said. “But I would imagine you are quite sore from the impact. I could ease your pain if you...”
He looked away as his words trailed off. Perhaps what she was thinking was written plainly on her face.
Yes. You could ease my pain. You could tell me why.
Harden your heart, Rhaella.
“That won’t be necessary.”
Rhaella wondered if she sounded hollow to anyone who could hear her, or if it was another aftereffect of the fall. If the wind was still rushing in her ears.
Solas moved away from her. Only an inch or so, but it was enough. Boundary lines were redrawn.
"Inquisitor," he said, soft, polite, distant as the moon.
Rhaella did not heal the wound. Not right away. The ache was a reminder to stay focused on her duty, to not be so careless next time. To fix things herself, because she was alone again. Solas had made that perfectly clear.
Except -
That night, as the camp prepared to settle in, the Inquisition soldiers buzzing around them like fireflies as they worked through their last orders of the day -
Rhaella watched as Bull asked Solas if he wanted to play a game of chess with a real board this time. She saw Solas as he hesitated to answer, his own words needing to travel a great distance before he spoke them, the way her own words did (no thank you, Bull. Not tonight). She saw from the corner of her eye how he looked at her just a moment too long - just long enough that she thought she could see cracks around his mask -
And then all she wanted to do was cross the distance between him and say take my hand and pull them both back to shore.
i have missed painting portraits SO MUCH! and also let me tell you: your girl Rhaella is GORGEOUS and i’ve enjoyed every single ref of her you sent me! thank you very much for joining me in this little art trade thingy, it has been a real pleasure to work with you ^^
