“A demon would have long since been provoked into revealing itself. You know who I am, Inquisitor.”
“If you were Solas," Caden says carefully, "that still wouldn’t be true.”
In the months following Corypheus' defeat, the Inquisitor's dreams have been plagued by demons in Solas' guise. He does not expect the man himself to actually appear.
no coward's choice. is it worse to punch your subordinate for criticizing you knowing he's in a social position where he has no way to defend himself against your authority (but later you offer him the opportunity to hit you back #equality) or to coerce your boss into resuming taking the drugs he was trying to quit with the justification that it probably saved his life
i know you'd kill me if you could stand the sight of blood (1.8k words)
(ao3 link)
heard it's da kiss week. This doesn't have anything to do with that. it's caden asking solas to hit him (non-sexual) (?) (gets denied) (still weird). also they're in that one haunted chateau in the emerald graves
Initially, Solas had chosen to believe that the Inquisitor brought him to the Emerald Graves out of sheer practicality. Though a faithful templar in all respects, Trevelyan has never argued against the obvious benefits of having a mage in his traveling party. His preferred companion would no doubt have been Vivienne, but the Enchanter is fully occupied pulling at her web of connections to help the Inquisition navigate its tenuous alliance with the new Orlesian Emperor.
The gap between her and the two other mages in the Inquisitor’s retinue is almost comical. Dorian has made no attempt to disguise his antipathy towards the Inquisitor, and the sentiment is clearly mutual. Seeing as the man still sprawls over any available surface in Skyhold’s library, and Solas has yet to overhear any shouting matches from the upper floor, he can hardly be on worse terms with Trevelyan than Solas is.
Yet it is Solas standing in the eerily idyllic gardens of this desolate chateau, rather than Dorian, rather than no mage at all. The faint shimmer of Solas' barrier surrounds Trevelyan as he kneels in the grass—each blade a uniform, too-bright green—and carves into the felled arcane horror's chest with practiced precision. Its heart slides into his palm, dark and slick as a stillbirth, staining his gauntlet black in the few seconds of contact before he wraps it in cloth and sets it aside.
The oppressive atmosphere pervading the chateau has lightened with the demon's defeat. Solas finds he can breathe with an ease he hadn't realized was missing, and his barrier dissipates slowly and steadily now that the energies of the Fade no longer press so intently against the Veil. What was only a vague sense before is now a certainty. A dormant elven artifact sits somewhere nearby.
“Inquisitor,” he says, as Trevelyan stands back up, earning him a curious look over the shoulder. “I believe there is an elven artifact somewhere in the manor. Before we leave, I would—”
“You shouldn't wander off by yourself,” Trevelyan interjects, before Solas can suggest just that. “I'll come with you. It may be worth looking through the house for anything the Inquisition can use, in any case. Cassandra, Sera—”
“I want out of this place an hour ago,” Sera grouses, grimacing down at the arcane horror's open chest. “Could kiss a tree after all this. Nice, normal, boring tree.”
Cassandra glances at her, equally sympathetic and weary. The look lasts only a moment; when her attention turns to Solas, there is nothing but calm diligence in her expression. “Do you have any idea where, exactly, Solas?”
“It is not far. Somewhere on the ground floor.”
“We'll look through the upper floor, then, and return here in thirty minutes.”
“Twenty,” Sera says, “in the foy-ay.” Though she has yet to look away from the corpse on the ground, she apparently feels well enough to deliberately butcher the Orlesian pronunciation.
“Twenty, by the entrance,” Trevelyan agrees. He nods to Cassandra once in confirmation as she passes, Sera reluctantly trailing after her, then gestures for Solas to lead the way.
His expression is perfectly polite. The palm and fingers of his gauntlet are painted in thick streaks of rotting blood. Trevelyan’s usual reaction to Solas’ suggestions to seek out elven artifacts, since the first one they found in the Hinterlands, is open skepticism of the unfamiliar and thus untrustworthy magic.
Solas had chosen to believe the Inquisitor requested his presence out of practicality, because it was logical, and because it was preferable to the only other explanation he could think of. He allows himself, now, to consider the worse alternative: that Trevelyan is apologetic.
Trevelyan says nothing as he falls into step behind Solas. They’ve spoken no more than necessary since leaving Skyhold.
They haven’t been alone together since the Inquisitor punched him in the face.
Solas deliberately relaxes his jaw, loosens his grip on his staff. He needs to focus on the traces of energy he feels from the artifact, not every point of tension in his body. If this is some indirect, half-hearted attempt at appeasement, it is far from successful, but it could be worse. He finds himself in the ironic position of being grateful that Trevelyan’s pride would never allow him to simply apologize and ask for forgiveness. At least this way something is being accomplished.
The artifact is easy enough to locate in the end, tucked away in a small storage room to the side of the ballroom. It stirs to life at a touch like a cat emerging from slumber, the magic within slowly unfurling to brush against the Veil. The sensation is achingly familiar. If not for the unavoidable awareness of Trevelyan at his back, it might be calming.
Instead, Solas finds the implications of the artifact’s presence impossible to ignore. It could never have prevented what happened here, but it could have provided a futile hope. Or perhaps it was only brought here as a trophy, carelessly plucked from a nameless ruin and then deemed too paltry to display by its uncomprehending thieves.
Without the subtle menace of a haunting, the utter silence of the manor is tragedy laid bare. Solas can hear Trevelyan breathe out behind him, armor settling as he shifts his weight between his feet. He’s startled by the sound of his own teeth clicking together as he clenches his jaw reflexively, hard enough to hurt.
“Solas.”
Solas waits for a moment before he turns. He’s surprised to see Trevelyan looking at the artifact and not at him, eyes snapping up to meet Solas’ a second too late.
“I…” The Inquisitor’s eyes are too bright in this windowless room, a flash of something predatory in the dark. He frowns briefly, steeling himself, though his gaze does not waver. Then he says, “You can hit me.”
Solas stares at him. The words are clearly enunciated, perfectly comprehensible, but the sentence doesn’t make sense.
Trevelyan blinks, and the reflected light in his eyes goes dim as he lowers his head and glances to the side. His voice falters. “If… that’s what you want.”
What Solas wants is to laugh. He would, if he thought he could open his mouth without something snapping in his jaw.
Through closed teeth, Solas says, “No.”
“No?” Trevelyan tenses as if expecting a blow, hands curling into fists at his sides. With his head still lowered, the look he gives Solas seems oddly defiant for a man asking to be hit. “It’s only fair, isn’t it?”
Fairness in a fist. Wasn’t that why the Inquisitor struck him in the first place? Confronted with Solas' open derision, he'd felt an entirely natural impulse to restore the disrupted order of things, to put the upstart elven apostate back in his place with all the force his Maker called on him to wield.
For a moment after the blow landed, Solas had looked at Trevelyan and failed to recognize him. Pure anger transformed his face into something far too raw to be the Inquisitor, too human to be the Herald of Andraste. A mortal man after all, as petty and cruel as the rest of his kind. Beneath the throbbing pain, he’d felt the smallest spark of satisfaction.
“Tell me something, Inquisitor. If a templar struck a mage in the Circle, what punishment would he receive?”
Trevelyan narrows his eyes, straightening slightly. Something in his posture, the curve of his neck, the whites of his eyes, calls to mind a muzzled dog pulling at its leash. “If the mage posed no threat—”
“When does a mage not pose a threat, to a templar?”
“If the mage had done nothing to warrant the use of force—”
“Something only a templar could determine.”
“The templar would be disciplined as his Knight-Commander saw fit,” Trevelyan soldiers on, “most likely by having his lyrium rations cut.” He pauses briefly, as if anticipating another interruption. “We are not in the Circle, Solas.”
Solas feels his lips curve into a humorless smile. “Should I have asked what would happen to a templar that struck an apostate, instead?”
Trevelyan tenses further. Solas thinks that he might straighten up fully, reasserting his authority through the simple physical reality of his stature, and is strangely irritated when the Inquisitor lets out a long exhale instead, his shoulders slumping and his head drooping lower until they are nearly of a height.
Even in this deliberate show of submission, the Inquisitor cannot help but look down on him. He is what he is.
When Trevelyan finally speaks, his voice is thin and bare, almost childish. “I don’t wish for us to be at odds.”
“We both want to see Corypheus defeated and the world restored,” Solas replies curtly. “I still believe that supporting the Inquisition is the best way to achieve that, even if I may disagree with your methods.”
“I don’t…” Trevelyan cuts himself off, frowning. In a slow, seemingly half-conscious motion, he lifts his right hand to press his knuckles to his lips. “You’re angry with me, understandably so. I would like to find some way to—rectify that.”
“By graciously allowing me to return the blow you dealt me.”
The half-curled fingers of Trevelyan’s right hand twitch, hovering inches from his mouth. By his side, his left hand is a void, black corpse-blood swallowing his palm in darkness. “If that’s what you want.”
In a burst of dreamlike clarity, Solas understands: Trevelyan knows full well that Solas does not want this. He knew that, surely, before he spoke, before he even started thinking of the words. This is what the Inquisitor wants. Not to offer up an apology he knows would be rejected, but the certainty of absolution earned through penance.
Even if Solas were willing to give that to him, it would, in truth, be the greater cruelty. The Anchor will kill him. Anything Solas could do to the Inquisitor now would be desecrating a walking corpse.
“I was disappointed in you long before you hit me, Inquisitor,” Solas says, deliberately, carefully even, “and that is far beyond your ability to rectify.”
Trevelyan sets his jaw, brow furrowing. “I refuse to believe that’s true.”
“Perhaps I should put it another way, then. You are a templar, a sword of the Maker, and the Herald of Andraste. I am an elven apostate. It is impossible for you to have done me wrong.”
“I know you don’t believe that.”
“No, I do not,” Solas snaps, and there’s a vicious pleasure in watching the Inquisitor fail to completely repress a flinch at the sudden shift in tone. “You do.”
The words land with a greater impact than his fist ever could. There is no point in lingering to watch Trevelyan nurse the wound. As he takes an instinctive step back, reeling, Solas stalks past him and out of the room.
He does not bother waiting; he does not look back. The Inquisitor is what he is. Seconds later, Solas hears his steady footsteps follow.
