May 12
i headcanon that he spends the entire evening in denial because seeing Briala reminds him of Felassan (:
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i headcanon that he spends the entire evening in denial because seeing Briala reminds him of Felassan (:
Imagine Solas and Lavellan accidentally bumping into each other during those eight years between Trespasser and Veilguard.
Just so you know, I wanted this to be like two paragraphs max. Wanted to sprinkle a little angst dust on your head, but ended up pouring the whole jar (sorry, but also not sorry?) I hope you enjoy spiraling with me… <3
She sits on a fine couch tucked in a corner, behind sheer curtains that obscure her from most of the prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse of the elvish woman that wielded the very power of the fade; or the hand that had housed it. She isn’t blind to the disappointment that flitters across faces when her hand is found void of any milky glow, and only a shiny white gold prosthetic clinking against her glass of wine.
Wine. She hates it. Most the time. She’ll drink it at events, if only to make the night pass by a little smoother. The wine, however bitter it is, makes every minute packed with questions poking and prodding at her most painful scars sound a little less like stone grating against itself. Usually, Dorian sticks close to her side to fend off the especially insensitive and the racist assholes that like to hover around her as flies hang around shit.
Lavellan grew up among trees and flowers and sweet silence. The petticoats, snide remarks, and hidden meanings that stink up the air here gives her a headache. It's hot, it's crowded, and she feels like a tiger chained and locked in a cage. Despite hiding - or trying to, at least - Lavellan still catches people looking her way and then whispering behind their hand. Someone is always talking here. The one thing that she and Solas disagreed on is the 'pleasure' of court intrigue. The court makes her feel like a pretty little piece to be won by the highest bidder. When she attends, she’s surrounded by men with one drink too many in their bellies, saying things like—
“I’ve lost you to your thoughts again, Herald.” His words roll off his tongue thickly; he’s Orlesian, that much she’s gathered from his accent. He, who is a scholar and wiseman, ever searching for answers of the fade. And she — oh, joy — is an object of curiosity to him (those were his exact words). “I’ve heard such talk always clams you up. These are the things the others who have sought you have said. You are from the Free Marches, a Dalish, so I imagine you are hesitant to leave your people.” Lavellan hides her snort with her glass by taking another drink. Is he going to pretend that she hadn’t left her clan to travel across Thedas and attend the Conclave? Has this scholar yet asked himself, 'How can she fear leaving her people, yet be here, in Tevinter, at this ball?'
Her eyes, now housing unnatural specks of green that really fascinates the pompous magisters roving about, trail away from the human, along with her thoughts, to meet with the eyes of an elven servant just entering the room.
In his hands is a tray of balanced glasses of champagne — a drink much kinder to her tastebuds — that shine the same shade of gold as the servants' widening eyes. She blinks at the panic that washes through them. He spins around (not losing a drop of the champagne, she notes), shoves at the other servant entering just behind him - who bears a tray of yummy little sandwiches in their hand - back into the shroud of the hall and begins hissing at them.
Her gaze falls down to her hands, clasping her drink in her lap. Since the events of the Inquisition, she’s been held above most everyone. Revered as untouchable, someone to be worshipped. To be bowed to. Even by her own people.
She is lonely.
“Surely, I cannot be so unworthy of your company, Inquisitor.” The man concludes his rant at her side. A rant full of reasons of why she should stay at his estate and become his mistress, to put it bluntly. It's all wrapped up in passionate and poetic words he wants to use to tie her up. Like a dog, not like a lover. For she is an elf, she is a trophy to be won! The Inquisitor! Herald of Andraste, she has been touched by the Maker and sent to them. For them. But... She is an elf, and they'll do everything they can to gloss over it. Sometimes she wonders, hundreds - thousands, maybe - of years from now, will she still be remembered as the elven woman she is? Or will they remake her into what they want?
“My lord, my silence is not an insult to your character.” Lavellan watches as the elven servants fully enter the room now, the taller one behind now with a covered face and lowered eyes. Curious... They move around the room, offering refreshments with lowered heads and sagged shoulders; it makes her tongue thick in her mouth. She trails their movements. “I am flattered by your… Fascination with me.”
Glass empty, she sets it down and turns her hand over, eying the pretty designs etched into the prosthetic. Dagna designed it for her, with the help of Dorian; she wasn't surprised when they gave it to her to be blinded by the sunlight reflecting off the gold, but she was also surprised to love it so much. A simple thing, with the eye of the inquisition on her palm - where the mark was - and vines with small, intricate leaves twisting out from it... “The magic I wielded is a curious phenomenon, no?”
“Absolutely! No one has had such a close connection to the fade! Imagine what we could achieve with your ability, and my intelligence.” She grinds her teeth, jaw flexing; of course, she’s not intelligent enough to understand it on her own.
The vines, Dorian explained, wasn't just because she's Dalish or loves botany, but rather because she 'has a habit of making even the most desolate places blossom.' She closes her palm and holds it over her heart. This human next to her is ignorant to that; she shouldn't let it bother her...
“I’m sure it would’ve been extraordinary.” She lowly replies, her irritation barely covered by the smile she forces into her lips, “Unfortunately, I cannot wield it anymore.”
“Ah, yes, your adversary.” The man leans back in his chair, one arm resting on the couch behind her. Lavellan slowly inches away. “What was his name?” The lord taps his chin as he hums to himself. Lavellan doesn’t bother to offer him the answer, though it’s blanketed over her tongue, drying her mouth and casting her eyes out the window. “The Dread Wolf?” The elven servants stop in front of them.
“My lord.” He offers out the tray to them and lowers his honeyed eyes. Lavellan watches him steadily, the taught lines between her brow melting off her unnaturally sharp features. “Inquisitor.” He dares a glance at her, and she takes that second to smile at him. The lord grabs a glass and continues. As if they don’t exist.
“That is how your people refer to him, yes? The Dread Wolf. Fen’Harel.” There’s cheer flashing through the lord's eyes. He takes a taste of his drink and swishes it around his mouth with a smile barely contained. Her eyes sharpen, but she forces herself to look away before the look kills him. It would’ve, she imagines, and she’s almost ashamed to say it would bring her joy. Just a tad. But that’s not very Inquisitorial of her…
“Thank you.” She quietly says as she removes the last glass from the tray. “Yes, my lord. That’s what they call him.” He cackles, head thrown back, and drawing the rooms attention. Lavellan doesn’t share his elation.
“To think that you had one of your own gods under your nose for the better part of the year!” He puts his hand to his stomach and laughs some more. The Inquisitor rolls her eyes and takes a large gulp of her champagne. “And you never noticed, m’lady? That your feared Dread Wolf dined at the same table as you?” Lavellan’s hand tightens over her drink.
“His name…” Lavellan flinches at the break in her voice and takes a deep breath to steady herself. There’s a burning to her eye. One that tells her she may be one drink too deep herself. She downs what's left in her glass and clears her throat. “His name is Solas.” She flicks her eyes, newly hardened, back to the lord. “And he was there to help. Just like the rest of us. He is a good man… I had no reason to doubt him. Ever.”
“You sound rather affectionate in your address.” He comments.
“Yes.” Her words are quiet as a smile ghosts over her lips. “So, you will understand me when I say I cannot accept your offer.”
“Come, I can change your mind. You can merely visit for a while, things may progress naturally.”
“They will not, my lord.”
“You cannot know that.” He leans in closer to her, drawing a nervous laugh from her.
“I know myself well enough. It will not happen.”
“Surely you will not waste yourself on-“
“Would you like a treat, my lord?” The unmasked servants question is sudden and frantic at first but falling quiet toward the end. Lavellan raises her eye at the nervous shift of his feet, and glances to his friend behind him; what has them so on edge? She catches grey-blue eyes for merely a second before they’re obscured by his brunette hair as he bowed and offered the tray with steady hands. Familiarity instantly breathes down her neck at the shade of blue she saw. Then it begins to burn in her gut.
She cannot seem to escape him no matter where she is...
It’s quiet, Lavellan realizes, and she begins to blink herself back to the present. All humor leaves the lord as he finally turns to acknowledge the two standing before them. His eyes have somehow become a darker shade of black, and his lips turned down with a silent snarl. Lavellan shudders at the sudden change, goosebumps rising into her arms. She watches the look in his eye sharpen into a knife, and her heart jumps into a throat. Inhuman. He’s inhuman, she thinks.
“You can see that the Inquisitor and I are having a conversation, yet you would interrupt us?” Lavellan straightens. This will go badly, and quickly. She places her hand atop the lords, and levels him with a stare that she had been masking all night; pupils blown a little wide, hard, and a slight sense of bloodlust. It was men like this that took her clan from her. She can barely conceal the shake numbing her limbs.
She has to reel it in. For Dorian's sake.
“He has done nothing wrong, my lord. Please, there is no need to use such a tone.” His hand grasps back at her own, and he plants a slobbery kiss to the back of it. Horror parts her lips.
“You jump even to the defense of those who are below you. You are exquisite.” Her skin runs cold, as if she stepped out into a winter night with no cloak. Below her? Below her?
“You would sit next to me on this couch and say such a thing?”
“Ah, Inquisitor. You must be upset with my scolding. Forgive me for such unsightly behavior. I do not make a habit of disciplining the help in front of my guests, be sure. But sometimes you must act immediately, to teach them that some behaviors simply will not be tole-“
“Enough. You misunderstand me.” Her voice is low. Her tone is that of the Inquisitor, not Lavellan, and it makes her heart shiver and ache a little. “They are my people.” Her words are, despite being quiet, heavy, hard, and final. “They are not below me. They are my people.” Gods, she’s had too much to drink. She should hold her tongue. Dorian will have another mess to clean up if she loses her cool again. “Do not think that I have been blind to the disrespect you pay to me and my people. You think you have hidden them so cleverly them behind your little compliments. You have crossed the line. You disgust me, and you will never lay a finger on me, my lord.”
The lord is silent. So are the servants. She removes her tight grip from his hand and scoots herself to the other side of the couch. “Leave me. Before I lose the rest of my patience and become the savage you expect me to be.”
Joy, her first taste of it tonight, blankets over her chest at the wide-eyed, open-mouthed look that's taken up his paling face. Without a word, he scurries away. The Inquisitor steadies herself with a deep breath.
“I’m sorry to provoke him. I know my place.” Lavellan’s brow pinches, and her attention is back on the two before her. The other servant remains with his head bowed and tray outstretched.
“Thank you.” She gingerly removes a sandwich. “You must not apologize to me. And,” her eyes trace the lines of his pale face, and the messy curl of his blond locks… She stops herself. He knows his place, he says… But she fears he doesn’t. He is not below the nobles here, not below the human servants, but how can she convince him. In a room full of people that see him as a mouse scurrying between their boots. “Truly, you’ve nothing to apologize for.”
A sense of shame burrows in her cheeks as she looks away from them. She should help them. There won't be any consquences to her, but the lord will run and tattle, and these two will still be to blame. She should help them escape. But… How? Perhaps Dorian will know.
“You’re as kind as they say.” He bows his head to her, and she shifts in her seat. “We are in your debt.” Her eyes dart to the other elf, but his eyes remain downturned.
“Is your friend okay?” She asks. He jumps as his attention returns to the quiet form at his side.
“Oh, yes. He’s mute.”
“Oh?” She takes in the tall, masked man before her. “Why do you wear…” She catches herself, “Why the mask?”
“He has a nasty scar. Wouldn’t want to offend you, my lady.” Her brows pinch, but a laugh plays on her lips.
“People say I’m kind, yet you fear showing me your scars?” She looks to the other, wishing he’d bring his eyes to hers, but he doesn’t. She wants to see that blue again. “Well… I take no offense to yours. I’ve my own to hide as well.” She addresses him, and his eyes return to meet her own. Again, her stomach churns and her heart flutters. She wishes she could see Solas again, to know if she truly remembers his face, or how he looked at her. If the blue of his eye truly is so similar to the ones staring back at her.
Lavellan takes in the straight brow above the masked elf's eye and returns to searching the depths of them. They seem to suck her in, and she's helpless to pull herself away; they felt like wells full of an emotion she couldn’t place. She leans forward before she can think better of it. Why is her heart stirring so much? She felt she could drown in the warmth radiating out of those blue orbs.
Why is he looking at her like that? As if she were the only thing in this room? As if he knew her, as if he understood-
“Lady Inquisitor?” The servant asks quickly, another nervous shift in his stance.
“Ah, sorry.” A sheepish smile plays on her lips as she leans back against the couch. “Your eyes are quite beautiful. They remind me of a friend.” Her own gaze falls, returning to watch the city splayed out before her, and dulls to a melancholy glisten. “Thank you for the sandwich. Take care.” They bow to her, and stalk off.
She’s foolish. She wanted him back so badly she can see him in any set of pretty blue eyes, it seems. Her eyes redden, tears building until they threatened to fall, and all the drinks she’s had begins to burn in her stomach. She’d like to leave soon.
She hates the court. He loved it.
And that’s all she can think about when she comes to these things.
XXX
She hates the court.
Why is she even here?
Where is Dorian? Why would he ever leave her side in a place like this?
Those are the sort of things whirring around Solas’ head. He stares severely at the marble floor and takes deep breaths to ground the uproar within him. His body is buzzing, like every nerve within him is coming to life simply by being so near her. Years have passed, yet she is as beautiful as ever. More so.
Perched on a couch just behind the shifting curtains, the mage casts her several glances as they work their way around the room, and shudders each time she’s revealed to him. Beautiful. Ethereal. Her hair shifting with the breeze, tapping against her jaw, and plump, painted lips caressing the curve of her wine glass.
She hates wine.
He just needs information of who the idol was sold to. It’s a simple mission that any agent could carry out. Therin wasted no time trying to dissuade him. He even suggested Solas take a walk in Treviso, visit a cafe, and take a day to himself. But the mage didn't want to wander, he wanted to focus. There's a reason he insisted to come himself...
That reason is on the couch a few paces behind him. Solas hadn’t wanted to be haunted with the thought of her, torturing himself over the words she would say to him if she knew that he is one step closer to finishing the ritual… A ritual that would ruin the world she fought and bled for…
Therin insisted that he doesn’t follow him in, but she’d already seen Solas following him and she would have questions; the observant, smart, curious creature she is. So here he is, heart hammering so hard in his chest the closer he steps to her that he worries he might pass out.
When her voice finally reaches his ear, he almost let's out an audible whimper, but manages to strangle it with a quiet cough. How he missed hearing her voice. If he could, he’d give everything to spend another night pouring over books with her in the Skyhold library. What wouldn’t he do to hear her voice free of the weight of his betrayal and back to the warm, lilting cadence she used only with him.
“The Dread Wolf?” Solas stills at that name. The lord who is draped across the couch with Lavellan, leaning closer to her, as she leans farther away, hums with amusement. "Fen'Harel..." Solas can barely breathe, this close to her; yet unable to speak to her, to touch or hold her…
It’s nearly more painful to him to be unknown to her, as he is now, than to bare himself before her again.
His tongue swells after he steps past the curtain and beholds her entirely. Clad in a detailed dress clinging to her waist, pushing up her breasts, and resting happily on her wide hips. Solas burns her image into his mind, noting every little detail of her that has changed. His eyes linger on the golden hand that reaches out and plucks a drink from Therin's tray.
He could fall to his knees now and beg her forgiveness. She could tell him he is nothing and he would be grateful she even allowed him to kneel before her… His chest constricts painfully.
“Thank you.” Her voice is warm, softened. “Yes, my lord. That’s what they call him.” Her civility is forced, he can hear it in the flatness of her words. The human begins to cackle, and Solas’ eyes narrow dangerously onto him.
“To think that you had one of your own gods under your nose for the better part of the year!” The mage's hands tighten over the silver tray until they are white knuckled. He would laugh at Lavellan? The woman who saved his sorry ass from the tyranny of Corypheus? “And you never noticed, m’lady? That your feared Dread Wolf dined at the same table as you?”
And he would ignore vhenan's clear discomfort? The shade cast over her eye, the frown on her lips, and her hand tightening over her glass. The expression on her face, sure to fall unnoticed by everyone else, is one of desolation while she looks out to the city. He wanted to reach out and touch her temple, relieve her of what he knows is banging around in her chest; the exact thing that is trying to claw its own way out of his chest and to her. Solas’ mind is narrowing, his willpower dwindling; he’d damn all of his efforts soon if he didn’t leave. He needs to back away or he will blow their cover. The elf manages a weak step backwards.
“His name…” Her voice breaks, and he does the same. Her eyes are slightly irritated, a redness climbing up into her cheeks, and he can see her collecting herself with deep breaths. She’s always been in control of herself. He admires her for it. “His name is Solas.” She brings her eyes back to the lord, keeping them steadily on the shifting fool. “And he was there to help. Just like the restof us. He is a good man… I had no reason to doubt him. Ever.”
Solas’ heart falls into his stomach, where it begins to churn into a nausea that threatened to bring him to his knees. Her words are lodged in his chest.
“You sound rather affectionate in your address.”
“Yes.” It comes from her in a whisper. It comes with a smile. “So you will understand me when I say I cannot accept your offer.” Offer? His eyes flick back up to the two on the couch, trying to decipher the look shared between the two.
“Come, I can change your mind. You can merely visit for a while, things may progress naturally.” Is he asking her to, what, marry him? Be his mistress? Her unease and his insistence leads Solas to believe it’s exactly that; likely the latter, considering. There’s a pang in his chest.
Of course others will want her. Look at her. More than that, she is good. She’s kind, strong, intelligent- he could go on forever. She is everything. What creature could not crave her?
“They will not, my lord.”
“You cannot know that.” The bastard begins to lean closer to vhenan. The panic that shuddered over her expression is enough to send the elven god over the edge. She moves away with a nervous laugh. Solas stiffens, and he hears a sharp breath from Therin; the agent could tell when the Dread Wolf was getting prickly.
“I know myself well enough. It will not happen.” Solas’ eyes are smoldering.
“Surely you will not waste yourself on-“ That’s it. He can take it no more. He takes a step forward, the tray beginning to loosen in his hands.
“Would you like a treat, my lord?” Therin’s voice calls him back to himself. The mage swallows thickly. His eyes instinctively return to Lavellan. She locks him in his place with her gaze, every muscle in his body tensing, and his heart flopping from his stomach up into his throat. He could not get control over himself.
His eyes lower, and he holds out the tray. She would know his voice if he made even a noise, that he was sure of. So he’s silent in his regard to her and the piece of shit next to her. There’s an uncomfortable silence, but Solas doesn’t bother to ascertain why it’s fallen over the four of them.
“You can see that the Inquisitor and I are having a conversation, yet you would interrupt us?” Solas clenches his jaw. Would that the lord knew what beast was barely keeping himself in check a feet away… What would his words be if he knew that the Dread Wolf — the wolf that loved the woman he is so blatantly propositioning — had his fangs positioned at his throat; how Solas salivates at the thought of crushing the man’s windpipe.
“He has done nothing wrong, my lord. Please, there is no need to use such a tone.” The Dread Wolf’s blue eyes cool even further as he watches her hand fall atop the humans. Her skin has paled, her eyes darting between Therin and the lord with a disarming smile trying to stick on her lips.
“You jump even to the defense of those who are below you. You are exquisite.” She is exquis-
He will kill him. Before Solas leaves this ball tonight, he’ll see this man’s heart removed from his chest. The lord thinks he deserves to press his lips to her skin? Skin that Solas himself did not have the pleasure of tasting? This little human believes himself worthy of vhenan? His vhenan?
The lord even pays no mind to the look of terror that breaks through her mask for a second. He would ignore her rejections, belittle her, and touch her so carelessly? Death is almost too good for him.
“You would sit next to me on this couch and say such a thing?”
“Ah, Inquisitor. Forgive me for such unsightly behavior. I do not make a habit of disciplining the help in front of my guests, be sure. But sometimes you must act immediately, to teach them that some behaviors simply will not be tole-“
“Enough. You misunderstand me.” Lavellan’s voice is unnaturally hard and low. He imagines he’d die right then and there if she were to ever addresses him with such a cold voice. Solas waits impatiently for the lord to do the same. “They are my people.” She keeps her voice low so that the others in the room wouldn’t catch whiff of the commotion. “They are not below me. They are my people.” She has not changed so much, it seems. To endure the insults he wrapped up in his compliments, until they were directed at others. Often, she didn’t bother to defend herself from the sharp words of others, but the moment she heard someone mumble under their breath after him — or anyone, really — she was nearly feral. He would pull her away with a smile playing on his lips, and wrap his hand around her waist, plant a gentle kiss to the top of her head.
“It’s ok, vhenan.” He’d say. “Their words do not bother me.”
“But they bother me!” She’d cry back with this same look in her eyes. A direct stare, sparkling with ire, and a promise to fulfill every warning coming off her lips. His hands threatened to tremble knowing that they could not soothe her as they did before...
“Do not think that I have been blind to the disrespect you pay to me and my people. You think you have so cleverly hidden them behind your compliments. You have crossed the line. You disgust me, and you will never lay a finger on me, my lord.”
What is it raging about in his chest? Dying jealousy clashing with his ire, now being smothered by a cool wave of pride.
“Leave me. Before I loose the rest of my patience and become the savage you expect me to be.” The lord scurries away. Lavellan’s chest rises with a deep breath, and falls with her steadying exhale.
“I’m sorry to provoke him. I know my place.”
“Thank you. You must not apologize to me. And,” She bites her lip as she catches her words. His eyes return to her as soon as he feels her gaze slip to her hands. The crease between her brow, and the worry of her lip; she has something she wants to tell them… She returns with only a warm smile and, “Truly, you’ve nothing to apologize for.”
“You’re as kind as they say.” Lavellan shuffles as Therin bows his head to her, and Solas does the same. “We are in your debt.”
“Is your friend okay?” He’s suffocating under her gaze. He’s nearly forgotten how thrilling her attention was.
“Oh, yes. He’s mute.” She hums back a response, and asks about his mask. Maybe he should’ve just turned around and let Therin handle it all. Of course she’d be suspicious of the one elven servant wearing a mask. “He has a nasty scar. Wouldn’t want to offend you, my lady.” She laughs.
Gods his knees are weak. A smile blossoms into his own lips before he can think. Then his brow pinches; he’s smiling, while feeling like he might throw up, or worse, start sobbing in her lap.
“People say I’m kind yet you fear showing me your scars? Well… I take no offense to yours. I’ve my own to hide as well.” In a moment of weakness — pure stupidity —, despite the whispers in his mind that doing it is a terrible mistake, he trails his eyes up to her own. He is all too aware of the love she has for him.
She will know him. Even if it’s just from a short meeting of their eyes. What’s worse is he almost wants her to recognize him.
If she did, what would she do? His eyes search hers for an answer. Would she allow him to apologize? Would she forgive him? Would she run into his arms? Or would she give him that same icy stare that she gave the lord? Could there be even the slightest hope that someday he could hold her again?
But hope is all he’s ever seen in her eyes. This time is no different. He sucks in an audible breath as vhenan leans forward; he sees the familiarity sparking in her beautiful eye, in the part of her lips.
“Lady Inquisitor?” Solas lowers his gaze as her attention is pulled away from him again. He lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
“Ah, sorry.” She gives a short smile. “Your eyes are quite beautiful. They remind me of a friend.” The world is spinning, until he catches sight of how her eyes have fallen. “Thank you for the sandwich. Take care.”
He bows again, trying to somehow say “I love you eternally, vhenan” with the gesture, but he knows it won’t reach her. He knows it by the far off look taking over the shine in her eye.
His own heart shudders as he gives her one last glance from the shadows of the hall, pulling his mask down and revealing the heavy frown over his lips. The redness of her eye a warning of the tears brimming them, is a cool reminder to the chaos that she’d stirred up in his chest.
All those smoldering emotions that had been warring in his chest, cooled by his pride, are now extinguished with his regret. Regret that he’s ever made her wear such an expression. Regret that he cannot kiss it off of her.
“Let’s continue.” Solas says with a hardened jaw and furrowed brow, turning and walking away with his hands clasped behind his back. “Oh, and try to figure out that lords name.”
“You cant be serious!” Therin exclaims. Solas merely turns to him with a raised brow. “Right… On it.”
Are there people who really think Solas ruined DA?
If by “ruined” you mean “stole my heart unintentionally”, sure.
Absolutely wrecked it.
In the best way possible.
Especially for my first Thedosian experience.
That motherfucker took me by surprise with his little Fade field trip.
I didn’t romance him until my third, but I definitely emotionally cheated on poor Cullen on my second run. 🤣
So yeah, Solas did ruin Dragon Age with his stupid freckly face, stupid bald head, his stupid dumb ass.
Fuck that guy 💜
I love him too much there are too many adjectives. 
You know, if I were Asena, I might start to consider waterfalls an ill omen based on previous experiences.
Could you imagine her exploring the far reaches of the Fade with Solas when the sound of a waterfall starts to permeate their surroundings?
Initially, she would not consciously perceive it, but her physiological responses would be immediate. Her heart would drop into her stomach and her throat would constrict with an instant feeling of dread. Her emotional defenses would lock into place on instinct to shield her from the pain and devastation that sound had now conditioned her to expect.
Pavlovian.
And just like that a new HC has been unlocked: Asena hates the sound of waterfalls.
Damn.
Venting about the treatment of Solas in Veilguard
I don't want to go too, too deeply into it, but all day I've been thinking about how blatantly unfair and mean everyone is to Solas in Veilguard. (And we all know why, but I'll let that particular sleeping dog (mostly) lie, I guess.)
(I am increasingly bitter about all of this, and while I genuinely enjoyed Veilguard for what it was, and for the catharsis and closure of the Solavellan ending, on repeat playthroughs I am getting really frustrated by the illogical, unsympathetic, and outright cruel way Solas is treated by the narrative. You don't have to like or romance him to see that none of it lines up properly.)
Solas is not an idiot, he knows people are after him and people don't agree with him. But this particular bit is just mean. It feels like it's meant to read as an understanding nod towards the audience. Like a "Yeah we know you hate this guy, we do, too - everyone does."
Let's not talk about the fact that his plan was to actually stabilize the Veil by moving Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain to stronger prisons.
Let's not talk about the fact that Varric bulldozed his way into a magical ritual he didn't fucking understand to pretend he was saving the world (talk about a hero-complex) and distracting the person currently wielding the energy of 8-10 nuclear power plants.
Let's not talk about the fact that Rook and their reckless carelessness are the reason why the ritual failed and Solas threw himself (and the world!!) the only lifeline he could in that moment - a blood magic connection.
No. Let's instead be schoolyard-bully mean to a heavily traumatized man while refusing to hear anything he has to say.
Sure, Rook. You know better than the millennia-old, immortal being trying to sort out your mess.
I bet this line hurt Solas more than he admitted to even himself. Once again willfully misunderstood, misinterpreted, misconstrued, and bitterly reminded of a time when that was his life for centuries.
We continue with this:
Really? Really? Yeah he fucking burned the corrupted lab, Harding. There was and is no cure for the Blight. God-like powers or not ("Come on, be the god she needs." - wtf), he wasn't "too scared of the Blight to do anything" - there literally wasn't anything else he could have done.
This scene makes me so angry. I would pay good money to have access to information what the writers' room looked like on this.
But then again, the whole game is mostly just a complete character assassination of Solas in an effort to a) comfort one man's fragile ego (how ironic, the parallel with Elgar'nan), and b) make the story make sense somehow for people who disliked Solas in DAI.
Sure, let's call Solas a coward for not performing divine miracles on demand. Let's pretend it's willful cruelty or indifference and not a sheer and obvious lack of power.
How fucking cruel to accuse him like this, when this confrontation alone probably ripped his heart to shreds knowing he was responsible for all of it. But instead of empathetic understanding (Rook also caused a cataclysmic event without meaning to and is currently confronted with the consequences of their own actions!), all they do is sneer.
Once again, the game itself is only giving us half the story. On purpose. This "discussion" makes it seem like Solas only wanted to stop Elgar'nan (and only him) because he didn't want to see him in power.
But that's not it. Solas started rebelling and freeing slaves for ideological reasons, yes - but what really pushed him over the edge and towards the creation of the Veil was the Evanuris using the Blight. Something Solas knew would endanger every single living thing in entire world. Not a petty power squabble or a difference in politics - a necessity of raw survival.
The game tries to paint Solas and Elgar'nan as "two politicians", "just like Tevinter nobles", because recognizing that Solas did something necessary nobody else was able and/or willing to do, bloodying his hands and blackening his conscience, and losing his dearest friend and lover over it, would make him sympathetic.
And if there's one thing Solas isn't allowed to be in this game it's sympathetic. Because this is one man's quest for vengeance against a video game character that made him feel a negative emotion once.
(To be Fair And Balanced(tm), you can steer Rook in a sympathetic direction via dialogue - but the companions just always snap back into their default anti-Solas mindset.)
Oh fuck all the way off, Morrigan. Treacherous. Who conned the Warden/Alistair/Loghain into making an Old God Baby for your own ends? Who absconded without a word like a thief in the night, leaving the people you claimed were your only friends behind? Who snuck her way into the fucking Imperial Court of Orlais, only to weasel herself into the Inquisition in hopes of grabbing power and artifacts of a culture that isn't yours?
Oh, what's that? That was necessary? You were protecting yourself and your child?
Hmmmmmh!!!! It's almost as if sometimes, subterfuge is necessary!
I have nothing against Morrigan as a character. I love her. But the way she is wielded in Veilguard is terrible. She's just a vehicle through which the writers (we know who in particular) let the audience know that yes, everyone hates Solas, and the audience's hatred of him is Justified(tm).
Just like her snide little "Speaking from the heart, Inquisitor?" later at the final war council. God, I wanted to punch her. I bet a lot of people felt really vindicated by those lines and Morrigan's behavior, and I bet that was the plan.
(Sometimes I wonder how Trick really, in their heart of hearts, feels about all this. We'll never know, I don't feel I'm entitled to know, I would never ask - but I wonder.)
This whole scene is also terrible. Mostly because some people just don't have enough media literacy and sheer reading comprehension to understand that Solas is doing a bit here.
The game plays it off like he's "finally taking off the mask" - but that's not it. He's playing a character (look at those hands behind his back, he does that when he's insecure), he's performing the role of the villain that Rook needs to see to push them deeper into their own regret. They "lost to the villain and failed everyone". It doesn't work if Solas doesn't play the part. It doesn't work if it's a calm discussion.
Look at his fucking face:
That's not a sneering villain. That's sadness. That's pain. That's guilt. Funny how the character artists and mo-cap people knew exactly what they were doing, even as the narrative tries its damndest to work against them.
And the final nail in the coffin:
Yes, let's get this guy's former literal slave owner to talk him down. Let's act like even now, even millennia later, she is who gets to decide his fate.
Fucking look at this final, complete humiliation. In front of everyone - Rook, Morrigan, Lavellan/the Inquisitor, a bunch of other people - he is reliving all his trauma in real time and forced into submission. Because Mythal tells him to leave it.
As if to tell even an adoring Solavellan audience - who this ending was supposed to be for! - "Look how weak and pathetic your guy is, look how your love wasn't enough, watch us kick him in the ribs one last time!"
Don't get me wrong: I love the moments between Lavellan and Solas. I love his breathless little "Vhenan." I love their kiss. I love how she kneels down to him so their faces are level. I love that he's too afraid to take her hand as they walk through the rift. I love this ending.
I just hate that it all came with one last back-handed kick in the shin for Solas and for the Solavellan-minded player.
Okay. I'm done. I just had to word-vomit this somewhere, finally. I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for enjoying Veilguard. I'm not saying people aren't allowed to enjoy Veilguard. I myself did enjoy Veilguard ffs. I played it twice, back to back, 160 hours. I have 4GB screenshots and a whole notebook with lore notes. My critique is coming from a place of genuine, deep love for the series as a whole and Solas specifically. So I hope people take it that way.
the saddest, most bonk-able boi in all of Thedas T_T
@teamdilf - i HAD to, i'm sorry xD
he just needs someone to hug him.