#solathi

[bearlytolerant]

“If I were in a different form, would you still love me?”

“Of course I would. It is your spirit that I adore—though I am fond of your form as well.”

I read this fic by @ellstersmash and this idea wouldn’t leave my head. I love them.

[ellstersmash]

Prompt time! Solas and Athi discuss at length if the other would love them as a worm. Please and thank you 🙏

rare and marvelous

Fandom: Dragon Age Pairing: Solas x f!Lavellan Rating: G for General now illustrated :')

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“Are you comfortable in that form?”

Athi’s voice cuts into the quiet of the Fade and Solas’ own silent musings, the path they’re currently on less twisting, and therefore less mentally demanding, than most.

“This form?” he responds. “Or do you refer to another?”

“You know, most people don’t have to specify that.”

“I believe we can agree that I am not most people.”

Athi’s features scrunch together in amusement as she most certainly prepares to tease him—her favorite pastime, not that the Fade provides much of a variety from which to choose. “So true,” she says, the sing-song notes of it echoing in the shifting emptiness around them. “You’re very special.”

“Your approval of my circumstances is paramount,” he states dryly. “Which form are you currently curious about?”

“Your new—or, well, old—spirit form. It’s very… tendrily.”

Solas chuckles. “I can say with great confidence that I have never before been accused of being ‘tendrily.’”

“Love that we’re still finding firsts. Don’t you?” Athi nudges him with an elbow. The self-satisfied smile on her face makes its own light, her playfulness a beacon in the dull dark of this domain.

“You are right,” he says, “and I should hardly be surprised that you are still able to surprise me.”

“Or maybe you should be surprised by my surprising you, otherwise it’s not much of a surprise, is it? But back to my question: do you like to hang around as your tendrily spirit-self?”

“It is not so dissimilar to this one.”

“It floats.”

“Well, yes.”

“And you don’t have hands.”

Solas chuckles. “But many tendrils, as I’ve been recently informed. Besides, one does not need appendages to affect the Fade; only a capable mind and sufficient will.”

“Well, you need appendages to affect me,” Athi mumbles.

Solas grins over at her then, waiting until he catches her eye to lean closer, lower his voice, and ask, “Do I?”

She’s not the only one with the power to tease. It has the intended effect, of course: her eyes widen and unfocus for a few long moments, the air thickening with desire before she shakes it off.

“So is that a yes, then?” she asks.

“Yes, I am comfortable in that form, as I am comfortable in this one.”

“But not the wolf.”

This is not something he’s considered, and he takes his time answering. “The Dread Wolf was born of a specific need to threaten the evanuris and as a show of power and protection for those who would escape or oppose them. And, as you know, it takes a great deal of energy to maintain. I would not call it ‘comfortable’ by any stretch of the definition.”

“Cute, though.”

Solas rolls his eyes at her flippancy. “I refuse to dignify that statement with a response.”

“That is a response.” But she takes his hand and squeezes, warmth diffusing into Solas’ chest as her affection washes over him in gentle waves.

Some time later, it occurs to him to wonder why she brought this subject up in the first place. “Are you comfortable with my spirit form, Athi?”

“I mean, sure. It’s just new. And it is different, at least to me. Not as solid.”

“Different in a bad way?”

“No. I mean, yes in some ways. Harder to kiss you, for one thing.” She squeezes his hand again. “Also I’m never really sure which eyes to look into.”

“In truth, that form does not have eyes, or even sight in the way you’d experience it.” 

Athi looks up at him, a vacant expression which he can only classify as bewilderment on her face.

“There are other senses which allow me to perceive the world,” he continues. “Ones which are very difficult to explain to someone who cannot experience them, but rest assured that I know where you are and what you are doing, whether in spirit form or this one.”

“That clears things up less than I think you think it does.”

“I am sorry. Perhaps you might simply choose your favorite ‘eye’ with which to maintain contact as we converse.”

“Right, I’ll give that a go.” 

“Does it truly bother you? Does it change your opinion of me?”

Athi stops short, her hand still clasped in his tugging him to a halt in turn. “What? No, it doesn’t ‘bother’ me. It’s just different. And I have to be different with it.”

“But I am still…” He is unsure how to ask the right question, but feels it imperative that he discover the answer. “I am still Solas, to you? Even when I wear that form?”

“Who else would you be?”

“Does it change how you feel about me? Your—” It is still so hard for him to accept the concept that even forming the word is a challenge. “Your love for me?”

“Oh.” Athi’s whole being relaxes on a sigh and a soft smile. She lifts his hand to her lips and kisses two of his knuckles. “Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing can change that.”

“Well. That is a relief. Thank you.”

They continue along their path, but the quiet hardly has time to settle back in when Athi speaks again.

“Solas?”

He hums an acknowledgement.

“If I were in a different form, would you still love me?”

The answer is obvious, but he entertains the subject. “Temporarily?”

“No, I think permanently.”

“Of course I would. It is your spirit that I adore—though I am fond of your form as well.”

She laughs brightly. “Good answer! But what if it was really different? Like a fish? Or a worm? What if you woke up one day and I was a worm?”

“Is your spirit intact within this worm?”

“Let’s say yes.”

“Then yes, I would still love you. And I would learn to love your worm form in time.”

“Okay.” She’s silent long enough that he thinks the matter dropped, then: “But what if my spirit was changed, too? What if I had a worm spirit now?”

“That would be an impossibility.” Even more impossible than the premise, but he keeps that to himself. “If your spirit was no longer yours, but a worm’s, then there would be no you within it. I would cherish your memory into eternity, and leave the worm to live out its life.”

Athi gasps and stops again, dropping his hand to match her other one on her hip. “You would leave me?!”

“It would not be you, vhenan. It would be a worm.”

“But I would be the worm!”

“You’re not the worm. Without your spirit, the worm is just a worm.”

“What if I was always the worm?”

She appears genuinely distressed, and Solas isn’t sure he can reason his way out of a conversation this ridiculous. “Then we likely would never have met. You would not love me either.”

“You don’t know that!”

Solas sighs heavily, cradling his temples in one hand. “I fear we’ve stepped out of the incredibly hypothetical discussion we began and into a deeper one.”

Athi starts ahead without him. “You’ve certainly stepped into something.”

[saphylee]

I know I'm late for your anti-honesty hour...but what are your thoughts on Solathi?

I really believe that they’re a very healthy and functional couple. Solas has nothing but lovely things to say about the Dalish that doesn’t make Sylathi doubt her faith, and doesn’t put her on a pedestal of “you’re not like other girls.” He also realizes that the Dalish use of vallaslin could be them reclaiming their history and a symbol of pride and not remind her that they’re actually slave markings, thus not making her feel even more alienated from the Dalish. It’s so refreshing that Solas saw her as an actual living being instead of a means to fix his mistakes. They’ll get married, have lots of babies, and live happily ever after with all of their limbs. OTP 5ever <3

[ellstersmash]

athi lavellan, lady inquisitor & loml

[ellstersmash]

hi hi hi you may have already explained this but can you also likewise talk about athi’s feelings/thoughts during/post trespasser? and then throughout the decade leading up to vg and then in the MOMENT of The Choice™️? is there any deviating from canon are you happy w their end? IS there a perfect happily ever after for her that you’ve thought of? 👀

well well well how the turntables

I think this is even longer and more rambly than yours 😭😭 i'm so sorry YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS

but you did! so, first off, Athi is uhhh passionate and can be quite stubborn, she is very much an act-first-make-excuses-later kinda gal, and she loves with her whole heart. she also ultimately agrees that the Veil has to go, and is pragmatic about what that means for Thedas' current inhabitants. I mean she isn't quite to the same "whatever the cost" point as Solas, and I think she's actually more realistic about what that cost might be than he is, but she is satisfied with a pretty high level of risk. in fact, I like to think this causes a lot of friction with Varric, and then Rook as well. she's maybe gotten a little too comfortable with making world-altering decisions.

anywayyy during and immediately after Trespasser, she is in pain and exhausted and that plus two years of pining after her ex (humiliating) and having to literally hunt him down have made her kinda bitter and resentful [tiny fic]. I mean, a bit pleased, also, to find out he has been pining right back! But mostly pissed off that he left her—again—and is being so stupid and stubborn about doing this alone, and about losing half her ARM, and also she's very very very sick of playing scapegoat for the humans. so she disbands the Inquisition and goes on the hunt again herself. this entire time period is rough for her; she does a lot of traveling, much of it solo, trying to locate Solas and use her connections to find a better way to offer him (magical science is NOT where her own talents lie). she sees her friends when she can, and finds joy with them and in the natural wonders of the world like she always has, but is largely consumed by this task, and it wears on her. I do think she tries to move on romantically a time or two (probably at Dorian's insistence tbh), but it never gets far. by VG she's pretty much resigned herself to living in this weird awful limbo where she loves him and maybe he loves her and that doesn't matter even a little.

the ending i wrote for them [tiny fic, same series as the other one] is for sure a tragedy, which.. I've always viewed them as a tragedy, and Athi's kind of a pathetic, tragic character, but I was really hoping Bioware would write me a happier ending. and they did! I'm mostly satisfied with it, even though a lot of the getting there doesn't make sense to me. the choice to go with him was in-character for her.

so in the VG canon, she steps in to help out the south because i guess no one else has their shit together (and she does?? somehow), and comes back for the big fight. In That Moment, she has never been more sure about anything in her life. kind of like Rome, it's a sense of relief. she's devoted ten years of her life to finding him and figuring this out, and cannot imagine spending the rest of it just. living normally without him. in true Athi form, she does not think this decision through, but would come to the same conclusion either way. whatever happens, they'll figure it out. or maybe they won't! but in her mind, together is far, far better than not.

spoilers for the fic-to-be, but since i'm not a longfic writer and it might suck in which case i'll keep it to myself, i'm not worried: in MY canon for her, she splits her efforts between supporting Rook as a sort of agent and attending to things in the south, which is for sure suffering but not utterly devastated. athi's actually the one to "recruit" Mythal (which goes predictably well /s) and learns a TON about the blight and the titans and tranquility that she adds to what she's learned from the vir'abelasan and some other people, and realizes that now that the gods are out, there's an opportunity to genuinely Do It Right if they can kill them. so she goes into the final confrontation with much more of a plan in mind, and is way more involved in talking Solas down. and him entering the Fade is not him relinquishing his goals, like it is in-game, but more of a redirection. like, yeah this way will be much harder and take longer, and Solas is going to have to do a lot of healing before they can even start that work, but it will be a true solution and not just an undoing, like he wants, or an atonement, like Rook wants. and then in the Fade they basically have to learn how to love each other all over again, because it's been a decade and they have BAGGAGE. but i love that for them!

ultimately their happy ending is that they heal the blight and the titans and bring down the veil (maybe they convince people in the waking world, maybe not, haven't decided) and the world changes and its cataclysmic (not like everyone dies but. a lot of things change! society gets fucked up) but also whole. still ruminating on the flavor of ending i want for them, but rest assured it is way happier than nomt.

[ellstersmash]

#3 for the character development for couples questions! Any pairing you wanna write about :)

3. By contrast, what was the moment that first made their ~heart~ Soft for the other person? Not necessarily a conscious realization of “I love this person,” but a moment that had them like “Oh...I adore them...”

Our crossover is Solas so I'll stick with Solathi for this one! lol I've actually written this moment in both their canon and modern universes--and just realized both are in chapter 3 of their respective fics... huh. Anyway, despite the fact that their relationship arc is very different in each fic, it seems that Athi tends to have this realization when Solas directly, explicitly takes care of her in some way. In canon, this means helping her clean up after a fight, while in their modern!au it's buying her coffee when she really, really needs it, but both moments melt her towards him.

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couples character development

[ellstersmash]

10. MAYO - What scares them about entering a relationship?

15. SOLATHI - What, for them, constitutes a level of intimacy that they would only rarely share with someone? This can be physical, emotional, etc.

10. MAYO - What scares them about entering a relationship?

Oof. Well, at the risk of semi-spoiling the fic I may never write, Theo's biggest issue with starting a real relationship with Mason is that he's become incredibly important to her and she's afraid to lose him--and she has this underlying assumption that, one way or another, she inevitably will. After losing her dad, then her mother (to work), then Bobby (to betrayal), she's kind of allowed this assumption that people will always fail you to take hold and fester. She hasn't bothered to re-examine it all that much, or to truly consider the impact of keeping everyone at a safe distance, mostly because she's been fully enjoying the single life and keeps herself very busy with work and her hobbies.

15. SOLATHI - What, for them, constitutes a level of intimacy that they would only rarely share with someone? This can be physical, emotional, etc.

For Athi, this would be sex. She was freer with it when she was younger, more out of curiosity and obligation ("this is what you do in a relationship") than anything else. Now that she's more settled into herself, she typically doesn't sleep with someone she doesn't know, like, and trust very deeply.*

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couples character development

[ellstersmash]

31, 32 and 45 of the oc asks for SOLATHI please?!

31. How would they describe one another?

S @ A: You may as well ask me to describe the brightness of the sun as dawn breaks, or the depth of the night sky. How would you describe a wave crashing on the sand? What about a storm, rumbling across the plains? I could try, but no words in any language would do them justice.

A @ S: Bald. Sexy. Smart. More mischievous than he looks. Nice hands.

32. Can they communicate private thoughts whilst in company? If so, how?

Athi's good at reading his cues. Solas understands hers, too, but mostly because they're not subtle. If he can tell what she's thinking, then so can everyone else.

45. What's the worst thing the other can say to one?

S @ A: I don't love you anymore.

A @ S: There's nothing good left in you.

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🙂 and on that note... thanks bear!!!

OC relationship asks