Thinking about Felassan and Solas lately. I think Felassan would’ve seen Solas at his absolute lowest. Even lower than Mythal ever did. With Mythal, I think over time the masks started to appear and build with her first. Solas knew how to stand straighter around her, how to bury pain beneath his duty, how to sound certain even when he was uncertain of everything. The bond between Solas and Mythal carried expectation, duty and service. He could slip into the role she needed from him quickly and instinctively.
But I think Felassan would’ve seen the real Solas. The vulnerability after heated debates, after the plans, after the victories that cost them way too much, after the failures where they all should have known better. He would’ve been there to pull Solas back to himself when the burden of becoming Fen’Harel started consuming the person underneath it. He would’ve seen the anger, the guilt, the doubt, the fear that Solas could never afford to show publicly while an entire rebellion was looking to him as a symbol.
And what makes their friendship so painful to me is that even though Felassan loved him enough to see the damage being done, he still helped build the legend of the Dread Wolf anyway. And Solas let him.
Felassan encouraged it because the symbol worked. The Dread Wolf inspired people and the rebellion needed something larger than life to rally around if they were going to stand against the Evanuris and free their people. Felassan understood that better than anyone. He knew stories had power and so even while watching Solas disappear deeper into that dark role, he still helped build it forward because the cause demanded it.
There’s something so sad in imagining Felassan watching his friend become darker, more hardened, more isolated, more willing to sacrifice himself and others piece by piece for victory, and never quite finding the moment to say to him, you can stop now. You don’t have to keep turning yourself into this weapon for everyone else.
And maybe part of the reason Felassan never said it is because he couldn’t stop either. He was trapped in it too. Two people trying so hard to save the world and their people that they kept justifying what the cost would be later, until later never came.
That’s why their dynamic feels so sad to me. Two best friends, soul-kin, brothers-in-arms, blood brothers, who genuinely cared and believed in each other, and who still, despite all of that love, both failed each other.
