Chapter Text
They walk in silence, ever deeper into the woods as the trees grow denser and the bushes thicken. Evening turns to dusk and by the time she finally stops, the moon is high. And when Elgara turns to face him, her eyes shine in the glowing light.
“I wanted to thank you again, for all that you’ve done.” she says and offers him a gentle smile.
Solas knows exactly where this is going. He knew, from the moment she lead him into the forest.
He inclines his head politely. No need to provoke anything. “Thank you. It is … pleasant to be appreciated. I hope I will continue to be of service.”
Her face falls.
Of course.
“So you’re still as senseless as ever.” she says, trying to sound amused, but her eyes tremble.
He chooses his words carefully, but is unable and somewhat unwilling, to take all the bite out of them. “If what you mean to imply is that I am not willing to ‘flee’, then no. By your definition, I am not.”
She sighs and her shoulders slump, but only for a moment. Then a strange resolution seems to sweep over her features and her body tenses instead.
“Mother Giselle wants us to travel to Val Royeaux.” She says and gives him an expectant look.
“Yes.” He acknowledges simply.
She shakes her head in disbelief, and tries again, and this time, her words are accompanied by wild gestures. “You know, Val Royeaux, the capital of all that is rotten. Chantry and nobles. Those people, I mean our history, the lies…”
She searches his eyes. Solas tries not to reveal his true sentiments. Her jaws clenches and her gaze trails to the ground. “They probably treat rabbits with a higher regard than elves.” Elgara spits. Her eyes narrow, still trailed by darkness, as she glares at the mere thought. But when she faces him again, a pained smile forces itself onto her lips.
“You know that we’re not going there for the fancy food, right?” A hollow laugh. “Oh no, that would certainly be challenging, getting served there, as an elf.” She shakes her head and her smile turns bitter. “But challenging doesn’t seem enough for us anymore, does it? No, we have to attempt the impossible. We have to actually appeal to the Chantry. It’s crazy. Plain and simple.”
He just looks at her, dryly.
“On the contrary. I see no better opportunity to convince them of our cause.”
She laughs and he almost flinches at the intensity.
“Look at you. Solas, ever the optimist.”
Now he has to laugh.
“I would hardly describe myself as optimistic.”
No, experience and the harshness of reality had trained that out of him. He looks at the elven woman standing before him now. So young and vibrant.
“Some days, that sentiment seems to fit you rather well, though.”
She huffs.
“Oh no, I’m not an optimist. I just have a … broad perspective on life as a whole.”
“Is that so?”
She smiles softly.
“Yes, I know that my fate is already sealed. I mean I’m as good as dead.”
He just stares at her in surprise. She shrugs.
“I just choose to enjoy myself I approach the inevitable.”
Was she referring to the anchor? No, she was probably worrying about something else. After all, she had no indication to think that the mark was still killing her.
“You think you are doomed?” he asks, still baffled by her statement.
“Of course!” she says with such enthusiasm and certainty as if he had just offered her a frilly cake.
It takes him aback, and she moves closer.
“But you aren’t.” she adds and her eyes shine with a sad light. Hope, he thinks. “Well not yet, anyway. But if you stick around you’ll be gone soon enough.”
The smile slips entirely from her lips. “Or worse…” she says and her eyes flash with a strange intensity. It’s not a threat. It’s a promise. She tilts her head.
“You say you’re not an optimist after all so… a masochist?” she decides.
That does seem more fitting.
“No quite.” Solas responds.
“I am merely someone in the midst of a tragedy who wishes to help.” He hardens his eyes. “And I did. And intent to continue.”
“Idiot.” She says, utterly impassive.
He feels his brows shoot up.
“Excuse me?”
She huffs.
“What? It’s the truth.”
His brows climb even higher. Elgara just frowns at him.
“Have some sense of self-preservation! I mean creators, you are an elf, and a mage. That’s like being poor and an orphan. It’s excessive.”
“As are you.” he comments, dryly.
Her expression softens.
“No, not really - not to them anyway.”
She sighs, a deep sound that carries the weight of more than would befit her.
“You saw what happened.” She says and looks at him with… pity. She is pitying him. Presumably for what happened at the camp. It is still rather unnerving. She sighs again. “I am no longer a person, I am seen as an idea, a concept, either a heretic that they can blame for everything that is wrong in their lives,” she flicks her tongue and lets out a soft huff “or the ‘chosen of Andraste’, embodiment of hope” she speaks the title in mockery and takes a deep, steadying breath “and to be honest I don’t know which one is worse.”
A pang races through him.
Solas knew the burden of unwanted worship, a title that all but replaces your name, your identity all too well. She was right, of course. Nothing she said hadn’t long occurred to him, but he wouldn’t have thought her capable of such feelings, of such thought. A strange, faint sense of familiarity, of kinship, runs through him yet again, unexpected and yet so painfully potent.
“You think this will end badly?” He asks, despite already knowing the answer.
She offers him a feeble smile.
“Oh I’m sure they will all turn on me, in time, and I will be hanged, executed, or my personal favorite - burned at the stake. It has this whole Andrastian feel to it, don’t you agree?”
Her voice is laid with cheery sarcasm, but he sees the tears glistening in her eyes, illuminated by her shining eyes. “But for the time being, I am safe. Safer than you anyway.”
“There is more to your fears.” He presses on. He can see it in her face. See it in the way she shifts in the moonlight.
When she laughs, it’s almost a cry. Sad, and defeated. She meets his eyes.
“Of course! And you know it too, don’t you? But I have no alternative. I have no choice.”
Still deflecting. Still not telling him everything. Not that I ever will, he thinks grimly but chases the thought away. This is different. She is different. Her eyes are burning again.
“But you have a choice. So please, please just leave, this is not your fight.”
He swallows the bitter laugh that threatens to escape his throat, and almost chokes on it.
Oh if only that were true.
But it’s obviously not something he can tell her. He opts for “This is everyone’s fight.” instead. And adds “I have to do my part in assisting this world.” for good measure.
She laughs, madly, almost delirious.
“You want to help the world? Then helping me is the worst thing you could possibly do!” she screams.
He tilts his head in confusion, and keeps his expression blank as his insides clasp with dread. It’s like what he felt at Haven, but stronger. As if his worst fears are about to hold true.
There is a charge radiating from the woman again. He summons mana.
“Don’t you get it?” she asks, desperate in her hope that he already knows. That she won’t have to voice it. And he probably does. If his worst presumptions are true, he does. But he needs to hear her say it. Confirm it. He shakes his head and the truth bleeds out of her like a punctured wound.
“I caused this. Everything that is happening is my fault. All the people that lost their lives, that died at the conclave, that are dying from the repercussions everyday single day - are dying because of me!”
Her voice is a sharp scream, shaking and cutting into his core. She starts to tremble, wrapping her arms around herself as she looks at him with such a pained expression, with such deep remorse and fear he almost pities her. Because he understands. He knows the feeling all too well. The indescribable pain of having doomed an entire world. There are no tears. There is too much terror, too much guilt, it fills her up, there is no room for anything else. A part of him wants to reach out and comfort her. The other part wants to rip her to shreds.
“How?” he asks, a demand, a wolf’s growl.
If she somehow caused this, if she… He had been so close…what could have been… what he could have accomplished if she hadn’t… if the explosion… He stops himself. The thought is too painful to continue. If he allows himself to get sucked in, he will certainly kill her. And she still holds the anchor, and he still doesn’t know everything.
The woman’s stares vacantly at the trees. Her eyes are incredibly wide. “I never meant to…” she starts, her voice barely a whisper. “You’ve got to believe me! I never… I didn’t … I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please, please…”
“What did you do?” He interrupts her. His voice is firm, but strained with horror.
But she seems too caught up in her own tale to answer his question. Her eyes dart frantically around, searching for focus, something anything they could hold on to, but find only darkness.
“I should never have left my clan!” she affirms, speaking more to herself and the closest tree than Solas. “I believed them, I tried to fool myself into thinking that I was just … just paranoid. But he haunts me. No matter where I go, he hunts me. He has played with me since the day I was born.” Her voice breaks.
“Who?” he insists.
And she finally meets his eyes. Big, deep, dark orbs, shaking not like mere ripples in a pond, but the cruel waves of an ocean during a hazardous storm. Does the water know what it has swept away? How many lives it has taken? How much destruction it has rained?
“Solas… I am a cursed child.” She whimpers. “My first act in this world was to kill the one who gave me life.” Her voice is so raw with grief, and he can’t help but feel a flash of sympathy at that confession. That was not her fault. No matter what other sins she had committed, that was one burden she did not have to bare. He wants to tell her so, but does not get that opportunity. Elgara is pacing like a caged beast, mumbling incoherently to herself. She shakes her head violently, blood red hair spilling over her face.
‘I shouldn’t be called sun when I am utter darkness. Everything I touch shrivels and dies!’ She screams in elvhen, as she throws her hands down in a heated gesture.
Bolts of lightning fling at a nearby tree. A bright light in the darkness, purple that turns to red as the wood burns, the air crackles and smoke taints the crisp air. Solas reacts quickly, flinging ice that coils itself around the flames, coating the bark in shimmering crystals.
The Dalish just stands there, hugging herself as she chuckles, laughing like a madman.
“On second thought suns not that far off, is it? ‘I am like a fire, eating away at everything.’”
She lifts her head to stare at the sky.
“It’s all going according to his plan.” She says, hair still dripping across her face in chaotic tangles. “This is what he wants! I am helping the chantry spread lies, converting, controlling, corrupting minds like the blight.” She stops for a moment and her voice drops. “I mean I have to, don’t I? If I don’t cooperate, I might cause the entire world to … “ She tilts her head.
He feels the back of his neck trickle as he watches a mad grin spread on her lips.
“You know on some days I’m not even sure if that would be so bad. What is the point of it anyway? Why struggle? Why wait?”
Flames ignite from her gloved fingers, dancing menacingly in the air. “I can just burn everything to the ground right now.”
Fenedhis.
Solas Fade-steps, closing the distance in one swift swoop and grips her wrists. She doesn’t resist. She doesn’t struggle. The flames die down. But her eyes still burn. Elgara lifts her head to stare at him.
“All those people… I have doomed so many, and I will doom so many more…”
her head shakes, only lightly at first, but then with increasing determination. Her eyes are still burrowing into his.
“Why won’t you let me safe you? Why, Solas?”
His gaze hardens. She swallows, thickly. He tightens his grip.
Then her voice becomes a whisper, a feeble plea.
“I don’t want him to harm you. To hurt any of my people.”
“Who?” he asks, demands.
Her expression falters. She looks away.
“I don’t want to speak his name.”
He huffs in annoyance. He was done with her games.
“You will tell me. Now.”
She meets his eyes. Tawny hazel, radiating a strange kind of desperation. They appear impossibly deep. Her eyes ebb, the waves are about to part, rinsing to the shore what has been hidden in its furthest depths for so long.
“Fen’Harel.” She whispers. And everything comes crashing down. He releases his grip and takes a few steps back.
It doesn’t resonate. Hearing the name on her lips sends shivers down his spine. The air catches in his throat. For a moment, he can’t seem to breathe.
“What?” he says feebly.
“I know you don’t believe, but it’s true! He comes to me in the Fade!”
He just looks at her, through her as she continues. Her voice a backdrop. He feels as if underwater. Everything is muffled and seems so far away. His heartbeat is the only constant, ringing impossibly loud in his ears. And then he catches her voice again. “And who else would cause such misery? Who else would give me the tool to appease the chantry?”
She clutches her left hand.
A new wave of horror crushes againt him, etching itself into his bones as the pieces click together.
It all makes sense. Why she wanted him to flee. Why she seemed particularly concerned for him. Why she didn’t want him to touch the anchor. It was because she saw him as an elf, one of her people, a target for her ‘god’. She had come so close to the truth, and was yet so painfully wrong. She was a fanatic believer herself. To her, the Dread Wolf was a concept, a god of trickery, misfortune and misery. And if he put himself in her position, he could see how the anchor had caused her nothing put pain. Of course she would believe that her god, and not Andraste, would have a hand in this. That she was cursed.
Solas stares at the woman before him now with new eyes, as a swirl of conflicting emotions runs through him. There is anger. He is furious that she would put her faith into such a misguided fable, that she was stupid enough to blindly believe. He was frustrated beyond measure. That the Dalish had all but forgotten everything. That they had forgotten the truth. A truth he could never tell. A part of him was even bitter, disappointed that she had nothing to do with it after all. That it was still only his burden to bare. But most of all, he was ravaged by guilt. He steps closer.
His expression turns tender when he addresses her and he wants, needs her to believe him. Trust in his every word.
“Don’t… Don’t for a second believe… that you are to blame.” he says and his voice almost fails him.
He can see into her core and it tears at him. She is devastated. So incredibly raw with the achingly familiar mix of dread and remorse. A film of water begins to cloud her eyes.
“I don’t want the Dread wolf to take you.” she whispers.
He almost wants to laugh, as mad and frenzied as Elgara just moments before. She tilts her head, eyes trailing to the ground.
“The anchor is cursed…”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He cuts her off. He is annoyed, bitter, and yet speaks his words so gently.
“Listen to me…” he starts and without thought, reaches out to cup her chin, guiding her to meet his eyes. She doesn’t flinch or withdraw, and when he pulls his hand away, he can still feel the echo of her breath on his skin. “The anchor, the mark that you now bare, that ties you to the Fade, is mere magic. Powerful, exceptional magic, but magic nonetheless. It is not controlled by anyone, god or other, and is not subject to anyone’s will. Of that, I am certain.” And how certain he was. And how many things would be easier if it were not true. If it would still yield to him. Solas voice was thick with such conviction that he was a bit anxious of what it might reveal. But then, he was reasonably confident that she would never make the connection. To her, he was a victim, not the perpetrator. A lamb in need of protection, not a wolf threatening to swallow her world. Still, an explanation would be appropriate. “I have examined the mark thoroughly. At Haven and also at camp, when you were injured.”
Her eyes well at his confession. And despite the absurdity of her concerns, his chest clenches.
“I know. I am sorry I went against your wishes, but it had to be done. I had to examine it.”
Solas offers her an apologetic smile and to his surprise she reciprocates. She inclines her head in a gentle nod that somehow manages to convey both forgiveness and worry, in equal measures. His heart sinks.
She should not be worried about him, should not take responsibility for his actions. Should not shoulder the pain, the regret of having reeked such far reaching chaos - consequences that were so humongous in their reach that one could not fully comprehend it. To have Fen’Harel, a name, an idea, a myth, take over, all but replacing her concept of self. A strange sense of urgency washed over him. She needed to understand. She had to.
“The wolf you see is a construct of the Fade. It reflects reality as you regard it, or as you wish to see it, and not as it truly is. Legends heard over decades, disguised as truths and virtues are clouding your mind. But you have to remember that they are simply stories, told by people. And as such, they are inherently flawed. Like a language, they evolve, shift and change, adapting to the needs and desires of the narrators as they pass through the ages.”
He softened. Judging by her expression, it seems his words did at least not fall on deaf ears. That she was able to absorb some of it, that the truth had at least partly sunken in. It would be awhile before they would bear fruit, but at least they were sprouting roots.
He felt his lips curl into an encouraging smile.
“You are not to blame for what happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It was not Andraste nor … your god that bestowed the anchor upon you. However you have come to acquire this mark, it was likely a coincidence, nothing more.”
She draws a long breath. Her face is incredibly … Her eyes so impossibly wide… Moved by something beyond rational thought, beyond conscious decision, Solas reaches out.
And she lets him.
He holds her gaze, holds her hands - and then gently begins to pull off the gloves. At first she flinches, and shifts like a cornered animal, but catching is eyes, she stills and lets him continue. Her breath hitches. He drops them to the cold forest floor. She shudders. Solas gently clasps his fingers around her exposed hands. They are so warm and soft, and he can’t help but remember the cold, damp cell. How careless he had regarded her then. How little he knew.
She begins to shake and wants to pull away, opening and closing her mouth as if to scream or speak, but he is steady, calm, and after a while she eases.
Her eyes drink him in and he can practically feel what she feels. Feel her tangled, hidden emotion loosen like a ball of yarn. The air around them becomes impossibly thin…
And then her face twists in pain as she comes undone with a whimper, collapsing into his arms, sobbing and shaking, crumbling against his chest. He tenses at the contact, it had been long, so long... but he wraps his arms around her, more by instinct than conscious choice. He can smell her, sweat, flowers and honey, feel her chest heave and sink uncontrollably, her heart beat under the thin fabric.
She clings to him like a rock, her tears wash away at him, breaking off little pieces and tearing them into their depths. And yet it is strangely comforting. As if by easing her fears, by offering her comfort he can somehow quiet the beasts that rage inside himself.
She is so close. So incredibly close. To his chest, to the truth, to his feelings. And yet he pulls her even closer.
And then a terrible realization begins to seep through the mist of his mind.
That she might not pose a danger to the world in the way he had imagined.
But that to him, she could just become the most dangerous element he could never have anticipated.