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If asked what, exactly, had attracted her to Solas, Mheganni would struggle for an answer. He was the antithesis of anyone she had ever been attracted to. He was arrogant, highly independent, and—worst of all—a know-it-all. Tamlen hadn’t been stupid, exactly, but… Well, intelligence hadn’t been his strong suit. Solas seemed to be nothing but intelligence.
He was an enigma.
By all rights, thinking back on it, their first interaction should have been a fight. She’d heard him insulting the Dalish, and had gone to confront him about it—and he had acknowledged her anger, had not fought the frustration, had even complimented her. Graceful, he’d called her. Empathetic and graceful.
She had never been called graceful before. Even Tamlen hadn’t accused her of such a thing, though he’d been clumsier by far. Graceful, like your companion bird. She watched the arcs Revas flew through the sky, his wings silent as the air itself, and thought she liked the idea of being graceful. The words were kept close to her heart, hovering there long before Solas himself became important.
Confused and intrigued, she’d gone back. Time and again, she’d returned to him, spoken to him, orbiting closer and closer until even the Keeper had noticed. Vir’era was strange, and his cryptic words only served to pique her interest further. What was this man that his mere existence frightened Vir’era? What knowledge did the Keeper dare not utter?
“Solas,” she said to him under the moonlight before Haven’s fall, “you are strange.”
“Many have told me as much.” He turned to raise an eyebrow at her. “Does it concern you?”
“That depends. Are you going to kiss me?”
Her bluntness had long since stopped being surprising, drawing only a smile. “Only if you want it.”
“I don’t know.” She sat up and stared out over the frozen lake before them. “Vir’era seems to think I should know more about you first. I would say I know what is important: you love the Fade, you are a mage, and you think you know better than everyone around you. You don’t, by the way.”
He didn’t laugh. Normally, if she mentioned how he wasn’t as smart as he liked to project, he would laugh. But he didn’t this time, and that was answer enough: Vir’era’s warning meant something. (They often did, but usually it was much more concrete. This was anything but.) “There’s truth to his words,” Solas murmured, eyes distant when she turned to gauge his expression. “Some things are more complicated. I will tell you, someday.”
“But not today.”
“No. Not today.”
“Then no kissing today, either.”
He smirked at her, eyes refocusing until they were sharp enough to cut. “Perhaps I will push the timeline up. But tonight, the moon is the second most beautiful thing here, and worthy of admiration.”
It took months. Not that it was his fault, necessarily. Haven fell, and reaching Skyhold took far more time than Mheganni had ever realized it could. Clan Sabrae never took as long to move through a space as the whole of the Inquisition—but Clan Sabrae was so, so tiny in comparison. (What is one hundred compared to thousands?)
Solas insisted on total privacy to spill his secrets. This was not afforded at all as they fled from Haven’s ruins, and continued to be difficult during the initial reconstruction efforts at Skyhold… or, so it seemed.
And then he began to speak to her through her dreams.
It was not the first time a Somniari had come to speak with her in dreams. She remembered Feynriel’s time in the clan well; there had been a few dreams he’d interrupted that she rather wished he had never known about, and a few later that he had initiated, as his talent and his control grew. He’d even checked in once after leaving for Tevinter, though he mostly spoke with Vir’era.
So, she’d known what was happening, at least, when her subconscious mind became nearly conscious and Solas appeared to be sitting beside her at a campfire on Sundermount. “This is a beautiful mountain,” he said, making no indication that they were in the Fade.
“Our clan stayed there for nearly eight years,” she answered. “It was too long. Tamlen hated when we first left. He’d never been anywhere else.”
“I suppose he would.”
“Why bring us here?” she asked. “And why wait so long? If I had known you were Somniari, we could have… I don’t know. Talked more, when the long days were too exhausting.”
He turned his whole body to look at her then, eyebrows lifting in surprise. “You know about Somniari?”
She paused, suddenly remembering how unique Feynriel was meant to be. “…Yes.”
“Interesting.” He stood, the world shifting with his movement until they were surrounded by impossibly beautiful flowers, all in bloom, in a garden the likes of which she’d never seen. It was all so much more realized than anything Feynriel had ever managed, with even the distant petals distinct from their brethren. “Come with me. I’d like to show you something.”
She followed, and he showed her plants long-since extinct. Strange-shaped fruit cultivated by the ancient elves, somehow savory; knotted and gnarled trees in intricately woven melody, whose leaves were long enough to be scarves; ferns taller than even qunari, with thorns so thin she almost did not see them.
The detail was, simply, beyond imagination, and though she said nothing that night, she did not forget how intricately-crafted it was. Yes, Feynriel had barely begun to learn what he could do when he left, but this was suspicious. “I have learned a great deal in the Fade,” Solas liked to say, the answer and excuse for everything he knew. It could be true.
She began to doubt it was the whole of the story.
The doubts kept to themselves until Vir’era caught her eye. His interactions with Solas were—strained at best, she supposed, each avoiding the other in turn. As her own conversations grew only warmer with the alleged hedge mage, so too did her patience grow shorter. “When will you tell me your secret?” she asked Solas when he brought her waking mind to the Fade again.
“In time.” It sounded much like ‘I learned it in the Fade,’ that phrase. An excuse. Before she could insist, he turned the question on her. “What makes you think my secret is any greater than those of the others gathered for this Inquisition?”
“Vir’era does not trust you. I would like to know why.”
He held his hands behind his back, shoulders too stiff when he next spoke. “And you prize his judgement above your own?”
She pursed her lips, the implication sour. “I don’t know what he knows. None do. He is different, and has some gift of prophecy. He trusts the others, even though he does not like them all. He does not trust you.”
“Prophecy,” Solas spat. “There is no such thing as prophecy. The future cannot be gleaned, only brought about. He is a fool if he thinks otherwise, and you are a fool if you believe him.”
Sneering at him, Mheganni’s hands clenched. She liked Solas, usually, but she hated this arrogant, holier-than-thou side of him. The Fade was his domain, however, and she was all too aware of this; she made no moves beyond posturing. “It is the truth! He brought us here to help the Inquisition before we knew it would come about, and he knew enough to warn me that your secret is important to know.”
“Vague conjecture and convenient timing. He is old friends with Leliana, is he not?”
“It’s more than that! Or do you not believe my words? Do you think I’m a fool? That I would believe something so impossible without proof?”
His eyes, thin and shrewd, looked her up and down, and he took his time in replying, though his posture remained unchanged. “I did not take you for a fool, no, and it seems you do believe what you are saying. It is difficult to lie in the Fade. Emotions run higher, here.”
She did not comment on that, allowing him to blame the Fade for her outburst, though she knew well she was liable to have done as much in the waking world, too. “And?” she demanded.
“A gift, you say, for prophecy. This is impossible, yet you are convinced. Tell me more, and we will discover the truth.”
There was no other explanation. Not really. Still, she put her hackles down and played along, answering his questions. Though she did not bother with elaboration, he did not grow short with her again, instead pressing in strange places. What did it matter if she didn’t know his clan before Sabrae? What interest could he possibly have in Vir’era’s own past? She knew enough to say that Vir’era did not talk of it of his own accord.
It seemed, as his words turned from verifying whether Vir’era could divine the future, that they were mutually suspicious. It was almost hilarious, actually, to realize that Vir’era’s suspicion had caused its mirror to be reflected back on him in turn. Solas had not cared about Vir’era’s opinion before this night, had barely found him more than a strange Dalish man.
She wondered if Solas would have continued so blithely if Vir’era had not begun the contest of wills. His general outlook on the Dalish suggested he would, and she did not think that was a compliment.
Somehow, that night’s revelation had him coming to her more and more. It was not always about Vir’era, either; she would have turned him away if so. He asked more about her. About her life, her thoughts, her dreams for the future.
It had been a very long time since anyone had spent so much time concerned with what she wanted. And, when he brought her arrows sharper than any she’d encountered before, when he shared long-lost children’s stories he reported having learned in the Fade, when he offered her a clearly prized walking stick…
She started to believe he might, in fact, be as attracted to her as he claimed, and for more than the grace he had first extolled. He even introduced her to a nuggalope—one of the majestic, nug-like mounts discovered somewhere in Amir’s exploits. She and Nugget had bonded immediately. She knew what that meant, now, too, far better than she ever had when she first met Revas or Teddy. It wasn’t magic in the same way that what Solas could do was magic, but it was something like it.
And, one day, Solas took her out into the snowy, frostbitten air of the mountaintop with nothing but a smirk for answer to his plans. He tugged her far off the well-worn paths until they reached a nearly-pristine clearing. There were some footprints: evidence of nugs, rabbits, perhaps even a deer at the furthest side. Most of the snow, though, was as fresh and clean as could ever be expected.
The first thing he did was carefully pack down snow. She joined in, though she didn’t know what he was doing, and he didn’t answer. Eventually, he pulled a tightly-capped jar from his pack, two smoothly-sanded sticks, and handed her one. “It’ll take a moment, but this one is yours. I only need to heat the syrup.”
Confused but intrigued, Mheganni watched as Solas opened the jar and cupped it between both mittened hands, then muttered some soft phrase. Magic, she was certain, as the syrup began to bubble. He grinned at her and asked, “Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?”
Given that she still had no idea exactly what he was doing, though it was feeling more and more familiar, she waved him on, and he tilted the hot syrup until it spilled onto the packed snow, pouring some out into two lines. He waited a moment before putting his stick into the end of one, rolling it along the syrup as it grew firm in the cold. She mirrored the action and remembered: maple candy.
How long had it been since she’d done this? Years, probably. There hadn’t been any maple trees on Sundermount, not like in southern Ferelden and Orlais. Clan Sabrae didn’t have the kind of money or trading power to spend on expensive imported syrup, either, and the snow on Sundermount had been infrequent.
“How did you know?” she asked him, staring at the little bundle of candy on the end of her stick.
“You were thinking of it a few days ago, before I interrupted your dreams.” His head dipped, smile turning almost sheepish—a wholly unusual expression for such a shrewd man. “Perhaps I overstepped.”
She shook her head, then let it tilt to gain new perspective. He was far more powerful a Somniari than she’d originally thought. Feynriel had never snuck into any dreams without announcing himself full-force, though that could be different now. Still, the weight of Solas’ experience had never been so stark. “I am aware that Somniari might see my dreams. I don’t mind, if it’s you. I was just surprised.”
His smile turned to a grin, almost sharp somehow, far more like the predator she suspected hid beneath the frumpy wool. “Then I am glad. Eat up; the syrup can only boil for so long.”
She narrowed her eyes, but did as he asked. He began explaining a story from the Fade, telling her how it was animals who first taught people to tap maple trees for their sweet sap, and though she listened and commented on the intelligence of the creatures, she kept coming back to the simple conclusion: he gained nothing from doing this. Nothing but her trust, which he already had, and her affection, which he had long since been courting.
And, unlike shemlen or city elves, he remembered Dalish custom. He might not care for the Dalish, but he knew she did. He had not tried to give her a gift inappropriate for unbonded pairs. Instead, he courted her in much the Dalish way, albeit with fewer literal moonlit walks. There was only one reason he might do such a thing, and it made her heart race.
“Do you want to kiss me?” she asked, interrupting whatever monologue he’d moved on to.
He stared at her, lips parted around a word she hadn’t heard. “Yes,” he answered, eventually. “I do.”
“Then why haven’t you told me what you need to tell me?”
Solas sighed, looking down at the snow as it cooled new lines of syrup, and wrapped one around his stick in silence. As he drew it up, he considered it from multiple angles, as if it might hold answers, and she waited out the silence. “I am a coward, Mheganni,” he confessed. “I fear that you will not like what you hear, and I have come to cherish these moments with you. I do not want to do anything to get in the way of them.”
She crossed her arms. “You already are.”
“I know.” His eyes turned back to hers, though he was still crouched down in the snow. “Come with me, tomorrow. There is a place we may speak privately, with no chance of being overheard. It is far; we will need to pack food.”
“You’ll tell me then?”
“I will.”
She chose to believe him. And, the next day, she went with him, following him behind a frozen waterfall and through a hidden cave into a strange, tiny oasis. The sun was high in the sky, and there was but one tree to provide shade in this secret place. They spread their blanket there, and had a quiet lunch first—and then, in his long-winded and meandering way, Solas told her his secret, and she understood why Vir’era feared him.
Fen’Harel. This blasted man was Fen-fucking-Harel, the Void-begotten Dread Wolf, and all her life was a lie. Her faith, her culture, her people… Creators. Gods. Evanuris, mortal as any had been when elves did not die.
She almost ran. She coiled up to spring to her feet, to leave with all the fleet-footed speed she could manage, to escape this terrible knowledge and beg Vir’era’s help to… something.
But Vir’era didn’t know this. He couldn’t possibly; he was devout, a Keeper and a believer. He feared Solas because he feared Fen’Harel, as all good Dalish were taught to. (Was this, then, the limit to Vir’era’s foresight? Why this?)
Solas (Fen’Harel?) knelt at her side and did not stop her when she stomped off to pace the perimeter of the claustrophobic grotto. He did not stop her from bringing out her bow and holding it as if to threaten. He did not stop her when she yelled that he must be lying.
She knew he wasn’t. He was a good liar, yes, to have gone unnoticed by a force called the Inquisition, but all his lies were wrapped in the Fade. This undid and explained them all, and then some. It explained his irrational hatred for the Dalish, in particular. Her heart bled for her people, so proud of traditions they barely understood, so blind to what had been stolen from them.
For a moment, as she paced and growled and digested the information, she wanted to claw her face off, a wholly animalistic instinct. Vallaslin were slave markings, Solas claimed, once used by the Evanuris to denote and control their property. She was no one’s property!
But she refused to rid herself of something so central to her identity. Dirthamen, secret-keeper, might have been something entirely different from what she thought when she received her vallaslin, but these marks connected her to Theron, her soul-brother, who was so far… She loosed an arrow at the remains of Solas’ food when he dared suggest removing her vallaslin. He did not do so again.
During all her feral response, all her prowling and scowling, he sat and he waited. He answered her questions, occasionally explained things further, and did nothing. She sneered, stalked, and scowled her way through the knowledge. “Fen’Harel,” she said, “Solas: which is real? Who is it that I have spoken to?”
He did not answer immediately, his mouth working through the words long before sound joined their movement. “Solas came first,” he said. “Fen’Harel was their moniker for me. A name I took. Both are real, Mheganni, if not in the way you knew either.”
“And you… what? What is your intent with me, with the world, trickster?”
“Those are two very different things.” He settled onto his knees, hands on his thighs. “For the world, I intend change. This is not how it was meant to be. The elven people deserve more, deserve better; I would free them from the bonds of oppression, by any means necessary.”
The part of Mheganni that she thought of as akin to a wolf liked this idea, wanted nothing more than to prove that elves were more than they’d been allotted. The part more akin to a nug wondered just how far that might require.
“And for you…” Again, Solas paused, jaw tightening as though he could not decide which words to choose. Good, she thought, let him squirm. “For you, Mheganni, I would take whatever you will give me. I ask only one thing in return: none may know what I have told you. Not until I am ready.”
“And if what I want to give you is a punch?”
“I will take it.”
She clenched her fist, and pondered on how it would feel to sink her knuckles into the pasty flesh of his cheek. Her bow arm was strong; she could break his nose with ease, and might even be capable of dislocating his jaw, if she aimed well. What wolf could strike without its bite?
One measured step at a time, she drew herself closer. He sat so perfectly still, hands on his thighs… The image of the clan’s statues of Fen’Harel imposed itself over his perfect posture, and she couldn’t rid her mind of the similarities. She nocked an arrow; his breathing hitched, and the statuesque comparison shattered.
She did not lift her bow. Instead, she crouched before him. “That is your intent,” she said. “What is it you want?”
His eyes sparked. She had seen that happen before, but had chalked it up to fanciful imagination. He was hardly the world’s most handsome man, and perhaps she had invented something to intrigue herself. Now, though, she knew it was real, and it was power. Raw power, the likes of which she’d likely never seen, not even when the conclave was destroyed. The kind that could destroy an entire world by locking away half of it.
“I want to kiss you. More, if you would like it.”
She shifted her balance, arrow still nocked, and lifted one unimpressed eyebrow. “What more?”
“Everything more. I want to kiss you, Mheganni, starting with your lips, and work my way down. I want to explore you, physically and mentally, to know everything there is to know about you and what makes you happy, what makes you squirm, what makes you come alive. I want to know what it feels like to do that for you.”
A flush began to work its way from her neck to her cheeks, but she acted as cool as if it were not there. “Is that so.”
“It is.”
“Hm.” She stood, bow loosely aimed at the ground, and took silent steps around him. In her bag, she had rope. She always had rope when venturing beyond clan territory. She pulled it out and considered it. Eventually, maybe, she decided, but not today. Her mind was too clouded. She kept turning the whole ordeal around and around, a dog chasing its own tail, and all she got was dizzy.
“Not today, Solas,” she said. “Today, you will stay here. You will sit exactly as you are for the next hour. Revas will watch you. I’m going to return to Skyhold; if you move, I will know. Consider it a test of trust.”
“And if I am attacked by a bear?”
“You have magic.”
She knew magic didn’t work that way—or, at least, she thought she knew that. Maybe it did, for him. How the fuck was she supposed to know? She wasn’t certain she could trust anything he might say, though. Not now. Not until she had more time to think. In the moment, she could only hope, as she slipped from the secret place, that she would not regret taking this chance—possibly her only chance—to kill him.
She desperately did not want to kill him. Weakness or instinct? Gods, she didn’t know. And Vir’era, the only one who might have the wisdom to advise her on such a strange subject… she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t tell anyone, not without risking the Dread Wolf’s anger, but especially not Vir’era. She was on her own, once again. What would Theron do?
…probably invite the Dread Wolf right into his bed, actually, considering his history. Dread Wolf take him—well, no. Yes? Silence of Dirthamen, this made everything such a fucking mess. She would never feel right about that curse again, not when some part of her wanted him to take her.
She found it notable that he listened to her. She was paying attention to the time, and knew how long it would take for Revas to catch up if Solas did (or did not do) as she asked. The owl reappeared at her shoulder only after her prescribed time had ended. Interesting, that somehow she could bring the Dread Wolf to his knees, that he would bother with listening to such a banal instruction.
It could be argued, then, that her impatience was predictable. Or perhaps her curiosity was. They were, either way, insurmountable, and though she easily avoided Solas by joining a hunting party for a few days, well. By the end of that trip, she already knew what she would do. Like Revas and Charybdis before him, she would simply have to tame the Dread Wolf.
It began simply. Inconsequential directions, much like the one from the clearing, though often better-disguised: fetch dinner from the kitchens, wear this tunic, warm her sleeping roll until she was ready for it. No one even noticed. They changed, with time, grew bolder. Kiss her cheek in greeting every time, do not wear underthings today, show her what he would like her to do to him.
He had the option to stop. If he objected to a course of action, he said so, and she adjusted. He refused to wear robes, especially without underthings. He refused to use titles between them. He refused to use a spirit to substitute for her in the Fade.
He did not refuse the idea of the relationship.
She knew, too, that even though he did obey that which he had no objection to, he was not—and perhaps would never be—unquestioningly obedient. She could no more control him than she could control any of her familiars; the best she could hope for was compliance.
Somewhere along the way, she realized he made her happy. She no longer held that conflict. She knew, with each command he obeyed, and even with the ones he refused, that he was hers. He would do what he could to keep her happy. He did not like disappointing her. Finally, they had closer to even footing. Finally, she felt ready.
“Kiss me.”
It was the first, even despite previous increasingly erotic commands. He kissed differently than her Tamlen. He was far more certain of himself, more demanding of her, though that first kiss was gentle all the same. (The subsequent ones? Far less so. Hands pulling her hair, gripping her hips, body pressing close as if to meld them together… He was possessive. She was, too.)
Things changed as much as they didn’t. Romance with a near-god turned out to be as complicated as romance with any regular mortal, and though she took every opportunity to force Solas to face the people at Skyhold, the members of her clan, the others of the Inquisition’s highest confidence… He held himself apart.
She would change him. He was hers, now, and if she did not fix his idiocy, who would? If she could not stop him tearing down the Veil, who could?
No one knew. No one except Solas himself and Mheganni, and she was careful to keep it that way, to maintain Solas’ confidence and good graces, to prove that he could trust her judgement. If part of her knew it was fruitless, well. Love makes fools of all who fall for its tender promises.
She thought, sometimes, that it was working. The problem was time, of which she never had enough, of which he had spent far too much convincing himself he was right, that what he intended was justified. Her heart broke when she saw him with little Tamlen. He smiled to the boy’s face, and as soon as Tamlen ran off… Solas’ expression turned brittle, fell, and morphed into determined neutrality.
“Will I live through these plans of yours?” she asked him as they laid together under moonlight. “Your idiot scheme to undo one mistake with a new one. Will I survive the end of the world?”
His hand stopped its mindless wandering of her skin. “I will ensure it,” he said. “Many survived the creation of the Veil. I expect many will survive its fall, and you will be among them.”
“Ma fenan,” she murmured, “I wish I had your confidence.”
He did not speak again on the subject.
She knew he meant it. Perhaps that should have scared her more. He would ensure her survival, but not at the cost of these plans, not at the cost of his apocalypse. It was too important, somehow, a reversal in his mind that could only lead to further catastrophe. He had reason to lock away these Evanuris, did he not? She wondered at how eager he was to unleash them again.
She could not give up, though. Just as he was determined, so was she: if he was to hold her heart, then by the gods (both real and imagined), she would not let him forget how this would break it. And, if by some chance, she could stop him, well. That was all the better.
And… life had been too cruel to her. This was but one more cruelty, though it was perhaps the only one she could divert. Life had taken her first love, had killed her Tamlen without so much as a goodbye. It had taken her soul-brother far from her, tainted Theron’s blood and driven him from the clan to a calling she could not follow. It had taken her remaining friend, had turned Merrill to blood magic and ostracized her.
She would not let life take this, too. Solas was hers, and Void take any who interfered.
He was hers. Hers to love, hers to hold, hers to fix.
Ir abelas, Vir’era. Ir abelas, Tamlen. Ar lath ma. Someday, they might understand.