Work Text:
I am the dying leaf upon this tree
I’ll maybe last a century
Waiting on a gentle breeze
To cast these sails to shore
Only a fool would ask for more
Escape Plan, the Midnight - Nothing Beats Like A Heart
“Come, before the band stops playing, dance with me!”
Her bemused expression was not lost on him. I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink tonight, Solas, she would say, and he would laugh and agree with her, making some quip or another about the way the night had played out. They would look out over the gardens until the music died, then return to the commotion of the ballroom. To his gratitude, she would remain kind. It would be exactly like her to forgive him for his request, to forget he asked in the first place so that their friendship wasn’t muddled even further with embarrassment and uncertainty.
It was with surprise that he watched her take his hand and say, “I would love to.”
He had never touched her this way before, nor she him. It brought to mind the first time he saw her after she awakened, when he grabbed her wrist, guiding her energy towards the rift. He'd told himself then that the disorientation he felt was merely an effect of the Anchor, nothing more. Yet that same feeling was here now, and he knew that no such magic coursed so violently beneath her skin on this quiet night.
He tried to bade the feeling from his mind. It was unfair to her, not knowing what he was nor all he planned. And only a few months had passed since that balcony discussion at Skyhold, he reminded himself, when he had called her people nothing more than savage creatures. He'd believed the passage of so little a time would never be enough to heal so deep a wound. Yet tonight her words seemed a bit warmer, her gaze a bit softer, and - most unbelievably - she'd allowed him to dance with her, after all, in the presence of the entire audience of the Winter Palace.
The band played on, the melody drifting on the breeze that rustled the hedgerows in the gardens below. He relished how gentle she felt beneath his touch, how her scent mingled with the flowers and the night. It made him more daring than he was accustomed to - he lowered his hand until it rested in the small of her back, and then she was closer than ever before. He felt no resistance from her; indeed, there was a small smile playing at the corner of her lips, as if daring him to press further, and he wondered just how far he could press before she protested, if she would ever protest at all.
It shouldn’t matter to him what she believed. It shouldn’t matter that his hand fit so perfectly in hers, that the moonlight fell so enticingly in the pools of her collarbone, that just the feeling of being there, so intimately in her presence, brought back emotions he thought could never be unearthed again so long as he walked in this world.
“What are you thinking of, Solas?” It was her voice, barely more than a murmur, that pierced through his thoughts. Her eyes seemed to glow in the darkening night; painfully he noticed the emerald ring around her pupils had spread even further - flecks of a lighter green were now speckled among the blue - and he looked away, hoping to stifle the emotions that the sight stirred within. For a few moments he studied the fireflies that hovered in the air around them, even brighter against the dark line of the mountains in the distance. At last, he turned to her and said, more solemnly than he intended, "I'm thankful to you for dancing with me."
For some reason he couldn't understand, she smiled. “Well," she said, "it's a wonderful night for a ball, don't you think?”
He could offer only his own smile, slight and tight-lipped, in return. There was something that remained between them, something that always would, until the day came that she learned the truth. How he longed to bridge that gap without words. He would lean in, right then, and rest his head beneath her chin, and she would learn of all that he was, all that he had done and all that he planned to do. And, above all else, she would understand. Her presence was one of strength, of warmth; even in disagreement, she still loved, still cared. She had forgiven the boldness of his request to dance, she had seemingly forgiven the cruelty of his words on the Skyhold balcony. Would it be too much to hope that she may forgive him for this ultimate deception, too?
It would never be, this he knew. He could never hope for more than what she had given him; it was already more than he ever deserved. And yet, and yet...
It shouldn’t matter to him what she believed, but under the midnight moons of the Winter Palace, he knew that she would be the only thing born of this world that he should care for.