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It was over. Elvhenan reigned again. Finally, it was time to bring back my love. Elaine would be safe there; she would be my queen.
Nothing ever goes the way I plan.
Her Earth is dark when I appear on an empty street. Things are absurdly quiet, usually a sign of trouble to come. A moaning, gnashing sound comes from slightly behind me.
How are those infected with the Blight here?! How could this have happened?
There is a small horde of them coming for me. I raise my staff in an attempt to blow them away from me, momentarily forgetting that there is no magic here. I’d need to channel through her in order to do anything.
“Shit.” I hiss through gritted teeth and start to run in the opposite direction.
My bare feet hit the unfamiliar stone with painful strikes. It is most unpleasant. Perhaps she was right about shoes in her world.
The growling is coming closer now, faster. Ghouls can have unnatural bursts of speed, and they mean to feast on my flesh. A cruel irony considering that we had eradicated the Blight in Thedas.
Two bright lights come at me down the road followed closely by the roaring sound of a car, if I’m not mistaken…and I rarely am. The car stops just short of me with a screech of tires.
A man kicks a door open and flies from his seat. He looks like an older, more weathered Inquisitor. Their hair is more or less the same style, but he has a full salt and peppered beard. The resemblance is almost uncanny. They could easily be related. He pulls out a crossbow and shoots over my shoulder, hitting a ghoul square in the chest.
More people clamber out of the vehicle and quickly, silently, we are alone.
I stand ready for battle, though the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The man swaggers forward, resting the body of the crossbow back on his shoulder. “Welcome back to Earth, Solas. We were wondering if you’d show up.”
My jaw drops. I am at a loss for how to assess the situation. Perhaps this is one of her brothers…that would make sense with the resemblance to Elias. “I presume you are a Trevelyan.” I say in my usual confident tone, resting my hands behind my back.
He smirks and raises and eyebrow. “Maxwell, at your service. Lucky we showed up when we did, eh, Solas? Come on, get in the car. We’ll take you to the boss.” I stand firm not wanting to put myself at a disadvantage. “You’ve got nowhere else to go. Do you want more of the ghouls to show up?”
“I want to find Elaine.” I demand; sometimes a faked courage is enough.
Max gives me a barking laugh. “I know where she is. Get in the car, man.”
The ride is uncomfortable at best.
“Let’s get a few things straight. You do what I say until we get to the boss, alright.” I do not respond. “Shit got weird after Elaine landed back here…I mean…it took a few years, but suddenly there was a new epidemic and guess who was patient zero: my sister. We started researching how to cure her and everyone else, but the part of the government that everyone knows subsists in the shadows, but no one admits exists got ahold of her and our little rebel band. Now, we work for the big men with the big money.”
The car abruptly turns into a large building. “Welcome to Herald’s Rest.” Max gestures at the strange stone around me.
“I assume it was named by Elaine.” I smile softly.
He nods. “Yeah, we figured it was some Thedas joke she had.”
We get out of the car and meet with another man who looks related. “They’re in exam room one and…” He stops and gets wide eyes when he notices me beside his older brother. “You’re fucking kidding me, Max.”
The oldest Trevelyan laughs instead of responding.
“I am Solas, if that is what is causing your disbelief.”
The second man puts a hand over his eyes, “I don’t know whether to punch you or kiss you, Solas.”
“I felt the same way, Ed!” Max cackles.
“Well, I’m glad everyone is having a nice time. Will someone please lead me to Elaine now?”
Max is still grinning, but has himself pulled together. “Come on, let’s go see the boss.”
The three of us walk down a brightly lit corridor, stopping at a large glass window. Two fully covered figures are inside seemingly cutting open a third person.
A woman’s voice comes from the walls. “Date, August 6. The Doctors Trevelyan presiding. Patient is a male in his late fifties. Recently infected.”
A man’s voice joins hers over the device used to amplify their conversation. “Everything looks remarkably normal, his brain even weighs within one standard of deviation. We might be on to something!”
“Take a tissue sample, we need to double check.” She directs.
“Let’s see…” she turns over the dead man’s hands in hers, looking for something. “Cause of death…” She looks up at the window, eyes crinkled with amusement. “Crossbow. Well done, Mr. Head of Security.” Her eyes look the same. They have haunted my dreams for the last five years.
A new man stands beside us. “What makes you think I didn’t get the kill?”
“Because you’re a doctor Jim, not a mercenary.” She sighs, a tone of annoyance that I am rather familiar with.
“Boss…” Max pipes in. “We found you something.”
She tilts her head to the side. “A good something?”
“Debatable.” Edward deadpans looking to me.
I stand taller, uncomfortable being so short compared to these humans.
Her eyes crinkle; she is smiling behind all of that cloth. “Hello there, hobo.”
“Hello, vhenan. I’ve come to bring you home, though it appears that you are quite busy.”
“Martin, can you close up. I have a meeting with an elf.” She turns to her third brother.
He bristles, the annoyance is clear even though I’ve never met the man. “He better have a good reason. I’ve wanted to hit that asshole for five years.” He looks up at me. “Give me an excuse!”
“He expresses all emotions like they’re anger.” Ed sighs beside me. “You’ll get used to it.”
I frown. “Is this something other than anger?”
“Oh, no. He’s pissed.” Max laughs.
It is remarkable that the man finds so many uncomfortable things amusing. I suppose she had to get the trait from somewhere.
Elaine finally comes out of a door further down the hall. She is just slightly aged. Her hair is pulled back in a loose bun, as she usually wore during our time together. A button up plaid shirt flaps at hers sides as she wears it over a camisole and some jeans. She is beautiful.
“Looking good, Doc.” The smallest man, who is clearly not related to the others in the hall, smiles at my love. I do not like the way he looks at her. It stirs my need to be protective.
“You always say that, Jim.” She laughs and waves a hand in dismissal.
He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “And I’m always telling the truth.”
I do not like this man, Jim.
Elaine stand in front of me, suddenly hesitant.
“Emma lath, I….” My words are cut off as she flings herself onto me. Her arms wrap around my neck. She is warm and fits perfectly against me. She even smells the same; a spicy vanilla. Elaine steps back and studies my face, enchanted. Then, her eyes darken and her brows furrow.
Then, she smacks me.
“You!” She yells into my stinging face. “You did this!”
“Elaine, I…” Once again she cuts me off, but this time it’s with her lips crashing into mine. Her hands are more calloused than before, but still pleasantly bring waves of pleasure through my body as she caresses the back of my head. I hold her close again, kissing her with all the pent up passion within me. I have missed her more than I could ever describe; I was missing my heart.
She rests her forehead against mine and softly rubs our noses together. “Why, Solas? Why are you here?” Her breathy protests are significantly less frightening than her reaction a moment before. “You abandoned me. You left me with this to fix.” Unshed tears flood her eyes, making them glassy.
“Ir abelas. I’m sorry. I am so sorry, ma vhenan. I needed to protect you.” I brush escaped hair back behind her ear. “All is well now. I’ve come back for you. We can have a home together, if you’ll still have me.”
“Oh, my darling, it’s not as simple as that.” She takes my hand and we walk into what looks to be some sort of resting room with couches and tables. “When I came back, I went back to school. Working on the Blight inspired me. I thought that if I had better training, then maybe I could really cure it when I got back to Thedas. Doctor Trevelyan.” She smiles proudly, then sighs as the happiness leaves her. “Well, one day we had a massive solar flare. I woke up in the backyard…It was completely frozen over. A large amount of my mana had somehow discharged. It infected the water supply….people started getting sick. I ran a sample of my blood…I had the Blight.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. This was truly my fault. “I know.” I whisper, stopping her rant. “It was part of why I needed to send you away. You needed to be somewhere the Blight never existed, then when we had a cure, you could come back and be safe.”
Her hands cup around her mouth in horror. “You knew.”
“You would have died, Elaine. I couldn’t let that happen.” I protest.
She takes a deep breath. “I guess I was damned either way.” Elaine stands and paces a bit. “So, my brothers and I, we started a little underground operation trying to cure the Blight based on what I knew about Thedas. The government was honing in on where it all began…it was only a matter of time before they found me.” Her voice shakes, but she continues. “Only about 33% of people can be infected and guess what, they all have markers for mana in their blood. Only dormant mages can be infected here! So, we started to create some sort of vaccine that would act like a Cleanse or a Smite.”
She pauses and sits back down. “That’s when they came for me. The less than virtuous illegal arm of the military. I’m a human, so they spared me from simply killing me to autopsy. My knowledge was too important for them to kill me.” She rolls up her sleeves showing me her horribly bruised inner elbows. I gasp at the damage done to her. “Instead they just take my blood…as much as they can without killing me. It’s still unsustainable, if anything should happen to me….well…let’s just say it’s good that I’m locked up down here.” Elaine lets her shirt back down and laughs bitterly.
I pull her into my arms. “They’ve wiped all records of me from any database where I existed. I’m one of the operatives now…I don’t exist. That’ll be my reward when I find the cure…I get to be Elaine Trevelyan again…not Patient Zero.” She buries her head into my neck and sighs. “We’ve made progress, Martin and I. We think we might be close.” My love is brilliant; she puts me to shame.
“I wish for you to return with me. I want to take you away from all this.” I feel her take in a breath to object. “But, I know that you will reject my offer. Considering that this has been partially caused by my lack of foresight, I will stay with you. I will use what knowledge I have to help you cure your world… Not that you need my help.” Elaine looks up at me with beautiful wide eyes. “Then, we will return home and you shall be my Queen.”
“Your what?” She laughs, confused.
“Elvhenan has risen once again, my heart. I have created a utopia of equals. You’ll be happy to know that your brother yet lives, despite his attempts to the contrary. The people await your arrival most eagerly.” I kiss her forehead, reverently.
“What?!” She squeaks. “That’s why you sent me away?!”
On second thought, I could have presented that information in a less shocking manner.
I do my best to soothe the shock with measured stokes up and down her back. “You were Blighted, remember? Secondly, I was not sure if my freeing of the Elven Pantheon would result in my death or not. If it did, there was no way to guarantee your safety. I could not afford to gamble with your life, ma’sa’lath.”
“Wow. So, I’ll go from being non-existent to being a Queen?! That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it, Solas?” She laughs again, shaking her head against me.
I shrug. “Stranger things have happened.”
“I missed you, Solas.” She whispers.
I hold her tighter to me. “I created an empire, Elaine, but it was empty without you there to share my life. I’ll never leave you again.”
There’s a coughing near the door. The man Jim is here. “So, what is this exactly?” He sounds quite put off by our intimacy.
She does her best to hide her pouting, but I see the way her lip extends just a bit. “This is Solas. He is the one who gave me the ring that I never take off.” She hold her hand up to the man whose eyes widen. Her words: a half truth. She couldn’t have taken the ring off even if she tried…perhaps she has forgiven me.
“He just gets to come back in here and sweep you off your feet?!” He growls. “You’re smarter than that, Elaine. He isn’t even human.”
She stands and puts her hands on her hips, a clear sign of her simmering anger. “He doesn’t just sweep me off my feet; believe me we have issues to work out. It doesn’t matter that he has pointed ears, we are equals.” Elaine throws her hands out to the side and raises her voice. “And thank you for questioning my intelligence, Jim, I appreciate it, considering I am in charge here!”
Jim has clearly never been quite so dressed down by Elaine. He looks horrified, but quickly covers it up with exaggerated bravado. “Maybe your leadership should be questioned more!” Ah, to be young again.
“Tell that to the General, see how he likes it.” She shrugs, dismissing him.
He continues to berate my heart “If you knew what was good for you…”
“Are you threatening, Doctor Trevelyan?” My voice reaching the lower end of my register. I slowly stand, eyes fixed on my prey. None will harm her.
He slightly flinches, but looks directly at her. “I’m just advising. We are in deep. You need to be smart, Elaine.”
“Thank you for your concern, but I’ve got this.” Her posture softens as a red haired woman enters.
She looks at me, shyly. “So, Elle, This is him?”
“Solas, this is Melanie, my sister in law and best friend.” Elaine beams at Melanie, blushing slightly. “She is who I unloaded everything on in my rants when I got home…”
Melanie smirks. “Oh, yes. I know basically everything about you that there is to know, electric horse man.” I can feel the color of embarrassment flood my cheeks. Of course Elaine would have explained everything in explicit detail. “So, we’re good with him?” She looks skeptically at Elaine.
“Yeah, we are for now.” Elaine sooths the woman’s concern.
“Electric horse man?” The awful little man tries to insert himself into the conversation.
Melanie looks at him similarly to the way Elaine does, constant annoyance. “The guy is a tomcat in the sack.”
“Mel!” Elaine gasps, mortified.
Jim looks sick, which honestly, makes me feel pretty pleased with the interaction.
Something starts to make a ringing sound.
“Shit!” Elaine gasps, grabbing some sort of hat that she was wearing earlier and trying the cap over my head. She sticks my ears inside of the fabric. “Good enough.” She shrugs and runs into a large room a few doors down. Elaine smooths down her shirt while walking over to a large mirror to press a button. “Good evening, General.” She nods her head politely.
“Evening, Dr. Trevelyan, just looking for a report.” The deep voice of a man comes through the thing I think I remember her call a television when I was last here.
“Nothing to report, sir. Another autopsy has been completed successfully; likely positive results. Security rescued a new man from the ghouls.” She gestures to me. “Solas Vhenan, Sir, he’ll be joining on as a researcher on our team.”
I give him a polite nod just like Elaine did. “General.” I greet following her lead.
“What skills do you possess?” The shadowed figure looks at me.
Elven mage is not a legitimate response. “I am a librarian, very skilled at research.” A short half-truth is always better than a full on fantasy.
“Well met. Welcome to the team, Mr. Vhenan. Have a pleasant evening, Dr. Trevelyan. We look forward to hearing more.”
The screen shuts off.
“Well, I bought us some time...” She looks over at me with her dark eyes full of worry. “They’ll start looking into you soon. We’ll have to figure out something by then….” She bites the inside of her lip, thinking.
“You lied!” Jim shouts in the corner when she gets off of the call with the shadowy man.
She shrugs. “I left out details, I didn’t say anything untrue.” I fight back a smile as my little trickster explains to the livid man.
“What if they find out?!” He yells, running hands through his hair.
Martin turns to his friend, “They won’t.”
“They will. They always do. Then they’ll come for us! You know how they are when we disappoint! We have to take him to them.”
Elaine goes eerily still. “We will do no such thing. Solas is not a subject for them to experiment on. They went easy on me; no one autopsied me. I doubt he’ll get the same treatment.”
“Come on, elf. You’re going to go with me.” Jim pleads to me. “You’ll come willingly and all of this will be over. Everything will go back to normal.”
My brows knit together. “No. I will not come with you.” I step closer to Elaine, placing a hand on her lower back. “My place is at her side.”
Jim looks at Elaine with empty eyes. “Then you leave me no choice.”
Everything happens too fast for me to understand it in the moment.
Elaine screams “No!” and twists her body in front of me. Then, hear a thunderous bang and immediately feel hot liquid starting to seep through my tunic. She screams and clutches her stomach, falling into my arms. A duo of loud bangs. Jim falls to the floor: unmoving.
I help lower Elaine onto the ground, resting her against me as I kneel back on my heels. She’s bleeding. Her stomach is deep red.
She raises a blood covered hand into the air. “Well, would you look at that? More of a mercenary than I thought.” My love has a strange sense of comedic timing.
Her family rushes to us. It’s all a jumble of words to me.
“Can we take her to a hospital?”
“No, she no longer exists…They won’t help her.”
She looks up at me and the words fade away. “Solas, I don’t think I’m going to make it back to Thedas.” Despite the chaos around her, she is amazingly peaceful. She pulls my hand to her cheek. “I love you. Everything will turn out okay. You’ll be alright.” Her lips graze my palm.
A trickle of blood runs from the corner of her mouth. It pulls me from my shock. “Emma lath?!” She’s dying. She’s dying from something I don’t understand. I put a hand over her wound almost instinctively; I’ll heal her. It will be alright.
My mana does not stir.
I am in a damned world where magic does not exist!
I’m going to lose her! I pull her tight to my body as if somehow I’ll anchor her to the land of the living.
The family’s words come back into my head.
“Well we can’t just let her bleed out!”
“Take her into the second examination room, maybe I can do something.”
“Okay.”
Hands start shoving my shoulder, my eyes focus on a frenzied Martin. “Let go, elfy!” I sit in shock.
Edward comes over and bends down, taking her from my grasp and into his arms. They two of them run into a door down the hall with Max in tow.
Mel and I just stare at each other in shock.
Melanie paces back and forth in the hall as we wait to see if Martin has saved her life. I stand frozen against the wall. Have I truly come all this way just to lose her?
The door opens and Melanie launches forward into the arms of her husband. He speaks softly, “Martin fixed her up all pretty, like he does.” The words are heavy, he must bare grave news. “She’s lost too much blood. Her body can’t function….she’s slowly fading.”
“No.” Mel gasps grabbing onto Max’s shirt, breaking into sobs.
I feel my stomach churning, tears stinging my eyes. ‘No’. I repeat in my head over and over again. Not her. Anyone but her. Take me instead. I am the cause of all of this.
“Solas, you should go in and see her. She was asking for you.” Max mumbles, holding tightly to his wife.
The room is overly bright. Elaine is laying in some strange white and blue gown on a lifted bed. Martin is in the corner throwing his healing clothes into a basket. He bites into his fist to stifle a scream.
Edward stands beside her, gently stroking her hair. “You did good, little girl.” He praises with a soft smile, “We’ll take it from here, just rest.” Ed’s eyes meet mine, his glisten with unshed tears. “Your apostate lover is here.” He gestures for me to come closer, smiling for me too, and pulls away from her, leaning against the counter nearby.
“Vhenan…” I croak, the unrestrained emotions I’m having are uncomfortable at best. I take her hand between mine. Her body is burning.
The corner of her lips raise in a smile as beautiful as ever. “Hey there, vhenan’ara.” Her voice is small, but just as agreeable. “Come lay with me, please.”
I crawl up onto the bed beside her and wrap my arms around as gently as possible. She burrows herself into my chest and sighs as if she is finally comfortable. Anywhere she touches me is fire; not only the uncontrolled fever of her body, but the pain of the preemptive grief…of my soul reaching to memorize her. “Why, ma’sa’lath? Why would you just not let them take me?” I groan into her hair.
She looks up at me in that way; the way where she is silently judging me for being stupid. “Because I love you. I’ve always loved you,” She lets out a little wheeze of a laugh, “even when I hated you.” She shivers. “It’s so cold.” As if on command, Ed adds another blanket on top of us. It is sweltering, but I couldn’t leave her if I tried. My soul would not let me move.
I softly kiss her blue tinged lips. She’s still so young. The world is so cruel. “I waited thousands of years for love,” I keep my voice steady despite the tears rolling along my skin, “for you. And I loved you so fiercely, trying to make up for all of the days I did not have you at my side. You are my heart, Elaine. Ar lath’ma, vhenan.”
Elaine looks over my shoulder to Max; I hadn’t heard him enter the room. “Take care of him, please.” He grunts, whatever his response it seems to please her. She weakly pulls tighter to me, so I hold her even closer to make up for her lack of strength. “I’m so tired, Solas.”
I softly sing to her the lullaby that so easily was weaved into her memory. “Tel’enfenim, da’len, Irassal ma ghilas. Ma garas mir renan—Ara ma’athlan vhenas. Ara ma’athlan vhenas.”
She smiles and sighs. “Tell me what happens next, my love.”
“Next?” I heave a small, teary laugh. “Always so eager, vhenan.” I kiss her again, which seems to please her. There is so little I can do for her now. “Well, I suppose you are stuck with me here. I have no way back until you are well. So, first you have to get better, and I’ll wait on you hand a foot; anything you desire I will fetch for you. Together, we’ll finish the cure. You could do it on your own because you are brilliant, but you’ll let me think I helped.” Her breathing evens out as she slips into sleep in my arms, but I continue the story…I need to hear it…to hear how things could have been if I were not such a fool. “We’d have a nice home together, full of books and laughter and love. You are my sun each morning and my moon through the night. I hope we’d one day have our own little ones; if the world is kind they’ll be just like their mother: generous, beautiful, smart, and stubborn.”
So quickly, her breaths become labored and shallow. How am I losing her so fast?! “We’ll grow old together and be more in love than we ever were before. One night we’ll fall asleep in each other’s arms and be so tired, we’ll simply decide to stay in the Fade together for all eternity.” My breath catches as a sob escapes me. “But not now. Please, Elaine, not now. Don’t leave me. I’ll do anything. I’ll be anything…just come back.” I kiss the crown of her head and start to sing again, though I am hampered by my tears. “Sun sets, my love, Time to dream. Your mind journeys, But I will hold you here. Where will you go, my love, Lost to me in sleep? Seek truth in a forgotten land deep within your heart. Never fear, my love, Wherever you shall go. Follow my voice—I will call you home. I will call you home.”
The ring of our binding snaps away from my finger, disintegrating into dust on the blanket beneath my hand….where Elaine lays….quiet.
Her breaths are no longer labored and wheezing, they’ve stopped completely.
A small smile settled on her still hot skin.
Were it not for her purpled lips it may seem as if she were simply sleeping in my arms as she had done some many times.
I sit up and pull her into my lap, clutching her to my chest.
I am a broken man. My howls of sorrow ring out into the corners of the room. I wail for the heart I have lost.
I will stay.
I will finish what she started.
I will fix my mistakes.
By trying to save her, I doomed her. If perhaps I had the strength to say away from her she would still be alive.
I love her.
I will always love her.
Her death will not be in vain; I will save her world.