Work Text:
The day he returned to the farmstead, his brother nearly chased him away.
It was only the patience of the sister-in-law he had never met that had stayed his brother’s hand. She convinced his brother to at least hear Solas’ story before he removed him from the property by force and brought the both of them in for supper, where Solas now sat at the familiar table feeling like a stranger before his brother and a brood of unfamiliar red-headed children. They looked at him with their damnably innocent eyes, one part wary and two parts curious, while his brother stared at him with a condemnation that he felt only fitting.
“You ran off in the middle of the night,” said his brother while Solas watched the sister-in-law he didn’t know move around the table pouring drinks, her dark eyes meeting Solas’ own for only an instant. “You left mother and father with four children all alone on the farm. And then the war happened, and the famine hit, and our brother went and got himself killed by joining the army just so he could provide for us.”
Solas had been aware of their younger brother’s death, likely longer than this near stranger who shared his parents had, but he didn’t mention that fact yet. Instead he waited for his brother to continue, waited for him to realize that he was terrifying the red-headed children, who had suddenly grown still and unusually silent.
“Our sisters both went to the city to find work, Solas, and our parents died trying to protect the grain stores we had left so the armies didn’t take or burn what we had just to feed the war machine.” He slammed his fist on the table and Solas flinched, turning his face away, unable to watch as the tips of his brother’s ears turned red in rage.
Once, this man had been a squirming boy who had made the same expression when he had to be given a bath.
They were worlds away from such trivialities now.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? You ran away, Solas, when we needed you most. You ran away to go frolic with spirits in the woods.” His voice was cold, but Solas had heard colder, and there was no hatred lurking underneath the current of the words. “Does it not bother you at all that we suffered while you escaped the war by hiding?”
Solas let the room fall to silence so that he could hear only the frightened breathing of the children and the sound of his sister-in-law’s chair scraping against the wooden planks of the kitchen floor as she sat. It sounded thunderous, but it made it clear that until Solas answered his brother’s question, no one else was going to speak.
Carefully, Solas raised his eyes and looked his brother in the face. “Beyond the fact that your life here seems perfectly comfortable in the absence of pains that must be hundreds of years old by now, you know nothing of what I’ve seen or been through. I left a child, and I return…” His brow furrowed and he shook his head, “changed. You are not the only one who suffered because of the war.”
He watched his brother’s mouth opened and close as if searching for words sufficient enough to express the full range of his fury. Before he could respond, Solas stood and bowed his head in the direction of his sister-in-law, thanking her for her hospitality, and turned to go. He did not want to cause more conflict, and it was pointless to be here anyway, arguing in front of these innocents, shaking like leaves in an autumn breeze.
He wasn’t even certain what he had hoped to find.
Solas was only briefly aware of the scraping of a chair across the floor before a hand was upon his shoulder and he was spinning about, magic pulsing through him in a crashing wave that sent his assailant tumbling into the opposite wall. It was only the shout that alerted him to what he had done, the cries of the children echoing in his head, crashing about in his chest with an emotional weight he hadn’t expected. Horrified with himself, the fog in his mind momentarily cleared, just long enough for him to see his brother crumpled against the opposite wall, cradling his shoulder with a hand.
The world was suspended in time for what seemed like an eternity before Solas finally found the will to tear his gaze away from his brother’s dismayed expression. Without another word, without looking back, Solas turned and fled, the door banging shut behind him. For a moment, for one terrible moment, he had responded reflexively rather than carefully considering his surroundings. Instinct had overwhelmed reason, and pushed him squarely over the edge. The realization that he could have easily drawn blood, could have easily murdered his own brother in front of his children, slithered like a snake down his spine.
In war, you needed to be able to respond at a moment’s notice. It was you or your enemy, and if you did not act, they would slay you where you stood. This was not war, not a place where he must constantly fight to survive, it was a farm, and the people in there were his…
Well, once, they had been his family.
Now he wasn’t certain what they were.
“Solas!” The voice shocked Solas from his thoughts, made him realize that he had slowed to an amble down the path away from the farmstead. He turned around, watching his brother run toward him, and Solas steeled himself for the inevitable anger, caught completely off-guard when his brother pulled him suddenly into his arms.
“Solas, don’t.” His brother’s voice was gruff, and Solas was once again reminded of the child he had once known, reserved in his emotions and unable to express affection freely to anyone save their mother. “There were men in the village who went away to war. Men who were my friends. They came back and they were different. Changed. I didn’t…” His brother pulled away, placing his hand on Solas’ shoulders to look down into his eyes.
Solas was struck by just how much he looked like their mother in that moment, with a frown casting the sharpness of his features into sharp relief, and his warm brown eyes filled to the brim with concern.
“I didn’t know, Solas. I didn’t know that you fought, too.”
The air between them was tense, as tense as every muscle in Solas’ body, but he relaxed them one by one and bowed his head, breathing in sharply through his nose and out through is mouth. “How could you? I never told you. This is not… your fault.”
“It’s not yours, either, Solas,” said his brother, pulling away and gesturing back toward the little farmstead. “You look like the Void, brother. My wife’s food will do you some good. Let’s go home.”
Solas wasn’t certain that this place could ever be home again, but his heart filled with the tiniest blossoms of hope regardless.
The days blended into one another, and Solas wasn’t sure whether he had been on the farmstead for a week or a decade. He thought, perhaps, that the seasons had changed, that he had helped with the harvest a handful of times, and that he had helped celebrate a few birthdays. By and large, he knew he was a rumor that existed in the village, the mysterious runaway returned battle-scarred and haunted, pale eyes dancing with the ghosts of war.
Solas did not think his eyes danced with the ghost of anything. He knew exactly what he had done and he had long ago accepted the blood for what it was. Haunted he was, but it was not his own actions that haunted him. It was not his atrocities that he saw when he closed his eyes to sleep at night.
He could not help but find the irony amusing, that even the sleep which had once been such a refuge to him was plagued by the war.
That very day the rumors were to come to an end.
He and his brother had piled a wagon high with goods for trade and were preparing to leave, the twins darting about their ankles, eager for them to bring back sweets. Solas, who still had quite a bit of money of his own that had never spent (his stipend from the war), kneeled and promised them rock candy if only they behaved.
“Do not give your mother too many problems, young one,” Solas said, reaching out to brush the young lady’s hair from her face. “I know you tend to be a bit more adventurous than your brother.”
“I won’t, uncle,” she giggled and tried to squirm under his arms for a hug, to which he could only sigh and relent. “Just promise you’ll bring back candy.”
He heaved a sigh, though his lips twitched up into a smile regardless. Children were amazingly resilient, he thought as she pulled away and her brother approached him shyly for a hug of his own. Already they had forgiven him for frightening them when they had first met, and seemed most eager to involve him in their games and pester him about his shaved head.
“Are you ready to go, brother?” Solas stood and dusted off his breeches, turning to face his brother, who leaned against the cart, looking at him with a fondness on his face. “Our sister is waiting for us in the city and might kill me if I make us late. She wants to see you. You left before she reached womanhood, after all.”
“I was saying goodbye to your children.” Solas pulled himself into the passenger’s side of the cart, giving the halla a wide berth; the beasts had never much liked him. “It appears I’ve been roped into becoming the buyer of sweets.”
“Little monsters,” his brother muttered, voice affectionate. “Don’t let them walk all over you, or your own will be spoiled one day.”
Solas opened his mouth slowly and then closed it, his brother’s brow creasing as he took the reins. The silence sat heavily between them as the cart pulled away, but the mood was somewhat lifted by the sound of laughing children and a barking dog. They were happy sounds, simple sounds, sounds that Solas had not realized he had missed until he was years away from the young man who had left the farmstead in search of interesting experiences.
They were sounds that didn’t belong to him, sounds that belonged to his brother, who was a simple man of simple means, and he deserved this happiness. But Solas had been made complex by the war, and he thought that wives and farm houses with dogs and children were far beyond him now. They were a different life that belonged to the man who had stayed.
A long time passed before his brother spoke again, breaking the unsteady silence that had fallen between them. It wasn’t unusual for them to have difficulty speaking to each other, and sometimes Solas wondered if his brother resented him for being able to speak to his niece and nephew with an ease they could never replicate.
“She’s missed you, you know, our sister,” his brother began. “I wrote her when you came home and she couldn’t believe you were still alive. I made sure she knows that you don’t… like to talk about what happened, but you know, she’s an enthusiastic girl. She’ll probably ask questions anyway.”
“I am prepared for the possibility,” Solas said, and pressed his lips together in a tight line, not wanting to think about the wide-eyed child with auburn hair he had once known asking him about the things he had seen and done. “I will tell her no more than I told you. What happened is… Not something I prefer to discuss.”
“Right, and I understand, but you know, there’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask, something that isn’t necessarily related to the war, but…” His brother cleared his throat once more, a nervous habit he had likely picked up from their late father. “Are you aware that you speak like…? Well, you speak like a noble.”
“Ah, well… The Generals spoke this way. I suppose it’s something I picked up over time,” Solas said, answering easily as he leaned against the side of the cart and watched the countryside slip by. “Many of the commanding officers came from the cities, and I was not in the infantry where many of the commoners were stationed.” It was not a lie, though it was not the complete truth, either.
Still, it was something.
“That’s one more thing I know now, I guess. I don’t want to push you, because honestly we needed the help around the farm and well, you’re family, but I don’t think not talking about it is going to help you.” His brother sounded concerned, and it touched Solas, truly it did. “I just don’t want you to end up a drunk or dead in some ditch somewhere because you tried to drown your sorrows instead of confiding in the people who care about you.”
“There is not much to confide. These are simply the after effects of having lived through the war. Eventually I will be able to cope.” Even as he said it, he was not certain he believed it.
He knew that this was unusual, that most people could adjust to society again much more quickly, and that it was taking him far longer to return to the way things should be than it did many of the others who had fought for him. It should have concerned him, truly it should have, but he couldn’t help but think that perhaps this ending was fitting for someone like him. Perhaps he was never truly meant to move on at all.
“Right, Solas, sure. You keep telling yourself that. You may be older than me, but right now I’m the one who has perspective. I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk.”
They said nothing else during the entire journey, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Solas knew that his brother was correct, and wondered when he had grown so wise. His initial impression was that his brother had not changed much from the stubborn, jealous child he had once known, but one could maintain their rigid spine and still mature. Solas himself was infinitely different from the older brother who had abandoned his siblings to chase spirits.
Still, he could not imagine confiding the things he had seen in his brother, who for all that he had suffered because of the war, still did not know the true terrors it had inflicted upon the face of their nation.
They arrived at the small city just as the day grew to be its hottest, and though the city felt small compared to the ones Solas had seen on the plains, there was still something about seeing the afternoon market at its peak that made him feel nostalgic. There were dozens of dust covered cloaks, women in brightly colored clothing attempting to sell the wares they had carried across long distances to trade, and little children darting between the mass of bodies. He had no doubt some of those children were pickpockets, but others could be urchins hired to run messages. Their use inevitably reminded him of the Keeper of Secrets.
“We’ll go to our sister’s first.” His brother pulled the cart down a side street, the cautious halla walking a path they apparently knew well. “Do you remember when we were little, Solas? Father would take you and me on his cart to help sell the excess harvest, and while he was arguing prices we would go and look in all of the shop windows?”
“Do you remember when the cobbler chased us down the street with a broom because he was convinced we were the ones who kept breaking his windows?” Solas smiled and leaned back in his seat, glad that soon he would be standing again. “We hid in a tree. It took father a solid three hours to find us.”
“Right. You had to help me up to the lowest branch because I was still too short to reach it. He almost nabbed you, but you got away at the last second, and then you laughed and laughed.” His brother’s face had grown soft with the memory. “Mother was furious that father had almost lost us. You got blamed for the entire debacle and she doubled your chores for a year.”
Solas was about to comment, but they rounded another corner and merged onto a large street, which Solas knew to contain the back entrances to the store fronts on the main road. His brother stopped the cart only a few buildings away from where they emerged from the alley and slipped down, patting one of the halla on the snout before turning toward the door and rapping on the wood. Following suit, Solas slipped down from the cart, standing awkwardly behind his brother, not entirely certain what to expect.
The door cracked open, and Solas caught sight of an unruly head of auburn hair before his arms were full of petite, round-faced and very pregnant little sister.
“Solas! Oh thank the spirits, you’re finally home! After all this time!” She pulled away, looking up into his face, cupping it with both of her little hands. “You shaved off all your beautiful hair! Oh, mother would have been so disappointed!”
“You see the man again after years and the very first thing you mention is his hair?” Solas could hear the amusement in his brother’s voice. “I would think you’d have different questions, like “where were you” or “how have you been”?”
“I’m getting to it.” She spun on their brother, though laced her fingers together with Solas’ own. “I’m just looking him over. He’s lost weight, too, I think. Maybe filled out a bit?”
“I am not the only one who has changed,” Solas said, releasing her hand only so that he could stand in front of her. “Look at you. I left, and when I return, you are glowing with motherhood.”
She beamed at him, though from behind her crown of fierce auburn hair Solas could see the man who must be her husband standing in the back door, looking at him curiously. Briefly he wondered if he was some family legend, the story of the wild son who had left him for the sake of magic during the planting season. His parents had probably died disappointed in him, and yet Solas, looking at his siblings at their families, had a hard time regretting their deaths when his family still had a future.
“And you look like an old man,” she scolded. “Where’s the smiling rogue I used to know, Solas? The one who would run with the neighbors’ dogs and fall asleep in the oddest places?”
That boy had… had died in the war, Solas thought, but he didn’t wish to burden his sister with that reality. Instead, he sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head and offered her a weary smile.“I fought in the war. War changes you, sister.”
Sympathy, so tender, flashed across her features, and she wrapped her arms tightly around him. Solas could only hold her back, feeling his chest swell and his throat grow tight with a sudden burst of unexpected and nearly overwhelming emotion. She would be a better mother than their own mother ever was.
“Well, we’ll just have to find a way to make you better, won’t we, brother?” She muttered into his chest and then pulled away, squeezing his shoulders fondly. “Starting with a good meal cooked by your little sister, just after you go and sell your excess.”
She practically pushed him through the back door, past her husband into what appeared to be a haberdashery. Her husband was behind him, and he quickly realized that his brother must be bringing the cart around to the front to set up, leaving him effectively stranded with two near strangers and the smell of food wafting from the kitchen.
“You said you served your time?” Solas looked over his shoulder at his sister’s husband, who shut the door behind him and offered a smile.
He was a plain, gentle looking sort of man. Solas’ impression of him, upon hearing him speak, was that he was a hardworking and genteel, the sort of person who had charmed his sister simply by being a genuine sort of person who behaved without pretense.
In interest of not alienating his in-laws and starting a family feud, however, Solas still acted cautiously. “Yes. My plan when I ran away was not to join the army; however, I could not abandon my people. It was my calling to protect those in need.”
“You don’t look like the sort who wants to return to war so easily.” Solas’ brother-in-law glanced toward the kitchen and lowered his voice. “My brother is the same, suffering the sickness of heart that comes after returning home, but he’s been called back for the search, so if you value your life remaining quiet, don’t broadcast your status.”
Solas arched his eyebrows, a sudden feeling of apprehension creeping into his mind and lingering like an illness after a long and wet winter.
“Search?” He asked, drumming his long fingers against a nearby counter.
“You’ve been on the farm for a time now, so I guess you wouldn’t have heard,” his brother in law hummed in consideration and nodded, almost sagely. “One of the Nine Generals has gone missing. They’re activating soldiers to help in the search effort. Apparently, the other Generals want him involved in the reconstruction.”
Solas thanked his brother-in-law and promised to maintain a low profile for his sister’s sake, but his mind was now thousands of miles away. He could almost see Mythal, attended by treasured scribes and valued retainers, conferring with the others, all agreeing that somehow one lone general deserved to share in the glory of becoming a guide to this new world they had won. They were concerned, perhaps, about his well-being, about how he had slipped away into the night without a word to anyone about where he was going.
He wanted to be left alone.
Had not the People’s Wolf earned his rest? Did he not deserve to choose his own path?
Solas exited through the front door of his brother-in-law’s haberdashery, ignoring the part of him that remembered why he had left the countryside in the first place. Such a rural life could never truly satisfy him, a thought that burdened him every waking moment with the memory of how it felt to do great things.
The fog in his mind eventually cleared enough for Solas to remember all the things he had hated about farming. When he had first arrived, the mindless sensate activities had done him some good, given him something to apply himself to that distracted him from the constant feeling of emotional distance that had been inflicted upon him. Now he was more alert, and he recalled what exactly it was about being a general that had suited him infinitely more than making halla-butter and planting crops.
There was nothing engaging in this idyllic world, no puzzle to apply his mind to. He dedicated himself to improving the way his brother did things upon the farm, from inventing a way to use the halla to help seed after the long, dreary winter during which he had felt even more of a ghost of himself than usual, to creating a spell to help his sister-in-law keep track of the twins. The local spirits were more than happy to talk to him, but their discussions were among the only engaging enough to fuel his ideas.
Here upon the farm there was no moving forward. Though Solas recognized how important his brother and the thousands of others like him were to the continued prosperity of their people, he knew more than ever that he was not suited for this life. It was too slow, too tranquil, though something compelled him to stay even now.
“Uncle?” Solas, perched high in the farm’s lone apple tree, glanced down to find his nephew staring up the trunk at him. “You’ve been missing for a whole hour. Mamae sent me to find you.”
“Oh?” Despite questioning his nephew, Solas slipped from the tree and landed on the ground, making very little noise as he did so. “What does your mother want?” Solas queried, brushing off the plain breeches and tunic he was wearing and looking toward the setting sun only briefly.
The day’s work had been done, but there was something disquieting about the way the sun had turned everything red while the moons still hung low in the sky. Something about the tree line, about how quiet the surrounding area had seemed to have grown, set Solas on edge in a way that reminded him of the calm on the eve of a battle.
Instead of dwelling on it, Solas reached out and grabbed his nephew’s hand, smiling at the boy before turning back toward the house. “Mamae is worried because you haven’t eaten yet, Uncle.” The boy told him, concern written clearly on his face. “You didn’t eat supper yesterday, either.”
Scooping his nephew into his arms, Solas quickened his pace almost unconsciously as he walked back toward the house. “I wasn’t hungry, but I promise I will eat today if it makes you feel better, Little One.”
“Sissy says that if people don’t eat, they die. I don’t want you to die, Uncle,” the boy said, tucking his head into the crook of Solas’ neck and shoulder.
Solas sighed, running his fingers through the boy’s tick, red hair. “Your sister is not incorrect, but skipping a few meals won’t make me wither away. I would only die if I refused to eat completely.”
To be honest, Solas didn’t have the appetite he had once had. Regular meals had been a rarity on the battlefield, and he had grown accustomed to eating little to get by. A life with regular meals eaten at set times of day was a bit difficult for him to grasp now that his mind had cleared of part of what had ailed it. He had once set his own schedule, and it was difficult to adhere to the schedule of another, even if that schedule was his brother’s.
“So are you going to be okay? I heard Mamae say you were sick. Can you get better if you don’t eat?” The little boy’s eyes were wide, almost pleading, and Solas sighed, running his fingers through the child’s hair once more as they entered the warm circle of light cast by the glow-stones.
“I will be fine, Little One. My sickness isn’t something you can cure with vegetable broth and a warm blanket.” He placed the child on the ground and let him walk on his own, back over the threshold of the farmhouse, concerned with what exactly his sister-in-law had said about him.
As it was, he was almost knocked off his feet by his niece when he walked into the house, so deeply within his thoughts that he did not see her running at him. “Uncle Solas! Uncle Solas!”
He grunted upon impact, but steadied them both, holding his niece as she embraced him around his center. Solas was not looking at her, however, his eyes settled on his sister-in-law, who had a concerned expression on her face. “Solas, can you do me a favor? Check the barn. Athim has been a bit long and I wonder if he’s been caught up in his work again,” she worried her lip between her teeth, and Solas recalled that his brother was making something for his children for their birthday in a few weeks. “Children, wash up. Your uncle and father will be back shortly.”
His niece released him and went to the kitchen, presumably to do as she was told. Solas looked his sister-in-law over for half a moment, watching as she turned to follow her children, before he turned and left the room. The feeling of unease returned to him, and he quickly increased his pace as he walked toward the barn where the halla had been put away from the night for their own safety (trying to get them into any building was a chore he did not relish). It was quiet, almost eerily so, and Solas deliberately lightened his steps, attempting to be stealthy as he crept toward the large building.
The large doors were open, and Solas stepped inside, his eyes scanning the room, noting first the spooked halla, keening and bellowing in distress. His eyes fell to the floor, where his brother was lying, completely still, though that alone was not enough to make Solas panic despite the pang of fear in his chest. Swiftly, he knelt by his brother’s side, reaching out to check for a pulse and finding one still strong beneath his skin, the buzz of an enchantment hanging heavy about him.He breathed a sigh of relief through his nose, knowing he was more than capable of breaking the spell upon his brother, straightening just in time to hear a board creak.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, prompting Solas to reach out for the first weapon he could find, a pitchfork used for feeding the halla. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the splintered and well-worn wood, nostrils flaring, feeling the world slow even as the sound of blood rushed in his ears.
Solas did not want to, but he dipped deep into his instincts, feeling the magic ripple through him like a pulse. He reached out, spinning the pitchfork above his head and bringing it down on the ground, erecting a barrier about him just in time for a shadow to dash from the rafters. Pivoting, Solas brought the handle of the pitchfork up to block another blow, catching the glint of eyes in the darkness. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he realized this had very likely been a trap to lure him here.
For a moment, he considered the very real possibility that his sister-in-law and the twins could be in danger, but he chose to focus his attention on the fight at hand. He could fight off any other potential attackers later, after he dealt with the assassin. Fending off another blow, Solas looked about for something he could use to turn the tide of the fight to his advantage, his eyes darting between his attacker and his brother’s body.
His eyes fell briefly on the latch to the halla’s pens, and suddenly a thought occurred to him as he stepped backwards, sweeping the pitchfork at the attacker just enough to make them jump back. Halla were fiercely intelligent and loyal creatures, and Solas knew they could sense his attacker’s intent. With a grin, he lifted the latch and dove aside as the first of the white beasts drove at the man.
The man barely managed to dodge the halla, and stumbled to regain his balance, which was just enough of an opening for Solas to strike. Warping the Fade, Solas used it to push himself forward, lunging toward the man at a speed impossible to match physically. In half an instant he stood in front of the man, power flaring through him as he drove the pitchfork up with all his strength, bolstering his might with magic. It slid through the man with little resistance, piercing his internal organs and causing him to crumple to the ground.
He could hear as his brother began to stir, the enchantment the assassin had cast to trap him weakening. There was little time to worry about what his brother may see, however, and Solas was not the sort to leave any man suffer when he could end his life quickly. He stood before his foe, looked into dark eyes from which all light was quickly fading, and reached out with his magic to snap the man’s neck.
Quick eyes scanned the man’s body for identifying marks, and promptly fell upon a familiar sigil fastened to his belt, one that belonged to their recently defeated opponents. Solas leaned down and stretched his fingers to trace the shape of the mountain, silhouetted by the rising sun. Behind him, he could hear his brother groan and push himself into a sitting position behind him, cursing loud when he saw that he was surrounded by halla and in the presence of a corpse.
"Solas... Solas... What in the name of the living Fade did you do? What...?" His voice choked off, and Solas could almost hear the disgust and revulsion in his voice as he shuffled to stand and get out of the barn as quickly as he could manage.
Solas followed, though not before summoning a flame to consume the corpse in a near instant, an intense and quickly burning fire that caused little damage to the area around it. Only the bloodstain would remain. It was a method of clean-up he had learned from The Father, whose ruthlessness to his enemies was matched only by his love of the people that he protected.
He found his brother hunched over a bucket by the side of the barn, retching. Gently, Solas placed a hand in the center of his brother's back in an attempt to ground him, calm him, and was pleased with Athim did not immediately pull away. "I am sorry. He was attempting to use you to get to me. I have accidentally involved you in something terrible."
Athim said nothing for a long moment, body convulsing for several moments before he could straighten himself and look Solas in the eye. When he did, he looked more confused and worried than angry, reaching out to place his hands on Solas' shoulders, his mouth opening and closing several times as he struggled to find words. "I don't understand. That man was... Was trying to kill you? Because you fought in the War? Solas..."
There was a loud crash from the farmhouse, and both men looked toward the building, the anxiety surging between them nearly palpable. They exchanged no look before taking off at a sprint down the hillside, Athim throwing open the doors to glance around the cozy little cottage frantically, relief visibly showing on his face when he saw his wife scolding her daughter for smashing a plate on the floor.
Solas reached out, supporting his brother just as his knees seemed prepared to buckle, helping him to sit in a chair. The children swarmed him, with seemed to do Athim some good, though his wife hung back to look at Solas, her fine brows knit together over her usually warm eyes, now filled with concern. "Children," she said, her voice remarkably even for all the emotion contained within her gaze. "I need you to go check on the roast for me. You remembered how I showed you."
Though they looked reluctant, they were both clever children, and though Solas had no doubt they would listen through the door as he would have at their age, they obeyed their mother much to their credit. He watched them go, the door swinging shut behind them, and turned to Athim and his sister-in-law, who both looked far less angry than he would have thought they might have, in this situation.
"You said they came after you?" Athim asked after a tense moment. "The assassin at the barn..."
"Assassin?" Athim's wife's voice cracked at that word, and she looked at Solas, who had gone rigid to contain the trembling he could feel spreading through his limbs. "There was an assassin after you?"
He nodded, and though it was an odd thing to be grateful for, he was glad he was anxious and alert rather than simply numb. "Yes. He used Athim as bait, and for that I am sorry. I did not anticipate that anyone would follow me when I first came here. To be honest, I was not thinking about much, but now... I can see how coming here was a mistake."
"Mistake? Solas, no," Athim's breath shuddered through his teeth, and his face was paler than Solas had ever seen it, but he still stood and walked over to his brother. His hands fell heavily upon Solas' shoulders and demanded his attention. "We're family. Taking you in wasn't a mistake, especially not when you were... The way you were. What happened? Why would someone send assassins?"
"I do not know if you pay attention to the news that comes from the city and the village," Solas said in way of an answer, his throat growing tight with the realization that his family did care for him. It seemed odd, to attach such emotion to them, to this place he had once been so eager to escape from to the exclusion of almost all else. "There has been a search. One of the Nine Generals has..." For a moment, his words caught in his throat, and it was difficult for him to continue with even his indirect confession. "Gone missing. The others search for him, in hopes to return him to the fold. I suppose the other side searches for him, as well, in the mistaken belief that killing him will somehow reignite the war and give their forces a second wind."
Realization slowly registered across Athim's features, his dark eyes widening in clear disbelief that slowly turned to something just short of outright shock. "You, Solas? You're... You're one of the Nine Generals?" His mouth opened and closed again, as it so often did when he was at a loss for words. It was only his wife's hand upon his shoulder that seemed to ground him enough for him to find his words again. "You helped unite our people? Which..." Athim swallowed, his eyes closing for a brief moment before he opened them again. "Which one are you, Solas?"
"They called me The Wolf," Solas said and pulled away from his brother, looking toward the kitchen doors, feeling something inside of him shudder with a sense of horrible finality. "Brother, I do not think I should stay past this night. My presence here puts you and your family. In the morning, I will send for the city guard and leave you with an official letter explaining everything, but I must go."
Hurt flashed in Athim's eyes, and Solas' heart stirred as he reached out for his brother again, allowing his features to soften and a smile to curl across his lips. He remembered a little boy with big brown eyes hurt so long ago that he couldn't go with his big brother wherever he went, and saw a part of that boy in his brother now. "Once I told you that you would have your own adventures one day, Athim," Solas said, glancing for the briefest of moments toward his brother's wife. "And you have. You have embarked on a journey with this woman and your two children, and walk into a place where I cannot follow. I belong out there, in that greater world, doing whatever I can to further my dream of uniting our people in as many ways as I possibly can." His smile widened, proud of his brother, proud that his headstrong little brother had turned into such a stable and loving parent, and grown into such a compassionate and patient husband. "When I leave this time, it will be different. It is with the promise that I will return. This goodbye is not forever."
"You can bet I'll hold you to that," Athim said in a gruff voice, and returned a smile that was just a bit sad in the eyes. "No more running away."
That night, Solas basked in the tenderness that he felt when with these people, surprised at how deeply he had come to feel for them despite the haze in his mind. Though anxiousness lingered on the edge of his consciousness dark and ever present, that night he slept well for the first time in days without number, his thoughts guarded by the realization that when he left it was with the memories of these people held in his breast to warm him on nights when the world had lost all kindness.
Light filtered through the canopy of trees and The People's Wolf slipped quietly through the wild wood, purpose in his every step. A part of him realized that he still needed more time to heal, that the wounds inflicted upon him by the war were still raw, even though they were certainly no longer fresh. That part of him was silenced by another part of him, larger and at the forefront of his mind, that saw the deep wounds left by the war upon his people.
It was why he had spent the last week and a half tracking across the countryside, allowing his pursuers to chase him through the wilderness. He had a destination in mind, one he was rapidly nearing, aware of his enemies trailing behind him though they had attempted to be discreet.
Solas was many things, but above all else he was clever, and it was not difficult to toy with his pursuers. He would stumble, go through a show of slowing down and allowing them to close in, and then regain his bearings, traveling quickly enough to wear them down but not quickly enough that they lost his trail.
Now, he could see the trees thinning, bright afternoon light from the field ahead turning the forest floor nearly golden. He tread lightly, relishing the feeling of grass between his toes, pausing to lean on his staff and blink into the brightness of the wide open field beyond before he stepped into the light.
He stood atop a hill, looking out on an expanse of land that stretched for miles on end, the forest looming tall and dark behind him. His keen Fade sense picked up on the wards shimmering in the distance, an invisible barrier between him and whatever laid beyond. Their presence made a smile tug at the edge of his lips as his eyes scanned the area nearby, settling at last upon a bolder roughly at waist height but a few paces away.
He shed his pack from his shoulders, climbing atop the boulder to sit upon it, his legs crossed underneath him. From the folds of his worn travel cloak, he produced a long, narrow crystal that caught and held the light of the sun, casting rainbows on Solas' skin. Solas closed his hands around it and let his eyes fall shut, his lips parting slightly as a faint glow emanated from his palms and filled the crystal. For a moment he maintained his pose, his limps trembling as though speaking, though in due time the glow faded and he tucked the crystal back into place.
Solas sat then, staring out at the field, perfectly still save for the way his shoulders rose and fell with his breaths. Behind him he could feel the trees looming, the shadow they cast growing longer and longer as the sun sank slowly behind him, back toward the west where his family now prepared for night to come. He thought of them, unable to help the smile that came to his lips as he pictured his brother and sister and those they held dear. It was for them, and for the countless families like them who lived all across the land that he sat upon this boulder now.
At last, he heard rustling from the tree line behind him, standing and turning about to address his pursuers, his hands tucked behind his pack and a smile on his lips. "Welcome," he said, almost cordially. "I would assume you think you have finally caught me."
The group, about five in all, exchanged glances both confused and more than a bit self-satisfied. He did not blame them, though they should perhaps should have been more wary when their quarry appeared easy to track, and then even more wary when their quarry showed no signs of agitation at being discovered. But they were fools, Solas thought, a grin spreading across his lips. In their situation, he never would have made such a dreadful mistake.
"Naturally, you are mistaken. You made a fatal miscalculation," he chided, feeling the air behind him ripple and crack with power, watching the faces of the assassins grow grey with realization. "You were hunting a Wolf, but you failed to remember one very important detail."
Beside and behind him, eight shapes seem to materialize in the clearing, all dressed for war, the air about them pulsing with power. Solas' eyes flashed white, and vines snaked across the path, growing thick and thorny, blocking any method of escape for his enemies. They would fight and be captured, or they would attempt to flee and die.
"I was initially upset that you didn't have the decency to attend our Bonding, Fen, old friend," a voice rumbled like thunder, and the nervous feet of his would-be-hunters seem to turn to stone. "But I think I shall accept this as an apology on the condition that you get drinks with me later."
"Only if you allow me one kiss from the bride," Solas said, glancing into the fiery orange eyes of the man who had spoken, a massive elf leaning his weight upon his broad sword as if it were nothing more than a staff for walking.
"I think that can be arranged," the man said as he hefted the sword over his shoulder as effortless as if it were little more than a wooden reed.
"I am a Wolf, Little Children," Solas said and held out his hand, the staff he had set on the ground flying to his hand as his eyes flashed white once more. "Wolves never hunt alone."
Beside him, eight pairs of eyes blazed white into the twilight forest.