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“You say your dreams inspired you to live more fully,” she says, a smile only the tip of an iceberg whose boundless enthusiasm runs deep in her. “Mine were my salvation.”
Solas floods with memories, swirling like mixed paint. A mage; trapped and restless and most of all, afraid of where he barely fits under the Qun. And then a spirit of rage who danced through his dreams, eyes like fire against the night sky.
Amara remembers a friend and confidante, the spirit of curiosity who visited her in dreams and followed her still, beyond the old, rusted trappings, armor newly shined and tied ropes across her sternum in vivid colors, everything fresh and alive and unbound.
“The irony was that in pouring myself into my dreams, in walking with Curiosity through the twists of the Fade, and in hiding from my life even for just a breath, I held on.”
He doesn’t know what to say, for once in a long time. Her bravery is staggering, her wisdom refreshing. She thirsts for freedom even now, always aware of the hopeless nearly succumbing when their circumstances feel inescapable.
But he’s bent on consoling himself with the assumption that she’s merely been influenced by Curiosity, that he isn’t wrong and–
No.
There with his head to her thrumming heart, a book across their laps, a quiet washes over the hum between his ears, and their shared space grows suddenly more.
More real. More her, and less him, and with no illusions.
“I am glad for that, ashara,” Solas confesses.
It hits Amara like a charging bull.
She’s the sun and stars all at once, and her eyes lift and circle the rotunda with its incomplete frescos.
“What does that mean?”
She kisses the top of his head, scars against his skin, but she doesn’t tear her gaze away from his paintings.
Amara looks ever up, and ever forward.
“That is my secret.”
“You say ‘secret.’ I say 'consulting the memories of the Fade for my answer,’ stubborn thing.”
She lets out a yawn, and before more words come, she settles deeper into the corner of the sofa. Solas pulls a threadbare blanket over their entwined legs, and they share a simple, special dream.