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“It’s very nice, Bull,” Ellara said dubiously. “But where’s the rest of it?”
The Iron Bull gave a laugh that was more of a shout. “That’s it, boss.”
Ellara raised an eyebrow at him. “Is the sun getting to you? This isn’t armor.”
“Not traditional armor, no,” the Qunari admitted. “The point is not to protect you from arrows or swords. It… ah, what’s the word. It enhances you. Makes you smarter, faster. Your magic should be stronger.”
“Uh huh,” Ellara said. She held the garment up – it was a few scraps of cloth, some rope, and – thankfully – loose leather trousers. But mostly cloth and rope.
“I don’t know how it works,” The Iron Bull said frankly. “That’s artificer stuff. There’s something in the rope and the weave, the way you tie it, that pulls on some muscles and relaxes others. It changes the way things move around your body.”
“Does it come with instructions on how to wear it?” She checked the chest dubiously – a parcel found among loot they had discovered earlier that day as they scoured the Western Approach.
“That’s why you’ve got me,” The Iron Bull shrugged. “I understand if it’s not your thing, boss.”
Ellara snorted slightly and put the “armor” back in the crate. Then she reached back in and stroked the smooth silk of the breast band. “It couldn’t hurt to try it on,” she decided.
“Absolutely,” The Iron Bull smirked. “And if you’re wearing it in, oh, an hour– “
“You think a certain someone might appreciate the view?” The two exchanged wicked smiles. “Alright, then,” Ellara held up the mass of ropes. “Where do I start?”
~
Bull was right. The armor was different.
The ropes wrapped around her collarbone in a crisscross weave, reminding her to take deep, grounding breaths through her belly. More rope cradled her hips, turning her stride into more of a swaying strut. Her arms, too, were bound, knots gathering high on her biceps, at her elbow, and winding down to her wrist.
Her shoulders and midriff were completely bare.
The strange silken cloth bound her breasts and fluttered at her waist. The trousers were of a thin, buttery leather. She felt like a wild, dangerous thing – bright and exposed and utterly free. It was a blissful change in the hot sun of the Western Approach. She looked at the pile of heavy wool and leather from her old robes and snorted in derision.
Maybe the Qunari weren’t that crazy after all.
“Feels good, right?” The Iron Bull looked at her approvingly.
“It feels different.” She moved through a series of lunges with her staff, noticing how the ropes pulled in some places and let her move in others. “Could I learn to put this on by myself?”
“As quickly as a pair of trousers,” Bull nodded. “Well, not that quickly. It’s not that bad once you get the hang of it.” He sat by their campfire, minding the flames while she tested the new armor. The rest of the camp was deserted.
“I wonder if I could copy the effect with my leg wraps.” She stuck out a bare foot, calves wrapped in the Dalish style, and studied them with a critical eye.
“Here they come, boss,” Bull said softly. Ellara ignored the flutter in her stomach and began to move through slowly through the forms of a Dalish staff-dance. No different than anything she had done a thousand times. Except this time she was half naked and starting to sweat in the desert sun.
They heard Solas and Dorian before they saw them, predictably. The two had gone to fetch game for dinner and returned quarreling about something or other. She quickened her pace in the dance, focusing on the staff and her body and the sand beneath her feet.
Though she was very aware when their conversation came to a screeching halt as they crested the hill.
“Oh my,” Dorian said, pitched to carry. “Is this a new Dalish custom?”
“Qunari armor, actually,” Bull contributed. “The staff thing is Dalish.”
“I was well aware of that,” Dorian said.
Ellara cut the pattern short, finishing with a final whirl and planting her staff in the sand.
“It’s not bad,” she called to Bull. “And certainly better than all that wool in this heat.” She couldn’t help glancing at Solas. He stood in the sand, riveted, a dead phoenix draped over one shoulder.
“Glad you like it.” The Iron Bull told her. “It’s all yours. Wouldn’t look nearly as well on me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Dorian murmured. “But I am horribly biased. Turn around, there’s a girl, let me see that knotting.”
She turned, obliging, fully aware that she was shimmering with sweat and that the ropes curved around her rear.
“Oh my,” Dorian purred. “If this is our Herald, I may yet turn in my staff and become a Chantry brother.”
“Funny,” she told him. Solas still hadn’t moved, hadn’t said a word. “You would set the place on fire within a fortnight.”
“A week on the inside,” Dorian agreed. “But you are quite the sight for sun-weary eyes.”
Ellara opened her mouth to argue – that she was not wearing this get-up for the purpose of ogling – then remembered she was, in fact, wearing it for the purpose of ogling. One person ogling. Which he was doing quite well. If only he would say something – they hadn’t been prudish in his village, had they? He would have certainly seen many things in his journeys in the Fade.
Bugger Solas – even if he didn’t appreciate the armor, she was growing fond of it.
“Solas?” she said, and was horribly amused when he jolted back to reality. “Are we going to cook that phoenix, or dry it in the sun?”
“Hmm?” He blinked, collecting his wits. “Yes, dinner. Of course.”
Ellara took charge of the phoenix, dressing it down with practiced efficiency. It was not a neat process. By the time she had separated the scales from the bones from the meat she was faintly splattered with refuse and blood. She pulled on the fade – it hummed, and ice formed in their water bucket. A judicious application of fire magic melted the block quickly.
“My magic feels different,” she muttered. “It’s… closer? Easier to reach across the Veil.”
“Like I said, I don’t know how it works,” Bull shrugged. “It’s something with the rope and something with the tying.”
“Dagna will be fascinated,” Ellara said. “I wonder if there are any applications for healing? Redirecting the body’s energy to where it is needed most?”
“Might be,” Bull agreed.
Ellara, feeling especially wicked, upended the bucket of water over her head. The coolness was a blessed relief. And a quick glance out of the corner of her eye showed that Solas crouched by the campfire, attempting to cook the phoenix meat, but really just staring.
“Solas,” she called as she shook the water from her hair. “Your meat.”
To her delight, Solas flushed a bright crimson, the color riding high on his cheeks.
“She means you’re burning dinner,” Bull told him wryly.
Solas looked down at the fire – the phoenix meat was scorched to charcoal. He swore fervently in Elvhen, yanked the stick from the flames, planted it in the sand, and stalked out of camp. He was still cursing under his breath.
Ellara winced. “Too much?”
“It’s good for him,” Bull grinned. “Helps him remember he’s just a man.”
“If you’re sure,” Ellara said dubiously. “Should I go after him?”
“Yes,” Dorian said immediately.
“No,” Bull said in the same instant.
“If you’re looking to get him to bed, now is exactly the right opportunity!” Dorian protested.
“He’ll bed you alright. Then be so ashamed of himself he’ll never look at you again,” Bull rumbled. “He’s fighting something. Has to get it out of his system before he’ll be free to be with you.”
“Augh.” Ellara flopped down in the sand and accepted a non-burned piece of dinner. “At least I know he’s interested. Or he was just too embarrassed and shocked…”
“Oh, he’s interested,” Dorian confirmed. “My dear, you are a vision. Were I available in any way, I would take you in a manly fashion.”
“Thanks, Dorian,” the elf said glumly. “Thanks, Bull.”
“Don’t sweat it, boss.” The Iron Bull thumped her on the back.
“Out of a sense of morbid curiosity, are you actually going to use that thing as armor?” Dorian wondered.
“Nooo,” Ellara said. She fingered the elaborate knots cascading down her arms. “Maybe.”
She had been so many things in the past few months: A First, than a prisoner. A savior, a mage, a Herald. A soldier and a healer, a tactician and a scout. A leader. An Inquisitor. In many ways, the last had consumed her whole – she was encased in the mantle of Inquisitor Lavellan, wrapped in duty thicker and more protective than any steel.
Out here, with the ropes and the silk and the sun she felt wild, delicious, and free. Ellara, a woman, powerful and strong.
Maybe she would keep the armor. She would just be mindful about wearing it around Solas.
The other elf didn’t return until full dark. Dorian and Bull had retired to their tent earlier – she had tried not to listen to their goings on, but blight, the Tevinter mage was loud.
She was entertaining thoughts retiring and pleasing her own damn self when sigh of bare feet on sand caught her attention. Solas looked weary, lines sharp around his eyes. Ellara felt a pang of guilt.
“Hey,” she called softly. “We saved you dinner.”
“My thanks.” He sat by the fire a few feet from her and accepted the now-cool roast. “This is not the portion that I burned.”
“Bull ate that one. He didn’t seem to care.”
The flames crackled with the dry scrub.
“I’m sorry-“ she started.
“Apologies-“ he said at the same time.
“I just – I wanted…” Ellara stared at her knees, now fully covered in her heavy wool coat. “I don’t get it. Why you don’t want to take things – us – farther. I don’t get it but I’m trying… I respect it. Respect you. You have your reasons and that’s fine, we’ll go – we’ll be as slow as you need. We don’t ever have to - I just wanted…” She ran a hand through her hair, frustrated at the words that wouldn’t come. “I didn’t mean to make it so hard for you.”
The silence between them stretched as she realized the double meaning. “Blight, that came out all wrong. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” She got up, meaning to go hide in their tent, but his hand grabbed her wrist.
She sank back down into the sand next to him. Waiting. Sometimes it took him a while to sort through his thoughts. She watched the small flames flicker, dancing, the only spot of light in the darkness.
Solas blew out a breath, frustrated. Ellara snorted in agreement and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I cannot give you what you want,” he said, somewhere between bitter and resigned. “There are – I am…” He rested his forehead against her. “This is not easy for me,” he admitted.
“Of course not,” Ellara muttered. “This is the Inquisition. Why on earth would anything be easy or simple?” Solas snorted a laugh into her hair, which she counted as a victory.
“You show me too much patience,” he grumbled. But he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to his side.
“Hmm, you’re worth it.” Ellara snuggled into him happily. “Besides, it’s not like I’m in this for a quick fuck.”
“Wise of you,” Solas said dryly.
“If I wanted that, I’d just go join Dorian and Bull.”
“Would you?”
Ellara thought about it for a moment. “Ye… no? Maybe? I’d talk to them about it, at least.”
“Hmm,” Solas said, a little doubtfully. Which was, perhaps, accurate of him.
The silence wrapped around them, thick and comfortable. Then Solas shifted uneasily. “I wished – there is something I wish to know.”
“Whazzat?” Ellara muttered sleepily. She was enjoying the closeness, the particular smell of books and dust and leather that meant Solas.
“Why are you, as you say, in this?”
“Hmm?” She thought for a second. “Grim fatalism and dangerous levels of sexual tension?”
Solas chuckled, but there was a bitter edge to it. “Then we are indeed an excellent match.”
Ellara stared into the fire, safe in the closeness of his arms. “Do you know the moment I first began to fall in love with you?” He stiffened, almost imperceptably. “It was the first time we talked, really talked, at Haven. You told me about walking in the Fade. Your whole face just lit up, like you were shining from the inside out. Your hands were dancing in the air and when you spoke, it was like a song without music.” She closed her eyes, remembering the fall of the words, “ ‘I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past in ancient wars, both famous and forgotten.’”
“You remember,” Solas said softly, voice edged with wonder.
“Of course I remember,” she muttered. “It’s the first time you let your mask slip, the first time you really came to life. The words waving, crashing. I’ve never met anybody who speaks in poems.” She yawned, thinking back. “And then I just kept noticing. How you pretend to be so grumpy but you’re secretly kind. You fed the stray dogs in Haven. You teach the servants their letters – everything you’ve done for Cole. You yell at Sera because you care so much.”
His arms tightened around her, but she continued. “I love how you scowl at Chantry rhetoric but honor Cassandra for her beliefs. And I love this silly little dimple in your chin.” Her hand reached up to press a thumb in the offending feature. He snorted.
“I love how you care so much but you think no one will listen to you. I love the look on your face when they do. I love talking to you about everything – magic and the future and the past and the present. Just, just talking and arguing and doing my paperwork on the library floor. That’s why I’m in this, Solas. For you. Only you.”
He held her so tightly now it was hard to breathe. She loved it. “It will only ever be you.”
“ ‘Ma vhen’an,” he murmured, voice cracking.
“My heart,” she told him in Common.
“The words mean more than that,” he told her softly, leaning his cheek against her hair. “Where you are, Ellara, there is my home.”
They sat together for a long time, staring into the fire. That night, neither was willing to break away.