Chapter Text
He knew Liora hadn’t been simply flattering him that day, when she said she did not dream the way he did.
Truthfully, few Thedosians "dreamt" to any meaningful extent. Solas used his nightly trances to explore and experiment, to expand his knowledge free of earthly limitations such as exhaustion or hunger. Unable to achieve even a fragment of that lucidity, most in this world spent their dreams mired in familiar experiences, old pains or joys play-acted by curious spirits.
Solas knew better than to pry into his sleeping companions’ lives—the tactical benefit of knowing them better was far too mired in surreal imagery and symbolism to be worth invading their privacy. Even so, he had seen a spare few of their dreams on occasion. (Well, save for Varric, who being a child of the Stone had no dreams at all.) Their Inquisitor, who was not even a mage, never mind a dreamer, was no exception to this.
Most of the time her dreams consisted of old worries, tedious concerns which she faced over and over again. Like performing chores for her clan, as she’d said once, protecting clan children from monsters in the forests, or hiding from monsters, herself, underneath an enormous tree in an empty courtyard. Whether she wanted to spin her wheels this way, or was too mired in spirits that fed on her anxiety to break loose, Solas couldn’t rightly say—suspecting that it was a mixture of both.
Tonight, Lavellan’s memory flitted over mountain trails in a dream of a morning hunt, her crossbow in hand. It was a more peaceful memory, it seemed; there was no one for her to look after, no conversations to navigate, nor dangerous beasts to slay. Solas was reminded of how she would go off to catch fish or shoot August Rams by herself after a particularly stressful mission, claiming to use the time to restore her strength.
He wasn’t in this one. He had been in others—not his true self, but rather a spirit in his guise. Himself, strictly as Liora saw him.
On that night when she took him aside and confessed that she had feelings for him, he—
It was irrational. The idea that these souls crippled from the Fade would, against all odds, experience the same depth of feeling as his own people seemed as impossible as expecting awareness from a character in a book. And yet as Liora had stood softly illuminated by the light of the moons, trying to hand him her heart, it felt as real as if she’d cut it out of her chest.
And a part of Solas, ineffable and struggling from a dark place inside him, had ached to take it. Had longed to pull her into his arms and taste her lips as he hadn’t done with anyone for countless eras past. Wanted to forget for just a moment everything he had done, everything he planned to do, and live in the same world that she did—be only what she saw in him.
But thankfully that part of Solas was not in control that night. The waking world was a mutable and cynical one, and they would both suffer if he played along. Even considering that in the grand scheme of things it would only be a momentary indulgence.
"Solas, is the end of that sentence going to make it hurt less?"
Funnily enough, as he’d tried to word his rejection more tactfully it was that wounded expression on her face that let him know he’d made the correct choice. In trying to let Liora down gently, he would only be prolonging her suffering by keeping her there longer. The same principle applied to accepting her feelings now, when he would surely have to abandon them when it was required of him.
Though, this did not actually make Solas feel better.
And watching Liora’s dreams to see if he appeared in any of them after the incident wasn’t exactly a good look, either.
"You are always troubled, Pride, though today more so than others," said a voice above him speaking gently, almost musically, in elven.
Drifting down out of the expanse of the Fade was a figure more amorphous than Liora’s rigidly constructed self. Though humanoid in shape, it flowed like water and changed gracefully from moment to moment; as it neared the wolf, however, one image started to settle on the spirit’s surface. Elven, in the ancient robes of a noble mage, with hair that bobbed around its pointed ears; eight eyes watched him from its face, but a familiar smile lay beneath.
The wolf turned his head enough to catch sight of it in the corner of his eye, lips pulling back to reveal his jagged fangs at the spirit. A smile, albeit it would have been more suited to a creature with smaller teeth. Wisdom landed directly in front of him, sleeves swirling and reforming as it sat. "Might you wish to share what new worry darkens your heart?" it asked.
Solas turned his head in indication of the dream beyond them. "It is nothing that will not pass soon," he replied in a low voice.
Wisdom turned its head to view the dream as well, curious and mindful. "Ah, that is… the Inquisitor, is it not? You have spoken of her spirit before."
And while he knew there was no guile in the question, he found himself still somehow reluctant to discuss "her", to turn his thoughts too long to why he was right here, watching glimpses of her face. Solas nodded, ears flattening back. "The Inquisitor… yes. She is in the midst of a dream at present. I do not think she is aware of our presence."
"...When most mortals dream, they flail themselves about without focus. They see the Fade every night, yet lack the familiarity to reach its wonders. She is much the same," Wisdom mused. Statements that in the mouths of mortals would seem cruel, perhaps even arrogant. But Wisdom had no room for arrogance; only the pondering of knowledge, which it loved so much. It turned its gaze back to him. "Is this what troubles you, my friend?"
He huffed, hot animal breath from fanged jaws. "Often. But countless of this world’s inhabitants share the same limitations. She is no exception."
Wisdom peered at him curiously. "Then why do you stand here, Pride, looking into her heart above all others?"
A question with a very difficult answer.
With another huff, he stood. Paws became hands and feet, and fangs were traded for teeth, the wolf body left behind for the elven; both were Solas. He gazed upon Liora’s dream, where she now sat at a small fire skinning a rabbit whose skin kept jumping back onto the flesh. Then he turned his back to her, and motioned Wisdom to follow as he left the vision behind. "It is nothing of consequence. Come, may we speak over another topic for a while?"
"If you wish," it replied mildly, ethereal as it walked alongside him.
This was easier; focusing on what needed to be done, what could be done, more than what he could not have. "We will have made our way to the Dirth in a few days. All communications out of the region have ceased, even in regards to the civil war raging across Orlais. Tell me your impressions of this place."
"Current events do not hold special interest to me," Wisdom replied, chuckling as it moved on ahead. Gradually, the landscape around them was shifting, from black rock and endless emerald skies to golden fields and towers of sunlit rock, the trickling of a brook echoing somewhere in the distance. "But the Dirthavaren is a place of ancient, unanswered sorrows. The lives that grew there were taken, crushed long before the birth of the feet that trod upon it now. Those who could have lived, died to see their dreams safeguarded. Their tears hush the land still."
It spoke with such reverence. The fall of the Dales was something he was familiar with as well, though in the timespan of elven history it was merely one tragedy out of many. Solas only nodded. "The Veil is likely thin over the site of so much death. We already have the child along in the event we discover more Fade rifts."
The child—meaning, of course, that Trevelyan boy, the "chosen" of Andraste and the Maker. A young apprentice from the Circles whose life Solas had forever altered, though without his meaning to. Another topic he was not comfortable dwelling on, though Wisdom knew this well enough itself from previous conversations.
"You are correct; encounter them you will," it agreed, a grim look crossing over its translucent features. "...Though even that is not all that troubles the spirits there."
"There is something else?"
It nodded, unsettling the illusions of dust and dirt with a wave of its hand. "Mages, not all of them human, disturb the waters, draw the weaker of us across the Veil. The silly things take up arms against ancient foes long dead—Orlesians then, Orlesians now."
"More undead, then. My companions will not be pleased, but there are worse things that we could have had to contend with," Solas noted with a small chuckle, watching the dust settle. "These summonings, are they being carried out by Venatori?"
"I cannot say for sure, for I know little of the Venatori," Wisdom admitted.
Intelligent, he’d thought, for it to keep its distance. "Regardless, you have my thanks. Things being what they are, I will expect no more news until we arrive."
As he spoke Wisdom smiled softly, sadly.
"...The lessons of the Plains elevate those who know how to listen. Appreciate its pain and the People’s sorrow, Pride," it said, tracing a hand along Solas’ face, gentle like a breeze. It drew back after another moment, slotting its fingers together merrily as it straightened. "Should you have need of me, I do not object to lingering through this part of the Fade a little longer. I’ve a mind to visit where dear Lindirinae’s memory rests."
He offered a small bow to the spirit, smiling at its predictability. "Thank you. Though please take caution, my friend, and continue to stay clear of the mages of which you’ve spoken. I would not like to see you stuffed into a corpse."
Wisdom merely regarded him with a serene stare, and then like a mist dispersing it vanished into the recesses of the Fade, only its words left behind. "I have no mind to be."
With that Solas was by himself again, pulled by the ebb and flow of the energies of the Fade like a boat resting in the tide. He took in a breath he didn't need, gazed upon the endless sky above.
The harsh sunlight, the unforgiving weather, the relentless ordeal of Being—all of it was distant in this place. It made it easier to think, to collect himself and know his true feelings in the moment they occurred. Though it was a bit lonely, too, more so now than it used to be; few mortals could see the pathways through the dreaming world the way he could. And there were some he might have liked to share it with if he were able.
"Wouldn’t you be tired if you’re even awake in your dreams?"
Liora… when he turned back, her own dream was in the middle of rupturing like a bubble. Her form was growing fuzzy, diminished as her conscious mind began to reject the reality of the Fade for the waking world of her earthly shell. While Solas watched, she stood from her campfire and vanished entirely, taking the rest of the dream with her.
The morning must be breaking now; perhaps he, too, should wake soon. Though he knew that this impulse came from a desire to occupy the same plane once again, the moment they were divided by the veil of consciousness; it brought a sigh of frustration from his lungs.
Lingering traces of Wisdom’s magic prickled over his mind even once it had left, and he clung to them now. No matter the impulses , he had very good reasons for turning Liora down that night. Rather than yearn for a discarded opportunity, it would be better to rededicate himself to the task at hand. For the Inquisition’s sake, for his.
Solas let out another deep breath which he did not need, and said goodbye to the serenity, the warmth of the Fade—as he drew back into the cruel waking world.
Back in his tent. Back in the cool weather of the plains, back in his mortal self with the smell of burned down herbs, the glare of morning sunlight slipping through the slits in his tent, with his body rested and head as clear as a still pond… with noises beyond his tent like a boy who seemingly didn’t know how to not be loud at the first crack of dawn,
And her, getting up to fish for breakfast as she walked past outside.
He would wait a little while before getting up.