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His failure is absolute.
Miserable, and obvious. His form is weak. His decision has wrought only endless suffering. The creature that was his would-be pawn now rules a broken, sundered world, carelessly patched together. The Elder One, he calls himself; as if he has lived little more than the barest fraction of a life when compared to Solas himself.
But it does not matter. The world is ruined twice over, an endless cesspool of despair on an inevitable and steep decline towards its ultimate destruction. It cannot be maintained like this, let alone restored. And no matter his knowledge, no matter his experience, he is, in the end, only another husk of flesh, cast aside to feed the Blight.
The darkness has won at last.
And it is his doing.
Perhaps it is only fitting that he meet this slow, painful end, all things considered. But the world does not deserve it. The people do not deserve it.
He would fight, if only he had the barest scrap to cleave to. They leave him in the cell, however. A long, slow, tortuous decline; the monotony of which is only broken up by other tortures, as his captors crudely seek to grind information from his bones; bleed it from his veins.
They think he knows very little, though. It is barely more than sport to them, now. Even the thralls of the Elder One scent their doom upon the air, and scramble to inflict it upon others, first, as if there is some quota of death and misery that might be sated before it reaches them.
He makes many escape attempts. He thinks often of that moment, when the air broke, and the Herald and their Tevinter ally were both killed. He should have anticipated the spell. How old is he? How many battles as he fought? But he thought of maintaining secrecy. A humble apostate… and yet it was only another mage that they faced. How damning would it have truly seemed for one mage to, by fortune, anticipate another, and prevent his attack? An instant’s luck, a blink of unexpected skill, often turned the tides of battles. He could have pulled her away. He could have…
But it was useless.
She was lost, along with the anchor, and all hope of reclaiming the orb.
Sometimes, unexpectedly, he would recall the look in her eye, when she had once promised to defend him from chantry forces. Little more than a prisoner to them herself, and yet she had so readily stood and so clearly spoken on the matter.
How would you stop them?
However I had to.
He had not repaid that promise in kind. And he should have, in that moment; instead he had been cautious, and had failed to react before it was already too late. Protecting a lie that had availed neither himself nor the world, at the expense of someone who might have.
There seems to be no end to the cost of his mistakes. His failures. He has brought ruination and suffering.
It is over.
And then she appears.
The Tevinter at her side, as if no time has passed. A wraith from his memories. And yet his memory has dulled, been eaten away by the poison in his veins, by the fog of time and too brief an acquaintance. He doubts he could conjure even her so vividly, let alone her companion.
Time magic.
Time.
A chance, then, to undo this; to save the world. To restore - if not everything - then at least something that may survive. Something that is not utterly doomed. It is more than he ever imagined he would get, but there is no room for denial, for doubt, for hesitation. There is nothing left to lose, and he would give everything to see them succeed.
However I had to.
They free him, and he pushes back the pain. Calms his mind, and ignores the demands of his body. It will not last much longer, either way. Pain is only a distraction now. He draws on the taint and lyrium, distorts his own veins, and pulls at even blood magic. He uses every dirty trick he knows as they tear through the ruined castle, and free more allies, and scrape together one of the most desperate plans he has heard in his life.
But it will work.
It must.
She is radiant, before him. In truth they both are. Vital and healthy, filled with anger and fear and outrage, rather than pain and defeat and despair. The Tevinter denies the reality around him; Solas does not blame him. It is irrelevant. The man may as well think it a dream, if it brings him comfort. It will not change anything either way. If he goes back, it may as well be one. If he dies, then he is dead.
She is different.
She does not see a dream. Or a nightmare. Her eyes, when she looks at him, are wide awake; wide open, and full of pain. Raw. He does not know how she can do it. How she can see a world so awful, and yet, shut none of it away.
It brings a stark clarity to his mind. Almost as painful as anything else.
She will go back to save a world that is still, one way or another, destined to die. Whether by the Elder One tearing all of it asunder, or by his own hands reshaping it into what has been lost. She will go back, and stare with wide awake eyes, with fist-clenched determination; lip curled as she looks in disgust upon those who would bring harm to what she protects. Just as she looks at the creatures who have tortured her companions and ruined this future.
However I had to.
She will look at him that way, one day, and she will fight to stop him.
However she has to, perhaps.
After one of their skirmishes with the Elder One’s worshippers, she slides a little upon the blood-soaked floor. He catches her elbow, halting her, and when she looks at him, and murmurs her thanks even as her eyes fill with grief at the sight of him again, he almost says something. He almost lets the words spill from him.
Because perhaps his own plans can truly fare no better than the Elder One’s clumsy rending at the Veil.
Perhaps this is a sign that all his machinations are bound to end in doom in despair.
Perhaps fate has not seen fit to send here to warn her of Corypheus; but to give him this chance, to warn her of himself.
He says nothing.
“Are you holding up?” she asks him. She does not do him the disservice of asking if he is ‘alright’, at least.
He nods.
If they succeed, and she returns to the past, then he will have more time to assess. More time to rethink, to consider with a broader perspective. Perhaps he will take it. Perhaps he will see again, something that sparks this doubt in him; and know better how valid it may or may not be. There is red lyrium in his veins and madness in his mind, and silence is wiser, he thinks.
The chance vanishes.
She reaches over and squeezes his arm. Expression softening, for a moment, before she turns back to the matter at hand.
His flesh aches where she touched him, long after her hand is gone. Pain from his failing body; and yet it reminds him, for a moment, of what it is to be real. To feel real. The small patch of flesh dragged back to the memory of how it should be, by a simple moment of affection.
This world and this future is real, and for his mistakes, he will die in it.
But there is a chance for restoration.
When the Elder One comes, when his forces pour through the castle in hordes of demons and twisted souls, he does not hesitate to go. A dying mage, an old remnant, on the cusp of a long-awaited end. How will he stop them?
The doors close at his back.
However I have to.