Work Text:
She doesn’t curse people often.
Keeper Deshanna was always of the opinion that curses and invocations lost their impact when subjected to over-use, and it was a philosophy she strove to ingrain in the clan. If such words were to have meaning, they could not be used frivolously.
One does not call out to the Creators, trapped beyond reach, or the Dread Wolf, supposedly wandering between worlds, over stubbed toes and spilt milk.
“You never know,” the keeper would say. “They might answer, da’len. And then what will you tell them? That you called for their aid because you stuck your thumb while mending your breeches?”
As a child, the prospect had actually seemed strangely delightful; and she had been cheeky enough to respond that if the gods actually did answer, she would simply point to all of the real troubles their people faced and pretend that was what she had been complaining about all along. But Deshanna’s scoldings and punishments seemed a much likelier consequence, and so she had never developed the habit of cursing the way that some Dalish did.
Solas remarked upon it to her, once.
“I do not believe I have ever heard you invoke your gods,” he noted, one brittle morning after his return from mourning the death of his spirit friend.
He so rarely expressed an interest in Dalish culture at all that this simple observation felt… tenuous, somehow. And though he asked her casually, as he joined her in walking through her morning rounds of the keep, there was something sharp in his gaze.
Questions of faith rested uneasily on Solas’ shoulders, sometimes.
But she supposed it was only to be expected for a man still grieving to have such matters on his mind.
She shrugged.
“My keeper discouraged it. She believed that one should only invoke their gods in situations where divine intervention would be a reasonable response,” she explained. The air was bracing. Their steps through the courtyard were quiet; hers little more than a whisper, and his not even that. It was very early, still. Cullen had yet to start running drills, and the night’s watch was still changing out with their replacements.
Solas tilted his head.
“And yet, you have been in many situations that could easily be seen as meriting an invocation or two, even by the highest standards,” he reasoned.
Again, she only shrugged.
“I suppose it just does not occur to me very often,” she reasoned.
“You look to your own strength to see you through,” he replied, with a distinct note of admiration in his tone.
It made her heart flutter a little, just to know it was directed at her.
Tentatively, she reached out and threaded her fingers through his. He ran his thumb down the side of hers.
“My own strength, and the strength of those I trust,” she told him.
His steps faltered for a moment. She blinked down at the ground, wondering if he’d tread on a stone. Pieces of rubble and debris still occasionally turned up at odd points; left behind by the repair work, or dragged out by the animals that were still nesting in dark corners here and there. It wouldn’t do to leave something where it might trip up one of the soldiers going through drills.
But she saw nothing. Solas’ grip tightened on her, briefly, before he let go.
“Naturally,” he said.
The conversation drifted to the back of her mind, then. There to linger with others they’d had before; to be turned over on occasion, ruminated upon and dissected, before being set aside by more pressing matters again.
It didn’t even to occur to her to think of it, when at last she broke with the pattern.
It wasn’t Adamant that did it. It wasn’t even tracking down Samson’s forces and watching Maddox, poor soul, die for the sake of their true target. In the end it was a skirmish, unexpected, just after a fight with a High Dragon in the Western Approach.
Their party was exhausted. Even Bull was coming down off of his usual adrenaline high and enthusiasm a little more quickly than usual, thanks to a couple of very strong knocks to the head. Solas had healed what he could, but most of them were still sporting injuries here and there, and having to make do with cobbled together supplies. Sera - the least injured among them - had been the one to do the lion’s share of work on the dragon’s corpse, and had come away from the task covered in stinking blood and bits of gore, but carrying a few worthwhile treasures.
She had taken a look at them all, and determined that they’d head for Griffon Wing Keep to rest and resupply, and perhaps even more pressingly, clean themselves up. The dust and grit from the air was sticking to the blood on their skin, itching horribly, and making them all even more irritable than the exhaustion and injuries combined.
And Solas looked like he was getting sunburned.
Joy of neverending joys.
She was in the midst of trying to figure out what route might offer them the most shade when they almost stumbled straight into a venatori campsite.
It was a matter of pure, bad luck. The wind was against them, and the camp was hidden by the slope of the ground around it, and the shadows of several large boulders. The venatori had seemed as surprised to be found as they were to find them. For one absurd moment she was almost tempted to just raise her arms and ask if they could ignore one another and have their obligatory battle later.
Just a polite postponement, maybe.
But then the venatori saw the mark on her hand and realized they had an exhausted Inquisition party at their mercy, and the moment was lost before it could even be realized.
The fight was an ugly one.
That morning, when they’d set out for the dragon, the air had been cool and the trip had been short and uneventful. But the fight had dragged on, unexpectedly; and now the sun had begun to turn relentless, and the magic crackling through the air was almost as stifling as the heat. The venatori had the advantage of being fresh. But exhaustion and discomfort made her uncommonly vicious.
Her muscles strained and the grit in her leathers felt like sandpaper. She pulled no punches and wasted no time on hesitancy, or mercy. She dodged the spells lobbed her way as efficiently as she could, as Bull charged, swinging his weapon in a long, sweeping arc that sent the mages scurrying back.
Sera’s arrows whistled through the air. Solas’ barrier cracked, but he was near exhausted, and they were out of lyrium potions. She drew her blades and tried to keep him at her back. But distance put the venatori at an advantage, as they summoned up spells and evaded Bull’s wild swings.
Defensive strategies wouldn’t work; the safest thing would be to kill their enemies as quickly as possible, she decided, and so she darted out and after them instead. Hoping to take them out before any of them got the idea of targeting Solas or Sera. However tired he was, at least Bull made for a good distraction.
She wasn’t expecting the venatori to swarm her.
Demons did, sometimes. On a battlefield the mark was a substantial threat to them, considering what it could do to rifts. But most other foes tended to underestimate her in combat. They assumed she was the bearer of the mark and little more, and that worked to her advantage.
Apparently the venatori were beginning to wise up, however.
She got one in the gut, before the air burned and the blood she drew surged at her, boiling as it wrapped around her arms. It was enough to get her to drop one of her daggers, as her muscles twitched and her flesh was seared. Then two more rushed in. The air crackled a scant warning, and she flung herself out of the path of a spell aimed straight for her head, only to have the bladed end of a staff rake across her back.
Armour took the worst of it, but the blow was heavy. Off-kilter as she was, it sent her to her knees; a bad place to be. She scrambled to recover. An arrow pinged off one of the ventatori’s barriers. Bull was cleaving his way towards her, but he had a fairly spry gladiator to contend with. And with Solas spent and a harsh wind whipping at her, it… didn’t look good.
She struck outwards. Luck more than skill landed her remaining dagger in one of her enemies’ thighs. He crumpled. But then every muscle in her body froze, as if a vice had closed around them.
Blood magic.
The venatori’s hands curled in the air, like the red and glowing claws of a demon. He smiled at her. The delight in his gaze was unsettling, as he stood in the pooling blood of his fellows, and turned her own against her. She tasted iron in her mouth.
A twist of his fingers, and every muscle in her screamed in agony.
She screamed, too.
“Any last words, Inquisitor?” the pretentious rat bastard of a Tevinter wondered. Apparently unable to keep from savouring the moment.
It was a monumental effort just to spit a mouthful of blood at his feet.
“Dread wolf take you,” she grit out.
He curled his fingers. Something white-hot and terrible lanced through her, and then…
Stopped.
The forces holding her upwards crumpled. She dropped with them, slumping in the blood and dirt. In front of her, the venatori gurgled. It took her a second to realized what she was seeing. A smooth, round pole was protruding from his chest. Straight through his lungs, by the looks of it. The end of a staff.
Solas was standing behind him. Legs braced, expression hard and haggard, and hands gripping the top of the staff.
After a second, he wrenched sharply backwards.
The venatori slumped forwards with another gurgled gasp.
She looked up at Solas, and his bloodstained staff, standing against the sun like some ancient warrior sprung to life. Then he dropped the staff, heaving in long, dry breaths. His strength spent in a moment of desperation.
There were still living enemies on the battlefield.
She staggered upwards, ignoring the burning in her limbs. She meant to look for the last opponent she’d injured, but at the first step she managed, Solas grabbed her instead. The muscles in his arms were still trembling with strain. But they were slightly better off than hers, that twitched and shook with the aftershocks of the venatori’s attack.
He dragged her from the fight.
A moment of disoriented alarm surged through her. But then she got ahold of herself, and realized it was a sound move; they were still standing in the midst of a wealth of blood, exhausted and barely able to keep their feet, and though Sera and Bull were flagging, the remaining venatori seemed more inclined to flee than keep trying their luck.
It always grated to let any get away, but under the circumstances, there wasn’t much for it.
Besides which, her inability to stop twitching and the black spots dancing across her vision would probably make her more of a liability at the moment than anything else. At the very least, withdrawing meant neither she nor Solas would be convenient targets for more blood magic.
Once she started trying to help instead of pulling against him, they managed to withdraw to the side of the largest rust-red boulder. Solas eased her down to the ground as gently as he was able to. A challenge, considering both of their states. His breath was ragged. Her own came in broken gasps as fresh surges of pain wracked through her. The after-effects of nearly being torn apart by blood magic.
Always pleasant.
The burns on her arms stank beyond reason, too.
“Just focus on breathing,” Solas told her. He pressed a shaking hand to her head. They had no healing supplies left; so breathing it was.
She nodded, or tried to, and managed to get one of her hands up clutch at his arm. At first she’d meant the gesture as reassurance. But then she found herself holding on just for the sake of his solidity.
There was something wild and distinctly frayed in him.
“Thanks,” she managed to rasp out.
He closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly.
Then he got to his feet.
She didn’t have the energy to ask him where he was going, or keep hold of him. But she could see him as he moved. The last of the venatori had run off, and Bull and Sera were making their way towards them. Solas had them stop and tiredly rifle through the venatori’s belongings.
The search turned up a few usable potions.
Solas downed one glittering blue vial with no preamble, and then approached her with another. as Sera sank onto her backside in the nearest patch of clean sand. Bull kept a wary out for anything else that might smell an opportunity. Opponents who’d fled and then doubled back, or predators drawn in the by the scents and sounds of the fight.
She rode out another surge of pain, before she could hold still enough for Solas to press a potion bottle to her lips. She saw the muscle in his jaw clench, as he gritted his teeth and forced his hands to steady as best he could.
It was enough to get her to stop spasming, at least. Then Solas rested a hand on her brow, and sent a surge of healing magic through her; and the profound sense of wrongness in her body eased.
In the end they had to leave most of their spoils from the dragon fight behind, along with the venatori’s corpses, though, as it took everything they had just to make it to the nearest friendly campsite. There, at least, they managed to patch enough to make the trip to the keep. She sent a pair of scouts back to retrieve what they’d left behind.
They made it, though.
In a rare use of her influence, she secured them all some of the keep’s actual rooms, instead of tents, and had some water allotted to them for washing up and cleaning out their remaining wounds. She didn’t intend enough for a full bath, but when the quartermaster assured her it would be no strain, she found it wasn’t in her to refuse.
Nor was it in her to object when, just a few minutes after she’d gotten into the wooden tub, Solas slipped into her room.
At first she thought it was one of the servants who had filled it, just making sure she hadn’t started to drown or something.
But no. It was him.
If she’d been any less exhausted, she might have spared some embarrassment, or at the least, self-consciousness. But she wasn’t, and she found that she couldn’t.
He waited a moment, pointedly looking only at her face. From that angle she didn’t even think he could see much of the rest of her.
She tilted her head, welcoming him into the room.
Romantic sentiments aside, the keep had a dearth of mages who were proficient at healing. She wouldn’t turn him away on either front.
He looked haggard enough himself, besides. Cleaner, and less shaky, but definitely tired. He’d changed into a spare set of clothes at the campsite. The top of his collar was damp, and she realized he must have just washed his face and hands before tending to everyone else.
His gaze lingered over her. Assessing, rather than admiring. It caught on the burn marks on her arms, and the bruises that had blossomed in her joints. He trailed his fingers into the water. A brief flash, and it tingled. Some of the discolourations on her skin receded a bit more.
She reached out of the water and grasped his wrist. A little clumsily; she managed to get his sleeve wet. But he only glanced at her.
“It’s alright,” she told him. “You’re exhausted. Leave it be. It’s just superficial now.”
He met her gaze.
Then he sighed, heavily.
She let her hand slide back into the water.
For a moment they simply sat in silence. He settled with his back towards her. She drifted in the water. It was reassuring, in a way, just to have him there. It could have been awkward, or strange. But it wasn’t. Instead it just felt peaceful. The calm after the storm; the comfort of knowing they’d both survived another day.
“When that venatori had you,” he said, softly. “You…”
She turned towards him, curious.
One of his fingers tapped at the side of the bath.
“You invoked Fen’Harel.”
She blinked.
Had she? Oh, yes. She had. Well, the man had it coming to him. She doubted even Keeper Deshanna would have faulted her usage on that front.
“Do you think it was inappropriate of me?” she nevertheless asked him.
A wry chuckle escaped him.
“As it happened, no,” he said. “It just seemed unlike you.”
The water sloshed a little as she shrugged.
“Well. Next time I’ll just call for you, seeing as how you were the one who got him anyway,” she reasoned. On a whim, she reached out, and scooping up his hand. Then pressed a kiss to his palm.
“My hero,” she said.
His hand curled around her cheek.
He looked at her like she’d just taken a chisel to his heart, and cracked off a piece.
Then he swept down and kissed her. Soft and gentle, a slow press of lips that dragged back and then drifted in again.
She was half tempted to just pull him into the tub with her. On another day she might have tried it. But as it stood she only sighed when he withdrew, and got his sleeve wet again.
“You need sleep. I will have someone come and help you to bed,” he offered.
“You could stay,” she murmured.
He stilled, and she took in the look on his face. Hesitance and longing, just like she’d seen on that balcony, when he’d turned to leave and she’d caught him by the arm. She was catching him by the arm again, she knew. But it seemed so much like he wanted her to.
“Just stay,” she asked.
“…I should not,” he replied.
He didn’t leave to go and fetch anyone else, though. After a few more minutes he helped her climb out of the bath. Not the most dignified of tasks, but she managed to be more than just slippery dead weight, at least. Not that he was precisely at the top of his game either, though. Despite the drying cloth they both tried to keep between them, he managed to get soaked in the effort.
It left her a little breathless. She gave up on words for a while, and just settled for drying off. And then tugging at his sleeve until he caught the hint. His throat bobbed as he took off his outer layers, and slipped into the small fortress bed with her.
She had half a thought to make some kind of quip. Maybe lighten the mood a little bit with some teasing or flirting. But honestly, they spent enough time on the road that they’d both seen each another in various states of undress before. And as worn out as they were, she found the thought of any pretence impossible. So instead she simply leaned into him.
He put an arm around her. It was just shy of uncomfortably warm.
After a few minutes she relaxed.
The muscles beneath her hands did not.
“I can hear you thinking,” she told him. Or, rather, mumbled into his chest.
It was a good chest. Good shoulders. Nice for mumbling into. It rose and fell with the weight of his exhalation, and finally he eased against her, in return, and let go of whatever was tying him into knots.
At least a little.
“Ma vhenan,” he whispered.
She hummed an acknowledgement, before she finally fell asleep.