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He drifted in and out of consciousness. The thin stream of sunlight through the flaps of the tent like a bashing against his skull. It was hot, too hot, within the thick canvas walls of the tent, at some point someone had come in and brought a water skin to his lips, then splashed some on his neck and back to cool his fevered skin.
Faron blinked his eyes open, preparing to wince, but it was dark. The only light a single pale wisp of conjured illumination, floating in the corner. His head didn’t throb when he looked at it, in fact, he almost felt clearheaded. His eyes drifted closed again.
Then he was all too aware of someone’s hands on his back. He tensed, but his body was too exhausted from fighting the fever to move. A brief panic flooded him and he attempted to push himself into a sitting position, he heard a frightened noise like a nervous halla. Was that him? It must have been. Those hands soothed him, gently pressing him back into his prone position which he returned to apprehensively.
“It is just me, lethallin. You are alright.”
Solas. It was just Solas. The past few days became clearer in his mind. Faron had developed a fever and fainted in the Western Approach. He’d been brought back to camp and everyone had started hand-wringing over whether he was in any state to make the journey back to Skyhold or if they should bring healers here. There were medical supplies set up at the camp and they’d made do. Someone had been sent to Griffon Keep to get more. Healers had been sent for.
Solas was rubbing a salve onto his back. Faron still dumbly croaked out, “What are you doing?”
“The healers will arrive within the next evening.” Solas stopped the methodical massaging of the ointment into his back. The loss of touch leaving Faron with a yawning emptiness. He didn’t crane his neck to look at the man but he heard the opening and closing of some sort of container. “I am doing what I can to bring your fever down until then, although the herbs here are rudimentary at best. You’ve been in and out of sleep since your fall, Inquisitor.”
“Sleep, in and out of the Fade. And I didn’t even talk to any Cole spirits,” Faron mumbled. He thought he heard a small exhale of laughter from Solas, but his mind was preoccupied with what he had said. Healers coming. “What healers?”
“Inquisition healers.”
“Well, obviously, but who?” One time at Skyhold he’d been ill, a small elven woman and a sturdy dwarf girl had tended to him then. The dwarf had wiped the sweat from his brow while the elven woman worked her healing magic on the illness within him. They’d chatted freely and when he’d begun to feel better he’d joined in. Their names… Adanna and Ingrid. He’d written them down so he’d know who to request if he ever fell ill again. What were the chances they were sent for? He’d informed Josie but… would she have been consulted? Would she remember?
Faron, in his day to day, didn’t hesitate from touch. He hugged his friends freely, was known to drunkenly fall into a lap or pull someone into a dance circle. And yet the idea of being vulnerable and alone with a stranger brought fear and dread, like an icy grip on his heart.
“I’m not sure the specifics, only that they will bring with them better medicines than currently on hand.”
His heart raced. By the evening, that’s what Solas had said before, right? It was dark out, that would be within the day then? Solas’s hands returned to his back, this time bringing the tingle of healing magic under his skin.
“Don’t-” His voice cracked, Solas’s hands stopped. “Don’t let them touch me. Please. You can do it yourself, can’t you? You did the healing after the Conclave, right?”
“Not alone, lethallin, but yes I helped.”
“Well this surely isn’t as fucking complicated as that.”
Solas paused thoughtfully, the tingle of magic returning. “Ma nuvenin, lethallin.”
As you say.
His hands were a comforting presence on Faron’s back. That touch stabilized him and as he closed his eyes, exhaustion tugging his lids down, he gave himself freely into their care.