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Chapter Text

Some tasks are best entrusted to him alone, Solas thinks, the weight of his bag heavy over his shoulder, his head covered by a dark cloak and his face by a black scarf. Magic-fueled lanterns give the dark streets of the city a yellow glow and he walks towards the canals, content that he’s tossed enough roadblocks between him and Varric and Harding, ensuring they would go to the trouble of protecting the slaves he freed, and slaughter the Venatori he’s stolen from.

He should be pleased; should be relieved he’s leaving the city without personally spilling further blood, but he finds himself taking a more circuitous route to the canals than would be wise. A security precaution he tells himself; if he misread Varric and Harding, and they chase after him, they’d expect him to take the quickest route.

But he didn’t misread them. A year with the inquisition taught him how to read his once-allies and Varric would not flood the streets with the blood of freed slaves in order to catch up to him. Sometimes the best shields are the most unfortunate ones.

A blaze of heat and the smell of something sweet catches his attention and he glances over to find a human frying round pieces of dough and tossing them, still hot, in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Further down, another human sells sandwiches and he looks around, realizing he’s in what must be a street market during the day. A child, a handful of copper pieces in-hand, rushes over to the fried dough salesman, who gives the boy a ring-shaped pastry wrapped in a tissue.

Once, Iris would have insisted on stopping and purchasing at least one of those rings. While not one for sweets, Iris was fond of plying sweets on others - especially him. His heart aches suddenly and he turns swiftly around the corner, regretting that he paused long enough to allow his mind to wander to unfortunate places.

He’d have bitten into the still-hot pastry, eyes watering as his tongue burned and Iris would giggle and hand him a glass of chilled amber liquid, only to be greeted by the foul taste of iced tea and Iris would laugh and laugh, delighted by the faces he’d make. Of course he knew it was tea; Iris could have kept even the largest tea operations of Thedas in business based on her personal consumption alone, but it always amused her so when he choked it down.

Such a simple thing made them so happy once. She’d have kissed him on the cheek and sweetly offered to get him something else to drink - fruit juice, or a glass of wine and he’d nearly forget to answer, so entranced by the press of her lips and the feeling of her hands draped over his shoulders. He’d chase her lips after she pulled away, drunk on the rush of her love and affection; the sort of touches he hadn’t experienced in thousands of years. The sort of touches he’ll never experience again.

The ache in his chest grows more intense and he curses, wondering why he’s still pondering a relationship that’s long-dead; collapsed to ash and dust just like his people were when he did what he thought was necessary all those ages ago.

Another corner. This street is a residential one, with three-storey row houses along both sides of the deeply-pitted cobblestone road. Distantly, the sound of horses snorting and calling for their dinner can be heard from stables in the back of each property, and he thinks of Genie, Iris’ beloved hart, who must be here in Minrathous with her. He walks alone, stopping midway down the long street to admire a garden. In the dark it’s dim and he cannot make out the colours of the flowers in the flower bed against the front of the house, but there are large, freshly trimmed bushes, a variety of flowers - some as small as his pinky nail, to ones as long and wide as his hand. A hobbyist’s garden - mostly; he does note a clump of elfroot and blood lotus flowers hidden amidst the benign plants.

Iris had always been good at shielding the practical plants with the beautiful ones in the Skyhold garden. She’d never had time to do all of the maintenance personally, but when she needed to think, she often went to the garden and watered the plants, weeded the planters, and trimmed the bushes, offering cuttings from useful plants to him to brew potions, or craft grenades. “Something about my hands in the dirt makes even the muddiest of problems more clear,” she’d explained to him once as he knelt next to her, fumbling in his attempts to help her weed the garden.

He was never a gardener. He never had the pleasure of the sort of downtime in Waking to devote to a hobby requiring such patience. Gardening is contrary to Iris in many respects - in life, she burns hot and rarely has he encountered a more impatient person than her, but in the garden she was gentle, softly nurturing her little plants and taking pride when they grew tall.

A mage light flickers through the window of the house, catching his attention, and Dorian Pavus wanders into the room. His hair is longer than it had once been, and he wonders if he might see hints of grey in it, were he closer to the man, and he’s dressed casually, in a dark silk robe. Burgundy, perhaps; the man had always been fond of burgundy. He holds a bottle of wine in his hand that he uncorks. He speaks - what, he cannot make out, but he gets the impression the man is hollering for someone, because moments later, a short elven woman with silver hair, dressed in a sleeveless shirt that cuts off mid-abdomen, which would reveal the little ironbark navel piercing he remembers vividly, even if he cannot personally see it in the dark, and a dark peasant skirt that falls to her knees. Tonight, she doesn’t wear her prosthetic, so her left arm is a stump just above where her elbow once was, leaving her with just her bicep.

Iris; his beloved Iris sits on the couch beside Dorian and accepts the bottle of wine, taking a sip directly out of it. She smiles; her beestung lips lacquered in the same red lipstick she always wore and Dorian says something that he must find very clever, because Iris bursts out laughing while Dorian grins the catlike grin he always did when pleased with himself. She always did appreciate Dorian’s sense of humour more than he ever did; often finding the man glib and obnoxious, while Iris would argue that Dorian was charming and fun.

She’s happy. That lessens the ache in his heart just a little bit, but he focuses on security, sending a brush of magic towards the house, searching for wards and finding several - subtle, but well-cast. The glass of the windows, he’s relieved to discover, are shielded by a barrier, protecting them from projectiles - at least long enough to escape from a threat firing spells or arrows at the house.

Still, the curtains are open and Dorian has enemies. He itches to knock on the door; to tell Iris how careless she’s being (she always was so careless in battle; so sure she was invincible and more than once she told him it’s because she wasn’t granted the luxury of having limits in a fight), but he doesn’t.

The truth is, if he knocked on that door, he wouldn’t lecture her about safety. He wouldn’t grouse about the state of barriers and wards. He would be on his knees, humble and beaten but not broken, pleading for her forgiveness, because he’s walked away from her three times, and he’s unsure he would have the heart to do it a fourth.

Dorian pulls out a tome, setting it down on his lap and Iris leans in to read it, the smile melting off her face, turning to concern and then frustration. Dorian wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a hug, and, not for the first time, he’s grateful to the man for being such a devoted friend to her. Much as he hates that she’s moved to Tevinter, he trusts that Dorian will keep her safe and, perhaps, in a strange way, she might be safer here than she is down south. Here she’s not her former title; she’s a nobody and from what his spies have told him, she’s leaning heavily into that fact, hiding her hair when she leaves the house with Dorian or their friend, Maevaris, and using a pseudonym.

Down south she could be assassinated by a Crow hired by Orlesian nobility furious at Iris’ outspoken pro-elven views, or taken hostage by some nefarious group in search of a payday, only to find blood and death in their wake when Iris’ companions came to her aid.

When he came to her aid. While he tries not to be violent and vengeful, if someone dared harm his flower, he would force them to endure the agony of a thousand deaths before their body crumpled to the ground.

But, she’s not his flower, is she? Not anymore.

In the dark, he cannot make out the detail of the front door - whether there’s a brass door knocker, or if his knuckles would rap on the wood were he to stop in. He imagines the feeling of his knuckles against the hard wood of the door; the way Dorian would come to the door, making a snide comment in his insufferable way, but calling for Iris as soon as he’d discerned he was no threat.

She would listen - he knows that much about Iris. She would also be inclined to yell at him; her temper flaring red hot, but she could never remain in such a state for long, and was often prone to tears after losing her temper. She’d cry and cautiously, as if he were trying to embrace a snarling cat and not the woman who plucked his heart right out of his chest after he cracked open his sternum, offering it to her freely, he’d hug her, and she’d cry all the harder, soaking the fabric of his cloak. He’d remove it, tossing it aside and she’d look at him through tear-blinded eyes, running her hand over his face as if to check to ensure he is real and not a malicious spirit out to torment her.

“We’ll find another way,” he’d croak and she’d nod, pull him to bed, and then in the afterglow of furious, rushed, messy sex she would show him whatever she’s undoubtedly been working on, in search of an alternative he’s never been able to discover.

Only… there is no other way. None that exists and Iris does not, cannot understand the situation as he does, leaving her optimistic. She’d always been so optimistic; so full of hope he could never have.

His heart races and his stomach sinks as he imagines a scene that will not ever come to be. She’s liable to find out he was in Minrathous, but will never know that he stood outside Dorian’s house, watching her from afar. Will she be hurt when she finds out he was here and didn’t stop to visit? Or, has she grown beyond such disappointment, having come to expect nothing more than heartache from the wolf who took the heart she offered and shredded it to pieces?

The latter would be kinder, though the thought of her not feeling anything at the revelation that he was in her adopted city stings more than it should. Years have passed and still he longs for the months he slept beside her in the large bed that felt so strange to her.

She used to find him every morning amidst the mountain of blankets atop the bed and slither over, climbing on top of him and resting her head on his chest. Only then would the grogginess depart and her eyes open fully, and she’d smile - her bare lips; a gift precious beyond measure because there was little she hated more than the notion of someone aside from those she considered family seeing her without her lipstick. “Your heart is so strong,” she’d whisper most mornings. Once, he sought to offer a biology lesson; to explain that his was no different from her own and she gave him a crooked smile. “You’re ruining it, my love,” she’d said, and so he shut his mouth, allowing her to comment on the state of his immortal heart, realizing that the steady sound of it beating in his chest was a comfort to her.

Dorian sets the tome aside and offers Iris the bottle of wine and for a while they pass it between the two of them, chatting about something - neither laugh, but neither look especially upset either. It’s Dorian who glances out the window, eyes narrowing, and, realizing he’s miscalculated (stupid, foolish, heartsick man he is…), he rushes down the street, re-aligning himself with the layout of Minrathous, sticking to the busier streets where he slips through crowds of drunks, avoiding the attention of pickpockets and roaming bands of thugs until he makes it to the canal, and to the waiting boat.

His heart races until Minrathous is nothing more than a dim light on the dark horizon and he turns his focus to cataloging the artifacts he retrieved, but his mind isn’t in it and neither is his heart. No, his heart is with Iris, sitting with her best friend, drinking wine directly out of a bottle, nestled safely in a house in Minrathous, ignorant of his traitor eyes upon her.

It occurs to him, as he rests a hand over his heart, imagining it to be Iris’ instead, that perhaps the racing heart; the reminder of feelings he’d tried to harden his very heart against, is not such a terrible thing.

After all, soon his dying heart; the gift offered to Iris so freely, will be nothing more than a statue encased in red crystal.

Chapter Text

The stupidity of Varric and Harding astounds Dorian. Just astounds him, and he stares at the two of them in the dim candlelight of the basement tavern they’re meeting in, with thinly-veiled annoyance. Varric has aged since he last saw him - they all have, but Varric has new scars on his face from this latest misadventure, and his hair is streaked with more grey than ever. Harding wears a brace on her right hand.

Last night, he noticed a man outside his front window, but before he could react, the man was gone, and he’d written it off as a political rival hoping to get one-up on him, apparently too stupid to realize that if he’s going to do anything questionable, he’d close his front curtains, thank you very much. That it was a lovesick ancient elf genuinely had not occurred to him, but it had to be Solas, after hearing the tale of how Varric and Harding chased after him, only to be thwarted when Solas forced them to choose between protecting a group of freshly-freed slaves and catching up to him.

Clever. Dickish, but clever. He takes a sip from the wine glass in front of him before responding. “You do realize that the retired inquisitor has secretly lived in Minrathous for a decade now? That if you’d called the two of us in, we could have cornered him far more quickly than the two of you? Or that Iris could have anticipated his little bag of tricks, ensuring you wouldn’t be stuck in a position where you had to choose between a lovely fireside chat with our favourite ancient elven asshole and saving a group of innocents?”

“Firefly is too close to him,” Varric says, obstinate; as if he isn’t also too close to the situation, rendering him unable to surprise a man smart enough to plan six moves ahead of the lot of them.

“Iris hasn’t spoken to him since the day she learned his plan,” he says, and Varric stares at him, eyes full of doubt.

“You believe her, don’t you?”

“Obviously!” he hisses, leaving out that Iris is generally terrible at keeping secrets like that from him, practically rushing out to announce that she’d bedded Solas for the first time with his spend still dripping down her thighs.

An exaggeration, but only a slight one. She may not be one to give details about her intimate life but she also cannot hide the broad strokes.

“He hasn’t approached her in her dreams?” Harding asks him and he bristles, uncomfortable revealing something Iris has told him in confidence. Harding, noticing his hesitation, smiles like a spider who has just caught a fly in its web.

“Occasionally a wolf that she thinks could be Solas shows up, but he has never spoken a single word to her. It’s a painful topic for her, you understand, but there have been no conversations. She knows nothing more than the lot of us - less right now, because she doesn’t know that her fool of an ex-boyfriend was wandering around the city!”

“We’re too close to the situation,” Harding says. “We’ll never catch him before he finishes… whatever he’s planning.”

No shit; he recalls Iris making the same damned conclusion a decade ago, and handed the task off to him. Behind the scenes, he’s been funding expeditions to ancient elven ruins, searching for alternatives to bringing down the veil, or information about Solas himself, finding the occasional crumb, but nothing complete enough to be more than just trivia at a tavern game night. “This is what the shattered remains of the inquisition Iris disbanded has been doing?”

“She left,” Varric says and again he scowls at the man.

“So did you. You do realize what she’d gone through, yes? That maybe, after losing her entire family to red lyrium-crazed lunatics in Wycome, getting dumped by her boyfriend and learning he’s plotting to destroy the world, and losing her damned arm, she might want to stick close to the family she has remaining?”

Varric sighs and rests his head in his hands. “If anyone deserves retirement it’s her. Shit. We need to find people Solas doesn’t know - and fast.”

“I’ve been making in-roads with certain groups - Maevaris knows what’s going on and has been helping me out. Iris adores her - Mae is over at least once a week for tea. I’m no spymaster - apparently I’m now a politician, but Iris has asked me to act as the contact for any group we put together. She’s also asked that she be allowed to determine Solas’ fate if at all possible.”

“To save him, I assume?”

“If possible,” he says, knowing that Iris is aware that the man may not be able to be saved; that if he’s gone mad as a result of the red lyrium he appears to be using to power whatever ritual he’s planning, then killing him would be a mercy. A mercy Iris would insist on offering herself, even if the weight of taking his life wound up breaking her. “She’s not Hawke, Varric.”

Years ago, Evelyn Hawke protected Anders, leaving Kirkwall to live a life as a fugitive by his side, abandoning Varric and the rest of their friends. Varric still cares for the woman he refers to as his best friend to this day, but he saw the distance and bitterness in the man when Hawke was with them at Skyhold.

More than once, he’s had to remind Varric that Iris would not do what Hawke did. That, if it came down to his life or Solas’, Iris would choose him. “You’re my brother in all the ways that matter,” Iris has told him. In turn, Iris is more family to him than his own mother - his distant, society-climbing mother who brags about his political accomplishments despite her personal disapproval.

Once a year his mother visits the house for an awkward family dinner, and he’s insisted Iris join them. “This is a family dinner and you’re family,” he’d told her when Iris hesitated. His mother, whose disapproval of his “lifestyle” is quieter than his father’s was, treated Iris with thinly-veiled contempt, on account of her race, but has warmed up in recent years, and he thinks his mother has convinced herself that he has “seen the light” and that Iris is his lover. Better an elven woman for a lover than a man, apparently.

An absurdity they laugh about together after dinner - he’s never revealed that his longtime boyfriend is a Tal-Vashoth qunari and likely never will, but he wears the dragon fang pendant Bull gave him under his clothes; the weight of it ever-the-more satisfying during that once annual unpleasantry that is dinner with his mother.

Still clitoris-blind and always will be, as Iris would say, and he’d have it no other way.

“Had you talked to us, we could have tracked him down. If anyone could talk him back to the ground, it’s Iris. He still loves her.”

Varric raises a bushy eyebrow and he flinches, realizing he’s played a card he should have held closer to his chest. “He would not visit her in her dreams if he didn’t?” he says weakly.

“Spill it,” Harding says bluntly.

“There was a man outside the house last night - I’d assumed a weasel from a rival faction in the Magisterium and not bloody Solas, but given what I’ve learned tonight, I assume our sad little pup was checking up on Iris. She doesn’t know, because I saw no point in telling her there was a worm outside the front window after we spent an evening looking over a book one of my contacts found in ruins outside the city that had seemed promising, only to be a collection of ancient elvhen love poetry!”

“He saw her, then?” Varric asks him, and he nods.

“I hope the sight has him second-guessing his choices,” Harding spits out. “I never understood why he got involved with her when he was plotting the entire time? He never struck me as the cruel sort, yet he toyed with her heart so callously?”

“Join the club,” he says dryly, before pausing, realizing that Iris would show more grace and understanding. “I don’t think he meant or even wanted to fall in love with her, but we all know Iris - she has this way to her. If she gives a damn about you, she’s lovely and charming and maybe she represented a reprieve for him. But, she also taught him that the people he condemns as nothing more than ghosts remaining after the fall of his illustrious empire are real people with real feelings, and that might be what stays his hand. Because if he finishes what he’s started, Iris’ life is in danger, the same as all of ours and maybe as the curtains draw to a close, he’ll decide he cannot abide by that.”

“Here, here,” Varric says, lifting his mug of ale. “Shit. Road trip’s over - it’s back to the office.”

“He says, as if he spends more time in his office than absolutely necessary,” Harding says, and Dorian still finds it difficult to imagine Varric as Viscount of Kirkwall. He’s getting the job done, and maybe it’s a suitable retirement role for him, but he so clearly loathes politics that surely there must be someone else available to take over? “Are you going to tell Iris about all of this?”

“I think it’d be crueller not to.” He doesn’t relish that conversation; at the prospect of revealing that Solas stopped to look through their window but couldn’t be bothered to try to arrange a clandestine meeting. Maybe he was too afraid speaking to Iris would change his mind. That’s the most generous reading of the situation, but not one that would make Iris feel any better; she’ll be frustrated that the two of them weren’t brought into the loop as soon as it became clear Solas was in Minrathous. “You might get a letter from Iris once you return to Kirkwall and she’s liable to be more than a little short with you.”

***

When he sits down to give Iris the news, he expects anger. A rant about Varric and Harding’s short-sightedness. Frustration that Solas didn’t stop by for a glass of damned wine and a good bout of grovelling.

What he receives is so much worse: she cries. Loud, heaving sobs so intense that their housekeeper rushes into the living room, thinking someone broke in and is trying to assassinate them, and he waves her off, wanting to spare Iris’ dignity. “I could have stopped him,” she croaks. “All I had to do was stand in his way, insist on a hug and… that might have been the end of it. We could have been on our way to a hidden nook deep in the woods where we’ll never be found at this very moment.”

Iris has spoken periodically about her desire for a cabin in the woods. What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t think their reunion would be that easy - Solas’ fun little cultists have fanned the flames of war and the collateral damage has been significant. He’s caused serious damage to Thedas, and the veil has already shown signs of changing, especially in Arlathan Forest. Iris is furious with Solas and there’s a lot he needs to make amends for… if one can even make amends for all the things he’s done.

Long ago, he decided Iris is entitled to her fantasy of a joyful reunion. She’s smart enough and wise enough to recognize that there will be raised voices - possibly during the reunification, but he can respect that she prefers not to imagine it happening that way.

He rubs her back while she cries, wishing she’d reacted with anger and not despair. “That might have been my last chance to save him, Dorian. He has that fucking idol. He’s going to kill himself and it’s going to be a terrible death, and he’s going to be tossing poison in our fucking waterways while he revives the damned empire,” she spits out.

There’s no way to refute that - Iris’ conclusion is the most logical one at this point. “Varric wants to put together a team of people Solas doesn’t know.”

“I said that a fucking decade ago!” Iris shouts - the anger a relief because the tears have stopped flowing for now.

“Trust me, dearest, I made that very point to him. You know I’ve got people working on it. We haven’t found much, but I’ve told you every little crumb they’ve found and… maybe, with the splintered bones of what remains of the inquisition funding the little operation, we’ll start cooking with fire.”

“Varric should have contacted us.”

“I told him that he and Harding dropped that ball straight into the sea. I also reminded him that you aren’t Hawke.”

Iris sighs and he hands her a handkerchief so she can blow her nose and wipe her eyes. “When someone is burned, they grow cautious around the campfire. I understood his reticence a decade ago and I understand it now. Shit - that’s probably why he didn’t pull us in.” Her eyes well up with fresh tears. “I could have saved him. If they’d just sent a raven…”

“We’re cooking now. We’ll find him and you can give him the bop on the nose he deserves and he can get on his knees and swear eternal fealty to you, or whatever idiot ancient gods do when they realize they’ve utterly demolished their relationship with their girlfriend, on account of trying to kill everyone in Thedas. Just hold on.”

“I haven’t cried like this over him in a long time. Years. Feels rather stupid, doesn’t it? I haven’t spoken to him in a decade and it’s not as if we were together all that long.”

He doesn’t get what she saw in Solas, but he doesn’t need to. He’s not the one climbing into bed beside the sad pup. “It’s quality of time, not quantity, and he’s impacted your life in many ways. He taught you the truth about the gods you once revered. You spent hours upon hours wandering the wilderness with him, listening to his stories, which means I also listened to his stories.”

“You liked many of them.”

“Well, yes, but that’s hardly the point now, is it? He had a huge hand in shaping who you are now and I happen to like who you are. Very much, in fact.”

“Dorian, you’re being genuine and it’s scaring me. You aren’t sick, are you?”

“Just trying to win myself a smile from my prettiest roommate, who has spent the night sobbing herself into what is sure to be a terrible headache.”

“I think you had a larger hand in shaping my adult life. Yes, I learned the truth and lost my faith, but I’ve learned to navigate a different culture because of you. Learned another language, which has been invaluable because I can consult actual historic Tevene resources in my research. You’ve been here and we’re family, and I’d rather be recognized for what was moulded by the man who was here the entire time than the man who wasn’t.”

He’s touched and he rubs at his stinging eyes and coughs, blinking his tears back. “Say that while my mother is over for dinner and she’ll definitely begin planning the wedding, which means having an awkward, ‘no Mother, I’m still very gay - so gay that my beloved amatus is a hulking Tal-Vashoth mercenary who can heft me over his shoulder and carry me off to be properly ravished’ conversation.”

“Don’t worry - I won’t let anyone know that we occasionally communicate sincerely.”

“So - Varric and Harding… Going to write them a letter?”

“I’ll give it a few days to settle my emotions. Then I’m going to put the fear of the Maker into them.”

“You must be furious, indeed, if you’ll invoke a deity from the religion you despise.”

“Oh no,” Iris says casually. “I don’t invoke the nonsense that led to the loss of the Dales. I’ll just remind them both that I have a hair-trigger temper and I’m very good at burning things to the ground.”

“I’d warned them you might.”

“Or, maybe I’ll pull the disappointment card. I don’t know.” Iris slumps back on the couch and stares up at the ceiling. “I’m just sad. I’m sad and it’s shit feeling this way.”

Maybe the worst part of it is that he knows Iris is going to drive herself mad wondering if she could have talked him down last night. It’s going to occupy her thoughts as she lies awake at night for weeks.

He doesn’t regret telling her, if only because she’d be hurt if she found out from someone else and he’s not in the business of hiding things from her. The truth is, he’s no better at keeping secrets from her than she is from him.

But, as he stares at her tear-stained face; the popped blood vessels around her eyes and her swollen cheeks, he wishes he’d put it off one more day, if only to ensure there was one less day spent ruminating and mourning the lost opportunity.

A lost opportunity that is liable to sting worse when they do find Solas, in whatever dire condition he is liable to be in.

Maybe she couldn’t have stopped him last night. But, Maker, he wishes Varric and Harding had given her a chance to try.