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“The two of you…” Delwyn said, trailing off with a vague gesture. A one-handed gesture, which was simply another facet of the layered guilt which gnawed at Cassandra. Divine Victoria, she corrected herself dryly and habitually. Did all Divines mourn the loss of their name as Cassandra did? She was grateful, in a way, to lose the length of her name, but she still felt oddly adrift without it.
A pointless consideration, a distraction her weak mind sought, attempting to distance herself from this conversation which she desperately did not want to have.
“The two of us,” she agreed heavily, taking care to not look at the place where the Inquisitor’s left arm was meant to be. She should have realized, should have recognized something was amiss, that Solas was more than a simple apostate.
Well. She’d already known that. Over time, frustration had shifted to appreciation; from appreciation to affection. And from affection to…
She couldn’t love someone like him. It was bad enough before—her, a Seeker, or ex-Seeker, and him, an elven mage. Her, dedicated to the Chantry, with a strong faith in the Maker and Andraste, him a…
He couldn’t be a god. According to the Inquisitor, he denied being one. But what was he, then? The power he wielded now, putting their entire world at risk? If he was a god, she rather thought he’d become the vengeful kind. But it was impossible to imagine.
He’d always been so gentle. Firm, opinionated, willing to push hard against her preconceptions, but she’d liked that. Enjoyed being challenged, even when it frustrated her. And when it had spiraled into something different, something more… she had welcomed that change, strange though it had been. Recalled now laughing in his embrace, the quizzical sound he’d made, tilting her head up to explain how utterly surreal it all felt. His smile.
She had thought it wry. Now she wondered if it wasn’t something else entirely, but it was so easy to cast doubt, to ascribe motivation and clarity in retrospect, even if the moment had held nothing of that nature.
“I told him we wouldn’t stop. That we wouldn’t give up on him. I still feel that way, even after—” here Delwyn shrugged her left shoulder, her meaning clear.
She was so young. Cassandra had tried to ignore that: first, a youthful prisoner; next, a young Herald. Finally, the Inquisitor herself, the weight of the world on her shoulders. “I won’t lie, I want him back. I want the man I loved back. But if need be…”
“It won’t come to that,” Delwyn insisted, and Cassandra—Victoria—smiled to hear it. As determined now as she had ever been.
“I am thinking much less flattering things about him now,” she remarked dryly, startling a snort out of Delwyn. Which was something of a victory in itself. “But, yes, I would see him back.” With me, she did not add. Did not need to add. Because she loved him. She still loved him.