Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

These last months, Iris has discovered that Solas is not an easily-rattled man. Sera is liable to freak out at any hint of unusual magic - or even perfectly ordinary magic if you catch her on a bad day. Varric complains every time there’s a minor incline while they’re walking. Dorian is wilting in the cold and is more concerned about the nonsense his countrymen are up to than he’s been willing to show anyone but her, opting to put on a brave face and use his snark as a shield.

Solas? He’ll argue with any of the inner circle that he disagrees with, but in the face of disaster, he’s always been calm. Even when she and Dorian were pushed forward a year, that version of Solas was eerily calm in the face of his slow, looming, agonizing death.

Until they met Livius Erimond. To be fair, the man is a special kind of asshole (“someone’s a tool” Varric muttered while confronting him, getting a snicker out of Hawke), but it’s the man’s plan to have the Grey Wardens march into the Deep Roads, track down the remaining old gods and kill them where they rest that rattles Solas, who calls the plan madness, throwing out the possibility that killing the old gods would simply make things worse.

Once Erimond flees, siccing his puppet wardens and their bound demons on them, Solas pulls burning rocks from the Fade with a snarl, crushing two of the wardens. He tosses bolts of lightning at the Rage demon closing in on her, though it’s Varric who finishes it off with a barrage of arrows. With the dead surrounding them, Solas’ chest heaves and his eyes burn with fury. “Chuckles, keep fighting like that and I’ll lie back in a beach chair with a frilly drink while you do the work for us,” Varric says.

“Fools,” Solas spits out viciously, and she’s inclined to think that Solas has a point. The blight remains a mystery, even to the wardens, and killing powerful beings preemptively strikes her as a mistake, because, would the darkspawn not just head to the surface en masse with no old god to seek out? Would that mean Thedas would find itself overrun by the blight for good?

“It’s a shit idea,” she says. Stroud says there’s a warden fortress in the direction Erimond fled in, so he and Hawke leave to scout it. While they trudge through ankle-deep sand back to the inquisition camp set up near the Orlesian dragon researcher, Blackwall despairs, calling the wardens heroes and Solas, voice clipped, asks Blackwall what he thinks will happen when all of the old gods are dead and when Blackwall confirms that it would presumably mean the end of the blight, blithely says that he hopes he is correct in a tone implying he thinks the exact opposite is inevitable.

“Why don’t we set the topic aside for the evening?” she suggests, and the party breaks into awkward silence while they walk, single file, through the desert, her calves aching by the time they arrive back at camp. She slips into the tent she shares with Solas and removes her Dalish armour, checking over the leather for punctures or burns, finding nothing in need of repair, and slips on a fresh pair of brown breeches and a loose green tunic. Solas enters the tent just as she’s finishing, removing his own armour as if it is burning him, and throwing on a black tunic before rushing out of the tent. She sticks her head out to see him hiking away from camp, heading towards a nearby cliff that they’d sat on last night after seeking some quiet away from the noise of their large campsite.

He needs space, so she has dinner with Varric and Blackwall, grateful that one of the scouts at this camp is a skilled cook who can do more than just toss mystery meat, vegetables and water into a pot and pray to their deity of choice for success. A mage light floats above the cliff and once she’s finished eating, she spoons some food into a wooden bowl and makes her way over, finding Solas staring up at the sky, his face dim in the mage light hovering above his head. He takes the offered bowl with a nod and gestures for her to sit beside him. The silence between them is comfortable while he eats, and she looks up at the sky, pondering the fact that she’s seen the stars from so many vantage points these last few months. Places she’d never been meant to visit.

Life was never supposed to be this interesting for her and sometimes she wishes she were back home, the First to a keeper who dislikes her, but close to her brother and his family. Generally she longs for simplicity after days stuck in meetings with stuffy nobles who look at her like she’s nothing more than rotted flesh that fell out of their rubbish bin. Simplicity means she’d have never met Solas, and she thinks he’s worth the aggravating meetings with fools possessing more jewels than brains.

Solas sets the bowl on the other side of him once he’s finished. “We must stop the wardens from carrying out this insane plan, Iris,” he finally says, his tone taking on the same panicked, furious edge it had back at the ritual site. “To seek out these old gods deliberately in some bizarre attempt to preempt the blight…”

Their relationship is a discreet one. They share a tent, but have not yet been intimate, and Solas will not so much as hold her hand around the others. Recognizing his discomfort with public affection, she could not offer him the reassurance she would have liked to give him earlier today. She takes his hand, closing it in both of hers, and squeezes it. “They won’t succeed,” she says, taking on the calm tone Solas more often adopts for her benefit when the pressures of politics are getting to her. “We’re going to stop them together.”

Solas’ breath hitches and he’s silent for a moment, his posture stiff and she chances a glance at his face, finding his expression blank, like a halla staring into lantern light. “Thank you,” he finally says, letting out a heavy breath. “I’ve been on my own for so long. It’s difficult to get used to having the support of others.” She lifts his hand to her lips and gives it a kiss and then rests her head on his shoulder. “Those fools and duty,” he says, no longer sounding angry, but resigned. “Responsibility is not expertise. Action is not inherently superior to inaction.”

“You’re right.”

“Forgive me. The entire idea is unnerving.”

She wonders if she might see wardens differently if she’d been in Ferelden during the blight, instead of hearing about the blight via gossip from one of the few members of clan Lavellan who had any contact with non-elven people. Blackwall romanticizes his order and he has that right, but to her, it’s an organization with far too many secrets and dark corners, and with corners to hide in, this very thing tends to wind up happening, she’s learned these last few months.

“We’re going to have to go into battle at this fortress, aren’t we?”

“Most likely.”

People will die - on both sides. This won’t be like clearing out the bandits at the fortress near Crestwood; hundreds or more will face down her and the inquisition forces, and she will be at the head of it, asking people to risk their lives.

The inquisition doesn’t conscript; its forces are made up of volunteers. Mostly.

There was one, single conscript: the woman with the mark. The unwilling inquisitor. The fucking Herald of Andraste. What she wants hardly matters with the world at stake.

“I’ll do my best to keep you safe,” she says and Solas chuckles.

“Words from a woman lucky enough not to know the challenges of taking a fortress from the competent force that holds it.”

In conversations with Blackwall, Solas has alluded to a past as a soldier, but has never elaborated on the precise nature of the battles he’s fought, and she won’t push him on the matter. “If I don’t say it and something happens to you, I’ll always wonder if my words might have been a barrier over your body.”

“Superstition, vhenan. A vow to protect me in such circumstances will do nothing more than offer you hollow comfort.”

Solas is honest in a way that bristles most of the other members of the inner circle, and she’s used to it - mostly. Comfort has its place and she’d sooner use the rituals she’s developed to soothe herself than go into battle wondering if her failure to promise her protection will doom her lover. “Let me have my superstition. Do you not find comfort in any superstitions or rituals?”

“Long ago I discovered no practical use for them.”

After dark in the desert, the air grows cold and she shivers, her arms covered in goose pimples and Solas wraps an arm around her and pulls her against his body and she wraps her own around his torso. “There’s value in impractical things sometimes.”

“The battle will be a bloody one. We will witness horrors. Death. Prepare yourself for it, for the cost of victory is often high.”

She wonders just how many people he’s lost in battle. How much blood has soaked battlefields he’s limped off of, weary and aged in the way only trauma ages you.

“Can we combine our bedrolls tonight? It’s cold.”

“I am certain you have no other motive behind such a request,” Solas deadpans and she giggles into his tunic, her red-chilled cheeks warming with her blush.

“Can we cuddle? Share body heat for our ongoing safety and longevity?”

“You think only of my safety?” There’s a mischievous hint to his voice and he leans over and kisses the top of her head.

“I am a compassionate leader.”

“So I suppose it is with my ongoing safety and security in mind when you invite me to sleep beside you at Skyhold?”

“Absolutely,” she says, playing along, in the hopes of bringing him some cheer after such a dreary day. “You are an apostate and you never know what nasty sorts could be lurking on the ramparts.”

“Shall I expect you to extend an invitation to Blackwall? Security is important, after all.”

She cracks, bursting out into shocked laughter. “Solas, no. Ugh - you’ve spoken those words into reality now and he’s going to wind up with a broken tent and stuck snuggling beside us tonight.”

“Because, as we’ve established, that is how words work.” She lifts her head and presses a kiss to his cheek, though in the dark she misses, catching him just below the eye and, mortified, she stammers an apology, but Solas bursts into delighted laughter, snorting as she’s noticed he’s wont to do when particularly amused by something. “Once, you promised to kiss me everywhere you could reach and I was most disappointed you missed my eye, so thank you for rectifying your oversight.”

He’s laughing. He’ll spend the night in her arms.

He’s not alone.

Chapter Text

Keeping a cool head and betraying no fear to members of the inquisition is something Iris has grown skilled at these last few months. Solas and Dorian are the only ones who see traces of her fear, but she stiffens after they breakthrough Adamant’s defences and Cullen quietly admits to her that he’d hoped for less resistance.

Months drowning in politics have taught her to read between the lines: they don’t have the forces to win this fight. She glances at Solas, who remains impassive, as if unsurprised by this revelation and she gestures with her hand for him, Varric, Blackwall and Stroud to follow her into the hoard of demons. Sparks of lightning, clashes of blades, and balls of fire make up an ugly battle, leaving her breathing hard once the courtyard is cleared and reaches for a healing potion to deal with a stinging claw marks down her back; a gift from a Terror that Solas killed with a Stonefist shortly after its claws dug into her flesh.

Solas approaches, grabs her elbow, turns her and looks at her back and her now-torn padded leather coat. Not her first choice for armour but this set is lighter and more appropriate for the weather in this region than the Dalish armour she favours. He murmurs a spell and the tightness of her scabbed back eases as warmth spreads across her body. “Survive the first 30 heartbeats and we’ll have already won. There is no change to our plan,” he says quietly enough that the others won’t hear.

“It’s that obvious I’m worried?” she whispers to him and Solas glances over to where Blackwall, Varric and Stroud are standing, checking over their own weapons and armour.

“Obvious to me; not to them. You hide it well from most.”

“Try not to die,” she says, repeating the advice she once heard Solas dryly give to Blackwall.

“I’d ask the same of you. Leverage Blackwall’s title and have him speak to the warriors; their minds are their own and he may be able to stay their hands.”

She nods her head: rarely has she had Blackwall on her team, but today she brought him specifically to take advantage of his allegiance to his order and hopefully obtain surrenders instead of spilling blood.

Blood and viscera stain the aged stone of the fortress ramparts, but she and Blackwall are able to convince the non-mage wardens to lay down their arms and fall back, saving lives. Corypheus’ dragon joins the fray; Clarel’s final attack weakening the already fragile ramparts and it occurs to her that none would have been able to escape the crumbling stone.

As she falls, she extends her left hand, as if by rote, and then continues to fall. Fall. Fall.

Her body slows and flips upside down in the air and, while technically this is a fate preferable to colliding full-speed with the ground, everything inside her tells her that she - and the rest of her companions, remain in terrible danger.

***

Above them are floating pillars of rock dripping inky black liquid, and the sky is a murky green instead of the soft blue sky of the meadow Solas created for her in the Fade as a place to rest in her dreams, safe and protected from the demons who latch onto the turmoil in her unconscious mind.

It’s horrible. It’s fascinating. It’s terrifying. Solas, unlike everyone else, is near-bouncing with excitement, offering instruction to the rest of them on what to expect from the Nightmare prowling this area of the Fade, and how to best the little offshoot demons that attack. After obtaining the first of her lost memories, she pulls Solas aside and takes his hand, careful to keep their joined hands between their bodies and out of view from the others. “I like seeing you this excited. I’m happy this happened as it did because it’s brought you joy.”

“You’re uncomfortable with the Nightmare’s minions.”

Hawke let slip that they look like tranquil mages to her. For her, they look like the reanimated corpses of her family; as if something happened and she failed to protect them. “My brother and his family reanimated. It feels like I’m killing them when I attack and I know that’s not rational and that they’re perfectly fine back with the clan. It’s a trick. A cruel one but I’m letting it work and…”

“Peace.” Solas squeezes her hand and she wishes she could feel the warmth of his hands instead of the thick leather of his gloves. “It is natural to be affected, even if your rational mind is aware of the trick. You’re holding up well.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“When have I ever spoken false words to soothe you? More often you complain that I do the precise opposite.”

Solas does have a point there.

“You’re well?”

This brings a wry smile to Solas’ face. “I’ve experienced far worse than a bit of taunting from an unseen foe. This? This has been a delight.”

“You do realize Vivienne is going to be terribly envious, yes?” Dorian, less likely - while his sense of humour would be much-appreciated during this trial, she can imagine he’ll be unsettled to learn the details of all that happened, and relieved he was fighting with inquisition forces in another section of the fortress when the dragon attacked.

The deep, ominous voice of the Nightmare speaks aloud, as if projecting its voice across the entire region - or perhaps it’s merely using some spell to project itself into their heads. The creature has cruel words for them all, and as much as she tries to drown out the Elven the demon speaks to Solas for the sake of his privacy, she does catch a word: harellan. Traitor.

A past pain, she tells herself. Solas has never told her how old he is, but her guess is that he’s in his mid-40s, given that he was once a soldier. The Nightmare must be taunting him about something that occurred in the past.

It’s not her business. None of the Nightmare’s comments are any of her business, so she forces herself to ignore them all - refusing to dwell on what the Nightmare had to say about Varric’s fears for Hawke or Blackwall’s feelings about himself.

Her turn comes. The words sear themselves onto her rapidly beating heart. “The Herald of Andraste. Your clan didn’t think you were enough as you are; do you really think you can lead the inquisition to anything but ruin?”

“Why don’t you show your pathetic face and I’ll ruin you?” she mutters, rolling her eyes, ignoring the whispers in her head that the demon might be right.

She’s just an elf. A Dalish elf who had never so much as spoken to a human before leaving her clan, yet she is to be the saviour of Southern Thedas.

They could have done so much better than her, could they not?

Solas’ hand slips between them, his gloved fingers brushing against her own and still she longs for his bare hands. Too many eyes on them now to hold hands, but a silent promise for later. “I’ll keep you safe,” she promises. Superstition. Wishful thinking. This time Solas does not point that out to her.

“Once we’re through the rift, I’ll draw you a bath. Or - as best as we can manage in a fortress in the middle of a desert, surrounded by a hoard of newly-surrendered wardens.”

“So warm water in a bucket with a sponge?” she jokes weakly and Solas’ fingers brush against hers once more.

“A better luxury than we have in this swamp, yes?” Around them is ankle deep water, unnaturally warm; heated by shards of red lyrium that dot the rocks in the area. Glowing fade-touched veridium lingers; its presence a mystery to them all, but she stops to collect it, obtaining a variety of trinkets, and bits of stone that she plans to give to Dagna.

“Will you slip into my dreams tonight and take me to the meadow?” As she asks this, she realizes they’re both liable to be exhausted and Solas may not have the energy to track her down in the Fade, but before she can backtrack and apologize, Solas merely nods.

A meadow. Tonight a meadow full of flowers and her dreamer awaits her.

***

Stroud is dead. Hawke is travelling with the wardens to Weisshaupt and she, Solas, Varric, Iron Bull and Dorian are making their way to the Free Marches to tackle the rifts around Kirkwall and visit with her brother, Mahanon.

Solas’ idea, offering her time to unwind after the battle and the months before that of politics and fighting. In a few months she’ll be expected to attend a damned Orlesian ball, and soon they’ll need to return to the Exalted Plains to clean up the mess caused by the Orlesian civil war.

She’s trying not to think about that - or about the fact that she’d sooner just lock the two sides and their generals in a room and set fire to the place. That’s probably bad form in politics.

The Fade was fascinating but terrifying. Solas guided them, as excited as she’s ever seen him, admitting this was far from the area of the Fade he’d have chosen, but eager to explore. As a mage, she’s used to the tricks of demons, and the gravestones showing their worst fears are hardly the worst she’s experienced in the Fade, but there’s a casual cruelty to revealing such a private thing to the entire group.

Were she to guess Solas’ greatest fear, she’d have never guessed that it would be “dying alone”. “Ignorance” might have been her guess, but she doesn’t think she’d have had a particularly good guess because Solas is so private about such things. His terror at what the wardens had been planning was a rare crack in his mask.

Dying alone. There’s discomfort in knowing such a vulnerable thing about Solas against his will, and Iris wonders if it’s something she should broach, or if Solas might prefer she pretend she does not know this about him. Is it better to push? Would he find comfort in talking about it if she gave him a nudge? He was displeased when Hawke teased him in the Fade, telling him he had nothing to worry about, coolly proclaiming that is true “by one definition”, implying his fear has depths she does not understand. Would he offer her that understanding?

Crossing the Waking Sea means contending with rough waves, though this crossing is more pleasant than her initial crossing, which left her stuck below deck, vomiting into a bucket; constantly damp from the ocean water that made its way into the hold. Now, as a result of her title, she’s been granted her own quarters to share with Solas, and Dorian, Iron Bull and Varric are all sharing another private room.

“Suppose it’s nicer to vomit with the sun on my face,” she grumbles two days in, sucking on a piece of ginger candy in the hopes that she might be able to manage a bit of bread later in the day. Solas has remained by her side throughout her misery, but today he pushes at her, insisting she leave the hammock that is their shared bed and go on-deck to stare at the horizon.

“You’ll feel better. Give it an hour and if I am not correct, feel free to chew me out between bouts of vomiting.”

“Don’t say that word!” she snaps, as the ship rocks and her stomach churns. She reaches for the wooden bucket and dry heaves, only managing to spit what remains of the candy in her mouth into the bucket. “You’d put me out of my misery if it came down to it, right?”

“Seasickness is not a terminal condition, vhenan.”

“But you would, right?”

“I would,” Solas says, with the air of humouring her. He rests a hand on her back and pushes gently. “Come. Any sailor would recommend giving this an attempt, and it is a nice day.”

“There are waves!” she snaps, but nonetheless, she stands up, allowing Solas to help her on-deck, where she sits on a white wooden bench, offering a view of the clear, cloudless blue sky. There’s nothing but water and sky surrounding them - no other ships, no land masses; nothing, and the thought frightens her as she imagines slipping beneath the waves, doomed to drown alone, convulsing as water enters her lungs. She grips Solas’ tunic, shuddering. “Don’t let me fall in,” she says, all frustration with him evaporating, making way for terror.

Sailors find freedom in the ocean. Now that she’s seeing the open sea for herself for the first time, all she can think about is if she staggers just the wrong way, she’s dead, or if a particularly rough wave hits, she’s dead. The cabin was safer. She can endure seasickness for days if it means she won’t fall into the empty depths.

Solas wraps an arm around her shoulders and she suppresses the desire to climb onto his lap, clinging to his torso like a toddler. “Horizon. Stare at the horizon,” he says, perfectly calm, and it occurs to her that Solas very much did not sign up to be her caregiver when he suggested she visit with her brother. What a pain in the ass she’s being right now.

“The water…”

“Close your eyes for a moment and trust me?” She nods, closing her eyes tightly, and Solas rests a finger under her chin, adjusting her head and then bends over, resting his head against hers, as if checking the angle and she can’t help but giggle, despite her fright, imagining just how Solas must be contorting himself to see what she would see, on account of how much taller he is than her. He tilts her head up a tiny bit, and presses his index finger against the middle of her nose, his hand flat. “Open your eyes.”

She does, revealing that she has a view of the very edge of the horizon, but Solas’ hand has blocked the sea. Well, partly - he couldn’t account for the rocking of the ship, meaning the water shifts into her peripheral vision, but not seeing the water loosens the hold of the panic gripping her, allowing her to focus on the horizon. “You look ridiculous to the sailors right now,” she says after one sailor walks past them, eyes glancing over at the two of them, his expression one of bafflement.

“I hardly care what others think of me.”

Is this what love is? The willingness to look absolutely ridiculous just to make things a little bit easier for your partner? All she knows is that, at this moment, with Solas blocking out the worst of the open sea from view, she’s never felt as loved as she does right now, and she says as much.

“A small gesture. Hardly worth noting.”

But it is. It’s kind and it’s thoughtful and he took her fear seriously and found a solution, even if that solution means he looks a little ridiculous.

She owes him that same kindness, she realizes - or at least an offer of it, so she rests her hand on his knee. “You aren’t alone, my love,” she says softly. “You’ll never be again, if that is your wish.” Because of his hand, she cannot see his reaction, but his silence implies confusion. “In the Fade - the gravestones. I saw yours, and I just… wanted you to know that I’ll be here. We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to talk, but you’re helping me deal with a fear that I, honestly, did not even know I had until now, so maybe I can help you at the same time.”

“Ah.” Sometimes she wishes Solas were an easier read, because she cannot tell if he’s amused, touched or irritated by her prodding. “Much as I have told you my stance on the uselessness of superstition, I must confess my hypocrisy, because it’s the remnants of battles long-lost. Do not worry yourself over the cruelties the Nightmare conjured to torment us.”

His words confuse her. A lingering fear of dying alone on a battlefield? Something else? He won’t give her a straight answer, but something tells her that it’s more than the old superstition he writes his fear off to be, but if he wanted to speak more of it, he would have told her openly about the nature of what frightens him so much.

“Your presence is more a comfort to me than you could know,” he adds.

His hand remains but her stomach is starting to settle, so she suggests he try removing his hand from her face, and he does, giving her the full view of the sea, making her stomach sink. She gulps and Solas takes her hand. “You will not fall,” he says gently.

So long as he’s holding her hand, she will not fall. She takes a breath, focusing on the warmth of his hand and the horizon in front of her. The sound of the sails flapping in the wind and sailors hollering instructions to each other. The creak of the wood… she cringes at that, forcing herself not to think about it.

“I don’t like the ocean,” she announces, as if it were not a foregone conclusion on account of all the vomiting she’s done on the voyage thus far.

“Nor do I.”

“Have you seen anything interesting in the Fade, at least?”

Solas turns his head and smirks at her. “Given that I have been tending to you through the night, my sleep has come in moments and not hours.”

“Sorry.”

“Rarely is there joy depicted at sea, but tragic tales of storms, sinking ships and violent clashes over cargo. Over such vast and empty space, even those stories are few and far between. It is no loss and I’d sooner see that you are as well as can be, given the circumstances.”

Their relationship has been a slow build - they sleep together, but have yet to sleep together, and she will not push Solas on the matter, as much as she longs to take him in-hand and savour the stuttered breaths of his pleasure. She wishes he would put a label on whatever they are to one another - she thinks of him as her boyfriend, but is he? Or are they two lost spirits clinging to one another amidst the roiling storm of Thedosian politics?

Iris decides it doesn’t matter in that very moment, because love is action more than words. Solas is caring for her on the voyage and this trip is the result of his efforts to find her a harbour in the midst of a storm. She rests her head on his arm and continues staring out at the horizon. He loves her. She loves him.

That is enough for now.