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He doesn’t see her go down, his attention claimed by the battle; the clash of her people against his, elves against elves, and it’s not until someone shouts her name – it tears through the chaos like a tolling bell, shattering his concentration – that he turns, with the single-minded intent of locating her among the forces. But he doesn’t see her; can’t find the red of her hair, the gleaming gold of her armour, not until–
“No,” he says, the word tearing itself from his lips like an oath, a far quieter sound, but no less desperate. And then he’s running, feet pounding across the ground, and he doesn’t care how it looks, how he appears, frantic and shaken, his calm shucked like a piece of useless cloth weighing him down. And he’s pulling on his reserves even before he’s reached her, the normally soft glow of his healing magic a fierce fire lapping at his fingers.
Her name is on the tip of his tongue, but the sight of the arrow protruding from her ribcage pushes it back down his throat. And he knows the arrow for what it is – whose it is – for Andruil’s aim is true, and her arrows do not waver on their killing paths. And it has hit its mark now; has ripped apart the plates of her armour, the thick leather vest underneath, and it’s such a starkly grotesque sight it renders him momentarily incapable of action.
Something escapes her, a bubbling sob, and he thinks it might be his name. No title or mockery on her lips but desperation, coating the syllables with a thick, trembling fear.
Sol-as.
It drags him out of his powerless indecision, and then he’s pulling the arrow loose; pressing his hand against the wound and grappling for the magic needed to stem the bleeding, but for all his power he’s never felt weaker than in this moment, with her life trickling out between his fingers.
The sound she makes is a whimpering thing – a pained sob that he feels beneath his hands, in his very marrow, and it’s like he’s been struck, watching the tears leak down the sides of her face to gather in her hair, cutting clear paths across her dirt-stained cheeks. She had survived the Veil’s collapse – whatever vestige of the anchor’s power that had remained in her had seen her safely through the fire. And still cloaked in the flames she’d gathered those left, those untouched by the inferno, and pushed back against him even as the world heaved and toppled beneath their feet.
To think that she should fall from an arrow–
“Not here,” Compassion says softly, having appeared at his elbow, and for a moment it’s unclear just who he’s speaking for. “Not like this. I don’t want it to end like this. It burns, it burns and I can’t speak. I can’t speak and I haven’t told him–”
The words cut off, and he feels it right before he feels her go unnervingly still, and there’s a curse on his tongue but he can’t find the breath to speak it –curse her, Mother of Hares, he’ll make no snare to catch her but rend her to pieces, nothing but a rabbit in a fierce wolf’s jaws–!
A second passes where she doesn’t breathe, her chest still beneath his hands. Her eyes have slipped closed, and no sign of life escapes her gently parted lips.
Another second passes. Two. Three. He makes an idle note that the battle has stopped – swords have been lowered and bowstrings gone slack as they’ve gathered around to watch, a tense silence draped across the crowd. Rumours of their past have circulated for years. That they were intimate is no secret, and he knows that though there are those who curse him – who curse her, for her interference – there are those who revere them; who hail them as saints –the Lovers, they whisper with reverence, and offer their prayers to a unity that will never be, but that might have saved them all.
They are not strangers to this, their peoples, their respective forces, and so it’s not with surprise they watch but sorrow, keeping silent vigil around them. And it would be so easy for her people to attack him now, sitting with his back turned, but no one lifts a finger. No arrow is drawn, no sword lifted, though he must look a sorry sight, cradling her fallen form with the last ounce of gentleness left in him.
The glow of magic is still wrapped around his fingers, and he feels the surge of it in his veins, like pulling from an endless well, but she doesn’t stir, even as her skin knits together; her bones mending under his touch. And he remembers stitching her wounds with needle and thread, poultices and potions, and her small, grateful smile while they’d sat together quietly under the setting sun.
There are tears gathering in his eyes, and how many years since he last wept for loss? But he feels it now, a terrible hurt without end as he reaches to touch her face, the soft tinge of his magic dissipating as he yields before Death.
Ellana lies perfectly still in his arms, her head tilted back, lashes dark against her cheeks and her hair falling across her brow. Her lone hand lies slack, fingers curled delicately towards her unmarked palm, a sight so vividly at odds with the rest of her; armour cracked and stained with blood. There’s an almost graceful beauty about her passing that shakes something loose within him, andwhat have you gained, what have you gained, what have you–
Her chest heaves then – the breath sucked through her mouth makes her lungs expand, and he feels her life where it rips through her. It’s not a gentle awakening, and she’s crying, and cursing – spitting words and sobs from the pain, but she’s breathing, she’s alive beneath his hands and he’d thought – he’d thought–
Her eyes find his, wet with tears, but he doesn’t spare a second before crushing his mouth to hers in a desperate kiss; buries shaking hands in her hair, thick and brittle with dried blood, and he doesn’t care how this looks, either. He cradles her face and breathes her in, the whole of her, a fiercely private intimacy in his touch, but he doesn’t care that they see.
Her fingers have curled in his fur stole, no longer pristine but a tattered, ugly thing, and, “Solas,” she croaks, a benediction against his lips, but he can’t find the words to answer. Instead he touches her face; rests his brow against her own, and he doesn’t know if he’s lending her strength or asking for it.
There are footsteps behind him, unnaturally light, a child’s steps but for their careful precision, and he feels the weight of her presence – the strum of her bow like deathsong, but he only inclines his head to regard her where she stands.
The elves have given her a wide berth, watching her warily, some fearfully, and she regards him coolly where he kneels. “Why do you play with my quarry, Fen’Harel?” Andruil asks. She hasn’t lifted her bow, but an arrow has been nocked. He feels the power in the gesture, building; yet to be released.
“These are not your hunting grounds,” he says, voice rough with an anger that makes his fingers curl.
“And who are you to say where I may set my snares?”
“I know your snares,” he snaps, but does not speak the words to her. Instead he looks at Ellana, watching him with an expression of confusion edged with pain. “You will not ensnare her.”
“She is mortal,” Andruil says, simply. “She is prey. If she runs, I will follow.”
“You will not.”
“And what will you do, Fen’Harel?” she asks, and her voice is hard now. “She is an obstacle in our path to victory. If she does not die by my hand, then she will by another’s. Would you rather prolong her suffering? There is kindness in a swift kill.”
“I am not a rabbit,” Ellana spits, the words raw, but when she tries to get up she only falls back with a curse. But, “You will not decide my fate,” she hisses. She looks at him then. “Neither of you.”
“He already has,” Andruil says. “Do you not see? We are the Unleashed. He sentenced you all when he set us loose upon the world.”
Ellana doesn’t appear to be listening. Instead she’s looking at him, not with the anger he expects but something else, a fiercely tender look. Then, lifting her hand, she reaches to cradle his face, touching her fingertips to his brow, his cheek.
“Emma lath,” she murmurs, then – too softly for the words to reach further than his ears, “It’s not too late.”
He can only shake his head, unable to understand how she can still believe that, after all that he has done.
“What will you do?” Andruil asks him again, voice cutting clearly across the battlefield, and he feels the lift of her bow; a tremor on the air as she aims it at his back.
More weapons follow suit now – he hears them, the sheek of swords drawn from their sheaths, and bowstrings pulled back.
They are not pointed at him.
“You cannot cut yourself loose from this, Trickster,” Andruil says, and he hears the wary tone of her voice; the uneasy shift of her feet. “I am only the first of many. You would be wise to step aside.”
He lifts his head, though not to look at her, but at those gathered, and finds in their expressions a fierceness that he can no longer find in himself. There is passion in those gazes; an unyielding flame it took the end of the world for him to see. But he sees their faces now, some of them bare, others bearing their vallaslin with pride, but in that moment he cannot tell which of them are his and which are hers.
“They will remember,” Compassion says, then. “They will fight. Lovers guide their blades and arrows, they will tighten the leash again. It’s not too late.”
He looks at Ellana then, and, “It has been many years since I was last called wise,” he says. And he doesn’t know to whom he speaks, but her smile curves, and it is the very smallest of victories, for one who has fought as long as he, but it is enough. It was always enough.
He hears Andruil’s sigh. “Very well.”
He feels the pull of her bowstring in his bones, and the echo of a hundred more in the circle around them. Their people are not done fighting, and in their midst, the Lovers remain, unmoving. In the centuries to come their image will grace the walls of curving corridors in palaces rising once more from the clouds, their unity captured by countless artists and masons; woodworkers and spellweavers. A single moment immortalised for the ages, of a burdened back bent, and slender fingers touching a wearied brow in the most tender of caresses.
A moment passes before a breath is loosed. An arrow sings upon the air, before a hundred more follow suit, along with a surging battle-cry that shakes the very foundation of the earth–
–and Solas doesn’t move.