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When the trees breathe themselves into the world, knitting the sky together in the shallow spaces between leaves, Lavellan is taken by the shimmering colours hidden in their shadows. Where purples are laughing with orange, who is wickedly grinning. Yellow lays its head in their laps and purrs like a cat.
The dreaming world is so kind, she thinks, to be so beautiful. And that kindness is a cruelty that sips away at her heart. As the shadows cast themselves over stumbling, youthful branches, they whine and look to the trunk for reassurance. Elvhen laughter skitters between them and the lines blur into vallaslin. Hello Dirthamen. Nice to see you June. Pebbles pop into existence and the ground rushes to meet them, long friends parted only when the waking world looks away. That round one might be named joy. That sharp one is tension.
She is not there, for a moment, and all is well with the world. She flutters with the wind, no more apart from it than the leaves, the trees, the laughter and the people. Then she is herself. Limbs of bone and flesh, skin decorated with time and sunlight. She is incomplete and then, entirely herself.
She feels rotten. She is trespassing. But there is comfort in a crime you know by heart. It no longer feels like a crime. Only a means by which you can continue.
Her body has chosen a shifting fabric that cannot pick a single colour. I will be cerulean, it exclaims giddily, and then blooms into a vibrant chartreuse. She can’t help but laugh at it with a fondness usually given to Cole. A fickle thing that migrates from tunic to dress, to leather and then to fur. It is warm and known, her travelling outfit, her riding leathers and her armour.
“Hello old friend.” She does not say, because there is no need to speak. She simply is.
I will be Halla skin, it replies, and does not follow suit.
She instead takes note of the rest of the dreaming world. The fade. It is something so endless, leaping in bounds and waterfalls, and yet, it sequesters itself in her presence. You love the forest. So I will be the forest.
“I do. It’s home.”
You are the forest, it murmurs back, as sunlight gently pours down her cheek.
Six years ago, she might’ve been sick on herself. The colours might have dulled, shrank in fear of being misconstrued as harmful, monsters painted into shadows where colours have only ever lived. She hadn’t understood. She had not known and therefore, was scared.
She is no longer scared. It is only as frightening as she is tired. And she is asleep, is she not? The fade reforms itself, a path breathing life into itself.
“I don’t want to see him.” She isn’t filled with malice. His image will flicker and refract like fire in burning temples, and this will tire her. The fade does not reply, because it is the fade and often likes to be infuriating without contempt.
Instead, Lavellan picks her way through the maze of dreams. She makes it no further, no farther and certainly nowhere productive. There is only one way to wake and she doesn’t mislike the scenery enough to pursue it.
She is brought to giggling brooks, who playfully nip and bite at her ankles. She chides them and moves onwards.
Flickering lights meander, becoming stars and fireflies and flowers, and then they are an eluvian.
Her feet traipse through snow. Her hands pluck fruit ripe and beautiful. Aravels sail between statues laced with grandeur and time. She is surrounded by all that she loves, because it is the fade and it is the backdrop of a heart evidently set on ruin and despair.
Because it is the sky, and she is a moon crying stars across an endless expanse. Because he is the sun, to her. Bright. Brilliant. Full of laughter. Quiet. Contemplative. Bristling. Eager. Knowledgeable.
She is here because she loves him. And it is futile, like so many other things, but it is here nonetheless.
You are the sun, something corrects. A distorted sound murmurs its agreement. A spirit, she thinks, perhaps two.
You are the-
She moves before she can hear any more. There is beauty to be seen. Lives to reflect and joy to be shared. She will sleep for only a few memories more, and then she will wake.
But Lavellan missteps. Her feet fumble on a root by her heart's design, and she tumbles through the forest like a dive into a lake. She meant to do it, in an odd way, despite not wanting to. It’s not unlike when you peel at a scab despite the biting pain. You shouldn’t do this, you tell yourself, and then do it regardless.
She’s back on the path.
Solas is at the end.
He drifts between wolf and man, his skin a stark white fur that burrows itself into the air. It’s almost too painful to look at. When she blinks, it is a void, clawing its way into the menagerie of colour, gluttonous in its rampant expanse. He is small against it. He is unlike himself.
His eyes are stupidly sad, she thinks.
She debates on ignoring him. On keeping herself so very still that neither of them will ever move again. Two lovers watching one another, eager to kiss and touch like fire yearns to burn away at the wood in the hearth. But the kindling has sodden in the rain. The coals have burnt up. So she might stay here forever with him in the fade, where no one will die for the future or the past or an amalgamation of the two that has no place for her.
“It’s been a while.” She says at last. She speaks for his benefit. Benefit is the wrong word. Her voice is brought into being so that when he wakes, he will taste it on his tongue. It will clog his throat and make him reach for something he dislikes to wash it away. Before, she might have been a poison taken dose by dose. Now she does her best to sting when the two of them wind up here.
Sometimes it is her.
Sometimes it is him.
Solas doesn’t respond, because this is the fade and he likes to be infuriating in his own, wonderful way. Because if he acknowledges her, he might break and stumble forward with a desperation he cannot refuse. She’d open her arms for a moment and then-
She is unsure what she’d do.
A burning red is beside her. She pinches it from the world and fastens anger around herself like a cape. It is easier to be angry with him than to miss him. She is eager for easiness tonight.
This will be her choice. And the anger will simmer, and brew, and cook until it is a cool grey, hardened and steel. Taciturn.
“6 months, from what I remember.” She takes a step forward. Solas, not the wolf, mirrors her. His foot plants against the earth like he is a pebble meeting a friend. He belongs here. This is no crime to him. “I wonder, how long can you starve yourself for? Is this a reward, perhaps, or a punishment?”
With each step they take, their distance only grows. His face reveals nothing, not because he cannot feel nothing, no. She knows he wills himself into a cage of composure. What a wonderful talent. She loves him. It is a game, maybe, to try and fracture it like she has fractured so many other things.
“Vhenan, you must know that I wonder often on our clandestine meetings.” She ruminates out loud. In another world, she is asking him of stories and the dreaming world. In another world, he has not become his own jailer. “Perhaps I could use them for practise, or for reading novels at Cassandra’s behest. How many times can you- can we -stand here and not make use of our these precious moments?”
She’s teasing him and her words freckle with annoyance. But, despite that, they are laced with a deeper emotion that keeps her awake at night. A fear that is convoluted and disloyal. That she might never stay her hand against him.
“It’s not lost on me that you never reply. Your Da’len is wounded.” The fade shudders at the word filled with venom, recoiling and hissing. It spits and she shushes it without thought.
“Come now. You’ve robbed me of a night’s rest. The least you can do is reward me with some humility.”
Solas doesn’t respond, his eyes only stare longing. The sadness in them is corruptive, hands beckoning and smacking at one another. He is conflict incarnate. A hand brushes against her own eye and it threatens to water. Lavellan fumes at the thought, burning her red brighter and hotter. “This isn’t fair.”
Her voice cracks, splintering her spine as she admits to him what he already knows. But he is only growing further away. She can hear the birds singing.
“Solas, Please.” She almost lets herself beg, but wills the fade to turn it into a bidding plea. She will not beg if he refuses to listen to reason. Now she is the one being unfair. Reason sits on his shoulder and he does not ignore it. Solas has played cards with reason. He has kissed reason. He has saved it, in one life. She knows this. She will be kinder, maybe, next time. In 6 more months. In another life.
Slowly, her pace quickens. Each step propels her forward. Her feet are breaking from dirt and feel the soft cushion of bed sheets. She can smell last night’s tea at her bedside. There are imperfections in the world that she has unknowingly been aching for.
And still, Lavellan chases after him. She can’t waste any more of herself on words. If she thinks too clearly, she might wake up. She will be annoyed to have wasted so much time on petty, futile words that do little more than lie to herself. She sprints, crawling and clawing, running and bolting, her legs frolicking. And yet. Still he is far. Still, he turns. Still, Solas walks away.
Her ceiling greets her. It doesn't sing forgotten truths of the world or show lost colours to her heart. But it is known and the colour is so familiar that by sight alone, she feels cradled. Held. Loved. It knows her like she knows it.
She doesn't fight the tears. They wet the pillow and say, see? You are loved. She knows she's loved. That's the worst part.