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Never sleep alone. After the final battle in Minrathous, she and Davrin made that rule for themselves - no matter how frustrated they are with the other, no matter how much her snoring irritates her stoic love, they will never sleep alone.
It’s a rule Davrin claims to be tied to pragmatism; if they aren’t alone they have each others’ backs, but she knows him enough to know it’s a shield for his soft heart. After coming so close to losing one another in their fight, he wants to be by her side. Always.
That now, three years after the end of the battle, she sits in the Meditation Room at the Lighthouse, asking to sleep alone so she can contact Solas has left her love… vexed. He’s pacing, and she can just imagine how he longs to have an axe in-hand so he can focus his frustration on more than just the heavy steps he takes. “What is the point of a rule if you’re going to break it to speak to a man who stabbed you in the back? Repeatedly.”
“Lavellan went with him and he left willingly. I just think it’s fair to check in on him and let him know that whatever he’s doing to soothe the blight is working. That I’m grateful that I’ll not lose you to the Calling because the corruption is quieted inside you.” She gives Davrin a wry smile. “Besides, he’s keeping up a massive magical construct with his lifeforce and power alone; any potshots he takes are going to be real fuckin’ pathetic.”
“One day you’ll learn the value of time and place with your irreverent comments,” Davrin sighs.
“The point of being irreverent is to be as inappropriate as possible,” she counters. In truth, she’s scared of what she’ll find. No one knows if Lavellan remains with him - she has not been seen in Thedas and her best friend, Archon Pavus, pointedly refuses to speak about her, implying he’s somehow in contact with her.
“Mel.” Fuck, he’s using her given name and not the name bestowed upon her by Marcel, her late mentor and adoptive father, who saved her from slavery and gave her a path to a better life, which means she’s in trouble. “Can you at least try reaching him with me in the room? If it seems like things are going badly, I can wake you up.”
He’s not going to drop this. “You’re a real fuckin’ softy, vhenan. I won’t tell anyone.” She gestures to the spot beside her on the green couch, turns her head, gives him a kiss and squeezes his hand, and then sits, cross-legged on the floor, focusing on the fish to clear her mind, allowing her to slip into the Fade.
Solas was always like a beacon in the Fade; a light visible, but one easily ignored unless she needed to seek him out. Today, she wanders through a forest; the beacon above her shimmering a bright purple and green, depending on the angle she looks. With each step, she wonders if a demon is sending her astray; there are no ruins here, simply trees and the chirp of birdsong. “Fuckin’ shitmuffin,” she mutters to no one in particular.
The trees grow sparse, bringing her to a clearing. In the centre of the clearing is, not a ruin, but a cottage constructed out of grey bricks, with a thick, dark wood door and roof. Surrounding the cottage is a garden full of plants - flowers she couldn’t begin to name, but also herbs, vegetables and medicinal plants. Flanking the cobbled pathway to the door are frescoed walls. The first is of a short elven woman with bright red lips and short, silver-white hair kissing a bald man in the courtyard of a small town. The second shows the same two people sitting on a sand dune staring up at stars in the sky. Then, a more suggestive one of intertwined hands against a wooden headboard, the palm of the smaller hand glowing green.
“You would paint a fresco of the two of you fucking but be classy as shit about it, wolfy,” she says to herself, shaking her head. The murals are in the same style of the regrets in the Lighthouse - sorrows she’s covered by curtains because it feels strange to be surrounded by Solas’ pain when everyone gets together for dinner and drinks. Has them drinking for the wrong reason and shit.
The fourth has Solas, his face bruised and battered, wearing the dark coat and golden chest piece she always saw him in, holding Lavellan’s hand and staring at her, the green glow of a fade tear behind them. The fifth, and final mural has Lavellan in a long blue dress with a crown made of purple flowers atop her head. Her left arm is no longer the prosthetic she always saw the woman wear, but a spectral purple arm, and she’s embracing Solas, who wears a white suit with gold accents embroidered around the sleeves and neck. Around them, Solas painted a garden full of purple, white, red and yellow flowers and she notices rings on their right ring fingers.
“Good for you, asshole,” she says, smiling. He went and married her even though they’re exiled away in a prison that… honestly is not a prison at all, but a cozy home. He married her even though nobody would know or care, save the two of them.
She does not speak Elven, but she recognized a single word when Lavellan was speaking to Solas on that miserable day: bellanaris. Always - or forever. Marriage always seemed like an excuse for a party - when she and Davrin got married, they held a three-day party on a Rivaini beach, and the only reason they stopped at three days was because, between the Lords of Fortune, Grey Wardens, their friends and Davrin’s family, they had run out of liquor.
Was a real good fucking time - but bittersweet, because Harding’s absence was felt keenly, like a hole in their hearts. A hole that aches every time they get together with their friends, but she thinks Harding would be happy to know that they’re all friends and visit several times a year.
As she gets closer to the door, she hears a harpsichord and violin, as well as the muted sounds of a woman singing. Briefly, she ponders whether she should knock, but decides that the man who behaved like such a tit doesn’t need the courtesy of knocking, so she’ll just barge in, thank you very much. In the entranceway sits a bowl on a stand with two sets of keys (why the shit do they need keys? That’s dumb!), two lambskin coats, a handful of scarves woven in intricate Tevene patterns and a single set of boots - large enough that they must belong to Solas and not his tiny wife; a woman who does not crack five feet tall.
She follows the sound of song through a living room with dark leather couches and a reclining chair, where a single empty mug sits on a marble coaster on the coffee table beside a teapot, then through the dining room, with its small, two person table, and over to the library. Against the wall are bookshelves filled with books, and hanging from the ceiling is a device similar to the astrolabe in the Lighthouse, but the precise nature of the spell it's maintaining remains a mystery to her. In the centre of the large room sits a harpsichord. Solas plays it and Lavellan is playing a violin, her spectral purple arm holding the bow. She’s singing; her voice standing strong amongst the music, and Solas’ own voice, softer, serves as backing vocals.
It’s in Elven, so she doesn’t know what the fuck they’re singing about, but it’s pretty as shit, which is what is important, right?
The song ends and Lavellan sets her violin down on a nearby table, its legs intricately carved into flowers and she thinks about how impressed Davrin would be by the craftsmanship and the questions he’d ask whoever crafted it before realizing that they probably conjured it instead of actually making it themselves. Lavellan wanders over and Solas turns his body, still sitting on the harpsichord bench and Lavellan stands between his open legs and kisses him, long and tenderly. “I like what you did towards the end - it was a good change. You should write that down,” Lavellan says, her hand still cupping his cheek. She gives him another lingering kiss and Solas twists his body, grabs a pen and scribbles down a note on a sheet of vellum.
“Knocking tends to be polite,” Solas says, not looking at her.
“Well, not fucking your allies over is also polite, so we’re all guilty of a few breaches in etiquette,” she shoots back and Solas chuckles, sounding fonder and softer than she’s ever heard while he’s spoken to her.
“A fair point.” He turns his body again so he is facing her, but does not stand up. Lavellan stands beside him, a hand on his arm, staring at her, a wary expression on her face. There’s a scar over Solas’ right eye, just a shade lighter than his already-pale skin, and she notices a thick scar at the side of his neck; an injury she hadn’t noticed on that fateful day. She’s not Emmrich or Lucanis by any stretch, so she doesn’t know shit about fixing people broken by battle, but she knows that wound must have come damned close to nicking an artery. Real fucking relief the archdemon missed because a god spurting blood like a fountain on a battlefield wouldn’t have been a god much longer.
Lifting her hands in the air, she says, “I’m not here to start shit. It’s been three years and I thought it’d be nice to check in. Maybe give you an update on how things are looking in Thedas if the two of you give a fuck.” She looks around the room, at the winding wooden staircase and the second floor balcony, which appears to double as an office, given the number of odd magical contraptions sitting on various desks. “This place is looking rather less… prisony than I’d expected.”
“Love built it,” Lavellan says bluntly. “You told me how the Lighthouse changed as time went on, adjusting to suit the needs of you and your friends. Did you truly think this place would not do the same?”
“Why the shit do you have keys in a bowl in your front hall?”
“Because keys tend to be useful to open things,” Solas says, and she feels a pang of nostalgia for their past conversations, where he matched her own snark with his own. She’d liked him, in truth; he was clever and genuinely kind once she’d earned his respect, and it hurt when he revealed that he’d moulded her in his image so he could escape his prison. Only, he didn’t. She owned her decisions and even her mistakes instead of letting them fester into rot inside her as Solas did.
All she could do is laugh when it became clear that Solas intended for her to bring the veil down with her final blow against Elgar’nan. She could respect the cleverness in that betrayal, at least. Shit, she’d planned to do the same thing to him if she didn’t think that she and Lavellan could use what remained of Mythal to give Solas the peace he needed to choose atonement and a life with his great love by his side.
“You should use them more often. I just walked right in.”
“Because he allowed you to,” Lavellan says. “He knew you were approaching and so he let down the wards that would have kept you out.”
That’s… probably something she should have figured out herself. Lavellan is still watching her with wary eyes, like a predator tracking prey, and she realizes the woman is bracing herself to defend him, which is fucking stupid because why would she attack the dude who is holding up the veil? That’s just dumb as shit!
But… she understands love, and were Davrin speaking with an adversary, would she not be doing the same thing? Isn’t he doing the same thing at this very moment by guarding her sleeping body?
“You two seem happy,” she says, a peace offering, her hands still raised. “Way to immortalize the two of you fucking on a wall, Solas. That was some classy shit.”
“It was not intended to arouse more than feeling.”
That is when it hits her: while the Lighthouse walls were covered by his greatest regrets, the path towards his and Lavellan’s shared home is guided by depictions of moments that brought him joy.
All of them featured his love, just as all of his regrets featured Mythal. “Everything in those murals actually happened.”
“Yes,” Solas says, not elaborating, because apparently even a bit of fucking joy won’t prompt him to say more than the bare minimum about any given situation. “Do you remain with your own lover?”
She hadn’t realized Solas knew that she and Davrin were a thing. Guess he paid attention while they were fighting through Minrathous. “We got married last year - it was quite the fucking party. I’d have invited you, Inquisitor,” Lavellan flinches at the title, “but wasn’t sure the logistics of breaking you outta here for a soiree.”
“Solas is not the only one with regrets, so I remain here as he does,” Lavellan says softly. “Even if I could, I would not leave the Fade. Here, I have forever and I’ll not risk my eternity for a jaunt in Thedas. I fought too hard for this.”
“Inquisitor…”
“Iris,” Lavellan says emphatically. “My name is Iris and you will not use that title or Solas’ former title - ever. All we want is our quiet life together and I will not tolerate our peace being interrupted.”
It’s interesting that Lavellan is angrier at her intrusion than Solas is. Harding told her once that Lavellan could have a temper, but the few times she met the woman, she saw a talkative woman, whose smile never quite reached her eyes. The Viper had mentioned to her after the battle that Lavellan had been inconsolable while Solas was getting his ass kicked by the archdemon - that apparently Archon Pavus had to physically hold her back from climbing up the blighted branch to join the fight, convincing her that her presence would only make things worse for Solas, who would feel compelled to defend her as well as himself. So, she stood outside the door, looked up at the eclipse-stained sky and wept, because there were no gods for her to pray to.
Apparently Lavellan had meant bellanaris literally. Is she now unaging, as Solas is? She must be, which is… wow. She must have known that to be a possibility, yet still chose forever in a dank prison with the asshole who betrayed her and chopped off her arm and shit.
Wolfy must be a damned good fuck.
“I am not here to cause trouble, Iris,” she says, forcing herself to be serious. “Would you like to know how things are in Thedas?”
“We know enough,” Iris says, voice clipped, and she opens her mouth to ask if Archon Pavus is giving her the gossip of the waking world before realizing that she definitely would not reveal her source. If it got out that Tevinter’s Archon was taking advice from the former politician who abandoned Thedas to ride her wolf’s dick for eternity, that would probably cause a bit of controversy. Those silly gossip papers Neve sends to her would have a fuckin’ field day.
“Vhenan,” Solas murmurs, a gentle chiding and Iris softens, muttering an apology. Solas looks at his wife, his expression soft and he wraps his arm around her, pulling her closer and resting his head on her chest. Iris, in turn, kisses the top of Solas’ scarred head.
“Whatever work you’re doing has saved Davrin and the other wardens. Emmrich says the damage remains so we’re not, like, gonna ever be able to have kids the fun way, but we’re raising a griffon and he’s basically a kid anyway, so we’re good. Thank you for saving him and the remaining wardens. Bellara is doing good too - dunno how, but all the blight in her from Elgar’nan’s jackassery disappeared after you left.”
“If you could thank her for saving my life, I would appreciate it. I never got the chance to do so,” Solas says and she nods, though she’s not actually sure she’ll pass along the message. They all saw shit during that time in their lives, but Bellara has never spoken in any detail of her experiences in Elgar’nan’s custody, and prefers to avoid the topic.
“I’ll get to grow old with my husband because of you. So, thanks for that.”
Solas lets out a heavy sigh and nods his head and she wonders if part of him regrets staying his hand that day and choosing to serve as the veil’s guardian instead of its destroyer. She and Davrin will never have eternity, but they have a life, and that is enough for them.
Eternity would probably get boring, anyway. She never wants to bore Davrin, so it’s best they kick the bucket one day and meet again wherever they go next.
“I didn’t know you were a musician and singer,” she says, turning her focus to Iris.
“I had not known that Solas is, either,” Iris replies, her tone gently teasing as she runs a finger over Solas’ jaw; a sort of casual intimacy that feels almost… wrong to watch in the man who had always remained distant, until he shattered and stood before them, hunched over and sobbing.
“You would have been suspicious if I proved proficient in too many areas.”
“Yet I still figured out you were ancient. But, nevermind. I’m happy to make music with you now.”
“Nobody will ever hear it, though?” she says, confused.
“Is entertaining an audience the sole purpose of music? Can we not find satisfaction in the art that we make? In the way it fills our home, telling our story, even if it’s a story told only to the two of us?” Solas says and she recalls something Varric had once told her: Solas is sentimental. A trait she saw for herself in the artifacts he kept in the Lighthouse and some of the murals he’d painted.
“Your story seems like a good one. Would you care to tell it?”
Solas lifts his head off Iris’ chest and looks at her, the two of them communicating something through their eyes alone, and then he breaks eye contact and looks at her. “No.”
“Seems like kind of a stupid secret to keep.”
“How many would seek to breach the veil in an attempt to sunder the joy the Dread Wolf has found? I would not be touched, but my heart would be and I cannot abide by that. You have no details, save a song that was sung and murals on a wall. Hardly enough to act upon; we could merely be spirits re-enacting a fantasy once indulged in long ago.”
He doesn’t trust her with what is most precious to him. He likely never will; not after his betrayals. He expects her to wield a blade in this conversation, unable to recognize that his happiness is Thedas’ happiness. He won’t fuck around because he has a pretty little forest cottage with a garden and his wife. Why’d she muck that up?
“Would you rather I not return? Or come only if shit’s on fire?”
“I will not ever intervene again. My life is here and it will remain so until the sun burns out and the two of us fade to nothing. Sharing the trials and tribulations in the waking world will not serve you, but waste time you could have spent contending with them.”
“Right. Not gonna wander back, then,” she says, voice clipped and Solas softens.
“I did not say that.”
“Your wife is, even if she’s not putting it into words,” she says, gesturing at Iris, who says nothing.
“She worries for her husband. Do you begrudge her that?”
“No. I’d be throwing hands for Davrin if it came down to it. Probably woulda done so already.”
“If you wish to visit again, I could show you some of my paintings. Not frescos, but works on canvas showing how our home came to be as it is now. How it started with a bed and herbs - elfroot, mostly,” Solas turns to give Iris a wry smile that Iris matches with another kiss on the head. “Iris created a night sky first. Then, a wooden shack and a campfire. Furniture and her violin came next. She never referred to this place as anything but our home, and so it became a sanctuary.”
“A cabin in the woods with a garden: the dream I had for us for years,” Iris says.
“What did you bring to the table?” she asks Solas and he gestures to the harpsichord.
“She did not know I played, as she said earlier.”
“Just the harpsichord? And the frescos outside?”
“The wards, the instruments you see on the balcony, but the beauty comes from Iris. Her love. Her joy. Her dream.”
“Perhaps I will see you again,” she says to Solas. “I’ll not interrupt your night any longer.”
“It’s the middle of the day?” Iris says, confused and she realizes that Iris must have built in a day-night cycle; something they never bothered with at the Lighthouse.
“Not according to my body, and my husband is liable to be chopping wood in the Mediation Room by now so I ought to wake up and return to him.”
“Chopping wood?”
She chuckles, giving Iris a wry grin. “My guy chops wood when he’s stressed out. Keeps the fires going for hours when we’re hunting a particularly dangerous monster. It’s also really hot - his arms are just…” she lets out a sigh and Iris returns her grin with a warmer smile of her own. “Sorry if he’s fucked up your furniture.”
“It is no longer my furniture, but yours,” Solas says, stoic, and she supposes that’s correct, on account of the fact that Solas isn’t leaving this place anytime soon, and it’s not entirely because he cannot. “Do you need assistance waking up?”
She remembers their first conversation, where she proclaimed that waking herself up couldn’t be too hard, and how she… never actually managed it. Solas had always woken her up, or slipped away, leaving her mind to travel the Fade. “If I told you that I’d mastered the art?”
“Then I would point out that you lie as poorly as I do. Shall I?”
“Yeah. Still figuring that shit out, but I’m not, like, a million years old like you are so cut me some slack.”
Solas does not respond, save to utter the words, “wake up”, and she snaps awake to find Davrin sitting on the floor next to her, staring intently.
“Could accuse you of being creepy now,” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes.
“But you wouldn’t. We watch over one another and that is important to you.”
“Softy,” she says, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder.
“Did you find him?” She nods. “He is well?”
She’s quiet for a moment, pondering what to say, but if she can’t trust Davrin with a secret, then who can she trust? “Promise you won’t whisper a word to anyone?”
“You know I preserve anything you tell me in confidence with care I put in little else. What we have is too important to me to do anything else.”
“He’s happy, Dav,” she says, still awestruck. “It’s not a prison; it’s a home. A cottage in a forest, and they were playing music when I found them. His murals are moments of joy and not regret. They got married and Iris was so protective of him - aloof; so much so that Solas had to chide her for it, but it was gentle. He’s so gentle with her; gentle the way you are with me when I’m not being a fuckin’ tit. I never thought he’d ever be happy, but he is and I got to thank him for saving you.”
“I am not sure why this comes as such a shock to you?”
“I mean, I told you all about that shitshow of a prison.”
“Ah. I forgot you don’t understand Elven. The inquisitor promised Solas it wouldn’t be a terrible place if they were together.”
“So, like… say I was fucking around and being a total dick about the veil and walked away from our love. You talk me down with the power of your cock,” Davrin chuckles and shakes his head but says nothing, “and I decide to be a better person in a Fade prison for eternity. Would you come with me?”
“Without question.” He doesn’t elaborate, but she doesn’t need him to. That’s Davrin - stoic and content to express himself in as few words as possible.
“Fuckin’ softy,” she says, lifting her head off his shoulder to kiss the corner of his mouth. “You’d turn my sad ruin of a Fade prison into a house?”
“You gave me a home. A path to walk by your side. If that path took me into the Fade, then I would follow it gladly.”
She kisses Davrin again, because if they’re kissing, he won’t see the tears welled up in her eyes, but he will feel the sentiment; a love so powerful that she knows the answer to her own question: if her love needed it of her, she would follow him into whatever darkness that threatened to swallow them.
And they would make it out, because it’s no longer a beacon in the Fade showing her the path to Solas, but a shimmering reflection of the love shared between two people fated to find one another after wading through war, suffering, and a thousand mortal lifetimes. The same sort of reflection she would have with her own love in the Fade, while they sleep next to one another.
They will never sleep alone again.