Work Text:
They had only taken the first few steps through the Veil—returning to the haunting prison, built from Solas’ most anguished memories.
The near total absence of light punctuated the images burned into the fractured walls, each a reminder of a moment in his long life that now haunted him.
As they walked together over the shadowed, rough terrain, Vherana finally began to feel and notice just how deeply she and Solas both were battered from the battle.
Terrible slash wounds adorned Vherana’s forehead, her dark shaved hair was smeared with drying blood, and she walked with a noticeable limp. Her prosthetic arm was barely clinging to the sleeve of her broken armor.
As for Solas, the previously proud unyielding stance she had caught glimpses of during the battle was finally faltering; the deep crimson slashes contrasting against his skin and his light armor hanging in torn, bloodied shreds.
Noticing her eyes on him, he turned his head slightly and attempted a broken, watery smile—but the tremors throughout his entire body betrayed him.
Just as she tried to smile back, her injured leg failed her.
Vherana’s heart lurched as her knee buckled forward. She let out a ragged, guttural sound; the only thing keeping her from completely folding into the dust was Solas lunging to catch her.
“Vhenan—" his voice was an urgent ragged gasp of pain, his entire body harshly admonishing him for the sudden movement.
Her weight sagged against him, her bloodied knee refusing to straighten, greeting her with screeching pain each time she tried.
Solas hissed helplessly as he was unable to keep them both upright, and they collapsed together. Vherana’s head crashed unceremoniously into his shoulder, their heads knocking together as they panted for breath.
She felt Solas’ arm wrap around her back. “You’re hurt.”
"It is worse for you..." Vherana told him, cutting herself off with a throaty cough. She tried to feign strength by getting back up, but was unable to even risk it, letting her chin fall against his shoulder.
"It isn't," he insisted breathlessly. “You…”
A painful moan suddenly escaped him as he clutched his side with his other hand.
"Please—let me see your leg," he pleaded with her.
Vherana exhaled in exasperated defeat as she dragged her head off his chin. Wordlessly, she reached with her prosthetic arm to begin to undo the battered broken armor pieces still covering her leg, revealing the site of her injury, where her knee and lower leg had been badly struck by Elgar'nan during the battle.
Solas’ eyes glazed painfully at the sight of the injury, remembering the false gods' mocking words to her in his ears vividly.
"Do you resent Fen'Harel for taking away your arm, da’len vheraan? Perhaps I can distract you from that pain."
He had attempted to sever her leg from her body then, if not for Solas, in all the terrible power of his spirit form catching her locked in battle with him and immediately throwing himself at Elgar'nan, every fang gnashing in fury as he diverted the Evanuris’ attention away from her.
They had only shared a desperate glance at each other in that moment, the first one that was not in her dreams.
He had only allowed himself enough time near her to make sure Rook and his allies were arriving to aid her before breaking into pursuit after Elgar’nan attempting to escape with his archdemon, every eye closing in pain as she called out for him.
She must have been in agony, limping and climbing up those steps to find where he had gone before he could pierce the Veil.
His eyes drank in the injury with a haunted look as his breath hitched. The wound was deep, the firm muscles exposed and torn by Elgar’nan’s first strike.
He didn't have the mana to properly heal such a wound, and he did not know when that strength would return.
"Ma' vhenan..." he gagged on his own voice.
A gasp followed in Solas' throat as he suddenly felt it; her calloused palm on his face. Her fingers traced over the huge slash across his eye and his brow.
"You still bleed..." she observed. She pressed her prosthetic hand on his shoulder and lifted herself upward.
Solas’ body froze up as he felt it; her tongue rasping across his skin, moving up the length of the cut and sponging the blood with it.
“Wh—what—” he gasped haltingly, “are you doing?”
“The old superstition from my clan. Don’t you remember? That we elves can heal each other with just our tongues?”
"I do remember, but vhenan, you know that it—a-ah—!”
His protest was replaced with a sharp inhale as her tongue drew across another wound on his face, her saliva against his torn flesh both stinging and causing a shiver of feeling all at once.
"That has been proven to—" he sputtered helplessly as she moved to the wound atop his head, his pulse racing.
"Vherana, please, it does not... it does not work."
"I know," there was a subtle purr to Vherana’s voice. “But I thought maybe it would comfort you.”
Her hand came up to hold his cheek again, her eyes softening as they looked into his own.
His miserable gaze lifted up to meet hers as she caressed his cheek with her calloused palm, his breathing still rapid and uneven.
"You should... you should not be wasting your energy on me," he managed, closing his eyes wearily and turning his head away.
"I want to,” she replied. “And I will.”
He closed his eyes tighter, feeling his throat close up.
“Why did I let you do this?” A sob curled in his throat as his arms held her upright. “I’ve let you trap yourself here.”
She was unable to staunch her breathy chuckle as she let her head wearily fall against his neck.
“No. I’ve trapped you with me.”
Her words settled into his gut with a mixture of profound guilt and bittersweet comfort. Still, the pain he felt at the gravity of her choice lingered.
"We should have talked about this. This place... everything."
Vherana scoffed at that. "We could have had all the time in the world, and it would have changed nothing. Have I ever been dissuaded when it comes to you?"
"...No—you have not…" Solas admitted quietly, his tired eyes opening once more to meet the gaze of the woman that in only half of a decade had tracked and hunted his agents to extinction until there were none left foolish enough to follow him.
The beginnings of a weary smile tugged at the corner of his lips, but it faltered as his eyes caught the deep red soaking her knee as it rest beside his thigh.
“I… I must bind your leg quickly,” his voice was sultry as he begged her.
“You are in a great deal of pain.”
Vherana closed her eyes and quietly groaned. She knew there was no point in denying it further.
Lifting her gaze, her eyes searched the expanse of the darkness around them, before falling on what looked to be a ruined fortress among the shadowed expanse.
“There…” she spoke up warily, inclining her head toward it.
Following her gaze, Solas’ eyes widened slightly.
In the months he had spent here before freeing himself, he had never seen any sort of hospitable structure.
But even if this was a prison, it was still the Fade—and as with everything in the Fade, it changed constantly to suit those within it.
Solas had not cared for sheltering himself before, for having any place in the prison to call a home.
But with Vherana now with him, perhaps the Fade was now reacting to his desperate desire to help her, if not himself.
"Yes, it… will serve," he murmured after a moment of scrutinizing it from afar. “Come, let’s—”
He slowly and shakily made an attempt to help them both to their feet, only for both to stagger and nearly fall once more.
Solas grunted heavily, his own legs creaking with the effort, and his arm around her waist tightening to regain his balance.
He was desperately trying to bear as much of her weight as he could, so her bloodied lower leg wouldn’t make contact with the ground.
Seeing his efforts, Vherana grit her teeth, biting down on her pain as she used her upper body muscle honed by years of living with her disability assisting her in evening out Solas’ weight as he acted as her crutch.
Her strength allowed them to move in a ragged but functional hobble as they began to slowly reach the structure in the distance.
Their movements caused Vherana’s prosthetic arm to come undone from her sleeve at last, the metal appendage hitting the ground with a dull thud.
“Your—your arm...“ Solas gasped. He instantly tried to stop to retrieve it, but Vherana strong-armed him along.
“Keep going.” She bit back a hiss of pain. “We’ll come back for it… later.”
“Vhenan, in the Fade—it may not be there later—“
“I have always managed—I do not truly need it. Come.”
The idea of leaving her prosthetic arm lying abandoned on the ground drew a sharp intake of breath from Solas, but he believed her unquestionably when she said she did not truly need it.
Carefully, he readjusted his stance, doing his best to move in sync as she pushed them onward, towards the shadowy silhouette ahead.
It was mercifully warm on the inside of the ruined fortress, with a meagerly lit fire pit in the middle. The staircase that led to the fortress’ second floor was fractured, but there was a bed against the far wall, as well as what looked to be a storage container made of worn and cracked wood.
Solas immediately began to lead Vherana toward the bed, and despite her visible hesitance, she quickly conceded to her body’s desperation to sit down.
His hands shook with the effort he helped ease her onto the bed as carefully as he possibly could. It creaked rather eerily under her weight.
As Vherana’s head lolled against the headboard with a groan, Solas stepped back and sank heavily against the adjacent wall, his legs buckling with relief and exhaustion.
Though it was obvious they both needed a moment to rest, Solas forced himself to stand upright against the wall once more, refusing to succumb to his weariness just yet.
"I will… find what I need to bind your leg," he told her breathlessly.
“Solas…” Vherana started in protest, trying and failing to sit back up from where she had slumped onto the bed.
He pretended not to hear her as he crossed the dark firelit room toward the storage container.
With each step, they were punctuated by his short, pained gasps. He grasped the splintered lid and lifted it up, his strength faltering as it slid away. But as he cast his eyes on the items inside, his breath caught in his throat.
There, within the wooden confines, he found the materials to create a splint the length of her leg, as well as basic first-aid supplies, the most important of which being gauze and several thick stalks of elfroot.
He sagged with relief, reaching inside and gathering what he needed most, his exhaustion slowly giving way to determination.
Returning to Vherana, he settled himself down on the edge of the bed, feeling relief flow through his body as he was finally off his feet.
Setting the supplies down on the ashen bedside table, he started with a bundle of elfroot.
Using the cracked but serviceable mortar and pestle he had found among the herbs, he quickly crushed the elfroot down into dust.
His hands searched for a moment, realizing the Fade had not yet given him a source of water to work with as a distilling agent.
Sighing huskily, he put the mortar to his mouth and began to spit in it after a brief moment of hesitation.
Vherana huffed softly from where she lay watching him.
“So you do agree that our saliva can heal wounds."
“I do not.” Solas instinctively retorted between spitting. “I’m doing what I must to make a poultice.”
A sad smile twitched on Vherana’s lips, not minding the retort if only to see a sense of familiarity return to Solas.
Once he had sufficiently created a poultice-like substance out of the crushed elfroot, he set it down to congeal before picking up another bundle of elfroot and beginning to rip the leaves free of their roots with his fingernails to ingest for pain.
Once he had a handful of the roots, he extended his palm to her face, his other hand carefully resting on her back to help her sit back up.
Resisting the urge to tell him that he looked like he was presenting a feral mare with oats, she took the roots from his palm into her own, hurriedly taking them into her mouth and quickly chewing them up to get ahead of the terribly bitter taste.
She didn’t chew fast enough, and visibly cringed as the bitterness flooded her mouth. Solas’ face softened with sad sympathy.
“Ir abelas... with luck, a source of water will appear soon.”
Vherana drew her arm across her mouth with a shuddering nod. As Solas turned to check on his poultice, her eyes lingered on the back of his head, at his many wounds and bruises.
She knew that Solas was not going to help himself until he felt she was suitably cared for, even if that meant willfully ignoring that he was likely hurting even more than she, and needed the relief the roots would provide just as badly.
Whether he liked it or not, she was going to help him help himself. Patiently waiting for him to set the mortar and pestle back onto the bedside table, she reached out her arm, turning his head to face her as she sat up straighter.
The moment his head turned, she crushed together their lips, tilting his chin up as she nudged his mouth open with her tongue.
She pushed a portion of the chewed root she had been holding in her mouth into his, the angle she was holding his face imploring him to swallow.
Though his first instinct was to pull away, something in Solas, be it exhaustion or pure yearning, compelled him toward immediate acceptance.
After a heartbeat of hesitation, he began to swallow down the bitter mixture as it was pushed by her tongue toward his throat, his lips kneading together with hers, their tongues gliding atop one another.
He was quickly reminded of the strength of her tongue; a fact about her he had never completely forgotten. He could not have resisted the gesture even if he had wanted to.
Once she pulled back, he grimaced and wiped away the strand of drool that fell out the side of his mouth.
“...You could have simply asked me to chew some of the roots for myself.”
Vherana leaned head back against the headboard, rolling her tongue over her lips.
“You would’ve told me you didn’t need it more than I.”
Solas sighed in resignation. “I would have,” he admitted.
With the initial wave of surprise gone from his system, the bitter taste of the roots he swallowed were mingling with the nostalgic taste of her that was still slick on his lips. He ran his tongue across his bloodied bottom lip, savoring her taste to himself.
He only allowed himself the pleasure for a few fleeting moments before shifting his focus back to the materials he needed to create a splint for her leg.
Once he had fashioned a makeshift but sturdy splint from tightly-wrapped cloth and gauze, all that was left was to clean and bandage her leg before using the splint to bind it.
Unraveling another spool of gauze, he ripped a section off with his teeth, and coated it gingerly into the poultice.
Watching him, Vherana was unable to hide the apprehension on her face as she eyed the mixture, knowing the leaves of the elfroot were likely going to burn when applied to such a deep wound.
He noticed the apprehension etched across her face, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a sympathetic expression.
"Ir abelas, vhenan," he uttered apologetically.
Reeling her injured leg in, he set it very gingerly on top of his thigh and began to carefully, gently, stroke the gauze over the wound.
As she felt the elfroot substance touch her exposed flesh, she grit her jaw until she could swear she could bite through metal.
She hissed out a variety of colorful utterances in elvehn against her clenched teeth, her hand braced on the bedside table.
Her cursing, while perhaps a few millennia ago would have offended him, now made a tiny smile of endearment twitch on his lips for the briefest of moments.
Her hissing eased as he finally pulled the damp gauze away, the burning jolts easing into more subtle throbbing, but the grimace was still on her face, the evidence of her discomfort visible in the bead of sweat on her ashen brow.
"It's going to ache for a while yet…" Solas warned her softly, reaching for the splint and another spool of gauze. “But the roots will help you sleep.”
Carefully, he wrapped long strips of gauze around the site of her wound, ensuring it wasn’t wound too tightly to cause her any additional discomfort. He paused to rest both hands on either side of her uninjured knee and gave her a gentle squeeze.
Feeling him squeeze her, Vherana’s pained eyes softened.
"Inanshain," she breathed, mostly to herself.
There was no word in any conceivable language, not even elvehn, to express how much she had missed him.
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a small, somewhat sad smile as she called him the endearing elvehn word.
He recalled the last time she called him that as vividly as it were yesterday, rather than over a decade ago. When she was not yet fluent in elvehn, still learning from him, but had taken it upon herself to learn terms that made her think of him, including words that meant “cute” and “insufferable” in common tongue.
Focusing back on the task at hand, he tore off a length of more gauze, his touch lingering on her skin, and tied the bandage off, securing the splint in place.
Solas gently eased her leg off his thigh to lay on the bed at an elevated angle.
"That should hold for now. Once I’ve regenerated enough mana, I will heal it properly..."
His eyes lifted, lingering on the fresh gashes still fresh across her forehead, glistening red in the firelight.
Knowing his work was not yet done, he reached for the mortar and gauze again, but just as he turned back to the bed, she closed her hand over his.
"My turn." Her voice was soft, but the authoritative edge was clear.
“Vhenan—”
"Ma’ vhenan. You're covered in wounds here," she cut in, her index finger ghosting over his bloodied skin as it traced the deep wound below his lip.
"Be reasonable. Let me help you first."
His eyes pleaded with her for only a moment before sighing.
"Very well…" he caved. “If you must.”
Solas rose to his unsteady feet as he moved to sit beside her on the bed, crossing his legs, his joints creaking uncomfortably as they bent.
Sitting up as best as she could on the bed as well, Vherana reached out to cup his sharp chin, angling his face toward her at a slight angle.
"Hold still right here," she ordered him. "I’ve only one arm to work with."
He obediently held the position as her fingers left his chin.
"I am at your mercy," his voice was warm despite being slightly hoarse, keeping his gaze squarely fixed on hers.
For so long, the imbalance of power he had felt when they were together during the Inqusition’s formative years had haunted him. Allowing her to become drawn to the one she had been taught from birth to revile without knowing it. Every touch would fill him with indescribable warmth, then hours later leave him feeling worse than the dirt they walked upon.
But as the decade passed, now that all of him laid bare before her and she chose to love and be with him still, he realized he no longer felt this particular guilt, this horrible feeling that their love was wrong.
In her capable hand, he finally felt like only a man, a broken man, but a man who loved and was loved by his equal.
He watched her with eyes that were unable to hide their doefulness as she ripped off more gauze with her teeth. Bundling it up, she dipped it in the poultice, before returning to his face.
With a grunt of slight effort, she moved as close as she could sit to him without moving her injured leg.
"Sit closer," she instructed. "Put your legs around my waist."
Truth be told, he was sitting close enough to give her easy access to him already, but he obeyed without question. He moved closer until his legs curled on either side of her, their proximity undeniable.
"Good," there was a subtle purr to Vherana’s voice. "Now, let me just..."
She pulled her one arm around his lower back, dangerously close to his buttocks. He had always admired her lithe yet well-muscled figure, but being limited to only one arm now had made her muscles so pronounced that he could feel them ripple through the thick fabrics of his tattered armor.
Despite her fatigue, she lifted him with ease before setting him directly on her thigh, their faces now just inches apart.
Solas cleared his throat as a sensation specific to her that he had not experienced in what felt like eons gathered in his face. He averted his gaze from her face for a moment.
Her dark green eyes grew lidded with satisfaction at his visible fluster, as though it was that reaction she had been chasing.
Lightly taking his chin again and adjusting his face one more time, she reached up with the damp gauze and began to gently dab at each slash wound, first starting with the largest one scored over his left eye and stretching from his brow to his cheek.
"Close your eyes," she brushed a finger over his long eyelashes, not wanting to irritate his eyes should the poultice seep into them.
He did as instructed, letting her adjust his chin to whichever angle she preferred as she thoroughly applied the poultice.
Once each cut on his face was cared for, she bowed his head slightly, examining the various bruises on his head, practically near the back.
"These have to heal on their own," she reminded herself. "But, for good measure..."
Pulling her hand around the back of his neck, she pushed his face into her collarbone, and once again starting drawing her tongue slowly across his bruises.
His body shivered only once before going slack in her lap, practically melting as she held her to him. His arms pulled around her back, unable to stop himself from clinging to her.
He made no protest as she glided her tongue across the massive bruises adorning his hairless head. Instead, he simply clung to her.
Vherana gave a cross between a hum and a purr as she left one last rasp of her tongue over the final bruise she could find, punctuating it with a chaste kiss.
"Ma ane fenor... ar lath ma," she mumbled into his skin.
Solas could only respond with a quiet whine that carried a thousand feelings, his hands squeezing her hips softly.
Once she was finished licking and kissing his bruises, she dabbled a bit more of the poultice onto small strips of clean gauze, using it as an adhesive to bandage his wounds.
She lowered her face, her hand sliding underneath Solas' jawline. As he lifted his face to meet her, their noses brushed together.
"Where else do you hurt?" Her breath was soft on his sore face.
"It cannot just be your head,” she smiled bitterly. “As impressive as it was too see Fen'Harel leaping to my defense, that also meant I witnessed the beating you took while chasing Elgar'nan’s pet."
He did not miss the teasing edge in her tone. He closed his eyes, feeling a shudder roll through his injured body, his hand coming up to hold her wrist.
"My side," he admitted haltingly. "My left side… I can feel multiple fractures."
Vherana’s brows furrowed at that. "They feel broken? While you were fussing over my leg? Why didn't you tell me?”
He frowned sadly, knowing her frustration was a fair reaction. "I felt it didn't matter at the time," he replied in earnest.
"Vhenan, you could not walk… I could wait. I still can wait."
Vherana groaned, letting her forehead slump against his as her eyes shut.
"Dirthara-ma. What am I going to do with you?"
She hesitated for a moment, drawing a hand through her buzzed hair before sighing and answering her own question.
"Lay beside me. On your unhurt side. Let me see it for myself.”
Solas could only nod, his lips pressing together tightly. He gently eased himself down beside her, using the pillow to find any semblance of a comfortable position.
With a breathy sigh, his eyes slid shut, waiting for her to assess the damage.
Very gingerly, Vherana tugged apart the already-tattered fabrics of his armor, revealing the bare skin of his ribs.
He could see by the way her face twisted that it was possibly worse than it felt.
"You need more elfroot," she decided instantly, turning herself on the bed, mindful not to jostle her leg as she reached for a large handful of the herb.
He winced at the sight as he craned his neck to gaze at his own injured side. An enormous bruise stretched to the top of his rib cage, the deep purple stark against his skin.
It was no wonder everything he did caused him physical pain, arguably more painful than his despair, at least for the moment.
"I-I do not believe more elfroot could heal this, vh-vhenan," he rasped.
"It won't," she agreed, balancing the mortar and pestle in her lap as she used her one hand to rigorously crush down the roots of the herb with far more vigor than he had.
"But it will ease your pain, which is important to me, even if not you.”
Solas sighed heavily, his body shivering despite the warmth beside him as he shifted slowly on the bed to allow her better access to his side.
"...If you give me more, I-I may not be able to stay awake much longer..." he admitted in a breathy voice. "And… th-the wounds on your forehead..."
”I still have at least one of my hands, Solas," her voice was slightly exasperated.
“I can help myself. You need to rest far more than me. I won't be long behind you. I promise."
"I... I believe you..." he told her in a voice barely above a whisper. With one last shuttering sigh, he let himself sink into the bed and closed his eyes.
The relief of finally allowing himself to rest was instant. He could feel his whole body growing warmer, every muscle heavy with bone-deep fatigue.
He barely reacted when he felt the bitter mixture of roots be eased down his throat, feeling her hand on his chin as she eased his mouth open.
Feeling the weight of the bed shift and the warmth of her cheek on his neck, he fell into his first dreamless sleep of the decade.