Work Text:
Loving her is the most breathtaking feeling in the world.
That is why on nights like this one, he hurts.
When he thinks of his own happiness, of being proven wrong, he thinks of Felassan.
He has spent the day in her company.
They’re stronger than you think, you know.
The taste of her lips is a memory that turns to ash.
He had spared not a single word for his closest friend the day he killed him. Death had been Felassan’s reward for learning the very same empathy Inquisitor Lavellan sparked in him with a single smile. He hates that smile for what it has done to him, for the ease in which it shows him Felassan’s truth, even as he yearns for the sight of it.
She deserves a chance.
The words had been about another woman, but circumstance had not forced him to allow that woman to prove herself to him. It was Ellana who had thwarted Corypheus by happenstance, Ellana who held the Anchor, Ellana who entered his life with curiosity and kindness and stoked his inner purpose as none had done for thousands of years.
Yet it was Ellana who he might have killed Felassan for believing in, had the Inquisitor crossed his path first.
The same words repeat.
They’re stronger than you think, you know.
Inquisitor Lavellan walks out of each dire moment seemingly unscathed, seeming to the world as if she is divinely blessed. It is her lack of ‘divinity’ that makes her so impressive to him. She performs her feats with a fraction of the power he has wielded, unites greater forces than he was capable of in far shorter time.
You know, I suspect you’ll hate this, but she reminds me of-
The first time Solas thought Ellana might be similar to Mythal he couldn’t look at her for a week. He sees why Felassan might have found an elf in this time worth believing in, and that elf was not even the one he found himself besotted with. Eventually it becomes even more bitter, because Ellana is not like Mythal, in the end. When the time comes to wield power she finds no joy in it. Her resolve to challenge tyranny and overreaches of power is consistent. She is different because even when she believes herself in a position above him, she invokes his wisdom with the purest of intent. Eventually he cannot even compare, because how she makes him feel is wholly new.
He lived to serve Mythal, lived to love her, was even remade for her.
Ellana would have him just as he is, though she does not know the extent of who he is.
He both fears and desires more than anything a certain thought: that she might love him for all he
truly
is. And if she is capable of granting him his greatest desire, he has killed Felassan for his premonition of what might make Solas feel pride in this broken world. His love for her burns in him, she is the oil in the lantern which fuels all of his self loathing and which ignites the hope for better.
If Briala had impressed Felassan, Solas wonders what he would have thought of Ellana Lavellan. Would he have easily perceived what she would mean to Solas?
He hates himself, but that is just. The people who should hate him were too good to hold onto the resentment he knew he deserved.
And what’s the harm, really? Why not let the girl try-
What was the harm? Pride. He’d lived up to his name. He knew better than Felassan and punished him for his failures, for his 'lapse' in judgment. Yet in her presence he lapses again, and his mistakes are far more grave than the friend he has slain.
The memory of tracing the curve of Ellana’s back intertwines with his own words. “
Losing you would-”
A year. He had been proven wrong in less than a year. There was no one to hold him to it, now. He had exacted the price already.
He curses himself for a multitude of things:
For killing someone he loved.
For betraying one of the few people left who were truly loyal to him.
For being wrong and having no means of correcting his mistakes. Again.
And he curses himself most of all because he knows the next day he will still love her, and Felassan will still be dead.