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They appear not long after Lavellan and Solas step through the scar in the sky. Or perhaps it is long after, perhaps it is centuries - after all, time as she has known it does not truly exist here. They come as a clamouring cluster of wisps, swirling in and out of each other’s paths at the periphery of what Solas insists is their prison, but what Lavellan calls their home. It is a strange effect, the way their melodic not-quite voices weave themselves in an intertwining counterpoint - bright, woodwind arpeggios dancing around the swaying legato strings, all of which are sprinkled with twinkling bells. They have no words - not yet - but Lavellan thinks she can understand them all the same: a greeting, an inquiry, a request. And there is something about them…something familiar.
“You’re saying your friend might come back?”
“No, not really. A spirit’s natural state is peaceful semi-existence. It is rare to be able to reflect reality. Something similar may reform one day, but it might have a different personality. It would likely not remember me.”
Solas falls to his knees in front of them. Tears cling to the corner of his eyes, but he does not let them fall. Instead, he gives his body an unthreatening posture, softens the features of his face, and holds out his arms as he would to small children. “Hello, my friends. Welcome. Would you like to come closer?”
They float around him first, then her. She cannot shake the idea that she is being investigated, but it does not feel malicious. They then move on to dart in and out of the ever-shifting corners of the Fade that she and Solas had carved out as their own. Ah, but it is large enough, there is, of course, room for more.
“I did not think any spirits would dare brave this place,” he marvels at them, still kneeling, “let alone ones so young. And for it to be fragments of Wisdom…”
He trails off, finally letting the tears he had been holding back fall.
“Do they remember you?” Lavellan asks.
He shakes his head. “No, the experiences we shared are gone. But there is…recognition. A feeling of familiarity. Perhaps that is why…”
He does not seem to trust himself to finish the sentence.
“Why they came to us,” she finishes for him. “Maybe a part of them knew they would be safe and loved here.”
He turns up at her and gives her the small, soft smile she’s grown to cherish. “They will, won’t they?”
She cups his cheek and uses a thumb to wipe away his tears. “Of course,” she says, then kisses his forehead. “We will raise them as our own until it is time to let them go.”
~
They start out largely the same, but they do not stay that way.
~
“This one will be Loyalty,” Lavellan says, sure though she is still no expert in spirits. The little flicker of teal energy loops itself in and out of her legs, like a small cat, nearly making her trip as she walks towards Solas. Or would, if it had a more solid form.
~
“This one will be Learning, I think,” Solas says to a mauve cloud that sits upon his knees in the evening when he tells Lavellan of the songs the world had sung before their people took form, when he speaks of battles, of losses and victory. Of the societies, that rose and fell and left their print, however small, upon the world.
~
They approach the dark grey cloud that keeps to the edge only once. It flitters away like a shadow fleeing flame.
“I will not chase it,” Solas says. “Lest it feel hunted.”
Lavellan agrees, but sings and speaks to it all the same. ‘I am here,’ she wants to tell it. ‘Here when you are ready.’ And eventually it does creep closer to them, but still seems to shy away.
One day she asks it, “Are you afraid of us, da’len?”
“No,” it replies. “But I am Grief. I am not beautiful like the others. I am a sharp and painful thing; I will be too heavy in your arms.”
But Lavellan welcomes Grief into the space between them and even though her heart grows heavy and her tears flow easier, she does not chase it away.
~
“You cannot banish it,” Lavellan snaps at him, her arms crossed across her chest as she places her body between Solas and the violet presence behind her. Despite all the sins he has laid at her feet and the many gaping wounds still healing between them, this is the first real argument they’ve had since entering this place. Her stoic, steady presence is gone, replaced by unrelenting maternal fury.
“You do not understand, vhenan,” he says, unable to dismiss his fears, even at her behest. “It will be a corrupting presence on the others. They are all so young, so malleable still. If it stays, we may lose them all.”
We may lose everything.
She clenches her jaw, waiting for the right words to come. She’s not sure if they do, but she eventually pushes on, regardless. “It is not you, vhenan, though it shares your name.”
Solas steps back as if she’s slapped him. Lavellan sighs; she’s sure he’s taking it in ways she did not mean.
“What happened to you was an abomination, a sin, but you yourself never were.”
He steps away from her, eyes wide and watering, somehow small and frail, though he physically towers over her. She closes the distance between them again slowly, gently, so as not to spook him.
Oh, my poor wounded wolf; what am I to do with you?
“Pride can be dangerous, of course,” she says, taking both of his hands in hers. “But it can also be a strength. Pride in our friends, in our family, our community. Pride in the actions we take together. Even pride in oneself can be a shield against a world that wants to trample you. Insufferable we may have been at times,” she says with a smile, trying to offer him some levity to bring him back from the edge. “But without our pride, I do not know if we Dalish would have had the strength to survive the centuries.”
“It could go so wrong, though,” he whispers, still afraid.
“But it could also go right, ” she insists. “Do not punish our child out of hatred for yourself. Neither of you deserve that.
~
It is difficult, sometimes. Loyalty grows frantic when faced with any conflict, so easily hurt when it feels like it is forced to choose one side or the other. Learning needs to be scolded when it gets into a nasty habit of pinching Lavellan’s body to see what sounds she might make. Grief and Solas sink too easily into each other sometimes, going somewhere that not even Lavellan with all the hurt in her heart can reach. And Pride, of course, will start arguments with the others, with Lavellan and even Solas himself, and refuse to relent.
But it is in those times that the faint, warm white glow of Hope comes up next to Lavellan and wraps itself around her shoulders. “Do not worry overmuch, mamae. Things will get better eventually.”
~
And the thing is - they do. Loyalty learns to recognize the love that is still present, even in the most heated of arguments, and lets itself step back. Learning gets better at recognizing questions that are pointlessly painful in the asking and do not heal upon the answer. Grief occasionally splits into twins: Forgiveness and Acceptance.
And Pride, oh her beloved little Pride, was that hand that helped guide that particular transformation.
“I cause them nothing but pain,” Lavellan had heard Grief say to Pride once. “They would be better off if I were gone.”
“So that they could then grieve the loss of you in turn?” It had responded, its form in its typical rigid and rodlike pose. “You are worth just as much as we are. You are the cleansing wound, the loss that gives value to what we have. Stop- Stand up straight! They love you. I- I love you.”
For Solas had taken her words to heart, guiding Pride in quiet conversations by the fire. And though he still finds it hard to hear the voice that sounds so like his own, he does grow to love it. Despite everything, he grows to love it.
~
It is not the family Lavellan thought she would have when she had been a child singing songs at her mother’s knee. But it is the family she chose. And she loves them more than anything.