Work Text:
When is someone no longer worth saving? It’s a question Rook has been asking herself for days, since freeing herself from Solas’ regret prison and hastily planning their Minrathous invasion. Solas had one more trick up his sleeve - promising that the veil would not come down by his hand, and handing her his dagger.
She’ll give him points for clever dickery for that, at least. Trapping her in the prison was just run of the mill dickery.
Solas freed slaves like her. He risked his life for fuckin’ nobodies, wounding himself in a fight with Elgar’nan to ensure his people had time to free the tyrant’s slaves. Varric had mentioned that Solas regularly freed slaves in Tevinter. Then, he got them all out of the jam that was Elgar’nan’s little maze of blighted horrors by snarking at the man. Yeah, he needed to save her, on account of the fact that she was his prize puzzle piece, but he also seemed genuinely relieved the Dalish made it out. Far too pleased he got to embarrass the shit out of Elgar’nan too - she couldn’t understand all of the Elven being tossed around, but apparently Elgar’nan is now too much of a dumbass to be able to speak it all proper-like, which is funny as fuck.
Lavellan loves Solas and, despite all the shit he put her through, asked that they try to talk him down. Morrigan had been hesitant, but agreed to offer her assistance - but it’s not gonna be up to Lavellan or Morrigan, but her. A fuckin’ nobody ex-slave and Lord of Fortune holds the future of a god in her hands.
It feels wrong, in a way. She doesn’t exactly know Solas well; Lavellan is the one who knows him best, on account of bouncing on his dick for a year and talking to him about her feelings and shit, and even Morrigan knows him better through Mythal’s memories. She’s just the idiot who took a swan dive into his ritual, saving the world at a terrible cost.
Varric. Solas killed Varric. Fucking asshole.
They’re all filthy, stinking of darkspawn blood, and covered in the dust of a destroyed city. None of that matters when she approaches Davrin and wraps her arms around him, wishing she could feel the heat of his body instead of the chill of his heavy armour. He kisses her on the cheek, his lips warm and she lets out a content sigh. They have mere minutes, but this last year has taught her to make minutes count when you have them. Death is far too sudden and none are guaranteed more than minutes in a fight like this one.
Beneath the stench of darkspawn blood, Davrin smells like cedar. He’d been working on one of his figures - an Antaam Reaver, a few minutes back before slipping it into a pocket on his armour prior to their war table meeting. A smell far different from that of sea-soaked wood; one that’s come to be a comfort in a way she’d never expected the day Marcel saved her from the galley of a Tevene merchant ship. “Love you,” she murmurs, serious and genuine in a way that unsettles her. Has Harding’s death and weeks in that damned prison broken her? Left her incapable of joking about he may not be a mage but his dick is magic?
“Vhenan,” Davrin whispers in response.
Over the years she’s known sex, but never romantic love. Constant travel aboard Marcel’s ship meant lovers in ports shared her bed for a single night, because she refused to love someone who was a horizon away. Davrin’s reasons for eschewing romantic love were different, but she’s his first love too.
Neither of them know what the fuck they’re doing, save that, once this is all over, they’ll toss rucksacks on their back and wander in search of an adventure, whether at sea or on foot.
“Solas loves Lavellan. Like, loves her more than anything else in this world. More than he values his victories.”
“You think his love is genuine?”
“Lavellan says he’s shit at lying about the love he feels. When Marcel rescued me, I didn’t know how to read. What the fuck does a galley slave need to know how to read for? His mom, Amara, taught me to read. I was 13 and too old for, like ‘the happy little nug’ children’s book shit, so I got these romance stories. Simple language that someone like me could pick up, but tales of pirates finding grand loves and treasure, or mages sharing kisses hidden amongst the bookshelves. Found out later that Amara had written them all for me. Not a lot of coin in romance stories written for people new to literacy, y’know? They always had a happy ending, Dav. Amara and Marcel made sure the stories ended well. Until Marcel didn’t and he died to save my life. I’m not, like, good at romance shit. I don’t have pretty words for you but I like love. I like being in love with you. Maybe those little stories Amara wrote made me believe in happily ever after. Even for the Dread Wolf.”
“Betting the world on the Dread Wolf having a soft heart is quite the risk,” Davrin says, glancing over at Lavellan, who is standing next to Dorian, but periodically looking at the two of them, as if she knows they’re discussing the fate of her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or whatever he is to her right now.
“Figure if it all goes to shit, Lavellan’ll be out in front and he’d probably hesitate a heartbeat before offing her, giving you and Em an opening to fuck shit up.”
“Truly, your strategic mind knows no equal,” Davrin says dryly and she grins at him.
“We’ll fill in the details as a team. ‘Sides, do you really want to go up against a god and his pissed off girlfriend? If I shove a blade between his ribs, she’ll turn me into mush. She won’t let him destroy the world, but she also won’t let me fuck him, unless he fucks us first.”
“If you’re going to fuck the Dread Wolf, close the door behind you,” Lucanis says as he wanders up to the two of them. “You may also wish to pray to your god of choice, on account of,” he gestures with his head at Lavellan first, and then at Davrin.
“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” Davrin says casually, making a fist with both hands and then rolling his wrists before putting his gloves back on. “Baldy does nothing for her and Rook’s bright enough not to let a man who stabbed her in the back into her bed. Lavellan, on the other hand…”
“She saw parts of him Rook was never privy to,” Emmrich says, because apparently now this is a team meeting as opposed to a private moment with her boyfriend. “As a manifested spirit, he likely responded in turn to her kindness and love. We all have faces we show different people, but arguably the face she saw was his most honest one even if, ironically enough, he was hiding his more commonly-known visage. Inquisitor Lavellan wishes to see him redeemed and believes he can be saved, and it would be a disservice, not just to the two of them, but the world as a whole if we did not make the attempt.”
“Why is that?” she asks Emmrich.
“Would you not rather the man bound to the veil make the choice willingly, perhaps with the comfort of knowing the one he loves still shares his feelings, as opposed to a man whose nature has shifted wholly to pride, twisted by fury and mirroring the anger he received from his adversaries?”
That’s… a good point. An almost infuriatingly good point.
“So, if the Dread Wolf has his sweetheart bouncing on his dick, he’ll play nice and the veil remains without any trouble and shit?”
“In a best case scenario,” Emmrich says, responding to her bullshit with far too much dignity.
Solas freed slaves. He helped her save the Dalish clan - even if his motivations weren’t entirely pure and he had far too much fun goading Elgar’nan. He loves Lavellan and she believes in the best of him.
“I think we need to give him a chance to act on that love like a proper adult and maybe he’ll stop being a tit long enough to bind himself to the veil. Davrin and Emmrich will come with me, but hang back. Let Lavellan and I corner him because he’s gonna go all feral cat-like. Gotta touch him with kid gloves, y’know?”
“Mierda. This man is a god,” Lucanis mumbles, shaking his head.
“He’s a traumatized manifested spirit hovering at the edge of corruption. Rook and Lavellan can pull him back - with a gentle hand,” Emmrich says.
“Rook and our Fade expert share a mind on the matter, which is good enough for me. When the time comes, I’ll hang back and let Rook and the Dread Wolf’s sweetheart talk him off the ledge,” Davrin says and she reaches for his hand, giving it a squeeze.
They’re going to do this. It’s a crazy thing, to bet on love and kindness, but they’re going to fucking do it.
Lavellan remains next to Dorian when they approach and she glances at Tevinter’s next Archon, and then at the tiny elven woman. “Meet you up there, Inquisitor?” The woman’s eyes go wide and she bites her bright red bottom lip and nods, eyes damp.
“Solas best let that woman ride him until his dick is raw,” she mutters to Davrin while Emmrich conveniently pretends he cannot hear the two of them. They’re climbing the blight tendril while Assan hovers nearby, ready to ward off any darkspawn stragglers that may attempt to block their path up to the palace. The tendril is squishy, with a heartbeat and coated in a clear, slimy liquid that stinks of the blight.
“Given the beating he’s taking at present, he’ll be lucky if he’s able to stand, which offers us a tactical advantage if you and Lavellan are unable to appeal to his better nature. I expect it will be some time before Lavellan has a chance to take him to bed.”
“He better not fucking die, given that he’s our final hope and shit.”
“My guess would be that beings widely perceived as gods are capable of surviving calamities that would prove fatal to the rest of us,” Emmrich says, his selective hearing apparently kicking in now that she’s stopped talking about the Dread Wolf’s dick.
“If necessary, do the whole ‘don’t die’ magic you’re good at, Emmrich?”
“You mean, ‘spirit healing’, Rook?”
“Yeah, but that’s less fun to say,” she says, while Davrin chuckles beside her. “Think he’d be pissed if I prayed to the Maker for his survival?”
“My guess would be that he would appreciate the sentiment though unlikely to feel it would do much good,” Emmrich replies.
While climbing, she ponders, coming up with something resembling a prayer. “Maker, I know Solas is, like, kind of your rival and shit, and he’s also a dick, but he’s a dick who is super badass and able to hold the veil up, so it’d be pretty lousy if he died. Do us a solid and watch over him, and maybe make sure the archdemon has a stroke or heart attack or something? That’d be real fuckin’ awesome of you, my man.”
“A creative plea to the Maker,” Emmrich says, diplomatic as ever. “For whatever it is worth, I will offer my own prayer to your cause, albeit silently and using a more… standard approach.”
“I’d say a prayer but, given that my people’s gods are the ones who got us all into this mess, I don’t believe they’d be any help. Save for the Dread Wolf, who is, technically, helping us at present and praying to him that he survives his battle strikes me as a waste of breath,” Davrin says wryly.
“Just gotta pull for that romance story ending energy. We’re gonna talk Solas down with the power of love and pussy.”
Even Emmrich, with his selective hearing snickers at this, sounding more like a man her age than a grown ass professor with a pocket watch and shit.
Solas saved people like her once; useless lumps of flesh anyone else woulda left behind to rot. Solas loves a mortal in the romantic, storybook kind of way. Solas is taking the most intense shit kicking seen in this age for the sake of saving the world.
That fucker is totally worth saving.