Work Text:
“Solas, is that you?” called her voice from the top of the stairs, pushing aside the sounds of rustling paper that he’d heard upon opening the door. “Hold on, give me a moment. Let me throw something on, before you come up.”
He paused where he stood upon the steps, grip tightening its hold of the jug that he carried. The heady aroma of sweet wine within mingled together with his thoughts, diluting whatever deliberation he harbored still of descent. The climb to the Inquisitor’s quarters were, as they always had been, harrowing as much as they were humbling. Yet, still he made it, as if it were a compulsion he’d no power to fight. Still he came, pitcher in hand, as if the wisdom he made claims to had fled him.
“Alright,” she said after a moments time, and the groaning of her wardrobe. “You surprised me. I didn’t think you’d come, considering the hour.”
In all honesty he’d surprised himself as well. It wasn’t so much that the hour was terribly late, or that such a visit held certain implications—the sun glowed yet upon the horizon out her balcony door, and talk would make the rounds no matter their attempts at discretion. No, what had surprised him had been how helpless he’d been to the impulse that had driven him here.
All it had taken was the sound of that voice, the same that called to him now, as she’d responded to a greeting from Varric outside of the rotunda upon her return. His head had been filled with her then, with the convenient excuse Lady Josephine offered only the final push he’d needed, to send him off the edge. Only that, and all of his better judgment had crumbled to dust.
Any hesitance that lingered still left him when finally he ascended. How often that seemed to be the case, when it came to her. She smiled at him from across the room, hands still busy tying the wrap she’d thrown over her lounging garments, and more at ease than he’d seen her before. Lighter, as if relieved of some great unseen burden. “It appears that you enjoyed your hunting trip,” he stated, and her grin seemed to spread as she hummed an affirmation.
“Very much so. It was good, to get back out there with Ilo again. I almost forgot about the Inquisitor for a couple nights.” Her eyes returned to the knot, though her cheeks bore still the evidence of her smile. “I even shot down one of the billies myself, alongside some small game.”
A feat for her, he knew—she proclaimed herself the tracker, and never the marksman. Such had been the task of her partner, he’d gathered. Her eyes flicked back up as she began to pad towards where he idled, having set his offering on the table beside her couch.
“What’d you bring?”
“Lady Josephine asked that I bring it, once she surmised of my intentions,” he admitted, leaning back against the railing as she drew close. “I fear she may have figured them out before even I did.”
Viera'vun breathed a laugh. “That sounds like our ambassador.” She reached a hand out to take the jug from the table, the already lithe motions of the huntress somehow freer now, and the tilting of her head exposing the slope of her neck. “Did she say what it was?”
Where her wrap bunched at the shoulders he could see unimpeded, down the bare span of her back. Solas cleared his throat, and averted his eyes. “Only that it is wine,” he said, “and that you would recognize it.”
“Hmm. I wonder if it’s another—wait.” Her brow knit as she brought it to her nose, and shook her head. “It couldn’t be.”
Drawing the pitcher to her lips she sipped the wine, letting the drink sit on her tongue a moment before her face split with a grin, and she swallowed.
“Creators, I can’t believe it. It is.”
He pushed aside the prickle that the title elicited. “And what, exactly, would it be?”
“It’s Silthun’s wine—my uncle, from my clan. This is from my clan.” For a moment she simply stood there, cradling the gift as if it might vanish were she to move. Then, she blinked, and with her breath found motion again. “I’ll prepare it for us, if you have a moment. Go get comfortable, it won’t take long.”
She was off and to the fireplace before he could respond, kneeling down to pour the drink into a pot. He nearly spoke up to offer his help in heating it, as a mage—but then, as he watched her, he recognized the motions as she dipped her fingers into pouches of dried herbs for what they were, a ritual beloved and oft-repeated. Instead he retreated, through the balcony doors and into the cool air of a highland evening, just barely brushed by snow.
It didn’t take long for her to join him, placing into his hands a cup warmed by its contents. “Here,” she said, pulling her wrap tighter around her shoulders and leaning against the railing. She closed her eyes, inhaling deep its aroma. “Ma ghilana vhenas,” she whispered like a prayer, and took a long swig.
‘Guide me home’. Her Elven was simple, but its intent was clear. His eyes dropped to his reflection in the rich, red liquid, its scent having taken on the spices she’d added, and warming him even before it met his lips. Sweeter than he preferred, and young in age, but where his people had let depth develop over the span of decades hers had found a way wholly their own, to please the palate.
“It’s just as I remember,” she sighed. “The hearthkeepers used to make it like this. They’d save it for the coldest stretch of winter, when there was little else to fill our bellies.”
He wondered if they’d known where their wayward lethallan found herself when they’d sent it, cold and starved not of food, but of their company. Again she brought it to her lips, closing her eyes on the draw, melting into it. “I cannot say that I’ve drank it as such before,” he said, swirling the cup until its spices reincorporated.
“And? Have the Dalish disappointed you again?”
She may have been teasing him, but there was still a very real bite to her words. “Despite its cloying nature,” he bit back, to a roll of her eyes, “it pairs well with the heat and herbs added. They ease its intensity.”
“They’re not all this sweet. They just know I like this one best.”
Such came as no surprise—the Inquisitor was partial to fresh fruit, and juices. “You said it was your uncle who fermented it?”
“Silthun, yes. It’s one of the most important jobs of the clan, to find clean water, to brew and ferment for when there is none,” she explained. “If you can believe it, the duty might’ve been mine in another life. My grandfather was manaste'lan first, my mother training to take his place. Silthun only took over because no one else knew how, once they were gone.”
It was a difficult image to conjure, knowing her as she was now…but then, how different might she have been, had she been handed an apron and not daggers? Would that passion have carried over, the pride she’d expressed in guiding her clan translated into a different language, one that saw dry throats soothed and laughter on lips? Or would the act have twisted her?
Had she been born for a purpose, an ideal, or molded into that shape? How far was she, from what he’d once been?
“It’s strange to think about, isn’t it?” she eventually said, reading him as easily as she read the stars, or tracks in the snow. “I’ve wanted to be a hunter for as long as I can remember, I can’t imagine being anything else. But I might have, if a single thing had been different.”
“Often the path forks. There is no way of knowing what lies at the end of either side,” he said, as if the very thought hadn’t haunted him for centuries, as if he hadn’t pinpointed the exact moment from whence his greatest regrets stemmed. “Do you believe you would have been happier, in that other world?”
She swirled the dregs of her drink, studying them as if they held the answer. “Maybe,” she considered, “I’d still be home. The Chantry wouldn’t know my name, and the days would go on like they always did. Warm, sweet wine in the winter.” Her eyes strayed from her cup, along the railing and to his wrist. “But I left for a reason. I’d wanted to leave for a long time, to see the world outside my clan. Maybe I could’ve been happier, or maybe that honor would’ve been a chain. Maybe, I never would’ve stepped past the treeline.”
Her hand left her cup to creep closer to his, and she looked up to meet his eyes. Inviting, not imposing. Always waiting for him, to make that move. “Besides, I can’t say that I regret being here,” she continued. “There are people I’d regret never having met, even more.”
Despite his reservations, the guilt at having stolen her affections dishonestly, he didn’t keep her waiting long. He couldn’t, drawn to her nearness like moth to flame, no matter the reality that he might snuff the both of them out in indulging. Her fingers intertwined with his, and as her warmth penetrated deep into his bones he closed his eyes.
“Is there truly any single person, worth that which you have endured?”
The hum she answered with radiated from where they were joined, resonating within the hollow space his sorrow had made inside of him. “I can think of one.”
Her shoulder met his, and he leaned to meet her touch with eyes still closed. She couldn’t possibly know what it was she was saying, but how he ached to let himself believe it.
How he ached, to think that she might forgive him once she did.