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Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--
for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a
sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be defined.
—Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
|
Every single moment of Evie Trevelyan’s time, since her election as Inquisitor, had been devoted to a single vocation:
Reading.
(Evie Trevelyan’s time was not the Inquisitor’s time. Should Inquisitor Trevelyan find time to spare, there laid the overlap.)
For the most part: poetry, novellas, serials, even songs—one being almost four thousand pages long, which somehow remained unfinished, as she’d discovered while three thousand pages in.
Those were Evie’s favourites. That which she read for pleasure. She’d also read The Chant of Light cover-to-dusty-cover, envoy accounts of Orlais and Ferelden from either side, and most tiresome of all, treatises.
Methodical things, treatises. Rather like essays, but spanning entire volumes. An essay could be captivating, certainly, but, as a sheer matter of probability, over their many pages, a treatise was more likely to be terribly uninteresting. Too many courtiers, magistrates—and, admittedly, nobles—possessed the time and assets needed to write as much drivel as they liked, and have it put to print.
Leliana found twelve treatises on the history of the Dales, in all Thedas, and Evie read each and every one. Each and every one capitalised on this or that gemstone metaphor while languishing after the Graves—and languished indeed. For all twelve were written by humans, and for her fellows, it was undoubtedly more pleasant to envision the elves’ legacy bright as a gem. Having been salvaged, and polished, it was meant to be valued, admired, and left untouched.
How sorrowful it would be, if Elvhenan was interred amongst mold and rot. What a waste of ink and paper! What else would one to write of? Surely not techniques for weaving fabric, those which were ‘lost to time’ yet lived on in the head of several Dalish women she’d met. The ancient Elven art of fresco sounded quite beautiful when described as ‘carefully considered, before emerging whole-cloth’, but required, in fact, at least three coats of, then another with a sketch upon it, then another for pigment. Each were left to dry for days, and it was terribly physically exerting; Solas had once sweat so fervently, that he’d taken his tunic and undershirt off.
In front of her.
He had not known Evie was there, of course. She’d been in the library. Reading. But he’d made such a racket, huffing and exhaling and—what friend wouldn’t peer over the balcony after hearing all that, followed by a thump? He could’ve fallen. He could’ve fainted! He could’ve had his turtleneck halfway down his arms, chest shining beneath the wolf jawbone; he could’ve had a toned physique she’d never considered, and he could’ve seen her looking.
Just as likely, he could’ve not seen her looking, but of that, Evie couldn’t be sure; she’d thrown herself back into the armchair, lightning-quick. And not been looking at his face. And, weeks later, remained very capable of continuing to fling herself away from the mental image of him, Solas, shirtless—Solas, half-naked—rather than looking at it directly.
Yet it lingered in the periphery. She felt... perverted, frankly. Shallow.
She’d seen him wrinkle his nose at her Ardent Blossom, and yet, she wanted to make him one to match, all the same. “Because,” she’d reasoned to Cole, “I made you one!” Which she had done. In order to have an excuse to make Solas one, to speak with him, share something with him, show him she could be—Evie threw herself from the mental image of him again.
Sunlight, wan and shy, dappled the shaded tree roots she sat upon. The fields below the stormy horizon were not what she’d call emerald. Greenish, perhaps; they’d fluctuated between blue-green and a pale, washed-out green over the last few hours. Admittedly, ‘The Viscerant Graves’ would’ve left authors decidedly less inspired.
During their last expedition, its fields were spring-green and sunny, but wintry grey skies left the grass... glaucous.
Glaucous Graves, Evelyn thought, tucking another Crystal Grace into the wreath. Cole might say so. Glaucous graves, full of grace... grass, grace... If she could see the world as he did, her poems wouldn’t be relegated to the bottom drawer of her desk...
One of the branches above her head creaked. “I wouldn’t say that,” Cole said. His voice came through the leaves as shyly as the sunlight. “People who’d want to understand wouldn’t.”
Evelyn picked up another flower from the pile they’d gathered together. The ones bees wouldn’t need, apparently; ideally Solas would not mind a half-wilted crown. “People wouldn’t understand the word glaucous?”
“No. They wouldn’t, because glaucous is gone. Almost.”
“I once had a governess who harboured a particular fondness for the word. Deployed it when Mother appeared unwell. 'Oh, Miriam, your countenance is positively glaucous.’” At the memory, she smiled, one of the wry sort Solas so enjoyed—then frowned, both at such a thought and at her hand. Pollen dusted her fingertips, which were reddened by the cold... as if she’d been daubing rouge on her face, ready to smile at this or that guest in the foyer.
“Thinking you shouldn’t be pretty, here and now, but here, you are.”
“Oh. Oh, my, Cole...” Evie smiled as widely as she could without it becoming entirely facetious. “I didn’t know spirits found people pretty! But, well, thank you, most sincerely—”
His eyes widened. “No, not me. But other people would say it. They did and would and do and will. And won’t and will.”
“Of course,” she said, useless.
Cole, at her side in a blink, picked up an acacia. “Decisions are difficult.”
“They are,” Evie agreed, and extended her hand. “Aren’t we lucky, to have you here, helping?”
“No,” he said. Before she could arch a brow (she’d been practicing!), the flower was in her palm, and he in the branches.
The acacia joined several others in the coronet; pale blooms alongside paler-yet Crystal Grace, with elfroot tucked throughout ivy... Evie raised it up to where Cole was teetering. “How does it look?”
“Dead things don’t see.”
“Ah! Rightio.” Evie bit her lip, and tried again: “speaking purely as to aesthetic... sentiment, how would you describe this, Cole?”
“Sad. Very sad—”
“Oh, grand.”
“—still pretty, to some people.”
“Well, phew,” she replied. “And I apologise for being sarcastic. That was rude of me.”
He was already gone; Evie knew herself to be forgiven, thanks to the warmth spreading in her chest. Spirits as confessors would put a pretty penny in the Chantry collection plates. Alas, prejudice. So it went.
|
A dozen or so feet from the bough—where she’d spent the last half hour almost not thinking about Solas—amongst collapsed stone pillars, crouched Solas. He’d held the position far longer than she’d expected an mage’s thighs could handle, and she stopped thinking about that!
Once near, Evie could make out engravings on the pillars, ridged with moss. Solas’ back remained to her as she approached; he held a folio splayed between his index and pinky fingers, and was sketching into it with a piddling scrap of charcoal. As soon as she believed herself to be in earshot—
“How goes foraging, Evelyn?” His shoulder twitched as if about to turn—Evie quickly hid the coronet behind her back.
“It goes,” she chirped, and leaned to the side to better peer at his sketch. A... shepherd’s hook? Jagged around one edge... soon to be jagged all around, as he continued to sketch. His pointer finger and thumb, stained and dusted by the charcoal, were pinched tight; as she watched, their grip tightened slightly.
Evie pulled her shoulders back. No excuse for slouching. “And you, Solas? What are you doing?”
Solas lifted the charcoal from the paper. His head turned slightly, but still, he did not face her. “I am doing exactly what you think I am.”
“Recording the markings on the pillars?”
He nodded, before pressing the nub of charcoal back along the symbol’s curve, and continuing. The urge to pop her head over her shoulder to silently demonstrate the sincerity of her curiosity, like an overeager prairie dog, was... ultimately, ignored, regardless of its intensity. Sudden proximity would likely see the man stiffen, then collapse to join the rubble at their feet. Evie could see the markings perfectly well, just as she was.
“I’ve been studying the Elven alphabet,” she said, taking a few steps closer, “and... am I right to say it looks like the letter E?”
“No.” Solas snapped the folio shut. He stood, and turned to face her, tucking the folio somewhere within his jerkin; placed in a magical pocket dimension... or a pocket. “It is more a shepherd’s hook than a letter, due to the missing serif, and suggests...” His eyes dropped to the right-hand side of Evie’s waist—
—so she inched the crown in the other direction.
“... an imitation,” Solas continued, “and you, Inquisitor, are hiding something.”
“Am I? And—”
“Yes.” His mouth twitched.
“—who would do a thing like that? To the pillars, I mean.”
Solas’ eyes returned to hers. “I suspect the pillars were vandalised.”
“By?”
“Those typically inclined to vandalism,” he said. Oh yes, boo, humans! “Vandals.”
“Ah.”
“Ah.” He inclined his head, pulled a linen from the possibly-magical-pocket within his jerkin, and began to twist it around his dirtied thumb.
Foregoing an opportunity to expound was... a rarity. Perhaps he wasn’t in the mood to receive flowers. Perhaps she was silly, and odd; perhaps he’d seen her looking.
Maker, the man did not hold eye contact so much as grip it, firmly. Evie’s face was growing warm. Before she could drum up another question to fill the air, or facilitate a surreptitious exit, he spoke again.
“Inquisitor, I believe you intend to show me something. Am I mistaken?”
Lightheaded, Evie found a smile pinching at her cheeks. “What if you were?”
“Hmm.” Solas checked his thumb, then pressed his pointer finger into the linen, rubbing into it. Evie glanced at the gesture; five seconds, at most. “If mistaken, then I am happy to drop the subject.”
“That seems unlike you.” Did it? Was she teasing? Oh, no, was she flirting?
Whatever she was doing, Solas smiled regardless. “I do not typically drop the subject when I am wrong, no. To do so would be to flee an opportunity to learn something.”
“Quite right!” she said, and would be happy to flee to Seheron. Nothing to be done for it, if she ran off, he’d see the crown all the same, and so she drew it out from behind her back.
Solas’ eyes flicked from it, to the one upon her head.
“It’s for you,” Evie said, holding it a little higher. “To match, as we didn’t want you to be left out”—as she spoke, taut confusion shot back and forth across his face, needle-quick tugs along his brow and mouth—“but you don’t need to wear it,” she added hastily. “Just know that we made it. For you.” As she’d already said. He would think her either idiotic, or rude, or—well, his lips parted, so—that didn’t mean a thing, only that she was... staring.
Solas nodded slowly, continuing to twist the cloth around his finger, and murmured, “when you refer to “we”, Evelyn, you are speaking of yourself and Cole?”
“Yes. He helped me with… sourcing flowers the bees wouldn’t need.” How silly that would’ve sounded to her, a few months ago.
Pinching the corner of the blackened cloth, he flicked it; in a bright blue flash, it was clean. He tucked it into the waistband of his—unimportant, for with his hands sufficiently cleaned, he offered both, palms-up. Lacking any staff callouses, his palms were plump and... Maker, Evie, plump palms? Soft as Solas’ hands were—appeared!—Evie’s deserved a ruler-rap; she quickly covered his hands with the crown, before folding her own, tightly laced behind her back. She smiled.
“Ma melava halani,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “ Which is, you ha—”
“De da’rahn .”
Surprise shot across his face again. What settled, however, was a typical Solas smile—small, pinched. “De da’rahn.”
Evie nodded. “As I said. De da’rahn—it’s the accent, I suppose. Mucked it up.”
“Ah. Of course. I… must admit, I have never heard Elven spoken by a Marcher, beyond… pleasantries.” Solas bowed his head further, to examine the coronet more closely, turning it about with his inexplicably manicured fingers. (Which Evie inexplicably kept looking at.)
Far less inexplicably, he made no move to place it upon his head; were he to do so, he’d err too close to what he surely loathed—what Tevinter mocked, and the Dalish celebrated: whimsy. Elven frolic, considered folly from the perspective of many... and perhaps him.
It may have nothing to do with his race. Evie kept her smile firm as her mind wavered at every thought. I am assuming, as I am disappointed, unfairly. It simply would’ve been a sight to see. Most sights were.
Solas’ hands for instance. The finest fingers she’d ever seen on a man, with knuckles pinkened in the chill, neat nails, and fingertips which were perfectly clean, and... reddening. As Evie watched, he slipped one hand out from under the flowers, and pinched his thumb and index finger together, to scratch at his skin.
Mortifyingly dry in the mouth, she pressed her tongue to wet the roof of it, and swallowed. “Oh, no. Oh, it’s all poison ivy, isn’t it?”
Solas’ free hand returned to the flowers, one red-tipped finger tracing a petal’s silky, rippled edge. “No,” he said, with a smile in his voice, “these are white acacias. Were the ivy poisonous, your hands would be red, as well.”
Evie flicked her eyes up, catching his—and the smile she’d anticipated was more a smirk; the scoundrel! “And itching. As yours must be!”
“Mm. A little.”
“I wouldn’t have given you a flower crown if I’d known you were allergic! Here, I’ll—” Evie threw a hand out, and beckoned. “It was a foolish idea.”
“ No. No.” Solas let out a laugh, and took a step back. “This is for me, is it not? I believe your Maker considers theft a sin.”
“Very well, then—you’re leading us to camp, then.”
“Is that the Maker’s will? Or unrelated?”
“The Maker would judge me, if I let you walk downwind while I wore this.” She tapped the Ardent Blossom. “You must’ve had pollen in your nose for hours, walking behind me!”
Some clever joke flashed through Solas’ mind, she could see it, it flew across the fog of his eyes, some little quip. “The sniffles were no bother. This is a thoughtful gift. I quite appreciate your choice of flowers.”
“You’ve sentiment for bees, too?”
“When given the occasion, in fact, yes. But...” Solas trailed off, lips parting slightly. He dipped his head. “I like the colours,” he lied, and brought one hand up to fiddle with his wolf jawbone; a nervous tic, perhaps. The colours were negligible. White did not count, and green—green was inevitable, and so he had to be lying. Kind of him to throw her a bone, or... hold the bone he had to pick, close to his chest, or some matter of metaphor Evie was too embarrassed to continue considering.
Instead, she continued the charade, daring to poke his jerkin, lightly. The green wool felt as prickly as... well, wool.
Maker, she was flustered.
“It matches,” she said, voice a tad too bright.
“It matches he agreed, and unless Evie’s peripheral vision was as useless as her brain, one finger crooked around the bone’s curve, tracing back and forth. “Thank you again, Evelyn.”
“And you’re welcome. Again.”
Solas took a step forward, and all of her became utterly useless; her jaw slackened slightly, and he seemed to waver. He dipped his head. “Was there anything else?”
Oh, that was lower, wasn’t it, slightly? Concern? For all he could argue like a dissident, the man was infinitely polite, to her; no doubt he assumed her feverish, cheeks aflame, breath shallow.
“No!” Evie squeaked. “So. Back we go!”
“If you’d like.”
“I carry it in my pack,” she offered. Politesse on politesse; if you’d like, ‘forget’ to ask for it back.
“Forgive me if I gave you the wrong impression, Inquisitor... I intend to keep this...” Solas raised the coronet, and fluttered his fingers over each flower; magic, fine and glinting, like dust motes in sunlight, shimmered and settled onto each petals. “... exactly as it is.”
He held it up, not unlike a tambourine, and with a flattened hand, smacked it. Each flower remained perfectly intact, even when shaken further. He smiled at her, or at the spell’s efficacy. Evie scarcely minded either way, and smiled back, cheeks aching from how much she had done so, in so little time.
|
The rainclouds in the distance cleared away eventually, and so they walked deeper into the fields, heading back to camp. Evelyn stared at Solas’ back, a few feet ahead. To her credit, she stared at the pack, primarily. The tankard affixed to it. When she dared, the flower crown, swaying at his waist, perfectly half-wilted. As they walked, he twiddled his fingers over it, as if it were the keys of a piano. Village apostates lacked occasion to play piano, but the tune he settled on for most of the journey would not be disharmonious.
I shall not offer to teach him piano. Evie was a resolute woman. She was the Inquisitor Trevelyan—
“Hands.” Blast. Compassion so often left her embarrassed; perhaps that was why so many didn’t encourage it. Cole leaned closer to her, then further, swaying side to side as they walked. “Is it wrong to say more?”
Ahead, Solas had a wistful look on his face, gazing out at a ruin in the middle distance.
“A little, Cole,” Evelyn said, attempting to poke the words out into the air, by way of nudging her mouth to the side. It came out too low, too scolding. She steered Cole to a bushel of elfroot. There, they crouched, simply fetching elfroot, as she’d done before. Far too many times for a woman of her station, really, did Solas mind that she was—no. Not relevant.
“Perhaps continue quietly,” Evie said, “and only to me. For it is... private, you understand.”
Cole nodded. “Yes,” he whispered back, and continued whispering as she plucked the leaves. “Strange, soft. Considered and careful.”
Her fingers pinched around stem after stem, plucking them out, cheeks heating again. If Cole could sense her favouring Solas’ hands—oh, no, the fresco, ah, situation—
“He weaves too, different, woven different... no, the same—no, Cole.”
“It’s alright, really. I’m sorry if my... subconscious? Is being difficult?”
“You're just so...” Cole frowned, and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s perfectly alright—”
“—what were we talking about?”
“Before?” Evie flipped open her satchel, and began to tuck the elfroot within. “Goodness... nugs, I believe? When we were over that hill.”
“I like their whiskers.” Cole’s smile dimpled his cheeks. “All of them,” he added, solemn.
“Oh, yes,” she said, mind scrabbling as fast as her hands had. “ Even the scraggly ones. I… like honeyeaters. Little birds.”
Cole’s response was a nod, and a small trill. At the sound, Solas glanced back, gaze soft and grey as the clouds ahead. Evie threw a smile his way; it was not returned.