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To Solas, it felt as though it had been an eternity since Vherana had left their tower, nestled in the crook of the outskirts of the Black City.
It probably felt even longer to their poor Bellanaris, with the high fever typical of young children that Solas had come to loathe so deeply.
Though Solas’ magic could somewhat soothe her temperature, fighting the actual infection required herbs they could not grow, herbs their supplies from their many trades with spirits bordering the city walls had run dry of.
The pair’s lack of preparedness in estimating just how easily a curious nine-year-old could fall ill (a fact Solas was still mentally cursing himself over) had required Vherana to travel outside of the barriers of the city, to familiar spirits that would procure the herbs she needed.
Their regrets were both uniquely marred by the shadowed realm they had made a tentative home of, but it was only she that the prison let move outside of its walls.
As she traveled, Solas remained diligently in their child’s bedroom, perched against the headboard of her bed while she rested in his lap.
The curtains were drawn and windows locked, all covered with wards impenetrable to sound, as they always were to keep shadowed whispers away from Bella.
Solas and Vherana both took minimal care in securing their own bedroom against such disturbances, but for their daughter, no detail was spared.
The room was heavy with cool water he had evaporated with magic to bring into the air, washing away the faint tang of fading healing magic, remnants of his earlier effort to bring her temperature down to a place that no longer made Solas’ heart clench with lasting fear.
Adjusting the warm, damp cloth on Bella's forehead, his long fingers brushed stray curls from her flushed cheeks.
“Papae, I can’t go back to sleep…” she complained, her voice scratchy from the toll the infection causing her fever had taken on her throat.
She squirmed in his lap to cuddle closer to him, sniffling and wiping her running nose as a new wave of mucus appeared beneath her nostrils.
Solas quickly reached for a handkerchief on the bedside table and brought it to her nose, the bright redness a stark contrast to her skin.
"Not so hard this time," he reminded her in a soft murmur. “It is not a race. We don’t want your nose to start burning again, do we?”
Bella gave a tiny, sheepish nod, the end of her red-raw nose a testament to how roughly she had tried blowing the first few times.
Outside, the perpetual monochrome of the realm lightened suddenly, a distant sparks of blue light reaching the skyline beyond the shielded window.
It was the signal; Vherana's signal to her vhenan, a magical flare that they both used when without the other, to tell that they are coming home.
Though Bella could not see from where she lay tucked in her papae’s lap, Solas’ eyes could recognize his vhenan’s magic from worlds away.
His shoulders eased at the sight, tired violet eyes melting with a degree of relief as he was freed from the anxieties that always gnawed at him when they were apart.
"Your mamae is on her way home," he turned to look down at Bella, stroking her sweaty temple with the palm of his free hand as he dropped the used handkerchief into the laundry bin beside her bed.
“H-how long—chk!—until she’s back?” A half-sneeze nearly interrupted Bella.
“I don’t know, da’lath. You still cannot get any rest?”
“No…”
Solas’ eyes softened. "How shall we pass the time? Hm… would you like it if I tell you a story? Perhaps another about the halla?”
His fingertips brushed her hairline, a whisper of cooling magic peppering into her skin like droplets of springwater.
The offer of another story about her favorite animal, one she heard so much about from her parents and seen in her papae’s paintings but had yet to see for herself, immediately distracted her from her discomfort.
She shifted to lay more comfortably in her lap, letting her heavy head lay on his thigh as though a pillow.
“Will you? P-please?”
Solas' chest rumbled with a quiet chuckle as he settled more snuggly against the headboard.
“Why wouldn’t I? You know better than anyone I’ll take any excuse to tell you a story.”
Bella made a sound that was a cross between a giggle and a pitiful cough as Solas hummed softly, conjuring a tale in his mind that would be whimsical enough to capture her imagination, but not unbelievable enough that, being the perceptive girl she was, would easily poke holes into.
"Long before the Veil hardened the world into its current shape," he began, his voice taking on the cadence of a man who had done this countless times before, "a great herd of lunar halla roamed freely in a realm of magic, much like our Fade.”
“Their silver hooves left trails of stardust in the grass, and they drank from moonlit pools..."
His fingers twitched as his hand lifted, conjuring a tiny magical illusion above Bella's head - a crystalline deer bending its neck to sip from waters that rippled with impossible constellations.
"But you must understand, Bellanaris," he continued, smoothing a sweaty curl behind Bella's ear, "that these were no ordinary halla.”
Bella gave a soft gasp. “Were they—were they more magical?”
“Not quite. Well… in some ways, perhaps. They were certainly more spirit than animal.”
“You see, when their queen—their halla queen—chose her elven rider, once every century, they nourished a bond deeper than any other."
"Their hearts would beat in tandem, their thoughts flowed like twin streams, merging into one river."
Bella's once fever-hazy violet eyes were now alight with wonder as she watched the magical illustrations drawn above her head in her papae's lap.
"Did—did all of the halla follow the queen when she chose a rider?" Talking caused more mucus to pool at her nostrils, and she blew obediently as Solas brought another handkerchief to her pink-tipped nose.
He smiled faintly at the question, his fingers idly weaving more magic above her. The illusion shifted, the lone halla queen now surrounded by a spectral herd.
"Not all," he explained, "but those who did became the rider’s evune’amelan—her moon guardians.”
“Where she stepped upon the back of the halla queen, they stepped. When she leaped, they lept without hesitation, their hooves carving paths her enemies dared not tread."
"To them, she was no simple rider," he continued, his thumb moving up and tracing the curve of her ear.
"She was as to the halla queen as the queen was to her herd—when she fell ill, the queen would cradle her against her side, and the herd would surround her, their breath like winter’s first frost—purifying, soothing."
“I… I wanna meet the halla queen…!” Bella suddenly gasped, one arm reaching to stroke the formless illusory figures of the halla as though petting them.
“Is she and her herd still here—w-with the other spirits?” Bella asked almost pleadingly, sniffling as her tired violet eyes lifted to look up at her papae’s face hopefully.
“I wanna meet her—I-I wanna become a rider, too!”
Solas’ expression turned very tender as he gazed down at her. As all whimsical tales told to children went, now it fell to him to concoct a reason why she couldn’t.
And as always, he would attempt to turn it into a lesson.
"The halla queen walks paths not just anyone can tread, da'vhenan," he explained.
His thumb traced the apple of Bella's cheek.
"To find her, one must first learn to listen."
Outside, the barren city’s whispers suddenly clawed at the bedroom wards, a reminder of why Bella learning to listen when they lived in a place such as this was so important.
Solas' jaw tightened imperceptibly as he summoned a new illusion with a wave in front of her eyes—the halla queen standing in the clearing of a silver forest, her antlers crowned with stardust.
"When your magic settles," he continued gently, "and your dreams no longer tussle you like leaves, I will teach you her old songs, so that she may find you."
His palm cradled her cheek, cool against her flushed skin. "But tonight, little light, you must be your own halla queen—strong enough to let her herd rest."
Bella yawned as his palm left her cheek and reached up to her forehead, feeling her temperature and giving a soft exhale of satisfaction at how the heat had noticeably lessened since his story began.
“I wanna be like a halla… I’ll try…”
She turned onto her side in her papae's lap, letting her head nuzzle into the crook of his bent knee as he tucked her fur blanket snugger around her shoulders.
Solas' fingers lingered against Bella's forehead, shifting slightly to accommodate her nuzzling, his free hand smoothing the fur blanket over her small frame until only the crown of her curls remained visible.
He wondered if she would remember what he had promised her, that years from now, once her magic was in her control, and once her nightmares had subsided; he would show her how to find the halla queen.
If she did, he predicted his shapeshift form would one day be changing.