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One of the many perks of the Fade was that finding something - a location, an item, a loose concept - was as simple as willing it. As long as one had an idea of what it was they wanted, the humming strands of magic that made up their world would stretch and pull themselves into tune with it. It came most naturally to Solas, of course, but it had been long enough that all four of them strummed the Fade into shape quite proficiently. The etiquette of doing so came less easily, even years on. It was unpleasant to be suddenly drenched by a thunderstorm because the Fade found Athena’s suggestion of rain more exciting than Solas’s sunny afternoon. She tried not to make a habit of wishing anything too abruptly or seeking out what didn’t want to be found.
It was that that put her on the path. Once she’d stormed away from Felassan in something of a huff, a wending trail of soft moss had formed beneath her paws in a direction she very much had not meant to go. Any Circle-trained mage would have turned tail. Any proper Dalish would have followed them. Athena, once-First of Clan Sabrae, once-advisor to the Inquisitor, steward of the Veil, turned aside from her huffy retreat and padded over the moss. If her irritation had set her on this way, something at the end would soothe her.
Athena found Solas in his latest napping spot. To be more precise, his third favorite of the latest five.
As much as they’d agreed not to drastically alter the structure of the local Fade, its natural fluctuations would frequently (conveniently) make new hollows and clearings just large enough for an immense black wolf to stretch out in. Being that she favored the wolf-shape as well, it was just as convenient for Athena. In the latest iteration of their ever-shifting home, she had come to prefer the perfectly shaded alcove beneath the tallest oak in their little forest. Solas’ had thus far been a rocky nook overlooking the stream beside their cottage. He liked to watch over their home.
On this occasion, he had opted for something cozier. The mossy trail led her careful paws into such a secluded thicket that it reminded her of a geode. A basin of emerald green ringed in by tall trees and shady ferns, cupped in the Fade like a handful of cool water. In this case, it was a handful of love.
Athena slipped between the slender trunks of birches and up into the coil of black fur easily. At its center, exactly as she had expected, she found the pale skin of another sleeping lover. Niamh stirred for the briefest moment as Athena’s cold nose nudged their side, but lapsed back into snoozing mere seconds later. Never did they sleep as soundly as in the embrace of the Bringer of Nightmares. Athena could rather relate.
Still, she was not given the chance to join Niamh in slumber. With a shifting of his enormous form, Solas pressed his huge muzzle into the crook of Athena’s neck and shoulder. She growled quietly, feeling his answering rumble up through her pawpads.
Solas’ fur rippled, lifted, and released him. Athena had seen him explode into the form of the wolf on several occasions, but his transformation took a more languid form in these peaceful days. The black pelt sublimated back into raw magic. Soft as an exhale, they sunk as one to the warmed grass of the hollow clearing - once cradled in the bend of a massive haunch, Niamh snuggled now into Solas’s belly where he lounged against a mossy root. Athena wasn’t able to change before a pale arm ringed her neck and pulled her close.
“One would think that wolves could not stomp,” Solas murmured, amusement clear in his half-lidded eyes. Athena kicked out at him with a dinner-plate paw. “Have mercy, vhenan. Such ire must not have been lightly invoked.”
As he adjusted his hold, the thick ruff of fur around her throat let Athena slip free. Flowing across to Niamh’s other side - the blonde only snuffled and nuzzled deeper into Solas’s sweater - she shed the thick coat of wolf-shape and narrowed her deep green eyes at him. To any passing spirits, it would have been a vision of hedonistic languor. Where Solas had formed back into his customary uniform of earth toned knits and comfort, Athena was entirely bare. She had been nude before escaping on four paws. Happily, Niamh was as well, leaving the former Sabrae First to spoon chest-to-back against her sleeping love. The ex-Inquisitor wrinkled their little pink nose, wiggled once, and settled into an even cozier nap than before. Pressing her own face into mussed blonde locks, Athena breathed out slow. She didn’t much care that she’d disturbed Solas’s nap (not feeling especially generous to the Elvhen at present) but would have hated to disrupt Niamh’s.
If Solas was disturbed, he didn’t show it. Truly, he seemed to appreciate the new view, reaching easily down and resting a long-fingered hand on the upper swell of Athena’s rear. When she narrowed her eyes at him, he only smiled softly. Patiently, but clearly expectant. She huffed.
“Your General,” she started quietly, “is a pest.”
His hum neither agreed nor disagreed. “What has he done?”
Even having known that he would ask, Athena found herself struggling to phrase the offense. A part of her still wondered if she’d been childish.
Though enchanted sunlight shone through the leaves above, where she’d just been with Felassan, the moon had been rising over the lake before them. Athena remembered looking up to see the first stars peeking through the emerald-tinted dusk of the Fade. Felassan, taking to the water like a shark, had reflected those dim glimmers in shades of violet. His eyes were velvet when they watched her. As he’d opened his mouth to speak, Athena had caught his lips with her own, knocking back his merry laugh.
They’d spent so many years together. When that moment found them, floating beneath endless swirling sky that still struggled to pretend at nighttime, liquid magic lapping up her back, Felassan was the only familiarity. There would have been no sweeter thing than-
Athena ground her teeth. “I asked him if he would like to get married.”
With raised eyebrows, Solas replied, “...And he reacted in a way you did not appreciate?”
She couldn’t immediately think of an answer that didn’t feel childish.
Instead, she buried her face deeper into Niamh’s hair, closing her eyes. If Niamh had still had their left hand, she would have taken it. Even before finding Solas out, when they had simply been in the Inquisition together, it had been something of a ritual for them to clasp hands where their respective ironwood rings sat. Niamh had never held with the idea that it kept the Dread Wolf away - and was proven right, ultimately - but it had been a comfort to Athena. Feeling the Anchor’s flickering deadened by the talisman gave her a sense of grounded security. Even after Niamh’s ring had been destroyed with their arm, Athena would link hands with the clumsy prosthetic and clink her remaining ring against their crystal fingers. They were warm all the same.
Niamh stirred slightly, but a light kiss to the back of their freckled neck settled them back down. Peering over their bedhead, Athena gave Solas a sincerely baleful look.
“He did not take me seriously.”
Solas’s eyebrows climbed higher. If he’d had a hairline, they’d have been perilously near it. “Felassan can be… irreverent,” he said slowly. “It seems strange that he be so in response to such a dear offer.”
“And yet.” Athena huffed.
It wasn’t that he’d laughed. He hadn’t. Almost worse, he had started proposing additions to her. Of course, many of the Dalish practices would no longer make sense - appealing to long-dead Creators or swearing before a leader she did not have - but the ones he suggested in their place were patently absurd. ‘Ancient Elvhen tradition’ her fluffy ass.
She let out a growl. Solas frowned sympathetically.
“I apologize.”
“Stop,” she immediately huffed. “It isn’t your fault that he’s ridiculous.”
“What did he say, precisely?”
Shifting slightly to avoid further disturbing Niamh’s rest, Athena started to list Felassan’s offenses. “He proposed that we start the ceremony by driving thorns into one another’s heels and holding hands around a bouquet of prickleweed. Failing that, he said we should ‘follow the custom’ of wearing one another’s hoods backwards and running down the tallest hill we could find. When I told him he was being an idiot, he instead offered to forge a weapon and let me attempt to kill him.” He’d had the nerve to look hopeful. Truly, by then, she’d been tempted. “I just wish-”
A shudder interrupted her. At first, she thought Niamh might be waking, but the former Inquisitor was still snoozing peacefully. Looking over their head, Athena caught the tail end of Solas’s hastily-stifled chuckle. She wasn’t much of a Dalish First, but her glare was clearly venomous enough to cow the Dread Wolf.
Coughing delicately, Solas asked, “Were those all of his suggestions?”
Athena couldn’t be fully sure of that. When he’d started on the virtues of staves versus maces, she’d broken away and scaled the bank of the lake to get away. If Felassan had shouted after her, the furious and mortified rush of blood in her ears had blocked him out. More sulky than snappy, she answered, “They were all I needed to hear.”
He seemed to pause in thought. Over the course of years, Solas had grown far more slow to speak. Athena remembered his quick wit during the Inquisition, pointed rebuttals and charm falling from his lips with far too much ease for a wandering apostate. It was just as much an armor as a weapon. In the days before the Veil, words were his sole advantage against the god-kings of Elvhenan. Here, in the Fade itself, intent was as much a language as the common speech. With no more enemies to undercut, Solas had no need to resort to the edge of his tongue. It had done far too much to those at his side already.
Particularly now, when Felassan’s own careless wit had stung her heart dearly, Athena found herself appreciating his new tact more than ever.
“Would you believe,” Solas started cautiously. “He was taking it seriously?”
Lifting her chin bullishly - and propping it on Niamh’s head - Athena frowned at him. He took a further moment of thought before trying to clarify, stalling by trailing his fingertips up her bare back. As his fingers combed into her hair, he continued, “The Elvhen did not call it marriage. That was an invention of the Chantry. When one could live to see centuries, it would have been strange to bind oneself to a single companion.”
Athena found herself tensing up as she often had when discussing Elvhen tradition with Solas. It could so easily lead into his thoughts on the Dalish. Even all these years later, it was a sore point between them.
Many Dalish married. Why else would she have asked? Far from the shemlen pledges of ownership and political union, it was a pledge of trust. Athena had always found the traditions beautiful. As First of Sabrae, part of her duties had been overseeing weddings and keeping to what they had then known as the ‘old ways’. Binding their hands together, lighting a joined candlewick, swearing before the Creators… Having Felassan start tossing out ridiculous ideas, throwing her proposal in her face with a handful of disdain for her people alongside, had been a crushing blow. If Solas meant to defend him by disparaging the Dalish, she would scoop up Niamh and storm off, Elvhen be damned.
He must have noticed her souring scowl. Kneading his clever fingers - Void take his artist’s hands - into the base of her skull, Solas soothed, “There were many traditions, invented and adapted, intended for the binding of beings. I have seen as many rituals as there were types of bonds. Among those…” Trailing off for a moment, he paused, looking up into the leafy canopy. From the lift of his cheeks, it was a sweeter reverie than Athena often saw from him. “...I had my favorites. Some couples would drift to the bottom of a frozen-over lake in one another's arms - those who observed would layer ice over the surface, keeping them submerged until the ceremony concluded.”
It did sound in-line with the nonsense Felassan had brought up, if not quite as grim. Pending the conclusion. Athena pinched Solas, reminding him to continue stroking her hair. “Why?”
Solas’s smile was oddly sheepish. It was so strange to see, in her persistent huff, that she didn’t immediately recognize it. “The bonded couple would stay at the bottom, intertwined, keeping one another warm even in the coldest desolation,” he murmured, lowering his gaze to meet Athena’s again. “It would sometimes take them hours to emerge, if they were practiced mages. For others, it would be mere minutes, but no less moving.”
Athena wrinkled her nose. His soft, dreamy tone felt entirely unwarranted. Falling into a frozen lake would have been a death sentence at many points in her life.
“They never got sick? Or drowned?”
His bizarre, almost-timid expression deepened. The ghost of a blush darkened the tips of his ears. “The Elvhen worried little about such things. We existed as part of the world, not apart from it.”
As a shade of melancholy crossed his face, Athena ducked back down to bury her face in Niamh’s hair again. Of course. All elves were once mages, before Solas raised the Veil.
That didn’t feel like the source of his odd shyness. She had seen Solas embarrassed over many of his memories - it was most often flavored with self-reproach, near-universally earned. This was different. The blush peeped over his high, pale cheeks, casting his freckles in pink. Though it was almost twilit in their shaded clearing, his pupils bloomed wide, distant in thought. Though serene, his expression was one of… longing.
“...romantic,” Athena mumbled.
“It was,” Solas whispered. She’d guessed it right. “I do not mean to minimize your feelings, but that was the shape that many of these ceremonies took. Braving harm at the side of a beloved - I was honored to witness many such rituals.”
The sour feeling in Athena’s chest was beginning to ease, but it did not go quietly. For one thing, she didn’t particularly want it to. Surely, Felassan would have known modern Dalish tradition better than that. Perhaps their weddings did not take on the powerfully magic connotations of the Elvhen equivalents, but at least they were pleasant. Trying not to pout, she grumbled, “Including the prickleweed?”
Solas huffed a quiet laugh. “A gesture of trust. Putting pressure on the stalks, holding them firmly between the couple’s hands, removed the worst of the sting. If one partner let go, both would suffer the pain. In some cases, the onlookers would attack, forcing the pair to fight without releasing one another.”
“And the blind running?”
“Ah - rather less sentimental. Venturing into the unknown at one another’s sides. Still invoking the central theme of trust.”
“With thorns in the heels?”
“Symbolic of no pain being great enough to tear one from their beloved’s path.”
“And the weapon-forging?”
This time, Solas averted his eyes, a wry twist to his little smile. “That… You must remember that Felassan was embodied in the prime of Elvhenan. Those settlements that lived alongside dwarves would, at times, be influenced by their culture.” He closed his eyes and dropped his chin, kissing Niamh on the forehead. Against their skin, he murmured, “We have spoken before of the dwarven influence on June and his works. The rite of forging a weapon for one’s beloved and offering yourself as its first victim originated in his house.”
They certainly had spoken of it. They had spoken of the true Evanuris at great lengths. Athena closed her own eyes, remembering Niamh’s tears and her own dull disgust as they learned, more and more, of the rot at the heart of all Dalish lore. The two-legged prey of Andruil’s hunts. Dirthamen’s ‘library’ of Elvhen husks. The experiments of Ghilan’nain on the flesh of her new subjects. June’s pilfering of dwarven strongholds was not so gruesome, but was certainly unnerving to learn. They truly had been little better than Tevinter.
When she looked up again, Solas’s sheepishness had returned. An ironic tone flavored his words. “Venturing through the Fade, I was able to see the original form of the rite. A suitor would forge a weapon and present it as an invitation for vengeance if they should wrong their intended. The intent was not preserved as it passed among the Elvhen, as so many other things.”
A shadow passed over his face that didn’t suit his still-blushing cheeks. Athena distracted him with a pinch.
Tangling one of her legs with his, bare skin brushing soft leggings, she prompted, “You mentioned many traditions. That was only four.”
His brow unfurrowed and his expression turned fond once more. Tugging gently at the roots of her hair - just how he may pet her wolf form - Solas murmured, “Not many were so elaborate. Particularly in the early days of the Empire, when most were still learning what it meant to be embodied, rituals were short and simple.”
Athena settled against Niamh and listened to Solas’s soft voice spinning ancient tales. She wondered if she would ever grow tired of hearing his memories. Having now known him for years, she could track the changes that their long love story had inspired in his retellings. There was a bitterness that had leached out of his tone over time, easing as the guilt grew further from his heart. To say nothing of no longer leaning on ‘things he had seen in the Fade’, he now rarely shied away from those events that he had been an active participant in. Evasion had become second nature to him in long eons of haunting the shadows. Having been brought forward into the light, his wounds could be drained at last. His was no longer the only trusted voice.
The ache in her chest sweetened when he came to the days of the rebellion. The exodus of those enslaved, fleeing the houses of the Evanuris, had returned rituals of bonding to their simpler days. There was no jewelry to be exchanged or elaborate weavings of spellcraft to be had when those newly barefaced elves disappeared into the Dread Wolf’s shadow. A twinge of guilt found Athena upon realizing that Felassan’s proposed rituals had been those adapted for those days of hardship.
Solas’s rebellion had had more in common with Dalish existence than he would ever admit to. She felt rather vindicated in hearing of ancient candle-lighting and hand-fasting ceremonies in those displaced elves, so supposedly different from their descendants.
Still, the absurdity of High Elvhenan could strike at the strangest times.
“They would eat its heart?”
Grimacing, Solas cast his gaze skyward again. “The use of ‘rabbit’ as a disparaging nickname for elves had not yet emerged. There was no greater subtext than the sharing of a hunt, usually between those who had previously been held under Andruil-”
Athena’s laughter shook all three of them. Honestly, she thought fondly, how dare Solas imply that the exchange of wooden pendants was silly when compared with the rituals of the ancient days?
Her stifled mirth made Niamh stir, wiggling themself awake and blinking dazedly. As soon as they felt Athena’s weight at their back, the former Inquisitor let out a contented hum and squirmed closer. “S’goin’ on?”
She was quite sure that Solas’s adoration was mirrored on her own face. Nuzzling through messy blonde locks to kiss Niamh’s delicate ear, Athena snickered, “Solas was telling me about Elvhenan’s marriage rituals. They’re ridiculous.”
Though disapproval crossed his face immediately, it was disarmed by Niamh’s little coo of delight. “Is’omeone getting married? You and me?” they mumbled, fighting to turn over and tangle up with Athena. For a moment, it was all bare skin and sweet pink lips. Niamh’s legs pushed between her own, their right arm winding up and around her waist. The left stump clumsily petted at her side. Such a wave of affection crashed through Athena that she almost understood the urge to scoop up Niamh and cannon into a frozen lake, sharing breath and warmth and gazing at one another between the bubbles.
Perhaps she would let Felassan make his case.
Neglected, Solas reached down to trail his fingertips up Niamh’s side, making them squirm. “Had I known the significance of these things to you both, I would have…” he murmured, that sheepish look returning. Athena was always struck by what a romantic he was. Artists had to be, she supposed. “Please trust that it holds the same significance to Felassan.”
Niamh reared sideways and snapped at Solas’s fingers, leaving Athena unable to hide in their hair. An edge of guilt stung her heart.
Thinking back, hadn’t Felassan’s face lit up like the stars at his back when she’d proposed it? Hadn’t he fallen over his words when outlining the - to her - absurd wedding customs? How young may he have been when he had known those odd rites as the height of promised love? How many had he seen as Fen’Harel’s General, ragged wretches flinging themselves into cobbled rituals of trust and bonding?
Still. She may have to dissuade him from the idea of blindly racing down a hill in one another’s hoods. Given the nature of the Fade, they may wind up anywhere.
While Niamh started to sleepily wrestle with a compliant Solas, Athena slithered back and straightened up, shaking her hair out. The ends were still wet from her wading at Felassan’s side. When she looked back, the mossy trail that had led her to Solas’s alcove was still present, ready to lead her back to the lake. Hopefully, Felassan would still be waiting there.
Turning back, she saw that Niamh had been bundled up in Solas’s arms and was blinking up at her sleepily. A bright grin crossed their face, crinkling the cheeks that were now and forever free of vallaslin. Over their head, Solas’s smile was clear in his eyes.
He had said that there were as many bonding rituals as there were kinds of love. Some of those rituals had been carved out over millennia. With all the reaches of time ahead of them, as stewards of the Veil, what new ones might they invent? What rites had been preserved in the deep places of the Fade, forgotten even by Fen’Harel?
She hoped there would be dozens.
Athena leaned down and met Niamh’s lips in a kiss, pulling back when they tried to nip at her bottom lip. Solas was given the same, accepting it with a contented exhale. Leaving them to their cosy hollow, she retreated back to the tangled forest just as black fur rippled over Solas’s frame again. The last she heard from her other two lovers was Niamh’s delighted squeak as they found themself tangled up with the Dread Wolf again.
She would be making her way back to the lake on two legs. The mouth of a wolf was not suitable for holding prickleweed - if she could even coax the Fade into making it - and she had a bouquet to gather.