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Herah swept aside the dead foliage and the crumbling rocks that had fallen from the ruin.
The end of ill-fated lovers, separate tombs far from one another, kept apart physically in death when they’d meant to elope and seek love, a new life from the old one that had kept them in a tight grip. Herah wondered what that meant for the world that crushed young love so easily in its fist, unheeding of the innocuous, blameless existence that it was born from. She didn’t want to consider it - didn’t want to consider that it would likely translate over much the same in present day. And she put Solas from her mind in that moment; she didn’t want to ponder the likeness of her own relationship with Solas. How many people had expressed something like wonder and disgust at them?
As if their union - solely subsisting off their feelings for each other and nothing else - was such an offense that it could be considered an abomination. Granted, it was mostly because she was a qunari and he was an elf whereas the young lovers had been a human and an elf, but in those times, it was just as scandalous, perhaps moreso, than she and Solas.
She frowned, clutched the twisted bouquet of daisies already wilting from the heat of her palm, and laid them across the foot of the sarcophagus. She traced the words with a careful fingertip, and bowed her head to the floor. “I’m sorry.” She whispered. “I hope you found her.”
A familiar hand rested on her shoulder, squeezed tightly and she looked up to see Solas gazing at her tenderly, eyes wet from tears unshed. “Come, vhe’nan. Let the dead rest.” He murmured, words almost lost in the thickness of his voice. He had been uneasy throughout their time in this place, even moreso than the rest of the Emerald Graves made him. The final pieces of the story of Elandrin and Adalene worsened it.
“It shouldn’t have happened like that for them. All they did was love each other.” And the tight ache in her heart doubled, looking up at his face and seeing her grief for two lovers long gone mirrored. She wondered if his reasons for feeling the way he did about this were the same as hers.
“A misunderstanding…” he let his eyes fall briefly to the tomb. “That became so much more. They were not the only victims in this.” He cleared his throat. "It would have been better, perhaps had it not occurred."
Herah placed her hand over his. “Don't say that. From the way it sounds, things may have ended up that way anyway. And we can still mourn them, mourn what they could have had. Even if there was more to the story - to history, we can see their story for what it was.” Her thumb swiped over his knuckles. “And neither of them was to blame for what happened.”
They were so young, Herah realized, young and in love, and uncaring of who the other was or where they came from. And it was squashed, a chance to show the world that such differences made little impact was squandered with the death of a young woman and the one who refused to leave her side even at her time of death.
Her grief was surprisingly sharp, something in the tale of Elandrin and Adalene echoed in her and touched something that responded with a shocking amount of emotion. Solas fell silent and after a moment crouched down beside her. He leaned against her and she leaned against him, like two trees seeking support in a storm. His forehead pressed to her cheekbone and when he inhaled, it was shaky and nearly without control. Herah closed her eyes and let him soak in his lamentation.
A time passed. Cole and Cassandra had left them to their devices early on and so they were alone in the resting place of a young man left without his lover. Further out in the open, a thrush called out.
Solas spoke against her skin, finally. “I...would like to believe he found her.”
Herah cupped his face and turned so she could look in his eyes. He was crying, she realized, feeling moisture beneath her fingers and smelling salt on his skin. It pained her to see him like this, even if she wasn't certain what the cause was, if it was the reason she paid her respects to Elandrin's tomb; the acknowledgement that people didn't truly accept or understand the forms love took.
“Even if it isn’t the same place, I hope we can still find each other.” She said aloud and froze when she realized she spoke aloud.
He kissed her abruptly, mouth working against hers, deepening it with a sound halfway between a keen and a sob and Herah, feeling the transfer of his desperation, and wanting to help soothe whatever he was feeling, responded gently.
He pulled back, hands at her shoulders suddenly and he stared at her. Her scalp prickled at the way he looked at her, as if she was something - someone - to be mourned. “Solas…?” she asked, and with both hands, cupped his face and wiped away the remnants of the tears he’d shed.
He didn’t speak, didn’t move, just stared. She swallowed. “Solas?” she tried again, louder.
He blinked as if coming out of a trance and pressed his mouth to hers briefly, lips more yielding and inquiring, softly, as if she would vanish if he pressed any harder. He pressed his mouth, not quite kissing, to her cheeks, the lids of her eyes, her arched brows and ended at the center of her forehead. She tensed, didn’t trust herself to speak and allowed him to work through whatever he was thinking on his own.
“Please, let us leave this place. Let us leave.” He croaked. He stood slowly, drawing her up with him, eyes on the daisies she’d left, and on her. He took her hands from his face. “You smell of daisies.”
Herah opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out when he threaded their hands and he led her from the knight’s tomb, veilfire torch sputtering in the darkness.