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“There is still the matter of the anchor,” she says, as if this has been another war room debriefing being checked off Josephine’s list. If she thinks of it as anything else, if she really sees the crumbling buildings in the distance and the buckles on his uniform, if she thinks about the red trail behind her and the blood lotus at her feet, she might drown in all that has truly happened. It is some irony, as he is finally stripping away all the parts of himself, that she cannot face this as anything but The Inquisitor. “It is getting worse.”
“I know, vhenan. And we are running out of time.”
The anchor surges, crackling and popping like a rift is opening in her palm, like the whole sky might erupt from her veins and scatter her to the far ends of forever, and the pain forces her to the ground. She is so tired but she fights back against it, letting the bright burst of anger at the familiar name take her thoughts away. He uses it so easily, as if two years have not passed where she thought him lost or dead, two years where he let her linger on in frustrated grief. It angers her more, however, that her own heart betrays her, warming to hear it again.
“The Mark will eventually kill you. Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you. At least for now.”
Later will be an era of chaos, of destruction not from darkspawn and demons and men convinced of divinity, but of gods true and terrible as they ever could be. She can see what she must become to fight with every flash of his eyes, with the way her body has always burned under his influence. Despite all the agony and glimpsed horror she craves it, a promise of power beyond imagination. The power to move mountains and sunder skies, and it is somewhere out there for her to find. She has been a general in a war, a symbol for those to look to for guidance, a queen in her own right - she could be so much more.
He should let her die. He should kill her now, here, end it before it even begins. If he is no monster he should set her free before she becomes one herself, but she knows he won’t. It would be kinder in the long run, but neither of them are kind.
“I can’t let you do this.”
“I know.”
It is said with the surrender of things that must be, but there is pride in his gaze too, the same that congratulates her upon unveiling his truths through caverns and atop towers. Pride and hope, strangled by a thousand things he won’t lay to rest that she can’t bear to make herself beg him to let go either. This is who they are, what she’s always known even with the lies, that they are forces unwilling to waiver from paths set no matter the consequences. This is where they are alive, the edges of change. Their wills are iron cutting through this world with ice and fire as they fight the same battles, but now their feet are on opposing sides and there is no greater war than the one reflected within.
“Take my hand.” The feeling is gone from her arm but she watches it rise and settle into his grasp, and it is strange to be touching him and not at the same time, like she is a stranger watching ink spill across the page of someone else’s life. She wants to feel him, a hopeless idea that it might change everything again, but it will likely only destroy her instead.
“I’m sorry,” he says, the most shattered she’s heard him yet, as he moves his arm and blue light devours the green for a moment, and she wonders what is he is sorry for. There is no added pain in the act, just a feeling of something being freed, like the release of shackles. When she is alone in the dark, bandaged and broken and barely held together against so much loss, she understands the sorrow in those few words.
There is nothing left, as the anchor wanes and the eluvian shines, no more secrets to be spilled or declarations to make. They know what lays ahead. All she has truly wanted was the truth of him, to see the mural without any missing pieces, and he is whole with sharp angles and gentle softness, and now she can see the mantle of Fen’Harel beginning to eclipse him. A hard mask to hide behind, to separate, to survive what will come, but no, not a mask at all. Not truly. It is a part of himself kept hidden save for small moments and mistakes glimpsed before. There were real together in those brief flashes where lies couldn't hide other truths. He is neither Solas nor Fen'Harel, like she has been molded into so many things, and she is losing him when he has finally been found.
“Solas.” His name is a plea, a precious thing teetering on the ledge before it falls. If there is flesh left on her marked hand she can’t tell anymore so she reaches for him with the other while he still holds onto the ruin of his creation, and squeezes his armor like she could bend the metal outside and within. It is not the Inquisitor before him now, only of a woman made a memories - the brush of fingers against the small of her back as music swells, low laughter pressing into her neck, and promises carved into her skin that she chose. A woman who will keep these things sacred until she must bury them in a grave of his own making. “Ma vhenan.”
For one moment, let them be real and raw and here. Let this be the thing they cling to when battles become desperate and decisions threaten to douse the last light of their mortality. Let this moment be a small crack that grows and grows and eventually breaks the flood waters free. Let this be the last moment she has him, and the one that will bring him back.
He understands, moved to his knees before her by those words she’s never spoken before, what she has always known but never felt the need to say until there were only shadows to whisper it to. Armor and thousands of years of history can’t separate them anymore as he looks at her like he once did again. She is glad he takes a moment to remove the heavy gauntlets from his hands until he touches her face and she remembers she is a creature of blood and ash and bitterness, but he quells her worries with a sweep of his thumb, a quiet smile of infinite awe. “My love.”
Keela grasps onto the collar of his armor and pulls, and there is only a breath spared as mouths meet before there is nothing between them at all, bodies pressed together desperate to take everything while they can. He kisses her like he did in Haven’s memory, like he was something new with hunger and longing and joy born in her embrace, like a man greedy for treasure and stealing every coin. Her lips move to remind him of the truth she has spoken into them all along - that he is hers, that she is his, that whatever claims are made or ends met, she promised they wouldn’t be met alone.
Their moment does not last long enough, but they are things made from remnants and take what pieces they’ve been given. They may be alive, but this, here with him, is where she has always wanted to live. When he stands she expects to see Fen’Harel in his place, but he is still open and exposed, still there, and she is not sure if being the god would have made it easier to see him walk away once again. In the end it doesn’t matter - he is leaving, and their time is up.
“I will never forget you,” he says, and she knows it is something grand for an immortal to promise, an everlasting vow to carry with him and keep her until even his new world turns to dust, but she will carve her own way through the future and into history as she has always done. She will not let others write her story, nor be remembered as a footnote in Fen’Harel’s forlorn tragedies.
“I won’t let you,” she replies to his back, watches his steps pause for a second of recognition and understanding, before he continues on through the eluvian, and she wonders if he smiled again in appreciation or if he set his face in stone for what lays ahead on the lonely path. She knows, however much this feels like a goodbye, that they will meet again. This is not the end. Not yet.