Work Text:
A painted picture, a backlit canopy
Try to dive, but I'm already sunk / drown in the water, drown ‘til I'm drunk
Shamelessly, knee-deep in your fantasy / to stay up late, collecting battle scars
It′s hard on the body, hard on the heart
—Hard on the Heart, Kingsborough
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Experience did not render one immune to follies of ambition. Gone were the days when Solas could lift his tools with his thoughts alone, and wet a building's worth of plaster with the gentlest touch. But those days were only gone for the time being—he often forgot that, when feeling far too lowly or highly of himself.
He had thought rather highly of himself when laying down the plaster before him. Two heads taller than he, and thrice as wide; curved at the top and bottom, it left room for the sections that would comprise the Breach, and the Temple of Sacred Ashes below. Sketching the alasleala had not taken too long, and colouring the sky had only been a matter of slapping colour down to fit a shape without breaching its outline; objectively, child's play. All that remained were nine beams of magic slitted throughout the sunset, and twenty small, orange triangles.
Which, thanks to the size of the damnable thing, would take hours.
Solas crouched, dabbing a spalter brush back and forth between yellow and white and water and yellow and white and water. The muscles in his thighs protested; still, he’d resolved to not nag the Fade to mix pigments for him. Folly, perhaps, but considerate folly… ‘ambition’ was perhaps not the word for it. He’d only laid as much plaster as he did due to time spent with equals, after all.
Wisps wandered above, skimming the vunin; trace emotions, sharing their illumination with his canvas—and their warmth, with him. They were attentive, for the most part; even when they did roam aimlessly, as he’d welcomed them to do, they never strayed too far. Wisps’ explorative nature came about from a sense of security: a safe environment, pleasant company. Solas.
Solas, even as Fade-deprived as he was. Solas, homesick for the hearth of purpose, who cherished wisps more than anyone else alive; whose soul, left aimless, was typically less a result, and more a prelude. (To a regret, historically speaking.)
When he’d troweled down the plaster, the wisps favoured Faith and Hope, and encouraged him. The vunin's size might not indicate ambition, but… he might've laid the foundation for a rather large regret. In an hour or two, Solas might press his brush to the plaster and find it dry. Unworkable, it would need to be scraped away, the entirety of his efforts, torn down, and attempted another time.
Hope yet lingered, however, and so he let it guide his hand.
Brush tipped with a blend of buttery yellow, Solas traced along a beam's outline; a wisp bobbed atop, chased up and up the wall. He smiled. Whatever will you become, my friend? Do you know where we are going?
As Solas neared the limit of his reach, the wisp sizzled to Curiosity, bouncing away from the wall, up toward—ah.
Her.
Against the gloomy backpaint of the library, draped over the balustrade: the Inquisition’s leader, in fanciful likeness. Smudged together by lampblack and umber; streaked through by lime-white layered with lead-tin yellow, for she—audacious she—had perched a lit candle holder on the rail.
(Why, in a sconce-laden fortress, carry a single candle?) Its scant light draped shadows in the white shawl around her shoulders, beneath which she wore a matching bandeau—
Alabaster, then; the shawl, alabaster, and the rest, not pigment, marble, for she posed above, still as a statue, and were she one, the soft weathered bronze of her skin would be depicted in pale similitude. Quite simply done, seeing the Inquisitor as no more than a graven image, practically automatic. Little wonder Andrastians took to it so quickly.
(Had she come directly from her chambers, it would bring her through the door to his left. Why navigate up to the library by avoiding the rotunda, if not to catch Solas unaware, and address him from above?)
(Fenedhis, why was she in her nightclothes?!)
“Do you usually paint with an audience?” she asked, cheek resting on the back of her hand.
Solas tightened his grip on the paintbrush, and cleared his throat. “The wisps are harmless,” he said. “They only offer their light, and company.” And temptation, to this or that da’len fool enough to chase them into a bog, if Keepers are to be believed, yes.
“Would you mind”—already picking up the candle, trailing her hand along the balustrade, moving, presuming—“the presence of one more?”
“Do as you wish, Inquisitor,” Solas replied. He turned away from her performance of languidity, resumed painting. Completing the vunin before its plaster dried, and protecting the wisps? Feasible. Predicting the script of whatever she intended... less so.
Her voice floated down the stairs. “I was not asking to join you as Inquisitor.”
“Pray tell, then, to who do I speak?” he asked, eyes steeled on the brush’s metal ferrule, gilded by any passing wisps.
A few feet to the left, a delicate clink, then: “a wisp.”
Solas lifted the brush from the wall, and looked over.
Self-proclaimed wisp, having placed her candle on the floor, eased down next to it. Several actual, literal wisps gravitated to the candle's light. Close enough for their purposes to render her spirit kaleidoscopic, confused, yet her eyes remained steady; on him. “Only here to offer light and company,” she said, gently.
Falsely.
Discerning her intentions always took a level of focus. Focus better dedicated to the wall. The plaster. Which bore four hours of moisture, at most, and from which corporeal company ‘offered’ only distractions. Of which, Solas could at least anticipate one.
“Wisps,” he said, gesturing to those by the candle, “are not known for being capable of speech.”
“Then I must be a very strange wisp,” she murmured. She rested her head against the wall; nowhere near the edge of the vunin, to his relief. The dark waves of her hair caught a passing wisps’ shine, like a moonlit ocea—
It was warm light, on hair, black as the tassels on her shawl and the pupils in her eyes; black was a pigment, or a lack, and absurdity need not taint Solas’ interaction with the ‘very strange wisp’ any further. He returned to his work.
“Quite,” he replied, finally. Perhaps she indeed considered the wisps harmless... as she might consider moths. Part of a minute, unintelligent species, mistaking any light for that which orients them, and only incidentally a nuisance. (Compared to which she would be...) “Certainly unlike any I have previously encountered.”
“You will have to teach me how to behave like the others.”
The paintbrush skipped; Solas firmed his grip. “I see.”
He risked a glance. Between her fingers spun the sun in miniature. It slipped free, unresisted, and warmed his cheek as it passed; Purpose.
“It would depend...” he said, crouching to dip his brush once more, “what kind of wisp you are.”
Her fellows moved stars through the abyss of her eyes; a smile eased onto her face. “You have three guesses.”
“How generous,” Solas muttered; considering you do not know what types there are, or how many—
“Not generosity.”
He sighed. “Inquisitor,”
“Not that either...” she murmured, soft-eyed, softly echoing his sigh—before her eyes fell shut.
Solas firmed his mouth. “Hm.”
Each wisp dipped slightly, to keep him within their orbit; her eyelids... shone. Sweat had gathered in the crease of her eyelid; the heat from the candle, or the day’s exertions, damp on her orbital rim...
Visceral thing, closeness. Best avoided. Solas stood up, resting his hands on his hips, and glanced back down at her. For one long inhale, she looked... each word was shooed from his head, until her eyes opened, and she looked—
He looked away. Stared at the sunset he’d smeared into the plaster. Exhaled.
Perhaps the conversation could do some good.
“On my travels,” Solas began, as he often did, “I encountered a wisp that led me to Haven.” Night air, snow-pinched cheeks, its warmth, entrusted to his palm... “It brought me near the temple, and we swam in the poignant memories of those who had worshipped there.”
Her lips parted (audibly; his eyes had thus far remained obedient, and were fixed on the wall) and she inhaled, slowly.
Solas gave her a heartbeat or two, to speak... then he continued, “I initially considered it Faith, or Courage. But it was—”
Honking.
Something honked, near—Solas glanced down.
She’d honked.
Face nestled against the wall, she snored, loudly, and once a few seconds passed, continued to do so longer than mockery required. Quite the achievement, falling asleep in a lit space—mortal forms were built to resist that. Solas frowned, keeping his eyes on the plaster her breath ghosted upon. To fall asleep in a lit space, while he spoke—well, Solas left, meandered into bittersweet memory, whilst his voice spoke, of…
His cheeks warmed.
“Foolishness,” he muttered.
Two wisps seared a path from his temple to his shoulder; flame-gold licks at the edge of his vision, his cynicism. Solas leaned away, and blessedly, found his face cooling. He allowed himself to deflate, hands falling from his hips, shoulders softening, watching the wisps drift toward the unfeeling plaster.
The not-wisp slumped against the wall had a pair of her own. One, by her face, wavered with her breath, while another caressed the top of her hand—the Anchor. The left hand of the woman below him was the Anchor; the silk of her shawl was the secretion of worms, and her vallaslin were slave markings, and despite thinking herself otherwise, she was foolish.
Intelligent, yes, and clever, certainly; craftier than June himself, the brute. Yet all Dalish were foolish. Inherently. From their rabbit hearts to their quick-withering skin, ignorance ran through Dalish veins as water did the venation of a leaf. Having poisoned the soil himself, Solas could scarcely blame them. (Hence never passing up the opportunity when he could.)
Near the Anchor, the orb of light that had been playing across the Inquisitor's knuckles slipped into her palm, and winked out. Truly asleep, then, and... the wisp trusted her, enough to slip across the Veil, and join her dream.
His chest stirred. From... ah! Humiliating—desire. Desire without fervency; the aftertaste of desperation, weak and faint as the rest of him.
He rubbed his neck, a reminder of his solidity, while his other hand dragged over his face. Both palms felt glacial, he knew he’d flushed again, he knew it; milk-thin skin, and meager rationale, could not keep back such longing.
Solas took a few steps back, away from the wisp-dotted wall where she—
Where a body slumped next to his work. The shape his eyes insensately returned to, when they’d beheld it plenty of times! Unconscious; asleep; awake, aggravating him! Bones, liquid, muscle, encased in scarred and speckled skin—moles, beauty spots, freckles, whatever she would call them. (She should call them ‘ralan’, for that was what they were, but she would not know that!)
To a feeble, want-softened mind, buoyed by sheer giddy terror, they looked like flecks of charcoal, not fallen, but pressed, carefully, against...
Pencils.
Pressed with pencils; kohl pencils created such marks, when nature had not, or, in Orlais, small patches of black velvet. Mouche, ‘flies’. Once positioned, renamed, to suit their purpose: la majesteuse, l’galante, l'impudent—indulgent sounds, throaty ones.
Solas swallowed, and reminded his chest to rise and fall.
Orlesians ran libelles about the elven Inquisitor; did they include disparagement of how indecipherable, how nonsensical, how full of irregularity her skin was? Which was no flaw, not at all—not at—more pertinently, nothing of her appearance need be indicative, or admirable, or... Even that which he could not help but loathe: her vallaslin... June’s antlers cradled her cheekbones, as they had on thousands of slaves, but... ink in skin, all told.
The woman before him, for the most part, was meaningless. Brimming with irrelevant intentions; whatever had caused her to come, in a pretense of dishabille, all tousled hair and draped cloth, clavicle—
Solas curled the fingers upon his brow bone, and sank his nails in.
Broke through.
Found blood.
Worsened the situation, for the most part; a raw and wailing something rolled up through his ribs, and hitched his breath—he slipped his hand down his face, made a fist against his quivering mouth, pressed a surging gasp back.
Teeth clamped around the side of his hand, Solas bit down, and anchored himself. Dragged his focus back to the vunin. He wanted to finish; the vunin would dry in a few hours, and he needed to finish that. After a few wet breaths against his fist, he grimaced, and released it. Oh, his focus and his—oh, drifting, right back to her, oh, of course it did.
I am the foolish one. As I have always been.
The possibility he preferred to keep at arm’s length caught him by the throat: he had a heart. It’d been tricked out of him. By her. At some point, she’d undone him. Swindled something out of Solas, after which, his heart fell loose. Millennia of neglect in an unwanted cavity; he should’ve anticipated it; once again, the Dalish was not to blame. How soundly she slept, beneath Fen'Harel’s glare. Chest rising and falling, her own heart secured, beneath... ah.
How soundlessly she slept.
A respite which seemed to have occurred beneath his ogling notice. Solas tore his eyes away.
Perhaps embarrassment over such exposure would follow her waking—or embarrassment over snoring, if she stumbled into a humble nature; once awake, she might laugh, lie, leave, any number of things, regardless, the panic in Solas’ chest subsided, and she was not awake. Beneath those shining eyelids was movement, that of one dreaming deeply. Deep enough for a wisp to guide her unconscious breath evenly through her body.
Perhaps she, too, did not sleep as much as—
Solas grimaced once more, and scrubbed ‘perhaps’ from his mind. He was wandering dangerously close to wondering. Difficult as it was to predict the woman, it was obvious what marks he’d leave upon her, eventually. He’d soil her, eager in indulgence, for he liked to daydream as he painted. Pigment often flew from the brush.
To the ground, went the brush in question; to her side went he, untying his apron as he did. With it in hand, Solas crouched—she did not stir—and draped it over her chest; it sagged, grey and weathered. She did not stir. Nor did she as he adjusted her shawl, tucking what he could beneath adequate cover.
He returned to the vunin, quiet as the wisps bobbing just above his head, casting light down upon the remainder of the sketch. The Inquisitor remained in the half-shadow of periphery, equally quiet, and harmless. While her company could present distraction, he need not be distracted.
Solas bent slowly, picked up his brush, and tapped its tip. Dry.
To dip it once more would break the silence. Display ingratitude to the wisp...
He crooked his finger, and coaxed the Veil, softly pressing, until the Fade eased through, and moistened the pigment beneath his touch. The plaster needed no intervention, and would be wet for a few more hours, at least. The orange triangles, the remaining shaft, then he’d wake the Inquisitor (and walk her to her room?)
(No.)
Solas rolled his shoulders, eyes trailing across the incomplete vunin. He’d harvested enough from the bitter crop of self-assurances. For one evening, at least.
He followed the path his eyes had tracked, making his way from one side of the horizon to the other, bending and crouching as he went, outlining the droplets of Fade scattered down from the Breach. Three wrist-flicks around the triangle, trimming it moon-bright, then tilting his hand for another quick coat.
Flick-flick-flick, angle, flick-flick-flick. On to the next, and so on.
A curious wisp tickled at his neck. He resisted brushing it away—it had not earned his frustration, floating as delicate as dandelion debris; just so, wisps carried the potential for all manner of emotions. Solas hoped it might move to float elsewhere. Flick-flick-flick, angle, flick-flick-flick.
The wisp bobbed out of sight, and Solas moved on to the next, and so on, and his breath soon steadied. Though the defiant ache for her refused to cease, or adopt any rhythm save that of the pain pulsing in his brow. Rebellion coursed through Solas' veins by nature, and just as naturally, his body desired its heart. What mattered was keeping his mind tethered where it belonged. Preventing it from falling to this or that distraction.
Flick-flick-foolishness, angle, angle, flick. Foolishness. Foolishness, to think her alike the Dalish, to compare her to Orlesians… Poisoned the soil indeed; he’d put oil in the watering can. No matter. Nevermind. Flick-flick-flick. ‘Whatever’. On to the next. Flick-flick-crack.
Solas’ grip gentled, and his free hand whipped out to catch the brush’s end before it could clatter to the ground. The rest of it felt light as wood shavings. He opened his hand to find the analogy apt—the brush handle was broken to bits. As if having waited for his attention before announcing itself, pain rushed up to meet his nerves—and was pushed beneath the glow of his glare. The shallow wounds across his palm sealed; each speck of blood fled home.
He blinked. Crouched. Discarded the broken wood on the drop-cloth, by the water jars. From the closest one, he pinched a fresh brush. Two pads of fat around painted wood, trembling. Glaring at his own tremble did nothing. He indulged anyway.
Despite the preferences of himself and the world, respectively, Solas was no spirit nor statue. She had affected him. Worked herself beneath his skin, parts he could not reach or didn’t wish to notice, she, a mortal. Not a wisp, or a weed, a flower, hothouse or outdoorsmen, a bud or a bloom—a thing, yet living. Real. A person?
What did it matter?
He did not know what she was, and so, he could not care for her.
No mark on her skin or stain on her shawl could rival what he’d done. What he would yet do. What could he offer—why? When? Before or after he razed her world to ash, would he offer light and company and for her wilt to be watched closely?
How safe the soul felt, snug by figures of speech. He’d hid behind metaphor for millennia, when whatever Solas was, or had ever been, he was entombed in flesh. For the foreseeable forever.
She does not deserve a fate any worse than the path I have already sown.
Solas stood, and wiped a Fade-touched thumb against his brow to silence the heartbeat there.
Flick-flick-flick, angle, flick-flick-flick, and so on. Painting, crouching, leaning, reaching; the occasional clink of glass, or scuff of his foot. Close-passing wisps were heat and nothing more, any dissident thoughts were lightning arced across his brain; fleeting, rare.
He completed the triangles quicker than expected, fetched the spalter brush, and carried on. Patted along the outline of the final beam, tap after tap after tap at the same angle, all the way up to the Breach, until his mind sharpened into focus, and he found himself... carefree. Definitively; Solas was carefree.
As the hours passed, he painted without a care in the world, a reverie broken only by Inquisitor Lavellan letting out a snore.