Chapter Text
The Fade prison was dull and grey. An endless expanse of broken dreams and crumbling life in the form of dilapidated ruins and neglected statues abused by time. The only form of color was contained to a singular person, the golden armor he wore tarnished by the shifting shadows. He stood with violet eyes closed to the empty despair around him. A meditative trance to better draw the energy of the Fade around and into his magically depleted body.
The scent of trees and dirt, fresh fruit and sunshine, slowly enveloped him. He sighed, opening his eyes to direct his attention across the symbolic canyon that he created to separate himself from the mind he forcibly occupied. He widened the gap slightly; distance giving the illusion of safety during these… ‘meetings’.
He briefly spared a thought to what his unwilling ally would subject him to today. This “Rook”. His first impression of her was curiosity quickly followed by dismissal. An Elvhen Mage, born in the Anderfels, who made a name for herself by fixing up old buildings and mechanisms using a mix of magic and engineering. Recruited by Varric after staging a city-wide revolt over the unlawful imprisonment of beggars.
The woman was an unrelenting thorn in his side, using an odd mix of humor, charity, and cunning to ingratiate herself to street urchins and beggars. They were everywhere, able to track his movements and Agents better than any specific faction or city guard. Even after disrupting his ritual and being mentally connected to his current prison, she still took every opportunity to remind him of his shortcomings in small jests and pointed remarks.
He found no end of frustration over his inability to dislike her. Even as she picked apart his plans, she still took the time to applaud his cunning and foresight in certain circumstances. What he would see as a failure, she would point out as an opportunity for improvement. What he was certain would save his people, she would mock as a short term solution involving no personal work.
“You aren't a God, you refuse to lead openly, you disbanded your entire operation shortly before your ritual so you wouldn't have to answer to anyone before disappearing. You literally spent ten years saving people from Alienages and slavery, but it's somehow not enough, because life is different under the Veil?”
“The Veil is a wound-”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘A wound I inflicted upon the world, woe is me and my kin, etcetera etcetera.’ You had an entire Inquisition of Mages and Scholars, openly dedicated to protecting all of Thedas, and you still went rogue. You want to tear it all down and fuck everyone over Right Now, instead of using the eternity you have at your disposal to find a better way while also using your Wisdom and Knowledge to better the lives of the Elvhen People over the time you have a plethora of.”
He’d forced her awake, his rage and pain echoing through the prison and obliterating every rock and ruin near him. At their next meeting, she hadn't mentioned the sudden lack of anything on his side of the canyon, and he was ashamed of his lack of control. She knew what had happened, a soft and silent understanding that had passed between them before she updated him on their newest companion from Nevarra.
His teeth still ached from how hard he grit them when she apologized, her meeting with Inquisitor Lavellan revealing answers he'd never intended her to gain.
“I'm sorry… I didn't know- Varric never said-... I get it; why you think you need to take the Veil down right now.”
The pain in her eyes had stopped his response cold. He was familiar with pity, had used it as a tool against others. He had been unprepared for Understanding.
“She still loves you. Still calls you Vhenan. Passed the Inquisition onto Seeker Pentaghast and the Chantry so she would have more time for you, to save you from yourself.”
That meeting had ended just as shortly as the ones where they argued, Solas casting her from the Fade prison with enough force to crack her side of the canyon down the center. She was unharmed, but that exchange had somehow endeared the woman to him. She now met him quip for quip, no longer holding back on asking asinine and unimportant questions about history and magic.
She jeered and nettled and pressed until he gave her the answers she sought or cast her from sleep. Her comments and pointed remarks were decidedly more warm and fond than before, worded so as not to hurt him but to poke at his ego. Solas was forced to stop himself from enquiring as to her relation to a similarly irritating archer. He was grateful for his prison then, it contained no bedroll for this woman to taint with various reptiles.
His attention snapped to her as she formed in the Fade, empty space one moment and a fully realized person the next. He could feel her anxiety stirring the air around her as her eyes opened and looked at him in panic. He braced himself for what might have occurred, endless scenarios flirting through his mind; each more terrible and agonizing than the last.
“You're old as fuck, right!? Like, older than the human occupation of Thedas?”
He paused. Breathed deeply for a moment.
“What.”
“I need advice from an older man, and you're currently stuck in my head so I'm using you as a resource.”
“What.”
“Solas, come on! Please? You're a gifted Mage, familiar with Sprits, you excel both academically and physically-”
“Flattery.” His voice was flat and tired, a hand rising to rub at the tension headache he could feel forming.
“Fact. Also things you have in common with a handsome Nevarran that has a notable age gap with myself.”
“You… are here for relationship advice!?” His voice broke slightly, disbelief clear on his face as he blinked at her.
“He's in his early fifties, while I am in my early thirties. You are several thousands of years old, and Lavellan was in her thirties when you fell in love. I'm trying here, but Emmrich is extremely anxious about the age gap and is pushing me away to ‘find happiness with someone who could be with me longer’.”
Solas gave in, sinking to the ground with a groan as his hands scrubbed over his face. He briefly considered that this was a nightmare conjured by the Fade, a Demon that snuck into the prison to torment him, or just a side effect of his own magic leashing him. Maybe this was a hallucination, a final scream from his sanity as he succumbed to isolation and failure.
“Now, I know she didn't know about the age difference and that you were basically robbing the cradle. But! If she did know. How would she have to convince you to disregard it? What argument is sound enough in your mind that you wouldn't care about the difference in age?”
He lamented his lack of power, faced with the realization that he was still too weak from the last time he forced her from Dreaming to do it again. She continued speaking, delving deeper into her troubles with her lover as he fought a silent battle against himself to not dash his own skull upon the unforgiving rock he was crouched upon.
“Rook.” He interrupted, voice a mix of pleading and unwilling submission. “I do not have those answers for you. My relationship with Inquisition Lavellan was both brief and unintentional. I fell in love and spared no thoughts to our future because there could not be one. Either she perished in the aftermath of my ritual or our relationship became unsalvageable despite the eons we would have before us as she reclaimed immortality.”
“You don't know-”
“My advice” he interrupted once more, not wanting to hear her attempts to placate his withered heart. “Is to remind Professor Volkarin that you are a capable adult with a fully developed personality of your own. You are no Spirit or Wisp he has bound to follow command. You have a wealth of experience and history of your own, and he should not let the opinions of others taint the decades you could spend together in happiness.”
She squinted at him, mouth pursed in irritation as she thought his advice over. The tension in the air dissipated as she slumped slightly, sighing and nodding her head.
“It's just… difficult to make a calm argument for why I want him when I know he wants me back and is refusing to do anything about it. We kissed once and now he's distant and treating me with kid gloves like I'm an unruly student instead of a partner.”
Solas grimaced, his own actions with his heart coming back to haunt him in the oddest circumstances. He was speaking before he fully thought it through.
“He is struggling with things he doesn't think you'll fully understand. Fears he's dealt with alone for so long that the idea of sharing them is akin to burying you in the burden.” A soft smile curved his lips at a memory; Lavellan came up with all manner of excuses to spend time with him after their kiss in the Fade. Never pressing, never pushing, just consistent. Reliable. Someone he would always be able to lean on, if he could ever bring himself to do so.
“Give him time, patience. Give him the gift of your presence, without the pressure of eyes around you. He will learn to trust with time and consistency.”
She stared into him from her side of the Fade, face unreadable as she absorbed his words.
“Alright. Thank you, Solas. Do you want to know about my meeting with the Threads?”
He nodded, grateful for the reprieve while his body was cracked open, Spirit-self peeking through at the memory of happier times, of when he was just Solas. The mask of Fen'Harel had grown heavy from disuse, the act of fusing it to his flesh once more almost enough to break him.
His memories were all he had. He held no illusions of forgiveness for what he'd done, even before Varric-
No. No. Varric was alive. Injured but breathing as long as he stayed here. As long as the illusion stayed unbroken. As long as Rook didn't know; he could still see his friend.
He could lie to himself better than anyone else that this wasn't the beginning of the end.
He could still pretend he didn't destroy everyone that got too close.