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Ellana held her breath as she peeked around the corner, waiting until the grey tweed jacket was out of sight before she quickly followed in its wake. A smile broke across her face before she could stop it — she'd been tailing her subject for ages now and he was still none the wiser.
She adjusted the awkward weight on her shoulder. It wasn't ideal that she'd had to borrow an old backpack she found shoved in the corner of Solas' closet, but she thought it would be riskier to go without.
Ellana had done as much as she could on short notice to blend in. Her hair was pulled into a slicked-back ponytail — or as slick as she could manage. Her curls would not abide the restriction for long, but she only needed an hour. If she didn't touch them too much, or sweat at all, or if the humidity in the building didn't betray her, then they might just hold.
The sleeves of her oversized sweatshirt were long enough to cover her knuckles. Some instinct told her the less of her skin that was exposed, the more likely she was to remain hidden. They hid her ring as well, which she'd stupidly refused to take off.
The final piece of her disguise was also borrowed — a pair of Solas' reading glasses that were too big for her face and constantly slipped down her nose. Ellana shoved them back into place again, blinking owlishly as her eyes fought to adjust to the lenses she didn't need.
It was an imperfect attempt at camouflage, yes. But it shouldn't need to stand up to close scrutiny. The hallways were packed in the late morning with students making their way to classes that would begin in just a few minutes. She would find a seat at the back of the lecture hall. Then she'd sink down in her chair, avoid making eye contact with him for an hour, and disappear again once he'd finished. He would never need to know.
She took a breath, rounded another corner, and stopped short just before she could slam into Solas' back.
A small group of students had surrounded him in a little semicircle. They were smiling and bright-eyed, obviously trying to impress with their questions and jokes. It was adorable, Ellana thought, before she saw the twist in his neck that meant Solas was about to turn around.
She hurried down the hallway, belatedly realizing that maybe she should try to change her walk, too. He was probably used to her taking short, quick steps. So she'd take longer ones. Amble. But amble quickly. She could still hear his voice behind her and if she didn't make it to the lecture hall before him, he would certainly recognize her when she walked past his desk.
It was possible she hadn't entirely thought this through.
Ellana climbed the steps toward the upper tier of the hall and found a patch of students loitering between two rows. One of the boys was sufficiently tall enough to hide behind, and so she slid into a seat in the row past him.
She ducked her head low as she felt eyes on her — realizing too late that it might come off as nosy or awkward to sit so close to an established group. She'd forgotten how cliquish undergraduate courses could be, how rigidly defined their unofficial seating assignments were. She'd also, somehow, forgotten that she didn't need to conceal her identity only from Solas, but from everyone else in the room, too. It hadn't been that long since her face (or an annoyingly similar one) had been broadcast constantly across Orlais and the rest of Thedas.
For a moment, Ellana wondered which would be more humiliating — to be discovered by Solas or by his students. And then that thought made the butterflies in her stomach turn to something more like deepstalkers so she had to forcibly put it aside before she could lose her nerve completely and run out of the building.
Her decision had been an impulsive one, made just after breakfast.
As they were eating, Solas had balanced his glasses on the tip of his nose (the ones that were now sliding down the tip of hers) and reviewed one of the syllabi he kept stacked on the dining table. Then, he'd pulled a book from one of his many neat piles and stowed it in his satchel.
A copy of her book, Ellana had thought as she fought desperately not to stare.
He hadn't acknowledged that it would be familiar to both of them, nor that it had obviously been read more than once, with its cracked spine and pages stuffed with multicolored tabs.
She somehow made it through the rest of breakfast without saying a word to him about it. And then he'd pulled on his tweet jacket, slung his satchel across his chest, and kissed the top of her head before he carried his bicycle out the front door.
As soon as he was gone, Ellana locked the deadbolt behind him and flew back to the table. Parchment was sitting on top of it by then, as she always did the moment he left the house. Ellana had long since abandoned the idea that it was a secret they shared — the cat had made it perfectly clear she was not an authority figure.
But Parchment had positioned herself precisely in the middle of Solas' things in a way that made Ellana suspect she was guarding them. She'd eyed the cat cautiously. The standoff had lasted only a minute or so before Parchment lost interest. Apparently, Ellana wasn't even consequential enough to intimidate. She'd snatched the History of the Elves in Southern Thedas syllabus off the table before Parchment could change her mind.
Ellana hadn't really needed the confirmation but she wanted it anyway. And she found it easily enough — the title of her book, her own name, on a document Solas had presumably typed himself and then handed out to an entire class of students. Several years' worth of classes, actually. He'd been teaching it for some time before they met.
She had been shocked to find he covered it for three full sessions in a row. Starting today. This morning.
"Don't even fucking think about it," she'd said to herself exactly five minutes before she left the house in her makeshift disguise.
Solas strolled into the lecture hall then, offering the class his small, serious-but-approachable smile that Ellana had grown accustomed to seeing when he was on campus. Conversation died down instantly upon his arrival, and Ellana would not, could not, allow herself to think how incredibly hot it was that her fiancé was able to command such a presence.
Don't be stupid. They're maybe nineteen years old, she reminded herself. It's not that impressive. Besides … He snorts when he laughs. He drools in his sleep. He wears that ugly hat I bought him unironically.
It helped a little. Until Solas pulled her book out of his bag, perched on the desk at the front of the room and greeted the class in Orlesian. They greeted him back in a collective murmur. It was very sweet and Ellana wanted to claw her eyes out.
She panicked for a second, wondering if her plan was even worse than she'd previously thought. She would only understand one word in a dozen if he conducted the entire class in Orlesian. But then, Solas launched into a brief review of her bibliography in Common and Ellana slid farther down her chair — relieved, but also much more embarrassed than she'd anticipated.
"Remember when he tried to say her name last semester?" the tall boy in front of her asked one of his friends, who snickered in reply.
Ellana would kill to know exactly what that meant, both for informational and confrontational reasons (who the fuck did this kid think he was, anyway?), but the room fell hauntingly silent before she had a chance.
Solas had stopped speaking and was staring directly at her.
I've had a good run, Ellana thought. Made a lot of friends. Wrote a few things I'm proud of. Found the love of my life. Nearly made it to the wedding. Time to die.
Then she realized she was an idiot. Solas wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the kid in front of her, the one who'd spoken. Obviously.
Solas held the uncomfortable silence a moment longer before he resumed his discussion of her career and Ellana remembered how to breathe.
"Asshole," the tall boy whispered.
He is. Ellana bit back a grin.
Once she was over (or, not over but at least slightly acclimated to) the shock of being in Solas' classroom, she started to enjoy the experience. He really was such a good speaker, so easy to listen to. And she would absolutely never tell him, Ellana thought as she grabbed the pen and notepad she'd stowed in his backpack and jotted the date on the top sheet of paper.
She started writing in shorthand first, before realizing it was an ideal opportunity to practice Solas' version. It had taken her months, but she was reasonably confident she'd finally memorized his funny combinations of triangles and curlicues. In an effort to practice, she'd taken to leaving him notes around the house or stuck to his books, even adding items to their grocery list, all in his strange system of not-quite-shorthand.
Ellana followed along happily to the sound of his voice. She'd forgotten how much she liked this part of being in a classroom — letting a skilled lecturer's words flow through her head and onto the page, comprehension dawning alongside the writing.
… Except she already comprehended everything he was saying. This was not new information to her. It was her information, Ellana thought as her scribbles began to scratch menacingly across the pad. She was taking notes on her own writing.
Thankfully, Ellana didn't have a chance to dwell before Solas instructed the class to turn to a particular page to review a section in more detail. She was confronted by the sudden sight of more copies of her book than she'd ever seen in the same room being flipped open all at once.
This presented a new problem. There was a black and white photo of her on the back cover of each copy. If anyone had missed her stupid press tour or otherwise needed a refresher on what she looked like, the image was in their hands.
Ellana hunched over her notepad, wishing her hair was down so she could use it to hide her face.
At least she had the appropriate prop. Shoved beneath her desk at home was a small cardboard box containing a dozen copies of the first edition of her book. The thought of handing these out to anyone was completely mortifying, so they'd sat collecting dust in her apartment in Ostwick until she moved them to Lydes along with the rest of her things. Today, she'd finally found a use for one of them.
Her publisher wanted her to come to Denerim sometime soon to put her signature on a 'few hundred' copies of the new edition. It sounded like the most pretentious and exhausting thing she could imagine. But it would be an easy way to make a bit of extra money, and planning a wedding was even more expensive than she'd feared.
When she'd told Solas she wanted 'soon' not 'big,' she had underestimated just how much he thought he could accomplish in a few short months. She shouldn't have been surprised — she knew him well enough by now. But Ellana couldn't have foreseen that he would decide to make a substantial portion of the decorations himself, nor that he would eventually move this production into his office at the museum to ensure it would remain a surprise for her.
She was absolutely dying to steal his little set of lock-picking tools, break in, and see what he'd been working on. So far she'd managed to suppress that urge, but it was impossible to say how much longer she could last.
Solas' voice — specifically the questioning lilt in his tone — dragged her back to the present. The hall fell silent again, and Ellana watched as several of his students suddenly angled their heads downward to avoid making eye contact with him, just as she had a few minutes before.
"I promise the task is not so daunting as it may first seem," Solas said with a gentleness that made Ellana want to melt into her chair. "Ms. Lavellan has provided us with everything we need -"
She hadn't been 'Ms. Lavellan' to him since Boranehnan, and hearing him say it now made her blush furiously.
"- to calculate the date of the next Arlathvhen."
Next summer, Ellana thought. Shit. She would probably have to speak. Assuming Deshanna and Velanna would let her. Assuming they hadn't kicked her out of the clan by then.
Don't be ridiculous.
Maybe she could spend her time with Merrill and the rest of Sabrae if things were still awkward with Lavellan. Would Solas want to go? Monumentally stupid question — of course he would. But they hadn't really returned to the matter of whether he would join Lavellan after they were married, and Ellana had been all too happy to delay broaching the topic with Deshanna.
"We'll make the calculation together," Solas offered with a patience Ellana would not possess were she in his shoes. "Which constellation's position must we know before we can proceed?"
Ellana squirmed in her seat, bearing the heavy burden of a perennially eager-to-please student who knew the answer to a question but absolutely could not give it. Just in case her body was in the mood to betray her, she shoved both hands beneath her thighs to resist the temptation to raise them high in the air.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, someone in the front row raised theirs instead.
"Natia?"
"Fenrir," Ellana's savior answered. "The Wolf."
"And why does Fenrir's position matter?"
"The Arlathvhen can't begin while the Dread Wolf is watching."
"Precisely," Solas nodded, and Ellana appreciated that he had the good sense to look slightly unnerved by the idea.
"Fenrir, for the Dalish, represents Fen'Harel. Thus, their most important gathering may not convene until his constellation has fallen below the horizon. This happens in the summer months, although the Arlathvhen is not held every year. The frequency is somewhat more common and standard now than it once was, however …"
Ellana finally managed to relax a bit then, as the class eased into the discussion and more students started to participate. It was bizarre to hear a hall filled with mostly Orlesian humans discussing things like vallaslin and planting trees for the dead and the role of a Keeper. But she managed to look past all of this until Solas briefly covered the topic of Dalish marriages.
He began with hearth cakes, then explained that Dalish wedding garments were typically white because they had historically been woven from halla's wool, and finished with a recitation of the traditional vows asking for Sylaise's blessing.
Solas wrote the Elvish words on the chalkboard behind him so he could review the translation with his class, and Ellana watched, mouth agape, as he wiped away a bit of chalk dust onto his trousers.
Why did I do this to myself? she wondered. It was among the stupidest things she'd done on an ever-growing list of stupid things.
Ellana survived the hour, despite Solas' best efforts.
He spent the final portion of the class reviewing the supplementary material he'd assigned — Gisharel's stories, and the suggestion of Fen'Harel as a rebel rather than a traitor. This was more interesting (and less embarrassing) than when he discussed her own writing, though Ellana would have loved to watch him debate the point with a room full of Dalish kids.
Or maybe she just wanted to debate him. For old time's sake.
By the end of the class she'd learned what she set out to: namely, that Solas was a dutiful custodian of her work. Intellectual integrity was the only reason for her excursion. That she'd gotten to see him in his element, teaching a real class, absolutely had not factored into her decision.
Ellana thought the hardest part of her stunt would be sneaking out of the lecture hall unobserved, but she blended into the crowd easily as it descended the stairs. Solas' attention was diverted by a young man who scurried to his desk the moment class ended.
She spilled out into the hallway with everyone else, breathing a sigh of relief as she turned toward the double doors that would take her back outside where she could once again fade into the throngs of students wandering the campus.
Then, Ellana froze.
Cole was blocking her way.
He was easy to spot with his pale hair and lanky frame. A few of the students surrounding her waved, then headed straight toward him. For a moment, Ellana feared she would be swept along with the crowd. Cole would certainly recognize her, which would reveal her presence to the class and probably Solas, too.
She spun on her heel, sped down the hall in the opposite direction, and immediately plowed into someone.
"Shit! Sorry!" Ellana said as she dropped to a crouch to help the dwarven girl stand up.
"It's alright. I — oh!"
A few papers, a notepad, and a book — Ellana's book — had fallen out of the girl's hands. Her eyes went wide as she looked up. There was an all too familiar spark of recognition that made Ellana's breath catch.
"You're … are you Ellana Lavellan?"
Ellana took the girl by the elbow and hauled her to her feet with a little more force than was strictly necessary.
"I am," she said, because it would have been stupid to try to deny it when her face was staring back at her from the book's cover.
"I … wow." The girl put both hands over her mouth in surprise, which left Ellana to gather up her things. They were directly in front of the open door to the lecture hall, and she had no desire to linger.
"Wh-what are you … I mean, sorry, this is so crazy! I'm reading your book right now!"
"I'm flattered," Ellana said as she shoved the girl's things back into her arms, more eager than ever to free herself. She recognized the girl's voice now — she was the student who sat at the front of Solas' class and had answered several of his questions. Ellana suspected she was probably smart enough to realize her presence here couldn't be mere coincidence.
"It's really interesting. I liked the section on -
"I'm sorry," Ellana interrupted. "I'm late for a meeting." She tried to offer the girl her widest smile, but it had been a few months since she'd last put Josephine's training to use. She had a feeling it might have come across as more of a grimace.
"Oh." The girl nodded sheepishly. "Sure. Sorry to bother you."
Ellana felt horribly guilty at the girl's obvious disappointment, but she could hear Solas' voice coming closer. She strode briskly away from the lecture hall with no idea where she was headed — she'd been on Lydes' campus and in a few of its buildings several times now, but mostly to go to the library or Solas' office. Her mental map was far from comprehensive, and she wasn't sure where this particular corridor led.
After a few tense minutes of wandering, looping back the way she'd come, and being convinced she would run into Solas at every turn, Ellana finally found a side door and bolted out into the sun.
She ripped the glasses off her face and shoved them into her pocket. They had started to give her a headache, and she took in a deep breath of autumn air to steady herself.
An unmistakable chuckle sounded from somewhere nearby, entirely too close for comfort.
She found him quickly enough, speaking to Cole and Marcellette, the History Department's secretary. Both were almost as likely to recognize her as Solas.
But Ellana couldn't look away.
Sometimes she found it difficult to reconcile the different sides of him — both the ones she'd seen herself and the ones she knew were hiding somewhere beneath the surface. Here, in the midst of students and professional peers, Solas was a stiffer version of himself. Still personable (in his way), and not nearly as prim as he'd first been with her in the Arbor Wilds, but lacking the playfulness he allowed himself at home.
Ellana was enchanted by the contrast — by the parts of himself that Solas apparently reserved only for her. Which was why she was caught off-guard when he suddenly glanced in her direction.
She turned away as fast as she could. They were far enough apart that there was still a chance he hadn't recognized her, and Ellana did not risk looking back to check before she hurried for the edge of the campus.
Once she was safely on the city streets and had made the first turn that would take her back toward their house, Ellana paused for a moment to catch her breath.
The absurdity of what she'd done practically smacked her in the face, alleviated only by the relief that, somehow, she'd gotten away with it.
Ellana laughed at herself — stupidly, and too loudly, and in the middle of the pavement where she scared an old man who was walking his dog. She apologized (both to the man and to the dog, who'd also flinched), and decided her celebrations would have to wait until she was home.
She was fussing with the annoying tie in her hair, her curls demanding to be freed, when she heard the telltale click of a bicycle chain behind her.
There were plenty of bikes in Lydes. Solas was far from the only person who preferred that method of transportation. And yet something about the sound, the timing …
Ellana darted through an archway between two buildings and scurried into the alleyway beyond. She found a shadow that she thought would obscure her from the road, and waited for the cyclist to pass.
A grey jacket and a bald head sped by.
"Fuck," she whispered.
Ellana took off down the alley at a sprint, grateful that her disguise included her running shoes.
Solas swung a leg over the crossbar of his bicycle, balancing his weight on one pedal as he coasted to a stop. His front tire sunk into the hedge outside the kitchen window, far enough to hold the bike upright, and Solas left it there as he dug his keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door.
Parchment was fast asleep on the dining table and Ellana was nowhere to be found.
He was assessing a few other oddities — the slightly ajar closet in the bedroom, a half-finished cup of coffee on the table, the closed laptop in the study — when the door opened again and Ellana stepped into the kitchen.
"Solas!"
Her surprise sounded genuine enough, though she must have have known he was home when she saw his bicycle outside. She bounded over to him, panting from exertion, and placed a quick kiss to his cheek.
"What are you doing home?" she asked, her smile unusually wide.
She wore a pair of sweatpants and a sports bra — plausible running attire, though she never went running without her earphones. Sweat glistened on her neck and chest, and her hair was convincingly windswept.
"Just a quick stop," Solas said. "I forgot my lunch."
It was a risky lie. She'd been sitting at the dining table when he'd gathered his usual assortment from the pantry this morning. But now, he suspected her thoughts might have been otherwise occupied. Perhaps she had not noticed.
"How is your article coming?" he asked. Better to take the lead before Ellana had a chance to start interrogating him.
She hesitated for a split second. Then she stepped away and scooped a peach from the bowl on the kitchen counter.
"Fine!" Ellana shrugged. "Or, not exactly fine but … Well, I'm getting there. I was feeling a little stuck, so I went for a run to clear my head."
Ah, he thought. She was good. Better now than when they'd first met — a concerning progression.
"And did it help?" Solas said. "Your run?"
"I think so!" Ellana nodded enthusiastically. "I'm ready to get back to work."
"When is your deadline again?"
Solas had to reach high above his head to catch the peach Ellana tossed at him. It seemed her trajectory had been diverted by his question.
"Tomorrow," she replied stonily when he raised an eyebrow at her.
"That's time enough, I'm sure." Solas smiled before he sank his teeth into the fruit. "You've done more with less, and -"
"Are you sure you forgot your lunch?"
Solas cleared his throat. He'd swallowed the bite of peach too quickly.
"I could have sworn I saw you pack it into your bag this morning."
Ellana was crossing to him with entirely too much purpose. Solas fought a sudden, irrational desire to drop the peach to the floor so he might clasp his hands behind his back.
"I … Perhaps I left it in my office," he reluctantly conceded. "I did not have a chance to check."
Ellana ran her thumb gently along his mouth, spreading a drop of juice across his lower lip.
"Hmm," she said. "That's not like you."
"No?"
Solas asked only for the excuse for his lips to part, so he might press his tongue against the pad of her finger. It seemed Ellana had chosen distraction, and two could play at that game.
He would have preferred an outright admission of her day's activities, based upon evidence he'd surely have uncovered if he'd had more time to search the house. But it would not be the first time he'd plied a confession from her lips once she was on her back and his head was between her legs — and there was no denying the appeal of this alternative.
"You're not usually forgetful, Solas. Especially not when it comes to food," Ellana said with an amused grin that made him want to sweep her off her feet and carry her to the bedroom. "So was there something else you wanted?"
Ellana provided a suggestion what 'something else' could be, as she caught his tie in her hand and pressed her body against his. But Solas was prepared for this strategy, and had a counter of his own.
He leaned his head down to hers, plucked a suspiciously straight strand of hair between his fingers, and tucked it behind her ear.
"May I not surprise my fiancé for lunch at home?"
Through great effort, Solas spoke the word only sparingly, especially in Ellana's presence. Much as he might have enjoyed beginning every sentence with it, climbing atop their roof to yell it for the whole town to hear, it was better kept a rarity. That way, she never quite acclimated to its use, and he was always rewarded by the sight of her cheeks going slightly pink and her nose wrinkling when she heard it.
"Well," Ellana said, her blush creeping down her chest. "When you put it like that."
She kissed him, and his hands drifted lazily down her sides as he contemplated the irony of this particular, shared weakness — they had, after all, claimed to be engaged only a few short days after they met.
When he reached her hips, Solas felt something unexpected — a solid object of familiar shape and size. Ellana grabbed for his wrist, but too late.
He retrieved his glasses from Ellana's pocket. She watched, eyes narrowed in annoyance, as he carefully unfolded and then balanced them on her nose.
"Ah." He gathered her loose curls in his fist and held them behind her head. "This looks familiar."
She squinted at him through the lenses in a way that made her look particularly cross.
"My bag?" Solas smiled. "I hope you didn't lose it in your haste to beat me home."
Ellana merely scowled, her silence as defiant as it was pointless.
"I suppose it must be in the same place you left your shirt. I think I would have noticed had you been wearing only this," he hooked a finger through the strap of her bra, "when last I saw you."
"And when was that?" Ellana tipped up her chin in challenge.
Solas shook his head. "You first."
She held out for one delightfully tense moment before finally surrendering with an exasperated huff.
"They're in Ghisharel's hedges. Your bag and my shirt."
Solas crooked an eyebrow. "I hope the old man wasn't looking out his window. You'd have given him quite the shock."
"I should have thrown your glasses in there too," Ellana grumbled.
"Why?" Solas poked the frame, sliding it back up her nose. "They look lovely on you."
Ellana batted his hand away, then tossed the glasses onto the table.
"Alright," she said. "Your turn. When did you see me?"
"Later than I should have."
"I had a feeling, when you were talking to Cole and Marcellette -"
"No," he said. "Before that."
He had seen her then, of course, — let out an involuntary burst of laughter when he realized she was carrying his own backpack that he hadn't seen in years. It was patched with multicolored threads and, he thought, stashed in some dark corner of his closet. Like so many of the old things he'd packed away, Ellana had rediscovered it.
But that was not when he first saw her.
"Shit," she groaned. "Please tell me you weren't looking when I ran into that poor girl in the hallway."
Ellana knocking Natia to the ground was such a surreal thing to observe that Solas had felt a bit like he was dreaming. (And he'd already spent much of the hour prior with his heart in his throat, wondering whether he'd actually woken up at all that morning.)
"It was kind of you to spare a moment to help her back to her feet," Solas said as he watched Ellana's face go red. "But I suppose she had already recognized you by then."
Solas had not disclosed his and Ellana's relationship to his undergraduates just yet — though he knew he should find a way to do so promptly, as he intended to continue teaching her book in his classes. He wondered what, if anything, Natia might have deduced. It was certainly inappropriate to hope she'd guessed he and Ellana were together merely to assuage an old wound to his pride.
Ellana let out a disgusted sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. "I can't believe I made it through the whole hour only to -"
"Oh, no," Solas interrupted. "You misunderstand. I saw you before then as well."
She stared at him.
In truth, he'd noticed something from the moment he entered the lecture hall, though he couldn't have guessed that something was Ellana hidden behind Jowan and his friends near the back of the room. After he'd finally spotted her, blushing and fidgeting in her seat as she struggled against the impulse to answer one of his questions, Solas spent the remainder of the hour with his pulse pounding in his ears. He tried not to direct his words only to her, to keep his gaze elsewhere, and to mentally prepare for the possibility that she might speak up and correct him at any moment, were she so inclined.
It was, without question, the most nerve-wracking class he'd ever taught.
"I apologize if you hoped you'd achieved a lengthier deception," Solas said, unable (and unwilling) to resist gloating a bit in the aftermath of his victory. "But when one is accustomed to a classroom's usual arrangement, it becomes second nature to sense when something is slightly off."
"Uh-huh." Ellana nodded slowly.
Something in her tone put Solas on guard. She was more confident than she should be, and he scrambled to review his memories from before the moment he'd spotted her. Surely she hadn't -
"Did you notice something 'slightly off' when you were returning books to the library?" Ellana asked silkily.
It was a good guess, Solas thought. He stopped by the library most days before his classes. It didn't mean -
"Or maybe while you were eating a cranberry scone you bought from the little café by the Sciences building?" She clucked her tongue in admonishment. "And after you'd already had breakfast here."
Another impressive conjecture, made more so by the specificity of the details. But she knew his preferences at that particular café, and was no stranger to his habit of snacking between meals.
"I doubt you were paying much attention to your surroundings when you got into a ten-minute argument with the Registrar outside of his office."
"It wasn't an argument," Solas objected.
"It sure sounded like one. Who knew you were so passionate about the start time of your Intro course in the spring?"
"A class which begins at eight in the morning is not conducive for first year students to — exactly how long were you following me?" he demanded.
Ellana grinned. "How long do you think?"
"If — if you were so eager to attend one of my lectures," Solas stammered, "you need only have asked."
It was a futile attempt to save face, and Ellana easily recognized it as such. She leaned back against the table, terribly pleased with herself.
"I couldn't give you the satisfaction," she said. "Believe me, it was for your own good. You'd have been insufferable for weeks if I'd told you I wanted to sit in."
Solas could not honestly deny the accusation.
"I assure you, I would have been the pinnacle of modesty."
Ellana rolled her eyes.
"I do spend another two sessions discussing your work," Solas continued, "should you prefer an invitation."
"An invitation would be better," she agreed. "Unfortunately, my schedule is booked for the rest of the week."
"Couldn't you rearrange a few items? I have no doubt my students would benefit from your presence," Solas said, omitting his own feelings on the matter. Now that he had recovered from the shock of discovering Ellana in his classroom, he was surprised to find himself eager to repeat the experience.
"This is too important to reschedule." Ellana gave him one of her snaring smiles. "Merrill invited me to Markham. To go dress shopping."
A thousand possibilities swarmed Solas' thoughts at once — lace and velvet, chiffon and brocade, silhouettes and trains, and all the intriguing things that might hide beneath.
He understood, of course, that Ellana choosing a dress was a necessary step in this process. But she had not mentioned it before, and he had hardly allowed himself a moment to think of it, knowing it would only overwhelm him every bit as it did now.
"Do you think you and Parchment could survive a few days on your own?"
He wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her against him. Ellana laughed in his ear and Solas decided that, just this once, maybe he didn't mind losing.
"We will have good incentive to do so," he promised.
Ellana kissed him in a way that made him want to forget his remaining commitments on campus and instead spend the afternoon in bed with her, drawing the shapes of necklines across her collarbones and imagining what she would look like bedecked all in white.
In a few weeks' time, he would know.