Chapter Text
She followed him.
Solas was barely a few steps from the Eluvian before he feels the familiar, albeit faint pulse of his Anchor. He tenses, power surging through his being as he spins around – only to see her tumbling on his temple’s dawnstone floors, her cry of pain echoing in the hollow stillness as the mark on her hand hummed its death throes. The Eluvian behind her shimmers shut, too late.
His first thought was bitter and sharp – Of course. Of course she would follow him.
And then, he was on his knees in a heartbeat, body overtaking mind through the cracks of his breaking composure. It had started to crumble even before she reached him in the Crossroads, and he barely held on to it before fleeing for the safety of his Eluvians. But now, now that she is in his arms, pale and trembling and so, so fragile – the weight of his resolve is too much.
“Why?” Was the only thing he managed to say. He did not trust himself to say more, should have never trusted himself when she was concerned.
She gasps at a violent crackle from the dying Anchor on her hand, even as her remaining one grips resolutely at the furs on his shoulders. Her eyes looks up at him from the cradle of his arm in a mockery of days gone by, and he remembers. He remembers them like this, only the crackling of his failures had been the gentle bubbling of a brook, her pained cries the sound of her laughter as they lay together beneath the canopy of the Emerald Graves. Adamant had been fresh on their mind at that time, and both were all too eager to soothe the memories of cold gravestones and leering taunts with gentle hands and lips.
“I promised” she whispers, breath barely stirring the air between them.
And there had been a promise. Warm and fleeting, one he had received with a sad yet indulgent heart. But he should have known.
“I promised I won’t let you die alone, ma sa’lath”
Anything still holding him together, through the millennia of troubled slumber, through the crippling realization of his actions and the hollowness of his mission, shatters completely
“Vhenan” He scarcely realizes that the strangled sob was his own voice, and yet he could not stop –
"Vhenan" He murmurs the endearment over and over like a prayer, like a benediction as he held unto her as tightly as he dared. And then, he was no longer the Dread Wolf, no longer an Evanuris with the weight of his people around his shoulders. He was just Solas, one who thought his pride had cost him his heart - and was proven wrong.
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He takes her to one of his sanctuaries – A small temple dedicated to Mythal that he had turned into something resembling a home. Even now, he still feels the gentle brush of his friend’s presence more acutely in the stones and pillars around him than from within himself. And not for the first time, he wonders at what she would have said about all this, wonders if she would have approved as he carries his heart on the crook of his arms.
He lays her on his makeshift bed, curls himself around her as he whispers healing spells and meaningless endearments alike to her sweat-soaked brows, until her breath evens out and the dying crackle of his Anchor goes completely silent.
He knows what would happen to her hand afterwards, had seen the results on too-prideful enchanters back in Arlathan. And yet, he was not prepared to see her – his heart, who had always been so bright, so whole – The folds of her robes falling limply just below her elbow. His own hands tremble as he caresses her shoulders, and then down, down, until his hand stills. He knows what he has to do come with a price, and yet she had been the one who paid so much. Too much. He cannot possibly -
“It’s all right, Solas” She whispers, as if reading his thoughts. And she is always so gentle with him, even as her remaining hand clasps his and guides it to rest on her cheek.
I won’t let anyone hurt you, she had said once, such a long time ago. At that time, it had been almost laughable, this little slip of a Dalish girl with her rusted sword and the mark burning, burning in her tiny hand. But her own mark had been Mythal’s, and if anything, she had protected him, through countless battles and pitfalls.
And now, she is protecting him from himself. From the shadows of the Dread Wolf that hangs like so many chains from his shoulders. He could almost feel Mythal’s smile at his realization, somewhere deep inside him.
He kisses her before he knew what he is doing, lips and tongue desperate as hers parted beneath his questing ones. He kisses her like a man drowning, searching, searching for a reason to keep afloat. And then, just as abruptly as he had initiated it, he drew back from the kiss – cradling her face on his hands as he met her too-bright eyes.
“I don’t” Solas drew a sharp breath “I don’t know what I can promise you. You are aware of my plans and what it entails, and I cannot – “
This time, it was her who drew him into a kiss, a hand resting on the nape of his neck to pull him towards her. As with everything about her, it was firm and gentle and more than he deserved – her lips working softly, almost soothingly against his before she, too, pulled away.
“Just promise me that you would not die alone”
Solas’s heart twisted and twisted inside him, the words as heavy as the mantle of sorrows on his shoulders and twice as painful. But she is his heart and he knows that he cannot go back, that she cannot go back, not after this. So he nods, kissing the fingers of her hand reverently.
“That I can promise you, vhenan”