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Three years passed before she brought someone into her bed again.
Solas felt foolish when he realized that he hadn’t seen her so much as look at or think of another in the time since he said goodbye. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she could be pursuing relationships and connections, enjoying the life she had—no matter how short.
And she was wasting that short life for him. Searching for him. Waiting for him.
Or at least she had been.
Solas should have been glad. Relieved. It should have put a satisfying conclusion on that chapter, allowed him to stop these rare, torturous visits through the Fade.
But gladness was the furthest emotion from what Solas felt burn through his chest, boil his blood, what forced his heartbeat to pound in his ears and deafen him to reason.
He had no right to be jealous. He didn’t. No right at all. He was more than aware of that fact.
…And yet…
It wasn’t as if he could see anything. He wasn’t there. And he would never purposefully pry like that. He wasn’t a voyeur.
But her memories were loud, a whirl of confused emotions and dreams and Solas could feel it all, the intangible mess painting a clear mosaic in his mind’s eye.
She had met a man at the tavern below the inn she’d stopped at for the night. A human. A Templar? Of all things…? The girl Solas knew—so concerned with preserving her heritage and wanting a partner who understood the elvhen struggle, someone who respected her magic—never would have selected a partner so at odds with those desires.
At least, he thought not. Or perhaps Solas truly had wounded her so terribly that she went out of her way to find someone so vastly different.
She’d enjoyed it. She felt guilty, too. A relief and satisfaction she evidently hadn’t known for years, an itch that needed to be scratched finally grated away—and she felt empty. She couldn’t seem to decide if she’d done something wrong or not.
Of course she had done nothing wrong. She deserved touch, and pleasure, and whatever other needs she craved. Ones that Solas could not be there to sate. He saw how she curled up in her bed, her stranger gone, wandering the Fade in her sleep even as the knot in her heart got ever more tangled.
Oh, how he wanted to unravel her. Pluck at the threads, smooth the twists, soothe her aching soul and confused mind. What she could craft with the resulting yarn, neatly separated and ready to be woven into tapestries…Solas had seen incredible things from her. The idea that it was possible for the woman to transcend the divine acts, and kindness, and power he’d witnessed from her before made him near beside himself with the need to see that. The desperation to go to her, beg for her forgiveness, let her catch him this time so he may try to heal what he’d broken—
But he needed to heal the world he’d broken too.
And he could not have both.
He had to be selfless.
And saving the world…that was the selfless option.
Yet still he (quite selfishly) returned to her. He could never bring himself to give that up. Even if it was from a distance, never touching. He fought it as much as he could—it had been a year and a half since last he checked in. ‘Twas rather unfortunate that the one evening his self-restraint crumpled was this one. One where she had…
been with another.
He could not be jealous.
This was a good thing.
He could not fault her. He would not.
And he truly didn’t.
Solas simply despised himself all the more.
Then her thoughts turned; a new determination that washed over them both, his soul thoroughly synced with hers. She’d continue her search, and Solas’ heart soared and sank in the same heartbeat. Because she still loved him. And this wasn’t her trying to move on, it was her trying to ground herself. She’d been alone so long…Solas saw that the last she’d met with any of her Inquisition comrades in person was over 6 months prior. He wasn’t certain why she was traveling without company, but he could feel that familiar stubbornness he’d come to know so well.
She had felt her own soul becoming detached from the world; and she could not save him if she allowed herself to float away and isolate as he did.
But there was still that doubt. Her resentment of her own selfishness. A confusion of regret and calm.
So Solas slipped away, knowing it would only make things worse for her if she sensed his presence now. How it would likely heighten that guilt she had no responsibility to feel, how it might give her hope he had no business forcing upon her, how seeing those things in her thoughts, feelings, on her face…
He’d crumble.
That would be the demise of his convictions. He’d never leave her. He’d touch her, caress her, swear himself to be her servant, prostrate himself at her feet, and the world would be doomed because of a woman who was absolutely worth it.
He’d trade everything for her with the slightest prompting. And it would turn him into a bigger villain than he already was.
And she deserved a far better lover than the fool Fen’Harel. Sacrificing the world for her would be to shackle her to a man who could never give her everything that should be hers.
So he turned.
And he swore this was the last time.
⊱༺⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ༻⊰
She’d found an elf.
Before the elf, Solas went back a mere 6 months after the Templar, telling himself it would be a quick look—just to ensure she was alright. But she had seen him. He felt it in how her heartbeat skipped and the spark of her feelings roared into an inferno.
He knew he could not return. He couldn’t.
Then he had, though this time he lasted a full two years before crumpling to his temptation. And in her memories, he was surprised to see her traveling with an elf.
There was a fondness between them; not quite romantic love. The emotions were subtler than that.
The other woman didn’t appear to be Dalish—no Vallaslin, and the absence of that certain grace that he’d found most city elves did not possess. Not clumsy by any means; but not used to weaving their bodies through wind and trees either. It was more of a bob and weave, indicative of a life ducking around people and structures instead of nature.
And that city elf was making her laugh.
Laugh!
He surprised himself by feeling a sorrow he had not let himself acknowledge since last they’d met face to face. When he’d revealed everything, and took more than just her arm in his farewell.
When had he last seen her laugh?
He could not say.
She allowed the other elf to sit behind her and braid her hair before they retired into their tent—it must have been difficult to do with only one hand. Solas vaguely recognized the curls to be longer than last he’d seen. The first time he’d visited her in the Fade, he’d been surprised to find that she’d cut her hair above her shoulders.
Solas thought it looked as beautiful as ever.
She hated it.
But he felt her need to be in control of something, to get rid of a part of herself by her own choosing rather than be stripped of it. Blood writing. Limbs. Culture lost. A Clan that was no longer family. An inquisition dissolved. An identity formed over a lifetime torn away in only a few years.
Now the wavy locks were nearing her mid back again, and Solas was glad for it. Perhaps she’d truly begun to move on, to shape a new life and sense of being.
…No.
She had the life, and the contentment and confidence in who she was once more surged through her like blood in veins.
But she had not moved on.
Unlike the soft feelings for the elf sleeping beside her, the need to continue her search was perhaps even stronger than before. Solas was simply so pathetic that his jealous mind focused on the unfamiliar emotions before recognizing the force of his vhenan’s love and desire.
No . Not his.
Never his.
He lingered, over analyzing how her companion’s arm draped around her middle, how the city-elf’s face burrowed against the back of her neck, and how despite that, she was in the fade. Cross-legged in a forest, feet bare, no more than a tunic and leggings adorning her body, eyes closed as if meditating.
…As if sensing.
He realized too late, and before he could move, her eyes snapped open and locked on his.
Solas couldn’t breath.
Suddenly his thick coat of fur was suffocating, the enhanced hearing of his pointed ears uncomfortably deafened, and sharp canines dug painfully into a mouth that in that split second no longer felt like his.
Being a wolf was as familiar to him as his own body. Now he thought he might drown in the bones and pelt that confined him.
And then he was gone before he could so much as register a shift in her thoughts.
Solas jerked awake in the Lighthouse, his heart aching to the point he feared it might truly be failing in a very real, physical way. He clutched at his chest, sliding to the floor from his simple bed and willing his body to listen, for his mind to calm.
That had to be it. No more.
⊱༺⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ༻⊰
Solas hated himself more than almost anything or anyone else.
Of course he couldn’t stay away.
He was a weak minded, self centered, prideful fool.
He told himself it would be alright, another quick peak into her life, just to be sure…
Sure of what?
Solas could never come up with a clear excuse, even to himself.
But he felt her. He felt her far too close, and like a siren’s song he followed the traces of her presence until he found her again.
He could feel that the elvhen companion was gone, and had been since shortly after Solas’ last glimpse. A pang of guilt shot through him; that was likely his fault, but it seemed they parted on amicable enough terms. She’d had one other dalliance since—no, a near dalliance. The man had been sent away before they’d gone to bed. She could no longer bring herself to look for intimacy anywhere else.
It was three years since their eyes last met. Three years and nothing had changed at all.
Sure, her hair was even longer than before. Her body…well, it seemed to have filled out. She wasn’t so lean, as if she had stopped living in tents and forests, and rather than subsisting on whatever she could trap, was eating three meals a day.
His hands trembled at the thought of discovering how she might feel in his arms, familiar but new all at once.
Otherwise, she looked and felt very much the same; the slower aging of elves (despite their shorter, more human lifespans) had left her face unblemished.
Solas never found wrinkles unattractive—quite the opposite. Even among immortals they were often signs of wisdom, though they generally had less, and they appeared slower. However, he could not bear to see the evidence of passing time on her features, of her years being eaten away and her mortality aging her. She’d wear age beautifully. But Solas was not ready for that—and may never be.
It was a surprise to find her here, of all places.
In her memory, he saw the perilous climb, made even more nerve wracking with the one arm. She seemed to have fashioned an attachment to assist, or perhaps someone else created it for her. Despite knowing in the present she was safe and sleeping, Solas’ heart nearly stopped multiple times when she would slip or miss a foothold.
But she made it.
Solas was fairly certain the Divine had barred access to the stronghold; he heard of the demon, the massacre, the declaration to move forward, not look back. And despite this, he saw that this was not her first trip to Skyhold.
She made it into the abandoned courtyard, then up crumbling steps into a desolate interior. They’d worked so hard to repair it back then—just for it to fall to disrepair once more.
Solas saw the corridors and rooms as she walked them; crumbling roofs allowing snow to pile on beds, furniture dusty and broken, tattered banners, and a bloodstain here and there…
She thought of them. All of them. She wandered to Dorian’s favorite library nook and remembered how he’d sit there and complain about anything and everything, making her laugh. She ran her fingers over the cracked war-room table, where they’d plan their next moves to strengthen the Inquisition and take down Corypheus. She made it down to the stables, the tavern, fluffed up what remained of Sera’s pillows and righted a fallen, abandoned trinket out of habit.
She didn’t visit her own quarters at all.
Lastly, she entered the rotunda.
The mosaics were a heap of rubble. Solas heard that the demon had burst from it, a creation of regret. Likely his regret. At least, he assumed as much—he had much of it to spare. Yet again, he’d inadvertently caused death; it spawned even from whatever beauty he tried to bring into the world.
She dropped her pack next to a large slab of rock to set up camp. She’d started a fire, and when it was warm enough, she heated some coffee and gnawed on dried meats and other rations. Then she slipped into her bedroll…
And here she was now.
She was curled up on the forest floor on a bed of leaves, identical to how she slept in Skyhold. But there was no need to be bundled as she was there, and Solas froze. It wasn’t necessarily caused by the bare skin revealed by her small clothes, though that was not unwelcome. No, it was the tattoos that took his breath away.
They were near invisible before, in the vagueness of memory and the gray, abandoned world that served as her temporary abode. No wonder, for they were white in color, and subtle; dots and gentle swirls that caressed her skin and curves, down her arm, her legs, over her cheeks. Not like the blood-writing of before. Solas knew what these were.
He once had gifted her a painting. It was before he realized how unfair he was being to her, how this endangered his plans, before he broke it off—during those blissful times he allowed himself to indulge.
It was no larger than a card, an abstract view of how he saw her. Beautiful. A creature of nature and magic, skin tinted in the Fade’s green glow, dressed in little clothing, life sprouting from her very hands, and…
Tattoos.
He could not bring himself to capture her Vallaslin. It impaled his heart every time he looked at her face, no matter how beautiful—it was not a pattern that had existed in his time, which allowed some relief, but he could never forget they were there, and he refused to include them in a painting.
So he adorned her with something else. Something just hers, something like starlight and vines twisting over skin, marking her as belonging to no one but herself. Something he saw in her freckles and the twinkle in her eyes and the softness of her smile.
The very same markings that she wore on her body now.
Solas did not know how he should feel.
He wanted to break into a thousand tiny pieces. To scream and sob until nothing remained of him. He wanted to laugh; in incredulous horror and delighted wonder.
Her skin was permanently marked with a symbol he made for her—she must have kept the painting. She must have thought of him, loved the way he saw her so much that she’d…
For the briefest of moments, Solas wondered if he might take them away—if even in the Fade he could dissolve the ink from her skin and the constant reminder of what they were.
But that would be such a violation that he banished the thought immediately.
The Vallaslin was removed with permission. And he knew she would not give it now, even if she were conscious to his presence, even if they spoke.
He let his eyes linger longer than they should have—tracing every inch, mark, and detail. There were new scars that drove him near mad with the desire to hunt down whoever caused them. And he could see a shimmer caught in her lashes—
A tear.
No—
Her eyes fluttered open as they had last time, but she did not immediately look to him. She raised her arm, brushing loose curls from her eyes and wiping at the wetness on her cheeks.
Solas stood stock still.
She still did not turn. She knew he was there. But she did not look.
This was a game.
She truly blew him away sometimes. As long as she did not look, did not acknowledge his presence, they could stay like this a moment longer. She could pretend to be unaware. He could pretend he was still hidden. There could be a single, distilled, beautiful instant of make believe where they were together.
So Solas did not disappear; he sank to the ground as she did, turning his gaze to the branches and leaves above them. He let his head rest against bark that felt so real that it dug unpleasantly into his scalp. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, just feeling her.
A second became a minute. A minute to several more. Solas lost track of time. He never wished to leave.
‘Vhenan.’
The soft voice hurt him so very dearly.
He did not respond.
‘ Lasan ara'sal, sule ha'lam'sal'shiral’
That made his heart skip a beat. It took everything in him to not jerk upright, but his head did turn to stare at her. Her own eyes remained firmly on the ground.
Solas could not breathe. But it was not like before, as a fearsome wolf rendered utterly terrified. It was…
It was him. Solas. Not Fen’Harel. Not a trickster god or grief stricken immortal.
He shouldn’t respond.
He could not.
He would not.
Yet his voice was soft when he did;
‘Juleanathan i myathan na ove min'sal'shiral, i su uth'then'era’
He was gone just as he felt her turn.
⊱༺⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ༻⊰
The Lighthouse was horribly empty.
And he was truly, truly destroyed.
He regretted it. He should regret it. But he could not actually bring himself to feel the emotion, the pain of it he deserved.
And there was pain.
But if he could only speak with her one last time, only say one thing…
He was glad he had that much.
He was content with it being those words.
Solas slipped from bed, padding through the lonely rooms and doorways, numb. No, bursting.
…What words could possibly be adequate to describe what twisted his heart?
He sighed deeply, passing mosaics he’d painted to pass days in his solitude. There were plenty of preparations still to be done for his plans, and he’d spent much of the past 9 years setting everything so that something, for once, would go right.
That for once, he would not fail to do something good.
…But as it turned out, planning and researching and sending out agents and commanding people could only consume so much time, and Solas found himself alone with nothing but his own mind for company more often than not.
So he painted every square inch of this place he could find.
And throughout them all…
Pale markings. A perfect match for those on Ellana’s skin.
These lines Solas did allow himself to trace, running his fingers along the walls and imagining soft skin instead. He followed the trail they left, knowing exactly where they led; along the curves of the tower as if they were the curves of her body, remembering her face, her voice, her scent—as if these lines were a thread that connected them. As if as long as he touched them, he could feel her just as well.
Threads that had been untangled at last.
He reached that center room. The tattoos met at the largest mosaic of all those he’d completed, other strands of them spiraling off through other corridors.
They always led here.
Solas gazed up at her.
Anyone else who looked might not see her in the delicate lines of the Fade, the world, the Veil that separated the two. The depiction of people, of gods, of sorrow and war and heartbreak and love and hope and the entire story of their universe, distilled in a single image. Fragile. Merely thin paint on stone.
But she was in all of it.
Her form. Her eyes. Her face and laugh. Hidden in every brushstroke was a love he’d never know again. Solas could see her so clearly, as clear as he could in his memories, in the Fade, in those last moments they spent together in the waking world as he revealed everything and she was too stubborn to hate him for it.
He pressed his palms to the cold wall. He could still feel her warmth through them. His legs could no longer bear the weight of his devastation, and he slid roughly to the floor.
Another year. Another year, and he’d be in Tevinter. Things were moving quickly now, plans culminating—it would need to be perfect. No more mistakes. No more unexpected variables.
And this…this would truly, really be the last time.
He could not visit her in the Fade again.
Ellana.
“ Ara dir'vhen'an.”