You don’t leave the tree for a while. It’s relaxing, being up here. Reminds you of other trees and other people, but that doesn’t matter, because one friend in a tree is much the same as any other. At one point, Cassandra comes to check on the two of you—and let you know Solas has gone to sleep, so you don’t need to fear retribution for the prank you were very obviously the cause of—but Sera informs her that you’re not hiding, you’re keeping watch. And you continue “keeping watch” late into the night.
Sera tries one more time to get you to figure out how to shoot with a bow. You continue to be completely terrible at it, and she continues to be a wretched teacher, but between the two of you, you do sort of manage to actually draw the string, even if your arrows all miss the mark by about three feet.
“How are you so bad at this?” she asks, almost sounding impressed.
“That’s my secret, Sera, I’m bad at everything.”
“Liar!”
“No, I’m just really good at faking like I’m good.”
“Yer a terrible liar, too.”
“Yeah, see? Bad at that too. Oh! Hey, that one almost hit the tree!”
“Th’ giant tree that’s like ten steps away.”
“Almost!”
“How can ya be so good at daggers ‘n’ so bad at this?”
“It’s a completely different skill set.”
“Yeah but this one’s easy!”
You stay up through the first watch shift like that. It’s not like you could sleep even if you went to bed… Solas doesn’t even have a watch shift tonight. He’ll be out like a light, which means no naps for you. And Sera makes good company, particularly when no one else is around. You swear, sometimes it’s like she tries to be extra frustrating about “elfy” stuff when there’s an audience. In the quiet peace of the Dales at night, she doesn’t give you any crap about climbing trees barefoot. In fact, she joins you at it, because when it’s just the two of you, you can just be two girls climbing trees, and not two elves climbing trees.
You can see a little bit, why she might be the way she is, when you think of it like that, but you still can’t really understand it. Your history means too much to you.
“Shame we’re not here during the summer,” you murmur sleepily from where you lay, sprawled out on a branch, contemplating a nap. “Have you ever seen the Dales fireflies, right in the middle of summer? Like the stars all fell from the sky to flit around the Dales.”
“How can you be poetic ‘bout fireflies in the middle of Kingsway?” Sera asks with a snort. “Talk about snow or somethin’ if yer gonna.”
“Fuck snow, fireflies are better,” you say with a yawn, and Sera laughs. It sounds like trouble, like alarm bells from the guards. It fills you with a similar sense of pounding adrenaline and a desire to do something just as stupid. “Sera… do the Dales make you feel anything?”
“…Whaddya mean?” she asks, caution clear in her voice. She’s worried you’re about to ask her something elfy.
“I dunno, just, every time I’m out here, I just feel like running. D’you get that?”
“Not really. I mean, not myself. I get like that in cities sometimes, like, I just wanna climb shit.”
You chuckle. “Yeah, I do that too. I think that’s something we picked up in Ferelden.”
“Pro’ly every kid in a city feels the same.”
“Yeah… probably.” But not every elf in the Dales, apparently. Maybe it’s because you’d spent a good portion of your childhood wandering through the south… and then a decent portion of your adulthood, too, really, depending on one’s definition of adulthood. Most of your elven research had been done here.
“You spend a lotta time out here?” Sera asks, as if reading your mind.
You briefly consider your answer. “I mean, yeah, I guess. I lived outside Val Royeaux, and then I lived in a little village…” You stare up at the stars through the fluttering leaves. “Just because it was easier than trying to find a place in the city. I never wanted to live in another alienage.”
“Pff… yeah, I don’t blame ya.” She’s quiet for a moment, and you’re content to half-drowse there on the branch. For a moment, you wish you didn’t have all these responsibilities. Places to be and secrets to keep. You think of your seemingly directionless wandering with your mother. Always going, but never going anywhere in particular, or at least so it felt to you in your childish view of the world.
You wonder, briefly, if Sera’s ever felt this listless wanderlust. You think you were probably born with it, or perhaps it was a result of your upbringing. You’d presumed, to some degree, that it was an elven thing. The Dalish traveled, your mother traveled. Or was that a coincidence? Was it no more elven than your love for bread? An aspect of your personality and no shared experience at all?
You wonder what Solas would have to say about that.
“Do you ever wanna—” “Do you ever think about—” both of you begin at the same time, then stop, then, still in unison, begin to laugh.
“Go on, then,” Sera says when the two of you finish giggling. “What were you gonna say?”
“Oh, nothing important,” you say with a sigh. “I was just… what do you think you’re going to do after this is all over, Sera?”
“Back to business as usual, I guess,” Sera says with a shrug.
“Being Red Jenny, you mean? Back to Val Royeaux?”
“Or wherever. S’long as I can mess with the assholes who deserve it, I don’t really care where I am.” You nod along, understanding. “What about you? Back to Val Royeaux too?”
You hesitate. You’d been retired, living in the countryside, before everything turned to shit. Would you find another little house, buy it with the money Leliana was paying you for service to the Inquisition? Hide away again? It would serve the world right. It had done nothing for you. No one had ever done anything for you. Your mind flits to Banal’ras, to Val Royeaux, and then away again.
“No idea…” you say, reclining back down against the branch. “Not the foggiest fucking clue…”
The two of you go to bed late, though you don’t sleep. Everyone else is already asleep, for the most part. Including Solas. So you just rest your eyes some more, put in the pretense of sleeping in your tent like a normal person, even though you’d probably rest better and be more comfortable if you were still up in that tree. But you gotta appease the shems… and Solas, more importantly, who might not believe or understand you could sleep in a tree just as well as anywhere else.
You crawl out of your tent when you hear movement, just before dawn. At first you’re planning on just tripping over to the fire to help Blackwall with breakfast, but Solas intersects you partway there. Your first reaction is a sort of tense nervousness, expecting him to say something about the lizards. Why he would suspect you of that, though… Well, you did kind of out yourself as loving lizard-related pranks while you were in Val Royeaux, come to think of it.
But no, all he wants is to know whether you’re still interested in some morning stretching. Which you are, of course, because even spending half a night with a cute elf girl does not belay your desire to spend half a morning with a cute elf boy. You’re a weak person, in general, it seems.
“Did you sleep well last night?” Solas inquires, as if it isn’t a totally loaded question between the two of you at this point. He’s guiding you into stretches that seem as though they should be easy but still seem to pull your muscles into painful positions.
“Assuming a base level of ‘me, in a tent,’ yes,” you lie. You hadn’t slept at all, because he had. But you’re sleeping more than you would normally, thanks to Cole. Which is helping you feel less exhausted and anemic in general. Part of that is your aura filling back up, though, which is… a serious problem, or will be by the time you get to the Western Approach.
“That’s… something, at least,” Solas says, looking as though he doesn’t particularly consider it to be anything at all. “No lizards in your bedroll, I take it?”
That trips you up, literally, your leg twitching enough to send you off-kilter. You stumble to regain your balance both physically and within the conversation. “None whatsoever,” you say, as neutrally as possible. “Unfortunate about yours! But, you know, those lizards, they just look for as warm a place as possible to settle.”
“Ah, yes, so of course, they would naturally congregate to my bedroll, and mine alone.”
“You’re a very warm individual.”
Solas’s snort is audible, his intent clear to the point where you don’t even need to be able to see his expression to imagine it perfectly.
“Really,” you insist, laying it on even thicker. “I’m amazed Dorian hasn’t crawled in there yet.”
“If you think I’ve never woken up to an overly affectionate Tevinter, you would be very wrong. He wriggles out of his bedroll more nights than not.”
“Ohhhh Maker, really?” you say, struggling not to fall over, your laughter turning a bit wheezy due to the nature of your strained position. “That is fantastic. Any issues with morning wood?”
“Emma!” Solas admonishes slightly, and you’re gleeful to see his own form wavering slightly.
“You’re the one who brought up overly affectionate!”
“That is not the kind of affection I meant.”
“More’s the pity. I’d love to give Skyhold something to gossip over other than my non-existent love life.”
“Fill the Commander’s bed with lizards instead,” Solas suggests dryly.
“First off, I wouldn’t even begin to know how to wrangle lizards—”
“Liar.”
“Second off, even if I was blessed with some kind of unholy lizard powers—” Solas scoffs, but you continue on. “I wouldn’t be able to find them that far into the mountains, and thirdly, Lady Montiliyet would be way funnier.”
“You are a menace,” Solas informs you, and you can’t help but giggling.
“Me? I’m but a humble linguist, with no other useful skills.”
“Oh, stop.”
Stretches naturally transition into the two of you eating together before you run off to take care of the mounts. It’s a bit relaxing, since taking meals with Solas has become such a regular thing for you. You hadn’t even noticed you’d been missing it until you had it again. Plus, you already know his tastes, leaving you free to snatch foods he hates right off his plate. He won’t be eating those beets, so why bother burdening him with them? You’ll eat anything that holds still long enough, anyway.
The ahead team today is Sera, Cassandra, and the Inquisitor which is… spectacular, honestly. Of all of the people you could have as a shield, Blackwall is the least frustrating. Plus Cole, Solas, and Dorian? That’s good company, no matter what they might think of each other. It’s a bit weird not having the Inquisitor leading the group, but no one else seems to think so. Blackwall takes the lead with no prompting, and everyone just sort of falls in behind him automatically. And without anyone you need to be really worried about nearby, you find yourself falling in with Solas. It’s nice, riding beside him again. Comfortable. You can almost forget you’re on a death march across the continent with a squadron of extremely dangerous people. You can almost pretend it’s just like you’re back on the road to Val Royeaux with Solas.
Almost.
“I mean, I got the basics, yeah,” you’re saying, in response to Solas’s question. “The Wardens are up to some confusing shenanigans because they’re… all dying? I don’t know why they’re all dying, or exactly what the shenanigans are, but either way, we’re all rushing across the continent to try and stop them from doing some… evil blood magic ritual thing?”
“That… certainly is the basics, yes,” Solas says. “They’re gathering in the Western Approach to do something, the details of which we don’t know yet. We can, however, assume it is profoundly stupid.”
You snort with laughter, just at the unexpectedness of it. “Not a fan of mysterious blood magic rituals, Solas?” you tease.
“It’s less the blood magic and more the people wielding it, and for what ends,” he says sourly.
“Really?” you ask, tilting your head. “The Wardens worry you?”
“In this case? Yes. They do not have an understanding of the forces they deal with, nor a history of making excellent decisions.”
You hum noncommittally. That doesn’t sound right, but Solas does tend to know things you don’t. Your gaze is naturally drawn to Blackwall, who’s currently trying to steer his mount away from Cole, who appears to be keeping pace by jogging just fine. Heh. Spirits.
You gesture vaguely at Blackwall, since the man is riding far enough away—fortunately—not to hear your conversation with Solas. “What about him? Why isn’t he with the rest of the Wardens?”
“Warden Blackwall was recruiting in Ferelden when we found him. He doesn’t appear to have gotten news of the gathering.”
“What, like, oops, we forgot to tell Warden Blackwall that we’re all getting together for a blood magic orgy?” you ask with a snort. It’s not that you don’t believe him, it just sounds a little ridiculous.
“Something along those lines,” Solas says dryly. “The only other Warden we managed to get in contact with was Warden Stroud, through Hawke, and they had run off on purpose—and was being hunted by other Wardens.”
“Maker, seriously?” You shake your head. “That doesn’t sound a thing like the Wardens I know.”
“You must not know them very well.”
You glare at him half-heartedly. He’s not wrong; you can count the number of Wardens you’ve actually met on one hand. “Just stories, I guess. Being from Ferelden, well, you know, people say they’re heroes.”
“In your experience, do the heroes you know tend to make wise, well-informed decisions?” Solas asks.
Your mind flicks to Hawke, then to the Inquisitor.
“…Not particularly, no,” you admit. “Although I haven’t met enough heroes to really have a reliable pool to pull from.”
“I’ve seen many, through the Fade. A hero is defined by their legacy. The difference between a hero and a villain is whether or not the things they decided to do turned out to be the right things, in the long run. Unfortunately, it rarely has anything to do with wise decisions, so much as luck, good timing, and pure gumption.”
Thinking again about Hawke and the Inquisitor, you have to agree. But you do so privately, because you’ve caught up a bit to Blackwall and Cole. You don’t really want the Warden to overhear Solas’s less than stellar opinion of Wardens; you finally got him to like you and you’d like to keep it that way. Plus, Cole is saying something weird, and you make a habit of listening to weird things Cole says.
“We played by the fire so she would be warm. No, it’s summer, Liddy.”
“This thing you do? Maybe you should stop doing it,” Blackwall advises, sounding frustrated.
“Got her flower but they’d taken her. Left it on her bed. Next eight on the sill. Tourney sands.” You’re absolutely lost, but it’s entertaining to try and follow along, despite the fact it is objectively none of your business. “A garden seat. Five to Chantry altars. One to a child with her hair. The sea? Too many to count. And thirty-six. Tossed off the battlements today.”
Dead someone, obviously. Childhood friend? Sister? It would be rude to ask.
“Go bother Solas,” Blackwall says hollowly.
“He’s busy.”
“Go bother Emma.”
“Don’t pony him off on me,” you reply lightly. “You don’t wanna hear about all the dead people I know.”
“Too many to count. They should all blur together but they don’t.”
“Yes, thank you, Cole.”
“How have you managed to see so much death?” Blackwall asks curiously, apparently not abiding by your ‘it’s rude to ask people about the shit Cole says about them’ rule.
“Seheron,” you say blithely. Blackwall doesn’t have any follow-up questions.
You spot the rock when you’re slowing down to stop for lunch, and eye it still as you dismount. You absent-mindedly grab Solas’s sleeve as he walks past you, towards where the others are gathering. He stops, and you point at the suspicious rock. “I think that rock has lizards under it.”
“…What?”
“That rock. It’s a lizard rock, I’m pretty sure. We should check it out.”
“You are doing a very bad job at maintaining innocence.”
“I’ve always been shit at maintaining innocence and you know it.” You glance over at him, grinning slyly. “Do you want to be stuffy about a good prank, or do you want to help me fit as many lizards as possible into Sera’s saddlebags?”
The answer, apparently, is as easy as you’d hoped it would be. You hadn’t really known that Solas would be down for pranking, but you’d suspected it based on how he’d behaved in Val Royeaux, and the way he hadn’t laid into you for your obvious part in the Bedroll Lizard Swarm of 9:41. Which is good, because Sera and Dorian are about the only other people you’d be comfortable pranking on this trip, and Sera is the obvious target for a lizard prank after last night.
To your infinite glee and amusement, rather than scramble through the dirt to catch as many lizards as possible, Solas simply surrounds the entire lot of them with a bubble of light blue magic, and lifts them en masse into your basket.
“That was the best,” you squeal as quietly as you can, bouncing excitedly. “Why don’t we do this all the time?”
“Why don’t we magically capture lizards all the time?”
“Not the lizards, just in general.”
“I’m still not sure what you could be referring to, if not the lizards,” Solas says evenly.
“Wait, now I remember why; it’s because you’re a pain in the ass.”
Solas’s response is to flick a lizard at you, which startles you so much you almost drop the basket.
“Not fair! My hands are full!” you hiss, having to keep your voice down since you don’t want to draw attention. The mounts are between you and where everyone else is having lunch and relaxing, but still.
Solas doesn’t reply, but the corner of his mouth has turned upwards as he watches you. You quickly realize why, judging from the feeling of something scrabbling through your hair. “Solas, get your lizard out of my hair before it makes a mess,” you say, scowling.
“He looks happy there,” Solas counters.
“She.” You hoist the basket against your hip so you can hold it with one hand and fetch the damn lizard out of your own hair and plunk it back in with the others. “Dales geckos are an all female species, which is probably why we get along so well.”
“I’ve never run into that particular problem with you.”
“Yes, you have; you’re just persistent enough to have managed anyway.”
“We seem to have very different recollections of how this started,” Solas quips, and you laugh.
“I started it, sure, maybe, but you’re the one who didn’t wisely fuck off when I—” you trail off, uncertain of which example to give, or perhaps unwilling to remind him of literally any of them. “…C’mon, these lizards aren’t going to infest Sera’s things on their own.”
“Really? They seem to have found their way into my bedroll all on their lonesome,” Solas says dryly.
“Are you surprised that a race of all-female lizards would be attracted to your bed?” you counter slyly.
“All female? Yes, astounded. In fact, I’d expect them to head straight for Sera’s.”
You choke on laughter, and then duck behind one of the horses as Blackwall glances over towards you, pulling Solas down with you by the back of his shirt. “Ssshhhh! You’re gonna get us caught! Have you never pulled a prank before in your life?”
“I can promise you I was making bad decisions before you were born,” Solas replies. “Although I don’t know that any of them involved this many lizards.”
“Then they weren’t bad enough.”
It’s hard to keep a straight face as you care for the mounts, but fortunately, no one’s really paying attention to you. That’s the nice thing about menial tasks, really. You become invisible when you’re doing them, no matter where you are or who you are. You could probably slip into Par Vollen and so long as you were scooping shit or washing tables, no one would even notice.
So you manage to make it all the way to mounting up without giving up the game by being unable to control your grinning. Cole also conveniently neglects to hint at anything, though you’re certain he knows what you got up to. You clamber up onto Vhas as Sera mounts up on Spirit Dancer… and manages to get about two steps on her before a lizard climbs out of the bag and onto her leg.
“…Emma…” she begins, but you’re already kicking a bit of speed into Vhas. “EMMA!” You glance back over your shoulder and see she’s reached into her saddlebag, and has about seven lizards on her hand. Then you give Vhas another kick and take off, with her spurring Spirit into motion just behind you. “OY. YOU LIL SHIT.”
You’re breathless with laughter and wind as Vhas canters broad circles around the others, who have yet to start moving. Sera has the advantage of being able to kick her mount into its fastest speed without fear of flying off, so she catches up relatively easily and chucks a handful of lizards at you. You catch one, the rest flop onto you and then cling desperately.
“Be careful!” you laugh. “It’s not their fault!”
“No, it’s yours!” she growls, but you can see the laughter in her eyes. “How’d you even get this many so fast?”
“I had an accomplice!”
“Who?”
“I’ll never tell!” you choke, giggling fiercely as she throws more lizards. You try to maneuver away from her, but Spirit Dancer is a lot smaller than Vhas. “I’ll take it to my grave!”
“It was fuckin’ Solas wasn’t it!”
“I tried to take it to my grave!” you shout out to Solas, who just rolls his eyes.
“If you two are quite finished,” the Inquisitor says, grinning broadly and looking quite amused. “We do have to get moving sometime while the sun’s still up.”
“An’ wot am I supposed to do with a bag full of lizards?” Sera demands, mostly directing it at you, as the two of you trot back to the rest of the group.
“Throw them at the next demons we run into,” you suggest. Sera flicks one at Cole, and you counter by peeling one off your shirt and flinging it back at her.
“If you told me I’d be watching two girls in a lizard fight, this isn’t what I would have imagined,” Blackwall comments.
“What would you have imagined?” wonders Dorian.
“Don’t they have snake wrestling in Tevinter?” you ask archly as Blackwall flushes behind his beard. “I’m sure that’s much more what Blackwall had in mind.”
It’s Dorian’s turn to flush, and you laugh at both of their expressions before kicking Vhas back into motion, towards the road. The whole group begins to move, some still chuckling lightly, and in a moment, the away team—including Sera—breaks off to go ahead.