Truth or Dare
You realize halfway down the stairs from the Great Hall that you’re doing the exact thing you promised Solas you wouldn’t do. Leaving, alone, to walk through the night where there are probably any number of humans who might want to finish the job that Underhill started. While still bandaged up. So, basically, with a huge lyrium-lit sign announcing who you are and how easy it would be to jump you.
Sigh.
You could just try to bolt across the courtyard. It’s not like anyone could catch you, unless they’d somehow known you would be wandering around three hours before dawn and planned a Maker damned ambush. But if Solas woke and found you gone, he’d be upset, and rightly so.
You had given him your word.
Which is worth approximately three times less than unprocessed mule shit. And yet still, you feel a guilty twang and the burning urge to head back inside. You’ve given that man enough disappointment in the short time you’ve known him.
Muttering sourly under your breath, you go back into the empty Great Hall. And it is empty, save a few stoic looking guards that your eyes always tend to glaze right over. Interestingly, there’s one posted at the entrance to the tower you’ve learned leads up to the Inquisitor’s quarters, despite the fact it’s ostensibly empty. The man is still in Crestwood, as far as you know, with Seeker Pentaghast, Blackwall, Vivienne, Varric, and, of course, Cole. Oh. And Hawke. But hopefully he’ll be left there.
You suppose it wouldn’t do to have someone sneaking up in the Inquisitor’s absence, something you instantly want to do the second it crosses your mind. Not even for any real reason, other than the fact that it’s someplace you totally shouldn’t go full of secrets that you absolutely shouldn’t have and probably don’t even really need.
You’re not going to, of course. You’re not an idiot. But the urge is there, as always. Instead, you head back into the rotunda. Solas is, no surprise, still asleep on the floor right where you left him. Well, you don’t want to disturb him, but there’s plenty you can do in the dark. Rather than go back to creepily staring at him or resting on the couch, you leave both alone and instead go to your desk. Irritatingly, your collected assortment on runes is all in your room, and you don’t feel comfortable trying to rummage through his desk while he’s in the vicinity, unconscious or no. So instead you turn to your work.
You’re feeling much better after your nap. Much, much better. You still feel like you could sleep for six years, but you’re no longer feeling completely sick with exhaustion. That sleep will probably last you… what, at least a week, right? Yeah, definitely. You’ll have time to figure something else out… no need for a repeat performance of this stress-inducing adventure, no ser! And in the meantime, you can work.
You try to work in the dark for a while, but it’s way too difficult and this is way too important, so you wind up carefully lighting a candle and keeping it on the corner of the desk as far away from Solas as possible. Hopefully your body will block the light from him somewhat. He seems to be a pretty solid sleeper, or maybe he was just really damn tired from staying awake for so long. He seems to be a man very accustomed to getting his eight hours. With the added light from the candle, it’s much easier for you to get work done on the tome. You idly pass the morning hours scribbling away. It’s actually very peaceful. You do occasionally glance over to look at Solas, but that’s just to check on him.
You do take stock of your aura, carefully and internally, while Solas sleeps. It’s a bit larger than it was before, but not anything you need to be concerned with. A night with even tenuous connection to the Fade had been good for your mind and your aura, but not enough that it would be fat and bloated any time soon. You’ll keep an eye on it anyway… You can’t let it build up again like before. You’d nearly killed Bull, for the Maker’s sake, and if that kind of thing happened around a mage or Templar, well… killing someone else would be the least of your worries.
As you work, life begins to filter back into the centerpiece of Skyhold. You hear the changing of the guards; that happens around dawn. You hear people beginning to filter into the library above… none of them enter through the stairs that wrap around from the rotunda up the library, but that’s not unusual. They probably don’t even think anyone’s down here; it’s still dark. But they’re still not gonna risk taking the stairs. Ridiculous… Or maybe they’re all creatures of habit. Can’t fault them for that; you are too.
Eventually, Solas begins to wake. You notice immediately… not because you’re watching him or anything. The movement just catches your eye. You try to not look like you’re staring at him as he stirs, focusing instead on your work until you notice his gaze turn to you; then and only then you look over, as if just now noticing he’s awake.
He looks confused, and half-asleep, both of which are completely adorable expressions on him. He makes an aborted movement with his arms, then glances down, blinking slowly. You can practically see the wheels in his head turning as he looks at the pelt he’s wrapped in. After a moment, he shifts it down onto his lap, then rubs his eyes with one hand.
Completely adorable.
He seems to be slowly piecing two and two together. He looks at you for a moment, as if still trying to figure out what to say, then, to your surprise, chuckles.
“I fell asleep. Not much of a guardian after all, I suppose. I apologize. Though I take it from our mutual positions that nothing particularly dire occurred.”
You smile despite yourself, your anger and betrayal last night less than a ghost of a memory. “Yes, and I won’t be hiring you as a bodyguard any time soon,” you joke. “You could have simply woken me, Solas. I’d prefer that to us both being asleep, with that blanket involved and all.”
“I wanted to let you rest,” he admits, looking a bit chastised, which is nice. “I did not intend to fall asleep. Normally I don’t have such an issue with staying awake…”
“Old man falls asleep on accident… Yes, that’s very unusual. This might be the first time it’s ever happened.”
“I see sleep has improved your mood,” he says dryly.
“I believe so, yes,” you admit. “I do feel worlds better. I suppose all I really needed was a nap.”
“That’s certainly a word for a fourteen hour mini-coma. How did you sleep?”
“Soundly, I believe. I’m relieved there were no complications this time.” ’Particularly considering you fell asleep.’ Not that you’d actually say that. You’d just think it really hard. “Perhaps we were worried for nothing.” Perhaps next time he can just give you the blanket and walk away. Hint. Hint. Hint.
Solas, however, pauses in a way that makes you smile falter.
“…There weren’t any complications, right?” you ask, eye narrowing.
He hesitates again, and you feel a bolt of pure dread. “We… could discuss that somewhere quieter. Over breakfast, perhaps?”
Somewhere quieter? There’s barely anyone in the entire tower. Somewhere private is what he means. A fist of ice has closed around your heart. You’d assumed he would act immediately if he discovered your magic, and that meant you were in the clear. Perhaps you were wrong.
“Certainly,” you say, wiping off your quill and ‘absent-mindedly’ pocketing it as you stand.
What are the chances that you can take him off guard? Is he the kind of person that could be incapacitated without being seriously harmed? Would he be able to follow you if you escaped by slipping between spaces? If he knows you have magic, could you possibly surprise him with it, enough to get away? Without really hurting him? If you needed to really hurt him to escape, could you? He’s a strong mage, with far more control than you. It wouldn’t matter that you had more raw power if he could make his last longer and go further.
Maybe magic is the wrong way to go about this, you realize as you follow along behind him. He’s taking you upstairs for some reason; your eyes are on the back of his neck. You’re armed; of course you are. A quick blow to the back of the head… You could do it now. But it’s premature. He wouldn’t be expecting it now, perhaps, but you’d feel awfully stupid if he intends to inform you that you masturbate in your sleep or something else mortifying enough to warrant privacy.
You’re a restless sleeper, and you had been dreaming. Had you said something in your sleep, perhaps?
You’re trying to convince yourself more than anything else. You don’t want this to be what you’re almost certain it is, because you don’t want to have to leave. And you definitely don’t want to try your capabilities against Solas. The only person you’d like to fight less is Seeker Pentaghast.
As you exit onto the walkway that leads to his room, you see Celia standing uncertainly at his door, hand raised as if she had just been knocking, or is contemplating it. Ah, right… breakfast. That’s why he’s leading you to his room.
Solas, mercifully, clears his throat rather than walking right up to Celia. She jumps anyway, plates clattering ominously as she spins around. Solas moves quickly despite the distance between them, hand gripping the platter to steady it. You had hoped that time and interaction would heal her fear of Solas, but in that moment, she looks ready to dive over the railing and into a tree to get away from him. You can sympathize. You’re reminded sharply of the time in Val Royeaux when he grabbed you and shoved you up against a wall to hide you from a Chevalier. It’s the last thing you want to be thinking about right now.
“O-oh! S-sorry, serah, I didn’t realize you weren’t in!” she stammers out. Her eyes glance briefly over to you; she seems to take your presence in quickly. You see thoughts flickering behind her eyes as her expression briefly melts from fear to confusion to curiosity, and then quickly back to fear as Solas speaks.
“There is no way you could have known. Thank you, Celia; I can take this from here.”
She releases the tray like it’s made of raw lyrium and then skirts quickly around him, back thumping against the railing as she clearly attempts to put as much distance between the two of them as possible as she passes. Her eyes flick to you again and she scurries past, a clear question in her expression. If you survive this and aren’t running for your life in five minutes’ time, you’ll certainly have a fun time explaining what you and Solas were doing together at such an unseemly hour.
Solas unlocks his door and gestures you inside. You feel very much like you’re walking into an ambush; if he had been a Templar, you wouldn’t have gone in at all. But if nothing else, you’re confident in your ability to get out of a room quickly.
He sets the platter down on his desk almost absentmindedly. He’s clearly thinking very hard about something. You would like very much to know what, exactly.
You take a quick moment to take in his room. It’s been quite a while since you’d seen the inside of it. After the time he’d given you a small heart attack by making you strip—in order to heal your accumulated injuries, of course—you’d avoided it like the plague. You should have kept avoiding it; seems like every time you’re in here, he’s giving you the fright of your life. First, he had you convinced he was going to assault you, and now… this. Frankly, you’d prefer the assault.
“Please, eat,” he says, gesturing towards the food. He sits down on a nearby armchair, which makes you only slightly more comfortable with the idea of sitting down.
“It’s your breakfast; I normally sup with Thea, in the mess house,” you reply.
“I’m not particularly hungry. If you don’t eat it, I suspect it will just go to waste.”
Oh, well, when he puts it that way, of course you’ll sit down, turn your back to him, and munch away! Bastard. You do sit down, however. You shift the chair so that you can face him a bit more directly; it would be awkward to have a conversation with someone behind you under any circumstances. You take a few nervous bites of food as he seems to gather his thoughts. You sincerely hope he doesn’t notice you’re eating with just one hand, the other resting on the desk chair… close enough to your waist that you could grab your dagger quickly.
“I have some… theories… about the source of your insomnia,” he begins finally. The food in your throat threatens to reverse course immediately as your insides churn violently. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. This is happening. “I’m not certain as to the exact cause, but your connection to the Fade is… tenuous, at best.” Or not. You struggle to force the food down, wondering if your panic showed despite your ice cold demeanor. “I suspect whatever is causing it is causing your insomnia as well.”
Well, he’s not wrong. So it’s not your magic he picked up on, but he did notice something was very wrong. The way you pin your aura keeps you from connecting to the Fade, even when you sleep. It’s both an upside and a downside, but it’s doubtless what has allowed you to escape his detection this long.
He’s still talking while your mind races to a conclusion, to a plan. “I could investigate, find the underlying cause. If I’m correct, it may be possible that you—”
“Solas,” you interrupt, cutting him off. You take a breath, composing yourself for what must come next. Not nearly as bad as it could have been. Could be, if you don’t take care of this, now. “What you’re telling me is, essentially, is that you’ve been poking around in my mind?” He makes a little noise of protest, but you sweep onward without allowing him to interject. “Despite the fact I asked you for one thing and one thing only, to keep your magic out of my mind?” you phrase it roughly, angrily, on purpose. “And while I was asleep, right after you promised—”
“I did not!” he protests.
“Then how could you possibly know?!” you demand, letting your voice crack in anger that doesn’t reach past the surface. Inside, you’re hollow. But your question brings him up short. He hesitates; that’s all you need. “I only asked one thing, Solas! I let myself be vulnerable around you, I trusted you—” Your voice echoes through you as if it’s someone else’s. You distance yourself from your angry words, take yourself miles away from the venom you’re spitting. You probably couldn’t repeat exactly what you said; your mind shuts down everything that isn’t necessary to do what needs to be done. The words ‘trust’ and ‘hypocrite’ get thrown around a lot. The irony would be enough to kill you if you weren’t already gone.
Particularly as he begins to look less angry, less upset, and more abashed, more ashamed.
“I just want to help!” he protests once more, and the words echo like Cole’s and give you pause, threatening, horribly, to bring you back to full awareness. “I could help you!”
He sounds so desperate. His eyes look so hurt.
Maybe he could help you. He probably could. In ways he doesn’t even know, isn’t even thinking. He could really, really help you. He could… but—
“I can’t,” you say, voice momentarily as hollow as you really are.
You can’t. And he sees you as a puzzle to be solved. For as much as he frets over the Iron Bull’s intentions, they both look at you the same way when they think you don’t see. Curiously. Wanting to know. That sort of desire can’t be trusted.
You learned that the hard way. The hardest way.
“I can’t,” you repeat again, shifting your eyes away from him. You can’t bring yourself to see his expression anymore. You want to storm out of the room, make a scene. Make him regret it. Make him regret you. Make it worse. Destroy it, destroy this, burn the bridge and sever the cord and be safe again.
“…Please just let it be,” a voice says, quiet and weak. It’s yours. Because you are weak.
“Emma, I…” he begins, then trails off.
“Just let it go, Solas,” you say, not looking at him. And then, because you never learn, because you’re stupid and wretched and you deserve the death that you’re no doubt expediting right now, “I want to think you’re telling the truth. That you just want to help—”
“I am! I do!” he interjects, but you shake your head, still looking away, towards the door.
“It’s too scary to think about. Just the concept I—My stomach twists into knots; all I want to do is run and hide. It’s—I can’t.” Your voice cracks; it isn’t forced, and neither are the tears now leaking, unbidden, out of the corners of your eyes. “Maybe one day I won’t be scared, but right now I can’t.”
You force yourself to look over at him, because you know you need to be able to gauge his reaction. “Right now, I just want to be able to trust you. Trust that you won’t do anything that I don’t want. I can’t… You can’t keep doing this, Solas.”
Silence stretches out between the two of you. You see frustration, you see fear. You see no small amount of self-loathing and shame. Finally, it’s his gaze that drops. “Ir abelas, ma falon.1”
The air in your chest seizes; you try to collect yourself as he continues.
“You’re right. I cannot blame you for being afraid; not after all you’ve been through. I did not believe I was doing anything you would find issue with, but I see now that I was mistaken… and it was not a risk I should have taken, particularly when you were already extending trust to me in good faith.
“But… I hope that one day, you can understand that magic isn’t to blame for the harm it can do. It doesn’t need to be feared. And there are those you can trust not to use it to hurt you.”
You bite your lip. You wish you could tell him what really scares you. The real hurdle of terror you can never overcome. The real reason you can’t trust him, or anyone. But…
“I can’t,” you repeat softly, “…Ir abelas, ma falon,” you echo, and then take the few steps to the door, and leave.
- I’m sorry, my friend. ↩︎