Saccharine Sunsets
You spend the night sitting on your bed, knees against your chest and arms wrapped over your head.
What have you done?
The fact that Solas hadn’t immediately snapped out of his sleep and accosted you means that—contrary to what you’d feared—he couldn’t tell you were a mage simply from touching your sleeping mind. And considering he was apparently a fucking Somniari, that meant your little hiding trick was even better than you’d thought it was.
That was the good news.
Everything else was horrible. The more you thought about it, the more you wanted to climb under your bed and spend the next decade hiding.
You kissed Solas.
The real Solas. You’d thought he was a spirit; you’d gotten careless. And once again you’d let your stupid fucking libido get the better of you. You’d been so excited over the prospect of getting some attention—in a dream, even—that you’d overlooked the signs of a Somniari.
Now Solas knew, rather explicitly, that you harbored attraction to him. And Maker, what you’d said. You want to crawl under a rock and die. You never want the sun to come up. But slowly, inexorably, it does. You hear Solas up and moving around. He’s probably in there stretching. Like an asshole. You stay in your room and sulk. It isn’t until you hear breakfast arrive that you finally force yourself to change into some of your new clothing and face the day. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Solas has already started on breakfast when you enter the room. “Ah,” he says as you enter. “I thought you might be asleep; I didn’t want to disturb you.”
You want to glare. You want to tackle him and throttle him for coming into your dreams, for tricking you, even by accident, for seeing that, for knowing, for—
Instead, you force your face to be pleasant. “I felt like staying in bed a little longer this morning. I appreciate your consideration.” It takes every ounce of your willpower to sit across the table from Solas and smile. You’re screaming inside; you don’t know when you’ll stop.
You down your strong tea in one long chain of gulps, as if you’re chugging alcohol. Solas makes a face but otherwise doesn’t comment. Today, you need all the herbal help you can get. You set the cup down and take a long, deep breath, steeling yourself.
“Our plans for today,” you begin, pushing your emotions down into the pit of your stomach as if you could control them as readily as your aura. Making eye contact with Solas is difficult. You make yourself do it anyway. “I’m afraid it will be a bit dull. It’s essentially a day off for you; I just have a lot of running around to do to ensure everything goes off without a hitch tomorrow. You could go to the library, or explore Val Royeaux. Accompanying me would be rather boring—”
“I would rather remain with you. With your luck, you would be accosted the second you left my sight,” Solas says.
You briefly fantasize about lunging across the table and strangling him. Can’t he take a hint? How does he have this kind of a straight face, anyway?! You’re the only one who has to pretend here! He knows and he’s not letting anything show at all! It’s absolutely unfair. He could at least be a little ashamed of himself! Or embarrassed, or… or… anything! If he brought it up, you could at least clear the air, but he’s not. He would just let you go on believing it a dream?! Pervert! Goddamn pervert! Aaaaah, it’s so embarrassing you could just kill yourself! Or him! Or both!
“Very well,” you say with a smile. “But remember I did warn you it would be dull.”
You hear a crowing from the other room then, and glance behind you. Solas glances up as well. Should you wait? Another crow; loud and insistent.
“Perhaps I should shut the window,” you comment, standing. Solas isn’t buying it, however; as you trail into the other room, he follows.
The ruckus is quickly explained; there’s two crows and a raven sitting on your bed, each with a message.
“Only one of those is Leliana’s,” Solas comments. You scowl at him.
“You know Leliana’s birds by sight? That’s more suspicious than anything.” You remove each of the bird’s messages, glancing over them briefly. One is, in fact, from Leliana—directly, it seems, which is more than a little alarming. One is from Jean with collected information from contacts; the other from Banal’ras. All three birds wait expectantly. “You’ll just have to wait,” you tell them sourly. “I’m in the middle of breakfast.”
You take the letters back to the table and sit back down. Solas hovers around your shoulder for a moment before you glare at him. “Your breakfast will get cold, hahren.”
He sits down on the other side of the table with what could only be called a pout. His desire to see what you’re up to would be amusing if you weren’t so cross with him. You glance over the information as surreptitiously as possible. Leliana’s is the easiest to look at, if only because you don’t have to yank it away when Solas twists his head to see what it says. It’s full of useful information about the trip back to Skyhold. The guard will be effectively doubled, and Leliana emphasizes that the four additional “agents” are more experienced than the guard you’d had before. You hope she’s right; you’re not looking forward to the trip back to Skyhold at all, and in light of Baptiste’s death, well… You won’t be relaxing until those books are within the walls of Skyhold. You idly read over her short descriptions of each agent, but your eyes stick on one. A Qunari mercenary? Your first thought is, ridiculously, that she’s sent the Iron Bull. But no, why would he be away from the Chargers? That does give you an idea, however.
Coupled with the information sent to you from Jean and Banal’ras, something resembling a plan begins forming in your mind. It seems as though luck is smiling on you and the fake Saarebas. You had thought you’d have to leave his rescue to the hands of others. If he was an elf, Banal’ras could be trusted to do it with little more than a point in the right direction, but this is a Qunari. It will be easier and cheaper if you simply do it yourself. This Qunari mercenary in your group may give you the chance to do just that.
“I know the look of a woman plotting,” Solas says mildly as you flip through the collected information. “Why try to hide it?”
You eye him sourly. “I’ll tell you when there’s something worth telling. This is all quite dull, I assure you.” Solas snorts. “Trust me,” you insist. He sighs, but presses you no further, which is… kind of amazing, actually. In the past, Solas had gotten quite insistent with you, to the point where—intentional or not—he’d actively intimidated you to get answers. “Taking no for an answer is a good look on you, Solas,” you say with a smile.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Solas replies.
You fight against a shudder. You wish you could better parse his meaning when he said such things.
“I’ll need to write replies,” you say apologetically. “Do you mind getting a bit of a late start this morning?”
“It will give me an excuse to bathe,” Solas replies. You wonder idly why he hadn’t bathed last night. You’d offered to get more water for him. Perhaps he’d just gotten too absorbed in his book? In any case, you request water—hot water, this time—when the serving girl comes to collect the breakfast dishes. You sit at the desk and try to focus on your writing while listening to Solas splash about in the tub. It’s more difficult than it should be thanks to your continued humiliation. You’d kissed him, you’d kissed him, you’d kissed him. And he’s acting like nothing happened, even though he knows.
Solas comes out of the bath some time later, freshly—and fully—clothed. He smells slightly of lavender; you smile. Had he discovered the scented bath oil as well? You try to redouble your focus on your reply to Leliana, but of course, Solas isn’t content to let you work in peace. He lingers over your shoulder. After a few minutes of increasing irritation, you turn slightly to tell him off.
His face is rather close to yours. You find your eyes fixing on his lips. You turn quickly back to your work, scooting forward slightly, trying to kill the blush that was rising in your cheeks. Not fair. Not fair.
Solas idly watches as you scribe your response to Leliana. You suspect he’s a bit bored, though he’s certainly got plenty of books he could be reading. You send off three different messages with the three different birds; Solas sighs rather heavily, but doesn’t pester you further to tell him what you’re up to. You’re just as glad; there’s not a chance in the Void that he’d let you do what you have planned. He’d tie you down first. Oh, Maker, you shouldn’t have thought that.
“First things first,” you say as you pull on and Solas head out of the inn. “I’d like to stop by the University. I need to make sure everything is set up there, as well as thank the Chancellor.” You eye Solas sourly, wondering if he’d realized how boring spending the day with you will be. But he says nothing. He simply follows you out the door and onto the streets of Val Royeaux. One last day in the city… does he really want to spend it following you around? Well… You suppose that’s his call.
It’s on the way to the university that you overhear it… A few guards are speaking, their tones somewhat hushed, but humans always forget how superior elven hearing is.
“They don’t know how they got in. There’s no Templars there, but the mages are all in a fuss.”
“Why should we care? The White Spire has never been our job before.”
“Who breaks into a mage tower?”
You glance over at Solas, but he shows no more indication that he’s listening than you do. You’ve no doubt he can hear, however. You slow your pace somewhat, wanting to listen in a bit more.
“—books, apparently. Magic books.”
“Oh, that sounds pretty bad. Apostates, then? Maybe some rebel mages?”
“How would we have rebel mages in the city?”
“How would we not? The Templars are gone!”
It’s about then that you finally leave hearing range. Seems like they’ve already discovered the missing books and, likely, the calling card. That was fast. You’d hoped to be out of the city before the break in was even discovered. Perhaps you’d triggered some sort of unseen ward in the library? You’d been careful. It could be as simple as bad timing… But in any case, you’ll have to be extra careful moving the books out of the harbor. And you should let Banal’ras know they’ll be looking for him, although he doubtlessly already knows.
Solas’s eyes are on you, you realize. Oh, yeah, he’d heard that, hadn’t he? Missing books. You’ll have a fun time explaining that one to him. Yet another thing you would have rather avoided. It will be difficult to explain why you’d want tomes of magic, in particular. But you’ll come up with something. For now, you just focus on getting to the university.
Amazingly, it seems like everything is set up at the university. Whatever bullshit you’d pulled with the Chancellor, it had clearly worked. You work with several librarians to confirm the work you needed is complete and to ensure the deliveries will be on time tomorrow morning. Then you announce somewhat loudly in the presence of two security guards that you wish to thank the Chancellor. You give them time to scurry off and make whatever preparations they need before heading towards the man’s office. Solas follows you, though you wish he wouldn’t.
Judging by how empty the hall to his office is, you suspect he’s having it purposefully kept free of people. The fewer folks who see him speaking with the two rabbits forced upon him by the Inquisition, the easier it will be on his reputation… and dignity. You can’t even hold it against him.
“Ah, Ambassador Gagnon,” the Chancellor says with forced pleasantness as you enter his office. “And… associate,” he adds stiffly as Solas steps in behind you. “I’m pleased to hear you found everything you needed.”
“And then some, Chancellor,” you say warmly. “I wanted to personally give you my thanks—the Inquisition’s thanks—for your above-and-beyond assistance in this matter.”
“Of course, Ambassador,” the Chancellor purrs. “I appreciate the… haste… of you and your companion. I’m glad we were able to move at an appropriate pace.”
You can’t see the Chancellor’s expression through his mask, but you do note that his eyes are trained rather firmly on Solas. That’s the only warning you get before he does something you really wish he hadn’t done. He pulls Solas into conversation.
“Do tell me, what did the Inquisition’s magical advisor make of the University’s library?” the Chancellor asks, and it’s all you can do to keep your face a pleasant neutral. Solas doesn’t know the intricacies of Orlesian politics; you were an idiot to allow him to follow you. The things he might say to this pompous ass…
“The library here is quite remarkable, Chancellor,” Solas replies promptly, his voice even and polite. You can’t help but glance over at him, and see him standing tall and authoritative, but polite, hands clasped behind his back. “It is certainly the finest bastion of knowledge I have seen in Orlais.”
Wow, now that was a nice technical-truth. Had Solas seen any other libraries in Orlais? Doubtful. Solas’s well-picked words seem to appease the Chancellor, as well.
“I’m pleased to hear that.” The Chancellor turns his gaze back to you. “Am I correct in assuming this is the last I’ll see of you for some time, Ambassador?”
“Until the Inquisitor’s needs send me back to beautiful Val Royeaux,” you simper.
The Chancellor inclines his head slightly, and you bow. Solas, you note, does neither. Whatever—you’ll take it. He had handled the Chancellor as well as you could expect from a non-Orlesian, let alone a “humble apostate” or whatever it was he claimed to be.
After the library, you make your way to each of the bookstores in turn, ensuring everything is in order and the deliveries will be made on time. You’ve staggered them much in the same way you staggered the “overnight” deliveries, just to make loading up that much easier on everyone involved. It will be a task to get all of the books into one wagon as it is. You hope the horses the Inquisition got are strong.
You find, post-purchase, that it seems suddenly everyone recognizes your name. Likely, they’d bothered to do research once realizing how much coin you were dropping. The name Alix Gagnon is on everyone’s lips, which forces you, in turn, to be pleasant and polite. Everyone wants to mention which of your works they’ve enjoyed, whether they actually have or not. One woman even has the irritating Orlesian audacity to cheerfully note that she had no idea “Alix Gagnon” was a rabbit. Through it all, you smile and nod, ignoring purposefully slights and comments about how intelligent you were “for an elf” and how it just “went to show.”
They find you a cute little oddity, or a demonstration of how great their country is, that “even a rabbit” can find upward mobility if they are talented enough. You wish you could write down each and every one of their names and forward the list to Banal’ras. Instead, you grin and bear it for the sake of speeding things along and maintaining your good name.
You’re amazed to have everything set up by lunch. Somehow, you’ve actually managed this gargantuan task, although you know the job’s not over until you actually get the books back to Val Royeaux without anything catastrophic happening. There are plenty of ways yet for this to go wrong. But… so far, everything is going pretty okay. Aside from the fact you keep catching yourself staring at Solas—and his mouth, in particular.
Rather than stop at a restaurant, given the side of town you’re on, you just swing near the market district and grab some food from a stand. You and Solas wind up eating on one of the Miroir’s many docks, just because it’s out of the way and not particularly crowded. You kick your shoes off and let your toes dangle into the crisp, cool water.
Eating next to him proves to be a challenge, however. Not staring at his lips while he wraps them around his food is far more difficult for you than it should be. You wind up staring off at the Miroir despite the lack of anything interesting to look at, just to avoid staring at Solas instead.
“It is surprisingly peaceful,” Solas comments about halfway through the meal.
“It’s surprisingly dull. The beauty wears off amazingly quickly, so people don’t come around,” you explain. “The really pretty corners of Val Royeaux, under the apple trees and whatnot, are always chock full of lovers. There’s practically a line.”
“And so you bring people here, instead?”
“I don’t tend to bring people anywhere,” you say quietly, splashing the still water idly with your foot.
“No? But you seem to have a great many friends.”
“Think for a moment on the people you’ve seen me with in Val Royeaux.” You turn to look at him despite your general reluctance to do so. “Businessmen and -women I know through work. Former employers. Workers or owners of restaurants or shops. I do not have the kind of relationship with them that includes lunches on a pier.”
Solas is quiet for a time, and you realize just how telling that sort of statement might be now that he knows you harbor less than platonic thoughts about him. You idly consider diving into the Miroir and just swimming the fuck away. Have you done what you feared you’d do, sitting in the tree on the Dales? Have you ruined your chances at friendship with Solas?
If it was going to be destroyed either way, you almost wish you’d at least kissed him of your own volition, rather than thinking him just a figment in a dream. At least that way you wouldn’t have to play this stupid game of pretend, acting like you don’t know he knows.
Irritated—at yourself, at Solas, at a world that feels like it’s conspiring against you—you toss the rest of your sandwich into the Miroir. It’s pointless to think about. You would never have kissed him of your own volition. There was too much danger in that. “It seems we have the afternoon off, Solas,” you say, fighting to keep your voice light when you feel so dark. “If there’s anything else you wish to do in Val Royeaux, now is your chance.”
Solas seems to consider it. Whatever he’s thinking, you doubt you’ll be so lucky as to have some time away from him to compose your wretched self. In all likelihood, he’ll just shrug and say he’ll follow you around all bloody afternoon, leaving you to come up with something to do to entertain him. All you want to do is go somewhere where you can rela—
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Solas says, interrupting your thoughts. “I would like to see more of the city. But like this.” He gestures around at the empty pier. “Take me where you go to relax.”
You blink, slowly. That wasn’t a request you were really expecting. Well, it is, in a sense. It requires both you being with him and you coming up with something entertaining, but… Well, maybe you should just do it honestly? Just go where you’d been planning on going without him.
“…Alright,” you say, pulling your feet out of the Miroir. Your feet are too wet to go back in shoes, but that’s fine, considering what you have planned. With no small amount of self-consciousness, you reach into your back pocket and pull out the foot wraps Solas had given you when you broke into the White Spire. The fact that you’d been carrying them was probably telling.
“You’ll probably just be bored,” you mutter as you avoid looking at him and wrap your feet from ball to calf.
“Perhaps,” Solas replies. You see him shrug out of the corner of your eye, try not to let your gaze grasp onto his broad shoulders. “But even so, there are worse things in this world than a single dull afternoon.”
It feels very strange to be walking through the Belle Marche in elven foot wraps. You can feel the shape of the stones underfoot, their warmth against your toes. You doubt any Orlesian shem has ever felt the city quite like this.
Being in the bustling marketplace is so enjoyable that you can almost forget your troubles. Not quite, and every now and then Solas says something and your eyes drag back to his lips and you remember that you’re mortified. But generally, you can keep yourself distracted. You walk the stalls with him, examining trinkets and accessories and wares of all kinds. You spend what coin you have left in your own purse, since you’ve nothing to really do with it back at Skyhold.
You’re actually starting to become quite cheered until you pass by a stand selling apples and apple-based goods. “Oh, I should buy some apple j—” You stop in the middle of your sentence as a memory hits you like falling boulders. Baptiste had wanted to buy you apple jam in Val Royeaux. Cheer suddenly gone, you run a sad finger over one of the jars.
You expect the shopkeep to be rude, but perhaps she sees the past purchases and your decent clothing. Or perhaps, to her, your gold spends as well as anyone else’s. In any case, she engages you cheerfully.
“You have wonderful taste, miss! The jam this season is marvelous. I also have fresh apples here, ripe and marvelous. It is the perfect season for them!”
You can’t help but smile a bit at the eager sales pitch. You wind up purchasing a few jars of jam, as well as some apples—and something for later, when Solas wanders of a little bit to look at another stand. Actually, you wind up buying quite a lot there in the Belle Marche, mostly presents for your friends and “friends” back in Skyhold. It occurs to you only now, but you should take advantage of being in Skyhold to get something for Banal’ras as well—the two of you have something of an anniversary coming up, although you’ll miss the date itself.
You make your way through the Belle March, and wonder if Solas is as bored as you predicted he would be. You doubt he suspected another day of shopping, but you still had things to pick up, coin to spend. He does seem to be less than content.
“Is this what you do to relax?” he asks as the two of you make your way back from purchasing food from a vendor. “I expected something with… less people.”
“I do love the market,” you admit. “But I’m not done yet.” You lead him into an alleyway, tucking the food into your bag as you do so. “Have you noticed how popular lattices are here in Val Royeaux?”
“It hadn’t particularly stood out,” Solas replies. “Is it significant?”
“Only for one thing,” you say. You grip onto a lattice on the side of the alleyway, one that has thick vines growing up it. Toes already bare for gripping, you begin to scale up it. “Are you coming, Solas?” you ask, glancing down over your shoulder at him and grinning.
Solas shakes his head slightly, but he’s smiling. He grips onto the lattice and begins climbing up beside you. You lead him up, up, further up, climbing across stranger’s balconies and scaling up lattices, vinces, and windowsills. Finally, you reach a roof, several stories above the ground where crowds still bustle through the Belle Marche. It’s the tallest building for several blocks, and the view is splendid.
“This was more along the lines of what I expected,” Solas says, turning to look around.
“I’m still not done,” you say, walking towards the edge of the building.
“What are you do—”
Regardless of how badly he seems to react to surprises, you can’t resist. You only wish you could see his face as you step off the roof.
“Emma!” His strangled shout will just have to do. It’s a bit satisfying—revenge for tricking you, perhaps? You look up and see him as he rushes to the edge and peers over, only to see you a few scant feet below, sitting cheerfully on a large, decorative statue jutting from the side of the building. “Y… you…” he says, and you watch as panic turns to relief turns to anger in his eyes.
“Tel’abelas1,” you say, laughing. “The look on your face is worth it.”
“Do you enjoy causing me distress?”
“Did you enjoy watching me get drenched in the rain last night?” you reply smartly. “Climb down with me, Solas.”
This seems to surprise him. “Is that not dangerous?”
“Not really,” you reply. You smack the statue between your legs. It’s solid, thick, and heavy. “These griffons have been here for a very long time. They won’t break under our weight. And besides, you wanted to see what I used to do to relax.”
Solas climbs down onto the next statue over, somewhat more cautiously than your casual jump from the side of the building. There is nothing between your dangling feet and the ground but air. The statues are close enough that you could reach out and touch Solas if you wanted to. You don’t, of course. But you could.
“Is this altogether wise?” he wonders, testing the statue between his legs.
You shrug. “The statues won’t fall, and I won’t slip. We’re probably safer here than in the alienage, all told.” You shift your bag around in front of you and pull out some of the things you’d bought… food, mostly. “I used to come up here all the time, watch the people, read a book… When you asked me for a place I came to relax, this is the first place I thought of.”
You pull out one thing in particular for Solas… You’d seen it, thought of him, thought of where you’d be going. In the end, you hadn’t been able to resist, despite the fact you knew you really should have. Out of your bag come two caramel apples. You hand one over to Solas with a nervous smile. His hand brushes yours as he takes it. This is a mistake. This whole thing is a mistake, you shouldn’t have—
“Ma serannas,” he says, a simple reward that soothes your doubts. Your heart thuds dully in your chest. You really have no self-control, do you?
“The apples here are better than what we get in Skyhold,” you explain, looking away from him quickly. You can barely eat your own; your stomach is tied up in knots. Long-held fatigue is making your mind feel fuzzy.
“Have you never been spotted from below?” Solas asks after biting into his apple with a satisfying crunch. He’s glancing over the shoulder of the griffon statue at the people walking below in the Belle Marche. “We are not that far up.”
“People rarely look up. You have to crane your neck just to see these statues from the market. And in the afternoons when the sun is high, you’d be staring straight into the light. It blots everything out.”
Solas is silent for a moment while he chews. After a moment, he says, “This is a remarkably dangerous place to come to relax.” You’re ready to be offended, but he chuckles. “It’s very much like you. I suppose we should all be glad you haven’t taken to scaling the battlements.”
“I have, once,” you admit, which causes him to look over at you sharply. “It was Sera’s fault. She has a way of roping me into the stupidest things.”
“I can relate,” Solas says dryly, looking down at the ground, a long way straight down.
“This is nothing compared to breaking into the White Spire,” you say with a laugh. “Or any number of rather foolhardy things I’ve done with you here. I’m amazed you keep going along with it.”
“Nothing particularly terrible has happened yet.”
“Not for lack of trying,” you chuckle. You pull your legs up from around the griffon statue, resting them in front of you.
“Trying such as that,” Solas points out. “You’re going to fall off.”
“Stop fretting, mamae,” you say sarcastically. “I have done this before, you know.”
“I have no doubt. And yet I cannot shake the feeling that this will be the time something goes wrong.”
“If I fall, you can catch me,” you say with a careless grin. “You’re a magic man, after all. Be glad I’m not Sera. She would dangle from one arm just to see me sweat.”
“That would seriously hamper your relaxation,” Solas agrees.
The two of you eat your caramel apples slowly, as you had before. You shouldn’t have started the meal off with dessert, but you couldn’t resist.
“Ooh, pickpocket,” you say, pointing downwards. “The short one with the dark hood. See them?”
Solas scans the crowd below. “Ah, yes.”
“They’re not bad,” you say with a chuckle as you watch. “They need to work on the mark-picking, though. They’re going after the easy purses, not the heavy ones.”
“I imagine you must be quite skilled. Somehow, I doubt you needed Sera to show you how to pick my lock.”
You flush at the reminder, looking up from the thief below. “I… well, she gave me the picks,” you insist. “It’s not as though I had any! I left that part of my life behind long before I joined the Inquisition.”
“I believe it may have followed you,” Solas quips. You glare at him and toss a wrapped sandwich at his head. He catches it and pauses to look at what you threw, then laughs. “What would you have done if I dropped this?”
“Watched with great amusement to see whose head it did hit,” you say with a snort. “As if I’ve never dropped things off of here before? I once spent an entire afternoon up here dropping lizards.”
“Lizards?”
“Mmhmm. I’d play a game to see if I could make them land on people’s heads. One woman stayed at a stand long enough that I was able to get seven lizards on her hat before she wandered off.”
Solas looks intensely amused. “Where did you find that many lizards? And how did you get them onto the roof?”
“I have a gift,” you say seriously. No need to tell him that Banal’ras helped you carry them up.
“A gift with lizards?”
“Absolutely. Perhaps I’m a mage after all, just instead of being able to manipulate the energies of the Fade, I can just… manipulate lizards.” You wiggle your fingers dramatically, and Solas laughs again. You would normally be uncomfortable about joking about that sort of thing, but it’s worth it to make him laugh.
You stay up there longer than you should. Until the sun is setting in the west and the Belle Marche is closing down below your feet. And you talk. You can’t quite forget the kiss, but this feeling is so sweet that you almost don’t want to. Solas doesn’t appear to be holding it against you. Your act is working–he may know your feelings for him, but he believes you think it was no more than a dream. His pretending burns, but given time to think about it, you’ve realized he’s no doubt attempting to spare your feelings. You can appreciate that.
“I noticed you bought a lot of trinkets in the marketplace. And a great number of… ribbons. Are you fond of them?” Solas asks. He’s shifted into a more comfortable position, still straddling the griffon, but leaning back against the building. You’re lying down the length of the griffon on your stomach, legs gripping the base of it to ensure you don’t slip off. It lets you watch the people mill about below.
“They’re presents,” you reply. “For people back in Skyhold, mostly. It’s something of an Orlesian tradition to bring women ribbons from Val Royeaux, and I know a great number of women these days. Those are easy. But Dorian, Bull, Krem… so many of the others, I wanted to get them things, but had no real idea what they’d like… so… trinkets.” You sit up with a grunt, twisting your bag around in front of you. “I have no idea if they’ll even like any of them.”
In truth, you’d bought something for essentially every person you knew, even people you didn’t know very well. You kept seeing things that reminded you of those you knew in Skyhold. You have no idea how you’re going to give them out when you get to Skyhold… You don’t know what the protocol around giving gifts is. Skyhold is a mixed bag, culturally, and you can never keep straight of what upsets Fereldens.
You idly rummage through the various presents. You had, in fact, even picked something up for Solas, the day before. You suspect you’ll never actually gather the courage to give it to him. You pull out a few of the multi-colored ribbons to show Solas.
“They’re for your hair,” you explain. “It’s just a… tradition, I guess? It makes things easy on me, but then I was thinking I should get the men something too, and that’s where it got complicated.”
Solas chuckles. “That explains the pins.”
You grin. “Do you think they’ll like them?”
“I am the last one to judge. I’m certain you know them far better than I.”
You sigh and lean back against the building, mimicking Solas’s relaxed posture. “It’ll be odd, going back to Skyhold,” you confess. “Falling back into old routines.” It’s hard to believe you’ll have been gone for two weeks. It doesn’t seem so long, but it’s a third of the time you’ve worked for the Inquisition, really. They sent you out on such an important task despite the fact you’d only been there for a month… ludicrous. Although, you have to admit, it certainly worked out for them. You’d done a good job.
“You will reaccustom yourself quickly,” Solas says. “Or do you simply mean it will be odd to go back to being Emma after being Alix for so long?”
You fix him with a sour glare. “I am Emma,” you say firmly, well aware of the irony, given what your name means. “Alix Gagnon is a mask as much as this one.” You tap against the silver mask on your face. “I shed it when I left Orlais for the Inquisition.”
“And donned it quickly when you came back.”
“Of course,” you agree. “But even if everyone in the world knew me as Alix Gagnon, that wouldn’t make it true.”
“Would it not?”
“No,” you say firmly. “We are not people’s perceptions. We are ourselves. The core of us is fixed. It does not change based on whim, ours nor others’.”
Solas is silent, and for a time, you wonder if you’ve said something telling again. Blast Solas to the Void… You want to know what he thinks about everything. Everything including you. You want him to see the heart of you because you want to know what he’d make of you. To watch yourself, spread open on an examination table, as he picks about the parts of you and tells you what they mean.
It’s very foolish.
“I believe it’s long past time for us to climb off of this roof, Solas,” you say with a sigh. The two of you have watched the sun set. Now you’re just wasting time, whittling away at your last night in Val Royeaux.
“Any more dramatic plans for the night?” Solas asks as you stand, feet careful on the stone statue, to pull yourself back up onto the roof.
“Certainly,” you say amiably. “We can return to the hotel room and I can enjoy one last bath while you read. Out loud, if I get my way. Then perhaps you’ll bathe, and I’ll read to you. I’m certain by then, the elderly like you will be heading to bed. We have a long, long day tomorrow.”
“I’m hardly in need of yet another bath,” Solas says mildly. “But I would enjoy hearing you read.”
It’s dark on the streets. Two elves, out past curfew again, and while you have your cape, Solas neglected to bring his. His bare ears are a beacon. You shouldn’t be surprised when trouble finds you.
You see the Chevalier only moments before he sees the two of you. Solas seems to have noticed him as well, and it’s that split second of eye contact that makes the Chevalier’s decision for him. “Hey, you two,” he says with a frown, and takes two steps forward before your instincts kick in. You and Solas could probably talk your way out of the situation, but your jaw has finally healed and you just really don’t want to deal with that shit tonight.
“Cheese it!” you exclaim, wrapping your hand around Solas’s wrist. You take off down an alley, dragging a startled Solas along behind you. He stumbles only briefly when you first yank, and then he’s running along with you.
“Hey! Fucking knife-ears! Stop!” you hear the Chevalier shout behind you. You release Solas’s wrist to throw yourself at a half-wall, scrambling up to the top, toes gripped into the rock.
“Why are we running?” Solas asks as he clambers up after you.
“Isn’t it obvious?” you say, a little breathlessly. “To see who outruns who.”
You lead the Chevalier on a merry little chase through the back alleys. The fact of the matter was, he had no real chance of catching you. If you were that easy to catch, you would have been dead years ago. The speed and grace with which Solas moves is a pleasant surprise, however. He matches your pace, letting you lead the way but keeping up with seeming effortlessness. You wind up taking a more convoluted route than you need to, leading the Chevalier along rather than simply losing him along a shadowed rooftop. Just to see Solas move, to see his shoulders tense beneath his clothing as he pulls himself up. Just for the sheer joy of snaking your way through the night with him, a pair of giggling thieves dodging the law.
You’re high on adrenaline again by the time you sneak around to the inn. Bare toes on the flagstones and you feel like you want to grab him and dance. You manage to resist, but laughter finally comes bubbling out as the two of you slink into the room together one last time.
“I didn’t expect you to be so athletic, Solas,” you laugh. “You had no trouble keeping up. All that stretching you do must really work.”
“I suppose so,” Solas says, sounding amused. “Perhaps next time, I should lead, to see if you can keep up?”
You laugh again, the sound light and breathless. He doesn’t seem at all winded, but you are, breath fluttering in your chest like butterflies from your long run. “Next time? Do you see this becoming a regular thing for us?”
“Perhaps,” Solas says, and once again you can’t quite parse his meaning. But one thing you know for sure… There are worse fates in this world than running. Particularly if you have someone with which to run.
- Not sorry ↩︎