Alone, Together
Despite the fact you’d originally been planning on heading back relatively quickly, you and Solas spend quite a bit of time together in that tree. At some point, you kick off your shoes, letting your toes relax in the cool autumn air. The two of you finish your caramel apples slowly over the course of the next half-hour or so, and Solas tells you more about the strange artifact you’d found in the woods.
It’s beginning to get quite dark out, however. When you comment on this to Solas, he simply reaches his hand out between the two of you and summons a small ball of light. Unfortunately, you’d been looking directly at his hand when he had. You squint painfully, but don’t recoil, lest he think you’re afraid. Even before your eyes have adjusted, you’re staring with glee. You reach out towards it, wondering if it will produce heat like Solas’s veilfire. It seems to be simply light, however.
Solas reaches out with his other hand and grips your wrist. You freeze, wondering if you’d done something wrong, but he simply twists your wrist until your palm is facing upwards, mirroring his. And then he takes the light and simply… places it in your hand. You freeze, but the little light is in no way attempting to draw any power from you… it’s merely sitting in your hand. You’ve done this trick yourself, a tiny light that sticks to things. It’s a common trick amongst mages, but you marvel at it nonetheless. Such a little thing, but sharing it with another makes it seem shiny and new. You rotate your hand slightly, flickering the light through the leaves of the tree and smiling. You’ve had so little time in your life to simply play with magic. You want to throw the light up, send it dancing through the branches… but for that, you’d need your own mana.
Despite the way Solas’s bright blue eyes dance in the flickering light, it’s a risk you cannot take.
Your eyes meet his, stay a few beats too long. You realize with dawning horror that you want to kiss him. Like with Sera on the soft bed, if he makes a move now, you won’t be able to make yourself stop him. You see his lips part slightly, and fear grips your heart, enough that you feel as though it might shatter.
“We should get back to camp,” you say quickly, before he can say or do whatever it was he might have been about to say or do. “They’ll be getting worried by now.”
Solas is quiet for a moment, then nods. “Of course.” He flicks the light gently from your palm, sends it hovering out along the tree so that the two of you can see to climb down. You let him descend first, if only because in order to get down as is, you would have to scramble over his lap. It’s only the feel of your feet in the soft grass that reminds you to grab your shoes, and you yank them on hastily before heading back to the camp with Solas.
“Did you children have fun?” Baptiste comments as the two of you stroll back into the copse of trees that houses your temporary camp. His eyes sparkle with that specific brand of Orlesian glee. Must everything be sex? Although it’s not as if your mind hadn’t gone there as well. Between the massage, the halla, the magical light in your palm… If you had kissed him, no one would have blamed you. Perhaps not even Solas himself, although you’d hate to make things awkward when you finally seem to be endearing yourself to him. Especially when you’ll be spending the next two weeks in such close contact.
Solas makes his polite excuses and heads straight for his tent. That’s just as well… if he hadn’t hidden in his tent, you would have hidden in yours. As it is, you stay up by the fire. Baptiste goes to bed eventually, and then you’ve only Elaine for company. She’s not much of a conversationalist, which is fine by you. The two of you sit together by the time until her watch is up, and it’s Garrick’s turn.
“Up late again?” Garrick asks as he sits by the fire. He has with him a giant double-headed axe. It’s a terror to behold: not as large as the huge sword you’d once seen Iron Bull carry, but intimidating nonetheless. He sits by the fire and begins to sharpen one of the edges with a whetstone. The sound gives you chills.
“I’m still not used to camping,” you say with a pleasing smile, trying to ignore your discomfort at the sight of his axe. “I’m sure I’ll sleep better once we arrive in Val Royeaux.”
“We’re making good time,” he assures you. “At this rate, you’ve only one more night of sleeping under the stars.”
“I can’t say I’m not relieved to hear that,” you say with a chuckle. “I’m a city girl at heart. I’m not built for this sort of travel.”
“Where are you from?” he asks curiously. “I can’t place your accent.”
“Ferelden, originally, but most recently, Orlais,” you reply, waiting for the inevitable follow-up question.
“Ferelden?” Garrick visibly brightens. “I’m from Redcliffe. Well, outside Redcliffe. Where are you from?”
“Denerim.”
“Pardon my saying, but you don’t sound Ferelden.”
“A great deal of my childhood was spent elsewhere,” you say, praying he doesn’t pry. You’ve no real reason to lie about it, not now, but that doesn’t mean you enjoy bringing it up. “My accent simply didn’t know what to do with itself and gave up.”
“Really? You sound-”
“Emma.” Solas’ voice pierces you like a spear; your whole body goes rigid. “Ghilas era.1”
You whip your head over towards his tent, but you don’t see him. Is he speaking from inside? Why is he still awake? Had you woken him with your chatter? “I-ir abela-”
“Sahlin.2”
“Vel, hahlin!3” you exclaim, scrambling towards your tent. You dive into it without so much as saying goodnight to Garrick. There are some tones with which one does not argue.
Is it possible to fall asleep out of sheer terror? You can only assume that’s what happened. Solas told you to sleep, so you slept.
Your dreams are heated and hazy. You run across endless plains on Revas’s back, holding tight to Solas. Not out of fear, but out of joy. In your dreams, there is no pain: the gentle blessing of the Fade.
You and Solas sit high in a tree, watching the sun set over the curve of the horizon. This time, when he places light into your hand, you don’t have to run. In the Fade, you can’t hurt him, and he can’t hurt you. There is no pain. There is only the feeling of his lips pressed against yours.
You awake slowly, gradually, sometime before dawn. You can still feel the ghost of lips upon yours. You suddenly miss the cold of the mountains; you could stand for a roll in snow at the moment. You’ll just have to walk it off.
Solas told you to sleep. You slept. Hopefully that will satisfy him, because despite the early hour, you can’t bear the thought of staying in your tent until dawn. You dress as quietly as you can and all but sneak out of the tent, as if Solas might somehow hear you and demand you return to your bedroll.
Kelsie is up keeping the last watch, but you know that if you go to her, her chatter will certainly wake up Solas. Instead, you head for Revas and Ashi’lana. It doesn’t matter to you that both have already been brushed the night before; you give them both a fresh rub down for the day to come. When they’re both spotless, you move on to the guard’s horses. They’re less happy to see you than the harts, but warm to you quickly thanks to a few choice bribes. Bribery works on everything in this world and the next; you’ll stop doing it when it stops working.
You’re on horse number three of five when Solas rises. He seems to awaken with the sun, despite the fact he sleeps a little past dawn at Skyhold. He emerges in dark, tight pants and a loose undershirt. You watch from over the horse’s back as he begins to stretch behind the tent he shares with the diplomat. The stretches start normal enough, but quickly delve into the sort of bizarre, elaborate things you’ve seen him do on several occasions now. You wonder if Bull knows similar stretches, although you can’t imagine him resting on his forearms with his legs curved above him, the way Solas is now.
The horse’s snort serve to remind you that you’ve been brushing the same place for about five minutes now.
“Can you blame me?” you mutter under your breath to the horse. “He’s flexible.” The horse snorts as if to say yes, he can blame you, and that you should focus on your work. You try, but you really can’t avoid staring. What would have happened if you’d kissed him in the tree yesterday? Intense awkwardness, to be sure, but would Solas be tolerant of your silly schoolgirl crush? Or would it completely shut down all the progress you’d made on winning him over?
Well, you’ll never know, because you’ve no intention of kissing him. Look, but don’t touch. Hopefully you can at least manage that.
After you finish brushing every animal in sight, you go to help Kelsie prepare breakfast. You do it just for something to do, really. Since it’s Kelsie, though, you have to if you want to have anything that’s not burned. You watch the sausage over the fire while she endlessly prattles away. You just sort of let it wash over you, saying things like “mmhmm” and “oh!” at appropriate intervals. She’s chipper. It’s not a trait you dislike, per se, but you’ve very little energy for it so early in the morning.
Eventually, the others begin filtering out of their tents, flocking towards the smell of cooking sausage. You decide there’s no harm in a little last-minute bribery. You fetch from your bag of treats one of the jars of fruit jam.
“Let’s make that travel bread a little more appealing, hmm?” you declare as you plop down by the fire again. You pass the jar around, and breakfast immediately becomes an Event. Emilio and Kelsie begin amicably bickering with each other and Baptiste waxes nostalgic about the jellies in Val Royeaux. He even promises to get you some apple jam, which you fully intend to hold him to.
You’ve endeared yourself well to the five of them over the last two days. You don’t know that any would take a blade for you, but they’d probably at least stand between you and the man wielding it. You’ve only one day of travel left, however, so it’s likely a moot point. Still, better safe than sorry. If they’ll be escorting you about Val Royeaux, they may be the only thing between you and a chevalier sooner or later.
You certainly hope at least one of them will be escorting you through the streets, in any case. As much as it might entertain you to think of strolling through the streets of Val Royeaux with Solas, two elves walking cockily through the richer side of town always draws eyes. And Solas… Well, he dresses… like Solas. Perfectly serviceable, and your current wardrobe isn’t that much better, but he’ll stick out like a sore thumb in Val Royeaux. If it’s just the two of you and Baptiste, you could pass for a servant… but Solas?
Eventually the seven of you pack up camp and head out. The day is bright, clear, and sunny, with only a few gloriously white, fluffy clouds in the sky. Almost as soon as Revas is galloping beneath you, you begin feeling those strong pangs of wanderlust again. Sticking to the road like this really isn’t satisfying you at all. You think wistfully of the halla from last night, how free they’d been. You want to run across the Dales like that. Wild and free. Now that you have Revas, you really could, and the desire very nearly overcomes you several times.
Revas seems to be feeling the same way, or perhaps he simply picks up on your mood. You’re forced to ride next to Solas or off to the side, because if you get anywhere near one of the horses, Revas tries to jab them with his horns. Even if you steer away from them, he prances and huffs and is just generally a pain. You whisper soft apologies into his ear, telling him you understand, that you want to run too, but you doubt he can understand you. It doesn’t seem to calm him, at any rate.
By lunch, both of you are irate. Garrick leads the group off the road, and most dismount and begin pulling out things to eat for lunch, but your stomach is in twists. You wander away from the others slightly, still on Revas, as if keeping watch. You gaze out across the plains. It feels like they go on forever, like you could just run and run and nothing would ever stop you.
Fuck it, you need to get this out of your system.
You don’t even have to kick Revas, you just have to give him the reins. He goes from standing to galloping in a single stride, sending dirt and grass flying behind you. He tears off across the Dales, and you just hold on for dear life. The wind steals the breath from your lungs, but you don’t feel like you need to breathe anymore.
Revas thunders across the plains, and somehow you manage to stay on him. You wonder if this is how Belassan feels, like the hart is an extension of your own legs. The endless plains roll by as you tear towards the nearest cluster of trees, just to aim for something. Just so that you can see how fast you’re going.
You feel alive.
As you near the trees, you drop the reins around the saddlehorn and just throw your hands in the air, leaning back and watching as you race the clouds. That’s when you notice that it’s not just you and Revas out here. Behind you, not even very far, are Solas and Ashi’lana, galloping across the plains just as fast.
Again, you’re struck by just how marvelous of a figure he makes, astride the stark white hart. With the two of you trailing across the Dales together, it’s even easier for you to imagine a life of freedom, shared. Solas obviously has tricks to avoid Templars, good ones. He suspects you have magic, if the frequency with which he checks you for it is any indicator. Would it be so bad to just tell him…?
Ah, but Solas wouldn’t just abandon the Inquisition to trail across the countryside with you. If he’s putting up with the Inquisitor, he has good reason. He spoke very seriously about the creature, Corypheus. He actually takes his responsibilities seriously. Unlike you. For you, this is more of a way to pass the time until you can find someplace safer. He’s no reason to run away with you. But for a moment, you close your eyes and imagine, just pretend. It’s just the two of you. Safe. Free. Alone, together.
As it turns out, closing your eyes, dropping the reins, and leaning back on a speeding hart is an incredibly stupid idea.
Belassan had warned you that harts had a fourth gait. A “bound” he called it. You’d never actually seen a hart do it, however, and certainly never been on one. When Revas springs up into the air, you lose your balance, your feet come out of the stirrups. You lean desperately forward, trying to compensate. His feet hit the ground and he springs up again, and you come flying out of the saddle. You soar over his head, spinning feet over his antlers. Time seems to slow and you have a very vivid moment to stare at Solas, seemingly upside down to you, looking severely alarmed. Fortunately, or unfortunately, perhaps, there’s a tree to break your fall.
You slam into a branch rather painfully, your vision quickly obscured with a flurry of leaves. You thump down through the branches until you fall the last two or three meters straight onto the ground, face down.
Your mind swims with dizziness. You’d spun through the air and hit the tree still spinning, and bouncing off all of those branches hadn’t helped. There’s a loud ringing in your ears, enough that you can’t hear anything else until it begins to fade. When it does….
“Emma! Emma!” Solas’s voice sounds like it’s coming from a long way away. With a pained groan, you roll over. Your head is a spiraling mess, but you can move, at least.
“I’m okay!” you slur, dazed. You roll over and then attempt to stand, but don’t get very far.
“Sit still!” Solas shoves down on your shoulders, forcing your ass back to the ground. He kneels next to you; you try vaguely to push him away.
“Really, I’m fine,” you repeat. The fog is starting to clear from your head, doubled vision slowly fusing back to normal. “The tree broke my fall.”
“You stupid… Hold still!” he snaps. You try to push him off you once more, and he grabs both your wrists, snapping them down by your waist. “Be still, or I will make you be still!” he snarls, and you finally stop wiggling. As your head clears, the pain is starting to hit, as well.
You feel Solas’s magic push into you, without any of the prior pain this time. You have enough sense to tuck your aura down and out of the way while he examines you. It’s more difficult than it has been in the past. He seems intent on giving you a thorough exam, so you have to keep dragging the center of your power out of the way. “Solas, I’m fi—” you begin, but he shoves a hand, rather rudely, over your mouth. Looks like you’ve nothing you can do but try to play keep-away with your aura.
Finally, Solas lets out a long, irritated sigh and stops raking you with his magic, but his hand is still over your mouth. Frustrated, you do the only thing you can think of… you lick the inside of his hand. Shocked, Solas pulls it away from your mouth, and finally lets you speak.
“Solas, I’m not seriously injured. The tree broke my fall.”
“The tree could have broken your spine,” he snaps. “What were you thinking?”
“I, um… Well…” you grin sheepishly. He’s mad, but you’re still too full of adrenaline to be frightened. “I was thinking how much fun it would be to run across the Dales. I didn’t expect you to follow me, though.”
“Of course I followed you! It looked as though you lost control of Revas,” he says with a scowl.
“…Oh.” You… hadn’t thought of that, honestly. “…Oops?”
“‘Oops,’ she says,” Solas grumbles, but he seems to be calming down slightly. “You’ve injured your leg, but only mildly. Somehow, you’ve avoided serious injury.”
“I told you I was fine!”
“You won’t be, if you keep mouthing off,” he says with a scowl. Maker, you’d really pissed him off this time! You suppose you ought to go into damage control mode.
“Emma ir abelas4, Solas,” you murmur, eyes downcast. “Ar nuvenin vhenal revas.5”
He’s quiet for a time, and you don’t want to look up to see his expression. You keep your eyes low. “…Vhenal,” he corrects with a sigh. You manage not to grin, but you do look up. Solas looks… tired, a bit, and still irritated, but his anger seems to be abating somewhat. He reaches for your leg, but you stop him.
“You said it was a mild injury, Solas. Don’t waste your strength with it,” you say, although you suspect you may be risking irritating him again.
Solas hesitates, so you urge further. “We’ll be riding all day. If it’s still bothering me in the evening, you can just heal it then.”
He sighs yet again. “Fine. But you’ll have difficulty riding. Come here.” He stands, then helps you stand. Your left leg does feel like you’ve sprained the ankle, or the knee, or both, but you can walk on it. He leads you towards the harts, both of whom are breathing heavily from the run. You fear for a moment that you’re in for another rough ride behind him on Ashi’lana, but he takes you to Revas’s side, instead.
The hart snorts in your face and rubs his soft nose against you, then down your side as if checking to see if you’re alright. “As if it’s not your fault,” you say with a chuckle, rubbing behind one of his ears. “Jumping like a loon.”
Solas helps you up onto Revas, and you realize that he’s right. Without your leg to help support and balance you, you feel precarious. There’s no Solas up here to hold onto. Fortunately, Solas seems to have a solution. He rummages through one of the packs on Ashi’lana and comes out with…
“Is that rope?” you exclaim.
“You seem unable to stay on your hart without assistance,” he says darkly, and you see a glint in his eye. Embarrassing you does seem to be his favored method of revenge when you’ve upset him. “We can’t have you falling off again, can we?”
You don’t really have any way to argue, so you stay silent. He ties your injured leg onto the saddle… rather expertly, you note. You try to ignore the feel of his hands on your leg. Fortunately, the tie stops at his knee. If he’d tried to go any higher than that, you would have simply walked back to the others, injured leg or no.
Once he’s satisfied that you’re securely tied to Revas—now there’s a play on words—he mounts Ashi’lana. He leads you back towards the camp at a leisurely pace, likely to rest the harts. Running Revas wasn’t the smartest thing to do, now that you think about it; he has to carry you all the way to Val Royeaux. Or, well, to the ferry, at least.
“Solas?”
“Mmm?” Solas is riding directly to your side, perhaps to make sure you don’t fall off despite the ties… or bolt again.
“Do you know why the Inquisitor sent us on this task? Well… Me, mostly, if I’m being honest. You, at least, make sense.”
“Do I?” Solas says, sounding amused. “I’ve spent no real time in Orlais. You are familiar with the city.”
“So is Madame de Fer, and she has the connections necessary to actually make a good show of this,” you point out. “The Inquisitor didn’t even send Baptiste. That was Lady Montiliyet. He just wanted the two of us to go.”
“Do you have a theory?”
“No, not particularly,” you say with a frown. “That’s why it bothers me. It seems like an incredibly stupid decision, and I doubt it was made out of faith in our skills… No offense.”
Solas laughs. “No offense taken. Did Leliana or Josephine say nothing that gave you any ideas?”
“They seemed to think it was boneheaded as well,” you confess. “Which… worries me.”
“Don’t fret overmuch,” Solas advises you. “No matter the Inquisitor’s intentions, we’re more than equipped to handle this.”
You snort. “Says the man who’s never really been to Val Royeaux. At least we have Baptiste,” you add with a sigh. “And hopefully at least one armed guard.”
“Do you suspect we’ll need one?”
“I’d rather have one and not need it, then need one and be sorely without,” you say dryly.
You’re coming up on the others, now. You see Kelsie wave, then shout something to the others. As you draw closer, the teasing begins.
“You two really can’t get enough alone time, can you?” Kelsie says, nudging you playfully in the leg. Then she notices the ties. “Maker! What happened?”
“I, uh… Fell,” you say lamely.
“Onto your friend?” asks Baptiste gamely. The group chuckles and asks no more questions. You could kiss the Orlesian, honestly. He’s done that twice now, covered for you in an awkward situation. You’ve no idea if he’s doing it on purpose, but either way… he’s your favorite.
The group sets out again, and you take up beside Baptiste. “Excited to be back in Val Royeaux?” you ask cheerfully.
“Exuberant!” he replies merrily. “I’ll have you know I’ll be meeting my grandson for the very first time! My daughter is bringing him to the docks to meet us.”
“Is he very young, then?” you ask, wondering how long the man has been away from home.
“Four months!” he says excitedly. “He’s my first grandson, you know!”
“But not your first grandchild?”
“I have three daughters and four granddaughters,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m sure you can understand my excitement at the prospect of another man in the family.”
He talks gleefully about his growing family for some time as you ride, and then about the itinerary some more. It does sound as though you’ll be spending most of your time in the library, but not all. He says with a long wink that he’ll be sure to give you and Solas time to “tour the city.” He’s teasing you, but you’re glad. There are a few things you really would like to show Solas. You have favorite haunts in that city, bakeries and restaurants and stores. You know the back alleys, you know how to get into any number of places despite your pointed ears… and often without being seen. Funny how often those two go hand in hand.
You also learn that it’s Baptiste who has the Requisition forms. While Revas is laden with supplies and food, his horse is burdened with no small amount of paper. You’ll have to have a look at those yourself once you settle down into Val Royeaux, or perhaps tonight, if he’ll let you. How many different people have requested how many different books? There could be useful information in there. Also, you want to make sure yours are there and haven’t been shredded by a certain vengeful Loghain-fanatic.
The weather turns from sunny and bright to overcast as the sun grows long in the sky. Once it’s late enough for whatever arbitrary measure he uses, Garrick pulls you all off of the road again, this time into a sort of cul de sac created by large boulders and steep hills. It makes a good place to stop, especially given how cloudy it’s getting. If it storms, you’d like to be out of the wind, at least.
All of you dismount and begin preparing to set up camp. You’re still next to Baptiste. He steps out from around his horse, and says, “Emma, I have to say—”
You’ll never find out what it was that Baptiste has to say, because an arrow sprouts from his eye socket. Blood begins pouring from him as he crumples to the ground, instantly lifeless.