You all but shove Sera off of you in your rush to the door. Down the stairs, out the door. Your hair streams behind you as you dart across the courtyard; your hairband lays forgotten on Sera’s bed.
There’s already a large crowd by the gates. You push your way through, twisting between people until you get up to the front. The Inquisition’s away team is dismounting; there are people taking their tired-looking mounts towards the stables. You quickly scan the crowd of soldiers—there are healers taking the wounded towards the tent, and you stare at that crowd especially hard. You spot the Inquisitor as he removes his helm, but your gaze skips right over him and the woman beside him to settle on the person half-hidden behind them, removing some things from his horse’s saddlebags. They move away, and your eyes stay fixed on the man their movement reveals.
Solas.
Alive. Uninjured. Looking kind of bored, actually.
You take three quick steps out of the crowd, towards him, before you realize that you don’t actually know Solas well enough to embrace him in relief, as was your first instinct. Instead, you freeze awkwardly in place. You spot Varric as the dwarf sees you, as well, and he raises a hand to wave. Hugging him would probably be inappropriate too, so you… wave. It feels lackluster. You just sort of stand there, hand hanging in the air, uncertain what to do with the surge of emotions inside of you.
That’s when you see Cole.
Appearing out of nowhere really seems to be his specialty; you only notice him a few moments before he sweeps you into a warm hug. It’s stiff, a little awkward, as if he understands the concept but not exactly the reality of how to embrace another person. The little control you had over your emotions vanishes and you throw your arms around the spirit, burying your head in his shoulder to hide your shuddering breath and tear-brimmed eyes.
You had been so worried. Perhaps you hadn’t even consciously realized the extent of it. Part of you had been quite certain you’d never see your friends alive again. And they kind of were your friends, you realize, if only now. You’ve never been this relieved over the survival of contacts, or even allies. Only friends. Seeing everyone, alive and unharmed… You could collapse from the sudden surge of relief, and Cole helps to support you while you recover from the unexpected swell of emotion.
When you’re ready, you pull back from the hug, sigh in relief, and even smile a bit. Then, remembering where you are, you glance around in mild horror. The eyes of the crowd are glazing over you as if you’re not even there—Cole’s effect, no doubt—but there are four sets of eyes glued straight on you: Varric’s, Solas’s, the Inquisitor’s, and his companion’s.
“She wanted a hug,” Cole explains, a bit lamely in your opinion. You clear your throat. As relieved as you are to see Cole and Varric, your eyes keep coming back to Solas, as if you need to be reassured he’s actually standing there. “She wanted a kiss, too, but I think she only kisses elves.”
“Thank you, Cole,” you say through slightly gritted teeth. He really has no filter between his head and his mouth. Fortunately, Solas doesn’t seem to be paying attention; he’s already removed his bags from his horse and is beginning to heads towards the—
SHIT.
THE ROTUNDA.
“I’ll, um… I need to… I’ll see you guys later,” you say in a rush as you turn to chase after Solas. You hear Varric’s amused chuckle as you dash off, as well as a Nevarran-accented voice ask, “who was that?” You have no time to deal with either.
Fortunately, you catch up with Solas just on the other side of the crowd. How are you going to explain the fact his blankets are all strung up outside his workplace? Oooh, Maker, no no no… You don’t think you can lie your way out of this one.
“I thought your reunion would take longer,” Solas comments as you fall into step beside him.
“I can talk to them later,” you say, fidgeting nervously as he begins to climb the stairs in front of the Great Hall. “I, um…”
He seems distracted. He’s not looking at you, and he doesn’t appear to have noticed the nervousness in your voice. “Did the rotunda serve you well while I was gone?”
If the Maker would strike you down right now, you’d call it a favor. “W…well… I… Maker, Solas, I have to tell you something.”
He had been half-ignoring you before, but at this, he focuses on you immediately. You wish he wouldn’t. When he sees your expression, which is probably guilt-riddled, he stops, just outside the doors to the Great Hall. He crosses his arms as he faces you.
“Alright,” is all he says. You could kill yourself on the spot, you really could. Perhaps you should give up and self-immolate.
“I… Um… Well… “ You wish he’d interject, but he doesn’t, just fixes you with a level stare while you trip and fumble over your words. “I’m s-sure they’re telling the Inq-Inquisitor, b-b-but we had some r-refugees while you were gone,” you stammer uselessly.
“We received word of that, yes.” His words help you find your own, and you push on.
“W-well, um, th-there were some elves… o-orphans, j-just kids, really, a-and, I noticed they were, ah… B-being ignored. S-so I, um… put them in your rotunda,” you say with a wince.
“Ah.” He seems a bit disappointed, perhaps frustrated. You wish he was easier to read… You’re considering simply jumping over the railing. He turns and heads into the Great Hall, going straight for the rotunda. You dart after him and keep talking, wanting to get it all out and then get to the fallout.
“And, well, there w-weren’t enough blankets so-I-kind-of-took-some-of-yours,” you say all in one breath. “And I may have dropped your name a little m-more than I necessarily sh-should have while… convincing people to give them f-food and supplies for the road,” you add.
At this point he’s reached the rotunda, he’s opening the door and… well, at least it’s clean. He seems to have been expecting a mess. His eyes trace over the room, as if surveying the walls for damage, the he turns to you. “And? Is that all you have to confess?”
Oh, fuck. You can tell by the tone of his voice. He knows, he knows, by some wicked magic he knows. You clasp your hands together, wringing them, as words catch in your throat. “A…ah… W-w-well… I… I-slept-on-your-desk! Ir abelas! I’m sorry! I-I was exhausted and the couch had ch-ch-children on it and, I… Emma ir abelas; I have no excuse, Solas.”
You stare straight down at your feet, too scared to look up and see his expression.
You hear him sigh and you flinch. “So, your confession is that you housed orphans, provided them with blankets and food, and then, by the looks of it, cleaned the room from top to bottom? And yet you look as though you expect me to strike you.”
Well, when he says it like that, it sounds stupid.
“You left out the parts where I broke into your room, stole your linens, and used your name about Skyhold as if it was mine to use,” you say with chagrin, risking a slight glance upwards. You can’t read the expression he’s viewing you with, but he doesn’t seem too angry.
“If my name could feed children, you used it better than I have,” he says, breaking his level gaze to turn and walk towards his desk. He runs a hand over the surface, newly smoothed by your frantic scrubbing. Your eyes follow his long fingers. “You expect me to be angry. I’m not. Although I would like to know how it was you entered my room.”
“I expected to be electrocuted, a little,” you confess. You reach down the front of your pants and he has the courtesy to at least look startled, but you simply pull from your waistband one of the lockpicks Sera gave you. “Sera has been giving me lessons. I’m sorry; I just… remembered seeing a linen closet when I was there before, and, well… You weren’t using them,” you say sheepishly.
“I never warded my rooms; I didn’t expect anyone would actually wish to break into them,” he says, and now he sounds amused. “Perhaps I should correct that.”
“Ir abelas, Solas,” you begin, but he cuts you off by raising a hand.
“You can stop apologizing.” He drops his bag onto his newly cleaned desk. “One of the first things I ever saw you do was steal food straight off of my plate. If anything, you’re moving up in the world.”
You wince again, but resist the urge to apologize. He’s taking it as well as you could hope… better than you could hope, in some ways.
“Is that all you have to tell me?” he asks again as he begins to unpack the bag.
You take a deep breath. Now’s as good a time as any. “…Emma enasal ma garas arla, hahren1.”
He pauses, then glances up from his desk. He looks surprised, for just a moment, and then you see the slightest smile flash across his lips. Your heart soars; you don’t even try to stop it. “I take it you got my note.”
“Did… did I say it right?”
“You did, as a matter of fact,” he says, and you grin broadly. “Although you still have an accent. I suspect that will go away with practice.”
“I’m sure if I had the right teacher…” you say, trailing off hopefully.
“How’s that tome of yours coming?”
You grimace, both at the reminder and the fact he changed the subject. “The translation is finished, but I’m not as far on the actual Common tongue copy as I’d like to be. I’ve become very popular as of late.”
“Oh? You did mention Sera had been showing you how to get into even more trouble.”
Now that was the understatement of the century. If Solas hadn’t returned the second he had, you and Sera might be getting into all kinds of trouble right now in that dark bedroom. You need to watch yourself around her; your libido has the tendency to do all the thinking whenever you’re with her.
“It would take me the rest of the evening to list all the trouble she’s gotten me into these last few weeks,” you say with a sigh. Angry racists, dislocated joints, childish pranks, and no small amount of flirtation… Yeah. The two of you got into trouble, alright. “What about you, Solas? How was the Fallow Mire?”
“Damp, unpleasant, and absolutely full of the undead.”
You shudder. “The undead? Maker. Sounds like I had a much better few weeks… I m… The rotunda was empty without you. And people come to bother me when you’re not around.”
He chuckles, and you become sharply aware of how fast your heart is beating. Leftover butterflies from the close encounter with Sera, you tell yourself. You know you’re lying. Leftover butterflies from that little smile earlier, more like.
“As we returned from the swamp, we passed through Redcliffe,” Solas says. “While there, I found a rather surly dwarf attempting to pawn all manner of books in a village that no longer contained any mages.” That explains the books he’s unpacking onto his desk. “Most of it was uninteresting, but I found one or two worth purchasing.”
One or two? Looks more like a dozen. You step closer, hesitant but curious.
“Mostly, it simply served to remind me of how woefully under-equipped the library here is,” he adds as you inch towards the growing pile of books on his desk.
“Is that…” You slide a little closer. “Is that The Botanical Compendium?”
“Volumes one, four, and seven,” he says with a frown. “All the man had in stock. I remembered you mentioning the author during one of our… conversations.”
“Ines Arancia,” you say, fingers twitching towards the books. “Much better than Bouchard, as it turns out,” you add with a scowl, remembering how incorrect you’d been on the subject of elfroot thanks to him.
“That’s not the most interesting thing, however,” Solas says, and gives your hand, which is slowly reaching out towards the books a sharp rap with a small, black tome.
“Ouch!” As you flinch your hand away, however, he presses the black tome into it. Surprised, you look at the cover. It’s unmarked… simply black. There’s no author, either. Curious, you flip to the first page. Your eyes go wide. “An Introduction to Rare and Elusive Spirits. Somehow, I doubt this is about alcohol.”
“I thought you might find this particularly interesting,” he says, flipping through the book until he comes to a certain page.
“Compassion!” you gasp, running a finger across the words. “A shy spirit, drawn to those who are hurt… You don’t say. Maker, Solas, this is fantastic!”
“I thought you might enjoy it,” he says, and when you glance up, you see his lips are stretched into a wry smile. “Your education on the matter is rather lackluster, after all. Consider it a gift.”
Your eyes widen further. “A gift! Solas, I can’t… I… I just got finished telling you how I broke into your room!”
“Yes, please refrain from that in the future,” he says, still smiling. “But it seems as though it was for a good cause. If you had meant to put my belongings back, however, I’m afraid you missed one.” He points over your shoulder, and you turn to look.
Oh.
The blanket on the couch.
“W-well… To be honest, I haven’t actually gotten any of them back in your room,” you say sheepishly. “The refugees just left this morning, and I spent the day cleaning… They’re still hung up outside.”
“That one isn’t,” he points out.
You swallow, hard. “I, um… Well… I…” You grasp desperately for an excuse, any excuse. “That was the one I was using. I, erm… slept in the rotunda, while the children were here.”
“And you left it because…?”
“I… thought I might sleep in the rotunda again,” you say with a delicate cough. “I didn’t know you’d be returning, and your couch is more comfortable than my bed, to be entirely honest.”
“Tell me,” he says, sweeping past you towards the couch. “Why this blanket, in particular?”
“I… it was just the one I happened to use,” you say, wondering with growing apprehension if you’d grabbed something important on accident, that first time you snuck into his room.
“You have odd luck,” he says, picking the blanket up off of the back of the couch. “Of every blanket in my closet, you elected to use the one with the sleeping enchantment.”
Your brain splutters and stalls out entirely. “The… the…”
“Sleeping enchantment. Sometimes my journeys into the Fade require a very deep sleep. Sometimes in less than ideal conditions. I’ve enchanted this blanket to help me sleep deeper, be less easily woken, even travel into the Fade more easily.”
….Oh… Oh for fuck’s sake…
“I… I see…” is all you manage to say. You need to sit down. All this time you’d thought it was a ridiculous, stupid crush on Solas that had been easing you into the Fade against all possibility. A sleep enchantment! Why hadn’t you noticed it? But you’d never bothered to examine a blanket for magic! Who would? And with your aura bundled up tightly inside of you, you would never pick up on something like that idly. You drag a hand down across your face.
“That… explains a lot, actually. I thought the children slept more deeply than a child had any right to… And I…”
“Children?” Solas says sharply. “I thought you used this blanket?”
You flush slightly, and not because you were caught in a lie, but rather because you were caught in an embarrassing truth. “There were a lot of children. Some of them fell asleep as I was telling them stories, under the blanket, and I didn’t have the heart to move them.”
Solas has an odd expression on his face… Perhaps wondering the effect of a sleeping enchantment on tiny children; it’s what you find yourself wondering, in any case. “I, um… Well, if that’s the worst thing that happens out of stealing from a mage’s bedroom, I’ll count myself lucky, I suppose,” you say with a guilty grin.
“Indeed,” Solas agrees. “I suspect if you had broken into Enchanter Vivienne’s room, you wouldn’t be so lucky.”
“…Haha… Yeah, that would be… pretty stupid.”
Solas gives you quite the look, but you manage to keep your expression neutral. It takes a lot of effort. “Have you and she met?” he asks.
“Heh… Yes, actually. She mistook me for one of the maids. I spent a very interesting morning assisting her seamstress. It didn’t seem worth the trouble to correct her.”
Solas shakes his head slowly. “It seems you have had quite the time while I was away.”
Oh, he has no idea. “It could probably fill a book,” you admit. “I should gather the blankets from outside and return them to your room… Or have them returned, if you prefer,” you add. It would be quite reasonable for him not to want you anywhere near his room after you admitted to picking the lock.
“You know better than to bother the maids with your antics,” he chides. “I’ll accompany you, if only to spare my lock from being picked again.”
You’ll never live it down, for certain, but you were expecting far less than gentle scolding. You’ll take any verbal lashes he wants to give you gladly, out of relief at the lack of any real ones. You’re not quite sure what the Inquisition’s punishment for theft is, but you imagine it’s not overly kind, especially not for elves.
Solas waits inside, thumbing through the first volume of The Botanical Compendium, while you dart outside to pull down and fold all of his blankets. You pull down the rope you used as well; it isn’t as though you intend to regularly dry clothing here.
It’s in the middle of folding that a lock of hair falls down into your face and you realize that your hair had fallen down and you’d never put it back up. You flush with embarrassment, then quickly grab a short piece of rope to tie it back with. It will do until you have time to get a proper hair tie… For now, you need to focus on folding these blankets.
After you finish, you totter into the rotunda with a stack of blankets tall enough that you can barely see over it. Perhaps you shouldn’t have folded them so much? You can’t quite see Solas’ reaction, but you hope he looks amused when he places the last blanket and the pillows you swiped from his room on top of the pile, effectively blocking your view entirely. You make a sour face into the tower of blankets, then crane your neck around in an attempt to see.
“Are you going to say something like ‘follow the sound of my voice’?” you ask dryly.
“I thought perhaps by now, you could even find my room blindfolded.”
Alright, you deserved that. “If you think I can climb stairs blind, I’m flattered by your faith in me.”
“Oh? Is it misplaced?”
“It absolutely is. But I can climb stairs backwards,” you quip with a smile you know he can’t see.
You crab-walk towards the stairs so that you can see where you’re going, then head up them backwards, twisting your neck around so that you can see where you’re going. Fortunately, no one’s heading down the stairs. You’re not surprised; the stairs from the library to Solas’ rotunda seem to be used almost exclusively by you and Solas. You’ve only ever seen Leliana’s messengers come down this way. Navigating your way through the library without dropping anything proves slightly more difficult, and you see Dorian looking intensely amused at your awkward tottering. You manage to find the door, however, and head out across the balcony above the Great Hall. Fortunately, Madame de Fer is nowhere to be seen. Thank the Maker for small blessings.
On the pathway leading to his room, Solas slips by you to open his door. It’s funny, somehow, to see him using something as mundane as a key in a lock. Dorian probably magics his door open, every single time. Vivienne probably has a Designated Door Opener who handles all her keys.
You try very much to ignore Solas’s room and focus on getting his linens tucked away safely into the closet you stole them out of. You even make sure that the brown blanket you pilfered first is on top, easily accessible for when he needs it. Maker… You still can’t believe it was enchanted. You’ll be embarrassed by that for the rest of your damned life. Still, it’s something of a relief, in some ways. It wasn’t a crush, the fact the blanket smelled like him, or even sleeping in his rotunda that lulled you into sleep. It was magic. Simply that.
“Did… Did you actually take the sheets from my bed?” Solas’ voice breaks you out of your reverie. You pause in loading the blankets into the closet to glance over. Solas is standing next to his bare mattress, and, fortunately, looks amused.
“…You weren’t using them…” you mutter, more to yourself than to him. You finish loading the closet, keeping a few sheets and blankets with which to make his bed. Maker, it would have been so much nicer to do this when he wasn’t here. It’s your own fault, however, running off with Sera the way you had. Still, if all he wants from you is a bit of acute humiliation, you’re more than willing to put up with it. He’s not angry when he has every right to be. That’s enough for you.
Even so, you try to make his bed quickly. He does you the favor of not simply watching you work, instead stacking a few of his newly purchased books onto his desk, and unloading some of his packed clothing.
“Were you a maid for much of your life?” Solas asks from his desk just as you’re tucking in the corners on the last blanket on top of his bed.
The question startles you, but you suppose it must be somewhat obvious to him by now that you’re used to serving. Perhaps as obvious as it is to you that he’s used to being served.
“On and off, I suppose,” you say with a shrug as you finish making the bed. “I was a maid for a few years in Orlais. That was the first I had any real, formal training with it, but I took to it well. I probably would have wound up doing that for the rest of my life if Comte Pierre hadn’t noted my skills with linguistics and decided to give me a chance,” you add with a sigh.
“What a waste that would have been,” Solas comments, and you can’t help but smile.
“I appreciate you saying that… I rather think so myself, but it’s considered arrogant if I bring it up.” You glance around the room. “I believe things are as they were before I pilfered your linens, ser. I… That is, you’ve been… Um.” You clear your throat. “I should… get some actual work done.” You step sideways towards the door.
“I believe I’ll turn in for the night. The journey from the Fallow Mire was… tiring.”
“Atisha’hamin2, Solas,” you say after a moment’s consideration.
He looks a little surprised. Perhaps because you said it correctly. But you heard your mother say it enough times to know that, at least.
“Atisha’hamin,” he echoes after a moment. “Whenever you decide to rest.”
You almost give a bow as you exit Solas’ room, before you remember his dislike of being bowed to and stop yourself. It’s something of a reflex… so easy to fall back into your old Orlesian habits.
It’s only when you return to the rotunda that you see the black book set on the corner of your desk, and realize that he successfully distracted you from refusing his “gift.” Sly bastard… You ran a hand across it with a sigh… Well, it can’t hurt to read it. But not just now, you have work to do.
And you do manage to get a little bit of work done. You don’t really want to go back to your room, but sleeping on the couch is out of the question now. It’s unlikely Solas would rise earlier than you and catch you at it, but the risk of that is enough to propel you out of the door and to your own, assigned bedroom when you finally find you can work no longer.
You sink into your bed with a hurricane of emotions still spinning in your mind. Neither your brain nor your heart have any idea how to start processing the events of the day. The refugees, on their way to safety. Solas, Varric, and Cole all safely returned from Fallow Mire. And Sera… Maker, she almost kissed you! What would you have done if she had, exactly? Or perhaps you were reading too much into it? And Solas, he hadn’t been angry at all, even if he had teased you somewhat. Commander Cullen hadn’t been irritated either. Someone should be be upset at you, damnit. These people never act normally.
You spend most of the night thinking, and very little of it resting.