var lath vir suledin

you have endangered thedas by unleasing blighted gods upon the world. you are rewarded with a promotion.

a demon-possessed assassin joins the veilguard. he is on cooking duty.

you feel a sudden urge to leap from the top of the lighthouse. as if you will be rewarded.

taash gives a flat, one-word answer after your careful attempt to flirt. they will soon pin you to a wall.

a grey warden joins the veilguard. he would like it if you punched his boss.

someone let harding cook again.

the grey warden brought his pet griffin. he always has one ear up. he is perfect.

you arrive in the lighthouse to find someone changed all the decor to giant skeletons. emmrich feels less homesick.

you gather the veilguard together for a mission debrief. instead, you all gossip about Solas before he was corporeal.

bellara is already writing fan fiction of your adventures.

someone let neve make coffee again.

manfred is undefeated at rock, paper, scissors. It brings him almost as much joy as tea. he is perfect.

This is not Solas as his truest self.

Rook never sees Solas as his truest self until the last five minutes of the game. Solas is not being himself. He is being the weapon he was moulded into over millennia. Rook’s first peek at Solas as his truest self is here:

It’s when he says “Vhenan.”

And further here:

When he faces the person who pulled him from his purpose and wielded him as a weapon, and his entire body language crumples into a fawn response so visceral, the first thing he does is offer her a weapon to kill him with.

It’s here, when she says, “I release you from my service” after untold millennia of abuse, and he collapses in tears after being bound for so long.

Rook has never met the real Solas. Rook does not know him.

Rook knows only a carefully cultivated trauma mask built to survive shame so deep, he cannot escape it himself.

This man has allowed one person to truly know him as he *wants to be seen*.

This is the real Solas (left, with six eyes and a lot of glowing tendrils of magic):

But the closest to the real Solas Rook gets is here:

It’s him going home with the one person he’s ever truly been safe with outside the Fade.

Rook may respect him, may like him, may enjoy the banter, but like even the Inquisition, Rook does not know him.

Only Lavellan, Morrigan through Mythal’s memories, and Mythal can claim that, and Mythal only through everything she did to break him because he served her purpose and loved her. Mythal may have known him, but she has never truly seen him except as a tool.

He is not Pride. He is Wisdom. He has been made over in everyone else’s image enough.

They made bodies from the earth. And the earth was afraid. It fought back. But they made it forget