with a kiss, the riot starts.

To his credit, Varric did help to lighten the mood with his stories, at the request of a soldier. He told of the people he met, shared anecdotes about Kirkwall, smiled at a mention of the Champion. His eyes shone in the firelight as he went on, making gestures and inviting his audience to imagine the improbable. The smoke rose and the flames leapt and crackled away. One had to admit, he had a gift for spying and magnifying the dramatic, as any storyteller would. Even Cassandra was enthralled, leaning forward with her head on her fist.

Solas’ attention, however, was drawn to the Herald. She was sitting at the camp’s boundary, on the bank of the creek fed by Lake Luthias. She was a small silhouette against the high rocky cliffs, whose profile was outlined by silver moonlight, her knees drawn to her chest and her hair loose around her shoulders. Her linen coat was at her feet. Once supper was finished, the bowls were washed, and the camp’s security was ensured, she had asked the Seeker if she could wash the coat. A Templar had swung too close to the Herald before her vines could pierce his chest, and his blood had spilled onto her left side. The Seeker must have seen her try to collect herself when the battle was over, her jaw tensing at the sight of the blood, splotches of crimson on myrtle green. Her voice was cautious when she gave the Herald permission. Hours had passed since then.

Solas reached for his staff—catching the Seeker’s notice the second his fingers closed around it.

“Where are you going, Solas?” She asked. The eyes of the camp were shifted to him, following him as he stood.

Solas paid no mind, familiar as he was to suspicion. He nodded in the Herald’s direction. “Eludysia has been sitting there for quite some time. I thought I would check on her.”

Varric snorted. “Let him go, Seeker,” he said, waving his hand. He had a knowing smirk on his lips. “It’s not like they’re going to run away together.”

One of the soldiers snickered, almost spitting out his ale. The other glared at him, though fighting his own laugh. Solas frowned at the insinuation. It was one thing to be dragged into the dwarf’s quarrel with the Seeker, another to be implied as someone who had no commitment, save to his own whims.

He opened his mouth to retort, but the Seeker beat him to it. “I never said they would!” She snapped, body drawn, prepared to lunge. Her usual displeasure at the dwarf was back in place, his earlier spell broken. The soldiers quietened, like indignant children. Varric, on the other hand, merely gave a faint “mhm,” clearly enjoying the curses under her breath. The Seeker rolled her eyes. But when she glanced between the Herald and Solas, concern passed over her. She was not as hard as she would have people believe. “Go,” she said. “See how she is.”

Solas nodded, thankful. “I will return shortly,” he told them, regarding the Child of the Stone pointedly.

He poured magic into his staff, setting the eyes of its twin serpent heads aglow. Its light was cast upon the tents, the grass crunching underfoot, brighter than flame, creating stretched shadows of creatures found within its reach. His travel companions seated around the fire, their horses whinnying, crickets hopping by. Eludysia turned to look, and his shadow had neared her before he and the light.

“Solas?” She called, straightening, brows knit. Her hand was hovering over her staff. “Is something wrong, lethallin? Shouldn’t you be with the others?”

“I came to ask you the same thing,” he said.

“Oh.” The tension ebbed from her shoulders then, and her hand slid to her side. “I’m waiting for my coat to dry,” she said, pointing at it with her chin.

“Ah. I see.” There were indeed damp patches still, darker in some places more than others, such as along its chest and sleeve. It seemed she had been more stubborn than the stains themselves. “You know, there is a spell that can speed the process without damaging the fabric. If you had asked, I would have been willing to show you. You could have saved your strength and time.”

Solas had plucked at something, he knew. Eludysia’s posture stiffened, the arm around her knee tightened. He heard the grass curl under her fingers, a whisper he might have missed, as water trickled into the creek. Her gaze was one of appraisal, narrowed, flitting over the planes of his expression. He did not falter, but held a slight smile, as pleasant and helpful as his offer. Laughter came from the camp. Her eyes darted there and back. Yet neither of them said a word. Moment after moment, second after second.

Until, finally, Eludysia sighed. When she spoke, her voice was just above the water’s. “Are you going to tell Cassandra?”

He bent towards her, mask dropped. He was a witting accessory, now, to her subterfuge. “And mar the trust she has given us? No,” he said. “Although, you are aware she may well see through you?”

She shrugged. “Well, that hasn’t happened yet, has it.”

“I suppose I shall give you that.”

She picked up her staff and moved closer to the bank’s slope, then gestured in invitation for him to sit beside her. He hesitated. He meant to return, even if Eludysia did not wish to. He did not want to be subject to Varric’s insinuating japes, the soldiers’ drunken laughter, the Seeker’s questioning; all of which he would be, if he did not turn around, walk straight to camp, and bid them all goodnight. And while he would say nothing of Eludysia’s deception, he disliked that he had involved himself, and dreaded the notion of furthering his part in it. He disliked that she resorted to it in the first place. But—he did want to find out why. Not since their first meetings did he suspect she was the type. She could obfuscate and dance around him and members of the Inquisition, true. Essentially using someone’s concern against them, however?

She was staring up at him, forest-green eyes expectant. His staff was like a spotlight on her, and she appeared like a performer, whose image was again rearranging in his mind.

It is likely we will not be able to talk like this for a while, he reasoned. We haven’t had a second where the others have not been around us since we left Haven. When we return, it may be days before the debriefings and discussions are settled.

He glanced over his shoulder. Varric had gone back to telling his stories, answering questions and refuting claims as they came to him.

Perhaps I can spare a few moments, he thought.

Solas sat on the space made for him, his legs crossed. He set his staff down next to Eludysia’s, its glow humming and fading into nothing as he withdrew his threads of magic. Her staff was rather simple compared to his. It was not forged metal, as his was, but ironbark that had been sculpted to clutch a white crystal that he guessed was bartered from a dwarven merchant. From afar, it would look like an oddly shaped branch. An unassuming sight. Much like its owner.

“How did you know?” She asked him.

“It was a guess,” he answered. “Such spells are useful for traveling when exposed to elements, as the Dalish often are. As your clan’s First, I thought your Keeper might have taught you.”

“And it’s something you might’ve learned in the Fade before you set out,” she said, realisation dawning. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “It’s unlike you to be forgetful. Or to be one for pretense.” Then again, they had only known each other for a month. How familiar was he with her nature, really? He knew her habits—such as how she’d drink her tea, the melody that she’d hum in the quiet as they rode—but it was not enough to know she would deceive.

At least her body language did not lie, wincing at his reproach.

“I did want the coat washed,” she said.

“Did you?”

“You don’t believe me,” she said, sounding like she was both stating a fact and inquiring about it.

“Why should I? You could have told the Seeker the truth. Gone for a stroll, if you wished to get away.”

“Cassandra wouldn’t allow it without an escort.”

“So the blessed Herald of Andraste contrived an excuse to avoid the possibility of being looked after? What did you suppose would happen if the Seeker found out?”

For a moment, he thought Eludysia would snap at him. Her lips were pressed tight, as if she was biting her tongue to the point it would bleed. Her chin was lifted ever so slightly. Was she affronted?, he wondered. Then her eyes slid shut. “I know it was a stupid risk. You don’t have to chide me like I’m a child,” she muttered. When she opened her eyes, there was no insult, no anger. Only an exhaustion that aged her, accentuating her dark circles, the defined, delicate bones of her face. The image of the performer was shattered, pieces of it swept into a new mosaic. “It’s... been a long few days, lethallin. I needed time alone. To think.”

He understood that need. More than most.

He recalled his rebellion’s rise; the endless battles, bodies piled. Stories spun of the Dread Wolf’s tricks, his vows made. The shifting tides overwhelming. He would seek retreat when he could. Find quiet spots, remind himself why he fought. Wisdom would come and lend her aid. Still in a sundered world, he had the Fade. Eludysia did not. If her reason was as she said… “Forgive me for my tone, then. And for the intrusion.”

Surprisingly, the corners of her lips quirked. “If I hadn’t already, would we still be talking?” She said, giving him a gentle, playful nudge.

Solas chuckled. “No,” he agreed. He had not forgotten how she spun her heel when he spoke ill of the Dalish, the days he missed her presence and conversation. That he had yet to fully earn back her trust. Regret coiled in his chest. Twice, she had forgiven him for judging her too quickly. Twice, she had chosen to continue treating him as a friend, as more than an asset or ally. He wished to reciprocate, and tend to her as Wisdom tended to him—as much as he desired for her to unfold before him like an open book again, to press for her motives, her history, her secrets. “Do you feel better, now that you’ve had your time and space to contemplate things?” He asked.

She shook her head. “One of the pitfalls of contemplation is that you can think you’ve smoothed out your path, and you’ve gotten somewhere, but really, you’re right where you started,” she said. “I might feel better than I do, if I wasn’t… stuck. If I could map a way out and translate it into reality.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” he said. “Perhaps you could share your thoughts with me? It may help to have someone listen and offer a different viewpoint. I won’t be unkind, I promise you.”

“I wouldn’t ever call you unkind,” she said, her smile slowly widening, revealing a teasing gleam he recognised. “I may say you’re rude, or that your name suits you perfectly…”

“You would not be the first, lethallan,” he said dryly. But when she laughed, he could not help but smile back, join her. It was good to see her at ease with him. “So?”

Their brief levity faded. Eludysia paused, and inclined her head to the side. He expected her to refuse. Tell him it wasn’t necessary. Send him away. Then, she said, “Where do I begin?”

“Start with what you know. What you’re certain of. We can work out the rest,” he replied.

She nodded. Shifted her legs. Several times, she looked as though a sentence would land on her tongue, but she would stop herself. Rifle through her mind. Try again. In the end, she started with, “I know… people are scared and dying in this war. I know that, to end it and to seal the Breach, we need the clerics to see reason. I know Cassandra believes some of them may, but…”

“You disagree.”

“I am a Dalish elf who wears vallaslin. A mage, no less. To the common folk, I may be seen as the Herald, sent by Andraste and the Maker. But to those who’ve devoted their lives to upholding the Chantry’s laws and tenets?” She sighed. “I am a heretic and a puppet leading the faithful astray.”

“I suspect you are correct in your assessment,” he said. “But you should not underestimate the beliefs of the common folk. The Chantry has lost its military arm. The Templars, who once swore to protect the people, are terrorising them in their fanatic pursuit to put down the mages. You saw the refugees, Mother Giselle tending to them without organised support behind her before the Inquisition’s arrival. They may posture and attempt to rally, but as long as the Chantry and its forces are divided and distracted, they are weakened. And, as you said, people are scared. The common folk will be seeking for someone to fill the void, a banner to gather under. If your deeds can persuade them to the Inquisition and its cause, that is leverage we can use.”

“That won’t be the end of it.”

“Nonetheless, it is a start. We will continue to adapt, as we have thus far, should unforeseen problems arise. One step at a time.”

“You sound so sure of it all. I presume you’ve seen many heretical movements in the Fade?”

“There are always people who proclaim their beliefs as absolute truths and use faith as a weapon with which they can subjugate. And there are always people willing to fight and turn the tide, and die for their beliefs.” His mouth twitched. The Evanuris and his rebellion. The first Inquisition and the cultists and blood mages. The Chantry and its opponents. Details could change throughout history, to the last minutiae, but the broad strokes remained ever the same. “What is ‘heretical’ is relative. A matter of perspective.”

Eludysia considered him, his words. “Spoken like a man who knows what he believes in.”

“I have found that the will of people is able to withstand the strongest of forces and fate. It is the source of many great hopes and tragedies,” he said. “If I had to have faith in something, one could say that is where my faith would be.”

“If it is, we are very much alike.”

He raised a brow. “I would have thought yours would be in our People’s pantheon.”

“I’m afraid not,” she admitted sadly. She glanced at the camp. Cassandra and Varric were engaged in a debate, the soldiers their spectators, distracted enough not to pay attention to the pair of them at the creek. “That’s another thing on my mind. Everyone around us is so strongly convicted by their faith in powers greater than us. My parents were the same—especially my mother. I feel… I should be, too. I used to wonder at the legends of our gods, how they helped and cared for our People in them. Ghilan’nain needed only to call to Andruil to be freed from the hunter’s bindings. But then they were exiled, with the rest. Or so the legends go.” Her voice was wistful, longing. The wind whistled by. Stray strands of hair fell into her face. She tucked them promptly behind her ears, and he tried not to think about how, in the silver moonlight, her hair was almost equal in shade to the Halla Mother’s. “Our gods became helpless themselves and the Maker turned away. What are we left with but ourselves?” She said, looking to the smoke-clouded sky, forest-green eyes mournful, as if pleading. Hoping, for a god to hear her.

He had a sudden, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, a confused roil of relief, anger, dismay, and guilt. Eludysia was the one Dalish elf he happened upon who did not believe in the Evanuris, who was skeptical of the stories, and she had to be the one marked with his magic. She had to still fall prey to the patchwork, romanticised images of the very gods who had once nearly destroyed the world in their greed. The very gods he imprisoned. He was glad that, at last, she was opening up, confiding in him; but did he want to know that her desire for connection to others, to something more than herself, was so deeply rooted? He stared at her vallaslin’s marks on the bridge of her nose. Its colour a deep wine in the darkness. Its design crawling upwards, branching out and intertwining across her forehead in a sacrificial mimicry of halla horns. He hated the cruelty of those marks, the cruelty of the goddess to whom they belonged. Hated the ironies of where he was. The Great Adversary of her People’s legends! Listening to her! Giving her advice! Using her! A twisted answer to her prayer!

He enjoyed her company. He had a part to play. He could help her, comfort her, check her. Call her lethallan. Do what was necessary. But he could not be a true friend to her. If he thought he could, it was a pretty little lie.

He swallowed. Composed himself. “Do you truly think the world would be better if beings as powerful as gods were among us?” he asked. “One who amasses that much power cannot stay pure in their intent or deeds. For all you know, things could be worse.”

“We’ll never know, will we? What could have been will always be a mystery to us,” Eludysia said, smiling. He pitied and envied her, how oblivious she was. She rubbed the scar along her palm with her thumb, and the Mark responded with a soft glow. She held it up for him. “Bit like this and how I got it, I suppose.”