Just A Sad Ghost

They've filled the Normandy with people who look up to you in an effect to placate you and make you feel at home, but it's more alienating than if everyone hated you. They've given you your own private quarters but they make you feel alone and cut off from everyone. They say it's your ship, just like the one flew on before, and that you're in command, only there are doors that won't open for you and are locked tight. They parade before you a friend you knew who is so excited about all of this, but you didn't live through that and you're not over what you lost like he is. You look in the mirror and you're literally cracking at the seams and they tell you and only you can save the galaxy - enough that you were worth billions of resources to bring back - and you think about the soldier, the friend, you lost on Virmire and how nobody thought to bring them back. You're a ghost everyone is worshipping, a legend that everyone is clinging to, a soldier, a spectre, a saviour, a hero, but not a person anymore.

ok ok listen. mythal and solas's fucked up relationship puts everything about solavellan into context. how hyper-aware he was of the unequal power dynamic in their relationship, his guilt over his own desire for her and how he pulls away every time, the overwhelming feeling of falling in love with a god(dess), he tells mythal "i would follow you anywhere" and if lavellan begs him in trespasser to let her follow he refuses her. "i would not have you see what i become" and "there is only death on this journey". he will not drag her into his mess the way mythal dragged him into hers. he will not pollute her from her purpose the way mythal polluted him. he will not allow her the guilt and blood on her hands because he was her. he has been in her exact position, yearning for a god's affections and willing to follow them anywhere. and he loves her too much to treat her the way he was treated. of course he cannot be with her. of course he has to leave her. and he can only allow her to join him when he is freed of his burden and his path changes to one of atonement. of course she can join him in his atonement, even if it is ugly. because it will not sully her hands with blood. he can only accept her love and support when he knows it will not come at the cost of her morality and the good person she is. everything he does to her, even the betrayal, is to avoid subjecting her to the exact same thing mythal subjected him to.