#dark lavellan

Finally finished Mellan’s tv tropes like I said I would 500 years ago...

A short drabble because I couldn’t get this idea out of my head.

“Tell me you don’t care.”

His features twisted into pained sorrow as he spoke. “I can’t do that.”

“Tell me I was some casual dalliance, so I can call you a cold hearted son of a bitch and move on!” She shoved him once, twice, a third, and he never resisted- and she hated and loved him for that.

She could see the love in his eyes, but waited for the lie between his teeth, for she knew that what he said next would determine the course of their fate.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding as though what he had said - what he had done - had hurt him far more than it hurt her, and with those two words, she knew.

She knew he loved her.

She knew there was something he was hiding - something possibly dark, and dangerous, a secret that the Nightmare had hinted at - that kept him from her.

She swore to herself she would not let him go, even if she could never tell him.

But-

He knew.

And he worried.

------

“Var lath vir suledin!” The fury was on her face, the same as it had been that night in Crestwood, and he worried.

He had tried to push her away as best as he could - I walk the dinan’shiral, I would not have you see what I become - to keep her safe as best as he could - live well, while you can - and it appeared as though here, too, he had failed.

She was in his face now, eyes blazing with a murderous rage, her palm splayed out over the center of his chest. “I will not let you do this, Solas, not to yourself, not to the world. If it means I must become a monster that the Dread Wolf hunts, I will do it.”

She stepped back, right hand clenched into a fist, wisps of magic-tinged smoke still pouring from the remnants of her left. “You are my heart, and I will stain my soul with the deepest colors of the Void if it means I can protect yours, my love.”

And it was she who turned away from him and left, stumbling every few steps from the pain he was sure she was in, and he was still rooted to the spot he stood in shock as the eluvian that served as her exit dimmed into inactiveness.

It wasn’t worry that caused the puckering of his forehead, or the creases by the corners of his eyes.

It was fear.

-----

His plans moved along slowly - far too slow for his agents, he knew, but he dared not risk going any faster-

If he did, she would notice. And if she noticed, if she learned what he was trying to do- she would wreak havoc, not just upon his schemes, but upon herself as she tried to stop him.

He would not let her turn into him, no matter how much she tried.

He would not.

And so his agents grumbled to themselves about the pace he’d set, but obeyed his orders nonetheless.

-----

Each report was more alarming that the one before it.

Solasan was destroyed, the secrets it held - the ones he had hoped to exploit - lost forever.

Dirthamen’s temple, once a beautiful, ornate construction lost to the ages, was now turned to rubble.

It was not just the ancient structures she targeted.

An icy terror had gripped him by the heart when the first of his agents turned out dead, their body so riddled with wounds there was little left of their skin;

A second one turned up weeks later a dehydrated, skin-covered bag of bones, face buried into the ever-shifting sands of the Anderfels, Andruil’s orb once more out of his reach;

They turned up, one after the other, till the total added up to many dozens, each of them killed in a barbaric ways that served as a threat to the ones who remained - a reminder of who she was, of what she was, and-

Of what she was capable of.

She’d become a shadow that his people spoke in whispers about, fearful of gaining her attention should they be too loud, and it was with a sinking heart that he realized that she was becoming him, and oh, wasn’t it ironic that it was a Dalish that had become so Dread?

But he could not stop; would not stop, for it would mean a dereliction of his duty, and he could not betray his people anew-

-----

A sanctuary burned to the ground with help from the daughter of a vengeful goddess, a hundred lives lost in the blaze, a hundred thousand hours of strategies and schemes turned into ashes, and she stood before him with hands blackened with soot and eyes ringed with darkness and a soul covered with the corruption of blood-

with the same fury in her eyes, but he understood now what it truly was; not anger, but determination; she was an oath personified, a vow of love meant solely for him; and he could no more ignore her than he could than he could the beating of his heart - she was as vital to him as the air that yet lingered in his lungs, keeping him conscious even though the sight of her had taken his breath away.

“Please, no more, ma lath,” her voice was soft, a sharp contradiction to the steel in her spine. “Let us stop this madness. Let us work together, not against each other.”

She stepped forward, splaying her hand over his heart. “Var lath vir suledin, vhenan.”