#fluffuary 2025

Solas hadn't returned, after slipping from camp early that evening.

Such a thing wasn't uncommon. Often the man would wander off when they camped near places such as this, places that teemed with history forgotten, and stories untold. Always he'd return by the morning rejuvenated, if a bit pensive.

He needed time alone; that much, she understood. This time, however, she worried for her lethallin.

The last of the day's light was a gray line on the horizon when Viera'vun left in search of him, away from the crumbling ruins they'd taken shelter beneath and into the woodland surrounding it. Had this been any other night he'd have delved deeper within, seeking those innermost chambers where spirits often gathered in abundance, and she'd have left him to it. Instead, Solas had turned away. He'd been acting odd since arriving, but something had seemed to unsettle him as they'd picked their way through what she'd surmised had once been a temple, and the massive tomb connected to it.

They'd stumbled upon a relief depicting the fall of Elvhenan, and from there, he'd fallen near silent. No helpful insights into the structure's purpose, no theorizing its history. Only quiet thought, followed by a quick departure once they'd pitched their tents.

She found the impression of his footprints easily enough, the bent foliage guiding her along the path he'd taken. There was no denying that Solas carried regret as if it were his duty. Whenever talk turned towards his past his eyes darkened, just as they had today. No matter his reassurances to the contrary or the face he wore to distract from it, there was a dark shadow over him, chaining him to the past.

What had he seen, in the carvings of their ancestors' demise? Had he found his own mistakes, in the destruction of something once great? Or had their faces looked just a little too familiar?

She found him cross-legged at the top of a rise, facing out across a darkened meadow beyond the treeline with his back to her, unmoving. His head wasn't bowed as she'd seen when he'd slept, and his breaths were deep. He was awake. Intentionally she crushed the dead prairie grasses beneath her feet, hoping to warn of her approach with the crunch of their stalks, and then she cleared her throat. When even that drew no reaction from him, she called out his name, gently. "Solas?"

Nothing. Maybe he truly was asleep. As she came within reach she kneeled, tucking her legs beneath her and lifting a hand, before hesitating. So often he'd shied away from the simplest of touches, as if she might burn him, so often she'd withheld. That same restraint gave her pause here.

She pushed through it. The touch was intended only to rouse, and no more. He would understand.

Her palm met his shoulder, and he startled beneath it, just as she'd feared. "I came to check on you," she said, voice hushed so as not to break the placid song of the night, the murmur of wind through dry fields. "Are you alright?"

But as she made to pull away, something warm pressed against the back of her hand, trapping it there where it rested. Solas had turned his head ever so slightly, enough to press his cheek there where she'd touched him. Her heart leapt in an instant, confused and uncertain, until she recalled their dream together. How he'd grasped at her, as if he couldn't pull her close enough.

By his own admission, things came easier to him within the Fade. Maybe, her touch had never been painful. Only difficult to bear.

Her hand slipped from beneath his cheek, and she felt him stiffen as it did. "I…apologize," he began, straightening. "The tomb merely…unnerved me. Such loss of life—"

He froze as she laid her head between the blades of his shoulders, her hands folded between her chest and his back. She waited there, just feeling him breathe beneath her, seeking tell that she should pull away…but when his breath came out slow, when he leaned back against her instead, she closed her eyes and basked in him. His heart, she could hear it beating, a frantic rhythm that gradually eased. Her hands ventured out, tracing a path around and to his chest, and she held him.

They didn't say a word. She knew he needed time to work through whatever it was that pained him so before he could call himself hers, and she didn't mind the wait. But he needn't carry himself alone, until that point. He had called her lethallan, and sat beside her on those night where the fear became too much, until that time he could coax her to sleep with a spell. She had meant it, when she called him lethallin in turn.

"Ma serannas," he whispered when finally she did pull away. They slipped back into that comfortable silence, one that required no justification, no cause.

Hannibal and Will sit in the chairs in Hannibal's office, facing each other. It's another appointment for Will. His nightmares are becoming a problem again, but Hannibal has something else in mind—something that he's been wanting to do for a few months. Hannibal listens to Will, thinking of what to say to help him deal with his nightmares and what to say to get him to come to his house for dinner. Hannibal has everything planned out for a date night with Will. Will is stunned to hear Hannibal invite him to his house for dinner and say, 'Dinner date.' This is Hannibal confessing his feelings for Will. Yet, Will still doesn't feel he can confess that he has the same feelings for Hannibal. He accepts Hannibal's invitation and leaves the office. Hannibal finishes the paperwork for the day and hurries home.

Hannibal sets the table for the date before beginning to cook dinner. Rather than sitting at the head of the table, Hannibal will sit across from Will. Will arrives just as dinner is done. Hannibal lets him in the house and gets the food.

Will sits at the table, noticing the layout. Everything is as it would be during a dinner party except for the lit candles in the center of the table. Hannibal walks on, carrying two plates. He puts one in front of Will and the other where he'll sit. Hannibal grabs the wine and fills the two glasses before sitting down. The room is silent. Will isn't sure what to talk about. While this is a date, Hannibal brings up the case Will is working on. Will isn't sure what else to talk about that Hannibal would be interested in.

After dinner, Hannibal takes Will to the living room. Will thought the two would sit and chat until Hannibal turned on classical music. Hannibal smiles as he approaches Will. He puts a hand on Will's shoulder and Waist. "Just follow my lead," Hannibal tells him. Will knows Hannibal is doing a slow dance with him and likes it.

There was peace here, if he let his mind fall completely silent. A calm like the prelude to sleep, of slow inhales and melting exhales. He'd found it easier to grasp the longer he let himself linger in the half-light, between waking and sleeping, but for once he didn't wish to slip into the Fade. For however long he had, he wished to savor it within her arms.

Viera'vun cradled him against her chest, the gentle rhythm of her callused thumb dragging lazily from cheek to temple, and her warmth beneath his other ear seemed to sing. Not just a song of pulse and breath, but a song of spirit, crooning to his very essence through their skin pressed flush. It felt as if he should see her very being painted on the backs of his lids, the light of her soul branching and reaching just as his once had, intertwining with his own. As if he should feel her there, deeper than their skin would allow.

In her, he'd found everything he'd stopped himself from hoping for. She was earnest, honest, open-minded. And she was never meant to have existed.

His arms wound her waist tighter, as if to remind him where he was; still the thoughts found crack and crevice, still they crept inside. All this time he'd known and yet still he'd stumbled, careening so wildly off the path as to end up here. He traced his steps backwards, past the press of her lips and the song her company sang. It hadn't been that first sight of her, crumpled in a makeshift bed on the dungeon floor with the light of the Anchor ripping her body apart from the inside, nor was it that first touch as he'd grasped her hand and thrust it towards the gash in the heavens. She'd been collateral, then, and a guilt he'd grown unnervingly comfortable carrying. Regard, only in her ferocity to live.

Had it been the thoughtfulness with which she chose her questions, then, and the rapt attention she'd bestowed him? Or her adherence to her beliefs, her loyalty to what was right?

Where had she disarmed him so, and when, exactly, had he lost such control of his carefully laid plans?

"Vhenan, what's wrong?"

Her voice was a murmur, tired and slow, and his brow tensed over eyes still shut. "I fear I am a selfish man, for loving you the way I have," he confessed. She rolled her head, resting her cheek upon his crown.

"Tell me, how's it selfish when I love you?"

There was no doubt within his mind that, to some extent, she already knew. It was wishful to believe that she didn't, a truth he'd much rather ignore—and she made it easy to, always patiently waiting for him to come to her in his own time. But she deserved better than that. She deserved the truth, and if he was unable to give even so much to her…

"Am I truly who you want? You cannot know, the things I've done—"

"There's nothing that would keep me from loving you," she interrupted, guiding him to look up at her with a gentle hand. "As you are is who I care for. Who you once were has no bearing on that fact."

The rebuttal upon his lips, the insistence that she pull away as he couldn't possibly bear to any longer, was silenced before it could be given voice. She tilted his chin, and then Viera'vun stole his words with a kiss, soft, but insistent. It unraveled him. The pounding of his heart, the sigh of their mingling breaths, until the cadence of his thoughts meant nothing to him. Unintelligible, or simply just irrelevant.

"Solas, is that you?" called her voice from the top of the stairs, pushing aside the sounds of rustling paper that he'd heard upon opening the door. "Hold on, give me a moment. Let me throw something on, before you come up."

He paused where he stood upon the steps, grip tightening its hold of the jug that he carried. The heady aroma of sweet wine within mingled together with his thoughts, diluting whatever deliberation he harbored still of descent. The climb to the Inquisitor's quarters were, as they always had been, harrowing as much as they were humbling. Yet, still he made it, as if it were a compulsion he'd no power to fight. Still he came, pitcher in hand, as if the wisdom he made claims to had fled him.

"Alright," she said after a moments time, and the groaning of her wardrobe. "You surprised me. I didn't think you'd come, considering the hour."

In all honesty he'd surprised himself as well. It wasn't so much that the hour was terribly late, or that such a visit held certain implications—the sun glowed yet upon the horizon out her balcony door, and talk would make the rounds no matter their attempts at discretion. No, what had surprised him had been how helpless he'd been to the impulse that had driven him here.

All it had taken was the sound of that voice, the same that called to him now, as she'd responded to a greeting from Varric outside of the rotunda upon her return. His head had been filled with her then, with the convenient excuse Lady Josephine offered only the final push he'd needed, to send him off the edge. Only that, and all of his better judgment had crumbled to dust.

Any hesitance that lingered still left him when finally he ascended. How often that seemed to be the case, when it came to her. She smiled at him from across the room, hands still busy tying the wrap she'd thrown over her lounging garments, and more at ease than he'd seen her before. Lighter, as if relieved of some great unseen burden. "It appears that you enjoyed your hunting trip," he stated, and her grin seemed to spread as she hummed an affirmation.

"Very much so. It was good, to get back out there with Ilo again. I almost forgot about the Inquisitor for a couple nights." Her eyes returned to the knot, though her cheeks bore still the evidence of her smile. "I even shot down one of the billies myself, alongside some small game."

A feat for her, he knew—she proclaimed herself the tracker, and never the marksman. Such had been the task of her partner, he'd gathered. Her eyes flicked back up as she began to pad towards where he idled, having set his offering on the table beside her couch.

"What'd you bring?"

"Lady Josephine asked that I bring it, once she surmised of my intentions," he admitted, leaning back against the railing as she drew close. "I fear she may have figured them out before even I did."

Viera'vun breathed a laugh. "That sounds like our ambassador." She reached a hand out to take the jug from the table, the already lithe motions of the huntress somehow freer now, and the tilting of her head exposing the slope of her neck. "Did she say what it was?"

Where her wrap bunched at the shoulders he could see unimpeded, down the bare span of her back. Solas cleared his throat, and averted his eyes. "Only that it is wine," he said, "and that you would recognize it."

"Hmm. I wonder if it's another—wait." Her brow knit as she brought it to her nose, and shook her head. "It couldn't be."

Drawing the pitcher to her lips she sipped the wine, letting the drink sit on her tongue a moment before her face split with a grin, and she swallowed.

"Creators, I can't believe it. It is."

He pushed aside the prickle that the title elicited. "And what, exactly, would it be?"

"It's Silthun's wine—my uncle, from my clan. This is from my clan." For a moment she simply stood there, cradling the gift as if it might vanish were she to move. Then, she blinked, and with her breath found motion again. "I'll prepare it for us, if you have a moment. Go get comfortable, it won't take long."

She was off and to the fireplace before he could respond, kneeling down to pour the drink into a pot. He nearly spoke up to offer his help in heating it, as a mage—but then, as he watched her, he recognized the motions as she dipped her fingers into pouches of dried herbs for what they were, a ritual beloved and oft-repeated. Instead he retreated, through the balcony doors and into the cool air of a highland evening, just barely brushed by snow.

It didn't take long for her to join him, placing into his hands a cup warmed by its contents. "Here," she said, pulling her wrap tighter around her shoulders and leaning against the railing. She closed her eyes, inhaling deep its aroma. "Ma ghilana vhenas," she whispered like a prayer, and took a long swig.

'Guide me home'. Her Elven was simple, but its intent was clear. His eyes dropped to his reflection in the rich, red liquid, its scent having taken on the spices she'd added, and warming him even before it met his lips. Sweeter than he preferred, and young in age, but where his people had let depth develop over the span of decades hers had found a way wholly their own, to please the palate.

"It's just as I remember," she sighed. "The hearthkeepers used to make it like this. They'd save it for the coldest stretch of winter, when there was little else to fill our bellies."

He wondered if they'd known where their wayward lethallan found herself when they'd sent it, cold and starved not of food, but of their company. Again she brought it to her lips, closing her eyes on the draw, melting into it. "I cannot say that I've drank it as such before," he said, swirling the cup until its spices reincorporated.

"And? Have the Dalish disappointed you again?"

She may have been teasing him, but there was still a very real bite to her words. "Despite its cloying nature," he bit back, to a roll of her eyes, "it pairs well with the heat and herbs added. They ease its intensity."

"They're not all this sweet. They just know I like this one best."

Such came as no surprise—the Inquisitor was partial to fresh fruit, and juices. "You said it was your uncle who fermented it?"

"Silthun, yes. It's one of the most important jobs of the clan, to find clean water, to brew and ferment for when there is none," she explained. "If you can believe it, the duty might've been mine in another life. My grandfather was manaste'lan first, my mother training to take his place. Silthun only took over because no one else knew how, once they were gone."

It was a difficult image to conjure, knowing her as she was now…but then, how different might she have been, had she been handed an apron and not daggers? Would that passion have carried over, the pride she'd expressed in guiding her clan translated into a different language, one that saw dry throats soothed and laughter on lips? Or would the act have twisted her?

Had she been born for a purpose, an ideal, or molded into that shape? How far was she, from what he'd once been?

"It's strange to think about, isn't it?" she eventually said, reading him as easily as she read the stars, or tracks in the snow. "I've wanted to be a hunter for as long as I can remember, I can't imagine being anything else. But I might have, if a single thing had been different."

"Often the path forks. There is no way of knowing what lies at the end of either side," he said, as if the very thought hadn't haunted him for centuries, as if he hadn't pinpointed the exact moment from whence his greatest regrets stemmed. "Do you believe you would have been happier, in that other world?"

She swirled the dregs of her drink, studying them as if they held the answer. "Maybe," she considered, "I'd still be home. The Chantry wouldn't know my name, and the days would go on like they always did. Warm, sweet wine in the winter." Her eyes strayed from her cup, along the railing and to his wrist. "But I left for a reason. I'd wanted to leave for a long time, to see the world outside my clan. Maybe I could've been happier, or maybe that honor would've been a chain. Maybe, I never would've stepped past the treeline."

Her hand left her cup to creep closer to his, and she looked up to meet his eyes. Inviting, not imposing. Always waiting for him, to make that move. "Besides, I can't say that I regret being here," she continued. "There are people I'd regret never having met, even more."

Despite his reservations, the guilt at having stolen her affections dishonestly, he didn't keep her waiting long. He couldn't, drawn to her nearness like moth to flame, no matter the reality that he might snuff the both of them out in indulging. Her fingers intertwined with his, and as her warmth penetrated deep into his bones he closed his eyes.

"Is there truly any single person, worth that which you have endured?"

The hum she answered with radiated from where they were joined, resonating within the hollow space his sorrow had made inside of him. "I can think of one."

Her shoulder met his, and he leaned to meet her touch with eyes still closed. She couldn't possibly know what it was she was saying, but how he ached to let himself believe it.

Tannibal, Jamie, and Will have settled into a routine. Three days into the vacation Hannibal and Will lay on lounge chairs while Jamie plays in the water. "Oh so you two care for a fixer upper?" Someone says. "Excuse me?" Hannibal asks. "A fixer-upper Yeah, the term is used for a house that needs a lot of work, but there's people with shit mental states, like her, that need a lot of work to be fixed." This infuriates Hannibal and Will. The person walks away. "How would they know?" Will asks. "She's happy right now, playing in the water." "I don't know." Hannibal watches the person walk away.

Jamie walks out of the water ten minutes later. "You have a bad sunburn," Hannibal observes. "Time to return to the rental." The three friends get into Hannibal's car.

Sideswipe walks into Sunstreaker’s art room. He sees Lily and Sunstreaker working on a painting and is unhappy to hear Lily tell him she’d rather work on the painting than play video games. He is not pleased and leaves the room. “I wonder if Sideswipe is jealous?” Lily asks. “No, he’s happy we’re together, but not how that means he has no one to play video games with lately.” Lily laughs. The two get back to painting.

With nothing else to do, Sideswipe’s holoform goes to the archery field. Sideswipe gathers a large amount of arrows and a bow. He’s unaware that Ironhide’s holoform has been watching him. “Someone’s jealous,” Ironhide laughs. “Shut up! I am not jealous!” “With that response, I think you are.” “I’m happy Sunstreaker is happy.” “But?” “Fine, I hate how Lily does nothing with me.” Just because she and Sunstreaker have been working on a painting? Really? You know they’ll take a break once they finish this painting, and Lily will play video games with you again or train with you and Sunstreaker.” Sideswipe continues to fire the arrows.