I had the privilege of writing Athelas for @hansaera once again, in a piece that became near and dear to my heart! Thank you Saera for being such a lovely friend and I’m glad I could do your girl justice <3
My Ko-Fi || My Commissions (Slots currently open as of 10/18/19)
Pairing: Athelas Lavellan x Solas
Rating: General - vague references to emotional distress
Athelas woke to the smell of bacon cooking, flooding the whole house with salt, grease, and smoke. She groaned with delight, not even opening her eyes yet. Was there anything better than that smell?
Well. Perhaps the fact that if she stayed in bed long enough, the man cooking it would bring it directly to her, and they would sit curled underneath their fluffy, downy comforter and enjoy it together.
Well. That and the fact that there was no way she could stay in bed, because her huge stomach was already pressing on her bladder, and she had to get up and go to the bathroom.
Both of those things just might be better than the smell of bacon.
Athelas rose, went to the bathroom, and then went to stand in the doorway that led out to the rest of their house to watch Solas cook, running her hand idly over the curve of her belly as she did so, feeling the wiggling life within. Only a few more weeks to go now, before she met whoever it was.
Solas was in a long loose tunic and leggings, humming idly as he cooked. The neck of the tunic had slipped to one side and she could see almost all of one of his pale, freckled shoulders. She wanted immediately to walk to him, kiss him there, but she held back. She also wanted to preserve this moment as long as she could. She wanted to preserve the slant of golden light coming through the windows, the exact shade of it, the motes of dust that flitted and sparkled through it - the reverberations of Solas’s humming in his chest, the little table near the kitchen, which he had already set for breakfast. Two round white plates, one of them with a chip on its edge. Forks and knives with wooden handles. A letter that one of them had opened and read the day before, then left carelessly on the table.
She wanted to preserve the simple blue curtains on their walls, the murals Solas had done on either side of the front door. She wanted to preserve the feeling of the wood floors beneath her feet - smooth and polished, but still with little ridges that puckered beneath her feet. She wanted to preserve every inch of it in her memory.
Because after everything she had been through - everything she had suffered - she was home. She was enough, exactly as she was. She was loved, exactly as she was.
It was not a thought she had articulated to herself in words quite yet. It had been a feeling building slowly like a sunrise ever since they moved into this house. Ever since this baby started growing within her. Behind it grew an even larger feeling, an even more important one. She was enough even before this house. She had always been enough, whatever anyone else said. Whatever the voices in her mind said.
Athelas Lavellan was never going to let that feeling go, she decided in that ordinary moment. Standing there, watching her lover cook, feeling her child move within her. She was going to come back to it over and over again, every time the feeling that she wasn’t enough threatened.
Solas finished cooking the bacon then, sliding it onto a nearby plate, reaching into the wire basket of eggs they kept on the countertop. He caught sight of her as he did so, and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
“Good morning, vhenan,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
Athelas let the spell break. She crossed the floor to him, wrapped her arm around his waist, and kissed that bare shoulder she’d glimpsed from across the room.
“Always. Especially for that bacon.”
Now she could feel his chuckle through his body, vibrating into her own, like a secret message.
“Good. I made extra just for you. I was going to add eggs and toast if you can be patient enough.”
Athelas had already taken a slice of bacon from the plate before he finished speaking, was already groaning in appreciation as she bit into it.
“Nope,” she said when she was done.
Solas laughed again, and it was a sound she had never heard enough of before, and now she got to hear it every day, and she was happy she had worked and waited and hoped for a world where that was possible. That she had never given up - or if she had, she had not allowed herself to give up for long.
She licked her fingers clean and then she gave Solas an affectionate pat on his rear.
“We should eat outside this morning. It’s a beautiful day.”
He turned to look at her over his shoulder and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him, a sweet and gentle and full press of her lips to his.
“I’ll see you outside,” she said.
She sat down at the table in their garden and closed her eyes again, trying to press every inch of this new memory into her heart. The smell of the dew, the warmth of the sun, the dirt beneath her feet. She was enough. It did not matter what happened after this moment, or even what had happened before it. What mattered was the present moment. She would carry it wrapped inside her, just under her heart, for the rest of her life. She might lose track of the feeling sometimes, but she would never let it get far away again. She’d fought too hard to earn it.
Her child squirmed and kicked inside of her and Athelas dropped her hand to her belly once more.
You are enough, too, she thought. I will remind you of that every day.
Solas followed her shortly after, both plates balanced carefully on his forearms. He set one down in front of her, and then one at the other side of the table. Then he returned to her and knelt down, and pressed a kiss to the rise of her belly. He looked up at her and Athelas memorized the angles of his face all over again, the placement of each freckle, the blue of his eyes.
“You’re enough, you know,” she said to him on impulse. “Exactly as you are.”
Blood rushed into her cheeks immediately. Why had she said such a foolish thing? But then she saw the way Solas’s face softened, the way the color rose in his cheeks, and she knew it was the right thing to say. That these were words they would pass around their family like a prayer.
Solas kissed Athelas again, and they settled in to their breakfast, ready for whatever would come.
