#quark writes

The amazing @loquaciousquark graced me with another request for a fic illustration, and I did my best to match the magical atmosphere of her writing! This is a Solavellan post-Veilguard story, and the painting captures one of the more solemn moments between the two.

Rating: G Characters/Pairings: Lavellan/Solas, Rook/Lucanis Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: ~7k Summary: On a quiet Satinalia evening, Solas and Adahla wander across Thedas. Adahla begins to imagine a future; Solas wears a coat he doesn't like.

Set about four months after the end of Veilguard.

—

“Well,” Adahla says, struggling valiantly not to laugh, “I like it.”

“Then I am pleased on your behalf,” Solas says, though his voice is flat as the earth.

Now Adahla does laugh, her breath hanging in grey puffs in the wintry Minrathous night, and tucks herself against Solas’s side. “Generosity itself. However shall you bear it, emma lath?”

Solas snorts, though his arm comes around her shoulders with gratifying promptness. The new leather coat—a gift from Dorian, long to the knees and heavily worked in the latest Tevinter fashions—smells wonderful in the crisp, cold air, though even she can admit the bunched leather tassels chafe against her cheek. “A measure of your fortitude, perhaps, borrowed for myself.”

“Stolen.”

“Stolen,” Solas agrees, though his holds much less amusement, and his arm tightens around her. The new guards at the east wall give swift, respectful nods and throw open the side gates, allowing them passage to the city beyond. Adahla doesn’t know how much Dorian has told them, but it’s still a pleasant improvement from their first visit, when “knife-ear” had been the kindest insult hurled and more than one flagstone had cracked clean through from the pressure of leashed magic.

—

Rating: M Characters/Pairings: Solas/Lavellan, minor Dorian/Bull Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: 14k Summary: Five times Adahla Lavellan met Solas beneath the stars, and one time she didn't.

—

“I’m not surprised to find you out here.”

“Solas,” Adahla says, though she doesn’t turn around. A moment later, his hand settles on the small of her back, and she closes her eyes against the traitorous rush of warmth. The distant music picks up again, Celeste’s very expensive musicians beginning a sprightly courante; the strains of a violin float over the balcony like petals. “You didn’t have to come after me.”

“Oh? Would you rather I hadn’t?”

Such courteous curiosity, as always, though it’s never made her feel quite so small. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re upset.”

“Yes,” she says, and his hand slides around her waist, pulling her more firmly against his side. It’s such an unbearable relief she almost wants to cry, but the image of Josephine’s horrified face is enough to stem the tide. Instead, she lets out a long, shuddering breath and leans her head against his shoulder. A petty, selfish comfort. “I’m glad you’re here.”

—

Rating: M Characters/Pairings: Rook/Lucanis Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: 9.7k Summary: Lucanis and Rook catch their breath in the aftermath of the final battle.

—

He’s here, and she doesn’t know why she’s surprised.

He’d said he would be. He’d promised to meet her in this tiny Minrathous apartment after the healers had shooed him away for excessive glowering. There’s not a single reason in the world for her to have doubted, and yet the sheer relief of seeing Lucanis looking back at her, alive, here, is a heady euphoria all its own.

“Rook,” he says, his own relief obvious. “There you are.”

“There you are,” Rook says, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it. Every inch of her body aches; the door, she realizes, may in fact be the only thing holding her up. “What’s a handsome thing like you doing in a place like this?”

Lucanis makes a vague gesture, encompassing the scorched curtains, overturned dresser, and fractured windows in one movement. “Waiting for my god-killing lover, of course.”

“What a coincidence. I was looking for mine myself.”

—

Rating: G Characters/Pairings: Lavellan/Solas, Rook/Lucanis Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: 4.4k this chapter, will be ~20k total Summary: After the end of the world, Adahla and Solas face what's left between them—and what might now have room to grow.

—

She’s warm.

Clear sunlight on her closed eyelids. Her neck—stiff as plaster. She must have slept on it crooked. Something sweet in the air, something without the faintest tinge of Blight. Jasmine, perhaps. Clematis. She stretches her legs luxuriously beneath the sheet, letting her toes curl. What time…

A heavy weight over her waist. Steady breathing at her back.

Adahla opens her eyes.

He’s still here, with her in the Fade. Still asleep, too, though that is not so unusual; she’d often woken before him, once upon a time. But he’d slept more lightly then, rousing the moment she’d stirred. Now—now Solas sleeps like the dead, barely shifting at all as she frees herself from beneath his arm and slides from the bed. The bruising to his face is a little better, she thinks; his torso, on the other hand, is a swollen, mottled purple.

He’s here.

—

Rating: G Characters/Pairings: Lavellan/Solas, Rook/Lucanis Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: 6.4k this chapter, ~20k total Summary: After the end of the world, Adahla and Solas face what’s left between them—and what might now have room to grow.

—

“Well! How lovely this is! A bit smaller than I expected, actually, but quite a cozy little place all the same.” Rook’s already shed her cloak, weaponry, and gloves across various pieces of furniture in the sitting room; now she sets her bag atop the only chair left, peering with cheerful nosiness down the back hallway. The wisp, which had appeared the moment they came through the eluvian, flitters over Rook’s shoulders in delight. “And not a single monument of a lonely wolf howling at the moon.”

“Yet,” Lucanis says darkly. Still, he musters up a courteous smile as he hands a small paper box to Adahla. “A gift, Inquisitor. It should pair well with the tea.”

“Lucanis made pierogis.”

“Pignoli.”

“Thank you,” Adahla says hurriedly, lest the thunderhead of Rook’s assassin burst. “And thank you both for coming. I’d hoped to discuss our plans with you. Now that we have some, that is.”

“Maker, the Dread Wolf discussing his plans before he puts them into play? Should I check for another eclipse to mark the end of the world? Oh, hello, Solas. There you are.”

“Rook,” Solas says stiffly, standing from the table. “Lucanis. Spite.”

—

Rating: G Characters/Pairings: Solas/Lavellan, minor Dorian/Bull Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: 6.2k Summary: Dorian and Adahla exchange letters and write an academic paper. Set post-game, pre-Trespasser.

—

Dear Dorian,

I’m glad to hear you’ve arrived safely in Minrathous. Leliana’s scouts informed us some of the caravans north had been waylaid by bandits, but I should have known with Bull and the Chargers along, nothing could delay you. Everyone sends their love except Sera, who’s instead defaced every page in this sheaf and then run laughing up to the roof. The rude gesture in the corner is from her.

Varric has asked twice now in his offhanded way if the Inquisition might be traveling along the Imperial Highway in the next few weeks. He’s eager to return to Kirkwall, even if he’s allergic to saying it straight out, and Vivienne has wished to speak with a band of Aequitarian mages in Val Royeaux for some time, so I expect we’ll bivouac our own way north shortly. Please post your next reply to Halamshiral and we’ll pick it up on the way.

As regards your last letter: I appreciate your concern, but I’m quite all right. I know I was unlike myself on our recent adventure into the Deep Roads, but your forbearance with me (and my uncharacteristic impetuousness) was very generous. I’m fully recovered now, I assure you, and have put all distractions behind me. My solemn oath to stop jumping off ledges without looking is inscribed here for your approval.

Speaking of approval, please look over the changes I’ve made to the Ameridan paper (enclosed). The green ink is addition, the red revision, and the blue strikethroughs have been cut. In particular, please review the section on Ameridan’s known—and most incontrovertible—history, especially the citations from Renaures and Bescond. There’s a Genitivi monograph I’m trying to track down which would do a great deal to preempt Chantry objections, but I’m having difficulty laying hands on an unaltered original. I have high hopes one might be hiding in a University of Orlais library, but until I can coax the librarian to pack it in goosedown and ship it east, Renaures is our strongest advocate.

—

Rating: G Characters/Pairings: Lavellan/Solas, Rook/Lucanis Fandom: Dragon Age Word Count: 4.9k this chapter, will be ~20k total Summary: After the end of the world, Adahla and Solas face what's left between them—and what might now have room to grow.

—

Adahla opens her eyes to silent chaos.

The raw, untamed Fade churns around them. Their feet are planted on solid, bare rock, but an arm’s length away the stone ripples into a field of grass—then a scorched, barren plain—now a river with frothing white spray that stings her cheeks. The sky above them roils an angry grey, studded with bursts of lightning. An instant later it clears to the silver of pre-dawn, then a sickly sea-storm green. All sound comes muffled, as if from a great distance.

At least down seems down and up seems up. No chunks of earth floating around them—yet. Neither of them falling the wrong way. No demons or shades, save the regrets they’ve both carried here with them.

More than ten years since she was in Fade this unanchored. She’d forgotten the hard, metallic tang to the air. Beside her, Solas shudders; she can feel him stretch out with his mind, searching for—something—

There.

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