#solavellan fics

“Well, we certainly can’t let it threaten our investigation,” she says. Solas recognizes when she has come to a decision, the set of her jaw, the gleam in her eyes. She has come to a decision and she enjoys the prospect.

Something lurches under his ribcage, something he quiets with a deep breath. They are here, in the alienage, for the sole purpose of finding the source of red lyrium. Someone has been processing the stuff, mixing tainted with pure and shipping the product to Templars across the city.

Leliana has said the source is here, in these wooden shacks stacked one on top of another like swallow’s nests on a cliff face. Leliana suspects Avidan, quiet Avidan, the old alchemist who lives at their northern wall.

The Inquisitor jumped at the assignment, eagerly shedding plate for rough linen, fine leather for worn cotton. The Inquisitor could not go alone.

“Are you sure about this?” she had said into the quiet of the rotunda. It is late – or perhaps it is early. He does not keep track as he used to.

“If I was not, I would not have volunteered.” He does not look up from his desk.

“We’ll be undercover,” she says. In the past, she would have cleared a spot for herself, sat in an island on the sea of his work, and her bare toes would not have touched the ground. It is not the past. She stands, her weight on the balls of her feet. “You can’t tell them all their beliefs are wrong. You might have to pretend you like them. Other elves.” Her voice is dry, but he hears the accusation buried there.

He lifts his eyes, meets her gaze for an instant.

She lets out a breath. Looks away. An apology.

“You’ll be Yosef,” she says. “I’m Esther. We leave with the traders tomorrow, at dawn.”

“Very well.” He reads the same paragraph for the third time.

“Solas?”

He looks up. Her hand is extended. He reaches out – their fingers brush as she drops the object into his palm.

An ironwood ring.

“Of course.” He keeps his voice flat, places the thing on the table.

“Of course,” she says. “Yes.” She walks away, her footstep just another layer of the silence.

When she is gone, he picks up the ring. It’s heavy, dark silver, unadorned, and slides perfectly onto the third finger of his left hand. Of all the lies he has borne, it is the cruelest.

It is the most beautiful.

They ride with a company of merchants – a contact from a web of Varric’s or Leliana’s or Josephine’s, he does not know. Does not care. Should know, should care, but his wits are scattered to the wandering winds when she grabs his hand and says, “Hurry, Yosef,” as the traders depart, when she lays his bedroll flush against her own, when she laughs with him and smiles and says emma lath. It is another role, a part to play, a mask as sure as the clueless apostate, as the hungry wolf, as the man he had to be when he walked away from her that night.

Yosef, he reminds himself, is an elf, a servant, from a rural town, who wed a Dalish huntress. Rejected by her clan, they flee with the traders to the city, where there is work, where there are others who share their language, their gods. Yosef walks, he does not stride. Yosef’s shoulders are slightly bowed, and his speech is not so precise. Yosef has no magic – he can cook, he can clean, he can curry a horse. And Yosef loves his Dalish wife.

It is easy to be Yosef. To love his Dalish wife. She is Esther. Her step is light as the burdens of the Inquisition fall into the horizon. The farther they are from Skyhold, the brighter her smile becomes. She laughs with the traders, rides with them, teases them, and plays Wicked Grace around the campfire at dark. She knows their names, their families, mimics their accents and plays trick shots with her bow. Esther plays a small wooden flute with the traders in the evenings, and the music drives the darkness back. Esther is who she should be, who she would have been had he not split her world in a fractured web of lies.

Esther loves her husband. She holds his hand when they are walking, she kisses him softly on the line of his jaw, wobbling precariously on her tiptoes. Esther falls asleep no less than a handbreadth away, and brings him tea, sweet with precious honey, when they break camp before he has had time to properly wake. Esther soothes the feathers that have risen from his bad temper and washes his clothing with her own when they stop by the river. His tunic smells of clear river water, of harsh lye soap, and of her.

It is easy to be Yosef and Esther. It is easy. And it hurts.

For despite her smiles and her kisses and the way her ring looks on her hand, she is always turned away from him when he wakes. In the predawn light, the set of her spine is rigid - a barrier as insurmountable as the ocean, as the north wind, as the weight of the Veil against his skin. There are times he has to rouse her, and she smiles until she remembers, until the truth and the lies flick over her face like shadows. Then his vhenan is gone. She is Esther; he is Yosef.

And he loves her.

They settle in the alienage. It is a challenge. Neither of them is used to the city, to the waste and the stink and the press of unwashed bodies. But he sees how she relaxes, surrounded by others who murmur in their tongue, who welcome her as one of their own. She relaxes and he thinks it is not just Esther who smiles.

Avidan, the apocathery, is their target, but Avidan is not a man to be approached easily. Esther makes friends with Naomi, the Hahren’s daughter, finds a job scrubbing floors with other women in the alienage, and buries herself in the flow of the place like she belongs here. She smiles, and it reaches into her eyes. She has built the Inquisition into a home for them all, but he did not realize until now how far apart she held herself. When she goes with Naomi to the market or plays her flute for the little ones, there is a light to her that he has not seen in months. Not since-

No.

He approaches the men – first those of his own apparent age, the husbands-not-fathers, but the bitterness of their beer and the bile of their anger stirs his blood, makes his heart beat like a drum of fire, like the old songs of revolution. There are masks on top of masks, and too many parts to play. He sits with them and it would be so, so easy – a word slipped here, a seed planted there. In weeks, the city could be burning. He could set the world alight with their fury. He could- No.

Solas bites his lip and seeks out the elder men, the scholars and the grandfathers whose children are grown. There are not many of these, and they fill him with bitter sorrow. Their skin falls in loose folds, lines of laughter, lines of pain. He studies them, the future of his people written in their skin. They move slowly, weak and aching. Their hair is white and thin.

This is his legacy. He lies awake, listening to her breathe, and does not wonder what she will look like when her bones are light as a bird’s, when her spine is stooped and her joints ache. In the sunlight, he does not watch the lines that have creased around her eyes. This is his legacy, and it scares him.

He wonders, if he lived, would he suffer the same fate? Or would he watch the world die around him, one generation after the next?

Lying in the dark, listening to her breathe, he wonders if the death he has chosen will be the kinder one.

It seems so distant, here, as if time has little meaning. He has lived beyond the dreams of any modern elf. His death is coming. It is the road at his feet, the dark path he must walk alone. But now, in the evenings, he returns to her, to Esther, his wife, in the closet-sized space they call a home. She sleeps on the rickety cot and he sleeps on the floor and they begin to put together the puzzle of Avidan and his red lyrium.

Until tonight. Until the sidelong looks and the extra potion and Naomi’s gift of purple mushrooms is made clear – their lack of nocturnal activity has been noticed by their new community. It must be rectified or explained if they do not wish to draw suspicion.

But while he is still carding through the most ludicrous of solutions, she develops a set of her jaw, a gleam in her eye. She has come to a decision, and she smiles on the cot like a wild thing. There is no Esther in that smile, there is no lie. It is all her.

Her eyes dart to him, then dart away. And then she breathes in, a sharp intake of air, and, fenedhis-

She moans.

She moans, low and deep, and rocks the cot so it creaks. When she takes a breath, it’s a gasp, pulling air into her lungs. Her eyes are closed, hands braced against her thighs, and the sounds she makes is as if the world is slowly coming undone. No. As if she is coming undone, and the world has faded to nothing around her.

Her eyes are closed and she is smiling and he is utterly paralyzed.

Heat sweeps through him, burning at his ears, his cheeks, pooling in his core. He is no newcomer to lewdness and depravity, but this, this- She throws her head back and sighs and he traces the curve of her neck, lingering at the sweat that gathers in the hollows of her throat. She groans, and he aches, so hard that he hurts, imagines ghosting his fingers over her small breasts, teasing until her nipples are tight and pebbled, taking her in his palms, in his lips, in his teeth-

Her rocking is rhythmic now, the cot crashing against the wall like his heart against his ribcage. He wants, he wants, he burns with want, hard and leaking in his own leggings, undone like he has not ever been, like he should not ever be.

No, no, no, a voice is saying, beating against the fever in his blood. Please. It is small, lonely, the lost voice of a lost man, lost in love, drowned in despair. It is his voice, himself, who walked away from her and fell to his knees and wept and now begs please do not do this to me.

He is a man on the brink, torn between dread and fire and he wants-

This is not what he wants.

He wants to meet her in her chambers and kiss the dragon’s blood and road dust from her fingers. He wants to whisper old songs to her, lover’s blessings, as he unwraps her calves from their bindings, as he peels away her armor. He wants to lie next to her, pressed to her, and count the pale scars that arc across her cinnamon skin. He wants to taste her, to breathe in the gasp as he crooks his fingers between her thighs, as he finds the small point of pleasure in her folds-

The cot crashes against the wall and he is brought to sick reality, eight points of pain where his nails are digging into the skin of his palms. He does not, cannot, reach. He does not, cannot, touch. He does not, cannot-

Her voice builds and builds, stuttering, gasping, her palms still flat against her thighs. A release. She relaxes, leans back with a huff. The tension unwinds from her bones. Her eyes do not open.

“Good enough?” she drawls, but there’s something brittle in the air.

“Sufficient.” The word cracks, stabilizes. “Sufficient, I am sure.”

“Good.”

They prepare for sleep, as they have many times before. He listens to her breathe in the darkness, waits for it to slow before he takes himself in hand. A few brutal strokes are all it takes. It is no relief.

He curls around his despair in the darkness and remembers how she looked when she pretended to come.

~*~

He hopes (and does not hope) that is the end of the matter, but Avidan thumps him on the shoulder the next day and leers at him in a good natured way. It is, perhaps, an opening. They discuss spouses and their moods – or, rather, Avidan reminisces about a husband, twelve years gone, and he nods appreciatively while volunteering few details. Avidan seems to appreciate this, produces a bottle of peach schnapps, and the two sit together in the alienage square and watch the world go by.

It is not much, but it is a beginning.

He grows used to the elders, forces himself, until he can touch their papery skin without holding a breath. They move slowly, these old elves, and they smell strange. Yet they only wish for someone who will listen – the old always dream that there are young ones left who care about their wisdom.

He offers, and is accepted – uses his strong hands to mend and patch and fix, with will if not with great skill. They thank him, every one, and offer him their pipes of tobacco and their dusty bottles of liquor. He accepts, every one, and tells himself he is gathering information.

It is not a lie. But their information has little to do with lyrium and Templars, and more about their friends, their loves, their children, their crafts, and their dreams. Their lives. These men and women welcome him into their homes and pour out their hearts and their wisdom. He drinks it in like a man in a desert, asking questions, soft and quiet. What is it about their stories that calls him so? Perhaps because they are facing their end, too, and go to it so gracefully. Perhaps because he needs to know. How have they lived, in this broken world of his own creation?

Avidan is one of the last to ask for his help in the mending of walls and the patching of drafts. The old man’s room is a labyrinth of old jars and cracked pots, each home to a different ointment or balm. The rafters are crowded with dried roots and herbs and flowers, dangling so low that Solas needs to stoop so that he will not hit them. The furniture is sturdy and well-made.

“How long you been married?” Avidan asks through a cloud of pipe-smoke.

“Ah,” Solas pauses, thinking. He is lying at an awkward angle, trying to re-hang the door in its rotting frame. It is aggravating work. “Since the full moon of Kingsway.”

“Alas’davhen’man,” Avidan corrects sternly.

“Alas’davhen’man,” he agrees. Yosef was raised on a farm, by humans. Yosef knows little of elvish ways, or the elvish language. Adivan finds great joy in teaching him. “Since the full moon of Alas’davhen’man.”

“Two moons,” Avidan mutters. It is Firstfall now - Ena’eir’man – and the bitter winds of winter have started to creep into the alienage. Fuel is scarce, and warm clothes are more so. “How long before that were ya courting?”

Solas swallows the heat in his throat. Yosef cares less about privacy. Yosef is so proud of his Dalish wife. “We met just before the spring solstice,” he says, the story as he was told. “Her clan camped close to my village. She came to trade for supplies.”

Avidan says nothing, merely puffs on his pipe. Solas lets himself smile. “We would meet by the lake, pretend to be fishing as we watched the sun rise.” He rests his head against the wall, wearied by false memories so sharp he can taste them. “The lilacs were blooming. She let me braid them into her hair.”

In Orlais, a would-be suitor had given her a tiny crystal vial of lilac perfume. She spurned the suitor, but delighted at the gift. She smelled of lilacs for months. It is his favorite flower now.

“She’s lovely, your wife,” Avidan says in a voice that’s low and scratches. “Got a fire to her. You’ll never be cold, not with that one by your side.”

“No,” he says, thinking of the nights he lies awake and watches the wall of her back rise against him. “No.”

“Brave thing too, leaving her family for you. Or did you get a babe in her?”

He hits his thumb with the hammer. “No, I – no.”

Avidan snorts. “Keep working on that. Need more little ones around.”

“Do you have any children?” he asks, trying not to sound desperate.

Avidan draws on his pipe. “Three,” he says. “Need at least three. More is better. Not enough elves. One babe for me, one for Moshe, one for a soul who died in the Marches.”

“The Exalted Marches?” he wonders. “You want there to be more elves when you die. Not fewer.”

“You got it.” Avidan nods. “Fast learner, for all you were raised as a flat-ear.”

If only he knew. “I will take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Avidan grins with a lopsided smile.

“Where are your children now?” Solas asks, fighting against the door as he attempts to get it mounted.

“With their da.” Avidan does not smile. “Waitin’ for me.”

“Waiting – ah.” Solas closes his eyes. “My apologies.”

The old elf shrugs, the motion lifting the entirety of his skinny body. “Means more work for you. You and your Esther, have four babes now. One for you, one for her, one for an elf who died in the Marches, and one for old Avidan.”

Solas smiles, but it is brittle. “Is that the plan?”

“It’s all I got.” Avidan holds his pipe, and his eyes flash green in the dim light. “Try.”

“Yes,” Solas lies. He takes out his feeling on the old, rotten door, forcing it into submission. He has never been as good at building, at creating. But he will, he will, he will.

~*~

“You can’t skip this week,” she warns him, voice muffled as she changes into a dress. He looks down at his hands and does not turn around. “Everybody’s been wondering where you were.”

“It is an excellent opportunity-“

“I know you’ve been sick,” she says, sick being the code word for snooping around while everyone else is occupied, “but people notice when you’re not there.”

He shakes his head, fundamentally uncomfortable. “I do not wish to-“

“Please.”

He turns. The dress is new – the dusky rose fabric was a gift from their neighbors, and she had sewn it in the alienage square, laughing with her friends in the cold autumn sun. It fits her beautifully, hugging her torso before spilling out into wide skirts. The neckline dips down to the hint of a breast and he resists the urge to trace the faint curve there.

“Yosef?”

“Yes,” he says. He wants to go to her, take her in his arms, press his lips into her hair and feel how the seams of the dress lie against her skin.

“Thank you,” she says softly. Her eyes are full with a sad smile. Who is smiling, he wonders, cannot help but wonder. Esther? The Inquisitor? Or his heart?

How different, truly, are the three? He wonders.

“Here,” she says, and she is handing him something in a thin linen bag, heavily embroidered in Elvhen. The stitching is thick, old and intricate, entwining the word atisha in the branches of a large blooming tree. Atisha, peace.

“It is lovely,” he admits, admiring the workmanship.

“They’re a gift from the Hahren,” she says.

“They?”

“Open it.”

He does, careful of the stitching. The bag holds a long length of beautiful linen, the edges embroidered with more blossoming trees. Each corner has long tasseled edges, tied in intricate knots. A smaller length of cloth flutters down – he catches it before it can it the hard-packed dirt of the ground.

“Prayer shawls,” she explains, taking the smaller length from his hands. “This one’s mine.” Hers is thinner, more a scarf than a long shawl, and she settles it around her shoulders. The end is still tasseled, and the forest of embroidery continues at the ends.

He attempts to copy her, draping the length around his neck, and she smiles. “No, it’s a bit more complicated. Like this.” She models, sweeping the fabric effortlessly around her until it settles on her shoulders. He tries again and gets tangled. “Here.” She smiles and sorts him out until the shawl lies properly over his frame.

“Why do we wear these?” he asks, annoyed by the fuss.

“It depends,” she says, smiling. “I’ll fill you in later. Do you have the apples?”

He does, a whole basket, liberated from beyond the city walls. She nods happily. “Then we can go.”

Solas would not be nervous, of course, not for such a small thing as a week’s end celebration. A community gathering to welcome in the day of rest. Solas would not be nervous, but Yosef, Yosef was raised by humans. Yosef knows little of these ways. Yosef, as they leave their small room, reaches out and is glad for the stability of his wife’s hand in his own. He traces the line of her wedding band absently. She smiles up at him, kisses him gently on the shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” she says. Then, wickedly and more quietly, “No one is going to start a mob at you.”

This is, of course, a reference to her first days as Inquisitor, when crowds would gather at her door and she would go out of the window, unsure if they were there to worship or to start a lynching. His situation is far less precarious.

The discomfort came from his closeness, his proximity. Were he an observer, watching the celebration from afar, from a memory in the Fade – that would be ideal. But walking into the alienage square draped in a prayer shawl, nodding greetings at the people who were supposed to be his friends, his neighbors –

He had never been good at belonging, at being a part of instead of observing from afar. It was easier, from a distance. But walking like this, in Yosef’s clothes, with Yosef’s prayer shawl, Yosef’s name and Yosef’s wife –

It is too close. But he is too old to be nervous. He had faced down gods and empresses and kings. A group of people, his own people, will not frighten him.

They will not.

“Esther! Esther!” Someone is bouncing on their toes, waving over the crowded alienage square. “Esther, over here!”

“Naomi!” she yells happily, towing him like a bobber in her wake. The whole alienage is here. When they reach the Hahren’s daughter, the two women embrace.

“Yosef,” Naomi says happily, and hugs him too. “You’re here – oh, look at you two, you look wonderful.”

“Thank you for your gift,” he says, lifting the garment slightly. “It is lovely.”

“It was my uncle’s,” Naomi says, smoothing the edges down. “And my aunt’s. They’d be happy to see you wearing them so well.”

He inclines his head. “We are honored.” And he does not ask what happened to her uncle and aunt.

“Here,” Esther says, passing over the basket of apples. “For after.”

“Oh!” Naomi breathes in delight. “These look beautiful! Where did you – no, I don’t want to know, let’s put them over here.”

Over here is a set of long tables, groaning under baskets and dishes and platters of food. They add their basket to the feast. Esther looks at a pie longingly.

But then there’s a noise, a soft ribbon of sound floating over the conversation. A fragment of a song without words, sung on a string of syllables. Dai dai dai dai, diddi dai dai dai. Dai dai dai dai, diddi dai dai dai.

It’s a gentle song, a rolling melody that sweeps through the crowd, picking up voices in its wake. Beside him, she sings softly, uncharacteristically unsure. Around and around the melody goes, weaving within the branches of the alienage tree. The leaves dance in the golden light of the evening.

In the center of the square, a voice begins a new song. A rhythm, a chant, a prayer sung in a pattern: the voice is old, female, clear, and resonant. She sings, a story older than Solas himself: a people, worn to fragments, tired and afraid, no place to call home. A gift, given to them. A gift of a day. From sunset to sunset of the last day of the week, the people were given the gift of rest. On this day, no work is done. On this day, we meet and sing. We laugh and love, we sleep and eat, we dance, we play. This day is a gift, and it belongs to our people.

Then the song shifts seamlessly to another voice, a young tenor.

Solas freezes. His bones are ice, are glass, are fragile and breakable and breaking because this, this is not possible.

This cannot be possible.

The singer speaks of blessing and thanks. Blessed are you, who has given us this day. Blessed are you, who has made the grape of the vine, the fruits of the soil. Blessed are you, who have given us each other.

He hears, and is not hearing. Sees, and is not seeing. The world is a wavering tenor voice and each note is more precious than time itself. Blessed, bless-ed, two syllables on two notes, tied together and it cannot be possible.

She touches his face, draws him back into his own skin. He is crying.

“Emma lath,” she is saying from a thousand years away. “Emma lath, Yosef?” He can only put out one shaking hand, draw her in, hold her tightly enough that he cannot fly away. He folds himself into her, wrapping them both in the shawl that he wears.

She holds him so tightly. “You’re shaking,” she murmurs with wonder into the fabric of his tunic. “Solas?”

It is not Yosef who presses his face in her hair, not Yosef who grounds himself in the scent of her, the warmth, the reality of her pressed against him. But he has been Yosef enough that the truth slips out – Yosef has so little to hide.

“I know this,” he says, the words slow. “I remember this.”

She looks up, he can feel her lashes brush against his skin. “The blessing?”

“The melody.”

She folds her fingers around his own. He holds them against his chest. She hums with the singer, the rich flow of the music twining in their tiny universe. He can only listen.

He knows this. He remembers.

It- this tune. The melody. It had been common, popular, with many different sets of lyrics. His sister had sung it, loudly and out of tune, walking down a crystal road in the summer sunshine. His mother-

His mother.

Right now, right now there is dirt under his feet, the hard-packed dirt of the alienage common. Right now, he is wearing rough linen with uneven stitching, he can feel the seams on his skin. His tallit smells of cloth and old dust, but it wraps around them, holding her close, and she, she, she is here, anchoring him in reality as the past threatens to tear him away.

It is not possible, that the melody could have found its way here. Here, in the mud and the poverty and squalor. The people who are his people and yet not – mere shadows, fragments, slivers of themselves. They are a dream, a mistake, they are not real, this is not real, she is not real and yet they sing-

She is singing the song that his mother once sang, and time folds inwards. Thousands of years collapse into the present until he is and always has been a man, listening, with his heart safe in his arms. It does not matter what is real. What he knows. Only that he is still alive to listen.

~*~

“Just so you know, Naomi thinks I’m pregnant,” she announces with a sigh, coming into their little room.

He blinks up from his book of old recipes, ignoring the adrenaline that hits at her words. “Oh?” he says mildly.

“Yeah.” She begins to unpack her bag, shaking out the cloth that had held the bread, cheese, and wizened apple she had taken for midday. She has eaten all of it. “People might be weird about it for a while.”

“Because Naomi thinks you are with child.” With his child.

She waves a hand dismissively. “I haven’t had my moon blood since we arrived.”

He freezes, ice traveling down the length of his spine. She had, she has not, she has not had her moon blood since they arrived over a month ago. They have been living so close, he would have known, but she hasn’t had her moon blood. Does that mean-

Does she-

Could she-

But not, they haven’t - if she is, it wouldn’t be his. Then who? At Skyhold, had she, would he have known if she, that is, he wouldn’t have blamed her, finding comfort where she could. Cullen? Blackwall? Bull? The Iron Bull? Had they, could he, could she – was that even, a half-elf, half-qunari-?

His heart hits the bottom of his stomach and keeps falling. She and the Iron Bull – but Bull and Dorian? All of them together? But if – a half-qunari child would be huge and she, she was so small, it would – could she live? Would she survive? It would, no, childbirth was so dangerous, she couldn’t, she would die and he would be helpless to save her, she would be helpless to save herself, betrayed by her own body, the final battle she could not win and her blood, her blood on his hands because he could not save her and-

“Solas!” she hisses in his ear. He lands, hard, back into his own skin.

“I – yes. That is, I beg your pardon?”

“My cycle has been inconsistent since the Conclave,” she says softly, a smile in her eyes. “It’s a normal reaction to stress, when a woman puts strain on her body. Cassandra’s the same, and Vivienne after she casts too much. It’s perfectly normal. I’m not pregnant.”

“Ah.” He clears his throat. “I see.”

“Besides, I’m fairly sure you have to have sex first,” she says, sitting down next to him on the cot. She stretches, flexing her feet and knees. They’re red from her work. He wants nothing more than to run his hands down her calves, massage the ache away. Perhaps if anyone was watching, was listening, he would dare. There are many things he can dare under the guise of Yosef and Esther. Here, though, alone and speaking quietly, he cannot touch, cannot look, cannot breathe with her nearness.

She has not found comfort with anyone else. Not Cullen or Blackwall or Bull or anyone his panicked, illogical mind can conjure. She has not, is not-

“What are you reading?” she asks softly, bringing him out of himself once again.

He clears his throat. “A book of folk recipes from Avidan.”

She kicks his leg gently with her red, worn feet. “Not folk recipes.”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. “A book of medicinal recipes from Avidan.”

“Anything for sore muscles?” She leans against the wall, not him.

“Perhaps.” He does not imagine how it would feel, rubbing a balm into her skin. Feeling her muscles relax under his hands. He does not imagine how the light from their lantern would slide over the curves of her calves, the arches of her feet, how the oils would make her shine like a sacred thing. He does not imagine. He is not enough for her. But it does not stop him from saying, “I will try to find such a thing.”

She hums happily and shifts her weight so she is leaning, just a little, against him.

~*~

“Yosef!” Tavi sits down next to him, and the bench shudders slightly. Tavi is a mountain. “Settle something for me?”

“How can I help?” He puts down his notes under the pretense he was working, not watching Esther give pig-a-back rides to every child in the alienage.

“Aharon was spinning tales again. Said everyone is naked at Dalish weddings. That true, or was the bastard having me on again?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he says. “But history would say that Aharon has no credible source. You are free to ask Esther.” Esther, who is currently tossing a small child in the air, making the creature laugh. The sound is absurdly charming.

Tavi is staring at him. “You didn’t have a Dalish wedding? With your Dalish wife?”

“Ah.” He shifts on the bench, feigning discomfort. “No. Her clan did not approve of her choice. I am not Dalish myself, you see.”

The other man snorts. “I gathered that.”

“Yes. We left together shortly afterwards.”

“Fair. Where’d you get hitched, then?”

Yosef is not a private man. “We exchanged rings, exchanged vows. It was enough for us.” The false-memory is so strong. Moonlight, spilling on a lake. Flowers in her hair. The words as he slipped his ring onto her finger.

But Tavi is blinking. “No Hahren? No records? No kin, no celebration?”

He shakes his head. “It was enough for us.”

Tavi looks at Yosef out of the corner of his eye, but says nothing. He only shrugs nonchalantly.

Looking back, Solas should have been suspicious. But across the alienage green, his Dalish wife is holding a wailing babe in her arms. She bounces the child, and it curls into her shoulder with a grumbling sigh, falling asleep with one hand fisted into Esther’s tunic.

Solas should have been suspicious, but he could not look away.

The consequences of his inattention find them a few days later, as the Sabbath was drawing to a close. He is talking with Avidan in the apocathary’s shop about a salve for sore muscles when someone crashes into the door.

Avidan tenses and his eyes flick to the floorboards. Fascinating. But the door slams open and it is Naomi, grinning like a cat who made off with the cream. “Yosef, you’re late! Come on!”

He looks at her over the top of his small glass of peach schnapps. Yosef does not raise an eyebrow. He tilts his head and his eyes are wide. “Naomi? Late for what?”

“For Havdalah,” she says impatiently. This makes little sense. Havdalah is the candle-lighting, the blessing that comes at the end of the day of rest. It is nothing that requires his attention, though Esther is fond of the ceremony. “Avidan, you promised you’d bring him.”

Avidan blinks. “Did I?”

“You did,” Naomi says, but she’s laughing. “Come along, you two. We’re all waiting.”

“I fail to see why the sunset requires our presence,” Solas remarks dryly. He has been waiting for the end of the day of rest in order to craft his salve. “It has managed without us before.”

“Now, now, don’t be a stick,” Avidan says. He taps Solas’ shin with his walking staff. “Don’t keep the lady waiting.”

Solas gives the younger man a look before complying, wounded by this unexpected betrayal. Something is happening that he is not aware of and it galls him. He has never been fond of surprises. But there is nothing left to do but make his way out to the alienage green, where the majority of the population has gathered around the tree. Helpful hands guide him to the trunk of the tree where Esther is waiting.

“There you are!” she says, throwing her arms around him. In the privacy of their closeness, she whispers, “Do you know what’s going on?”

He shakes his head minutely, ignoring the feel of her against him. “I have no idea.”

She snorts, an indelicate sound so close to his ear. “Probably a cult,” she mutters. “Probably get sacrificed to Corypheus any moment now.”

“Undoubtedly,” he murmurs into her cheek. Her skin is silk against his lips. He pulls away, stepping hard on his reluctance. Foolish man.

Naomi is standing next to them, grinning with unbridled delight. “Here, you take these.” She shoves a set of candles into their hands. They are long, beautiful tapers of braided wax. But instead of being the traditional strands of blue and white, these candles are pure white, without a strand of blue to be seen. And they are new, never-lit, not the scraps and stubs from weeks past.

He looks at Naomi, who is horribly pleased with herself, and passes one of the candles to Esther. The ceremony has started – the Hahren lights a candle and passes the flame around until the whole of the square flickers with a comforting glow.

It is not what they lost. But it is beautiful.

The Havdalah ceremony is a short one. The melody for the blessings is low, restful, hopeful. The Hahren does not sing alone – the whole of the alienage adds their voices. From under the tree, he is surrounded in light, in community, in song. When the melody fades, he feels a faint pang and realizes with surprise that it is regret. But no one is blowing out their candles. Many of them are smiling.

The Hahren calls out from atop a crate at the base of the tree. “The day of rest is over, but before we return to our lives, we have more to celebrate. You all know Yosef and Esther.” Candle lit faces turn to them, and he fights the urge to duck away. “Rejected from their communities, they have come to us. Become a part of us. We are better, now that they are here among us.”

Naomi is nodding happily, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet. Esther is blushing, a dark rose that blooms from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. The sight is delightful.

“And yet!” the Hahren says. “They have been done a great disservice. They wed while coming to us, alone. They had no flowers, no ketubah,no music or dancing or wine. My friends, do you think this is right?”

“No!” the crowd laughs.

“Then tonight, we shall wed them again!”

He is filled with dread. The lies are heavy, rancid in his twisting stomach. This is a disgrace, a mockery, he has made a fool of these people who have opened their hands and their hearts. He has made them a fool and now he is a fool, the Lord of Fools, brought low by kindness, by the crushing weight that is his duty. He has set himself to endure, how, how can he endure this night?

How can he pretend to marry the woman that he loves?

They whisk him away from the tree, strong hands and grinning faces, Tavi and Avidan and the elders he has helped over the weeks. They pull him away and tug at his tunic, his leggings, strip him down before he can collect himself enough to protest. Then Tavi dumps something over his head, a cascade of fine wool, and he struggles to pull it right.

It silences him before he can speak. This tunic is a masterpiece of white wool and golden embroidery. Doves fly through the collar, for happiness and fidelity, while fruits twine along the wrists and fish dance along the hems, symbols of fertility and life. It is a richness of beauty, the product of hundreds of hours picking out designs in the sun, in the firelight. Now, surrounded by candles, it shines, reflecting back the glory to the people gathered around him.

He shines like he has never done, and the thought is enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

Then Avidan comes up, walking slowly on his staff. He balances, hands the staff to Tavi, and draws a length of fabric from a pouch at his waist. It catches in the candle light, blazing like the sun, and he drapes it around Solas’ neck with his old, aching hands.

“There,” the other man says. The light catches at the corner of his eyes. “You look fine.”

“Avidan-”

The old man touches the golden fabric around Solas’ neck, straightens a fold. “No one’s worn this for too long, not since I wed my Moshe. You take care of it, you hear? No spilling the wedding cup, put me to shame.” Avidan is testy, matter-of-fact, ignoring the tears that spill over the lines of his face.

“I would not dare,” Solas says softly.

“Good,” Avidan sniffs. “Now put on some pants.”

The leggings are a soft golden brown. He sits to wrap the matching bands around his calves and feet, but Tavi bats his hands away with a grin. “I got this, you sit an’ try to remember your vows. Avi and I, we’re gonna stand up for you. That alright?”

“I-” His throat does not cooperate. Tavi looks up, worry creasing across his huge face. The moment stretches, and Avidan looks away.

“I would be honored.”

There’s no lie in it. He has faced much in his life – ill-gotten fame and undeserved praise and temples risen in his glory. He has seen his own likeness in crystal, in wood, in metal and rare stone. There have been stories and songs, works of art, pilgrimages. Yet it all pales in comparison to this, the two men who stand beside him now. That they would be here, by his side, in the place of his family.

He knows of no honor greater – except, perhaps, for the kisses she had given him. The comradery, the companionship of the people he has come to call his friends. The riches that he has gathered as a simple apostate outstrip all the glories of a false god.

And in return? In return he offers them only falsehood, cold future and colder lies. The din’anshiral calls him. He has no wreath of flowers to offer his bride – in his hands they blacken, turn to ash and thorns. If the world were just, he would be clothed in sack and chains, and his wedding cup would brim with poison.

Now, facing the crowd, he thinks he would drink it gladly were it offered, rather than endure another moment of this. It is a mockery of his most private dreams and he does not think he can bare it.

There is only so much that a man can endure.

He is standing by the Hahren, under the alienage tree. Avidan and Tavi are at his back. His heart beats. His lungs breathe. Everything is too fast. Too loud. The sounds. The voices. The crowd, pressing close. His heart beats. His lungs breathe. His stomach is sick with dread. Someone holds a fiddle. He does not hear it. The crowd is parting, making an aisle, and-

And

Oh.

She is smiling.

Her dress is white. There are lilacs in her hair.

And she is smiling.

She is smiling and laughing.

Tears are running down her face. They catch like jewels in the candlelight.

She is smiling and crying. She looks only at him.

And she mouths a word.

Vhenan.

Vhenan, my heart, I love you, my heart. Ar lath, ma vhenan. Wherever you are, there is my heart. Wherever you are, I am home. Home. She, she is home and his heart and a cold fortress in the mountains that shines so brightly because she, she has made it his home and they are together, the Inquisition, his family, she-

She is home and heart and family.

Esther has never called Yosef her vhenan.

He watches her walk towards him. Her feet are bare. There are flowers in her hair. In the candle light, she shines.

This is no lie.

This is no lie.

This is home.

And when she reaches him she is smiling and crying. She cups his cheek. He kisses her palm.

She whispers, Solas?

Yes, he murmurs into her skin. Yes, ma vhenan.

She laughs, delighted, and she is crying. He brushes the tears away. He is crying too.

She catches his hand and tugs off the ring she gave him, such a long time ago. His hand feels wrong without it. He takes the ring off of her finger, holds it tightly in his palm.

The Hahren is talking. “You are here, now, to formally celebrate your love. The road you have taken to this place has been a long one-”

He nearly laughs at the absurdity, turns it into a cough.

“-and it will stretch on long after this night, these people, this place. You first stepped on this road on the day you met-”

She is grinning and he remembers – the desperation, the fear, the snow and the storm and the one figure standing against the Breach.

“-and you decided to walk along the path together.”

He remembers. Sitting by her side as she slept, studying the anchor, knowing she would never wake. But she did, she woke. She is a marvel. She is a mystery. He remembers the way that she kissed him in a dream, and how the whole world turned under his feet.

“It is not an easy path. It is not a short one. There are places along the way that looked impossible. And yet here you are. Together.”

Together. Not alone. He is smiling.

“Here, tonight, you will affirm and reaffirm yourselves. Your love. Tonight and tomorrow and all days of your lives. Say your vows once again, then turn and tell us -

This is my husband. This is my wife.”

He has not let go of her hand, so he can feel that she is not shaking. She is confident, smiling so bright. The Hahren fills the wedding cup, singing blessings, passes it to him. He raises it to her lips, and she drinks, eyes bright and sparkling. Then she takes the cup, holds it for him. He does not spill any.

He is unsure if he is still breathing. Then she starts to speak. Breathing is of no consequence.

“I come to you with nothing,” she is saying. “Just the strength of my hands. Just the sound of my voice. Just the miles worn into my feet. In truth, I have nothing to offer – no lands or riches or kin. Just my heart. But for you, that’s enough.

“You’ve been by my side through everything and the more I know you-” her voice breaks. She blinks hard, looks away, then back. Looks at him, looks through him. He hears each word in his soul.

“I know you,” she says. “You are thoughtful and deliberate. And you are kind, though you try not to show it. When you don’t know you ask – even if you are an ass about it, you always ask. And you’ve been there, whenever I’ve stumbled or been afraid, you’ve been by my side. You trusted me, when you trusted no one, and…

“And I love you.” She blinks and tears roll down her cheeks. “I love you,” she says, voice breaking. “I love you, and I trust you. I’ll protect you. And I’ll never give up on you. No matter what happens, vhenan. I’ll never give up on you.” Her voice is steel, her hand in his is strong. She means it.

She means all of it.

Somehow, some way, she means all of it, and it hits him like a physical blow. After all he is, all he has done, how he loved her and left her and led her on and she, she means it. She has not given up on him.

“I am not worth you,” he murmurs in wonder. Someone kicks him lightly in the calf, so he says it louder, to the whole world. “I am not worth you!” he says. “I come to you with nothing. Just the strength in my hands, but I am not strong. Just the power of my will, but I am too weak. Just my few scraps of wisdom, but I am not wise. I come to you with nothing-”

His throat is tight. He can hardly say the words.

“You are my heart. I was alone. You change. Everything.” He swallows then, and says the words without thinking. Says them, feels the peace as they settle into his soul. “I love you. I will trust you. I will stay.”

“Always?”

He looks at her and feels the smile break across his face like the dawn. “You are my wife.”

She touches his face, laughing, and he realizes he has been weeping. “You are my husband.”

The Hahren is weeping too. “The rings?”

He takes her hand, slides the band back where it belongs. In his own tongue, he tells her, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

“I am my beloved’s,” she says in Common. His ring is warm from her hands. It slides onto his finger like a key in a lock. “And my beloved is mine.”

“I pronounce you as you have been, and as you always will be,” the Hahren calls. All around them, people are whooping and crying and cheering. “You are now husband and wife. You may kiss-”

He does. She does. They meet in the middle, inelegant. She laughs and wraps a hand behind his head and they try again.

It is perfect.

He does not remember much of the party. There is wine, he knows, but he needs none of it. There is food, but he is beyond sustenance. There is only her, shining and smiling. He does not want to let her go, even when they are hoisted on chairs and carried triumphantly around the square. Even when they break the wedding glass and the unmarried young ones scrabble around for a fragment, for luck. Even when Naomi, playing the mother’s part, whisks her away for the stern-yet-comical wedding night lecture. The crowd howls with delight, but he only wants her back in his arms.

Their new family is merciful. Though the dancing, music, and drinking are still going strong, the two of them are sent off around midnight to enjoy their wedding bed. A troupe of supporters accompany them, serenading them to their door with songs that are lovely until you listen to the lyrics. Naomi and Tavi sing the loudest.

Laughing, she yells at the crowd to bugger off and slams the door in their faces. They cheer and holler and whoop, tumbling back down the hall to the square, where they will drink and dance some more.

It is quiet.

They are alone.

“Look,” she says softly. He turns, notices as she lights their single lamp. The narrow cot is gone. This is a bed, laid with fresh rushes and clean sheets. The headboard has been carved with rough flowers. “Our wedding bed.”

“Yes.” He watches her in the light. “Vhenan-”

“Wait,” she says. “Just, tonight. Did you mean it? Was it real?”

He does not answer, just crosses to their single table where the ink is still fresh on their ketubah, their marriage contract. His eyes flick to her, see the worry in her face. So her draws her close, points to the place where he put his name.

Yosef does not know how to write in elvhen, not even his own name. It makes sense that his signature was unreadable. The first letter could be a Y, if a very stylized one. But it is more likely that it could be an S.

She makes a small noise and buries her face in his wedding tunic. A slow smile grows on his face as he studies the document. She had signed her name, “E. Lavellan.”

“Vhenan,” he murmurs. “I am sorry.”

“For marrying me?” she says into his shoulder.

He shakes his head. “For leaving. I did not trust y- I did not trust myself. I – there is much I have to tell you-”

“Not tonight.”

“But-“

“Not tonight.” She turns her head, lips murmuring into the soft skin of his neck. Their gentle touch sends lightning down his spine.

“Vhenan-”

“Solas,” she whispers, lips brushing his ear. “Tonight is our wedding night.” Her hands slide up his sides, so slow, too slowly.

“I-” She nips his earlobe, just slightly. “Yes,” he says. Their wedding night. He picks her up bodily, swings her on to the beautiful new bed. There is plenty of room, now, for two. Yes.

~*~

He is sitting in the dark when Avidan comes home, and the only light is red and twisted. The shadows hiss poison on the walls.

Avidan says nothing, just closes the door with the old wooden bolt. He sits in the other chair, takes out his pipe. Packs it with the ease of long practice. Lights it once. Then again.

Solas is very good at waiting.

Avidan breathes out a cloud of smoke. It’s sweet. Good tobacco. “You’ll be leaving us, then?”

“For a time.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “We have been gone for longer than we meant.”

“Hmm.” The other man leans back. “She needed this.”

“Yes.”

“You did, too.” Avidan offers him the pipe. Solas tastes the richness of the smoke.

“Perhaps,” he concedes.

“Hmm.” Avidan is amused. “There will always be a place for you, here.”

“We will be back,” Solas says, sure.

Avidan raises an eyebrow. “So sure. There’s a hole in the sky, you know.”

“I believe in her.” He passes the pipe back. “When did you know?”

Avidan snorts. “Your Elvhen is too good. Too fluid. And human-raised, speaking Common, you have the wrong accent.”

“I do not have an accent,” Solas says testily. Avidan waves a hand, amused.

They sit in silence, smoking in the light of Avidan’s red lyrium supply.

“It was fine, at first. Good to see those bastards pay.” Avidan’s face is a mask of disgust, of old, cold hatred. “But it made the babes cry, whenever they came near. I stopped. Too many dreams.” He regards the few red lyrium crystals that sit malevolently on the floor. “Never thought it would draw you two to us.”

“I am glad it did not affect more than your dreams,” Solas says softly. “It is an evil thing.”

“Never touched it direct.” Avidan shakes his head in the red light. “Kept it in lead. I’m old, not stupid.”

“No,” Solas agrees. “Not stupid.”

“You will take it with you when you go.”

“Yes.”

He is not willing to leave, just yet. But the lyrium is twisting his stomach, so they pack it back in the lead-lined container. The whispers fade.

Avidan claps him on the shoulder. “Sit with me. Have a drink.”

“Yes.”

They sip peach schnapps from small glasses, the sweetness exploding on his tongue. It tastes like dry herbs and the smoke from the bakery and the richness of Avidan’s tobacco. It’s his wife’s laughter, free and ringing, and Tavi pounding on the door, rousing him from study to chase bitter beer with bitter beer. It’s long autumn evenings, sitting with neighbors, cradling cups that warm his fingers as the company slowly warms his soul.