#wickedwitchofthewilds

Of course she wants more - she wants him like a woman six months starved wants a banquet, wants to push him down and take him in her mouth and devour him, but there is something about the softness of that kiss- the softness he has slipped into her like contact poison - that gives her pause. Calculated softness, feigned vulnerability is as much an assassin's tool as his blades, but how often has someone - not a mark, not a Crow, just a bedmate or a friend - offered him softness in return? Offered him anything like the tenderness he has, in this moment, seeded in her heart?

She sits up, rolls her shoulders, says, softly: "Thank you. That was- that was what I needed."

"And was it all you needed, cara mia?" His voice is a low purr, calculated for seduction, and she could let him lead her down this path, she wants to, but-

"What do you need?" she says, instead, tracing the lines of his vallaslin with her fingers, skimming the collar of his shirt. "How can I take care of you?"

He blinks at her, the question clearly alien, unexpected, a break in the script he has so carefully prepared for their first night together.

"I do not- that is not your concern," he murmurs, even as he leans into her touch like a cat who's never been touched by gentle hands before, and maybe he has never been- she does not hear much of tenderness in his tales of life among the Crows.

"I'd be a poor lover if it wasn't," she retorts, her hand skimming lower, to the laces of his shirt. She moves slowly, cautiously, giving him every chance to pull away, but he does not - only kneels, half-trembling, to see what she will do to him next.

Later, she will take him as she's imagined doing so often, as she has every time she's peeled off his shirt and unlaced his breeches in her mind, hard and rough and with no concern for any pleasure but her own, and she thinks he will enjoy that in a different way, revel in the marks of her pleasure, her greed, her hunger left on the curve of his throat, clawed into his back.

Now, though, she's careful with him - the same care, the same tenderness that he has given her, the light touch of her fingers as if she is repairing a butterfly's wing. He arches up towards them, keens into her airy kisses, buries his head in her shoulder when she finally slides down onto his cock and takes him, slow and gentle and easy as if it were the first time for both of them, and perhaps, in a strange way, it is. He slips a hand between them, makes her gasp and shudder around him, and she tangles her fingers in his hair, murmurs soft, sweet nonsense from a lifetime ago, the type of tender things she might have saved for her husband if she'd been allowed to keep him. She feels his tears wet her shoulder, her breast, his grip tighten on her hip as if she is the only real thing in the world, and she wonders if there is someone that he is imagining too, some other lost love who showed him tenderness before she did.

But if he imagines another, the only words on his lips are "Luna, sweet Seluna, cara mia," words escaping in gasps that she steals as kisses and pretends she does not see him weep. She calls him darling, sweetheart, mine, presses herself so close she could crawl into his skin, the sweat and death and ashes of him, and it would still feel cleaner than her own. Perhaps what she wants is to force the broken pieces of them together, and see if it makes them whole.

It does not, it cannot, but when she comes apart around him and he spills against her stomach, it feels like they came close to it, like enough attempts to warp them into fitting will repair them both. Maybe that's why she stays, arm slung across the planes of his stomach, muscle veiled by the thinnest layer of fat. Maybe that's why, when she wakes, she catches him looking at her like a moth drawn to a flame, like a man half in love with his own death, and thinks Maker, what have I done?

This, too, Solas has seen. Each night the Inquisition spends here, he retreats to the Fade to watch with numb horror as the elven forces are crushed again and again. He sees them fight with only a limited talent for magic, relying instead on strength and steel to stand against the might of the human forces. He reminds himself - though there is no need to do so - that the elves who fought here were weakened tremendously because he severed their connection to the Fade. He stole from them the thing that most defined and protected them. 

Every life that was lost here has seeped into the soil. The Veil is terribly thin, and Solas wonders if he tempts fate by holding the echoes of these deaths so close. Will a spirit be compelled to pass through, carrying the memories of an elf who spent their last moments bleeding on the ground, tall grasses surrounding them, the summer sun warming their broken body as they begged for their final rest? Would such a spirit confront him? Would it recognize him for who and what he is? Would it speak accusingly, shaped by Vengeance or Despair? 

Solas wishes, not for the first time, that there was anyone left who could hold him to account for what he has done. He thought he would free his people and instead he forged the first link in their chains.

“I failed,” he whispers.

“You have?” 

His heart leaps to his throat. Lavellan’s hand slips into his and he feels the press of her shoulder against his arm.

“At what?” she asks quietly.

Solas cannot bring himself to turn to her. He knows the truth will be written on his face. He is desperately unprepared for this, and there is no convenient lie that can come easily to mind. His heart pounds in his ears as the silence stretches. 

I have failed your people. I was the first cause of all their destruction. I have failed you, and you will never know how completely. You cannot imagine the beauty of the things you will never see and the depths of the knowledge that has been lost.

Lavellan drops his hand and he can feel her uncertainty. But when she turns to leave he reaches out to her, pulls her to him, holds her fast. She is tense at first but, after a moment, she relaxes into him and leans her head on his chest.

“What-”

“It is merely this place,” Solas interrupts her, having finally found a lie that is not a lie. “The thinness of the Veil and the restlessness of the spirits are wearying for me.”

“Do you want to go back to Skyhold?” Lavellan asks, looking up at him. He has, thankfully, finally summoned the energy to keep a neutral expression. “One of the patrols is leaving in the morning. You could go with them, if you wish.”

“My place is here,” he says. With you, he thinks.

Lavellan shakes her head in reply. “We’ve already looked into all the ruins Keeper Hawen mentioned. If we find anything else, I can handle the translations, or bring them back for you.”

“You have no more use of me?” Solas smiles with a levity he doesn’t feel. But he can see the concern in Lavellan’s eyes and knows she will pull more truth from him if he does not divert her.

“You know that’s not it.” 

Her gaze is thoughtful and serious, unwilling to match the lightness of his tone. When Solas allows the silence to stretch on too long again, Lavellan withdraws from his arms and steps away from him.

“I’ll be awake for a while - if you want to talk,” she says as she retreats toward the Inquisition's camp.