Chapter Text
He didn't stop until everything went silent.
One moment everything was glittering, gold, laughter, noise, and then with a bang, it was quiet.
He inhaled, blinking fast against the bright lights around him.
The bathrooms.
He hadn't even recognized where he had been taking himself. Only that he had needed to get away from— from Ella—
No. No. It wasn't. It hadn't been.
He stepped further into the deafening silence of mirrors and linoleum, crossing the floor to reach the sinks. He brought his hands forward to use them, almost habitually and was surprised to find a champagne flute dangling in his fingers.
He nearly jumped at the sight and the glass clattered on the edge of the sink before sloshing the remaining drink onto his pants and the floor.
"Fenehdis!"
His phone buzzed in his blazer pocket and he let go of the flute completely.
It shattered on the tiles and Solas stared at the pieces of glass almost in a daze. Seeing pieces of mirror in his mind, the same ones he had been washing, cataloging and sealing back into the Sabrae's Eluvian.
The one she had stood in front of, face caught in its visage like a dream.
Ellana.
No. It hadn't been her. She was... Ellana was...
In Orlais.
His elbows braced the gilded edges of the sink, hands trembling to hold the cold.
“En’an’sal’en.”
That voice.
And he remembered the images of evening gowns and talk of important plans, clan business— what a fool—
Oh, what a fool he had been. Because even with some desperate attempt at logical coincidence he could not deny those eyes.
Those eyes of glass and stone.
Creators.
She had been perfect.
Skin kissing the air in a sea of masked metal and gold. She had been flesh, ink, color.
Beautiful, she was beautiful.
Solas felt his fingers tremble before realizing that his entire body was shaking.
So real.
He always had known that she was. Real. Of course. Of course, she was. The sweet curls of her laughter through the phone or the imagined cadence of her thoughtfulness through texts had been something that had been alive more than anything he'd encountered.
But this, she had, what—What was—
What was she even doing here?
Solas almost laughed at the thought, straightening, hands pressing at his suit and then his throat and his cheeks. Frantic with elation and nervousness and excitement. And it was almost offensive, her being here. Catching him off guard as she always seemed to. Since the moment he had messaged the wrong person, she had always been the one full of surprises.
In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised—
Any small mirth was replaced with a sudden dread.
Had she… known?
Solas paced backward, heel cracking the champagne glass suddenly enough to make his heart jump. He paused, leaning down to gather the glass with shaky hands.
No, no, no— there was no possible… She hadn’t. Couldn’t have known. He had never sent her an image. Nothing. No information, not even the name she had begged for. He swallowed. No. He was sure she had no idea.
Her face had been calm, passive, a still water of beauty and intrigue.
And his Ellana was easy to flush, easy to smile and crumple, from his voice alone. He had heard those expressions and burned them into his mind.
Oh, gods, what he wouldn’t give to see her actual face flood with red. The desire unfurled in him like wildfire and chased away the edges of his worry and nerves. What little resistance he had left after the escalation of their relationship couldn’t compare to this. She was here, now, real, breathing, out there amongst people, carrying around a phone full of the same exact messages.
She was there, laughing, smiling, shaking hands. And he could so easily be a part of that.
At last.
He had to—
No.
Solas stood, crossing the sink to let the shards of glass fall from his hands into the bin before twisting the sink on and plunging his fingers in the shocking cold of the water.
No, he had to leave.
They could not— should not meet. He wasn’t ready.
Because she was undeniably beautiful in the face of his own reality. Older, alone, and decidedly not as charming as he could make himself through words alone. Especially… since..
Solas thought of the swirling vallaslin that had framed her eyes. Each aspect pinning him with two things he could not deny. The unavoidable evidence that Ellana did not live in a vacuum of sweet nothings and love notes on his phone. She was real. Full of everything he was known to dislike about this world.
And so full of potential to reject him.
How could she not?
And Solas was selfish.
No. He had to leave.
Merrill would be upset, but he could sacrifice her expectation to avoid something much worse from Ellana. He would get back to the hotel and wait. And when she called him tonight he would breeze over it, ignore the situation entirely.
It would be better— his phone vibrated in his breast pocket, reminding him of the unanswered message.
His hand snatched it before he could think better of it.
Solas stared at the backside of the device, debating.
He shouldn’t.
He was leaving.
Solas flipped it over and saw her name, breath and heart stopping as he swiped to open the message.
—Ellana 8:24pm
[Attachment: 1 Image]
look what I found!
isnt it beautiful?
The cracks of the Sabrae mirror reflected the cracks of his phone screen. The shattered lines intersected, twisting, like a forest of trees, silhouetted in an odd white digital sun.
He looked at it for a long time.
Solas let his fingers dance along the surface, pressing the keys gently as not to disturb the screen or cut himself. Traversing the text message as carefully as one would a battlefield.
He took one last look at the bathroom mirror, eyes flickering over his image in a suit, crisp and clean beneath the ornate filigree and bright lights.
He looked real too.
For once.
Solas slipped the phone back into his pocket before shoving the Ara’lin’hasal on his wrist up into his sleeve.
Hidden.
— 8:25pm
I can think of something more breathtaking than a broken mirror, vhenan. F.H.
“There are so many dishes I can barely see the table!”
“That is one good thing about these affairs. The food’s not bad.”
Ellana smiled down the table at Merrill and Blackwall, both passing her even more dishes as dinner began arriving.
“Everything’s prepared in the kitchens but much of these ingredients come from all over Thedas,” Josephine explained, attempting to see them through the forest of candelabras and flower arrangements. “See that there, that’s spice from Rivain, and there's— oh! Antivan croquetas! Sir Warden, would you mind—”
“O-of course m’lady, let me get that for you—”
Blackwall practically scrambled at the table, grabbing the requested dish to pass to Josephine.
Ellana tried to shoot the woman a knowing look but she was too busy flushing red beneath the attention.
So far, so good.
The hard part seemed to be over. And while the endless rounds of the press had been a bit overwhelming, it was still not the disaster Ellana had worried it might be. She was a bit proud at how she had held herself and it felt good knowing she had done her best.
Hopefully, she had put a new face on the Lavellan clan.
Her eyes flickered to the empty seat across from her.
Then again maybe not.
Merrill must have caught her looking.
“D-don’t worry about it, lethallan!” The younger Dalish called between careful sips of her glass. “I’m sure Solas… ehm… he has… well…” She trailed and her elbow nudged at Josephine, who rushed to put together her most political look of reassurance.
“Ah, he—he has a complicated view on the… Dalish.”
“A rude one you mean?” Blackwall defended. Ellana tried to resist the smirk inching on her face. She had picked a good date.
Merrill and Josephine both cringed.
“No, no, no, no—” Merrill tried.
“Yes,” Josephine admitted.
“It’s fine.” Ellana finally spoke, pressing her hands down on her lap and straightening the napkin there. “I’m used to it. And I’m sure I look even worse with no shoes. I mean, think of what Sera would say.”
Josephine smiled at her kindly. “Well, perhaps it’s for the best. Solas doesn’t like parties much anyway and we can make do without him.” They grinned at each other. It was easier then, to forgive and forget Josephine’s (perhaps bigoted) friend who had turned tail as soon as he had seen her try to shake his hand.
Especially when her phone vibrated, startling her mind blank.
She snuck the phone out from the leathers of her waist and the screen flashed secretly into her eyes.
‘...more breathtaking than a broken mirror, vhenan…’
Ellana smiled, feeling her body relax in the only way that reading his messages could.
— 8:25pm
sweet talker
are you enjoying your night?
“I can’t believe how many people there are. Will we have to sit through every award?” Merrill questioned.
“They go by category normally. My squadron will be third, for military achievement.” Blackwall answered. “But yes… there’s a lot of waiting and clapping, waiting and clapping.”
“At least we get to see all the dresses!”
“Ellana will you receive an award?”
“Ah—”
It didn’t take long for him to answer. She barely cut into anything on her plate when the buzz came again.
—F.H. 8:25pm
Incredibly.
The view is breathtaking. F. H.
“No. I’m just here for show really.” She answered as she texted.
— 8:25pm
oh?
send me a picture!
The message whisked away and Ellana made to slip her phone back into her leathers when a voice interrupted their entire table.
“Excuse me, but might I speak to the Herald of Andraste?”
They all turned. Merrill, Blackwall, Josephine and her. Their heads cocked wildly to spy a woman looming over Ellana, clad in silvers, mask and all.
It was almost as if the entire grand ballroom went quiet at the woman’s arrival.
With dark skin and a darker edge to her voice, she rose a hand and snapped her fingers before speaking. “Warden, would you be so kind?”
Blackwall moved immediately.
The girls watched him stand at attention, nearly saluting before whisking forward to circle about the table and pull back the empty chair beside Ellana.
“How kind, Warden dear, thank you.” The stranger smiled as if she had not asked him to do so in the first place. “Now, I know it’s a little rude to interrupt your dinner but I simply will not wait through an entire ceremony to speak to the one guest everyone’s talking about.”
Everyone?
Ellana frowned at the coy expression on the woman’s face before looking around the ballroom. A few staring guests looked away.
Ah. She hadn’t noticed that yet.
“Well to be fair, I’m not wearing pants.”
The woman laughed. It was a beautiful thing. She threw her head back and elongated her neck, elbows propped and long fingers falling elegantly in her careless mirth.
“How delightful! No wonder the press is so charmed. Ellana Lavellan, what a pleasure it is Orlais has you at its court.”
She talked like an aristocratic Duchess from the age 9:40. Like the actors had in that Emerald Knight movie.
“But look at me being the rude one, allow me to introduce myself, I am Vivienne de Fer.”
“Madame Supreme Justice!” Josephine exclaimed, before pressing her fingers to her mouth. Pink heated her cheeks. Merrill oohed and awed from down the table.
“Quite.” The woman smiled.
Supreme Justice? A judge? And not just any, but one of the entire Orlesian Court. Well. She certainly looked the title.
Ellana couldn’t really reason why the woman was speaking to her.
“But, the Herald of Andraste can, of course, call me Vivienne.”
Oh yeah. Herald. That would do it.
“Herald?”
The entire table turned at the new voice, and Ellana was surprised to find the elvhen man from earlier staring straight into her face from across the dinner table.
He was shock-still from the act of beginning to sit, hands on the table and his empty chair
“Solas!” Merrill exclaimed, an uneasiness to her voice. “You’re back!”
Ellana would have made to glance at her, but the man’s eyes were intense in their surprise and scrutiny. It was as if he were peeling her away to see what was underneath. Not quite like the stare of a shemlen but... she shifted uncomfortably. His eyes were extremely pale. As if one could see through them.
Vivienne didn’t seem to mind the bustle. “I think we are all simply surprised to see you here, Ellana. The face of the Chantry has been hidden from society for some time. I was beginning to think it was all a fake publicity stunt and there was no one at all in the position.”
She turned her attention back to the woman with a strained expression. “It wasn’t my intention to make a scene.”
“And yet here you are, with Dalish robes and bare feet.” The woman chuckled.
Ellana flushed. She couldn’t argue with that point.
Her phone vibrated with a text and her fingers curled around the small device in her lap. But Vivienne had her gaze.
“Now, now. I admire the boldness. It’s enjoyable to watch the rabble in the higher rows squirm, or know that those at home are watching you on their TV’s and phones or rewinding your interview to catch a better glimpse at what you’re wearing.”
Another thing she hadn’t thought about. “I don’t think it’s any more scandalous than most of the Orlesian celebrity—”
“Nonsense! The Andrastian faith is a strong thing across all of Thedas. And now, we of the church have you to look toward as a model for our actions. Or a model for anything, really. Why, women will be drawing blood writing on their faces in the coming weeks to match the days of the week.”
Ellana shook her head. “That’s not really what I want—”
“What is it you do want?” The voice asked again. And this time it sent a shiver of odd sensations down her spine.
“I…”
She looked again toward the Elvhen man beside Josephine. He was sitting now, his face golden through the candles of the table. Pale eyes even more intense. It was intimidating.
“S-Solas, haha, please..” Josephine trailed, her hand patting his shoulder as if to settle him.
This was Merrill and Josie’s friend? Why?
Between the two women, Solas looked out of place. In muted matte browns and a clean shaved head. He looked like a teacher. Or a librarian. Sitting in a grand ball and staring at her as if she were something he’d never seen before. Face full of bare intrigue.
Maybe that was it. He wasn’t wearing a mask.
Like her.
“The point is, Herald dear, that we are all trendsetters whether we like it or not. It was Celene herself who inspired sun hats in last year’s catalog for summer fashion. All because she sported on during her promo week for Orlesian orphans.”
The Supreme Justice drew her back into the conversation, but only in a way Ellana frowned at. “That just sounds like a bunch of people focusing on the wrong thing, doesn’t it.”
“You could make that argument. But adoption rates are up 32% since last year, as are most tastes for headwear.” The woman cocked her head. She looked like a model when she did it. “It is something to think about.”
“So are you implying that I wear socks and sandals that will make a political statement?” Ellana asked, not without a hidden chagrin smile.
“It’s not such a far-fetched idea is it?” Vivienne asked back.
“Maybe.” Ellana thought about it, flipping her phone in her hand idly. “Maybe that is what I want then.” She added, turning to pin the sentence on the man across from her. She would not let herself be intimidated by a bigot. “Maybe I want people to realize that just because a knife-ear wears blood in their skin, they are no less pure than a Chantry sister with her rosary beads.”
Merrill gasped at the sentence, Josephine and Blackwall sharing tense looks, and Madame de Fer laughed with abandon.
Solas smiled. It unnerved her and she looked away.
It wasn’t something she had expected from a Dalish-hating-hand-unshaker.
“That is exactly the charm I’ve been hearing about.” Vivienne adored. “Remind me to introduce you to another Andrastian Elvhen friend of mine, yes, Ameridan and you would have much to talk about. In fact, remind me to introduce you to a lot of connections of mine. I could use someone to rattle some of my enemies. Or even some friends.”
Her eyes flickered across the hall, but Ellana couldn’t pinpoint the vague statement.
“Now, with the fun had, I shall take my leave—”
Blackwall stood once more to give the Supreme Justice his chivalrous service, pulling out her chair and grasping her hand to help her stand, the long trailing ball gown sweeping along her legs like a train of stars. When Ellana stood with her, the fabric tickled her toes.
“It was an absolute pleasure, Herald. The Chantry might not agree, but it’s only you that I can imagine restoring my faith to the church.”
Ellana wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she shook the woman’s hand instead. “An honor, Vivienne.”
Vivienne smiled, her lips curling up into her mask, before leaving with a sashay. This time, Ellana noticed the many heads that turned to watch the Madame go. And the extra glance they threw at Ellana herself.
She wasn’t sure if it was a bad interaction or a good one. But it had made her think. And made her realize more than ever that this night was probably the start of something more.
“I had never met the Supreme Justice before,” Josephine said from the table behind her.
Ellana twisted, and Blackwall helped her sit again, both settling back down in front of the two, now three, museum representatives.
“She was very beautiful.” Merrill nodded. “And well spoken! Don’t you agree, Solas?”
“No,” Solas answered.
Ellana caught his cold tone, if only because she had already caught his gaze. He wouldn’t stop looking at her.
“Ah, ehm, well—” Merrill fumbled.
“That’s good though isn’t it, Ellana?” Josephine tried quickly, noticing the odd looks shared between the archeologist and the Herald. “To have made a connection like that would be good for any work you might want to do.”
Ellana blinked away from Solas to smile at Josephine. “Of course. I mean it must mean something that she approached me at all.”
Blackwall hummed beside her, “I admire Madame Vivienne. She is fair in the courts if more biting than a Warden’s blade at parties.”
“Is she—”
“I must agree with Supreme Justice’s words about you, Herald.” Solas’ voice demanded everyone’s attention once again. Ellana would find it tiresome if it wasn’t just surprising. She met his staring eyes once he interrupted. “To wear the trappings that you are, to the Winter Palace of all places.”
His expression was amiable. And his voice… unguarded. Friendly even. Familiar. Had they met before? Ellana racked her brain with the summers she had spent interning at the museum, trying to remember the man in the hallways as if she has seen him there.
She answered as she thought, a biting comment that had more defense in it than she had meant, “Do you have a problem with Dalish clothes?”
The table went silent at the exchange and Ellana reached for some champagne to swallow the grudge she didn’t know she’d had at having been slighted at the beginning of the night.
Blackwall gruffed beside her, his shoulder’s rising. “I think Ellana is fetching in her robes.”
But Solas was laughing. Had been laughing, since her accusation. “No! I have no problem with Dalish clothes. Or clothes of any kind.” His eyes were glassy with mirth or amusement.
Or maybe the man was drunk.
Ellana’s eyes narrowed, leaning into the table until her leathers clinked along the china. He seemed to catch the action, his smile stilling, and his face flushing. Good, let him be embarrassed. “You do know that we sit on Halamshiral first, and the Winter Palace second?”
“Of course.”
“Then you must realize that I am the one entirely more appropriately dressed than anybody else here.”
“That is not the word I would use.”
“Are you calling me inappropriate?”
“I am calling you a troublemaker.”
It made her draw back. Enough for her to realize how far they’d both leaned in to argue. The flowers at the center jostled as she stared at him. Still smiling. Now more than ever.
Troublemaker.
Something twisted in her stomach at his eyes and the sound of his voice. The timbre. The deepness of it. Something was off. Or something wrong. Was he being rude? Was his confrontation getting to her?
“Forgive me.” Solas suddenly said, turning and seeming to realize the rest of the table was staring at him. “Perhaps that is too forward of me. I simply mean you seem the type to make a stir. Herald.”
It was quiet again. Very, painfully, awkwardly so.
This night was not chalking up to anything Ellana had expected. Between the bombarding press, the approach of a famous court judge, and the odd behavior of this, Solas.
Josephine was staring at her now, with a face full of similar thoughts and a silent apology.
Merrill interjected this time, “D-Did everyone like the dinner? I thought it was delicious, with all the little sides of different things? Remember? Yes? Ahm… Perhaps they will be starting the ceremony soon now that it’s over…”
“Yes.” Blackwall agreed, maybe louder than needed. “The presentation screen has changed on the stage so they’re preparing the categories now.”
Ellana tried to keep her eyes on her date as he explained the different classes of people to be announced, but found her eyes kept flickering the pale ones staring at her.
Solas seemed to look her over from top to bottom. His eyes blurry and half-lidded with his head rested on his fist. As if content to just stare at her with rude abandon. It made her cheeks puff and grow hot.
The literal gall of this man.
“...there will be several presenters, but it’s more like a graduation line than it is some award show for celebrities. No acceptance speeches.”
“If you have something to say, Solas, I would suggest you say it now.” Ellana suddenly chimed, louder than any polite clink of silverware on a glass.
Blackwall and Merrill deflated beside her.
Solas seemed to snap at his name. Straightening, mouth parting. Maybe he hadn’t realized he’d egged this on himself.
“I—ha!” He laughed, hands shaking as they gripped the table before him. “N-no, I, I don’t mean to look—”
“If it has something to do with my heritage—”
“No! Forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend. Ir abelas, da’len.”
Da’len.
His eyes softened, the smile he sported growing small, but not losing its vibrancy. His eyes still glued to her face.
Da’len.
Her mouth felt thick. A heavy weight settling in to press against the back of her throat. She swallowed, but it didn’t leave. It only seemed to tighten everything. From the hearing in her ears to the beating of her heart.
Which made the sound leave her senses and her chest heave.
Da’len.
Her hands clenched, finding her phone still there. Her phone.
She’d received a message when Vivienne had been there.
“Right… well, maybe— oh! The presenter! The awards are starting, thank the Maker.” Josie trailed.
A cacophony of clapping erupted about them.
Ellana tried to look down at her phone, but couldn’t seem to let her gaze drop from his, level and even. This man with eyes as crystal clear as the Eluvian and a voice that rolled from sculpted lips that felt like hot water.
Hot water. Troublemaker. Da’len.
No.
No, it… that was…
Ellana tore her eyes away then, head shaking as her fingers flipped her phone in her hands. Unable to hear from the commotion of the crowd speaking and the sudden inflection of a voice booming from a microphone.
“Welcome Monsiuer et Mademoiselle, et—”
No, it wasn’t. He was off. Gone. Working. Far away in—
Orlais.
She swallowed again, and a third time to see the text notification, swiping frantically.
It was hot in her hand. Hot like a burning coal, as hot as the feeling of those eyes on her head.
—F.H. 8:30pm
[Attachment: 1 Image]
It loaded too fast and too slow at the same time. And Ellana had to race over the earlier words to remember why he had sent an image in the first place.
—F.H. 8:25pm
Incredibly.
The view is breathtaking. F. H.
— 8:25pm
oh?
send me a picture!
It was her.
Her breath seemed to expel all at once.
The image was only slightly blurred. A perspective of the dining hall, zoomed close to see her, Ellana, her profile, looking contemplatively to the right, as she spoke to Vivienne.
Her.
Him.
Da’len.
“Ha’hren.” She whispered, her head rising once more. Staring at the spot where the photo had been angled from.
And he was staring at her, half raised in his seat, his face flushed and a hand rising to cover his mouth.
Hands. His hands.
Ellana shot up from her seat.
The dishes jostled, it sounded like the clapping. Clapping, everyone was clapping again.
“Ellana! Are you alright?”
“Ellana?”
“Herald are you—”
They were staring at each other. They. They were staring. At each other. And Ellana couldn’t breathe. That was him. Him!
Him. F.H. Solas. Ha’hren.
Vhenan.
“I have to—to— ah! Excuse me.”
“Ellana!”
It was-- It wasn’t—
“Excuse me, I’m sorry, I’m trying to pass.” She hurried, pressing through chairs and tables and nobles and masks as a cacophony of clapping turned into loud crashes of oceans in her ears. She was freezing, her toes curling as her body shook on the marble. She wavered, toiled, skirting through crowds like she used to trees in the back forests of her home.
Someone calling her name now like they did then.
“Ellana, please, vhenan—”
But she couldn’t— she needed to breathe.
She broke the forest when her feet hit the carpet. Manufactured and plush. And then she tore down the hall too, leaving behind the noise so her head could catch up.
It was him.
He was in Orlais, he had said. Of course, he was. They’d spoke this morning—creators they had done more than just that. And then her body was flush, thinking of whispered kisses and promises of sex explicit—
“Ellana—!”
She turned, twisting around so fast she hadn’t realized she’d done it.
And he was there. There in the hall, obscuring all of Orlais behind him as he filled her vision.
Tall. Broad. A man. One wrapped in brown and greens like a forest that had followed her. The thought was odd but not unwelcome. A speck of color in his blazer pocket lit up his eyes, showed her the burning in his skin. The shock there. Shock. He was shocked.
“You’re—” She started.
But she didn’t know what to say.
He was steps away. Two or three maybe. Steps!
They were silent. Nothing but the muted hum of an unintelligible garbled microphone.
His nose— his eyes— his hands, those hands. Even as part of her mind argued that what she was seeing wasn’t possibly him. Her ha’hren, she could still feel the odd crazy feeling of a smile cracking through her face to laugh because—God’s! His hands!
If the adrenaline in her beating heart hadn’t made her look at every piece of him for her new memory, she would have stared only at those.
“I...”
Her eyes met his again. Even as she noticed his shoulders heaving.
One of his arms reached out to grasp the hallway wall.
They went silent.
Taking the moment to stare.
She faltered, her weight settling as her racing mind started to slow.
He was so much taller than she’d—and no hair! But his chin, his neck, the clean straight line of his button up as it emerged from his vest. The wrinkling at his belt and— this was a dream. Or no, a mistake. A coincidence— what was he doing here?
She remembered their talking. Orlais. What were the chances? She had texted that. Texted!
Her hand fisted around her phone. It was unreal. He was supposed to be... in there, not here. But here he was, and it was something she had wanted so badly but couldn’t imagine.
And yet now she could not imagine anything else.
“You…” She started again, quietly.
They met eye to eye, hearts racing and chests heaving.
“You, you’re... h-ha’hren.”
He laughed. It was a broken, perfect sound. His hands desperately tried to stop it from leaving his mouth. That chuckle. That crazed, shocked, overwhelmed joy and burned nerves.
“I—! Y-yes— Ellana— I—”
He was looking away, hanging his clean face down and hiding from her gaze. Just like before when he’d ran off.
Wait.
“Y-You knew? Did you know I was—”
“No!” He near shouted, stepping forward. Three steps away now and anxiousness creasing in brows so unfamiliar, yet so expected. “No— I, Fenedhis da’len, did I seem like I had been expecting you? You gave me a heart attack.”
And it was her turn to snap. Ellana laughed so hard her back hit the hallway wall and her hands grabbed at her chest. The champagne burned in her as she laughed. Because those words, his voice, oh—
Oh!
“It’s you!” She accused, smile breaking so hard and tears heating her cheeks up to her nose. “Y-You’re here!”
His eyes melted, shoulders drooping. Anxiety leaving him to a quiet smile. The kindest, most beautiful she’d ever seen in her life. “Yes. It’s me. I’m here.”
“Gods!” She shouted again, looking around. She was beginning to forget where she was. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“M-Me!?” He questioned, laughing, head back in a short almost snort. He stepped forward again. “I could ask you the same thing!”
“But I told you— I’m—” She trailed. They both did, their smiles getting small. She hadn’t told him, had she?
Creators. He was here. Now. And this was no space between letters in a text message. Or the corners of sound in a whispered phone call. There was no getting away from his eyes. The realness of him. The presence of who he might be. Or who she was.
It was like Ellana held all that she knew of his affection in the warmth of the phone in her hands, but the one single step between them held everything they didn’t know of each other.
She swallowed.
The silence was a little heavier now, as they traced each other’s faces.
There was clapping in the distance.
“I… had thought you in Val Royeux.” He said quietly.
Ellana shook her head with a breathy laugh of irony. “I thought you were.”
“Ah.”
She let her shoulder carry her weight as she leaned on the wall, where his hand still held him steady. They were avoiding looking at each other now.
“You… know Josephine?” She tried.
“I’m… yes. I work for her.”
Ellana shook her head at the floor. All this time. Of course, he had known someone in her circle, she never seemed to meet anyone new.
“You and I are a happy tale of coincidences. Didn’t you say that once—”
“You are beautiful, Ellana.”
She let go of her thoughts immediately, eyes finding his bearing down on her with an affection she’d only heard before.
“Forgive a foolish ha’hren his brash words, but if I do not say anything more to you it will at least be that.”
She was warmed in between the layers of her robes. Steam had pressed the seams of her skin. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to stretch in the smooth sensations of his compliment or curl up to the sight of him. She was speechless.
“I’m a coward.” He continued. “I’ve been since the beginning. Texting you in wild abandon because you are so— entirely captivating.”
“P-please—”
“No. It’s true. I saw you there and knew, by those eyes you’d teased me with.” He was smiling. Ellana looked down at the patterning of the carpet. Listening to the cadence of the microphone reverberate as her ha’hren whispered over it. “And I fled, but I didn’t have the strength to go far. Not without at least telling you how beautiful you are.”
“Why… why would you leave?” she asked, brows furrowing, looking up at him through her embarrassment to show him her curiosity.
This time he looked down. A laugh much sadder than she’d ever heard through their phone calls making her heart tighten.
“I am… not…” He struggled, fingers splaying and fisting on the wall beside them. “I’m not a man worth dalliances like this. Forgive me… I must not look as you… expected.”
She barely heard him. Her eyes caught on the gleam of a band on his wrist. It was tucked, carefully, in the spaces of his suit. Hidden behind cufflinks and silk.
Ara’lin’hasal.
She felt a warm wetness hit her lashes as her hand reached out to grab it, not noticing how close she already was.
He straightened completely.
Her fingers brushed on the knot she’d woven in her hands not months ago. It had disappeared and Ellana realized now that she hadn’t exactly expected to ever see it again.
But here it was, the other side of her heart, bringing her home.
“You’ve kept it.”
He was staring at her. And she could see color in his eyes this close. Color in his eyes and color in his cheeks and color in his lips.
It was strange, Ellana had tried to picture him so many ways, for so long. And now, she couldn’t imagine anything than exactly what was before her. Nothing but this. It was perfect. He was.
“I do not take it… off.” He admitted, seemingly surprised by his own words.
“No?”
“No, da’len.”
She smiled at the tone. Something so tangibly familiar and real to her now with the added layer of the quirk of his lips and the downturn of his brows. Lips. Brows! He had them! Her ha’hren.
Ellana smiled in the small secret space between them, tipping her head to laugh into his shoulder.
Her hand brushed over his knuckles on the wall. His index finger caught her thumb. Her skin rippled in goosebumps, starting somewhere in her fingers and shivering down the exposed skin of her thighs. Her toes curled on the carpet.
Ellana turned back up at him, her other free hand rising, pointing cheekily at the tweed of his lapel. “Well, ma vhenan—”
Darkness took her vision and wet heat took her lips.
A soft plushness that tipped her backward. Silk and flesh.
He kissed her.
They kissed.
He was so incredibly soft. Soft and firm. Heady. Smell—His smell! He smelled like home. Leathers and oils and the creaking aged papers of Gisharel’s Gods and Applicable Rituals. The paper was between her fingers as she leafed his blazer jacket. Like she’d done it a thousand time before.
She inhaled, her nose pressed into his skin and just breathed. Ellana’s closed eyes saw nothing but darkness, all the better to focus on the soft-hard texture of his lips, of the wet pressure slipping in from a dash of his tongue on the edge of her teeth.
His hand was in her hair, on her neck, slipping between weaved linen to flick fingers on the sturdy ties of her leather. She relished the contrast of his silk tie and the rough button of his shirt and vest.
“Uhn.” Ellana heard him speak into her mouth, as they tipped their necks, stepping backward, caving, falling, breaking down until her shoulder hit the wall. Then her back.
His legs crowded hers.
“Mm.”
And then they broke, finding each other’s eyes in an instant, shoulders rising in tandem huffs..
“I’m sorry.” He said immediately.
Ellana shook her head.
His arm rested somewhere next to her on the wall.
Hers were in his suit.
“We shouldn’t.” He tried to stand straighter and it made his belt clink against her’s, his hips seeming to lean into hers where he could slide his knee between her thighs. “Not… not here.”
And Ellana shot upward, shoulders stiffening as she looked down the hall toward the ballroom. Because—
“Shit—” Halamshiral. This was the Ceremony of Achievement. Or the Winter Palace. She could hear distant words, announcements. And they had been on each other like teenagers in the hall where anyone could see them by just looking to their left— Creators—
His knee pressed up against her and her eyes found his own again.
“We shouldn’t.” He said again, looking at her lips.
“No?” She found herself asking, hot heat in her cheeks making her sudden smile sweet in it’s burning. “Why not… professor?”
His grin grew with the shake of his head as his lean body— he was so lean! So tall!—shook about her. “Veraisa!” He accused and his laugh, the feel of it, Fenharel take her, it vibrated through her chest and not just her ear as it had for months.
“We could go somewhere else.”
“Ellana—”
“To talk.” She countered. Honestly. And their eyes met for the millionth time.
She couldn’t go back to that table now. Not with him across from her. Close enough to smell and touch and feel but constrained by polite conversation and stealing glances. She couldn’t. Not when everything had suddenly changed.
“Alright. To talk then.”
They got as far as the coat check.
They had practically raced the halls of Halamshiral, stepping quickly past other attendees straggling in the halls, trying to look discreet with their fingers entangled, and throwing each other bright smiles and flushed faces as they hurried.
Ellana wasn't sure where they were headed, but when they pushed open the door to the empty room deafened by its thick walls, she’d turned to kiss him again.
And he’d caught her, pulling her close to lay his hands on her again.
It was too much! Too tempting. The all overwhelming feeling of his breath smoking her face or his nails on her thighs in sweet delicious contrast to the warm softness of his tongue.
She paid him back for the hallways, her bare feet nudging the slick leather of his shoes until they were stepping backward, her weight forcing him until his back collided with the wall.
A sharp, sick crack made them jump in pause. Halting the speed of their hearts.
“What! What was—”
“Ah. I broke—”
He shifted beneath her, his hand leaving the refuge of her neck to fumble with the wall behind him. His hand went into his pocket, pulling out the sliver of metal that was his phone.
“Shit, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean— ” She exclaimed.
But he was already laughing, “No, please, it had already begun to…”
Glass trickled through his fingers to the floor. The black screen peeled out of its case.
His thumb patted it on his thigh, shaking bits of, before replacing it in his back pocket.
“Besides, I do not need it any longer.”
His smile was tender then, a longing that somehow matched the spaces between the letters of all his messages. Her ha’hren. Her vhenan. Her-- ah--
Ellana dipped her head to press her forehead to his chest in embarrassment.
“Oh? Something the matter?”
She laughed as she told him. “I… I can’t remember your name.”
His arms clenched her shoulders, squeezing her close into him as he chuckled.
His nose came to nudge against her cheek. And that hot-water voice poured down into her soul.
“My name is Solas.” He whispered. “If there are to be introductions.”
“Solas.” She mimicked, remembering, discovering. She thought of their exchanges. Of Dalish quizzes and pastries.
“Yes.” His fingers threaded into the tie of her Keeper tunic, plucking softly, lifting the elvhen weave like he knew how the thing was made. How it came together. How it came apart.
“Solas,” Ellana said again, this time speaking into his lips as his eyes closed.
He smiled like that, nodding, tickling her own lips before licking them open into another kiss.
And it was to the void again.
His hand was splayed on her exposed thigh, dipping into the divot of skin that dimpled her hips. A good place to hold her steady as she stood high enough to kiss his face aside and seek the flesh of his neck. His ear.
“Ellana.”
She bit, sucked, felt the tickling sensation of newness flood her to the space between her thighs until she shifted on her legs to feel more of it. To feel wet. His hand helped hoist her and she mirrored the action, grabbing the cliff edge of his belt and feeling the wave of his body beneath the warm tweed of his suit.
Creators. He was so real it hurt.
Solas lifted his knee when she flicked her tongue on the hidden crevice of his collarbone. A breathy laugh turned into a groan that made his body curl about hers. His thigh shoved upward into the slickness of her through her robes, and she gave her own gasp of pleasure.
They caught eyes again. Made sure each other was real before she rocked on his leg, and he claimed her lips again.
He was shaking. She could feel in this most recent kiss. His steady jaw fought the shivers of his body. He jittered, fingers a delicate tracing over her like if he pressed too hard she might evaporate. It made her press harder. Made her hands find the back of his head to force his teeth to bite her.
“Ahn—”
The sounds, the sounds he made. The feel of the sounds he made! She pulled his hands with her own, yanking them further down her stomach. She got one to grab the bottom of her thigh, Keeper robes pushing sacredness aside for his hand to lift her. The slick of her cunt rubbing the fabric of his pants until Ellana rose like a wave, her legs practically on his hips now.
“Da’len, you break me.” He hushed, somewhere between the space of them. “W-we can’t.”
“Please— it’s you—”
“Damn you—” And he was lifting her then, twisting her around to slide her back on the wall instead of him. Her smile was wild and wicked, and he grinned back, bucking hips in punishment. Her laugh cut short, feet clenching around his legs, toes curling. “Troublemaker.”
“Professor.”
His hands grabbed the side of her breast as he silenced her lips, kneading gently until her spine went slack and he was looming over her, letting her rock on him in a rising pace too close to that of fucking.
“My! My!”
“Ellana!?!”
The voices ripped fear through her body like a cut on flesh.
Solas’s teeth pinched hers as he pulled away, hands squeezing her shoulders as their legs disentangled, both of them heaving breaths with wide eyes.
“J-josie—”
Josephine. The Antivan woman was there, bright as the gold statues all around, covering her face and trying to look away, standing next to a stranger Ellana had never seen. Gods— she hadn’t even heard or seen the door open. Shit—
Ellana dropped inches to the ground, her body pressing forcefully against the wall behind her to brace herself in the shame and humiliation— of being caught— Gods— like that—
“El-ellana— Solas— I hadn’t— Morrigan was looking for you and I thought to join her bu—- we hadn’t meant—”
“Josie—p-please—”
She couldn’t look at them. Couldn’t even look at him. So stupid! So reckless. Was she some sort of exhibitionist? Here? At halamshiral? Ellana felt woozy, frantically trying to find a place to keep her gaze.
Solas was silent beside her as Josephine ranted, his body a mess of shaking and heaving shoulders in the corner of her vision.
“How odd. I did not think the Lavellans were acquainted with Fen’Harel.” The stranger spoke. “And yet here they are… thick… as thieves…”
Ellana was rubbing at her face and neck, looking away and trying to calm when the words slowed. Trailed. Ellana had to look at the woman to understand them.
She stared. The woman stared back.
Silence fell over them, her erratic heartbeat more like a thud now. A single beat that rocked her whole body to a cold shiver.
“Lavellan,” Solas whispered.
“What…?”
Solas’ head snapped to look at her. And the motion was so fast, Ellana couldn’t not meet his eyes as they stared at her. With some strange and horrified look.
“What?” She asked again when Josie only looked between them in confusion and the woman smiled.
“Fen’Harel.”
“Morrigan!” Solas near yelled.
The shocking level of his voice made her heart thud again.
Fen’Harel?
It… didn’t make sense. It was so far a word from her heart in the past hour that Ellana didn’t—
F.H.
Her eyes flickered to his.
“You’re—” She almost laughed. She almost screamed. The connection was so completely absurd and unreal and…”You’re not—”
“What’s going on?” Josephine asked, somewhere far, far away.
“Ellana please—”
“Oh, my word. I do not think Ms. Lavellan had any idea.”
He was him.
Him.
Her feet stepped against the wall, eyes looking him over, feeling cold. The fire beneath her skin nothing but a figment of a dream, now somehow so, so, so long ago.
He was him. Had been the whole time.
“Ellana.”
She didn’t understand it even as she did.
Her ears hurt.
“Ellana. Vhenan.”
She shook her head. “I... I have to go.”
“Ellana, is everything alright?” Josie was suddenly asking, breaking past Solas to grab at her elbow in worry. “What’s going on?”
The woman in maroon was laughing. It sounded terrible.
“I have to go. I want to go.” Ellana repeated.
And when Solas stepped toward her she stepped back, shaking her head.
“Ellana, I can explain, please.”
And she left Josie then, sliding her arm free to leave the coat check, to leave out the hall.
“Ellana!”
Dread Wolf. Fen’Harel.
Gold and marble blurred like it had been all night. Masks seeming to assault her as she walked fast, without purpose, feeling naked in her bare feet and the memory of hands that had just been about her, over her, around her.
“Ellana!”
“Stop it!” She yelled, turning to see him. Him. Ma vhenan! Hah! F.H.! Stupidity wracked her down into a blinding fury.
Solas froze, his maskless face caught in the sea of those who’d stopped in the hall to turn and stare at them.
“What—what was this?” She asked, a voice not like her own escaping her lungs. “A trick? A trap to catch me in some scandal and slander—”
“No!” He yelled, “I—”
“That’s why you didn’t tell me— You knew!”
Fen’Harel.
All those nights of coy teases and little nicknames. Of love and affection. She was so stupid. So reckless and stupid. Young and dumb. Blind.
He had never told her. Never wanted to.
“You knew this whole time. You knew and you belittled me while you... What? Seduced—”
“I did not!” Solas yelled back, stepping forward, silencing her, echoing his voice against the chamber of Halamshiral. “I— I had no idea. Morrigan— had not— I had no idea you were…”
“What!? Dalish? A savage?” She accused, almost laughing at his face.
Solas cringed, that brow so tenderly worried from earlier now creasing to disgust. “No. Do not be ridiculous, da’len.”
“What then? A lavellan?”
“Yes. I— I had no idea—”
“You disparaged my people!”
“No— not you—”
“You lied to me!” He stopped then. His anger quelling into a cold numbed look that held him at bay. “I begged you like an idiot, for anything. And you knew.”
“I did not, Ellana, please—”
“You knew who you were!” She laughed, almost hysterically. “You knew who you were, even if you truly didn’t know who I was. You would have written that, those lies, even if we’d never have met!”
Solas said nothing.
“You didn’t tell me, because of some stupid pride in your prowess over my people. Over me!” Ellana was staring at the floor now. The space between them.
At the floors of marble and gold and glitter, and the Winter Palace and the Ceremony of Achievement.
Laid heavy over the real Halamshiral.
The reflection of her vallaslin stared back at her.
“I’m so sick of everyone telling me who I am. What I am to do. Of what— And I thought you were one with me. A falon, lethallin, someone I could—but you don’t even respect who I am.”
Ellana turned her eyes back up at him, swallowing. Feeling her heated face once flushed with lust, flush with the tremble of wetness on her lashes. Gods. Creators.
“Ellana… satha,—let me explain.”
But she shook her head.
“Da’len—”
“You are no ha’hren of mine.” She snapped, stepping away from him. Stepping far enough that he seemed a stranger.
Ellana realized with a cold shiver that he was one. He’d always been one.
He had made himself one, on purpose. Even as she had sent him pictures, and calls, and love.
Ellana didn’t let herself blink tears before she turned away.
Leaving.
The Orlesians parted for her, a crowd of masks like puppets, stringing away as if the were yanked across the floor. She didn’t look at any of them as she left, eyes straight ahead to the shadows of cars outside that would take her away.