Work Text:
It was a rare quiet night. Adhlea had been tucked into bed an hour or two ago and seemed to be, for once, still asleep. It was strange how calm the house became in her absence. There was no screaming, no running, no endless strings of questions.
After a long day of doctor appointments, the quiet was nice. Eira tilted her head back as Solas worked a brush through her hair.
It was early in the pregnancy, still. Mostly she felt tired, a little off, a little sick—all normal, but still annoying. The way Solas all but doted on her was at least some relief. She could trick herself, sometimes, into feeling a little luxurious.
“I know it’s a medical term,” Eira said eventually, as he began to twist her hair into a braid. “I know it probably exists for useful medical reasons. But today a doctor said the words geriatric pregnancy, and a part of me shriveled.”
“It is an outdated medical term,” Solas said, his hands pausing in her hair. “They should not have used it.”
"It makes me feel like a shriveled old woman."
He laughed softly. "I would hardly consider you shriveled."
"You're too old. Your opinion is skewed."
Solas hummed thoughtfully. "Children were rare in Elvhenan," he began. "So long-lived we were, it was not as necessary to have them. Even so, it was not uncommon for families to welcome children into their midst at ages that would be considered unthinkable today.”
"I suppose that's comforting. Likely no ancient doctors calling them geriatric."
He sounded as if he were about to reply at the precise moment their bedroom door swung open. They both froze, but it was only Adhlea, dressed in her pajamas, squinting into the light.
"Da'len," he said, instead of whatever he'd been about to say. "Is everything all right?"
Adhlea took this as an invitation to enter the room. "Not sleepy," she said, hoisting herself atop the bed. "My hair next, papae."
Solas heaved a sigh, but there was a fondness in it. He finished Eira’s braid, tied it off, and pressed a kiss to her temple. Then he gestured their daughter over. She sat contentedly in front of him as he began to brush through her tangled hair.
"What does geriatric mean?"
Adhlea's pronunciation was incorrect but the attempt was both admirable and adorable. "It means old," Eira said. "Elderly."
"Oh. Are you geriatric?"
"She is not," Solas said, setting the brush aside as he began to braid her hair. "Your mother is young."
"Are you geriatric?" Adhlea asked.
He scrunched his nose, stiffening a little. "No."
"I suppose it depends on your sense of scale," Eira supplied helpfully. "A long time ago he may not have been considered old. Today if someone knew his age, they might consider him quite old."
Solas shot her a withering look. Adhlea tilted her head in interest.
"Oh," she said. "How old are you, papae?"
"Old enough," he said, in that brisk sort of tone he used when he did not want to answer a question.
Adhlea's face scrunched in thought. "Older than mamae?"
"Yes," he said.
"Older than maela?"
He hesitated before glancing at Eira again. They were honest with Adhlea; they did not lie to her. But some truths were difficult to communicate to a toddler, and this was one of them. She had given a lot of thought to how they might answer these questions, but now that it’d happened she was too busy trying not to laugh to offer any help.
"I suppose so," he said, finishing the braid and tying it off. He kissed the top of her head.
"That's really old," Adhlea said thoughtfully, turning around to face him.
Solas’s face was so carefully neutral that Eira couldn’t help herself. She barked out a laugh, and once it started she couldn’t quite make it stop. Adhlea, not entirely understanding what was funny but prone to fits of giggles, was quick to join in. Soon they'd melted into a laughing, wiggling pile on the bed.
Solas heaved another sigh, but he was smiling as he watched them. "It is time for you to sleep," he said, once the laughing fit had concluded. “Shall I carry you off to bed, da’ean, or will you sleep here with us?”
Adhlea giggled. Her braid was already coming loose from all of her squirming. Little flyaway hairs caught the lamplight, seeming almost to glow. “Here!”
She launched herself off of the bed with surprising speed and dashed down the hall, returning moments later with a large and disheveled stuffed nug. (It had been a gift from Leliana and had been washed and repaired many times since. Its name seemed to change every week, but Adhlea had most recently dubbed it Floppy.)
The three of them settled into bed. Eira on her left side, her shorter left arm tucked comfortably against her body, Solas on his right, and Adhlea nestled snug between them, squirming as she tried to get comfortable. "Story," she demanded.
"It is late," Solas said. "I will tell you a story tomorrow."
"No," Adhlea said, firmer. "Story now."
"She makes a compelling argument," Eira said.
It was not even an argument and he knew it. "A story, then," he said, and Eira snickered. "What kind of story would you like to hear tonight, da’ean?"
Adhlea wiggled between them, hugging Floppy close to her chest. "Magic story," she said. "With nugs! And fights!"
Solas seemed to take this suggestion incredibly seriously. He closed his eyes as he thought, until at last he said, "An excellent request. I believe I have something."
The story was for Adhlea; it was fanciful and silly, something he'd either made up or had greatly embellished. Still, he was good at telling it and Eira listened, too, letting his voice lull her into something very close to sleep.
But even as she drifted, she did not close her eyes. Instead she watched Adhlea—the way her face relaxed, the way her breath evened its rhythm. Eventually Solas stopped telling his story and she saw that he was watching, too.
"We should join her," she whispered.
His gaze did not shift from Adhlea’s sleeping form. “In all my long years,” he said softly, “I never could have imagined this joy.”
Eira watched him in the cool dark of their room, the gentle line of his body under the blankets, the softness of his gaze, his hand as he reached to tuck a stray lock of hair behind their daughter’s ear. “Oh, stop,” she said, “You’ll make me cry.”
“I am being sincere,” he said, and there was a familiar smile in his voice: fond, teasing, tired.
“I know.”
Solas reached out his hand, catching the tips of her fingers. In the span of a single breath she felt the scene around her change; their bedroom melted away into soft sunlight, a wide swath of empty beach, the glittering surface of the Amaranthine Ocean. She could even taste the salt in the air.
“She reminds me of you,” Solas said. He had taken a seat near the water, letting the waves lap up over his feet. “Her mannerisms, her curiosity, her stubbornness.”
Eira sat beside him. The water was warm, comforting, familiar. It reminded her of being a girl, of long warm days spent swimming until her body ached with sunburn.
“Her mannerisms,” Eira echoed dryly. “She paces around with her hands clasped behind her back. Her mannerisms are yours.”
“Her ceaseless questions, then,” he said, and there was a hint of mischief in his voice.
“As if you do not ask questions.”
“I do. Yet I would not describe them as ceaseless.”
“I think asking questions ceaselessly is an admirable quality.”
“It is,” he agreed, and his voice had gone soft again. "It is one of your many admirable qualities."
She rolled her eyes. "You're a sweet talker," she said. "You're positively shameless."
Solas caught her gaze and smiled, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes, and he seemed about to respond when suddenly he looked up at the sky.
"Ah," he said softly. "Someone is reaching for us."
"One can only imagine who,” she said with a smile.
"She is recreating the story," he said, the smile still lingering on his face. "It seems she would like an audience."
If Eira focused she could feel it too, as if someone was tugging on the other end of a very long rope or sending ripples out from the ocean's opposite shore. It was the pull of Adhlea's will, reaching through the Fade to find them.
She thought of Adhlea’s dreams—colorful, peaceful, sometimes strange. A toddler’s understanding of the waking world. Tonight she could only imagine the chaos Adhlea must have wrought. She laughed as the tug from across the Fade became more insistent.
“We shouldn’t keep her waiting,” she said.
The beach gave way to vibrant, rolling hills. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Solas survey the new landscape. His demeanor always changed when they dreamt with Adhlea. It seemed to brighten every inch of him.
It was pride, Eira realized. She could see it in his face. She could feel it rolling off of him. Love, admiration, and pride so strong that it might have lit up the whole of the Fade with how intensely it burned.
“Ah, da’ean,” he said. “I am soundly impressed by your attention to detail.”
Adhlea, dressed in a toddler’s approximation of an ancient mage's armor, beamed up at him. “Papae,” she said, brandishing a little wooden staff. She waved it at him. “Look. Like the story.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You have recreated it with startling accuracy.”
“I can make a purple spell,” Adhlea said, waving her staff in a chaotic flurry. “Look!”
The dreamscape exploded with crackling violet light. Storm magic, to match the magic from Solas’s story.
“A ferocious spell, flawlessly cast!” Solas exclaimed. “What else have you created here, da’ean?”
Adhlea’s excitement transformed the dream’s landscape. Trees swayed in the distance. The sky burst into an unnatural shade of blue. Flowers bloomed in the long grass.
She took off at a sprint. Solas followed dutifully behind, surveying the changing scene around him as if it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Eira would join them soon. For now, for just a moment, she only wanted to watch.