Chapter Text
Solas followed her silently in the wake of her grim prophecy. She wasn't sure where she was going, but her feet led her through the eerily silent great hall and up to the throne that had been carved for her by some Ferelden artisans she'd saved on the road.
The Herald looked up at the howling wolves and at the stained glass windows behind them. How many different cultures had she tried to represent here in this gathering space? So many months in to their occupation of Skyhold and she still didn't know if the amalgamation of all their diverse iconographies had been interpreted by her Inquisiton forces as a gesture of solidarity or an insult. And she still didn't know particularly where she was represented in all of it herself.
Was it the gold and finery of Orlais in the furniture? The Ferelden wolves and women stationed like watchers all around the citadel? Was it the sturdy Dwarven construction of the doors and the banner crowns? The gentle chimes of the Dalish wind signals attached to the banners themselves? The thick Avvar furs that lined the floors and the covered the beds? The Chantry garden? The mage's tower with all its books? The training yard she'd built for her soldiers and scouts? The tavern filled with music and laughter and voices representing more diverse crowds than had ever been gathered in one place before?
She felt no connection to any of it, except for the thread of Corypheus and Apocalypse and Desperation that united them all.
Ixchel put her head in her hands and sank to a crouch in front of her throne and tried to keep her breaths even. She was swiftly losing that battle as her brain took her back to that moment: falling off the ramparts at Adamant, the ground hurtling toward her and her friends, and she had been so afraid and desperate that she had ripped the fabric of the very world open to save them.
Her heart raced even now, and it choked her. Pain continued to lace up her arms from her doubtlessly bruised and bloody knuckles. Her broken fingernails dug into her skin and her breaths came sharp, shallow, through her nose.
She felt even more wretched when Solas knelt with her. When he put his arms around her, she felt her soul leave her body entirely; the space it vacated was swiftly filled with mortification and self-deprecating anger.
She tried so hard to be a leader. She tried so hard to be taken seriously, and to walk a line of kindness and inclusion, and to be seen as a stalwart, steady rock for her people. But she was glad again that Solas was the one to see her masks cast aside in this moment, for he had always known the truth, hadn't he?
She was just a green da'len fighting an unwinnable battle: kindness against cruelty and honesty against deception and hope against cynicism. Her youth and her ideals and her heart were always going to be bitter casualties along the way.
And now, stripped of each, she leaned into Solas's embrace and cried.
When at last her tears ran dry and her sobs became quiet breaths, she felt a vice ease from around her heart. She still carried a weight upon her shoulders and a sorrow in her breast, but she would perhaps never be free of them: the shadows of her responsibilities and actions as Inquisitor would stretch long into her old age. But she had mourned her lot in life in a way that she had not allowed herself before. Ixchel the orphan, the refugee, was dead. No longer would Ixchel the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste, carry her around like a dead limb.
She wiped her eyes and leaned back from Solas. She had fully collapsed into him, sprawled across the stonework in front of her throne. His sleeve was soaked from her tears, and her hair was tangled and damp and clung to her cold cheeks, but she met his looking-glass eyes and tried not to look abashed. He did not look quite so polished, either. Though he wore deep black, the dust of the road covered his clothes. His hair was growing in slightly--a dark shadow across his head. A new scar had been added to his brow.
Her efforts to appear composed were thwarted when her voice would not push past the lump in her throat, and she cleared it with a rough cough. "I'm glad you're here," she rasped.
He offered her a thin smile and took one of her bruised hands without dropping her gaze. "As am I," he admitted in a low voice that was nearly as ragged as her own. "Through my journeys, I have seen enough leaders in the wake of both their triumphs and their defeats. I know that none of it is without sacrifice and regret. Even victory is a heavy burden for a leader of conscience and heart." Healing magic swept between her fingers and smoothed across her knuckles. Then, the magic sank into the muscles of her forearms and began to ease the tension there. Still, Solas held her eyes with his own. "There are few of those, even in the record of the Fade, Ixchel."
She returned his wan smile.
"If I could tell you stories of martyrs and heroes to give you strength, I would. It is not only that I cannot. I do not believe you need it." He paused again. "Were you like this before the Anchor? Has it affected you? Changed your mind, your morals, your...spirit?"
Her voice, when she spoke, was a whisper. "It changed my path," she replied. "It has put me in positions to exercise the values I already had and solidify them. I'm just trying to do what's right."
"I know... You show a wisdom I have not seen since...since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade. There is a subtlety in your actions, a wisdom that goes against everything I expected." He laced their fingers together, and suddenly she found the sight of their joined hands to be equally the most fascinating and concerning sight in her recollection. She focused on them, the feeling of his thumb brushing across her skin in slow, comforting strokes. "If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours...have I misjudged them?"
"The Dalish did not raise me," she corrected. A gleam entered his eye, almost disapproving. She tightened her grip on his hand because she sensed he was withdrawing mentally, and she could not bear for him to withdraw physically, too. She needed him to understand. She had only just understood it herself.
She did not have a place in Orlais, or Ferelden, or with the Dalish, or with the Dwarves, or with the Avvar. Neither the mages nor the Templars, the Chantry or the Qun or among the ranks of the Magisters--none of them could claim her, nor she them.
"It was the world that raised me, Solas. Its cruelty and its coldness. And this is what the world produced." She thumped a set of their joined hands against her chest. "I refuse to let it fester. I refuse." She looked up at him with tears once again shining in her eyes. "It's all I can do, for as long or as short as I'm here. I don't know any other way to be."
The cold look on his face softened again, and he dipped his head in a nod. The set of his mouth was somber, but he resumed the comforting stroke of his thumb against the back of her hand, laced their fingers tighter. "Perhaps this wicked world is worth something, then," he murmured, "if it has indeed made you."
A wave of exhaustion hit Ixchel all at once. His open expression added a meaning to his words that she had not previously considered, had not even entertained the thought of considering. She blinked at him slowly and felt herself sway at their impact. Her lips parted to speak but her voice failed her when his lashes flickered and he looked down at her mouth ever so briefly.
"I'm glad you're here," she said again, softly, and lowered her gaze.