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Chapter Text

The moment her feet hit solid ground, before she could even look around and see where they had ended up, Amala Lavellan felt Solas crumple. It was as though the strings that had been holding him up had suddenly been cut and, without a moment’s hesitation, she felt herself lunge to catch him. There was no intention behind the movement, it was pure instinct, but the second her arms connected she knew she had made a terrible mistake. The weight of him, the warmth, the familiarity of it all, even under the layers of sweat and grime and blight…it was overwhelming. Just that brief touch snapped her out of the haze of battle, of blood and gods and death and terror and made everything real. He was real. She was real. Solas was in her arms again after a decade of loneliness and regret. He was there and he was…bleeding?

“Andraste’s tits,” she swore, feeling the cold hand of panic clamp down on her as Solas’ blood started to seep between her fingers, “Solas, Solas can you hear me? I need to know where we are. Is there somewhere I can take you? You’re bleeding.”

“Lighthouse,” he said, his eyes fluttering, “Infirmary’s-” he winced, trying to make himself smaller, trying to put less of his weight on her even though he could barely keep himself conscious, “there’s an infirmary…up the stairs.”

Amala nodded, tightening her grip as they started the agonizing walk up three flights of stairs. She wanted to look around. Her instincts, honed from years and years of battles and ambushes, urged her to assess the landscape for entryways, exits, windows and choke points, but it was all dulled by Solas’ choked gasps and the persistent drip of his blood hitting the floor.

Could a god bleed out?

She pushed the thought away, blinking back tears. Of course they couldn’t.

Except he did, that nagging little voice in her head insisted. In the hell-future Amala and Dorian had been forced into, thanks to Alexius’ meddling, Solas and Iron Bull had sacrificed themselves to buy Dorian time. It had happened over a decade ago now, but every agonizing second was still seared into her mind like a brand.

Solas had gone down first. Bull had roared with defiant rage seeing his ally fall. That rage had given him six and a half extra minutes of fighting. Leliana never faltered either. She recited hymns and fragments of the Chant with practiced ease, her arrow finding purchase every single time. Dorian had been frantically reading notes, drawing intricate patterns in the air that Amala couldn’t follow. She had been tethered to his side, unable to rush in and help because Dorian needed her strength to supplement his own and power the spell. She gave it willingly. The forces of the Elder One had flooded through the castle. There had been screaming and burning and guttural bellowing mingling with Leliana’s recitation. It had been chaos. So easy then, to miss one elven mage dying quietly in the corner. So easy to miss the gurgling sound he made as he choked on his own blood. Too easy to overlook how big the puddle of blood around him was growing, how his skin turned ashen and the light in his eyes just…slipped away.

But Amala hadn’t missed it. Not a second of it. Not one.

“Stop,” she whispered to herself, forcing one foot in front of the other, pushing the memories back as far as she could manage, “stop it right now.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Solas replied with just a hint of his old humor, “but for you I will do my best.”

Amala, without meaning to, snorted, “Shut up, Wolf. You absolutely have done something.”

“Pray, tell me what,” he asked, “so that I might better follow your instructions.”

“You’re bleeding out,” she explained, trying her best to sound matter-of-fact even as her voice cracked with pent up emotion, “you’re bleeding out and we have already lost too many damn people today.”

He was silent for longer than she would have liked, only because it made her worry that he was slipping out of consciousness, but eventually he replied, his voice barely above a whisper, “As you wish, Inquisitor. I will devote all of my remaining strength to not dying in your arms today.”

All of your remaining strength is currently leaking out through the cracks in your armor, she thought to herself, but they continued on in silence.

Mercifully, the infirmary door was already open. Amala sighed with relief, gingerly lowering Solas into the nearest bed and immediately beginning the arduous process of unbuckling each piece of his armor. As she worked she spoke aimlessly, explaining that the tightness of his breastplate, where it had been compressed by the archdemon’s attack, may have actually been helping to staunch the bleeding but could also be cutting off circulation. She talked apologetically about how she may need to cut away parts of the fabric of his undershirt, how it would likely hurt because the heat of the dragon fire had made everything fuse together. It was all things they both already knew. They were no green recruits, shaky after their first taste of real combat. No, she and Solas were seasoned veterans. They had both seen worse. Still, there was comfort in explaining her steps. It steadied her, gave her something to focus on. While she spoke, she could pretend that it wasn’t Solas, it was just another inquisition soldier she had found in the rubble. It wasn’t Solas who may bleed out under her care. It wasn’t the man she had spent all these years chasing. They weren’t alone in the Fade, facing an unexpected future. She hadn’t abandoned the Inquisition, all her friends, the world, to run away with an elven god. There was no Solas, no Amala, no Fen’Harel. There was just a body with wounds and a pair of hands with the skill to heal them.

Solas’ wounds were extensive, but remarkable considering what he had been through. There were punctures on either side of his abdomen and on his right leg - deep ones - but they didn’t seem to have poked holes in anything life threatening. His whole left side, from shoulder to ankle, was badly burned, but it seemed to have begun to heal on its own. Perhaps with the help of a healing spell. He was badly bruised, his right shoulder was dislocated and it seemed as though several of his ribs and a collar bone were broken, but all of his organs were still inside his body and his arteries were whole and unpunctured which Amala considered a minor miracle.

She rummaged through the infirmary for supplies. There was elfroot, clean bandages and plenty of disinfectant, as well as a few pain tonics and materials to make a loose sling. Pleased with her findings, Amala began the process of cleaning and dressing the wounds and setting Solas’ shoulder. It was the kind of work that one had to do slowly, but that also required consistent focus. With the adrenaline of confronting Solas, battling Elgar’nan and escaping into the fade behind her, and the heavy weight of fatigue setting in, it was only years of practice that kept her going.

“I expected worse,” she eventually said, with an exhausted sigh, “you’ve lost a dangerous amount of blood, and some of this is going to take a very long time to heal but-” she trailed off.

“But I will live to scheme another day?” he suggested, “I did promise, Inquisitor.”

Amala huffed, brushing her hair out of her eyes without much care for the blood she was surely streaking through it.

“You know, you call me Inquisitor so often that sometimes I think you’ve forgotten my name.” she joked

Solas chuckled and immediately winced as the motion strained his broken ribs, “As though I could ever forget, Amala Lavellan.”

Her eyes flicked to his, just for a moment, and the softness there broke her carefully maintained air of control. It wasn’t fair how powerfully he could still affect her, how a single shred of intimacy made her feel like she was drowning. His voice sent shivers down her spine, almost painful in their intensity and, instinctively, she stood and stepped away.

“You need water,” she said, breaking the contact, “you need to replenish your blood volume. I’ll-” she cleared her throat, “Is there a water source around here somewhere?”

“Amala,” Solas started, his voice soft and dripping with feeling.

“Don’t-” she interrupted, raising a hand as though to physically ward off his words, “I-we’ll talk later, I know there’s still much we need to discuss I just-” she cleared her throat again, “I need a moment.”

Solas looked down, resigned, and a muscle in his jaw twitched, “Of course. There should be a number of wells, and working faucets in each of the buildings. I-” he took a breath, clearly fighting the pull of sleep, “I do not know how much has changed in the months I have been away, but there are also an abundance of bed chambers, please make use of one, Inquisitor. You have fought your own battle today.”

Against her better judgment, Amala felt a smile pull at the corners of her mouth, “I wasn’t used as a chew toy by an archdemon, Solas.”

He chuckled, “Not a pleasant experience, but a novel one at least.”

She hummed in agreement, letting the silence stretch just long enough to tell Solas that she was comfortable before moving gingerly towards the door.

“Rest now,” she said, wincing at the protest from her stiff muscles, “I’ll bring you some water.”

“And then you’ll rest?”

She waved off his concern, “I’m fine, Solas.”

“Promise me, Inquisitor.” he insisted, his eyes clear as they bore into her.

Amala pressed her lips together, “After I do a perimeter search, I will rest.”

Solas raised his eyebrows, still waiting.

She sighed, “I promise.”

Solas nodded, satisfied, and slumped back down on the bed. Amala was certain that he’d be out before she even returned with the water.

The lighthouse was, undoubtedly, a marvel. If it had been any other day, if she hadn’t spent the last few hours stitching and mending the wounds in the man she loved, if a god hadn’t died and a city hadn’t nearly been drowned in blight, Amala would have loved nothing more than losing herself in it. As it was, she barely made it through her perimeter check, to a nearby well and back to the infirmary without her legs collapsing from under her but, to her relief, she saw she had been right. Fen’Harel was fast asleep.

She placed the two large jugs she had found in the dining hall and filled with water on the table beside him and took the opportunity to just look. She just watched him breathe, feeling her heart pinch and ache in her chest. He had always looked younger when he slept, more carefree, though he was a restless sleeper. He was prone to twisting and turning in the night and often called out and woke himself, beset by nightmares.

There had been a time when Amala wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have kicked off her boots and crawled into the too small infirmary bed, right beside him, tangling their legs together, but those days were a decade past now. She was different. He was different. Everything was different.

But the tug in her heart was the same.

With a sigh, she gave in and leaned forward, ghosting her fingers along the undamaged portion of Solas’ cheekbone. His skin felt the same as it always had and, as though in response to her touch, he hummed in his sleep.

“Thank you for not dying,” she whispered.

She waited with him for a moment longer, soaking in the simple miracle of being in the same physical space as Solas for the first time in years, and then slipped away. She chose a room near to the infirmary, but not right beside it. There was a giant winding spiral staircase she longed to climb, but the ache of her body let her know that it was coming up on the end of its stamina. There was just enough left in her reserves to allow her to undress, remove her prosthetic, clean the worst of the blood and grime from her skin and collapse in a heap in the comfortable looking bed. The last thing she saw before sleep took her, was a symbol of the Mourn Watchers scratched into the stone. She thought of Emmerich, and then of Rook, and she smiled.

Chapter Text

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed when she next opened her eyes. The only indicator was a gnawing in her stomach and the feeling that she had been out for a long, long time. Amala was ravenously hungry, but she stayed in bed for a moment longer anyway. She was not looking forward to hearing the complaints from her body, or to taking stock of her own injuries. Nor was she excited about facing the reality of the momentous decision she had made.

Solas.

She forced herself upright, wincing as she did. Slowly, she did her usual check. Ten toes, five fingers, left arm still half gone, airways unobstructed, no dizziness or headache, no obvious sources of bleeding. Her new bed chamber had a bathroom attached and, blessedly, there were ways to run heated water without needing to boil it over a fire. She thanked the gods, realised the futility of that, stopped and then laughed at herself. Shaking it off, she added two handfuls of crushed elfroot and some Brona’s bloom to the bath and breathed in the steam, letting it loosen her stiff shoulders.

“How’d we get here, hey Mol?” she asked herself, sliding directly into the scalding water and hissing as it made contact with her various cuts and scrapes.

The Dalish didn’t use indoor baths, because they were very rarely indoors. She had grown up bathing in rivers, lakes and hot springs and, though Josephine had tried her best, Amala had never quite gotten used to the human bath experience. Having said that, they were brilliant for soaking injuries. For a long while she just let the elfroot and Brona’s blooms do their work, strength slowly seeping back into her body as the skin itched and wriggled its way closed in various places. The previous tenant of this room had left soap and so Amala dedicated herself to getting clean. She did her hair first, and then the rest of her body, section by section. In almost no time at all, the water had turned a rusty brown color and the tub, she knew, would be stained with flecks of blood. Some of it hers, most of it not.

The time had allowed her head to clear and so, with the practised ease of someone who had been thrown into the deep end more times than she could possibly hope to count, Amala turned her mind to her current situation.

Somehow, she was still alive. Somehow, miraculously, the Evanuris were defeated, the world remained safe and Solas did not have to die for that to happen.

She pulled herself out of the bath and began to dry her body off, pulling on various items of clothing that Professor Volkarin had evidently decided to leave behind when the Veilguard had left the lighthouse for the final time.

Amala continued to think. She was in the fade. She had volunteered to go with Solas. Solas had bound his life force to the veil and could never leave. She had volunteered to go with Solas. Gods, what was she thinking? It had all seemed so simple when she had spoken to Rook about it at the Cobbled Swan, so distant and unlikely. There had been so many other, more pressing matters at hand than her broken heart, why not dream of leaving all your responsibilities behind for an eternity with the love of your life? But it had actually happened. She was alone with Solas, a man she hadn’t seen in a decade, a man who she had loved, hopelessly from afar. Isn’t that what you do with dreams? But now she was in the fade, and that line between dreams and reality didn’t seem quite so stringent as it once had.

She felt a sliver of something electric - like the intersection of panic and anticipation - run down her spine. Gods.

“Focus,” she whispered to herself, “You have a patient you have been neglecting for far too long now.”

She combed through her wet hair as best she could and made for the infirmary. She had no idea how long she had been asleep, but it was possible that Solas needed his bandages changed, or that one of his wounds had become infected. Honestly, any number of things could have happened while she slept, that was the danger with this kind of-

“Ah, you’re awake. Good morning, Inquisitor. There’s food here, if you need it.”

It was almost comical how quickly Amala skidded to a stop, her mouth dropping open. Solas was not, as she had been imagining, cooped up in the infirmary bed slowly dying of infection. Instead, he was up and walking, albeit with the help of a crutch she had not remembered seeing in the infirmary. At that moment he seemed to have been putting a book back on a shelf. There was a circular table beside him surrounded by a collection of mismatched but comfortable looking chairs and, on the table, was food.

“How long was I out?” she asked.

“Not long,” he replied, “a little over a day. Caretaker, the spirit who inhabits this place, was kind enough to help me prepare all of this since I have yet to regain my full strength.”

She couldn’t help but stare. Solas looked…well, not healed exactly, but better. Leagues better. His face was mottled with bruises, but the skin was clean. He was using a crutch, but his legs were holding his weight, and somehow he had dressed in new clothes. He looked like the man she had always known. His eyes were still piercing, his nose straight and proud, his cheekbones so sharp that they seemed chiseled from stone. She knew this man. In her bones, in the very core of who she was she knew every part of him and yet…she didn’t. This was the man who had killed Varric, who had locked Rook in a prison of regret. He was selfish and prideful and ruthless, but also deeply broken. He had made the right choice in the end, but did that make up for all the wrongs?

Amala knew she was being conspicuous, but it was the first moment they had had together where nobody was dying. There was no war to be fought, no plans to be executed, no intelligence to be gleaned. They were just together.

For his part, Solas was examining her face every bit as intensely as she was examining his, his eyes bright and hungry as they took stock of her every bruise and scrape. She made her way down to the table, painfully aware of his eyes on her as she limped forward. His eyes dropped to the place where her left forearm used to be, where her prosthetic now sat and there was a flash of something like pain in his eyes. Suddenly, she wondered what she must look like to him.

“How are you feeling?” She eventually asked, picking at the spread before her and not tasting any of it.

“Much better, thank you,” he replied, moving closer, “you-you’ve changed your hair.”

She chuckled, “In the last decade? Yes, I’ve changed it multiple times actually.”

“Well, I haven’t changed mine,” Solas pointed out.

Amala shot him a look, but she was smiling despite herself, “Oh, so you have jokes now?”

“Only for you,” he replied with a soft smile. There was a stretch of comfortable silence as they both ate, shooting one another surreptitious looks from across the table, which was broken when Solas cleared his throat and started, “Amala, we need to discuss-”

“What is this place?” She interrupted, looking around, “I mean, I know it’s a lighthouse. I know it’s where Rook and their team were staying but outside of that.”

Solas held her gaze for a moment, his eyes soft with understanding, “Amala. We need to talk.”

“About what?” she sighed, pushing away her plate, “What’s done is done, Solas.”

“About you being here,” he continued, undeterred, “I have bound my life force to the veil. I’m the one who nearly ended the world, I’m the one who needs to atone, not you.” He reached out, as if to take her hand, but thought better of it, “The things we-it was the heat of battle, emotions were running high. I-what I am trying to say is that I will not hold you to anything you said in that moment. You need not stay here with me, you can return to Thedas if you wish.”

Something in Amala’s stomach twisted and she crossed her arms, her face set with anger.

“Wow, we haven't even been together for long enough to have a full conversation and you’re already trying to find a way to leave me again. I think this may be a new record for us.”

The parts of Solas’ face that weren't mottled with bruising flushed, “That is not what I’m trying to do.”

“Then what are you trying to do, Solas? Because if you really think I would ever willingly leave your side again then you must not know me at all.” she shot back.

“I am trying to give you an out!” he shot back, crying out as the effort of raising his voice strained his fractured ribs.

The sound sucked all the fight out of the room. Amala immediately got up and moved to take the seat beside Solas, lifting his shirt to check his bandages and ensure there was no new bleeding, her brow furrowed with worry as her heart pounded in her throat. Solas winced but let her check his stitches, taking the opportunity to cover her right hand with his own and drawing her gaze back up to his face.

“I murdered our friend,” he said gently, not to hurt her, but still not softening the blow. Amala flinched and closed her eyes, as though to ward him off, but Solas continued, “I gave the orb to Corypheus. Every person who died fighting him died because I misjudged him. You nearly died because I misjudged him. The Evanuris escaped because of my actions. I used Rook to escape the fade. I-”

“I know all of this,” she cut in, her voice barely above a whisper, “You think I could ever forget?”

He sighed and lifted her hand to his lips, pressing the softest impression of a kiss to her fingertips before resting their joined hands on his chest, right above his heart.

“I think you would have done almost anything to save me from myself, Vhenan, promised anything, made any deal.” he explained, “I think you give too much to the people you care about. I think you saw saving me as your responsibility because you blame yourself for not seeing the truth sooner.”

Before he had even finished speaking, Amala was shaking her head, “That’s not true. I-”

“I am safe,” he interrupted, “and the world is safe from me. Your job is done. You need not tie yourself to me any longer if you do not want to. You need not give up your life. You have nothing to atone for.”

“I love you,” she said, by way of explanation, “I know you wish I didn’t, but I do. I know there is so much that is still broken between us that it may not be possible for us to fix it all, but I love you. I’m here, not because I feel some sort of obligation to stay by your side, or because I blame myself for the mistakes you made, but because I want to be here.”

His face crumpled, “Vhenan-”

“Stop,” she interrupted, giving his hand a squeeze, “no more trying to talk me out of the decisions I made. No more trying to ruin your own happiness because you feel undeserving of it. It’s selfish and it’s arrogant. I am an adult woman, Solas. I made my choice and I do not regret it. Do you understand me?”

Solas let out a breathless laugh, a few lone tears slipping from the corner of his eyes, which he quickly wiped away.

“I do not deserve you, Amala Lavellan.” he replied simply, “I could work every day for the next thousand years and I would never deserve you.”

“That isn’t how it works,” she countered, “love has never been dependent on the worthiness of the receiver. You know that.” She pushed herself up, detangling their hands with a sad smile, “I am going to explore. You should rest.”

“Amala,” Solas called, catching her hand as she turned to leave, with something like desperation glinting in his eyes, “I-.”

She nodded, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, “I know, Vhenan.”

—

The lighthouse really was a marvel. She was still weak from the fight and, even taking it slow, she could only just manage to force herself up some of the stairs, but it was worth it to see the view. The last time Amala had visited the fade, she had been in the realm of nightmares. When she had agreed to go back with Solas she had assumed they would go somewhere similar. Intellectually, she had known that the fade was vast. She had heard tales of beautiful places, of fields of wildflowers, of untouched ruins and underwater caverns, of mountain ranges so tall that you could not make out their peaks, but nothing had prepared her for this.

The air was sweet and clear. It tingled against her skin, as though the magic in it was a tangible thing, as though just by breathing it in she was becoming more magic herself. Each building she entered held pieces of the Veilguard. There were things they had left behind, scuffs on the doors, notes pinned to walls, griffon droppings on the courtyard floor. She felt like a detective, piecing together clues that told their story, a story of friendship and love and the kind of bonds that only form when a group of people face insurmountable odds together. It was like walking through their memories. Amala spent the better part of two hours in Lace Harding’s room, watching the butterflies dance over the lush greenery as her body was wracked with silent sobs. It seemed impossible that Varric was gone, that Lace was gone and Amala was still here. It seemed impossible that she yet drew breath while her allies had moved on.

Was this what her life was now? People did not age in the fade. Time flowed differently, where it flowed at all. How long would it be before another beloved friend passed on? Would she even know when it happened? Dorian, Bull, Sera, Cassandra, Josephine, Cullen, Blackwall, Leliana, Rook…there were so many people she would miss. So many people she might never see again. For the first time she understood what it must have felt like to be Solas in the days after he left the Inquisition, why he had tried so hard not to make friends, why he had seemed so distant when they saw each other in the Crossroads.

For a moment she was back in the nightmare realm, standing over a grave with Solas’s name on it, reading the words there with a heavy stone in her stomach; dying alone. It had seemed so innocuous at the time, such an ordinary thing to fear. Had this been why? Had he once stood where she now stood and wept over lost friends, realising he had crossed a threshold and left them all behind?

She made her way back to the central lighthouse slowly, letting the late afternoon air soothe her fraying nerves. What really disturbed her was that, under all the grief and the exhaustion, under the fear that she’d made a terrible mistake and under the uncertainty of her future, there was relief. No matter what else happened, she did not need to be the Inquisitor anymore. The fate of Thedas was no longer in her one remaining hand. She had been crushed under the weight of that responsibility for so long that now, with it finally lifted, she almost worried that she would float up into the sky and vanish forever. It had been so many years since she had been allowed to simply be Amala Lavellan that she no longer knew what that even looked like.

What did she do? Did she even have any hobbies anymore?

Her footsteps echoed on the stone floor and she realised, with a jolt, that she had neither seen nor heard from Solas since that morning. The old fear of him vanishing flared up in the barrel of her chest and she had to fight the urge to actively run to find him. Instead, she simply continued on at her regular pace, her eyes darting around for signs of life. When she did see him, her breath caught.

“Fenhedis,” Amala muttered, giving in to the urge to rush over, “Solas, are you alright? What happened?”

He was slumped with his back against the wall at the top of the left hand staircase, surrounded by books, his crutch flung somewhere out of reach and his face contorted in pain.

“I perhaps pushed myself too hard,” Solas admitted, “I forget sometimes that my body has limitations.”

She hummed in agreement, taking in the scene in front of her, “Tell me you weren’t trying to carry all these yourself?”

The tips of Solas’ ears went pink, his classic shame tell, “I hoped to use my remaining time on bed rest to do some research,” he explained.

“Then ask Caretaker to help you.” Amala suggested, slinging an arm around his waist and gently helping him up, supporting his weight again.

Solas waved her suggestion off, “Caretaker has other duties.”

“Then ask me,” she countered pointedly as they began to move towards one of the other bed chambers.

Solas was quiet for a long moment before saying softly, “I think I have asked quite enough of you, Vhenan.”

The heat of his body against hers was painfully distracting. It shouldn’t have been, after all, she had helped him in this way before, but it felt different with him present and conscious and there. She could feel his breath against the side of her head, his fingertips brushing against her and sending little thrills of pleasure wherever they went.

She cleared her throat, “Stubborn fool.”

Solas chuckled and the sound was so smooth and familiar, so electric and painful that it made her ache. The room Solas had chosen was sparse but functional, populated by dragons carved in stone, a desk, a bookshelf, a mirror and a bed built for a much larger person. Amala lowered Solas so that he was sitting on the bed and crouched in front of him, inspecting his face with a worried frown.

“Wait here, I’ll go grab your things,” she said.

He started to object, but Amala had already left. Without another person to support, the walk took almost no time and she returned quickly with the five books and Solas’ abandoned crutch. Solas, in that time, had managed to unbuckle one of the five buckles on his boots, and was clearly struggling to move on to the next. Amala sighed, placing the books on the bedside table and leaning the crutch against a wall where Solas could easily reach it if he needed.

“Let me,” she offered, crouching before him again and taking over the task.

“You really don’t need to trouble yourself.” He insisted, looking sheepish.

“Oh yes I do,” she replied, “I spent hours on those stitches, and you’re going to rip them and bleed out on these nice clean sheets.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Solas joked, “not after you worked so hard to keep me alive.”

“Mhm,” she hummed, unconvinced, moving quickly from one buckle to the next, “Since when do you wear shoes anyway?”

“You’re wearing shoes,” he pointed out.

“I’ve been living with nothing but shemlen for the last decade,” she pointed out, “my options were wear shoes or don’t expect to be taken seriously.”

Solas made a sympathetic noise but said nothing for a moment before admitting, “I wanted to show you that you do not have to worry about me, that I can take care of myself. My foot wrappings would have been even harder to manage on my own.”

She sighed, pausing her work to meet his eye, “But you don’t have to do this on your own.” she reminded him gently, “You fought an archdemon not three days ago. No one can expect you to simply shake that off and keep moving.”

He didn’t respond and Amala quickly finished, pulling off his boots and socks and placing them at the foot of his bed.

“I should check your bandages,” she continued, “if you have no objections, of course.”

Solas’ eyes widened slightly, but he nodded and started attempting to remove his shirt. He grimaced, biting back cries of pain that made Amala’s heart pinch. She leant forward, sliding her hands under the fabric and gently maneuvering it up and over his head herself, trying not to notice the way her touch made his skin break out in goosebumps. The moment he felt her fingers against his hips, Solas completely stilled, his breath shallow and quick as he fought not to shiver. It was purely functional.It shouldn’t have felt intimate, but it did. She had had him almost completely naked when she treated him the first time, but that had been different. He’d been so out of it with pain, and she had been so high on adrenaline and shock that neither had been completely aware of themselves, neither had been fully there for it all.

They were now.

As the shirt came free of his head and Amala let it fall onto the floor beside them, she could feel Solas’ eyes on her. She tried to focus on the task at hand, checking the worst of the wounds first and letting out a breath of relief when she saw that the stitches had held. Besides that, though, he was still in rough shape. There were many places where the bandages had become stuck to his skin with dried blood, and the bruising around his ribs was so dark it almost looked black. Everywhere she touched, his body reacted, sometimes in pain but often with a kind of relief. It made her feel possessive, protective over this man who was so dangerous, yet so willingly vulnerable, just for her. Absentmindedly, she ran her fingers softly over the few patches of his stomach that were miraculously unhurt, feeling a lick of pride as the muscles rippled under her touch and Solas breathed out something that might have been a curse, but also might have been her name.

“Your stitches are fine,” she heard herself say, standing up and walking over to the attached bathroom, “but you’ll feel better after a bath and some rest.”

If Solas had any complaints, he kept them to himself. She prepared his bath the same way she had prepared her own, but included four fistfulls of crushed up elfroot and half a bottle of a disinfectant draught she had been using. The room quickly filled with fragrant steam, making the whole room smell clean and herbal in a way that could only be relaxing. When she turned back to face Solas he looked wrecked. He was watching her like he was a sailor, lost at sea, catching his first glimpse of a lighthouse, like she was the hope of survival in an unsurvivable world. She walked back over slowly, deliberately, and crouched before him again, placing her hands on each of his thighs as she tried to project an air of steadiness.

“Come on then,” she said gently, “it’s all ready for you.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, breathlessly.

She rolled her eyes, but it was a fond gesture as she helped pull him to his feet, “You know why.”

Solas shook his head, but said nothing else as she led him to the bathroom. When she reached to help him get out of his trousers, he grabbed her hand.

“You do not have to do this,” he reminded her.

“I know,” she assured, “but you need the help. And anyway,” she continued with a mischievous smile as she undid the laces and slid her hands beneath the waistband, “it’s not like it’s anything I haven’t seen before, right?”

Solas let out a breath of laughter that felt more like a release of tension than anything else, using her shoulders to help himself balance as she slowly ran her hands down his legs, bringing the trousers down with them.

“Thank you for that, it’s just what every man wants to hear while being undressed by a beautiful woman,” he joked back.

“Well maybe,” Amala joined in, “if this man was truly interested in being undressed by beautiful women then he wouldn’t pick fights with archdemons and get himself torn half to shreds. Just a thought.”

“Ah, but you forget,” he continued, “being self sacrificing and injured is probably the only move this man has left.”

Amala stood. She had meant to take his underwear off as well but when she went to do it, she suddenly realised how completely unprepared she actually was to be confronted by a naked Solas. It was like her brain finally caught up with her body and she was alone in the fade with Solas looking at her like she was his goddamn salvation and he was beautiful and hers but also deeply injured and-ugh!

“You’ve got the rest, right?” she asked with forced levity.

Solas seemed to be having a similar moment of revelation because he swallowed hard and then nodded just a little too quickly. Amala turned, giving him privacy that he technically didn’t need, but they both definitely did need, and didn’t turn back around until she heard him hiss, and then moan as he fully submerged himself in the medicated water.

She smiled, “It’s good, right?”

“Heavenly,” Solas agreed, leaning back against the stone with his eyes closed.

She probably could have left then. Solas was probably expecting her to leave. The proper thing was to leave.

“Speaking of things I haven’t seen before,” She started, taking a seat on the floor beside the tub, “could you always do that wolf thing, or is that new?”

Solas opened one eye, saw her beside him and smiled, “It’s not new, no.”

“Because that would have come in really handy once or twice during our adventure,” she pointed out, “not even necessarily for combat. I saw you jump like three stories at one point, we definitely could have used that. Plus, your fur would have been greatly appreciated when we were in Emprise du Lion.”

He gave her an incredulous look, “You think the Dread Wolf would have been useful for snuggling purposes?”

“I mean, technically the Dread Wolf already was useful for snuggling purposes…”

He laughed, “You’re impossible.”

It felt good to hear him laugh again, the laugh she remembered, the one that was completely free and tumbled through the air like wild horses. She had fallen in love with that laugh. Amala grabbed a nearby cloth and leaned forward, soaking it in the warm water from the bath and gently beginning to scrub along Solas’ arms where they rested on the side of the tub. At first he froze. She shot him an apologetic look, freezing in turn but, when he saw what she was doing he relaxed and she continued. He hummed his appreciation and let his eyes drift shut, moving to make room for her wherever she needed.

“I did no’t have enough power for the transformation back then,” he eventually admitted, “otherwise I would have transformed and dug you free from that avalanche myself.”

She hummed, her face darkening as she remembered those last moments in Haven. It had been awful there, alone in the oppressive darkness, the sounds of thousands of tons of snow shooting across the landscape to bury her forever, and everywhere the biting, gnawing cold. It was not a pleasant thing to think about.

“I wouldn’t have minded a shorter walk,” she said.

“I was certain you had died.” Solas continued, with the weight of someone admitting a deep secret, “I remember sitting in the makeshift camp while Cullen was putting together search parties, just wondering ‘what on earth are you expecting to find? No one could have survived that’. I thought about joining one of the parties myself, but I couldn’t do it.”

“I didn’t see you when I made it back,” Amala agreed softly, “I looked, but you weren’t there.”

He gave her a sad look, “I was hiding. I was ashamed of myself for giving up on you so quickly. I had only been awake for a year at that point, but I had never felt so powerless. It was as though I could feel the weight of the snow pressing down on you, pressing down on everything, and there was nothing I could do-no way to get to you.”

She nodded, more familiar with that feeling than she would have liked to admit, “It’s awful sometimes, being mortal.”

Solas hummed in agreement. They sat in silence for a time, Amala helping him scrub the parts of his body he couldn’t reach for himself without straining his stitches or his ribs.

“You know,” Solas eventually said, “I believe this is the first halfway normal conversation we’ve had since-”

“Crestwood, probably,” Amala agreed, “though we were discussing your giant godly six eyed wolf form.”

“Well, I did say halfway normal,” he conceded, “still, it’s nice.”

“It is,” she agreed, “how’s the water?”

“Bloody, and getting cold,” he replied, “but I will happily stay a little longer if it means we keep talking.”

Amala shot him a look, “We can talk in places besides the bath, Solas.”

“Can we?” He asked gently, “You can still barely stand to look at me.”

She pressed her lips together, forcing herself to meet his gaze and hold it, “You’re naked and hurt,” she pointed out, “I’m being polite.”

“What was it you said earlier? Nothing you haven’t seen before,” Solas replied, tilting his head to the side and leaning slightly closer “and since when are the Dalish shy about nakedness anyway?”

It was a very dangerous thing to play chicken with the Dread Wolf, but something about him always turned Amala’s carefully honed survival instincts to dust. She kept her breathing steady and held his gaze, reaching out and gently brushing her fingers over his cheekbone, cupping his face right where the skin transitioned from pale white to deep purple. Solas’ breath hitched and Amala felt another lick of that possessive, protective pride.

“Since now,” she replied simply, “come on, let’s get you dressed.”

Chapter Text

Solas’ healing was remarkable. It took several days for him to get his mobility back to where he had been before the battle with the archdemon but, considering that Amala had been planning to track his healing in weeks, if not months, she considered it a marvel. Sometimes, when they ate together, or when Solas consented to sit still long enough for her to manually check on the progress of his wounds and burns, she could physically see them healing over. It was like…well, it was like magic.

Outside of that things had been progressing slowly. Solas was giving her space, which she appreciated, and they had fallen into a comfortable routine. Every morning after they woke and prepared for the day, they would meet in the library for breakfast. After breakfast, Solas would wish her well and leave, slipping through the Eluvian into the wider fade. He was searching for something, though whether it was a physical something or more of an emotional something she wasn’t quite sure. If she asked she knew he would tell her, but every time she opened her mouth to actually do that, she hesitated. Amala would then spend the day exploring the lighthouse, building bridges to the surrounding islands and learning as many of their secrets as she could. They would meet in the dining room for dinner, spend hours discussing their various findings and then slowly make the walk back to their respective chambers and say goodnight. On her own in her chambers, Amala would then document the things she had seen and felt around the different islands and read through her past entries to see if she could figure out any patterns. She would bathe, dress for sleep and then lie awake in bed and replay every interaction in her head, painfully aware that Solas was just a short walk away.

Things between them were still fragile. After the day when she’d helped bathe him, touch between them became infrequent and always happened in passing. It was as though they had both realised how dangerous that kind of physical closeness was and they were afraid to shatter one another. At first that made sense. After all they were both recovering from more injuries than they could count but, as time continued to pass and even their darkest bruises faded from black, to purple and then to green, the softness began to feel strained. They orbited around one another, trading looks and smiles, but never quite closing the distance. Occasionally she would touch Solas’ shoulder as she moved around him to reach a glass, or he would place his hand on the small of her back and usher her out of his way in the library. When they walked back from the dining hall they were close enough that the backs of their hands brushed, but it never went further than that. It was almost funny. If someone had told the Amala who snuck into Solas’ tent every other night that one day she would hesitate to hold his hand in the dark, she would have laughed right in their face, but here they were.

Part of it was Solas giving her space. She knew that. Part of it was him wrestling his own demons and part of it was a personal discomfort she had over what she called “the Mythal of it all”. It hadn’t always been a problem. At first Amala had barely even noticed but, as the days wore on… Mythal was everywhere. Statues, murals, books. Everywhere Amala turned there was some depiction of Mythal, and right by her side, every time, was Solas. At first Amala figured that she must be jealous, but it wasn’t quite that. Even when her and Solas had first met she had known that he was older than her and probably more experienced. There had never been any sort of illusion that they were each other's' firsts. It wasn’t even hard for her to accept that Fen’Harel may have had a romantic relationship with Mythal. It was translating that romantic relationship to her, and to her relationship with Solas that Amala couldn’t wrap her head around.

Solas had tried holding her hand once. They had been leaning against the wolf statue in the courtyard, admiring the night sky and discussing nothing of importance when she had felt him shift closer, his fingers brushing against hers and staying there. As always, his skin against hers had made her feel like she was touching the stars. Her whole body had shivered. She had wanted to let him hold her hand. She had wanted to close that last bit of distance and kiss him but, as she decided to, she caught sight of one of the Mythal statues, towering over the stairs, watching her with its blank, featureless face and Amala had pulled away instead.

It was one thing, she figured, for the love of your life to have loved someone more than you once. Sure, fine, that made sense. It was one thing to learn that you were not the love of your life’s love of their life. Sure, fine. Hurtful maybe, but not ultimately too much of a problem. Amala could accept that. It was another thing entirely for the love of your life’s love of their life to be Mythal, the Protector, the All-Mother and to be constantly surrounded by depictions of them together thousands and thousands of years before you were even born. It was more than an emotional crisis, it was an epistemic nightmare. So, yes, maybe she was being a little more distant than she wanted to be.

In these moments of crisis, Caretaker had become her saving grace. They were not the most emotionally responsive confidant, but they always managed to make her feel better and they always listened.

“The Wolf would be able to answer your questions more effectively than I can, Dweller,” they always said, “perhaps when he returns from the Crossroads, you can ask him.”

“Perhaps,” she always agreed, with absolutely no intention of following through.

If Caretaker could have sighed, they certainly would have.

—-

The peace couldn’t last forever. Something eventually had to snap. It happened at dinner, after Amala had just finished explaining the magic of a nearby island that held a seemingly bottomless pool in the centre. Solas had been listening intently, as he always did, smiling as she spoke and asking relevant questions, basking in the simple pleasure of being with her, of hearing her happiness.

The wine was strong, the food was good and Solas was starting to feel the slightest bit tipsy when something Amala said caught his attention, “You should come see it. There are flowers and ancient willows all around. It’s beautiful if you can get past the Mythal of it all.”

The moment the words left her lips, he could see that she wanted to die. She pressed her lips together and she avoided eye contact, clearly hoping to pass it off as nothing. Solas, of course, knew her far too well for that.

“The Mythal of it all?” he questioned with a confused smile, “What exactly is the Mythal of it all?”

Amala shrugged, “It’s nothing. Ignore me. The pool is beautiful and you should visit if you have time.”

“Amala-” he started to insist

“The Dweller is referring to the various depictions of you and Mythal that are scattered around the lighthouse, Dread Wolf,” Caretaker spoke up, refilling Solas’ glass and seemingly pretending not to see the daggers Amala was staring into their head, “she finds them difficult, emotionally and intellectually she finds her emotional reaction to them confusing. It has been causing a great deal of distress.”

“Thanks for that, Caretaker,” she grumbled, her face so hot with shame that it looked like it must physically hurt.

Solas was stunned. Without meaning to, he began sorting through his memories looking for signs of discomfort in his Inquisitor. He tried to put himself in her shoes, but there were so many factors that just didn’t transfer that he couldn’t help but think he did a poor job of it. How had he missed her unhappiness? How had Caretaker seen something that he, himself had not?

He was quiet for a while, long enough for Amala to force herself to look at him to see his reaction. He avoided her eye, feeling a strange mixture of confusion and shame. He walked through the lighthouse in his mind, flushing with embarrassment as he realised the true extent of Mythal’s presence. He had grown so accustomed to this place that he barely noticed anymore. His attention was always so squarely on one of two things; Amala, on where she was and how she was feeling, or on how he could atone for his endless list of sins that he hadn’t even noticed the giant stone elephant in the room. He sighed, feeling his age for the first time in ages and braced himself for a conversation he did not want to have. It seemed that, no matter how hard he tried, he was always making some sort of mistake.

He finally said, “Amala, I am so sorry. I had not considered that being here might be uncomfortable for you.”

Amala opened her mouth to speak, closed it and then pushed her chair away from the dining room table, disappearing into the pantry. His chest clenched with panic. She was slipping through his fingers again. She had realised the mistake she had made in loving him. He had finally pushed her too far. He-

Solas started to ask where she was going but, before he could finish, she returned, carrying four bottles of wine.

“If we’re going to do the relationship post mortem, I am going to need to be a great deal more drunk,” she announced, “you’re welcome to join me if you wish.”

Relief. Palpable, irrational relief.

“Oh I do wish,” Solas immediately agreed, uncorking a bottle and pouring them each a very full cup.

In unison they each downed it, pulling faces as the wine burned its way down their throats. Solas immediately refilled their cups.

“This is such a bad idea,” Amala said, drinking deep.

Solas shrugged, downing his second glass, “We’ve had worse.”

Almost immediately, he began to feel the effect. That was the problem with the fade, it heightened things, made them more vivid and alive. Usually that was something Solas appreciated but, as he physically felt the alcohol start to loosen his muscles and go to his head, he could acknowledge that it was also fairly dangerous

Amala laughed, watching him pour a third glass and gesture for her to get on finishing her second, “Oh now this is a surprise. You almost never drank with us back in the Inquisition days.”

He finished his glass in two deep gulps and poured another one, “During the Inquisition days I was trying to hide the fact that I was a secret elven god and also the cause of all our troubles. Being drunk would have made that significantly more difficult.”

She raised her eyebrows incredulously and the look - that look of fond exasperation - was so familiar that Solas had to physically hold himself back from leaning forward to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, on the spot where he could see her smile just starting to form.

Too soon, he told himself. Far too soon, but someday…

The thought alone made him shiver.

“What, the Dread Wolf can’t drink and lie?” She asked teasingly, snapping Solas out of his daydreaming, “I’m disappointed.” She took a deep drink from her cup, seemingly as an excuse to break eye contact before continuing, “And, wait a second, aren’t you the one who’s constantly harping on about how you’re not an elven god?”

“I never said I couldn’t drink and lie,” he replied, “I only said it would make it more difficult. What I couldn’t do at the time was drink, lie and remember all the very good reasons I had for not sleeping with the Inquisitor. I’ve been told that’s a common problem with alcohol.”

Amala snorted, “Isn’t that the truth.”

“And, alright, I’m not an elven god, I’m a very old, very powerful immortal elven mage who waged war on the Titans and then the Evanuris, locking them in a prison I built by creating a veil that separated our world from magic. Somehow I don’t think that distinction would have mattered much when Bull stuck a horn through my stomach for giving the orb to Corypheus.” Solas pointed out, realising with growing mortification just how drunk he was becoming.

It was worth it though. She threw her head back and let out a roaring laugh, the exact laugh he sometimes caught just a hint of in his dreams. His Inquisitor had always had the kind of laugh that made everyone around her laugh as well, like she made things brighter just by seeing the humor in them.

“Alright, alright, that’s fair,” she conceded, still chuckling, “damn, I forgot how sassy you can be.”

“I am not sassy!” Solas insisted.

“You are sassy, and you’re a lightweight,” she continued, finishing her glass and giving him a nod of thanks when he immediately refilled it.

“I prefer the term sardonic,” he corrected, “and you, my dear, are deflecting.”

Amala pulled a face, “I am not! I’m just not drunk enough for all of that yet. Keep teaching me what words I should call you instead of sassy while I drown my inhibitions in this-” she looked at the bottle, which had no label, “what even is this?”

Solas shrugged, feeling warmer and lighter than he had in ages, “There’s no way to tell. Some of the bottles here date back to before the fall of the Evanuris.”

Amala, who had just taken a swig, choked, “What?” she spluttered, coughing, “You’re telling me that this wine could be over a thousand thousand years old?”

He took the bottle from her hands and inspected it, “Probably not this specific bottle, but that one-” he gestured to one of the others she had brought out, “that one I distinctly remember.”

“Well then fuck this bottle,” she said, turning to the one he had pointed at, “I want to try the pre-veil wine.”

Solas couldn’t help but laugh, delighted by how fearless his Inquisitor always was when faced with the unknown world. It had never stopped surprising him how she approached everything with curiosity, with the sincere hope that the next thing around the corner would be something wonderful rather than something terrifying. If he had ever been that way then it had been so long ago that he couldn’t remember it. She passed the bottle to him, her eyes wide with reverence as he twisted the cork off. It opened with a loud pop and Amala let out a burst of laughter, clapping as though the bottle had just performed some sort of delightful magic trick. He poured them both a glass of the pale golden liquid, pleased to see that the bubbles had not dissipated over the years and handed one to her. She accepted with a smile, a real, unguarded one and Solas felt his heart stutter in his chest. Their fingers brushed, electricity shot through his body and he felt the instinctual urge to pull away. Luckily, the contact only lasted a second.

“So,” he asked after she had taken a sip, “what do you taste?”

She closed her eyes, humming with pleasure as the flavor coated her tongue and slid down her throat. Solas felt his face get hot.

“It’s-strange,” she eventually said, her eyes still closed, “I guess it tastes like that moment when you’re out with friends and you’re all drunk and you’re all walking home together and someone starts to sing. Like that specific kind of fuzzy, hazy togetherness, with your feet echoing on the ground as one and your voices getting all tangled up in the air.” she opened her eyes again and looked at him, “What was that?”

“Wine,” he answered simply, “before Elgar’nan burned away so many of the things our people used to feel. What you just experienced was the specific emotion the winemaker infused this vintage with. It used to be that sampling wines was like sampling the memories of the winemaker themselves. Each one was completely unique, completely singular.”

Amala stared into her cup with pure wonder, “That’s incredible. I can see now why our nights at the Herald probably seemed tame to you.”

“Oh no,” Solas assured with a laugh, taking a deep swig from his own glass and sighing as the feeling pulled him in, “I tried whatever it was the Iron Bull kept drinking. Once.”

She chuckled, “Ah, Bull. He was always such a riot.”

“He did keep one on their toes, yes,” Solas agreed.

“And he never gave me shit unless I deserved it,” She said, “he never let all the Inquisitor stuff scare him off.” She was quiet for a moment, teetering on the edge of sad, “I’m going to miss the big lug.”

He wanted to say something, but there were no words. If it weren’t for him, she would be home right now. She could pack up and visit the Iron Bull whenever she wanted. There would be a whole world full of people who adored her right at her fingertips. Instead she just had him. A poor substitute. A bad deal. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and drank deep.

“Do you want to know something terrible?” She asked, something dark and intriguing flickering in her eyes.

Solas held her gaze, letting her see his sincerity, “Nothing you say could ever be terrible to me.”

She scrunched up her nose, but he could tell she was pleased, or at least placated.

“I don’t think I’ll miss much.” she admitted, “A handful of people, my favorite bakery and that’s it. Everything else can go fuck itself. The Inquisition, the Imperium, Orlais, Ferelden, the Free Marches, the Chantry, the Templars, the Grey Wardens. Everyone who ever forced me to risk my life cleaning up their fucking messes only to blame me for it afterwards can piss right off. I’m done.”

She pushed herself up, swaying ever so slightly as she made her way to the fireplace, leaning against one of the stone wolves that stood guard at its side. Solas turned in his seat, following her with his eyes and feeling the thrumming pulse of tension as it started to swim right below the surface. Her anger, even subdued like it was now, was magnetic. He had always loved seeing her like this, taking charge of herself, taking charge of her destiny and flinging the expectations of others right back in their faces. Solas had learned long ago that you could push and push and push Amala, and she would try to be accommodating. To a point. Once that point was reached, you had better pray to the gods and take cover, because nothing in all of creation could keep her down.

“Good,” he said honestly, “I always thought that people were far too comfortable asking you to die for them.”

She scrunched up her nose again, “For the cause, technically.”

Solas rolled his eyes, “For them. If others could make the sacrifice and they continuously expected it to come from you then they were asking you to die for them.”

“You died for me once,” she said, so softly that Solas almost missed it.

The simmering tension spiked to a roiling heat and he could feel her gaze on him, heavy with expectation. This time it was him avoiding meeting her eyes as he floundered for the right words. He thought about that lost year often but they had almost never discussed it, at Amala’s insistence. Whenever Solas had tried she would clam up, blinking back tears and ask him to please just leave it alone. Except once.

It had happened right at the beginning of everything, when he was still struggling with his feelings for her, when he had started to accept that it was a pointless fight, that he was already drowning. Still, when he’d found her sobbing her eyes out on the battlements in the pitch black and she’d broken down enough to tell him the full story of what had happened, it had shaken him. It is an odd feeling to stand in front of a woman you have not even kissed yet, who you have barely even touched outside of your darkest and most private dreams, and know that in one year’s time you would lay down your life to save her without a second’s hesitation. In a way it made things much simpler. It had forced him to stop fighting his feelings, anyway.

He took another deep drink and refilled his cup, “I would have died for you a thousand times over if it were necessary.”

Amala sighed and let her eyes drift shut, though whether it was to ward off his words or to better drink them in, he couldn’t say. The wine made everything soft and beautiful, made his already fragile sense of self control feel like an unjustifiable weight on his shoulders that he itched to just throw off, but he held himself back. The last thing he wanted was to shatter the fragile peace they had carved for themselves.

“You can’t say things like that to me,” she said, “not while I’m drunk. You’re going to give me ideas.”

Fuck it, Solas was nothing if not an opportunist. He pushed himself up and made his way towards where she was standing and leaning against the fireplace. He moved slowly, reaching for her while still giving her plenty of time to pull away if he was overstepping. She stayed, her eyes sharp and wary as he moved closer.

“What kind of ideas?” he asked, feeling his blood thrum under his skin as his hands found her hips.

She closed her eyes again, “Bad ones.”

“Tell me about them.”

She laughed, meeting his gaze and leaning ever so slightly forward, into his touch, “They’re really bad.”

“I highly doubt that,” Solas teased, “outside of your inexplicable choice to continue to believe in me, you have world class judgment.”

“Not this time,” she assured.

He pushed his luck, leaning in so that his lips almost brushed her ear when he whispered, “Tell me anyway.”

Amala shivered and Solas felt a deep, primal sense of satisfaction at still being able to draw out those kinds of reactions from her. Perhaps all was not lost, perhaps things between them were not so broken that he could never hope to fix them. They still had chemistry, they could still talk.

Agonizingly, she pulled away, putting that dreaded, hated space in between their bodies again. Solas wanted to scream, but the pained look in Amala’s eye soothed the rough, fraying edges of his control. He was not alone in this pain. She still wanted him, there was just something in the way.

“I think I’m drunk enough to talk about it now,” she said with a resigned sigh.

It? What were they-? It took Solas a second to remember how their conversation had started - damned wine - but once he did, the pieces started to slot into place.

“Mythal.” He said.

“Mythal,” she agreed. She downed the rest of the wine in her cup in one, “I’m not uncomfortable per say,” she eventually started, “I just-” she gestured helplessly, “she’s everywhere, Solas. I can’t go five seconds without seeing some picture, or statue or mural of the two of you together. The walls are painted with your deepest regrets about hurting her. There’s a room whose key is literally just turning giant statues of the two of you to make them look at one another.”

Something in his chest pinched and he couldn’t help but smile. Of course she figured out the statue puzzle. Of course she had uncovered another one of his secrets, “You found the music room, then?”

“I unlocked a door, yes, but I never went inside.” she admitted.

“Why not?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, “I had thought, with your curiosity, you wouldn’t have been able to resist.”

Amala crossed her arms over her chest, something Solas knew she did when she felt vulnerable, as though her arms could create a barrier between her and the world, “I figured that, if you had wanted people to see what was inside there, you wouldn’t have hidden it behind a door that was locked with a massive statue puzzle.”

“A very fair observation,” he smiled, “but now I’m deflecting, we were talking about Mythal.”

She sighed, “It really isn’t important, Solas.”

That stung. She hadn’t meant anything by it, he knew that, but every time she pulled away, every time he asked her what she was thinking and she brushed him off he was reminded of how easy things used to be between them. There had been a time when Amala would just appear in his room and they would spend hours talking about nothing. They had been each others’ confidants. Sometimes Solas longed for a return to that closeness so much that it actually hurt.

Give her time, he reminded himself. You both need time to heal.

“If it is important enough that Caretaker has noticed, that means it is important to you. If it is important to you, it is important to me.” he replied simply, leaning forward slightly to catch her eye, “Tell me what’s on your mind, Vhenan.”

The wine was strong. He could see it affecting Amala. He could still feel it affecting him, loosening his tongue, lowering his carefully constructed inhibitions and heightening his emotions. He clenched his hands into fists at his side to keep them from reaching for her again.

She took a breath, her brow furrowed as she carefully selected each word through, what he could only assume was, a thick fog of drunkenness, “I just don’t quite know how to deal with all of this,” she finally admitted, “I don’t know where I fit. The two of you together, that makes a sort of sense, doesn’t it? You were spirits together, gods together. You forged a body out of lyrium because she asked you to, you went to war for her, you killed Titans for her. She was the great love of your life, it makes sense that she would be memorialised here.” she paused, thinking again before she continued, “But I don’t know where that leaves me, exactly. For most of my life, Mythal was the All-Mother. We prayed to her, we left offerings in her name. I have family members who still wear her Vallaslin. Comparatively, I’m just some woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conceptualising Mythal as a real person, as the man I love’s great love…I suppose I’m just struggling with my place in it.”

Her words fell like stones and settled hard in Solas’ chest. They weren’t meant as a condemnation but hearing her talk, hearing the twists and breaks in her voice, the pain and confusion, it made him flush with shame nonetheless. Was there no end to the damage he had done? Amala had always been head strong, confident in her capabilities but measured in her judgments. The way she spoke about his relationship with Mythal…it was like it was an incontrovertible fact, like she had always been second to Mythal, like she belonged beneath Mythal. It was familiar. It was heartbreaking. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Solas tried to keep his voice gentle when he spoke again, “You believe that Mythal was the great love of my life?”

She shot him an incredulous look that was undercut in its severity by the soft sadness in her eyes, “Don’t do that. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that a year with mortal, Dalish, non-mage me measures up to a goddess you spent centuries with. Look at all you did for Mythal.”

“I did do a lot for Mythal,” he admitted, “I also murdered her, if you remember,” he countered.

“Alright, fair,” she conceded.

“And what makes you think I care about you not being a mage?” He asked, “I understand I haven’t always been the kindest about the Dalish, which is unfair of me, and you being a mortal did raise some concerns but-”

“You are terrible at comforting people,” Amala interrupted with a sad chuckle. She raised her hand to her eye and, to Solas’ horror, wiped away a single sliver of wetness, “any other ways I was deficient then?”

“Vhenan-”

His resolve cracked and he stepped towards her again and gently touched her shoulders. She turned her head so that he couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t push him away, which Solas took as a good sign.

“Look, I get it,” she said, her voice just the slightest bit shaky, “you loved her, she’s gone. I get to spend an eternity in a shrine to you both. Let’s just move on, alright?”

“You are not deficient,” Solas insisted, “I am drunk and you know I can get caught on little details but what I was trying to say-”

“It doesn’t matter, i-”

“Yes it does!” he interrupted, “It does because it is clear to me now that you have no idea what you mean to me. It’s my fault, of course, I was so hell bent on keeping my distance and minimizing the fall out that I never actually said the words. I am so sorry, Vhenan, truly. My only defense is that I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” she replied, her eyes locked downwards, away from him.

He wanted to give her space. He wanted to back away, to fold his hands behind his back and explain calmly and clearly. He wanted to be Wisdom in that moment, because wisdom had never steered him wrong but, with his Inquisitor - his Amala - so close and the wine pumping through his veins, he was just a man.

“Look at me,” he said quietly. Her eyes stayed trained on the ground. Solas sighed and cupped her face with his hands, tilting her head up to meet his gaze, “I will not lie to you and say that I did not hunger for Mythal’s approval. I did. I always have, but she was not and will never be the great love of my life. After the way I have treated you, it’s only natural that you would feel as though I valued your love less than Mythal’s. I see that, I understand it, but please hear me when I say that I have never loved another as deeply or as ruinously as I love you. I may have forged a physical body for myself to please Mythal, but I had never felt like it was truly mine until I touched you. For centuries I had felt ugly and twisted and wrong in this body. It was a constant reminder of my failures, of my weakness, but you-” he shook his head, “you changed everything. You change everything.”

“You’ve said that to me before,” Amala said softly.

“I know,” Solas smiled, “but it bears repeating. Amala, when I called you my heart for the first time, I did not do that lightly. I have lived a very long time, and I have loved very many people, but I am still a man. I still have only one heart, and it belongs to you. If it will make you happy, I will tear down every statue in this building and repaint the walls. Hells, I’ll build you an entirely new lighthouse if you want me to.”

She chuckled, “That is perhaps a bit excessive.”

“Well,” Solas conceded, letting the tension break, “no one has ever accused me of thinking too small.”

Amala laughed gently again and he savored the simple pleasure of being the person that made her smile.

“True enough,” she agreed, taking a step back and sheepishly meeting his eye again, “I’m sorry for ruining our night.”

He let her go, though every centimeter between them felt like a mile.

“No, Vhenan. You ruined nothing. We have…” he considered his words carefully, very aware that he was still drunk, “it had to be said.”

“Ten years apart is a long time,” she agreed, taking a seat at the table.

Something in his chest softened with relief. She wasn’t leaving him yet. He followed her example and retook his seat.

“Too long,” he replied.

“Is that so? And whose fault is that?” she continued, with a hint of her old teasing tone.

He raised his glass, silently swearing that she could mock him for the rest of time so long as she kept looking at him like that, “Add it to my list of sins.”

“Where on the list?”

“The very top, of course,” he teased back, taking another sip and relishing her fond, if exasperated, smile.

So long as he could keep her smiling, he thought to himself, everything will have been worth it. Maybe it was the wine talking but, in that moment, Solas could not think of anything he would rather do with his existence than make Amala Lavellan smile.

Chapter Text

One of the things Solas hated most about mortal bodies was hangovers. It was his own damn fault, of course. He could not reasonably expect anything else after drinking into the early hours of the morning with Amala but still he couldn’t help but feel sorry for himself as he sipped his coffee and tried to focus on the book he was reading. It was nearly noon, by his reckoning. He had woken an hour or two earlier feeling more hopeful for the future of his relationship - if that is what he and the inquisitor had - than he had in years and had started the process of going about his day. He could hear movement from Amala’s room, so he knew she was awake as well and he found himself anxiously waiting to see how she would behave when they saw one another again.

The night before had been…intense. Some parts were clearer than others. Solas was still admonishing himself for the way he handled some things but, amongst the chaos there had also been moments of tenderness, brief flashes of intimacy that burned like a fire whose embers had never truly gone out. She had looked him in the eye! He had touched her, held her, told her he loved her. It did not fix everything. The ghost of Varric, of Lace Harding, of Corypheus, of a thousand little deceptions still lay between them, but it was something. He hoped that they could build on that. In fact, he had a plan to ensure that they did.

“Good morning,” Amala greeted, as she always did, her hair still wet from the bath.

He looked up and smiled at her, feeling the familiar stab of regret when she let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. Every morning the routine was the same. She didn’t think he noticed or, if she did, she didn’t think he understood its significance, but he knew what that sigh meant. It meant that, just for a moment when she was walking down the hallway, some part of His Heart had been convinced that he wouldn’t be there, that he’d snuck away in the night and left her. Again.

It was a valid fear. He would be lying if he said he had not considered leaving, that he had not considered slipping away into the fade and freeing her from the blood soaked anchor that was tying her to this place, but he could never bring himself to do it. Not again. What had once felt like a selfless act, protecting her from the misuse he had suffered, now felt like the ultimate act of cowardice.

“Good morning, Vhenan. How are you feeling?”

“Ugh,” she complained, taking the seat beside him and stealing a strawberry from his plate, “Like death warmed up, you?”

“Better than Elgar’nan is feeling right now, but not by much,” he countered, pushing his plate closer towards her. Another part of their routine. “Do you have plans for the day?” he asked.

Her eyebrows shot up midway through her biting into a strawberry, a perfect picture of surprise.

“Um, no, I suppose not.” she said, “Do-did you want to do something together?”

Gods, he should have kissed her last night. He should be kissing her right now. If he just leaned forward he could pull her chair close and-

“You needn’t sound so surprised,” he laughed, “I merely thought we could visit that island you were telling me about last night.”

She perked up and his heart wanted to melt at how excited she looked, “The one with the bottomless pool?”

He nodded, “The one that is, what did you say exactly? Quite beautiful once you get past the Mythal of it all?”

She flushed, “I never said quite.”

“We do not have to go. We could stay here if you-”

“No,” she interrupted, “no, that would-I would like that very much.”

“Good,” Solas said with an internal breath of relief, “I’ll put together some provisions for us and we’ll leave as soon as you are ready.”

She nodded, still smiling to herself and they lapsed into comfortable silence as she finished her breakfast. At that point he knew reading was pointless, but he kept up the pretense so that she would feel comfortable. As soon as the last berry had been consumed she bounded back up the stairs to her chambers, and Solas couldn’t help but chuckle.

The walk to the island Amala had described was fairly daunting. Perhaps not to a highly trained assassin with years of experience balancing on rafters but for Solas, a mage who’s ribs had only just stopped actively hurting, it took a great deal of his concentration to navigate the intricate series of wooden planks, ropes and strategic jumps she had set up without plummeting into the ether. She tried her best to help him out but there was only so much she could do. It was worth it though. Not only was the island beautiful, but Solas had a legitimate reason to stare unabashedly at his Inquisitor as she did the thing she was best at. At one point Solas slipped and Amala grabbed his hand to keep him from falling. Once he was stable and she’d finished laughing at him, she’d laced their fingers together and they’d continued on their way, their joined hands swinging between them.The planks of wood could have been 3cm wide and no one would have caught Solas complaining.

Once they had made it to the main body of the island, Amala excitedly showed him some of her favorite places and they settled on a patch of thick, soft grass on the edge of the pool. Solas did remember this place. He and Felassan had spent many long afternoons sparring here, cooling off in the water and discussing their plans for the future and the things they would build together. His heart twinged. Oh, Felassan. Amala had also been right, there were a lot of statues of Mythal scattered around the place. He remembered those too.

They spoke about nothing of note for a while, reminiscing about their travels through the Hinterlands, swapping stories from their time in the fade and commiserating about how wrecked they both were after their night of drinking. It was so normal. It was almost perfect, but Solas could still feel the tension simmering just below the surface. He let it be for a time, settling down in the grass with his sketchbook while Amala tried her hand at scaling the crumbling walls. He traced the familiar lines of her body in charcoal, using his fingers to soften the edges and show her movement. There was something almost meditative about the process of seeing something, envisioning it on paper and then executing that vision. When he couldn’t describe the way he felt about something in words alone, he had found that he could usually depict it through his art, or through some combination of both. It was rare for him to go anywhere without a sketchbook. He had many full ones that he kept stored away to return to when he felt particularly nostalgic. He had burned many more.

Some amount of time must have passed, Solas was far too enraptured in his sketches to keep track of exactly how much, because when he looked back up, His Heart was naked. Alright, not quite, but before he had had the chance to process anything beyond the bareness of her stomach and the smooth line of her thighs, he had pointedly looked away, feeling the familiar lick of warm desire shoot through his stomach like an arrow.

Amala, who had removed her clothes in favor of a simple breast band and undershorts, laughed at his discomfort, though it wasn’t a truly mocking sound.

“Oh come now,” she teased, “I feel as though we’ve covered this already. Nothing you-”

“-haven’t seen before.” They finished in unison.

“It has been ten years, Vhenan,” he pointed out, “and you always did have a way of making me shy.”

She sat down at the water’s edge and slowly slipped in, making a sound of pleasure when the coolness hit her sun warmed skin that was so erotic that it bordered on torturous. She submerged her head under the water for a moment before popping up again and swimming over to the rocks near where he was sitting.

“Come swim,” she encouraged, “the water’s wonderful.”

“So I heard,” he said with a pointed look.

His instinct was to pull away, to politely decline and continue his drawings, but what was the point? Who did that instinct serve? So, instead, he got up with a sigh and started to remove his clothes, not bothering to fold them as they slowly came off, one piece at a time until he was only in his underclothes. Solas could feel her eyes on his back, tracing his spine, taking note of the places that were still tender and healing, cataloguing his new scars. He felt a slight twinge of insecurity, wondering what he must look like to her, if he measured up to her memories of their time together. He briefly felt the ghost of her hand brushing his stomach and sliding over his hips, but he pushed the feeling away and focussed on not twinging his ribs as he moved.

He slipped into the pool beside Amala, doing his best to look nonchalant and sighed with relief. The water really was magnificent. The water was also clear. Very clear. He had to fight to keep from staring at the flashes of Amala’s skin just beneath the surface. Her thighs were especially tempting. His mind helpfully providing him with the memory of just how soft they were beneath his palms, how her skin broke out in goosebumps when he ran his thumbs-

“Come, let me show you something,” he suggested quickly, crossing the pool in long, steady strokes.

There was a place, right beside the small, babbling waterfall, where the rocks formed a natural bench of sorts. It was long enough for several people and allowed them to sit in the water without needing to expend energy treading.

Amala gave him an impressed look, pulling herself onto the bench beside him and admiring the view it gave them “This is lovely. You must have come here often to remember it so well.”

“I did,” he admitted, “with Felassan. It had been so long since I had thought of it that I didn’t even remember until we arrived. It was part of a larger island that we used for training at the time.”

She hummed, shooting him a look out of the corner of her eye that told him she wanted to ask something. His chest tightened. His Inquisitor was a smart woman. She would have put it together by now that he and Felassan had been close. That Felassan had been an agent of Fen’Harel. That Felassan was not around anymore. He ought to just tell her. There was no sense in hiding from the truth, but still, Solas shrank away from the idea. Something of his discomfort must have shown on his face, because Amala let it go and changed tack.

“So, what prompted this little outing?” She asked, her tone forcibly light, “You haven’t asked to spend a day with me since we arrived here.”

“I was giving you space,” he replied, giving her a grateful look, “but after last night…well, I suppose the idea of space from you has simply lost its charm. Plus, I had things I wanted to say.”

She nudged his shoulder with her own, a small supportive gesture that had pulled him back from the edge more than once during their travels together. It said ‘I’m with you if you need me’. It said ‘you’re not alone here’.

“Then say them,” she suggested gently, “I’ll listen.”

They sat in silence for a while, just soaking in the sun and enjoying the simple joy of being together. Solas was painfully aware of her thigh pressed up against his, of the warmth of her body brushing against his bare arms. It was equal parts teasing and comfort in the way only Amala had ever been able to pull off, and the urge to wrap his arm around her side and pull her close was almost irresistible. He glanced up at the unseeing face of Mythal from where she perched eternal, watching over the pool. It would have felt poetic, he thought, to have a real, flesh and blood woman who loved him right under the eyes of a memory of one who did not. But that wasn’t why he had brought Amala here.

“Do you know why I pushed you away when we first met?” He eventually asked, “Why I fought so hard to deny what clearly existed between us?”

Amala shrugged, “Nonsense reasons, I suspect. Not wanting to lie to me and all that.”

He let out a huff of fond laughter and reached out hesitantly, a question in his eye. Amala nodded, letting him take her prosthetic hand in his and turn it over so that he could inspect the palm, “Amongst other reasons, it was because, at the time, you were channeling the power of a foci. My foci. Every time you closed a rift or brushed up against the fade, without knowing it, you were the foci of Fen’Harel. That could have given me power over you, undue power, undue influence. I feared that I would turn you into a tool in my crusade. Like I had done to so many others and like so many others had done to me. I would have had the best of intentions, of course, but it would have been cruelty all the same. I never wanted to use my power to shape you into something you did not wish to be.”

The prosthetic hand was a work of majesty. It was made of silverite and gold and seemed to be modeled off the old elven sentries that used to stand guard in Arlathan. As Solas ran his fingers along the intricate metalwork, he felt the familiar hum of Dorian’s magic. It made him smile. He should have known.

“I was never romantically involved with Mythal,” he continued, “I loved her. Deeply. I know she loved me the same, but it was…different then. The world was younger. The lines between things were not so severe, things defied definition more readily. At the time I felt like I belonged to her, belonged at her side. I did whatever she asked because she was my liege. She was the person I had chosen to follow, come what may, and we were never equals. I was her second-in-command, her guard dog. I excelled at the role.”

Amala nodded. She already knew all of this, but it was clear that he was building to something.

Solas continued, “I never wanted to become, for you, what Mythal became for me in the end. I wanted us to be equals.” he paused, feeling the familiar rush of shame and self-loathing flow through him, “I failed at that. I used you.”

She sighed, her metal hand giving his flesh and blood one a gentle squeeze as she looked up at the statue of Mythal, “People use people, Solas. It happens.”

He shook his head, staring at their interlocked hands “I-I will not attempt to explain away how I treated you. It was unjustifiable, but the point I was trying to make is…” he flushed, suddenly shy, “I am new to this. I have had very few romantic relationships considering how old I am, and the ones I did have happened in less than ideal circumstances so-” he forced himself to meet her eye and let out a breath, “I have no idea how to do this.”

“Do what?” Amla asked with a gentle, affectionate laugh.

Solas gestured vaguely, “This. Be in a normal, healthy relationship where no one is dying or planning a rebellion or deceiving the other person. When last we were together, I was always aware that one day I would have to leave you. Our relationship was always temporary-”

“Not that I knew that,” she pointed out.

He gave her a sheepish look and sighed, “I do not know how to build something with you with the intention of it lasting.” He admitted, “And I do want this to last. I want to do this properly.”

She was silent for a moment. He felt the ghosts that they had both been fighting to ignore rise between them again. Varric, Lace, Flissa, Corypheus, Haven, Redcliff, Adamant. A million moments of terror, of pain and confusion and sacrifice. Every lie by omission. Every betrayal. Ten long years of loneliness. There was so much to consider that Solas instinctively pushed it away, shoved his feelings down into a box in his heart that could be dealt with on some other day.

“Well, I’m not the world’s foremost expert or anything, but usually the people in the relationship know things about one another.” Amala eventually said with forced levity, clearly having made a similar choice to ignore the obvious.

He knew it was wrong. He knew this fragile, unspoken agreement to not have the fight wouldn’t last, that it would only fester and deepen the hurt on both sides but, in that moment, he was so grateful to her for it that it made him dizzy.

“We know things about one another.” he insisted.

“We know the big things,” she agreed, “we know we would die for each other, and the worst things that ever happened to us, and how much pain we can each take before we black out, but life was so chaotic when we met that we skipped over all the small things.”

The worst thing that had ever happened to Amala was a direct result of his actions, he reminded himself, feeling the familiar twisting pain of self-loathing in the pit of his stomach but, again, he pushed it away. He tried to focus on the day, on the sunlight and the cool water and the intoxicating brush of her skin against his. It partially worked.

He nodded, his brow furrowed with concentration as he redirected his attention back to the conversation, “Alright, I suppose I can see the truth in that. What sort of little things should we know?”

Amala shrugged with one shoulder, something playful in her eye, “Oh, I don’t know, anything really. Like, for example, earlier when you said it had been ten years…you meant since you’d seen me without my clothes on, right? Not since you’d seen anyone?”

The tension shattered. The ghosts faded.

Solas flushed, rolling his eyes with faux frustration, “I hardly think that’s relevant, Vhenan.”

Her mouth dropped open, “Solas. No, be serious now. It cannot have been a decade since you last…”

“I have had longer dry spells,” he admitted, “I spent a great deal of my life either at war with the Titans or leading a rebellion.”

“And here I thought battle was an aphrodisiac,” she replied.

“Back then everyone was immortal,” Solas reminded her, “everything felt less urgent. As for my recent…activities-”

“Or lack thereof.”

“Or lack thereof,” he agreed with a chuckle, “it held no appeal for me.”

She continued, sounding genuinely stunned, “I just-I can’t even-why?”

Solas felt his face warming under her scrutiny, but he wasn’t truly uncomfortable.

“What use did I have for desire?” he replied, “I was preoccupied with my plans, and besides,” he let his voice dip low, “it would be unfair of me to lay with someone when my heart and soul had been given to another.”

If he could bottle the look of fond exasperation and pride that that statement brought to Amala’s face and drink it like water, he would.

“I can think of some uses for desire,” she countered, letting her hand rest gently on his thigh beneath the water.

Her touch was light, teasing almost as she trailed her fingers slowly up. Solas felt like a teenage boy, his skin flushing as desire sank even deeper into the pit of his stomach. His mind, desperate for Amala in that way it always had been, eagerly provided him with the memory of what it felt like to flip her onto her back and pin her hands above her head. It reminded him of the way her voice would catch on his name when he slid his thigh between her legs and kissed down her neck, how her eyes would flutter shut even as she fought to keep them open when he-

He grabbed her hand with his own, slightly shaking one, “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Inquisitor.”

She held his gaze for a moment, her eyes flicking to take note of the tremor in his hand before she allowed the moment to pass. Solas let out a breath, grateful for the cold water.

“Alright, you were celibate for a decade” she said, simply, as though nothing had happened, “that is something I definitely did not know about you. Something to keep in mind.”

He snorted, “I assume you were not similarly restrained in your affections then.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” Amala replied, still chuckling, “I was alone! I had just saved the world and been dumped by a god, of course I wasn’t celibate.”

A completely fair and valid point, he reminded himself. A truth he had always assumed existed, and yet…he imagined his Inquisitor tangled up with some faceless person, her head thrown back in ecstasy as they kissed along the column of her throat, and felt jealous. It was surprising, in a way, and completely unsurprising in another way. He had always been a possessive man, prone to bouts of obsession and groomed for devotion. He did not like sharing the people he loved. At the same time, he had always assumed that Amala would eventually move on from what they had. In those first dark days after he had left the Inquisition, Solas would lie awake and imagine her slowly falling in love with someone new. He would imagine their first tentative kiss, the flowers they would buy her, the ring they would use to propose. He would imagine their house and their children, and the smile lines by His Heart’s eyes deepening throughout years of joyous, blissful matrimony and partnership. He would imagine himself fading from a wound, to a scar, to the ghost of an old memory and comfort himself with the idea that that was a sort of death, a sort of apology for a millennia of mistakes.

So, yes, in the greater scheme of things, his jealousy surprised him.

“Who was your first?” Amala asked curiously, “I had always assumed it was Mythal but…”

Solas scrunched his nose, banishing the thought of the faceless partner to the back of his mind, and replied, “Her name was Valina. She served Mythal, like I did. We were both new to having physical bodies and the desires and urges that came with them so it was…a learning experience, to put it mildly.”

She groaned sympathetically and nudged his shoulder with hers, “So not even the immortal can escape that core experience. Good to know.”

“And yours?”

“Leonid,” she answered, “we had just gotten our Vallaslin and we snuck away in the middle of the night. It was quick and fumbling and very sweet.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Solas replied gently, “you deserve sweetness.”

“So do you.” she countered, equally softly,

“Maybe someday,” he conceded, slightly uncomfortable with the idea as he stared out over the endless fade, “but right now my sins are too numerous for that.”

Amala sighed and, before Solas could do anything to soothe her disappointment in him, he felt her lips press softly to his cheek. His heart stuttered. Time slowed to a crawl.

Touch starved. That was the phrase he had heard bandied about by soldiers, too long away from their wives, families and friends. Like so much else in his life, it had never made sense until he met Amala.

The kiss should have been nothing. It was quick and chaste, the kind of thing she had once done instinctively if they were going separate ways on a mission, or if one of them was heading out without the other. Instead, after so many years of solitude, it felt like the very first time. Warmth spread from where her skin touched his, his every nerve ending felt alive and he recognized that this kiss felt meaningful. It was a promise, a dedication to treating one another softly no matter how scared or broken they both may be from years of constant battle. It was an offering of better times ahead.

But what use is a general in peacetime? How could he give her better days when all he had to offer was dread?