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“Thank you again, An’aris.”
“I know it’s not much, but I hope it helps.” She offers one final wave to Adan before turning and walking out of the apothecary. After fulfilling the requisition for the hinterlands, she went to ask Adan if she could do some research on potions.
She tended to hold her own herbalism skill in high regard, but there were minimal resources here. She’d have to figure out the ratios for various potions herself. Elfroot was elfroot, whether it be a strain from the Free Marches or Fereldan. She only needed to test for max effectiveness, and Adan was more than willing to utilize her hands in helping make potions for everyone.
He certainly keeps me busy, she thought. This isn’t far off from what I would be doing back home. She was rasdalelan, an assassin. A hunter. But when she wasn’t on a hunt, she would help. She would go where she was needed, whether that be helping with potions or herding halla. She longed for the tartness of the cobblers made fresh in the late summer. She was supposed to be home in time for the annual berry harvest.
Every year, they would gather any remaining berries on the bushes they could find and turn the ripe ones into cobblers and deserts and leave the others to get sweetened with honey and turned into fruit leathers. It was her favorite time of year. She was missing it.
This is more important than some silly foraging, she scolds herself. But her heart yearns for home, for her family.
It’s this thought that bumps her out of her own thoughts, literally. She’s met with a firm surface in her path, and a pair of hands come up to steady her and then move away in the same breath.
“Ir abelas,” she mumbles, still half a world away. She shakes her head, she’s unable to afford this distraction. Stay vigilant.
“Tel’abelas,” her gaze locks with his, a ring of violet surrounded by a grey-blue. Huh, she thinks, I never noticed his eyes before. He had changed into something softer than he had worn when they first met, a cream colored garment with a fen jawbone hanging around his neck. An’aris really hadn’t seen much of him since they returned from the chantry, since they stood and saluted her.
“Solas,” she says lamely in lieu of an actual greeting.
“An’aris, The Chosen of Andraste, a blessed hero sent to save us all.” There was humor in his eyes, but his words held no malice in them.
She playfully rolls her eyes and moves to walk side by side to him, signaling him to follow. He does. “I didn’t ask for this,” she motions to everything around them. “But someone has to find a way to deal this Breach. If I can help, I will.”
He nods. “Spoken nobly indeed.” They fall in a companionable silence as they make their way out of Haven’s main gate and past where the troops were doing their drills. The constant clang of metal on metal grew easy enough to ignore the more time elapsed.
“I have journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations,” Solas starts. They paused at the small hill overlooking the frozen lake, the troops just to the left of them. “I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past of wars both famous and forgotten.” He turns and locks his gaze with hers. “All wars have their heroes. I’m just curious what kind you’ll be.”
“Hopefully a good one,” she says. “The kind who makes the world a better place.”
“It isn’t always that easy, but I wish you luck.” She watches as his brow pulls together in thought, the metaphorical gears making their turns in his head as he computes a hidden algorithm she’ll probably never know the variables of. “I will stay then,” he says as he snaps out of his algorithm, “At least until the Breach has been closed.”
“Was that in doubt?”
“I am an apostate mage surrounded by Chantry forces, and unlike you, I do not have a divine mark protecting me.” He pauses to give a bone weary sigh. This is taxing on him, she thinks. Would I have stayed if not for the mark? “Cassandra has been accommodating, but you understand my caution.”
She nods. “Of course.” They stand in silence for a beat, watching the swordsmen run their drills. If she had kept up with her magic, perhaps they would be that much less likely to keep her around, no matter how useful the mark made her. “Would you like to stay? I was planning to go on a small hunt for dinner.” For the first time, she watches as his lips curl over his teeth in a smile.
“I’d love to.” His canines are sharp, she thinks.
The next couple hours they spend in silence, communicating only by hand signals that they realized they could both pick up on. Solas was a masterful hunter, she would catch herself watching him as he pulled back a bow she’d given him with the ease of someone familiar with the weapon. Although elves were more slight than humans, she could see the muscle behind his shots. Always clean. Always quick. His prey never suffered. She had picked up tricks herself, of course. She had caught him staring at her on more than one occasion, their gazes meeting just after the snap of her letting an arrow fly.
By the time their hunt was complete, they walked side by side once more, trudging back through the snow toward the cabin she had claimed as hers. They tried giving her one inside the gates of Haven itself, but this was much more useful. It had its perks.
The fire had long since extinguished when they entered her temporary home, and she moved to start it after hauling down her fennec on the table. She had cleared away all of Adan’s master’s papers and had organized them and hand delivered them to Adan. Solas placed his own fennec beside hers on the table, and she watched him from her squatted position by the hearth.
“Not a fan of beds, then?” His hand traced the fabric of her makeshift hammock.
Smiling, she shook her head. “Too stagnant. I’ve been saving my pelts to better insulate it, but leather takes time to cure.”
“Have you been cold?”
She shrugs. “It’s the end of summer, I’m used to warm weather, although I am no stranger to frigid temperatures.” He nodded in understanding. “Where is it that you stay?”
“In one of the cottages by the apothecary.” She brings up her hand and gently casts a small spell to light the fire. “You are versed in magic?”
“Not really. I was born with magic, yes. And I was trained in how to use it day to day, maybe even a few spells to help in combat, but I am not the first of my clan. My role was elsewhere, so the magic I use is mostly for show,” she says, “to hone my other skills.”
“Have you ever wished to be versed in magic?” He walked back over to the fennec and grabbed her hunting knife from where she left it on the table, beginning to expertly dress the fennec.
She side steps the question with a question. “Earlier, you mentioned sleeping in ancient ruins? Are you a dreamer?” He nods. “How do you keep yourself from danger?”
She watched his eyes sparkle in approval. “I set wards, spells that will bring me out of the Fade at a moments notice. And if you leave food out for the giant spiders, they are usually content to live and let live.”
A laugh shakes her shoulders as she stands from the hearth. “I’ve never heard of anyone going so far into the fade. That’s extraordinary.”
He straightened his back with pride. Solas, she thinks, what a fitting name. “Thank you,” he says. “It’s not a common field of study, for obvious reasons. Not so flashy as throwing fire or lightning. The thrill of finding remnants of a thousand-year-old dream?” His eyes lit up. “I would not trade it for anything.”
“Well,” she says, holding out her hand for her knife. He hands it to her, their fingers brushing for the briefest of moments. “If anyone talks ill of you, they’ll have to go through me.” Her hands moved deftly over the fennec, quickly stripping its animal hide in a third of the time it took Solas. He watched as her fingers traveled across the animal, stripping away the fat from the meat. She kept all of the scraps, of course. The sinews would make good string, the bones good broth. “You can trust me,” she says to him with a smile. She thought of their previous conversation, and her smile faltered. With the hand not holding the knife, she reached out to lightly touch the hand he held at his side. “You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you.”
“How would you stop them?”
“However I had to.”
“Thank you.”
He matches her smile this time. “Will you go gather some fresh snow from outside so we can start the stew?” She watches as his eyes trace over her features, and takes note of the small squint as he traces her vallaslin with his eyes. “There are some small garlic plants on the western side of the cabin, would you grab a couple of those as well, please?”
“Of course.”