Chapter Text
Solas
This is not the outcome I wanted, he thought to himself. The elf had believed he was above these mistakes, that his brashness only eased with age. That he thought through the possible consequences of his plan. Clearly not. The state of the elves and how far they had fallen was on his shoulders and his actions continued to hurt more and more of them over the years he spent asleep - spreading them to hidden corners of Thedas hiding from humans or under the boot of some oppressive human city.
The Dalish didn’t listen when he stepped forward to correct their ways, their misguided devotion to the elven gods blinding them from the truth. Despite that he was enraged at the treatment of what came of his People, these modern elves are not my people, he corrected himself firmly. They were shadows of what the Elvhen once were and a constant reminder of his own pride and failures. That was no matter though, all would be fixed once he pulled the Veil down and remade the world to be better than this one, before his disastrous mistakes.
Solas felt a strange mixture of pity and annoyance as he watched the unconscious prisoner at his feet. She looks so small. Fragile. A simple, mortal thing. He did not expect her to last long in her current state but he needed her to. The elf below him lay motionless on the floor with her wrists bent at an odd angle due to the shackles that adorned them. Delicate pointed ears poked through the curtain of dark hair that spilled across the stone floor. Dalish, he noted, the vallaslin that curved across her face indicated as much.
The markings were delicate, the intricate swirls danced across her skin in a fine white ink. It brought him memories of times long ago. Slave markings. They were symbols of what he fought against, what he rebelled against. But now they adorned themselves with the blood writing willingly to honor the ‘gods’ who merely enslaved their people before. Solas was unable to push away the disgust at the sight. For a people so determined to never be enslaved again they knew so little of their own past. A patchwork of incomplete stories guided them and most of them wrong. The markings she bore, he did not recognize however. Kneeling next to the woman, he reached out a gentle hand to move the curtain of hair from her face. This design is not tied to any of their gods. Or not one that I recognize, he mused. The lines were sharper than what he had seen before. If she survived, maybe he would even care enough to ask about them.
He felt the presence of the humans in the room with him, their bodies filled the air that pressed heavily against him. For most they would appear to be standing still but Solas could feel the pressure of their small movements while they watched his every move. Sighing heavily Solas pushed away the discomfort. They were waiting for him to give some indication that he knew the prisoner at his feet. That they were in league with one another to cause the destruction of the Temple and murder thousands of people at the Conclave. Solas refused to become their scapegoat and if he could help it, he refused to have the Dalish woman be blamed for his mistakes. The elves had suffered enough with his actions.
Solas’ lips pressed into a line as he pushed away the flurry of emotions that sat in his chest. He was well practiced at it, the look of indifference and eerie stoicism. Haven’s Spymaster, Leliana, was sitting in the corner to his right. He assumed she had been tasked with watching him despite her seemingly working on paperwork in the edge of his vision. From what he could tell she was good at her job. Her interactions with her scouts and others at Haven indicated that she was not to be underestimated, however pride swelled within him as he was confident that she could not and would not see through his façade. He had known the game much longer than she. The dungeon itself held a few torches for light, casting everything in the room with an eerie orange hue, that is until the magic lodged in the prisoners’ hand flared again. It bathed his face in a sickly green light.
The guards stationed in the room shifted uncomfortably, on edge due to the events of the last day. He couldn’t blame them, not really. Thousands of people dead at the Conclave - Thedas’ first real chance at a possible peace between the rebel Mages and rogue Templars that waged a war across the continent. Their only lead to those at fault was the unconscious prisoner that lay before him, who happened to be an elf. Humans had long seen the elves as lesser and savage, the Dalish even more so. Solas turned his attention downward, watching the woman carefully. The magic that rolled off of her in waves was not only caused by the mark that marred her hand but also her own magic. The woman in question was not only a Dalish elf, she was a mage and from what he could tell, a decently powerful one. This made her an easy target for the Chantry.
Solas pushed away the thoughts once more. Anger and a bit of shame stirred within him. He gently picked up her left hand and sandwiched them between his own palms. Tentatively, he pushed his magic into hers, tasting and testing it and the magic of the mark. It pulsated just under her skin like a heartbeat. The mark flared green again, the magic that settled in her palm was his magic and it was slowly killing her. No mortal, elf or not, was supposed to hold that much power inside of them. How did this happen? How did it go wrong? The man he had given the orb to, the one who was supposed to die after unlocking it for him survived and created the hole in the sky in the process. The Breach, a hole in the Veil that connected their world and the Fade. Where did the woman fit in to all this? As the Breach above them expanded, so did the mark on her hand. Eating away at her slowly, painfully. Nothing he could do would pull the magic from her. It was stuck, anchored there at least for now. For a brief moment Solas considered letting her die. If she died, would the magic die with her? Would he be able to regain the magic? Solas resigned himself to the fact that he needed to try and keep her alive until he figured out his next steps or at least learned new information.
A door behind him opened, the familiar steps of the Seeker walking into the dungeon with him. Cassandra, a Seeker, was frightened. Terrified even. Her guilt and desperation never did sit plainly on her face but Solas could tell it was there - he knew that feeling all too well. Her overbearing presence hung over him like a cloud as she approached. Solas had gone to Haven, dropped his staff to the ground outside of its gates and requested to speak to whomever was in charge. He had the knowledge, the experience and he wanted to help them in closing the Breach that threatened all of Thedas. He was immediately met with suspicion. While not surprised by the reaction, he was annoyed by it. That deep part of him remembering how the Dalish cast his knowledge aside because it contradicted what they thought they knew about the world. Those at Haven had no idea that he was their best hope at figuring out what to do next.
Cassandra’s thick Nevarran accent rang out behind him, “Anything?”. It echoed in the small dungeon room, startling him slightly as he pulled himself back from his musing. He was not a prisoner, not like the elven woman whose hand was still nestled between his but all they could see when they looked at him was pointed ears and the fears of abominations and magic. This world has been disappointing. The prisoners’ hand was cold to the touch as the green flare of magic faded from the mark. Shaking his head, he placed her hand down gently and stood so that he could speak with the Seeker. “Whatever this mark is, it is killing her. Each time the Breach expands, so does the mark but I still believe it may be our best chance at closing it. She needs to be kept alive.” Mostly for his own plans. Having to find a new source of magic to tear down the Veil could extend his plans by decades at minimum and he was growing impatient.
The Seeker made a disgruntled grunt, turning to the Spymaster in the corner. From what Solas could tell Cassandra did not trust him. Which likely was wise on her part but not beneficial to his own goals. A silent conversation appeared to occur between the two women, eventually Leliana shook her head and Cassandra nodded. As much as Solas had assumed, Leliana was there to see if he knew the prisoner - they were perhaps working together at the Conclave, that they were both somehow at fault. Thankfully, Leliana came to the decision there was no colluding between the two elves. The Spymaster had been sitting there the entire time watching Solas with the prisoner and despite Solas’ intentions he knew she would see no familiarity because there was none. Solas did not even consider himself of the same People.
Cassandra turned back to him, stepping forward. Her movements were aggressive, humans always resorted to aggression when they were afraid. “Then you will find a way for her to awaken and to slow the progress of the mark so we can get her to the Breach.” It wasn’t a question, merely a demand and it was asking a lot. “If you do not, you will be tried as an apostate.” So now his survival was placed on the unconscious woman, the one who physically fell out of the Fade. Great. The threat was not subtle, Solas bristled. The more he spent among the humans, the more he felt the world was broken beyond repair. Knife-ear. Rabbit. Halla-rider. Savage. He held back his tongue, his distaste sitting on his lips as the Seeker turned to stalk out of the room leaving him with a handful of guards and the Spymaster.
Another flash of the green light brought his attention from the door, a small groan escaping the woman’s lips. The best he could was to add barriers around the focal point of the mark, hoping to slow the spread for now. If he could give her more time, maybe he could figure out how to use the mark through her? The Dalish were generally not fans of humans so appealing to that side of her and having her leave with him could be quite easy. If she were awake that is. Solas turned to kneel again, his hands moving gently as he applied barriers deep within her skin and pumped healing spells into the rest of her body to repair some of the damage the magic had inflicted. Her movements and sounds of pain subsided and he found she was as stable as she could be. His steely gaze redirected towards Leliana in the corner, “She is stable for now. But I will need to get closer to one of the smaller rifts before I can do much more.” His brain hummed as he considered how much information would be enough to appeal to the woman, “If I am correct the magic in her hand is the same as the magic pouring from the rifts. If I could test the theory I could be more certain if her mark could have any effect on them.”
He knew what caused the rifts and what kind of magic came from it but he was not convinced the prisoner was going to live long enough to be able to assist them and he wanted a backup plan. If she, by some miracle, survived he also wanted to ensure he had enough information prior to stealing her away from the Chantry, the elven woman somehow making herself the center of his plans - and his failures. Solas gestured to the prisoner at his feet, “If she wakes then she could be brought to a smaller rift and we can test this theory… But we should be proactive in case her body fails her.” Hoping that was more than enough information to entice the Spymaster in assisting him and giving her a taste of what could be at stake to expedite her decision to aid him. After a few quick heartbeats, Leliana stood from her chair. She watched the apostate with interest, “Do you believe she caused the Breach?” The woman asking him tentatively, Solas could truthfully shake his head no, “I highly doubt she, or any mage, would have the power to do so.”
- - -
With the inspection of the prisoner complete, Leliana escorted Solas from the dungeon only stopping once to inform their healers to work on an elfroot tonic to continue to keep the prisoner stable while Solas was absent. He was in a precarious position. Did he wait to see if the woman pulled through? Did he cut his loses and run, finding another method to enact his mission? Did he run to the farthest corner of Thedas to find another way to deal with the Breach? All of his plans up to this point, including the Veil, had failed or gone incredibly wrong. The world as it was attested to that. The other part of him, the academic, the seeker of knowledge, wanted to see if the woman survived. If she did, she had experienced something that no one else in that world had and the knowledge she would have of the Fade called to him.
He hoped getting closer to one of the rifts, studying it up close may give him more answers than questions and give him better footing on what his next steps were. Somehow he had convinced Leliana that studying the rift up close was important, important enough for her to bring it up to the Seeker. Solas requested a few soldiers and himself to find a nearby rift to study up close. If it weren’t for Leliana’s persistence, Solas feared there would be no way in swaying Cassandra.
Varric Tethras, a child of stone, was another one of Cassandra’s prisoners. Though he was not chained up in the Chantry dungeons like the elven woman. From what Solas gathered on their brief meetings with one another, Varric had information that the Seeker wanted him to speak about at the Conclave. With the Conclave destroyed, his involvement was no longer necessary. He stayed anyway. Solas and the dwarf only met a handful of times since he arrived at Haven and they developed some familiarity with one another - mostly at the insistence of Varric himself. Solas did not mind him at all. The dwarf was significantly more pleasant than any of the humans he interacted with up to that point but there was something about how the man looked at everyone - like he could absorb their secrets and Solas had plenty of those he wanted to hide.
The elf and the dwarf stood outside of Leliana’s tent, mirroring each other as they folded their arms across their chests. Inside the tent they could hear Cassandra and Leliana speaking heatedly, whispers about what to do next. “They fighting over you, Chuckles?” Varric breaking the silence with his attempt at humor, glancing up towards Solas before his attention returned to the tent. Solas’ lips quirked at the edge, “Not in the way you are hoping, Master Tethras.” Varric blanched, looking at Solas in surprise. A wide smile dancing across his lips. “Chuckles. Did I just hear you right? You have a sense of humor?” The child of stone could be abrasive, just as stone itself can be, Solas mused but his humor was disarming and he earned the half-smile on Solas’ lips as they spoke, waiting for the final decision.
From the sounds wafting from the tent, Solas was concerned that Leliana was losing. After a few more minutes of angry whispers the two women exited the tent. Cassandra scoffed before stalking back towards the Chantry, presumably to watch the prisoner. The Spymaster made her way towards Solas and Varric, her face betraying that she had won the discussion. “You will be escorted to a rift that has appeared between here and one of our forward camps. You will have a few of my scouts and a Templar with you.” Solas raised an eyebrow slightly. A Templar? He assumed the soldier would be there to protect others from him and not to protect him. He was in no real position to argue and he had gotten the majority of what he wanted from the exchange. Besides, if he were honest with himself he was faster than a Templar even in his somewhat weakened state so if he did need to flee for any reason he would be gone before anyone noticed. “And a dwarf!” Varric announced besides him, patting the crossbow that sat at his shoulder with his hand. Leliana did not seem to care or hear as she did not argue with the addition to the party. Eventually the Spymaster turned to follow Cassandra back to the Chantry and Solas and Varric were left to prepare for their departure.
- - -
It took little time for Solas and Varric to ready themselves and they found their entourage just outside of Haven’s gates. Just as Leliana had promised, there were a small number of scouts and a single Templar. Solas could feel the weight of the Templar’s gaze on him from behind his helm anytime he moved, so the elf opted to keep his movements minimal when possible. Did not want the soldier to get nervous for no reason and end up with a sword in his back.
Once they set off the trek to the small rift was uneventful. The whirling Breach in the sky was oppressive and the majority of the group did not speak during their journey at all. Even the scouts gave Solas a wide berth, though that did not surprise him at all. Varric on the other hand seemed pleased enough at being outside of Haven to try and strike up conversation with the scouts, once again disarming those around him with his charm and wit. Solas was impressed by the dwarfs’ ability to ease the tension and was silently thankful for it. Even the Templar’s body language relaxed.
As they approached the rift, demons and other horrors began to crawl through the opening into their world. First seeing sharp claws tearing at the edges of the rift. The group dispatched the small group of demons with ease. Approaching the rift slowly, he could feel the undeniable pull of the Fade. The feeling was like being home. He had enough time to raise his hand, pushing and pulling at the magic that swirled around the rift in the Veil until pools of green appeared on the ground around them, sparking demons and horrors to crawl through to their side once again. At least today would not be boring.