Chapter Text
And so they entered the tempest. Every breath dissolved in the wind and every vein became lightning in the sky, wrought through and apart and back together. There was no pain upon their flesh but there was a furor within the mind, an essence being siphoned through the canals of space and thought. Searing and soaring, stretched to become an open egress. Blinding and bereaved and—gone.
They stepped through it, hand in hand.
Together.
Solas guided the path. There was only one way, but they could still become lost. Between their palms, fresh blood flowed from his wound, droplets that trailed into the air and dissolved into the surrounding storm. There was a stuttering pulse that matched the heartbeat that thrummed around them, a knot tied and a promise made, connecting both together. As he lived, so would the Veil.
Each pace forward felt like falling, as if her body became less and less familiar with its own weight. A remnant of arcanity tugged at her heels, unfettered and freeing her to turn back. She was not bound to go, not as he was. For the first time since its creation, someone went by choice.
Unsure, unsundered, but it swallowed her nonetheless.
When Athima reached the other side, it was like waking up from the deepest of slumbers, opening her eyes at a dusk that told her that she had missed the day. It was disorienting. Time had passed without her, millennia built upon the regrets of every false god she ever praised. It was not her Fade, her pockets of subconscious that she could fill with spare dreams. This was different. This was nothing. This was more.
She was not here for the morning of this place, did not know how to lift the curtains and let in the light. The Veil around her was shivering and bleak, pulled taut by the damage it had withstained. The only perception that could be made clear was her beloved in front of her. Her fingers tightened around his.
“Solas.”
He turned, finally gazing upon her as they reached their destination. There was an expression of disbelief, as if he was shocked to still see her by his side. Even now, he did not truly think that she would follow. His eyes swept across her face, and he reached out his other hand. Only his touch could prove that she was real.
He could not bring himself to do it. With a shudder, Solas collapsed to the ground. He clung to her wrist like a final tether, clutching it to his forehead in repentance. There came a gasp, then a wretched cry that echoed in the silence around them. She could feel his tears dripping down her fingertips.
“I am sorry,” he chanted, cracked into fragments. “I am sorry.”
She did not speak immediately. He needed to say it, to count out his apologies as every loss flashed behind his vision. Yet she turned her palm so that it caressed his cheek, offering him an open mercy. It was not her amnesty that he needed to ask for. His transgressions made upon her were finite and forgiven. She would not have joined him otherwise.
When she instinctively went to bring her other hand to his shoulder, it was there. Not her prosthetic, not a spell, but a shimmering silhouette that could almost feel the metal tang beneath it. As she intended, it would be.
Athima dropped down in front of him, and color bloomed beneath her knees. Grasses sprouted amongst their forms, spreading like fervored brushstrokes. Lines clashed and came together as trees filled out the space around them, painting themselves into a glen. A shimmering current spiraled from above and filled a pool, the waters stilling once the last thread coiled into place. Shallow mists sighed upon their skin.
At once, she realized that it was meant to be Crestwood—an approximation. The towering mythical statues had been replaced by howling wolves, their stone heads craning to see the lost stars. Moreover, the landscape lacked the true textures of the physical world, only mimicked by similar shapes and structures. It ran together like someone had swept their knuckles across one of Solas’ murals while it was still wet, making the hues bleed.
It was his regret that created this place, and it was his regret that sculpted it now. It was here that he once left her, too afraid to tell her the truth—afraid that she would loathe him, but even more afraid that she wouldn't. His mask had nearly split. Her face was born bare.
Guilt. Duty. Despair.
Confusion. Shame. Sorrow.
“I am so sorry, vhenan.”
He raised his head only enough to see her, to meet her sight. He was gashed and bruised, more fragile than she had ever known him. She had collected her own injuries during the charge, but his wounds ran deeper, cutting to his soul. The dark ichor was washed away by the wetness of his tears, but he still struggled to open his right eye. It reminded her of all those years ago, bandaging each other after a battle—two healers urging the other to be safe.
Be safe.
He was finally safe.
“I know,” she answered, pulling his head to her shoulder and letting it rest there. How desperately she had wanted this, to hold him in her arms again, a haven from his burdens. She wished to encompass him completely, to cradle his spirit as he allowed himself to fall.
Down from his pride, from his titles, from his responsibilities. Down from his justifications, his excuses, his regrets. It was a tall pillar to fall from, and the solid ground of penitence was not kind. The Dread Wolf and Fen'harel would not survive the descent.
Solas, however—she was here to catch.
“I should have trusted you,” he told her, his voice pitifully small. “I was wrong.”
“You should have,” she agreed, just above a whisper. “You were.”
Pulling back, he guided her hand to his chest. “I will tell you everything,” he promised, a plea and a pledge. “I will give you anything.”
The words caught in her throat and Athima cupped his jaw. “Lath ma tu’sahlin?”
Do you love me still?
His eyes widened, incredulous that she would ask. He grasped the back of her neck, fingers in her long hair, breathing in her air as if he might suffocate otherwise.
“If I only spoke one truth,” he beseeched, “Ar lath ma. Ar lath ma sul melanada. Mir sa bellanaris.”
I love you. I shall always love you. My one eternity.
Their first smiles since they came, tempered but true.
“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” she echoed. “Mir arasha’aan theneras.”
My happiest dream.
They could wait no longer. They came together as two broken things, sharp edges that fit and softened at the seams. This was not like their kiss before. This was desperate, devastating, damning them to their devotion. It was not merely reconciliation: it was reunification. Lips upon lips until it hurt, until every piece was tangled in the other. Closer, closer still. It could never be enough.
She tasted of sweat and sincerity. He tasted of blood and bereavement. Truth drawn from teeth and tongue—eyes shut tight but hearts carved open. Too many years of wanting, wishing, and now they had nothing left to keep them apart. Myth was made into matter, fable made into fact. It was a flash of daybreak that broke through the night, stunning the sky into a deserved dawn. It was love. It was love.
It was love.
They only withdrew because of Solas’ battered state. It was not the pain that stopped him—no suffering could inhibit his desire to be close to her. Yet he was weak, weak after his battle with Elgar'nan and his duel with the archdemon and his binding to the Veil. After their breath apart, his doubts came crawling back to him.
“Ir abelas,” he rushed forth, wavering as if a leaf rattling in the wind. He was already trying to collect himself. He could not—should not. “Ir abelas. Ar nadas-”
“Numin nadas.”
His mouth closed. Brows curled. Face crumpled.
“Numin,” she repeated.
Cry.
It was inescapable. What had already begun could not be averted. He shattered completely, and Athima covered him, enwrapped him, held him as he wept. He wept and he wept and he wept, a tide of tears for every mistake he ever made. Gods did not cry, but Solas did.
In the endless days of his immortality, from being wrested into a physical form and fashioned into a violent thing, she wondered when he had last allowed himself to relinquish his dignity and be assured in the arms of another. Not as a humble hedge mage or a rebel leader or a distant deity, but to be held, truly held, by someone that accepted every facet—kissed away the tears on every face. Acceptance was a faith unknown to him, yet here they knelt before its altar.
Athima could pretend that she remained the consoler, but she had no tenacity left to prove. He was here, in her embrace, beaten and bloodied but so very much alive. As Solas had been shaped into a blade, she had always carried a shield, and it fell away as his hands dug into her back.
So she cried too. She cried for the lives lost, for the time wasted, but more than anything, she cried out of relief. She had not needed to sacrifice her sweetest joy to save her sacred world, but could live to see them both mend. After all this time, she could not remember the last time her hopeful heart was proven right. There was always a belief in the chance of swaying him, but rationality (the kind that Solas had once nurtured) promised her that this story would only conclude with at least one of them dead.
Stories like theirs did not beget earnest endings. The love was there, but oceans could not wax and wane on love alone. The tides of fate decreed that intent and consequence would be pulled apart, and the world would be left drowning in the waves that crashed between.
She was never so grateful to be wrong.
Athima held him as a crumbling cliff to that surging sea, breaking together until all was smoothed to sand. It was not quiet nor dignified, but woeful and splintered, their cries muffled against each other’s forms. It all fell out, until at last there was space to fill their lungs.
When they both finally settled, their surroundings had found a new canvas. It was a fresh fresco, the paint still dripping: cobbled stones, billowing branches, and distant mountains on either side. They were remembering the Crossroads, where Athima first learned his other names. Golden armor shed from his shoulders, just as he had once worn. Green light flickered from her lost arm.
The forged memory brought her back to that bite of betrayal. Of his role as the Dread Wolf, but also for his dismissal. Had Solas accepted her then, she knew that she would have been able to persuade him from his plan. He knew it too; it was the very reason he had denied her. The rest could have been avoided.
Ten years ago, she would have shouted and spat, a plight to her despair. Yet she had been given those years to erode away the bitterness, leaving her with an understanding of why it unraveled as it did. It still hurt, it would always hurt. She would never forget the feeling he had left her with, wounding her within and without. Still, it was all with the intent to save her from further sacrifice. He would not have her purpose bound before him, sutured to his service as he was with Mythal.
“I was a fool,” Solas murmured, voice rasped from weeping. When his fingers intertwined with those she had imagined, they sank deeper than they should, betraying its lack of form. “The agony I have caused.”
Athima gazed at their conjoined hands. “You saved my life. Time and time again.”
“Only after I became a curse upon it.”
“I do not consider you a curse, ma sa'lath.” Palm to palm now, fingertips like a lit constellation. “It has led to this.”
“I do not deserve this,” he insisted, stricken with shame. He knew it was useless to resist, but he still needed the words spoken aloud. “I do not deserve you.”
“That is not for you to decide,” she replied, soft but unyielding. “You have lost that privilege.”
“Vhenan.” He looked upon her with a painful expression, his hands clenching into fists. “I must atone, but you have done nothing worthy of such punishment.”
“Then let this not be a punishment. Atone not by suffering, but by healing.” Like unfolding the silken petals of a flower, she gently unfurled his grip. Her thumbs pressed against his open palms, warm beneath her willing touch. “Are these not the hands of a healer?”
A broken breath.
“How I wish them to be.”
Others would decry the deigning of another chance. Countless voices would call for eternal retribution, a pyre of penance until he was nothing but dust and smoke. Yet the only voice here was her own, and she knew that fire could create better than it could destroy. Redemption was not for the innocent; atonement was not for the free.
“The first step. I will be here for each other,” she vowed, unending in her conviction. “If not in yourself, believe in me.”
Ever the one with words, yet he simply bowed his head and nodded. At long last, humility.
Together, they rose on quaking legs. It was a stumbling embrace, her limbs gashed and his stomach pierced. Yet they stood before each other, contact never leaving the other for more than a moment. Every touch was another confirmation, another assurance that this was not but a fleeting dream.
“Var lath vir suledin,” he promised, a mirror to a time gone by. Our love will endure. Somehow, inexplicably, it was not too late.
She held his face in her hands and he held hers in his. Again they came together, a kiss that counted one of many that they were owed. It was softer, barely satiated, but no less divine. This was how it should have happened. This was how it was meant to be.
With a flurry of light, the memory began to wash away. Streaks of shapes and shades swept by, surrounding them like the eye of a brilliant storm: The verdant leaves of towering forests, the carved stones of ancient temples. The polished floors of royal ballrooms, the sweet breeze of salted shores. The fluttering tarp of patched tents, the pebbled earth beneath thin bedrolls. The roaring hearth of a clouded castle, a single candle in a familiar study. The chilled air of a haven, now buried in snow and ash, where they clasped hands before they met eyes and their truths were changed.
Forehead upon forehead, they allowed the visions to pass. There would be time to remember, to ruminate, to reconcile with the past. For now, they deserved a moment in a gentle epilogue.
Athima titled his chin just so.
“You told me, once, that in another world…”
Among the remains of his regrets, there came an alm of hope. She was this hope, his first future untold. A sigh turned to a smile and Solas pressed another lasting kiss to her lips.
“Let it be this one.”