Arwen Lavellan: Ma Nuvenin chp7

The road was lined with trees swaying red, orange, and green in the bright sunlight. Birds were singing, and the people were laughing and talking contently as the caravan made its way back to Skyhold. It was a caravan of new supplies. Inquisition soldiers rode alongside on horseback, guarding the procession with dour faces and glinting swords. Arwen and her companions had been in the Hinterlands and had decided to ride back with the caravan.

In one of the wagons rode Solas and Cole. Solas was seated calmly in the hay, smiling in quiet amusement as Cole questioned him of the different thoughts he was picking up. As usual, Solas wore simple brown robes, with a fur pulled high over one shoulder. His staff was lying in the hay beside him, and his hood was down, leaving his bald head to glisten in the sunlight. Cole, as ever, wore his wide-brimmed hat, dirty leathers, and a set of baggy trousers that sagged over his boots. How he fought in such trousers confounded Arwen.

Cassandra was riding a little ways ahead, grumbling to herself on the back of a sturdy stead. The Seeker hated riding but would rather bump along on a horse than in the hay with Solas and Cole. She had come to respect them both – had even befriended them -- but resented the constant intrusion of Cole in her mind. One comment about Regalyan was enough to make her doubly cross the rest of the day.

Arwen preferred her great red hart. She rode it alongside Solas and Cole’s wagon and felt at peace as the cool breeze pushed back her hair, as the warm sunlight touched her skin. It was such a windy day that she took down her tidy bun and wore her hair in a low and loose ponytail. The length of it had startled her companions, Cullen in particular.

Cullen, in fact, had been staring at her all day. She glanced back and saw him riding a ways behind her even now. When she caught his eye, he cleared his throat and looked away. Perplexed, she turned away again and tried to focus on the road ahead.

The Hinterlands were gorgeous. The land had belonged to the Dalish, if only for a moment in time. Soon after the Fifth Blight, Queen Anora rewarded the Dalish for their service by gifting them Ostagar and the Hinterlands. Clans gathered from across Thedas to begin anew. Arwen had wanted her clan to go too, but Keeper Deshanna assured her it would not last long. She accused the Keeper of being pessimistic and was pained when her predictions came true: only perhaps a year after they had settled, the Dalish were scattered away by humans, once again threatened that another people chose to worship their own gods.

Arwen had to ask herself if the gods even really existed. It was something she often challenged the Keeper with. Keeper Deshanna would irritably scold her and irritably repeat that the gods had been locked away by the Dread Wolf, so of course they were in no position to help them. “But what kind of gods can be duped so easily to begin with?” Arwen remembered demanding, to which her Keeper had roundly scolded her and put her on basket weaving for the rest of the day.

In truth, Arwen still questioned her beliefs. But having been surrounded by devote Andrastians for the last six months had done nothing if not push her to cling to her absentee gods. The Andrastians were no better, after all. They believed in a god who had purposely abandoned and neglected them. She preferred to think that if her gods had left her, it was not their choice. What was more, she liked to believe the gods still watched over the People through Asha’bellanar, who the Dalish revered for her wisdom and power. The Witch of the Wilds could speak elven fluently, had mastered the magic of the ancients, and was the closest thing to a god they knew. She was always there in troubled times, shepherding and safeguarding. Though she was not all-seeing and all-knowing, she was the best they had. It was better than a god who turned his back, anyway.

“Hair like silk, black as night,” Cole said suddenly. “She draws me with her warm gaze. It touches my heart. Sweet, simple, and pure. I want the taste of her. The Chant never gave peace. Staring at the candle as it burns to a puddle of wax. She is the only peace I know. Cool like water washing over me. I feel strong when she is near --”

“. . . .Cole?” Arwen said uncertainly, head bobbing as her red hart stepped lightly over a stone. She looked at Solas.

“I would hardly look for peace in the Chant,” Solas said with a chuckle. “Those aren’t my thoughts.”

“How to approach her without seeming a fool,” Cole went on. “If I ask, she will laugh. But if I don’t ask, I will burst.”

Arwen frowned. Then who was Cole reading?

As if her silent question had summoned him, Cullen suddenly rode up beside Arwen. She smiled politely and was confused by the slight blush on his cheeks.

Cullen cleared his throat. “Inquisitor,” he began, “about our game the other day . . .”

Arwen looked away, slender fingers smoothing her hart’s fur. “Yes?”

“You let me win, didn’t you?” Cullen said with a small smile.

Arwen kept her eyes on a distant tree. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are alluding to,” she said with the barest trace of a smile.

Cullen’s eyes warmed with affection. “You let me win.” He put his glove on her hart to stop it skipping forward when she nudged it. “Why did you let me win?”

Arwen glanced indignantly at his hindering glove. “You’re being ridiculous. I didn’t let you win – I was having a bad day.”

“Ha!” Cullen cried. “You would win a game if you were dying of a head wound while hanging upside-down. Inquisitor . . . I believe things between us could . . . move forward. If you don’t feel the same . . .”

Arwen glanced at him apologetically but looked away again, low ponytail bouncing against her lowered hood as the hart bobbed her along. “You are a treasured friend, Cullen. That is why I let you win. I am sorry if you thought otherwise.” Her green eyes darted to him, soft with regret.

Cullen swallowed hard and nodded. “Perhaps this wasn’t the place,” he said, glancing at Solas. He cleared his throat. “At any rate, my apologies, Inquisitor.”

Arwen felt a pang of guilt when Cullen dropped his horse back to the rear. He was like a kicked puppy. She wanted to hug him and tell him it was alright, but that would only make things worse. Especially if he was . . . pining. She glanced at Solas and saw him gazing after Cullen with something like sympathy.

***
Solas had to ask himself if he shouldn’t let Arwen go. Witnessing her exchange with Cullen that afternoon had raised the question. And the guilt. Because it suddenly occurred to him that she could be happy with someone else, if only he would step aside. She deserved a man who was honest, who could afford to be honest. And Solas was neither. Their relationship was lies upon lies. He thought everyday of telling her the truth, but the very thought of her reaction to such knowledge horrified him. The thought of her coming to hate him. . . . horrified him.

He had given Corypheus the foci. He was the reason for her pain and suffering – for Cole had told him that she hated being Inquisitor, hated that she had received the Mark, but did her duty in earnest and without complaining. It was something he found most endearing. And it was something that sent him falling head over heels all the harder.

How would she react to such knowledge? He had been gently nudging her toward retrieving the foci since Haven, and in hindsight, she would look upon his flirting as nothing but manipulation. Though nothing was furthest from the truth. He had always been careful to omit truths rather than flat-out lie. He hated the thought of lying to her. But deceiving her – one way or another – was just as painful.

And how would anyone react to the knowledge that their lover was actually dead? Solas kept thinking of his body deteriorating on Sundermount, locked away by those who had branded him traitor for his pride.

What was more, he had taken the body of another and had proceeded to hide behind another’s skin. While his appearance was his own, he was still within a vessel. If he left Felassan’s body, Felassan would take his own appearance again . . . and might possibly die. He was so closely merged with Felassan that there was no telling where one ended and the other began. But being the more powerful of the two, he dominated their shared vessel . . . and how was he to explain all that without utterly horrifying her? Disgusting her? Driving her away?

Perhaps he didn’t have to tell her the whole truth, just the half-truth. Perhaps he could simply tell her that he was one of her gods, that the Dalish had demonized him, and that locking away the gods was the greatest mistake of his life. He locked them away and created the Veil with the intention of stopping the Blight, but the magisters spread the Blight anyway. The stories were true and yet not true.

And perhaps after he had related all that craziness . . . she would what? Kiss him and forgive him? Suggest they go for drinks?

Solas paced the rotunda, thinking feverishly. If only Corypheus was had died in the explosion – as he was supposed to – then things would have been so much easier. He would have never met the Inquisitor, would have never loved her . . . No. He halted, his expression weary as he sagged into the red chair behind his desk. Who was he kidding? He had loved her since that first time he saw her from the Fade. Glowing so bright, she guided him through the darkness without ever knowing. Something in him quieted when he looked at her. He felt the old pains soothing, slipping away to a content he had not known in centuries. She was beautiful and gentle, walking through the forest with her staff in hand, singing to herself . . . bathing in the river in the cool moonlight . . . and he looked at her. And he wanted her. And he knew there was no unwanting.

Oh, if only it were so.

“Solas?”

Solas glanced up and smiled as Arwen entered the rotunda. “Vhenan,” he said fondly when she slipped into his lap.

She was so light and small. Had she been full-blooded Elvhen, she would have had full breasts and thighs, she would have been taller. She would have been three times as powerful, twice as cunning . . . but the Dalish and the city elves were human-blooded elves, elves tainted by human lust and aggression. When Tevinter took the Elvhen, they bred with them, diminishing the race until the genes became completely regressive. Today, all human-elf pairings produced elf-blooded humans, while those elves that remained were human-blooded remnants of Tevinter enslavement. That was how far the gene-pool of the Elvhen had dwindled. Today’s elves were literally . . . not his people.

Ah, but she was still so . . . beautiful. There was no denying that. He never told her, not with words anyway. Sometimes with a look or a kiss, he would convey his feeling, and she would smile.

He closed his eyes and smiled when she kissed his cheek and dropped her head on his shoulder. His hand carefully smoothed her hair. It was down, for she always wore it down after supper, and it was not uncommon for her to come to him in the middle of the night as he sat up studying in the rotunda. She would close his book – or else smack it aside altogether – and with the predatory eyes of a cat, would pull him down on top of her right there on the desk.

“Vhenan . . .?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think . . . you could ever love a human?”

Her head snapped up and she peered at him in amazement. “Where is this coming from?” Her eyes studied him, darting over his face.

He didn’t answer. How could he? The truth was, he wanted to know if leaving her meant she would wind up with Cullen. He wanted her to be happy, but not with a human. She deserved the closest thing to an elf that there was. Loranil had been a commendable sort. The Dalish boy had volunteered to join the Inquisition and help stop Corypheus. He would approve of Loranil.  

“Does this have something to do with Cullen?” she demanded wearily. She shook her head. “Please tell me you aren’t jealous. I thought you were above that.”

Solas smiled. “Not jealous, no. It’s just . . .” He frowned and touched her cheek. Looking at her skeptical face in the soft glow of the candlelight, she was suddenly more precious to him than the world itself. He pushed her hair behind her ear and cupped her face. “If I died . . . I’d want you to be with . . .”

“Someone you approve of?” She laughed, green eyes crinkling up with mirth.

Fenedhis. She knew him so well. Which was ironic considering how adamantly he was trying to hide.

“You’re not going to die, Solas,” she said, snuggling her head against him again.

He closed his eyes, letting his cheek drop on her head as he stroked her hair. That was another thing: he very well could die. Whether he told her the truth or not, he could die facing Corypheus – who was by and large infinitely more powerful than he – and she would move on.

“I want you to be with someone worthy of you,” he insisted. “And there aren’t many men I believe --”

“Don’t start that,” she warned.

Solas sighed: she grew impatient anytime he put her on a pedestal. But he wasn’t. She really and truly was something remarkable. That she didn’t see it didn’t change the fact.

“You deserve the best,” he went on anyway.

“So long as the man isn’t human?” she teased.

Solas held back a scowl. If only she knew how human blood had tainted her veins! Her ancestors’ veins! Human blood was the reason she and her people had no immortality! The very reason they were dwindling from existence! The very reason they had lost their magic!

“I want someone to love you the way you deserve to be loved,” Solas said.

She looked at him with glowing eyes and her lips twisted in the slow half-smile he had come to love. “So make a list,” she teased. “Knowing you, it’ll be a short list.”

Solas chuckled. He would never get tired of her making him laugh. He looked at her and knew she would never get tired of making him laugh. They kissed, slowly and tenderly.

“Tell me about the spirits you knew,” she whispered, dropping her head on his shoulder. “In the Fade . . .” She yawned.

Ah. She wanted a bedtime story. He smiled: she loved hearing his voice and had told him so many times. He had been prepared to tell her the truth tonight. But she looked so tired and content. Tomorrow night then.

Looking down at her with loving blue eyes, Solas stroked the Inquisitor’s hair as he began in his soft lilting voice, “I knew a spirit who loved to sing. Her harmony would drift across the shifting paths of the Fade . . . a lonely echo in the stillness of that shimmering world. . . .”