Chapter Text
“Red told us what happened with your hand.”
Dorian winced at Iron Bull’s words to the Inquisitor, eyes flicking over to Trevelyan as they headed to the eluvian that should take them to the Darvaarad.
Leliana had managed to pull Bull, Varric, and Dorian aside before they met up with the Inquisitor, and she explained to them how the Anchor went off during their meeting, how much of a toll it seemed to be taking on Trevelyan. The three of them cast looks between themselves, which was the exact moment Leliana realized they already knew of the situation, and that the trio realized just how much Trevelyan had been downplaying it during prior meetings with his advisors. Leliana was displeased, but she couldn’t entirely fault them, for how were they to know how withholding the Inquisitor was being.
She’d asked them to… look after Trevelyan, and the rare moment of softness left them all feeling a bit off-kilter, but they left the conversation at that. Or so Dorian thought. Leave it to Bull to drag it back up then.
For a moment, Trevelyan deflated, looking for all the world to Dorian like that run-down man from the corridor who’d needed Cullen’s arms around him to hold him together. Then he straightened himself back up, the too-formal air he seemed to adopt any time issues with the Anchor were brought up coming out as he said, “All the matters now is stopping the Qunari. The rest, we worry about later.” Trevelyan knew how bad the mark was, they all knew how bad it was. It didn’t matter, not right now.
The Inquisitor moved on from the conversation before anyone could say anything else on the matter, telling them to get ready as they drew nearer to the eluvian, keystone in hand. “The sooner we stop this invasion plan the better.” The stop back in at the palace was necessary, but Trevelyan worried about letting the Qunari get too far ahead, too deep into their plan. He was more than ready to open the way to the Darvaarad and once more hunt down the Viddasala, and ready to avoid talking about the Anchor any further.
So of course Bull had to ask, “You sure you’re good, Boss?” with a solid hand coming to rest on the Inquisitor’s shoulder.
Trevelyan wouldn’t allow himself to slump this time, only saying, “We all knew this was probably our last time out together,” his tone holding an almost-lightness that didn’t fit the solemn words. He turned a smile he couldn’t quite keep the sadness from up at Bull. “Let's make it a good one.” Bull gave Trevelyan’s shoulder a tight squeeze at that, a grin spread across his face, broad enough to turn the smile on Trevelyan’s lips a little more honest in response.
“Yes, yes… Enjoy me while you can,” Dorian said, shouldering past the rest toward the eluvian. Someone needed to keep the pity party moving forward. “I expect you’ll all miss me terribly later.” Whether they’d miss him because they all went their separate ways once this was over or because he was moments away from winding up dead at the hands of a Qunari army still remained to be seen.
Varric, for his part, just chuckled and shook his head at the lot of them.
On the other side of the eluvian, they took a moment to orient themselves. A large fortress loomed not far off, dark and ominous, and clearly the place they needed to head. More immediately, they found themselves in crumbling ruins not dissimilar to all they’d traversed to lead them there, the stairs and paths having seen far better days. But it was more than crumbling stone that their boots crunched on as they cautiously pressed forward from the mirror. Scattered underfoot were shards of glass, the source of which became evident as they took in the empty and in some cases twisted and gnarled frames of other broken eluvians.
“Look at this,” Dorian remarked, pushing aside a larger shard with the end of his staff. “It’s an eluvian graveyard.”
“Where did the Qunari get all these?” Trevelyan wondered aloud, standing there with his hands on his hips as he surveyed the—as Dorian dubbed it—graveyard around them. “How long have they been studying eluvians?” He was under the impression the mirrors were strange and mysterious artifacts, and rare too, but here the Qunari were with eluvians to spare.
They didn’t have a lot of time to spare there, interesting as it may be, because they’d spotted a band of Qunari not far off, just past the bridge that would take them toward the fortress, and if they saw the Qunari, it was only a matter of time before the Qunari saw them too. So Trevelyan herded them forward with the hopes that they could take out the guards before they had a chance to alert their brethren, but as they made to cross the bridge, the Inquisitor abruptly came to a halt, doubling over with a shout as energy crackled out from his hand.
“Oh, sh*t.” Varric’s words bluntly expressed what all of them were thinking. “That… can’t be good. You alright?”
“We should hurry,” was all Trevelyan gritted in response as he collected himself, refusing to look at his companions or pay their concern any mind. There was no time for it, because, “We’ve got company.” The discharge had drawn the attention of the Qunari, the guards now heading right for them.
More Qunari continued to meet them at every turn after that, slowing them down, but what really halted their progress was the complicated locking mechanism on the entrance to the fortress, barring them access, and based on the logbook they found in the gatehouse, they’d need to hunt down the keys needed to operate the mechanism, which meant hunting down the Qunari charged with holding on to them. They found a lot more than keys in the process.
Of that ‘more,’ what had to be the most concerning was the red lyrium. It hadn’t been what they first noticed in the tower they found themselves searching, but once the Viddasala’s agents within were dealt with, it was hard not to notice the red, crystalline forms on one of the tables, research notes scattered around it that no one cared to pick up and read. It put Varric in a mood, saying how the Qunari had no idea what they were dealing with, still muttering under his breath about it as the Iron Bull and him split off to briefly sweep the lower level of the tower while Trevelyan and Dorian climbed up to the floor above.
Dorian found himself drawn into more pages of research notes not tainted by red lyrium, having to admit to himself that if nothing else, this trip was one endlessly vexing but fascinating puzzle he was determined to work out. But Trevelyan couldn't care less about the stacks of papers, his focus narrowed down to a large mural on one of the walls..
Stones had been chipped away and removed, heaped at the base of the wall in piles, revealing the painting once hidden beneath. Based on the scrawl across a scrap of paper left on a table before it, the excavated mural was believed to be a self portrait of Fen’Harel. Trevelyan took in the massive black wolf it depicted, spanning the large majority of the mural, before his eyes came to rest on the smaller figure of an elven man also depicted. Trevelyan felt a rock settling in the pit of his stomach as he stepped forward, reaching out to touch the chipping stone, carefully following the sweeping lines of the figure’s robes with his fingertips. His jaw set, mouth pressing into a tight line.
“Are you alright, Inquisitor?” Dorian asked, coming up behind Trevelyan and placing a hand on his shoulder.
It shook Trevelyan from his thoughts and he pulled his hand away from the mural. He nodded, and when Dorian said, “We should get back to the others. Andraste know what type of mischief the two of them can create when left to their own devices for too long,” Trevelyan followed after the mage back down the way they’d come, but not before sparing a last look at the ‘portrait,’ his brow scrunching into a furrow.
Iron Bull and Varric didn’t find any trouble, but they did find some curiosities of their own, like an astrarium—which… weren’t exactly known for being especially movable monuments—and a handful of the strange shards that required looking through a Tranquil’s skull to find. “Maker’s breath, do they even know what half these things do?” Dorian questioned.
That was ongoing sentiment after they finally figured out the complex lock and made their way inside the fortress. They first found themselves in some barracks, empty for the time being, and after a bit of poking around, they found pages of instructions regarding the continuance of the Dragon’s Breath plan which spoke of gaatlok, but also what were almost equally concerning words like ‘venom’ and ‘specimen.’ None of them were sure they wanted to figure out what types of poor creatures were being held there, but it was just one more thing in the menagerie of artifacts the Qunari seemed to be assembling.
As they investigated a large study off the barracks, they found even more relics and wonders in line with finding the astrarium and shards earlier. “Look at all this,” Dorian said, flipping through a document he’d picked up full of what he called ‘Qunari gibberish,’ but which looked a great deal like—and Bull confirmed—a catalogue of artifacts. “How many ruins must they have found to produce so much?” he wondered, and more importantly, “What are they doing with it?”
It took the Inquisitor a moment, but then he paraphrased to the rest what he recalled Morrigan once mentioning, how the key to an eluvian could be anything, even knowledge or power. “So they’re stockpiling both,” he concluded, adding how that must be how they got the keystone and opened so many of the eluvians.
They were still in the midst of their discussion as they exited the study and stumbled on another patrol of Qunari. It ended with Trevelyan trying to hide a hiss of pain behind gritted teeth as the Anchor settled back down to a dull glow, its discharge having finished off the soldiers for them, but he wasn’t fooling anyone anymore.
Dorian wanted to make some sort of quip about it, something that would distract Eoin from the pain and fear, and the rest of them from their worries over him as well, but he couldn’t find any of the necessary playfulness. It came out almost as a plea in the end as Dorian said, “Hold on a little longer,” brushing his fingertips along Eoin’s arm with a whisper of healing behind it.
“Save your strength,” is all Trevelyan said, pulling away.
--
Everyone skidded to a halt as they passed through a large set of heavy doors, tripping over themselves as they stared, varying amounts of awed and dumbstruck, ahead of them. Through the open portcullis on the far end of the room, they could see into the chamber beyond, and many questions about the Qunari plot were answered at once.
“‘Dragon’s Breath is… an actual dragon?” Trevelyan couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but there in the next room was just that. No metaphor, not simply a name for a plan, but a real flesh and blood dragon.
The Inquisitor’s voice drew the attention of the guard stationed by the gate, looking on with his own curiosity and fascination at his fellow Qunari trying to rein in the dragon. He called out for backup, turning to face the Inquisitor and his companions and readying his weapon as other warriors jogged in and charged them.
Afterwards, when the handful of soldiers lay dead at their feet, Bull actually thanked Trevelyan for bringing him along. He was happy to finally be getting some answers and setting things right. That at least put a little bit of a smile on Trevelyan’s face, even if it was faint.
They headed on, but stopped short of actually entering the chamber where the dragon had been contained, hanging back so they could covertly observe the situation ahead before charging in.
“The Qunari obviously need the dragon’s venom,” Dorian said, recalling the instructions they found earlier. “No dragon, no more plan.”
“This dragon’s in bad shape,” Varric pointed out, saying how it would almost seem like kicking a wounded puppy—"You know, the giant, fire-breathing kind”—to kill the thing.
Trevelyan mulled this over momentarily, watching the dragon as it struggled against its captors, before the Iron Bull prompted, “So, Boss… we gonna fight the dragon or not?” He was clearly itching for a fight and just waiting on the word to rush in.
Trevelyan couldn’t give it to him, not in the way Bull wanted, at least. He shook his head. “We set it free,” he decided. Varric was right, it didn’t feel right killing the poor thing, they’d be letting it go.
That choice was only confirmed once they were actually in the same room as the dragon, the creature looking even more rough up close. Its hide was chafed and raw in some areas, and in others, the skin hung loose over deteriorating musculature. It was covered in deep gashes both new and old, the edges of its wings in tatters. Nothing like the awe-inspiring, terror-inducing beasts they’d come across in their travels. None of them doubted it could still cause some serious harm, but it wasn’t any less sad to see, they still needed to get it out of there.
Their plan seemed simple enough—take out the Qunari wrangling the creature before releasing it—but it was complicated by the dragon itself and their desire not to get singed, eaten, or otherwise maimed in the process. The dragon unfortunately didn’t have the ability to differentiate between friend and foe, and was indiscriminately taking swipes at and spitting its deadly venom at captor and Inquisition alike. It made handling the Qunari that much more treacherous, extended the fight that much longer, and made it that much harder to figure out how to free the dragon.
But they did. They managed to open the heavy gate that led outside, and the dragon took immediate notice of its new route to freedom. No longer did it care about anyone in that chamber, its sole focus on how fast it could get out of there, and Maker help any poor soul that got in its way—something the Qunari learned as the now-freed dragon tore through the gate, and through the soldiers waiting outside with spears and axes thinking they’d be able to usher it back into captivity.
They caught up with the Viddasala once the dragon had cleared the way for them, just in time to see a few of her men dipping through an eluvian with her right on their heels, off to who knows where this time. Trevelyan meant to call out to her to ‘Stop!’ but the shout came from him instead was unintelligible. No words, just a purely pained cry. While he refused to let himself crumple in front of the likes of the Viddasala, just barely keeping his feet, there was no keeping that in.
The Viddasala stopped her retreat at the sound of Trevelyan’s cries, and slowly, she turned back to him, an all-too-smug expression on her face. “Dear Inquisitor,” she started, drawing out the words, “you have such little time left, you must finally see the truth.” Still she was continuing her attempts to get Trevelyan on her ‘side,’ and she was not afraid to use his looming demise in the process. “Elven magic already tore the skies apart,” she went on to say, “if the agents of Fen’Harel are not stopped, you will shatter the world as well.”
“Whatever you think I’ve done,” the Inquisitor snapped back, “mass assassination isn’t a good moral high ground.” Who was she to speak on such matters? But besides, “The Inquisition has nothing to do with these agents,” Trevelyan said, firm.
It got a sneer out of the Viddasala. “Come, Inquisitor. I am the eyes and ears of the Qunari people, do you think you can deceive me?” She said how the South was poisoned by the elves’ manipulations, and the whole land suffered for it, just as the Inquisitor suffered now, and when Trevelyan only furrowed his brow in response, she looked like she wanted to roll her eyes at his ‘ignorance.’ “You would have died from the mark on your hand,” the Viddasala said—would have died but for the help of one of Fen’Harel’s ‘chief agents.’ The same agent, she said, who helped seal the Breach. The same agent who led them to Skyhold. Who gave Corypheus the orb. Who then founded the Inquisition.
The sinking feeling returned to Trevelyan’s stomach. He didn’t need her to say the name, but she did anyway.
“Solas, agent of Fen’Harel.”
“Whatever Solas is involved in,” Trevelyan started—and about that he’d been forming his own theories, bits and pieces he’d been fitting together since all of this started—"I am nobody’s puppet.” A deflection, as was becoming increasingly frequent when having to talk to her, but between his racing thoughts and the steadily building crackling in his hand, it was what Trevelyan could force out.
“Even now, you refuse to see the strings,” the Viddasala chided, shaking her head like she was talking to a child she was disappointed in. “Solas tricked all of us.” He was the one who set everything in motion by pushing a dying Qunari into the Winter Palace in an attempt to lure the Inquisition into opposing them. Without him, she claimed they could have brought the South ‘peace and wisdom’ along the ‘gentle’ path, but now they must take the way of blades.
Trevelyan didn’t get a chance to say what utter bullsh*t that was, the Anchor once more flaring to life so brilliantly that this time he had no chance of helping the way he crumpled to his knees. Bull and Dorian were quick to flank him, brandishing axe and staff in case she or her men tried anything while Trevelyan was downed, but she apparently didn’t find attacking worth her while.
“Panahedan, Inquisitor,” the Viddasala said, turning back toward the eluvian, unimpressed with the way Trevelyan glared up at her while clutching his hand to his chest. “If it is any consolation,” she added, the condescension coming back to her voice as she glanced back over her shoulder one last time, “Solas will not outlive you.” She motioned for her soldiers to follow her, then disappeared through the glowing surface of the mirror.
As soon as she was gone, Dorian crouched next to Trevelyan, sparing the eluvian a solitary glance before turning his attention entirely on his friend. Dorian ran a hand up and down Eoin’s back, softly repeating how it was okay, how he was okay, even if neither of them believed it. Eoin didn’t fight when Dorian and Bull then helped him to his feet as he was still trying to regain himself.
“Damnit, Chuckles. What have you done?” Varric muttered, coming to stand before the Inquisitor. They all started down at the Anchor in Trevelyan’s hand as if it would give them the answer they were looking for.
“Solas is the only one who can help me with my mark,” Trevelyan said, clenching his fist before letting it fall to his side. “We find him before the Viddasala does.” And also… while that was the reasoning he gave to the group, and despite the mess and confusion Solas had created, Solas was once one of them—once Eoin’s friend, he thought—and so it was to them that he would answer as well. Trevelyan wouldn’t leave him for the Viddasala.
The Inquisitor brushed past his companions to head toward the eluvian after the Viddasala—and Solas—without another word on the matter. The others cast wary and worried looks at each other, liking less and less where this was headed, but then they followed after their leader, knowing there was nothing else to be done about it.
They came through the mirror into what seemed to be another elven ruin, overgrown and reminiscent of some of the more lush areas of the Arbor WIlds and Emerald Graves. Up ahead they could see a patrol of Qunari, but before they ever made it near them, the Anchor started to crackle and flicker.
“It’s going to—” The rest of the sentence was lost to the Inquisitor’s pained cry. “Everyone back!” he managed to gasp out.
It was too late. The Anchor went off, worse than it ever had before. While Trevelyan could never stop it from happening, he always felt like he had some semblance of ‘control’ over the discharge, tempering the release, or directing the energy however he could. But not now. The energy arced off of him like sickly green lightning, catching his unsuspecting friends in the blast. Varric managed to dodge out of the way, but the tendrils caught both Bull and Dorian before they had a chance to brace themselves, or in Dorian’s case, attempt to dispel it—If that was even possible.
Bull recovered quicker, trying to shake it off and move on, but Dorian gasped out as the stinging pain lanced through him, feeling almost stunned by it. He knew it must only be a fraction of what Eoin felt each time it happened, and because of that the mage tried to suck it up, but it didn’t mean it hurt any less. But while he couldn’t wave it away with ease like the Iron Bull was capable of, he could reject the profuse apologies that spilled from Trevelyan, even as he was trying to recover from the Anchor’s meltdown himself, shoulders heaving with the deep breaths he sucked in, still half-doubled over.
Dorian approached Trevelyan, ignoring how hesitant he looked at anyone getting too close after the incident. Up close, Dorian confirmed what he couldn’t quite be sure of at his previous distance, and saw that there were, in fact, tears beading at the corner of Eoin’s eyes. He couldn’t be sure how much was from pain and how much was from the overall predicament, and Eoin looked scared in a way that he so rarely did, in a way he’d been trying so hard to hide that entire time. It shattered Dorian’s heart. He took Eoin’s hand in his. No magic, just a comforting squeeze. “Perhaps Solas can help,” he tried to reassure. It was their best hope, their last hope, and they needed to cling to it.
Trevelyan squeezed Dorian’s hand back, giving a determined nod, and as they moved on, he held onto Dorian’s hand for a little longer than strictly necessary before letting his fall away.
The Viddasala seemed to manage to stay just out of their grasp as they tried to chase her down, but while they kept missing her, they did run into bands of her men. And when they did finally catch up to her in the courtyard of an overgrown shrine, it was only long enough for her to order the huge saarebas under her control to attack, abandoning him as she did any of her other men, despite his presence as her shadow—her very large, hulking shadow—most times they saw her, to fight her battles as she hung in the background of the fight. Maybe they could have found some sympathy for the saarebas had he not been actively trying to kill them.
The saarebas put up one tough fight until he just… had enough. Maybe the shock—literally—of getting caught by the Anchor’s blast one too many times was enough to shake something loose, but as the saarebas picked himself up from the ground after the most recent one, and with something between a roar and a wail, he tore the chains from his body in a move that startled both the Inquisition and the Viddasala herself. She went wide eyed, taking an unsteady step back, and then another, looking like she wished she hadn’t hung around to watch the show, because for a moment the saarebas seemed torn between going after her, or continuing his fight against the Inquisitor.
She got lucky. After a few beats where no one dared move, where no one knew what was going to happen, the saarebas let out another guttural cry, raising his arms in the air. Unfettered, it seemed almost too easy for the saarebas to summon a swath of demons to aid him. The Viddasala decided that was her cue to leave, though she did her best not to make it look like retreat, shouting orders at the saarebas even as she quickly dipped back through the eluvian she’d stationed herself at.
“Go!” Dorian cried at Eoin, launching off a spell before tearing his eyes from the demon horde to fix them on his friend instead. “We’ll hold them off.” They needed to stop letting the Viddasala slip away from them, and if that meant Trevelyan going off ahead of them, that’s what they needed to do. Bull, Varric, and him could handle the saarebas and his demons. Or, if it came to it, they should at least be able to buy the Inquisitor the time he needed to get to her, to get to Solas.
Trevelyan hesitated. He didn’t need Dorian to outright say he was willing to sacrifice himself for him for Eoin to understand that’s what the mage meant. His stomach turned and he had to wonder if this was somehow payback for Haven, for being willing to be the one who got left behind if it meant saving everyone else. Because now he’d created a group of those ready to do the same for him.
“Go,” Dorian urged again. They didn’t have time for Eoin to stand there, searching for a reason why he shouldn’t.
Trevelyan looked at Dorian with eyes that plead for him not to have to make that decision, that begged for him to not have to go and face whatever came next alone, but Dorian just gave a nod of his head as one side of his mouth curled up in a small smile, encouraging, letting his friend know it was okay. A quick look between Bull and Varric saw similar sentiment in their expressions and gestures as they spared their leader a moment. They agreed with Dorian. And so as Varric’s arrows found home in a pair of demons, clearing the way to the eluvian for him, the Inquisitor seized his opening.
Any confidence Trevelyan had tried to bolster himself with before stepping through the mirrored surface was sapped from him as he reached the other side. The eluvian sealed itself off behind him. No one was coming for him, and there was no going back for his friends either. The only way to go was forward.
Forward, however, was a way lined with Qunari. The only saving grace was that they were all frozen, statuesque, in stone. If this was Solas’s doing, and the Inquisitor had to assume it was, it was unlike anything he’d seen the elf do before. Though he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at Solas’s power if it turned out he was actually—
Trevelyan’s thoughts were cut off by the sound of voices up ahead, and he hurried on only to stop dead when he officially placed the voice, saw who it belonged to. And for the first time since he’d disappeared those couple of years ago after the fight with Corypheus, too. Trevelyan wished he could be more surprised.
“Your forces have failed,” Solas told the Viddasala flatly. “Leave now, and tell the Qunari to trouble me no further.” He turned to leave, uninterested in her response, and seemingly unaware of Trevelyan’s approach.
The Viddasala refused to be brushed off. With a growl, she took aim with her spear, ready to hurl it at Solas’s departing form, and then in the space of a moment, she was as frozen as the rest, stone-solid from speartip to toe. And without Solas so much as lifting a finger or sparing her a glance.
“Solas.”
That did stop the elf in his tracks, and he slowly turned back to Trevelyan.
Trevelyan wanted to say more—so much more, where to even begin—but the Anchor stole away his ability to form words once more. He tried to keep it together, but try as he might, he crumpled to his knees, jaw clenched, teeth gritted, and still unable to keep the pained noises from escaping as the mark on his hand continued to flare.
Solas strode back toward him, hands clasped behind his back, unhurried. He stopped before the Inquisitor, eyes glowing bright, making the crackle of the Anchor fizzle out, just like that. “That should give us more time,” he said as Trevelyan slowly picked himself up off the ground. “I suspect you have questions.”
--
“They’re back?” Cullen’s head whipped up from the papers in his hands.
“They are,” Josephine confirmed.
Cullen would be lying if he tried claiming he hadn’t been a ball of anxiety since the Inquisitor and his party left for the Crossroads. Eoin was not doing great before he headed out, Dorian’s well-being threatened to consume his thoughts, and while he didn’t think the Iron Bull would turn on them, it was still hard to know where his head was at during the entire conflict with his former people. Plus, if anything happened to Varric, Cullen was pretty sure Hawke would find a way to personally blame and punish him for it.
Luckily—and Cullen said that with many quotes around the word—he had his own duties at the palace to help distract him. There were still reports filtering in from around Thedas of other locations where the Qunari attempted to execute their plot, as well as details of how those affected were handling it and what they were doing to prepare in a worst case scenario. They had their own preparations to attend to in Halamshiral also, which Cullen found himself at the heart of. It helped to at least pull his focus away from the fates of his friends a little, albeit not very well, and not for very long.
“You should know, Commander, there was an… incident—”
Josephine didn’t get any further than that before Cullen was demanding, “Where’s Dorian?” The mage had promised to find him on his return, and maybe he didn’t think Cullen would take that promise so seriously, but he was. Cullen’s anxiety spiked anew, wondering if this is why no one told him sooner that they had returned, if they were trying to brace him for bad news.
“He’s with the healers. Cullen, he’s—”
Cullen wasn’t listening anymore, already dashing off in the direction of what served as the infirmary.
The first thing he noticed when he burst into the room was a very drowsy looking Trevelyan in one of the beds, Cassandra at his side clutching one of his hands in hers. Not that there was any more than one hand to grab, because he was quite distinctly missing his arm from the elbow down on the other side.
Before Cullen had time to process that, Dorian was standing from where he’d been sprawled in his own chair on the other side of Trevelyan’s bed and stepping toward him. Dorian barely got through asking, “Commander, is everything alright?” before Cullen was wrapping his arms around him and pulling Dorian tight against him.
“Maker,” Cullen breathed, pressing his face to Dorian’s shoulder. “I thought—” Thought perhaps he should have let Josephine finish speaking, because he was starting to realize what the ‘situation’ was she was talking about, and while it was still quite the situation, Dorian seemed to have come out of it relatively unscathed in comparison. Relief filled Cullen, enough that when he pulled back, he couldn’t stop himself from taking Dorian’s face in his hands and kissing him soundly. Dorian, to his credit, didn’t hesitate to kiss him back despite how caught off guard he was.
They were distantly aware of someone saying, “Sure, don’t worry about me, I’m perfectly fine over here,” and it had them breaking the kiss.
They were distantly aware of someone making a disgusted noise before droning, “Must you subject me to this again?” and then Cullen smiled sheepishly at Dorian.
One look over at Cassandra and they would have seen cheeks tinged pink and the barely contained twitch of a lip that hinted at a smile, but noticing that would have required them to look away from one another. That would have required Cullen not to lean in and kiss Dorian again.
“So... is this a bad time to ask who won the pool?” Trevelyan asked. “Because I had coin on me.” He raised his bandaged, severed arm. Cassandra punched him in the other.
Cullen blanched. “You told him about—" His hands fell away from Dorian’s face and Dorian expected him to step back, the thrill and spontaneity of their ‘moment’ lost to Trevelyan’s bad joke, but Cullen only settled his hands at Dorian’s waist, and despite his grumbling, the look on Cullen’s face turned to something so fond it made Dorian’s stomach somersault.
“Do you think there’s anything we don’t tell each other about?” Dorian asked for need of something to do with his mouth that wasn’t kiss Cullen senseless right there in front of everyone. He added a quirked eyebrow for good measure, and it had the desired effect of sending a blush spreading across Cullen’s cheeks, even though he tried to scowl through it.
“I don’t believe we’ve talked about this,” Trevelyan said, looking from Cullen to Dorian. If the wince on his face was anything to go off of, the grip Cassandra had on his hand turned too tight at the comment. Cullen and Dorian still took that as their cue to finally break apart, seeing as they hadn’t much talked about ‘this’ yet either.
“You know, I wasn’t serious about the ‘losing a limb’ thing…” Cullen said, eager enough to change the subject that even Dorian’s ill-conceived ‘bet’ and whatever happened to Trevelyn seemed a better topic.
“Clearly we take our bets very seriously around here,” Dorian said, ignoring how unamused that made Cullen look. “But now I think it’s about time we leave our dear Trevelyan to the repercussions of that,” he added, looking to Cassandra, who looked ready to give Eoin a tongue lashing—or some other sort of tongue—now that he was stable, if not still a little woozy from the potions the healers were plying him with.
“So am I to assume our fearless Commander was actually worried about something?” Dorian teased once they were out in the hall, aimlessly walking. “You threw yourself through those doors like you thought Corypheus had returned. Again.”
“Like I thought something happened to you,” Cullen corrected, slowing to a halt and tugging Dorian by the hand to face him. “I may have gotten a little ahead of myself when Lady Montilyet said that you all had returned, but that there’d been an ‘incident,’” Cullen admitted, and in his defense, “You said you’d come find me… Since you hadn’t, I assumed the worst.” Cullen shrugged, feeling the heat spreading across his face all the way to the tips of his ears.
“Oh, amatus.” Dorian softened, not hesitating to close the small distance between them and wrap Cullen in his arms. He wasn’t dense, he saw the concern written on Cullen’s face when he’d come rushing into the infirmary, saw how it turned to relief when he’d pulled Dorian close. “I hadn’t meant to make you worry. I was so caught up in making sure Eoin was okay after Solas stole his damn arm that I—”
“Excuse me?”
“Kaffas, you weren’t kidding about not letting Josephine catch you up, were you.”
Cullen heaved a great sigh. This sounded like it was going to be one long debriefing, but, “I’m sure it can wait a little longer. Trevelyan doesn’t seem like he’s in any position to report at the moment.”
It didn’t mean Cullen’s mind wasn’t racing with the few bits of information he was already starting to gather… Solas wasn’t as lost to them as though. Trevelyan no longer seemed on the brink of a painful death. Dorian still kept calling him ‘amatus’ after all this time—
But as Dorian leaned forward until he could press their foreheads together, it pushed most of those thoughts from his head apart from the last one, and he let his eyes slip closed as he slid his arms around Dorian’s waist. “Will you say it again?” Cullen asked. Dorian pulled back enough to give Cullen a curious look, and Cullen ducked his head, cursing the return of the heat in his cheeks. He had to wonder if Dorian even realized what he’d said, or if he knew how it affected him. “That—that word. That name.”
Dorian caught on quickly enough to what Cullen meant. He brought fingers under Cullen’s chin, lifting his face until Cullen was looking at him once more. “Amatus?” Dorian questioned, like he couldn’t be sure that’s what Cullen was referring to. Like the term fell from his tongue easily, like it wasn’t threatened to be cut off by the way his heart leapt into his throat when he said it.
“Your beloved?”
Dorian near choked. Of course, of course Cullen knew. He could only wonder for how long, and if Cullen thought he was still allowed to call him that, or if he was delusional to ever use it in the first place.
“Yes. Always.”
When Cullen kissed him it was not the desperate, urgent thing that it was earlier. Nor the hesitant thing it was when he came back to Dorian’s room that night. Cullen kissed him like it was the most easy, natural thing in the world, like they hadn’t spent the past two years apart, pretending that this wasn’t exactly what they wanted each moment of every day. And for those few moments with Cullen’s lips on his, his tongue in his mouth, his hand sliding into his hair to cup the back of his head, Dorian did believe they could pick up right where they left off, like none of his reasons for leaving Cullen behind in the first place existed.
“I see you have found Ambassador Pavus whole and hale.”
Josephine’s voice startled them out of something that was becoming increasingly heated. They were starting to make a bad habit of getting caught necking—and then some—in fairly public places. Cullen and Dorian separated from each other, but neither Dorian nor Josephine, hand covering her mouth demurely, were doing a good job of keeping smiles from their faces.
Cullen tried to put on a professional air, asking Josephine, “Is there something I can help you with?” like he wasn’t turning increasingly crimson.
“You’re helping me by both already being here.” Josephine’s mood quickly sobered as she remembered, “There are obvious matters we need to discuss. I understand the Inquisitor is… not at his best at the moment, so we are coming to him, and hoping that the rest of you who were with him can help fill in some of the details. The Iron Bull and Varric on the way, hopefully Leli—Divine Victoria will be right behind, if she can spare a moment.”
Another smile threatened to crack the all-business exterior that Josephine had slipped into as she looked between them once more, but then she excused herself, stepping into the infirmary, but not before instructing them to join her, and soon. Cullen and Dorian decided that was a better idea than letting any of their other friends stumble across them wrapped back up in each other, they didn’t think they’d ever let them live it down.
“I imagine this will keep us until late.” Cullen tried not to grimace as he said it, he could already feel the headache this was sure to bring on. “But when I am through,” he continued, sure that he would be hung up even after they let the Inquisitor rest and dismissed Dorian and the rest of Trevelyan’s companions for the night, “I would like to come find you, if that’d be alright.”
Dorian tugged Cullen in by his sleeve and brushed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll wait up.” He was already exhausted and thought it was safe to assume that Cullen ‘coming to find him’ meant little more than falling into bed with each other to sleep, but any time he could spend with Cullen was worthwhile.
--
‘I suspect you have questions.’
That’s how Solas had chosen to put it. His expression had softened into the picture of sympathy, his head tilting to the side, brow furrowing, looking for all the world like the caring person that Eoin had called a friend. Eoin felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He felt like punching Solas.
In the immediate aftermath of everything, all Trevelyan had been able to focus on was the fact they’d stopped the Qunari plot, and that somehow all of them, including himself, had made it out alive. The healers’ potions also played a role in making everything else fade further into the background. But now that he was required to recount what happened when he’d confronted Solas for the others, it brought the sting of Solas’s betrayal back to the surface, clear and sharp.
Before his advisors and his companions, Trevelyan had to decide what was necessary information, and what he could save himself the hurt of speaking allowed, or what made him look pitiful, grasping at threads of a friendship he could no longer be sure existed in the first place.
They didn’t need to know that, lost as to where to start with those questions Solas ‘supposed’ he had, Trevelyan was sure he’d looked so pathetic as he meekly said that the Qunari wanted to kill Solas, or how his insistence on getting to him first was for more than the hope that Solas would be able to help with his hand. Not that Solas seemed to need any help from him against the Qunari, the effortlessly created statue garden he’d weaved through to get to Solas proving as much.
Instead, Trevelyan told them how Solas knew the Qunari were seeking him out as a supposed agent of Fen’Harel, but that he was no one’s agent but his own. He was Fen’Harel. Trevelyan was the one to say it aloud, matter of factly, and Solas had simply given a solemn nod in response. The elf also said how ‘Solas’ came first, that same soft sympathy on his face, like he actually felt bad for having kept it from Eoin for the extent of their time together and still wanted Eoin to think of him that way. It twisted Trevelyan’s stomach into even more knots.
Fen’Harel—the Dread Wolf—came later. Solas said it was a title not unlike ‘the Inquisitor,’ one that all but replaces a name, one that inspired hope in friends and fear in enemies. He said that Eoin should know all about that.
Unsure if he liked the comparison, Trevelyan had changed the subject. Solas actually looked a little impressed when Trevelyan asked if that’s why he could control the anchor the way he did when it had flared earlier, and the elf gave another nod. The mark came from the Orb of Fen’Harel, or in other words, his orb. It’s the same reason he was able to keep it under control and keep Trevelyan alive back at Haven.
They ended up conversing for a while, longer than expected, before ever getting to a ‘why,’ why Solas was doing this—whatever ‘this’ was exactly. Trevelyan had seen and learned much during his time traversing the Crossroads, such as the truth of the legends of the ancient elven gods and of Fen’Harel. Solas claimed that the way the stories depicted him made him out to be more than he was, gave him more credit than he deserved. He said all he wanted to do was free his people from slavery, and so when the would-be gods went too far, he formed the Veil to banish them forever. He succeeded in the task, but only by destroying the elven people’s world as they knew it in the process. That didn’t sound very ‘heroic,’ as some would claim him to be, to him.
Trevelyan didn’t want to feel sympathy for Solas. He wanted to scream in his face about not trusting him. He wanted to call him a liar. He wanted to fight him. But Trevelyan couldn’t stop thinking about all that Solas must have seen, endured. By the way Solas explained it, the creation of the Veil took everything from the elves, from their home to their immortal lives, because such things were intrinsically tied to the presence of the Fade. But the alternative was letting the Evanuris destroy the entire world. Trevelyan couldn’t even imagine, and it tugged at his heart, still far too soft even at a time like that.
There was more to their conversation that Trevelyan would later detail or put down in his own written report of events, like how Corypheus factored into everything that’d happened, what made Solas learn of the Qunari plot and therefore turn the Inquisition on to it, and what his plan was had the Anchor not gone to Trevelyan by mistake, but talk of broken worlds brought them to the crux of their conversation. Apparently, Trevelyan needed to start imagining those same types of atrocities, because as long as hope of restoration still remained, Solas said, he would save the elven people—even if meant destroying the current world.
When Trevelyan relayed that at their meeting, the others in attendance cast varied looks around, wary and worried, cross and confused. And they had the same question the Eoin had asked of Solas, as to why their world had to die for the elves to return.
Solas was no help when it came to an answer, and not because of the usual way he was cryptic and prone to circumventing straight answers. He said that it was a good question, but not one that he was going to answer, plain as that. Again he complimented Eoin, saying he’d always shown a thoughtfulness that Solas respected, and because of that it would be too easy to tell Trevelyan too much. The reasoning was Solas’s own to carry, and all Trevelyan needed to know was that he took no joy in it, but the return of his people required the end of theirs. Trevelyan tried to insist that whatever it was Solas wanted, that surely wasn’t the answer to it, and all Solas could say was an admittance that it wasn’t a good answer, but sometimes terrible choices were all that remained.
He’d given a shake of his head then, saying how that was his fight, and how Trevelyan should be more concerned about the Inquisition. In stopping the Dragon’s Breath plan, he’d prevented a Qunari invasion. With luck, Solas said, the Qunari would turn their sights back on Tevinter, and that should buy a few years of relative peace. As if that could possibly be enough.
Trevelyan struggled to reconcile the person he’d thought Solas to be with the one that stood before him then. It’s what had him actually asking if Solas would truly murder countless people to reach his goal, and he was more than a little appalled at the easy way Solas questioned, “Wouldn’t you, to save your own?” in return, like it really was such a simple matter.
Sensing Trevelyan’s apprehension, Solas went on to say how Eoin had to understand, after multiple millennia of unconsciousness, he’d woken into a world where the Veil had blocked most people’s conscious connection to the Fade, feeling like he was walking through a world of Tranquil. Solas couldn’t abide by it.
Trevelyan accused Solas of making it sound like they weren’t even people to him, trying not to sound too bitter and upset as he said how it felt like the elf never cared about any of them outside of being a means to an end. Solas admitted that at first, Eoin was right in his assessment, but that he’d shown the elf to be wrong. He had a habit of that, and of constantly taking Solas by surprise. Solas said that if anything, that only made what was to come that much harder. Eoin didn’t think that hearing he was right made him feel any better.
One thing remained for them to speak on, though, and Trevelyan finally circled back to the ‘reason’ he needed Solas in the first place. There was still the matter of the Anchor, it was still getting worse. Solas nodded his understanding, and as if on cue, the mark flared to life. Solas did nothing but watch as Eoin once more ended up on his knees, clutching at his hand, biting back as many of his pained grunts as he could.
Then, seemingly in no rush, Solas had crouched before Trevelyan. The mark would eventually kill him, the elf said, watching the Anchor continue to flare. As if Trevelyan hadn’t already gathered as much. But Solas said that in drawing him there, it gave him a chance to save Eoin—at least for the time being. If that were the case, Trevelyan didn’t understand why Solas didn’t do something instead of simply observing him like a curiosity.
He didn’t know he was moments away from regretting those thoughts.
“We’ve run out of time,” Solas had said regretfully, his expression crumpling back into the one he’d first worn at the beginning of their conversation.
“So you’re going to destroy this world,” Trevelyan summarized, forcing the words through gritted teeth, pretending the Anchor wasn’t glowing and crackling between them. If that was to be it, he’d wanted to at least make sure he’d gotten the ‘plan’ straight.
“Not happily.”
“I’ll have to stop you,” Trevelyan said. “I’ll prove to you that you don’t have to.” Ever the optimist, he had to believe there was a path besides one of such destruction.
“I know you will try.” A flicker of a smile had come to Solas’s lips. “I would treasure the chance to be wrong once again, my friend.”
“For whatever it’s worth, thanks for the castle.” Trevelyan tried to mirror the smile, even as his heart was breaking.
“For whatever it’s worth, you used it well.” Solas stood then, extending a hand down to Eoin, instructing him to take it. “I’m sorry,” he’d said, and then the Anchor burned even brighter, forcing Trevelyan to squeeze his eyes shut against the brilliant light and blinding pain.
Eoin could feel Solas’s hand slip from his, could hear him saying, “Live well, while time remains,” but by time he managed to open his eyes again, Solas was gone—as was the lower half of his arm.
Everything after that was much of a blur until winding up in a bed back at the Winter Palace.
--
By the time Cullen found himself outside of Dorian’s door, he no longer knew if he should even knock, thinking that Dorian might be asleep after the apparently very long day he’d had. Eoin, Bull, Varric and him had ended up giving a fairly thorough detail of everything that had occurred since stepping back into the Crossroads, and it sounded like even before Eoin’s encounter with Solas, they’d been through far more than their fair share of complications.
But he did knock, and he did hear shuffling shortly after before Dorian was pulling open the door. Cullen immediately reached out and cupped the side of Dorian’s face, running a thumb over one of the dark circles under his eyes. “I woke you.” There was no question behind it, it was an obvious conclusion, and who could blame Dorian for the truth of it.
“I admit I may have been drifting,” Dorian confessed, concealing a yawn, but he waved it away before Cullen could try to apologize, then he covered Cullen’s hand with his own and turned his head to place a kiss to the palm that had been against his cheek. “I told you I would wait up. It’s nothing.” It’d been fitful dozing at best anyway, the events of the day taking a toll on more than just his body.
Dorian pulled Cullen into the room and shut the door, shut out the rest of the world. Nothing but them and what happened in the confines of that room got to matter for the rest of the night.
He immediately retired to the bed, and after shedding a few layers, Cullen was right behind him, pulling the mage against him. Dorian settled against Cullen, head on his chest, trying to find something to say, but after everything that’d happened, not just that day, but since coming to Halamshiral—or maybe even before that, if he was honest—no words seemed sufficient, and all words seemed to much to manage. So he stayed quiet. A rare thing for Dorian.
It was Cullen who eventually spoke, pressing his lips to Dorian’s hair and quietly murmuring, “Thank you for coming back to me.” Years later, and he was still holding Dorian to that promise. It made Dorian suck in a shaky breath, and then without him giving his body permission to do so, his shoulders started to shake, and Dorian found himself crying into Cullen’s chest.
