Chapter Text
Pain didn’t matter. Survivability did. Heal that which will kill him or leave him overly vulnerable to his enemy and allow the rest to remain until the battlefield is quiet and little more than a graveyard soaked with blood.
As the hours fighting the archdemon went on, his standards changed. What would kill him immediately became the only factor as his energy waned. The torn ligaments in his leg? Yes, it would slow him down, leaving him vulnerable to Lusacan but less so than if mana fatigue forcefully shifted him back into his Elven form.
Now, the dragon dead, he takes stock of his injuries while Rook and her companions wage battle against a depleted ancient mage king. Brain bleed - that he repairs, calling for the aid of a spirit of Endurance hovering just beyond the veil; one of many friends he’d asked to watch over Iris when the shift came.
She must be in Minrathous as he had feared, he realizes, as his friend’s power allows him to focus on the bleed; a consequence of a hit to the back of his head that fractured his skull, healing it and ensuring he survives long enough for his duty to obliterate him.
The punctured lung he leaves after removing the built-up air in his chest cavity with Endurance’s help. For now, he breathes easier. Soon he will not need to breathe at all.
His heart aches. Iris will see his body once the world is changed. Will she mourn him? Or will she, in her fury, push his body off the edge of this palace?
It matters not. The fight rages. His body throbs and aches, and he remains still, resting as best he can. How long does the fight rage? An hour? Two hours?
Elgar’nan falls to his knees with a thud that shakes the floor and he looks up to see the man’s wrists secured by ropes of energy controlled by Professor Volkarin. Davrin’s griffon hovers overhead and the man stands at Elgar’nan’s flank, sword at the ready, as if an ordinary blade could make a mortal blow against a man so overtaken by the blight. Rook wields his dagger and faces her enemy.
“A free fuckin’ woman slaughters a false god today,” Rook shouts, taking off into a sprint towards Elgar’nan, dodging a blow from the man when the spirit bindings fail and slits his throat. “My name is Rook Laidir and I’m no one’s fucking slave anymore,” she says before slicing through Elgar’nan’s throat once more.
A woman freed from the bindings of slavery slaughtered the All-Father. Varric hadn’t intended to weave such poetry with his choice in agent, but the man chose well and he cannot help but feel a swell of pride for the woman, knowing that, in moments, Rook will curse him once more.
The built up energy in Elgar’nan’s red lyrium dagger causes an explosion that hits Rook and her friends, but his own barrier protects him, freeing him to collect his dagger and ease the shift as the veil comes down.
Then, he can die.
***
Numb. His mind is numb, and for a moment he wonders if stepping through the rift after binding himself to the veil somehow made him tranquil. His feelings are muted as he strips out of his clothes with Iris’ help.
There’s tears in her eyes once she sees the extent of the damage hidden by his armour and clothing. It won’t kill him; he lacks the energy to heal it while conscious, but uthenera beckons and from there, his body will recover.
Iris sets down a white sheet atop the bed she summoned, helps him lie down and he winces as his fractured skull hits the pillow. Blood and archdemon viscera quickly stain the white sheet and contaminated water droplets move down his battered chest and abdomen. She says little as she works but she sniffles, suggesting she’s struggling to contain her tears.
He told her he would live. Why is she so upset?
She changes out the sheet, tossing the filthy one on the ground and setting it alight with a flicker of her finger, the stench of burning blight making his eyes water. She sits him up long enough to replace the sheet and his head aches again as it hits the pillow.
Now, the water that drips down his body is merely stained red with his blood. A relief, yet Iris still sniffles, cursing herself for not thinking to pack healing potions and herbs.
“I was not supposed to live,” he mumbles and Iris whimpers.
“I do not like the sound of your breathing,” Iris says instead of confronting him over his declaration. Whether her silence on the matter is for her sake or his is a mystery.
“Punctured lung. I will heal,” he says, the slash wound on his chest stinging as Iris washes away the blood with a fresh washcloth. Sleep beckons all the more. He takes in another wheezing breath and attempts to heal the puncture, only for his efforts to be stymied by a sharp pain in his head warning of mana fatigue.
He needs uthenera.
Content that his body is as clean as she can make it, Iris summons a towel and dries him off, the white towel coming away stained red with his lingering blood. She tosses it aside. Holds his hand. He closes his eyes.
He sleeps.
***
Away from his physical body, his consciousness is minimal. Too exhausted to explore the Fade, he simply exists, willing the energies of the Fade to tend to his ruined body while he floats, in and out of awareness, in a world painted white, reminding him of existence before the dwarves. Before titans.
Before anything at all.
No pain in this form. Nothing but the vast expanse of emptiness. Soon, he will need to wake and face the agony that awaits him, physical and emotional, but for now he allows even this slight hint of awareness to leave him, and he becomes nothing.
When next he’s aware, a translucent young man floats beside him, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that covers his blonde hair. “Too exhausted to heal. I must sleep. The nothing is a reprieve. Why did you take your original shape, Solas?”
Not realizing his form is different, he looks down, finding golden branches of energy where once would have been a torso and legs. “Instinct, I suppose,” he says, his voice softer than it has been since…
Since before he locked himself in the shackle that is physical form.
“Iris tends to your body while you sleep. Sometimes she cries but I can’t get to her. It’s the Fade but the boundaries are unmoving. Real. Why are they real, Solas?”
“It was designed to be a prison for my enemies.”
“‘I won’t let it remain a prison’. You should let Iris help you. She wants to help.”
Years have passed since the last time Cole and he spoke. It had been in his dreams following an ill-advised visit to Iris’ dream that had allowed him to pull her from a nightmare where she was confronting his death. Troubled, Cole found him and told him he didn’t have to die.
He’d banished him from his dreams and Cole never returned. Until now. “Iris deserves better.”
“It annoys her when people say that. She wants you.”
Exhausted, he doesn’t have it in him to fight Cole on the matter and Cole remains by his side, a silent presence while he allows the Fade to heal his broken body.
***
When next he’s aware in the Fade, he’s in his physical form once more, though it is transparent. Cole’s own body is opaque. “Good. The hurts are mending. The Fade answered Iris’ call for elfroot so now she is helping. She cried when your breathing cleared but it wasn’t sorrow. Solace in Solas. You should wake up for her soon. She’s afraid she’s forgotten the violet of your eyes.”
“In time,” he says, staring out into the distance. Here, he can avoid confronting all that’s happened and simply exist. For a little while longer his body will endure the weight of the veil as an empty vessel.
Cole reaches and grasps the sleeve of his tunic and he’s surprised to find that he managed to turn his translucent form opaque. “The hurt won’t heal until you confront it.”
“There are others who need you more than I. Go and tend to Iris.”
“I cannot reach her,” Cole says emphatically. “The walls are too real.”
“What do I say to her?” he asks quietly, shamed. Once, he could simply exist in her presence, content in a way he once thought impossible. Now, he fears what she’ll say to him when he wakes. Will she regret her decision to join him, now that she’s faced the realities of the prison? Perhaps he can help her escape - she was mortal and has fewer regrets so if he just helps her accept them…
“She won’t leave.” Cole’s speech speeds up, tripping over his words as if lost in memory. “An epiphany on a beach in Rivain. Sun high in the sky. ‘Thedas will never accept him so I will walk in a world that will.’”
Rivain. Agents told him that Iris and Dorian met the Iron Bull in Rivain and rented a cabin on the beach. That had been… perhaps a year after he removed the anchor, saving her life. That long she’s planned this? How could she forgive him so easily? Why? What did he do to deserve her kindness and grace?
He trembles, shivering as if he wandered through a blizzard without a coat. “She’ll grow to regret her decision and I must help her escape when that time comes.”
“Open your eyes and you will see.”
Willing his form to return to his body, he feels the heavy ache of bruises across his entire body as consciousness returns. His leg throbs, as does his head and, with effort, he opens his eyes to find his body warmed by two blankets summoned by Iris. Against the wall are pots containing fully grown elfroot plants and sitting on a chair is a mortar and pestle. Lifting his head sends shooting pain through his head and he groans, drawing Iris’ attention, who abandons her plants to tend to him, resting her hand on his back and supporting him as he sits up.
Though the action sends another jolt of pain through his eyes, he reaches for Iris with his magic, determining that her presence in the raw Fade has allowed her to develop the once-inherent connection to the Fade that ensured his people lived eternal lives. No more will his beloved age and he need no longer fear losing her to time. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his chest aching but his spirit light at the realization that she found her way to the gift he feared he could not give her when he decided to stay his hand.
As they speak, the pull on his mana becomes even more apparent, limiting his ability to tend to his lingering injuries, and his eyelids grow heavy, as if he’s gone days without rest instead of mere minutes.
She sleeps with him. She will be here when he wakes once more.
***
Every day Iris washes off the dried elfroot paste of the previous day and reapplies it, despite him telling her that he is in no danger of infection here in the Fade and that he’s healing his wounds as rapidly as he can.
“Then accept the pain relief offered by the paste,” Iris retorts while the bitter stench of the elfroot hits his nostrils as Iris washes his body.
How long has it been since someone washed his wounded body? Certainly before he erected the veil, but was it before his rebellion? Had he taken wounds this severe so as to require the extended care and attention of a healer? Or had it last been his escape from Solasan after a decade imprisoned in chains, leaving him near-dead and in the care of Felassan, who just happened to be in the area?
He accepts Iris’ care. Not because he requires it but because it will make Iris feel better to care for him. As gently as she can, Iris spreads the elfroot paste, first on the wound at the side of his neck, and then down the gash spanning his torso, the sting of her touch making way for a cooling numbness thanks to the elfroot. He lets out a breath.
“I know that must feel a lot better,” Iris says, her tone gentle. More gentle than he deserves after all he’s done.
“It is manageable,” he mumbles. Iris whimpers again.
Conversation occurs over minutes and not hours and still he sleeps much of the day, finding his sustenance from the energies of the Fade, just as Iris taught herself how to do.
She has eternal life and chooses to spend it with him. A revelation that makes him feel as if he must weep with both joy and shame for allowing her to come to this place with him.
Her choice. It was her choice. He respects her choice.
He didn’t always.
Iris presses her lips to his own once she’s finished covering his wounds with a fresh layer of elfroot. “Whatever torments you so, let it wash away. Focus on recovering because nothing else matters.”
Untrue. Her lips leave his too soon and he whimpers at the loss, lifting his aching body, with effort, to capture her lips again. She smiles as their lips meet, running her tongue over his bottom lip, an invitation to deepen the kiss. The first she’s done so. He meets her tongue with his own and lifts his hand, with effort, so he can cup her face.
His heart races. His lungs burn. His head spins.
Iris breaks the kiss and cups his own face, helping him back down to the pillow. He has the presence of mind to kiss her palm before she breaks contact with his face. “You need rest.” She grabs a pillow and places it under his injured leg, though even that motion makes him wince in pain.
“How many days?”
He hasn’t tried standing yet. Has he?
“Five, as far as I can tell. You slept the first three days.”
“I should go for a walk.” Vaguely, he recalls healers insisting he walk even when each step was agony so intense it left him dizzy and out of breath, telling him that activity speeds recovery.
Evidently that is wisdom lost to the ages.
“Tomorrow, if you take it easy today and promise not to put weight on your injured leg when I help you up,” Iris finally says.
Imagine, being excited at the prospect of walking. How embarrassing his condition is.
“Were you wounded in the fighting?” How it shames him that he only thinks to ask this now.
“Strained muscles and a few bruises but I avoided anything serious. Most of my fighting during the blight took place in war room strategy sessions.”
Iris hates politicking and preferred to be out in the field, so he can only imagine how it frustrated her to be stuck behind a table while the South was overrun by darkspawn and Venatori.
Soon, he’s asleep once more and, if Cole visits, he cannot recall.