Solas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goethbeforethefall) wrote2025-12-01 04:41 pm
goethbeforethefall) wrote2025-12-01 04:41 pm
Inbox // IC Communication
This is the Inbox/IC Communication post for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
caldera
This is the In-Character Inbox for Solas.
Please reply below, and he will respond in due time.
If you are looking for the consultation service then you may find it here
calderaPlease reply below, and he will respond in due time.
If you are looking for the consultation service then you may find it here
no subject
In the Fade, their feet not cold in snow that does not exist. Her teasing voice, the simple upwell of gladness at her touch, an unthinking joy.
A moment of silent companionship, moving through damp grass, touching without sight, a doom ahead, as yet untouched. In love.
The fierce, righteous happiness of vengeance, of putting the world to rights in fury and fire, despite the grief, wholly one within himself, in the brief moment before it all twists to blackness, a pin struck— ping! against the world.
A teasing word, challenging another to a chess-match, and hearing with a thrill of satisfaction his acquiescence.
But had any of it been himself? Who was he, at the core of it? He had been Solas. But not... not himself. Not fully, not truly. Or was his true self that wretched, weeping creature he had become, broken and bleeding, confronted by the horror of the past, witnessed by a ring of enemies and those for whom he most wanted to show a face that was not streaked by indignity? He had never craved more, for it all to be undone, for it all to wash away and leave him clean, as once he was and would never be again.
"I don't know," He groans, finally the game's rules reasserting themselves even as he begins to regret their entanglement. Solas isn't having as much fun, anymore— though the slowly building physical pleasure is a strange counterpoint, goad and balm all held in one hand. Ha.
"I don't know."
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But he can't be surprised that it isn't so easy as that. To ask Solas of himself instead of the wider world, generalizations and philosophies, was a gamble at best. A misstep at worst. Solas hasn't moved away from him, though, so that's all right. In fact:
"Then I believe I win," Felassan says into his back, and he turns him around, with gentle insistence at his shoulder and his hip, so Solas can see that how Felassan looks at him. It's not devoid of gloating, this look, but it's a smaller part than the concern and apology and adoration and (separate from the adoration, more clear-eyed than starry) love.
The other part of the game is still in effect, though. The part where Solas is at his mercy. Felassan moves one of Solas's hands back to the frame of the wardrobe, behind him now, and he trusts him to place the other where it belongs on his own and to let himself be kissed on his mouth and neck and collar bone, while Felassan tries to make up for the misstep with firmer grip and faster stroke and only a little teasing.
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Felassan is not disappointed in him, and he does not leave Solas with a laugh and a huff, or a thrown pebble, or a taunt. He stays, and stays closer, and Solas forgets entirely when he meant to do with his hands until Felassan, gently, reminds him.
He is too busy chasing kisses, and succumbing with a groan to the increased pressure, and pace. It is torture, sweet and simple and poignant, and it is not very long at all before Solas comes with a soft, gut-wreched gasp, spilling over Felassan's fingers and more. Perhaps it is all to the good that they have not found reason yet to line the stone floor with rugs, for winter.
Solas forgets his hands again, and long fingers thread through Felassan's hair, cradling his jaw and ears so that Solas can kiss him again and again, slow and fervent and loving. A soft, dark, hedonistic moment between them, with the pleasure of victory and defeat, of sex, of the old game made new and lovely, still humming between them.
"You have devised a new way to play this game," he notes, quietly. Outside, there is a bird at the fountain, calling to its fellows, and the slow-rising smell of cinnamon and warm oats is spreading across the courtyard. Home. Family, "I find it difficult to regret that I failed to satisfy your curiosity."
There is time.
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"Next time," he promises and challenges, just as quietly, once there's space between them to say it into. Though the gleaming edges of his smugness have been blunted by the affection, that's not enough to keep him from looking Solas in the eye while he sucks the side of his finger clean.
A fraction of the little mess they've made. For the rest, a still-damp towel from the rim of the bathtub, first handed to Solas and then tossed down so Felassan can wipe the floor with it beneath his foot. He insists on helping to tighten the laces he undid, batting hands away if he has to, and waits until Solas has that much of his dignity returned to say, "I didn't intend for that last one to hurt."
He'd already been fighting dirty enough.
"Will you tell me about it?"
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He cannot remember, and must reconstruct the idea from a memory of likely possibilities; the constructs and helper-spirits at his Uthernara site, perhaps? It hardly matters, not as Felassan's tender care matters.
"I... My reception from the Dalish was very nearly the end of my life. I was a week in feverish recovery, and avoided all forms of civilization thereafter, unless it suited a specific need, or a necessary purpose," Solas shakes his head, well aware of the foolishness of this attitude. But it was true also: he had no desire to die, and no one upon whom he could rely. Without even the Eluvian network to aid with travel, he had been restricted to the lonely, dangerous path of a man, traveling alone, "When my own foolishness backfired, and the Breach was made, I joined the refugees at Haven, and offered my services as an apostate volunteer, who had learned much from the Fade, and who knew the Veil's nature better than most."
All of which was true, of course. And all he ever need do afterward was tell easy lies, mostly of omission, and they handily imagined that which might plausibly fill the gap. Why, and how, could anyone have ever guessed the truth, after all? It would be insanity itself to imagine, and nearly blasphemy to express. And so, Solas had been safe, for a small time.
"They did not learn who I truly was until years later, when I had left them, left her, and... Not unjustifiably, they resented the betrayal. Whatever friendships I had, whatever joy I had won during that journey together, I spoilt. It was not all a lie, but it was enough of one— even to myself. So I was not truly myself, for any of it. And the rest was... misery," He hesitates, nearly says something about the Revenants, and then shakes his head again. No, it was humiliation enough, and Solas sighs, bending slightly forward to sway against Felassan and borrow his balance, and some measure of warmth, or comfort, or simple assurance of his nearness, "...And yet, for a time, when I lived as a lie, I was happy. So there is no satisfactory answer to your question."
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"I never told Briala who I was or what I working toward," he says. "I left her believing I was returning to my clan somewhere. It was still me, though, truly, when I was telling her what she could have and teaching her to fight for it."
A lie doesn't spoil everything — but Felassan has always been the better liar, hasn't he? Or no. Not better. The so-called God of Lies can fool even Felassan when he decides it's necessary. Felassan can't say the same. But he's always been more willing, more prolific, and more inventive than Solas, with his reluctant, careful omissions and double meanings.
It makes sense. The part of him that will always want to see people choose wisely and to help them do it can never be compatible with pulling wool over their eyes.
Felassan reaches up to his face, thumb to his cheekbone.
"Beleth doesn't resent you."
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Solas opens his mouth to continue, and then cannot imagine what else there is to say. Of course Beleth's heart had mended, for the most part, and she had forgiven him all of it and more. Of course her resentment had died young, and all was now well between them, or as well as it could yet be. She does not resent him. But she had.
And the others, save perhaps Cole, would not be nearly so understanding; of that much, he was very sure.
"Perhaps the moment you ask for is yet to come, then. And you shall yourself be part of it. Is that not enough?"
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He decides: "If it's enough for you."
For now.
His eyes and his hand drop away from Solas's face, but he stays close. Solas asks him for so little, anymore, and asks so carefully when he does. That sway was a request of a kind, so Felassan will be here until Solas shifts away. One arm around him. The other finds by memory the place where, beneath his clothes, there's a likely candidate for Dalish-inflicted scar.
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...and so frequently his attempts to be just that have been the path to cruelty and ruination itself, and Felassan so often the witness. But Felassan allows the silence between them, and allows Solas to find some sense of balance and ease in the strength of his arms, the near weight of breath and the still-warm afterglow of pleasure that had been pulled from him. It cannot last, of course, Beleth is waiting for them and that pleasure too is a living flame in his breast, but Solas is content to wait, just a moment or two more. And then to sigh a little breathy scoff of recognition, when he feels Felassan's idly questing hands.
"I am learning," he says at last, "To be content with less. And to ask for less with which to content myself."
A man who once dreamed he might save the world could do worse than to learn humility. But there is mourning in that too: for all the pain he might have spared, the lives prolonged, the grief forestalled. But it is folly, and would only lead to worse ruin, if he continued to try and better the world, except in the smaller ways that are still permitted to him.
In some ways that is a greater freedom than Solas has ever known, to be shackled out-of-reach from his dreamed-of futures. In others, to be chained thus is agony. As usual, he can blame no-one but himself for the strange duality of it all. But at least he is not alone.
"Do you have one last question, then? Vhenan will be calling us to breakfast, any moment."
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What hurt worse, the Dalish arrow or the rejection? How long was he alone? What was it like, to wake again after so long? What was the first thing he saw when he emerged? What was the first thing that made him smile? Was it difficult to learn to eat again? Did the air taste different? So many things changed so slowly that Felassan could only notice in hindsight that the entire biome was shifting. How much can the world change and still be where they’re from? What does it make them if it isn’t anymore? What did Solas think the first time he saw Beleth awake, with her bright keen eyes and steady-handed courage, wielding his magic? When did he truly understand what she was? When did he understand the unfamiliar world was still alive? How long did he stay angry with Felassan? Is he still, even a little? Would he ever have told her about him? If Solas and Beleth return to Thedas without him and Beleth remembers this as a dream or not at all will he please tell her— Which of the legends they tell now was the hardest to hear? Does their history still belong to them or do they owe it to their descendants to cede it to their interpretation? Does the truth matter for its own sake or only for its effect? Is it better to have all their cruel and bloody wars reduced to pretty metaphors? Does Solas understand how beautiful he is? If Felassan had tried to touch him before, when Mythal was alive, when Mythal was newly dead, would he really have wanted it? Would it have helped or only been a new broken layer to a broken thing? Is that what it is now? Is it mending? Does it matter? Does he like his own freckles? Is it really less, to learn to be content with this life?
— they have time. Felassan kisses his shoulder as he shakes his head, feeling some small pang of guilt for getting so carried away with Beleth just across the garden. She might have enjoyed joining the game. Next time, perhaps. In the meantime they should go.
But ah, there’s one.
“If we hurry,” he says, “do you think she’ll tolerate us messing up her makeup a little?”
no subject
He too is so often preoccupied by the same: Beleth, and her many moods, each one its own form of delight.
"I believe so," He says, "But let us go, and find out."