Chapter Text

It was the first time she exercised authority as the “Herald,” the first time she took a chance, made a major decision on the fly, and refused to apologize or back down.

She made friends and enemies in one instant when she declared the mages would be the Inquisition’s full allies. In the moment, it seemed remarkably straight forward. It was the correct decision. She could no more make slaves of the mages, shemlen though they may be, than she could make slaves of her own people. Magic was too precious to be boarded up in prisons, a mage’s mind too sacred to risk being brutalized by the Rite of Tranquility. The choice had been as clear as the sun.

Many of her companions, however, disagreed. There were not words for how sullen Vivienne was about the new state of affairs. No sooner than the mages arrived than she was off talking about training new Templars. Her face when Lavellan flatly refused…

“Mages are perfectly capable of policing mages, Madame de Fer,” she said coldly. The fury it must have raised in the woman to be talked down to by a knife ear a decade younger. It secretly delighted Lavellan. “Despite what Templars would have us believe, we are quite capable of detecting possession in others.”

When the woman protested that death was the only solution to an abomination, Lavellan cut her off. Dominating the conversation felt oddly easy, as if speaking were her birthright. “Is that so, ‘First Enchanter’? Because I believe I have a man named Connor you should meet. Or perhaps you could just ask Leliana? I believe she was there. And that was done by… oh, yes, mages. Odd, that.”

Cassandra was upset, of course, but unlike Vivienne, respected the Herald’s decision, much to Lavellan’s bewilderment. She’d thought Cassandra would be first in line behind Vivienne to tear her a new one. But the Seeker was more focused on the actual goal: getting the mages’ assistance. Lavellan succeeded. The rest, it seemed, was a pittance. Lavellan could appreciate that viewpoint, even while dodging sullen glares from Cullen.

To her delight, however, the people whose opinions mattered either didn’t care or were actively pleased. Oh sure, Sera was whining and ringing her hands about magic, as she was wont to do, but there was no opinion in the Inquistion that mattered less when it came to magic. Lavellan also suspected that her decision might be part of why her new Tevinter ally chose to stay. But Leliana was pleased (and she one of the only people whose opinion one way or the other might change Lavellan’s mind, out of fear if nothing else), and Solas was pleased.

Oh, yes, Solas was pleased. It practically glowed from him on the ride back from Recliffe; a great comfort to her after her ordeal. He smiled at her, and he called her lethallin, once. The sound made her heart soar, dissipated her quiet longing for familiar, Dalish faces. She was someone’s lethallin again. With a lethallin, she could feel a little bit like she actually belonged.

And the distraction was good, because as it turned out, being thrust repeatedly through time had ill effects on a person, both physically and, in her case, mentally. Both she and Dorian were on the queasy side. The older shemlen mage seemed hardened by the things they’d seen, determined. Corypheus must be stopped, he’d said, as if it was his new Ultimate Truth. He was not wrong, but she suspected her own newfound vitriol was for reasons apart from his.

She had watched Solas, Blackwall, and Leliana die.

They were strangers to Dorian. The horror of seeing people killed was muted by the horror of seeing red lyrium physically growing out of a living person. But death in general was a newer concept to Lavellan. She’d killed her first man after the Conclave, although that was her dirty little secret. Demons and beasts she could slaughter without pause, but humans still disturbed her in some ways. And she’d yet to kill an elf.

Seeing the broken, bloody bodies of people, real people, people she knew, people who were only there because of her…

She felt the bile rise in her throat just in time to lean off the horse she was riding, expelling the contents of her writhing guts onto the pathway. The trail of horses slowed slightly as those behind her abruptly stopped, and those in front slowed to see what was happening. She swayed, dizziness threatening to overtake her again, nearly falling off her horse.

Solas was beside her, on a horse of his own, steadying her in the saddle.

“Easy, lethallin.”

Lethallin. If words could heal wounds, that was the word, and he was the person to say it. She leaned up against him; he was as a rock, something to cling to in storm tossed waters of nausea and pain. Her head, slowly, began to clear. She became aware of several worried faces watching her.

“Ir abelas… I mean, sorry,” she said, correcting herself. Unlike Solas, she made an effort not to speak elven to her shemlen friends, lest she confuse them or come across as arrogant. Too elfy, Sera would say. She disliked Sera, but the elven lass was a good measure for what the shemlens were thinking, but not saying. “I’m just a little dizzy.”

“You almost fell off your horse. Again.” Blackwall’s voice was firm, but concerned.

“Dorian actually fell off his horse,” she pointed out. It was a flimsy defense. It almost worked in the opposite direction.

“Which is why we tied him to the saddle.”

“Which I don’t appreciate by the way,” came Dorian’s delightfully accented voice. “I look ridiculous.”

“You looked more ridiculous falling off of a horse,” Blackwall replied.

“I’m not going to be tied to a horse,” Lavellan said firmly. “Dorian does look ridiculous.”

“Thanks ever so much.”

Solas let out a sigh, which she barely noticed over the bickering. She paid him no mind until she felt two firm hands on her waist, and before she could turn to look, she was being lifted and dragged off of her own mount and onto Solas’. She protested, loudly, although even if she’d possessed the energy to fight back, she wouldn’t have, lest she risk hurting either of them, or the horse. He laid her across the saddle on her stomach, like a sack of grain or a kidnapped maiden.

“You can sit up and ride properly if you behave,” he scolded. “Your pride is less important than your safety.”

“I don’t want to hear a lecture on pride from someone named Solas,” she grumbled, but she quit squirming. She felt enough like a child, being physically picked up and moved, and enough like a damsel, being thrown over a saddle horn. The last thing she wanted was to be demoted back to da’len. Instead, she used Solas as a post to lean against as she sat herself up and swung one leg over the horse, taking care to knee him in the stomach as she did so. He didn’t even give her the courtesy of wincing, but he did slide backwards to allow her to sit in front of him on the saddle.

Without being asked, Blackwall grabbed the reins of her horse. The jealousy in his eyes told her that he regretted not putting her on his horse first, but she suspected he knew she would put up with things from Solas that she would never put up with from a shemlen. No matter how fascinating his beard. She reminded herself to get him drunk enough to allow her braid it, and soon.

Despite her indignation about being manhandled, she had to admit it was comforting, riding with Solas. She could lean back against him, and he would not protest; the warmth of his body could almost chase away the red-tainted images burning behind her eyelids. When dizziness took her, she would fall back against him, and he would steady her, letting her borrow his strength.

She was not used to someone close enough to steady her, not until her life was torn apart by the breach in the heavens. Her Clan kept her at arm’s length, for reasons she always assumed were to do with her being the Keeper’s precious First. It hadn’t bothered her overly much; they still spoke to her, and she was sworn in duty to them, as First, not the other way around.

Still, she and Solas must have looked a sight, sharing a horse. She relished in it, wished a little bit that she could see it from the outside looking in. She leaned back against him again, tucking her head neatly under his chin. There were benefits to being small, she thought to herself smugly. He surprised her when he rested his chin down on her head, but she said nothing. Much like the “incident” in the tent, she was content to let happy moments sit quietly, lest she ruin them by speaking. They rode on like that, the peace in her heart steadying the turmoil of her twisting stomach.

-

Both she and Dorian were feeling better by the time they stopped to camp. They managed to down some soup, and chatted with each other while they sat by the fire. She avoided the elephant in the room; elves and Tevinter had a long and rather bloody history. Bloody in that the elves bled and Tevinter was covered in it.

Dorian was not so tactful. When he brought up spirits, enslaved in his homeland much the same way they enslaved elves, she winced. While a subject she personally could ignore, they were hardly in private. Before she could attempt to direct attention away, however, Solas interrupted.

“They are intelligent, living creatures. Binding them against their will is reprehensible.”

She chuckled nervously. This was going to get quite ugly, quite quickly. “Um, yes, shame so many are being drawn through the rifts. I should-“

“There's no harm putting them to constructive use, and most mages back home treat them well.” Ah, they were playing the game of ‘completely ignore Lavellan.’ She was familiar with the rules; it was a game the Inquisition played often. An tiny elf not yet two decades in age was easy to ignore when the serious conversations began.

“And any that show any magical talent are freed, I would assume?”

Lavellan choked into her soup at Solas’ words. He’d pointed out what she was thinking, but Dorian did not seem to have caught on. His confused expression said it all.

“I believe,” she interjected, a smirk dancing across her lips. “That our esteemed friend thought you were talking about Tevinter’s slaves. I admit, the mistake is an easy one to make.”

Dorian turned his glare onto her as Solas chuckled.

“My family’s slaves were-“

“Stop.” Lavellan was startled to find that the hard voice that spoke, one that allowed no discussion, was her own. Dorian looked as surprised by the tone of her voice as she felt. “I like you, Dorian. I want to continue liking you. For that to happen, I will require that a noble born Tevinter mage not attempt to justify slavery to an elf.”

Dorian, to his credit, flushed. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know, Dorian. But if I have learned one thing recently,” her eyes cast over to Solas. “It is to avoid speaking of the ‘right’ way of doing things before one has honestly explored the options. And also not to speak of the merits of a group to someone who may have been directly harmed by it.”

“That sounds like a lesson hard won,” Dorian said, following her gaze over towards Solas.

“It was.”