faderift | your faith was strong but you needed proof.

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your faith was strong but you needed proof.

WHO: Solas, Thranduil, Adalia, Anders, Beleth, Rey
WHAT: All New, Faded for Her: Fade Rift edition
WHEN: Early this month after their return from the Sunless Lands
WHERE: Exalted Plains
NOTES: Possible warnings for murder, burning alive and all sorts of nastiness depending on the outcome of the quest! Starters are all in the comments!

ALL NEW, FADED FOR HER

"One of Solas's old friends, a spirit, has been summoned against its will and needs his help."

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"No, he is..." Galadriel hesitates as she searches for the word. Her answer resounds across his mind instead, a concept and more all at once.

Maia. A being of divine power, a shapeless spirit, a free soul, that exists in a timeless shell of a body. She has known him for ten thousand years and his appearance is unshifting. At the table, Gandalf smiles and laughs and begins recounting a tale of hobbits and fireworks. The words are indistinct but warm and welcoming.

"He could be quite contentious, given the chance, but he was kind at his core." The focus in the vision shifts a bit as she forces herself to recall someone who does not align with Thedas.

The woman that manifests on the far side of the room is tall, taller than Galadriel easily, with dark hair and a face wrought in starlight. Ber gown is shifting colors of sylph and she is beautiful. It is a staggering, distant sort of beauty though, like a meteor shower or the eclipse of a moon.

Melian looks much more like a spirit given form, but beside one another it is impossible not to see the same in Gandalf.

Something grand and wonderful. Solas can imagine it, without even trying very hard; something akin to what the Evanuris were, once. A blessing before they were a curse, a gift before they ripped the world apart in their desire for power and vengeance and destruction. It makes his heart hurt, just a little, to imagine how it might have been had they been more like this person, this man that Galadriel trusts so deeply.

He is so happy, despite his age. Solas yearns for it.

"Age makes many contentious. Kindness is more difficult a friend to keep." He knows that well too; his own anger had been destructive, dangerous, painful, and it was difficult for him to imagine how to swallow it down when it had burned so brightly for so long. He feels it when he looks upon the Dalish, the Spirits, the loss of his friend...

The next image startles him again if only because he feels as though he has been thrust back into a time long dead, before the Veil and before the world had been torn asunder. A beautiful woman with glittering fabrics and a warm, bright heart... He has to force himself to focus, to concentrate, to not lose his own mind.

"More friends?"

"Melian," Galadriel says the name aloud and it has been so very, very long since she has. It has a sad ring to it, one that leave little room to question her fate.

"She was the first friendly face I knew when I left my homeland, she taught me nearly all that I know now, all the arts that make me truly formidable, that rendered me Galadriel."

She looks from the both of them, Melian humming in her resplendence as she tends a garden they cannot see, Gandalf puffing away as he curses a Took, whatever that is, and looks to Solas again. Solas's grief is still so very near and she wishes she could take it from him, but that is neither right nor within her power to do. She can grant him advice from those who proved better at such consolations, however, and with them standing so close, even as phantoms, it is easy.

"If I have learned anything from spirits, melda nin, it is that with great age, one must actively cultivate kindness, whenever they can," she says and there is a flicker as she tires, as her ability to project in Thedas outstrips her own stamina. She reaches for power that is no longer hers and then glances sadly to Melian.

She vanishes first, her memory much more distant. Melian's fine features crumble to grief and sorrow, she is anguished but silent as she buries her face in her hands, then at once she fades. Gandalf lingers longer, his death is still fresh in Galadriel's mind, as is his visage, but he doesn't last long. The smell of smoke intensifies, it pairs with ash and blood, becomes stifling, even choking, before he flickers and goes out, like a candle snuffed in a heavy wind.

She lets out a heavy sigh and, at once, the room is mundane and her presence is small, removed from Solas's mind entirely. She does not withdraw her arm from his shoulders, however, and while she tries to appear unaffected, to refrain from burdening him, she does lean against his side as they sit.

"Kindness is the opposite of grief...and while one cannot avoid grief altogether, it is a balm on heart."

"Melian." He repeats the name because it feels like the right thing to do.

The image that Melian makes is one that Solas recognises - someone that taught you, that has allowed you to grow and flourish? Someone who made you what you are? The images that flicker through his mind are of a beautiful woman, strong and formidable and powerful, filled withs power and glory, rising high above the others as a beacon, something incomparable to compare yourself to. She had been so much and the loss of her aches even now, another tally in the long line of people ripped from his bare hands.

Without thinking, Solas reaches for her other hand, the one that is not wrapped around his shoulders. He takes it gently and holds it, desperate for a connection, to feel something to anchor him to this world, beyond his obligations and beyond the vengeance he must repair and remake. She is there, at his side, and Solas can feel the disaster budding inside of him, the flare of panic that makes him think that this was a mistake. He should not have come, he should not have bared himself, he should not have even considered it -

It is too late. He is here, and so is she, and there is no undoing that mistake.

This is not like walking the Fade, he knows. The memories and dreams there are intense and strong, powerful reminders of what once was, but this is living the memory. The smell, the sight, away from the sleeping realm... The strength it must take to muster those images, the weight of the pain on her heart - oh, Solas can understand that too well, and he feels himself betrayed by his own empathy, the ache inside of him reflected in her losses. They have both given so much... and for what? He knows the answer to his question, but not hers. His lives on in the Dalish, the disaster of his own making, his hubris alive and breathing before him.

Solas doesn't hesitate in welcoming her against his body, offering his strong, unchanging posture to balance her weakness. Everyone is tired, he thinks. Age brings knowledge, brings wisdom, brings so much, but it also breaks you. It ruins the heart inside of you; he wonders if his is as black as he imagines it. He doesn't wish to know.

"There is kindness to be found," he admits, thinking of Adalia and Thranduil and Beleth, who came to his aid and supported his anger and hurt. "But the cost is high. I am unsure that it is worth the price, at times."

That is a sentiment that Galadriel is all to familiar with. The cost of kindness is often high and she has before withheld it. Now...in truth, she cannot say she regrets all of those occasions, but she regrets enough of them to give her pause. They are a few of the moments that truly stand out in her long life and they haunt her, distant things though they may be.

She doesn't respond to his statement immediately. She is aware that their conversation will likely end soon and Solas, though kind, is very reserved. He will likely refrain from being so near for some time. To be like this simply not his wont. She threads her fingers through his and laments, briefly, the loss of the ring on that hand.

What she could do here...in kindness or not...is so terribly diminished without that ring.

"In that, we are of a like mind," Galadriel admits with a touch of hesitance. "But I try to pay that tithe, however costly, if and when I can."

She pauses and draws a long breath.

"Can you tell me of your friend, the one who is passed?"

Once, there had been many people who had been kind. Once there had been many people who had offered the world to others, and something great had been borne from it. Those people had been broken and reshaped, they had become something different and dangerous, and Solas saw the Dalish wearing the mantle of that horror. In honour, they say, ignorant of the truth, and it burns somewhere deep down inside of him, making him feel sickly and shattered. All that he had done, all that he had sacrificed...

He holds on to her and accepts the kindness she gives, letting his fingers wrap around hers. He knows he will flee from this comfort sooner rather than later, but he accepts it for now. He accepts her kindness, her sweetness, because it is gentle against the raging fire of his woe and pain, but he will barricade himself again. It's better for him, for their future, for Thedas. He has to make sure.

"No one should be forced to pay it, but the world is not as gentle as our spirits." Solas shakes his head. It's poetic, he thinks, and warm and soft, but the harsh reality is something that bears down. There is little kindness left inside of him now.

Her question makes him pause, and he hesitates before he speaks.

"It was a Spirit of Wisdom. It came to me to share knowledge and learned of this world at my side. We studied together, once, and shared many things."

"What was their favorite?" Galadriel asks on a whim. "Bit of knowledge, in all that you shared?"

She tilts her head back and looks at the ceiling--unremarkable grey stone is uninspiring but it provides a blank place to focus on the past. It is no mirror but it gives her some room to imagine Solas's friend as well as her own.

"Olorin preferred to talk of his little halfling folk, fast friends he made halfway across the world from me. They cherished his big bushy beard and his sour stare and children chased him begging to see some spark of magic. Melian adored her birds and her garden, doting on both as she did her daughter--trees never grew so sweetly as they did in Doraith, nor are they likely to e'er do so again."

"Anything of my People. They enjoyed the history of the elves, sharing their language and their artistry. We walked many memories together while deep in the Fade."

It is certainly something that he is going to miss. Wisdom had been one of his oldest and dearest friends and the loss still cuts deep; months will be taken in mourning, he is sure. Many more people are going to die while they deal with Corypheus, but he had been so desperate to save it. Another Spirit, destroyed by the world... It is agonising. It will take time to feel as though he can breathe properly again.

"There are memories that will never truly leave us," Solas nods his head. "They are gone from this world, but we will recall them in years to come. Perhaps that is the best means of keeping the truth of them alive."

"Perhaps it is," she agrees with little additional comment. She is not certain how it is for spirits here, or how the elves in this place understand their own fea, and she will not pry answers from a grieving friend. The sentiment is easily agreed with, any contrary semantics aside, and she squeezes his shoulder again.

He seems calmer now, more akin to how she sees him daily, and while she will not rush him out, she will not keep him on a pretext.

"If it will not weigh upon you, such things interest me as well. I would share them with you if the wound is not too fresh."

What response can he give her? Acknowledging his own pain reminds him only of all the things he has lost; Solas is forced to turn his head away from her as he thinks back to the years of paradise and wonder that used to be the life of the People. He had torn them asunder in his hubris and now... Now he seeks to repair them at the cost of so, so much. He seeks the return of his power and his heart burns because of it.

Even now, in her hand, the shard of the Anchor prickles against his skin. He did this to them and yet... The guilt he feels is only that they might suffer needlessly.

"Gladly. If there is something you think is worth sharing then I will be glad to heed it."

She is uncertain what motivates her, what makes her shift her hand from his shoulder and lift it, but she does. It is a motion she has done a hundred times, to those closest to her, to those who carry her family name, to even a few here, but she has never done anything like it to Solas. Without preamble, she draws her fingertips across the side of his brow and her palm lights against the side of his face. He is looking away from her and she tilts his head, gently, to look back.

"I will not press you for that which distresses you, Solas, you are dear to me. You need not offer if it pains you."

The tenderness with which she touches him shocks Solas in a way he cannot express; it is rare that anyone reaches out and touches him and all he can do is breathe in, a soft, sharp noise, his eyes turning to look at her. There's a gentleness, something soft and warm, and he knows, knows, that he is entirely unworthy of it. Whatever she thinks she sees in him is a fallacy, a lie, designed to make him appear as a better person than he truly is in his heart.

She is far more than he could be. He cannot. And yet.

"Thank you." The smile that comes is barely there, but it is present all the same. "Your kindness is appreciated."

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your faith was strong but you needed proof.

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