your faith was strong but you needed proof.

[dirth]

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."

Comments

[dirth]

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."

[laurenande]

"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."

[dirth]

"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."

[laurenande]

"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."

[dirth]

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."

[laurenande]

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."

[dirth]

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."