faderift | there was only me and my disgrace

WHO: Solas and Thranduil
WHAT: Something a little like this
WHEN: After Morrigan's report has been handed to Thranduil
WHERE: Solas' rooms
NOTES: Some Trespasser spoilers, if anyone is worried about them!

It's rare that anyone comes to Solas' rooms - there are a few people, enough to count on one hand and little more, who might know to seek him out here if he was not in the library, but it is few and far between. Most people, if they seek his council or his wisdom, are content to wait for him to emerge from his sleep with whatever new memories and fond visions he has captured from the Fade, with whatever it is that he's learned that evening.

The knock shakes him from his ready and he frowns, considering for a moment. The very fact that someone has come here without contacting him first - as would be the case for Galadriel or Gwen, for example - makes him think that it might be some kind of emergency, even if he's not entirely sure he wants to deal with those sorts of issues right now. Given the state of Kirkwall... It's hard not to get yourself entangled in it all.

In the end, good intentions - or, rather, bad ones, depending upon the person - win out and Solas moves forward, putting his book down on his desk. It's an easy walk to the door and his surprise is evident once he sees who is waiting there for him, his head tilting and his eyebrow raising just a little. He's surprised but not altogether unhappy to see his friend on his threshold.

"Thranduil. I did not expect you." Slowly, stepping back, Solas motions him to enter the room.

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The depth to which she sees is not something that Solas should be surprised by; it feels a little like he is baring himself, stripped to the very core of his being, allowing her to see anything that she might bed for. He is open to her in a way he has never been with anyone else; the number of people he has trusted to come this close to him has been less than the number of fingers on a single hand. It has only become worse since his long sleep, waking to a world that didn't seem to exist with fleeting figures in place of real people.

For a moment, he basks in the quiet, the silence, his hands in hers. He does not know how he stumbled into this, into this friendship with two beings that wished the same as him, that discovered the truth and demanded more, but he knows that he is glad to have it. The relief he feels overwhelms him and prickles at him, making him yearn to reach for them both, to hold them close, to tell them just how thankful he is from the depth of his heart. Perhaps Galadriel already knows it.

When she is done he can feel a hand move to touch his face, palm gentle and soft, and all he can do is close his eyes and lean into it. Poor wolf, she says, and Solas wants to break, to shake her hand off and walk away, to turn and flee. The terror he feels at being found out - a wolf caught in a trap, chewing off his own leg to find sanctuary - is enough that he feels as though his stomach is in knots and his hands are shaking even as his own comes up to brush over her fingers. Oh, he thinks, quiet. Oh.

"I am glad to hear it," Solas admits, quiet. He doesn't move away from Galadriel, as if fixed in position under her careful, gentle stare, but he does turn his gaze to look at Thranduil. An equal friend, someone special and important, someone that he respects more than he can say. It makes Solas hesitate even as he nods his head, tongue heavy in his mouth.

"You know all, now. I would ask -" beg, really, but he refuses to stoop to levels he would regret, "- that these words do not leave these rooms. No one else can know of what I was and who I became. It is a secret we three must share. I do not lie to you now and in return I ask for that." And if it is not held to? He will leave. He will flee. It seems a simple enough thing, even if it pains his heart.

It is time for him to withdraw. But first;

"I will keep your secrets," he says, a brief touch of his fingers to his heart in an elven salute. He pauses, corrects himself after a moment of thought. Solas must have all laid before him if he is to act with confidence. "I spoke with Lady Morrigan regarding uthenera. I believe she has enough to put together the puzzle that one of the elvhen walks among us, but at the moment she is greatly occupied with her son and matters regarding her mother and her eluvian."

What an absolute delight she would find Solas, and how useful they would be to one another.

"Should she display any further interest, I will let you know-- and guide her away from it." He looks from Solas to Galadriel. He has none of her gifts but hardly needs them to communicate. She will put him back together. Thranduil brushes Solas' shoulder as he turns to go, coming to the edge of the Girdle and waiting for Galadriel to allow him leave before he lends them his office.

She does not need look to know Thranduil is at the very edge of her spell; she permits him through it with a careful thought at, just as quickly as that, they are alone. Her eyes are sad as she watches Solas's face, but they are soft as well. She will not chide him, no, she understands too well why he has done as he has.

"And my silence is yours, for however long you bid me remain so," she promises and her thumb strokes gently over the sharp rise of his cheekbone.

"This, I would guess, is why you recoiled?" Her lip twitches just so, amused that he had likely attempted to prevent her being entangled in a plan she and Thranduil shared. "Unless...perhaps... there was another reason?"

"I have made great effort to make it that I am the least of suspects. You are cleverer than most." He is, after all, an unsuspecting elven apostate - the most interesting thing about him is that he is a Dreamer, a convenient excuse for all the information he has in his mind. He nods his head to Thranduil, does not lean into the touch, but allows him the escape - for it is a means for him to discuss things with Galadriel that he is yet unaware of.

"You have my sincerest thanks for it." His eyes close, just for a moment; Thranduil is gone and this moment is for them, now. He can bask in her touch, her gentleness, her warmth, his eyes flicking up to look at her. His hesitance is there but it has faded in the wake of her newfound knowledge, something like a laugh slipping from his lip.

"Yes." His fingers wrap around the ones on his face, holding her hand. "I could not allow myself to have... Feelings when I had a goal to focus on. It was not right." But she shares that goal, that plan, and there's a want bubbling through him that makes him want. "It was no fault of yours."

"A comforting reassurance," Galadriel replies. In truth, it was. She had never had someone recoil as he had after kissing them, it was a strange moment, but one that was not being corrected.

"And a noble attempt to spare me pain, however unnecessary it ended up being. Tell me, Solas, do you still wish to avoid feelings in the face of our goal?"

She has not stepped back, nor does she appear eager to do so, but before she presses him, in word or to the table, certainty is key. She read much in his heart and expects she knows his answer, but she would hear it from him.

Galadriel is now more aware of him than anyone had been in centuries; she reads through and cuts to the heart, knows his mistakes, his guilt, his pain, and does not shun him for it. It had been on the tip of his tongue, unvoiced if not unthought, and he had yearned for her acceptance, for her comfort, for her to reach for him and tell him that he was doing what was right. To know that the two of them together, with Thranduil at their side, will find a means of reaching their goals... It is miraculous.

"I am cautious," he admits. It's not because he fears her learning the truth now - that cowardice has been broken and shattered under her gentle gaze - but because of how long it has been. He does not consider himself worth affection, worth tenderness, not with all that he had done to and for the People, but he wants. He may act as a solitary creature but he misses the company of his fellows more than he can express.

He hesitates, his eyes lifting to look at her, before he manages a soft, gentle smile.

"But not unwilling."

"How fortunate," Galadriel says softly and closes the distance between them to press a kiss against his mouth. It is not hurried, nor firm and simmering with passion, but a delighted thing, glad for the news her heart has received. Once she has granted it, she sets her forehead against his.

"You need not worry that I have judged you, Solas," she says. "I have no fondness for gods, nor for those who would claim that mantle...and I have done such...terrible things to prevent the decline of the Eldar from grace.

"Desperation is an enemy we have both known well, but we shall not meet it again afield, not alone."

Solas leans into the kiss, as gentle and soft as it is. It's nothing made of passion or overwhelming desire, but a promise for something more in the future, an acceptance, an understanding of one another. It fills the empty part of him with warmth and tenderness, his body tilting up as he leans against her, the smile never fading from the gentle turn of his mouth.

He could grow accustomed to this, and it frightens him as much as it soothes him. Wolves are pack animals at heart and Solas has been alone for a terribly long time - but his People, even a fleeting image of them, may return. For as long as the Anchor shards are present, for as long as people are here, for as long as he can reach and try to believe...

You change...

Solas kisses her again.

"I am glad to have you at my side, Galadriel."

there was only me and my disgrace

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