faderift | the holy dove was moving too

Entry tags:

the holy dove was moving too

WHO: Solas and you
WHAT: Open post
WHEN: Throughout the entire month
WHERE: All around Kirkwall
NOTES: N/A

LIBRARY.

Solas spends much of his time in the library as he always does. There are books open in front of him. They're written in Common, in Elven, one or two with scraps of Qunlat littered around the margins (this is Kirkwall, after all). He is devouring what he can, still studying and investigating everything that he can, making notes and putting pieces of parchment to one side, putting things to one side, closing books but not getting up to put them away.

What proves clear, eventually, is just how much time Solas is actually spending in his studies. For a man that enjoys sleeping as much as he does he is not getting much of it - and he has no other symptoms, so this is clearly a personal endeavour rather than anything from his own suffering. The piles of books get larger, higher, and he can often be found scowling at them, as if they should have more answers than they do, as if the hours he had spent uncovering the history of Kirkwall had been entirely pointless.

He sits in a corner keeping to himself, waiting, frowning, reading and reading. He makes himself comfortable eventually, pouring himself a cup of something to drink - not tea - before he gives himself a moment to shut his eyes and relax.

KIRKWALL.

When not in the library, Solas can be found wandering Kirkwall, investigating things he might have otherwise missed. He doesn't linger much in taverns or bars - they're hardly the kind of place he'd waste his time, even if it means he might be able to discover more of what the 'common' people might be interested in - but he does travel to Darktown at times, does look into the depths of what it is like for the elves here, offering what he can to aid them as little as it might be. He is a familiar face to some of them: they are absent from the Dalish and so the two of them get along far better than he might with anyone of the clans.

Eventually, he makes his way back to the Inquisition proper and spends a little time wandering around the gardens, arms crossed behind his back and his attention focussed on the herbs, on the plants, on the things that interest him. He does not seem to mind being interrupted, if anyone has the desire, and he seems in a pleasant enough mood before he makes himself comfortable on a bench, drawing a book from somewhere and beginning to read, flicking the pages absently.

WILDCARD.

( Find him in the Gallows, near his room, hanging near Galadriel and anywhere else your heart desires! )

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She let's the book settle in front of her, at once more taken by how he speaks than written words might accomplish from a book.

So instead, she fishes for one book of her own, the small pot of ink and short quill for just the occasion, and with it, as he talks, she writes. Breaking up to look at him, watch him, - not in trade but written in her own language, curving devangari script of a mix of Hindi and Marathi.

"How was it, that humans stole it from them?" is where she replies, as the sentence comes to an end. Looking back up to him after she's finished.

Solas is not offended by her desire to make notes. He'd rather she write down the true histories of the People and Thedas than make note of what might be wrong in the tomes and volumes that are in the libraries. She could speak to the Dalish or the dwarves and get a dozen or so mistakes, but here... He carries the truth in his own mind.

He witnessed it enough in dreams to be unable to forget what had happened, the weight of it all on his shoulders even now. He cannot forget.

"Stories say that the elves met tribal people who came south from Par Vollen. They grew friendly with them, but their unions produced only human children and exposure to humans shortened their own lives."

"How... Strange."

All of it really, she realises at it as she pauses there to begin her next line of information.

"I take it this is something of a resentment to many elves? Not least for the crude station they are reduced to presently."

It is not that any of this is necessarily wrong - it is what many of the elves believe. Their histories tell of mingling with humans that then enslaved them - how were they to know the truth when they ignore what their people truly were? The Dalish are so far beyond what the People had once been that Solas can see nothing mirrored in them and it pains him more as the days go by.

"It did lead to more suffering for them," them, not us. "Those from Tevinter began to enslave them and their part in the role of Andraste has often been deliberately brushed aside by the preaches of the Chantry."

"Typical," it's spat out before she has the good sense to stop it. But then, he's heard her say far more unforgiving things at this point, so it was probably mild admission in the grand scheme of things.

But she clears her throat. Her eyes staying focused on her page as she begins to scratch another set of words, this time, going left to right in another kind of script. "I have been told the story of the elf that fought next to Andraste. Though not from any member of the Chantry to be certain."

Solas doesn't seem the least offended by her outburst, not considering his own views and opinions on the Chantry and their role in the downfall of the elves. He's studied dreams and histories enough to know the realities of most things, and while Shartan might not be his area of expertise he knows enough.

"His name was Shartan. Slaves, under his leadership, were supporters of Andraste and her uprising against the Tevinter Imperium. Now, however, Orlesian scholars write treatises on how elves are animals and that relations with them are an insult to their Maker."

"I know this pain." As much and as little as she might say in such a way.

She thinks of the beautiful woman in Gwenaelle's painting. Stuck stunningly by the love of the one who commissioned such a thing. ( A handsome man, is the thought that isn't in the mood to think about ). So that's why a bastard wasn't good enough when many children no doubt were born to worse circumstance than Gwen was, a child of only her father's line should be enough.

( There is a question of course, how she compares them, a sense of France, England, and her own lands, that she should know better than to immediately correlate as the same. When she knew enough conversational French to get by, but a stilted, halting sort of Orlesian that was a mess in comparison. But nobility had not changed it seemed from their land to hers, to not know how Lords and Ladies liked to take their pleasures unthinkingly. Nevermind that these lands were not so caught up on a man or woman's inheritance for that to be half the excuse. )

Bastards, the lot of them. Is the grand sum up for all those thoughts. Perhaps that was why Gwen was a foul as she was, she thinks she might be that sort of woman as well if she'd had to stomach such nonsense without the armies, support and love from her own people to temper her anger to something else.

"I am sorry. I am sorry for the pain my kind have caused yours in this place. I know it does little to ease it. I have little enough sway in the Inquisition, especially now, but what I am in charge of - if there is something you need in particular - only ask."

Solas is aware of the pain and suffering that the elven people had been forced to survive as a result of the creation of the Veil and the fall of the Evanuris. With the loss of their power, their immortality, and the arrival of humanity and more across Thedas... Of course they would fall and falter. Losing their strength and losing one of the few who might be able to guide and lead them to a long sleep meant they were weak - vulnerable.

He thinks of the Temple of Falon'Din, of all the sleeping elves who had died in their rest, who had fallen into their long slumber and expected to wake. He thinks of the spirits that he had seen, the whispers that had tried to call herself Mythal to harm him, to hurt him, feeling an ache in his chest that he cannot force away. He feels the power of it now, the guilt and desire to fix all that he had done to harm and hurt the people even as he feels the same, familiar sourness at the idea of the Dalish being the ones to reclaim it.

So many are unworthy, with their painted faces and their false beliefs, never daring to listen to the truth. It makes him as uncomfortable as anything might.

Shaking his head, Solas makes himself comfortable in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. He can see why people are so happy to lump him into the same pile as the other elves, as if he is from the cities or some strange Dalish hahren who did not allow himself to have painted vallaslin, but he is not one of them. He will never, ever be one of them.

"Do not apologise to me. They are not my people." He shakes his head, waving a hand. "I ask nothing from you. It would be wrong for me to take advantage of a sense of guilt that is unworthy of you to carry."

That gives her pause - because she thinks she understands but, well, she has certainly has learnt her lesson about her assumptions being things she relies on. "Do you say that because of how the People have divided themselves apart so much?"

She hovers there and wonders how to say that - there is no guilt. Guilt to her, was a mindless, grief-stricken emotion, that she did her best never linger in. It accomplished nothing.

"May I tell you a story, Master Solas?"

"Something like that." It's not more a lie than anything else Solas has ever said to members of the Inquisition. The Dalish and the City elves are not his people and they never will be; the People he loved and cherished so deeply are dead and gone and there is no way for him to return them to life. All he can do is restore what was once lost and hope that it brings what he had taken back to Thedas.

Turning his head to look at her again, he nods his head. Books and notes are pushed aside, a man settled in to listen to a tale. He's fond of stories, of histories, of anything he might learn of the world, and he is content to hear what she has to offer.

"Please."

"There was a land. One of many rivers, and filled with many kinds of people. Places that were green, lush and dense, so hot it felt like being wrapped in a blanket that opened onto a beautiful ocean. Others dry, arrid, with huge palaces cut into the rocky landscape that though they had no forests, they carved them as intricately as a jungle. It was ancient, for thousands of years, many had come. Not always peacefully, or with kindness in the heart, and there were fierce battle, proud warriors. The land was rich with spices, even poor men and women would adorn themselves like flowers. But in time, this land of many rivers softened them and they became part of it. Many people desired it after all, but soon they came to love it, they were part of it as it was part of them."

Lakshmi taps her finger, the nail clicking on the wood. Painting the history of Hindustan was a hard thing to summarise briefly, especially when so briefly to not weigh him down in details.

"But then another Empire came. They didn't care about the people. In fact, they didn't even consider them human - people - as you would say. They compared this land of so many cultures, faiths, nations, men and women to beasts. Beasts they did not value as more than labour. For their empire was so proud of itself it never thought it could be responsible of an ever greater evil. Monsters came dressed in their uniform, and at night, they turned into monsters and slipped into villages of the poor and hungry and like the wolves they twisted into, they ate them. Tore them limb from limb. Empty and hungry, and so much stronger. It took ten full warrior men to take down one if they were lucky. What chance did a farmer have?"

She swallows, the taste of blood thick between her teeth, the dust patching the back of her throat. but he had seen it in the fade with her. He had seen the red coated men. How their bodies twisted and ripped apart and devoured all in their path. Ripped and destroyed and gloried in their gluttony of gore.

"And the empire that had come to rule, did not care to know. It didn't want to know as long as they could get rich off this land, what did they care for their suffering? If the people were too busy fighting to survive the very night, how could the care when the temples were destroyed? Sacred animals slaughtered, thousands, thousands of years of traditions over turned."

Her tapping stops. Then she fixes, unafraid, vicious in a way that compared to the flare of her temper at different points, was cold and hot and so fixed on one, single point at the end of this story. "It is not guilt, Master Solas. Misunderstand me on all manner of things, but not this. It is not guilt."

Solas listens, and he thinks of home.

Not the Inquisition. Nor Kirkwall or Skyhold or the world of Thedas now; not even the Fade, wrapped around him like a comforting blanket, a warmth that he could not ignore or pretend to not miss. Thinking of Arlathan leaves a deep ache in his chest; he thinks of the magic there, the great libraries, the spirits and the people, awake and those lost in their sleep and dreams, and he feels the urge to lean his head down and breathe out, to try and force himself to relax, overcome him.

He does not, of course. He resists.

"Empires often do not care about the people who are present when they find a new place to live. The elves learned that." His fault. It makes the soft ache of pain burst into an echo of pain, and he turns his head away, awkward and unsure. It's his fault that the People suffered, that they lost their immortality, their strength - everything lies at his feet. There's no denying that the humans had forced the elves to suffer, but it would never have been a possibility if he had not existed in the first place.

Leaning back, Solas makes himself comfortable again, forcing himself to breathe out and relax. Lakshmi is speaking of her experiences, and Solas respects that; he respects her, even if he isn't sure that he can trust the depth of who she is and her place here. She plays with magics, she plays with her own strength, and he is wary of what that means for them in the future. He cannot let what she knows become common knowledge; it is too dangerous. Far, far too dangerous.

"I understand." Empathy, then. Not guilt, but a kind of empathy that he can respect. It is not pitying, not desperate to try and find some place to demand respect - just understanding. "I apologise for speaking out of turn."

"I think I am the last one who is concerned when people are speaking out of turn."

A brief bubble of laughter at her own expense, the mouth on her that no, she didn't make any apologies for ( but when did she anything ? ). Instead, with it, she settles, easing back into her own chair. A jangle, of her belled anklets clattering in a faint chime, as one leg crosses itself below the table.

"But I could shout loudly again if you like, perhaps then I could find a new way to cross our Commanders."

"I think you might be surprised by how vocal some members of our organisation are."

Solas doesn't sound particularly cross or irritated with it; almost fond, or wryly amused. He's not accustomed to people who are trying to limit themselves or quiet their voices. He's more used to people being a touch on the side of argumentative, people who are more than happy to speak beyond their turns and demand that they be listened to, even if what they have to say has very little worth merit.

He shakes his head.

"No, it is unnecessary. I cede to your point."

"Perhaps not, I... do not believe we here are so cruel as our detractors might want to think."

She smiles, brief, a tucked away thing as she smoothes a piece of hair away from her face. Only for it drop right back in the way, swaying agains the fixing of gold on her brow. It's idle, perhaps, a certain kind of easiness in present company.

Or maybe it is just that with him and anyone else of that room that had heard the truth, she is removed of a particular kind of burden that lets her ankles cross, her back lean into the chair and take a moment to form her words.

Because there is one more thing to be said.

"I am glad to find you, however... There is one matter I wish to speak to you about. Namely, that I want to give you my apologies. For... dragging you into the Fade."

"No, perhaps not."

Solas might debate otherwise, but he has neither the will to do it nor the desire to antagonise - not today, at least. Perhaps, with someone else, he might be somewhat more intense and vocal about some of the things he takes issue with, but for now he is more than willing to accept the fact that they can leave matters where they are.

It's clear that Lakshmi's intention was not to come and debate politics or semantics with him, not to learn the true history of the elves and Tevinter in depth. No, there is something else, his head tilted as he watches her -

and there it is. He shakes his head, almost amused.

"It was no trouble to me. I enjoyed the experience."

That is news to hear. Her eyebrows lift, eyes sharp a moment as she is settled back into her back, fingers paused half uncurled, on the edge of something more than a pleasant exchange but resolute in keeping it so.

"... You are one of few it seems. Why is that?"

"To see the Fade physically? That is something that few can ever hope to experience."

Solas seems at ease, content with talking about this; it's not something that concerns him at all. His interest in the Fade is a long standing piece of information known to anyone who might join the Inquisition; he's also the one that takes good care of anyone with an Anchor shard. He's in a very unique position.

"I enjoyed seeing the other side of the Veil on a personal level."

"This... Fade." She hovers, it still feels wrong, no matter the dangers that were said to her over again, how they spoke of mages, spirits, demons. It was wrong and confusing.

"... What is it?"

"That depends on who you ask."

Solas knows, of course; he had been part of the Fade since he had woken, knowing what his place was and what he had done to help create it. Something tickles at the back of his eyes and he breathes out, sharp and sure, motioning to the books.

"The Chantry says that it is a realm of primeval matter from which the Maker himself formed the physical world. Others consider it more akin to a well of souls. The Dalish think that it is holy, that it was once the home of the gods"

"That is a lot of explanations." And not one she knows where to start from, not as an outsider, separated for all their differing dogmas.

Because what she thinks it is, hardly matters. "What do you think it is?"

"Many people have tried to label and define the Fade, but no one can really know the reality of it. We might hazard a guess, based on our visit to the Fade physically, but unless everyone has that experience we might not be able to truly make it well believed."

He shakes his head, touching the table again.

"It is the home of spirits and great, vast knowledge."

She shakes her head, sighs a moment. "One day I suppose I will understand these divisions."

Or maybe she does, and it just goes against some fundamental understanding of the universe that she had, that some part of her digs her heels in.

"Could not all three be true?"

"One day we all might be able to have such an understanding, but until that time comes we will simply have to theorise."

So sayeth the man who is more likely to know than anyone. His understanding of the Fade and the Veil is far, far deeper than anyone might ever be able to guess, bu there's no desire in him to allow Lakshmi to be aware of too much.

"Possibly."

"Rather then why is that not the theory? If we speak of the realm of God, Spirits, Knowledge and understanding. Why must one be the truth?"

It takes her a moment, trying to form what she had been taught at her father's knee. Though she was not to be remembered as a great scholar, that much she could be sure of, she was the daughter of a Brahmin, taught the stories devoutly as any other of her caste even if she had a mind to weapons and fighting. Teased out her own understanding of the world. She is not a deep thinker, perhaps, but at least a practical one to what she knows.

"We have three great Gods out of our thousands of others. They are Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. Brahma is always part of... this realm. For he is creation itself. Then there is Vishnu, who can never enter as himself, he is the maintainer, he may only have avatars that serve as part of him. Then there is Shiva, the destroyer, who may travel through both freely, and does so with no care for time or place. All three states exist, at once, and not one contradicts the other. Could not such a thing also be true here and this fade?"

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dirth - 2019-02-08 22:45 (UTC) - Expand

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