faderift | the holy dove was moving too

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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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The package has been hounding him since the moment he had returned from Sundermount with Thranduil a missing piece of his heart, left to rot and ruin in the midst of his despair and his anger.

The loss of Adalia has frustrated him, left him angry and irritated - he knows that their relationship had been faltering, had been falling apart, but he also knows that it is a relief to have one less person to be wary of, one lesson person for him to be concerned about. Too many people had known his experiences, his secrets, and with the number whittling down to just two he feels more comfortable, more relaxed.

It does not mean he forgives Thranduil - trust has been broken all the same, there's no denying that - but the loss of one person makes some of the edge relax, makes him miss and long for the companionship of someone who truly understood him. Someone who was more like kin than anyone else had ever been and there's no denying the fact that what he shared with Thranduil was something unique in Thedas.

Gathering the package in his hands, he makes his way to the Provost's office and knocks, once. Sharply.

It isn't unusual for Gwenaëlle to seek out Solas—she's long made him responsible for the safe-keeping of some of her more sensitive work—and he had made such a point not to treat her any differently that it had seemed at first unnecessary to change the habit. Awkward, a little; she's never allowed herself to hold many illusions that his tolerance of her is very separate from the friendship he'd so ruthlessly discarded with her husband. Holding out her own hand patiently took on a somewhat different flavour, when it felt less like something she might build from and more...

He doesn't treat her any differently, however angry he is, however he's cut them off. Whatever she knows, which she suspects is substantially less than he thinks—

It's hard not to feel, in the face of how easy that has seemed to be—how smoothly done, how she'd never have known if she didn't have Thranduil's unhappiness to mark it by—that it can only mean he was always false to her, and that this simply requires nothing different of him.

He didn't leave Thranduil to die when he had the chance, so maybe that's not unsalvageable (for his sake, she hopes not), but more than anything it's a tired feeling of old embarrassment that lingers. That again she's presumed too much of someone's sentiment, hoped for something that she shouldn't have, and can't have even the satisfaction of feeling her mistake is anything significant. When she knocks at his door, Hardie close at her heels, she doesn't carry more notes as she might usually—and she is trying very much to look as if she isn't looking very serious.

It's important not to be bothersome, or to make a fuss. It's worse if she makes a fuss.

“Hello,” she says, and her usual warmth with him isn't absent, just muted; her fingers fidgeting behind her back until she flattens her hands and clasps them in front of her. “I just wanted to come and collect my anchor-shard notes.”

He likes to think he has begun to be able to discern, if not who is knocking at his office door, why they are knocking. The quick knock of a scout or courier, Coupe's impatient rap, Casimir's preciseness. He leaves his door open when he is expecting company, but he was not expecting this, and that is why the door opens after more than a moment, the sound heard from the other room, and Thranduil needing to rise from there and close off that door before coming to the office one.

He is still favoring his uninjured size, and opens the door slowly for it, looking at Solas and looking-- surprised? Confused if nothing else, but it melts into placidity; he beckons the other elf in, to the room that is unchanged since he last saw it but for how there is no waiting food, no usual effort to make it seem homely or intimate.

"Do come in," he says, halts. "Or are you here to deliver something for the Division?"

Solas does his best to be measured and careful when it comes to his interactions with Thranduil now. He has to make sure that he does not falter and break into pieces, that he manages himself as best he can - because he cannot let his emotions betray him again. He cannot let himself feel as though he is going to fall into the trap of forgiveness, of welcome, of being comfortable and happy and content again. He cannot let himself fall into the trap of trust again even if he longs for what was familiar.

He manages the tension in his shoulders by focussing his attention on his hands, on the gift. It's something he had spent time commissioning, making sure it was right, appropriate, and the urge to throw it away had been almost overwhelming. If it hadn't been something that he had spent so much time on, something that he had been so intimate in the creation of... He might have done so.

"No. It is not division related." Solas walks in, ignoring Thranduil as best he can, placing the package on the desk. "It is for you."

Solas has not treated Gwenaelle any differently because he has no reason to. What has happened is not her fault: it is the fault of Thranduil, the man who broke the trust of a being centuries, with countless millennia behind him. He might have been asleep for a long time but he had dreamed and walked and lived in different ways - he had learned more of the world than anyone might imagine. Thranduil had betrayed the trust of someone who would have changed the world and allowed him to be a part of it, but that has now changed.

Thranduil is separated from him now, but that does not mean that Gwenaelle must be as well. He is still as good to her as he has always been, still been good enough to make sure the ripples of his ire and frustration did not colour her, as what she did was simply exist.

He likes her. He is fond enough of her. That is not likely to change, no matter how he feels.

Solas opens the door without too much pause or hesitation, watching her for a moment before he nods, stepping back to allow her entrance to the room. The fact that she has come for her notes does not seem to surprise him and he steps over, unlocking the box without too much word.

"Of course." Unlocked, opened for her. "As you wish." They are not his to keep, after all, and he's memorised what he had been permitted to read anyway.

Thranduil watches Solas walk past him, watches him set the wrapped bundle down, and waits while Solas retreats before he advances and rests his fingers on the paper wrapping.

“For me?” he says. “What for?”

Behind the closed door of his bedroom is the last gift Solas had given him, in the fresco, where Legolas’ face had been so lovingly rendered. And then not a month hence, Legolas had arrived, whole and hale and a comfort to Thranduil’s aches and concerns. Thinking the two events are connected is foolishness, but Thranduil has been drawn to folly as of late.

He pulls at the twine and unwraps the object slowly.

He steps away from the desk as soon as he realises how close they are, trying to keep this formal. Distant. Emotionless. It is not something that he is doing well at, he thinks, but he does his best all the same, trying to keep stern and sure.

"You are getting married."

As if that explains it all, as if that explains why Solas had dared come. If he had been able to dispose of this, to get rid of the mirror before he had managed to find himself forced to come here, to deposit this, to leave this gift here because it felt too painful to throw it away. It is something so intimate, so special...

Unwrapping it shows a handsome mirror, decorated in the way of the People, centuries before now. It reflects some of the designs of the eluvian - and if anyone asked he can simply say he had seen Merrill's or read stories. An easy enough falsehood to craft because, like much of what Solas has said in his time, it is not a lie.

“Serault glass?” he asks, holding it up to the light—and then shifting it so that he may see Solas behind him, a spy’s trick. But Thranduil’s reflected face is smiling, sweet, unguarded in the way only a mirror image might be, when he will otherwise respect his request for distance.

“Ma serannas, Solas.”

He sees the hand of the elvhen in this, in the eluvians he has walked through, in the ruins that are accounted old by Thedas’ standards. He loves it. He cannot wait to show it to Gwenaëlle, to admire himself and her in it.

“A perfect gift for a vain and prideful bride and groom.”

Solas does not comment, not at first. Instead he sits and he listens, watching for Thranduil's reaction. There's no denying the brief spark of pleasure he gets from the knowledge it was a well chosen and well made gift, one that is appreciated - he knows his fellows, after all, and he knows Thranduil almost best of them all.

"You are welcome."

With the gift given, Solas knows that his job is done. He turns away, washing his hands of the situation. The job is done: the mirror has been given and he has no reason to stand and stay any longer, no reason to bother with hovering in the Provost's office as if he has any right to be there.

"I am sure you and your wife will make use of it."

“It is not—” Thranduil says, lowering it, turning it this way and that in his hands, feeling for any hint of magic though he has a poor sense of it. “—real?”

He doubts it, of course, but the look if it is cunning enough.

“It would be fit only for a nug, if it were,” and on cue, there is a squeak, a rustle, Leviathan padding out from behind the desk, seeking treats as he sniffs at Solas’ ankles.

Thranduil sets the mirror down with reverence on his desk, on the wrappings. “Will you come to the wedding?”

"No. That is not possible."

It's enough to stall Solas, at least, hesitating as he frowns, watching with an intensity that is impossible to hide. The nug that comes out and hovers near his legs is enough to have him frowning, pausing for a moment before he shakes his head and does nothing, does not offer any treats.

There's some hesitation to him, a twist in his stomach, but he breathes out and forces himself to calm down.

Thranduil is not going to like his next answer. He finds that he does not care much, his heart heavy and his throat tight.

"No."

It does not take much for the nug to be discouraged, to make for the fireplace and the carpet and the crumbs that might be there, idly pawing at the floor. He is accustomed enough to visitors that nothing is abnormal with this one.

“Solas,” he says, and he lingers on that, still not looking at the other elf, precise in his avoidance, in his careful respect of the lines Solas has drawn, easier now for not being unwell. “There will come a time, I hope, where we are not so—separated, but there will not be another wedding. I will not speak with you, I will not ask that you stay over-long, but I would have you there. Please. You are close to my heart.”

"That time will not come to pass."

Now Solas turns to look at him, lifting his head, arms crossed behind his back. There's tension in the shape of his mouth, lips not quite pursed but reaching for it all the same, a straightness in his spine and shoulders that betrays just how upset he is, the depth of his frustration and irritation. He has to take a moment to find the means to speak, to find words, to find a voice, but he does - he does.

"The last person to betray me found themselves dead. Be thankful that has not proven to be your fate."

Edited 2018-12-17 20:19 (UTC)

He turns, looks at Solas. There is horror on his face, widening his eyes, shifting his shoulders into tightness.

“Adalia?” he says, and fears—

A sudden disappearance. Solas, this cold. A leak, from her of all people? And she trusted Gwenaelle well. Had she slipped, said something to his wife, to another elf?

His eyes narrow for a brief, intense moment. He is not necessarily insulted because it is a logical leap to make, but -

"No."

Solas' stance does not change nor does he adjust, move his weight, anything. He is statuesque, harsh and cold, akin to the winter they all face now. Not even a flicker of expression colours him.

"I was not involved with her disappearance."

He looks at Solas, holds his gaze until he makes his choice, and inhales sharply, and bends, the hem of his robe pulled out of the way so he can pull out the knife sheathed in his boot.

It is an elegant thing, Silvan in style, hewn from antler and mother-of-pearl shells from the far away sea, delicate and deadly and intended to be the last resort in a fight. With it in his hand, he strides towards Solas, the blade flashing as he tosses it with a sharp move of his wrist—

And it lands in his palm, the hilt facing Solas and the blade in Thranduil’s fingers, cutting into the flesh of his palm, bleeding him in a line so thin it does not yet hurt.

He says, “Kill me now, if you would do it, or let us work towards forgiveness. I will not be wed with your jaws around my throat. I am not marrying my Gwenaëlle to make her a widow. I tire of this; I will pay my debt and see it wiped away.”

It's impossible to deny how strongly the urge to kill comes to him. He has done it before, brutally so, for lesser slights than this. It is Thranduil's position that saves his life, that had saved him before now - knowing how easily he might be traced, how dangerous it might be for him to fall now, the titles that are laid at his feet. Thranduil is the Provost, a division head, important to more than just Solas, there is no denying that. It would be too much of a risk to slaughter him where he stood, even using his own knife.

The urge to summon a barrier to protect him comes as soon as he sees the glint of the knife, but he hesitates. There is no need to betray himself and he does not think Thranduil has a callous heart, not the kind needed to kill a friend. Solas knows he carries that burden himself, weighed down with the intensity of his own choices, of his own path, even as it calls to him from beyond the realm of his own hands.

Solas reaches out and he takes the knife. Stepping forward is easy, just as it is to raise the knife to Thranduil's throat. There's a gentle press of steel against skin, curling it as arms sink around his neck. It's intimate, dangerously so, and Solas does not tear his eyes from Thranduil's even as he moves, drawing the knife higher and higher, the hilt pressed square against the skin of his neck from behind, intent.

The knife curves against the hairline, cutting a stand. He drops the blade, heedless of where it goes, and moves back, curling the lock of hair around his fingers, twining them for a moment in a picturesque plait, frowning as he turns his back to Thranduil.

"You are not yet forgiven," his voice is low, cool. "But your death is pointless. I will trust you with no more and you will not ask of it, but I will come. I will consider our future."

He gasps; not when the knife is at his neck, his pulse briefly quickening under the sharp press of a blade (he has not put himself in this precarious of a position before, he has always had more resources at his fingertips—) but when the blade slices through the hair at the back of his neck, the noise of a wounded thing.

His first breath hitches. He does not bend to pick up the knife, not yet, but he watches Solas’ fingers toy with his hair, for as long as it takes for him to recover from the shock, to respond to Solas’ words as he knows he must, to speak.

“I will aspire to forgiveness,” he says, and dips his head. For the moment, that is all he can manage.

Solas knows the depth of what the hair means to Thranduil's people: he is close enough to Galadriel to understand the nature of it, the intimacies. He cannot kill Thranduil but he can take something - he can prove his strength and the danger of crossing him with something else, something deep and intimate and soft that no one else can understand nor take from him. Thedas does not understand the elves from another realm and they have little desire to - let him use that to his advantage.

He says nothing for a long, long moment, stroking his fingertips over the curl of hair, letting it settle against his palm before he reaches and twines it, gently and properly, against the jawbone around his neck. On display: a public reminder of Thranduil's betrayal and his vow to earn forgiveness.

"We shall see," Solas comments, voice low and set. "You have my promise - one that will not be broken."

So much goes unsaid, and Gwenaëlle has a mind that is wont to fill silences—and never with anything good. She's never been certain of her friendship with Solas; her own affection, of course, but he's so...

And it makes sense, now, how stand-offish he can be. How little he shares, how careful he is, how protective of his privacy. How artfully he does it, that most of the time it might scarcely seem noteworthy. She's never been wholly confident that she doesn't exaggerate her idea of his fondness—that he isn't only tolerating her, after all, that he might tire of doing. It's so, so easy to fill the gaps with old logic, with the things that have always made more sense to her than someone else's honest sentiment: that it is practical to be kind to her, and that Solas has proven himself to be eminently practical.

She trusts him, in a sense. Enough that she is comfortable, not pursuing more than she knows now—because he is practical, because he is clever, because whatever else is true, in this moment the Inquisition's interests are everyone's if they aren't a fucking fool. He is not that, so everything else can wait, must wait—

She can't quite be still. Behind her, Hardie paces the doorway, sits down and doesn't whine; she straightens her fingers against the paper before she can crumple it in her hands all unintentional. “Thank you,” she says, politely, and—

—means it for a hundred other things. For tolerating her, if he did; for not leaving Thranduil on the battlefield, for being someone Galadriel could reach for, for not dying and being one more fucking thing, though that last one seems something perhaps they don't need to worry about in him, too much. It's very abrupt, suddenly, when she presses her notes to his back because she's wrapped her arms around his middle; she doesn't come up very high, her eyes screwed shut to take one more liberty.

She's small, and warm, and so tense it seems entirely plausible that one wrong move could send her flying apart in a thousand directions, but for the moment composure or something like it is still within her grasp.

She is not someone exactly at home in a library. It is not that she dislikes reading, nor great works of literature. Certainly, she had been the patron of many of them, enjoyed hearing them talk, being a part of sharing their wisdom.

But she was someone rather more fond of being on horseback. Of being out and moving, most certainly. So she comes to the library with a purpose rather than a great passion to read. The book she's after, it turns out, is taken at the moment by --

-- Well, shit. She eyes Solas briefly, across the small room. She hadn't approached him, at any given point by herself. Especially not after... well. That.

Right, well, the Rani of Jhansi rode her horse off a fortress with a sword in each hand. Or some such nonsense. This surely wasn't half as legendary as all that. So she can do it now, as she comes up to him. Clearing her throat with a polite cough. Neither too close nor too far.

"Master Solas?"

There is no point in Solas speaking to her of Thranduil - she must be aware of the tension in their relationship now, in the shift of things between them, and she must know why. Gwenaëlle is no fool and that is what frustrates Solas more, the fact that Thranduil had given her the crumbs and she will follow the trail no matter how careful he tries to be with his own. He has been forced into a corner and he will not hesitate nor pause. He will lash out and it will be at Thranduil's feet should something unforgivable happen.

Solas does not shoulder any blame in this. He does not think there is any point in pretending otherwise. Thranduil is the one that Solas is upset with and the one that he broke the trust that had been so deep and sure between them. It is not something he can ignore easily nor something he can choose to act as though had not happened. It is impossible for him. Not with all the weights he carries and the dangers that lay at his feet.

What he does not expect is her politeness, the way she acts with him, the shape and the movement of her. She does not seem to treat him entirely differently from the way she had before, which makes him feel a touch on edge, a touch unsure. Nothing has changed in the treatment despite what she knows, and it makes Solas aware of her more than he has been before despite the easiness of their friendship and the calmness of their camaraderie before now.

The embrace has him stiffening for a moment.

The only people who have ever dared embrace her are Thranduil and Galadriel, two people that he finds closer than others. For a moment his hands hang uselessly at his side before he lifts them up and slowly wraps them around her in return, careful and as appropriate as he can manage, ignoring the tension he feels and acting relaxed. He is a master at that.

"... Of course. There is no need to thank me for anything, Gwenaëlle."

What else would he do? He is gentle with her because there is no reason to punish her. Not yet.

There's a long portion of time where Solas does not seem to notice her even being present in the library. He's far too focussed on his studies and the words in front of him, buried in the depths of his note taking and learning more about the modern interpretation of this and that. The voices around him mean nothing, drowned out in the din of his own thoughts, but her words spike into his concentration.

He can recognise why she might be loathe to come near him, to approach him, to ask for anything. He knows things about her that might not pleasure her and he has seen her at what he might imagine to be near her worst, both in and out of the Fade. It does not amaze him that she might not prefer his company, given that.

Still, he lifts his head and puts his pen down better to give her the focus she deserves, watching her with a raised brow before his face softens into something like a smile, soft and inviting.

"Madame Lakshmi. What might I do for you?"

The bow of her head is respect in greeting, the gold that settles in her brow and parts her hair waving for a moment with it before she straightens up once more.

Her hands stay at her side, thumb hooked over the curl of fingers, brushing worn callouses. "I do not mean to bother your studies," she gestures to it, tapping the cover the one with her still good hand, fingers long, scarred. "But it seems we are after the same book."

Hopefully. he wouldn't object to her borrow it too long.

Lakshmi is dressed well, handsomely, and there's something like a knot of pain in Solas' stomach as he looks at her and wonders, quietly, what she might have been if she had arrived millennia before now. It's not something he wants to consider because it makes him feel desperately on edge, very confused and unsure, and it's a thought he shoves aside for now.

Instead, he watches her, eyes drinking her in, thoughtful, before he focusses on what she is asking of him, measuring her. She is not quite as he remembered her, very different from the Fade - but there is likely good reason for that.

"It is no trouble." Solas reaches for the book and moves, standing, reaching to offer it out as he leans over the table. "I have other books to occupy myself with while you borrow that one. What are you studying?"

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the holy dove was moving too

thranduil.

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library.

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