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Solas x Rook Fanfiction “May the Dread Wolf Take You”
Rook
Rook felt at home. In her element. During what had become a normal everyday battle amongst the Venatori in Minrathous, after the defeat of the Evanuris and the disbandment of the Veilguard, Rook felt joy in each radical cultist she cut down. Each one meant a safer home for Dock Town. Each one was a small win for her and the other Shadow Dragons who, in the past weeks, had begun using the Lighthouse and all its networks to fight the tyrannical Venatori and their like. This was a normal day for her now. This was what she was good at it. She was born to be a rebel and take down those who got in her way. So maybe, because of her level of comfortability with it all, that is why she did not see the Venatori rogue appear next to her and because of this, she did not see the wicked blade in his hand as it pierced her gut in a quick and painful jab. Rook did not have time to react before her team swarmed the cultist, taking him down in fluid and practiced motions. Rook did not have time to yell out in pain or acknowledge what had happened, a mistake – she did not make mistakes, before her vision was blurring. Poison. Of course, the blade was poisoned. She was a high-priced target. She knew this! So why did she let this happen?
“Rook?” Neve called out to her after the battle was done, rushing to her side. She looked frantically to the other Shadow Dragons – Ashur, Tarquin, a few new recruits – “We need to get her back to the Lighthouse, NOW!”
Neve’s voice began to is fade away as Rook fought the urge to close her eyes. She felt the blade still in her gut and noticed the ghastly sight of her red blood covering her fingers. Ashur and Tarquin held her up, told her to stay awake and to just hold on until they get back to the Eluvian. Neve was speaking the steady incanctions of a healing spell, muttering to herself she would get more help – Emmrich, or perhaps a Chantry cleric.
But Rook was tired and, despite everything in her body telling her otherwise, she welcomed the enveloping darkness. And that is when she heard a voice. His voice.
Solas.
“Rook,” he called, far away and then close. It was as if they were in the Fade again, back when the blood magic at the ritual site bound them together. It had been so long since she had heard his voice, since he had willingly bound the Veil to himself and took the lonesome journey into the fade.
“I…,” she tried to speak but the world was an inkblot of pain. She was tired. She was warm. She desired to go home but remembered she had no idea what that was like. She hadn’t known for a long, long time.
“Rook,” Solas called again, his voice now that of the Dread Wolf’s. Commanding. “Hear Me.”
“I…,” she could not see, she could not breathe. “Solas,” she whispered before giving in. She was a human, not an elf, but maybe it was time the Dread Wolf took her. Maybe it was time to give in.
Solas
He knows he should not save her. He knows he should not interfere. He has already done so much damage by doing just that…interfering. Going against the will of nature itself. But when he felt that connection rip open again, burning his side as if he himself had been stabbed, he felt as he had all those months ago when their connection was first created. He felt drawn to her in a way he had not expected and had tried to ignore. But when he realized that she was dying, he threw all thoughts aside but one. Saving her. Saving Rook.
The Fade had willed itself to him since he had bound the Veil to himself. Commanding it was as easy as commanding his power as the Dread Wolf. He pulled her into the Fade with him. Of course it would be tricky, even for him. It was not…her itself, not her physical body that was bleeding out, but a manifestation of herself. The same one who visited him during their talks. The one who he would sometimes see, without her knowledge, while she dreamed. It would have to be enough.
The connection was stronger once she called his name and, with some effort, he physically pulled her into his grasp. The two, he realized, had barely ever touched each other before despite a few traces of their fingers as his dagger had passed between them. That, and of course, the right hook she had landed on his jaw (a blow he had felt for many days after) when his course of action had been set on betraying her and the Veilguard. Her body is limp, and she falls into him, unconscious. She is heavy, stout with muscles. The Fade had ebbed and flowed into a new domain for him since it became his permanent home. Much like the Lighthouse she now calls home, he now had the comforts of Thedas in this new place and he quickly worked to arrange the scene pulling together what was needed: a medical bed, gauze, a healing mixture of elfroot, and some washcloths.
“Ma,” she calls out to no one in particular as he lies her on the medical cot. He shakes away memories of the rebellion millennia ago, of the many times he had laid elven rebels in similar medical beds…of when he had not the power the save them.
“Rook I need you to listen to my voice,” he commands, his voice that of the Dread Wolf. He has not spoken as him since the final fight against Elgar’nan in Minrathous. The demands come quickly to him. His shoulders straighten. His eyes began to glow as the familiar ancient power courses through him. “You will live. I command it.”
He passes a hand over her, the other cradles her head.
With the free hand carefully removes the dagger from her abdomen.
She thrashes out suddenly, crying out in pain. She will be disoriented and terrified and he will work quickly to soothe her back into a calm sleep, like he had down for those wounded elven rebels so long ago. But he most focus on doing everything correctly first.
“Lasa ghilan,” he commands, touching the wound gently with his fingers. Her skin is soft, the blood warm. “Ma halani! Se vara lassa’val. Nae mal.”
His voice is that of commandment, though the wish is directed to any power that will listen. His ancient magic hums. The fingers that cradle the back of her head begin to stroke her hair, intertwining themselves in her curls.
“Atish’an.” He speaks. “Atish’an.” Peace. Give her peace. The wound begins to close and the blood stops pooling. Her grimaces and quick breathing calms. Sweat covers her skin, and her face is pale and sickly. But she is breathing. She will live. In the Fade and Beyond.
“Solas,” she whispers, and he is taken aback, drawn from the ritual. “You…you’re not real. You can’t be…”
She falls asleep quickly and then it is just him and her body, ragged with breaths. Realization dawns on him, like moments in his past after he had made a choice he later regretted. What he has just done…cheated the death of a mortal. Used his ancient powers in a way he knew he should not have. For her. The woman who saw him as an enemy and rightfully so. The woman he had lied to. Manipulated. Killed the mentor of. The woman he had done awful, necessary things to. The woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of since he had last seen her.
“Fuck.” He mutters, his own mortal side showing. He shakes his head and instead of thinking, he begins to act. He pulls her shirt up higher and cleans the healing wound with the elfroot mixture and cloth. He wipes the sweat from her skin and binds her torso in gauze. She is hot but will cool with rest. She will be in pain when she wakes up, but she will live. He considers when she wakes…she will be in the Fade until she realizes she is here. He will have to confront her then, with what he just did. Back in her physical body, it would look like a miracle. She would stay asleep, but she would recover quicker than any healing spell or potion would have allowed. It will be obvious divine intervention had been the reason and he knew himself as anything other than divine.
He takes a moment to catch his breath, a very mortal side of himself. He studies her then. Her long hair is plastered to her skin with sweat. Her shirt is pulled high above her torso and her chest heaves up and down with ragged breaths. Her breasts, he cannot help himself but notice them. He is a man in a man’s body after all. He shakes his head, clearing those thoughts away and closes his eyes.
“You shall live, Rook.” He says, nodding to himself in assurance and acceptance of his choice as so many times before. “We shall see if I live to regret this.”
Rook
She dreams of her mother. Of course, she never quite knew her. Rook, like many other Shadow Dragons, grew up orphaned from never ending war and strife in Minrathous. Of her few faint memories, Rook remembers her mother’s hands, warm and soft, and a flash of red hair – like her own. She remembers the Chant of Light, of her mother’s prayers calling out in desperate plea. She so badly wishes to hear it again, that prayer. Any prayer. Maybe a nice elven one, she always thought that language was pretty…
It is morning. Light shines through a window…no, wait, it isn’t sunlight but light from a fire. A fireplace, nearby. It crackles and smells like a fire but the air…it is off. She is reminded of her time in the Fade, trapped and tricked by Solas, how everything felt like it did right when she woke up in the morning. Half-real.
What had happened? She had been stabbed. She had been dying. Is she dead?
No.
She is not dead, but she is sore. Pain blooms from her torso and throughout her whole body. She is on a bed. Her chest and torso are bare, covered in gauze.
“Neve?” she calls out, “Ashur?” She expects to be waking back up at the Lighthouse or possibly the hideout in Minrathous. Soon, one of them will realize she is waking up and come to her side. But when she fully comes to, she realizes she is in neither of those places. She is nowhere and everywhere. She is in the Fade, her magic can tell, and…he is there.
“Rook…” Solas begins.
“What the fuck?” she goes to jolt up but winces, every muscle in her tightening at the sudden pain.
“Please. You need to be careful.”
“You…you’re supposed to be gone why…why are you here? Why am I here?” she looks around her, taking everything in. They are in what seems to be a small infirmary. She lies on a cot, suddenly aware her torso is wrapped in gauze and half naked. He is there, sitting next to her. He isn’t wearing the regal elven armor she is used to him wearing. Instead, he is in the tan tunic and green linen pants she knew he wore during the days of the Inquisition. He is no less godlike, though, and no less stupid looking. She could punch him again just as much as she could pull him into a kiss. “You saved me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Are you not thankful?”
“You want me to worship you now? I won’t be doing that.”
A slight smile tugs on his lips.
“What happened?” he asks, not moving from his straight-backed position.
“I could ask you the same thing. I thought our…connection severed when you bound yourself to the Veil and went into the Fade.”
“Not quite, it seems.” Solas says in his usual steady, quiet voice.
Rook positions herself, with effort, and touches her side. It hurts but it will heal, and she is alive. Everything is too much to think about right now. Too many things to consider. To have answered. To ask.
“A Venatori cultist,” she says, shaking her head. “Poisoned blade. I should have been more careful. I was sloppy. I never should have left my side open like that, but those cultists are never good enough fighters…this one just got lucky.”
“You must be quite the bounty.” Solas says, reaching out to a tray that Rook swears was not there before on a bedstand she also had not noticed. He hands her a cup of water and raises an eyebrow when she doesn’t take it. “Drink. We might be in the Fade, but you still need it. Anything you do here will affect your physical body.”
“Right.” She does take it and drinks the water in one gulp. “I have lots of questions, but I am in too much fucking pain to ask any of them right now.”
“Understandable.”
“I do have one. Okay two.” She shakes her head, “When will I wake back up in my physical body? I entered the Fade willingly before. It was easy enough to leave it then, during meditation. When you trapped me though, I was lost. My friends had to find me and get me out. How will it work this time?”
He feels slight shame at the mention of his trickery but doesn’t acknowledge it. “You may return at any time. It is like waking up from a dream. Will yourself to do so. Or, since I brought you here, I may wake you up.”
She nods. “That brings me to my second question. Why’d you do this? Why save me? Why bring me here?” she looks around, at the infirmary that looks a lot like the Lighthouse. Solas must have a specific taste in décor. “Lonely?”
He laughs, one small laugh, but doesn’t break the eye contact he is so good at maintaining. “I am still figuring that out myself.”
“I should thank you, but I’m not going to.” She says.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
She sighs, swallowing through the pain a deep breath brings her. She reaches out, holding the cup for him to take. When he does, their fingers brush and she feels the same warm rush between her legs she always did when he was nearby. He was, is, electrifying to her. The most handsome man she has ever seen. Not that she will ever let him know his effect on her just like she will never admit to the dreams she has about him…or the many times she has pleasured herself to the thought of him, even after all his trickery and deceit. Even after Varric. It is a part of her she despises and one she is reminded of by his proximity to her. She thought she was done with him. No, it did not seem so.
“Can you do your magic thing and get me tea?” she asks, “Fade water tastes funny.”
A smile tugs on his lips again and his eyes, very quickly, travel up and down the length of her. She is aware he had been the one to undress her top and bandage her wound. She is aware she is in his domain, once again. And she is aware that he saved her. She could have died, was dying, and somehow…he stopped it. Again, too many questions and too many answers.
“I hate tea.” Solas says, handing the cup back to her. It is newly steaming and filled with what smells like Chamomile. “Here you go.”