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He felt strange. Very tired. Heavy.
He didn't quite understand, but that didn't seem to matter. He was just too tired to be concerned with these things.
It was what it was.
However, someone would not let him be. He eventually recognized that it was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He frowned and tried to turn away, gasping sharply when a horrible ache ricocheted through his body from his gut.
"Shit, no, stay still—" it was Varric's voice he'd been hearing, he realized distantly. And memory tugged at the edges of his consciousness. Something about a battle. "Hey!" Varric's voice sounded muted, and then there was another. It took him several moments to recognize it as Cassandra's.
She sounded different. Speaking in a low rush. Normally she was so confident. He wanted to turn to face her, to see what troubled her so, but he didn't dare move again. He was beginning to put the pieces together and, hesitantly, he reached towards his stomach and the aching pulse there. He hissed as his fingertips brushed the soft fletching, a strange contrast to the arrow's core punched through his stomach.
His fingers fell away as he breathed as shallowly as possible. He was trying to remember everything, but he still felt distant, a step out of pace. They were in Emprise du Lion. There was… he could not remember any healers here. He was the only mage. If he did not handle this injury, he would die.
Well. It would not be the first time. And at least there were others here with him. "Va—" he gasped, even the beginnings of speech shifting the arrow in him.
"Hey! Stop, stay still. We'll figure it out." Varric sounded panicked. Cassandra was quiet. Their Inquisitor was not here. He wondered if she was seeking help, help she would not find. He ground his teeth together.
"Pull it out," he managed, voice hoarse and breaking by the end.
"What? No, no. Just hold on, Chuckles, we got this."
He did not have time to argue. Shaking, he reached towards the arrow, breath hitching as he brushed against it. He heard Varric turn, heard him call to the Seeker, and knew it was his best chance.
Moving as fast as he was able, he grabbed the base of the arrow with one hand and snapped the end off with his other.
He screamed. Suddenly there were several hands on him and he was sweating and trembling, his vision pulsing with red. "Pull it—" he couldn't finish but growled between clenched teeth.
"Shit, shit."
"I think he's trying to heal himself, Varric," Cassandra said, Solas nodding as much as he was able to.
"Oh, fuck. Okay. Shit. Okay, Solas, I'll—"
"Let me."
"Seeker, no, it's my fault—"
"Varric."
Solas focused on breathing as they argued. It felt like an eternity, but was really only moments, Varric's guilt palpable. He was grateful for Cassandra's clear-headed assessment, and even more grateful it was her unflinching hands that settled on him. "Solas, I'm going to pull it out of you. You'll start bleeding, and you will have to work fast. Is there anything you need first?" He jerked his head in a faint negation. "Very well. Open your mouth." He did as he was told, unsurprised when the leather belt was pressed between his teeth. "On three. One, two—"
She pulled on two, and he screamed into the leather, and his world turned white. He woke to two voices calling his name and an angry red pulse in his core, his clumsy hands groping for the open wound. He realized the belt was still in his mouth when he compulsively bit down at the first touch, trying to focus on the taste of leather in his mouth as he reached for his magic.
It felt blunted and slow, like wading through deep water thick with weeds, but it came. It spooled in slow curls out of his hands and into his body, a clumsy knitting that would need to be repaired later, but for now it was sufficient to stop the ongoing blood loss. It had damaged him internally as well, and he was not as skilled with healing as he may wish, but he could still pull his flesh back towards the state it had been in. There was a memory there, a carved path that he could let his magic sink into, drawing all things slowly back into their proper place.
"—bleeding almost stopped," he heard Cassandra say as he finally let go of the magic, the rest of the world rushing in to fill the space abandoned by his dedicated focus. Unfortunately, pain came along with the rest. He sobbed into the press of leather in his mouth, biting into it as hard as he could while that briefly-displaced pain swelled to become his whole world. "Breathe. Breathe, Solas." He realized Cassandra had been saying this for several moments, forcing himself to take a deep, hitching breath. "There. Just like that." Her hand was squeezing his shoulder, her voice soothing and calm, and he latched onto her steady presence. He forced himself to focus on her voice, to follow her instructions—breathe and breathe again—while they waited for the pain to ebb.
And it did.
It was too slow for his tastes, but far faster than it would have quieted without his magic. Now his body was processing the aftershocks of both the injury and the accelerated healing, and there was always a time where the pain peaked shortly after before beginning to fade. Eventually it would settle into a strong ache and a deep, consistent, disorienting pressure, miserable enough on its own, but something that could be managed.
He just had to wait it out.
There was movement in front of him and he blinked as Varric knelt in his field of vision. He can't imagine that was a comfortable position for the other man; dextrous or not, his stiff joints were obvious to anyone who cared to look. Solas perhaps cared to look a little too often. "Seeker." Cassandra squeezed his shoulder once more before rising and exiting the tent. Solas hadn't entirely realized they were in a tent until just now. "You idiot," Varric hissed, regaining his wandering attention.
"Pardon?"
"What was that?!" He was surprised by Varric's anger. He could not recall ever having witnessed it before. "You're a mage, in case you forgot! You have no business taking a hit for me!" Solas laughed, then grunted as it made his stomach throb warningly. But Varric, when he met his eyes, looked incensed. And frantic. What had felt ludicrous a moment ago now seemed all too real.
"I have a barrier," he pointed out, "and you have a wide-open leather coat." In another setting, one less lined with pain, he might have made the observation gentler, but right now he was simply blunt. "I did not intend to get shot, but I survived. You may not have."
"And that's my concern, not yours!" Solas sighed, eyes closing. Varric sighed a moment later, even louder. "Listen, I…" another sigh. "Don't do that again. Okay? I can't— we can't lose you. Cassandra can find another dwarf, not another mage who can walk the Fade and handle the anchor. We need you."
Even in his state, he could not fail to notice the correction. I to we. It was a curiosity, a temptation, a little frisson in the back of his mind… one he stamped out ruthlessly. It could not be. It would not be.
Even if he wanted it.
Unfortunate, then, that he did.
"You are no more replaceable than I," was his only response. And another sigh was Varric's.
"Just rest, Chuckles."