Archive of Our Own

Some outlines can be perceived only after many years, through the gold-washed tremor of the dusk's hazy rain. And it took a long time for Felassan to understand that after his first heartbreak, nothing will ever be so good or so bad again.

It has been a difficult journey. He held onto his grief far longer than he should.

But now he is falling out of love, and it hurts more than the grief ever could.

***

Felassan was not like Solas; he had never been other than a creature of flesh and blood. And he would understand later - too late - that this mattered. That bodily love came easy to him in a way that it never did to Solas. That Solas' doubts would always be a strange, unspoken chasm lying between them.

But he should have been prepared, for to be a flesh-born elf in Arlathan was always to be conscious of difference. Of being lesser, Felassan knew, though the point was never made explicitly. Those who had come from spirits did not need to speak their superiority, because it was indelibly engrained into every aspect of elvhen life. The spirit-born inhabited the proud halls of Mythal's palace, and the flesh-born laboured in the fields below. Felassan grew up understanding this to be the natural order of things, and it would be many years before he was finally able to look back and wonder why.

When he was ten years old Mythal's people came around and examined the flesh-born children to establish their gifts. Felassan wanted to be a musician or an artist. But unfortunately he was not particularly talented at either music or art, whereas he was judged to be talented at war, so he received a summons to serve in Mythal's armies.

'You must go,' his mother told him, sitting by the fire in the little undercity apartment where he had grown up. The room was built into the cliff on which Mythal's palace stood, and despite the warm tone of the sandstone it was often cold in there; the fire was necessary to drive off the chill of ancient rock. They sat close together, huddled in the indistinct wavering light, and her hands threaded through his hair, gathering it gently into a loose braid for him to tuck behind his shoulder.

'But I don't - ' He didn't want to be a soldier. He didn't want to leave her.

She said nothing, but he felt her hands tremble on the braid. He looked up at her, preparing pleas and excuses, and then he saw the way the firelight reflected in her eyes and had a bruising revelation: there was no point in trying to change her mind. His mother's power was not after all limitless. In fact, neither of them had any power here.

His adolescence after that was harsh, and quickly curtailed; he was fifteen when he was sent out to fight against the durgen'len. It was expected that he would probably die in that first battle. Most of his peers did.

But the assessors had been right; he was talented at war. Or at least, at survival. He grew to an adult, though none of the others did. He was offered a commission not because of any true distinction on his part but because there was no one else left.

Felassan didn't particularly want to be an officer. But he knew it would make a difference for his mother, and for the younger sister who had been born since he left for the army. He had only met his sister a few times, but she was his responsibility nonetheless, and as an officer of Arlathan's armies he would be able to help them - perhaps get them out of the undercity and find them better positions in Mythal's palaces.

He could do it for a little while, he told himself. It wouldn't be forever; either he would be killed in battle or he would find some way out. Even then, he knew elvhen immortality to be more in theory than in practice, meant for the halls of the Evanuris and not for the commoners like himself.

And so he took up the honour that had been offered him, and entered into the inner sanctums of Mythal's court.

***

Though the recollections of that time have become feathery and soft-edged, seen dimly through smoky glass, one moment still stands out: Felassan wanted Solas from the very instant that he laid eyes upon him.

The general was - delicious. There was no other word for it. He stood on the dais in the training yard, delivering orders to the assembled officers, and his thighs shone like the sun in that beautiful golden armour. Felassan's eyes locked on the curve of those thighs and would not let go.

He did not take in a single word of Solas' orders because his attention was entirely elsewhere. The general had beautiful auburn hair bound behind his head, and a jawline astonishing in its sharpness, and though he was unfortunately wearing a long cloak which prevented Felassan from seeing much of his ass, the tantalizing glimpses disclosed when he turned suggested that it was a very pleasing shape indeed. Felassan could think of little else for the rest of the day.

The next morning he made more of an effort to pay attention to the general's instructions, but this did not really help matters because the way that Solas gave orders was so delightful. He was clipped and stern and uptight and Felassan was filled with wildly distracting visions of what it would be like to make him lose that rigid control. To get beneath that golden armor.

Felassan had not been enjoying his tenure amongst Mythal's chosen. These days his own life was less often at risk, but instead he was obliged to send other soldiers out onto the frontlines, and he was not convinced that his talent for survival translated into a corresponding ability to keep other people alive. He did not blame himself, because he knew he was merely a weapon wielded by higher powers, but that did not mean he did not suffer from it.

He was popular among the other officers; he made them laugh, he entertained them, he could certainly have his pick of bedmates. But they were all true believers, devotees of Mythal. And meanwhile Felassan had never met Mythal but he remembered his mother's weariness, the long days of her unrewarding labours - as well as all of the boys and girls who had died at his side in Mythal's service. He was not convinced.

It was lonely to be like that, well-liked and yet so completely unknown. Felassan felt as if he had already half-vanished. As if he were not even a person at all any more; something essential within him withering away in the arid soil of the court's artificial gardens.

When he had the opportunity, he flirted with Solas. He did it not with any real intent but because his life in Mythal's court was otherwise so unremittingly grim and it felt like a small bright thing to make Solas lose his composure. It felt real, somehow, in a way that the easy compliments of the other officers never did.

At night, lying alone in the bare little cell he had been granted along the lower corridor of the palace, Felassan fantasized in great detail about what he would like to do to the general. The sounds that Solas would make as Felassan took him apart. He wanted to make Solas feel good; he knew that the general sometimes had encounters with other officers, men and women both, but he suspected, somehow, that Solas never truly allowed any of them to make him feel good. Felassan could do it. He knew that he could, if only Solas would give him the chance.

***

He is no longer sure exactly how it transpired, but he recalls that some time later he went to Solas' rooms, ostensibly to receive a music lesson, though he certainly had other priorities in mind.

When Solas opened the door, he was not dressed in armour. Somehow this took Felassan by surprise; in some part of his mind he had imagined that the general slept and perhaps even fucked in full armour. But instead he wore simple garb of cream linen - trousers that fell loose and light about his hips, a shirt open at the neck to reveal the lines of his chest. In this outfit it was finally possible to verify that his ass was just as perfect as Felassan had imagined it would be. Always before Felassan had seen him with his auburn hair tied severely behind his head, but now it fell in loose curls to his shoulders, picking up tumbles of soft gold from the magelights that hovered in amongst the white columns spread through his rooms.

Once Felassan was inside, Solas handed over a lute and proceeded to instruct him seriously in the placement of the fingers upon the fretboard. Felassan was a little baffled by this; he had thought Solas must surely understand that the lute lesson was only an excuse for Felassan to come to his chambers. And yet somehow the seriousness with which Solas approached the instruction was so endearing that Felassan could not bring himself to say so. He listened with great solemnity as Solas expounded his views upon music theory, and perhaps he did not learn very much about music but he did become very well acquainted with the precise curve of Solas' lips and the strong bridge of his nose, details that were not so easy to see from a distance in the training yard.

Solas was very determined that Felassan should learn the correct technique. Felassan just wanted to strum gently and sing along; it was possible that this was why he had not been identified as having any particular talent as a musician. But he indulged Solas' lectures nonetheless, in a way that he probably would not have done if Solas had not been so pretty.

There were more lessons after that. It took Felassan some effort, but he eventually succeeded in engaging the general in conversation. Solas was quite unwilling to talk about his own past but he was curious about Felassan's, which was perfect since Felassan was very fond of talking about himself. Solas had a great many questions about Felassan's childhood, and Felassan willingly offered up anecdotes: birthday parties, oaths of friendship, comfort and its absence. Playing hopscotch in the street with his companions.

Then, at Solas' look of confusion, he inferred something. 'Oh. You've never played hopscotch?'

'I was not a child.'

Felassan did not need to be reminded of this. The spirit-born had always been so far above him; those who had once been spirits still seemed to float on a cloud of rarefied mysticism, alluding now and again to their undying connection with the Fade in tones that shut Felassan out. Whispering to one another about a way of being that he had never known and never could know.

But now, suddenly, he felt something else. It occurred to him that Solas had never had a mother. That nobody had ever taken care of him. That he had been rigid, reserved, shut off from all others - that he had been this way ever since coming into the flesh. The consciousness of it burned oddly against Felassan's breastbone; something he had not expected to feel about the strict, buttoned-up general. Something he resisted, and yet felt nonetheless.

The next evening Felassan brought some chalk with him to Solas' rooms, and went out to draw the grid onto the marbled tiles of his balcony. Solas gazed incredulously down at the design. 'You cannot be serious.'

'I'm very serious.'

Solas' brows arched. 'You wish for me to hop?'

'That is how one plays hopscotch,' Felassan said, and then, 'What? You can't?'

He knew, by then, that this was the quickest way to get Solas to do anything he wanted. Solas' brows drew together and he marched across the balcony and positioned himself at the start of the grid. 'One simply hops from square to square?' he said. 'All the way?'

'Exactly that,' Felassan said, arms folded, leaning back against the wall.

Solas hopped down the grid and lost his balance halfway, falling over against the railing. He cast a look of wounded pride back at Felassan. 'I - that was not fair!'

Felassan had to bend over because he was laughing so hard. 'Here,' he said, passing his wine-glass to Solas. 'This will help.'

Solas looked dubiously down into it. 'Intoxication is not famed for helping with balance.'

'Surely it couldn't get any worse.'

Solas glared at him. 'My balance is - I am not experienced!'

'At standing upright?'

'At - hmph!' Solas thrust the glass back into Felassan's hands and went back to make another attempt at the game. This time he made it two squares further before toppling over and falling on his ass.

Felassan was doubled over, wheezing. Solas scowled up at him from the ground. 'You try, if you're so clever!'

'Very well,' Felassan said, and he went to the start of the pattern and executed the whole thing flawlessly; upon reaching the end, he picked up his glass from the balustrade and drained it dry.

Solas made a disgruntled noise, his nose wrinkling. He was irresistible. Felassan wanted to push him down to the ground right then and there and kiss him senseless. He desisted only with a great exercise of will.

'Have some wine,' he insisted, pouring more into the glass, and Solas rolled his eyes but took it from him and drank.

The wine did not, in fact, improve Solas' balance, but it did not matter. Their continued attempts at the game were increasingly erratic and punctuated by laughter as they drank more of the wine. The last time that Solas fell over he sighed deeply and sat back against the wall, shaking his head, and Felassan sat down beside him.

Dusk was falling over the forest that lay beyond the balcony, the leaves whispering into shadowed obscurity, and then gleaming strangely as moonlight dripped through the boughs like silver treacle. Felassan allowed his head to rest lightly against Solas' shoulder, the scents of magnolia and moss settling between them. The look that Solas gave him was faintly surprised, but he did not protest.

'I like you very much, Solas,' Felassan said. He figured that it was safe to say, because Solas would never understand what he meant in any case.

Sure enough, Solas' eyebrows rose in bemusement. 'I - thank you?' he said uncertainly.

'Do you like me?' Felassan asked. If Solas did figure out what he meant he would simply use the wine as an excuse.

Solas blinked at him; he had unreasonably long lashes, Felassan thought. And very pretty eyes, damn it. It wasn't fair for him to have such limpid, wet lilac eyes. 'I - well. I played this silly game with you, didn't I?'

'You only play hopscotch with people you like?'

'As I have told you,' Solas said severely. 'I have never played it before.'

'Well. Quite.'

Solas peered confusedly at him. 'Quite?'

Felassan felt the laughter bubble up in his chest. He shifted a little closer to Solas, so their hips jostled against one another. 'I think you do like me,' he said. 'You're just slow.'

Solas' nose scrunched. 'I am not slow!'

Felassan smiled dimly. The wine made him feel fuzzy, contented, happy. As if Solas had said something more than the words he had uttered; as if it all meant something. Solas' hair fell across his face and it smelled nice, like gingersweet tea. He closed his eyes and leaned into Solas' shoulder. Allowed a starlit slumber to come over him, rocked by the forest's lyrical, dewy murmur.

They woke some hours later with the sun rising over them, and Solas clambered to his feet, agitated, brushing imaginary dust off his trousers. 'How did we - the drills begin in less than an hour!'

Felassan stretched lazily. 'Well, you'd better get going, hadn't you?'

'You as well!'

'You're in charge. Are you going to punish me for being late?'

Solas blinked at him. 'I - well.'

'There you go,' Felassan said. 'Have fun.'

He followed Solas inside and laid down on his couch, watching lazily as Solas put his armour on. He looked uncertainly at Felassan, but then shrugged his shoulders and went out, and Felassan stretched out along the couch and laughed beneath his breath, feeling that although he had not yet succeeded in getting Solas into bed he had at least achieved some kind of victory.

***

Felassan did not ever meet Mythal, but he saw her from a distance when she came to court. He must have seen her more than once, he thinks, but somehow only one day stands out in his memory. On that occasion he caught sight of her on the balcony looking out over the fountains that spanned the outer gardens of the palace. Her hair was bound up into an elaborate knot twined with gold thread and winking rubies; she was dressed in warm colours, long sweeping silks of red and yellow that clung and glittered all about her form, and yet the atmosphere about her felt cold and sharp, like shards of bleak obsidian. Felassan was not impressed.

But then Solas came out onto the balcony, and despite himself Felassan lingered. He saw - an asymmetry, something that scratched beneath his skin. Solas spoke to Mythal like an equal, but she did not return the favour in kind. Her eyes skimmed lightly over his face, as if she were a little bored by the conversation, and then skittered elsewhere.

Felassan could not hear what they were speaking about, but he understood well enough the dismissal in the tilt of Mythal's chin as she swept away from the balcony. Solas' jaw was rigid. He reached out a hand, braced himself against the column; Felassan saw his chest rise and fall, and felt the rhythm of it ripple beneath his own ribcage.

Solas was just like the others, he told himself. A devotee, a fanatic. Felassan did not pity any of them.

And yet - he stood in the shadows and watched as his general breathed in that sunlit silence and he understood that Solas was alone.

Felassan had seen it, and he could not take that back. Solas was so very alone, and there was a softness for him inside Felassan now. He was helpless against it. He still wanted to make Solas feel good, but for different and somewhat uncomfortable reasons.

Fortunately he was not much given to self-examination, so he put the reasons aside and went back to fantasizing. Pretending that it was just as it had been before. But the fantasies were changing; they were gentler now. Alarmingly, he found himself wanting to show Solas that he did not need to be alone any more, and he did not quite know what to do about it.

***

When Felassan asked for a demonstration of how the frescoes were made, Solas did not take much convincing; he enjoyed teaching, Felassan had discovered, far more than he enjoyed giving orders. He explained in great and opinionated detail how the plaster should be prepared, and then he gave Felassan a paintbrush and bade him watch as he demonstrated the correct technique for applying the first layer of paint. He leaned in toward the wall as he painted, his nose scrunching in concentration, and it was so endearing that Felassan could not resist; he reached out with his brush and put a little dab of emerald paint onto Solas' nose. 

The look that Solas turned on him was shocked and incredulous. 'You - I - what was that for?'

Felassan just grinned at him and added a complementary dab on his cheek. 

'Give that here,' Solas said, outraged, and he reached for the brush. But Felassan held it out of his grasp and Solas' efforts to pry it from his hands only resulted in both of them falling over, whereupon they wrestled for possession of it. Solas eyes were narrowed in fierce determination as he scrabbled for the prize, but Felassan did not care about the brush at all: he just liked the way it felt to have Solas pressed up against him like that, his body so warm and firm. He smelled like sweat and copper oxide and he was panting with effort and Felassan put up a fight purely in order to keep him there a little longer.

Eventually Solas managed to reclaim the brush, but by then both of them were covered in green paint. Solas looked down at himself, nonplussed, and said, 'I suppose we should bathe,' and with that he led Felassan into the private bathhouse attached to his chamber. 

It was lined with turquoise tiles on all sides, set with pieces of gold which lent a shimmery iridescence to the light in there. The steam rising off the water made the air feel soft, cushioned, and it carried the scent of oleander all through the room. Solas undressed and Felassan tilted his head to better appreciate the view of him from behind; he was not subtle about it, but Solas did not notice. He simply sank down into the pool, raising a sponge to wipe paint from his skin and then he looked up at Felassan. 'Come on. You're even worse than me.'

Drops of water and paint rolled down Solas' chest, etching his lean muscle in opalescence. His collarbones glitterered and his biceps were spiraled in green. Felassan was losing his mind a little bit, but he managed to find enough self-possession to undress and get into the pool beside Solas; the water made musical sounds as it lapped against the tiles.

Solas tipped his head back and closed his eyes, giving a long sigh, and the light traced in a glistening sweep across his eyelids. If he was trying to break Felassan's brain he was doing an excellent job of it, but the truly frustrating thing was that Felassan did not think he was trying; he was just sitting there naked and beautiful like that for no reason at all. 

He looked so wearied that for a moment Felassan felt uncertain. He slid deeper into the water and then said in a small voice, 'I don't know why you put up with me.'

Solas did not open his eyes, but a hint of a smile appeared on his lips. 'Fel,' he said, and his voice was low and resonant and heartfelt, 'I don't know how I ever endured this place before you came here.'

***

Did Felassan deliberate at all, when Solas left Mythal's service? If so, the steps in his deliberation are lost to him now: all that remains is the certainty. In the end, he could not do otherwise.

He knew the dangers. Not only for himself, but for his mother and sister. His desertion would have consequences; Mythal's enforcers were not above exacting retribution on the families of those who left her service.

He understood all of that. He did it anyway.

The truth was that somewhere in between the lute lessons and the hopscotch and the bathhouse Solas had become essential to him. In the end, despite his cursory friendships with the other officers, it was only the general who had made his life in Mythal's palaces bearable. Felassan could not be there without him; he could not go on alone.

So he put his life into Solas' hands, and followed him into the Frostback mountains.

And there, in amongst craggy reflections from the igneous rock, they became lovers. Felassan did the things that he had imagined for so long, drew the trembling breaths of pleasure from his erstwhile general. Whispered gently to him, in that turquoise twilight. And bound them forever, beneath the rippling shimmers of his own veilfire and the celestial resonance of the stars.

***

On the afternoon that they reached the place where they would build the Lighthouse there was a dewy, lace-edged mist on the air, which made the moment feel bright, momentous; anointed. Felassan stood there on the summit with Solas and gazed out over the valley's iron facets and he felt as if they had always been meant to come here together, as if somehow this place already belonged to them.

They made camp and the whispering dusk came over the mountains. After what had passed between them on the journey Solas was restless and uncertain, pacing around the fire, tying and then retying his hair. Felassan had seen the general making overtures to other officers - short, brusque invitations that were almost commands - and in truth that was not without its appeal. But all in all Felassan preferred him this way, flushed and eager and a little at sea without the trappings of his authority. 

Felassan himself was in no hurry because it was clear to him that they would lie together again that night, and for many nights after. He sat sprawled out beside his bedroll, watching the stars slowly wink to life, molten silver pouring itself over the snow-caps. The air was very fresh on his skin and it smelt of mountain lilies and he was quite content to simply wait like that until Solas was finally ready to admit what he wanted.

But in the end, Solas did not say anything at all; he simply went to his knees before Felassan and began undoing the laces on his trousers. Felassan laughed. 'Impatient, general?'

'I think I have been extremely patient,' Solas murmured, and he almost managed to sound smoothly complacent but the way his fingers shook on the laces gave him away. Then he was bending down to put his mouth to use, and Felassan had imagined often enough how those plush lips would feel on him but he had not anticipated that Solas would be quite so skilled. He tipped his head back, taking quick unsteady breaths, and the stars spiralled so bright and fluid above him that for a moment it was as if he were falling headfirst into them.

Solas was, in fact, a little too good at this, and shortly Felassan was forced to twist Solas' hair around his hand so he could use it to pull Solas' head back, and Solas looked up - his hand on his own cock, his mouth wet, his eyes wide and dissolute. The moonlight turned his freckles into chips of icy glitter and the Fade's higher harmonics resonated off the snow that lay beyond the verge and Felassan could hardly believe that any of this was real.

'You need to slow down if you want me to fuck you again,' he said; it was in fact his intention to fuck Solas so compellingly that he would come to see Felassan as essential, just as Solas himself already was to Felassan.

Solas breathed hard, the tips of his ears pink with exertion. The first time they were together he had seemed almost overwhelmed by his own desire, but by now he had recovered his usual haughtiness. 'Oh? And what makes you think that is my intent?' he said, raising a hand to tug at the collar of his shirt as if he were trying to appear casual.

Felassan leaned in close. 'Just something about the way you looked at me the last time I did,' he said, and then he kissed Solas before he could come up with some smart reply.

In fact, Solas did not seem inclined to protest too hard. His tongue slipped into Felassan's mouth, a tremor of heat and a breath of frozen pine, and then he pushed Felassan to the ground and stretched himself out above him so the stars blurred into a silver corona around his body. Felassan raised an eyebrow. 'So impatient.'

Solas laughed low against his neck. 'Yes,' he admitted, and then they were kissing again, breath tangling, mouths warm and wet against the needle-chill of the air. Felassan’s hands were unsteady at the waistband of Solas' breeches as he tried to push them out of the way. It was a challenge because neither of them wanted to let go for long enough to arrange themselves, but somehow Solas ended up on his side with Felassan behind, skin sliding over skin, and Felassan's fingers, slicked in oil, were pressing into him, and Solas whimpered, begged for more.

Felassan kissed his neck and moved, entered him and it was shattering, engulfing, he felt the sound that Solas made all through his body. He reached forward to close his hand around Solas' hand on his cock, so Solas could show him, so he would know how to do better next time. He pulled Solas closer into his chest and thrust again within him and it was everything, Solas' heat all around him, Solas' breathless little moans, his own name on Solas' lips. He felt so good, so happy, he was overflowing with all of this happiness and he shivered too strongly and held on too tightly until Solas laughed and gasped 'Fel! I can't breathe,' and Felassan laughed too and touched his lips to the hollow at the top of Solas' spine, pressing a breath like splintered sugar there, and it was so lovely and warm and it could not be real and he felt so happy he thought he might die.

***

Looking back, Felassan can see clearly that the next few months, as they built the Lighthouse together, were precious and rare in a way he was simply not capable of understanding at the time. In that hazy intermission they could have been any two people: ordinary, domestic, working side by side and then sleeping every night in the same bed. They did not plan any strategies or fight any battles. They had nothing to do but build walls and craft enchantments and enjoy one another.

But then one day the fortress was finished, and Solas declared that they must set off to the outerlands to begin recruiting.

Felassan felt a little trembling ache in the pit of his stomach, and understood that he was afraid. He didn't want anyone else to come to the Lighthouse. He didn't want to go back into a war. He wanted to live in the mountains forever with his lover - just the two of them, safe from the world, protected from time's passage.

It could be done, he thought. Mythal had not pursued them, and no one knew about the place they had created. They could live out their immortal lives here in amongst the glittering frosts and snow-capped forests, far away from Arlathan's cruelties.

But he looked at Solas and knew that what he dreamed of was impossible. Solas could not walk away from his duty, and meanwhile Felassan could have happily relinquished duty but he could not walk away from Solas, and so there was nothing that either of them could do but go forward.

The Lighthouse would never belong only to them again, and Felassan meant to make the most of their last evening. He had many plans, most involving gratuitous nudity, but Solas looked at him with eyes that trembled with a terrible, bright sincerity, and said, 'I want to paint you.'

Solas did not paint people, Felassan knew that: it was always symbols and abstractions, a figurative language that hid more than it revealed. So he understood the significance of Solas' request, and was moved by it.

He sat, legs dangling from the edge of the balcony and into the abyss beyond, and Solas stood in the doorway and painted Felassan onto the wall of his chamber. They did not speak but the Fade sang all around them, bright glassy oscillations, and there was so much wonder in that place - the trees massed in deep green waves, the diamond light glittering around the peaks, the fresh smell of the snow settling a translucent silver all around them.

Afterwards Felassan looked at the painting and was taken aback by its beauty. Though it is many centuries now since he has seen it, the image is still vivid in his mind. It was not like Solas' other paintings; it was impressionistic and lyrical, and there was a delicacy about the figure, as of something precious and rare. Was that how Solas saw him, he wondered? So lovely and youthful and golden? It felt to him like a long time since he had been any of these things.

Yet there was also a strange little light in his painted eyes. Solas had captured the sadness too, the weight of the impending loss. And the ache in Felassan's chest shivered once more, changed key.

They gazed at the painting for a moment longer; then Solas cast a spell, so that the painting disappeared from view, or so it seemed. 'It's not for anyone else to see,' Solas said quietly, lowering his eyes so Felassan could not meet them.

It was too much. It made Felassan's whole body hurt. He wanted to get Solas into bed immediately, and he also wanted to weep. He could not decide which, so he settled for leading Solas over to the armchair on the far side of the room and settling down in his lap, embracing him, pressing his face into his hair. Words trembled upon his tongue: he would have liked to call Solas love. Would have liked to swear oaths, offer promises. But on the next day they were going to war. It seemed like tempting fate.

'Fel?' Solas said.

Felassan didn't want Solas to know that he was crying, so he took a deep breath before saying, 'I want to hold you.'

It was the last night. It would never be like that again. It would never be so simple, so bright and untouched.

They twined together, in the bed that they had been sharing. Unwitnessed. They did not even undress, that night. They just kissed and kissed and kissed until their lips were bruised, their shared breath growing haltering and fragile. Kissing as if it could save them, as if it could hold the future away.

***

The intricacies of the rebellion and war, the strategies, the twists and turns - much of this blurs together in Felassan's mind now, but he does recall that their very first expedition was to fetch his mother and sister, in order to bring them safely to the Lighthouse. Solas insisted on it. They must be out of the way, he said, by the time the Evanuris realised that Felassan was a leader of the rebellion; Elgar'nan would certainly not hesitate to visit his vengeance upon them.

It felt strange for Felassan to have his mother and his sister there in the place that he and Solas had made. He wanted to tell them what had happened to him. Wanted to hold Solas' hand, say to them he's my - what? Felassan did not have any words for it. So he said 'Mir falon,' and felt the wound of what he couldn't say. What no one was allowed to know. Sometimes he wondered if it would have been different if he were spirit-born, or if he were not a man, but he never asked Solas because he was a little afraid to hear the answer.

It must have been only weeks after that expedition when Solas came to fetch Felassan and brought him up to his rooms at the top of the Lighthouse tower. Felassan went inside the office and saw that Solas had transformed it. There were little lights in the air all around - a soft-edged glitter, reminiscent of wings - and blankets in Felassan's favorite emerald green spread across the furniture. The table was laid with luxuries they had not known since leaving the palace. Soft white cheese; wine, pale and golden; the little sweet grapes that Felassan liked the best, which could only be fetched from the other side of the empire.

'What's this?' he said.

'It's your birthday.'

Felassan blinked at him. In all honesty, he himself had forgotten. 'How did you know that?'

'Mira told me,' Solas said.

Felassan did not know what to think about that. Had Solas told his sister why he wanted to know Felassan's birthday? Had she guessed? Felassan wanted everyone to see what they were. And yet, at the same time, he did not.

On the table there was a gift - a glass bauble, with a Fade-fascimile of a hummingbird inside it, glowing faintly phosphorcent as it flittered back and forth between the curved reflections. It painted the air in iridescent green spirals, as if it were confined in a soap-bubble, and it was only an illusion but it looked so bright and alive that it took Felassan's breath away.

'I know you miss them,' Solas said, a little anxious look in his eyes as he watched Felassan raise the globe in his hands.

Felassan had never told Solas how much he liked the hummingbirds at Mythal's palace. Solas must have seen him watching them. Solas had noticed, and remembered. The thought made Felassan ache, so he laughed quickly, lightly, trying to pass the moment off as less than it was. 'What a show-off you are,' he said.

Solas raised one eyebrow. 'Well if that is the thanks I receive when I make something for you I will certainly not do it again.'

'That is a lie,' Felassan said, and he raised the bauble to look more closely at it, casting a little sideways smile at Solas as he watched the tiny bird raise its neck and preen for his examination. 'You will not be able to resist the opportunity to receive more praise.'

'Where is this praise, I wonder?' Solas grumbled.

Felassan put the bauble down and went over to him, twining his arms around his neck. 'Well. Do you wish to receive it verbally, or in some other form?'

'What about both?' Solas suggested. 'Perhaps simultaneously?'

Felassan laughed and raised his hands to unbind Solas' hair, so it fell loose about his neck and Felassan could insinuate his hands into it. Solas smelt of his magic - a sweet, sugared petrichor, caramelized and brittle. 'Thank you,' Felassan said softly, and then 'What about you? You have never told me your birthday.'

'I was not born.'

'I know, but there was a day when you came into the flesh.'

'I don't know the date,' Solas said. 'I don't remember.'

Felassan frowned. 'Mythal didn't celebrate it?'

Solas gave a little barking laugh. 'Of course not.'

Oh, it hurt. Felassan clenched his hands behind Solas' neck and drew him in closer and then said, 'We should choose a birthday for you. So we can celebrate.'

Solas was silent for a moment, gazing over Felassan's shoulder into the Fade's cerulean gold spirals, and then he looked back at Felassan, his cheeks pinking. 'I - may I share yours?'

Felassan blinked at him. 'You want to take my birthday?'

Solas looked away. 'No, you are right. I apologize. That was - poorly imagined. It is yours.'

He was adorable; he was so adorable that Felassan could not stand it. He raised a hand to turn Solas' face toward him, thumb running along the curve of his jaw. He felt his fingers tremble. 'Of course you can share my birthday,' he murmured. 'I'll share anything with you. Whatever you want.'

Solas breathed quick and harsh, and then he was leaning in, pressing their foreheads together, hands rising into Felassan's hair. 'Fel, I - '

'Yes?' Felassan said, and he put out his tongue to linger along the swell of Solas' lower lip.

Solas' shoulders shook. 'Ma serannas,' he whispered, his voice choked. 'Ma serannas.'

And Felassan did not know how it had come to pass that Solas had given him a gift and yet he was also the one offering thanks, but he closed his arms around him and accepted what was offered nonetheless.

***

Once Mira asked Felassan what he and Solas were to one another, and he shrugged and turn his eyes away, mumbling something noncommital. He did not want to deceive his sister, and in truth he was a little resentful of Solas for making him do it.

Mira was watching him. 'Well,' she said. 'Perhaps the details don't matter.'

He looked at her. 'What do you mean?'

And then she said: 'You should know, Felassan. Our mother isn't well.'

He stared at her; cold, stricken. Death had always been present in his life, despite his supposed immortality, and yet somehow he had imagined - foolish and childish - that it would never come to the people he loved.

'A wasting illness,' Mira said. 'Ghilan'nain was doing experiments in the undercity. Mother wasn't among the subjects but it seems to have been contagious.'

'Solas will cure it,' Felassan said confidently.

Her eyes on him were unexpectedly compassionate. 'He can't do everything,' she said.

'He'll cure it,' Felassan insisted. 'You'll see.'

And Solas tried. For weeks, he tried. Barely sleeping. Flipping feverishly through books, conducting experiments all night long. Rebuffing all attempts to remonstrate with him, to remind him of his other responsibilities. Felassan had never seen him that way before: hard-eyed, sharp-edged, enflamed with determination. No one could possibly have tried harder.

But Felassan's mother died anyway.

Felassan understands now that it was an early form of the Blight, and there was never anything that Solas could possibly have done. But back then, for a moment, he was almost angry with Solas. He was so strong, so powerful, so full of knowledge. He should have been able to cure it. Why hadn't he cured it?

Solas stood before Felassan, pale and exhausted, eyes hollow. 'I'm sorry,' he said urgently. 'Fel, I - I'm sorry.'

Felassan was hunched over, arms wrapped around his knees, gazing at the floor. 'You did your best,' he said dully.

Solas looked hesitantly at him; and then he came to sit beside Felassan. 'I don't know what to say to you,' he said, his voice unsteady. 'I'm sorry. I never had - I have no way to properly understand what you have lost.'

Felassan gave a little sigh, and leaned his head against Solas' shoulder, closing his eyes. He wanted to say: it's all right. there's nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. But he could not, because he had not yet told Solas that he loved him in the first place. And besides, he was wary of such promises. Probably there was something that Solas could do. Felassan simply could not allow himself to imagine it.

***

After that Felassan's memory becomes dimmer, blurred and distant. He knows that he made friends among the soldiers who came to fight for the Dread Wolf, and then lost them all one by one. Perhaps that part he does not want to remember.

And then Mira wanted to fight for the rebellion. Felassan tried to tell her that she couldn't, but she tossed her head and told him angrily that it was none of his business. Then he tried to make Solas tell her that she couldn't, but Solas looked at him gravely and said, 'It is her own free choice, Fel. I cannot deny that to her, and it is not your right to decide.'

Felassan was furious with him, so furious that he said some things that he still regrets, even now. 'This is the only thing I've ever asked you for,' he spat at Solas - hot, bright, merciless. 'You don't care about me at all. You only care about your fucking rebellion.'

Solas said nothing, so Felassan said, 'You wouldn't even care if I died. Nothing else matters but the war.'

Solas' eyes flickered, at that, but he just stood there and accepted it all in silence, as if he thought he deserved the terrible things that Felassan was saying to him.

'You brought me here.' Felassan threw the words at him, sparks of incandescent cruelty in the twilight that lay between them. 'You brought us all here. It'll be your fault when she dies. And when I die, come to that.'

Solas' shoulders slumped, but he still said nothing. Felassan could not stand to see the look on his face, so he turned away and stormed out of the room, out of the Lighthouse, going alone through the eluvians to a distant grey moor where he could walk alone for miles and tip his head to look at the sky's shattered inclemency, preparing a scream that in the end never left his lips.

He went back to Solas the next day. He was unsure of his welcome; he had never said such things to Solas before. But when he went into the room Solas merely looked up at him with silent, desperate hope in his eyes, and to see Solas look at him that way made him feel almost nauseous with guilt.

He went over to Solas and hugged him, smushing his nose into Solas' chest. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbled dimly. 'I didn't mean it.'

He felt a trembling breath go through Solas, and then he wrapped his arms firmly around Felassan, pressing them together so tightly it hurt. 'I am sorry too,' he said unsteadily into Felassan's ear. 'I wish she had not made this choice.'

'Siu'len,' Felassan whispered. 'I didn't mean it. I'm just afraid.' And of course the truth was that he was not only afraid for Mira. To be at war is to be always on the verge of losing everything, he knew that all too well.

'I know,' Solas said, and his voice almost broke on the words, his hands fisting in Felassan's clothing, dragging the fabric roughly into his grasp. 'Fel, if I could tell you not to fight - if I could have you stay here, in safety - don't you think I would?'

'I wouldn't let you leave me behind.'

'I know,' Solas said, and he leaned in to press his face closer to Felassan's, haphazardly kissing whatever skin he could find. His lips trembling as he found the line of Felassan's jaw, his breath hot and ragged along Felassan's neck. 'But I just - I know, ma'sulahn. I know.'

After that Mira went off to fight. Felassan knew what would happen, and it did. When the news came that she was lost Solas seemed to shrink away from him, as if he expected an outburst of rage; but the anger was emptied out of Felassan now. He was so tired. And only Solas was left.

He slumped against Solas, like a puppet, like a corpse. Too drained even to cry. Solas made a soft painful sound and then picked him up and carried him over to the bed and got under the covers with him. Holding him close, entwining their limbs, his thumb strumming up the line of Felassan's spine, the sweet scent of his magic folding over them both. Like other nights, when everything had been different. Felassan closed his eyes and breathed, and breathed, and breathed. He could not stand to remember his fears any longer. He could only hold on to what still lay alive in his arms.

***

And yet - through that time there were also many private, quiet joys. Felassan would take Solas away to the places he had found where they could be alone, where they could be safe. The shores of the sea, or a field full of dandelions, or a cavern full of soft lights. Beside a little brook, braiding Solas' auburn hair with white stars, affixing fine golden chains along the long elegant line of his ear.

'Fel - ' Solas said, pretending at impatience, but there was a smile in his voice as Felassan carefully adorned him.

'It's our birthday,' Felassan said, obstinate. 'And for my birthday what I want is to admire you for a while.'

'And for my birthday?'

Felassan leaned in, his mouth close to Solas' ear where he was still attaching baubles. 'I can make some suggestions,' he said, and he saw Solas shiver, his eyes darkening.

Once it was done Solas looked at his reflection in the still pool in the deepest part of the hollow, and his eyebrows rose. 'You could have exercised a little more moderation.'

'You look perfect,' Felassan said. 'You're like a beautiful sparkly pine tree.' 

'Exactly as I have always aspired to appear,' Solas said drily. 

'Come now, I know that you aspire to look pleasing to me. No matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise.' 

A little smile tugged at the corner of Solas' lips. 'That may be so. But there are limits. I have some dignity still.' 

'Do you?' Felassan said, and then he made use of his extensive knowledge of the places where Solas was most ticklish to strip him of whatever semblance of dignity he might have tried to cling on to, until his laughter and Felassan's reflected bright and glittering off the water and the earrings that Felassan had so carefully applied were hopelessly tangled. 

Once Solas had recovered his breath and Felassan had untangled the chains, they walked like that through the wet green paths of the forest, as they might have done in some other world where they could have been at court together. Felassan had heard the stories about Solas' time at Mythal's court; he knew that Solas had been popular, desired by everyone, well-known for his prowess at both dancing and seduction. But Felassan had never seen him like that: he had only ever known him at war.

The air was spiced with moss and bruised violets. Solas was beautiful with the stars in his hair, of course, but it gave Felassan a lump in his throat. He had believed, once, that they would eventually be able to have this in reality. That there would be a place and a time where they could live in peace, wear jewellery instead of armour, walk hand in hand amongst others. Where they could be without concealments.

He did not believe that any longer. He could not see past the end of the war.

Still, he put it out of his mind. Drew Solas down to the soft blankets that he had laid out in the hollow, undressed him; told him how lovely he was, naked in the faint gauze of that dappled light. Dragonflies darted over them, and the sound of the water held the world away. Solas looked up at Felassan and his eyes were trembling, liquid with trust and desire, and all these years later Felassan still wanted him just as fiercely as on the very first day.

Still, he took his time, kissing and touching and whispering until Solas was pleading with him, shaking with need. Then at last Felassan lay back beneath the shifting shadows and Solas moved over him, pressed deep within him. Sometimes it did not even feel like sex any more; it felt like breathing again, after a long, perilous suspension.

But most of all, in those years it always felt fragile. As if it might be the last time.

And then, of course, one day it was.

*** 

Felassan did not grieve Mythal when she died, but he felt Solas' grief descend over the Lighthouse and knew, somehow, what it portended. He knew, and yet he would not let himself believe it.

He found Solas in the Fade. Petals falling all about them, like notes of music, softening in strange harmonies as they spun toward the broken earth. Perhaps they were really notes of music. The Fade was not always consistent about its sensory modalities; it could be more than one thing at once.

In that place, perfumed and silent, hung about with wreaths of pale blossom, Felassan said to Solas Ar lath ma. He said my love, my only love, but he knew that it was too late. Ar lath ma he said and he was crying as he said it because he knew their time was coming to an end. He licked the tears from his lover's cheeks and felt loss in the air all around them, shivering white.

The next day Solas sent him away. It was a straightforward mission, almost insultingly so. But Felassan felt panic climbing up his chest. He understood what was not being said.

'Vhenan,' he said.

Solas tried to smile at him, but the smile stretched wrong across his lips. 'Emma lath,' he said - lingering over the words, as if he knew it was the last chance to utter them. 'You'll be back soon.'

Felassan wanted to protest. Wanted to remonstrate with him, to plead and beg. But he had done that already. He had offered Solas everything he had, and it had still not been enough.

So he said nothing more. He kissed Solas goodbye, and left him.

And he was on the other side of the empire when the towers began to fall.

***

Felassan remembers the shock of the moment more than he remembers the happenings themselves. He had expected something, but not this, and he could not grasp the weight of the cataclysm. People were screaming around him, buildings falling, the immense symphonic rumble of enchantments losing their grasp on reality. Crumbling rock and shattered windows and a severance that none of them were able, in that moment, to properly understand.

Felassan didn't know what had happened but he had no doubt that Solas was responsible. He could have helped the people around him, but he didn't. He returned to the eluvian, and the spells were fragmenting but he forced them open with whatever raw power remained to him and returned, along the collapsing pathways, to the Frostback mountains.

When he arrived, he saw that the Lighthouse was gone. He would understand later that it had vanished into the Fade, which was now separated from the world as he knew it, but in that moment he saw only its raw gaping absence, a fearful vacuum that burrowed deep inside him and remained there forevermore. His terror mounted as he searched the place where it had been, clambering through what remained of the foundations, stumbling over the last whispers of the wards. Every verge spilling onto emptiness crushed him over again, and he felt hope bleeding into blotched bruises beneath the surface of his skin. Leaving scars. 

There was no sign of Solas, or any of the people who had lived here. But the spell had originated from this site: if Solas' physical body yet survived, it must be somewhere in these mountains.

Felassan searched. For days and days he searched, by himself, through that frozen forest. It was so silent there, the brooks frozen in irregular fragments like shattered glass, the branches chilled against the sky's eerie shimmer. Every night he made camp, laying out his bedroll beneath the jagged silhouettes of the trees, and the sky spread above him was so beautiful and so indifferent. On those nights he was cold no matter what spells he used for warmth; he lay shivering in the silence and he felt lost and frightened, alone in that strange haunting darkness. Sometimes in the worst hours he spoke out loud to Solas, not out of any expectation that he could ever hear, but merely to drive a few of the ghosts away.

And then - he found the shrine. A little stone building, tucked between clefts of jagged rock. It was sealed with a spell, but one which opened itself easily for Felassan, as if he had always been meant to come here.

He could smell Solas' magic in the air, sweet and earthy like candied sage. He could almost taste the sugar dissolving on his tongue. His heart was beating so terribly fast in his chest and then he went inside and for a moment he thought it could all be fixed. He had been close to giving Solas up for dead, but here he was, only sleeping; it would be easy enough to wake him.

Felassan knew the rituals to bring an elf out of uthenera. He performed them, his eyes bleary with the misted tremble of his relief, his hands shaking with anticipation. He touched Solas' body, spoke the words to bring him back into life.

He performed the rituals, once and then again. Certain. Believing. Solas would return to him. He would. Solas had made no promises, but still Felassan believed.

He performed the rituals again. He leaned in to press his lips to the warm mouth of the man who had slipped from his grasp. Tasted salt in the kiss.

He did everything. He tried every recourse he knew. But Solas did not wake.

***

There was a long time after that; years, it must have been, years that Felassan cannot properly count even now. He cannot recall how he felt, or perhaps he cannot allow himself to remember; the pain must have been terrible, and then the creeping numbness even worse. But he remembers working hard to make the shrine habitable - building himself furniture, gathering supplies, drying herbs. Imagining, perhaps, that he would share these things with Solas soon. He kept himself occupied. He waited.

The elvhen empire fell into ruins, but Felassan did not see it. As his civilization collapsed he lingered in the mountains, watching over the shrine. He still believed that Solas would wake. Any day now. Any day.

He kept trying. But he was not a great innovator of enchantment, and he had only the faintest conception of what Solas had done, what had happened to him. Besides, in the wake of the Veil's creation everything was different: Felassan's magic was thin, attenuated, and the spells did not work the way they used to. Nothing would ever be the same, and though Felassan had not had any great fondness for the old world he was not so sure about the new one either.

By the time he finally left the mountains it was all different. Arlathan had fallen and the humans had arrived. But Felassan did not even care about the conquerors; he had other priorities.

The Vir Dirthara was gone, but Felassan went to all the libraries that remained. He consulted every scholar he could find. He collected artifacts, hoarded strange spells.

Nothing worked. No one had answers for him. There was nothing he could do but wait.

In the back of his mind, a thought he did not want to acknowledge: for all he knew, Solas might never wake.

***

The first person after Solas was - just some elven man, in a tavern. Afterwards Felassan would not even remember his name. It had been many years since anyone had been close to him, and yet Solas' last touch felt so recent, so raw. As if there were still a bruise there.

The man brought him up into a rented room above the tavern and Felassan pressed his face into the pillow and wept as that other person took him. As the pleasure that only Solas should have been allowed to wake in him crept treacherously through his veins.

Afterwards the man looked at him, concerned, confused. Felassan had not hidden his red eyes well enough. 'Are you all right?' he said awkwardly. 'Did I hurt you?'

'I'm sorry,' Felassan said. 'It's not you. I - I lost someone. I think I'm not ready.'

The man cleared his throat, put an awkward arm around his shoulders. 'Well,' he said. 'If there's anything I can do.'

'There isn't,' Felassan said, and in the silence that came after he was so terribly consicous of the pain that he dragged with him. The guilt of inflicting it upon any other. The whispers that were beginning to feel true.

***

Felassan remembers, then, going back to the shrine.

He always went back. First every year, then every two, then every five. Every ten. Every twenty. It felt more and more empty, more and more futile. But still he went back. He always went back.

He was always half-expecting that he would find Solas either dead or waking. But there was never any change. He still breathed, just as regularly as he always had. He still lay there; pale, angelic. Perhaps he had never been so beautiful as he was then in that futile, eternal silence. Felassan gazed down at him and the white marble loveliness ached into a strange nightfall against the back of his throat.

'Please, vhenan,' he said. 'Wake up. Or it will be too late. It will be too late.'

Solas was silent. He did not wake.

Felassan climbed into the bed with him, as he had often done before. Arranged his body so it felt, for a moment, as if Solas were holding him. So he was surrounded by the sound of Solas' sleeping breath, the rhythm that had rocked him to sleep for so many lonely nights.

Solas was warm, even in his sleep. He was certainly alive. He was just - not there.

Felassan covered his face with his hands and his breath was jagged and the tears wouldn't come, they wouldn't come.

'My only love,' he said, but his voice trembled in the dark. No one answered him.

***

The first person after Solas who mattered was Ameridan.

Felassan met Ameridan by chance. He just wanted to kill some dragons; it was stress relief. He encountered Ameridan in a tavern and Ameridan said he was off to kill the Gamordan Stormrider over the next ridge and Felassan thought, roughly, why the fuck not? He had nothing better to do. Solas was never going to wake.

Ameridan was engaged to be married to an elven woman called Telana, but Felassan slept with him anyway. It didn't matter, he thought. It didn't mean anything. Nothing had meant anything, since Solas.

Hunting dragons with Ameridan made him feel alive, which was rare for him in those days. He felt by then as if he had been dead for centuries; as if he had died along with his world and his lover, the day the Veil went up.

But he killed dragons with Ameridan and then, spurred by breathless adrenaline, they fucked over the corpse of their quarry, and the sun was bright and sharp and the scales of the dragon sparkled, iridescent, like the magics that Felassan could not allow himself to think of. Like the mosaics of Arlathan, in all their treacherous beauty.

Fortunately the iridescence faded quickly, once the dragon was dead. It was a relief for Felassan, that death brought such a dull grey hue. That it did not ask him to remember.

Ameridan was skilled in battle; it was a joy to watch him as he leapt onto the dragon and wrapped his garotte around its neck and pulled hard and tight to strangle the life out of it. Felassan called him Merry, and Ameridan claimed that he hated it but Felassan saw the way it made him smile. Maybe Ameridan reminded him of Solas a little. Maybe all his lovers did, in the end. Maybe he did not want to think about that.

It was good when it was just killing dragons and sex. It was easy. Then Ameridan became the Inquisitor and it became complicated. There was a weight on Ameridan now, and Felassan watched him carry it and felt - something. Climbing up his chest, like a parasite, an invasion.

He hated it. He resisted it. My only love. He had made promises. He still meant to keep them.

It should have been a relief that he was still capable of this feeling; but he felt it as if a wound. As if love were less of a miracle because it could happen again. As if what he felt now could somehow reach back in time, tainting what had passed between him and Solas. Spreading shadows across the places that still lay so bright and starlit in Felassan's memory.

When Drakon asked Ameridan to go in search of the Avvar dragon, Ameridan brought Felassan to the shores of the sea. That was a mistake, Felassan thought. It made him remember being with Solas on a soft spider-silk rug hidden within the hollows. Kissing under the bright moonlight; the sweet glistening curves of Solas' body, the salty shimmer of the air passing over them. No other love would ever be like that. Nothing would ever burn so brightly or hurt so deeply.

'Come with me to the Frostback basin,' Ameridan said to Felassan that day, as they walked along the line of the tide, the little waves moving in silken ripples over their bare feet.

'What about Telana?' Felassan said.

'I'll tell her it's over,' Ameridan said. 'This is what I want, Fel, and I think it's what you want as well.'

Felassan looked down, watching the way the dark ripples spread out around his footsteps, swallowed up into the lapping silver of the tides. He had no answers. It was a long time since he had known what he wanted.

'Fel,' Ameridan said. 'Ar lath ma.'

Memory twisted like a razor in Felassan's chest. It was too similar to Solas; someone else who would call him love only as a last resort. As a plea, instead of an offering. Another set of devotions spoken too late.

'Fel?' Ameridan said, uncertain.

Felassan tried, he really did. He felt it; the words would not have been a lie. But nonetheless they sat like splintered jade in his throat. Cold marbled veins.

'Ir abelas,' he said instead.

Ameridan looked at him, and in his eyes there shivered a moment of blank, whispering incredulity. 'Really?' he says. 'That's all? After everything?'

Felassan's heart swelled, as if it might splinter his ribs. 'I can't,' he said, looking down. 'Merry, I can't. I'm sorry.'

Ameridan's face became cold and severe, the way it was when he played the role of the Inquisitor. Felassan had seen that transformation before, and always hated it. On Ameridan, and on Solas too. Both of them retreating to a place he could not reach them.

'Very well,' Ameridan said, and he turned away and left Felassan there, and Felassan closed his eyes because he could not stand to witness another ending.

Then he sat down in the dunes and buried his feet in the sand and remembered. How he and Solas had lain there for hours, whispering joyfully to one another as the stars painted the sea in streaks of luminous ripples. The promises they had not spoken, but felt nonetheless. All of it lost now. All irrevocable.

Afterwards he went back to Solas and said it there instead: 'Ar lath ma.' But it did not feel sweet any longer. It felt desperate and pathetic. Declaring his love to what might as well be a corpse.

Meanwhile, Ameridan went back to Telana. Perhaps he told her about Felassan; perhaps he did not. It didn't matter, because Ameridan disappeared, just like Solas. Felassan was not convinced that Ameridan was dead, but he did not search for him. He could not do that again.

What had happened with Ameridan felt like a betrayal - not even of Solas, but of his own past self. The passionate heart that had once spoken with such certainty: always, no other, forever.

It hurt. Solas had broken the world but he had broken them too, and now Felassan could only limp onward like that: sundered, shattered, severed.  

***

The twilight in the mountains is still as beautiful as ever, aureate and rain-softened. Felassan sits at the door of the shrine and peers out into the blurred indigo shadows, and there, at last, he finally sees the shape of things. He's held on to that glittering intensity for so long, but he can't hold on forever. He has to put aside his youth; he has to let Solas go. 

And so, the next time that someone says 'Ar lath ma' to him, Felassan says it back.

It comes out with a little twist of grief. An ache, a recrimination. But he says it back once, and then again. It becomes easier.

He takes mortal lovers. He watches them die. Every time he buries a lover, he goes back to Solas.

Solas will not ever wake, Felassan tells himself. He must accept it. And yet - how the longing shivers beneath his skin, even now. He wants to love someone that way again. He wants love to hurt him, as it used to do. He wants to be alive in the way he was on those first nights with Solas - when the stars burned so bright above them and everything in him felt too fragile, too intense, too much.

Solas keeps breathing, that's all. He still breathes. It sounds like hope. But Felassan knows that the hope will ruin him for any other's touch.

***

A few years after the Fifth Blight, Felassan finds himself in Antiva. There's an elf there, an ex-Crow, who is cheerfully murdering his previous employers one by one. Felassan doesn't entirely understand why, but the casual brutality entertains him, and Zevran has talents that extend beyond assassination. The two of them spend an enjoyable month in Treviso - walking through the purple gloaming beneath paper lanterns, eating gossamer slices of shaved ham and salted plums, trading anecdotes of death and survival in between satisfying episodes in bed.

But Felassan can see that it isn't going to be love this time. In all honesty, he's relieved. He's immortal, but his heart is tired.

He returns to Orlais and spends some time with Briala. Over the centuries he's made attempts to help various elvhen rebels. It's hard to feel much optimism after so many failures, but he does his best. He gives her what he can. And then, once again, he goes back to Solas.

By now the routine is stitched deep into his body. Settling into the little shrine, taking stock of his supplies. Repairing his furniture, hunting, fishing. The herbs he left the last time are still there, their colour leaking away, greyed perfumes seeping out across the stone. He crushes lavender between his fingers, smells the essence of a lost moment seeping into the air. Memory doesn't taste sweet to him any more; time has never been anything but cruel to him.

This place is is home, he supposes. A bare shrine in a lonely mountain where his once-lover lies. All these years and yet, somehow, this is all that he has.

He might as well have slept all this time, like Solas. He has achieved just as little. He has accrued only more loss.

***

Felassan wakes in the night and hears a new rhythm within the shrine's slow tides. The change is minuscule, infinitesimal, but Felassan has been listening to the poetry of Solas' breath for centuries. It subtle rhyme has become intertwined with his very pulse; there is no rhythm he knows more keenly. The change he hears now is a mere half-beat, a semiquaver, and yet he knows it.

He waves a hand to raise the magelights, and gets to his feet. Wrapping a coarse woollen blanket around himself, he goes over to the dais where Solas lies sleeping.

He is motionless yet; but there is something different about him. Colour in his cheeks. A stronger flutter in his throat.

Felassan gazes down, disbelieving. The change is quite clear to him and yet he cannot trust the evidence of his eyes, not after all that has already come to pass.

He drags one of the chairs over so he can sit beside the bed, keeping watch. When Solas stirs, just a small movement of his fingers against the furs, Felassan is there to see it.

His breath shudders, spools painfully out of him. It cannot be real, and yet it is.

It takes hours more for Solas to wake. All the long day Felassan sits with him, watching as his cheeks grow ruddier, as his motions grow more decisive. Felassan doesn't eat, doesn't sleep. He fears that if he turns away, if he misses it, then Solas will slip once more from his grasp.

Solas' breath is unsteady. He gives a little moan, as if in pain. Felassan's heart twists in his chest.

'Ar lath ma.' He tries the words. His voice trembles. They don't fit.

'Vhenan.' He can't quite get it out.

He subsides. Watches Solas in silence. There is no point in recapitulating the loss of something he has already grieved.

The hours pass. Solas tosses and turns, spasms going through his body, his fingers making a futile clutch around the ancient furs that have cradled him all of these years. Felassan sees his hair pulling at his scalp as the impossibly matted tangles catch in the furs; it must be hurting him, Felassan thinks, so he takes out his own razor and lays a cool hand on Solas' temple and shaves Solas' head, the pale skin of his scalp emerging into the shrine’s rosy haze. He looks so naked and so young, as if newborn beneath Felassan's hands. He makes soft little sounds, as if he is aware of Felassan's touch.

And finally, as the magelights glow brighter to shut out the silver twilight that is descending upon them, Solas opens his eyes.

He gazes up at Felassan. 'Fel,' Solas whispers, and Felassan breathes deep. Feels the relief and the anguish alive in the air around them. He wants to be in love with Solas again. He wants to feel an uncompromising joy, the way it would have been all of those centuries ago if Solas had woken when Felassan first found him.

But it can't be the same any more. Felassan isn't the same any more. He has not lost Solas, but he has lost the part of himself that loved with that fierce, all-consuming passion.

He bites his lip so hard it draws blood, looking down at Solas. Those grey-lilac eyes, searching his face. First trying to understand, and then refusing to. 

Felassan's chest aches. It's always been you, he thinks. Whatever form it takes. Whatever it looks like now. It's always been Solas, for him; come what may, he can imagine no other destiny.

'Fel?' Solas says. It's a question, lingering too long in the air between them, and yet Felassan cannot bring himself to make a reply.

*** 

Days later, as they walk through the wood outside, Solas turns to Felassan as if he means to kiss him; but Felassan averts his gaze. Solas looks at him, uncertain, pleading, and Felassan wants to curl up and die. He doesn't know how to tell Solas that he doesn't love him like that any more. He can't stand to see the hurt flare to life in his eyes.

Their tenderness was everything to him once. But he could not remain in that place. He had to go on; he had to live.

And yet he takes another breath, and turns back to smile at Solas. Soft, gentle. It's the only thing he can think to do. It's the only thing he has left to give.