After the meeting concluded, Arethin found Cassandra near the training yards. She was doing the oddest thing. She would do an exercise, stop in the middle, then start with another one. Periodically she would growl to herself, clearly frustrated. It was so strange that Arethin stopped in her tracks and watched her.
In spite of herself, Arethin was curious. “What are you doing?” she asked at length, after Cassandra had continued to do this for several minutes.
Cassandra stopped and looked round, as if only just noticing her. She shook her head. “Everything is moving too fast,” she said. “First all this, and then the possibility of the Qunari invading?” she swung her blade, and it stuck fast in the training dummy. “How can the Chantry have come to this?”
“The Chantry?” Arethin frowned and walked closer to her. “What have they to do with anything?”
Cassandra yanked her sword from the dummy with a growl. “The Divine is dead. An impostor sits upon the throne, but we cannot do anything about it—Justinia's Inquisition could not even gain enough support to stand on its own.” she hung her head, scowling.
“And would you want to?”
“I would--” Cassandra started, then stopped, putting her sword down. She sighed and stared out over the battlements. “I do not know anymore. We hold a seat at your council, but we are only there so the Chantry can claim to have a voice.”
“Do you feel you do not?”
“No, I—I do not know what I feel anymore,” Cassandra admitted.
Arethin regarded her. “Why not?”
“We were meant to bring order.” Cassandra walked over to where Arethin stood. “But we did not. First the Seekers—my own Order—brought chaos, brought a usurper. Then—you came. I thought you our savior, but you...even if the Maker sent you, you did not want to save the Chantry.”
“No.”
Cassandra paused for a moment. When she spoke again, it was with great hesitation. “If you were sent by the Maker, I began to think—what if we had done wrong?”
“I have little patience for hand-wringing over whether the Chantry has done wrong or not.” Arethin said, folding her arms. “You have. In this instance, it is simple.”
Cassandra closed her eyes. “I am sorry, for everything that happened to you,” Cassandra said. “For everything the Chantry did to your people. I...I am sorry.”
“Sorry does not repair what was done.”
“I know.” Cassandra looked up, towards the battlements. “I seek the truth,” she said. “And the truth is...” her shoulders slumped. “What I had worked for...all that I had tried to do under the Chantry...we were wrong.” she turned away from Arethin. “All of it. It was wrong.”
Arethin blinked, surprised, but held her gaze. “You truly think so?”
“We have torn families apart. Hurt those who were innocent, those who were helpless. It is our negligence that started these wars—our responsibility was to the mages, and we failed them. Our responsibility to keep our own house, and we failed.” she gritted her teeth. “While we were squabbling, a magister of old—one of the great enemies of the Chantry—rose to power, and who has risen up against him?” she laughed and gave a shake of her head. “Elvhen myths, and the dwarves, and the mages who we said would only cause more harm. We did not repair this. We did nothing but make it worse.”
“I see.” Arethin looked at Cassandra, saw the defeat in her expression. She considered her for a long moment. “I don't think my people can forgive the Chantry everything it has done,” Arethin said. “We can't forgive Orlais, and we can't forgive the people who stood by and let all of it happen. Even people who weren't directly hurt—Solas and Felassan and the other Elvhen, probably could not forgive what was done to the people who came after them.”
Cassandra didn't say anything.
Arethin was quiet for a long time, considering her next words. “Our people cannot forgive each other. Only hope for peace between us.”
“I see,” Cassandra said, her voice soft.
“But I can forgive you.”
Cassandra looked up.
“What?”
Arethin met her eyes. “One person is not responsible for the mistakes of so many, over so many years. You have only ever tried to protect the Divine, have you not? You are here, not with Elthina, helping us to repair the world. You know the harm you have caused.”
“I do.”
“Then yes. I will forgive you.”
“But—your people--” Cassandra bit her lip. “Your son--”
“It was not by your hand he was murdered." and it was true, almost to her surprise. "Your Order and your church and your laws did it, but it was not you.”
“Laws,” Cassandra made a disgusted face. “I cared so much for those laws. Laws that let children be murdered, but true monsters like Elthina or Lambert do as they pleased.”
“And you don't anymore?”
“How can I? The Chantry has lead itself to its own destruction—I have tried and tried to hold it together, but it refused to be whole.” she shook her head.
“Well, then.” Arethin didn't know what to say to that. “There you have it.”
Cassandra seemed to know how she felt. She sighed. “And now there are the Qunari.”
“Yes. There are.”
“All of this—all of this—could have been avoided if only...”
“You don't know that.”
“Don't I? We were supposed to protect the south, spread the Chant, ensure peace, but...”
“Cassandra.” Something in her voice made Cassandra look at her. “You don't know what could have been done. Maybe you could have solved it. Maybe you would have made it worse. You can't know. You can just change what is done now.”
At last, Cassandra smiled.
“Yes. I suppose I can.”
Hesitantly, Arethin smiled back.
Iron Bull came to Solas' office, which was unusual.
“So. Why exactly is it that Mythal liked wolves so much?”
“Excuse me?” Solas glanced up at Bull, then looked away again.
“In the lyrium mines, her shrine had wolves next to it. Why?”
“We were...old allies.”
“You mentioned. But you stopped?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We no longer had the same goals,” Solas said with a shrug, avoiding Bull's eyes.
“Is that so?”
Solas finally looked up at him. “And many other things, as well.”
“Such as?”
Solas leaned his elbows on his desk, regarding Bull with narrowed eyes. “Why are you so interested now?”
“I think there's still a lot of things you haven't told us,” Bull said, eyes following Solas' every move.
“I need not explain all of my past to you.” Solas' voice was measured and even, but his shoulders were tense. “As you have not explained all of your past to us.”
“No. But I don't think that everyone needs to hear all the details.”
Solas nodded. “Then we understand one another.” he looked at Bull. “Choosing another path is always difficult.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Hm,” Bull rumbled, his brow furrowed. “And you have a lot of experience with that, do you?”
“In some ways.” Solas looked at Bull, examining him as if he hadn't quite seen him before.
After that conversation, Iron Bull was made more of a habit of visiting Solas. He would come to the office, ask Solas a question or two, then leave.
“Why are you so interested now, when you were not before?” Solas asked him, after Bull had inquired into Solas' past yet again, wondering about the particular relationship between him and Mythal.
“When someone says they're a thousand years old, and then actually acts like it, I'm gonna be interested,” Bull said.
“Is curiosity your only motivation?”
“Sort of,” Bull leaned back in the chair he occupied. “I mean, it's probably pretty important to know about someone who's literally a legend to some people.”
“Perhaps. You should know how rumors spread, however.”
“Once you get into 'changing the laws of the world' I think you've kind of gone beyond rumors.”
“A fair point,” Solas sighed. “And what of you? We have both taken different paths, but your choice to leave your bonds behind was made only recently. How are you feeling?”
Bull frowned at the change in topic, not wanting Solas to weasel out of talking about his past. But at the same time, Solas was the first one who'd asked Bull directly about his feelings on the subject of being Tal-vashoth.
“Hmm,” Bull rumbled, thinking his answer over. “Never thought I'd turn Tal-vashoth, that's for sure.”
“I am not sure you even qualify as Tal-vashoth, not with the way you describe them,” Solas said.
“Well, that's a fuckin' relief,” Bull rolled his eye.
“You are not the mad brute that other Tal-vashoth can be. You have not lost your mind. If a Tal-vashoth is defined by madness, does that not mean you are not one of them?”
“Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't,” Bull couldn't help a slight shudder at the thought. “I don't know why it happened to them. The Qun has some explanation, but it doesn't explain how Vashoth can live without going savage. I don't know what the difference is.”
Solas shrugged. “I could not tell you. Perhaps it is something within the minds of those who turn Tal-vashoth, or perhaps it is something in their environment and the people around them. Unless all those under the Qun are freed, there is no way to tell. I would say that the Tal-vashoth turn 'mad' because the Qun taught them nothing else--but that clearly does not happen to all who turn their back on the Qun.”
“So I can't be sure it won't happen to me.”
“Do you really think those around you would let that occur?” Solas asked. “Judging from my own example, Lavellan seems quite determined to assist her friends in the manner she deems fit.”
Iron Bull chuckled. “Yeah, she did kind of talk you into going along with her, didn't she?”
Solas smiled. “Precisely. You have her, and your Chargers, and the others...and you have me, for what that is worth to you. I don't believe any combination of those elements would allow you to fall prey to madness.”
“You included, huh?”
“I have experience with such matters.”
“Going to explain that?”
Solas considered. “Yours are not the only people told that their lives depended upon the rules those in power set for them,” he said at last. “More than that is...a lengthy explanation.”
“Are we talking you talking about the Fade long, or what?”
“Longer,” Solas ducked his head and hid a tiny smile.
Bull snorted. “Right. Well, how do you prevent sudden onset madness? 'Cos so far I haven't heard a whole lot from anyone that helps with that.”
“Distracting yourself from the thought that it will happen helps,” Solas said.
“Skyhold's low on dancing girls. What've you got?”
“Pawn to H4,” Solas said. “Your move.”
Bull stared at him for a long moment. “We don't even have a board.”
“Too complicated for a savage Tal-vashoth?”
Bull scowled. “No idea how you can still be such a smug asshole when Lavellan put you under house arrest...fine. Pawn to D5.”