Arethin came upon Felassan and Solas arguing furiously with each other. She could only follow a word or two, the ancient Elvhen being nigh-incomprehensible and completely different than Dalish, but she could tell the tone well enough.
Felassan stormed past her and slammed the door behind them, his face as dark as a thundercloud.
“What was that about?” Arethin asked.
Solas leaned heavily on his desk.
“Solas?”
“A friend of mine—a spirit—needs help,' he said. “Felassan feels it is too risky to help them.”
Arethin raised her eyebrows. She would not have thought that Felassan's words were ones of caution. “A spirit? What do you mean?”
“I felt its cry in the Fade,” he explained. “Summoned by mages—presumably ones that are not allies with anyone in particular.”
He began to pace, restless and worried.
“Why doesn't Felassan want to?”
“The spirit—was summoned to the Exalted Plains,” he said.
Arethin let out a breath.
“There's an eluvian out near the Plains,” Arethin said. “But it's full of Celene and Dubois' troops fighting each other.”
"I know,” Solas said, scowling at the ground.
Arethin began to pace. “There's some Dalish presence there,” she said. “We might be able to help.”
Solas nodded. “Will you?”
She nodded. “We'll go.” she said.
He let out a long sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said.
“We'll take Felassan,” she said. “If it is some kind of trap, he clearly doesn't want to do it.”
Solas didn't respond to the jibe, only nodded, distracted. He rocked back on his heels, expression a thousand miles away.
Arethin went to find Felassan. Fortunately, he found her first.
“Lavellan,” he said, catching up to her in the hall.
“Felassan, good, I--”
“If you're going, I'm coming with you,” he said.
“Of course. Why wouldn't you?” she blinked at him.
“I thought you might...never mind,” he shook his head. “We need to be careful here.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why? What are you worried about?”
“The spirit, it might...” he shifted from foot to foot. “It might die.”
“Yes, that could happen,” Arethin nodded. “We'll try and save it--”
“No, that isn't the point,” he said quickly.
“Then what is?”
“We aren't—we aren't used to death, not the same way you are,” he said. “He—just be careful.”
“I was not planning on being anything but careful.”
“Alright. Good.” he brushed his hair away from his forehead, just as distracted as Solas. “Fine. Good.”
The Exalted Plains were dry grassland, a place where the river ran muddy and dark, a drought and unseasonable warmth making the area feel very strange to be in.
There was a small Dalish presence about the local eluvian, but that was the extent of either Dalish or Alliance presence in the area. Mostly, the Orlesians kept fighting amongst themselves. There was another independent group that called themselves Freemen of the Dales, but they weren't really in enough force in the Plains to bother anyone.
“Be careful,” the local Keeper, Hawen, told Arethin. “There's soldiers and bandits and more around here. A few rifts, too.”
“I'll look into it,” she promised, and she, Felassan and Solas were off.
“We shouldn't be here,” Felassan grumbled, glaring at Solas' back as he urged his reindeer ahead of them.
“Felassan, it will be fine,” Arethin told him.
Felassan lapsed into silence, staring hard at Solas' back, and slowly shook his head. Arethin sighed lightly, but was unable to pry any more information out of him. Both of them were very closemouthed about their disagreement, not offering much of an explanation. Solas was pale and worried, and Felassan was much the same.
The Plains were crowded with ruins, both of modern Orlesian houses, and of older Dalish structures. Some of the Dalish structures were combined with even older Elvhenan architecture, and there were some signs of Dalish excavation of certain areas.
“Have you ever been here before?” Arethin rode up beside Solas and asked him. He was tense and nervous, and she wanted to try and take his mind off of things.
He nodded, looking distracted “Yes, very long ago,” he said. “It was very different then. I've dreamed here, once or twice.”
“What was it like?”
“In Elvhenan, or the Dales?”
“Elvhenan,” Arethin said. “Hearing about the Dales is...very sad.”
“There was a city built here,” he explained. “A small one.”
“I remember,” Felassan piped up. “It was friendly to us.”
“It would have to be, to be so close to the mountains.”
“What was it like?” Arethin asked.
Felassan and Solas exchanged a look.
“The cities of Elvhenan are...hard to describe,” Solas said. “This city was a home to many who favored plants and botany, I believe.”
Felassan nodded. “Yes, tree mages,” he smiled a bit at the memory. “They made so many beautiful flowers...all gone, now,” he snorted and looked around. “For farmland.”
They neared the river, and Solas' back stiffened.
“What is it?” Arethin asked.
“I can feel--” he rushed forward, and Arethin and Felassan hurried to catch up with him. They crested a ridge, and Arethin came to a stop, spotting a huge Pride demon inside a crude summoning circle by the bank of the river.
“Oh, no,” Solas murmured, dismounting his reindeer. Felassan dismounted as well and grabbed his arm. “No, no, no...”
“Solas...” Felassan cautioned.
“What is it?” Arethin got off her hart to stand next to them and stared at the demon in the circle. “Is that...your friend?”
“They corrupted it,” Solas hissed, his face white with rage. “Summoned it, turned it against its purpose--”
Someone came over the hill. A man with sallow skin in a ragged mages' robe looked them over, and spotted the staff on Arethin's back.
“A mage!” he exclaimed. “You're not with the bandits?”
“We are with the Alliance,” Arethin said. “What were you doing out here?'
“Do you have lyrium potions?” the man asked. “Most of us are exhausted. We've been trying to control that demon--”
“You summoned that demon!” Solas spat, lurching forward, only stopped by Felassan's death grip on his arm. “Except it was a spirit of wisdom at the time! You corrupted it!”
“I know it can be confusing to someone who has not studied demons--”
Arethin and Felassan glanced at each other. Waves of heat began to radiate off of Solas, and the grass began to brown under his feet.
“I would stop right now if I were you,” Felassan said, now actively trying to yank Solas backwards with both hands, but Solas refused to be moved.
“Listen to me,” the man insisted. “I was the foremost expert on demons in the Kirkwall Circle--”
“Shut up,” Solas snarled, and yanked out of Felassan's hold. Felassan stumbled backwards, and Solas stalked forwards, advancing on the man. “You summoned it—to protect you from the bandits? You ordered it to kill?”
The man nodded. He was sweating.
Solas looked back at Arethin. “They turned it against its nature, but if we break the circle, it should return to its normal state. No orders to kill, no conflict with its nature, no demon.”
“That circle is the only thing stopping it from attacking us!” the man exclaimed.
“That is enough from you,” Arethin informed the man. “Solas—we'll do what we can. I can't promise anything if we break the circle and it attacks anyway.”
Solas nodded stiffly.
Felassan approached Solas again, asking him something in Elvhen, but Solas didn't reply.
The unfamiliar mage and his comrades hung back, watching as they dismantled the circle. The Pride demon was hostile, and periodically spat lightning at them, but the lightning never hit, as it didn't seem to be aimed very well. The circle was constructed from pure magic and clumsily-enchanted stones, the mark of a desperate mage, low on resources. There were not even any magical defenses preventing the breaking of the barrier, and the circle's enchantments were already fairly frayed.
With a few quick force spells, Solas immediately broke several of the stones at once, and the circle went dark. Arethin braced herself for an attack, but none came. A cloud of sparks surrounded the demon, and when they cleared, all that was left was a much smaller spirit, in the shape of a woman.
Everything about the woman was dark, from her hair to her skin to her robes, as if she were made from black paper. The only thing of color about her person were her eyes, which were not so much eyes as gleaming green lights set into deep sockets where the eyes would be on any other person.
Solas kneeled down before her. Felassan hung back, biting his lip so hard that it began to bleed. He wiped his mouth, eyes never leaving Solas.
Solas and the spirit had a soft conversation in Elvhen, one that Arethin only caught a few words of. Felassan was looking very pale.
Eventually, Solas reached out and cradled its face in his hands. The spirit's shape crumbled into ash and blew away on the breeze. He stayed there for a long moment, his hands out.
Felassan approached him.
“It was right,” he murmured. “We helped it. You helped it.”
“I know.” Solas said. “Now I must endure.”
“As we all do, my friend.”
“I'm sorry, Solas,” Arethin said quietly, putting her hand on Solas' shoulder. He nodded, staring out at the river for a long moment.
“Now all that remains is them,” Solas snarled suddenly, and got to his feet.
“Solas, don't,” Arethin snapped, grabbing his arm.
He rounded on her, eyes blazing, and he began to spark. “They killed it,” he snapped. “This was their doing!”
“I know,” she said, trying to sound more confident then she felt. “Let me deal with it. Not you.”
He glared at her, no longer radiating sparks but cold, and frost began to crawl up her arm. Eventually, he relented, and nodded, and she let go of him.
She turned to the mages, shaking the frost off her hand. “You,” she snarled. “What in the name of every last Creator did you think you were doing?”
“The roads weren't safe,” complained the head mage, the sallow-skinned man who had first approached them.
“Did none of you think to contact the Alliance outpost?” she demanded. “We're friends to the Circles, both the loyal mages and the Grand Enchanter's people!”
“What good would the Alliance have done us?” one of the other mages snapped. “A bunch of Dalish and dwarves and washed-up Chantry moguls—what's the point?”
Arethin breathed in deeply through her nose, and something in her expression made all of the mages back up a step.
“We didn't know—it was just a spirit, the book said it could help us!”
“Help you find wisdom,” Felassan exclaimed. “Wisdom spirits help you find wisdom!”
“That spirit was a friend,” Arethin snapped. “A friend you hurt and killed, and you are absolutely lucky that you're not dead right now!”
The mages didn't have anything to say, just glanced between the fiercely glaring Solas and Arethin.
“Oh...” Arethin pinched the bridge of her nose. “Get out of here. Risk the damned bandits, I care not. If I hear about anything like this again—if you so much as touch a spirit—I will not stop you getting what you deserve, understand me?”
The head of the group nodded, and with one last glance at Solas, they left.
Arethin sighed. “I'm sorry,” she said again, turning back to her companions.
Solas nodded. He was shaking with anger, his face completely bloodless.
Felassan started to speak again, and Solas turned and glared at him, his eyes narrowed. Felassan went quiet.
“We should go back,” Arethin said.
“I would rather--” Solas' voice was very tight, and he took a deep breath. “You should return. I would rather not go back immediately.”
“You know I should say no to that.”
“I know.”
Arethin sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can we at least get back to the Crossroads?” she cajoled. “I don't trust this place.”
Solas gave a stiff nod. “Perhaps that would be better.”
Solas was very quiet on the way back, so quiet it made Arethin worried. Felassan tried to speak to him once more, but Solas refused to say anything.
When they got back to the Crossroads, Arethin and Felassan moved towards the Skyhold eluvian, but Solas was reluctant.
“I need—to be alone, just for a little while,” he told her. “I can't--” he took a deep breath and straightened his back. “I will be no help to you if I cannot clear my mind.”
“If you run off, I'll hunt you down.”
“I am well aware.”
“That's what I thought.” she put a hand on his shoulder. “I know,” she said. “Come back soon? I can't deal with all this garbage without you. For a great many reasons.” she tried smiling at him, but he didn't smile back.
Felassan tried to speak to him one last time, starting in careful Elvhenan, but this time Solas snapped at him, something biting and short, and Felassan stopped.
“Fine,” Felassan hissed, switching to Common. “Do as you please.”
“I was not aware I needed to answer to you,” Solas said in reply, taking the hint and going back to Common as well.
“Come on,” Arethin muttered to Felassan, nudging his shoulder. “Let's go.”
They left for the Crossroads, Arethin having one last word with the Alliance forces there to keep an eye on Solas.
“What were you talking about?” Arethin asked Felassan.
Felassan just shook his head. “Things I should know better than to say,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Doesn't matter. He'll talk to you before talking to me. Don't worry about it.” he hurried away from her, and all she could do was stare after him.
At Skyhold, Felassan went to find Briala.
“Briala?”
“Hahren,” Briala smiled, but her face fell when she saw Felassan's expression. “What's the matter?”
He shook his head. “I'm sorry—I shouldn't—it's my own cursed problems, not yours--” he wrung his hands.
She blinked. “Now I really want to know what's wrong.”
He laughed. “I'm sorry,” he said again. “I was just—reminded of some nasty memories I didn't want to think of.”
“Was it what you and Lavellan and Solas went off to do?”
He nodded. “Ah, temperamental Fen'harel,” he sighed, and sank into a nearby chair.
“What happened?”
“Well, a friend of his died. I didn't know the spirit, but he did.”
“Spirit?”
“Oh—you can make friends with them. A bit like making friends with Cole, but less confusing.”
“I see.” Briala sat on the chair opposite him. “Why does it matter to you?”
“Too much pain, and a god destroys things,” Felassan said with a shrug. “He'll say he's not a god, but I think at some point he crossed a line towards being one.”
Briala frowned. “Are you worried?”
“Not now. I was.”
“Well, that's something, at least,” she shook her head. “You said I thought like him, once.”
“You do.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
He shrugged. “If you were in Elvhenan, given a few hundred years, you'd probably cause just as much trouble.”
She smiled. “I'm never sure what qualifies as a compliment from you.”
He laughed.
It was three days before Solas returned from the Crossroads. He came out of the eluvian looking weary, but was reasonably polite, even to Felassan.
Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary until Arethin had the dream.
She stood in a field of bodies, smelling blood and bile and dirt, and the sky overhead was split red with the dawn.
It wasn't her dream.
She knew it was a dream, she could feel it, and it twined around her, alien and strange. It just wasn't hers, and it wasn't the larger Fade. Everything about it felt...off, like she watched it through someone else's eyes.
The mark must have malfunctioned again, this time dragging her into someone's nightmare.
Her thoughts were weighed down, and the very air was heavy. Walking was a great effort, and she didn't so much walk as drag one foot forward, and then the other.
Her heart felt broken. It was the strangest thing, she felt—despair, utter despair, but it didn't belong to her. The emotion was completely alien, and she supposed it must have to do with that this dream was not her own.
She had to get out. She wasn't quite sure how, though. Since this wasn't her dream, she couldn't control it, or influence it the way she could if she were in the Fade. Perhaps if she found the dreamer and woke them up, she could leave.
She walked across the field. The bodies were stacked three deep, corpses upon corpses, in armor and clothes and everything in between. Her first thought was that it must have been the sight of a great battle, as many of the bodies were wounded or stuck with arrows, but she saw people who were unmarked, or who wore ordinary clothes not meant for war. If it was a battlefield, it must have been a battle that encompassed an entire city, but there were no buildings.
She'd never seen so many bodies.
She realized that while most of the bodies were of elves, but she could see a human or a dwarf or a Vashoth mixed in. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling an almost physical weight of guilt press down on her.
She took a deep breath. She had to continue.
She found Solas standing at the center of the field, before an enormous statue of a wolf. The statue was so large it almost blocked out the sky, and the closer she got, the larger it seemed to grow. It had six eyes, three on either side of its massive skull, and blood dripped from its gaping maw.
“Solas?” she said, surprised. “Is this your dream?”
He turned, blinking. His eyes were red, as if he'd been crying, and there were teartracks on his cheeks. “Lavellan? What are you doing here?” his voice was rough.
“I think I'm here on accident,” she admitted. “I don't...I don't know. I'm sorry.”
His eyes slid to her hand. “The mark,” he said. “I'm sorry. The dream was too strong—it pulled you here.”
She squared her shoulders. She shouldn't be seeing this—this was his dream, and she didn't need to go walking inside of it. “I need to get out, but I'm not sure how. Can you wake up?”
“I tried,” he said. “It is...difficult.”
She stared at him. “Can't you stop nightmares? Why are you still here?” she was worried, now. If he couldn't wake up, what chance did she have?
“I tried,” Solas said. “I can put a protection around the nightmare, so no one will come here--”
“Except for me.”
“It's the mark—it's connected to me,” he waved a hand. “I'm trying, but I can't pull out of it—” the sky turned ashen, and his legs went out from under him.
Startled, she caught him.
“I'm sorry,” he choked, voice suddenly thick with tears. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry--” he was so heavy he weighed her down. She was positive that he wasn't this heavy in the physical world.
“You're not afraid of it,” she said. “I don't—this isn't about being afraid. Not like a normal nightmare.”
“All that I feared has come and gone already. Except for the very last.”
Arethin stared around at the field of bodies. “Everything?”
“Everything, dead,” he said. “What else is there to fear?”
It began to snow, the sky growing gray and cloudy.
“It's my fault,” he murmured. He reached out and grabbed her about the waist, holding her so tightly that it began to hurt. “I didn't mean it. I didn't want any of it. I'm sorry.”
“Solas,” she said, taking his shoulders. “It's the nightmare. Do you understand? All that despair is getting to you, but you can't let it. It's worse than fear.”
“I know,” he gritted his teeth.
“Come on,” she said, looking around. There wasn't anything here but the bodies, and the huge statue, nothing else to focus on. “You made a mistake. Sometimes...mistakes cost lives. You can't always predict it. Come on, wake up.”
Nothing happened.
She tilted his chin up, so she looked into his eyes. "You know I know whereof I speak," she said. After a moment, the world around them slowly began to dissolve, and finally, he let go of her. “Better,” Arethin said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Better.”
“You should be able to leave now,” Solas said.
“Are you sure? Do you need--”
“Arethin,” he stood up and faced her. “Wake up.”
Arethin woke up, chest heaving.
She swung her legs out of bed and wrapped herself in a robe. Her lips pressed together in worry, she hurried downstairs to find Solas. He was in his office, pacing nervously.
“Are you alright?” Arethin asked.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am sorry,” he said. “I did not...expect you to be there.”
“No, I should say not, and nor did I. I did not mean to walk in there.” she avoided his gaze. “I know it was...private. I'm sorry.”
“It was not your fault.”
“Was it a memory, or...?” she shook her head. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask.”
“In part,” he said, voice very quiet and very, very calm. “I have seen similar sights before.”
She looked at him again. His expression was schooled into one of placid calm, but his hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white and his eyes were red.
“Are you alright?” she asked again.
He shook his head.
“I—is there anything I can do...?” she trailed off. There wasn't really much she could do, she knew it.
“No, you have already helped me—very much,” he told her. “I will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you?”
Arethin blinked. “...no.”
He inclined his head, a bitter smile touching his lips.
Later, during the day and away from any such nightmares, Iron Bull came to see Solas. “I heard about your friend, Solas,” Iron Bull said.
Solas narrowed his eyes at Bull. “Oh?”
“Sorry. That's always rough.”
“Thank you.” he paused. “I could have saved her,” Solas admitted. “If I was there sooner, if I hadn't...” he trailed off.
“You can't save everyone,” Bull said. “And you really shouldn't try. You, in particular.”
Solas' lips thinned, pressed into a hard line. “If I do not try, then who will?”
“You're not responsible for everyone,” Bull insisted.
“The spirit was one of many whose death could have been prevented,” Solas said. “And its death is my fault.”
“I know,” Bull said. “I know what that's like. But you think about it too much, you'll go crazy. Which isn't too far for you.”
Solas glared at him.
“Maybe not crazy, then,” Bull amended his statement, remembering Solas' dislike of accusations of madness. “But it really isn't good.”
“And what about any of this is?”
“Not a whole lot,” Bull said. “But you can't dwell on every death. It gets to you.”
“I know,” Solas' shoulder slumped.
“Yeah, I'm probably telling you stuff you've heard before,” Bull went to sit down across from Solas. “I'm guessing you could probably stand to hear it again, though.”
“Death is always difficult,” Solas said. “Even if one does not have a hand in causing them.”
“Alright, well, to be fair, in our line of work, we don't see a whole lot of natural deaths that we don't have a hand in,” Bull pointed out.
“My people never had 'natural death' as long as I have been alive,” Solas told him. “And spirits never die without someone killing them. Like my friend.”
“Oh,” Bull blinked. “That probably makes things worse.” he put a hand out and rested it on Solas' shoulder for a minute, before taking it away. “I'm sorry about that.”
“It is not your fault.”
“Don't blame yourself for it, either,” Bull said.
Solas glanced up at him, expression sharp. “I--”
“Yeah, you made the Veil and...whatever,” Bull grimaced. “I mean, I still don't think it's that bad a thing, so I wouldn't worry.”
Solas scowled. “It is.”
“Fine, it's bad. But it was a mistake—it's not like you wanted all this shit to happen.”
“It was still my decision. My responsibility. I am the one to blame.”
“Look...you can't blame someone for things that happened by accident,” Bull said at length. “You might've made it happen, but blaming yourself is pretty pointless. Blame yourself for shit you intended to happen, okay? It's the only way to deal with it.”
Surprisingly, that made Solas smile.