"No." And her own voice is flat and empty; she is as hollow as his laugh. How could she think that, when he so clearly would sacrifice everything for it? That he wished she could prove him wrong but would not give himself over to it, would not let her? If there is one thing he believes in, it must be that this needs doing at the cost of everything else. Of him, too, Lavellan feels. "I wouldn't accuse you of shallowness." Of pride, of selfishness, of being a liar and a betrayer -- all of those could come to her lips easily and she would feel satisfaction by using them against him. But they would wound her, too, in their own way.
Sorrow mixed with an aching hope seeps into her expression along with the steel of determination in her eyes. She has always been terrible at hiding her emotions, and as he clears his face she refuses to do the same to her's. Let him see, let him know.
Is it wrong to want the familiar back? To fix a mistake instead of seeing the truth of the scar and the healing that happened after? Lavellan steps forward, lets the ice crack under her feet and against her as she moves, falling away and down. She will not let herself be swayed by his attempts to keep her out, not now. It's not something she, they, Thedas can afford. It is, but how to make him see it? Simply telling him that does nothing, will change nothing. "Do you remember Redcliffe, Solas? What Alexius did to Dorian and I?"
It is an imperfect way to prove her point, but if she could be wrong even once, perhaps it will be enough to make him reconsider. A desperate, fleeting grasp at an opportunity she will never have again. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. She will hold onto Cole's words, as she had before -- then tossing and turning, wondering. Now she knows, know she has what was unsaid; tangled with her own words from before where nothing was real because she was going to fix it, make it so it never happened.
Ah, Redcliffe. The ash and the smoke, the terror, the knowledge that time had broken around them like songbird's bones. The way the magic tasted, acrid under his fingernails, and the haunting knowledge that it was all his fault. And that this Dalish woman, this relic of a dead age, fixing all his ruined mistakes. She had inspired him to move forward, in her way. She had inspired him to plunge ahead, failures be damned.
So his voice is harsh, bitter, when he speaks. "Yes," he says, "I recall you risked your life to undo the mistakes leading to that moment. All the lives that begun in that year were snuffed out to fix that mistake. All the death and sacrifice, erased."
He gives her a pointed look, sharpened by years of bitter loneliness in her absence.
"Is that the only thing you took away from Redcliffe?" She doesn't mean to sound incredulous, but she can't help herself. It had been too easy to look at the world she'd ended up in and discount it because it didn't matter. None of it had mattered, and it should have.
Perhaps she should have been clearer. Emboldened, she takes another step forward -- closer to him. Lavellan doesn't have any real illusions about her ability to hold him in place if he wished to leave, but she must try.
"I told Leliana that none of it was real, before she sacrificed herself for us." It hadn't been, to her. She'd simply vanished and reappeared in a place where everything had gone to the demons, to red lyrium. It was so easy to discount it as nothing because she could fix it with a wave of her hand. "But it was, Solas. Just because I could fix it doesn't mean it didn't happen. That whatever she, you," he had been there, red eyes and it had made her insides twist at the time -- still does, in spite of everything, "had lived through -- it was real."
They are real. And he would doom them all because he thought otherwise.
Solas sees what she means, and he admires her for it. Her steadfast devotion to striving for ideals-- while preparing for, and often having to deal with, the worst-- had lead the Inquisition in its strength, and steered it in its worst days. She was truly an example to them, even to Solas, at times.
But he doesn't think she understands the full meaning of her words. "You mean to tell me," he says, voice cool, "that you should not have undone it? You should have stayed in that hellscape, slowly rotting inside out from red lyrium's poison?"
Ah. Her determination wavers then, doubt flicking across her face for a second before she steels herself anew. A foolish tactic, but Lavellan won't let this chance slip away from her -- she cannot afford it, even as she kicks herself all the same for it. Focus, focus.
But Lavellan can give him honesty. "I don't know," she admits, taking another step forward, letting the ice crack underneath her bare feet. "But I do know I should have considered it, instead of blindly assuming that if I fixed it, it'd be as if it never happened." A further thought occurs to her, although it seems more desperate, more reaching than the last. Which, Lavellan will admit, was a significant one already.
"And what of this one, Solas? If that thought should be asked of a doomed world, what about Thedas now? I see no hellscape, just a world scarred but healing." And if something is destroying her from the inside out in it, it's not red lyrium.
Solas' expression softens into one of pity. It's an incremental change, barely noticeable except to those who know him best. Except to her.
He turns away, staring at the crumbling ruins that surround them, and the swaying forest beyond. "In Arlathan," he says, "there was a story. It was famous, a parable from one of our greatest philosophers." He dips his head slightly. "You've never heard it." No one has in over four thousand years.
"It's a supposition. Suppose you entered a cave, and found within a man who had only ever lived within its depths. He had never seen the sun. He had crawled about in darkness all his life, only seeing the shadows his cookfire cast on the walls. In his cave, he is perfectly content, for he has never known anything else."
Lavellan doesn't need his pity, and her own eyes narrow slightly in response. The Dalish have tried in the face of great adversity, of which he slept through instead of helping them. He has no right to pity her for something he willfully doesn't understand.
And when did she start thinking of herself as separate? No, she is Dalish, no matter what truths she knows. It is the one thing he cannot completely take from her. It has to be.
"Does the story say anything about creatures capable of independent thought who found their way into the cave to join him?" It is, in her defense, a question she feels is worth asking. She takes the story to heart, if not in the way he means it -- it is something from Arlathan, from her history, and its historical value is immeasurable. Not that she will ever be able to pass it onto her clan.
She comes to rest behind him, not quite within arm's reach. "Then that's his reality, and it would be cruel to force him to experience a world he doesn't know and doesn't understand, one that will drive him -- and his newfound companions -- mad."
"So you would subject him to living in ignorance, subsisting on scraps, for all his days?" Solas' voice is unexpectedly harsh, and he doesn't truly mean the anger he implies in his tone. Not at her. Not any more.
"It's an allegory, V- Lethallin." His voice is softer, now. Kinder. Gentler. As though he is himself speaking to that wretched creature lost in darkness. "There are many answers to the question. Some suppose... the shadows another living creature casts on the wall are so grand and unlike anything he's seen, he's no choice but- but to worship them."
His voice catches on the last breath. It's the slightest thing in the world. He knows she'll catch it.
"It's not a bad life, if one is happy." Lavellan is ready to argue further, to take offense to ignorance as if Solas is the only one who is capable of judging what is and isn't real to all of Thedas -- he isn't a god, as he's made clear, he has no right. Even the softening of his voice seems hollow and empty, as if she's too blinded to see the truth. But then he trips twice. The first is nearly a wound to her heart with the unsaid syllables of vhenan, and the second is telling.
Her own voice loses its edge, resembles something close to the fondness she'd used with him before. Foolish. "Then the ancient elves of Arlathan and the Dalish are not so different. Why doom one reality in exchange for another, similarly blinded?" It seems like a logical question. They'd been called gods back then too, or has he forgotten the rebellion he led? Mythal's death had only led him to lock the Evanuris away, not fight to undermine them in the beginning. Still -- "What does that make you, Solas? Locked away with the rest of us, watching shadows on the wall? Who casts them for you?"
She'd have him answer, if he can. It will probably not be as revealing as she hopes, but she has to try.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-03-20 05:54 pm (UTC)Sorrow mixed with an aching hope seeps into her expression along with the steel of determination in her eyes. She has always been terrible at hiding her emotions, and as he clears his face she refuses to do the same to her's. Let him see, let him know.
Is it wrong to want the familiar back? To fix a mistake instead of seeing the truth of the scar and the healing that happened after? Lavellan steps forward, lets the ice crack under her feet and against her as she moves, falling away and down. She will not let herself be swayed by his attempts to keep her out, not now. It's not something she, they, Thedas can afford. It is, but how to make him see it? Simply telling him that does nothing, will change nothing. "Do you remember Redcliffe, Solas? What Alexius did to Dorian and I?"
It is an imperfect way to prove her point, but if she could be wrong even once, perhaps it will be enough to make him reconsider. A desperate, fleeting grasp at an opportunity she will never have again. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. She will hold onto Cole's words, as she had before -- then tossing and turning, wondering. Now she knows, know she has what was unsaid; tangled with her own words from before where nothing was real because she was going to fix it, make it so it never happened.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-25 09:32 pm (UTC)So his voice is harsh, bitter, when he speaks. "Yes," he says, "I recall you risked your life to undo the mistakes leading to that moment. All the lives that begun in that year were snuffed out to fix that mistake. All the death and sacrifice, erased."
He gives her a pointed look, sharpened by years of bitter loneliness in her absence.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-27 12:27 am (UTC)Perhaps she should have been clearer. Emboldened, she takes another step forward -- closer to him. Lavellan doesn't have any real illusions about her ability to hold him in place if he wished to leave, but she must try.
"I told Leliana that none of it was real, before she sacrificed herself for us." It hadn't been, to her. She'd simply vanished and reappeared in a place where everything had gone to the demons, to red lyrium. It was so easy to discount it as nothing because she could fix it with a wave of her hand. "But it was, Solas. Just because I could fix it doesn't mean it didn't happen. That whatever she, you," he had been there, red eyes and it had made her insides twist at the time -- still does, in spite of everything, "had lived through -- it was real."
They are real. And he would doom them all because he thought otherwise.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-27 10:47 pm (UTC)But he doesn't think she understands the full meaning of her words. "You mean to tell me," he says, voice cool, "that you should not have undone it? You should have stayed in that hellscape, slowly rotting inside out from red lyrium's poison?"
no subject
Date: 2017-03-27 11:31 pm (UTC)But Lavellan can give him honesty. "I don't know," she admits, taking another step forward, letting the ice crack underneath her bare feet. "But I do know I should have considered it, instead of blindly assuming that if I fixed it, it'd be as if it never happened." A further thought occurs to her, although it seems more desperate, more reaching than the last. Which, Lavellan will admit, was a significant one already.
"And what of this one, Solas? If that thought should be asked of a doomed world, what about Thedas now? I see no hellscape, just a world scarred but healing." And if something is destroying her from the inside out in it, it's not red lyrium.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-27 11:37 pm (UTC)He turns away, staring at the crumbling ruins that surround them, and the swaying forest beyond. "In Arlathan," he says, "there was a story. It was famous, a parable from one of our greatest philosophers." He dips his head slightly. "You've never heard it." No one has in over four thousand years.
"It's a supposition. Suppose you entered a cave, and found within a man who had only ever lived within its depths. He had never seen the sun. He had crawled about in darkness all his life, only seeing the shadows his cookfire cast on the walls. In his cave, he is perfectly content, for he has never known anything else."
no subject
Date: 2017-03-28 12:41 am (UTC)And when did she start thinking of herself as separate? No, she is Dalish, no matter what truths she knows. It is the one thing he cannot completely take from her. It has to be.
"Does the story say anything about creatures capable of independent thought who found their way into the cave to join him?" It is, in her defense, a question she feels is worth asking. She takes the story to heart, if not in the way he means it -- it is something from Arlathan, from her history, and its historical value is immeasurable. Not that she will ever be able to pass it onto her clan.
She comes to rest behind him, not quite within arm's reach. "Then that's his reality, and it would be cruel to force him to experience a world he doesn't know and doesn't understand, one that will drive him -- and his newfound companions -- mad."
no subject
Date: 2017-03-28 01:12 am (UTC)"It's an allegory, V- Lethallin." His voice is softer, now. Kinder. Gentler. As though he is himself speaking to that wretched creature lost in darkness. "There are many answers to the question. Some suppose... the shadows another living creature casts on the wall are so grand and unlike anything he's seen, he's no choice but- but to worship them."
His voice catches on the last breath. It's the slightest thing in the world. He knows she'll catch it.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-28 05:54 pm (UTC)Her own voice loses its edge, resembles something close to the fondness she'd used with him before. Foolish. "Then the ancient elves of Arlathan and the Dalish are not so different. Why doom one reality in exchange for another, similarly blinded?" It seems like a logical question. They'd been called gods back then too, or has he forgotten the rebellion he led? Mythal's death had only led him to lock the Evanuris away, not fight to undermine them in the beginning. Still -- "What does that make you, Solas? Locked away with the rest of us, watching shadows on the wall? Who casts them for you?"
She'd have him answer, if he can. It will probably not be as revealing as she hopes, but she has to try.