Tumgik
#conon Content right here
Text
Sasuke, to Naruto; I’m sorry I called you a f king idiot. I was trying to flirt.
833 notes · View notes
loadingtax915 · 3 years
Text
Python Docx
Tumblr media
Python Docx4j
Python Docx To Pdf
Python Docx Table
Python Docx To Pdf
Python Docx2txt
Python Docx2txt
When you ask someone to send you a contract or a report there is a high probability that you’ll get a DOCX file. Whether you like it not, it makes sense considering that 1.2 billion people use Microsoft Office although a definition of “use” is quite vague in this case. DOCX is a binary file which is, unlike XLSX, not famous for being easy to integrate into your application. PDF is much easier when you care more about how a document is displayed than its abilities for further modifications. Let’s focus on that.
Python-docx versions 0.3.0 and later are not API-compatible with prior versions. Python-docx is hosted on PyPI, so installation is relatively simple, and just depends on what installation utilities you have installed. Python-docx may be installed with pip if you have it available.
Installing Python-Docx Library Several libraries exist that can be used to read and write MS Word files in Python. However, we will be using the python-docx module owing to its ease-of-use. Execute the following pip command in your terminal to download the python-docx module as shown below.
Python has a few great libraries to work with DOCX (python-dox) and PDF files (PyPDF2, pdfrw). Those are good choices and a lot of fun to read or write files. That said, I know I'd fail miserably trying to achieve 1:1 conversion.
Release v0.8.10 (Installation)python-docx is a Python library for creating and updating Microsoft Word (.docx) files.
Tumblr media
Looking further I came across unoconv. Universal Office Converter is a library that’s converting any document format supported by LibreOffice/OpenOffice. That sound like a solid solution for my use case where I care more about quality than anything else. As execution time isn't my problem I have been only concerned whether it’s possible to run LibreOffice without X display. Apparently, LibreOffice can be run in haedless mode and supports conversion between various formats, sweet!
I’m grateful to unoconv for an idea and great README explaining multiple problems I can come across. In the same time, I’m put off by the number of open issues and abandoned pull requests. If I get versions right, how hard can it be? Not hard at all, with few caveats though.
Testing converter
LibreOffice is available on all major platforms and has an active community. It's not active as new-hot-js-framework-active but still with plenty of good read and support. You can get your copy from the download page. Be a good user and go with up-to-date version. You can always downgrade in case of any problems and feedback on latest release is always appreciated.
On macOS and Windows executable is called soffice and libreoffice on Linux. I'm on macOS, executable soffice isn't available in my PATH after the installation but you can find it inside the LibreOffice.app. To test how LibreOffice deals with your files you can run:
In my case results were more than satisfying. The only problem I saw was a misalignment in a file when the alignment was done with spaces, sad but true. This problem was caused by missing fonts and different width of 'replacements' fonts. No worries, we'll address this problem later.
Setup I
While reading unoconv issues I've noticed that many problems are connected due to the mismatch of the versions. I'm going with Docker so I can have pretty stable setup and so I can be sure that everything works.
Let's start with defining simple Dockerfile, just with dependencies and ADD one DOCX file just for testing:
Tumblr media
Let's build an image:
After image is created we can run the container and convert the file inside the container:
Running LibreOffice as a subprocess
We want to run LibreOffice converter as a subprocess and provide the same API for all platforms. Let's define a module which can be run as a standalone script or which we can later import on our server.
Required arguments which convert_to accepts are folder to which we save PDF and a path to the source file. Optionally we specify a timeout in seconds. I’m saying optional but consider it mandatory. We don’t want a process to hang too long in case of any problems or just to limit computation time we are able to give away to each conversion. LibreOffice executable location and name depends on the platform so edit libreoffice_exec to support platform you’re using.
subprocess.run doesn’t capture stdout and stderr by default. We can easily change the default behavior by passing subprocess.PIPE. Unfortunately, in the case of the failure, LibreOffice will fail with return code 0 and nothing will be written to stderr. I decided to look for the success message assuming that it won’t be there in case of an error and raise LibreOfficeError otherwise. This approach hasn’t failed me so far.
Uploading files with Flask
Converting using the command line is ok for testing and development but won't take us far. Let's build a simple server in Flask.
We'll need few helper function to work with files and few custom errors for handling error messages. Upload directory path is defined in config.py. You can also consider using flask-restplus or flask-restful which makes handling errors a little easier.
The server is pretty straightforward. In production, you would probably want to use some kind of authentication to limit access to uploads directory. If not, give up on serving static files with Flask and go for Nginx.
Important take-away from this example is that you want to tell your app to be threaded so one request won't prevent other routes from being served. However, WSGI server included with Flask is not production ready and focuses on development. In production, you want to use a proper server with automatic worker process management like gunicorn. Check the docs for an example how to integrate gunicorn into your app. We are going to run the application inside a container so host has to be set to publicly visible 0.0.0.0.
Setup II
Now when we have a server we can update Dockerfile. We need to copy our application source code to the image filesystem and install required dependencies.
In docker-compose.yml we want to specify ports mapping and mount a volume. If you followed the code and you tried running examples you have probably noticed that we were missing the way to tell Flask to run in a debugging mode. Defining environment variable without a value is causing that this variable is going to be passed to the container from the host system. Alternatively, you can provide different config files for different environments.
Supporting custom fonts
I've mentioned a problem with missing fonts earlier. LibreOffice can, of course, make use of custom fonts. If you can predict which fonts your user might be using there's a simple remedy. Add following line to your Dockfile.
Now when you put custom font file in the font directory in your project, rebuild the image. From now on you support custom fonts!
Summary
This should give you the idea how you can provide quality conversion of different documents to PDF. Although the main goal was to convert a DOCX file you should be fine with presentations, spreadsheets or images.
Further improvements could be providing support for multiple files, the converter can be configured to accept more than one file as well.
Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash.
Did you enjoy it? Follow me@MichalZalecki on Twitter, where I share some interesting, bite-size content.
This ebook goes beyond Jest documentation to explain software testing techniques. I focus on unit test separation, mocking, matchers, patterns, and best practices.
Get it now!
Mastering Jest: Tips & Tricks | $9
Latest version
Released:
Extract content from docx files
Project description
Extract docx headers, footers, text, footnotes, endnotes, properties, and images to a Python object.
The code is an expansion/contraction of python-docx2txt (Copyright (c) 2015 Ankush Shah). The original code is mostly gone, but some of the bones may still be here.
shared features:
Tumblr media
extracts text from docx files
extracts images from docx files
no dependencies (docx2python requires pytest to test)
additions:
extracts footnotes and endnotes
converts bullets and numbered lists to ascii with indentation
converts hyperlinks to <a href='http:/...'>link text</a>
retains some structure of the original file (more below)
extracts document properties (creator, lastModifiedBy, etc.)
inserts image placeholders in text ('----image1.jpg----')
inserts plain text footnote and endnote references in text ('----footnote1----')
(optionally) retains font size, font color, bold, italics, and underscore as html
extract user selections from checkboxes and dropdown menus
full test coverage and documentation for developers
subtractions:
no command-line interface
will only work with Python 3.4+
Installation
Use
Note on html feature:
Tumblr media
font size, font color, bold, italics, and underline supported
hyperlinks will always be exported as html (<a href='http:/...'>link text</a>), even if export_font_style=False, because I couldn't think of a more cononical representation.
every tag open in a paragraph will be closed in that paragraph (and, where appropriate, reopened in the next paragraph). If two subsequenct paragraphs are bold, they will be returned as <b>paragraph q</b>, <b>paragraph 2</b>. This is intentional to make each paragraph its own entity.
if you specify export_font_style=True, > and < in your docx text will be encoded as > and <
Return Value
Function docx2python returns an object with several attributes.
header - contents of the docx headers in the return format described herein
footer - contents of the docx footers in the return format described herein
body - contents of the docx in the return format described herein
footnotes - contents of the docx in the return format described herein
endnotes - contents of the docx in the return format described herein
document - header + body + footer (read only)
text - all docx text as one string, similar to what you'd get from python-docx2txt
properties - docx property names mapped to values (e.g., {'lastModifiedBy': 'Shay Hill'})
images - image names mapped to images in binary format. Write to filesystem with
Tumblr media
Return Format
Some structure will be maintained. Text will be returned in a nested list, with paragraphs always at depth 4 (i.e., output.body[i][j][k][l] will be a paragraph).
If your docx has no tables, output.body will appear as one a table with all contents in one cell:
Table cells will appear as table cells. Text outside tables will appear as table cells.
To preserve the even depth (text always at depth 4), nested tables will appear as new, top-level tables. This is clearer with an example:
becomes ...
This ensures text appears
only once
in the order it appears in the docx
always at depth four (i.e., result.body[i][j][k][l] will be a string).
Working with output
This package provides several documented helper functions in the docx2python.iterators module. Here are a few recipes possible with these functions:
Some fine print about checkboxes:
MS Word has checkboxes that can be checked any time, and others that can only be checked when the form is locked.The previous print as. u2610 (open checkbox) or u2612 (crossed checkbox). Which this module, the latter willtoo. I gave checkboxes a bailout value of ----checkbox failed---- if the xml doesn't look like I expect it to,because I don't have several-thousand test files with checkboxes (as I did with most of the other form elements).Checkboxes should work, but please let me know if you encounter any that do not.
Release historyRelease notifications | RSS feed
1.27.1
1.27
1.26
Python Docx4j
1.25
1.24
1.23
1.22
1.21
1.19
1.18
1.17
1.16
1.15
1.14
1.13
1.12
1.11
1.2
Python Docx To Pdf
1.1
Python Docx Table
1.0
0.1
Python Docx To Pdf
Download files
Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.
Python Docx2txt
Files for docx2python, version 1.27.1Filename, sizeFile typePython versionUpload dateHashesFilename, size docx2python-1.27.1-py3-none-any.whl (22.9 kB) File type Wheel Python version py3 Upload dateHashesFilename, size docx2python-1.27.1.tar.gz (33.3 kB) File type Source Python version None Upload dateHashes
Close
Hashes for docx2python-1.27.1-py3-none-any.whl
Hashes for docx2python-1.27.1-py3-none-any.whlAlgorithmHash digestSHA25651f6f03149efff07372ea023824d4fd863cb70b531aa558513070fe60f1c420aMD54b0ee20fed4a8cb0eaba8580c33f946bBLAKE2-256e7d5ff32d733592b17310193280786c1cab22ca4738daa97e1825d650f55157c
Close
Hashes for docx2python-1.27.1.tar.gz
Python Docx2txt
Hashes for docx2python-1.27.1.tar.gzAlgorithmHash digestSHA2566ca0a92ee9220708060ece485cede894408588353dc458ee5ec17959488fa668MD5759e1630c6990533414192eb57333c72BLAKE2-25684783b70aec51652a4ec4f42aa419a8af18d967b06390764527c81f183d1c02a
Tumblr media
0 notes
katalyna-rose · 7 years
Text
Vhenan Chapter Six
Graphic Depictions of Violence
Solas/Female Lavellan, Fenris/Female Mage Hawke, Zevrain/Female Warden Mahariel
AKA: Lyna/Solas, Fenris/Alie, Zevran/Kahlia
Angst, Fluff, Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Mildly Conon-Divergent, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Minor Isablea/Merrill, Constructive Criticism Welcome
Summary: Solas, the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel, has left Lyna behind in an attempt to fix mistakes made thousands of years ago. Willing to destroy everything for his goals, he doesn’t realize exactly how determined Lyna is to show him a better path. Both worlds could thrive, given the chance. Her world is real and valid and deserves a chance, but so does his. There must be a middle ground.
And there is another reason that Lyna must find Solas, a secret kept from the world that attempted to put her up on a pedestal. But how would Thedas react to such a secret, such undeniable proof that their Herald of Andraste is a person like any other? That she is someone who loves, someone who makes mistakes, who bleeds and cries. And is having the Dread Wolf’s child.
Read on AO3!
From the Beginning
 Moonlight,
 Cullen is asking about you again. He says you never respond to his letters. Leliana still gets reports from you when you have anything to send, but Cullen and Josephine are feeling left out. I get that motherhood is exhausting and chasing down the father of your child is taxing in a lot of ways, but you’re neglecting your friends. When was the last time you left Hawke estate and went further than market? I know you’re laying low and all, but this isn’t healthy.
 Look, I get why you refused that property and title I promised you at the Exalted Council, but you could at least accept some invitations to socialize? You must be shriveling up from lack of interaction with actual people. I know you, Moonlight, and you need people. I know you want to stay hidden and all, but couldn’t you at least write to your friends? We’re worried.
 VT
**
 Varric,
 You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that between the post-partum depression and the general depression about Solas it’s been a little difficult to get excited about anything. My son is my only joy right now, and I know that’s not healthy.
 I don’t think I’m comfortable just yet navigating Kirkwall’s upper class and I’m definitely not willing to visit the Viscount’s palace, but why don’t you drop by sometime? You know Hawke and Fenris are always happy to have you.
 I’ll write to Cullen and Josie. You’re right, I’m not being fair to them.
 Moonlight
**
 Lyna,
 Maker’s breath, it’s been ages since I heard from you! If not for the reports Leliana gets I would start to get worried!
 Where are you getting your information, anyway? Leliana tells me that your last report was startlingly detailed and my men found exactly what was predicted. How did you even know there were ruins under the river in Emprise du Lion, let alone that there would be agents there?
 I’m glad to hear that your son is well. I hope this means that you’ll come back soon and work with us again. Without your presence, everyone feels a little slower, stilted. The entire cause feels a little possible. I understand why you left, but I’m sure that the people of Thedas could forgive you for having a child out of wedlock. It happens, after all, right?
 Or are you worried that they won’t accept who fathered the boy? I admit, to anyone who hadn’t seen the two of you together it might seem dangerous, but does anyone really have to know? It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing happened.
 I don’t mean to press. I would simply feel much better knowing you were somewhere I could keep you safe. But it’s good to know that you and your son are well.
 Cullen Stanton Rutherford
 **
Lyna,
 It is so good to hear from you! Leliana keeps me apprised, of course, but you say so little about yourself in your reports to her. They are wonderful reports, to be sure, but they leave us all a little worried about your health.
 Are you eating enough? Are you taking care of yourself? Is your son well? What does he look like? What is his favorite toy? I wish I could meet him!
 I’m certain that Cullen has asked you to come back, and as much as we would all love to have you, I really do not believe that Thedas could handle knowing that you’ve had a child with a man who is almost our enemy. There are many who do not understand the distinction between enemy and misguided rival and would view both you and your son with suspicion and even hostility. I am sorry if this causes you distress, but you asked me to always be honest with you about such things.
 Unfortunately, enough people know about your past relationship with our favorite apostate that it would not be feasible to hide the boy’s parentage for long. And, unfortunately, to attempt such a thing would be seen as the greatest insult by many. I am sorry, my friend, but I think that, for now, it is better that you remain hidden. Leliana and I will keep Cullen in check, never fear! Though she is very busy with her duties as Divine, she always finds time to step in whenever he might do something rash, and her spies are as active as ever. Sometimes I wonder if she ever sleeps or if she hasn’t so much as napped in the past year, but she always claims to be taking care of her health. It wouldn’t do for us to lose the Divine again so quickly! And she is a dear friend.
 Take care of yourself, my friend. I hope you still drink jasmine tea every night like you used to. I try to stick with the routine as it gives me a measure of comfort, but I sometimes forget. But I think that the smell of jasmine will forever make me think of cold nights in your room at Skyhold and endless gossip! As odd as it sounds, what with all the dangers and horrors and demons and politicking, I miss those days. I suppose in truth, I simply miss your company. You have always been the best friend I could have hoped for, with the exception of Leliana, perhaps!
 I miss you. Please write to me often!
 Josephine Montilyet
**
  My friend,
 It has been ages since your we last shared report rapport! I do so miss lead having you here. We used to discover find such interesting things around the lion that statue! Remember when we I found bought six seven of those magical rings by the fountain? And that shop with the talisman necklaces? So pretty! But our rival friend never wanted to come! I kept asking why, but he would never reveal say! And then he vanished moved away in the spring! I miss him. Don’t you?
 Oh, please visit soon! It’s so boring without you here.
 L
Lyna rolled her eyes and got to work on the decoding of Leliana’s letter until it read as it should.
 My friend,
 Your last report led to a discovery in Emprise du Lion. We found six magical talismans that Solas was after under the waterfall. An agent was captured, revealed nothing, and vanished by dawn. Unable to track him down again.
 Send more information when you gather it.
 Leliana            
**
Lyna danced slowly around her room in Hawke’s estate, the nine-week-old boy in her arms calming slowly as she rocked him.
“You’re so much like your father,” she told him with a smile. “You’ve stolen my heart exactly as fast.” She kissed his wispy dark curls. “Never forget that you are born of love, no matter what losses result,” she whispered against his silken skin. “My little love child, your fate is yours alone.”
He reached up and patted her face, then made a demanding little noise. She grinned at him. “A story? Again? I’ve already told you one tonight,” she reminded him. He made that little mewling noise again. “Alright, alright. I’ll tell you another story,” she capitulated. She hummed, thinking. “Ah! How about I tell you about how I met your father?” he nestled into her chest and wrapped her hair around his little fist.
“I’m glad you agree,” she told him conversationally as she continued to slowly dance around with him. “Well, let’s see…
“We met after the Temple of Sacred Ashes exploded when Corypheus unlocked the Orb of Fen’Harel. I’d been caught in the explosion and received the Anchor on accident while trying to save the Divine. He’d stopped it from consuming me and made sure I would live, at least for a while. Cassandra, a Seeker and Right Hand of the Divine, wanted to see if it could be used to close the Breach that threatened to destroy the world. She took me to a rift near Haven, where some soldiers and volunteers were battling the endless stream of demons pouring out of the Fade. We helped them defeat those who had already come through, then I felt my hand grabbed.
“’Quickly, before more come through!’ he cried, and thrust my hand at the rift. And it closed, like magic. Which it was, naturally. I could hardly believe it, even though I’d felt the power coursing between the mark on my hand and the tear in the Veil.
“’What did you do?’ I asked him. And then I looked. I think I loved him right then, with my first glimpse. He was regal, tall for an elf, completely bald, with intense blue eyes and sharp features. And he wasn’t nearly as subtle as he thought.
“He smiled at me and my breath caught. ‘I did nothing,” he told me. ‘The credit is yours.’
“Of course, it really wasn’t. Not then, at least. I had no idea what I was doing.” Solas burped and snuggled deeper into her embrace. She smiled at him as he slid slowly toward sleep.
“He is remarkable, is your father,” she told him softly. “Brilliant and wise and kind and compassionate. I talked to him for hours, never tiring of his beautiful voice or the way he viewed the world. We would read together, each researching different subjects, or taking turns reading the same book, trading passages aloud. He sat on a couch in the rotunda at Skyhold and I laid my head in his lap. I fell asleep like that more than once, and woke to find that he had carefully extracted my book from my hands and marked my page for me. He never complained about it, either; he just seemed to enjoy my presence. He painted frescoes on the walls of the rotunda and they were the most beautiful art I have ever seen. Each of them depicted the things I had done to try to save the world from Corypheus. They were amazing, with a wonderful eye to color and texture. I miss that tower, though not as much as I miss the man who spent so much time there.” She sighed and smiled sadly at her son.
“I need to find some way to tell him about you, da’mi,” she told him gently. “He should know, even if he never meets you.” Solas started snoring gently, so she laid him carefully in his crib and tucked his blankets around him. “Even though he might leave or it might change nothing at all, he deserves to know about his son…” She kissed his forehead and stood.
“That is not true,” whispered a soft voice from a shadowed corner of the room.
Lyna leapt into a defensive position, a dagger in her hand, her son protected behind her, a snarl on her face. But when she saw who stepped out of the shadows, arms out beside him, unarmed though never unprotected, her dagger fell from limp fingers and her snarl turned to open-mouthed shock.
“Solas…” She breathed his name, terrified that she was dreaming again or hallucinating or that if she spoke this spell would be broken and she’d be alone with her sorrows once more.
He shuddered at the sound of his name and stepped forward. He retrieved the dagger she’d dropped and slipped it into the little sheath strapped to her ruined arm without touching her. And then they simply stood there, staring at each other in breathless shock, until the silence became unbearable.
“What isn’t true?” she whispered, desperate to hear him speak, to know why he’d come, to see him look at his son for the first time. One corner of his mouth turned up just a little.
“This changes everything,” he breathed, reaching forward. He gently wiped away a tear that had fallen onto her cheek. She hadn’t realized she’d started crying, but once she knew she couldn’t seem to stop. “Please, vhenan,” he said softly, moving closer, taking her face in his hands. She closed her eyes briefly at the familiar warmth of his palms on her cheeks, irrationally comforting her. “Allow me a place in your life once more, and I will never betray your trust again.”
“Why?” she asked in a whisper, a thousand questions wrapped up in that one word. A tear dripped down his cheek, startling her. Why was he crying?
“I could tell you that I would not abandon my child. But that would be only part of the truth.” She frowned, confused and overwhelmed. “The reason I sought you out now is because I cannot bear to live without you any longer.” Her jaw dropped open as his thumbs gently caressed her cheeks, wiping away her tears as quickly as they fell. Does he mean this? she wondered. Truly? You call for me in the Fade and my soul calls back. You find me in dreams and it feels so right that I no longer remember why I had convinced myself that it was not. I see you searching for me every night and I want to be caught. What remains of the Inquisition works with my agents instead of against them and I see your hand in that, your guidance. You would aid me even from so far away from both me and your people. I can no longer stay away. I can hardly remember why I had been so certain I had to. If you have found a way to do all of this, then surely you can find a way to help me, to guide me to a better path. I do not want the people of this world to suffer.” She choked on a sob and one hand slid into her hair, fingers running across her scalp in a way he knew would soothe her. “I cannot stay away any longer, no matter the consequences. If you demand that I leave, I will go. But I will never be far away. Never again.”
And then she collapsed, fainted dead away.
Lyna woke slowly, hearing agitated voices nearby arguing in hushed tones.
“So you thought it was a good idea to just show up out of nowhere and assault her?”
“I did no such thing! I do not know why she collapsed, but I suspect it was shock.”
“Not to mention that you’re trespassing in my house!”
“I couldn’t very well walk up and ring the bell. There are many who would see me dead and I needed to remain undetected.”
“And one of them is in this room, Dread Wolf.”
“Stop it, Hawke,” Lyna moaned, trying to sit up, surprised to find herself in her own bed on top of the sheets. Suddenly, she was surrounded by concerned faces. Hawke and Fenris elbowed Solas behind them and he didn’t fuss or fight about it. Hawke propped her up while Fenris piled pillows behind her, but she barely noticed.
He was here. The man she loved, the man she wanted more than anything else, the man she’d spent almost a year chasing across all of Thedas. He was standing just there, just out of reach. She needed him to close the distance.
“Solas,” she said on a breath and watched emotions flicker behind his eyes, so open and yet unreadable, his thoughts veiled only by their complexity. She held her hand out to him and he stepped forward to take it. Fenris grabbed his wrist before he could and backed him into the wall, pressing a blade against his neck.
“Stop!” Lyna cried, struggling to her feet despite the wave of dizziness that assaulted her. “Fenris, don’t!” Little Solas, in his crib, woke at the sound of his mother’s distress and started screaming. She ignored him and launched herself at Fenris, but Hawke held her back. “Let me go!” she yelled to her friend, twisting in her grip, clawing at the arms that held her to no avail. “Don’t hurt him, Fenris!”
“I know what you are. I know what you’ve done,” Fenris growled, low and dangerous and menacing. “If you hurt her, or her son, or anyone that I care about, I will hunt you to the ends of the world and beyond. I will not stop until I destroy you, by any means necessary.”
“I have no intention of harming anyone here,” Solas replied calmly. He was motionless, allowing himself to be held against the wall, but a dangerous light gleamed in his eyes; the Dread Wolf was not someone to threaten lightly. Lyna had no doubt that Solas was allowing this to happen and that Fenris wouldn’t stand a chance against him if he fought back.
“Fenris,” Lyna pleaded, unable to break free from Alie’s hold to stop him. “Let him go. You’ve made your point. Enough!” But Fenris stayed still for a moment longer before finally releasing Solas. Once Fenris had sheathed his blade, Alie released her.
She ran to him. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Lyna threw herself at Solas. A split second before she made contact, she wondered if he would even open his arms for her. But he did more than that. Solas took a step forward and met her mid-stride, wrapping her up in his warm arms and swinging her around. He showered kisses on her hair and face, crying with her.
When they finally calmed down enough to release each other, Hawke and Fenris were gone. Lyna wiped her eyes and laughed a little, then went to calm her still-screaming son. His cries slowed as soon as he saw her. She scooped him up into her arm and he wrapped a hand in her hair, put a thumb in his mouth, and quieted.
She took a deep, steadying breath and turned to Solas. His gaze was fixed on the small bundle cradled in her arm.
“He has your eyes,” he whispered reverently. She smiled.
“Yes,” she told him. “And your hair, it seems. He certainly didn’t get that mahogany color from me.”
Suddenly, like the sun coming up after a long and cold night, Solas grinned and closed the distance between them. He reached out and gently stroked his son’s cheek. The baby, for his part, instantly released his mother’s hair to reach out and grab Solas’s finger. She looked up at him and laughed when she saw that he was already enamored with the child.
“What did you name him?” Solas asked after a moment, voice still soft.
“I named him for his father.” His head jerked back as though she’d slapped him and he looked at her with wide eyes.
“Truly?” He seemed shocked. “Why?” She smiled at him.
“I hoped he would grow up to share the best of his father. I hoped that he would be brave and strong and smart and true. Willing to fight for what he believes is right. Compassionate almost to a fault. So that’s what I named him.”
With the hand that wasn’t being clutched with fat little fingers, Solas caressed her face gently. “I cannot fathom how I ever expected to be able to stay away from you,” he whispered. He leaned in and her breath started to come faster as his gaze fastened on her mouth.
“Ir abelas, vhenan. I know that my apologies will never be enough,” he whispered just before his lips met hers.
Soft and sweet and warm, firm shape yielding to her, his lips were just as she remembered. He held her head gently, touching her with only the fingers of one hand and his lips. She sighed against his mouth and licked his lip. He opened for her readily and his tongue danced with hers, as sweet an apology as she had ever received. She could have stayed there forever, their son in her arm and holding his father, their lips pressed together and tongues twining, his fingers gently stroking her cheek.
It was a long time before Solas pulled back, though Lyna truly thought that she could have kissed him for hours. He smiled down at his son and gently shook the fingers the infant still held, startling a giggle form the little boy. With his other hand, he delicately touched the wisps of dark hair that capped his skull
“Do you want to hold him?” Lyn asked after watching Solas explore his child for a while. He froze and looked up at her.
“If… you would allow it,” he said hesitantly. She smiled at him and the expression soften his own, caution blending into adoration.
“I would not keep you from it,” she told him softly. He swallowed hard and reached out for his son. The infant transferred easily from mother to father, rolling slightly and clutching at the soft pelt that was wrapped around Solas’s shoulders. Lyna repositioned his hands slightly, making certain the babe was properly supported in his father’s grasp. With an adorable little yawn and burble of noise, their son settled into his father’s embrace and drifted off to sleep again.
“He’s never this calm with new people,” Lyna whispered, watching her son grasp at his father’s chest, flexing his little fists in the fur.
“Never?” Solas asked, his voice equally soft.
“No. He always fusses when someone he doesn’t know holds him, sometimes so indignant that I have no choice but to take him back. And he never falls asleep in anyone’s arms but my own.” She looked up and met his eyes to see that tears still swam in those blue depths that she had missed so dearly.
“Lyna,” he whispered, and the sound of her name on his lips, whispered like a prayer, made her breath catch. Without thinking, she reached her left arm towards him, intending to caress his face. She was startled for a moment, as she still sometimes was, when she was unable to make contact before she remembered her missing arm. Blushing at the slip, the sign of weakness often covered by a prosthetic when she was out in public, she lowered what remained of her arm and instead used the hand she still possessed to lightly brush her fingertips over his cheek.
But he was frowning at the incomplete appendage. She turned her body slightly to hide it, as had become her habit when people stared at the missing limb, and he met her eyes again.
“There is something…” he began, then paused. He looked down at the sleeping infant he still held. “We should put him to bed,” he said. She nodded and helped him lay their son in his crib.
“Here,” he said quietly, and magic, soft and blue, sparked at his fingertips just above the crib.
Alarmed, Lyna caught his wrist, interrupting the spell. “What are you doing?” she asked tightly.
The magic had died from his hands as soon as she objected, his other hand falling to his side harmlessly. Her suspicion hurt him, she could see, but he wouldn’t object, likely believed that he deserved it. He probably did.
“A muffling spell,” he said softly. “Any noises from inside the crib can be heard clearly from without, but he will hear only well-muffled sounds. It will allow him to remain undisturbed by our conversation and allow us more freedom with volume.” She didn’t release him, casting a nervous glance to her sleeping son. “I will not cast it, if you prefer. I merely wished to make things a little easier on you.”
It was a question of trust, she realized. And it was more than a simple spell. If she allowed him to freedom to cast magic so close to her son, she was telling him and revealing to herself that she trusted him implicitly. All too easily he could remove this tether, destroy them both so that he might suffer no more distractions. Or he could do as he claimed, cast his muffling spell so that they could speak freely without worry for waking their son and decide where to go from there. Did she trust him? She already knew her answer before the unspoken question was even asked.
Lyna dropped his wrist. “Yes,” she said softly, keeping her eyes averted, somewhat embarrassed to have stopped him to begin with. “It sounds like that would be very useful.”
Solas hesitated a moment longer, eyes scanning her face, then cast his spell, blue sparks forming like a net around the crib, the power pure and beautiful.
“It is done,” he said at a normal volume, no longer whispering. Lyna nodded but said nothing, watching the soft sparks over the crib and unsure of how to proceed. The silence stretched between them, awkward and tense, until he broke it.
“There is something I could do for you, if you wish it, that I did not have the strength to accomplish before,” he said slowly. He took a half step closer and, with a gentle touch, ran a fingertip along her jaw, asking her to look at him. She did, unable now as ever to resist his touch. In his eyes she saw both sorrow and love, the strength of the emotions paining her. What must he be thinking? “I stole your arm from you when I destroyed the Anchor to keep it from destroying you. But now I can give back your arm as it was before the Anchor’s touch.”
Lyna jerked in surprise, her eyes widening. “You can give it back?” her eyes slid to the crib. How desperately she wanted to be able to hold him with both arms! To stroke his face as she held him, to be able to untangle her hair from his fists!
She started nodding, still not looking away from her son and all the possibilities that a restored limb would open. She hated her prosthetic and her son hated it more, but a true arm would be the most amazing blessing. “It will hurt,” Solas warned.
“I don’t care,” she declared, confident that she could handle it.
His touch asked her to look at him again and she complied happily, still imagining all the things she could do with both her arms again. “You will feel it all,” Solas insisted, his face dark and serious. “You will feel the scar rip to allow the new bone to form. You will feel the muscle knit across the bone and the veins take shape. You will feel your skin stretch to cover the new limb. It will be agony.” The idea of her pain tightened his face and Lyna wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.
“It is worth the pain,” she told him seriously, “to be able to hold my son with both arms.”
Solas hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. With gentle hands, he stretched the stump of Lyna’s arm out beside her, stepping closer until they were only a few inches apart. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of his skin as her eyes fluttered closed. He smelled just as he always had, the exotic spice of his skin, the salt and musk of male, combining with the scents of paint and charcoal and leather-bound books and the heated static of magic. At the edges of the scent she knew so well, she detected elfroot and other herbs, which was new. He’d never been an alchemist before, but the scent was unmistakable. She wondered if he was wounded and had spread a salve on a wound or if he carried dried herbs in the pockets of his clothing for some reason, but she couldn’t tell for certain.
Her skin warmed gently as he began the spell to restore her limb, but the feeling quickly became scorching heat, the end of her incomplete limb dipped in molten metal. She bit her lip, her head falling forward against the mage’s chest. She stepped into his form, needing to be closer, and he wrapped an arm around her gently after a moment’s hesitation, one hand still holding her ruined arm away from her body as the spell continued.
As the agony expanded beyond any pain that Lyna had ever known and she could no longer contain her sounds of distress, though she refused to allow herself to scream, she turned her face into Solas’s neck, breathing deep of his intoxicating and comforting scent, muffling her cries with his flesh. The feeling of his arm tight around her, his hand smoothing up and down her back, and his familiar scent filling her nose allowed her to endure the pain without fighting him.
Her lip split between her teeth and blood trickled down her chin, but she couldn’t let up on the pressure, the sharp pain in her mouth preferable to the searing agony in her arm. It seemed to go on forever, though she knew that it only took a few minutes for the new limb to form.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the white hot pain faded and the sparks traveling along all her nerves were all that remained of the ordeal. She finally released her lip from her teeth and panted in relief, her shoulders slumping, relaxing into the Dread Wolf’s embrace.
“Vhenan?” he whispered questioningly, releasing her arm and leaning back, trying to get a look at her. She let him draw her away from his chest, though she wanted only to curl up against him and sleep for a week. His brows drew together sharply when he saw her face and he took a quick breath. His thumb swiped gently at the blood on her chin, but she couldn’t bring herself to care what she looked like now that the pain was finally gone. Her lip throbbed forcefully, but even that unpleasant sensation was a relief in the absence of indescribable agony.
A moment later, a tingling touch spread across her ruined lower lip, bringing soothing coolness with it; he was healing her lip for her. He smiled gently, pulling a handkerchief from some unseen pocket and using it to wipe away the blood. She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning into his careful touch.
“Vhenan?” he whispered again when she still made no more to step away or test the new arm or say anything at all. “Lyna, please…”
The edge of fear in his voice, his worry for her, broke the shell around her mind and she thought again. She thought that perhaps she had almost gone into shock from that horrid pain, but it was time to bring herself back. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, then looked down at her left side. Carefully, tentatively, as if moving it would ignite that agony again, she lifted her arm.
She look a ragged breath as she examined her forearm and hand, the skin whole and healthy, looking just like the one she’d lost except for the absence of the Anchor in her palm. She grinned as she flexed her fingers, running her other hand over the new one, feeling the delicate bones in her wrist.
Despite her earlier intentions to go immediately to her son, Lyna could not resist looking up at the man she still loved, who watched her exploration stoically, and place her newly restored hand against his cheek.
With a raw groan, he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch only to open them again and watch her face, love and relief and agony in his gaze. She stroked his face gently, feeling the sharpness of his cheekbone under smooth skin. Gently, tentatively, she traced the details of his face, touching the dark circles under his eyes and the hollows in his cheeks that hadn’t been there before, smoothing her fingers over his eyebrow and exploring the smooth, bare expanse of his scalp. He hissed in a sharp breath when she ran a finger gently along the blade of his ear, the touch one she remembered could drive him wild when they were intimate. She was almost surprised that her touch still had that effect on him.
He caught her wrist when she continued to play with the tip of his ear, pressing a kiss against her palm before lacing his fingers with hers. He caught her gaze, eyes full of raw emotion that she begin to decipher.
“Vhenan,” he whispered again, and her breath caught as the endearment left his lips.
“Is this even real?” Lyna asked, scarcely daring to believe that it could be. Instead of answering, Solas sifted his fingers through her hair, loose and flowing past her shoulders, then trailed the backs of his fingers over her collarbone, then gently touched her cheek.
“Does it feel real?” he asked. She nodded slowly. They had been together in the Fade before and there was no mistaking that experience for this. He was real and solid, standing in front of their son’s crib in her room in Hawke’s estate.
“How long will it continue to be real?” she asked in a whisper. He closed his eyes, seemingly in pain, but she didn’t understand. He never stayed and she only wanted to know if they would have this one night or if he could be gone sooner.
With a speed that made her cry out in surprise, he gripped her face in his hands and crushed his lips against hers. This kiss was nothing like the one he had bestowed upon her earlier. That had been gentle, a soft embrace, a sweet apology. This was raw, undiluted passion, nearly violent in its intensity, their need clashing and crashing together. His hands explored the curves of her face roughly, calloused fingers tracing her high, prominent cheekbones and the short point of her chin before snaking back through her white hair again. With desperation that bordered on pain, he took her mouth hard. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, flicking it against her own, then took her newly-healed lip between his teeth with no attempt at restraint. He tilted his head to the other side to take her from a new angle, never slowing as he attempted to devour her.
And she had no desire to protest or resist. She kissed him with a matching urgency, by no means simply letting him take what he clearly needed. She demanded him in return, sparring with his tongue when it passed her lips, nipping him back when he bit her. Her hands gripped him tight and held him close, her new fingers sliding along the cotton of his tunic and the fur of the pelt he wore over it. There was no armor beneath her hands, as there had been the last time she’d seen him in the waking world. He was not dressed for battle or intimidation. Instead he was dressed for travel in styles she remembered a certain humble apostate preferred, though the quality of the cloth was much higher than what he’d worn when he’d worked with the Inquisition. The wolf’s jawbone he wore on a long cord around his neck dug into her ribs where she pressed against him, just as it always had. And it was too much, too familiar, too perfect, necessary like water, and she couldn’t believe in it after everything that had happened.
“Stop!” she cried, finally breaking the kiss by throwing her head back. They were both breathing hard as he allowed her to withdraw, though he maintained his hold on her face. He pressed his forehead to hers, staying pressed against her tightly, unwilling to relinquish his grasp on her even when she squirmed half-heartedly in his grip.
“What is this, Solas?” she demanded as she caught her breath. “Why are you here?”
“For you,” he said harshly, the intensity of his tone staggering her. “Because I will not be parted from you for another moment.”
She tore herself out of his grasp and met his eyes. “What changed?” she asked, watching his expression. He seemed to wince, just for a moment. “You have told me so many times that we cannot be together, that you will not share your path with me. What changed?”
“Nothing,” he said, and she flinched away before he caught her. “In essence,” he told her slowly, intently, holding her still by gripping her shoulders, “I am a selfish creature. I always have been. In my youth, I was rash, reckless, inconsiderate. I sought pleasure for its own sake and cared nothing for the consequences. I cannot be that way anymore, and I have no desire to be, but I am still selfish.” He pressed his brow to hers again. “Falling in love with you was selfish. Allowing the relationship to bloom was selfish. Leaving you in the way I did was incredibly selfish and cruel, though I tried to convince myself that it was for your own good as well as mine. And now my selfishness will not allow me to leave again. I want you too much, I love you too much to turn away.”
Lyna pulled away again and slapped his hands away when he reached for her. It was her turn to grab his face, to trap him and force him to look at her. “You would take me with you now? You would take me and our son to wherever it is you have been hiding all this time? You would weave us into the strange fabric of your life and allow me to walk this path with you?”
“I will,” he said, voice breaking low on the vow. “Whatever it takes, whatever I must do to earn your trust back, I will do it. I will lay the world at your feet and beg for scraps of attention if that is what you ask. I will tear your enemies asunder. I will-“
“I don’t want that,” she said quickly, cutting him off. “That isn’t…” She stopped and took a breath. “I can annihilate my own enemies. I don’t need you for that.”
“Then what do you want?” he asked softly. “What is it that you need from me?”
“An apology would be a good start,” she told him. Nearly a year of anger had begun building in her chest and now it demanded release.
“Ir abelas, vhenan,” he said without hesitation. “I am sorry that I left you without explanation. I am sorry that I hurt you. I am so sorry that I left you naked and alone in that glen. If I could take it all back, I would. I would go back to that morning and I would tell you what I had brought you out to such a secluded place to say. I would have fallen to my knees before you and begged for forgiveness that I do not deserve for my deception. I would have told you who I truly am and asked if you could ever love the Dread Wolf, even though I do not deserve your affection.”
She stilled, certain that she had misheard, hoping that she had. “You meant to tell me the truth that day?” she asked, her voice distant and barely sounding like her own.
He nodded. “I brought you there to tell you the truth that you deserved to hear from me. I lost my nerve at the last moment and told you about the Vallaslin instead.”
“You bastard!” she cried, striking his chest with both hands. He took a half step back, shocked by her sudden and uncharacteristic rage. “You could have prevented all of this!” She hit him again, the force of the strike pushing him back. She was shaking with fury, her vision swimming with hazy red. “You could have been with me when I was pregnant!” Another furious push against him. He did nothing to defend himself, simply taking her violent anger as his due. “You could have greeted our son as he entered the world! You could have saved me from all the pitying looks people gave the lonely, pregnant cripple who was not even worth a visit from the father of her child! I was just a pathetic woman living off the charity of her friends!” In her anger and agony, she slapped him across the face. Her newly formed palm cracked loudly against his cheek and his head whipped to the side painfully. Her palm stung, fingers sore from the force of the blow, but he did not retaliate. He simply straightened and looked at her again, his cheek turning angry red before her eyes. He did not heal it, though it might bruise. “You left me!” she shrieked, in far too much pain to keep quiet. “You took my heart and you left with it!”
And just like that, her anger evaporated. Hot tears slid down her face and she hung her head, falling to her knees. She was drained, exhausted by the strength of her rage and its sudden departure that left only despair behind.
“You left me,” she murmured, feeling again the same confusion and despair she had experienced when she realized he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. Tears fell, the same tears she’d cried each night for weeks as she ran her hands over her growing middle and wished that long artist’s fingers would twine with hers over the life that they had created within her.
Solas followed her to the floor and held her against his chest as she sobbed, clutching at him as if he would disappear at any moment. He held her silently, stroking her gently, offering comfort that she was too exhausted and too desperate for to reject.
After a long while, her ears finally dried, her sobs dissolving into hiccups. Still he held her, his grip gentle and soft. She didn’t know how long they sat there on the floor, but eventually she fell asleep, still cradled in his arms like a delicate treasure.
4 notes · View notes
katalyna-rose · 7 years
Text
Vhenan
I rewrote it. It’s so much better now... Read it please! Chapters go up as I finish their rewrites. The original version has been removed, not sorry.
Graphic Depictions of Violence
Solas/Female Lavellan, Fenris/Female Mage Hawke, Zevrain/Female Warden Mahariel
AKA: Lyna/Solas, Fenris/Alie, Zevran/Kahlia
Angst, Fluff, Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Mildly Conon-Divergent, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Minor Isablea/Merrill, Constructive Criticism Welcome
Summary: Solas, the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel, has left Lyna behind in an attempt to fix mistakes made thousands of years ago. Willing to destroy everything for his goals, he doesn't realize exactly how determined Lyna is to show him a better path. Both worlds could thrive, given the chance. Her world is real and valid and deserves a chance, but so does his. There must be a middle ground.
And there is another reason that Lyna must find Solas, a secret kept from the world that attempted to put her up on a pedestal. But how would Thedas react to such a secret, such undeniable proof that their Herald of Andraste is a person like any other? That she is someone who loves, someone who makes mistakes, who bleeds and cries. And is having the Dread Wolf's child.
Read on AO3!
Chapter One: A Well of Hope
“I begged you not to drink from the Well!” Solas all but yelled, startlingly angry, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Why could you not have listened?”
“Solas…” Lyna said as calmly as she could manage, hoping to soothe him, though she’d never before been the subject of his wrath.
“You gave yourself into the service of an ancient elven god!” He paced before his latest mural, the blue pigment of the Well of Sorrows reflecting the light of the nearby torch.
She frowned, confused by his wording, wanting, as always, to understand. “What does that mean, exactly?” she asked softly.
He seemed to crumple, a deep sigh leaving him, his anger bleeding into resignation as he said, “You are Mythal’s creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her.” He stopped and sighed again as he faced her, resignation blending into sorrow that she didn’t understand. “You have given up a part of yourself.”
Ridiculous. She scowled at him, feeling her own temper surge unexpectedly. “You don’t even believe in the ancient elven gods!” His lips thinned as his jaw clenched, anger resurfacing.
“I don’t believe they were gods, no, but I believe that they existed! Something existed to start the legends! If not gods then mages, or spirits, or something we’ve never seen.” He leaned forward aggressively, punctuating his words with a savage gesture. “And you are bound to one of them now.”
Solas stopped abruptly and looked away from her, breathing deeply in an attempt to reign in his temper. Lyna frowned, watching, concerned about him more than she was about herself; she’d never seen him this upset. Mostly, he held himself aloof, calmly observing the world around him without seeming to be a part of it. The little scar on his forehead was being pulled out of shape by his scowl, and she wanted nothing more than to smooth it out and kiss away his fears. But she knew he wouldn’t let her, that he’d pull away and become even more unreachable than before.
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I suppose it is better you have the power than Corypheus.” He met her eyes with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. “Which leads to the next logical question: What will you do with the power of the Well once Corypheus is dead?”
“The war proved that we can’t go back to the way things were,” she told him, thinking of the many dead bodies they’d seen, slain by mages or Templars or caught in between, those left homeless and hungry, those the Inquisition couldn’t save. She even mourned those who had gone rogue, the red Templars and the Venatori; surely somewhere in history if someone had made a different choice they wouldn’t have felt the need to commit the crimes they stood accused of. “I’ll try to help this world move forward,” she said with conviction. Surely something she knew or had seen or had learned from the Well of Sorrows could offer a solution, or part of one.
“You would risk everything you have in the hope that the future is better? What if it isn’t?” Solas asked, strangely intense, as if her answer meant more to him than the question implied. “What if you wake up to find the future you shaped is worse than what was?”
Lyna frowned, trying to read him, to figure him out, and, as ever, coming up empty. “I’ll take a breath, see where things went wrong, and then try again,” she told him.
“Just like that?” he asked, almost incredulous. She smiled a little.
“If we don’t keep trying, we’ll never get it right,” she reminded him.
He returned the smile, suddenly not nearly so upset. The stiff set of his shoulders softened. “You’re right. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“You have not been what I expected, Inquisitor.” He paused at her sharp look and amended his statement with a purr, “Lyna. You have… impressed me,” he told her, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And she felt like all the breath had been knocked out of her lungs. She impressed him? She was just a Dalish girl, thrown into the middle of these events by chance. She wasn’t nearly as interesting or impressive as he was. Though he had praised her intelligence and willingness to learn on many occasions, calling it a rare gift, she had always thought she could never compare to the spirits of the Fade he’d introduced her to. It was surreal to hear that he thought so highly of her. She knew he loved her and respected her both as a woman and as Inquisitor, but she knew this was something else, knew the standard to which he compared the world. “You have offered hope,” he continued while she blinked at him, “that if one keeps trying, even if the consequences are grace, that someday things will be better.” He looked away again, though a small smile played on his lips. “Forgive my melancholy. Corypheus has cost us much. The Temple of Mythal did not deserve such a fate. The orb he carries, and its stolen power… That, at least, we may still recover. With luck, some of the past may yet survive.”
She decided it was time to jolt him out of this melancholy, as he put it. So she smiled slyly and said, “You’re being grim and fatalistic in hope of getting me into bed, aren’t you?”
His serious expression remained fixed, but his eyes danced. “I am grim and fatalistic,” he told her. Then his expression broke into a warm smile, eyes teasing. “Getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Just?” she asked, teasing. He chuckled, and held out his hand.
“Come with me, vhenan,” he said, suddenly eager. She took his hand with a smile and let him lead her out of the rotunda, then out of Skyhold altogether. He took her down a winding, narrow path she hadn’t traveled before. It wound down the mountain away from the enormous camp where most of the Inquisition’s people lived and worked and trained.
“Where are we going?” Lyna asked after a while, curious. Solas brought her hand, which he still held in his, to his lips and sent her pulse racing with a gentle kiss on her knuckles. He smiled, no doubt sensing the sudden heat he’d sent shooting through her body. Bastard.
“Trust me,” he murmured, his eyes gleaming with mischief. She swallowed hard, trying to shove down her arousal, and said nothing else as he led her down what she was becoming increasingly certain was a goat trail.
The pink and orange of sunset was fading when she spied a cave ahead. “I didn’t bring my bow,” she told him redundantly; he could obviously see that she was unarmed except for the small knife that never left her person. He chuckled.
“You won’t need it,” he assured her. “Nothing and no one comes this way except for the goats that made this path and the occasional rabbit.”
“And nothing hunts the goats?” she asked archly. He smiled.
“Nothing a little magic cannot scare away.” She sighed dramatically, and he raised a brow in challenge. She said nothing, keeping her chin high in mocking protest. She had no doubt he could keep them safe, but she still enjoyed needling him. He squeezed her hand, enjoying her efforts.
The cave they entered was very dark, but not dark enough that Solas felt he needed to cast light. Water cascaded down the walls with a musical sound, and instead of seeming creepy and ominous as caves frequently did to Lyna it cast an atmosphere of wonder and soft pleasure.
Solas laced his fingers with hers and bumped her shoulder lightly. She looked at him and he gestured ahead with his chin, so she looked. The cave opened just ahead on a moonlit glen. She gasped when she saw a pair of giant statues to Ghilan’nain facing each other on either side of a small pool fed by three narrow waterfalls, the harts’ antlers reaching up as if they would touch the sky. Elfroot grew at the statues’ feet and the water glittered in the moonlight. The area was walled off naturally by stone, the tops too rocky to allow spies or assassins to go unnoticed. The grass was soft beneath her feet, and the musical waterfalls made her want to dance. The flowers that grew here and there added a sweet scent to the strangely warm breeze. Solas squeezed her hand a little, and she squeezed back, smiling at him. A warm look flowed over his face, heating his gaze, and he led her into the glen. They walked slowly, their clasped hands swinging between them, until he stopped not far from the water’s edge.
“The Veil is thin here,” he said softly, touching her cheek gently and sending delicious shivers through her. Can you feel it on your skin, tingling?” He removed his hand, and warm tingles did indeed take its place. She touched her face, enjoying and unnerved by the unfamiliar sensations, then looked up at him. He was so close, the stars sparkling in his eyes. Just a little closer and she could take his lips before he even realized what she was doing. One corner of his mouth turned up a little, and she knew he saw exactly what she was thinking on her face. She was, after all, staring rather intently at his lips. She tilted her head a little to the exact angle that would be best for a kiss, all but begging him to take it.
Instead, he said, “I was trying to determine some way to show you what you mean to me.” His thumb moved, caressing her wrist as he held her hand a little tighter, almost as if he were nervous. But that seemed silly; Solas was confident in nearly all he did.
Lyna gave him a small smile. “I’m listening,” she told him. “And I can offer a few suggestions.” She stared hard at his mouth again, taking a breath so that her breasts stretched the material of her shirt taught.
A slight blush delicately colored his cheeks, startling her; Solas never blushed. “I shall bear that in mind,” he said, smiling and refusing to show any sign of being flustered. “For now,” he continued as she smirked at him, “the best gift I can offer is… the truth.” He paused for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. “You are unique,” he told her softly, and it was her turn to blush. “In all Thedas, I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me, more important than I could have imagined.”
His words, spoken softly with an air of simple truth, as if these sentiments were simple facts of life that he could not and would not change, moved her greatly.
“As you are to me,” she told him when he paused, slightly surprised that her voice didn’t waver as her heart pounded in her chest. He smiled, just a little.
“Then what I must tell you… The truth…” he said, and a shadow passed behind his eyes for just a moment, gone almost as soon as it arrived. He paused, breath in his lungs and mouth open to continue, and she waited. When he seemed frozen, she squeezed his hand gently, encouraging him, and he blinked and then continued.
“Your face,” he said at last. “The Vallaslin.” Lyna resisted the urge to touch the slightly raised sacred tattoos on her face. She wore the symbols of Mythal, the Mother and Protector, and had ever since she had come of age. The dark purple lines depicted branches crisscrossing her forehead and cheekbones into her hairline with a line from her mouth spreading down her chin. “In my journeys in the Fade, I have seen things. I have discovered what those marks mean.”
“She frowned, confused. “They honor the elven gods,” she told him, as she had been told since she was old enough to ask.
“No,” Solas said softly, shaking his head. “They are slave markings. Or, at least, they were in the time of ancient Arlathan.”
Lyna took a half step back, her confusion blending into something approaching horror. “My clan’s Keeper said they honored the gods. These are their symbols.” Please be wrong, she thought desperately. Please let this be the one thing he has wrong.
“Yes,” he told her, soft and sad. “That’s right. A noble would mark his slaves to honor the god he worshipped. After Arlathan fell, the Dalish forgot.”
She felt tears gathering and tried to step them. “So this is… what? Just one more thing the Dalish got wrong?” She had learned more about her people with Solas and the Inquisition than she had studying with her Keeper and hahren. She did not doubt his word, had learned long before that he would not say a thing he did not know, without a doubt, to be true, but it sent a knife of pain into her heart. Her people had ever refused to be slaves, to succumb to those who saw them as inferior. They were Dalish because, when the Dales fell, they refused to give in. But this was wrong. Her people should have known.
“I’m sorry,” Solas said, though Lyna wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for her pain, for telling her, or for how much her people were wrong about.
She took a deep, unsteady breath and looked away. “We try to preserve our culture,” she said haltingly, “and this is what we keep? Relics of a time when we were no better than Tevinter?”
With gentle fingers under her chin, he lifted her face so that she would look at him. “Don’t say that,” he told her softly. “For all the Dalish got wrong, they did one thing right.” He smiled, just a little, and it changed his sorrowful and almost guilty look to one of pride. “They made you.” She smiled and gave a watery half laugh. He was just trying to lessen the sting the truth; she knew he didn’t think much of her people and she knew he had just reasons for that. But she had worn slave markings with pride for half her life, had looked on with envy as her clan mates received theirs, and he knew this hurt her.
“I didn’t tell you this to hurt you,” he told her earnestly. She’d known that, of course, that he shared the knowledge simply so that she would know. But the truth was not always kind. “If you like, I know a spell.” Her eyes widened as she guessed where he was headed with this. “I can remove the Vallaslin.” She looked away, and his hand fell away from her face, reluctantly. She took a deep breath and thought about it.
“These marks have been a part of me for so long,” she said slowly. “I don’t know if…”
“I’m so sorry for causing you pain,” he said, and the small hitch in his voice revealed exactly how much her pain affected him. “It was selfish of me.” That got her to look at him. Selfish? He was many things, but selfish? “I look at you and I see what you truly are.” His hand lifted as if he wanted to touch her face again, but he lowered it before he did. She wished he hadn’t; she craved his touch almost like a drug. “And you deserve better than what those cruel marks represent.”
She looked into his eyes and saw with perfect clarity, for the first time, exactly what he felt for her. Though she had known that he cared for her, ar lath ma whispered in her ear on many occasions, the strength of love she saw there in those blue depths was enough to frighten her and make her want to hold him and never let go. His eyes shone with affection and tenderness, and suddenly she felt ridiculous for ever having thought that all his sweet words were not meant with perfect sincerity, with the same intensity that filled every word he said to her. But she was just a woman, Dalish, and her people had been unkind to him. She was only a hunter, her feet firmly in waking though she was slowly learning to shape her dreams. But he was a storyteller of incredible wisdom, and he wielded magic she’d never seen or heard of elsewhere. Coincidence had placed the Anchor on her hand, and necessity had driven her to use it to close the rifts they encountered. Her title of Inquisitor felt more honorary than true to her. She did little without the advice and consent of her advisors and there was so much she had no power to change.
And Solas… He was wise and worldly. He had seen things she could never have dreamed of, had walked the world and the Fade and learned so much more than she could imagine. He was strong and brave, fighting his enemies with a ferocity few could rival. And yet he was compassionate and understanding. He saw his enemies as living people, not merely as obstacles or abstract threats. He had played, and won, an entire game of chess with Iron Bull using neither board nor pieces, only the power of his incredible mind. What could one little Dalish girl be to a man like him?
And yet the truth shone in his eyes. Lyna could be many wonderful things to a man like him, it seemed. And suddenly, with an urgency that nearly staggered her, she wanted it all in a way she had never allowed herself before. She wanted this man before her. She wanted his love and to love him in return. She wanted a life with him. Could that even be possible?
But she had a choice to make, and she would always choose freedom. It was an ideal that was so much a part of her that she had fought against even being claimed by her former lovers, unwilling to tie herself to them. But Solas only ever sought to set her free, and she wanted this. She took a deep breath and said, “Then cast your spell. Take the Vallaslin away.” He smiled, and the love in his eyes shone even brighter, if possible.
Read on AO3!
4 notes · View notes
katalyna-rose · 7 years
Text
Vhenan Chapter Five
Graphic Depictions of Violence
Solas/Female Lavellan, Fenris/Female Mage Hawke, Zevrain/Female Warden Mahariel
AKA: Lyna/Solas, Fenris/Alie, Zevran/Kahlia
Angst, Fluff, Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Mildly Conon-Divergent, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Minor Isablea/Merrill, Constructive Criticism Welcome
Summary: Solas, the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel, has left Lyna behind in an attempt to fix mistakes made thousands of years ago. Willing to destroy everything for his goals, he doesn’t realize exactly how determined Lyna is to show him a better path. Both worlds could thrive, given the chance. Her world is real and valid and deserves a chance, but so does his. There must be a middle ground.
And there is another reason that Lyna must find Solas, a secret kept from the world that attempted to put her up on a pedestal. But how would Thedas react to such a secret, such undeniable proof that their Herald of Andraste is a person like any other? That she is someone who loves, someone who makes mistakes, who bleeds and cries. And is having the Dread Wolf’s child.
Read on AO3!
From the Beginning
Lyna stirred, trying to wake from her dreams, but it was difficult even with the screaming and wailing all around her.
“Lyna!” It was Hawke’s voice, and she was excited. “Lyna, come on! Wake up! Your son is ready to greet you!”
My son? Oh! She remembered in a rush, being unconscious through the birth. She’d given birth! That thought allowed her to push away the haze of dreams, even dreams of Solas.
“My son! Let me see him!” Lyna cried. She reached out with both arms, forgetting for a moment that she could hold him with only one.
Elarra held the squirming bundle, which she passed to the new mother, settling it firmly in her one good arm. “Here he is. A strong little thing, this one. And he knows who his mother is. He was reaching for you for the whole time I was cleaning him off,” she said, grinning.
Lyna looked into her son’s face. Bright violet eyes stared just beyond her, too new yet to focus. With the stump of her left arm, she settled the blankets further back from his face. He calmed as she held him, stopped screaming.
“He’s beautiful,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears.
“He is,” Hawke agreed through her own watery smile.
Fenris, arms wrapped around his wife’s waist, said, “He’s very small, isn’t he?”
“A bit smaller than is average, yes,” Elarra said as she bustled about, cleaning up. “But he’s healthy. Lungs working just fine, everything properly developed. He’s just small, that’s all.”
“He’s perfect,” Lyna told them, never looking away from her son’s tiny and beautiful face.
“Of course he is,” Fenris conceded, a smile in his voice.
Suddenly, Lyna’s tears of joy became tears of sorrow. “I wish his father were here,” she whispered. Just then her son, her little Solas, reached out and placed his hand on the stump of her arm. A sob escaped her lips. “I should have told him, Hawke. You were right. I should have told him, even if it wouldn’t have changed anything. He still should have known.”
Hawke sat beside her friend and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. With her other hand she smoothed the little boy’s dark brown hair. Lyna hadn’t known what color Solas’s hair would have been, but she supposed she did now.
“You did what you thought was right at the time,” she said softly. “Regrets now don’t change what is.”
Lyna took a deep breath. “I know that. But I wish I could find some way to tell him.” She looked up at her friend. “I see him nearly every night. I speak to him sometimes. But I can never find the words to say it, even when I try.”
“Maybe you will,” Hawke said brightly. “If life has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is impossible.”
“I suppose,” she said, doubtful. Solas started mewling and reached up and out with his tiny little arms. When one met her breast, he fell silent and kneaded the flesh a little. She chuckled. “Hungry already, little one?” she asked him. Somehow, she managed to maneuver her dress until one breast was bared. Solas immediately latched on to begin his meal. His mother sighed. “At least my son is healthy. As long as that is true, I can handle anything.”
“Exactly,” Hawke said.
**
“A boy. Bright. Healthy. Little. So little. But strong. A tug on the silk to pull it out. Hurts, but it’s good. He’s good,” Cole said in that peculiar way of his.
“Yes,” Lyna told him with a smile. “A healthy little boy. I named him for his father.”
“I’m glad he’s healthy,” Cole told her with his own small smile.
“So am I. How are you?”
“She finds me and I falter, wanting, waiting, wishing. She’ll find me again, want it, need it, have to keep her away.” His eyes grew glazed, his gaze far away, and Lyna knew whose thoughts he was speaking. “She tries to speak, mouth opens then closes, words that won’t pass her throat. What is it? Want to hear, afraid to hear, know it could change everything but not what it is. Each time she finds me it is harder to push her away. Want her to stay. So strong, she’s so strong to even find me. Why does she let me retreat?”
“I have no choice but to let him go, Cole,” Lyna said seriously, wrapping her arms around herself in some vain attempt at comfort.
“That’s not true!” Joy interjected, appearing suddenly and twirling around. For now, Joy appeared as a young girl in a flowery dress. It had been spending a lot of time with Lyna since she’d given birth almost two weeks ago, despite the sorrow that dulled her joy.
“What do you mean?” Lyna asked the slightly more straight-forward spirit.
It continued twirling with a grin. “In the Fade, there is always choice,” it told her, and she retracted her former observation of its straight-forward nature.
“What do you mean?” she asked again. “He always pushes me away.”
“But you let him!” it declared, still twirling, faster and faster until it made Lyna dizzy.
“He’ll push me out on his own if I don’t leave,” she reminded her friend. “So why not steal the last word from him as I do?”
It stopped spinning suddenly, enough so that any mortal would have toppled over. It sighed at her, seeming disappointed. “You have always thought of this battle between the two of you as a battle of wills,” it told her, finally giving a straight answer. “In the Fade, that concept is a literal one! If your will surpasses his, he cannot push you out.”
“He…” she began, then stopped and swallowed hard. “He wouldn’t be able to eject me from his dreams if I didn’t let him?”
“I didn’t say that,” Joy was quick to correct. “If his will to push you out is greater than your will to stay, he can still make you go. It’s simply a more literal interpretation of your ongoing battle of wills.”
“If I were strong enough, I could make him stay until I can finally force the words out of my throat to tell him he has a son?” Lyna asked urgently, clutching her friends’ arms.
“Well, it’s possible,” Joy said with a shrug. “But I doubt you’d be able to hold him for very long. Or anyone, really. It takes a lot of concentration, and if you’re distracted by what you need to say then it’ll make it easier for him to ignore your command. But theoretically, yes.”
“But if I tried, I could…” She had to know.
“This is the Fade, Lyna!” Joy cried. “Everything here exists because someone willed it so!”
“You could will him to stay,” Cole added. “He wants to, but he can’t.”
“Then I’ll need to practice,” she told them with a smile. Joy nodded happily, easily.
“I will help,” Cole said. He always understood.
**
“Hush now, little one! What’s all this?” Lyna cooed to her son. He was wailing again, as he tended to prefer doing the moment she laid down to rest. Carefully, she lowered the side of his crib so she could bend over and scoop him into her arm. He calmed a little for a moment, then continued howling. She checked his diaper then sighed.
“No tears and no mess today. Just practicing, then?” she asked her son. He didn’t answer, just kept up the noise. She sighed again and sat in her rocking chair with him. They rocked slowly while he exercised his lungs.
“At this rate,” she told him after a few minutes, “you’re going to be an incredible singer one day.” He wrapped a strand of her platinum blonde hair around his little fist and tugged. She winced, then did her best to untangle her hair from him. “I’m beginning to regret growing my hair out,” she admitted to him wryly. He burped in response, then continued wailing. When he tugged her hair again, she sighed. “Some things are easier with two hands,” she said to no one, the most ridiculous understatement she’d ever made. “Keeping a one-month-old out of trouble is certainly one of them.”
Lyna watched as dawn’s first light colored Kirkwall pale pink, holding her screaming child close. “Why can I never find the words or the strength to tell him about you?” she asked the horizon. “I see him almost every night, even talk to him fairly often when we can trick each other for a moment, but I can never get the words out. Why? What is it that I’m so afraid of? That he’ll reject me? He already did that. Three times, no less!” Solas finally quieted and nestled into the crook of his mother’s arm, yawning and stretching his little arms. She smiled down at him sadly. “I suppose I’m afraid that he’ll reject you, da’mi,” she whispered to her son. “My little Solas, you are named for him and born of his seed, but that does make him a father. Would he even want you, if he knew? That must be what I’m afraid of, then. That he would leave altogether, even in dreams, to avoid a responsibility to you.”
He yawned again, tiny fists pressed against his cheeks, and it was so adorable she couldn’t help but grin at him. “What would you say to your father, I wonder? Would you be hurt that he isn’t here with you? Or would you be satisfied that I’m here, that I love you with my whole being?” She sighed heavily and kissed his forehead. “Someday, I’ll have an answer to that question, I think. When you’re old enough, I know you’ll ask me about him. And I will tell you, of course. I would never lie to you, da’mi. I know the damage that lies can do.”
He made a little noise then, demanding and insistent, and reached up to her with one small hand. She smiled again. “A story, then? Very well. Let’s see…” She thought for a moment. “How about I tell you the story of how my parents met? My father was born in an Alienage, you know. And one cold, snowy winter near Ostwick…”
**
“He is well,” Wisdom told Lyna before she could even ask. She smiled ruefully.
“Am I that predictable?” she asked. The spirit smiled.
“You ask me the same question each time we meet,” it reminded her.
“Is he well, though? Truly?” she asked, concerned. “The last time I saw him he seemed… thin. Malnourished. Like perhaps he isn’t sleeping enough.”
“Health and wellness are all relative,” Wisdom told her with sadness in her gaze. Lyna wondered for a moment why both spirits of Wisdom she had met preferred to appear female and were also friends with Solas, then shook it off as a question for another time. “What is healthy for you is not healthy for you son.”
“Is he taking care of himself?” Lyna asked insistently. “Is he well for him? I don’t care about his health relative to anyone but himself!”
Wisdom sighed. “I know, but I thought that perhaps you would be better off believing he is well.”
“How wise would that be?” Lyna asked the spirit with angry sarcasm.
“It could, perhaps, allow you to focus on your own health and that of your son,” Wisdom said patiently. Lyna clenched her jaw and said nothing more; perhaps the spirit was right and she should try to worry about him less. Yet then Wisdom grinned, a rare thing for her. “If you could simply cease worry for your love, a lot of problems might be solved. But it would also prove that you do not, in fact, love him. Love is boundless when true, and cares not for distance or anger. Yet love is not blind; it sees the imperfections of a person and it embraces them. He is rash and impulsive beyond what others see and you know this, yet you embrace these flaws in him.”
“They aren’t always to his detriment,” she reminded her newest friend. “That same impulsivity that has caused him to make so many mistakes also allowed him to fall in love with me. Maybe it could make him let me back in if I could just…”
“Just what?” the spirit asked eagerly, as though Lyna were on the verge of something profound.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want him to come back out of nothing more than a false sense of obligation to his son.”
Wisdom tilted her head. “What makes it a false sense?” she asked curiously. “If the child is his, born of his loins, as we both know it to be, then is the obligation not upon him to care for the child?”
“It isn’t that simple,” she told the spirit, shaking her head. “Perhaps some people see it that way, but I don’t. I wanted my child, my son. I want him because I love him and what he represents. I love the potential he carries and that I will be there to nurture it. But simply creating a child does not make one a parent. It is an active choice, and not one that he has made.”
“Because he does not know,” Wisdom reminded her. “He cannot make a choice if he does not have the information.” Lyna sighed heavily.
“I know that,” she said wearily. “But every time I try to tell him, I freeze up. I can’t force the words out of my throat.”
“You are afraid,” it observed. Lyna snorted.
“I know that,” she told it. “I simply don’t know how to work past it to tell him.”
They were silent for a few long minutes as Lyna played with the landscape around them, shaping a waterfall to create music. Wisdom tilted her head and nudged a rock so the note rang true, and they sighed together, pleased with the results.
“Keep trying,” Wisdom said at last, then vanished. Lyna rolled her eyes.
**
She found him again in a memory he visited far too often. Ordinarily, she’d leave him to it, let him be with this one and not interfere. But she found that she couldn’t simply leave this time. It was probably the hormones still coursing through her, but she didn’t want him to keep doing this.
He moved through the memory with ease, viewing it from a hundred different angles, ducking waving limbs when necessary. His face was drawn and closed, expression fierce; he was using this memory to torture himself. And he looked even less healthy than the last time she’d found him in his own dreams. The dark circles under his eyes were darker, bags that dragged down his face. He seemed to have lost more weight. She wondered if he was really that unhealthy in waking or if it was a representation in the Fade, like most things. She hoped he was taking better care of himself than he seemed to be.
Surely he deserved it, she told herself again. In the memory, Lyna screamed in pain and clutched her left wrist as though that could stem the tide of agony. Solas allowed each tiny noise of distress to spear his heart, keeping his eyes on her no matter who else was speaking. They were all speaking, arguing about the Exalted Council and how best to mitigate the fallout from his own actions. And Lyna was terrified, though she could never show it to them.
“All the rifts I closed, all the demons I faced,” she mourned when the pain could no longer be hidden. When she broke. “I don’t want to die!” Solas clenched his fists, shoulders bowing under the weight of the desperation in her voice. He bowed his head when she continued, amending her statement. “Not… knowing that the world still needed me.” She didn’t want to die, but she couldn’t allow herself to be selfish. And it was his fault.
As she collected herself, polite mask back in place, he froze the memory around him. With one finger, he touched Lyna’s cheek. It was soft and altogether too real. Even in memory, he shuddered at the sensation. He began the scene again, from the beginning.
And she couldn’t watch, couldn’t let him continue. “Why do you torture yourself with the past?” she asked him. He spun around, searching for her, but she knew he would find her only if she let him and continued to float just outside of his perception, a familiar dance. He had taught her this trick, though he hadn’t meant to. He had taught her to float through the Fade as consciousness without form.
“How did you get here?” he asked, sounding oddly desperate.
“You let me in,” she told him. His expression became strained, and she laughed lightly. “In moments like this, you all but drag me here,” she admitted, knowing that he would ward against her even more strongly than ever when he wished to be alone. But she couldn’t let him continue like this and she would find a way past his warding eventually. Or he would simply let her in again. “Why do you do this to yourself?” She felt him probing, moving closer. She moved away.
“It is no less than I deserve,” he admitted softly, his eyes darting around as though his sight could find her. He should know better.
“Perhaps, but it is over,” she reminded him. “It is done. I do not hold it against you.”
“How can you not?” he whispered brokenly, his search for her momentarily abandoned. “I nearly destroyed you. I did destroy the Inquisition.”
“No,” she said fiercely. “I received the Anchor by my will, not yours. And you saved my life, saved me when it would have destroyed me. And I disbanded the Inquisition. It was simply time, our work completed. The reason for its existence was over, so I sent them all home.”
He laughed without humor. “You cannot lie to me, vhenan,” he reminded her softly. “Not here.”
“Perhaps not,” she allowed, a smile in her voice. His search for her resumed. “But you have still not answered my question. Why are you here?”
He hesitated. “I told you when last we met in waking that I am not a monster, but I have never been certain if I believe those words.” In her shock, she almost let him catch her before moving away.
“No love of mine could ever be a monster,” she told him with certainty. He bowed his head.
“You simply do not know me,” he whispered.
“Don’t say that!” she snapped. He jerked, surprised to hear her lose her temper; it happened so rarely, yet she couldn’t help it. How could he question all that she knew and loved like that? It was an insult that she would not tolerate. “I know all I need to know to love you! I know that you are kind, that you would help refugees rather than pursue your own purposes. I have seen you do it. I know that you are knowledgeable and willing to share. How many nights did we talk through in the rotunda until dawn while I studied your latest mural? I know that you are creative, in both art and studies. You always found the most interesting ways to look at things, and I will always treasure the murals and sketches and paintings you left behind. A person’s past does not define who they are. I did not need to know that you were once Fen’Harel to know that you are Solas and I love you.”
He took a deep, shaking breath, abandoning his quest for her, allowing her to remain with him. She did not take the bait. “You love a shadow, the remnants of a man who ceased to exist long ago,” he insisted.
“No,” she said gently, her fury fading as swiftly as it had taken her. “You were Solas first, and you will remain Solas long after Fen’Harel is laid to rest. My people forgot the truth, but I will never forget. I will never forget you.” He jerked as she repeated his last words to her back to him.
Knowing what would happen yet acting anyway, she coalesced her consciousness into form just before him and took his face in her hands. She pressed her lips against his gently and for a moment he remained hard and unyielding. Until, all at once, he broke and wrapped her in his arms, crushing her lips with his. He leaned her back, making her cling to him, and kissed her until she was breathless.
“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he murmured against her mouth as they breathed as one.
“I know, Solas,” she whispered, caressing his face. She felt him pushing her consciousness away, out of his dream, out of the Fade altogether. “Ar lath ma. Var lath vir suledin. But I will not go quietly tonight,” she vowed, holding her ground, fighting his will. His eyes widened, something between fear and delight in his gaze, and she shivered in his arms under the weight of that look. “There is something…” she began, trying again, but he was still pushing, they were still fighting, and she was so afraid. She wavered for a moment, he almost won, before she dug her nails into his shoulders and he winced with pain and it allowed her to keep herself in place. “I need to tell…” Her breaths came short and quick, panic speeding her pulse. He frowned, their mental grappling slowing just a little in his confusion.
“Vhenan,” he murmured, just barely giving voice to the word, and she tore herself from his grasp. She couldn’t touch him and still find the strength to say it. He had to know so that he could choose, so that he could know, yet she was so afraid of the result that she couldn’t even look at him. She wrapped her arms around herself, breathing so hard that she was about to hyperventilate and wondering if that translated into the waking world, if that was why everything was becoming blurry.
She tried to rush it, to force the words out all at once. “Solas, we have-“ The dream shattered on an infant’s scream.
Lyna sat up in bed and tried to wipe some of the tears from her face. She was fairly certain that she’d hadn’t been crying in the dream, but her pillow was soaked. She’d also discovered that she had, in fact, been breathing just as hard in waking as in dreaming. She tried to slow her heart as she left the bed and went over to her son. His cries lessened as his mother appeared in his field of vision, then stopped entirely when she scooped him up, her mental state having no effect on the demands of his little tummy. She sighed as she sat in her rocking chair with him and he began his meal.
“I suppose this must mean you don’t want your father to know,” she told the suckling infant at her breast. “Maybe it’s for the best, but I can’t just leave it like this. What he does with the information is up to him, but he deserves to have it.” She kissed her son’s forehead, then wiped her face on her shoulder. “I would be no better than him at his worst if I kept knowledge of you from him on purpose. I need to tell him if only to soothe my conscience. If he vanishes entirely, that’s his own choice.” She stared off into the darkness of Kirkwall’s landscape. “That’s his own choice,” she repeated, trying to tell herself that she would be okay with it and failing.
**
She dreamed of her father. She was small and his strong arms were still there to scoop her up and swing her around. His strong and calloused hands were still there to guide hers on the tiny bow he’d made for her, small enough for her little arms to wield. His voice was deep and low in her ear as he whispered to her about the wind’s direction and course, how to correct her aim. They made no other sound so that they wouldn’t scare away the deer they hunted.
They were close to it, so close that if the wind shifted even a little it would scent them and run. But they had to be so close because the range on the tiny bow was so much less than that of the one strapped to her father’s back. But he wanted her to make the kill, if she could.
His hands left her, allowing her to hold the bow and arrow with her own strength. He said no more, allowed her to judge the proper moment. She could feel how tense he was, holding his breath in anticipation. She let the arrow fly.
It struck true! The deer was dead before he hit the ground, painlessly slipping away into the Beyond. Lyna screamed with glee as her father tilted his head back and laughed, deep and long, and swung her up into his arms.
“Oh, well done, da’assan!” he cried, tossing her up to catch her and hold her close. He peppered her face with kisses. “Look at you! A master archer already and only nine years old! One day, my little arrow, you will rule the world if you wish!”
“But Bae, I don’t want to rule the world!” she told him with a grin, her arms around his neck. He brushed a rebellious white blonde curl off her face.
“No?” he asked, tilting his head. Her own dark violet eyes stared at her from his face, though sandy blond hair framed the wide cheekbones. “But think of all the wonderful changes you could enact, ma lath!” She shook her head.
“I just want to help Mamae and the Keeper,” she said with a child’s determination. “I want to keep the clan safe. Everyone I love is here. Everything I want is here. Why would I want the world when I have you?”
And for a moment her father looked as though he might cry, tears gathering in his eyes. Then his grin split his cheeks and he covered her in kisses until she was squealing with laughter. Finally, he let her slide to the ground.
“Come on, then!” he cried, waving her toward the deer carcass. “We must thank this graceful beast for the gift of its body that will nourish the clan. And then we must take out the intestines and put them in this bag and drain the blood before we haul it back to camp.”
“But why, Babae? Can’t we just take it home now?” she asked, trotting to keep up with her father’s long legs.
“This is a great beast, da’len,” he reminded her, gesturing to the size of the buck. “It would be too heavy for us. We keep the entrails because they are put to use, but we take them out because they are heavy. The blood is simply weight we don’t need to carry. Once this task is completed, we will tie up the carcass and drag it home and it will be a much simpler task to get it there and a much simpler task to break it down once we do. You understand?”
Lyna nodded eagerly, curls bouncing around her face. “Yes, Babae,” she said. She knelt by the deer’s head, the first creature bigger than a nug that she had ever killed. She blinked back a few tears to see the glaze in its eyes, the lack of life where life should be. Her father noticed.
“It is good to mourn the dead, da’len,” he told her softly, a hand coming to rest on the top of her head. “It is especially good to mourn when it was your deed or order that caused the death. It will help you keep perspective. Never be greedy with death, my little arrow, or it will consume you in the worst ways.” His eyes clouded then with some memory that Lyna had not known to ask about as a child. “That is why we must thank this beast for the bounty of his body. That is why we must never hunt females in the breeding season and why we must never hunt the younglings. You understand, da’assan?”
“Yes, Babae,” she said again, and rested her hand on the deer’s head. “Thank you, kind one. We will do our best to honor you,” she whispered to it, then took the knife that her father handed her to begin the task of carving.
She stopped, sniffing the wind, sensing a predator on the horizon. The image of her father wavered as she shifted beyond the boundaries of the memory. She lifted her head and turned to look and saw the wolf, as tall as the buck that lay dead before her and black as pitch, six ruby eyes trained on her. And she was unafraid. She knew him, even in the body of her nine-year-old self.
“Solas,” she said, reaching out, and her child’s voice sounded strange shaping the name. He lifted a paw, made to move toward her, then hesitated. “Solas, come speak to me,” she tried again. “There’s something I have to-“ He shuddered hard, then turned away.
1 note · View note
katalyna-rose · 7 years
Text
Vhenan Chapter Eight
Graphic Depictions of Violence
Solas/Female Lavellan, Fenris/Female Mage Hawke, Zevrain/Female Warden Mahariel
AKA: Lyna/Solas, Fenris/Alie, Zevran/Kahlia
Angst, Fluff, Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Mildly Conon-Divergent, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Minor Isablea/Merrill, Constructive Criticism Welcome
Summary: Solas, the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel, has left Lyna behind in an attempt to fix mistakes made thousands of years ago. Willing to destroy everything for his goals, he doesn’t realize exactly how determined Lyna is to show him a better path. Both worlds could thrive, given the chance. Her world is real and valid and deserves a chance, but so does his. There must be a middle ground.
And there is another reason that Lyna must find Solas, a secret kept from the world that attempted to put her up on a pedestal. But how would Thedas react to such a secret, such undeniable proof that their Herald of Andraste is a person like any other? That she is someone who loves, someone who makes mistakes, who bleeds and cries. And is having the Dread Wolf’s child.
Read on AO3!
From the Beginning
An elven servant was humming happily to herself as she set out lunch and Hawke and Fenris were speaking softly across the room when Solas entered the dining room on Lyna’s heel. The servant looked up and gasped in dismay.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” she cried, quickly abandoning the basket of rolls she was carrying and hurrying to a cabinet. “I didn’t realize we had a visitor! I’ll set out another place right away!” She proceeded to scramble around, grabbing silverware and a plate. When she almost dropped the water glass as she filled it, Hawke stopped her and gently took the items from her hands.
“Orana, sweetheart,” she said, holding the girl steady. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t warn you.” Orana nodded but kept her head down, eyes on her feet. Hawke sighed and touched her chin, gentle encouragement to meet her eyes that demanded nothing. “You owe me nothing, remember? You are an individual. And I would never be angry with you over the table settings.” Finally, the elven girl looked up at her employer and smiled.
“Of course, Mistress,” she said fondly. Hawke grinned at her and poured the water glass herself, returning the pitcher to the side table. Orana turned to Lyna and Solas, who had watched the exchange silently.
“I’ll take charge of Solas while you eat, if you like,” she said, holding her arms out for the infant.
“Yes, Orana, that would be lovely,” Lyna said, gesturing her over with a gentle smile. “Thank you.”
Solas reluctantly handed his son into the servant’s arms, carefully removing his necklace from the boy’s mouth. As she turned to leave the room, Orana caught sight of Lyna’s left side and gave a sharp gasp. She said nothing, however, and continued on her way while cooing to the child she held.
“She seems… a bit excitable,” Solas said, trying to be delicate. Lyna chuckled, seating herself at the table. Fenris held Hawke’s chair for her before sitting beside her. Solas took the remaining seat for himself, feeling very much like an unwelcome outsider.
“That was actually better than usual,” Fenris said gruffly as he helped himself to the meal laid out before them.
Hawke, buttering a roll, laughed warmly. “Remember that time she found the dog’s collection of various table and chair legs?” Fenris chuckled with her. “I thought she was going to have an aneurysm! Poor girl kept trying to figure out where they’d all come from! He certainly didn’t take any of them from our house!”
Fenris shook his head, a small smile on his face. “She was distraught for the better part of a week,” he added. “That dog was a lot of trouble when he got bored.”
“I miss him, though,” Hawke said, smiling sadly. Fenris put his hand over hers for a moment in sympathy.
Lyna smiled at them, spearing a piece of meat with her fork. Solas had noticed that her plate was already filled and everything was cut up for her. There was no knife at her place. He watched her eat and noticed that she kept her left hand under the table, unsure of how to use it after so long without it.
“Was her previous employer cruel to her?” Solas asked, eating slowly. The food was delicious, but despite having Lyna beside him and all of them acting cordial the room felt cold to him.
Hawke snorted at his question, making Lyna roll her eyes. Fenris just sighed.
“She had no employer before,” the elven man said harshly, though his anger seemed directed elsewhere to some unseen source of pain.
“Orana was a slave in Tevinter,” Lyna clarified, voice soft. Solas supposed that explained her nervous tendencies; the life of a slave was not an easy one.
“She was the last slave left when we found her,” Hawke said, much more subdued. “The rest had already been sacrificed, their blood used to give their masters power.” She sighed, staring at her plate. “They were sacrificed because the magister knew we were coming. Even Orana’s father…”
“There was nothing you could have done to prevent it,” Fenris said, his arm wrapping around her shoulders for a moment. She smiled sadly at him. “At least Hadriana died that day, along with those who served her willingly.”
“Damn right,” Hawke replied, brightening. “Anyway,” she said, waving her fork in the air, “Orana was the last one left and she had nowhere to go. She didn’t know where she was and she’d never been anything but a slave. So I gave her directions to my house and had her meet me here after I’d finished up slaughtering the slavers who had threatened Fenris. She’s been a paid member of my household ever since.”
“You should hear her play her lute,” Lyna told Solas. “She’s so talented.”
“And she helps you take care of the little one?” Solas asked.
Lyna nodded. “She helped me figure out how to change a diaper with only one hand to work with. And she’s very good with him, so she watches him when I have business to tend to.”
“I offered to find Orana another place, if she wanted it,” Hawke said, likely sensing some of Solas’s discomfort and misattributing it. “I told her that she could go anywhere she wanted and I would help her get there. She told me that she had no family left and would much rather stay with me. She’s such a sweet girl and I’m very fortunate that she wants to stay.”
“She seems lovely,” Solas said. He said nothing more, struggling to simply continue eating while Lyna ran her hand up and down his thigh under the table. He had to take her hand and stop her after a few moments, casually sipping at his water to try to cool the heat her touch had summoned. She smirked just slightly as she bit into her roll.
“So,” Hawke said as they finished their meal. “Am I going to have to face down an ancient god or do you to do right by Lyna for once?”
Lyna choked, spitting her water back into her glass. “Alie!” she cried indignantly.
“What?” the other woman said, shrugging. “It’s a legitimate question.”
Solas smiled at Lyna softly. “That it is,” he said, earning two curious looks and a piercing glare.
“Don’t encourage her,” Lyna muttered, setting her water aside. Solas renewed his smile.
“To answer your perfectly legitimate question,” Solas continued, ignoring Lyna’s fresh glare, “I intend to take her and our son with me when I go. We have talked about this and agreed. And, if she will have me, I intend to marry her.”
It was Hawke’s turn to choke and Fenris clapped her on the back as she coughed. Lyna stared at Solas in open-mouthed shock. He returned her look steadily, though nerves clenched in his belly and made him feel vaguely nauseous.
“Truly?” she whispered. Solas brought her hand to his lips and let her see his sincerity in his face. He wanted this, wanted her, wanted a life with her by his side, more than he’d ever wanted anything before.
“Truly,” he told her, and delighted in the grin she gifted him with. Then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, their teeth clacking together before Solas adjusted the angle. She dragged him closer until he pulled her out of her chair and into his lap. She went happily, laughing against his mouth.
“It’s about damn time!” Hawke cried, slamming a hand on the table as she finally cleared her airway. Fenris sighed at his wife’s antics, shaking his head, though a smile tugged at his lips. “I’d have some champagne brought up from the cellar, but frankly I detest the stuff. There should be a few bottles left of a truly magnificent red wine, though.”
“I think, my love,” Fenris said before Solas could object to her suggestion, “that alcohol is the last thing you need right now.” Hawke sighed dramatically, but her smiled bellied her attempt at sorrow.
“But I like gutting slavers with my vision hazy!” she pouted, and Fenris didn’t even bother to answer. The pair of them stood and when Hawke opened her mouth again Fenris picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She squealed and beat his back as he carried her from the room.
“You’ll only get yourself into trouble,” he told his wife as she spat curses at him playfully. “We need to get our armor and meet Isabela at the docks.”
“Sorry about her,” Lyna said with a smile, leaning her forehead against his. He chuckled.
“It is no trouble,” he told her.
“Oh, she’s plenty of trouble,” Lyna contradicted. “Half the fights she gets into are caused by some joke she made.”
“I do not doubt it,” Solas said with a chuckle.
Lyna pulled back and examined his expression, something like desperation in her eyes. “You really meant it?” she asked softly, as though she hardly dared to believe. “You want to marry me?”
He caressed her cheek and she leaned into his touch. He could feel tears pricking his eyes and hers gleamed wetly. “If you will have me,” he told her roughly, his emotions tangling in his chest. “I still haven’t heard an answer.”
She laughed with delight and threw her arms around him again, kissing him with more glee than art. “Yes, Solas,” she whispered against his lips. “Always.” He crushed her against his chest.
Continue Reading on AO3!
0 notes