[Dragon Age: Ouroboros Codex - Precipice]
~
[Fen’Harel ⚔ Ouroboros]
The bad ending.
(codex text below cut)
“You are my dream. When you think yourself a nightmare, becoming or living one…remember that.”
He gripped her hand, heart lurching, “How would you stop it? If it exists within me?”
Her mouth twitched, briefly in to something forlorn, “Let our fortress protect you from it. You say I am a knight? Then you will have my sword and shield. Slip through the secret door and be free. I will follow, when I can.”
The simplicity of her answer stunned him into a silence of deep contemplation and he could only watch her walk away, returning to the camp alone. ‘A fortress to protect us from ourselves. Swords to cleave through the darkness. A secret door for the two of us.’
That night when he lay alone on his bedroll, Fen’Harel dreamed of a knight in the Fade that shattered a crumbling pillar holding the sky apart from the earth. As the heavens crashed into the land, through the chaos he witnessed the knight gather the pieces of the pillar heedless of the danger around them. Then, without looking back they secreted it away to a fortress built in a remote reach of the world. Far though the knight ran, they were pursued, for the pieces once holding apart the domains were highly sought after. He could not discern their hunters, whether they were armies mortal or mindless darkness, he knew only that they were intent on destroying their quarry in totality and finality.
Within the walls, the Knight prepared, shutting and barring all the doors and drawing up the bridges. Ghostly sentinels patrolled the battlements and he overheard talk of setting wicked traps and calling forth beasts from the Fade to guard the inside.
He felt a wrenching sorrow when at last the enemy arrived at their threshold and beat upon the walls with steel and magic. He did not know why, for any of it.
He found himself gripped by the dream as he watched the walls finally give way and the invaders flooded inside. He followed behind, through the ruined portcullis and into a wide courtyard, only to find that the shadowy invaders had come to a stop, emanating a perplexed air. He saw why.
There were no traps nor grotesque guardians. Of the sentinels there was no trace—perhaps an illusion all along.
Instead, they were greeted by frescoes adorning every surface, painted with pigments no mortal in present could possibly imagine. A thousand beautiful scenes that shifted and changed before his very eyes—mosaics made of gems and glass and stone glinting as though each piece contained its own soul. Gardens flourished all around that could only have been grown from dreams themselves.
The ache sank ever deeper, where no sword could reach as he watched the army disperse in search of the Knight and the Pillar. He seethed with anger, as they tore apart the sanctuary they had made. But he was powerless to stop them and he was filled with hate as desolation replaced beauty. Though he did not understand why they sought to capture the two, nor the enmity between the sides, he hoped the Knight and the Pillar would not be found.
After following what appeared to be the leader of the force, it seemed his hopes weren’t for naught.
They encountered a hidden door, overgrown by syl’sils. His throat constricted as the rare and fragile blooms were crushed and torn by hacking sword and clawing gauntlet.
When the door was finally revealed, only then did the hateful trespassers cease their assault.
For the secret door was already cracked open. They had escaped after all.
He treaded forward, not quite believing what he was seeing propped up against the wall, just to the side of the portal.
But before he could get a closer look, the cobblestones dropped under his next step and the dream collapsed around him.
When he woke, his cheeks were wet and he had no explanation why.
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this is an old thing, a little during DAI Solas-perspective Solavellan for anyone needing something sweet this Saturday. For all my ‘nah, they totally boned there’ Solavellans. NSFW at the end. 2.8k. (i might put in on AO3 later, unless I forget [i will forget])
...
Solas had a feeling that if he asked Ellana to stop, she would. No, it was more than a feeling. A certainty. Whenever he paused, she pulled back, whenever he resisted, she stopped. To the outside it might look as if she was aggressively pursuing him, but he knew she would cease in a split second if he asked her to.
And yet, he did not.
It was a surprisingly pleasant thing, to be hunted in this manner. He knew she was skilled, but the talent extended to other areas besides her grace and the deadliness of her bow. After the kiss in the fade - still a sweet, stomach-clenching memory – she had allowed him all the distance he desired without a word of complaint.
Then she started courting him.
It was merely small things at first; she would see Leliana and afterwards bring down the books he'd asked for from the library. Cakes pilfered from the kitchen with an impish child's humor were presented to him proudly. They would have given them to her if she'd asked, but she seemed to find endless delight in thievery.
Her unflagging brightness, her sheer determination to find joy in her circumstances was admirable, and it amused him as well.
That alone was a revelation, the way she brought a smile to his lips even when she was absent. He would find a small note she'd written him slipped between the pages of a book, generally biting, witty commentary about the tome itself. She was sharper than the edges of her arrows, and he found it endlessly fascinating. The way she'd laugh and charm the people they met and then turn around and make some sort of sly, dark comment about it all.
There was no naivete in her humor, no denial; she saw her circumstances for the great and terrifying farce that they were.
Sometimes flashes of vulnerability would show through it all, depths of sorrow that she hid behind a smile. He could see how much she hated it all, the titles, the worship of the Andrastians. She flinched, every time someone called her Herald.
At first, in her posture, and then when she tempered that, he could still see it in her eyes.
Self-mockery and pain, and a bitter resignation.
He understood.
She kept it from him apart from the occasional dark and sarcastic joke, until the first note appeared anywhere but a book, left inside his bedroll as they camped at the outskirts of Crestwood. It had been folded into a small bird, and he smiled and admired it for a moment before carefully unfolding it. It almost seemed a shame to do so.
The words within were a shocking vulnerability, a heartbreaking confession.
Sometimes I wonder if they know how terrifying they are. How horrifyingly cruel and brutal. They say to me, 'You are the Herald of our greatest martyr', and they expect me, her victim, to be glad of it. I should be honored to be raised so far above my people, to be allowed to murder for them instead of being murdered by them. I laugh because it is easier than crying, or screaming. I wonder if they will burn me, too, when they are done with me.
I hope they choke on my ashes.
That was the first night he wrote her a note in return. He folded his into a star. It seemed appropriate. Not that the new vulnerability meant she had stopped pursuing him. If anything, she grew all the more flirtatious.
And indiscreet.
Solas became intensely aware that Dorian and Sera were very tired of her sighing about him over her drinks. Gossip traveled, and quickly. He struggled to hide his flushes as Dorian complained at him about it over the railing, reciting some of her more choice phrases with absolutely no shame whatsoever. It seemed she was very fond of his legs and had waxed poetic about them. At length. And his jaw, apparently, and nose, freckles, eyes, lips...it was getting to be a bit much, but the second-hand flattery was undeniably pleasant to hear. If embarrassing.
He did not ask her to stop, though Josephine did. Repeatedly.
After a week of this new assault, the next letter appeared, on his pillow in his chamber.
No one had seen her enter or leave, but his window had been open.
They say I should behave. But I will not, until you tell me to. Is it inappropriate? I wonder. They need me, so I will keep doing as I like. Dorian says that you smile, and so I think that you don't mind, even if you haven't said anything to me. I wonder about a lot of things. What your lips would taste like if I kissed you, what sort of sounds you would make if I snuck up behind you as you stand at your desk and slid my hands down the front of your pants. Do you moan? Would you say my name? You kiss as if you might. You kiss as if you might suck all the air out of my lungs, and make me glad to die of suffocation. I will remember it tonight, when I touch myself. Sleep well.
That note, he kept in a book next to the bed.
And then, for the next week, she had the oddest habit of popping up behind him while he was working. Innocent, oh so innocent her expressions, asking curious questions, smiling winsomely. There was absolutely no one who wasn't aware now that she was interested in him by then. Of all people, Cassandra seemed utterly invested in it all. She would ask the most prying questions, watch them with a hawk's gaze when they were in the field. It was not a threatening gaze, if anything it seemed soft.
Hopeful.
All of her wicked machinations, all of this playful and overt courtship, and she had yet to even touch him. If she was planning to drive him mad, she was doing a rather good job of it. She chipped at the edges of his restraint, slowly whittling it away. Eventually it was curiosity, more than anything else, that kept him from saying anything about it all. What would she do next?
She, apparently, asked him to dance.
He did not know she would have handled the Winter Palace with such grace. Knowing her fear and hatred, he was staggered at how flawlessly she had navigated it. When she stopped to speak with him, he could feel the tension in her, the exhaustion and wariness that she let show in her eyes. He wanted nothing more than to sweep her away to a quiet corner and let her relax, but they both knew he couldn't. That such luxuries could not be afforded. Instead they shared quiet, wry words about the artifice and intrigue, enjoyed what there was to be enjoyed. She made some cutting remarks about a some particularly egregious gowns, just to make him chuckle.
He saw her shoulders relax as he laughed for her.
Later, leaning against the railing of the balcony outside, he watched her slump as Morrigan swept away, releasing it all. It was then that he finally broke that distance between them, in the only way he could think of at that moment. The first time they had touched, apart from accidental brushes in the heat of battle, or when he healed her wounds. He gently placed a hand on her back, offering comfort in that moment when she let her vulnerability show in more than little hidden notes.
It was if that single touch, and then the dance that followed had broken some wall inside of her.
Suddenly her hands were everywhere, when she had been so careful not to intrude on his space before. Pressing too close when she passed him in a cave, the curve of her hip nudging between his thighs, making his breath catch. She'd smile in the low light, and then move on before he could decide if he would reach for her. She sat next to him around the fire, thighs touching, arm brushing against him when she leaned forward.
Large things, small things. Light touches on his arm when they spoke, a playful push against his shoulder when he offered a sly joke. And then, one particularly pulse-pounding afternoon at the base of a circular stairwell, when she poured herself against his chest to whisper a message from Josephine in his ear. Utterly ordinary, that little report, something that could have been sent with any servant in the fortress. Instead, she lazily murmured the status of his book requisition in his ear, a hand to either side of his chest, voice a breathy little sigh.
He nearly grabbed her by the thighs and pushed her up against the wall right then and there.
When it had turned to love, he didn't know, but he recognized it at some point when he was watching her, so serious and calm, lean over the war table with her braid spilling over her shoulder. Or maybe it was when he'd caught her delaying their departure from Skyhold to indulge in a game of chase and catch with the small gaggle of children that belonged to the servants. She looked so happy then, free, free of the weight of their titles and expectations, free of his mark that burned like a brand in her palm and poisoned her veins.
It made his heart ache, the knowledge of it, and then the acknowledgment of those feelings. It was the most unwise thing he ever could have done, falling in love with her, but how could he avoid it? She was...everything.
He hadn't known what he was going to say until they were on the balcony, but he knew he had to say something. Something to express even a fraction of the change she had wrought in his life. And again, she charmed him, until he almost found himself saying what he had decided halfway through their conversation not to. He simply couldn't. It wasn't right, it wasn't wise...
“Don't go.”
Her fingers caught in the curve of his elbow, a beckon that only asked, didn't demand. Never had she demanded anything of him in all this time, but nor had she stopped pursuing. He hadn't stopped her.
He wouldn't stop her.
The inevitability washed over him, the weight and knowledge of it crashing down on him as he turned and drew her in to him. He knew then, at last, how her lips tasted, how it felt for her to be as desperate as he had been all this time. The crush of her body, the way she gasped in against his lips as he pulled at her, her hands against his back. It was...
His body pulled back, but his heart stayed, escaping his lips in a confession of what she doubtless already knew.
He loved her.
Space. Time. He needed both, to try and decide what this all meant. The kiss had roused something in him, young and impulsive, and it was nearly impossible to cross those few feet to the stairs, especially with her bed out of the corner of his vision, inviting. A constant invitation, never withdrawn. An offering of comfort and peace for both of them. Even if only for a moment.
And then he made the greatest miscalculation in all of this, a mistake that would haunt him every night thereafter.
He looked back over his shoulder.
Ellana stood there, a hand on her hip, leaning against the door with the smuggest expression on her flushed face. Hair tousled, lips swollen and ruddy, the feline satisfaction in the look she was giving him was unmistakable.
She'd won.
He'd made the first move.
How had she tricked him? It left his mind blank for a moment, a laugh startled from the depths of his chest at being outmaneuvered by her, trapped into a corner until he had no choice but to react. What could he do now? She hunted, and he had been caught.
The fragility, the melancholy of his feelings for her shattered, leaving behind a fierce and uninhibited affection.
What a horrible vixen she was.
It was as if a dam had burst, as he succumbed to it, to her. She was so sweet under his lips, under his hands, and he took it all. There would be time for tenderness later, for now there was only the frantic need she'd been forging for ages now, that she'd sharpened to a hunger so acute that he was starving for her.
It was unwise to fill a starving belly too quickly, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
Somehow they found the bed, leaving tangled clothing behind, both of them tripping at one point or another. They fell onto it in a tangle of limbs, her with her shirt still half on, him in his leggings, pulled partway down his hips. They were laying the wrong way across the bed, but it was big enough not to matter, though his feet dangled down as he bit a line up her breastbone, making her back arch. She whimpered, and he found it absolutely fascinating.
Suddenly, his own need wasn't so intense. He heard say his name in protest, but breathy and moaning, token noises and not any desire for him to stop. His hands slid up the underside of her thighs, feeling the muscles shift under his palms, before he pushed her knees up, and then up again, letting them spread to either side of her chest, her stomach rolling in a smooth arch.
He knew she was flexible, he'd seen her fight. It was hard not to gloat over her like this, his torturer, all red cheeks and hazy eyes. Exposed, with her swollen, slick arousal so plain to see.
“You had to know...” he murmured to her, words breathed out between her thighs. “That you would eventually pay for all your wickedness, vhenan.”
And then, with tongue and lips, and his fingers firm around her knees, he found just what sorts of noises she could make. It was very little surprise that he found them all as captivating as her whimpers, especially when they involved his name.
He loved the way it slid off of her tongue, sinuous and breathy, preceded by a quavering intake of air. The way it became more and more frantic, until she lost the syllables in a cry of ecstasy, whole body shuddering. The strength in her lithe frame was astounding, the spasm of her hips so dangerous that he was forced to pull back.
How could he resist it?
She was so close, so exquisite, on his tongue and under his hands. Her hands were pulling down his leggings as his own slid over the curves of her calves, moving for her ankles, encircling them. He held her legs to his chest as he felt her fingers slide along the length of him, guiding him to her.
And then he took her, claimed what she'd been offering, sinking deep into her in triumph and surrender. There would be regret, and he didn't care in that moment, she was too wet and warm and alive, her vitality setting his nerves afire. She was all smooth, toned lines, but he could make her shiver and squirm, and so he did, watching the tumble of her hair, the bounce of her breasts.
It was over too quickly, greedy thrusts that made that fascinating rear end slap against his thighs, hunger that had settled too deep for anything but devouring satiation. Her sweat-slicked, supple body folded under his as he pressed over her, hilting deep, his hands finding hers and pinning them against the bed as he shuddered and let his hips grind against her.
The satisfaction that followed had been worth it all, he decided, as he tried to catch his breath while she nuzzled against him. He would have been content to hold her then, savor it all, try to understand just what was happening and what it meant...but he learned then, as he would learn in the weeks to come...
He had taken a step that there was no coming back from. She only gave him fifteen minutes to kiss and caress her before she pushed him on his back and kissed down his stomach. That night he learned a very sobering lesson, that he wished he had known before he'd looked over his shoulder that day in her chambers.
There was no escape now that he'd let her in. She was irresistible.
And she was insatiable.
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