Inquisition Ch. 01: Force is Feebleness

He walked on. She followed in silence, letting her gaze linger on the huts and houses that had been so central to her, to the Inquisition. They continued into the place they had first met, the dungeon below the Chantry in Haven.

"I first saw you here," she said. "I woke up for a moment and you were sitting by my side."

"Yes. I sat by your side, studying the Anchor." His expression was inscrutable.

"Were you watching over me?" she teased. "What did you make of what you saw?"

He looked away from her and to the cot where she had slept, a faint blush coming to the tips of his ears. "You were a mystery. You still are," he said. "I searched the Fade. I ran every test I could think of, to discover how to stabilize or remove the Anchor. Cassandra suspected duplicity in us both. You, she imprisoned here. Me she threatened with execution for being an apostate - if I didn't produce results."

Trevelyan smirked and caught Solas' eye. "Cassandra is like that with everyone."

"So she is," Solas laughed. "So she is."

They stood for a moment, looking at each other. Both looked away toward the bed in the cell, the torch light playing over them. Just as she had when she first opened her eyes to Solas, Trevelyan felt a wave of emotions. Confusion, fear, attraction each took turns in her chest. She turned to the door. Solas took the hint and walked out of the dungeon.

As they came out of the Chantry Solas said, "I thought you were never going to wake up. How could you? A mortal sent physically through the Fade? I was frustrated and frightened. The Breach had sent all of the spirits I would normally have consulted away. Though I wanted to help, I had no faith in Cassandra, nor she in me. I had very nearly made up my mind to leave and find a safer place to work to seal the Breach."

Something about Solas made her want to find his buttons, to make him react in genuine emotion. "And where would you have gone, Solas? The Breach threatened all of Thedas."

The corner of Solas' mouth twitched, perhaps in amusement. He waved an elegant hand. "I never said it was a good plan." He turned to look at the Breach.

Trevelyan followed his gaze, looking up at the Breach, the grey and green clouds swirling in the sky. The sight of it struck her as wrong, as something that shouldn't be. She looked away, even as Solas continued to look at the miasma over their heads.

He raised his palm to the sky, saying "I told myself, I would make one last attempt to seal the rifts, to heal the Breach. I tried and failed. No ordinary magic had any effect on them. In despair, I watched the rifts expanding across the south like cracks in a mirror. I'd resigned myself to flee, but then, on a whim I took your hand and held it to that first rift, and I felt." He stopped, composed himself. "It seems you hold the key to our salvation. You had sealed a rift with a gesture, and right then, I felt the whole world change."

She looked at him. His eyes were closed, his head still tilted toward the sky. "The whole world change?" she whispered before she could stop herself.

His head dropped and he looked at her. For only the flashest of flashes his expression was raw with desire before his normal neutral façade fell into place. "Just a figure of speech." He tried a small smile as a bluff.

Trevelyan's eyes narrowed with her smile. "I'm familiar with the metaphor; just surprised by the 'felt'." She wondered at herself, at him, at the thumping in her chest. It was the same uncurling of desire she'd felt with Solas in the moonlight that night on the mountain. "You keep to the Old Way. You said so yourself," she baited him.

"You throw me off so easily, even here," Solas murmured. In a gruff whisper he said, "You change - everything."

She felt a subtle shift in his stance, in his will. It was an invitation. "But I am not descended from Arlathan," she protested, though the sensation was unmistakable. Solas had bid her to his arms. Her mind dismissed it; her body leaned into him. She stole a kiss before he could much react, then stepped back in wonder at her own actions.

Even more surprising was the dazzling response of the elven mage. He shook his head, but reached for her, kissed her. His generous lips were smooth, wet; his tongue tasted of a magic so old it made Trevelyan's knees weak. She slumped in his grasp. He caught her, but she also felt him break the kiss, push her away. She opened her eyes and looked at him in shock and desire. He exhaled, shaking his head again even as he pulled her to him and their lips met once more. Now the kiss was tinged with wildness, tasted of madness. This was sheer folly! She raised a hand to his jaw and pushed, even as she responded to the kiss, feeling equal yearning and foreboding.

Her gesture seemed to free him, too. He backed off, whispering, "We shouldn't. This isn't right. Not even here." He caught his breath, as did she.

He was flushed right to the tips of his ears, she saw. She knew what she must look like. This couldn't continue. This whole conversation felt as if something was off. After a moment she said, "What do you mean, 'even here'?"

He smiled at her, his flush draining away, all his conflict gone once they were no longer touching. "You closed the Breach weeks ago. Haven has been under at least ten feet of snow since Corypheus' attack. Where did you think we were?"

She looked around, hugging herself. "I'm dreaming. We're - dreaming. This -- this isn't real."

He stood up taller. "That is a matter of debate, though probably better discussed after you - wake up."

At his command, Trevelyan sat straight up in her bed in the tower. She was on top of the covers, still clothed, just as she had been when she thought she had laid down to rest.

Blessed Andraste, she thought. Have I been dreamwalking? Her dreams had always been vivid, but she had never shared a dream with anyone before. It wasn't supposed to be possible for a mundane dreamer to cross over to another's dreams. She was shaking and sweaty; she wanted Solas.

No. She wanted to talk to Solas, but the heat in her loins told her that would be unwise. Images of her fucking the enigmatical mage on the sofa in his tower flit through her mind. She fell back on the bed. "Well, shit."

After a few minutes she roused herself, pouring water into her large kettle and setting it to boil over the fire in the fireplace. Then she undressed in the moonlight. She ran exploring fingers along her sex. She was as hot and swollen as if the kissing had been between corporeal beings. She wasn't even sure she liked Solas, for all his wisdom and allure. He had stabilized the mark. He had fought at her side. He had gifted her Skyhold like some doting lover. But she knew little more of him now than she did months ago -- except that she confused him and his lofty keeping to the Old Way.

It had been far too long since she'd been with a man, longer than was good for her. It had also been too long since she had found her own pleasure. Sharing a makeshift tent with several others in the mountains had put a damper on that. With their arrival at Skyhold, Josephine had demanded she take these quarters at the top of the tower, as the Herald of Andraste and ranking noble, over her initial objections. As she sat on her couch nude, running her hands over her fevered body she was glad she had relented. When she caressed her still overheated sex, the feel told her she was not only aroused, but at her fertile point. No wonder the dream had turned risqué. Though she and the elven mage would have had difficulty conceiving, it wasn't impossible. She knew she was fertile. As for Solas -- his magic tasted powerful enough. A pregnancy now -- too complicated. And scandalous. She sighed, knowing these thoughts only sprang from her need for release.

She started to use the memory of Solas' kisses to bring herself pleasure, but as she closed her eyes her imagination instead conjured up another lover. One who had sparked her desire even in the first mad days in Haven after the explosion at the Conclave. One whose motives she'd never doubted. She imagined her fingers were his fingers, and then that they were his tongue. She moaned under her own touch. She pinched her fat nipples, arching her back. Then she pulled her long legs up to her chest, edging ever closer to coming undone. Her imagination had her running her fingers through his blond hair, mussing it's perfect curls, pulling his nose and mouth into her wet pussy. She whined and squealed, her release fighting her despite her previous arousal. Finally, as her body went rigid with pleasure, she whimpered, "Cullen." Trevelyan felt limp and languid after her orgasm.

Then the kettle whistled in the fire. She groaned, but got up and moved it to the side of the hearth. Then she readied the wash tub and a larger jug of water. As she poured the boiling water into the jug, warming the water enough for a bath, she was glad that she'd allowed herself the simple luxury of a private room. She washed her hair and body in the firelight, enjoying the scent of her soap as it bubbled up along her skin. She sat by the hearth, writing her reports, letting the fire dry her skin and hair before slipping on her one night gown and getting beneath the thin blankets of her simple bed. She would need heavier things once winter came, but for now it was enough. With the bath and the pleasure and the work, she was finally able to fall asleep, even knowing an awkward conversation was coming in the morning.

***

The light woke her first, followed by singing coming from below. She was warm and dry and in a bed. For a split second she nearly thought she was at home at Ballie NaLeanan, in her own bed, until she noticed the coarse cotton of the sheets and the threadbare blanket. She knew then that she was in her quarters in Skyhold, and the singing was the Chantry sisters who'd taken up residence in the cloister below.

Trevelyan rose and prepared for the day, though she left her hair down in hopes it might help hide her embarrassment. She knew she had to find Solas, first thing. She made her way to the tower and entered his room.

He looked up from his book when she entered. "Sleep well?" he asked, facial expression neutral, but his voice warm.

"I did, actually," she said, blushing at her thoughts of the Commander. "But I had some odd dreams, some very odd dreams," she whispered, not looking at Solas but at his book. "I did enjoy they way they ended though."

Solas cleared his throat but remained silent.

She hugged herself, rubbing her elbow. She looked up at him through her messy black hair. "You wouldn't be the first hahren I've been inappropriate with, I'm not sorry to say." She smiled, hoping her little joke would dispel some of the awkwardness.

He chuckled. "No Dor'inan, it is I who should apologize. The kiss was impulsive and ill-considered, but am I not the esteemed elder? I should not have encouraged it, should not have returned it, as I did."

Trevelyan smiled at the handsome elf. "Funny, that's just what my dueling master said when I kissed him. Though we kissed in the flesh. And he did not kiss me with tongue."

Solas' generous lips curved into a smile. "Well it was a dream; one could argue our kiss never really happened."

"Ha! If Fade tongue doesn't count, perhaps I should have pushed for more?" she teased.

To her surprise, Solas' blue eyes twinkled, but his tone was serious. "It has been a long time. And some things have always been easier for me in the Fade." He sighed and stood up taller, "Regardless, I am not certain this intimacy was the best idea. Mar ir'iovro ise mar vhenan, Dor'inan. It will just lead to trouble."

"Agreed," she said hastily, relieved he had given her the opening. "Best simply to be friends."

"Thank you. I appreciate that; it is the sweet sacrifice of duty. Though I will treasure a dream I once had, of ma ina'lan'ehn falon stealing a kiss from her hahren."

"Ma serannas, Solas." She dipped her head.

Solas inclined his body toward her slightly. "Dareth Sharil, Dor'inan, Lady Inquisitor."