Au: The End And The Beginning - Tumblr Posts

Happy Friday! If this inspires you how about - [ knowing ] sender has been holding receiver's hand all this time without realizing it and hurries to let go - for Ghilara Lavellan and Solas?

Hope you enjoy angst hehe :P The context is that Solas was injured from the ritual before Ghilara stopped it and faked both their deaths. @dadrunkwriting

536 words

He was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it. There were no creators who cared to listen, no last trick she could pull. It was up to chance and all she could do was sit, watch, cool his fever with damp cloth, try to feed him watery soup and sugared water inbetween his fevered tossing. The stream- where she was now- was as far out as she dared to venture. When- no. If he died, she wanted to be close. She wanted to be there to see the person she had thrown away everything for passed over.

The icy cold of the water shocked the thoughts out of her head as she waded in barefoot, one of the clay pots in her hand. She dipped it in, listening to the gurgle and glug as the water flowed in, fingers going numb from the snow melt waters. She hauled it back onto the river bank next to the second one- already filled. It was hard work, and she probably spilled a good quarter of the contents trying to get it back into place on the carrying pole. Checking the rope attachments were secure she hoisted the pole up onto her shoulders, let the hanging pots stabilise from the initial swing and then began trudging back to the cottage. It was only a few minutes walk, even laden as she was, and she set about the mundane activities of bringing the water inside, pouring it into bowls, some which would go onto the small stove to warm, others which would be used to try fight the fever. She didn’t look at the man lying in the bed as she did it. He was still right now, and without the tossing and the turning, and the crying out in spiels of elven, she could pretend he wasn’t who he was. She could pretend he was just some poor anonymous soul she had given charity to. “Sathan! Sathan ar halani! Sathan ar halani sa’lin! Letha’len!” She rushed over and was by his side in three quick steps. Her eyes swept over him, checking, checking to see if anything had changed, if anything was wrong. “Halani letha’len! Ane ar rya’halani!” She sat next to him on the bed, feeling it sink underneath her. “Ir abelas Solas,” she whispered, tears in her eyes, “I am doing all I can. You have to fight. You must. Please Solas. Endure Solas. You must endure this. Please.” It was only when she stood, only when she went to make some desperate attempt at being useful, to weigh the dice in their favour however she could, that she noticed. She noticed her hand clasping his, gripping it so tight she must have been afraid that he was going to float away. Her eyes stared down at it. The pallour of his skin against hers, the faint sheen of sweat and the heat radiating into her skin. Her hand released his as if she had been burned, letting it fall back down onto the bed. She couldn’t afford to let her grief get in the way. She had to be useful. He was just another patient. He had to be. She couldn't afford to break. Even if it wouldn't change anything.

happy friday! i am very intrigued by the solavellan fix-it au 👀sounds so juicy. so maybe ghilara/solas with the 'it's all about the yearning' prompt: ❝  when i’m with you i feel like myself.  i feel like every side of me is present and accepted.  and i feel good about it—  i feel good about who i am when i’m with you.  ❞ -broodwolf221

Combined with this prompt from @plisuu for my fix-it AU set after Solas' ritual is stopped (with no problems or anything being released) and Lavellan faking their deaths

Hope y'all like angst hehehehe :3 @dadrunkwriting

Under the Stars 766 words

CW: mild suicidal ideation

They were sitting just outside the cottage, a few steps away from the tangled and unruly garden, still being choked out by weeds. Their bowls from dinner had been long been discarded to the side, and even though the darkness had rolled in for the night, neither had moved to return them inside. “Do you ever regret it?” Ghilara asked. “Regret what?” “Surviving? That I saved you?” She was stretched out on her back, leaning her head against her residual limb and staring up at the sky, at the river of stars, a backdrop the two half moons. Solas was sitting up still, legs crossed and his hands resting atop them, his cane resting between them in the long grass. They were a hands breadth away, simultaneously the closest and furthest they’d been in near a decade.

Solas frowned, eyebrows furrowing in and glancing down. “Are you going to be alright if I answer that? However I answer that.” “I asked the question didn’t I?” “I suppose that is true.” His words hung in the air and he craned his neck backwards to look up at the stars above them. They seemed so far away; like a distant memory of youth, only half remembered. “Yes.” He answered. “Yes, I do regret it sometimes.” His voice trailed off, and he curled his legs up into his chest as if he were a pillbug. Ghilara could feel the hollow cavity in her chest where something used to be. She had grown around it. The muscles around it had grown so that most days she never lacked for anything, never felt the cavity. But it was still there. Always there. “Ir abelas Solas,” she whispered. He shook his head at her words, still staring up at the sky. “It is of no fault of yours, and I would not blame you, or resent you for what you did. I could never. It is just, so often it feels as though something is missing. I am not quite sure what, if I am being completely honest. Maybe it was faith, or purpose, or even just knowing what I wanted next. And I don’t know how to fill it again. How to replace that loss. And I know I must be the most ungrateful man in the world to resent a woman such as you saving my life. But when I feel that emptiness I sometimes wonder if it would have been better if I had died in that ritual. Died rather than put you through this.” She gazed up, pondering her next words. The stars were pale lights dusted across the deep black of the sky, with swirls of purple and blue dancing clouds through them. Beneath her she could feel the press of the soil- still warm from the sunny day, the tickle of grass on her bare skin. “Yeah, I understand. I feel it too. I wish I could tell you how to fill it, but I am as lost as you are.” She could hear the faint smile in his tone, “then let me turn the question round on you, Ilara. Do you regret it? That you saved me?” “Sometimes, yeah,” she sighed and was filled with warmth when Solas didn’t rush to fill it in. Silence spoke for them sometimes. The moons were cresting out over the forest now, where their tips had been peeking out from. They shed a quiet light over the plains, casting pale shadows from their bodies. “In those early days, when I wasn’t sure if you would live, I cursed myself over and over, for being so stupid. And even now, when its quiet, my thoughts turn to them. To Dorian, Varric, Merrill…Shirala. I wonder how they are grieving me. But I am glad still, that you are here. You’re one of the last people I could save who saw me. Every side of me. The leader, the fighter, the hunter, the mother, the Dalish, the failure, the success…the lover.” “And it is enough?” She wanted to reach out to him. To cross over the hands breadth distance between them. To hold his hand in her own, to feel his palms and his long fingers intertwined with her own. But she didn’t have it in her, she didn’t have the will. He might as well have been miles away. Instead she spoke. “No. It is not enough. But I do not regret it. And I would not change my choice.” They fell silent then, heads tilted back to look at the stars as they sat amongst the overgrown grass.

The End and the Beginning: Prologue

"After every war someone has to clean up. Things won’t straighten themselves up, after all. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass." -Wislawa Szymborska

Ghilara Lavellan has nothing left to loose when she arrives to stop Solas’ ritual. But in that moment she finds an opportunity for them both to live. Faking both their deaths, she flees with a near dead Solas to a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. But a return to peace is not as easy as she thought it would be. With Solas on the verge of death and her friends mourning her death, she has thrown everything at this one chance. And even if Solas wakes, they cannot go back to how things were. They have to move forwards.

A canon divergent solavellan fix-it fic!

Updated weekly

READ HERE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahhh I'm so excited to be sharing this y'all. I was planning on getting ahead a bit more but I crave external validation too much lmao. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have been :D

Note: there are very minor spoilers from the first veilguard gameplay trailer from back in June, but nothing else. I'm staying away from spoilers myself.

The End and The Beginning

Chapter 2: The Beginning

Ghilara breathed in deep, letting the air fill her lungs. It was an indulgence, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. The drying grasses, the scent of the fresh wind off the snowpeaks, and the faint tingle of embarium at the back of her throat; these things meant home. They meant the place where her mamae had taught her to cook hearth cakes, where she had stolen her first kiss, where she had learned to shoot. As the memories washed over her, she waited for the inevitable pang, the punch to the stomach that always came when she thought of such things, when her mind told her body that those things were gone, never to be regained. But all she felt was the gentle but constant weight of grief and sentimentality settling over her shoulders.

Blurb:

“After every war, someone has to clean up. Things won’t straighten themselves up, after all. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass.” -Wislawa Szymborska

Lavellan has nothing left to loose when she arrives to stop Solas’ ritual. But in that moment she finds an opportunity for them both to live. Faking both their deaths, she flees with a near dead Solas to a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. But a return to peace is not as easy as she thought it would be. With Solas on the verge of death and her friends mourning her death, she has thrown everything at this one chance. And even if Solas wakes, they cannot go back to how things were. They have to move forwards.

Read from the start here

Hope you enjoy the first proper chapter of this fic! I've got a fun ride planned for y'all :D

Chapter Three: How to Regrow a Garden

Moths had gotten into the trunk where she had put a few bolts of cloth, but it was mostly salvageable. She headed over to the kitchen table with it, with only a candle lighting her work. She had the pattern memorised from years of experience. She couldn’t bear to go over to where he lay, to take his current measurements. She couldn’t dare hold out that much hope. So she took measurements from his old clothing. Even that caused a pain to spike through her heart from the weight he had lost. She glanced back over at him, he was skinnier than he had been when they met. She could see the bony protrusion of his ribs and hips, without the soft cover of healthy fat. “Oh Solas…” she whispered. There was no response.

The End and The Beginning is a cosy/cottagecore-esq Solavellan fix-it AU. Set in a universe where Solas' ritual fails, Lavellan fakes both of their deaths to give them a chance to start over. But the weight of a decades worth of trauma is not easy to overcome, especially on your own.

Read from the start