Someone cure him of his grief

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The refreshing cold of the mountains does not follow him from the night before. Solas, roused from a deep slumber, wakes to the soft bristles of tall grass brushing against his nose.

At first, the warmth from the sun felt gradual, as though he were carried in a cloud from the slopes to a resting place down below. The landscape tickles his face, and it prompts a sudden sneeze.

His body jerks with the movement, surprised. This drags him completely from the coziness of his half-awake state.

One pair of pale violet eyes widen.

This was not Vanderfell. It was not somewhere he recognized at all. If he was a particularly religious man, he might have assumed he was dead.

Standing with a newfound alertness, he spins a couple of times about his position, confusion evident on his face. Was he still dreaming?

"Bestefar?"

A familiar voice. In a language he did not know by nature, but knew by sound. Hesitantly, he takes a few steps forward. “Vasiliya?” His voice carries across the field of unknowns, deep and full of concern. Another step, following the direction her voice came from. And yet he began to doubt. If this was a dream, how could she be here too?

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There is a moment between thrusting himself through this mysterious field and finding her that he realizes he is now finding comfort in knowing where she is. Gone is the feeling of sheltered distance, keeping others at arms length in order to manage his own heart better.

For whatever reason, he felt a coldness solved only by reaching her side.

And while he was following the familiar timbre of her voice, he also looked to where the sun seemed to shine the brightest overhead. Something in his head told him she was where the warmth was strongest. His legs carried him into a brisk walk, but the ache of the frost inside him drove him forward.

He didn't understand it. He only knew it to be calming. And as he crested over a slight hill, there she was.

Faster than he, but slowing as she approached — he barely had time to utter a greeting before she was upon him, nosing her way through the fur around his chest and neck. He sucked in a stunned cross between a grunt and a gasp.

A closeness that they had not breached yet, a familiarity he was new to, and yet — Solas did not move.

He did not step back. The otherwise fleeting ghost of a man stilled, his heart a rampant set of hooves against his ribcage. Hooves like that of the goat they had hunted what feels like many, many dreams ago.

Quietly, he looked down, maneuvering so that he did not accidentally shove her from her position. His neck craned to allow his gaze to fall upon her forehead.

What was this — fear? She had collapsed into him in the gentlest way she could manage. He knew not how to best comfort her, but ..

He leaned into it.

Folding his chin over her shoulder, he closed his eyes, allowing a brief, silent passing where he just gave in to the feeling of the sun against his body. He almost forgot he needed to probably say something, but after a bit of just allowing, he sighed.

Stepped back. One, two paces. Just enough to look at her directly.

“When I said to find me, this is not what I had meant,” he smiles, the feeling of it foreign and odd on his features. He almost immediately wants to wipe it away.

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The feeling of crumbling stone from a marbled statue is juxtaposed by the way his breath catches as she leans away, looking up at him. Many times she had done this before, this simple act of witnessing Solas, and many times before had he shrugged away the stare or taken it in stride. There is a glimmer in her expression that speaks to the change of energy for this time.

While she beholds him, likely fixated on his rare, coal tear of a smile, he feels the air draining from his throat. No longer rigid, his bones attempt to bend and pry themselves from his own skeleton so that they may better align with hers. That was the only way he could describe it — this feeling of malleability. The sudden want to be reformed, dried clay turned workable once more.

There is nothing in the air, nor the plants that he recognizes as poisonous, so this effect could only be coming from within. Whatever emotion that had propelled him forward now rooted him by her side, face angling downward so that he may keep his eyes trained upon her. She is the sun, he thinks again, and it is not the last time he would think such a thing.

His smile is none the wiser to her plot. What warmth. He is too content to realize what she has said. When he blinks, the sentiment floods him anew with realization. His cheeks now grow warm, sunburnt. He knows not how to respond. Various replies escape him as soon as they come, instinct to buckle or harden fighting a war within. He doesn't realize he is moving of his own accord until he attempts to press his nose to her own. By that time, it is too late to retract, and his eyes widen in a slightly comedic fashion.

He doesn't know why he did it. Doesn't know what it means. It is the first touch he has asked of her without being convinced first, and it feels as though he has run a wire between their bodies that tied at their converging. It feels innocent, child-like, but at the same time —

Solas turns to stare at the field alongside them, moving his nose away. Hiding his soft, smushed, pottery gaze. A gradual heat is growing and he is certain she would feel it and understand it better than he would.

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He is still staring at their surroundings — avoiding — when she addresses him. There is a soft surprise in her voice, cradling a slight poke at his behavior. Solas feels his face continue to bloom in a soft, ruddy hue. He is not a child, but he feels the most like one when forced to deal with his own feelings.

Shyly, he sneaks a sideward glance at her. “Would you .. like me to express my gratitude more?” He manages to both agonize over and blurt the delivery. There is a slow reckoning of his own perception of her. It acted as though it were a falling star, hurtling through the air. From afar, gradual and easy to track. Up close .. he was falling headfirst into whatever this was, leaving a burnt trail in the darkened sky.

His chest pushes out to keep the connection between them. He can feel silly for looking away, but Solas doesn't want her to move.

He wants to hear her laugh again. It is uninhibited and all his to listen to, at least in this place.

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He is thrust forward into a world in which she looks at him the same way. Waiting, a bit shyly, for the other to confirm what they both thought they felt from the other. Like watching too long the projection of oneself in the mirror, Solas is both unsettled and comforted in seeing his poorly-manned affection given back in the way he wants it to be.

He is comforted by her attention now that he has learned to expect it, but with that comfort he faces a new dilemma — he might want more. And wanting things from her, doing things to get those things from her — it was a new, anxiety-riddled practice.

But ... it swept him up in such unfamiliar passion. It made Solas want to do everything with her, should she keep supplying this irreplaceable feeling inside his chest.

It was the most pleasant, armor-degrading acid that was eroding away at him. He wanted it. He was sure he wanted it.

Perhaps he could see the world through her eyes, then, if she could reach all the way through to his core.

“Yes,” he spits out, almost shivering with his sweet-acrid veins. He is a melting man, turning his face towards the source of it all.

Amethyst eyes nearly begged her to look at him. He does want more. More opportunity to take steps forward with her, more chances to share her light. She is undoing a part of him that he thought was a permanent fixture.

Solas trembles slightly as he reasserts himself. “I do .. I am.” His chest rises and falls as though taking a breath now took active, conscious effort. He was never the best with words. In leu of them, he steps an inch or two forward to place his paw tenderly upon her own. It is a small thing. But it is something they both have not done, and he hopes the sentiment is clear.

“This makes me happy.” A pause. “I want to do more things ... like this.”

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His gentle touch is met with a return tenfold as she folds herself neatly into him. Solas braces himself again, as he always does, but not for the reasons he used to. He is aware of how much space she takes up. He has welcomed it more than once now. At this point, his tenseness is only wrought by the desire to encircle her entirely until she is but a shimmering waft of brown inside his wings of grey.

He had not planned for her to return his sentiment, at least not in the way he had yearned for it. He had assumed that she was this warm to everything around her, everything she touched. If he was different, if this was different, he wanted to know.

Solas pushed his chin into the thicker fur of her neck, just over her shoulder. It was the slightest hint of possession.

“I want to do this not just in this place. I want to do it back home, in front of others, by ourselves.” Everywhere. Perhaps that was too greedy.

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