Chapter Text
Who made you like this?
Who encrypted your dark gospel in body language?
Synapses snap back in blissful anguish
Tell me you met me in past lives, past life, past what might be eating me from the inside, darling
Half algorithm, half deity— glitches in the code or gaps in a strange dream
Tell me you guessed my future and it mapped onto your fantasy
Turn me into your mannequin and I'll turn you into my puppet queen
Won't you come and dance in the dark with me?
Show me what you are, I am desperate to know.
Nobody better than the perfect enemy.
And I know what you want from me.
You want the same as me.
My redemption, eternal ascension, setting me free.
So I'll take what I want… then leave.
Ascensionism - Sleep Token
“Back so soon?” He mocks, “It must be worse than I assumed.”
“Hello, Dreadwolf.”
The use of his moniker brings a slight twitch to his mouth.
“Have you come to listen, finally,” he stresses, “or are you still playing at the petulant child?”
Rook doesn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting.
"You're going to be insufferable about this, aren't you? See, this is why nobody likes you," she taunts back.
She asks him questions about the Evanuris but he never quite answers her fully, often throwing the question back on her to answer.
When she calls him out on his evasiveness, his lips curve slightly and he says, “Clever words can be just as powerful as the daggers you wield. Surely Varric has taught you this?"
“Enough, are you going to make this conversation fruitful, or not? I need to know what the Gods are planning. Tell me how to stop them.”
He cocks his head to the side, narrowing his gaze on her. “Why?”
Her eyes widen, surprised. Rook shakes her head as her frustration grows. If there wasn’t a damn ravine between them she might just pummel the information out of him.
She looks down, considering the jump. “If I fall down there, will I die?”
He ignores her and paces the edge. “What makes you the right person to lead the fight against the Evanuris? Tell me why I should give you information no other mortal is privy to?”
She considers her response, swallowing down the fear that festers like bile inside. “Someone has to do something. I may not be the best person to lead this job, but I’m the only one here.”
Harding is… emotional… too vulnerable at the moment. She can't really blame her, Rook herself is furious about Solas stabbing Varric, but there's another layer of anger and grief there that Lace appears to be barely holding back.
Without Varric and Harding, there simply was no one else left.
Neve was still recovering from her injuries and she was never truly meant to stay with them as long as she has. It would be too much to ask of her. In fact, Rook wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to take off soon, satisfied enough that she fulfilled her part of the contract, to not be tied down to a group headed toward death… or worse.
There was no one else to do this, to lead.
It was just her.
Perhaps her honesty shifted something in him, for he pauses before he speaks again. “Not so different from myself, I suppose.”
She actually laughs at that and then throws her head back, cackling, when she catches his confused expression.
“We are nothing alike,” she snarls once she recovers, memories and emotions erupting to the front of her mind, stronger here, it seemed, than in her waking life. The Fade had that affect.
“No?” He paces the edge of the divide, his chin held high, and all at once Rook begins to wonder how much this prison was truly meant to serve as a trap. “Did you not take it upon yourself to free slaves from an Antaam camp in Treviso, saving the very dwarf that recruited you to pursue me? Are you not Zeyassan of House de Riva, warden of Viago de Riva, an elven mage who escaped from slavery at the age of 14?”
His voice was coated in disdain, each word delivered with a searing edge meant to make her squirm. Gods, the ego on this man. Rook refuses to give him a reaction, though her insides burn with the knowledge that he knew those things about her. Fenedhis. She wonders exactly how much he knows about her past.
She chips at a hangnail in her finger to feign boredom, pausing to ensure her voice was level. “Are you done?”
Solas looks down his nose at her, pointing out all of her little mistakes and reminding her of all the bad decisions that led them to this situation. The God of Lies, Treachery and Rebellion couldn’t resist to remind her just how little she meant to him.
Which just makes Rook more determined to prove him wrong.
A reckless, unpredictable, ignorant thing, he had called her during their first meeting. Sure, let him think that. Let him underestimate her.
“I'll do whatever it takes,” she promises him.
"Yes," he snarls, "We will see just how much you can actually take."
This was Rook’s new normal.
Wake up, fight the Blight, help the Veil Jumpers... and then be harassed by Solas every time she closed her eyes.
The long days and endless nights were starting to catch up with her, making her even more reckless and rash than usual. Last night she finally jumped off into the ravine in an attempt to get away from Solas’s constant pestering and pensive non-descript answers.
At least she used the time to research. She could visit the prison easily, but every attempt Rook make to leave the prison led to being humiliated because ‘how hard could it be to wake up from a dream?’ Yet, she couldn’t quite grasp the tether of her physical body, the connection between her mind, the fade, and the physical world so tightly woven it was impossible to separate the threads.
Rook couldn't wake herself up no matter how many times she practiced or tried.
Her magic was different here in the prison, or in this pocket of the Fade at least. It would make sense, she supposed, if the prisoners held within weren't meant to have access to their raw, innate magic. It would make it nearly impossible to escape. Still, ordinary mages did learn how to pull the threads of magic from the other side of the Veil, so in theory she should be able to do the same from this side—to potentially draw her mind back into her body by pulling from the raw magic stored inside herself.
Testing her theory while Solas monotoned on across the divide about another of her decisions, Rook begins to cast the beginning of a spell. She chose something simple as a fade-step-dodge, one of the first evasive moves she'd ever learned when she came into her magic as a young girl.
Rook focuses on the routine dance of her hand movements, her eyes closing as she slows down her breathing.
And then—
She hears the howling pitch of air first before she feels the harsh, cold wind against her face. Rook opens her eyes to the view of the prison from above, her body falling from hundreds of feet above the rocky, barren remains of an Elven ruin.
She is falling.
Her attempt to fade step, just a simple dodge from one rock to another, has failed exponentially.
Before she can decide whether to mourn her short lived life or to debate whether the fall will indeed kill her, Rook hears her name called from below.
Suddenly, she shifts, her center of gravity lost as she spirals between shards of rocks floating in the fade sky. She feels a soft breeze push up against her core, and then she is spinning over, facing the ground, looking down to see one half of the prison crumbling, rebuilding itself as Solas attempts to control her descent.
Rook notes the anger behind his icy blue eyes just before she crashes on top of him, falling into his unstretched arms.
She releases something between a grunt and a moan as her body adjusts to the safety of gravity. It takes her longer than it should to readjust, to shift off the warm, solid build of the man below her. His golden armor at least spared her of the knowledge of how his bare skin might feel against her own.
The thought reddens her cheeks, and Rook moves quickly, wriggling off him hurriedly to put some space between them. Her body feels overheated and alert. When she finally arises and turns to meet his expecting glare, she curses herself internally. Solas looks eerily calm, composed and completely unaffected by her falling out of the sky and directly on top of him. He appears as if nothing had even happened and somehow that made her infuriated.
It reminds her of a fresco she once found in the tunnels of Minrathous depicting the fall of The Forgotten Ones. The Lord of Tricksters they called him.
"What did you do to me?" She demands. "What's wrong with my magic?"
"Do you think I would build a prison without taking precautions?"
A slow, cold smile spreads across his face as Solas holds his hand up, casting a small flame in the palm of his hand. Rook glares at him.
"So you can still access your magic in here, but I can't?"
The flames twirl around his fingertips. His voice is quiet when he responds. "Not all of it. Just a fraction."
Solas extinguishes the flames and then looks at her. "You're thinking too hard. Focus on the feeling of returning to your body."
"I tried."
"Not well enough. Ignore what you learned from watching the magisters— their magic works differently than ours."
"Will you stop going through my mind?"
Rook walks away to put distance between them. She feels naked despite being dressed in some old leathers she found around the Lighthouse. Worse, she feels at a disadvantage. She was never formally trained and hid her abilities before being exposed. That wasn't a memory she wanted to relive and certainly not one she wanted Solas to see.
Rook sighs dramatically. "Listen, Fen'harel. We might be "connected" but that doesn't give you the right to pry into my memories."
He smirks while she tries to ignore the dimples it creates. "I have not. It is not difficult to postulate that an elven slave would need to hide their magic. Besides, I have already told you I did my research."
Has not, she thinks, not that he couldn't if he wanted. Disappointment weighs on her shoulders.
Rook reinforces her mental shields, cutting off as much as their connection as she can. Solas arches an eyebrow at her behavior, but she ignores him. If she cannot control her magic or ability to leave this prison, she needed to ensure that she at least kept her wits about her. She was dealing with the Dread Wolf after all. She knew Solas would find a way to use her to trick or betray her soon enough. It was the only thing he knew how to do.
The elven God continues to eye her suspiciously, the silence hanging heavy between them.
“Anytime you’re ready,” she smiles ingenuinely.
He continues watching her for a few moments before crossing his arms behind his back.
“When you see Varric,” Solas calls as he begins to walk away. “Tell him I am sorry.”
“Fuck you!” Rook yells before the world in front of her fades to black.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” she threatens to Varric, pacing the infirmary.
“Maybe let’s hold off on Solas’ assassination until we handle the Evanuris, yeah?”
“But he’s an asshole! And a prick! And it would be just regular 'ole murder. Free of charge! I’m doing it as a favor to the world.”
Varric rolls his eyes and she smirks.
“Look, you don’t have to like him. Hell, I don’t know if I like him most days. But he can help, Rook.”
She sits on the edge of his bed, fingers tracing the brace keeping his leg held together. She should send him home. Let him rest while they figure this out. But a part of her still isn't ready to let him go.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Varric. I’m not a leader. Everything I try and do gets fucked up in the end."
The voicing of her insecurities leaves her feeling raw. The familiar feelings of dread and panic threaten to claw their way out of her throat, but she resists.
“Look kid, I wouldn’t have brought you along on this adventure if I didn’t know you could handle it.”
“I’m pretty sure you were forced to take me," Rook jokes.
“Nah,” Varric smiles, “More like I got the better part of a trade. The Crows didn't know what they had in you. Not like me. I knew it the first time I saw you.” He shrugs. “You’ve got a knack for it.”
“For what?”
“For getting through the wildest shit I’ve ever seen.”
Rook laughs and memorizes the sound of the storyteller’s voice, like if she would capture it and keep it, she could use his misplaced optimism as her own. That maybe it was possible to change Solas's mind. That maybe, even after all this time, he could stop.
“On the best day of his life,” the dwarf continues, “Solas wouldn’t see you coming. You’ve always been straight like an arrow— finding your target through whatever path necessary.”
Rook’s breath catches, but she suppresses the emotions those words bring to mind. Varric doesn't seem to notice as he continues to recount their tale of meeting each other.
“You know, some times you guys remind me of each other,” Varric suggests, and chuckles at the frown it brings to her face.
Gods, she hoped he was wrong. She didn't want to be like the God of Lies, the Great Deceiver. She wanted to be better than that.
She had to be.
“You’re going to be just fine, Rook," Varric says, sending her out of the infirmary. "You’ve got this.”