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Slow Burning Dreamer	By : Breathing2nd Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 3692 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-1
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Eleven
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 3
- 4
- 5
She was certain she had tracked it to this area. It couldn’t be far away now. Why she’d even bothered going after it, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps she just needed to get some fresh air. Perhaps she needed to get away from Skyhold after the evening she’d had. Perhaps she just didn’t want wolves stalking her camp, even if it was inside a fortress. Whatever the reason, she’d followed it here. She wasn’t sure how far down the mountain she’d gone. It wasn’t as if the air had grown warmer or anything. In fact, it seemed quite the opposite. A cold gust of icy wind threatened to dislodge the hood from her cloak as it bellowed through her garments like they were paper. She stifled a shiver as snowflakes fell and melted on her nose and lips. At least her ears were covered.
She’d followed it to a small circle of trees. There was a stream still flowing despite the frigid temperatures and she was sure that in summer months, the area was probably lovely. As it was, there was only snow and moonlight surrounding her. At least the moon was large and full, and at this elevation, it bathed the earth in so much light, the snowy blanket clinging to everything seemed to glow.
She’d brought a bow. Though the near weightless weapon felt almost alien in her hands. Her father had taught her to shoot when she was still just a small child. The lessons had focused on how to properly grasp the bow. How taught to hold the string. Where to place the arrow. How to breathe and when to let the arrow fly. He had died before he’d been able to finish the lessons. She wasn’t even sure why she’d grabbed the weapon. She was no expert with a bow, after all.
A rustle of movement out of the corner of her eye and Isala realized the bow had been a mistake. The air just above the palm of her hand tingled to life as she pulled in snowflakes and moisture to circle around in wait. A winter spell would be easiest to conjure, though something with a flame may have been more welcome with the temperatures such as they were. A twig snapped to her left and she spun, the incantation leaping from her fingertips, driven by pure instinct. The moment she’d let it fly, however, she wished she hadn’t.
She opened her mouth to scream his name in warning when she saw the glyphs of a barrier glow against the ground beneath him and spring up to block the spell she’d thrown. Her spell crashed against the barrier with the sound of chimes on its heels as it dissipated into snow and ice. Solas walked through the little cloud of residual magic with the glow of his barrier emanating briefly from his body.
“Ir abelas, Solas!” She apologized quickly, crossing the short space toward him. “I thought you were something else.” Isala stopped within arm’s reach of the taller elf and looked him over. “You’re not harmed? That was stupid of me to do.” There were no signs of frostbite that she could make out and his tunic didn’t even seem to be damp. Still, she’d attacked an ally heedlessly and the shame was going to gnaw at her.
Solas glanced from the Dalish woman before him to the bow in her hand. “Yes, a bit foolish, but no harm.” He gave her a brief smile of assurance then asked, “You were out hunting?” His eyes paid particular attention to her face as she worked out the answer. Her eyes darting to the bow in her slender hands.
“Oh…this? Yes, well I…” She couldn’t seem to work out the specifics of how she’d come to be in the place other than the fact that she’d been tracking a wolf here. “I was tracking a wolf.” She echoed her own thoughts aloud. Solas quirked a single, dark eyebrow and glanced around.
“I saw no wolves.” He prodded. Suddenly, Isala felt more foolish than when she’d thrown the ice spell.
“Well, then perhaps you frightened it off?” The Dalish retorted, moving to seat herself against a large bolder nearby. The stone was cold, even with the thick cloak acting as an extra layer.
“Perhaps I did.” He murmured, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against a narrow tree trunk. His weight hardly shook the snow from the thin branches and Isala felt her mouth go dry as she watched a soft dusting of the frozen water fall in a slow mist around the male elf. He made her think of magic long lost whenever she looked at him. She couldn’t explain it, but there was something positively hypnotic about the strange elf.
Isala looked down at the borrowed bow in her hands and stuck one end into the dense snow beside the bolder. “No matter. I wasn’t going to catch anything with this in any case.”
“I did not know you could wield a bow.” Solas commented.
“I think there are probably a great many things you don’t know about me.” Isala stated. Her voice was teasing as she slid the hood back from her head revealing her pale, almost white hair. It was down and the bottom third touched her shoulders in soft, curling waves. She scarcely wore it down other than for washing it or sleeping. There was too great a chance of it being singed in a fight or of it obscuring her vision should the wind blow the wrong way.
Solas stared at her where she sat perched on the large bolder. He’d never seen her with her hair down. It looked almost stark against the deep, heavy blue of her cloak, but with the frame of snowfall around her, she had become something ethereal. Her ears peeked out like a secret from soft waves of the palest possible blond. Her vallaslin decorated her forehead like a ghostly circlet forever etched into her skin. He almost didn’t notice the symbols that touched her chin just below her bottom lip. The markings referred to Ghilan’nain, mother of the halla, but even as vallaslin went, they were faint.
She gave him a look that said she’d caught him staring but Solas recovered quickly. “So it would seem.” He pushed away from the tree he’d been leaning against and lowered his hands. There was room enough on the massive rock for the two of them and she did no shy away from him when he sat next to her, though she did watch his every movement with her breath held in wait.
Her brightly colored eyes focused on his face as he became eyelevel with her. “What about you? What brings you out at this hour? I thought you loved sleeping.” She mused.
Solas smiled wistfully. “I do, but I enjoy the quiet here in the small hours.”
“So you’re just out for a stroll? Aren’t you cold?” Isala asked, noting that the bare-faced elf had no extra layers on to chase back the cold, nor any shoes for that matter.
Again, that soft smirk decorated his handsome face. “I’m fine.”
"Of course you are.” Isala muttered, looking away. She gazed out at the quiet, feeling suddenly awkward.
“You are restless.” Solas said absently.
“Am I?” Isala asked, refocusing her gaze on him.
“Yes. It is why you convinced yourself to needlessly hunt a wolf.”
“It was too close to camp.” She argued.
“With a bow?” Solas chided.
Isala opened her mouth to debate it further but closed it. He was right. He always seemed to be right about her. She hadn’t been able to find sleep and had instead wrapped a cloak around her nightgown and found herself wandering. The bow had been an afterthought. The wolf, a strange coincidence.
"Are things not as you would like them to be with the Commander?” Solas asked, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Isala’s attention snapped to the other mage in an instant.
“What? Why should that be…” Solas was staring at her with raised brows. His expression looked to be on the verge of breaking into laughter. “Am I that obvious?” Isala asked.
“Not truly, no, but your frustration is apparent to someone who knows what they are witnessing.”
The Inquisitor sighed. “I’m not really sure what I’m doing. I’ve never been with a human before and there seems to be a…oh I don’t know what it is. Perhaps he’s simply never been with someone as forward as I am?”
Solas was still smiling. “Or perhaps he’s never been with an elf.”
Isala let her eyes roll up to gaze at the strong jaw and sharp cheekbones of the male elf at her side. Usually, she would have preferred men with a supple coif of hair to run her fingers through. So many men in her clan had longer hair than even she did, but she found that she didn’t mind that Solas had none. His face was striking enough that it didn’t matter.
“Have you ever been with a human?”
“No.” He replied quickly, evenly, and without hesitation.
Isala smirked and nudged him with her shoulder. “Purist.” She teased and Solas rewarded her with the focus of his stare and a playful tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I simply know what I enjoy…and want.” She wasn’t sure if the last was a jab, but she felt it all the same. Her smile faltered as she remembered the kiss they’d shared in her dreams. She’d kissed him first. Drawn in by his familiarity and his strangeness all-the-same. He felt like home and like everything forbidden in one breath. It was almost too much at times.
“Solas…” She began and he stood suddenly, his back to her.
“Don’t.” He warned. “You told me I should forget and I am trying to honor that request.”
Her fingers were raised as if she might touch him, but she resisted. “I haven’t forgotten. I can’t seem to, even as I try.” She admitted. It was the first time she’d allowed herself to say it aloud.
“It was wise of you to caution against it. You are with Cullen now and we should leave things as they are. It will be best for everyone.” He still wouldn’t look at her and her hand itched to turn him toward her.
“With seems a strong word…” her eyes fell toward the snow covering her feet. “We hardly have a moment alone together and even when we do the man can’t stop calling me Inquisitor. I feel as though I make him uncomfortable more often than not and that my forward advances are unwanted.”
“I am certain that is not the case.” Solas reassured her, but Isala couldn’t calm the knot twisting inside her stomach.
“In my clan things were simpler. I took lovers but did not need to love. There was no hole in the sky reminding me that each day could be my last. No world shattering evil to force me to remember how very fragile life…and love…can be.” She said the last at barely more than a whisper and Solas seemed to raise his head and look up, though he still faced away.
“You fear love?” He asked softly.
“I fear losing it.” She confessed.
“You do not love Cullen?”
“I do not know.” She answered honestly, afraid of what it might mean if she did. “I care for him but it’s too soon…and I think I could…” She heard Solas sigh and she stood ready to reach out to him when he spun to face her.
“I will not ask.” He was so close. “Knowing will not change anything. It cannot.” His eyes were like Lazurite, steely and blue. “Leave it be, Isala.” The elvish syllables of her name rolled off his tongue like honey.
“You leave it be.” She demanded, taking a step into him, forcing them to be nearly nose to nose. “You followed me here.” She accused, somehow confident that he hadn’t been out in the middle of the night for a simple stroll.
Solas smiled approvingly, though it didn’t last. “Well done, Inquisitor.” She was tiring of even her closest companions calling her by her title. “I’ll leave you now.” He face turned away first as he prepared to walk away but Isala caught his cheek as she had in Haven, though she managed to speak this time instead of kissing him.
“Don’t.” She said firmly and Solas stared into her eyes with something teetering on the edge of anger. His mouth claimed hers with greedy intent, his hands finding her small waist beneath the cloak to jerk her against his body. She let him kiss her, sliding her hand along his cheek to brace the back of his neck. Her free hand wrapping around his shoulder and clinging tightly. He parted her lips with the press of his tongue and she opened her mouth for him willingly. The feel of his mouth exploring hers with teeth and tongue made things low in her body tighten in anticipation. She felt him leading her backwards until her backside hit the cold, unmovable surface of the bolder. He leaned into her, deepening the kiss until she moaned around his mouth and that only seemed to frenzy him further. She felt a hand snaking around the folds of gauzy fabric that made up the skirt of her nightgown. He splayed his fingers wide and slid that same hand up the length of her hip, taking the delicate fabric with him. Isala turned her hip out, opening that leg to let him nestle in its crook, urging him further against her. She heard him make a sound of frustration. His fingers balled the bit of garment into his fist and he ceased kissing her with his mouth poised and open against hers. Their breath fogged in the frigid air and Isala felt the adrenaline leaving her cold.
“It cannot be more than this.” Solas sighed against her lips, kissing her softly then. “It cannot be more than a fleeting dream.”
Isala opened her eyes then. Looking into his much sadder ones. “A dream?” She whispered, the realization hitting her hard enough to begin pulling her away. Their dream slipping through her mind like water though her fingers.
She awoke with a start with the weight of a pillow slipping down her form. Her sheets were a tangled mess around her bare legs and the brisk morning air was bellowing the curtains around her open balcony doors. It had been a dream. Another dream, nothing more. She touched her fingers to her lips, feeling the heat of the other elf’s mouth lingering there. A dream, but no less real for either of them.
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Slow Burning Dreamer