#inquisitor x solas

at this point we all know the size differences in merfolk au are kinda ludicrous, but they also mean you gotta get creative about certain… things.

New.

Solas has to deal with some changes in his perception.

#feral verse, 1k words. on AO3.

Solas had never expected he would ever need to know how to mend fishing nets, but Adaar was rather insistent that it was a useful skill to possess. He had not argued otherwise as strongly as he might have—he had always enjoyed observing someone skilled at their craft work or teach. Despite everything, that still held true.

“Hold on, that one doesn’t look quite right—”

Solas held still while Adaar bent over his section of the net and eyed the current knot; she muttered something under her breath and hooked her claw into the knot, unravelling it with ease.

“I think you forgot the last loop. Want me to show you again?”

“Far be it from me to deprive you of an opportunity to show off,” he said, but he couldn’t entirely stifle a smile. Adaar was confident to the point of arrogance—Solas could admit, however grudgingly, that he gained a strange, nonsensical enjoyment from watching her prove that arrogance was wholly deserved. Even if it concerned only something as banal as tying quick, competent knots into a damaged fishing net.

She grinned and took the net from him. “Careful, I might get the impression you actually enjoy that, one of these days.”

He said nothing, only watched her demonstrate the proper sequence of motions, although the urge to confirm it burned on his tongue. As before, his attention strayed from her fingers to the way the tendons in the back of her hands moved, to the minute tensions this caused in her bared lower arms, all the way up to her shoulders, thick with muscle—

Solas swallowed and forced his gaze back down.

“I have never seen you fish with nets such as these,” he said, a hint of a question, as much distraction as genuine curiosity.

“No, these’re meant for river fishing. You remember Tybal?”

“I believe so? If you’re referring to the rather pale vashoth.”

“They’ve got a place further north, where the river’s a proper river. The nets belong to them, but they have a kind of tremor in their hand?” She gestured with her own to mimic the problem. “Makes work like this difficult. So a few years back we made a deal, I fix the nets when necessary, and we get fish in return.”

“That is… kind of you.”

“I guess? The fish is really good. You can see for yourself next time.” She shrugged, and—

This was ridiculous. Solas closed his eyes, breathing slowly, opened them again, then opened his mouth to reply… and still nothing sensible came out: “You will need new clothes, soon.”

As if it was in any way relevant at the moment. As if it was any of his concern. As if it should matter to him.

“What? Why?”

Reluctantly, he pointed to the seam at her shoulder, where the thread was straining to hold the fabric together.

“You’re growing broader. At this rate you might end up tearing them if you’re not careful.”

Adaar stretched out her arms in front of her and rolled her shoulders, watching the cloth cling to her biceps.

“Hah, you’re right.” She smiled, clearly pleased. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Solashadnoticed.

He couldn’t stopnoticing.

The arc of her shoulders, the flex of muscles in her back, her arms, her thighs, the sheer ease with which strength came to her. It stole his focus, his damned breath. They had been surprised by rain while wandering back from a ruin recently, and he had nearly bitten his tongue not to make a sound at the sight of her drenched back. She had watched him so intently, as if she was perhaps aware… And every time she decided to pick him up for some more-or-less baseless reason, as she was so fond of doing, he wondered if this would be the occasion when he would betray himself. How effortlessly she could lift him was yet another thing that he didn’t dare consider in detail, nor how often she would touch him more than in passing.

To make matters even worse, the aspects of her that hadn’t changed found their way beneath his skin as well. The toothy glint of her smile, her long-fingered restless hands, the determined set of her jaw when she was after something, the way her pitch-and-amber eyes lit up when she cast magic…

Now, all of her made his mouth dry out. The sensation was far from new, but it was… it had been a long time. The world had been different. Whole.

If Ghilan'nain could see him now, she would be insufferably pleased with her handiwork.

“You’ve filled out, too, you know,” Adaar said, pulling his thoughts back into the present. She tapped his sternum with her knuckles, then danced her fingertips rib by rib up to his collarbones. “I used to be able to count your ribs just by looking.”

Solas’s heartbeat fluttered up to somewhere in his throat, but he held her gaze. If he imagined her touch to be more deliberate than it was, with an intent beyond the careless affection she doled out to anyone within range, it would not matter beyond this moment.

“Is the number of my ribs so variable that it requires regular quantification?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said in a tone of great seriousness, although her lips twitched. “Sometimes you’re missing one on the left side.” She was still touching him, the edge of her palm resting high on his chest. Solas couldn’t bring himself to move away.

“You are wonderfully strange,” he said, without quite meaning to. Before he could quantify or retract the statement, Adaar’s face broke into a smile.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“How so?”

She patted his collarbone—another simple touch that seemed as nigh a caress to Solas’s starving skin—and returned to her work. “You’re wonderfully strange too, forest sprite.”

Oh, dear.

Solas cleared his throat and tried, fruitlessly, to ignore the gentle heat spreading inside his chest.

y’all know what time is

mermay

teeth

panel 1 happened bc there’s a moment like it in my, what big hands, and the rest bc i wanted to draw them giddy n touchy-feely i’m writing so much angst these days

“Sleep well?“

“Very much so.“

some fluff set around 10 years post-da:i, as evidenced by solas’ Too Many eyes and saar’s horns having started to branch :>

(finished version of this)

i’ve been very busy with a lowkey version of nanowrimo in november so i haven’t had much time for art and also what i Am writing is a huge main timeline fic for saar that covers temple of mythal to post-trespasser so it’s angst-central most of the time

aaaall of which is to say. i needed some endgame fluff to compensate

eta: finished version is here!

winter palace looks for the trio au✨

(as usual, saar is mine, kubide belongs to @wanderingnork, solas made the strategic decision Not to wear that damn helmet because he’s trying to be inconspicuous for some ominous sneaking)

sera the man is suffering, have some compassion

anyway, watching the two people you love pine for each other and refuse to do anything about it is, hm. An Experience, certainly

(kubide belongs to @wanderingnork, and this is now the #trio au)

what’s this, yetanother new au?? …………yes. admittedly i started it this time lmao

meme format is from here, kubide (on the left) belongs to @wanderingnork, yes this is once again spiralling wildly and yes there will be fic

(#trio au)

new drawing tablet, same old comfort characters

Fadewalkers.

Adaar and Solas actually manage to walk in the Fade, and are easily distracted. (Takes place in the spring following Sleep, so a few months later.)

#feral verse, 700 words. on AO3.

Solas’s feet hardly touched the ground as they delved deeper into the ruins that weren’t nearly as ruined as they had been in waking; his cloak shimmered, whole, as if new.

“Come, this is but a mere fraction,” he said. “There is so much I want to show you.”

Adaar couldn’t help but smile at the poorly hidden excitement in his voice. She easily kept pace walking beside him, watching the way his eyes practically shone.

“You’re such a liar,” she said.

Solas made a very small, strangled noise. “What… what makes you say that?”

“Remember when we met, and you said you weren’t suited to teaching? And now you’re actually floating with joy.”

With a thump, his feet settled firmly on the ground again, and Adaar cackled. He gave her a haughty look as he straightened his cloak.

“If you were accosted by some unreasonably tall, horned creature in the woods, you would hold your truth rather flexible, too, wouldn’t you?”

“I—first of all—that’s—unreasonablytall?”

His gaze wandered pointedly from her feet to her horns, which took a while. Adaar rolled her eyes. “You’re just miffed you’re so short.”

“I will have you know I am actually rather tall for an elf.”

“And petite,” Adaar continued with a grin, undeterred. “Downright delicate. Practically waif-like.” She ambled closer, and once she got within arm’s reach, grabbed him by the waist and scooped him up to tip him over her shoulder. She held him up with one arm wrapped around his warm thighs; the other hand she propped demonstratively against her waist.

“See? You’re an absolute featherweight.”

Solas let out a noisy breath; he made no move to get out of her hold and his fingers dug into her shoulder as if he was loathe to let go. That was different, but no less welcome. The light was changing rapidly, drowning them both in ruddy pink like a new dawn. Adaar glanced about, unsure if the change in the Fade’s manifestation was due to either of them, or because of sudden company.

“You’ve made your point,” Solas said quietly. “You can set me down.” He didn’t sound like she had expected, either—none of the fond annoyance and amusement he usually displayed when she did something like this. She looked up at him and found an expression staring back at her that she’d have called relief on anyone else. But with him…

“Do you… want me to set you down?”

“No, I prefer to be carried like a sack of flour.”

Adaar hesitated. Her heart, dreaming echo or not, beat quicker inside her chest. She didn’t want to let him go. Not while she hadn’t figured out what made this time so different than everything before, when he had only sought her out in his sleep. Maybe it was selfish, wanting more from someone so clearly wounded…

“In that case,” she said, and set off walking.

“Adaar.”

“Yes?”

Only silence followed. Why couldn’t he just tell her? He’d done it before, and she had always let him go, it had practically become a game between them. Why couldn’t he use his fucking wordsanymore?

“Adaar,look.”

She came to a stop, blinking. The would-be ruins opened up into a courtyard that was utterly filled with spirits. With memories. They gave shape to the ruin’s spectral inhabitants, countless translucent figures playing out scenes from ages past.

Huge halla were being herded by elven figures along paths that shimmered in and out of existence, blue and golden fires billowed from forges, cookfires, signal braziers. Dwarf-shaped spirits mingled with ones in human form, crossing through one another. They recreated arguments, laughter, song, speech. Language piled upon language upon language created a sourceless, mesmerizing din. Even though little more than crumbling stone remained now, hundreds, thousands of people must have called this place home through the ages.

Slowly, Adaar let Solas slide down to the ground, holding him close to make sure he wouldn’t fall, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the spirits.

“Is this what you meant?” she asked, breathless. “What you could show me of the world?”

Solas let out a thin, soft laugh; she could feel his shoulders shake with it.

“Yes. And as I said… this is only the beginning.”

i’m still up to my ears in playing stardew valley so have some merfolk au sketches in the meantime, in order

1. kubide has a lot of hair and it gets in the way when hunting giant squid so braiding time
   
2. that one time kubide nearly got pulled into the abyss by a sinking ship (both saar and kubide only have lungs bc they’re whales, so they do need to surface regularly to breathe (solas only has gills, so it’s the opposite situation for him))
   
3. is saar the only one willing to ask for directions in this trio? yes. does that mean some poor fishers occasionally get the shock of their life? also yes

just two nerds being very satisfied with themselves over a new spell they figured out

(merfolk au)

Sleep.

Adaar and Solas attempt fadewalking for the first time.

#feral verse, 2000 words. on AO3.

They were lying on a hilltop in the forest, on a fur to keep the cold of fall at bay. Well, Adaar was lying down—Solas had sat up to give her a curious look.

“You wish to leave?”

“No! I mean, yes, kinda—maybe—I don’t know.” She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“You seem very happy, here,” he said, in that slow, careful way he had.

“I am! I am. I don’t want to leave my family, or this place, or you—”

“Me?” His voice cracked, just a little. Adaar glanced at him from between her fingers.

“Yes,obviously. I know you like to pretend you’re some lone wolf apart from all living creatures or whatever, but you’re my friend, alright? You’re not getting out of that so easily.”

“I don’t—pretend…” He sighed, his skin staining with blush, the faint freckles even fainter. His lips twitched like he was trying not to smile, until he gave up and his mouth crooked. Adaar loved it when that happened. She was pretty good at making it happen, too.

“You do not wish to leave, but?”

Nowshe sighed and clamped her hand over her eyes again. It was easier in the dark, unwatched.

“The world is so big and so full of things I don’t know,” she said softly, “and I want to learn everything.”

“Adaar…”

She hadn’t figured out if she loved that yet—the way he said her name sometimes, how he looked at her. Like she was the sun coming over the horizon, or a thunderstorm in the distance, or the wind dancing through the fields so hard it sang. At least that’s what she imagined the expression would look like on her face—an expression that was meant for immense and somewhat unfathomable things, not for a single person.

“There is a way I could show those things to you. Not all of them, of course—but more than what is accessible to you right now.”

Adaar sat up so quickly her head spun a little.

“I’m listening.”

He explained, and her head continued to spin, although for different reasons. Lucid dreaming, delving into the Fade like into a cave, how the deeper you went the older the memories imprinted upon the Fade would be…

It sounded ludicrous. Like magic, if she had never heard of it before. It sounded amazing.

“Can we just do that?” she asked. “Right now?”

Solas gave her another weird look; his eyes wide and searching for a brief moment.

“I—yes. Come with me.”

They left the little barren hilltop that poked above the forest behind and instead descended into the small cave Solas had chosen as his resting place. She’d tried often to convince him to join her family at the settlement, but he’d steadfastly refused every time. It didn’t bother her as much anymore—the cave looked more and more like an actual home these days, with a fire pit and cooking tools, shelves he’d carved out of the rock to hold utensils using a spell she hadn’t quite figured out yet herself, and a warm, dry place to sleep.

Solas had a ball of light bobbing in the air above his shoulder, and gazed down at the bedstead. It was cozy: a pallet of hay covered in cowhide, with a blanket and fur to keep warm in winter. It was also not nearly big enough for both of them. At least not if they intended not to share breathing space.

“There’s a bigger bed at home, you know,” Adaar said. “Actual walls and a door, too.”

“I would prefer to try it here. I have set the requisite wards quite often, and I’m familiar with the peculiarities of the Fade in this place.”

She shrugged, glancing around at the runes and sigils he had marked into the walls of the cave. “Yeah, makes sense. I’m just saying, you can get familiar with the farm, too. There’s space for you, it’s not a problem.”

“I’m aware, since you keep reminding me so diligently.”

“It keeps being true.”

She smiled a little at how that statement made his ears dip and his head turn away so she wouldn’t see his face. He cleared his throat.

“I have never… attempted to teach this to anyone else.”

“Because you didn’t want to, or because there was no one you could teach it to?” She hesitated, thinking of his arguments with Lavellan’s Keeper. “Or because no one wanted to learn it?”

He let out a low breath. “All of the above,” he replied quietly, “at one point or another.”

Adaar slapped her hands together to resist the urge to hug him, then clapped her palms briefly onto his shoulders because not touching him at all was even more frustrating than being shrugged off. “First time for everything. How do we start?”

Solas showed her how to set the wards—they’d talked about spellwork like it before, but mostly in abstract terms. It took a good while, because she kept stumbling over new questions, like how specific a ward could be, how permanent, how big a space it could cover… They were halfway into designing one that might be used to keep beetles out of the grain, until they managed to get back to the task at hand.

She settled on the bedstead with crossed legs while Solas puttered about by the fire pit and brewed a concoction he insisted wasn’t tea to help them fall asleep. Then she got up again and started pacing, as much as was possible, because her legs were too jittery to sit still. She was just glad most of the cave was high enough that she didn’t have to stoop—she halted, gazing at the stone close above her.

“Solas, did you shape the ceiling, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“The rock here has a different texture.” She reached up to touch it and closed her eyes, searching for that low echo of past magic—and found it. “And it’s been worked with magic.”

“…A little. It is not your fault you are so tall.”

A smile bit into her cheeks. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“It was a practical consideration,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound like he was actually put out. “You insert yourself into others’ spaces inevitably, it was only a matter of time until you would find your way into this one.”

“That almost sounds like a criticism.”

“An observation. Foremost.” He handed a steaming cup of the not-tea to her, then sipped from his own. She breathed in the smell—chamomile, juniper, and something spicy she didn’t recognize—then exhaled a bit of frost across it to cool it down before taking a sip.

Solas was watching her when she looked up from the cup.

“Something wrong?”

“No, it is simply… nice, to see how certain magic has become easier for you.”

“The frost? Yeah, I barely have to think about it anymore.” She blew a puff of snow into his face to demonstrate. Solas startled, grimacing, and wiped the rapidly-melting crystals from his cheeks.

“Sorry,” Adaar said, very earnestly. “Couldn’t resist.”

He shook his head and grumbled something in Elvish, but he was smiling again. That small, helpless, trying-not-to smile. They finished their cups, put them aside, and regarded the bedstead again.

“I shall take the fur, next to the pallet,” said Solas.

“I thought the point was to fall asleep more easily? And to sleep more deeply?”

“Yes.”

“Then why make it harder on yourself? We just gotta… scrunch up a little, it’s gonna be fine.”

There was a long silence.

“I am not used to sleeping among other people,” Solas said finally, his tone even. He wasn’t used to other people—flesh-and-blood people, that was—in general, Adaar suspected, but she kept it to herself. Right now was probably a bad time to bring that one up.

“Alright, no spooning then,” she said instead and sat down and stretched out along one side of the bedding. Then she remembered she had to get rid of her shoes, untied them, and hucked them against an empty wall. Lying down, the scent of lavender became obvious amid the hay and fur; sprigs had been stuck to the corners to keep bugs away. She’d told him about that trick months ago.

It really was cozy; warm and inviting. She curled onto her side, drawing her feet up, and patted the mattress next to her. Slowly, Solas joined her, folding himself up so he took up even less space than usual. It was still a tight fit, especially since he tried to avoid any real contact beyond the brush of fabric.

“I will attempt to find you once we are dreaming,” he said. “With our current physical proximity it should be an easier task.”

“There’s really nothing else to it? We just fall asleep?”

“It is… difficult to put into words. Question your dreams, if you can. The key is to become aware—awareness begets agency, which in turn begets control.”

Adaar tugged the fur and blanket up to cover them. “Alright. Sleep well?” There was a flash of a smile on Solas’s face before he closed his eyes.

“I shall see you soon.”

It was not soon. Adaar’s mind refused to quiet, anticipation thrumming in her limbs. She kept shifting, unable to relax, and she worried she’d spend the entire night sleepless, when she finally woke up again to a dark, quiet cave. 

She must have fallen asleep at some point, then? So was this the Fade? It didn’t feel different. She was sleepy and bleary-eyed just as she would be when waking up in the middle of the night, and a cursory examination of the cave with a bit of conjured light—a spell that behaved no differently than any previous time she’d used it—told her it looked exactly as it had when they had bedded down. Except…

Solas lay tucked against her front, his body warm, his breathing even. His temple rested against her collarbones and his folded legs leaned against her hips. He was curled up as he’d been before, but now it seemed less about making himself smaller, and more about fitting into the curve of her body.

Adaar stared into the darkness. That was… unexpected. Solas didn’t seek out physical contact. Sure, he usually melted into it for one or two seconds when it was offered before pulling away, but nothing like this.

Cautiously, she tried to brace herself on her elbow to get a better look, both at the cave and at him. She bit down on a sharp inhale when pins and needles erupted in the limb, breathing through it with care until the sensation passed. But even on a thorough second look, nothing changed. The cave was still the cave, nothing remotely immaterial about it, and Solas still slept soundly, curled up against her.

Part of her wanted to wake him up. Let him know it hadn’t worked, at least not yet, and try to figure out what might be changed, because merely the thought of consciously walking in the Fade was enough to make her heart beat faster.

But he looked so much younger in his sleep. His features softened and relaxed, like he might actually be at peace. Adaar wasn’t sure she had ever managed to catch him this unguarded. When they were together, it felt like he hardly stopped watching her.

She let out a small sigh and settled back down, gently wrapping one arm around his waist. Hopefully that wouldn’t upset him, if he woke up before her come morning. Right now at least, a soft, sleepy noise slipped from him, and he rolled even more thoroughly into her embrace.

big whale girlfriends have big hands part 2, aka saar and kubide being very besotted with their tiny eldritch god boyfriend, aka the other half of this

(merfolk au, kubide belongs to @wanderingnork)