Chapter Text
"Fuck it," she said.
The Iron Bull laughed, and pounded his fists on the bar. "That's the spirit, boss!" Before she could protest, he grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her up onto his shoulder.
"Alright, who thinks they can out drink the woman who just fucking killed Corypheus?" A roar broke out across the crowd of people packed into the Herald's Rest. "Then get your ass over here and drink! Cabot, line' em up!"
A dozen brave souls had come to line up beside her, as the surly dwarven bartender poured out shots of something that looked harmlessly clear. Despite the fact that Cabot had started pouring down at the opposite end of the bar, she could already smell the fumes. Ellana was fairly sure it must be what Qunaris use to strip paint.
Sera shouted from halfway down the bar, "Down the hatch, Quizzy!" Apparently she'd gotten an early start, judging from the slur in her speech. Ellana picked up the tiny glass apprehensively, shrugged her shoulders, and knocked it back. A chorus of coughing and sputtering soon erupted, except for Bull, who was laughing hysterically.
Once the burn wore off, and the room righted itself again, she realized this was exactly what she needed - a drink. Or ten.
Dorian sidled up to her, wrapping his arm around her waist, "I'm very pleased to see you're taking my advice. Although I wouldn't let Bull order the drinks anymore, unless you really hate your internal organs." He managed to wave down a rather harried Cabot, and pull Ellana to a corner table along with two bottles of Tevinter red.
She honestly hadn't expected a Tevinter magister (or altus, rather, as he liked to remind her) to become her best friend. But his humor, confidence, and impeccably groomed facial hair had won her over. He also had excellent taste in wine. "Well, I'm not about to elbow my way back up there for glasses, so I'm afraid we'll be drinking from the bottle tonight," he said.
Ellana grinned, and pulled out her dagger, and removed the corks with a much practiced finesse. "Cheers," she said, tapping the neck of her bottle to his. She took a long drink and swallowed, sighing deeply.
"Now, why are we sighing? What happened to "fuck it"? I like "fuck it" - it's an excellent plan. One I plan to take up myself later on, and one I think you desperately need to seize upon as well." Dorian arched an eyebrow, and gave her a scathing look. "Please, Ell, don't spend your evening thinking about that twat, when there are any number of eligible men and women here who would be only too happy to help you forget him."
She gave him a feeble smile, "I'm trying."
Of course she was thinking about him, though. Solas. She'd seen him as her gentle, wise hahren at first. Despite his strange disdain for Dalish traditions, he always answered Ellana's questions with patience, and perhaps a hint of amusement at first. He seemed familiar to her, and in such a strange and puzzling place as Haven, surrounded by humans, she desperately needed something that didn't feel alien. Then slowly, hahren became vhenan. Every moment that her thoughts weren't filled with the Inquisition, with the immensity of what they were trying to accomplish, they were filled with thoughts of him. She'd loved him. She'd given herself to him completely. So fucking naive, she thought
And when he asked her to go to Crestwood, she'd been totally blindsided. His confession to her of the truth of her vallaslin - what she thought was her rite of passage, her connection to her history and heritage. He'd told her that was all a lie, that they weren't ritual tattoos, they were actually slave markings. She'd believed him, of course. And when he asked to remove them, she'd said yes. Of course. Because she saw the pain in his eyes, because she only wanted him to look at her love.
And then he fucking dumped me.
So she held it together, embraced the numbness that clouded her mind and body, and kept her head down. Weeks later, they'd marched off to the Valley of Sacred Ashes to fight Corypheus. By some miracle, they had won. And they all survived. Except that when the dust settled, Solas was nowhere to be found. She spent the three days it had taken to march back to Skyhold in silence during the day, in tears at night.
She knew Leliana's spies were scouring Fereldan, Orlais, and beyond, looking for Solas. She'd like to think it was solely on her behalf, but she knew that would be a lie. Despite the fact that he'd never really given any of her advisors or companions an explicit reason to mistrust him, she knew several of them did - deeply. And for him to disappear so suddenly, just as the Inquisition achieved the seemingly impossible, only heightened suspicion. The fact that this mysterious elven apostate, with a pretty flimsy backstory, had broken Ellana's heart... well, that was just the cherry on top, she supposed.
The crowd in the bar was loud and boisterous. Ellana took another long drink from the bottle of wine. "You know, I'm just so tired. Tired of running through almost two years worth of... everything in my mind, trying to figure out where I went wrong. How did I not see this coming? Why would he do this? And yes, I know, I am pitifully naive. But why just... string me along?" Her voice grew shaky, but louder. "Why not just cut me loose a long time ago, instead of dragging it out, if he knew he was going to leave in the end?
Dorian placed his arm around her, pulling her in and pressing her head onto his shoulder. "I don't know, Ell. Maker knows what was going through that bald head of his. Which, by the way, I've never quite understood..." She rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, sorry, I know, not really the time for that. But honestly, there's him, and then there's you. Was he blind? I don't even like women, and I'm slightly aroused just looking at you. Poor Cullen, I'm fairly sure he's walking around with a permanent erection at this point. Solas couldn't possibly think he was going to do any better."
She couldn't help but burst into giggles, "What are you talking about?"
Now it was Dorian's turn to roll his eyes. "Oh, please, Ellana. You are not possibly that naive. Our dear Commander would bark like a fucking mabari if you ordered him to! And it's not because you're the Inquisitor. When that dear, sweet chantry boy kneels down beside his bed at night, he's not praying to Andraste. Oh no, I'm sure he's filled with very unchaste thoughts about Andraste's Herald. And his hand is filled with..."
A deep blush spread across Ellana's cheeks as she interrupted him, "Really, Dorian! You are so... full of shit!" Cullen? It honestly had never even occurred to her.
"Full of shit, am I?" Dorian smirked, and patted her on the shoulder. "Well, he's right over there, so why don't we go see?"
"Dorian, no!"
Thankfully, she was rescued by Varric's approach. He eyed their half-empty bottles of wine, and frowned. "You just defeated some crazy ass darkspawn magister bent on destroying the world, and you're drinking this shit?" He plopped down three glasses and a bottle of Antivan Sip-Sip onto the table, and began pouring. "I thought I heard that "fuck it" was your motto for tonight? Because I've got a bottle full of it right here. And it won't melt the hair off your chest like that... whatever the hell that is Bull drinks. C'mon, be a good girl and take your medicine, Inquisitor."
Ellana took a sip of the dark amber liquid, and her eyes watered. She quickly downed the rest of the glass.
"That's the spirit!" Varric chuckled, and immediately began refilling. "So listen, this sitting in the corner and moping thing... you're kind of putting a damper on the whole celebratory vibe everyone's got going on. Tell you what, I'm going to keep filling this glass, and you're going to keep drinking until you lighten up, or pass out."
"Or drag our dear Commander back to your quarters." Dorian opined.
Varric burst into laughter, "Well, shit. I guess Curly's gonna die a happy man tonight."
Ellana poured herself another glass, and drank quickly. "Personally, I'm hoping for "pass out." Then I don't have to listen to you two cackling hens anymore. You really aren't as clever as you think you are." She began refilling her glass again.
"Oi, Quizzy! Get your arse up here, we're doin' shots again!" Sera shouted across the inn.
"Well, gentlemen, that's my cue." Ellana quickly drained the third glass of sip-sip, and rose from her chair, a bit too quickly. She grabbed the edge of the table, as the room began to tilt again. "It's time for the Herald of Andraste to officially get shitfaced."
---
The next morning, Ellana woke in her bed, fulled dressed. As she looked herself over, though, she realized that she was wearing someone else's boots, which were about three sizes too large. After her little pep talk from Dorian and Varric, the night was pretty blurry. She had a vague recollection of doing a duet of "Sera Was Never" with Maryden. And she remembered Sera being quite cross with her about this, until she promptly passed out under a table.
Why was the light so bright? The sun was trying to kill her. "Fuck it" was a very, very bad idea. Drinking was a very, very bad idea.
Ellana lied back in her bed, and watched the little motes of dust dance through the air, illuminated by the morning rays streaming in through the tall French doors. She suddenly felt very small. The enormity of the past months crashed down on her. She pressed a pillow over her face, willing herself not to cry. If she started, she feared she wouldn't be able to stop. Her breath came in ragged gasps. She pulled the pillow away, and blew out, watching the tiny specks scatter.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to wake up in an empty bed. Why did she feel like a lonely little girl again? Why did people always leave her? Her mother had died giving birth to her. She couldn't really mourn someone she'd never known. But the look on her father's face when he spoke of her... When he said how much she looked like her, how proud her mother would've been, how much she would've loved her - that look of bone deep sadness, the tears that pricked at the corners of his eyes. He was so strong, always strong for her, except when he talked about her mother. Ellana remembered feeling guilty that she couldn't share this sadness with him, like she was somehow betraying her mother's memory.
Then her father had died when she was ten. She remembered seeing the other hunters shouting for help, as they carried his limp body back into the camp. She remembered his pale face, and his torn and bloodied tunic. She remembered the Keeper and the other healers working frantically over him. But he was gone. And she was alone.
She was the natural choice to go to the Conclave. She was curious, and read everything she'd been able to beg, barter or steal. She was a skilled hunter, but her clan was hardly in short supply. And, though she'd always felt a general sense of belonging, there wasn't anyone who would really miss her. The explosion, the Mark, the title - Herald of Andraste - it was strange and overwhelming at first. But deep inside, she relished the sense that people needed her, relied on her. She slowly built a family of her own from the Inquisition she helped cobble together. For the first time, in a long time, the loneliness ebbed away.
At the center of all of this was Solas. He was the sun in her little universe. She was like a flower, always desperate to face him, eager to seek him out, bask in the light he cast. She thought she'd finally been enough for someone, enough to make them want to stay. But he'd left her all the same.
"No matter what comes, I want you to know that what we had was real."
She sat up, pushing her legs over the edge of the bed, resting her head in her hands. The tears came, hot and bitter.
If it was real, why did he leave?
The sun rose further over the peaks of the Frostbacks, and she tried to calm herself, taking slow, deep breaths, in through her nose, out through her mouth. She reminded herself over and over that she wasn't alone. She had people who cared for her. They were real.
She kicked off the mystery books, and walked to the washstand, splashing cool water onto her face. The longer she sat in her room alone, the easier it would be to pick her choices, her thoughts, her entire self apart. Corypheus was dead, but there was still work to be done.