Sound in the tavern seems too-loud and too-quiet. Solas closes his eyes against the memory of it, the anticipation of it, the inevitability of pain. He looks down, and then up again, and determines there is no escape.
It is done. Over and gone.
"Because you are dead," He says, simply, and hears the grief in his own voice, like the shadow of a raised blade, "Because when you turned away, I killed you."
Fool that he is, he cannot deny it. He killed his friend, who had been loyal, because he had come to represent a threat— a threat to the plan, the cause, the People, as Solas saw it. As it was. He cannot even say, truthfully, that he would not do it again. Ruthlessness was a shining road that cut across all others, and a tempting one; Felassan, once turned against him, would have been a potent enemy, knowledgeable of all his secrets and capabilities. The risk had been too much to be borne.
And so Solas falls silent a moment, knowing Felassan will have anticipated that answer. Knowing he will want a breath to think on it. The conversation is, not unlike either of them, temporarily dead.
"I woke in a weakened state, and alone," Solas continues, eventually, "Working with what little I had, I eventually restored myself to something resembling strength and power enough to affect my old tools— despite the complications."
If indeed the Veilguard's interference and predations of the last of the surviving Evanuris could even be called so mild a name.
"There were... many setbacks. Some were nearly catastrophic. I..."
He cannot quite finish it. He had missed Felassan. Everything was harder, more lonely, and less certain, without his most constant companion. Without his friend. But that was unearned: there was no one to blame for the loss, other than himself. Solas closes his mouth, and says nothing more.
no subject
It is done. Over and gone.
"Because you are dead," He says, simply, and hears the grief in his own voice, like the shadow of a raised blade, "Because when you turned away, I killed you."
Fool that he is, he cannot deny it. He killed his friend, who had been loyal, because he had come to represent a threat— a threat to the plan, the cause, the People, as Solas saw it. As it was. He cannot even say, truthfully, that he would not do it again. Ruthlessness was a shining road that cut across all others, and a tempting one; Felassan, once turned against him, would have been a potent enemy, knowledgeable of all his secrets and capabilities. The risk had been too much to be borne.
And so Solas falls silent a moment, knowing Felassan will have anticipated that answer. Knowing he will want a breath to think on it. The conversation is, not unlike either of them, temporarily dead.
"I woke in a weakened state, and alone," Solas continues, eventually, "Working with what little I had, I eventually restored myself to something resembling strength and power enough to affect my old tools— despite the complications."
If indeed the Veilguard's interference and predations of the last of the surviving Evanuris could even be called so mild a name.
"There were... many setbacks. Some were nearly catastrophic. I..."
He cannot quite finish it. He had missed Felassan. Everything was harder, more lonely, and less certain, without his most constant companion. Without his friend. But that was unearned: there was no one to blame for the loss, other than himself. Solas closes his mouth, and says nothing more.