Chapter Text
Humans have the strangest stories about Dalish alphas and omegas, she’s found.
There are the slanderous ones, of course. The ones she already knows they tell; of how Dalish alphas will kidnap human omegas, rape them, kill them in blood rituals and sacrifices to their gods. Of how Dalish omegas are beguilers, luring human alphas and betas off into the dangerous wilds, where waiting demons will kill them. Tall tales that seem to speak more towards the humans’ erotic fantasies than to her own people’s practices.
Then there are the stories that are not quite like those, but still reveal a wealth of ignorance. Not that her people are precisely open on the subject – for good reason – but still. The presumption that Dalish alphas and omegas are swiftly bonded is a persistent one. It baffles her, a bit, because only human nobles bond consistently at a young age. But then she learns that the city elves tend to bond young, too, to keep their alphas calmer and their omegas less likely to be targeted by predatory humans, and the presumption makes more sense.
There are stories of Dalish omegas being kept constantly pregnant, in an effort to repopulate the clans, and stories of Dalish betas being castrated, and stories of Dalish alphas being so fierce in a rut that their fellows must chain them down if they are unbonded. Of her people forbidding same-type bonds and couples that cannot reproduce, as if the only thing they are concerned with in regards to maintaining their population is how quickly they might make children.
She thinks of being nine years old, and helping Deshanna – then their clan’s first – plant a sapling on a tiny grave. Tirin’s baby. Born on the trek south, after the hunting grounds were picked clean, and they had no choice but to move. Too little to eat, even with the hunters setting out every time the clan stopped; Tirin’s alpha always the first to go, never coming back without something. But it hadn’t been enough. Making babies takes energy, da’len, Deshanna had told her. All the adults in the clan had cut back on their rations, as much as they could without exhausting themselves (ostensibly; some, she knew, had entirely exhausted themselves).
Still Tirin’s body had turned on itself, wasting away as it tried to make food for the baby. A baby that was born unmoving and breathless, while Tirin wept, beaten down and nearly dead in turn. So it had gone. Another body for the earth, and poor Tirin too weak to do much of anything, and the hunters exhausted, everyone hungry, everyone tired, grief-stricken and somber.
But that isn’t what humans think of, when they tell their tall tales. They don’t think of food, of travel, of mud, of sickness, of how much work every member of a clan has to do; of how much harder all of that is when a body is burdened with child, and then with an infant. No. They think of pregnant omegas and ravishing alphas and servile betas, living some savage fantasy life, where pregnancy just means a swollen belly, and babies are all born pink and healthy and giggling, no doubt. Where the Dalish live the ‘simple’ life as seen through the daydreams of idle nobility.
The stories make her angry, at first.
Then they just make her tired.
“I have heard that the Dalish do not treat their omegas well,” Solas tells her, one evening. She looks up, and wonders if this is his way of telling her he’s caught the traces of her scent, somehow, and pegged her status. They’re in Haven, the both of them perched on a low wall, having been caught up in idle conversation a few moments before.
“I have heard that, too,” she says, wryly. “I have also heard that we kidnap babies, sacrifice virgins to our gods, and have naked orgies under the moonlight.”
Solas glances at her.
“A fair point,” he concedes.
They lapse into silence again, and she wonders if that will be the end of it. But it seems he is curious. It seems everyone is inordinately curious about this; last week, the other high-ranking members of the Inquisition had been exceptionally keen on pinning down where she fell on the spectrum of alpha, beta, and omega. Josephine had seemed convinced that, since she was a hunter, she must be an alpha. Leliana, to her credit, had known a little more, and refuted that notion. Cullen had bowed out of the discussion.
“Forgive me. That was a poor start to such a conversation,” Solas says, at length. “Perhaps you would be willing to share some of your culture’s standards for such things with me?”
She raises an eyebrow at him.
“That was much more eloquently done,” she commends.
His lips twitch. He inclines his head.
She thinks of when she was fourteen. One of the alpha boys, just shy of being old enough for his vallaslin, was deep in the midst of a difficult rut when he tried to grab her. Her heart had hammered in her chest at the way he snatched her arm, nostrils flaring as he inhaled; right before two other alphas, not in their seasons, had tackled him into the dirt. He’d been doused in cold water, and scolded thoroughly; and when the fog had cleared from his head, he’d offered her a very sincere apology. So different from how the humans seem to approach things. Locking their unbonded away, to suffer alone and seemingly never learn any self-control, instead of just watching them. Though she supposes it’s much easier to be able to lock your people away when you can spare the labour, and when your homes are made of wood and stone and don’t need to be light enough to carry.
“There’s not much to it, really,” she says. “When you present, the keeper or the first takes you aside and explains all the biology of it. You’re warned not to bond until after you have your vallaslin, and to never make unwelcome overtures, and to control your urges and do right by the rest of the clan. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, but any time an unbonded elf is-” she gestures to her eyes, indicating the fog of bodily urges that can settle over those in rut or heat, “- they’re watched so that they don’t do anything they’ll regret later. And there are medicines to mask the scents and make it much more bearable. Still, I’ve doused my fair share of clanmates in buckets of water. Other than that, we respect our bonds as sacred, and respect our bodies for what they’re capable of.”
Solas glances at her.
“And there are no restrictions, then? On what type of person may perform which tasks, or hold which professions?” he asks.
“What, like what the qunari do?” she asks. Then she snorts. “No. I mean, we’re not perfect. Some people think that omegas shouldn’t hunt or scout, or roam far from the clan, because they’re afraid of humans scenting them and wanting to carry them away. But then, if that’s going to happen, mostly it’s better all around if they know how to use a bow and knife. It’s not as if the clan as a whole is ever really safe. We can’t afford the luxury of keeping someone who is good at a job from performing it.”
Solas stares at her a moment, before finally glancing away.
“That sounds… reasonable,” he concedes.
“Such a shock! The savages, being reasonable!” she can’t help but rib, pressing a hand to her heart and feigning an exaggerated faint. The tilt takes her towards Solas, who raises an eyebrow at her as she nudges his shoulder.
“Am I that bad?” he asks her.
“You’re better than most humans. And some City Elves,” she concedes, because it’s true. “This morning Cassandra asked me why I couldn’t just squeeze the Maker into the elvish pantheon. I nearly asked her why she couldn’t just put up a few statues of Mythal to go with Andraste. You know. Like a matched set. But then I recalled that I am surrounded by armed religious fanatics, and thought the better of it.”
Solas offers her a slightly strained smile.
“Likely for the best,” he tells her.
She nods in agreement, and lets the conversation drift off onto other topics.
She keeps her status unconfirmed for as long as she can. It’s not that hard. Humans and qunari alike seem to assume that anyone who’s off killing things is an alpha, or perhaps a beta. She’s known the teas and salves for masking her scent ever since Deshanna showed her what to gather for them, and how to make them. And she’s not the only one who prefers ambiguity. Iron Bull likes to keep people guessing, and so does Varric. Cole is also up in the air; though given his nature, that’s as likely to be because he’s a spirit as anything else.
Solas keeps himself to himself, misleading in any number of directions at any given time. Vivienne proudly announces herself as an alpha, but she recognizes as a number of ingredients in the woman’s stores, and knows what sort of pheromones they’re meant to duplicate. Alphas don’t have any need for such things, so far as she’s aware; though, of course, she could be wrong.
It’s not a tidbit of information she’d ever feel inclined to share with anyone else, regardless.
She herself doesn’t go so far as to pretend. Just mask.
Of course, she travels, frequently. Familiar ingredients are not always easy to come by in all regions. Long campaigns don’t often allow for the luxury of extraneous supplies, and there are more than a few occasions where she finds herself cutting things very close before they get to Skyhold. Especially as weeks drag into months, and she knows her heat is looming.
It’s not normally too much of a worry. More of an annoyance; a high libido, and the need to be around clearer heads to make sure she doesn’t do something stupid, like jump some random passerby who happens to smell good. But under the circumstances, she doesn’t imagine things going quite so smoothly.
And then it happens. They’re out in the Exalted Plains, closing rifts, killing demons, and in the aftermath of a battle, on a gust of wind, she catches a very distinctive scent.
Omega.
Strong enough to be on the cusp of heat. No more than a few weeks off, probably. The scent is organic in the way all bodily odours are. Less musky than alpha in rut. Very similar to the scent that comes off of blood lotus blossoms when they’re crushed; which sounds unpleasant. But it’s not, not really. It’s just omega. Like her own scent, if ever-so-slightly different.
She looks for the source, and catches Solas’ gaze from the other side of the battlefield. Cassandra and Cole are further afield, out of the wind. Everything else is dead. There is no other possible source for that smell, and they both know it.
Oh, she thinks. That was why he had asked her about how the Dalish treat omegas.
Before Cole and Cassandra can make their way back, she crosses towards Solas. To her surprise, as soon as she gets near, he takes an immediate step back.
“Inquisitor,” he says, warily; as if he thinks she might…
Right.
Because he’s almost in heat, and he knows she just smelled him, and she kissed him in the Fade, when neither of them had any idea how either of them presented.
She offers him a reassuring smile. Makes eye-contact, and keeps her hands to herself.
“It’s alright, Solas,” she says. “I have some extra supplies. Come with me, before Cassandra catches up and gets a nosefull.”
Up go his eyebrows.
He doesn’t seem quite sure of what to say. After a moment, she starts heading back towards their camp. Cole, she notes, is delaying Cassandra. The Seeker looks a little annoyed, but not dangerously so. Solas hesitates a beat before falling into step alongside her. When they get within range of the camp, and the Inquisition agents tending it, she makes him wait downwind. Then she goes and retrieves her extra pack, and sequesters him briefly out of sight, handing him some of her better powders and salves.
She guesses he doesn’t much care for the tea that’s typically used for this.
He accepts her offerings with quiet thanks, and returns the leftovers a short while later; the scent utterly gone, and some of the tension in his shoulders marginally relaxed.
“You sweat off the last of yours?” she guesses.
“I miscalculated,” he confirms.
Then he shifts on his feet for a moment, before drawing in a breath and looking at her.
“I take it you are an omega as well, then?” he asks.
She nods once, in confirmation, as she stows her items away.
“Perhaps it is for the best. It certainly simplifies things. It may have simplified them far sooner, if we had known from the beginning…” he says, with some definite sorrow leaking into his tone. His hands are folded behind his back.
She blinks at him.
“What?” she asks.
“You are an omega. I am an omega. As I understand it, this is not considered a compatible romantic partnership,” he says.
Her heart sinks.
“You… you don’t want to be with another omega?” she asks. She would have thought that if such details mattered to him, he would have been much more keen on acquiring them well before they reached this point.
Solas stills, taking in her expression.
“That is not what I said,” he replies. “But I would assume you would not wish to be with another omega.”
“Why would you think that?” she asks, baffled and not just a little hurt.
He hesitates, seemingly at a loss. They stand in the open air, just beyond the camp, still tucked neatly out of sight. He hadn’t smelled at all bad, she’d thought. Some alphas and omegas, she knew, couldn’t stand the scent of their own. It had a repellant quality. But some never experienced that; in the clan, not being repelled was generally considered a good thing. It kept you clear-headed. It meant you weren’t liable to let your nose make too many choices for you.
“Forgive me. That was presumptuous,” Solas says.
One of his hands curls around her cheek. He leans in, and her breath catches for just a moment, before he presses his lips to hers. Soft and warm. Gentle; and she likes him gentle, just as she likes him passionate, and surprising.
Her mouth moves against his. She reaches out, grasping his vest and reeling him in closer.
When he pulls back, she chases after him a little. Catches his lips again, and drags him into yet more kisses, until they finally part in earnest.
“You smelled nice,” she tells him.
He smiles, and then sighs, deeply.
“Thank you,” he says.
They leave it at that, for the time being, and make their way back to camp; before Cassandra starts sending out search parties.
Solas’ heat is closing in, but she doesn’t press the matter. Not beyond making certain he has whatever supplies he needs. Closer to, she hands him a cup full of strong-smelling tea. He makes a face, but downs the whole cup without objection. Better to have one foul drink in the morning than to spend the entire day foggy-headed and sexually frustrated.
But by the time his heat actually starts, rifts in northern Ferelden have called her away. She leaves him with a packet of ingredients and plenty of supplies – but she worries. No one else knows and that’s probably for the best, but it also means that Solas is, in many ways, alone. There is no clan to close around him, should something go wrong. She is not there to defend him, should he need defending, or to pull him back and help him regain control, should he lose clarity. She leaves Cole behind, but there’s only so much the wayward spirit can do.
Even so, she finds herself eager to return. More terse than usual, and more vicious in dispatching her opponents. It earns her a few knowing looks, which is a little alarming, until she realizes that Vivienne seems to think she’s an alpha on the cusp of a rut.
Well.
She supposes she’s playing the part, however inadvertently.
It makes her cautious when they return to Skyhold, though. If people think she’s an alpha, any moves she makes towards Solas might run the risk of them accidentally guessing the truth of his own secret, and her protective hackles are still high.
Presumptions are such a strange thing.
She remembers being fifteen years old, on one of her first proper hunts. Everything had been going well, until they’d stumbled onto a group of shemlen hunters. A larger party than their own. All of them alphas and betas, half of them bristling with pent-up energy, their heads filled with wild stories and their hormones running high. The alphas scented the omegas in their party, and got some ideas. A fight had broken out.
The alphas had been the first to rush the human hunters, that was true. And they fought and snarled and snapped out curses, insults, and warnings. But it had been the two omegas in their party who led her up a nearby tree. The elder of them, who had held her bow steadily, and said ‘watch carefully, da’len’, and began firing arrows. Whistling, swift arrows, that struck throats and eyes and killed without pretense.
She had known that was in her, too. That alphas all too often had something to prove to other alphas. Superiority, strength, that they were better and stronger and more resilient. It turned everything between them into a contest. But for omegas, there is no contest. When things are dangerous, it is a matter of defending what is important, as thoroughly and remorselessly as you can.
Alphas shout.
Omegas shoot.
But even that, she knows, is not constant. Even that is just another set of suppositions; albeit ones that run against the grain among humans, who seem to think that alphas fight and omegas cower. That betas are sad, somehow, and not simply people who are freed from the inconvenience of all these intense biological drives.
That if someone is being viciously protective, they’re acting like an alpha; and if someone is being cautiously defensive, they are acting like an omega. As if these qualities are not in everyone.
The end result is that when she gets back to Skyhold, she forces herself to avoid the rotunda for a little while. She gets updates on everyone’s status from Josephine, which is usual of her. Nothing out of the ordinary is reported. She asks about repairs, and has another conversation about that hole in the wall on the way to the War Room, and makes certain no one has been giving Cole grief, that the Chargers got back from their latest assignment alright, that Solas still has enough supplies for his murals.
“They are coming along quite nicely,” Josephine says, without hesitation or any knowing quality to her tone.
Good.
She waits until after lunch, and then heads over to see the latest additions for herself. She’s a little surprised to realize that Solas isn’t in there.
Still. She examines the frescoes, and goes and chats with Dorian for a while, before she lets a twinge of worry in, and sets out searching.
She checks the grounds, and the basement library, and the gardens, and all the while makes it look like she’s just doing her usual rounds. She chats with people, and finally decides she needs to get into some more comfortable clothing if she’s going to keep this up, and heads for her chambers.
She stops, stock still, when she sees Solas sitting on her balcony.
A quick sniff confirms that something has gone wrong.
She turns on her heel, and leaves the chambers again. Locks the door behind her, and goes and fetches a few pails of water, and lets the servants think they’re for a prank she’s humouring Sera with. She carries them up, and locks the door again, and settles them onto the floor of her chambers. Just in case. She remembers what Deshanna told her, about how sometimes, in the midst of very intense heats, remedies sometimes failed to work. Especially if the elf in question hasn’t been using them regularly.
She supposes Solas, off on his own, hasn’t had much need to disguise what he is, or to worry about controlling himself around others.
When she approaches the balcony again, she can see it on him. The flush of his skin, the way he turns in towards the cool air. The glaze over his eyes. She wonders how long he’s been there. If he’s had anything to eat, or drink.
“Solas?” she says, carefully.
He turns towards her.
“You’re back,” he says.
Then he starts to cry.
She winces in sympathy. Heats are a cocktail of urges, easily confused, and often overwhelming. Unbonded heats, when endured, can often provoke feelings of inadequacy. Rejection. Even if there is no one around to reject you, even if, in your right mind, you would not want a mate, there is a primal pull that often insists that being unbonded in such a state is a sign of being unwanted. It’s a fear that makes all other loneliness burn just that much more strongly.
She can’t help but wonder how many times Solas has felt this. Endured this. Alone, with no clan to help; safe from unwanted advances, but also bereft of support and protection.
“Here, now, vhenan,” she croons, dropping down onto the balcony beside him. “You are not alone.”
She gets her arms around him. A little risky, but he’s too addled to use magic, she thinks, and she’s got those buckets of water close by if it comes to it. Though she’s not quite prepared for what the scent of him does to her. He leans in towards her, and she thanks everything for the dampening effect of tears on libido, because ‘not repellant’ is wholly inadequate for describing his up-close scent in the full throws of heat. It is electrifying. She wants to…
Well do a whole lot of things that she absolutely will not be doing, because consent given in the midst of incoherent biological drives is not consent at all.
There are other urges to be indulged, though. Like the one to hold him, and whisper comforting things, and smooth her hands firmly across the backs of his shoulders. She’s glad she’s still in her gear, then. He pulls at a few of her buckles and mouths at the skin of her neck once or twice, but he’s too addled to undress her, and the kisses stop when she gently presses his face to her shoulder instead.
“I am sorry,” he says. “I am so sorry.”
She sighs and pats his back.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Solas. It’s just your heat, alright? You decided you didn’t want a partner for this heat, and that’s perfectly sensible of you.”
“I want you,” he tells her, and noses himself up to kiss the underside of her jaw.
Her heart flips.
She kisses his brow, in return, and makes more soothing noises at him. Carefully reaches for the hand that has crept up to her breast, and moves it back down again.
“I want you too, vhenan. Maybe next time, hmm? If you still want to, when you’re not delirious.”
“No,” he says. “It will be too late. You will not want me, then. You will hate me, and I will die alone. And I will deserve to.”
Maudlin one, isn’t he? Not that it’s terribly surprising, given what he’s like outside of his heat.
“I promise that won’t happen,” she tells him.
“You do not understand. It is all my fault,” he insists.
“Hush,” she says. “Nothing is your fault. Nothing is wrong. I have you; you can just relax, alright? Relax and ride this out. Come on, vhenan. I’ll keep you safe.”
She coaxes him to his feet, then, and manages to get him into her bed. There’s no way she’s letting him cross the keep like this. As it stands, she’s grateful her rooms are so far-removed from everywhere else. She keeps them open, airing them out over the distant mountainside, and leaves briefly to go and get some food and water, and tend to a few matters, and to tell the servants not to disturb her chambers.
There will be gossip about that.
She’ll survive it.
Hopefully, none of it will touch Solas at all. He can be reclusive, when so inclined. There’s a chance no one will even notice his absence.
For… probably several days.
…Alright, it’s a slim chance, but maybe she’ll think of something.
When she gets back, she hears the familiar sounds of someone lost in the throws of heat, attempting to, ah, alleviate the discomfort. A bolt of warmth shoots straight through her at the thought. She makes herself wait in the stairwell, though, humming lightly and trying not to listen too closely. Poor Solas. She’d carefully swept by his room and checked on his supplies. They’d been depleted quite severely; he’d tried taking increased amounts, she guesses, when it stopped working as it should.
But he’d probably known this was coming. She’s glad he opted to hide in her chambers. That he figured out it was a good place, in terms of air flow and solitude; and also that he’d trusted her enough not to worry that she’d take advantage if she came back and found him.
She won’t let that trust prove misplaced.
When silence descends, she gives it a few minutes, and then makes her way back into her chambers. Solas sits up in her bed, looking clear-headed enough to be embarrassed.
She offers him her best, most reassuring smile.
“You should eat. And more importantly, drink,” she tells him.
“The… remedies were insufficient,” he says.
“You haven’t taken them for a while?” she asks.
He glances at her, cheeks flushed from any and all number of things, and shakes his head.
With a nod, she lowers the tray of food down onto the bed.
“I’ll write to my keeper, and see if she knows of anything that could help. Sometimes, elves who go too long without using them seem to find them ineffective, at first. You should still keep drinking the tea, though. It’ll shorten the duration, and should make next time easier.”
Solas swallows.
“I apologize,” he says. “I should return to my own chamber.”
“Right. The room next to the servants’ quarters, in the thick of the keep, where anyone with half a nostril will scent you clear through the door, if they don’t all smell you on your way there. Which they will,” she says. “As fond as I’m becoming of some of these humans, I would not trust them at all with an elven omega in heat. You did the right thing, coming here. I want you to stay – and I promise I won’t let anything too untoward happen.”
Solas looks like he might start crying again. So she nudges the tray a little closer to him, and clasps his shoulder.
“It’s alright,” she assures him. “I’ll go write that letter. And I’ll come back with more disgusting tea for you to wrinkle your nose at, and some books to try and distract you. Any requests?”
He lets out a heavy breath. Closes his eyes, and manages to give her a short list. When she retracts her hand, he catches it, briefly. Squeezes, before letting go again.
“Thank you,” he says.
There are a thousand assurances she could give him. That she would do the same for anyone in his position (which is true, though she’d probably have used the water buckets rather than indulging in some cuddles). That she thinks he would do the same for her. That she understands this trial, and won’t hold any of it against him. But he’s still in heat, and she’s been there, too, and she knows what actually reassures an omega in this state is nothing along those lines. Logic has gone away for a while.
So she leans forward and presses a soft kiss to his lips, instead.
“I’ll come back,” is what she says. “You’ll be safe here, in the meanwhile.”
He shudders, just a little. One of his hands reaches for her again, but he catches himself this time. She offers him another smile, and then goes.
When she returns, he’s drowsing. She’s got tea, and a flask of water to wash out the taste of the tea, and the books he asked for. Despite her liberal ventilation of the chamber, the scent of him is still thick in the chilly air.
Well, she figures, if it’s going to smell like this anyway, she might as well make things warmer. She closes some of the shutters, and lights the hearth. Takes away the food tray – he ate most of it, good – and places the books he wanted onto the bedside table. He watches her through half-lidded eyes, barely awake. And barely clothed, it seems; if the pile of fabric next to the bed is any indication, he’s wormed his way out of it all.
She tries not to think about him naked under there. Focuses on how she’s going to wash the sheets – she could air them out on her balcony a bit, and maybe clean them herself when it’s late. Or just pack them up somewhere once his heat’s done, and give it a while before she actually washes them. Not a luxury the clan could afford, leaving blankets unused until the scent on them goes stale, but in Skyhold, it’s another matter.
She brushes his cheek. Gently gets him sitting up. He pushes the blankets down low, and licks his lips, but otherwise behaves himself as she gets him to drink his tea. His nose scrunches and his brows twist, and he takes the water urgently afterwards, desperate to rid himself of the bitter taste.
“Well done,” she tells him, as she takes cup and flask away, and adds them to the detritus on his tray.
“Vhenan’ara,” he rasps, pushing at the blankets. Revealing a tantalizing strip of skin.
She catches his wrists, her own cheeks flaming. Heart speeding. She scolds herself, thoroughly, as he twists towards her, his expression pleading. A string of unfamiliar elven floods out of him. She has no idea what the words themselves mean, but the tone is unmistakable, especially coming from an omega in heat. Contrition, for some imagined failing. Insecurity. Please, please, forgive me, for whatever failing I have that means you don’t want me. Please want me.
“Vhenan’ara, ma sa’lath, it’s alright. You just have to wait, alright? You just have to be strong, and wait,” she tells him, affirming his status, soothing him as best she can without crossing that certain line between them.
“No,” he murmurs. “I cannot. If I wait, I will lose you. And I want you. I want you, so badly. Will you not claim me?”
“Hush,” she says.
He struggles.
Leaning forward, she closes her teeth – just gently – over the skin of his throat. Then lets go of one of his wrists so that she can grip the back of his neck, too, for good measure. She holds him like that until his pulse begins to calm. Until he starts making supplicating gestures, tilting his jaw back and going limp, and then she gets him back under the covers and presses a kiss to his brow.
“I have you,” she promises.
He hangs onto her.
“I am sorry,” he says, again.
She sighs.
“Okay, then. All’s forgiven,” she says, smoothing a hand over his head.
“You do not even know what I am apologizing for,” he says, now turning sullen and just a shade grouchy. She bites back at a smile. Grumbling is better than morose, anyway.
“Given your state, I’m not entirely convinced you know what you’re apologizing for,” she says, putting a hand on one of his hips to stop him from curling towards her under the blankets.
His expression falls.
“I know what I am apologizing for,” he insists.
Then he tears up again.
Despite her best efforts, he ends up crying himself to sleep. Still. At least he does sleep. She arranges some cushions up against his back and wedges another one into his arms, and sets herself up in front of the hearth; dragging her small couch over to it, and curling onto it with a spare blanket.
In the end, it takes three days for the worst of Solas’ heat to clear, and for his scent to go down to manageable levels. It’s a short enough stretch of time that she manages to convince everyone that he’s got the flu, instead, and that’s she being over-protective because of whatever instincts the rumour mill cares to assign her. Overbearing alpha, anxious omega, or doting beta – however it strikes them.
It does, though, have the unintended side-effect of accelerating her own heat. Fortunately, though, she hasn’t been living alone for the past however-many years, so she just takes her tea and uses her salves, and deals with a few exceptionally horny evenings and mornings. And if she hovers around Solas a bit more than usual, he doesn’t say anything about it. Though she does find that all of her cupboards have been restocked of certain ingredients shortly before her season starts, with a note in his hand writing that simply reads ‘thank you’.
So it goes.
When he takes her to the glen in Crestwood, they’re both clear-headed and well away from their respective heats. She’s expecting, all things considered, that he’ll ask her to bond with him. Maybe not formally. There’s still a lot of politics to consider, and so far as she can tell, only Leliana has figured out that something’s going on between them. It’s good to keep up the ambiguity, she thinks. Safer.
But really, she would have him in a heartbeat.
That’s… not what happens, though.
The ‘pining omega’ is a perception that spans cultural divides, it seems. She hates to play into the role. But she does, anyway. All of her own anxious instincts rise up, whispering her inadequacies and insecurities to her, insisting that of course she is not enough for him; of course someone like Solas would want an alpha to claim him. Not some jumped-up fellow omega with too little sense and all the wrong instincts.
He’s long gone the next time her heat rolls around.
And it’s really unfortunate, because things absolutely do not work so smoothly.
For three weeks, a blizzard snows them in at Skyhold. Which ordinarily wouldn’t be much of an issue, but she’s already running low on the supplies. She tends forage for them herself, for privacy. But politics had kept her busy in the keep, and then the weather meant that no one could leave. She had hoped she might squeak by.
No such luck. She starts to notice the signs of her heat coming on about a week into the blizzard, and she knows it’s no good. Going into heat means she’ll need more supplies than usual. She can’t ration what she has to last that long, not even if she manages to sequester herself as much as possible.
Trying not to panic, she considers her options. She has trusted friends here. She tells herself that, even as some deep, ingrained part of her brain begins to gibber in fear because she’s surrounded by humans and her clan is gone, and she’s unbonded, unwanted, can’t lock the door and hide in here forever. She’s got weapons, so at least she can defend herself. If it comes to it. If she has to.
She might have to.
But there’s still some hope. She tells Sera, first. Partly because she trusts Sera, and partly because Sera can drum up the strangest things when required, and in a lot of ways because Sera’s an elf, and that makes it easier right now.
There’s no way she can pass it off as a rut. Not with the ingredients she needs. Better to just be upfront, then.
“You’re fucking shitting me,” Sera says.
“I am really, truly not,” she replies, with an uncomfortable laugh.
Sera’s eyes go wide, then. But to her credit she does her absolute best to see what she can find. It’s not much; human omegas are heavily discouraged from military work, and Skyhold’s servants are mostly betas. Sera herself is an alpha. Dwarves need different sorts of things to manage their cycles, so there isn’t an over-abundance of what she needs just lying around the keep. Still. It buys her another couple of days.
She uses them to come clean with her advisors. Because really, now, there’s nothing else for it. She’s going to have to ride it out until the storm breaks and someone can go get her what she needs, and if that’s what has to happen, then she’ll have to trust her friends to keep her safe, and keep it quiet, and see to it she gets things like food and water and the privacy she needs.
In the clan, it would scarcely have been in an issue.
Here, it feels like she’s shoving her neck between a dragon’s jaws.
To their credit, Josephine and Leliana take it in stride, the former betraying only a brief shock, and the latter assuring her that everything will be fine. Cullen stares at her, awkwardly, and then blurts an apology. Then he apologizes for his apology. He seems a little stunned by the whole thing.
Even so, it probably would have worked out if not for the servant.
Day one into the thick of things, she’s doing her best to ignore the worst of her body and mind’s reactions to the whole situation when a servant, essentially, breaks into her chambers. She hears the lock scrape, and barely has the coherence to register the problem before the elf comes in. A new recruit. Slightly taller than average, but very polite. She doesn’t recall his name. He stops in the threshold, and stares at her. His nostrils flare. A moment later, he slams the door shut and beats a hasty retreat.
The damage is done, though. Word spreads around the keep, and soon enough one of Leliana’s birds delivers her a missive on her balcony, explaining that the servant has vanished, and the secret is out.
She’s not sure if the servant was willing to brave the blizzard after outing her to the entirety of the Inquisition, or if Leliana ‘vanished’ them. Either possibility seems quite likely. In the throes of her solitary heat, it just feels like one more blow, guaranteed to reduce her to a sobbing mess in the middle of her bed.
The bed Solas spent his own heat in.
She misses him.
But he didn’t want her, in the end.
The thought sends her tumbling into despair. All hope of pretense lost, she curls into her blankets and weeps, whispering pleas into the air as her temperature spikes and lust gathers up in her, catching her in a miserable limbo of frustration and self-loathing. When she finally falls asleep, it’s to strange, disjointed dreams of fire and jagged things. Nightmares where she calls out and no one calls back. Where there is no reprieve, until abruptly, something catches her.
Solas, closing his arms around her.
“Please,” she asks him. “I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. Please, please come back.”
“You have done nothing wrong, vhenan,” he soothes.
She shakes her head.
“I must have. You left. I must have,” she insists.
“Hush. No. If anything in this world could have compelled me to stay, it would have been you,” he swears.
She does not believe him. Why couldn’t he stay, then? Or if he had to go, why not ask her to go with him? She would have. She loved him; loves him still. And she would have done her best for him. She’s no alpha, but she would have tried, she would have given her all to make him happy. She murmurs this to him as she clutches him in her dream, too confused to understand that he’s not really there. Sometimes Solas is real in dreams. Her heat-addled mind can’t seem to recall that he hasn’t been ever since he left. That there would be no reason for him to suddenly be real now. That he probably doesn’t even know what’s happening to her; that even with the whole of Skyhold knowing, there’s no way for the secret to pass beyond its walls.
“Please,” she says.
She’s crying.
He’s crying, too, she thinks. Why is he crying? Is he in heat as well? Is he safe, wherever he is? Does he have people to look after him?
She can’t get an answer from him on that, before the dream fades away.
She wakes to the dark, and to the frantic desperation of her biology, which only clears once she’s tended to it somewhat. She tangles in her blankets and tries to get a grip. She slips in and out of consciousness and coherence. Dreams and imagines things. Like the ceiling vanishing. Like the Breach coming back.
Like the door to her chamber opening again.
Some part of her brain notes that this is ridiculous. She managed to keep Solas sequestered in here for days, with none of the servants any the wiser and no one trying to pick the damn lock, and she was the only one helping him. She has three advisors and Sera, and still, random people keep getting into the room.
The thought dies when she sees who it is, though.
She’s dreaming again, then.
“Solas?” she breathes.
He’s hooded, and clad in odd gear, but she barely registers that. She can only see half his face, but her own hyper-sensitive nose catches on the scent of him, just faintly. Buried, but there. Solas. He came for her. She almost falls out of the bed trying to scramble towards him, and a moment later he hurries to her, in turn, pushing back the hood from his head.
“You came,” she says. “Vhenan’ara, please, please.”
“I have you,” he replies. His voice breaks. He puts his arms around her, and lets her cling to him.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him.
He runs a hand down her back. Something frayed and broken inside of her settles a little more easily.
“You have nothing to apologize for, my heart. I am the one who owes you a thousand apologies.”
He doesn’t have to apologize, she thinks. He’s here. He’s here and his hands are on her, and she wants him, so, so badly. She fumbles at his clothing, until he catches her fingers and kisses them. Pulls the blankets more firmly around her, until she can’t move her arms much. Then he settles in at her back, his arms a reassuring weight around her.
“Solas,” she pleads.
“You are safe,” he tells her. “I am here, and I have you, and I will let nothing happen to you while you are like this. I swear it.”
It helps. She thinks it would help more if he would just climb under the covers, too, and bond with her. But his assurances do ease the jagged edge of fear in her chest, even if they do nothing to help with her painful arousal. After a moment she sighs, and sags against the pillows. She presses as much of herself to him as she can, and falls into a hazy state, restricted and frustrated but safe and sound.
Eventually, she falters between the blurry line of resting and wakefulness again.
When morning comes, she wakes to find herself tangled in her blankets. After a night’s sleep she’s a little more clear-headed. She thinks of her dreams, and her heart aches. It had felt so real, but of course, everything and nothing feels real when a heat is at its high points.
She’s sure she was dreaming.
Sure of it.
Until she finds the basket of supplies, sitting in the middle of her chambers. More than she would need to get her safely through her heat.
There’s a single note, tied to the top of it. Her hand shakes a little as she picks it up. Her eyes catch on familiar handwriting.
Ir abelas.