literature

Tea

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Literature Text

She starts drinking tea.

It starts two months after his disappearance and their victory. Lavellan lays her head down to sleep one night and finds herself in a wooded area she doesn’t recognise: the sound of a flowing river reaches her ears, but it is too rhythmic, too constant. A bird chirps the same tune over and over, and in the corner of her eye she spots a movement that shouldn’t be.

She has grown up on tales of terror of the dark fur and three red eyes of the dread wolf, but the terror of these tales pale in comparison to the way her heart almost stops beating at the sight of the huge wolf lurking amongst the trees.
The wolf catches her gaze but does not move, merely stares as Lavellan stares in horror through the copse of trees. It was the worst of omens, she had been taught, to see the dread wolf in your dreams. Once you were prey to the dread wolf, they said, you were never safe again.

Turning on her heel and breaking the dark gaze, she flees. The presence is always there behind her as she runs, as though the distance between them never increases. She reaches the river and skids, stumbles forwards with a jerk, landing knee first on a sharp rock-

-and jolts up in bed shaking and smelling of the sweat of the fearful.

- -

It happens each night for the next three weeks. Lavellan starts drinking the tea in the hope that her shorter hours of sleep will push away any dreams that may come. Largely unsuccessful, she finds herself staring at the murals for long hours in the night. She stares intently at the one of herself wrapped in the embrace of the wolf.

Had Solas known? Was that why he had broken everything off, left her alone in the world with a shattered heart?

It’s only when Leliana’s report comes in that everything clicks. She’s spent the last several hours staring at the painting, trying to decipher the meaning hidden behind it that she cannot grasp. The note comes, brief, centuries abandoned and no signs of any life for just as long, and a torrent of emotions hits her.

Anger, was he lying about his origins? But then confusion: Solas hadn’t lied about that, she could tell that much, but centuries old and abandoned strikes an uncomfortable chord in her mind that tells her she is missing the link.

Frustration, for an hour or two afterwards until she stares hard at the painting and wonders why he never depicted himself holding her. It clicks with a wave of nausea so strong that she brings back up her lunch and empties it in the bucket next to the ladder.

Her distress is so loud and soul-tearing that Cole comes to her in minutes. Watching from the doorway, he takes in her ragged breaths and the despair on her face.

“You love him. He loves you, but the pain is too strong, he needs to finish what he started. He never intended you to find out.”

Lavellan doesn’t reply, but Cole sits with her for an hour whilst she gathers her thoughts and her knees to her chest. It is with a watery, bitter smile that she turns to him when he pulls her to her feet.

“I’ve been taught my entire life to walk quietly amidst the forests, to never attract the attention of the Dread Wolf. And I ran straight into his arms and gave him my heart.”

- -

Knowing what she does, she downs the tea in pints. Lavellan paces back and forth in her room in the early hours of the morning to fend off the urge to sleep. She reads, draws, drinks and drinks the sweet tea in order to stay awake.Ponders for hours on the how and why, desperately trying to understand the reasons for Solas hiding his true identity and wondering what the Dread Wolf could possibly be up to.

On the morning after her second sleepless night, Dorian notices and threatens to tell Cassandra. She threatens injury with a snap and almost a snarl, and he backs off with a warning for her to sleep.

The third day, she cannot pay attention in the meeting in the war room. Lavellan brushes it off as an illness and ignores the look in Dorian’s eyes. Her arm muscles jerk when drinking her tea and she spills the hot liquid down the front of her shirt. Dark eyes close momentarily when seated and she doesn’t realise she’d briefly fallen asleep until she notices the looks on her companions faces.

The fourth day, when thinking of the horrible truth, she smashes a mirror with a book and nearly puts her foot through one of the windows in her room. Lavellan has a heated argument with a wolf in the corner of her room before Cullen bursts in with his sword drawn and she realises she is hallucinating.

She will not sleep, will not return to the forests with the river and him, the dread wolf, at her heels. He does not get to check up on her, he does not get to watch her without revealing it is him. She is a shaking, tremoring whirlwind of fury at the deception and paranoia at the reasons he could be watching, and she will not listen to Dorian’s arguments or the suggestion that she sleep when the sixth day comes around.

The eighth day, Josephine quietly replaces her tea with a herbal placebo which Dorian has cooked up. Lavellan doesn’t notice, so far gone in her sleep deprivation that she is, and she downs the teapot as usual.

Lavellan weeps desperately as she feels the sleep overcoming her: she clutches at her hair, knowing that this behaviour is not normal, it is insanity brought on by the lack of sleep but she doesn’t want to sleep. Lavellan does not wish to face the wolf, does not wish to let him know she knows.

And Solas must know she knows; if he has been trying to access her dreams for the past week, he must know that there could only be one reason why she would not sleep.

Lavellan crashes at her desk and opens her eyes in the now-familiar forest glade. Only this time, the wolf is gone and the elf stands in his place.
Aaand again, lifted from my tumblr where I seem to post everything nowadays :( I was so shocked by how well received this was on tumblr, so I thought I'd share it here! (even though I have sadly been inactive here for a very long time now).
© 2014 - 2024 TheCluelessUke
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CharronChellick's avatar
This is brilliant!