Thank you for the @dadrunkwriting prompt, love! ❤️ 

This little drabble is partly self-insert, and partly inspired by the Hands On The Table series by @apostatehobolife. I seriously love that art series so much and it makes me want to die in the best way. 

Read on AO3 instead, and for some extra notes about this chapter. 

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Solas became aware of her presence a moment before he heard her voice.

“You’re still working?”

Elia’s fingers drifted lightly across his shoulders, and he broke his gaze from his sketch to look up at her. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I will soon be finished.” He gently blew a smattering of black chalk dust from his drawing then looked up at her again, only to realize his eyes were stinging with fatigue.

“What time is it?” he asked.

She leaned her hip gently against his shoulder. “It’s past one. I was really stuck in a book until I realized you hadn’t come to bed yet.”

Solas yawned and rubbed his face. No wonder he was so tired. He gestured to his sketch. “There is not much left to do. Would you care to keep me company while I work?”

A beautiful smile lit her face. “Keep you awake, you mean?” she gently teased.

He smiled faintly in return, then slid his arm around her hip and pulled her down to sit in his lap. “You do have a special talent for capturing my attention,” he replied.

She chuckled as she settled into his lap. Solas settled his left arm loosely around her waist, then picked up his chalk and continued to draw.

“Planning your next fresco?” she asked quietly.

He murmured a soft affirmative. The fresco in question would capture Elia’s decision to ally with the Grey Wardens after the fiasco at Adamant Fortress. Solas still wasn’t entirely pleased with her choice, but he understood the cooperative spirit with which her decision had been made.

She shifted slightly on his lap and rested her hands gently on the edge of the desk. As he continued to sketch, he couldn’t help but find his attention drawn to her idly resting hands.

They were small hands, with slender fingers and neatly trimmed nails, marked with the occasional faint scar. They were humble hands, undecorated and plain, bearing no calluses of a warrior and no ink of a scholar. There was nothing particularly special about Elia’s hands, but for some reason, he found himself unable to stop looking at them.

Finally he put aside his sketch and pulled over a fresh sheet of parchment. Elia turned her head slightly to speak to him. “You’re starting a new sketch? Now?” she asked in surprise.

“It will be quick,” he promised. With quick, sure strokes of his chalk stylus, he began to draw her hands. He mapped out the edge of her wrist, the knuckle of her thumb, then the curved tip of the thumb itself.

“Oh – oh no, don’t draw my hands.” Suddenly the subjects of his sketch were taken away as Elia tucked them up against her chest. “They’re awful, you can’t draw my hands.”

He pulled away slightly to look at her in surprise. “Why not?”

She wrinkled her nose. “They’re all wrinkled and lined. The skin on my hands looks about fifty years older than the rest of my body.”

Solas gave a tiny snort of amusement. “You’ve hardly got the hands of an eighty-year-old, vhenan.”

“Well, they’re certainly not all smooth and sculpted like yours.” She ran her fingers over the back of his left hand, then interlaced her fingers with his. “Such handsome hands. Seriously, Solas, they’re as smooth as a teenager’s. What’s your secret?” she asked playfully.

Uthenera, he thought with a wry twist of melancholy. “Sheer good fortune, I assure you,” he said instead. “I have never put particular thought into my hands. Dorian would be a better bet for knowing some form of skincare routine.”

Elia laughed gently. “I bet he does. And probably a good one, too.”

Solas lifted her right hand and thoughtfully inspected it. Her hands certainly did not resemble an elder’s, but they weren’t anything special to look at either. And yet, he couldn’t help but find them captivating.

“Elia, I would like to draw your hands,” he said softly.

She groaned. “But why? They’re so ugly. They’d make a terrible piece of art.”

“Do you think that art is intended to depict beauty and nothing else?” he said. “No, vhenan. It is the act of making a moment immortal: of capturing a memory, a thought or a dream, and interpreting it for all to see. Everything is worth being captured in this way.”

She was silent for a long moment, and Solas idly toyed with her fingers until she sighed. “I see your point,” she admitted. “I just… I don’t know. I’ve always sort of hated what my hands look like.” She gave a self-deprecating little laugh.

He tilted her a chiding look. “You do not judge the value of anything else by appearance alone. Why should your own hands be different?”

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a careful kiss to her knuckles, then gazed seriously into her aquamarine eyes. “I assure you, these hands are perfect exactly as they are,” he said.

She stared back at him with her earnest jeweled gaze, then finally nodded. “All right,” she said, then untangled her fingers from his own and placed them gently on the desk.

Solas arranged her fingers carefully, replacing them in the pose they’d held before she’d moved them away. He then continued his careful sketch. As the shapes of her thumb and fingers appeared on his parchment, he mused about why her hands compelled him so.

They were simple hands, unadorned by jewelry and ungarnished by Dalish nail-paint, but they were the most special hands Solas had ever known. His lover’s hands held a strong and subtle magic, and this was something he admired. Her hands grasped his own with an open and easy affection, and this was something he cherished. In the privacy of her quarters, her fingers traced across his skin with a torrid kind of tenderness that he hadn’t felt in thousands of years. Her hands reached inside the cavern of his chest, sinking deep where he hadn’t thought anyone from this world could ever sink. Her hands sought and cradled his bruised and bitter heart, and slowly wiped away the shroud of ancient dust that choked him still.

This – all of this, every trait and act of her small and slender fingers: this was what made her hands so mesmerizing.

Soon, the sketch was complete. Solas lifted the parchment and tapped off the excess chalk dust, then settled back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. “For you,” he said softly.

She carefully lifted the parchment, and Solas watched affectionately as she lightly traced the outline of her own fingers. “This… Solas, it’s so… it’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“You made it beautiful,” he told her.

It was all in her hands. They were exquisite beyond compare, and Solas would love them forever.