pikapeppa:

Thanks for the prompt, my darling @littlesnowarrow​! I hope this meets your expectations! ❤️

Read here on AO3. 

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Cool, fresh grass tickles her feet. She wiggles her toes in contentment, then takes a few steps forward into the training ring.

Solas turns to face her, his eyebrows slightly raised and a slow smile lighting his handsome face. His hands are clasped easily behind his back as he takes a step towards her.

Elia blinks in surprise. She could have sworn he was wearing different clothes a moment ago, odd leggings and an odd shimmering shirt, but no; he’s wearing his usual simple tunic and breeches now, so she must have been mistaken. All part of the dream.

She smirks as he takes a step closer. “Fancy seeing you here. Can’t stay away for one night, can you?”

His smile grows both broader and softer at once. “This is not my doing, vhenan. You are the one who stepped into my dream this time.”

She stops short as she realizes that he’s correct. She’d found him on the couch in her quarters, a book on his lap and his chin propped on his fist.

Suddenly embarrassed, she takes a shuffling step backwards. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” she says. “I can go-”

“No,” he interrupts. He reaches out and takes her hand. “You could not be here if I did not want you to be. I was thinking of you, in fact. Perhaps that is what drew you here.”

She relaxes against his chest and smiles up at him. “What were you thinking about exactly?”

Solas shows her the book that has materialized in his hand. “I was reading this tome on magical warfare in modern times. I recalled that you wished to refine your skills in the construction of barriers. Would you care to train with me now?”

She brightens. “Yes, thank you,” she says. Her barriers are good, but she’s seen Solas penetrate some truly spectacular barriers with some truly sneaky magic. Facing off against him will be a true test of her skill.

He nods, pleased, then strolls to the opposite side of the ring. She adjusts her posture as she faces him, bending her knees slightly for stability. “Does it even make sense to train in a dream, though?” she asks. “Won’t this all just… dissolve when we wake, with only a memory and no real skill to speak of?”

He turns to face her again. His relaxed, casual posture is a complete juxtaposition with her own ready-stance. “For purely physical skills, that is true,” he says. “But training your magic is not like training for a physical fight. You are not refining your mere corporeal form. You are sharpening your mind, your mana, your… focus.”

Focus. The word rolls from his tongue like a bead of dew from a fresh summer leaf, and her gaze snaps to his face as she remembers one of their first conversations in Haven.

The corner of his mouth is lifted ever-so-slightly with mischief, and she bites back a grin as he continues. “Furthermore, this is not a simple dream. Can you tell the difference?”

She drops her combat stance and looks around more carefully. They’re in the courtyard at Skyhold, but it seems slightly off somehow – not in a bad way, but with an uncanny sort of unfamiliarity, like seeing an old acquaintance for the first time in years. It seems more grounded than the average dream, but she’s not quite sure what the difference is.

She scuffs a toe on the floor of the training ring. It’s sprinkled with shimmering white sandy stuff instead of the customary russet dirt. She narrows her eyes in thought. She remembers sitting down beside him on the couch, but he put his arm around her…

“You’re not asleep,” she says slowly.

He shakes his head. “Nor are you, truly. I was daydreaming. Walking the paths somewhere between your – that is, our world – and the Fade. It is the perfect place to train. Easily accessible magic; no true risk of injury; and no one around to watch.”

His tone is perfectly bland as he says this last phrase, but his eyebrow quirks ever-so-slightly, and Elia is certain now that he has more than just a training exercise in mind.

A tiny ripple of anticipation races down her throat into her belly, but she sinks into a prepared stance again. “All right,” she says. “Give me your best shot.”

She lifts her arms, and a shimmering barrier rises with them. She holds it steady in her mind and lifts a challenging eyebrow at her lover.

He tilts his head, and Elia senses his magic against the barrier: a cool, peaceful green, as deep as the most verdant forests of the Emerald Graves. His magic carries a signature as unique as the scent behind his ear, and she can’t suppress the involuntary little shiver that ripples across her skin at the touch of his magic against her mind.

He retreats, and she releases the barrier and her breath. He smiles and nods in satisfaction. “Good,” he says. “Once more. You will not see me coming this time.”

She smirks at his blunt confidence and raises her barrier again. She traces the web of protective magic with her mind: there are no gaps she can find, no chinks that he can take advantage of. She almost wants him to sink through this barrier, though. If he can teach her something she doesn’t already know-

She gasps suddenly, her spine going rigid as she feels him. She sees him on the opposite side of the ring, his hands clasped behind his back with infuriating ease, and yet he’s right here beside her with his voice in her ear, even though his lips are still and smirking.

“Concentrate, vhenan,” his voice murmurs, and all at once she knows she’s lost. She forgot to guard against her greatest and most fallible weakness: her insatiable hunger for the literal man of her dreams.

She swallows hard, and her barrier flickers for an instant before she reinforces it with a burst of will. She raises her palms again and splays her fingers strongly, a physical representation of what she wishes her magic to do. “You’re cheating,” she grits through clenched teeth.

“And you are softening,” he replies. On the other side of the ring, Solas folds his arms in an intolerably smug posture as the insidious threads of his magic slide slowly along her fingers and up her arms. “Your foes will not be kind. They will not let you see them coming. You must always be prepared. Do not let them break your indomitable focus.”

She gasps with excitement as his signature magical touch slides over her shoulders, up along her neck, down over her sternum. She can feel her nipples rising to attention as his signature verdant touch eddies across the sensitive skin below her collarbones. Sneaky little strands of his magic skim the sides of her breasts, the tender undersides, everywhere but her eager budded nipples, and fenedhis it’s so unfair…

The pulsing tendrils of his magic skim over her belly and lower, and she somehow finds the air to speak. “Stop pretending to teach me a lesson,” she says breathlessly. “This was all a seduction fantasy, wasn’t it? That’s what I really stepped into.”

On the other side of her faltering barrier, Solas barks out a sudden laugh. His magic disappears, and Elia drops to her knees and gasps with sudden desperation at the abrupt withdrawal of his touch. She shakily pushes herself to her feet as he relaxes his complacent pose and humbly bows his head. “You are correct,” he admits sheepishly. “A completely indulgent fantasy, I’m afraid. I apologize for imposing this on you. Forgive me.”

She strides toward him, and his eyes widen as she draws close, then molds herself against his body. “The only way I’ll forgive you is by finishing what you started,” she says, then shoves him out of the ring.

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