Perfect timing for this prompt – thank you @bronzeagelove! I just finished reading a soul-crushing Solavellan fic for the second time and am utterly destroyed, so some nice fluffy Solavellan is a soothing balm to my soul…😉

The prompt: grace, dark, holding.

Read on AO3 instead.

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Elia leans her elbows on the balcony and sighs.

“Is something wrong?” Solas’s quiet voice floats out from her bedroom, followed by the man himself. His barefooted steps are silent as he comes to lean against the balcony at her side.

She smiles up at him. “Quite the contrary, actually. I was just listening to the music.” She nods her head vaguely in the direction of Skyhold’s grounds. “Someone is playing… something. It doesn’t quite sound like a lute…”

Solas cocks his head to listen to the delicate serenade, and Elia watches the thoughtful creasing of his brow. Then he shifts his weight and folds his arms. “Lyre, if I am not mistaken. It is a lovely duet.”

Elia gazes at his handsome profile with a rush of affection. He always seems to have an answer, even for her unasked questions, and he rarely requires more than a few seconds to pluck the information she requests from the depths of his mind. She wonders what it must be like to have such an excellent memory.

Eventually he meets her gaze, and his expression softens. “What are you thinking?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing much,” she says, not wanting to gush all over him like the hopelessly besotted woman that she is. She leans affectionately against him instead. “Just that this is nice. The quiet, the music… it’s so peaceful.”  She closes her eyes and smiles, savouring the fine sound of the lyre duet as it slides through the darkness of the night. “It sounds like… raindrops tinkling against metal, but fuller. Or maybe… like pearls falling against a mirror, but less strident.” She sighs, frustrated by her inability to properly put the sound into words. “That distinct resonant plucking… I just really like stringed instruments.”

She sighs again and opens her eyes only to find Solas staring at her with such warmth that her breath catches in her throat. Without breaking her gaze, he steps back from the balcony and extends a hand to her. “Come, vhenan,” he says softly. “Dance with me.”

She smiles and takes his hand without hesitation, and he carefully slides his arm around her, the heat of his palm settling firmly at the centre of her back.

Slowly and carefully, he guides her in the dance. His thighs graze her own as they move, and she can feel the warmth of his chest through his tunic; he’s holding her more closely than would have been considered decorous at Halamshiral, but Elia doesn’t mind at all.

Solas leads her smoothly around the balcony, his movements imbued with the grace of long practice, and Elia wonders at his smooth control. She’d noticed at Halamshiral how well he danced, but she’d been too exhausted to remark on it then. “Where did you learn to dance like this?” she asks.

Without pausing in their graceful dance, he brushes his lips against her cheekbone. “I could ask you the same thing,” he murmurs. “Your dance with the Duchess was a stunning spectacle to behold. Where did a Dalish mage learn to move so beautifully?”

A tiny shiver tickles her spine at the touch of his lips on her skin, and she gives a breathless laugh. “I have no idea,” she admits. “I never learned to dance. Not like this, in any case. We had our celebrations in clan, you know, and we danced then, but that was for fun.” She pauses for a moment as Solas carefully twirls her, then pulls her back against his chest, and she lifts her chin to meet his glowing grey eyes. “I think it was a fluke,” she suggests. “The pressure, the anxiety of the moment… Maybe it came together to make me a really good dancer for that one moment. Who knows?”

Solas murmurs a quiet acknowledgement against her temple. “You are fortunate, then. That dance with Florianne was more dangerous than you realized. Facing such an unknown risk can bring a person to their knees. To master that anxiety, to channel it into strength and skill, even for a moment… That is a rare fortune indeed.” He spins her delicately, then whispers against her ear. “Of course, it helps that you have a natural dancer’s grace, ma vhenan.”

Elia smiles dreamily. The lush satin of his voice, the cadence of his words… this is better than music. His voice loosens the tension in her muscles more thoroughly than the floating strains of the lyre. It heats her blood more warmly than the rushing rhythm of a drum.

And then Elia realizes that his voice is, in fact, carrying music.

Solas is humming.

She inhales slowly through her parted lips, afraid he’ll stop if she mentions it, but she can’t stop herself from pressing more closely against him, wanting to soak in everything about this moment. She tucks her head beneath his chin and closes her eyes, her attention fully focused on his musical voice.

His arm tightens around her, sliding close to encircle her waist. He twines the fingers of his other hand with hers, tucking their hands close against his chest. And all the while, he continues to hum against her ear in perfect tune.

Elia swallows hard. Her mysterious lover’s arms are holding her close, his voice gliding smoothly into her ear as their feet move with a slow and quiet grace in the dark. Their day-to-day travels are a mess of chaotic urgency and uncertainty, but in this exquisite moment of stillness, Elia can be certain of one thing.

Ar lath ma bell’ana, Solas, she thinks.

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(Elvhen translation: ar lath ma bell’ana = I love you forever.)