[ I GOTCHU... if somewhat delayed myself, lmao oops. lmk if this doesn't work or you prefer brackets or whatevs! ]

Even with the knowledge that her understanding of Solas was not quite as thorough as she'd once believed, abducting her seemed out of his usual style. Sending agents to use her as leverage in order to force her new, nameless little order into drop whatever lead they had been following on him? Far too heavy-handed, and only served to tell them that the trail they were on was hot in the first place.

It's as she makes her third circuit around the cell, penned up in some ancient elven tower identical to any of the ones she saw from her hop-skip through the eluvians, that Trevelyan realizes that was probably the point — obfuscation. Like Orlesian jesters and their sleight-of-hands, making a big show with one hand to hide what the other is doing, and then suddenly the coin or the dove or the spy was gone without a trace. Send everyone on a wild nug chase, convinced that they had gotten too close to something important enough to alarm him, and make it further difficult for anyone to trust their own information. In the event that they really had begun to close in on something, now it's impossible to tell whether it's legitimate or a dead end being thrown as a distraction.

Well. Makes no difference, she's not going to just give up. When she swore that she would change Solas' mind, that they could endure this and find another way together, Trevelyan meant it. She intended to drag him back, kicking and screaming if necessary, and if he no longer cared for her in the end, well, she'd live with that like she lived with everything else. But nowhere did she say she wouldn't also make herself a thorough and implacable nuisance gumming up his plans at the same time, and if he's gone so far as to actually capture her, even if it's for a distraction, then she's doing something well. A thorn in his side.

"Thorn in his paw," she mutters, snorting inelegantly. A fourth loop around the room, and then the sound of measured footsteps down the stone stairs outside brings her to finally pause, curious. A guard, no doubt.

"You may tell your master that if he intends to intimidate me," she calls through the bars, "confinement is child's play."

Surprise flits across Trevelyan's face, writ large and open — she had certainly not expected Solas to greet her himself. Surely he was far too busy being elusive and ominous and important elsewhere. It's been a long time since he has even shown up in her dreams, that mournful wolf too far for her to reach no matter how she stretched.

And now, there is something incongruous in seeing him again after so long, dressed for comfort as she would have expected to see in his rotunda, but with the same removed, brittle expression as when they met in the ruins. As if they were strangers. How long has it been since he lowered that marble-carved mask, even just a fraction?

"Your information sounds a bit out of date," she says breezily, retracing her steps back to stand before the ancient bars between them. A faint twinge of phantom sensation buzzes along the stump of her arm, muscles clenching uselessly in memory of a gesture she can no longer make. "No Inquisitor. No Inquisition."

Can't corrupt what isn't there, or so goes the hope. If the well is poisoned, find another source.

Propping the elbow of her remaining arm on one of the crossbars, Trevelyan drops her chin in her palm and quirks a half-smile. "My current occupation is, evidently, maiden-in-a-tower. I really hope there's a dragon in the lower floors."

Whatever Solas is studying her for, all Trevelyan has to offer is the same steady blue gaze while he speaks, as if this was nothing more unusual than one of their conversations in Skyhold and he was simply speaking of an experience in the Fade she had never believed possible. If anything, the only sign of weakness is in the way she leans just a hair's-breadth further toward him, swaying automatically with the unconscious expectation that his proximity suggests — something else.

Though something about his tone rings oddly, a nail tapped against glass in a quiet room. It's been clear for some time that he plays with his words carefully, and Trevelyan's expression sharpens again with focus.

"How close?" With an exaggerated glance around what part of the narrow corridor she can see, she raises a dark brow curiously. "I haven't heard anything so far. And they do tend to be rather loud."

It would be nice to say she wouldn't have him in a cage in the first place, but that isn't something Trevelyan can say honestly at this point. She can't even claim it would be a decision for her to make: even the remains of the Inquisition are in name only, and her place as a figurehead and a target are their own kind of obfuscation. The ones who have taken up the bulk of the effort aren't hers to command, not exactly.

She doesn't doubt there is more at work than Solas just indulging in hypotheticals with her, since for one thing he hardly needed to snatch her up out of the blue to do that, but she can at least take this opportunity as it presents itself.

"You know I would just want you to listen, to understand that you don't have to do things the way you intend." She lets her arm drop down to lay against the crossbar, cradling the end of her stump in her palm and resting her weight on her forearm, gaze intense and unwavering. "You're not the only one who thinks the world needs to change, and I don't want to fight you about it."

No doubt Leliana would despair at how quickly she's willing to show her hand, but it isn't as if her feelings are any kind of secret. The mage rebellion had overturned what little life she had in the Circle, and the Inquisition had more or less heaved her over its shoulder and thrown her into leadership, but both events had at least offered her the chance to see that there really were more people than she had ever thought, who wanted to make a difference and see things into a better future.

But if Solas drowns the world in blood, what rises to the surface may not be what he's hoping for. Again. How can he not see that?

Trevelyan huffs at the statement, barely worth the dignity of an answer: of course she loves him, against all sensible recommendation of nearly everyone she knows, but more than that — "I also respect you, and consider you a friend, Solas," she points out. "Don't mistake me for a swooning waif, blinded by sentiment and dragged along by her tender heartstrings."

Despite her words, it's her heart that twists at the way he won't look fully at her, staring through her instead as if she were already a ghost, something to dwell on and ignore at will. But he has at least not already dismissed her yet, and she pushes forward regardless, fingers curled around one of the cool bars.

"Not just listen, understand — I know you hear the words, but I don't think you're letting yourself consider that they may be more true than what you've decided. The world isn't a mistake for you to paint over or a dying beast to be put out of its misery. We're a living, breathing thing, whole and messy and capable of so much more than you're giving us credit for. I would have you see that."

A pause, then, as she waits for him to just look at her: "And if we're considering the hypothetical things I want, I would also have you kiss me again."

For a moment, Trevelyan is perfectly still, arrested by the depth of how he finally seems to see her, suspended in the faint hope that he may actually give her what she requested. He doesn't, but she wonders what he might do if she reached out for him anyway.

The description answers a question she'd long forgotten had ever occurred to her, the distant curiosity of how there could be a blank wall one day and then a lush tapestry the next. Painting had never been her choice of extracurricular in the Circle, so as far as she knew, that's just how it was done.

Of course Solas would pick the most difficult-sounding technique. Why do anything if it isn't deeply impressive to do?

"Then you try another way!" she says, half-exasperated with the metaphor already. "It's a beautiful skill, Solas, but it isn't the only one. And people won't have to die for your perfect vision if you choose one that can be built upon instead."

"I have lived it," she reminds him, brittle as glass. More than twenty years in the Circle, shielded only by a name belonging to people that no longer wanted her because of the stain she brought them. The best she could do was wield it for others who didn't even have that much. "But don't you think you're absolving people of the responsibility for their own actions, when you take all of this on as your fault alone?"

Slowly enough that Solas can easily brush her aside if he wishes, Trevelyan abandons the restraint on her urge to reach out through the bars and cradle the sharp line of his jaw.

"We can do so much better." It's a whisper now, soft in the silence of her cell. "See it with me. Build it with me."

She has to briefly screw her eyes shut against the conflicting rush of both frustration and affection, exhaling sharply. The last time he touched her with such tenderness, it was marred by the searing agony of her body fighting a losing battle against foreign magic. And before that, soured immediately by having left her alone, confused and hurt in the wake of his sudden withdrawal.

If he would just let her in —

"You're still not listening. You can hear me, but you won't even consider what I'm saying." Her voice is pressed thin through the tightness of her throat. "Why ask me what I want from you if you've no intention of giving it?"

If she agreed, she could use the opportunity to try determining where they are in Thedas, assuming she can see the stars from their location. Rainier had taught her the method after their experience in the eluvians, in the event that she ever found herself needing to know. Perhaps the information would do little good, particularly since the likelihood of escaping to do anything with it was slim, but there is certainly no such thing, in war, as knowing too much about an opponent's movements.

But Solas seems ready to slip away again, withdrawing from her touch and falling back into the cold role of a leader. If he leaves upon releasing her, Trevelyan cannot know when she may have the opportunity to speak to him again, to try making him understand.

"I am not your enemy," she insists, her gaze never wavering from his as she draws her arm back within the confines of the cell. "But if I were to give you such a vow, would you be willing to make me one in return?"

At least he'll hear her out. It's more than she really expected, given that she has no leverage to offer for his agreement in the first place.

"Will you stay with me? Or at least," she amends, "let me stay with you, for a time. I am not done arguing with you, and I would prefer to do it without bars, like civilized people."

And the longer she keeps him, the more time her companions have to search for her, or stop whatever it is Solas has set in motion. And — she has missed him.

All this time and she still can't resist the lure of him, with the hubris of thinking she can snatch away the bait before the snare comes down if she's just fast and clever enough. Got her into trouble in the Circle too, though at least then it had only been herself at risk.

She loves him, so much. If only that meant she could trust him.

"Alright," she whispers, feeling more like something is being closed around her, rather than opening. "Then I give you my word that I won't fight you, or try to escape."