Sisters of Tevinter

Oil Paints

    Jor was not asleep. The sun had set a long time ago. After Dorian had left--it had taken a considerably long time to convince him that she would in fact try to get some rest-- The Inquisitor swung her legs out of bed, pulled her most recent leather bound journal from under her pillow and walked barefoot to the balcony. 

   The stone was jarringly cold, but she didn't mind. She sat in the bracing night air with a stick of charcoal in her hand, the wind tousling her hair as she sketched and wrote all she could remember about the spiders she'd seen in the Forbidden Oasis and the weather patterns of the Frostback Mountains. She sat there for a long time, in nothing but gray wool slacks and a loose wrap of blue gauze around her shoulders. 

     Gooseflesh rose over her arms as the wind kissed her skin with frigid lips. She watched starlight glitter off the distant mountaintops, setting the rustling book in her lap. Charcoal stained her fingertips with black dust. She was craving something... Her stomach growled. She'd already eaten today but... She realized slowly, after a few more moments of sitting quietly, that she didn't want to stay there on the terrace. So she staggered to her feet, smothering a yawn. She laid down her research on the bed as she passed, striding for the staircase and the door below. 

    Skyhold was silent. The main hall was lit with torches and braziers, a heavy curtain shrouded the dais and windows from view. Jor padded along the hall, pushing open a door at random. Someone had to be awake... though she didn't want to disturb anyone. It was a little past midnight. Her stomach growled again, maybe she could find the kitchens. 

     She walked, her footsteps silent, until she came to the wide landing below the library. The air here was heady with something acrylic, pigmented. She stepped through the doorway, laying a steadying hand on the wall. Her eyes widened. 

      Three sections of the left side of the massive circular chamber had been painted with breathtaking murals, clear and colorful, the style fragmented as if the walls had become stained glass. Solas was sitting directly across from her, a brush tucked behind his ear and a few in his off hand as he drew a streak of scarlet along the howling muzzle of a wolf. 

     Jor's heart squeezed. She took a breath to speak, then slowly realized with dawning horror that her hand was damp. Her palm came away, wet with paint, and the Inquisitor blanched. Solas turned as Jor looked in despair at the smeared handprint she'd left in the intricate ombré of golds and grays depicting a sun and moon, rolling mountains, a temple in flames. 

     "Dammit. I'm so sorry, I didn't see-"

      Solas winced, but then he smiled, rising to cross the room. "No. It is better this way." He retrieved the paintbrush from behind his pointed ear and with unfailingly steady hands, he illuminated the print of Jor's palm in shimmering green paint. "Skyhold will tell a story. It is fitting your touch should be a part of it."

      Jor flushed and looked down at the smears of yellow and gold on her palm. They didn't seem to cross the Anchor, as if repelled by it. "Still..." She looked up, turning in a slow circle to see all the finished paintings as well as those in progress. "These are incredible, Solas."

    The mage smiled slightly and shook his head. "Thank you." 

    She turned to the mural he had been working on, where howling wolves rimmed a scene of shimmering emerald and a tall, gangly silhouette of thorns. Her mouth twitched upward. "Oh, I know that one." 

     "As you should." Amused, the elf wiped his hands on a cotton rag and offered it to her. She took it gratefully and cleaned the residual paint from her fingertips, studying the other panels with more detail. There was one, a twisting black serpent, fanged mouth agape, rising from the ocean to curl threateningly around scarlet crystals. Its scales were speckled with silver stars as it snarled and hissed at the twisting winged perspective of a red dragon.