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His world is nothing but colour, vivid and bright.
He is a kite upon the winds of the Fade, turning according to its whims. He allows it to carry him, the ill-defined appendages of his metaphysical form flowing with the current. Memories, too, wash over him: the relief as a shop sign flips from open to close; the eager tug of loving hands pulling the wearer by their apron; the chill of the apartment floor where it is stripped away and forgotten. Recollections of the last week occur to him in visions of cotton and linen, as though his body is the stitching holding the whole together. He does not fight it, forgetting struggle as his tail meets the spread of his six eyes.
The sudden stop jars him to greater consciousness, but any questions that might occur with the notion tumble with the rest of him out of an unknown portal.
Solas falls limply into something physical, the seam between dreams and reality made hard by a mage's hands. They hold him like a damp wad of paper they're trying hard not to tear. Their voice, no such luck.
"Solas"— Ian's gasp is sharp, needlelike— "Ir abelas! Are you- please be all right."
As the world slows to its own deceptive stillness, his vision clears, blinking up with a blearly grasp upon reality. Ian is pale over him, save for pink-rimmed eyes, pin-pricked by tears. Something had happened, he surmises.
"I am fine," he assures him, that much is certain. "Are you?"
"Me?" Choking on his anxiety, Ian squeaks out a laugh. "You- you were in…"
The answer trails off, though Solas quickly discovers the answer for himself. Gathered alongside his metaphysical form are a collection of clothes heavy with soap and water, piled in Ian's lap where he'd dragged Solas from the washing machine.
Ian hiccups. "I'm so sorry. One moment you were in a sunbeam, and the next-"
"Put me back."
"I- you- what?"
"Put me back, please," Solas corrects himself. Grateful this shape doesn't have ears to burn (though he feels remarkably little shame), he adds, "It was not unpleasant."
"You… you're kidding." Ian's stutter is bewildered more than nervous, giggles breaking through disbelief. "Do you want to be dried, too?"
"Air drying is more energy efficient… but I suppose I am curious."
"Ma nuvenin, Vhenan," Ian laughs.
The last thing Solas sees before the cycle is renewed is Ian's face beaming through the concave glass.