She had this favourite spot in the docks, hidden in a nook far from the hubbub and the noise where'd she spend her nights admiring the night sky and the glittering lights. How the lamplight of ships seemingly bobbed in time with the waves, how the moonlight shone off the bronzed skin of the Twins.
She used to sit on the steps and sink her bare feet into the gloriously cold depths of the harbour, whittling away those sleepless nights with Bethany when Gamlen's roof leaked, foul water dripping from the rafters and wetting the straw mats they slept on.
But that was before the Circle; before the templars came to take Bethany away, before she realised the Dwarven gold in her pockets meant nothing. Nothing but lumps of shiny metal that couldn't bring back the lost.
Some days, being alone by the pier after the sun went down, she idly wondered if Bethany was doing the same, gazing from behind some barred-in window of the Gallows, thinking about those nights when they were poor but free.
She had company, sometimes, an extra blade and another pair of eyes to watch their backs; Bethany before the templars, Fenris before that night. Nights under clear skies, whispered words of conversation between them, before she'd stumble back home hours before dawn to an earful from Mother, if she wasn't lucky.
Her mother only kicked up a fuss about her dalliances when they'd moved into the Amell Estate, on how ladies weren't supposed to pass their nights with the riffraff of the undercity in backwater bars or on ledges by the docks. The woman knew the futility of browbeating her with disapproving gazes, but those looks never stopped coming.
It didn't seem any different from the days of before, when she found herself on the cold, stone steps of the pier one night. Her feet had brought her to the calming lull of waves crashing against the harbour and the gratifying chill of the sea breeze, after another day of blood on her hands and the growing blur between right from wrong. She had a headache, dull and pounding and endless, and she didn't think she'd be back in the estate by morning.
But it didn't matter now, did it?
No matter how long she disappeared from the Estate this time, there wasn't going to be any more whingeing to come home to now, not when the last thing Mother said to her was a whispered 'I'm proud of you.'
The blood had dribbled down her arms at the Foundry, and no amount of washing would scrape off the stickiness that stubbornly clung on to her skin.
In time, she would stop fighting the urge to lay still and spend sleepless nights in a house that didn't feel like home anymore; not when her blood sang in her veins as raiders lay broken on stone floor, not when the first thing she saw up the stairs was Mother's room.
She knew Bodahn was puzzled when she dragged her mattress and covers into the study mere days later; past the fireplace, up the stairs and into the library.
But all he did was to let loose worried glances, and that she was thankful for.
The gauntlets clatter on the floor with a sound that rings in her ears, but the warmth that seeps into her numb fingers more than made up for it.
She feels it, the exhaustion, like a cloak that's been draped around her shoulders in a loving embrace. The Vinmark excursion took more out of her than she'd ever let slip - but her companions thought it stopped at her aching bones and bruised muscles.
It was fine, she thinks. Let them all believe in Hawke the Champion, in a time when Kirkwall was poised to tear itself from within, not Hawke the orphan - alone and buried under the life she'd broken bones for to piece together.
A life for herself, and for those who couldn't appreciate it anymore.
She tells her tired self that if she shut her eyes hard enough, she'd sense Mother in her usual spot by the fire, like nothing's changed. And when her armor's caked in filth with the weight of steel pauldrons bearing down on her drooping shoulders, she thinks she hears Mother in the back of her mind. Talking to her about Father, talking like how they used to...before.
She opens her eyes - thinking, hoping, searching - but she sees nothing except for the upholstery and heraldry of the Amells. So bright and proud in another time, now muted in the half-light.
Like a slip of a tongue, the shift in the wind, she accepts it. Knows that Bethany left her in an empty house, knows that the only warmth she feels is from the dancing flames, and not from a person who used to be - living, breathing reminders of an existence.
The warmth may have reached the tips of her fingers, but it never did warm the ends of her toes.
In the quiet of the night, she finally lets the tears flow freely down her gaunt cheeks, grieving bitterly for someone she'd never missed more.