Fenris was always fascinated by how Juno Hawke always braided her hair.
Every single night, she would sit in front of her bureau and weave her nimble rogue's fingers through her white blonde locks, creating an intricate braid. Her light grey eyes always stayed locked on her face in the mirror, her face unmoving in contrast to her flitting fingers.
It was a night just like any other. Fenris lay in Hawke's bed, finishing the book that she had picked out for him a few nights earlier. She was at her usual place in front of the mirror, her brow furrowed in concentration.
"Why do you always braid your hair before bed?"
Her fingers pause at Fenris' question, and she turns to face him.
"What?"
"Your hair. You always braid it every night, yet you never tie it up during battle. Why?"
It had become a familiar sight in battle for Fenris to see the blonde, feather-like wisps of hair float around Hawke's face as she darted between enemies, her daggers raised around her face.
She looks down, and from what Fenris could see, she was embarrassed, her cheeks beginning to flush, "You'll think it's silly."
Fenris sighed and walked across the room, and laid a hand on her face, "Juno, I doubt that anything that embarrasses you this much is 'silly'"
There was a pause, grey eyes locked onto green, until Hawke finally let out a sigh.
"When I was younger, my mother, Bethany and I had a nightly routine. The three of us would sit on the bed that Beth and I shared, and we'd braid each other's hair. We would sit in a line; Mother would braid my hair, and I would braid Beth's"
Fenris noticed that her voice was getting thicker as she talked, as it usually did when she talked about her dead mother and lost sister. He lifted her in his arms and moved her onto his lap, her head tucked under his neck.
"We'd talk about everything. Every single thing, even if it was the smallest, dumbest thing in existence. And we did it every single night since Bethany's hair was long enough to braid. It stopped after we left Lothering though."
The sensation of tears on his neck jarred Fenris. He tightened his grip on her, murmured every word in Tevinter he knew, something he knew that soothed her when she was upset. And then, he heard her broken, world-weary voice, "Maker, they're both gone. All of them are gone. Gone, Fenris. Mother, Father, Carver, Bethany. Gone."
She fell apart in his arms then, the stream of tears turning into a tempest of sobs, of howls. It always shook Fenris when Hawke cried; she was one of the strongest people he knew, if not the strongest. When she fell apart, she truly fell apart.
The storm calmed, and Hawke's breathing returned to normal. She looked up at him, her eyes scarlet, her face swollen with tears.
And Fenris had never felt so in love with another being. He pulled her as tight to his body as he could, and nuzzled down to her ear.
"When this is all over Juno, I swear to you, you will have a daughter whose hair you can braid every single night. One daughter, two, three, as many as you want. Because you deserve it. You deserve to be happy. And I will do everything in my power to make it happen."
She let out a watery laugh, sniffling as she brushed her lips across his cheek.
"You make me happy by just being you." She murmured, before whispering against his lips, "Maker's breath, I love you, Fenris."
"And I you, Juno Hawke. Always."
They forgot about braids and lingering loss for the rest of the night, together.
AN: This was my first fanfic, so any reviews would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading!