Title: Warrior Doll
Rating: T
Summary: Hawke was capable of anything. Fenris/FemHawke
A/N: Thanks for reading. Review please.
Warrior Doll
Hawke is a warrior, however much that surprises him at first.
The blonde, petite woman that approaches him in the alienage is speckled with blood and gore. Her fingers are delicate as they heft the enormous broadsword over her shoulder, and her eyes are sparkling as he presents his offer to raid his former master's house. The moonlight makes her yellow hair all the more brilliant as she swipes it out of her eyes and gestures for him to lead the way, and yes, she wants to go right now, and no, she didn't need any payment to kill slavers. She is excited. Her skin is flushed with the prospect of more bloodshed.
When they get to the house, she does not hesitate to walk right past him with her tiny shoulders squared and the fire burning in her glittering eyes. As the shades attack, she does not wait for him to clear them out; she charges forward and eliminates most of them before he can kill one. She doesn't flinch at the stink of magic or the blood-stained walls. She smiles as he shouts for his master, and she is silent when he expresses his grief at Danarius's absence.
Hawke is a warrior worthy of following to the Void and back.
She listens intently as he explains his situation and nods as he expresses his gratitude. He doesn't have much to pay her, but she shakes her head and says that it was a pleasure. The way she says it makes his spine tingle. A woman has never looked at him like that. At least, not that he can remember. But when he comes to the crux of it, when he addresses the rest of her entourage, the kindness in her eyes dissipates. Those glittering gems set into her skull harden into ice as he picks on her sister for being a mage, and her very presence becomes threatening. She does not tolerate hatred of mages.
He tries to censor his opinion, something he has never, ever done before. He thinks he has upset her, but she is unpredictable. Yes, he can come with her if he chooses, because she has an expedition that needs well-trained men and women to help out. Yes, she might need his services later as long as he doesn't threaten or harm any of the mages in the group. And he agrees. Because he wants to see her again. He wants to know this woman.
Over the next few weeks, he comes on every small delivery or charity case that she can manage because she is kind-hearted if a little bloodthirsty. She invites him to the Hanged Man, and he puts up with the stink of bloated drunkards and vomit to see her, this woman with such a small physique that can carry a sword as big as his. He watches as she pays for rounds and beats Isabela at cards and curses when she loses. A child swearing.
Though he brands her as a child because of her features, the more he looks, the more woman he sees. Yes, those are voluptuous curves hiding beneath that heavy armor, and her eyelashes do look like wires set into the delicate flesh of her eyelids. Her lips are the very definition of sensual as she pouts and swears and drinks scalding liquor like the hardest of men. That hair does come out of its tight ponytail into a veritable wave of beauty that falls over her shoulders in luscious, blonde waves. Her tiny fingers do touch his arm in the most electrifying of ways as her laugh of bells and velvet startles him out of his reverie. He finds himself enamored in the carefree way that she smiles, in the liquid movement of her gestures, and the lilting tone in which she speaks.
Of course, he later goes into the Deep Roads with her because he cannot live without her smile for so long. But when they get down there, he can't stand the way the bloodied color of the stone makes her look weak and emaciated. He doesn't like the dark circles beneath her eyes as Bartrand startles her awake to check on every noise that is sounded in the distant, cracking halls of the Roads. He hates that the pale torchlight makes her hair look orange, an ugly, wane pumpkin color that makes him glance away. He hates the smell of her now—no longer sweet wine and perfumed skin but of blood and rust and armor. He cannot stand the way she speaks vehemently as Bartrand betrays them, and he hates the way that she tentatively presses on. After they conquer the rock wraiths and their master, he hates the small, exhausted smile that she shoots Varric while holding up a key.
Bethany becomes sick, and he finds some of his old love for her returning. Her eyes crease in the loveliest of ways as she cries, crystalline tears spilling over sugar plum cheeks as she holds the mage's dead body in her arms. Varric cradles her as she sobs, making soft, soft noises like a mouse. He fancies her to be a child again, lonely and lost, needing someone to hold her hand and tell her it will be okay. But she straightens her clothes, and they bury the corpse as respectfully as they can. She is no longer a child as she heaves that sword over her shoulder again, and he suddenly misses the fragility she showed because fragility is not the weakness he has been seeing.
Years pass. Gradually, they drift apart. He doesn't see her aging, growing older. He doesn't see her pathetic growth spurt or that she suddenly has slightly bigger breasts to tempt other men. He doesn't see the more pronounced curves or that she is as tall as him until the Viscount calls her to his office. He hates her in that moment for becoming more like Isabela. She isn't quite the china doll he wanted when she comes knocking on his door for the first time in months and asks in her new, womanly voice to accompany her. Yet, he cannot say no. He isn't that vain, and he's intoxicated by her presence, by this new body.
They must deal with the qunari.
In the shadow of the great Arishok, he sees that she is still so small. Her new body is dwarfed again by these hulking giants that loom threateningly over her. Suddenly, she is the girl that he remembers her as. They do some oddball tasks, but Fenris is so absorbed in protecting her that he scarcely remembers them. Only when the Arishok charges her is he startled from his thoughts. She is half his size, all sinew and bones, and he is a boulder of muscles and controlled anger and strength. But she isn't cowed. No, she shows that bloodthirsty, intrigued side of her that he remembers from the beginning and stands up to him. The Arishok could crush her in one hand, and she has the gall to glare with her brilliant eyes.
They become closer as the threat of the qunari becomes ever greater. Fenris wants to protect her. He visits her often in her new mansion—a place too large for such a small woman, surely. The dog bounds up to him and licks his face. They talk for hours. They take meals together. She teaches him how to read, and he lingers outside her house at night. He never lets her walk home alone. Yet he suddenly is the one that needs protecting. Danarius is on his trail again. Hadriana this time. She sends assassins to take him out.
His shows this innocent creature his dangerous, unbridled side for the first time in a very long time. He smashes a man's skull on a rock trying to get information. She doesn't tremble. When he asks for her to help him kill the mage, she agrees easily. As if she were accepting an invitation to dinner.
At the caves, she is all fierce strength and pity. He hates her for it, but he is so used to hating her. He loves her for strange reasons. He has accepted this. He hates her for even stranger reasons.
Hadriana's body is cold, and he is yelling at Hawke. Why is she so small? Why is she so righteous? He knows her opinion of him, so why does she keep it back? Why is the world so unfair? He has learned of his sister: Varania. She may or may not be bait to capture him. He can't decide. Why can't this mannequin of plastic innocence guide him like she always does? Why does she just stare with sorrow swimming in those dark eyes?
He leaves, but he comes back.
Of course he comes back. How could he stay away? Hawke is everything to him, and he tells her this. It's the first time he's admitted it out loud. Their casual flirting, his staring, his careful contemplations all come to a head. He's kissing her passionately, wanting to break her. His hands are too hard on her hollow, bird-like bones. He bruises her alabaster skin, molded from clay and perfumed dough. He shoves her on the bed and breaks her china face—her warrior face. He makes her bleed, and it takes him a while to realize that it's because she's never been with a man before. He makes her face contort in pain. He takes that innocence, and he bottles it inside. He covets it, covets her.
She falls asleep with his marks all over her, only partially covered by a blanket. Red, angry bites mar her perfectly white skin. No longer is she in a new body. She reverts back to her form in those first years, a woman in naked child's skin. She is breakable when she is asleep. He smoothes her hair back from her face and kisses her pale, soft lips.
He is dressing, and when she wakes up he's staring into the fire. What can he say? He's a coward? He's broken her, and he doesn't want her anymore. She makes him burn with a smoldering heat that he hates. He doesn't know her, doesn't understand her. He needs more time. His excuse? His markings, his past. They flash before his eyes. Oh, yes, that's true. That's part of it. She says she understands, and he feels regret. Does she really? Is she listening to him? Really?
She lets him go, because really, what choice does she have? What could a tiny thing like her do to stop him?
Her mother dies.
It's the perfect way to top his rejection. It's as if the universe is trying to destroy her. In that little underground rat hole, she loses it. She screams and cries out, delicate fingernails digging into her mother's cold corpse. Her mother was the last of her family. At last, she is alone. Fenris can't take it. He holds her, then, because Anders is unwilling and Merrill is too oblivious. Later, he is the one that accompanies her to the place of death and helps to dump a sticky, flammable substance all over the papers and books and furniture. He watches her strike the flint, and he has never seen her eyes burn quite so viciously.
The Arishok challenges her to a duel after overtaking the city. When Anders comes running, he is so afraid that the huge qunari must have harmed her. She is fine, though. There she is, in the Viscount's throne room, with her chin held defiantly upward and her hands on her hips. Her large sword is slung across her back, spattered with blood. She stands protectively in front of Isabela, and the pirate could literally rest her chin on the woman's head. Hawke accepts the duel, and Fenris's heart skips a beat.
The crack when the Arishok breaks her leg is astoundingly loud. It's such an awful noise, too. Most everyone in the room flinches, looking on at their hero with waning hope. Her scream is audible, and she desperately crawls away from the approaching qunari. Fenris is ready to charge, but Aveline grabs his arms and holds him back. How can they just look on, he wonders. She is so small, he thinks. That thing—that creature—is going to destroy her.
Hawke surprises him again. She reaches behind and drives her broadsword deep into the Arishok's chest. He gurgles and spits, but he falls. Then the whole room is exploding into cheers. That foul woman Meredith runs in and glares as Aveline helps Hawke to her feet. Fenris wants so to touch her, to run his fingers through her sticky, clumped hair. Her face is green as they try to move her. She is panting heavily. Fenris refrains.
Finally they can take her home, and Fenris has to watch as Anders tends to her leg. He sets it and leaves quickly, but the lingering hands make Fenris clench his teeth. He sits and holds her human fingers—really, she is too petite to be human—in his elven ones as she falls asleep. He wishes then that he stayed. He whispers this in her human ear and kisses the flat top affectionately. Yes, he hates her. He loves her even more, though.
It's years and years again. Her leg heals, and Fenris stays away. He even sneaks off to the Blooming Rose once or twice to quell the ache in his heart. It doesn't help. Those women are too broad with their wide hips and breasts spilling out over their too tight dresses. Those dresses would fall off her body even as it has changed. She would never wear such awful perfume, such tawdry colors. She would never deign to sexually please him the way those whores would.
She has become great friends with Anders and Merrill, the mages of the group. Perhaps it is in remembrance of Bethany that she so defiantly argues for the mage plight even as he disapproves on the sidelines. Suddenly they are back to their old ways, but she has not changed this time. She is still beautiful, still just as young and spritely. He almost smiles as he accepts the invitation to go adventuring with her again.
Long ago he sought to find his lost sibling. He receives news of her whereabouts, and he flies into a rage when Aveline cannot tell him if it is as trap. Of course she can't. She is no Seer. Why does he expect so much? Hawke comes in, and he practically begs that doll-like face to go with him to the Hanged Man and see this woman, meet his sister. She does not even bat an eye as she says yes, she would love to go. If it is a trap, they will handle it accordingly. Fenris feels a rush of warmth for her as her back is turned, baby shoulders squared, and he wonders again why he left her.
Varania is a backstabbing, traitorous bitch.
She sells him out to Danarius for power, as all mages do. Hawke does what she does best. She plants her body in front of him and calls Danarius out. She challenges him, her sword against his magic. How does this little girl know exactly how to nettle him? How does she know exactly how to dig deeply into his wounds and yank just right? He loves her for it.
When Danarius is dead, Fenris kills his sister. He doesn't see why he shouldn't, and Hawke doesn't try to stop him. She stands by and watches with an incline in her head as he rails at her again and again. The same old questions pop up, followed by an awful feeling of loneliness as she simply stares. He is alone, he says. She takes his hand and says that no, he is not.
It is later in the comfortable shadows of his rotting mansion that he expresses how lost he truly is. She listens with the same patience that she always does, but there is something else. It is as though she knows what he is going to say. Finally he brings up that night, the night that he hurt her and himself. She does frown, then, glances away. He says it finally, that he loves her and that he wants to be with her.
She stands up and kisses him flush on the mouth without another word, as if she had been waiting this entire time.
They become lovers at nightfall only as the Templars and mages fight against each other as they are meant to do. Fenris holds her at night, her brittle bones and owlish eyes. He caresses her gently, remembering the blood of that first time. She admits later that yes, he was her first. He is strangely touched by the idea and ashamed.
Fighting between the opposite groups tear them apart. They begin to argue. She wants to protect the mages, this warrior girl. He doesn't. They are worthless, he shouts, and he doesn't know why he is screaming at her. Because he wants her safe? Because Danarius was a mage? Because they could so easily tear her paper body apart?
The chantry is a mess of smoldering rubble and ashes. Fire falls from the skies, and dust rushes like a great cloud through the city streets. Meredith is in awe, and it is time for all to pick a side. Hawke chooses the mage's side, naturally, and Fenris is immediately torn. He watches and tries to decide as she circles Anders apprehensively with a knife. Only when the dagger is buried deep within his heart does Fenris realize that this woman knows the price. He stands with her willingly.
Deep within the Gallows, they are all standing in a broad, square room with only a few ragtag mages left. They are sobbing and pleading with their maker. Fenris doesn't know why he is trying to save these pathetic things of tears and bleeding magic. Hawke makes her rounds, talking to them all one by one. When she stops in front of Fenris, he confesses his love for perhaps the last time.
And he tells her the rest. He explains in a rush the way he feels, the way he has always felt, her strength, and how fragile she seems. He wonders if perhaps she will take it the wrong way, his twisted thoughts. Yes, they are strange. They don't make sense. He wonders if she will hate him when he finishes, but she only smiles. She surprises him again with a bird-like tilt of her head.
"I knew, Fenris," she says, and he is content to pull her soft lips to his and crush their bodies together in a height of passionate desperation. To break her one last time.
Orsino betrays them to blood magic, and Fenris wants to laugh at the irony of it. He wants to shout at the bleeding jumble of corpses and festering wounds that Hawke had tried to save them all from such a fate. They're all dead. The mages betray her in the end, and the rest of them stumble out of the Gallows in a filthy state.
Meredith is grinning madly, and she reveals that Bartrand's betrayal had left her with a new toy. The others, the Templars, rage up against her as she calls upon the power of the Maker. They have sense, at least, to know when someone has gone mad. The lyrium glows red, and Fenris glances furtively at Hawke. She is trembling badly. Her left arm is cut very deeply, and she can barely heft that big sword. He hopes that her size will not be a handicap now, because he cannot take it.
It's not.
Meredith becomes a statue of molded red clay, a backfire of her precious power from the Maker. Hawke looks ready to collapse, and Fenris puts a steadying hand on her shoulder as the Templars approach. But she pushes him away. She stands as proud as before, not the child he has seen her as. She raises that heavy sword in defense as they close in with their weapons at the ready. Not a tremble in sight. Not a blink of fear.
Hawke is a warrior trapped in a doll's body, and she is capable of anything.
This is so bad, lol. I, um, will be writing more MaleHawke/Fenris soon. Finals are coming up, so I'll be busy. Thanks for reading. Review please.