Disclaimer: Dragon Age II and its characters belongs to EA and Bioware
When the moon is swells in the sky and the clouds are sparse, Hawke takes flight.
The duty of a Champion is heavy on the shoulders of the one who carries it, surrounded by companions but always the one to bear the most of this burden. There is hardly any running from it. But there is sometimes a moment or two to catch one's breath, and walk the old paths of an old life before heroism or duty mattered.
Fenris picks her escapes out in the pieces of Varric's stories without realizing until, one night when she slips away from camp and he follows, he comes across her in the tall grass. He recognizes the flow of words that describe the curve of her arms, the blade cold as the stars, the face that is always turned away. He witnesses the stocky, strict training of the warrior become a dance in every sinew, too practiced to be nothing less than age-old skill and memory. In the wind, the sword makes mournful sounds, her gaze cast down to the ground, white silk and lilies and ghosts of things he doesn't know about her anymore fluttering along. It is beautiful and frightening to watch. With each movement she seems to slip from the world of mortals into the Fade, not quite here, not quite there either. If she were but to glance up at him he knows he would die, cut down by eyes that he's forgotten to understand. And to look away? She might dissolve into mist, or be snatched up by things out of his control and always in motion.
So he sits, and watches, and longs for things as elusive as the ribbons in her hair.
He will not take anything precious from her. Not again.
A/N: There's a lot about the relationship between Fenris and Hawke that I find simultaneously fascinating and frustrating, which is probably why it's on the brain every so often. The potential is vast. May become an eventual dumping ground for F!Hawke/Fenris things later. Who knows?