Leap
Serah Hawke
"We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment...and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap."
Description: When Alistair learned of the destruction of Lothering, all he could think was that the world had lost a wonderful person. Ever since a few chance meetings, Marian Hawke and Alistair have lead different lives, but when they meet again, they know not to let the chance pass by.
Chapter 1: At The Beginning
The Ruins of Ostagar were just as they sounded. Old, crackled stone that really didn't really look all that stable for an army, but they were there anyway. The Korcari Wilds looked dark behind her, and she was glad to be out of it. It was an insane place with noises you'd never want to hear again, and a few Darkspawn that had come at least a month ahead of the main group.
Marian Hawke had ignored her brother's glares the whole way from Lothering, along with standard if-looks-could-kill when she was asked to travel ahead of the troop to alert the camp of their arrival.
Carver had insisted on being the only one in the family to go off with the King's army, but she wanted to get away from her childhood home. Her brother was always looking for something to spat with her about, but she was used to his insistent whining. It wasn't like they were going to be here straight to the battle. They were to be dispatched a few weeks before the battle was planned to happen, and be back before it started. Marian didn't understand the logic in this, but didn't question it anyway.
She rushed through a high, crumbled archway and through a few stationed guards, who asked which battalion she was from before granting her passage with a salute. The main camp was bursting with activity. Elf servants were running to and from tassel-adorned tents that were set up before a ramp, where soldiers were starting up their morning routines,
Marian had been marching all night, but her eyes were wide as she took in all of the views that the camp held. Templars guarded an enclosed area stiffened as she rushed by, their hands resting on the pummel of their heavy swords. A few mages were inside, their skin glowing a bright blue from under their clothes and through their open, unseeing eyelids. A red-haired elf looked sullen as she passed by, and a few heavily armored soldiers knelt in front of a small stage where a lay sister was reciting some kind of chant.
The girl was so into her observation of her surroundings that she hadn't seen the man until she'd slammed into him. He was like a brick wall, the wind having knocked out of her from her before the force of her fall. "Umf!"
"Well, this must just be my lucky day," a voice purred above her. Marian sat up slowly, regaining a part of her breath before glowering up at the man. It didn't look like he was very tall from her view, or that he'd shaved in a view days. His dark hair seemed almost black and was cropped rather short. She saw a disgruntled women in heavy armor make an escape from the corner of her eye. Marian could only guess it was from him.
The way he was leering at her made her uncomfortable. She'd seen men look at her like that for a while now, but never one that seemed so... well, like he would actually do something about it. Unless you counted that man in Lothering, but Carver had seen him look at her sister, Bethany that way, and last they'd heard of him, he'd left for Denerim.
Marian started to stand, ignoring any hand that was offered from her. She did not want to touch this... man. "I don't need your help."
She looked at his face, seeing his eyes flicker down to her body as she held up her persistent stance. She probably didn't look the best, no better than a Chasind, most likely. She'd been running through and sleeping in the mud all the way from Lothering without even the slightest hint of a bath. Her face felt heavy and sticky, her hands felt like they would need to be scrubbed with an iron whisk if they were to be clean again.
He nodded, obviously not agreeing to her statement. "Well, you're in uniform, so you must not be that new recruit that Duncan has set out to find. Although, he did just leave yesterday..." He smiled in a cat-who-caught-the-cannery kind of way. "My name is Davith, milady."
Marian wrinkled her nose. "Good to know. Now, if you please, I have to get going-"
When she tried brushing around him, he stepped with her, blocking her path. "Oh, don't be a spoil sport! I told you my name, you tell me yours, yeah?"
"I'm really not interested, thank you," she hinted as politely as she could. "Now, I was sent ahead of my troop to report that they would be arriving in a few days, so please excuse me."
Davith kept up his smug smile, and if she hadn't found his manners to be so repulsive, then she may have thought that he was handsome. "It's just proper etiquette!" he insisted. Marian managed to get around to his right by faking like she would go to his left.
Marian had just about had it when she felt his hand on her arm, but when she turned around to blow up on him, she felt his hand being wrenched off of her elbow. She blinked at the man that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He was a few inches taller than Davith, his splint-mail making himself seem bulkier than the smaller man. His sandy hair was short, styled so that it stuck up a bit in the front. His face was as clean cut as you could get when on the front lines. His jaw wasn't as sharp as Davith's, his cheeks more rounded than the darker man's gaunt ones. His golden eyes met with hers after his scrutiny, his tanned cheeks growing a little redder than before.
"Ummm..." he trailed off, then seemed to remember himself. "Davith, that is no way to treat a women, even if she is in the army, you still must treat her with respect."
Davith snickered. "It's not like you really know how to treat a women, do you Chantry Boy?"
It took the blond a moment to understand the perverse statement truly before he glanced back at Marian before looking back down at his feet. "I... just shove off, Davith, okay? And don't talk to your superior in such a suggestive way!"
Davith laughed shortly, turning back to Marian. "I will know your name, pretty." Marian almost thought she heard cackling as he went off.
Her 'savior' sighed when Davith had finally left. "Are you alright?"
Marian blinked at him, wondering how in the world such a good looking man was so well-mannered, yet so self-conscious. "Oh, no harm done, you may have saved him from being hurt, though- I mean, he was making me pretty mad, and..." she sighed, trying to recover from such a blubbering mess that she had gotten herself into. "Well, I grew up with a brother who thinks of everything as a competition, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve... so to say."
He smiled at her shortly before removing his glove and holding his hand out to her. "I'm Alistair, a junior Grey Warden here at the camp."
Marian's eyes widened. That's right, she'd been told that there would be Grey Wardens here at the encampment. When she was a child, she'd heard many bedtime stories about Grey Wardens. Some of them were just so unbelievable! To think that they used to ride around on griffins and could take down a whole army of darkspawn without letting anyone else get hurt? It used to blow her mind. She'd always envisioned Grey Wardens to be these giants that didn't even speak the common tongue. Now, there was one standing right in front of her, only a few inches taller than herself.
This Alistair was actually quite handsome. He was not like the battle-worn barbarians that she'd heard about. Her mind wandered to a tale that she'd heard from a traveling merchant that had been through Lothering a few years back. She'd just started growing into herself and she was still uncertain of things. The woman had attracted a bunch of the teenage girls with her tales of romance. One of which being about about a Grey Warden passing by a young woman's village. It had taken Marian quite a while to get what the women meant by the Warden's 'legendary endurance and stamina'.
"Are you sure you're well? He didn't hurt you or anything? You look sort of feverish..." Alistair asked suddenly, ripping the girl out of her thoughts. Marian didn't need to see her face to know that it had to be red, even through the grime. She went to glance down at her feet, but Alistair was standing close enough that she saw his feet and had to look back up.
"I-I'm fine. I just think that I'll need to wash myself, soon. This mud is insulating me with heat," a half-truth. Marian always tried to avoid lying, but she still couldn't meet Alistair's eyes. Her thoughts kept venturing to thoughts of the blond Warden in ways that she knew weren't proper. She thanked the Maker that she didn't know what she was thinking.
Then, a sudden thought came across her mind. What if he can hear my thoughts? What if all of the wardens can read my thoughts?
"Right, well it was nice meeting you, I have to go bye!" Marian didn't care if her words were jumbled together and may have not made much sense, because she just had to get out of there. She could practically feel his gaze on her as she ran passed him with renewed energy. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. How embarrassing!
It wasn't until after she'd delivered the message she'd been given by her captain that she had time to cool down. She snuck around the camp until she made it to the soldier's tents, happy when she found an area that she could scrub away the grime from her body. Her thoughts kept flying back to Alistair and her conversation with him. Could he have known what she was thinking? He must think she was some kind of freak for taking off the way she did!
She groaned, taking out her embarrassment on her muddied arms with the rough cloth material. To think that she'd meet such an attractive man and not have the guts to talk to him like a normal person. She'd been around men her entire life, she'd grown up fighting them and ignoring their jeers. Now, she had one unpure thought and she couldn't handle it? She hadn't even been able to tell him her name in return for his!
She paused in her scrubbing. Didn't that guy call him 'Chantry Boy'?
"He's celibate!" she nearly screamed, trying to ignore any of the passing by soldiers. She clapped a hand over her mouth and ducked down. With her luck, even Alistair had heard that! And now her mind was filled with even more unpure thoughts! She felt light headed and dizzy. The Maker save her!
Whatever sleep Marian had gotten had been restless. She tossed and turned on the hard ground, her dreams filled with soldiers on winged creatures flying into battle and ones about everyone around her hearing her thoughts and calling her a whore. When she finally gave up on sleep it wasn't yet dark out, and she could smell the grub that was being made on the campfire not far away. She felt slightly embarrassed as she exited her tent after dressing and heard her stomach growl out for food. She'd been too nerve-wracked to eat anything before, and now she was feeling it full on.
There was a crowd of hungry soldiers around the pots, a few trying to push others out of their way to be in front. Marian sighed when she saw this, but stepped in line non the less, ignoring the glances she got when her stomach decided to voice it's opinion on the wait ahead. "Oh, shut it, you!"
"You hungry?" Marian startled when she heard the voice, her whole body jerking around to look at it's source beside her. Three guesses as to who it was. "Ah! So it is you! You certainly look different, it's nice to see you've managed to rest a bit- not that you didn't look fine before, that is. I'm just saying that you look much more pleasing to the eye now, you know? I'm just going to stop there before I make even more of a fool of myself." Alistair stuck out a hand, in which her held a bowl full of a grey steaming concoction. "Here, I got this for a companion, but he won't be back for some time and is eating elsewhere, and I saw you about and wanted to see how you were doing."
Marian blinked, her mind going into overtime to process his words individually. She had a hard time thinking when her mind kept chanting 'Celibate, celibate, celibate...' every other word. She plastered on a smile, ignoring the growing wooziness and blaming it on her hunger. "I'm doing fine- great! Thank you for asking!" she felt like a puppet on strings, the way her limbs moved. She didn't remember commanding her arm to take the bowl, but it was there. "Thank you so much! I was so... exhausted earlier that I didn't get to eat."
Alistair gave her a smile that made her insides stammer, and she wondered how much of this her body could take before she shut down. She quickly dipped a spoon into the grub and shoved it in her mouth, chewing and swallowing without tasting. The moment she swallowed the first bite, she felt the overwhelming urge to just slurp it all down in one go.
Alistair, bless him, seemed to notice this. He let out a low laugh before pointing over to some shady trees a short distance away. "Wanna go sit down?"
Her body wasn't completely in her control, but she numbly remembered nodding before setting off alongside the junior warden. she'd almost finished a good half of the meal before they were sitting against the tree. Marian tried to ignore the gaze that she knew had to be on her as she swallowed the contents of the bowl. It wasn't silent for long. "King Cailan offered for the Grey Wardens to have tents in the main camp with him, but Duncan, our Commander, declined, so we're camped down with you guys, which I was happy of. There is only so much I can take of the King reciting his tales."
Marian wasn't sure what to say to that, but she kept eating when Alistair continued. "But this is my first time in a battle like this with the wardens, so I didn't think that the soldiers would whisper so much. I wish that I could just blend in with them, but they all seem to think of us as... inhuman."
It took her a second to form a response, but Marian had thought about it herself, even if it wasn't in the same way as many of the others may have, she had. "To tell you the truth, I half expect a griffin to swoop down here and for you to jump on it and fly off."
Alistair seemed to think this over, glancing at the cloudy sky. "I see. Swooping is bad, after all."
Marian giggled, continuing before her mind could catch up with her. "I doubt that many of the soldiers here have seen a Grey Warden. All we've heard are tales, and some myths that contradict each other. I don't know, it's just something that we have to get used to."
The blond Warden nodded, deep in his thoughts for a long minute while Marian ate. She chewed thoughtfully, her stomach having become satisfied enough for her to stop scarfing it down. She remembered a bit of their conversation yesterday, when she remembered that he didn't know her name. "Oh, by the way, my name is Marian Hawke from Lothering. I'm sorry that I forgot to tell you sooner, it slipped my mind."
Alistair's expression brightened. "Well met, Marian. I'm Alistair, and I'm hoping you've remembered. I didn't want to ask you, after hearing your... conversation with Davith, I didn't want to ask and seem like some sort of drooling lecher."
Marian snorted, ignoring how unlady-like it sounded. "Well, it was rude of me not to tell you earlier. You did attempt to save me. I don't think that classifies you as a lecher at all."
"Right! Not a lecher! Well, I suppose that is something to be proud of." his smile was warm as he regarded her. "Would I be bold to hope that I could be a friend?"
Marian paused for a moment, her thoughts returning to the 'Celibate, celibate, celibate!' mantra before she could stop herself. Wait! Who cares if he's Celibate! That doesn't mean that he can't be my friend, right? She just wondered how long she could survive being this man's friend, but she was willing to find out.
She smiled at him. "No, I don't think that it is a very bold statement at all!"
A/N: I hope that you like that start! Awkward!Hawke is rather interesting to write, and I hope to get the next chapter in there soon! Please Review, it may help me get the next one out faster!
Please keep in mind that I'm horrible at editing my own work. See a problem? Please tell me!