Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.
Author's Note: Spanning the length of the game, these are several scenes I feel were missed between the two along the way, and certain scenes revamped in ways I imagined them. Here, Hawke is a female mage. I'm tyring a bit of a different style with this one. Please enjoy.
The Wild Dark
Chapter One: That Sweet Song
"His gaze flickered to her mouth for only a second, but it was enough to stir the magic in his lyrium tattoos. Her bones thrummed in satisfaction."
The first time she sees him there is a low humming she feels settling on her bones, a gentle thrum of magic that blossoms beneath her skin.
Hawke realized, much later, that it actually had nothing to do with him at all. It happened the moment the lines of lyrium tracing his skin blazed in rage and ruthlessness, Fenris' hand plunging into the guard's chest, his calloused fingers clenching around the man's beating, bleeding heart and then the slow ebb of lyrium as Fenris pulls back, the magic and the fury receding as quickly as it had burned alive. A moment. A barely-there second of enchantment. There was only the still warm heart at Fenris' feet now to attest to the elf's sudden violence.
She could have sworn she saw it thump softly on the pavement.
And then he turned his eyes to hers, the thrum of magic and lyrium gone from her mind, its unexpected music already fading from her ears and she finds that somewhere inside she has drawn back to the Fade to follow it. That sweet song lingering in just the right tones to make her wonder if it is memory or magic that is working on her mind. It is the first time she has felt the pull of lyrium outside the spirit world of the Fade, outside of the deceiving comfort of dreams. The pull of such pure magic anchored in the mortal world is halting enough to send her reeling from her body, where there is a sudden and painful crack of disconnect between the mind and the flesh, a separation that startles Hawke by it's unusual familiarity. That moment straddling the edge of dream and sleep, that moment of misstep where you panic in free-falling just before you catch your footing, that moment of detachment when you see the wound but you cannot feel the pain.
It is a moment that terrifies Hawke into realizing she has always lived one step away from the cliff edge, and yet exhilarates her in wondering how far the fall is.
Fenris will later ask her what she thought of their first meeting and she will lie to him. She will not tell him that his branded magic left a saccharine taste to her tongue, that she cannot clearly remember what she was doing only moments before the song of his lyrium-lined body had pierced her mind. Something clenched within her chest when the light had dimmed and the song had silenced and she recognized the last of the flitting ghosts of the Fade just has they abandoned her to the sharp and austere world of mortality. Hawke was suddenly aware of her halted breath.
There was a meeting of eyes as he fully turned to her, something lost and unspoken crossing between the two, full of everything and nothing at all. "I am not a slave."
She blinked. Even his voice carried the song of lyrium.
She did not lie when she told him it was the lyrium that caught her, but the elf that held her.
"I cannot fathom how it is you have surrounded yourself with such companions."
Hawke paused her mug of mead halfway to her mouth and gave him an amusing smile. She set the drink down to lean both elbows on the table and cocked her head toward him. "What do you mean?"
Fenris pulled his lips tight for a moment, an uncomfortable set to his jaw that made Hawke wonder if he ever held a conversation past "hello" with a mage before. Or rather, if Fenris' type of conversation with mages would likely consist of "goodbye". But he held her gaze as he began to speak. "I do not mean this in a ridiculing manner. I simply wonder at the vast differences between those you would call friends."
Hawke quietly took another sip from her drink, her slight smile of intrigue never leaving her lips. She motioned for him to continue.
Fenris held his arms unmoving at his sides, rigid and seemingly immune to the jovial and nonchalant atmosphere of the Hanged Man where they sat. Around them, drink and laughter poured forth with abandon. "You travel in the company of a Guard Captain and yet you still enjoy the friendship of a thief."
Catching a glimpse of Isabela's form at the bar, Hawke pursed her lips in cool consideration. "Well," she offered, "technically, they're both captains so no great leap there." Her flippant smile returned.
Fenris murmured a soft reluctant agreement. "However," he continued, "you also consort with an abomination while your brother grows ever more vocal about the value of the Circle."
"I never could shut him up before," Hawke waved off dismissively, gulping down more mead and leaning back in her chair. She lowered the mug. "Don't see how I could now."
His drink sitting untouched atop the wood of the bar table, his hands resting still atop his knees, Fenris frowned slightly. "And among your misfit group of companions are two elves who could not be further apart on the spectrum of life."
At this, she finished her mead and set the empty mug atop the table. "And your point is?"
"Why?"
She looked at him for a moment. "Why?" she repeated.
There was something deeper than curiosity in his gaze, something longing and guarded that shouted in the silence for some kind of justification. Some kind of reason for their contact. Nothing at all to do with Aveline or Isabela or Varric or any of the others. But their contact. His and hers. Some reason to validate this mutual growing dependency they shared. Some reason to assuage his wonder and alarm at what he would dare to say carried the potential of a friendship.
Because they weren't friends. They were conveniently helpful. They were financially opportune. They were even respectfully combative. But they were not friends.
Hawke seemed to pause in thought, rolling the word along her tongue silently. And the look of cautious expectance on his face made her think of that first night they drew weapons together. There was no trepidation in their movements, only a constant awareness of the other's position. Sharp and guarded eyes that spoke of a trust both would be slow to build. And yet there was this:
"I will need your help."
Fenris blinked in surprise as Hawke spoke the words softly, repeating what he had asked of her the night they met.
Her lips pulled into a smirk. "That's what you told me. 'I will need your help'."
There was a furrow to his brow, a request for explanation ready on his lips when she stood suddenly, grabbing her empty mug from the table.
"That's what they said, too."
Fenris narrowed his eyes, though in confusion, not suspicion. "That simple?"
There was an impishness to her smile as she inclined her head toward him. "That simple," she answered. And with that she took her mug to the bar in search of more mead.
Fenris sat staring at his own untouched glass.
There is something unpracticed and natural in the way his hand settles on her waist to nudge her gently to the side. She yields, subconsciously, moving with his coaxing so that he can step around her and walk to Varric as the dwarf leans over the chest he just picked open.
They were in a cave somewhere along the Wounded Coast, squeezing through the narrow passageways as they searched for the remaining Tal Vashoth. In this cramped room, Varric held up an engraved longsword that was locked inside the chest, motioning for Fenris to come over and take a look if it was something he's be interested in.
He stepped past Anders and in second nature, reached a gloved hand to Hawke's side, moving her in step with him as he came from behind her. She didn't even notice the motion but wondered at the sudden loss when the slight warmth of his touch had left her.
Varric eyed the exchange and raised a brow at Hawke.
Her eyes were elsewhere.
"You know, you risk arrest each time you visit here." It was meant in concern but Fenris couldn't help the way it came out as an accusation.
Hawke turned to Fenris as he spoke. "Yes, and you're an escaped slave whose former master has bids out everywhere to catch you, Isabela here's a thief and a smuggler-"
"Okay, seriously, I don't think you got everyone within earshot."
"-and Anders has both the Circle and Grey Wardens looking for him. It's not exactly a utopian society for any of us." She raised a brow at the elf.
"I'll say," Anders offered, as he crossed his arms and looked between the two.
Hawke shrugged. "Besides, no one in the Gallows has any reason to confront me. I've helped a few of them, templars even."
"Yeah," Anders began, eyeing her slightly. "About that 'helping templars' bit…"
Hawke sighed. "They were in need, Anders. It's not like I helped them catch apostates or anything."
"I know, I know. It's just…I mean, you can't trust them. Catching and breaking mages is what they do. How can you expect that they'll return your kindness? You give it too freely."
There was a moment when Hawke considered Anders, when she wondered what it would be like to grow up in a Circle, what she might have been like had she lived the life that Anders had. And she wondered at what point he turned that resentment into loathing. She wondered how he woke up every morning with that kind of thing festering within you for years. But then she remembers that she didn't grow up in a Circle, she didn't grow up around the blind and the fearful.
"Your mistake, Anders," she began slowly, "is in separating templars from the scope of humanity. Before any of us are mage or templar, we are first people." She licked her lips, watching as Anders simply considered her silently. She figured that was as much a motion to continue as she was going to get. "If I refuse to aid someone because of what they are, I've only perpetuated the cycle. I then pass judgment on that person for what they are, instead of who they are."
Fenris was not the one she expected to interrupt. "You cannot separate the two."
Anders raised his brows at that. "I think this is the first and last time I may ever agree with you, Fenris."
Fenris only scowled at the man. "What a person does determines his character. Our agency is our tool to creating who we are."
Hawke huffed, grinding her teeth slightly. "So when you were a slave, when you had no agency, you were what? Nobody? Did your lack of agency then determine that you were nothing?"
Fenris narrowed his eyes at her but his voice was as level as it was before. "That is another matter entirely. Mages have a choice when they make deals with demons."
"Okay, you had my respect for like 10 seconds there but –" Anders was cut off when Hawke stepped closer to Fenris, her fists clenching the slightest amount.
"Not all slaves are held by chains, Fenris." Her voice was tight and clipped. "But you are sometimes your own worst master. There may be mistakes along the way, but anyone who truly wants to aid others will always have my respect, whether I agree with their methods or not. And sometimes that is more valuable then actually liking them."
Fenris shook his head but his eyes had softened. There was a sympathy in his voice that irritated Hawke. "You are dangerously idealistic if you believe that. They will hurt you one day, you know? When your back is turned and it is in their benefit, these people you protect will gut you like a fish."
There was something challenging in Hawke's eyes. "Which is why I've chosen to surround myself with people I believe will have my back. That hasn't changed has it?"
He sighed resignedly. "No, that has not changed."
She raised her brows at Anders in question.
"No, that hasn't changed," he agreed.
"Then what the hell are we arguing about?" Hawke asked, her hands raised in question. She stomped off toward Sol's shop and the others fell in line behind her.
Fenris grumbled slightly to himself. "Mages," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Anders glared at him. "Bigot," he shot back.
"Honestly," Isabela laughed, "if either of you put half this much passion into the bedroom you might just put me to shame."
Fenris' sword cuts across the raider's throat in practiced precision. As the body falls before him he sees the bolt of lightning Hawke shoots at the last of the ambush party. And he sees the arrow the raider gets off before the lightning hits him and he falls dead.
Hawke cries out in pain, jolted back as the arrow lands in her shoulder.
Fenris moves to her without thinking, but Aveline and Anders are closer. Aveline catches her as she stumbles back from the shot, both of them falling haphazardly to the floor. But Aveline breaks their fall and Anders' hands are glowing with healing energy before he even reaches them. Hawke grits her teeth and lies in Aveline's grasp, her hand gripping Aveline's arm for support as Anders pulls the arrow from the wound, her skin already knitting together from the mending magic of his touch.
There is something tight and unfamiliar in Fenris' chest. He can only watch and wait.
"Don't worry," Varric comforts Hawke, his hand landing on her shoulder, "your brother knows you have his best interest at heart. Even if it takes a mild death-threat to get his head out of his ass."
Hawke smiles appreciatively at the dwarf before he pats her shoulder roughly and walks off in search of his own brother. She sighs, and rests her elbows on her knees, getting as comfortable as the Deep Roads rock will let her. Around her, the other hirelings are setting up camp, the meager light from the torches casting flickering orange and shadows around the cavern.
"But I didn't think humans were that flexible. Can you really get your head up your…you know. Or did I miss something dirty again?" Merill is scrunching her nose in confusion, looking at Hawke with her head cocked to the side in question.
Hawke blinks at the elf for a moment, but can't help the laugh that escapes. "Oh Merill. It's just an expression. And not a dirty one. Well," Hawke stops and smiles again, shrugging her shoulders, "I guess that depends on your definition of 'dirty'."
"Hmm. I suppose I'll probably never understand humans. Well, I think I'll go talk to Sandal. You know he's rather good at enchantment?" Merill's face brightened with the mention of her fellow magical companion.
Her cheer was contagious. "So I've seen."
"I have so many questions I want to ask him."
Hawke let out a chuckle. "Good luck with getting anything past 'enchantment' or 'I like pie' out of him."
Merill's brows knit together in confusion again. "What does pie have to do with enchantment? Oh, is it one of his magical secrets?" Her smile lights up again. "I'm going to go ask him."
Before Hawke can even shake her head in amusement, Merill has left as well, leaving the mage to smile after her. Fenris, sitting beside her on the rock outcropping, has been silent throughout the exchange.
"If I am not intruding," he begins hesitantly, "why did you leave your brother behind?" He is watching her in both concern and curiosity. There is nothing disapproving in his gaze. So Hawke answers him.
"It's really a whole jumble of reasons, not all of which may make sense to you." She gnaws on her bottom lip, her hands coming together. "Mostly, yeah, to keep him safe." She looks at Fenris.
"But?"
"But also because I can't stand him sometimes," she admits, smirking at the thought. "And because our mother should not have to worry if she will outlive all her children. And because he'd eat all our rations within the first four days. And because, well, maybe some part of me is selfish enough to not want to share the glory. And because I don't want to hear about how maybe Meredith isn't so far from the truth. And because I wanted to bring people who I could trust. Wholly and unreservedly."
It was instinctual, how his body had leaned toward her as she spoke, how his attention had not wavered from her face, how her voice had seemed to settle the shadows around them and inside him. He was not conscious of his breath as it stilled on her last words.
But she had not turned her gaze from his. And there was something offered between them that even she was not sure she had done. The dim torchlight of the cavern landed in slants upon his face, his green eyes piercing in the outline of faint light. Her lips parted unconsciously, her head lifting to stare at him further.
His gaze flickered to her mouth for only a second, but it was enough to stir the magic in his lyrium tattoos. Enough for Hawke's spine to straighten as the ghost of the Fade touched her mind, the music light and just out of reach, her ears straining for the notes of that sweet song. Her bones thrummed in satisfaction. She blinked, noticing the sudden silence, and saw Fenris had turned his eyes from hers. She blinked again, the murky cavern around them coming back to view, the shape of Fenris' form as he gripped his hands before him. She reminded herself to breathe.
"People you trust, hmm?" His voice was low and full of something Hawke could never understand.
She looked around the cavern as he did, her eyes alighting on each of her companions. "Well," she smirked, her eyes landing on Merill, "Some are here strictly for entertainment value."
Fenris followed her gaze and found Merill as she motioned with hands like claws and bared teeth to Sandal what he could only surmise to be the Dread Wolf. Sandal ran screaming.
Fenris' laugh filled the cavern.
He was three bottles in when he realized even Agreggio could not drown out the sound of her voice, the muted heat of her eyes.
"You know, I've seen you." Varric was standing in her threshold, one foot out the door when he stopped to say one last thing to Hawke.
She furrowed her brows in confusion, her hand on the open door, and she glanced around her newly furnished estate as though searching for someone else before turning to him with a bemused smile. "I should hope so Varric, or else I wouldn't trust you with Bianca anymore."
"I'm not talking about my eyesight, you daft woman," he said, laughing, but he had crossed his arms, something that told Hawke she wasn't going to shut the door behind him until he had said his piece. "I mean, I've seen you with Fenris."
"I'm not with Fenris, Varric." She motioned in the air with her hands.
"Maybe. Maybe not yet," he said cryptically.
"You know," she began, eyeing him mischievously and crossing her arms over her chest, "if I knew you were going to be this much of a gossip I wouldn't have invited you over."
He turned to leave the house, stopping one last time to look at her, and his stare made her halt in her motion to close the door. "I'm not your father, Hawke. I'm not even a respectable role model really. But I am a man. And as part of the species I find it my duty to tell you that you've got his attention. Be careful where you put it."
"Yes Hawke, but what does it do?"
"It doesn't do anything, Fenris. It's purely ornamental."
"It has no practical use?"
"None. But it is cute."
"So it is a ship she cannot use. And one stuck in a glass bottle no less. You believe she will enjoy this?"
"Fenris, if I gave her rope and said it was from some mast she'd probably jump me."
"You have a point."
"I think she'll like it."
"It just does not seem practical. If it has no use, why keep it?"
"You don't use contractions, you know that?"
"What?"
"Contractions. 'Isn't'. 'Don't'. 'Won't'. You don't use them. But it'd be practical to. Save some time. You wouldn't sound so uptight."
"I resent that."
"Yeah, I know you do. Anyway, the point is that there's no practical reason for you not to use them. But you do anyway. Because it means something, serves some inner purpose. What purpose, I have no idea. You're kind of secluded that way. But regardless, it's the same thing. Sure, the ship in a bottle doesn't serve any practical purpose, but Isabela would like it anyway. Because it means something."
"I suppose you are correct in your thinking. And in that sense, I believe it will make a wonderful gift."
"Thank you."
"I just do not understand why you asked for my opinion."
"Maybe because it means something?"
Fenris was silent for a long time. "That is perhaps the greatest gift you could give me."
When she wakes she is screaming and sweating. She is scared. She thinks of Fenris. And she breathes again.
"You have not been a slave! You cannot sit there and preach to me about shackled pasts and festering pain." There was a growl to Fenris' tone that Hawke had never heard directed at her before. A dangerous undercurrent to his voice that promised of thrumming lyrium and barely checked anger.
Her cheeks flushed indignantly, her nostrils flaring. She was toe to toe with him before she knew she was moving, her legs taking her across the room swiftly and purposefully. She yanked the bottle from his grip, ignoring his bark of objection. The sound of crashing glass filled the decrepit mansion, filled the heated air between them, the growing fury blooming in each of their chests.
"How dare you-" he began lowly, his green eyes dark and menacing upon hers.
"How dare you, Fenris!" Her breath was hot on his cheeks, spitting her anger across his face. He could practically taste it.
"You hide in here and play the poor, wounded slave of Danarius, while you spit on the outstretched hands of your friends!" Her anger found its way into her clenched fists, her white knuckles, the heaving of her chest with furious, labored breaths. A hand came up to jab roughly at his chest and he stumbled back slightly, caught off guard by her violent indignation.
But he steadied himself quickly, bearing down on her with a rage in his eyes and in his chest that burned to be released in the magic of his tattoos. He felt a tingling along the lines of lyrium but he swallowed thickly, pulled a sharp, venomous breath through his nostrils and calmed. "Friends?" he spat, his tone incredulous. "Do not delude yourself, Hawke, they have no reason to ascribe me as friend. I daresay the term is used lightly even for us. And that is on dangerous ground already." There was a dark rumble in his throat as he stared her down.
Her voice was steadily rising. "You cower away in hatred and revenge and you let it rule over you. This wallowing in self-pity is disgusting. You don't want to be free of Danarius at all! You want to continue to hate him. You need something to loathe and swear vengeance upon so you never have to account for your actions. You're selfish, Fenris," her voice cracked, her eyes burning with hot tears, and she wiped one hand across them angrily, defiant even still in her hurt.
"And you stink of misplaced self-righteousness. Spare me the sermon, mage." His words were hot against her face.
She flushed in anger once more. "You don't even recognize when someone tries to reach out to you, you blind bastard. And I swear on Andraste's flaming ass I will not spill tears over you. You don't deserve them. You're more a slave to your hatred than you ever were to Danarius." She scoffed at him, shaking her head in frustration, her clenched fingers cutting half-moons into her skin. "And it's pathetic."
There was barely an instant, barely a breath of time as the word left her lips before Fenris had her by the forearms and slammed against the wall. She cried out in pain and surprise as her head hit the wall behind her. Her eyes snapped open to the image of Fenris snarling in her face, the illumination of lyrium bright before her eyes. She could feel the magic building beneath her own skin.
She stared wide-eyed at him, but only for a moment, before she narrowed her eyes so suddenly he almost missed it. A sudden force of magical energy slammed into Fenris and threw him from her. He hit the floor a few feet away, and she heard him groan at the sudden unexpected impact. But he was scrambling to his feet immediately.
When he turned to her once more, his lyrium veins flaming up again, his breath stilled in his lungs. She wasn't waiting for another blow. She wasn't crouching in tense anticipation of a fight. She simply stood there, one hand grabbing at her collar in an oddly helpless looking manner. Fenris was stopped suddenly by the image of her quivering lip, her body trembling in rage and betrayal, the salt of her tears stinging her eyes. She blinked them back fiercely, the water hot against her lids, her shoulders hunched as if for protection. The glow of his veins dimmed immediately.
There was something so exposed about her in that one moment, in the stance of her form, before her eyes glazed over with a steady appraisal, that cold calculating look he'd seen only ever trained on someone who was soon to be dead. And something in his chest clenched painfully at the thought that he'd put it there. The thought that she had allowed him close enough to hurt her. That she had allowed him the offer of her vulnerability. And he had spat at it.
He swallowed down the sudden bile. That stinging slice of shame was harder.
"Never again," she warned lowly, her voice shaking only slightly. "Never again." It was barely a whisper.
He doesn't remember how he did it then but somehow he had turned and yanked the door to the mansion open, ran into the night and up and out and away from there. Away from her. He couldn't get far enough.
His door is blown open and his sword is at his side within heartbeats. He runs from the room to see Anders standing in his foyer. The confusion and alarm are wiped from his mind as anger sets in. "What do you think you are you doing, mage?" The words are tight and hissed. But Anders looks up and sees him at the top of the stairs.
He raises a hand to point at the elf, eyes narrowed and voice bellowing, "I don't know what the hell you did, but by the Maker, you better fix it." His eyes were hard and uncompromising, a threatening promise filling them. "Or I will."
That was all the warning he got before Anders stormed back out of the mansion. The silence was deafening.
He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand her boundless compassion.
When the slavers came for him, not a heartbeat had passed before she was cursing their mothers and showering flames upon them. She hadn't allowed his casual touch again, hadn't allowed his proximity. But she still fought for him. She let him kill Hadriana.
Nothing had ever seemed so hollow before.
It was Hawke's watch. She sat atop the rock outcropping overlooking the Wounded Coast path trailing down hill from them before it disappeared into the ocean. The night was chill and silver. If she listened close enough to the silence, she could hear the lyrium singing to her just beyond the edges of her mind.
Fenris was beside her suddenly, Isabela and Merill asleep in their packs behind them.
Hawke did not turn to look at him, and he did not move to sit beside her. She could hear his steady breathing.
There were long moments where only the sea moved before them.
"I cannot ask for forgiveness." His voice was low and even amidst the silence.
She did not turn.
"I…I had wanted to hurt you, Hawke." This time, his eyes on her, his voice caught on words that lodged painfully in his throat. "The lyrium and the loathing had demanded it of me."
She blew a soft calming breath into the air. She watched the waves rolling in the distance.
His gaze had not left her face. "Do you understand? I almost hurt you, Hawke."
"But you didn't." There was nothing but gentle waves and easy melody to her voice.
"I would have." He couldn't explain the urge to touch his hand to her cheek, to wonder if she would turn from him. He didn't reach for it.
"But you didn't."
"I do not deserve your companionship." Her hands were settled on the rock beneath her. Her hands. So close. Her touch so missed since she had stolen it back from him.
"And yet you have it."
"And yet I have it." His fingers grazing her hand. "I…I am sorry, Hawke. I…" His words are no longer his own. They are lying on the floor between them somewhere, bleeding their meaning into the dirt at their feet. There is something sharp and caught on his voice.
She looks at him.
He cannot ask for anything more.
But she pats the rock next to her, scoots a little to her right and turns back to watch the waves. "Sit with me, Fenris."
They watch the sun come up.
She can't remember the last time she loved someone's touch so much, loved the feel of his fingertips, whispering across her skin, his fingers grazing her ribs with a reverence that almost made her cry. The feel of his muscles as she grips his shoulders, how they churn and roll beneath the pads of her fingers, swirling just under her touch, as though she was never the one who wielded magic. That wondrous moment of disconnect, the free-fall, the sweet song of something stronger than lyrium-tinted skin, something that tastes like gold dust and breathes like the wild dark, half-waking and half-dreaming coming together beneath her palms, trembling beneath her skin until she feels it release itself in a breath expelled across his neck. His skin splattered with the mastery of worlds and light, and she grips him tighter to her for fear she'll be able to breathe again.
