Hawke leaned against the rail of the boat, closing her eyes as she felt the wind against her face; listened to the constant sound of the waves. Smelled the salt in the air. She wondered if she should be feeling free.
The last time she was on a boat had been years ago, when they were fleeing the blight. Marian had seen Bethany's death whenever she closed her eyes; each time she had imagined a new way to save her. Each time she had been unable to do anything by watch her sister die. The air in the hold had felt thick with grief for homes and loved ones lost, and Marian had spent most of the journey watching Carver and her mother, terrified that she would have to put her knife in them the way Aveline had put her knife in her husband.
Now, when she opened her eyes and looked to her right, Anders looked out over the sea next to her, and Marian's heart beat in fear of the monsters chasing him.
Now, she was running once again, Kirkwall torn apart and this time she had lost it, or maybe she had sacrificed it and Hawke couldn't remember if there was a difference anymore. Now, Hawke might be on Isabela's ship rather than a stranger's, and it might be Anders next to her rather than her family, but she was still right back where she had started from all those years ago: penniless and homeless and terrified for the people she loved.
Maybe for most people freedom was wind and waves and salt, but for Hawke it just felt like running.
"I'm always surprised," Anders said suddenly, pulling her to the present like an anchor, "When I realise how big it is."
Hawke hesitated, uncertain how to reply or if she even should. At first she thought he was thinking about the sea, but then he continued.
"I guess you forget, when you're in there, that there's even a world outside. They probably want you to forget that there's anywhere else you can go. But every time I escaped I would remember, and then I just wanted to see it all."
Hawke imaged a younger Anders standing on the shore of a lake and trying to remember what it meant to be a part of the world. She wondered how many times he had gone back to where he started from and hadn't given up, had tried again because maybe, maybe this time he could get it to work.
Hawke tried to imagine what it must feel like, having the whole world before her, and she could almost imagine it, but not quite.
"I never did manage to see everything," and now Anders spoke quietly, like he was lost in thought, and he still hadn't looked away from the ocean.
You saw more than some, Hawke thought, but she didn't say it. There was no point, when Anders had been thinking that for years, had turned it into his own call to arms. So instead she placed her hand on top of his own, and only then did he look towards her.
"We'll just have to see it together, then," she said, and her tone was light, as if she had been making any other comment, but it was as much a promise as I love you would have been, and just as important.
I will never leave you.
Anders smiled at her, and it reminded her of their own beginning. Of falling in love with that same look of adoration that had frightened her until she realised that her own face was a mirror.
She might have been right back where she started from, but the future was open wide in front of her, and maybe she wasn't quite free but she wasn't exactly trapped either.
And anyway, starting from there had worked out well enough last time.