From the forum challenge "Midnight Rendezvous" as detailed by Celestial Chaos, which you can read up on at the bottom.
Up first: (sorta) charming, mostly funny Warrior Hawke during Act 3. I'll get to all three classes and personality types. Because I want to. :D
Warnings: language! Really foul-mouthed Hawke in this one.
Fenris bounds on silent bare feet across the rooftops of the Hightown estates, skidding down a slant of shingled tiles and sliding to a halt on the roof of the illustrious Amell Estate. From here he can see clean across the courtyard to the Viscount's Keep, now empty of a ruler, and if he turns his head just a few degrees further, the Chantry spreads its spires toward the sky, a beacon of faith to shine above the city.
He drops to his knees above the lone lit window of the Estate, stretching on his belly and dangling his head over the open window to peer upside-down at the room within. Something smacks him in the forehead and he jerks back up just as a string of creative, Fereldan-accented curses spews into the night below him. Fenris smirks and shakes his head. If Hawke is right, then the Maker and Andraste have quite the interesting relationship. There is a loud clatter of metal armor that makes him wince and tighten his fingers around the stone edge and a series of erratic scraping and crashing noises. Then he hears the words, "Bloody hard-headed elf,"grumbled with a smile evident in the tone and he peers over the edge of the roof again.
Hawke's still in that brilliant new plate armor she found on the dragon they killed in the Bone Pit that afternoon, despite the fact that it's nearly midnight, and has managed to get the series of layered shoulder-spikes jammed in the window frame as she climbs out. One of her legs kicks out over the tangle of her garden below while the other clangs against the wall inside of her house in her effort to be free. After a moment of furious struggle she stills and shoots him a glance of ironic resignation. Her trapped arm is wedged to her side and she wiggles her metal-gauntleted fingers at him as her face tilts up and laughing blue eyes meet his.
"I think I'm stuck," she announces in a very serious tone. "Andraste's Maker-begattan hermaphrodite bastard whelp," she snarls, almost as an afterthought.
His eyebrow arches. "For shame," he comments, voice dry and deadpan, "What would the nobility of Kirkwall say to see their Champion stuck in her window in the middle of the night?" Fenris extends a hand to her un-pinned arm and they grip one another's wrists with the metal claws of their gauntlets.
"Shame be damned," she grins, giving him a smirk that usually turns his blood to lava. When she's not stuck in a window, of course. "I'll sneak around at night if I damn well please."
He chuckles and tugs on her arm to test and see if he can just yank her loose. No luck. "You have no shame, woman," he answers, which is honest enough. After all, she is an ale-swilling mercenary who cheats terribly at Wicked Grace and makes crude jokes about 'the multitude of dead idiots and prigs' she's seen and slain. He sighs, exasperated at this latest conundrum, and adds. "Nor grace or stealth, it appears."
"Maker's wet, slapping bollocks," she mutters, kicking her heel against the wall in an effort to gain purchase and leaving a scuff across the stone. Of course there are many such thumps and bumps around the house from Hawke's roughhousing, mercenary manners and her immense hound, Dog. Though Fenris has never met her brother Carver, he imagines that if he was anything like his sister (she claims he was), the house would be worse than the shambles of Denarius' manor, may he rot in hell.
"Lean your shoulder back inside," he orders, trying not to chuckle when she impulsively pushes forward and there's a terrible scraping noise followed by a cloud of stone powder. "And go through sideways."
She mutters a few more obscenities and as he tries to wrap his brain around a particularly vivid description of Andraste and the Maker and Hessarian, Hawke squirms back in and then scrambles out with a clatter of armor and curses, clinging to his hand and reaching for the roof with the other, hauling herself up with sheer strength. It's that strength that first drew him in, the shock and thrill of seeing a slender human woman whip a broadsword off her back and wield it with the same skill and ease he does, falling into a brutal synchronicity beside him no matter how many enemies surround them. That strength that allows her to grip his arms and shove him to his back as she kisses him an eager greeting.
"You are glad to see me," he comments when she clanks off him and sits forward, scooting away from the edge of the roof.
Hawke snorts, an unladylike sound that he's learned to love. "Maybe that blighted brush with death climbing out of my sodding window made me want a good hard tumble," she answers, eyes twinkling at him. Her teeth flash through the dark as she pushes hair from her eyes with a hand. "You know, half-dressed and rutting about all pounding full of bloodlust and the battle high."
Fenris lunges for her and shoves her back against the flat stone rooftop. "You will be the death of me, woman," he growls against her lips, tangling a hand in her hair as he kisses her.
"No," she answers, "You will be the death of me. Climbing me up onto the blighted Maker-damned rooftop to snap my neck and bloody die-" He interrupts her rant with another kiss, hoping to distract her by removing her clanky, clattering armor. But she pulls back and stares at him with swollen lips. "Can't we meet somewhere a bit less... death-defying?"
He snorts and occupies himself with tearing a piece off the red scarf around her neck to replace his raggedy-looking red band. "I thought you enjoyed defying death on a daily basis?" he asks, pulling off the blood and dirt-stained red scarf she gave him after she ripped his last one off his wrist in a fit of combined anger and clothing removal. He still doesn't regret being such a prig about the Antivan assassin and he never will, he thinks, a wolfish grin covering his features.
"Only if I'm getting paid," she grunts as he pulls at a buckle and tightens the armor against her throat. Her fingers swat his away and go to work, nimbly tugging the fastenings of the chest plate apart so he can remove the hulking suit of armor from around the small woman.
"You're a madwoman and you know it," he accuses, his voice muffled by his mouth on her neck. Her pulse jumps and the muscles of her shoulders quiver with laughter. "I do not know why I follow you still."
Hawke makes a noise that his half mock-offended, half challenge being taken up. She lunges up to kiss him breathless, her knees compressing his hips and her strong, lean arms winding around his back and into his hair. Her nipping teeth and heated tongue and the chapped, windburned lips draw all his focus, becoming the entirety of his universe as he returns her kiss. As he growls and grips her waist to pull her closer she pulls back to smirk at him for a second, bright eyes dancing with reflected starlight.
"Now I believe I am beginning to remember why," Fenris says before he leans down for more.
Their laughter echoes through Hightown, punctuated with the occasional clank of armor or muttered curse, growing breathless under the moonlight. In the shadows behind the pillars between the Viscount's Way and the Chantry, a dwarf and a pirate sit playing cards. With a sigh, the dwarf tosses a small, clinking bag to the pirate before the hand is out.
"Told you, Varric, I know sex," the pirate purrs, fanning herself with her cards as the gasps and moans crest.
"All right, Rivaini, you win. They are doing each other," the dwarf grumbles. He thought it would take at least three years of pining after Fenris' walkout. Whatever. He can make certain... adjustments in the retelling.
Challenge 3: Midnight Rendezvous. (by Celestial Chaos)
This challenge is all about the ~love~. As we all know, there is a lot of downtime when playing the game where your characters are either a) in the camp, b) wandering around Vigil's Keep or c) chilling at the Hawke estate once it exists. And yes, we all know that there was some wink-wink-nudge-nudge going on around these places, so it's up to you to create a scene that involves just that!
When you accept the challenge, please reply with which pairing you'll be doing from the given sets below, specifying the gender of your Warden or Hawke. Once you complete the story please post it on the thread so we can read it and provide feedback!
Here are the requirements for the story:
1. Must be between 1000-2000 words in length.
2. Must contain one of the following pairings (Het, slash and femmeslash all welcome): Warden/Alistair, Warden/Morrigan, Warden/Leliana, Warden/Zevran, Hawke/Isabela, Hawke/Anders, Hawke/Fenris, Hawke/Merrill
3. Can be rated PG all the way to M at your discretion. Please mark clearly if the story is R or M rated!
4. Must involve the line, "Shame be damned, I'll sneak around at night if I damn well please." Either character may say this.
5. Must be completed within two weeks of accepting the challenge.
Good luck writers! :D