Thank you guys so much for all of the support with this new fic! I was worried most of you wouldn't return, but my inbox exploded after I uploaded the first chapter! I'll be replying to your reviews later tonight. Thanks so much for reading/reviewing/favoriting/subscribing. It really means a lot :D
"You fucking promised me, Archer!" Anders screamed out at the top of his lungs, a fireball shooting from the tip of his staff.
Hawke yelped and dodged quickly out of the way as a wall of embers blazed towards him. "I did nothing of the sort!" he shouted.
The mage growled and readied himself to attack once more. "Yes you did! You promised me that we wouldn't have to do this any longer; that you'd just leave it!"
"You knew what this was!"
"Laides!" Isabela yelled as she sliced the head clean off of a drake. "Will you both shut your mouths and fight so we can live?"
The lovers had been fighting, but both of them could easily admit that their focus was off was they bickered about their current predicament. Each of them responded by attacking the high dragon who had been showering the dry expanse outside of the Bone Pit with fire and smoke. The fight had been carrying on for more than half an hour, and Hawke and his companions were utterly exhausted. With piles of reptilian corpses littering the ground, they knew they were close to the end, and it was the Champion's blade that would finally end it. The beast had been encased in rock by one of Anders' spells, and there was but a moment before she broke free. Hawke raced up a rock ledge beside her, jumped onto her neck, and sent his sword straight down into her braincase.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as steel bore down into scale. He held onto her tightly as her head dropped, and he rolled away quickly as not to be crushed by her falling body.
"It's about time," Fenris scoffed as he put away his blade. He turned to Anders and glowered. "If you would have just shut your mouth and fought, we would have been done with this in half the time."
"Oh yes, it was all the abomination's fault, wasn't it?" Anders asked with a sarcastic laugh. He gripped onto his staff and battled with himself not to just strike the elf down right then and there. "It was all me, of course. Archer didn't have a thing to do with it."
"He had every right to defend himself from your blame and incessant whining," the elf spat.
"Enough!" Isabela barked. She panned around the group of her male companions. "Really, from all of you. I get it; Hawke told Anders he would come here, assess, and then sell the Bone Pit so he would stop wasting time and money on it."
"And so we wouldn't be attacked by a band of bloody dragons again!" Anders added.
"And that," Isabela said. "But now that we've come back here and saw that everything was terrible, I'm sure he will sell it, and we'll all be done with it. Right, Hawke?"
The warrior had his arms crossed against his chest. "Well now I have half a mind to keep it."
"You're such a child," Anders said as he rolled his eyes.
"You're both children," Isabela said with a sigh. "Now let's loot the place and get back to Kirkwall. I'm tired, and I need a drink, and I need to get the stench of dragon out of my dress."
The group dispersed and checked the bodies for anything they could make a profit off of. They had always been surprised at the things they could find on their fallen adversaries, but they always managed to come out with far more than drake scale. A gold piece here, a dagger there. And there was always a small cave in the back of this expanse that seemed to house something rather valuable. Hawke made his way back there, careful to step around the reptiles. The entrance was low, and once he got there, he crouched down on his hands and knees to peer inside.
"Oh, Maker," he said with a smile. He reached out carefully and grabbed a large egg. It was an off white color, smattered with hints of purple and red, and it was about the size of his head. It sat in a large nest, surrounded by several other eggs which had clearly been smashed to pieces.
"Archie, I'm sorry," Anders said as he walked up behind him. "I think I was still just upset from last night and – what in the world is that?"
Hawke had stood up and turned around to face his lover. He cradled the egg in his arms, and held it tight to his chest. "It's an egg," he said with the biggest smile possible plastered across his face.
"Yes I gathered that part," the mage said. "But what kind of egg? You don't think it could be…"
"It has to be," the dark-haired man answered. "Why else would the dragons be so bent on protecting this place?"
Fenris and Isabela made their way over to the lovers and stared blankly at the egg in the Champion's arms. Dragons were becoming more and more common it had seemed, but the stories and texts about them were few and far between. It was a wide-spread belief that dragons lived in lairs far higher up in the mountains than was the Bone Pit, and it was almost hard to believe that they could be nesting here.
"Alright, Love. Put that back, and let's go."
"What?" Hawke asked in disbelief. "You want me to just leave it here?"
"Well I suppose you could bring it," Anders said. "I could see if I could use the yolk or albumen for a treatment, or we could see if the Dalish had a use for it." The mage reached out to take the egg from him, but Hawke held on tight and pulled away.
"You're kidding me, right? There's a baby dragon in there, and he'll die if I leave him because we killed his mother. iI/i killed his mother. I have an obligation to him."
"An obligation to what?" Isabela asked.
"I need to raise him!" Hawke said, his tone annoyed. "I stripped him of his chance to live, and I owe him his life."
"Are you bloody kidding me, Archer?" Anders asked.
"No!"
"Even if you did raise him, he'd just turn on you," Fenris said. "Dragons cannot be trained. You will have to kill him in the end, and then what would have been the point?"
"I can't believe I'm agreeing with him, but Fenris is right," Anders admitted. "You'll just end up becoming attached, and then you'll be hurt by it. I don't want you to have to go through that. Besides, dragons are massive, if you hadn't noticed. There's no way he could stay at the estate."
"I don't even think it's a dragon," Hawke said. "Far too small of an egg; I recall from a book. Yes, it's definitely a drake egg, and they're just the perfect size for the estate. You said I could get a new pet anyway, and it is my house. So he's coming with me." With that, Hawke pushed forward past his companions and started to head towards their way out.
Fenris quickly followed, but Isabela stayed back to place her hand on the right shoulder of a very stunned Anders. "Don't worry, Anders. Hawke's a smart guy, but he hasn't the time or ability to even get that thing far enough to hatch."
"I don't know," Anders said softly, thinking back to their discussion about children from the night before. "I don't think you have any clue about how badly he's going to want this."
"Isn't he beautiful?" Hawke asked as he pulled the dragon's egg out of his pack. He and all of his friends were gathered around Varric's table at the Hanged Man, ready to drink and play their weekly game of Wicked Grace.
"Hawke, please tell me that's not a-"
The warrior quickly cut off Aveline. "It's my new son!" He threw one arm around Anders and flashed a toothy grin at him. "I'm sorry, iour/i new son."
"Andraste's tits, Archie, put the egg away," Anders groaned.
Hawke leaned over to his left towards Merrill and whispered to her, "Someone's just grouchy. Post-partum depression or something like that."
"Ugh, you're an idiot," the blonde said. He shook his head as he looked around the table. Everyone seemed to think this was far more amusing that he did, except for Aveline at least. But leave it to the Guard Captain to realize the severity of the situation.
"Now we haven't picked out names yet, but we really haven't had the time," the Champion explained as he carefully placed the egg back in the secure warmth of his pack. "This was all rather sudden and unexpected, of course."
"You'll be putting my city in danger by raising that thing," Aveline said with a scowl.
"Have a little faith in me, will you?" Hawke asked. "We'll raise him right; instill good values in him, teach him right from wrong. He won't be some hooligan drake running around town setting fire to little girls' braids. He'll be an upstanding citizen, and a loyal companion – just like his brothers."
"He does have a point, Red," Varric said with a chuckle. "Dog has helped us in battle more times than I can remember."
Aveline sighed and took a swig from her mug of ale. "Alright, Hawke. But I'm warning you here and now: keep that thing in line, or I'll be forced to step in."