Bioware owns all, I'm just grateful to play in their sandbox
Shelter: Chapter 2
Aeryn was awake long before dawn broke. Stretching, she looked out her window into the garden. The clear sky indicated a warm day coming. She buckled on her leathers and sheathed her daggers and slipped down the stairs to the kitchen, to grab a sweet roll off the plate she had Orana leave out for her each night. Hawke's hours were odd. It was easier if she didn't have to bump around, disorganizing the elf's kitchen, when she needed a snack in the middle of the night.
The practice ring she'd built into a corner of the small garden was set up with dummies and targets and she fell into her stretches with the ease of old habit. Old habits also left plenty of brain to ramble with thoughts she could otherwise ignore.
She should apologize again, Hawke considered, as she leaned from a backbend into a handstand. She'd apologized for embarrassing Sebastian after the Harimann's, but not for…before. Rotating off her hands, she bounced into a crouch and flung the first knife into a hay-filled target.
When she'd turned on him like a half-starved wolf after Bethany went to the Circle. Bethany had made it fairly clear that she'd been the one, that she'd turned herself in, to keep the Templars from her family.
Cast the blame anywhere except where it belonged. cast the fake smoke powder bomb into the face of the nearest dummy She should have Sandal rearrange these now and again, for the surprise factor. And then remind him that practice dummies shouldn't go 'boom.'
through the paces of patterns, now Then, she'd ignored him. Avoided the Chantry like it was the Deep Roads all over again, as though the door might shut behind her and never open again. She'd been embarrassed, more than anything.
There had been such…pity in his face when he'd come to tell Mother about Bethany. That she lived. Compassion, then, and an urgent need to be useful, to her mother. He'd watched her, sitting in the corner of that dank, damp room of Gamlen's that the three of them had lived in for a year and a half. Whenever he hadn't had his eyes on Leandra's face, he'd looked up to her and…something in his gaze. Halfway between longing and needed distance. gauge the distance to the far wall and run and jump and ricochet back into the ring
Very briefly she'd wanted to close the gap, but then her mother had spoken to him. Aeryn knew it was just that Leandra had manners bred in the bone, she'd had to thank him. Aeryn had been trying to get her mother to speak for three weeks, at that point.
contrast the positions. down low with sweeping foot then up into a opposing roundhouse Sebastian Vael was nothing but a contradiction. Archer and priest. Gentleness and grace concealing power and impulsiveness. Cold white armor against ruddy hair and eyes like gas flames. Empty words and a voice that promised everything. Rough brown robes and smooth tanned skin. And…he was a priest. Oathsworn. And if Aeryn was nothing else, she was a woman who honored vows.
If she wasn't that…what else was left to her?
It was better to ignore him. ignore the fallen target and forward roll to hamstring the dummy To forget the way he had smirked fondly at her when she'd stammered out her request to escort her family. The way his eyes had sparked when she'd said his name. If she was a sort of temptation to him and his vow, then he was better off if she ignored him. And it didn't matter if she didn't honor what he made his vow to. Like the Saarebas, Ketojan. She'd honored the decision, even if she'd had the stench of burning flesh in her nostrils for days. She would lock that longing in the trunk with all the things from Lothering that she wanted to forget even as she kept them. don't forget that target half hidden in the bush or the one on the roof across from the ring
When he'd left the note with Bodahn, his request for her aid with the Harimann's, she'd almost tossed it in the trash. There were several other mercenary bands in Kirkwall, each able to take care of a host of problems. Let him ask one of them.
She had watched, though. Watched the mansion Sebastian had mentioned and noticed that no one entered or left. She'd had Varric make inquiries about the Harimann clan and discovered that there were strange rumors surrounding the family.
She'd remembered Lord Harimann, how he'd stood to aid Ferelden and realized that something must have gone wrong indeed if they had stooped to slaughter the Vael clan.
She'd seen Sebastian go up to the door once, bow in hand and watched as he'd shuddered and slunk away. It wasn't cowardice that held him back. So what, then?
She leaned over, with her hands on her knees, breathing deeply. She'd decided then. The next day she had asked Varric and Isabela to meet her in Hightown and picked Fenris up on the way to the Chantry.