Hawke bought the lute some time after she had taught him most of his letters, but long before he could easily make out words. The atonal plucking made it impossible to focus on crabbed writing. He felt stupid, he felt like a child, but when he looked up he saw her head bent over the strings, her face pinched in frustration and her hands twisted awkwardly.
She had just managed a few simple songs when he made the mistake of bedding her. The house was silent as he left.
At Aveline's wedding he learned of her singing voice—lovely, but honest and soft. He had to walk near to hear her; the quality of it made him think of how she once looked at him and sometimes still did. He found that a small, foolish part of him did not want the others nearby to hear her sing, as if it were only meant for him.
He bought his own lute a few weeks later, but the strings cut into the markings on his fingers and made them bleed. He threw the instrument in rage, which broke a peg and snapped a string.
Hawke rarely came to Fenris's mansion anymore, but she found the lute once when she did. She laughed at him while tearing cobwebs from it. Sure-fingered, she tuned the remaining strings. He remembered the touch of those fingers, touching the back of his knee and tracing upward. He asked for a song.
She stopped halfway through, her eyes dropped from him and her face flushed. He laughed for the joke that she made, but his mind was sharpening on knowledge.
He knew that his fear of Denarius had driven him from the only thing that he could not bear to live without. She left and he did not follow her, shackled by his own cowardice.
AN: Thanks to valiasedai for the beta!
