vii.

Vows Unspoken

"Is something wrong?" Fenris asked.

Kaycee gave a single, sharp nod. She took in a shaking breath, then said, "Would you walk with me, Fenris?"

Fenris peered at her. "Lead," he agreed after a moment. "I will follow."

Though they had drawn only idle interest before, Kaycee felt many more people perk up through their alcoholic haze as she and Fenris walked out of The Hanged Man in the middle of the last waltz. She hadn't minded before, but now she resented their curious glances. Couldn't the small-minded idiots in this town find another source of juicy gossip than the half-fabricated life of the Champion of Kirkwall? It felt like she'd been the talk of the town since the Deep Roads expedition, or even a little before.

Kaycee and her friends had been keeping the streets clear, and all of civilized Kirkwall was now fast asleep, so it wasn't long before Kaycee and Fenris got to an empty avenue far enough from The Hanged Man she could be sure they wouldn't make a scene. She kept walking toward Hightown, but began speaking.

"Please don't confuse me, Fenris," she said quietly. "I was fine, I truly was. I was all right with things as they were. If you never touched me again, so long as you were with me, there when I needed you, I decided a long time ago it would be enough. But if you're going to act like there's more between us than that in front of other men, if you're going to hold me like you mean it—please mean it, that's all I ask."

Fenris was silent a long moment. "I did mean it," he confessed at last. "Forgive me. I know I have no right to interfere. There are no promises between us. But I did not care for the way he looked at you. Could you not see his intentions?"

Kaycee's heart beat faster, but she managed to recover her composure. "A blind woman could have seen his intentions. That says nothing at all about mine. I was just dancing, and I asked you first." In truth, she'd asked all of their friends first, but she'd carried her point well enough. Fenris seemed taken aback.

They walked quietly together for a long while before he spoke again. "That man was not the first. There are many men—many women, if you chose—who would gladly be your lover, Hawke."

Kaycee looked over at him. "There's no one else here, Fenris," she pointed out. "You don't have to call me by my surname. You were quick enough back there to be more familiar than anyone ever is these days. You might as well continue on."

She saw his cheeks flush in the lamplight as they wound their way through the streets and back alleys of Kirkwall, up the stairs through upper Lowtown toward Midtown. "I know it was a liberty. But thank you . . . Kaycee. If I could ask, why haven't you entertained any of your other suitors? You have had more than one offer of marriage, even, or so I've been told."

Kaycee sighed. "What would I do with a respectable husband?" she replied. "What would a respectable husband do with me? I haven't gotten any offer I took seriously for a moment." She paused. "As for the other—why did you come out to dance after all?" She reached out and tapped Fenris's wrist once, where he wore her favor. She smiled sadly. "I've always known you loved me, in your way," she said. "You've always let me and everyone see it. It's too valuable a gift not to honor."

Fenris stopped dead. They were in an alley in Midtown, among the houses of the merchants and artisans of Kirkwall. Kaycee turned to face him, waiting. He looked like she'd clubbed him over the head with her staff. The lyrium in his skin was shining in the dark. "After three years, you still would have me?" he asked, incredulous. His voice shook. "Kaycee—I have risen no higher than what I was then. I cannot do so, but you are the Champion of Kirkwall, one of the most powerful humans in the city."

Kaycee shook her head. "Champion of Kirkwall," she repeated contemptuously. "A fancy title Meredith slapped on me so she wouldn't have to risk the political fallout of clapping me in irons after I killed the Arishok. It doesn't change who I am. For all Varric's tall tales and all my scheming suitors, I'm still the same Ferelden apostate I always was. No more respectable than you—not really—or even worse. Someday they might even remember that." She reached out and softly touched his cheek. "Not that respectability really matters to me. It doesn't say anything about who either of us is. Fenris, I would have had you any time you were ready. I forgave you no more than two weeks after you left."

Fenris's eyes kindled. Tentatively, he bent his head down and kissed her lips once, softly, then when she kissed him back, he let out a groan that he seemed to have been holding in for three years. He gathered her up in his arms like she was nothing and kissed her harder, just like she remembered—like he was trying to devour her or he needed her to breathe. Kaycee clutched his shoulder, knotted her fingers in his hair, and let her head fall back as he bit his way down her jaw. His hand moved from her waist to her backside right in the street, and she let it. He gave a helpless, sad, disbelieving laugh. "I was a coward and a fool," he told her in between kisses. "Kaycee—I am yours. I have always been yours."

"Shut up," Kaycee told him fiercely, and stopped his mouth with another hot and open kiss. For a long time there was no more talking, just fevered hands and hungry mouths and the flash of lyrium in the dark.

When they came up for air, Kaycee didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I've been waiting for you to do that for three years."

"I was such a fool at first, I did not think I could," Fenris told her. His voice sent a shiver of pleasure running from Kaycee's toes to the very tips of her hair. "Eventually your actions led me to believe otherwise, but then they hailed you Champion of Kirkwall, and I thought the time for us had passed. But I have wanted you every day since the night I left. Being without you—there is nothing worse." He kissed her again, slow and deep. "Do you truly forgive me?"

Kaycee clung to him, letting him support her as her knees turned to jelly. "I'll do anything you like and forgive anything you want if you keep doing that and follow up on it. Maker's breath, I forgot just how good you feel."

Fenris's hands were everywhere at once, sending delicious warmth through her where they touched. "Yet your touch has been in my mind, tormenting me every moment," he murmured.

Before they passed the point of no return, and Kaycee found herself on her back with her trousers around her knees in the alleyway, and too flooded with desire and need to care anymore, she pushed back on him, smiling. She took his face between her palms. "If we head back to the estate, I can do something about that," she suggested. "We can't have me tormenting you—at least not in any of the bad ways." She stepped away and held her hand out.

Fenris was still glowing, but he took her hand, and in a few moments the glow had subsided as they resumed their walk back to Hightown.

After they had been walking a while, Kaycee asked quietly, "Fenris. Will you have me now? Or will you leave before dawn again and will it be another three years?"

Fenris ran his thumb up and down the back of her hand. "I do not know what will happen, what I will feel when I am with you," he admitted. "But what I feel for you has not changed in all this time. I do not believe it can. It has only grown stronger. I will stay."

"Good." Kaycee said firmly.

"And what of Danarius? If he should ever return for me?" Fenris asked.

"What of the Templars?" Kaycee replied. "If Meredith ever decides it's no longer worth it to tolerate me? We'll handle it. You and I will handle anyone foolish enough to come after us, the same as we've always done."

Fenris squeezed her hand, but as they crossed the bridge into Hightown at last, he still seemed thoughtful. "What kind of life will we have, I wonder? A foreign former slave and an apostate mage?"

Kaycee shrugged. "One fairly similar to my parents', I suppose, and they had so many wonderful years before Father died." She did not feel overly concerned speaking with such confidence of the future before them. She had asked him to stay only till the morning; he was the one that had spoken of a life together, and if they had not ceased wanting one another in all this time, he was right to do so.

Fenris raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Would you wed me then? Bear elf-blooded children? Perhaps you are your mother's daughter, but to do that would be to go further than she ever did. Neither we nor our children would ever be welcome in civilized society."

Kaycee snorted. "Are we now? The only reason any civilized person in Kirkwall allows me to darken their doorstep is because if they didn't, they would have to start solving their own little problems. How much further can an apostate fall, anyway? Take me to the Chantry, for all I care. I never put much stock in the place, but I suppose if Sebastian married us, it might not be too bad."

Fenris stopped again, pulled Kaycee around to look at him. "Do not make light of this," he warned her.

"I wasn't," Kaycee protested. "At least, not entirely." she admitted. She met his eyes. "I truly don't care what anyone says, Fenris. If you want to get married, I'm willing."

By some twist of fate, they'd stopped in the Red Lantern District, near the Blooming Rose, and at that moment, one of the whores rounded the corner and saw them standing in the street. It was now the darkest watch of the night. The whore could not make out their individual features. The stars above were beginning to fade, though dawn could be hours yet. But by the light of the lanterns, she could at least make out their silhouettes, and see that Fenris was an elf and Kaycee was human, and he was garbed like a warrior—not one of the Rose's. She cackled softly.

"And a good night to you both! Lay milady down sweet tonight, falon," she called. "Serah, when you tire of him, you can always find someone else to your tastes at the Rose."

Fenris tensed, but Kaycee didn't flinch. "Ma serannas," she replied. "My thanks for your kind offer. But you have no one in the place I could like as much as my lover here. I'll be keeping him, if it's all the same to you."

The whore laughed again, but this time, there was a note of respect in her voice. "Be sure to lay milady down sweet tonight, falon," she said emphatically to Fenris. "You've a good one there."

Fenris's expression was awestruck. His entire body had relaxed. "You've no idea," he told the whore, without taking his eyes away from Kaycee for a moment. "Nor ever will, if I have anything to say about it."

He jerked his head away, toward Kaycee's mansion, and they began walking again. They passed directly in front of a lantern, and the whore saw Kaycee's face. Her heavily painted amber eyes widened in surprise as she recognized her. "Champion!"

Kaycee winked at the elven prostitute, and pulled Fenris's arm around her shoulders. "Good night to you."

"Good . . . good night," the girl said dumbly, waving at them as they passed out of the square.

Fenris was fighting a smile. "It will be all over Kirkwall by midmorning tomorrow. No turning back now."

"And look, I don't regret a thing!" Kaycee said lightly, turning her face up to Fenris. "Come Blight or famine or dragonfire."

Fenris's eyes glowed in the dark, and she could feel the hum running through him again. He kissed her, softly and chastely. "Then you did not lie. You truly would—" They walked silently for a few more blocks, then Fenris said, "That you would consider tying yourself to me in any formal way, after all this time and all that I have done, means more than I can say. But Kaycee—I do not ask it of you. You would be surprised by how much further even an apostate human could fall. Just to know that you would—it is enough."

Kaycee nodded in agreement. "If that's what you want. I don't need a ceremony to stay with you." She wouldn't say so, but she knew he was right. To take an elf to her bed was one thing. Even openly and long-term, it could be forgiven as eccentricity. If they went so far as to wed, however, she would be trading in almost all of whatever political influence she had, and with matters as they were in Kirkwall now, she might need it, and soon.

"Nor I with you," Fenris promised. "Come Blight or famine or dragonfire, I am yours." For a former slave to give himself so utterly was everything, Kaycee knew. She leaned over and kissed him again.

She hesitated to broach the next subject. She didn't want to spook him, but again—he had been the one to approach the topic tonight, and if they meant to be lovers for any considerable length of time, as happily it seemed they did, it was only practical to discuss it. "Fenris—just because we aren't getting married doesn't mean there won't be children," she warned him. "We can be careful with the timing, and there are potions I can take. Having a child would be incredibly inconvenient, but nothing we can do will eliminate the possibility entirely—nearly half the babies born into the world aren't planned. Our king—Ferelden's, I mean—he started out an accident. And you know Feynriel's story. And if by chance we slip—"

"I know it is likely that any such child would be born a mage," Fenris said calmly. "Do you think that I would care less for any little son or daughter of ours because of that? Though I suppose any elf-blooded bastard offshoot of a former slave and the Champion of Kirkwall would have troubles enough even without magic."

"As I said," Kaycee agreed. "It would be incredibly inconvenient. We'll do whatever we can to avoid it—short of actually restraining ourselves. Please don't let's do that," she asked, looking up at him anxiously, really only half joking.

Fenris smiled at her. "I think we are finished with restraint," he assured her, and his voice sent pleasurable shivers through her again. "If we do slip, however, if what you fear should come to pass, know that I am not afraid. Though you must not give any mage child of ours to the Circle here in Kirkwall. Its mother would be the only person I would trust to teach it to keep itself safe and discipline its mind to use its magic for others instead of power and personal gain."

Kaycee was the one to stop now, though they stood in the very street in front of her house. The lantern outside flickered cheerily over the Amell crest outside the door, and Kaycee looked at it on Fenris's belt and up again at his face. "Really?" she asked, disbelieving, overwhelmed. That he would raise their child an apostate, trust her enough to guide its steps—just seeing that from him would almost be worth all the inconvenience.

"Truly," Fenris answered, meeting her gaze. Something passed between them, and Kaycee could have sworn he wanted that child they did not want just as badly as she did for a moment.

She laughed nervously. "Purely hypothetically, of course," she said.

"Of course," he agreed. "Let us try to avoid the inconvenience. You cannot have had a potion recently, however. Is it—"

Kaycee calculated in her head, then nodded, incredibly relieved. "We're safe." If she had gotten all worked up and had to send him away!

Fenris stepped close to her then. "Good," he said. "That woman in the square gave me very specific instructions. Shall we take this inside and upstairs?"

"Please."

Fenris paused. A hint of mischief sparked in his eyes, and it did unspeakable things to her stomach. "Hmm. I like it when you beg," he remarked.

Kaycee shoved him, not too hard. "Three. Years."

"You have a point." And at last, he took her into his arms.


A/N: Maybe it's not too romantic, but in a society where social class is everything and I just bet any birth control is extremely chancy, even for a mage, grown-ups becoming long-term lovers should have conversations like this. Love isn't just about the warm, fuzzy feelings or an overwhelming attraction. It's a choice to go together through the rough spots. Kaycee and Fenris have had many of those in their past already. They'll have many more in the future. I don't foresee a happily-ever-after here for many, many years. There's the Mage-Templar war and Corypheus to come, and despite what Fenris says here, he's very proud and rather possessive, and I think he and Kaycee will continue to struggle with their differing social standings for a long, long time.

But I think Hawke and Fenris deserved a better reunion than the one in the game-and it almost seemed like they'd talked before Danarius's return and the resolution of that plotline. So here it is.

I hope you liked the story. Thanks for joining me along the way,

LMS