Isabela is cold.
Her voice carries on the brisk coastal breeze, arriving to Wil over the sandy flats in front of the main entrance to the Bone Pit cavern.
"Neither of you told me it would be this windy," Isabela's complaining to Fenris who has wrapped his arms across his chest for warmth but remains otherwise silent. "Come over here and look, Hawke. I could cut diamonds."
Wil shakes her entire body no before returning to her task of gathering elfroot.
"Not gathering, treating," she mimics the scholarly tone Anders had used the evening before as he taught her the proper technique for what was, essentially, rolling up leaves and sticking them into vials filled with some concoction of his own devising. But it had been important which meant demonstrations and a careful dance of hands and feet and ensuring that their eyes rarely met.
It had taken them the better part of a year to perfect, the entire world close when close is not a thing allowed.
"Tell me again why the mage can't pick his own weeds?" Fenris' approach had been covered by the wind and the steady roar of water rushing into the lower caverns below the mines, a sound that echoes along stone passages and does nothing to make this place feel any less cursed. "Or is gathering herbs too oppressive?"
Fighting the urge to point out that Anders works and has other, admittedly unknown, commitments, Wil ignores the contempt that hardens his voice and caps another vial, slipping it into the fur-lined bag Anders sent up with them.
Isabela's on hand to pull it back out.
"What is this, anyway?" She holds it aloft, one fingernail tapping idly against the glass as muted sunlight catches the opaque amber liquid. "It reminds me of- my first navigator would get these places on his lips that would ooze when he used his mouth to-"
"Maker, please stop talking," Wil's glad to see Fenris cringe, too.
"What? I wasn't going there," it's almost offended as she falls to the ground beside Wil, her leather clad legs stretched in front of her.
"No need," Fenris' nose is raised in residual disgust. "We're already there."
"And that's just as bad," Wil adds, plucking the vial from Isabela's fingers and adding it to the cache. "Maybe you should help deliver them to the Chantry; take the opportunity to confess your sins."
Fenris chuckles. "And, lo, the Kirkwall Chantry was forced to close its doors as every priest endured the airing of Isabela of Rivain."
"And, lo, the Kirkwall Chantry opened its doors as the priests fled, having realized all the fun they were missing," Isabela joins in with a laugh, then turns it into Wil. "I'll go, but only if you confess, too."
"A month," he amends. "Two if Hawke has to list every kill."
"Ha!" Wil can almost picture the looks of abject horror as she catalogued the countless thugs, mercenaries, mages, templars and Tal'Vashoth that had found themselves at the end of her blade. It would be a dark endeavor that she'd attempt to lighten with irreverence. "Faceless bandit 43, templar five, carta thug 29...he had the greenest eyes."
"Indeed," purrs Isabela. "Hawke, can I have your coat? It's freezing up here."
"We noticed," sighing, Wil shrugs out of her gambeson and winces as the other woman pulls it on, tugging at the edges to encourage it to close over her breasts. "This is the red dress all over again."
"Hmmm," Fenris deliberates. "Red dress?"
"I had a red dress," she explains with exaggerated care. "Now Isabela has a red dress."
"And I look good in it, too," it comes with a head fling and a wide smile aimed at her companions. The task of closing the jacket has been abandoned. "Maybe I'll put it on before we go to the Chantry."
I can see that going over beautifully. Wil packs up the last vial and buttons the satchel. Inside are fifty doses of cough serum requested through Lady Elegant by Grand Cleric Elthina herself. It's an attempt to stay ahead of the cold season in Kirkwall, where freezing rain and uncertain temperatures causes this part of the Free Marches to feel more like the Kocari Wilds, if only for a month.
Fenris' eyes are hooded as he watches her gather the remnants of her work. "So we're not venturing in?"
They both turn their attention to the cavern mouth, the yawning blackness flanked on either side by oil lamps that sway in the wind and offer scant amount of illumination.
"Fuck no," a shiver accompanies this.
"We had so much fun last time."
"I almost choked to death on dragon's blood and now I can eat people's souls. The best."
"Don't forget that I carried you," his chin goes up. "On my back."
Isabela, who has been watching their exchange with purposeful disinterest perks up.
"You carried her?" She stands and mischief twists her mouth. "Oh, do tell."
Sigh. "There's nothing to tell." Never has a man sounded more put upon than Fenris.
"Fine, then I'll just have to use my imagination," her arm threads through Wil's and she leads them down the path towards the coast, strands of black hair thrashing against her cold-reddened cheeks. "You were both naked, right?"
He sighs and Wil shakes her head in flat denial, the bag lifted to hang from her shoulder and her body drawing closer to Isabela's for warmth. The air around them whips and whistles and the three fall silent, all thinking, perhaps, of naked piggyback rides.
"Is it a sin to make up your confessions?" Isabela wonders aloud a few minutes after they've found themselves back on the main road up the coast. "Because I think I have something that will really give those frigid friars an apoplexy, or at least wet a few knickers."
"Gross," Wil and Fenris react in unison and Isabela's ensuing laughter is carried ahead and Wil can't help but think that she might be willing to chuckle, too, if she wasn't so fucking cold.
The Hightown market is bustling when Wil returns with her friends in tow. Displeasure immediately catches Fenris off, his retreat towards the columns that separate the booths from the storage alcoves as good a place as any for him to use for his solitary return home.
Isabela remains, however, and soon Wil is draped in fur stoles as the pirate searches for the one that best suits Wil's cold complexion.
"She's not as tan in the winter, of course," the pirate explains with casual confidence to the far less enthused shopkeep, who is clearly frazzled by the effort it takes to keep track of Isabela's nimble fingers. "Gets a bit ruddy in the cheeks."
"Ruddy?" Wil pulls off a red fox, its wee feet dragging uselessly, and creepily, across her shoulder.
"It's a Fereldan thing, I've noticed," Isabela's face is buried in a pure white muff and she pulls it away with a regretful sigh.
It's an effort, complete with lip-biting, for Wil not to make a salacious comment about that.
"You are...Ferelden?" The merchant's brow wrinkles in what can only be read as this situation is getting quickly out of hand. Wil's impressed that the wares aren't snatched off of her where she stands. "Of course."
That is just my luck.
"We're not merely here to wreck your shop, I assure you," it's not true, of course. Isabela is, by her own admittance, running low on coin and Wil barely touched her winter wardrobe last year and Maker knows she has enough fur to last a lifetime, thanks to her mother's mild obsession. But Bethany is, according to a recent letter, currently stationed in Weisshaupt... "Do you have any fur-lined gloves? About the size of her hands," Wil seizes Isabela's wrist before she can palm an ivory locket and offers it up to the merchant.
"You know I don't wear gloves, Hawke," she pulls away just as her eyes lighten in realization. "Ohhhhh, a Feast Day present for Bethany."
"I had forgotten about Satinalia, to be honest."
"It's only a few days away, serah," the merchant unlids a flat box so Wil can examine the gloves within. The leather is dyed a deep shade of sapphire and the fur that tufts out is a brilliant blue white. "I doubt anything can get to Weisshaupt in time for Satinalia."
Wil frowns, tracing the white stitching that edges each finger. The gloves are lovely, and would go well with the blue and white armor that the Wardens seem to favor, but wouldn't Beth want something for herself? Something meant for her as Bethany Hawke and not as a Grey Warden? Her letters, although always polite, reek of resentment for her post. It would be better to give her something to ease a slipping out of that identity on occasion.
It can't be all darkspawn and misery after all, Wil's stomach tightens as she recalls her sister's last correspondence, received last week and...it might actually be all misery, at least.
"Do you know the craftsman who made these? I might place an order for another pair," Wil presses five sovereigns into the merchant's hand and adds the ivory locket to the purchase. "For Mother," she clarifies to curtail Isabela's excitement. "She had one like it when we were younger. I used it as a fishing lure."
"You would, Hawke." Pushing through the crowds behind them, they manage to make it to the promenade without getting further distracted by the wares being peddled, although the scent of freshly made pies wafting over the baker's stalls are a dire temptation, bringing to mind as they do hearth and home...a real home, not the estate with its mostly empty spaces.
"I should have a party," Wil grabs Isabela's elbow, suddenly smitten with the notion, as mad as it might be considering her lack of experience with any aspect of hosting. "I mean, like a dinner party. With dinner!"
Isabela shrugs it off. "Leandra would probably be thrilled, but I can't imagine you enjoying yourself."
"What?" Wil pauses and fixes her with a confused look. "How different could it be from- oh." She thinks I mean a dinner party dinner party. "I meant with you guys. Not nobles."
Could you even imagine?
"Drunken shenanigans at the Hawke estate? Sounds like fun to me" Chestnut eyes gleam as Isabela smoothes the front of her tunic with a languorous hand. "And I have a dress that would be perfect for the occasion."
Wil pauses before ascending the Chantry steps. "Let me guess...red?"
Isabela wastes no time in going ahead of the other woman, her hips swaying in invitation. "More of a scarlet...and quite flattering, too."
Stomach growing warm, Wils' vision is momentarily filled with the image of Isabela leaning against the doorway to her chamber, her curves and smiling invitation a beautifully bawdy mockery of wealth and nobility when those curves are hugged by such finery.
"So you agree," Isabela's hand is on the door and now her smile is wicked. "More to confess?"
"Maybe later," tone airy, Wil breezes past her friend and into the Chantry. The last time she'd been here she'd been barely alive. This afternoon, however...
"May I help you, serah?" The sister is a brunette, nearly as tall as Wil but more elegant in her Chantry robes. Wil notices that her gaze does not even threaten to move on to Isabela, who is preening beside her.
"Actually," actually thank you for greeting me because if I can hand these off to you now, I can have this done. "I have some poultices for the Grand Cleric. This is just a partial shipment, and this batch is early, but we wanted to keep ahead of demand."
"Poultices?" The priest's eyes narrow in doubt. Wil supposes that she and Isabela aren't the most trustworthy looking dames, but it seems unfair to assume they're up to something nefarious. "I...unfortunately the Grand Cleric is traveling this week and will not return for a few days. Perhaps we can take receipt of your offering then."
Really?
"Offering? These were ordered by the Grand Cleric herself," Wil hands the gloves to Isabela and pulls open the pack of vials, carefully pushing them aside to tug out an official piece of parchment. "Here's the request."
The note is read quickly and the resulting pallor that draws the priest's face is enough to send Wil's heart into palpitations. Oh, fuck.
"What is the meaning of this?" The woman's voice is dangerously low and Wil's posture adjusts to the undercurrent of threat.
It's with unsteady fingers that the parchment is handed back to Wil so she can see amongst the precise script of the Grand Cleric's secretary is another request, this one from a familiar hand.
"Magic exists to serve man, yet how can mages serve their fellow man when they are kept apart? Magic is a gift of the Maker and by freeing mages of their chains, by freeing men of their fear, society could be bettered through cooperation and innovation. We should think of this when children are made well by magic, when lives are saved and bettered by a healing spell or poultice. Just as an army can protect as well as it destroys, mages, too, should not be held to one negative standard."
Anders, Anders, Anders.
"She...has a point, you know," Wil forces a charming smile. "Supported by the Chant and everything."
Although color is returning to the priest's face, her expression remains that of a person whom has just been tainted.
"I'm afraid you will have to-"
"Serah Hawke!" Sebastian Vael slides around the corner to save her with his white, white smile and crazily bright eyes.
"Sebastian? Do you just stand around here waiting for me to show up?" She's only mostly kidding. "Because I'm starting to wonder."
He chuckles, the skin next to his eyes crinkling and beside her Wil can sense Isabela taking him in.
"Hawke," she not quite whispers. "You undersold this one."
The priest glares at the pirate. Isabela offers a small wave in return.
"Sister Katrina," Sebastian turns his smile onto her and tilts his head towards the altar. "You are free to return to your devotions. Wilhelmina is a friend."
"But..."
He continues smiling.
"Yes, Brother Sebastian," is her final, meek response but Wil's too relieved to be free of her to be incensed on her behalf.
"I see you've been practicing your diplomacy," she slips the order form and Anders' note into her pocket. "I assume the next step is showing a bit of collar bone? Maybe a flash of ankle?"
"Just kindness, Hawke," he clasps his hands behind his back, his focus drifting from Wil to Isabela. "I don not think we've met before."
And he says it with a straight face. Maybe there is something to this unquestioning faith in the Maker thing.
"Isabela," it comes with a smirk and a strongly offered hand. "Captain Isabela at some point in my life, and again in the near future. If I'm lucky."
"Hey, it's been known to happen," Wil encourages.
"True."
"I am Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven," his smile turns sheepish. "Although these days I do spend a fair bit of my time stranding around, but not just waiting for Hawke."
He winks.
Well, I'll be. He is totally flirting with me. Wil winks back. Now that should scare him off.
But it doesn't. Instead he leans against the near wall and gestures towards her satchel. His hands are strong, his forearms strikingly muscular for a simple prince-turned-choirboy-turned-almost prince.
It's something you can bring up the next time things go a bit awkward.
"The Grand Cleric ordered poultices through an acquaintance of mine. I was recruited to deliver them," she holds them easily aloft. "It's heavy."
"It must be if your assistance is required," the satchel is taken and he pantomimes a momentary struggle before fitting the strap on his shoulder. "Anything we need to know?"
"The liquid is for congestion, fever and pain," Anders explains the thick, sweet-smelling serum, pride evident in his voice. "Before you eat it, the leaf can be kept tucked between your teeth and lip or jaw, like tobacco. It tastes foul enough, but can stop coughing for an hour or so. For someone with the coughing plague, an hour or so can feel like a lifetime."
Wil, willing today to bask in the reflected glory of her friend, repeats the lesson to Sebastian and memorizes his impressed reaction for Anders-cheering purposes.
" You say more will be forthcoming?"
"Probably tomorrow, or the day after Satinalia. I have to journey into dark and dangerous places to get this stuff, so..."
He's smiling again almost proudly and oh, it makes her uncomfortable. Not the attention so much as the implication of goodness that might be motivated by some higher power and not just goodness.
But is it just goodness when there's a pair of kind brown eyes involved?
"You should come to Hawke's dinner party," Isabela blurts in the momentary silence that falls over them. "She's having one on Feast Day, mid-afternoon. Bring bread."
"Bread?" It's repeated as the corners of his mouth curve even further upward. "But surely you don not think that I have my own kitchen...and I am no baker."
"Sebastian, you don't have to come-" Although if you'd like to take Isabela off my hands for a few days I certainly would not complain. "And I can bake-"
"Can not."
"I can pay someone to bake bread," Wil fights the urge to throw Isabela over her shoulder and carry her, probably mock swooning and groping whatever she can get her hands on, all the way down to the Hanged Man. "Seriously. You don't need to be polite. Besides, I'm sure you have other stuff. Chantry stuff. Stuff that requires you here."
"In the Chantry?" His eyes crinkle warmly. "I am free, actually."
"Fantastic!" Isabela's grabbing Wil's elbow and pulling her away before Wil can talk him out of it. "Don't forget to bring pie. Or whiskey."
Wil's mind has gone black with something like watered down rage, but she still hears his laughter as it follows them through the doors.
"It will definitely be pie."
"Andraste's wonky eye, Hawke," Varric gives up watching her make an absolute wreck of latticing paeste over the top of her mother's freshly cobbled pork pie and strips off his duster to intervene. "I bet the Viscount's boy knows his way around a kitchen better than you do."
And then he proceeds to lift two lengths of dough that immediately crumble at his touch, falling with a faint puff of flour across the toe of his boot.
"Deserved!" It's crowed a bit too triumphantly, considering that it's flour and she's the only one around to see it. "At least I got it on the pie."
"Hmmph," he kneels to brush at his toes while she finishes her task, humming beneath her breath. When she finishes and whips around to wipe off her hands, he's waiting with a cloth, one eyebrow raised. "How much wine have you had this morning?"
"Lots!" She chirps. "And I started early, too."
Varric's head shakes slightly. "Of course you did."
"It'll be fine!" She attempts a regal glide across the room and barely manages to make it to a dessert-laden servant's table without tripping over herself in process. "You do want a cookie, don't you?"
"Oh, why not-"
The cookie barely clears his head when she flings it, landing at the end of a trail of debris on the preparation counter, bits strewn across the pork pie. It takes them several seconds of staring at the mess in silence before Varric chuckles, whatever apprehension he has that this day will be anything like the Feast Days of his youth, the tension everpresent and drumtight, vanishing in the shadow of Hawke's giddy laughter.
"Mother will put the pie in for me, now I need to talk Bodahn out of over-decorating the parlor," she seizes his wrist and pulls him through to the dining hall, a seldom used room furnished in a blend of Fereldan woodcraft and dwarven stone. The older dwarf has already had his way here, fastidiously hung velvet bunting in shades of forest green and gold obscuring the walls and adorning the high-backed chairs. The long table has been buried beneath gold-trimmed linen which is anchored by ornate candelabras to match.
Perhaps most impressive is the pair of spiders, each roughly the size of Varric's hand, that stroll a lackadaisical and meandering path around the green crystal serving troughs that break up the monotony of garish light.
"You gotta love that dwarven attention to detail," he winces as Hawke fashions her tunic into a sling and carefully ushers the spiders on for a quick ride to the window that overlooks the back courtyard. "You need to get into the spirit of Feast Day, Hawke. You could've gotten a big laugh if you left those for Isabela to find."
"A big laugh or a scene of utter carnage?" Hawke pantomimes wild slicing with imaginary daggers. "And then Merrill jumps in to help and it's just rocks and blood everywhere..."
"Which sets Blondie off..."
"Which sets Fenris off..."
"And then Aveline hits them all over the head with the those candelabras."
"And I end up with four unconscious guests, a traumatized mother and a former Chantry brother who demands we repent immediately."
"Which means we wouldn't get out of this house for...three years."
"At least," Hawke leans against the back of a chair, her smile prettily dizzy. "So I'll avoid the pranks with this bunch."
"You might want to hide the alcohol. And the valuables," he slips his hand into his pocket and draws it out to offer up a single diamond-studded earcuff. She snatches her mother's dropped jewelry playfully away and forces it onto her pinky, where it barely goes past her fingernail. "You can start a trend amongst the Orlesians...I cawl it zee pehnky-cooff. Eet ees so fawncy."
"Also, pinchy," Hawke toys with it as she leads him to the parlor where they catch Bodahn in the act, cheerleading Sandal who has somehow managed to use the cornices to climb half-way up to the lofted ceiling. "Please don't die, Sandal, it would cast such a pall on the afternoon."
"Oh, he'll be fine Mistress Wilhelmina," Bodahn doesn't appear as certain as he sounds, however, and Hawke spends the next few hours as Sandal's readied shadow, enabling the festooning of her estate rather than dissuading it.
Aveline arrives to find her in the foyer, helping Sandal light the chandelier that she's normally content to leave dark.
"That looks safe," Aveline notes as she takes in the sight of her still tipsy hostess spotting a solidly built, thus heavy, young dwarf. "You do realize there's fire involved in this? Not to mention you seem quite flammable this afternoon."
"Not flammable, drunk," it's said in an exaggerated slur. "And we've made it this far without incident. Do not doubt us, my dear Lady Aveline."
Lady Aveline can barely muster a hooded glare. "Famous last words if I ever heard them. I've bread...should I set it out or take it to the kitchen?"
"I can take it!" Sandal leaps down, his feet barely hitting the floor before he's relieved Aveline of her parcels and left the two women standing together, and alone.
There's an energy that flits between them, a stuttering of half-thoughts that could become a conversation or an argument and today is a day of arguments not allowed, disagreements set aside for the attainment of momentary peace.
Even if it's an illusion, Aveline dying to ask what Hawke has been doing these past several months and Hawke well aware that Aveline would never believe the truth.
Nothing. Behaving, for the most part. Helping. Moving boxes and picking herbs. Feeling better but not the best.
Hawke speaks first, resolve strengthening her immunity to awkwardness and there is no agreeing nod, but neither is there a heavy sigh and a Not now Hawke.
"I have your gift here," she picks up a flat parcel from the nearby bench. It's carefully wrapped in forest green silk. Whether by Hawke's own hand or not, it's a lovely offering.
And it's accepted without word, strong hands sliding over the luxurious fabric before pulling at the pins that hold it closed and...
"I thought you said no pranks today," Aveline doesn't sound angry, but her own blend of confused and annoyed. "Or am I an exception?"
Hawke's chuckle doesn't help the other woman's state so she takes the plaque away from her friend and steps forward to stand beside her, holding it aloft so that the deep amber lacquer gleams in the abundant lamplight and they can both see the single word painted in bold ivory script:
DON'T
"It's not a prank, Aveline," she smiles warmly. "I mean, it might have started out as a joke, but you've earned the right to sit beneath this, I think."
Aveline stares down at her, lips drawn thin but twitching at the corners. "By being Captain of the Guard?"
It's handed back to the rightful owner, who accepts it again without accusation or hesitation despite the echo of scowliness in the set of her brow.
"The first time I laid eyes on you, you were beating a hurlock to death with your bare hands," the admiration is plain on Hawke's face as she voices a memory neither have touched since it happened. "I fell in love with you that day, you know. Oh, Ser Aveline."
"You're a monster, Hawke," Aveline folds the plaque into her arms. "And a pain in the ass."
"I'm getting better!" Her chin raises as if defying Aveline to question that claim. "I bet you can't even remember the last time we got into a shouty argument while standing knee deep in bodies."
She blinks her eyes three times, deliberately, and her smile is hopelessly goofy. Please forget, Aveline. And not just for today.
Sigh. Aveline's face relaxes."Were that the only way you're a pain in the ass."
And...forgotten.
At least for today.
They arrive alone, every one of them.
It means something, probably, this single file march to the Hawke estate in Hightown. It means something in how they hesitate as they leave their mansion, their clinic, their hovel in the Alienage. It means something in how they rush the last few steps to the door marked by the Amell family crest, only to them it's a sign of acceptance even if it's only the people within the walls, and not every one, who accepts them.
Gifts are given to each as they arrive. Hawke doesn't plan to hover in the foyer waiting, but they seem to have a sense for these things and as soon as one is ushered into the dining room, the door is shuddering under the command of a new arrival.
Merrill receives a potted evergreen for her home, since she's so taken with the gardens in Hightown and even Hawke's own meager collection of houseplants. In true Merrill fashion, she seems more enraptured by the designs painted on the pot, elaborate scenes of griffons taking to the sky, their riders framed in yellow light and righteousness.
For Fenris it's a goblet wrapped in crimson silk, the vessel itself all hard angles and serviceable. While rakishly slugging wine from the bottle is a not an unattractive thing to watch, a cup gives it legitimacy and one that is so distinctly Kirkwallian can only further separate him from the places he's been before.
"I...have a cup," he muses, gloved hand tightening appreciatively around its base. "Spoons would be more practical."
"Ohhhh! An idea for next year, then."
Expecting an ivory locket, Isabela's quite taken with the small leather pouch that gets presented in its stead, the hand-tooled depiction of a caravel jauntily fighting its way against a storm-turned sea earning more attention than jewelry ever would.
"Until you get the real thing," Hawke takes the corner of the bag and rocks it before stopping, perhaps in response to the sudden shadow that's fallen across Isabela's face. "Not bringing back bad memories, is it?"
"Is Sebastian, here?"
Hawke's eyebrow raises, but she doesn't press.
"Not yet...is that for me?" She flicks the corner of the manuscript that Isabela has tucked beneath her arm, pinned close to her body.
"It depends." Now the pirate gives a wicked grin that seems inspired by Hawke's clear interest, her eyes wondering down Isabela's bare throat to the cream colored tunic she's worn this evening in lieu of her normal corset and boots or a barely appropriate red dress. "I see where you're looking, Hawke."
"Dammit. I've been caught."
Her laughter has almost faded when Sebastian arrives, with pie, and is his usual vision of flawlessness. Uncertainty falters his tone, but only when he compliments the decor, and then he's telling her a tale of a daring kitchen theft and a 95 year-old cleric who chased him with a hot iron as if he really were a common cutpurse and not a former brother in her Chantry.
"You're just trying to fit in," she accuses, relieving him of his burden of pie and placing it on Sandal, who has been waiting between rooms for such an occasion.
"I am nervous about that, yes," he admits, his smile dimming and for a moment they seem caught in a trap of sincerity. "It has been a while since I was such an odd man out."
This earns a guffaw from Hawke who is all sparkling eyes as she admits, "We're collectively the odd man out. Why do you think we're here?"
"I'm here because I have a feeling at least one good story will come from tonight," Varric leans in from the parlor to assess their new arrival before disappearing back into a steadily increasing din so that Hawke can give Sebastian his gift.
"I didn't have time to wrap it...I just found it last night," she leans in close so that she can show him the small, amateurish oil painting of a stone fortress quite similar to Viscount Dumar's.
"That's my...that's our family keep in Starkhaven!" He's torn between happiness and tears. "That tree in the corner, I fell from that tree when I was seven years old. I broke my ankle and spent the summer sitting in our chapel, archiving the records and listening to the Chant."
"Of course yo...I'm glad that it's not just an ugly picture of a building then," she shrugs, a gesture of false carelessness. "You can go ahead into the parlor...Mother will probably grab you the moment you walk through the door."
"Is that a good thing?" His voice is light.
"My advice? Just keep smiling and remember that she's my mother, therefore everything she says about me is probably exaggerated, if not outright lies," Hawke pauses. "Unless she tells you about the schleetcatcher. That's totally true."
Sebastian leaves with his smile in place.
And now Hawke lingers, caught between the sounds of happy chaos in the parlor and the dining room and the silent door, waiting for the wind that's started rattling the windows to blow in a pink-cheeked mage, his blond hair disheveled.
When he arrives, it's that careful dance of we're aloneand maybe they don't even realize they do it any longer because it means he can be who he's driven to be and she can find herself along the way.
Both of them afraid to be caught or taken by the undertow in moments such as these.
"I couldn't really wrap your present," she stands at a safe distance and pushes strands of his hair that have been blown messily astray back to where they belong. "So I'll have to show you later."
His neck moves, a subtle swallow and a muscle that jerks. When he smiles, he tries for a moment to make it flirtatious, to be human when he shouldn't, and then it falls somewhere along the lines of sweetly sad.
"I'm sorry I'm late, Wil. I almost couldn't make it."
Searching.
"It's a good thing you did...Mother overcooked just for you," she hesitates, her gaze hovering somewhere near his collarbone. "Sebastian is here."
"The prince?" His dark eyes roll upwards and he clearly thinks so little of this man he's never met, even as his hands subconsciously smooth down the front of his clean, but wrinkled, tunic.
"It's not like that, Anders," she grabs his wrist and pulls him into the parlor, her face bright with wistfulness and mischief. "Besides, everyone knows I only have eyes for Aveline."
"Don't push it, Hawke," Aveline is policing the doorway to the dining room, which is a hive of activity as all pitch in to lay out the piecemeal feast, cobbled together by several hands and only two of them skilled. "And move faster," she indicates Anders, who is already being offered his own breadbasket by a clearly delighted Leandra."Maker knows I'm not going to be polite if that man eats everything before we've even been seated."
"And here's to hoping that Hawke hasn't inadvertently poisoned the food," Varric raises a glass, his gesture echoed by the others, most wearing knowing smirks. "Especially since Blondie appears to be closed for the evening."
"I'm willing to work on my night off," Anders speaks around a mouthful of bread. "Well, for a few of you."
Merrill's eyes immediately go to Fenris.
"Subtle," he seethes.
"So?" She's clearly unconcerned. "I was in the market yesterday and I overheard a weaver say that they used to do opposites on Satinalia. Clothes inside out and you gave your enemy a gift, to show love to the one you hate."
"This has promise," Isabela leans forward to peer around Hawke at Anders. "I think you and Fenris should show each other love."
There is the sound of choking from Sebastian's end of the table, where Leandra offers him a sip of her brandy.
"Your imagination will have to suffice," the mage is in good spirits. "Although I'll give you credit for training Merrill so well. She set you right up for that one."
"I didn't mean to," her forehead creases in concern.
"Don't worry, Daisy, it happens to the best of us."
Isabela takes a breath to speak, but finds herself silenced by the application of Hawke's hand to her mouth, a gesture which is met with a murderous glare and oaths sworn beneath her breath once the conversation has turned to the roasted potatoes and-
"Now we play the game of Grab What You Want Before Blondie Eats It All," Varric announces to Sebastian and points to the trough of thick brown stew, colored by hunks of carrot and peas. "I'd start there."
"That's why we made him his own pie," one of Wil's long fingers indicates Anders' over-laden plate. "So everyone else would have a chance to get full for a change."
They all turn their attention to the mage, who offers Varric a heaping spoonful across the candelabra between them.
"No thanks, Blondie," he's busy splashing gravy over his venison and potatoes. "I was in the kitchen when Hawke had her way with it."
It's Leandra's turn to sputter.
"I didn't actually have sex with a pie," it's said as Hawke smiles demurely over the edge of her wineglass. "Although I was tempted."
"Did it make eyes at you, Hawke?" Fenris deadpans.
Aveline looks up from the serious business of organizing her food to scoff at his suggestion. "It's Hawke. Why put in that much effort?"
"Because she's pretty?" Spoon full of sweet corn pudding, Merrill holds it aloft for a few seconds while she considers the question further. "And because she buys thoughtful presents."
On a normal night, that might earn Hawke a reprieve.
But it's Feast Day, a day of excess and humiliation and Isabela is keen to offer plenty of the first with a heaping side of the second.
"Speaking of thoughtful presents..."
"Oh, this is going to be good." Varric sits up straighter in his chair, to better see the pirate.
Hawke cringes away, which earns a swat on the shoulder with the rolled manuscript that Isabela had carried into the estate, pulled only seconds ago from some hidden place.
"Can it wait until we're a..." Hawke swallows, her eyes shifting guiltily. "Later? We're already walking the edge of acceptability, here."
"Wilhelmina, be polite to your guests," Leandra raises her empty glass and Sebastian is quick to refill it from the decanter on the sideboard behind them.
"Sure. What could possibly go wrong?" Hawke accepts the offered papers, her face clearly paling beneath the subtle glow of candlelight. "Is it impolite to tell someone that you hate them?"
Sebastian speaks his first, "Here, perhaps. In the Marches. But I understand that Orlesians see it as high compliment."
"I would say that it's a pity you're not Orlesian, Bela. But..." she unrolls the paper, takes one look at the title and cover image, and then swiftly shoves it into her lap, crumpling it in the process. "Dammit, Isabela."
Just sitting there, hand over her mouth and cheeks turning the most furious shade of pink, Hawke inspires more curiosity than would have arisen from the simple acceptance of the script.
"Oh, is that the Piemaker's Wife?" Varric asks, eyes alight. "Or the Guardsman in Pink?"
"Neither," Hawke grinds out, her elbow popping Isabela in the side as a practiced hand slinks its way to where the present is being held between Hawke's knees.
"The one you were writing with that elf, from the Blooming Rose..."
"Serendipity?" Aveline's eyebrow raises in faint disproval.
"Jethann," she's corrected. "And no, this was written just for Hawke. And our guest."
Sebastian's eyes could not grow any larger.
"Something tells me it was written for exactly one person," Anders stops eating long enough to push past the air of near palpable jealously that surrounds him to clarify this point. "Isabela."
The accusation is shrugged off, Isabela unconcerned with both its implications and its source. "Of course I wrote it for myself...what's the point, otherwise? I don't care who else gets off on it," her eyes gleam. "But trust me when I say I...know my audience on this one."
Hawke goes rigid. Anders goes rigid. Varric tents his fingers, thoughtful, and he's got his story.
"I bet you wish you'd left the spiders, aren't you, Hawke?" His tone is almost apologetic.
"Utter carnage," she forces a laugh that becomes genuine, perhaps with the realization that there are worse things in the world than embarrassing stories gifted at inopportune times. "Although, the night is far from over..."
"You wouldn't dare," Isabela pretends to stab Hawke's leg with a spoon and gets swatted away by the manuscript. "And won't you at least tell everyone the title? I spent at least ten minutes on it."
The sigh that proceeds the announcement is one of intense wariness and affection.
This is my life. And I'm starting to really enjoy it.
"The Coming of the Maker."
Sebastian's mouth falls open. Leandra giggles.
Fenris appears thoughtful for a moment, then shrugs his approval.
The rest groan their way into quiet laughter, Hawke then leading them away from sacrilege, for Sebastian's sake, and towards Isabela's addiction to double entendres and nautically themed sexual innuendo. It moves on from there, dancing around controversy, perhaps even bumping against it-
Anders and Fenris are at the same table, after all
but avoids its lure because Hawke's invitation had included Behave. Maker knows we'll have every other day of our lives to be surrounded by jerks and to be jerks ourselves.
It's why they arrived one by one, each alone, and rushed those last several steps to safety.
It's after midnight and Wil and Anders are staring at a portrait.
She'd managed to convince Merrill to stay the night, sending her upstairs with Varric and Isabela who will also remain until morning. Sebastian left shortly after dinner and she almost believed him when he said he enjoyed himself, although his eyes kept to some point past her ear. Fenris and Aveline had left only minutes before, Anders excusing himself, too, under the assumption that Wil would want to sleep.
And she did. Does. But she has something to show him, which is where they'd been headed before Anders had stopped to stare at a woman Wil has never seen before tonight.
"Aveline said she left me a painting," her head tilts to the side, taking in the figure clad in glittering dragonskin posed against a backdrop of muted chaos. Unhelmed, the woman's dark hair spills over her shoulders and frames a death pale face of terrifying beauty, the pale green of her eyes leaping cool from the heat that surrounds them. "I'm assuming it's the Hero."
"Yes," he confirms with heartbreaking gravity, the echo of Justice in his voice enough to startle her.
"Um...," she studies his profile now, the way the edges of his mouth are down, the way the top of his nose wrinkles, faint blue plumes of energy that escape his eyes as if the spirit is trying for a better view.
"Sometimes I think he loved her," Anders' voice is his own, but there's more than just his passion pressing out at the seams of it. Of him. It breaks against her skin, too, and the intensity of it is...scary, almost. Uncomfortable. "She could do no wrong in his eyes."
"In a lot of peoples' eyes," Wil confirms. "Including yours, it seems. You never told me that you knew her."
His chin lowers but his gaze remains ahead. "It's not that she couldn't do wrong, she was actually very good at wrong. It's just...she did so much right," a rueful smile trembles across his lips. "It's easy to forgive someone who would give her life for your freedom, even once you figured out that it was just who she was, and had little to do with how she felt about you."
"It made it less special?" Wil tries not to compare her own actions on his behalf to what this other woman, a real hero and a real noblewoman, had been able to offer him. But it's difficult. "Would Justice let you be with her?"
And it's two years that give that her more weight than Wil intends for it to have.
"Not that I blame him, of course," the sharpness of her smile cannot be believed. "She's pretty and if Isabela is to be trusted, fantastic in bed."
"Wil," his eyes are on her now. "There's no way it would happen and...she left me."
Me. Not the Wardens, just Anders. Wil remembers a night ages ago when Anders had not been himself as she knew him, but rather some version of Anders that she realized might very well be the true Anders. Stripped of Justice and his purpose, comfortable with a freedom that might be snatched away at any moment, he could be selfish, self-centered. Shallow. She'd not looked fondly upon him that night.
And now look what you're getting up to...she forces the thought away.
"I have something for you," she tugs at his elbow, pulling him away from the painting that she'll stare at tomorrow with the hopes that the hard knot in her throat isn't going to be a thing that keeps her from admiring a woman that should be, by all rights, admired.
They arrive at the door that leads to the cellar, Wil breezing through and urging him to follow down the stairs until they're at the small room she'd offered him months ago.
"I know what you're thinking," she leans against the wall and reaches up towards a rope that's running overhead, held by polished wooden rings that are placed at regular intervals up the stairs and, looking towards the undercity door, all the way down.
"That would be a remarkable skill," he says it lightly, but his eyes hint at something more beneath the deceptively innocuous surface.
And for the second time this evening he's too large for his skin and spilling onto her.
She yanks the rope, searching for a distraction and finding it in the lift of his brows when a distinctive clanging sounds from beyond the upstairs door.
"It's...a bell?" He gives it a tug, his hand at a purposeful distance away from hers and it rings again.
"It ends just outside the cellar exit," she folds her arms across her chest. "Two pulls for help! three for let me in."
"I can't let you-"
"Two for help," she cuts him off. "Three for let me in. Even if it is for dinner. Mother misses you, you know."
It's not untrue, and there had been offerings of food whenever he wanted food as she retired for the evening.
"And I'd hate to disappoint Leandra," his hand drops as he gives in. "Damn your persistence, Hawke."
Wil shrugs and gives him a small shove towards the lower stairs. "You can walk yourself the rest of the way, I'm going to bed."
"Here?" His head tilts towards the room when he sees her fumbling for the handle.
"Why not? Merrill has cold feet and Varric snores," she hesitates and for the briefest of moments she imagines what it would be like to stop spinning and just try find traction with him. "Plus, it's actually pretty cozy."
"It's still in a cellar."
"Judgmental for a man living in the sewers."
He chuckles and steps away, an act that always leaves her cold.
"Thanks for dinner, Wil," he skips down a few stairs and pauses, safely at a distance. "And the bell. I can't promise I won't be a complete nuisance once you start feeding me."
Do you really think I'd mind?
"Like a stray dog," the door opens at her touch. "Or cat."
He continues on his way, his lips curved in a contented smile and she waits for the good night jangle of the bell before slipping out of her clothes and into bed, the sheets cool and the room only slightly musty from disuse.
Today went well.
She thinks of the manuscript, of the momentary horror she'd felt at the reveal of so much.
Better than it had any right to go.
It's not a surprise when she's joined, the covers pulled completely off as Isabela has no concept of courtesy, that Wil might want to keep the heat she'd managed to create for herself.
"Kitten has cold feet," Isabela's mouth is anything but against Wil's throat, although the golden stud that accents her lower lip is far from warm. One bared knee forces its way between Wil's thighs and Wil allows her to settle on top, practically kneeling with her breasts pressed just below Wil's own. "Don't tell me you're going to kick me out."
Her knee pushes forward and Wil catches herself raising her hips in welcome.
"There you go, sweet thing," she wastes no time claiming one hardening nipple with her teeth, her tongue flicking itself indolently before working against it in a teasing spiral that sharpens Wil's desire to a fine point.
But before she can give in, one hand tangling itself in Isabela's uncovered hair and the other slipping up and between them so she can palm the now familiar weight of Isabela's breast, she can't help but bring it up. Her.
"Did you know Anders slept with the Hero of Ferelden, too?" She makes it as casual as she can, considering the circumstances.
Just, you know, thinking about someone else's sex life while I hump your leg.
"Hmm," Isabela relinquishes Wil's breasts with a small, moist noise and before Wil can react to anything, fingers are finding their way past her smalls, nimble creatures that tweak and stroke and thrust with an overwhelming amount of skill. "I'm pretending you're the Warden."
"I'm pretending you're Aveline," the mild petulance of her words is lost in a gasp, her back arching in response to a pressure that's more than insistent.
"Bullshit, Hawke," Isabela's head comes up and Wil swears she sees a flash of white teeth in the near blackness. Whether it's a smile or a snarl, Wil will never know.
Whether it's anger or amusement remains a secret, too, and Wil decides to forgo thinking about Aveline or Anders and, instead, pulls the blankets back up to cover them both as best she can considering the length of her own limbs and Isabela's tendency to make her flail.
"If I would have known that sex would make you fretful...," Isabela challenges her between kisses being planted down her stomach. "But I was getting cold."
Wil runs her hand up Isabela's bare side. While her bones are already melting into muscle, Isabela's flesh is peppered with goose bumps.
Still, Wil does not respond. It was an argument free day, and being with Isabela is supposed to be a thought free
fret free
endeavor.
Even when she's cold.
Note from SF: So...I screwed up. In my busyness and admitted confusion with DA2's timeline, I botched this one. So I had to skip a few months, which means that actual Act 2 stuff will start coming up over the next few chapters. Yay?
Please direct any questions/concerns/dislike to me! This chapter is doing more than had originally been intended for it, and I'm sure there's a few things that make little to no sense (although some will be explained later on, of course).
