reviews show up, and i post more. fun fact.
Fenris dreamed of Tevinter and hot northern sunlight, feeling skin against his own, bindings wrapped against him and arms restraining him. He fought against it, thrashing, trying to free himself. His chest ached like he was drowning, his head throbbed. His hands lashed out, and caught unprotected flesh, drawing a yelp from his unseen captor. The skin against his withdrew, icy air drafting in to replace it. He shivered in his nightmare, one hand reaching up to curl around the metal of his collar. A cold nose pressed against his fingers, nudging them away from the rough edged metal, and he reached out to feel soft fur under his searching fingers. A long tongue bathed his palm, before swiping at his cheek, and his struggles calmed. He pulled himself against warm fur, felt a blanket tugged back over him, and sank into an easier rest.
He woke to the golden light of early morning, a worried looking mabari at his side, his head resting on the soft furred flank of a very large wolf. At his startled gasp, the wolf stirred, lifting a dark auburn head to look at him, golden eyes blinking sleepily. He sat up, and the wolf rose, stretching out and yawning dramatically before sitting, regarding him with a watchful gaze. Fenris coughed, the motion hurting both his ribs and his throat, and felt magic flare around the wolf, blurring her form back into the mage he knew. "So it wasn't a dream…" he wondered, his voice rasping painfully, and she smiled sadly as she stepped to his side. "How did you…"
"Hush..." she soothed, brushing a hand over his hair, fingers flaring with healing energy. "Wait until I have you healed, then talk." The dull throbbing in his head faded to nothing, and he could feel the swollen bruises melt away, feel his skull mend itself under her gentle fingers. Her hand ran over his neck, under his collar, and that ache too was gone. Those hands slid over his skin, nimbly avoiding the lyrium brands while pushing healing energy through his flesh. They lingered over his chest, knitting the broken parts of his ribs back together, repairing the spots where broken edges had dug into muscle or flesh. She ran them lightly over his abraded wrist, tugging off the makeshift wrappings, then tentatively laid her hands on his thighs. Her forehead rested against his, and her magic flared brighter after that, seeking out and trying to put right what he could not speak of to her, what he did not want to think about now that he was here and not there. "I… I should have been faster," she whispered, as her magic faded from around them. "I'm sorry. I tried. I…"
He caught her wrist as her fingernails dug into her marked palm, about to respond, but ended up eying the fresh, livid bruises, fingermarks imprinted darkly along her arms. "Were those my doing?" He asked, remorseful, and she flinched slightly, and then shrugged, tugging her arm back out of his grasp.
"If I had gotten to you faster, perhaps your nightmares would not be so bad," she answered, a sharp edge to her voice. As if hearing herself, she sighed, and offered an apologetic smile, sliding one hand under the iron collar he still wore. "Let's see if I can get this back off of you, shall we?" she suggested in a brighter tone, not meeting his eyes. "If I could melt the catch without heating the rest of it too much," she mused, using her hand to shield his skin while her magic worked. Fenris felt the metal slowly heat around his neck, and heard the latch pop open seconds before the increasing heat would have become full-fledged pain. The heavy iron fell to the blanket, and he flung it at the far wall before looking at the mage kneeling before him, the bruises fading from her arm as she healed herself. She looked up at the clang of metal against stone, running a hand over the bruise on his cheek, watching it fade away. "I should have been faster," she murmured again, a broken edge to her voice, her hands shaking.
"You came for me. That is all that matters," Fenris told her, catching her hand in his, cradling it against his cheek.
"Is it?" she asked, her voice distant, troubled, her eyes unreadable. She flexed her fingers in his grasp, twining them with his before running her thumb over his cheekbone, feeling him lean ever so slightly into her touch. She shook her head, suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes. "I don't deserve you. I never have. I would have died in the deep roads, or worse, without you. Without you, I would never have known how to deal with the qunari, how to gain their respect, and they would have just taken Isabela, killed anyone in their way. Without you, the demons Quentin summoned would have overrun me before I could put a shield up, and my mother would be unavenged." She pulled her hand from him, fidgeting with something just under her sleeve. "I'm just an apostate who got lucky, too wild to submit to rules that are probably there for my own good, too stupid to know when to quit, to just cut and run. And you? You're perfectly, uniquely you. You're the strongest person I have ever known, and you're smart; you picked up reading really fast, even with my inept teaching methods, you speak at least three languages I know of, and sometimes you talk like you're in a book, when you say stuff like 'I will endeavor to exist with less offense'. Carver used to bug me at home to ask what the longer words you used meant." She sniffled a little, staring at the floor. "And you're always there when I need you. Me? I'm just another mage."
Fenris blinked at her, trying to process what she had just told him. Then he reached out, tilting her head up, making her look at him, one hand under her chin, thumb running along her jaw. "Festis bei umo canavarum," he muttered, and glanced briefly upwards as if in prayer before resettling his gaze on hers. "Hawke… Lupa. You are you. That is enough, and more."
She smiled up at him with that , golden eyes suspiciously bright. She tugged at whatever she had been fidgeting with, and suddenly looped a tattered length of singed red silk around his wrist. "I saved what was left of it for you. If you'd like, when we get home, I'll cut you a new length."
Fenris brushed his fingers over the sash almost reverently before rewrapping it and tying it in a familiar pattern. It felt somehow more right, more important, against his skin, without the metal of his gauntlets as a buffer. He reached out, running his fingers over the tattoos on her cheeks. Something flickered in her eyes at the brush of his nails on her skin, but was gone in an instant. "Hawke… I…" he started, but was interrupted by a loud growl from his stomach.
"I'll go heat up what's left from last night," Lupa smiled, even as she pulled back. "We can't risk a fire during the day, they might see the smoke, but I have ways." She held up a hand flickering with flames to demonstrate. "There's a stream right outside. It's sheltered enough you should be able to wash up without being seen. It's probably ice cold, though, so be careful." She shooed him gently outside as she focused on heating the pots of food, Wolf following at his heels.
She had not been joking about the likely temperature of the stream, Fenris noted, restraining a yelp as he stepped off the shore into thigh deep water, suddenly surprised he couldn't see ice at the edges. He decided a few moments later that he was getting used to it, or at least going numb, and started scrubbing the last traces of her blood off his hands, out from under his nails. It was amazing the sheer difference the chance to get clean again granted, he mused, even as he shivered through another dunking rinse. Perhaps with the visible stains of his… ordeal gone, he would sleep better tonight, or at least not wake to find he had taken out his dream on his mage. She should not have to escape to another form to keep him from hurting her.
Although that did beg a question that had been lurking in his mind since it had become clear this was no dream. How had she learned a trick considered a lost art even among the magisters of Tevinter? It was said that some few dalish keepers retained the art, and he had seen the ancient witch become a dragon on the top of Sundermount years ago, but… He would ask her, he decided. His Lupa would not have turned to a demon for such power, she always held strong, she would not have faltered, not over something so trivial. He would ask her. She had never lied to him. The thought of his promise, made years before as he held a crying mage in his arms, flitted through his mind, and he shivered with more than cold.
If she had fallen… Maker help him. Creators help him. Could he kill the woman he knew he loved, even for a promise she had begged from him? He had felt what it was like to believe her gone, could he endure life knowing he had taken hers, after some fate had given him this second chance? He scrubbed again at the places where her blood had been dried against his palms, as if the thought of enacting his promise had stained them anew. If she had fallen… She wouldn't have. Anders had healed her, as the annoying blonde had been trying to when they dragged him off. She had probably learned the shifting trick from that dratted bloodmage's book, he had seen how interested she was in dalish lore. She would not have fallen to a demon, and he was fretting himself over nothing.
He dragged himself shivering out of the water, and hurried back to the cave. Lupa was crouched before a bubbling pot of porridge, her back to him and her focus entirely on the magic heating the food. Blue fire flickered in the palm of one outstretched hand, mimicking the motions of the light underneath the metal. He stepped closer, watching her undivided focus on the spell with something that felt remarkably like amusement. He stood behind her for a long moment, as his hair dripped, his freezing, soaked, and unclothed state forgotten. A sudden thought occurred to him, given how charmingly oblivious she was to his return.
He smiled at the dog, who backed away, then stepped right behind her, close enough to feel the warmth she exuded, before shaking the excess water from his hair with all the enthusiasm generally attributed to his namesakes.
Lupa squealed when the icy water hit her, dropping the spell in a flare of fire before spinning to lunge at the culprit. Fenris laughed at the look on her face, even as he caught her wrists and pulled her close to warm himself up. "You are freezing!" she squeaked, before succumbing to laughter herself. He released her arms, only to feel them thrown around his neck, pulling him down into a soft kiss. He found himself with his own hands laced around the back of her neck, buried under the warmth of her hair, their faces pressed together even after their lips parted. He stared into her eyes, finding nothing but the mage he loved in the unguardedly warm golden gaze. Fenris smiled at her, and she snuggled closer into his arms, softly curved heat against his admittedly chilled, damp skin. He spared one arm to snag a blanket and pull it close around their shoulders, sliding back against the stone wall to sit with her across his lap. Lupa nuzzled his neck, and grinned almost dizzily up at him. "You have a really nice laugh, and a gorgeous smile. Some days, I feel like I would do almost anything, just to make you happy, to see that smile, to hear the way you laugh. "
"A gorgeous smile?" he asked her, even as she began carding her fingers through his hair, the magic heat steadily drying the still dripping strands. "Are you sure you haven't gotten into lyrium wine again?"
"No lyrium wine. No lyrium either, at least not in a consumable form. I think Athenril cleared out the lyrium stash here after I stopped working with her. No reason to keep it, I guess, she never really took on another mage on any more than a job by job basis after I left. Apparently, most of them were idiots, and the rest couldn't handle dealing with her," She shrugged, and shifted position to warm more of him up.
"I admit I only met the smuggler briefly, but I rather liked her. And she seemed fond of you, as much as of anyone." Fenris leaned back, relaxing into the steady, light tugs of her fingers in his hair, the chill in his skin vanishing from the warm female in his arms.
"She would have been nice to you. She's almost never rude to other elves. I could tell you about the times she made Carver cry. Athenril did not like Carver, not that I blame her given what he called her that one time, but still. Her term of endearment for me was usually 'doglord shem bitch'. Occasionally modified to 'my favorite shem bitch', usually when I had been particularily useful that day. Sad thing is, you're right, she was fond of me, as her regard for humans went." She nuzzled at his neck again, and sighed happily.
"Your departure from her employ does make more sense, with certain facts accounted for." He ran his hands down over her robed back, hesitating at the tattered edges where the stake had pierced her. His hands were still cold enough to easily feel the heat rising off her exposed skin, and he toyed with the idea of burying his hands between robe and skin. She squeaked as cold fingers brushed the small of her back, and leaned into him as they slid tentatively lower. "Are you still sure you haven't managed to get drunk?"
"I think I'd have noticed. I'm not joking about your smile, Fenris. You don't show it very often but its like the sun coming out from behind the clouds on a dark day; like the first spring day after a long winter; it's worth the wait, worth striving to see." She leaned back, trying to read the look on his face, and sighed. "If it would make you smile more, help you be happy, I would do anything."
"Anything?" he asked, then shook his head, pulling his hands from her back to cup her face, staring into her eyes. "That could be a very dangerous thing to say, Hawke. Do not offer promises you do not mean to keep," he warned, finding the odd look in her eyes very worrisome. He shook his head. "Say you'll tell me how you turned into a wolf, and I will forget you said that."
"Who said anything about not meaning to keep it? If you asked it of me, in the name of your happiness, I would lock myself into a cell at the Gallows. Ask it of me, of your own free will, say you cannot deal with my magic any longer, and I would let Meredith turn me Tranquil. Anything, if it can be done without harming innocents, I would do for you, for one unguarded smile, one moment of joy." She sat at his feet, still looking up with that odd expression.
sigh. my poor broken mage. poor fenris. they really don't know how to quite deal with each other.
review, and chapter ten could arrive as soon as tomorrow morning!
Reviews make me happy. happy writers write more. if i write more, i could end up posting every time someone reviews!
