A/N: Thank you to everyone who pitched in with their opinions on smut! It will be very helpful during the final chapters of this work as well as when I leave this pairing in the dust and start up the next story. (Man, it's going to be so weird to write a new Hawke without loads of issues. How am I going to cope with all that emotional stability?)
Fenris woke abruptly, sitting nearly upright before falling back to his elbows and staring abstractedly into the darkness. The fire beyond their tent had sputtered out over the course of the night and the moon, swelled to a solid wedge in the sky, only cast a pale light through the veil of clouds that hung over the dark dome of the night sky. As the hours had passed since sunset, the light shower of that afternoon had increased substantially and the falling droplets of rain caught the light of the moon and, just beyond the entrance of the tent, shone like fragments of shattered glass tumbling down to earth. Fenris breathed deeply, his heart thudding loudly in his chest, as he tried to reorient himself after a confused memory that had been blurred by passing years. It was clear, even when he had been in his unconscious state, that the truth of the events he had recalled had been layered with fiction. They flashed together, the reality and his own imaginings, in a discordant disarray. It wasn't altogether unprecedented; there were a number of memories that were fragmented and fused with his own impressions rather than simply consisting of a whole, untarnished vision of what had occurred. It was clear to him, from the way this memory had presented within his dreams, that he had thought of it often. He had called it into his mind frequently and elaborated on the actual events substantially. Rather like a letter, folded and creased after many readings, with the original words blurred by time and then filled in with sentiment and nonsense. Still, as he lay in the tent, gazing into the darkness, Fenris was relatively certain that he could distinguish what had been truth from what had merely been conjured by his own mind. The memory came to him from a period of time from which he had already retrieved much of what had been lost, and it fell relatively quickly into the logical progression of events. Even so, he was somewhat dazed as he shifted his gaze from the darkness outside of the tent to the dark figure beside him. In the shadows, he could scarcely make out her expression, though he saw that her eyes were open and turned towards him.
Though her brow was drawn with mild concern, Hawke smiled at him through the dim light as she reached out her hand timidly and grazed the exposed skin of his shoulder with her fingertips. At her touch, he lifted his hand to hers, holding it gently against his chest. Her hand was cool, warmed by his, as, for a moment, they lay beside one another without speaking. At his touch, Hawke moved slightly closer to him and pressed her lips gently to his shoulder. This close, she could hear his breath, still a bit ragged and shallow after his sudden waking. Outside, beyond the tent and beyond them, a trilling bird cried out in agitation. The rain fell harder now, filling the air with a gentle yet insistent pattering as it hit heavily against the canvas of the tent. When Fenris' breathing was lost beneath that percussive sound and Hawke saw the hard lines of his expression soften, she asked quietly, "Nightmare?"
It was not a question she would have asked before, but something had shifted during those weeks of springtime storms. Fenris had begun, tentatively at first, to speak to her of the memories that came to him in the night. He had told her before about small, scattered pieces, but the information he offered now was more complete. In the past, any words that spilled free from him upon waking seemed as if they were spoken accidentally, breaking free of his lips because he was unable to restrain them during those first agitated, disorienting moments after waking. The revelations seemed meant for her ears now. He always spoke quietly, his voice low but deliberate, and his eyes lifting only at intervals to meet with hers. The struggle it caused him to speak of the years that had come before was evident and it was never more apparent than when he spoke of what he remembered about Hawke. He always spoke more haltingly, his eye contact becoming more infrequent, when his memories had been of her. Then, as he fell silent after speaking, his eyes would turn back towards hers, holding her gaze until she quietly murmured answers to questions he couldn't find the voice to ask.
He had first begun to tell her of his retrieved memoires cautiously, almost out of curiosity more than anything else. It had occurred to him, as he awoke beside her atop the grassy slope of a hillside, that she had words within her that had the power to alleviate some of the aching pain of old wounds. She was able to speak words that surprised him and that offered some small sliver of comfort. The prospect of that—of hearing what she might say—was enough to urge him past the embarrassment that had often stilled his tongue when he had fleetingly considered discussing some fragment of their shared past. He was often hesitant to speak, knowing that to do so would be an admission of the indelible impression that even the most trivial instances of her callousness had made within him. Fenris had never made it his common practice to discuss sentiment or to reveal too conspicuously any pain that he might feel, and the process of doing so was as awkward as he might have imagined if he had ever given it any consideration. Still, he found that Hawke's soft, earnest responses compensated somewhat for the dignity he sacrificed in admitting that her past actions and words had been driven deeply into his mind.
It had surprised her the first time that Fenris, upon being shaken from his restless sleep, began to tell her what had passed through his unconsciousness. She had faltered the first time, uncertain just how much she should say or what was better left unsaid. Still, in spite of this uncertainty, it was a relief to know the source of the shadows that rose in his eyes when he woke. It was a relief to have the chance to apologize for transgressions that had long since passed but which had continued to haunt her. She grew more certain of herself the next time he shared his recovered memory with her and something vaguely approximating easiness that arisen between them when his sleep was next dogged by the past.
She had never invited him to speak of his dreams, however, and that night, even as her short query passed her lips, Hawke wondered if she had perhaps transgressed some boundary. Fenris did not seem off-put by her question however, and, with a casualness that relieved her immensely, he replied, "A memory. Of you, in fact." His head rolled to the side, facing towards her, and, in the darkness, she thought she saw the corners of his lips lifting into a hint of a smile. "Hardly unpleasant," Fenris added, lifting his hand from hers momentarily to smooth the furrows between her brows. Hawke smiled, leaning her forehead into his touch.
"I wasn't aware that you had any pleasant memories of me," she said, a thread of genuine surprise in her voice. She saw one of his brows arch, almost as if with amusement, and she added hastily, "From before, I mean."
"They're few in number, admittedly," he returned, his voice still thick with sleep, "but I am not without them entirely. Though it may be an exaggeration to characterize this particular memory as a pleasant one," he clarified. "It was merely not… unpleasant." Hawke nodded, refraining from pressing him for anything further though she would have very much liked to. Fenris cleared his throat with a muted cough before explaining, "You were… in a state of undress. In the Hanged Man, if memory serves." He spoke evenly, though there did seem to by a dry hint of amusement in his tone.
Hawke's eyes widened with momentary surprise before she blushed brilliantly with remembrance and groaned, "Ugh, I didn't realize you'd been there for that." Her head dropped forward heavily against him as she hid her face. It hadn't come to her immediately, but, when it did, the memory made her cringe. Admittedly, she did not have the most precise recollection of the night of which Fenris spoke; she had been drunk beyond the telling of it and had somehow become entangled in a game of cards in which articles of clothing served as currency. It had been some fool idea of Isabela's, no doubt. Fortunately, as far as Hawke could remember, she had by no means been the most exposed participant in the game and had never found herself entirely without clothes. Even so, she had been rather more bare than she was proud of and would have, in all likelihood, exposed herself still further had not Anders, in all his glorious sobriety, draped her over his shoulder and carried her from the Hanged Man. "Andraste's ass, that's embarrassing," Hawke mumbled, her words muffled as she spoke into Fenris' shoulder.
"I have seen you in less, Hawke," he reminded her.
"Well, that's true," she owned, lifting her head and glancing down at the blankets that lay over her otherwise naked skin. "Were you there long? I suppose your memory of that night is clearer than mine," she said curiously, trying to dismiss the aftershocks of embarrassment that kept her cheeks burning. Then, mild alarm suddenly entering her voice, she added, "You weren't playing as well, were you?"
"I was not," Fenris replied flatly. "I had only just arrived as you were… unburdening yourself of your blouse."
He cleared his throat again and Hawke let out another pained groan. As she vaguely recalled, she had been particularly ostentatious about relieving herself of that particular garment. With a sigh, she shook her head. "Yes, well," she began, fidgeting slightly against Fenris, "I wasn't necessarily at my most composed in those days—what with the drinking and the fact that I'd apparently thought it would be a wonderful idea to take up with the lyrium again." She tried to smile sheepishly, but her expression was more self-deprecating than she had intended. "It wasn't a terrific time for me," she finished, keeping her tone light in spite of the gravity that had arisen into her eyes.
Fenris nodded, turning his head and looking up towards the canvas. In the moonlight, he could make out the dark trails of rainwater that ran erratically over the treated fabric. "Yes, I remember," he said, running his calloused fingertips in gentle, repetitious strokes over her forearm. "You'd just lost your mother."
Her expression registered the surprise she felt. She would not have expected Fenris to have noticed any marked change in her during that time and she certainly would not have thought that he would have correctly guessed the cause for her degenerating behavior. Just after her mother's passing, she had labored under the delusion that she was handling the loss well. She had always thought of herself as someone who handled such losses gracefully. As if it were some sort of victory not to cry. As if it were some sign of strength to laugh through the pain and as if all that mattered was keeping her grief concealed from anyone who might try to comfort her. Hawke hadn't even noticed herself deadening, blocking out the last remaining traces of anything that made her soft. She'd fooled herself into thinking that she wasn't suffering and she had thought that she had fooled the others as well. They had seemed to think that she was alright, in any case. She had been offered condolences over the course of the first week that had followed her mother's death, but it had gone unmentioned afterwards by all save Anders. Only a few weeks later, Aveline had come to her, relying on Hawke to deal with the Qunari threat. Only a few weeks after her mother died, and Isabela was stabbing Hawke in the back over some relic. Hawke's life had changed then and, though she had scarcely noticed it, she had changed as well. But Fenris had noticed. And he had remembered.
Fenris' fingertips trailed from her forearm to her wrist before lazily circling across the back of her hand. Absently, he ran his fingers over her knuckles, grazing lightly over scar tissue, before he closed his hand over hers once more. Hawke's brow furrowed with thought as she heard herself say quietly, "You came to me. The night my mother died… you came."
Turning his face towards her once more, Fenris met her gaze evenly. "I did."
"And I told you to go."
"You did," he confirmed, inclining his head in a slight nod. "Rather violently, as I recall."
The lines on Hawke's brow deepened and, as she pressed her forehead to Fenris' shoulder once more, he slid his arm around her and pulled her to him so that her head rested on his chest. "Were you in love with me?" Her voice was little more than a whisper, but Fenris heard her distinctly even over the continued song of the falling rain. For a long moment, he listened to the rain, with his hand motionless against Hawke's shoulder blade as he felt her warm, steady breath against his skin.
"No," he answered finally, his voice low. "There were times when I feared I was… but I know now that it was only the palest shadow." With a light touch, his hand trailed over her shoulder as he lifted it to toy with of her hair. Her hand that he held to his chest pulled from his grasp only to swiftly catch hold of his wrist. Lifting her head just slightly, she held his palm to her lips. Fenris could feel that she was smiling and felt his own lips mirroring her expression. "I did think of you often," he continued softly as her eyes lifted to meet with his. "On quiet nights, when I found myself alone, it was always your image that fell across my eyes." Even in the darkness, he saw her cheeks coloring. She shifted against him, moving upwards to bring her lips to his cheek. Fenris twisted a lock of her hair around his finger, his eyes closing for a moment. He cleared his throat, deliberately lightening his tone as he added, "I believe I can safely assume that you never felt anything of the kind for me?"
Pulling away from him a bit, Hawke looked down into Fenris' face as if taken aback. Perhaps his question was understandable, given how everything had turned out, but, as she recalled, she had spent the better part of a year aggressively flirting with him in a misguided effort to win his approval. "Have you not remembered the night we met? I practically hurled myself at your feet," she said, an irrepressible smile spreading over her face. "You were less than receptive."
The corner of his lips twitched. "Ah, yes. That charming exchange," he said dryly, breaking eye contact with her briefly to glance off in reminiscence. She felt a slight tug at her hair as he continued to play with it. "Perhaps that was not your moment of keenest wit," Fenris concluded, meeting her gaze once more as he allowed her to see his smile.
She shrugged. "Well, I was young and you were beautiful," she said in casual defense of herself. "I hadn't yet mastered the art of subtle flirtation."
"You've still not mastered that art," he returned, lifting his head slightly off the ground to bring his lips to hers. Her teeth clinked against his as she tried to return his kiss in spite of the fact that she was grinning. Still, Fenris persisted until she relaxed against him, her smile fading as her lips moved gently against his.
Just as the kiss began to deepen, Hawke parted from him enough to murmur, "I suppose I'll just have to keep practicing my flirtation." Her smile resurfacing, she adjusted so that she lay atop him, her legs parting to rest on either side of him as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. "With any luck, I'll become better at it," she added in a whisper, returning to his kiss as her hips shifted teasingly against him. Against her mouth, Fenris laughed.
In spite of the rain, it was a relatively warm night that held the humid promise of warmer days to come and, perhaps, the near arrival of summer storms. Of late, the days had seemed to be growing longer and it was only a few brief hours after Fenris and Hawke had fallen back to sleep before they were reawakened by the first light of dawn. Their limbs were still entangled as they awoke amongst the disarray of their blankets. There was always an undeniable languor that followed a disrupted night and, groaning softly as sunlight seeped into their tent, Hawke hid her face against Fenris' neck to shield her eyes from the light. With his own eyes still closed, Fenris sighed and held her until, grudgingly, she accepted the fact that she would be unable to get back to sleep. The tent had proved resilient enough against the elements, but it had not been built to accommodate long mornings spent in protracted sleep.
"Well, I think it's stopped raining, in any case," grumbled Hawke as she rubbed her eyes and slowly sat upright.
"So it would seem," sighed Fenris through a yawn. As he rose from the ground, groaning from the effort of doing so, he glowered unproductively in the general direction of the sun. It might have been nice if the cover of clouds had lingered at least long enough to allow them to compensate for the rest that they had lost in the night, but the weather had proved fairly uncooperative of late. Insistently, the sun set the sky ablaze with bright fingers of yellow light as Hawke and Fenris began the slow deconstruction of their campsite.
Repetition ought to have made the process of clearing the camp effortless, but a recent introduction to their small band of wanderers was proving to be a disruption. Over the past several days, Fenris had had to tolerate the small, gray shadow that seemed constantly to be trailing after him. The scrawny wolf that Brutus had so insistently brought into their lives seemed to have taken a liking to the elf. While Fenris was attempting to gather together the few possessions that he and Hawke carried with them, the animal scuttled along at his feet, emitting a high-pitched whine until Fenris finally acknowledged its presence with a short, light pat on the top of its head. Fenris couldn't be certain, but he suspected that Hawke's mabari was somehow responsible for misleading the wolf into believing that Fenris could be won over with repeated demonstrations of submission. On more that one occasion, Fenris had very nearly tripped over the slinking creature as it flopped down at his feet with its belly offered to him. It was an annoyance, to say the least. Hawke, however, seemed endlessly amused by the animal's seeming devotion to Fenris. To her credit, she did manage to suppress her laughter on the few occasions when Fenris actually did stumble over the creature.
When the wolf got underfoot for perhaps the hundredth time that morning, Fenris heaved a heavy sigh and, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, commanded Brutus to take care of the situation. Obligingly, the mabari came to Fenris' aid and nudged his friend towards the edge of the campsite, where they waited patiently for their two-legged companions to finish packing.
Though the wolf was, to Fenris' mind, a bit of a nuisance and bit of a menace, he did have to admit that he was glad that Brutus had a playmate. The mabari—hulking, energetic beast that he was—had massive stores of energy to expend and it was a relief that Brutus had found a new source of entertainment. That day, while travelling down a narrow, obsolete stretch of road that connected two towns which had emptied during the Blight, the mabari and the wolf invented a game for themselves to pass the time. Or, more accurately, Brutus invented the game and his wolf complied with the understood terms. Brutus would drop a stick at the wolf's feet, who would then pick it up and run off ahead down the road while Brutus lightly gave chase. The wolf's flight never lasted long, however, as he would soon panic with the huge mabari at his heels and simply dropped the stick altogether, surrendering to Brutus with his tail between his legs. Undiscouraged, Brutus would snatch the stick from where it lay and run off while the wolf, regaining interest in the game, would follow after in swift pursuit. They continued in this manner with great enthusiasm while Fenris and Hawke, somewhat more lackadaisically, walked along behind them.
Hawke laughed, watching as the frantic animals circled back towards the slower members of the party, and then lifted her gaze to Fenris. "See?" she grinned. "If Wolf weren't here, you'd be the one forced to play fetch with Brute."
Fenris made a short, derisive sound. "Yes, your feral beast has proved to be an invaluable addition to our party. I will try to remind myself of these moments as he mauls us in our sleep."
Hawke laughed again and, his lips quirking to the side in what was almost a smile, Fenris draped his arm over her shoulders. Instantly, she pressed closer, sighing contentedly as she tilted her head against him. She smiled, her eyes bright as they caught the sunlight that filtered down through the branches that arched overhead. Above the canopy, scattered clouds drifted through the sky, concealing and exposing the sun at intervals. Varying by the moment, the road that Fenris and Hawke travelled was alternately in light or shadow. When the sun shone down through the trees, the day felt as warm and pleasant as the brilliant dawn had seemed to promise, but, as clouds rolled across the sky and the road darkened, it felt as if another burst of rain might not be far off. Fenris was learning that springtime in Ferelden was immensely unpredictable. Hawke seemed to have a fairly good sense of when the weather would turn, but he had yet to become accustomed to reading the subtle changes of the winds and shifts in the temperature. Of course, that was to be expected, given that she had spent much of her young life here and he had not. Stroking Hawke's upper arm absently, Fenris wondered how long it would be before he understood this land as well as she did. He had time to learn. Time to acquaint himself with Ferelden and time to build a life there with Hawke. He gave her a sidelong glance and, while her eyes were forward, watching the play of her pets, the corners of Fenris' lips lifted.
He'd been honest in saying that he had not been in love with her. What he had felt in Kirkwall was not what he felt for her now. Love, he suspected, was never true unless it could at least be spoken aloud. And, in Kirkwall, he had hardly been able to own to feeling anything for her besides hate and grudging attraction. Even admitting to himself that he found her physical form appealing had tormented him at the time. He had always blamed Hawke for somehow forcing him into feeling desire for her rather than bearing the responsibility for it himself. In his most irrational moments, he had almost convinced himself that she was beautiful for the sole purpose of tormenting him. Granted, his attraction to her and the growing fascination he'd felt through the years had not been purely superficial. That was the most that he had ever recognized in his own mind, but he knew enough now to realize that there had been hidden parts of her that had captivated him. These aspects of her, subtle though they were at the time, had created something within him that was the beginning of an inclination that would become love. But he had not loved her then and she had certainly not loved him. Perhaps it might have been easier if he had simply felt for her at that time as he did now, and if she had somehow come to feel the same. It would have spared them both a great deal of pain, in any case. But, when that thought passingly crossed his mind, Fenris found he was relieved that he had not loved the girl in Kirkwall. He couldn't begin to imagine who she would have become if he had been with her then, but he knew that she would not have become the woman who walked beside him—the woman who was tucked comfortably beneath his arm with head resting against his shoulder and her eyes fixed on the road ahead. She would not have been his Hawke.
Hawke felt the pressure of his hand against her shoulder increase slightly and glanced towards him. When her eyes met with his, Fenris looked ahead quickly, trying to appear as if he had not been staring at her for an extended period of time. There was something decidedly pensive in his expression—in the hint of a frown on his lips and in his knitted brow. Hawke smiled, letting out a breath of laughter, as she abruptly stopped walking. When Fenris looked back at her, she rose suddenly to her toes and kissed him swiftly on the cheek. It had been rather too unexpected for him to react and, when Hawke fell back to the flats of her feet, his eyes were widened slightly and the furrows were gone from his brow. As she fought to keep from grinning too broadly, Fenris watched her teeth catch against her lower lip. His eyes lingered for a moment on her mouth as she wrapped her arms over his shoulders. "You're so handsome when you brood," she grinned, her hand running over the nape of his neck and before tangling with his hair.
Fenris scowled. "I was not brooding," he replied flatly.
Managing to disguise her smile as a frown, Hawke nodded knowingly. "No, of course not." She stepped closer, standing fully against him, as she added in a low whisper, "But you're still handsome." Fenris made a short sound of demurral in this throat but, when she lifted to her toes once more, he obliged her with a kiss. His hands sliding down to her hips, Fenris held her close. She made a small, contented sound against his mouth, her hands tightening in his hair, and Fenris felt himself respond to her. He didn't know where their future would lead, or what their lives might have been under other circumstances, but it was impossible to imagine someone he would have rather been with in that moment.
Overhead, the braches rustled together as the breeze swelled and rushed through the trees. The wind was shifting and, as the afternoon wore on, the spans of sunshine grew less frequent and the clouds thickened, darkening at their cores. Fenris and Hawke were not to be spared further rain, it seemed and, though Fenris hadn't the faintest notion how she was able to tell, Hawke said that the oncoming storm would be worse than what had passed the night before. The air, still warm, was becoming increasingly humid and, when she breathed deeply, Hawke thought she could smell the faint, metallic scent that so often precedes lightning. Looking up at the graying fragments of sky that she could see through the leaves, Hawke suggested that they should make their way towards flat plains rather than remaining beneath the trees. Fenris agreed without argument, remembering the tree limb that had nearly crushed their tent when last a violent storm had hit. Whistling for Brutus and Wolf to follow, Hawke began to lead Fenris away from the road and eastwards towards the thinning of the forest.
They had been doing a poor job of tracking their progress on the map, but, with a vague idea of where she was headed, Hawke was able to guide them free of the woods. They had not been as near to the edge of the forest as she had expected, however, and the clouds had long since opened by the time that she and Fenris found themselves approaching an expansive clearing. The ground was low where they had found themselves and the dark soil, which was coated with thick moss and bracken, squelched beneath Fenris' feet. Seeking higher elevation, they made their way up the slight slope of a hill that stood against the darkening sky. As they crested the hill, Hawke's brow furrowed.
They were free of the trees now and, below the hill, there was the vast stretch of even ground that they had sought. Solitary, amongst a waving sea of overgrown grasses, was the slouching form of a dilapidated cottage. From her elevated position, Hawke could see that a portion of the thatch roof had caved in and been left unrepaired. "Well, it looks more or less abandoned," she observed, turning to Fenris. "We could always go and have a poke around while we're here. It might not be a bad place to weather the storm."
Rainwater was already coursing down Fenris' face, dripping irritatingly from his hair and down into his eyes. Blinking back the water, he replied, "It couldn't do any harm." Admittedly, he did not relish the idea of having to construct a shelter while the increasingly frigid rain continued to pummel them.
They had seen a few such houses while making their way south. Even in their attempts to avoid civilization, it had been inevitable that they would stumble across signs of life on occasion. Though it was not always the case, Hawke had noticed that more than a few of the houses that they had come across were abandoned. She'd seen broken windows, collapsing fences, and farmlands that were entirely untended. Through all the years that had passed since the Blight, there was still evidence of it in the Bannorn. In rural areas such as these, more isolated families had fled for the protection offered by city walls. Even where the darkspawn had not swept through, the threat they posed had been enough to cause unrest. Anything could have happened to the people who once lived within the stone walls of the small, derelict cottage. Perhaps they had survived the Blight, safe within the walls of some far off city. Perhaps not.
The cottage was not so different in structure, Hawke noticed, from her family's home in Lothering. That house had been abandoned as well, left unattended and decaying. Hawke wondered if her home was still there amongst the wreckage of the town that had been too blighted to be rebuilt. She doubted that it still stood; Lothering was beyond saving. Frowning slightly, Hawke realized that she and Fenris might not be altogether far off from the ashes where Lothering had once stood. No more than a few weeks away, in any case. Of course, there was no way of knowing with any degree of certainty; she really had done an appalling job of tracking their journey.
As she drew nearer to the house, Hawke nearly tripped over a broken stone that had been hidden amongst the wild growth of the grass. Looking down, she realized that someone had long ago laid a path of carefully placed flagstones. The years had broken them and covered the smooth stone with green moss, but the trail still led towards the gate that now hung broken from its hinges. A fence, it seemed, had once separated the small plot on which the cottage was built from the fields that lay beyond it. The fence was in a state of disrepair, just as everything else, with the black paint chipping away from its wooden posts. Moving through the gate, Hawke thought she caught the scent of rosemary. Perhaps there had been a garden here once, but, if there had been, it had long since been overtaken by weeds and a chaotic blur of wildflowers.
The air smelled sweetly of flowers mixing with rain. A reckless growth of vines that overtaken the house, clinging to its eves and weaving over the rough surface of its stones. Bright clusters of purple blossoms hung in lush bunches from the vines, wet and heavy with rain. The blooms dangled down over the few windows the house boasted and a thick veil of flowers hung in front of the weathered door. Hawke inhaled deeply, smiling at the familiar fragrance of wisteria mingling with the scent of damp earth.
It was Brutus who first reached the house itself. While Fenris and Hawke lingered on the flagstone path, the mabari raced forward and trotted up the uneven steps that led to the front porch. After sniffing energetically for a moment, however, he lost interest altogether and decided that it was a better use of his time to go tearing off through the grass.
"At least he tested those steps for us," said Hawke as she tentatively climbed the stairs.
"What happened to the people who lived here, do you think?" mused Fenris, trailing lightly after her. When he stood beside Hawke on the porch, looking thoughtfully at the door that was almost entirely obscured by wisteria, Fenris heard something rustling overhead. Turning his gaze up towards the eves, he saw a pale bird watching them suspiciously as she sat atop her hatchlings.
"Same thing that happened to my family, I expect," replied Hawke simply, reaching out to push vines aside. When she was able to uncover the doorknob, she turned it without any real expectation of success. The door, however, opened to her light touch, and swung inwards into the unlit cavern of the cottage. Hawke laughed under her breath, shaking her head. "They didn't even bother locking the door." Now that she thought of it, neither had she when she'd left home.
Everything seemed undisturbed, left untouched through the passage of many years. There were signs, here and there, that the house had been turned over by hurried hands. The drawers of the dresser were left open and their contents had spilled onto the floor and been left there. What little furniture there was was covered with dust and animal droppings. Beneath the hole in the roof, the floorboards were rotted away, blackened from continuous exposure to the elements. The rain fell steadily through that gaping opening and collected in the depressed collapse of the floor. Investigating, Hawke drifted deeper into the house, moving towards the compromised flooring. Though she stopped far from where the wood weakened, Fenris still placed his hand on her shoulder, pulling her back slightly. "Use caution," he warned quietly, when she lifted her eyes to his. "This place is hardly an example of enduring construction."
Hawke smiled at his concern. "I'll be careful," she said quietly, looking up to glimpse the clouded sky through the collapsed ceiling. Perched in the rafters, were two fledgling owls that peered down at her with cold, yellow eyes. She smiled to herself; at least the owls had probably cut down on any mice. It wouldn't be a bad place to weather the storm.
Peeling away from Fenris, Hawke moved towards a sturdy table that had been shoved to the side of the room. Absently, she ran her hand over the smooth oak surface, blazing a meandering trail through the dust and debris that had accumulated through the years. The family, whoever they were, must have left in a hurry; the table was still set with rough plates. Frowning slightly, Hawke set an overturned goblet upright. "People lived here once," she murmured, almost to herself. "Brushed their hair, ate their meals, spent their nights." She paced around the table as she spoke, pushing in the chairs that had been left out. Reaching down, she retrieved a small, moldering doll from the seat of one of the chairs. "Had children," she continued quietly, rubbing dust away from its button eyes. "Just a boring, ordinary life." Placing the doll carefully back in its chair, Hawke lifted her gaze to Fenris. He stood across the table, hands planted firmly on the back of a chair, and his eyes trained on her. "If I said I wanted that, would you want it too?" she asked softly, her voice barely audible over the plash of raindrops falling against the floor and the rattle of wind colliding with the cracked windowpanes.
Fenris was grateful for the light that streamed down through the damaged roof; he would not have wanted to miss her expression because of darkness. Her eyes were bright, questioning, as if she was unsure of what his answer would be. The foolishness of her uncertainty brought a smile to his lips. "That's all I've ever wanted."
Hawke crossed to him quickly, lifting her hands to his hair and pulling his mouth to hers. It had been foolish, but she had wondered. Wondered if perhaps he was not quite so tired of adventure as she was and if the life she now wanted would bore him. "We could stay here, you know," she said softly against his lips as she stood within the warm circle of his arms. "Just for a little while. Just until the storm ends."
Three days passed in their entirety before the rain ceased. A few days longer, the clouds lingered. When at last the blazing sun returned, Hawke suggested that they should leave the crumbling cottage behind. She would make the same suggestion many more times in the days and weeks that followed but, in one way or another, and without quite meaning to do so, they made themselves at home.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
A) Apologies for the shortness/randomness of this chapter. As the title suggests, it really is just the end of Chapter 9, which I cut short because I thought that the whole Tevinter thing needed to breathe for a second before we leapt back into happy couple mode.
B) This whole thing really does make more sense when taken with Chapter 9. Hawke's whole thought process about maybe settling down and fearing that Fenris might not want to (Ch. 9) is basically just build up to the end of this chapter.