The land gave way to the flood plains and marshes of the coast as they trudged closer to Hercinia. A meagre wall met them as they approached the port town, and naught a guard stopped their egress to the single inn. From its spot uphill, the moorings and docks of the harbour were visible, and the ripe scent of the mongers at market permeated every inch.
"Smells like home, doesn't it," Varric said with a satisfied sigh. Crossing his arms he gave a shrug. "A view of the sea isn't the same without chains though."
"Or the shipwrecks," Hawke added, and he nodded in agreement.
"Aren't we going in?" Bethany asked, hesitating on the stoop with his grace at her side.
"No," Hawke replied, and started down the hill. "We barely have the coin for passage, let alone the comfort of a bed."
"Are you feeling alright, love?" Anders asked.
"Fine," Hawke replied, and furrowed her brow at him. "Why?"
Varric laughed and met the glint in Anders' gaze with a wink of his own. "You're refusing a drink. Blondie knows you, don't act like he doesn't."
"Hmph." Hawke glanced back at the inn wistfully before patting her thigh and starting down the hill with his grace. They followed her along the creaking, weathered boardwalk to the harbourmaster's office, where she rapped her knuckles on the closed door.
"Hey – no!" Anders called, but it was too late – the mabari had taken off, chasing a piper into the water with a splash.
"There's no stopping him," Hawke said, and crossed her arms. "You know that."
"For being the smartest dogs in the world, I always hope he'll actually listen," Anders murmured in reply.
"Just means they know enough not, I think," Bethany said with a thin grin.
Hawke knocked again more loudly. A few small boats were moored in the harbour, though there was scarce a sign of any workers. When she was about to knock again, the door opened to reveal a salty, grizzled man who batted her hand away.
"Ah!" Hawke flashed a debonair flair of ivories. "The harbourmaster I assume?"
"Aye," he replied, and coughed a bit of phlegm up to spit haphazardly at her feet.
Hawke spared but a glance at the gob, her smile unfaltering. "Rather quiet day at the docks, mm? My companions and I wish to buy passage on the next ship to Ferelden – any port."
"Preferebly not Denerim," Anders added with a cough under his breath.
"Not a day to be working," the man replied, unmoved from his place blocking the doorway. "Should be at the Chantry with the rest."
"Yes," Hawke said with an odd laugh. "Yes, of course. I apologize, we've been travelling. But passage?"
The man narrowed his eyes. "It's almost a fortnight till the first ships from Ferelden reach us. The seas are no place to be in the spring."
"Ah, well I –" Hawke's words cut off as her gaze drifted, and the man shut the door on them. She took a step back from it and cleared her throat. "What a gentleman."
"What are we going to do?" Bethany asked.
"We'll camp outside of town. Far outside of town," Hawke replied, and turned to whistle sharply. His grace stopped his antics in the water and lifted his head. With a quick motion from her, he bounded out and shook off. "We'll move every night."
"A fortnight is a long time for the templars to get here," Varric grumbled.
"Yes, because I hadn't thought about that one," Hawke said, and marched off with her mabari dripping a path along the dock beside her.
With silent care, Hawke plucked a salted shank from the larder and slipped it in her bag, her eyes glued on the bed across the room. She let her gaze dart here and there to scope for more. She snagged three silvers from the shelf and a cloth-wrapped bit of cheese, and cringed as a piece of parchment beneath it crackled.
She released a pent breath as the man in the bed rolled and grumbled, but stayed asleep. In another moment, she made it out the door and was in the street without incidence. It was a long walk back to their hidden camp, and morning was bleeding into the sky when she finally collapsed beside the slumped fire. Anders looked up and finished rolling the parchment in his grasp, and tucked the quill inside, before both disappeared into the hollow of his staff.
"Where have you been?"
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Hawke whispered, and tugged her satchel off to drop it at his feet. She shuffled and stretched down to lay in his lap as he opened it.
"Shouldn't you?" he asked, and pulled out a rye roll.
"Yes, on a bed of gold and Orlesian silk," she murmured, turning her face into his abdomen. She sighed as he tugged his fingers through her short hair. "I've almost enough for passage."
Anders' fingers tightened in her dark hair briefly, a flicker of blue in the whites of his eyes. It was a moment before he spoke. "Varric and Bethany left for town just before you arrived. To try and sell what we've left from the templars."
"How's your ass?"
A tired smile warmed his expression. "Almost better."
"Excellent," Hawke murmured against him, reaching round his thigh to give his lean leg a squeeze. "Can't wait to fatten you up again."
"In Ferelden? Perhaps you remember it differently than I do..."
Hawke snagged the collar of his coat and pulled him down over her, and he folded into his lap as she stole a kiss. When he tried to sit back up, she tightened her grip and kissed him again, each one slow, savoured, and gaining length.
Burying her fingers in Anders' hair, Hawke held him close and pressed her lips into his cheek before whispering, "I miss you."
Linking his fingers around Hawke's waist, Anders sat up and pulled her with him – though not without difficulty. "I am right here, you know."
"That's not what I meant," Hawke said with a smirk and cocked her eyebrow. Fingers plying his scalp she looked over his features, eyes falling half-lidded. Her thumb came forward over the creases around his mouth and temples. "Wrinkles. Where else are you getting wrinkles?"
"Hmph," Anders replied against her lips as she kissed him again, closing his eyes as she massaged through his hair.
"Such a cat," she whispered against him, shifting her weight to sit in his lap and let her hand ply away.
"They know how to live life right," Anders murmured, nuzzling his lips against her forehead and short hair. "Sleep, food, and a good rub down. And freedom. No matter all the rest, always freedom."
"Is that what you see coming?" Hawke asked, and left her head nestled against his chest.
Anders reached for the rye roll, and ripped a small bit off. He ate it before saying, "I know it isn't easy. But this life… even in fear, this will always be better than the confines of stone."
"The running never bothered me," Hawke murmured, stealing a bit of the bread herself. "I can see it in Bethany. More than she knows – she's always carried such heavy guilt because of the running."
"Mages will make havens of their own," Anders said without prompting. "They can isolate themselves together – and live with those they love, and teach each other the control they need. They won't have to die for the gifts they've been given."
Hawke chuckled and turned her lips up into the stubble of his chin. "You're preaching to the choir, my dear."
Anders' expression softened, and he ate the rest of the bread before linking his arms around her and lying back on the blanket laid out beneath the lean-to of their encampment. Hawke settled against him, her hair tickling under his chin. Overhead clouds striated across the sky, warming into embers with the match strike of dawn. He could hear birds, they'd been singing louder as of late – different songs that answered and called, twitters and shrill dances of joy.
His thoughts harkened back to a different time – a different life. A world so full of beauty…
His hand crept up Hawke's back, squeezing her shoulder before caressing up her neck. "Everyone deserves this," he whispered.
Hawke held the edge of her hood up about her face, the wind whipping off the waves with unhindered ferocity. There was a cluster of workers unloading the ship at the farthest dock, and she hurried over the slick boards to eye it. His grace followed in her wake without a care for the inclement weather - which could not be said for the rest of her companions.
Leaning under the eaves of the harbourmaster's office, Hawke hid her face in the worn scarf wrapped around her neck, and tucked her hands up under her arms. Watching them work brought memories of Gwaren, of the fearful passage with the Blight on their heels, and all that had been lost since then. Memories of brown Ferelden fields, and the smell of darkspawn and burning corpses.
"Couldn't have waited for a nicer day? I think my legs have gone numb. I still have legs, right?" Varric called to her over the wind, slumping against the wall beside her. He winkled his nose and glanced at Anders, who had his face into the wind, watching the clouds over the water.
Hawke turned back to them from her distraction, and gave the dwarf a push. They huddled together to break the wind as she spoke, "Come on, Varric, we all know how eager you are to be aboard."
"You're sure they'll take us?" Bethany said, glancing to the workers. The wind tore tears from her eyes and they rolled down her chapped cheeks, and she blinked rapidly to let them go.
"The harbourmaster said the captain often does," Hawke said with a close-lipped smile. "And that he should be ashore this morning."
"And what if they don't? What then?" Anders cut in, and their eyes turned to him. "Do you know how long it took me to find passage here from Ferelden?
"Ever the optimist," Hawke grumbled, before adding, "That was on the heels of the Blight."
"We'll never know if we just stand around here freezing our tits off," Varric said, and gave Hawke a push. "Put that tongue to better use."
"That's what Anders always says," Hawke said, and her tongue touched her upper lip. Varric groaned and Bethany rolled her eyes, as she turned away and beckoned his grace along. "What Ferelden can resist helping a mabari, right?"
The hound woofed and followed her headlong into the wind. She blinked rapidly and wrapped the cloth around her hands tighter, pacing before catching the attention of one of the workers.
"Where's the captain?"
The bearded man jerked a hand towards one of the warehouses, and she nodded and hurried to it. Pushing through the leather flaps that covered the doorway, the back and forth of business chatter cut off as a shipper, and if the hat was any indication, the dark-skinned captain looked at her.
"You lost, woman?" the shipper said, and crossed his arms over the barrel of his chest.
"Horribly," Hawke said and rolled her eyes and sighed. "And completely helpless too. Captain Pena?"
"Yes, how may I assist?" the man replied, a scant Antivan accent lilting his words.
"I've heard you take on passengers – and that you're going to Ferelden," Hawke replied, offering a smile. He returned the sentiment as his grace left her side and trotted up to sniff the man.
"Bloody dog lords," the shipper muttered.
"We will speak later," Captain Pena said, and waved a hand before kneeling to ruffle the dog's ears. The other rotund man grunted and clomped off through the warehouse. "Aye, if we've room, and the travellers have the coin. Going home?"
"Yes," Hawke said, and the thought tightened her throat. She laughed as his grace huffed and rolled to let the man give him a proper rub down. "What a disgrace, look at you!"
"Ahh he knows when to take advantage," Captain Pena said, arching his brow and looking down at the hound. "How many of you?"
"Four – and my mabari, of course," she replied, tugging her coin purse free and waving it aloft.
"Of course," the captain replied, and his eyes creased with his smile as he glanced to her. He stood up and rubbed the hound's wide chest with the toe of his leather boots, taking the purse and checking the coin. "I am not a man to ask many questions. Know if you cause trouble for me or my crew, you will not last the voyage."
"Rightly so," Hawke said, and flashed a smile. "We'd like to board as soon as possible."
"I am waiting on cargo... so it will be some days before we leave," Captain Pena said, and watched her with an appraising eye. "It will be sooner if the weather improves."
"We'll help, just tell us what to do," Hawke said, putting her hands on her hips. "My family and I are hardly invalids."
"Bene," the man said and smiled as well, crossing his arms. "Ferelden then."