This week is Anora Fan Week on Tumblr, so there are several prompts related to her.


Anora, Ser Cauthrien, the quiet before dawn

She couldn't sleep, unsurprisingly. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again – the sweep of the gleaming sword. Her father's head going flying. The spray of blood. Yet it was not that which haunted her the most. It was the look of relief that momentarily crossed his face as he stood, proudly upright, waiting for the final blow to fall and knowing it was coming.

She rose from her bed – little more than a pallet, only one thin cotton-wadding mattress making it any more luxurious than what the common soldiers used – and shrugged on a robe over top of her night clothes, then exited the tent and stood in front of it, hands clutching the robe closed, looking out over their encampment.

The camp was vast, but the forces of their foe were even larger, she knew. Yet seeing the sea of campfires spread out across the valley below was still subtly reassuring, knowing that each light represented another group of men, or dwarves, or elves, all gathered here together to try and stop the Blight, to kill the archdemon. They should reach Denerim later this very day; and then either all their efforts – or rather, those of the Grey Wardens – would pay off, or Ferelden might effectively cease to exist. She had little doubt that if they failed here, the forces of Orlais would sweep over her country, Grey Wardens and chevaliers both. And what Orlais had once re-taken would be unlikely to gain freedom again, with the Theirin line ended and the next-highest line – that of the Couslands – all but wiped out as well, and likely to end here if they failed. As would many other lines, the flower of Ferelden's nobility being gathered among this army.

She wrapped her robe more firmly around her, knotting its tie, and walked away from her tent, bare feet silent against the ground, avoiding twigs and dry leafs out of long-ingrained habit; her father had taught her how to do that. To move silently and gracefully, even through thick underbrush. Though she carried no bow tonight, was in search of no game. She stopped only when she'd reached the very top of the hill her tent was set on. From here she could see not just the army encampment to the west, but a view off to the northeast of Denerim itself. She drew in a hissing breath, even from here seeing the glow of firelight reflecting off the thick plumes of smoke that rose from her city.

Something moved nearby. She spun, hand reaching for the dagger concealed in one pocket of her robe.

"Queen Anora," a familiar voice said out of the darkness nearby. "Should you not be abed?"

She sighed in relief, and relaxed. "Ser Cauthrien," she said. "I might well ask the same."

Silence was the only answer. She could make her out now, standing in the shadows under the trees, just the faintest of outlines of armoured shape, pale oval of face, her eyes. "I could not sleep," she said. "I haven't really slept since the Landsmeet. Not for more than an hour or two at a time."

"The nightmares," Cauthrien said, quietly.

"You, too?" Anora asked.

"Yes." A long pause. "I stood aside, at the door, and let the wardens enter, when I might have tried to stop them."

"I know. The warden told me, later."

Another long silence. "I will leave the army if you wish it. I... betrayed my duty."

Anora laughed. A short, bitter sound, quickly ended. "No more than I betrayed him. He was my father. Yet I..." she broke off, turned away, looked off toward Denerim. "That is our enemy, there. Afterwards – if there is an afterwards – would be time for recriminations, if any are due."

She turned and looked at Cauthrien again. "My father often referred to you within my hearing as one of the finest soldiers it had ever been his privilege to know. He expected much of you." She turned away, looking back to the distant burning city again. "He loved Ferelden. He would have done anything – anything – in his power to save it, no matter what the cost. It's our duty now not to fail him."

"Yes, my Queen," Ser Cauthrien answered, very quietly, and went down on one knee, touching clenched fist to chest. When she rose, she stepped to Anora's side, and they stood together silently, watching the distant city, waiting for the dawn.


Fenris/F!Hawke, quiet night in

He rarely relaxed around others. Even her. But there were rare times when he did.

Tonight was such a time. The house was almost perfectly silent, save for the purring of the fire bruning low in the fireplace, almost down to coals and little else. Everyone else in the house was long gone to bed. Even the mabari, asleep in the hallway outside the door, was quiet for once.

Fenris sighed and stretched, then wrapped his arms more firmly around Hawke where she lay quietly, stretched out between his legs and leaning back against him, her face turned to watch the fire. They were both nude, skin cooling from the bath they'd taken together after getting enjoyably sweaty in her bed. He leaned his head forward enough to nuzzle into her damp hair, smiling at the way the ends of it tickled his nose and chin. He pressed his lips against her scalp in a single soft kiss, and when he lowered his head again could tell by what little of her face he could see that she was smiling.

He wished, briefly, that it might always be like this, just the two of them, together somewhere safe and warm, with nothing that needed doing except to enjoy the moment.


M!Hawke/Isabela, fireworks

It was a time for celebration, with the Qunari threat finally ended. Hawke had insisted on being down at the docks to see them depart. Anders had protested. Hawke had insisted again, more loudly. Anders had thrown up his hands, swore a lot, and done some more healing on Hawke's rather thoroughly perforated abdomen, then insisted he be carried down in a litter, otherwise, he said, he would not be held responsible for what happened.

Hawke, of course, had got up out of the litter as soon as docks came in view, not wanting the Qunari to see him looking anything less than his finest.

He sat now, on a bollard at the end of the dock, his arm wrapped around Isabela's waist as they watched the ship depart. "I wonder why they wanted to leave on an evening tide," he said. "For that matter, isn't it rather late for the tide?"

Isabela smiled. "I know why. Watch closely, Hawke... you're going to get to witness something very few people ever see."

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

Fenris, standing silently nearby until then, finally spoke up. "They use gaatlock for more than just weapons," he said.

Hawke frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You'll see," Fenris said, smiling faintly.

"Look! It's starting!" Isabela suddenly exclaimed.

A bright light streaked upward from the ship, then with a thunderous crack exploded into an expanding globe of coloured sparks. For a moment, it seemed, all of Kirkwall fell silent, then gasped in near-unison. More lights streaked upward, sometimes several at a time, globes of different-coloured sparks blooming again and again in the darkening sky, some trailing more sparks as they fell, or exploding in turn after falling some little distance. The noise was deafening, reverberating as it did between the close stone walls of the channel. A thick black cloud of smoke hung in the air over the departing ship. Finally silence returned, the ship disappearing out the far end of the channel and into the open waters of the Waking Sea.

"That was..." Hawke broke off. Even he had no words adequate to respond to what they'd just witnessed.

He made no argument as the bearers brought the litter close, and helped him back into it for the long trip back up to Hightown. He closed his eyes, seeing the globes of light expanding again and again against the darkness of the sky. Isabela's hand closed around his as she stepped up to walk alongside the litter, and they returned to his mansion in silence.


Something happy from Anora's childhood

Anora took a careful step forward, making sure her buskin-wrapped foot came down on an a spot of soft mosses, not on twigs or dry leaves, or anything else that might make a noise. She paused, chewing a moment on her lower lip as she lifted her head to peer through the brush toward the clearing ahead. The deer were still there, browsing calmly.

As she watched, one raised its head, and looked around. She remained stock-still, until it lowered its head again, seemingly unconcerned. Another careful, silent step forward. Another. Another wait, chewing her lip and hoping the wind would not turn and bring her scent to them.

Finally she was close enough. She raised her bow slowly, making no sudden moves that might catch an eye, or incautiously brush again something and make any noise. The arrow was already nocked, from when she'd first caught sight of the browsing deer and begun her stalk. She sighted along it, drew back, held her breath... then released.

The bow made only the faintest of noises on release, the arrow barely a whisper as it shot through the air, but it was still enough to disturb the deer. But not fast enough; her arrow sunk true into the deer she'd been aiming for, the point passing through its near side and forward toward the opposite shoulder in a clean quartering away shot. It must have hit the heart; the deer managed only a few bounds before its legs splayed on landing and it toppled to the ground.

The rest of the deer were long gone by the time she'd run forward to where the deer lay. She drew the dagger from her belt, and quickly finished off the kill.

"Good work," her father's voice said from nearby. She jumped, startled, not having even realized he was close. Looking around, she saw him standing among the bushes at the edge of the clearing, his own bow slung across his back, not even strung. "We'll eat well off that," he said approvingly as he walked forward.

She smiled, warmed through by his approval.

"Do you need a hand cleaning it, or do you think you remember well enough what I've told you?" he asked.

She bit her lip, then decided false confidence was a trap to be avoided. "I may need help," she said.

He smiled, and that smile was even warmer than the first. "Good girl," he said, and crouched down to indicate where she needed to make the first cut.


It was rare for Anora to receive letters of this sort

It was rare for Anora to receive letters of this sort. In truth, at the moment it was rare for her to receive any letters at all, locked up in Fort Drakon as she had been for over a year now. The occasional formal little note from King Alistair, the thankfully even rarer treatise from Arl Eamon. She didn't mind Alistair's little notes – he was at least keeping her minimally informed of events in the kingdom at large, and in Gwaren in particular, but Arl Eamon's lengthy missives were of only two kinds, boring and irrelevant to her current condition, or anger-inducing diatribes about the supposed crimes of herself and her father.

At least she was being kept in reasonably civil quarters here in the fort, a pair of rooms high up in the tower, the larger one of which served as her sitting room, dining room, library and study, and the smaller of which was her bedroom and bathing chamber. There was a very small barred window in the outer wall of each, letting in some natural sunlight and the occasional breeze, at least on days fine enough for her to open the inner panes, made not of glass but in a much older style out of bits of thin horn set in carved wooden frames.

It was in the larger room that she was now, seated at her tiny desk with letter in hand, frowning over the cramped writing. Not the hand of anyone she recognized; not even script, but block-printing, of a particularly unreadable style, with much blotting of the ink. She had to put the letter down for a moment, rubbing at her temples, then try again, before she finally began to make sense of it.

She blinked. And read the first paragraph again, then slowly smiled. A letter, from a woman in Gwaren, a cousin of hers on her mother's side. She could picture the woman now – an older woman, daughter of one of her mother's aunts, who'd married the headman of the small rural village near the city of Gwaren where she lived. She remembered visiting her, with her mother, and the warm pleasant smell of her house, the scents of country cooking and the yeasty smell of baking bread, and how she'd sat quietly on a stool in the kitchen while the two women talked, eating a thickly buttered slice of bread still warm from the oven.

With the woman in mind she could all but hear her voice as she re-read the letter. She was trying to write formally, at first, which explained the stilted feel to it, but quickly slipped into a more natural voice, chatting away about doings in and around her small town, with a few mentions of wider events in the Terynir of Gwaren. It closed with a wish that she'd be restored to her proper position as their Teryna soon, with a simple affection that brought tears to her eyes.

She wrote the woman back, thanking her for the letter, mentioning her memory of that long-ago visit. The letter itself she put carefully away, as a treasure to be taken out and re-read whenever she felt the need of a lift.

To her surprise there was another a few days later, from someone else; one of her maids, letting her know that they were keeping her room ready for her, and hoping she would return soon. "The regent the King appointed does a fair job, but you are our teryna," it finished. "We pray daily to the Maker that you will be restored to us."

More letters after that, one every few days. From one of the grooms, giving her news of her and her father's horses. From another more distant cousin, with more news of the day to day lives of her people. Others, too, from people she had known there, and from some she hadn't. All with news of home, and wishes for her return.

She was reading a response to her own letter from the first woman one day, town between laughter and tears over the anecdote about her mother that her cousin was repeating in the letter, when there came a knock at the door. She hastily put down the letter and stood, even as the door was rather unceremoniously opened, and King Alistair stepped in, closing the door behind him.

"Your Majesty," she said coolly, and gave him a polite bow.

"Teryna Anora," he said, and bowed in return, with surprising grace; he had not been so adept a year ago. Still, she supposed he'd like had much practise since taking the throne.

Her eyebrows rose at his use of her title. "Am I still Teryna of Gwaren, then?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, then looked around and walked forward, sitting down in one of the chairs. "Please, sit down," he said. She nodded and resumed her seat, and looked attentively at him.

He studied her face for a moment. "Let me be blunt," he said, and smiled suddenly. "Not that I'm usually anything else. As I'm sure you know, Arl Eamon was of the mind that I as the crown should attainder Gwaren for your father's treason."

Anora stiffened. "My father was many thing, but he was no traitor," she said coldly.

"No. I don't believe he was. Too much the patriot, if anything," Alistair said quietly, pulling on one earlobe thoughtfully for a moment, and frowned. "Arl Eamon feels you are a threat to my rule. That I should either marry you myself, or marry you off to someone trustworthy and put all power in Gwaren into your husband's hands rather than yours, or keep you locked up for the rest of your life." He looked up, and met her eyes. "I don't like his options. Especially after having visited Gwaren myself, and talking with some of your people there, and hearing how warmly they still speak of you and your father."

She glanced at her desk, startled. "The letters..." she said quietly.

"Yes," he said, and smiled slightly. "A few of your people had asked if they might write to you. I told them I thought it would be a good and kind thing for them to do so. You are much-loved in Gwaren, Anora."

She looked down at her hands, uncertain what to say.

"Anora," he said, after a moment's silence. "If you will swear your fealty to me, I will accept your word that you will not seek to become the focus of any rebellion, to try and regain the throne. I would prefer to restore you to your lands of Gwaren, in your own right."

She raised her head then, and studied his face. He was, she had heard, proving to be a good king; better than Cailan had been, anyway, she thought with a pang. She turned and looked toward her desk, at the letter lying open there, thought of the bundle of other letters she had received. The decision, in the end, was very easy.

"Yes," she said, turning back to him. "I believe I can so swear. Where would you have me do it? At the palace before gathered nobles?"

He smiled, and rose to his feet. "The number of witnesses makes no difference if the oath is not heartfelt," he said quietly. "I will accept it from you here and now, if you are truly willing, and you may leave at any time afterwards that you wish."

She nodded, then rose, and went down on one knee before him, lifting up her hands, feeling surprisingly shaky. His closed around hers, warm and dry, and he listened attentively as she spoke the oath of fealty, then pulled her to her feet, and smiled at her again, looking almost boyishly pleased with himself. He bowed to her, very deeply and formally. "Teryna Anora," he said.

She bowed back. "King Alistair," she said, then drew a deep breath. "And as my first act as Teryna of Gwaren, I must beg your indulgence, my king."

"Oh?" he asked, one eyebrow arching questioningly.

"Yes. The other nobles are less likely to question my reinstatement if you have me give you my oath in a more open ceremony. At least one of the Arls or Arlessas, several of the Banns, and someone from the chantry should be on hand. As binding as I myself feel my oath to be, they are more likely to trust an oath that is publicly given."

Alistair frowned slightly, then nodded slowly. "Good advice. I will take it, then. It will take a day or two to arrange," he said, then looked questioningly at her. "Would you like to borrow some of my guards until you can obtain ones of your own?"

Anora nodded. "That would be appreciated. It would be better to avoid any incidents," she said.

He nodded. "I will leave a pair here for you then. Leave whenever you are ready to. You are welcome to stay at the palace, if you would prefer not to stay in an inn."

"Thank you. I will think on it before making a decision."

He nodded, bowed again, and left.

She drew a deep breath, and looked around the room. What to take with her... a change or two of clothing, though she'd want new clothing as soon as she could manage it – all the outfits she'd had here having poor memories attached to them. Her journal. And the letters, of course... nothing else.

She drew a deep breath, drew herself upright, and went off to pack, already looking forward to her return to Gwaren. Home. Far more so than the palace had ever been.