I strongly, strongly recommend having Con Te Partiro (Time To Say Goodbye) song in your ears when you get to the scene which will be obvious with it. I'm sorry for the gaps, but it's much excitement, yes?

Well, bear with me. Bear with me. Soon Hawke's gonna leave the scenery. I wonder who will take over... Hm. Hmm.

Woman! When I behold thee flippant, vain,

Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;

Without that modest softening that enchances

The downcast eye, repentant of the pain

That its mild light creates to heal again:

Even then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,

Even then my soul with exultation dances

For that to love, so long, I've dormant lain:

But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,

Heavens! How desperately I adore

Thy winning graces; - to be thy defender

I hotly burn – to be a Calidore –

A very Red Cross Knight – a stout Leander –

Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.

(John Keats, Sonnet I of Three Sonnets To A Woman)

H.B. Hawke here, still here, to usher and guide you through this fervent tumult of my mind, trying to recall and decipher the chunks of memories that I had lost. And as it turns out, I had lost a great deal, and not just memories.

Understand, Danny's sudden death had a toll on me. I could never quite forgive neither myself, for how I had left things, nor him, for how he chose to depart from this world. I knew he was sick; he had been a sickly boy even as a child. He would sit days on end in bed, while I, Bethany, Carver and his brother, Andrei, played like wild dogs in the street. He and Bethany were the… nicer, the wiser of us. The mediators. Me? I was the leader of the group, the brat queen, but I had a rival! A contestant to my unyielding, incandescent little throne – his brother. Oh, Andrei and Carver were so mean, so deliberately rude to me, so questioning of my every word and move. And after a while, it seemed as I had to choose or better yet, to sever myself in half, to spend time with Danny and Bethany in our magic training, and then with Andrei and Carver in our sword training. At the end of the day, we'd gather by the lake just outside town and share stories of mighty demons they lied about fighting and the other two dog-heads boasted about how great and strong they were and how they had slain wolves. Fortunately, I was there for both groups to shed light on the truth – that there was no demon or wolf slaying, in fact – most of the time it was accidental setting fire to each other's clothes on the mages side and accidental hitting one's head with the pummel of one's sword on the warriors side.

It was… delightful, and frustrating. Daniel and Andrei were twins, one mage, one warrior, just like Bethany and Carver. I was the fifth wheel of the carriage, subtly appointed leader and alone on my grand throne. I was the freak-show mage warrior they looked up and challenged whenever they were annoyed with me. I'd quickly put them down.

As we grew older, there was a certain, well, different dynamic to us, because our bodies developed and hormones were flushing and boiling in and out of our system. Everyone was a smart mouth. Andrei was mean and revolting, provoking me every time with his smug grimaces and arrogant lines, while he was with Carver, and my brother enjoyed every minute of it. There was someone else challenging my great "authority and might". Danny remained careless and polite, more so probably not because Father took him under his wing, but because I was sure he had a certain crush on Bethany. Oh, he tried so hard! I remember once he tried to impress her with the fact that he could now form wisps and as he flew one green wisp around his head, Bethany turned away to talk to her certain crush, his brother Andrei, and Danny's wisp went haywires, whirled around his head and in his mouth. He threw up for hours, bah, that little idiot!

We weren't really friends… not really. At least, I didn't see it that way. We were all forced to be in each other's company because of our training and the proximity. I never pictured the two brothers, I don't know, giving their lives for anybody if something morbid happened. At least not for me. For Beth or Carver, sure. Maybe.

And I couldn't be more annoyed by the fact that I had to sit and listen to mages talk about their powers and how great they were – all in good prudence of course, when we would be alone and it was late at night. Because as I grew older, I grew just as well, away from magic and slowly had to emotionally distance myself from those who wielded it.

As for Carver and Andrei, they were a tiresome lot. I enjoyed their company as much as I could, but they didn't understand me. My brother and sister each had their own best friend, a fellow companion much like themselves who understood their plight and shared the same views and theories.

As for me, my only real friend was my Father. He was the only one who understood me, just as well, because he had already been through my journey of understanding. He was no ordinary mage and he was the least bit enthusiastic of them all, except for me. With Bethany, he tried to teach her his ways in other manners, learning from the mistakes he made with me, and she was quick to accept her magic and use it to be something brilliant. She felt at ease, manipulating elements, creating light and fire, ice and so on.

Only once did I come, as a young adult almost, to make temporary peace with my "gift" and it was all because Lothering was in a state of great turmoil, its lands and crops being devastated by the draught. It was a long and painful summer. Maker, it felt like were in the jungles of Seheron! I mean, I could only imagine that was the kind of swelling heat that conquered the north.

I made it rain. I don't know if it was my own selfish, patience to an end desire to feel my favourite thing in the world besides wielding a sword, or it was an honest act of mercy for my fellow people. I stood one night, in the middle of the night of course when nobody was awake to see me, away from any prying eye of a guard. Actually I stood on the roof the Chantry, if you must know. I found it a bit poetic and macabre at the same time… the vagabond mage atop the very symbol of that tried to kill me and everything I was. And here in a fit of mercy, I tricked nature! With stretched hands and a ravaging stoic look on my face as I channelled the power and the skies started to jolt, thunder scorching through the clouds and showers of cold, cold rain tempested across the raging canvas that made my little Lothering. I felt like an epic god of thunder, god of rain, earthshaker who feels no pain!

"… But in my whole awesomeness, I didn't take into account that this badassery of mine stripped me of my mana and I quickly fell. NO! I didn't fall off the Chantry," she said this to Fenris, as he listened peacefully to the story of my tormented existence. We were still sitting on the edge of the fountain, hours passed already from that one surprising act of comfort coming from him. She let go of him soon and started telling the tale and he only complained darkly with his eyes that he didn't want her to let go of his warm hold. But she couldn't risk diving into more at that moment. Because she, just as him, were full of the childish drive to force themselves into things they didn't understand.

He looked at her with some kind of fatherly disapproving look, all in savour of that hauntingly irresistible grin he only allowed her to see, which kind of said 'You're a terribly deranged clown mage and you continue to astound me'.

"Tell me, is there any story you tell that does not have some incredible twist which only proves how luck has a tendency to save you from every dangerous escapade?" Fenris asked in a grumpy, but entertained voice, as he rested his elbow upon his knee and cupped his chin like a mighty, judging superior.

Hawke rolled hers eyes and sighed, "Fine, I lie. I did, I almost did. Good thing that I had a stalker."

"Oh?" Fenris asked with raising an eyebrow.

"The twins followed me. Danny with his stupid force magic and Andrei with his incredibly arrogant smirks like saying I told you so, I told you so," Hawke said mockingly and laughed, "But, bah, what can I say… thank you? A word to the wise? Then the fire dies. Hasta la vista. You can stop judging me now."

Fenris knew she knew, there was a question boiling in his bones, but he was refraining from asking it in respect to the recently deceased and to Hawke's supressed grief, but she sighed heavily at his honourable silence and said, "It's always like this with you. Just ask your question."

His eyebrows suddenly joined in a bewildered frown and he rose from his elbow-resting-on-knee posture, his back straight and his hand squeezing defensively at the edge of the fountain, as if he would lest simply lose his balance.

"Come on, I know something's bothering you. Just ask. I mean, if it has to do with the story, that is," Hawke said calmly with an arrogant smile. "You wonder which of the twins was my not so love, but tragic story nonetheless, don't you?"

"Could I be more transparent?" Fenris asked grumpily, shaking his head with annoyed half-closed eyes.

"Well, if you turn your glow on, you'll be translucent, transparent, transculture, transcendent, transfixing and trans…matter," Hawke said in amusement, finishing deliberately awkward on the last word, with which she smiled provokingly. "Only thing missing is to be transgender."

Fenris burst into soft laughter, "That is out of the question."

"The Kirkwall Banquette?" Hawke reminded him with an evil grin.

"I was dressed in man's clothing, I only felt like a woman in them," Fenris corrected her defensively. "And with good reason, they were meant for you to wear."

"And not even a good-looking woman, right? You did feel a bit flat-chested when you put that shirt on," Hawke teased him playfully. "Oh, you would have killed to have some breasts in there to fill the void, didn't you?"

"Or at least some lyrium breasts tattooed on my chest. That would have made things considerably better," Fenris joked while smiling shortly.

Hawke chucked heavily, "Maker's breath, now that's an image I'll never get out of my head," then she burst into drunken laughter, "Oh and when you're angry you start squirting lyrium milk out of your nipples!" She continued laughing hysterically and almost fell with her back into the fountain.

Fenris shook his head, one corner of his mouth drawing shyly into a grin. "As if having two points glowing blue through my chest plate wouldn't have been enough."

"Oh shit, you're right. That would be so awesome! You know that warrior song 'Sword into the wind'?"

Fenris shook his head. "No, what of it?"

"It goes something like 'Sail into the black of night, magic stars are guiding light'. Screw magic stars, Fenris's blue glowing nipples will be our guiding light in the darkness!" She continued laughing hysterically and again, was going backwards and almost falling.

Fenris caught her quickly and put her back into place, shaking his head, "Oh, I wonder whatever happened to inappropriately groping drunken Hawke."

"What? You don't like inappropriately bullshitting with fastidious imagination about lyrium breasts Hawke?" she asked confidently, in-between hiccups.

Fenris smirked softly, "I enjoy them both, as long as I too am drunk enough to suffer them."

"Oh, boohoo on the private stoic elf who hisses at anybody that even remotely touches him," Hawke mocked him playfully.

Fenris lifted his eyebrows with an evil grin, "I don't remember ever hissing when you dared to touch me. In fact," he took a hold of his chin arrogantly, "I remember quite a warm welcoming of it."

Hawke drew a mocking grimace, "So that's how you warmly welcome groping? By hostile and violent assaulting of the groper? You ought to look up 'warm' in the dictionary, now that you can do it."

Fenris smirked and looked away knightly, "I find hostility on my part to be deeply misinterpreted. But even so," he said firmly and looked back at Hawke with the piercing green eyes, "there's nothing like a bit of fear to go with courting a woman."

"Oh? Is this what you're doing? Courting me?" Hawke asked in deep amusement. "I would have never guessed."

His calm face didn't change, but his innocence burst through the cracks of his mask, so he finally said, "Which only bears testament to how truly terrible I am at this," he confessed in amusement for himself.

Hawke smiled to no end, and started to appear cocky, resting a hand on her thigh. "When did this start? I'm quite impressed. Being so foolishly deceived and I didn't even know it!"

Fenris didn't answer, but her look was ever more commanding. He finally muttered, "Consciously, on my part? Since that night in your mansion." She remained unimpressed, pressing silently on the other thing, so he cursed at her in his mind. He sighed and looked down, his hair masking a small, contained smile. "Do you really want to know?"

Hawke leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees to catch his innocent gaze masked by his white hair, "Why, yes, I do."

"I will not tell you anything," Fenris said calmly, continuing to smile faintly. "Unless I can hold you to the same deed."

Hawke grimaced, "Way to kill the mystery."

"Then let this be a mystery," Fenris said firmly, containing his grin.

"Not so fast," Hawke commanded assertively. "I want to know."

"Why is this so important to you?" Fenris asked as if he was genuinely confused.

Hawke rolled her eyes. "Do I really have to answer that?"

He sighed, still looking down, and muttered grumpily, "Who goes first?"

"Hmmmm, you," she said childishly. He remained silent, looking terrified even in such calmness. "What you don't trust me that I'll hold my end of the deal?"

The corner of his lips moved as if something bothered him and blocked the words out, "It's not that."

Hawke smiled warmly. "Fine then, don't tell me." He remained silent, as if he was arguing with two ardent parts of himself and almost going into calm frenzy. "It's alright."

"In the Deep Roads," he said quickly, with a deep voice.

Fenris finally found the courage to look at her, but his calm face bore through the cracks of his mask a very distinct turmoil. Of her laughing at him. Or being so impetuously and in a negative way astounded by his progressively growing weakness for her, a mage of all people. He waited for her answer with cold eyes and covered fear.

Hawke's mouth widened and her eyebrows lifted highly, "Well I'll be a Chantry granny, your timing was perfect."

"It was?"

"Yes. Well…" Hawke looked away and pressed her lips. "When you were dying," she said and looked at him with sad, tormented eyes reliving the memory, "as I saw you there so terribly beaten, six giant roaring wounds on you, blood spilling out like cascades from each hole," she said with sudden pain in her voice, gesturing everything graphically, "betraying the undeniable clarity of your death soon enough… "I couldn't-" she laughed at herself, "I couldn't picture you dying. It simply…" she gestured with an open palm, "had the fullness of catastrophe."

This was a much better answer than I could have ever expected of you, his face said. He wanted to kiss her, his face also said. But he turned that kiss and laboured it into words, "There is no more mystery now, to why I had not felt a thing through my markings when you healed me."

Hawke smiled with her lips parted, showing teeth, a genuine smile. "Yes, fascinating indeed, is it not? How this honest willingness for me to save you, even back then when everything with us seemed to be quarrel, just argument and torment. And even with my clumsy magic. But I could have been just as dead, had you not found the strength to swoop into the dragon and cut its neck." She looked down because he was smiling at her widely for once and she was frightened. "I wasn't then and I'm not, as strong as you think me, Fenris."

"Yet you are here, are you not?" Fenris said nonchalantly. "And finding me crushed, you gave me your strength to save me."

It was a cold answer, lacking in flattery or kindness, yet it seemed quite enough. A statement enough in itself, and it struck her then that he was so very different than the first conception she had of him.

She nodded, and as she looked at him, a lovely smile broke over his face, and for one moment Fenris seemed to fall into a dreaminess which brought back all the memories of their quarrels and their peaceful conversations, the healing, the argument about his stubborn pretence, as they escaped the Deep Roads, that he was only there to repay his debt, her disappearance, her return at the banquette, their dance, their night on the roof, her bold expression of her care for him then, her drunken groping and his brutal tease, her honest backrubs with no other advances, the mornings they shared together in their hangovers drinking tea, her seductive assault on top of his back when she remembered his petty moves on her when she had been drunk that one night, when she figured out he did not know how to read and stood with patience by him as he tried to mutter the words out from the many books she gave him, when he struggled and growled, ready to throw the pen away as he tried to write, because his letters were far more hideous than her beautiful handwriting, how she pressed on his arm and forced him patiently, almost motherly, not to give up. Just take a breath and look around. And start anew.

He told her he didn't know how, that his first memory was receiving those markings, the agony being etched into his skin and wiped away everything. His life before, whatever it was, it was lost. He told her he shouldn't trouble her with this, that his problems were not hers. She only grinned truthfully telling him his problems could be hers for she was going to give him plenty soon enough. He could only smile honestly and welcome it. Little did he know, just what would follow.

"Were you happy again at least?" Hawke asked tiredly. He didn't answer. "Remember what I taught you. Reach into the depths of your soul. Tell yourself that you are free. Tell yourself that death and mercilessness have no power over you. A glorious thing has befallen you, you had escaped, and it is enough that you did, you said so yourself. You could become forever free, even if you have those wolves at your back and coming with delay to hunt you down. They do not matter. None of it does. Except this: the wolf you deliberately keep on your back, always. That is what's going to kill you. I can only help you with the actual wolves, but I will not force you to change your conceptions. This, I promise."

– Gap –

I was leaning, half about to faint. The air was rosy and golden, purely Antivan. The dark narrow street was warm, much as was the wall my back had been shoved against as brutally as it was enthralling. I felt Fenris's lips on mine, and his warm tongue moving serpentlike into my mouth. A liquid so rich like a burning nectar, a feel so exquisite that I felt it roll through my body to the very tips of my fingers thrusting in his back. I felt it descend through my torso and into the most private part of me. I burned. I burned.

"You may not be a Valkyrie," Fenris said in-between the heated kiss, panting his hot breath on my neck, pertaining to my first name, "Nor a saint," he continued with his deeply dark voice, pertaining to my second name, ah- his fingers tightened as he caressed my face, "but you're certainly a crude temptress," he growled cruelly with a dark grin and rapidly thrust his spikes into my-

"Am I-hhh," I gasped deadly, my eyes going through the back of my head, but he was merciless.

"If I ever saw one," he finished confidently.

I couldn't – uh, I couldn't. How did we get here, I don't know, but I allowed it. Did I start this? It didn't seem to matter. Fenris managed yet again to inflame me with such heartless lack of concern for my permissions. I knew once I lured the tiger out of his mountain, they would mean nothing to him. His touch, his touch only burned with undisguised desire.

"Kiss me," I whispered commandingly. "Kiss me again."

He obeyed me, and soon had me ravished. And as my fingers tightened in his rampant hair, his kisses grew more fervent. His lips bore my violent bites and he grew bloodred with his cresting passion.

He suddenly withdrew, kissing my forehead as though I was chaste again.

"No," I revolted aggressively. "You're not done," I said confidently, as if I was some cruel dominatrix. I quickly regretted giving him orders.

"I am not about to take advantage of you," Fenris said firmly, then he drew a sensual smirk that showed only one or two of his sharp teeth, "further."

"You don't have to." I wrapped my arms roughly around his neck again and he tried to free himself from me, giving me an angry look. "Isn't this little challenge just the perfect testament to how much a warrior can control himself?"

Fenris narrowed his eyes and took a step closer, his eyes again only an inch from mine. "And how many challenges do you want to give me before I give in?"

"As many as you can bear," I said playfully. "This is not the last."

"So you do mean to tempt me," Fenris said sharply, his gauntlet tightening his grip on my hand.

"I always set out to do nothing," I said innocently. "And then look how it almost always turns out."

"I will not do anything further than that without honour anyway," Fenris said confidently. "Mind you, since I am a warrior."

"What do you mean?" I asked in confusion. Maker I wanted him so bad, I could've said anything just to make him go back to what he was doing.

Then his eyes flinched with an evil realization that he could tease me into it. Maker damn his demonic eyes. Maker damn him to eternity.

His hand reached for the back of my hip and he grinned widely, "I'm not proposing marriage, but I do need a word out of you." He went for my neck and shocked the skin again with his remarkably sharp teeth and hot lips only a man from the tropic lands of the north could possess. And I could almost hear the end of his sentence and I am yours. What was I doing, no. Mother of commitments, he was playing with me. I would not give in.

His entire demeanour altered at my silence, because without bearing out words, I was practically letting him see in my eyes I wanted to… to make him mine. He softened and I could see he was just on the verge of hope, hope that at I might be good to him.

I brought his face away from my neck. "And you mean to torture me until I do, yes?" I asked perceptively, with a hint of hate for him in my words.

Fenris tilted his head to the side and fiercely grinned in my hands, "Hopefully that will not be necessary." He shoved my hands away nonchalantly and continued his satanic kisses.

I struggled. "And if I don't, you'll never lay touch on me again?" I asked innocently, trying to remain undaunted.

He stopped his lips and looked at me with the back of his eye in terrible silence, cursing at me in his mind for pointing out the obvious that he would probably break his word.

"I am not your servant," he almost hissed calmly. "If you want a whore, there's plenty right across the street."

"So I can pay you?" I asked sarcastically, but pretending to ask in innocent tone.

His eyes shrunk in anger and impatience, and again, I regretted my playing around. But he was doing the same thing, a move so petty as to demand of me things right in the middle of a heated encounter. So he could strike so low sometimes. Yes, he would be cruel because he had no experience, at least as far as I knew, and the familiar territory of attacking each other was indeed, familiar.

"So this is how it is? I don't say the word, you're not giving it up? I swear there's something poetic in it somewhere," I said sarcastically.

He leaned his hand against the wall next to my face. "Just watch me," Fenris said confidently with narrowed, unyielding dark eyes, throwing the gauntlet, as it were.

I smiled undauntedly and shrugged, "Then I'm not going to force this. You don't have to do anything you don't desire to," I played strategically, with careful words.

"Semantics," Fenris hissed with narrowed hateful eyes and shook his head, pushing me aggressively against the wall.

"Indeed, I am an expert at it," I mocked him confidently, since he was such an expert at it too. "Just watch me. I'm a blazon of chastity." I raised my palms in peace and turned the table, assuring him I wouldn't press it and it wouldn't affect me that he was withholding from continuing anything in the way things were.

"What in the name of the Black City can it be?" Fenris asked angrily. "Whatever is it that frightens you, tell me. Hawke, there's nothing that can't be changed. Tell me."

"Oh, you're so violent in your temper," I said in a whisper. "Can't you guess what reduces me to this abominable weakness?"

"No," Fenris hissed angrily. "I know only that you are frightened and I must understand it." Then he sighed and had dazed a sorrowful look. "And I must be patient with it."

"And until then this beautiful white hair of yours might finally suit the age," I said subtly, and in a perfectly miserable voice as I ran my fingers through it.

Fenris sighed shortly, boiling in frustration. I could see it. He gave me an angry glance that was enough to render me powerless. "You're terrible," he whispered painfully and brought me to his lips. "Terrible," he kept muttering after each time he bit my lip shortly. And just when he was about to moan from my touch, he contained it, drew away from me and struck me a firm, dark grin with his eyes. "I shall abuse of you with pitiful limitation then."

He was drunk, so deeply drunk, but impressing in his apparent control before the absolute carnal which we both wanted to feel. However, he was also limiting himself in more than that way and I knew it. Even if I were indeed, ready to make of him an honest man, even if I were at peace with my tortured soul and welcomed him fully in my world as my partner in everything, he was still withholding something. A terrible story. And as long as that stood, I would only be a sensuous, beautiful get-away and nothing more. If he didn't trust me to understand his past, well, I didn't trust him either. As much as I did, as much as he inspired in me the most complete devotion.

I kissed him again, and whispered in his ear, calculatingly, devil that I am, "I need you, Fenris."

"Hmph," Fenris snorted at me with unimpressed eyes. "Do you now?" I can't say what controlled rage or desperation prompted this question. And disbelief.

"Just for the sake of it, I confessed it to you. Do with it what you will," I said confidently, trying to ease this out. I'm lying though, that was not the ultimate purpose. I just had to say it, even though it changed nothing.

He was genuinely shocked. Good sign. His eyes really widened. He furrowed his brow.

His face darkened. I couldn't name the emotions that seemed to pass over his expression, the sadness, indecision, confusion and ultimate perplexity that transformed him.

– Gap –

Oh SHIET. Yes, I remember how we got there in such demonic frenzy! Yes, how foolish of me!

Reverse time and just for the sake of it, I'll narrate in the third person, because even as I am drunk, I am not horny, no. I'm not driven in this memory, just yet, by some utterly enveloping thought of making him mine. Let it simply be, that I, just as you, saw this memory as if I was some point outside of it, watching from a polite distance.

An Antivan man started holding a procession in the street. His voice was marvellous, that of a pure tenor, as he started singing and interrupted their little conversation. Grand, huge annoyance drew on Fenris's face as this man's voice resounded in the piazza. Wasn't it curfew already?

Hawke could swear he would start violently hissing any moment now. But she was too busy listening to this man dressed in fine red Antivan garments, his face that of some mannish angel seeking to possess the crowd that stopped to watch him. There were people, in the street! They hardly noticed. Now the reality was ever more striking.

"Oh, if only I knew Antivan," Hawke said with a bitter smile, drawing a lamenting grimace.

"Antivan is much in its respect, rank gutter-Tevene," Fenris said calmly, tilting his head to his side as if he was trying to make out the words.

"Can you make out the words, then?" Hawke asked innocently, a bit of pleading in her voice, because she seemed enchanted by the song.

Fenris cleared his throat shortly, his brows joined in an analysing frown, "I shall try."

She could only fathom something about the sun, and "luce" which probably meant light or something of the sort. And "con me", which could only mean "with me." The man voiced the apparent chorus again with such splendour, such rampant love for whatever he was singing about, one could easily be deceived by this warmth. It was the Antivan poetic warmth for everything and everyone.

Fenris's voice came serene and deep, as if the words were his own, "You and me. With you I will leave." Hawke looked and listened to him alarmed of his courageous translation.

He rested on his arm on the edge of the fountain, looking at the man and continued, "Countries," he said calmly, "which I have never," then he paused to clear his throat, "seen and lived with you."

Then Fenris remained perplex for a second, as if he couldn't make out the next bit, but attempted at it with unyielding perseverance for Hawke's sake, "Now, yes, I will leave them…" he looked at her for a second innocently with the back of his eye, "With you, I will leave."

He frowned again, deciphering the next bit, but quickly continued, "On ships across seas? Which I know… No, no, they no longer exist."

Hawke contained her smile and listened to him in awe of his strive to make of the words for her. He continued with a bit of a faint smile, "With you I will live them."

The tenor started singing a stanza again very quickly and Fenris lifted his eyebrows and gasped for breath, almost ready to admit defeat. Hawke smiled at him warmly as if to say, don't do it anymore, it's alright. I get the main theme. But Fenris was never one to give up and in this impossible drive in him for honour had authority over his brain. He brushed the hair fastidiously from his forehead and concentrated, "Uh, when you are… far away? I dream," he paused to regain his wits, "on the horizon, and words fail."

Hawke chuckled only quietly at his innocent struggle and encouraged him to go further. He tried. He tried. He almost burst into laughter himself from this nonsense, but then finally muttered after sighing, "And I do know that you are," he looked at Hawke again just for a second with the back of his eyes, "with me."

She tried to look away, as if to not make him feel too self-conscious of his concentration, but just as she moved her look away, a warm hand came over hers on the edge of the fountain. Fenris only grinned softly, seeming more like a brat prince, the Knight of Roses, ever than before, and only continued in his velvety, deep voice, "You, my Moon, you are here with me." Maybe he grinned because he remembered her bearing the name Sir Luna Rosebud in her childhood play, maybe he grinned innocently because he simply and felt like it, chivalrously deterred as a young driven man in his apparent courting of Hawke.

Hawke didn't flinch, rather she just trembled in excitement of his knightly move. He continued, "My sun, you are here with me," then he only faintly swayed his head and lifted his eyebrows a bit mockingly, or maybe just in tune with the melody, "With me, with me, with me."

She smiled childishly at his melodic swaying, now only faintly with his whole torso, but when he saw her watching him, he stopped awkwardly, grinning for a second. Fenris continued the same chorus, even though Hawke knew it by now, perhaps to make the words really seem his, "With you, I leave. On ships across seas, which I know and no, no, they no longer exist." Fenris squeezed Hawke's hand. "With you I will live them again."

The tenor finished with a loud, powerful vibrato Io con te, at which Fenris smirked arrogantly and tried maybe to become cold again, but couldn't win the little battle within himself any longer. As the Antivan man ended his song, the last three words Fenris spoke, "I," he said in a deep, determined voice and brought Hawke's hand to kiss it knightly, "with you."

– Gap –

"Well now," I said cockily as I separated from his warm lips. Me, a vagabond mage so sophisticated in my barbarism, in this Antivan abandoned corner of the world, a brat queen of the undercity and the higher classes.

"Well now," I said. "There's a great mystery here and you know it. It's time you told me."

He growled furiously. "What?" he asked obligingly as he got interrupted from his boyish desire.

"What's it that you haven't told me? I can feel it on your lips, you want to tell me. Not about me or us, but about you," I demanded perceptively.

He didn't want to answer. I saw he wasn't ready and was refusing me powerfully with his eyes even if his face bore no emotion of such grandeuor.

"Fine," I pressed a bit cockily, because I was drunk and merciless. "Then maybe I should seek to make you feel something else, to change this tormented face of yours."

His eyes grew colder and more beautifully calm. "What is it that you want me to feel, hm?" he whispered deeply, as he still had me pushed tight against the wall.

"You play with me and I'm the toy that feels all things. It's not fair," I said playfully. "Let me- "

I wanted to go for his pants to torture him, but he took my hand. He took my fingers and put them to his lips, and drew them across his strong jaws. He kissed them as he did so and I didn't want to let him win.

Quite enough, said his eyes, quite enough.

"Not quite enough," I said cockily. I managed to put my hand between his legs. Oh, he was wonderfully hard. That was not uncommon, of course, but he wouldn't let me take him further, because of course, he wouldn't break his word. This was no honour. How could he, though, when I played so dirty. I wanted him to choose either to confess whatever he was holding back or let me play him with wickedness, because he deserved it.

Maybe don't tease the tiger when you can't even account for the last hours from your day. Clearly, I was not in the brightest frame of mind. Nor was he. I was so drunk, helplessly in his arms. How the hell did we even end up here, alone and … alone?

"Hawke," he said insistently, his lips on my throat as they'd come quite a few times before, only this time there came a sting, sharp, swift and gone. A bite so hard that a thread stitched into my heart and was jerked all of a sudden. His mouth nestled against me, and again, that thread of shock snapped again. He shoved me harder against the wall and went back to kissing me, quickening my heart and jolting my everything as his tongue swirled like a serpent into mine.

"So that's the twist you put on it, isn't it?" I asked perceptively because I was impressed, in-between the heat and kisses.

"Not quite," he said darkly, his voice hoarsely filled with arousal, "But I can show you further, if you wish."

I didn't really know how to answer this. He didn't ignore my hesitation though. For all this brutal demeanour of his, he still awaited knightly for my permissions, now I finally understood. "Show me."

But then I can't remember exactly what he did, except that it had something to do with his lyrium glow, his hand and oh- The world moved out from under me. I gasped and drifted, and my eyes opened and saw nothing as he shut his mouth over mine again.

"Fen -rhis, you're killing me," I whispered. I tossed somewhere in him, seeking to find some firm place in this dreamy intoxication void. My body just churned and rolled with pleasure, my limbs tightening then floating, my whole body issuing from him, from his lips, through my lips, my body his very breath and his sigh.

At last, his hand became like iron. There came the sting, there came the spikes, the blade, tiny and sharp beyond measure, puncturing my soul. I twisted on it as if I'd been skewered. Oh, this could teach the gods of love what love was. This was my deliverance if I could but survive whatever he was doing with his markings on me so viciously bad.

Blind and shaking I was wed to him. I was going to burst, burst. I felt his hand cover my mouth, and only then heard my cries as they were muffled away. I wrapped my hand around his neck, pressing him against me harder, "Do it again."

– Gap –

- (you hate me for these gaps don't you) -