I dedicate this chapter to … HUMOR. The other side of the coin imprinted with drama. Last chapter was enough with drama. Yes, we're finally coming back to humor. And more humor after that. Kirkwall = humor. I should remember that. This is the last day of Antiva. Going back to Kirkwall, for more humor. Antiva = Death and Despair! No more!
Last night was despair, passion, ardency and fervor, just as much as it was understanding.
All was violent.
Morning came and things changed.
All was bright.
The Fade
Suddenly, there came above the hills a great fatal light. My eyes hurt unbearably. They were on fire. "My eyes," I cried and reached to cover them. Fire covered me. I calmed down quickly thereafter, when I realized it was merely a much brighter, hotter Sun that I had been used to halfway through living by the temperate-continentals of Ferelden up until the subtropics of Kirkwall.
I had followed Fenris to a strange land and spied on him there, telling myself that I would not disturb him, as I had done many times before.
Let me tell the story of that episode now, and then I promise I'll disappear. Beware of lots of humor and shenanigans in the afterward third-person narratives. This one isn't.
At a safe distance I had tracked him as he walked briskly in the sunlight, masking my thoughts as skillfully as he always masked his own. What a striking figure he made under the grand rainbow eucalyptus trees as he stopped again. I knew something about this… yes. They were both radiant, colorful, beautiful and useful. They were prized both for the colorful patches left by its shedding bark and for its pulpwood, which was used to make paper. Only in a drawing from a useless herbology book had I seen one though, and that was just dumb luck when I'd opened it as a child, for I first read "Herboobology" and thought it had naughty drawings in it.
I sensed a change in him almost at once. He carried his sword as always and he flipped it upon his shoulder nonchalantly. Strength he had plenty, but the nonchalance and "presentation" were a bit out of… context or character. Something wasn't right; I sensed it, yet it didn't seem much of an alarm for me at the time.
But there was a brooding to him as he walked; a pronounced dissatisfaction; and hour after hour passed during which he wandered as if time were of no importance at all. It was very confusing to me soon, to catch the idea that this was indeed, Fenris, walking, reminiscing, the image crumbling and resetting again and again. Now and then I did manage to catch some pungent image of his youth in the tropics, even flashes of a verdant jungle so very different from the wintry northern skies and lands of my mother country, which was surely never as warm. I had not had my dream of the tiger yet. I did not know what this meant.
Hmmm. I missed Mojo. Why was he not here, prowling this jungle with me?
It was tantalizingly fragmentary. Fenris's skills at keeping his thoughts inside were simply too good.
It seemed very charming to me, but mostly on account of the sweet warmth of the air around me, and the bit of jungle creeping down around the foreign structures, with its inevitable snaggle of banana leaf and Queen's Wreath vine. Ah, that vine. A nice rule of thumb might be: Don't ever live in a part of the world which will not support that vine.
Birds with feathers the color of the summer sky or the burning sun streak through the wet branches. Monkeys screamed as they reached out with their tiny clever little hands for vines as thick as hemp rope. Sleek and sinister mammals of a thousand shapes and sizes crawled in remorseless search of one another over monstrous roots and half-buried tubers, under giant rustling leaves and up the twisted trunks of saplings dying in the fetid darkness, even as they sucked their last nourishment from the reeking soil.
A thought came upon my mind –
Mindless and endlessly vigorous is the cycle of hunger and satiation, of violent and painful death. Reptiles with eyes as hard and shining as opals feast eternally upon the writhing universe of stiff and crackling insects as they have since the days when no warm-blooded creature ever walked the earth. And the insects—winged, fanged, pumped with deadly venom, and dazzling in their hideousness and ghastly beauty, and beyond all cunning—ultimately feast upon all.
There is no mercy in this forest. No mercy, no justice, no worshipful appreciation of its beauty, no soft cry of joy at the beauty of the falling rain. Even the sagacious little monkey is a moral idiot at heart.
That is—there was no such thing until the coming of man.
My blood froze amidst the hotness of the air, as the imagery settled in for once. The architecture, the contours, the weather, they all settled in. Colours settled in. I beheld, quite startled, the effigy of the perfect spitting image of Fenris, only he had… no markings. No Tevinter spiky armory, no… Andraste's sweet ass. His hair was dark, coffee-coloured almost as he walked beneath the endless vines and punched them away nonchalantly, and in direct sunlight it almost burned auburn. It was a bit longer, but still he kept it all loose and in his face like the historical never-changing Fenris. Loose and tangled, as far as I could see.
Were the people here the best thing in this savage garden, warring as they have done so long upon one another? Or were they simply an undifferentiated part of it, no more complex ultimately than the crawling centipede or the slinky satin-skinned jaguar or the silent big-eyed frog so very toxic that one touch of his spotted back brings certain death – although how I knew this I couldn't remember - ?
Had it not been for the endless tan humans, elves and Qunari forever walking with cold, indomitable eyes past him in this strange-looking city hidden amidst the vast jungles, he would have looked like a young boy. But people startled him. He had an old man's inordinate fear of being struck down and hurt. He'd look cautiously, but a bit impatiently or resentfully, at the children running into him as they chased one another. Then he'd fall back into his thoughts.
I commenced my pacing again and followed him, pushing the thick springy vines out of my way.
On and on he walked, however, sometimes as if he were being driven, and on and on I followed, feeling strangely comforted by the mere sight of him at a cold distance from me or several feet ahead.
The sun was setting rapidly. Images changed again – better yet, they pulsated, transformed and vibrated. I couldn't concentrate and I felt as if I was going to fall. I wanted to catch my breath. It seemed as though we had been walking for a day.
I longed to see past the thickening darkness, and the shadows that shrouded the embracing hills. I longed to somehow possess a kind of preternatural hearing and catch the soft songs of the jungles, to wander with magical speed up the mountains of the interior to find the secret little valleys and waterfalls as only a conscious mage in the Fade could with very much effort and practice.
Oh, shit. Only now I realized I was dreaming. That and the fact that, as I rushed to catch up with him, he didn't seem to get bigger, but in fact, smaller. My breathing was purely somewhere lost in the imaginary, because I saw a child.
Fenris was that child.
He stopped right near a cave of sorts, and beyond I heard the loud chorus of a tropical forest. He looked back, to his left, to his right. Then again I saw the deep blue evening sky above me; I felt the breeze that was moving over me as smoothly as if it were water. All the fragrances of the green jungle assaulted my nostrils. The freshness was purely rhapsodic. I found it delicious and strange, and I knew it could only mean one thing: he was, we were in Seheron. In a second he was gone.
Damn it. He was gone. I caught a glimpse of a shadow entering the cave, but I couldn't seem to move. The opening was plain and pitch-black, as if by some ancient sorcery, darkness had actually come to life in a material sense and played the role of an impenetrable barrier- fence-gate-whatever. I wanted to go in anyway, of course, my willingness was almost repugnantly insistent, but something was holding me in place, or maybe I didn't know how to walk anymore. I couldn't move.
Take a step, what's so hard.
I couldn't.
My heart started pouncing and my veins froze again, although not even that could I feel properly. It felt like those times when you dreamt you were being chased but suddenly you couldn't run anymore; the irony being, that I was the chaser.
Blasted.
An hour before Sunrise, Casa Della Libertà Eterna, Last day in Antiva City
Fenris awoke suddenly, having had that kind of annoying dream where one appears to fall into a pit and wake up with a shudder. He heard birds chirruping outside and felt the chilly breeze of the Antivan morning. He listened to the movement of the waters beneath the inn and all around it, and through the canals and into the sea. He blinked a couple of times, the imagery and nuances propelling back into a coherent frame. Images came to him, bits and pieces of dreams.
Nothing was substantial but Hawke. And Hawke was here. Back turned to him, sleeping like the dead, almost about to be crushed by his apparently tight embrace. The cascade of red hair under his chin brought back the familiar sweet smell. He brushed his cheek against it, as if to be certain it was real. Looking out the window, the sky had been stamped with the usual rosy and violet nuances of dawn. The sun was teasing the world still, underneath the horizon.
Indeed, it seemed the horrors and joys that overwhelmed him with so many shocks were but a prelude for their coming closer. A thunder could strike him now and he would probably repel it with all the power of his being, so he wouldn't be taken away from this moment. Ah, but how long before this will become just another dream? He feared. Forget hope. Forget thoughts. He tilted his head and rested it against her soft hair and clutched her waist tighter from the back. There was still time. He closed his eyes and dozed back to sleep.
Moments later
Isabela had always been shameless and with a pardon for everything. And why not? You take what you can get, and if you can get more than what life gives you – more like throws at you, a poor steak now and then to the starved and crazed dog –what's it to life to stop you? She was nosy when she wanted to, and very private when she needed to. She kept her doubts secret and moved on in fine tune with the filth and the wonders of a world set out to be unfair. Life is unfair. Simple as that. Crooked. Straighten it up to your preference, if you had the balls to.
But now that something happened to Hawke, she regretted the recent altercation with her. Of course, she considered her mind a bit too crazy even for her, much too pointlessly brave. Futile, to the larger scheme of things, because Hawke was more dead-set on taking care of her friends and innocent strangers, stray puppies and lost kittens, than ultimately herself; if stomachs didn't burn and growl from hunger, the girl would probably be dead by now.
Although a leader and a motherly, sort of guarding presence that she was to them all, she appreciated one thing in particular – she was the kind that let you stray as much as you wanted to, far away from her circle of security, but most times you wouldn't dare to cross it and venture into foreign spaces simply because she gave you the liberty to choose. It was for her and maybe everyone else a terrible contradiction. She welcomed and cared enough, but appearing to stick to her private business just the same and letting people jump and twirl and sway and stumble on their own if they so wished. Ah, now they sounded like children. But a fine stratagem in its intent, nonetheless, right? Points for that.
Like a true general, she did what she had to do, whatever she wanted to do. Had to and wanted. That's the thing.
Helping Isabela was –or at least had been – still something she wanted to do, although she gave up wondering as to why. There was no barrel, pile of rubble and lonely bush stretching from Darktown to Sundermount that Hawke hadn't stuck her head into for her sake. Of course, they hadn't found anything. Hawke wanted to do it, but didn't really appear to care. In the Hanged Man, when they would drink afterwards, she seemed as if it would always be normal if she just stood up and left suddenly, never to come back. What a contradiction, but still. Cunning and cleverness were things Isabela herself luckily possessed, and she couldn't help but guess that Hawke had already been stamped by death and cruelty enough to make her roughly immune to the most common desires.
Only in the courtyard of the palazzo-inn-casa-whatever they were staying in did Hawke lose her temper a bit and told Isabela to get out of her sight. It was still liberty of choice, which she imposed, though. But, just a thought – maybe she used that opportunity to unconsciously instruct Isabela to stay and look after Dorian while they were venturing in the belly of certain death. One could only imagine what sort of twisted ideas came into this woman's head every time she did something.
As much as she liked Hawke, for she was independent and wild just as she was, Isabela wasn't really hopelessly and irrevocably wed to her as Varric was. And Fenris, apparently. Ah, yes, Fenris was… well, he was hopelessly off limits now. No matter if he stayed with Hawke in boring, sexless, platonic whatever, one could blind and gag Isabela and she would still recognize a man in love when she saw one. Sometimes it was funny to see them struggle with their hidden emotions, but most times she feared for her own life… because The Hanged Man would one day surely crumble and collapse, burn or blow up from the sexual tension and the snarky way they went at each other's throats. It was simple. The Hanged Man would surely blow up someday, either because one of them exploded or because someone would set fire to it just to make them shut up.
Alas, whatever brooding that kept Isabela up and unable to sleep any longer, it made her get out of her room and long for a large cup of Antivan coffee. Antivan coffee soon to be turned Ferelden, if she found any rum about. She walked out of her room and strolled wearily along the hallway. She stopped suddenly, scrutinizing the door of Hawke's room. Why not check?
Locked. She wasn't back. She walked past it but stopped again as she realized she was out of coin. She pissed it all on drinks for two days straight to calm Dorian down from his crazed anguish in waiting for Armand to come back and fearing for his life. Time to borrow money from Hawke and tell her later. She went back to the door and picked the lock with the swiftness of any self-respecting rogue.
Only when the door opened did she realize she had the wrong door. Fenris was there with his back turned and sleeping in the bed like a preserved, half-dead peaceful mummy. She immediately blocked the usual sounds she would have made in this situation and turned her head to close the door on her way out without waking him. She knew he had not slept at all, having looked after Hawke in a full half of Antiva City the day before, until Varric finally convinced him they would have had a higher chance to find her at the inn if she was – she had better be – still alive and well.
Andraste's granny panties. Her automatism clashed, her mind paralyzed, her eyes widened, and she turned her head back to the sleeping elf. He was glued to a woman in his sleep. Blue coat and red hair, that's as much as she made up. Oh, oh… oh.
No stampede or cheetah in the world could have outrun her as she headed for the hills with such fiery speed. Correction: one particular hill called Varric.
"Varric, Varric, Varric!" she shouted rapidly as she came into the common dining rooms and almost tripped and fell on her face.
"Rivaini, Rivai-, ah sod it, your name's too long. Who put fairy-power in your drink?" Varric asked in surprise. He stood up from his chair and watched her catch her breath.
In-between panting, with a hand over her chest, she mumbled, "Feh… haw…bah… sleeh... tugh-"
"Fenhoebas-what?" Varric asked. "Are you having a stroke?"
"Lisshhen to meeh," Isabela muttered incoherently, hand over her heart.
"I'm trying to but you keep making no sense," Varric shouted.
She stood up straight again and shook her head rapidly. "Hawke is back and she's sleeping with Fenny."
"Bullshit," Varric scowled.
"Come see for yourself," Isabela shouted and heaved a palm in annoyance.
"If this is one of your tricks to have me away while the waitress pours a laxative in my soup, you can kiss that pretty head of yours goodbye," Varric threatened, his eyes narrowing. "I'll have it ripped off."
"And how exactly will you do that? Hire the Crows you're running from?" Isabela arched an eyebrow and shrugged, "Get a ladder?" she asked meanly.
"There's at least one taller person than me in this city who would do it for free," Varric muttered back angrily, subtly meaning either Fenris or Armand.
"Are you going to keep bitching at me like a princess or are you gonna come see for yourself?" Isabela asked impatiently.
"After you, Siren Pants. Oh wait, you have no pants," Varric mused as they took off for the upper level.
"And yet you do you're still the closest one to resembling a fairy princess," Isabela fired back.
"I'm sexy and I know it," Varric mused cockily.
Meanwhile, upstairs…
Hawke awoke with her usual careless arm and leg stretching and mmm-ing to no end. She had already forgotten what it felt like to wake up in a bed. Her smile of satisfaction would have reached Kirkwall, if not for her elbow that had outrun it and reached Fenris's nose. His short growl at the disturbing force and his tightening clutch at her waist woke her up completely.
"Shit. Oh. Ah… Top of the morning to ya," Hawke said quickly… as quickly as she wanted to hit herself in the face for being such a smooth one in these situations.
No adorable puppies and kittens in the world would have ever outdone Fenris as he muttered the softest possible "mm" as he opened his eyes. Dark eyes that now became fiercely bright as he looked at her. She was smiling awkwardly and didn't quite know what to do with her hands.
To her surprise, Fenris smiled at her so knowingly, with a sudden quiet air of triumph. "Look who decided they would love to venture into foreign lands."
She coughed and made him look at their positions. He was holding her, not the other way around.
"That is not how I remember it last night," Fenris fired back unyieldingly.
"So you were pretending to be asleep," Hawke said in an accusatory tone. "You're such a snake."
"Keep trying to make yourself pass as perfectly innocent," Fenris said with an all-knowing grin. "Meanwhile, I will go back to sleep, if you don't mind. I have already started dreaming halfway through your sentence anyway."
"Har-har," Hawke replied grumpily. She broke away from his grip and rose from the bed. "Well. I want to get up." She put a hand over her forehead and felt the wave of fever.
"Has your intoxicated mind suddenly thought it would be a legendary accomplishment to compete with the Sun in who rises first to glory and takes over the world?" Fenris asked sarcastically, rising up on his elbows and rubbing one eye. "Do you wager the gods will give you a legendary prize?"
"If the prize is you getting out of my face – sure!" Hawke fired back grumpily, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"… And we're back to the stinging," Fenris muttered wearily, rubbing his eyes still.
"Well I'm waspish like that," she mused childishly.
Fenris was exhausted. Half-asleep, but half was enough to fire back with at least half his wit.
"And clearly you take pride in your hard work of bestowing your cruelty upon my world," he said sarcastically with his eyes closed, mocking the busy bee turned an evil stinging wasp.
"Well, some take delight- oh!" She stopped and smiled, turning her head to him while sitting on the edge. "There's this old Ferelden folk song that goes like," she paused to clear her throat and sang in a perfectly tuned and strong womanly voice, "Now there's some takes delight in the carriages a rolling, and some takes delight in the hurley or the bowlin'. But I takes delight in the juice of the barley…And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early!" she continued with raised hands. "Mush-a ring dum-a do dum-a daaaah."
Moment of silence for the fallen. Fenris wasn't impressed. Go figure…
"Pam, pam, pam, pam," she finished while banging her palms on her knees. "Well, look who's really going whack fall the daddy-o."
He opened his eyes. "Whack-a-what?"
"Never mind," Hawke said in amusement. "This particular fair maiden doesn't seem to get my drift this fine morning bright and early."
"And now I'm a woman," Fenris said with sharp disdain.
"Hey, you call me forest troll and I call you fair maiden and you're still the one to bitch and complain?" she demanded.
"You do make an excellent point," Fenris said calmly, which could only mean shortly thereafter a pretentious little snarky comment would follow. He put a hand over his heart first, as if to make it more dramatic. "My sincere apologies, Bob."
"Apology rejected, Genevieve," Hawke stung back calmly. She rose from the bed and turned to look at him.
"You burn me with those words," Fenris replied with eyes fully closed, his tone of inconvincible honesty.
Hawke grinned widely and shrugged, "Well, if you didn't have me to rake you over the coals now and then, there wouldn't be any fire in your life at all."
How very true, yet she didn't know it to be so.
"Dragons… dragons, everywhere," Fenris muttered calmly to himself, staring in blank now towards the ceiling. Yes, an allegory most refined. This was truly the Dragon Age.
"Ah, yes. Big, mighty, mystical creatures destroying other people's lives on purpose, this causing havoc around all around the world and bringing it to the very pits of despair," she said subtly in sarcasm. Her tone then came very calm, "That can be rather annoying."
"It depends how you look at it," Fenris said calmly in his weary daze.
"There is more than one? Do tell," Hawke said eagerly.
He rose on his elbows and considered it for a few seconds. He managed to open only one eye. Then he explained, one-eyed, "Well, you see. You could look at it at as if these seriously misunderstood creatures are boiling and preying on the world around them, bringing it to the very end of its days. But one must never forget, that there lies a difference. A difference so easy to forget."
She thought he was going to end in his predictable mean punch line. This wasn't it.
He rose his palm and explained further, one-eyed, "And it is tangled up in the illusion that they are consciously and deliberately evil. But those that do, those are the Old Gods. Nothing to do with actual dragons," he dismissed with his palm, "but they wear their garments in their image when they do emerge from the earth as the so-called Archdemons."
"And?" came her impatient tone.
Fenris sighed and stretched his explanation, "And so it is thus misinterpreted that all dragons are cruel and evil. It is a fallacy by appearance, as well as by the natural need of living beings to form convincible and consoling inductions." He gestured with his palms up. "Stretching out the truth to lessen the burden of not knowing everything, if you will. "
"So you're saying…" Hawke shrugged with lifted eyebrows.
Fenris remained a statue, staring in blank with his one open eye. He appeared to have lost his train of thought. "I don't… quite remember my original point," he confessed.
"You're such a joy," she muttered in a pretend-sweet tone. Then she sighed and took a seat back on the bed. "Ah, let me clean up the mess inside your head."
Very true, she had already been doing that for a good amount of time. She didn't know it to be true.
"So dragons blow fire and destroy the world and they're annoying," she started while gesturing and looking up at the ceiling. "Then dragons are not actually evil, but the Old Gods who make do with their masks."
He lay back flat on the bed in complete exhaustion as he nodded and mumbled "Correct."
"They look and fight and do almost everything just the same, but only the Old Gods are purposely and consciously, and all the more powerfully able of actually bringing an apocalypse."
"Affirmative," came again Fenris's placid tone with another nod.
"So you're saying I'm not really purposely trying to mock or hurt you, but sometimes I may accidentally do it because it is in my nature to be mean and that's automatically where my tone usually goes whenever I open my mouth?" Hawke asked very rapidly.
"You are harmless," Fenris said with a smirk that had all the traceries of a warm expression because of his closed eyes.
In truth, now he remembered, he started something related to that idea, but ended up trying to make a metaphor about how some mages are truly evil and some can be truly good. Paying her a compliment with an obvious reality he had put honest and stubborn work in trying to discard for a vaguely long time. That was quite an effort in itself. Though when did he suddenly become so utterly resigned from his past endeavor? Alas.
She quickly rose from the bed, standing proudly atall.
"I am quite dangerous, in fact," Hawe said with a devilish grin. She was not pertaining to magic.
Both his eyes opened. "Are you now? Well, by all means –prove it," Fenris gestured arrogantly. He was not pertaining to magic.
"Now why would I do such a thing!" came her proud voice. Suddenly a flame came up in her hand, but not as lively as her girlish smile. "I hate to hurt you."
He raised an eyebrow with all the fullness of nonchalance. Fenris was unimpressed.
With a quickness of a genuinely driven person, she launched the fireball next to his head, purposely misfiring. He dodged it in a second, of course, the fire dying out in the air, and he looked back at her without some pretentious scowl of inconvenience.
Fenris let himself fall back on the pillow while muttering arrogantly, "Well... thank god for that."
Oh, good. Not pertaining to magic, but using magic as pretense. Yes, oh, she was so mighty dangerous.
Hawke understood his subtle mockery to mask his inconvenience. Suddenly the irony became all the more sweeter all with her drawing up that historical pretentious scowl of inconvenience, and added to the charm a little hmph.
After several seconds of silence in which he seemed to have a thought in his mind and repeatedly trying to kill it, he soon decided he could make do with play out of character today and open up.
"I'm not made out of glass," he replied with an edge.
"No. You're made out of skin," she said flatly with a smile, as she gestured. "And hair, and muscle, and blood, and internal organs and whatever other things that can be irrevocably torn apart."
The soul, he suspected. He opened his eyes again and rose on his elbows.
"I assure you. I am quite sturdy," Fenris said rather sweetly.
"I assure you. I am quite hopeless," Hawke retorted with a satirically innocent smile.
"Ah, good. I was afraid hope was feeling overly ambitious today all with trying to make a special effort," Fenris said sarcastically.
The corner of Hawke's lips went rapidly crooked and she crossed her arms. "Well I see strength isn't making much of an appearance today either."
Yes, mock my utter exhaustion out of trying to find you in half of Antiva. More the fool I, so it seems.
Ah, he didn't mind. He was glad to partake in their usual dance of snarky comments. Even if she was a queen of evasion, he was content with his little victory from last night. Even if she had not truly said the words he had secretly hoped for and had buried somewhere deep in his soul, he was still positive with delight; noted, despite feeling stupid and remarkably appalled by himself that in a fit of crazy passion, that had seemed to obliterate all his logic, he had inexplicably and with no reserve said,"I am yours." To say such abominably idiotic words - better never than late, one could only hope. Unfortunately to his evermore ironic fate, he had chosen in reverse.
He'd met Hawke on a Tuesday. He'd kissed her on a Friday.
Two and a half years later.
He sighed. That seemed like a fair triumph, right? Only two and half more years before she would allow anything else, he suspected. Double that amount of time upon giving up her heart for him, he suspected.
Yes, her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high. As well as other parts; he stood corrected. He sighed again. How long before he'd manage to tear down those high walls? Tearing down was nothing. He wanted to viciously crush them to bits. There was still time.
Yet, unbeknownst for a long time, he had not understood that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and were afraid to express their own feelings to you. Hawke was not the case. Hawke was worse than that; sarcasm was her first choice of weapon, and her second, third and twenty-fifth, and in doing so she quickly got him infuriated with her. Her last resort being, of course, a perfectly precise and graceful punch or sword thrust in your face. If she had strong feelings for him, this might have been the case. Only a matter of time. Yes, there was still time. He was rather grateful for that little equation.
Ah, perhaps she was a lady. After all, he had to be the judge of that. Be that as it may, truth would have it that he was not only a good judge of character when it came to most people, but an even greater judge of himself. He was no ladykiller. Shocking, he thought.
She, instead, could outdo any scary black widow in the dark arts of killing him as a man with a fancy with each passing day while her walls were up so damn high. He had managed to climb at least a little, rather quickly. One must surely give her credit merely for not also throwing some grenade in his face in order to make him fall off of it. And if that dramatic scenery wasn't enough, it just added to the charm that one thought he held in his head, that if he was the so-called Knight of Roses, she was the Queen of Thorns.
And she was too proud to be a queen.
Perhaps he was too cowardly to be a knight.
Well, regal features aside, she deserved to have a good and safe life; one he could never give her. That was something that had haunted his mind and made him equally wanting to pull away from her as much as he wanted to be with her. Protection from any danger, that what was more important for him. He could do that. He could attempt to. The only thing he wasn't certain of was if protecting her was perhaps made best by him completely disappearing from her life or remaining there to look after her himself on a very regular, strong, full basis. He could not do it in moderation any longer. Actually this was not called moderation in this case. It was called doing things half-heartedly. And he was surely a man that had never made friends with doing anything half-heartedly.
Crucified between these two thoughts, never did he feel so curiously bitter. Not that she needed to be protected, she would have said. After all, she had risen from nothing and made a life for herself in the sad little city of Kirkwall.
Ah, yes. He was a man half in love with despair. And Despair was staring at him in the eye all dressed in fine bright garments with a thick cascade of red hair and an even redder soul. Yes, he completed by being half-infuriated at it on the other side.
Yet even so, despite this shameful state of affairs and the bitterness that afflicted his soul, a lonely, persistent thought did manage to pester his mind.
Just as he knew the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arousal might have pleased it –now he was squeezing dirty thoughts in his internal monologues, how wonderful – so he knew that Hawke was obliged to be stuck with him despite her everlasting defenses. Gold was inviting, and so was nobility, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it.
She had less choice than the sun.
"Sorry. Mechanical reflex," she mused childishly. "Truly not my intent."
"Of course," he muttered back and gave her a little smile. "Yet every time it's with great success."
"Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success," Hawke recited knightly.
"Well, at least you've got one of those covered," Fenris said meanly with a grin.
"Of course," Hawke said confidently, but her smile died shortly thereafter and was reborn in the fullness of a scowl. "Wait… which one?"
"Oh, I would not dare disclose such facts," he played arrogantly with half-closed eyes. "It would make me seem ungentlemanly."
"King of semantics," she muttered calmly. Her smile was full of joy. "Back with the insults it is then."
His whole time together with Hawke suddenly flashed before his eyes. Again, and certainly not the last time, he conceived that her moods and fortunes somehow reflected his own. Which moods and fortunes you might ask? Cascades over cascades of big, gigantic, massive, gargantuan flows of sarcasm and mean comments pouring over the slow-growing garden of their friendship. Yes, surely one might think these purely fantastic waves of stinging would have utterly and completely drowned the flowers before they had ever really bloomed, but no. Theirs was a garden full of inconceivable wonders and inexplicable lunacies like that. It had been clear from the very beginning that they didn't really –or perhaps had no interest to– function within the normal laws of nature.
What came to mind was the beginning of their first conversation in the Hanged Man, morning after they met.
Autumn of 9:31 Dragon, The Hanged Man
"So, you run and you hide, is that it?" she asked calmly, when Varric went to buy the drinks.
"Not anymore," he replied insipidly, his elbows catching roots on the table.
"Now you just hide," she said flatly with a smile. "That mansion seems the perfect pit to crawl and die in, after all."
He pressed his lips in annoyance. "As a slave I used to have a remarkably distinct lack of initiative, but now that I met the one truly remarkable mage in all of Thedas, I think I am beginning to set an equally distinct personal goal."
Hawke frowned; she didn't understand. Her eyes did sparkle shortly thereafter and brought back the air of joyful mockery to defend herself from being that one, single clown mage in all of Theds. "Oh, yes, how true this is. I did say you would be the great humble pain my pretentious clownish magical ass. How's that going for you?"
Not a day had passed and they were already snarkity-uppity with each other.
"I'm fairly ambitious," he shrugged.
It was surprising that he was beginning to acquit himself none too badly in the use of the sentimental and picturesque language which was called wit.
"So apart from that fierce drive and distinct ambition to bitch at me, do you have any other interests or hobbies?" she asked while playing with the red band wrapped around the ring of her pommel.
Fenris considered this for a minute, watching her as she played. "I enjoy the arts of swordsmanship," came his flat-toned statement.
Hawke leaned over the table and asked, her voice changing curiously. "You fence?"
"Not exactly," Fenris drawled, slightly arching an eyebrow. "I prefer freestyle."
To this day, she did not know if he hadn't realized what he was saying or if he had deliberately intended it as a subtlety.
"What about you? What do you do?" He needed to ask questions, draw her out. He needed to find out all the information that he could, for his curiosity was peeking horribly inside as to what sort of depraved calamity this woman in front of him was. Quick-thinking, calculcated, rather excellent in battle. But she was a mage. He stood corrected; his curiosity was howling inside. His voice sounded strong and smooth, but his hands were a bit shaky and he put them in his lap so she couldn't see.
"I prey on innocent villagers and terrify little children," she said with a nasty smile, mocking his 'viper in your midst' comment. "And sometimes when I'm feeling really evil, I read books or paint."
Several minutes later he proceeded to interrogate her again. Her brother had sat down at the table. He didn't seem to notice.
"So, that is where you all live?" Fenris asked a bit contained. "It's rather – " She arched an eyebrow, so his voice lowered and stiffened, and his face launched into awkwardness as he finished, "small."
"Oh no, that is just our Satinalia house," Hawke muttered with tones and smiles of unconvincing joy and tranquility. "We have a house for every day of the year."
"It is rather small, though," Carver said with a sigh. "Not very practical, y'know. You sleep in the same tiny room, eat at the same tiny table and breathe the same tiny amount of air in the same tiny house as your sister does for very longhalf of the day, when it just so happens that the other equally long half you spend working with that same tiny sister," he finished with narrowed eyes pointed at Hawke.
She appeared not to have heard him and finished drinking her pint with ease. Then she said, "Emphasis on the tiny," and pointed with her head somewhere down south of her brother.
"As tiny as your brain it is then," Carver muttered back and took an angry sip.
"Well now that is an impressively witty way of paying both me and you a compliment of which only one side can be true!" she uttered back joyfully.
Carver resolved to ignore her and continued complaining to Fenris in a reminiscing tone, "We have a lonely little scrubbing brush you see. Never been used a day since we got it."
"Kind of like Gamlen's only brain cell," Hawke said meanly.
"And not unlike his cheese at all," Carver added grumpily. "It magically disappears way before breakfast in terms of matter, but in terms of smell… beware your nostrils, 'cause it resides forever." He shook his head. "For-eh-ver."
"Just like the dirty clothes… multiplying like rabbits, because that's what they apparently like to do when I'm not around," Hawke said with narrowed eyes to her brother.
"Don't be an ass, Sister," Carver mumbled sharply.
"Well, that's a little bit difficult to accomplish, isn't it?" Hawke retorted nonchalantly. "I mean, unless you'd be so kind so as to paint me with black and white stripes, then I'd be a zebra!"
He listened to all that – fairly amused at her jokes, though he wouldn't admit it – but he was in deep discomfort. Finally, one thing that made him smoothen for once was a good amount of time later after Anders joined the table and had already begun his hot-heated revolutionary speeches to him about how mages deserved the same amount of freedom as he did, to which of course he fired back with his own sharp arguments and flat explanations about the true nature of mages who had enough power to obliterate all the hope of his race of ever living properly. Oh, so you are a hypocrite, because you lived under obstruction of liberty and yet you don't wish mages to have the same privilege … and then it all went down-hill from there, of course.
Hawke did not join in their fight, but rather listened with a brow arching up towards Heaven and perhaps pleading for her own salvation from the impossible demonic bloodlust scorching at the table. The metaphor was not very far away from reality. He was, in a way, impossible. Anders was, in a way, demonic. The fiery pits of hell in their tones were, in a way, filled with bloodlust and scorching. And Hawke, in the one and only way, was sitting at the table.
Several of minutes later characterized solely by the words stated above, Anders went for the bar to order another round of drinks because Hawke pointed it out in a low tone all of a sudden just when the two men were about to jump at each other's throats. As soon as he disappeared, Fenris sighed quietly in annoyance.
Hawke picked up on that, of course, but what truly obliterated his already-historical inconvenience with her was when she leaned back against the wall and said, "Don't waste your breath on him. Explaining anything to that one?" She sighed and accentuating the words in grump, "It's like trying ta' slap the dumb off a retard."
That was the first time he had ever smiled at her, without realizing until after it had happened. She didn't seem to have noticed either.
Of course, their joined annoyance at Anders had quickly turned out to be lacking in character of some dire or ultimately separating argument for Hawke and Fenris to get along. It was as though this mutual apathy towards a singular creature had never even existed.
They'd met at the Hanged Man, bitch at each other a bit softly, head off to do jobs together, bitch at each other with a bit more edge to their tones, then when they finally returned to the Hanged Man after a long day's work of thorough bitching at each other, they bitched some more.
For instance, he remembered one lovely day that only Hawke could make it seem as an oxymoron in less than three seconds of meeting each other.
Somewhere in Time, The Hanged Man
She came by his table that one lovely day lost in the numerous set of all the other lovely days, as any other. "So, what are you doing today?"
Fenris was drinking his ale quietly and calmly muttered, "Nothing."
"You did that yesterday," she said with a smile.
Upon taking another sip, came his forever earthbound tone. "I wasn't finished."
"Jeez, who pissed in your breakfast this morning?" she asked in amusement.
Fenris's eyelids fell halfway and calmly said, "Stop talking."
"But then how will you stop listening to me?" she asked sarcastically. "You could make do with ignoring me right now."
"I'm certainly thriving in that fantastic alternate dimension," Fenris said flatly and drank away nonchalantly.
"You do have a distinct lack of ambition then," Hawke said grumpily. How could he even attempt to pretend she was not there, all hair, and eyes, and breasts and –
Loud. More than once did the tragedy occur that Fenris would sleep in his mansion, perfectly unperturbed and in peace for once, almost mummified in his blankets, and then he would be suddenly woken up by hearing her loud shouts of desperation after her misplaced armour or whatever all away from her house to his.
She was loud even when she whispered. Not because her voice was always loud, but more importantly her presence was. All, all… all of her.
"I've never imagined I would want to gag someone so early in a conversation," Fenris replied back in sheer, but calm annoyance. The worse his insults became, the more it meant he was defending himself from all of her. Speaking of loud and gagging, that was actually how he had the idea to gift her the now legendary Magical Ball of Everyone's Fortune.
"What DID you eat for breakfast? Bitch Flakes?" Hawke demanded in controlled outrage.
"I've had snappier comebacks from a bowl of stew," he muttered grumpily as he sipped from his drink.
She sighed and leaned on the wall near his table, "I admire your hard work in offending me, but take a break once in a while. Live, breathe, crack a … no. Better that you don't."
"What now?" Fenris asked curiously.
Hawke rolled her eyes. "Smile."
"No," Fenris said insipidly, eyes dark and mean locked onto hers.
"It wasn't a command. It was more of a suggestion," Hawke corrected with haste.
"I humbly reject your suggestion," Fenris said in tones of unconvincing chivalry.
She sighed. "See that's where you're mistaking. You don't have to try so hard in firing at me," she said with a smile and stretched her arms. "Because the truth is the only thing that's offending me is your face."
A ghost of a smirk came upon his face before he rolled his eyes. "The feeling is mutual. Speaking of which – talk to me when I'm drunker. You will be damn good-looking then."
That was not really the way he spoke to her though. That last sentence had all the strength and abruptness of a quickly crumbling elf, falling deep into the ale of his own denial. Not only was she loud and all there – her presence, her voice, her gorgeous hair, her big tampering eyes, her extremely womanly body, and sadly, her personality – but he couldn't seem to get her out of his head.
"Speaking of which, I would slap you for that pretentious comment, but I don't want to make your pretentious face look any better," Hawke fired back with a laugh and pretended she wanted to slap him as she sat down at the table with him.
She locked her uppity gaze at him.
It annoyed and enchanted him.
"Oh, you just can't keep your hands off of me, can you?" Feris asked with a smirk.
"Yep. I'm quite taken with you. I think about you all the time when you're not with me and I just feel this urgent need to- to-," she pretended grumpily and shook her head while gesturing with her fist. "Damn, I can't quite put my finger on it."
"I think of you when I'm lonely too," Fenris said without looking at her. He took another sip from his ale. "Then I am content to be alone."
How insanely talented they were at telling each other the truth in the tones of mean and tones of bark.
"You sound reasonable... time to up my medication ," Hawke said grumpily and took his pint to drink from it.
"Pfteh," Fenris muttered in annoyance. "Drunken witch."
She dropped the pint with a loud bang on the table as she finished drinking her cocktail of nonchalance. "I've been called worse by better."
"Never mumble some sarcastic shit to somebody who can obviously fuck you up," Varric used to say. Well now, obviously they had both secretly and solemnly swore in their mind – in those dire few seconds after his impertinent mage accusations when they first met – that this was a challenge worthy to take on. And set on fire. And throw alcohol in afterwards. And some combustion grenades for decorative purposes.
Yes, they were both terribly stubborn. Life was not fair, it simply was a bit fairer than death. Death was like a woman on her period that, as far as he came to understand, consequently needed to get whatever she wanted whenever and however she wanted to – or to hell with all the quiet and peace. Yes, Death was stubborn. And neither of them feared death.
After all, battles shared were battles won. Right from the start, in her eyes, Fenris was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to suddenly kill him. Thus, when she had that much in common with someone, she couldn't help but like him a little.
Darting back to the bright and shiny present, he resolved to snap out of his massive brooding and remember what she last said. "Back with the insults then." Ah, yes.
"Whatever makes you happy," he said nonchalantly, lying back on the bed as if he were destroyed by exhaustion. "Ugh." His tone was flat. "I am dead."
"Dear lunatic, whatever put you in an early grave?" Hawke asked in pretend-amazement.
His eyes were closed, but he grumped with the same constant talent. "You."
She quickly raised her eyebrows.
He put a weary hand over his face. "Looking for you into every gutter and barrel in half of Antiva City – to be more specific." She encircled the bed and went by his side, watching him.
"Only half?" she mused lightly with a smile.
"Halfway through I stopped and asked myself how I would feel if I were in your shoes." Then he grinned deviously and arched an eyebrow. "Then I realized I would have liked to be thought a lesson."
Hawke raised her eyebrows and grinned flirtatiously. "And here I thought you promised you'd give me a thorough disciplining with a more physical approach."
Fenris brushed his hair fastidiously away from his face. "Ah, I'd forgotten about that. You are quite right, though." He rose only on his elbows and smirked. "With your reckless and impulsive behaviour, no doubt you should have spent more time over someone's knee."
"Are you inclined to volunteer?" she asked playfully.
"Please," he said meanly, his voice the very sound of rolling eyes, and dismissing her with a grimace. She grimaced back mockingly, but shortly after, he reassumed his arrogant smirk. "Do I have a choice? One could hardly call it volunteering when it seems all the existing and invented gods from all possible religions and creeds are weeping, screaming and thrashing," he gestured in-between, "sending thunders from the skies as they do so, pleading and begging for someone to do it."
"Ah, right. You're truly without faults, aren't you?" she asked musingly while crossing her arms. "Mythologizing yourself already as a cruel victim of fate turned suddenly into a hero overnight." She started pacing and gesturing mockingly with joy. "Hurtled into the chaos that I bring on this world with my impossible persona, and there you are," she stopped and stretched her arms, "the mighty Fenkis McBraveheart coming to forever leave the burn of his Mighty Palm of Holy Judgement over my impertinent buttcheeks."
Calm, joyful sarcasm. Good sign.
"Well, it is not a duty for the faint-hearted," he said arrogantly and grinned at her with half-lidded eyes. "And such an imperative duty it is."
Wait, why was his tone so…? Holy Mother of… or better yet Santo cazzo di Madre… to better fit the scenery. She froze for several too many seconds, wondering if she should pinch herself and see if she didn't happen to be dreaming. That was not sarcasm. That was not sarcasm, was it? For the first time ever, and for all intents and purposes, Fenris flirted with her –deliberately and correctly. Suddenly, she wondered what exactly changed. Alas, her mind was on strike and the world went on. It seemed a good time to stop staring at him with an idiotic look of disbelief and say something.
"I… uh…" she stuttered, her throat stiffening. Maker's breath, whatever came over her? She felt completely disarmed for once, for no apparent reason. She felt like a shy little girl, suddenly clumsy and awkward, with her tongue crawling in a cowardly box of unjustified shame.
"You- uh?" Fenris demanded with a dark, piercing look and a quiet air of masculine superiority.
PLEASE go back to the insults. Just one little, stupid, even unoriginal snarky comment. A small 'Hey! Look into the mirror and, all ye proud people of Kirkwall, behold the laughing-stock of half of Antiva's well-trained assassins, the impossible clown mage dressed in clothes gayer than Senechal Bran's pretentious risen eyebrow'. No? Is that too much to ask? Maker's bloody breath, what in the dreaded pits of the Void is with me this morning?
"I am inclined… to… endorse… with your… perspective… of things," she mumbled. A wild comparison, but almost regrettably accurate in terms of how she felt she looked like, was that she behaved like a psychotic noble half-dying in seizures at the cruel fate of an untreated case of syphilis. Remarkably common and pathetic way to die between the nobles, 'twas true. Seneschal Bran was first on her secret wishlist. No doubt, unbeknownst to the public eye, the man returned her feelings with the same amount of undisclosed joy.
Fenris arched an eyebrow. "Are you… having a stroke?"
"No, I'm just being sarcastic," Hawke lied quickly. "And tired." Let that sentence be at least half-true and the Maker could frown and bark later.
"You are always sarcastic," Fenris muttered quietly.
She pressed her lips. "Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep," she mused.
His eyebrow remained up. "Be that as it may, what I meant was that the nature of your statement which you allegedly deem as," he gestured quotation marks, "sarcastic, did not really match your tone."
"I decided I should leave people to guess the nature of my statements without giving away so many helpful hints," she smiled with a shrug.
"Without a matching tone, you would sound like an idiot," Fenris said rather calmly.
"I don't mind. Thinking I'm an idiot gives people something to feel smug about," Hawke said with a wide grin. He was probably put in the pile of those people. "Why should I disillusion them?"
Fenris gazed at her flatly. "Why don't I believe you?" he asked with half-lidded eyes, an obvious edge in his voice.
"Well who died and made you Lord Seeker of Truth?" she asked meanly and crossed her arms. She was not grumpy or angry. Good sign.
"I do not truly know," he said, and cupped his chin. "All I saw were the purple velvety boots of the person in question, when I bowed knightly and the honorary title had been bestowed upon me sword-on-shoulder as the rite of chivalry commonly goes." Her eyebrow was reaching the heavens as he said it. He smirked at her and shrugged, "What? You've heard what I named my sword."
"Half of that name fits. What do roses have to do with this fantastical scenario?" asked Hawke, pacing to and fro as if she was a Guard-Captain interrogating a suspect.
"They are purely decorative," Fenris said calmly. "Like your sarcasm."
She grinned. "And here I was thinking you were a bit slow like the time it takes for a rose to bloom, what with so much asking and not knowing anything," she said with half-lidded eyes.
… Ah, that smile, which was undoubtedly a pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly little phrase had a scratch lurking in it. Which was always the case.
This Fenris resolved to forever hold in his soul. It was her charm. It was her aura. Yes, it was her soul. Fearlessness and creativity in pure form, and converted into sarcasm and wit for the outside world to better understand.
He pressed his lips and gave her a smile. "Exactly my point."
"The Knight sure does like his pretty delicate courteous maidens with the sense of humor of a dining table," she muttered.
"Why, aren't you the well-informed one about the Knight's secret fancies this fine morning?" he asked mockingly, deep flat tone nonetheless.
"The only thing in that sentence that's correct is morning," she said and crossed her arms again. "So much for the truth part of your honorary title."
Fenris chuckled briefly. "Well I hear one does not accomplish much by using the truth in the business of chasing pretty delicate courteous maidens."
"Good thing I'm not a pretty delicate courteous maiden," she said confidently.
His grin grew devilish. "Good thing indeed." He closed his eyes again with nonchalance. "Yes, you are about as delicate as the titanic blow of a mighty hammer and as courteous as the savage battle cries of barbarian conquests." He weaved his hand dismissively, eyes still closed. "Thus it is automatically assumed that you are out of my area of interest."
Blasted, I should've seen that one coming. Cheap victory, Fenris. Cheap victory.
"Oh, why aren't you a big load of crap this fine morning," Hawke said meanly.
"Indeed, it is a fine morning," Fenris said flatly, waving.
"Such rudeness, Sir," Hawke mused. "Why must you wound me?"
"Believe me, sometimes that seems to be the only thing in the world which makes perfect sense to me," Fenris muttered, everlasting grump in his flat tone. "Consider it a necessary evil."
"A little too soon to already be joking about that," Hawke said with a crooked smile.
Kaffas. Of course… how could he forget. He was joking out of context. He didn't mean to muse about what happened the night before, when he brutally assaulted her in his cruelly idiotic fit of murderous rage. His face grew dark and his smile died in an instant. "I apologize for that." He swallowed heavily, reality hitting him square in the jaw. "Truly I can't begin to-"
"You know I'm a firm believer in letting everyone follow their natural course of thoughts and choose to make their own decisions and yadda yadda –don't get me wrong, but…" Hawke started abruptly and exhaled. She raised her finger at him and bent forward. She locked her firm, decisive eyes onto his startled, carefully listening ones. "If you so much as give me another tormented look of guilt or shame and think yourself low, that you've done wrong by me or something," she said as he listened to her with eyes wide open, "So help me Fenris, I will murder you."
Silence. He remained silent. Swallowed heavily as he said it. Their gazes remained locked together while she waited for him to reply. Violence, yes. Threatening with violence –those were not the threats heavily infused with mockery of a sarcastic girl, nor were they some faintly whispered platitudes of some defenceless high aristocratic maiden . One could only guess how powerfully a strange woman like Hawke must have felt for him at the moment, truthfully threating his worthless bones. She looked rather irresistible to him now. How long before actual violence though? There was still time.
"Do you understand?" she pressed in a high tone.
"Affirmative," he stated in a perfect flat tone.
"Over and out," she said cockily, standing up straight again.
"Suddenly it seems only fair that I should make my own list of regrets on my deathbed," he said innocently, remembering her saying the same thing the night before when he tackled her. Ironically yes, now he was the one being threatened in all the seriousness of tone that Hawke could show him for three or more seconds in B-sharp before her tone would automatically go back in the more familiar B-snark. "I shall trust that you give me a proper eulogy, if it comes to that."
"Nothing like a bit of irony with those famous last words, eh?" Hawke said strongly. "I suggest you have breakfast first."
Fenris broke into soft laughter. "Everything. Everything in the time I have spent in your company was pure irony."
"Then I guess there's no need for irony to make a special effort today," Hawke said calmly and turned for the door. "See you downstairs."
His voice came abruptly commanding from behind. "You are not going anywhere."
Fenris could have tried to abstain from dragging her back by the old blue coat, but then again, like all the others times in the dark pits and catacombs, he didn't. More importantly, he didn't want to. With all the force in his weary bones, he quickly caught her by that clownish coat and she flew right back and fell on him with a What the f-. Her cheek landed bumping into his, all afire with predictable inconvenience. Her red hair cascaded all over his chin, his neck and his chest, and his arms were encaging her strongly by the waist. He held her tighter and inhaled, perhaps to test how much one can press before she lost her temper and set him on fire. Or worse, hit him. Taunting death right before breakfast was just another Tuesday for him.
"Yes?" she asked, calm and contained, but her cheeks said otherwise.
Fenris kissed one of those incredibly angry and revolted cheeks with all the power and firmness of a quite exhausted, still sleep-deprived, but fairly fighting-fit young man.
"Now you can go," he said calmly, eyes alight with a sudden sensuality to match his victory.
"If you are going to do that, would you mind not jostling the bed so much while you're suffocating me?" Hawke said in protest.
Fenris arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Perhaps you could roll around and down on the floor then."
"Perhaps not," she said calmly. "I'd rather take my chances with the lunatic in my bed."
"Technically it is my bed," Fenris said flatly, running his fingers softly at the back of her hair with the perfect mask of nonchalance.
"Well if you really want to swim in pretentious technicalities, then I guess you really lost the bet this time," Hawke said and smiled arrogantly at the last word.
"Not quite," came Fenris's deep and firm tone that said he had a following persuasive wiseass argument. "But if you really wish me to lose the bet, I will find the time to go in a dark corner and weep," then his green eyes closed halfway with an air of sensuality and his voice grew deeper, "after I apologize to the patron for the bed breaking."
One must give him credit for managing to say in one decisive sentence that he was both a sensitive and a savage man with a particular fancy, beyond the intended sarcasm. The last part though, not very sarcastic, mind you. What she saw and heard was a genuine masculine ardent vibe of firmness and singular desire for her. She was melting in his grip now, overly seduced by his confident words with the fullness of a tigerish appetite. Yes, what Fenris was to her, now more than ever, was almost helplessly irresistible.
Ah, pull yourself together.
"Said the elf who kissed my cheek as if he's saying goodbye to his aunt," she said sharply, taunting eyebrow arching to the skies, indomitable eyes locked onto his.
He swallowed heavily and appeared he was trying to say something.
"I'm trying to treat you like a lady," Fenris said finally, hands still clutching at her waist, more for fear of falling in some dark pit of angst with that sudden honest confession. Gazing at her big lovely eyes, he waited stiffly for her answer.
"Aw, that's sweet," Hawke said with a smile. "Now knock it off." She caught him by the back of his head and made him push his lips into hers with all the passion of an equally tired being and all the more stubborn to play woo-the-funny-warrior-mage for a few seconds. In this newly appointed state of affairs, Fenris quickly grasped harder around her waist and clamped her mouth with a more ardent kiss. Petal-soft, yet equally strong, the motion of their lips grew more fervent as she ran her fingers more aggressively through his hair. The cresting pleasure in his bones could kill an army with a single blow had it been possible to convert it to hostility. But he didn't dare to force her mouth open while perfectly sober. She turned her body around on him while still locking them in their fiery kiss, and held it there for several moments, Fenris losing himself to her maddening command. Only not entirely, for his body was issuing more urgently.
There he sought to hold her still, grasping tightly around her back ever more pressed against him, kissing her once, kissing her twice, woulda-shoulda a thousand more times had the thought travelled in his mind that this might be their last, refusing to let her go.
He was in Hell. As his hands inadvertently gripped tightly at her hips, Hawke withdrew suddenly. His green eyes flinched and quickly protested. His face, of course, was flushed; much altered. His frown of inconvenience was almost unbearable.
"Not enough?" Hawke asked playfully.
"No," Fenris said with an edge to his voice, not a chance to yield his scowl.
He drew her close again stubbornly and very fast with his assertive grasp, and she kissed him again, remarking through her laughter that he was a veritable furnace of passion. It didn't occur to her, or to him, that this was the first and most perfect positioning of their bodies they had woken up being in for the sole purpose of playing around with fire – featherlike on top of him, not crushing him with some tremendous weight, legs parted and encaging his hips, open way for him to press her down and grab her by that one of maddening round parts of her he desperately wanted to touch again, but didn't have the chance to since that one night a million years ago. This was the one thought that didn't seem to have arrived into their sanctum of reason.
Although something did arrive. Knocked. Never mind the ears she had previously licked some days ago in the carriage. There was another pointy part of Fenris going after her now.
"You're awfully ripe for a dead man," Hawke said with a grin, in-between a heated kiss.
"I prefer to die well-endowed," came Fenris's voice deep with arousal, then drew her back into his urgent hungry lips.
A few of those long minutes later…
"All I see is a fancy bed with a not-so-fancy half-dead elf growing roots to it," Varric muttered angrily as they opened the door.
"Oh this isn't over," Isabela said in annoyance.
"Would you stop bullshitting the bullshitter, Rivaini?" Varric sighed and walked away. "You're ruining my already ruined morning."
Isabela stretched her arms wide in frustration. "She was there! You gotta – "
"Who?" she heard Fenris ask hoarsely as he rose wearily from the bed, rubbing his eyes with the slowness of a dazed person.
The violent frown on Isabela's face was dangerously close to escorting it with an even more violent punch in his face. But frowning caused wrinkles. She didn't need that kind of trouble. This wasn't over. She walked away without so much as a proper "Mornin', dollface".