Lots more to happen in this "vacation" so apologies for the shorter chapter but a certain break down should be made and I'm pretty swamped with university and so much to think and write on these future chapters. But here's the first bit. Hope you enjoy. Let me know if you want to see something specific in Orlais.

Since this is my take on Act 2 Questioning Beliefs there's a lo-hot of heavy stuff I need to shape into the conversation and I'm finding it difficult to think up the fun bits sometimes. I found it very disappointing that in the game this conversation, while very insightful on Fenris' part, had no real take on what Fenris had experienced before the story he tells, as well as the fact that Hawke never tells her story. You don't get a character like that without a larger story than "they grew up on a farm". Anyway, no more spoilers, just rambling my rationale. Let me know what you think.

Also, apologies for my bad French.

By the time they arrived in Val Chevin, Fenris was ready to murder somebody. It was perhaps four or five in the morning. He couldn't close an eye for the whole trip. They had made conversation, but nothing too deep. She seemed really tense. There was a tremendous habitual forcefulness in the way she handled the horses. The landscape started to change gradually. Higher, richer trees arose and there was a different smell to it. Yet the sea always remained to his left and so did the moon, which was like an eye smiling to him while its white beams cleaved the sparkling sea.

Soon enough the sea did disappear, and the earth had ceased to exist and became buildings. He looked out at the cosy Orlesian landscape in the dark, the vines covering the shops and houses, the gleaming lampposts melting into the grass. They were getting into the city proper.

"Are you tired?" Hawke broke the eerie silence. "Do you want to stay here?"

They were lumbering along what Fenris made to be Rue de Châtaignes, moving in that silent unreal way carriages do at night time, like they were tunneling unseen through the outside world.

"The nearest thing with a bed, please," he said in the most destroyed voice ever. They were in those narrow little streets of row houses, heading towards the heart of the old town.

She pulled the horses at a stop in front of a rococo style building with florid, graceful windows and an ornate, lightly-coloured façade, though which colour it was he could not make up in the dark. Perhaps light blue or green. The sign said: Château du Paon. That sounded like peacock, he thought. They were in Orlais alright.

When they went into the office of the chateau, she spoke Orlesian as if she had known it all her life. But she was trembling so badly she could hardly hold the pen.

"What's wrong?" Fenris stepped in.

"Only one room left," Hawke said in a weakened voice.

"Take it," he said firmly and moved her hand to sign. "The floor will be just fine for you."

"Oh, is that my penance," she said nonchalantly. She signed her name Dame Camile Simmonet. Good thinking. "Second floor, balcony entrance. Through the inner courtyard."

The white flagstones were ornate and the garden was a thicket of enormous, wet, gleaming apricot trees and pink lilies and red climbing roses crawling the walls with a few lanterns here and there in the shape of peacocks. There was a fountain nymph covered in irises and pink and white roses and the water chocked with petals. Fenris swore it could not get more Orlesian than that.

And then it started to rain. Great.

She was shaking even worse when they got to the door. Fenris stopped her on the balcony and wrapped his arms around her waist for a moment, the rain pelting the roof above them, the little yard a kind of nocturnal symphony of water sounds with the rain on the tree leaves and petals and on the plants.

She didn't utter one word, but her tremor had steadied.

"I'll be more thankful in the morning, Hawke," he said in a low voice, his touch already gone.

The room looked like an army of gay swans exploded into it. The walls were a rich blue and violet, with little white ornamental veins searing through it. The windows were shaped in all sorts of curves and curls with fancy lace curtains. There was a dark burgundy armchair with the complementary ottoman, and two white high-backed rocking chairs on the edges of a rich rug with bird motifs. He was sure there was a peacock in it, but his eyes faltered and couldn't care less.

He fell straight on the matching dark burgundy sheets, then got under them. A few minutes later one item of clothing at a time kept falling and piling up next to the bed. She watched him from the armchair, fighting off the need to fall asleep, her eyes opening ever so slightly now and then just to make sure he was there.

After ten minutes the snoring made a clear, prolonged sign that he was indeed there. She put her feet up on the ottoman and fell into the soft darkness right before the Fade pulled her in.

Fenris woke up very abruptly six hours later. He didn't want to be asleep anymore no matter how tired he was.

And surely only after he got up from the bed did he remember he was in bloody Orlais.

Hawke was sleeping in the armchair, not crawled up in it but in the same position as one might have been in while awake. He walked towards the window, his eyes used to the dark, and, with reluctance, opened the curtains. The gardens certainly looked less intolerably flamboyant by night. But he realised he didn't know how long he was going to stay here. He couldn't think about going back to Kirkwall.

He took off towards her but stopped himself, put his arm around one of the pillars of the bed and just studied her, letting the lust come up. Her lipstick was a little smeared and her undershirt was open slightly and she had taken off her boots so that she looked sort of fragile.

And when the lashes came up and the pretty eyes broke open he felt that lustful instinct double, triple, until it was molten lava.

"Ah, so I did not dream it," she said, as she put her hand at the back of her neck.

"No," he said in a monotone voice.

She sat up with her arms around her knees watching him. "So the cosy bed did not take away your anger with me," she said with a defeated smile. "Perhaps because I was not in it." She winked.

So here they were and there weren't any Varrics or Anders or Viscounts or Guards or Templars or Qunari and just the two of them in that room.

But what did she want? And what did he want? That he tear her clothes off? That he act out some little tableau of revenge for all the things she'd done to him?

He wanted to say something, but there weren't any words. It was that baffling desire he'd had before to confide something to her. He thought he wanted to invade her, but not with meanness, not with cruelty, not with violence, not with strength, but with something else, more vital and more important and private than that.

He made some sort of uncertain movement towards her. And right then he could feel her heat from feet away, see it dancing under her skin, and her pupils were kind of dancing in the same way as she looked at him.

"I'm hungry. Let's eat," she said suddenly.

A wire snapped and ripped at him as if it turned him inside out. He swallowed it back in and said: "Good idea." Horrible idea.

"So, where are we going?" she asked.

The question surprised him. Wasn't she going to tell him?

"Well, we can get something downstairs."

She gave a little nod of approval and smiled uncertainly, very pretty smile while it lasted.

Downstairs it was packed with people. Dame "Simmonet" insisted for a table in the garden where they sat under dozens of turquoise umbrellas. They had oysters and brie and what the waiter said to Fenris was "flan". He looked at it as if he was inspecting it for traps. She choked on her own flan from laughter. "There. I smelled danger. I'm never wrong about these things," he said with a faint glimpse of amusement.

"Fenris, eat your damn flan," she said.

The smell of after-rain was exquisite and the birds chirruping and the bright colours and the fountain sprinkling with petals went to his senses like nothing before. The garden was wet and more lush and fragrant than it had been in the dark and all the windows of the servants' quarters were open and she was sitting there buttering her bread.

"You said you lived in Orlais for a time. When was that?" he asked, drinking the coffee as fast as she did, and devouring the flan. He sounded natural, like they were just a couple on a date.

"Oh, it must have been ten, maybe eleven years ago when I was wee. But we lived on the other side of the sea," she said, pointing towards the south. "In Mont-de-Glace, little town near Jader."

"Ah, so right at the border with Ferelden," he said.

"Little further away, but yeah, pretty much," she said. "Been around Halamshiral too, but just the small towns. We couldn't afford it."

"To get caught," he said.

"No, we literally couldn't afford it," she laughed.

"Of course," he said apologetically. "It comes with the predicament."

She nodded approvingly. They couldn't speak plainly with so many ears around.

"Is it this rich and bright and green everywhere?"

"Environmentally," she articulated.

He gulped the last piece of flan. "I don't see why one would want to leave then."

She shrugged. "Patriotic reasons?"

"Hawkes are very patriotic," he said, more as a comment to himself. All the loud drunken singing on Independence Day came blasting back like a monstrous gong in his brain.

"So you're glad… that we're… that we came here?"

She was softening all over, her manner changing. Her cheeks were just a little flushed. What was with this awkward, submissive little woman on the other side of the table? Then he thought in Kirkwall she was always aware of people watching her, probably more so than a fugitive slave would be. Now she just got lost in what she was saying.

"I don't hate it," he said.

Soon enough they were strolling down Boulevard des Lucioles in a perfect morning breeze and Val Chevin was warm and beautiful and magnificent beyond all imagining. Fenris stared at the towering rococo mansions, the ancient winding streets aswarm with beggars, peddlers, lords and ladies, houses of four or five stories banking the crowded boulevard. Carriages bullied their way over, each one more striking and colourful than the other. The gentlemen wore all manner of satins and stockings, with pastel slippers and golden walking sticks, and at their arms were ladies wearing striking corset dresses falling over their hips like gleaming umbrellas. You could tell the locals from the tourists. The Orlesians wore masks. Such was the Orlesian way, Hawke said.

"I can't tell you the exact why's and how's. They call it the 'The Game'. It's beyond me."

"Does the game ever end?" Fenris said, as two women giggled past him.

She laughed passionately. "Only in genocide."

It took a few seconds for her to realise he wasn't beside her anymore. She turned around to see Fenris beckoning to her.

"You should change."

"Beg your pardon?"

There was a seriousness to his face. Which wasn't saying much. His mouth gave a little twist and his eyes moved away. "From my raw observations insofar I believe that you look…" (one of her eyebrows sprang in attack) "…alien here."

"Tourists tend to have that look to them," she said sarcastically.

"Do not make me spell this out for you." Uncomfortable, defensive eyes. "It could only come out as insensitive."

Her eyebrows rose. "Are you saying I should dress more womanly?"

"I alone attract attention enough. It's for our own safety, you understand."

A cavern full of dragons was more hospitable than the look she gave him.

"I understand that you're a bit of a sexist prick, is what I understand. Aveline, Knight of Orlais alone is a national treasure. There are plenty of goddamn armoured women here."

"Oh, are there?" Fenris said in a crisp tone. He crossed his arms and looked at the streets. "Why don't you show them to me?"

"They're obviously working," she said.

"Exactly. You're just having a dander."

She stared molten black death into his eyes for a good few seconds before she growled and went into the shop in front of which he had stopped. "Fine, but you don't get to decide what I wear."

"What heaven you deprive me of," he said sarcastically as he followed her inside.

20 minutes later

"More champagne for monsieur?" the young male owner said to Fenris in a chair perhaps twice as expensive as his own house. His face was melting in his hand.

As Hawke came out of the dressing room the fourteenth time wearing yet another ridiculous dress, a yellow one made out entirely of feathers, she said: "Oh, I love this one. It really brings out my eyes."

Not one muscle moved on Fenris' murderous face. "Bring the whole bottle, Édouard." He was not going to take her revenge sober.

The man snickered. "Oui, monsieur."

She came out again wearing an avant-garde dress (meaning it looked as if a child had maniacally cut out through a curtain). "Now this one! Bold, but still rather classy, don't you think?"

Fenris did not even look up. "Smashing. Take it," his voice muffled through the hand over his face.

He dozed off, surely, because the next time he managed to open his eyes she was wearing a decent and… beautiful knee-high white lace dress with a black velvet girdle that really tightened her waist and brought out her chest, and the layer of white underneath the lace had a black stripe at thigh level, so that the flowery lace on top looked sort of dilute and artfully delicate. Over it was a see-through white cardigan all the way to her feet that was brought together only at the waist in a little red thread bow. Real nice hourglass figure. She wore matching gloves and these little black shoes with small heels and a thin belt around the ankle. She had a small little white hat. She also brought her hair together loosely in a navy blue bow. It was a youthful hairdo, with the long wavy tail resting over her shoulder and strands of red hair still falling plentifully around her head.

"Off we go?" she said. "And close your mouth. We don't want to attract attention."

He closed his mouth. "Where's Édouard?"

"Off to the chateau to deliver the other things I bought," she said. "His assistant's still here, so we can go."

"They do that?" he said.

She grinned. "No."

By noon they were in a vast city square, full of majestic statues of olden chevaliers, climbing roses around them of all colours, and a million fountains in all shapes imaginable. There was a fair in the area. There was always a fair in the area, with food stands and tea shops and puppet shows and a myriad of people exchanging positions on the white flagstones to the music of harps. The lampposts here were all white with red and blue shields and virgin motifs. Orlesian flags hung everywhere above. Fenris could swear the city had hired people to hide in every bush and tree vigorously shaking them every two minutes so that petals flew everywhere they went.

As they walked on, another few women gave Fenris little giggles and smiles. He rubbed his cheek.

"What are you doing?" Hawke laughed.

"Clearly something amuses people. I thought I had flan on my face."

She snickered. "They have eyes, Fenris. Care to purchase such organs?"

A wild frown came on his face. "I've forgotten that elves are poor and ragged no matter the country."

"You can't be that stupid," Hawke said as she stopped and faced him. He stopped as well and scowled at her. He looked like he was ready to tear her a new one. "You're an incredibly handsome man. The amusement you see is actually flirtation."

The bloodcurdling scowl was still there and she cursed herself for saying anything. He bent his arm and gave his elbow to her.

"Then perhaps I should make it clear that they have no chance."

Her eyes doubled in size. She was really on thin ice. She wasn't trembling so it could be seen, but he could see it.

He made a sudden movement, as if he had lost his patience and with one hand took her face and planted a small kiss on her lips. He wrapped his other arm along the back of her waist and with his tender lips still feeding off hers, she felt as if the blood inside her was swallowed up, as if its warmth had never existed until now.

As their lips parted, she sort of wobbled so that he kept his arm around her for balance.

"You know everyone thinks I'm some noblewoman kissing her servant in public to piss off her husband, right?"

He gave a little grin and brought out his elbow up again. "Then what I plan to do with you later should infuriate him."

Her eyebrows came together. "Will it infuriate me?" she said, as she took him by the arm and started walking again.

"Only if you have weak legs," Fenris said calmly. "But I'm certain you can take it."

Their first stop was terribly predictable. Le Musée Historique des Armes et des Armures. It housed so many items all the way to ancient times. It even had Alamari regalia. They were really taken with it. Fenris talked more over than span of an hour than he had done in a whole year.

Soon they found themselves strolling aimlessly on narrow little streets. Fenris noticed that Hawke was becoming cranky, so he suggested they should eat. They were in a restaurant before he knew it. Good guess.

They barely sat down when a young man with the blondest hair Fenris had ever seen came to them. He looked like a newborn chick holding a pad and pen.

"Bonjour. Qu'est-ce que vous voulez commander? Voulez-vous une entrée?"

"Hm. Non, merci. Qu'est ce que vous recommandez?" Hawke said.

"Le spécial du jour est gigot d'agneau pleureur, mais je recommande personnellement le canard à l'orange. C'est vraiment magnifique."

"Très bien. Et du vin rouge, s'il vous plaît."

"Oui, assurément. Merci."

During the conversation, Fenris felt like he was dreaming. Truly nothing he had seen or experienced before, or at least not as a free man. The beautiful piazzas, the multistory walls of rounded windows and bowed terraces. And the restaurant was no less enticing, with its lower walls of bright blue and its pastel golden arches artfully painted with twining white flowers. And hearing her speak Orlesian was weirdly alluring. She looked beautiful as morning, he thought. But then he realised the waiter had gone and she didn't ask him what he wanted and he had barely understood anything.

He gave her a look.

"What?"

"We're having… oranges?"

She laughed. "Yes."

That duck was goddamn good. He had never had duck before, or orange sauce for that matter. Fenris wondered if Orlesians invented food by accident.

"I need to find out the recipe for this," he said.

"No need. I can make it for you."

Fenris laughed. "You?"

"Just because I don't like engaging in luxury, doesn't mean I can't cook," she said.

"Yes, you are more of a 'slap three kinds of meats between two buns and call it a sandwich' kind of woman."

She stopped in the middle of chewing. "Well excuse your fancy Tevinter ass. Fereldens don't put grass in their sandwiches. That's for our pigs and cows."

For some reason he found that muffled duck-stuffed voice with an attitude weirdly endearing.

"What about cheese then?" he asked grumpily.

"That's for when we run out of meat," she said.

He sniggered. "Still, it doesn't hurt to have a mother cook you nice dinners when you get home."

"Yeah." She rolled her eyes and chewed. "She can't wait for me to get out of the house."

He frowned. "She wants you to take a husband?"

"She's thrown that subtle suggestion on the table more than once."

O… kay. He said nothing for a few seconds. "It is your choice," he said, cutting another piece of duck.

"She's been disappointed with all my choices." Her mouth tweaked bitterly. "What's one more?"

"I don't believe that," Fenris said.

"Oh, she's kept this little detail quite well hidden," she said and drank.

He still didn't agree but she was sober and opening up to him so he had better keep his mouth shut, he thought.

"How so?" he simply said.

She looked out the window. "Bethany's dead. Carver's as good as dead. She's stuck with me."

There was great animosity in her tone, an animosity towards herself. He had noticed a difficult relationship between Hawke and her mother, certainly, but he had always thought it normal. Varric didn't have a stellar relationship with his mother either. Or the rest of his family for that matter. Plus, Fenris lived in those noble quarters near the Chantry. If he didn't hear any more mother-child bickering it would be twenty million years too soon.

He shook his head. "What have you done the last few years other than care for her and raise a fortune?"

She smiled bitterly. "That was me paying my dues."

"You think that?" he said.

"Fenris, she would rather mother you and Anders than me. What does that tell you?"

He looked up at her. "Has it ever crossed your mind that perhaps she does that because, unlike you, Anders and I never had a mother?"

She closed her mouth and stared at the glass in her hand. Indeed, she said nothing for a while.

When the waiter came back with the bill, she went for her pouch, but Fenris put his hand over hers and shook his head. She shut up about that too.

"How much?"

"One sovereign."

His eyes doubled in size. "Was there gold in that orange sauce?"

She laughed. "For all we know, the duck could have been blessed by the Empress herself."

"The duck was quite magnificent," he said ponderingly.

"Oui, oui, je te l'avais bien dit (I told you so)", the waiter said.

As Fenris paid up, he said, "How do I thank him for his service in Orlesian?"

She smiled. "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir."

Rue de la Rivière, 5 P.M.

Hawke couldn't stop snickering.

"It's not funny. He could show up at our door tonight," Fenris said curtly.

She kept laughing uncontrollably. "Don't worry, I'll be at the bar downstairs."

They sat on a bench near the river. "How kind," he said sarcastically.

"It was a little arousing, if you ask me."

"You've been hanging around gay men too much."

She scoffed. "As if you wouldn't love the sight of two women showing more than friendly affection to one another."

He put his arm along the top of the bench with a thoughtful expression. "No, I don't think I would."

"Liar!" she cried. "All men love that. They pay just to watch!"

He smiled and shook his head. "You've been hanging around brothels too much, too."

It felt so good after a nice meal to sit on the bench at the riverfront, merely watching the glitter of the water and the dancing boats, strung with little lights like big wedding cakes under the pink twilight.

"Brothels have interesting people. They're good conversation."

He scuffed. "Is that everything they're good for?"

"They also serve nice food."

He thought about it. "That explains Antiva, I suppose."

"Which reminds me— Antiva City or Val Chevin?" She turned over like a child might do, and grabbed the back of the bench to look at the river.

He turned a bit too and followed the lavish scenery. "What a tough choice," he said. "Killing blood mages or eating ducks made out of gold."

"I meant touristically."

"That's what I meant, too."

She laughed. "You really needed this vacation."

He looked down and laughed too. Then he looked up at her. "I must say this is the cosiest abduction I've ever experienced."

"Yeah, I'd say. Last time you were crucified to a damn wall with a broadsword to your throat. The worst you can do here is drown in too many pillows."

At once his face turned pale.

At once her throat petrified.

"How did you know that?"

Her eyes tripled in size with panic. She tried to speak in vain as a mute might do. Families cheerfully passed them by on the street.

"I never mentioned that detail to you," he said. He was tenser than a fat lady's corset.

She was mute still and her legs filled with hot blood. She was ready to run alright. After all, how do you tell a man—who was a former slave, is courting you, has serious trust issues with mages and who you arguably kidnapped into a vacation in Orlais— that sometimes you woke up inside his head? Theremustbe a deal-breaker at some point.

She couldn't think. She sat up and walked. He couldn't tackle her in public. But that didn't stop him from grabbing her elbow way too hard and forcing her to face him.

"Who are you?" he said curtly. White-hot panic. Anger. Terribly frightening face.

She opened her mouth. She was really on edge. Nothing came out. She looked desolated, tortured, afraid he would hit her.

"What is your problem, Sir!" a voice of a man came. Another two men grabbed Fenris away from her.

"Est-ce qu'il vous a fait du mal, madame?" one of them said.

She shook her head painfully and spoke in trade tongue: "No, i-it's nothing."

"It seemed like it was something from where we were standing, madam," the other one said.

Fenris freed himself rather lazily and with not one emotion designing his face, he said: "She's carrying my child. She would have me transferred. I got angry."

If she wasn't scared to death she would have applauded his act.

"If she's with child, you do not lay hands on her!" one of them said.

"Gentlemen, please," Hawke said in a weak voice. "He wasn't hurting me. I was just cowardly and walked away. Truly, if I was threatened, I would scream."

"We get that a lot," another one said. "Not one of them screams. They'd rather die than let the world know their shame."

"Well that's just stupid," she said without thinking. "Er- I mean, oh look at the time, my husband will be back from his conference any minute. We should go. Thank you for your concern. Goodbye now."

As they reluctantly walked away, Hawke exhaled and fell back on the bench. "Let's get back to our room. I will explain."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Fenris said.

"Please," she cried. "It's not like that. I promise you. I'll tell you as soon as we get back."

He walked towards her and lowered himself so that his threateningly apathetic gaze fixed on her barely inches away. "You will tell me now."

She stared back at him. "I may vomit."