Content warning for discussion of canonical trauma, death, grief, and oppression, and for some medical descriptions.
This story is set at the end of 9:42 Dragon, after the main quest of DA:I. It started out as fluff and gradually morphed into something else. It's taken me a long time to figure out, but I didn't want to leave the story unfinished. I hope you enjoy it.
Many thanks to kadaransmuggler for beta reading! :)
Hawke was rummaging around in her son's old clothes when she found them.
"Now, how did you get here?" she murmured to herself, and was about to wedge them back between the toddler-sized hats and mittens when she stopped and realized what she was looking at.
She'd bought two pairs of ice skates last autumn on a whim, with some of the coins she'd earned helping to repair an old mill. She was holding one of the skates in her hands now. It was simply but sturdily crafted, attached to a leather sole and wrapped with matching leather ties that could be used to fasten it to a shoe. The metal blade glinted in the early morning light that was streaming through the window of the bedroom she shared with Fenris, intensified by the snowdrifts on the rooftops and the piles of ice-coated slush on the streets below.
Neither of them had found the time to use the skates in the past year. Hawke had left for Skyhold before the first frost, and Fenris had bundled their little one into his cloak and followed not long afterward. They had returned only a month ago with the unexpected additions of a baby and Fenris' mother. The transition had been stark, going from the crumbling halls of a mountain fortress to the rambling maze of streets in a borderlands town on the Waking Sea. Yet there was a similar hustle and bustle to life in both places, and a similar sense of hopeful uncertainty in the air in the wake of the new, tenuous peace.
Hawke gave the skates another curious inspection, the same way she had at the market stall. The clothes chest where she'd stashed them was clean and dry, and they were ready to be worn sometime, someday, whenever there was—
"Mummy, look!"
Marcus stumbled into the room with a pair of trousers flopping on his head and striped socks on his arms like gloves. He beamed and held out his hands to show off his work.
Not this morning, at least, Hawke decided, with a smile and an internal roll of her eyes. Which means not tomorrow morning, or the next.
"Very inventive," she said, and stashed the skates away before telling him to go dress himself properly for once, silly boy.
She forgot all about the skates for nearly a week.
The days passed in a steady stream, filled with odd jobs that took her up and down the coast, the endless rota of caring for two young children, and afternoons at the apothecary attached to the local clinic. Occasionally she was also sought out when healing magic was most urgently needed: a blistering fever, an unwanted pregnancy, an open wound or a bone that hadn't properly set. Publicly, she was still nothing more than the friendly human herbalist from Ferelden married to the mysterious elven blacksmith from Tevinter, but recently her role had begun to change. In past years, her neighbors would have come to her in secret to seek this type of help, yet nowadays some felt bold enough to knock on her front door in broad daylight or approach her in the street. Only a few months had passed since Leliana was elected as the new Divine, and the effects of her first edict were already being felt.
Late one evening, Hawke was called away to the scene of an emergency. Once her patient's broken leg was mended and they were safely installed in their bed, she made her way back home along the road that led into town. The glow of the crystal at the end of her staff was the only light aside from the stars and the gibbous moon. The newly fallen snow had cast the forest in silence. It made the crunch of Hawke's footfalls almost unnervingly loud.
An owl hooted in one of the trees that loomed over the sides of the road. She had a sudden urge to call out a reply. But should she use the Trade Tongue or owl-speak? What if she botched it and accidentally told the owl to piss off? You might say that would… ruffle some feathers.
Hawke felt very pleased with herself. She'd have to save that one to tell Fenris later.
As it was, her first concerns were getting warm again and resting her tired, magic-sapped body. She hurried down the road, toward the glimmer of oil lamps and the tall shadows of buildings. Footprints in the snow suggested she wasn't the only one out, even at this hour, when the taverns were closed and most of the town was asleep. A faint tune wafted over from a side street; up ahead, cart wheels creaked. As she passed an alleyway, Hawke heard murmurs and giggles amid the rustling of cloth. She took a left turn at the row of shops where dry goods were sold, a right turn at Fenris' favorite bakery, and another right turn at the bookshop that doubled as the school their son would be attending soon. The street curved like the arc of a brushstroke until it finally brought her to the other end of town, past the textile district to a row of modest craftworkers' homes. She stopped in front of the one that had trailing vines climbing up the front; they were dry and dull now, but in spring they would curl back into life and bloom with yellow flowers. The arched door was painted the glassy color of the sea on a calm summer day, mellowed and tinged with gold in the lamplight.
Hawke felt cheered at the sight of it. Like much of the town, the house had been built in a mixture of dwarven, Orlesian, and Fereldan styles common to this ambiguous and often-changing region between Orzammar and Jader. Stucco and timber and local stone, built to last. The little garden out front lay fallow under the snow, like the larger kitchen garden round the back. A single candle warmed a corner of the window in the overhanging room on the upper story.
"Hello, Bryn," she said, patting the fresco of a mabari on the wall. The dog was painted in a wash of charcoal blue with swirls of red around the haunches and bullish head, and yellow ocher for the watchful eyes that glowed in the reflected light. She turned the lock and fiddled with the door—it had become ever so slightly misaligned while they were away at Skyhold and now it kept getting stuck, the damned thing—kicked the slush off her boots, and stumbled into the dark interior of the house. The air was a bit stuffy and smokey, as usual for this time of year, but sweetened by bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters. Hawke stashed her medic bag and staff in the corner, pulled off her boots and scarf and cloak and dumped them around the bench with shoes crowded under it, paused to pick up one of Marcus' rag dolls and give it a comfortable seat on the other end of the bench, and headed up the stairs, careful to avoid the spots where the wood groaned loudly enough to wake people up.
She poked her head into the front bedroom.
"Fen, are you…?"
He was not. He lay sprawled on his stomach, with one arm tucked under his pillow and the other hanging off the side of the bed. He hadn't bothered to change out of his tunic and leggings, which made sense considering how drafty the room was. The thick soles of his feet were covered by a pair of wooly socks.
Fenris had said he would wait up for her, even as he'd let out an unconvincing yawn. He'd spent the day repairing a damaged axle at the forge and working on a set of cloak pins at the same table where they'd prepared dinner.
It's fine, love, there's really no need, she'd said on her way out.
He'd kissed her and leaned back against the wall. I want to. I have enough here to keep myself awake.
Hawke squatted down and picked up a string-bound folio from where it had fallen on the floor (The Rogue of Montsimmard, Chapter 17: The Mysterious Maze!, said the woodcut on the cover). This close, the slow rumble of Fenris' breath filled the silence. His eyelashes cast a soft shadow on his face in the candlelight. Less romantically, his mouth was completely slack and mashed into the pillow, where a dark puddle was spreading.
Hawke crossed to the other end of the room. While shelving the folio next to Chapter 16, which she'd been catching up on last night, she realized she was being watched.
"Hello there," she whispered, looking down into the cradle next to the bookshelf. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep, too?"
Carina stared back at her with a curious expression on her round face, framed by small-pointed ears and wispy curls. She made a little "o" with her mouth. Hawke mimicked her, then leaned over and hefted her out of an enormous nest of blankets that Fenris' mother, Lusia, had sewn together like a cocoon. Carina had fed just before a neighbor brought word of the accident, and Fenris must have changed her, judging by her clean diaper and lack of fussing. Nothing else seemed to be amiss. So Hawke paced the room, swaying gently, and hummed a lullaby until her finger slipped out of the baby's grasp.
As she held her daughter, Hawke wondered briefly about how late it was and how soon the sun would rise tomorrow. She'd have to get up before it anyhow. She thought back to the years she had spent unloading smuggled cargo in the hours before dawn, saltwater permeating her clothes and sticking to her skin. She thought of the later years of lazy mornings in a four-poster bed at the Amell estate, in a life so utterly different—before betrayal and war and a Fade-green sky—that there were times when it no longer felt like hers. More like it belonged to the woman in The Tale of the Champion, and the rumors, and the legend. It was harder still to connect herself with the girl who had waded through tall grass in the fields of Lothering and lain down, hidden and still, to watch the clouds drift through an endless sea of sky.
She thought about her mother, then, and wondered how she had felt at this age and how she would feel if she were with them today. To hear that the Circles of Magi had been disbanded and replaced by the College of Enchanters, and no more mothers would have to fear their children being stolen from them by the Templars. To see her daughter using healing magic on a broken leg, while being watched by neighbors who were nervous, but grateful. To know that her grandchildren would be the first to escape the cycle of heartbreak that her family had endured for far too long.
For a moment, Hawke let her own feelings well up to the surface. All the loneliness and pain. The regret, and the self-blame she had lived with since the day her family fled Lothering. She'd been trying to ignore the voices that found her in the Fade while she slept. Sometimes as desperate pleas, other times in accusation, disappointment, rage, despair, you failed to protect us, why did you let him kill me, I should never have—
All false.
Hawke squeezed her eyes shut. Tensed, relaxed, let out a sigh. She slowly opened her eyes again and focused on the earth-toned tapestry that decorated the wall.
Then she kissed the baby on the forehead and went to wash her face.
A few minutes later, the mattress gave way with a soft thump.
Fenris made a groggy sound and shifted onto his side. A thread of candle smoke wafted through the air.
"Time for bed, love," said Hawke, rubbing her bare arms. "Hurry up, I'm freezing."
He sat up and stared blankly at her, and then down at his lean legs stretched out in front of him. By the time she had burrowed under the covers, he had removed everything but his smallclothes and shoved it all onto the floor.
"So does this mean you haven't finished the chapter yet?" she asked.
"Would you care to hear what happened?" he replied, in a voice thick with sleep.
"How dare you," Hawke muttered. He was spooned against her back now and had wrapped an arm around her, enveloping her in warmth and the scent of his skin and slept-in linens and soap flecked with herbs. She covered his hand with hers, just under the uncomfortable weight of her breasts and above her soft belly patterned with stretch marks.
"Scoundrel," she added, when he didn't take the bait.
"Oh! You've got to hear this one. So while I was on my way back...
"...Fen?"
Come to think of it, he had probably still been in the Fade that whole time.
Fenris laughed awkwardly.
"I'm serious," said Hawke. "I found the skates I got for us last year, to replace those shoddy ones from before. Seeing as it's our day off, how about we test them out?" She gave him an expectant look while she laced up the front of her deep blue dress.
He coughed into his fist. "I had thought we might use our spare time to go for a walk."
"That's part of what I was thinking, too," Hawke replied. "We'd be going on a walk to get to the pond, after all. Same thing when we go back."
"Frozen solid and covered in bruises."
"And with an excuse for a long hot soak by the fire. Pretty rare, I'd say."
"Indeed," said Fenris, squinting at her through the collar of his undershirt. He pulled it on, settled it around his narrow hips, smoothed out the front. Eventually, a faint smile crossed his face.
"I recall it was…"
"Fun?"
He raised a dark eyebrow.
"All right, it was a bit ridiculous last time. But we did learn a new skill, sort of. Remember how we celebrated at the Clever Goose that night?"
"I do." He smirked. "I also remember the wine."
"Ha! It's a good thing we've got our own now."
They stuck to the ale on tap when they visited the nearby tavern these days. One sip of the wine there had caused them to make faces that had sent toddler-aged Marcus into peals of laughter. Fenris had pronounced it "a fine table vinegar." It was actually quite tasty when they dipped their bread into it.
"As long as we save time for other things, I would be interested," said Fenris.
"Other things, you say?"
"You'll have to find out."
"A surprise! I like the sound of that."
Hawke lifted a basket of knitting clutter off the trunk in the corner and dug around for the ice skates.
"These ones should be easier to move around in, at least," she said, over her shoulder. "Much better fitted to our feet."
While Fenris finished getting dressed, Hawke took the skates and placed them on the bedspread, then rearranged the mess of clothes in the trunk. She stood back up and stretched, and saw that Fenris was lifting Carina out of her cradle. The baby grabbed at his nose, which twitched slightly as he smiled. A blurp of spit-up ran down her chin.
"I will take that as a compliment on your breakfast," said Hawke, dabbing at the baby's face with a towel from the washstand. "Now let's go see whether your brother has gotten into the jam jar again. He doesn't always wait for the toast, does he?"
The main room was quiet enough to hear the faint click and hum of their neighbor's loom, and, from outside, the low hubbub of the town waking up to a cloudy sky and chill gusts of wind. On the wall opposite the staircase, a fire crackled in the hearth. Fenris crouched in front of it to place a few slices of bread next to the copper tea kettle on the grate.
"I wonder what's taking them so long?" said Hawke, over in the pantry. "They said they were only going to the morning market."
"Perhaps one of us should have gone instead," said Fenris. He glanced at the window. No point in that, of course; it was too fogged for them to see anything. The snow had begun to fall again after Hawke had arrived home last night. When Lusia and Marcus had stepped out the front door, their breath had billowed out in clouds.
"Mm. Your mother did insist," said Hawke, while carrying a stack of mismatched plates to the table by the front window.
Fenris nodded slowly. "I think she has plans for our extra coin from last week."
"Better than being cooped up in here, I suppose. Get some fresh air, stretch your legs, see the new town…" Hawke gathered up Carina from the threadbare rug near the fireplace and settled them on the broad, cushioned bench under the back window. The baby continued to gnaw on a soft toy that Lusia had sewn out of fabric scraps on the journey down the Frostbacks.
Fenris started folding laundry at the drying rack next to the fireplace, then paused to flip the toast over on the grate. When he stood again and stretched and rolled his well-muscled shoulders, the early sun lit up the multicolored embroidery on the collar of his dark wool tunic. It contrasted with the lyrium white of his hair, trimmed short one last time by Morris the quartermaster before they left Skyhold, in the style he'd grown to prefer. Easier than pulling it back to keep it out of a toddler's sticky grasp. And very flattering, in Hawke's opinion, which she'd shared with him once again when they woke up this morning—to which he, ever the romantic, had mumbled something unintelligible in her ear and drawn her closer for a kiss that landed on her chin instead of her mouth. Well, he'd quickly made up for it. More than made up for it, in fact.
As Hawke watched him neatly stack piles of clothes and set them in a wicker basket, each motion long-practiced from years of living together, she was reminded of a recent afternoon when he had wrapped his broadsword in a length of canvas, drawn up the hood of his cloak, and slipped out the back door while Lusia and the children were taking their siesta. Hawke had been about to join them when Fenris had drawn her aside at the stairs with a gentle touch on her arm.
"Are you planning to go out for more practice time soon?" she asked now. "With your sword, in the woods."
"On my next day off, yes," Fenris replied, without looking up. "More often, I think, once the snowfall is less frequent."
We can't stay here forever. The thought passed quickly through Hawke's mind, like the sudden flash of wings through the many branches of an old tree.
"I might take a turn myself," she said, patting Carina on the back, as if that would calm the slight churn of her stomach. "Don't want to lose those skills I learned from the other battlemages at Skyhold. It's going to be a bit tricky to stay inconspicuous with the lightning spells, though."
Who is to say that we can't? Why won't you let—
Carina let out a happy shriek and flung her toy onto the floor. Roughly cube-shaped as it was, the toy landed on an edge and rolled a few times until it stopped under a chair. So, the job of retrieving it fell to Fenris. Hawke made space for him on the bench, and he sat down facing them and swished the toy through the air until it landed in Carina's chubby hands. She waved it up and down with a toothless grin.
"I assume that means 'thank you,'" said Fenris, smiling back. "You are most welcome." He adjusted the knitted cap that Carina wore, his expression quietly satisfied in the way it so often was when he looked at their children.
Hawke kissed the bridge of his nose, then turned the cube over in Carina's hands, exclaiming at the different textures and trinkets sewn onto it. "Your nana is so clever. Look, this one is called velvet. Bonny Sims gave you a whole bolt of this when you were born. Do you remember her?"
The baby cooed and patted a shiny piece of metal fixed to the dense, smooth fabric. It was a lopsided circle of summerstone, its surface hammered into rippling scales.
"Can you guess who made that?" said Hawke, in a conspiratorial whisper.
Fenris ran a finger over the design. "I had meant it to be finer, in my head."
"Hmm. Isn't that the way of it? I really like this version, though. And it's certainly better than that hideous scarf I made." She'd been close to losing her mind with boredom while on bed rest at Skyhold. Plus one baby, minus a large amount of blood and the strength to stand. Oh, she'd laughed herself to tears with that scarf. The edges were as wobbly as a parade of drunken caterpillars.
She wasn't sure whether to be touched or completely mortified when Fenris wound it around his neck on cold mornings and tucked it inside his cloak.
"...and then she was crunching some twigs, so we stood there because Nana said don't move and I sneezed and she got startled, but she didn't run away, and she twitched her tail and…"
Hawke listened attentively as Marcus narrated the story of how they had encountered a deer on their way back from the mill, since their usual market vendor had run out of flour. She poured more hot water into the mugs of tea that she and Lusia were drinking from. The tea was the whole-leaf Seheron kind, from a jar that had traveled from a hidden marketplace to a tenement in Minrathous before crossing the length of Thedas in a canvas pack.
The rising steam carried the fresh scent of flowers, spiraling upward into the cold blue light from the window. Lusia nodded in thanks and caught Carina's hand before she could grab at the side of the mug. "No, no, Cari, don't touch that, it's hot."
A few silver and black strands came loose from the coiled braid that Hawke had done for her earlier, when Lusia's joints were frustratingly stiff from the cold. Healing magic had reduced the swelling, but they were still figuring out the best treatment plan. She had apologized for the effect of the pain on her temper, and Hawke had reassured her and adjusted the hot compresses on Lusia's hands before starting to ramble about how she'd cut and styled her siblings' hair in Lothering, with a few disaster stories that had sent both of them into fits of giggles.
Living with a mother again wasn't like… whatever she had hoped it might be, reflected Hawke, but things were going well enough. After everything they'd lost, and the years spent without peacetime in sight, even the most mundane things seemed less so. Hawke wasn't sure how many more of these mornings there would be. She tried not to ruin them by thinking on it too much.
"...and then she hopped away and poof!" Marcus flung his hands up. "All the snow fell down from the trees." He made little sprinkling gestures over his father's arm.
"You may well see her again soon," said Fenris, taking an apple wedge from the cutting board.
"Mm-hmm!" Marcus chomped into a slice of jam with a thin layer of toast.
Lusia settled the baby more securely in her lap. "I thought we might try out that cake recipe today, Marcus."
His eyes lit up. "Cake?"
"Close your mouth when you chew," said Hawke.
He gulped. "Are we going to make a whole cake?"
"Now there," said Lusia, with mock gravity, "is a question. Could we make half a cake, if we put our minds to it? Or does a cake always become a whole, even if you use only half an egg?"
Marcus stared at his plate with a thoughtful expression, mouthing "half an egg" to himself.
Lusia's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Would either of you like to help us?" she asked.
"We-e-e-ll, as a matter of fact…" said Hawke, glancing across the table at Fenris.
He glanced back, over his half-eaten toast. "We planned to take a few hours to go ice skating later on. If you would not mind looking after Carina," he added.
"Ice skating?" Marcus' eyes were about ready to pop out of his head now.
"It won't be any trouble," Lusia replied.
"Thank you," said Hawke, warmly.
"We'll teach you next year," said Fenris, anticipating his son's next question.
A knock on the door cut through the jumbled conversation. Three unsteady raps, two loud and one quieter, as if they had taken some effort to produce.
"I hope there hasn't been another accident," said Hawke. She put down her slice of toast and dusted off her fingers.
Fenris swung his legs over the bench before she could. "I'll go see who it is." As always, he checked the peephole before he unlatched the bolt. They'd had more than a few strange visitors over the years, and a few close calls.
This time, the open doorway was filled with a gust of winter air and a familiar figure, a creaking bulk silhouetted with the pommel and crossguard of a broadsword and a head of uncombed black curls.
"Uncle Carver?!"
He lifted an arm from his abdomen and gave a stiff but friendly wave to his gobsmacked nephew, followed by woozy greetings to Hawke and then Lusia, who he'd only heard about in letters. There was an alarming collection of dark stains splashed across the striped tabard and dented metal of his Grey Warden armor.
"Hey, good seeing you," said Carver, with an unfocused look at Fenris, who had gone mute with shock.
Then he promptly tipped forward and collapsed in a clanking heap.