To anyone who has been waiting on this second chapter for, um, three years: thank you for your patience, and I'm grateful that you're here for the rest of the story!
One long-ago morning, a few years after her family had arrived in Lothering, Hawke stumbled across some very interesting statues off the main forest path. She had been gathering firewood at the time, and would probably have overlooked the lichen-encrusted marble if she hadn't been scanning the ground so intently for twigs and dead branches and the early autumn flowers that her mother liked. She saw an arm, and a shoulder, and a face half-buried in the rich, dark soil. After brushing away the ferns and the leaf litter, she squatted down to take a closer look.
"They weren't anything like the statues in our local chantry, that was for sure. I'd had a pretty good study of them while I was pretending to listen to the Summerday service. Apparently it made us seem less like apostates if we showed our faces now and again." Hawke loosened the straps on one of Carver's greaves, carefully removed it, and handed it to Fenris so he could add it to the pile of armor in the corner, next to Carver's sword and traveling pack. There were such odd little dents all over it, just like on the other greave. Sort of like they had been made by… No, that couldn't be it.
Her brother was still unconscious, but his pulse and his breathing were steady. They wouldn't be able to help him further without removing his ridiculously complicated carapace first. Almost done.
"Do you know what the statues in the forest looked like, Marcus?"
Over at the table, Marcus shook his head and wrapped his arms around his knees, until he was rolled up like one of the pillbugs that lived under the paving stones in the garden. He had refused to go upstairs with his grandmother to help her calm his sister's crying, but there wasn't much he could do here, either. His parents had told him that this wasn't his responsibility, but he seemed to have a hard time accepting that. So he sat and guarded his uncle with a deep frown of concentration, as if to protect him by sheer force of will.
"They looked," said Hawke, with a grunt of effort as she pulled off Carver's left boot, "like your uncle here, if he'd been really—agh"—she pulled off the other boot—"really ancient."
Marcus wrinkled his nose.
"They didn't smell half like him either," she added, gingerly placing the muddy, slush-coated boots by the entryway. She took a handkerchief from her dress pocket and wiped her fingers. "I suppose one of the benefits of being a statue is that you never have to wash your socks."
"He's been camping for a while, I would wager," said Fenris. He positioned himself to hoist Carver up by his underarms, and nodded to Hawke, who took hold of his lower legs so they could lift him in unison and carry him to the folding cot they'd set up in the middle of the room. The wooden frame creaked faintly as they lowered him onto the canvas strung across it. As much as Hawke tended to see him in her mind's eye as the obstinate child he was back in Lothering, in reality Carver was still a Grey Warden who did quite a lot of fighting and traipsing around in heavy armor for a living and thus had shoulders the size of bread loaves, arms the size of several roast chickens, and a stomach that could fit all of those things in a single meal with room for more. On top of that, he had inherited what was, if their father was any indication, the full Hawke height.
She thought back to her childhood speculation over how exactly the Templars had managed to cram Father into a tiny cell back in Kirkwall, shuddered, and reminded herself that she was already in the midst of doing something else and needed to focus. Right. Elfroot poultice and bandages. Hawke went to get her first aid satchel from where she'd dropped it on the floor.
"Thanks, love," she said, when Fenris brought a three-legged stool over from the fireside. He touched her shoulder, then joined Marcus on the bench at the table while she settled herself next to Carver.
Hawke checked her brother's breathing—shallow but even—and took his pulse again, forefinger and middle finger pressed against the light olive skin of his wrist. He'd been camping for a while, she had no doubt of that, but he hadn't gotten much sun while he was out there. Which meant that either he hadn't gone far from this area, or he'd spent most of the time in full armor, or both. Another descent into Orzammar and the Deep Roads? Or maybe some other mission aboveground, trudging through the snow in search of red lyrium veins that crackled and hummed against the grey winter landscape.
The bloodstains on his armor seemed to have no connection with whatever was ailing him, thankfully. His patched shirt was soaked with sweat and his trousers were smudged with mud, but there were no obvious signs of injury. Which didn't preclude internal injuries, of course; that was the worrisome part. Once he was awake, he could tell them if anywhere was giving him some lingering trouble, but for now, Hawke rolled up his shirt to do a quick check for bruises on his abdomen. Oh. Those were… quite colorful.
She turned back to the others. "Seems as if he's taken a bump or two in the past few weeks. Some this morning, as well. I'll need to do a more thorough check."
"He may just need some time to rest," said Fenris to Marcus, stroking his hair reassuringly.
Marcus looked up at him with a doubtful expression.
Trying to quell her own worries, Hawke tucked a loose lock of hair into her long braid, pushed up her sleeves, and spread her hands so that they hovered an inch or two above Carver's stomach. "It's all right, little bee," she said, softening her tone like she would at any other time when Marcus was frightened. "I'm going to use my magic to make absolutely sure Uncle Carver is all right."
She felt the magic flowing through her before her hands began to glow. A slow surge of power, like threads unraveling from the Veil, twisting themselves through her veins and weaving a cloak of pale blue light when they escaped from her palms. She swept an arc up from Carver's navel to his shoulders and down his arms. The echoing pulse of blood filled her ears—burst capillaries, but no hemorrhaging, no clots—the loud gurgle of his stomach—he hasn't eaten this morning—the rise and fall of his lungs—no puncture, no collapse. Hawke wondered if this was what it had been like for Bethany when she and Carver shared their mother's womb. Although it was unlikely she would've encountered the specific problem that her older sister was picking up on now, which was that her brother was in desperate need of a drink of water.
"See?" The light faded from Hawke's palms, which she held up to Marcus. Carver's torso was an even color again, no swelling or sickly blotches of purple and chartreuse. She pulled his shirt down and fixed his collar, fighting the perennial urge to fuss over him, which he hated. "All done. And now I know just how you can help him. Could you please go get another cup and fill it with water from the kettle?"
Fenris didn't have to nudge their son into action; as soon as the words were out of Hawke's mouth, Marcus hopped down and ran to the cupboard, fetched a clean mug painted with a burgundy glaze, and climbed back onto the bench. He tried to lift the kettle by its rag-wrapped handle, but it was too heavy for him. Hawke felt a pang of guilt for not having thought of that. The last thing she wanted was to set unreasonable expectations for him, even in small moments like this.
"Here, little one." Fenris took hold of the handle, steadying Marcus' hands with his own. "One, two… three. There. Well done."
"How is he going to drink if he's sleeping?" asked Marcus, quite reasonably.
"As long as you don't splash it on my face," came a low croak from behind Hawke. Startled, she turned around. Carver had opened his eyes just a sliver.
"And here I thought we'd have time for the water to cool off," said Hawke, her joking tone tinged with relief. "Would you like a sip?"
Once he'd sat up on his elbows and taken a few much-too-large gulps of water, it turned out that he was also interested in investigating what became of his face when it had gotten a little too closely acquainted with the floor. He scrunched his nose. "What happened? Maker, this feels weird."
Oh, right, thought Hawke. That had been the other point of the story she was telling Marcus and Fenris.
"Do you remember those old statues I showed you and Bethany back in Lothering?"
Carver frowned at her in confusion. "Those great lumps of marble overgrown with weeds?"
Hawke gave Fenris a long-suffering look. Was that a trace of amusement on his face?
"What?" Carver scratched his beard. "Fine, we can talk about art if you like. I suppose they weren't half bad. Pretty interesting, actually. I felt sorry for them, stuck there in the dirt for Maker knows how long."
"I'm bringing them up now," she explained, fishing around for a jar of elfroot poultice, "because their noses were smashed to bits, and that is exactly what you looked like when you tipped over on our threshold not half an hour ago."
"Ah. That's good. Thought I'd been out for longer."
Hawke blinked. "You're taking this rather well." She heard a small thud and the patter of footfalls behind her. Turning to her left, she caught a flash of green tunic disappearing up the stairs.
Fenris was alone on the bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and gazing in the same direction as Hawke, one eyebrow raised. Marcus was up to something.
Carver scrunched his nose again. "Grey Wardens are used to getting bashed around."
"So I've heard," said Hawke, dabbing some of the poultice onto the bridge of his nose, "but you still deserve some time to rest, same as anyone else. You're as dried out as a barrel of cod. No wonder you fainted. How much snow were you able to melt into that water skin of yours in the past day or so?" she asked, gesturing with her chin at the pile of equipment in the corner.
"Ah, yeah, didn't have much time for that," said Carver, sheepishly. He didn't volunteer anything else. Interesting. Hawke decided to move on, for the moment at least.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
Carver grimaced. "Like my head's being pounded between two rocks."
Seeing as she was all out of magic at the moment, Hawke suggested dissolving a packet of herbs into his cup, an idea that he readily accepted. She kept digging through her medic bag while he drank.
"Would you like to take a look? Your nose is still a bit raw, but I tried to knit it back into its normal shape." She offered him a hand mirror, which he took, and confirmed that it was pretty much accurate.
In the meantime, Fenris retrieved a wooden bucket from the pantry, turned it over, and sat down on the other side of the cot. He folded himself back into a comfortable slouch and continued his observation, which Hawke guessed was partly because his work was done for now, and partly because this was a rare spot of interest in an otherwise humdrum week.
"So, Carver," said Hawke, stowing the mirror back in its usual side pocket, "now that we've gotten that all sorted, what brings you to us today? You don't normally drop in like this."
Fenris coughed. A smirk pulled at the corner of his lips.
Hawke opened her mouth to ask him what was so funny, then closed it when the realization hit her. Drop in. On his face. Right. "I didn't mean it like that," she muttered.
"Accidents happen," said Carver, with a feeble laugh. Were he and Fenris actually smiling at each other now? This was shaping up to be a very strange morning indeed.
While Fenris and Hawke were propping up Carver so that he could drink more easily, Marcus came barreling down the stairs. Hawke wondered if he had checked in on Lusia and Carina while he was up there. Earlier on, she'd been torn between her instincts to give first aid to her brother or to comfort her daughter when she burst into tears. Lusia seemed to understand this on a more intimate level than anyone else in the room. They'd shared a glance, worried but resolute on what they had to do.
"I see you've found him some friends," said Fenris, as his son piled a stuffed sheep and a pair of rag dolls sewn from scraps of multicolored plaid onto Carver's lap.
"They were my friends when I was sick at Skyhold. I asked them to be nice to you, Uncle Carver."
"You know, they're just what I needed," said Carver. "Thanks, Marcus. I'll be in good company."
"Where is the rest of your squad, anyhow?" asked Hawke, over Marcus' head as she gave him a reassuring hug.
"Few miles outside of town, heading back from the Deep Roads. We set up an encampment, but they've probably upped stakes by now. I'm meeting them back at the headquarters in Jader by the end of the week. Since we ended up so close by, I thought I'd come over for some proper food." He took another sip of water.
Fenris sat back slightly, regarding Carver with a bemused expression. "There's something you aren't telling us."
"Yes, you did show up with a rather interesting collection of bruises," Hawke commented. "I think I got them all, hope you don't mind that I took care of it before you woke up. I had to check there wasn't anything worse going on. Any injuries to your legs?"
Carver went a bit sheepish again. "It's fine. Thanks for that. I, uh… took a tumble. My legs aren't in the best shape, either."
"From Warden-y things? If it's not for little ones to hear…" Hawke took Marcus gently by the arm, ready to steer him upstairs. He wiggled in annoyance, refusing to budge.
"No, no," said Carver, with a sigh. He squeezed his eyes shut briefly, as if to will this all away. "Look, the snow covers everything this time of year. You can't tell what part of the ground is solid and what patch of it is nothing more than a crust of topsoil over a network of fennec dens. One moment, you're having a nice, quiet walk in the woods, and the next, your leg is stuck halfway down a tunnel and you've got a pack of angry beasts trying to gnaw it off."
Oh, dear. Hawke twisted her mouth to stifle a grin. So those were teeth marks on your armor!
"Then you're running away," Carver continued, with another sigh, "and you don't see the frozen ravine up ahead…"
Hawke winced. "Arse over tea kettle?" She made a spiraling gesture with her forefingers.
That actually managed to drain some of the embarrassment from Carver's face. "Heh. Clanking all the way down."
"And all the way back up again," said Fenris, raising an eyebrow. He looked simultaneously amused and sympathetic, which just about mirrored how Hawke was feeling about this whole silly muddle. "Your armor is in terrible shape," he added, blunt as ever. "I can take it to the forge and see about repairs, if you plan on staying."
Hawke concurred. "Two days' rest. Doctor's orders."
"We're baking a cake today," said Marcus, tugging at his uncle's sleeve. He didn't seem to have been paying attention to the story, despite his stubbornness about staying, but he had certainly picked up on its conclusion.
With the way things were going, Hawke wouldn't be surprised if they were to be sharing that cake with the Hero of Ferelden herself by the afternoon.
"Tch, and here I thought they were harmless little creatures," said Lusia, as she pulled a needle through the shirt she was mending. It belonged to Hawke, not Carver—that one was going straight into the wash. Specifically, the large wooden tubs at the laundry works down the street, where they took all their heavier clothes. They weren't due for another fortnight, but Lusia had been rather quick to seize an excuse for a chat with her new friend, Violette, a grandmother of twelve who had the upper body strength to rival any Grey Warden and a better array of gossip than a party full of idle young nobles.
In any case, until tomorrow morning Carver would have to make do with one of Fenris' loose nightshirts, which fit him rather snugly, and a wool blanket in Fereldan plaid. Trousers were more of an issue. For now, he'd just scrubbed off the mud and sat himself by the hearth to dry out, near where Lusia had settled with her sewing basket in the inglenook. The cast iron kettle was full again, warming to a boil over the crackling fire.
Carver wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders and shook his head. "Underneath all that fluff is a set of horrible needle teeth. Would've eaten me alive."
"All right, brother," said Hawke, shooting him a sardonic look from over at the table. She put her quill down and adjusted the baby, who was sitting in her lap and playing with the greenstone pendant around her neck.
"I'm just saying, there's a reason that a group of fennecs is called a tangle."
"Marcus has been begging us for a pet fennec lately," Fenris remarked, from the seat next to Hawke. He slid a wooden backgammon piece from the pointed end of one triangle to the base of another.
Across the game board, Marcus perked up.
"No, you may not," said Fenris, evenly.
Marcus pouted.
While the two of them debated whether it was possible to train a fennec in the same manner as a puppy, Hawke continued recording notes on this morning's events in her patient records.
…is able to stand unaided, although he tires quickly… has drunk half a pitcher of water in sips, will continue until the pitcher is empty… ate three slices of toast and is keen on lunchtime, perhaps because he's learned I won't be cooking it…
Hawke paused there, reasoning with herself that Carver must have had some faith in her ability not to ruin any ingredients she touched, since he trudged all this way without a guarantee about whose food he would get. Still, she left that last line as it was, rather than scratching it out. She shut the journal, locked it, and shifted Carina onto her hip.
"Up we go, wiggle-worm. Let's say hello to your uncle." She edged around the narrow space between the bench and the back wall with its diamond-pane windows.
Carver managed a smile. "She's grown a lot since I last saw her."
"That's babies for you. Turn away for a moment and she'll be walking already." Hawke pulled up the same three-legged stool that she had used earlier, a worn but sturdy old thing that had come from a secondhand shop off the main square, along with most of their other furniture. "Do you want to hold her?" she asked, once she and the baby were comfortably situated.
"Sure," said Carver, wiping his mouth after a sip of water. He seemed hesitant, but somewhat less so than when he'd shown up at Skyhold this past summer to see how they were doing. She'd practically had to coax him into holding Carina then, fragile and squishy as she was. To be fair, Carver had next to no experience with babies; Marcus hadn't met his uncle until he was well over a year of age, old enough to grab at his beard and his nose with no regard whatsoever for personal space.
"There we are," said Hawke, nestling the baby in her uncle's arms. She very much hoped that Carina wouldn't get the same idea as her older brother.
Carver tilted his head at his small niece, who seemed even smaller now. "Um... hello? I suppose you don't remember me."
She patted the blanket and babbled something that sounded friendly.
"That's a nice fabric, isn't it?" said Hawke.
"She sort of looks like Fenris," said Carver, tilting his head the other way. "I think it's the eyebrows."
The kettle shrieked, and Lusia got up to prepare another round of tea.
"We used to grow this variety on our farm in Seheron," she told Carver, as she dropped a few leaves into each of the five mugs that Fenris had set out for her. "You can't find it at any of the ordinary markets, not even in Minrathous. But I was hardly the only one from Seheron there, and you heard things."
"Sounds like us Fereldans back in Kirkwall," Carver observed. He made a valiant effort to keep Carina from climbing onto his shoulder, with Hawke swooping in for backup. "I still remember the day that somehow, despite all the madness, someone had managed to get a shipment of cheese in from Amaranthine. Best day I'd had since we left Lothering."
Hawke sighed. "Wheels and wheels of cheese."
"But why?" said Marcus, wretchedly, at a loud enough volume to cut through the conversation.
With a deliberate, measured patience, honed over several years of answering many different variations of that same one-word question, Fenris leaned forward and moved one of his backgammon pieces off the board. "Because," he replied, "a fennec is a wild animal, and they aren't—"
"Aagh!"
He was cut off by Carver's yelp of surprise as Carina fulfilled her short-term destiny when, at the very moment that her mother was distracted, she attempted to yank out his beard.
Hawke probably should have spent the siesta sleeping off the morning's efforts, but her magic felt more or less up to the level once she'd had some lunch, so she decided to stuff it and catch up on that chapter of The Rogue of Montsimmard.
Well, that had been her initial plan. She was woken up at some point by Fenris saying her name and gently shaking her shoulder.
"We should be going," he said, leaning down to kiss her. He was fully dressed already, his hair combed, his expression carrying that hint of determination she had always found so appealing. But determined about what, exactly?
Hawke sat up next to him and pulled her shift down from where it had gotten hiked up around her hips. "Hmm? Where…" She paused to stifle a yawn.
Fenris wordlessly held up the two pairs of skates.
"Oh! Are we still going?"
"You were keen on it this morning," he said, more than a bit puzzled.
"Yes, I suppose I just thought… well, I don't know what I thought," she concluded, with a shrug. "Easy to forget and push things aside."
Fenris stood and slung the skates over his shoulder. "That won't be happening this time." He held out his hand.
Hawke took it and stood upright, feeling a twinge of excitement. "No, it will not."
Downstairs, the rest of the household was preparing for their own main event of the day. Lusia was cracking a few eggs into a bowl on the side table in the pantry, neatly stacking their rosy-brown shells for the bucket of kitchen scraps. Carver had taken her spot in the inglenook so as to catch up on some earlier chapters of The Rogue. A haze of flour hung in the air over the main table, where Marcus was standing on a chair to mix together the dry ingredients for the cake. The table was spread with the rest of the preparations: a jar of butter, a pitcher of milk, a cast iron pot with a lid.
Hawke took this in while descending the stairs with the baby on her hip. When she had nearly reached the landing, she stopped and gripped the banister, frozen by an apparition at the table. The twins were baking for the Wintersend feast with Mother. Hawke watched her lightly chide them as they chased each other around, their floury hands extended in a game of tag.
Calmly, more slowly than she had ever moved while she was alive, Leandra put down the dough she was kneading and turned toward the stairs.
Riana. Where were you?
Hawke swallowed.
I don't know… I don't know.
The twins ran across the room, Bethany chasing, Carver fleeing, both cackling. The air around them hung still. Leandra didn't move. Her expression was as tender as it had been on that day nearly eight years ago when Hawke had moped around the breakfast table, slumping from the weight of a broken heart.
Hawke felt tears prickle at the corners of her eyes.
I'm sorry.
Without breaking her gaze, Leandra gently shook her head.
"Mummy? What's wrong?"
Marcus was staring up at Hawke from the same spot, paused at his task. His brow was furrowed with worry. She couldn't bear to see that.
"It's nothing, sweetheart," said Hawke, failing to convince either of them.
"You look really sad." Marcus climbed down from the chair and padded across the room. "Would you like a hug?"
"That would be lovely, thank you," said Hawke, around the lump in her throat. She met him at the bottom of the stairs, where he wrapped his little arms as far as they could reach around her and Carina and rested his head against her stomach.
A profound feeling of comfort and security began to wear away at the pain that had seized her chest, like seawater washing over a stretch of rough sand. Carver and Lusia watched with concern, as if they knew that something had gone wrong but they weren't sure what to say. Hawke wiped her eyes and gave them her best attempt at a reassuring smile.
The stairs creaked as Fenris descended them behind her, fumbling with the strap of the leather bag slung over his shoulder. About halfway down the stairs, his footfalls briefly stopped as he twigged the situation.
"There you are." Hawke glanced over her shoulder to greet him.
Fenris touched the small of her back. "Everything all right?" he asked, in a low voice. A faint crease appeared between his brows.
Hawke nodded, biting her lip. "Mm. Let's head out."
It was still snowing when they slipped out the front door. Last night's snowfall had been churned into slush in the street, crisscrossed with furrows made by the lumbering wheels of carriages and oxcarts and dappled with footprints in every direction. The new snow coated the old like powdered sugar on a highly questionable pastry. Passersby filled the air with blended chatter and drew their cloaks around them to keep out the chill. Smoke rose in billows from the chimneys, fading into a pastel blue sky that was heavy with clouds. More snow tonight, thought Hawke, as they made their way toward the west gate that led out into the forest.
After following the twisting path a short ways, they stepped off it and wove their way through the trees, boots crunching in the snow. The ice layered on the bare branches overhead gave off a crystalline glitter in the sun. Fallen branches snapped and the undergrowth rustled in the near distance as a pair of wild sheep picked their way in the opposite direction, their shaggy white and brown fur blending in with the surroundings.
"Shall we invite them along?" asked Fenris, watching them.
Hawke chuckled. She kissed his cheek—freezing!—and linked her arm through his. It would be easy to get lost here late at night. But in the daytime the forest was familiar, even peaceful, and here and there they passed the familiar signposts: straight past the flat-topped boulder, east at the ancient pine with the twisted trunk, continue on past the crumbling remnants of a fireplace covered in moss. They turned toward the path of the afternoon sun when they sighted a clearing with a copse of broad, spidery oak trees, the tallest one charred and split by a lightning strike two summers past.
"I wonder sometimes," said Fenris, as they climbed over a fallen log, "what might be lying beneath the ground here. If we dug a few feet we could find elven arches, sunken on top of the Deep Roads built by the dwarves that they met and traded with. Or perhaps some sign of the Orlesian invasion and retreat from Ferelden."
Hawke made a noise of agreement. "We could be walking over it right now. I hear there's a professor who's planning to do excavations of some sort in the Frostback Basin. Think we could convince him to come up here and take a gander?"
"I didn't know you were keeping an ear out for such things," Fenris replied, a note of intrigue in his voice.
"Eh, I asked Varric to fill me in when he writes. We had some good chats with the archaeologists who went out with us to the Western Approach."
The breeze picked up, catching at the hems of their cloaks and scattering snowflakes across their faces with an artless precision. Fenris blinked and shook his head.
"That will be us someday," mused Hawke, wiping the cold pinpricks from the bridge of her nose. The melted snow pooled on the surface of her gloves, kept out by a layer of beeswax she had worked into the coffee-colored leather. The merchant at Skyhold had driven a hard bargain, but it had been worth it for each of them to have a good pair of gloves for a change. Maker, but Josephine had been serious about giving them a hardship allowance for the whole Adamant debacle. Maybe I should get thrown into the Fade more often, Hawke thought, and immediately felt guilty and a little nauseous.
Fenris was giving her an odd look. "Who will we be?"
"Oh." Hawke blushed. "There I go, wandering off again."
She caught a flicker of a smile behind the hood of his cloak.
"I was just thinking that someday we'll become part of that hazy past, too. Faded beyond memory of who we really were. Nobody will know about this conversation, or this afternoon. Or how ridiculous we were when we tried to ice skate again."
"Is that such a bad thing?" Fenris replied, in a dry tone. "I'd rather our private lives stay private."
"Not disagreeing there. But don't you ever wish that we could leave something behind? A memento. Something to show that we were people, not just names in some overwrought book you can buy at the market. I mean, everyone in town only knows us as Marian and Verus, from the hometowns that we don't like to talk about. They'll know who we were, in a sense, but they won't connect it with whatever they've heard about Kirkwall or Skyhold. Everything will just be… lost."
Fenris said nothing, at first. Hawke let the silence hang between them; she could tell he was thinking.
"You saw her again," he said, finally. "Was it like the last time?"
"No, she was… more like herself."
"I'm… glad. I'm glad to hear that."
"All these years later, and I still don't know if it's her or my own mind," Hawke mused.
"You should talk about her more often, if you feel you can," said Fenris. "Maybe it would help. I can see that it's helped, with Bethany."
Hawke couldn't argue with that. "Oh, there's too many stories about her to keep them all to myself. I suppose there are more than a few about Mother, too."
"Like the time you two tricked the debt collectors by inviting them in for tea and a game of cards?"
"You like that story so much, why don't you tell it tonight?" teased Hawke.
The pond was within sight now, catching the afternoon light through the dense forest. It was more of a small lake, shaped like a careless spill that had been traced in a curve by a lazy finger. Eleri, who herded goats on the road to the north gate and had been one of their first friends in this town, had told them her grandmother's story about how the wide creek used to swerve in a bend around a stretch of land to the east. Over the years, the waters had worn down the earth and created an island, until the bend eventually silted up and disconnected. An oxbow lake, Eleri had called it, although it didn't have a proper name all to itself. Trees surrounded it on all sides, sliding down to the steep banks that would overflow with moss and long grass in the summer months. Lush foliage would cast reflections on the water's surface, and the undergrowth would teem with crickets in full song.
"Seems like we aren't the only ones who decided to make a day of it," Fenris commented. A few other groups were out already, skating thin trails across the ice. On this end of the pond, three human girls somewhere in their teens were having a cheerfully loud conversation in a mishmash of the distinctive local accent and one from farther west in Orlais. Farther away, a couple was skating towards the bend in the pond. They had their hoods up, and the taller of the two was leaning close so they could speak privately.
Hawke and Fenris made their way to a strip of beach, a slight incline strewn with pebbles and churned-up snow.
"By all indications, the ice should be pretty thick," said Hawke, "but I can give it a patch here and there if need be."
Fenris produced the skates from his shoulder bag and they tied the blades onto their boots, making sturdy knots with the wide strips of leather. Hawke wobbled ahead onto the ice, impatient and shaky as a newborn deer. She glanced over her shoulder at Fenris, who was considering the edge of the pond, feet planted firmly on the shore. At least, as firm as they could be with miniature stilts underneath. Whoever thought this was a good idea, all those centuries ago?
"Fen, look. Aren't I a fool?"
He crossed his arms, watching with skeptical interest as she minced around in a circle to face him.
"Come on!" She beckoned to him. "Don't tell me you've got cold feet."
His expression went flat. "Were you saving that one?"
"Was I… Oh." It hit her, and a horrible grin pulled at her face. Two missed puns in a single day, tsk tsk.
Fenris let out a huff of amusement and shook his head.
"Hmm! Twelve years on, and you still laugh at all my jokes. Truly, I am the luckiest woman in Thedas."
She wasn't sure how to read the look that he gave her then. The softness of his eyes, the twist of his mouth. It was so brief—he was stepping onto the ice now, head down to concentrate on his footing—and yet it held enough weight that Hawke was pretty sure she would plunge through the ice right now, if emotions were physical things that you could toss and grab and hold close to your chest.
Fenris slid onto the ice and took a few unsteady scrapes forward. He caught Hawke's hand and they made a halting track around the wide bend of the pond, past the trio of young friends. Hawke thought back to another day they had spent here, on a hot summer's afternoon before a storm: wading in up to their waists; holding on to Marcus and encouraging him to kick and splash just like Bryn, who paddled alongside and nudged him with his gray muzzle; wading back to the shallows to try and catch the slender minnows that darted away like quicksilver.
Those fish would be swimming beneath them now, invisible to their eyes. Snow was scattered across the glassy surface of the pond, and when Hawke looked down, the glimpses of translucent ice gave away only the suggestion of shapes in the dark waters below.
"Are you back at the clinic tomorrow?" asked Fenris, after a stretch of companionable silence.
"Fen! We're supposed to be taking our minds off those things."
"Just wondering."
"Well, yes, it's much the usual. I'll keep Carver and the little ones company during the morning, unless a job comes up at the last minute. Do they need you at the forge?"
"I can be home once I finish his armor and the horseshoes on back order."
Hawke raised her eyebrows. "Are you volunteering to spend time with Carver?"
"He is somewhat more tolerable these days." He gave her a sidelong glance. "Is that so shocking to hear?"
"Oh, no, I thought you two were quite civil earlier," Hawke replied. "It's just interesting to know that it wasn't my imagination."
They ducked under a low-hanging branch, spindly and bare but still more than capable of thwacking a couple of unsuspecting skaters. After briefly conferring, they decided to stumble-glide their way farther from the shore, arms extended from their sides in an attempt to stay balanced.
By now they had reached the midpoint of the pond, the place where the oxbow curved. The anonymous couple was making a turn around the far end of the pond, and another group was heading directly towards her and Fenris. Two women and a girl, all elves, holding hands so the child wouldn't lose her balance. Fenris recognized one of the women, the shorter one with the mulberry-colored cloak and dimpled smile, and stopped to say hello. After a friendly but slightly awkward round of pleasantries, she turned out to have a keen interest in how long it would take for that plow she had ordered to be made, and could she also have a few sets of horseshoes by the week before Wintersend?
"I believe you were just reminding me that this is our day off," said Fenris under his breath, once they had skated away.
Hawke rubbed his arm. "You're a popular man."
"Who would ever have thought," he replied. He glanced away from her, and his expression suddenly changed. "Is that…?"
"Hm?"
He tried his best to indicate the mystery couple without actually making any gestures that would give away that they were not, in fact, so mysterious anymore. At least, not to these regular patrons of the bookshop where one half of the couple happened to work.
"Is that Ada?" Hawke whispered. Fenris gave a subtle nod.
Now that they were facing this way, Hawke could make out the features of the dwarven woman who kept them regularly supplied with serial novels in which to marinate their exhausted brains. The man who was skating alongside her was harder to place: a human of middling height, good-looking in an unassuming way, with a glimpse of dark chestnut hair under the hood of his grey cloak. Despite all the curiosity that this stirred up, the fact remained that Ada was shy and would rather discuss the plot of a book than any details from her personal life, so Hawke and Fenris decided it was probably best to pretend as if they hadn't seen anything interesting and leave them be. Those icicle formations on the opposite bank had suddenly become fascinating and required a closer look.
As they approached, Hawke remembered something. "Fen, didn't you spend an evening playing cards with Carver and Cassandra and The Iron Bull at the Herald's Rest? I seem to recall you mentioning it when you crawled into bed later on."
Fenris thought for a moment. "That would have been the night you went off to practice your lute."
"Is that when you and Carver began to patch things up?"
"I had more of an intention to spend time with the other two, at the start," he admitted. "But your brother is a fair hand at Wicked Grace, I will give him that."
"I saw you four at your corner table," teased Hawke. "A bunch of big, tough warriors, chummy as anything on your third round of ale. You must miss that, Fen."
"It would be good to see them again." He was looking forward, pretending to inspect the waterfall of icicles, but the fondness in his expression came through even in profile.
"Well, we've got one out of three, at least. Could break out the cards tonight."
Hawke slid back toward the center of the pond and moved her skates side to side in an experimental zig-zag. She was about to ask Fenris to try it when she heard an ominous crackle beneath her feet.
Shit.
This was one of those times when it was handy to have a bit of ice magic up your sleeve.
"How long have you been planning this, exactly?" asked Hawke, stepping around the snow-covered undergrowth on what could charitably be called a hillside path. It followed the stream that used to feed into the pond, flowing down from the foothills of the Frostback Mountains and meandering out into a delta where all manner of interesting things washed up. The trees on this slope grew tall and dense, unaffected by the strong winds that warped the pines closer to the seashore.
Fenris glanced over his shoulder; the path was just wide enough for one person to pass at a time. "I came across this place not long before you left for Skyhold. I went out for training one afternoon," he explained, pausing to clamber over a large rock with a soft grunt of effort, "but for whatever reason I had trouble focusing. I thought it would be a welcome challenge to climb this hill instead. Careful, there's ice."
"Thanks for the warning," Hawke puffed, trying not to slip on the boulder. "So that's what this is about. A good hike. A bit of adventure to break up the monotony and keep us in shape."
"You'll see."
"All right, Ser Cryptic. I'll ask you no further. Lead the way."
After a brief stop to rest, they made it to the top of the hill. It was a small plateau covered in hardy plants and a rock formation that was just wide enough to serve as a perch, beneath a broad oak tree painted with snow. Fenris brushed the rocks clean so they could sit. Hawke sighed in relief—her legs were burning worse than the pot of lentils she had tried to cook for lunch yesterday—and settled herself next to him.
She stared straight ahead.
"Oh, Maker."
You could see the entire coast from up here. The foothills rolled out below them, forests brushing up against fallow fields and clearings where wisps of smoke rose from chimneys. Hawke followed the snaking lines of the roads that led into town—she felt a burst of happy recognition at the sight of that motley jumble of buildings, so small from this distance and yet so grand—and the creek that widened and flowed into the ice-rimmed shelf of the Waking Sea. The dark blue-green of its waters stretched beyond the horizon, vast and deep.
Hawke felt Fenris lace his fingers through hers. She reached across to brush aside his hood.
"It's beautiful," she murmured in his ear.
"I wanted to bring you here as soon as I found it," he said, and kissed her.
Jader lay farther up this coast, to the west, with Cumberland on the opposite shore. To the east of it, a traveler would encounter the dense mysteries of the Planasene Forest and the arid canyons that cut through the Vimmark Mountains. And beyond that, Kirkwall.
They sat quietly and watched the waves ebb and flow against the shore. The mid-afternoon tide was coming back in, covering up the beach their family had visited when they first arrived here, disoriented and exhausted and hopeful. Such a familiar place now, the site of birthday picnics and reunions with an old friend who captained a pirate ship.
Somehow it was comforting to Hawke to catch sight of the rock pools and imagine all the creatures that lived within them, thriving and stubbornly persisting in the face of the relentless surf. The crabs and the starfish clung to the rocks, the little fish rode the flow, the strange and beautiful sea slugs felt their way into crevices and filled them with shocks of color, spots and stripes and wavy skirts. So, too, the creek and the pond. Beneath the ice, the minnows and the hibernating turtles would be dreaming of a sunny spring.
Hawke took a deep breath through her nose, held it, and exhaled through her mouth. A cloud of steam was carried away on the wind and vanished.
"We might have to leave here someday," she said. She turned to look at Fenris, and squeezed his hand. His moss-green eyes were calm; she didn't have to clarify what she meant.
"Perhaps," he replied, reaching over to tuck a lock of hair behind the round shell of her ear. "But not yet."
The air smelled of pine needles and saltwater and kelp. The rough texture of the rock pressed against her legs through the folds of her cloak, and the snow gave a pliant crunch when she shifted her feet. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes.
Not yet.
Not this day, or the next.
The entire house smelled like cake.
"You showed up at the right time," said Lusia to Carver, who was working on his second slice. "Come tomorrow, we'll only have crumbs to show for this." They had cut the round cake into wedges that were golden-brown with spices, mixed with plump raisins, chopped walnuts, and vibrant speckles of orange and red. In-between bites of cake, Lusia watched the others with contentment and a hint of pride.
Hawke licked her thumb and wiped a smudge of honey glaze from Marcus' cheek. "I would never have thought that you could make a cake with carrots, but honestly, this is fantastic. Where did you learn the recipe?"
A sly expression crept across Lusia's face. "At the laundry works last week, when I complained that our root cellar contained nothing but carrots."
"Don't tell me you're already sick of winter stew," Hawke replied, with feigned shock.
"Onions are sweet," mused Fenris. He turned to Marcus. "Do you think they could go in a cake?"
Hawke glanced over at the empty staircase, then down at Carina, warm and soft and nestled against her shoulder, fast asleep. This had certainly been a day full of surprises. Carina wouldn't remember a thing, of course, only what they told her someday, if they thought it worth the telling. But wouldn't the life that she lived be the product of all the days like this one? Did that count as a kind of memory, in and of itself?
"I guess there's only one way to find out," said Hawke, quietly. She listened to the others talk about the evening plans, and, through a clear patch in the fogged window glass, she watched the snow begin to drift down again from the sky.
Thanks for reading! :)