Wolf and Hawk
Chapter two
Covering the span of the three years between Act I and II of Dragon Age II.
-…-…-…-
The fire crackled quietly at the mantel, casting long shadows on the ruined floor. The warm red shine reflected in the smooth, hand-polished wood of a lute, lighting up the dark shade of its grain, glistening softly on its slick surface. One string was broken.
A spacious, low-ceilinged room was lit only by the whispering flames; Hightown was slowly falling into slumber, and the hustle on the streets was gradually shifting downwards into the lower, darker districts. No more light was seeping through the drawn curtains. What was left of the round tiles on the floor was burnt and blackened; the effect of the Tempest spell cast indoors.
"Is that a Tevinter thing that a warrior ought never to take their armour off, not even in their own house?"
"Does it scare you?" Fenris cast her a passing glance in the midst of fetching two wine glasses and a bottle. Carefully, with practiced grace, he pulled out the cork and crushed it between his clawed armoured fingers. He poured the wine into the glasses and then offered one to his companion.
"Scare me? No." Aedale stretched languidly in the large, rough black leather armchair. " Unsettles a bit, yes. One could wonder what kind of guy needs a full suit of armour to defeat a wine cork... and what does he wear for champagne?"
"Silk."
She snorted under her breath.
The armchair was stretched by someone evidently larger than herself – Fenris wasn't the first one to live here – but for his sake she bit back a comment. The elf looked surprisingly well tonight; the deep shadows on his sunken face were paling in the firelight; the flames cast a warm glow on his dark skin.
He sat down and raised his glass.
"To the hamsters?"
Aedale nodded gravely. "To the hamsters."
Fenris inhaled the scarlet liquid in the glass and grimaced. "Apologies, Hawke... I have just remembered how much I hate this wine." – Before she could react, he moved suddenly – Maker he's quick – the glass shone like blood in his hand –
Crash.
The reflect was stronger than her; in a split second she tensed, balled her fists, blue flames started crawling on them. She raised her head abruptly –
Brittle glass was laying on the burnt floor, splashed with wine like blood; clawed steel gauntlet clenched tightly on the glass stem, so tightly that the sharp clear grains had shot all the way onto her knees. Fenris unclenched his fingers, darkened from the spilt wine, and threw the bottle against the wall.
Two more crashes, of the impact and then the fall of the shattered glass against the floor, became one together with the soft splash of the wine.
The wall reddened. The floor reddened.
Aedale pushed herself back into the armchair.
Fenris looked at her and winced slightly. He stepped back, and the stiffness that for a couple of seconds – when he was breaking the wine – had disappeared from his movements returned immediately. Aedale watched him with wide eyes.
"I'm sorry, Hawke."
"N-no problem," she muttered under her breath. Fenris sat back down and clenched his jaw.
Aedale didn't tear her eyes from him. Heavy, tight knot in her stomach did not make sense. She had known exactly what he was capable of. She had seen him tear men's hearts out, slice their bodies apart.
But Fenris' fight was something completely different – he was focused in a fight, emotionless, as if it were only the body getting engaged in combat, repeating the known, practiced routines. Only... this sudden flash of hate, so close to the surface – it had nothing to do with a fight.
Fenris hated.
You come closer at your own responsibility.
"Hawke," spoke the elf gloomily.
She blinked.
"Do not insult my honour. I would not hurt my own guest."
"I'm not-"
Fenris gestured at her hand. Blue lighting was dancing on her fingers, enshrouding her frame in sparkling protective cocoon. Aedale breathed deeply and with sheer willpower drew the magic from her hands, folding its hot blue ribbons back into the heart.
"It's... nothing. It's like magical goosebumps."
"Drink your wine," said Fenris coarsely and glumly turned his gaze to the wall, where the trickling red splashes created a macabre, decadent picture.
A heavy silence fell between them.
"We can start talking now," said Aedale after a moment, in a conversational tone. "You can tell me what you're churning in your head right now, explain why you chucked that bottle against the wall, what you're thinking that I think, and let me correct it."
Fenris cast her a dull glance.
"Or we could sit in silence and get irritated at one another. That works too. Like real adults." Aedale brought the wine to her lips. It was heavy, dry and strong, with a clear, almost predatory smell. She imagined how it would be to pour it evening after evening, year after year, into the glasses of depraved Tevinter mages.
Maybe I would sincerely hate that smell too.
"How old are you, Hawke?"
"Twenty." She raised her glass in another toasting gesture. "You?"
"I have no idea."
She put down the glass. That's right. I've never even thought that amnesia would have this kind of practical consequences. Fenris did not have anything, not even a birth date.
The Tevinter wine on her lips tasted bitter.
"Why'd you ask?"
"You're not... an adult, Hawke. Not by my standards."
She snorted. "You don't know how old you are yourself, you cannot play the elder now. It's not how it works."
"You grow old quickly on the run."
"Really?" She looked him straight in the eye, for the first time this evening. "Tell me about it."
Fenris kept silent.
Silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and swollen like a painful blister.
"You think I'm afraid of you," said Aedale quietly. "I think you're right. I think. But you're afraid of me just the same. I think I understand why you threw this bottle."
"I'm not afraid of you, Hawke," said the elf brusquely. Aedale shifted her weight to the edge of the armchair and stretched her arm across the table.
"Enough not to be afraid to touch me?"
He drew back sharply. What the hell am I doing, thought Aedale, Maker, mercy, let me at least look as if I knew. It wasn't too late yet, she could nestle herself back in the large, black Tevinter armchair, throw a silly remark, let him retreat into the safety of his dry humour...
But it was only here, in the crash of the shattered bottle, that he was real. You come closer at your own responsibility...
"I'm sorry," she whispered, leaning towards him. "I won't move. Look. No weapon, no magic. I'm not trying to hurt you. But you're still afraid to touch my hand. I'm afraid too, Fenris. You hate mages, and I have been running from those who hate mages my entire life. I may protect myself. Do you see?"
He clenched his fists. "What are you playing at, Hawke? Are you trying to humiliate me? I'm not some kind of a wild animal that will jump at you if you don't tame it."
"No, you're not. But you're paranoid. And so am I." Aedale drew back onto her chair. "That's what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to... trust you. Talk to you. Okay? You won't throw me out of the party because I made you some sparks out of surprise?"
Fenris lowered his head and massaged his temples. When he finally spoke, his voice seemed to be coming from a great distance: "No, Hawke."
"That's exactly how Carver acts like," Aedale said quietly. "Always. At my every spell he looks at me as if I were... as if I were taking something away from his life. And now he's in the Chantry and he'll be hunting apostates. That's where he's finally happy, only now that he's got the possibility to strip me from my magic. He's found his chance after all..."
Silence fell, interrupted only with the crackling of the fire in the mantel. She didn't feel the need to fill it with anything else, staring at her wine and not seeing it.
Carver's letters from the Chantry were short, concise and dry. That she hadn't taken him with her to the Deep Roads broke the last piece of his impressive manly pride, hidden somewhere under the somewhat coarse sense of humour and brooding stare. She hadn't seen him since the day he announced his vocation and left the house.
She felt as if, from the three of the siblings fleeing the burning Lothering, there had been only her left. Mother seemed to share that point of view, closing herself from the inside of her unfinished mansion room – and Aedale's heart was breaking when she heard the quiet sobbing through the wall.
Was that how Fenris felt? As if – regardless of how tough was the armour of indifference on the outside – the entire world was against him, as if with his very existence he terrified and destroyed everybody around him?
"Your brother will not hurt you, Hawke," said Fenris quietly. "Nor will I. We owe you the same blood debt."
"I know. I would only wish that it weren't the only thing making you not want to kill me."
Fenris drew in a sharp breath. Aedale lowered her head. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to see his face right now.
"Hawke," he said slowly, very quietly. "Is that really what you think of me?"
"Do I have any reasons to think otherwise? Fenris, we've known each other for almost a year now, we fought the Stone Spirit and the darkspawn horde together, I lose at cards with you, but still, every time there's talk about mages and magic, you sound as if your blood debt was the only thing between your gauntlet and my heart."
"I do... not hate you, Hawke," said the elf quietly.
"I don't hate you too." Aedale twisted her lips in a dry smile. "But we don't trust each other, Fenris, do we? I would... want to. I would want us to trust each other. Less like business partners, and more like... like..."
Something cool touched her palm.
She raised her gaze. Fenris had lain his steel gauntlet against her hand. Aedale held her breath.
"I don't hate you," he repeated.
She reached out and touched a piece of armour protecting the wrist. Under the cover of a greeny collar of steel there were straps holding the clawed gauntlet.
Hesitating, she unclasped the first strap with one hand; to reach deeper, she'd have to turn his hand palm up. He let her; and for the first time she saw the white lines on his fingers, shining softly, almost shyly. The third clasp was on the inner side of the wrist, where the lines of lyrium entwined with the blue veins, showing through the skin painfully clearly.
Maker, please don't let me scare him off now.
She slided the steel gauntlet off his slim hand. He had long, dark fingers with oval nails. The metal slipped onto the table and clinked quietly. His hand seemed small and delicate, but at its top, under the thin cover of skin, there was a wreathing net of gray-blue veins and arteries, corns and calluses marking his knuckles, and the white lines of lyrium trailing from the bared wrist all the way to fingertips. Her pale, soft hands of a mage looked pathetically weak against this tattooed tangle of tendons and veins.
Fenris watched her with his eyes darkened.
Is this the fire in the mantel, or are his hands so warm?
"Does it... hurt?" she whispered, shyly trailing her finger along the white braid of lyrium on his wrist. "You don't have to-"
"No, it doesn't."
Holy Andraste, what am I doing? wondered Aedale. The lyrium in his skin sang under her fingers, mightier and darker than her potions, sunken in living, pulsating blood... Fenris closed his eyes; she drew back her hand immediately and recoiled.
"I'm sorry!"
"You haven't done anything to me, Hawke." The elf snatched his gauntlet off the table and moved back onto his chair. "I'm a warrior, not a porcelain doll." Despite the deceptively calm tone, his eyes were disquieted, flighty, uncertain. Aedale's head spun.
"Thank you. Thank you, I know how much it must have meant-"
"You know nothing of me, Hawke," answered Fenris dryly, but the corner of his lips lifted a millimetre. Her giggle was only a tad nervous.
"That makes two of us. My wine next time?"
"Agreed."
"You can't throw it though, you'll break Bodahn's heart."
"I'll remember that."
"And... Fenris?"
"What?" – The elf looked at her above the straps of the gauntlet that he was putting back on his hand. Aedale swallowed with difficulty.
"What am I for you? A mage? A business partner? A friend?"
"What do you think, Hawke?"
"Now? I have no idea," Aedale answered simply.
Fenris thought about it for a short moment.
"A chance," he said curtly.
The lines of lyrium on his skin shone slightly.