A/N: We're at the point in this story where I've started to make allusions to canon which doesn't take place strictly in the Dragon Age games. Those of you who have read Gaider's book Dragon Age: Asunder will most likely be able to spot them fairly quickly. The mention in this chapter isn't too much of a spoiler if you haven't read it, but I figured I should warn you all now as I will be making more references to it later on in further updates.
That being said, I really, REALLY enjoyed putting this chapter together, and I hope you all have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. If you're liking the story so far, please let me know! Comments on my fics make my world go round and are a huge motivator for me. :3
Abaddon - Chapter 3
Two months earlier
The boulder at Hawke's back is cool against her skin, its chill passing easily through layered robes and tunic as she presses her shoulders into its face, the stone granting more support than her own feet. Her knees tremble when she slides herself down, legs brought tight against her chest and arms wrapping around them as she comes to rest at the boulder's base; head back, eyes closed and breath coming slow and deep. For some time she does not stir, content to sit quietly while listening to the others speak in whispers as they go about their business setting camp for the night. Nearby someone strikes flint, woodsmoke rising quickly to mingle with the salt in the air, and it is too easy for Hawke to fool herself into thinking this night no different from the countless others they have spent along the Wounded Coast. Just another mission, another task put upon her to find some missing nobleman's daughter or ingredients for Solivitus's shop. Come morning this will all be done; she and her friends will return home and this horror of a night will prove itself nothing more than a bad dream.
Hawke has never been one fortunate enough to receive such stokes of luck, however, and when she grits her teeth and opens her eyes it is to see all has remained as she feared. It is a cruel irony, she thinks to herself as she stares out over jagged bluffs and dark waters, to see how little the world around her has changed despite its complete upheaval. The waves beneath them still roar as they crash and break against the rocks, the breeze off the ocean still crisp as it races through wind-blown grasses and tears wisps of hair free from her braid. This entire place is calm, serene, uncaring that mere miles away, Kirkwall – her Kirkwall– burns. Away in the distance fires mark the Gallows and what had until this night been the Chantry, their flames too far to be seen as more than red and orange smears against the waters of the harbor and white walls of Hightown. The leaden weight which had settled into the pit of Hawke's stomach hours ago drops lower to see how far the flames at the top of the city have spread, her mind turning traitor to flash images of just how close they must now be to her own estate. Her fingers twist into her robes as she sends a silent prayer to the Maker for her household's safety – that Carver has made it back to her home as he had promised to help Bodahn keep Sandal and the others safe. She tears her eyes away, unable to stomach the sight any longer.
Distraction thankfully comes soon after, the sound of feet through grass and sand catching her notice in time for her to watch Fenris lower himself slowly to the ground beside her. His hand rests on a bended knee as he settles, his other leg stretching out before him as he leans back into the boulder, close enough for their arms and shoulders to press against one another. His expression is blank, made all the more unreadable by the glow of the fire Merrill tends which casts half his face in shadow, sharp lines silhouetted by light that turns pale hair amber. Hawke watches him for several moments but he does not meet her gaze, his own locked out over the sea. Shortly she turns her focus to follow his, mouth pressing thin to again take in the ruin of both a city and life she had thought herself past losing.
"It's always going to be like this, isn't it?" she asks heavily, her eyes held fast to Kirkwall. "Ten years... Longest I've lived in one place since as far back as I can remember. And I was so sure this was finally it, someplace I could actually consider home. I never did like letting myself get attached to places like this – only made having to leave them all the harder when the time came. But ten years. I kept thinking 'this time, Marian, maybe this time'... Except now the only change is that I can't even blame the darkspawn for running us off. Just my own stupidity."
There is a pause, the air between them stilled long enough for Hawke to wonder if she had perhaps not spoken the words aloud as she thought, when Fenris shifts beside her. "There are some who would call what you have done noble," he says softly, the low rumble nearly lost to the sound of the surf.
Hawke spits a short, hard laugh, its taste bitter in her mouth. "'Idiotic' is more appropriate, if you ask me. It isn't like anything I've done has made a damned bit of difference."
"The mages whose lives you saved – and those you showed mercy to – would no doubt beg to differ."
Something hard as iron tightens around Hawke's chest, her eyes flicking without thought to where Anders stands by himself. His back is to the rest of the group, both hands held firm around the shaft of his staff with his weight leaned forward onto its point. He too stares out over the waters towards the burning city, the line of his shoulders curved but taut, and Hawke finds it difficult to know whether he would be more likely to snap or crumble in upon himself if touched.
She continues to stare at him as she says, hushed: "If it had been your decision to make... you would have killed him, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Fenris says, without waver.
"And you think I was wrong to spare him, don't you?"
"No."
Hawke blinks at that, the answer catching her enough by surprise that she turns away from Anders to send him a puzzled look. Fenris meets her gaze this time, the light from the fire catching against the green of his eyes, their corners pinched in interest. "Though I must admit I find myself curious as to why."
"I'm not sure of that myself," she says, brow creasing while heat prickles along the back of her neck, the discovery of Anders' betrayal far too raw not to sting when her thoughts shift to it. "When I realized this was what he'd been planning all along – what I'd done by helping him—"
"The mage took advantage of your friendship and manipulated you," Fenris says, his voice still even and low but taking on a defensive edge. The fingers of the hand against his knee curl into themselves as he continues, Hawke watching them from the corner of her eye. "Whatever guilt there is in that is his to bear, not yours."
"And I didn't exactly question what he was doing, either. I bought into his story about that potion without a second thought, right from the start. Now Elthina and everyone else who was caught in the middle of the Chantry being turned to rubble is dead. Look at it from all the angles you like, but part of that blame comes down to me not having the sense to see what was happening a foot in front of my nose," Hawke says as she draws her legs closer to her chest, her expression turned tight and voice catching unexpectedly around a knot lodged in the base of her throat. She lowers her head to one side, coughs to clear it, and swallows against the hurt which has been threatening to overtake her since they had placed an hour's worth of distance between themselves and the city.
A moment later she turns back, composed but quieter, her eyes dropped to the tops of her knees, unsure of how best to phrase this next confession. "Honestly, when I think about it now? I... wanted to do it. Kill him. A part of me anyway. Thought he deserved it for what he's done, but in the end I just... I couldn't. I keep telling myself it's because this mess is his doing. That what's happened here tonight isn't going to end in Kirkwall and he needs to see how far it spreads, how many mages are going to suffer for it and do his damned part to set things right. But it isn't that," she says, the mage's back drawing her focus once more, the iron about her chest clamping harder to see a shaking hand come free of his staff to rake its fingers through already mussed hair.
"You pity him."
"No," she says, steadier than she expects. "He's troubled, yes, and what he's done... I don't think it's something that can ever be forgiven. But Anders is still my friend, or was for a time, at least. After everything we've been through together, all the times he's helped us over the years – I can't bring myself to believe that part of him is gone." The back of her head bumps against the stone behind her when she tilts it back, her eyes closing as she breathes out a long, tired sigh. "Maker, I'm a blighted fool, aren't I?"
"Being merciful is not the same as being foolish, Hawke."
A half-hearted grin pulls at Hawke's mouth as she snorts, her eyes cracking open to glance at the elf beside her. "A minute ago you said you'd have killed him outright. Having a change of heart, are we?"
Fenris shrugs, leather creaking against metal. "My feelings on the matter are of little consequence. However justified his death may have been, killing the mage would have done nothing to prevent Meredith from moving against the Circle."
"And so I go ahead and force myself into the middle of that debacle as well. You always did warn me against sticking my nose into business it didn't belong in."
A laugh, richer and smoother than should be right for a conversation such as this. "After all this time it would be naïve of me to expect anything less from you."
"And look at what it's cost," Hawke says, with none of the same humor. "Sebastian's gone and likely wants my head on a pike just as much as Anders', and none of us will be able to step foot within thirty miles of Kirkwall once everything's calmed down, let alone our own homes. Maker, it's one thing if I want to go ahead and turn myself into a fugitive – but to force everyone else into this with me—?"
"You did no such thing." That edge is back, harder this time than before. "Everyone here joined your side willingly. I doubt they regret their decision."
"Do you?"
No sooner does the question leave her than Hawke begins to regret it, the stunned, almost wounded look which pulls itself across his face painful for her to see. Her head lifts from the stone and turns away, hands coming loose from around her legs for her to stare at them in her lap, the weight of Fenris's gaze too much for her to face head on. She picks at the edge of quick-bitten fingernails with her thumb, wishing nothing more than to be able to drop the subject entirely and loathing the impossibility of it. There are certain questions which must be asked, certain things which she would know now when they will be just one more wound to an already numbed heart rather than later when they might shatter it. She draws a deep breath in and holds it as long as she can, then breathes out, as much of her apprehension sent into the night sky with it as she can manage, pulse pounding in her ears as she tries to steady herself for the chance of an answer she does not wish to hear.
She does not look at him as she speaks.
"I hate that I've done this to you. Even with everything that's happened since we met – Hadrianna, Danarius – you'd finally managed to have a little peace, didn't have to worry about running or watching behind your back every place you went. And now I've gone and put you back into the exact same blighted place you were before." She pauses, clears her throat again, then forces the words out of herself, because she knows it is only right to make all options known, no matter how much this particular one will hurt should he make use of it. "I know I already lost you Kirkwall, but... that doesn't mean you couldn't find some other city, some other place to settle."
He catches her meaning immediately. "On my own, you mean."
"I suppose it would have to be," she says, one corner of her mouth lifting in a smile she does not feel. "It isn't like I'll be able to go strolling through the middle of the market in Denerim any time soon, is it? But you, you could still blend in with the crowds."
Fenris snorts. "You speak as though I would manage to be any less conspicuous."
"If it meant the difference between having a home and spending the rest of your life on the run through the wilds, don't you think it would at least be worth trying?" she asks, hating the way it comes out sounding like a plea when it is meant to be anything but. "Maybe... Maybe it would be for the best that way."
For a long while nothing further is said between them, each second passing slower than a lifetime as Hawke waits for his response. Her lower lip catches between her teeth, biting back against the urge to ask him to stay. This is not her decision to make, and she will be damned if she permits such selfishness after everything he has already given her, no matter how much it will kill her to see him leave again.
Eventually the silence breaks. Hawke goes rigid as the stone at her back, pulse skipping a beat at the first sound Fenris makes before it spurs itself on, faster than before.
"Do you... wish for me to leave you?" he asks haltingly. The dejection in his voice is well hidden but still obvious enough to make Hawke's head snap up, her chest aching as something hot and barbed lances itself through it.
"No!" she says quickly, as much conviction as she can managed forced into the word, the sharpness of it making Fenris jerk to face her as well. "Of course I don't, but—"
"Then I will stay."
"I — Fenris," Hawke stammers, taken aback by how easily his answer comes, "you know I can't ask that of you."
"You haven't." He glances down at her lap, a short second of hesitation passing before he reaches out. His hand closes gently around her own before he brings it to rest against his thigh, watching intently as he drags his thumb down the center of her palm in a slow, repeated caress. "As I see it, I made my decision to follow you some time ago."
Relief, cool and soothing as spring water, floods through her, only to see itself chased by a swift-rising affection potent enough to leave her dazed. Her heart feels suddenly too large, ribs aching as it swells in her breast, pushing against her lungs to make her breath come quick and tight. A vision of a similar discussion between them forms in the back of her mind, its memory still fresh enough for her to recall how he bore the same determination, spoke with the same unvarnished honesty as he does now.
"Yes, well," she says thickly as her eyes begin to itch, "given the extenuating circumstances I wasn't sure if certain promises still held."
"There is nothing that could happen which would make me wish to leave your side," Fenris says, strong and clear, his hand squeezing itself around her fingers. "You are my home, Hawke. Not Kirkwall, not some different city. So long as you will allow it, I would see it kept that way."
Her eyes are burning now, tears welling which she refuses to let him see. It galls her to think that the future he has bound to hers now stands so slight a chance for peace, and whatever once-promising horizon there may have been has turned bleak and shrouded. Yet as terrible as it may be for her to be glad of such things, she cannot help but find comfort in knowing she will not have to face whatever comes on her own.
Her fingers are rough against her eyes as she drags her free hand across them, swiping away as much evidence as she can manage before she offers Fenris a bleary grin. "I suppose that makes the both of us, then."
A smile of his own comes in answer, his fingers leaving hers as he wraps his arm about her back. Hawke lets him pull her in to his side, his hand falling to rest against her waist while she settles close enough to lean her head into his shoulder, a hint of leather and oils mixed with lyrium wafting across her nose. She sighs, the familiar scent of him one more comfort to still-rattled nerves.
"It should be interesting, don't you think? Being wanted criminals together, and all that."
A chuckle rumbles through him, the sound deep in his chest. "Indeed. A tale fit for one of Varric's books, I'm certain."
"Maker, I hope not. I'd much prefer a nice, quite retirement in exile if it's all the same to you," Hawke says, snorting. "Besides, I think we've more than had our fair share of spectacularly terrible coincidences and piss poor strokes of luck. What else could possibly go wrong?"
Present
It is intriguing, Hawke thinks as her friends speak amongst themselves in hushed voices, to see how quick, how eager they are to begin forming their next course of action. It is clear they are concerned for her well-being. More than once someone stresses the importance of ensuring they 'do what's best for Hawke', and the anxious, sidelong glances she sees each of them cast in her direction throughout the conversation are too numerous to count. Their dedication is quite admirable, a fact she recalls knowing long before now, back in a time when such things would have been met with an overwhelming sense of sentiment and gratitude rather than the mild interest she feels now. Why they seem so determined to keep her from the templar's care she does not understand; the sole purpose of their order is to see to the guardianship of mages, tranquil or no, and to not only oppose, but actively prevent them from carrying out their duty seems an adverse choice.
She can sense, however, that to broach such a subject now when tensions have yet to ease would also be unwise, no doubt serving only to make what is so clearly an already unpleasant discussion for them worse. And so she again chooses to remain still and mum, content to simply listen as they debate what should be done.
"Should we leave?" Merrill asks with a sniff, her hands falling to wring themselves at her waist, wide eyes casting a wary gaze towards the treeline. "Those templars – do you think they'll come after Hawke again?"
"No, Daisy." Varric's head shakes, solemn as he cuts a short glance towards Fenris and then Isabela. Mended though they may be they have not yet been given the chance to wash themselves, blood spilled in their skirmish now dried ruby dark against skin and armor both. "They won't be giving her any more trouble."
Merrill catches on quickly, her knuckles turning white for the barest of moments when she follows his gaze and takes in the full sight of them. "Of course. I'm sorry, I... suppose that was a silly question of me to ask."
"She's still right to worry," Aveline says, her back now straightened and something hard as steel making its way into her voice and across her face, the redness around her eyes Hawke had noticed earlier in the night faded but not gone. "Templars or no, we should still put as much distance between ourselves and that camp as possible – get out of the woods and back onto the roads for a while, even."
"You sure that's a good idea?" Varric asks with a skeptical lift of his brow. "Don't you think that would leave us a bit too, er, exposed?"
"Of course it will, but right now speed has to take precedence over subtlety. Ridiculous as it sounds, the daft choice is our best chance at avoiding any more..." A pause, Aveline's steadiness slipping as she looks across their gathering to meet Hawke's eye. She watches the guard woman intently, unable to find a reason for the tightness at her mouth or the way she forces a swallow down her throat before continuing, her gaze turned pointedly away. "... unexpected predicaments. So long as we're careful about it we should be fine."
Isabela gives an agreeing hum as she steps over to one of the packs scattered about the campfire, the buckle undone and flap thrown open with a quick flick of her fingers. "Never thought I'd hear myself say this," she says as she rifles through it, standing a moment later with a scrap of a cleaning cloth and canteen of water in her hands, "but the big girl is right. Better to make a quick exit than sit around waiting for some new group of bastards to swoop down on our asses." The canteen's stopper pulls free with a soft pop, a splash of water pouring onto the rag before she drags it against the mess splattered along her arms. "There's an inn I know of not far from here, place called 'The Crimson Griffon'. We can stop in there, set our bearings and get ourselves a decent meal."
"And it's out of the way?" Aveline asks. "Safe?"
"They don't ask too many questions if that's what you mean," she says as she bends to wash the blood from the now-healed gash across her thigh, "so long as your tab is paid up before you leave, that is. It's just outside of Ostwick – used to stop in for a night or two when we'd pull into port with The Call. Only place for miles you can get a decent pint that doesn't taste like watered down piss."
"How far?" Fenris asks shortly, the question coming out hard enough to make Merrill give a short, startled jump. Isabela, however, is unperturbed, her movements smooth and unhurried as she brings herself back to her full height.
"Once we get back onto the road it'll take the better part of the day. Should be able to make it before midnight if we get ourselves up and moving early enough."
The elf gives a terse, decisive nod. "Dawn then. I will take first watch."
He spins on his heel, pace brisk as he walks away from the group, moving until he pulls even with a lone oak tree growing halfway between the forest's edge and the center of their clearing. Arms folding across his chest he leans his shoulders back into the massive tree's trunk, mouth tight and eyes hard.
Someone coughs quietly and Hawke turns to see Anders drop a closed fist from his mouth to his side. "Are you sure traveling that close to a city like Ostwick is wise?" he asks, lines forming across his forehead as he sends a wary look in Isabela's direction. "There's no way they won't have heard the news from Kirkwall by now. They'll no doubt have been told to keep watch for Hawke, for – for me."
"It isn't the brightest idea we've ever had," Varric says, Bianca creaking against his back as he shrugs, "but we don't exactly have a lot of other options at the moment either. If we play it safe we've at least got a chance of making this work. The way I see it, Blondie, you're smart enough to know how to keep yourself from being too obvious, and Hawke..." A gloved hand rises to the stubble at his chin, rubbing. "Well..."
"You let me worry about that," Isabela says, the soiled rag now thrown carelessly towards her pack. "If I can break my way into an Orlesian prison I think I can manage sneaking Hawke past a half-drunk tavern keep."
"I suppose we should get some rest while we still can, then," Merrill says softly, fingers toying with the edge of her chainmail at the gap at the bend in her elbow. "Fenris seems to want an early morning."
A murmur of agreement ripples through the group, and it is not long before they have all begun to settle, bits of armor shed and bedrolls rustling as they shift them in the grass.
"What do you say?" Isabela asks kindly, one hand coming to rest against Hawke's back as she crosses to where she watches the others quietly. "Ready to turn in for the night?"
"Yes." She nods, turning to let herself be guided towards a set of three empty bedrolls on the far side of the campfire. Boots and satchel are placed gently by her pillow, a travel-worn blanket unfolding in her hands when she flatly says: "Fenris is troubled."
Isabela's daggers clink as she shucks them – straps and all – from her shoulders and onto the ground. "Considering the night we've all had, I'd be more concerned if he wasn't."
"He did not expect to find me tranquil," she says simply, a reserved curiosity proding at the back of her mind. "But Varric has said you knew it had been templars who took me before you reached Varlen's camp. Did he not realize this was a possibility?"
This makes Isabela pause, her own blanket left hanging between her hands as she looks up. Her eyes are softer now, darker, and Hawke thinks her to be much more exhausted than she originally seemed. She sighs, movements now slower, more deliberate.
"We all did," she says, in a hush nearly too low to hear. "Varric sat him down that first night we found out, warned him there was a chance they'd have already gone through with the rite." Black brows draw themselves tight as she stares out to where Fenris stands beneath the oak tree. "I think he was just hoping he'd manage to reach you first."
"I see." Hawke follows her gaze, face smooth and chest still as she takes in the sight of him, rigid as stone. "It was not my intention to cause him distress."
"Believe me, Kitten," Isabela says as they both begin to lower themselves beneath their covers, no sign of humor true or false to be heard in her voice, "he isn't blaming you."
Hawke slips from sleep to consciousness quickly and smoothly, her eyes opening to find it is still dark, the sky in the east just beginning to turn grey with dawn's arrival. From where she lays on her side she can see that the campfire has long since died, flames turned to embers and thick smoke, its scent strong where it has settled into her clothing and hair.
Someone turns beneath their covers, and Hawke glances up to see Fenris has claimed the free bedroll at her right. He sleeps on his side, facing her, his now-cleaned breastplate and gauntlets set alongside his sword above his head. Brow turning taut he moves again, his blanket shifting down his body to leave one hand uncovered, a flash of something red catching Hawke's notice. The slip of fabric normally found about his wrist is clutched within his palm, its length woven about the width of his hand and between each of his fingers. Puzzled, she watches while the grip he keeps around it tightens as he brings it closer to his chest. She does not doubt he had removed it while seeing to his gear, having seen him untie and fold the scrap with care bordering on reverence countless times, but what she does not understand is why he had not seen to refastening it once finished with his work.
Before Hawke can do more than wonder at the reasoning behind the change in his behavior, her attention is drawn away by the sound of muffled movement coming from the other side of their camp. Unable to see who or what it is from where she lies, she brings herself upright in her bedroll, her covers folding neatly in her lap as she peers across the remains of the fire. Anders, staff and pack strapped to his back, steps carefully in the space between Merrill and Varric's sleeping forms. He stops when he stands at the dwarf's feet, one hand slipping into a pocket of his coat and appearing again seconds later, a crisply folded piece of paper caught between two fingers. Brow furrowing, he bends to tuck the parchment into the cuff of Varric's duster, its dull white distinct enough against the dusky leather that it will be impossible for him to miss it once he wakes.
A second passes where Anders does not move, eyes shifting from his paper to Varric's face. Then his shoulders lift and drop with a heavy sigh, head shaking as he pushes off against his knees and brings himself upright. Sleep has done nothing to ease his weariness, the lines drawn across his face and dark, angry circles beneath his eyes more prominent from the night before. He raises his hand to rake his fingers through hair that he has not yet bothered to draw back into a tail as he looks back, a lingering glance cast around to the rest of their group. Hawke is the last his focus falls on, eyes closing on a slow, startled blink when he sees she is awake and watching.
Her head tilts in question, only to have him drop his gaze away from hers, shamefaced. Without a word or gesture he turns away, pack drawn higher between his shoulders as he begins to walk silently towards the edge of the clearing.
She is not sure what possesses her to do so – it is clear Anders has made a decision, one she finds neither disappointment nor relief in – but as his back begins to disappear into the pre-dawn, Hawke stands. The grass is cold with dew beneath her feet when she follows after him, the hem of her robe turning damp as it drags across the ground with her steps, though she pays the discomfort no mind. She does not stray far from the others, walking only as far as Anders has seen fit to before stopping several yards away from Fenris's oak tree to stare off into the forest.
"You are leaving."
"I have to," he says solemnly, head falling forward, hanging with no move made to look at her. "So long as I'm alive the templars are never going to stop hunting me. If I stay I'll only be putting everyone else – you – in more danger than I already have. I can't... I won't let that happen."
"I do not understand," Hawke says evenly, one brow lifting in the slightest of arches. "Varlen and his men are dead. They pose you no more threat."
His head shakes, a hand raised to rub at the back of his neck. "There will be others, Hawke. Varlen may have been more eager than the rest, but the Order won't stop at one attempt to take me. Eventually they— They most likely will, and if you're there with me when they come, they'll take you away as well, to the White Spire or whatever other prison they deem fit," he says through a shake in his voice, the knuckles of the hand against his neck turning white as his grip tightens. "And I would lose whatever possibility I have to help you."
"You know as well as I that the rite is permanent, Anders. This assistance you wish to offer me will make little difference, if any."
"So far as we're aware, yes." Now he turns to face her, teeth pressed into the swell of his bottom lip, and there is something wholly different in the way he holds himself, the way he looks at her. His eyes have locked onto her own; wider, bright, a flicker of the old resolve Hawke recalls from when his work had been the product of moral conviction and not desperation. "But that might not be as true as we once thought. A friend of mine, one of my contacts from the underground who kept herself hidden long enough to make it out of Kirkwall, managed to get a letter to me not long before... before. She couldn't tell me much, but she said there have been stories, whispers about research being done somewhere in the west of Orlais to see if it can be reversed, and that there's more of them cropping up everyweek. I know it isn't much, nothing substantial – rumors and wishful thinking more than anything else." The hand against his neck falls to his side, fists balling as his chin lifts, jaw hard. "But if there's any way, any chance for me to fix what I've brought down on you, it's worth whatever disappointment might come."
"You place fault on yourself for something you have not done," Hawke says as a soft breeze carrying the scent of woodsmoke rustles through the grass at her feet. It pulls through her hair until a strand falls free; Anders follows it as it flutters in the air and then falls, settling itself awkwardly across the bridge of her nose. She does not reach to brush it back into place. "There is no need or reason for you to feel it necessary to make amends. I am content, Anders."
A small, brittle smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, disappearing well before it can reach his eyes. "Under better circumstances I think you'd feel differently. I may not have been the one with the brand in my hand, but Fenris was right. I'm not blameless in this either. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try." Hand raising he reaches out, the pads of his fingers cool against her brow as he brushes the stray piece of hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear. She is still as the flat of his palm slides down, cupping itself against her cheek. His expression shifts to something unreadable, soft and hard at the same time as his eyes flick up to her own. "It's the least of what I owe you."
Fingers shift to clutch gently at the back of her neck, a shuffled step closing the distance between them. Anders pauses, his face dipped close enough to Hawke's for her to feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. He smells of woods and earth as the rest of them do from their travels, but beneath it a hint of ink, leather books and Darktown lingers. She wonders idly as she watches his eyes close, his head move to press his mouth to hers, how much longer the scent will remain.
The kiss is short, chaste. No sooner has Hawke taken notice of the way his whiskers scratch against her cheek than Anders has pulled away, his eyes still closed as he rests his forehead against her own.
"I may have failed Karl, but I won't fail you. I will see you again, Hawke," he says, the sound of it more reassurance to himself than promise to her. "Soon."
And with that he is gone, pulling away to turn back towards the forest without a second glance, Hawke placid and silent as she watches him disappear into the shadows of the trees.