When the moon on a cloud cast night
Hung above the tree tops' height
You sang me of some distant past
That made my heart beat strong and fast
Now I know I'm home at last
Singing softly to myself I dunk the brush back into my bucket of water, tapping the wooden handle against the rim before taking it in both hands to scrub at the rough, uneven floor of Gamlen's hovel, doing my best to keep the strokes in an even time with the rhythm of the song. It's an old one, how old I have no idea, but I can remember hearing it in Papa's husky tones as a child, his voice soft and comforting as he tried to soothe one of the twins to sleep during some babyhood illness. He sang it to Mother as well, but those were times I wasn't supposed to hear, when they had gone off into a field or wood, dependent on which hamlet we were living in, for a moment alone, just the two of them, away from the bustle of the household. My own nature leads me into solitude often enough, though that solitude is something hard to scratch out in this constant confusion that is Kirkwall. The small cove on the Wounded Coast, once my refuge, is now something I can only think of with bitter confusion; I am not the woman I once was, but what exactly changed in me that night, I am uncertain.
Anders avoids me now; he says he is busy, but I know he is no busier than before, as some of those who once went to his clinic now come to me for simple remedies, not wishing to bother The Healer with their lowly maladies when so many others are in even more desperate straights. And to think, so many Marchers say we Fereldens have no honor. With a sigh, I go back to my scrubbing, pushing around dirty water on a dirty floor, ignoring the ache in my knees as I inch along, singing to myself again.
You offered me an eagle's wing
That to the sun I might soar and sing
And if I heard the owl's cry
Into the forest I would fly
And in its darkness find you by.
"I think the only way you're going to get that floor truly clean is to take a fireball to it." My scrub brush clatters on the floor as I jump, startled, though whether the start is more from the voice intruding on my lonesome task, or the person using the voice is up to debate.
"Maker, Anders, you gave me a fright!" I protest, wiping my dusty pants off as I stand. My hair is a mess, tucked half under a kerchief much the way Isabela wears hers, though I doubt it's anywhere near as flattering on me. Touching it self-consciously, I push a loose black curl under the edge, wishing I had known he was coming so I might look half-way presentable, instead of like a drudge left alone to her work as the more senior servants amuse themselves.
"Sorry; no one answered my knock and the latch was out and I could hear you singing, so I thought…" His feathered shoulders ruffle with a shrug, soft gold eyes sweeping over our cramped, filthy house. "This is your home?"
"My uncle's," I correct. Gamlen's hovel will never be a home to me; home implies love and warmth, rather than the reek of cold, anger and fear that permeates every breath I take within these walls. "He's gone to the brothel with Carver. Neither of them realizes I know that, of course, but I'm not the silly little thing Gamlen takes me for. And speaking of people thinking I'm silly, Serrah Healer, you didn't answer my question. Is everything alright?"
To my surprise, he cuts his eyes to the side, looking away from me, instead fixing on the old black leather grimoire lying on my bed where I had placed it to keep it out of the wet from my scrubbing. "Everything is fine." He hesitates, still staring at the grimoire, so I cross to my cot and gather it against my chest before I fold myself into a cross-legged position at the head, gesturing for my fellow mage to sit at the foot. "Dig yourself up an old Tevinter tome in the market?"
My hands smooth the worn leather, enjoying the soft, velvety feel of it. "We brought it with us from Ferelden." One of Anders' eyebrows, surprisingly dark against his dirty-gold hair and bronze eyes, quirks into a question, head tilted to the side like a curious pup.
"Why did you drag a heavy book like that along with you during a Blight?" The question stings down deep, in the part of my heart that has always been, and will always be, for Bethany, and I wonder for a moment if my taking the time to retrieve this from its secret place had been the cause of my beloved sister's death. It had taken me all of a moment to find it, but perhaps that moment was the moment that would have taken us past the ogre, past the darkspawn horde, safely to Gwaren and then here without death and without interference from the Witch of the Wilds to whom I still owe a debt. "Hawke?" his voice drags me back from the past, and I look into the worried gaze, shaking away my thoughts before I place the book on the bed between us.
"It was my father's, one of the few things he had from his time before he met our mother; only an old grimoire half written in Arcanum and a pair of boots." I lift my feet to show them, turning my leg to the side to show their wear, make it obvious they were made for a much larger man and re-stitched to fit me.
He watches my leg for a moment, his eyes focused with a scrutiny that makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable until they dart back to my face. "What was your father like?"
"A good man, patient." I reply with a smile, thinking back half a decade, to the long days working in the fields to the beat of his singing, the evenings working within the house, laughter and warmth and home. "He never yelled, but you knew when he was disappointed. I suppose some would say he was strict, but he never asked anything of us that he would not ask of himself, nor ask something he knew we could not do. He pushed Beth and I do be the best, most controlled mages we could be, and pushed Carver to learn the blade, to have something that was his alone. He was no one to say 'I love you', but at the same time none of us ever doubted that. I only remember him actually saying it to me once… when he died." It hits me like another blow; thinking of Papa always makes me think of how he died, makes me know it was all my fault. Papa wanted me to be the best mage I could be, but when it really mattered, I always failed.
A hand closed on mine, and I looked back into Anders' soft gaze, our eyes meeting in understanding. I've spoken of this pain to him before, in my refuge along the Wounded Coast. "You know, you're the only person I've met with a mage parent she actually remembers. At the Circle, any accidental babies are taken away before the mother even sees them."
"That's horrible." My eyes close and I try to imagine that, carrying a child, holding it under my heart for nearly a year, knowing it as part of myself, an echo of my soul – and then being helpless as that part of my soul is removed, forever. "I think it would drive me mad to have that happen."
"Well, then we'll just have to make certain that the Templars never touch you."
"It sounds like a plan." It feels so good to laugh, to smile. I think I've done more of both around Anders in the few months we've know each other than I have in the years since Papa died. Laughter still dancing on my lips, I give his hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm glad we're talking again."
"I'm still not any good for you." He warns me solemnly, giving my hand a return squeeze. "But I promise I'll be at your side. I am yours, for as long as you need me."
And so our love's not a simple thing
Nor our truths unwavering
But like the moon's pull on the tide
Our fingers touch, our hearts collide
I'll be a moonsbreath by your side.
A/n: Lyrics from "Samain Night" by Loreena McKennitt. Hi did you all miss me? Thirteen months, thirteen bloody months I've had writer's block on this story. I would like to thank everyone who's been so supportive through all of that, especially my sister, AmandaKitswell, and Molly Moon to whom this chapter is dedicated for getting me constantly thinking about how to move the story along. Special should out to my buddy Cam who beta'd for me since Manda-mia's busy with work right now. If anything in here is screwed up, it's his fault.