@fenhawke-week Day 2: Reading Lessons /Grief
I am away for a big chunk of July but I managed to churn out a little drabble!!! My first bit of Threnody fic (kind of), aaaaa
676 words, teen
The thing in his dreams is not Hawke.
His Hawke - his Threnody - was a storm folded in on itself - a large, unruly body and heart doing its best to stay within the lines. It had taken him so long to see that, in the beginning - the constant effort, all the ways she hated herself for the overflow. He had only seen the spill - the swagger, the affected selfishness, the magic that burned so bright it hurt to look at - not how much it had cost her.
After Kirkwall, with the help of years and time and a life that the stories knew nothing about, Threnody had begun to learn how to flow. She had gone quiet, for a while, and slowly learned a different kind of loudness - a truer, less self-conscious kind. She had begun to laugh at their own jokes, so hard it made them snort and tears run down their eyes. She never would have done that before; it would have interrupted the performance.
The thing in his dreams never laughs.
He never thought, when Threnody taught him to read (one of the only times he had ever seen her unguarded - her finger poking hesitantly at the letters, glancing at him nervously, biting her lip and focusing for fear of teaching it wrong) that he would learn to hate the written word.
The thing in his dreams is a parody. The swagger is there, and a little of the affected selfishness, but the magic grows dimmer every night. The thing in his dreams is neither large nor unruly - in body nor in manner. Every joke is perfectly timed. Every movement fluid and smooth. She holds her head up high, even when she doesn’t know who’s watching. Worst of all, when the thing in his dreams speaks, the voice is Varric’s, not Threnody’s, not Hawke’s.
It is worst when she remembers.
One moment she’ll be sweeping him off his feet, having just saved the day, with a cheeky wink and a grin on her face - and something will curdle in her expression. Her face will fall. Her movements will slow. She will look at him - really look - and say “Fenris? Is that you?” He will say “yes, Threnody, I am here,” and his voice will be thick with tears. She will say “oh, Maker. Where am I? Where did I go?” He will say nothing, only reach to cup her face with his hand - but before his skin meets hers, she will be gone again, lost in the lie they told.
Merrill explained it to him, once, while he sat bedraggled at her fireside, trying not to hate himself for accepting a maleficar’s comfort. The Fade is a realm of belief - and Hawke has been trapped there a long time. Physically there, not just in her dreams - and nobody knows what that does. But the theory goes like this: anything that stays long enough in the Fade eventually becomes like the Fade. A product of belief. And, well, what most people believe about Hawke is…
“The Tale of the Champion,” he had finished for her.
Varric sends him a letter, every once in a while. They all go in the fire. The thing in his dreams would hate him for that. Maybe Threnody would too, just a little.
It has been a decade since Threnody taught him to read. When he puts pen to page, the letters come steady and even - although he cannot help but worry, sometimes, that a reader could tell how late he learned. It does not matter. He will be getting plenty of practice, soon.
A fresh roll of parchment. A full pot of ink. He has made a desk of his dining table, set everything else to one side. Threnody’s mabari snoozes by the fire. He closes his eyes, takes a breath, sets his feet flat against the floor. He steadies himself, and he begins.
The Champion of Kirkwall was a storm folded in on itself.
Belief is a thing that can change - and for a beginning, this will do.