I love sibling prompts, so, from your (brilliant) object/action/setting prompt post, I want to suggest: "A snapped quill and a broken ink pot, scrubbing hands over face, and a stretch of farmland made barren by Blight" for Garrett and Bethany?
Thank you lottie! 🥰 I got the same(ish) prompt from @veil-song too!
For @thedasweekend!
Pairing: Garrett Hawke & Bethany Hawke
Rating: Teen
WC: 2,640
CW: Instance of casual fantasy racism
Summary: After years hiding from the templars (and everything else) in the Vimmarks, Garrett and Bethany learn of the Conclave explosion.
This is a new 'missing scene' for my Hawke x Trevelyan, Cullen x Trevelyan DAI long fic In the Shattering of Things. This is also the follow up to the fic Something Craves.
Divider by honeyluvsw
Garrett swings into the room, snatching bits of leather armor from where they hang on random nails, pushing his unwashed hair back behind an ear. “I have to head to Camrac. We’re low on salt and I’m hoping for a letter from Varr—” He stops. Bethany’s on all fours, mopping up a mess of spilled ink with a rag, gingerly placing shattered glass on the corner of her writing desk.
“What happened there?” he asks lightly. “Another classic fit of blind rage?” Bethany raises a nonplussed brow. He could do with a fit of blind rage from her.
“Clumsy is all. I can buy a new inkpot in town,” she declares. She picks up a handful of spent quills and snaps them in half. “And some fresh quills. And I’m expecting a letter.”
“Heard from Gil there were templars about. You’re better off here.”
“I’m not twelve anymore, Garrett,” she argues. “Or eighteen. I’m twenty-bloody-nine. And I can crush a man like a mosquito if need be. I’m coming.” Garrett purses his lips, lifts his brows and assents. Despite Bethany’s near-miraculous tolerance for his overbearing habits, he has learned when to ease off to maintain the peace. She likes the Chantry in Camrac, an architectural wonder with all the gravitas of a chicken coop. Reminds her of sunny trips into Lothering.
He owes her some sunny reminders.
He’d feel better about the whole thing if they’d been able to recover her phylactery. His trust in Knight-Captain Cullen's fondness for her can only do so much to soothe his nerves.
“You’re going to town like that?” she asks, looking him up and down. Garrett stares down at his stained breeches, brushes away a few tenacious bits of straw. Bethany sighs. “Of course you’re going like that.”
“I already sound too blazing posh for these parts, I don’t need to look it, too.”
“You think they won’t talk to you if you’re clean?”
“They’re farmers, Biff. They prefer their own kind.”
“One day I’ll break you of that name.”
Garrett sucks his teeth while he nods. “I wish you luck. Biffany.”
Bethany chucks the broken quills at him.
The path down to Camrac is a relentless descent that’s long protected them. It’s rutted out by a stormy summer, barely fit for a donkey. Their horses manage it, though they both grit their teeth through each screaming section and hop off when necessary. When the path curls around a rock face, the valley spreads below, a patchwork of golds and coppers pressing up against the glinting thread of the River Lafaille. But farther north the farmland darkens into a brutal scar, memories of the Blights of old the land will never shake, and beyond that, a vicious truth buried in a Warden prison.
“Garrett, look— another one of those green anomalies.” He plucks his spyglass from Rosco’s saddle and searches. From their towering vantage point over the valley, the red sails of Dalish aravels cut the scrubby forest like shark fins. For a moment he wonders if it’s Clan Sabrae. But Bethany points closer. Tendrils of green magic flick from amongst the autumn shrubbery below. A few months earlier they might not have seen it at all.
“No shit.”
“You don’t sound surprised,” she notes, holding her wind-whipped hair back from her face.
“These sorts of things are never one-off flukes,” he says. “I was hoping to hear back from Varric about it. I haven’t heard from him in months.”
“You haven’t heard from Varric? I don’t like the smell of that,” notes Bethany.
“Neither do I.”
True, his friends are scattered but a few of them have insisted upon themselves. Sebastian and Varric of course. Aveline. A pirate and two elves wouldn’t want to stick around to see what the Seekers of Truth wanted to ask them about their infamous apostate associate. They’ve practically winked out, chasing odd jobs and something that smells like purpose. Unlike him.
Garrett simply fled.
Too many failures lay amidst the rubble. Some lunatic part of him still believes he should have been able to hold the city together, he and his oddball friends. It didn’t help that that shape-changing witch laid down something that sounded an awful lot like prophecy. Garrett had smothered her words with his own justifications over the years, but they still tickled like an unscratchable itch at the back of his mind. He’d chased her abyss as if he’d thought of it all on his own.
The flickers of unholy green in the bushes spark in his blood.
Camrac is an insistent little notch of buildings at the confluence of two rivers, thatch roof houses piled one on top of the other to maximize farmland. The residents wear a reflexive sneer, proud and distrustful, reserving smiles for private times. But Garrett and Bethany are human and live far enough away that nobody could ever accuse them of trying to lever their way in. Out here the Champion of Kirkwall is somehow both a hero for the ages and a traitor to good Maker-fearing folk, but he’s a myth, a suggestion on the wind. Some even argue that Varric Tethras made him up.
It savors of the truth.
Garrett and Bethany tie off their horses and shake off the stares of villagers before ringing the bell outside the Chandler’s shop. They’ve kept the doors locked around here since the Circles fell. But they’ve fooled themselves into thinking they have nothing to fear from the Templars. They’re on our side, they say. Garrett can only shake his head. With two chipped shoulders and a score to settle, they’re on nobody’s side but their own. And even then they’re their own worst enemy. Rumor had it most of the Kirkwall Order had up and vanished one night a year or so back. The people of Camrac blame maleficarum, but Garrett knows a little more than the average backcountry lunk and it’s a murky blazing business.
The chandler opens the porter’s hatch and leers past them before focusing on the two of them. The man’s caution twists in his gut. Normally, he’d let them in.
“How do, Bird,” he says. “Been a spell, hasn’t it? Got a letter for you, Serah.” Garrett perks up.
“Oh. Smashing.”
“Not you. Her,” says the chandler. “Came by some fancypants courier. Whole town’s aflutter.” Garrett lifts a brow at his sister whose cheeks already redden. He hands the letter through, stamped with a blank seal, but the paper is fine enough to betray its sender immediately.
Garrett puts in their order for salt and quills and an inkpot and then rasps out a question to Bethany as she thumbs at the seal.
“Did you write Sebastian?”
“Well someone needed to,” she snaps back.
“Come around back for you things, Serah,” says the Chandler returning.
“Around back?” he asks, puzzled.
“We’ve been careful since the Conclave blew up.”
“Since the what?” Garrett and Bethany cry in tandem.
“The Conclave. The Divine, all her people. Templars, mages. The whole thing. Up in some kind of magical attack. They’re saying there’s a hole in the sky and that demons are raining out. Smells like Kirkwall all over again,” says the Chandler. “Maker help us all.”
“Right. Shit,” breathes Garrett, trading look with his sister, her eyes boring into his with a forgotten intensity.
“Meet you around back?” continues the Chandler. Bethany snatches Garrett around the corner.
“You don’t think it was you-know-who, do you?” she hisses.
“Fuck if I know,” he says. “That might explain the anomalies if the attack was big enough… but— shit. Fuck.” With a fistful of hair, he waves a hand at her letter. “Open it, quick.”
They crowd close over the letter, reading Sebastian’s exquisite hand.
Bethany,
It’s good to hear from you. I can, unfortunately answer your questions.
The anomaly you speak of appears to be the result of a magical attack at the site of the Conclave. The explosion took everyone at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, including Her Holiness. Including many of my dearest friends.
As if that weren’t enough, the explosion seems to have caused an enormous breach in the Veil and smaller rifts all over southern Thedas observed as far north as the Minanter. Demons have been raining from the heavens.
By the Andraste’s grace, Justinia’s right and left hands were spared from the explosion and now leverage the power of the Divine’s Inquisition to investigate and provide stabilizing forces. I’ve already had correspondence with Sister Leliana.
“Leliana? Our friend Leliana?” asks Bethany. “Working for the Divine?”
“Last I saw her she was going by Nightingale. The Divine’s sneaky songbird. ”
They turn back to the letter.
The Inquisition has in their care a lone survivor, Lady Rose Trevelyan.
“Trevelyan. Trevelyan…” murmurs Garrett, scratching at his chin, searching his memory.
“Wasn’t Mum friends with a Trevelyan? Before Dad?”
“Shit. She was.”
“Didn’t she want to fix you up with her daughter?”
“Who’s to say?” he scoffs. “Mum always had a match or five in her back pocket.” He turns back to the letter and mumbles through the next bit.
Though suspicion first fell to her due to an unusual magical mark on her hand, she appears to be able to close the rifts and has stabilized the Breach. She was attending the Conclave with her father as representatives of the Teyrn of Ostwick’s interests.
An unusual magical mark on her hand. It stirs gooseflesh all over.
“Maybe it’s her,” says Bethany. “Wouldn’t want to be in her shoes right now. Magic like that can’t be stable.”
As far as I know, they are openly accepting mages into their ranks. I’m not sure what your appetite for danger is these days, but I do recall you being rather effective. It could suit you. Tell Hawke to dust off his armor and sharpen his sword.
Stay in touch and Maker guide you,
Sebastian
Garrett slumps against the building, smearing both hands over his face.
“Stand up, you’ll draw too much attention,” scolds Bethany.
“Does it matter? Sounds like the world’s about to end,” he answers. “What if these rifts grow? What if— what if they can’t close that Breach he spoke of?” Bethany eyes him carefully.
“I can see those gears turning already.”
“Well aren’t yours?” he asks. “Maker. This is just what I need.”
“Isn’t it though?” she pushes. Garrett’s impatient look pings off her like sleet. “Maybe the Inquisition could use us.”
“I like Leliana, but working for the Divine’s people? I can’t trust they wouldn’t toss you in another tower. I’ll look into it. On my own.”
“Oh for Maker’s sake, Garrett,” breathes Bethany. “Sebastian said they were taking mages. We could both do some good.”
“Oi! You comin’ around, Bird?” cries the Chandler. Garrett flicks her a sharp glance as he stands.
“Or fuck it all up,” he answers quietly. Bethany swats him with the letter as they round the corner.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” says the Chandler, over the bottom half of his door. “Looks like we’ll be terrorized by rebel apostates for the foreseeable future.”
“Mm. Yes. Tragedy,” says Garrett. Bethany elbows him discreetly.
“Any other unusual happenings around Camrac?” asks Bethany.
“We had a patrol of templars here looking for mages. Pleased to say we don’t harbor their kind in these parts. Then— ” He pauses to laugh “—then. A pair of women came by searching for the bloody Champion of Kirkwall. Here. Workin’ for the Chantry or summat.”
“Here? Outrageous,” says Garrett. Bethany could be a little less obvious with her immediate concern.
“He’s almost as big as one of those ox men, he is. Be hard to miss him,” says the Chandler.
Garrett nods, sealing the threat of laughter behind his lips. “Huh. Hmm.”
“Your provisions, Serah,” says Chandler, pushing a crate over the edge of the door. Garrett slides his silvers across the silvered sill on top of the bottom door and thanks him.
They skip the chicken coop chantry and ride past the captivated stares of thirsty, isolated townsfolk. A mile outside Camrac, Garrett dismounts, ties off Rosco against Bethany’s protests and throws himself down on a patch of browned autumn weeds, tugging them from the cold earth by the handful.
“I don’t know, Beth,” he says. “What does it mean?”
“Oh we’re doing this, are we?” Not every horrible thing needs to have some great meaning. Did the Blight ten years ago?”
“I mean for us.”
“It could be a calling for all we know,” she argues. “A test from the Maker.”
“The Maker’s fucked off to someplace more interesting.”
“Garrett.”
“What?” He rumbles a sigh. The answer grows in his chest like one of these blazing weeds. The call. He’s been susceptible to it since boyhood, since tales of dragons and knights spiked his sprouting ambitions into something insatiable. He argues with it. There’s still more to lose.
“I just— get twitchy when things start to feel predestined. Like I’m caught in a tide.”
“Garrett I swear, sometimes you really ought to listen to yourself,” she gripes. Garrett chucks a crispy grass seedhead at her.
“You were there at Sundermount.”
“To hear that witch spout a mouthful of nonsense? I remember.”
“What if it isn’t?”
“What if she wants to make you her little sock poppit? What if she likes the sound of her own voice? What if she just wanted to mess with you, Garrett?” counters Bethany. “Maybe it’s just about paying attention to the world and pitching in. Maybe it’s really that simple.”
“Psh.”
Bethany plucks a stem of dry grass and swishes it past her lips, pushing her inky hair behind her ear as she scrunches up her brow. For all she accuses him of lecturing, she can be brutally sanctimonious.
“Mum wouldn’t want you wasting away out here. She had ambitions for you. Ones I could never fulfill.”
The Mum card. Desperate times call for desperate measures, he supposes.
“Mum wanted me to get fat at the top of Marcher society,” he scoffs. “She was never that fond of my meddling. Except when it served her.”
“Mum liked the familiar. But she wouldn’t want us scratching around in the dirt out here this long,” she says, scratching around in the dirt. Setting aside the fact that it sounds like the world might be falling apart at the seams, don’t you think it sounds interesting?”
It does.
“The last thing they’d want is someone like me strolling in to stick my nose into the middle of things.”
“People used to hire you to stick your nose into the middle of things.”
“That was then.”
They breathe matching long-suffering sighs and then glance at each other. Bethany finds mischief once more.
“Would be funny if it was her though.”
“Who?”
“That Lady Trevelyan. The survivor.”
“I’m not sure I ever remembered her name. Probably one of the usual top-drawer prigs I rubbed elbows with,” he says and then laughs at his boots. “Imagine if the whole world depended on Fifi de Launcet. Much luck to the Inquisition.”
Garrett drops his head back, listening to the breeze whisper through spent vegetation. Birds calligraph their way across the flat blue of the sky above, oblivious to the new dangers. He’s been denying himself his own instincts for too long now, the red lyrium investigation his one indulgence. But the insatiable beast within him paces its cage with this news. He’ll be chewing the door jamb if he doesn’t let himself fly.
He peers at her again and then whacks her leg with the back of his knuckles as he rises.
“I’ll find out more,” he promises. “If nothing else, it’ll be a bit of desperately needed entertainment. Or existential torment.” Bethany smirks.
“Or both.”
Garrett sighs through his smile and nods. “Or both.”
KNIFE PLAY KNIFE PLAY KNI sorry I was worried I'd forget this. happy Friday! anyway KNIFE PLAY KNIFE PLAY K
ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE. This uh. This whole thing is going under a cut ok. (ahahah. a cut. see what i did there).
tags are as follows: knifeplay, as requested. bloodplay. breathplay. pain kink. biting. spicy roleplay. magic during sex. temperature play. anal fingering. anal sex. kinda sorta double penetration. cuddly aftercare.
Behold, the only scenario I will ever accept of Hawke stabbing Anders at the end of DA2, and the filthy, filthy retaliation afterwards. :>
neither safe, nor sane, but definitely consensual. read at your own risk. happy @dadrunkwriting.
Journey jolts out of a dead sleep to a hand tightening around her throat. She draws magic to her fingers in a panic, struggling beneath the weight of someone pinning her to the mattress, and discovers her wrists are secured tightly to the bedposts behind with rope so scratchy she swears it's already beginning to break the skin.
"Shh," Anders whispers, lips inches from her ear. She relaxes with a sigh of relief, heart still thudding with fear-fueled adrenaline, and then he jerks a knee between her legs and claps a hand roughly over her mouth. "Did you think I would forget?"
—
Kirkwall burns around them. What's left of the Chantry lies in ruins, a great and magnificent backdrop of destruction that floods her chest with a victorious sort of elation.
There can be no compromise.
Well, they bloody well can't now, can they?
Anders sits on a nearby crate, shoulders slumped in a perfect picture of contrition. It's unbelievable, really, how convincing his deception is with a spirit inside of him who refuses to let him dabble in falsehood, but then again, she's always been particularly convincing when it comes to Justice. He likes her quite a lot, after all.
And besides. After what the three of them had just accomplished together, he owes her this one.
She supposes she should shore up her own mask before anyone steps too close and manages to spot the victory in her eyes. Better make this big.
"I've always been ready to die for the cause," Anders says morosely as she approaches.
"I know," she says. She makes a show of trembling hands when she pulls the dagger from her boot. "I'm sorry, Anders."
To anyone watching, her knifework is clumsy, fumbled with grief and fear and hilariously fabricated disbelief. She traces her fingertips against his back — to steady herself for this visibly awful deed, and also to find the exact place he'd shown her that would do minimal damage he could heal stealthily without drawing attention to himself — and drives the knife between his ribs. Exactly the way they'd practiced.
She leans in to kiss his temple and whisper her last words into his ear. It's all a very tragically romantic scene. Varric is furiously scribbling notes, she's absolutely certain of it.
"I'll punish you for this later, love," he chokes under his breath.
She runs her hand (mournfully, she hopes) through his tousled, sweaty hair and touches her lips to the crown of his head.
"I'm counting on it, sweetheart," she whispers, and yanks the knife out of his back with an exaggerated grunt.
—
Journey bucks against the way Anders holds her down. She loves the way his fingers feel, long and slender and squeezing against her neck just enough to send her heart racing. She can feel the arousal already beginning to build, the slick warmth pooling between her thighs at the way he grinds his knee into her cunt and trails his teeth menacingly (probably) down the slope of her jaw. His breath ghosts against her chin, his loose hair brushing across her cheeks as he claims her mouth for a bruising kiss. He bites down on her lip just hard enough to draw the tiniest amount of blood, breathes in her gasp of pain with a soft chuckle as he releases her throat and traces his fingers down her face.
It had been almost two weeks since that night, two weeks since he'd breathed a tantalizing promise into the ash-dusted Hightown air and offered not another word of it since. If he hadn't brought it up in a few more days, she'd probably have cracked and broached the topic herself, but now she's glad she's kept her mouth shut.
Really, this is the best sort of surprise.
She catches his lip between her teeth in retaliation and tugs at it greedily. "I was hoping you wouldn't," she gasps. She'd intended it as a bratty sort of statement, but the way he trails his hand down her chest and slings a thin sheen of ice across her stomach sends her coherent thoughts spiraling into smoke. Her hands ball into fists, wrists tugging at the ropes burning friction into her skin as she writhes beneath his touch. "Fuck—" she whimpers.
"Did you think you would get away with something so audacious?" he purrs into her ear. "That I would let you drive a knife between my ribs without consequences?"
"It's — oh, fuck — what you deserve for being such a smarmy arsehole," she pants with a cheeky grin. "Did it hurt? Did you ache at my betrayal?"
"I've never been so heartbroken," he says, his lips trailing wet kisses down her neck before his teeth clamp down on her skin hard enough to make her yelp in surprise. "I've dreamed of revenge ever since."
"Have — have you, now?"
She's long since accepted that her particular proclivities occasionally get very questionable. She knows who she is, and she can't help the way her thighs twist together in anticipation at what he could mean by that.
The sharp bite of cold steel trailing down the outside of her thigh draws out a surprised and needy gasp. "Oh, fuck me," she breathes, eyes fluttering closed in excitement.
"I intend to," he says. He trails the blade down her leg before drawing it back up to her hip, pressing just hard enough to cut a searing line into her flesh before sealing it back up with his magic. "Did you know, the human body contains roughly sixty thousand miles of blood vessels?" He traces the tip of the blade across her stomach, numbed by the ice he's only just dissipated. "I have so many choices."
"I'm not — hnng — not even going to ask how you know that," she gasps.
A gentle draw of the blade against her belly blooms the warmth of freshly drawn blood against her skin. She shudders under the sensation, the sudden agony melting into a wave of euphoria that only fuels the insistent throbbing between her legs.
Every carefully placed cut is precise, every draw of blood followed by the prickle of skin knitting back together that she ordinarily hates but is too turned on now to mind much. The discomfort is nothing beneath the burn of arousal flooding her body.
He latches his lips onto her nipple and sucks, dragging it between his teeth before laving his tongue over it, and when he grips her other one between his thumb and forefinger and twists, she lets out a desperate cry. "Oh, fuck, please, fuck me," she gasps, thighs twisting against one another in needy desperation.
"I don't think you've earned that yet," he growls into her ear. She squeezes her eyes shut and swallows her whine as he drags the knife between her tits and cuts a fine line up her sternum. It stings, it burns, it hurts, and then pleasure ripples through her body, shivers sending goosebumps down her arms, and she needs — oh, Maker, she needs him to touch her, needs it so badly she forgets how to breathe.
"You shouldn't move so much, love." He pulls back just enough to trail the tip of the knife across her cheek. "Never know what you might break by mistake." The blood itches as it drips down her face. He seals the cut that drew it and carves another one beneath it, shallow and delicate against her skin. "Do you know how hard it was?" he whispers. "To play dead while staunching the hole you poked in my right lung from driving the knife a hair too deep?"
"Aren't you—" She bites back a whine when he pulls the blade across her shoulder, a fresh wave of pain cascading down her arm. "Aren't you supposed to be the best spirit healer in all of Thedas?"
"Mm, didn't make it bloody hurt any less, though, did it?"
She means to respond, but the words die in her throat when he repeats the motion three more times in succession down her upper arm before sealing them all up at once. She's floating, she thinks dimly, in a wavy haze of stinging pleasure, and all she can think about is the desperate ache between her legs and how uncomfortably empty she still is.
And then he's trailing slick fingers up the cleft of her arse, teasing and prodding at her entrance, and when he finally slips one finger in, she can't hold back the litany of pleas that fall from her lips.
Her cunt is so fucking empty, it aches.
"This is your punishment, remember?" he murmurs. "I intend to take my time with your suffering."
"Fuck you," she manages to grit out. He silences her with a second finger in her arse, setting the knife aside and swallowing her moans in a needy and overwhelming kiss. She grinds desperately against his hand as he fucks her open, and when the tip of his thumb grazes her clit she can't help the way she yanks at her bindings with a frustrated groan.
His fingers are warm and sizzling with magic when he pushes her legs up and lines up his cock to her arse, the head stretching her with a pleasant sort of burn that leaves her babbling, begging, pleading for more. "Please, please, fuck, Anders—"
When he finally begins to fuck her in earnest, she tips her head back and loses herself in it, in the way he stretches and fills her with euphoric friction, in the obscene slap of flesh and the way her fingers find the ropes tugging at her wrists, hooking around them and gripping for dear life.
And then, he stops. She swears violently and yanks at her bonds, but he just laughs. He doesn't pull out, just reaches over her, and when curiosity wins out over her arousal and forces her eyes open, she can't help but whimper in anticipation.
He's grasped the knife by the blade, a shimmering barrier protecting his fingers from the sharp edge, and positioned it at her cunt with a wild grin on his face. The pommel is cold against hot, aching flesh, and she groans when it goes in. She can feel every rounded ridge of the hilt against the barrier between her cunt and where his cock is nestled in her arse, every moment of friction sending her to new heights of arousal.
He begins to fuck her again, pistoning in and out of her with both his cock and the hilt of her blade in a rhythm that sends sparks racing down her spine. She's so close, she's sobbing in desperation, a fresh litany of begging falling from her lips with every thrust. It's so good, so good she can hardly think beyond the pressure building in her belly, uncoiling in her core, rippling out through every inch of her skin.
"Beautiful," he whispers. He stops thrusting with the dagger and simply holds it in place, and she can feel the way the magic radiates from the barrier he's holding around it as it buzzes against her flesh. His own thrusts become harder, less controlled as his breath catches in his throat, and when he comes in her arse with a flood of wet warmth he sends a pulse of shock into her through the knife that drives her over the edge with an unrestrained wail that practically echoes on the walls of their room.
Their rented room.
He pulls the knife out of her and tosses it aside where it falls on the floor with a clatter before collapsing on top of her with a breathless laugh as he claps his hand across her mouth. "That's one way to wake up all of the neighbors," he pants, head falling against her neck, lips finding her pulse point for kisses far more delicate than any he'd given her all night.
"Please," she mumbles. "We're probably never coming back here again after tonight anyway. Isn't — fuck, that was amazing — isn't that half the fun of being on the run?"
"Maker, I love you." He nuzzles his nose into her cheek and trails kisses across her jaw before pressing his lips against hers. "So much."
"I love you too." She returns his kiss with the gentleness he deserves, a soft contrast to the way he'd just fucked the absolute life out of her, admittedly, but the adoration in his eyes draws affection from her as naturally as breathing. Love isn't a strong enough word for what she feels, for him and Justice and everything they've shared the past few years.
"Have I been punished enough, then?" she asks sleepily as Anders pulls out of her fully and rolls beside her before pulling her into his arms with a contented hum. "Or does Justice get a turn next?"
"You are insatiable," he mutters. "I shudder to think how you'd be if you had Grey Warden stamina."
She snorts as she feels the telltale hum of creation magic as he checks her over for lingering injuries. She's probably got blood all over the sheets, but she won't have so much as a scratch on her come morning. The bruises on her neck, though — he always leaves those for her to keep. To treasure.
"We should clean up before we sleep," he says softly, his breath tickling her ear as he leans in for another kiss on her temple.
"Yeah," she mumbles, with no intention of getting up whatsoever. "Probably."
He shakes her gently by the shoulder with an amused chuckle. "Are you going to get out of bed now, then?"
Journey snorts and burrows further under the covers against his chest. "Absolutely fucking not."
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Fenris lovingly demanded.
“Me?” Hawke feigned offence at the completely reasonable and very likely necessary request, “when have I ever done anything stupid?”
“You mean besides falling in love with me?” Fenris asked, affectionately grazing his thumbs over the deep dimples in her cheeks as he leaned in close to press a brief, though no less indulgent kiss to her waiting lips.
“Best thing I ever did,” she emotionally whispered, lip trembling as her silverite eyes shone with unshed tears.
Fenris rested his forehead against hers, his huge glittering emerald eyes demanding her full attention. “I am yours,” his rich velvety voice assured, smothering her anxieties like a warm blanket.
Hawke wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest. His heart pounded wildly against her ear, the only sign he was just as worried about their impending separation as she.
“Come back to me, Ma lath,” her voice wavered, heart aching at the very real possibility of never seeing him again.
Fenris held her just a little bit tighter, burying a kiss into her inky black hair before responding with absolute conviction, “I promise, Amatus.”
~
Art by the very talented and super nice @jentrevellan who was an absolute joy to work with and I recommend you all go commission immediately!
Thank you to the wonderful @luzial for beta-reading this fic. This is my favourite chapter - hope you all enjoy.
--
Excerpt:
“You know, we used to do this together. Mother was a washerwoman for House Danarius when we were children. She’d make us help her when she was tired.” Her voice is distorted as she holds the pins in her mouth. “It was always just a game to me. But you were so careful, always listening to make sure no one in the master’s household heard us laughing too loud.”
He has frozen, he realizes, as he watches her retrieve another sheet from the tub. His mother was a washerwoman. He does not know whether he should treasure this knowledge, but a pang runs through his heart all the same. Varania holds out the end of the wet sheet expectantly, and he takes it. They wring it out as before.
“I do not remember,” he says quietly.
“I know,” she replies. For the first time, he sees a flash of sorrow cross her face as she looks at him, before they must once again toss the sheet over the clothing line. When he looks back, it is gone.
Though he does not remember, he can imagine a red-haired elf child laughing gleefully as another, dark-haired (how does he know he had dark hair?) and more serious, hushes her, glancing over his shoulder.
