can u plz share the kiss meme that inspired ur klance draws bc good god i wanna attempt drawing something as soft and emotional as u have 😢😢 so wonderful bless
This is my gift for my FenHawke Secret Santa/Gift exchange buddy @sharkberries and her Hawke, Jaq! Happy New Year! I hope you enjoy. It was meant to be fluffier, but I ended up just going for sweet.
A Late Gift
~1400 words
For context, it’s set a little while after their first night in Act 2, after things between them have settled somewhat, but before everything else in Kirkwall gets completely out of hand :) Hope you enjoy!
Jaq holds her breath, stamping her feet in the snow and letting the air puff out of her lungs, a visible cloud hanging in front of her face. Then she lifts her hand to the door, and knocks.
And knocks again.
When there’s still no answer on the third knock, she huffs in frustration and pushes the door open anyway.
“Fenris?” She calls out tentatively, after she reaches the open hallway of his borrowed mansion. Her footsteps only thump dully due to the padding of snow stuck to them.
“Hawke?” His voice echoes across the empty space as he appears slowly from one of the side rooms. She sees his sword in his hand, which he lowers with a scowl on his face once he catches sight of her. “You knocked.” He somehow makes it sound accusatory.
“And the common convention when someone knocks is to answer the door.” Jaq smiles, unperturbed by his testiness.
“You don’t knock. You just walk in.”
“I was trying to be polite. Maker, maybe Aveline’s having an influence on me.”
Fenris continues to look suspicious as he crosses the space towards her. “That would be the day I knew something was definitely wrong. Do I want to know why were you trying to be polite, Hawke?”
“I want you to come with me.” She says, and her hand reaches out automatically for his own, to pull him towards the door, before she thinks better of it. His eyes flick down - he saw the abandoned movement but he doesn’t follow immediately.
Instead his eyes flick briefly behind her head, where she knows he’s registering that her staff isn’t strapped to her back as usual. “Where?”
“Do you want to put on shoes, it’s snowy outside. Just looking at your feet makes me cold.” She smiles at him, then twists around to look back at his front door. “Do you actually have shoes?”
“I’ll be fine.” Fenris replies. He’s already given up on getting an answer from her, so when he follows her towards the door she doesn’t tell him that he won’t need his sword. Sometimes Hawke knows better than to speak. Sometimes.
Instead, she leads him outside to the main market of Hightown, where his curiosity wins over again and he asks to be told where they’re going. She seems to be taking him down the steps towards Lowtown but ducks off through a small alley, one that Fenris has already explored before. It’s a force of habit for him to know all the ins and outs of the town he’s staying in, but it doesn’t help him understand their destination because he recalls that this alleyway leads to a dead end in someone’s property.
Jaq continues on her way regardless and as they reach the wall of this homeowners building Fenris becomes increasingly certain that Hawke is just refusing to admit she took a wrong turn. However she steps without hesitation onto a bench and vaults herself up onto the roof.
“Hawke!” Fenris exclaims, confused exasperation in his voice.
“It’s fine. Come on, this is what I want to show you.”
“Trespassing?”
She waves his protest away with a casual swipe of her hand. “No one’s home. If I get caught, I’ll just say blood mages made me do it.”
“I can’t see that going badly for anyone.” Fenris grumbles but climbs onto the flat roof after her anyway.
It was worth it. Below them sprawls the tangle of streets and alleys that make up Kirkwall, appearing uncharacteristically pure with the untouched coating of snow on all of the roofs. Untouched except for the one they now sit on, that is. The view stretches down to the water of the harbour, showing the lazy rocking of boats in the small waves. There doesn’t seem to be anyone at all moving by the docks, none of the loading and unloading of cargo that usually seems interminable.
He glances across at Jaq, then tries to disguise his surprise when he finds that she has apparently been watching him. He struggles to find something to say, anything to distract him from the striking, unguarded look he had caught in her eyes.
“It’s quiet.” He points out.
“It’s First Day. Most people will have the day off, even if it’s just because they’re nursing sore heads.” She says and she seems softer, suddenly. “That’s why I wanted to talk. Today… First Day.”
She hesitates and Fenris is momentarily caught off guard.
“I don’t know what traditions there might have been in Tevinter, but you’re in Kirkwall now, so I thought you should know about ours.” In a flash, she had brightened and Fenris holds his tongue, letting her continue. “The Turn of the year is about new beginnings, fresh starts.” Jaq peers hopefully at him, although Fenris doesn’t know how she wants him to react.
“Okay?” At least he thinks he’s agreeing.
“But I don’t want a new start, I want an old start.” She says and looks at him again as if he’s supposed to understand.
“I’m sorry?”
“What I want to say is…I have a gift for you.”
“I thought that was a Saturnalia tradition?” By this point, Fenris is very confused but he waits, hoping for Hawke’s eyes to be turned on him again. It took his breath away, no matter how often he caught her gaze.
“I have a late gift for you, then.” Jaq retorts and reaches into the small bag slung over one shoulder, pulling out something small enough to scrunch into one hand. “It’s…maybe this is a bad idea…but it’s…” she trails off and Fenris takes her hand, to steady her.
She looks up into his eyes, startled.
Drawing his mind back to the present, Fenris opens her palm to reveal… a strip of red. He opens his mouth to reply then closes it and looks up at Hawke again. Luckily for them both, that’s when she finds the words she was striving after.
“It’s a ribbon. It’s my ribbon. It’s my way of saying, Fenris, I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’m here. I want you to remember that in case you thought that I…wasn’t.” She glances back down at the ribbon again, biting her bottom lip with the hope that some of that came out how she had intended her offering.
“Hawke, I appreciate it. Truly I do.” He makes sure that the sincerity cannot be mistaken in his voice for something else. She is fiddling with the ribbon and his hands are still holding hers.
“I just thought, it was something for you to know I care. You could keep it in your belt pouch. Or, or even at home, if you don’t want it with you.”
“Will you tie it for me?” He asks, partly to make her stop talking down to their joined hands. She glances up with a querying look, one which quickly melts into pleasure when he holds out his arm, gesturing to the wrist of his gauntlet. She quickly complies, tucking the loose ends under the band and admiring her handwork. “I wouldn’t want to hide it. And I don’t want you thinking I would.”
Jaq’s smile lights the whole of her face. “You really like it?”
“I will not be parted from it. I only wish I had known to get you something.”
“No, you’ve got my back. That’s all I need.” She says and the corner of her lip twitches. “So that means you accept that, you want to make this year a new, old start?”
“As much as I usually follow you, yes.”
“Then, to a fresh New Year!”
“To old friends made new again.” Fenris agrees and this time when she turns her eyes on him, he can’t help himself. He leans forward and presses his lips quickly, gently to the top of her head. Pulling back just as quickly, he sees Jaq looks stunned for a second, and Fenris turns to look out over the view, the low wintery sun already skimming the tops of the cliffs on the far side of the water.
They both sit for another moment in the first comfortable silence they have enjoyed for some time, their hands somehow still joined between them.
The artwork for this track is by sharkberries aka Sharkie. The characters here are mer OCs of them and one of their friends!
My influences for this one were probably the weirdest combination of songs so far. Cape Breton Lullaby, which is a lovely choral piece that I sang in Elementary school and really stuck with me for all these years, and a medley of the Mario water level songs from a bunch of different games. I think the mixolydian scale of Cape Breton Lullaby gives the piece a slightly off-kilter feel, which I like for a song about non-human creatures. And listening to Mario music was really helpful for studying how composers who were seriously limited by technology decided to represent water and swimming, and get an idea of what kinds of sounds I wanted to use.
Anyway, it’s really fun to write music for characters like this! I hope it’s clear which of the instruments and themes represents each of them.
(My co-editor and best friend tokyodemons and I are very familiar with this particular friend dynamic–the big, quiet, serious one and the little extroverted one who gets all up in the other’s space. So yes, I’m drawing from my own life here :D)
