BlondePomeranian's Writeblr

Gifts, unobtrusive at first, then a shade too particular, too attuned. Plans, not for next week but for some fogged-over point just far enough ahead to suggest permanence. A quiet test, a way of observing whether the word we would slip into conversation naturally or require a pause, a conscious effort.

Some entanglements stretched across years, some unraveled in mere months, some never took shape at all. But the process remained the same, a practiced routine, less an act of pursuit than a habit of expectancy, of waiting to see who would mistake the drift for direction. 

With Johanna, it had almost seemed possible. They were young, clever, bright enough to blind themselves. Where she rushed forward, he held back; where she burned bridges, he traced blueprints for new ones. They fit together, he thought. She chose him to fight with, to kiss, to mock, to fuck, to abandon, to retrieve, to champion when it suited her and dismiss when it did not. Out of all the others—so many others, so many better ones—it was him she turned to, and that was beyond exhilarating.

"You're a fucking idiot," she would tell him. 

"Perhaps," he would agree, adjusting his sleeves, "but you still should not do this, Johanna." Or that. Or the next thing. 

They did not balance each other. Balance suggested symmetry, some reciprocal give-and-take. Johanna was a force of nature; he, at best, a gust of wind. But in those days, he let himself believe they came close enough. 

"I could stay with you forever," he confessed to her once, drunk on sentiment, on whatever else had been in his glass. 

"Love. Romance," Johanna muttered, barely looking up from her notes. "Convenient, isn’t it? Always there when it suits you. Always such a lovely little supplement to whatever grand, important thing you’re doing. We could go anywhere, you and I. Climb every ladder, scale every rung. Publish together, argue in print, scandalize conferences, carve our names so deep into the spine of academia they’d have to chisel us out. For a while, it could even be fun." 

Tap-tap-tap. Her cigarette met its end against his desk. 

"And then, of-fucking-course, you'll be wanting more. Because you're a sentimental twat. It'll start with something small. A home, maybe. A study with matching desks. How adorable. Before I know it, I’ll be spending more time with you than without, and suddenly ‘we’ have ‘traditions.’ ‘We’ have ‘a life together.’ And the next thing out of your mouth will be that cursed, saccharine stupid word: family."

A wave of the hand, cutting off whatever nonsense he had been about to say. 

"Tell me, Volkarin, when that moment comes, when the great balancing act begins, who do you think will tip the scales? Who will step back? Who will compromise, just a bit, just a fraction, just enough that it becomes a habit? It certainly won’t be you." 

In the aftermath, he stopped collecting people—they had a way of slipping through, of vanishing between seasons—and turned to objects instead. Objects had the decency to remain where they were placed. Objects, too, could be tender. A frayed ribbon, a cufflink left behind in a hurry, the curve of a wine glass still faintly smudged. If flowers could be pressed between pages, why not the remnants of former closeness?  

For a while, it sufficed. Once-beens do not grow cold. They do not tire of a familiar voice. They do not wake to discover that passion has gone. 

Then, one day, sudden as a fairytale, a little thing followed. A little thing made entirely of curiosity, of unguarded wonder. It assembled itself from air and light, slipped into its chosen shape, donned a backpack, adjusted its goggles, and, most importantly, selected him. It let itself be named. It let itself become. First an it, then a he, then a wisp no longer but This is Manfred. And once again, he thought: this is enough. More than enough. Did he really need more? Did he really dare ask for it? To ask was to tempt, and he had lived long enough to know that nothing is punished more swiftly than wanting.

It is a graveyard, he thinks now, standing in the Lighthouse, frowning at the accumulated debris of a life, at the weight of what he has chosen to drag with him. The artifacts of his years; the trifles, the curiosities gathered not for use but for the fact of their gathering. Books he cherishes and books he detests, bought because, once, someone he desired mentioned them in passing. His grave gold has been carefully curated. Each piece first chosen for its shape and luster, its particular delight, but also bright enough, costly enough, to be seen. Gold so pure it warps under a careless grip, so soft that teeth would leave crescent-shaped wounds in its surface if one were to bite. 

He wonders if Rook—whom he loves, though he will not tell her, not yet, not when love, spoken too soon, has the peculiar effect of making things disappear—might find some use for them. If she would accept one without knowing it was an offering. If she would take a second. If she would take them all. Books she cannot read, books she can set alight. If the gesture would amuse her, if it would tilt her just a hair closer, if, in some small, unnoticed way, it would make her stay after all is said and done and the gods are dead. 

He is vain, naturally. If the wind disarranges his hair, he will pause before a reflective surface to smooth it down. He will scent the pulse points of his throat, darken his lashes, adjust the folds of his collar. But vanity, like intelligence, like charm, is an instrument. He has wielded it since youth, when prettiness earned him gifts, indulgences, the interest of those old enough to give what he could not take. In his prime, handsomeness made students linger too long at his desk, made colleagues tilt their heads toward his in the candlelit hush of evening. And now, past fifty, he is something else altogether. 

Now he looks like a man who can provide. It is a new sort of attention, neither unpleasant nor pleasurable, merely a shift in expectation. He can no longer offer the prettiness of youth—fine, let it go. But there are other currencies. Stability, for one. A steady hand, a still point, a place to land when Rook, inevitably, falls. Because she will fall. It is in her nature to leap, just as it is in his to remain still, just as it was in Johanna’s to trespass. 

He is tired. Not old, not yet, though the distinction is beginning to blur. A little past his prime, a few paces beyond what once felt limitless. Still, the weight of it settles; a fatigue not of the body but of anticipation, of wanting, of that feverish, grasping giddiness that used to propel him forward and now only leaves him breathless. He isn’t sure when it happened, when the thrill sharpened into something sweeter, something he dared to call love. 

All he knows is that the Lighthouse has no hours, no division between night and day, only the endless lull of the in-between. And that in this strange, untethered time, he would very much like to kiss Rook for every second of it. 

"You look very good there," she says, watching him rearrange his books. 

Another night, when a tome slips, edges itself beneath his desk, and he is forced onto hands and knees to fish it out, she remarks, "I don’t like reading, but I like it when you read to me." 

"I like this, and I like that, and I like this even more." Her voice is drowsy as she traces the lines of his face in the dark. He doesn’t know what this or that are, only that she is saying it, only that it undoes something in him. He turns his face slightly, breathes in, and without meaning to, without even noticing at first, he cries.

"Oh," she says, and then, "Hm." A pause. A brief assessment. Finally, a careless shrug. "It’s fine. That’s fine. I like this too." 

Rook, Rook, Rook, he wants to say, you don’t need Rivain, you don’t need the sun. The sun burns you, always has, always will; your skin is too pale for it, you freckle, you scald. But Nevarra— 

Nevarra is softer. Nevarra has clouds, long grey stretches of them, merciful and cool. Nevarra has catacombs and tombs, stone corridors humming with history, names carved so deep they outlast memory. And everywhere—flowers. Tangled over crypts, spilling down staircases, curling at the hinges of forgotten doors. He has seen them all. He's collected them, commissioned their likeness in ink, dried them between pages so they would keep, so he could say: look, here, this one, still perfect, still intact. You don’t need the sun because they don't either. 

He feels selfish, but after all this time, surely, he is allowed. He is not certain if this is the love, grand and operatic, but it has the right proportions, the right density.

Then let him be selfish. Because one way or another, he will go before her. She is young; he is not. He will leave her everything—what he has made, what they will make together—let her wade through the excess of it, scatter it, burn it, gild herself in its remnants. Or perhaps it will be the other way around. Perhaps she will die first, and he will remain, the eternal, patient custodian of the Necropolis, throat slit in the name of lichdom. 

He will visit her bones, speak to her as he speaks to his parents, his voice flattening against stone, words meant for no one but himself. He will not whisper. Not to her. Not the way he does to the others, not in the hush reserved for the dead. Because what if she does not answer? Worse—what if she cannot? What if there is nothing at all on the other side, just a severance so complete that every Rook-shaped, Rook-possessed, Rook-claimed thing is erased, like a hand wiping chalk from a slate? And he, undying, would remain to witness it. So no, he will not whisper. But he will talk. 

He wants it, but he doesn’t want it, because he wants too much, all at once, all overlapping, all pulling in different directions. He wants to live, but he does not want to die. He wants to live with Rook, wants to kiss her, undress her, drag her down onto the floor of the Lighthouse, press her against familiar sheets in Nevarra, in Rivain, in places they have never been, in places that do not yet exist. He wants to pull her so close that the seam between them dissolves. 

More than that, he wants to buy her grave gold, not just because she would relish it—because she is a dragon, a creature drawn to glittering things—but because when she wears it, when her wrists flash with bangles, when her ears are burdened with gold, when her fingers are swallowed in rings, people will see. They will see and know. Know that every piece was placed there, deliberately, by someone who cares for her in the way that gold cares for fire—devotedly, completely, until it melts.

"I love you so much," he tells her one night, after a sip of whiskey too many, after something in his chest has tipped over and spilled. "I love you so, so much, and perhaps, oh, just perhaps, we do not need to die." 

She kisses his cheek, absently. She looks tired. "Not now?" she asks. 

"Not ever," he insists, giddy again, grasping her hands, pressing his lips against her knuckles. 

She exhales, leans back, undoes her braid, fingers brushing through. Inquires again, "How?" Not with disbelief, but with that particular indulgence she reserves for him. She humors, but she listens. She likes to listen. And so he will talk. 

"Me, in lichdom. You... I do not know. Not yet. Not entirely. But I will. Through artifice, perhaps." 

"Artifice?"

"You like gold, do you not?" 

"I suppose."

"Then gold it shall be," he concedes. "Fed into your veins, threaded through capillaries, chaperoned along the corridors of your body. A patient infusion, drop by drop, until the filigree of your arteries is lined with metal, until the marrow of your bones drinks it in like water. When your heart beats—" he presses his fingers to the pulse at her wrist, measuring it, counting. "It will push gold through you, coil it around your sinew, stain your blood the color of amber. It will settle in the soft places, the hidden ones. Behind your ribs, along your spine, between the cords of your throat. You will be a reliquary, a thing preserved, untouchable." His grip tightens slightly, just for a moment, before he releases her, watching the light catch at the faint blue of her veins. "And if your skin were ever cut," he murmurs, "nothing would spill. No ruin, no red, no proof of mortality. Only the gleam of permanence seeping through." 

Rook watches him for a long time, long enough that she seems older, the angles of her face sharpened by something he cannot name. Then he blinks, and suddenly she is younger; too young, younger than memory allows, younger than she has ever been. Paler, too. 

She takes his glass, finishes it without hesitation, grimaces slightly. Still wordless, she cradles his face in her hands, presses a kiss to one cheek, then the other. Her lips brush his eyelids, and he closes them for her, yielding. She lingers there, warm and silent, mouth against the thin skin, long enough that the room begins to shift, long enough that he thinks, drowsily, that he might simply drift into sleep. 

"I love you too," she murmurs, very quietly. Then, softer still, her lips moving against his temple, "But don’t speak like that again." Another kiss, this time to his jaw. "I will come to the Necropolis with you, if you like. In the next few days. You are not doomed, nor transcendent, nor anything half so tragic. You are homesick. That is all. You are simply homesick." 

He knows himself to be a man of excess: of reaching too far, of wanting beyond reason, of pressing his hands too deeply into whatever is offered. That was why the others left, wasn’t it? But Rook, Rook is different. Rook takes. Rook wants. Rook gives, recklessly, and he, in turn, cannot help but take. 

Bad jests, confessions that start careful and end careless. A first time beneath the covers, blood on the sheets, a kiss, the way her mouth moves against his, the way she lets herself be known in increments, in silences, in the cool of her palm against his cheek. Her favorite spot behind the waterfall. Because love, if it is anything at all, is the act of giving. Not just anything, not just for the sake of it, but precisely what the other cannot reach for themselves. 

And so, he wants to give her gold. 

In the morning, he will apologize. Will run a hand over his face, will mutter something about whiskey, about tiredness, about speaking without thinking. He will dismiss himself before she can. Will say that he does not know what possessed him. 

Fenris, it seems, has come to similar conclusions, and he rolls his shoulders as he releases their tension. Even his voice has lost its nascent fury, which for Fenris is practically friendly in situations like this. "The rift is dangerous. We will guard it until the Inquisitor can seal it permanently. Be on your way."

"Inquisitor?" drawls Astarion with that same, thin-lipped smile. "Sounds like someone from dear Shadowheart's former enclave, don't you think?"

"I don't think they're Sharran," Tav says. "Are you?"

"What a speculative look you've put on," Hawke says, delighted. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Unless you'd like me to be Sharran, in which case, I most certainly am and in fact have always been."

Both Fenris and Astarion roll their eyes--hilarious in its own right, but heightened by the clear antipathy still remaining between them. Fenris sighs. "Hawke--"

The rift explodes.

Green lightning shatters over the rocky cliff. The rumble bursts into a deafening roar; the faint breeze that had been dancing around them sweeps up into a hurricane. The air cracks and snaps with a sudden smell of ozone.

Hawke throws her hand over her eyes. She can't see--the wind tears her hair from its bindings and she can't see past the brilliant flashes of blazing green and she can't hear-- "Fenris!"

Someone's hand wraps around hers. She wrenches up her staff, calls for fire--for ice--for anything--but the rift has become a maelstrom and every scrap of magic sucks into the raging whirl before she can shape it. Her boots skid on the stone as she tries to brace against the inexorable pull, pebbles and rocks rattling along every step. She can't--the hand wrapped around hers has seized tight as a vise, but she's slipping anyway, and Maker, she can't--

A man's echoing voice, stripped bare of all artifice, wild with fear: "Tav!"

The wind dies. Not slowly, not gradually; it falls off like someone's upturned a glass over the rocky cliff, and Hawke's ears roar in the sudden silence. The wind is gone, and the rift is gone with it as if it had never been, the thunderous clouds that had been swirling above it already dissipating to glimpses of blue morning sky.

"Andraste preserve me," Hawke says, loud in the quiet, and she looks over to see Tav still crouched against the face of the mountain. One of Tav's hands clutches a dagger she'd wedged deep into a stony crevice; the other is still wrapped tight around Hawke's hand where she'd pulled her away from the tempest.

No sign of Fenris. No sign of the other one--Astarion. A long white scrape in the stone marks where Fenris's sword had sought and failed to find purchase, disappearing at the precise place where the rift had torn itself open.

Gone. Gone, gone. Her heart hammers in her throat, and she indulges in thirty seconds of agonizing grief before she sets it aside, turns, and pulls Tav to her feet.

"Well," Hawke says at last. "Looks like it's just you and me, then. Ready for an adventure?"

"Yes," Tav says, her grip on Hawke's hand like steel, and her eyes blaze. "Let's get them back."

--

Everything hurts. Everything godsdamned hurts, and Astarion lets out a pained groan as he rolls to his back and drops his arm over his face. His ears ring like bells, and something twinges painfully in his left hip, and the inconvenient sun has decided to blaze right in his face and gods damn it, he'd known they ought to wait for Gale. Wretched wizard and his weak ankles. Wretched Tav and her complete inability--

"Tav," Astarion says, and sits bolt upright.

No Tav. Not even the dark-haired sorcerer with the wide smile. Just that taciturn warrior in leather and half-plate seated on a rock a few feet away, watching Astarion get his bearings, his greatsword slung across his knees and a deeply sour look on his tattooed face. The skies above them are clear and blue as a song.

No Tav. No Hawke. No rift. No plan, and no company besides an irascible stranger with the same look of dawning horror.

"Venhedis."

Varric’s suspicion is confirmed by a sneaky glance at him out of the corner of her eye. Hawke’s gaze is full of daring laughter and Varric finds himself pulled in right along with the poor lad beside them.

“No,” Marian says, a breathy, fawning affect to her words. “Though you’d think that wouldn’t be the case, all things considered.” Her hand strays to her temple and a dark ringlet wraps shyly around her finger. Hawke glances down, a move that would look demure on any other person, and she darts to look at him again for just a moment. “Makes a girl wonder about things, you know?” 

The Lady makes a choking noise. Her hand darts down to her drink and--by accident or design, Varric can’t quite tell--she knocks her glass across the table to spill her wine into Hawke’s lap. 

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she simpers, and Varric snorts as he clocks it at the same time Hawke does.

“No worries at all,” Hawke replies in that same light affect, and doesn’t bother to look at the woman. “I’ve got three more in this color alone.” She blots the stain daintily with a napkin. 

“Need a hand, mighty Champion?” Varric asks. His chair scrapes along the tile as he stands. He drinks in the smile Hawke gives him, this one without the sly guile, just full of knowing warmth. 

“Oh, I suppose I could use someone to hold my bag while I clean myself up.”

He arrives at her side just as she stands and, with a chuckle, she takes his outstretched hand. Together they breeze away from the table, dodging other dinner guests as they move around the edge of the ballroom. Their wandering feet lead them into a hallway just off the main room. 

“Hm, lost in a deserted hallway in a house neither of us own nor particularly like,” Hawke trips her fingers up Varric’s arm as she muses aloud. Her smile turns sharp, dangerous, and even covered in spilled wine she’s as beautiful as a lightning storm over the bay. “Whatever shall we do?”

Varric grins and casts his gaze down the hallway. “I have an idea.” His fingers squeeze around hers and they jog down the corridor, veering into a curtained-off alcove, light filtering in from the sconces through the folds of the velvet sheets. A large stone statue fills most of the space, but there was just enough for them to sidle up behind it. It was a tight fit but it would work. 

“Oh, Serrah Tethras,” Hawke murmurs. 

The breathy tone is almost genuine this time as Varric pins her against the foundation of the statue, a convenient little ledge that she sits back on. Her legs part and he nestles himself between them, his hands wandering over her thighs. 

An airy sigh pulls out of her as he inches upwards. “I think you might be up to no good.” 

“That’d be a lot more convincing if your hand weren’t at my belt, Magpie.” 

She only grins and pulls at the knot of his sash in response.

It’s easy, this. Hawke’s nimble fingers have Varric’s trousers open in barely a breath and he gasps when she takes him in hand. His cock fills quickly under the thorough exploration of her fingers, and he rolls his hips to chase the friction for a too-brief moment before he can catch himself.

“Keep doing that and this will be embarrassingly short,” Varric breathes against her shoulder. “And believe me, that’ll disappoint us both.” Her laughter rumbles where their bodies meet and, almost drunkenly, he kisses it from her lips.

This is easy, too. He drinks in the sounds of her, the way his name falls from her tongue when his questing hand slides up between her thighs. Hawke’s breath hitches in her throat and he takes that, too, nipping at her bottom lip as his fingers tease at the growing wetness of her slit. She tips back into the slope of the statue behind her and wraps her legs around his hips. “Patience, patience,” he murmurs into her mouth. 

“Hurry up and---ahh--” 

His fingertips slide ever-so-lightly over the firming bud of her clit. Hawke shudders against him and tilts her hips, trying to press harder into the pressure he keeps from her in his teasing. Varric pulls back just enough to catch her hooded gaze. 

“I’ve wanted to do this all night,” he admits, almost smug. Without ceremony, Varric dips his middle finger slowly into the tight heat of Hawke’s cunt. 

Her eyes blow wide and she tips her head back, mouth falling open on a soundless moan. 

Varric gives her a moment to breathe--but only a moment--before moving, thrusting lazily into her. “Been thinking about this since you came down the stairs, all gussied up. Prim and proper.” He crooks his finger and she clenches around him, her breath rushing out of her against his cheek. Varric is gasping, himself, Marian’s fingers a tight ring that strokes expertly over his cock. He sinks a second finger into her soon enough and cups the nape of her neck with his other hand. Their mouths fit together, a tangle of teeth and tongue, and she bucks against the pumping of his hand. 

“Varric,” Hawke moans. Her ankles hook at the small of his back and she drags her mouth along his jaw, breath scorching against Varric’s ear. “Fuck the lady outta me.”

His brain goes blank. Varric shuffles his trousers further down his legs and slots himself fully between Hawke’s thighs. His breath shakes out of him and he has to pause as she keens softly against his neck.

They find a quick rhythm. The position isn’t quite ideal, but she bucks against him anyway. He snaps into her heat, rushing headlong toward the edge, and the sounds he has to muffle with his mouth tell him she’s hurtling right alongside him. 

“Hawke,” he breathes. “Fuck--Magpie--” She clenches and Varric sees stars. 

“Please...” She murmurs the word against his lips like a prayer. 

“Maker’s--fuck.” Varric shifts. His arms snake under her thighs to bend her knees up to her chest, and he pulls her tight against him to thrust deeper, fucking into her with all the leverage he can manage. “Fuck, Hawke, I--”

Hawke tightens like a vise around him and he snaps his head up to watch her face in the mottled light as she comes. She bites at her knuckles to muffle the toe-curling noises that spill from her mouth and she shudders against him. Her eyes find him, pupils wide and glassy, and something in Varric threatens to burst from his chest. 

"Marian,” he gasps. Varric presses his full weight down into her to seat himself in her soul and he comes, the world blurring out of focus until all he can see is the low light on her cheekbones, the bright blue of her eyes blazing like alchemical fire. He buries his head at the join of her neck and shoulder and shakes against her. 

It’s not an eternity but it’s theirs. Varric and Marian gasp for breath, slumped into each other as much as the tight quarters allows. They trade lazy kisses while their heartbeats settle, teasing even in the smouldering heat of the post-orgasm haze. 

“I think we’re missing the party,” she finally murmurs. A laugh twists her plush lips into a grin that Varric dips his head to taste. “Mm--this is why.” 

“Doesn’t look like you’re exactly clamoring to get somewhere.” He gives a slight shake of his head, pulling against the fist she’s twisted into his hair. It makes him shiver, and he sighs out a soft moan when she does it again. “Think we can sneak out of this party and take this somewhere private?”

Marian hums, a low, rumbling purr. “Maybe we can take the scenic route back.” Her fingers tug at his hair again. “Through the parks. Take our time.” 

Heat lances up Varric’s spine. He grins and shifts to help her to her feet. “Yeah,” he says, desire pooling again in his middle at the hungry glint in her eyes. He pulls her into a bruising kiss, his hands cupping at her jaw and nape. They move against each other and he presses her back into the statue behind her for another moment, two, three, before finally pulling back. Varric can feel a heady blush scorching its way up his face, but he can’t care, not when Marian looks at him like that.

His gaze flits then to the one who has woken him.

Tav is leaning over him. Even in the dim, flickering campfire light, he can see the sparkle in their eyes, and he instantly hates it.

His plan to secure himself as a desirable companion has gone perfectly thus far. They practically wrapped themselves around his finger all on their own, and they have been easy to lead along. A compliment here, a purred promise there, a gentle touch, a wild night.

They are so easy to manipulate it is almost sickening.

It might be, if Astarion let himself think on it too much, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he glances around camp again and realizes what this must be. Tav’s next words all but confirm it.

“I need you to come with me.” They hold a finger to their lips. “Don’t wake the others.”

He swallows down the disgust and offers Tav a flirty smile, reaching out to let his fingertips feather against their cheek. Just enough of a touch to leave one longing for more. “Anything for you, my sweet.”

Tav hugs themselves impatiently while Astarion shoves his feet into his boots and gets up.

Quietly, of course.

He’s always been good at sneaking through the shadows, but tonight it is almost unbearable. Tav keeps lacing their hands together and drawing him deeper into the woods. He hardly needs such guidance—his night vision is likely better than theirs, being a vampire and all—and it throws him a little to have to adjust himself so that their contact doesn’t break.

They pass a few spots that Astarion tries to suggest would be as good as any for what they are going to get up to.

Each time, Tav just gives him a wide smile or a knowing look and assures him that this will all be worth it.

“Come on.”

When they’re far enough that Astarion is beginning to wonder if their companions will know where to look for them, if they don’t make it back by dawn—the stars are such that it must not be far off—Tav takes an unexpected turn, moving toward a small rocky outcrop and hauling themselves up.

“We’re here.”

Astarion stops at the base, watching as they move higher, before they pause to look down and find him.

A hand motions quickly for him to come up before Tav disappears from view.

Astarion isn’t sure what he expects to find at the top of the rocks, but the nothing that is there is disappointing none-the-less.

Nothing but Tav, anyway.

And him.

And a flat expanse of hard rock that’s about twice the size of a conventional bed. Tav has seated themselves near the center, and pats the spot beside them, smile annoyingly radiant.

Astarion finds himself a little put out for having to have come so far for so little, but he acquiesces to Tav’s beckoning and strolls the short distance to join them.

There is a moment where they sit there, the silence dragging out between them as the sky gets darker still.

Astarion finally steels himself to make the first move, reaching out and catching Tav’s chin to pull them closer. Their lips brush, and he moves quickly away, toward the spot in Tav’s neck where their pulse thrums so temptingly. However, Astarion has not been invited to dine, and he merely presses a kiss there, though he does let his teeth drag over Tav’s skin.

Before he can do more, however, Tav lets out an excited cry and pushes Astarion back. “It’s starting!”

At first, Astarion is lost. His brow pinches as he sits back, appraising Tav.

They, in turn, reach out and gently turn his head so that he is facing forward.

For a second, there is confusion, and then he sees it.

The first rays of dawn coming up over the edge of the world.

For a moment, Astarion forgets everything except for those blossoming golds and pinks and yellows. The clouds look painted, each second a subtly new scene. The world below glistens and shines in the new light, and while he has been largely unimpressed with the wilderness they were so unceremoniously dumped into, even he cannot deny that there is something utterly beautiful about the way the sunlight dances over them.

For the first time, he truly understands the meaning of the word breathtaking.

It is hard to remember so far back, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen a sunrise so magnificent.

So simple a thought as it is, it brings the world crashing back, shattering the serenity of the moment.

The sun has risen high enough that the clouds are losing their rosy hues, and the world is becoming its usual array of green and brown.

Astarion fights the bitter bile that rises in him at the thought of how many sunrises he has missed, and glances around, grounding himself with the present.

As he glances to his side, he remembers that he is not alone, and pauses when he meets Tav’s gaze. They are watching him, that same sparkle in their eyes, illuminated now in the morning light. There is more than excitement there, now.

Now, they look so pleased with themselves. That satisfied smile, it…

It throws him.

“Pretty, huh?”

The word is an understatement, but more than that, it is confusing. Astarion wants to ask why Tav would do this. What do they get from this little…it’s not even an adventure, is it?

What was the point?

For the first time since they snuck out of camp, Tav’s expression falters. They glance toward that ever-rising sun. Back at Astarion, back at the sun.

“I figured, after so long in the dark…” Tav’s gaze finally slides away from him. “We haven’t really camped anywhere where there was a good view, so…it only seemed right that you get to see a proper sunrise after so long.”

Astarion finds himself at a loss for words. Just for a moment, of course. He quickly gathers his wits, offers a coy smile. “How…sweet.”

Tav seems relieved. “You did like it, right?”

“It was beautiful,” Astarion murmurs.

Tav’s hand rests on top of Astarion’s for a breath as they lean in and catch him in a quick, chaste kiss. And then they are on their feet again. “Come on. Lae’zel will be grumpy if we take too much longer, and I don’t want Shadowheart to steal my breakfast.”

As they scamper down the rocks, Astarion sits where he is, frozen. His mind tries to make sense of what just happened, but the pieces simply won’t fit together.

Tav already gets what Astarion has to offer.

So, what was the point of this?

There is the faintest whisper of a long-forgotten truth from within the smothered depths of his heart, but he squashes it before the thought can fully form.

Tav calls out to him. Astarion frowns as he glances toward the sun, still so low in the sky.

And then he follows Tav back to camp, watching their hands when Tav laces their fingers together, and struggling with the strange sensation that has settled in his chest. Something foreign, and most unwelcome.

He will need to be more careful going forward.

And he will need to figure out just what game Tav is playing.

By the time they get back to camp, he has found his resolve and his balance. He smiles and teases Tav with honeyed words as a few of their companions cast glances their way, unsurprised that they are returning together, hand in hand.

And he pretends he can’t still feel that whisper that what’s happening now is something he’d all but forgotten could.

It's still a mess, now most of a long night since Marian had been carried into the clinic by Aveline, Sebastian, and Fenris. They'd been caught up by smugglers while on an unofficial patrol of the coast, and Marian had been caught in a knot of blades before being pushed from one of the cliffs to a blessed ledge some ten or twenty feet below. She had been unconscious when they burst into the clinic in a cacophony of clattering armor and panic, and had only woken a handful of minutes ago after a long night of emergency surgery.

Sweat gathers at the nape of Anders' neck while he works. He wills his hands not to shake as he pleads for her blood vessels to mend, muscle fibers to knit back together, but it's not enough; he can hardly make her flesh listen to his will, as exhausted as he is, scraping at the bottom of a barrel only to come up empty. Her skin, normally a sun-kissed tan, is sallow and mottled with bruises beneath his shaking fingers.

"Anders?" she blurts out of nowhere, and it nearly makes him jump out of his skin.

"Can you just—!" Anders wipes his neck with his forearm and scowls at her. "Can you just sit still for one damn minute while I save your life?"

Marian gives him a goofy grin, its shape lopsided with the strength of the potion Anders had poured down her throat a few minutes ago. "You know, tech—technically—" she bobs her head on each syllable, the words slurring slightly like a spoken cursive script "—you’ve got me down to nothing but my knickers and a borrowed chemise." She gives as scandalized a gasp as she can manage, which isn't much by Anders' estimation. "You saw me naked! Not how I thought it'd come about but I'll take what I can get."

"I—what?" Anders pinches the bridge of his nose with a huff. "Just—come on, Hawke." He takes a steadying breath and reaches for her shoulder once more before pausing. "Are you still in pain? I can give you some clove, that will help, just sit still." He speaks as he reaches for the makeshift table that sits beside him, a chair methodically laden with tools, vials, and jars. Anders retrieves the jar of clove oil and, with a single hand, unstoppers it, dips a small wad of fabric into the astringent liquid, and closes the jar again.

"Impressive," is what he assumes Marian tries to quip, but the word is broken by a sharp hiss when he presses the cloth to the red, raw skin of the wound he’s been checking.

"It'll help," he says, even as she whines with obvious disbelief. "Just hold still. And don't move," Anders warns sharply. "This is still only one of a handful of open wounds. Bloody void, Hawke."

She is blissfully quiet as the clove works its magic to relieve some of the pain, and Anders rubs his aching temples. Thank—well, thank Hawke's amazing propensity for unlikely friendships that she is even awake right now to fight him. Anders is grateful, he is.

But Anders also hasn't slept in most of two days, and the thin stew Merrill had thoughtfully gifted him, alongside a small hunk of bread and a knob of cheese, had been his last meal the day before. Everything in him aches with the strain of nearly continuous healing, stopping only when he physically couldn't hold onto the spells any longer.

He bites back a tired sigh. Marian is alive, and will, if Anders has any say in the matter, stay that way. That's all that he can focus on—everything else is just a detail. His chair groans beneath him as he shifts to ready his suture kit. He threads the curved silver needle with thin catgut. His fingers shake; he misses the needle's eye twice before he succeeds and secures the thread.

"This won't be particularly elegant," he mutters to himself. Almost like a reflex Anders reaches again for his magic, for Justice and their connection to the Fade, but finds the expected nothingness of his limits. He takes a deep breath and turns his attention back to Marian's face.

She stares at the needle. Marian is a careful study, Anders has found, attentive to detail and thorough. She swallows thickly. "Maybe, maybe some more clove?" Marian asks. "Or more elfroot."

"I—no, no more elfroot for at least another four hours, you just had a potion," he says. At the soft distressed noise Marian makes, he relents. "I can give you more clove, though." Anders reaches for the jar again to dip another small pad into its depths. With a practiced hand he dabs the precious liquid at the wound sites that litter her shoulder and chest. She hisses again at the contact and he murmurs softly, letting the oil seep into her skin a bit before wiping it all away with a clean cloth.

"You have," she says, trails off, and tries again, "you have a delightful bedside—bedside something, something healer-y?"

Anders snorts. "You'll decide otherwise in a moment. Hold still."

She jerks and sucks her teeth when the needle digs in, but thankfully that's the most of it as he works. Slowly the wound closes up, held together with what feels like little more than hope. Anders works his way through another puncture, and another, exhausted pride welling in him as he goes.

Marian gestures vaguely upward when he’s somewhere near halfway through. "Do you think there's really an afterlife?" she asks. "A real one, not—not some story."

Anders pauses. "What?"

"You know. Big light at the end of the tunnel and all, warm and hazy and such." She winces as he places another stitch. "Grass beneath my feet and everything, smelled honey oat cakes toasting on the hearth. And then I wake up on the cot. Is that normal?"

Anders bites his lip and finishes suturing a gash that runs from her shoulder down toward her armpit. She was so lucky, he thinks, that she wore any armor at all, for all the good it did her. He sets the suturing kit down on the chair beside him.

"Anders?"

She's watching him with those beautiful blue eyes. He reaches to cup his hand along the sharp wing of her cheekbone. Marian makes a valiant but unsuccessful effort to raise her less-damaged hand to meet his own; she tries again anyway, even when he sighs.

"You died, Marian," he says with a trembling voice. Anders brushes his thumb over her skin, thankful beyond measure for its warmth. "You died on my operating table, and I almost couldn't get you back." He purses his lips against a whimper that threatens to escape. "I didn't think I would, but I tried anyway," he breathes. "I had to."

Her throat bobs as she swallows. Marian finally does manage to reach him, her fingers light but insistent where they curl around his wrist, coaxing him closer. "But you did," she whispers. "Miracle upon miracle, you saved me."

Anders lets himself be pulled and presses his forehead against hers. The sight of her mangled body is etched into his lids when he closes his eyes. She was so still, so small when they'd all arrived. Marian Hawke was certainly no waif, no shrinking violet, but she might as well have been a porcelain doll, held aloft between Aveline and Sebastian. It's a memory Anders hopes to never see again even as he knows it will stain his dreams for years to come.

She speaks again, so soft he almost doesn't catch it. "You're always saving me, Anders."

"But you died," he stresses, and it's now that his composure breaks—a sob breaks past his barriers and it's over. Tears flow like a spring down his cheeks; they'd been held back by the violent waves of adrenaline that raced through him as he'd operated, then by the consuming worry and attention he'd wrestled with at her bedside as she lay unconscious. Anders can't bite back the panicked gasping of his breathing, the metallic scent of her blood heavy in his nose, almost enough to taste. "I don't know what I would have done had I—had we lost you."

"We've, we've—we've had close calls before."

"Not that close. Not like this."

She makes a noise at that, something undecipherable. Anders pulls back to study her face. "I never want to do that again," he murmurs. He rubs his thumb over her cheek again. "I never want to see you hurt like that again. Please, just—please be more careful, okay? I don't... I don't think I'm strong enough."

Marian smiles wanly before turning her head to press a kiss awkwardly to Anders' wrist. "You're a fantastic healer, Anders. Powerful. I trust you."

A hiccupping sob wrenches through him. "You—Marian. Marian."

Her lips are chapped and dry when he brushes his mouth over hers. She tilts her head at his gentle direction and he kisses her once, twice, thrice, so light it's more a mingling of breath than anything else. Marian's smile presses against his lips and she nuzzles the light stubble that dusts Anders' cheeks.

"That's hardly a ghost of a kiss," she whispers.

"You're still hardly a ghost of a woman.” Anders presses a last kiss to the corner of her mouth and comes up to find both of their faces wet with tears. He wipes his face with his other hand, loathe to let her go as he fights to steady his breaths.

Marian rubs her cheek into his palm. "Anders."

"Marian."

She smiles, watery but there. Her fingers tap against his hand. "I like the sound of my name in your mouth," she confides. It startles a surprised snort out of him.

"I—I do, too," Anders admits after a stunned beat, once the last ten seconds catches up with him. He doles out the truth like a miser, each word a precious gem. "And mine in yours, perhaps... perhaps more than I should." The admission feels like a knife to the gut but the softness of her smile rivals any balm or salve he could possibly make.

Marian hums and closes her eyes. "Well, oh powerful healer," she says, turning back to lay flat on the cot, "I think we have some more work ahead of us." She slants one eye open to glance at him once more. "I have to survive this to get more kisses."

Something like hope sparks deep in Anders' belly. It's as surprising as it is unfamiliar, and he grabs for it with both hands, ignoring the warnings in the back of his mind. "Yeah, Hawke," he breathes. She settles once more at that, and he preps another wound for suturing.

I'd give you anything, Anders thinks as he threads the silver needle again, and knows it to be true.

Hawke eyed him carefully, then stretched the other arm across her chest, wincing faintly. She only ever did that when he was the sole observer—and yes, he only knew this because he was so often watching her—but Fenris could find no reason for it. 

Under other circumstances, he might think she was trying to get something from him. For anyone else, he would be right. But this: that he was the only one she allowed to bind her wounds, aside from the healer; that he was the one she balanced herself with when she was limping or woozy from blood loss. Fenris could not understand it, and he dare not ask. The obvious explanation—that she still trusted him after everything else that had happened—was simply beyond consideration. 

There had to be a reason. If she were anyone else, he thought with a sense of dissatisfaction, he would almost certainly ask.

“Stiff?” he asked gruffly, tapping the fingers of one hand against his thigh. 

Maria—her given name, not that anyone ever used it; Fenris only thought of her thus because she’d gasped it into his ear that night three years ago, told him not to call her Hawke while—

Nevermind. 

Hawke sighed and her mouth turned down at the corners in an exaggerated pout.

“I’m getting old, Fenris,” she said, so woefully that he almost believed her for a moment, “I feel it in my bones. Soon, I’ll only ever talk about…oh, gout and how young folk these days never know how to treat their elders.”

“You could have just said no,” he told her sternly, but the corner of his mouth lifted faintly. She must have seen it, for her lips curled up in answer, even as she lifted her eyes dolefully to the sky. 

“No, Fenris, you don’t understand,” she said, and set the back of her hand against her forehead, “Who will chase mercenaries all over these hills when I can’t hobble after them? Soon I shall be all wrinkles and white hair and—”

“And still look just as—” 

Fenris bit the end of the sentence off before he could make the fatal mistake of speaking it aloud, but both of them froze anyway. 

And still look just as lovely as you do now. 

The words hovered on his tongue for a moment, kept caged behind his teeth, and it was a force of will not to say the words aloud. 

They’d only made it this far by pretending it—that night—had never happened. Three years, nearly, and they were both still here together. That first night at cards in the Hanged Man, Fenris had hesitated at the door, abruptly itchy everywhere, as if the air itself were anathema to him. He’d thought to leave, to prevent the inevitable discomfort, but she….

She’d met his eyes and scooted over, nudging Isabela with her, clearing room at the other end of the table. So…so he’d know he still had a place there, even if it wasn’t at her side. Fenris thought he might be grateful to her for that forever, no matter what else happened between the two of them. How strange, not to realize how much having a place of one’s own meant until one faced down the possibility of losing it permanently.

“Well,” Hawke said after a moment, blinking first and lowering her eyes, “In any case, maybe I’ll be lucky and go bald. I cannot believe I forgot to tie all this up before I left the manor this morning. The wind is wreaking absolute havoc.”

“I can—” Fenris began, then winced inwardly. 

He could, in fact, help with that; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d tied someone else’s hair up, nor the first time he’d done it for her—but those had been simpler times. 

“If you have a bit of leather, or…anything, I can manage,” she said. 

Fenris’s fingers touched her token, still tied around his wrist, but he would not part with it—not even for the sake of her comfort. He reached into his pocket instead and retrieved a loose bit of leather he’d intended to tame his own hair with in case the weather turned. He despised the way wet hair stuck to one’s skin, and he’d endured it several times too many on these outings to the coast. The leather ought to be long enough for her hair, too, if he plaited it first.

“Turn,” he told her, his voice thicker than he would have liked, and she turned without a word. 

Fenris gathered the bounty of her hair in his hands, untangling several knots as carefully as possible. It seemed to cling to his fingers, twining around the joints, black against the pale blue lyrium that lined his skin. It had looked like that three years ago, too, had tangled around him just so when he’d tilted her head back over his hand to kiss down the length of her neck. It had felt like this draped over his chest when he’d combed his fingers through it after, and—

“Are you coming down from there anytime soon?” Isabela demanded from the bottom of the hill, and Fenris realized he’d been combing his fingers through Maria’s hair without moving onto the next step. For how long? Her chest rose and fell too quickly, as if she’d just climbed a very steep hill, but that was…probably just exertion. 

Fenris let his eyes focus again on her dark curls, pulling them into a simple plait down the middle while she answered Isabela. They were laughing about something—not him; it sounded different when Hawke was laughing about him—so all must be well enough. He finished the braid, tied it off as intended, and then he just…stood there, holding the end of her thick hair. 

It was soft as silk between his fingers, shiny as a raven’s wing and dark against the brown of his hands, against the pale blue of the lyrium that thrummed beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. Hawke was underneath his skin, too, in her way; and it was all the worse for knowing it had all been his choice. That having and leaving her had been his choice. And for all the times Fenris had wished he could forget what her skin had felt like, how she’d sounded when—

Well.

For all he’d wished he could forget, he was deeply, deeply grateful that he could still remember every second of it. What would he be if this, too, had been taken from him? He did not wish to consider it.

“Finished?” Hawke asked, turning her head. 

There was a faint quiver to her bottom lip that made him want to press his thumb to it, but he did not. He hadn’t the right. 

Fenris didn’t move at all. He just stood, and looked, and wished. 

Finished, she’d asked.

“I am…not certain,” Fenris told her. 

Hawke’s fingers found the end of the braid, tested the leather tie, but her attention was on him. He could tell; one could always tell when Hawke’s full attention was fixed on them. 

“Are you?” he finished, the words nearly carried off by the wind. She opened her mouth to answer and—

“Let’s go,” Isabela called from the other side of the hill, “I have plans for tonight that don’t include murder!”

Hawke turned, shaking her head at the words, but for a moment—just a moment—her hand brushed against Fenris’s, the warmth of her fingers barely felt between the joints of his armor. As she set off down the hill, the hand she’d touched curled into a fist, tight enough to dig into his palm, and flexed loose again. 

Fenris set off after her, eyes carefully on the steep ground ahead, but a careful observer might have been able to note the color in his cheeks, and the matching red that spilled over Hawke’s. 

It was unfortunate, then, that Varric had not come with them that day—for there was nobody present who would notice such things at all.