#bashir hawke

But she had not been a free woman, then. Chains of delicate spun gold wrapped around her neck, her wrists, her ankles, had marked her as owned as surely as heavy iron manacles.

No longer. Thoughts of her life— what it had been, just some few short months ago— were never far, but she decided it would be a shame to ruin the night by dwelling on the past. Her gaze was often drawn to the water, but this far away from the lights of Minrathous, the stars were brilliant against the black velvet of the night sky in a way that Dasha could not look away from.

Whether the big man was able to move that quietly, or Dasha was too deep into her musings and worries about the future, Bashir Hawke startled her so badly that she had to clutch her hands to the wooden railing to keep from hitting him.

(And that was something else she had never seen before, that instinct, that want to protect herself.)

He held up his hands, palms out and fingers spread, to show he wasn't armed. Well, that he didn't have a weapon, at least. The heavy muscles of his shoulders and arms weren't just for show, Dasha had seen him hauling crates and securing rigging with ease. He set himself down on one of those crates now, a goodly distance away from her, and waited for her to return his broad smile. She humored him with a nod, but didn't move away from the railing.

"I didn't mean to spook you, sorry for that. Ma says it's her fault, too much of that duelist in her to keep it to herself."

Even in the dark of the night, Dasha can see the freckles scattered over his face and bare arms, a mirror to all the stars above them. It was too dark to make out the color of his eyes, but she knew them to be a warm, golden brown, like honey drizzled into a cup of tea. His eyes were the first thing she had noticed about him, before the scars and the bulk and the height. Kind, in a way that she was still learning was possible in this world.

"It's… fine," she said, after what was probably too long of a pause. The several months Dasha had spent in the company of Shadow Dragons wasn't nearly long enough to get her comfortable with normal conversation. But Bashir had assured her, when helping her up the gangway and onto the ship that would take her to Rivain, that he had seen many a Tevinter captive find their voice. All it would take was time.

"Is it alright if I sit out here with you? I can let you have some privacy, if you need it." Privacy was another irritatingly novel concept that she knew so many took for granted. The anger, the resentment, was a nasty feeling, bubbling up hot from her chest and into her throat. Her mind seemed absolutely determined to make her night take a turn for the miserable.

"You can stay. I wasn't doing anything that needs privacy." Her hands had relaxed, at least, and Dasha rested on her elbows and set her gaze to watch the point where the ocean and the sky melted into the same color. She didn't know how far away they were, now, but it had been over a full day since the crew and passengers had seen land. "I wasn't really doing anything, actually."

"Would you like to be having a drink?" She doesn't need to turn around to know that he's grinning. His question was followed by the scrape of splintered, untreated wood scraping against itself, and the rattle of glass.

"There's actually something in there?" Dasha did turn around then, her curiosity always getting the better of her.

"Always better to be telling as much of the truth as possible. If we were stopped for inspection, it's better to have actual cargo to bribe and distract with." Bashir held up the wine, and in the darkness of the night, it looked black. "I don't have any glasses, but passing a bottle back and forth never hurt anyone."

"I really don't think that's true," Dasha responded, and she was grinning now, too. Rather than sinking into that resentment, she held on tightly to the bright joy of letting her thoughts and words out, rather than swallowing them down. Bashir, kindly, gave her a hearty laugh as though she were the wittiest person he had ever met.

"Well, there's only one way to find out, right?"

Dasha frowned, then. "But we don't have a corkscrew, do we?" She certainly didn't have one, and Bashir's armor left few places for him to be hiding one on his person. Her disappointment was written clearly in the way her eyebrows drew in close together.

"Your face is going to get stuck like that," he teased. "You think a Lord of Fortune doesn't know how to get at a cork? Just you watch…"

She did watch, as Bashir began to work the cork into the bottle with his thumb. It was… a slow process. It was his own face that screwed up into a look, concentration and desperation playing over his features in equal measure. The moment was drawn out just too long, and Dasha couldn't help it— she laughed.

"Are you sweating? It can't be that difficult—" She was cut off by a low, musical pop! as the cork finally gave way. Bashir held the bottle aloft in triumph, and she laughed again, though this time it was with him, rather than at him.

"Voila, as the Orlesians say."

"Do they say that?" She had no way of knowing, really, but it certainly sounded right. "What does it mean?"

Bashir gave a shrug of his massive shoulders, and said, "I have no idea. Here, I'll let you have the first drink." She moved closer to him, slowly, and told herself it wasn't nerves but her lack of sea legs.

(There was no lack of sea legs, she had learned to walk the deck with the rise and fall of the ocean waves with a quickness that had surprised her.)

She sniffed at the open neck of the bottle, and couldn't decide if she liked the smell of it or not. "Is it any good?"

Another shrug. "I don't think the cork will improve the taste, but… it wasn't exactly top shelf to begin with. Cheap drink might as well be rations for the Lords, though, so it'll do."

Dasha finally took a drink, and it was… just as Bashir had described it. It wasn't the finest wine she ever had— even if she had only had scraps, the high table she had served had only allowed the finest, the most expensive, goods.

But this wine was shared with her freely, and that made it the sweetest thing Dasha had ever tasted.

They shared the bottle back and forth a few times, and she found herself enjoying the silence. There was nothing expected of her, not by this moment, not by Bashir. After the third sip, she held up her hand when he offered it back to her.

"No, that's enough. I don't want to tempt the winds into testing if my belly is sea worthy." He laughed at her words again, and perhaps she did have a bit of wit and humor about her after all. "What's it called?" Dasha ran her thumb over the label, tracing the lines and curls of the words.

"Uh, this one… let me see." Bashir reached into the crate to pull out another bottle, squinted at it in the darkness. "Some vineyard way down south... This one's called Laidir."

"Is that Orlesian, too?"

"Nah, not this time. Ferelden, I think." He paused, gave a roll of his shoulders. He was always in motion, Dasha had noticed, even when he was just thinking. "Might be something left over from the Alamari. Maybe— strong? Intense? My da, he's from Ferelden. Maybe he can tell us for sure once we get home."

Home. Dasha was happy to blame the mist that came to her eyes at the thought of it on the wine. She traced the ink on the label again, though she couldn't match up the sound of the word to any of the strokes of ink.

"Laidir," she mused aloud. "I think it sounds pretty, don't you? "

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