#f!hawris

He used it for all the normal stuff, of course — talking and breathing and eating and all. But even those mundane acts were enough to drive her to distraction. When Fenris talked, Rynne watched the way his lips shifted around the baritone sound of his bone-melting voice, and she admired the way he slowly wet his lips when he was thinking about what to say next. When Fenris breathed, panting heavily after a fight or drawing a gasp of air when she dragged her tongue across his lyrium-lined abs, Rynne thought about the air that passed through those perfect lips, feeding into his lungs only to come back out shaped into a dryly humorous remark or a low-pitched chuckle or a pleasured groan. When Fenris ate, he hid his mouth sometimes behind one hand while he chewed, and Rynne treasured the moments when she glimpsed the tip of his tongue flicking out across his lip to catch a stray crumb or a precious drop of juice. 

Fenris talking, Fenris breathing, Fenris eating and sipping elegantly from a glass of wine: Rynne watched with unabashed appreciation as his mouth did all of that fine and necessary work. But all of that was nothing compared to the way he used his gorgeous mouth to kiss.

His lips parted slightly as he drew her close, and Rynne happily gave herself to the perfect slightly-parted pressure of his lips. His kisses always started this way, a firm press as though he was anchoring himself to her before deciding whether to deepen the kiss or to draw away, and she was always delighted to let him be the one to decide which direction their kisses would go. In a life where Rynne Hawke was the one in charge, the one who led their merry little band of misfits from one madcap adventure to the next, she was more than happy to let Fenris lead the way in this slow and tantalizing dance of pleasure: this dance where his perfect mouth slid carefully and smoothly over hers, his lips coaxing hers apart and his sleek tongue stroking her own, his teeth pressing delicately into her lower lip until she gasped, his lips brushing over the corner of her parted lips with the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing…

Fenris leaned away from her, leaving her panting for air, and still she couldn’t look away from his mouth. His lips were plumper than usual from the firm pressure of their kiss and their colour had deepened to a tempting rosy hue, and she just couldn’t stop fucking staring at how beautiful they were.   

“Hawke,” he said.

She forced herself to stop staring at his mouth. “Yes?”

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“You are staring at me,” he said.

“I’m always staring at you,” she replied. “You are gorgeous, in case you’ve forgotten.”

He gave her a chiding little smile. “You’re staring more than usual, then.”

She tilted her head. “Did you know that you have the nicest mouth in all of Thedas?”

He scoffed and rubbed the lovely mouth in question. “Kaffas, Hawke. You will make me blush.”

“I certainly hope so,” she said cheerfully. “Your ears turn such a charming shade of red.”

He huffed a laugh, then lifted her chin with his thumb. “A nice mouth, you say,” he mused. “Is there something you want me to do with my mouth?”

His voice was a low and playful purr, and it triggered a pulse of lust between her legs. She let out a throaty laugh. “Why Fenris, what a naughty suggestion.”

“It isn’t naughty,” he said. “Not unless you make it so.”

She coyly nibbled her lip. “Well, if you’re offering…”

“I could offer,” he said. “But perhaps you should ask if there is something specific that you want.”

He was smiling faintly, and she nearly swooned at the treasured sight. She curled her fingers in the fabric of his tunic. “I’ll tell you what I want,” she said. “I want you to put that gorgeous mouth between my legs and do something useful with it.”

He chuckled. “I suppose I could do that,” he said, and he abruptly picked her up. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the desk in the study while Fenris slid her silky skirt up her thighs.

She panted eagerly and leaned her weight back on her palms. Fenris sat in the desk chair and traced his thumb over her cleft through the barrier of her smalls, and Rynne jolted and lifted her hips. 

He shook his head and smiled — Maker’s balls, that smile, the curl of mirth on that perfectly sculpted mouth! — then brushed his knuckle between her legs. “Your smallclothes are soaked through. How long have you been thinking about this?”

“All day,” she said promptly. 

He paused in his petting and looked up at her with wide eyes. “All day? Hawke, it is past midnight.”

“It’s been a long day, believe me,” she said wryly. “Will you lick me now with your lovely tongue?”

He tsked. “You and your endless compliments,” he drawled. He pushed her skirt a little higher and carefully pulled the crotch of her smalls to the side, and when his tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip, Rynne stared at his mouth with rising desperation. 

She wiggled her hips on the desk. “Fenris, please…”

He didn’t reply; instead, he lowered his mouth between her legs. His lips sealed over her pussy and the flat of his tongue pressed against her clit, and Rynne dragged in a tremulous gasp of air.

Maker’s balls, fuck, his mouth on her pussy… This was what made her come undone. This was the thing that distracted her the most during the day and kept her mind thrumming at night. The feeling of his lips caressing the slick folds of her flesh, giving her a gentle sort of bliss that complemented the more intense pulse of pleasure that his tongue was fostering in the swollen little bud of her clit: this was something that Fenris’s mouth did exceedingly well. 

He pushed her legs further apart and kissed her sex, and Rynne stared shamelessly at his handsome white-haired head as he smoothed his tongue along the length of her cleft up to her clit. He graced her with an open-mouthed kiss and swirled his tongue slowly over her clit, and she clenched her nails on the desk with a gasp. 

“Fenris…” she mewled. 

He hummed into her flesh, a growly sound of affirmation that thrummed through her body and straight into her blood, and Rynne curled her hips toward him with rising desperation. She was spiralling toward her rapture, spiralling higher and closer in time with the gentle motion of Fenris’s tongue as it teased its way around her swollen little bud, and despite her playful jokes from a moment ago, she truly couldn’t stop staring. Fenris’s elegant fingers were holding her legs apart, and his hair half-obscured his eyes without hiding the tantalizing sight of his mouth moving at the juncture of her thighs, and the sight of him — Maker, the look of him, the sound of his hungry breaths ghosting across her sex, the sheer tangible reality of this incredible man gracing her humble body with the perfection of his mouth: it was almost more than she could bear. 

He caressed her thighs with his palms and lapped carefully at her clit and kissed her with his beautiful mouth, and a heart-pounding moment later, Rynne found her bliss. It fanned out through her body and rippled all the way down to her calves and her toes, and she gasped and bucked her hips and cried out his name. He gripped her hips and continued to kiss her, his tongue sliding over her sex in perfect time with the frantic pulsing in her core, and when the ecstatic crescendo of her pleasure began to wane, she slid her fingers through his snowy hair in a gentle caress.

He wiped his mouth on her thigh, then lifted his head to look at her, and another exquisite half-smile pulled at his lips. “Hawke, you’re staring again.”

She let out a breathless little laugh. “You can’t blame me. You just have such a talented mouth.”

He huffed in amusement, then stood up and cradled her neck in his palm. “As it turns out, I am not the only one here with a talented mouth.”

She grinned and reached for his belt. “Is that so?

“It is,” he said. He pressed his forehead gently to hers. “And you are not the only one who has been thinking about this all day.”

His voice was husky and tender, and her heart flipped happily in her chest. “You smooth talker,” she whispered, and she tilted her chin up to lure him into a kiss – yet another perfect kiss from the most gorgeous mouth in Thedas. 

Rynne spent a lot of time thinking about Fenris’s mouth. She thought about its shape and the way it moved, the curve of his smile and the way it curled around his Tevene-accented speech. But there was one reason and one reason alone that Fenris’s mouth was so thoroughly preoccupying to Rynne Hawke: it was the mouth of the man she loved.

His long strides now carry him across the study. “This raises the question, though,” he says, and her heart leaps when he reaches his hand out towards her to—help himself to the bottle at her side. “What was your favourite childhood book?” he asks, topping up her glass before pouring himself another one.

She breathes and runs a fingertip along the rim of her glass to make it sing, trying to ignore the warmth he just stirred inside her. “Don’t laugh—an illustrated edition of the Compendium Draconum,” she says, and of course he laughs, and so does she. Hawke remembers it well, with its cracked spine and nutty old book smell, binding coming loose, dust packed tight in the grooves of the dragon debossed on the leather cover. After much pleading and a half-kept promise to help Mama around the house, her father gifted her the thick tome, discovered in the corner of a used bookstore in Amaranthine. “I carried it around everywhere until it barely held together. I cried for an entire day when I misplaced the page with the picture of the Kaltenzahn. It was my favourite. Still is, in fact.”

Fenris smiles, something wistful tugging at the corners of his mouth. “An ice dragon? Unexpected.”

“Less typical, and Kaltenzahns are just bloody awesome. They breathe ice balls, they have armoured scales with bright colours and pretty patterns, a shriek that can be heard from miles around, and it’s said that nothing short of a Blight can drive them off.”

“Ah, you felt a kinship, then.”

She levels his smirk with one of her own. “Careful, they also mainly subsist on a diet of smart-arses. Anyway, tell me. What’s your favourite dragon?”

“I’ve no such thing. Between the Old God relics, the Bone Pit, and your Witch of the Wilds, I’ve had quite enough of dragons.”

“No? Not even Flemeth, with that glorious bosom?”

Fenris snorts. “Especially not her.”

“Everyone has a favourite dragon, Fen. We need to find you one.”

Wineglass in hand, she steps over Maker’s Bark to head towards her bookshelves for her copy of The Dragons of Nevarra—too fast. Fenris moves to steady her as she sways on her feet, takes the glass out of her hand and sets it on the chimneypiece before her wine swishes over the brim. Her hand ends up on the taper of his waist of its own accord while he holds her by the arm.

“Whatever gets you rambling about dragons again,” he says with a lopsided smile.

For the Maker’s sake, she’s blushing. “What can I say? Dragons and handsome elves are my weaknesses.”

Their lips would brush if she only rose up on tiptoes, she realises, just as her gaze trips over a figure hovering in the doorway behind him. Isabela is there, daggers and gold glimmering in the firelight, eyes sparking up the instant they meet Hawke’s. She pinches two fingers of one hand together in a circle, then starts thrusting her forefinger into it.

Confusion flits through Fenris’s face as Hawke nearly falls over the sleeping hound in her haste to back away from him. “Isabela! Since when—do you—what—”

“Awe, don’t stop on my account, sweetlings. Just wanted to make sure you two weren’t shriveling up with boredom perched up here in Hightown. Turns out I needn’t have worried.”

“Your thoughtfulness warms the heart,” Fenris says, his voice level despite the sudden stiffness of his back.

Isabela flicks the now-scarlet tip of his ear before taking a swallow from Hawke’s glass. Her eyebrows shoot up when she spots the copy of Martha’s Adventures in the Fade on the desk. “Well, well,” Isabela drawls, setting the glass down to flip through the pages while Fenris’s gaze drops to his toes. “Are congratulations in order?” She smirks at one of the pictures. “Ooh, look at the tits on that desire demon.”

“Oh, that.” Hawke throws her palms up and shrugs. “Must be Sandal’s.”

“Mh-hm.” Isabela tosses the book back on the desk. “Anyway, Martin tipped me to the location of a stash full of treasure. No giant spiders this time, I promise, so let me know once you two are done making the two-backed dragon,” she adds over her shoulder as she heads back towards the door with a wink. “Hawke’s hankering to be flung on her beam-ends and given a proper masting, I can tell.”

Laughter bubbles out of Hawke despite herself. She looks at Fenris, who glances back through his fingers as he holds one hand splayed over his face. “I’ll get my sword,” he sighs, and if Hawke’s fingers keep brushing his hand as they follow Isabela side by side, he doesn’t seem to mind.

The scent of lyrium always gives him away: it clings to him like the sheen on a piece of sun-warm metal, tickling her nose before he leans in from behind to set a pint of ale in front of her.

They clink their tankards together, then each take a sip. “I’ve been thinking about our conversation,” Fenris starts after licking the foam off his upper lip. They’ve had many, lately, but Hawke can only think of the one: he called her his friend, and beautiful—though once sober he also called her sanity into question, but what matters is that he wants her, insane and all. With you it might be different. She holds her breath, mouth dry. Elsewhere—not so dry. “I’ve made up my mind,” he continues. “The Cetus, I’ve decided.”

The words slip past her, so unlike anything she expected it might as well have been Tevene. Which it was, at least in part. “Sorry, I thought I heard you say—”

“The Cetus, yes. It’s said that it kills its prey with lightning, that it can unleash a storm on even the calmest seas when it hunts, and that it can sink Qunari dreadnoughts. If I’m to have a favourite dragon, then the Cetus is it.”

“Oh. Oh.” She laughs, breathlessly, her heart somewhere on the floor of the Hanged Man. “That conversation.” Damn him, she thinks. Damn him to the Void. How can he claim that someone else would serve her better, only to tell her about his favourite dragon? As if that wouldn’t prove him exactly wrong, as if she wouldn’t want him even more then—and she almost tells him as much, but instead she reaches for some shred of Maker-given strength inside her and clings to it like a lifeline.

Her lips curl. “Except that it can’t be your favourite dragon unless it’s a dragon,” she says, proud of herself for not tossing her smalls right off and riding him like the Grey Wardens of yore rode their griffons, “which Cetuses most definitely aren’t.”

He cocks one eyebrow. “One would think that sea dragons qualify as dragons.”

“And one would be talking out of one’s perky little arse.” Hawke slumps forward and lets her forehead hit the heel of her hand. “Maker, I did not just say that.”

“I’m—willing to forget that you did,” Fenris starts, and his eyes are dancing when she risks a glance between her fingers, “if you concede that the Cetus is a dragon.”

She lifts her chin at him. “Oh? I didn’t think that you would ever stoop so low as to resort to blackmail. Let’s solve this like civilized people, not Orlesians.”

“You have something in mind,” he says, his tone cautious.

She leans over her tankard and lowers her voice. “How about a wager? Whoever finds the best evidence as to whether Cetuses are dragons or not wins.”

He smirks, lips left glistening by a swig of ale. The confident curve of his mouth sends a flash of warmth to her face. “Three sovereigns.”

Her heart trips at the stakes, but her grin doesn’t falter. No backing down now, she wills herself. “Better start saving up now, then,” she replies, and she must be in the Maker’s sight when they shake hands because somehow she manages to let go of Fenris’s sword-calloused, lyrium-humming fingers.

“I’ve also been thinking about our other conversation,” Fenris says later that night. The breeze stirs the shrubs of vandal arias by the gates of her estate, and comes to them heady with their honeyed fragrance. “Are you certain that—I’m what you want?”

The heat that rises to her cheeks has little to do with the ale. “You know, people usually say that I could stand to be less obvious. I haven’t changed my mind, Fenris.”

Footfalls hit the street somewhere behind the vine-wreathed column at her back; a woman’s laugh trills through the night, while her companion’s voice rumbles indistinctly. Fenris’s gaze trails their source for a time before dropping to the stone at their feet. “I thought—after what I told you …”

“The revelation of your awful tastes and knowledge in dragons?” Hawke tries, hoping to smooth the furrow off his brow.

He forces a smile, but then goes back to studying his toes. “The Fog Warriors. Two words—two words was all it took.” His breath shudders out of him. “Does that not scare you?”

“No,” she says, and she finds that it’s true. “It wasn’t your fault, and it’s not fair that you have to bear the guilt.” She tries to meet his eyes, find some fleck of green through the shadows his lashes throw on his cheekbones. “You’re your own person now,” she continues instead, linking her hand with his, “and I’d very much like to be with that person.”

He squints at their hands for a moment, then closes his fingers around hers. “And when we’ve established that the Cetus is a dragon?”

She guffaws. “Which it isn’t, so you’ll be stuck with me for a long time.”

The corners of his mouth curl up. “I can live with that,” he says against her lips.

His kiss is gentler than she expects—gentle as the wind redolent with night blossoms, as the forlorn song of a lone cricket in the yard, the diffuse warmth of the torches by the gates of her estate. The watered-down ale of the Hanged Man tastes like the sweetest mead on his lips; the lyrium in his skin sings to the magic underneath hers, and the loss throbs like an old ache when he untangles their fingers. “Good night, Hawke,” he whispers between their mouths before ambling down the street to his own mansion.

Hawke leans back against the column, her heart beating as busily as the midges and moths that swarm the torchlight.

“Tell me, Hawke,” Fenris says, and his hand comes away black with old blood as he rips the spine of a walking corpse through its chest, “what else would the Cetus be, if not a dragon?”

The creature crumbles before him, then drags itself towards his ankle as he whirls around to parry another corpse’s blow. “Fish?” Hawke replies, thrusting the bladed end of her stave clean through its skull. “Sea snake?” Her force wave tosses one undead archer onto another in a scatter of bones and arrows. “Not a dragon, in any event. They don’t even fly.”

“Neither do drakes and dragonlings. Does that not make them dragons?” Fenris retorts before jumping several feet through the air, sword raised high above his head. It comes crashing onto a giant spider, but its shell deflects the blow, though the blade severs two legs that then thrash about the cracked stone tiles of the ruins. Hissing, the spider raises its fangs, gleaming black like obsidian. Fenris regains his balance just in time to dodge the venom it spews at him while a stray shaft caroms off his chestplate.

“It’s not the same thing, and you know it! Fall back!” He retreats at her warning, and her fire spell hits true. The spider screeches, palps and legs flailing as the flames engulf it with a whoosh.

Fenris wrinkles his nose at the sight before throwing her a glance. “I fail to grasp the difference.” He phases out of sight in a white-blue flash, then reappears behind her to cut down a corpse that was plodding in her direction, lance aimed at her back. The Veil ripples in his wake, and the sensation of him sweeping through her trails gooseflesh on her skin and sends her blood rising with something other than the rush of battle. “The Qunari call them aban-ataashi—sea dragons, literally.”

One of Varric’s bolts hits the last shambling skeleton in an eye socket. Two spiders writhe under Merrill’s spell, screeching, until at last they curl up onto their backs. Everything else is dead—or at least deader—and Hawke lets the wisps of inchoate magic at her fingertips melt back into the Fade. “Oh? And since when do you care about anything the Qunari have to say?”

“Since there are three sovereigns on the line,” Fenris replies with a smirk, shaking the blood and spider guts off his blade, then winces. “Kaffas,” he mutters.

Blood is oozing from a gash on his arm. Hawke has to pinch the edges closed before casting the simple healing spell that Anders taught her. “Fenris, the Arishok called,” she starts as his brands flicker to life under the first lick of magic. “The Qun demands that you quit your nonsense about Cetuses.”

He looks at her. “Ceti.”

She glances up from the hairline scar left by the spell—two shades paler than the dark olive of his skin—opens her mouth to retort something and then closes it again, scrunching up her face in confusion. “What?”

Fenris laughs under his breath, stretching his arm experimentally while she wipes the blood off her fingers on her trousers. “Somehow, that says it all,” he replies, but the words are warm as though they’d been left in the sun for the span of an afternoon in Bloomingtide.

A few paces away, the shriveled husk of a spider cracks and snaps as Varric tugs a bolt out of its shell. “You hear that, Daisy?” he says with a shake of his head, his voice lilting with amusement. “The sweet song of young love.”

Merrill giggles, all bright eyes and blushing, bloodied cheeks. “Oh, I think it’s adorable.”

Behind her, Fenris’s breath hisses through his teeth, Varric snickers, and Aveline utters her name in a warning come too late.

Then silence falls on the compound like a cleaver.

The Arishok’s eyes narrow. His leathers creak as he leans forward; a shaft of setting sun skims along the gold of his ear-cuff and horn-bands, sweeps the crest of the House of Tides stenciled on his pauldron. Taking the question back would only make things worse, so Hawke squares her shoulders, lifts her chin and holds his gaze, though it alone weighs about as much as the rest of him must.

The Qunari hold dragons sacred, Fenris mentioned once, so after informing the Arishok of his delegation’s fate, Hawke ventured to ask, “Do the Qunari think that aban-ataashi are dragons?”

It seemed like a good idea until the Arishok’s eyes bored into her like horns.

She’s contemplating crawling through the ground all the way to Darktown when at last he speaks again. “A question perhaps better suited for the Ariqun, one that your ilk doubtless lacks either the will or the wit to even begin to answer. But that you thought to ask …” The line of his shoulders eases somewhat. “Very well. May these words not be wasted on you.

“Existence is a choice. The Qun offers the choice to exist or not. Bas, Vashoth, and Tal-Vashoth do not follow the Qun, as beasts do not—but they are lower than beasts, as they turn their back on their own existence, while beasts are bound by their being. They are what their nature dictates.

“But what dictates the nature of the beast? Is it shape or dwelling—or is it not its reason in the world, as the Qun tells us? Just as the Aqun-athlok transcend their bodies to become their purpose under the Qun, the ataashi—the glorious ones—are the glory they embody and after which they are named. Ataashi ebasit, ataashi tal-eb—the dragon is as the dragon shall be.”

Beyond the spiked ramparts, a ship’s bell tolls the last dog watch. The seven strikes have rung out by the time Hawke realises that that was the Arishok’s answer to her question.

You’ve made your bed, says the one dark eyebrow Fenris lifts when she darts a look at him from above her shoulder. She turns back to the Arishok, tries a smile, then reconsiders. “So … you’re saying that ‘aban-ataashi’ is just a name, right?”

His upper lip twitches. “No name is ever just a name. To know a thing by its name is to know its place in the world.” He leans back, gauntleted fingers curling around the dragon heads carved out of his throne’s armrests. “The aban-ataashi is ataashi,” he declares, brow beetling over sunken eyes. “Panahedan, Hawke. That will be all.”

Fenris swaggers out of the compound twenty feet tall, and how in blazes could Hawke even think that the Qunari would be an authority on anything at all might just be the greatest mystery of the age.

Hawke locks the door to her bedchamber but neglects to latch her window closed; at the whisper of the well-oiled sash, she looks up from her tear-wet pillow to see Isabela emerge from the sudden swell of her curtains. “I’ve sailed the stormiest seas,” she laughs, perching on the edge of the bed as Hawke mutters an apology, “you think a little water fazes me?”

The scent of spiced rum and sea salt tickles her nose when she lifts her head off the bed. “Is it … is it because I’m a mage?” May she rot, and all the other mages with her. Her chest clenches at the memory, tears rolling off her temples and the bridge of her nose to mat and darken the satin of her pillowcase.

“Hush, none of that. You’re just hurting yourself more. And you won’t get your answer with a yes–no question, anyway.” The gold around Isabela’s wrist clinks a rhythm as she starts stroking her hair. “At least Fenris has made it a night to remember, by the looks of it. He must have some magic of his own to get you in that state,” she muses.

“And now you can find out for yourself,” Hawke retorts into her pillow.

Even she has to wince at the egregious pettiness of it, but it slides off Isabela as seawater off the tarred hull of a ship. “No, because you’d be upset, and it’s not worth it,” she replies, her voice softer than Hawke has ever heard it, but its usual brazen lilt is back just as soon: “Do let me know when you’re over him, though—or if you need help getting over him.”

Some strangled laugh finds its way through the tears. “I just don’t understand,” Hawke sniffles. “I thought—I thought we were in love.”

She feels so stupid saying that out loud. Even stupider for telling Isabela, of all people. Isabela would have taken her pleasure of him, and he of her, and morning would have found her heart-whole, no doubt—whereas Hawke might as well have let Fenris pluck the heart whole out of her chest.

It wasn’t at all how she meant for it to happen. Gone was the man who let her hold his hand while he struggled through a picture book, who kissed her goodnight under the vines creeping along the overhangs of her estate, who humoured her endless prattle about dragons with nary a roll of his green eyes. And Hawke didn’t know how to guide him back to her other than by closing the distance between their mouths, days of pent-up anger and concern and hurt, and relief and desire—and yes, perhaps even fear—channeled into one desperate kiss.

The love they made that night was a wild thing set free for the first time: fast, and frantic and furious at being held for so long. And yet. Come dawn, Fenris was gone.

Isabela clicks her tongue. “Everyone with eyes in their head could see you two were in love. But love always complicates everything, and Fenris is—complicated to begin with.”

Hawke lets out a stuttering sigh. “Do you think there’s a chance he might come back?” she asks in a small voice.

“You mean other than for the three sovereigns you owe him?” Isabela smiles, and brushes off the fresh tears that find their way down Hawke’s cheeks, her thumbs calloused by years of handling ropes and knives. “No man is worth the wait, sweet thing. Not even Fenris.” The curve of her mouth then splits open over a flash of white teeth. “And I get it, trust me. Even just his voice gets me going so bad you could grease a slipway or two with my—”

“Wait.” Hawke props herself up on one elbow, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He said I owe him three sovereigns?”

“Seemed pretty confident he’d get the coin he owes me from you. Something about the Arishok and sea dragons.”

“The gall of that elf,” she mutters as she sits up, then snaps her head in Isabela’s direction. “Oh! Bela, you’re a sailor. Ever seen a Cetus? Do you believe they’re dragons or not?”

The question rouses a chuckle out of the pirate. “You’re asking the wrong wench, but … well, I did see—something once in the Venefication Sea, off the coast of Antiva. I’ve told you before about the Crow I took as my lover and who—alas!—made me a widow, right?” Hawke nods, pressing the heels of her hands to her swollen eyelids. “After that, one of his next marks was one of those merchant princes with coin coming out the arse, so we came to a mutually beneficial arrangement: if my crew could get him on the merchant’s ship, then we could get all the riches we wanted off it.

“The poor wretch never knew what hit him, and we ended up with more bolts of raw silk and Antivan carpets than we could carry back to shore. We were almost done offloading everything when a wave the size of the Chantry rose out of the sea, crashed down onto the merchant vessel, and sank it so fast a few of our men didn’t even have time to make it off it. Then it vanished underwater, with just some bubbles and a few bits of flotsam left in its wake. ‘A rogue wave,’ the captain said, but I could swear I saw fins and a smooth, scaleless body, like that of a moray.”

A shudder runs through Hawke at that. “A moray … that’s not very much at all like a dragon, is it?”

“Sure,” Isabela starts with a shrug, “considering I made that up, anyway.” Then she bursts into peals of laughter so bright they seem to bounce off the high walls of the bedchamber, like the glint off the gold that hangs from her ears and neck.

Hawke groans. “You really made it all up? Trying to give Varric a run for his coin or something?”

“Oh, no. It happened exactly as I said,” she replies, still stifling giggles, “except it was just a rogue wave, of course. But I can tell Fenris otherwise if it’ll make you feel better.” Her eyes soften at that, the colour of barley sugar in the hearth-light. “And I know for a fact that you weren’t thinking about him for a moment there, at least. Feeling better?”

As much as she’d want to, Hawke can’t will herself to stay annoyed. She smiles up at her from under wet, spiked lashes. “A bit. You’re a good friend, Bela.”

Something scuds through her eyes, like clouds before amber suns. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just want under that fancy robe of yours,” Isabela says before flashing her a grin. “Come, now. There’s a bottle of West Hill in your cellar just begging to be uncorked.”

“Just quit while you’re ahead, Hawke. Fenris isn’t callous enough to demand his coin after—well. You know.”

“After using me for my body and discarding me like an old dishrag? You can just go ahead and say it, Aveline.”

“Not how I would’ve put it, but that works, I suppose.”

“I’m just kidding, Ave. I know he … well, it doesn’t matter now. It’s fine. I’m fine. And I’m going to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cetuses aren’t dragons.”

“Right. You can ask the Viscount and the Grand Cleric this time, work your way to the Empress and the Archon. … Oh, no. I know that look. Hawke, it was joke. Hawke, put the quill down now.”

“Oh! Aveline, you would know: what’s ‘Cetus’ in Orlesian? Cétu? Cétun? Cétin?”

“Did you not hear what I just said about quitting while you’re ahead?”

“… Dragon du mer?”

“For the Maker’s sake, Hawke.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hawke spots the shock of silver hair in the door to her bedchamber, and can’t help the barking laugh that rips out of her. “I know what this is about,” she says, nearly knocking her chair over when she rises to her feet, scattering a few sheets that sough along the floor. “You’ve come to claim your sovereigns—”

The latch clicks into place as Fenris closes the door behind him. “Hawke.”

“—but I’m not ready to admit defeat yet,” she continues, wagging a finger at him, before yanking the sheets of paper off the floor. “In fact, I was just writing to Professor de Serault at the University of Orlais—”

“Hawke,” he sighs, picking up a stray letter to set it back on her desk as he makes his way to her.

“—and we’ll see what an actual draconologist has to say about Cetuses being dragons or not—”

He steps between her and the few sheets still spread out on the floor. “Hawke.” Both of his hands close around her shoulders, startling her into silence. Her eyes drop to the papers between her fingers. Her handwriting, upside down, with Fenris’s neat print underneath. She remembers how diligently he copied the runes that day, concentration etched on his brow, his grip made for a sword, not a quill. “I’m not here for that,” he says, and she blinks up at him, lost. “I’m here for—” he swallows hard, “—you.”

And Fenris—ever so careful not to touch her since the night they fell into each other like pieces into place—then pulls her against himself.

Hawke doesn’t even know when she let her arms fall back to her sides and the sheets of paper to the floor. Her fingers twist around the fabric of his tunic; it’s warm like him, and it smells of lyrium and leather, like him. “I’m going to wake up, right? I mean, he took—he took her head. It can’t be real, can it?”

He sighs, and his breath is hot on the crown of her head. “This world is unkind,” he starts in a whisper, “but I had hoped you’d never have to find out just how much.”

Her breath stutters into her throat when she opens her mouth to speak. Maybe at last she will cry, she thinks, but no—she has no tears left to shed after wasting them all on him. She hasn’t wept, hasn’t screamed, hasn’t pulled her hair out and clawed at herself like everyone seemed to expect. Perhaps that’s why they all left: Aveline’s and Varric’s and Bodahn’s voices, hushed like the least noise would tip her into hysteria, all ebbed away one after the other.

All but Fenris.

She lets him pull her to the bed and help the boots off her feet before settling next to her on the pristine duvet cover. Already the golden glow of morn peeps from behind the drapes. Orana must have slid them closed before Hawke returned. She would have done the same in Mother’s room, too. Should they stay closed? Mother would have known, she thinks—and a guffaw claws its way out of her at the irony, some too-loud, hysterical sound that has Fenris drawing her closer.

She tucks her head under his chin. “I’m sorry. I know I should be crying, but I can’t even manage that.”

“Tears rarely come when they should, I’ve found.”

She knits her brow at the implication. “You cry sometimes?”

“Sometimes,” he breathes in answer.

Hawke pictures him with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs, soft sniffles echoing in the quiet of the old mansion. She used to think she could make him happy—and she did, he said, “just for a little while,” but that doesn’t seem like much at all now. For all her spells and her magic, she can’t seem to do anything that matters.

“Just wait until you have to fork over three sovereigns,” she jests instead, “I bet you the tears will come then,” then she slumps against him, her throat tight around the humourless laughter that escapes her. “Maker’s blood, what’s wrong with me, Fenris? My mother was just murdered, and here I am joking.”

“After what happened, you think something is wrong with you?” Fenris says, his lips brushing her forehead. “Nothing is wrong with you, Hawke. Nothing.”

Hawke closes her eyes. Through the searing burn that flares along the edge of her lashes and seeps under her lids, it comes to her clear as the snows melting off the Frostbacks in summer: she loves him, and in this moment, with her mother’s ashes still warm from the pyre, she wishes she didn’t.

It must be bad, because Merrill offers to stop the blood and no one instantly shoots down the idea. Sebastian is praying to Andraste, though it’s anyone’s guess whether the Bride of the Maker can hear anything over Isabela swearing like—well, like a sailor. “Don’t you dare, Hawke,” Varric keeps saying. “Don’t you sodding dare.”

“Hold her still, Fenris,” Anders says, somewhere far away. “Aveline, keep the sword as level as you can. I’m sorry, Hawke, but this is going to hurt.”

Fenris grips her shoulders without making a fuss over being ordered around by Anders. Now she knows it’s bad. Her hands come to rest on his arms, on the skin exposed between the spaulders and vambraces. “Wait,” she says, but it comes out a wheeze. The back of her mouth tastes like she sucked on a handful of coppers, then tried to wash it down with a draught of lyrium.

“Fen,” she breathes, and Maker it hurts. His pupils are blown wide, ringed by rough peridot. She should tell him—tell him something at least—but the words stay stuck in her gullet. Nothing would hurt him more than this, she knows, but he waits—everyone waits—and when he leans in, his ear to her lips, she whispers, “Cetuses aren’t dragons.”

He makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. His lips brush her temple. “You are not getting the last word, I promise you.”

Madame Hawke,

Imagine my surprise to discover that the newly titled Championne de Kirkwall has done me the great honour of sending me a letter ! I was pleased to read of your interest in this most fascinating field of draconologie, and am humbled that you would so inquire about my research.

Your question regarding the classification of the Cetus is an interesting one, and certainly worthy of scientific inquiry, but I’m afraid I cannot give you a definitive answer as its sea-dwelling nature makes it nigh impossible to study. Until the last age, its very existence was still a matter of heated debate among the academic community !

In my opinion, the crux of the matter makes up the very foundation of draconologie : what is a dragon ? (Such a simple question, and yet even scholars who have dedicated their lives to the discipline cannot agree on the answer !) For instance, the wyverne has been historically classified as a lesser cousin to dragons ; their similarities are most evident when compared to drakes rather than female dragons, but there is no doubt in my mind that wyvernes fully belong to dragonkind.

I should also point out that sea-wyvernes are widely accepted to be wyvernes. Perhaps Ceti are to dragons what sea-wyvernes are to their land-based cousins : a close relative that saw fit to conquer the oceans rather than the skies.

I certainly hope that during our lifetimes the opportunity will present itself to learn more about this most intriguing creature ! And should you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Val-Royeaux, I would be honoured to show you some of the University’s spécimens.

Au plaisir,

Frédéric de Serault Professeur de Draconologie Université d’Orlais

P. S. : Would you perhaps consider making a donation to the Département de Draconologie? Your generosity would support current research into the territoriality and mating behaviour of the Northern Hunter.

“Hate to break it to you, Hawke, but maybe the elf has won this one. He’s got both the Arishok and an expert draconologist on his side, after all.”

Hawke huffs. “A dead oxman and a fraud who found his degree down the ruffled knickers of an Orlesian whore.”

Varric laughs, setting Professor de Serault’s letter on top of the “sod off” pile when she gestures to it. “Why in blazes you’d even bet against sea dragons being dragons in the first place is beyond me. Think he’s earned his coin.”

“Well, he’s welcome to his bloody coin if he can stop pretending long enough that I wasn’t ever on top of him naked—Maker’s balls, Varric, cross that off,” Hawke exclaims when he scribbles something down in his trusted leathern book. “It was a—a figure of speech.”

The dwarf’s broad shoulders shake with laughter again. He’s taken to entertaining her with his latest drafts whenever he calls to enforce Anders’s strict schedule of potions and fresh air. It’s a strange thing, listening to his version of her: moulded out of words as though out of clay, yet somehow more alive than she feels now; fierce and ferocious when she fights, a force of nature who doesn’t scramble around the room in figure-eight patterns to cast spells from behind pillars. At least she’s not bedfast, though, if only for the span of a story or two.

When Varric looks at her again, it’s with something uncomfortably close to pity tugging at the corners of his burnt-umber eyes. “For what it’s worth, I was hoping you’d beat the odds, but it was kind of a sucker bet.”

“Not talking about sea dragons anymore, are you?” Hawke replies, trying a lopsided smile.

“I know you enjoy flirting with all manner of trouble, but I would’ve drawn the line at getting into trouble’s pants. Leggings. Whatever.”

Not much to say to that. After all, Varric warned her about Fenris. The angsty porcupine, as she recalls. Nowhere near as funny, now that she’s jabbed herself on all the spikes. “What’s a girl to do when a certain handsome dwarf with ragged looks won’t give her the time of day, though?”

“Sorry, Hawke. Must be this short to ride.” His smirk softens into a smile again. “Seriously, though: how’re you holding up? It’s a lot happening all at once.”

“Right? Can’t believe I lost that stupid bet.”

Varric looks at her. “Not gonna wriggle out of that one, Hawke.”

She fiddles with a loose thread on the cuff of her robe. “I’m—fine. I’m holding up. The city hasn’t been forcibly converted to the Qun, and it’s the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

That much is the truth. It was enough that she still stood when the Arishok fell, but between all the blood she lost, the bitter brew of elfroot and spindleweed that Anders has been stuffing down her throat, and the few hours a day he forces her to spend moving about, she’s been tumbling all at once into deep, dreamless slumber. No more nightmares of her mother’s corpse trudging towards her in a blood-splattered wedding dress, jostling her awake in an estate too empty without Leandra, in a bed too large without Fenris.

The candlelight skitters along Varric’s jewelry and the gold thread stitched along the collar of his tunic. Without a word, he holds her gaze until her own scampers off to the gleam on the polished wood of Bianca’s limbs, the crossbow slanted against the desk. Hawke has to take one—two—deep breaths to untangle the knots in her throat. “I miss her,” she whispers, “and I miss him. He came here when she died, you know. Just that once.”

“I know. Wouldn’t have left you alone otherwise.”

Her mouth quirks into something like a grin. “It’s almost too bad I’m all out of close family to die horrible deaths for him to deign pay me a visit.” That’s the heartbreak talking, and the grief and the pain. Anyone else and she’d take it back, but with Varric, there’s no need. “Has he been showing up for Wicked Grace, at least?”

He shakes his head. “Haven’t seen him since the bloody Qunari ran the city into the ground. Holed up in his mansion brooding, according to Donnic. Won’t see anyone else.”

Donnic? she wonders, but then it clicks: unlike the others, Donnic wasn’t her friend first. The two men struck an easy friendship—bonding over cards, cups of wine, and copper marigolds—while she was content to hide her mortification behind a veneer of cordiality for weeks after that debacle at the Hanged Man, when the guardsman thought she was coming onto him. “And Bela?”

“Skipped town. Possibly the Free Marches entirely. Don’t think Rivaini has forgiven you for making her grow a conscience.”

“Ouch,” she says, even though she expected as much. Not that it hurts any less. What’d you do that for, bitch? Isabela spat at her, rum-coloured eyes blazing, as if Hawke should have turned down the duel and let the Qunari take her along with their thrice-damned relic. It wasn’t ideal, as far as parting conversations go: they only bandied a few choice words before Hawke’s mind caught up to her mangled body, and Isabela was ushered out of the throne room at Anders’s behest. The rest is dimmed by the glare of blinding agony, until it all peters out into darkness: the clench of Fenris’s jaw as he let her hold his hands and grind the bones of his fingers to dust, the tang of metal and blood and lyrium as her head lolled onto his shoulder, the muffled sound of his voice, so far away even as he barked something or other at Anders right into her ear.

By the time Aveline and Orana got her out of the bath and into bed, hours later, both Fenris and Isabela were long gone. If anyone can look after herself, it’s Isabela—Fenris, though, she’s not so certain. “Can you just—make sure he’s alright? Ingesting something other than fermented grapes once in a while and such?”

“If he’ll let me, sure,” Varric answers, lifting one corner of his mouth. “Want me to drag him in here by the ear while I’m at it?”

The laugh she breathes crumbles down into a sigh, and she starts tugging at the thread on her sleeve again. “I don’t know. Maybe it will be easier if I don’t see him.” She glances up at Varric. “Will it?”

“In my experience, it doesn’t change the least sodding thing,” Varric sighs, suddenly looking tired. You deserve so much better, you lovelorn fool, Hawke thinks, but she knows better than to say it—and then the spark is back in his eyes so quickly it might as well have been a trick of the candlelight. “I know what you’re thinking, Hawke, and it applies to you too, I’ll have you know.”

She looks at him. “I have irresistible chest hair?”

“Eat a few more oxmen for breakfast, and you might get there,” he laughs, rising to his feet. “Will you be alright?”

“Was I ever not? Thanks for dropping by, Varric,” she answers with a smile.

He shrugs his tailored duster jacket on, slings Bianca over his shoulder, then pats her hand on his way out. “Anytime, Hawke.”

She never expects Fenris in her room again, but there he is one afternoon, all shifty eyes and not-quite-smiles, a book tucked under his arm. Out of the armour, not covered in blood for once, he looks nowhere near as frightening as Mother made him out to be. Even she might have found him rather charming now, lithe and lean in his loose linen shirt. Not that it matters anymore.

In the light that spills into the room—dappled with the leaf-shadows of alders and ash trees in her courtyard—his eyes are greener than Hawke remembers.

“Oh,” is all she can say when he holds the tome out to her. It’s thick as a wheel of hard cheese, likely just as heavy, the creases of the full-grain leather crisp under the pad of her finger. A stain runs from one corner to another, rumpled from a fall, perhaps—how many unsuspecting toes has it crushed through the years, she wonders?—and though time has dulled the gleam of the runes gilt on the cover, the title alone is worth more to her than if the entire thing had been moulded out of solid gold: Compendium Draconum. “Where did you get this?”

“The First Enchanter was all too happy to offer it to the Champion when I asked if I could borrow it from the Circle. ‘For services rendered,’ he said. It’s yours, if you want it.”

“Of course I want it.” She blinks the prickle in her eyes away, and smiles. “Read me something?”

Some tension she didn’t notice until then bleeds out of him at her words. “Of course,” he replies, but first he fluffs up her pillows, helps the Maker-damned potion to her lips, then cracks her window open to let a bit of birdsong billow her curtains. Something outside steals his attention for a moment; his hand lingers on the sill, the strip of silk at his wrist startlingly red where light hits. The undyed linen of his shirt is sun-bright around the solid shape of him, and for the span of one breath, she remembers how smooth the lines of his body ran under her fingers.

His gaze trails from his feet to the dead embers in the hearth, then back. The wretched swell of hope fills her chest, and Hawke has to fight against the fall when Fenris remains quiet. She refuses to be disappointed now, not when for days she’s longed to see him again.

For now, it’s enough that he’s here.

He sits by her bed, on the armchair that Bodahn and Sandal hauled across the room, where Sebastian sat most recently, his recitation of the Canticle of Benedictions lulling her to sleep faster than spindleweed; and Merrill before him, humming cradlesongs from long-lost Arlathan while wreathing together clusters of white blossoms to festoon her headboard. Their sprightly fragrance still fills the room from where stamens brush the tiniest of shadows on velvety petals.

The spine of the book cracks as Fenris eases it open on his lap before flipping to the page marked by the bound length of ribbon. His aquiline nose must have been buried in books for the past few weeks, because his reading, though still slow and stumbling over words here and there, is much more fluid than when she last heard him. “‘Little is known of the beast that lurks in the depths of the Boeric Ocean. Often dismissed as mere legend until recently, the Cetus—” the smile stretches across his face at the groan Hawke lets out, “—crops up in tales from Qunandar to the northern shore of Ferelden. The Fog Dancers of Seheron speak of a creature larger than a tidal wave, with the neck of a serpent and the barbed fins of a sea bass, that conjures storms to sink vessels and feast itself on their unfortunate crew.

“In 7:82 Storm, a mysterious carcass washed up on the coast of Rivain near the town of Seere and shed some light on the nature of the Cetus. Though declared to be that of a whale by contemporary scholars, later …’” he trails off, then holds the book out to her. “Can you help me out?”

Hawke props herself up on an elbow, eyes skimming to the runes under the crescent of Fenris’s blunt fingernail. “‘Later inquiries into the specimen however revealed vestigial limbs, hollow bones, and horny excrescences typical of dragonkind.’ You’re impossible,” she sighs, dropping her head back onto the pillow. “Fine, you win. Have your blasted coin.”

“Champion of the city, and yet still a sore loser.”

The mirth that crinkles the corner of his eyes makes it hard not to smile. “Hey, you try getting impaled; see if you’re not at least a little bit sore afterwards.”

He doesn’t laugh. Instead he gives her one of his almost-smiles, and the twinge in her chest has nothing to do with the mess the Arishok made of it. “I should have come sooner,” Fenris says.

“Perish the thought. Can’t say I wanted you of all people to help me to the chamber pot and whatnot. Gotta keep at least some of the mystery alive.”

His shoulders shake with quiet laughter this time. “I—cannot argue with that.” Silver strands of hair then slip over his gaze as it drops to the lithograph of the Cetus on the page and rests there for a moment. “Shall I read you the entry for the Kaltenzahn?”

Hawke returns the smile. “Please,” she breathes.

His voice is rough, rumbling, halting in places like outstretched fingers seeking a path in the dark. She closes her eyes. The Kaltenzahn dragon originated as a breed in the Hunterhorn Mountains, he reads, and in the pauses between words she hears something like home—the wisp-thin echoes of a smaller, simpler world, bittersweet and bright.

The ghost of his fingers glides through her hair; his breath tickles her face, so close her lips expect his, but there’s only the soft kiss of a sigh against her mouth.

“I’m glad you came by,” she whispers, opening her eyes—to find herself alone in her room, flushed rose gold with dusk.

Light splashes at her feet like liquid gold; then a gust of warmth carries to her the laughter of patrons and the clang of tankards, the smell of sweat and spilt ale, the song of a lute and a three-hole pipe.

Hawke steps into the Hanged Man as if it were the embrace of an old friend.

“And here we are,” Aveline says, squeezing her shoulder as the door creaks closed behind them. “Try not to pick up a fight for once.”

Nothing has changed. The same regulars deep in their cups, the same old floorboards sticking to the soles of her boots, the same moth-eaten tapestries and rusty sconces—and the same familiar faces as always, around the same table against the far wall.

Corff laughs from behind the bar when he spots her. “Good to see you, Champion! Earnings haven’t quite been the same without your patronage.”

“What can I say? Missed my favourite charity case,” Hawke laughs in answer.

Some patrons elbow each other and point at her as she makes her way across the tavern, Aveline in tow. A few even start clapping and whooping, and she just has time for an embarrassed curtsy before Norah pulls her into a hug after slamming her serving tray down onto the bar. “I was there I saw them I saw the oxmen oh Maker thank you so much,” she whispers into her ear, while Hawke tries to smooth her grimace into a smile at the stab of pain in her ribs.

Alright—so almost nothing has changed, then.

“Hurry it up, sweet cheeks! The ale won’t serve itself!”

Hawke opens her mouth, a piece of her mind right at the tip of her tongue, but Aveline brandishes a finger at her, cheeks mottled red. Norah winks at them, then hoists her tray back onto her shoulder. “Then you better get it yourself, serah,” she tells the patron, “otherwise you’ll be waiting a while.”

And then Hawke is just Hawke again: the regular from Ferelden who came into money a few years back, who buys rounds for the house when she wins at Wicked Grace and sulks when she loses, who can’t hold a note after her first cup of wine yet insists on singing Andraste’s Mabari after her second.

“It’s good to see you, Hawke,” Sebastian says with one of his princely smiles and one hand over his heart. Merrill echoes her name, beaming at her while she shuffles the cards spread in front of her.

“Almost as good as new, and all thanks to who?” Anders says, flashing a white-toothed grin in her direction. “Did you really have to bring the Guard-Captain along on Wicked Grace night, though?”

“Anders, I can think of several reasons to nab you besides gambling,” Aveline sighs as she sits down next to him, “so do yourself a favour and shut it.”

Even Fenris is there, one elbow propped up on the table and his chin resting on his palm. Hawke’s gaze trips over the scarlet silk of her favour, looped around his wrist. It takes a few breaths for the butterflies in her belly to alight again when he raises his eyes to look at her, the barest stretch of a smile softening his features, before tilting his head towards the empty seat to his left in tacit invitation. “No gambling here, Aveline,” he starts. “The coin is just to keep track of who’s ahead.”

The Captain looks at him, unamused. “Same goes to you, Fenris.”

“Not too good for our ilk, after all, Hawke?” Varric laughs as she squeezes herself between him and Fenris.

“Oh, I just hang out with you lot to feel better about myself,” she replies, helping herself to a handful of dried fruit.

Merrill looks up from her pile of cards, eyes shining like marbles. “Hawke, that’s so sweet of you to say!” she exclaims, garnering a few chuckles from around the table. A flush creeps under her vallaslin when Varric pulls her close to explain the joke. Sebastian inquires after Donnic; Fenris and Anders have an impromptu glaring contest from across the table.

Only the seat between Merrill and Anders is left vacant. Isabela comes and goes like the tide, Hawke knew it from the start, but something’s missing without her flirtations and salacious jokes, the sight of her heels on the edge of the table as she sits with her chair balanced on its back legs to fish cards out of her boots when no one’s looking, her laughter rolling over the clink of coins when she sweeps the winnings to herself. The space she left has all the wretched emptiness of a sagging sail on a windless sea.

Hawke is glad for the distraction when Norah brings their usual round of swill (and a mug of spiced sweet cider for Sebastian), tankards clanging and foam spilling as she maneuvers between the platters of food and the piles of coin around the table.

Varric winks at Hawke before clearing his throat. “Well, I believe a toast is in order.” He smirks, and she rolls her eyes in mock derision, expecting some glib raillery, but then, “Little did I know that three years ago, the Fereldan refugee I saw getting her purse stolen in Hightown would one day become the first Champion of this Maker-damned city,” he starts, and his words are edged with the same laughter as always, as though he’s working his way to the punchline, but underneath his voice is rough and warm as raw gold, “—and more importantly, little did I know that she would become the best friend a dwarf could hope for,” he finishes, and heat rushes to her face to tickle her nose. “May she keep inspiring stories for years and years to come.”

“And may she do so within the confines of the law,” Aveline adds, raising her tankard.

“Good thing I’m not toasting you, Aveline, because my inspiration’d be all dried up by now,” Varric laughs, then raises his ale up high. “To the Champion of Kirkwall,” he says, echoed by the others.

Hawke pulls a grin over the mists rising in her eyes, brittle though it is. “You’re all invited to come witness the Seneschal’s vexation in person at my investiture party,” she manages past the strain in her throat.

Their tankards clink together into a sloshing, dripping mess that spills onto the cards and platters of nuts and dried fruit. Sebastian raises a brow at the plume of foam that now floats about his mug of cider before taking a first sip, while Merrill’s tankard looks comically large as she clutches it with both hands to bring it to her lips. Fenris asks Varric for the crisps. Aveline digs around her pockets for a handkerchief, but Anders has already dried the cards with a spell by the time she produces it. The two of them start arguing while Merrill squares the cards into a deck and hands it to Sebastian, their designated dealer whenever he joins them for Wicked Grace. The cards rustle as he riffles them, movements so deft and swift that Hawke wonders despite herself about the prince before he forsook the pleasures of drink and flesh and gambling.

She looks at them, heart close to bursting, then takes a long draught of ale to regain her composure. “Here, I won’t have it said that the Champion doesn’t pay her debts,” she says as she tosses a plump drawstring purse at Fenris, “but I will be very cross if you lose it all tonight.”

He thanks her with a smirk, sets a few silvers aside for the game, then stuffs the rest into his belt—under the crest of the Amells that she’s claimed as her own and that he now wears emblazoned on a badge.

Anders lifts one eyebrow. “What’s that about?”

“Oh, Blondie, you need to get out of your sewers more often if you missed Hawke betting against sea dragons being dragons. Even asked the Arishok for his input on the matter.”

Merrill clasps both hands over her mouth. Anders laughs. “The invasion suddenly makes a lot more sense,” he says, while Sebastian throws her a dismayed look as he deals the cards. “Hawke, you couldn’t possibly think that was a good idea!”

“Sorry?” Hawke replies, sheepish. “Kirkwall isn’t exactly known for its experts in dragons and Cetuses.”

“Ceti,” Fenris says, then laughs as he catches with one hand the elbow she aims at his ribs.

“Actually, I think the Arishok warmed up to her at that moment,” Varric continues between sips of ale. “Well, as much as he could warm up to some bas saarebas, I guess.”

Aveline sighs. “Don’t encourage her.”

“What? It’s a good story! See, turns out that the Qunari value the naming of things, so when Hawke asked if they consider sea dragons to be dragons or not, she was in fact demonstrating some manner of respect towards the Qun. Not saying that it was on purpose, of course, but hey, what’s Hawke got if not sheer dumb luck? But first there’s this silence, thick like tar, and the Arishok leans in …”

Hawke steals a glance at Fenris. He lifts one corner of his mouth in answer, fingers curled around the handle of his tankard, green eyes speckled with sconce light, silver hair warmed to white gold. Words hang unspoken between them like threads of spider silk, like the spirit orbs she’s seen in the Fade sometimes, but she keeps quiet, lest she disturbs them. The naming of things, she reflects. If she’s learned anything now, it’s that some things are better left undefined (how could she not, when that lesson just cost her three sovereigns?), and though it’s unlike her to leave questions unasked, for once she’s content to leave them as such—and to remain as such, even. Not friends, not lovers, something less and yet more for being unbound; the magic of a half-cast spell, some wispy in-between for which no tongue has a word and that would be lost were she to give it a name.

It doesn’t change the least sodding thing, Varric said, and now she knows what he meant. For the rest of her life she will miss the glimpse into what could have been, but she would miss Fenris more, so she lets the amorphous thing between them drift without shape, without the anchor of a name.

Aveline scoffs at something Varric says; Merrill, Anders and Sebastian attend to his every word, clutching their mugs. Next to her, Fenris laughs under his breath. It rumbles pleasantly in her ear, and Hawke lets her thoughts wander in the warmth of the dwarf’s voice, the hearth in the corner, and the ale in her belly. It’s a moment like many others, like pieces of toffee or sugar plums: sweet, and comforting, and never the last.

She savours it.

At the other end of the Hanged Man, between Aveline’s and Anders’s shoulders, she spots a mane of black curls wrapped into an indigo-dyed scarf, a sun-bleached corselet against dark skin, and the glint of gold in the swaying light.

“If you will all excuse me,” Hawke starts, rising to her feet as a grin spreads across her face, “I have to see a woman about a bitch.”

A/N: The very first scene was meant to be a stand-alone ficlet, until I decided to figure out what dragon breed would Fenris claim as his favourite. Cetuses Ceti appear to be only mentioned in the Dragon Age tabletop game, but I thought he would go for the fancy tropical sea monsters, hence the rest of this fic.