#theelfstone

Steve Rogers

Joan Watson

Neville Longbottom

Ned the Piemaker

Barristan Selmy

Ned Stark (???)

Davos Seaworth

Nyota Uhura

Allison Argent

(I've also seen lots of lists where Sam is an ISFJ which would mean you got Frodo and I got Sam hey)

While it does not quite match Hawke's descriptions of Ferelden's biting chill, the mountains are a considerable drop from the relative heat of Kirkwall. It is a larger difference still for one accustomed to the dry heat of the north, and on the first cold night spent around a hastily-built campfire, Fenris finds himself shivering.

They have made camp for the night; the hunt is still in its prime and many of their fellows have refused to retreat to the safety of the castle for fear of missing the beast, and the girl - Tallis - has insisted they do the same. Tents were pitched and bedrolls laid out (the small blessing granted that neither of their companions has thus far inquired about the number), and hovering somewhere in the lazy stretch between activity and sleep, the four of them have settled around the fire as the last traces of sunlight fade into night

More easily than he would like, he finds himself shivering. As best he can, he finds warmth within himself; he pulls his knees up and clasps them between his arms, lowering his head until it is burrowed in the space there. His breath feels like steam where it pours over the bare gaps between his armor.

Faint shouts of the hunt rise above the crackle of the fire occasionally, breaking into the calm of the clearing, and their distance, aside from the periodical movement across the fire when Carver’s head nods and then droops low and does not rise again, is the only indication of passing time.

"Chilly?"

Fenris wrenches his chin away from the heat of his chest and meets her gaze. Hawke is watching him, a bemused grin playing at her lips. She herself looks for all the world to be perfectly comfortable: she has removed most of her armor in favor of a long tunic whose sleeves fall halfway down her forearms (at the sight, Fenris fights down a shiver of second-hand chills), and her arms are thrown carelessly behind her to prop her up, bare fingers digging into frigid ground. She is truly a native creature here, it seems, or close enough so.

He is stricken with the sudden thought that in the firelight she is beautiful, although in any other light she is the same. But reds have always suited her best, and the low light plays against her body in bewitching ways. Her smile broadens, and he knows she has caught him in his train of thought. She muffles a laugh behind her lips and mimics his fervid expression teasingly.

"Looking for me to warm you up, then?"

Her voice is low, but nevertheless he is uneasy, and he glances across the fire to where her brother sleeps in the open air (he shares his sister’s affinity for the cold, it appears). They have not told him yet. Hawke has always planned to - though many of their company remain ignorant of their affair, Carver is among the few they have agreed should know - but either the moment or the words have escaped her.

But Carver's head is turned down onto his shoulder; his face is slack and his eyes have been solidly shut for some time. If he is awake, he cannot be alert enough to grasp any fragment of conversation clearly enough to damage.

"Perhaps."

With a contented hum Hawke shifts next to him, and when she settles again she presses herself gently against his side. Immediately her warmth pervades him; he lets out a short breath and hunches in towards her. She lets out a quiet laugh and winds her arm around his back, catching his eyes in a blue that is deeper in the dark than he is used to. The corners of his mouth twitch up in the faintest reflection of her smile, and she lets her head fall to his shoulder, the weight of it against him alone more comfort than the blankets could ever be.

"Elfcicle," she breathes.

He lets out a huff of air in mock-indignance, but there is no venom in him as he pulls her flush against him, warm and soft and shaking with quiet laughter, and briefly presses his lips into her hair. It is not enough to banish the cold entirely, but it is enough to keep him from caring.

The fire dies slowly, smoldering itself away until only embers remain, and after snuffing the last vestige, the two of them retreat into their tent. The ground is hard and the air is cold even here, but she nestles in against him as though he could ever hope she belonged there, and everything about this woman is warm.

When he tells Hawke this, she is perplexed.

The thought that a people celebrate the Maker by taking life is strange to her, this mage who has never taken blood for power. He does his best to tell her why, to explain that there, some lives are not deemed worthy of the Maker's light or any light at all. That these are the lives thrown into the fighting pits, forced into metallic, terrified limbo in the holy name of spectacle.

Flashes of a battlefield and unseasonable heat, the red sting of steel slicing through flesh, the euphoric haze of a crowd up in arms -

He shuts his eyes and tenses, and she takes his hand and asks no more.

In Ferelden, she explains later when the sun is low and the fear has passed, Wintersend is a time for joy. The people gather and celebrate in the streets, a festival of trade and companionship, and of -

Of marriage.

They have discussed this before, though never conclusively, he a mess of abysmal self-worth and she a tangle of resulting apologies. But this little town is a different beast. And the ceremony, Hawke tells him, is open to anyone who walks into the chantry with a smile and someone pretty and willing on their arm, and while he will leave the first to her, he most certainly has the second. And here at the threshold of seasons, he can taste something certain that was not there before.

A roar of bloodlust, a sword raised above his head in animalistic victory, his heartbeat rushing in his ears, his knuckles white on the hilt as he drives down and -

This time of year is always the worst, this echo of his making.

He has no concrete memory to tell him this was how he won his scars, and yet he knows as clearly as anything that it is true.

The sister in charge of the proceedings is of dubious authority: she has exchanged the traditional Chantry robes for a tattered, earthy tunic of splotchy greens and browns, bedecked from head to toe in berries and baubles, a flowered circlet askew across her brow. Hawke laughs and makes a joke about marriage fairies that he only half hears. There is another crowd roaring in his mind, and it is a far crueler sound.

But Hawke touches his arm where she knows there is a gap between his scars, and with all his self-made strength, he banishes his specters. There is another more recent story in him that tells of how he won himself, and he will not let this tale go to waste.

And when the woman in her crown of flowers begins to read her half-holy rite, he takes Hawke's hands in his without prompting and for her sake pretends that he does not see the shine of held-back tears this gesture brings (and for all she has laughed and waved and sworn she is not swayed by sentiment, her face in this moment belies her).

There, it is a vicious call for blood and vicarious glory by fire. But here, on this foreign ground a world away, it means something different.

There is not an instant of hesitation in her hands or in her lips against his when she pulls him close, not a trace of uncertainty in the bells that ring out in triumph from the rafters. Here he is hers, and here he is free.