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The Hanged Man was busier than usual, even for a Friday night.
The tavern maids hurried back and forth, from bar to table to bar and up into the private quarters of those not in the mood for the noise.
There were flowers in cheerful bundles on the tables, fresh candles atop cleaned sconces and new mugs that left the ale tasting rather like ale should, not of must or dirt.
It was curious, the décor, as the holidays were a long way off and no celebrations were made clear.
Whatever the reasoning, it made little difference to the drunks that littered the room, and the floor.
And while some of the group noticed and made small comment, the majority of their little gathering cared not a whit for the delicate and pretty, or the effort.
A potted vase toppled to the floor, spilled blooms and sugared water across the decking as laughter roared upwards and limbs flailed.
Isabela finished her tale with a flourish, a dagger in one hand and a mug in the other.
When her backside was once again on her seat, Lessa took her place, stumbled up and onto the table, flapped her arms for stability and patted Anders on the head like a cat when he steadied her with a hand low on her back.
“So, there I was…”
Her story started low, hushed, drew the attention of everyone in the room. Some remained at their own tables, others wandered closer, moths to the flame.
She gestured with wide sweeps of her arms, the scars across her face lit up by the fire to her right. The flames danced in the green of her eyes, illuminated the smattering of sun-gifted freckles across her scared nose. Her hair, short and choppy and a wild mess of black strands, stood up in every direction, gave credence to the insanity of her story.
It amused those who knew her best, enthralled those who knew her little, and drew in those who knew her not at all.
Alessandra Hawke knew how to weave a lie and have it believed, even if it did involve her being eaten by a dragon and being forced to cut her way free of its belly.
By the time she alluded to meeting some withered old man in a boat while in its belly, the crowd was well and truly ensnared.
She wouldn’t have to buy another drink for the rest of the night, if not the month.
It was as her tale turned to witches and darkspawn that Sebastian walked away, made for the bar and ordered two wines.
Clean as the mugs were now, he still didn’t trust the ale.
He paid more than he should for the drinks, made polite mention of the new look of the tavern and left the barkeep beaming with pride.
Lessa was just loosing a giant roar when he retook his seat, set the glasses on the small table beside him and smiled as his eyes caught sight of the missing Hawke.
She looked out of place and uncomfortable in the crowd, moved between the drunken patrons as a ghost they neither noticed nor cared for. As she drew closer, their eyes met, and the apprehension slipped from her expression, slipped to something he knew to be affection.
Her attention was stolen briefly by Aveline, the fiery-haired woman doing her absolute best not to whip out her ‘don’t’ sign and start beating people over the heads with it.
Whatever she said left Morrigan amused, and they parted ways with a companionable touch of palms to upper arms.
He used that moment, watched, let his gaze roam, and only slightly wished he hadn’t.
She was a vision, very rarely out of her constricting armours and long hair free of its thick braid.
Here, now, slowly weaving through the crowd, she was donned in soft leathers and a flowing shirt that pinched in at her slender waist, clung to the generous swell of her breasts, the tops of her arms and then split and spilled from her elbows down.
He knew she would blend in with the shadows, outfit the shade of darkened samite and form fitting save for when it wasn’t. The leather of her breeches fit snugly, hugged every curve she had. How no one saw her, lost themselves in looking at her, he’d never know.
But, then, their eyes were locked on the Hawke who was light and fire, who was bright and demanded their attentions.
He should have known then that he was in trouble.
As it were, he cared little for anything but the sway of her wide hips, of watching her step with no sound, of smiling as she danced out of the way of some drunken lout losing his drink and resumed her course with a soft smile and a sparkle in her eyes.
And when she drew so close he had to look up from his seat to meet her gaze, he was struck dumb by the intensity with which she regarded him.
Yes, he should have known the trouble he was in.
And maybe he did, but simply didn’t care.
She stilled beside him, dipped into his space so as not to be heard and smiled. Her hair spilled over her shoulder, a thick wave akin to ravens’ wings and impossibly long, and she laughed, straightened to tuck it behind her ear, and drew his attention to the pale skin at her slender wrists.
They were daintier than he thought they’d be, and something stirred in the broad wall of his chest, stirred and heated and left him with a very strong and demanding urge to protect.
And then she spoke and her words were for him and him alone, and nothing but a gentle greeting and a whisper of his name and yet it was every bit as enthralling and attention grabbing as her sister’s loud callings.
He stood, noted somewhere in the back of his mind the subtle intake of her breath when the height difference shifted, when he towered over her as he always did. He smiled, and her breath left her entirely, turned her cheeks red and her smile shy as she broke eye contact and hid behind that wave of abyssal silk.
Improper as it was, he couldn’t stop himself from lifting a hand, from tucking her hair back, behind, away from a face he longed to see when she wasn’t there and stared at when she was.
The heat in her face deepened, darkened, turned her shier than normal and were they not surrounded by a tavern full of drunken ruffians, he would have swept her into his arms and claimed that full mouth of hers in a kiss.
The thought alone twisted and roiled inside of him, fought within his mind and kept him from doing any such thing.
No matter what he wanted, no matter if he knew, deep down, that she would reciprocate all too eagerly, he couldn’t break his vows – but Maker, when she nibbled nervously on her bottom lip and caught his eye from beneath lashes long and thick, he really wanted to.
And that it would be worth it didn’t help his crumbling restraint.
To save them both from possible embarrassment or sin, he cleared his throat and shifted, turned at the waist and grabbed the second glass of wine, and then offered it to her with a smile and a small nod when she took it.
“I didn’t think you’d come, in all honesty.”
She held the glass gently, both hands stilled from their fidgeting, and thanked him silently for the distraction. “Thank you. In all honesty, I very nearly stayed home. But you were the one who asked me to come, so I came.”
Her choice of wording was not lost on him, left him slightly surprised, and dawned on her only after the fact. She covered the misstep with her wine, averted her eyes and twisted the fingers of her free hand in the long fall of her shirts sleeve.
He wished then, not for the first time, that he had never taken his vows, that he could set her nerves at ease with more than kind words, with more than shared smiles.
Maker but he wanted this woman.
To stop that train of thought, as if he ever truly could, he turned again, motioned for the seat beside his and frowned at the drunken thug currently sprawled over it.
Something began to fray within him.
His tone, usually polite and welcoming, was cold and threatening when he spoke, when he stole the mans attention from the show Lessa was currently putting on.
“You’re in her seat.”
The man, drunk but not drunk enough to stumble away without pause, stared up at him, glassy eyes narrowing before he flicked them left, behind, ran them over Morrigan and smirked.
The fray began to tear.
The man settled further into the seat, self-satisfied and too stupid to know the danger he was trudging into.
“I would ask that you find another place, serah, and know that I will not ask again.”
His grin widened, showed off wide gaps between the rotten teeth not yet fallen from his darkened gums.
Sebastian paused, then, looked to the hand on his arm, to the woman it belonged to. Morrigan held his gaze, spoke her words without ever needing to voice them, and turned when he nodded, made to leave.
That she calmed him so easily and yet stirred him simply by existing was rather perplexing.
And then all thought left him.
All thought of a quiet corner and polite conversation, words to fill the void, words to stop him from taking her to bed.
The man, clearly not bright whether drunk or not, leered after her, gestured southward with a sweep of his dirtied hand.
“Come on now, little lady, I’ve plenty of room for you to sit on right here.”
The fray became tears and the tears became rips.
Sebastian, polite, rational, chantry boy Sebastian, snapped.
And the man, well, what little teeth he had left were spat across the stained floor as he spilled from the chair with a high-pitched squawk not unlike a startled bird.
The music cut off with a screech, the chatter of a dozen conversations died until silence was deafening.
His hand didn’t even hurt, even with the blood that dripped from his split knuckles.
The man stumbled to his feet, blurry eyed and dazed, and then crashed to his arse not a second after.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
And then Lessa Hawke, never one to miss an opportunity, threw her mug to the ground, lifted her arms wide and gave a mighty rallying call of; “Bar fight!”
All Void broke loose.
Mugs and glasses, vases and tables, teeth and people flew. Fists met faces, boots met groins and when a sword was drawn, blood followed.
The music picked back up, a lively beat that married well with Lessa’s manic cackle, with the metal-twang of her dancing daggers and the boom-hiss of her trickery, and when they rushed her, when her pride kept her from turning away from the challenge, Anders was there, at her back with a whispered spell, a thrum of raw power that coated her arms, her legs, and helped her hit all the harder.
The spell carried over, skirted those not of his mind, danced across those companions close enough. And as stone hardened beneath her skin, Isabela’s delighted laughter echoed through the hall, a joyful contrast to the rage in Fenris’ battle cry as he threw caution to the wind and broke everything and everyone in his path.
Across from them, Bianca and Varric danced between patrons, the perfect partners while Aveline broke drunken faces with her shield, ploughed through the crowd like a woman shaped battering ram and left a trail of groaning bodies behind her.
And even when a body hit the table beside her, Merrill slept on, her Vallaslin in stark contrast to her drunken pallor, to the riot of flowers in the crown atop her head.
He turned back to Morrigan, found her sipping wine as she watched the battle ensue, her spine straight and her shoulders set.
He didn’t see a rogue or a noble, a woman afraid or one keeping herself aloft, he didn’t see anything but how regal she looked as the room fell into chaos.
He wondered if she wouldn’t stop them all with a soft clearing of her throat, wondered if she wouldn’t pass through them and demand their attentions with her presence alone, wondered if she wouldn’t take to the stairs and wait, looking over them, above them, and then scold them all like naughty children.
And then she was bumped and her glass was knocked from her hands and everything regal and calm about her shifted, turned, become something he’d seen before.
Dark.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
She moved with a grace he’d only ever seen in her, turned on the drunk that had shoved her and took his defences apart in a matter of seconds, and left the man an unconscious mess on the floor.
She waded into the fight, earned a high cheer from her sister who held some poor lad in a headlock and was slapping him with his own hand.
Bodies fell in her wake, groans rising and yelps falling silent. Her hair, a thick wave behind her, whipped around her like silk as she twirled, as she danced the dance of death and tore at every single shred of his self-control.
Maker but he wanted her.
He wasn’t kept from the chaos, no longer kept himself out of a fight he’d arguably started, and instead leapt into the brawl with a cheer of his own.
He was back, for just that moment, back to where he was before everything in his life shifted, changed, went from something he hated to something he accepted. His fists knew what to do, where to hit, how to land. His body knew how to move, how to parry, how to take a strike, how to win.
And his body knew hers.
He felt her at his back, looked over his shoulder with a wide grin and a fire in his eyes, and saw the same intensity mirrored in her.
“Look what you started,” she chided, her tone full of mirth and joy.
He laughed, lashed out and dropped a deckhand with a right hook to the jaw, “and you’d best believe I’d do it again.”
“I do, believe you that is.”
He grinned, turned quickly and grabbed her, moved her, and watched with her as a pair of mercenaries went sprawling in a tangle of flying fists and burly curses.
They looked at each other at the same time, blue to blue, and something shifted, settled, entwined. He tightened his hold on her waist, felt her relax into his touch, and barely resisted the urge to pull her in, to taste that smile for himself.
“You’ll watch my back?”
“Of course I will. You’ll watch mine?”
“Aye, leannan, I’ve your back.”
She smiled, then, a softer smile, a softer look in her eyes, and her voice was softer too, “you keep calling me that.”
“I do,” he muttered, and his thumb took to rubbing back and forth across the skin of her pulse.
They shared a moment, a quiet that was comfort, that was just for them, that stripped away everything else from the room.
It was just a moment, a flicker in time, but it was enough.
It was more.
And then the anarchy swept in, the noise, the movement, the high-pitched screech of victory as Lessa Hawke stood atop a fallen mountain of mercs with her arms raised and dipped her head to kiss the exposed muscles of her scarred and wiry arms.
“Shall we?” Morrigan asked, her smile growing and her eyes alight.
And he, with a smile of his own and a matching fire in his gaze, inclined his head and gestured to the room. “After you.”
As the fight wore on, as the fight wound down, as they left the tavern behind, Lessa marching triumphantly ahead of their group with blood in her smile and more on her fists, he kept to his Hawke’s side and pretended not to notice the blush on her cheeks when their hands brushed.
And if he did it again, if he caught her pinkie with his and kept them linked, walked with that secret touch between them, no one but them would know.