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It’s dark in Hightown when Fenris unlocks the front door to the Hawke estate and lets himself in, slipping the key back into its resting place against his chest. It’s become more and more familiar to him, the Hawke estate, and though he never claims it as his home officially, he is here often enough that it has become nearly as much his as hers.
He regrets the late hour. Aveline had a tip on some slavers, and Hawke had told him to go, despite the date, despite his protestations. He is here now, cleaned up, the grime and blood of the encounter washed away. Normally on a night like this he would sleep apart from Hawke, not wanting to wake her with his appearance. But he knows she is not sleeping now. It’s been three years since Cala Hawke cradled her mother’s body in a grubby basement, and he needs to be here for her.
The fire crackles merrily in the hearth. Fenris leans his sword against the mantle, unbuckles his breastplate and fixes it on the armor stand by the fire. He slips the gauntlets off, hanging them over the crosspiece of the stand. The air is cool against his exposed arms, his markings humming with the change in temperature. He ignores the sensation. He smoothes his shirt, brushing out the wrinkles. Bodahn had had the armor stand brought in, once he realized how often Fenris stayed; Fenris had thanked him, gruffly, unexpectedly touched.
Orana and Sandal are in the study, working on their letters together. Fenris is surprised at them, staying up this late; it must be a good book. Some nights Fenris joins them. He reads well now, but sometimes he still finds unfamiliar words, and going through the basics again helps him sort the letters out when he comes across new vocabulary. Tonight, though, he only waves to them as he comes in, and goes straight to Cala’s room.
She is startled when he comes in, though her look of surprise quickly shifts into a smile when she sees him. She stands by the fireplace, one hand on the mantle, leaning against it. It is a very supportive mantle; he remembers it well from other nights, like their first together. Remembers the way he was the one to lean against it, hoping it would keep his feet on the ground.
She looks tired, her robes creased, her hair mussed. “Hello, you,” she says as he closes the distance between them and slips his arms around her. “Everything all right?”
“The slavers met an unfortunate accident, I’m afraid.” He gives her a wry look that softens when he sees the shadows beneath her eyes. “I missed you,” he says, kissing her. He still marvels at it, that he can walk up to her, kiss her freely. Sometimes he’s sick with himself, thinking of what they could have had sooner if he hadn’t been a coward, hadn’t needed the time to come to terms with what being with her truly meant. But sometimes he’s simply grateful for what they have now. Her mouth is soft against his, sweetly familiar. He pulls back and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. “How was the Chantry? And Carver?”
“It’s getting less strange,” says Hawke, her eyes bright. She worries the edge of her lip with her teeth. Her smile fades.
She sits down on the edge of the bed, and Fenris joins her.
“How so?” he asks, leaning in towards her so their arms touch. He has not wanted to intrude today, knowing that she would be seeing Carver and they would be paying their respects to their mother, but he has missed the feel of her.
“It’s becoming familiar. Three years now… three anniversaries. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, that it’s starting to become a… a ritual. I didn’t need to look at the Chant to remember the words this time, Fenris.”
Fenris does not know what to say. The more time he spends with Hawke, the more snatches of memory that come back to him, but he still does not remember saying goodbye to his mother. Doesn’t know what it would be like to miss her. Words do not come to him.
He and Hawke are well-suited in many ways, he has found. Fenris is laconic, memories of living seen and not heard still writ deep in his bones. He speaks far more than he used to but still he cannot match her easy way with words. When she is troubled, she talks, needing to be heard, and he listens.
Instead of speaking his arm curls around her, firm and protective, and she sighs, leaning to rest her head against his shoulder. She is a fair bit taller than him standing, but here on the bed it makes no difference, and he breathes deeply of the scent of her hair.
“Carver’s doing well,” she says. “Despite the madness Meredith has been up to. We didn’t really talk much about that, to be honest.” Her hands, twisting together in knots, inch their way into his lap. He covers them with his other hand, and they grow calm beneath his touch. “There is a gulf there that I don’t know will ever be mended… I think things will never be friendly between us.” She closes her eyes. “I miss Bethany. Yet I’m glad she never knew what would happen to Mother –” Her voice cracks.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I wish I could have met her. You always speak of her with a great deal of warmth.”
“That was Bethany all over,” says Hawke. “Warm, like the sun. Carver used to joke it was because she was a fire mage, but truly it was because she was so kind.” She shifts her head, presses a kiss to the side of his neck. He closes his eyes.
“She never liked it, you know. Being a mage,” Hawke says. “I remember the day her magic came. A fire in the kitchen – a loaf of bread sitting on the counter suddenly burst into flames. She wanted toast.” Her voice is soft, soothing, almost hypnotic, the memory taking her back. The vibrations of her voice against his chest thrum within him, a gentle comfort. “I was soexcited. It meant I wasn’t alone. I thought of throwing snowballs at each other in the summer, at night when none of the villagers would see. But Bethany cried, and Mother and Father… It pained them, Fenris, I could tell.”
“I would have thought your father would be pleased. It would certainly have been the case in Tevinter.”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t know which of them was sadder. Father knew exactly the kind of struggles we would face, and Mother knew, too, from what she had seen Father go through. And after what we heard in that Warden prison, how he had prayed to never have mage children, it hurts to think about,” she says. She pauses. “Mother always put on a brave face. I expect she had learned it from the Amells. There was magic in that line. But it seems ironic, doesn’t it? After what happened?”
Her hands in his lap are curling into fists, and he feels a sudden heaviness against his legs, a tremor weighing him down. It disquiets him, but he does not fear. He knows Hawke too well for that now.
“Shh,” he says, a habit he’s picked up from her; she says it sometimes when he cannot sleep, when dark dreams call. “It’s all right.” The simple reminder of his words is enough. The extra shiver of gravity flickers, then dissipates, leaves him feeling normal once again.
“Sorry. I know I shouldn’t – I know it bothers you, when I do that.” She pulls her hands back into her own lap, fingers stiff and trembling. “She’s dead, Fenris. Every year I wonder if it it will get easier. Part of me wishes it would, and the other part of me fears I’ll forget her, if it gets easier. And it goes back and forth, easy and hard, and I can never guess which it will be.” Hawke stares out at the fire, her shoulders tensing. He kisses the top of her head, trying to anchor her here to him in her grief, but she ignores him. “I wonder sometimes if you weren’t right.”
“About what?”
She keeps her gaze fixed on the flames. “What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?”
The words sound foreign in her mouth, and it’s an instant before he recognizes them, remembers them jagged and angry on his lips.
“You,” he says. The sound slips out without a thought, automatic, a feeling deep in his gut that needs no input from his mind. It has been that way for years now. He saw Hawke use her magic early on, and yet – there had been something about her that let him trust her. “It has never ruined you. Or controlled you.”
“I just…” She lets out a ragged breath, still stiff against him. “Is that good enough? For you? For both of us?” She looks up at him, and an ache settles deep into his chest when he sees the tears in her eyes. “Fenris, do you wish that I was different?”
There are a few staggered beats, a silence that ripples outward from the cruelty of her question. Despite the fire’s warmth the room feels cold. He watches her, the fear in her face a bitter sight.
“But you’re a mage,” he manages. “It is a part of you.”
She waves a hand at the fireplace, and flame dances higher inside the hearth, flaring outward in long tongues before she closes her fist, tightly, and sends the flame shrinking back to glowing coals. “I could call down a firestorm on this house, you realize,” Hawke says. “Burn it to the ground. I could make deals with a demon, or worse, become an abomination. I could hurt people. Far more people than I could without magic.”
“And you do not,” says Fenris. He reaches up, takes her face into his hands, lets his thumbs trace soft crescents against her flushed cheeks. “There is no need to speak of hypotheticals. You are Cala Hawke, and you are a mage in control of your magic. I’ve seen it myself. It does not change my feelings for you.”
“And yet you can barely stand to be in a room with Anders and Merrill, despite my friendship with them,” she says, pulling away from his touch and shifting away from him on the bed. She rubs her face with her hands. “You think Meredith has some good ideas. We can’t help a mage on the street without you deriding all of us. I’m one of them, Fenris. You can’t tell me in one breath that magic is inherently evil, and tell me in the next you don’t mind mine.” She lets out a long, shuddering breath. “I used to be proud of it. Used to be grateful for it. Should I feel tainted? Spoiled?”
He looks away from her, focusing on his empty hands. He uncurls them, rotates them so the palms face upward. The lyrium inches up his fingers and palms, gleaming white ribbons pulsing with each beat of his heart. Sometimes he scarcely notices them, and the throb fades into the background. Sometimes they leave him bowed and curled around himself, trying to wait out the pain. He thinks of her question, tries to formulate an answer.
“Would you wish I had never had these markings forced upon me?” asks Fenris. He calls on the lyrium, feels it shimmer in flesh and blood and bone, and his hands shift into translucent blue, fading out of this world and into somewhere else. He lets the glow sputter and fade, leaving behind the raw, dull ache of use.
“Of course,” Hawke says, frowning as the glow recedes. She does not like him to use the markings unnecessarily, ever since he mentioned that they were not painless to use. “You were tortured, Fenris.”
“I can’t wish it. Not anymore,” he says. He reaches out for her hand, and she grants it.
“I don’t know why you’d say such a thing, but may I?” she asks. “Your hands?”
He nods, stiffly. After the battle with the Arishok, she had never wanted to be that close to death ever again. She had studied hard with Anders, and despite Fenris’ reservations, her healing skills had proven to be incredibly useful. They had both been grateful to find her healing magic could soothe a little of the lyrium ache, if not remove it completely.
She tries a worried smile on, and it does not fit her face the way it usually does. But he feels that cool caress of her magic against his hands – controlled, always, with a tenderness that still surprises him – and the ache recedes.
“How can you say you wouldn’t remove them?” Hawke asks. “They still hurt you.”
“If there was a way to remove them now, perhaps I would,” says Fenris. “They are useful, though, despite the pain.” He sighs. “But I can no longer wish to have not received them. Had Danarius not chosen me… I wouldn’t have met you, Hawke.”
“I would still wish a life for you free of that pain,” says Hawke quietly. “Even if it meant I could not be part of it.”
“No,” says Fenris vehemently, and this time, when he kisses her, it is hard and clumsy, a desperate need driving him. Her lips are smooth and firm and warm against his, and her mouth fits so well with his – She hangs her head, breaking the kiss too soon. “I refuse to entertain the idea,” he says, too stubborn to let her believe otherwise.
“I love you, too,” she says, letting out a small, tired laugh.
Fenris slips one hand behind her neck, brings her face close to his so their foreheads touch. “I cannot forget the evils I have seen with magic,” says Fenris, his voice rough and low. “They are written in my own flesh, seared into the few memories I have. You cannot ask that of me.”
“I do not ask you to forget that,” she whispers. “But magic is neither good nor evil, before it enters man. It simply is. My father used to explain it to me like this, when I was small: Fire can make a house a home, warming the hearth. But it can be destructive. Do you blame the fire when the forest burns? Praise it for boiling your water for tea? It just is, Fenris. Think of it like that.”
“Your father was a wise man, Hawke.”
“There are not enough like him. There are men and women who do terrible, terrible things with their magic.” She pauses, struggling. “I miss her, Fenris. I’ll always miss her.”
“I know.”
“I did not choose my magic,” she says ruefully. “Though I would take it over what you’ve been through any day.”
“I suppose so,” he says. A dry chuckle. “It is not a perfect analogy, I admit. But you cannot deny these things have shaped us, and without our choice in the matter.”
Hawke rewards him with the edge of her mouth turning up, just slightly, at the sides. “I believe I see where you’re going with this.”
He kisses her cheek, her skin soft beneath his lips. “They are both parts of what has made us who we are,” he says. “That is what I mean to say. If you had no magic, you would not be the woman I cherish. You would be somebody different. That is not a risk I would be willing to take.” He kisses along her jawline, small, tender kisses punctuating his words. “You are a good woman, Hawke. And a mage. And I could not bear you to be anything else.”
She wraps her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder, holding him tightly. He returns the embrace. Her voice is muffled against his shoulder and neck. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?” she asks.
Though it’s something she’s grown more comfortable saying these past few months, it still affects him deeply to hear it. He never fails to marvel at the way the words can be puffed, so delicately, on her softest breath, and yet they make him feel safer and more protected than any armor he’s ever worn.
“I know it,” he says, his voice hushed with his care for her. He has never been able to echo the words back to her, not the way she says them, but she still seems to understand the language he can speak more freely: the way he gazes at her, the gentling of his voice in moments like these, the weight of his embrace.
She looks at him, her eyes dry; that sort of hopelessly hopeful look that makes his chest tighten. She smiles, this time more broadly. “Will you stay tonight?”
“I hoped you would ask,” he says, smiling. “I’ve wanted to hold you all day.”
Later, she falls asleep against him as the fire gutters out and the deep blue of night slowly fills the room. Fenris is tired, muscles sore from the evening’s fight, the lyrium humming faintly from its use today. His arm has fallen asleep more deeply than Hawke has, trapped as it is beneath her, but he does not move it. He is too warm beneath the covers, beside her with her soft skin against his, but knows she will be cold if he moves the blanket down. She snores, faintly; he has teased her for it more than once, the rhythm of her breaths breaking in his ears like surf against the shore.
He thinks of Tevinter and magisters and chains, of apostates in backwater villages and children cautious with their newfound magic. He thinks of how far he’s fled, how hard he’s fought; he thinks of Circles and templars, blood magic and a mother’s loss. There has been pain, yes, almost too much of it to bear. Yet if things had been different, perhaps this night would be different, too, and he would be alone in another place, never knowing what he had missed.
He reaches up with his free hand, stroking her soft hair, feeling the curve of her cheek beneath his palm. No, he thinks, he would not change her. The thought heartens him.
He finally falls asleep. His arm is still numb, and he is still a little too warm; her snores still form a rhythm, breathing in, breathing out. Yet they are together, and he is content.