#look she loves her pirate gf but as an andersmancer

[gayhawkelatehomicide]

Alike In Sorrow pt. 3

Another piece of whatever this is becoming, this time featuring the LOVE of my LIFE and Kiera's complicated feelings about him.

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Words: 1024

Rating: T for oof ouch themes

Additional Tags: i love him your honor, recognition of the self through the young idealist semi-stranger with way too much responsibility, sad bastard warrior Hawke strikes again

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     The Inquisitor asks about Anders. Of course he does. He's a mage—a circle boy, and a Marcher to boot—he has to wonder about the man who started it all. The Inquisitor stands on top of a tower in his pretty little mountain keep where the breeze is always fresh and smells like snow and pine, in his white coat with the silver buttons, with his unscarred skin and his careful words, and his haunted fade-green eyes that she recognizes because the color is wrong but she sees them in the mirror every morning, and asks The Champion of Kirkwall about Anders, the mage revolutionary who blew up the chantry. And Hawke wants to tell him the truth, Maker help her. 

     She wants to talk about the kind, careful man with the wicked sense of humor who spent years running a clinic out of Darktown, charging nothing not because he could afford to pay for supplies on his own, but because he knew no one down there had coin to spare, even for the life-threatening stuff. She wants to talk about how much fear had flashed across his face when she'd suggested he come along on the Deep Roads expedition, the way he'd frozen to the spot and one hand had reached instinctively for the pocket of a coat that no longer held a cat and he swallowed hard like he was remembering something that tasted bad. She wants to talk about the hours they'd spent in the Hanged Man and on Gamlen's front porch and eventually in her study, going over drafts of his manifesto, arguing about the fine points till his eyes flashed blue and his voice went all strange and echo-y, ending the discussion and usually causing him to flee for Darktown. 

     She wants to talk about his dry, calloused hands and the way he always smelled like magic, soap, and elfroot, and the days he spent nursing her back to health after the fight with the Arishok. She wants to talk about the weary smile he offered her, and the flimsy excuses about why he'd lost weight or looked like he hadn't slept in days. She wants to talk about how hard he pushed himself, those last few years, always running himself ragged for his cause, anything for the mages still held captive in the Gallows. She wants to talk about how the blue flashing episodes came more frequently after the incident with Ser Alrik, how she could see the his control of his own body growing ever more tenuous, how he fought to keep the spirit or demon or whatever former friend he'd taken on locked down out of sight where it couldn't hurt anyone. She wants to talk about the bullshit story he made up, and how she's not sure whether he actually thought some trumped up nonsense about a Tevinter potion that required drakestone and sela petrae would fool her, or whether he was trying to ask for permission to do what he was going to do anyway. 

     She wants to talk about how he carried his rage in his shoulders, and his sorrow in the weight of his head, and his happiness sparkled like the sun on snow back home in Ferelden. She wants to talk about losing a friend to his cause, and how she'd known and still let him do it. She wants to talk about the way the manic gleam in his eyes had gone quiet and sad in the aftermath of the explosion, the way all the frenetic energy drained out of him and he collapsed like a puppet with the strings cut after he delivered his speech to Meredith and Orsino, how he'd sat on that crate like he was waiting for the executioner's axe, and how she'd told him to get out of her sight. 

     She wants to talk about how he came back, stood by her through the orgy of blood and gore that had been the next few hours. She wants to talk about the incredible comfort that was his magic knitting her skin back together every so often during that awful series of battles, and how he'd been violently sick after they finally brought Orsino's blood magic flesh-puppet down. After, always after everyone was tended to. How he took care of himself last, every single time, like he wasn't a priority worth spending two seconds on. She wants to talk about the quiet voyage. She wants to talk about his black-feathered figure shrinking into the fog off the stern of Isabela's ship, all alone on some barren stretch of coastline that Hawke didn't recognize. 

     But she looks at the Inquisitor, this kid who's been saddled with the weight of the world and she remembers what that feels like, even though for her it was at least half by choice. Hawke thinks about what he needs to hear, and she knows it isn't her churned up feelings about Anders. So she tells him something that sounds pretty, something about the monster Anders tried not to be and the conflict between freedom and security. Varric would be proud of how vague and noncommittal she is. The Inquisitor nods like she's said something profound and wanders off to do whatever he does when he's not sealing rifts or charming the pants off Orlesian nobles. Hawke leans her elbows on the parapet and looks out over the white and gray valley below Skyhold, crossed and criss-crossed by Inquisition army roads, and tries not to think about anything. When that fails, she takes up her sword and goes to find The Iron Bull, who has opinions about the Fereldan Frostback that need correcting. Bull is good people. He understands that sometimes you need to throw yourself at someone stronger just to blow off steam, and it doesn't matter whether or not you win. He's content to trade heavy blows of the padded training swords Inquisitor Trevelyan has started insisting the two of them use, no questions asked. The resulting fight exhausts her enough that when she hauls herself to bed that night, aching in every limb, she drops off to sleep immediately and doesn't dream.

#dragon age #dai #da2 #my writing #hawke #f!hawke #character study #anders #sad bastard warrior hawke #here she is again #Kiera Hawke #look she loves her pirate gf but as an andersmancer #anyways #i love him your honor #recognition of the self through the young idealist semi-stranger with way too much responsibility #sad bastard warrior Hawke strikes again