Three Hawkes Dancing

Tanner Hawke dances with Merrill before the eyes of all Kirkwall’s nobility, a hush falling over the party as their Champion turns slowly in the middle of the floor with the elven woman nestled in his arms.

It’s something of a joke among Hightown’s well-to-do – don’t ask Hawke to dance. He never accepts any arm offered to him, scowling and thrusting his hands into his pockets and muttering that he doesn’t know how. Every eligible young lady in the city – and more than one eligible young man, too – has tried anyway, at the urging of their parents to snare themselves Kirkwall’s most famed defender.

This evening, it was Lord Tavon’s turn to whisper in his daughter’s ear and push her in the Champion’s direction. And she tried. She tried small talk, and compliments, and high-minded conversation about Fereldan immigrants’ living conditions. All of it bounced off him like stones thrown at a sleeping bronto. All she could get from him – all anyone could get from him – were grunts, some monosyllables, and numerous glances towards the door. Until the servant at the entrance strode into the room, puffed out his chest and announced a newcomer. ‘Lady Merrill of Clan Sabrae, consort to the Champion.’

And the scowl faded from Tanner Hawke’s face as if it had never been.

The elf girl appeared at the top of the steps leading into the ballroom, and stopped dead. An instant later the entire hall froze with her, and a moment passed in which no one moved, as the elf stared at the humans with undisguised terror and the humans stared back with undisguised shock. Then the Champion darted away from Lady Tavon without so much as an ‘excuse me,’ and shouldered his way through the crowd to stand at the stairs’ foot.

‘Didn’t think she’d actually come,’ those closest him heard him mutter. ‘She even wore the dress.’

The sight of him seemed to spur the elf into movement; she beamed at him, and descended the steps. Though the music kept playing, the ballroom was suddenly quieter, conversations stalling right and left. Hawke stood, grinning, to wait for her, and bowed as she reached him.

The elf threw another look over her shoulder, and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, vhenan, everyone’s staring at me.’

‘So they should,’ Hawke growled. ‘You’re the most beautiful living thing in all of Kirkwall and they should all know it.’

She flushed, even the tips of her ears turning scarlet, but she was smiling as broadly as him now.

Hawke stuck out his arm, and jerked his head towards the clear space in the centre of the ballroom where a handful of couples swayed steadily in time to the music. ‘Want to dance?’

‘Oh. Oh – in front of all these people? Are you sure? This doesn’t look anything like the dances we did back in my clan, it – it looks a lot more stately. I’m not very good at stately.’

‘Trust me, Merrill, I'm worse. But if I have to spend my evening at this Maker-forsaken party, at least I can spend it with you.’

She stared at his arm for a moment, as if in disbelief that he was offering it to her. Then she slipped her own into it.

The crowd parted to let them through, every eye following them. A few whispers rose up – a wild elf? A Dalish savage? A knife-ear? That’s who the Champion chooses, when every well-bred girl in Kirkwall would be willing to have him? – but Hawke’s head snapped around to face the speakers, and a single look at his face silenced them.

So now they dance, him swaying uncertainly and her tripping over her own feet with every third step, but both still grinning, both looking nowhere but at each other. And she is the most beautiful woman in the room, they can all see it, and it’s not because of the slim green dress she wears or the silken look to her black hair.

(Tanner had the dress made for her, took her to the fanciest tailor’s shop in Kirkwall to be measured and to pick out the colours she wanted. ‘You don’t have to wear it,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to come, Merrill.’ And when she protested that if she was too scared to come, it’d waste his money, he said, ‘You deserve to have beautiful things. Let me do this for you. I want to.’ And the fabric was so soft and such a lovely pine-green colour and the tailor was so kind when she promised to decorate the hem with Dalish patterns, that Merrill said yes.

Later, Orana washed and brushed her hair for her, picking out feathers and tangles and even a spider or two, listening silently as Merrill poured out every worry she had about how she couldn’t go, she knew she should for Tanner’s sake, she knew it would make him happy, but he deserved better than to be seen with her. People would say such horrible things about him. And when she was done, Orana was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t think Master Hawke minds what they say. He loves you.’

And that was enough.)

Merrill is the most beautiful woman in the room because her eyes are bright with joy as she stumbles through the steps of the dance, because as Tanner guides her with a steadying hand on her waist she forgets about the eyes upon her. She’s the most beautiful of all of them because she’s not there to cosy up to the lords. She’s here because she knows she has a right to be here no matter what shape her ears are, and because she loves her new dress without caring what the other ladies will think of it, and because she wants to make the man she loves happy. And he is happy, and that somehow makes everything inside her shine and sing.

The Hightown nobility barely recognise their Champion in the man who dances before them with a Dalish elf. Gone is the man who revelled in every dagger-stroke he made against the Arishok, and who faces Meredith in the frequent arguments in the Gallows with bunched fists and a clenched jaw, and who stares blankly at any noble who asks him to dance. He holds Merrill close to him with tender care, as if half-afraid she’ll slip through his fingers, his eyes wide with a wondering joy.

And when he picks her up and spins her, it’s the first time anyone in Kirkwall has heard their Champion laugh.

~

Bryony Hawke dances with Fenris beside their campfire in the heart of the forest, their son clinging to one hand from each parent and grinning from ear to ear.

Despite what he told Varric all those years ago, Fenris did not spend his days in his mansion creating dance routines. He’s never danced in his life – at least, not like this, not playfully and with a laugh on his lips, without caring how foolish he might look. And neither has Bryony, not since her own childhood.

It was a strange sequence of events that led to this, to the three of them spinning each other around in the shadow of the pine trees. It began that morning. Fenris awoke first, as he often does, with Bryony tucked into his arms and Conan enveloped in hers. It’s always been like this, from the moment they fled Kirkwall – father and mother and son, never more than a few metres apart from each other, each knowing exactly where the other two are and always able to hear them breathing.  Bryony awoke some minutes later, and the two of them lay there watching their son’s sides rise and fall, until Fenris spoke in a voice that rasped a little from sleepiness.

‘Our mother read us stories.’

Bryony turned her head towards him, trying not to move so much that she’d wake Conan. ‘You remembered something else? About your life before the markings?’

Fenris nodded. ‘It… suddenly came to me. I remember a fireplace, and sitting there with Varania, and I remember hearing my mother’s voice... though not the sound of it. She was telling a story. I think she told them often.’

Under their threadbare blanket, Bryony’s fingers close around Fenris’s hand. ‘Do you remember what it was about?’

‘I… no.’ Fenris closes his eyes, concentrates – but there’s nothing more. Just the still image, vague impressions, traces of the memory – the warmth of the flames at his back, Varania close to his side, the vague, featureless figure of his mother sitting cross-legged before him. ‘I think maybe there was something about dragons.’

‘Your mother had very good taste.’

Fenris chuckles, and – on impulse – presses his lips to her forehead. He’s still learning how to do this. Little whims like this, to show his love for someone through touch… they are new to him. As is having the right, and the ability, and the confidence, to act on them when they occur to him. But it’s getting easier, and the moments where it comes naturally to him are precious.

‘We should have our own stories,’ he says. ‘For Conan.’

‘I suppose we should, shouldn’t we? I used to read to him back in Kirkwall, but since we had to run…’ Bryony sighs, running a few strands of her sleeping son’s hair through her fingers. ‘I’m not Varric – I’m no good at thinking up stories, and I don’t have any books to read to him from. We’ve been teaching him to read and write, to be sure, but he deserves to have stories told to him. No child should grow up without stories.’

They lie in silence until Conan wakes, and then, of course, silence is over and done with for the rest of the day. He’s on his feet in seconds, demanding to know where they’re going today and how soon they’re leaving, and within an hour their camp is packed and they’re heading down the road together, bundled up in several layers against the chill of the day.

Their destination is a small market village, and they make it by midday. Conan tears off into the crowd almost instantly, running at the pigeons and letting out a squeal of delight at the way the flock erupts from the ground as he nears them. Bryony rushes after him, pulling him out of the way of an approaching cart and scolding him for touching the items for sale without asking. And Fenris watches them go, a smile playing about his lips. Only a few years ago, he could never have believed that he would have this – a partner, a son, a life of freedom shared with them. When Bryony came to him, only weeks after she was named Champion, and told him what their single night together had resulted in, he felt only guilt and dread.

Now, those emotions could not be further from his mind.

Fenris browses the stalls, buys the things they need – all simple purchases, food and warm winter clothes and arrows for the bow he and Bryony are trying, with patchy success, to learn to use. He’s about to leave to find Bryony and Conan, when something catches his eye. A stall selling books, stacked up in rows, leather covers gleaming in the pale Umbralis sun.

He stands staring at them for a moment. Then he turns to the storeholder and says, ‘Do you have any children’s stories?’

That night, with their new camp pitched and a fire burning and Conan wrapped in a blanket and beginning to yawn, Fenris pulls the book from his pack and runs his fingers down the cover. He’s nervous, there’s no denying it, and he’s painfully aware of his shaky grasp of the written word. But Conan’s eyes have suddenly lit up, and there’s no turning back.

He opens the book, looks down at the first page, then looks up again to meet Bryony’s eyes. She smiles, and that’s all the encouragement he needs.

Fenris places his finger over the first word, shapes the sounds with his mouth. Onki? Onsey? No, no, it’s once, of course it’s once.

‘Once upon a time,’ he says.

It’s a simple tale, of a hero and a villain and a great quest, and Fenris works his way through it steadily like a horse at the plough, stumbling here and there but putting everything he has behind the effort and always pulling through in the end. (Except for a few words – which utter fool decided on the spelling of the word island? Debt? Aisle?) And the story closes with the hero, her journey over, dancing with delight alongside the people she saved.

As soon as Fenris has finished the last sentence, Conan jumps to his feet and dances too.

It’s the sort of dance that only a six-year-old can manage, full of arm-waving and limb-shaking and near-tumblings over his own feet. Bryony’s joining him in a second, of course, laughing fit to burst and snatching up her hands in his, scooping him up and spinning him about.  And Fenris? Fenris would have to be heartless not to join them. None of them have ever done anything like this before, and yet it’s so easy to do. Loving each other so fiercely makes everything easy.

Breathlessly, recklessly, knowing that no one’s watching and dazed by their own joy, they dance in the falling twilight. 

~

Dalton Hawke dances with Anders before the fireplace in the estate, while Orana’s fingers coax music from the lute and the flame-glow keeps the cool of the evening at bay.

Only a half-hour ago, the Hawke estate was almost silent, and almost still. The only sound and movement came from Dalton’s pacing, back and forth across the hall, hands clasped behind his back head bowed. He stopped every few minutes to watch the light from the window as it darkened and dwindled and disappeared, and to throw ever more anxious glances towards the door. Bodahn watched, biting his lip, and Orana wrung her hands helplessly, and the dinner cooled on the table, and everything was quiet but for the relentless footsteps back and forth and back and forth again.

Until the trapdoor from the cellars swung open with a slam, and a voice emanated from the room it led out to.

‘I’m back!’ A pause, then: ‘I’m sorry I'm late, it turned out the blasted Templars were onto them. We had to smuggle all three of them straight out through the Darktown passageway, and of course we ran into a bunch of lyrium smugglers down there, and–’

The sentence never gets finished, aside from a winded ‘mmph,’ sound, because Dalton has flung himself across the ground floor of the house and into his lover’s arms with some velocity. Anders staggers back a pace, then smiles, and lets himself be pulled in close.

‘You were gone so long,’ Dalton says, the words muffled somewhat by the fact that he’s pressing his face into a feathered pauldron. ‘I thought…’

Anders closes his eyes. ‘I know. I’m sorry. But I’m all right, love.’

‘No, you’re not.’ Dalton lets go of Anders abruptly, taking a step back and placing his hands firmly on the feather-covered shoulders. ‘You’ve been gone since midday, it’s past nightfall, and you haven’t eaten. Why I ever let you out of my sight, I don’t know. You never take proper care of yourself, come and eat –’

And he drags the still-smiling Anders to the table.

Anders does eat, to give him his due, wolfing down the roast lamb and potatoes so rapidly no one would ever guess that they turned cold hours ago. In between mouthfuls, he lets Dalton press him for the story of his mission, telling it without any embellishments but with a touch of romanticism. He’s flushed with his success, and he knows Dalton loves a good heroic tale as much as Varric. More, in fact, since he actually prefers for the hero to survive.

‘So, after fighting past an entire mercenary gang, a pack of those giant spiders - what wouldn't I give to encounter a normal-sized one for once? - and bribing a drunk from the Hanged Man to give us a distraction for the Templars, we did it,’ Anders finishes, setting his cutlery down. ‘We got them out. One of them was with child, and now she’ll get to raise her son or daughter herself instead of having it ripped out of her arms as soon as it’s born. Another one of them was going to be made Tranquil, and now he’ll never need to fear that again. They’re safe now. Free. Sometimes… when things are like this…’

He trails off, staring at the air above the table, and Dalton touches his arm. ‘When things are like this... what?’

Anders looks at him, smiling again, and there’s a new energy in his voice. ‘When everything goes right for a change – when I actually manage to help the mages, and Justice and I stay in balance, and I come home to find you waiting for me, I feel like… like we could do anything. Like nothing could ever go wrong. I know everything can and probably will go wrong, but just for now, I feel like I'm protected from it.’ He glances down, fiddling with the cloth strips tied around his sleeve. ‘I… that sounds foolish, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ says Dalton, with force, and tightens his grip on Anders’s wrist. ‘Being happy isn’t foolish, Anders. It’s a right. It’s what you’re fighting for, and you mustn’t forget that you deserve it too.’

There’s silence as they look at each other, and Anders doesn’t do what he normally does, which is to bite his lip and mutter that he isn’t important. Instead, he smiles a little wider, and places his hand on top of Dalton’s.

‘You make me believe that, love.’

A silence, again, as they look at each other – a silence broken by the sound of Orana, in the corner, plucking out the first few notes of a tune on her lute. For a minute, they sit and listen. Then the music quickens and rises, and suddenly Dalton leaps to his feet, pushes back his chair, and sticks out a hand. ‘Here. Help me practice.’

Anders blinks up at him. ‘What?’

‘While you were gone, I tried to practice the dances for the Comte de Launcet’s next… party-thing. The books are no help – for a start, they’re all in Orlesian, and for another thing, you need a partner. We’ve got the evening to ourselves now. Dance with me.’

And before either of them know it, they’re dancing in front of the fireplace, caught up in the euphoria of having an evening where, for once, everything has turned out all right. As they stumble and turn and guess the steps, Dalton seems to stand taller, the worry fading from his face, and he throws himself into the music and the movement with a passion that few would expect from Kirkwall’s shy-eyed, soft-voiced Champion who would fade into the background of every scene had the entire city not decided to push him into centre stage as their hero. And the weariness in Anders’s eyes vanishes, the weight of his cause and his struggle and the hatred thrown at him lifting from his shoulders, and there’s nothing of the Circle mage or reluctant Warden or possessed man or rebel in the way he laughs. Suddenly he’s just another human being. Another normal person, dancing clumsily and delightedly with the man he loves.

He thinks even the spirit within him feels content. Just sometimes, justice is happy.

It won’t last, of course. It can’t. Meredith’s fist is still tightening around the Circle more and more with every day that passes, and there will be more mages whom Anders won’t get to in time, there’ll be another blazing argument in the Gallows and the quiet man who fusses over his returning lover and presses close to his warmth will, once again, be the only thing keeping his city from falling into the abyss.

But for now, while Orana fills the room with music and Bodahn smiles to watch them and Sandal claps his hands, and Anders and Dalton let the tune take hold of them until they’re spinning, dizzy, laughing in each other’s arms… all of that is forgotten.

They are alive. They are loved. They are home.