Stargazing

[nightsfury]

Title: Stargazing
Length: ~1500
Characters: m!Hawke/Fenris
Summary: When Danal Hawke and company take a break from hunting bandits and blood mages along the Wounded Coast, Fenris is faced with an uncomfortable truth.

Ok, despite my best intentions to finish other works, (Two Side and As the Crow Flies), these two keep telling me bits of their story. So, herewith, is a short little piece about one night between jobs along the Wounded Coast. it's set about a year after "Stolen", my other short fic about Fenris and his male rogue, Danal Hawke. My brain tends to work in non-linear fashion where characters are concerned. So, it's entirely possible the next tale these two conjure for me could occur either long before or long after this partiular story.

 

 

On the crest of a dune along the Wounded Coast, not far from Kirkwall, Fenris, stretched out on a soft blanket, gazed up at the night sky.  Danal Hawke, who lay beside him with his fingers interlaced on his chest, sighed very softly; something he did when he felt content with life. Four months of a shared bed had taught the elf that, if not why Danal seemed so fascinated by the sky this late summer night.

“With all this tramping up and down the coast to clear out bandits, I think the outdoors is growing on me,” Varric said somewhere off to Fenris’ left.

“Wait for it,” Danal murmured.

“Like a tumor.”

“Varric, that’s terrible,” Merrill said. “How can you say that about such a pretty place? Look, you can see the stars shining in the water.”

“I may have been born topside, but I’m a city dwarf. All this nature is-“

Danal chuckled, and pulled up a leg. “They’ll be at it for hours.”

“I’m assuming we lingered here rather than return to the city for a reason,” Fenris said.

The night breeze shifted, tickling his nose with the clean salt scent of the open sea. It certainly smelled better than Kirkwall.

“Maybe. Maybe I just decided to spend the night out here to annoy Varric.”

A dry chuckle rumbled in the back of the elf’s throat. Whatever the reason, it was pleasant out here, the sky like black velvet arching over them, and the sound of the waves sliding over the sand at the base of the dune. If the others weren’t here, he’d roll over and slip on top of Danal, then make love to him while the starry night curled around them into morning.

“My father loved to watch the night sky,” Danal said very softly. “Of all the restrictions in the Circle, that was one thing he hated the most…that he couldn’t go outside and see the stars, or watch the sunrise whenever he wanted. Look, I know we disagree about some things where the Circle is concerned…but is it right to cut someone off from the sun?” He motioned towards the heavens, and the crystalline points flickering everywhere Fenris looked. “To lock them away from this? Is that so much to ask for? To see the sky?”

“If it keeps others safe from magic, then yes.”

“Dammit, Fenris-”

Danal rolled up to sitting, staring now at the horizon. “My father lived almost thirty-three years outside the Circle. In all that time, he never hurt anyone. Never consorted with a demon. Never…” He turned, and even in the faint light of the stars and half-moon sitting low on the horizon, Fenris saw the fierce pain in his eyes. “He was a good man. A kind man. He…” Danal turned away then, one arm resting on his knee. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. It’s just…I worry about Bethany. Especially when I have to leave her behind on these bounty hunting trips. She’s careful. But all it takes is one little slip in front of the wrong person and the templars will come and drag her away…cage her up like some dangerous animal.”

She is dangerous, as every mage is, Fenris thought. She was also kind and loving; a living contradiction to every experience the elf had ever had with a mage. She’d stayed behind on this trip to take care of her mother, recovering from a broken ankle.

Fenris pushed up to sit cross-legged beside his lover.

“Bethany is strong,” he said, then fell into silence, not knowing what else to say.

Danal leaned against his shoulder, his warmth seeping through his shirt. It felt good, sitting there, leaning against one another while the night wind blowing off the sea whispered past them.

“You still haven’t said why we’re out here,” Fenris said, after several long, but not uncomfortable, minutes. While Danal could spin out words with almost the same facility as Varric, he was just at ease with silence.

“Would you believe for stargazing?”

“You can see the stars in Kirkwall.”

“Not like out here. All that foundry smoke makes it hard to see any but the brightest, even in Hightown. And tonight…there’s an extra attraction,” he finished with a grin.

“Hawke, I hate it when you’re mysterious,” Varric said from over by the fire, now down to tiny blue flames that skipped across the embers.

“I’m not being mysterious. It’s buildup. Like in a story.”

“You’re supposed to jump right into a story. Grab them by the balls, then never let ‘em go.”

“Oh, that sounds painful,” Merrill said.

“Just a figure of speech, Daisy.”

Her laughter drifted through the darkness. “I know, but it still sounds uncomfortable.”

“There,” Danal said, pointing to a spot almost halfway up the sky.

“I don’t see-” Fenris said then his eyes narrowed as a brilliant green streak flashed across his line of sight. “What…was that?”

Two more streaks, perhaps the width of his hand apart, glowed, then vanished almost as soon as they appeared.

“A shooting star. Some people think they bring good luck,” Danal said, then turned towards him. “You’ve never seen one?”

“No, slaves…” weren’t allowed to look up. Fenris shifted, covering his lapse with a small cough. “I never had much opportunity to study the sky.” And after he’d escaped, his gaze had always been directed over his shoulder, searching the spaces behind him for any sign of  slave hunters.

“Every year around this time, the skies brim with them. Father…would make a night of it. He’d pack a basket and we’d head for the back field behind the barn.” In the dark, Fenris sensed rather than saw Danal’s smile. “We’d lie out there all night, stuffing our faces with cheese pastries and roasted walnuts…while the heavens rained fire above us.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Merrill said.

“It was.” Danal made that small, contented sigh again.

Merrill slipped back to the campfire and returned with a blanket, then stretched out beside them. As the moon slipped below the horizon, the shooting stars appeared with increasing frequency. “Oh, look,” she would cry out and point whenever an especially bright one would blaze across the darkness. Even Varric joined them, though he sat cross-legged. He pulled a silver flask from his pocket, took a sip, then passed it around.

After a swig of fine whiskey, Fenris handed it off to Danal before leaning back on his elbows. His face tilted towards the heavens, he drank in the beauty of the spectacle above him. He could do this whenever he wished, he suddenly realized. Every night, if he wanted. There was no one to force his eyes to the ground. No one to beat into him how unworthy he was to lift his gaze no higher than his master’s knees. No one to lock him in at night, or whenever the whim took them.

He thought of the mages then, safely locked up in the Gallows. The few times they’d been there, to buy potions or enchanted items, the mages had avoided their eyes. There was a trick to that, a way to look at someone, yet avoiding eye contact at the same time. Every slave learned it early. An uncomfortable notion occurred to Fenris; a parallel between his own life and the mages in the Gallows he would have ripped someone’s heart out for even suggesting before he’d become so involved with Hawke, and by extension, his family. He circled around it for a while, wary, not liking it, but unable to ignore it.

“Oh, my,” Merrill said when a long, brilliant green streak cut across the star-strewn sky, then plunged towards the horizon and seemed to disappear into the sea.

“Holy shit,” Varric whispered. “That’s something worth writing about.”

 “Too bad Bethany can’t see this,” Danal murmured. “She really enjoyed those nights.”

Fenris tried to imagine her caged in the Gallows, shut away from the sky. Sunshine, Varric sometimes called her, a very fitting nickname. The thought of her being mewed up in that dour prison turned the elf’s stomach. And not just because of the pain that imprisonment would cause Danal.

Fenris leaned closer, so his words would be for his lover’s ears alone.

“What I said earlier…your sister has the right to see the stars,” he murmured.

In the dark, Danal’s hand slipped across the blanket until his fingers brushed over Fenris’, then rested there, light as breath, while the heavens rained fire above them.