#(i know i know; you weren't thinking that but it's okay. ovid is an exceptional poet and i can non sum desultor amoris

[shivunin]

Ohhhhh oh how about "One talking to the other when they think they're asleep" for Maria and Fenris pretty please?

Thank you for the prompt! <3 I had to ponder this a bit, but I am happy with the results c:

("Sharing a bed" prompts here; I am still open c:)

(Also, please forgive my rusty Latin; it's been eight years since I've had to actually use it for anything more than a party trick. I've also fiddled with the translation below for flow. Apologies to the memory of Catullus)

Tevene/Latin:

Tuus sum: I am yours

Corpus animaque: Body and soul

Placideque quiescas: Rest well and peacefully

Fenris/Maria Hawke | 1,138 Words | No warnings

Corpus Animaque

"Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and the rumors of rather stern old men let us value all at just one penny! Suns may set and rise again; for us, when once the brief light has set, an eternal night must be slept. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred; then, when we have performed many thousands, we shall stir them into confusion, so that we might not know, and in order not to let any wicked person envy us, when he knows that our kisses number so many." ---Catullus 5*

“Say something in Tevene,” Hawke had murmured to him perhaps half an hour ago. 

Fenris, who was now well versed in what Hawke sounded like when she was trying to force herself to stay awake, had obliged. He’d taught her hello and goodbye, then described the room at length in disinterested tones, all the while allowing his voice to grow ever quieter. Maria slept deeply now, her cheek pillowed on her arm atop the pillow, and Fenris let his head rest on its side so he could watch her. 

It had been strange to speak the tongue of his birth with her—odd, like two halves of his life twining when he’d expected them to be forever as water and oil. There was something, though, in speaking to Maria when he knew she could not understand him. Fenris pondered this for a time, listening to the crackle of the fire at her hearth and the soft whistle of her sleeping breath. 

“Cor mea,” Fenris murmured after a moment: my heart, a simple enough endearment.

Hawke did not stir. She’d rested her hand near his shoulder, as she often did, and he’d obligingly twined his fingers with hers. Fenris set his other hand over both now, cradling her hand between his. 

There were things he ought to say to her. He knew that. But even now, when he was certain there would be no leaving her, words of love refused to slip easily from his lips. Not in the common tongue; not even in the one he’d spoken for most of his life. 

Not his own words; perhaps the words of others would come to him more easily. 

“Vivamus, mea Maria, atque amemus,” he murmured, feeling the pulse at her wrist where it pressed against his, “rumoresque senum severiorum onmes unius aestemimemus assis.”

Maria pulled her hair back in a red silk scarf when she slept. It prevented her hair from tangling too badly in the night and kept either of them from rolling onto her bounty of curls while they slept. Now, a small curl had snuck from its confines just below her ear, threatening to tickle the sensitive skin and wake her. Fenris lifted one hand and tucked it back with the rest, moving slowly and carefully. Hawke did not stir, for which he was grateful. There was more yet to say. 

“Soles occidere et redire possunt;” Fenris went on, “nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda.” 

An eternal night indeed; they had, both of them, seen enough of death to last several lifetimes. Her pulse thrummed steadily against his own, as if in sweet answer to the unspoken undertone to the words. They were alive now, the two of them; whatever rest they might share tonight was not that long rest, but the blink of an eye in the span of their days.

There will be other nights, she’d told him once. He dwelled too heavily on dreadful possibilities now. While she still slept…let him finish this, at least. 

Fenris spoke the rest of the words—give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand—meaning each of them as he spoke. They were not his words; they were borrowed from someone he’d never met. Even so, they seemed intended for something like this: a room that held only the two of them, an unusually clear night in Kirkwall which showed the stars clearly through her bedroom window, and the gradually softening light from the fire that kept them warm. Such words should be exchanged in whispers and the touches of hands, intended only for a lover’s ears.

It felt wrong to end with the poem, but Fenris didn’t have to cast about for something to end with. There were other words he’d told her before, words he’d conveyed in a dozen different ways if not a hundred. He’d seen her concern when he’d said them the first time—I am yours—as if she was worried about why he might say that. As if she thought he’d somehow conflated her with those who would have owned him once.

The whole of it was too much to explain, too strange to say aloud: if I may at last choose what to do with my life, I choose to give it to you. I would give all of myself to you if I could, because you would never ask me to, because you have insisted on seeing me as a person from the first moment we met. 

Too formal. 

Too many possible hidden meanings, when he’d first said the words to her in those bruised days after that disastrous night together. Fenris had chosen the easiest ones instead of the explanation, willing to risk her concern in exchange for some level of understanding. 

It was easier now; he could say them with more affection, and she’d returned the words more than once. They meant something different when Hawke said them, but that had never bothered him. 

“Tuus sum,” Fenris told her now, the words feeling firmer in this language, more binding—though the weight of them was a comfortable one, words and bonds he’d chosen rather than ones that had been chosen for him. 

“Corpus animaque,” Fenris finished, his voice hardly more than a whisper, “placideque quiescas, cor mea.”

It seemed fitting, somehow, to dip his head and kiss her hand then. If he were less tired, he may have considered why such an implicit vow had felt necessary. Matters had passed tense in Kirkwall weeks ago and slid unstoppably toward some imminent danger. Fenris could not smooth her way; he could not fight her battles for her. 

But he could hold her hand in the night, and whisper to her of kisses and days to come. He could stay by her side as long as she would allow him. 

As long as there was strength in his arms, as long as he could stand with her, he believed he would see her safe. He had never been an optimist; if pressed, he would not wager on their odds. 

But Hawke—he believed in her. If anyone could navigate them out of this disaster, it was her.

“Mea cor,” he said one more time, setting her hand back over his chest with exquisite care. 

The time for words had passed. It was past time for rest. Fenris looked at Hawke once more before he closed his eyes, tracing the shadows of her face, the softness of her eyelids, the unfading smile lines on either side of her mouth. When he’d looked his fill for now (only for now; it could never be enough for forever, as he knew well), Fenris closed his eyes at last. 

It was much longer before his focus slipped from the steady pulse in her wrist and Fenris fell asleep at last.

*Base source for translation: Wikipedia

(I know, there are prettier versions elsewhere, but it's nearly one am and i don't want to look)