#I NEED TI WATCH IVAN BREAK DOWN AFTER HE GETS OVERWHELMED WITH SOUND AFTER HIS HEARING AIDS WORK

[the-heaminator]

I HAVE SI MANY SPECIFIC IMAGES FOR THE SPY AU I WANT TI READ IT BUT I HAVE TO WROTE IT FIRST AUGH

[funkypoacher]

The Perfect Cup of Tea

some Handers fluff I finally decided to post after ... a year... of ignoring it. tagging @fandomn00blr for fluffy, sniffly, Cat Husband reasons :)

With long faces (and even longer hair), Hawke and Anders rolled into town.

Sore eyes, strained bodies: as the journey from Weisshaupt to Kirkwall entered its final days, the village was a sight for both. It’d been months since the couple, traveling exclusively by foot, had felt secure enough in their anonymity to pop into one of the hamlets they passed, but something about this place—off the beaten path; rising from the forest like a fairytale—had its allure.

It may have been pure exhaustion. It may have been cresting anticipation of impending home. Either way, the bedraggled duo dove in.

Hawke, a woman who, according to reputation, would rather be flayed than found describing anything as ‘cute’, said honestly, in a voice raw from exhaustion, “it’s cute.”

“It is cute,” Anders agreed, scratching his chin through an excessive beard. “Not a lot of industry, but I suppose they don’t need it—not this close to the highway, anyway. Must get loads of visitors.”

Inspecting a large sign around which allium was planted, Hawke read aloud, “Longerswold.” She stared, as though it held a secret.

Leaning on his staff-cum-walking stick, Anders led the way. To and fro they turned their heads, padding down an unpaved street which was lined by little houses hidden behind healthy gardens.

“Has a nice Anderfels flavor to it,” the man remarked of the name.

“And as long as it doesn’t actually taste like the Anderfels, that’s fine,” Hawke answered, allowing her slighted stomach to take charge of her mood. “If I have to eat rouladen again any time soon, I’m going to… Well, I’m just not going to eat, I guess.”

“That’s my heritage you’re insulting!” But, after a beat, Anders wrinkled his nose. “I’m pretty sick of it, too.”

The air smelled sweet with flowers and lush grass; passing people smiled, inspiring confidence in the two disheveled strangers. Clearing her throat, Hawke nervously asked of someone “is there an inn here?”, and, about to enter their front door, the local turned around, approaching cheerfully.

“Sure is! Ivah’s Inn.” Beefy hands shoved in his large pockets, the man nodded down the way, drowning in the brim of his floppy, felt hat. “A few rooms on the second level. Ivah serves dinner ‘round seven. Might be you’re a bit early.”

“That’s alright!” Anders replied brightly, looking between the man and Hawke, his face lit by a polite smile. “Charming place like this, I’m sure we’ll find a way to pass the time.”

The man looked Anders straight in the eye, a most deadly-serious expression squinting his small, brown peepers. “Now you head on to Ivah’s straight-way, friend. You ask for the perfect cup of tea. Not a cup of tea, mind. The perfect cup. You won’t regret it.”

With that, the man went back up his walk way, whistling all the way into his house.

“What a friendly man,” Anders commented, beginning to drag his bones along.

“Yeah.” Hawke frowned. “Too friendly.”

But it was impossible for his pessimistic sweetheart to rain on his parade. As they stepped into Ivah’s thatched roof cottage, two kittens, overseen by their lounging mother, were playing in a stream of sunshine, their soft joyful squeals ringing through the room.

“I’ve died and gone to the Maker’s side,” Anders gushed, crouching down and watching with rapturous delight.

A voice called, “you needing rooms?”

Leaving Anders to bask, Ann strolled towards a worn counter overlooking a small dining area. There were tiny round tables with lace doilies, colourful carved nick-nacks covering almost every wall, and what room was left was filled with plush, potted plants kept fat and happy by the multitude of windows looking out into the backyard.

Distracted by this new view, Hawke’s mouth fell ajar as she looked passed the spotted glass into a yard of chaos and beauty. Not one for the leafier side of life (she’d never been a gardener), nonetheless she noticed that not one bundle of flowers matched another. Dozens—hundreds—of blooms were planted here, some of them still vaguely familiar, and others utterly exotic, but all of them different.

“Dearie?”

Ann’s trance was broken was a going-grey matron at her side, shorter than even she, wearing a dress of colourful patchwork tied at the waist with a tasseled rope.

“Yes!” Ann gasped, startled. “Needing rooms—yes.”

“That one yours?” The woman, presumably the looked-for Ivah, jerked her thumb in Anders’ direction.

Smiling thinly, Ann affirmed, “most definitely” and followed Ivah to one of the tables. The woman hastily swiped a rag over its lace covering (to which Ann smirked), then disappeared without a word.

“We, um—” Hawke called after her, hand held aloft in a ‘hold on!’ position. “We were told to get—”

“Tea! Yeah!” Ivah was no longer visible. The clunking and thudding of pot-steel suggested she was in a kitchen. “I got yer tea...”

Tuckered from his kitten play-date, Anders slumped into the chair across from Ann, cheeks glowing, eyes hazy.

“Wow,” Ann commented wryly, having once thought that look to be reserved only for post-coitus bliss.

“I named them,” Anders informed, sitting back comfortably in his seat. “Bink-Bonk and Stinker. They’re brothers, and they go on adventures together.” He nodded towards Ivah’s ruckus. “She seemed snooty.”

It was true. Brusque and assuming, Ivah’s nature was at odds with the quaint home settled within the cute village. Her garden of colours; the charming decor: neither matched her sharp, short attitude.

“I like her,” Ann said, surprising herself. Unsure why, it was nonetheless true. For reasons beyond her, Ann thought it to do with her flowers.

Quieting, slumping, the couple cooled down, taking stock of their various pains and aches, admiring their surroundings, and silently wondering how the rest of their trip would turn out.

No other living beings were to be heard in the house, which started to rub Hawke the wrong way. She was so used to over-shoulder glancing and credence-giving to the dread settling in her gut that she no longer knew how to handle peace. Five minutes of muted nothingness meant something was coming. Her heart clawed at her chest, restless and worried.

And she was right. Something came.

“Here’s your tea!” Ivah plunked down a huge tray with two-to-three too many things. Besides the tea-pot sitting on a brazier, there were cinnamon sticks bundled with red yarn, honey, milk, brown sugar, lavender satchels, cream, mint leaves, possibly maple syrup, slices of fresh, glistening lemon…

“My,” Anders exclaimed under his breath, staring at the spread.

“Never could make the stuff just right fer every person,” Ivah lamented in that thick accent particular to the town. “Always hearin’ ‘it’s too sweet, Ivah!’, or, ‘it’s too bland, Ivah!’' She nodded towards the fixings. “So here. Can’t make it perfect to yer likin’, yer too picky.”

With a flourish of her wrist, the brazier caught fire, setting their tea to boil. Ivan went off wordlessly, and Anders’ eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

“Did you—?”

“I did,” Ann affirmed. She realized why she’d thought she liked Ivah. The plants in her backyard: they’d been the same as some grown by Merrill in a little plot of soil in the Kirkwall alienage, all of which were for the purposes of replenishing mana, or supplementing mana, or sometimes subduing it.

Those flowers out back; those colours and petals: they were mage flowers.

Anders stared at the brazier’s flames, licking and flickering, dancing free and uninhibited.

“She…”

“I know.”

Hawke watched the wonder take years off his face. The newer wrinkles at Anders’ forehead disappeared; his crows feet, there as long as she’d known him, soothed. The old-man beard he hid beneath was no help, but the boyish joy pulling his jaw into an overwhelmed ogling made him as beautiful as she’d ever seen him.

“I can’t believe it,” Anders whispered, covering his mouth with both hands. Tears began to start; he looked at her with hope she’d forgotten. “Using her gifts. In the open.”

Ann realized she had to start breathing herself, or she might pass out. Swallowing, she felt a little hiccuping, happy sob, but pushed it away, back into her chest.

“Yeah.” Hawke nodded.

“With—with the new Circle of Magi under this Divine, I never thought… But without a thought! Without fear!” Anders’ bony hands, still clasped to his lips, trembled. “Maker.”

And he broke. Bent over, his face buried in his palms, the thick, glad tears spilled down his cheeks, through his beard, to his chin and sloping jaw. He was quiet in his weeping, but now and then a startling sound burst forth before he softened once more.

They knew. The town knew. Everyone in this village, without question, understood what Ivah was, and they didn’t care. They supported her; gave her coin; purpose. They allowed her to subsist on her gifts; they promoted her inn, sending strangers her way. No doubt they vetted visitors, choosing carefully whom to allow near Ivah’s inn. They loved her. They loved her enough that she needn’t be shy or guarded. She was brash and dismissive because they allowed it with their love. They let Ivah be herself.

Thinking about it some more, Hawke had to try very hard not to cry, too.

“Eh?”

Jumping, Hawke looked to her right to see the mage in question, thick hands on her wide hips, long mouth in a frown.

“What I miss?” Ivah asked, eyeing the tray, and, from her tone, most assuredly not making a joke. “Got yer cream; yer sugar.”

“Oh, it’s—it’s not that,” Ann said with a soft laugh, the sound of her own whispering voice breaking her heart. “It’s… it’s great tea. Really. It’s the perfect cup of tea.”

Ivah gave them long looks, scrutinizing and terrible. Anders tried hard to stifle himself, but it only made things worse. Finally, Ivah placed a key on their table, mentioned off-handedly “second room on the right—no charge,” and went on her way, wiping her hands on her patchwork skirt.

Anders sniffled, finally calming. His thin, graceful hands, which had become worn with these few years’ hard living, settled on the table. Ann took them in hers, and took her turn at a good cry.