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shivunin · 1 year

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Sleight of Hand

(Maria Hawke/Fenris | 7374 Words | AO3 | No warnings)

Here's the magician AU I have been talking about. I may write more in this AU at some point, but for now this is the whole story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it c: (and here is what I was listening to as I wrote this)

In the hours before showtime, Hawke sometimes liked to come to the stage and stand just behind the curtains. Nothing else. Just—stand there, eyes closed, and listen.

There was a heartbeat to the old theater. In quiet moments, she could almost feel the pulse of it. There: the echo of past applause, the soft swish swish of years of push brooms across the empty stage, the murmurs of a thousand chorus girls and backup dancers. There—the hush as bows rising over violins, hovering over still strings. And there—spots squeaking as they pivoted to the correct position, just before the light inside was lit. It was like a sharp inhale, like the twitch of a muscle about to contract, like toes pressed to the very edge of a precipice.

Or maybe that was just her own fanciful thinking.

“Hawke,” the dry voice of her stage assistant called from the wings, “It is four thirty.”

One breath: in and out.

It was time.

“Coming,” she called back, stepping away from the dusty velvet. “Say, Fenris, do you ever stand onstage and hear the echoes of performances past?”

A pause.

“No,” he said.

When she turned to look at him, she found him already dressed for the show in the customary snow-white shirt, black vest accented with lines of silvery embroidery, and deep black trousers. From the audience, the watchers would not see the many-times-mended seams, the shabby cuffs, nor most of the pale tattoos covered by each. He’d told her there was no sense in covering them—and he was right, for they showed through his shirtsleeves in the stage lights—but at least covering them gave the impression that they weren’t up for casual discussion.

The illusion provided by both was for the best. Most people learned the hard way that Fenris did not like to talk about the markings, and the shabbiness of his clothes was her fault, for she’d had little spare money to spend on fixing it.

“Really?” Hawke asked, walking toward him. “Not even a peep?”

“No,” he said again, but this time the corner of his mouth twitched.

Ah; he was in a good mood tonight. One could never tell.

“I suspect you invent these things for your own entertainment,” he went on, uncrossing his arms and shifting from one foot to the other. “Or perhaps you simply enjoy asking me nonsensical questions.”

“Oh, it’s both,” she said earnestly, widening her eyes. “You’re ever so attractive when you look at me like I’ve gone mad.”

That garnered a snort, which from him might as well have been uproarious laughter. Fenris fell in step beside her as she passed him, and they began to make their way from the wings to her narrow dressing room.

She’d been desperate when they’d first met, facing down an hour and a half to showtime and an assistant who’d delightedly told Hawke she was running off to Rivain with her beau. Hawke had gone to the portion of Lowtown where folk looked for work, and there she’d found him.

Fenris had been scowling and plainly exhausted, clearly the worst possible choice for the task. Hawke had asked him to come anyway, because there was something about him that she’d seen then and saw now, some intangible quality that made her want to do something for him. If the show went poorly, it was just one show. She’d offered him the job on the spot and—well, three months (or was it four?) later, here they were. He hadn’t given her reason to regret it yet, though he’d be the first to admit that he’d tried.

Hawke didn’t have to think very hard to find the next topic of conversation. Work was always easy to fall back on.

“So,” she said, “about the trick before the cups—”

“Absurd,” he murmured, then gestured gracefully, “but go on.”

“The box is an audience-pleaser and I’ve adjusted the swords better this time. Please reconsider.”

He sighed.

“Fenris,” she said, and the pair of them paused before her dressing room door.

“Hawke.”

Maria grinned at him, delighted as ever by the dryness in his voice, then turned the doorknob and walked inside. The lamps were already lit—his doing, no doubt—and both of them politely pretended that there wasn’t a dent in the couch roughly the size and shape of his body.

“I do not believe that this trick is—is that another bruise?” he asked, darting in front of her. Hawke drew up short and angled her chin upward, neither hiding nor stepping away. His fingertips hovered just above her cheekbone for a moment before he took a step back.

“Yes,” she said brightly, and edged around him to sit at the dressing table. She would still need to change, and Honeybun needed to stretch her legs, and—

“How?” he asked. When she glanced at him in the mirror, his brows had drawn tightly together.

There had been a time not very long ago—perhaps three months now—when he’d scowled at her like that all the time. She hadn’t even noticed when his expression had started to soften.

“Picked a fight, as usual,” she said, lifting the first of many makeup brushes. “But good news: the idiot won’t be stealing from the coffee seller again. Oh, also I got paid.”

She smiled at Fenris in the mirror, but he wasn’t having it. He rolled his eyes and turned away instead, reaching under the rack of costumes to flip the cage door open.

“Come on, then,” he said, irritation underscoring his voice.

A rabbit, carmel-patched and floppy-eared, hopped from her enclosure and wiggled her nose at him. Fenris took a berry from the bowl on the side table and placed it gravely before Honeybun, who set upon it with leporine delight.

Hawke smiled to herself. When he’d first arrived, he’d regarded the rabbit with the narrow-eyed suspicion usually reserved for snakes. She supposed he must see more of Honeybun than she did these days, given that he was quietly occupying this room for most of the hours that Hawke herself was not in it. Even so, there was something sweet about the way he gingerly leaned down and ran a hand over the rabbit’s head.

Maria looked away before Fenris could catch her watching and began to get ready for the act as if she’d never noticed anything at all.

Fenris would be the first to acknowledge that it was a ridiculous situation.

Once, he had been a feared living weapon, chained at a magister’s side as a deterrent to the mage’s enemies. Once, he had left a trail of heartless bodies from Tevinter to Seheron. Now, he donned a sparkly vest and stood on stage in front of a crowd, pretending that Hawke’s sleight of hand meant the same thing as magic.

It was not without purpose. He told himself this often, when he lay on the lumpy couch in the dressing room at night, when he worked through fighting forms in the quiet of the morning, when he straightened his vest and readied himself to step onstage yet again four evenings a week and twice on Saturdays.

This was not without purpose—but that did not make it any less ridiculous.

“Alright there, Rog,” Hawke was saying to their audience volunteer for the night. “You see that all the cups have nothing in them, yes? No sticky honey on the inside, no secret bottom?”

The boy, freckled and gap-toothed, nodded and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

“They look alright,” he agreed. “Nothing funny inside.”

“Wonderful,” Hawke said, bestowing the full force of her smile on the poor boy, who flushed red enough to mask his many orange freckles. “Now, I am going to put the ball under one of the cups and move them around. Then, you’re going to tell me which cup the ball is under. Alright? If you pick the right one, we have a prize.”

She gestured to Fenris, who sighed and displayed the prize in question: a “wand” of black-painted wood with a white tip. The boy’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

“Alright!” he said, rubbing his hands together.

“Wonderful,” Hawke said, displaying the ball with a flourish before tucking it under the first cup.

This part was always fast by necessity, but Fenris was familiar with it by now. He could see the blur of the ball when she angled the cup just so and it shot into her sleeve. The first few times, though—he might have wondered if it was some sort of magic, though he knew it wasn’t. He could often feel the echo of magic through the tattoos, like the ripples thrown by a rock cast into a still pond. He’d never felt them during her act; whatever she did onstage, it did not involve the Fade at all.

The rest of the scene went precisely as anticipated: the astonished boy picked an empty cup. Hawke revealed that they were all empty, produced the ball from behind the boy’s ear to the audience’s delight, and then sent him off with the little ball even though it was the last of their current stock. Fenris had found this routine absurd at first; he hated to admit to himself now that he thought it was…endearing, perhaps, that she insisted on doing this for the young audience participants even though it inconvenienced her. The boy, stunned, wandered back offstage with many a backward glance at the magician herself.

For her part, Hawke grinned at the audience, bowed with a flourish that scattered light over her red coat, and moved smartly on to the next trick: producing Honeybun from her tophat.

It was as Fenris found his place behind the table that hid the rabbit that he looked up at the audience and saw them.

There: at last, a half dozen fighters dressed in Tevinter garb.

It was almost a relief to see them here, when he’d been expecting them from the first moment he stepped onstage. It wasn’t a trap he’d placed, so to speak, but these performances had been a lure of sorts. And now—now his pursuers would show their hand at last, in the time and place of Fenris’s choosing.

One of the fighters smiled to Fenris and stood, walking toward the rear doors in the audience. The others followed, leaving a large section of the back row empty. Fenris’s blood thrummed in his ears, adrenaline pouring into his system. It was an effort not to call on the markings, but there would be no fight in the moment. They would be waiting outside instead, perhaps with some sort of conveyance to stuff him into. A cage was always easier to begin with; it allowed them to deprive the occupant of food and water, to control their sleep without needing to worry about danger to the slave hunters, and—

The kick to his shin brought him back to himself.

“—must be feeling shy today. Well folks, how about a hand for Her Serene Fluffiness? Maybe we can coax her out from the mysterious beyond.”

The audience cheered accordingly and Fenris realized he’d missed his cue. Of course he had; he’d finally gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? He could walk off the stage right now and it would not matter one bit.

Only—only Hawke had found him in that alley, hungry and cold, and offered him a job on the spot. He’d never been anything but dry and skeptical during these performances, but she’d never once faulted him for it or suggested he leave. In fact, she seemed to enjoy it—though why continued to elude him. She’d slipped the key to her dressing room into his pocket that first day and she’d never once walked in on him there no matter how wary he’d been in the early days.

Fenris owed her nothing. He performed a job and she paid him for it. But—if this was to be his last evening with her here, he owed it to her to finish this well.

Fenris found the catch under the table without looking and flipped it, opening the trap door to the hidden rabbit cage within.

“And—Abracadabra!” Hawke said, tapping the brim of the top hat with a flourish. When she reached into the hat and scooped Honeybun from the depths, Fenris felt a pang.

It was an absurd trick. It had always been an absurd trick.

But—he would miss the cursed creature.

He’d…miss the way Hawke smiled at the rabbit every time she lifted it from the hat, as if surprised and delighted to find it there.

“Oh, dear,” Hawke said, cuddling Honeybun in her arms. “But you can’t help me do any of my tricks, can you, darling? Perhaps my lovely assistant can keep track of you for the moment. Let’s see—ah! A treat for your troubles, my little friend.”

With a flick of her fingers, she produced a strawberry seemingly from thin air and smiled down at the rabbit. Honeybun took the berry from her hand, nose wiggling furiously, and Hawke held the creature out to Fenris.

Hawke must have seen something in his expression; her eyes searched his face as Fenris took the rabbit from her. He looked right back, taking in the wink of the gold tucked in amongst her curls, the scar that crossed one eyebrow and fell just below her eye, the bruise she’d barely managed to cover with powder, the way her upper lip was just slightly larger than the lower one, and the determined set to her chin.

There was much he would have liked to say to her in that moment. The words crowded in his throat, chokingly thick, but—well. The show must go on, as she often said. Fenris settled Honeybun in his arms instead, noting absently the warm softness of the fur, the soft movements as she went on nibbling her strawberry, and nodded once to Hawke to indicate that all was well enough.

“Alright, folks,” she said, turning and spreading her arms wide. “You’ve seen wonders tonight, haven’t you?”

A cheer from the audience.

“You’ve been delighted and entertained, amazed and awakened to the possibilities of the world—well, now it’s time for the grand finale.”

Fenris stroked his hand once over the rabbit’s back, tension riding the base of his neck.

Yes, it did seem like it was time for a finale.

There was something wrong with her assistant.

Maria had noticed it most of the way through the act, but the oddness in his manner hadn’t gone away when they’d returned to the changing room. She set the last of the baubles in her hair aside and turned at last to look at Fenris. He was keyed up in a way he hadn’t been for months, shifting from foot to foot and tensing at every sound from the hall beyond.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and Fenris flinched. Hawke half-rose at the sight of it, but sat again when he took a step back.

“If something’s happened—” she began, fingers curling around the arm of the chair, but he gestured sharply.

“It is nothing,” he said. “You need to go.”

“I need to go?” she asked, brows rising. “Forgive me, serah, but I was under the impression that this is my dressing room. I have no intention of walking home in this.”

She gestured to her outfit—still the stage costume—and Fenris grimaced.

“Here, then,” he said, taking the stack of her street clothes from the couch arm, “change and go.”

Hawke took them, but she didn’t go.

“Fenris,” she said quietly, “please. Whatever this is—let me help.”

There was sweat along his forehead, and his hair had fallen out of the neat quiff he wore during the act. They weren’t quite friends—he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in getting attached to this place—but the two of them worked very well together. And…well, she’d never say it to him aloud, but here and onstage with him was the only times she felt she could simply be herself. Not a sister or a daughter, not the glue that held her friend group together, but Maria the Magician and only that.

“No,” he said, just as quietly, but iron-firm.

Right.

Hawke turned away and went into the back section of the room, where the tiny bathroom was located. It was quick, silent work to change out of her costume, to set aside the tuxedo shirt, the red coat, the matching skirt and shiny shoes. It was quick work, but she worried the whole time and her hands were unsteady on the buttons of her trousers when she did them up.

Returning to the room didn’t help. Fenris watched her while she hung up her clothes, and he was waiting with an extended hand when she was finished.

Hawke looked down at his hand, and then at his face. He’d made it abundantly clear that he did not want her to touch him on the first day they’d met. She’d moved to do the simplest of tricks—pull a coin from behind his ear so he could buy himself lunch—but he’d caught her wrist lightning-fast and forbade her to try it again. They passed things back and forth onstage, but that was the closest they’d ever come to touching skin to skin.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

She took his hand anyway and sucked in a breath when she felt the hard metal hidden there. Fenris clasped her hand between his, pressing the key to the dressing room into her palm. His hands were callused and warm around the smooth, cool metal he held. There was absolutely no reason to feel the way she did about touching him—they were hands, for the Maker’s sake—but she felt something nonetheless, a bubbling sensation in her chest. It wasn’t helped by the knowledge that he was…he must be…

“Thank you,” he said in that low, serious voice. “For—everything, Hawke.”

She didn’t let go when he did. For a moment, they lingered there, the key pressed between their palms.

What could she say? He’d already refused to explain himself, had already made it clear that he didn’t want her here. What more could she possibly say if he would not allow her to help?

“You need to go,” he said, extricating his hand from her grasp. When he stepped aside, there was a clear path to the door.

Fine.

Fine, she would go—but she’d be damned if she left him to the jaws of whatever fate he’d resigned himself to. Hawke nodded, passing him closely enough that she felt the heat radiating from his body. She paused only once, the door held open in her hand. He was still watching her when she looked back.

“I’ll see you later,” she said, the words not quite a question.

Fenris hesitated. His mouth firmed and he half-nodded, an angled bow of the head that might have been assent or disagreement.

Hawke turned away and shut the door behind her. She strode toward the back door at a clip, taking her staff from the umbrella stand where she’d hidden it. She had people to find and not much time to fetch them here.

She could only hope that whatever Fenris was going to do, he would take his time doing it.

Fenris waited onstage, hands loose at his sides, dressed in the clothing he’d worn when he fled Seheron. Unfortunately, it remained the sturdiest he owned; whatever could be said about Danarius, he’d wanted his pet bodyguard to be properly attired.

The theater around him was quiet. He’d waited until the crew were all gone, until the lights were doused, and then he’d crept from a hiding place along the catwalk and propped the back door open with a brick. They would be here soon; he had little doubt of that. At least here Fenris had the advantage of knowing precisely where everything was—especially given that the stage had already been prepared for Hawke’s show tomorrow evening and all of the usual props were positioned precisely where they’d be needed for the performance.

Fenris clenched his fist, eyes closed, listening. Do you ever stand onstage and hear the echoes of performances past? Hawke had asked him just that afternoon.

An absurd question—she seemed to enjoy being absurd—but standing here now, Fenris felt he almost understood what she meant. The past seemed to live in the empty spaces here, in its way.

Two steps to the left—that was where she’d first tapped his wrist with her so-called wand and drawn a full bouquet from his sleeve. There—just to the right, beside the table—that was where he’d first asked her if anyone fell for this farce of an act. She’d laughed in his face, then announced to the crowd that every performer should have a skeptic on hand, lest they become too full of themselves. She’d given him a cut of the excess tips tossed into the hat after the show that night and every night since—had that been the first night or the second?—and told him he had a job as long as he wanted it.

Odd—because he’d only half-believed her at the time—but in his memory she looked uncharacteristically solemn when she’d said it. “Stay as long as you wish, Fenris,” she’d told him, and when he’d put his hand in his pocket later he’d found the heavy brass key inside.

Tonight, the stage curtains had been left open, as was usual after the audience was gone. If he opened his eyes, he would see all the way to the back of the theater where Hawke’s friends sat during weekend performances. They were loud—would always shout when she pulled off a trick, even if they’d seen it a dozen times before—and Fenris had always taken their presence as his cue to disappear swiftly after the show.

He wondered now if it would have been better to allow himself attachment to this place; if he had reached out sooner, would it have been easier to stay? He didn’t know. He was weary of running—and that was precisely what he would be doing when he left this place. Months ago, he’d thought to take a stand here and make an end of it, but—did he really think this would be the end of Danarius’s pursuit?

No. No, he knew better than that. Perhaps it would be worth it to consider staying here after—

A soft squeak: the hinges of the back door, perpetually overused and under-oiled.

Fenris took a deep, slow breath and released it, feeling along the lines of the lyrium markings. He was ready; he hadn’t spent these past months in idleness. He’d spent them eating properly and practicing in the privacy of Hawke’s dressing room. He was not the shell-shocked slave who’d escaped from Seheron, nor was he the desperate creature on the run through the hills and dales of the Free Marches, striking back just enough to survive before running again. Fenris would fight, and fight well—on his own behalf, for once.

It was a simple thing to turn and face backstage, to wait for them to come. It had been the work of months to reach a place where he would want to.

“Well, well, well,” an accented voice drawled from the wings, “would you look at that? The master’s stray dog, fresh from doing its little tricks onstage. How d’you think the magister will take it out of your hide when he finds out how you’ve been spending your time—little wolf?”

Little wolf. The disgust Fenris felt when the words crawled across his skin was so potent it was almost a physical sensation of its own.

“Come on, then,” the voice drawled. “Heel, boy. It doesn’t have to be a fight; you know it’s all over now, don’t you? Why make this hurt more than it has to?”

Fenris still couldn’t see the speaker, but he could see a dark shape on the catwalk above, moving quietly in the shadows. That was not good; he would need to remember to be especially wary of the space above his head.

“No.”

No. How easy it was to speak a denial of his own volition; how good it felt, even after months of running.

No, he would not go back without a fight. No, he was not Danarius’s little wolf anymore.

The speaker stepped from the wings at last, dressed in sturdy clothes—fighting clothes. Others revealed themselves, four on one side, six on the other. If he wasn’t mistaken, the man in robes to the left was a mage. Fenris was grossly outnumbered, even before he counted the ones hiding on the catwalk.

No matter. He would fight and die before he would allow himself to be dragged back to Tevinter. It could be—would be—that simple.

“You should know better,” the speaker said with a grotesque smile. “The magister never lets go of what belongs to him. Why bother running in the first place, slave?”

“Fenris is a free man.”

No.

Hawke’s voice came from behind him, somewhere in the audience. Fenris didn’t turn to look at her—he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the slave-hunters—but the man he’d been speaking to angled himself slightly to look down at her.

“How lovely,” he said. “And harboring an escaped slave. Stay back and we won’t take you with us when we haul this one off.”

Footsteps behind him; hard-heeled shoes on the stairs up to the stage. Fenris’s hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Hawke…” he said, and felt the stir of air beside him.

“You’re sorely mistaken,” she said in her stage voice, bright and loud, “He’s my stage assistant, not a slave. If you think I’m going to let you—”

“Let us?” the leader barked, laughing. “Let us? You don’t have to let us do anything, Pretty; you can’t stop us.”

Hawke still stood just behind him where Fenris could not quite see her. Fear tangled with the anger in his chest. Had he not told her to go? Had he been anything less than perfectly clear? She—foolish, impulsive—she had put herself in harm’s way for what?

“Hawke,” Fenris said, “I do not want your help. Leave.”

One step. A second, sharp against the black stage floor.

She came to a stop at his side, back straight, chin angled up. When she stood like this, the top of her head was level with his eyes.

“No,” she said pleasantly.

“Suit yourself,” the leader said, drawing a saber from his belt. “You’ll still look pretty enough in chains, girl.”

No.

“How sweet of you to say,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

He’d missed the staff in her hand—how, he didn’t know—but Fenris did not miss the wash of fire that poured from it when she struck it against the stage floor. It consumed the first of the slave-hunters all at once, so quickly that Fenris had not yet processed the fact that Hawke was a mage before everyone else was moving and it was too late to think.

Fenris darted toward the leader first, half because he presented the most immediate obstacle and half because of the threat he’d just made. It was one thing to risk himself and another entirely to risk—

No; not now. He did not have space to think of it now.

The spell caught him when Fenris called on the markings, ready to rip the man’s heart from his chest. A cage of light; he’d seen its like many times before, had been caught between its bars more than once. It crushed the air from his lungs, lifted his bare feet from the ground, and stopped his hand mid-motion. Fenris gritted his teeth against the pressure, bracing against the pain to come.

Instead, the spell ended, dropping him neatly back on his feet.

“No, thank you,” Hawke said cheerfully, “Why don’t you try it yourself and see what you think?”

Fenris felt the ripple of magic in a pulse across the markings, but again he had no space to think of this. The leader still stood nearby, thrusting the saber toward him, and Fenris caught the flat of it on his bracer, redirecting it harmlessly away. The others closed in quickly, and it would mean death or worse to be surrounded. Fenris reached into a man’s chest and crushed his heart in one smooth motion, ducked another blow, and thrust the dead man’s body in the way of another combatant.

He’d planned this; it did not matter that Hawke had arrived to upset all his strategies. Fenris snapped one man’s neck, caught another blade with the now-limp body, and slipped backward again, to the place where Hawke had stored his least favorite of her tricks.

The sword thrust into the box was usually dull for his protection, but he’d replaced it this afternoon. The one he pulled from the wood now was much wider and longer than her usual stage blades, and when he swung it before him it knocked back three of his opponents. Only two stood before him now, but the leader was nowhere to be found. Where—

Hawke cried out behind him and Fenris spun around, his chest tight. The slave-hunters’ leader held her tightly, an arm around her waist. There was a long cut across her cheek, spreading a curtain of blood over the freckled skin. It dripped from her jaw, making a darker patch on the collar of her red coat.

“You see?” the man panted. “Look what you’ve done. Now I won’t get near as much for her; she’s damaged goods.”

Hawke’s lips were pressed so hard together that they’d gone pale and her eyes were fixed on him. Fenris’s hands tightened on the hilt of the sword as he watched the scattered light of his markings dance across her dress. She should never have involved herself; he’d made it perfectly clear that she needed to go. And now—and now—

More of the fighters stepped from the wings in his periphery. Fenris stepped to the side to keep them and the leader in his view, but he was already calculating how he could possibly get her out of this with her neck intact. He was too far to rush the man; too slow to stay his hand. He could reach through her for the slave-hunter’s heart—but this was not something he’d done before without intending for both parties to die. Six more stepped onstage, then eight, then ten.

There was no way out of this. He could feel the certainty of that knowledge, rising with the sense of dread. Fenris would rather be dead than taken, would have gladly fought to that end alone. But she—how could he barter her own lifeblood the same way?

How could he do anything else?

“Drop the sword or I give her a matching set,” the leader said, angling the sword up until it rested across Hawke’s cheek and jaw.

Fenris looked at her again, his knuckles gone white on the hilt, desperate for anything—some sign—of what she’d rather he do.

Hawke looked back, raising her chin very slightly despite the blade resting against her skin, and quirked one eyebrow. That was precisely the way she looked at him when he was about to miss a cue, but what cue could she possibly be reminding him of now?

Her arms were held tight to her sides, too immobile to move much, but as he watched one wrist flexed, flicked, and a small wooden ball flew out of her sleeve, rolling across the floor.

“What—” one of the other fighters said, eyes following it, and an arrow sprouted soundlessly from the man’s neck.

As the arrow hit, the man holding Hawke grunted with pain and let her go. At once, she slammed her head back into his nose and ducked, neatly missing the blade he’d tried to bring back around.

“That’s no way to treat a lady,” a silken said behind the two of them, and the leader made a wet choking sound before collapsing to his knees. A woman in a pale dress stood in his place, spinning a bloody blade in one hand while she smiled down at the body.

“Sorry we’re late, Hawke!” a voice called from the catwalk.

As if the voice had reminded them what was happening, the fighters sprang into action again, rushing either Hawke or Fenris. Only—now they were not fighting alone. Arrows and bolts struck the slave-hunters as they rushed forward, and a fist of stone swept another off his feet and into the table where Honeybun’s cage was kept when she was onstage. Fire sparked out of the corner of his eye—Hawke’s doing—and lightning danced through the knot of people who’d tried to surround Fenris. A dark-haired man who closely resembled Hawke stepped into the breach, nodding once to Fenris before turning away and engaging a fighter with twin daggers clutched in her hands.

They made short work of the rest in the end; there were seven of her friends, as far as he could tell, and when they fought together even the largest of their opponents fell before them. As the final slave hunter slipped from Fenris’s blade, Hawke sighed and braced a hand on her knee, breathing hard.

“That was bracing,” she said between breaths. “Maker, what a mess. I’ll be weeks fixing all of this.”

“You could let the stage crew do their jobs for once,” a dwarf said, sliding down the ladder to the catwalk and swinging a crossbow onto his shoulder. “They do fix things like this, you know.”

“But if I don’t do it myself, how will I know they put things in the right place?” Hawke asked, waving a hand. Fenris was close enough to hear the breath she sucked in between her teeth just before she reached up to clear some of the blood from her face.

“Well, don’t touch it,” another man said, stepping over several fallen bodies to peer at her. “What a bloody mess. Hold still and let me fix that, won’t you?”

Hawke rolled her eyes, but straightened so the taller man could see.

“Mother hen,” she told him, and her eyes angled to Fenris at last.

“Alright?” she asked.

Fenris lowered his sword, searching for the words. He found some at last, though they were not the ones he’d been looking for.

“Why do this,” he said, gesturing to the box with swords in it, “if you can do real magic?”

Her brows raised, but she flinched before they would have reached their usual apex.

“Sorry,” the man leaning over her murmured. A soft light spilled from his hands, closing the edges of the cut across her cheekbone.

“They’re both real magic,” Hawke said after a moment, “The only difference is that one makes people clap and the other gets you tossed in the Gallows. And besides—if a templar ever reported me, what would their fellows think except that they were too foolish to realize a good sleight of hand when they saw it? Hiding in plain sight was the best way to go.”

“I still think it’s a horrible idea,” the healer muttered, still frowning down at her face.

“I think it’s genius,” the woman with the daggers announced, neatly sidling around two collapsed slave-hunters and crouching to check one’s pockets. “Hello—look at this.”

“Is that a golden tooth?” an elven woman asked, wandering over the bodies as if she didn’t notice them, “I don’t think those are supposed to be in one’s pockets, Isabela.”

“Ouch—Flames, Anders, if I’d known it was going to hurt, I’d have done it myself,” Hawke snapped. Fenris turned back to her, ignoring the others for the moment. The healer—Anders, she’d said—let his hands fall away at last and shrugged.

“You’d’ve scarred if you had,” he said. “Done now. You may still want to clean up; you’re a mess.”

Blood still streaked her neck and coat. Hawke grimaced again and tipped her head back.

“Alright up there, Sebastian?”

“Of course,” someone called back. Fenris squinted and spotted a bowman in the catwalk. “Didn’t you say Aveline was coming?”

“No, I said Aveline wasn’t coming. She was on patrol when I sent word—but, as it turns out, that’s probably for the best. Can’t imagine she’d love the amount of dead bodies involved in this one. Ah, well. Maybe Merrill can make them toddle off and lie down somewhere less conspicuous.”

“I can’t actually do that, Hawke,” the elf said, looking mildly distressed, “But I do know a carrying spell—if we stacked them all onto something, perhaps I could make them float or—”

“It was just a joke, dear,” Hawke said, crossing to the woman and resting a hand on her shoulder. “Technically speaking—legally speaking—this was self defense. Wasn’t it?”

As one, they turned to look at Fenris, who’d been standing wordlessly at the edge of the stage. He looked back, taking in the lot of them. What would it be like, he wondered, to have so many people who’d come in an instant when one needed help?

What would it be to answer a call like that? To choose to step forward and fight, even before one knew the circumstances of the battle?

What would it be like to…stay?

“Yes,” he said after a moment.

“You see?” Hawke said. “Now, I’ve promised Carver that drinks are on me—”

“Ah, you remembered after all,” the dark-haired man said, tucking a bloody cloth back into his pocket and sheathing his sword.

“—so why don’t you finish frisking their pockets and pop off to the Hanged Man? I’ll meet you there in a bit. I think we need to sort out a few things here first.”

Hawke stood in the bathroom of her dressing room, hands braced on the sink, eyes fixed on the mirror.

Effort and focus had not helped her remove an ounce of the anger from her face.

Really, she was angry often—people didn’t seem to notice if it was covered by a broad enough smile—but it had been a very long time since she’d been this angry.

Breathe, she reminded herself, and closed her eyes to focus on that instead. It was no use. Behind her eyelids, she still saw the bastards on her stage, threatening her friend, demanding he submit to—

“Hawke?” Fenris asked from the other side of the door.

Tears of the Bride, she’d come in here so he wouldn’t have to see this.

“I’ll be just a moment,” she said, and it was an effort to keep her voice even.

Silence. After a moment, she heard the sound of the cage door swinging open again.

Alright. Alright. She could do this.

Maria fumbled the trousers up and over her pantalets, fastened the blouse over her stays, and took another moment to look herself in the eyes and breathe. Fenris had spilled the tale while she’d cleaned up in here, for she’d rightly guessed that he’d be more comfortable explaining if he didn’t have to look at her. Now, she was glad she’d arranged things that way because—well. What good would it do him for her to be mad now? If there was one thing she knew, it was this: people who were hurt, people who’d been tormented and hunted halfway across the continent? Those people were not the ones who needed her to be upset on their behalf.

Not where they had to see it, at least.

Hawke hesitated only a moment longer, hand thrust into her pocket, but then she swung the door open and stepped out. Fenris had chosen to sit on the floor and was regarding Honeybun solemnly as the rabbit investigated the space beneath the dressing table. He rose gracefully when Maria stepped into the room, but didn’t immediately do anything more than that. Hawke paused in the doorway, surveying the scene, and Fenris looked back.

“She doesn’t like to stay in the cage for too long,” he said finally, spreading a hand in the rabbit’s direction, “She seems to prefer the room.”

“I agree,” Hawke said, setting a hand on the back of the nearest chair. “Before you came, I would leave her door open overnight and a sign on the door not to open it without checking first. The amount of times she’s been loose in the theater is…well. Notable.”

They stood for a long moment, looking at each other. Her fingers curled in her pocket. What could she say to him? He hadn’t wanted her help earlier, would have died rather than involve her. Now…Well.

Both of them were far too proud; she knew that for a fact. One of them would have to reach out first.

Maria stepped closer—close enough to touch if she’d intended to—and raised her chin to look him in the eyes.

“Usually,” she said, “the purpose of the stage assistant is to draw attention. The first trick to stage magic, you see, is misdirection. If the audience is looking at the assistant, they miss part of the trick. The assistant is meant to smile and look pretty and charm the ones watching into wanting to believe, just a little, in the idea of magic that cannot hurt or possess or pose a danger to them.”

Fenris regarded her steadily. He really had the most lovely eyes—not that she’d told him as much; she knew better than that. Looking at them made it easier to take another breath, to let some of the anger go.

“You are really, really bad at that. The worst I’ve ever seen, honestly. But—what you are good at is asking exactly the question that they’re thinking instead. Why would you want to pull a posy from your pocket? How would a rabbit even fit inside a hat?”

The smile came easy enough now. She didn’t have to work at it anymore.

“What could possibly be the purpose of levitating two feet in the air and staying there?”

“It is a perfectly reasonable question,” he said, but his brow had unfurrowed slightly.

Stay, she thought at him, smiling, stay with me. Don’t run.

No; too soon for that. There were other things to say first, in any case.

“They like you,” she said instead.

Now came the hard part. She’d practiced this on Merrill for days after she’d first met him just in case. Fenris did not like things in his periphery, and he seemed to dislike being touched on the shoulders or neck in general. So, rather than pulling something from behind his ear, she tapped his chest and produced the thing she’d been clutching in her pocket.

“Stay as long as you wish, Fenris,” she said, holding the brass key to the dressing room between two fingers. “The job is still yours.”

Fenris looked at the key, then at her. His mouth firmed, as if he, too, was holding words in. After a moment, his shoulders relaxed slightly.

“I am done with running,” he said, still not taking the key, “and—I had thought to ask you if you would allow me to remain here. After everything—well. I did not think you would offer. You understand that there could be more of them. This isn’t over.”

Hawke shrugged one shoulder.

“So we’ll fight them again.. You’re not the only one of my friends with a skeleton or two in your closet, Fenris. I could tell you things that would turn your hair—well. Too late for that, I suppose.”

Fenris snorted, but a smile crept up the corner of his mouth.

“In addition to the key, I am inviting you to drinks. The others will hound me for it if I don’t, but I think you might like at least some of them. They’re loud and cantankerous, they cheat at cards and half of them hate each other, but they’re family. If you’re going to stay, that’s something you might like to have.”

Honeybun hopped over her feet, and presumably over Fenris’s, too, for he looked down and away for a long, silent moment.

“Yes,” he said at last, straightening, “I will stay. I…would like to stay.”

“Wonderful,” Hawke said, beaming at him. The key gleamed in the air between them.

Readily, Fenris reached out and took it.

#maria hawke #fenris #fenris dragon age #da2 #fenhawke #my writing #da fanfic #this was the hardest to tag on ao3 haha. it isn't any of the usual categories i write and (unsurprisingly) there is no magician au category #also. it didn't fit in this but bethany is alive and in a coma jsyk #hence hawke being broke. all of her spare money goes to pay the healers etc.#shivunin scrivening

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