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Free as a Bird	By : Letticiae Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 9737 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age, nor do I own the characters. I do not make money/profit from writing this fanfiction.

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The Long and Winding Road – Part 3

Seventeenth day. After having water for breakfast, a stamina draught for lunch and walking and fighting all day, Hawke and her companions were not in their best shape when they had to face a huge ancient rock wraith that crossed their path.

The battle was their longest to date. When Hawke jumped to land with both her daggers on the creature's exposed chest and finally end the fight, all her companions were prone on the ground. If any of them was dead… No, she couldn't even bear thinking of that possibility.

She rushed towards Anders first. With trembling hands she turned him on his back. His face was covered in blood that was gushing from a wound on his forehead. He wasn't dead, just passed out and she let out a relieved sigh. Once he was recovered he could heal the others. If the others were alive. Fuck!

She got a bandage from an injury kit and tied it up tightly around his head, compressing the wound so it would stop bleeding. He seemed to be coming to. Lifting his head she carefully poured a healing potion down his throat. He opened his eyes and gave her a faint smile.

Hawke helped him sit up and handed him a mana draught.

"You're covered in blood," he remarked, his voice weak. "Do you need healing?"

"A lot of this blood is yours. As soon as you recover your mana, heal yourself first, okay? I'll go check out on the others," she said.

Luckily Fenris was already getting up by himself and Varric was beginning to move. Everyone was alive.

Either limping or dragging themselves, the four of them managed to gather on a secluded corner so they could recover from their wounds with less chance of being found by any remaining enemy. Injury kits were used and health potions were drained as healing magic sparkled weakly. They were still hungry, exhausted, bloodied and in pain but at least no one was badly hurt anymore.

"I'm getting truly sick of looking at stalactites. Or are they stalagmites? Shit, I don't know," Varric said, trying to break the deadly silence, but everyone was too tired to talk or even smile.

Not minding of personal spaces or each other's filth, stink and sweat Hawke rested her head on Fenris' left shoulder and he leaned his head on hers; Anders lied down and rested his head on her right thigh and the dwarf lay down next him. Without anyone saying anything or making any plans they fell asleep in that dark corner. They had no food, no clean clothes and no energy. All the comfort they could have was what they could get from each other's company and they clung to that. Each other was all they had left.

Eighteenth day. They drank a health potion in the morning to help them get through another day on empty stomachs and resumed their search for a way out. Not far from the spot where they had spent the night, they found a room full of chests, coins and relics. There was also a door.

They ran towards the door first and tried to open it, but it was locked. The demon had mentioned a key. Maybe it was in that treasure room. They started looking for it, not at all excited about the riches in there. If they couldn't get out of there alive there was no point in collecting all that gold.

Hawke had her head tucked inside a chest. "A key? A key!" she yelled.

"The kind that open doors, I hope," Varric said, eagerly. There had been too much disappointment already in that expedition.

Everyone had expectant eyes glued on Hawke as she turned the key in the lock and it worked. Anders rushed past the threshold and checked the new path. "That's it! It's the Deep Roads! We're out of this Maker forsaken thaig!"

Hawke grabbed Varric and hugged him, lifting his feet off the ground. The mage came over and took the dwarf from her, hugging him too.

"Come on, Blondie! Stop that! Put me down!" Varric complained.

Anders let him go and pulled Hawke in a tight embrace. He gave her a kiss in the cheek before pulling away from her.

"Phew! Maker's breath, Hawke! You're one strong lady!" the dwarf exclaimed as he straightened his coat.

Fenris observed the others as they laughed and hugged and kissed. All that joy and spontaneity that he didn't know how to take part in…

"Aren't you excited, Fenris?" Hawke asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"I, uh, yes," he mumbled.

She smiled warmly at him and then she hugged him. It was the first time someone had ever hugged him – that he could remember of. It felt so good he couldn't help but put his arms around her. Without his armor between them it had to be even better. And without her armor. And no tunics or shirts, just her skin against his…

"Let's collect the best pieces we can carry out of here and then go," Varric said, bringing the elf back to reality.

"Dinner!" Hawke yelled and ran ahead of her companions, disappearing in the dark tunnel.

The men rushed after her and found her already on her way back to meet them with two dead deep stalkers in her hands.

"Are they spitters?" Varric asked.

"By the acid burn on her arm, I'd say yes, they are," Anders said, already healing her.

"Shit! Do not say we cannot eat them…" she grumbled.

"We can as long as we manage to cut off the poison glands without bursting them," the mage explained. "I think I can do it. I saw Elissa doing it many times when we were traveling in the Deep Roads."

"You never told us how you got to be on a first-name basis with the Warden Commander, Blondie," Varric said.

"It's not a very interesting story," the healer replied as he hanged the deep stalkers by their tails on the wall with a glyph of paralysis and started looking for the poison glands.

"Of course it is. You're just not telling it right," the dwarf said.

"Why do you want to know about that?"Anders asked.

"I think it might fit in this new story I'm writing," Varric answered. "It's an epic poem about a hopelessly romantic apostate, waging an epic struggle against forces he can't possibly defeat."

The mage glared at him. "What do you mean, 'can't possibly defeat?'"

"Well, it's not a good story unless the hero dies," the dwarf explained.

"Blast it! I burst a gland. I'll cut out the whole neck and we'll eat just the torso of this one," Anders said, upset.

"It's okay, Blondie. Relax," Varric chuckled. "I'll bleed them and then you disembowel and skin them," he pointed at Hawke and Fenris, who nodded in agreement.

"How are we going to cook them?" Anders asked.

"We can stick their parts on Bianca's arrows and put them on the fire," Hawke suggested.

Varric was not happy about that idea but since he had none better, he conceded.

"Uh, what do they taste like?" Fenris asked.

"Seriously, Fenris? It's been three days since we last ate. You can't possibly be worried about taste," Hawke replied.

"Chicken. They taste like chicken, elf," Varric laughed. "And, Blondie, I'm still waiting for you to tell the story."

"Fine," the mage sighed. "Elissa… she's a formidable woman. She's the one who gave me Ser Pounce-a-lot."

Fenris snorted when he heard the cat's name, but Anders ignored him and kept talking. "Anyway, she was a good friend. We were always drinking together and going in these long quests where we spent many days and nights together all the time and we'd flirt…"

"Don't stop now, Blondie. I can tell it's about to get good," Varric said.

Anders smiled sadly and continued. "One night she came over to my tent. We slept together but… I woke up alone. The next day she didn't want to talk about it. From that time on, every now and then she would come over again. And it was always the same. We would have sex and she would leave."

"And you weren't fine with that?" the dwarf asked.

"I fell for her," the mage said. "And I decided we couldn't go on like that. I had to talk to her, to tell her I wanted more and that I was in love with her. We were at Vigil's Keep, so I went over to her bedroom and…"

"She was with someone else?" Varric asked.

"She had left?" Hawke asked.

Anders shook his head. "She was crying over a letter she was writing. I had never seen her cry. She's such a fierce, strong warrior. That was the only moment I had ever seen her show any sign of weakness. She noticed my presence and pretended she was fine, but I knew what I had seen. I said she had to tell me the truth and that she me owed that because of our relationship. 'What relationship?' she asked and that broke my heart. Maker, the conversation turned into an argument and then she told me…"

"She was married?" Hawke asked.

"Enough with the cliffhangers, Blondie. Just tell us already!" Varric complained.

"…she had come to me only because she was lonely and I was her friend. And she said she could never love me, because her heart belonged to another man."

"Who?" Varric asked.

"Alistair," the healer answered.

There was a sudden irksome squishing noise. Hawke had nervously started disemboweling the deep stalkers with her daggers.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked the three men who were staring at her.

"Are you jealous?" Anders asked.

"Of Alistair? Of course not!" she squeaked.

"You are," Varric insisted.

"I'm not. I even told him to go back to Ferelden," she said and they heard a harsh ripping sound as she started to roughly skin the deep stalkers.

"Maybe I should take care of that," Fenris said, taking the daggers from her.

Yes, she had told Alistair to open the letters from Elissa, to go back to Ferelden and to the Grey Wardens. He deserved better than to spend his days drunk in the Hanged Man. But then again she did not expect she would be thinking about him all the time from the moment she had left his room. Deep down she was hoping he would wait for her to come back.

Hawke and her companions had been walking in the Deep Roads for a few days now. They all had lost weight and were looking sick. Deep stalker meat, nugs and water were all they were living on. Their filth and stink could be detected from a mile away, but they were so used to it they didn't even notice it.

Sometimes small groups of darkspawn would cross their path. They managed to fight and win, but each time they sustained more injuries. Their underclothes and armors were falling apart, but there was nothing they could do about that. At some point they had run out of potions which meant they had to take longer breaks to recover after each fight.

Except for Varric – who would occasionally tell a story to which none of them would pay attention – they barely talked to each other anymore. They had lost track of time and would sleep whenever they felt too tired, which often was two or even three times a day. They were in constant pain from sleeping on the hard stone floor, but no one complained. More than once the person on guard duty fell asleep too and they awakened with deep stalkers nipping at them. No fingers were pointed, though. They all understood each other's exhaustion.

All these problems were causing them to advance much slower than Varric predicted when they had left the thaig and instead of one week, it would take them about ten days, maybe more, to reach the surface. Though they were not aware of dates, they had been back in the Deep Roads for six days now which meant it was the twentieth-forth day since the expedition had left Kirkwall.

Twentieth-forth day. Isabela banged on Alistair's door in the Hanged Man. "They arrived!" she shouted.

He rushed to answer the door. "They're back? Are you sure?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes. They were spotted on the road and should be in the city any minute now. Everybody is going to Hightown to meet them and find out how the expedition went, who died, who survived, what they found down there and stuff like that. Are you coming?" the pirate said.

"Yes," Alistair answered with a blissful glint in his eyes. He got a nicely wrapped package from his stand and a card he had written and darted out of his room.

"What's that?" Isabela pointed at the package.

"It's something I got for Hawke," he answered.

"Oh, you're in love with her," she said, dragging the words mockingly.

He shook his head.

"You've been pestering me with questions about her almost every night since she left. Of course you love her. You're like a puppy, Alistair. You spend one night with a woman and you fall for her," she teased.

"I certainly did not fall for you," he replied.

"Touché! Go on ahead. I'll go get the others," she dismissed him.

On his way to Hightown, Alistair stopped by the market and bought a white rose which he put over the package along with his card.

Minutes later, Isabela, Aveline, Merrill, Bethany, Leandra and Garrus joined the warrior in the square in Hightown. With anxious looks on their faces they watched as the adventurers approached. Quickly the place was taken by the joy of wives reuniting with their husbands and mothers with their sons. There was no sign of Hawke and her companions.

"Bodahn! Hey, Bodahn!" Alistair called.

"Messere Alistair! It's good to see you!" Bodahn greeted him as he came over.

"Enchantment?" Sandal offered joyfully.

"Where is Hawke, Bodahn?" the warrior asked, sounding anxious.

"Ah, such a nice lady! She saved me and my boy th–"

"Where is she?" he interrupted nervously.

"She didn't make it. I'm sorry, messere," the dwarf said sadly.

"Oh, Maker! Please! This can't be! She can't be dead!" Leandra sobbed.

"What about Varric? Fenris? Anders?" Isabela asked Bodahn.

The dwarf shook his head dolefully.

Bethany hugged her mother and they cried on each other's shoulder while Isabela turned to comfort Merrill.

With tears welling up in his eyes, Alistair left the square. He was holding the gift her had gotten her so tightly in his hands he was ruining the wrapping. His first thought was of going to the Chantry, but he dismissed it right away. There was no point. He wouldn't say another prayer to the Maker that kept abandoning him and ignoring his pleas. At the Hanged Man he would suffer with all the memories from her and it was the very place where she had said many times he shouldn't be, but at least there he could drink until he forgot this horrible day. There was nowhere else in Kirkwall he could go for comfort. He had no friends there. Tonight he would drink himself to sleep. Tomorrow he would take a ship back to Ferelden.

Aveline went over to Merrill and Isabela. "Take Bethany and Leandra home and stay there with them. I need to check out some facts here and I'll stop by later to tell you what I found out."

The elf and the pirate nodded and left with Hawke's family.

"Bodahn, I'm Aveline Vallen, Captain of the Guard. Would you care to answer some questions?" the red-haired woman asked.

"Sure, Captain," the dwarf replied.

"The people who were with Hawke – Varric, Anders and Fenris – are they all dead?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Anyone else died down there?"

"No. Just them."

"Are you telling me that the four most capable fighters on the expedition were the only ones who died?"

"Yes. It is such a shame."

"Have you seen them get killed?"

"No, I didn't."

"Have you seen their bodies?"

"Can't say I did. No."

"Who told you they were dead?"

"Messere Bartrand Tethras."

"Where is he?"

"He said he couldn't stay. He had pressing business elsewhere. When we were getting close to Kirkwall he took another route."

"Do you know where he has gone?"

"I don't know, messere. I'm sorry."

"Where are their belongings?"

The dwarf pointed to four rucksacks on the back of an oxcart.

"Thank you, Bodahn."

The Captain went through their stuff and was somewhat relieved that their weapons and potions were not there. She talked to other hirelings and none had seen them die or their bodies. They could still be alive. She went straight to Gamlen's to tell the others her findings.

After talking to Aveline, Isabela went to the Hanged Man to tell Alistair that Hawke may not be dead. She found him passed out on the table, his head over the wrapped package and a white rose squished in his hand. It would be a waste of time trying to talk to him in that situation, so she decided to leave it to the next day.

Twentieth-eighth day. Hawke and her friends woke up to follow the same ritual they were used to by now – hunt a couple of nugs or deep stalkers, bleed, skin, disembowel and cook them, eat and then walk until they felt hungry or sleepy again. The time it took to prepare their food was what delayed them most.

After walking for about two hours they started feeling a cool breeze. It was a wonderful change from the heat of that lava-filled place and it also meant they would be on the surface any minute now.

With eager, hurried steps they reached the exit. They were thankful for the pouring rain that welcomed them outside. Excitedly Hawke stripped off and wearing only her smallclothes she did a few cartwheels before throwing herself on the grass and letting the rain wash her. Anders and Varric laughed and followed her lead. Only in their smalls they lay down with her, the dwarf on her right and the mage on her left.

She enjoyed the rain for some time until she noticed the broody elf was nowhere to be seen. Getting up she looked around and found Fenris a few yards from them, sitting on the grass, in his armor and with his eyes downcast. She went over to him and reached a hand to help him up.

"Are we leaving?" he asked, taking her hand.

"Not right now. Don't you want to wash from all this grime and sweat? You should, you know," she said.

"I'm not going to –"

She had a good guess on what he was about to say. "Take off just you armor, then," she interrupted him.

He nodded, but before he could do it she was already doing it for him and with such ease that it got him wondering if she had been watching him every time he had gotten out of his armor to sleep during these past days.

The cool water falling on his skin was really pleasing after all this time underground. He took deep breaths as he enjoyed the feeling of having it wash his bare chest and back.

"Hawke!" He grasped her hands that were on the waistband of his leggings.

She looked at him like the cat that ate the canary. "What?" she asked.

He had been so entranced by her closeness, her lack of clothes and the rain, that he hadn't even noticed that she had already unbuttoned and removed his tunic. "I'm not going to stand here only in my smalls," he said.

"Why not? We all are," she replied.

"I'm not comfortable with this."

"Because of your makings?" she guessed.

"Yes," he uttered.

"Don't be. They are beautiful," she said, giving him a kind smile.

"You think they are beautiful? They caused me nothing but pain and suffering. They made me a living weapon and brought death to more people than you can imagine. Because of them I lost my memories. They are the monstrous work of a deranged magister and a constant reminder of the lifetime I spent as his slave," he lashed out, raising his voice more with each word.

Hawke pulled her hands from him abruptly. Now she had done it. She had ruined any chance of being friends with that elf. And during the expedition she had managed to break so many barriers between them… She thought she had started to understand him, but apparently she hadn't.

"I'm sorry, Fenris. I'm so sorry," she apologized, looking utterly distressed and turned away from him.

The elf regretted the way he had talked to her. The best thing that had happened to him in that expedition was how the two of them had gotten closer and how she did not avoid touching him anymore and now he had destroyed it all.

"Hawke!" he called, going after her.

When he grabbed her wrist to make her turn back to him, he was thrown on the ground. He blinked a few times, still a little confused from the mind blast that had hit him. He looked up to see Bianca aimed at him and the abomination right behind Varric.

"One minute she's undressing you, the other you're yelling at her? What's wrong with you, elf?" the dwarf asked angrily.

"Mongrel," the mage snorted.

Fenris' markings flared but Varric did not budge.

"I'm keeping Bianca aimed at your face until you calm down," the dwarf said, his tone menacing.

If Varric and Anders weren't only in their smalls Fenris would probably have felt more intimidated by their threat, but nevertheless it was best to comply and he let his markings fade.

"Let him go, Varric. Fenris and I don't get along, but he wouldn't hurt me. I'm the one who can't be near him without hurting him," Hawke said, disheartened.

Fenris saw in her now indifferent eyes that she had given up on him.
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Free as a Bird