Title: Suspension of Time
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: G
Length: 553 words
Content notes: No content warnings apply.
Author notes: Written for the ‘the lost hour’ prompt in fan_flashworks.
Summary: Aveline has too much on her plate to deal with Hawke’s Satinalia antics.

Each year, on the eve of Satinalia, the Thedosian calendar is adjusted. And

time

stops.

For five whole days, the normal order of life is suspended. The markets are emptied, the factories closed, the courts adjourned. And chaos rules the streets.

Aveline hates this time of year.

Superstition says that an exposed face attracts bad luck during this liminal period, so high and lowborn alike take to the streets in masks. And, as Aveline well knows, that thin veil of cloth makes the difference between civilisation and savagery.

There are affairs, murders, poisonings. Brawls, assassinations, and suicides. And that just in Hightown. Aveline doubles, then triples patrols. The paperwork from these five days will hang over her for months. She takes to sleeping in her office.

One night, Hawke visits, her face covered by a likeness of her namesake.

“Aveline,” Sara greets her. “No mask?”

Aveline passes a hand over her eyes. She would have thought her exhaustion was mask enough. “Not for me,” she says.

“You aren’t going to the Viscount’s ball?”

“I don’t have time,” she says, gesturing at the growing mound of reports. Plus, she couldn’t imagine herself in a dress and mask.

“But that’s all we have at the moment,” Sara says with a laugh. She turns and gestures someone else into the room. “So, what do you think?”

“Fenris?”

The elf is wearing a mask in the form of a stylised wolf, but it does nothing to hide his ears. His extremely elven ears.

“Aveline,” is the reluctant grunt in response.

“Oh Maker,” says Aveline, as realisation dawns. “Don’t tell me you’re taking him to the ball.”

“Why not? It’s Satinalia,” Sara says. And then, after a moment: “You sound like my mother.”

“Who is a very sensible woman. Hawke, this is one of the worst ideas you’ve had.”

Sara shrugs. “If I can’t take him on Satinalia, then when can I?”

Aveline closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She didn’t have the time or the energy for this. If Hawke wanted to rile up the whole of Hightown, let it be on her head.

“Just don’t start a fight,” she says with a sigh. “I have enough to do already.”

“Promise,” says Hawke, and blows her a kiss on the way out.