Title: Retreat
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: T
Length: 940 words
Content notes: No content warnings apply.
Author notes: Written for the ‘Shelter’ prompt in fan_flashworks, and the ‘Fire and firelight’ prompt in genprompt_bingo.
Summary: Hawke finds an excuse to spend an evening outside of Kirkwall’s High Society.

Sara had lied. There were no more Tal-vashoth in the caves outside Kirkwall, as far as she knew. And when they arrived they found the cave empty even of the raiders who sometimes liked to use it as a base of operations. That suited Sara just fine.

At her coaxing, they set up camp outside the front of the cave. It wasn’t hard to persuade them to set up a fire that danced with blue-green flames, with only the wide expanse of the sea out in front of them. As Anders and Fenris laid out the bedrolls, Sara stalked the narrow sandy paths and brought down a couple of rabbits with her bow, relieved to find that her tracking skills were not wholly decayed. She skinned and gutted the rabbits at the water’s edge, before bringing them back to camp and spitting them over some coals scraped away from the main fire. As they sat and watched the rabbits slowly cook, Sara produced a bottle of wine from her pack, as well as three wooden cups. It wasn’t until the wine had been duly imbibed that Anders spoke.

“Do you want to tell us what this is all about?” he asked. “The bedrolls, the wine,” he nodded in their direction, then paused a moment. “There weren’t ever any Tal-Vashoth, were there?”

“I wanted to get you out of Kirkwall without raising suspicion,” she admitted.

“That you have achieved,” Anders said, gesturing around him with his cup. “But why?”

Sara leaned over to turn the rabbits, and noticed Fenris’s eyes on her as well.

“It’s claustrophobic sometimes, Kirkwall. It’s nice to feel… free.” She looked out at the water, her arms folded over her knees, cup in hand.

“Why not simply ask?” Fenris asked from where he sat on her left.

“I… I don’t know,” Sara said, frowning. “It… it would make it seem…” She broke off and shook her head.

“Less free?” Anders suggested. And Sara shrugged helplessly. It seemed ridiculous when said aloud.

The last rays of the sun dimmed in the sky, and the world slowly contracted to the three of them in their circle of firelight. They shared the rabbits between them. The wind off the ocean was cool, so they drew closer together on the bedroll positioned in front of the fire, turning their backs to it and the cave. Sara found herself pressed between the shoulders of Fenris and Anders, and closed her eyes to appreciate their warm pressure.

“I just… missed the days when I could roam the wilds as I chose,” she said with her eyes still closed, and the taste of rabbit still in her mouth. “I hated it back then. Not having anywhere to go, any real way to make my way. I did what I could for my family, but it was so... limited. But now… with all of the smiling self-satisfied nobility around me, and all the benefits that brings… I… I just wanted to go back to something that was me.”

Fenris nodded. “Acclinis falsis animus meliora recusat,” he said. Sara opened her eyes and looked at him blankly. “It is your taste for better things that causes you to reject pretension,” he said.

Sara laughed. “Maybe,” she said. “I just think I can’t stand their smiles.” She knocked back the rest of her wine and reached for the bottle, but Anders beat her to it.

“Here,” he said, pouring the last of it into her goblet. “It seems like you could use it most.”

“Don’t worry, I have another,” she said, before downing the whole cup. Anders looked across at Fenris, and Fenris nodded in response to whatever message he saw in Anders’ eyes. He leaned over to Sara’s pack and reached in to pull out the second bottle. Pulling the cork out with his teeth, he leaned the neck of the bottle against the rim of Sara’s wooden goblet.

“Can I get you some more, domina?” he murmured. Sara giggled, and nodded, and he tilted the bottle, pouring the dark liquid into her cup.

“Thank you, serah,” she said with another laugh. When the cup was full, she sipped on it, staring out into the darkness that was the sea.

“It’s nice, being here with both of you,” she said, with a sigh. “I’m sorry I tricked you. I just… didn’t know how you would react.”

“We have accompanied you together on many occasions,” Fenris said.

“It’s a bit different when there’s no fighting though, isn’t it?” she said. She leaned her head on Fenris’s shoulder.

“The night is still young,” Fenris said, with a chuckle.

She liked that chuckle. The way it vibrated through his torso, through his shoulder, and into her. She lifted her head to look up at him. The world seemed to narrow down to his eyes, his nose, his lips. Maker, she could not stop looking at his lips. She swayed towards him, but as her breath touched his lips he turned away.

Stung, she pulled back, and turned towards Anders. His eyes flicked from hers down to her lips, but he reached across her to take the bottle from Fenris. “Not tonight, Hawke,” he said. He topped up her glass. “It’s not about that tonight.”

Anders pressed back up against her right shoulder and, after a moment, Fenris rejoined his shoulder to her left. For the moment, all felt like it was right in the world. She yawned, smothering it with her free hand.

“Sleep if you want, Hawke,” Fenris said. “We’ll protect you.”

“I think I love you,” Sara said, lay down on the bedroll, and closed her eyes.