Title: Gilded views
Fandom: Dragon Age
Pairings: Fenris/Hawke (as part of Fenris/Hawke/Anders)
Rating: G
Length: 1447 words
Content notes: No content warnings apply
Author notes: Written for the ‘scenery’ challenge in fan_flashworks and the ‘favourite things’ prompt in genprompt_bingo.
Summary: Fenris takes Hawke to one of his favourite locations in Kirkwall.

***

It had been years. The mansion had long since been boarded up, for even Aveline hadn’t been able to keep the tax collectors at bay forever. But with the Viscountcy empty, there had been little impetus to find a new owner, so it sat there, empty, with the doors and windows nailed shut.

“Through here,” Fenris said, squeezing her hand before abruptly turning down a narrow alley that ran alongside the mansion.

Sara followed. About halfway down, Fenris stopped in front of a window that looked much the same as all the others. He pulled on one of the lower boards, and it came away easily. He placed it gently down next to the stone wall, where it was soon joined by two others. When he was done, there was a hole big enough for them to squeeze through.

“After you,” he said with a smile and an overly elaborate bow. Sara stuck her tongue out at him, but hoisted herself up onto the windowsill. She swung her legs over the casement and into the darkness, before following with the rest of her body. As she landed, her hands automatically went to her daggers, but the little light that filtered in through the cracks between the boards revealed no foes. She took a deep breath in, but could smell nothing that indicated human habitation.

Fenris landed heavily beside her, kicking up a small cloud of dust. He glanced quickly around before reaching out and taking her hand. He led up her out of the small room into the mansion’s Great Hall. From what she could see in the thin beams of light that leaked through the boarded up windows, someone had finally cleared away the corpses. The City Guard had done at least one good thing with the place.

Fenris led her up the stairs and into the room that had once been Danarius’s and then became Fenris’s own. Sara paused in the doorway, taking in the scene, even as Fenris continued ahead.

The room had been cleared of its furniture. The bed that Fenris had slept on for so many years was gone, as were the benches that they had drunk wine upon before the fire. Sara felt a peculiar, sickened feeling in her belly. It was here that she and Fenris had first discussed what Kirkwall was to them, and where she had gotten the first idea that maybe there was something more to their relationship. It was here that Fenris had openly flirted with her, when he was so grim and dour in broader company. It was here that she had heard his stories, gotten to know something of him as a man. And it was here that she and Anders had come to convince him about the potential for him entering their relationship.

Fenris paused near the window, then turned back to her. When he came close, he took her hand again, and squeezed it.

Fenris had been here before – had had time to adjust to what had happened to the place where their relationship had taken its first tentative steps. Sara remembered the day when Fenris had come home after finding out that the mansion had been boarded up – how angry and frustrated he had been. She understood that a little more now, having seen the gutting of what had once been his home.

“This isn’t what I wanted to show you,” he said, and gave her hand a gentle tug. Sara obediently followed Fenris as he led her to the window, where he hopped up onto the casement. He unhooked the window catch, pushed open the shutters, and stepped outside. Sara poked her head out after him to see him stepping along a narrow ledge that ran around the outside of the upper story. When he reached the corner, he smoothly clambered up some overly elaborate stonework decoration and onto the roof. Sara followed a little more tentatively.

The roof had a very gentle slope, peaking in the centre. Fenris made his way over to the other side of the roof, where it faced the harbour, and sat down. Sara picked her way over and sat down next to him.

Here, the wind came straight off the harbour, avoiding most of the smoke from the forge district. The humid breeze cooled the sweat on Sara’s exposed arms and its salty breath spoke to her of other places, other climes. The moon, high in the sky, reflected off the water, turning the harbour into a beautiful bowl with the Gallows a shining jewel in its centre. The flat rooves of Lowtown and the Docks were a patchwork of highlights and shadows. The struggle, the pain, all painted over by the silver light.

They sat for awhile in silence, before Sara said, “I can see why you like it here.”

Fenris didn’t turn away from the view. The wind gently pushed his hair back from his face, and Sara admired once again the sharp profile of his nose.

“I came up here a lot, before we got together. And then after. Before I joined you and Anders.”

Sara turned back to the sea and the moon. She rested her chin on her raised knees, and tried to imagine how Fenris must have felt during those times.

“Sounds lonely,” she said.

“It was,” Fenris said, and she looked over at him. “But it also gave me perspective. Up here, looking out over all the other people going about their lives, it made me realise how small I was, how insignificant. I am just one person among thousands. It made any problems that I had seem less significant too.”

Sara looked back at the vista. It didn’t make her feel like that. She looked over the city and saw responsibility. She was all too aware of the Viscount’s Keep looming behind them, sitting vacant. In front of them, the Gallows, where Meredith demonstrated the power under her control through hundreds of mage lights, like a beacon for anyone who cared to look. And, in between, in the humble dwellings of Lowtown and the Docks and the Alienage, the people of Kirkwall, caught in a conflict not of their making.

But it was beautiful, if you could forget all that.

She said nothing of her thoughts, sensing that Fenris was caught in his own introspection.

“I… am glad that I am with you,” Fenris eventually said.

Sara turned to him with an encouraging smile, hoping he would continue. He did.

“I thought that once you were with Anders there was no hope for me. And I was so angry with myself for giving up the one chance I had. When you asked me if I wanted to join you, I thought it was a cruel joke at first. Anders had always liked to flaunt his relationship with you in front of me. I thought that, perhaps, he had convinced you to go further. I… should have known better.”

He paused, and Sara waited.

“I came here that night, to think. And that’s when I realised that I really wanted it to be true. That, if it was, I would take the offer. That being with you… would be worth any cost.”

He slid his hand across the distance between them and took hold of hers. He took a deep breath, and turned to face her.

“It was here I realised that…”

“You loved me.” Sara said.

Fenris blinked, his mouth falling open. “Uh… yes,” he said. “I know I haven’t said it-”

“You didn’t need to,” Sara said. She leaned forward and gently cupped his cheek. “I love you.”

Fenris surged forward and closed the gap between them, his lips finding hers. “I love you,” he said between kisses, his voice husky. “I am terrified that something will happen to you.”

“You can feel it too,” Sara said. “Tension building. The city-”

“We could leave,” Fenris said. “The three of us.”

Sara considered it for a long moment, then sighed. “Part of me wishes I could. But-”

“Bethany,” Fenris said.

Sara nodded. “And Anders,” she said. “He has his clinic. People need him. We’ll just have to do our best to make this the kind of city we want to live in.”

Fenris took a deep breath, and then nodded. “I am forever by your side,” he said, and lifted her hand so that he could kiss the back of her fingers, the place where a signet ring would lie.

Trying to shake off a foreboding feeling, Sara turned back to the scene in front of them. “I wonder what view we would get from the Estate?” she said brightly.

Fenris smiled. “Let’s find out together.”