fadewalk | RP: Anders

Hawke's first day in Skyhold involved sleeping like the dead in Varric's bed. The second, mostly like the dead. She woke a few times to drink water until she thought she would burst, eat a few bites of something that was safe for her stomach, and curl back up.

The note to Anders had simply asked him to check in on her, and she was sleeping when he did, Varric stepping away while there was another familiar face to watch her.

She had her head buried under a pillow, arm pinning it tightly to hide her face, fingers twitching as she dreamed. Her thin wrist was about all that could be seen, scars lining the back of her hand, disappearing under the shirt up her arm.

Mostly she was just a bony lump under a heavy quilt, curled into a ball in the middle of the bed.

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The soft murmur of voices, Anders speaking in a low tone to Varric, preceded the mage's arrival. Then bootsteps heading away, and Anders slipped into the room and latched the door behind him.

He approached the bed quietly, a small, sad sort of smile appearing when he saw how Hawke was positioned. He hovered for a moment, and then opted to settle in a chair conveniently placed next to the bed, one Varric had undoubtedly been occupying to keep watch over Hawke till just now, since it was still a bit warm.

Anders leaned back in the chair and murmured to himself, "I am beginning to regret not keeping on with my knitting." His hands curled and then folded instead in his lap.

The voice that wasn't Varric's was enough to tug Hawke slowly upward toward consciousness. It took a few minutes of shifting and grumbling.

Finally, the twitching fingers stilled and then flexed and she dragged the pillow off her head far enough to cant her face up and peer at Anders.

It took her a moment of blinking to focus on him properly and then she threw the pillow at his head with a sudden flip of her wrist. "Maker, Anders, you were supposed to be hiding." She started clambering out of the bed, stiff and slow and awkward.

Anders caught the pillow easily and looked delighted by this greeting.

"No, I think the thing Hawke and Fenris and I had agreed on most recently was fleeing, although I suppose hiding was the next logical step." He grinned, but the grin quickly subsided when Hawke started to get up.

"Oh no you don't," he said, standing and crossing to her, his hands gentle on her shoulders to push her back to the bed. "You're not going anywhere until I look at you, Hawke. Er, sorry, Marian. Varric said you were a Marian, too. Apparently that's a popular one for versions of you." He perched on the edge of the bed next to her.

"Right. First thing's first, I'm not quite your Anders - I come from just after we fled Kirkwall, right after the...the Chantry explosion. You are, however, a sight for sore eyes, a Hawke that actually acts like Hawke. Hm. Bloody marvelous." He smiled fondly.

"Ugh, my mother called me Marian." Hawke cocked her head at him, smile crooked for a moment and then she shook her head. "Sod it, I don't care, copies, whatever. I'm going to hug you now, you feathery idiot."

She leaned over and wrapped her skinny arms around him in a tight hug, even emaciated as she was her wiry rogues strength pronounced, squeezing him for all she was worth. "I know you're not mine, if that's how we're talking about this stuff, but I missed you. You don't have to have missed me."

Anders threw his hands in the air. "That's it, forget that, I'm calling you Hawke. Can't call you what Leandra did, that wouldn't be right."

He squeaked, therefore, when Hawke hugged him, his arms caught between their bodies, and he flailed his hands a little and then settled for patting her on the shoulder. Awkwardly, considering the angle.

"I missed you too, sweetheart, even if you're not quite mine," he muttered, blushing slightly.

He cleared his throat and pulled back to say, "I had to go and give this Varric a lecture for letting you be left in some shitty Fadescape. Downright terrible of him and this - Inquisition whatever he's decided to join up with. Absolutely unacceptable. Remind me not to let the other you go gallivanting off on his say-so in a few years, if I make it back to her, hm?"

Hawke let him pull back, but kept his hand tightly in one of hers, eyes going shadowed as Anders spoke of the Fade, being left there. She wasn't really looking at anything as she said, barely any breath behind it, "It wasn't Varric's fault. I had to go. It was Corypheus and he was only out because of me."

The hand around his tightened a little further. "It was me or Alistair, and he had his wife, and the Wardens who needed him and you know me--" She gave a sluggish shake of her head, and forced another crooked smile. "World wasn't ever going to get better with me stirring up trouble every time I tripped over a rock. May as well play the hero one more time. Should've been a good ending."

She shrugged, wrinkling her nose. "Besides, if I've got this right you're totally in love with your Hawke and that probably means she'd like, punch the sun instead of leave you. Gross." She smirked sidelong at Anders, eyes a little sad.

Edited Date: 2015-08-22 07:10 am (UTC)

(ooc: since you have mentioned it, can Neria make a little appearance to talk to Hawke about the Adamant stuff?)

(OOC: That's totally fine with me. Not sure when Anders will be around this evening though. :) )

(OOC: I'm here! Sorry, this week has been rather ridiculous.)

Anders frowned faintly at her, getting a little furrow between his brows. Finally he shook his head and tapped her on the nose with one finger.

"You great big-hearted idiot, you," he muttered, affectionate and reproachful all at once.

At the mention of his Hawke, however, he stilled.

"She...ah. Well. I - I suppose she would." He looked abruptly like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

The finger on her nose made her blue eyes cross briefly, and she looked both surprised and comically affronted. But the shift in Anders' face made Hawke flinch and she reached over to pull him down into another hug.

"Hey now, it's fine. We'll figure it out. You can get back to where you belong and raise hell when the Circles rebel, alright?" She smoothed a hand over his hair, gesture familiar and warm, and almost maternal. She'd always been better at their problems, their heartaches, her ridiculous nonsense friends, than her own.

(OOC: Let us know if you're around Neria and we'll work you into the posting order?)

(ooc: oh, I'm here ^^ call me whenever you feel like it)

(OOC: Okay, lets do Anders, Neria, Hawke! You go ahead after Anders next rep.)

(ooc: neat!)

Anders stiffened in surprise when she hugged him, and then let out a half-choked laugh at the normalcy of the gesture. It was so very Hawke, and he hadn't quite realized how off it had been, meeting these Hawkes who didn't act like Hawke at all.

He shrugged as he pulled back, his expression deliberately casual.

"Well, even if we don't...that might not be the end of the world. Fenris will take care of her. They might be better off, honestly." His voice cracked on that last statement, but he said it doggedly anyways.

Neria had been pacing in front of the door for some good time now, thinking and re-thinking her decision on talking to Hawke. But she had a decision made on her mind, after all, and not even her own embarrassment would stop her now.

She knocked, opening the door just enough for her to avoid shouting at the other side. "Lady Hawke, I understand you're slightly better. Can we talk?"

Hawke's eyes had gotten big and round when Anders mentioned Fenris, a smile that demanded details starting to form on her lips. She was close with Isabela and Varric for a reason.

The knock on the door made her start, and then the voice made her sigh. "I'm not talking to anyone who calls me Lady anything, faceless hallway voice." She threw a glance at Anders, an eyebrow quirking.

The very nosy expression on Hawke's face was enough to draw a laugh from Anders, and her response to Neria only made him laugh harder.

"Come in, Neria," he said, chortling. "Hawke, I think you might want to woman whose husband you threw your own life away to save." He waggled an eyebrow at her, a bit provocatively.

Neria entered, slightly sheepish, closing the door behind her.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything." she smiled at the two "So, Hawke, I guess we never had the chance to meet in person, though I believe my husband presented you with a pendant I gave him during the Qunari Rebellion. You can call me Neria."

Hawke had turned quiet, paling slightly, when Anders indicated who it was. Maker, how awkward.

"I hope you don't want it back," was the first thing she blurted, and then she closed her eyes tightly. "Sorry, brain isn't all the way on-kilter yet." She rubbed the bridge of her nose and then said more steadily, "He mentioned you. A lot. Really, I had to start leaving cheese around to get him to shut up because he's just enough of a gentleman not to talk with his mouth full."

She winced. "Not that he's not a gentleman. I-- Hi. I'm Marian Hawke, I'm pretty sure I'm an idiot, and I'm sorry about that. It's nice-- nice? is that right? Need a better adjective-- anyway, it's superlative to finally meet you."

After she stopped talking she opened her eyes again, finally and blinked, looking for just a moment surprised to see other people there.

Anders started to rethink the invitation as soon as he saw Marian get pale at the sight of Neria. He frowned, healer's instincts kicking in, and settled more onto the bed, sitting cross-legged on the edge next to Hawke.

He reached over and pulled down her collar slightly, just enough to expose some bruises and cuts on her collarbone, and started muttering to himself, little "heavens, Hawke" thrown in with some scolding of himself and of his patient. Wrinkling his nose, he closed his eyes and started casting a whole body healing spell as Neria and Hawke talked.

"No, you definitely can keep it. The pendant, it is."

Neria sat next to Hawke, wrapping the woman's cold, bruised hands with her soft and warm ones. Her voice was soft and sweet when she spoke.

"I just wanted to thank you for sending my cheesy husband back to me. And please, don't apologize, you're still recovering. I should be the one apologizing for bothering you."

Hawke's remaining injuries are superficial, Aria having spent a great deal of magic to save her life when she'd first tumbled from the true Fade to this pocket. But the scars are deep and ubiquitous. As are the effects of spending months alone in the Fade. Time moved differently and occasionally she could find weird pockets of the world that might have water or table scraps to sustain herself, but by the end she was nearly dead of dehydration and starvation.

She shrugged a shoulder irritably at Anders tug at her collar, and frowned down at Neria's hands thoughtfully. "You're welcome," she finally murmured. "He's a good man, who deserves to be happy, and since he loves you so damn much, I assume it goes both ways. Always happy to help by nearly dying."

She raised her face at that, smile wry and sunny at the same time.

Anders, whose hands had been hovering sort of up and down Hawke's side and then just behind her neck as he casted, reached up and flicked Hawke's ear at that comment.

He gave her a disapproving look tinged with amusement.

"Well, I probably shouldn't trouble you anymore."

She squeezed her hand before standing.

"Anders, if she needs anything I can provide, don't hesitate to call me, yes?"

Hawke's hands being caught in Neria's still saved Anders from a really righteous rogue-quick wet-willy in that moment. She flinched and ducked her flicked ear against her shoulder, giving him a narrow eyed look before turning her gaze back to Neria.

"Did he make it back to you?" she asked softly. She hadn't been awake, coherent enough to read her journal yet, and while Varric had been talking while she slept, she was only sort of sure of what he and Aria had told her. "I'm starting a happy ending reuniting service, and it would be great to get your endorsement so that Anders here listens when I tell him it's going to be okay."