sixthiterationlogs | she's waiting for superman to pick her up ( OPEN )

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she's waiting for superman to pick her up ( OPEN )

WHO: Hawke
WHERE: Dragon Age House + all over
WHEN: July 1st, a while after the earthquake
OPEN TO: ALL + closed starter for Fenris
WARNINGS: None for now, will update if needed

FENRIS

Natasha had wanted to stay for a while to look over some of those papers. What Hawke could gleam from them didn't make much sense, but Natasha seemed to think it was worth looking through just so they wouldn't lose anything. That made sense, given that the first papers they tried to take out of the pod disintegrated. So she did her best to look over a few of them, too, though her memory wasn't the best for things like this. Besides, Natasha was also right in that this scary metal thing would probably survive better than they would if the cave system fell apart around them.

What that would do to everything inside they couldn't say, but both of the women seemed more willing to take their chances here than outside.

Everything changes when Hawke finally steps outside to see the damage. Maybe those tremors they were feeling were worse than they'd thought. She pauses for a time just to take it in and for a moment, for one long moment, it's like standing on the edge of Kirkwall after that last talk with the Arishok. After Isabela had run off with the relic, after Hawke and Aveline had failed to talk down the Arishok and the order to attack Kirkwall came. It's like the final confrontation with Meredith. Just in that long, terrifying moment, Hawke feels the fear all over again, briefly paralyzed with the worry that the city, the town, might be gone for good or that all of the people might not survive. That her friends, her sister, might pay in blood for something she'd done.

It doesn't last and she snaps out of her thoughts, her gaze drawn immediately in the direction of her claimed house. "Fenris." Not that he can't take care of himself, but he's the one remaining piece of her life in Thedas. The most important part of her life here. "I'm going to help people," she tells Natasha, "but first I have to find Fenris."

And then she's off, tearing across the ground as quickly as she can. "Fenris!" she yells as she nears the house, praying to a Maker that might not be capable of listening that he's all right. "Fenris!"

OTA

Once she's sure that Fenris is okay and the house will survive, Hawke will take to the streets as she always does. A crisis is always a reason to be out and about. Hawke has never shied away from helping people in need and now is no different. If someone needs help getting somewhere or finding someone or getting dug out of rubble, she's there and she will help. It makes her miss her family mabari, though. Cailan would be vital in helping her sniff out people trapped or injured. But all she has is herself right now; that's always been good enough in Kirkwall, so she's determined to make it enough here.

"Are you all right?" she always asks whenever she runs into someone else out here. "Do you need anything? Are you looking for someone?"

In its own way, those simple questions are a cry, a plea, for the one thing Hawke has always wanted in her life: Let me help you.

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He feels kind of stupid, but in all the mess after the earthquake, Jacob had gone into a sort of narrow headspace, where the only thing he was worried about was right in front of him. He wished that he could be the heroic type to go around and rescue people or to do something like heal them, but he can't. He's a baker and he can keep the ovens going, but the trouble is that the earthquake had made a bit of a mess in the kitchen and the oven is currently without decent wood to get it stoked up. "I need firewood," he says, which ought to be easy enough to get, but he's in half a panic right now and he's not thinking straight.

If he were, he'd know he could go borrow from the inn, but right now, all he's thinking is 'I ought to cut some down', like that's the best answer to all this.

Hawke would never blame him for that reaction if she knew. Sometimes she wishes the opposite, that she wasn't the type of person to be all heroic and rescuing. It would be so much easier to just hide out and wait for it all to blow over and then go about her business as usual. But she would never be able to live with herself, especially not after Kirkwall.

Still, it's oddly comforting to be asked for a small task rather than a huge Save-The-Day sort of thing. As tired as she is, as weird as everything has been since she and Natasha wandered into that cave again, she takes solace in this, the mundane rather than the extraordinary. Oddly enough, she needed this.

"I'll get you some," she says easily. As much as she can carry from the Inn or any trees that may have shed branches in the mess on the way. "Are you hurt? Do you need to see a healer?"

Though... the term healer will forever be tainted for her.

Jacob shakes his head, because he's not hurt, he's not even bruised up. He'd ducked under a table as soon as the ground started shaking and hadn't come up for air until an hour had passed with no movement. It had seemed like the smart thing to do, truthfully, but now Jacob feels a little bit in shock. He's never been through an earthquake before in his life and he's not sure why it's made him feel so out of control.

Maybe because it's just another in the long line of things that happen here that he can't explain? Or maybe it's just that Jacob wants to go back to having a normal, boring life. Worse, what if the shock is because he just wants to do more and doesn't know where to start. "No, no, I'm fine," he insists, trying to make sure she doesn't fuss over him when he's okay. "Never been through an earthquake before, but I've been through some pretty heavy shelling."

And maybe, just maybe, that's it. Those old nightmares about the war that he's buried so deep, maybe the earth quaking below him like a shell hitting the trenches is enough to haul his history back around and make him think about lost friends, lost brothers.

Unfortunately for Jacob, Hawke's world doesn't have the same things. They have bombs, of a sort, but it's not the same and as far as she has heard, no one calls it by that term. Maybe they would if the Earth variety were more common, but it's mostly magical warfare these days. Or darkspawn. That kind of "shell" doesn't even enter into Hawke's thoughts.

And part of that might be because the only bomb she can remember being near was the one Anders set up in the chantry as she unknowingly distracted the Grand Cleric because she trusted him. The one that turned a place of worship and safety into a big gaping maw of magic and debris, breaking her heart into thousands of pieces along with it.

Luckily, she isn't even thinking about that yet, though it's probably only a matter of time.

Instead, she tilts her head a little bit at his reference. "What, did someone throw shells at you?" She wouldn't joke if she knew, but this is too far out of her understanding at the moment.

He frowns, trying to figure out if she's just teasing him or whether she actually means it. He'd figured out pretty quick after the war that some people just genuinely didn't know what happened over in Europe, so he never wanted to presume and think that they ought to have known. "I was in the war, in Europe," he says.

"We, both sides of us, had this heavy artillery that came down on you like the worst thunder you've ever heard, all while you're trapped in craters and trenches. Even on the back lines, you still heard it," he admits, trying to push through the memory.

"They called 'em shells."

The change in Hawke is almost immediate, the easy teasing look to her slipping off almost like water flowing down a slope. She can remember hearing the bomb go off, seeing the whole of the chantry turn red and then disappear entirely, vaporized by Maker knows what. Guilt swells up in her with the knowledge that her hand played a role in that, the blood of the clerics and whoever else was inside is on her hands no matter what anyone says, but she shoves it aside. The automatic joke that wells up to take its place feels like acid on her tongue and so, for once, she shoves that aside as well.

"We don't have that where I'm from. Magical bombs, apparently, but not that. And our wars aren't fought in trenches or craters. It's all face-to-face where you can easily see the person who's trying to kill you."

It's getting a little too close to actual feelings and emotions for her, so she tries to push past it all and find something else to focus on. Something that won't be as difficult to push through or bring with it the hint of some of her less pleasant past events.

"I don't know about a place called Europe, though. I'm from Thedas."

At first, he's reminded of the explosion at the Chantry: a deathly hush while everyone paused for just a moment to process what Anders had said, then a roar like nothing he'd ever heard before as a plume of fire and smoke soared into the sky, the Chantry shattering around it, debris and damage raining onto the city from a cloud of destruction. Fenris hears the roar start, and he runs for the door, only making it partway before the floor starts to shake under his fet, jolting him off balance and flinging him the remaining few feet. He grabs for the door-handle and pulls it, just managing to crawl outside before another sudden shuddering of the ground knocks him back to the ground. This time he can't get up, all he can do is listen to the sound, try to roll away from the house, because he doesn't know what's happening but he's sure it can't be good to be inside.

It feels an eternity, though he knows that's just the way that the mind slows down in the midst of danger. Eventually, the ground stops shaking, and he gets to his feet, unsure exactly what just happened, and he turns to look for damage. He, fortunately, seems to be unharmed, beyond perhaps some bruising from the fall, but there's the sound of crashing in the distance which suggested that not everything in the village has.

Hawke. She's been gone for some time, and he doesn't know where she is.

"Hawke!" It's foolish to call her name when she's surely nowhere nearby, but he calls it anyway, and he runs in search of her.

He's not sure how long he's gone, but he's headed back for the house after a futile search, whispering under his breath about a Maker he's not sure he truly believes exists for a former slave, when he hears her voice.

"Hawke!" He turns in the direction of her shout and breaks into a long, loping run.

"Hawke, what has happened? Where have you been?"

Hawke has had that same thought several times down in the cave system before she and Natasha surfaced. This feels all too much like the Chantry explosion and it brings back terrible memories and a whole lot of guilt, all of it rushing to the surface like bile. Though she knows Fenris is more than capable of handling things on his own, especially if brute strength is needed, she can't help but worry for him anyway. What she would do if something happened to him...

Thank the Maker she doesn't have to find out just yet. Still, she meets Fenris near the house, each running towards the other. For a moment, as she slows herself to a stop just in front of him, the thought of throwing her arms around him and holding him close like she might do with Bethany flits across her face. It's gone in an instant, replaced by the knowledge that he isn't much of one for tough and that she would be most likely to need the comfort this time. Instead of letting any of those thoughts pass through her lips, she focuses on the rest, on the fact that he's safe.

And then on the rest of the village.

"I was hoping you could tell me," she says seriously. "I met someone by the river and we decided to check on that metal thing in the cave again. It opened this time and we've been inside collecting information ever since. We just stepped out to see all of this." She waves a hand at the madness, though at least half the village isn't on fire like it would've been were this Kirkwall. "There were a few earth shakes earlier, but we couldn't hear anything else. Did someone raid the village?"

They have a shared culpability in the explosion, all of them, for they'd known what a fanatic Anders was and they'd let him be instead of handing him over to the Templars. Some had believed in his self-righteous quest, like Merrill, but Fenris had been lured into assurance by Hawke's trust in the Abomination, for that was what he was, for all he'd pretended that the noblity of a spirit of Justice could make the outcome of their merging any different than so many others they'd seen in Kirkwall.

Fenris doesn't blame Hawke for what happened, though; if he did, he wouldn't, couldn't have taken her side with the mages against the Templars' Rite of Annulment, for what little good it did. He'd only thought about her safety, and that's his thought now as he sees her running towards him.

He'd expected fires and smokes, and it's fairly clear that this wasn't the same thing as he'd experienced in Kirkwall, but the earth itself shaking.

Fenris shakes his head. "Not that I have seen or heard. There has been no fighting, only the earth shaking and roaring."

He steps closer to her. "Are you hurt?"

She doesn't seem it, but it's important to know.

Hawke hadn't seen him as a problem up until that last minute. And then suddenly everything had turned upside down and all around. It was like her life had been crumbling before that and then Anders drove a wedge into the cracks and set fire to the remains. He'd broken her heart and Hawke wanted nothing more to do with him.

Despite the differences, Kirkwall is on her mind as she addresses Fenris. She half expects something else to explode or shower them with red lyrium. Or worse, a demon to get summoned. An arcane horror to liven things up.

"Any sign of demons?" she asks quickly before she shakes her head. "I've been through worse."

She's been hurt worse. Though she's got a few cuts and bruises, her red hair hides the worst of them and she isn't bleeding anymore. But she is always her last concern. There are other people who might be hurt, people who might need her help.

"I want to try helping these people. But afterwards, when things calm down..." She barely knows how to say it, but she wants a little time to reassure herself that she hasn't caused Fenris any pain. That he's safe and doesn't need to be brought before a real healer. If something happened to any of her people because of her...

It'd be like Kirkwall-flavored guilt all over again.

He shakes his head.

"No, or holes in the sky."

Those had made the earth tremble, in Thedas, too, as the Veil tore into the Fade and allowed its spawn into the world. It had been fairly settled in the Hinterlands, at least since the Inquisitor went through and stabilized the situation, but things in Thedas had been driving towards chaos thanks to Anders and his war.

Still, he wishes he had his sword, or even the wretched abilities the lyrium burned into his skin once gave him, because then he'd feel protected, and able to protect. He's no man's bodyguard any more, but he's Hawke's companion here, the only one she has.

"I will come with you, Hawke."

It's good that there are no holes in the sky, either. Hawke isn't sure she could deal with that and she hasn't seen the Inquisitor in a while. If they're on their own for that, neither she nor Fenris is up to dealing with things. Kirkwall style trouble Hawke can handle. The Veil being torn and another Breach? No.

A part of her hadn't known what to expect, but the majority of her is pleased to see that despite not having seen each other for a time just prior to arriving here, Fenris is still her friend and companion. Where one goes, so will the other follow. Usually it's Fenris following Hawke, but if he wants to do something particular in the future, she would happily reverse roles with him. For now, she just nods, managing a small smile of gratitude.

"I always knew I could count on you," she jokes, before she turns to head off in the direction of something she can do.

They work as hard and as long as necessary, assessing damage and helping people. Even if it's something as small as a fetch quest to find firewood. Eventually, things seem to settle down, the earth's tremors calmer, and the two of them end up back at "home." Hawke steps inside and almost immediately flops down on the sofa, looking for all the world as though she's too tired to continue. In reality, her mind is thinking too much, imagining a few worst-case scenarios, and darting back into the past.

"Almost feels like Kirkwall," she comments after a moment or two. "The city rocks, people get hurt, and we run to the rescue."

They had parted ways, back in Thedas, but it had been through circumstance rather than by choice. They'd had to, after the attack on the Gallows. Yet here, he's slipped back into the exact same routine of following Hawke, looking after Hawke, even though he's never been her bodyguard as such, just a friend. And now they're back together again, it's as much wanting her company as anything else that draws him out with her, but as he follows her out into the damaged village, it's less that than the desire to help, because she wants to help. Because he can help.

So he follows her, as she helps, and he lends his strength to her quests, and it's a long, tired day by the time the two of them get back to the house.

"I'm starting to think you don't know any other way to respond," he teases as he sinks into a chair opposite her sofa, his forearms resting heavily on his knees.

"It seems that disaster follows wherever we go."

Fenris might not have ever been her bodyguard, specifically, but Hawke has always thought of him as more than a friend or companion. He's part of her group, part of the people she has always been closest to. He may as well be her family by now for all that her only living relative of any worth is Bethany. Maybe Charade, if she doesn't take too much after her father. Either way, Fenris is a part of Hawke's life that she'd missed while she was gone and to have it back now feels...

Right.

"Disaster follows wherever I go," she points out, though it's less self-deprecating than it could be. "I'm a herald of disasters. Astrid Hawke: walking disaster. Sometimes I wonder why anyone follows me at all."

He would not wish to have it expressed in that manner. They know, both of them, the trouble that has followed her, but she's speaking with someone who spent three years with danger literally following him in the form of hunters and Danarius' mercenaries.

"When I met you, I was followed by a more immediate danger than you. I was used to it."

And since then, he'd become used to following Hawke, so used to it that he doesn't feel right when he's not. But it's not about that, now. It's about wanting to help. To help, in general, and to help Hawke, too.

Fenris rests his arms on his knees, tiredness from the long day seeping through him.

"What happened in the cave?" he asks.

"I suppose the big question is whether or not you're used to my kind of trouble," she teases, though there's not much remaining heat to the joke. She knows well what kind of danger was following him when he met her and she's vowed to keep him away from it for as long as she can.

Another knife of guilt slices into her at the reminder that she's supposed to be dead and thus couldn't protect him even if Danarius were still alive. She'd left him alone and broken that promise to herself. What a wonderful legacy the Champion of Kirkwall has left him.

"The little metal pod thing that's been tucked away opened," she answers finally, curling up more on the couch so she's got her legs tucked under her. It's not a position she normally takes, but she's feeling less than ideally comfortable at the moment, so tucked up it is. "I've never seen anything like it, Fenris. Natasha said something about computers and technology, but I couldn't understand any of the writing. Or how the thing just lit up on the inside without any fires or torches or candles. No magic that I could see, though without Bethany or Merrill I'll never know for sure. I want to go back sometime to ask Natasha about it, but not now."

Hawke's a little too tired at the moment.

"She was determined to memorize and read as much as she could before we left. That's why I was gone so long." Because of course Hawke couldn't just leave Natasha there. That would go against every fiber of her being.

She'd long ago discharged any need to keep him safe from Danarius, as far as Fenris is concerned. She'd done everything she could to help him from the start, even when he'd lied to her at the start of it all. Were it not for Hawke, Danarius would have captured him in Kirkwall, and freedom would have been just a dream, if he'd been allowed even that.

He frowns as she describes where she'd been and what had happened. He doesn't have any more suggestions than Hawke does to how it may have happened. He knows more about magic than he'd ever cared to, but there is no magic here, where even lyrium has no power.

"It sounds like magic," he says, but his tone is reluctant, aware as he is that there's been little evidence of magic at work in this place, and also of Hawke's comments when he'd wondered about magic in the ice cream.

"Did she make any sense of it?"

Hawke will never let Fenris fall back into the hands of a slaver if she can at all help it. Granted, she only has this life and this place to manage it, but she'll do her best anyway. He means too much to her not to.

It does sound like magic, Hawke agrees with a nod. But she can't see how it is, given everything that they know about this place already. "I thought that, too," she admits. "Maybe someone's trapped a mage somewhere, but then I'd expect to see... something. I wish Merrill were here. She'd know."

Blood mage or not, Merrill would be able to tell them a lot more about the magic in this place than anyone else. And to be honest, Hawke misses her innocence. She misses a lot of her friends, in all honesty.

"I think so? She seemed to understand more of it than I could. Maybe it's something she's seen before, wherever she's from, but it's nothing I've ever seen." She pauses, glancing at him. "I'll take you there next time I go, if you'd like."

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she's waiting for superman to pick her up ( OPEN )

ota

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