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

[wittyskepticism]

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.

Comments

[not_a_slave]

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.

[wittyskepticism]

"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.

[not_a_slave]

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?"

[wittyskepticism]

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."