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blondepomwrites · 6 years

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What We Leave Behind (1/4: Da’len)

Summary: Post Kirkwall, Hawke and Fenris have fled their lives and the Free Marches, trading certain Kirkwaller persecution for hunting down slavers along the Nevarran roads to Tevinter. When one of their efforts leaves them be-saddled with a orphaned elven boy, they find themselves forced to confront everything they had thought they'd left behind.

Part 1/4: Da’len

Rating: Teen, probably.

Ao3: [link]

Notes: This started out as a simple prompt request. You know, as it goes. The line chosen was: "I'm not jealous." by @aban-asaara. It began as a cutesy, fluffy (if not overly-indulgent), little idea that then became an excuse to explore a host of things painful and sweet in both their pasts, and then, spurred by a conversation with @cantfakethecake, it kinda turned into... well, this.

You know. As it goes.

[all titles subject to change]

“Hawke… No. Do not even think about it,” he said, knowing full well it was already too late.

They’d crossed into Nevarran territory following a lead on a suspected slaver’s route, and before long they stumbled over a well-trodden path from Kirkwall into Wildervale and then, inevitably, into Tevinter. After days of tracking through the plains and woodlands, the caravan they uncovered numbered near the hundreds. They’d had to splinter this caravan, hunting down the larger of the two groups before doubling back to free the rest.

They’d returned to find that in the chaos, many of the would-be slaves in the second group had tried their unshackled hands at escaping into the unforgiving hinterlands. Some found some unexpected aid. Others found bandits.

One such couple struck misfortune with the latter. The bandits left nothing behind but corpses in small clothes for the vultures. But what the corpses left behind…

“It’s alright,” Hawke spoke softly, as if her the weight of her words could break the air. “We’re not here to hurt you. We want to help you feel safe, I promise.”

Surveying the area to assure they were alone, Fenris set his greatsword against a tree with a defeated sigh, and, against his better judgement, knelt next to Hawke.

Mumbling something under her breath, Hawke paused, then in a voice that mimicked Merrill’s, she cooed, “Andaran atish’an, uh, da’len.”

A dirty, pinched little face peeked out from behind the tree, big eyes in a tiny frame glowering at them from under a messy nest of black hair. “Ma tel’sumeil!”

Hawke glanced to Fenris. “Did you catch that?”

“Why are you asking me?” He deadpanned, “because I have the ears for it?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Na, lethallin?” came the small voice again. The boy had stepped out partway from his hiding spot, revealing tattered, dirty rags that hung on his frame like a war-torn banner. His once hard stare had softened, widened, at the sight of Fenris.

For the life of him he wished he didn’t, but somehow Fenris knew that look.

The look that filled to the brim then burst like over-ripe fruit, tears pouring down the boy’s face like nectar over wrinkled skin. A cry that tore what had been held together too long by only eyes pinched shut and hands clapped over the mouth. The abandon in his steps as the boy broke for the first sign of familiarity and safety.

Even so, it nearly knocked the wind out of him when the boy finally crashed into him, a wave of untamed, unbridled, undeserved emotions too large for his small frame to contain.

The boy clung to him, tight as his own armor. There was no place for words in the boy’s wailing sobs; no room for anything but release of that which had been clamped down and wound too tight for far too long.

And Fenris could do nothing but put one arm around the boy, and then, uncertainly, the other, and hold him so that he did not fall completely apart into the dirt.

“Oh, sweet thing…” he heard Hawke exhale, and she ran a comforting hand over the back of the boy’s head.

The boy peeked out, and at the sight of Hawke, let out a howl of a scream and pressed himself deeper into Fenris’ armor. His cries reverberated off the metal in a way that haunted and hurt, and it showed in her eyes as she retracted her hand.

Hawke stood up, clearing her throat to smooth over the cracks that crept into her voice. “Well… I think it would be best if I… gave him some space. I’ll go… take care of them, then.”

Fenris must have given her the look of a dog with its own foot caught in a trap, as she reassured him, “You’re doing fine. Just keep holding him until he calms down. Unfortunately, that’s all you can do in these situations.”

The ending of slavers and the unshackling of their would-be slaves was always the easy part for Fenris. But this? This was Hawke’s area of expertise, not his. This was where he was relieved to have her to bridge the insurmountable gap from freedom to free.

Yet, here he was, with this responsibility quite literally thrown into his hands. Hands that were made to rend a beating, bleeding heart—never to mend it.

So, despite the instincts that told him better to gnaw off his own leg, Fenris did just as Hawke said. He held him against the sobs that rocked him like waves, against the screams that tore from his throat like clawing gales, and in spite of how the boy clenched and pounded his fists against the feelings he could not and should not have known.

It was the most frightening storm he’d had to weather. He knew that he was safe, but it was the little boy at the heart of the storm for which he found himself concerned, and even scared.

But like a summer’s squall, its throes were just as wild as they were sudden and suddenly ending, tapering off with the steady beat of soft sobs of exhaustion, punctuated with sniffles like retreating thunder.

Hawke returned then, dirt caked to the end of her staff. He could see the last of the ice she’d formed to make a spade melting from the tip. Fresh soil stained her hands. She leaned against her staff, eyes drifting over the ground between them. “I did for them what I could. Some space in a clearing, picked a few flowers, found a seed for each of them… I don’t know if they were trees, and I don’t know if they will grow, but… the thought was there, at least. I hope it’s enough…” She looked back to where Fenris was with the boy. “How is he?”

“Better,” Fenris said, “or, at least, he is settled somewhat.”

“Enough to where you can carry him?”

“Perhaps,” he answered, aware now of how his legs ached from remaining still for so long.

“I would be more than happy to hold him for you, but…” Hawke let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t think the feeling would be mutual.”

“I will manage.” He placed one hand on the boy’s back and supported him underneath with his arm, shifting his legs underneath him until he stood with the boy still pressed against him. He felt a murmuring in the back of his mind, like a something stirring from a deep slumber. He brushed it away. “There was an alienage not too far back from here. We could make it there within the day.”

She pounded the end of her staff into the ground, ice in her eyes and in her voice. “We are not taking him to an alienage.”

He gave an acknowledging nod and waited. She would know better than he what to do with an orphaned child. But when she did not say a word, he saw what went unspoken between them, and how she held it like parchment over a hungry, grasping pyre.

She made a habit of playing with fire—entertaining her follies and letting her heart speak louder than her mind for longer than was safe. He shook his head, voice low and dowsing. “We can’t keep him.”

Hawke looked away with a huff, indignance rising like a shield.

He could not tell if the weight on his chest came from the what he knew took cover behind her shield or from the elven boy curled, sobbing against his armor. Through both, he added quietly, “You know this, Hawke.”

When she met his eyes again, the look was only half as sharp as she perhaps intended. “Obviously. But… doesn’t mean you have to say it.”

Walking off, Hawke grabbed Fenris’ sword from where he left it. She hefted it to fit in the sling where she normally carried her staff. “Then we’ll find a clan to take him in.”

His sword looked out of place slung over her back, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest as she marched ahead. He began to follow in behind. “We haven’t passed any since the outskirts of Kirkwall.” He paused, finding his footing almost off balance. Smoothing his gait so that he didn’t jostle the boy like a sack of potatoes proved tricky on the forest terrain, but not entirely unnatural. “How do you suppose we’ll find one now?”

And she said, as if it was so simple, “By looking.”

Carrying on was not as easy as before. Though, Hawke reminded him many times, the boy was extremely complacent for a toddler—quiet and still as a sack of potatoes, sure, but also just as heavy. He kept having to shift the boy from arm to arm, and each time he did so he felt almost certain that he was going to end up dropping the boy on his head. But each time he found the motion to be as natural as a thought.

One that he brushed aside for now.

They’d tried to coax some words out of the boy as they went. Hawke soon surrendered the task to Fenris, as her words were only met with hiding and whimpers. It didn’t take long to find that the boy knew just about as much Trade as either of them knew Elven, but they were at least able to find a few words or phrases that would elicit a look of comprehension from him.

He even gave the shiest of smiles when he heard Fenris say Da’len. So that was how they called him.

Even so, the words of the Elven language felt clunky and out of place in Fenris’ mouth. The syllables sounded thick as dried mud and were just as pliant under his tongue. Though he did not say it aloud, he suspected Da’len found the language this lethallin less of a warm familiarity, and more of a fascination with his accent, if it could even be called that without offense. He may as well be the cat who barked to the elven boy.

For some of the time, Da’len slept—dirty face nestled on Fenris’ collar bone, unruly black hair brushing against Fenris’ neck with each step. When he did, Hawke allowed herself closer, stealing long, longing looks at the little boy who spurned her.

After a little while, she offered up, “I’m not jealous, or anything.”

Fenris scoffed. His arm hurt, the constant contact made his skin crawl, and the toddler wasn’t exactly fragrant right under his nose. “There is little to envy here, believe me.”

Hawke shook her head. “From this angle he reminds me of little Bethany—only father and I could rock her to sleep after a bad dream.” She reached a hand to stroke his hair, but caught herself and retracted to crossing her arms. “You seem to be handling him fine enough, though.”

“There are… things for which I have plenty of patience.”

“I know… I see it every day. You put up with me.”

That elicited a chuckle from him. “For some things more than others, yes.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. Despite—or perhaps due to—the deadweight in his arms, he still tried to keep a sharp eye out for any threats lurking in the woods around them. He assumed Hawke did the same, until he checked in and saw her eyes no longer resting on Da’len but on the boy and himself. Placid and drifting like a boat on open water, he could not catch her gaze. He felt himself begin to flush. “What?”

She blinked and refocused. “What? Oh. I’m not… Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Da’len shifted and began to stir, rubbing one hand at a puffy eye.

Pulling out her staff, Hawke sighed. “And that’s my cue to go off scouting ahead again… Please tell him I’m not a slaver or anything and that I just want to hug him and squish his little cheeks.”

He smirked, partially in relief that he could now shift the boy to his other side. “I thought you said you weren’t jealous?”

She called back from stomping her way forward, “I’m not! At all! Not even the littlest bit!”

Da’len looked up at him under half-lidded eyes and cheeks that wore an impression of the leather in Fenris’ armor. He asked in a small voice that barely broke above a whisper, “Iras mamae la papae, lethallin?”

Although he could not understand the question, the sounds parsed themselves enough for him to know that he could not give him the answer he wanted. Fenris looked to the trees, remembering the tradition of the vallasdahlen. Even if he had the words to tell a tale he did not know, how much would the boy understand anyway? Would it even be fair to lead him to understand so soon?

Fenris shook his head and gave him the only answer he could: “I’m sorry, da’len.”

And although the little elven boy could not understand the words he used, Fenris’ answer seemed to give Da’len enough peace. He felt Da’len loosen his hold, leaning back to peer up at the trees overhead and the mottled mosaic of green and blue they made with the sky.

All the while, Fenris kept his eyes on the ground, unwilling to see how numerous and tall were the trees in these ancient woods. But he could not stop himself from wondering how many of them grew on buried remains, and what those buried remains had had to leave behind.

#fenhawke #fhawris #fenris #f!hawke #f!fenhawke #marian hawke #dragon age #dragon age ii #fanfiction #mine #What We Leave Behind #prompt fiction #also fun edit: I CAN'T FUCKING COUNT #there are only going to be four parts not five #god I hope that stays true

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