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“Fenris,” Hawke says, with the utmost patience. “My eyes are up here.”
Fenris’s gaze snaps upwards, transferring itself from Hawke’s feet to her face instead. “Fascinating though your eyes are, Hawke, I would much rather be making certain that I am not stepping on your toes,” he answers carefully.
The newly-titled Champion gives a huff of laughter, and nudges Fenris’s foot backwards an inch or two and back into position. “Then focus,” she chides him. “Varric, can we start again?”
“Sure thing, Hawke,” Varric replies, with a too-wide smile that says that Isabela is going to be regaled with every detail of this finery tonight in the Hanged Man.
Apart from Sebastian, he’s the only one of their merry band who even remotely knows how to dance (in an appropriate manner for high society, Hawke had added succinctly, when Isabela had made a comment about teaching her a dance involving a table and her mage's staff), and when Fenris had refused flat-out to dance with either of the men, Varric had offered instead to oversee the affair and teach them from a distance. Lounging back against the staircase and trying not to look as though he’s enjoying it too much, he twirls Hawke’s staff in his hands, and uses the end of it to thump a steady beat on the stone floor.
“Remind me again why I have to learn this,” Fenris says, as Hawke places his hand back on her waist and begins to, gently, guide him across the room. His intonation is so flat that it’s less a question and more a complaint that Hawke has heard plenty of since she suggested this whole debacle this morning.
“Because,” she answers simply, trying not to let her amusement show. It’s no secret that Hawke makes a joke out of everything – especially out of Fenris – but, just as one should try not to let a child know that their antics are amusing, she tries to discourage his particular breed of distemper. “It’s the ceremony tonight; remember? To name me Champion? Someone might just ask you to dance.”
Fenris eyes her suspiciously. “And by that, you mean to say that you intend to set the nobility on me.”
“I didn’t say that,” Hawke answers, her face alight with amusement. “But now that you mention it, there are some lovely young things visiting from Halamshiral…”
She’s taunting him. He can see it in the wicked curve of her lips and the mischief in her eyes, because she knows as well just as he does that he would never leave her for some other woman. Courts and noble titles and coin would mean nothing to him without this magnificent, infuriating woman at his side.
“If I have to even contemplate dancing with some courtly Orlesian puff, I am throwing myself off of the Viscount’s balcony,” he tells her flatly.
Varric, not half so adept at discouraging those sort of remarks, gives a bark of laughter, and the staff comes down a little too sharply on the floor. Lightning sparks from the top and burns a new blackened mark into the banisters.
Varric winces, though he's still laughing. “Sorry.”
“Enchantment!” Sandal declares, from across the room.
“Kill me now,” Fenris begs.
“Messeres,” Hawke says, releasing Fenris with a huff that could be either frustration or amusement. Likely both. “Would you give me and Ser ‘I Won’t Dance’ a moment, please?”
“By all means, take five,” Varric says, holding his hands up. “I need a drink.”
“Agreed,” Fenris mutters, though he stops when one of Hawke’s hands finds his arm.
“Fenris,” she says gently, the laughter gone from her eyes now. “Just one dance. I won’t make you learn more than that.”
It’s with surprising gentleness that she returns one hand to his shoulder, and takes his palm with the other, and for a moment Fenris marvels over how her fingers can be so soft despite their callouses, so delicate despite all of her scars. A frown knots at his brow, but nevertheless he allows himself to be guided into the first steps, his hand returning to her waist.
“I did not realise that you knew how to dance,” he remarks. Now that they are alone, he allows a certain softness to gentle his voice in a way that rarely occurs around their companions.
Hawke’s smile turns a little sheepish. Girlish, even, and Fenris can’t help but smile in response to see her relaxing. “I’m not that good at it myself,” she admits, even as she corrects his posture and shows him how to turn her under one arm. “But my father thought it was important to know at least a little. He taught-... Bethany and I... when we were very small.”
Fenris hears the catch in her voice and, understanding, touches her cheek lightly. He never had the chance to meet the younger Amell, but if she had been anything like her sister then he knows he would have liked her.
“The more I hear of your father, the more I think that he was a fine man,” Fenris remarks, and this is touching because Malcolm was a mage, Malcolm was a mage and it’s difficult for Fenris to admit that any of those attuned to the Fade have any worth in this world. But Malcolm means a lot to Hawke, and he’s the reason that Hawke is here at all, and for that he respects him, perhaps even wishes that he might have had a chance to meet him.
Hawke glances upwards, and gives a little laugh that’s half fond exasperation and half gratitude. “Yes, well,” she says. “Fine or not, the only preparation he gave me for the upper echelons of society was a half-decent understanding of the waltz, so you had better learn to lead or you’ll embarrass us both.” The latter is said with a joking growl as she corrects his posture yet again, straightening his back and forcing his shoulders out of their habitual stoop. “Honestly,” she chides. “I can’t turn up on the arm of a man who can’t even stand up straight.”
And just like that, she’s said it.
Fenris has already known that all of this teaching, all this bluffing and lecturing and talk of court ladies and high fashion is a cover. She wants me there, he thinks, and it makes him flush with pride that he should be the one that she’s chosen. There’s never really been any doubt that she would have taken someone else, but Fenris never takes anything for granted, especially Hawke, and he thrills to hear those words from her mouth.
Nowadays, the whole city is talking about Hawke. She is the Ferelden who restored her family name – one of nobility, nonetheless – ventured into roads untravelled and returned with incredible treasures and, most recently, saved the city from the brink of a civil war with the Kossith. Now bestowed with titles and a celebrity few could hope to match, they all know that won’t be long before the first suitors come knocking. Varric jokes about it and Isabela teases with the thought of some King coming to sweep Hawke off of her feet, but Fenris feels only jealousy, and not just a hint of fierce possessiveness.
But tonight, it will be his arm that she takes.
If there is anything that will deter those pompous nobles from aiming above their league, the elvhen bodyguard will be it. He might have hated being shown off like some trophy when he'd followed at Danarius’s heels, but tonight, he will be proud to be seen at Hawke’s side.
The title of Champion does suit her, much as he dislikes to admit it. It speaks of conquest, of glory, of all of the things he knew she could achieve from the moment that he first met this wild, beautiful, fantastic creature who has rescued him in more ways than either of them could have known. But at the same time, he regards the title with a certain sort of dislike. Champion of Kirkwall. It implies that he has to share her - with the city, with these bumbling nobles, with Kirkwall's inept guards and overzealous Templars.
Instead, he wants her to be just his Champion.
Although, he can live with it, he thinks. She might be a Champion, but she is still his Hawke.
He straightens his back, and lifts his eyes to meet hers. “Well then, Serah Hawke,” he says, and she gives a burst of laughter at his light-hearted formality. “May I have this dance?”