romdeau | a fishing date;

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a fishing date;

There were no impromptu trips to Sundermount, in fact. Merrill had holed herself up with the Eluvian, avoiding Hawke whenever possible. The Arulin'Holm stayed at the estate, locked away somewhere, and the Dalish woman didn't want to see or hear from Hawke without good cause. Which was understandable (upsetting, but understandable), and she let Varric and Isabela take over Merrill's undertaking. They'd update her whenever possible and she was infinitely grateful, though she knew things couldn't stay that way forever. Eventually, they'd need to talk, and that would happen when Marian was good and ready. For now, she wasn't.

First on her mind was Anders and his mage underground. He would disappear for days on end, surfacing only to work in his clinic where he would refuse to go on any errands. Too busy, he'd say, occupied with his patients and his manifesto. It didn't stop him from pressing worn papers into her hands at every opportunity, the bastard. Her desk was full of Anders' scrawl, damning evidence if anyone should walk in and ask about it. She'd been certain to lock them in the bottom drawer, out of sight and out of mind, but she couldn't put him off any more than she could push aside the trouble she had with Merrill.

With her hands full of Kirkwall's smaller troubles - bandits, a few raiders on the outskirts, and a blood mage or two - she had nearly forgotten her plans with Cullen until she returned one night to a note on her desk at the end of the week. Even such a simple thing was enough to brighten her mood considerably and she packed that evening, though she wasn't to meet him for two more days.

She used the time to tell only a few that she'd be gone from the city, that no one was kidnapping her, and that she'd be very cross if she came back to find Kirkwall burning in her absence. Only Isabela and Varric gave her a hard time for her attempts at discretion, asking for details and gaining nothing.

By sunset on the second day, she was down by the docks to meet him, a pack slung over one arm and her blades across her shoulders, her eyes on the ships and the few workers lingering around. She couldn't be too careful, even now.

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"You'd be surprised. I think she would enjoy proving the work and competency of the guard before wanting to embarrass or demean a Templar. If anything, she'd make it harder on you to prove her point." She smiled. "No, you wouldn't know I was there. If you did, I wouldn't be doing my job properly."

It was surprisingly easy to step as he bade her bodies flush and shared warmth trapped between them. It coaxed another fleeting smile, gone with parted lips and flicks of tongue. Her hand cupped the back of his neck in an effort to keep him close and she tilted her head to deepen the kiss and slide her tongue against his. All too soon, something else caught her attention and she pulled back just enough to leave a hair's breadth between them. "Your water's boiling, soldier."

"You know her better. I accede to your familiarity," he murmured, head tipping down very slightly and his smile in his eyes.

He was just starting to feel the tug of getting more serious about the kiss when she pulled back and spoke. He let out one soft chuff of laughter, not much more than breath, and nodded. "A Templar's work is never done." With a final caress of fingers at the small of her back he pulled away, set the spoon aside, and lifted the pot of crabs. He dumped them quickly into the water, the top foaming and hissing until it settled a little again.

"How long do they stay?" he asked, moving to draw the other half closer for when it was their turn.

Edited 2012-09-25 19:47 (UTC)

"Thank you," she murmured nearly against his lips, hand reaching up to brush against his chin.

She smiled slyly as they parted, hiding her reluctance to let him go. "Yes, poor you. I can almost guarantee it'll be worth it if everything turns out right." She took the now empty pot from him, leaning it on her hip briefly. "The water needs to get back to a steady boil but we just need to wait until as many as possible are floating on the surface. They'll be a bright color, too."

Hawke ducked away to refill the pot with cold water, bringing it back to set on the floor a small distance from the fire. "When they're ready, we'll let them cool in here to keep them from overcooking."

"That sounds like it's going to need our close attention. Pity that." A corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. Maker, he was getting bad tonight. Twice wasn't enough for you? he thought wryly, shaking his head.

He nodded understanding, watching the pot. A couple of the smaller crabs were already floating, the shells turning a brighter reddish orange as he watched. As unpleasant as they had smelled going in, he was surprised that they didn't now. In addition to the sharp scent of the spices, there was a seafood smell he always associated with good food. His mouth watered a little and he took up the spoon to give a little stir.

There was a brief chuckle from her and she tossed her gaze at the pot to distract herself. It was too easy for her to smile tonight. "The sooner they're finished, the sooner we eat. Eyes on the prize, Sera." Even if that statement held promise.

The smaller crabs caught her attention and she kept a close eye on them when they finally bubbled to the surface. "Those can probably come out in the next minute. Leave the rest in. It'll give them more room to come to the top."

"Always," he said with a touch of heat in his smirk.

He nodded again, finally truly turning his attention back to the task at hand. She made it difficult to stay focused. She had felt too good against him earlier. His lips still tingled.

He dipped the smaller crabs out when they were a deep red and plopped them into the cold water. A few of the others were starting to come up now. He could see the legs and flat bodies twirling lazily against the rapid boil. It was hard to believe that anything could go from looking so unappetizing to delicious in such little time.

She took the time to get out some dish towels, plates, and utensils, setting them on the table. Cleaning would come first, obviously, but then they could just as easily plate them. She hadn't the faintest idea what time it was, the shutters on the windows effectively keeping them in the dark save for the light of the fireplace. It wouldn't have mattered to her, though she had to remind herself that he would eventually need to take his leave before he was needed back at the Gallows.

When the first two crabs hit the water, the mabari was up and going over to the pot, looking into it curiously. He made no move to steal what was there, though it was clear his curiosity was piqued. He cocked his head to the side.

"Out of there," she said with a grin as she wandered over to check on the pot. She glanced over Cullen's shoulder. "Oh, but they smell good."

He smiled down at the dog as he came over for a sniff. He couldn't blame him. It was all smelling good enough that if he was by himself, he'd already be cracking into one of the ones that cooked the quickest. "They really do. I shouldn't have been so worried." The proof would be in the taste. He had a hard time imagining they'd smell that good only to taste awful.

"I'll have to stop by and make a point of thanking the cook who put that together for me." They wouldn't have done half as well if he had been given free rein of the spice cabinet and had to guess what might work.

As more floated to the top, he dipped them out and passed them over to the cold water pot. The more that came out of the boiling water, the faster the rest seemed to cook. By the time they were all done, he was stirring all the way to the bottom just to be sure he didn't miss any. He added in the other half of the spice mix and bent to lift the remaining crabs to pour them in. He had to jump back a little to avoid being splashed. "All right. I guess we start cleaning them now?"

"I wonder sometimes if cooking isn't more frightening than most other things in life. You ruin a good meal and you can go hungry. If you're too terrified to try, you'll be stuck with dried meat and hard tack." A lesson she and her siblings learned the hard way on multiple occasions.

"Where did you get it? I might have to go down there myself to thank them," she joked, stepping aside so he could pull out the rest of the crabs. When he went for the second batch, she picked up the pot of cooling crabs and set it on the counter. "And picking them apart, yes. This is the fun job."

She reached in and grabbed one of the top crabs, handing it to him. It was warm to the touch, nearly hot, but manageable. She grabbed another for herself. She flipped it over to expose the legs. "Grab here," she instructed, showing him the apron, "and break it off." There was a small hole where the apron had been when she finished, and she motioned for him to follow her to the basin on the counter. "This is the messy part. Put your thumb in the hole like this...and then lift it up carefully." It took a few moments for her to pull the carapace enough to get it free. It came away cleanly, of course, besides the innards that would always come with it. She smiled at the messiness of it all.

"I like dried meat." As for hard tack, least said best said seemed to be the way to go. "I do all right at a campfire, better when I hunt. They make us cook as recruits. They don't teach you much, though. I'm better at making huge meals for dozens of people than anything closer to individual portions, and you can expect it to be edible, not good."

He chuckled. "One of the Gallows' cooks helped me out. I said what I'd be cooking, not that I'd be sharing it."

He took the crab and leaned in closer to watch her. It looked simple enough. His fingers were quite a bit bigger than hers, not as dexterous. Still, the apron came away fairly easily. He closed the short distance to the basin and mirrored her actions. With a cracking sound, he worked the shell loose and off. "It's almost like a wrapped package."

"That's how I am. I can make meals around a campfire after hunting but don't ask me to make much else. Soups, stews, and anything that can roast on a spit or in a pan over an open flame." She smiled, the motion fleeting with embarrassment. "Orana and Bodahn do more than I can ever ask for by just handling most of the cooking. Saints, honestly."

A messy sort of package, truth be told. She set down what they wouldn't be needing, turning her crab over in her hand. "A little, yes." With a thoughtful hum, she raised an eyebrow. "I can never remember where these things are. I think they're... Yes, here." She pinched something rubbery at the side, pulling it out. "These are inedible too." They went into the basin. Then came the mouth, a little trickier. She worked her thumb around the mandible and cracked it off. "And this."

"I'd likely go hungry if I had to fend for myself in the city cooking, or I'd eat out too often and have trouble fitting my armor." He wouldn't have expected Hawke to be any better at it than he. People who worked the streets with their blades weren't stay at home types. They wouldn't last long in Kirkwall if they were.

He wrinkled his nose slightly. "They look inedible. I can't tell what those are supposed to be." He dug around inside the one he was working on. The texture was no better than how it looked. He wasn't as smooth working the mouth. His thumb nail was short and had a hard time catching. "No wonder anything with crab in it is expensive at the restaurants." If he had to spend this much time preparing something for someone else, he'd charge them for his labor, too.

Her laugh was almost too loud. "You would not. Meredith would work those extra pounds off of you. Send you up and down those fine Kirkwall steps several dozens of times. You'd be even more trim than you are now."

Hawke grinned and set hers down, moving to cup his with him. "Here, hold on." Though blunt, her nails were a little longer than his. She worked her thumb nail in to help him with the mandibles. "You can use a knife too. Just be careful. Those little things can fly out at you." She grabbed a handful of water from the pot and poured it into the opening she'd made with her fingers, allowing the water to wash out any of the remaining goo inside of the crab. "Give it another cleaning and..." She set hers down to go grab a plate, bringing it back for them. She took her crab and split it down the middle. "And there you go."

"You're probably right about that. What sort of message would a fat Knight-Captain send?" Meredith would not only send him up and down the steps, she'd chase him and beat him along the way.

He watched again and decided the knife was probably the best route for him to go. He didn't bite his nails. They just never stayed very long because he was always doing things with his hands or wearing gauntlets. The thumb nails in particular were very short. He fetched one of the knives she had out and returned to watch the rest.

"You make it look so easy." If he thought it smelled good before it was open, now that it was cracked, it was like ambrosia. He hurried to finish his, too, taking care as she warned.

"That the Templars take all kinds, obviously. You'd probably give the impression of having quite a bit of money if you could afford to eat in the city every day. Maybe more recruits would join?" The thought was too much; she was back to laughing as she discarded other pieces of the crab she worked on.

"You're doing fine," she assured him with a smile over her shoulder. "And you have the rest of them to practice on. You'll be a master in no time at all." She set both halves of the crab on the plate, grabbed the dish towel, and went to go check on the other pot.

She gave it a stir while she was there, just in case, then went back to his side to help him with the rest. They smelled heavenly, such a contrast from before. She cracked into the second one with ease.

"Join and be bitterly, bitterly disappointed at their pittance wages while I flaunted my impressive girth," he said with a chuckle.

"This is the kind of skill I enjoy learning." He cracked open the crab in his hand and set it aside for the next. "Immediate results from the hard work. No waiting years for it to pay off, when you can finally disarm your weapon trainer only to have him pull out some other move you've never seen and topple you onto your arse. They're tricky that way, the training officers. They don't want you getting full of yourself. But this? If I'm not full by the time it's over, we've done something terribly wrong, like discarded the good bits and saved the rubbery ones."

It was messy work but not at all unpleasantly messy, not like smearing the bait in the bait wells. That alone ensured he would never take up crabbing in any serious capacity. The scent of rancid fat would eventually be enough to put him off of his prizes. He was sure of it.

"The envy of all of the recruits. They would beg for a reason to be Knight-Captain just for whatever perks they imagine you're getting. And then they'll be shocked and mortified to find that's not the case," she said, cracking another crab open and setting it down.

She grabbed another, eyes on the boiling pot over the fire. "If you're not full by the time we've finished, we've definitely done something wrong. And I'll be quite disappointed." Her finger caught on the mandible of the crab she was working on and she frowned, trying again. It popped off with a snap and clattered into the basin. "I've been told that you can use the shells and the claws for different things after you're finished. I'm not certain I would want a crab carcass hanging around, though." Why someone would keep them was beyond her unless they had a dog. And even then...

"There are other things you could try for instant gratification like this." It might have been an innuendo if she hadn't smiled slyly at him and followed with a coy, "I hear knitting gets you almost immediate results from your hard work."

"Most of them would decide that in their first briefing with an angry Meredith," he said. It was something the woman had come to respect about him over time. Although Cullen had respect for her as a person as well as respect for her position, he didn't allow her to run him over roughshod. If he disagreed, he held his own.

"You and I both. All of that effort? I'll do my best not to be a glutton. We did promise some for Max, too." He wrinkled his nose, one side scrunching up. "I can't imagine for what. Wouldn't the shells eventually smell?"

He laughed then, tossing some of the squishy bits into the discard pile. "Yes, that should go over swimmingly in the Gallows. My fellow Templars, I've decided on a solution to all our woes. I hearby dissolve the Circle of Magi and declare it a knitting circle. I expect scarves for every citizen by Satinalia, or no one is getting a pay bonus this year."

"Are you really the only one who can hold your own against her?" The question may have been made mostly in jest but the truth of it struck her moments later. Were people that afraid of speaking their minds? Even Thrask?

"Shhh. Don't encourage him too much. He might try to take the lion's share if he thinks you're being generous." He chuffed at her. Don't tell the nice Templar not to feed him! "And I would assume the shells would be cleaned," she added, wiping her hands on a towel. She pulled out another pot to fill with water for the second batch.

She shot him a grin from over her shoulder. "It's very telling that you got that out so easily. I only wish it could be that simple. We could retire early and take up crab fishing as a real hobby."

"Sometimes I wonder," he said, sounding more serious than a jest would warrant. It was difficult at times when he knew his people had problems with Meredith, shared them with him, and then asked that he not pass the concerns up the chain. How could she know that some of her decisions were causing rumblings if no one was willing to speak out?

"Sorry, Max. I don't make the calls," he said, shooting a smile the dog's way. He wondered how the shells could be cleaned well enough to prevent decomposition. Did they decay? He hadn't spent enough time consistently walking up and down beaches to know for sure. All he knew was that dead crabs smelled bad enough to send him heading in the other direction with a hand to his nose.

"I don't think I have the fingers for knitting. I used to watch my mother sometimes. She made it look very easy." He wiggled his thick fingers and glanced at them. "I'd have to supervise. You could retire. Somebody would have to stay on the rest of them to keep them productive."

There wasn't much to be said about that, was there? The question and its answer lingered between them, an uncomfortable truth, and she didn't make any attempt to stop herself when she stepped into his side briefly to nudge him briefly. The gesture lasted perhaps a moment and nothing more, an attempt at comfort without drawing too much attention to it...and keeping her hands from dirtying his clothes while they were messy.

The dog perked his head with a soft whine, ears flattening at his name. Hawke shot him a look. "You'll get enough, don't worry. You act like I'm going to starve you, skin and bones that you are." He flopped over onto his side and did his best to look pathetic. She shook her head as she went over to give the pot another stir.

"Your mother knitted?" she asked, casting a glance at his hands. She chuckled softly. "Supervising a knitting circle. Would you keep the full plate on too? You'd cast an imposing figure in it over your circle of knitting magi." The mental image alone was nearly enough to have her laughing. "As much as I'd love to retire at some point, I think that's as unrealistic as you taking up knitting."

He understood the gesture for what it was and smiled faintly. It surprised him how good it felt, just a small thing, when it was a concern he almost never voiced. It wasn't as though he could share it with his fellow Templars. The few friends he had outside the order weren't people he would talk shop with for a variety of reasons. It was...nice.

He chuckled and rolled his eyes at the dog. "Quite an actor you have there. If I couldn't see with my own eyes how well he eats, I might be inclined to believe him."

He nodded. "Yes, all sorts of things. I never went cold." His expression was fond, perhaps a little faraway but not in a melancholy cast. "Plate mail in a knitting circle? Perish the thought. There are too many things to catch on as I walk by. I'd have them knit me a full suit. I'd be the warmest man in Kirkwall." He flashed a full grin. "Shame it's just a dream, hmm?" His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter as he followed it out to the full mental image he had just painted.

She glanced at the dog from over her shoulder as she stepped away from him. "Isn't he? I can't imagine where he gets it from," she said dryly, smiling. "He can turn those woeful eyes on anyone and get whatever he wants." Never mind that he practically had run of the house when she wasn't home.

Even distracted with the food, she couldn't stop herself from laughing. "You would be the most ridiculous looking man in Kirkwall, you mean. But you're right; you'd be blessedly warm in the winter while the rest of us freeze." Kirkwall wasn't as bad as Ferelden when the season changed - depending on where you lived in Ferelden, that is - but it was cold enough for her to sulk about it. Being always on the move helped with that, certainly.

She started to pull out the finished crabs into the second pot, careful not to drop any. "My mother didn't knit much but she could patch up clothes with ease. When we were old enough, my father insisted we learn to do it ourselves." She grinned faintly at a fond memory of Carver sulking over a pair of torn trousers. "What would she make for you? Gloves, sweaters?"

"No, I couldn't possibly imagine, either," he said, trying not to show how amused he was by that. Hawke could put on a show when she wished. It wasn't hard to imagine the dog following suit.

"I don't know. You don't think it could be intimidating? A lumpy knit giant?" OK, that had him turning his face away and laughing against his shoulder so that he wasn't breathing all over their food.

"It's a skill anybody should have. Not enough in Kirwkall do. If I had a sovereign for every time I've seen someone with their skivvies hanging out..." He shook his head. It wasn't that he couldn't empathize with the straights of poverty. For many of them that clearly wasn't the excuse.

"Gloves, sweaters, scarves, hats..." He paused and bit his lip, deciding whether he should tell an embarrassing story on himself or not. "She did get it into her head one Satinalia that I needed a warm pair of pajamas. Mind you, I was ten, a little old for a one piece, so she tried to accommodate that with buttons. It...you know it's bad when your own mother sees you in it and decides maybe you shouldn't wear that again."

Edited (I can werd.) 2012-09-29 03:56 (UTC)

Her look was pointed, albeit amused, at his coy tone. She didn't linger long on it. "About as intimidating as a basket of kittens, I imagine. You'd be soft and squishy on the outside," she teased, mirth dancing in her eyes when she looked at him. "On a positive note, you would probably garner more sympathy. A huggable Templar. The children would love you."

She'd almost dumped all of the second batch into the other pot, the few larger ones still cooking for another minute. "The prices in the marketplace can be steep," she said mildly. "You don't want to know how often I had to repair something of my own because we were paying off debts or saving for the Deep Roads trip. But for the people who can afford it... Well, there's hardly an excuse for it. Entitlement, possibly, if they think it's not a skill worth learning."

It was still early enough that she needed to keep quiet when she chuckled. "Oh, you poor thing. I can't imagine." But she was certainly trying. Her imagination ran away with her in an effort to picture him, gangly and tall, wearing something so atrocious his own mother had to reconsider. Her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

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