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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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.

"That might be nice, until a Carta dwarf hid in the adoring throngs and decided to give me a little dagger loving. I suppose I'll have to stick to the plate mail after all." His pile of crabs to be cleaned was steadily decreasing, his hands dirty to the wrists from the cleaning. He didn't seem to mind it.

"I still mend my own things. I find it relaxing." It wasn't often that he had much time to himself. Through the years he had discovered that taking the time to do a few of the simple things gave him space with his own thoughts. Distracted hands often made for a productive mind. "Except for dents in the plate. I don't have smithing skills. I can replace and cut straps but not plates."

His cheeks had a little color, but there was also still a fond light in his eyes for the memory. "It was dreadful. Father had this look. He rarely said much, but you could always tell when he didn't like something. I was grateful Mother could see them for the disaster they were. They were also scratchy and probably would have twisted around me like a baker's braid in the night. She swears that she didn't, but I think she remade the top part of them into a sweater a few weeks later."

"You look nicer in the plate anyway," she added, taking out one of the last of the crabs and dumping it in the second pot, her eyes locking on his face for just a moment with a deceptively coy smile.

Once the pot over the fire was empty, she hoisted the second batch up and brought them back to his side to begin working on them while he finished his batch. "It's mindless work, easy to lose an hour or two in. I'm lucky enough I don't have to usually work with plate or metal. If I do, I get some help from one of the vendors." She had hardly a smithing skill to speak of. "But polishing, sharpening, mending? It's surprisingly enjoyable. Better than chasing down trouble in some dark alleyway in Lowtown."

She grinned. "Bad enough for your father too? You must have been a sight. At least you didn't have to keep wearing them." She liked hearing about his parents, if only because the fondness he had for those memories showed so easily in his tone and in his eyes. "What else did your mother do?"

He decided it was the better part of valor to take the compliment graciously rather than dig himself a hole with painting a mental picture of him in some giant knitted monstrosity. He had come close enough in talking about the pajamas. "Thank you," he said, dipping his head slightly and holding it for a moment or two while holding her gaze.

"Plate falls short when you have to be maneuverable," he agreed. "It is, and it's relaxing. I don't feel guilty taking that time, because I'm doing something useful." His lips quirked. "There are many things better than chasing down Lowtown thugs."

He nodded. "Yes. I couldn't tell if he was holding back laughter or about to be ill." His smile lingered for a little while he finished the last of his two original crabs. "She tutored adults to help them become literate. We had all sorts of people in and out of the house. It was never dull around." He made a face when a mandible popped off and went sailing out of reach. "I'll try to find that in a few minutes."

His acquiescence had her smile widening just slightly, a nod following as she started on one of the new crabs. It was still warm, the smooth shell heating her fingers. "It must take so much longer for you, though." Full plate mail had to have been such a nuisance sometimes, relaxing or no. If your armor was covered in blood or if it was dented, it would end up being an arduous task to undertake, more than just a simple shine.

She chuckled softly. "I'm surprised he didn't do either if he didn't even say a word." Pausing, she focused on popping off the shell. She stopped only when she saw a piece go flying from his end, grinning. "It's okay. If nothing else, Max'll go looking for it later."

That one needed an extra handful of water to help clean out the inside, but he had enough meat in him to be entirely worth it. "Knitting and tutoring. She sounds lovely, Cullen. I don't think I've ever known or heard of someone who tutors adults unless it's in the Chantry...and only then under special circumstances." It was rare but sometimes people came to the Chantry in Lothering to learn how to recite and read the Chant, if only to say in battle or on the road to protect them. "You worked with horses, your mother tutored... What did your father do?"

"I can be in or out of it in twenty minutes. Speed drills with the armor are something they hammer into you as a recruit. There's also light plate versus heavy, the things you'd swear you needed going into a battle versus the things that would be nice to have. As for cleaning and polishing, I feel sometimes like I spend half my life on that alone." One rusty rivet could be the undoing of an entire plate or vital piece in battle. Sloppy Templars were usually dead Templars.

He smiled slightly and nodded, finishing off the crab and reaching for one of the warm ones. He lifted it to his nose for a deep inhale. "They smell so good now. Who would have guessed just a half hour ago?"

The smile widened and remained warm. "Well, she very nearly became a Chantry sister. It's what her father wanted for her. She had other ideas, but she had a decent education and a rather liberal mindset when it came to who should have such benefits. I don't think I ever saw her turn anyone away, not even elves. Father was a scholar. He wanted to be a Templar. My uncle, his older brother, had the same goal and beat him to it."

He looked thoughtful as he pried up the shell. "I never heard the whole story. I think his mother didn't want to lose both of her sons to the Chantry, so Father took a different path. They were...estranged...for much of my life. I never met either of his parents until I was almost twelve."

"Twenty minutes?" And that was after years of practice. "I hate to break it to you, but if we go through with our plan to put me in plate mail, it's going to take much longer to get into or out of it." She shook her head. "I'd be surprised if you haven't spent that much time cleaning the bloody thing. You're always polished from head to toe when I've seen you. All of you."

She nudged him with an elbow lightly, hands covered once more. "You're making me impatient when you say that. I feel like I'm half-starved." But they were almost finished. She just needed to work a little harder on the much larger ones. Their shells were more difficult to pull off. A particular twist of her finger had the shell popping off from the crab she was working on. Sure enough, he had more meat on him and she smiled faintly as she set to work cleaning his innards.

"I can...understand that. Both sides, actually." She frowned. "When we were going on the expedition into the Deep Roads, my mother refused to let Bethany go. She begged for me not to take her. Being sent to the Chantry wasn't life-or-death, not like this had been--" Though being a Templar was a dangerous career path and it probably felt like she was sending her son to die in many ways. "But the sentiment was similar. She could have lost both of her children. After what happened to Carver, I could understand. I know Bethany was disappointed, though."

She shook her head. "Why did you finally get to meet them? Do you know?"

"Twenty minutes is fast for plate mail," he said with mock defensiveness. The twinkle in his eyes gave him away. "If you just lean back and let me do all the work, it won't be much longer than that." His smile curved a little sly.

"I thought I was fine with what we had eaten on the boat until I started smelling these and handling them. I take back everything I said about them being creepy." He would stand by that until confronted with more live ones clicking and hissing water bubbles at him.

He had the decency to look away, feeling another small stab of guilt. Meredith had believed that the best time to move on Bethany was with Hawke away. If they had timed it a little better, there would have been no confrontation at all. "The Deep Roads is a very dangerous place," he agreed. "I've never been. Maker willing I never will be."

He shook his head, too. "They just showed up at the house one day out of the blue. I could tell by both my parents' reaction it wasn't expected. They sent me out of the house to go visit friends and told me not to come back until somebody came for me. It wasn't until late that night they finally did. My grandparents were still at the house. The tension was...unpleasant, but they were kind enough to me."

She nudged him again with her hip, eyes bright with amusement. "Twenty minutes is fast, he says. Mm-hm." Her grin answered his own. "If you think you can rise to the challenge, who am I to stop you?" An extra challenge to their already insane plan.

"They're still creepy. They've also been torn apart and are going to taste fantastic. Mark my words."

If she noticed the guilt, she didn't speak on it. She was also quick to dismiss the topic. "It wasn't so bad once you got past the darkspawn. We would have been back sooner if there hadn't been complications." Backstabbing bastard of a dwarf.

She blanched, cracking a crab in half. "That sounds almost comically awkward...unless you're the one involved. Why were they estranged? Did your parents never tell you?"

"You will be awed at my speed with armor straps. You just wait and see, Sera," he said with confidence.

"I'm unwilling to gainsay in the face of such overwhelming evidence." The only two things that had kept him from trying to lick any of the seasoning from his fingers were manners and the fact that some of what was on them was part of what they were trying to clean off the meat.

"Darkspawn. The one thing I never saw during the Blight. They never reached Greenfell." It still bothered him at times that he hadn't been able to go with his fellow Templars to join the fight. If he had, he might not be standing here now, though. He knew casualties in Denerim where the bulk of the force was sent were heavy.

"I think it had to do with Father blaming them for guilting him out of his dreams to be a Templar. I always had the feeling it was why he was so keen for me to take up the mantle. Fortunately, I was inclined toward it anyway. I didn't feel unfairly pressured. I saw more of my grandparents after that. They came around on holidays mostly." He worked at a stubborn shell until it gave in his grip.

"I'm looking forward to it. You might have to teach me for practical purposes." Practical purposes like getting him out of it. ...And for making a run for it if Meredith caught them sneaking armor around for her to try on.

"They're a fright all of their own," she said, having some trouble with pulling out the squishier, unappetizing bits from one of the crabs. "Our own fault for going down in the Deep Roads, of course, but that's the price you pay. You don't want to fight them." She would never forget that day outside of Lothering and what they did to Carver, or how Wesley died.

Nodding in sympathy, she cracked a shell in half and set the pieces to the side. She was down to the last of the much larger ones, setting to work on it. "That's lucky enough. I'm glad they could at least get along for your sake, if not for one another." She paused, working at the mandible of the one in her hand. "Come on, you buggering--" It snapped off and clattered into the basin, bouncing off of the edges. "My mother was estranged from her parents after she ran off with my father. I never met them. And obviously, we never knew my father's parents. She wrote to them, though, every time one of us was born or if the holidays came around."

"Practice makes perfect." He flashed a grin and shook his head at himself. No, that wasn't cheesy at all.

He had heard terrible stories. If they didn't cut a person down outright, a splash of their blood was enough to infect a person with their corruption. It was a wasting sickness. The lucky ones died quickly. Those less lucky became ghouls in servitude to the hoard, until they died alone in agony. He shuddered once.

"I'm not sure if it was for me, or if they had other motives. No one in my family was much of a talker when it came to things like that." Feelings. He was better himself at expressing them in indirect ways, more by action than word. "They're stubborn when they're big." He nodded toward the wayward piece of shell.

"It must have been something. People still speak of it sometimes, or they did shortly after you regained the manor. I suppose many of them were living here at the time it happened." He found it a little obscene that those so quick to gossip and accept them back into the fold once they had money were those who wouldn't have lifted a finger to them when they had come back in so-called disgrace. It was one of many reasons he was glad to be common born. "It's...difficult...being distant from one's parents." Never mind that his was by choice, for their safety and to prevent his office from being compromised. All of the good reasons in the world couldn't take away the sense of isolation that came from it, too.

It got him a snicker, so there was that. She shook her head at the both of them. One night and they were already acting like immature children. Hawke said nothing when she shuddered, though she knew where the thought came from. She sympathized but made no motion to draw attention to it.

"Truth be told, that would bother me. We were an open family. Even when people didn't want to talk, whatever was upsetting them would eventually come out in private if nowhere else." To keep quiet seemed so strange, a reclusive maneuver. In everyone but family, she would think it suspicious. "Not all homes are the same, I know."

She tapped the crab in her hand and then gripped it tightly in her hands. It snapped audibly a few moments later. "You're telling me. On the pile with you. I can't wait until they're on the table." Just a few more to go.

"It was a scandal, I heard. No one knew where she'd gone to at first. I don't think my grandparents wanted to speak of it. I'm still not certain they ever did. Gamlen might have." What had happened in the family after was more private, something Cullen didn't need to hear about. "It is. I know it tore my mother up inside to be away from her parents." She lifted her gaze to his. There was no need to say anything. Had her hands been free, she might have done something to express her sympathies. "Are they still outside of Denerim?"

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