Fic: Bound
Title: Bound
Game: Dragon Age 2
Pairing: Sebastian Vael/Bethany Hawke
Rating: T
Wordcount: 4947
Warnings: None
Summary: Post DA2. Bethany will do anything if she thinks it will protect Garrett Hawke and Anders - including imprisoning the Prince of Starkhaven. (ff.net & Ao3)
Notes: A gift for the lovely firstblush! Bittersweet. ♥
When he woke, Sebastian Vael didn't know where he was.
What he did know was that his head and wrists ached and that his skin tingled with a thousand tiny fires, his eyes pricked with dancing lightning, and the breath in his lungs felt crushed down to a tiny point.
He coughed, jerking forward, and he felt rough earth beneath his cheek, felt his shoulders strain with more earthly pain as something wrapped around him tightened.
"Don't move, please."
It was a woman's voice, one that sounded almost familiar, but he couldn't place it. It was like a voice from a half remembered dream, a nightmare where she cried out and the earth shook beneath him and threatened to split open.
Maker, preserve me, he thought, and tried to move again despite the voice's caution.
Every pain he had felt before had been merely an ache, a distraction, compared to what ripped through him, his skin tight to tearing and his vision, what little view he had of dirt and leaf litter, blanked. He thought he heard himself scream.
"I told you not to move-" whispered the woman's voice, and then he felt hands on him, quiet brushes of heat, and then a rush of cool energy. He jerked again, and she swore, the flow of magic cutting off.
He panted for breath.
The last time a mage had healed him, it had been that abomination, that murderer, and while Anders had never sounded like the woman he thought was still nearby, he wasn't convinced that this wasn't a trick of demons, of those infernal beings no doubt consorting with Anders these days.
"You're badly injured," the voice came again, and he felt small fingers against his forehead. "I didn't mean to hurt you this badly, and I'm no healer. It will take some time to repair the damage. For your own sake, please lay still."
The accent- Fereldan. Familiar, too, like-
Hawke.
But this wasn't Hawke, quite clearly, because Hawke was a tall and broad man with a gruff laugh and no love for him. And the voice, it remained on the edge of his memory, and as he felt her hands slide over his cheek, checking his pulse at his throat, he regained the barest edges of it. A woman with a red scarf around her throat, singing to herself in the woods; before that, a woman with a red scarf pulled up over the lower half of her face, the tell-tale sign, in retrospect, of an apostate, standing at Garrett Hawke's side and- what?
Delivering the news that his family had been avenged.
Hawke.
He growled at the thought and she pulled her hand away, fast. His vision clearing and he could make out, yes, the red scarf. Dark hair. Pale skin, with full cheeks and a small mouth that was pursed into a worried frown.
"Please, stay calm. It will be better for the both of us."
Hawke, his sister, the one he'd heard the man speak of from time to time in the last three years. Bethany. Bethany Hawke, of the Circle, taken there when Hawke had returned from the Deep Roads, one of the man's greatest regrets. Bethany Hawke, lying half-dead on the plaza with First Enchanter Orsino leaning over her, and-
He wanted to think about none of that, because it only brought to mind Anders and his damnable lover, the both on the run, and him barely managing to keep up, let alone raise the army he had threatened.
But his arrows would do well enough.
He didn't want to think about it, lying there in pain, unmoving, because the impotence threatened to make him burn with rage. And so he looked away from her, tried to move again, this time gently.
He was bound, hand and foot.
Another rope circled his chest several times, keeping his arms pinned. Bethany's fingers touched at it lightly, and then she sent magic along it, into him, patching the burns and holes she'd put into him, the crushed muscle, bruised bone. He remembered, yes- her shout, her hands raised to the sky, the force of air growing too heavy to hold up. The look of terror in her eyes, the shout of You will not take me!
Or had it been
You will not take them!
Or had it been
Stand down, Sebastian Vael, and how had she known his name, how had she recognized him when they had never met face to face, had never been introduced?
"Release me," he said, and his voice was thick, rough, and ached to be torn from his throat.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," she said, and when he glanced to her he thought he saw a small, sad smile.
"You cannot hold me. I am-"
"Prince Sebastian Vael, of Starkhaven. I know." There was that sad smile again, and her hands trailed down over his stomach, prodding lightly. He hissed in pain, and she sent another flow of power into him, knitting him back together. It felt different from Anders - more clumsy, less practiced, almost painful at times.
"My brother," she said, eyes flicking up to his, "has told me all about you."
"Tell me where he is," he demanded, and would have added a threat, but even his anger could be tempered by the knowledge that there was nowhere to go.
"Far away from here," Bethany responded, almost- placidly, as her hands touched at his legs, his knees. Anders had healed from afar, never touching unless something had needed splinting. Bethany, in contrast, was all touch, as light as it was. "Where you will not find him. I'll make sure of that."
Sebastian's jaw clenched at her refusal, but before he could protest Bethany shook her head and rolled her fingers over one another, murmured a soft word.
And then he knew darkness again.
--
"Untie me."
They were, according to her, a week from the Nevarran border. It made sense, from the last few moments he truly remembered: hearing word of an apostate in the forest with blonde hair, of a swordsman who traveled with him. They could be no one else, and so he had tracked them down.
He'd found instead this dark-haired girl with a red scarf she played with almost incessantly.
She was making what passed for dinner now, as she had every evening for the past three days, sitting by the fire with her side towards him, so she could look over to him without staring. She made, if smell and the past few days were any indication, another porridge, seasoned with herbs she gathered from the edges of the small clearing they were in.
"You know I can't do that," she said, looking briefly up to him, round face lit by the dancing fire as the sun set low behind the trees surrounding them. Her smile was still sad; she was not a cruel captor, not even a captor by nature, and she seemed increasingly uncomfortable with him bound as he was. But every time he asked, she turned him down, turned away just long enough to regain her composure.
He would whittle her down, though, entreat until he had no more breath to do it with, and one day she would cave.
Hopefully that day was today.
"Bethany," he said, trying to draw her gaze back to him. She made a small sound but did not turn, instead leaning forward to stir the pot she tended.
"Bethany."
"You can speak to me without me having to look. I'm making dinner."
She could do it with her eyes closed, and he knew it. But he shook his head, shifting somewhat to try and find a more comfortable position to sit in. It had been an awkward three days - her not quite knowing what to do, him anxious to be away and focused wholly on her brother. She had had to feed him by hand every morning and night, and help him to his feet and stand guard as he relieved himself. She was not built for this.
Neither was he.
"Could you at least change how my bonds are tied?" he sighed.
"Not without knocking you unconscious again," she said, "and I know how you disliked that the last two times."
He had woken up panicked both occasions, thrashed, cried out, but by the second time he had been mostly patched together and did no lasting damage. That time, she had tried to soothe him with kind words, then the familiar cadence of the Chant of Light.
He'd asked her why, later. She had said it was comforting, that those verses were a favorite. Transfigurations, twelve. He knew it well, too. He had felt mildly more at ease with her then, less afraid, less worried for his safety. She, at least, followed the Maker, even if her brother and his lover went against Him with every step they took.
He spoke one of the verses now, watching her, seeing her tense at the sound of his voice.
"O Creator, see me kneel:
For I walk only where You would bid me,
Stand only in places You have blessed,
Sing only the words You place in my throat."
"Yes, Sebastian?" she asked, looking back to him momentarily. And then it was back to the porridge, and he felt a flush of anger run through him.
He fought it down as best he could before speaking again. He would convince her, make her see.
"I'm doing the Maker's work."
Bethany shook her head, frowning down at the pot and then reaching for the single bowl she had with her, ladling the mixture of oats, barley, and herbs into it. "You truly believe that?" she asked as she stood up, came to where he sat. She knelt before him and lifted a spoonful of the gruel to his lips.
"I do. I asked for a sign from the Maker to show me what I must do- and I was given one. It is indisputable."
"Is it?" She pursed her lips, waiting to speak again until he grudgingly took the bite offered to him.
"I don't deny that what Anders did was horrible," Bethany continued, finally, choosing her words carefully. "And that what he has started- he did not think it through, not entirely. But-"
It was the first time she had spoken the apostate's name to him, the first time she had admitted what had happened. He stiffened at the mention, knuckles going white where he clenched his hands to fists behind him, face flushing with barely controlled anger.
She offered him another spoonful of porridge.
"But my brother supports him, would die for him, and I cannot let you kill my brother- and I cannot let you stop what may, one day, allow a mage to walk freely with sunshine on her face without the fear of being hunted, or the weight of being watched at every minute.
"I cannot believe," she said, voice growing softer, "that Andraste would have wanted mages to be treated like this. Guided, yes, but not chained like wild dogs."
He refused the food, and she ate it instead, sighing and sitting back on her heels.
He wanted to correct her, yell at her, explain to her what the will of Andraste was, what the worth of the templars was. But he, too, had seen atrocities committed, and she admitted the need for shepherding.
So instead, he looked away.
"Untie me," he repeated, voice low and strained.
"No. The more days I keep you here, the more days my brother has to lose you. I will not untie you until I have no other choice." She reached out, touched his jaw, turned him back to her so she could meet his eyes, hold another spoonful of porridge to her lips.
He looked down to it, flinching under the touch of her caring. For all she stood in his way, she was a good soul. Misguided, but good. "You love your brother?" he asked, voice softening.
"More than anything."
--
She sang when she thought he couldn't hear.
Sometimes it was the Chant of Light. Other times, they were ballads, folk songs, little pieces of Ferelden. She was always far enough away that he could barely catch the words, and a line together became a gift.
She was more at ease singing than she was sitting with him, and though on one level he approved, on another it saddened him.
It had been five days and he was beginning to understand little pieces of her. Her singing voice was unpracticed, her notes wavering and cracking at either end of her register, but she sang because she enjoyed it, because it gave her pleasure, relief, and not for an audience.
She prayed, too, not for an audience. She didn't pray so he could see it. In fact, she would pray only at midday, her back to him, kneeling, head bowed in the sunlight.
She loved the sunlight.
She would lie in it for hours if they had nothing else to do, and sometimes she would nap and other times she would simply smile and play with the grass that grew around her. She wasn't young, not much younger than Hawke, but sometimes it seemed as if her time in the Circle had halted something for her.
Or perhaps buried something, because when he asked her about her time in the Gallows, she would go quiet, withdraw from him.
"Normal," she would say. "So many times, I wished I could just be normal."
He wondered at that word at first. Not blessed, not anything else but normal. She would look down at her hands when she said it, and he slowly came to understand.
Normal, not a mage, just a girl with a family, a future.
It was increasingly hard to hate her.
And from the beginning, it hadn't been her he hated, except that she kept him from his goal, his mandate, his destiny. She had been nothing but kind (after first nearly killing him with a flurry of spells that, each day, she apologized for. Each morning, she touched his shoulder and searched through him with a thread of healing magic for any injuries she might have missed. His wrists chafed, but they never blistered, never more than ached), nothing but sweet and attentive and apologetic.
That a girl like her would side with Anders-
But no, she didn't side with him. She sided with increased freedom and autonomy for mages, but not an abolishing of the templars. She was reasonable, measured, and when she spoke, he began to listen, to bow his head and understand the arguments she put forth. She was articulate, too.
Elthina would have liked her.
He began to speak more often, more than untie me or your brother or the apostate. He couldn't tell her of his time journeying at her brother's side, nor could she tell him about her childhood, so they traded other stories. He told her about life in the Chantry. She told him about- not much at all, really. Little stories about living in the Gallows, but they were isolated, short, obviously ignoring much of the rest. She told him about her father, too, and her mother, and he told her one night as she fed him that he had met Leandra once, that she had been a good and courageous woman to bring her family through what she had.
But mostly she listened and he found himself talking as if he was confessing, even though he avoided talk of his years before the Chantry and his years with Hawke. She listened and on occasion rested a hand on his shoulder.
On the seventh day, he realized he wanted every little smile he brought from her lips, every little laugh, and he turned away.
--
Had it been a week and a half, truly, of her feeding him in the mornings and the evenings, sitting beside him and reciting the Chant, sharing the tiniest pieces of herself with him in answer to his every utterance? He'd grown quiet again, at first, but it was hard to resist her infectious sweetness, her goodness that refused to be dulled completely by her shame at how she kept him, her fear of what he was capable of. They had stopped talking of mages at all, her or Anders or any of them.
And when they spoke of the Maker, of Andraste, he learned with every word that she was as devout as he, and only of a different slant. When she spoke, it was almost like listening to Elthina. He felt his anger tempered, though never completely soothed.
Now, she talked about the stars.
She pointed out constellations and he followed her finger.
That day, he had only implored her twice to release him, and she had only been forced to say no twice in return. They were running out of food; he knew because she told him, told him quietly that it would only be a little longer.
He believed her.
"Sebastian?" she asked, as the moon rose ever-higher in the sky. "Will you still go after my brother when I let you go?"
It was the first time she'd mentioned Garrett Hawke in days, and he tensed immediately, bristled, his anger only buried and controlled, not eliminated by her kindnesses. He shifted his weight away from her.
"Of course I will," he said, voice growing low and hoarse with emotion, full with the pressing rush of his fury. Righteous fury, he reminded himself. She had never convinced him that Anders should be sparred, only that it would kill Garrett and Bethany could not allow it.
That wasn't enough of a reason to stay the Maker's hand.
Bethany frowned, eyes going shuttered and sad in the firelight, and she drew her knees to her chest, touched at the scarf around her throat once more. "Even if I asked you not to?"
Those words gave him pause, a pause he should have fought against. The Maker demanded-
But she looked so worried, so scared, and it took every ounce of his willpower left to shake his head. "Even if you asked me not to."
"And I cannot convince my brother to leave Anders' side," she murmured, softly, half to himself, a sentiment he had never heard her voice. He stared at her in the dim, dancing orange light, seeing her as if she, too, had rope tied around her wrists or a heavy collar laid around her throat. "I could never lose him," she continued.
He ran through the list. Malcom Hawke, dead. Leandra Hawke nee Amell, dead. Carver Hawke, crushed by an ogre while his sister watched. Garrett Hawke-
Forsaken by the Maker, he reminded himself.
"He has sided against the Maker," he told her, quietly, and wished he could reach out to touch her, place a hand on her shoulder, soothe the line between her brows.
"No, he sided with the man he loved, for the freedom of his sister," Bethany corrected him, and it was her fingers that rose to work out the furrow on her forehead. "But that's a meaningless difference to the rest of the world, isn't it?"
"No," he found himself saying. "It isn't."
She looked up at him and he met her gaze unflinchingly, standing behind the words that had slipped from him unbidden. He thought he could understand at least that part of Garrett Hawke; he had only known her for a little over a week, had spent that time restrained and at her mercy, and he found himself wanting desperately to protect her.
He closed his eyes to pray to the Maker to give him strength.
If there were only a way to do what must be done and to preserve her at the same time-
But there wasn't, and they both knew it.
--
Three nights later, when the setting sun filtered orange and red through the trees, she kissed him.
It was a little thing at first, a brush of her lips against his cheek, and he almost thought that he had dreamed it at first. She had become so quiet since that night beneath the stars and he had begun to think that he had lost her, disappointed her too much.
They were running out of food, she had said that morning, just a few days left until it was time to cut him loose.
She had said nothing about her brother.
But that evening, the sun setting brilliant and bright, she had fed him dinner, shared it with him, one spoonful for him, one for her, and when she set aside the bowl, she leaned in and kissed him.
He hadn't been kissed in years, and he closed his eyes and felt the urge to protest rising in his throat. But every time he let those urges free, censured her or raised his voice or pulled away, he lost her a little bit more.
He didn't want to lose her.
So instead of protesting, of saying vows aloud, of reminding her of what he had given up when he entered the Chantry, he allowed her to kiss his cheek, and before she could pull away entirely, he turned his head to catch her lips against his.
She was fumbling and unpracticed even more than he, but he had the full weight of his history to guide him and she had confessed, once, that her brothers had been very protective of her. He wondered in that moment if anybody had ever kissed her before.
If they had, it had been too many years ago for her to remember what to do.
It was clumsy, awkward- and sweet, unbearably sweet. She hummed against his mouth as if she wanted to sing, scooted closer along the grass, one hand touching just lightly at his jaw, the other coming to rest on his bonds.
They were running out of food, he remembered, and while a part of him thrilled and wanted to shout for joy, for triumph, that she might have been about to free him, another part feared that moment.
She couldn't stay, and neither could he.
So he kissed her. He guided her with a tilt of his chin, a light, testing touch of his tongue, and she opened to him shyly at first, then with increased interest, increased need. She came close enough that her knee touched his thigh, and he felt a thrill run through him. Her fingers slid to his skin instead of the rope. He didn't mind.
And then she pulled away, moved just enough that their lips parted and her forehead rested against his instead, her nose brushing his, her breath mingling with his between their mouths. Her breathing was heavier and the sound stirred him nearly as much as the kiss.
"I'm sorry," she said, and sat back and away, touching at her lips almost absently as she rose to her feet.
When he asked her that night, in the light of the next morning, when she fed him dinner next, she refused to speak of it. She kept her lips - rosy, small, so unbearably sweet - shut tight and just shook her head, a faraway look in her eyes.
--
Two more mornings passed.
How long had he been with her? He tried to count, to remember the moments that stood out most clearly. A week, more- maybe even two. Such a small fraction of a lifetime, and an uncomfortable one at that. She had refused to trust him enough to unbind his hands while he was conscious even for a moment, and while she healed the damage done to him every morning, it did not make sleeping any easier, or sitting, or even speaking with her.
She had never said anything about the kiss, about why she had done it, about why she had pulled away.
But he had felt there, he knew, a deep want. Maybe it was for him, maybe it was for the moment of kissing a man for the first time, maybe it was to be normal. He had felt it, and he had also felt the crush of reality that said no, this cannot be. His vows, though so much of what made them true had fallen in Kirkwall; her brother, even at that very moment hiding, running, loving with the apostate who had set the world on fire.
He wanted to kiss her one last time before she ran.
The day was growing warm, the sounds of morning birds dying off to be replaced with the soft droning of insects, when Bethany came to him and crouched behind him. He felt her tug against the ropes binding him.
There had been only a small breakfast.
"We're out of food," he said, as calmly as he could manage while the rope binding his shoulders fell slack and then down into his lap.
She nodded. "We are. Almost, anyway. There will be just enough for me to make it another town over, I think." Her hands trailed down his arms, almost reverently, to where his wrists were tied. She went to work there, next.
"And so you'll let me go after them?"
"I would rather you didn't." Her voice was soft and at his ear, and he inhaled sharply as his wrists fell free. He wanted to touch her. He never had.
But she leaned back and bent instead to undo his ankles.
"I know," he said, instead, turning at the waist to watch her even as he massaged his wrists.
She lifted her gaze to meet his, and her smile was sad and distant and he had to resist the urge to reach out and trail a finger along her jaw, thumb away a tear that wasn't there.
He wanted to say something, assure her, promise her that he would let her brother live, but he could do none of those things. And when he opened his mouth to tell her- something, that he was glad they had met, that he had listened to her, that he wanted to feel her lips against his again- there was the distant sound of marching footsteps.
Many sets of marching footsteps.
Bethany looked up sharply, then finished tugging free the knot and stood.
"Templars," she said, and while he didn't know how she could be certain, he knew that whoever the group served, they were moving fast towards them. He knew the look on her face: fear, terror, almost defeat. He watched her move around the camp, kicking out the remains of their fire and seizing up her too-light, too-empty pack.
He stood to help her, but found himself frozen in place, looking towards the woods and the approaching noise.
"Templars," she said again, to herself, hissed and quiet as she swung her pack over her shoulder. She touched her scarf and it was the movement of red that brought his gaze back to her. She was shaking.
She crossed the space between them, and when she was close enough, she reached up to touch his cheek again. In the weeks she'd held him, his hair had come free of how he kept it carefully combed back, and she caught a strand of it beneath her thumb for a moment.
"Please, do not tell them about me," she whispered.
He swallowed, the muscles and tendons of his throat tightening. "Bethany, you're an apostate-"
"And if there was a Circle to go back to, I would not fear them so much. But Sebastian, you have to understand- they will kill me, if they don't drag me off to be held hostage until my brother comes for me. I don't want to die. I don't-"
He closed his eyes, feeling the familiar spike of rage at the mention of her brother, of all he meant. Of all the ways in which he confined her.
"I will promise you nothing."
"Sebastian-" Her voice was soft and broken and when he opened his eyes, she looked up to him searchingly. He couldn't fight the impulse to lean down, to brush his lips against hers, no more than he could fight the impulse to bring Anders to justice no matter who stood in his way.
"I will promise you nothing," he repeated, "except that I will find your brother." He felt her exhale harsh against his lips, a fractured, unfinished sob, and he cupped her face in both his hands.
"Please, do not be there when I do."
He met her eyes and she stared back at him, their breaths shared for another moment. But the footsteps were approaching fast, the unerring, inexorable movement of metal and men, and before he could kiss her again, she was withdrawing. He pushed her away to help her go, and she was halfway to the trees when she looked back to him.
"Don't tell them," she said, one final time, and he felt himself nod.
He watched her disappear and whispered a prayer to the Maker for her protection.
--
When the templars came, breaking through the trees and into the clearing in two lines, Sebastian Vael was nowhere to be found. The clearing was empty except for a few worn ropes, the remains of a fire, and places where the grass had been bent down by two bodies.
There was only the crack of a branch somewhere off in the trees, and it was that the templars followed. Some time later, a shadow slipped back in the direction Bethany had gone, away from the noise, away from the templars.
There was a breath of the Chant on the wind, and then nothing.
Game: Dragon Age 2
Pairing: Sebastian Vael/Bethany Hawke
Rating: T
Wordcount: 4947
Warnings: None
Summary: Post DA2. Bethany will do anything if she thinks it will protect Garrett Hawke and Anders - including imprisoning the Prince of Starkhaven. (ff.net & Ao3)
Notes: A gift for the lovely firstblush! Bittersweet. ♥
When he woke, Sebastian Vael didn't know where he was.
What he did know was that his head and wrists ached and that his skin tingled with a thousand tiny fires, his eyes pricked with dancing lightning, and the breath in his lungs felt crushed down to a tiny point.
He coughed, jerking forward, and he felt rough earth beneath his cheek, felt his shoulders strain with more earthly pain as something wrapped around him tightened.
"Don't move, please."
It was a woman's voice, one that sounded almost familiar, but he couldn't place it. It was like a voice from a half remembered dream, a nightmare where she cried out and the earth shook beneath him and threatened to split open.
Maker, preserve me, he thought, and tried to move again despite the voice's caution.
Every pain he had felt before had been merely an ache, a distraction, compared to what ripped through him, his skin tight to tearing and his vision, what little view he had of dirt and leaf litter, blanked. He thought he heard himself scream.
"I told you not to move-" whispered the woman's voice, and then he felt hands on him, quiet brushes of heat, and then a rush of cool energy. He jerked again, and she swore, the flow of magic cutting off.
He panted for breath.
The last time a mage had healed him, it had been that abomination, that murderer, and while Anders had never sounded like the woman he thought was still nearby, he wasn't convinced that this wasn't a trick of demons, of those infernal beings no doubt consorting with Anders these days.
"You're badly injured," the voice came again, and he felt small fingers against his forehead. "I didn't mean to hurt you this badly, and I'm no healer. It will take some time to repair the damage. For your own sake, please lay still."
The accent- Fereldan. Familiar, too, like-
Hawke.
But this wasn't Hawke, quite clearly, because Hawke was a tall and broad man with a gruff laugh and no love for him. And the voice, it remained on the edge of his memory, and as he felt her hands slide over his cheek, checking his pulse at his throat, he regained the barest edges of it. A woman with a red scarf around her throat, singing to herself in the woods; before that, a woman with a red scarf pulled up over the lower half of her face, the tell-tale sign, in retrospect, of an apostate, standing at Garrett Hawke's side and- what?
Delivering the news that his family had been avenged.
Hawke.
He growled at the thought and she pulled her hand away, fast. His vision clearing and he could make out, yes, the red scarf. Dark hair. Pale skin, with full cheeks and a small mouth that was pursed into a worried frown.
"Please, stay calm. It will be better for the both of us."
Hawke, his sister, the one he'd heard the man speak of from time to time in the last three years. Bethany. Bethany Hawke, of the Circle, taken there when Hawke had returned from the Deep Roads, one of the man's greatest regrets. Bethany Hawke, lying half-dead on the plaza with First Enchanter Orsino leaning over her, and-
He wanted to think about none of that, because it only brought to mind Anders and his damnable lover, the both on the run, and him barely managing to keep up, let alone raise the army he had threatened.
But his arrows would do well enough.
He didn't want to think about it, lying there in pain, unmoving, because the impotence threatened to make him burn with rage. And so he looked away from her, tried to move again, this time gently.
He was bound, hand and foot.
Another rope circled his chest several times, keeping his arms pinned. Bethany's fingers touched at it lightly, and then she sent magic along it, into him, patching the burns and holes she'd put into him, the crushed muscle, bruised bone. He remembered, yes- her shout, her hands raised to the sky, the force of air growing too heavy to hold up. The look of terror in her eyes, the shout of You will not take me!
Or had it been
You will not take them!
Or had it been
Stand down, Sebastian Vael, and how had she known his name, how had she recognized him when they had never met face to face, had never been introduced?
"Release me," he said, and his voice was thick, rough, and ached to be torn from his throat.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," she said, and when he glanced to her he thought he saw a small, sad smile.
"You cannot hold me. I am-"
"Prince Sebastian Vael, of Starkhaven. I know." There was that sad smile again, and her hands trailed down over his stomach, prodding lightly. He hissed in pain, and she sent another flow of power into him, knitting him back together. It felt different from Anders - more clumsy, less practiced, almost painful at times.
"My brother," she said, eyes flicking up to his, "has told me all about you."
"Tell me where he is," he demanded, and would have added a threat, but even his anger could be tempered by the knowledge that there was nowhere to go.
"Far away from here," Bethany responded, almost- placidly, as her hands touched at his legs, his knees. Anders had healed from afar, never touching unless something had needed splinting. Bethany, in contrast, was all touch, as light as it was. "Where you will not find him. I'll make sure of that."
Sebastian's jaw clenched at her refusal, but before he could protest Bethany shook her head and rolled her fingers over one another, murmured a soft word.
And then he knew darkness again.
--
"Untie me."
They were, according to her, a week from the Nevarran border. It made sense, from the last few moments he truly remembered: hearing word of an apostate in the forest with blonde hair, of a swordsman who traveled with him. They could be no one else, and so he had tracked them down.
He'd found instead this dark-haired girl with a red scarf she played with almost incessantly.
She was making what passed for dinner now, as she had every evening for the past three days, sitting by the fire with her side towards him, so she could look over to him without staring. She made, if smell and the past few days were any indication, another porridge, seasoned with herbs she gathered from the edges of the small clearing they were in.
"You know I can't do that," she said, looking briefly up to him, round face lit by the dancing fire as the sun set low behind the trees surrounding them. Her smile was still sad; she was not a cruel captor, not even a captor by nature, and she seemed increasingly uncomfortable with him bound as he was. But every time he asked, she turned him down, turned away just long enough to regain her composure.
He would whittle her down, though, entreat until he had no more breath to do it with, and one day she would cave.
Hopefully that day was today.
"Bethany," he said, trying to draw her gaze back to him. She made a small sound but did not turn, instead leaning forward to stir the pot she tended.
"Bethany."
"You can speak to me without me having to look. I'm making dinner."
She could do it with her eyes closed, and he knew it. But he shook his head, shifting somewhat to try and find a more comfortable position to sit in. It had been an awkward three days - her not quite knowing what to do, him anxious to be away and focused wholly on her brother. She had had to feed him by hand every morning and night, and help him to his feet and stand guard as he relieved himself. She was not built for this.
Neither was he.
"Could you at least change how my bonds are tied?" he sighed.
"Not without knocking you unconscious again," she said, "and I know how you disliked that the last two times."
He had woken up panicked both occasions, thrashed, cried out, but by the second time he had been mostly patched together and did no lasting damage. That time, she had tried to soothe him with kind words, then the familiar cadence of the Chant of Light.
He'd asked her why, later. She had said it was comforting, that those verses were a favorite. Transfigurations, twelve. He knew it well, too. He had felt mildly more at ease with her then, less afraid, less worried for his safety. She, at least, followed the Maker, even if her brother and his lover went against Him with every step they took.
He spoke one of the verses now, watching her, seeing her tense at the sound of his voice.
"O Creator, see me kneel:
For I walk only where You would bid me,
Stand only in places You have blessed,
Sing only the words You place in my throat."
"Yes, Sebastian?" she asked, looking back to him momentarily. And then it was back to the porridge, and he felt a flush of anger run through him.
He fought it down as best he could before speaking again. He would convince her, make her see.
"I'm doing the Maker's work."
Bethany shook her head, frowning down at the pot and then reaching for the single bowl she had with her, ladling the mixture of oats, barley, and herbs into it. "You truly believe that?" she asked as she stood up, came to where he sat. She knelt before him and lifted a spoonful of the gruel to his lips.
"I do. I asked for a sign from the Maker to show me what I must do- and I was given one. It is indisputable."
"Is it?" She pursed her lips, waiting to speak again until he grudgingly took the bite offered to him.
"I don't deny that what Anders did was horrible," Bethany continued, finally, choosing her words carefully. "And that what he has started- he did not think it through, not entirely. But-"
It was the first time she had spoken the apostate's name to him, the first time she had admitted what had happened. He stiffened at the mention, knuckles going white where he clenched his hands to fists behind him, face flushing with barely controlled anger.
She offered him another spoonful of porridge.
"But my brother supports him, would die for him, and I cannot let you kill my brother- and I cannot let you stop what may, one day, allow a mage to walk freely with sunshine on her face without the fear of being hunted, or the weight of being watched at every minute.
"I cannot believe," she said, voice growing softer, "that Andraste would have wanted mages to be treated like this. Guided, yes, but not chained like wild dogs."
He refused the food, and she ate it instead, sighing and sitting back on her heels.
He wanted to correct her, yell at her, explain to her what the will of Andraste was, what the worth of the templars was. But he, too, had seen atrocities committed, and she admitted the need for shepherding.
So instead, he looked away.
"Untie me," he repeated, voice low and strained.
"No. The more days I keep you here, the more days my brother has to lose you. I will not untie you until I have no other choice." She reached out, touched his jaw, turned him back to her so she could meet his eyes, hold another spoonful of porridge to her lips.
He looked down to it, flinching under the touch of her caring. For all she stood in his way, she was a good soul. Misguided, but good. "You love your brother?" he asked, voice softening.
"More than anything."
--
She sang when she thought he couldn't hear.
Sometimes it was the Chant of Light. Other times, they were ballads, folk songs, little pieces of Ferelden. She was always far enough away that he could barely catch the words, and a line together became a gift.
She was more at ease singing than she was sitting with him, and though on one level he approved, on another it saddened him.
It had been five days and he was beginning to understand little pieces of her. Her singing voice was unpracticed, her notes wavering and cracking at either end of her register, but she sang because she enjoyed it, because it gave her pleasure, relief, and not for an audience.
She prayed, too, not for an audience. She didn't pray so he could see it. In fact, she would pray only at midday, her back to him, kneeling, head bowed in the sunlight.
She loved the sunlight.
She would lie in it for hours if they had nothing else to do, and sometimes she would nap and other times she would simply smile and play with the grass that grew around her. She wasn't young, not much younger than Hawke, but sometimes it seemed as if her time in the Circle had halted something for her.
Or perhaps buried something, because when he asked her about her time in the Gallows, she would go quiet, withdraw from him.
"Normal," she would say. "So many times, I wished I could just be normal."
He wondered at that word at first. Not blessed, not anything else but normal. She would look down at her hands when she said it, and he slowly came to understand.
Normal, not a mage, just a girl with a family, a future.
It was increasingly hard to hate her.
And from the beginning, it hadn't been her he hated, except that she kept him from his goal, his mandate, his destiny. She had been nothing but kind (after first nearly killing him with a flurry of spells that, each day, she apologized for. Each morning, she touched his shoulder and searched through him with a thread of healing magic for any injuries she might have missed. His wrists chafed, but they never blistered, never more than ached), nothing but sweet and attentive and apologetic.
That a girl like her would side with Anders-
But no, she didn't side with him. She sided with increased freedom and autonomy for mages, but not an abolishing of the templars. She was reasonable, measured, and when she spoke, he began to listen, to bow his head and understand the arguments she put forth. She was articulate, too.
Elthina would have liked her.
He began to speak more often, more than untie me or your brother or the apostate. He couldn't tell her of his time journeying at her brother's side, nor could she tell him about her childhood, so they traded other stories. He told her about life in the Chantry. She told him about- not much at all, really. Little stories about living in the Gallows, but they were isolated, short, obviously ignoring much of the rest. She told him about her father, too, and her mother, and he told her one night as she fed him that he had met Leandra once, that she had been a good and courageous woman to bring her family through what she had.
But mostly she listened and he found himself talking as if he was confessing, even though he avoided talk of his years before the Chantry and his years with Hawke. She listened and on occasion rested a hand on his shoulder.
On the seventh day, he realized he wanted every little smile he brought from her lips, every little laugh, and he turned away.
--
Had it been a week and a half, truly, of her feeding him in the mornings and the evenings, sitting beside him and reciting the Chant, sharing the tiniest pieces of herself with him in answer to his every utterance? He'd grown quiet again, at first, but it was hard to resist her infectious sweetness, her goodness that refused to be dulled completely by her shame at how she kept him, her fear of what he was capable of. They had stopped talking of mages at all, her or Anders or any of them.
And when they spoke of the Maker, of Andraste, he learned with every word that she was as devout as he, and only of a different slant. When she spoke, it was almost like listening to Elthina. He felt his anger tempered, though never completely soothed.
Now, she talked about the stars.
She pointed out constellations and he followed her finger.
That day, he had only implored her twice to release him, and she had only been forced to say no twice in return. They were running out of food; he knew because she told him, told him quietly that it would only be a little longer.
He believed her.
"Sebastian?" she asked, as the moon rose ever-higher in the sky. "Will you still go after my brother when I let you go?"
It was the first time she'd mentioned Garrett Hawke in days, and he tensed immediately, bristled, his anger only buried and controlled, not eliminated by her kindnesses. He shifted his weight away from her.
"Of course I will," he said, voice growing low and hoarse with emotion, full with the pressing rush of his fury. Righteous fury, he reminded himself. She had never convinced him that Anders should be sparred, only that it would kill Garrett and Bethany could not allow it.
That wasn't enough of a reason to stay the Maker's hand.
Bethany frowned, eyes going shuttered and sad in the firelight, and she drew her knees to her chest, touched at the scarf around her throat once more. "Even if I asked you not to?"
Those words gave him pause, a pause he should have fought against. The Maker demanded-
But she looked so worried, so scared, and it took every ounce of his willpower left to shake his head. "Even if you asked me not to."
"And I cannot convince my brother to leave Anders' side," she murmured, softly, half to himself, a sentiment he had never heard her voice. He stared at her in the dim, dancing orange light, seeing her as if she, too, had rope tied around her wrists or a heavy collar laid around her throat. "I could never lose him," she continued.
He ran through the list. Malcom Hawke, dead. Leandra Hawke nee Amell, dead. Carver Hawke, crushed by an ogre while his sister watched. Garrett Hawke-
Forsaken by the Maker, he reminded himself.
"He has sided against the Maker," he told her, quietly, and wished he could reach out to touch her, place a hand on her shoulder, soothe the line between her brows.
"No, he sided with the man he loved, for the freedom of his sister," Bethany corrected him, and it was her fingers that rose to work out the furrow on her forehead. "But that's a meaningless difference to the rest of the world, isn't it?"
"No," he found himself saying. "It isn't."
She looked up at him and he met her gaze unflinchingly, standing behind the words that had slipped from him unbidden. He thought he could understand at least that part of Garrett Hawke; he had only known her for a little over a week, had spent that time restrained and at her mercy, and he found himself wanting desperately to protect her.
He closed his eyes to pray to the Maker to give him strength.
If there were only a way to do what must be done and to preserve her at the same time-
But there wasn't, and they both knew it.
--
Three nights later, when the setting sun filtered orange and red through the trees, she kissed him.
It was a little thing at first, a brush of her lips against his cheek, and he almost thought that he had dreamed it at first. She had become so quiet since that night beneath the stars and he had begun to think that he had lost her, disappointed her too much.
They were running out of food, she had said that morning, just a few days left until it was time to cut him loose.
She had said nothing about her brother.
But that evening, the sun setting brilliant and bright, she had fed him dinner, shared it with him, one spoonful for him, one for her, and when she set aside the bowl, she leaned in and kissed him.
He hadn't been kissed in years, and he closed his eyes and felt the urge to protest rising in his throat. But every time he let those urges free, censured her or raised his voice or pulled away, he lost her a little bit more.
He didn't want to lose her.
So instead of protesting, of saying vows aloud, of reminding her of what he had given up when he entered the Chantry, he allowed her to kiss his cheek, and before she could pull away entirely, he turned his head to catch her lips against his.
She was fumbling and unpracticed even more than he, but he had the full weight of his history to guide him and she had confessed, once, that her brothers had been very protective of her. He wondered in that moment if anybody had ever kissed her before.
If they had, it had been too many years ago for her to remember what to do.
It was clumsy, awkward- and sweet, unbearably sweet. She hummed against his mouth as if she wanted to sing, scooted closer along the grass, one hand touching just lightly at his jaw, the other coming to rest on his bonds.
They were running out of food, he remembered, and while a part of him thrilled and wanted to shout for joy, for triumph, that she might have been about to free him, another part feared that moment.
She couldn't stay, and neither could he.
So he kissed her. He guided her with a tilt of his chin, a light, testing touch of his tongue, and she opened to him shyly at first, then with increased interest, increased need. She came close enough that her knee touched his thigh, and he felt a thrill run through him. Her fingers slid to his skin instead of the rope. He didn't mind.
And then she pulled away, moved just enough that their lips parted and her forehead rested against his instead, her nose brushing his, her breath mingling with his between their mouths. Her breathing was heavier and the sound stirred him nearly as much as the kiss.
"I'm sorry," she said, and sat back and away, touching at her lips almost absently as she rose to her feet.
When he asked her that night, in the light of the next morning, when she fed him dinner next, she refused to speak of it. She kept her lips - rosy, small, so unbearably sweet - shut tight and just shook her head, a faraway look in her eyes.
--
Two more mornings passed.
How long had he been with her? He tried to count, to remember the moments that stood out most clearly. A week, more- maybe even two. Such a small fraction of a lifetime, and an uncomfortable one at that. She had refused to trust him enough to unbind his hands while he was conscious even for a moment, and while she healed the damage done to him every morning, it did not make sleeping any easier, or sitting, or even speaking with her.
She had never said anything about the kiss, about why she had done it, about why she had pulled away.
But he had felt there, he knew, a deep want. Maybe it was for him, maybe it was for the moment of kissing a man for the first time, maybe it was to be normal. He had felt it, and he had also felt the crush of reality that said no, this cannot be. His vows, though so much of what made them true had fallen in Kirkwall; her brother, even at that very moment hiding, running, loving with the apostate who had set the world on fire.
He wanted to kiss her one last time before she ran.
The day was growing warm, the sounds of morning birds dying off to be replaced with the soft droning of insects, when Bethany came to him and crouched behind him. He felt her tug against the ropes binding him.
There had been only a small breakfast.
"We're out of food," he said, as calmly as he could manage while the rope binding his shoulders fell slack and then down into his lap.
She nodded. "We are. Almost, anyway. There will be just enough for me to make it another town over, I think." Her hands trailed down his arms, almost reverently, to where his wrists were tied. She went to work there, next.
"And so you'll let me go after them?"
"I would rather you didn't." Her voice was soft and at his ear, and he inhaled sharply as his wrists fell free. He wanted to touch her. He never had.
But she leaned back and bent instead to undo his ankles.
"I know," he said, instead, turning at the waist to watch her even as he massaged his wrists.
She lifted her gaze to meet his, and her smile was sad and distant and he had to resist the urge to reach out and trail a finger along her jaw, thumb away a tear that wasn't there.
He wanted to say something, assure her, promise her that he would let her brother live, but he could do none of those things. And when he opened his mouth to tell her- something, that he was glad they had met, that he had listened to her, that he wanted to feel her lips against his again- there was the distant sound of marching footsteps.
Many sets of marching footsteps.
Bethany looked up sharply, then finished tugging free the knot and stood.
"Templars," she said, and while he didn't know how she could be certain, he knew that whoever the group served, they were moving fast towards them. He knew the look on her face: fear, terror, almost defeat. He watched her move around the camp, kicking out the remains of their fire and seizing up her too-light, too-empty pack.
He stood to help her, but found himself frozen in place, looking towards the woods and the approaching noise.
"Templars," she said again, to herself, hissed and quiet as she swung her pack over her shoulder. She touched her scarf and it was the movement of red that brought his gaze back to her. She was shaking.
She crossed the space between them, and when she was close enough, she reached up to touch his cheek again. In the weeks she'd held him, his hair had come free of how he kept it carefully combed back, and she caught a strand of it beneath her thumb for a moment.
"Please, do not tell them about me," she whispered.
He swallowed, the muscles and tendons of his throat tightening. "Bethany, you're an apostate-"
"And if there was a Circle to go back to, I would not fear them so much. But Sebastian, you have to understand- they will kill me, if they don't drag me off to be held hostage until my brother comes for me. I don't want to die. I don't-"
He closed his eyes, feeling the familiar spike of rage at the mention of her brother, of all he meant. Of all the ways in which he confined her.
"I will promise you nothing."
"Sebastian-" Her voice was soft and broken and when he opened his eyes, she looked up to him searchingly. He couldn't fight the impulse to lean down, to brush his lips against hers, no more than he could fight the impulse to bring Anders to justice no matter who stood in his way.
"I will promise you nothing," he repeated, "except that I will find your brother." He felt her exhale harsh against his lips, a fractured, unfinished sob, and he cupped her face in both his hands.
"Please, do not be there when I do."
He met her eyes and she stared back at him, their breaths shared for another moment. But the footsteps were approaching fast, the unerring, inexorable movement of metal and men, and before he could kiss her again, she was withdrawing. He pushed her away to help her go, and she was halfway to the trees when she looked back to him.
"Don't tell them," she said, one final time, and he felt himself nod.
He watched her disappear and whispered a prayer to the Maker for her protection.
--
When the templars came, breaking through the trees and into the clearing in two lines, Sebastian Vael was nowhere to be found. The clearing was empty except for a few worn ropes, the remains of a fire, and places where the grass had been bent down by two bodies.
There was only the crack of a branch somewhere off in the trees, and it was that the templars followed. Some time later, a shadow slipped back in the direction Bethany had gone, away from the noise, away from the templars.
There was a breath of the Chant on the wind, and then nothing.