A Feastday in Kirkwall
So ... yeah, I'm back in fandom, in my own limited way. And now I have fanfic. BEWARE.
The Hawke and Amell families, and all their friends, would like to cordially invite you to their Feastday celebrations - lest we forget that certain DLC would remind us that Feastday is for pranks as well as treats.
A Feastday in Kirkwall
Leandra surveyed her carefully-laid dining table with a sigh. "It just doesn't feel right," she said as she nudged a fork with a fingertip.
Hawke, who had been press-ganged into hanging holiday decorations, looked down from her perch on a footstool with a wry little quirk of the lips. "What; missing the festive good cheer of our last Feastday at Uncle Gamlen's?" The feast had been a good one, by their standards that year, but Carver and Gamlen had both got drunk and launched into an argument about Gamlen's gambling debts and it had nearly come to blows. With a sigh, Hawke added, "Well, at least neither of us are being asked to break his fingers this year."
"Aislynn!"
"Not that we ever would," Hawke reassured her mother. "It's just that Athenril asking us to got ... uncomfortable. But then, family loyalty never did mean much to her. So come on; tell me." Hawke stepped down from the footstool and slung an arm around Leandra's shoulders. "What doesn't feel right? Maybe we can do something about it."
Leandra gave her last remaining daughter a wan little smile. "It's just ... I don't think I'll ever get used to a Feastday without your father ... but I'm used to not being used to it, if that makes any sense. And it's the same with Bethany not being here. It's just ... alright, we've got Gamlen, but ... Kirkwall Feastdays are so different. And it's a bit lonely, just the four of us."
Hawke grinned a bit. "Well, I might be able to arrange a house full of people, Mother. It's not as if I lack for friends. Or ... well, whatever you call some of my associates, anyway."
With a chuckle, Leandra informed her daughter, "Your father used to say that if they annoy you so much you want to beat them senseless but you still seek out their company willingly, they're either your sibling or so close a friend they might as well be. And of course they'd be welcome to come."
"But...?" Hawke knew her mother well enough to sense the hesitation when it came up.
Leandra tried for an innocent expression, and then sighed. "I suppose it's the house. In Ferelden, we mostly lived in simpler places; you and your father and the twins would go off visiting neighbours and doling out treats and pranks for Feastday, then come in with half the town trailing behind you, all pink-cheeked and merry, singing festive songs. It felt like a little miracle come to the door. This way, just inviting people ... it's too formal, I suppose. Ah well." Leandra dragged her mood up by its bootstraps and gave her daughter a smile. "At least there'll be someone to break it up if Gamlen and Carver get argumentative again."
Leandra and her eldest went back to their decorations, Leandra humming a tune to keep her festive mood afloat. Aislynn Hawke, on the other hand, looked thoughtful as she tacked garlands around the windows.
----------
Carver woke up on Feastday morning to a small Templar-shaped hand puppet waggling in his face. He sat bolt upright with a start and was just reaching for his sword when a rather familiar voice off to his right said, "Shhh!"
When he turned to look, he found Isabela sitting on the footlocker next to his bed in the Gallows barracks with a smug expression ... which turned licentious as her eyes roamed up and down his body. "I always wondered what Templars wore to bed," she murmured with a knowing little smile. "Should've guessed it was nothing at all. And aren't you pleased to see me this morning..."
With a glare and a blush, Carver arranged the bedcovers to cover himself. "What are you doing here?" A thought occurred to him and his glare deepened. "I swear, if my sister's got herself thrown in here--"
"Keep your voice down; you'll wake your barracks brothers and they'll think I'm here for ... other things than talking. Unless that would do wonders for your reputation," she offered. "But in that case, why do the penance without even giving the sin a try?"
The glare he gave her was like to set her head on fire, but he did lower his voice. "Isabela..."
"Oh, fine, you stick-in-the-mud." She waggled the Templar hand puppet at him. "I come bearing an invitation. Get some clothes on - not that atrocious armour, if you don't mind - and get your holy-pledged backside out into the courtyard. Hawke's got Feastday plans."
Carver buried his head in his hands. "Oh, Maker no. If she really wants the bickering to start early, can't she settle for driving Gamlen spare until I get there?"
Isabela swatted him with the hand puppet. "Come on. If you don't come out to play, you'll wonder what she's up to and spend weeks expecting to have to save her from being dragged into a Gallows cell for ... whatever. Besides," she added with a chuckle, "I think you'll like it more than you think." With that, Isabela tossed the hand puppet at him, stood up, and appeared to vanish into a patch of shadow.
Carver glared at the shadow for a moment, trying to give Isabela time to get good and gone, before he stood up and began to dress in his old clothes from Lothering with a grumble of, "Void take you, Sister..."
Even he couldn't help but laugh when he saw the Feastday hats on the slave statues in the Gallows courtyard, even as he told his sister, "Knight-Commander Meredith would soil her smalls. How did--?"
Hawke, Varric and Isabela, admiring their handiwork while waiting for Carver in the dawn-quiet courtyard, just grinned at him. Hawke stepped forward, looked up at her little brother and waggled her eyebrows. "Ready to see what else this holiday has in store?"
Carver snorted and grumbled, "Do I have any choice?", but he couldn't quite manage to hide his amusement and pleasure at the idea. Still, he had a reputation to maintain, so he added, "At least it's not people trying to kill us again."
Varric slapped Carver on the back. "Give it time, Junior. The day's just getting started."
"Shut it, dwarf." But Carver smiled as he said it.
----------
Merrill opened her front door to find the Hawke siblings, Varric and Isabela standing outside her door, each bearing sacks. "Is ... oh, it's that Feastday today, isn't it? Am I late? Did I miss it? Oh, I am so sorry - let me just get--"
Hawke chuckled. "Relax, Merrill. You haven't missed anything. We thought we'd celebrate our Feastday Fereldan-style this year and thought you'd like to join us for all of it."
"I'd love to!" Merrill's eyes shone with interest and joy at being included. "I didn't see much last year except there were some decorations and I think people here ate a little better than usual and then you invited me to the Hanged Man because you both needed to get away from Gamlen because he threw the turnips and ... I'm babbling again, sorry. What are the sacks for?"
When they showed her, Merrill laughed with delight as she helped with the Feastday 'prank' that Hawke outlined. Still laughing, she stood on Carver's shoulders to reach the higher branches, heedless of Carver's blushes and murmurs of 'don'tlookupdon'tlookupdon'tlookup...'
Within a quarter-hour of their leaving the alienage, every songbird within ten leagues had roosted in the vhenedal, tempted there by the dishes of birdseed and lumps of suet tied to the branches with brightly coloured ribbons. For the first time in a very long time, the elves of the alienage heard birdsong, and perhaps could imagine themselves living free in the wilds among the Dalish a little more clearly than they once had. And for Arianni, lonely and bereft without her Feynriel, it was a welcome taste of home.
----------
The Captain of the Guard got her own quarters in barracks, rather than having to share with her guardsmen. However, she could still hear them, and the racket they were making outside her door made it nearly impossible to enjoy the privilege of sleeping in, for which she'd traded a couple of fairly serious favours. Still, it was Feastday. A little merriment was to be expected, even this early in the day. All the same, it wouldn't hurt to find out what they're up to, she thought as she quickly dressed. Then she opened the door to her room and peered out into the main barracks hall...
...and was promptly hit in the face with a snowball. In the middle of summer.
Once she'd cleared the snowflakes from her eyes, she noted the two impossible snow forts at either end of the hall, with Carver commanding one group of guardsmen behind the fort nearest Aveline's office and Brennan in charge of the one by the sleeping quarters. Hawke, it appeared, had her hands full and he rmind occupied with ice magic to produce enough ammunition for the surprisingly tactical snowball war, and so didn't notice when Aveline squared her shoulders and stalked towards Hawke's snow fort.
Everyone else did, however, and it prompted an immediate cease-fire as both sides decided to wait and see what Aveline would do. All was silent except for Merrill, who spoke up in a worried sort of way. "Hawke says that Feastday in Ferelden is as much about pranks as anything else and she thought this'd also be good practice for taking cover under enemy fire and she did promise she'd replace the carpet! Oh, please don't be angry! We're all having such a lovely time and we thought you'd think it was--"
Aveline slipped behind the snow fort, grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it down Hawke's back. Hawke yelped and retaliated by flinging more snow at Aveline's face. They shared a look, and then they both flung snowballs at Brennan, who was too busy staring to dodge. Laughing, gleeful chaos ensued as the snowball fight broke out again. Some guards from out in the Keep came in to find out what the problem was, but they generally got pulled into the fight or, in some cases, wandered out with innocent expressions and the words, "Manoeuvres, sir."
When Seneschal Bran finally dared wander into the barracks to find out what in the Maker's name was going on in there, ten minutes after the Guard-Captain, Messere Hawke, Ser Carver and their bizarre entourage left with damp clothes and their lips pressed tight to keep laughter at bay, he found a snowman melting by the fire in the main hall, dressed in Guard-Captain armour with a sign reading "JEVEN" around its neck.
Seneschal Bran stared at the soggy carpet, the overly innocent guardsmen, the impossible snowman ... and then he turned and walked away with the words, "It never happened."
----------
Fenris woke up to a noise from downstairs, sat up in bed, and nearly concussed himself on the bottle of Aggregio Pavali that someone had hung from the ceiling of his bedroom so that it dangled right over his head. He scowled at it, but the smells from downstairs made him more curious than aggravated. He threw some clothes on, wondering what his companions had done this time. Then he grabbed the wine bottle, yanked hard enough to snap the cord from which it hung and stalked downstairs, following his nose and his ears to the giggling, festive-sounding group in his ... did he have a dining room?
He did, as it happened, and on a table in that never-used room sat a breakfast that might have come straight from Seheron; tea and flatbreads and spicy things for which he had no name and fruits that must have been hard to come by in Kirkwall, even with the Qunari in their compound at the docks. Things he had not tasted since his time with the Fog Warriors. The memory was bittersweet, but Hawke was not to know on what little he had told her. All she knew was that he had lived in Seheron, for a time, and seemed fonder of it than he had of Tevinter, or anywhere else. But he would not speak of what this breakfast meant to him; not with Isabela perched on a barrel with a cup in her hand and a smirk on her face, silently goading Aveline into defending her snowball-throwing technique. Not with the witch peering at a minced mutton dish of which he was particularly fond, once upon a time, and asking what it was. And certainly not with Hawke naming the dish in a passable accent.
With his attention entirely on the scene before him, Fenris didn't notice when Varric sidled up to him and held out a hand for the bottle. "It's a little early in the day, but it's Feastday. Let's act like it."
"By getting drunk?" Fenris raised an eyebrow.
Varric shrugged. "That or we pelt you with snowballs."
Fenris looked at Aveline, then at Varric, then sighed. "That's what I thought she said." He handed over the bottle to Varric, who opened it and then offered it back to Fenris with a courtly little bow. Fenris took the bottle again, sighed, "Astia valla femundis" and took a swig.
"Same to you, elf."
Fenris gave him a look. "You have no idea what I just said, do you."
"Nope." Varric sounded quite cheerful about it. "I figure that whether it was something good or something bad, 'same to you' is just the right statement for the occasion."
Fenris chuckled a bit, then cleared his throat and asked, "To what do I owe the pleasure of--"
He got no further. Within ten seconds, he found himself wearing a bright green paper crown, two lip-prints - one on either cheekbone, pressed there by kisses from Hawke and Isabela in varying shades of lip-paint - and enough ropes of Rivaini festival beads to open a shop. And for all his complaints about the adornments, it was Fenris who suggested that the evening round off with Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man after dinner, once the rest of the Feastday tricks were played.
----------
By the time the merry-makers came to Anders, he was well and truly awake, sorting through his stockpile of ingredients and wondering how he was going to make it through the rest of the week if he didn't get more elfroot in stock soon. Elegant's prices were beggaring, and he preferred to brew his own potions in any case, but they hadn't had a trip out to the wilds around Kirkwall in weeks and he was starting to run low on supplies. He wondered if he could possibly convince Hawke to take Merrill visiting her clan and pick up some elfroot while she was out.
When he turned around, he found a small rag doll in the shape of a cat looking at him with big green button eyes from the top of a crate. Stuck between its cloth paws was a bundle of elfroot. Anders blinked at the clumsy but adorable doll and then looked over to the door of the clinic ... where, of course, his associates stood. Only Fenris didn't look slightly smug and pleased with himself. "I ... how did you know?"
Hawke chuckled. "Anders, I'm one of the ones who uses up most of your supply. I had to find some way to make returning the favour fun. We tried to find a real one but all we ever caught were rats."
"Speaking of which..." Aveline stepped forward and took Hawke's wrist, holding up the mage's hand to show the nasty-looking bite on it. "Have you got anything to disinfect this before the richest apostate in Kirkwall dies of plague or something?"
Anders debated feeling guilty that Hawke had sustained an injury just to get him a Feastday gift, but instead he laughed and moved to his store of antiseptic salves, making a wisecrack about, "You're a mage, Hawke; surely you could pick up a bit of healing magic while you're about it."
"Sure," she quipped. "I'll learn to heal the day you learn to manipulate gravity. Deal?"
Since he had never been able to master Forces magic to her level, Anders just sighed and overdramatically lamented his fate as the eternal wounded healer and tended Hawke's injury before they moved on to the next portion of their revels. Though he slipped back into his clinic to move his plush cat from the crate where it still sat to his footlocker, afraid that someone might break in and take it.
It jingled when he picked it up. He examined the doll minutely, noting the uniformity of the cylinder that was its tail and, eventually, that the tail was closed with not stitches but a drawstring. Curious, he untied the little knot that held the tail-pouch closed and opened it. A small cascade of silver coins, with a gold or two for seasoning, fell into his palm.
He never did work up the nerve to ask his companions which of them did it, nor even to thank them directly (much to Justice's dismay). He simply tucked most of the money away in the plush cat again and felt relief that his clinic could carry on another year. Well, all but three silver pieces, tucked in his jacket for their next Hanged Man visit. He could buy the group a round for the first time ... well, ever.
Justice approved of that, at least.
----------
Sebastian was sweeping the Chantry steps when the singing started ... and Maker, those voices sounded familiar. The tune sounded quite upbeat, too - clearly they were Feastday revellers, whether he knew them or not...
...And then he actually listened to the words, and openly gaped at Messere Hawke and company, completely unable to look away as Hawke and her fellow apostates cheerfully led the rest of the party in song:
"Andraste the Prophet
Was our blessed Maker's bride
The Exalted March
Helped to free the slaves
Before at the pyre She died
She conquered Thedas
She was fierce and unafraid
But incurred the wrath
Of old Maferath
And so thus She was betrayed
The Maker must have spoken
To that old Hessarian fart
For in an act to spare Her pain
He just stabbed Her in the heart
Andraste the Prophet
Joined the Maker after all
Now the sisters plead
That Her words we'll heed
In this lovely Chantry hall...
Somewhere from the depths of his horror, Sebastian managed to note the expressions of Hawke's companions during this ... he wasn't entirely sure if it was sacrilege or not, really. Hawke, Anders and Merrill were at the head of the group, clearly having a wonderful time and putting their whole hearts into the singing. Varric, too, had joined in, clearly enjoying himself and probably trying to figure out where something like this could fit into his next serial. Isabela ... well, she sang as lustily as she did everything else, and ... she has spotted him. She had spotted him and now she was smirking at him and his face must look like a blue-eyed pomegranate, Maker nooooo. Ser Carver of the Templars rolled his eyes on occasion as if to indicate just how beneath him all this was, but he was grinning as he sang with his sister and her friends. Even Guard-Captain Aveline was singing along, though her smile was indulgent, as one humouring small children. Only Fenris wasn't joining in, but it might have had something to do with not knowing the tune. Sebastian was too far away to see properly, but under that hand-to-forehead expression of 'I am not with these people', he thought he saw the elf's lips turn up at the corners, just ever so slightly.
Then he heard the giggling and turned around to see several Chantry sisters and ... Grand Cleric Elthina, who was watching the giggling group at the Chantry steps break into a second rendition of their little ditty with no expression on her face whatsoever.
Sebastian had no idea what to say. He didn't know Hawke very well, but she had been a great help to him. But still, this was... He turned to Elthina, but she was watching the singers so intently that he felt that he had no choice but to wait until she was done listening to speak. Finally, the song ended and Sebastian cleared his throat. "Y-Your Grace, I ... know that was ... somewhat sacreligious, but ... you do know that Hawke has a ... her sense of humour is..."
That was when he finally noticed Elthina's expression. She was smiling. When Sebastian finally stopped stumbling over an explanation, he also heard the Grand Cleric chuckling a little under her breath. Her Grace shook her head and said, "You take yourself too seriously, Sebastian." Then she turned and went back into the Chantry without another word.
Sebastian stared at the door for a moment, and then looked back at Hawke and her group, who were heading in the general direction of Lowtown now, still laughing. For a moment, he wished he could beg an invitation to their revels ... but no. Whether or not there was such a thing as 'taking himself too seriously', it would be an imposition. So instead he sighed and went back to his chores and his thoughts on how - or if - to reclaim Starkhaven.
----------
Lirene looked around at her slightly sad Feastday decorations, and then at the stewpot. They were doing better than they had the previous year; they'd managed to find a goose at a price they could manage, even if they did have to stew the bird to make sure everyone would get a taste. The refugees were generally doing better - those who hadn't disappeared into Darktown never to be seen again, at any rate - but there were still too many, and even the scant feast of stew and bread that Lirene could set for them would be the best most had eaten all month. Still, it was Feastday. She had to do something a little special. Hence the decorations and the stew, and she'd even managed to scrounge up enough flour and sugar for holiday cakes.
The door to the Ferelden imports shop opened, and Lirene reached for another bowl without even looking, handing it in the direction of her girl. When she let go, she heard it clatter to the floor and looked up. Then she simply stared.
A stream of Ferelden men, most who'd been looking for paying work just last week, came pouring into the shop, each carrying food - geese ready-plucked and ready for the oven, sides of meat, bags of potatoes, fruits and vegetables, casks of flour, sacks of sugar and crates of eggs. There were even kegs of ale. It would provide a fine Feastday meal for everyone, and feed the needy for weeks besides. The men, once they had put down their loads, turned to their wives and sisters and showed the gold they'd earned for the delivery, and said that half of it was to pay for the cooking of the Feastday meal for the refugees.
Lirene nudged her way through the crowds of joyous refugees and opened the door, peering out of the shop into Lowtown. Sure enough, there was the Healer, and there were the Hawke siblings and their friends. Anders could never afford this, but Messere Hawke and her Templar brother... She looked at them, unsure what to say or do.
Hawke gave Lirene a little bow. Anders nodded. The others - even that silver-haired elf - smiled. And then they walked away without so much as waiting for a thank you.
But she said it all the same. As she hosted the best holiday feast they had seen since they left Ferelden, and raised a silent toast to them all.
----------
"Mistress Amell, you shouldn't be doing that. You're the lady of the estate; this is what servants are for!" Bodhann looked scandalised, and he was. While he suffered Leandra in the kitchen because his own fare was substandard for a great house and he knew it, the idea of her picking up a tray laden with goose and carrying it to table was anathema. It was beneath her.
Unfortunately, he was too short to wrench the plate away from her, and Leandra just carried right on with what she was doing. "It's a little much to handle all by yourself, though, Bodhann. I mean, with all of my daughter's friends coming." She set the platter on the dining table and glanced towards the main hall, maternal worry flaring up. "I wonder where she's gone off to? I hope she hasn't got into any trouble."
"That one was built to get into trouble," Gamlen said as he peered into the dining room at the spread on teh table. "Comes of always sticking her nose into other people's business."
Leandra raised an eyebrow, amused. "This from the man who used to try to read her mail?"
"It was coming to my house!" There was no heat to the argument; now that they had separate lodgings, it was easier to laugh off certain things, and ignore others. Gamlen dropped the whole line of commentary with a shrug. "Anyway, I've seen the sorts of things that girl gets into, and she gets out of them all. She probably just got to picking up Carver and those friends of hers and lost track of time. I mean, when I was her age, I--"
The door slammed open and loud, cheerful conversation poured into the estate. "--the look on his face when we sang that--"
"That was because he was convinced the Maker would smite you, Hawke."
"I thought Lirene was going to cry! I suppose I owe her that much for shielding me all this time..."
"Aw, Fenris, did you have to wash off the--"
"Yes."
"But you looked adorable!"
"I liked the hat best."
"Here, then; you wear it."
"Eee!"
"I'm shocked, Elf; that's the first nice thing I've seen you do for Daisy in--"
"Don't start in on him, Varric; we want to enjoy the meal without him getting in a snit again."
"...Are the Templars teaching you diplomacy, little brother?"
"...Maybe. Sort of. Yes. Shut up. Look, I still want to know how you put hats on those..."
Gamlen looked at his sister and noted that her eyes were filling with tears. He never did know how to handle it when Leandra cried. "Um ... it ... it seems they're back. And ... loud. And--"
"It's just like home!" She flung her arms around Gamlen in a tight hug, and after a moment, Gamlen - who had no idea what she meant, beyond the fact that she was happy, returned it.
Then Leandra stepped into the doorway and ushered her children and the family they'd made for themselves to the table. Dinner was long, and delicious, and full of laughter and stories and the exchange of small gifts and trinkets ... but for Leandra, the gift was having a Feastday tradition returned, and finally feeling like the grand, empty old estate that had once been her family's was not just 'the ancestral estate', but home.
I need an AO3 account...
Cross-posted from http://thessalian.dreamwidth.org/85681.html. Comments here or there; either way works fine.
The Hawke and Amell families, and all their friends, would like to cordially invite you to their Feastday celebrations - lest we forget that certain DLC would remind us that Feastday is for pranks as well as treats.
A Feastday in Kirkwall
Leandra surveyed her carefully-laid dining table with a sigh. "It just doesn't feel right," she said as she nudged a fork with a fingertip.
Hawke, who had been press-ganged into hanging holiday decorations, looked down from her perch on a footstool with a wry little quirk of the lips. "What; missing the festive good cheer of our last Feastday at Uncle Gamlen's?" The feast had been a good one, by their standards that year, but Carver and Gamlen had both got drunk and launched into an argument about Gamlen's gambling debts and it had nearly come to blows. With a sigh, Hawke added, "Well, at least neither of us are being asked to break his fingers this year."
"Aislynn!"
"Not that we ever would," Hawke reassured her mother. "It's just that Athenril asking us to got ... uncomfortable. But then, family loyalty never did mean much to her. So come on; tell me." Hawke stepped down from the footstool and slung an arm around Leandra's shoulders. "What doesn't feel right? Maybe we can do something about it."
Leandra gave her last remaining daughter a wan little smile. "It's just ... I don't think I'll ever get used to a Feastday without your father ... but I'm used to not being used to it, if that makes any sense. And it's the same with Bethany not being here. It's just ... alright, we've got Gamlen, but ... Kirkwall Feastdays are so different. And it's a bit lonely, just the four of us."
Hawke grinned a bit. "Well, I might be able to arrange a house full of people, Mother. It's not as if I lack for friends. Or ... well, whatever you call some of my associates, anyway."
With a chuckle, Leandra informed her daughter, "Your father used to say that if they annoy you so much you want to beat them senseless but you still seek out their company willingly, they're either your sibling or so close a friend they might as well be. And of course they'd be welcome to come."
"But...?" Hawke knew her mother well enough to sense the hesitation when it came up.
Leandra tried for an innocent expression, and then sighed. "I suppose it's the house. In Ferelden, we mostly lived in simpler places; you and your father and the twins would go off visiting neighbours and doling out treats and pranks for Feastday, then come in with half the town trailing behind you, all pink-cheeked and merry, singing festive songs. It felt like a little miracle come to the door. This way, just inviting people ... it's too formal, I suppose. Ah well." Leandra dragged her mood up by its bootstraps and gave her daughter a smile. "At least there'll be someone to break it up if Gamlen and Carver get argumentative again."
Leandra and her eldest went back to their decorations, Leandra humming a tune to keep her festive mood afloat. Aislynn Hawke, on the other hand, looked thoughtful as she tacked garlands around the windows.
----------
Carver woke up on Feastday morning to a small Templar-shaped hand puppet waggling in his face. He sat bolt upright with a start and was just reaching for his sword when a rather familiar voice off to his right said, "Shhh!"
When he turned to look, he found Isabela sitting on the footlocker next to his bed in the Gallows barracks with a smug expression ... which turned licentious as her eyes roamed up and down his body. "I always wondered what Templars wore to bed," she murmured with a knowing little smile. "Should've guessed it was nothing at all. And aren't you pleased to see me this morning..."
With a glare and a blush, Carver arranged the bedcovers to cover himself. "What are you doing here?" A thought occurred to him and his glare deepened. "I swear, if my sister's got herself thrown in here--"
"Keep your voice down; you'll wake your barracks brothers and they'll think I'm here for ... other things than talking. Unless that would do wonders for your reputation," she offered. "But in that case, why do the penance without even giving the sin a try?"
The glare he gave her was like to set her head on fire, but he did lower his voice. "Isabela..."
"Oh, fine, you stick-in-the-mud." She waggled the Templar hand puppet at him. "I come bearing an invitation. Get some clothes on - not that atrocious armour, if you don't mind - and get your holy-pledged backside out into the courtyard. Hawke's got Feastday plans."
Carver buried his head in his hands. "Oh, Maker no. If she really wants the bickering to start early, can't she settle for driving Gamlen spare until I get there?"
Isabela swatted him with the hand puppet. "Come on. If you don't come out to play, you'll wonder what she's up to and spend weeks expecting to have to save her from being dragged into a Gallows cell for ... whatever. Besides," she added with a chuckle, "I think you'll like it more than you think." With that, Isabela tossed the hand puppet at him, stood up, and appeared to vanish into a patch of shadow.
Carver glared at the shadow for a moment, trying to give Isabela time to get good and gone, before he stood up and began to dress in his old clothes from Lothering with a grumble of, "Void take you, Sister..."
Even he couldn't help but laugh when he saw the Feastday hats on the slave statues in the Gallows courtyard, even as he told his sister, "Knight-Commander Meredith would soil her smalls. How did--?"
Hawke, Varric and Isabela, admiring their handiwork while waiting for Carver in the dawn-quiet courtyard, just grinned at him. Hawke stepped forward, looked up at her little brother and waggled her eyebrows. "Ready to see what else this holiday has in store?"
Carver snorted and grumbled, "Do I have any choice?", but he couldn't quite manage to hide his amusement and pleasure at the idea. Still, he had a reputation to maintain, so he added, "At least it's not people trying to kill us again."
Varric slapped Carver on the back. "Give it time, Junior. The day's just getting started."
"Shut it, dwarf." But Carver smiled as he said it.
----------
Merrill opened her front door to find the Hawke siblings, Varric and Isabela standing outside her door, each bearing sacks. "Is ... oh, it's that Feastday today, isn't it? Am I late? Did I miss it? Oh, I am so sorry - let me just get--"
Hawke chuckled. "Relax, Merrill. You haven't missed anything. We thought we'd celebrate our Feastday Fereldan-style this year and thought you'd like to join us for all of it."
"I'd love to!" Merrill's eyes shone with interest and joy at being included. "I didn't see much last year except there were some decorations and I think people here ate a little better than usual and then you invited me to the Hanged Man because you both needed to get away from Gamlen because he threw the turnips and ... I'm babbling again, sorry. What are the sacks for?"
When they showed her, Merrill laughed with delight as she helped with the Feastday 'prank' that Hawke outlined. Still laughing, she stood on Carver's shoulders to reach the higher branches, heedless of Carver's blushes and murmurs of 'don'tlookupdon'tlookupdon'tlookup...'
Within a quarter-hour of their leaving the alienage, every songbird within ten leagues had roosted in the vhenedal, tempted there by the dishes of birdseed and lumps of suet tied to the branches with brightly coloured ribbons. For the first time in a very long time, the elves of the alienage heard birdsong, and perhaps could imagine themselves living free in the wilds among the Dalish a little more clearly than they once had. And for Arianni, lonely and bereft without her Feynriel, it was a welcome taste of home.
----------
The Captain of the Guard got her own quarters in barracks, rather than having to share with her guardsmen. However, she could still hear them, and the racket they were making outside her door made it nearly impossible to enjoy the privilege of sleeping in, for which she'd traded a couple of fairly serious favours. Still, it was Feastday. A little merriment was to be expected, even this early in the day. All the same, it wouldn't hurt to find out what they're up to, she thought as she quickly dressed. Then she opened the door to her room and peered out into the main barracks hall...
...and was promptly hit in the face with a snowball. In the middle of summer.
Once she'd cleared the snowflakes from her eyes, she noted the two impossible snow forts at either end of the hall, with Carver commanding one group of guardsmen behind the fort nearest Aveline's office and Brennan in charge of the one by the sleeping quarters. Hawke, it appeared, had her hands full and he rmind occupied with ice magic to produce enough ammunition for the surprisingly tactical snowball war, and so didn't notice when Aveline squared her shoulders and stalked towards Hawke's snow fort.
Everyone else did, however, and it prompted an immediate cease-fire as both sides decided to wait and see what Aveline would do. All was silent except for Merrill, who spoke up in a worried sort of way. "Hawke says that Feastday in Ferelden is as much about pranks as anything else and she thought this'd also be good practice for taking cover under enemy fire and she did promise she'd replace the carpet! Oh, please don't be angry! We're all having such a lovely time and we thought you'd think it was--"
Aveline slipped behind the snow fort, grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it down Hawke's back. Hawke yelped and retaliated by flinging more snow at Aveline's face. They shared a look, and then they both flung snowballs at Brennan, who was too busy staring to dodge. Laughing, gleeful chaos ensued as the snowball fight broke out again. Some guards from out in the Keep came in to find out what the problem was, but they generally got pulled into the fight or, in some cases, wandered out with innocent expressions and the words, "Manoeuvres, sir."
When Seneschal Bran finally dared wander into the barracks to find out what in the Maker's name was going on in there, ten minutes after the Guard-Captain, Messere Hawke, Ser Carver and their bizarre entourage left with damp clothes and their lips pressed tight to keep laughter at bay, he found a snowman melting by the fire in the main hall, dressed in Guard-Captain armour with a sign reading "JEVEN" around its neck.
Seneschal Bran stared at the soggy carpet, the overly innocent guardsmen, the impossible snowman ... and then he turned and walked away with the words, "It never happened."
----------
Fenris woke up to a noise from downstairs, sat up in bed, and nearly concussed himself on the bottle of Aggregio Pavali that someone had hung from the ceiling of his bedroom so that it dangled right over his head. He scowled at it, but the smells from downstairs made him more curious than aggravated. He threw some clothes on, wondering what his companions had done this time. Then he grabbed the wine bottle, yanked hard enough to snap the cord from which it hung and stalked downstairs, following his nose and his ears to the giggling, festive-sounding group in his ... did he have a dining room?
He did, as it happened, and on a table in that never-used room sat a breakfast that might have come straight from Seheron; tea and flatbreads and spicy things for which he had no name and fruits that must have been hard to come by in Kirkwall, even with the Qunari in their compound at the docks. Things he had not tasted since his time with the Fog Warriors. The memory was bittersweet, but Hawke was not to know on what little he had told her. All she knew was that he had lived in Seheron, for a time, and seemed fonder of it than he had of Tevinter, or anywhere else. But he would not speak of what this breakfast meant to him; not with Isabela perched on a barrel with a cup in her hand and a smirk on her face, silently goading Aveline into defending her snowball-throwing technique. Not with the witch peering at a minced mutton dish of which he was particularly fond, once upon a time, and asking what it was. And certainly not with Hawke naming the dish in a passable accent.
With his attention entirely on the scene before him, Fenris didn't notice when Varric sidled up to him and held out a hand for the bottle. "It's a little early in the day, but it's Feastday. Let's act like it."
"By getting drunk?" Fenris raised an eyebrow.
Varric shrugged. "That or we pelt you with snowballs."
Fenris looked at Aveline, then at Varric, then sighed. "That's what I thought she said." He handed over the bottle to Varric, who opened it and then offered it back to Fenris with a courtly little bow. Fenris took the bottle again, sighed, "Astia valla femundis" and took a swig.
"Same to you, elf."
Fenris gave him a look. "You have no idea what I just said, do you."
"Nope." Varric sounded quite cheerful about it. "I figure that whether it was something good or something bad, 'same to you' is just the right statement for the occasion."
Fenris chuckled a bit, then cleared his throat and asked, "To what do I owe the pleasure of--"
He got no further. Within ten seconds, he found himself wearing a bright green paper crown, two lip-prints - one on either cheekbone, pressed there by kisses from Hawke and Isabela in varying shades of lip-paint - and enough ropes of Rivaini festival beads to open a shop. And for all his complaints about the adornments, it was Fenris who suggested that the evening round off with Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man after dinner, once the rest of the Feastday tricks were played.
----------
By the time the merry-makers came to Anders, he was well and truly awake, sorting through his stockpile of ingredients and wondering how he was going to make it through the rest of the week if he didn't get more elfroot in stock soon. Elegant's prices were beggaring, and he preferred to brew his own potions in any case, but they hadn't had a trip out to the wilds around Kirkwall in weeks and he was starting to run low on supplies. He wondered if he could possibly convince Hawke to take Merrill visiting her clan and pick up some elfroot while she was out.
When he turned around, he found a small rag doll in the shape of a cat looking at him with big green button eyes from the top of a crate. Stuck between its cloth paws was a bundle of elfroot. Anders blinked at the clumsy but adorable doll and then looked over to the door of the clinic ... where, of course, his associates stood. Only Fenris didn't look slightly smug and pleased with himself. "I ... how did you know?"
Hawke chuckled. "Anders, I'm one of the ones who uses up most of your supply. I had to find some way to make returning the favour fun. We tried to find a real one but all we ever caught were rats."
"Speaking of which..." Aveline stepped forward and took Hawke's wrist, holding up the mage's hand to show the nasty-looking bite on it. "Have you got anything to disinfect this before the richest apostate in Kirkwall dies of plague or something?"
Anders debated feeling guilty that Hawke had sustained an injury just to get him a Feastday gift, but instead he laughed and moved to his store of antiseptic salves, making a wisecrack about, "You're a mage, Hawke; surely you could pick up a bit of healing magic while you're about it."
"Sure," she quipped. "I'll learn to heal the day you learn to manipulate gravity. Deal?"
Since he had never been able to master Forces magic to her level, Anders just sighed and overdramatically lamented his fate as the eternal wounded healer and tended Hawke's injury before they moved on to the next portion of their revels. Though he slipped back into his clinic to move his plush cat from the crate where it still sat to his footlocker, afraid that someone might break in and take it.
It jingled when he picked it up. He examined the doll minutely, noting the uniformity of the cylinder that was its tail and, eventually, that the tail was closed with not stitches but a drawstring. Curious, he untied the little knot that held the tail-pouch closed and opened it. A small cascade of silver coins, with a gold or two for seasoning, fell into his palm.
He never did work up the nerve to ask his companions which of them did it, nor even to thank them directly (much to Justice's dismay). He simply tucked most of the money away in the plush cat again and felt relief that his clinic could carry on another year. Well, all but three silver pieces, tucked in his jacket for their next Hanged Man visit. He could buy the group a round for the first time ... well, ever.
Justice approved of that, at least.
----------
Sebastian was sweeping the Chantry steps when the singing started ... and Maker, those voices sounded familiar. The tune sounded quite upbeat, too - clearly they were Feastday revellers, whether he knew them or not...
...And then he actually listened to the words, and openly gaped at Messere Hawke and company, completely unable to look away as Hawke and her fellow apostates cheerfully led the rest of the party in song:
"Andraste the Prophet
Was our blessed Maker's bride
The Exalted March
Helped to free the slaves
Before at the pyre She died
She conquered Thedas
She was fierce and unafraid
But incurred the wrath
Of old Maferath
And so thus She was betrayed
The Maker must have spoken
To that old Hessarian fart
For in an act to spare Her pain
He just stabbed Her in the heart
Andraste the Prophet
Joined the Maker after all
Now the sisters plead
That Her words we'll heed
In this lovely Chantry hall...
Somewhere from the depths of his horror, Sebastian managed to note the expressions of Hawke's companions during this ... he wasn't entirely sure if it was sacrilege or not, really. Hawke, Anders and Merrill were at the head of the group, clearly having a wonderful time and putting their whole hearts into the singing. Varric, too, had joined in, clearly enjoying himself and probably trying to figure out where something like this could fit into his next serial. Isabela ... well, she sang as lustily as she did everything else, and ... she has spotted him. She had spotted him and now she was smirking at him and his face must look like a blue-eyed pomegranate, Maker nooooo. Ser Carver of the Templars rolled his eyes on occasion as if to indicate just how beneath him all this was, but he was grinning as he sang with his sister and her friends. Even Guard-Captain Aveline was singing along, though her smile was indulgent, as one humouring small children. Only Fenris wasn't joining in, but it might have had something to do with not knowing the tune. Sebastian was too far away to see properly, but under that hand-to-forehead expression of 'I am not with these people', he thought he saw the elf's lips turn up at the corners, just ever so slightly.
Then he heard the giggling and turned around to see several Chantry sisters and ... Grand Cleric Elthina, who was watching the giggling group at the Chantry steps break into a second rendition of their little ditty with no expression on her face whatsoever.
Sebastian had no idea what to say. He didn't know Hawke very well, but she had been a great help to him. But still, this was... He turned to Elthina, but she was watching the singers so intently that he felt that he had no choice but to wait until she was done listening to speak. Finally, the song ended and Sebastian cleared his throat. "Y-Your Grace, I ... know that was ... somewhat sacreligious, but ... you do know that Hawke has a ... her sense of humour is..."
That was when he finally noticed Elthina's expression. She was smiling. When Sebastian finally stopped stumbling over an explanation, he also heard the Grand Cleric chuckling a little under her breath. Her Grace shook her head and said, "You take yourself too seriously, Sebastian." Then she turned and went back into the Chantry without another word.
Sebastian stared at the door for a moment, and then looked back at Hawke and her group, who were heading in the general direction of Lowtown now, still laughing. For a moment, he wished he could beg an invitation to their revels ... but no. Whether or not there was such a thing as 'taking himself too seriously', it would be an imposition. So instead he sighed and went back to his chores and his thoughts on how - or if - to reclaim Starkhaven.
----------
Lirene looked around at her slightly sad Feastday decorations, and then at the stewpot. They were doing better than they had the previous year; they'd managed to find a goose at a price they could manage, even if they did have to stew the bird to make sure everyone would get a taste. The refugees were generally doing better - those who hadn't disappeared into Darktown never to be seen again, at any rate - but there were still too many, and even the scant feast of stew and bread that Lirene could set for them would be the best most had eaten all month. Still, it was Feastday. She had to do something a little special. Hence the decorations and the stew, and she'd even managed to scrounge up enough flour and sugar for holiday cakes.
The door to the Ferelden imports shop opened, and Lirene reached for another bowl without even looking, handing it in the direction of her girl. When she let go, she heard it clatter to the floor and looked up. Then she simply stared.
A stream of Ferelden men, most who'd been looking for paying work just last week, came pouring into the shop, each carrying food - geese ready-plucked and ready for the oven, sides of meat, bags of potatoes, fruits and vegetables, casks of flour, sacks of sugar and crates of eggs. There were even kegs of ale. It would provide a fine Feastday meal for everyone, and feed the needy for weeks besides. The men, once they had put down their loads, turned to their wives and sisters and showed the gold they'd earned for the delivery, and said that half of it was to pay for the cooking of the Feastday meal for the refugees.
Lirene nudged her way through the crowds of joyous refugees and opened the door, peering out of the shop into Lowtown. Sure enough, there was the Healer, and there were the Hawke siblings and their friends. Anders could never afford this, but Messere Hawke and her Templar brother... She looked at them, unsure what to say or do.
Hawke gave Lirene a little bow. Anders nodded. The others - even that silver-haired elf - smiled. And then they walked away without so much as waiting for a thank you.
But she said it all the same. As she hosted the best holiday feast they had seen since they left Ferelden, and raised a silent toast to them all.
----------
"Mistress Amell, you shouldn't be doing that. You're the lady of the estate; this is what servants are for!" Bodhann looked scandalised, and he was. While he suffered Leandra in the kitchen because his own fare was substandard for a great house and he knew it, the idea of her picking up a tray laden with goose and carrying it to table was anathema. It was beneath her.
Unfortunately, he was too short to wrench the plate away from her, and Leandra just carried right on with what she was doing. "It's a little much to handle all by yourself, though, Bodhann. I mean, with all of my daughter's friends coming." She set the platter on the dining table and glanced towards the main hall, maternal worry flaring up. "I wonder where she's gone off to? I hope she hasn't got into any trouble."
"That one was built to get into trouble," Gamlen said as he peered into the dining room at the spread on teh table. "Comes of always sticking her nose into other people's business."
Leandra raised an eyebrow, amused. "This from the man who used to try to read her mail?"
"It was coming to my house!" There was no heat to the argument; now that they had separate lodgings, it was easier to laugh off certain things, and ignore others. Gamlen dropped the whole line of commentary with a shrug. "Anyway, I've seen the sorts of things that girl gets into, and she gets out of them all. She probably just got to picking up Carver and those friends of hers and lost track of time. I mean, when I was her age, I--"
The door slammed open and loud, cheerful conversation poured into the estate. "--the look on his face when we sang that--"
"That was because he was convinced the Maker would smite you, Hawke."
"I thought Lirene was going to cry! I suppose I owe her that much for shielding me all this time..."
"Aw, Fenris, did you have to wash off the--"
"Yes."
"But you looked adorable!"
"I liked the hat best."
"Here, then; you wear it."
"Eee!"
"I'm shocked, Elf; that's the first nice thing I've seen you do for Daisy in--"
"Don't start in on him, Varric; we want to enjoy the meal without him getting in a snit again."
"...Are the Templars teaching you diplomacy, little brother?"
"...Maybe. Sort of. Yes. Shut up. Look, I still want to know how you put hats on those..."
Gamlen looked at his sister and noted that her eyes were filling with tears. He never did know how to handle it when Leandra cried. "Um ... it ... it seems they're back. And ... loud. And--"
"It's just like home!" She flung her arms around Gamlen in a tight hug, and after a moment, Gamlen - who had no idea what she meant, beyond the fact that she was happy, returned it.
Then Leandra stepped into the doorway and ushered her children and the family they'd made for themselves to the table. Dinner was long, and delicious, and full of laughter and stories and the exchange of small gifts and trinkets ... but for Leandra, the gift was having a Feastday tradition returned, and finally feeling like the grand, empty old estate that had once been her family's was not just 'the ancestral estate', but home.
I need an AO3 account...
Cross-posted from http://thessalian.dreamwidth.org/85681.html. Comments here or there; either way works fine.