Amantes Sunt Amentes

Wherein lovers have been reunited and Wardens are perplexed

What madness has overtaken Serah Hawke?

The remnants of Orlais' Wardens, making the long trek to Weisshaupt under Lisbet Hawke's guidance, had grown accustomed to her preference for quiet, broken only by businesslike questions about their route or the pitching and breaking of camp each dusk, each dawn. She was polite, even kind, but she did not pursue nor encourage conversation with her charges. Wary of her reputation and weighed down themselves with the regrets of Adamant, they were content to let her keep her distance.

Why then, this night, is she a flurry of laughter as they sit at dinner in the inn's common room, and where did she even find that lute and Maker, no one even knew she could sing…

And for all her former primness, by the third innuendo-laden verse of the tavern song she's belting out, she has even the most stolid of the Wardens chuckling along. But her eyes are for her companion alone, the oddly marked elf who joined them not far from the Imperial highway, the day before they reached Montfort, and she doesn't stop the ridiculous song till he stops trying to hide his smile and laughs along with them. Then Hawke dissolves into giggles again, abandoning the lute to wrap herself lightly around his arm and lean into his shoulder.

"You're drunk, Hawke," he accuses fondly.

"Not in the least," she says, the clarity of her voice supporting her claim. "Certainly not from drinking the ale here, if you can call it that, anyway." She sips from her tankard, makes a face, glances almost shyly back over her shoulder at him. "Giddy, perhaps. I missed you so."

What madness has overtaken Serah Fenris?

Then there is the day after they leave the highway, cutting cross-country again, aiming for Perendale on their way to Weisshaupt. Fenris had gone ahead, scouting for danger, and failed to return in good time. Hawke, wild-eyed, jumps at shadows as at darkspawn, gains speed with every tremulous breath, urges the Wardens on into whatever peril she imagines has detained the elf. She sends her dog to seek him out. The mabari returns with a chain of flowers dangling from one ear.

They find Fenris crouched by a brookside, in a patch of violets, spikey gauntlets laid aside as he twists flowers into a garland. Seeing Hawke and her Warden entourage, he flushes till the lyrium lines stand out even whiter against his skin. "That one," he nods at the flowers in the dog's stiff fur, "was meant for you, but he surprised me. I thought - I should have finished another before you caught up. I'm nearly done with this one."

Hawke's mouth quirks. "So, no darkspawn here, I take it?"

"If we find any, perhaps I could make you a crown of their teeth, Hawke, but the violets suit you better."

Then she flushes to complement the flowers, and laughs when he crowns her with them.

She wears that crown three days straight, till the last petal has wilted, and smiles when she looks at him, and takes his hand as they walk.

What madness is it, to fight like this?

The Wardens have heard of berserk warriors who lose all sense of themselves when the battle rage is upon them. This, they think, is something quite different, when they flush a patrol of darkspawn out of the cave they hoped to camp in, a day away from Perendale. Hawke laughs with delight when Fenris' markings flare to life, when he whirls like blue smoke between their enemies. Her ice flies over his head, freezing a hurlock just in time for his sword to shatter it; when she loses sight of him, he is suddenly behind her, swinging his sword in an arc that scatters the genlocks creeping up on her. "Oh, I missed this!" Hawke shouts no less than twice per battle.

Who in their right mind, the Wardens wonder, would miss this?

Fenris knows, though. He's enjoying it as much as she is. Once he would have raged at a comrade's use of magic, the danger it poses to friend as well as foe. Now, any fight without her spells zipping past him, without the intricate net that they weave for their enemies between her ice and his lyrium, seems merely a chore.

Amantes sunt amentes, they say in Tevinter. Lovers are lunatics.

What their reunion lacks in careful thought, he decides, will not be missed. Not amidst so many thoughtless pleasures.

The silly things she finds herself doing every day, every time he glances at her, Hawke decides, have done no harm. She plays the fool; so be it. There will be a time for reason again, but he is hers and he is here and she is giddy with delight.

Lunatics, the wardens murmur.

Lover, the wardens do not hear them whisper in one another's ear.