My Warden (COMPLETED)

Betting It All

"Come with me," Hawke barreled into their shared room with determination on her face and a crown of flowers upon her head.

Lana turned away from her book and pointed at the floral arrangement, "What's with the flowers?"

"What flowers?" Hawke said with such confusion Lana feared she either imagined them or her cousin truly didn't know they were there. "Never mind, come on. Put down your book. That's all you've been doing for the past three days, squatting in this room reading."

"I believe I've been healing," Lana gestured to her stab wound that was now well on its way to being a nuisance scar that only throbbed when she sneezed. "And studying up on rift magic. I'm impressed despite the lack of circles how much research has already been eked out from them. It seems as if..."

"That's boring, you can't keep doing the boring stuff!" Hawke half collapsed in the doorway, her hands skimming across the ground like an exhausted child. "We should do something fun. Really fun too, not your little dancing bear fun."

"It wasn't a bear, it was a poorly sculpted dog, and it wasn't supposed to dance," Lana frowned while glancing at her once finished and then again obliterated device. Getting it right was proving more tricky than she expected. How did the tranquil make it look so easy?

"I'm bored, you're bored," Hawke whined some more.

"I'm not bored," Lana sniped back. After returning the next morning with enough books for Lana to collapse a library, Hawke resumed her duties of watching over the wounded and possibly dangerous mage. Unfortunately, Hawke was not made to be contained within four walls for very long. Lana encouraged her cousin to take long walks during the day before they murdered each other in their sleep. The commander stopped by on occasion, and almost always when Hawke was sitting in the corner trying to whittle a set of daggers out of a larger sword. This, of course, required the two of them to pretend he was merely checking on the rate of her recovery and to update her. Despite the constant chaperon, Cullen never came with a plan on what to drone on about. He managed to fight off the blush from the blunder, but his recitation of troop movements to the bemused grey warden did not help their cover story.

Only once did Cullen knock on the door when Hawke was on one of her 'you're wearing through the stone floor' walks. Even alone, they spoke of genteel topics and kept apart...for about three minutes. Cullen nearly jumped out of the window when Hawke dropped her latest haul from unguarded barrels right outside the door. The near close call kept them guarded and cautious, at least until Lana was well enough to resume her own duties away from her cousin.

Hawke's big brown eyes pleaded with the mage, "Please, I'll let you have all my pudding from dinner."

"You despise pudding," Lana sighed even as she shut her book. No matter how much she fought her cousin on principle, stretching her legs sounded nice. And it was unlikely to kill her now.

"All the more reason for you to eat it instead. Come on, I swear, you'll love it. All the best people will be there."

Lana paused in rising and snapped her head at Hawke. "People?"

Hawke slapped her hand against her mouth, "There I go giving away the surprise. Just grab your stick thing and let's go."

"My staff," Lana sighed, as if the Champion of Kirkwall didn't know the damn difference. She'd prefer to leave it safely stored away from whatever Hawke was planning but she needed it as a cane. Putting the weight of her left side against it, she limped towards the rack to grab her cloak.

"Nah nah, you won't be needing that," Hawke waved her hands away at Lana.

She was dressed more presentably than Cullen's tunic and bare legs, but her attire wasn't something she'd want to get caught in front of an entire tavern in. "You're certain of that?"