A Princess, a Knight, and an Assassin Walk Into a Tavern...

Clarity

Clarity had never had so many people touch her in all her life. The men who had taken them captive laid their hands all over her, and it burned everywhere. For that matter she had never been taken prisoner before. The Ravens had a strict "Don't get caught alive" policy, and were all provided with a capsule of poison, should they ever get hands laid on them ; but that hadn't been the plan, and against everything she had ever learned, she let them take her.
As soon as it was apparent they weren't going to be killed, and the guards around them loosened their stance, she had struck out against them. Shoving as many hands off of her as she could; but that was all she could do. Without her leg she was absolutely useless, something she wasn't used to feeling. She was angry, and her body was on fire, and she was forced to kneel there, useless. It had been some time since Clarity had felt this embarrassed.
She couldn't hear anything of West, Tollie, Reik, and the woman with the axe's conversation, but all of a sudden the Raider's attitudes shifted and they were untying Hawke, and trying to help them to their feet. Clarity let out a snarl when they reached for her, and they simply raised their hands and backed off.
They had brought out healing supplies and had moved to help Clarity, but she just glared at them ferociously until they laid the needle, thread, and bandages at her feet. Seeing their wariness helped her mood a little bit, and she heard Hawke chuckle as they moved away, one of their eyes always on her as if she would spring and attack.
He had walked over to her immediately after being released, but he was glared down like the rest of them, and had simply sat close by. His badly beaten head was being wrapped up, and Clarity's stomach clenched every time he sharply drew in breath. His mood shifted immediately with the atmosphere, and he was laughing with the man, now bandaging his head, that had beaten it with the butt of his axe to begin with. When the man pointed to Hawke's cheek, and then to the bandages, asking if he needed any, Hawke had laughed heartily, and said, "No need to worry about that one, it wasn't one of yours. Though, I fought hard for it, and I'd like to keep it as a trophy for a while." He had turned his big grin, and his laughing eyes on Clarity, and blinked one of them at her.
Clarity just rolled her eyes, but smirked a little. Her hand was suddenly warm where his lips had pressed into it earlier, and she suddenly needed something to focus on. She shook her head to clear it before taking a look at her leg. It would need stitches in two spots. Her stomach clenched. She HATED stitches. There was nothing for it. She wound bandages into a knot and stuck it into her mouth, and bit down on it, hard.
She then ripped her pants up her thigh – which made Hawke's eyes go wide – and started on scrubbing the blood off and out of the wound. When it was clean, she was sweating; but she pulled the thread out and threaded it through the needle anyway, wiping her brow before beginning. She pressed the skin on the upper part of her thigh together, where the cut was the deepest, and took a big gulp of something in a cup that someone had dropped by her foot, before plunging the needle through her skin. She made a throaty involuntary noise, and shut her eyes tight for a second. The second and third plunges were just as painful, but after that, the drink started to kick in, and her stitches got faster.
The second part, on the inside of her knee, went slower, and required several long pulls from the flagon by her foot. When she finally finished, tied the knot, and broke the thread free, she was sweaty and shaking hard. When she closed her eyes and reached for the bandages, her fingers brushed someone else's hand and she flinched away and her eyes shot open. It was only Hawke though, and she forced her muscles to relax the fist she had formed her hand into.
He moved slowly to her injured leg, his eyes asking permission, and he smiled when she nodded hesitantly, touched that she would trust him with this. She had to close her eyes as his proximity became too much, and her shaking only increased. His hands were sure binding up her leg. He was careful that his fingers never touched skin, seeing that she was exhausted, and he pulled the bandages tight, and tied them securely. He was careful too when pulling down her pant leg, his touch feather light but equally as sure. Which brought a confusing feeling to the pit of her stomach, and made her entire core flex against it. When he was finished she visibly relaxed.
Almost immediately afterward they brought her the mended prosthetic, but she was not in a forgiving mood. She glared down the emissaries, who were at a loss of how to act. Hawke shook his head, smiling lopsidedly, because surely this woman was not too proud to accept her own leg back, and graciously accepted the offering in her stead.
After she checked the bindings, the hall was mostly empty, the crowd having moved to a large dining area. She found she was exhausted. She just stared at the metal and bindings in her hand for a moment, too tired to put the leg back on; but she was tense, coiled tight and ready to spring. She didn't understand what had happened here, but there was nothing about it that was familiar.
Hawke interrupted her thoughts by taking the prosthetic from off her lap, and kneeling once more by her half-leg. He slid it on carefully, being tender around the new stitches under the bandage, one of his big hands almost able to encircle her leg completely, but he was careful not to touch anything. He began at the bottom buckle.
He chuckled softly, his voice captured her attention, "Have you ever heard the tale..." The second buckle now, the pit of Clarity's stomach felt unusually warm as her eyes met his. "...of the Little Cinder Girl?"
Clarity shook her head 'no', finding it suddenly hard to breathe. His eyes glinted playfully. "It's a children's story," Now the third buckle, a little higher up, his eyes back on his work, "about a girl who loses her magic shoe on the steps of the palace." He did the buckle above her knee next, something strange coiled itself in Clarity's abdomen. "And when Prince Charming finds her," his voice was very warm and low, "he replaces her shoe much this same way." He finished the last buckle and left his fingers on the strap in the middle of her thigh. "Though I think the story would've been much different if the girl had been a trained fighter, like yourself, but I flatter myself that I am quite charming." His eyes were mischievous and his hand stayed where it was, but he leaned forward slightly.
Clarity was not breathing at all now, her exhaustion forgotten, heat flooding her stomach and her cheeks. "Hungry?" Hawke asked, smirking slightly when she didn't respond.
She didn't understand what he had said for a moment. Her mind reeling. His eyes flicked towards the dining hall, and suddenly it clicked. "Not especially." She replied lamely.
"Too bad," His eyes lighting up again, "this is a peace treaty dinner and we are all required to eat and drink too much." He stood then and offered her his hand. She didn't take it, but instead popped up on her newly attached footing. He nodded and started walking. She touched two of her fingers to his arm lightly to stop him, like she had back in The Hall. When he turned she stepped forward and ghosted her fingers over the most heavily bandaged part of his head, never quite touching it. "You're...alright?" She asked clumsily.
He gave her a huge happy grin, and his eyes went soft, which made her heart drop into her stomach and made her bring her hand back simultaneously. One causing the other. "It'll take more than a couple Raiders to break this thick skull." His ears turned pink as he responded. She nodded stiffly.
With no further ado she walked past him into the dining hall, taking several deep breaths.
The feast did them all good. As the drink took hold, and the food started relaxing people, though Clarity was slower to forgive than everyone else seemed to be. At first she glared down anyone that offered her anything, but after a couple drinks had found their way into Hawke, and he had found a couple Raiders who spoke a little of their language, he had started telling battle stories with a lot of loud laughter and hand gestures. The Raiders laughed, and drank, and reenacted their own battle stories. Clarity began to enjoy herself. She liked watching Hawke talk. Liked the way his body told a story and how his eyes could go from laughing to mischievous in a second. He looked over at her often, blinking one eye when he was pleased with a story. Duningham was drinking some of the Raiders under the table, while still maintaining a lady-like air, and she enjoyed that too. Tollie seemed to be having a rather frazzling conversation with her brother, but she didn't look unhappy, so Clarity enjoyed it.
When the eating was finishing and there was just drinking going on, some idiot had started throwing knives. The first one didn't even stick into the wall, and Clarity snorted loudly, and derisively into her drink. One of the Raiders who had been talking with Hawke heard her, and motioned for her to do better, if she could.
She sat up straight, pulled one of her short knives, and threw it exactly into the forehead of a portrait hanging on the wall on the opposite end of the room. Shrugging nonchalantly as she did so, she hadn't actually been sure she could make it, she'd drunk quite a bit. This got quite a loud reaction from the Raiders and there was a lot of cheering and drinking that accompanied it. A good group of them took it as a challenge and tried to one up the foreigner in a drunken knife throwing game, that if, truth be told, was incredibly dangerous, and becoming more dangerous as the night went on. But Clarity stopped drinking and held her own, responding to every few hits on the wall with one of her own feats, everyone trying to outdo the others.
This game she enjoyed. She missed a couple, and would be forced to down a drink every time she did so, but the Raiders around her ended up having to drink far more often than she did. In the end they called it a draw, though the competitive side of Clarity told her she should've won, and everyone sat back down. Hawke had cheered and booed and drank along with the crowd, and his eyes had gotten more and more of a look Clarity couldn't identify as she showcased her skills, but was laughing hard when she came to sit beside him again.
"Ruddy cheaters, the lot of them." Hawke laughed into her ear as she sat beside him. Only, she had misjudged where the bench was at, and her own intoxication, and had sat partially in his lap, hence why he was able to say anything in her ear. She slid off immediately, walls slamming back up as soon as she made contact, but it wasn't fast enough, because his hand found its way onto her thigh, and was still there as she scooted away.
She froze, unable to think or breathe. That strange warmth in her abdomen started to pool when his thumb rubbed the outside of her thigh lazily.
Just then she saw Tollie stand abruptly and head out onto the terrace. Concern overpowered her inaction and she stood to follow. Hawke removed his hand without looking up, but she saw that he was looking pretty pleased with himself as he drank from his cup.
Swaying for a moment, she soon righted herself and followed after Tollie. The girl was standing at the railing looking out over the bay. Clarity moved to her side and leaned both elbows on the railing. Tollie looked over when she came up, but didn't say anything.
"You're brother looks...." Clarity tried to choose her words carefully, knowing his relationship with Nadia, "well taken care of."
Tollie only nodded. Clarity tried to wrack her mind for something to say, to get to the root of the problem without it getting messy. "I don't have brothers...or sisters. I imagine they're..."
"Idiots." Tollie finished for her.

Tollie

But then she laughed softly, shaking her head and looking down.
After a big breath she started hesitantly, looking sideways at Clarity, "Have you ever kissed anyone Clarity?"
As Clarity raised both her eyebrows, seeming surprised and alarmed at where this small attempt at conversation had suddenly gotten her, Tollie continued, trying to ease into it better. "Because I've only kissed someone twice, and it was the same someone, and both times it wasn't even really a kiss...Well, I'm mean obviously it WAS a kiss, so far as the dynamics of it go...but it was also merely strategic each time.
"It wasn't like we were progressing towards kissing, and then there was that moment when you knew he wanted to kiss you, and then 'bam' it happened,,,you know?"
She looked over at Clarity again, but as she didn't day anything Tollie just assumed that meant she was at least following along.
"And I don't know how you get there...well at least not when there isn't a tavern and danger and whores in abundance..."

Clarity

Clarity rubbed the back of her neck, something she was picking up from Hawke, and straightened. "Varric says that adrenaline goes a long way in love, so maybe..." She shook her head, giving up on that train of thought, and sighed, "I have...kissed someone a very long time ago. But we were very young, and very...stupid." She reached up her hand to rub the scar around her throat. "Where I'm from, touch is...well, not a nice thing. I think...I'm the wrong person to ask. But I think intimacy is a decision. You decide that you are going to let them touch you, and you touch them. As for moments, moments that build up and lead into kissing...I think Varric is right, adrenaline is just as good of a mood setter as any." Then she thought of the kiss Hawke had placed on her palm when she felt sure they were going to die, and wondered at any build up beyond death, she would have to ponder that. "I think with West, you make the decision, and hold him to it. Don't let him back down. And if he does, you can use any of the three movements I taught you with the dagger. Or I can use them on him. But...all good things take time. That's one thing I do know." Clarity smirked over at Tollie. "Though he'll never come to call like Riek and Nadia. But...like I said..."She started feeling very uncomfortable, "I'm not the one to ask. It's a foreign idea to me that there can be feelings beyond brute force." She thought of Hawke again, and how he abstained from all force when it came to her. She looked over at the younger girl.

Tollie

Tollie smiled at her, about the dagger, then added, sighing, "Well, if YOU'RE the wrong person to ask, then I'm definitely the wrong person to be ASKING!" Smile, "And yet...here we are."