Lady Man-Hands

Being a butch heterosexual can be a hard, lonely experience, even more so for a young widow. Sometimes, you just want someone – a male someone – to acknowledge your womanly needs…

The expensively-dressed noble stood on his toes to peek in the bottle-shaped window of the Hightown mansion. Although a fine building, it seemed unaccountably shabby and uninhabited – a crime when all Kirkwall was bursting at the seams with people, and everyone from nobles to Carta scum were selling their own grandmothers to get into even the pokiest apartment, inn or empty crate. He wiped at the dirt on the window to get a better look.

It was hard to tell – on one hand, dust, cobwebs and dark spatters (oil, maybe, or dye?) covered every surface, suggesting an uninhabited abode whose owner could be persuaded to sell at an admittedly outrageous price. On the other, the entryway was well-maintained and clean, implying that someone went in there regularly, and there seemed to be plates stacked on a table that could be seen if one squished one's face right in the corner of the window.

"Can I help you?" said a cold female voice.

He snapped his head around to be confronted with a very tall woman, at least two inches taller than he, standing well within his personal space. Backing away in surprise (and bumping himself on the windowsill), he registered that she had bright red hair held back with leather straps, official-looking armour, and big green eyes that were currently burning holes in him.

"I – I'm sorry serah – I didn't realise – er – is this your residence?"

"The question implies that it is not yours."

The noble stuttered something nonsensical, then recovered himself and turned on what he thought was charm. "Serah, I fear you very much misunderstand me. My name is Pol de Quincy, and I am an agent from Orlais. I need accommodations while I conduct business in Kirkwall. This residence would be entirely suitable." He smiled radiantly, or so he imagined.

The tall woman seemed not to agree. "Then I am sure the Viscount's office will be happy to assist you in locating its title." She indicated the long descent to the Chantry courtyard, beyond which lay the main parade leading to the Viscount's Way, with a sweep of a long and disconcertingly well-developed arm.

"But serah! The wait to see the Viscount is weeks, months even!" She cut him off with an even angrier glare – surely not possible, but there it was – and he suddenly noticed that, in addition to what must surely be city guard armour, she bore a highly efficient-looking blade.

"Good day to you, serah", still indicating the steps to the Chantry. De Quincy thought of ten witty comebacks, dismissed all of them as ill-advised, and nodded goodbye as he shuffled off towards the stairs.

Aveline stared hard at his back as he departed. When he seemed safely gone, she pulled a bronze key from her pouch and let herself in.

Rather than call out, Aveline clunked slowly and heavily up the stairs, slapping her bare hand loudly on the wooden banister. When nothing happened, she ventured a tuneless whistle, as if calling a mabari. Just as she was considering leaving, the door at the top of the landing opened, and a skinny white-haired figure stumbled out and squinted at her. He was wearing nothing but leggings, and his wiry, tattooed frame was both menacing and pathetic.

"Mmmrf" said Fenris, and disappeared back into the bedroom. Well, the former bedroom – now bedroom, loungeroom, kitchenette, bathroom and overall hovel. As Aveline reached the landing he reappeared, wearing an extremely expensive looking spidersilk robe covered with swirling images of exotic flowers.

"Stay here." He swept past her, disappearing into one of the dozens of rooms in the run-down mansion. Aveline let herself into the bedroom and sat in front of the dwindling fire, groaning a little as she took the weight off her feet.

She picked over and dismissed the books scattered carelessly around the room - considering that just about every household in Kirkwall had at least one copy of Hard in Hightown, Aveline wondered why Varric wasn't able to easily raise fifty sovereigns all by himself. It was a common mistake made by people who didn't understand publishing, especially the part where any chump who was not too bad with a quill could make their own copies and sell them without so much as having to make up their own steamy scenes.

Fenris reappeared in full armour, with a couple of wooden swords and a rather well-loved shield with a sigil that might have been a griffon, a bear, or a nug for all the detail left from years of pummelling. He tossed one of the swords to her, juggler style, and she caught it neatly by the handle.

"Just chased a dog away from your yard, Fenris"

"Not of the Mabari kind, I gather."

"You're in a prime position in a prime property. I'm just surprised there was only one… But I'm sure the smell of your old tiffins will send them running."

Fenris looked sharply at her. "Not all of us live in a well-stocked guard barracks with rotated washing schedules."

"Not all of us live in a run-down mansion of dubious ownership with an ever-increasing stack of delivery buckets. Aren't they supposed to collect those?" Aveline was teasing, as much as a stuffed shirt like her could – she knew she would end up hauling the buckets back to Lowtown to be washed up and freshly filled with slops for some other schlub who didn't have their own kitchen staff.

"So what did you do about him?"

"Sent him off to appeal to Seneschal Bran, of course. He'll deal with the problem in all due course." Both of them snickered at the thought of Seneschal Bran's idea of "due course". Fenris had occasionally toyed with the idea of anonymously sending the seneschal flowers, since Bran's commitment to doing as little as he could get away with made a significant contribution to the comfort of Fenris' stay.

They went down to the great hall, where they would have the greatest freedom to thrash at each other. They did not always spar in the great hall – sometimes Aveline would insist on training in one of the smaller rooms, or even in a stairwell, in order to be prepared for a variety of fighting conditions.

In a "fair" fight, with a "level playing field" – perhaps if Fenris had never been pumped full of lyrium, if Aveline did not have years of military training combined with being the daughter of a chevalier and the wife of a templar – Fenris would have easily beaten Aveline. But if there was anything Aveline appreciated, it was that there is no level playing field. Motivation, opportunity, surprise, attitude – all of these factors are different for every fight, and can be manipulated for every fight. Fenris' contribution to the sparring matches was motivation – or to put it less politely, raw fury – but Aveline's was professionalism. Given there was no taunt she hadn't heard, no threat that had not been made to her a hundred times, her gift was the single-minded aim to remove the opposition, peacefully if possible, bloodily if not. It made an excellent counterpoint to Fenris' rage.

On this occasion, Aveline had agreed to help Fenris get some experience with the shield. Whilst it would be unfair to call the results disastrous, it was rather like learning to write with one's "dumb hand" – you could make yourself understood, but it would never be as graceful as your normal hand. They cheerfully thumped each other for an hour, gave up on Fenris' shield training and switched back to two-handed, continued for another hour and finally agreed that they had well and truly earned a drink or three.

Aveline gave herself a quick bath while Fenris hunted down the top shelf liquor. This was not from modesty – indeed, as soon as he returned from the cellar he stripped right down and swapped places with her, giving himself a quick bum-balls-armpits wash while Aveline mixed up a couple of Alamarri Apples, so called because they were as fierce as the Avvarian ancestors, and based on apple brandy with a healthy slosh of cinnamon liqueur. (Some people preferred to use only the faintest sniff of cinnamon, but Aveline regarded these people as romantic fools who read too many Orlesian bodice-rippers.) They settled in front of the fire to sip on their Apples, swathed in the expensive robes left after Hawke had raided the most saleable treasures – he in the vibrant flowery robe, she in a relatively restrained (for Tevinters) green robe with an ivy pattern.

"What ended up happening with the tax collectors? I hope you didn't do anything I'd be forced to investigate?" she said as she swirled the brandy in the glass. She held it to her nose and inhaled gently – as expected, the brandy was smooth and subtle, not the bootpolish you'd get at the Hanged Man. Whatever else his years of slavery had done to Fenris, they'd given him an appreciation of the good stuff. That didn't stop him from putting it away like a dwarven trust fund, though.

"Isabela happened. I didn't ask for details."

"That sounds like a wise decision."

She took a sip of the brandy and closed her eyes, letting it pool in her tongue. Fenris, of course, had skulled his cocktail and was now drinking straight out of the bottle in a way that was faintly blasphemous, but then, it wasn't as if he'd actually paid for the brandy.

"What about you? Will you move into Jevons' office straight away, or do they have to parade his head around on a pike first?"

"That isn't funny, Fenris. And no, it will be months before I actually become Guard-Captain. It's different from being in the army – for a start, there's a lot less killing first and asking questions later."

"Pity."

"It's all very well for you to laugh, but I have a chance to actually cure some of the rot in this city. People assume that all the dirtbags are in Darktown or Lowtown, and that's not even close to being true. After all, it's not you or I who can afford to hire the Coterie."

"But what dancing bear act must you put on now? Your guards respect you, and the position is vacant."

"I'll be Acting Guard Captain for a while. I already know all the guardsmen and the patrols, so filling in the day to day work won't be a problem, it's just the administrative bullshit I have to go through. Plus the fact that the nobles won't exactly welcome a foreigner as Guard Captain."

"They'll be more worried about a Guard Captain that isn't for sale."

"You'd think that. But every crim who had Jevons in his pocket has an enemy who now thinks I'm their best friend. They're about to find otherwise."

AN: This is my first fanfic, and I've been writing it in bits and pieces, so please point out any inconsistencies. I wrote the current chapter and another section of the same length, then succumbed utterly to writer's block, so I'm publishing this in the hope of embarrassing myself into finishing the damn thing. It's taking place towards the end of Act 1, after Aveline deposes Jevons, but before she decides to start sending bronze marigolds to Donnic. Nothing that happens in this story should be considered to contradict The Long Road, no matter what happens... Rated M for later chapters - this was always intended to get smutty.