Anyone else casually explaining the Fade as if it hasn't been a constant hum in the back of Hawke's life would be treated to three solid minutes of 'surely ye jest'-oriented sarcasm, but in this context the furrow between his brows just goes deep enough to set a coin into. "I...yes, in the twenty-aught years I've been wandering in and out myself I have noticed."
...which curbs most of his natural impulse, and leaves the tone of his own voice equally unsure, if not a little fonder and more acerbic.
There's always been a balance in dealing with Anders, who is, on the surface, easy to mistake for a broken bird. He's too skinny by half, and more than one person has remarked on the pallor of grief that drapes him like a caul. Yet as little as he brings up the subject nowadays, Hawke also knows he's survived more than any other three men he could put a name to, and there's a respect to be afforded to that. Balance maintained has always meant a bell-tone struck between that place and one that treats Anders with the gentleness he won't show himself.
So despite the growing alarm sloshing in the pit of his stomach, Hawke can't quite bring himself to initially prioritize digging out the exact source of the--whatever has welled up between them. Unrecognizable friction. Static just out of the corner of the eye. It can wait, or will dissipate on its own; it could be overstated, but not by much, the extent to which Hawke would prefer the latter. Breaking the news of their actual surroundings wouldn't be a prospect he'd be looking forward to regardless.
"It's not a dream. At least not as far as anyone's been able to tell. Whatever brings people here, it's powerful. A magic I don't understand."
He sounds frustrated by that, as if he should understand it, or has been trying. No joking now, palm-up hands turned out by his sides. A deliberately open gesture. Not ...that his jokes are always obvious, down-turned and absurdly tailored as they tend to be, but marked seriousness is still a different aspect to the one he was wearing before. "You ...may want to be sitting down for this conversation."
Why is there not someone else around better equipped to explain this. --right, because Hawke would insist on being the one to do it anyway, even if one of the truer Veterans wandered over right now.
s o o n
...which curbs most of his natural impulse, and leaves the tone of his own voice equally unsure, if not a little fonder and more acerbic.
There's always been a balance in dealing with Anders, who is, on the surface, easy to mistake for a broken bird. He's too skinny by half, and more than one person has remarked on the pallor of grief that drapes him like a caul. Yet as little as he brings up the subject nowadays, Hawke also knows he's survived more than any other three men he could put a name to, and there's a respect to be afforded to that. Balance maintained has always meant a bell-tone struck between that place and one that treats Anders with the gentleness he won't show himself.
So despite the growing alarm sloshing in the pit of his stomach, Hawke can't quite bring himself to initially prioritize digging out the exact source of the--whatever has welled up between them. Unrecognizable friction. Static just out of the corner of the eye. It can wait, or will dissipate on its own; it could be overstated, but not by much, the extent to which Hawke would prefer the latter. Breaking the news of their actual surroundings wouldn't be a prospect he'd be looking forward to regardless.
"It's not a dream. At least not as far as anyone's been able to tell. Whatever brings people here, it's powerful. A magic I don't understand."
He sounds frustrated by that, as if he should understand it, or has been trying. No joking now, palm-up hands turned out by his sides. A deliberately open gesture. Not ...that his jokes are always obvious, down-turned and absurdly tailored as they tend to be, but marked seriousness is still a different aspect to the one he was wearing before. "You ...may want to be sitting down for this conversation."
Why is there not someone else around better equipped to explain this. --right, because Hawke would insist on being the one to do it anyway, even if one of the truer Veterans wandered over right now.