silver_feathered_raven

   There are a lot of famous last sayings. Like “What could possibly go wrong?” Or “Is it supposed to do that?” Or, even “There's no way the Templars can catch me if I climb out of that window!”
 
   That last one might have been in regards to one of his botched escape attempts.

    Still, he would have never quite expected that, right up with all those others, would be the words “I'm going to make pie!”

    Though, it's not terribly surprising, since he already knows that Hawke is not really the best at baking things. Or cooking things. And he's not all that much better, though his potion making skills give him a bit of an edge and he manages to not burn everything.

    It’s one of the rare days that he’s at the estate during the afternoon, one of those lazier days where Hawke lounges around in one of his shirts that she got for him after she had found out how few clothes he had that were in good repair. He, himself, is in only his pants and the long tunic that he normally wears beneath his coat, that very coat hidden somewhere about the estate by Hawke since he is supposed to be staying in today to get some rest and not sneaking out to do healer-y things in Darktown. Both she and one of his assistants at the clinic have teamed up to convince him that he needs to take breaks now and again, and, so far, their plan has been working.

    “Are you sure that's a good idea?” he asks her after she says she’s going to make pie, and she gives him a narrow eyed look that makes him regret speaking.

    “Of course it's a good idea! It's pie. How can pie ever be a bad idea?”

    That is a thought. Pie is delicious, of course. It's even higher on his list of 'things that make life wonderful' than coffee.

    There's a wayward thought from Justice about how freedom is better than pie and coffee combined, and Anders decides that pie, coffee, and freedom would probably be the best thing ever.

    “It could be a bad idea if it's made out of, I don't know, darkspawn or something.”

    A look of disgust crosses Hawke's face. “No! Don't even suggest that. Why would you even think about darkspawn in the same context as pie? You’re ruining the sanctity of pie with your Warden-y thoughts!”

    “But they would make for a terrible pie,” he says.

    “Okay, point.” She pouts at him for a moment until he taps the tip of her nose with a finger and makes her giggle. “So, pie! You’re home for today, so you can help me! Unless, of course, you don’t want to be involved in the wonderfulness that is pie making.”

    Her enthusiasm is absolutely infectious, enough to drown out Justice’s annoyance that this was an utterly pointless activity. He’s found that it’s often times easier to ignore the doubts that Justice brings when Hawke is around. Never mind that this seems to annoy Justice even more...

    “Of course I’ll help,” he says. “You know how much I love pie. What type are we making?”

    He does wonder if she’s ever tried to make pie before.

    “Blueberry,” she says, holding up a rather stained piece of heavy parchment that’s covered in writing that is most certainly not her own. “It’s my father’s recipe. Did you know that he was amazing at baking?”

    “Nope.” Anders slings an arm around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder and looking down at the parchment. There are a lot of things written and crossed out on it, and tiny doodles in the margins, as well as some writing in a finer script. He is fairly certain that this isn’t simply a recipe, but something of her father's that she treasures dearly.

    “Well, he was,” she says, leaning back against him. “Best pie in...well, in wherever we were living at the time. He had this story he used to tell, about how he charmed his way out of being captured by Templars once, using only his wits and several pies of various flavors. I’m not sure how much truth there was to that one.”

    “Hmmm, I never thought to use pie for that before,” Anders says. “Your father sounds like the sort of dashing apostate that bards would tell tales of.”

    A thoughtful look appears on Hawke’s face. “I think there is a song about him, actually. But mother never let him sing it around us. I have a feeling it wasn’t the sort of song that was...eh...appropriate for children.” Her face twitches a bit. “Okay, not thinking about what it might have been about. Let’s make pie!”

    She places the recipe on a shelf, propped up by a few mugs, which ends up being a good thing in preserving it. They realize very quickly that pie making is a little harder than Hawke originally thought, and eventually Anders takes over on making the pie crust while Hawke picks bits of the last completely failed crust out of his hair.

    “You know, I’ve never seen someone fail so spectacularly at mixing flour and water,” he comments, earning a tug on his half ponytail as she pulls out the tie holding it up.

    “Yes, well, not everyone is good at mixing things,” she says, dusting flour out of his hair. They’re practically covered in it, and he glances at her to see a large streak running across her cheekbones and nose.

    “You’ve got flour here,” he says, reaching out and brushing it from her skin. It’s a feather-light touch, just a brush of his thumb across her cheeks, but she flushes a bit, then grins and presses a kiss against his hand as it passes too close to her mouth.

    “Yeah? Well, you have flour all over.”

    “And who’s fault is that?” She blinks innocently at him and his lips draw into a smile. “Okay, so this seems like a halfway decent pie crust. What about filling? Where are the blueberries?”

    “Um...” she says, looking a bit sheepish. “I don’t actually have any blueberries. I have strawberries, though! I figured that we could just use them instead!”

    He hides a laugh by faking a cough, which turns into a real one as he inhales some flour. “...that sounds like a terrible idea. Not that I don’t like strawberries - my mother made fantastic strawberry tarts when I was little - but are you sure the recipe will still work?”

    “Absolutely!” she says with complete confidence, and that means, of course, that this will end up being a disaster. “I’m sure it will work.”

    Anders glances up at the recipe, reading Malcolm’s heavy scrawl. While he’s not the best at cooking, he at least has experience with making things. Like potions, but those don’t actually have to taste good. Pie, however, should.

    Do not use fire spells to bake, he sees scrawled into one of the margins, and that makes him snort in amusement. Also, marbles are not blueberries, and Carver needs to learn the difference or my pies shall suffer.

    Below that, in the finer handwriting, is If you don’t want him to put marbles in the pie, love, don’t tell him to add whatever he wants to the mix.

    “Okay, we can try adding strawberries,” he says. “I assume you have strawberries?”

    “Of course!” She looks absolutely scandalized at the idea that she might not be in the possession of strawberries.

    This part goes slightly better than the crust making - at least there is no flour to throw everywhere - partially because Hawke lets him measure things. They do both end up a bit stickier than they were before, and the kitchen is an absolute mess, but eventually they have something that resembles a pie. An uncooked pie, but a pie nonetheless.

    “Right, so now we bake it.” Hawke wrinkles her nose at the oven. “Maybe you should do this. I might burn it.”

    “I love your burned baked goods,” he says and she throws flour at him. “All right! Baking a pie, easy!”

    “You are a wonderful man,” she tells him, pressing a slightly sticky kiss to his cheek. After he has place the pie in the oven, he turns and kisses her full on the mouth, tasting strawberries. She hums against his mouth, sliding her arms up around his neck and threads her fingers into his hair, sending more flour into the air.

    “I think it’s going to be not so much fun to clean this all up,” she says when they draw apart for air. She traces a few fingers over his face. “More flour. I think it’s everywhere.”

    “You’ve got streaks of it in your hair, too, sweetheart,” he says, and she grimaces in annoyance.

    “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

    “Because you look utterly adorable covered in flour.”

    She rolls her eyes at him.

    The pie, of course, turns out slightly more disastrously than Hawke would have like, but far more edible than they had both feared. And they both smell strongly of strawberries for the rest of the day.