what she says: I'm fine
what she means: Fenris has no memories of laughter. His entire life before Danarius was effectively taken away, and since then, he's only lived as a slave or a runaway, in isolation and rage and fear. Hawke is the first person who actively tries to make him laugh, and it doesn't matter that Hawke's lines are all terrible, because Fenris has never heard them before. Everyone else groans because Hawke's humour is obvious, dad jokes and puns and stuff they've heard a thousand times since they were little kids, but Fenris has none of that knowledge: everything Hawke says is new to him, and to Fenris, it's uniquely Hawke, because nobody else ever tried to tell him jokes. He doesn't know they're all self-consciously terrible lines; he just knows they're for him, and that they make him happy, and so he always laughs, small and dry, because this is perhaps the most obvious sign that Hawke, as opposed to just about everyone he's ever met, genuinely wants him to be happy.
princefenris:
DA fandom is very Pro Purple Hawke but tbh i like nothing better than the idea of a blue hawke that is just so. overwhelmingly sincere about everything, and they put their heart into it 100 percent
and their jaded, cynical companions think “they must be joking, right? hawke didnt really just propose eternal friendship to me in this crowded tavern, right?”
but no, hawke really IS swearing on their family honor, in full seriousness, to be your bro 4 life. imagine that
