#omnomanon

She'd been there less than five minutes when she learned of her brother's madcap quest. What the Blight had he been thinking? Had she not worded her warning strongly enough or had he simply decided he wanted to evaluate the risk himself? And why in the name of all things sacred had he decided to go and take Merrill of all people with him?

Then the terror had come, full and blind as it always did. Visions of Wycome, of Lydia and the others… all of their screaming faces replaced with that of her kin. She'd already lost Father, lost Bethany, lost Mother… she couldn't lose Carver. That wasn't fair. There was no way she would permit anyone to steal her brother away from the waking world as well.

Margot had been off leading some tracking exercises with some of the other Templars. Marian hadn't even bothered to wait for her to weigh in on the situation or to offer any sort of assistance- there was no time to consult the other woman directly. If Carver was ambling into these men's clutches, then time was already deathly short. Margot's new job was to move the base somewhere safer and, thankfully, Marian didn't have to be there to tell her as much.

There was no telling what sort of information Maison could extract from her brother, no telling how many Templars could be on their way before she could even hope to get there. She watched the group commence their frantic packing with dull dread pitting itself deep in her stomach. There was no telling what could happen but she already had a heaping dose of suspicion as to what was awaiting Merrill and Carver. Her return was concluded with a frantic passing off of Owen and a barked command to relocate the camp as quickly as possible. When she'd placed the boy into another mage's hands, the elf simply began screaming, reaching out for her and crying her name over and over again, tears streaming down his red face as he worked himself into a brilliant fury.

If something happened to her, she was certain Owen would be integrated into the camp- the rebellion was disinclined to turn away strays, mage or otherwise. As much as she tried, however, she couldn't push that memory from her mind as she and Tobias raced to Fort Fitz at a breakneck pace.

This wasn't happening, she kept repeating to herself as she and Tobias tore through the daylight and into night over and over again. This couldn't possibly be happening. But it was happening and for all her frantic wishing, she was a mage and not a genie. Carver had a six-day head start on her and the fort was roughly seven days by horse- so Carver would beat her there, barring any unforeseen circumstances that will have slowed him down. To date, she still had no idea how long she'd been held captive by Gerard but one thing was certain, every second she wasted was precious time that her brother may not have… and Merrill was bound to have much, much less.

There was a sliver of hope. Carver and Merrill had taken three others with them. In her haste, she hadn't bothered asking who they were. To her, they were just three more people who could help defend Carver and Merrill. If Maison saved Carver for last, made him to watch the slaughter of his party the way he'd forced her to do, then perhaps if she was fast enough she could save at least him. But if something happened to Merrill, Hawke knew for certain that Carver would never forgive her.

Hawke and Tobias made it there in four days. Hawke refused to rest, refused to stop unless her steed was wheezing and stumbling. During those brief periods of rest, which to her felt all too long and the horse certainly felt to be overly short, she couldn't bring herself to sleep. Her nerves were burning, alight with dread that refused to be lulled into slumber, leaving her with this lasting sense of queasiness.

With sleep inaccessible to her, she chose instead to plot.

It was suicide, she instinctively knew, to charge into a Templar headquarters and face this particular bevy of enemies head-on. It was not just mere suicide; it was also incredibly stupid- especially if they were holding the party captive. These men's allegiance with Maison was not yet written in stone but she knew she had to prepare for this meeting with that possibility thoroughly accounted for. A frontward breach could be ended with a single command to slaughter any prisoners. Then she'd be captured. That simply would not do, could not happen. She wasn't prepared to face Maison again but the circumstances that brought her ever closer to Fort Fitz told her that her personal readiness wasn't exactly something she should count on waiting for.

So her options were limited. Attacking directly was out of the question and subterfuge had never especially been a strong suit of hers. She'd never had a reason to attempt to wipe out a large group of Templars before. Fortunately, she'd known one man who had- who'd created dozens of plans to accomplish that very deed. The translated copy of his journal had been left on the Veiled Blue and now it was gone, never again would she set her eyes upon it. However, there was one tool left in her arsenal- her memory. She'd poured over his journals for countless hours in a frantic attempt to reconcile the heinous Templar Solution with the man who'd crafted it.

Anders had always been the superior alchemist; she wasn't yet foolish enough to convince herself otherwise. There was just no substitution for a bona-fide Circle education paired with their resources. But Hawke, as Anders had commented countless times, had a tack-sharp mind and what she lacked in basic potions-making theory she made up for in intuitive leaps. So when she'd come across a scrawled missive in the margins denoting the effects of magebane on lyrium addicts, she'd mentally filed that particular gem of information away with the confidence that at some point during this wretched war it was bound to come in handy.

Lo and behold, she was absolutely right.

Apparently, while magebane had rather serious consequences for mages, its effect on Templars was more like that of a powerful sedative. It was a correlation she'd never made herself but one that still made complete sense- lyrium was a conduit for magic, ergo something that would interfere with a mage's abilities should also have an effect on someone addicted to the stuff. She'd rifled through her pack and found a few reagents that could craft the poison before she haphazardly mixed them together.

If she'd crafted this whilst she was apprenticing under Anders, she had little doubts that he'd be hiding in a corner and shrilly questioning whether she intended to destroy all of Darktown. She'd always rolled her eyes and called him overdramatic when he put on such a display. Really, one extremely minor explosion and Anders was terrified of letting her mix anything. Besides, it had only damaged the door… and those bookshelves… and that table... okay, maybe it minor wasn't precisely the right word. Still, she couldn't have been the only person who'd ever confused elfroot with deathroot and it had been just one time… well, twice if she counted that other time, but nothing had exploded then.

Anyways, it wasn't like she hadn't paid to have it all fixed.

"Maybe I should just turn you loose on my storeroom and see how long it takes for you to build me a brand new clinic," Anders had grumbled once the repairs had been completed. At the time, Hawke suspected he was only half-joking.

Six years… had that really only been six years ago?

She forced further thoughts of Anders from her mind. Dwelling on the past would do her no good here. After a few botched attempts, though those were thankfully lacking any fireworks, she managed to craft a half-decent poison. While it lacked the precision and finesse of the concoctions she'd mixed under Anders' careful eye, it still had that same familiar stink that told her she'd made proper work of it. Having never had any reason to craft magebane before, she felt this to be a major accomplishment.

Once they'd arrived at the fort, it was a simple matter of sending Tobias in to dump the venom into the water supply. For everything that made her entirely uncomfortable about Tobias, she had to admit the man had a disturbing knack for vanishing while still being wholly visible; several times she'd been startled when she'd turn and find him standing directly behind her. That was something she'd never noticed about Tranquils until spending the better part of the last weeks with one- Tranquils couldn't be sensed the same way she could sense other mages. The Fade was blocked from him, inaccessible in every way. The one time she'd decided to reach out with her mind to find him, instead of feeling the Fade being restrained, she felt nothing more than a black hole, sucking in the Fade around it- suffice it to say, she did not attempt it a second time.

Poisoning the water supply of Fort Fitz had taken Tobias less than ten minutes. When he returned, she hadn't even bothered asking if he'd been noticed. He hadn't. Tobias was really only noticeable when he chose to be so. It was just another aspect of him that, while both dark and terrifying, was also proving incredibly useful.

Based on Anders' notes, she had figured the poison would need several hours to take, which was a blessing as it meant there would be a wider dispersion of the toxin ingested before anyone was the wiser. She'd figured by the time night took its full hold most of the Templars would be incapacitated. Any that remained would doubtlessly be found in a state of hopeless confusion. That would make them easier to take down. If luck was on her side, she may not have to kill anyone.

She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

They hovered at the edge of the woods, safely housed within the cover of trees, while Hawke's stomach churned, nerves mixing with bitter bile, and waited impatiently for night to fall. Twilight had barely descended when she realized something had gone horribly wrong; when a series of small explosions illuminated along the upper windows for only a second before the glass exploded outward and hailed onto the dirt below.

"Move!" she shouted, but Tobias was already sprinting from the woods and toward the massive structure. It had taken precious minutes to break down the massive iron door to the fort, minutes more to strike down the single confused sentry. It wasn't until she entered the Great Hall that she realized what an unbelievably stupid error she'd made.

She hadn't accounted for mages. In all her furious, frenzied plotting, she'd completely forgotten that mages could be held captive here… and they'd obviously taken the opportunity to strike down their oppressors in so much blood-spattered gore. It was an unforgiveable error to say the absolute minimum. While Carver and Merrill still resided within, potentially incapacitated without hopes of defending themselves, this turn of events sent her into an even greater panic, if that was even possible.

Unwilling to think too long on the very real consequences this could hold, she immediately located the dungeon and, finding only two dead guards there, raced back into the foyer until the sounds of battle made their way into her sensitive ears. Tobias had made it there first, shielding Merrill from one of the charging abominations as Hawke took the opportunity to rain hellfire over it.

Merrill was safe, she kept repeating to herself as she focused on decimating her enemies with the entirety of her abilities. Her reserves were already spent when Carver's voice reached through the din and into her tired ears. Another silent thank-you was sent to the Maker before Hawke thunked the blade of her staff into another wretched beast's skull with a life-ending finality, the woman unbelievably tired and almost inhumanly exhausted.

It wasn't until then that she noticed her brother's company. She'd only stayed in the camp long enough to hear that Carver and Merrill had taken a small entourage with them to this wretched place. It never occurred to ask whom they'd taken. Varric wasn't a surprising addition- if something horrible was happening, the dwarf was almost guaranteed to show himself.

But Fenris? What was he doing here fighting alongside her brother? Her memories of that warm cabin nestled in those cold woods came flying back at her, the memory of running from him in Lydes… and the nightmare that had come next when she made port in Wycome. Had Isabela been right? Should she have waited? Had the paranoia that sent her tearing into the night been just another grievous blunder?

For everything that made her want to believe she'd been right to run, him standing here, covered in blood and fragments of bone, brought that decision into serious question. It seemed like everything was brought into question as of late.

Fortunately, Sebastian broke that train of thought with a shout and a raised weapon. She blasted the prince backwards before he could unleash another strike against her- only this time is was an physical arrow aimed at her head instead of a metaphorical knife plunged into her back. Realizing a moment too late that her armor marked her as an Imperial stranger, she untied the cowl covering her face, stating simply, "Well, Sebastian… good to see you, too."

Hawke could not bring herself to resist smirking as Starkhaven's regent stumbled gracelessly to his feet and regarded her with such miserable confusion. Certainly, she hadn't needed to knock the man down quite so hard but she would not deny relishing in having the opportunity to do so. She hadn't thought much on Sebastian since that day in front of rubble that had once been Kirkwall's Chantry- actively defied thinking about him in fact.

"Hawke?" The prince winced as he rose to his feet. Covered as he was in what had to be seriously painful bruises, Sebastian Vael certainly looked like he'd seen better days. "It's you."

She was almost startled by the wave of anger that washed over her as she regarded the man she'd once considered a dear friend. After everything she'd done for him, after everything they'd been through together, after they'd spent hours together at those dreadful, stuffy balls in Kirkwall and made fun of everything from Fifi de Launcet's wretched hats to Seneshal Bran's peculiar choice of company. After everything, he'd turned on her like it was the easiest thing in the world, like the history between them meant absolutely nothing, like the world was a simple black and white with no shreds of grey to taint their ideals. Maker, the world was just a haze of uncompromising grey now- any space for absolution was covered in that ugly monochrome fabric.

The crushing, overwhelming desire to close her fist and bash it into the prince's face was stayed by Merrill's delighted cry. "You're back!" Merrill beamed, rushing forward to crush her in a fierce hug, "We were so worried! Where have you been?" Hawke's arms automatically rose to embrace the elf before she felt the heavy collar on the other woman's neck. Startled, she drew away to inspect Merrill's face. "Marian?" Merrill finally asked, startled into question by the apostate's peculiar actions.

No brand, Hawke noted clinically. Thank the Maker- Merrill had been spared. Without thinking, Hawke brought her hand up to stroke the side of Merrill's face- the side that she'd feared would bear the same mark Hawke's did. Part of her wanted to cry then, not from relief but for the incredibly selfish, horrible part of her that desperately wanted not to carry the burn alone- the part of her that needed someone to understand what happened to her without her having to actually talk about it.

But Merrill had been spared and that would be enough. Marian's suffering was unshared and she'd be happy for it. No one should have to suffer Gerard Maison.

Merrill's face took on a look of confusion. "Marian?"

Wait… Merrill had asked where she'd been. "What do you mean, 'Where have you been?' I've been in Tevinter. I told you as much," she answered bluntly, dropping her hand from the elf's face. She dared a glance at Carver and asked, "Speaking of that, which part of 'Don't trust anyone from Wycome,' did you fail to grasp?"

Carver gave her an odd look and replied, "The last I heard of you was from Isabela. She told me she put you on a ship heading into Minrathous. Then you got off in Wycome and never got back on. What happened, Marian?"

She closed her eyes, felt Hoppers resting against her skin and let him calm her from the anxiety that threatened to overtake her. Now was certainly not the time to discuss everything that had happened in Wycome. "I got pinned down by a group of Templars and missed the boat. I ended up on another." Knowing Carver would not let the matter end that easily, she turned to Fenris and asked, "What about you? Did you receive my letter?"

Fenris tilted his head slightly and answered, "You wrote?" Green eyes narrowed slightly, although if it was confusion or calculation she'd never been able to rightly tell.

Ripping her gaze from the elf and forcing her roiling emotions back, she faced her brother again, letting her voice fall back into cool professionalism. "How long have they been with you?"

"The better part of three months," her brother replied.

Three months, she'd sent off her correspondence from Minrathous nearly a month and a half ago… the carrier birds were fairly quick, usually taking no longer than a couple weeks to reach their intended targets. While it was possible one of the birds could have been waylaid in Tevinter for a multitude of reasons, it was extremely unlikely that both birds would have failed to get there unless…

… unless someone had been intercepting the letters.

"Have you written to me?" she inquired of Carver.

"Several times," he answered. When Hawke shook her head, indicating that his correspondence to her had similarly been lost, her brother paused, coming to the same conclusion she just had. "Oh shit… Marian, we've vetted all the Templars."

She turned her gaze eyes back to the prince of Starkhaven and grumbled, "Yet I find you standing here with two men I wouldn't trust any farther than I could throw them."

"Hawke," Sebastian stuttered, "I would never…"

She cut him off with a snarled, "So a 500 gold dead-or-alive bounty is fine but Maker-be, mail-tampering is strictly forbidden by your bizarre moral code? Is that what you mean to tell me, your highness?"

Sebastian's head fell and he made no effort to defend himself.

Carver whipped his head and his blade to face the lapsed priest and growled, "You put a bounty on my sister's head? Dead or alive?"

"He did," Hawke replied, giving Sebastian the nastiest glare she could possibly muster. Tobias and she had run into them nearly the instant they'd set foot in the Free Marches… those bastards had nearly taken Owen's ear with one of their stupid arrows. Then she had been left with the unenviable task of explaining that the men hadn't been slavers with Tobias' translations, although the boy remained somewhat unconvinced, still certain that the men had been there to take him. "There were two groups looking to take it," she concluded, "we fought one and ducked the other- they seemed rather keen on the 'dead' part. I'm only letting you know because it is likely going to come up again."

"Explain yourself," Carver demanded of Sebastian as he brought his blade closer to the prince's neck. Fenris made a move as to step forward but Sebastian bade him off with a long look. Interesting… seems Fenris had gone from Little Wolf to royal guard dog; she really shouldn't have been surprised.

"Allow me," she interrupted before allowing her native accent to take on a pathetically phlegmy mimicry of Starkhaven's brogue, "You see, I have a grudge against the woman who avenged my family and helped pave the way for my return to Starkhaven because I am a pompous, arrogant dick."

Merrill's squeaked once before stifling her giggles. Varric snorted, attempting to disguise his chuckle with a sudden bout of feigned coughing. Her Starkhaven accent definitely needed work, not that she cared in the slightest at the moment.

Sebastian sighed heavily before responding. "I was angry, Hawke. I withdrew it after speaking to our Knight-Commander. Obviously they'd already left the area when I took the notice down. I'll send word to Starkhaven to have the matter sorted out."

Her eyes rolled almost of their own volition. "Pardon me for not holding my breath," she sneered, not even bothering to hide her immense irritation at this sudden turn of events, "but don't you think you could sort this out more quickly if you did it in person? You know," she added, "in Starkhaven?"

"Sister," Carver interrupted before the prince had an opportunity to answer her implied dismissal, "a word, please." He escorted her to the corner of the room, just enough distance where a hushed whisper wouldn't be overheard clearly. "We need him," he told her bluntly.

She deadpanned, positive for a moment that her ears had betrayed her as well. "Need him? For what," she asked, desperately veiling how deeply dumbfounded this whole situation had made her.

"Starkhaven is a powerful ally," her brother explained with an uncharacteristic patience. Even after they'd reconciled and united to spearhead the rebellion together, Carver and Hawke still usually resorted to shouting matches when they were at odds. After all, old habits die hard. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that we don't exactly have a lot of them."

"We don't need allies who are going to turn around and stab us in the back!" She'd aimed her voice at the prince and increased her volume for those last words, making damned sure Sebastian heard them. The man winced but resigned himself to saying nothing yet again, apparently content to let Carver fight this battle for him. If it was even possible, his silent countenance made her angrier.

Carver shook his head, drawing her attention back. "He's seen Anders. He knows the threat that's looming over Starkhaven. I don't think he would compromise that. Margot and most of the others are already onboard."

She scoffed, still unwilling to believe that her brother of all people was telling her to play nice. "So I don't get a say in this? He betrays me, tries to kill me, and it's all 'bygones-be-bygones' now because he's got a big army and we don't?"

"Be sensible. Try thinking of it this way," Carver compromised, "if we keep him close then at least we know what he's doing. We'll discuss it again once we're back at the camp but for now, he's staying."

She glared her unreserved anger at her brother and returned the gaze with a nod of miserable understanding. He understood this was difficult for her, she knew, but seemed confident that this was the most prudent course of action. Little as she liked the current situation, she wasn't running the rebellion alone- for that at least she was incredibly grateful. Regardless, she stormed away from her brother, letting him trail behind her, and announced to the prince, "Well, since I clearly don't get a say in how things are running here, I guess you're staying for now."

"Hawke," Sebastian started, "I know you're angry…"

She cut him off with a declared with a painfully feigned cheeriness, "I know you already took a Vow of Chastity, Sebastian, so how about you try your hand at a Vow of Silence?" The way his jaw snapped shut with a soft clack nearly scored a chuckle from her but she was far too furious to let him score any sort of points with her.

"Hawke," Merrill interrupted before the quiet could become too awkward, "do you feel the breach?"

Hawke took a moment to close her eyes and urged her mind into stillness until she felt the Veil, ripped as Merrill told her, and felt the screaming fury on just the other side. That explained why she'd felt so horrible in this place, discomfited beyond what her nerves had already inspired. She noticed rather abruptly that Hoppers felt warm against her chest, hot even. Bringing her hand up to cloth that concealed where the pendant lay against her skin, it was obvious that wasn't just an imagined sensation. She could feel the heat against her fingers. Hoppers was reacting to the Fade. That did not sit well with her.

She heard Tobias reply with a simple, "Breach?"

"The Veil's ripped," Hawke explained, dropping her hand from Hoppers and dismissing the warmth. She'd think more on it later. "Anyone else who comes here is going to be a sitting duck for demons and the like."

Merrill pressed on, "Do you know any way to repair it?"

Hawke shook her head no before turning to Tobias and saying, "Well, Tobias, you're my resident expert on all things evil and terrifying. Any advice?"

Tobias considered for a moment… or at least she thought he considered. Even without the mask covering his face, his dead eyes made it fairly difficult to pinpoint what was going on in the scholar's head. His body was unusually still, even for him, as he thumbed through his mental inventory, searching for a solution to her query. "Generally," he answered at last, "the best way to alter the Fade is to alter the world around it. It's not always effective but it holds the best chance to closing a rift."

"Meaning," she asked with a dull dread as to exactly where this conversation was going.

"Destroy the building and with some luck the rift will be destroyed as well."

She took a moment to take in the room they were currently in. This place had to be centuries old if not much, much older. "What can we hope to do that time has already failed to accomplish," she mused aloud.

"Time didn't have Drakestone and Sela Petrae," Carver answered quietly, so softly in fact that she had difficulty hearing him until the syllables pieced themselves together in her ears and set her jaw to dropping.

"You're kidding," Hawke replied bluntly as the implications of his words. "You're joking right?" When Carver shook his head, Hawke released a long, angry stream of profanity before finishing with, "Are you fucking insane? How are we supposed to convince the Chantry that we didn't have anything to do with what happened to Kirkwall's Chantry if you're waltzing around carrying the Blighted bomb that did it?"

Varric, Fenris, and Sebastian all snapped their heads toward Carver, who kept his gaze evenly upon her. How could he even think about doing something like that? Between her mental discomfort stemming from the Fade and her brother's incredibly foolish actions, a headache manifested, throbbing against the backs of her eyes.

"Calm down! I'm not carrying a fucking bomb," Carver snapped before adding, "Just the components."

"Just the components? Just the components? Are you fucking stupid," she screeched before she turned to the others and demanded, "Did anyone of you even know about this?" The others only shook their heads dumbly. It appeared even Merrill hadn't been clued in to this abysmal plan.

However, Carver's diplomacy had its limits and being called stupid tended to throw him straight past them. He gave something like an angry snort and snapped, "Oh, like you were completely honest before you went to the Frostback Mountains to fuck your boyfriend?"

"Watch it, Carver," she heard Fenris growl somewhere behind Merrill's startled gasp.

"You stay out of this," she snapped at Fenris, even as she felt the blood start rushing to her face. Maker, he'd gone and told everyone? At least now it was out in the open but she couldn't deny that having that night phrased so indelicately brought a very real pang of shame. Redirecting her focus on her brother, she ground out, "It is complicated. Do not presume to understand my relationship with him."

"I understand that you roll onto your back every time he drops his pants," her brother sneered back.

She heard Merrill cry out something but it was lost on her ears as she lunged at her brother, striking out with her fists as she was so disinclined to do. This day had been so hard, so unbelievably long, and the opportunity to lash out at someone, anyone, was almost impossible to resist. Even if it was the one person she'd worried so thoroughly over, that made the release almost better… because she'd suffered so much anxiety on his behalf and he had the nerve to show up completely safe and then be a complete ass on top of it. Her nerves had been humming for the last several days, bottled up so precariously that nearly anything could have set them to boiling over- that something happened to be her complete twat of a younger brother.

Carver retaliated beautifully, punching her once in the stomach before she managed to kick him solidly in the groin. Then she bowled him over in a rough tackle, tumbling the two of them inelegantly to the floor. They rolled across it, neither keeping the advantage for more than a few seconds as they continued bashing their fists against each other. Merrill was screaming for them to stop but both were content to ignore her. Marian landed a few quick jabs against her brother's jaw before he landed a solid open palm between her breasts, directly against her sternum, and knocking the breath out of her.

"You little shit," she wheezed painfully, "you're stealing my moves now, too?"

Soon as the words were out, she felt his retaliation in the form of blows against her face. Her eye socket exploded in pain. Her nose gushed blood. Blast it, her magic may have rendered her into the larger threat between the siblings overall but when she was willing to abstain from its usage, Carver undoubtedly had the upper hand. He'd always been the stronger physical fighter- sure, Hawke could hold her own against most of the people she was likely to come up against but Carver wasn't just anybody; he was a trained soldier and a Templar to boot- he hadn't been born a fighter but he'd managed to craft himself into a remarkable one.

She hadn't been born a fighter either, she realized rather abruptly. Anders had made her one. Kirkwall had made her one. Poverty had made her one. Father had made her one. Her head pounded harder, she heard demons hissing at the edge of her mind, egging her on into an even greater fury.

Not now, she wished frantically. Maker, not now.

She groaned, wincing against the headache and the bruises as she futilely tried to force her mind back into stillness while still raining her fists down onto her brother. She felt completely out of control, spinning wild circles in the pitch black her mind kept trying to drag her into. She was overwhelmed with the unshakable compulsion to break something, to obliterate anything, to tear down the pillars that upheld her, to destroy, decimate, ruin, wreck…

Breathe, Marian, she heard, you have to breathe.

And with a sharp intake of air, it was all over. Her mind went mercifully blank, cleansed of the rage as abruptly as a sandcastle submerged in the waves. It was disconcerting. She felt dizzy. Her face throbbed with the beginnings of a brilliant bruise. But it was okay now. It was over.

Strong hands grasped her about the waist, lifting her like a ragdoll off her thrashing brother. The brief skirmish ended with Fenris and Sebastian physically prying the siblings apart, Carver still swinging at the air in a futile effort to land the final blow. She felt Fenris pulse the lyrium against her stomach once as he wrapped his arms around her and hoisted her from the ground to pull her farther away- a warning. She didn't fight him, didn't help him, just let him drag her. When her feet touched the ground again, she just sagged back against him, her mind and body utterly drained as the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from the last several days finally caught up to her. She felt his arms clutch around her midsection more tightly, clearly preparing for her to make a break for it.

Neither he nor Carver made any effort to activate the Silence, both of them apparently knew that this battle wasn't meant to inflict any permanent damage- they believed that it was a simple, angry rage that needed to be vented. But it wasn't simple and it wasn't just rage. They didn't know that there was a poison somewhere in her that just wasn't passing. What was happening to her?

Merrill's uncharacteristically stern voice brought her out of her thoughts. "Stop it! You two are acting like children," Merrill scolded as she placed herself between them.

Carver fell still, shoving away Sebastian as the prince lowered his arms. "She started it," Carver grumbled angrily.

She snapped her head up at that and retorted, "Did not!"

"Did too!"

"That's enough!" Merrill barked the command in such a manner that had both Hawke siblings snapping their mouths closed and staring guiltily at the ground. She felt Fenris' arms fall from her waist but linger, stroking his palm over her hip in a way she wasn't entirely certain was accidental. "Now you two are going to apologize to each other and then you are going to blow up this building and then you are going to check up on the camp and then we are all going to save the world and you will like it!"

"Yes, Merrill," Carver answered dumbly.

"Of course," Marian answered simultaneously.

"So go make this bomb and stop your whining," Merrill growled.

Marian grabbed her pack and strode into the other room, she didn't have to look back to know that Carver was hot on her heels.

Marian and Carver spent the next two hours crafting the bomb in silence. Carver had brought Anders' journal and was consulting it step by painstaking step. Her own had been a copy, she'd transcribed it herself as she poured over each and every page, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to reconcile the man she'd known with the man who'd so thoroughly violated her guileless trust. Her reasoning had been simple- there was just too much information for one person to take in and Carver's perspective, while tainted with his inherent dislike of the author, was a valuable one. She'd decided the original tome was too valuable to risk losing and bade her brother to keep it safe. Now her own copy was gone, the inherent sin washed away with the seas of ocean and blood somewhere outside Wycome. Sometimes she really hated being right.

They were in the final stages of crafting the bomb before she had the gumption to ask, "Did that seriously just happen?"

He'd just set the hourglass, gifting them with a few moments of glorious impunity, so she used the opportunity to clear the air. The number of times she and Carver had come to blows could be numbered off on one hand- once when she'd carelessly made fun of his obsession with Peaches, again when he'd stormed into the Amell Estate and blamed her for Mother's murder, and just now. The awkwardness was palatable… and she didn't need that right now. She needed Carver, needed her brother back, needed to know that even if they were each of them loath to verbally forgive each other, the blood-bond between them couldn't be broken from a few angry bruises and bloodied noses.

Carver withdrew from the concoction- it would need several minutes to set before it would be ready for administering the Sela Petrae- and he chuckled. "I've wondered myself if blood-magic may have tempered her mood a bit. She's far more stubborn than I ever gave her credit for."

He met her eyes and gave a soft grin. She sighed gratefully and returned the gesture. He'd chosen to interpret her words to regard Merrill instead of their fight. They were okay. All was once more quietly forgiven and forgotten.

"Maybe the demons calmed her," she mused. "I don't know."

Carver sat back on his haunches, letting a whimsy expression grace his face. "She's a piece of work, isn't she?"

"Yes. Yes, she is," she replied, crossing her legs to sit more comfortably on the floor. Carver had always asked her how she could bear to sit like that. She wasn't sure, maybe it was all the dancing she'd done in her youth, but she was always more comfortable sitting that way. Robes made the position more difficult, binding her thighs lest she hike up the skirts and flash her undergarments to anyone in the vicinity. Her Imperial armor, little as she liked it, involved pants, so the position was much safer.

Carver leveled his gaze at her and asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

She sighed, feeling the headache start up once more before Hoppers heated against her chest. Then it was gone again. Why hadn't she told him about Fenris? For the same reason she wasn't telling him about this. Their relationship, while stronger now than it had ever been, was always going to be a finely crafted, fragile thing. Her own mental state, questionable as it may be, sought to foster it as best she could. The rebellion had few allies, Carver had bee right on that point. She, it seemed, had even fewer… and she couldn't bear the thought of losing Carver again.

"I can't keep my head straight around him," she stuttered, hating herself for the weakness of her words. "It just… happened. I don't think there was any rhyme or reason to…"

His head bowed, the sudden move shocking her tongue into stillness. What had she said wrong? Her brother considered his hands, calloused and vicious as they'd been so recently, and replied, "I mean with Anders."

Dread crept up on her, sending her stomach to turning. "Anders?"

"I know, Marian," he answered softly, "I know you killed him." He reached out to her hand delicately. It was a move she immediately identified with mistrust. But there were no misgivings to be found. Carver had blindly revealed his hand, outstretched to her, questioning, waiting for an honesty she'd selfishly kept from him- honesty that could have spared Keili and saved Enid… yet another horrible mistake on her part. His face wasn't accusing or angry, just dolefully sought some sort of reason from her… an explanation she couldn't rightly give. She couldn't excuse keeping her part in Anders' current state secret.

Now the sin was known. The deed was done… or botched at the very least. That particular weight lifted away from her chest. Yet he still looked at her with the naïve hope she'd come to expect from him. Carver had always been a bit of a dreamer, as much as he tried to deny it. Now he was locked into the battle of wills she'd inadvertently lured him into. She felt the carpet dragged from beneath her, wished the sky would reach down to swallow her up as it had so many years ago. There was no answer she could form, no justification, no defense that would pardon her dreadful omission.

Still, she tried- choked out half-syllables and half-words that meant nothing at all- until Carver interrupted her stammering. "I'm not…" he started but then backed off before trying again. "I never… I didn't."

She twined her fingers with his and uttered, "Just say it, Carver."

"I get…" he murmured, "I know I haven't always been there for you but I'm here now, Marian. I'm never going to fawn over you like the mages- fuck, I don't always even like you- but please don't doubt that I'm here."

"Carver…" she started.

"Don't think you're the only…" he started but paused for a moment, like he had very suddenly reevaluated his word choice, before he just dropped his head and stated, "You're not alone. You don't have to shoulder this alone, Marian. I just want you to remember that."

"I…" she stammered, completely at a loss for words. Shame brought her head down to regard the ground, she'd come into this conversation from a position of undeniable weakness… but Carver was forgiving it. They said grace found the sinner in unexpected places; she supposed this was just one of them. Finally, she answered, "Thank you, Carver," and squeezed his fingers affectionately.

But she was alone, she knew. No one could understand what she'd been through. Maison had left no one alive who would. She hadn't suffered the same torture the others had. She wondered for the first time if the bastard's punishment had ultimately been for her to survive, broken and terrified as she'd never before been, forced to carry a permanent memento of her catastrophic failure to save those she'd sworn to protect.

"You don't have to tell me about Wycome," Carver said… like he was ripping the thoughts straight from her mind. His eyes shifted from hers to move slightly left, to the scar that would forever mar her face. Of course he'd noticed it, probably noticed it the moment she'd opened the cowl to reveal her mutilated face. She felt her lip quirk at that, accenting the healed wound as she knew it would. Carver was far more intuitive than he played and as a soldier, he knew such an injury, while physically mended, might never fully heal. "But if you want to talk about it," he finished as he brought his eyes back to hers, his candor open and on display for her scrutiny, "I'm here, Marian."

She flexed her fingers around his more tightly, answering only, "Thank you." She felt another heavy breath leave her. Even if Carver wasn't demanding an explanation, he needed at least to be told the framework of what happened in Wycome in order to better protect both himself and the camp. "There was a Templar in Wycome named Gerard Maison. They stormed the house the apostates were hiding in," she swallowed then. "He killed them all, Carver. He just… I don't know if he was acting under orders. I don't know if he's affiliated with these men but when I heard you'd come here…"

"You thought it was a trap," he supplied. When she nodded, he snorted, "You were right. I'm just glad you showed up when you did. I rather like living."

She didn't bother telling him that dying was only a small part of the reason she'd been so terrified, that mere death had been a simple relief Gerard reveled in denying his victims. Her brother had given her the chance to say nothing and that was something she wasn't prepared to speak to yet. The scar itched and she absently scratched at it, surprised that for once that the motion actually soothed it. There was a trace of wetness in his eyes as he disentangled their fingers and rose from the floor, knees creaking against the movement. Maker, they weren't exactly children anymore, were they?

"Timer's up," he said with a forced nonchalance. "Back to work."

"Yes," she agreed. "Let's blow this place sky-high and then finish saving the world."

With earnest, if slightly cautious grins, they set back to work.

It was hours later when the bomb was completed. At some point, Fenris and the others had excavated the rest of the fort and found the key to Merrill's collar, as well as several other useful items. As much as she adored Merrill, she couldn't bring herself to overly care. Nothing of note had been discovered and Maison hadn't been here- Merrill's whole condition had inadvertently told her as much. The entire party now gathered to look upon the bomb with a perverse sort of fascination. Fine as she'd felt after her conversation with her brother, a sickness came over her as she looked for the first time upon the final product. It looked harmless, looked like it was just a small package of vials and nothing more.

It was so much more than that. It wasn't just a bomb. It wasn't just the machinations of a madman reaching out to scorch everything she touched. She understood that she was looking for the first time upon the mechanism of her ultimate demise, the thing that had torn her entire world asunder while a mad spirit laughed at her confusion.

She ducked her head, looking away from the device, furiously denying her foreseeable fate. This was the thing that would inevitably kill her. This was the unforgivable sin she'd inadvertently partaken in. This was innocent blood and panicked screaming and unbridled terror. This was the fire and brimstone she could expect on the other side. This was every bit of what she'd endured in Wycome, meted out senselessly against people who just wanted to live their lives. It was as unexpected as it was terrible.

She understood now why she'd been so furious at Carver for carting around the ingredients for this unholy concoction with him. It hadn't destroyed his life; he'd had his own life apart from her. This… this thing represented everything she'd suffered since Kirkwall. It represented the betrayal of her trust, her startling naivety, the lost innocence she so dearly missed, the odd torture, the inherent mistrust, the wretched paranoia- it all sat here benignly before her, waiting for her to activate it and render a different building to ash and rubble.

She looked at Anders' journal, clutched in Carver's arms, staring in hopes that the closed leather cover could offer her some reassurance. Had it been so simple for Anders? Had this been an easy thing to do? The journal never deemed to give her a proper answer.

After several long minutes of silence, Carver spoke her name. "Marian…" he said, "Merrill can do this. We can…"

"I have to do this," she whispered before taking the book from her brother, stroking her fingers over the worn leather cover. "I know we're here because… I know you hated him but…" and she choked, trying to stifle back the sob that threatened to break free, "I just need a moment, please."

"Hawke," Varric tried before Carver cut him off.

"Take all the time you need," her brother murmured, coming forward to give a strong squeeze to her shoulder. "We'll be just outside."

"Thank you," she answered, feeling that numbness she'd come to expect when it came to her dealings with Anders. It was her burden. This was her weight to bear.

When they'd gone, she felt her knees give, collapsing to the floor as she took Anders' journal into her lap, stroking her fingers over the worn leather cover before opening it to the dog-eared passage she'd read hundreds of times before. A mage came into the clinic today, it read. Cheeky little chit's got her mind set on excavating the Deep Roads. Shame, she's really quite cute.

Their first meeting… it felt like a lifetime ago. He hadn't trusted her at first- years of running had honed him into a man who'd learned to believe little and chance even less. After everything that had happened with Karl, she was beyond surprised that Anders decided to accompany her into the Deep Roads. Maybe he'd done it to spite all his misgivings. That was just the sort of man he was, she'd supposed- someone she could count on to put his personal feelings aside to work for the greater good.

Or so she'd thought.

It was all here, she knew, scribbled in this flowing, elegant script- the day they'd met, the day he'd offered to teach her what he knew, the day he'd finally managed to wrangle a half-decent healing drought out of his clumsy apprentice. Anders wrote about her with a frustrated fondness, documenting each success and failure, detailing his annoyance at her naivety regarding the corruption of the Circles and whimsically recalling his own all-too-brief innocence. Anders had just wanted to be free. Now he was trapped in an altogether different way, his corpse hosting a monster he, too, had trusted.

Maybe they weren't so different. Maybe they were both haunted by something no one could rightly explain.

She'd spent most of her spare moments in the last year reading her copy of this book not to learn more about the mechanics of what he'd done but to try and divine just what had driven him to it. But there were no answers to be found there… just the fervent ramblings of a mage increasingly unhinged from the real world, the insane strategies of the very man who'd taken her under his wing and turned her raw talent into a craft the envy of other mages, the same man who turned in those lonely woods after the obliteration of Kirkwall to see the tears in her eyes as she gripped the knife in her quivering hand and simply whispered, "Marian?"

"You don't get to fight with us, Anders," she'd answered with tears welling up in her eyes, "And you don't get to be a martyr. You're a monster."

His eyes flattened with a look of resigned understanding. She saw him watch her hand shake against the butt of the blade, causing it to waver in the air, a one-winged bird working up the courage to fly far, far away. He'd strode toward her, coming closer until the point of the knife touched his chest, bringing one hand up to cup her wrist and stabilize it. "It's okay, Marian," he'd whispered, using his free hand tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I understand."

"It isn't okay," she'd choked out and brought the knife down, unable to keep it stable without his gentle hand to steady it. "None of this is okay."

Anders had shushed her and taken her into his arms, holding her gently as he was so careful not to do. He'd only held her this way twice before- after she'd confided in him what had occurred with Fenris and again after her mother was murdered. He'd even gone so far as to physically fight Fenris after their disastrous first night together… he never told her what he'd done but she'd caught him nursing a few bruises and swollen knuckles less than a week after the elf had left her alone, shaking with the kind of heartbreak that could only be born from a hopeless, life-altering kind of love. When she noticed Fenris encumbered with similar injuries, she put two and two together but remained silent on the issue.

He'd tended to her broken heart the best way he knew how- letting her sleep, eat, and breathe her apprenticeship, allowing her to stay in the clinic from sunrise till deep into the night, challenging her to absorb waves of knowledge until her mind so was overfilled she had little chance to think on anything else. Anders had always been careful with her, vigilantly keeping their mutual affection platonic, carefully tending to her psyche when she was overwhelmed. It wasn't until weeks after she'd… when she'd finally screwed up her courage enough to read his journals that she understood how deeply he'd cared for her… cared so much that he'd done everything in his power to conceal it, to protect her from the thing he knew he was becoming, lest the little girl tempt the monsters beneath her bed to manifest themselves into full-blown terrors.

"Remember when we accidentally gave Merrill the clap?" he'd whispered into her hair then. His lips quirked against her neck and she knew he'd smiled… Maker, it felt like it had been weeks since he'd done that.

She'd started laughing then or at the very least gave some weird combination of sobbing and giggles. They sourced some of the, errr, rarer ingredients for some potions from the ladies at the Blooming Rose… one bad ingredient later and a sort of epidemic of venereal disease exploded amongst their patients. She'd rather enjoyed watching Seneshal Bran's squirming when he came to the clinic. It wasn't until Merrill complained that they'd realized their folly. The faulty batch had been destroyed, burned on the Wounded Coast safely away from the populace. They'd laughed… laughed so hard at the simple, stupid error… it felt like a hundred years ago… a thousand years… a million years.

"Remember when I nearly exploded your clinic?" she'd snuffled into his shirt. "There was fire everywhere."

"I do," he'd murmured and flexed his strong arms around her. "I remember everything you've done."

And then her anger and anguish finally turned to confusion. "Then why?" she'd sobbed as she gripped him tighter in an embrace that had already failed. If he'd asked to be saved, she'd have done it in a heartbeat. But he'd never asked and now the scene was over; the draft was sent to the publishers and was just awaiting the printing. "Why did you do this? How could you do this to me?"

"I did it for you, Marian, for all of us. At least, I thought I did," he'd conceded at last. "I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry."

She gripped the knife tighter in her palm, clenching her fist over it like a beating heart that needed to be crushed. She'd pressed her lips against Anders' neck and held the blade tighter, tighter… tighter… tighter. Then he'd seized against her, drew his face away to stare into her eyes, warm blood leaking over her hand. "It's okay, Marian," he'd whispered as he stroked a hand over her face, brushing the wetness away from her cheek, "It's okay."

"It's not okay," she'd choked back. "Nothing is okay."

He hadn't reacted with shock… or with anything she'd have called confusion. He'd sunk to his knees, face resting against her belly as he began coughing his life's blood from his filling lungs onto her empty stomach. It was wet, warm as it penetrated the dark cloth and stained her skin. And she'd held him, cupping his head against her belly. Absently, she'd run her fingers through his hair, knocking his ponytail loose, and made soft, comforting noises as Anders instinctively clutched at her buttocks, looking for something to anchor him in this world, kneading them weakly as he began vomiting blood onto her stomach.

"Shhhhhhhh," she'd whispered, repeating it all back to him. "It's okay… It's okay, love."

"Hold me," he'd managed to choke out. "I don't want to be alone."

So she'd ducked into the dirt and embraced him, cooing and cuddling him long after he'd stopped twitching. She couldn't remember everything that happened next- her vision was bathed in hot tears. Anders, lax and inanimate, was clutched in her arms, she distantly heard a lioness' lowly yowl for the loss of her kin. There was no telling how long she'd held him suspended in infinite waiting, only knew that when the voice had startled her from the scene that Anders had long been gone, cold and dead in her clenched arms.

"Hawke?" Varric had asked as he approached the scene of slaughter. She heard his footsteps falter as he looked upon what she'd done. "Holy shit… Hawke…"

Then she'd begun wailing, unable to keep the howling quiet for a moment longer. First Fenris and now Anders… she was utterly alone. The details were long gone, lost in the inferno of grief. She remembered Varric brandishing a shovel but had no memory of where it had come from. The dwarf had pulled her away and she'd mindlessly clawed back at the man she'd… that she'd… she'd…

And then she was lowering him into the grave she didn't fully recall digging. She remembered Varric watching as she clawed at the hard earth with her fingers to make space for his shoulders. She remembered grabbing Anders' coin purse from his hip and emptying it into her outstretched hand… but all it held were a few runes and a locket. She remembered reaching for her own, pulling out a handful of coins. She remembered as she wrenched his stiffening jaw open and shoved a small fortune of gold inside his mouth and down his throat… because Father had told her it was tradition to bury the executed with money. It was said the coin allowed them a chance to bribe Death for an audience with the Maker to plead their case- even though the Chantry considered it blasphemy to be buried with it.

Maybe that had been an Imperial tradition, she realized now. Not that it mattered.

She'd regarded him one final time, his face peaceful and still with his mouth full of money. Then she dumped him into his grave face-down, so his dead eyes could gaze upon his soul in the Void. She'd never been particularly religious- being an apostate meant she couldn't attend services- but she understood the Chantry considered a face down burial to be the gravest insult. She'd snorted to herself through her tears as she began scooping dirt onto Anders' body… gravest.

At some point, it had begun raining. The water and mud soaking into her Champion's armor disguised the dark bloodstains over them. No one had questioned where Anders was when she returned to camp covered in muck, even though she felt the dirt from his shallow grave sticking beneath her fingernails. She'd almost hoped someone would ask, that she'd be forced to either lie or confess… but no one did. She said she'd let him go. It had been the biggest lie she'd told to date. She hadn't let him go- he was still there hanging in the air just over her shoulder, critiquing her potions and techniques, inserting his opinions and diagnoses as surely as he had before… Anders was irrevocably gone but, just like his husk of a corpse, still entirely here.

She'd missed Aveline the most then- the older woman understood what it meant to strike down a loved one. While she'd never begrudge the Guard-Captain staying her post in a ravaged Kirkwall, Marian had really needed her right then. Varric didn't understand. No one could understand. Only Aveline could have… and she'd left Marian sailing away on the docks of the Gallows… wishing Marian well… if only she'd known….

But no one should ever know. This was her burden. The world cared not for it and she cared less to share.

It was her intention that Anders' body wouldn't be found. She was determined that he be remembered as a coward, committing a single act of mass murder and then retreating into the shades never to return. He'd be a shadow in the night, a boogeyman to children, a threat and a warning about desperation and demons. While burying the man who had been her closest friend placed yet another heavy weight on her heart, leaving his body face-down in his grave was the only part of it she ever confronted herself with enough to regret- and it would not come onto her until much later when she let her anger pass and realized that Anders' first and final victim had been himself. He'd selected her as his executioner and she'd… she'd…

… and she'd killed him.

She'd killed him.

She'd killed Anders. She'd slain her teacher… a man who before that final day in Kirkwall she could count on to be her only ally in a sea of suddenly menacing faces.

She'd known it- known it the moment that she'd done it. She was no ignorant amnesiac. She remembered the flex of her hand, remembered the knife nicking Anders' ribcage as she forced the blade in, remembered his soft, almost relieved, gasp when it pierced his lung as he pulled her even closer. She had suffered the guilt ever since, had admitted it to the Imperial Divine himself…

… but some piece of her had kept her from fully admitting it to herself. Maybe that was why she'd never admitted it to Carver. Maybe that's why she hadn't been completely gob smacked when she met Fenris again. It never really felt like her hands had been the ones that slayed them. Some other Marian Hawke had done those things- some other woman who existed in some other time and place, immune to scrutiny, immune to the guilt that paralyzed her present counterpart. She'd conned herself into believing that she was not the same Marian Hawke who had committed such acts… but she was and she had.

She was the woman who'd blindly placed her trust in an abomination. She was the woman who'd had tears streaking down her chin as she struck down her furious lover before he could do the same. She was the woman who had murdered the author of this insane and beloved manifesto as he whispered her name like a blessing upon so much sin, telling her that it was okay, forgiving her for what she did.

She'd spent so much of the last year in frantic escape, fearing every second she rested, waiting for the inevitable moment her deeds would drag her down into Anders' empty grave. Now Marian was left dealing with a dead man who wouldn't die, who'd taken opportunity at her stalled tongue to murder even more. All she had to show for it was this book- the final document of a man possessed, refusing to relent or grace her with a modicum of peace even when its author had long since gone.

She hesitantly set the journal on the table next to the bomb. There was no sense in what he'd done, no justification for his actions that she could see. There were measures civilized society took to deal with injustice. Even if she'd seen them fail before, even if she'd actively defied authority when it didn't take… she's always believed they were there and held faith in them, horribly flawed, as she'd known them to be. A thousand years of mage oppression, men like Maison running about unchecked. There was little wonder why Anders had found her naivety frustrating but surely this was not the answer, this could not be the future Anders had wanted.

She'd obsessed over the book, looking for answers that simply were not there. The man she'd loved so dearly was not housed within them and his dead tongue would offer her no answers. There was no telling when Anders began losing his fight to Justice, perhaps he'd lost the moment he harbored him, perhaps Anders had never taken a pen to these pages at all. Perhaps, as Fenris had once said so long ago, she'd never truly known him.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that she had… that she'd known some side of Anders that only she'd been privy to. It made this whole ordeal that much harder.

"I miss you," she spoke aloud to the book. It was a stupid thing to do, senseless as it was, but this had nothing to do with sense. This was grief, grief she'd never allowed herself to fully feel, never permitted herself to fully acknowledge. As she turned to walk away, she felt Hoppers ignite his warmth over her chest. He told her that this was the right thing to do- that she couldn't bring herself to fight whatever had become of Anders if she was still carrying this torch for a man long dead.

The realization sent her straight to her knees, her stride interrupted by a sudden, heart-wrenching ache. She wouldn't look back. It was just a book. Anders was dead. She'd killed him. The sobbing that erupted from her chest wracked her body. She collapsed to her side, curling into a fetal position, and she let the tears come as they hadn't since the night she'd plunged the knife into him. The pain, long suppressed, washed over her like a tidal wave. She bit her knuckles in a frantic effort to keep the noise of her pained mewling at bay, bit until she tasted blood flooding her mouth.

She rose then, grabbing random objects only to fling them against the wall, uncaring of how valuable they may have been. She ignited a bookcase. She blew the windows out of the wall in a beautiful telekinetic wave. Only the slightest ounce of caution prevented the bomb from being disturbed. It made no sense. It wasn't supposed to make sense. It could not possibly make sense. The world was tilted on its side, the universe slanted into a terrible macabre tableau, sight and sound was inverted and manifesting into a terrible screaming sound into the indifferent quiet. There was no fighting it, no silencing it- it was simply there, repulsive and hurting and pounding and screeching.

Hoppers blazed his heat against her chest but no demons made a move against her mind… this was born of a heart-crushing love- those monsters had no place in it. She threw more objects, uncaring of how or where they landed. Anything to ease this horrible ache. She hurled some delicate glass bauble against another window, amplifying its shattering a thousand-fold.

She couldn't stop it- she was almost a third party, listening to the agonized wailing from some place beyond herself. Dimly, she realized one of her hands was leaking blood, cut from something sharp that she clutched painfully in her tight fist. Focusing her will, she forced her fingers apart and let the bloody shards of glass fall from them, tinkling to the floor with a soft, sad sound. Her throat fell still, stalled from her screaming. Her blood made a soft patting noise as it dripped from her fingers onto the ground, easing over and off her fingertips as easily as rainwater. She didn't recall whatever it was that she'd been gripping to cause such an injury. A beaker, perhaps? Whatever it had been, there were still pieces of it imbedded in her flesh.

Then the fury died down and Hoppers lay cool against her chest. Only then did she wonder how long she'd been there, hurling trifles and trinkets against the walls. The moon seemed higher, more beautiful, she noted as she gazed out the broken window. There was a quietness filling the air with a soft volume that only came at midnight. Breaking beautiful things only assuaged her confusion for a brief while, she knew. The catharsis fixed nothing, just offered a few moments of blessed relief. But looking down at her bloody hand, she finally realized something that could.

The wound on her heart, like the oozing wounds on her hand, couldn't heal until she brought herself to pull out the shards that set them to bleeding so furiously. Shards of glass were difficult enough to remove… but how should one endeavor to remove an entire person, an entire history, she wondered as she gingerly plucked the glass from her fingers and healed the cuts closed with a quiet, whispered spell.

"I'll pray for you," she promised the book, daring to gaze back to that last vestige of her mentor. "I'll pray the Maker won't forsake you for what you've done."

And she summoned every ounce of her courage, set the bomb ablaze, and went to leave the room, pausing at the door for a long moment. He was gone forever. He'd made his bed, buried beneath a scant six feet of dirt, and now it was up to her to make him lie in it for good.

She had to let him go.

It was the only way to move forward… and she couldn't afford to dwell on the past anymore. Steeling herself she opened the door and strode through it and past her concerned onlookers, not looking back at where Anders' journal still sat open on the table.

Numb.

That was the word for how she felt as they awaited the sky to ignite in furious brimstone. She'd simply gone through too much today, so her greater mind had shut down in a manner of speaking, letting her ride absently alongside her body as it went through the motions. No one had said anything to her regarding her outburst- even though they'd all undeniably heard it. They'd all decided to remain blissfully silent on the matter. She was grateful no one attempted to question her- although Varric stayed closer than he usually did, pressing his warm palm against her back as he guided her away from the building.

When the inevitable fireworks were due to go off, she slunk away and sank against a tree, facing her body away from the fort. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back toward the sky. She hadn't been this tired since the night she'd taken Owen.

It was Merrill who approached her then, gently inquiring, "Are you going to watch?"

Hawke shook her head and answered only, "No. I saw it once."

"I'll sit with you then," the elf replied and seated herself beside the apostate, "I think once is enough." Minutes later when the detonation sounded, their hands found each other, squeezing tightly. Marian felt tears prick at her eyes and then spill over, a cup overfilled, a sinner's mouth flooded with coin.

Hawke said nothing else, just let the tears fall quietly. At some point, Merrill curled up beside her, wrapping an arm around the apostate's waist and tucking her head beneath the human's chin, letting the tears that failed to drip across her forehead seep into her hair. Marian brought a hand up to absently stroke Merrill's cheek with her palm. For the countless dangers out there now, they were safe for the moment. She felt the rip in the Fade dissipate with the boom of the explosion. Tobias had been right. The rift had been corrected with this singular, heinous act.

"Your nails look awful," Merrill commented sadly, doubtless feeling the ragged edges scratching against her skin.

"Been biting them," Hawke answered dumbly, accepting Merrill's observation without feeling particularly compelled to justify it. "It's been a rough week."

"I know, falon," the elf whispered. Falon- that meant friend, if Marian recalled correctly. "It's been a rough year."

Marian let her head sink further against Merrill, nuzzling the former blood-mage and just taking in the comfort the elf was giving. "It has," she agreed.

"I found a new nail lacquer I think you'll like," the elf continued softly. "It's this dark red you but when the light catches it, it looks almost like copper. I bought it off one of the Dalish vendors a few months back. We'll get your hands fixed up once everything calms down a bit."

"I'd like that," Hawke replied. It was a small offering but one that would give Hawke at least a fleeting moment of normalcy.

Merrill said nothing further, just curled herself closer against Hawke's body as they listened to the fort crumbling to pieces behind them. Her heart ached, her head felt muzzy from the residual headache, her eyes reached for more tears, her mind begged her for sleep, her very soul screamed, loudly and fiercely, at the injustice of all that had happened here tonight… but the deed was done. The damage was done. Another hole had been blown into the world… only this time, she couldn't feign ignorance for it or deny her responsibility for the corpses inside.

Carver eventually came to duck before her, looking at her with a gravity she'd only recently come to expect from him. "We need to get back to the camp," he prompted carefully. It was neither gentle nor stern… just a reminder that the universe wasn't centered on this one destroyed fort. There was a whole world of other, unspeakable dangers lurking in the shadows and this despicable act hadn't shattered the planet itself.

She pulled away from Merrill and rose to her feet. She wiped her tears onto her sleeve and cocked her head up to regard her brother. The time for weakness had passed. She shuttered her emotions safely away, they could continue pestering her another day, and gave her brother a quick nod to assure him that she was fully prepared to fulfill her duty to the rebellion.

After a bracing breath, she straightened her spine to give her every inch of her height. Carver's eyes warmed a bit as he witnessed her casting off her demons. "I already told them to move," she informed him with a cool professionalism. "We'll hit the river and go west until one of the lookouts spots us."

Carver looked at her, still slightly unsure as he assessed her face and quietly inquired, "Are you okay?"

She thought on it. The lie would be easy enough to deliver but she owed her brother so much more than that, especially after being thoroughly caught in a pretty spectacular one. "No," she decided after several seconds before assuring him, "but I will be."

He nodded his approval before he turned back to the rest of the party and instructed them to start making a path for the river. Their progress that evening was a slow one. Between the darkness and her exhaustion, they barely covered a mile before stopping for sleep. It wasn't until Marian bedded down for the evening that she realized her brother's motivations for their immediate trekking back to the camp. He'd been trying to protect her, shielding her from having to sit and look at the destruction Anders' device had wrought, from having to face down another exploded building.

With that knowledge solidly in her mind, Marian slept better than she had in months.

It was the third night when a nightmare drew her once more from her sleep. Not Anders this time but Fenris. A quick inspection of the camp told her that she hadn't shouted, hadn't waked the others. If she had managed to rouse them, they were at least feigning slumber. She sighed, sitting up to wipe a tired hand over her face. It was a full moon and it left the clearing eerily bright. Deciding another solid night's sleep would continue to elude her, she shuffled to her pack, drew out a deck of cards, and slunk away.

She found a new clearing about a hundred feet away and plopped down onto her bottom, pulling out the cards. This had been Aurelius' final gift to her, they'd belonged to her paternal grandmother and Malcolm… Marcus… had entrusted them to the man he'd considered a dear friend rather than keep that reminder of his past life. She suspected that if she pressed Tobias for answers regarding her father's exile from the Imperium she may actually get them; but Aurelius' words had struck a painful chord with her. She would endeavor to remember her father as the man she'd known him to be- not the man who'd cast blood magic to imprison a demented dead magister and not the priest who'd done something so terrible he'd had no choice but to flee his homeland forever.

That drew her back to these cards. The light of the moon wasn't enough to allow her to read them clearly, so she cast a magelight and shuffled the deck. She drew the first- the Archer- then the next- the Chapel- and the final- the King of Staves. She sat back and considered them. She didn't pretend to know much about card reading other than the bare minimum. According to both Father and Anders, it was generally expected that every mage would try their hand at fortune-telling at some point in their lives. Diving the chaos of the universe into something foreseeable was a talent most mages wanted to master. She'd had no luck with any of it in the past. Tea leaves almost always implied some sort of death, palm-reading usually told her that everyone was going to live to a ripe old age, and cards generally produced little more than gobbledygook.

Father had fervently encouraged her exploration into these talents. It wasn't until Aurelius informed her that her grandmother was unusually deft with her cards that Marian realized why. Her grandmother, Leila Demitrius, had been considered something of a prodigy. Her enrollment in the Imperial Chantry meant she seldom utilized her gifts but Aurelius implied that she'd foreseen her only child's actions, done everything in her power to prevent it, and died, babbling and insane, when unwavering Fate manifested itself and her son's unforgivable sin and inevitable exile came about.

She tried to think back on everything she'd ever learned about the cards but found her limited and abandoned experience rendered her unable to understand the elemental aspects of the card. So she reasoned with her mind instead. The Archer was a warrior, skilled and deft, striking with an inherent precision. The weight of his arrows was light. The Archer was unencumbered, free to strike as he pleased. However, every card had a negative aspect as well, so she considered them carefully. The Archer was also sentenced to the shadows, striking unexpectedly- an unforeseen wound to the back. It was also one of the few named cards, unassociated with any of the elements that conducted the others, which meant it acted of its own accord; it was a wildcard, so to speak, and couldn't be expected to act in accordance with the typical aspects of the elements. There was a something dark in that.

The Chapel indicated just the opposite of the Archer's caprice. It was heavy responsibility, solemn and constant. It was faith, resolute and stubborn, as faith often was. Faith was a weighty concept and she reasoned it meant something was unshakable, pure and true as she new it to be. It also meant judgment, prejudice, and unreasonable principle. The Chapel could mean a thousand things but faith… faith was something entirely different. Faith was a drive that could power one through unspeakable hardships. It was also completely irrational, an immovable object struggling against an unstoppable force for no purpose other than the very nature of its existence.

Then the King of Staves… Staves were a fire element if memory served her right. That meant thirst, conviction, and also lust and an indisputable callousness. Fire was governed by passion but Kings were also leaders- so there was a fiery principle at play in this hand. The King of Staves was a man who acted on his beliefs and used them to shape the world around him… but passion could also be ill-conceived and result in worlds of regret.

So what could it mean? She pondered these cards, drawn at random without any of the pomp and circumstance she only vaguely remembered. She'd diddled with them a bit during her trek back into the Free Marches, never finding anything resembling a proper answer, but they made her think. It felt like she'd been doing a lot of that lately. Returning to logic was a blessed release.

Suddenly, she heard a rustling in the bushes behind her. She looked back and saw Sebastian emerge from the woods. He gave her swift look before taking a seat beside her. Dumbly, she looked at the cards again. Okay, that was weird. That was really weird.

She wondered for a moment if the cards were enchanted somehow but then immediately dismissed it. Divinity spoke most loudly to an impressionable mind. Sleep-deprived and morally wounded, she felt she definitely fell into that category.

She gathered up her cards, packing them carefully back into the deck and tucked it neatly into her breast band. Then she waited for the prince to say something. He didn't, just took up a seat beside her and sat in silence as she considered him. The King, the Chapel, the Archer… it felt to be so undeniably him… but she'd never had a talent for fortune-telling. So she waited for him to say something, anything. Sebastian, however, appeared content with the stillness and said nothing instead. He just looked at her, waiting for her to speak.

Finally too irritated at his continued quiet, she turn and snapped, "Are you going to say anything or are you just going to sit there and stare?"

He turned his head, raised an eyebrow, and replied simply, "Vow of Silence."

She felt a growl attempting to emerge from her chest and retorted, "Perhaps I should have aimed higher and gone for a Vow of Invisibility as well." It did tickle her a little to realize rather belatedly that Sebastian had not said a single word within her earshot ever since she'd said that. A small smile graced her face at that.

Sebastian bowed his head, clasping his hands before him in a mockery of prayer, and uttered, "Hawke… I'm sorry."

Those words set her mind tumbling. Sorry? Like that was supposed to fix everything? "Is that all you came out here to say," she spat, not even attempting to hide the bitterness from her voice.

"No," he replied softly, "but I couldn't hope to say anything else until I told you that. I let my anger get the better of me. I allowed rage to cripple me. I permitted it to turn me against someone I considered the dearest of friends. For that, I am truly sorry."

She shook her head and retorted, "Would you be saying that if your precious Starkhaven weren't at risk? Would you even be talking to me if I hadn't killed him?"

Sebastian sat back, thinking on her words before he answered, "I do not know. I would like to believe I would."

"But you don't know," she replied angrily. "You don't know for certain."

"No," he admitted with a whimsy sort of sadness. "I truly don't."

It wasn't much. It was hardly a comfort… but brutal honestly seldom was. After everything that had happened, a stupidly selfish part of her wished Sebastian would make a token effort to insulate her, to placate her. But a broken fantasy was just that- broken- and a house of cards built upon a foundation of lies held an even smaller chance at longevity.

It hadn't always been like this. She'd considered Sebastian amongst her most beloved of friends. He escorted her to countless galas thrown in her honor and proved himself to be jolly good company. They'd made fun of the nobility with rampant gusto, his station preventing potential suitors from making advances while she impatiently waited for Fenris to come around. Sebastian had single-handedly meted out her inoculation into Kirkwall nobility with a grace she never expected from him. He'd even begun campaigning for her to take the title of Viscount before that final day she'd spent in Kirkwall. Even though she was a mage, he'd believed she could lead the city into a new era of leadership.

And in one single day, all that faith simply vanished- smoke in the wind, tears in the sea. He'd condemned her, persecuted her, screeched petulantly for her very death. Those things were not easily forgotten, especially when she recalled Owen's cut ear… the boy hadn't even been the target. He'd simply been collateral damage to the mercenaries the prince had set upon her.

She thought on those things as stared at the dirt where the cards had just been. Then she finally asked, "Do you believe in me?"

"I do, Hawke," he immediately answered. Whether it was false or truth, she wouldn't rightly know until the hand played out. If his candor was any indicator, she was inclined to trust him. Then, completely out of the blue, he said, "Fenris is still in love with you."

She chuckled, wrapping her arms around her midsection. "You didn't see the fighting we did when we last met," she reminded him.

"No," he replied, "but I saw the aftermath. He didn't tell me everything that happened but it was easy enough to guess. Your brother also figured it out on his own- gave Fenris quite the black eye for it. He never offered it, Hawke. It was obvious."

Fenris had always been a terrible bluff. It was slightly reassuring to know that hadn't changed. "He hates what I am," she murmured and propped her head back to look at the moon, white and silvery like the subject of this discussion. "He's got every reason to. Even if he…" she snorted, unwilling to say that particular word aloud. "How could that ever be enough?"

Sebastian reached out and took her hand, holding it gently. Even though impulse screamed that she should yank her hand back, she left it there. "Love is enough," Sebastian assured her and stroked his thumb across her tense palm. "He wouldn't be here if it weren't. He wouldn't be here if he didn't believe in you, too."

She rose then, uncomfortable thoughts racing through her head as Sebastian's words sank in. She hadn't given herself much of an opportunity to think about Fenris' presence and everything that could mean. The elf had made no attempt to approach her and though she knew a reckoning was imminent, she wasn't sure what, if any, resolution it would bring. "I think I'll go back to bed," she murmured absently over her shoulder as she turned to head back to her bedroll.

"Go ahead," the prince said, leaning back upon his hands and letting her leave. "I'll stay out here a bit longer."

She nodded at him then, feeling just a hint of the easiness they'd had before, and continued back toward the campsite. Even if anxiety kept her awake, she'd pretend to sleep- if only to avoid the incredibly awkward situation Sebastian had put her in.

Fenris apparently still carried a torch for her. For every despicable thing they'd done to one another, that bond had never fully been broken. Part of her suspected that it would never truly break. She realized as she settled once more into her bedroll that Fenris was not actually asleep. He tended to make a deep breathing sound when he slumbered, not precisely snoring but something just this side of it. His eyes were closed, feigning slumber, avoiding her, giving her space.

Her heart banged, unwelcome against her ribcage. There was no hope to be had between them. This love was a weight shackled around both their necks. Even if it hurt, hurt like the burning fires of the Void itself, she had to keep her head on straight for once. But her heart thumped… thumped for him, thumped as she looked upon his pretend sleep, thumped as she did every time she thought of him.

It was the same earth-shattering love it had always been- something that could stand as the rest of the world disintegrated to pieces around them until only it remained. She couldn't afford to let the Thedas crumble further around her. She wasn't just the Champion anymore. She was a leader of Anders' rebellion. She was sought out for destruction, marked for death and things much, much worse. She was a fire in the night of these wretched circumstances- a beacon, a symbol. She was a warrior, a fighter, an unforgivable apostate, a guardian to a frightened elven boy, a victim of a heinous act she didn't quite understand… definitely damaged, very possibly crazy…

… and it all petrified her. Life hadn't necessarily been simple before Anders had detonated the bomb in the Chantry but it had felt much more stable. Maybe she hadn't always been right but she'd never before had reason to question her motivations. She'd always endeavored to do good… now she kept secrets, withheld valuable information just to keep the soul-crushing of guilt at bay, called her own sanity into question every time she heard a button speak softly against her troubled mind.

She wasn't cut out to be the recipient of this sort of love. Perhaps she'd never been. Perhaps Fenris had intuited something within her that one night so many years ago. Perhaps it hadn't been a lapse in his fugue-state but just an unconscious understanding that they were utterly terrible for one another.

She watched Fenris play at his sleep, knowing irrefutably that he was watching her with both eyes closed. It was wrong that he was encumbered with it as much as it was wrong that she still felt it. But she kept coming around to the same question she'd asked herself at the fort. How did you erase a person, an entire history?

She didn't know.

She'd play it safe, keep him at arms' length until this sick feeling abated. He was an ally now, that much Carver certainly believed, so she'd keep him on for the time being. Maybe in time these feelings would pass. Maybe their hearts could heal with some distance. Maybe eventually, they could go back to being just colleagues.

But what of Owen? She'd vetted every rational defense she could for avoiding passing the boy onto Fenris. Starkhaven was dangerous, run by a hateful prince who wanted nothing other than her destruction. That reason had just proved false, otherwise Sebastian would have fired that arrow at her head the moment he'd regained his footing or at the very least done it when he'd discovered her alone and vulnerable. Fenris hated her… but she remembered the delicately forceful way he'd removed her from her brother. That hadn't been an act of aggression- it had been oddly tender as he was so inclined to be when it came to her. Sebastian's words had only doubled the elf's impact.

She missed Anders then. He'd always been rather deft at distractions. He was gone now, faded into something she couldn't hope to understand but, Maker, she still hoped he'd moved on to something sweeter than this sickening acid candy she found herself childishly suckling.

She needed Owen- she could admit it now… a new secret she'd have to selfishly harbor. He helped keep the mindless rage at bay. Owen saved her as surely as she'd saved him- his demand for her helped keep her mind steady. If she was tasked to guard him, nurture him, care for him, then the darker things that clawed at her couldn't grasp at her so tightly. With her mind in such indisputable disarray, any sort of grounding force was necessary. That force happened to be a child-slave she'd promised to protect. It was Owen.

She wasn't the boy's mother… but he needed her. She needed to be needed in the way only the boy could hope to do. What if she told Fenris and he took the boy, took that small light away forever? She couldn't give him up just yet. A mild sickness came over her as she contemplated keeping this piece of information from Fenris. She wanted to retreat into the woods and vomit, wanted to rouse Fenris and confess his sister's murder… but not more than she wanted to keep the boy with her just a little longer.

Just a little longer, she promised herself. She'd keep the secret of Owen to herself just a little longer.

Seven days later, the lookout spotted them. It had long been approaching dusk when she'd noticed the single blue arrow protruding from the ground and sent up the blue flare to indicate their status as friendly.

Four refugees materialized out of the wood, they looked tired, hungry. Her heart ached as she looked upon them. Most of the Circle mages had little to no skills in terms of basic survival. They couldn't hunt, couldn't fend for themselves, couldn't even sew a simple button onto the face of a tattered, stuffed rabbit. Anders would have killed these people if she hadn't risked the chance to take them in. The defected Templars attempted to teach them most of their skills but it was still a lacking endeavor. How should you teach a life-long scholar to take up a bow and hunt?

Now a viper rested amidst them- eating their food, wearing their clothes, sharing in their stories and secrets.

There was no telling where the traitor laid dormant. Every face was now carefully catalogued; every pledged ally was called into question. Still, she couldn't deny her inevitable conclusion any more than her brother had refused to voice it. The mole was no Templar…. The traitor had to be a mage. It was the only explanation for the interference in the mail but it was also something that couldn't be openly spoken. Only mages had any hope of understanding the delicate communication… and they were beyond spooked to begin with. To actively investigate them was tantamount to driving a wedge between the mages and their keepers. This had to be quiet, utterly silent to the populace.

Soft inquiries were made of the Templars she and her brother both considered wholly-trusted, Margot, Hastings, and Nedrine, outstretched with the demand for discretion. If anything, Hawke was confident that those individuals were unshakable in their loyalties. Both she and Carver had long discussions with all of them and deemed them safe.

They all swore to keep a vigilant eye. Then she'd asked where Owen was sleeping and slunk off to meet him there in the tent he'd occupied. The boy's eyes had blearily cracked open as she shucked off her clothing and changed into a pale white shift. Typically she was loath to undress around the boy- the propriety of their relationship was already something she questioned deeply- but she figured tonight could be one of those compromises. Without another word, she lowered herself to the bedroll beside him. The boy curled against her, nuzzling her breast as he fell back off to into sleep again, where she quickly followed.

She didn't sleep long. She woke unexpectedly, cold, shivering even… her body wasn't prepared for the abrupt ejection from the Fade. She sat up, shuddering from the unexpected ice. It had been temperate when she'd gone to sleep, chilly perhaps but nothing like this. She was positively freezing. Looking over at the elf beside her, sleeping peacefully against her, she wondered what had caused her to awaken.

She crawled away from Owen, disentangling herself from the boy before her movements could wake him, rising to her feet just outside their tent. She didn't bother pulling on a robe to cover herself, standing outside with just the overlarge tunic covering her to just above the knees. The camp was quiet, the fire burning lowly at the heart of the site. Two of their Templars moved along the edge of the camp, patrolling for danger. It was quiet. Everything seemed normal enough. So why did she feel so cold?

The answer manifested when she recognized heaviness of the air as it abruptly took on a sharper, malignant aura… not cold. Silence. She barely managed to shriek out a warning when a cloth sack was dragged over her face, a drawstring tied tightly around her neck. She heard chaos erupt around her, saw flashes of light and heard blades clanging against metal. She felt her body being dragged across the ground, her bare feet futilely gripping against the rocks and dirt as she violently struggled to get away.

A sharp pain exploded over her side and her mana, already inhibited from the lingering Silence, ebbed from her completely. Poisoned. Of course it was. Her fists flailed, desperately striking against the air as she felt her body being hauled farther and farther away from the camp. She felt her feet become wet as they passed over some body of water. She had no idea how much time had passed when, finally, her fist landed against a blunt object just behind her back, a handle blessedly solid against her palm. She gripped it furiously, praying to every deity she'd ever named and forgotten, and swung her hand wildly into the air once before aiming her hand slightly to the side of her neck.

She felt the weapon connect with some soft being, and her progress away from the camp was temporarily impeded as she was dropped to the ground. She swung forward, feeling the heavy object in her grip collide with something else. Frantically, she reached out with her other hand and felt the object in her hand to be sharp, a heavy orb of sharp metal. Gripping the drawstring around her neck, she carelessly cut through it, nicking herself in several places as she struggled.

After painstaking seconds, the mask was gone and her eyes, already adjusted to the dark, could finally survey the scene. The weapon in her hand was some manner of mace. She'd never had cause to carry one before thus was shocked at how utterly heavy it was to wield. How had Aveline managed to carry this thing? A Templar lay wheezing on the ground, his throat inexpertly punctured slightly left of his windpipe. Another stared at her with a similarly bloody bicep… that simply would not do.

She gripped the mace in both hands and swung out again, lunging out to catch the second Templar this time directly into his face before he could draw his blade. He choked for a moment, his last words little more than stifled obscenities as blood exploded out of him, soaking her in dark, rich fluid. With some difficulty, the mace was pried from the dead face courtesy of her foot braced against his neck. Bits of bone and brain clung to the spikes. She turned to survey her first attacker- his wounds were not survivable- death would be a mercy he may not rightly deserve. While she hadn't been dragged into these woods to mete out any kind of justice, she couldn't risk him summoning help. He was on his back, strangling out a few nonsense syllables as he tried to duck away from her.

She knelt, straddling him, whispering only, "Shhhhhh… it's okay. It's alright," before she brought the mace above her head, let loose a cry, and slammed the end of the weapon into his eye-socket, ending him for good. When he looked up at her with that one, terrified eye, blood gurgling from the wound on his neck, she thought she detected a smidgen of relief. Maybe that was wistful thinking- she didn't rightly know.

Staggering on her feet, she realized her surroundings were unrecognizable. Everything was all woods and night. The blade that had pierced her side had fortunately missed any major organs- apparently its intent had been to administer the poison and nothing more. Noting the drag-marks that undeniably came from her feet flailing against the ground, she followed them backwards, praying they'd lead her back to the camp. They couldn't have moved her too far, struggling as she'd been. She staggered drunkenly, blindly, unwilling to cast a magelight to assist her. There could be others looming in the shadows to drag her back into the night. Revealing her location was not an option at present- not that she was sure she even had the strength to cast it.

Her mind was hazy, she realized far too late, when the footprints disappeared into a creek she didn't quite remember. The poison left her unbelievably dizzy. There was a river near the camp but she recalled no creeks. Having no other direction to aim herself, she followed against the stream. She'd been dragged down so uphill seemed a perfectly reasonable direction to target. Her foot caught some manner of root and sent her sprawling into a nest of brambles, scratching and tearing at her as she fought to right herself. Once she'd taken to stumbling, her body became all the more inclined to do it, hurling her to crawl on her hands and knees over stones and dirt at the slightest bump along the path. It was all she could do to avoid sprawling on top of the weapon clutched in her hand.

She could barely stand by the time she saw lights in the distance, had no idea where she was or how far she'd traveled or if they came from her allies or her enemies. After several minutes, she heard a man calling out, heard several voices screaming their confusion into the darkness.

"Everybody calm down," the voice ordered over the din. "It's over! If you're injured, get yourself to Hawke or Elon. Everyone else, get to the fire for roll call."

Against the unrelenting dizziness and discomfort, she forced herself on, pursuing the sounds of chaos where she was increasingly certain the attack had originated. Dimly she felt the pain start to ebb away. Logically, she understood this to be the onset of shock. That meant she couldn't count on staying awake for much longer. She pushed past the darkness that hovered at the corners of her eyes until she finally caught sight of a campfire through the trees, saw the shadows frantically dancing around it. She heard rustling in the bushes and managed to turn in time to see a Templar emerge from them with a weapon drawn.

The Silence was over but with the poison in her veins, she only had one shot she could take to end this. Dropping the mace, she managed to conjure a single flame in her hand before a startled voice extinguished it, "Hawke? Maker, is that you?"

She recognized the voice and answered only, "Margot?" before the other woman rushed forward, placing her shoulder beneath the apostate's arm and hoisting her weight against her armor. She assisted Hawke as they staggered closer to the camp, Margot only opening her mouth to bark out, "I've got injured! Where's Elon?"

"No healer," Hawke stuttered, shuddering from a cold that had nothing to do with Silence or weather.

"You've been stabbed," Margot hissed angrily, her tone brokering no room for armument. "I'm getting you a healer."

"I am a healer," Hawke argued regardless. "How many are injured?" Elon was the only other healer residing in the and he'd be overwhelmed if too many people had been hurt. When Margot didn't answer, Hawke shook her head and assured her, "The worst is the magebane. I've got an antidote in my pack. Get me that and I can take care of myself. Let Elon focus on the people who need him."

Margot cursed as she continued to half-help, half-drag Hawke back to the camp and depositing the mage neatly in front of the campfire before retreating to fetch the antidote. People stopped to openly goggle at her. She must have been a sight to behold. The light of the fire allowed her to see the dozens of bleeding cuts gracing her bare arms and legs. Her shirt was more red than white now. Absently she pulled the torn, oversized tunic down to cover as much of her legs as possible. She felt a particularly nasty wound on her neck seep blood down into the collar, although that injury had in all likelihood been her own doing when she'd cut the bag free.

"Marian, we need you to…" she heard Carver's voice trail off as she turned to see him staring at her with unbridled horror. "What happened?"

"Don't look at me like that," she snapped in spite of her chattering teeth. Everything was cold. Shock. Fantastic. "I gave it better than I got. Besides, you should see the other guys… very dead," she finished with a drunken giggle.

Carver detected the slight slur in her words. "You've been poisoned," he observed before turning back to the others and shouting, "Stop your fucking gawking and bring me a blanket!"

Margot chose that moment to return with both the antidote and, already foreseeing the need, a blanket as well, which she tucked over the shivering mage's shoulder. Hawke unstopped the vial and lifted the side of her tunic, completely uncaring that she was flashing her underclothes to most of the camp. With a grit of her teeth, she poured a fraction of the fluid over the knife-wound to negate any of the toxin that lingered near the surface. A low whimper escaped when she felt the mixture burn and fizzle over the open wound, reacting to the poison. When that passed, she pounded the rest of it in two heavy gulps.

Instantly, she felt her mind start to right itself, the dizziness ebbing away slowly as the potion worked its magic through her system. Maker, she really hated magebane. It was like Silence and dwarven ale mixed into one debilitating concoction. The burning of the antidote was almost worse… almost.

Carver crouched before her and repeated, "What happened?"

She groaned, answering, with a gesture at her person, "Trust me, most of this is the result of running half-naked through the woods at night. That and, well, smacking two Templars in the face with a mace." She chuckled a bit and added, "Those things are heavy."

Carver ignored her quip, lifting the side of her tunic to press a cloth against the puncture in her side. "You went after them?" When she shook her head, she heard him grumble, "So the attack was a distraction."

"I was just coming to that conclusion as well," she admitted as fury rushed up at her, lending her its strength as she quickly healed the worst of her injuries. The knife wound couldn't be fully healed until the potion took its full effect but for now the blood oozed sluggishly from it, hindered by the beginnings of recovery.

"They waited until you were back. They went straight for you- we didn't even know you were gone," Carver muttered and gave a quick look at the refugees before whispering, "We've got to find the traitor."

She'd been the intended target of this raid- that much was obvious enough. "We probably know who it is," she thought aloud.

"You do? Who?"

She stared at her hands for a moment, still covered in the remnants of her injuries. "I don't know, she replied, "but we just got back. If this attack is as haphazard as it seems, then it stands to reason that our arrival stood to throw a wrench into a greater plan."

"That… makes sense," Carver admitted before asking Margot, "Have we had any new arrivals?"

"No," the older woman replied. "We've been too refocused on moving the camp to even look for new recruits. Everyone here was already on the rosters before we left the old campsite."

"Then it's you," Carver muttered to his sister. "You've got to know who this person is. The rest of us have spent a fair amount of time here."

She opened her mouth to remind the two of them that Fenris and Sebastian were still wildcards in their midst but closed it again before the words could come out. Logically, she had to discard that as a possibility. If Fenris or Sebastian had wanted to take her out, they'd had ample opportunity to attempt to do so already; and, if she was completely honest with herself, she had to admit an attack with Starkhaven's backing would have been far more devastating. Furthermore, Carver's rendition of Fenris' involvement in releasing the prisoners from the dungeon at Fort Fitz effectively moved him from her mental category of Completely-Untrusted to the Just-Slightly-Trusted one.

Almost like the universe was eavesdropping into her thoughts, she felt a heavy gaze on her. She turned her head slightly to observe Fenris staring at her. She could see the blood shining on his armor, reaching up the elbows in some places. He also had the grace to look extremely disoriented, bedraggled and tired as she, too, felt. The expression itself told her that Fenris had been as surprised to be roused from his sleep as she'd been. She couldn't even imagine what she must look like through his eyes right now. Bloody, tired, smudges of dirt everywhere, probably more than a few twigs and thorns sticking out of her hair… surely she was far from a Paragon of womanly wiles as humanly possible.

"He took out two of them. Sebastian got one," Carver informed her. "Doesn't strike me as an effective way to handle this attack if they were behind it."

"I'd already figured that," she answered. "We need to lock the camp down. Nobody comes or goes until we get this sorted out."

"The mages are going to suspect something if we don't at least pretend to move the camp," Margot reasoned. Hawke sighed, grateful for Margot's input. The woman was endlessly calculating and she made a good commanding officer precisely for shrewd insights like that.

"Then we throw it all out in the open," Hawke said, hating the rampant paranoia this course of action was guaranteed to bring. "The time for subtlety has passed- we've got to find the spy before they can guide any more Templars back into the camp."

The three of them were shocked out of their quiet conversation when she heard a small voice calling her name. She barely had time to register the small elf barreling toward her until he threw himself onto her, face worried and on the verge of panic. She shushed him, using her tone to assure him gently that everything was fine until he burrowed under the blanket with her, half-straddling her lap and hiding himself from the countless curious eyes that tracked his movements. For the most part, Owen didn't like being observed, sometimes not even by her. He'd known the dangers lurking around his former home and trained himself to be little more than a shadow whenever he was thrust into a situation that frightened him. That particular skill was doubtlessly the reason why the slavers hadn't found him when they came for Varania.

Carver gave the lump resting at her side an appraising look and ventured, "I'm guessing this isn't our mole."

She chuckled as she felt Owen remove his head from beneath her chin and stare defiantly out at Carver, narrowing his eyes slightly as he tried to figure out who this new person was before ducking back under the blanket again to rest his head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him gently, tucking the fabric over his head and absently running her thumb over the small, healed notch in his ear. "He is a bit of a burrower," she admitted, "but not a mole per se. I found him in Minrathous. I'll fill you in on all the bloody details after we've found our traitor."

"Marian," Carver started warily, "I don't know if a kid…"

"He was a slave," Hawke answered before Carver could say anything further. "I couldn't leave him there."

Carver released a low whistle before sending a quick glance back toward Fenris. "Well, you're nothing if not consistent."

She ignored the feeling of her former-lover's eyes boring holes through her, watching her curiously. It was ironic in a way- she'd left for Minrathous with the very realistic concern that she might be pregnant and even though she wasn't still somehow managed to return with a child regardless… and one that rightfully belonged to him. All her conviction from the other night flew the way of the wind. She couldn't keep this from him forever. She'd just… have to find the right time to tell him.

That was not a conversation she looked forward to. Fortunately, there were plenty of good reasons to postpone it. Even if withholding was going to make it worse, she just couldn't bring herself to have that discussion just yet.

A quick glance around verified he was indeed in Fort Fitz, although he was fairly certain that hadn't been the stronghold's original name. Judging from the architecture, this was just another of countless old Tevinter strongholds that had been abandoned for centuries before being repurposed for use in the Free Marches. Everything, from the pillars to the corning stones to the furniture to the old dusty carpets, simply screamed of the Imperium's ancient decadence. Only a Tevinter structure could still stand so strong and imposing so long after it had been lost. But that was the nature of the Imperium, it always left a piece of itself behind any place it touched- a dark stain of a reminder that tides always shifted and that the building itself was just waiting in quiet slumber for its true masters to return to the roost for good.

The small group of Templars hailing from Wycome had hosted them in this hated hovel for the past few days, kept them in this intimate dormitory by themselves, cloistered away from the others. Fenris had counted roughly twenty-five men in this battalion and they occupied only a small segment of the fortress. The rest of it had been cordoned off and sealed to protect from potential invaders. While that seemed perfectly reasonable, it was also an ideal excuse to keep the rebel party from exploring the area in full. That didn't sit well with the elf. In fact, little of this situation did.

For all the carefully guarded discussions they'd had with their leader, a Commander by the name of Badoc, they'd come no closer to convincing the group to abscond into the heart of the rebellion with them. In actuality, Fenris got the distinct impression this Badoc was on a fact-finding mission all his own. So many words had been exchanged between the groups but while they spoke with cordial politeness there was an underlying mistrust. For each and every word spoken, there were volumes that remained behind in silent unsaid mystery. For once, he was grateful to Merrill- the elf had likely been the sole cause for Carver entering the lion's den with an entourage instead of alone- he had to marvel a bit at Carver for that… the idea of his sister in potentially unfriendly hands made the young man far more reckless than usual.

All in all, he had the distinct impression that these men were not to be trusted. Too often conversations had been cut abruptly short whenever they approached, too many odd looks had been leveled at both himself and Merrill, and the patrols parading past their door had lingered too far long on far too many occasions. But that had not been the cause of his abrupt awakening. So what had?

It was still nighttime and by Fenris' estimation, he'd only been asleep for a few hours. He was just beginning to wonder what exactly had roused him when Merrill released a deep moan that had Fenris slamming his eyes shut once more.

Really Carver?

The boy had never struck Fenris as being anything approaching an exhibitionist but Fenris had noticed Merrill and Carver going missing for brief periods in the night while they camped beneath the stars on their way to the meet with the Templars. Fenris wasn't nearly ignorant enough to imagine Merrill simply fancied a moonlit frolic or rather that wasn't how she'd convinced Carver to accompany her. Perhaps the boy's libido had simply gotten the better of him. Carver suffered his affection for her in silence for years, which Fenris understood all to well having done the same. Had Fenris not been struck by such an adamant desire to court Marian Hawke properly, he very much doubted he would have let the mage out of bed for anything less than a month.

He waited in silence, willing his senses to block out his surroundings, but noticed his ears detected none of the other sounds he associated with sex- no accompanying groans or heavy breathing, no creaking of a bed beneath the added pressure of another body pushing into it. There was only a shifting of sheets accompanied by Merrill's soft moaning. Daring to behold a sight he suspected might blind him, he cracked his eyes and turned his head toward the sound.

Merrill was alone upon her cot, twisting violently against the sheets. The soft, frantic sounds she was making he recognized now as not being sexual in nature. She was having a nightmare. That unsettled him far more than the possibility of her engaging in coitus less than ten feet away from him. Mages who had nightmares were generally being plagued by something in the Fade and those things could use a witch's distress to reach out into the waking world.

Rolling from his own bed, Fenris considered for a brief moment attempting to wake her himself but then thought better of it. It would be better for her to disengage from the Fade to the sight of someone she associated with comfort. So he crept to Carver instead, jostling the other Templar from his sleep with a hushed whisper of his name.

"Carver," he rasped, "Merrill needs you."

The younger Hawke opened his eyes blearily, absently assessing his surroundings in sleepy confusion for too many moments before his ears too detected Merrill's nighttime suffering. Without another word, he darted from beneath his blanket, the plates in his armor catching and dragging the sheets from the bed as he scrambled to Merrill.

They all slept with their armor on, a silent agreement that this place was dangerous and the people who hosted them were never to be entirely trusted.

"Merrill, love," Carver cooed affectionately as he passed a hand through the mage's sweat soaked hair, "Wake up, love. You need to wake up."

Fenris took his distance to observe the mage's awakening. He knew he was an unwanted intruder between the two but if something were to happen, he needed to witness it. Carver continued his gentle prodding until Merrill awoke, gasping and wide-eyed as though she'd been shot through. She shot up through her sheets like an arrow had pierced her heart- open and terrified as any child waking from a nightmare.

"We have to leave," she gasped breathlessly. She drew her arms around her stomach in further effort to ward off her dreams. "We must leave this place."

"We are here," Carver whispered. "We are safe."

"We are not," she whispered fiercely. "This place is evil." It wasn't the first time she'd expressed her discomfort. It was, however, the first time she'd used that term to describe the fort.

Carver shook his head, apparently sharing the thought, and replied, "How?"

"I heard screaming in the Fade…" she moaned. "It's in pain."

Carver gave Fenris a desperate look but the elf could offer no answers. Danarius had professed reverence for that hated place, stating that its recognition was what placed mages above the so-called 'ungifted.' He'd even gone so far as saying that the Fade remembered things people had long forgotten. Anders often described his clinic as a place of healing, which Fenris figured was just an excuse to drag the party into the slum whenever anything beyond rudimentary healing was necessary. Even Hawke had described the Fade in such terms before- like it was a living, breathing thing and not merely location- but only once… when Varric pitched a job of clearing out a band of slavers that had roosted in the Foundry. As far as he knew, Marian had never returned to the place of her mother's slaughter.

Poisoned… she'd said Quentin had poisoned the Fade and then simply refused to reenter it despite her relish for dispatching slavers. At the time Fenris had dismissed the remark- after all her mother had been brutally murdered there and Fenris wasn't bastard enough to force the issue- but now he was wondering if she'd been talking about something more tangible than her own tainted memories. Varric in the end wisely took on the task without her. Fenris, Sebastian, and Aveline accompanied the dwarf and made quick work of the gang… the entire time the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. Even Aveline had commented that Hawke may have touched on some truth with her simple refusal.

But pain… Could a place even feel pain? And what did that mean for them?

"I recall rumors from Tevinter," Fenris tried at last, "of the Fade reflecting memories of the past. Perhaps that is what plagues her."

"It is not the past," Merrill shuddered bodily. "The Fade feels… dark somehow," the elf stuttered as she struggled to articulate. "It's almost like…" Then she trailed off, lost in her thoughts as she considered them.

"Like what, Merrill?" Carver gently prodded her.

She sighed and rubbed absently at her temples before answering. "It feels like Sundermount- like there's something very big and very evil waiting just on the other side of the Veil. Everything seemed normal enough but… now, I heard it screaming."

"Could this be just a nightmare?" Carver questioned gently, taking care not to dismiss her. "We're under a lot of pressure."

"There is blood in the Veil. This is no nightmare," she whispered seriously. "This is real. This is here. And if it is not now… then it is very recent."

"Merrill," Carver murmured and placed an arm around her delicate shoulders, scooting onto her cot to hold her properly, "do you know what could have caused this?"

"No," she admitted, tucking her head into the crook of Carver's neck. "But it worries me, Carver. Something is not right here."

Fenris averted his eyes from the couple, understanding the intimacy was something he was intruding upon. In spite of his opinions regarding Merrill, he found himself believing her. Perhaps it was the situation itself that explained it but he noticed gooseflesh had taken to his arms. Perhaps Marian had been right. Perhaps the world shaped the Fade around it and vice versa. If that was true, then Merrill's nightmare was the darkest omen he could fathom.

The younger Hawke entwined himself with his lover, looking up only to say, "I'll keep her solid for the night. You should get some rest."

The boy was right and Fenris couldn't deny it- they were all of them lambs slumbering in the lions' den with a single, wary wolf-in-sheepskin-gone-native. If Merrill was monitored then she'd surely make it to the morning where they could hopefully sort this whole mess out. Some sleep and sunshine could solve a world of problems. Without another word, Fenris crept back to his own cot and rested upon it, praying for a rough sleep he knew for certain would not come. Then he, Merrill, and Carver sat in silence waiting for the sunshine to protect them from the night.

When morning came and the others awoke, they had a quiet, hushed discussion as to what course of action should be taken next. Carver and Fenris had inevitably come to the same conclusion while lying awake. If something were as desperately wrong here as Merrill believed, they could not simply gather their belongings and leave without first investigating it. They'd never been given the freedom to wander the halls, which was a perfectly reasonable restriction for potentially hostile guests.

Their best course of action, it seemed, would be a bit of quiet snooping. While Fenris had a little experience with espionage, he didn't have the true talent for it that Varric and Sebastian did. So it was decided that Sebastian, perhaps the best-known rogue in their party would feign illness that would keep him confined into their quarters and Varric would remain behind to play the role of doting nursemaid until they had the opportunity to lurk away and explore.

Merrill, while still deeply opposed to remaining here a moment longer than necessary, agreed in the end that whatever had disrupted her sleep should be investigated before they left. This meant their morning was once more spent locked in a study with Knight-Commander Badoc as they once more discussed the possibility of a mass-defection from the Templar order.

"Is your sister planning on coming to the table, Knight Carver," Badoc asked for the first time since their arrival. Thus far, Marian had remained unmentioned by either group. Carver was concerned that revealing her missing status could compromise the rebellion and he was undeniably right. If it became known that Marian was missing or even…

He shook that thought aside. Marian was not dead. She was not staring blankly skyward, she had not been plunged six feet into dirt, she was not being digested by graveworms- those things were impossible. That woman had proven time and again that she simply didn't know how to die. It was doubly doubtful that anyone was fully prepared to educate her on the subject.

Regardless, any queries regarding her had been dodged. The rebellion needed her to act as a beacon. And while he still wasn't entirely comfortable sitting on this side of the table for this discussion, he was certain it would have been more awkward to sit beside Badoc- next to a man who may very well want to kill her. So he'd remained silent regarding Marian Hawke. There was no telling why Badoc had been similarly mute on the subject until now.

"My sister has been in Ferelden," Carver answered with practiced evasion. "She'll be happy to meet with you once she returns."

"Ferelden?" Badoc murmured wryly. "We were under the impression she'd gone north into Tevinter." There was a dark smugness underlying his words and it set Fenris' teeth on edge. From what he'd gathered from Carver, Marian's trip to Tevinter was a closely guarded secret. Fenris felt his eyes narrow slightly as he reappraised the man before him- Badoc clearly knew more than he was letting on.

Carver's ears perked slightly despite his ears being far less expressive than an elf's. "And what gave you that impression?"

"The rumor mills have been buzzing," Badoc admitted with a sheepish smile. All traces of the haughtiness from before were completely gone now, leaving behind only the ghost of the memory of it having been there. "I've personally heard of her being sighted in more than a dozen cities across Thedas- Markham, Ostwick, even as far west as Hunter Fell. We've even had reports of her possibly going into Orlais around the Harvest. A mage fitting your sister's description torched five innocent men there."

His sources were accurate at least on that count. Blast it, Fenris had done everything he could to conceal her presence there but Marian for all her abilities to sink into a crowd still cut a striking figure, especially when she left five charred bodies in her wake. He wondered briefly how many blue-eyed, raven-haired, pale-skinned, apostate pyromaniacs with a knack for the healing arts one should expect to find traipsing around Thedas. "Your sources are mistaken," Fenris replied instead, knowing the number to be devastatingly low. Even if Badoc had scored a lucky shot in learning that Hawke had been in Orlais, it would serve them better for him to think his sources were flawed.

"Are they?" Badoc sneered in cold calculation as he eyed Fenris. "Next I suppose you'll be telling me it was some other white-haired elven Knight from Starkhaven who covered her tracks."

Alright… Badoc's sources were extremely accurate. So what else did he know?

"I would not deny I was there." Not now at any rate, he added silently. "I was following up on the same rumors you've doubtlessly heard. The mage you speak of was apprehended outside Cosazure."

"And did she answer for her crimes?"

"She claimed it was self-defense and the evidence supported that. The men were gang members attempting rape. I am rather surprised your informants failed to pass that bit of trivia along." Fenris saw Carver's head jerk slightly in his peripheral vision. Apparently this was new information to him and judging by the cold steel that clouded his eyes, the news of some of the very real dangers Marian faced while leading the rebellion from the shadows was not welcome.

Fortunately Badoc was turned away and didn't catch the lapse in Carver's mask. "They did indeed. But you mean to tell me you do not think burning five men alive to be a bit of overkill?"

"My thoughts would not change the matter as it were. She thought her life to be in danger." Fenris himself believed that statement to be a lie. Knowing Marian's capabilities as well as he did meant that she'd in fact been in little peril and seeing the scorched carnage she'd reduced her attackers to proved it more so. But, again, revealing otherwise would have been a misstep in the careful dance he was toeing. "I would not begrudge myself a sword were I to find myself in similar circumstances," he finished with a succinct nod. "I am certain you too would be loath to begrudge a frightened woman the only weapon to her person."

"Fair enough," Badoc admitted before turning his focus back to Carver. "So you mean to say the rumors that she's gone north are baseless?"

"My last word from her was that she was still in Ferelden. If she went to Tevinter, I've yet to hear about it from her." Fenris almost grinned at Carver's rather impressive ability to tell the truth in a way that revealed very little of it. The boy wasn't an accomplished liar but had managed regardless to hone a different skill to work around it.

"And when was the last time you heard from her?"

"We like to keep in touch," Carver answered bluntly, stating without words that further discussion on this subject was closed. "So have you given further thought to joining the rebellion?"

A heavy knock sounded on the door and Badoc excused himself briefly to see to it. Fenris, Merrill, and Carver were left to their own devices for the moment but in this proximity to the Commander, there was no hope to discuss the odd turn the conversation had taken in anything other than wary, furtive glances. Carver and Merrill shared a slow look with one another before Carver turned his eyes to Fenris, holding his gaze for a long moment before shaking his head to indicate his mistrust.

Fenris nodded, catching the message Carver had silently delivered. Badoc's informers were far more reliable than they had any right to be. They needed to discover the heart of his information before they could even hope to leave.

Badoc sighed and rubbed his temples. "I am unsure I could convince the entirety of my charges to join you with what you've given me thus far."

Carver shrugged indifferently, nodding his understanding that this sort of decision wasn't one that could be made hastily. "So what more would you need?"

"Joining a movement under a mage who permitted the decimation of an entire Chantry and led the slaughter of an entire platoon of Circle Templars does not sit well with my people," Badoc replied with a blessed bluntness.

"My sister had no knowledge of Anders' plan and the Nullification was entirely borne of Meredith's madness," Carver answered in an automated drawl, indicating this was a speech he'd been compelled to deliver several times before. "Those mages deserved to be defended from being murdered for a crime they had no part in."

Badoc gave a wary chortle. "So you say. I think it would help my men to hear her say it in person and let them judge her crimes for themselves."

"That is not an option at this moment." Carver ran a tired hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face to eye the Commander better. "You have my assurances as a Knight that she had no participation in the event."

"And I should take the word of lapsed Knight leading a band of apostates and other lapsed Knights."

Carver scowled. It was a mean, hateful look Fenris hadn't before seen grace the boy's face. "Our vows were to protect the people from mages and to protect mages from themselves," he ground out. "I have kept my vows. Have you?"

"I've had no part in shielding apostates accused of blowing up any religious centers, if that's what you're asking," Badoc retorted snidely, letting a dark annoyed look overtake his eyes for a moment before shuttering it away again.

"My sister was not responsible for that."

"I'm afraid the facts say otherwise, Ser Carver." With that Badoc rose from his seat and placed his hands upon the table between them, letting his imposing size accent his words. "Your dwarven friend informed a Seeker that Hawke all but announced publicly that she helped him gather the materials for the bomb then distracted the Grand Cleric while Anders planted it."

While Fenris had little doubt that Varric had told a truthful, if unnecessarily dramatic, rendition of what had happened that wretched morning, he still found himself wishing the dwarf had toned down the truth a bit for the Seeker. "She was duped into thinking the supplies were for something else," Carver answered finally.

"And distracting the Grand Cleric?"

Carver massaged his temples for a moment before directing his eyes back at Badoc. "She placed her trust in a man who didn't deserve it. We've all…"

Badoc cut him short again with a sneered, "But she was aware he was an abomination?"

Carver swallowed visibly, likely coming to the same conclusion Fenris had in the same moment. There was little point in denying that Marian had known quite well that Anders was possessed. It was similarly pointless to claim that Marian had no idea just how dangerous Anders' spirit of Justice had proved himself even before he'd destroyed the Chantry. Varric had doubtless already informed the Seeker otherwise- it was a story as compelling as it was damning and the dwarf couldn't have kept it safely censored even for Hawke's benefit.

Fenris would have to remember later to speak with the dwarf regarding the merits of half-truths and outright lies when it came to discussing the illustrious career of Kirkwall's fallen Champion. Leave it for the final edition. Leave the truth alone until it couldn't hurt her anymore.

"Yes," Carver answered after a brief moment. "She believed the distinction between harboring a spirit and a demon was a factor worth considering."

"Yes, a factor that has led to a pandemic of war."

Carver huffed out a sigh and straightened his shoulders before beginning in a firm lecture, "I'll remind you the Hero of Ferelden also traveled with a mage hosting a Fade spirit and I'm certain I don't need to remind you that went rather smashingly for everyone involved."

"Yes," Badoc admitted before tacking on, "the Hero of Ferelden certainly had no part in blowing up any Chantries."

"My sister has made mistakes," Carver tried before Badoc cut him off with an angry snarl.

"Mistakes? You call the deaths of hundreds of people mere mistake?" The Commander banged his hands angrily against the table and stalked to Hawke's brother to point an ugly, accusatory finger at him. "Her mistakes, as you so casually name them, would have any decent leader turning the reins over to another. The Chantry knows about all the countless, unforgivable errors- how she released apostates and placed her trust in thieves and pirates and murderers! And now she has to audacity to beg assistance without even having the stones to face her own crimes? I'd laugh if you weren't daft enough to be serious."

"Watch your tone," Carver warned, as he too rose to his feet, "or you risk this becoming an unfriendly discussion."

"It would be in your best interest to sit down, Carver Hawke, or the dwarf and Vael will regret it," Badoc snarled back. "Now I'll ask you again- where is your sister?"

Fenris watched as the boy's knees began to buckle, watched as his face took on a greenish tint as he sunk back into his chair. "What have you done?" he growled with a distinctly furious chatter in his teeth.

"Your two friends were caught sneaking about and before you think to try anything, we've already managed to secure them. So I'd caution against doing anything rash." Badoc returned to his seat with a smug grin and poured himself a glass of water. "I've tried to be civil but if you insist on feeding me lies then rest assured, I have less conventional methods for making an honest man of you."

Badoc smirked, leaving Fenris with an unbearable urge to beat the snide smile from his face. The elf lurched forward from his seat, tossing his chair aside to land a single blow to the man's face before a heavy strike against his skull had him collapsing at the immaculate Templar's feet. The room began to fade away, darkness crashing in at the edges of his vision in an impromptu nighttime, before he forced it back and let the painful anger steer his body's vessel. His arm shot out to strike two more jabs into the Commander's exposed midsection.

Vaguely, he felt the other man wrap his hand into his hair and direct the elf's face up to his sneer. "Where is she?"

The hatred overpowered the wound for a moment, permitting the elf to reach up to the man's groin and deliver a solid punch to his bollocks. His efforts were rewarded with a yelp of pain, the Commander's face going purple as he brought his sharp knee up to slam into Fenris' jaw. The pain barely found him for a moment before he heard the door crash open. He took Badoc's brief distraction as an opportunity to pull the dagger from the Commander's waist holster and press the long blade against the man's throat.

The man, looking absolutely unperturbed to the shift in circumstances, simply sneered, "Do it and your friends die, elf," Badoc sneered.

"Kill them and you have sentenced your men to the same fate," Fenris spit back, feeling a thick trickle of blood leak from the edge of his mouth. Absently he ran his tongue over his teeth and was rather delighted to find none of them had broken.

Badoc threw his head back and released a hearty belly-laugh. "You know what, Fenris? I rather like you. Sitting here in my base and giving me lip- that takes balls, son. It's a shame you picked the losing side. You would have done well here."

Fenris gently pressed the blade closer, delighting when the skin on Badoc's neck yielded beneath the sharp metal and bloomed a thick, scarlet line. Badoc's eyes, however, ceded nothing- no fear, no uncertainty, no acknowledgment that his life was in a rather immediate mortal peril. It was because the man, when it came down to it, was entirely safe if only for the moment… and he knew it. Even if the rage was so cloying on the elf's tongue, Badoc knew Fenris would not endanger the lives of his captured companions for a small, if sweet, revenge.

"This is not over," Fenris promised and lowered Badoc's knife from the man's treacherous throat as he felt rather than saw the incoming Templars fasten his arms behind his back. His peripheral vision caught Carver and Merrill being similarly manhandled.

"You're correct," Badoc called as the elf was pulled bodily away. "This is only the beginning. You shall see that soon enough."

There was something beautiful to be found in destruction. There was some kind of poetry in loss, in defeat, in failure. And for the life of him, Fenris couldn't find it. They'd been dragged into some previously cordoned-off subbasement, stripped of their weapons and armors, and left utterly defenseless from the attacks that were certainly coming. Two guards stood nearby, eliminating the possibility for actively plotting an escape- the men were certainly prepared to overhear their each and every word.

"We must stop meeting like this," Sebastian joked when he finally awoke, wincing as the movement from his words shifted the black and blue face tapestry adorning his typically pale skin. "Tell me, did they make you carry me here?" Then he broke off in a series of wet, rattling coughs. Just from the sound of them, Fenris figured the prince was nursing a few broken ribs.

Fenris shook his head rather than give a spoken response. Varric and Sebastian had been unconscious for the last several hours, though if it was from the trauma of having several angry Templars bashing their bodies for sport or some sort of poison Fenris couldn't rightly tell. All he could discern from his position was that the bruises must have been absolute agony. The two spies-turned-prisoners been placed in a cell across from theirs and the thick bars had prevented him from inspecting the damage too closely. Upon his waking Sebastian moved sluggishly, in an almost drugged fashion. His head lolled atop his long neck, the thick muscles seeming too uncoordinated to support it properly. Even his attempts to strain against the shackles holding him in place looked weak and tired.

Varric made no attempt to move, seeming to understand by observing Sebastian that the efforts would be in vain and opting to reserve what strength he had. "How long was I out?" he asked instead, giving a cursory glance to his bare chest as he realized his state of undress.

"A few hours," Merrill answered as she rolled her head uncomfortably against the collar clamped tightly around her neck. He'd heard of them being used in Tevinter on mage prisoners but had only ever seen them once he joined the Templars under Petra. Fenris could detect a slight waver in her tone. She hadn't needed to voice her concerns that they would not wake- it had been a silent pact between them to not acknowledge that very real possibility. "What happened?"

Varric groaned as he situated himself into a proper seated position rather than remaining sprawled out on the floor. "For starters, there are more of them than you've seen."

"Easily twice as many," Sebastian groaned. "Possibly more."

Varric nodded, grimacing as he brought his hand up to rub his neck. "We made it past that door on the ground level. You remember the one at the end of the great hall?" When Fenris nodded, Varric continued, "It's not unoccupied. These people came here for a fight. They're armed to the teeth. Carver, they're going to take the camp. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"I already sent word to Margot to move it," Carver answered, which surprised Fenris since he hadn't seen the boy mailing off any letters. How were the Mage camps communicating with one another anyways? If Carver and Marian were spearheading this rebellion from such a great distance it stood to reason that there must have been some relatively secure method of communication between them. The siblings certainly weren't foolish enough to keep mailboxes in the nearby settlements. "I don't know where it is anymore. Won't know until they resettle."

"They won't believe you," Merrill replied quietly.

"It doesn't matter," Carver said after a hard swallow. "They won't be found."

"What about you?" Merrill asked, staring at the ground by her feet.

"I'll be fine. They're not going to hurt any of us if my sister is still out there."

Fenris considered Carver's words, turning them over in his mind until the obvious answer revealed itself. "You think they mean to use us as bait."

Carver nodded. "They don't know where she is and they want her. They're aiming to knock us out with one blow. Take her out. Take me out. The rest just falls apart."

"Would it be that easy?" Fenris balked, finding it hard to believe that the whole of the rebellion could crumble with the loss of two single, albeit very important, people.

Carver and Merrill both broke from the conversation to shoot him deeply annoyed, skeptical looks. "Of course not. Don't be stupid." He gave a brief wave to the room and continued, "These people are stupid. You're not. Besides, we already have fail-safes in place in the event that anything happens to us."

Fenris nodded at the backhanded compliment. Of course it couldn't be felled that easily. Carver and Marian had been campaigning and networking for over a year, joining groups together and keeping them safely apart. He'd only seen one camp and there were at least five more from what he'd managed to gather on his covert eavesdropping missions. They'd amassed a number of trusted lieutenants that were doubtless prepared to take the reins. After all, this rebellion had begun with Anders… and it certainly hadn't died with him.

"What if she doesn't come?" Sebastian spoke softly. "What if something really did happen to her?"

"She'll come," Varric answered. "They're counting on it. That's why we are here, choirboy. That's why we're still alive."

But they couldn't wait. There was no telling when the dashing heroine could arrive or even if she'd arrive at all. Carver had admitted to sending word to her of their intentions to meet with these Templars but was uncertain she'd received them- she'd failed to respond to his past missives, although he was clueless as to whether she'd received them. Even if she did manage to stage some daring rescue, she would still be waltzing into the trap these men had so neatly laid out of her. The imminent threat hovering over them was all too real and if they were to escape, they'd need to do it quickly and use the advantage surprise would give them.

Fenris considered the options. Their two trusty lockpicks were disposed of at the moment- Fenris seriously doubted either were in good enough form to slip from their bonds and their current situation robbed them of the privacy needed to orchestrate any sort of elaborate escape. Carver would be similarly useless and unless Merrill was willing to break her self-imposed pledge of abstinence from cavorting with demons she, too, would be of no help toward staging an escape.

That left Fenris- a strange elf with a myriad of unusual talents that had seen him through situations such as this more than once.

His phasing ability could possibly get him past the shackles on his wrists but he'd never successfully managed to pass his entire body through anything remotely solid. The lyrium, which was the source of his unconventional abilities, was more tightly wound about his arms and legs but that meant he usually got stuck somewhere around his shoulders where his body mass was too dense to become fully unsolid. That meant while he could free himself from the chains, he couldn't hope to get through the bars of the cell.

So he figured he'd have to find a way to convince the guards to open the cell for him.

It was doubtful a simple request was going to see that goal accomplished. After all, while these men may be stupid enough to pick a fight with Marian Hawke he couldn't hope they'd be foolish enough to open the cell for a prisoner. Fenris also didn't believe he had sufficient acting chops to feign a believable ailment. Even if he did, that was still no guarantee they'd consider him valuable enough to take on the risk of approaching.

Then rather abruptly he remembered a conversation he'd had with Hawke some eight years past, shortly after they'd met and before her name had become synonymous with success in Kirkwall. He'd commented, quite reasonably he felt, that Hawke could likely avoid many of her battles if she endeavored to keep her cheeky tongue to herself. Her response had been something that had stuck with him, inane and foolish as he believed it was.

"People look at me and they think I'm nothing. If I start mouthing off, if I prove to them I'm not afraid- if a lowly little woman treats them as though they are unworthy of fear… well, then they get angry. And an angry opponent, Fenris, is one you've already disarmed of his wits." Then she'd shot him a playful smile and tucked her hair behind her ear. "You should try it. You'd be surprised how sloppy people become when they've hyper focused on just making you shut up."

Perhaps this would be an ideal time to test that theory. He considered the two jailors keeping watch over them. Two men, both tall and well-built, having a hushed conversation about some woman with one another and more or less ignoring their captives. The catch was he was unsure which tactics, if any, would stick. He'd seen Hawke handle scenarios like this before, when she appeared to have an utter disadvantage… and the mouthy mageling would proceed to fire off at the mouth, unleashing a rapid succession of jokes, terrible puns, and veiled insults until her enemies were inspired to attack. Fenris, while admittedly being a fairly cunning linguist in his own right, doubted he'd be able to wield mere words in the same fashion as Marian's devastating tongue did. He'd have to adapt this strategy and make it his own.

The guards were talking about a woman so that was just as appropriate place to start as any. Taking a deep breath, Fenris opened his mouth to shout, "Which of you two is the woman?"

Fenris' efforts rewarded him with a room full of gaping mouths. His fellow cellmates stared at him as though he'd grown a second head, completely gob smacked that the elf had chosen this manner to address the guards. But the elf felt a twinge of victory as the first guard turned and demanded, "What did you say?"

Perhaps Hawke was right to utilize this tactic, he mused silently before answering, "I was merely wondering which of you was the man and which was the woman. It is a simple question."

"Neither of us is the woman," the second guard snarled.

"So you take turns then?" Fenris asked casually before gifting them with an unconcerned shrug. It felt odd to use the insinuation of homosexuality as a weapon, especially since it was an issue he himself had struggled with extensively once he'd freed himself from Danarius' perversions. Personally, he found men to be attractive from time to time and, thanks mostly to Isabela, no longer begrudged himself for being sexually flexible. "Do not imagine that I would judge you for it," he tacked on with a sly smile. "Cold nights. Warm bodies."

"Shut up, elf." The first guard growled before turning away and muttering, "Fucking elves think everyone's half-queer."

"What's wrong?" Fenris persisted, pushing the conversation further. Seems the men weren't rattled by that but he was still the center of their attention so he must have riled them a little at least. He'd have to aim for something else. "Forgotten how to use it?"

Sebastian interrupted with a hissed, "Maker, Fenris! Shut up!"

The second guard shot the elf a dirty look and sneered, "You should listen to your friend."

Ignoring every ounce of common sense that told him he'd be better off for not inspiring these men to rage, he continued undaunted to the first guard. "I have heard they have salves in Antiva for it. A decent healer should be able to clear up anything physical."

The guard approached the cell and snarled, "Trust me, elf. Everything works just fine."

"It could be in your mind. Have you consulted a prostitute?" he continued undaunted before a wild, insane thought took roost and refused to shake free. "I would be happy to suggest a few. Although I suspect your mother would not appreciate my recommending you to her competition."

The silence that fell over the room was so thick Fenris could practically taste it and he knew instinctively that he'd finally managed to land a proper blow. Seems the man had a soft spot for his mother. Typical.

"What?" the man ground out the syllable in one of the lowest, most hateful tones Fenris had ever been privileged to hear. "What do you think you're implying?"

"I imply nothing," Fenris answered with another indifferent shrug. "Your mother is a glorious whore, ser. Any fool with two coppers will agree."

The guard grasped a heavy baton and ordered, "Open the door."

"Mitchell," the other tried before he was cut off.

"My mother is a saint!" Mitchell snarled to the elf as he gestured wildly for the other guard to get the keys.

Fenris gave the man an evil grin and sneered, "I was unaware they had a saint who utilizes your mother's particular skills."

The second guard shot the elf an evil look and reached first for his sword, then for the keyring, which he tossed to this Mitchell with a growled warning. Fenris fixed the furious guard with the most hateful glare he could muster as the door squealed open. The guard's steps brought him just into the elf's reach when Fenris put his plan into motion in a flurry of blue light.

Quickly phasing through the shackles on his wrists, Fenris heard the guard register a soft, shocked sound before the elf was fist-deep into his chest, wrenching his heart loose from the cavity. The look on the other guard's face was nothing short of priceless as Fenris first chucked the still-beating organ directly into the man's face before following in violent pursuit and tearing into him as well.

Fenris dispatched the second guard with little effort. The man didn't even have time to scream. When it was all said and done, Fenris retrieved the keys from the door and set to releasing Varric and Sebastian.

"I must say, Broody, that's the most Hawke-ish thing I've ever seen you do," Varric commented as he rubbed his freed wrists. "Excepting the whole 'magic fisting' thing obviously."

"Obviously," Fenris agreed with a droll eye roll as he set to unbinding Sebastian while Varric stumbled to Carver and Merrill. "We should depart."

"Get it off," he heard Merrill growl as Carver bent before her and fiddled with the keys, trying to undo the collar. "Get this thing off me."

Carver groaned and pulled the key ring away. "None of these fit. It's got to be on Badoc's keyring."

"We need our weapons if we're to have any hope of escaping," Sebastian reminded him, pointing to a heavy chest sitting on the opposite side of the room. "Naked and unarmed is no way to enter a fight, friend."

"Can you open it?" Carver inquired as he rose to his feet and inspected the keyring in Fenris' hand. "None of these will do it. Badoc must have that too."

Sebastian shook his head with a muttered, "They took my picks. They're likely in that very chest."

Varric made a short, disgruntled sound and grumbled, "Amateur," before plopping onto his rear. Turning his hairy foot over, he began kneading the heel until a small sliver of metal manifested from the callous. "Keys are for chumps and lesser suckers," he grinned and strode stiffly by the prince to settle before the chest.

"I'll have to remember that trick," Sebastian mused with a quirk of a smile.

"They may take your clothes but they never take your skin," the dwarf answered as he began manipulating the lock with a low curse. "Shit, I hate people who have the good sense to invest in security. This will take a minute."

Naturally it took well beyond a minute. Fenris spent every second of it staring at the staircase that would take them from this blasted place, dreading the moment more of their captors could manifest before they were sufficiently armed. He'd seen no patrols thus far and there had been no changing of the guards. They'd been shackled here for nearly the entire day…

Fenris felt dread pool in his stomach.

Certainly someone should have come by now… to check on them… to make sure Varric and Sebastian had not succumbed to their injuries.

While he knew very little about the routines these men held, that had to be uncommon. He'd been held prisoner before- once when he'd made the mistake of trusting a mercenary who proceeded to sell him out to the nearest group of slavers and once again in Kirkwall when an ill-advised bender coupled with Isabela's larcenous nature landed them both in lockup until Marian and Aveline came to spring them. Guard rotations staved off boredom and hunger- kept them from making the very sort of mistakes that had taken the lives of the two men he'd just dispatched. Those men should have been relieved from prisoner detail hours ago. So why hadn't they been?

The most logical answer was that the Templars were occupied elsewhere. They couldn't possibly be launching an attack on the rebel camp- the fools hadn't even bothered asking Carver where it was. So what had occupied the fifty-plus Templars so thoroughly they ignored the five extremely hostile captives sitting just below their feet?

This did not bode well with him.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the heavy clunk of the lock falling away from the chest, ignoring his paranoia as he dressed himself in record time. As much as he disliked the armor Danarius had fashioned for him, he still welcomed its embrace… for everything terrible and wretched Danarius had been, he'd at least had the sense to invest his money and research in Fenris' primary source of protection.

He shot another wary glance at Merrill. While she was once more clothed she would still be helpless in the oncoming fight so long as that collar remained around her neck. There was a small comfort to be taken in that she was skilled enough with her staff to bang around a few Templars. Now that he thought of it, with her history of blood magic this might be an unexpected blessing for her- there was no opportunity to crash back into her old habits. She'd have to adapt. Fenris was unexpectedly certain that she would rise to the challenge rather than buckle beneath it.

With Carver taking lead- he still found following behind the boy to be a little disconcerting- they ascended the stairs to determine exactly what was going on here.

The first thing he noticed when they charged into the great hall was the plethora of Templars, all lying still and prone in a variety of uncomfortable positions. Fenris approached one face-down upon his supper plate and discovered him to be snoring into his mashed potatoes. Touching his fingers to the man's exposed throat, he felt the man's pulse beating strongly, albeit slowly.

"Poison. It does not appear to be lethal," he announced the obvious as he surveyed the bodies once more and noticed the soft risings of their chests. "It seems they've had rather an epidemic of it."

"Explains why the guards never switched out," Carver added with a thoughtful nudge against one of the sleeping men's boot. A small grin stole over Fenris' face, apparently he and the younger Hawke had thought on that and come to the same conclusion. The last year out of his sister's shadow had seen the former soldier blossoming into a formidable ally with a mind every bit as sharp as Marian's.

Varric made an annoyed sound as he shoved one of the Templars out of his chair and gave the unconscious man a rather unceremonious kick to his groin. "That's for touching Bianca, you prick," he grumbled before turning to Carver and asking, "Could they have triggered one of Hawke's smoke bombs?"

"I doubt it," Merrill answered quickly. "They stink something terrible. Marian washed her robes five times before she gave up and threw them away- said she couldn't always count on being downwind."

"The blue ones?" Carver inquired. At Merrill's nod he added, "I'd wondered what happened to those."

"The ones with the gold embroidery on the shoulder?" Varric asked. When Merrill nodded once more, the dwarf sighed, "I liked those. They looked good on her."

Fenris smirked to himself as he remembered that particular set of robes as well. He'd silently questioned whether they'd been designed for protection or if they were just meant to draw the eye directly to Hawke's backside. Being a dwarf, Varric likely spent more time staring at Hawke's bottom than any of them. It seemed he and Varric agreed that those particular robes would be sorely missed.

Merrill huffed in a rare display of annoyance. "Is this truly something we should be discussing right now? Shouldn't we…"

Merrill didn't get a chance to finish her statement. The door leading to the rest of the hold simply exploded inwards. Fenris didn't even have time to shield his face from the incoming debris, bringing his hands up too late to stop the sharp splinters from blasting against his face. When he brought them down, Fenris gaped as five abominations barreled in, homing in on the group in hateful fury.

Sebastian and Varric began firing wildly into the oncoming attack. The arrows sticking into misshapen heads and chests did little to slow them, appearing to be more an annoyance than an actual deterrent. Fenris heard Carver draw his sword and charge forward. He and Merrill followed suit although the mage was forced to fight defensively, her primary mode of attack still inaccessible to her.

Fenris pulled his muscles tight, feeling the world once more slow around him as the lyrium bit its sting into his skin. He ghosted across the room, slicing his sword into one of the monsters, neatly severing both arms from its torso is a spatter of dark blood before hacking into its neck once… twice… three times before the sword managed to cut through its spine and an additional three times before the skull lolled from its shoulders.

Demons.

This place was overrun with demons.

What the blight was happening here? Was this the source of Merrill's strange premonition?

The Knight-Commander had insisted there were no mages here but it was increasingly evident that the man had lied about that as well. Another Abomination barreled down upon him but Fenris only managed to land a single blow before the creature swept passed him and set its gnarled claws into one of the unconscious men, tearing him open and apart before Fenris could even think to defend him.

He looked over the situation once more, realizing the abominations were not targeting Merrill… nor were they focusing their limited attentions on Sebastian and Varric or even himself and Carver. They were putting all their effort into attacking the unconscious Templars, ripping the helpless men apart with a furious gusto.

The lyrium flickered and went out as he tried to reconcile the scene. Abominations attacked everything but it still stood to reason they should attack their most imminent threat first. Apparently, they viewed the poisoned Templars as greater threats than the five people actively fighting them.

The others appeared to notice this as well, holding their weapons fearfully.

"What is going on here?" Carver marveled and gazed with open disbelief at the scenario playing out before them. "Why aren't they attacking us?"

"Let them play," a dangerous deep voice echoed through the carnage. "My darlings deserve a little fun."

They skittered to a stop and looked back, confronted with a Desire Demon resplendent in her full form… heaving breasts, the stiff back, that playful come-hither gaze. He assessed his surroundings, logically as he knew to do. Fenris gazed upon the hated beast with all the contempt he'd grant a street urchin.

"The Veil is ripped," Merrill hissed to them. "It's bleeding out into reality. Stay strong."

"Meaning?" Varric requested as he brought Bianca up to his shoulder.

Fenris knew exactly what she was saying; he'd seen it in Minrathous a dozen times before. "She means we're half in the Fade," he growled and eyed the demon, "And so is that thing."

The demon considered Merrill for a moment and murmured, "So pretty but so collared- I could break it for you."

Merrill eyed the demon for a long moment, seeming to contemplate the offer before Carver called her name, dropping a heavy hand onto her shoulder. The elf dropped her head, raising her hand up to twine their fingers, and whispered, "I'm fine. I know enough of these things to know a bad deal when I am offered one."

It snarled before turning her sultry gaze on Fenris and purred, "And you… You don't belong here."

Sebastian let loose a low, menacing growl and answered, "He belongs here."

It ignored the prince and persisted, "You're looking for something. What if I could offer you what you seek? What if I told you your search could finally be over?"

Fenris felt the demon's allure wash over him, the thick syrup coating his mind in sticky sweetness. The damning thought that it could be that simple, that unbelievably easy, was all it took for the poison to take hold. Before Fenris could form any sort of reply, he saw the world and his companions swirled away in thick Fade mist… and standing in the middle of the clearing was a lone, dark-haired figure...

... Marian. Against all reason and possibility, she was standing before him. Close enough that he could take a few short steps and touch her. The tableau of the masquerade in Lydes faded in and out around her, pulsing softly with the same music that had been so jarring and loud when he'd found himself in the thick of it. She was garbed in the same deep red robes she'd been wearing when circumstances collided them together once more so many months ago.

"Fenris!" she called with no little concern, wide blue eyes sweeping across the landscape of smoke and mirrors. The festival had clearly disoriented her, half formed bodies slamming into her and causing her to stumble clumsily as she failed to steady herself against phantoms she couldn't properly fight. "Fenris, where are you?"

"That's not Marian," he growled at the demon doubtlessly watching them, desperately seeking a way to exit the illusion he'd fallen into.

"But it is," the voice rasped directly into his ear, causing it to twitch uncomfortably from the staggering heat of the demon's breath. "It is her as you've always wanted her- lacking the one thing that's always kept her from you in truth."

He didn't have to ask what that thing was. The mirage of Marian chose that moment to demonstrate as she attempted to summon a wisp of light in her hands to illuminate the area. Nothing happened, not a spark, not even a fizzle of energy was conjured into her waiting hands. She stared at them, first in abject confusion before something very unsettling took over her gaze. Fear. Her chest heaved faster as panic began to set in, puffing out fog as her warm breath collided with the cold air.

"You lie," he retorted, ignoring the mirage of his former lover in distress. "You cannot remove a mage's magic."

"Do I?" it wheezed into his mind and directed his gaze back to Hawke, tripping blindly through the mists, calling his name with increasing franticness. "The Fade is stronger than her magic here. As long as she remains here, you'll never have to fear that part of her."

"You lie," Fenris repeated.

"What is fantasy but a lie we tell ourselves?" The demon chuckled her cold laughter against his brain and continued, "But that isn't what you want, is it? Or it simply isn't all you want. Maybe something a little different?"

And before his eyes, the scene dissipated, the Harvest masquerade disintegrating into the thick Fade before a new vision replaced it. And Fenris was no longer observing her through the mists of the party but in Marian's dark, fire lit bedroom at the Amell estate. The bed, more imposing than he remembered, now stood center-stage. Fenris braced himself as he waited for what was doubtless coming next.

There stood Marian, clad in something silk and fragile, breathing unsteadily as Sebastian stood behind her, letting her body conceal his naked frame. He smoothed his palms over her arms. The sight of the prince's lips on her neck brought a pang of sickness into his stomach. He'd admit to occasionally being struck by Sebastian's regal sort of beauty, the way the prince moved with such surety had more than once set uncomfortable arousal through the elf before he could squash it back down. But Sebastian was the closest friend that Fenris had ever known and the sight of his hands on Marian, rather than inspiring arousal only managed to inspire a fervent desire for the image before him to cease. The elf drove his nails into his palm, frantically reminding himself that this was an illusion and nothing more. Marian wasn't here- she was somewhere out there in the wilderness.

Sebastian brought his eyes up to meet Fenris' and murmured, "No, of course not, you'd never share her this way. Something a little different, friend?" And his strong body shifted, shimmering away until manifesting into something a little more petite, with calculating dark eyes and light hair.

Margot raised her eyes to him, glittering with mayhem, and smirked. "Don't pretend you haven't thought about it. I have." She stroked her fingers over the mage's face and murmured, "She has."

He didn't answer, just watched Marian's eyes slid closed as she leaned back against the taller woman. There was no sense in denying it- the demon had indeed stumbled on something he'd been desperately trying not to think about. He forced his eyes shut just as Margot's hand moved to cup one of Marian's breasts, doing something that made the mage gasp and then moan. Fenris didn't think it was possible to be so sickly aroused by something he knew to be wrong… but there it was, straining against his pants in a frantic effort to join in the scene his imagination had written after Margot's half-confession.

"Come on, Fenris," Margot cajoled in a husky murmur. "It's no different than those two girls you had at the brothel. You'll recall they seemed perfectly satisfied with the arrangement."

The visuals of that memory swam unbidden into his mind, shocking him back into the thick of the Fade. Although at the time he'd been perfectly content to allow himself the entertainment of the two rather flexible young women, they hadn't been friends- they'd been prostitutes. He did not know them as he knew Margot and Marian- he knew them in no context other than sex. In light of this situation, with the ghost of Marian standing before him, that night felt rather base and quite perverted. This was not something he could imagine from Margot, who apparently had her heart a little more wrapped up in Marian Hawke than she cared to admit. And Marian… this was not something he could picture himself wanting of her.

This was not what he wanted, he repeated to himself. Or rather, to take the demon's words as his own, it was not all he wanted. He forced his breathing back into an even tempo and shuttered the sick arousal that threatened to take him further into this scene. He kept his eyes shut as one of the pair of women released another soft gasp. He would not be duped. He would not play into this.

"Or perhaps something a bit…" The voice shifted from Margot's low rasp into something much lower, "…closer to home?"

That voice…

No.

His eyes flew open and there was Danarius, holding a delicate golden chain wrapped tightly around Marian's neck in his clenched, clawed hand. Danarius had always been a perverted bastard and the chains coiled over her naked breasts and hips, tying her up like a glorified body slave, testified to that. She teetered, tears streaming down her face, as his former master jerked his wrist back and drew the chain hard against her throat. When had she begun crying? How long had his eyes been shut?

Her frightened eyes peeled open wide as she struggled to breathe, her hands clawing mindlessly at her neck to ease the deathly pressure. This isn't real, he repeated silently himself as he watched her choke. This could not be Marian.

"A gift to you, Fenris," Danarius sneered, releasing the apostate only to shove her to the ground. She landed with a pained yelp, which Fenris felt echo in his own knees, scrambling away for a moment before his master dropped the chain and permitted her to claw once more at her throat. "A pet for my pet."

This isn't real, he kept telling himself. But that thought didn't stop his breath from coming faster, his heart from pounding in painful rage, and it didn't stop the terrible sound of her strangled sobbing. If this wasn't real then why was it still happening?

Unless it was real.

"Thank your master." With that, Danarius delivered a sharp kick to Marian's side, sending her flying across the floor with a strangled cry. She landed at the elf's feet, tangling his hands in a weak grip as she sobbed, "Please, you have to make this stop!"

"What's wrong, lad?" the magister sneered as he bent to stoop behind her. "Do you need a demonstration?"

He was all-too familiar with what would inevitably happen next when he saw Danarius lift his robes and clap a possessive hand over Marian's rump. She screamed his name, her high panicked wail shattering the still air. Logic flew the way of the wind as Fenris reached for his sword and shouted, "Let her go!"

He was on the magister with his next breath, hacking into his body with unbridled fury. Danarius went down without even a token fight but Fenris still relished in the opportunity to murder his master a second time, swinging harder, cutting deeper over and over again as he mutilated the man who'd hurt so many and hurt them so badly. He was barely cold and dead when he dissolved back into the Fade's miasma, leaving behind Marian- still choking on her tears as she looked up at him in watery wonder.

She was safe. He'd protected her. But as he looked down upon her, saw the tear-streaked pathos that was so vastly different from the woman he'd known for years, and knew for certain he'd been deceived.

Of course the demon hadn't been Danarius, he realized dully as his true enemy cowered before him. It was all another smoke and mirrors attempt to engage the elf, to lure him into a fantasy until the demon finally found the one that could tempt him away from the truth. It wasn't the cloying allure of power that he desperately craved, which had set him to succumbing to a demon's clutches once before. It wasn't even Marian, he realized as he stared at his former lover not as the woman who'd had countless foes trembling at her very footsteps but as some mythical, shackled animal cowering at his feet… telling him something he'd never had the ability to face before.

He wanted to be a hero.

Just once he wanted be the hero instead of the shrieking ingénue in distress. He wanted to break from his past and save the innocents, save the girl, save the day.

But he couldn't do that here- locked in a world of fiction.

This wasn't real, he repeated again to himself. Marian had never been in danger, had never been here at all. He'd saved no one, not even himself, from his twisted dead master. Armed with that, he could see the demon's countenance masking itself within the lines of Marian's body- could see a flash of horns through her dark hair, a twinge of grey scales breaking along the soft flesh of her side, eyes that blazed black at random intervals through blue sky.

Then it was gone and she was Marian again, looking up at him with confusion apparent in her wet eyes. "I called for you," she whispered, reaching a hand out to touch the scarf tangled around his wrist. He shut his eyes as she tugged against it, gently pulling his attention back to her. "Where were you?"

It would be easy, he thought as he looked upon the thing disguising itself as the object of countless dreams, so easy to fall into the illusion, to have a mirage of her that would shift to accommodate his every whim, that would be whatever he wanted whenever he wanted her to become it. But it wasn't what the demon had unwittingly revealed that he truly wanted. It was just another form of slavery. If he accepted, he'd once more be stepping into the cage, locking the door, and tossing the key himself. He'd already done that once and knew the horrors that would follow… and even if he'd lacked the ability to understand them as Leto, he certainly understood them now as Fenris.

And the real Marian Hawke was still out there, doubtless doing things that would inevitably infuriate him beyond words- making rash decisions, trusting the wrong people, helping people who didn't deserve it. She was being hunted.

And she believed in him once. In spite of everything he'd done to her, Marian Hawke had believed in him when no reasonable person should have… believed he could be the man he desperately wanted to be.

"I have been looking for you," he answered gently and stooped next to her. Her arms opened to him and against every bit of him that was screaming for him to withdraw, he entered her embrace, wrapping his arms around her tightly. She even smelled the way he remembered, he thought as he buried his nose into her hair. He allowed himself this weakness, one final opportunity to hold her in a way he likely never would again.

It would be easy, so easy to stay here.

After a lifetime of hardships and failures, it was hard to deny himself a simple comfort. He deserved a bit of happiness after the life he'd led, a bit of easiness after so much strife. It would be easy to look the gift horse in the mouth and ignore the poisoned apple clenched in its snarling, decayed maw.

It could be so easy…

But it wasn't what he wanted.

He unwound his arms from her and stood, the chains bound around her prevented her from rising with him. She gave a serene smile, all traces of her sorrow erased from her suddenly immaculate face. His hand found his sword, feeling its comforting weight in his hands. The steel was real. This was not. And there was only one way to end it.

"Forgive me," he whispered, more to himself than to her, as he dared to stroke his fingers across her face, watching her turn into the caress with a soft, comforted sound…

Then he drove it down into her chest and felt the world explode. He saw ivory particles of sand banging against the seawall and burst into nothing… saw clouds sucked from the sky… saw the universe shatter … accompanied by the sound of terrible, inhuman screaming that he'd never know for certain came only from her.

The illusion shattered around him like rock thrown into a hall of mirrors, bits and pieces cracking and falling away, and suddenly he was standing, panting with exhaustion with his sword deeply embedded in the demon's chest.

"I gave you everything," it snarled, blackened blood spilling from its sharp teeth.

His head bowed as he considered its words. "I would rather suffer reality than shackle myself to an illusion of happiness," he answered before calmly withdrawing his blade. "But as a demon, you could not possibly understand."

He whipped the sword around once more, this time at its neck- felt it connect and cut through the sinew and spine before passing through the other side in a spray of gore. As he watched the head roll across the ground and the corpse disintegrate into ashes, he remembered that he was not alone.

When he turned to find his companions, he found them gawking in blood-spattered shock. The abominations lay dead, corpses littered over the bodies of the men they'd slain. The sting of bruises informed him rather abruptly that he had indeed fallen into the stupor, fighting when he had no mind of his own to do so. Fortunately no one looked terribly worse for it. They'd pulled their punches. It was uncertain that he'd have done the same were their positions reversed.

"It appears I forgot myself," he offered lamely as he fastened his sword once more to its bolster. "You have my apologies."

It was Merrill who found her tongue first. "You found it again. That's all that matters."

"Right," Carver agreed warily. If the boy had a further thought on the matter, he chose to keep it to himself. "Let's focus on getting out of here."

"We have to close off the Fade," Merrill interrupted. "A rift this massive will have more demons clamoring to get in."

"How would we do that?" Carver asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "Perhaps someone back at the camp could tell us."

"But where did they come from?" Sebastian interjected. "They said no mages were being kept here- so how is this place crawling with demons and abominations?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe, just maybe, they were lying," Carver answered with unbridled annoyance.

"Shouldn't we focus our efforts on finding them? There may be a few that are uncorrupted. Perhaps there are even a few survivors that could tell us what is going on."

"He's right," Carver grumbled with a furious shake of his head. "Dammit, he's bloody right. Stick together, we're going to have to search this place top to bottom. Fenris, you said this is an old Tevinter stronghold, right?"

Fenris nodded, "Indeed."

"Do you think there are any secret rooms?"

He considered for a moment. Tevinter architecture didn't utilize secret passages as much as, say, Orlais' did. Still they were no stranger to doors concealed behind bookshelves and the occasional secret passageway. "I would recognize any hidden passages if I were to see them."

"Good. Take point," Carver instructed before adding, "I want to know if these bastards are hiding anywhere."

Fenris nodded and took the lead without another word. The next three rooms were unremarkable, save for the dead Templars littering the floor and one hidden alcove holding a number of books. Regardless, the carnage that had taken place here was nothing short of astonishing. The abominations had positively ripped these men apart. It was, to steal Badoc's word, overkill. Though they may have been monsters, they'd come after these men with a focused rage Fenris had never an abomination display before.

It was off the kitchens in one of the larders that Fenris found anything of note, although it wasn't exactly hidden any more. They all noticed the back wall of the pantry had been blasted apart, its tattered remains on either side revealing the dark passage.

"Well that's ominous," Varric remarked and clutched Bianca a bit more tightly as Fenris grabbed an oil lantern and led the way within.

It was a small, stone room- well-insulated by the rock to ensure privacy. The stench of blood and bile was nauseating. Manacles covered the walls, Fenris recognized the method as being native to Tevinter. This in all likelihood had originally been intended as a slave hold. But when he saw the stains of blood, the ripped scraps of clothing, and the red, sharp knives fastened to the wall, he knew it wasn't one any more.

It was a torture chamber.

"Ma vhenan," Merrill murmured her horror, doubtless realizing this was likely where Badoc intended to interrogate Carver.

"Maker preserve us," Sebastian whispered as he surveyed the area with dull shock.

Fenris saw a bright swatch of fabric, mostly intact, and brought it nearer the light to study it. He could feel the magic woven into the fabric and deduced that this had originally been part of a set of extremely expensive robes. But that wasn't what caught his attention… it was the stitchwork. Fenris was no stranger to sewing, he modified his armor whenever the opportunity presented itself. Robes in the south used relatively simple stitching, usually done with simple cotton lines. Tevinter thread, he'd cursed that blasted gossamer more times than he could count- it's soft, spiderweb quality was practically invisible to the eye and nearly impossible to run through a needle.

Tevinter thread was also obscenely strong and Fenris knew when he saw the clean stitching shining intact between two rent pieces of fabric that this robe hadn't belonged to a southerner. "These prisoners were from Tevinter," he said quietly. A very uncomfortable feeling of pity came over him.

Danarius had a room like this.

Fenris did not care to think of the unspeakable horrors he'd seen in there. No information was this valuable. Nothing justified this. Even if they had been magisters and blood mages, Fenris would have preferred to see them quietly executed rather than held in a terrible limbo they'd been subject.

"Oh fuck," Sebastian groaned. The man had to be considering the implications of he dead abominations above them. One thing was certain- before they left, they needed to conceal any evidence of what happened here or risk the wrath of the Magistrate.

"They saw a chance to escape and they took it," Carver muttered. "I'm feeling a little less sorry for the men upstairs."

Fenris noticed Merrill was visibly shaking, eyes locked on a single collar lying broken on the floor. Furious tears welled up in her eyes, leaking over to trickle down her cheeks. "Excuse me," she whispered before tearing back into the kitchen with Carver and Varric close on her heels.

When they were alone once more, Sebastian muttered, "What do you think they knew?"

"I do not know," Fenris answered. "Perhaps they were going to the camp."

"Fenris," Sebastian began. "Starkhaven does not have an army that could take on Tevinter. If they find out about this…"

"I agree," the elf replied. "But I wouldn't approach Merrill or Carver with that now. We shall stay behind if necessary and…" Fenris swallowed, forcing the saliva around the rock that had settled in his throat, "… clean house."

He heard Carver shout from above. Without another word, the pair wielded their weapons and charged toward the sound. Another abomination flanked by two demons had found the interlopers.

The abomination bore down on Merrill, who looked every bit a deer caught in a hunter's sight for a moment before she brought her staff up and thwacked it heavily over its huge, snarling head, startling it into a brief recoil. Before Fenris could get to her, fireballs blocked the beast from its prey and someone in dark rogue's armor materialized in front of her and, taking the long, bladed staff from his back, began hacking into the charging beast. Fenris' sword was stayed as he watched the intruder's movements… he was using a staff but not in any way he'd seen before… the man was wielding it as though it were a sword rather than a magical instrument- there was no mana being dispatched with the blows.

Another dark figure appeared, this one making no compunction of her magic. She threw fire, caused the earth itself to quake, summoned ice from the scant water particles in the air to encapsulate and imprison her foes before hurling them backwards in a beautiful symphony of blood before tearing into the demon.

Marian used that technique often. She'd called it Shock-and-Awe. Varric simply titled it her Die-Shitheads spell. Before he could dwell much on the memory of her, he noticed the garb covering their two unexpected allies. There was too much distance to notice anything as minute as stitch work and the masks concealing their faces revealed no expression… the emblem blazoned on the robes told him everything he needed to know.

"They are from the Imperial Chantry!" Fenris shouted his warning. The Imperial Chantry… they'd come looking for the lost mages they were currently battling. Maker, there was no hope to hide the bodies now unless they were willing to bury a few more.

Sebastian shook his head as though attempting to shake the mirage from his eyes. "What are they doing here?" he cried, worry clearly etched into every syllable.

"They're helping us," Carver snarled back and clutched his sword tighter. "We can deal with the politics later!"

Carver threw himself into battle and the others followed in rapid succession. The three enemies were finished in short order with their temporary allies. The female focused on keeping the demons at bay whilst the man twirled his staff with a precision that was as deadly as it was non-magical. When it was all said and done, the five of them were left warily eying the Tevinters and the Tevinters regarding them with a similar guarded curiosity.

The man of the pair stared blankly forward, evaluating them with a cold calculation. The woman eyed them thoughtfully, cagily even, as she shifted uncomfortably on her toes- he could sense the latent magic emanating outward to assess the threat and instinctively he opened his senses to reach back… but he recognized the smell and taste of it… this was no blood mage, this was a healer… moonflowers and ember, fire and thunder…

And it froze him in his tracks, mentally asking three lonely syllables. Carver, too, was similarly still, though Fenris couldn't know for certain if he was asking himself the same question.

The illusion was over, wasn't it? He'd defeated the demon… struck her down through the artifice that vile thing and stretched over his mind. This couldn't be another layer of the fantasy that had pulled him in so thoroughly. His mind felt perfectly clear, cleansed of its evil influence… so that could only mean one thing.

Marian…

"What are you doing here?" Sebastian demanded as he raised his bow and aimed a single arrow at the man. Before he had a chance to fire, the woman threw a wave of energy at the prince, knocking him from his feet and clear across the small room. The arrow pinged into the rafters, dislodging only a small wave of harmless dust.

"Well Sebastian, nice to see you too." the woman muttered to the prince before forcibly removing her staff from one of the demons' backs with a dull thunk. Pulling the cowl loose from her face and pushing the hood from her dark hair, their unexpected savior revealed herself to be none other than Marian Hawke, returned to her flock at last.

Author's Notes- Back from hiatus! Surgery went fine (with a few minor snafus) and I've managed to beat real life into submission and get this sucker out. Thanks to everyone for your patience and words of encouragement as I worked through my recovery and my horrible work backlog.

It felt more and more like upon her return from her foreign excursions she became more an item of commodity and less an actual person as far as the inhabitants of Kirkwall were concerned.

Well, not all of them- thank the Maker for big favors from short men. Varric had dropped by yesterday and as of yet was the only member of her merry little entourage that was even aware she'd returned. That dwarf had his paws in absolutely everything. They'd caught up on the events of the last month and he extracted a promise for a proper party to celebrate her return on Thursday at the Hanged Man before he tipped his imaginary hat at her and went on his way. An official homecoming get-together meant she could focus on getting her affairs in order, which was a daunting task to say the least.

After a fruitless and utterly boring morning of reading through the Hawke, please something's and Dearest Champion's, we humbly request's, she seriously considered retreating to foreign soil where she could live out her life in relative peace. Irritation had sent her thoughts flying outward bound before she finally readied herself for a light mea when a particular letter caught her eye- not the letter itself but the handwriting scrawled over the envelope. It wasn't lettering so much as chicken-scratch and bore a strong resemblance to Fenris' handwriting from only two scant years ago.

Serah Hawke,

I have heard you are very good at finding things. When my troupe arrived in Kirkwall one of our performers, Io, lost a personal book- brown with a crescent moon stamped into the leather. We don't have much money but will offer what we can on its return. We are camped just outside Kirkwall if you should happen upon it.

Gratefully, Troy

Hmmm, that explained the caravan that had been setting up at the perimeter of the city when she'd returned from Orlais. It wasn't so unusual to see the Dalish traveling in such a manner but the inhabitants of the camp appeared to be human, which was extremely strange to say the least. Of course she'd heard of bands of gypsies traversing Ferelden but had never heard even a mention of such troupes residing in the Free Marches. She'd meant to visit it before now but her attention had been seized by the mountain of mail that awaited her. It seemed fate deigned to provide her with the perfect excuse and she relished in the opportunity to explore the unknown. Perhaps that was one of the primary reasons she'd ended up as Champion in the first place- also magic, that had certainly helped. All she had to do was find a brown book with a crescent moon on the…

Wait.

Hawke huffed a sigh as she heaved herself from the desk, nearly toppling the stacks of letters, and shuffled over to her rucksack, pulling it open to rifle through the contents. Potions, herbs, various trinkets that could be bartered off… and then she found it. Sure enough, just there near the top was a book bearing a very strong resemblance to the one this Troy had requested. This particular tome had been sitting alone on a barrel in the Hightown market and Hawke had taken it on the off chance she could learn the owner. She seemed to have the strangest luck when it came to finding other people's things. Then again, she had inexplicable luck in general as evidenced by her latest adventure and her baffling win-lose streak at Wicked Grace which kept her ledgers solidly in the green.

Neutrality, it seemed, was her Maker-granted gift.

She flipped through the book briefly- after all it would be unforgivably foolish to return a potentially dangerous tome to a complete stranger- but her examination revealed no strange spells or potion's recipes, just page after page of the daily goings-on and love-interests of a young girl. That thought made her smile. A decade ago, her own journal contained some of the very same things. Does he like me? Am I pretty enough? Her good fortune saw the answers as 'yes' more often than 'no' but she remembered the trepidation of infatuation and documented the facts quite frequently in Ferelden. She hadn't attended to her diary in a while; perhaps she'd spend the night catching up.

It was nearing noon, so she should be able to scrounge up a few people to make the trek out of the city walls. The question remaining now was who to take. She rose and quickly changed into a light set of robes before heading to the door, patting Hector once on the head before traversing into the bright daylight, where Kirkwall sprawled before her in all it's oppressive glory.

Aveline had returned to the Barracks immediately upon their return, smirking that she was convinced Donnic had everything in proper order but still hurrying a little faster than her certainty should have carried her. The Guard-Captain would, doubtless, swamp herself with paperwork for the next week or so when she wasn't reacquainting herself with her beloved husband. Sebastian returned to the Chantry, praying for the souls of Duke Prosper and that wretched wyvern the madman rode like a frothing pony. The Chantry-bound prince suggested that Hawke do the same but she felt ill at ease in the chapel. It was a singular condition she held the most in common with her fellow mages and one she knew frustrated Sebastian, who simply lacked the experience to understand how terrifying the Chantry could be to a known apostate, albeit a moral one.

Her feet took her on their own course, swaying her through the crowd unencumbered by the sheer thought of any specific destination. Merrill was likely busy obsessing over that blasted mirror- that would need to be dealt with soon. The elf had already heavily hinted that she required Hawke's deeper involvement in restoring the relic. Varric had a full week of meetings slated with one of Bartrand's nurses despite the scoundrel's irreparable condition. Isabela was always an option, the pirate would certainly appreciate Hawke's thorough and eloquent critique of Orlesian hats. The Maker knew Anders could use a bit of sunshine. Varric had informed her the Darktown healer had been locked up in clinic for almost two months after she'd left, only leaving when he'd been physically dragged out. Without her there to constantly fuss over him, she seriously doubted Anders had gone topside at all.

For a man who proclaimed such hatred for the Deep Roads, the last three years had seen him transforming into quite the subterranean recluse. Varric made a point to tell her that he worried about Anders; his condition was becoming increasingly disquieting and it concerned her. Varric was clearly troubled as well. It was hard to watch her mentor slip away like this into something she suspected could be both dark and terrible. It was one of the main reasons she continued her tutelage under the healer even as he drifted further and further into himself. Possessed as he was, she knew it was vitally important that Anders keep his link to humanity. Little as she liked it, right now she suspected that her acting as his link to the living was that last thing that kept him holding on.

A man nearly bowled her over in his haste to move toward the noble houses before she finally stopped abruptly when she came upon a large stone door, realizing perhaps too late that her feet had led her directly to Fenris' manor. There was no point in even pretending that she wasn't going to take the brooding elf with her, provided he wasn't off doing some sort of mercenary work. Electing as always to forgo knocking, Hawke sauntered into Fenris' mansion like she had every right to be there. The air was still and silent. Part of her was dimly surprised that the elf hadn't already taken up arms to ward off the potential intruder. Perhaps he was off working, she wondered as she moved further into the dreary foyer.

"Fenris!" she shouted before cocking her head and resting her hands on her hips. The scuffling of rapid movement shuffling sounded from upstairs along with the clang of metal dragging briefly against stone. It was either Fenris or a mercenary or slaver about to have a very bad day, so she waited semi-patiently as she watched for the sound to manifest into the cause behind it.

Then the white-haired elf popped his head over the railing of the mezzanine and peered down. His eyes widened for a moment before his face settled into a self-satisfied smirk. "I see you have returned," were the only words he said, like her presence was inevitable and not anything that may have ever been left to chance.

She laughed at that and tilted her head back to give the elf a wry grin. Fenris had been out of Kirkwall doing a bit of work for Meeran when Tallis had led her, Sebastian, and Aveline on that forsaken excursion to Chateau Haine. Surely he'd be expecting some sort of apology for being left behind but instead she quipped, "Or I could simply be a spectre that decided haunting you could be rather fun, shall I rattle some chains and make with the scary noises?"

"I shall pass, I think," he smiled and nodded, still regarding her from his rather lofty perch but taking on a lazier slouch as he leaned more heavily against the bannister. "And how was Orlais?"

She rolled her eyes before she began counting on her fingers as she answered, "I was nearly killed by boredom, then a wyvern, a nobleman, a gaggle of poorly dressed guards, another wyvern along with a mad duke, then boredom again." She finished off her counting with an exasperated toss of her hands and grumbled, "The next time I meet an elf who wears shoes…"

Fenris interrupted her, "This Tallis wore shoes? With soles?" He cocked his head curiously and shifted his weight more fully onto the stone bannister, letting the muscles of his arms bear a greater portion of his weight. His strange, unworldly stillness reminded her vaguely of the gargoyle statues she'd seen perched around the Chateau, looming over, peering down all silent and knowing.

She pushed that vision from her mind before she resumed her playful demeanor, nodding and adding with a mock gravity, "And was Qunari."

Fenris released a low whistle before openly staring at her, scrutinizing her appearance as though he expected to suddenly find her arm had fallen off or she'd been partially decapitated and somehow failed to notice. When his eyes finally met hers, she did a quick twirl to demonstrate that her intestines were not dangling from some gaping wound on her back. The quick flush of redness over his ears told her that the stare had not been entirely meant to ascertain her well-being.

She clasped her hand over her wrist and leaned against the wall and cocked an eyebrow up at him with a small, knowing grin. Fenris cleared his throat deliberately as he averted his gaze. "Well, you seem no worse for wear," he managed lamely. "Was the duke insane or merely angry?"

The concept that in Prosper's case brands of madness could be mutually exclusive ripped a short laugh from her before she replied, "First one and then both. Now he's just… sort of dead-ish."

"Dead-ish?" he questioned with a curious smirk and leaned forward. "And how exactly is one 'dead-ish?'"

"I mean, the fall certainly would have killed most men but that doublet could have cushioned the fall," she reasoned. When the elf failed to react to her bait, she amended, "Very poufy. Even Aveline's sword failed to fell him outright."

He gave her a sardonic shake of his head as he began descending the stairs. "And precisely how far was this fall?"

She thought back, replaying that vile little man plummeting toward the infinitely distant rocky earth below before she gave the elf an affirming nod and replied, "Pretty far."

"I wish you would defy whatever compulsion it is that sends you on these excursions without me," he grumbled as he casually stepped over one of the skeletons lying prostrate on the ground like it was a daily occurrence, which in the elf's case it was. The corpses that littered his home allegedly acted as a deterrent to the hunters but it still bothered her to see them unburied. Her gaze lingered on one set of remains and Fenris in a moment of grace moved his body to block it from her line of sight.

She gave him a grateful nod and answered, "You weren't set to be back for two weeks and if we were going to make the hunt then we needed to leave immediately. Other than the people trying to kill me, the wyverns, and my brief incarceration in that wretched Orlesian dungeon, it was all incredibly dull." Oddly enough, those words didn't seem to inspire confidence from the elf, so she grinned and finished with, "I daresay the most exciting part was when I spent the entire ride back campaigning for Sebastian to grow a beard like Prosper's. Didn't take, sadly. It would have been the talk of Kirkwall. 'Repentant Scoundrel Uses Face for Angry Hedgehog Preserve. Andraste Weeps. Humanity Saved.' It would have solved everything."

That comment didn't earn her the laughter she'd been hoping for. All she heard was the elf's huff of frustration before he made a sound that lingered somewhere between irritation and disturbance. "Must you be so glib about all this?" he asked quietly. "What if you had been hurt?"

"Why, Fenris, do you mean to say you worry about me?" She took the opportunity to edge a little closer as she asked the question. Both of them knew the answer but she inquired regardless. It was the only way she knew to ask him to tell her that they were not merely friends. Even if it was slightly sadistic to make him say it, she needed his assertion that he still cared even though he kept so distant. Even if he could give her nothing more than an affirmation of his concern, she deserved at least that much, dammit, and they hadn't seen each other in over a month.

He sighed softly, bringing his hand up for a moment as though to touch her arm before thinking better of it and lowering it back to his side. Instead of finishing the gesture, he met her gaze and simply said, "You know I do."

She took a hesitant step closer but kept her hands cautiously at her side as she invaded his personal space. Waves of heat emanated from his body and seeped through her robes. Were all northerners were as warm as Fenris or had the lyrium somehow elevated his natural body temperature? Or was the perceived warmth just something she imagined? These were the questions she distracted herself with as they stood so close but so carefully apart from one another. "You're not the only one who worries, Fenris," she softly reminded him as she permitted her fingers to brush against the scarf he'd stolen from her home- not touching his skin… that would be too overt.

"I know." He stared at her for a long moment, leaning in just slightly as though he were contemplating a kiss before he lowered his eyes and backed away. Clearing his throat, he casually asked, "How long have you been home?"

The moment dissipated, puffing away like pipe smoke, becoming both invisible and aromatic as it vanished but permeated the air, silent, unseen, and undeniably present. "Four days," she replied, suppressing a smile at his momentary scowl. "You will not believe the mail that's piled up- even with Varric minding my affairs."

He paced away from her and contemplated his weapons rack. Fenris had several small arsenals installed throughout the inhabited areas of the mansion. The state of the weapons indicated that they were all properly cared for and maintained; the elf could also name off the attributes and enchantments of every single one. "I'm rather indebted to him at the moment," he mumbled absently as he selected one, considered it for a moment and then returned it carefully. "He offers no explanation as to why every meeting must end with cards."

She snorted, a sound that set her mother's teeth on edge. "Because he has an astronomical tab at the Hanged Man. I figured you knew."

The sound of his chuckle carried through the still, cool air as he examined his various blood letters. If he could ever rid himself of his compulsive weapons hoarding habit, he could easily pay off any debt he owed Varric in spades. But he'd never surrender his arsenal and they both knew it. "He and Isabela are shameless cheats," he reminded her.

"And you are a terrible bluff," she replied with a dash of impertinence. "After today's task, we'll head over and I'll see if I can help you win some of it back."

He stopped and faced her, leaning against the rack as he watched her and asked, "A task, you say?" The promise of work meant Fenris would select his weapon based on the threats he may face. That sort of methodical, if slightly obsessive, forethought was one of the main reasons he ended up accompanying her so often.

"There's some traveling gypsy caravan just outside Kirkwall and the ringleader wants me to find something I've already found. I figure it's easy money and a good way to reacquaint myself with Kirkwall's indigent, unwashed masses after the opulence of the lavishly impractical fashion of Chateau Haine."

He smirked and quickly selected a large sword- enchanted to burn upon impact if she recalled correctly and of which she certainly approved. "Poor sparrow," he simpered in a tone too dulcet and smooth to be proper mockery. "Did the nasty Orlesians trick you into a proper gown?" He chuckled absently to himself, adjusting the baldric on his shoulder before fastening the blade against his back.

She giggled at the idea herself. She liked the freedom of robes but had little use for actual dresses. What was the point of putting on a garment whose functionality left her little more than a beautiful, trussed hen? "Maker, no. I actually managed to get in wearing pants, believe it or not. Absolutely hideous if you ask me." The sound of Fenris' warm laughter filled the empty spaces of the massive room; he knew she abhorred pants nearly as much as she hated dresses but it was a near contest.

She smirked at his amusement, "I don't deny it was dreadful outfit but fortunately it kept Lord Cyril's attention firmly on my posterior instead of my hand."

Fenris coughed loudly, sputtering as he swung his gaze over, his eyes settling briefly on her aforementioned derriere. "And what was your hand doing?" The words were delivered from between gritted teeth as he tried to achieve the most casual tone he could muster.

"Stealing his keys, of course," she quipped with a guileless smile. "Castles don't just break into themselves."

"Of course," he muttered as he shook his head ruefully. "You are reckless, you know that."

"It suits me," she agreed obnoxiously. "Didn't you know?"

"It does and I do," he granted with a similarly annoying smirk. "Lead on."

With the elf's commitment, she dared to venture deeper into the city. Fenris was remarkably silent when they made the turn towards the undercity, likely already suspecting this outing wouldn't be just the two of them. Anders was a regular companion, more so lately than usual due to his abject anti-socialness. Someone had to mind Anders as he descended deeper into Justice's grasp. That task fell, sadly, to her as she was the only person who could goad the Darktown healer out of his clinic, which was strangely silent when they entered.

She asked Fenris for a moment, which he acquiesced to with a curt nod, as she quickly searched. Dread began to fill her when the sound of Anders' voice reached her, causing her to glance back to verify the elf's sensitive ears hadn't caught it. If the warrior heard, he gave no indication of it so she sent a silent thank-you to the Maker and crept deeper into the clinic's back rooms. When she found him, she knew already that she'd find no one with him. His recently developed habit of talking aloud to Justice unnerved her and prior to her departure, he'd taken to doing it much, much more.

A few weeks before she left, Anders and she had been tending to a mercenary who took an arrow to the shoulder. Not usually a serious injury but the shot had dislocated his shoulder and the arrowhead shattered in the socket. It was a nasty cleanup and midway through Anders just began mumbling to himself. Half the words she couldn't make out but he seemed to have a very serious conversation that had nothing to do with the patient. When she snapped at him to quit, he had looked at her in abject confusion before asking what she wanted him to stop. When she told him he'd simply paled; he hadn't even realized he'd been doing it.

She hadn't even told Varric, too worried that speaking the truth aloud would make it somehow irreversible, irrationally fearing that once uttered the words would rip anything left of Anders away.

Surely enough, when she entered his office Anders was huddled over his desk scribbling furiously as he took notes from an ancient looking tome. The words he spoke weren't Common. They sounded like Arcanum, which Anders never revealed he knew. Certainly, if Anders were able to speak Arcanum it stood to follow that he and Fenris would have squabbled in it at least a few times. Was this more of Justice's influence?

Steeling herself, she entered the hovel he used as his private quarters. It was cooler in here than in the clinic. A filthy rotting wooden bed frame fitted with clean sheets pressed against the far wall, a desk that looked like it would collapse beneath the weight of a single book, and nearly every surface of the room including the walls and the floor was covered in parchment filled with cramped handwriting. Maker, she thought as she touched her fingers to his furious scrawl, even his handwriting was changing.

"Anders," she called softly, trying to ignore the chill in the air, uncertain if it were emanating from the room's inhabitant or from its lack of one. He ignored her- or didn't hear her- and continued focusing on the papers before him. She dared closer, noisily rustling the papers as she moved through the mess, realizing this wasn't his manifesto he was working on. "Anders," she repeated a little more loudly before she finally reached out to touch her hand against his shoulder.

He jolted from the imaginary shockwave her touch produced and spun to his feet, bright blue cracking over him for a split second. She held perfectly still, letting Anders have the chance to recognize her and force Justice back down. "Hawke, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that," he admonished gently with a short bout of nervous laughter before reaching out to give her a friendly embrace. "Nice to see the Orlesians couldn't convince you to go native."

There was little point in acknowledging what had just happened, that Justice had very nearly attacked her. Anders knew he was losing control of Justice and the spirit within him hadn't been terribly keen on her to start with. The last month had clearly seen little sunshine and much solitude for the abom… mage. Hopefully, getting him back into a social setting would correct some of the backslide.

So she allowed a mischievous smirk spread over her lips as she broke away and lifted the hem of her robes just slightly to stick out one of the very pretty, extremely expensive boots she'd picked up from a shop the Sister Leliana had recommended in the city just outside Chateau Haine. They were just protective enough to be practical and the slight heel was incredibly cute while the color of the leather was a perfect match for her blue robes, which were arguably her most flattering. After all, just because she was living like a Chantry sister did not mean she had any intentions of dressing like one.

She hadn't been able to resist purchasing them… or the seven other pairs of shoes that caught her eye. Perhaps it was her background in dancing but she'd always had a real fondness for shoes that she never grew out of. It was her private, girly vice that she felt she could afford. Sebastian and Aveline were sworn into silence, although the prince was also roped into helping her carry the boxes home.

Anders rolled his eyes. "It's like you're trying to make up for the fact that elves don't wear shoes by owning four times more than anyone. How many shoes do you need?"

She pointed her finger at the end of Anders' elegant nose, delighting in watching him go momentarily cross-eyed, before she playfully growled, "Don't judge me. Besides, they're not just stylishly elegant but ruggedly practical."

"They are very pretty, Hawke," Anders admitted quickly, "but you must have a hundred shoes."

"Oh, stop exaggerating," she huffed. The number was much closer to fifty than to one hundred… probably. No, she was eighty, no sixty, percent certain she didn't have one hundred shoes unless Anders was counting them individually and not as pairs, which wasn't even fair. "Now if you're finished talking about how amazing my shoes are we have a job outside Kirkwall."

"I'm… extremely busy right now, Hawke."

Dramatically, she poked her head out of his office and swept her eyes over the clinic. Fenris remained still as stone as he curiously met her eyes. She turned back and announced, "No one's out here except for Fenris. No patients means you can come out of your little cave and get some sun on your bones."

"You mean I get to accompany you and Fenris? Oh, hooray for me. Do you think we could invite Sebastian as well? How about your brother?" That earned him a glare accompanied by a low, playful growl. His lips broadened into a wide, happy smile as he grabbed his staff and left his office, loudly announcing, "Well Marian, if you're that desperate for some good company on your trek, I'll certainly accompany you."

Fenris straightened noticeably and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Anders couldn't resist the opportunity to take a jab at Fenris and the elf was similarly disinclined to diplomacy when it came to the healer. It was glaringly obvious to even herself that she was the source of more than a few of their arguments but didn't dwell much on it; those two would bicker about the existence of gravity if the subject came up. She'd wagered that nearly every nasty thing that one thought about the other had likely already been said but was certain they were both creative enough to find new, trifling ways to continue the same argument they'd been having for nearly six years.

Surely enough, they had just begun to ascend into Lowtown when Fenris casually asked,

"Do you often allow copies of your manifesto to litter Hawke's books?"

"My manifesto?" Anders asked in a voice that was simultaneously baffled and distrustful. "You've read it?"

"Only a bit," Fenris admitted in a voice she recognized as a thinly-veiled attempt to sound sincere, which led her to thinking that this conversation was about to take a sharp, annoying turn. He confirmed her suspicions when he continued with, "You misspelled 'oppression' on the second page. I took the liberty of burning them to spare you the embarrassment. You're welcome."

Years of witnessing this behavior suppressed the exasperated groan that threatened to escape her. That was a low blow for the elf and far pettier than she expected of him; but then again, the elf and the mage inspired each other to such sub-levels of pettiness it almost earned her respect. Those manifestos were also her property so long as they were shoved into her books and it irked her slightly that Fenris could set fire to items in her home without compunction. She wanted to break in or glare at him at least. However, history told her that the best way to handle this situation was to go temporarily deaf and keep either of them from dragging her into it.

"You bastard, you think setting fire to words takes away their power? Even if you destroyed every copy in Kirkwall, you could never extinguish the ideas burning inside them," Anders retorted hatefully. "The pen is far mightier than the sword."

Fenris barked out a cruel laugh and replied, "I will concede to your point only when you demonstrate to me how to properly decapitate someone with a pen."

"Quite simple, really. First you take the pen, grip it firmly in your left hand, then use telekinesis to rip the skull from the spine. Bloody but extremely effective if you're into that sort of thing," Anders huffed indignantly.

Fenris, thankfully, said nothing beyond that; he simply ducked his head down and grumbled a long series of Arcanum to himself before falling blissfully silent as they reached Lowtown. The snowfall of his hair hid all but his mouth as he tilted his head forward. He was still watching her from behind his hair, she knew. This was just one of the many techniques he used to watch her unawares. She was too flattered to inform him that his surreptitious glances were far more obvious than he thought and she also knew he was too stubborn to admit that he knew it as well.

After picking up Isabela at the Hanged Man- "A lavish Orlesian spread and you wore pants?"- they made the short trek to the Gypsy camp. It was surprisingly busy; she saw Lady Elegant and Tomwise both perusing various reagents at one of the stalls as well as Meeran, who wore his typical I-think-smell-something-displeasing scowl. Merchants and buskers lined up around the perimeter of the camp, eager to relieve Kirkwall citizens of their hard-earned coin, but it wasn't until they entered the camp itself that the spectacle truly began.

There were stages, large colorful banners, huge silken tents, men dressed as fools, barkers trying to entice the crowd into entering and the passers-by to hand over their coin. There were animals displayed in cages- monkeys, tigers, bears, and a few wolves that looked distinctly unhappy about being there. She pushed them from her mind and set about searching for Io so she could return the diary and get out of this strange place.

Io was actually fairly easy to find, she even had a huge banner outside her tent that read, "Io- Palm Reader and Fortune Teller! The Legendary Seer of Rivain!" Though Hawke seriously doubted a fifteen-year-old could have garnered any sort of legitimate notoriety for being accurate or whatnot, she nevertheless collected her measly sum for the non-existent trouble of finding the journal. As she was exiting the girl's tent, she was nearly bowled over by a retreating Fenris, who looked pale and furious.

"Fenris, what…" she stammered.

He shook his head, staring furiously at the ground as he mumbled, "I must go. I will see you later."

"Fenris," she said again, reaching out to touch the disturbed elf's arm.

It was clearly the wrong move as Fenris physically ripped himself away from her, eyes darting nervously around as if to see if his behavior had been noticed by anyone other than her. It was unlike him to be so panicked and on edge; she knew the lyrium could behave strangely depending on his state of mind and had little doubt that whatever provoked this behavior from him must have sent his markings into agony. Maker, she felt uncomfortable just looking at him.

"Hey," she whispered softly, trying to regain his attention as though he were a spooked horse and not a sword-wielding paranoid. When his eyes slowly met hers again, she watched as he relaxed in an infinitesimal manner, smiling gently when she saw him calming slightly. "Hello," she murmured as she took hold of the delicate red scarf he'd wrapped around his gauntlet.

He closed his eyes and ducked his head down before dully replying, "Hello."

"What's wrong?"

"I do not…" he huffed in frustration before re-selecting his words, "I am uncomfortable here."

She shrugged casually and declared, "Then we'll depart."

"I…" and he trailed off, opening his eyes to stare into the distance for a few long moments.

She hadn't lied earlier, Fenris was a terrible bluff when the hand mattered to him. He needed to be alone, she understood, but couldn't ask it of her; after all, he was as much her protector as she was his.

Tugging a bit on the scarf, she cocked her head slightly and watched his expression soften a bit more- he'd confessed once after a reading lesson that her Mabari Hector often mimicked that expression. "Do you think you could drop into the estate and let Bodahn know I won't be home for supper?" she asked casually as she dropped her fingers away from the scarf on his wrist. "I'd hate for he and Orana to bother themselves cooking if no one will be there."

He smiled that peculiar little half-smile of his and nodded quickly. "Of course. I shall go now if you have no further need of me."

"Thanks." They both heard and understood the things neither said- her excuse for his departure and his veiled gratitude. Pressing her luck just a bit further, she asked, "Will you be meeting us at the Hanged Man tonight? Perhaps we could use your share from today to win back a little of your debt?"

"Perhaps." The smile that graced his face was easier than the last. "But do not wait on my account."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she quipped with a guileless smile that dropped the second Fenris disappeared from her sight. The menial chore of the missing diary having already been completed, she began the new task of discovering what spooked the elf so badly. Once he told her that during his flight south, he'd fallen in with a band similar to this one for a brief while but left because he found them to be too similar to the Dalish. He'd been completely fine with the idea of coming here so something about this caravan must have been unique.

She wandered through the little camp, seeing Anders looking pensively at some of the strange wares the gypsies had come across and Isabela leading two strapping strongmen into an isolated tent; she chuckled to herself at that. It was nice that some things never changed- hopefully Anders hadn't run low on his stocks of potions during Hawke's absence.

Moseying through the camp, she saw nothing that she imagined could have set Fenris so far on edge, even going so far as to eavesdrop on conversations to determine if anyone had some sort of news from Tevinter. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

It was as good a time as any to depart, she figured. All she'd need to do is find Anders- there was very little point in waiting around for Isabela to disengage from her threesome. Instead, she approached the tent the three lovers occupied, rolling her eyes when she heard a variety of moans and giggles, and announced loudly, "Isabela, we're heading back into Kirkwall! Have fun!"

"Oooh, Hawke. You know you could join us, you know," Isabela's lusty voice panted through the canvas. "Always room for one more."

Hawke smirked evilly to herself. Aveline had revealed on the way back that just prior to their Orlesian excursion a certain pantsless pirate had crashed a gala hosted by one of Starkhaven's visiting dignitaries and created an awful embarrassment for Sebastian and the Guard-Captain, not to mention Meredith, Cullen, and apparently herself as well. Now seemed like the perfect time for a little bit of payback.

"Come on, Isabela," she called loud enough to overpower the moans sounding from within the tent. "How long do you realistically think you've got before these two realize you're a man?"

All sounds immediately ceased. A bird cawed somewhere overhead. Distantly, she heard the barkers advertising their wares.

Then the quiet was broken with the "What?" from the astonished male voice within.

"Do these look manly to you?" Isabela called desperately. "She's joking, Willard!"

"Edward!" came the affronted male voice within.

"Whatever! Just…" There were sounds of hasty shuffling and shifting of fabric before the tent flap opened just enough for Isabela to pop her head out, lipstick smudged and looking irritated as well as immensely amused at the same time. "Not funny, Hawke!" she growled, unable to repress her giggles enough to indicate real anger.

"Hilarious," Marian corrected with a wide, happy grin.

A naked arm protruded from a new gap in the tent and pointed an accusatory finger at the apostate. "That was not nice, Hawke. That was very not nice. Now please try and remember what a nice, wonderful person you are and inform dear Edward and Jamal that I am all woman."

"After your rather creative stunt at the gala a last month, I'm certain you can think of a way to prove it to them."

"Hawke…" Isabela whined.

"You will write a letter of apology to the Starkhaven dignitary," Hawke ordered in a tone that left no room for bargaining.

"As soon as I am done here," the other woman agreed hastily before tacking on, "Come on, Hawke, don't be such a pill."

"Oh fine," Hawke muttered playfully before announcing, "She's all woman- possibly more woman than you two can handle. You'll have the time of your life." Isabela beamed as the mage added, "Happy now?"

"Very… oh! Cheeky man!" There was a sound of slapping flesh and Isabela quickly disappeared from the tent, almost as though she were bodily pulled. "See you tonight, Hawke!" her voice called quickly before whatever had been happening before her rather rude interruption started back.

In a bid to make a hasty retreat lest she become more awkwardly acquainted with the pirate and her new friends, she turned to find Anders standing almost directly behind her, arms crossed with a rather entertained smirk gracing his face.

He rolled his eyes at a particularly lusty shriek and mused, "I suppose that means I'll need to make up a new batch of the salve."

"Isabela and the Blooming Rose depleting your stock? Need a hand? We can head to the Hanged Man afterword."

"With my favorite apostate?" He chucked to himself, "Always."

They walked through the camp toward the exit passing the animals once again. Her attention momentarily captured, she smiled at the monkeys, chittering away and bouncing around in their confinement. One innocently reached from between the bars toward Anders, opening his black eyes widely and earnestly as he turned his palm up, silently begging for a treat. A pitiful, cooing sound escaped her and the pout that fell over her had Anders rolling his eyes and reaching into his pocket for a crush of bread and presenting it to the monkey. In a flash and a flurry of curses, Anders' bread was gone, as was his ring and a button from his cuff, swallowed into the primate's belly with a wide, toothy grin.

Laughter wracked Marian's body until she was practically propped up against Anders. "We could always wait for it to come out the other end," she offered at which point the other healer stepped away and let Hawke fall heavily onto her bottom, which only prompted her to howl harder, the monkeys joining in loudly as she struggled to catch her breath.

Anders was busy in his failed attempts at shooting her his best I-am-not-even-slightly-amused-with-you looks, which he'd never managed to accomplish to date, when he reached down and helped her back to her feet. An awkward placement of his boot had her tripping heavily back down but when she hit the ground on all fours and heard a low growl, her eyes immediately rose up to meet furious yellow and wicked sharp teeth.

Scrambling backwards until her back was pressed against Anders' shins, she watched in horror as the wolf lunged at the bars, snapping and snarling as it hurled it's massive grey body against the metal as though it meant to beat itself to death against this method of imprisonment. Warm hands caught her beneath her elbows and pulled her to her feet, allowing her to lean against a solid body as she watched this wretched display of rage and frustration. "Watch it, Marian," Anders warned as he helped prop her up. "A beast like that will tear your throat out if you get too close."

This wretched creature was going to kill itself if this kept up. Just as that thought rang so solidly through her mind, one of the caravan members blew a dark through the cage and into the wolf's neck; the beast howled, thrashing it's heavy head against the bars and the floor for nearly two minutes before it finally collapsed docilely, staring out at Hawke with one dilated pupil, thick tendrils of drool leaking from his maw. When she found her feet again and pulled away from Anders, his hands dropped away effortlessly; the necessity for physical contact had ended.

Anders' large hands hovered in the air surrounding her arms, seeming to notice her distress but unsure what measures to handle it would be appropriate. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm fine," she answered, smiling hesitantly until Anders' dropped his hands, but she couldn't shake the disquiet that fell over her with every strangled gasp of the animal before her. Maker, little wonder Fenris was so spooked- this sort of treatment was nothing short of barbaric.

"You're thinking of Fenris," Anders supplied gently.

She snorted, the unladylike sound perking the ears of the doped lupine for a moment before they settled back down. "Is it that obvious?"

"Well, you are more than a little transparent when it comes to him- at least to me, that is," he added almost as an afterthought before his hazel eyes regarded the drugged beast lying helplessly before them. His eyes softened, the ghost of blue flashing across them for a fraction of a second before he sighed, "You know, I think I've got enough of that salve to last me another few days. I haven't picked up all the necessary supplies for a new batch and I've got a few other potions I'm running a bit low on. How about we meet in the market tomorrow and then spend the day getting my stocks replenished?"

She sighed with a small smile, recognizing the same subtext she'd used with Fenris less than an hour ago being repeated back to her by Anders. "That sounds good," she answered. "To the Hanged Man then?"

"Fantastic," Anders announced joyfully with a heavy clap on her back. "You can drink and tell me about how the Choir boy liked Orlais and I just might tell you the location of the Seneschal's latest rash…"

Author's Notes- Hey there! It's been a while! Surgery went fine but real life proceded to kick me in the pants as soon as my recovery was completed. The next chapter of Nemesis has been sent off to the betas and should be posted shortly.

As always, massive thanks to BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus for giving this a looksee. Even bigger thanks for everyone's enduring patience and for everyone who takes the time to read and review!

He spent much time speculating on whatever her mission in Tevinter was. As a result of his restless thoughts, Fenris found himself volunteering for night's watch much more than his fair share. If he could occupy himself with an actual task perhaps he could actually manage to so something productive with his insomnia instead of simply lying awake and staring up at the night sky with only the soft snoring of his companions and his thoughts to keep him company.

It was also three weeks of weighted and painful silence- the very sort one could expect not when there was nothing to be said but rather there was an overabundance of it. While the absence of trivial conversation was usually something Fenris preferred, the heavy nature of the enforced quiet was not lost on any of them. It hung over the party like a dark weight on all their shoulders. Varric seemed unusually disinterested in conversation. Margot appeared to be utterly repulsed by the sheer idea of it. For how she'd campaigned for their acceptance into the camp, she gave all appearances of wishing Sebastian and Fenris banished from her presence- himself more so, though he couldn't rightly figure why.

"So, Margot," Sebastian had dared to ask during one particularly long stretch of highway. "Where are you from?"

"Ferelden then Nevarra before the Free Marches," came her blunt reply as she continued forward, seeming to consider the exchange finished. Little did she realize the prince was not so easily thwarted.

"You're well-traveled," Sebastian casually remarked, unwilling to let the conversation falter. "Was your father a merchant?"

"Wouldn't know. I never met him," she answered. Fenris heard Sebastian take a breath to ask another question when Margot sighed and elaborated. "He left when my mother told him that she was pregnant. That's all I ever knew about him."

Sebastian had the grace to look abashed, understanding that this line of questioning was doubtless hitting a sore part of the woman. "I'm sorry."

Margot stopped and turned on the prince, eying him curiously. "Why? Why should that bother you?" It was intriguing to watch the two tango, pushing whenever the other retreated. Perhaps the woman found herself fancying the priest. It certainly wasn't inconceivable. Sebastian was wealthy, intelligent, charming, and a crack-shot to boot. His continued bachelordom was due more to his pickiness than from a lack of appealing offers- some of the letters Sebastian received were downright pornographic in detail. A nobleman had petitioned for Sebastian to court his daughter and offered to throw in his other two when they came of age. The prince had the man bodily thrown out of the castle and sneered that pimping his daughters just made them whores, and he could easily procure one at the brothel for cheaper.

The archer considered his answer for a moment before responding. "My father may have been distant but at least he was there."

"My father found out my mother was pregnant, spent a week whoring it up at the Pearl, and then put himself on the next ship out of Denerim." She took a deep breath and toyed with the dagger at her side. "I prefer to think that was the best he had to offer. My mother had a long string of lovers. Worthless as they were, at least they pretended to care… more than she did at any rate. I took off at eleven and never looked back. Best lesson he ever taught me."

"You just… left?" Sebastian balked at the idea of a young girl setting off so young and appraised her curiously. "As a mere child?"

"You mean abandoned my glorious future as a barmaid in Denerim? Of course I did. I met Hervan and went to Nevarra; moved on when it was clear that was over. I settled into the Order after that. I liked it there."

Sebastian continued, "Why did you leave?"

"Because the Divine told me to murder my charges. It seemed as good a time as any to make an exit," she added with a laidback shrug, though Fenris could read the movement as being somewhat forced. That decision, it appeared, had not been quite as easy as she pretended. "I made my way east with a few other defectors and met Hawke. She got us lyrium, nursed us back to health, and we've been in the rebellion since."

"Do you wonder what would have happened if you stayed?"

"I didn't join the Templars to become the Chantry's attack dog."

"Why did you join?" the prince persisted.

Her eyes narrowed, hackles raised. "I fail to see how that's any of your business. It certainly wasn't to do the Divine's dirty work." This was apparently a delicate subject for the woman but Fenris found himself also curious as to her thought process that brought her to abandon the anchor she'd found in the Chantry.

And Sebastian, sensing the bruise in the conversation, stuttered, "I don't mean to intrude but…"

Margot cut him off, "Why did you join the Chantry? Hardly seems to be the princeliest of pursuits. Maybe I'm not the one with father-issues here."

Fenris caught himself beginning to smirk but forced the expression back- Margot certainly wasn't above aiming for the jugular that much was obvious. That jab, however, was a bit of overkill- there was little need to pull out a sword when a dagger would do the trick. It was a message, back off, stated more clearly than her words had been. Margot did not like talking about the circumstances that drove her into the Templars. Her absent father, her abusive mother- there was no difficulty for her to speak of them.

They weren't what she'd been running from, he realized. She'd been abandoned, abused, and subsequently shed her anchor and floated on to something different. No fault in that. He himself had also 'made an exit' so to speak once the gravity of the circumstances binding him to Danarius had found him. So what was it that drove a drifter such as she into a lifetime of pledged servitude?

"I had much to atone for," Sebastian answered after a moment.

Margot gave a wry half-smile and pulled a map out of her pocket to check their course. "It seems a lot of us end up there for that reason."

Margot glanced at him then and Fenris shared an odd moment of unity with the strange woman. There were debts each owed and for whatever reason, Margot left the Order when she considered the balance paid- when the Rite of Annulment was broadcast to the Circles- but she was disinclined to share further and Fenris understood that he and Sebastian weren't familiar enough for her to divulge such intimate knowledge.

Sebastian, too, seemed to understand this and left the rest of the long trek to silence. Fenris caught Varric staring at Margot's back curiously, undoubtedly filling in the gaps of her story with speculation or perhaps hearing something in her words that the elf had missed.

Absorbed in the process of construction, the Grey Wardens busied themselves with laying down brick and mortar to build a new stronghold perched rather precariously at the threshold of an entrance to the Deep Roads. Fenris had heard their ranks had been virtually wiped out in Ferelden but there was no evidence of diminished numbers here. It was peculiar though that this Oghren, a native to Orzammar, would have strayed so far from his home. Part of being a Grey Warden must have meant that one traveled wherever they were needed. A dwarf would certainly be helpful in constructing the necessary choke points at the cusp of the caves.

The Wardens openly gaped at their presence before quickly taking them to their de facto leader, who questioned their intentions with the group before gruffly directing them to the northeastern corner of the camp, saying only, "You'll find him at the still."

The still, as it was, was little better than a large copper vat teeming with something that made Fenris' eyes water. The dwarf stood a scant foot away, taking a ginger sip of the concoction from his giant spoon before haphazardly throwing in some herbs. The massive hammer clasped on his back warned that this likely wasn't someone they'd benefit from sneaking up on, so they stood several feet back and waited for the dwarf to acknowledge them.

Without turning on them, his gruff, gravel voice rang out, "You aren't Wardens."

Fenris couldn't resist the urge to ask, "What are you doing?"

"Brewing." The dwarf passed a thick calloused hand up to pull a soaked braided whisker into his mouth and tasting it thoughtfully. "Needs more clove," he mused to himself and opened his satchel to drop a few dark pellets into the pot. "They say it stinks but they sure as shit don't mind drinking me out of it. I've got to water it down for the little snowflakes, though. Tried giving them the real stuff and the Commander almost had my head when she woke up two days later. I had to defend this whole operation by myself- won't be making that mistake again, believe me.

"So a Templar, an elf, a human and a dwarf walk into a bar," he finished with a chuckle. "You'd think one of them would have seen it."

Sebastian was the first to regain his composure after the dwarf's strange monologue and asked, "Are you the Grey Warden they call Oghren?"

"They call me a lot of things- Drunky, Nug-Shit, Oh-Maker-Please-Stop-Murdering-Me-With-Your-Hammer," he replied, whipping the giant bejeweled hammer from his back with the same effort one might have wielded a feather before he growled dangerously. "Usually in about that order."

Sebastian shot a wary look at the rest of the group, unsure exactly what to expect from the man before them but mentally preparing for attack, fingers twitching toward the bow clasped upon his back. "So… you are not Oghren then?"

The dwarf ground out a chortle, which moved the red riot of his braided beard. "Oh they call me that too. Oghren happens to be one of my nicer names. I'm just not one for niceties."

Margot stepped forward then and straightened her spine to further accent the difference in their heights. "Oghren, we need your help," she spoke with a mixture of diplomacy and grave seriousness.

Oghren laughed and slumped his shoulders in a way that communicated that he didn't think he'd have any issues with her regardless of her stature. "And here I thought you wanted my brew or aimed to ask me about my glorious battles with the Many-Nippled Beasts of the Deep Roads. Listen sister, I'm not much for helping either unless the help you need involves alcohol or a hammer, preferably both."

"We're emissaries from the Mage Rebellion, Oghren," she ground out impatiently. Her tense demeanor made it abundantly clear the dwarf was rattling her and he seemed to delight in it. "We wanted to ask you a few questions."

"The Mage Rebellion?" He paused to let out a great belch that echoed through the woods and sent birds flying for safety. "I think your imminent destruction is a bit wester than here."

She eyed him in mild disgust and tried again. "We need your assistance."

"Grey Wardens are… shit, what do they keep calling us?" He refastened his hammer to his bolster and stroked his chin thoughtfully for a few moments before he snapped his fingers and beamed. "Apolitical. That's it. We fight Darkspawn and Blights. The Mage Rebellion? Not our problem, lady. You skirt-wearing freaks will have to duke it out on your own."

Margot huffed out a groan of frustration and struck back. "Look, we aren't asking you to fight with us. We just need some information about Justice and Anders. Think you could do that? Talk in full sentences?"

The mention of the subjects of their inquiries sparked the angry dwarf's full attention. "You mean Sparklefingers and the Eunuch? What about them?" Then the look was shuttered off and that malicious sneer overtook his half-obscured face once more. "Wait, scratch that. I don't think I want to know. You can leave now."

"But…"

"Don't know. Don't care," he declared and turned back to his brewing. "Won't even pretend to care. Everyone knows what Man-Skirt did in Kirkwall and I don't want a piece of it. I suggest you go."

Before the conversation could devolve further, Varric stepped forward and said, "Atrast nal tunsha."

Oghren went silent for several long moments before he turned back and whispered, "Now who the shit told you that?"

"The same eight-foot pile of stone that wanted me to tell you that sometimes people need to be kept from doing stupid things, even for good reasons," the beardless dwarf replied.

"That hunk of rock is still thundering around, eh?" he chuckled and took another sip of the brew. "Needs hemlock. These babies won't let me put it in. 'Oghren it's poison,' they say. Bunch of whiners."

"Oghren," Margot answered softly, "We desperately need your help."

"Oooh… desperation… now there's a scent I like on a woman."

"How about the scent of steel?"

"Now you're just being kinky."

Margot groaned loudly and turned her back for a moment. Apparently, Oghren was testing the all-too-shallow waters of her patience. "We know Anders and Justice were separate at one point," she growled. "We want to know how they joined."

Those words had the dwarf dropping his ladle back into the pot with a wide-eyed gape. "Joined?" he asked incredulously before staring down at the dirt in wonder. "Fuck, he really did it, didn't he?"

"Anders did what?" Fenris asked.

"Not Anders, Justice. He joined with a living host," the stout warrior explained as he reached for a flask resting on his hip and unclasped the cork. His demeanor had shifted from something cool and cruel to one that was clearly distressed. "Always knew you couldn't trust anything that came out the Fade. Justice was always, 'Never with a living host.' I guess he finally showed us," he finished with a long drink.

Fenris decided to press his luck. Since Oghren no longer appeared to hold the upper hand, perhaps they could extract some information before he righted himself. "Showed you what? Anything you can offer..."

"Listen here, I got a lot to offer if the lady wants to bend over… but what help do you think I've got for you?" Oghren inquired impatiently. "Justice vacated Kristoff once his corpse got too cold and found himself an idiot mage to host him instead. End of story."

"Who is Kristoff?"

"A dead Grey Warden. Some magic hullabaloo happened in the Fade and Justice found himself stuck in a dandy corpse. His wife was horrified."

Fenris felt his eyebrows inch toward his hairline as he considered the implications of what the dwarf had said. "You mean to say Justice has been in a corpse before?" he begged for the clarification. He'd heard of abominations before but never one controlling a vacant body. Had Hawke known about this? It stood to reason that Anders and Justice would have wished this information to be secret but with the ample time they'd spent with Marian… certainly she must have known.

The Warden's beady eyes narrowed. "What do you mean before?"

"Anders is dead… but he has regardless been remarkably busy," Fenris informed him.

Ignoring the elf's statement, Oghren stood completely still, seeming locked within his own thoughts, before finally declaring, "I think I need a drink." He stalked to a small chest next to his still and opened it to remove a few cups, dipping them into the brew and handing one off to each of them. "Bottoms up," he ordered before downing his cup and quickly refilling it.

Deciding now was as good a time as any to get sloppy-drunk at the behest of the Grey Wardens' resident brewmaster, Fenris took a sip. The brew was actually surprisingly pleasant, if a little strong, and he took a deeper drink after raising his cup approvingly to the dwarf. Only Sebastian failed to follow suit, eying the beverage in his hands warily as he offered it back with a mumbled, "I do not drink."

Oghren refused the cup and answered, "You do today."

"I don't mean to insult you…"

"You know what alcohol does?" Oghren inquired with an unveiled caustic acid on his tongue. "Loosens the brain. Lowers inhibitions. Pulls your guard down. I see a man who doesn't drink and I see a man who's afraid of the man he really is. So why should I trust a man who doesn't even trust himself? If you want to talk about Anders, you'd better man up."

Sebastian wasn't lying, Fenris hadn't seen the prince take a sip of alcohol beyond the occasional glass of wine in all the time they'd known one another. The archer had once confessed that he did not like the man he became when he was intoxicated. This left the elf wondering dismally if there was not some truth in the Warden's words; that perhaps a drunken Sebastian was someone who should be locked away and never seen or heard from again and that the prince, as he truly was, had to be greatly tempered with a thick sober bevel before anyone would deem him proper company.

But the dwarf had the lapsed priest up against a wall, so to speak. Fenris watched his friend's shoulders fall as he too realized that he'd have to make the concession if they wanted to gain the surly dwarf's assistance. Sebastian considered Oghren's words and raised his cup in a mock toast, declaring snidely, "Here's to the end of ten years sober. I hope whatever you have to say is worth it."

"I can't promise you that," Oghren answered his salute with one of his own, "But it should be damned interesting."

Sadistically waiting until the prince's first serving was finished, the Warden quickly refilled his cup and leaned heavily against a tree. "So I guess he really can't go back," he said finally, gazing into his cup as though he were pulling his words directly from it.

"What do you mean?" Sebastian retorted.

"I wasn't exaggerating when I said Justice was stuck," the dwarf explained. "I'd just hoped that dead blighter had made his way back into the Fade. But he's in Anders, eh?"

Sebastian nodded, "Yes."

"And he's dead now."

"That appears to be the case," Varric agreed with a serious nod as he took up a seat against a tree, settling in to temper the drink's effects.

"I liked Anders. Normally I'd swear you to secrecy or something but I guess that doesn't really matter anymore," Oghren told them. "He was a good drinking buddy and that Ser-Pounce-A lot got him more tail than just the cat's, if you take my meaning. When I heard what happened in Kirkwall something told me that Anders wasn't acting alone. I just didn't believe it. I certainly didn't think he could do something that insane on his own."

The sad and resigned look on the berserker's face had Fenris believing him- which directly conflicted with everything the elf had known about the abomination. "How so?"

"You've got to understand this about the mage," Oghren answered with a solemn drink. "Anders never wanted to fight a war. Anders just wanted to be free. He couldn't be bothered to clip his toenails for Circle mages, just didn't give a shit about them. If they wanted to escape, he figured they could do it on their own like he did. But Justice…" he trailed off, losing whatever forward momentum he'd had and letting the words fall flat and unspoken in the back of his damned throat.

Margot, understanding this stillness was a sign of vulnerability, gently pressed, "Justice what?"

"Justice was always needling him," Oghren huffed angrily. "He'd go on and on about the injustice of mages being oppressed. He called them slaves, called them prisoners, kept questioning how Anders could be so selfish to not attempt to help his kind. Towards the end, I thought he was actually starting to get through to Sparky. Then Kristoff dropped dead… well, deader… and Anders took off. We all figured that was the end of it. Never crossed my mind those two would join up."

This portrait of the abomination was completely different from the monster he'd known in Kirkwall. The mage had harped and yowled and bitched about oppression from the moment he'd made their acquaintance. "Anders has been a extremist as long as we've known him," Fenris told him.

Oghren stared up at the group, looking strangely gloomy and earnest. "Then you never knew him," he muttered into his drink. "I don't know who you think he was but I can tell you he wasn't Anders."

"We need someone who can help make sense of this," Sebastian declared, valiantly struggling against his treacherous, slurring tongue. "Will you come with us?"

"Yeah," he answered sadly and dropped his small metal cup back into his trunk. "I think I will."

Sebastian's subsequent rapid downward spiral into intoxication meant they couldn't move from the Grey Wardens' encampment until morning. Fenris found himself generally unconcerned with the half day of travel lost. From what Shale had told them, he'd actually prepared for a much longer stay while they attempted to convince Oghren to accompany them back to the heart of the rebellion. When he'd asked if the dwarf needed to check with his superiors before leaving, he'd simply snarled that if the Wardens wanted his presence they could come get him whenever they found the stones to try and fetch him.

They set up their bedrolls, save the prince who simply collapsed to the dirt and swatted away any attempts to move him, and settled in for the evening. Feeling unusually at ease, the elf propped himself against a tree and tried distracting himself with a book but the letters were all swimming before his eyes as though he were literally trying to read them through the drink he'd imbibed. He caught occasional words like home, fidelity, honor, and pride before he finally came to the conclusion that reading was going to cause more disquiet than simply sitting silently would similarly plague him. So he rested and stared blankly at the pages he failed to clear, using the book as a shield against further conversation.

All of them were circled around the still as though it was a campfire staving off the harsh night. Oghren lost himself in his cup, giggling at his own half-mumbled jokes. Varric was scribbling something, Fenris did not know what nor did he care to know how the merchant could place his utensil to parchment so decidedly after such heavy drink. Margot just sat back in the same cool silence he'd come to expect as normal for her.

He found himself strangely liking Margot, which was unusual since she seemed not to care a jot for him. She had the same practical logic he'd respected in Aveline and, much like the aforementioned Guard-Captain, a very guarded demeanor. However, whereas Aveline's careful distance had been a mark of her authority, the distinct impression he got was that Margot's aloof persona was the result of having been perpetually disappointed by every institution she'd ever attempted to find shelter in. He could relate to that. He too had seen his fair share of corruption. He found himself pondering the woman's sleek and narrow nose, her high cheeks… before uncomfortable thoughts brought themselves back around. Margot reminded him ever so slightly of…

Hadriana….

It hurt to think of her but that vessel of ignorance and denial had departed years ago, long before he'd found her on the Wounded Coast. Wounded, he chuckled silently to himself now at how appropriate the place he'd ended her reign over him had truly been. Maybe now was the time to finally see it off. He'd already faced her as the monster she'd become, perhaps it was time instead to face the ghost she continued to be- years away from where he'd killed her, a lifetime away from his memory of her as she'd once been.

He steeled himself as the memory of her, fresh faced and wide-eyed as she'd been the day she'd first come into Danarius' home, entered his mind. He usually tried valiantly not to think of her. She'd tainted enough in his life. As much as he hated to admit it- as desperately as he wanted to deny it- the apprentice had actually been kind at the start, sneaking him food and stealing into the store rooms to chat with him deep into the night. Hadriana had once been an idealist, proclaiming her desire to use her breeding to better the world. Nothing had ever happened beyond their secret conversations, he'd always had the distinct impression that she was a slave as well- not as a possession to Danarius but to the expectations of Imperial society. In the end Danarius needn't lift a finger to rip them apart. She'd done it on her own.

He remembered once she'd told him about a trip to the Free Marches, where she'd seen this mystical thing called snow. "Ice!" she'd exclaimed to him in childlike wonder, "Falling from the sky itself! No magic or anything. It's just so cold that ice falls from the sky instead of rain down there! Is that not amazing?"

In his first winter in Kirkwall, he'd been locked in his mansion when the first flakes fell from the sky. He'd gone to the roof and watched it with rapt attention. The passers-by on the road below bitched about the cold, wrapping themselves tightly in their coats and struggled to remain on their smooth-soled shoes. After a few hours, he'd gone to Lowtown, fully intent on visiting the Hanged Man, when his cold feet took him instead to the Alienage. He watched the children in the Alienage make weeping snowmen with haphazard grey faces and found himself enchanted.

"That's nothing," Marian voiced called behind him. He turned with guilty shock to find himself faced with her wry, challenging grin- the mage completely unaware of his conflicting thoughts. "You should see winter in Ferelden. Our snowmen are pure white and they don't melt till spring. We used to dress ours up for months! Carver made small armies of them. Bethany and I would make them fight."

Though he had a hard time picturing Hawke as a child then, he nevertheless chuckled at the idea of her and her sister manipulating a small ice army for the amusement of their brother.

He sighed and thought of Hadriana again. Slowly, as corruption typically was, he'd seen the potential for power twist that sweet girl into something ugly and wicked and terrible; leaving her a sadistic torturer of an entirely different sort. She knew his confusion, knew his heart and his mind so much better than his master… and in the end she'd warped her affection into hatred and hounded him at each and every turn. She beat him, tortured him, starved him, and hated him. Evil was not born- it was made. Hadriana, sweet and pretty Hadriana, had been a perfect example of that.

He knew Hadriana's descent into the abyss had colored his feelings for Marian, had made him wait for the inevitable spiral that never seemed to come. But for the first time he wondered how many of those misgivings the apostate had actually earned. The years with Hadriana had poisoned him longer and deeper than anyone could ever know. Thinking about the parallels between Hadriana and Marian always left him feeling a bit sick- so he avoided it.

Marian was not Hadriana… but still he wondered with an unthinkable clarity how many times the sparrow would have to prove it before he'd truly believe it. How far would she have to go before he could stop waiting for the other boot to come down on his neck?

It was the thought of Marian that had made him kill her. She never said the word, never demanded or commanded it- never even known. She'd simply offered him the promise of something infinitely better. He'd killed Hadriana for Marian, purged one senseless obsession for another, destroyed a vital piece of his past to procure a future that he'd throw away for three damned years, gain for a week, then furiously toss away again, then fixate upon once more for over a year.

Margot caught his gaze and he realized far too late that he'd been staring rather openly at her, though his thoughts had been focused in the rather distant elsewhere. She shot him a wry smirk before movement in his peripheral vision movement startled them both out of the moment. Sebastian stumbled to his feet and staggered over to him, head bobbing as though he were trying to track the movement of some pesky fly though his eyes remained glued to the elf.

The archer had a distinctly green pallor about him, making Fenris speculate if the prince needed some assistance. That thought was lost in the slurred words of, "I need to talk to you."

Margot giggled slightly to herself as the prince stumbled over to Fenris. "We can talk tomorrow. You are astonishingly drunk," Fenris told him gently as he set down his book, rising to help his friend wander back to a proper bedroll where he could sleep it off in relative comfort.

But Sebastian shrugged away from his attempt to steady him, shaking his head as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. "Would you have abandoned her if I hadn't done it first?"

So it was this conversation. He'd known it was coming although had hoped the lapsed Brother would have allowed him more time to prepare for it… or at the very least attempted to have it in relative privacy. "I cannot say," Fenris answered softly as he tried to ignore the others as their attention came to them. "But I can say that the cards as they have fallen are most disconcerting. I can see similar paths that I may have taken, influenced by but not entirely directed by you."

Sebastian made a frustrated sound, clearly displeased with the elf's unusually diplomatic non-answer. "But would you have taken up your sword against her?" Sebastian persisted, swaying dangerously on his feet towards the still, then away, then back to it once more.

It was the very sword she'd given him. He'd called it ironic then but Irony hadn't visited him in truth until the Gallows when he took up her gift to him and battled her with it. Sebastian hadn't thought to take it with him and for that at least Fenris had been grateful. If his eyes had found it when he'd first awakened, Fenris wasn't sure he wouldn't have simply fallen upon it to end the story he'd foolishly embarked upon with Marian.

Fenris instead placed his hands on the other man's shoulders to hold him in place and replied patiently, "I cannot say for certain that I would have. I also cannot say that I would not have. It is not the past we need concern ourselves with- we've both clearly failed in some capacity there- it is the future we need concern ourselves with now."

"She avenged my family," Sebastian slurred miserably and looked up at him with a strange wetness in his eyes. "She brought honor back into their senseless murders."

So it seemed the priest was an overly passionate drunk and intoxication brought about some fantastic urgency to level his emotions. Great. "Marian is a rational, forward-facing creature, Sebastian," the elf explained as he desperately tried to herd Sebastian away from the prying eyes of their companions, to at least let him wake with a semblance of dignity he'd doubtless lose if he had a drunken meltdown in front of everyone. "If that hasn't changed then you can expect a conversation with her at least."

Sebastian gazed up at him with wide eyes that reminded him solely of Hawke and replied, "And you?"

Hadriana at the height of her innocence had never looked so dauntless. "She and I need to speak. That much is obvious," he answered instead.

"And what would you say to her?"

He weighed the question heavily in his mind. What could he say? Did he want her to stay with her furious devotion and fiery countenance or did he want her to retreat safely away from his reach forever? Should he monitor her, could he monitor her? Did he even want to?

"I do not know," he replied slowly. "I suspect I will not know until the time comes for it to be said." He sighed and once more tried to manipulate the prince away from the group.

Thwarted again by unsteady arms pushing him away, Fenris found himself growing increasingly impatient. "Why did you leave her?" Sebastian asked.

The elf was startled by the question, thinking the alcohol had made his companion forget the conversation they'd literally just had. "The same reason you did."

"No. I mean before," Sebastian clarified. "You had her. How could you leave her that way?"

Fenris felt each set of eyes shift back to him, bringing him once more into the hated center of attention. Even Oghren had heaved himself away from his drink and taken notice of them. "Everything happened so quickly," he mumbled as quietly as he could- although the rapt silence of their cohorts meant they likely still heard his response. "I was a coward, I admitted that much to her."

"And what did you do instead?" the prince huffed angrily as he turned on his friend, face twisting into an uncharacteristic sneer. "You brooded over her every day, made it clear to her in every possible manner how you suffered for her."

Fenris backed away from the man, the slap of his words ringing shame straight through him. Had it been that obvious? He'd attempted to back out gracefully, had even considered leaving Kirkwall permanently… then Leandra had been killed and he'd felt he had no choice but to return in her hour of need. He never found the strength to consider leaving again. "What is it to you?" he retorted, feeling his anger rise up.

"Why don't you admit it? You left because you have nothing to give her and you left her with all the compassion you'd have given one of your whores at the brothel." Sebastian attempted to punctuate his words with a shove but his intoxication had him instead staggering backwards as the elf refused to back down.

The comparison of Hawke to the various women he'd paid and bedded in the last year had him seeing red. "You are drunk," Fenris spat heatedly, "and I am not having this discussion with you now."

"At least when I realized I had nothing to offer, I left her alone," the archer slurred, spitting his words in a fury. "Even Anders begged her off. But not you. Not you, Fenris. You just couldn't leave her be. You just could not tell her no and let her move on."

The gravity not of the prince's words but the unspoken sentiment behind it went through him like a shockwave. He remembered the prince and the apostate chuckling together, recalled the archer escorting her to various Society functions to fend off the ruthless advances of her potential suitors, replayed for the first time the way Sebastian had mooned at her as they walked together through the Hightown market. Sebastian, it seemed, had not been as unaffected by Marian's casual flirting as he'd let on.

That realization tempered the rage that had been building. This wasn't an attack on Fenris; it was a defense of Marian- a defense the archer had been harboring and repressing for well beyond this last year. "She is a difficult woman to say no to," Fenris mused quietly.

"Aye. That she is," Sebastian agreed with a distracted chuckle. "That she is."

With a feeling very much like pity, he asked, "If you wanted her, why didn't you say anything to her?"

That statement ripped Sebastian away from his amusement and back into the full brunt of his anger. "And what could I have given her? Brought her into the Chantry and given her what? A chaste marriage?" He laughed bitterly and gave the elf a shove, his ire managing to stagger the elf for a brief moment, before he shouted, "She's not a chaste woman, Fenris! You know that firsthand!"

"If you wanted her and said nothing, you hardly have me to blame," the elf spat.

"I did not want her, not that way, not trapped in something that would make her miserable. I wanted her to be happy. I thought she could have that with you. It has become abundantly clear that I was mistaken." The archer glared at the disgraced Templar with a withering sort of disdain. "She would have been better off if you had left her alone."

Fenris brought himself up to his full height and glared down at the slouching sovereign. "So then why did you send me to meet with her?"

"I certainly wasn't expecting you to bed her!"

Any reply Fenris could have supplied was cut off with a feminine gasp, which drew the attention of the group. Margot was staring at Fenris with a look lingering somewhere between disbelief and deep hurt. "She… she slept with you?" the woman asked in soft torment.

Bewilderment held the elf for only a minute before the realization hit Fenris harder than any weapon ever could have as he regarded Margot. The men in the group, excepting Fenris, all exchanged long looks as they all came to the same conclusion he had. Fenris, kept his eyes planted firmly on the woman as he frantically assessed the information she'd just revealed. Margot and Marian were apparently much closer than the guarded woman had let on and perhaps Hawke had been in the process of moving on before they'd haphazardly swung at each other that cold night.

Fuck.

"Yes," Fenris answered hesitantly as he turned to face her, hating himself as he saw her flinch almost imperceptibly against the word. "In the Frostback Mountains. I was the Templar she met there."

Margot's head fell, letting her blonde hair conceal her anguished face. "I forgot… I needed to…" the woman attempted to articulate a graceful escape for only a moment longer before uttering a simple, "Excuse me," and rose to make a quick retreat into the woods.

Sebastian dropped to a sitting position, eyeing the cauldron of alcohol that had helped to bring about this painfully awkward exchange as though he wished to drown himself further within it. Varric was similarly still, his quill still perched upon the paper. The ink was bleeding through, ruining whatever manuscript he'd been writing.

"Wow Broody," the dwarf said finally. "You turned her off to men entirely."

"Do you think this funny?" Fenris growled and nervously raked a hand through his hair. "Is this is your idea of some sort of sick joke?"

"No. I can't say I find any of this particularly funny," Varric admitted sadly, crumbling up his parchment and tossing it into the fire. "Margot's a good woman. Hawke never gave any indication that they were…"

Sebastian cut in with a slurred, "Should someone go talk to her?"

Oghren chimed in with a shake of his head, Fenris had forgotten the Warden's presence until he'd had a mind to speak. "I wager that if she wanted to talk, she'd still be here. I've pissed off my fair share of women and I know this- when they walk away, let them come back on their own."

"And how many times have you been married?" Varric asked.

"Enough to know I should have let the first bitch walk away," Oghren declared darkly as he served himself another round. "You pour it in and it all pours out, doesn't it?"

They all sat in uncomfortable silence. Fenris realized why Margot had seemed so distant. It hadn't been simply because he and Sebastian had betrayed her friend. She'd known Fenris was a rival for her lover's interest. She had, he realized dismally, been insulating herself from further hurt. Hurt that he'd unwittingly delivered when he stole her lover.

A woman, he kept thinking selfishly… and he knew it was selfish. He had no claim upon Marian but felt nevertheless painfully inadequate. Marian had taken to bed with a woman. She'd turned away Isabela's brazen advances, turned away countless offers from men and women alike. Had so much changed? Was everything so vastly and irrevocably different?

He came to the abrupt and uncomfortable conclusion that it was not- not for him at any rate. Whatever plagued his mind needed to be dealt out and Marian Hawke held all the cards. Somehow, that assertion didn't shake the weird flipping of his stomach as he considered Marian and Margot together, pictured Marian's tongue slipping over a taut female body, imagined her coiling around Margot's steady frame, mouth open… wanting… hands caressing… He shook his head hard, trying to purge those images from his mind.

As if reading his thoughts, Varric muttered dryly, "Isabela is going to have a field day with this."

If the silence from the trip there had been awkward, then the quiet that hovered over them all on the hike back was downright oppressive. The first day had been treacherous; the remnants of alcohol making the group sluggish save for Oghren, who Fenris suspected had escaped the wretchedness of a hangover by continuing to be drunk. It was difficult to resist the urge to join him.

Margot had not come back before he'd fallen asleep. He'd awakened in the morning with a blistering headache to find the woman haphazardly throwing her belongings into her pack and breaking down their camp. When he'd attempted to speak with her she simply huffed, "Don't. Just don't."

He'd dropped the issue. Pressing her on this was only going to make matters worse. He positioned himself as far from her as he safely could, hoping the physical distance could be some sort of peace offering between them. At times he thought he could feel her staring at him but refused to look back. Even though he knew he hadn't personally betrayed the woman, he regardless felt incredibly culpable for his part in it. Guilt was familiar, an old enemy to meet and exchange blows with when it reared its ugly head. He just couldn't bring himself to fight it now.

He was relieved, relieved, when they finally entered the perimeter of the mages' campsite. That respite was quickly ripped away when a man quickly found them, the cloth of his Templar uniform tattered and ripped but the metal shining and oiled.

"Patrols found a Templar wandering in the woods, said he was looking to arrange a meeting between his outfit and the rebellion," he announced nervously to the group, although it was abundantly apparent that his words were intended solely for Margot.

"That's promising," the woman replied seriously. It was like the nerves and the awkwardness of their journey had melted away in a matter of seconds as she straightened her spine and regarded her associate. "They're usually not after us for conversation. Where is he?"

The Templar eyed the group warily, debating with himself no doubt, before he leveled with them. "Carver has kept this man tied up and under heavy guard for almost two weeks."

"Two weeks?" she asked curiously. "What's Carver had to say about it?"

"He's not saying anything. He hasn't let anyone speak with him- just goes in there alone for hours to interrogate him." The man stepped closer to Margot, sending long looks for possible eavesdroppers. "People are starting to talk, wondering if the camp is safe anymore."

He and Sebastian had been held captive as well. It had been because they were considered untrustworthy. Margot had made it pretty clear that people seeking to assist the rebellion were questioned, vetted, and released into the camp or dumped into the forest with a relative quickness. That could only mean one thing- Carver viewed this man as an enemy. It was strange, though, that Carver refused to acknowledge that with the rest of his group. This did not sit well with Fenris. The younger Hawke was bad with secrets so he must have been asserting his authority to keep the others at bay.

"If the camp were in danger, Carver would have moved it," Margot rationalized.

"But why hasn't he permitted anyone to talk to him?"

"That's a good question," she admitted before giving the Oghren a quick come hence gesture. "If you could see our guest settled, I'll get to the bottom of this. Where is he?" Oghren shrugged rather indifferently, shifting to move toward the Templar.

"With Merrill," the man answered as he took ahold of Oghren's pack and hefted it onto his own back, groaning loudly as he realized the weight of it was far greater than he'd anticipated. "They're looking for herbs to forage. I do not like this Margot."

"I'll get you some answers Perry," she assured him. Once they were out of the man's earshot, she shot a quick glance to Varric. "Carver's usually pretty forthcoming about anyone coming into camp. This is strange behavior for him."

"What do you think it means?" the dwarf asked with equal hush.

"Even if he were a spy, Carver would have warned us," she reasoned as her eyes began scouring the ground. "He might have some sensitive information."

"Sensitive?"

She didn't bother looking up from the earth when she answered, "The single thing that's kept us safe has been that nobody knows everything. Even my knowledge has been limited to the goings-on in three camps in the region. It keeps the damage at a minimum if anyone is compromised. After the rebellion was split into cells, only Carver and Marian were entrusted to know the movements of them entirely. I doubt even Merrill could tell you where all the bases are and she and Carver are practically attached at the hip."

She ducked down and examined a set of tracks on the ground before commenting, "Boots and bare feet. This is them. Someone really needs to show them how to cover their tracks," she heaved a weary sigh as she began following them. They'd been walking less than a few minutes when voices, a soft tither and an elegant tenor, came through the trees.

"Carver," Fenris heard Merrill's voice chime softly, "We cannot keep him here indefinitely."

Good, it seemed everyone was on topic even if Merrill and Carver weren't exactly aware of it.

"He hasn't told us anything," Carver answered back. Fenris lightened his footsteps, hoping to hear a bit more as they edged nearer. The others followed suit in near perfect harmony.

Merrill sighed softly. "Have you considered that he might not know anything?"

"Is that what you think?"

"No," she answered. "He clearly knows something. But unless you're willing to use more drastic measures…"

"If he's from Wycome then he's got to know something," Carver retorted with a frustrated huff. "We can't just turn him loose on the camp."

Just as Fenris caught the two of them in his sight, Merrill leaning against a tree calmly while Carver paced a scant two feet away, Varric called, "Talking about your new prisoner?"

Carver and Merrill jolted from their private conversation, Varric's voice shocking them apart. The younger Hawke, looking guilty, averted his eyes while his paramour beamed, "You're back!"

Margot ignored the giddy elf and asked, "What's going on with this prisoner you've been hiding?"

"Nothing," Carver replied bluntly as he kicked at an invisible stone on the ground. "I just want to ask him a few questions."

"Seems his guards think you've had ample time to ask them," Margot pressed. Moving toward the boy, she set herself directly in front of him and asked, "What's going on here Carver?" in a tone that heavily suggested that arguing would not be an option.

Carver bowed his head down, staring pensively at Margot's left shoulder. After nearly a minute, Merrill spoke instead. "You have to tell them."

"Tell us what?" Margot demanded gently.

Carver used his hand to cover his face for a moment before snaking his fingers into his hair and massaging his scalp. "I haven't been completely honest with you," Carver stuttered, trying to catch his words and shape them properly before his mouth just spit them out carelessly. "When my sister went to Minrathous, she traveled through the port at Wycome. She was supposed to meet up with a group of mages there, get a guide, and direct the mages into one of the eastern encampments. When Isabela told me she was going, I sent word for the others to expect them."

Margot pulled a confused face, asking, "And?"

"They never showed up," Carver struggled to say. "When I checked into it we learned that Marian got off the ship but never returned." He faced Sebastian and Fenris then, explaining, "That's why you found us at Anders' camp- we were scouting it, trying to establish if he'd somehow taken her when you and your men blew the area sky high."

"Wait, so Hawke is missing?" Sebastian balked.

Missing. Though he'd mastered the Common tongue ages ago, Fenris still played that word over and over in his mind, thinking there must be some definition that he didn't know. Marian Hawke could not be missing. It felt like he'd just seen her a few days ago, fleeing into the masquerade. He'd lost her then… now it seemed she'd lost herself as well. Maybe the festival was still going, he thought wildly as he willed his stomach to stop churning, maybe she was still in that crowd… maybe she simply didn't want to stop dancing.

Carver nodded, unaware of Fenris' panicked inner-dialogue. "That appears to be the case."

Fenris shook his mind free of the terrible loop it had fallen into and stuttered, "You didn't think we needed to know?"

"Personally, I don't think much of either of you," Carver sneered, taking comfort once more in his dislike of the elf.

Margot interrupted before Fenris could say anything further. "Could they have been taken by the Wycome Templars?"

"It seems unlikely," Carver answered quickly, having clearly considered this already. "If she was captured or killed we would have heard something by now. Too many people are interested in her. But if something happened in Wycome, these Templars might at least know something about it."

"If they weren't behind it," Merrill inserted as she stepped closer to her paramour. "I don't like this Carver. We should release him and move the camp."

He turned to her and murmured, "Not until we know more. Worst case, we find out the mages are dead, pack up, and move on. Best case, we find some new allies, Marian could even be with them."

"You cannot seriously think that's the case," Margot retorted, drawing the warrior's eyes away from his lover. "She would have contacted us."

"If she's a prisoner, she may not have had the chance. It explains how they got so near to camp."

"You just said you think that is unlikely. Most of the people looking for us are not our allies," Margot coldly pointed out with the same wretched logic that echoed with Fenris.

"No. But you can't deny that we need more of them," Carver offered weakly. "Marian got lost in Wycome. These Templars are from Wycome. They're our only lead."

Margot nodded and answered, "So I'll go…"

"No, someone needs to mind the camp and I don't trust anyone else here. I'll go," Carver interrupted. "They want to meet with me alone. He's said that much."

"Absolutely not!" Merrill balked and withdrew as if flabbergasted that he even considered this to be an option. Oddly enough, Fenris agreed with her. This reeked of a trap and sending one of the rebellion's leaders- and one Margot had just confessed knew more than any others save for his absent sister- into questionable territory was unforgivably foolish.

Carver reached for her and whispered, "Merrill…"

She swatted his hand away, aiming a single slender finger into his face and telling him, "I'm putting my foot down. If you insist on placing yourself in danger, you are not going alone, Carver.

"Merrill…" he offered and attempted to grasp her wrist to bring her accusatory finger back down.

She shook him away once more and murmured, "This isn't a single Templar you're meeting, this is a group. I will not budge on this."

"We've got one of theirs…"

"I said no!" she warned dangerously, setting her mouth in a grim line. "This is not open for discussion."

The dynamic between the two, amusing as it was to see the whimsy elf bullying about the brute, was also a little heartwarming. He actually found himself rather liking the bossier, protective Merrill. Carver, whipped as he was, seemed to sense that he this was a battle not worth fighting and acquiesced to her conditions with a defeated nod.

Marian was missing and as the last person present to have seen her in their small group, he felt an unshakable desire to find her once more. If she were being held captive, rescuing her was not even an option as far as he was concerned. He owed her that- owed her much more than that. Perhaps it could even begin to heal some of the wounds between them.

"I will accompany you," Fenris found himself saying. "If you're thinking about converting a few allies, I could make a good argument for switching sides. If it's a trap, I will not need a sword to fight them." He omitted that he, too, was extremely curious as to the whereabouts of a particular blue-eyed apostate. It was safe to assume everyone knew that.

Sebastian offered quietly. "As the sovereign of Starkhaven, my presence should cause them to think twice before trying anything unless they're prepared to swallow an army. I shall accompany you as well if you'd like."

"Well, I'm going," Varric chimed in casually. "Hawke will kill me if something happens to you."

"I'm going," Merrill added before shooting a look at Carver as if daring him to deny her.

Carver shook his head and touched the backs of his fingers to her face. "Merrill…"

"You need a mage," Merrill explained. "If something goes wrong you need someone who can get word back to camp."

"Then I'll take another mage. Merrill, you haven't fought since Kirkwall." The boy heaved another sigh when his lover shook her head stubbornly. "This could be dangerous," he tried once more.

"I can take care of myself. I've lost my clan. You and Marian are my only family now. I won't lose you both," she assured him, choking a bit on her last words as her eyes misted over. "Either you'll take me with you or I'll follow on my own but make no mistake ma vhenan, I am going."

Carver eyed Merrill warily, assessing the sincerity of her threat, before he gave an unhappy grunt. "Fine," he conceded, "but we stay together. No one splits off. No one goes anywhere alone, especially you."

"Thank you," Merrill breathed a sigh of relief.

The young Templar gave her an extremely irritated glare and answered, "I am not happy about this. Make no mistake, if you cannot follow orders I will club you over the head and drag you back to camp myself."

"Promise?" Merrill smiled then and giggled a bit at the imagery. "I can agree to that."

Carver grinned then as well, her satisfaction temporarily causing him to lose sight of his anger. "Alright then. They're holed up in an old fort about a week east of here."

Margot scowled, unwilling to disguise her displeasure at being left behind but understanding her rank in the pecking order left her little choice. "If we receive any word from your sister, I'll notify you."

"Until we know more, that Templar is a prisoner, not an ally," Carver warned her. "If you haven't heard anything from us within two weeks then dump him, pack up camp, and move. We'll find you again."

"Be safe," she muttered and dropped her pack to the ground to rifle through it. After a few moments, she produced several handfuls of what appeared to be smoke bombs and passed one off to each of them. "If you get even a whiff of danger drop a few of these and get out of there. Cover your nose and hold your breath until you're clear of the smoke. You should have about an hour before they come to."

The boy's eyes snapped open and he gaped, "An entire hour?"

"Marian made them- some kind of old Antivan secret recipe," she explained with a simple shrug. "We don't have the supplies to make any more of them right now. Consider them a last-ditch escape plan."

"Ancient Antivan secret, huh?" Carver released a warm chuckle as he examined the devastating packet in the palm of his hand. "Big sister," he smiled to himself, "what have you been up to?"

End of Chapter 13

Next Chapter

Author's Notes- I know. I'm a stinker. I'm a huge stinker.

Side note, I've got another knee surgery coming up at the beginning of December (same problem, opposite knee). I once again make the promise that I will try to use my convalescence to pound out some more writing but… well… Percocet is a hell of a drug. *shrug* So expect a slight delay in the next posting to be followed up with a boatload of action once I get back on my feet.

How was he even supposed to process this? A few minutes, hours, perhaps even centuries would likely not provide him with any answers- Maker, he just needed time to think and he found himself cursing at that singular compulsion; he always needed time… always needed time and more time because more time always postponed the requirement of making an actual choice. His past choices were plagued with poor judgment- Varania's haunting words in Kirkwall had proved his preference for inertia was not entirely unfounded.

"You wanted it," her voice called from somewhere deep within his mind, echoing through that filthy bar an entire lifetime ago. "You competed for it."

The words niggled themselves into his ears, neither wanted nor completely unexpected. From everything he'd managed to glean from his past before his escape- before he'd stumbled blindly into the Free Marches where a set of bad directions from a mercenary had pointed him into the City of Chains… and a scared dwarf had led him to Marian and subsequently into the very conundrum he'd found himself- there was a pattern he'd woven throughout his life, peppered with an apparently long history of making terrible decisions.

His intentions to free his family were founded within a system that systematically exploited and destroyed his people, which was, now that he truly considered it, one of the stupidest decisions he could have possibly made. The gravest error being his willing sacrifice of both his body and soul for the opportunity to play the lab rat in an untested experiment under a man that was more sadist than scientist.

And in the end he'd won the lyrium that eventually granted his freedom and his future but he'd paid the cost- his past. His entire life before he'd awakened naked and chained, screaming bloody murder as the lyrium was gouged into his skin- simply gone. Perhaps forever.

Only the Maker knew how dearly he had paid. He certainly didn't.

But at least in the end, he'd seen to it that Danarius and Hadriana paid too with the mere end of their lives instead of the entirety of it; and he, ever the fool, believed that was where he could claim his freedom. Now there was just an ill feeling laid deep in his stomach, and he wondered if what he'd found instead was just another form of slavery. Killing them did not make it better. Killing Danarius was akin to slapping a tourniquet onto a neck wound- it would certainly stop the bleeding but he risked his head if he didn't seek another treatment. That solution was destined to fail- at least that's what the Chant told him… that the only noble murder was one done with compassion instead of anger, a mercy committed for love instead of hatred.

Marian… what have you done?

But the words were unspoken and she wasn't there to answer so the question just echoed through his mind, bouncing within his skull as he tried to reconcile the Marian who had murdered Anders with the Marian who had ceaselessly defended him- and quickly found himself at the onset of yet another headache that betrayed no hope of ceasing.

The clanking shuffle of armor drew Fenris from his dark thoughts in time to hear Carver snarl, "Answer me! Why did she lie, Varric?"

The dwarf sighed and began massaging his temples with his stubby fingers. "I can't say for sure but if I were to take a guess, I'd say she was scared. You two hadn't been on speaking terms for twelve hours when she killed him. I found her when I went to say goodbye. She was devastated."

Sebastian chose that moment to interject with a simple question. "Devastated?" His fingertips were pressed into steeples against his forehead as bright eyes caught the dwarf's gaze and held it with concerned inquisition- acting the prince once again, it seemed. No, Fenris realized as he noticed as he caught Sebastian tapping his heel against the ground, not simply a haughty prince- the human was nervous, extremely nervous about the inevitable rebuke that had to be coming shortly.

"He was her friend, Choir Boy," Varric quickly snapped, shooting a hateful glare towards Fenris and the prince that neither had ever been privy to before. It was a shriveling sort of hatred the dwarf bestowed upon them… that resentment was not lost on Fenris as being somehow undeserved at least as far as Varric was concerned. "How do you think you'd feel if you had to kill a friend of yours?"

Without a pause that would have allowed the beat of a single breath or even the edge of confliction to pollute him, the prince growled, "I'd feel better than I would if I'd allowed him to live having committed such an atrocity."

"Well good for you," the dwarf spat and rose as he stepped closer, letting his abbreviated trench coat flare around him like the impending storm. "Pity for her that Anders wasn't just a friend- he was her confidante, her teacher. He was practically a brother to her, damned near a father." Varric leaned closer, inching into the Starkhaven regent's personal space and coaxing the fabric of his jacket to settle into an imposing cut that amplified the nasty sneer that overtook his face. "How about your brothers or your father, Choir Boy? You think you could have stuck a knife in your dear daddy and been perfectly all right?"

And Varric crept closer still, using the same menacing demeanor and tone that he'd used when he told ghost stories on so very few of those cold, windless nights on Sundermount- eyes just slightly too wide and excited, voice both rasping and snarling at the same time as he weaved stories of boogeymen beneath the bed and of demons that hid themselves in teddy bears- although Fenris suspected these words lacked the artifice that had made them entertaining stories and not imminent threats. "And remember before you answer that," he growled, "remember that Marian Hawke did stick a knife in him- even if she did it later than you'd have liked. She took him to the outskirts of Kirkwall and killed him somewhere where the memory of his death wouldn't inspire others to call him a martyr. I watched the aftermath- witnessed something you two assholes didn't. I watched her cry over his body while Kirkwall burned."

Varric finally turned and stepped toward Carver, capturing and releasing several long breaths to cast his fury back at the fire before finally finishing casually over his shoulder, "You think about that, Choir Boy. Which execution would have been justice- the one you demanded of her or the one she gave him?"

With that, the dwarf focused his attention up into the night sky and sighed heavily, like some great burden had fallen off him. This had to have been a weight on Varric's shoulders as well, albeit one he'd thought he could vent without condemning the elder Hawke. Sebastian fell silent, unable to speak another word. He stared down at the ground as though he hoped the dwarf's accusations could be answered there. The dirt, however, offered the prince no condolences or solutions and so he remained furiously silent with his jaw and fingers clenched.

"You think that justice should be hot and furious, Sebastian- that it is a task of necessity to be made in the heat of passion," Varric lectured quietly, turning his short torso back round to face his would-be accusers. He looked at Fenris then before shaking his head as though he decided better of it and returning his gaze skyward. "But it's not. Its cold…

"Justice- real justice- is a heavy measured task meted out by someone who has weighed the consequences of each outcome and chosen a path that must be adhered to. Justice is a weight that must be borne around the neck every minute of every day. Say what you will about Anders- he at least understood that. Hawke understood that.

"And when you put it upon Hawke to do that, she did it because she understood simply that it had to be done. And you did not… because you are incapable of that sort of thinking." Varric snorted to himself as he patted down his vest in search of something, "Prince indeed- we should have known it from the start. Your idea of justice for Anders was little more than a spoiled babe screaming for his bottle."

"If she'd only told me…" Sebastian started before Carver cut him off.

"Told you what?" the disgraced Templar spat. "'Hey, I'm totally going to murder Anders later so just hang around?'" Carver laughed hard at that sentiment and Varric joined in, his short body bent back as they bellowed into the night; the sound, dark and hateful, held no hint of levity. "I'm sure that would have gone swimmingly- wonder why she didn't just announce it to Meredith; surely that would have saved everyone a world of misunderstandings."

Sebastian looked as though he were trying to mount an argument that, clearly, wasn't going to get him anywhere and certainly wasn't going to earn him any goodwill from their captors turned present company. Fenris took the chance to step in, hoping to remove a bit of the focus from Sebastian, and dared to ask, "If she killed him then what exactly were we fighting back there?"

And suddenly once more, they were simply five people sitting round a fire pit, each of them avoiding the gazes of the others by focusing onto the dancing flames. Merrill tapped her fingers impatiently together, a habit born of the elf's perpetually uneasy nerves, and Carver brushed his fingers absently through her hair in a gesture that was as comforting as it was unconscious. Sebastian wore a grimace only slightly less horrified than the one that took over his face when Anders' claimed the lives in the Chantry; but now it was a horror directed at whatever that monster in the woods had been. Fenris imagined his own countenance to be much less transparent but shared the sentiment nevertheless.

Even the dwarf seemed hesitant to speak again, finally meeting the warrior's eyes and settling with, "You saw him… it… whatever it is… we do not know." Varric pulled out a small, ornate clay pipe and packed some dried herbs into it. He tamped the nose several times before striking a single match to set them aflame. Several long puffs preceded the next words of, "This camp… these people have worked rather furiously to expel the spirit of Justice…"

"Demon," Carver amended softly. "That thing is a demon."

"We do not know that," Varric corrected quietly. "Frankly, we don't know much of anything. That's why we're seeking outside help. We have to purge Justice from Anders' corpse and kill it once and for all."

"Then what exactly is stopping you from doing it?" Fenris questioned simply, trying his damnest not to make the query sound like an accusation. From what he'd witnessed of Anders, it was obvious that greater powers were at play here and he desperately wanted to know exactly what in Justice had twisted Marian's precious Anders into a mass murderer, what happened to Justice when Anders died, and what that damnable spirit wanted now.

"You saw the fanatics," Varric reminded the two interlopers. "You ever seen normal men fight that way?"

Carver interjected before Sebastian or Fenris could offer any kind of answer. "You saw a bit of what they're capable of but you haven't seen how far these people can go." Reaching a long arm out, he gestured for the pipe in Varric's hand, which the dwarf offered without a word. Carver took a few deep inhales of the smoke, giving an apologetic look to Merrill as she scooted away from him, clearly not enjoying the acrid aroma.

He'd seen Isabela and Varric smoke it before, calling it 'tea' or some nonsense though Fenris had never seen anyone get so giggly from the leaves used in the beverage by the same name. The smell was more bitter and biting than the fragrant tobacco Danarius had smoked. On the few occasions they'd convinced him to imbibe, he'd found the effects to be extremely pleasing, wrapping him in a blanket of pleasant muzziness for several hours.

"Lyrium is running low," the boy offered them the simple explanation, "This helps take the edge off."

"I bet." Fenris chuckled his answer, contemplating for just a moment how appealing the idea of a few hours peace would be after the horror of the last few days.

Then Carver continued, each word releasing a wisp of smoke like he was some kind of human-dragon hybrid. "I was among the first to come up against them before Anders managed to amass the group he has now. We were moving a senior Enchanter and her brother, hands down two of the most docile mages I've ever had the privilege to know…"

He stopped and stared into the fire for a long moment, shaking his head slightly before looking up again to continue but Fenris saw his eyes glaze slightly with whatever intoxicant the pipe delivered, likely a poor substitute for the Lyrium the Chantry had him addicted to. "We were talking about something," Carver muttered, "supper that evening or something like it- really inconsequential shit- then they just turned and attacked us. No warning. They went from asking about kippers to slashing at their wrists.

"The brother managed to kill one of us before he died. She took two, her attacks bled out her brother entirely before we were able to subdue her. It was an inexpert use of blood magic- amateurish; if they'd had even the slightest amount of experience, I don't doubt for a moment that they could have overcome us before we even realized what was happening."

He took another puff and sighed the smoke's release, staring without seeing forward into the orange fire. "When Enid came back to herself a few hours later, she had no recollection of having done it, could only trust the bodies of the Templars on the ground, the corpse of her brother, and our word that it had been her actions that did it. We did not even know what to do with her; she was… completely inconsolable."

"I've seen mages affect similar sentiments of regret," Fenris snorted skeptically.

Even the intoxication couldn't mask the sheer malice in Carver's eyes as he retorted, "And how many have killed themselves?"

"Pardon?"

"Trust me when I say that when she slashed open the veins in her arms that night, it wasn't because she fancied another go with blood magic." He shook his head absently, looking for a moment like he still did not believe the events he spoke of. "There was nothing we could do to help her. She died within minutes."

Suicide- he'd heard of stranger things, mostly from potential magisters unable to carry the burdens of their abilities or lacking the ruthlessness to survive in the fiercely competitive senate. The witch from this story of Carver's, however, seemed to carry a different weight- remorse, repentance, rage… repression… those things, Fenris understood and he found himself feeling somehow sad for her- for Enid, for a blood puppet allegedly unable to comprehend the gravity of her own actions.

Allegedly.

"The next night, we fought a small group of the fanatics. After we killed them, I saw Anders for the first time since Kirkwall." Carver took another deep inhale from Varric's pipe, holding the smoke for several long moments before breathing it back out. "He kept his distance but I know it was him."

"What did he do?"

Carver chuckled to himself and shrugged loosely. "He waved. Then he left. But I saw him; it was dark but I saw his face… I could smell the death on him."

Hawke had always been able to shrug off a thrall. Was she inherently somehow different from this Enid? So he dared to ask, "So tell me how is it that your sister is somehow immune to this."

Carver lifted to pipe to his mouth again only to be stymied by Merrill's hand hovering over the glowing embers. "You've had enough," she murmured and Carver lowered the pipe in near perfect synchronicity with her descending hand.

An argument that's been had before, Fenris realized. They were sitting in the middle of a rebel camp headed by a lapsed Templar and an admitted apostate… an addict and an apologetic blood mage… this was getting stranger by the second.

"She isn't immune, Fenris. I don't think any of us are," Merrill answered his question quietly. "We sent one of ours to see him… to see what he wanted once we'd heard he was recruiting…"

Carver erupted with a furious shout of, "I never would have permitted it! If I'd known…"

"But you did not know and it is done now. Keili knew it could be dangerous."

"She made her choice based on misinformation. Marian knew…"

"She wasn't even here when it happened, Carver. I'm certain if she'd known we were going to send Keili she would have given us the full picture."

"How could she have kept this from us?"

"She made a mistake, ma vhenan. We've all made them."

"There you go again. Defending her!"

And Merrill, in a tone he'd never experienced or known from the blood mage, screeched wildly, "Someone has to! She needs support and she's seen a frightening lack of it! From you! From all of them! She killed Anders, Carver! And all you can think is that you've been somehow betrayed! It hasn't even occurred to you that she may have kept her silence because she was hurting and was afraid she'd be judged for it?"

The moment the words passed from her lips, her head bowed in shame, like she expected some terrible rebuke from the series of syllables that tumbled from her treacherous mouth. "We have to help each other. If we fragment then we have nothing to fight for," she added softly but with no lack of conviction. "You know that, ma vhenan, and she has to be here if you mean to judge her." Her proud shoulders collapsed into her body… and she seemed unable to deal with the stress of their situation. Merrill, for lack of better words, withered into her own body.

And for a moment, he truly pitied her, bumbling and confused as she was.

"Merrill… no…" Carver gushed as he reached out to cradle her. "I'm frustrated and… puzzled, love. This is a lot to be hit with." The boy continued on into their embrace, murmuring into her sharp ears every stupid, meaningless platitude Fenris could imagine.

Merrill granted a weary eye toward Fenris again and continued in a low voice, "It was about two months after Kirkwall when we started hearing rumors that Anders was recruiting mages to fight for the uprising. Hawke was off with Isabela Carver decided to send a few Templars along with a mage who'd known Anders in the Ferelden Circle, Keili, to see what it was about. She confronted him and returned a mindless wreck two weeks later."

"Extremely addled," Carver added quietly, still caressing Merrill's cheek as he spoke, "But otherwise completely uncorrupted, unpossessed, and unharmed. I'd even go so far as to say she appeared to have been well cared for."

"And the Templars?" Fenris inquired over the lump that appeared suddenly in his throat.

The younger Hawke shook his head. "Never returned. She could never tell us what happened to them."

Silence hovered over the group for a long while until Varric worked up the courage to ask the question that hung unspoken. "Then what did he want with her?"

"We tried questioning her but she wasn't much help," Carver replied. "She was either locked inside her own head or speaking gibberish. Other than that she was perfectly healthy, not a scratch on her. The next day she woke up, dressed, and came out to tell us that she was ready to meet with Anders and see what was going on."

"You mean she…"

"Absolutely no memory of it. Wasn't until we were transporting Enid from the camp that we put together that Anders… Justice has some way of, I don't know, possessing the mages around him en masse, I suppose."

"What did he want with her then?" Sebastian asked, looking slightly ill as he doubtless considered the many possibilities of what Justice could have wanted with a trusted and well-connected member of his killer's rebellion.

"We assume that he questioned her about us. Fortunately, she did not have a plethora of information- that was more than a little deliberate on our part. We split the camp and moved as soon as she was well enough to do so. That was when he attacked Enid.

"So you understand our quandary a bit better now, I hope. We're gathering cells of ejected mages but Anders cannot, under any circumstances, be permitted to find any of the camps. The consequences would be disastrous," Carver finished with a grave look directed at Sebastian, seeming to understand that Fenris would either follow the regent or do as he would and therefore needn't be convinced.

The prince shook his head slowly as he regarded the younger Hawke. With a frustrated sound, he rose and commenced to pacing, his long strides taking him quickly between the edge of the trees and a large boulder- the contagious nervousness irritated Fenris to no end. "Does the Chantry even know about this?" the archer finally inquired.

"I haven't been able to speak with anyone directly, Marian isn't the only Hawke with a sizable bounty on her head as I'm certain you're aware," the boy explained, remaining seated in the face of Sebastian's clear agitation. "But I have more than a few reasons to fear that if the powers-that-be are apprised of the situation their solution will be expanding the Annulment even farther. Anders can't possess mages if they're all dead."

"At least we hope that's the case," Varric added dismally. "We don't even know that for certain."

Fenris ignored the obvious implications of what Varric just said, lingering instead on Carver's words. Expand the Annulment farther? "How much farther can it go?" the words escaped Fenris before he had the chance to consider them.

"That is precisely the sort of thing we do not want to find out… the Annulment's gone as far as the Chantry can reach. They might try to push it into Rivain or even…"

Sebastian interrupted with a startled gasp, "It could go north." At Carver's sage nod, the prince buried his head in his hands and whispered, "Oh, Maker. Maker, no. Not north- shit, it cannot move north."

The novelty of Sebastian using such crass language was outweighed by the fear Fenris saw displayed openly in his eyes. As the reigning prince of one of the northliest sovereign states in the Free Marches, Sebastian understood better than anyone what havoc would rain from the sky if the Chantry attempted to expand the Annulment, understood the danger Starkhaven would be directly placed in if its northern neighbor was provoked so thoroughly.

Fenris rose to his feet and stood before the prince, blocking him from continuing his infernal pacing. "The Imperium would never stand for it- the Chantry must know that," the elf reached for the most reassuring tone he could muster given the circumstances but he, too, was filled with a sort of dread at the thought of Tevinter going to battle against the rest of Thedas.

Maker, what if they won this time? The entire land would be the Imperium again and Fenris would have no place to hide.

Sebastian regarded Fenris, nodding in silent understanding of their predicaments, before he turned toward Carver and explained, "There have been rumors… magisters in Tevinter's southern regions being taken from their homes in the night and disappearing." Then he shifted his eyes to the ground, like the words he spoke were painful to even utter. "I just assumed them to be baseless."

"False, possibly. Baseless, no. The unrest touches all corners of the map," Carver assured the prince. "Anders must be dealt with in-house, Sebastian, or you may find your Starkhaven at the forefront of a new world war. That isn't even factoring in a multitude of other ramifications." The boy paused for a moment, weighing his words before huffing out a short sigh. "For instance, Sebastian, if Tevinter moves its troops south, how long do you think it will be before everybody's favorite horned heathens make a grab for the mainland?"

It was a question that needed no answer. The Qunari were perpetually battling for a toehold on the mainland- if the Imperial army moved its focus south, the Qunari could take that ground before they were even alerted to the shifting in the troops. This situation facing the Mage rebellion was looking bleaker by the second- Justice running amok, no prospects of organized outside help in the foreseeable future, the Hawke siblings hopelessly staring down the barrel of a worldwide war, and a wildcard third opponent champing at the bit to wreck it's own havoc on an already compromised ecosystem.

Were Fenris a betting man, he'd wager his stakes in massive losses on all sides if the Chantry joined the fight. In fact, Fenris didn't see anyone who stood to benefit from the powder keg Anders had perched his beloved Hawke upon.

Sebastian spun on his feet and began a litany of, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" With a final loud shout, a yawp contaminated with anger and frustration, Sebastian gripped the cool end of a burning log and slammed it into a nearby tree, releasing a flurry of sparks blasting like a fury of shooting red stars into the black night. "Fuck!" he screamed into the empty night.

Carver remained unimpressed by the archer's rage and snarked, "I see you understand the seriousness of the situation we're facing here."

"Why wasn't I informed?" Sebastian snarled at the Templar, stalking over to grab Carver by the neck of his tunic and wrench him from his seat. "How could the Free Marches have not been warned against this impending threat?"

The boy let loose a vicious grin and sneered, "Because when we tried to tell you, your Templar ended up fucking my sister!"

In his shock at such a crass sort of statement, Sebastian dropped Carver's lapels and backed away. And just like that, Fenris found himself to be the unwitting center of attention. Merrill, Varric, and Sebasian all stared unabashedly upon him as a new set of long term ramifications of falling into bed with Marian revealed themselves to the elf- and only a short while ago, he thought her potential pregnancy was the worst case-scenario.

So that was what she'd wanted to talk about. She should have opened with that. "I killed my former mentor and now he's running around possessing mages and there's a decent chance Tevinter and the rest of Thedas are about to go to war. Also, the Qunari could be a problem again." Their meeting may have gone a bit differently if she'd kept her head straight and remained objective… but that was a problem that seemed to plague both of them.

At the very least she could have left a note, he groused silently. It was doubtful, however, that any of his current company would share that particular sentiment, so he kept his mouth shut.

He took this as a sign that this was the perfect time to inspect his toes. Was that a speck of mud on his ankle? He should scrub his feet sometime soon. Warily, he eyed what just might have been the earliest stages of an ingrown nail- probably not but it was never a bad idea to exercise caution. Should that be dealt with now or later? Likely now… he decided under the heavy stare of his companions and wondered if he could repair the snag with no more than his gaze.

His toes were downright fascinating under this sort of scrutiny.

"Remind me, Varric," Merrill's voice chimed into the broken silence, "what's the word you invented for when Hawke does something that causes everyone to feel terribly uncomfortable?"

"Hawkward…" Varric answered.

A nervous giggle accompanied her lilt of, "This is Hawkward, isn't it?"

"It is indeed, Daisy. It is indeed."

The group fell into uneasy silence once more although Fenris was, gratefully, no longer the center of attention and let his mind amble back toward Marian, the woman who'd murdered her own mentor because, as the dwarf said, it simply needed to be done. He wondered- and suspected it would not be the last time this thought plagued him- which of them had been harder for her to strike down. Jealousy, inappropriate as that sentiment was given the circumstances, reared its ugly head and Fenris found himself selfishly hoping somehow that killing Anders had hurt her less.

"She cried for you too, Fenris," Varric offered quietly, as though he was reading the elf's thoughts straight from his face. "Just thought you'd like to know."

Fenris snorted, feeling only an ember of the anger that should have risen within him when thoughts of their last encounter in Kirkwall found him. "You have my thanks, dwarf. No matter how I tried, that knife simply would not twist itself."

Ignoring those statements, Carver returned to his seat, albeit a little wobbly, and gestured for Sebastian to do the same. "If you two are serious about stopping Anders, then I have a task in mind for you that might help us do that."

Fenris looked up in silent inquisition, glancing quickly at the prince to assure that he was doing the same. Sebastian nodded in mute understanding. For all their conflictions regarding Carver's sister, there was no sense in even pretending there was not an urgent necessity to see Anders and Justice put down for good. Marian's role in this drama would come into play at a later date- of that he was beyond certain. She was north for now but the sparrow would migrate southward again when the conditions were right.

Carver gave a great nod, seeming to silently convince himself that this next move was a good and proper idea, before stating, "There is a Grey Warden in the area who knew Anders before his possession. He may be able to tell us a little more about him. If he can give us anything that could possibly help, we need to find him."

But before any vocal response could have been made, a great rumbling shook the earth around them. Pebbles vibrated against the dirt. Small stones shot up into the sky. A strange, magical electricity permeated the air in queer synchronization with the small quakes the earth and tickled a light sting beneath Fenris' bare feet and between his toes before shooting its lightly barbed vines up his body.

It was the lyrium, he knew instinctively. Something magical was shifting the dirt and sending its sting into him.

"Which Warden does it look for?" came a deep, booming voice from seemingly nowhere along with the sounds of tiny earthquakes. The huge, thunderous noise sounded from behind him, causing him to leap from his relaxed position and spin wildly around.

Sebastian and Fenris both searched for the source of the noise when the elf noticed the peculiar rock formation he'd settled near now sported a pair of glowing eyes, star white and fire burning. Grounding himself in preparation for battle, he instinctively reached for his sword, cursing when he remembered that it had been taken from him. Sebastian, apparently sharing a similar sentiment, raised his fists against the revealed golem in a defense that would have provided absolutely no protection against their foe. Little matter, Fenris smirked to himself and let the lyrium ignite its bite over his body, he wasn't exactly helpless without a weapon- he was a weapon.

Before he could move to attack, Merrill tithered, "By the Dread Wolf! Shale, you shouldn't sneak up on us like that!" That gave him pause, mostly for the completely unconcerned, undaunted, almost friendly way the elf chided the massive, sentient pile of stone.

Massive, Fenris realized as he scrutinized it further, but indeed quite small for a golem.

A golem, he repeated to himself.

This thing was a golem- His brain kept stuttering back to that. This was a golem; a golem had just sneaked up on their group and Merrill and Carver seemed unacceptably unconcerned about that.

"I am quite incapable of sneaking," it boomed in Merrill's general direction. "I was here when it arrived. It is hardly my fault that the Pigeon and its squishy companions are so direly unaware of its surroundings."

Before Fenris could fully process the simple words of the golem speaking before him, Carver gritted his teeth and ground out, "My name is Carver Hawke- not Pigeon."

"Hawks are birds. Pigeons are birds," Shale reasoned with a gesture very much like a shrug. "Why should it care to be differentiated as one vile specimen over another?"

Carver was arguing semantics with a golem? That thought kept racing through the elf's mind as he observed the familiarity between Carver, Shale, and Merrill, wondering absently if his jaw was hanging in the same open gape as Sebastian's.

Taking several deep breaths, Carver met the golem's gaze and said levelly, "We're looking for a Grey Warden called Oghren. Do you know him?" with an apparent understanding that arguing this point with eight feet of boulder was a futile exercise.

The gravely, rasping clatter that shuddered from the mass of rock and magic was a sound that Fenris only dimly identified as laughter. "If it seeks the drunken Warden, it should know it would have a difficult time securing its assistance."

Unable to keep his mouth shut for a moment longer, Fenris regarded Carver and gawked, "You have a golem? A GOLEM? Even the magisters weren't stupid enough to keep these things around!"

He barely had the opportunity to feel the ground tremble beneath his feet before they were swept away from it entirely. Cragged digits grasped around his chest and held him aloft as the shifting stone face came violently close. Then that calm, rumbling speech came again, "I keep myself. I am not kept."

Dimly, he heard Sebastian and Carver shout something at the golem. He, however, found himself caught within its grasp and its empty eyes- found himself seeing something in the blank space where cognition should not have been but somehow was struck with an abundance of it. With that peculiar thought, Fenris found himself dropped rather unceremoniously back to the earth where he managed to land with a passing semblance of grace, hitting the ground with an artful crouch instead of plowing into the ground full-stop. The golem, this Shale, did not back away but eyed him rather curiously- or with an expression as close to curiosity as a pile of rock could muster- and he, lacking the knowledge to understand exactly what he gazed into stared blankly back.

"Those markings are lyrium," it stated rather obviously.

"They are," he answered with a somewhat casual shrug; despite how distinctly uncasual this entire situation felt to him. This conversation made him nervous but he had no intention giving a mere boulder the upper hand. His face fell into its schooled blankness and he found an odd comfort in knowing the golem would have no more luck divining his expressions than he did of it.

A golem. He was talking with a golem. So this must be madness, then. Fenris always figured it would be more… funny. Weren't madmen always laughing? If there was humor here, Fenris wasn't seeing it.

"Was this done to it against its will?" the golem inquired simply with an odd tilt of its massive head.

Temporarily reassured of his sanity, Fenris shook his head and answered, "No. I submitted willingly- or so I've been told." He added the last bit as much as a comfort as a disclaimer. The only one who knew anything of his involvement in the rite was Varania and, given her treachery, he wasn't completely willing to discard the possibility of another lie from her.

Shale lumbered away, drawing itself up to its full height before declaring imperiously, "I have been told that I squished my master's tiny head between my fingers. How did the Blue Slave free itself, I wonder?"

The vivid image of a skull popping like overheated glass along with the knowledge that particular skull had belonged to one that Shale designated as 'master' had Fenris reappraising the miniature golem in a new light. A short chuckle escaped him before he replied, "I ripped my master's heart out." Crossing his arms with no little amusement, he awaited Shale's reaction.

And the Shale did not disappoint him, musing coyly, "Bah, organs are squishy things, aren't they? Such a pity the magisters are not made of stronger stuff."

"I did not find it a pity at all. I rather rejoiced in it."

"I have found the condition to be rather pleasing as well," the stones chortled in something approaching amusement. "I understand that the Blue Slave is regarded as Fenris."

"I am called such. I believe the rather massive pile of rock before me is called Shale."

The rock bowed slightly and answered, "Indeed."

So Fenris bowed in turn and replied, "Indeed."

And with that word, the strange dance he'd engaged in ended with the thankful lack of a certain elf being crushed into a bloody pulp by the stone guardian. The golem withdrew and rose once more to its diminished but still intimidating height, shifting its white eyes to Carver and stating, "The drunken dwarf is a stubborn but simple beast. The Pigeon should appeal to its baser needs."

"How do you know Oghren? Could you convince him to join us?"

"My presence would mean little. The drunken dwarf does whatever it pleases. It was pleased to battle with Daylen Amell against the Blight. Amell was an admirable human. It is right that his people call him a Hero, though they are squishy and weak and deserve no right to speak of him at all."

"Do you know where Amell is? Could he help us?" Carver rose to his feet, staggering for a moment before he found his feet, and gazed hopefully at the golem.

"No. He has gone after the swamp witch," Shale spoke in a strange quaking manner, almost as though it were sad. But that was impossible; Fenris knew golems had no sovereignty, no motivation of their own. Then again, he'd never exactly heard one speak before either. "It would be foolish if it sought help from him. He is done with its troubles. He has moved onto something he deemed better."

Varric cocked his head and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Only that he is done with its silly quests. It should not pester me further on the matter or it may find itself further shortened, midget."

"Midget?" Varric reeled back before rose to his feet, spitting, "I'll have you know dwarves…"

"But it is not a dwarf. It is a short man in a fancy, tailored coat. It is a disgrace to its heritage," Shale spat with a flurry of pebbles. "It is a disgusting and vile creature and I loathe every moment I suffer near it. Someone take it away, I wish my presence cleansed of it."

"Varric is a trusted friend, Shale. He's staying," Carver snapped. "Now if you've got any advice on recruiting Oghren…"

"Get it drunk. Failing that…" the stone went silent for several long moments. The lack of movement from breathing or just the minor twitches that animated the living form made the golem appear once more a simple statue. Just when Fenris was beginning to wonder if this Shale had broken down, it sprung back. "Tell it 'sometimes people need to be kept from doing stupid things, even for good reasons.' If it insists on being thick-headed, say 'Atrast nal tunsha.'"

"Atrast nal tunsha- May you always find your way in the dark," Varric translated. "That's the old language. Is there any significant context?"

"None a midget would understand. I am astonished it was even able to comprehend such a complex tongue."

Varric shook his head and turned back to Carver, "I should probably go along on this one. I doubt anyone other than this undersized boulder would be able to use the old tongue properly."

"Right," Carver agreed with a nod. He ducked his head for a moment in quiet contemplation before looking back at the dwarf and saying, "Varric, accompany Sebastian and Fenris to find this Oghren and bring him back for questioning. I want him here willingly. He'll be no help if he's kicking and screaming with a pack of Grey Wardens behind him. Take Margot with you- if she wants to vouch for these two, then let her keep them in line."

"Consider it done, Junior," the dwarf replied. Fenris and Sebastian both nodded although the elf felt more than a little disquieted at the prospect of taking orders from Carver Hawke.

The boy shifted his attention back to the golem. "Shale, since you're here, would you assist the other Templars in acquiring that lyrium shipment heading into Tevinter?"

"Will I be permitted to crush their puny Tevinter heads?"

"Only if they resist… and they usually do." Carver shrugged with the same quirky half-smile his sister often used.

"Delightful," the golem chortled with a snide upturn of its mouth. "When can we leave?"

Fenris listened absently as Carver summoned Margot and detailed the route both parties would be taking, noting the dangers they'd likely face and the cities, people, and places they'd need to avoid. What lingered at his attention instead was Shale and that strange upturn he'd seen on the golem's broad stone skull. It looked almost like an expression, like the thought of popping skulls between two columns of stone brought it some kind of pleasure. It looked like a smile… but Fenris knew that a golem couldn't smile.

Then again, Fenris was finding a lot of things he'd previously known were wrong. Perhaps this was just another one.

End of Chapter 11

Next Chapter

AN- Kind of a slow chapter, but we'll be picking up speed soon! I don't suppose anyone knows about my torrid bro-mances with Shale and Oghren. God, I love those two. I am STILL mad they didn't show up in DA2 (although I took a small consolation in the "Did you hear that pigeons in Ferelden are disappearing?" It was like a personal shout out) but hopefully they'll make an appearance in DA3.

Anyhoo- MASSIVE thanks to AmericanCorvus and Buried_Beneath for their fabulous beta services! You two are awesome!