Triple Bluff // Revka & Fenris
Halamshiral is... different.
It has been many years since Fenris has set foot in Orlais, but even he knows that something has changed. There is a tension in the air, a sort of... pregnant anticipation, multiplied tenfold in the eyes of every cowed servant (slaves in all but name, Fenris knows bitterly) and rough-clothed elf. It is not why he has come here, that tension, but even he can feel it – even he can hear the whispers of freedom that run through the streets like badly-kept secrets.
On one hand, he admires those creatures. He knows what it is like to be pushed to breaking point, to be on the verge of claiming back freedom from a master; but this is not why he is here, and he forces himself to be deaf to the rumblings of dissent. He is here for more selfish means.
It has been three years since he left Hawke's side, and without the distractions of regular work and pleasant company it has become increasingly difficult to ignore the lyrium song in his head. There is little he can do to ease it, and the growing discomforts that his brands bring him, but his journeys have brought him here to where he thinks – perhaps – that he might find some trace of Danarius's research. Whatever he can unearth, no matter how useless, he knows that it is better than nothing.
He has become a desperate man.
It is only by pretending that he already belongs to some other master – a minor noble in the Imperium – that he has been able to avoid being 'acquired' by some courtly Orlesian puff. Making himself invisible here has been difficult; his Orlesian has improved somewhat since he first arrived, but more than anything he hates the dress, the fussy shirts and waistcoats (and worst of all, cravats), and if he has to eat one more fancy pastry that could not satisfy a kitten he suspects he will hurt someone.
But then the world goes mad, and the monotony is broken.
Overnight those broken elves learn the word rébellion! and before they know it half the city is on fire. Slaves rise up on their masters and the slums become fortresses and armories and well-stocked camps for the newly-freed and veteran liberati alike. It is chaos, and Fenris fast sees his chances at teasing gossip from the Orlesian nobility vanishing. They do not want to talk about lyrium and experiments from the north – all they want to talk about is how they no longer have a servant to powder their faces for them. Fenris is not well-known for his patience, and more than once he has found himself on the verge of strangling some ridiculous, lace-bestrewn duke as he bemoans his lack of manservant.
But then, before all of his careful work can be undone by the uprising, he hears tell of the ransacking of Danarius's summer home here, some years ago after news of that magister's death had first spread. Books had been taken from the libraries, he is told. No doubt by elves (always by elves, such incorrigible criminals) and squirreled away in those slums of theirs.
It is the only lead that he has been given in a long time, and he is not fool enough to pass it up. With the city burning about him, he finds himself board not two streets from the western-most border of the now-barricaded slums. He sits and he waits, looking for a chance to sneak past those wild-eyed guards and their untrained, eager soldiers. It is a pitiful sight, he muses to himself more than once, watching them. So many scrawny, filthy creatures eager to wage war when they do not even know one end of a blade from another.
They will be dead before their first fight; he cannot find it in him to feel sorry for them.
Days pass, and he waits. He watches those walls, patient, disinterested in the comings and goings of the others in the cheap guesthouse. The days grow hotter (or perhaps it is just the fires) and he comes to curse the close-tailored Orlesian fashions and their unforgiving warmth. He sheds cravat and waistcoat alike, and he watches. And waits.
Then one night comes, and he is foolish enough to let his guard down. He remembers thinking, somewhere between rude awakening and being held down by rough hands, that the amount of coin he has paid the landlady will not cover such wanton damage to his room door – then there is blinding pain in the back of his skull, and he does not think again.
Rébellion has caught up with him, and he is powerless to refuse it.
