Maybe it was blood. Or was it dirt? It was something muddy and brown, that's all that could have been observed. Not only that, but it was going to be hard to wash out. Whether it was the after affect of an injury that drove them unconscious or if it was something that was collected along the way of dragging their battered, lacerated bodies halfway across Kirkwall, barefoot and alone, it was visibly showing.
Hawke was being held by one of his arms, his slightly less injured one, and Isabella was in the other. He was weary, his legs barely able to hold himself up. The battle tore, not only himself, but his two female companions also. Well, much more than Fenris, as it would seem. If not for Gordanna's picky mind, a little help from anyone else as an added companion would have made this trip far easier than it had turned out to be. And out of the entire stocky or muscular bunch, the smallest, was chosen by fate to have been the sole survivor.
He muttered some kind of explicit elven curse under his breath, stopped to wipe his forehead of the beads of sweat, latched onto their arms again and tugged. How long had it been? Hours? Minutes?
Whatever the matter of time it took, he was in dire need of rest, some water, and possibly some food. He smiled with a wicked scoff as he thought of later quickly dropping them to Ander's Clinic, and returning to his home to open one of his favorite wines as an incentive.
His arm was beginning to slip off of Hawke's, forcing him to reassess his grip. He wrapped it around like a spiral, his thumb turning white while he pushed deep into her skin. Despite the liquid dripping off of him from the hot sun that was giving him a bit of a burn, he roughed it. Every so often, he had a tempting idea to leave Hawke and Isabella lying there and returning to Kirkwall for some assistance. However, leaving two of the most wanted people in all of the Free Marches (And possibly other places) would be equal to just selling them out formally. What lied out in these mountains were mysterious and surprising at times.
He killed some wild beast that became randomly hostile before, a couple of bandits, and shooed away some drunkard who threatened him to pay for admission beyond that point. The rock formations looked familiar, and then they didn't, making him wonder if he was just imagining it, in the hopes that it would be true.
Speaking of things he'd hope were true, had Isabella just moved? No, he hit a rock. Or did he? He immediately stopped, staring at her eyes which seemed to have not been blinking at all.
He grabbed her again and continued.
Losing them was beginning to become more and more tempting as his cuts were stinging every so often. He couldn't scratch them, of course. That would cause an infection of some sort, or maybe cause it to bleed more. With the time he had left before the sun set, it wasn't even an option.
He took a long sigh, stopping momentarily to glance at the two. Wanting to scratch his scars brought back a memory that he shared with Isabella once. Fenris had just joined Hawke on her odd adventure, and for one exclusive mission, Isabella had a huge gash on her side. Blood stained every inch around it, seeping slowly further with each second.
Any other person would scream, cry, faint or some other extreme expression of anguish. Rather, she was sipping alcohol Varric summoned from one of his many pocket folds. She was fine, poking and prodding it, as if it was just a paper cut.
Gordanna was taking her sweet time in wrapping and stabilizing the wound. She kept droning on about how she learned some techniques from Anders and knew exactly what to do with a gash that size, to Isabella's luck. Ander's Clinic was far off from where they were, and they needed to get it done then and there. Fenris was disturbed, honestly; so much calmness for a dire wound. He wondered if they had finally lost it.
"Hey Elf, you look disturbed. The blood getting to you? It is beginning to stink…" Varric inquired. Isabella, offended, shot some kind of curse to Varric in a joking manner.
Fenris gave the dwarf a furrowed brow look. "No."
"Alright, no need to be so serious, it's not a weird question." He replied.
Isabella smiled that cocky smirk she always used for whatever the reason. "What, do you want a swig too?"
Fenris looked annoyed, yet deep inside, he appreciated the gesture. "No." Looking back now, he would have taken the option. Things were different then. He was still wondering how much had changed since he was under Danarius.
"Maker, Fenris, you seem more broody than usual." Hawke wrapped a fabric around her wrists, stretching it to fit a bodily form.
He kept quiet; a normal result for too many questions at the moment. Back then, he was like that; silent to his, later, companions.
There was a change; something inside him that he hadn't noticed until he was here in that moment. For a long time, he hadn't regarded the people he was around as friends, but rather an apostate mage (Who still isn't his friend), a nervous elf, odd humans, and an annoying dwarf he was forced to be around.
That was the conformation right there that things had changed. Whether or not it was good or bad, he was, for lack of better words,… happy that they were who they were.
He had been staring at Isabella's still body for a while now, not realizing it, until he felt a sting on his shoulder. It was a burn, no doubt. He scratched his cuts and grabbed onto them again, continuing to drag them through the dirt.
He inhaled deeply. There was a sharp, familiar metallic smell. Yep, it was blood.