All he owned was five silvers, eight coppers and some bits of hack-silver that could barely buy him a bit of flat bread from handcart vendors in Kirkwall's Alienage. A small leather pouch with dried elfroot that could be boiled or chewed on, light and green-smelling, and it was all he could rely on for healing; it was just enough to ease sores and infection but without any injury kits to supplement he could only rely on not getting injured to keep his health.
From another leather pouch on his belt, he had a smooth stone that he can used to hone his blade. He found two matches, a spool of thread and a broken needle, some bits of stale jerky, and finally a ring he had found on the road that had an inkling of magical protection that made his skin hum.
Aside from is sword, his armor and his life,all his worldly possessions can be gathered and accounted for on a rough-hewn table that lie on the left hand side of the small room he rented in the Hanged Man. And that would soon be gone by the time the dawn appears.
He placed his elbows on the table, mindful of splinters, and rested his forehead on his palms. He glanced over his things again, counting and reevaluating and thought this night to be the most disappointing of all nights.
Upon arriving Kirkwall he hoped to blend in with the throngs of Fereldan refugees and the sullen masses of Lowtown. He hoped he could hide in the maddening alleyways that go nowhere, and lose himself in the labyrinthine steps that frequently challenges the most able-bodied into wondering whether the city is all hills and valleys of old, carved stone and mismatched windows. He could be like another hairline crack in the ground, another patch of weeds that grow incessantly and inoffensively in the corner like many others who insert themselves in city built on bleak histories and grotesque defiance.
But he find that madness has a pattern, and each crack and gutter and drain that seemed more nonsensical as time passes had instead revealed symbols and half-images of things vaguely Tevinter, and when he realized how even his present and the city's present is different from the past, shared history has determined that Tevinter luck would follow and there they be disembarking and making litters going up to Hightown to what was Denarius' winter home.
He spied the mansion from inconspicuous corners, playing the waylaid elf from distant lands and customs running messages for his masters, and saw to his immediate panic and horror that there were servants he knew scurrying about making the mansion ready. When he scrounged up enough bits, he had boys on the street giving him observations and with each new discovery his anxiety grew and grew and all the vague Tevinter remnants in the city began to recover more of their insidious meaning and it felt the high walls were reaching ever higher until he is a rat in a pit waiting for darkspawn to find and pop his head.
With clarity, sudden as a dive into cold water, he thought that this would be it; the final confrontation; the last defiance.
He gather what resources he could, made plans and sharpened his blades while imagining himself back in Seheron, with jungles so green it glowed with heat and the air is pungent, and in contemplation he decided he should end his run as it should have been when it first began: as a proud man free and unbidden, just like the Fog Warriors.
He had seen his victory; he had seen his death. And Fenris focused on the reality in that Denarius is a powerful Magister and must also remember this is not a hit-and-run battle.
And so he hired what he hoped were skilled mercenaries and upon meeting Hawke's band his plans fell apart.
There was no one in the mansion despite evidence proving the contrary. Kitchen fires lit. Candles lit on some sconces in hallways. Recently dusted mantles and bookcases and even the smell of fresh linen in bedrooms and on tables. There were, instead, Rage and Sloth demons and the sole horror that hid in Denarius' bedroom when the key was found. The taint of blood was fresh upon slaying them back into the Fade, and it was clear that what transpired was the complete annihilation of the servants through demon summoning whilst their loathsome caster fled away.
There was not a trace: no personal effects, evidence of spellcasting were removed, and not even a paper trail to dictate whether some dock guard gave a ship leave back towards Tevinter. All that transpired within the mansion were the vast splinters of wood from unsuspecting furniture, sheaves of paper on the floor next to corpses of books like a ravaging took place, glass and debris from ceiling to floor. Without the lingering traces of the Fade as proof, it looked like a sacking of a house in its off-season.
"Gone," the word left his lips more like a sigh than it did when he had said it towards Hawke. Gone was his resolution to break free, gloriously, and of valorous death. Gone was Denarius, of whom Fenris could admit a part of him still feared of the magister's power and had been loathed to greet it. Yet also gone was certainty, and he remains unsure of whether he should run from Kirkwall, where a trap outside of the city's parameters and her guardians could catch him unawares and unprepared, or stay in the place where at any moment he could be snatched unknowingly from the crowd by slave-traders in disguise. He could have, as he did before, run off with the nearest group mercenaries who are always looking around for new jobs and then be off on a new route once he felt he had made sufficient distance. He could have stolen away on a ship and go further south towards Fereldan or westward towards Orlais or the Anders. He could even find an expedition ship to go further East, where the Qunari was said to have originated and wonder if maybe a place in the Qun is preferable from unbidden wandering.
"Gone." He said it to the empty air in his empty room that held only a chair, a table and a cot. The walls were uninsulated and thin, because he got a lesser room, and had gotten used to the loud snores and sleep sounds of others and the occasional fucking. Whatever evidence of past inhabitants were found only in smells, scratches in the wood and in the odd scraps of trash and paper found before being burned away in the grate. All would fade away in the passing of time, and a mark from yesterday would just as easily be a dusty stain the next.
Fenris had nothing distinct to leave this room by, and nor had he ever wanted to by force of habit whether when he had been as a slave or as he is now as a runaway. He could leave now and nothing would be changed for the next guest.
He thought again of Hawke, whose given name Marian gives a stark contrast in its femininity, and whose femininity can be observed the frayed robes she wore and on her face of which her cropped black hair enhanced rather than diminished. He saw the threat in her family name, on the streak of red on her face like a bloody badge and symbolized in her staff made of dark wood. He found a mage, though that had been no Denarius, and while he gave all his coin to her without regrets, he still felt compelled to place himself in her company out of gratitude. She helped willingly, though she had been tricked, and did so with a smile. He was almost prepared to beg if the one who answered Anso's call hadn't thought kindly of tricks, or of anything else that doesn't provide gain. He was tired from dwelling on why, and decided that Hawke simply impressed him.
The curtainless window gave change as the light outside grew progressivly brighter. He could hear the kitchens being fired and scullery maids beginning their work in the tavern. He came back from the fight late and sore, and used up the last couple of hours left in the night to dwell on past events.
He got up and scooped his belongings back into their placements, and left the room as it had been when he first arrived.