Author's Note: A quick note before we begin: I refer to Varania as being dark-haired and only slightly paler than Fenris because I have a mod that alters her appearance to be somewhat more in line with his. Also, given the subject matter, there's inevitably going to be references to Fenris' history under Danarius. Proceed with caution, but otherwise, please leave a review, and kudos if you liked it!

It's late morning when Artur arrives at his door, accompanied by Aveline and Sebastian. Fenris emerges from his room at the sound of their entrance, and at the top of the stairs, he looks down at Artur, who calls up to him, "My business is done. Are you ready to go?"

So it's time. Artur's previous business has kept them from going to the Hanged Man to seek out Varania for the past couple of days, and while that has given Fenris time to steel himself and think about what he will say, it's also put him on edge. As much as whatever's coming makes his insides twist and coil, so too does a good part of him just want it to be over with. He's not sure how much longer he can wait in suspense.

"Half a minute," he calls back, and he returns to his room, puts on his breastplate and his gauntlets, grabs his maul, and slings it over his back. Fenris then takes a deep, steadying breath, closing his eyes and trying to let the onrush of air calm him and untwist his insides. It's only partially successful, but as he heads out of his room again and down the stairs to join his companions, he keeps trying. "Let's go," he says, and they leave without further preamble.

The walk down to Lowtown is mostly silent, and Fenris is too preoccupied to engage in what little talk there is. He veers between timorous excitement and the paranoia that has so dominated him for the past decade. If this isn't a trap, if his sister is at the Hanged Man, then perhaps he can finally have a name of his own again, a true sense of personhood outside of Danarius, a family, a past and so much more that he can't yet name. If this is a trap, then he'll gain nothing but more crushed hopes and expectations. The latter is what he's used to, but after having spent so long living for himself, even despite the shadow of Danarius always looming over him, Fenris finds that he wants the former more.

Not what he's used to, but it's what's better for him, and he deserves better, doesn't he? The words, when Fenris thinks them, sound suspiciously like Artur's voice, and his cheeks flush red for a moment. He would wonder how that man came to personify his freedom and all the good things that have come with it, but enough, they are in Lowtown now, and the Hanged Man is almost in sight. Fenris takes another deep breath.

Artur, keeping pace with him, notices. "I'm sure it'll be fine," he says. "Siblings are wonderful things to have."

Fenris makes a sound that almost resembles a snort. "Says the man who took how many years to reconcile with his brother?"

But Artur only chuckles. "Carver's a special case, of course," he says, "but it was worth it. Besides, even in the old days, it wasn't all bad. You'll see. It'll be fine."

"I wish I shared your optimism," Fenris says, and Artur gives him what must be the most encouraging look he can muster. As ever, it's all in his eyes and in other such miniscule things as the way he inclines his head ever so slightly towards Fenris; the facial mask and Artur's loose, form-concealing robes prevent anyone from truly reading his face and body language. Luckily, his eyes are oversized and expressive, as if to compensate for Artur's choice of dress, and Fenris can see what the man is trying to say in them. He nods, then takes the lead. They reach the door of the Hanged Man, he pushes it open, and they step inside. Fenris shuts it in silence, while his stomach turns over in his chest. He takes still another deep breath, but this time, its success is limited.

They've only just got inside, but already, Fenris notices something wrong. Not only is the Hanged Man deserted—it may be late morning, but there should be at least a few people in here—but there's something off in the atmosphere. There's a sickliness, a palpable clamminess about the place, something that sets his teeth on edge; the sensation washes against his markings and through them, sends a bolt of pain down his spine and to the tips of his toes. Fenris grimaces, tries to tell himself that he's just nervous, but he can see from the way Artur's brow furrows that he's sensed something wrong as well. Maybe this was—

"Hawke," he hisses. "Should we—?"

"Only if you want to," Artur says. "But I can see her over there." He inclines his head toward one of the tables, and Fenris turns his head to see the current, lone occupant of the Hanged Man. An elven woman, black-haired, slightly paler than he is but not by much. His stomach turns over again, and he's not sure if it's because of fear or something like joy.

Regardless, recklessness wins out over sanity. "No. I can't leave it like this. I have to know," he says, and he steels himself again.

Artur nods. "We'll keep an eye out for you. Hopefully all this is just somebody's atrocious cooking," he says, with his usual glib humour—although it sounds rather more forced than normal—and Fenris snorts. He wouldn't have thought mere cooking could cause what he just felt in his markings, but this is the Hanged Man. One more deep breath, and as all the words that he'd planned to say fly out of his head, he walks forward, approaches his sister.

"It really is you," she says. A slight accent, but distinctly Ventusian, and there's no real joy there, either—not that he supposes there should be. There's only… only what? Fenris finds it hard to name. He's not even sure if there's anything there at all.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and only for a moment. Her shoulders are squared and hunched, her arms are rigid, and on the table, her hands have curled into fists. Perhaps she senses the wrongness in the atmosphere as well, or maybe she's just as confused and lost as she is. Fenris hopes that he can make it worth her while. It would be such a waste for her to have come all this way only to find—what, exactly? He doesn't quite know.

But the question disappears in the echo that passes through his head. A warm summer's day, playing in what looks like the courtyard of an estate he can't identify, under the watchful gaze of a woman who works a spinning wheel… their mother? Kaffas, it's so vague. But it's more than he used to have.

"Varania? I… I remember you. We played in our master's courtyard while Mother worked. You called me…"

She stands up, still not looking at him. Standing, Fenris can see just how tense she is, how her every limb is rigid, almost fixed into place, how her hands remain balled into fists. "Leto. That's your name," she says, and just for a moment, Fenris is distracted.

Leto, then. Not quite the name he'd expected, though he's not sure what name he expected. An old name. Summer. He who is always happy. Strangely appropriate, or inappropriate depending on how you look at it, given everything that's happened to him. He doesn't know what it means to him, but perhaps he could get used to it. His own name, not the title Danarius gave him. It's certainly something, a start, the beginning of him reclaiming what he once was. Something warm stirs in his chest, but then Fenris looks at Varania, sees again the tension in her limbs, and he remembers the sickliness in the atmosphere. Maybe it would be better if they had this conversation elsewhere, in fresher air? She can't be used to pubs like these; the ones in Minrathous are so much cleaner and have much better fare. Perhaps they can speak at Hawke's estate?

"What's wrong?" he asks, and he tries to be gentle. Now that Fenris (Leto?) has heard his name, he wants this, wants it so badly that the rest of his common sense and his fear is going out the window. "Why are you so…?"

He trails off, but at the same moment he does, Artur—almost forgotten about—speaks up. "Alone, as far as you could tell?" he hisses, and the fright and horror in his voice come close to bringing Fenris crashing back down to earth as he remembers the last conversation he had with Aveline. "Isn't that exactly what you said? Are you blind, Aveline?"

For a long moment, Fenris doesn't comprehend what he's hearing, nor can he. He is stuck in limbo, in the awkward place between realisation and the lack of it, and his head is becoming clouded, his limbs rooted to the spot. His breath comes shakily, unevenly, as he turns his gaze to Artur and Aveline and sees Aveline staring up the stairs, eyes wide. "I…" That is the only word she can get out, and she speaks it with uncharacteristic unsureness, the realisation of a terrible mistake having been made lacing her voice. Fenris freezes.

"Doesn't matter," Artur says. "Fenris, we have to get out of here!" There is real terror in his voice, of a sort that Fenris has only heard on a scant handful of occasions, and that jars Fenris out of the sudden haze in his head. If Artur is so frightened, then that can only mean genuine danger—and given what he's just said…

Fenris understands the barest instant before it happens.

"Ah, my little Fenris. Predictable as always." Danarius, previously unnoticed, descends the stairs from the upper level of the Hanged Man, flanked by more hunters, and Fenris' bowels turn to water. His eyes widen, and his muscles instinctively tighten as his body prepares to spring into action, but he can't think over the resurgent haze of shock and fear, which having been caught so thoroughly off-guard has only amplified. He should step back, he should draw his weapon, he should do anything, but—

"I'm sorry it came to this, Leto."

However thick the haze may be, it is not impenetrable, and Fenris has not lost all his powers of cognition to shock. He makes the connection instantaneously, and this time, as his stomach swoops—but with a different feeling entirely, much worse than fear—the haze clears. In this state that he is so intimately acquainted with, he can think, he can know what she has done, he can see that once again, everything that he'd staked his hopes on and risked so much for is nothing but ashes. He put so much effort into finding Varania, gave her the coin she needed to get here, spent years verifying Hadriana's information, unable to let it rest—and now he finds that he does not mean so much to her.

He rounds on her. "You led him here." She cringes away from him, and only a small part of him thinks that perhaps her tension is guilt. Did she want to do this? Was she made to?

What does it matter? Danarius is here, and Varania is—

"Now, now, Fenris, don't blame your sister. She did what any good imperial citizen should." Fenris' head snaps up, and he takes a step back as Danarius joins them. His master is not a very tall man, but he holds his head high and looks down on them all, in the same way that he did a decade ago, and now Fenris knows where that sickly, clammy sensation is coming from. Danarius' magic never was pleasant to be around, even when he wasn't using blood magic.

It's all ashes. Everything he'd hoped and waited for—it means nothing. Even his name now is worthless. What did he expect, he wonders. There is nothing about his life that Danarius has not touched. Why should he be so surprised that Danarius would so ruin his efforts at finding out who he used to be? He does not want a slave that knows who he was. He wants a blank slate that he can do as he pleases to. He wants—

The markings.

"I never wanted these filthy markings, Danarius!" Betrayal and something comparable to but much stronger than mere disappointment drive him into fury, but that fury keeps his head clear, at least for the moment. He glares up at his former master. He's come too far; he will not give in now, even if his efforts here have ended in abject failure. He deserves better than what Danarius has done to him, will do to him. "But I won't let you kill me to get them."

Danarius laughs, as condescending and falsely affable as ever. "Oh, how little you know, my pet," he says, and Fenris' back straightens at the hated words, and he lifts his head to better look Danarius in the eye. Not arrogance this time, but the pride of a man who knew slavery but now lives free, without chains. Danarius notices, judging by the way he looks at him, but he does not seem perturbed by his defiance. No doubt he came expecting a struggle.

His master shifts his gaze to Artur then, assessing him with keen interest and amused condescension. "And this is your new master, then?" he says lightly, and Fenris almost bares his teeth at the word. He would protest, but Danarius does not understand the concept of equals. There is no point. He continues, "The Champion of Kirkwall, who slew the Arishok in single combat? Impressive." Something in his tone makes it clear that as displeased as Danarius is about Fenris' flight, he could do much worse for a new master. It is almost approval, and Fenris has to struggle to keep his markings from igniting.

He turns his head slightly to look at Artur, while keeping Danarius within his sight. Artur's eyes have gone wide, and he says nothing, but the look there, so reminiscent of the one he bore three years ago in the Vimmark Mountains when he realised that Corypheus was one of the Magisters Sidereal, says it all. No wonder he is silent; no wonder he does not immediately leap to Fenris' defence as Fenris had half-expected him to. Fear mixed with betrayal and disappointment on his behalf has frozen him into place.

Danarius sees something else, it would appear. "Why do you look at me as if I didn't know, Champion?" he asks, and his tone is so conversational and wrong that it almost makes Fenris want to throw up. "It was all anyone could talk about in Minrathous for months. And look at you."

Fenris should put a stop to this. He knows he should. He should fling himself between Artur and Danarius, raise his maul, start the fight—but Danarius is not a man who will be denied, and even now, the simple aura of imperiousness and authority about him causes Fenris to stay his hand. He bows his head, despair almost swamping him. How is he to kill his master if this is how he reacts to his mere presence?

Do not fall into self-pity. Focus. He looks up again, sees Danarius raising an eyebrow and giving Artur another appraising look. Abruptly, the sickness and clamminess in the air become much stronger, that much more overwhelming, and Fenris hisses slightly as his markings react and another bolt of pain runs down his spine. What foul magic is Danarius using now? But Danarius' words distract him from the question.

"Grey-eyed. Very thin. A mage, one of some talent. The stories say you finished him off with lightning magic. That staff of yours simply crackles with it, so I'd say it's your area of expertise. Marvellous, isn't it, the things you can do with lightning?" Danarius says, still so conversational and affable, and the haze presses into Fenris' head again, his fury the only thing holding it at bay; his fingers tremble. He wonders how Danarius can know all this—how he can know that Artur is so thin when the robes he wears are too loose to give any signs as to his body type, how he can know that Artur specialises in lightning magic. But it doesn't matter. He wishes Artur would raise his staff and attack, but Artur is still all but paralysed, and when he speaks, the words come out half-strangled.

"What are you saying?" Perhaps it is a sick sense of curiosity that drives him on, not that Fenris can blame him. Perhaps he is stalling for time, in which case, Fenris will not let this chance go to waste. He focuses on his breathing, tries to calm himself, to force the haze out of his head, to stop the trembling of his fingers. Danarius is too powerful for there to be any room for mistakes. One wrong move, and it will be over.

But his efforts almost go to waste. Danarius laughs once again and steps closer to Fenris, and his eyes rake over him, taking him in slowly. There is a look there that Fenris knows all too well, and his stomach churns as he takes a quick step back. No. He will not permit this. But his eyes almost instinctively follow Danarius', and so he sees when Danarius pauses at the sight of the favour and the crest. His muscles go even tighter; his stomach clenches; he swallows his rising bile. What will Danarius make of that? Will he see it as a mark of ownership, or for what it really is?

Danarius' pale grey eyes—so unlike Artur's, so much colder and crueller—linger on him, but he addresses Artur. "Even at a glance, Champion, there are such similarities between us," he says, and Fenris' eyes go wide. Danarius looks back at him, and his smile is both fond and as condescending as ever. "Ah, Fenris… for all you claim to be running away from me, you're still running towards me."

The haze surges back into his mind once again, drowning out the fury, and Fenris hastily stumbles back. He can almost feel the blood draining from his face, and he wishes more than ever that Artur would pick up his nerve. This is becoming torturous. But as to what Danarius says—no. It's not; he's not. Even in the beginning, when Fenris startled and then glared as he spotted Artur using lightning magic in the mansion, he never thought the two alike, and he never has since. Artur is cautious and controlled where Danarius is reckless, sacrificing control for power, and he is kind and honourable where Danarius is cruel and corrupt and smacking of almost every sin that exists. Whatever such skin-deep similarities may exist between them, they are nothing in the face of everything else.

"He is not you, Danarius! He is nothing like you!" But the words do not come out as strong as he would like. Rather than an affirmation designed to boost both his confidence and Artur's, because Fenris can see the mounting terror and even the nausea in Artur's eyes, it seems more like a weak protest, as if he's trying to reassure himself of something that he doesn't know to be true. Danarius' influence acting on him again, no doubt, and Fenris is forced to look away just so that he can try to clear his head.

"Oh, you needn't be so recalcitrant," Danarius says, as if he recognises the protest—which he must. Danarius always was good at reading people. "You weren't always this way, Fenris. Once upon a time, you had affection for me. I remember it fondly. And now it seems you've transferred it to the Champion."

Another pulse, another wave of fear; the haze presses still more strongly into his head. He can sense it in Danarius' words, an undercurrent of… resentment. Envy, even, though that's something of a stretch. Bruised pride, maybe, that what Danarius considers his prefers someone else. And beneath even that, a knowing, and Fenris' blood chills. How could Danarius know? Has he recognised the cloth and the crest for what they are, or…?

He looks down at Danarius' palm, sees it move slightly, sees Danarius clench and unclench his fingers, and the skin is stained with fresh blood. His blood.

Of course. Blood magic. What is Danarius reading from them using his blood? Hawke, we have to fight him. If this gets too far—He needs to tell Artur this, he knows, but something keeps him from doing so. Is it his fear… or is it the blood magic? Is Danarius manipulating him? The chill turns to freezing cold, and Fenris looks away again. His resolve is shaking, and he's not sure what it is that keeps it from breaking entirely. For the moment, a question stays him: all this time, and Danarius has not once mentioned the markings. Why?

That question seems to have occurred to Artur, too. "Why do you want him back so badly?!" he demands. His voice trembles, and he still shows no signs that he is about to spring into action. "If this is about the markings—"

Danarius smirks, in the way he does when he knows something that others don't, but that he considers to be obvious. "Is that what you think?" he says, and he chuckles as he looks between Artur and Fenris. "It's not about the markings. If it were so, I would have found a suitable replacement for Fenris. But it never was."

The world falls out from under Fenris' feet.

He stares at Danarius, and Danarius looks placidly back at him, still smiling, drinking in the look of horrified realisation that Fenris can all but feel coming over his face. Not about the markings. Never about them. Somewhere, Fenris has always known that that was true, for why else would Danarius have pursued him so doggedly, apart from reasons of pride? But it was so easy to pretend that it was not so, that Danarius only wanted the markings back. It made coping with everything that he had ever done to him much less difficult. If he could pretend that Danarius was obsessed with the markings, not him personally, it made it all—the whippings, the propping up the furniture, what happened to the Fog Warriors, the late-night visits—so much easier to bear. And so he did.

But he no longer can. It was never about the markings.

"It was always about you, little wolf," Danarius says, and Fenris closes his eyes and fights to remain steady on his feet. The world is spinning. "Just you. No matter how stubborn you've been, you'll always be mine, you'll always belong to me. Come back to me now, and I'll be merciful. I promise." And Fenris can almost believe him, and Maker, so much of him is tempted—just give in, it'll be easier than fighting all the time. Go back, do what he was meant and made to do. Except—

"He doesn't belong to you, you bastard!" Artur's voice cuts through the haze, and there, finally, is anger. Fenris shakes his head, shakes off the haze and the moment of weakness, and his muscles go tight again. If Artur has at last found his rage, then surely, the fight must be coming soon. "He doesn't belong to anyone!"

Thank you, Artur, he thinks. But Danarius is, as ever, completely unperturbed.

"Do I detect a note of jealousy?" He chuckles again, briefly. "It's not surprising. The lad is rather skilled, isn't he?"

And that is enough.

No more haze this time, no more panic or weakness or betrayal or anything like that. His stomach may clench, and his face may burn with something like humiliation—Maker, no, this wasn't how he wanted Artur to find out about that, if indeed he wanted him to find out at all, and he can see from the way Artur reels back and suddenly glares at Danarius with a fury he reserves for few others that he has not missed the implication of those words—but the rage overpowers it all. This time, when his markings ignite, Fenris does nothing to stop them. Danarius will pay—and so will Varania, for being so willing to hand her own brother back to him.

"Shut your mouth, Danarius!"

Here, Danarius' smug mask finally cracks, but it is only to display a faint hint of irritation. "Verbum dominus est, mi Fenris," he says, and the tone is chiding, but with an undercurrent of warning—a warning that he will not be so merciful should Fenris continue to defy him.

He will run that risk.

"Eum capite," Danarius says to the hunters as he turns away. Varania slinks into a corner. "Alios interficite."

He'll die first.