Hello and welcome! Sit back and enjoy the strange ride.
Fenris leant back against the crumbling brick wall in Lowtown, gasping for breath in the shadows. Heavy footsteps sounded at the end of the alley and he shrank back further. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes and scowled furiously, forcing himself to calm down as his intricate tattoos began to glow softly in the dark.
That chest was going to be a problem. When Anso told him about it earlier that day – for a price – he said he'd seen three Tevinter slavers heaving a strange metallic chest, covered in Qunari carvings, into an abandoned shack in the Alienage.
Fenris needed to open that chest. It might be a trap – it probably was a trap – but if there was a chance he could get his hands on it…
"It's a risk I have to take," he told himself softly.
He'd tried to sneak into the Alienage earlier that night, tried to scope out the situation and determine how many slavers might be lying in wait for him. But an assassin had dropped out of the Vhenadahl tree as soon as he'd crept down the stairs.
He'd only just managed to escape. There'd been significant glowing involved.
Someone shouted nearby, and Fenris cursed silently. He needed to get out of there, and fast.
Hawke frowned as she paced back and forth in her uncle's grotty lounge room. It was a tiny space, so pacing wasn't really helping her frustration at being stuck there, in a claustrophobic hole in the wall in a stinking slum with her good-for-nothing uncle.
"Stupid sodding nug-humper," she grumbled.
It was past bed-time, and her family was asleep in the next room, so she paced quietly in her nightgown. She wasn't usually one to brood – her sarcastic disposition usually helped make light of bad situations – but her mother and sister deserved better than this. Hawke was determined to get them out of there. And to do that, she needed money.
A fair chunk of it.
Hawke had been taking every job she could find, and she'd even agreed to find enough money to help bankroll that expedition into the Deeproads.
The dwarf leading the expedition, Bartrand, seemed like any other leader Hawke had ever met in Kirkwall: a greedy bastard. He'd stonewalled her initial efforts to join the project – even her sweet sister Bethany couldn't change his mind.
But by chance, they encountered Bartrand's brother, Varric, a smooth-talking dwarf with a dry sense of humour. He suggested they become partners in the expedition; a suggestion Bartrand was definitely not in favour of, until Varric talked him around.
Now all they had to do was amass a small fortune just to go on the bloody trek. Hawke knew it was a risk, but it looked like the only road they could take.
But revenue raising had been slow-going so far. Hawke stopped pacing, her mind made up.
"There's no point moping around in the dark," she told herself sternly. She would go see Aveline – she was patrolling Lowtown that night, and she might have work for her. Then she would visit Varric. He said he'd keep an ear out for her; maybe he'd know of a job by now.
Determined now, Hawke suddenly tugged her nightgown up and over her head. Moonlight shone down through the skylight, unusually bright, highlighting the scars on Hawke's bare, pale skin. She pulled on a light leather armour and slipped her daggers into their sheaths.
It was always smart to be armed in Lowtown, even if you were just heading out for a pint.
Fenris stayed perfectly still as the young woman, now armed, quietly left the house and ran stealthily down the street. He didn't start breathing again until she was out of sight.
He sighed and relaxed slightly, straightening his cramped legs out on the roof tiles, and tried to ignore the guilty feeling in his stomach. Fenris hadn't meant to invade her privacy – he'd heard slavers coming, and climbed up on the roof to hide, but he'd heard someone talking inside, and needed to check he hadn't been discovered.
So he'd peered down through the skylight and there she was, short, messy dark hair framing a pale face, delicate features twisted into a scowl.
He'd barely had time to register she was wearing a nightgown – "Are those baby dragons?" – before she'd started stripping, and though he'd immediately looked away he'd still seen more than he should have.
Well, almost immediately.
Fenris certainly hadn't expected his tattoos to start glowing of their own accord, though. That was new, although Maker knew he hadn't seen many naked women since he'd escaped Danarius, and certainly none as beautiful as the woman he'd just caught a glimpse of.
He caught himself thinking about her pale skin again, and the few scars he'd been able to spot from above. He wondered what she did, that she'd ended up with scars like that… not that they marred her beauty at all…
Fenris shook his head, forcing his tattoos to end their soft glow. It didn't matter, anyway. He wasn't there to enjoy himself – he was just trying to stay alive.
He jumped from the roof and landed lithely on the cobblestones.
Time to find that stupid dwarf.
Varric slammed his mug down on the table, sloshing ale onto the grimy wood. A few members of his audience snorted.
"Get your paws off my Orlesian lederhosen, you filthsy vench!'" he roared. "Don't you know how much zese cost?"
He altered his voice, switching to a panicked feminine tone.
"But your Dukeness, ze bees, zey are all over you!"
"Just get ze hose!"
"Ze lederhosen?"
"NO, ZE HOSE, ZE HOSE WIZ ZE WATER YOU FLUFF-HEADED – Hawke! Good to see you!"
Hawke grinned, waiting for Varric's audience to shuffle away to other corners of the bar before she took a seat at the table. She'd come straight from an unproductive meeting from Aveline, and by now it was quite late, so business at the Hanged Man was booming.
Varric waved to Norah the barmaid for another round of ale.
"Sounds like I missed a good story!" Hawke said. She propped her elbows on the table and arched an eyebrow quizzically.
Varric arched his brows back at her. "Well, you'll soon learn this about me Hawke – they're all good. The only way you can keep up is to visit me more often."
Hawke placed a hand over her heart.
"My studly dwarf, are you saying I've left you too long? Have you been lonely?"
"Distressingly so, but I'm learning to come to terms with it." He grinned and took a gulp of his ale. "So what brings you here, my friend?"
Hawke took a sip of her drink, too, and couldn't help but grimace. Varric noticed and laughed.
"The trick is not to let it touch your tongue on the way down."
"Or not to drink it at all," she said, taking another gulp. "Anyway, Varric, what makes you think this isn't a purely social call?"
"Ok, let's say it is. And let's say I have just received word of a job you might be interested in. Would you like me to leave it for your next, non-social visit?"
"Well… no, it would be impolite of me to suggest that, wouldn't it?"
Varric chuckled. "It would indeed." He lowered his voice and adopted what Hawke was starting to think of as his business face. "Your old friend Athenril may have been planning to give you this one, but I thought I'd give you a head start."
Hawke leaned closer, interested. She and Bethany had worked for Athenril for a year, paying off the debt she'd incurred bribing their way into the city. It was smuggling, mostly, something Hawke wasn't keen to get into again. Athenril's shifty demeanor certainly hadn't added to the job's desirability.
"A dwarf named Anso was in here earlier, looking for someone competent for a job. I haven't dealt with him before, but my contacts say he pays well," Varric said.
"Any idea what the job is?" Hawke said.
"Not a clue, but Anso mentioned he'll be in a corner of Lowtown for the rest of the night if you want to go find him. That is, unless you need your beauty sleep."
"Anyone else would tell you I've already had too much beauty sleep," Hawke said.
Varric snorted. "So modest."
"I'll go find him," Hawke said, pushing back her stool and standing up. "Thanks for sticking your neck out for me yet again, Varric," she said, and finished her ale in a few gulps. She gave him a friendly salute and walked away.
Varric stared into his flat ale for a while, thinking.
"Why am I sticking my neck out for her, Bianca? We probably would have gotten the expedition off the ground without an extra partner."
Unsurprisingly, Bianca didn't respond.
"Now now, no need to be jealous," he said, patting his crossbow consolingly. "I think… I think I just don't like seeing capable people go to waste in this rat-hole."
Norah walked past, rolling her eyes. "Talking to your crossbow again, Varric?"
"Sorry, Norah," he grinned. "I'll try to keep it in the bedroom."
Unnoticed in a corner of the room, a hooded woman watched as Hawke re-entered the bar, telling Varric she realized it might be smart to take him with her to meet the strange dwarf about the mystery job in the dark alley at night time.
Varric got to his feet, grumbling about the socially accepted boundaries of friendship at 1 o'clock in the morning, and they left together.
The woman pulled her hood lower and followed quietly after them.
Intrigue! Perving elves! Lederhosen! What doesn't this story have?
(Do they have lederhosen in Orlais? Well… the DAII writers never specifically said they didn't. That's basically confirmation.)
Thanks for reading! I'll have another chapter up soon.*
*Disclaimer: 'Soon' is objective.