Chapter 1 - Giving In

A/N - What to say... well... first off all my Hawke is a female mage... romanced Fenris... her name is Aisa Hawke... and this is a story that popped in my head like popcorn yesterday xD that was such a poorly thing to say... anyhow... I hope you'll enjoy it... it might be a bit OC for Anders which I made too freaking attentive to details and I am sorry... ahh yes... in this fanfiction Anders is not quite an ass... he is more of a good guy... not a poorly possessed fool as I felt he was in DA2... I missed DA Awakening Anders and mister kitty... that kitty was a nice cheat to get your ass out of bad situations. ser Pounce-a-lot we all love you :3... enjoy...

"Hawke… are you sure he's here?" Varric had to pinch the girl to actually get an answer.

"Yes… my spell tells me he is in that cave."

"I still can't believe he went alone after Danarius… and also that you dragged me along…"

"Anders… Fenris might be hurt… and I am no healer… you know that."

Earlier that day Fenris went all alone at the Hanged Man to meet his sister Varania… he felt it was a trap since Hadriana told him about her. In the end everything turned out to be what he feared… Varania was bait for the elf and everything fell apart. Danarius was expecting him… and even though Fenris fought he was easily out powered by the magistrate. Luckily Varric was in his room… he wanted to intervene but the elf asked him not to… as soon as the group of slavers left the tavern the dwarf rushed for the Hawke Estate. There he told everything to Aisa which casted a spell of tracking on Fenris. When they left they met up with Aveline which was just leaving the Keep… she agreed to accompany them. The small group went straight for Anders clinic to take him too. In the present they are on the Wounded Coast making plans for the future attack…

"Tracking spells aren't blood magic?"

"They are if you use blood Aveline… I placed runes from Sandal on your equipments… I can track those easily with no blood magic involved." That is when Anders took the Tevinter Amulet from under his robe… after inspecting it a little he saw a small gray crystal.

"Smart."

"THIS IS WHY YOU WANTED TO POLISH BIANCA!" Varric jumped in complete shock and disagreement.

"Yes... But I saw Bianca loved the small crystal right there.""

"A fire rune… I'll let this one slip Hawke… but no more polishing my girl."

"Ok… From what Varric…" But the girl was interrupted by the mage.

"Don't you want me to check that wound Varric?"

"It's just a scratch Blondie… don't worry."

"FROM!" Hawke had to take a breath of air to calm herself down. She was on edge… almost at the breaking point but with everything she had she did her best to hide this fact from the rest. "From what Varric said there are some dozens of slavers and several mages… plus Danarius… Anders make sure we are not hit by any spell… Varric help Bianca to back up me and Aveline as we push for that dog… if we find Fenris… Anders you make him your full priority. Everyone knows what to do?" After each one of them nodded in agreement they left for the cave entrance.

They killed like 20 slavers until they reached the magistrate… but finally Hawke was face to face with a future dead man.

"My little Fenris… your new mistress came to regain you… the Champion of Kirkwall… quite lovely."

"Fenris doesn't belong to anyone."

"Do I detect a note of jealousy? It's not surprising the lad is rather skilled… isn't he?"

Hearing Aisa's voice made Fenris's heart skip a beat. What is Hawke doing here? She is in danger… no he wouldn't let her be touched by Danarius… by anyone for that matter!

"Hawke leave this place…!" But he's desperate shout was brutally stopped by one's of the slavers kick in his stomach. Normally he should have seen that one coming but he's senses were chained down by the woman's presence here. As proud as the elf is he's not going to let the idiot alive. From the floor he kicked the man right in his chest making him fall followed by a sickening yet satisfying sound of bone cracking. The slaver broke his neck in to the wall. That death was the start of the fight.

Everybody followed Hawke's plan and they killed or badly wounded every single of the magister's man… but the fight is far from ending. Shades, undead and demons appeared from everywhere. Even though Fenris was badly wounded… not only from that single kick from the slaver but the fight before with the blood mage… he joined the others and they won in the end.

Right when the elf cut open a rage demon Danarius grabbed him with one of his spells and pushed him to his knees. The markings on Fenris's skin flared bright but yet the elf screamed in pain. Every little line of lyrium was burning in to his skin; excruciating pain was holding him down… it felt like his own skin was against him he turned around on his back staring at the dark ceiling of the cave… Make it stop! make it stop… It was close to the same pain he felt when the markings were burned in to his flesh … the only thing Fenris wanted now was to skin himself alive… it would hurt less.

"FENRIS!" That voice… she was still there… he should help her... he should get up… but no… just breathing was hurting him at this point.

"You will let me go with my little wolf… or he'll die."

"You want him just as much as I do… you won't kill him."

"It would be a waste that is true… but the lyrium can still be used even if he is just a corpse."

"What did you do to Fenris?"

"A simple spell on the lyrium in his skin. How is it going to be Champion?" He said that name with so much disgust and mockery that it made Hawke sick.

"Varric now!"

A bold split the air striking the magistrate right in his chest… right in his heart. With his last breath he created an ice sword and sent it right in to Fenris. If he is dying let him at least take his precious wolf.

The elf's screams filled the cave as Hawke crushed next to him. She melted the frozen piece piercing his abdomen letting place for Fenris's blood to flow everywhere. Now red liquid tainted the stone around, the wound in his… now kind of nonexistent chest, was much too big for Hawke's abilities. She was frantically trying to stop his bleeding, pushing on his wound and screaming his name, begging him to stay with her. Anders ran next to Aisa but as soon as he laid his eyes on the dying elf he knew there is nothing he can do. He crouched next to the panicked girl softly trying to make her stop.

"Hawke…Hawke… stop…"

"Anders help him… he is bleeding to dead!"

Varric and Aveline followed them. Aveline was overwhelmed by pity and Varric… the dwarf came on the other side of the elf and started helping Hawke.

"Come on Broody… who is going to growl at everything everyone says…and make staring contest with Blondie… lose at card with so much grace… and…DO SOMETHING!... Anders!"

"There's… There's nothing I can…"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence Anders… Don't you dare or I'll incinerate you here and now! Don't ever say that ever again… I don't want to hear that again in my life…" Hawke finally broke… he dared to use the same sentence he said when her mother died…" Father is dead, Mother is dead, Carver and Bethany are gone and I simply… I… I can't… Not again… Not him." The last words were barely a whisper, tears started to roll down her cheeks as she tried her magic on Fenris… "Don't do this to me Fenris…"

"I can wake him up… to say your goodbyes."

"No… no… don't say that…" she was barely managing talking through the tears and sobbing.

Anders laid his hand and squeezed her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. With his other hand, which was slightly glowing, he moved some of the white strands on the elf's brow. Fenris didn't wake up immediately; losing her hope Hawke closed her eyes occasionally losing a hiss in her failed tentative to stop sobbing. Finally the familiar green eyes shone again.

"I was afraid I'll never see you again."A hoarse voice echoed filling Aisa's ears… she opened her eyes in shock. The first thing Fenris saw were her tears. He never saw Hawke shed a tear in the whole years he had known her, not even in the Deep Roads when Carver left for the Gray Wardens, not even when her Mother died in her arms or the days that followed… never… Those sobs of her were painful for the elf. He raised his hand to her right cheek to caress her moist soft skin.

"Fenris." Her tears once again freed started falling from her wet eyelashes. "You're not lucky enough to get rid of me so easily."

Hearing her he tried to make a growly laughter so characteristic for the elf only to end up coughing what is left of his lungs… That is when realization hit him.

"Your wounded… don't move."

"Hawke are you hurt?"

"Yes… I mean no… I am fine… This is not my blood."

"I am happy he didn't touch you."

"Danarius? He is dead. Fenris… why didn't you ask me to come with you?"

"Because If it turned out to be a trap… as it actually ended up to be I couldn't bear to lose you… you are the last important person in my life… I could never bear to lose… I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of taking you away from me… so I thought… better to take my life than yours."

"Thinking doesn't help you too much… it does no good to you." Fenris smiled at her… that cocky beautiful smile of his made Hawke giggle. It was like an infectious gift from him to her.

"I often said that you'll be the dead of me."

"No… All will be alright… I'll make sure you'll be fine."

"Hawke…" He finally managed to get up just enough to reach the girls lips. His taste was sweet, the taste of blood. For Aisa it felt so good… for the last two years she had imagined their next kiss in any way but this… but it still felt so good so fulfilling so… painful and bitter. A tear rolled down her cheeks right between their heated lips, making its way on their tongues as they parted.

"You are not going to die Fenris… not today." Saying this Hawke took a dagger from her robe and pressed its blade on her palm. "You will live… even if you'll hate me." Anders got crushed by his realization but before he could actually jump and stop her he was thrown in to the wall as were Varric and Aveline. Hawke has already cut her palm, the blood now flowing around her.

"I'll do whatever you want... just save his life." And so the pact with the demon was made.

From nowhere in particularly a demonic voice answered the girls prayers. "As you wish my desperate mortal." The blood around her creped on the floor returning to its owner. Luckily the elf was unconscious… he wasn't witnessing this entire ordeal…

Ander's eyes flared with the usual blue glow, his skin cracking and shining, Justice came to live. He released himself from the wall and started walking towards the girl… but it was already too late to stop what she began. The, now abomination, turned its eyes towards Justice. Hawke's beautiful blue eyes filled themselves with a black content, dark and empty as the void itself, her skin, once pale and soft, grew scales and it gained an unnatural tone, a dark one and her gentle hands twisted with claws. Her robe got torn apart here and there from thorns that grew on her legs, arms and spine… with one hand she ripped off her robe which was useless now to show that her whole body was now covered by huge shells… if she once had skin… that only remained on her face. Only her raven black hair remained untouched, waving around as the magic around her did.

"I knew you'll find me… eventually." That voice so unnatural, so inhuman echoed though the mortal ears of Anders reaching Justice himself. Her eyes shone in the darkness of the cave as she walked towards him, covered by the natural blue light of the spirit. "So I will warn you now… DON'T intervene as you always do."

"Despair Demon… free this woman. You're very presence defiles this mortal."

A mocking laughter came from the girl… now showing the full splendor of her newly grown teeth. Pointy and sharp as daggers… it almost appeared like she had two or three rows.

"Do you hear them Justice… From the darkest corners of the FADE they whisper… they foretell the coming age… where the spirits will once again rule the earth not BOW before the petty humans, hiding behind the shadows and using their weaknesses, begging to be haunted here in the reality... No more… and You can feel it. All of us CAN! I am the first to unleash the first steps."

"Perhaps. But I have seen mortal's accomplishing the impossible…"

"Pleasee… You can't even see behind this world anymore… you have lost all contact with the Fade… with your homeland… you are turning in what you are afraid to become. You are turning in to a whole new esence… Vengeance…" The last word came with so much pride from Hawke's lips; it was a whisper… a whisper to Justice, to open his eyes to the truth.

"Silence demon!" He yelled unleashing a storm against her. The abomination didn't even blink.

"You do not beg for human contact, you do not hope for emotions, feelings, sensations… nooo… We both know you have been feeding yourself, nourishing upon your last host, Kristoff… enjoying his memories, craving his humanity… you are a fail of a spirit… you are what once was I… Justice is accomplished through pain, desire, rage and… despair."

"No Justice is fought for with hope, never lasting faith and…"

"Say it…"

"Desire."

Again the same mocking giggle from the demon… This time Aisa started walking, surrounding Justice with so much grace that it, somehow, turned that whole imagine into a charming dance of horror and gore, the heels on the still clinging boots where vibrating through the emptiness of the cave. "See Justice… You are not what you… phantom… We are the same… you just fail to see it."

"I will kill you, and stop this foolish endeavor of yours."

"Pleeease… Justice… you are the foolish one here, you are the one most connected to… the so called humanity… you are not a spirit anymore and as well you are not a demon… but you'll be, you are on a road with no way back… Since you broke from the Fade… that place has changed… let's stop looking from our… perspective… our petty conflict means nothing! War is coming… and it cannot be stopped. Even if I may… face oblivion… the tangled strings of fate will not be ripped apart. The end is coming for the mortals as the doors of the Black Empire open once again… and when the end finds us… I will embrace it from the void or the mortal world."

Justice was done with this demon… he walked towards him while he was still weak, still in the process of hunting down Hawke. He pressed his hand to the abomination's forehead.

The girl's face got a terrorized look in it. "What are you doing? Justice don't fight me…. I will PREVALE… THIS IS ONLY A DELAY… STOP BROTHER!" and so the abomination fell to the ground unconscious. The energy surrounding the girl stopped, releasing Varric and Aveline. The dwarf was first to get to them… Aveline not far behind.

"Hawke… What did you do? "

"Your friend has been possessed."

"Justice I presume."

"Yes Guardswoman."

"What kind of demon?"

"The worse there can be."

"'Well of course… if Hawke does something she does it BIG TIME!" yelled outraged Varric turning around looking at the girl next to Fenris. The irony of the scene unraveling in front of him… If they get out of this situation… this will make one hell of a story. "

"What now Justice?" Aveline is down to business as always.

"I have blocked her mind from the demon… her conscience is transferred deep within the fade, deep within her dreams, her mind… it was an easy process judging from the fact that she's connected to the Fade. The demon was just about to devour her essence to finish the possession, to fully turn her in to an abomination but now he seeks her. Let's take the Champion somewhere safe… Anders will know what to do afterwards…" And so the blue glow was gone and the mage opened his brown eyes once again. Almost instantly the blank look on his face turned into a worried desperate one. He threw his hands behind his head and slowly turned around towards Hawke.

"Maker! Aisa… what have you done? How could you do this love?"

"Mage… Anders calm down."

"How VARRIC!? How?"

"These are desperate times but we must keep our emotions under control. Hawke needs us now… we are not going to disappoint her." Aveline was right and everyone knew it but the blond man was still marked by the recent events… and the contorted version of Hawke laid on the floor wasn't helping one bit.

"Justice did his part now is our turn… Anders you are the key here." Varric intervened to try and wake Anders up from this weird shocked stage.

"Just… let's just… MAKER!" The poor man barely could put one with one and they wanted him to actually think of what to do.

Once again Aveline came down to business. "Let's firstly take Aisa back to the estate… while it's still dark… I don't know what the people of Kirkwall, Meredith and the templars will say if the Champion is an abomination."

"Good plan… I remember there was a cell, me and Hawke found when we looked for the will of her grandparents…"

"We are going to imprison her now?"

"We are open to suggestion Blondie."

Anders frowned but in the end he walked towards Hawke. Carefully he slipped one of his hands under her knees and the other around her shoulders… but as soon as he touched her skin he heard her voice screaming for help… he almost fell but quickly regain his balance.

"Anders are you alright?" Asked Aveline while grabbing the elf on the floor.

"Yes… Yes… I am fine." And so they left the cave. Varric was in front of them scouting the way.

They got back at the estate right at dawn…

Half heartedly Anders laid the girl alone in a bed in the cell. Aveline took Fenris to Hawke's room. Orana woke up first and soon started to clean the elf from the blood tainting his skin. Bodahn was already talking with Varric downstairs. Anders barely left the locked door from the basement when Aveline asked him to check on Fenris.

The elf was awake talking with Orana, which was thoroughly cleaning the thick blood from his hair. He was only in leggings and judging by the girl's pout it was a war with Fenris to even get his coat off. As soon as Anders and Fenris made eye contact the elf rushed towards him.

"What happened? Why was I filled with blood? Where is Aisa?"

"You don't remember?"

"All is blurry… Danarius caught me and tried to bargain with her… pain…" Here Fenris stopped a little trying to gather his words. "Aisa crying… begging… blood… and then I woke here."

"You should sit down… I'll tell you everything while I check your wounds." And so he did. Anders told him everything. Fenris was fine… physically talking, his internal organs no more a mass of gore and blood, his bones like new and his cuts which Anders remembers clearly being there are gone… with no scar to show that they ever existed… the only thing that remained was a huge black spot on his skin… as a bruise.. But Anders couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Right before you'd die… Hawke made a pact with a demon… to save your life."

"What?" Now he remembered… that voice in the back of his head… the look in Hawke's eyes right before the darkness… she had a spark of determination mixed with fear in those two blue sapphires. Her last words were…" Even if you'll hate me."

"Venhendis! Is she? Please tell me she is alright. Where is Aisa?" Anders was happy to show Fenris what he has done to Hawke… so he brought the grieving elf to the basement. He could hear from behind the hoarse voice he so hated. "This is what I was trying o avoid."

"You were a fool." Fenris didn't bite Anders back because he knew the abomination was right.

When the elf saw Hawke… or the new Hawke he wanted to rip his own heart out…

"There is a way to save her Fenris."

Aveline brighten up." Justice said you'll know a way."

"Yes… because he told it to me… Hawke is in the Fade… the demon is looking for her that is why Aisa is unconscious… she is an empty husk now… One of us should go there and help her kill the monster."

"Don't tell me… you are that one person."

"Fenris right now there is no time for our stupid fights… we have to save her."

"I actually wanted to say that it is a good idea for you to go."

Anders was quite taken by surprise… that beast of a man so honest and… actually agreeing with him?

"I was thinking that Merrill will do the ritual and we both will go in to the Fade. Justice could be helpful and as much as I hate to say it your connection with Hawke could be a good asset to us… in there."

"The blood mage?"

"I share your thought about Merrill… but we don't really have a choice here… Bodahn just left to get her."

"Blood magic can't help in this."

"She is not going to use blood magic Fenris. I'll make sure she isn't."

As much as he hates this plan the abomination made, Fenris doesn't really have a choice here… he owes this to Hawke… he is going to save her from her own. She doesn't deserve to become a monster and be killed as one… But why would she do such a thing? Just for him… no… it can't be right. Even if they had that night together… it was two years ago if there was something between them it can't be anymore… He left her, she could have seen that act as anything… because not even himself knew why did he actually leave… the abomination interpreted that Fenris used Aisa… and as wrong as that was what would have stopped the girl to think the same thing? Damn it all why did he leave? He was a coward… That night was simply putting perfect… his markings hurt that is true… but yet again the arousal covered it all… the memories… stupid images playing with his mind, making him run away from the only good thing in his life. He is going to make up for all of it even if it will take him everything to accomplish this.

Anders was feeling nothing else but grief. The most courageous, powerful and unique woman died today. He never really had any hope in this plan Justice made… no mage, ever, was turned back to normal after turning in to an abomination, but he is going on this hopeless journey… because this is the only thing he can do… for her. Maker why would she do this? That beast doesn't deserve so much loyalty from her, not after all he did and yet he gets it... he gets all her love and care and throws it all out the window. If only Hawke would look at him in the way she looks at Fenris with lust care and longing… if only… he would step on everything just to make her happy, every single day he's going to live. He would give up at everything even the plight of the mages… but it isn't meant to be… Right now isn't the time to think about foolish things like his obsession with Hawke. The mage was quite worried because for the first time his thoughts weren't interrupted by Justice… why was he so silent all of the sudden he should flare up with desire of Justice for the unfair events that cursed Hawke by now. For the first time in a while his mind is clear and he knows this… he is going to give his best in the Fade even if all will end up being in vain. If Hawke will fully turn in to an abomination he'll do the last right thing and he'll kill her.