I'm not sure where this story is going to go, but it's all in good fun, right? And obviously, I own nothing...

xxxx

Chapter 1: Flight

Hawke fled Kirkwall alone. She was too dangerous to put anyone at further risk. She had failed to protect everyone and everything that had ever been dear to her. She hoped that by disappearing alone, she might protect what remained of her friends by simply being absent. She had killed so many trying to be a protector. The Arishok, the First Enchanter, the Knight Commander, Anders...all dead by her hands, by her magic. And what has magic ever touched that it did not spoil, she thought. Yet she could no more be rid of her magic than she could bring all that she had lost back to her.

She looked out across the water and sighed deeply.

"Brooding again sweetling?" Isabela appeared behind her. "You know, you're much prettier when you're not scowling." The pirate winked suggestively. Hawke wasn't really in the mood for flirting. She was grateful to Isabela for giving her safe passage on her ship. She was not grateful for the relentless flirting. Back in Kirkwall was one thing, it was a big city afterall, with enough room for Isabela's large…personality. But in the close quarters of the ship, Hawke was starting to feel very crowded.

"I'll try to save the brooding until we dock then. How long before we arrive?"

"Two days. Are you still sure you don't want to stay aboard and travel with us? The offer still stands Hawke, I owe you that at least" Isabela's tone always lost its swagger when she remembered how Hawke had saved her life.

"Thank you again, but no. It is far too dangerous for you and your crew to keep me around. I'm going to Minrathous to disappear and stay out of trouble for a change. I'll just be one more mage there."

"Yes, but the other mages there aren't quite so self loathing, you know."

"Well, who said I'd want to play with them anyway?" Hawke managed a wink of her own for the pirate.

"Trouble has a way of finding you, Hawke. I'm sure you'll be playing with them in no time. But if I know you, you won't be playing nice."

xxxx

Fenris looked out across the water. In the distance ahead he could just make out the spires of Minrathous. His stomach turned at the sight, and for a brief moment his resolve wavered. The moment passed quickly, because he had already decided he would run no longer. He saw so clearly now that the only path to true freedom was a path spattered with the blood of his former master.

He was fortunate enough to have arranged passage on this ship. He closed his eyes and hung his head back to face the hot Northern sun. The heat, at least, was a welcome change. He had been traveling south all this time thinking to put as much distance as possible between him and this poisonous metropolis. The damp chill of the southern lands had become increasingly difficult to bear while on the run. Unfortunately, the bounty on his head was so high every slaver and hunter from here to the Anderfels thought to try their luck at capturing him, so he was always on the run.

He tried to throw them off his scent in Ferelden. After the blight, there were many places there a fugitive could find anonymity. But along with the devastation of war comes greed, and he once again found himself chased from town to town. When he made it as far as Gwaren, two different groups were pursuing him and they had him effectively cornered. He had not eaten in two days and had not slept in four. In a moment of weakness, a hateful little voice inside of him said, is freedom worth this?

He became enraged at himself for even forming the thought, and that was when he came to the decision to run no longer. He managed to bait one of the groups of hunters into attacking the other and their numbers thinned enough for him to be able to deal with the rest on his own. He took what coin he could off their corpses and that very night he booked passage on this ship sailing north. He would no longer run to be free. He would fight to be free. He would kill to be free. Which left him only one path to follow.

Fenris had spent the entirety of the journey thinking through a plan of action. One did not just stroll into the imperial capital and assassinate a powerful and influential magister. Especially not one who happened to be an escaped slave with a very conspicuous appearance. In the last town they had docked, he managed to find an armorer who was able to modify his armor. As much as he wanted to discard all vestiges of his former life, he reluctantly admitted to himself that it was exceptionally well made and suited his fighting style perfectly. Besides, he could never be rid of the one thing that was the constant reminder of all he wished to forget. The best he could do for now was cover it. The modified armor did just that. The bright lyrium embedded in his skin was now covered from neck to toe, and with a hood to cover his hair and pull low over his head, he could pass for any other mercenary with a sword.

Going unrecognized would be only the first victory, and a small one at that. He hoped that the very fact he was entering the belly of the beast would provide some slight protection. Danarius would not be expecting Fenris to change his strategy from "retreat" to "charge". The arrogant Magister had always thought himself untouchable. A good deal of that reputation, however, was thanks to having Fenris as a bodyguard.

Ironically, those years spent as a bodyguard left Fenris with detailed knowledge of every corner of the city, which would now serve him well. Few slaves saw more than the inside of their master's mansions, so he considered himself lucky in a way. He planned to take a room in one of the inns lining the docks. They were frequented by many foreign swords for hire and soldiers of fortune looking to profit from the sloth of the magisters. From there he would need to acquire as much information as possible on his target. Much time had passed, and Fenris would have to re-learn Danarius' comings and goings. He would have to tread carefully and find an opening somewhere, somehow.

He wondered briefly what it would be like to not have to go this alone. Painfully, he remembered the last souls who had helped him and how they had paid for it. Alone was how it would have to be.

As he disembarked, the sounds and smells of the sprawling docks enveloped him. He stepped into the throng with renewed purpose and thought, let it begin.

xxxx

Hawke was bored. She was terribly, painfully, mind numbingly bored. And hot. She was bored and hot. She hated this city from the moment her toes hit the ground and she hated it more and more as each day passed. The heat seemed to increase with her hatred. Or perhaps it was the other way around. As she lay sprawled upon the bed wearing nothing but her smallclothes, she stared up at the dingy ceiling and nearly felt as if she were evaporating from the heat. She was a Ferelden girl afterall. Even Kirkwall's summers had often been too hot for her comfort. This was beyond what a sane person would consider reasonable.

It was not only the weather that was oppressive. The whole place reeked of oppression. It seemed to her a tangible thing, permeating everything in this Maker-forsaken city. She had taken a room in one of the inns Isabella had recommended to her. It was a place along the docks, whose typical clientele appreciated the fact that they could pay for a room, an ale, and no questions asked. Her first night she decided to take a walk around this part of town to get her bearings and the first thing she saw when she stepped onto the street was a slaver ship unloading its cargo. It sickened her. What sickened her even more, and contributed to the general aura of oppression, was that she couldn't do a damn thing about it. The city itself seemed to know it too, know that it's walls and spires existed to break people, not to be broken. No matter how many Qunari battered it's shores, no matter how many slave rebellions hurled themselves upon its infrastructure, Minrathous still stood as oppressive as ever. Hawke could only remember fondly all the times she had killed slavers in the past and the feeling of righteous satisfaction it had always given her. She would kill to have the feeling of killing a slaver again...

Thus her thoughts circled back to her tremendous boredom. She recalled what Isabela said about her "playing with" the mages here. She had been an apostate for so long, and had been trained so well by her father to conceal and generally get by without her magic, it did not occur to her to so openly be a mage here. Even in Kirkwall she had to walk a fine line. There was also the blood magic. She was neither stupid, nor naive. She knew very well the kind of magic these mages so cavalierly used. If there was one thing she hated as much as slavers it was blood mages. Yet you chose to come to a city controlled by slave-owning maleficarum! Hawke flipped herself onto her stomach and buried her face in the threadbare pillow, letting out an exasperated grunt.

She was clearly not good at inaction. She had fleetingly considered trying to open a clinic to help heal some of the city's poor, but it reminded her too acutely of the friend she had foolishly trusted, which was part of the reason she was here in the first place. Her magic was better suited to destruction than restoration anyway. She considered forgoing a magical endeavor entirely to take on some mercenary jobs, but she wasn't yet sure she could risk being so public. When more time had passed and she was assured no one was looking for her here, she could try. Minrathous was hopefully far enough away to escape the Chantry's notice, and large enough to discourage any rouge mages from the Marches or elsewhere from seeking her out to make some kind of figurehead of her…or try to kill her. She still wasn't sure where her legacy would stand with the mages. Did they support her defiance of Chantry law, or did they consider her a treacherous murderer, having taken the lives of Orsino and Anders?

But that was all the past now, and she must put it behind her. Hawke was never one to look behind. Focus forward and your duty will be clear, her father used to tell her. Focus forward. He had wanted to teach her to keep temptation behind her and focus on her control, because that would serve her best in the end. Focus forward. She still had such a desire to make things right, or at least better, and she wanted so badly to keep "fighting the good fight". And if that desire was born of trying to atone for past failures, then so be it. She knew what she would do.

With renewed purpose, she shot out of bed and dressed. As she did so, she mused that she was perhaps the only mage in Tevinter without robes and a staff. More lessons from her father. No need to advertise, he would say. She had been taught to use magic without the aid of a staff, and she was also taught how to use the daggers she now strapped to her back. No one expects a mage to pull a blade and not slice themselves with it, she heard his voice in her head again and smiled. Before she left her room she looked out the small window and saw the hot sun beginning to set. Some hawks do hunt at night.