When the party of strangers emerged from the trap in the alienage they were set upon by slavers, just as Fenris had predicted.
If they had struggled, he might have intervened, but they made short work of their attackers. From his vantage, he was content to watch the slavers laid low by weapons other than his, for a change.
When it was over, Fenris revealed himself and his ruse, as was only fair.
Strange, this group, composed of dwarves and human women, pickpockets and city guards. He wasn't sure what to make of them.
It was immediately obvious to Fenris which one was in charge - the short, graceless, loudmouthed woman in the heavy plate. The faces of the other three fighters turned immediately to hers at any uncertainty, and she did not hesitate. She stepped up to him with a good-humored smile and just a hint of menace in her eyes, and asked him why he had decieved them.
He explained honestly, not really expecting the humans to understand his position. They had already done him a favor by shaking off the hunters that had plagued his heels for weeks. Fenris did not imagine they would much be interested in infiltrating his master's estate, but he did try anyway, and offered the promise of plunder for further motivation.
As it happened, the fierce little woman was only too happy to assist him. The idea of pursuing a slavemaster seemed to make her downright cheerful. To the invasion of the Hightown manor of his former master, she promised her own blade as well as those of a number of mercenaries who were apparently at her disposal. She even shook on this, offering her calloused hand to his scarred one and pumping it decisively, and Fenris suddenly had the notion that matters had gone entirely out of his hands.
This was Sadie Hawke.
Wild-haired, stubborn, forthright Sadie Hawke.
She was a farmer's daughter, he was told, though her mother was noble-born. In comparison to her sister Bethany, who looked every inch the aristocrat with her high cheekbones and striking features, Hawke was a homely woman. She bore the scars of a soldier and the complexion of a peasant, and she was utterly lacking in the womanly graces.
But she was bright-eyed and sharp-tongued, and people looked to her for direction within minutes of making her acquaintance. This phenomenon, the way she would attract followers and advice-seekers at every turn, was a fascination for Fenris right from the start.
Fenris has seen a great many beautiful women in Tevinter, and to a one they had been both stupid and cruel. Beauty was so often a false and dangerous thing, and he did not trust it. Perhaps this was why he would be comfortable with Hawke, who was only ever herself and who did not care that she would never be beautiful.
Because he had not, and never did have, the money with which to compensate these mercenaries for their troubles, he offered to Hawke his services as a swordsman, which they would surely have use for at some future date.
Little did he know how often they would be in use.
For example, the very next day after the failed attempt to find Danarius, he was summoned to meet the group at a rundown shack of a tavern in Lowtown where he would normally have no inclination to set foot.
After waiting for some time in the ale and piss-soaked common room with no sign of Hawke, Fenris was in a poor temper. Even more so when Hawke finally emerged from a back room, arm in arm with that dwarf rogue, both with enormous half-empty flagons of stout beer.
Hawke startled, and looked mildly guilty at his sour expression. "Oh, you're here! I'm afraid Varric and I started without you."
Fenris groused, "I thought this was to be a sortie, not a... tavern crawl."
Varric, using the wide and charming grin which he was never without, offered a flagon of the foul-smelling drink. "Sorties are in store, my friend. We're merely warming ourselves inside and out, before it's out into the cold night to do our dirty business."
Fenris refused the drink, looking highly uncomfortable. More than a few of these drunken louts were openly staring at him, and he may have need to defend himself before the evening was through.
The dwarf settled himself into a seat opposite, commenting sardonically, "Let me guess: you're angry."
From above his head, Hawke's laughter was merry, not cruel. "Fenris? Angry? Nooooooo. How unlike him."
She would have gone on, but Fenris put in dryly: "I am not always angry. Sometimes I am merely annoyed."
Hawke's reaction could only be described as delighted, her smirk exploding into a grin. "The elf makes a joke! I think you'll fit in with our little group after all. We do expect you to pull your weight in banter."
Bantering was not something Fenris had bargained for, in this agreement. "Tell me what you expect of me, and let's have it done."
Hawke's smile diminished, but did not altogether vanish. "To business then, if that's how you want it. Our destination tonight is Darktown, so you may want to reconsider that drink..."
Fenris had never met a woman like Hawke. He had only been a free man for a few short years, and had seen little of the world. He had not known such women existed.
There was the time in the Vicount's Keep, on their way to the barracks to speak to Aveline, that a balding, finely-dressed official had stopped them and pointed to a sign outside, one that Fenris had not noticed and could not have read if he had.
"No shoes, no entry," he said.
Fenris would have handled this himself, but Hawke acted first.
"That means no elves, right?" She was shooting the man a look that Fenris had come to recognize as dangerous. "I'm sure you are aware that the elves do not wear shoes."
The official puffed himself up. "You can enter, ma'am. But your.. foreign friend here should wait outside."
"Doesn't the Vicount represent everyone in the city, including elves?"
In the face of Hawke's impertinent grin, the man's face was rapidly turning red. "The Vicount governs everyone, including elves, yes, and silly Ferelden peasants as well. But he represents citizens, not illiterate trash who won't read the posted signs."
Fenris was past being insulted by such things; he had heard similar insults throughout his life. And unfortunately this one was rather accurate - Fenris could not read a word of the posted signs, a fact he had taken pains to conceal. So he was inclined to let this go, so not to draw attention on his own uneducated and lowly status.
But Hawke, on the other hand, nearly took the man's damned head off.
"You're very confident for a peon, aren't you?" Hawke's smile had turned entirely malicious. "I'm sure you're very proud of your little signs. But my friend here can speak four languages, when you can just barely manage one, am I right? Trash, indeed. I very much doubt you can lift anything larger than a pen, so you should be careful about insulting a warrior who carries a Greatsword."
Both temper and dignity seemed to be fleeing the official rapidly. "All right, you can both get out now!"
"Oh, are you going to throw us out now?" Hawke got right up in his face. "Try. It," she enunciated carefully, looking the official up and down. He made no movement at all, and so she stepped back, satisfied.
"And I will hear no more insults. If you cannot hold your tongue I will be happy to cut it out for you. Let's go, Fenris."
They continued to the barracks with the little man sputtering after them, and were quickly admitted inside by friendly guardsmen. Fenris did relish the sight of the official's enraged face outside as he shook his fist helplessly, but this was a bad habit for Hawke to indulge.
"It is not wise to make enemies in the Vicount's office, Hawke," he warned her.
"If the Vicount doesn't like it," she said crossly, "he can send me a strongly-worded letter."
Hawke was always requesting things of him, many of which made no blighted sense. Meeting her mother, for instance - since when did mercenaries bring each other home to meet their mothers? - and socializing with her friends. Fenris did not have friends. He had enemies and potential enemies. Fratrenizing with potential enemies made him nervous. But she insisted on a friendly drink before action, and often after action, and sometimes in place of action. She involved him in gambling and other such frivolous activities, which is how he discovered that he was actually a fair card player, which earned him some amount of coin.
She was always asking ridiculous questions.
Questions like: which do you prefer?
Fenris was prepared to accept anything and be glad of it; choosing an order of preference was an exercise in futility.
But Hawke did not accept "I don't know" as an answer, and would always wait for him to choose an option. Red or blue, ale or spirits, meat or fish, right or left, first watch or last. Blasted woman, what did it matter? There was what there was and he would take or leave it. If it was so important to her which flavor of pie was served to them, why should she not choose herself and stop asking him what he wanted? In exasperation Fenris would simply make things up. Yes, if he must choose, he would take the boisenberry over the peach, fine.
The funny thing was, the more he did this, the more consistent his choices became, until they were no longer random. Until he could see that he did prefer the peach, after all, and he was not about to accept a purple cloak but red was quite fine. In point of fact, he hated fish, and would be perfectly happy never to eat another.
He wanted things. Things besides gutting his former master. Like a warm fire, and a good wine, and to walk the streets of Hightown at night when the stars were out and noone was around to tell him where he could not go.
Hawke noticed all of these things, and she remembered them. She treated him like a person, before it was at all clear that he was one.
And then, she asked him to join her in the Deep Roads expedition.
At first, he turned her down. "I have no need for dwarven treasure, Hawke," he explained. The idea of going so deep underground did not exactly thrill him, either.
"That's all right," she said. "I'm sure one of the others will. Varric is our connection to Bartrand and Anders has the map.. perhaps Merrill would like to come along?"
Well, he could hardly send Hawke on a dangerous expedition with only a merchant dwarf, an abomination, and a blood mage at her side, could he?
So he went.
It was cold in the Deep Roads. At night, when the fire had gone out, he woke up shivering and looked around.
He noticed for the first time Hawke and Anders wrapped up together, asleep, warm and comfortable in their shared bedroll.
Why this should upset him, he did not know. What was it to him what Hawke chose to do? Even if she was letting the abomination curl himself around her, it was nothing to him.
He turned resolutely away from the sight and successfully forced his mind to empty, his temper to cool. But he shivered harder, and did not sleep the rest of the night.
When they returned from the Deep Roads, Fenris was convinced that their association would be at an end. Hawke had her share of the treasure trove and had bought back her mother's family estate. There was no need for her to continue adventuring now that she was a Lady.
He found out from Varric, during a rare appearance at the Hanged Man, that the handwritten envelopes he had been steadily throwing away for months were from Hawke. She was inviting him to tour her manor - an open invitation, it was implied. After several months more passed and he had not appeared, she came to his dilapedated home in broad daylight and bashed on the door until people stopped in the streets and stared at her. "Open up, Fenris!" she hollered.
With some exasperation, Fenris opened the door, planning to yank her inside. Sadie Hawke ignored his grasping hands, put her hands on her hips and spoke louder.
"Ah, so you ARE still among the living! You WILL come to my home for dinner, elf. I'm afraid you have no choice in the matter."
Fenris grimaced, noting the finely dressed nobles gesturing and talking to each other about the scandalous behavior of the newest resident of Hightown. "Hawke, get inside. People are watching."
"I don't care if they see me. They should know that you are my friend. They should know," she threw over her shoulder, "that if they preferred the previous resident of this house even though he was a slave-owning piece of shit, then I don't like them very much either!"
Fenris was starting to understand that this particular woman was probably one of a kind.
After Hadriana's death - after he killed her - in the turmoil of his thoughts and fears Fenris locked himself away for a long time. His moldy mansion was useful to keep away unwanted visitors, it was true. But it was also comfortable to him, in its dank ruin, as a quiet and dark space to rest his anxious mind. It was like an extension of himself, in a way - still standing, but in disrepair, and clearly signaling to the world at large to stay away and leave him in peace.
Yet Hawke had no intention of leaving him in peace. She continued to visit him, in the night, whenever she was not adventuring. He wasn't answering his door then, not even for her. But she was nothing if not persistent. He would hear her distinctive pounding nearly every evening, despite his silence.
One particular night, she refused to give up and go away. She simply kept on knocking, dead set on getting a response.
"I have pie!" she called cheerfully.
At the sound of her banging, Fenris came to sit on the steps of the entrance hall, just near enough to hear what she was saying. He wouldn't answer. Usually people assumed he was asleep or not at home when he did not answer.
"It's not just any pie. It's Lady Elegant's pie," Hawke added with special emphasis.
He would not let her in. He did not want any pie.
"Lady Elegant's pie is famous, Fenris. It is the food of the very gods."
He was a bit hungry, now that he thought of it, but he would not let her in.
"Andraste herself would climb down from her pyre for a bite of this pie, Fenris."
An exaggeration and blasphemy besides. Though it made him smile, he would not-
"The thing is, it's not nearly as good to eat the whole thing yourself. And I would do it - I swear I would do it. But it's better to share. It's something funny about this particular pie, the taste actually changes. Seriously, it tastes even more heavenly when two people eat this pie. And if you don't eat this pie with me, I will have to go back to my house and I will eat this entire pie, and then I will be sick, Fenris, and it will be all your fault."
Finally, he accepted that Hawke was not going to go away any time soon. With a long sigh, Fenris stood up and let her in. "All right, I will taste your pie. But I doubt it will live up to your description."
Hawke was grinning from ear to ear as she breezed past him, set on finding some sort of eating utensils for the two of them. "I'm telling you, it should be enshrined in the Chantry as one of the Maker's miracles."
Sitting on the floor in front of his fire, as the two of them worked their way through the pastry in a surprisingly short period of time, Fenris was forced to admit: it was a very good pie.
Eventually Hawke would come to visit quite often. She would bang on his door and announce herself loudly enough for the whole neighborhood to hear, in increasingly ridiculous ways.
("Champion of Kirkwall Delivery! Open up; I have cake!")
("Magister Extermination Service! Your third mark is free!")
("Missing persons! I have a report of a Lyrium Elf missing from The Hanged Man! There's an empty chair waiting for him at Wicked Grace tonight!")
Which was completely unnecessary; his door was unlocked these days.
But she would knock first and then she would throw open his front door and breeze inside. She would find him in the one room of the dilapidated mansion that he hadn't allowed to completely fall apart, and she would throw herself into the most comfortable chair (which was her chair) (which he had privately decided was her chair) (but would never say so) and launch into an abbreviated description of her latest adventure, sometimes even an adventure that he personally was there for and hardly needed her to recount.
She would insist on her own bottle of wine. They had long since finished the Aggregio, but found many other agreeable varieties in the vault of Danarius' manor. Fortunately, like most wealthy men his former master liked to display his posessions and not use them up, which left a considerable cache of alcohol for them to enjoy. He would produce two glasses, the only two glasses that were clean and unbroken, and they would sit together and drink.
Sometimes he would talk. The wine loosened his tongue considerably, which should have made him nervous. And indeed, he resolved each time not to bother Hawke with his morose thoughts, to let her speak and enjoy her company. But nearly every time he found himself telling her things he had intended never to tell anyone, such as the night he told her of the fog warriors and his escape from slavery. He was fairly surprised that he had told her that. He admonished himself that it was quite enough now, Hawke had heard enough of his whining, and not to trouble her any further with unpleasant tales. And then another night would come around and he would reveal something else to her, quite against his will. It was maddening.
And Hawke would listen and look to all appearances completely unbothered by his tales. Fascinated would be more the word. She would ask questions, but never push. Her sky-blue eyes would regard him calmly and with affection that made his heart skip. And the details would just bubble up out of him like so much hot air, and leave him feeling lighter.
Fenris had never had a friend before.
During such visits, she would ask long streams of silly questions.
"What color was your hair before the ritual? Did the lyrium turn it white like that?"
He didn't know. He said such questions were useless. But it did bother him that he didn't know the answer to such a simple thing.
"Can you do other things? With those tattoos I mean, besides that tearing-out-hearts trick?"
As if that were not sufficient? He could probably do other things, if he tried. But as he explained, he found the sensation of phasing through solid objects highly unpleasant - not unlike falling into icy water, with a shock of pain followed by prickling numbness which took some time to resolve.
"But you do it anyway, with your arm at least? Do you get used to it?"
Yes, he supposed. He had been made to perform that service, of pulling out hearts with his gauntleted hand, a great many times for Danarius's amusement. Though it still pained him each time, it had come to seem normal. But he used it sparingly now and only in great anger.
"Have you ever tried walking through a wall? Seems like that would be extremely useful."
Exasperated, he would reply: "Woman, I am not a dog to perform tricks for you!"
And she would say: "It's not for my amusement, Fenris. You may need such skills someday, when you're in a jam."
Which was something to think on.
Another question: "Does the lyrium make you stronger than normal?"
Fenris didn't think he was particularly strong, in fact Hawke could lift just as heavy a load as he could.
"Well, you're so thin, I don't see any sign of muscle at all. But you wave that sword around like it was nothing! Is that an elf thing?"
Fenris was pleased to know the answer to this one. "It is indeed an.. elf thing. Our muscles do not bulge and thicken in the grotesque way of you humans."
Hawke scowled at him good-humoredly at that, and bent her arm to display her swollen bicep. "Grotesque, am I?"
"On you it is.. acceptable."
"Thanks," she said sarcastically. "Okay, while we're on the subject, why are you lot all so skinny?"
"A great many of us are underfed, you know."
She bit her lip in approbation - of course she should have remembered that.
"But our metabolisms do differ, and we do tend to be thin. I'm sure it's possible for an elf to gain weight, if he ate enough."
"I don't think I've ever seen a fat elf!"
"Keep bringing me pastries, and you just might."
Hawke fell over laughing at the notion. "Oh, oh... a fat Fenris. That's brilliant."
He enjoyed the sound of her completely uninhibited laughter.
She stayed down, looking at the ceiling thoughtfully as her laughing fit died away. "If I had brought you home to Mother more often, I think she would have made it a mission to feed you. She was always saying Beth and I needed some more meat on our bones." She eyed him thoughtfully. "Yes, she would have gone about fattening you up, I'm sure of it."
"It would have been quite an undertaking, I think."
"She loved a challenge."
"Did she do the same for Anders?"
Fenris immediately winced at his error. Hawke hardly ever talked about her mother, and even less often about Anders, at least in his presence. He hadn't even known the abomination had moved into the Hawke estate until Varric told him. She clearly wanted to discuss her mage lover with him even less than Fenris did.
"Mother never liked Anders," she confessed, to Fenris's surprise. "I think she liked you, though. She used to say, 'at least the elf has manners, dear.'"
"Did she truly?"
"She did."
Fenris could not help smirking at that.
"Very perceptive of her."
"I thought so."
"A fine woman, your mother."
"The best."
"It was brave of you," Hawke insisted.
It was just after the ambush at the Hanged Man, when Fenris had been betrayed by his only family, turned over to Danarius. With his friends' help, they had fought off the magister, and he had the distinct pleasure of murdering the man himself.
But he was full of disquiet.
They were sitting opposite each other at the great dining table, another dusty relic he had not bothered to preserve, just after Varric and Aveline had left off harassing him about finding a new home.
"If you only knew my thoughts at that moment, you would not call me brave," he confessed.
"I imagine you wanted to tear him limb from limb. Rage is an understandable reaction to what you've been through."
"No, not anger. Something else. The first moment I saw him, I felt.." he struggled to explain, and shook his head. "If you had not been there, I don't know what I would have done. I might have lain down my sword and surrendered."
Hawke's eyes narrowed at that. "Never. You would never do that."
"I don't know, Hawke. It was.. despair. That was what I felt. To look at Danarius again, my anger was suddenly evaporated and all I could find was despair." He curled and uncurled his hands, unable to look at her. "It was as I had always felt in his presence, all at once, as though nothing had changed. For a moment, I could not move at all. It was as if I'd turned to stone. Only you and Isabela and Aveline kept me on my feet until I could fight him."
Hawke remained silent, watching him.
What he did not share was his true darkest fear, the one he'd had nightmares about for years - that when his master returned, he would order Fenris to slay his companions. And though he would never willingly obey such a order, in his darkest moments, he feared that he could not help but do as Danarius commanded. More than once he had awoken with the image of Hawke on the end of his sword, with terror in his heart. He had lived as a free man for nearly ten years, but the blood magic of the Tevinter magisters was powerful and he could not be completely sure that he was totally free of its control, that his will was strong enough now to resist.
But it had not come to pass, and Danarius had died by his own hand. Yet he did not feel victorious. And, in truth, the nightmares had not passed. He felt no different than he had before; if anything, he was even more lost.
Which made him fear that he would never truly escape his chains, that whatever normalcy was, it would remain ever out of his reach.
Fenris drained the rest of his glass, realizing that he had been silent for much too long while his guest waited expectantly.
"You do not know what it is to live without hope, Hawke. I'm glad you don't."
When he looked at Hawke again, he noticed a solemn look crossing her features. He caught her like this from time to time, when she thought noone was watching.
"I suppose I don't," she said. "Sometimes.. but no, there is always some hope." A smile stretched across her features again, only a little sad. "It's going to take some time, you know. For everything to sink in. You've had years to worry about Danarius, and only a few days with him dead."
"That is true," he said slowly.
"I'm sure you expected everything to be different right away, but that's not how things go."
"I have done a lot of waiting in my time. But it seems that nothing is ever any different. Not.. within myself."
"You've changed a great deal since we met," she argued. "I wish you wouldn't be so down on yourself. You might be an obnoxious prick sometimes, Fen, but you're a good person."
He looked skeptical.
"You're a thoughtful, and funny, and brave, and giving person."
Now he knew for certain that Hawke was lying to make him feel better. "Giving? That is not a word that anyone would use to describe me."
"I beg to differ," Hawke told him. "I remember what Varania said. You gave up your life for your mother and sister, so that they could be free. That is both courageous and giving."
"For all the good it did them," he said bitterly.
"Regardless. That you would do it says a lot about you, Fenris."
"That was.. another person. The person from before the Lyrium ritual removed my memories. That was not me."
She smiled at him. "That is you all over. I know you, Fen. That's exactly the sort of thing you would do for someone you loved."
On one particular evening Fenris returned to his quarters to find Hawke already there, and blisteringly drunk. She had raided his cellar and surrounded herself with a truly impressive array of spirits, sitting on the floor in front of a half-hearted fire that she appeared to have lost interest in partway through its building, judging from the kindling strewn about her. "Fen! My friend!" she exclaimed happily when she saw him in the doorway, a further indication of how very drunk she was.
"Do come in," he said crossly. The mess he did not mind so much, but barging into his only sanctuary and helping herself to his few possessions was not endearing Hawke to him at the moment.
"Oh dear, I've made you angry," she said, with a broad and mischevious smile. "I shall pay you back, you know. Hightown is a treasure-house of fine spirits and slow wits. If I've exhausted your supply, I can easily acquire more. At the moment," she giggled, "I seem a bit slow witted myself."
Hawke was normally not a sloppy drunk and she did not tend to slur her speech. Only a certain over-enunciation of her words and a tendency to babble was the usual sign that she had had enough.
But tonight she visibly wobbled in her movements, to a degree he had never seen before. It was a little alarming.
"Come and join me," she invited, holding up a bottle and then tipping it from side-to-side to determine that it was actually empty. "You may need to bring reinforcements."
Fenris was not at all sure how to handle this situation. This was very much unlike her. His own bottle of spirits did not provide any answer, although it did soothe his nerves a bit.
He asked her quietly. "Is something the matter, Hawke?"
Hawke did not answer him, absorbed in combing back with her fingers the stray hairs that were eagerly escaping her golden ponytail.
He did not want to upset her further. Sometimes, on a normal evening, he would catch her staring into the fire thoughtfully, uncharacteristically silent, and he imagined at such times she was missing her family. All the people she had lost. If he had it in him to give comfort... but he didn't, so he would let it pass unmentioned. Perhaps this was a side of her that he had not seen fully until now.
Fenris busied himself gathering up the empty bottles, and tried to think of something to say.
Abruptly, she yawned and stretched. "I should go. Back to my own bed, stop making a mess of things here."
"You don't have to leave."
Hawke curled her fingers around the fresh bottle that Fenris had opened. "One for the road," she said lightly. "Good thing it's a short walk."
Deftly, he pulled the bottle away from her reach. "I believe that was mine, Hawke."
She smirked. "I have my own drink at home, you know. Or at the Hanged Man, as much as I want." Hawke hung her head down for a moment. "But the famous Champion of Kirkwall should not make appearances as a drunkard. And drinking alone is.. not much fun."
"I know that very well." Fenris bent down beside her, offering the bottle back. "Just stay. You don't have to leave."
Hawke's eyes were huge right then, dilated and foggy. She took the bottle back and set it on the floor without looking, seemingly losing interest in its possibilities. She stared into his eyes. It looked as though she were asking him something, without words, that he could not comprehend.
He pulled back, suddenly nervous. Taking several steps back, he said: "I will bring something for the fire. Wait here."
"Don't go."
She rose up too quickly and staggered, actually staggered, towards him. Without a moment to think about it his feet were moving him forward of their own accord and he was forced to catch ahold of her before she knocked them both down. Hawke was still laughing, and there was no safe place to grab ahold of her that was not exceedingly impolite or wiggling around madly. She ended up crushed to his chest, successfully stamping on his feet several times with her heavy boots.
He managed to hold her there until she could find her balance again. When the wobbling stopped, she had laid her head on his shoulder, her hands pressed to his chest. With his arms around her, it was very much like an embrace.
Too much.
Fenris could remember each individual time Hawke had ever touched him. Little brushes, accidental bumps, and one occassion when she had teasingly grabbed at the tip of his ear and sent a jolt of pleasure through his entire body.
He knew very well that this was not the way that a friend felt about another friend.
Though he had no right to it, he held her in that embrace for just a little bit longer. Just the space of a few breaths. Long enough to sear into his memory the warmth of her body pressed against his.
Then he maneuvered her back towards the fire, helping her down into her chair. She flopped back with a mildly disgruntled sort of pout that was so endearingly comical he needed to bite back a smile. Instead Fenris straightened her rumpled finery in a fussy sort of a way and avoided her face. He said something or other about rebuilding the fire again, as if that mattered right now.
"Am I really so unloveable?" she asked him.
"Don't be absurd." He could raise his voice no louder than a whisper, for some reason.
Her sky-blue eyes interrogated his. "Then why doesn't he love me?"
Fenris released a breath he had not realized he had been holding. "Anders?"
She nodded. "He has had his fill of me. He finds reasons to stay away. And even when he comes home to me, his mind is.. not with me."
He could not reply. It was strange, he felt as though an icy hand gripped his throat.
This question was not for him to answer. Not one such as he. He had stolen some moments from her in the absence of the one she truly wanted, and that much was a stroke of pure luck. If he had not set the trap, if they had not had the curiosity to follow, if they had not needed an extra sword, if he had not joined her party of adventurers, there would be no reason for the Lady Hawke, the Champion, to give a wretch such as him a second glance. Just as easily he could have been entirely alone through everything, and perhaps he would have died long ago, at the hand of slavers or Danarius, or by some other treachery, or from simple crushing loneliness.
Anders was a fool. Besides being a wicked abomination and embodiment of everything Fenris hated, he was a pure imbecile. If Fenris were in his place, and he were a whole and handsome man beloved by everyone, and if he had Hawke by his side, he would never for a moment take her for granted. Would never leave her sad and lonely, like this. He would have known he was the luckiest man alive.
"Of course it could not last," she reasoned vaguely. "We knew that from the start, he and I."
Fenris did not want to hear any of this, now. "I'll just bring you a blanket, Hawke."
She went on, softly. "There is no happy ending for apostates. Or the people who love them."
He rifled through the crummy linens he used for a bed, trying to find something warm and comfortable for Hawke.
He remembered, finally, the master bedroom with the velvet coverlet. He beat some of the dust off before bringing it back to Hawke. She was still talking, and still sounding so sad.
"I'm going to lose everyone, aren't I? Mother, Father, Carver, Bethany.. And now Anders is slipping away from me too."
Kneeling, Fenris settled the soft material around her, noting the way she curled around the arm of her chair, face pressed to the warm velvet.
"In the end I will be alone," she said, closing her eyes.
Finally he found his voice. "I.. will not leave you, Hawke. Never."
But she was already asleep, or fast approaching it. Her face smoothed and her body relaxed, but her expression still had a trace of sadness.
Fenris watched her like this for a long time, knelt beside her.
"Perhaps it makes no difference… I have nothing to offer you, after all. But I will never abandon you. As long as you want me, I will be at your side."
Suddenly daring, he pressed his lips to her hand.
Even if she would not remember it, he had made a promise to her.