Fenris paced back and forth across the stone foyer of the Hawke estate, his bare feet padding softly and echoing off the walls of the massive house ever so slightly. His brow furrowed as worry consumed him. Aria Hawke, his best friend and lover, was supposed to be home before dusk. She had promised him that she would not go traipsing around Darktown after nightfall without him at her side. Now, his typically punctual rogue beauty was over two hours late for their reading lesson. With the sheer number of enemies she had managed to make during her years in Kirkwall, she could have very easily been overwhelmed in the streets if she wasn't careful…and she was very rarely careful.
He was just about to grab his trusty great sword from the wrack in the corner and go galivanting out in the streets looking for her, when he heard her front door slam open.
"We need to get her upstairs!" Aveline ordered in a voice hardened with concern.
"We are also going to need a wash basin." Merrill squeaked, "Anders is going to want to know what he is working with."
Fenris's ears pricked up at the mention of the healer. Aveline and Merrill bustled into the foyer, an unconscious and deathly pale Hawke draped over their shoulders. Around her waist Merrill's green ascot was tied tightly in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding; it was entirely soaked with blood. Every step forward left a trail of thick, sticky, and sickly red fluid behind the trio. Fenris felt his heartrate pick up, and his body go cold.
"Bodahn!" He hollered through the manor, his words ricocheting violently off of the walls, "We need a wash basin, several rags and some strong whiskey brought to Aria's room as quick as you can." Without thinking he strode across the room, scooped the nearly lifeless girl up in his arms and bound up the stairs to her bedroom. Aveline and Merrill were not far behind.
"I hardly think now is the time for a drink" Merrill chided.
"Alcohol disinfects." Fenris snapped, "Bodahn, where is that basin!" He hollered once more laying his love on the bed.
Just then the front door slammed open once more, shaking the frame of the estate. Anders sprinted up the stairs, staff in hand, with the dawarven manservant at his heels. They entered the room, and Fenris snatched up the supplies, swept his arm over her nightstand to clear it of all the various junk that had collected there.
"Everyone out!" he bellowed.
Fenris laid the wash basin, rags, and whiskey out on the nightstand as Aveline, Bodahn, and Merrill evacuated. The lyrium laced elf began unbuckling the clasps on his beloved's armor, hands shaking, and tattoos blazing. The mage glared at him.
"Out!" He ordered once more.
The elf met his gaze with an icy glare "I'm staying, and I am helping." He growled, "Believe me, as a former slave I am used to tending to the wounds of those beaten nearly to death, let alone my own."
"Fine." Anders clipped, "Just don't get in the way."
Fenris continued to strip Hawke out of her armor, shucking it into the corner of the room and spattering the walls with blood and gore. It was not the first time he had removed her clothes; however, this was the first time under these circumstances. When he got to her undershirt it was thick with blood and sweat. Congealed globs and futile attempts at her body to clot the wound peeled away from the open gash with a squelch. He wrapped the shirt in a rag and dropped it to the floor with a thud.
When her shirt was removed and she lay before the elf and the healer in nothing but her smalls, they could truly see the extent of the damage. A deep gash about a foot long had made an unwelcome home for itself just below her rib cage. Anders' breath caught, and Fenris's stomach turned to ice. By the looks of the wound, she had been run through with a great sword.
Her elven lover snatched up a damp rag and began wiping at the blood around the edges of the wound at the same time Anders began rifling through his pouch for a sterile needle and some thread. If he was going to fix this, if she was going to survive, the wound had to be sealed on the outside before anything could be done to magically reconstruct her insides. Fenris moved to dabbing at the wound with a whiskey soaked rag, silently thanking the maker she was unconscious for this part. They would have had to tie her down to keep her from squirming under the sting if she was awake. Anders checked her pulse; It was there…but just hardly.
"We don't have much time." He stated detached. Fenris nodded curtly in response, and turned to wash Hawke's blood off his hands. The Whole room reeked of rust and salt, it made him sick. The healer began stitching her up, completely focusing on the task at hand, trying not to think of who his patient was. His movements were quick and precise. In moments, Aria had a line of angry red flesh and black stitching holding her insides in. snipping the end of the thread, Anders turned to the elf.
"I appreciate the help, but I really must ask you to leave. I need to concentrate."
"If you think I am leaving an abomination to use magic unsupervised while the only thing that matters to me in the world lay helpless and unconscious at his mercy, you are sorely mistaken."
"I manage to save the lives of refugees every day unsupervised without becoming possessed by a demon. Now. Leave."
"Perhaps you manage to not be possessed by a demon because your body is already occupied by one." Fenris spat.
"Aveline!" Anders called, his enraged gaze locked on Fenris's icy scowl. The guard captain poked her head into the room, leaving the door mostly closed.
"Yes Anders, is everything alright?"
"Can the captain of the guard please put this slave in his place and escort him out of here. He's refusing to leave, and I cannot concentrate. Unless of course he wishes the champion dead."
Aveline approached Fenris cautiously as the lyrium in his veins burned ever brighter, scorching through his skin. "Anders, that was uncalled for." She scolded.
"So he can call me an abomination, but I can't call him what he is…a sl-"
"I am not a slave!" Fenris raged, "And I will not have you alone with her!"
"Gentlemen! The longer you argue the closer Hawke is pulled toward death." She rested her hand on Fenris's upper arm. He flinched under the searing pain of her touch on his markings. He hung his head and allowed himself to be dragged from the room. Unfortunately, biting his tongue and quietly submitting to another's command was another skill he had picked up in Tevinter.
When the door clicked shut behind them, the air filled with the familiar tingle of magic, and a gentle green glow slipped through the crack under the door. Fenris turned to wall just beside the door and slammed the side of his fist and his forehead against it, breathing raggedly and biting back tears. Aveline moved to place a hand comfortingly on his shoulder, but he swatted it away.
"Fenris…"
"A moment, please…" came his strangled response. He took a deep breath before turning to face the captain, and slowly sinking to the floor with his back pressed against the wall. "what happened?"
"It's a long st-"
"What. Happened."
"We have all been through a lot…perhaps we should talk about this after we know what kind of state she is in."
He pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes. It was clear Aveline wasn't going to give him an answer and he suddenly did not have the energy to argue. "Whoever caused this will pay…"
"The person who caused this is already dead."
His eyes shot open, his gaze as hollow as a darktown child's stomach, "Yet there is something you are not telling me."
"Good night Fenris." She turned and retreated down the stairs and through the front door.
It was several hours before Anders emerged from Aria's room looking terribly exhausted. Fenris immediately snapped awake from his half slumber and jumped to his feet as the mage leaned on the doorframe for support.
"How is she?"
"not good I'm afraid…" he rubbed at the gigantic circles under his eyes, "While she still has a pulse, it is a weak one. Her breathing is labored, she has a lot of internal damage, and to say she has lost a lot of blood would be an understatement. She's at deaths door, but she is alive and stable…for now. Her condition could go south at any moment. I need the evening to replenish my mana, but first thing tomorrow morning I'll return to doing what I can."
"What can I do?" Fenris sighed defeatedly.
"Admittedly, not much. She needs constant monitoring however, watching for the slightest changes in pulse, breathing, or temperature. If anything changes in the night I will do what I can with what mana I may restore between now and then. Someone will have to send for a circle healer though; I will not last long. Blood loss is tricky because there is not much magic can do. Herbs can numb pain, magic can close wounds and heal them faster, but nothing can regenerate blood supply but the body itself."
"I will stay up with her. Maker knows I will not be sleeping tonight anyway."
Anders nodded curtly and turned toward the empty guest room next to Aria's.
"Anders…"
The healer's spine stiffened at the use of his real name by the elf.
"Thank you."
"I did not do it for you. I did it for Hawke…and Merrill. Maker knows that airheaded Dale would be lost without her."
Fenris grunted in response before taking his place at his beloved's side. A while later, Merrill slipped into the room with a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread, a mug of tea, and a book for him. He had forgotten she was still in the manor, and that he had not eaten supper or had anything to drink in hours. She smiled at him meekly and handed him the tray. The corners of his mouth pulled into a sad smile.
That night and every night after for the next two weeks, Fenris sat up with Hawke. He would check her pulse and temperature every hour religiously and report any and all changes to Anders immediately. He changed her robe and bedding every day, and even helped Oriana to bathe her with a damp rag and a medicinal soap that smelled of pine and cranberry. Beyond changing the dressing of her wounds, he forbade Anders to care for her in this way. He could lock her up and pour healing magic over her all day, but nursing her back to health without magic was his responsibility…his honor. He even instead on being the one to change her bedpan.
In Tevinter, slaves were not willing to risk being beaten for putting off chores to take care of the sick. Fenris however had taken the lash of the whip for others. He told himself that it was because a sick slave meant more work for the rest of them. He believed himself cold and unfeeling, just as his master had always told him. He was the only slave not punished as harshly for taking care of the others, partially because his master found it amusing to see his fierce little wolf emasculated by playing nursemaid. Fenris also guessed that Denarius recognized the benefit of having a bodyguard that knew how to tend to wounds. For the first time Fenris appreciated something he had learned under the command of his former master.