Author's notes: it's been a long time since I felt any need to write fanfiction, but Fenris is too amazing to resist, I guess)) There will be twists to the original story, timeline, dialogue and such - what's the point of rewriting the game, right?)) Usual warning about english not being my native language still applies. And I may be a little rusty at it.

Disclaimer: Bioware owns everything. Even Fenris. Lucky them.

The Deep Roads. She never thought she'd ever find herself here. Or rather prayed not to. She heard stories. The darkspawn killed men, but women they dragged with them underground, never to be seen again. No one knew what happened to them down there, but it was not too difficult to come up with a plausible scenario. After all, the darkspawn came human-sized, dwarven-sized… you name it. And now they were lost here, with no map, no supplies. For all she knew they could be walking only deeper into darkspawn territory…

Hawke suddenly realized that she was staring into her dagger for what felt like eternity. Reflected in well-polished blade, a pale and frightened young woman stared back at her. She was always pale, but in the light of lyrium veins crawling up the walls her white skin seemed to shine eerily against short raven-black hair. It was difficult to make out half-faded tattoo around her right eye: a memory of childish rebellion. Oh how furious father was when she came home with it! Never attract attention, never be memorable, stay a shadow, just another face in the crowd: that is how we survive. How she hated that life of constant fear and running. After a while all towns just blur together. Lothering was the first place where they dared to stay for long, and only because father was already ill by then. But they finally had a home. She finally had friends outside her family. And then she lost it all…

"Unless I am mistaken, this is not how you keep watch," a deep voice, almost growling even at this low volume, awakened her from yet another reverie. Miriam flinched and turned to its source. Fenris was comfortably perched on one of the large stones that littered the passage, greatsword at his side, both ready to leap into action at first sight of darkspawn.

"Ah, but you are mistaken! You see, I am watching this Miriam Hawke here," she raised the dagger. Sarcasm kicked in, her usual defense against everything. "The moment she shrieks and starts running for it we'll know that we're ambushed. Smart, no?" And this strange escaped slave often caused this defense to rise. The elf had powerful presence, so unlike anything she would imagine in a slave. From his intense voice to the piercing gaze of moss-green eyes, from his stance of a predator ready to leap to the ability to crush his enemies' hearts from the inside. When he was near, she wasn't all that sure he couldn't take on those slave hunters on his own. And she… yes, she was fast, she knew, where to stick her daggers, but that was about it.

"Maybe you should've left her in Kirkwall with her sister then," Fenris frowned, looking at her intensely with those frightening eyes. He was always like that, except for rare moments when she managed to catch him off guard. Like the day she and Bethany burst into his mansion with a huge pie and incoherent (mostly because of Bethany's giggling) explanations about "housewarming party". Their reward was an unexpectedly cute confused smile that did not last long.

"Hey, I'm on top of this. And we really need money from this expedition. So we'll get out of here, kick Bartrand's ass, take back that stupid statue…" she shrugged. Money could buy everything. Sudden case of templars' blindness, for example. Or a smile on mother's face when she walks into the house she grew up in. But not Carver's life…

"To protect your sister from the templars," the elf pointed out. He wasn't all too happy with Bethany, even if he tried to be civil with her. Still, Miriam hoped he would warm up to her sister eventually. His hatred towards mages was… disquieting, for more reasons than he knew.

"Among other things," she simply nodded.

"A long way to go to hide a dangerous mage," Fenris tilted his head to the side, still looking at her. "Haven't you ever wondered what your life would be like if you did not need to run and hide with your sister all the time?"

Ah yes. The only times he actually became chatty were when mages and their "tainting" of everyone's lives were involved.

"My, now you sound like one of those demons seducing them evil power-hungry mages," Hawke smirked. What she wanted to do was to shout and kick him, if only to relieve some of that tension from being stuck in the Deep Roads with no known way out. But she was the eldest Hawke, charged by her dying father to protect her family, she couldn't show fear or weakness, even if her siblings… sibling… wasn't there. And she didn't fancy being ran through with that clawed hand of his, either. Instead, she stood up, stretched, looked around… and only then answered his question. "And no, I didn't," which was a lie. "She is my sister, Fenris, not some monster. I held her in my arms when she was a baby. She is as sweet an innocent now as she was then. And I will protect her. I already failed to protect my brother, and I won't…" She paused, noticing how Fenris's long elven ears perked up and his gaze distanced. He was listening intently, but not to her. The elf raised his hand, urging her to listen.

And then she heard it, the faint gritting of stones being rubbed together. The elf pointed to the tunnel which was their only way out. Long way behind them was the treacherously sealed door, shades and darkspawn. And in that tunnel? Miriam felt fear spreading from her stomach. More darkspawn? What else lurked in these forgotten passages? Imagination stopped at darkspawn dragging her away to their nests and refused to go any further without sufficient amounts of alcohol.

Fenris already went about waking up the others as quiet as possible. Still staring into the darkness of the tunnel, she was vaguely aware that Varric's snoring has suddenly stopped, followed by a muffled curse. But soon even he heard rolling stones getting closer, and then…

Bright red light suddenly shot from the tunnel, accompanied by the terrible sound that seemed to be heard by the bones, not the ears. In those few seconds that she was caught in the light, Miriam felt as though her very life was being sucked away, leaving only a shell, helplessly stumbling in the quiet and empty void. Someone pushed her away, and suddenly the world rushed in, full of shouts and flashes of magic.

"Duck, Raven, you're not a dwarf!" Varric pulled her behind a boulder, and she could finally make out a creature looming in the entrance. It seemed to be made of stones, not unlike the one they were currently hiding behind.

"How do you kill stone?" she shouted, trying to outvoice the creature's shrieks.

"How should I know?" Varric shouted back while keeping Bianca busy.

"You're a dwarf!"

"No way! Really?"

Miriam squinted, trying to make out something in the chaos that their quiet cave turned into. The creature wasn't only stone, there was some semblance of a glowing red skeleton holding it together, but neither Varric's arrows nor Fenris's sword aimed at it seemed to do any harm to the creature. Merrill's magic seemed to give it slight pause, though…

"What are you doing sticking out like that? It's not called cover for nothing, you know!" Varric pushed her down again just in time to avoid another burst of red light. But not before she saw it, a red eye open in what could be the creature's solar plexus.

"I just need one second," she pulled out her dagger and closed her eyes, trying to remember the creature's exact position. "Then you can pull me down."

"What are you, mad?"

"Either that, or I'm really drunk!" she jumped up, hoping she can manage enough strength to throw the dagger. It was like moving through water. Water that was solidifying by the second. She heard a long bloodcurdling shriek, and then everything finally went dark.

When she came to, it was blissfully quiet. Her body ached. But that was a sign that she was still alive, no? What was it that people usually asked in such moments?

"Where am I?"

"Why, in viscount's castle, of course. Or, should I say now, your castle?" Varric's voice said. Good. She couldn't really imagine meeting someone like Varric in the Fade, or wherever she was supposed to go after death. Miriam was never big on religion. "How are you feeling, Raven?"

"Well, the bed is a little too hard. And cold," Hawke opened her eyes. Three worried faces loomed over her. "And you three look awful. What happened? What was that thing?"

"You killed it," Fenris said simply.

"But not before it sucked all the energy out of me, huh?" she tried to sit. Surprisingly enough, that went better than expected.

"Nah, it just burst and hit you on the head with a boulder or two," the dwarf pointed at Fenris. "The elf got that 'sucking life out' deal, though."

"I'm fine," Fenris retorted when Miriam's eyes shifted to him.

"Too bad Anders is not here," Merrill cut in, looking at her worriedly.

"You know how he was about returning to the Deep Roads," Miriam shrugged and winced. Anders's healing would really be welcome right now. "So let's go about it the old-fashioned way. But right now we need to see where this tunnel leads. Before any more of those things find us."

"Well, can't sit here all day while Bartrand's prancing away with our finds. Let's go, Daisy," Varric took Bianca and, casting one last look at Hawke, cautiously walked into the tunnel.

"Are you able to walk?" Fenris asked, waiting for her to stand.

"What, are you proposing to carry me? How are you going to pull it off without touching me?" Miriam rose to her feet stubbornly. Right. Her head hurt, but she could live with that. Fenris bristled up at her words, but she could live with that too… probably. "Sorry. It was you who pushed me out of the way of that light, right? Thank you."

Fenris simply nodded.