THIS IS A DA2 AU! Same characters. Different circumstances.
Characters: fem!Hawke/Fenris + companions in lesser roles (They all belong to Bioware - just don't tell Fenris. He's sensitive about those things.)
Setting: Tevinter Imperium
A/N: Thanks to my readers for your patience while this story has been in the works! Chapters 1-5 have been edited for grammar and content. I think they are different enough from the originals that you may wish to re-read them. The same events unfold, they're just better told. To my fabulous betas for this chapter, Tom, lotusflwr, Lywinis and Theresa, a big thank you for your comments and suggestions!
Chapter 1: Revenge
The heavy wooden doors to Danarius' magnificent dining hall swung open with a loud crack. Guards clad in red steel armor turned toward the sound, hands ready at their swords. Startled slaves hastened to be elsewhere. At the other end of the hall, Danarius' guests looked up from their plates and conversations as a motley group of six weapon-carrying ruffians barged in upon them. The scoundrels had even brought a dog. The dirty beast sniffed and licked his broad chops at the sumptuous smells coming from their fine table. How very distasteful.
A sable-haired woman clothed in a simple, crimson robe marched at the lead of this small company. Her dark eyes blazed with malicious intent. She pointed a graceful finger at the austere, imposing man seated at the center of the long dining table, who still had not bothered to look up.
"Danarius!" The bitterness in her voice filled the room, extinguishing the lightness of the lively dinner atmosphere.
A wine bottle thumped softly onto the linen-covered dining table as its server, a tall, menacing elf in dark armor, reached up for the long sword grip looming high behind his head. The guests were glad that the woman had drawn his attention, as none of them desired it for themselves, despite the excellence of the wine he'd been serving.
Glaring at the ragged band with contempt, the elf snarled.
The four guards drew weapons from their sheaths and advanced, placing themselves between the intruders and their lord.
"Senior Magister Danarius. I, Sofira Hawke, daughter of Leandra Amell of Kirkwall, challenge you to a duel, to avenge the death of my sister!" The woman's voice broke on the last syllable, but her words fell like stones and she thrust her chin forward, daring and defiant.
Danarius's guards looked back to their master for orders. If he agreed to her challenge, by Tevinter law they could not intervene.
Everyone now awaited a response from the senior magister but he appeared to be unaffected by the attention. He simply stretched out his hand and ran his fingertips over the ripe peaches that lay in the golden bowl on the table before him.
"I wondered if you might grace my halls with your presence, young Amell," he drawled in caramel tones.
Only then did his pallid gaze rise, settling on the small group before him like an ominous sky before a storm. His voice remained calm, however. "Tell me, my dear, why you would challenge me to a duel, simply because I thinned the herd of one simpering little mageling? Curious. You should be thanking me. Now you don't have to do it yourself. Killing unworthy family is so tiresome." He bit into a peach, the juice spilling its color into his manicured grey beard.
A slave girl stepped forward, stumbling in her haste to wipe her master's chin. Her frightened eyes darted from her task and then down to the floor again as she returned to her place.
Sounds of amused tittering and the clinking of silver on china perforated the tension as Danarius' guests resumed their feasting. They saw no reason to fear this Sofira Hawke. She was a new magister and a strange, foreign woman. Rumor was that she was from Ferelden and didn't own slaves, that she minimized her use of magic, preferring to fight with a polearm of all things, and that she lived with a handful of other deviants in a small building that could hardly even be called a mansion. Surely this was a bluff. Or an elaborate play, staged for their entertainment.
"My sister was inexperienced, not weak," snarled Sofira over the murmur of conversations and the clatter of silverware, "and I will kill you where you sit if you do not stand up and face me like a man." Her warm brown eyes flashed with a fire that seemed to heat her cheeks and lips as well, coloring them a rosy shade of red.
The tall, armored elf now stood in silence behind his master's exquisitely carved chair. As the woman spoke, he leaned forward, teeth barred, like a dog straining at his leash.
"I do not wish you harm, elf. I only want your master," she warned in response to to the elf's display. Sofira found his appearance so strange, with his white hair and dark skin, to say nothing of those twisted white lines that threaded his neck and arms where his distinctive armor did not protect. Whatever they were, it didn't look to her like Dalish blood writing. Her mind raced, calculating the distance between them.
But Danarius simply waved his minion away with a small flip of his hand. The elf hesitated for a moment but stepped back when his master arched an eyebrow. The magister was used to being obeyed without pause and without question.
The senior magister propped his chin up on his thumb and forefinger, glancing at Sofira with disapproval. Her robe was drab, her bladed staff rustic at best, and she possessed no accessories that he could see. Then he took stock of the pitiful entourage at her back. Tensely awaiting her orders were a large female warrior brandishing an antique shield, a young male warrior who bore some resemblance to their leader, a beardless dwarf with a crossbow, an tall blond mage, a little Dalish witch, a mabari, from the looks of its build, and, strangely, even for this unusual group, a roguish woman not wearing pants. Danarius sneered and shook his head. It was hardly an army, but it was clear to him that he would not be finishing his dinner in peace. Not until he dispatched this brash young thing.
"Very well," he sighed as he rose from his seat, much to the delight of his guests, who clapped in appreciation of their host's unending patience.
"I warn you, Danarius, if you try to engage any of your guards in this duel..."
"Yes, yes... your terrible friends will rain their wrath down upon me and I will be very sorry, I'm sure," said Danarius as he walked around the dinner table to the center of the room. Looking down his long aquiline nose at his challenger, his tone became like ice. "Young one, if your sister was any indication of the family talent, it will take me the length of a sneeze to be rid of you. After this night, I will give neither her nor you a second thought."
His words cut Hawke to the bone, and a strangled cry escaped her lips. Shaking her head to clear the rush of tears to her eyes, she said furiously, "Someone say 'begin' so I can kill this son of a bitch."
As the rest of her entourage backed away, Sofira's red-headed companion with the shield stepped forward, raising her arm. She spoke in a Ferelden accent. "The battle will begin when I drop my hand. Are you..." before she could say "ready," Danarius raised one hand as if to wave away a fly. A jagged bolt of lightning shot from his fingertips hitting his dueling opponent hard. Sofira doubled over and collapsed on the inlaid floor, unmoving. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from her crumpled form.
The Ferelden warrior woman bellowed and drew her sword, but before she could attack, a dark, pulsing force enveloped her, threatening to crush the air from her lungs.
"Aveline!" screamed the little Dalish mage. She looked to Danarius, her voice pleading, "Stop!"
"This injustice will not go unpunished. You dishonor all of us," said the handsome, blond-haired mage of the group, his voice changing as an eerie blue light emanated from his eyes and from the widening cracks in his skin. "That will end tonight!"
At that, Danarius' armored elf came to life, drawing his greatsword as he leaped over the wide dining table, much to the surprise of its occupants. In the blink of an eye that it took to reach the blond mage, the markings on the elf's skin ignited with a bright, white-blue fire, surrounding him in an aura of ghostly light.
The mage barely threw up a shield in time. The elf thrust his hand forward, clawing for the mage's chest. The shield held, slowing the advance of that armored hand to a laborious inching process. The mage staggered back, preparing another spell.
Danarius chuckled. "I wouldn't, if I were you. Try him if you like, but killing mages is something of a speciality for my little wolf."
Then he regarded the little band of would-be assassins.
"Put down your weapons and surrender, or I will kill this woman." He pointed to the red-headed warrior now suspended in a mass of aphotic mist. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she gasped for air.
This got the blond mage's attention. The blue cracks closed and the light in his eyes faded back to brown. He eyed the warrior elf, whose gauntlet-covered hand was still trapped for the moment in his temporal shield, and backed away.
"You were all fools to come here." Danarius smiled as the companions laid their weapons on the floor. He leered at them, choosing to torment them in their impotence. "What did you think would happen? Did you really think you could march into my home and strike me down?"
He started to chuckle. His chuckle turned into a bubbling laugh that erupted from his throat and poisoned the air with a hideous resonance.
At this point, Danarius' guests were riveted by the spectacle. They paused in their staring only to send sideways glances at each other, grinning and guessing at what delicious delights would be served in the next few moments. But his slaves cowered, not daring to watch. They all knew what their master meant to do. None of these trespassers would ever see another sunrise.
"You could have toyed with her for a little while, Danarius… you know, for fun," a thin, blonde-haired woman adorned in silks and sapphires sniffed in disappointment.
"Masterfully done, Lord Danarius! Stupendous show!" clapped another, hoping to win favor from the more powerful magister.
Danarius, assured that the situation was under his control, walked over to the body on the floor. His opponent's long, dark hair had spilled around her like water when she fell. It now covered her face. Smoke lifted from her crimson robes. A smell of burnt silk and skin wafted to his nostrils but, dark as her robes were, he could not see any blood which disappointed him. He always liked seeing the blood.
"That was even more pitiful than your sister's death," he insulted her still form, leaning over it. He took hold of an arm and pulled, turning the body face up to admire his work. No one was more surprised than he when a razor sharp poniard drove straight through his throat with a slick tearing sound and poked out the back of his neck.
"My father taught me to never depend on magic." Sofira Hawke wheezed as she twisted the blade hard. Danarius' eyes glazed as a small 'pop' could be heard. "He said it makes one weak."
As the magister's body sagged, she placed her other hand on the center of his chest to keep him from falling on her. A faint crackle of energy sparked between them and Danarius was blown back against his own grand dining table with such force that his awestruck guests gasped and choked on their wine. Plates, glasses and bottles went careening, crashing to the floor. Wine, food and cries of fearful indignation were everywhere.
Sofira stood. A brutal mark charred the front of her robes, but it was no blacker than the expression of rage on her face.
In a voice like stone grinding across stone, she shouted, "I hereby claim everything that Danarius once owned, as is my right. And unless you'd like to see what other little surprises I can think up when I'm angry –get out of my mansion."
