The coarse sand was hot beneath soles of his feet, damp and sticky with spilled blood. He breathed deeply through his nose; he tried to find a rhythm that would push through the mounting soreness in his limbs as his blade tore through foe after foe after foe. He flashed the lyrium—again—and nearly bit through the inside of his cheek as the ache-burn-freeze pumped through him. Fuck.

Fenris was exhausted.

Not just of this. Though it certainly didn't help, he admitted wryly to himself, as his two-handed sword bit through the face of a snarling marauder wielding an axe twice as big as he was. But he was, simply put, tired of this.

He had sustained himself with the food and fire of hatred for close to three years now. He had sustained himself with vivid daydreams in which he plunged a glowing fist into Danarius's chest. He's still out there was a mantra, a prayer, an oath he would keep. But He's still out there rang wearily hollow, when weighed against the louder clamor of I'm still here.

I'm still here meant killing while he killed time. I'm still here meant the bottom of a bottle in his pilfered mansion that still reeked of blood, death and filth. I'm still here meant days and nights of veering between apathy and paranoia. I'm still here meant mercenary work he enjoyed even less than this, just to keep himself fed. I'm still here meant Hanged Man and companions he'd had no say in choosing and acquiescing to Hawke's bizarre desire to teach him to read just to pass the time because Old Gods and fury he was so fucking bored—

He stumbled; swore without putting very much venom behind it. The mage who led the marauders—Fenris had already forgotten his name, dismissed as unimportant next to mage and I'm still here—leered triumphantly. Lightning sparked bluish-purple in the space between his hands, and Fenris braced himself. This was going to—

The markings absorbed most of the actual power behind the mage's attack; he could shrug it aside, could continue his fight. But it still hurt. Tears blurred his vision as the electric shock reverberated in his bones. The bloody sand shifted between his toes, and he slipped. For the second time in as many minutes—seconds?—he stumbled. Venhedis.

A second strike of chain lightning hit him squarely in the chest. The lyrium in his skin flexed weakly—strange that he almost always thought of it as an extra muscle—and ultimately buckled. The impact seemed to rip holes in the air around him, as his bare feet danced clumsily backwards. The sounds of battle grew eerily, dangerously distant. His sword slipped from his grasp. Darkness closed over him; he loathed himself utterly for feeling relieved, and began an earnest resistance, too late.

So this is it—

A low growl of warning. A wordless exclamation, quickly stifled. A thump. A muffled rattle.

Fenris groaned—part grateful, part disappointed, part this really hurts—as the new sounds tugged him back from the brink. He lay cushioned face first on something soft—too soft. The air around him was cool on his skin—too cool. Goose bumps shivered across his markings, and he took a deep breath to fortify himself against the pounding ache at the base of his skull—smell what is that smell where am I—

His senses finally stitched the essentials of his awareness together. He didn't know where he was. He wasn't alone.

Fenris sprang to his feet, landing on a hard floor he could tell was cleaner than any found in Kirkwall. Strange surrounded him: a sofa upholstered in some worn material stuck between blue and black; a sturdy wooden table that sat too close to the ground to be of any use for eating; papers and books on shelves, a flat black square whose purpose he could not begin to divine atop a chest of drawers, cups, plates squares circles angles wrong wrong all wrong he didn't know where he WAS—

He wasn't alone.

Fenris whirled, one hand already reaching for the hilt of his broadsword except his broadsword wasn't there his sheath was empty oh Maker I'm unarmed I don't know where I am—

I'm not alone.

The woman pressed her back against the edge of a second table as though she could disappear into it, staring at him with a mixture of confusion, fright, and outright incredulity. Loose clothing draped her in folds of soft bulk that made it impossible to gauge her strength, or even her build. Her expression was slack, her bright eyes wide with shock behind a pair of oval spectacles, but the shape of her chin and forehead suggested a catlike, gamine face. A slow, hesitant smile—who the fuck SMILES in a situation like this?—tugged her mouth upwards by its corners. One pale hand dropped to her side, rested on the head of a blue-and-black hound mottled like a court fool. It twitched like a nervous spider, as she opened her mouth. "Hi," she greeted him.

The word cracked through the silence. His markings flashed of their own volition, as rage seared through him-rage and confusion and fear burned away the lingering agony of the mage's attacks. He scythed forward, swift and sure of foot, and bent her backwards over her table as he gripped her by the throat. "What have you done to me?" he demanded.

Her eyes bulged as she choked past his grasp, "Please—please let go—"

"What have you done to me?!" he roared. Panic—hot, hysterical panic tightened his grip. Blood trickled down her pale skin in tiny rivulets. Her fearful gasps tickled his fingers through his clawed gauntlets. He barely heard her hound, baying at him in challenge. He barely felt the frantic scratching of her fingernails on his near-incorporeal skin, barely noticed her moving at all—

Something cold and vaguely slimy splashed into his face, and he released her in surprise and disgust. She scampered away, pulling a chair between them with one hand while the other nursed her abused throat. "Scooter, down," she snapped shakily to the hound, who was still barking from a nearby doorway into another room. "For Chrissake shut up."

There was a small scuffle while she groped for the dog's collar without taking her eyes off of him. Liquid dripped from his hair, smelling of something bitter, and he shook his head to keep it from getting into his eyes. She tugged nervously on her sleeves, teeth worrying at her bottom lip in apparent indecision. She tore a square of white paper that felt like cloth from a cylinder that had rolled into the chair she currently used as a shield, and held it out to him. "Sorry about that," she offered with a wan, polite smile. "The bathroom's just through there, if you'd like to wash up."

Scooter. Sorry. Bathroom. Fenris wondered if he might be going mad, as he stared at the white paper-cloth without taking it. "What is this place?" he snapped, with another quick glance at his surroundings, wrong wrong all wrong a whispered litany in the back of his mind. "How have you brought me here?"

He heard the sigh rattle through her damaged throat. She gathered her courage, and he could see it, as she looked at her hound—Scooter—and the one, two, three cats he hadn't noticed. "We both have questions," she stated as she straightened her shoulders.

Yes, that's why I asked, he thought venomously.

"I'm going to make a pot of tea," she continued, oblivious. "We're both going to calm down, and we'll talk like adults." She glared at him, so abruptly and ludicrously fierce he had to fight the urge to laugh, and added, "But harm my dog, or my cats, and I will kill you."

She didn't bother to wait for an answer; instead she stalked past him into what looked, incredibly, like a galley. Her small, pale hands were a blur as she opened cabinets and pulled things from shelves, as she clicked and spun and somehow heat was glowing in a coil of metal underneath a bright red kettle full of water, all with an erect spine and a determined jut to her chin that said I know you're there—

He followed her into the galley, and she started like a rabbit when he pressed his advance. Tea leaves scattered a soothing, spicy aroma across the countertop's pale surface, and she quickly scooped them into a small metal sink that had no pump, but two knobs on either side of the faucet. "Yes?" she clipped out coolly without looking at him. But her hands trembled.

A grossly incomplete picture began to piece itself together, as Fenris watched her. Her dog. Her cats. This—where he was—was her place. Remorse needled him, as he caught site of the deepening bruise in the shape of his hand around her neck. She was as surprised—and as frightened—as he was. Which meant he owed her—

"I am sorry," he offered quietly. "For hurting you."

She did look at him then, eyes sharp beneath the reflective lenses in her spectacles. Absent the toxic glow of his markings, he saw they were a pale green, with a ring of dark blue around the iris. That same slow, hesitant smile twitched across her mouth again, and her shoulders relaxed. "I'm sorry I threw old coffee in your face," she returned his apology. "That can't have been pleasant."

Scooter. Sorry. Bathroom. Coffee. Oldcoffee? "It was not," he assured her. He swallowed his questions—where am I who are you am I mad am I dead—and tried to decide which was important enough to ask first. A shrill whistle to his left screamed through his thoughts, and he held himself completely still while she poured the hot water over the fragrant tea leaves. Her fingers danced over the rectangular face of a hard chest with a sharp deet deet deet that reminded him of crickets. What is this what is that where am I who are you—

She caught him staring, and a moment of perfect accord shivered through the air between them, of acceptance and insanity. "Let's start with the easy stuff," she suggested, as though she could hear the thoughts chasing themselves in circles within his head. "Names. Mine's Erin."

Scooter. Sorry. Bathroom. Coffee—oldcoffee? Erin. "And I am Fenris."

She blanched as though he had raised a hand to her; her hands shook as she clenched and unclenched them into fists. Something is wrong what is wrong wrong ALL wrong—

DEEET! DEEET! DEEEET!

Erin seized upon the distraction. She pulled the wire basket of wet leaves out of the small pot, pulled a large jar of viscous, amber liquid from a cabinet above her head. Fenris studied the large black letters as she gave the jar a squeeze: H-O-N-honey! Finally, something he recognized but something was wrong, what's wrong—

"Okay," Erin squeaked. She pulled two clean, chipped ceramic mugs from yet another cabinet, held them by the handles in one hand and the honeyed tea in the other. She pushed gently past him without touching him, and he followed suit as she claimed a corner of the dark blue sofa. "Okay," she said again, but her voice was stronger this time, pitched for taking charge. "Next question?"

He folded into the corner opposite hers. The upholstery beneath him was worn, ragged in places. The low table was simple, unadorned—little more than a block of wood sawed into angles. But both spoke of long use, of durability. The glass clock on the wall ticked quietly, steadily beating silence to death with a brass pendulum. Everything in the room hinted at quality, at privilege. At strange. "Where am I?"

Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong—

"At the moment you're in my living room," she replied, with an instinctive flippancy that made him want to drown himself in his tea. Not her too. He glared stonily at her, pleased when she couldn't hold his gaze for very long. "Sorry," she mumbled, and she actually sounded it. "Teksuhs. You're in Teksuhs."

His head bobbed in time with the litany of new words he was learning. Scooter. Sorry. Bathroom. Coffee-oldcoffee? Erin. Teksuhs—"Teks-uhs?" he echoed, unable to place the name.

"I can show you on a map, if you like."

It was the strangest map he'd ever seen. In fact, it couldn't have looked less like a map if it were consciously trying. Gray. Sleek. She cracked it open with the pad of her thumb, and he saw that instead of cliffs and coastlines drawn on parchment, all it contained were a half-dozen neat rows of black squares, each with a letter etched into the surface. On one half, anyway. The other half was a flat black rectangle of empty space, similar to the one that sat atop the chest of drawers not a few feet distant.

Until she flicked something on the side with a fingernail, and the small black square was suddenly illuminated with pale light. He pressed his back against the sofa in alarm, unable to tear his eyes from the white surface.

"Shit, sorry," Erin swore, expression instantly contrite. "It's okay," she hastily assured him. "It's just-it's like a library. It can't hurt you."

Scooter sorry bathroom coffee oldcoffee Erin Teks-uhs library? "It's glowing."

It was a stupid thing to say, but if she thought so, she gave no sign. She only shrugged helplessly as she glanced between his face and the pale glow of—whateverit was, as though searching for a way to explain. "It's just light, Fenris," was what she finally said, tone gentle. She tapped on the black squares, glancing at him now and then from the corner of her eye. She turned the not-map towards him, only now it was a map, though not of any place he knew. Blue lines crossed brown in meaningless squiggles; black dots were scattered across the flat space like bizarre constellations, named by tiny letters he could read if he concentrated but would mean nothing to him. "We're here," Erin continued, pointing to a dot some distance south of a web of crisscrossing lines. "Mehk-si-ko is this way, and my mother lives farther north, in Dallas." Her fingertip followed one brown line down the map's glowing surface, then back up.

Fenris frowned hard at the names, tried to match the letters with the sounds he knew they made. Dallas was easy. Mexico—Mehks-i-co, so that meant Texas had to be Tehk-sus. Scooter sorry bathroom coffeeoldcoffee Erin Texas Mexico mother Dallas—

The hot panic threatened to choke him, to smother anything that even remotely resembled reason. He frowned at his reflection, mud-colored in his untouched mug of tea, and took a deep breath of the soothing-spicy steam. Strange, but it smelled like oranges. "How did I get here?" he wondered, once he felt a little calmer. Once he felt capable of hearing the answer.

Erin didn't reply right away. She shifted awkwardly on her cushion, tucking her legs underneath her like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. Her dark blue pants were the same color as the sofa, Fenris noticed, except for the large dots of bright pink and green. Her hands curled around her mug, and she took a cautious sip, testing the heat. "What's the last thing you remember?" she finally asked.

Something's wrong something's wrong something's wrong—He told her as much as he dared about the ambush, which wasn't much. A curious blankness stole over her face at the mention of Hawke's name-wrong wrong WRONG WRONG—and he finished his brief narrative with a shrug. Suspicion was shrieking a song of danger in his blood, setting his scalp tingling. "None of this seems to surprise you," he noticed, schooling his limbs for readiness. He'd go for her throat again. It was weak, already damaged, wouldn't take much force or make much noise—

She stood, the movement deliberately slow as if she knew. She crossed the living room to the large black rectangle, and at a single touch it too began to glow, flooding the room with light. "Shit, sorry," came the familiar refrain. "It's just like the laptop," Erin tried to soothe him, a quick glance to the map-not-map on the sofa identifying just what in the Void was a laptop. "Just-just tell me when you've had enough?"

Enough? Enough of what?

The answer to that, at least, soon became apparent, as light swirled and formed pictures. As pictures formed faces, as those faces swam across the flat black surface and were matched to voices he knew, had listened to almost daily for three years—Varric Hawke Isabela Anders Merrill oh Maker what is happening I'm dead I have to be dead but he couldn't stop watching.

She stopped, and the players on the strange, flat stage before him stopped. She began again at his forceful insistence, and the players resumed their parts. She halted again, and so did they. Again, he bade her continue, clawed gauntlets leaving shallow cuts on the backs of her hands as he pushed the strange black device back into her hands. She couldn't stop. He wanted her to stop. She couldn't stop—

It was a long time before she paused again, swearing under her breath. "I'm going to make myself the strongest drink I possibly can," she said bluntly. "And before we take one more step toward Crazy Town, I strongly suggest you have one too."

He couldn't find it in himself to argue. The tea had long ago cooled to the temperature of stone, untouched; a strong drink sounded not only nice, but necessary for survival. He nodded his acquiescence; her movements were brisk and self-assured as she again pulled bottles and glasses from the cabinets. She returned with a glass of something sweet and cloying, and a nearly-full bottle of a gold liquid that smelled like salt and poison. This she placed in front of him with a sharp, hollow thunk.

"Really?" she drawled in response to his blank look. "They really don't have tequila in Kirkwall?" She scattered a handful of green, tart fruits cut into wedges beside the bottle. "Swig," she instructed briefly, "then bite into the lime." She demonstrated for his benefit; her face puckered, and she looked as though she had to force herself to swallow. She thrust the bottle into his hand and drank deeply from her own glass, staring at the mirror-like stage in reluctant challenge. "Let's do this thing."

Memory pitched and swelled. Anso. He'd met Anso. Had hired Anso. How many times had he suffered through Varric's exaggerated version of that night? Fenris watched, helpless to tear his gaze away. Hawke wandered through the Lowtown night, guided by Erin's fingertips. The trapped house—the empty chest—look away look away look away—

"Your men are dead, and your trap has failed."

Too late.

He had said those words—those exact words. They were the very first he'd uttered in Hawke's hearing. They were how he'd met Hawke. It was his voice. His face. He could feel the weight of Erin's gaze swing between his face, and the other his-face. Could feel the salty heat of the tequila grow sour in his stomach. Deorum elysia—no no no no no—

Erin's eyes widened in alarm. He was aware of her in only the most remote sense of the word, all his concentration bent on himself, on the rebellion of his body and senses. She scrambled past him; there was a metallic whong as she thrust a bowl into his lap. His gauntlets made a horrid scraping sound against its edges; the gorge rose in his throat and he couldn't even spare an ounce of thought for his subsequent humiliation.

Someone was gently patting his back between his shoulder blades, telling him she was sorry again and again, Jesus Fenris I'm so sorry. He leaned his forehead on the edge of the bowl, spent, and she gently eased him off of it. The room swam; he'd be more concerned about a repeat performance except he didn't think he had anything left to offer. And then she was tugging him by the wrist into the bathroom—oh, privy, his inebriated mind supplied—and spinning one of the knobs on one side of a faucet and warm water was filling the sink and she did it all without touching him because of course she knew not to touch him because she knew who he was and that's what's wrong—

"Are you a god?" he asked her, his words slurring on his tongue.

Russet brows wiggled with compassionate confusion, as she led him out of the privy-bathroom and into an adjacent chamber. "Sorry babe, I don't speak Tevinter," she said, with a small, sympathetic chuckle.

"Probably not, then." His bum landed on something soft and yielding, and he fell gratefully backwards. Silence pounded against him, in time with his heartbeat thudding into a mattress that smelled vaguely of something sweet and feminine. He listened—hard—and it took a very long time for him to realize he had been left alone. The sounds of her faded, as clothes rustled and wood thumped quietly against wood. Consciousness began to slip through his fingers like sand.

Scooter. Sorry. Bathroom. Coffee.

Erin.