The Broken Binding
part two

-.-

One night, the girl awoke from a dream. The fire was burning low, the woods around them silent, and at first she did not know what had awoken her. Then she saw Pup standing at her feet, his hackles raised and his black fur prickling and his long white teeth bared in a fierce, silent snarl, and the girl felt her heart begin to race. A twig snapped just beyond the pool of her little fire and she searched out her dagger with hands that shook, and then, with no more warning than the sound of a breath, they were upon them.

Wolves.

The first rush of terror rose up in the girl like a cresting wave, and then, just as quickly, it was lost in the wilder call of battle. Her hands grew steady and she turned the dagger on the wolf that paced opposite her, its green eyes gleaming in her dying firelight. The other two sprang upon Pup, deeming him the greater threat, and their growls and yips and the crashing brush were the only sounds the girl could hear above her thudding heart. She feinted with the dagger and the wolf flinched before letting out a low, threatening growl that rumbled in her chest; she saw its nails dig into the dirt as it bunched itself, and then it sprang.

The girl flung herself to the side, nearly losing her footing on a mossy stone, but she was not quick enough. She felt the score of its teeth on her arm and the hot wash of blood between her fingers; still, the girl did not flinch as she brought the dagger to bear again. The wolf licked its lips, tasting her blood, and snarled again. It took a step towards her, heavily favoring a leg, and she saw that her dagger had not entirely missed its mark after all; a long gash split its fur along its ribs to trail down one foreleg. The girl did not hesitate to press her advantage, taught long ago by her father the dangers of misplaced compassion, and when the wolf stumbled and nearly fell, she leapt forward with a cry and buried the dagger in its neck. It let out a terrible howl, tried to turn away from the agony of the wound, and collapsed.

The girl crept forward a step, prepared to flee if the wolf roused, but as she neared, she heard only quick, panting whines that cut her heart. The wolf looked up at her with clouded eyes that bore no more threat, its lips curled in pain, and when the girl was certain that its life could not be saved, she pulled her dagger free to cut its throat in mercy.

So did the girl take her first life.

A step sounded behind her and she whirled on her knees, but the figure that limped towards her was her mabari, head hanging low and bleeding from a dozen wounds. The bodies of the two wolves he had slain lay by her fire, bent and limp; the girl could see now that though Pup was a third again their size that they had fought with the strength of five, for the wolves were gaunt and bony, made desperate by starvation, and her heart twisted in her chest. She reached out to the hound and he came to her, resting his enormous head on her breast and shaking with exhaustion and pain. The girl twined her fingers into his black fur and wept.

-.-

She's watching him sleep again.

Fenris scowls without opening his eyes and rolls away from her, trying to ignore a painful crick in his neck—venhedis, she knows he hates it when she does that. He always feels exposed when she watches him without his knowing it, defenseless somehow against her, but all his remonstrations seem to have no effect other than causing her to do it more often. Sunlight pours through the curtains onto his closed eyelids, pulling him that much farther from sleep; it must be well past dawn, he thinks muzzily, and something pricks him, faintly, something about first light—

Two fingers close sharply around the pointed tip of his ear.

Fenris jerks upright, drowsiness vanished in an instant, and the fingers slide away from his ear with the sound of a child's giggle.

A what?

Suddenly, the events of the night before come crashing down on him. He remembers the book, The Hanged Man, the bizarre sensation of time slowing—he remembers the templars and Aveline and Varric, and a small hand holding his. Fenris glances down to his side, ignoring the twinge in his neck, where a little girl with mussed hair and a mischievous grin kneels on top of the covers, her little pinching fingers still outstretched towards his head.

"Sun's up," she says cheerfully, and bounds off the bed.

Hawke.Fenris swings his legs over the side of the bed, putting a cautious hand to his abused ear. He'd fallen asleep on top of the covers the night before, his head propped awkwardly on the headboard; he'd had a faint idea that the morning would bring an end to whatever enchantment still possessed Hawke, but as he watches her fall across Toby's back, kissing the slobbering dog right on the muzzle, Fenris cannot deny that at least she looks happy.

And then he snorts. Happy for a six-year-old, anyway. He pushes himself to his feet, rubbing the last vestiges of pain from his neck, and Hawke flops over onto her back next to the dog to stare up at him, her rumpled nightdress spreading around her. "Good morning, Hawke," he offers, because it seems like the right thing to say, but she pulls a face.

"Don't call me that," she says, sticking out her tongue. "That's what the farmers call Papa when they trade." She shuffles around on her back until she's looking at him squarely upside-down, and then she grins. "What's your name?"

"Fenris," he says shortly. It had been too much to hope for that she might remember him, he knows this, and yet the sudden ache in his chest is undeniable. "What would you prefer to be called, then?"

"My name is Marian, Fenrisss." She rolls the name around on her tongue, testing it. It seems to pass muster, for a moment later she bounces to her feet. "Fenris, I'm hungry!"

As if on cue, the faint scent of eggs and bacon wafts into the room. Fenris opens the door, allowing in the sounds of the stirring household, and Hawke—Marian—races through it with a shout of victory. Toby tears after her, barking furiously, and a moment later Fenris hears the violent thumping of six feet down the stairs. He puts a hand to his still-tender ear, sighing.

This is going to be a long day.

And he is right. His companions do not arrive until nearly noon, and by that time, he has untangled twelve ribbons from Toby's fur, put out an accidental mage-fire set in scrap pages of Anders's manifesto, and twice removed Marian from the top shelf of one of her bookcases. The second time he pulls her down she wraps her arms around his neck and refuses to let go; he gives a half-hearted tug, but she giggles and firms her grip, and Fenris gives up. A knock sounds as the door as Orana calls up for lunch; Sandal is nowhere to be found, and when Fenris remembers that Bodahn is out somewhere fetching supplies for Hawke's new condition, he sighs, descending the stairs with a child-shaped necklace, and answers the door himself.

It is indeed Varric and Aveline, and Merrill stands behind them. Aveline is red-faced with barely-suppressed frustration, and even Varric looks a trifle irked, but both of their faces ease as they see Hawke's precarious perch.

"I remember you," Marian says with delight.

Aveline smiles as Fenris steps back, allowing them to enter. "Fenris. Little Hawke."

"My name is Marian," she says with great dignity, as if she is not dangling off Fenris's neck with her feet knocking at his knees. "It's very nice to meet you."

Fenris manages not to roll his eyes as he makes the introductions, and then he gently disentangles her from his neck and sends her off to the kitchens. Pinching his nose to ward off a sudden headache, he turns back to the three of them. "What news?"

"Nothing good," Aveline says, her grimace returning, and any lightheartedness Fenris feels vanishes completely. "It took us all morning to track down that bloody Emporium. You'd think we'd never been there before for how hard it was to find again."

Merrill cocks her head, birdlike. "You know, I think we only found it because Xenon allowed us to. He seemed very concerned we were there for a refund."

"So you found nothing." Fenris's heart sinks before he can stop it. He hadn't realized until this moment how much he had been depending on them to find a solution. He cannot imagine having to watch Hawke—no. He will not think about it now.

"Not exactly nothing..." Varric hems, scratching his chest uneasily, and then he throws both hands in the air at Fenris's look. "Well, shit, elf, I honestly don't know. That bag of bones said something on our way out that made me think, but I don't have the faintest idea as to what it means."

"Anything might help."

"He said, 'the story doesn't end until you've read it, you know.' But with great rattling gasps thrown in every other word, naturally. It's obviously got something to do with that book, but…" he trails off, shaking his head. "Look, I know it sounds useless, but that's what he said. Just—keep it in mind."

Fenris shakes his head, glancing back towards the kitchens where he can faintly hear Hawke laughing. "I will."

"Speaking of," adds Varric, and the humor returns to his voice. "How's it going, playing babysitter?"

A scowl slides across Fenris's face, but before he can answer, Marian has sprung from the shadows with a slice of bread in one hand and a fistful of strawberry jam in the other. "I'm a holy terror!" she announces proudly, and, sizing up the group, latches onto Merrill as the most likely playmate. She seizes Merrill's wrist without a second thought, ignoring her faint noise of sticky surprise, and tugs on her arm. "Will you come see Toby, please?" she asks her, as if Merrill is not trapped, wide-eyed, by her jam-covered fingers, and a moment later they have disappeared around the corner.

"A holy terror, huh."

Fenris resists the urge to cover his eyes. "I don't know where she heard it. But it is…apt."

Varric pats his arm, then gives him a look that is almost sincere. "Don't worry, elf. We'll find something."

"I'll come again later," Aveline promises; a crash sounds from the next room over, and she winces. "If the place is still standing."

Fenris ushers them out the door with little ceremony and follows after Hawke and Merrill, not at all surprised to find it is not the six-year-old who needs rescuing. Once Merrill has been extracted from the snarl of blankets, barking dog, and an inexplicable pair of poorly-patched trousers and sent safely on her way as well, Fenris deposits a thoroughly sticky Marian in the kitchen and flees, leaving her to the mercy of Orana's scrubbing cloth.

-.-

The girl and her mabari stayed at the camp for three days while she tended their wounds. Her own injury was not terrible; the wolf's teeth had torn cleanly, and though her arm would scar, it caused her much less concern than the wounds that marred Pup's fur. She cleaned the places their claws and teeth had torn him as best she could, but the gashes in his shoulders went through the muscle, and often the mabari could not rise from the ground without her assistance. Fear took hold of her heart more cleanly than it ever had in her life, and soon the girl did not sleep for fear her friend might die without her constant care.

At the end of the third day, when Pup had slipped into an uneasy sleep by the fire, the girl saw a lantern between the trees. It moved with a sure purpose directly towards their camp, but she was already long-accustomed to fear and felt no more concern at its appearance in the night than she might have a swift-flying owl. Soon, it broached the clearing and she saw the woman who bore it. Her bound hair was white and her face lined, but her back was straight and strong under her well-faded cloak, and the girl found that could not guess her age. There were rumors in these lands of a witch who haunted the wilds, but this woman seemed as human as she and little threat besides, and the girl nodded her head in greeting.

"Good evening, ser," she offered, placing a hand on Pup's great head.

"I saw your fire," said the woman. Her voice bore the narrow edge of a peculiar, hidden humor. "Might you share a bit of your light with an old woman?"

"Of course," she said. "I have little enough to offer, but that I can give freely."

The woman stepped closer to the fire, and the girl saw that her eyebrow was arched in consideration. "Have you," the woman said thoughtfully. "Then, I wonder if you have a coin to spare. 'Tis cold enough, these nights, and I wish to purchase a better cloak."

Privately, the girl thought that the woman looked like no beggar, but she answered her truthfully. "I have no coin, serah. All that I have was given me before I left home."

"Indeed," said the woman, as if she had known her answer already. "Then a crust of bread, perhaps, or a swallow of water. I have traveled far today."

"I'm afraid I do not have that to offer, either," the girl said regretfully, and this was true as well. Her last bit of water she'd used to clean the wounds in her mabari's shoulders, and with him unable to hunt, there had been little to eat besides the berries she could find near their camp. "I am sorry."

The woman stepped even closer, and suddenly the girl had the thought that her eyes were not a woman's eyes but a dragon's, yellow and piercing, and her breath froze in her chest. "I believe you are," the woman said in a murmur that resounded in the trees, and then she turned her head away and the spell was broken. "How unusual. It is not often I find myself with such…fascinating companions." She threw the girl an impenetrable look, then her eyes turned to Pup, and he whined low in his throat without moving.

"Your hound, then," she said at last. "Lend him to me, so that I may walk safely through these woods."

The girl shook her head, wondering at the woman's requests. "Nay, I cannot. He is badly wounded, as you can see, but even if he were not, he is not mine to offer. He travels with me of his own choice."

Bending, the woman looked into the hound's face; she studied him for a long moment, Pup meeting her eyes without flinching, and then she straightened and put a thoughtful hand to her lips. "You travel in interesting company, girl," she said at last, "but you speak the truth. A rarity, these days, and rarer still in this forest."

She turned away and drew her cloak over her shoulders. "I give you a boon in return, for the gift of that truth, and for sharing the warmth of your fire." Her eyes met the girl's over her shoulder, and again she felt that clear gaze like an arrow in her heart. "Be careful, girl," she said with a thin smile. "There are wolves in the world."

The girl nodded, breathless, and the woman turned her head; suddenly, Pup leapt to his feet with all the strength of his namesake behind him, and the girl was astonished to see his wounds had closed. More than closed, they had healed as if they'd never been, and he pranced around her in joy. "The boon," the girl whispered, realizing what she had given her, but when she looked for her again, the woman was gone.

-.-

"Look at you! You look fantastic,sweet thing."

"Thank you very much."

"Oh, and she blushes. Doesn't she look like a princess, Fenris?"

Marian looks like a wedding cake.

"Hmm," he offers. And then, when the cake looks like it might be about to cry, Fenris hastens to add, "It's…very nice."

This seems to satisfy her, if her sudden smile is any indication, and she turns back to the pile of dress-up clothes Isabela has scrounged up from Maker-knows-where. It is so difficult to reconcile the Hawke he knows—knew—knows with this little girl festooned in ruffles; his Hawke has always favored the practical over the pretty, always spent her coin on the plain utility of battle-ready robes without the slightest glance at the finery near it and never seemed to mind. This girl, though, who coos over a trimmed bit of silk and is wearing four wide lacy petticoats of varying sizes over her blue day dress at once, he barely recognizes. He leans back in his chair as Marian uncovers a pretty little circlet made of silver ribbon and woven reeds and nearly vibrates in joy.

Isabela drapes a green knitted scarf over her head like a veil; Marian giggles and adds a long necklace made of enormous cockle shells that falls to Isabela's waist. They sift through the heap of fabric on the floor together, pulling a piece here and there and pointing out others with little method Fenris can see—but then, a moment later, both of them turn to him with identical gleaming grins and fistfuls of gauze and glitter, and Fenris realizes he's been had.

He freezes like a hare caught in a trap, and then he gathers himself and makes the noblest sacrifice he can. "Perhaps the dog wishes to play," he says with strained disinterest, and pretends he cannot see the wounded look Toby gives him when Marian descends upon the mabari in a cloud of pink georgette. Isabela smirks at him—her quirked eyebrow tells him that he is not yet safe, not by a long shot—but she allows him to escape unscathed and unadorned, at least for the moment, and he is content with what small victories he can manage.

"Catch him! He's getting away!" Isabela cries, feigning despair as Toby muscles past her towards the door and freedom. Hawke throws her arms around his neck—they barely reach all the way around—and shrieks with laughter as the dog covers her face in slobbery kisses. Isabela pounces with her gauze, and after a minute more of playful growling, the dog cedes defeat to his mistress.

Hawke emerges long enough to snatch up a feathered cap, and Toby lets out a huffing, indignant sigh from somewhere under the pile. A small, amused laugh escapes Fenris—he has had precious little to smile about, these last few days, but her childish enthusiasm is infectious, and even the thought of Marian cornering him with crêpe seems hardly daunting at all.

Then his gaze lands on the innocuous square bundle still lying wrapped on the mantle, and Fenris's amusement vanishes. It has been three days since Hawke's enchantment and they are still no closer to a solution. The Black Emporium has proved frustratingly elusive since that first morning, though Fenris suspects that any further advice Xenon offered would prove equally useless, and Varric is exhausting his supply of owed favors. Soon enough, they will be out of avenues. Fenris has no idea what he will do then.

He hardly knows what he's doing now. Barely aware of Hawke and Isabela still giggling on the floor, Fenris stands and approaches the hearth, plucking the book from its hiding place. The mid-morning light is better by the window and he picks his way through the detritus of decade-old fashion to reach it, carefully sliding the tatty old blanket from the book's cover as he does so.

The leather is just as he remembers, the red dye faded and discolored, the gilt nearly worn away from the raised lettering. Of Magicks Wilde and Wicked, he reads again, grimacing as he angles the book towards the light. The innate condemnation of magic is close enough to his own sentiments that it unsettles him. He glances back to make sure Hawke is still occupied with the dog, then flicks the book open with a fingernail; he doesn't know what he expects, really—a flash of light? a booming voice? –but nothing happens all the same. The lush illustrations of the title page stare back up at him innocently, the age-faded roses and vines twining through the letters like a trellis. The ink is still sharp after all these years, though, so crisp that Fenris can clearly see the hours of painstaking labor that must have gone into the image. It is lovely, intricate work, and he wishes he'd never set eyes on it.

Then, before he can talk himself out of it, Fenris flips to the tale that started this whole atrocious mess: The Mabari Prince. He doesn't allow himself to read any part of the story—and never in his life did he imagine Hawke's lessons could ever pose such a specific danger to him—but there is a full-page painting inset opposite the story's title, and this he studies in close detail.

It features a short, smiling young woman clad in a simple grey gown, her long blonde hair bound up behind her; she stands next to a mabari so massive its head rises above her waist, but her hand rests upon its back without fear. The hound is black, its fur colored so darkly that it seems to blend into the shadows of the thick forest painted behind them. It would look vicious if not for the peculiar intelligence in its eyes and the lovely woman beside it. Fenris bends closer to study the painting—there is something about it that draws him in, and he understands now why Hawke's sister might have thought this the prettiest thing in the house—and he doesn't realize his hand is flat on the page until Hawke is tugging it out of the way. "What is it?" she asks.

Fenris recoils, wrenching the book away from her so violently that she cries out. "Don't touch that!" he shouts and Hawke takes another step backwards; too late he realizes at whom he shouts, but before he can soften his anxious anger, she sets her jaw and summons a temper of her own.

"You were touching it," she says mulishly, her fists clenched at her sides, and in this moment she looks more like his Hawke than she has in days. The thought surprises him, but the one that follows stuns him—he had been touching it. Is touching it now, his fingers clenched around the leather cover in a vise-grip that makes his knuckles ache. And he feels nothing. No pull of latent magic, no sense of warning—nothing.It is, for the moment, nothing more than a book of fairy tales.

Fenris looks back to Marian, who still stands upset and stiff, and his grip on the cover eases, though his heart still pounds in his chest. "You're right," he says, his voice gentler now that it is back under his control, and he crouches to meet her eyes squarely, needing her to understand. "But this book—it's dangerous. I do not want you to touch it without me present. Is this clear?"

Marian turns her head away for a moment, sullen, and Fenris sees Isabela on her knees in the forgotten pile of clothing behind the girl, paused in the act of rising. She watches him with calm, appraising eyes; he wonders what she sees, if she knows he is as out-of-place as he feels, if she thinks Hawke's care might be better left to another. He wonders if she was rising to stop Hawke or to stop him.

Then Hawke shifts, bringing her gaze just level with his chin, and grudgingly says, "Yes, ser."

Ser—called ser, by Hawke—Fenris feels his jaw clench, but behind Hawke, Isabela shakes her head sharply, and he relents. "I—apologize, if I frightened you."

"I'm sorry," Marian mumbles, raising her gaze to his at last, and now he sees the pricking tears in her eyes, the faint trembling of her lips. He has frightened her, frightened her badly, and without thinking he sets the book behind him and half-opens his arms in invitation.

It is not a gesture that comes naturally to him, and the startled stare that Marian gives him lasts just long enough to spur his self-conscious retreat—but before he can move, she flings herself bodily into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck so tightly his tattoos sting at the touch. His hand finds her hair by habit, stroking down the length of it as she cries into his neck, and something inside him aches at its familiarity. Isabela rises to her feet at last, one hand on Toby's head, her face inscrutable. Fenris ignores her.

This is the first time he has held Hawke since she changed.

It is more difficult than he expects to release her when she backs away at last. She will not meet his eyes, embarrassed; her nose is running and she swipes at it with the back of her hand. Isabela gently knocks on her head, and when Marian looks up, she drops a blue handkerchief embroidered with the initials E.C. on her face.

"I think that's quite enough of that, don't you?" she asks, smiling to soften it, and Hawke nods under the handkerchief. "Good." Marian allows her to clean her face, and when she is finished, Isabela replaces the silver circlet on Marian's head at a jaunty angle. "Feel better, sweet thing?"

Hawke nods again, giving her a watery smile, and Isabela tucks the handkerchief into one of Hawke's lacy petticoats. "Can we…" Hawke starts, shyer than Fenris has ever seen her, "can we play rebels and Orlesians?"

Isabela grins and sweeps her an elegant bow. "One Orlesian at your service, madam."

"I want to be Loghain," Marian says, lighting up, and Isabela produces a painted wooden sword from the depths of the dress-up pile that she offers the girl with great aplomb. "And Toby can be Maric."

The mabari tries to look kingly. Fenris tries not to smile.

"Ah, but wait," Isabela says, and there is an undercurrent of deep satisfaction in her voice that tells Fenris this is his repayment from earlier. "If the dog is Maric, then who's Fenris going to be?"

Marian frowns, thinking; Fenris tries to hide that he is doing the same. He is not overly conversant in Fereldan history, thanks to Tevinter's cultured disdain for the muddy country, and it takes him a moment to sift through his knowledge of the Hero of River Dane.

Isabela must see the instant recognition dawns on him because her grin broadens enough to split her cheeks; Fenris puts both hands up in warning, but Marian gives him a winning smile and holds out her dainty circlet expectantly.

"I am not Rowan," Fenris says firmly, and Isabela throws back her head and laughs.

-.-

Summer gave way to autumn, and with it came cooler weather and longer nights. Soon enough, the girl and her mabari slept huddled under her single blanket as close to the fire as they dared, and she knew that before long they would have to seek shelter. Still, they passed without stopping through town after town and city after city, for the girl longed to see as much of the world as she could before winter fell upon them, and the joy she felt at each new place they visited kept her moving as long as she dared.

At last, when the girl awoke one morning to find a thin sheet of frost on the blanket she shared with Pup, she knew that their days of wandering the endless forests were drawing to a close. That evening, when they came across the next city lying across the road, they slipped in through the enormous iron gates as they closed and sought the nearest inn. But the girl was not prepared for what she saw: the city was grand, even at dusk, far grander than anything she had ever seen, and it took her many minutes to accustom herself to the high arched walls, the intricate stonework lacing the archways over the streets, the wooden doors polished and gleaming with the coolness of twilight and the warmer glow of evening lanterns. Men and women in fine clothes passed each other with smiles and friendly greetings while the girl and her dog stood in the shadows and marveled.

She found herself drawing closer to the mabari called Pup, resting her hand on his back for comfort, for in all this grandeur she suddenly became aware of her own lack of it. Her dress was simply cut, made of homespun grey wool and travel-stained from months of living out of doors; her leather shoes were torn and hurriedly mended, the laces snapped more than once and stiff with age. Her golden hair, grown longer than her waist, was clean enough, but tangled and bound with a leather thong in a hasty knot at the back of her head, for it often got in her way when she prepared the camps at night, and in the midst of all this finery she knew she did not belong.

Eventually, night fell in earnest, and when the girl mustered the courage to ask a stranger for directions, she was pointed to an inn at the end of a dimly-lit street. There they turned her away, for though the innkeeper might soften his heart for a lone girl with no money, he would not extend his hospitality to dogs as large as Pup. He told her of another place several streets away with fewer restrictions on their guests but warned her against it, for it lay in a disreputable part of town and she had no sword to protect her. But the girl was not afraid, and because she would not be parted from her friend, they set off into the night.

The roads twisted and turned and grew narrower, and the lamplights fewer and far between, and soon the girl lost her way in the dark. One road began to look like another and none of them led her the right way, and when at last she could wander no more, she stopped at a crossroads in indecision. A man of the neighborhood saw her confusion and came to help; he was tall and fair-haired and had an easy smile, and she liked him at once. He bowed to her courteously, a shuttered lantern in one hand and his cloak draped over the other, and when she told him her destination, he laughed kindly.

"Poor woman!" he said. "That place lies behind you. You must have passed it in the dark." She looked back, dismayed, but he bowed again and offered her his arm. "Let me escort you, lady. These streets are not safe to wander at night."

She blushed and accepted; no man had ever offered her his arm before, and she grew aware again of her worn clothing. Pup trotted at her side, looking ill-pleased by the young man but forbearing, as of yet, to chase off their only guide. The roads turned around them and she lost all sense of direction, but her companion charmed her with the tale of a prince of this very city, lost nearly two years ago to great magic, and she ignored Pup's growing unease beside her.

At last, though, when they turned down an alley that had no exit, the girl realized that something was terribly amiss. "I had thought we went to the inn," she said.

"Aye," her companion said easily enough, but when she tried to draw away he caught her arm in his hand and would not release her.

Pup snarled and coiled to leap, but in an instant the fair man's lantern had crashed to the ground, and that same hand bore a knife that he brought to the girl's throat. "Nay, down," he said with that same gentle voice, and the mabari bared his teeth but did not move. "Now," the man said, "your coin, and your cloak, and you will live."

"I have neither," the girl cried, holding out her hands in entreaty. "I came to this city with nothing more than you see!"

"What?" cried the man, and she felt his hand on her back and then her waist, seeking a coin-purse that did not exist. The edge of the knife skated over her skin as he searched and Pup bristled with rage, but he did not dare to move; at last, the man thrust her from him with a shout of frustration and she fell upon Pup's neck. The mabari leapt from her arms with a spitting howl but she called him back, not wishing to be left alone in the street, and they watched together as the man with the fair hair fled into the night.

The girl did not know how long she knelt there, but soon came along the night's watchman, an older man in silver armor who found her embracing her dog in the road. He brought her to her feet and gave her his cloak, and when her hands no longer shook he took her to the home of his sister and her husband, a wealthy merchant, who gave her and Pup a room of their own with a blazing fire in the hearth and clean clothes for her to sleep in. The girl nearly wept in gratitude at the sight of it, and the woman, who had a new-married daughter of her own, pitied her obvious misfortune.

"You must regret coming here," the woman said, mending the newest tear in the girl's grey gown by the fire.

"Nay," said the girl, surprising her benefactor. Though the lesson was hard-learned, she did not begrudge the knowledge, for the girl had wanted to see the world and everything in it, even those things that were not easy. She knew now that just as there was light there was also darkness, even in the grandest of cities, and that even fair men might bear evil in their hearts. "And a beast might have the kindest heart of all," she added, ruffling Pup's ears, and he rested his great head on her knee.

-.-

Someone is in his room.

Fenris comes awake smoothly and instantly, careful to keep his eyes closed and his breathing steady. It is a skill he has cultivated over a decade of servitude and flight and it has kept him alive more than once; now, his far hand slides free of the covers in a surreptitious movement, the muscles of his wrist flexing, and he gathers himself in the coiling swell of anticipation—

"Fenris?"

Marian's voice. Marian's voice, tiny and terrified, and the explosive relief of tension takes his breath away.

Fenris sits up, rolling up his overlong sleeves with only the slightest shaking of his hands. The clothes are Carver's castoffs, pulled out of a forgotten drawer by Orana the day after his arrival, and they are comfortable enough to sleep in for how poorly they fit. Marian stands at the foot of his bed in the guest room, a pale ghost in the moonlight spilling through the window; her eyes are so wide that he can see the whites all the way around them. "What's wrong?"

Her fingers twist into her nightgown. "There's something in my room," she whispers, her voice choked with anxiety.

"A nightmare?" he asks, but he is already throwing back the covers. He glances at the sky as he stands; the moon is waning, the sky not yet beginning to lighten, and he guesses there are still two hours before dawn.

Hawke's dark braid swings wildly as she shakes her head, her arms reaching up in open supplication, and Fenris lifts her to his hip in a gesture that has become almost natural over the last week. "I heard voices," she tells him, her face buried in his neck.

His heart sinks as they start up the stairs, his bare feet silenced by the carpeted runner. He can think of very few reasons a mage-child might hear voices in the middle of the night, and none of them are comforting. "What did they say?"

Marian only squeezes him tighter.

The door to her room is still open from her escape to his bedside, and Fenris eases it open with a foot. The room is as empty as he'd expected, her rumpled bedclothes the only sign of a disturbance; Toby lies sprawled by the fire like a log, snoring gently, and that in itself is enough to confirm that there have been no unwelcome guests in Hawke's room this night.

No physical ones, anyway, Fenris thinks, and his lip curls in distaste.

He hears the padding of soft feet behind him and turns to see Orana in the hall, a candle in her hand and her knitted shawl pulled closely over her shoulders to ward off the evening air. "I heard voices," she says, rubbing her face tiredly. "Is something wrong?"

"No," says Fenris, and then he sighs. "Yes." Orana blinks in sleepy confusion, and he turns away as he tamps down his personal feelings. "Find a messenger first thing in the morning. We'll need to send for the—for Anders."

"Yes, messere," she murmurs. Fenris hears her yawn as she heads back down the stairs. Marian still clings to him in silence as he closes the door behind them, though he can feel sporadic shudders rippling down her back, and rather than attempt to return her to sleep, Fenris knocks a few of her pillows to the floor and eases down to sit against the bedpost nearest the fire. He keeps Marian in his arms, as much for his comfort as her own; Toby twitches without waking when the fire pops behind him.

They are silent for a long time. In truth, Fenris thinks she has fallen asleep in his arms when her shaking slows and her dark head nestles under his chin like a tired sparrow.

At last she stirs, and when she speaks Fenris can feel her breath on his neck. "You don't like magic."

He will not lie to her. "No."

She sighs, long and slow, and turns her face further into his chest. "Papa says it's dangerous. He says demons will be able to talk to me when I dream because I'm a mage."

"Your father is right."

"Do you think I'm hearing demons?"

He does not know what to say, so he settles for silence—which proves to be answer enough all the same.

Marian makes a noise of deep unhappiness. Then, so soft he can barely hear it—"I hate my magic."

Fenris, stunned to silence, says nothing. It seems inconceivable that this could be true—Hawke, who breathes magic, who lets it spill from her hands like watered light—Hawke, who has championed mages as long as he's known her and longer, fierce in the face of his open disdain—hates magic? Impossible. "You do not mean that."

"I won't ever be normal."

Ah."No," he says again; he knows what she will be, and he cannot pretend otherwise. Still, he is astonished—never before has he imagined Hawke so conflicted by something so crucial to her identity; never before has he seen her doubt what she is. He does not know if this is his Hawke, the Hawke she is supposed to be merely hidden in a child's body and stripped of her recent memories, or if this is truly Hawke as she was in Lothering, when she was Marian, before she began to know loss. Worse, he does not know which he hopes for more.

Marian burrows further into his chest and rests there, quiet. The stars are fading in the purpling sky, the moon slipping behind clouds just blushing with dawn before she speaks again.

"I have a brother and sister. They're twins. They're really little." She pauses for a moment, then continues. "Bethany's nice, but Carver cries all the time. Papa says at least he's got strong lungs, but he's too loud. I don't like it."

Fenris nods. Hawke rarely speaks of her siblings, even to him. He wonders if her sorrow still stops her, or if she simply treasures those memories too dearly to cheapen them with words, but he cannot deny that he is eager to hear more of them if only for the better understanding it would give him of Hawke. Toby rolls over by the fire, snuffling in his sleep.

"Mother says I'm supposed to protect them because I'm the oldest. Is it…" she trails off, swallows, tries again. "Is it okay to protect them with magic?"

His arms tighten around her involuntarily. This question he cannot answer, not honestly—his first instinct is to decry her magic as usual, to fall back to his history in Tevinter and all its attendant atrocities like he has for the last six years. But this is a child he holds, not the woman who argues with him, who saw him first as an equal. Not the woman who can hold him back.

Perhaps it is this last that makes him pause. Hawke, after all, has never misused her magic in the years he has known her. Even when the temptation was greatest: when her brother fell to the taint in the Deep Roads and she could do nothing but let the Wardens take him, even when he watched helplessly as her whole world narrowed to a vase of white lilies and a forgotten foundry in Lowtown, never did she once seek out a demon's aid nor turn to blood magic. This alone might have been enough, but there is so much more to it than that; there is something that runs deeper in him than the strength of her grief and the streak of his own fear, something at once wildly complex and terrifying in its simplicity.

He trusts her.

Even now, he trusts her. It might be a mistake—Marian is not truly Hawke, after all, and a child's inconstancy might undo them all—but he closes his eyes and makes a conscious decision to preserve that trust. He does not fear her—he cannot fear her, not after everything they have been through—but maybe he can ease her fear of herself. "Magic is a dangerous thing," he says, and the muscles in his jaw work as he continues. "It is a tool that carries a great risk to everyone who would wield it, more dangerous than any sword, and you will face that danger all of your life."

She tenses, but he ducks his head, tipping her chin up with two fingers until he can meet Hawke's eyes. The morning sun shafts through the clouds as dawn breaks in earnest, chasing away the last of the night's shadows. "But if there is anyone in this world that I would trust to carry that danger safely, it would be you."

It is the only answer he can give. But as Marian smiles, her watery eyes bright, he thinks that perhaps it is enough.

-.-