The last job.
Me and Carver were standing behind a corner, hidden from sight. It'd been three weeks or so since I had been discovered in that crate. Carver fidgeted and I sat on an empty box while we waited for Hawke to drive the bandits towards us. It was taking forever.
"Do you miss Fereldan?" I asked watching the currently empty alleyway.
Carver shrugged, "sometimes."
I had come to consider the Hawkes as family and they seemed to feel likewise. I never asked about Bethany but sometimes Leandra would grow very quite and stay silent for the rest of the day. Hawke and Carver were like brothers now, Hawke the protective (sometimes suffocating so) heroic older brother, who was wrecked by guilt at his inability to protect everyone. Carver was like a little brother; while I loved Garrett I had more understanding with Carver because I could see his faults. We argued alot but we talked alot too and I felt protective of him. However the Hawkes were thankfully too different to my real family to feel as though they were replacing them.
"I miss the rain," I said tilting my head upwards slightly as if I suddenly expected the heavens to open.
"What? You miss the crappy Fereldan weather?" Carver said incredulously.
"Yeah," I smirked, "it never rains in Kirkwall. I like the rain."
"You're weird did I ever tell you that," he said poking his head out to check round the corner.
"And you're a meathead," I grinned, "did I ever tell you that." He kicked me playfully.
"Ow," I smiled.
It was in that moment that the raiders began to stumble round the corner, fleeing from Hake's destructive magic. Carver and me sprang into action slicing up the remaining bandits before they even had a chance to register our presence. Carver's combat had improved greatly since reading the books; he's even bought some of his own and attended one of my training sessions with Fenris. They had been infrequent, I visited when I could manage to and we didn't speak much when we were training. And that was one of the reasons I enjoyed them, I didn't feel as though I had to talk for the sake of speaking. I was content with the silence however, and when Fenris spoke it was to deliver instructions. He hadn't asked me any questions since I'd told him that I didn't want to talk about it but there were times when I wanted to speak but found I couldn't, like I felt nervous about saying the wrong thing. I'd also improved I was able to use my markings almost immediately and could hold it for much longer periods of time. That and I had managed to pass the same energy into my weapon. Sofia was wreathed in the same smoke as me and it burned as it cut. Fenris had not called on his part of the deal yet. It frustrated me. I didn't like being in someone's debt and I was curious to see what he wanted from me.
Hawke was shifting through the corpses' clothing while the rest of us kept an eye on the entrances, a second wave of attackers wouldn't be welcome while we were all scrambling around for goodies. Hawke stretched himself upward, shifting through his bounty with scared, careful fingers.
"One more job," he breathed, "just one more job and we're done."
The last 'job' in question happened to be my riskiest so far. Hawke had abandoned bandit patrols, halting thieves and capturing murders all together and had instead trawled high town for any high paying yet dangerous quests. It was a welcome change for me. Isabella was right; any quest was more interesting than bandits. Me and Isabella were playing cards in the shade of a monument, a large armoured noble, while Hawke bartered with the merchant. "You're a quick learner," she'd commented one night and now our games had become a competition of trying to catch one another at cheating.
Isabella grinned, shaking her head. She casually drew the ace that was now half hanging out of my sleeve.
"Tut, tut, tut," she said smirking, "you're scandalous."
"Well this is what your corruption leads to. I lay the blame solely at your feet," I grinned.
Hawke strode over to us, head bent and stroking his beard clear signs to indicate that he was deep in thought.
"I love it when you do that Hawke, you look so wise," Isabella called unleashing a seductive smile.
"I designed it just for your pleasure," Hawke said with a smile I'd never seen before on him except for in Isabella's company.
"Is that the only thing you designed for my pleasure?" she smirked darkly.
"Shameless," I muttered shaking my head.
"So, what is it we have to do?" Carver asked dislodging himself from the statue's pillar.
"All the workers at his mine have been massacred, we need to find out what killed them and kill it," Hawke said.
"Sounds suspicious to me," Anders mused.
"There's no way of knowing what we're up against so stay on your toes," Hawke said leading us away from the market.
"Hawke, where are we going?" I asked packing the beautifully illustrated deck of cards (which were a present from Leandra, after she found them in one of her old trunks) into my clothes.
"Saundermount," he replied.
"I was hoping you'd say that, can we stop off at the Dalish camp I need to get supplies."
"Mas sermmas Illen," I smiled allowing a hand to rifle fondly through his wares.
"You, back again," he growled but he was smiling, "I was hoping we had scared you off."
"Oh Illen you'd have to cut my legs off to keep me away from these," I said eyeing the ancient crafts hungrily.
"I haven't tried that yet," Illen said pretending to seriously think it through; well I hope he was pretending.
"As creepy and charming as that is I've really got to go stab something myself," I half smiled. An expression I found myself doing often, unaware that it had crept onto my face again. Illen leaned sideways to look past me at the group standing waiting for me at the centre of the camp. His eyes narrowed. I barely heard the muttered curses aimed at Merrill and, despite my adversity towards her blood mage-ous activities, I didn't want to.
"What will you trade for these?" I asked raising a pair of beautifully engraved gauntlets that had silverite twisted expertly into them.
Illen glanced up and studied me carefully.
"Your old gauntlets and those three lockets," he said.
"Deal," I grinned.
"When are you going to leave the Shem and live among us," all humour was gone just complete seriousness, "you know we'd welcome you here even if you are only..."
Half elf.
That's what he wanted to say, that I was only half elf.
"I'll keep that in mind Illen but right now the 'Shem' is getting pretty impatient," I smiled.
"Till next time," Illen waved me away as he began to attend to another customer. I strolled back to Hawke, pulling the new gauntlets on and absently tightening the strings.
"All done?" Hawke asked nodding at my gauntlets appreciatively.
"Yeah," I said still concentrating on the strings.
"I'm impressed," Merrill smiled attempting to not let the glares and whispers get to her, "I didn't know you could speak Dalish."
"You never asked," I shrugged pulling the string tight. I couldn't look at her because somehow I felt guilty. Her clan liked me, a stranger and a half breed, better than her, who was not only Dalish but had also lived among them for years. But the worst part by far was that she had done this to herself.
Me, Fenris and Merrill were more sensitive to the heat change. The heat rose up through the rock underfoot and pricked the bottom of our bare feet. The further we climbed, the thicker the forest of boulders grew until we were practically scrambling at some points and the only vegetation was a few straggled grasses and roots crushed between the rocks.
"It smells of decay, only the foolish would travel here," Fenris mumbled to Hawke who continued to hike, grim faced and determined.
It did smell of decay, a cloying and thick sickly sweet scent that clung to my nose. That combined with the heat was making me cough. Did I mention that I hated the heat? And this was the worst kind, the heavy humid kind that sticks to your skin like a clammy blanket. This wasn't the old, proud mountains near the Dalish camp; these mountains were scorched, dead and mined hollow husks of the majestic peaks. There was something wrong up here. Something that just felt uneasy in the pit of my gut and made me eager to just run as far away as possible.
"You okay?" Carver asked to my left keeping his eyes on his feet.
"Yeah there's just something that feels... wrong up here, can't you feel it?" I replied trying to scan the discarded mining equipment.
"A bit, I feel jumpy," he said following my gaze.
"It's cursed," Fenris said making Carver jump. I'd heard his approach but Carver obviously didn't.
"Don't sneak around like that," Carver growled glaring at him.
"I wasn't 'sneaking'," Fenris said matching his glare with a classic I-am-a-broody-elf-mess-with-me-and-I'll-literally-rip-your-head-off look.
"It's cursed?" I asked eager to steer clear of a testosterone battle.
"Can't you feel it," he asked his dark green eyes penetrating the fog like two emeralds (a horrible simile I know). It was odd him asking me a question I had just asked Carver.
"Yes," I replied.
Hawke stopped at the entrance of the mine and glared into the darkness. The air was worse here like meat left to burn. I wondered what he could see, what he was thinking. What would it be like to be Hawke, to be ready to sacrifice and have unwavering confidence in your abilities? What would that be like? Hawke stepped into the dark without a moments hesitation, I followed.
It stunk worse in there like rotting meat left to cook. And it was dark, the few patches of light glowing murkily from holes in the rock.
"What do you think downs here?" I asked Hawke creeping up near the front.
"I'm not sure could be giant spiders, a Vaterell or maybe even dragons," he said holding his lighted staff aloft so everyone could see.
"Dragons? I've never fought dragons before."
"You sound slightly excited," Hawke gave me yet another confused glance.
I shrugged. I was slightly excited. I've never seen a dragon before, I bet they were beautiful. Nearly everything with wings was beautiful.
There were dragons because we came across Drakes in the next cavern. I read alot and had come across a large paragraph on Drakes. They were the male dragons, windless and with alot less fire power, they travelled with the dragons to fertilize and protect the eggs but never strayed far from the dragon as they needed protection themselves. In other words Drakes were great indicators of a dragon's presence. I however didn't get to fight any drakes because I was stuck at the back slaughtering any giant spider that came near Anders, an Abomination who was scared of spiders. Probably the only Abomination that was scared of spiders. And after my performance in the ruins I had somehow become the group's resident spider assassin and was called on when any offending arachnids were sighted. I only glimpsed the bodies afterwards before a squeamish Anders pushed me along.
"It's the legs," he muttered, "eight hairy legs."
He shivered and whispered, "They're creepy and unnatural."
"So are abominations but I don't flush them down plug holes," I whispered back, "even though if I did have a really big bath."
"Don't you just stab them on sight," Anders whispered back furiously.
"Sorry would you prefer me to take the twisted, possessed to visit my grandmother instead," I whispered equally as furiously. Surely he couldn't argue that Abominations were acceptable, even mages considered them dangerous.
"Why are you two whispering," Varric asked making me cringe in the broken silence.
Anders was sulking and so was I, we trudged along in silence. He zapped me accidently once in battle so I ensured that I directed the spider blood his way. A jet squirted him right in the face and I couldn't stop myself from laughing. After that I just grinned and hummed happily while Anders frowned so hard it had to be painful.
My hopes were confirmed when a terrified worker almost ran right into Hawke. He quickly warned him off and carried on his way.
Fortunately as we approached the dragon's lair we began to climb upwards and eventually stepped outside. I shielded the virgin sunlight from my eyes and inhaled deeply before realizing where I was and ending up choking on the foul air. We were perched on a ledge near the top of the mountain with a dragon. I just stood there awhile staring at it. It was beautiful. Each scale detailed intricately, everyone unique and sewn together in an armoured blanket that swathed the beast from head to toe. I wonder if you could create amour for people exactly like that. It was huge and covered with muscle, a sharp intelligent head and a long, powerful body that ended in a spiked whip like tail. It looked utterly deadly. But by far the most incredible part of the dragon were its wings that it stretched elegantly outwards in attack. Maker, I wish I could draw those wings. Wait in attack.
"Fen' Harel!" Hawke called snapping me out of my reverie, "Any ideas?"
Not only was I spider assassin but I had also been promoted to a strategist along with Anders and Hawke himself.
"Erm," I said glancing back at the dragon.
"Okay," I said hurriedly turning back to Hawke, "Varric you think you can blind that thing?"
"Oh, Bianca's hurt," he said.
"Okay of course you can blind that, we need to split into groups mages and warriors then just rogues, we need the mages to try and petrify or freeze it or whatever, the warriors need to act as their shields and hit the dragon when they can, while me and Isabella make critical hits at the critical points which would usually be impossible on a really pissed off dragon," I explained dodging a fireball half way through.
"But on a pissed off frozen dragon..." Isabella said.
"...is much easier," I smiled.
"Okay I think we can manage that. Anders concentrate on frost spells; they should be effective and Merrill basic paralysis entropy and a rock prison if you can," Hawke spoke fast delivering instructions to the mages, "is everyone ready."
We all nodded or mumbled "ready," then sprung into action on Hawke's lead. It took Varric three shots to blind the dragon which roared in reply and tried to barbecue the few of scurrying around at its feet. Anders and Hawke were there immediately, ice erupting from their staffs and Fenris and Carver were there cutting up the frozen flesh. Me and Isabella didn't really have time to look we were too busy slipping in between the dragons writhing limbs. It was difficult to hit the right points, you had to cut the scales away in that certain area and drive the blade in deep. We only had four more to go, two on the neck, two on the head. We ran along its back, dodging the wings and skipping out the way of claws almost at the neck...at that moment the dragon defrosted. Its tail slicing across it's back and whipped me to the floor with a crack like thunder. I made an "unf" noise as I crashed to the floor and just managed to roll out of the way as a large talon clawed the ground near me. However Isabella wasn't as lucky as me. She was thrown forward over the neck to land heavily at the blind dragon's feet.
Oh crap.
Everyone was too busy avoiding flames, wings and claws to notice a now dazed Isabella in the dragons lap. Merrill attempted to create a rock prison but the dragon smashed it immediately and resumed the attack.
I spat the blood from my mouth and managed to yell, "Hawke! Isabella's..."
I didn't finish, Hawke heard me (which wasn't a small feat considering the noise and the fact that half my face felt numb) and was already gone sliding himself in front of the dragon. He spun his staff, electricity sparking and burning over its sharp face. The dragon recoiled but Hawke wasn't finished, he pounced the spear head of the staff raised and drove it through the beast's skull. The dragon's body sputtered and jarred before collapsing. I had already pulled myself to my feet and was making my way over to Hawke who was panting slightly from exertion.
"Thanks for the save," Isabella smirked, wiping dust from her rear.
"Don't mention it," Hawke replied still staring at the dragon.
I crouched down inspecting the dragons head, running my fingers across the scales, which were oddly smooth, and the bones beneath the muscles.
"You know what this means," I grinned standing up to face the group, fingers dripping with dragon blood.
"What?" Hawke asked suspiciously.
"We're dragon slayers," I said excitedly painting the substance across the bridge of Hawke's nose, then Carvers.
"I've never been a 'dragon slayer' before," Merrill smiled as I wiped the blood gently across her nose careful not to get it in anyone's eyes.
"Neither have I," I smiled back.
Isabella and Anders declined and I shrugged moving onto Varric who promised me that this would get us free drinks.
"Technically Hawke killed the dragon," Fenris said as I wiped the blood from cheek, to nose, to cheek.
"With our help, he'd run away screaming in that little mage dress of his without us," I replied with a lop-sided smile.
"He still killed the dragon," he had that tiny little smile that just touched the corners of his full lips. I narrowed my eyes, still smirking. But he just watched me the little smile playing on the corner of his mouth. And suddenly I couldn't look away from his lips.
"You're cut," he said pointing at my cheek with a clawed gauntlet. It was the mark where the dragon's tail had caught me and the numbness was beginning to fade replaced with a stinging sensation. I could feel the blood well up and slide from the corner of the cut and slowly down my cheek to my lips. Fenris followed its movement with two green eyes that I now noticed were flecked and intertwined with rich lighter greens with the deep, dark ones, and like the drop of blood stopped at my lips.
"Fen' Harel," Varric called over, "the Hanged Man has missed you terribly."
Me and Fenris broke apart, moving backwards away from one another, my eyes instantly at the floor then searching for Varric. I felt strange, unsteady and too big for my skin. My brain felt odd, soft and confused still swimming with what had just happened. Nothing. That's what had happened, absolutely nothing, we had just looked. But my body was telling me something else, my heart was hammering, ringing in my ears and it and my gut hurt mildly with something, something that made me feel weak. I hated it. I loathed how weak and defenceless I had felt for that moment. I hadn't felt it before and never want to again. But...
"Yeah," I called to Varric, "I've missed her too."
The strange thing about the alcohol at the Hanged Man is that although it taste's like a fat man's bath water, you kind of begin to miss it. Thanks to Varric I was entertained in seconds and he was right being a dragon slayer did get you free drinks. There was already a small group surrounding him, filling our tankards just to keep him talking. Of course this time we were attacked by a whole army of dragons. I noticed that Fenris hadn't shown up and couldn't help wondering if it had something to do with earlier. I however ended up playing cards with Isabella on my team against Hawke and Merrill while Anders watched as Justice didn't approve of gambling. Hawke had explained Anders situation to me days ago and although I hadn't voiced my opinion to Hawke I was slightly disgusted. Why was nearly every mage a hypocrite? Anders argued that all mages were bad and that they could resist temptation while he sat there harbouring an alien spirit in his body himself.
Me and Isabella won of course, to the surprise of a completely stumped Hawke and Merrill. We drank to gaining the money, then we drank to the expedition then we just drank. But I couldn't help wondering if this would be the last time we'd all drink together. I was happy. In a foreign country and hiding from the Templars but I was happy. I had friends, I was healthy due to the exercise and Leandra's food and I was actually doing something instead of waiting for something to happen. I was as free as I had ever been. A wave of warmth flooded me as I looked at everyone at the table, people I genuinely cared about. It was an affectionate sensation and it took me back a second, the realization that I at that moment was actually completely content.
"What are you thinking about Fen' Harel?" Hawke asked.
"Nothing," I said.
"I know what I'm thinking about," Isabella smirked devilishly.
"Oh, what's that," Merrill asked her huge, shiny eyes looked innocently confused.
"I wouldn't want to offend your virgin ears," Isabella lowered her gaze, "unless you'd really like to know."
I leaned towards Merrill.
"It's undoubtedly something deliciously wicked that involves parts and positions of people's bodies that anyone but Isabella wouldn't even dream of never mind attempt and will rob you of your innocence in a heartbeat," I explained.
"Oh, in that case I'm not that interested but thank you," Merrill replied. I laughed and she smiled.
"Would you mind terribly if I called you something else, I just find it difficult to call you... that," she asked meekly.
"As long as it's not something very mean and hurtful Merrill," I turned to her.
"Oh, it isn't I swear. Can I call you Erin?" she waited expectantly for my answer.
"That's a Dalish name," a smile was spreading across my face.
"Yes but you're half Dalish and you are like one of them, one of us," she said.
"I really like it. Thank you Merrill," I grinned.
Leandra scrubbed the dragon's blood from our faces when we came in. She scrubbed even harder when we found out what it was and after a rushed meal we retired to bed or in this case the sack of potatoes in the kitchen. I used to have nightmares and if I wasn't that exhausted when I did fall asleep I was positive I still would. So instead I listened to Leandra's nightmares, I let them lull me into dreams of the darkest black.
There was a great excitement the next morning. We dressed and left early with Hawke leaving a note for Leandra. He said something about not wanting her to say goodbye to another child. I wanted to ask what he meant by that but there didn't seem to be enough time.