"I thought Mother was going to have an apoplexy when she saw all those bloody knives in the basin," Bethany's face is barely visible beyond the hood of her cloak. The garment, while suspicious, is also necessary on this unusually cool morning. Wil keeps her hood up, too. For consistency, if nothing else. "I can't imagine it's easy for her, knowing that her daughters are…well."

"Stumbling across bloody weapons on a regular basis?" Wil can't mince words. "She sees our clothes, my swords. What? Has she convinced herself that I'm an unconventional butcher?"

"No!" It's mild exasperation. "But those daggers are proof there are others involved, sometimes a lot of others, and they have weapons that get used, too."

Beth has a point, and it makes Wil's head throb. Or maybe that's the utter lack of sleep making your head throb.

"Why were you out so late last night?" Bethany ducks into a narrow alley that will connect them to the furthest end of the Lowtown bizarre, near the Hanged Man. She'd been awake when Wil had crawled into bed a few hours before dawn. A few hours before right now.

"You know, the usual. We were helping someone deal with a problem," she laughs. "Could I be any vaguer?"

"That's fine, I don't need the details." Bethany begins flapping her cloak out as they walk, the hem billowing out around her boots.

"You'll hear all about it at Aveline's thing tomorrow evening, anyway. I might have actually gotten home at a decent hour, but Anders swore there was a templar following us. After I left Varric at the Hanged Man, I checked out the square and then went back to the undercity, just to be sure," Wil doesn't go into detail, on the off chance that Bethany won't ask for it.

"Just to be sure?"

"I didn't even go in, I just lurked outside his clinic for a few minutes and made sure no one else was…lurking." I am the creepiest. "There didn't seem to be, so I left."

"Hmmm," clearly Bethany thinks there's more to this story. "It's fine to admit that you like him, Mina. Do you think I would judge you?"

"That's because you don't know," Wil stops, her stomach not exactly behaving the way it's supposed to. She feels queasy, and not in an exhausted way, or an is that all my blood? way. It's more of a don't say those things way. Things are harder for her to ignore when someone else sees them, too.

Bethany comes to a halt beside her and whirls around, eyes glinting with curiosity and amusement. Wil was usually the one teasing her about secret crushes and how she reacted to the advances of interested parties. That the tables might be turned seems to delight her.

"What don't I know?" Her entire face lights up. "Is he weirdly bald? Does he kick puppies because they're not kittens?"

"Maker, Beth," laughing despite the relative seriousness of the subject, Wil can't help but imagine Anders cursing some adorable baby animal for being the wrong kind of adorable baby animal. "Nothing like that. It's much less...well. He's an abomination. Kinda."

The amusement is dead on Bethany's face, which goes slack with shock at the quick turn of admission. "An abomination," she murmurs and it sounds like an echo. "Kinda."

"It's a spirit of justice, or it was," Wil's throat aches. She'd not explained this to anyone...Aveline and Varric were content to assume he was a garden-variety possessed mage. "I don't remember the details exactly, my brain shut down during the conversation, but he and the spirit were friends. Justice needed a place to stay and wanted to help Anders, I don't know, free all mages? Something insignificant like that. So Anders invited him in, he got corrupted, and now..."

"Mina," Bethany exhales. "I'm so sorry."

Blinking rapidly, Wil has no idea why Beth would express such a thing to her.

"Why are you sorry?"

For a few seconds, Bethany gives her the oddest look. Have I missed something here? Then, as if coming out of a daze, her head shakes and she offers Wil a sad smile.

"His heart was in the right place, even if it was a foolish thing to do," she turns and begins down the alley and Wil follows, still not quite certain what just happened. Then, as suddenly as she'd started away, Bethany stops again and looks over her shoulder. "I have an idea, something that might get us out of this expedition."

Wil catches up in two long strides, intrigued by what her sister has to say. Bethany wasn't so much an ideas person, not a surprise considering her main concern in life is not being noticed, but that didn't mean the ones she had were without merit.

"You know how Gamlen lost our estate to those slavers?" She speaks in hushed tones, her chin down and dark eyes flashing.

"Nope! I've been in a cave for these past fifteen months...fingers in both ears," Wil snorts. "We had an estate? You mean…the sort of place people live and not rats? I had no idea."

One ebony eyebrow arches in annoyance.

"This is the first I've heard about it," Wil is absolute deadpan. "The estate, I mean."

"Are you finished?" Bethany waits for a reluctant nod. "Apparently there's a will in the family vault. Gamlen says that slavers guard the front entrance, but he has a key to a cellar door that's accessible through Darktown. If we can get our hands on that will...maybe Mother could petition the Viscount and we wouldn't have to go to the Deep Roads after all!"

That was an idea, but it's unclear how much of it is strictly Bethany's. This is the difference between us. Beth is excited, and I'm looking for the most cynical angle. Gamlen is a liar and an ass. And smelly…and probably foul with skanky disease. But...where am I going? Oh. Gamlen wasn't stupid. If he honestly thought there was a document that could gain him the Amell fortune, or even a fraction of it, wouldn't he have gone for it himself?

Unless it's just that risky. She tries to picture Gamlen storming the manor, willingly facing all those slavers on his own. Two seconds in, he's felled by a simple snare trap.

"So either we're walking into death or," suddenly it comes on like the first bright rays of sunlight peaking over the horizon. "Or the will is no use to him."

"That's my thought, too," Bethany's expression is hard. Apparently Wil doesn't have the family supply of skepticism to herself anymore. "He's got Mother so convinced that our grandparents hated her for running off with Father, but I think he's hiding something. I know it's dangerous, but everything is dangerous. If we could do this one thing for her, Mina, it might bring her some peace. She'll never be the same, because of Carver, but she might stop wishing she'd died with him!"

Dammit. In the face of that, her mother wishing she were dead, and Bethany doing that trembly thing with her lower lip that Wil cannot deny…

"Varric's supposed to be…gathering information. If everything comes back templar free, then we'll go tonight," keeping her voice light, Wil segues into the next order of business. "Breaking into a home that should be yours, but is now owned by slavers that you are more than willing to kill: Good or bad?"

"Taking what's yours- not bad always. Killing slavers- good. So…good? Why do you ask?"

With a shrug, Wil tilts her chin up so she can see past the filth washed buildings to the sky. It's an expanse of slate grey punctuated by almost imperceptible shifts of white.

"Then you can help me think of what to say to Aveline to convince her to join us," her hand comes out from within her cloak and she offers it to Bethany. "But first things first…onward to the market, Ms. Hawke. We need to get back home before Gamlen wakes up and eats all the good cheese."


"You do realize that I had Seneschal Bran in here asking me if I knew about the bodies in the Chantry this morning?" Aveline has perched herself at the edge of her desk, while Wil sits next to her, her butt fully on the desk and crushing at least one scroll flat and disrupting most everything else. "And then Varric," her hand waves at the closed door to her office where they both know Varric is stationed on the other side, listening for any scraps of their conversation he can catch. "I've been Captain of the city guard for three days, Hawke, and he's already asking me pull permits for him."

"Well, you know Varric!" Wil was going to kick him in the shins once they were off the Viscount's property, if only for putting Aveline in such a foul mood. "He's a man who gets things done, and that involves..."

"Don't."

"But-"

"No," Aveline stands and looms over her. Wil feels suddenly like a little girl who'd just been caught trying to lure one of Gray Mellie's kittens away from the rest of its litter, believing she could pretend that she'd found it in the yard and no one could possibly think she was lying. "I can't do anything to jeopardize this, and I have to set a good example for my men so they'll do their best. And to prove that I'm worthy of being called Captain of the Kirkwall City Guard."

"Captain," Wil stares down at the thick wool carpet that covers the floor Aveline's new office, catching sight of her trap ruined boot and she realizes how very worn it is all over, how everything she owns is worn, or distressed, or stained with sweat or blood. "You were right the other day, when you said I expect too much. I should show more respect for what you've accomplished."

Aveline's brows pull close and her arms go to cross over her stomach. The armor she wears isn't custom, but it's well-forged plate and Wil admires how comfortably her friend owns it. Aveline was born to do this and she knows it.

"Yes, you probably should show more respect, but it wouldn't feel right coming from you. Besides, this is good practice for all the ones who are going to call me the Fereldan bitch behind my back. If I can handle your mouth, I can handle anyone's."

Nice to be good for something. Being careful to rearrange the contents of Aveline's desk to something that was nothing like the state she'd found them, Wil begins towards the door.

"We'll at least see you at the Hanged Man tomorrow night, right? It should be fun."

"I did promise, didn't I?" Regret is clear in her green eyes.

"I stashed away a bottle of fancy-pants wine just for you. And Bethany will be there! Although I'm hoping to...," Wil's mouth goes a dry. Weird. She swallows hard a few times and coughs her way through. "I thought I might introduce her to Anders."

With an undiplomatic striking of her palm to her forehead, Aveline's posture goes slightly slack.

"And here I thought you liked your sister."

"Of course I like my...what? He's not a bad person, and she's not had anyone to talk about magey stuff. Not since Father died. I think they'd get along."

"He's an abomination, Hawke."

"I'm not sending them on a honeymoon to Val Royeaux! I'm not even sure he'd be interested in her. Or her him. It just seems fitting. Two pretty apostates flee Ferelden and find each other on a foreign coast? Varric would agree with me."

"Except they're not finding each other if you're trying to smush them together," smush comes with some regrettably awkward hand gestures. "Ugh. I'm not getting involved. Not in this."

"Fine," Wil pulls the door open and Varric casually swings in, his fingers waggling to greet Aveline, who responds with the fiercest glare Wil has ever seen. "We'll see you tomorrow night, Aveline."

"And be sure to leave the captain in the barracks," Varric shakes his head. "Nothing ruins a good game of Diamondback faster than the law glowering from the end of the table."

The door slams in their faces.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Varric raises his gaze to meet Wil's. "Eh. Could have been worse. At least she didn't try to pick me up and throw me out. Embarrassing and painful."

"Speaking from experience, it sounds like," Wil steps back and then heads out of the guard's annex. The faster she can get away from there the better. While she'd never exactly felt as if she belonged here, never has the distance between what she is and what it represents seemed so vast. "I'm not so thrilled with you, myself. Aveline was in such a state by the time I got to her, she wouldn't even consider coming with us tonight."

He doesn't immediately respond as they continue down the main stairs of the Viscount's Keep. Wil realizes that he's moving away as they descend and looking…

"Is that you being…not suspicious?"

"I just don't want to be within reach when you hear this. That's all."

"Maker, what now?" Wil stops in mid-step, close to the bottom of the stairs but not completely down. A woman, nobility or a wealthy merchant judging by the gaudy orange and teal silk dress she wears, is forced to reroute herself around Wil and she offers a rather rude gesture that is matched only by the absolute revulsion on her face. Am I that ugly, is she that lazy, or is she just offended that they let scum like me into the places she thinks should be for her kind alone? "I'm Fereldan, too."

"I know," the woman shot back, her accent marking her as Antivan. "I have a nose."

"Oh, clever," Wil stomps down the remaining steps, her cheeks burning. Of all the stupid things for me to get worked up over. Who the fuck cares what she thinks of me? "I don't really smell like wet dog, do I?"

Varric's on his way back over, playing the good friend a higher priority than saving his own hide from her frustration.

"I like that you went right for the wet dog. No. You smell fine, for a Lowtowner. Although, to be fair, I do live in a tavern that most people rate as being somewhat better than drinking in a literal gutter," he stops when he sees her face. "Is this what happens when you don't have Sunshine around to cheer you up?"

"Maybe." And maybe fresh air will make you feel better. Her feet compel her through the front doors. Then truth forces its way out of her mouth in a way she's not quite used to, "I'm just having one of those days where everything reminds me of my place. My place in my family, my place in this town, my place in my own life." Oh, shut up, Wil. "Whine, whine, whine…moan."

Varric's laughter echoes across the Viscount's Way as he takes her arm like a suitor presenting her at a formal ball. Or so she assumes that's what it's like, having never had a suitor, much less one that would want to flaunt her at a ball.

"Don't worry, Hawke. I've spent enough time with the Merchant's Guild to know what a real self-pity party sounds like. You're just frustrated, and with good reason," he's speaking in a smoother tone than normal, his words precisely chosen despite the casual nature of what he says. "You're a refugee and the sister of a mage in a town where the templars very nearly run the show. The odds are against you, and you're feeling it. But it's like this- you're quick, you're good with a sword and now you're connected. Aveline will need your help as soon as she realizes that Kirkwall can't be lawfully punched into submission. Until then…just appreciate the fact that you don't have to work with Seneschal Bran, especially knowing all the creepy stuff he gets up to."

"I…don't know all the creepy stuff he gets up to, actually," she thinks about the man she's only seen in flashes during her visits to Aveline.

"Be glad. He…has his quirks. Makes me regret being a busybody. Sometimes," Varric releases her arm and this time even he wouldn't be able to deny the worry that twitches between his brows. "Feel better?"

Wil considers. The day has turned out to be less overwhelmingly chill and grey than the morning had promised, and the sun sparkling off of the crystal veins in the Hightown masonry made the view from near the Keep quite lovely. And Varric was right.

"Sure," she bites at the edge of her tongue for a second, preparing herself to be re-annoyed. "So what's the news you were convinced would earn you physical retribution?"

"Well, I talked to a friend of mine, and as of yesterday there are two templars making the rounds, one in Darktown and the other in the alienage. No one can tell me who they're looking for or what they're asking, but…"

"It doesn't matter," Wil cuts him off, her stomach twisting. Balls. This is bad news, and it means that Anders' paranoia might not have been paranoia. "It's better than them poking around the slums, but it means Bethany and Bello will be spending another night in…and we're down to three without Aveline."

"There's always Isabela…depending on what we're doing. She isn't terrible in a fight."

"Well, there's the thing. It might not involve any fighting," Wil thinks back on the letter that had been slipped in the outside doorframe of their building. She knew before she read it that it was from Athenril- she'd never allowed any of those smugglers to know which apartment was theirs. "A dwarf named Anso…have you heard of him?"

"No. Might be carta, or recently arrived to the surface," Varric ducks his head towards her, and Wil knows without looking that he's seen his brother or one of the other Merchant's Guild members. "I would say run, but there's not anything more conspicuous than your ridiculously long limbs flapping around."

"Ass," Wil almost runs. But it's a fact that she currently has a negative amount of patience for someone like Bartrand so she instead does her best to block Varric and Bianca without drawing too much attention to either of them. "The name was given to me by my old boss, so Maker knows what this Anso is into. But as long as the pay is decent and the job doesn't involve mass murder, I'm willing to consider it."

"So cynical, Hawke," they're on the steps that connect the upper and lower markets, and Varric is breathing a little easier. "I'm going to be optimistic and say that our kill average will be…two apiece. Four if lyrium's involved."

"I should take that bet," Wil turns over the likelihood of three huge skirmishes within one week in her head. "But…no. That just makes me seem like I want every night to end in a bloodbath."


"You could be a rich woman Hawke...or at least up a few more gold," Varric's wading waist deep in the twisted black corpses of something that Anders had called shades. Wil can't say she knew what one was before tonight, but she can say that she'd die a happy woman if she never saw one again. As it is, and despite her weakened state, there's a very good chance that she'll get off her ass and dance when Anders finally gets around to torching them.

"Don't remind me. I should have known I was dooming us by even considering that tonight was going to be anything but a massOUCH!" She glares at Anders, who's kneeled beside her with a bloodied shard of glass caught between his thumb and forefinger.

"Hey, I'm not the one who flung herself into a bookshelf," he drops the glass and presses his fingers against her upper forearm, which looks, from her woozy perspective, like it had recently been run through a meatgrinder. It feels like it, too, and she automatically jerks away from his touch.

"It's been awhile since I've fought with someone who knew how to use a sword like that." Without prompting, the past hour comes back with a blur of white hair, tan skin and a blade that seemed impossibly large considering the lithe man who wielded it. "With Aveline, as long as I stay on her left side, I can usually avoid getting gutted."

"Yeah, can we talk about this guy?" Varric steps past the shades and begins poking through the pile of goods collected from the abandoned mansion where this long, intensely bloody, evening had found them. "Blondie brought up a good point on our way over here- he kind of set you up for some shit, Hawke."

"He also tore a man's heart out of his chest," Anders sneers this out as another piece of glass is pulled, followed by a small amount of magic to staunch the bleeding.

"Really? I guess I missed that somehow," She scowls at Anders through her hair, but is less angry at him than she is herself. This is the third time in a row where helping strangers had gotten her into trouble, and her justifications for following along were growing more and more...crazy. Unjustifiable. At least Anders had something you needed, and Karl was worth helping. Isabela walked you right up to a person she had to have known wanted her dead, and Fenris... "I don't even know why I agreed to help him."

"If only Aveline were here," Varric tosses aside the gold chain he'd been examining to flip through a leather bound journal. "I'm sure she'd be able to tell you exactly why you helped him. I, being a gentleman who probably couldn't take you in fair combat, will simply shut my mouth and practice my sad, yet inferior, not-elven eyes."

"Fuck you, Tethras." Wil heaves a sigh and wishes more than anything she was at home in bed, or even just near a bed so she could just pass right out. From exhaustion, from loss of blood, from embarrassment. Instead she decides to watch Anders as he continues his delicate task with impressive precision and, new since the last time she'd looked, a deeply furrowed brow. "Is it that bad? You look like you're about to declare war on my arm."

He doesn't respond for a few minutes, although she knows he heard her by the way his forehead creases deepen for a second before he stops everything to re-collect himself. She should probably stop watching, if only because she's starting to think it annoys him, but she's just noticed how his nose is slightly crooked and...

No.

His thumb brushes across the worst of the gashing and it's not as painful as it was the last time he tested it. When she doesn't flinch, he makes another, firmer, pass and blue light seeps out of his hand causing her entire arm to tingle and something unidentifiable to spark across her stomach.

"I think that's it," he withdraws to stand, his hand tucking under her armpit to help her up, too. "I don't have anything to wrap it with, and I don't really trust anything here...but the bleeding is mostly slowed to an ooze now."

He lets go and she mentally staggers, the dust motes catching on the silver moonlight that filters in through the skylights above them start to blur, to consume her vision, and she's afraid she might faint before he catches her elbow. She looks up at him again, re-noticing his slightly crooked nose, the flush of his cheeks and the way his dark eyes are full of concern that's more than clinical.

"I don't have an elf fetish or anything," it tumbles from her lips, conjured from no thought she could recall, and hearing it out loud is like ice water being pumped into her veins. Never has she gone from groggy to painfully clearheaded so quickly and you were all over Aveline last night, and here you are stepping in it yourself.

"On that note," Varric has packed their scavenged payment and helps her sheath her sword. "I say we let the elf deal with those...things," he tilts his head towards the pile of shades. "Or just let his magister come home to find them himself."

"Agreed," Anders won't look at the shades or Wil, content to let Varric guide her out until they reach the front door. "Wil."

She's overcome with dizziness again and doesn't turn around for fear of collapsing against him or confessing something else she never realized she wanted, or needed, to say.

His fingers don't really touch her, but she feels the bloom of magic at the base of her skull and it unfurls nothingness where confusion had held and it's...pleasant.

"I don't think this guy is someone you want to slip up around," his voice is low, bemused. "Especially about an elf fetish, or lack of one."

And he's right. But the elf has more important concerns than being an elf.

He paces, his gait animated but delicate, his bare feet soundless against the stone veranda in front of his former master's mansion. White stands of hair flare away from his face when he pivots, and his eyes when he goes by are sometimes glittering cold with barely concealed hatred and sometimes soft with regret for what he's put them through.

Them. Varric and Wil. Not Anders at all.

"My entire existence has been ruined by magic," his voice is rich, in rage bigger than he is, almost an entity on its own. Now it's merely a seethe that colors every word with enmity. "My former master, the other magisters...the things that they have done to me. And here I am, in your debt, but also the debt of a mage."

The way he says it crawls in Wil's blood, and she senses Anders tensing beside her.

"Here it comes," Anders cannot match Fenris' bitterness, but it's there. He's clearly been waiting for someone to take him to task on his magic.

"I saw you casting spells," the elf stops to accuse.

"Congratulations on having eyes."

"I should have known what you were from the moment I met you, but I had other concerns," he turns swiftly onto Wil, stepping close to her, so close she can clearly see the faint lines that punctuate his chin, deliberate scars on his tan skin. "He's a viper in your midst. You would be a fool to trust him."

His eyes are every bit as beautiful as Sorrell's, despite being nowhere near as vibrant. They're loathing and sorrow that reassures her of the fact that he truly believes his warning is necessary.

She hopes he sees the same conviction in hers when she responds.

"I disagree with your assessment on mages. They're no more or less untrustworthy than any other person. Anders here is a Grey Warden and a healer-"

"And a few other things that I'd rather not have mentioned," he chuckles nervously and shoots her a grateful look. "If you don't mind."

"Besides," she continues, wondering if he really thought she was dense enough to announce to a mage hating, heart-punching elf that he was an abomination. "You seemed fine enough with him when he was helping go after your former master. Hypocritical much?"

Sigh. Fenris clearly knows he's not going to get through to her. Not now, and not like this. Instead he stands up straight, his posture remarkable and proud for a few seconds before he settles back down into a more defeated posture.

"I meant it when I said I was in your debt," he doesn't make eye-contact. "If I seem ungrateful, I apologize. You've done more for me than I deserve and I feel that the payment Anso promised is no longer sufficient. I have no more gold, nor possessions, to offer, but I am willing to assist you, should you find yourself in need."

It hangs between them, Fenris now watching her in his guarded way, and Wil wondering if she was dreaming, a rehash of the previous night where she stumbled into danger but emerged with a something resembling an impressively capable ally.

"I...might need help. We're planning an expedition to the Deep Roads. Your skills might come in handy," she casts a sidelong look at Anders, and thinks about how Bethany would have reacted to being called a viper, how she would react to someone like Fenris who probably did have horror stories about blood magic and the cruelty of corrupt mages. "But will you be able to work with mages?"

"Mages?" That was Anders, and she ignores him.

"Mages," this is Fenris, and once again his voice wraps the two syllables in loathing. "I am not unreasonable. I know that magic can be used for good. So I can work with them, yes. As long as you and they know I am watching them."

"Yaaaay," Anders sounds anything but thrilled by this uneasy agreement. "Nothing like getting to fight beside someone who can barely tolerate my existence."

"Something tells me this isn't your first time," Fenris roughs it up. "And not just because you're a mage."

Ouch. Wil moves so that she's more of a presence between them. "Do you have a place to stay, Fenris?"

"Sure," Fenris shrugs and raises his eyes to assess the manse that sprawls above and beyond them. "If Danarius wants his mansion, he's more than welcome to take it back."

With that, he nods a quick good-bye and disappears into his new home. If a corpse strewn manor owned by your former slave-master could ever be called a home. Still...

"I'm jealous I didn't think of this first," Wil stares at the front door. "Seems way easier than petitioning the Viscount or trying to buy our estate back. Also, can I just say that this has been the strangest week of my life?"

"Strange?" They fall away and turn to leave Hightown for the evening. "In a few years, I think you'll look back on this week with nothing but fondness...you did meet me, after all."

"I sense another wager," Anders is remaining close to her, whether it's because he's afraid she might collapse or another reason, born from either curiosity or gratitude, she's uncertain. "A few in fact."

"In four years, will I consider this to have been a good week?" Wil can't think of any others.

"In four years, who will you remember fondly?" The smile that curves Varric's lips indicates that, in his mind, he's the odds-on favorite. "Or not so fondly."

"Or both!" Anders' face is twisted in an odd little smirk as he glances over at her. "From what I've seen, you could end up hating and loving all of us."

It's a joke with truth simmering just below the surface but it's far too late, and Wil far too ready to pass out, for it to receive the examination it deserves.


Note from SF: Fenris. He's hard for me to write, so he gets to stay close to script.

Also, thanks to everyone reading and reviewing! The feedback has been so appreciated.