Hi! I'd kind of like to apologise for, uh, kind of dropping the last chapter on you. What I was really attempting to do with this piece was to examine abusive relationships and the kind of ownership and control dynamic they have [in the framework of slavery], but I'm also relatively sure that I didn't put enough work into getting it up to that point, which probably made the last chapter... sudden.
I'm really sorry to everyone who was enjoying it up to that point and was disappointed, and I really accept that I didn't signpost the whole thing clearly enough in any fashion. I see I may have been a little too ambitious. Thanks to those that reviewed, I really appreciate honest criticism and I'm also writing something slightly - well, nicer. But I also won't mind if you don't want to read anything else I write!
Anyway, my point is: Sorry, guys. Still learning.
I should also probably warn you now that this story doesn't really end in what I would really call justice. You might not enjoy it.
Hawke rolled her eyes. "I wasn't aware that you were so fond of the idea of a blood mage running around Kirkwall unchecked."
"That's not the point," snarled Fenris. He stood over her as she sat in her usual chair in his mansion."You sold her into slavery. You haven't heard a single word I've ever said to you!"
His lyrium markings were glowing. She couldn't stop watching them.
"Merrill was dangerous. Maker, that mirror." She wrinkled her nose. "Just looking at it gave me the creeps."
He laughed, a harsh, desperate sound. "So you thought that selling her was the best way to solve it? I would not wish that life upon anyone."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you suggesting that it would have been preferable to let her become an abomination? I make no claim to be a soothsayer, but there was only one possible outcome for her if left on that path. I tried asking her to stop it. Telling her that nothing good would come of it. So did the Keeper, her entire clan. Everyone was against her, and still she thinks 'oh no, it's just a demon, I can handle it'. That's stupid and dangerous, and I'm not going to be swayed by how nice she was."
She pushed her chair back and stood up.
"I got her out of the area, and as far as I'm concerned that is a damned favour to Kirkwall. There are so many blood mages here already, and the Veil is so thin, it's madness letting another one just wander around. Let that damned mirror spew out demons or darkspawn or whatever it really does in Tevinter, not here."
She reached for her glass of wine, but Fenris grabbed it and dashed it against the wall. "Why didn't we fight? Danarius should be dead, not on his way back to Tevinter!"
She sighed. "We didn't fight, Fenris, because I didn't think we could win."
"What are you talking about?" he growled. "Of course we could have."
"I disagree," she said. "If you were prepared to buy your freedom with my blood, that's fine," she said. "But I wasn't going to make that decision for all of us."
His eyes flickered with doubt.
She sighed. "I didn't take Anders because I assumed he would try and poison whatever reunion you may have had with your sister. Without a healer, I wasn't prepared to gamble our lives. Honestly, it just seemed practical."
"You gave away Merrill because it was practical?" His hands gripped her arms hard, the points of his gauntlets digging into her flesh.
"Yes, because I didn't think we could stand against an incredibly powerful blood mage," she said. "I know you and Merrill weren't friends, so please stop reacting on such an emotional level. I consider it a victory that you're still alive. That's all I care about."
"It's not about Merrill!" His voice was loud in her ears. 'It's about slavery! You don't sell your acquaintances."
"You are free, Fenris," she said irritably. "That's all I wanted to do. I'm sorry if I did it wrong." She attempted to escape Fenris' grasp, but it just tightened.
"I'm not yours. I don't belong to you. You had no right to bargain on my behalf."
"Of course not." She closed her eyes. "You can leave at any time, you know. Just walk out that door and never come back. Go back to being alone. Again."
He let her go, and took a step back, light pulsing through his veins.
"I trusted you," he said softly. "With everything. You're not the person I thought you were." He looked towards the door. "I can't stay here."
"Everything I have done has been for you!" she exclaimed. "What will you do instead? Where will you go? You've been in Kirkwall for years. Would you just start again? Run, and see where you get to?"
She wasn't sure what he reminded her of. A wounded animal, perhaps, dangerous and desperate to be free. Caught in a trap, maybe, almost ready to chew his own leg off to escape.
"At least you wouldn't have Danarius on your tail," she said."So how did you get those markings?"
Fenris' blue glow faded, as if the act of focusing on them had turned them off.
"I – don't know. I think there was a... a competition?" he stopped talking, confused.
"You won them?" she asked. "Is that what you're saying?"
He looked down at the lines on his hands. "Yes... I think so."
She laughed. "Oh, that's just great. 'Please rescue me from my master, he forced these markings upon me and I will hate him eternally for it'. You weren't merely a volunteer, you actually beat out other people in order to have them? Am I getting this right?"
He leaped forwards, and grasped a fistful of her shirt. He lifted her from her seat. "Danarius was a monster," he said. "And so are you. He is beyond my reach, but you are not."
He reached inside Hawke's chest.
She gasped in pain. Every muscle in her body went rigid. She couldn't move, couldn't get away, couldn't even fall to the floor. And his hand was cold, so cold, and hurt like no blade slipping through her flesh or tossed fireball had ever hurt her before.
And suddenly it was gone. She collapsed, falling in a boneless heap on the floor.
"I can't kill you," he said, uncertain. Disappointed, almost.
She struggled for breath, forehead resting against the cold stone. She almost expected her heart to stop of its own accord. A whimper was the only sound she could make.
"Hawke," he said, and was gone.
It took her almost an hour to move, and then another to stumble clumsily through the house to the exit. By the time she stepped through her own doorway she almost felt normal, if shaky.
Some months later she heard a gentle, familiar tap on the front door that quickened her heartbeat. She opened the door uneasily. Fenris stood there, outlined by moonlight. She stumbled back, reaching for a weapon she wasn't wearing, but he didn't move.
He looked up at her, those big golden eyes clouded. "I don't know who I am without you," he said.
She opened the door for him.
