A/N - thank you again for your wonderful reviews Kira Tamarion, Billini and Wicked Lullaby! Keep 'em coming please! =)

The comforts that civilization brought only lasted that night. Wilder had been hospitable, but Fenris noticed that it seemed to be only a formality, as the two of them were encouraged to keep to themselves and be out quickly. They left the next morning and traveled along the western edge of the lake, and traveled north from there. By the time night fell upon Wildervale, they were on the other side of the lake, the distant sparkle of Wilder's lanterns like a candle in the far distance.

Fenris gathered firewood as Astoria waded out into the lake and played around with a small net that he hadn't known she had.

Fenris doubted that she would be able to catch anything and he kept glancing at her in amusement as she stood there, still as a statue while he gathered up firewood. Once he had the fire going, he chuckled to Astoria.

"You know, I don't like fish." He explained.

Astoria made a sound in the back of her throat. "Oh, I know," she said, as if she was trying not to breathe, "This is for me."

Fenris frowned, again surprised that she knew so many little details about him. Long minutes passed, and Astoria struggled for a moment, the water splashing around her as she scooped the net up out of the water. A fish just slightly smaller than the length of his forearm writhed in the net, flailing and silently gasping.

With a feral grin, she stepped from the lake, water dripping down her legs and arm, where her leathers were rolled up to reveal her thin but toned calves. "Do you know why you hate fish?"

"The taste, of course."

Astoria smirked and shook her head in disagreement. "At Mavion's we would be given it when it was going bad. It always made you sick. But we had fresh fish once, and you actually liked it. I'm sure you wouldn't try it now."

The fish flailed for a few more moments before going limp as Astoria pulled it out by its tail and began to filet it beside the fire. Fenris watched her attentively from where he sat with his legs crossed, absentmindedly sharpening his blade with a stone.

She moved gracefully, her brow knit in careful concentration, completely oblivious to his steady gaze on her. Her fingers and blade worked while her toes tapped in the sand to a song only she could hear. Her hair was messy and wild, but it looked soft as she tucked a loose lock behind her ear using her wrist awkwardly as to not actually touch her hair with her fishy fingers.

She was far from flawless, but her beauty was not lost on himl. Fenris had an eye for this, but beauty meant little to him. He studied the curve of her cheek, the slope of her neck, the way she meticulously fileted the fish before setting it upon a stone propped up over the fire. But he lingered on her imperfections longer than her strong points, because for the first time he could actually see scars on her. Her knees were scarred as well as one of her ankles – like she had been severely burned some time ago.

It was then that she caught him staring.

"What's on my face?" She asked, immediately pawing at herself as if to remove any dirt.

"Nothing." Fenris answered too quickly. He realized this wasn't convincing, so he scrambled for something else. "I was wondering what that scar was from... on your ankle."

"Huh?" Then she looked at her foot and shrugged. "A magister threw a fireball at me, but missed... mostly."

"A magister? I assume he's dead then, if you survived."

She nodded and pride flashed behind her eyes. "Yes. The first one I've had a part in killing, actually – yet another magister stupid enough to try to leave Tevinter on some business with less than a dozen guards and acquaintances."

"Heh." Fenris looked down at his freshly sharpened blade and examined it in the firelight, the trees whispering in a light breeze around them. The forest of Wildervale oddly felt sheltering, like he didn't need to hide as much as he hid behind thick stone walls of Kirkwall. The air was fresh, and Astoria's knack for hunting had hardly left him feeling hungry. It was amazing how this nomadic, traveling life left so much free time that he could just be left to think sometimes.

Fenris was not a hunter. He knew this well from his years on the run. He couldn't sneak up on animals, as quiet as he was. It was like they could sense him – and a great sword wasn't the easiest weapon to sneak up on game with, as they tend to snag on branches and animals seem to have a natural aversion to them.

Fenris looked at Astoria as she examined the fish frying over the fire and flipped it with a dagger as well as the chicken she had bought in town for him. The food sizzled and he looked at her ankle again. It was so little damage to receive from someone so powerful.

"You are lucky." His voice seemed to bring her out of focus.

Astoria seemed puzzled, her brow furrowed as she turned to him. "What?"

"You are lucky that that is your only scar from the magisters."

"It isn't." She turned back to the fire without any more of an explanation and Fenris found himself at a loss for words, feeling like he had offended her.

"I... did not mean it like that," he amended after a moment of inner scolding. "I know you have lost much."

Astoria nodded slowly before shooting him a tight smile that did not reach her eyes. "I know." Then she sighed and knelt down in front of the fire, waiting on the food to be finished.

Fenris rubbed his forehead and scooted back against the nearest tree, laying his sword out beside him and tugging off his gauntlets. Astoria began humming softly to herself as she stood, seeming restless, and went to the water to wash her hands.

A few minutes later, he peered suspiciously at the small portion of fish beside his chicken on his wooden plate. It didn't smell quite like the gutted fish that laid out under the sun for a couple hours at the docks before being shipped off to the taverns and market in Kirkwall. He poked at it with the fork carefully and Astoria laughed from across the fireplace. His jade eyes fluttered to find her and a small sense of self-consciousness hit him as he realized she was watching him.

"It won't bite you, you know."

"We'll see," he countered with a faint smirk.

"And don't feign sickness to get out of our sparring tonight – I see right through you, Fenris."

He snorted. "You may regret that taunt later."

"Oh? A threat?"

"A statement."

Astoria chuckled, an odd and somehow sad gleam in her eyes, and nodded towards his food. "Just try it."

Fenris took a bite of the fish and waited a few moments, expecting himself to practically immediately regurgitate it. It never happened, and Maker, it actually didn't taste as horrible as he'd imagined.

"I still prefer scrawny hare, but this will do," he conceded eventually. "Thank you."

Astoria smiled with pride and bit into her food, stretching out before the fire as they ate in their common silence. The only sounds were the owls in the forest, the cackling of the wood snapping under the flames and the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore.

"I hope you have a plan," Fenris said calmly as he put his plate down beside him and crossed his ankles.

"I do. I have connections in the rebellion that can point us in the right direction, hopefully. They've been keeping an ear out for Lysander since he was taken away."

Fenris quirked an eyebrow curiously. "I don't understand... how did you become involved with them?"

Astoria tilted her head as she pieced together her memories. "Well... it was when your..." she looked up at him uneasily, "are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I feel as though I talk about your mother and sister so much... It must be difficult to hear."

He frowned, scrutinizing her. "No, go on."

Astoria took a deep breath. "When you freed us... naturally we had nowhere to go. We lived in Minrathous for a short time – but it's too dangerous there for free elves, so we left. We travelled south, and at nighttime I'd have to go steal crops from the farms to feed your mother and sister."

Her eyes flickered to his and she felt uncomfortable under his fierce gaze, but he continued listening to every word.

"One night, I stole from a farm and I was caught. Alone."

"Why were you alone?" Fenris interrupted.

"Varania was with your mother."

"Why?"

Astoria's gaze grew sad and pleading as she looked at Fenris. "You were your mother's shining light. When you gave yourself up... it nearly killed her. We couldn't leave her alone. It's not that she would kill herself, she said that 'she wasn't that selfish,' but we just couldn't."

Again he felt his chest tighten as he imagined this.

"She'd wander, she'd sob for hours on end, she'd become... delirious. Grief does awful things to people, Fenris."

He swallowed audibly, shutting his eyes briefly before nodding for Astoria to continue.

"Well... I was caught – and I thought they were going to kill me. It was a handful of armored elves. But I was pregnant, I mean, visibly pregnant. They let me take the food and told me to leave."

Fenris nodded, imagining this scenario in his mind. "That's lucky."

She smiled, and he felt the corners of his own lips twitching in response. "Well, Lysander saved my life. For the first time I was actually glad to have him." She scoffed into her palm, eyes tearing. "I sound like a terrible mother." Before Fenris could reply, she continued. "Anyway, I told Sharna and Varania what had happened. I knew we couldn't live like that – what if I got caught again and they did kill me?

"So I went back to the farm in the morning alone. I asked for a job, I told them about my case – that my husband had freed the three of us and we needed work. They were sympathetic and interested, and explained to me that they were part of a movement, a resistance to the oppressive Tevinter regime."

Her eyes gleamed in something like admiration as she remembered. "Naturally, I wanted to work for them – do what they did, you know? So they let the three, well, four of us if you include Lysander stay in a barn near the woods. We were able to make our own apartment in it, make it our own home. There wasn't room for all of us in the house with the others – and it served as a safe haven for the rebels that travelled in the area."

"You lived in a barn there, on the same land as the rebels?"

"Yes. We maintained the land and the crops while they were away, and eventually they let me manage things for them. I began to run things there – send messages between groups of the rebellion, help to communicate and intervene on slave shipments."

"And the magisters never found out?"

Astoria frowned. "When Lysander was four years old, Danarius appeared at our door with a small army."

Fenris tensed, subconsciously leaning towards her with interest.

"He was looking for you. I guess it had taken him a year to find us, and you had been missing for two years. Anyway, he saw that we lived in a barn and he looked around, looking for evidence of you. He saw Lysander."

She sniffed, on the verge of tears and Fenris felt his own fingers digging into his palms; his hands clenched subconsciously in tight fists.

"I begged Danarius not to take him, and he didn't. I'm not sure why he left him. He'd probably use Lysander to bait you, eventually. Then he left, and we thought we were safe."

She looked distantly at the fire, her voice cracking.

"Three years later, another magister showed up and took him away."

Fenris connected the dots mentally, and the guilt hit him like a physical blow, like a massive rolling wave against a rowboat. Lysander's capture felt like it was his fault, and he knew that while he hadn't meant to, his escape had set this event in motion. He felt obligated to Astoria now, in a way that left him feeling ashamed.

He would have given Varania everything. It was a sad truth that lingered on the edges of his mind constantly. If Varania had not betrayed him, he would have done the world for her. Astoria was no less deserving. In fact, he reluctantly admitted to himself that she deserved it even more with all that she's done. His reservations on the matter were more directed at the impossible task that lay ahead.

But he had chosen this. He knew, and still does, that this path of knowing his past and knowing someone from it could lead to a tragic end. But he had chosen it and he didn't regret that choice.

Fenris relaxed his fists when Astoria stood up and walked to him. His palms were pricked and bleeding from his nails, but he put them flat on his legs. He saw the burn on her ankle, a blaring testament to her impossible struggles.

"Come, get up. Don't be grumpy." She nudged his leg with her burnt foot.

Fenris couldn't speak, still. Words were impossible, he wasn't sure if he was even breathing properly. He went unresponsive, in a daze, aware but not able to react.

She nudged him again. "I'm not sparring by myself."

He wanted to chuckle. He really did. But he was staring at her burn, and he felt angry and guilty and foolish.

"I told you that you can't use eating fish as an excuse to get out of sparring. Come."

She leaned down and shook him by the shoulder gently. "Fenris."

His deep and bright jade eyes seemed immense when they turned to her. He swallowed audibly and nodded, shakily getting to his feet.

Spoiler Alert - I finally watched a video of Fenris killing Varania (I always keep her alive), and I was heartbroken at what he says to her. I had to end that in somewhere. On a side note, I looked up what "Astoria" means, and it means "Like a hawk." The irony kills me.