Fenris and Warrick shared an ironic look when the rain started, catching them about half way across the camp to their tents. Without word they both broke into a run, both trying to keep to those spaces where the trees caught the rain and kept the ground below dry. Neither man said anything when Warrick peeled away, headed for the tent he shared with his wife and their young daughter. Over the time they had shared together because both men tended to volunteer for guard duty, they had developed a comfortable understanding that didn't need formalities. Fenris kept his eye on the ground, careful not to trip in the dim half-light as he sprinted for his tent. He didn't notice Hawke, sitting looking somewhat dejected until she called his name. Pulling up short, he looked at her a moment.

"You're starting to look like a drowned dog Fenris," Hawke teased lightly as she waved him over.

Thinking she was probably right and curious what she might want after their words yesterday, Fenris decided to take her up on the offer. He still had a decent distance to his own tent and the rain if anything was starting to come down harder. She retreated into the tent so that he might get in without brushing the canvas and possibly destroying its waterproofing. Standing just inside, dripping on the tent's raised wooden flooring, he watched as she dug through a chest and tossed a thick towel at him. Catching it, he considered it a moment, and then raised an eyebrow at her as he sat it on the table to pull off his gauntlets.

"Isabella," Hawke waved vaguely in his direction as he used the soft cloth to dry his hair. "She likes to bring me things. Says that just because I live in the woods doesn't mean I have to act like it. Chances are she's stole them from some Tevinter ship. She doesn't much care for pressing Qunari."

Looking again at the towels in his hand, Fenris considered that a moment.

"No one with good sense cares to press Qunari Hawke," Fenris finished wiping off his face and handed the towel back before reaching back to pull his sword and stand it against a table that was near the door. "They frown on it and have ways of making their displeasure known."

"You," Hawke fired off a crooked grin at him, watching him unbuckle his breastplate. "Don't seem to mind them frowning."

"Well no," Fenris agreed as sat his breastplate next to his sword, knowing she was referring to him volunteering several times to go on raids on Qunari holdings. "But that doesn't mean I much care for the thought of fighting them. They actually give me more pause than Magisters do."

"Why is that?"

"Because Hawke," he grumbled, "Magisters trust implicitly in their magic, the way your father warned you not to. They fight for themselves and their own personal power. The Qunari…."

"Fight for a grander purpose," Hawke finished for him when he trailed off.

"Yes," he nodded a little surprised, "They do."

Hawke nodded and pointed Fenris to the chair that sat next to the table as she settled on the end of her rope-bed.

"I had cause to deal with an Arishok in Kirkwall," she explained softly.

Fenris couldn't quite help the surprised expression that stole across his face.

"An Arishok? In the Free Marches? And freely speaking with an apostate?"

"It's a long story Fenris and not one either Isabella or I care to have bandied about. Our threats to poison his ale are the only thing that keeps Varric from shouting it from the tops of even these trees." Hawke sighed and stared off into a distance that was much further than the side of the tent. "I would hate to hear how he would tell it anyway."

"I would hear this story Hawke," Fenris was honestly curious. "I have only had dealings with Arishok on the battlefield. They are worthy opponents. And," he gestured to the heavy, steady rain that showed no signs of ending soon. "We have nothing but time."

Hawke shot a steady look at Fenris, one that was fraught with conflicting thoughts and that he met without hiding his curiosity. Finally she sighed, looking down at her hands a moment as she composed her thoughts. If this was the price she would have to pay to have a civil conversation with this man, then perhaps it was time to drag this story out into the light. So long as Varric wasn't the one telling it anyway.

"Well this one was as worthy an opponent with words as he was with weapons," Hawke started. "Our meetings tended to end up a riddle of words and thoughts, neither one of us convincing the other of anything. He did tell me that I was more Qunari than I cared to admit…."

The rain had ended hours earlier but neither of them had noticed, completely absorbed in the tale that Hawke told. She did her best to remember even little details because Fenris had no problem stopping her to ask pointed questions. She vaguely touched on things that she would have preferred to not have to remember and knew that the quick minded elf would notice but he seemed content to let her skim over some things. His questions fell away when she reached the crescendo, telling of the Qunari invading the city, intent on bringing the teachings of Koslun to the Free Marches since they were unable to retrieve his text any other way. And so absorbed was she on the telling that she honestly forgot about the listening elf, just reliving it in words the way she rarely relived it in memory. It wasn't something she often thought on, and was not something that was widely known among the Fog Warriors.

"And that," she finally finished with a deep sigh, "Is the story of how an apostate ended up the Champion of Kirkwall."

Fenris just shook his head as he took in what he'd been told, silent for a long while as he processed it all.

"You defeated an Arishok in single combat for the sake of a thief, one that brought the entire situation down on the heads of every innocent person in Kirkwall?" he finally asked. "Protected her even after?"

"Yes."

"Venhedis Marian!"

"She was," Hawke paused and corrected herself, the flash of her eye almost defiant, "Is my friend. She made a mistake and she did her best to put it right…"

"After bringing the wrath of the Qun down on your heads…"

"But I wasn't going to see her punished by their hands. What she did was reprehensible, even I admit that. But she didn't understand exactly what it was she had stolen, didn't understand its importance to the Qunari or that they would hunt her and that book until the end of time." Hawke's back went up again at just the thought of Isabella indoctrinated in whatever fashion the Qun would see fit to use. "For all her faults Isabella has always had my back, and that day I had hers."

"And how close did your loyalty come to costing you your life?"

"That doesn't matter, and it's not the point!" Hawke argued, suddenly pointing a finger at him as she went on. "Go wave that big sword at Varric and see how fast I lay your ass down."

Fenris blinked at Hawke a moment, suddenly reminded of a stray cat that the kitchen slaves had fed. The creature would prance and purr and submit to any affection that even the children would heap on it. Anyone else had best not get within striking distance because the animal would arch and hiss and fluff itself into this enormous cloud of attitude and claws that Fenris had never cared much to test. He suddenly had no doubt that Hawke would do just as she said, or would try her best anyway. 'What,' he thought suddenly, 'Must it be like to have someone care that much? That they would sacrifice anything for your sake?' He suddenly felt a shot of jealousy fly through him that someone as unworthy as Isabella had something like that and had to take a moment to squash it.

"Truce," Hawke finally announced, realizing that they were going to have to agree to disagree about her motives in fighting the Arishok. "I did what I did, it's over and done and can't be changed now. But that is why I understood something of the Qun long before coming here. I disagreed with it in general although even I have to admit that sometimes I did agree with the principles. I still do, and it's one reason I am here. If the Qunari take Seheron from Tevinter there will be nothing to stop them from trying to take the continent."

"And," Fenris mused, "There are few there that are prepared to fight the Qun, especially now that there is open war between the Mages and the Chantry."

Hawke nodded grimly, unwilling to go into her own involvement in that turn of events unless Fenris asked. He didn't seem to know that the entire mess had started in Kirkwall so that at least she wasn't going to have to relive today. For his part Fenris was pleased. He'd learned much today, about Hawke, the Qunari and the place she had called home until deciding to come to Seheron. It still didn't answer why she had decided to abandon her adopted home, but every little piece of this puzzle seemed to just lead to more. Leaning back in his chair, Fenris regarded Hawke thoughtfully before deciding on what to say. He had considered this several times during the night, realizing that what he had thought yesterday was correct.

"Thank you Hawke," he suddenly said. "I very much enjoyed that."

Hawke shot a wry look his way, not sure how to take that. He wasn't calling her a complete idiot for standing up for those she cared most for anymore, so that was progress wasn't it? So pleased with herself for having not only having appeased the broody elf's curiosity but also for having dug into her past without anything untoward happening, she was completely unprepared for him to go serious again.

"I have decided something. You do not like to relive your past any more than I do mine, so it is only fair that I sacrifice the same. What would you like to know?"

Fenris watched with no small fascination and satisfaction as Hawke's face went through several stages of several emotions before finally settling on mute, blank surprise. She sat and blinked several times, and then her face twisted up in consternation as she tried to think of something to ask. She knew so very little of him that she had no clue where to even start. The most obvious would be the lyrium but one thing Hawke prided herself on was never doing the obvious unless no other option presented itself. Suddenly inspiration struck and without thinking through the consequences she forged ahead.

"If you can't remember anything before those," she pointed at the tattoos on his arm, "Then what are your first memories?"

Now it was Fenris's turn to set his face in blank surprise. He hadn't expected that. He knew there was any number of things she could ask, but he had suspected that she would ask about the tattoos, maybe even Hadriana, but not that. Not yet anyway. Sighing heavily, he considered her question, telling himself a promise was a promise.

"The first things I remember are pain. Deep and abiding pain that burned like the worst spell any Mage could muster and never seemed to end. I can remember wanting to scream, might have for all I know, there was this sound in my head that blocked out everything. I know now that is the sound of the lyrium but then it was so all consuming," he started haltingly. Hawke watched as his eyes suddenly went inward, not seeing her or anything else inside the tent. "I do not know how long that went on, could have been minutes, hours or weeks. I do know at the time I did not think it was ever going to end and that I was going to die. I even wished for death a few times, but something held me there, enduring it all."

"Fenris…"

He heard the discomfort in her voice, but some small and petty part of him said 'she wanted to know…'

"After that all I remember is Danarius. His voice through the pain, ordering me to do this, try this, do that as he tried to train me to use the 'gift' he had bestowed upon me." He heard the bitterness in his voice and didn't care. This was the truth of it and no one could take that from him, ever. "It took what seemed like forever for me to get some semblance of control over it and until I did there was no peace. Even when he was gone I was chained to the wall in a corner of his little den of horrors, a place no one ever wanted to go because people rarely came back and those that did were never right again. The pain never went away, not completely. I feel it still though I cannot tell you if it is real or memory now…."

"Fenris!"

He came back to himself with a start, shaking himself free of that room, that time. It was a place so vivid to him that even now he could smell the straw bed and feel the chains keeping him in place when Danarius had thankfully tired of is experiment and had gone off to sleep in his own big, soft bed. Starting back when he realized that what had brought him back to the present was the feel of her hand pressed to his cheek as much as the demanding tone she had used, he stared up at her without thought for what she might read in his expression, far too surprised by the mixture of things he could see warring on her face. Finally her emotions settled on one and the fury he saw blazing from her eyes made him blink and finally find his own footing.

"I most definitely," Hawke bit out as he reached up and pushed her hand away, "Most definitely made his death too easy."

Fenris suddenly stood, forcing her to back away much to his relief. This situation had gotten past him and he wasn't sure how. "The fact he is dead, even if I had nothing to do with it is most pleasing to me." Pausing to retrieve his breastplate and sword, he decided a strategic retreat was called for. "I need to sleep. And the rain has ended so you can go practice now."

Hawke nodded, suddenly incredibly tired and wired at the same time. She watched as he disappeared out into a day now fully formed and considered what she had done. A small tight ball of guilt suddenly found a home deep in her gut, living very contentedly with the old anger that Fenris had unknowingly reawakened in her. Growling lowly Hawke quickly grabbed her pouch of throwing daggers and marched past everyone and everything without really seeing or hearing any of them.

Sitting on the step to his own tent, Varric watched as first Fenris had disappeared in one direction, looking like a pack of Mabari were hounding his every step and then Hawke disappeared in the other, looking much the same. Clucking happily, he finished pulling his boot on and decided to follow Hawke. The she might look ready to kill someone but he had long experience in soothing her ruffled feathers. The elf? Well he might well put that big fancy sword right through him for all he knew.

Isabella was going to be sorry she missed this one.