Nemesis
Chapter 11- The Enemy of my Enemy
"This is Hawkward, isn't it?"
Merrill
"Why would she hide this from me?" Carver mumbled into his shaking curled fist. "We're supposed to be working together… why would she lie?"
Fenris couldn't imagine a thing to say- not a word of comfort or condemnation. He felt numb, like the world was something existing around him and required not even the slightest thought of his input. Things were shifting, he knew instinctively, but he lacked the ability to understand with the changes as they occurred. He needed to hide away somewhere and think for long hours- to secret himself somewhere safe in a dilapidated mansion and sit alone with his confused thoughts.
She killed him? Marian Hawke, Kirkwall's snarky resident bleeding heart, had bided her time and murdered her own mentor the very night Kirkwall fell into such chaos?
How was he even supposed to process this? A few minutes, hours, perhaps even centuries would likely not provide him with any answers- Maker, he just needed time to think and he found himself cursing at that singular compulsion; he always needed time… always needed time and more time because more time always postponed the requirement of making an actual choice. His past choices were plagued with poor judgment- Varania's haunting words in Kirkwall had proved his preference for inertia was not entirely unfounded.
"You wanted it," her voice called from somewhere deep within his mind, echoing through that filthy bar an entire lifetime ago. "You competed for it."
The words niggled themselves into his ears, neither wanted nor completely unexpected. From everything he'd managed to glean from his past before his escape- before he'd stumbled blindly into the Free Marches where a set of bad directions from a mercenary had pointed him into the City of Chains… and a scared dwarf had led him to Marian and subsequently into the very conundrum he'd found himself- there was a pattern he'd woven throughout his life, peppered with an apparently long history of making terrible decisions.
His intentions to free his family were founded within a system that systematically exploited and destroyed his people, which was, now that he truly considered it, one of the stupidest decisions he could have possibly made. The gravest error being his willing sacrifice of both his body and soul for the opportunity to play the lab rat in an untested experiment under a man that was more sadist than scientist.
And in the end he'd won the lyrium that eventually granted his freedom and his future but he'd paid the cost- his past. His entire life before he'd awakened naked and chained, screaming bloody murder as the lyrium was gouged into his skin- simply gone. Perhaps forever.
Only the Maker knew how dearly he had paid. He certainly didn't.
But at least in the end, he'd seen to it that Danarius and Hadriana paid too with the mere end of their lives instead of the entirety of it; and he, ever the fool, believed that was where he could claim his freedom. Now there was just an ill feeling laid deep in his stomach, and he wondered if what he'd found instead was just another form of slavery. Killing them did not make it better. Killing Danarius was akin to slapping a tourniquet onto a neck wound- it would certainly stop the bleeding but he risked his head if he didn't seek another treatment. That solution was destined to fail- at least that's what the Chant told him… that the only noble murder was one done with compassion instead of anger, a mercy committed for love instead of hatred.
Marian… what have you done?
But the words were unspoken and she wasn't there to answer so the question just echoed through his mind, bouncing within his skull as he tried to reconcile the Marian who had murdered Anders with the Marian who had ceaselessly defended him- and quickly found himself at the onset of yet another headache that betrayed no hope of ceasing.
The clanking shuffle of armor drew Fenris from his dark thoughts in time to hear Carver snarl, "Answer me! Why did she lie, Varric?"
The dwarf sighed and began massaging his temples with his stubby fingers. "I can't say for sure but if I were to take a guess, I'd say she was scared. You two hadn't been on speaking terms for twelve hours when she killed him. I found her when I went to say goodbye. She was devastated."
Sebastian chose that moment to interject with a simple question. "Devastated?" His fingertips were pressed into steeples against his forehead as bright eyes caught the dwarf's gaze and held it with concerned inquisition- acting the prince once again, it seemed. No, Fenris realized as he noticed as he caught Sebastian tapping his heel against the ground, not simply a haughty prince- the human was nervous, extremely nervous about the inevitable rebuke that had to be coming shortly.
"He was her friend, Choir Boy," Varric quickly snapped, shooting a hateful glare towards Fenris and the prince that neither had ever been privy to before. It was a shriveling sort of hatred the dwarf bestowed upon them… that resentment was not lost on Fenris as being somehow undeserved at least as far as Varric was concerned. "How do you think you'd feel if you had to kill a friend of yours?"
Without a pause that would have allowed the beat of a single breath or even the edge of confliction to pollute him, the prince growled, "I'd feel better than I would if I'd allowed him to live having committed such an atrocity."
"Well good for you," the dwarf spat and rose as he stepped closer, letting his abbreviated trench coat flare around him like the impending storm. "Pity for her that Anders wasn't just a friend- he was her confidante, her teacher. He was practically a brother to her, damned near a father." Varric leaned closer, inching into the Starkhaven regent's personal space and coaxing the fabric of his jacket to settle into an imposing cut that amplified the nasty sneer that overtook his face. "How about your brothers or your father, Choir Boy? You think you could have stuck a knife in your dear daddy and been perfectly all right?"
And Varric crept closer still, using the same menacing demeanor and tone that he'd used when he told ghost stories on so very few of those cold, windless nights on Sundermount- eyes just slightly too wide and excited, voice both rasping and snarling at the same time as he weaved stories of boogeymen beneath the bed and of demons that hid themselves in teddy bears- although Fenris suspected these words lacked the artifice that had made them entertaining stories and not imminent threats. "And remember before you answer that," he growled, "remember that Marian Hawke did stick a knife in him- even if she did it later than you'd have liked. She took him to the outskirts of Kirkwall and killed him somewhere where the memory of his death wouldn't inspire others to call him a martyr. I watched the aftermath- witnessed something you two assholes didn't. I watched her cry over his body while Kirkwall burned."
Varric finally turned and stepped toward Carver, capturing and releasing several long breaths to cast his fury back at the fire before finally finishing casually over his shoulder, "You think about that, Choir Boy. Which execution would have been justice- the one you demanded of her or the one she gave him?"
With that, the dwarf focused his attention up into the night sky and sighed heavily, like some great burden had fallen off him. This had to have been a weight on Varric's shoulders as well, albeit one he'd thought he could vent without condemning the elder Hawke. Sebastian fell silent, unable to speak another word. He stared down at the ground as though he hoped the dwarf's accusations could be answered there. The dirt, however, offered the prince no condolences or solutions and so he remained furiously silent with his jaw and fingers clenched.
"You think that justice should be hot and furious, Sebastian- that it is a task of necessity to be made in the heat of passion," Varric lectured quietly, turning his short torso back round to face his would-be accusers. He looked at Fenris then before shaking his head as though he decided better of it and returning his gaze skyward. "But it's not. Its cold…
"Justice- real justice- is a heavy measured task meted out by someone who has weighed the consequences of each outcome and chosen a path that must be adhered to. Justice is a weight that must be borne around the neck every minute of every day. Say what you will about Anders- he at least understood that. Hawke understood that.
"And when you put it upon Hawke to do that, she did it because she understood simply that it had to be done. And you did not… because you are incapable of that sort of thinking." Varric snorted to himself as he patted down his vest in search of something, "Prince indeed- we should have known it from the start. Your idea of justice for Anders was little more than a spoiled babe screaming for his bottle."
"If she'd only told me…" Sebastian started before Carver cut him off.
"Told you what?" the disgraced Templar spat. "'Hey, I'm totally going to murder Anders later so just hang around?'" Carver laughed hard at that sentiment and Varric joined in, his short body bent back as they bellowed into the night; the sound, dark and hateful, held no hint of levity. "I'm sure that would have gone swimmingly- wonder why she didn't just announce it to Meredith; surely that would have saved everyone a world of misunderstandings."
Sebastian looked as though he were trying to mount an argument that, clearly, wasn't going to get him anywhere and certainly wasn't going to earn him any goodwill from their captors turned present company. Fenris took the chance to step in, hoping to remove a bit of the focus from Sebastian, and dared to ask, "If she killed him then what exactly were we fighting back there?"
And suddenly once more, they were simply five people sitting round a fire pit, each of them avoiding the gazes of the others by focusing onto the dancing flames. Merrill tapped her fingers impatiently together, a habit born of the elf's perpetually uneasy nerves, and Carver brushed his fingers absently through her hair in a gesture that was as comforting as it was unconscious. Sebastian wore a grimace only slightly less horrified than the one that took over his face when Anders' claimed the lives in the Chantry; but now it was a horror directed at whatever that monster in the woods had been. Fenris imagined his own countenance to be much less transparent but shared the sentiment nevertheless.
Even the dwarf seemed hesitant to speak again, finally meeting the warrior's eyes and settling with, "You saw him… it… whatever it is… we do not know." Varric pulled out a small, ornate clay pipe and packed some dried herbs into it. He tamped the nose several times before striking a single match to set them aflame. Several long puffs preceded the next words of, "This camp… these people have worked rather furiously to expel the spirit of Justice…"
"Demon," Carver amended softly. "That thing is a demon."
"We do not know that," Varric corrected quietly. "Frankly, we don't know much of anything. That's why we're seeking outside help. We have to purge Justice from Anders' corpse and kill it once and for all."
"Then what exactly is stopping you from doing it?" Fenris questioned simply, trying his damnest not to make the query sound like an accusation. From what he'd witnessed of Anders, it was obvious that greater powers were at play here and he desperately wanted to know exactly what in Justice had twisted Marian's precious Anders into a mass murderer, what happened to Justice when Anders died, and what that damnable spirit wanted now.
"You saw the fanatics," Varric reminded the two interlopers. "You ever seen normal men fight that way?"
Carver interjected before Sebastian or Fenris could offer any kind of answer. "You saw a bit of what they're capable of but you haven't seen how far these people can go." Reaching a long arm out, he gestured for the pipe in Varric's hand, which the dwarf offered without a word. Carver took a few deep inhales of the smoke, giving an apologetic look to Merrill as she scooted away from him, clearly not enjoying the acrid aroma.
He'd seen Isabela and Varric smoke it before, calling it 'tea' or some nonsense though Fenris had never seen anyone get so giggly from the leaves used in the beverage by the same name. The smell was more bitter and biting than the fragrant tobacco Danarius had smoked. On the few occasions they'd convinced him to imbibe, he'd found the effects to be extremely pleasing, wrapping him in a blanket of pleasant muzziness for several hours.
"Lyrium is running low," the boy offered them the simple explanation, "This helps take the edge off."
"I bet." Fenris chuckled his answer, contemplating for just a moment how appealing the idea of a few hours peace would be after the horror of the last few days.
Then Carver continued, each word releasing a wisp of smoke like he was some kind of human-dragon hybrid. "I was among the first to come up against them before Anders managed to amass the group he has now. We were moving a senior Enchanter and her brother, hands down two of the most docile mages I've ever had the privilege to know…"
He stopped and stared into the fire for a long moment, shaking his head slightly before looking up again to continue but Fenris saw his eyes glaze slightly with whatever intoxicant the pipe delivered, likely a poor substitute for the Lyrium the Chantry had him addicted to. "We were talking about something," Carver muttered, "supper that evening or something like it- really inconsequential shit- then they just turned and attacked us. No warning. They went from asking about kippers to slashing at their wrists.
"The brother managed to kill one of us before he died. She took two, her attacks bled out her brother entirely before we were able to subdue her. It was an inexpert use of blood magic- amateurish; if they'd had even the slightest amount of experience, I don't doubt for a moment that they could have overcome us before we even realized what was happening."
He took another puff and sighed the smoke's release, staring without seeing forward into the orange fire. "When Enid came back to herself a few hours later, she had no recollection of having done it, could only trust the bodies of the Templars on the ground, the corpse of her brother, and our word that it had been her actions that did it. We did not even know what to do with her; she was… completely inconsolable."
"I've seen mages affect similar sentiments of regret," Fenris snorted skeptically.
Even the intoxication couldn't mask the sheer malice in Carver's eyes as he retorted, "And how many have killed themselves?"
"Pardon?"
"Trust me when I say that when she slashed open the veins in her arms that night, it wasn't because she fancied another go with blood magic." He shook his head absently, looking for a moment like he still did not believe the events he spoke of. "There was nothing we could do to help her. She died within minutes."
Suicide- he'd heard of stranger things, mostly from potential magisters unable to carry the burdens of their abilities or lacking the ruthlessness to survive in the fiercely competitive senate. The witch from this story of Carver's, however, seemed to carry a different weight- remorse, repentance, rage… repression… those things, Fenris understood and he found himself feeling somehow sad for her- for Enid, for a blood puppet allegedly unable to comprehend the gravity of her own actions.
Allegedly.
"The next night, we fought a small group of the fanatics. After we killed them, I saw Anders for the first time since Kirkwall." Carver took another deep inhale from Varric's pipe, holding the smoke for several long moments before breathing it back out. "He kept his distance but I know it was him."
"What did he do?"
Carver chuckled to himself and shrugged loosely. "He waved. Then he left. But I saw him; it was dark but I saw his face… I could smell the death on him."
Hawke had always been able to shrug off a thrall. Was she inherently somehow different from this Enid? So he dared to ask, "So tell me how is it that your sister is somehow immune to this."
Carver lifted to pipe to his mouth again only to be stymied by Merrill's hand hovering over the glowing embers. "You've had enough," she murmured and Carver lowered the pipe in near perfect synchronicity with her descending hand.
An argument that's been had before, Fenris realized. They were sitting in the middle of a rebel camp headed by a lapsed Templar and an admitted apostate… an addict and an apologetic blood mage… this was getting stranger by the second.
"She isn't immune, Fenris. I don't think any of us are," Merrill answered his question quietly. "We sent one of ours to see him… to see what he wanted once we'd heard he was recruiting…"
Carver erupted with a furious shout of, "I never would have permitted it! If I'd known…"
"But you did not know and it is done now. Keili knew it could be dangerous."
"She made her choice based on misinformation. Marian knew…"
"She wasn't even here when it happened, Carver. I'm certain if she'd known we were going to send Keili she would have given us the full picture."
"How could she have kept this from us?"
"She made a mistake, ma vhenan. We've all made them."
"There you go again. Defending her!"
And Merrill, in a tone he'd never experienced or known from the blood mage, screeched wildly, "Someone has to! She needs support and she's seen a frightening lack of it! From you! From all of them! She killed Anders, Carver! And all you can think is that you've been somehow betrayed! It hasn't even occurred to you that she may have kept her silence because she was hurting and was afraid she'd be judged for it?"
The moment the words passed from her lips, her head bowed in shame, like she expected some terrible rebuke from the series of syllables that tumbled from her treacherous mouth. "We have to help each other. If we fragment then we have nothing to fight for," she added softly but with no lack of conviction. "You know that, ma vhenan, and she has to be here if you mean to judge her." Her proud shoulders collapsed into her body… and she seemed unable to deal with the stress of their situation. Merrill, for lack of better words, withered into her own body.
And for a moment, he truly pitied her, bumbling and confused as she was.
"Merrill… no…" Carver gushed as he reached out to cradle her. "I'm frustrated and… puzzled, love. This is a lot to be hit with." The boy continued on into their embrace, murmuring into her sharp ears every stupid, meaningless platitude Fenris could imagine.
Merrill granted a weary eye toward Fenris again and continued in a low voice, "It was about two months after Kirkwall when we started hearing rumors that Anders was recruiting mages to fight for the uprising. Hawke was off with Isabela Carver decided to send a few Templars along with a mage who'd known Anders in the Ferelden Circle, Keili, to see what it was about. She confronted him and returned a mindless wreck two weeks later."
"Extremely addled," Carver added quietly, still caressing Merrill's cheek as he spoke, "But otherwise completely uncorrupted, unpossessed, and unharmed. I'd even go so far as to say she appeared to have been well cared for."
"And the Templars?" Fenris inquired over the lump that appeared suddenly in his throat.
The younger Hawke shook his head. "Never returned. She could never tell us what happened to them."
Silence hovered over the group for a long while until Varric worked up the courage to ask the question that hung unspoken. "Then what did he want with her?"
"We tried questioning her but she wasn't much help," Carver replied. "She was either locked inside her own head or speaking gibberish. Other than that she was perfectly healthy, not a scratch on her. The next day she woke up, dressed, and came out to tell us that she was ready to meet with Anders and see what was going on."
"You mean she…"
"Absolutely no memory of it. Wasn't until we were transporting Enid from the camp that we put together that Anders… Justice has some way of, I don't know, possessing the mages around him en masse, I suppose."
"What did he want with her then?" Sebastian asked, looking slightly ill as he doubtless considered the many possibilities of what Justice could have wanted with a trusted and well-connected member of his killer's rebellion.
"We assume that he questioned her about us. Fortunately, she did not have a plethora of information- that was more than a little deliberate on our part. We split the camp and moved as soon as she was well enough to do so. That was when he attacked Enid.
"So you understand our quandary a bit better now, I hope. We're gathering cells of ejected mages but Anders cannot, under any circumstances, be permitted to find any of the camps. The consequences would be disastrous," Carver finished with a grave look directed at Sebastian, seeming to understand that Fenris would either follow the regent or do as he would and therefore needn't be convinced.
The prince shook his head slowly as he regarded the younger Hawke. With a frustrated sound, he rose and commenced to pacing, his long strides taking him quickly between the edge of the trees and a large boulder- the contagious nervousness irritated Fenris to no end. "Does the Chantry even know about this?" the archer finally inquired.
"I haven't been able to speak with anyone directly, Marian isn't the only Hawke with a sizable bounty on her head as I'm certain you're aware," the boy explained, remaining seated in the face of Sebastian's clear agitation. "But I have more than a few reasons to fear that if the powers-that-be are apprised of the situation their solution will be expanding the Annulment even farther. Anders can't possess mages if they're all dead."
"At least we hope that's the case," Varric added dismally. "We don't even know that for certain."
Fenris ignored the obvious implications of what Varric just said, lingering instead on Carver's words. Expand the Annulment farther? "How much farther can it go?" the words escaped Fenris before he had the chance to consider them.
"That is precisely the sort of thing we do not want to find out… the Annulment's gone as far as the Chantry can reach. They might try to push it into Rivain or even…"
Sebastian interrupted with a startled gasp, "It could go north." At Carver's sage nod, the prince buried his head in his hands and whispered, "Oh, Maker. Maker, no. Not north- shit, it cannot move north."
The novelty of Sebastian using such crass language was outweighed by the fear Fenris saw displayed openly in his eyes. As the reigning prince of one of the northliest sovereign states in the Free Marches, Sebastian understood better than anyone what havoc would rain from the sky if the Chantry attempted to expand the Annulment, understood the danger Starkhaven would be directly placed in if its northern neighbor was provoked so thoroughly.
Fenris rose to his feet and stood before the prince, blocking him from continuing his infernal pacing. "The Imperium would never stand for it- the Chantry must know that," the elf reached for the most reassuring tone he could muster given the circumstances but he, too, was filled with a sort of dread at the thought of Tevinter going to battle against the rest of Thedas.
Maker, what if they won this time? The entire land would be the Imperium again and Fenris would have no place to hide.
Sebastian regarded Fenris, nodding in silent understanding of their predicaments, before he turned toward Carver and explained, "There have been rumors… magisters in Tevinter's southern regions being taken from their homes in the night and disappearing." Then he shifted his eyes to the ground, like the words he spoke were painful to even utter. "I just assumed them to be baseless."
"False, possibly. Baseless, no. The unrest touches all corners of the map," Carver assured the prince. "Anders must be dealt with in-house, Sebastian, or you may find your Starkhaven at the forefront of a new world war. That isn't even factoring in a multitude of other ramifications." The boy paused for a moment, weighing his words before huffing out a short sigh. "For instance, Sebastian, if Tevinter moves its troops south, how long do you think it will be before everybody's favorite horned heathens make a grab for the mainland?"
It was a question that needed no answer. The Qunari were perpetually battling for a toehold on the mainland- if the Imperial army moved its focus south, the Qunari could take that ground before they were even alerted to the shifting in the troops. This situation facing the Mage rebellion was looking bleaker by the second- Justice running amok, no prospects of organized outside help in the foreseeable future, the Hawke siblings hopelessly staring down the barrel of a worldwide war, and a wildcard third opponent champing at the bit to wreak it's own havoc on an already compromised ecosystem.
Were Fenris a betting man, he'd wager his stakes in massive losses on all sides if the Chantry joined the fight. In fact, Fenris didn't see anyone who stood to benefit from the powder keg Anders had perched his beloved Hawke upon.
Sebastian spun on his feet and began a litany of, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" With a final loud shout, a yawp contaminated with anger and frustration, Sebastian gripped the cool end of a burning log and slammed it into a nearby tree, releasing a flurry of sparks blasting like a fury of shooting red stars into the black night. "Fuck!" he screamed into the empty night.
Carver remained unimpressed by the archer's rage and snarked, "I see you understand the seriousness of the situation we're facing here."
"Why wasn't I informed?" Sebastian snarled at the Templar, stalking over to grab Carver by the neck of his tunic and wrench him from his seat. "How could the Free Marches have not been warned against this impending threat?"
The boy let loose a vicious grin and sneered, "Because when we tried to tell you, your Templar ended up fucking my sister!"
In his shock at such a crass sort of statement, Sebastian dropped Carver's lapels and backed away. And just like that, Fenris found himself to be the unwitting center of attention. Merrill, Varric, and Sebasian all stared unabashedly upon him as a new set of long term ramifications of falling into bed with Marian revealed themselves to the elf- and only a short while ago, he thought her potential pregnancy was the worst case-scenario.
So that was what she'd wanted to talk about. She should have opened with that. "I killed my former mentor and now he's running around possessing mages and there's a decent chance Tevinter and the rest of Thedas are about to go to war. Also, the Qunari could be a problem again." Their meeting may have gone a bit differently if she'd kept her head straight and remained objective… but that was a problem that seemed to plague both of them.
At the very least she could have left a note, he groused silently. It was doubtful, however, that any of his current company would share that particular sentiment, so he kept his mouth shut.
He took this as a sign that this was the perfect time to inspect his toes. Was that a speck of mud on his ankle? He should scrub his feet sometime soon. Warily, he eyed what just might have been the earliest stages of an ingrown nail- probably not but it was never a bad idea to exercise caution. Should that be dealt with now or later? Likely now… he decided under the heavy stare of his companions and wondered if he could repair the snag with no more than his gaze.
His toes were downright fascinating under this sort of scrutiny.
"Remind me, Varric," Merrill's voice chimed into the broken silence, "what's the word you invented for when Hawke does something that causes everyone to feel terribly uncomfortable?"
"Hawkward…" Varric answered.
A nervous giggle accompanied her lilt of, "This is Hawkward, isn't it?"
"It is indeed, Daisy. It is indeed."
The group fell into uneasy silence once more although Fenris was, gratefully, no longer the center of attention and let his mind amble back toward Marian, the woman who'd murdered her own mentor because, as the dwarf said, it simply needed to be done. He wondered- and suspected it would not be the last time this thought plagued him- which of them had been harder for her to strike down. Jealousy, inappropriate as that sentiment was given the circumstances, reared its ugly head and Fenris found himself selfishly hoping somehow that killing Anders had hurt her less.
"She cried for you too, Fenris," Varric offered quietly, as though he was reading the elf's thoughts straight from his face. "Just thought you'd like to know."
Fenris snorted, feeling only an ember of the anger that should have risen within him when thoughts of their last encounter in Kirkwall found him. "You have my thanks, dwarf. No matter how I tried, that knife simply would not twist itself."
Ignoring those statements, Carver returned to his seat, albeit a little wobbly, and gestured for Sebastian to do the same. "If you two are serious about stopping Anders, then I have a task in mind for you that might help us do that."
Fenris looked up in silent inquisition, glancing quickly at the prince to assure that he was doing the same. Sebastian nodded in mute understanding. For all their conflictions regarding Carver's sister, there was no sense in even pretending there was not an urgent necessity to see Anders and Justice put down for good. Marian's role in this drama would come into play at a later date- of that he was beyond certain. She was north for now but the sparrow would migrate southward again when the conditions were right.
Carver gave a great nod, seeming to silently convince himself that this next move was a good and proper idea, before stating, "There is a Grey Warden in the area who knew Anders before his possession. He may be able to tell us a little more about him. If he can give us anything that could possibly help, we need to find him."
But before any vocal response could have been made, a great rumbling shook the earth around them. Pebbles vibrated against the dirt. Small stones shot up into the sky. A strange, magical electricity permeated the air in queer synchronization with the small quakes the earth and tickled a light sting beneath Fenris' bare feet and between his toes before shooting its lightly barbed vines up his body.
It was the lyrium, he knew instinctively. Something magical was shifting the dirt and sending its sting into him.
"Which Warden does it look for?" came a deep, booming voice from seemingly nowhere along with the sounds of tiny earthquakes. The huge, thunderous noise sounded from behind him, causing him to leap from his relaxed position and spin wildly around.
Sebastian and Fenris both searched for the source of the noise when the elf noticed the peculiar rock formation he'd settled near now sported a pair of glowing eyes, star white and fire burning. Grounding himself in preparation for battle, he instinctively reached for his sword, cursing when he remembered that it had been taken from him. Sebastian, apparently sharing a similar sentiment, raised his fists against the revealed golem in a defense that would have provided absolutely no protection against their foe. Little matter, Fenris smirked to himself and let the lyrium ignite its bite over his body, he wasn't exactly helpless without a weapon- he was a weapon.
Before he could move to attack, Merrill tithered, "By the Dread Wolf! Shale, you shouldn't sneak up on us like that!" That gave him pause, mostly for the completely unconcerned, undaunted, almost friendly way the elf chided the massive, sentient pile of stone.
Massive, Fenris realized as he scrutinized it further, but indeed quite small for a golem.
A golem, he repeated to himself.
This thing was a golem- His brain kept stuttering back to that. This was a golem; a golem had just sneaked up on their group and Merrill and Carver seemed unacceptably unconcerned about that.
"I am quite incapable of sneaking," it boomed in Merrill's general direction. "I was here when it arrived. It is hardly my fault that the Pigeon and its squishy companions are so direly unaware of its surroundings."
Before Fenris could fully process the simple words of the golem speaking before him, Carver gritted his teeth and ground out, "My name is Carver Hawke- not Pigeon."
"Hawks are birds. Pigeons are birds," Shale reasoned with a gesture very much like a shrug. "Why should it care to be differentiated as one vile specimen over another?"
Carver was arguing semantics with a golem? That thought kept racing through the elf's mind as he observed the familiarity between Carver, Shale, and Merrill, wondering absently if his jaw was hanging in the same open gape as Sebastian's.
Taking several deep breaths, Carver met the golem's gaze and said levelly, "We're looking for a Grey Warden called Oghren. Do you know him?" with an apparent understanding that arguing this point with eight feet of boulder was a futile exercise.
The gravely, rasping clatter that shuddered from the mass of rock and magic was a sound that Fenris only dimly identified as laughter. "If it seeks the drunken Warden, it should know it would have a difficult time securing its assistance."
Unable to keep his mouth shut for a moment longer, Fenris regarded Carver and gawked, "You have a golem? A GOLEM? Even the magisters weren't stupid enough to keep these things around!"
He barely had the opportunity to feel the ground tremble beneath his feet before they were swept away from it entirely. Cragged digits grasped around his chest and held him aloft as the shifting stone face came violently close. Then that calm, rumbling speech came again, "I keep myself. I am not kept."
Dimly, he heard Sebastian and Carver shout something at the golem. He, however, found himself caught within its grasp and its empty eyes- found himself seeing something in the blank space where cognition should not have been but somehow was struck with an abundance of it. With that peculiar thought, Fenris found himself dropped rather unceremoniously back to the earth where he managed to land with a passing semblance of grace, hitting the ground with an artful crouch instead of plowing into the ground full-stop. The golem, this Shale, did not back away but eyed him rather curiously- or with an expression as close to curiosity as a pile of rock could muster- and he, lacking the knowledge to understand exactly what he gazed into stared blankly back.
"Those markings are lyrium," it stated rather obviously.
"They are," he answered with a somewhat casual shrug; despite how distinctly uncasual this entire situation felt to him. This conversation made him nervous but he had no intention giving a mere boulder the upper hand. His face fell into its schooled blankness and he found an odd comfort in knowing the golem would have no more luck divining his expressions than he did of it.
A golem. He was talking with a golem. So this must be madness, then. Fenris always figured it would be more… funny. Weren't madmen always laughing? If there was humor here, Fenris wasn't seeing it.
"Was this done to it against its will?" the golem inquired simply with an odd tilt of its massive head.
Temporarily reassured of his sanity, Fenris shook his head and answered, "No. I submitted willingly- or so I've been told." He added the last bit as much as a comfort as a disclaimer. The only one who knew anything of his involvement in the rite was Varania and, given her treachery, he wasn't completely willing to discard the possibility of another lie from her.
Shale lumbered away, drawing itself up to its full height before declaring imperiously, "I have been told that I squished my master's tiny head between my fingers. How did the Blue Slave free itself, I wonder?"
The vivid image of a skull popping like overheated glass along with the knowledge that particular skull had belonged to one that Shale designated as 'master' had Fenris reappraising the miniature golem in a new light. A short chuckle escaped him before he replied, "I ripped my master's heart out." Crossing his arms with no little amusement, he awaited Shale's reaction.
And the Shale did not disappoint him, musing coyly, "Bah, organs are squishy things, aren't they? Such a pity the magisters are not made of stronger stuff."
"I did not find it a pity at all. I rather rejoiced in it."
"I have found the condition to be rather pleasing as well," the stones chortled in something approaching amusement. "I understand that the Blue Slave is regarded as Fenris."
"I am called such. I believe the rather massive pile of rock before me is called Shale."
The rock bowed slightly and answered, "Indeed."
So Fenris bowed in turn and replied, "Indeed."
And with that word, the strange dance he'd engaged in ended with the thankful lack of a certain elf being crushed into a bloody pulp by the stone guardian. The golem withdrew and rose once more to its diminished but still intimidating height, shifting its white eyes to Carver and stating, "The drunken dwarf is a stubborn but simple beast. The Pigeon should appeal to its baser needs."
"How do you know Oghren? Could you convince him to join us?"
"My presence would mean little. The drunken dwarf does whatever it pleases. It was pleased to battle with Daylen Amell against the Blight. Amell was an admirable human. It is right that his people call him a Hero, though they are squishy and weak and deserve no right to speak of him at all."
"Do you know where Amell is? Could he help us?" Carver rose to his feet, staggering for a moment before he found his feet, and gazed hopefully at the golem.
"No. He has gone after the swamp witch," Shale spoke in a strange quaking manner, almost as though it were sad. But that was impossible; Fenris knew golems had no sovereignty, no motivation of their own. Then again, he'd never exactly heard one speak before either. "It would be foolish if it sought help from him. He is done with its troubles. He has moved onto something he deemed better."
Varric cocked his head and asked, "What do you mean?"
"Only that he is done with its silly quests. It should not pester me further on the matter or it may find itself further shortened, midget."
"Midget?" Varric reeled back before rose to his feet, spitting, "I'll have you know dwarves…"
"But it is not a dwarf. It is a short man in a fancy, tailored coat. It is a disgrace to its heritage," Shale spat with a flurry of pebbles. "It is a disgusting and vile creature and I loathe every moment I suffer near it. Someone take it away, I wish my presence cleansed of it."
"Varric is a trusted friend, Shale. He's staying," Carver snapped. "Now if you've got any advice on recruiting Oghren…"
"Get it drunk. Failing that…" the stone went silent for several long moments. The lack of movement from breathing or just the minor twitches that animated the living form made the golem appear once more a simple statue. Just when Fenris was beginning to wonder if this Shale had broken down, it sprung back. "Tell it 'sometimes people need to be kept from doing stupid things, even for good reasons.' If it insists on being thick-headed, say 'Atrast nal tunsha.'"
"Atrast nal tunsha- May you always find your way in the dark," Varric translated. "That's the old language. Is there any significant context?"
"None a midget would understand. I am astonished it was even able to comprehend such a complex tongue."
Varric shook his head and turned back to Carver, "I should probably go along on this one. I doubt anyone other than this undersized boulder would be able to use the old tongue properly."
"Right," Carver agreed with a nod. He ducked his head for a moment in quiet contemplation before looking back at the dwarf and saying, "Varric, accompany Sebastian and Fenris to find this Oghren and bring him back for questioning. I want him here willingly. He'll be no help if he's kicking and screaming with a pack of Grey Wardens behind him. Take Margot with you- if she wants to vouch for these two, then let her keep them in line."
"Consider it done, Junior," the dwarf replied. Fenris and Sebastian both nodded although the elf felt more than a little disquieted at the prospect of taking orders from Carver Hawke.
The boy shifted his attention back to the golem. "Shale, since you're here, would you assist the other Templars in acquiring that lyrium shipment heading into Tevinter?"
"Will I be permitted to crush their puny Tevinter heads?"
"Only if they resist… and they usually do." Carver shrugged with the same quirky half-smile his sister often used.
"Delightful," the golem chortled with a snide upturn of its mouth. "When can we leave?"
Fenris listened absently as Carver summoned Margot and detailed the route both parties would be taking, noting the dangers they'd likely face and the cities, people, and places they'd need to avoid. What lingered at his attention instead was Shale and that strange upturn he'd seen on the golem's broad stone skull. It looked almost like an expression, like the thought of popping skulls between two columns of stone brought it some kind of pleasure. It looked like a smile… but Fenris knew that a golem couldn't smile.
Then again, Fenris was finding a lot of things he'd previously known were wrong. Perhaps this was just another one.
AN- Kind of a slow chapter, but we'll be picking up speed soon! I don't suppose anyone knows about my torrid bro-mances with Shale and Oghren. God, I love those two. I am STILL mad they didn't show up in DA2 (although I took a small consolation in the "Did you hear that pigeons in Ferelden are disappearing?" It was like a personal shout out) but hopefully they'll make an appearance in DA3.
Anyhoo- MASSIVE thanks to AmericanCorvus and BuriedBeneath for their fabulous beta services! You two are awesome!
And, as always- Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and review! I'll catch up on those tomorrow!
Also- to the anon reviewer who wanted to parody/spin on the story- go for it. Just drop me a line in the credits.