Special thanks to Naya Zephronic who was the first person to like my story and kept me going. Also special thanks to Julie5, Annemarie01, Fireyrose00, Tim, Ziad and… Guest (it feels like DAO's Secret Companion) for reviewing my story so much. Without your feedback, I don't get inspiration. Thank you everyone who's reading and is staying silent, too! Special longer chapter just for you!

Sunset, Fenris's Mansion

"So they know your name and I don't?" he asked grinning as they ventured into the courtyard. "That is unacceptable. I demand restitution."

"For what? You bit the dust and placed bets on me with Varric. You're no angel," she said and grinned.

"Fair enough. I will find out somehow," Fenris said in a determined voice and smiled.

"Of course you will," she said sarcastically, seeming to laugh at a private joke inside.

He looked at her with an assaultive look, "Of course I will."

"You should open up a luxury inn here," Hawke said in amusement as they entered the mansion.

"I imagine the Senechal will be so impressed with such a practical idea that not only will he look the other way at my borrowing this mansion, he'll even pat me on the back and invite me to his noble parties," Fenris said sarcastically, his weary eyes falling asleep before he could even reach the bedroom.

"Well, that's a disturbing image I won't be getting out my head any time soon," Hawke said sarcastically as she walked in the hallway. One of the loosely hanging paintings utterly collapsed to the ground. "Time to redecorate that wall."

"I am running short on wine bottles, since I'm giving them away freely to deceiving redheaded clown mages, apparently," Fenris said sarcastically.

"And I'm running short on finding reasonable excuses to visit you," Hawke said in amusement.

"I am not the Viscount, Hawke. As long as you don't break into my house at night, you are welcome to visit," Fenris said nonchalantly as they simply stopped in the middle of the hallway.

"Oh, so I can walk in during the day whenever it itches me?" Hawke said and grinned.

"No," he said flatly. "Knocking has been invented for a reason. But there's only one insane human I know who would trespass during the day," he said lightly. "You won't meet my blade, just an angry old elf with a particular inconvenience with you."

"How old are you, anyway? You can never tell with elves, they all seem young, even when they're grizzled. Oh…," she looked at him as if she realized something, "Don't tell me you're a hundred and fifty or something."

He smirked, "Wouldn't you like to know." He knew she was aware that his hair was not grizzled because of old age.

"I'll tell if you tell," she said childishly.

"I'm more interested in your name, than your age," he said flatly, hoping this was enough grounds for her to tell him.

She eyed him suspiciously, "Well look who's creepy now, old man."

"I'm.. sorry?"

"Never mind. I won't even remember this conversation by morning. Better I just sleep on it," she said firmly, but a thought stopped her pace. "Hm. I take it you have gotten surprise visits for tea and cakes from the slavers?"

"Not yet," he said. "I await their return, however."

"Let them come," she said assertively. "We'll give them reason to cry and beg for death."

He couldn't help smiling. "Certainly."

"Well, I take it that's my bedroom. Unless you've decided to lose the bet. Well, somehow you've already lost it. But, alas, semantics," she said warmly.

He laughed softly, "There's a reason they exist, as luck would have it."

Nighttime, Fenris's Mansion

Fenris couldn't fall asleep. He started muttering curse words, got up from his bed and leaned his hands on the window that refracted the moonlight ever so pointlessly. He closed his eyes, his body heating slowly, only to burn truly when he remembered everything that happened in the Deep Roads. His loosing blood like a waterfall when that dragon chewed him like an insect, the sweet mending light that ignored his markings - or the other way around -, Hawke's agitated state, hitting and pushing him away, scratching and plunging her claws into his skin, trying to get out of his strong grip, the moment his heart stopped as he let go of her hand when they were being dragged by the wraith's magnetic field. Her ghostly face stripped of colour in the rain.

His breathing slowed down in the beams of the moonlight, as he recalled that bath incident. He was no fool; whatever the demon stirred inside him, as it slowly animated him into doing what he wanted to do, it had to come from an already existing desire. Of course, it was simply the ultimate desire of flesh, that every being who wasn't, well, castrated, had felt. But what in the Void was he thinking? It was baffling to him to recall now, even in all this certainty, that he merely agreed to get in. How did she even convince him again? Maddening.

The utter stupidity and remarkable idiocies he muttered were so impressive it was hard not to laugh at himself. He even called her 'friend', as if it were nothing, as if it was natural and inevitable and they were old pals meeting for drinks and games every night. Well, they were meeting for drinks and games every night, but that was just a poor example. A friend was much more than that, even he could fathom that little concept.

He heard the distant sighs again, the crying, was it of lost souls? Lost, yes...It seemed as if great luminous continuity was there, - overlooking the irony in that metaphor as he was standing in front of the window in the moonlight - as if his fate and all his past decisions were suddenly connected and vitally important, yet it was all slipping away...
But he didn't feel lost. Disoriented, was a much better word.

He recalled her preparing to hit him in the rain when she said he was impertinent to suggest this was just a debt that had to be repaid. Or a mere teaming up out of practicality. Were they friends, then? Preposterous. Varric was her friend and he proved it every time he had only to say a warm joke and she would be receptive and calm down in a serious situation. With him and Hawke, however, jokes were means of attacking each other and led to a continuous, endless rant of beating around the bush from the original topic and ending up with an abominable pile of wild exaggerations.

A much more intelligent voice in him was laughing softly at him, telling him he was fooling himself. She's sleeping in your mansion and you wouldn't allow anyone in, you idiot. You offered and don't tell me it's just because you sympathize with her grief. Isn't that simply what friends would do? Well, how could you know? Then Varric's voice joined the laughing party – You'll understand when you grow up.

He felt the urge to laugh, thinking how many wild bets the dwarf and the pirate probably placed on him. Yes, that pirate and her pointless efforts to subvert him, because she knew that beyond all the battalion of defences, he was just a man – and she knew men. Even so, the pirate was trying to make use of general tendencies, while he did not care for them. That was juvenile. Maybe if the pirate simply went straight up to him and asked him to go upstairs with her, he would have given her more credit for trying all while refusing.

The woman was evasive and dishonest, he smelled selfishness and a complete lack of consideration for her 'friends'. Hawke wasn't evasive – not in that way, at least – and she was bull-headed in her honesty and caring for her friends. Even her little jokes about their private bet were enjoyable, because unlike the pirate, Hawke wasn't intent on doing anything about it. She did not point out her womanhood, at all, even. She didn't want him and she didn't tease him. She wasn't making use of generalities either, but rather technicalities, details. In her presence, he didn't feel like a former slave, nor an elf. He felt like a simple man, all because of her not disregarding it, but also because she didn't point it out either. He was just a man to be taken seriously and that required patience most would not have.

The intelligent voice inside him started laughing again, because he was brooding his eyes out instead of seeing reason and going to sleep. Dazzling how the first thing he does when he finally gets out of that hellhole – he overthinks and loses himself in semantics.

"Forgive me, Monsieur," Hawke's voice came from the doorway. She was leaning against it and smiling. "It appears Varric intuited correctly – on the not being able to sleep part, I mean."

Baffling. He didn't even hear her. He turned around with his back against the window. "Do you want me to tuck you in?" he said, trying to keep a straight face, but he couldn't control his soft laughter.

"Maker's breath, no," she said. "I still have some dignity."

"Good to know," he said flatly, trying not to laugh and sizing her up as she was wearing a curious red dressing gown – clearly made for a man.

She looked him bewildered and gazed down upon her clothes, "Oh, I found this in a closet. I couldn't stand my clothes anymore, since they're all knitted with chainmail," she said, drawing a sad face, "I do not mean to offend."

"You are not," he said nonchalantly. He couldn't even think of Danarius. The difference was baffling.

She looked the other way, rushing to think of something so the subject of the fleeing master would be closed. "Hm. I could have sworn you slept in that armour, too."

He looked down at his white linen shirt and short black pants, as if he forgot he was wearing them. "Well, I had thought of that, but then I was walking down the market one day and I thought – to the Void with that, I'd rather be a ballerina," he said sarcastically, gesturing and rising on his toes.

He laughed softly as she watched her burst into tears of laughter. He felt relief that he thought of that joke so quickly and it was actually successful, because she had not laughed like that for a long time.

"Well, I know why I can't sleep," Hawke started. "But what is keeping you up?"

"Semantics," he said without realizing he was thinking out loud. "I mean," he stuttered and diverted quickly, "There's nothing keeping me up, but there is something holding me down," he said, masking the relief of changing the meaning of the words.

"And what is that?" she asked, stepping in the room.

"The usual questions people ask themselves when they have nothing else better to do," he said nonchalantly, pressing his back against the window more, as if to keep a larger distance from her.

"Reasons to exist?" she asked.

"Shocking, isn't it?" Fenris asked sarcastically. "That I'm free and yet I still have to think about it."

She grinned and looked the other way, "Thoughts are imprecise," she said, taking a seat in front of the fireplace. "I consider speech to be the greatest gift of all races. It sheds much more clarity than soaking up in one's own endless and deceiving thoughts."

"Oh?" he asked drawing a grin and approaching the armchair next to hers. "Aren't words deceiving?"

"Not unless you make them so. If you are honest and speak your mind, it's much easier to have realizations than to silently argue with yourself."

"Yes. Because arguing with you instead is such a fountain of clarity," he said sarcastically. He slumped in the armchair and raised his knee, resting his foot on the seat cushion like a man would do in his private study.

"Those arguments were because we made them so. You poked once, I poked back, you poked again, I beat you with a large bat," she said and smiled. "Besides, there is a functionality to arguments, especially if you are not initiating them just to bark."

"Is that so?" Fenris asked with a deep gaze. "But why are you so intent on going on about this? Is the mess in my soul suddenly a fascination to you?"

"There are several reasons, yes," she said. "And probably the strongest reason is the manner in which you sought to prod me of my magehood. Very few seek understanding and not just a reason to demean somebody and shed light only on their own arguments. Like Anders does with you. He only pretends to understand your slavery years to use it as an argument for why you would be a hypocrite not to root for the freedom of any beings, regardless."

He watched her carefully and listened. She continued, "Few really ask. On the contrary, they try to find answers from the unknown, that they have already shaped into their mind – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation. Few ask and are prepared for the answer to annihilate the question or the questioner. But you have truly been asking, haven't you? In-between all your anger towards me."

"It has been quite astonishing to me, too, but yes," he said as he looked at her in awe, "I have wondered if I was wrong."

"Wouldn't you agree I have been doing the same thing? Not necessarily with my frustrating stratagems, but I won't divert from being guilty of that," she said laughing.

"You are indeed a strange woman," he said. "You have few preconceptions, even when facing me and my insistent need to attack you." She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He looked in the fireplace and continued, "In fact, you astound me because you admit to such extraordinary simplicity. A man is either good or bad, and if he's bad, he's dead," he said nonchalantly. "You just want a purpose."

"True," she said. "Rather crude, isn't it?"

He gave another soft laugh, "No. Not really," he said. "I'm clueless, myself."

She looked at the fireplace, then back at him as if she was looking through him. "Rather curious, isn't it? It's as if thousands of years of civilization have finally produced an innocent."

"An innocent? You're not speaking of me," he said bewildered.

"I am, in fact. And I'm inclined to believe somewhere deep inside you see me as innocent, too," she said as she gazed at him and narrowed her eyes.

He looked down and hesitated, then looked up at her. "Perhaps."

"My father used to talk about the savage garden of Thedas, that we are all bound by the corrupting force of different civilizations that simply do not want to understand each other. And that we must find our way back to the innocence that has been lost," she said meditatively.

He frowned at her as he listened and she grinned, "Well, I thought it was nonsense, too. People can be truly primitive in their assumptions and expectations."

"You mean me?" he asked flatly.

"No, you have experience. You are only cautious. You didn't start torturing mages just to get back at their whole race for one man who stripped you of your freedom."

Fenris inhaled and listened to her continue, "The Chantry and the Templars in Kirkwall. They exaggerate because they are allowed to, they have it within their power to do so. They cannot conceive of innocence," she said as she looked at him with sorrowful eyes.

He nodded as for her to go on. "And I find myself wondering if somewhere in the future, the world would finally take remark on people who behave innocently. For the first time to just look about themselves and go, 'What the hell is this!'" she said, gesturing dramatically.

"You have a point. But I am not innocent," he said. "Godless, yes. I come from godless people and I'm glad of it. I know what good and evil are in a very practical sense. So do you," he said unperturbed and eyeing her insistently. She nodded and he continued, "But I am not an innocent. I must be held accountable for my own actions, even if my plight has been given onto me by others, against my will. I was my master's bodyguard. I complied to his every wish, killed whomever he ordered me to, followed him wherever he wanted me to, like a dog," he said bitterly, his face forming the expression of disgust.

"I'm sensing a Qunari rant coming about. You were given a role and you were free to choose within that role. Choosing not to be meant choosing to die," she rambled sarcastically.

"Yes, and as you can see, I am alive. So I am not innocent," he said angrily.

"But you are. You say you are godless, but you don't seek any system to justify it, either. That is still innocence. And deep down, you feel you are. And how you feel inside is important, especially when you have the intelligence to doubt it," she said as she drew a warm smile. "You are guilty of killing for your master that held you in captivity, but you are not guilty of lying or creating evil systems of thought. Like some do," she said bitterly, pertaining to the Chantry.

He hesitated, because she made sense, then said, "So I am innocent because I am absent of illusions?"

"Absent of the need for illusions," she corrected him.

He looked into the fireplace again, "It is something to ponder on, at least."

"No pondering. Speak," she said abruptly.

"I don't know what to say," he confessed while smiling at her.

"Yes, that's the other reason I wanted to know you better," she said. "Your honesty."

He laughed, "Am I to be given credit because I admit of my own incognizance?"

"Exactly. All you know is that you don't know. Admitting it shows dignity. What more could you ask of a man?"

He smiled, "I don't know."

She laughed at his repetition and said, "Your questions are different than the others. We have that in common. We did not grow expecting much of others and the burden of conscience was private, terrible tough it might be. But you could ask me, and I could ask you. It shouldn't be this hard. We could find out together."

He was in awe of her, all in the radiance of her warm eyes and the bone-hard way in which she spoke. He was beginning to understand that Hawke was indeed, something else, and that she was alone in her struggles to find her role, make sense of her place in this world. He couldn't imagine her having deep conversations about such things with her brother or with Varric. Maybe she had them with her sister or her father, but they were gone. And she was alone.

She noticed the trance-like state in which Fenris looked at her and raised an eyebrow, "What?"

He hesitated, "Nothing," he said as he looked away, but returned to meet her eyes. "Well, it's a bit hard for me to find you insufferable now."

She was getting used to the shifts in his face, between the perfect mask he wore and the occasional leakage of expression, the steady vitality of his gaze that he only allowed her to see, as far as she could tell.

She smiled, "Such a shame, no?" she asked sarcastically. "And all it took was what? A few months of mocking and barking, a dragon, a few near death experiences, a desire demon and an honest eye to eye conversation in the middle of the night," she said as she started to laugh.

He flinched and shuddered quickly and she noticed. "What? Was it the desire demon that made you flinch?"

He remained silent as he couldn't afford to speak his mind about it, but she did say neither of them understood, but were seeking to. Wouldn't it be easier to just speak his mind, as he already started to?

"Yes," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Well, at least something is clear from that experience," she said assertively.

He stopped his breathing, expecting her to say with confidence that he would certainly lose the bet. He did not know himself. All while becoming so relaxed in her presence, he did not take notice of how much he was heating up, how tense he was whenever he would look at her directly, because she was beautiful.

"That you are a terrible mage?" he smirked defensively.

"Well, yes, that, of course. But we've already established that from the moment you called me 'clown mage'. I am very much intent on living up to that name," she said sarcastically.

"I called you troll mage too. Are you going to turn into a putrid green hideous giant that reeks of sponges and highweeds and ask me to call you Bob?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not until you grow wings and fly away as a genuine barking mad elven cockatoo," she stung back.

"Perhaps I don't want to fly away," he said nonchalantly, pondering on something else.

"You're welcome to stay as a wounded little bird, but be wary of how much you're intent on leaving that wound open," she said determined.

"I could say the same thing to you," he retorted.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked bewilderedly and frowned.

"Something happened to you, Hawke. Not now, a long time ago. Every other tragedy just piled on top of it and is hurting you even more," he said firmly.

She hesitated and looked away, "Well, wouldn't you like to know?" she smirked.

"I would," Fenris said assertively. "Unless you do not wish to speak of it." He would be a hypocrite to demand the truth when he couldn't talk about his past himself.

"I don't," she said bitterly. She inhaled and remained silent. "Well, where was I? Ah, yes. We know one thing from that desire demon fiasco."

He swallowed heavily, cursing in his mind that she remembered and used this as a means to divert from talking about herself.

"And what's that?" he asked nonchalantly.

"That you're not some creepy self-sufficient statue our little merry band thinks you are. You actually have desires."

"Is that some polite way of noticing I prefer women?" he asked flatly and containing his grin.

"Yes, that's about right," she lied through semantics.

"I can imagine how that would be an alarming shock for everyone," he said sarcastically and sighed.

"It's a game for them. They're still trying to place bets on who finds out my preference first, if my hair colour is real, if I have red chest hair, if I'm little miss purity or the whore of the Anderfels," she said and smirked at the enumeration.

"At least I found out you don't have … chest hair," he said raising an eyebrow.

"How much did you find out, I wonder?" she asked while narrowing her eyes. "It's impossible that you hadn't seen anything."

He smirked, "Is it that hard to believe that I'm so unfortunate?"

"Unfortunate? Well, I'll take that as a compliment, I think," she said awkwardly.

"I told you I would practice my flattery for your next visit," he said and smiled.

"Let me flatter you instead. I have been very fortunate back there," she said and grinned.

"Oh?" he asked hesitantly.

"I really didn't expect you to be so…," she thought carefully, "I don't know, muscular, hunky, almost like you were sculptured."

"It wasn't a pleasant process of achieving this," he said bitterly.

"Well, I'm jealous. I would love to have muscles like that."

"You and Aveline both."

"Well, forgive us for being ambitious."

He laughed, "You are stronger than you think you are. You gave me quite a hard time restraining you," he said while looking at his left arm holding only the ghost of the deep wound that she gave him back there.

"Oh, right, that's true. How impertinent of me," she said sarcastically.

"Indeed. You didn't even have the courtesy to apologize," he retorted the sarcasm.

"Should I have also kissed it to make it all better?" she asked mockingly.

"Well," he frowned and hesitated, then smirked. "It couldn't hurt."

She smirked, "Oh, but I didn't. Alas," she said and smiled. "Maybe you should ask Isabella next time."

"Preposterous," he said bitterly.

"Oh come on, you said you liked women. And she's very much a woman, if you get my drift," she said in amusement.

"She may be a woman, but not much else," he said flatly, looking at the fireplace.

"What do you mean?" she asked bewilderedly.

"She puts it out there too much – that she is a woman, and so she loses the chance to be a person," he explained. "But that was her choice. She wants people to see her that way."

"Don't we all do that? Not with our gender, but with any particular trait we want to exaggerate – to defend ourselves with? Like it's our shield."

"True. But it depends how much we exaggerate it," he continued.

"Well, fair enough," she said, pondering on it. "What would you say is my 'shield'?"

He thought about it carefully then looked at her. "Where do I even begin? Your jokes, your quoted words of wisdom, your reckless and frustrating insistence that you don't need any help?"

"That's exactly what you do, only in a different style," she said sharply, only realizing it just now.

He inhaled heavily, thinking about it. "Alert the Chantry. I have things in common with a mage."

"Shocking, isn't it?" she laughed. "Clearly it must be a conspiracy."

"Had I known that when I first met you, I would have said it was deeply embarrassing," he said flatly.

"And now?" she asked and grinned.

"Impressive. And baffling. Alas, will wonders never cease," he said nonchalantly.

"You remind me of someone, you know?" she started gracefully.

"There are more of you?" he sighed sarcastically.

"There are a million of me inside my head. It's really entertaining. But what I meant was, you remind me of my father," she said while looking at him with sudden warm eyes.

"Then the mystery of why you called me 'Father' when you had that mental breakdown is finally eluded," he smirked.

She froze in astonishment, "What?"

"You did. You also called me a vile old man and shouted at me to stop tricking you into staying into that dark pit more than we should have. You called Varric 'Ser Dwarf' and the mage 'King Alistair'."

She looked down as if it unsettled her deeply. "Well… shit."

"I don't understand. Is there something wrong?" he asked in confusion.

"No," she said hesitantly. "I mean, yes. You kept saying things my father used to say and it was a bit of a shock to know now that I hallucinated him in you."

"Well that's a relief. I thought he was a grizzled old lanky man with pointy years and a fondness for whining and throwing bottles into walls," he said sarcastically, trying to lighten the mood.

She laughed softly, "He was grizzled and old, but not much else from that list." She looked in the fireplace. "He also told me to stop throwing myself into things I don't understand."

He smiled shortly, "Maybe you should have listened to us, then. You can't deny such reliable sources," he said sarcastically.

"Or maybe you should trust me. That could also prove itself effective," she said and frowned.

"I'm sensing you didn't get along with him very well either," he asked perceptively.

"I did, but, it took a long time," she said and grinned, since it was the same with them. "We'd disagree and argue about so many things only to end up saying the same thing in a different manner. But we stubbornly disagreed symbolically, out of pride or something," she said while remembering. "And we did have great times squandering the depths of life and making everything seem like a big joke," she said laughed.

She looked in the fireplace meditatively. "He trusted me, somehow, that I would find my own way. But he kept that little doubt in his soul and I could always see it," she said bitterly.

"You said something about him checking you for demonic possession," he remembered.

"Oh, yes. Some things one does not want to remember." She sighed. "But that's a story for another time," she said and smiled.

"So you did make us of your magic once," he said while eyeing her for an honest answer.

"As a child yes, but once I grew up, hardly ever. As I said, it doesn't really interest me that much. That was the mystery. He was even glad to see me train in swordplay with Carver all the time."

Fenris looked down as if he just remembered something.

"That is something I failed to appreciate about you," he said knightly.

"Oh?" she asked bewilderedly.

"You are worthy of respect. For trying to be more than you have been born as. It is not a path for the faint-hearted; I should know."

"Well, thank you for your honest flattery. I thought you'd never notice," she said sarcastically.

He smirked, "I shall endeavour to make up for my impertinence," he said sarcastically.

"Perish the thought. What would the others say when they see us getting along? The horror!" she said dramatically.

He laughed softly, "They will – as Varric would say - check the sky for flying pigs and say 'What will they think of next? Templars and mages holding hands and dancing the remigold!'", he said as he gestured sarcastically.

"That sounds like Varric," she said and laughed. "All while going," she paused to clear her throat and impersonate him, "No shit, and then they walked into the sunrise together and lived happily ever after. True story."

"The mage would probably say we had both gotten possessed by wondering spirits of friendship and compassion and the pirate would say we magically tripped and fell into the same bed and decided to physically discharge of all the hate," he said while gesturing dramatically.

She laughed, "That's disturbing."

He felt relaxed, for once. And with her of all people. He saw her in a different light, much like the old one, but he started feeling the way he did when he was animated by that demon, only now – at least, he hoped not – he wasn't possessed. Not by a demon, anyway. More by a sweet sensation of being free and himself in front of her, who - he couldn't deny any longer – was strong, honest, abrupt in her demands for others to grow a pair and see eye to eye; and heartbreakingly beautiful.

"Is that so?" he asked in a deep sensual voice, pondering something.

"Well, being possessed is no reason to throw tea parties and cheer for the absolute," she said sarcastically.

"Right," he said and coughed awkwardly.

She narrowed her eyes and grinned, "And ending up in bed will not discharge of any boiling anger towards each other. Now, other bodily tensions, that's something else. You did say the bed would break, 'tis true," she said while grinning tigerishly.

"I can see how that would be disturbing," he deflected.

"Luckily there's no desire demon to possess us anymore," she said while laughing.

"Are you sure? You did say you are terrible at it," he said nonchalantly.

"Do you see me jumping at your neck and demanding that you rip my clothes off with your strong hands and take me to your bed just two feet away?" she asked gesturing dramatically, a bit provocatively.

He hesitated as her words were very confusing and commanding, despite being sarcastic. "No."

"Well, there you have it. No demon," she said confidently and winked at him.

"And glad I am to heart it," he said flatly and went back to his battalion of cockatoo defences.

That was so unworthy of him, to talk like that. What was he even thinking. It angered him and he couldn't wait for her to go and leave him be, all while still wanting her to stay.

He got up quickly. "You should be sleeping, Hawke."

She looked to her right and to her left and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks. I haven't noticed."

"I assume I do not need to remind you what I said at the gates," he said firmly and frowned.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite remember. Refresh my memory," she said sarcastically.

He crossed his arms. "I said that if you didn't sleep, I would kick you out."

"And yet you failed to live up to that threat for about an hour now. Kind of too late now," she said angrily.

He chuckled, "It is still my house and I make the rules. There is no time limitation for when I decide to do it."

"So, that's how it is? You abuse of my company because you can't sleep but I get the boot the moment I end up boring you?" she asked aggressively.

He hesitated, "No. Of course not. What I abused of is your availability as you couldn't sleep either. And it was unworthy of me."

"How is that different from me doing the same thing?" she asked in outrage, but controlling herself.

He sighed, "Because I am not sleep-deprived. Not like you. You barely ate, you barely slept. I'm not a fool, Hawke. I saw you faking it for days on end," he said angrily and frowned even more.

"A simple 'thank you for all your trouble' would have sufficed," she said sarcastically.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically and pointed at the other room. "Now go and sleep."

"Is that my final warning, Ser Fenris?" she asked mockingly.

"It is," he said flatly and crossed his arms again.

"Then no need to make your face crack with that gigantic frown of yours. I'll show myself out," she said firmly and got up.

"Hawke," Fenris said sharply.

"Save it, Fluffhead," she said bitterly and went out the room.

He followed her to the other room but she smashed the door right in his nose. "Hawke, I-," he hesitated and cursed in his mind. "Stay."

"No, no," he heard her from beyond the door. "I wouldn't want to be so impertinent as to keep you up and bored just out of my own frustrating stubbornness."

"Hawke, you're being ridiculous," he said angrily and put a hand on the door.

"I'm a clown mage," he heard her mutter. The door then opened and she was fully armoured. "Just trying to live up to that name."

"Vishante kaffas. Why are you acting like this?" he asked angrily. "I wasn't going to tie and gag you so you could finally see reason."

She chuckled, "No, you were just going to kick me out."

"And have I?" he half-shouted.

"You didn't get to. I kicked myself out," she said aggressively and frowned. She put her backpack and walked past him.

"Fine, be that way," he said angrily as she walked down the stairs in a rush. "Have a great night, Hawke."

"Hildegaard," she muttered in annoyance.

"What?" he shouted.

She turned back only to look at him in the hallway. "My full name is Hildegaard Bianca Hawke. First one is too stupid, the other is the same with Varric's stupid crossbow. There. That's my name. Great times, you have a good night now," she said angrily and gestured sarcastically.

"Venhedis, fastavas," he cursed in anger and kicked the wall. That impossible woman. What did he do now? He must have blacked out from exhaustion and muttered angry words about mages in his sleep, he thought sarcastically. He felt like punching the wall, but he pressed his eyes together and sighed and went back in silence to his room.

He frowned and went back to his bed, swearing continuously, only to feel like a complete fool and realize this was all a big fat cheap stratagem to make them go back to how they were before.

Next Day, The Hanged Man

"Hawke! Oh… Elf. Wait, she isn't with you?" Varric asked as Fenris entered his room.

"No," Fenris said flatly.

"But I went by her house and she wasn't there either," Varric said bewilderedly and frowned. "What did you do now?"

"Believe me, I would love to know myself," Fenris muttered bitterly and rolled his eyes.

"What in the Void is this?" Aveline shouted while rushing into the room and holding a tank of paper with the Viscount's seal on them.

"What's going on?" Varric asked her in confusion.

"Obligational demands for the Amell estate along with a bunch of other papers that instated Leandra Hawke as the sole proprietor as soon as the money comes in. I also received papers to my office about some 'private account for the Gracefully Wicked And Utterly Insufferable' that instates Leandra and 'Chuckleberry Limbomaster McFattso' as share holder for any coin you make from the expedition. And this," she shouted in anger and shoved a piece of paper in Varric's hands.

"I'm sorry for leaving this way, but it had to be done. All of you keep safe and know that I am grateful for everything?" Varric read out loud in outrage. "Is this a joke?"

"Isn't everything a joke with Hawke?" Aveline shouted. "Pray this is one is too."

"I don't understand. She just left? For where?" Varric shouted in confusion. "What the hell happened in less than twelve hours from when we were last together?" He looked at Fenris and frowned. "What the hell happened?" he shouted.

"Nothing happened," Fenris almost shouted angrily. "She couldn't sleep and she left."

"And she didn't say anything about leaving? A euphemism, a stupid wise quote, anything?" Aveline shouted at Fenris and gestured.

"No," he said flatly and lifted his eyebrows.

Varric put his hand on his forehead and inhaled heavily. "Fuck the eighteen generations of my ancestors and fuck the sodding Deep Roads, blighted nuglickers and constipated brontos, sod the Chantry full of possessed grannies, sod the numskull Templars and this whole sodding city," he shouted and kept muttering and swearing as he almost smashed the table.

"If she's really gone, I'm going to find her even if she's hiding in the darkest pit in the Anderfels. And then I'm going to kill her," Aveline muttered angrily and refrained from punching the door as she left.