Unbroken Connections

Age 17 (continued)

…

Walking through the halls of the Viscount's Keep, Fenris paid only cursory attention as Varric prattled to Larina and Naven about their new accommodations and employment. After an almost pleasant voyage from Qarinus to Kirkwall, the girl seemed less withdrawn, and the boy less gaunt, and Fenris really did wish them the best, but he also needed a drink if he was to listen to Varric's chatter for much longer.

Hawke's fingers found his. "I forget how much he can talk when he's not fishing for information," she sighed. "At least they've never heard any of his stories before." She lowered her voice to a whisper and cracked a smile, "Though… Is it really okay to leave them here, with him?"

Fenris studied the pair. They were clearly overwhelmed, but smiling, his niece's hand tight in her lover's. Fenris looked at Hawke out of the corner of his eye. "The story of their romance will be fodder for his next novel. Do not doubt me."

Hawke let out a quiet half-chuckle. "Of course, but you know that's not all I mean, Fenris. You'll miss them. Won't you?"

"This was the plan," he answered, "and it is a sound plan."

When they first orchestrated their reckless endeavor, Fenris had been absolutely certain that he would want nothing to do with Varania's daughter once it was over. Now that he'd me the girl, however, his mind was split. On the one hand, she still looked so familiar, and he wasn't sure he could handle that constant reminder in his own home. On the other hand, the girl was open and kind. After that first difficult conversation, he'd only warmed up to her more, and he felt protective of her. Maybe someday, if they wished it, Larina and Naven could come to Ferelden…

"Naven was a herder," Hawke mused. "He may end up wanting to go back to a life in the countryside, and even a small town could use a tailor."

Fenris looked at her and shook his head. "The boy also wants to see his family again, and Varric's contacts are better for that. Let them start here." He paused before adding, "Our door is open should their circumstances change."

Hawke smiled brightly, with no hint of jest or deflection. It was the sort of smile that still lightened his heart, even after so many years. "That's all I needed to know, love," she replied.

…

Fenris took the wineglass Varric offered him and leaned back in his chair. "Who is this guest we are waiting for, Dwarf? You know how I feel about surprises."

Passing beside him, El smirked. "Oh Father, when has Uncle Varric ever disappointed?"

Fenris snorted. "It always works out in his stories, and he's always spoiled you and your brother, but I have far more experience with his surprises than you do."

"Don't worry, Elf, you'll like this one," Varric assured him with a grin as he settled in with his own glass. "Besides, nothing's ever gone too badly."

"Hmm… I seem to recall one surprise that involved shipwreck, plague, and a rage demon," Fenris recounted between sips of wine.

Varric grinned all the wider. "Come on, you know that trip ended up being the best thing that ever happened to you."

Fenris hummed his concession into his wineglass and turned his gaze to where Hawke stood at the window, pointing out moonlit Hightown landmarks to El and Malcolm.

"Now the time with the spiders… Well, I'll take the blame for that one," Varric chuckled.

"Which time with the spiders?"

"The exploding spiders," Varric clarified.

Fenris was about to explain that when you fought spiders with a sword, they all exploded, but a sharp knock at the door cut him off. After Varric shouted his approval, an attendant opened the door to usher someone inside. The person wore a long coat and a ridiculous feathered hat…

"Here you are, Captain," the attendant declared, closing the door as he slipped out.

Captain…

As she removed her hat and coat, she winked at Fenris.

Isabela.

Divested of the outlandish headpiece, she looked much the same as when he'd last seen her. Older, perhaps… wearing proper pants for once… but much the same. She let out a low whistle as she approached their table. "My, don't you look good."

Varric laughed. "Remember, he's a married man, Rivaini."

Isabela smirked. "Oh, I know. Hawke would have my left tit if I tried. I meant these two darling kittens."

"If you start propositioning my children I'll have both your tits," Hawke warned, but she was smiling and already meeting Isabela for a crushing hug.

"You can keep your daggers sheathed, Hawke. I only mean to say that you and your elf make beautiful babies." Isabela threw one arm around El and kissed her on the cheek, and then she turned to Malcolm. After making a show of looking him up and down, she smirked and patted him on the head like a child. "Grow a beard and then we'll talk," she offered in a feigned whisper.

The boy flushed scarlet and scowled, but El nudged him towards the table where their mother was already taking a seat.

Hawke tried to stifle her laughter. "You're welcome to admire them if you'd ever come ashore, Bela."

"You live ever so far from port," Isabela complained. She sat beside Hawke, taking a greying lock of Hawke's hair between her fingers. "You know, there's a girl on my ship with a spell that can fix this." Indeed, Isabela's hair was as black as ever.

Hawke smirked. "Fenris says he doesn't mind,"

Fenris did not mind. Where some might have seen the grey hairs as a discouraging symbol of advancing age, Fenris only saw time. The fact that he could remember a day when Hawke's hair had been uniformly dark, a time when the lines around her eyes had only appeared while she smiled, it was all proof of the years spent at her side. Years solid in his own mind. Years not lost to him like so many others.

Isabela smiled and shrugged. "Well you're lucky on both fronts then, Hawke. Elves age rather well, don't they?"

Hawke shot him a look. "Oh, they do."

"Please," El muttered, "don't start flirting here too."

Resting her chin on her folded hands, Isabela leaned onto the table towards El. "Here too? Do tell, kitten."

El grinned. "Oh, once we get out to sea they can't keep off each other. Whispering like the whole ship can't hear them and then sneaking off to their cabin for hours at a time."

"Hours…" Isabela seemed equally awed and skeptical.

Fenris rolled his eyes. "People do sleep in cabins, you know."

The pirate raised an eyebrow. "So enthusiastic you need to sleep afterwards… I hope you're taking notes, Varric."

The dwarf tapped his head with one finger. "All up here, Rivaini."

Years spent across the table from Isabela and Varric had taught Fenris that denial and protest would never work. Embarrassed demands to change the subject would only spur them on. No, the only way to draw those two off a topic was to present a better one.

Luckily, Hawke was equally experienced with their friendly intrusions. "True enough," she confessed. "Being on a ship brought back some pleasant memories. This place brings back memories too, doesn't it dear?" The small, wry smile on her lips told him everything he needed to know.

Fenris glanced from Hawke to Varric, then back again. He hummed thoughtfully as he ran his fingers over the fine, polished wood table in front of them. They were sitting in the Viscount's private dining room, where he had often shared a meal with Hawke during her last weeks as Kirkwall's ruler. Truthfully, meals had been all they shared in that particular room, but Varric didn't know that.

Hawke smirked openly, her voice dropping to almost a purr. "Oh yes… Was it this table? Or the one in the other room?"

"I distinctly recall…" Fenris began.

"Hey now! I'm sure the two of you made… use… of every damn article in the place, but I don't need to hear about it," Varric complained.

"Didn't you always say you wanted details? For… literary purposes?" Hawke asked with mock innocence.

"That was before I had to eat my dinner on those details."

"Like the Hanged Man didn't hold worse," Hawke snorted.

Varric downed the rest of his glass. "Oh, I'm sure, but ignorance is bliss."

"Your dinner table is safe, Dwarf," Fenris explained. "If you do not wish to hear of the furniture we did make use of, perhaps we should move on."

"What if I want to hear?" Isabela whined.

Hawke patted her shoulder. "Another time, Bela. I want to hear about the state of Kirkwall from the esteemed Viscount himself."

Varric poured himself another glass, chuckling. "You want to know how your estate is doing."

"My estate is in Kirkwall, isn't it?"

"That it is, Hawke. If you're ever interested in visiting the city openly, you'll find your property in order. A bit dusty, but nothing you can't handle."

How Varric had kept the Templars from seizing the home of Hawke's maternal ancestors, Fenris didn't know. Perhaps they had merely left it as a sort of trap, hoping she would be foolish enough to return. Lyrium-maddened Templars… Fenris sighed to himself. It was so long ago, and yet being in the Keep, being in Kirkwall, brought the memories up as fresh as ever.

"You haven't asked about your mansion, Broody," Varric pointed out.

Fenris almost laughed. His mansion. "I expect it has rotted and fallen over, or perhaps become home to a new squatter."

Varric smirked like a cat with the cream. "Neither." He hopped down from his seat and went to pull a file from the shelf. He passed it to Fenris, still grinning.

Fenris opened the file, confused by the sketches and floorplans inside. "You renovated it?"

"You're joking," Hawke said, holding out her hand so that Fenris could hand her the plans.

"Not at all. We even cleaned up the bodies," Varric explained.

El turned to him, snickering. "Father, you really just let the bodies lie about? That wasn't Uncle Varric's exaggeration for his book?"

"Princess," Varric admonished her, "when do I exaggerate?"

Malcolm shook his head, nearly laughing himself. "Do you want me to start keeping a list? Really though, Father… the bodies?"

"At first I was simply preoccupied," Fenris explained, half-distracted, still shuffling through the pages inside the file, "but when a few days passed and they showed no signs of rot, I worried they were cursed and thought better of touching them."

Fenris was vaguely aware of Malcolm's assenting shrug and some whispered discussion between his children, but his focus shifted even more to the contents of the file… Additional floor plans, invoices for materials, labor contracts, bills of sale for furniture… Fenris was beginning to wonder why Varric would hand him such a pile of nonsense rather than just tell him. Finally, Fenris reached the last sheet. It was a contract commissioning the crafting of a large wooden sign: The Wolf's Academy of Letters.

"The children are taught their sums too," Varric explained when he saw Fenris had reached the intended page. "I just didn't want the sign to be too wordy."

Fenris raised an eyebrow. "I do not understand, Dwarf. You turned a cursed, decrepit mansion into a school?"

Varric's smile had become less prideful and more honest. "I prefer to say that I had the city buy up an otherwise undesirable property and repurpose it for the public good. It is a school, a place of learning for children out of Lowtown and Darktown. Initially I funded it using coin the Guard confiscated from slavers on the Wounded Coast, but it's also become a fashionable charity for Hightown residents."

"You're making slavers pay to teach children to read…" Fenris mused. Children who might otherwise have been their merchandise.

"The brighter ones, yes. I thought about being a bit more transparent with the name, but I assumed you wouldn't appreciate that."

The Wolf's Academy of Letters.

Suddenly Fenris understood. He smiled at Varric and raised his glass. "I can think of no better use for the place."

"Me either, Elf."

…

Head light from the drink, purse light from the cards, and mood light from the company, Fenris rifled through his bag looking for a clean shirt. Aveline was still a poor sport at cards. After a particularly bad hand, to Donnic's horror and everyone else's amusement, she had dumped her tankard over Fenris's head. He'd washed his hair in the basin, but he still needed to change his clothes if he didn't want to go to bed smelling like ale. Hawke had demanded he not go to bed smelling like ale.

He smiled to himself at the thought of how she'd wrinkled her nose and pushed him into their room before going to bid the children goodnight. He found the shirt he wanted, but as he pulled it from his bag, his smile faded. An envelope slipped out with the shirt, flopping onto the bed.

The envelope from Varania.

Fenris sighed.

Malcolm had brought him the envelope with a nervous, apologetic explanation: Varania had approached him, and he had listened, no more. It made Fenris angry that she'd accosted his son, made his child the messenger for her guilt instead of her own. It made him angrier, at himself, that his son feared his reaction in the slightest. There was no cause for him to be angry with Malcolm. Thankfully, that assertion had eased the tension in the boy's shoulders.

Fenris had also considered that the envelope might be some sort of trap and nearly tossed it overboard. Rolling her eyes, Hawke had stayed his hand. She checked the letter for poisons, Malcolm checked for spells, and Pavus, well-versed in Tevinter politics, checked for both. Even then, Fenris hadn't been able to find the desire to open it. He had stuffed it into his bag and tried to forget about it.

Fenris sighed again.

He sat down on the bed, turning the envelope over in his hands. Supposedly it contained memories, accounts of his childhood, of his parents, of his sister. That all felt so far away… His present was Hawke and the children and the little house tucked in the hills. Kirkwall had been a lifetime ago, and Danarius a lifetime before that. Did he have any use for stories from three lifetimes past? Parents dead and a sister dead to him…

He thought suddenly of Hawke's siblings, of how fondly she remembered Carver, of how she had fought with Bethany, but of how she had fought harder for Bethany.

Fenris had wanted that. When he had successfully reached out to Varania, he had dreamed of that. When he had seen Varania and memories filled his mind, he thought that dream was in his grasp, but he had walked away with only betrayal. How had Hawke been so ready to give everything for her siblings where Varania would have seen him in chains?

Surely it was possible Varania was simply cruel, selfish, or greedy, but even appalling people seemed to love their siblings despite their nature. No, that was the answer. They had ceased to be siblings. He had left her behind. He likely hadn't meant to, but in freeing her and taking the markings, he had severed all connection between them. They had become strangers, and what an easy thing, to sell a stranger out.

That was part of the reason why, when Malcolm's magic had manifested, and Hawke had gingerly asked Fenris what he thought of the new Circles, he had answered nearly instantly.

No.

Malcolm would stay with his family. Unless he endangered them, unless they truly could not handle his powers the way Hawke's family had handled her sister, Malcolm would not be separated from them. To send the boy away would have been too painful, and Fenris would have missed him terribly, but it was more than that. His stomach had twisted in knots at the thought of Malcolm and El as strangers. He wanted them to have what he never could. He wouldn't let his mistakes be repeated in them.

And perhaps, mistakes did not have to be permanent.

When Hawke returned to their room, Fenris had forgotten to change his shirt, but he was busy reading of memories.