It's "First Times Week" on Tumblr for Dragon Age Fan Week (referring to a rather specific first time). So I took a pile of prompts again, many of which revolve around or refer to the first times of one or more of the characters involved around in them. Only a couple cross the line into "mild smut" territory.

Bethany/Nathaniel

They looked much alike, in some ways. Pale skin, long glossy hair. A sizable bow slung across his back; a sizable staff at hers. They were both well-spoken, in the way of the noble-born. Nathaniel had been surprised to learn of her childhood in rural Ferelden; nodded understandingly when he heard of her well-born mother. They had other things in common as well; difficult pasts with their families. The desire to be seen for themselves, judged by their own actions, not by what father or brother had done. A liking for good books, for well-cooked meals, for fine wines and interesting conversation.

It formed the first tenuous roots of a friendship between them.

"Did you ever see..." he would ask, referring to places in Kirkwall he remembered from his handful of visits there while being fostered in the Free Marches.

She would laugh, and smile, and tell him stories about the place - who lived there now, or how the people had changed. Or had stayed the same.

"That priest... the archer..."

"Sebastian," she said, smiling. A slightly sad smile. "He's all right."

She did not think much of most of her brother's friends, it seemed, but then he could have said much the same, about the collection of ne'er-do-wells that had been Thomas' closest companions. Another thing they shared.

And late one evening, both of them slightly drunk on very good wine, they shared more, as well. A look. A kiss. A lingering touch.

"I've never..." he admitted, flushing in confused embarrassment when she took him by the hand, and began to lead him over to the bed.

"Neither have I," she said calmly, and turned to look at him, smiling, one eyebrow arching high. "Does it matter?"

"I suppose not," he said, after a moment, and let himself be led.

Something else to share. Another little way in which they were alike, both before, and after, when she lay in his arms, head resting on his shoulder, one arm draped over him, one leg hooked over his

"I could get to like this," she said, tilting her head back to smile up at him.

A smile he echoed. "So could I."

Alistair/Nida Mahariel

She had gone very quiet, Alistair could not help noticing. Even more quiet than she normally was. She sat by the fire, staring sightlessly at the flames, her bow in her lap. A dark silhouette, save where the firelight lit the edges of her armour, gilded her long blonde hair.

He stood and watched her for a long time before finally making his way over to sit down beside her. He didn't actually say anything – he didn't know what to say. What could you say, to someone who had gone through what she just had? To have discovered that her friend Tamlen had not died after all – yet would have better off if he had. To be forced to fight him – to kill him. Or see him killed, rather – Alistair was thankful the finishing blow had come from Zevran, not from her. That had been bad enough.

She didn't say anything. She glanced at him, just once, a brief glimpse of bright green eyes in a painfully still face before turning her head away again. But after a while, she leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder, not saying anything, not crying, just... there.

He stayed like that with her the rest of the night, neither of them sleeping.

Teagan/Fergus

Teagan set the open bottle down on the small table between the pair of armchairs, then took a seat. Fergus lifted the bottle, studied its label for a moment, then grunted in approval before pouring himself a glass. "You have good taste," he said, as he swirled the brandy and then lifted his goblet to study the thin coating of it on the glass.

"Technically my brother does," Teagan said, lifting the bottle to pour a little into his own glass. "Seeing as it's from his wine cellar."

Fergus smiled, and sipped at his brandy, then stared into the fire. They drank in silence for a while.

"Four more days," Fergus said softly after a while.

Teagan grunted. "Do you regret it?" he asked.

Fergus frowned slightly, then shook his head. "No. It solves... many problems, for the two of us to marry. And I've always gotten along well with Anora. The fact that we've both lost people we love in this damned war..." He broke off, then shrugged. "We know we're not marrying for love. Respect will do."

He fell silent again, staring at the fire, then glanced over at the Bann. "Were you ever in love, Teagan?"

Teagan smiled slightly. "Yes. Twice, actually."

"Oh? You surprise me... your reputation..." he trailed off.

"I've always been discrete," Teagan said, and his smile deepened slightly. He sipped at his brandy, then looked at Fergus. "The first was totally unsuitable. An older woman, when I was being fostered in the Free Marches. She was a seamstress, working for my Lord's lady-wife. She relieved me of my virginity, and quite a few inhibitions," he explained, and smiled again. "And a certain amount of coin in the way of small gifts, which I consider to have been well repaid by all the useful advice about women that she gave me. A good woman, overall. I still count myself lucky to have known her, brief a time as it was before Eamon had me called home."

"And the second?" Fergus asked, curiously.

Teagan smiled then, warmly. "She was something. A little younger than I, and so beautiful... I'd have married her in a heartbeat. But..." he paused, shrugged. "Her father thought she could do better than a minor Ferelden dog lord. And a year or two later, she did." He looked at Fergus. "Was there ever anyone for you, other than Oriana?"

"No," Fergus said, quietly, and looked down at the glass cupped in his hands. "I went to my marriage bed a virgin, believe it or not. I remember how... surprised she was, when she realized I hadn't any clue of how to go about things," he said, and blushed, a fond smile momentarily curving his lips. "She was a virgin too, but her mother and aunts had been very, umm... open with her about what was to be expected. She was rather smug about that," he said, and his smile widened a little further. "She used to joke about how at least she hadn't had to train me out of any bad habits, but only into good ones," he said.

His smile faded, then, a bleak look crossing his features. "I love her still, Maker help me. I will to the day I die."

Teagan nodded. He said nothing further, just picked up the bottle and held it out.

Alistair/f!Surana – mutual defloration

He hadn't thought it would be easy, but he also hadn't thought it would be anywhere near this hard. Difficult, he mentally corrected himself, and blushed. The way she kept giggling was not helping at all, even if it was not him she was laughing at, but rather over her own struggles to unfasten her robe.

"Oh, Maker... how many years I've been peeling out of these blighted things without thought, and now I've gone and jammed the knot of the damned tie..." she exclaimed, and giggled again, hands busy somewhere out of sight in the layered clothing.

"Errr... perhaps I could..." he suggested after a moment, lifting his hands tentatively towards her.

She sighed, and extracted her hands. "I suppose. Just... be careful. I'm ticklish."

It went better after that. He was good an unpicking knots, from all those years of working in the stable, and once he'd managed to bring himself to ignore the rather fascinating location of this particular knot, it came apart easily enough. He looked up to say something, from where he was knelt down by her feet, and found his breath taken away by the way she was looking down at him. The expression on her face, lit on only one side by the nearby fire. His mouth went dry.

She bit her lower lip, and smiled, then reached out to touch his cheek, the faintest of blushes colouring her cheek. He turned his head enough to kiss the palm of her hand, then kept watching her, their eyes locked, as his hand sought out and undid the remaining ties and buckles, lifting off and setting aside each piece of clothing in turn. Rather like unbarding a horse, he thought irreverently, only much sexier.

She smiled, as if having heard his thought, and abruptly hooked her fingers into the neck of his armour, tugging upwards. "My turn. You're overdressed for this," she pointed out.

He followed the tug and rose to his feet, watching silently as she investigated his armour, figuring out where the buckles were and beginning to take it apart. He didn't offer any advice or help, just watched as she worked on it, occasionally muttering under her breath over some particularly recalcitrant buckle or overly stiff strap. She was looking quite pleased with herself by the time she had him down to his arming jacket and leggings. Removing those required his active co-operation, which he was happy to give.

They stood and looked at each other afterwards, studying each other's near-naked form. She reached out after a while, hesitantly setting her tiny hand against his flat stomach, then traced one finger down the cut lune between stomach and hip. He was ticklish enough to flinch away from that, and laugh. Then leaned down, and when she looked up, kissed her.

Things went very well after that, both of them slowly exploring each other's body, with eyes and touches, and after a while, lips and tongue. He knew how good a hand felt in a certain place, and was surprised by how much better it was when it was someone else's hand, and you had no idea just how it was going to move, or what else might be being touched or kissed or sucked on at the same time. His own hands sought out similarly sensitive places on her, and judging by the sounds she made, the way it made her arch and move, it felt as good to her as what she was doing to him.

They did, eventually, work out where all the relevant bits fit together, and that was even better, though it worried him when he saw that it hurt her, at first.

"It's supposed to," she assured him, and made him keep going, and after a while it was obvious that it wasn't hurting any more, or at least had more of pleasure than of pain. And after that is was very, very good.

"You look smug," she pointed out afterwards, as she lay stretched out beside him, his arm draped around her waist.

"So," he pointed out, smiling, "Do you."

Pre-Chantry Sebastian/Anyone

He always had a different story, when asked.

It had been a serving maid, he said, a few years older than himself, with long blond hair and cornflower blue eyes, fresh from the country and as virginal as he was. He'd been awkwardly flirting with her every time he saw her for weeks. She was supposed to be making his bed, he said. And did, eventually, but first she made him a man.

It had been a friend of his mother's, a mature matronly lady who proved to be a confusing mix of motherly and inventive in bed. She'd had a beautiful smile, dark-dyed hair, and an earthy laugh, and no one had ever guessed what additional things she'd taught the handsome young prince who'd been loaned to her as a page during her brief stay in Starkhaven.

It was an expensive courtesan – "Not a whore, boy!" – hired for the occasion by his irascible old grandfather after the old man had caught him trying to sweet talk one of the kitchen maids. The night had been an education. As was the lecture Grandfather gave him the next day about the rights and responsibilities he had as a young prince, and third in line for the throne. Among them treating the help well, and the need to neither impregnate anyone, nor catch a pox.

It was a dairy maid at the farms attached to the family estate. One that he knew, from overhearing his brothers talk of her, was open to approach, if one was suitably diplomatic about it and made sure to bring some small gift along for her. She took him up to the hay loft, and he had his first time there, surrounded by the sounds and smells of the cows in the warm barn below. His clothes had been full of prickles from the hay afterwards, but what he remembered best was the pleasant smell of the hay, and the warmth, of the place and of her smile, and of her hands wrapped strong and sure around him as she milked him of his seed.

It was a cheap whore in a brothel down near the docks, after he'd snuck out on a dare with some of the other younger sons. It was only afterwards that he realized the dare had been offered maliciously, and that no one had objected when he accepted it because no one had expected him to actually carry through with it. It gained him a peculiar notoriety and admiration within his set that lasted for years afterwards. And hadn't been half-bad, though getting treatment for the itch he developed a few days later had been one of the most deeply embarrassing things he'd ever had to do in his young life.

It was a nobleman's daughter. She was at a ball, the invited guest of one of his older brothers, who'd abandoned her after the first two dances to go and pay court on someone else. He'd found her in a corner, face stiff, and been moved to ask her for a dance. She turned him down at first, and then changed her mind and danced with him. They'd talked for a while afterwards, in a quiet corner, finding they had interests in common, and became friends of a sort. A few weeks later they went on a ride in the country, with a picnic basket, where she'd taught him some interesting uses for mouths that had nothing to do with the food they'd brought along. He enjoyed her company for the rest of the spring, and then her family went off to their country estate for the summer, where she met someone else. She was engaged by the fall, and married by the following spring. They remained good friends.

"But what's the true story of your first time?" Isabela asked, fascinated, one evening after prying yet another story of his first time out of him over cards and drinks at the Hanged Man.

Sebastian laughed, relaxed and at his ease. "Any of them might be the true one. A few of them may even have actually happened, or something like them. But a gentleman doesn't tell," he said, then smiled pleasantly, blue eyes twinkling, and sipped at his well-watered wine.

Cauthrien/Nathaniel, Cauthrien as the 30-odd year old virgin

"You constantly surprise me," Nathaniel said, looking thoughtfully at the woman seated across from him at the table. "I'm sorry," he hastened to add when she flushed. "I... meant that in an admiring way, not..." he floundered to a stop, then smiled crookedly. "I don't suppose we can try that again, from the start?"

That startled a laugh out of her. A laugh, followed by a smile as she looked down at her plate. "No. But I'll accept that you had good intentions," she said, and neatly ate a mouthful of sliced carrots.

Nathaniel smiled warmly at her. "Thank you," he said, and turned his attention to his own plate. A silence fell, one that stretched out rather uncomfortably long.

Cauthrien finally snorted, and sat back in her chair. "You're wondering why, and are too well-mannered to just ask," she said.

He blushed, then when he saw the smile on her face, laughed self-consciously. "Yes. May I ask? You don't, of course, have to answer... I am merely surprised that a woman as lovely and accomplished as you is, err..."

"Not accomplished in that particular field of endeavour?" she asked, one eyebrow rising in a graceful arch, then smiled again. She picked up her glass of wine, and sipped it, then shrugged. "Circumstances. When I was growing up on my father's farm, I knew that pregnancy would mean an end to any hope I had of being anything more than someone's wife. I'd be married off as soon as someone noticed that my belly was swelling. So I never slept with anyone. And then after Teryn Loghain recruited me... well," she said, and smiled. "I will admit that I had rather a bad case of hero worship for quite a few years. Not that anything ever came of it, of course. And then by the time I outgrew my youthful infatuation..."

She shrugged again, took another sip of wine, then sat looking into the goblet held cupped in her hand. "Well. By then I was climbing the ranks, and I knew that two ways to end my career, or at the very least put it on hold, would be to either get involved with someone unsuitable, or, worse, get involved with someone and get pregnant. Swelling bellies don't fit in armour."

Nathaniel tilted his head thoughtfully to one side. "I suppose the risk of pregnancy does make it rather different for female soldiers than for male."

"Yes. Just a bit," she said, dryly. "I suppose it's just as well I never particularly wanted children anyway," she added pensively. "Being a Grey Warden, and everything that goes with that. I suppose it's... rather less of a concern, now."

Nathaniel smiled, and this time he was the one to raise an eyebrow. "Thinking of acquiring some proficiency in the field?"

She smirked, keeping her gave on her wine glass, and ran one finger delicately around the upper edge. "Perhaps. If I happened to meet a suitable candidate for tutoring me in the art of it."

"Mmmm. And what qualifications would such a candidate have to have?" he asked.

She put down her wineglass, and began ticking points off on her fingers. "Well, someone trustworthy for one. Experienced, of course. Handsome wouldn't hurt, though them being a friend is rather higher on my list..." she said, then looked up at him, and grinned. "I don't suppose you have a suitable candidate in mind?" she asked.

"I might," he said, and smiled warmly at her. "Perhaps we could discuss it further? In my room? Over drinks?" He finished hopefully.

"I think my room might be better," she said after a moment's thought. Then answered his enquiring look. "I don't have anyone in the room adjacent to mine. And I'm sure it will require us sitting up late. To, err..."

He slowly grinned. "Discuss tactics and strategy? Demonstrate manoeuvres? Practise moves?"

She laughed, and rose to her feet, picking up her glass in one hand, and the wine bottle in her other. "Yes. Exactly," she said, and led the way off to her room.

Bethany/Anders – Bethany recovering from an injury, Anders is beating himself up about her getting hurt

"Could you please stop fussing," Bethany snapped, slamming her book down on the small table beside her chair. She rose to her feet, and hobbled across the room, ignoring Anders' sputtering protests. "I'm fine. It's no one's fault but my own for not watching my footing. Maker, Anders, you'd think you were my mother the way you're carrying on," she said sharply.

He came to a stop, watching as she slid one hip up onto the high stool at the work bench, and then began taking supplies off the shelves, clearly preparing to work on making up another batch of elf-root poultices. Her back and shoulders were stiff, her head bent over the task, in a way that said as clearly as words that she intended to ignore him. He slumped, feeling miserable, and not entirely sure why her being annoyed with him made him feel like a scolded puppy.

"Sorry," he said, after a while. "I'll just... go roll bandages, or something..."

"You do that," she said, voice a touch icy.

He turned away, walking across the empty clinic to sink down on a bench near the door, dragging a lopsided basket full of well-washed old clothing out from underneath it. He lifted out a pair of badly torn trousers, took the small sharp knife from his belt, and set to work tearing the thin cloth into neat strips, from cuffs to waistband, cutting each neatly off and draping it over his knee. The ripping of fabric was rather cathartic, and he was feeling in a much better mood by the time he set to rolling up each strip into a neat cylinder, his long thin fingers working quickly at the oft-repeated task.

While he kept his eyes mainly on his task, he couldn't resist sneaking peeks at her from time to time, and feeling vaguely guilty over his admiration for her small, trim form. Unlike her brother, she clearly believed that appearances mattered, and was dressed neatly and cleanly, well enough that she wouldn't have gotten a second look in the Hightown Market – apart from for her beauty, that is – but not so well that she stood out like a sore thumb down here in Darktown either. She had class, he found himself thinking. And grace, when she wasn't slipping on algae-slimed rocks in some blighted cave on the Wounded Coast.

She was, he had to admit, right that he was fussing unnecessarily. And given that she was fully as capable – and as ruthless, when it was needed – as her brother, perhaps attempting to coddle her was not the best of ways to please her.

He avoided thinking too much about why he so much wanted to please her, being just as good at lying to himself as the next man.

Bethany/Anders – Bethany's Birthday

She couldn't help but smile when she saw who was at the door, tall and lanky and looking far more nervous then he ever did in the places he was most comfortable – his clinic in Darktown, or in Varric's rooms at the Hanged Man.

"I, err... it's a beautiful evening," Anders said, gesturing vaguely at the sky above, what little of it was visible between the tenements, thick with smoke from the nearby foundries. "I wondered if you might like to go for a walk? With me?"

She was surprised at the offer, but couldn't think of any reason to refuse. "All right," she agreed. "Wait there a moment while I get my shawl," she said, and closed the door before he could protest or, worse, come in, where he'd be a target for the sniping of her Uncle Gamlen, or the amused looks of her brother.

"I'm borrowing your shawl, mother," she sad calmly as she swept past her mother, going into the small room the two of them shared. Leandra made some vaguely affirmative noise, but was too caught up in her perpetual letter-writing campaign – letters that she sent Bethany to deliver, with monotonous regularity, to the Seneschal's office in the Viscount's Keep – to make any real comment.

Bethany draped the shawl – a pretty thing, nicely embroidered – around her shoulders before leaving the house. Anders was waiting outside, looking ill-at-ease, rubbing one hand across the back of the other, his weight shifting from side to side. She hid a smile, as she stepped closer to him, thinking once again how blighted tall the man was. She wasn't actually short herself, but she wasn't tall either, and all of her brother's friends seemed to tower over her, apart from the dwarf, and Merrill, who was almost exactly the same height as she was. Everyone else was taller than her. Even Fenris was noticeably taller than she, at least when he could be bothered to stand up straight instead of slouching along in his habitual cowed crouch.

Still, she rather liked Anders' height. There was something oddly reassuring about it, about how the top of her head came up just slightly lower than his chin, which she knew from the one time he'd given her a brief, comforting hug after one of the patients at his clinic had died. He'd tucked his head down over hers, his long arms wrapped around her, and for just a brief moment, she'd felt so safe...

"So. Where are we going?" she asked him.

"Oh, well... um. I suppose it's too late for the Docks," he said, frowning up at the darkening sky. "We could go look at the alienage tree?"

"The vhenadahl? Certainly," she agreed easily, and led the way down the steps, waiting a moment at the bottom for him to catch up and walk by her side. After which they strolled off down the laneway between the buildings, and then down the winding flights of stairs towards the alienage.

Anders didn't speak at all, though he opened his mouth and made sounds a couple of times as if he was about to. But when she'd turn her head and look at him, he'd fall silent again. They reached the alienage, and stood a while in the open space between the foot of the stairs and the base of the tree, silently looking up at it. After a while Bethany turned away, and walked over to the west side of the courtyard, where she could look off in the direction of the docks, and see the sunset lighting up the clouds and smoke above the city. Not a particularly impressive sunset, more tones of grey and lavender than the bright colours it sometimes became, but pretty enough, she supposed.

Anders followed her. When she glanced toward him, she caught him staring at her, and for some reason found herself blushing and looking away, unable to continue to meet his gaze. She wondered at his silence; he'd been so odd of late, not his usual chatterbox self at all.

"We should go back," she pointed out after a while, as grey faded to black and lavender to purple. "It's getting late."

"Err, yes," he said, and followed silently along as she headed back up the stairs.

It was only when they were almost back to her uncle's home that he finally spoke, reaching out to lightly touch his fingers to her arm and stop her. "Umm. Your brother mentioned it was your birthday, tomorrow," he said. "We'll be out on the Wounded Coast though, so I thought... I might... here," he said, and pulled a small clumsily wrapped parcel out of one pocket, thrusting it toward her.

She stared at it in surprise, then at him, then slowly accepted it. "I... don't know what to say," she said, feeling stunned. "Thank you," she said, and started to untie the frayed length of faded ribbon holding the wrappings closed.

He put his fingers over hers, stopping her, and flushed when she gave him a puzzled look. "Open it tomorrow. For your birthday," he told her. "I... I should go," he added, and released her, turned, and hurried off, shoulders hunched and head lowered, before she could recover from her surprise enough to say anything.

She drew a deep breath, one hand holding the shawl tightly closed, the other curling around the small box, cradling it against her. A faint smile curved her lips, as one possible reason for Anders' odd behaviour around her of late belatedly occurred to her. She watch him hurrying away until he disappeared around a corner, out of her line of sight, then slipped the little box into her pocket. "Tomorrow," she murmured, and smiled again, then turned and went home, a bounce in her step.

Fenris' First Name Day

Danarius was dead, and he was free.

He had said he was free, many times over the years since fleeing Tevinter, and yet only now was he truly free, he had come to realize. Only now that he could really believe that Danarius was beyond being able to ever reclaim him. Dead. Dead by his hand, as was his traitorous bitch of a sister and that harridan Hadriana.

The thought should have pleased him. And yet it did not.

He could not help remembering Varania's final spiteful words before he'd killed her, how she'd called him Leto. A name from a past he could not remember. Whomever Leto had been, that was not he; the only connection between them was that they had occupied the same body. Whomever Leto had been, Danarius had killed him. What had rose from that blood-soaked table afterwards was Fenris, Danarius' dangerous little pet.

He found himself considering the question of whether he was still Fenris. Fenris had been Danarius' creation. His slave. His leashed but never muzzled guard dog. His prize and plaything, at times. All ended, now. All roles of the past, never to be returned to.

He felt almost lost, with Danarius gone. So much of his life had revolved around the man, the first half of it – or at least, the first half of what he could remember of it – within Danarius' control, and the second half in opposition to him. Fleeing him. Denying him. Having him finally gone, dead... it was as if he'd been leaning against a wall, and the wall was suddenly removed. He felt... off-kilter. Unbalanced Likely to fall over at the slightest touch.

Or perhaps it was more like one of the low, wind-swept trees one sometimes saw growing along the Wounded Coast, bent and gnarled and twisted by the force of the unending winds that swept in off the Waking Sea. He had been shaped by Danarius, as the wind shaped the trees. Even with the wind gone, he would still stand twisted by it.

A dark thought. One he would have to remember to share with Sebastian some time. Doubtless his friend would have something pithy to say about it. Or would at least be amused by it.

He would have to give proper thought to this issue of who he was, he decided. Danarius had killed Leto, in every way that counted save one, and made of him Fenris. Now that Fenris had killed Danarius, did that make him someone else yet again?

He spent most of the next week hidden away in the mansion – his mansion, now, as Danarius was never going to reclaim it. He spent the first three days drinking, the fourth recovering from drinking, and the final three cleaning up, something he had never bothered doing while Danarius yet lived, since he enjoyed seeing the sty that had become of the magister's once-fine property.

And at the end of the week, he'd made his decision. He bathed and dressed neatly, not in his old armour, made to fit him by Danarius' order, but in plain well-made clothing. He went shopping in the market, and then visited the chantry, where a few soft-spoken words convinced Sebastian to find someone else to assume his duties for the rest of the morning, and come to the mansion to help him.

Sebastian took one look at the kitchen, which Fenris had tried to clean but made little actual progress on, then sighed, took off his armour, and rolled up his sleeves. "We'll need to clean this place properly, first," he said sternly, and after poking around for cleaning supplies sent Fenris off to the market again, to get scrubbing brushes that weren't half-bald from missing bristles, a mop whose head wasn't long-rotted rags, and a broom that wasn't worn down to a nub, along with a goodly supply of harsh lye soap. They spent the next four hours cleaning, well into the afternoon, before Sebastian judged the place clean enough to actually prepare food in, and laid a fire in the newly-swept hearth.

They ate a late and hasty lunch of bread and cheese, then with Sebastian's help, Fenris baked a cake. It came out of the oven lopsided and a little dark on one side, but it smelled good, rich with eggs and butters and spices, and they made a frosting for it out of white sugar from the far north, ground to fine dust in the mortar and mixed with a creamy, soft white cheese.

He put his armour and sword back on for the trip down to the Hanged Man, knowing that he'd be a fool to walk around unarmed in the lower city, especially coming home later at night. He carried the cake carefully in a basket, while Sebastian walked along with an armload of dusty bottles from the cellars under the mansion.

Their arrival in Varric's suite for the weekly card night caused raised eyebrows, first at the sight of the wine, and then at the neatly-frosted cake, when Fenris lifted it out of the basket and set it down before him on the table.

"What's the occasion?" Varric asked, from where he was leaning back in his chair at one end of the long table.

Fenris bent his head, biting on his lip, and turned the plate slightly. "I... have something to celebrate," he said, softly, then glanced around the table. Sebastian had uncorked a pair of the bottles, and sent them off around it in different directions, everyone busily filling their cups with the deep red wine. He waited until they had finished, until one of the bottles had come back around to him, and he filled his own glass, then lifted it.

He looked around the room, meeting everyone's eyes in turn, then spoke. "My mother named me Leto when I was born. I do not recall her, or the life I led as Leto, or my sister Varania, save for a single brief meeting that many of you were witness to just over a week ago," he said, and felt a brief pang of – regret? Guilt? Something over having so easily killed the woman, anyway. "Whoever Leto was, he died when Danarius made me. I was reborn as Fenris, his creation. He shaped me into what he wished me to be, until I slipped from his hand. And even then, his existence shaped mine; determined what actions I took. What decisions I made."

He frowned down into his glass for a minute. "I feel that with Danarius' death, I have been reborn yet again. And I would ask you all to celebrate with me today; a Name Day celebration," he said, and looked up again, once again scanning the room. He swallowed, then drew a deep breath, and spoke loudly and firmly. "I am Fenris, but what that name means from this point forward is what I make of it, not he."

Hawke grinned, widely. Isabela looked thoughtful, and then pleased. Merrill looked puzzled at first, and then she smiled sweetly, and her eyes filled with tears. Aveline's face maintained its usual impassive mask, but she nodded to him, just slightly. Anders nodded thoughtfully – another man who knew about rebirths, Fenris found himself thinking. Sebastian had a peaceful smile on his face, and was the first to raise his glass high. Varric nodded slowly, and then rose to his feet, lifting his as well. "Happy Name Day, Fenris," he said.

They all echoed the toast, standing and lifting their glasses, and drank the rich red wine. Fenris smiled, and motioned Sebastian to start a second round of bottles around the table, while he cut and served the cake. His first Name Day party... he looked forward to celebrating it again the next year, hopefully right here, with all of them gathered together, the friends and companions he had earned for himself, separate from any desire of Danarius'.