He didn't know where he was when he opened his eyes. A large white-walled room, medicinal smells, a hard table under his back... all brought back terrifying memories. He jerked before he could prevent it, hissing as sore muscles protested, feet throbbing and burning from the damage he'd caused to them.
"He's awake," an unfamiliar male voice said from somewhere nearby.
That sent him scrambling to his feet, almost falling to the floor as he rolled off the side of the table. Adrenaline surged through him in his fear of being helpless around untrustworthy strangers, driving back the pain of his feet, giving him temporary strength. There were people in the room – a man, a woman in a chantry robe, a guard at the door, two other guards looking at him curiously from down a wide hallway. He backed away from them, looking around for some way to escape.
"Where am I?" he grated out.
The man held up his hands, palms forward and took a step toward him. "It's all right, we mean you no harm..." he said placatingly.
Fenris scowled and backed up further. "Keep away!" he ordered sharply, then demanded a second time. "Where am I?"
There were narrow windows down the hallway – but he'd have to pass too close to those two guards to reach them. Perhaps rushing the door, with its single guard, would be the easiest way out...
One of the guards moved, and his marks flared to life, in readiness for if they charged him... but the guard was leaning in the doorway he was standing at, not moving toward him. The others were all staring at him, with the shocked expressions people often had when first seeing his marks glowing. And then someone stepped out of the door, into the hallway, and he froze in equal shock, faced with the very last person he'd have ever expected to see again.
"Anders!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
A twisted smile from the apostate. "Hello, Fenris. Saving your life, as it happens. Now before you go and undo all the hard work we put into you, how about sitting down," he suggested lifting one hand to waggle his fingers at the benches filling the room, the other hand occupied with holding something cupped against his chest.
Fenris straightened up, sneering to hide a wince at the effort it took. "I do not follow your orders, mage," he spat.
Anders shrugged. "It's not an order, it's a suggestion," he said, then turned to the man still standing nearby. "Dugall, go fetch Sebastian, would you? Tell him I said broody is awake and needs to see him."
Dugall snorted, then looked back and forth between Anders and Fenris. "I thought you two were old friends?" he asked warily.
Anders grinned. "Acquaintances at best. Fenris and I have never been friends," he said, then turned back to Fenris. "But I'm not your enemy, either. Look, I'm sitting down, quietly, over here. How about you sit down over there, and we'll wait together for Sebastian to come and say hello, shall we?"
Dugall frowned, then shrugged and left. Anders sat down on a bench at the far side of the room, his back against the wall, and placed what he'd been holding down on his lap. A kitten, Fenris realized with some perplexity. He backed over to the nearest bench, and slowly lowered himself to it, keeping wary eyes on the mage. The woman in the chantry robe edged over to stand near Anders.
"What are those markings?" she asked, looking perturbed. "I'd thought them brands, or some kind of tattoo..."
Fenris growled, and glared at the mage.
"He doesn't like talking about them, or having them talked about," Anders told her, then looked at Fenris. "People will ask, you know. And since Sister Maura here is going to be your pharmacist during your recovery, she might actually need to know."
Fenris scowled at the mage, then snorted and looked away. "Tell her, then," he said, voice flat.
"They're lyrium," Anders said. "A magister had them done to him."
"Lyrium...!" she exclaimed, eyes widening. "But that amount of it..." she began, then abruptly stopped, and took a seat near Anders. "What a terrible thing," she said quietly. "Terrible and terrifying."
Fenris shot her a faintly surprised look, then stiffened as he heard fast-approaching footsteps. And then Sebastian stepped into the room, and he felt a rush of relief. Anders had at least been a familiar face, even if not someone he'd particularly wanted to see – but Sebastian's was a friendly one, a welcome sight, and he felt most of the knot of tension inside him melt away at the welcoming smile on the man's face.
"Fenris! I'm so glad to see you awake again, man!" Sebastian exclaimed as he strode across the room. He stopped a long step away, and frowned down at him. "But should you be up on your feet like this?"
"No, he shouldn't be," Anders said, rising to his own feet again. "We still need to finish treating him. His feet, in particular, will need care before they become infected. The sooner the better. I'm rested enough to do it now, if he'll permit it."
Fenris scowled at the mage, but had to admit the truth in his words.
"Will you come lie down again, and let Anders tend you, my friend?" Sebastian asked softly.
Fenris gritted his teeth, then nodded, and rose to his feet, walking stiffly back over to the table where he'd first woke, and sitting down on it. He looked at Sebastian, who'd followed him over. "You'll stay with me while he does it," he said, voice flat and harsh.
Sebastian smiled, just slightly, recognizing the abrupt order for the plea it was. "Of course I will," he agreed, then raised his voice just slightly, glancing over at the guards nearby. "Someone fetch me a chair. There should be one upstairs in the kitchen."
One of the guards hurried off up a nearby set of stairs. Fenris slowly turned, raising his legs onto the table as well, stretching them out along the top. Anders walked over, the other two – clearly his assistants – trailing along hesitantly behind. He crouched down at the end of the table, looking closely at Fenris' feet without touching them, and hissed through his teeth, then looked up at Fenris, meeting his eyes.
"We'll have to clean them first, there's bits of rock and wood caught in the flesh, and dirt all over them. It's going to hurt, thought hopefully not quite as badly as actually doing that to your feet likely did. Do try not to do the magical fisty thing on me while I'm working, hmmm?" he said lightly, then turned away, already rattling off orders to the other two as to what he'd need.
Fenris snorted, and watched warily as the two of them moved off. Anders held the kitten out to Sebastian. "Hold him for me, would you?" he asked distractedly, already leaning down to look at Fenris' feet again. Sebastian said nothing, but accepted the kitten. Anders turned away after a minute, and started hauling a bench over to where he could sit on the end of it while tending to Fenris' feet.
The guard returned with a chair for Sebastian just then, and he directed him on where to place it, before sitting down beside the table, putting the kitten down in his lap and looking curiously up at Fenris. "So, how about telling me how it is that you showed up here just in time to save my life?" he asked. "What have you been up to since we parted in Kirkwall?"
Fenris was glad of a distraction, and looked away from where Anders and his assistants were getting ready to begin work on his abraded feet. "After Anders fled and you left, I stayed with Hawke. He decided to side with the mages, which I thought a poor choice at the time."
Anders snorted as he sat down on the end of the bench, which earned him a glare from Fenris, but otherwise the mage didn't comment.
"Subsequent events proved that both choices were equally bad," Fenris said, frowning at his memories of that eventful day. "Many of the mages, driven to extremities of terror by the events of that day, gave in to demons and became abominations. And then, in the Gallows, when we were winning against the templars..." he paused, gritting his jaw in remembered anger. "The Senior Enchanter, Orsino – he went mad. He turned to blood magic, turned on us, who were helping him. He somehow fashioned a gigantic beast out of the flesh of dead mages, and attacked us."
He glanced at Anders, then turned back to Sebastian. "By his words at the time, it sounded like Orsino was aware of the hellish experiments being done by the mage who murdered Leandra Hawke, that the beast was some extrapolation from that madman's work. The beast was worse than any abomination I had ever seen before. We killed it, eventually. By then there were very few mages surviving. And then Knight-Commander Meredith showed up, with further reinforcements..."
He stopped again, this time as he stiffened in pain and hissed through his teeth as Anders began tweezing bits of debris out of his flesh. Anders looked up, a flash of sympathy in his eyes for the pain he was causing. "I'm going to have to hold your ankle to keep your foot still while I work on it," he said softly. "Do try not to kick me in the face."
Fenris glared at him for a moment, then gave a stiff nod. "Do it," he said, and scowled as the mage took hold of his ankle, his firm grip necessitating that his hand come into contact with several of the lines of lyrium etched there. A glow sprang up around his hand, and Fenris cursed, then forced his attention back to Sebastian, doing his best to ignore the nauseating mix of sensations from his foot.
"Go on," Sebastian said quietly, reaching out to rest his hand on the edge of the table, fingers curled under in a loose fist. Fenris glanced at it, then away again, declining the offered comfort.
"You remember the red lyrium idol that Hawke and Varric had found in the Deep Roads? The one Bertrand apparently went mad because of?"
"I recall the story, yes," Sebastian agreed with a firm nod.
"It seems it was Meredith who bought it from him. She'd had the lyrium incorporated into that great sword she carried around everywhere. And it had driven her mad, just as it had Bertrand."
"Not that she was all that sane to start with..." Anders muttered, then looked up as Fenris' words sunk in. "Wait, you really mean it – as in even more crazy than she already was?"
Fenris glanced at the mage in distaste, then slowly nodded. "Yes. I don't know how much of her insanity was a pre-existing condition, and how much caused by the red lyrium, but on that day she was certainly reacting like a madwoman. Hawke was still determined to protect the handful of remaining mages – her own templars turned against her, Cullen agreeing that the role of templars was to protect the mages in their charge, not needlessly slaughter them for an act none of them had been involved in. She... snapped, and tried to slaughter all of us, the mages and templars as well. It seems... unbelievable, to describe now, but the lyrium somehow enabled her to give a false life to the statues in the Gallows courtyard, making them move about and attack us, like golems I suppose."
Anders looked up from his work again. "Lyrium actually is involved in making golems mobile, but it takes more than just that," he said, and glanced at Sebastian. "Remind me to repeat for you the story the Hero told us all about the golems and how they're made, some time – it's a very salutary tale about power and its abuse," he added, then bent back to his work.
Fenris hissed and twitched at the resumption of the little stabbing pains in his feet, then forced himself to continue his story. "Many of the templars were slain in helping us defeat the statues. In the end, it seemed as if Meredith... overstepped what she could accomplish with the sword. Its powers fed back into her, and destroyed her where she stood. She... charred, her very flesh turning into a giant cinder, heat radiating from her like a furnace. It was... terrifying. Cullen and the surviving templars took the few living mages who hadn't fled under their protection, said they would take them away and find a place of safety for them. And Hawke and the rest of us left. Hawke was bitter, about the events of that day. Betrayal on betrayal, all the pointless deaths, the madness... we boarded Isabela's ship and left, all but Aveline and Varric, who felt they had duties to see to there in what remained of Kirkwall; Aveline to attempt to restore peace to the city, Varric to do what he could for any of his guild members still trapped there."
"I'm starting on the other foot now," Anders said quietly. Fenris nodded, and sat stiffly while the mage changed his grip to the other ankle, biting at his lip. Only once the man had started work again did he resume his tale.
"The rest of us scattered after that. We dropped Hawke off at Amaranthine, in Ferelden – he spoke of going to Vigil's Keep, to see Bethany safe there among the Grey Wardens. Then we sailed further south, to Gwaren, where Merrill parted from us, going to seek a new place among the Dalish in the Brecilian Forest, if they would have her. I remained with Isabela for a while, but... the sea life is not for me," he said, before turning to look at Sebastian again.
"I remembered you once inviting me to come to Starkhaven with you, and help train your men. I... don't know if I can actually be of such use to you, but if you could use another warrior..." he said hesitantly.
Sebastian smiled warmly at him. "I can always use another good man, Fenris. But come, there is clearly more to your tale. Before you collapsed you mentioned that you'd been in Ansburg. And then, your arrival here just in time to save me... and in such condition..." he added, frowning and nodding his head toward Fenris' battered feet.
Fenris nodded. Abruptly he lay back on the table, feeling weaker than he liked. He swallowed heavily, fighting back nausea.
Anders paused in his work. "Almost finished the worst of it," he said gently, reassuringly. "Just a little more to go, and then I can see about healing them a little."
Fenris snorted. "That will be the worst of it," he informed the mage, then turned his head back to Sebastian again.
"Isabela dropped me off in Wycome. The place was a madhouse; I ended up stowing away on a riverboat to get out of the city. Just in time, from what I hear the place exploded in fighting just a couple of days later. The sailors discovered me when we were halfway to Ansburg. They were... not amused. I ended up having to disembark in mid-river. Unfortunately that meant abandoning my sword," he added grimly, frowning at the memory of being dragged down by its weight, struggling to undo the buckles of its harness before it could drown him, the exhausting swim to shore afterwards.
"I walked the rest of the way to Ansburg, hoping to get another riverboat from there to Starkhaven. I arrived to find the city just beginning to go up in flames, the docks a madhouse of people trying to escape by river... the flames spread with what seemed almost unnatural speed, driven by the winds. The buildings were mainly of wood, wattle and daub, with thatched roofs... they burned all too easily. I fear many died; the flames in some quarters were spreading as fast or faster than a man could run."
Sebastian nodded. "We had a similar fire in Starkhaven, over a century ago. It is said the city burned for two days and nights before finally burning out. Many people died, especially in the poorer quarters. It was all rebuilt in good stone after that, with roofs of slate or clay tile. My ancestors were determined not to see another such conflagration here ever again."
Fenris nodded and continued. "I was looking for shelter, a place to rest fora few hours before resuming my journey, when I chanced to overhear a group of men speaking. One was speaking about how they could hide among the refugees, use them to disguise their entry into Starkhaven. I wouldn't have thought much of it, figured them at worst for smugglers or some other criminals, except as they were leaving one commented about how that 'mage-loving bastard of a prince' must die. And I'd already heard that you'd taken the throne back from your cousin, so I knew there was only one prince in Starkhaven they could be talking about, even if the description of you as 'mage loving' seemed... unlikely, at the time," he said, and glanced pointedly at Anders.
Sebastian gave him a twisted grin. "There is a long story behind that. I'll tell it to you later. So, I suppose you set out for here after that. By boat?"
"No. On foot. I ran as much of the way as I could, walked when I couldn't run, rested only when I absolutely had to. The course of the river winds many more miles than the actual distance between the cities, and riverboats would be having to fight the current all the way, but I had to stay well back from the river most of the way to avoid the tributaries... it was a very long distance to come. I stole a small boat at one point, from a fishing village... that at least got me downriver on a tributary out of the Green Dales and across to the right side of the river."
"By the Maker, no wonder your feet are in such a state!" Dugall exclaimed, impressed. "That would normally take over a week on foot, at a good marching pace – and you did it in, what... four days?"
Fenris frowned. "Longer than that, I think," he said. "Five or six, maybe... it all blurs together. I was... very tired, for much of it."
Sebastian nodded. "And that is no surprise. It's quite a feat you've managed, my friend, but I am very glad you did arrive here in time – and by such a narrow margin! Had you rested just a little longer at some point on the road, taken a wrong turn and had to retrace your steps, anything..." he shook his head. "You used to question why I believed the path of our lives showed traces of the Maker's hand at work. You being here, in time to save me – what else could it be? I refuse to believe that it is sheer chance that you just happened to be at the right place in the right time to overhear those men's words, to understand them, and to act on them in time to save me. Oh, some things just happen, I am sure, but this... I cannot believe this was one of them. It was fate, my friend."
Fenris snorted, and gave Sebastian a slight smile. "Perhaps. But if there is fate, than what of free will?"
Sebastian smiled. "The two are not mutually exclusive. You could have chosen to ignore the men's words, even knowing it could mean my death. You could have chosen a different path at any time. Or to rest longer. Or not to steal the boat. Between Kirkwall and here you have faced a hundred choices, a thousand, and yet your choices and our fates have conspired to bring us together again, here."
Fenris smiled, remembering similar conversations with Sebastian in Kirkwall, over wine in Fenris' quarters there, late into the night. "I am not nearly drunk enough to discuss philosophy with you at the moment," he growled.
Sebastian grinned. "I have missed our talks," he said.
"All right, time for the magical fingers bit," Anders called out. "Just my magical fingers, please, not yours, Fenris."
Fenris nodded, drew a deep breath, and stiffened. "I am ready. Do it," he growled.
Anders rose to his feet, taking a firm grip on Fenris' ankle, and held his other hand just in front of the sole of Fenris' foot. A glow of magical energy energy rose around his hand, then he touched his hand to Fenris' lacerated flesh.
Fenris jerked and began swearing in Arcanum. He grabbed hold of Sebastian's hand, still resting on the edge of the table, squeezing it with almost crushing force as the mage worked on first one foot, then the other. It was over quickly, but even a rapid healing was discomforting, the lyrium and healing magic and injured nerves working together to cause powerful sensations. Pain, this time, which he actually preferred to some of the other possibilities. Pain at least he was experienced at ignoring.
"Well, that's as much as I dare do with magic," Anders said, stepping back and brushing sweat-soaked hair back from his eyes. "The rest of the healing will have to be the natural way, but at least your feet have skin again. Very thin, tender skin, so please don't walk on them for at least a couple of days. At all. Which I know you're going to hate, since it means we're going to have to carry you to a cot, and you'll need to use a bed pan."
"There are times I wonder why I have not yet pulled out your heart, mage," Fenris gritted through his teeth. "This is one of them."
Anders grinned at him. "I missed you too," he said, then turned to Sebastian and held out his hand. Sebastian passed the kitten back to him as he rose to his feet.
"Will you permit me to help you, my friend?" he asked Fenris. "Or I can get the guards to help."
Fenris grimaced. "Better familiar hands," he admitted grudgingly.
Sebastian nodded, then to the shocked surprise of the guards and Anders' assistants bent down, slid his arms under Fenris' shoulders and knees, and lifted him up. "Second door?" he asked Anders, nodding toward the hallway nearby.
Anders nodded, and trailed after the pair as Sebastian carried him down the hall and lowered him to a cot. "He should rest now," Anders said. "Even if he wasn't worn out from days of travel, the poisoning and the healing will have taken a lot out of him."
Sebastian nodded. "I'll be back to see you again tomorrow," he told Fenris. "Anders and his assistants will look after you. I promise that you can trust them."
Fenris nodded. "Thank you," he said stiffly.
Sebastian smiled, and touched his fingertips to his shoulder for a moment. "No. Thank you, for saving my life."
Fenris shrugged, and lay back his head, closing his eyes, listened to the pair move off, already feeling himself sliding toward sleep.
He wondered how it was that the mage was in Starkhaven, and alive. He suspected that Sebastian's explanation would include more references to foolish concepts such as 'fate', and found himself looking forward to arguing with him about it.
